Thanks for your interest in our last two posts, the Best Books of 2015 Part One and the Best Books of 2015 Part Two. What a joy to get orders for these kinds of great books.
Putting together such lists is always a bit dicey for me — I forget books that I read earlier in the year and I wonder how I might honor titles that look so good and seem so impressive but that I haven’t really read yet. It’s a lot for me to manage during our store’s busy holiday season, and I know I miss some.
Of course we are completely sincere in awarding books and authors with our little accolades, but the point — I’m not at all ashamed to say this — is for you, dear reader, to buy them. From us. We are proud to get to be your bookseller yet another year and eager to get more good books into your hands. We’d like to think we curate a fairly interesting selection, books that might prove helpful to you. It’s like they say on those ubiquitous insurance commercials: it’s what we do.
And we think we have at least some idea of some itches of yours that need scratching. You can find best-sellers of all sorts all over, and faceless algorithms come up with some stuff, if you’re touched by that sort of thing. But we’re here working for you, telling you what we’ve got that you might like hearing about.
And so, here are a few that I sort of wanted to name last week. These are all good titles that came out in the tale end of 2015 but I haven’t had time to study. A few are quite new, actually, and I didn’t want to move into the new year too quickly without giving these a shout out. Fascinating, curious, well done, exceptionally thoughtful — the sorts of volumes Hearts & Minds loves telling you about.
All are available from us at 10% off, sent out with a smile and a prayer.
One Nation Under God: A Christian Hope for American Politics Bruce Ashford and Christ Pappalardo (B&H Academic) $14.99 Okay, I’ll admit two things: I am worried these days about those who too easily use this phrase, One Nation Under God. Americana wholesome as it is, it has been abused by civil religionists and hijacked by the too often unbiblical Christian right. I have suspicions of anyone thinking this should be a lead phrase on a book. Secondly, if I look through the footnotes in a book on faithful politics and don’t see it citing Jim Skillen (for instance, his must-read The Good of Politics or Ron Sider’s excellent Just Politics or the brilliant Political Visions and Illusions by David Koyzis) I wonder what books from what tradition has informed the writer. There’s so much bad stuff out there.
Well, my fears were mostly allayed, and this recent little book ends up being really, really great. I should have known — Bruce Riley Ashford did a great little compact volume called Every Square Inch: An Introduction to Cultural Engagement for Christians (yep, he’s a Kuyper guy, and has read deeply in the relationship of theology and culture and pondered Kuyper’s popular slogan about Christ redeeming every little bit of creation.) In fact, in One Nation Under God these two authors draw heavily on the teachings about “common grace for the common good” from Father Abraham (Kuyper), and they insist that politics is not an evil field to be avoided nor an avenue for Christians to take over culture in some bombastic power play. They are passionate about the gospel and about our citizenship. Their little manifesto attempts to “engage in politics responsibly, confidently, graciously — even Christianly.”
One Nation Under God is divided up into two succinct sections. The first part offers their principled view of the role of government, our calling as citizens — basically a reformationally-rooted view of Christian politics, inspired somewhat by Albert Wolters (Creation Regained.). You can hear overtones of folks as important as Wolters, Leslie Newbigin, and N.T. Wright in chapters with titles such as these:
Locating Politics Within the True Story of the Whole World
Choosing Between Four Competing Views of Public Life
Declaring the Gospel as Public Truth
Doing Politics in a Post-Christian Country
Cultivating Wisdom and Public Virtue
This is an amazing little volume; the first half — just 65 pages — draws on Abraham Kuyper and Martin Luther King, Jr., Al Wolters and James Davidson Hunter, Rich Mouw and Karl Barth. Those astute quotes alone makes it worth the price of the book.
The second half applies this vision of civic life to seven issues or areas of concern — sexuality and family, creation care, war and peace, immigration, poverty and economics, racial diversity and the like. As you might expect from a book endorsed by writers of First Things, co-written by a provost at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, they are thoughtfully conservative on sexuality and life issues, but surprisingly passionate about fresh thinking (at least for most conservatives) on creation care and racial justice and immigration. I suppose this is as it should be: they are truly attempting to develop a Biblically-inspired, theologically conservative worldview out of which can come non-partisan, Christian political ideas and proposals. I would not come down exactly where they do on every policy question, but so what? This is designed to enhance our thinking, stimulate conversation, get us more carefully footed on the solid rock of Christ’s Kingdom, even as we ponder how to be salt and leaven and light in an obviously hurting, complicated and contested public square. Kudos.
The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction Adam S. McHugh (IVP) $16.00 Just reading the table of contents of this splendid, beautiful book makes one feel invited into it; who doesn’t want to be a better listener? And who doesn’t want to — in the words of Frederick Buechner — “listen to your life”? This book is a bit contemplative, an invitation to slow down, a guide to attentiveness. What a gift!
Mr. McHugh is an author you should know; his first book is the only one on the topic of introverts in the church and it is excellent. (It is called Introverts in the Church — some people have raved about it to us! Interestingly, this new one caught the attention of Susan Cain, author of the best seller The Quiet and she says this one is “highly recommended.” Pretty cool, huh?
McHugh here invites us to pay attention in a world of distraction, not just to the generic others in your life, but to specific voices: listening to God, listening to Scripture, listening to creation, listening to others, listening to people in pain, and listening to your own life. Wow.
The Book of Womanhood Amy F. David Abdallah (Cascade) $25.00 I don’t know what the publisher was thinking with this blackened out shadow of a woman for the cover, but the cheap look shouldn’t dissuade you from checking out this fine, fine book. The author (a beloved professor of theology and Bible at Nyack College) is passionate about life, about guiding others into taking up their life’s journey with gusto, and with helping women students, especially, discover their own best identity.
As one of Dr. Abdallah’s colleagues — the Director of Spiritual Formation at the college — puts it,
Amy has artfully constructed this rite of passage for women in order to help women understand and embrace what it means to be a woman and to celebrate the beautiful and delicate complexities that make us uniquely feminine. The Book of Womanhood is an outstanding resource for families, churches, and colleges.
Of course there are many debates within the evangelical world about God’s plan for women and men and what is meant by “Biblical womanhood.” This book can help “create a path through the confusion “by it’s flexible framework of finding identity through developing a relationship with God, self, and others, and creation.” This multi-faceted vision is fabulously realized, and it comes with a truly lovely foreword by the excellent writer from George Fox University, Lisa Graham McMinn. Nice!
Here is an fine endorsement from Mimi Haddad, the President of Christians for Biblical Equality:
Expected to be married with children in her twenties, life unfolded in unanticipated ways for Amy David Abdallah. These became opportunities to journey with God toward self-discovery and empowerment. This book builds wholeness in all its relationships. For these reasons, The Book of Womanhood is hard to put down.
So, there. It may be hard to pick up, but I’m telling you, it will be so, so useful, and I commend it to you if you are a young woman or care about any young women. Buy a bunch for a book group!
The backstory involved an internet post that went viral when Dolive, an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) decided to speak out when he saw a hyper-sexualized Victoria Secret’s ad campaign with undergarments in their PINK line — designed for Spring Break — with sexually suggestive words on them. Another mainline pastor, a clergy colleague of Rev. Dolive, got a ton of hits on a piece he had written exposing this lurid bit of profiteering aimed at young women, which captured the attention of Dolive. He investigated the lurid marketing efforts of Victoria’s Secret and, as a father of teenager girls, decided to draft an open letter to them. His piece, in turn, went viral, and he received quite a lot of attention from all over the world. When he ended up talking about sexism and and body image, marketing and sexuality, and being made in the image of God on CNN, there was a lot of attention. People.com named him one of the “top five coolest dads” and he decided to turn his missive into a larger book. Seeking Imperfection: Body Image, Marketing, and God is the result, and we should all be very, very grateful.
Delive reminds us of the need for the church to confront the destructive tendencies of hyper-sexualized marketing and to counter them by reminding us how we have been created in God’s image. This challenge — for the church to speak to the culture on this very matter — as Derek Penwell says in his review, “is a welcome word to a culture preoccupied with how people look.”
Unlike some books, this isn’t abstract theology exploring the meaning of the Imago Dei although it isn’t merely a screed against greedy marketeers. It is a very interesting, casual, if serious, exploration of our culture and the invitation for a sacred conversation. Since Dolive is a father and a pastor and a theologian, Seeking Imperfection is written with a tender heart, even if he is at times properly excised about how our society foists culture images of sexiness and self worth upon us all. There are good discussion questions and a few resources offered in the back. (Oh, how I wished he’d have cited Margot Starbuck’s excellent Unsqueezed: Springing Free from Skinny Jeans, Nose Jobs, Highlights and Stilettos (my favorite book on body image for women) and Sam Van Eman’s On Earth as It Is in Advertising? Moving from Commercial Hype to Gospel Hope, one of the few basic books on thinking Christianly about advertising and coping spiritually with its hype, written by a good friend.)
Yes, Dolive’s a cool dad, talking mostly with an eye to the issues of younger women, but his study has large implications.
Christian Piatt, a popular Disciples of Christ writer notes some of the bigger theological stuff this pastor of Family Life helps us to grapple with:
Can we be made in the image of God and still be imperfect? This conundrum has plagued contemporary Christianity for far too long. Dolive, in his new book, takes this toxic religious issue head-on, offering a much-needed alternative to the illusion of Christian perfection. Additionally, he reclaims the pursuit of accepting ourselves as we are, imperfections included, so we may first learn to love ourselves before taking on the audacious (but critical) command to love others likewise.
The Political World of Bob Dylan: Freedom and Justice, Power and Sin Jeff Taylor & Chad Israelson (Palgrave Macmillan) $105.00 Okay, I was going to be snarky and award this some caustic shout out for being obscenely over-priced. I protest the terrible overpricing of academic books and can’t believe that some publishers think they should get away with this nonsense. That said, get thee to a library (although few libraries these days can afford these costly volumes) or buckle down and save some dough so you can order this from us — it is nothing short of spectacular. It is a seriously Christian, profoundly insightful study of Dylan, seen by way of thinking about a non-aligned, counter-cultural bit of politics shaped by God’s Kingdom.
Part of the Palgrave “Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice ” series, these authors bring a surprising perspective. Jeff Taylor is a bit of a friend, a Professor of Political Science at Dordt College, the seriously Dutch Reformed/Kuyperian college in Iowa, and have some important influences in common. In any event, this is the definitive book on the politics of Dylan, and should be on the shelf of any serious collector of books about Mr. Zimmerman and his work.
As it says on the back, The Political World of Bob Dylan “comprehensively investigates Dylan’s relationship to the social, political, and religious cultures that acted upon him and to which he reacted. Generally associated with the New Left politics of the 1960s, Dylan’s political worldview transcends that narrow description. The ideas he has expressed in songs and interviews can be categorized as traditional, populist, and Christian anarchistic.” Yeah, man, you read that right.
Colman McCarthy — who some will remember for his remarkable work teaching inner city high school kids about nonviolence and peacemaking — says, “As ably as any writers who have probed Dylan’s politics, Taylor and Israelson clarify the complexities and explain the subtleties.”
I loved this quote by Dylan fan, sociologist and Baptist preacher, Tony Campolo,
After reading this book, I had the feeling that Jeff Taylor and Chad Israelson understand Dylan better than Dylan understands Dylan. They made me aware that I had made Bob Dylan in my own political image, and that he is much more complex than that.
If you read much about the inscrutable Mr. Dylan and his wondrous oeuvre, you may know the book Song of the North Country by a Minnesota university prof, David Pichaske. He writes
In their extensively researched, engagingly written, and carefully argued examination of Dylan’s thought and art, Taylor and Israelson both extend and shed new light on previous Dylan scholarship.
Just so you know, the authors have become friends with Nat Hentoff, the legendary rock critic who knows Dylan so well and he has offered exceptional support. And how many mainstream scholarly books of this calibre, in these circles, thank Wendell Berry, Bill Kauffman, and Cal Seerveld for assistance? The book is unconscionably pricey, but the content is maybe priceless.
The Power and Vulnerability of Love: A Theological Anthropology Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo (Fortress) $39.00 I’m not going to lie — we have so many books on a Christian view of the human person that I just wasn’t interested in another academic anthropology. But then I read the fascinating review in The Christian Century by one of my favorite book reviewers, Lauren Winner. In that review, Winner caught my attention with her opening line, “If Jurgen Moltmann and Brene Brown collaborated on a book, what might emerge is something like The Power of Vulnerability of Love.“
All rightee then.
As Lauren explains in her smart review, Gondolfo explores the notion of God’s empathy, solidarity, vulnerability — to use older language, she is asking if God is impassable? That is, does God change as God suffers with us? When God comes near us in the human Jesus, does that mean God has risked vulnerability? It is hard to not want to answer yes, from our limited understanding, it is obvious God has risked much. The God of the Bible, despite what some majestic hymns intone, is not a distant deity that is utterly fixed. And, of course, we limited, suffering humans are made in the image of God. So, Winner writes,
Perhaps this is true of all theological anthropologies: in order to say something insightful about the kinds of creatures human beings are, one must say something about who God is, and because God is more interesting than we are, the theologians claims about divinity will always be the most arresting part of the project.
Here is what Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo does in her new book: she explores the nature of humans, and the nature of God, by way of reflecting up and reporting beautifully about the vulnerability of mothers, especially in the act of childbirth. Lauren Winner’s review continues,
Gandolfo doesn’t need doctrine about God to say any of that; she just needs feminist sociology. But her descriptions of maternity yield a way to say something about God. The theology she limns is aptly paradoxical.
That is, is seems that The Power and Vulnerability of Love both affirms God’s great risk, willing to be vulnerability, and yet affirms — unlike the tendency of most mainline denominational scholars these days — that, really, we don’t most need a God who is present, accompanying us in our grief and loss and limits, but we need a Someone who will not be buffeted by the horrors. In Winner’s words, Gondolfo suggests that “Were this not the case, the image of God within us could be eradicated. It cannot. It is inviolable precisely because the God it images is invulnerable.”
Well, I have not explored this big book, although I am interested in Gondolfo’s study of the character of God (“and how an infinite and invulnerable God can be said to have wholly entered into human existence”) and of her study of the human person. Maybe like me, you will be particularly interested in her study of motherhood, childbirth, midwifes, babies, and the like.
Listen to Bonnie J. Miller-Mclemore, who writes,
It’s so refreshing to read a work that takes vulnerability so seriously… This changes everything (to see how, you need to read the book.) Most impressively Gandolfo could not know what she knows without direct encounters with mothering, including other mother’ narratives and practices. I love how she weaves maternal knowledge and Christian sources into a conceptually rich portrait of what it means to be human.
The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media John Durham Peters (University of Chicago Press) $30.00 Oh how I wanted to list this somehow as one of the most significant books of last year. It has been touted as “highly original” and “more than foundational.” One reviewer says it is “dazzlingly intelligent.” I just hadn’t worked with it at all — it is a well-made, sturdy hardback from one of the world’s most prestigious publishing houses, but — as these things go — I have no idea what the authors views are, his assumptions and values, his backstory or worldview. It sure seems so very interesting — I was immediately drawn to the wordplay of the title. I’m glad for anyone who find meaning in nature, and relates human culture to the realities of God’s good world, whether they call it that or not.
Just read these two blurbs from the back cover:
“This book is about media in the way that Moby-Dick is about whaling. When Melville set the Pequod sailing between heaven and earth, he turned the ship into a lens through which his readers could examine humankind’s place in the cosmos. In The Marvelous Clouds, Peters turns water, land, fire, and sky into lenses through which readers can explore the role of mediation in every aspect of their lives. This is a completely original, wildly ambitious, and deliciously lyrical book. It will certainly change the way you see media. It might also change the way you see the world.”
Fred Turner, author of The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties
“Wide-ranging, playful, erudite, and delightfully diverse, The Marvelous Clouds redefines media in the largest possible terms, as anything that communicates meaning, including bodies, the environment, and the world itself. Although this may seem to rob media of its specificity and therefore of its theoretical purchase, in Peters’s hands it becomes the occasion for making surprising and insightful connections. A treat for academics and general readers alike, this is a book not to be missed.”
N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis
Just so you know, there is another blurb that goes on and on about the author’s familiarity with the obtuse continental philosopher Martin Heidegger and that “his epistemological realism overcomes the conventional position of the ‘linguistic turn’ and of ‘constructivism’ with a fresh and truly inspired unfolding of intuitions…” Just saying.
Teaching and Christian Imagination edited by David I. Smith and Susan M. Felch (Eerdmans) $22.00 This book came in December but it is dated 2016. I think it was the first 2016 release we got in our store, so our hats are off to Eerdmans and these fine scholars at Calvin College. Smith is the director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning (and the director of the graduate program in education at Calvin) and Felch is the director of the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship which has offered the world some very good books over the last decades. She is also a professor of English and has written some lovely works herself.
As I spent time with this I was struck, as I knew I would be, by their deep Christian convictions, but how this pushes us onward to think about new stuff, working with new images and metaphors in helpful ways. Yes, yes, we need basic books that explain conventional Christian theology as it shapes our assumptions and worldview and how that relates to each and every academic discipline or professional career. And this does this, but they “tell it slant” and invite us not just to “integrate Christ convictions and teaching” but they explore an energizing vision of the very art of teaching. That is they “encourage teacher-readers to reanimate their work by imagining it differently.”
And how does one do this, re-imagine teaching? Well, they unpack three metaphors for teaching, namely journeys and pilgrimage, gardening and experience in wilderness, and buildings and walls. As Karen Eifler writes of it, “the authors provide catalysts for teachers of any discipline in religious institutions to rethink, reignite, and recommit to their vocation. Wending my way through this text I found myself invited and equipped to cultivate a hermeneutic wonder…”
There are some splendid essays here, well worth pondering, that bear fruit with repeated readings, I’m sure. Authors include Barbara Carvill, Kurt Schaefer, Timothy Steele, and John Witvliet and they all use these three metaphors to illuminate fresh visions of faith-infused teaching and learning.
Listen to some of what Dorothy Bass has said about this:
Imagine this, teachers, and experience it through reading this book: Set aside, for a moment, the fast pace and quantitative judgments that shape so much of contemporary education. Encounter biblical texts, poems, and works of art that help you to see what you do every day with new eyes. Hear down-to-earth stories from other teachers. Let your imagination of what it means to teach and to learn deepen and expand. Find renewal in the indispensable, beautiful, and difficult vocation to which God has called you.
Or, how’s this for a good endorsement, from Baylor University’s Perry Glanzer:
I have never read anything quite like this delightful book. The authors both nourish your soul and draw you along the path toward teaching excellence…. Every kind of Christian teacher will find this book life-giving.
A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement R. Douglas Geivett & Holly Pivec (Weaver Book Company) $19.99 I wasn’t sure if many of our friends or followers would care about this, but it is so very interesting, and the authors so respected — both are involved at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola — that we wanted it to be known, and let you know that we stock it. Even if you’ve never heard of this NAR movement of the last decade or so, it’s good to know about what’s going on in certain wings of the Body of Christ.(Geivett, by the way, wrote the fascinating IVP book called Faith, Film, and Philosophy which explored worldviews and philosophical topics in contemporary film, so is adept at discerning what’s going on out there.) This recent book, as Dr. James Spiegel (a philosophy and religion prof at Taylor University) says, “is an important book, a one-stop shop for an explanation and biblical assessment of the so-called New Apostolic Reformation.”
I don’t know if you know much about this new global movement, but it has a few main players — evangelicals who have become neo-Pentecostals, some new charismatics (although, interestingly, not exactly the Assembly of God folks, conventional Pentecostals here in the states.) A few of the names are nearly rock stars in some circles.
Somewhat gathered around the fascinating work of C. Peter Wagner, it blends some curious stuff about spiritual warfare, territorial spirits and a critique of Western/secular/modernist rejection of the supernatural — Wagner has been savvy about worldviews and cultures as a leader for 60 years in world-wide mission work.) Other names that a big in this big movement include Bill Hamon, Chuck Pierce, Che Ahn, and those involved the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders.
A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response is a serious study, not a sensational expose. It looks at what the Bible teaches about prophets, false prophets, apostles and other offices of leadership. It looks at the nuances of views within various denominational traditions — from Roman Catholic to traditional Protestant to historic Pentecostal, right up to this new, raging movement about anointing new apostles.
This is not a general study opposing charismatic renewal or even mostly a study of the oddities of the NAR movement, but a theological reflection on what we should think about these sorts of movements and the doctrine of apostleship. It is meticulously footnoted and worthy of careful study.
As the winsome NT scholar Craig Keener (formerly of Eastern/Palmer but now a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary) notes, there are serious Biblical errors and sociological abuses lurking around some in this movement. He wisely recommends this book to help us be aware of and challenge some of the weirdness. Keener writes:
This critique invites all of us, wherever we stand on the spectrum, and whether we agree with every detail of [their] criticism, to recognize and challenge these errors. Serious errors exposed here include Manifested Sons doctrine, dominionism, extra-biblical ‘inspired’ doctrines, that exalt individuals, inappropriate fixation on esoteric information about evil spirits, and certain ‘apostles’ calling people out of other denominations or movements to submit to their covering.
Brand Luther Andrew Pettegree (Penguin Press) $29.95 This fabulous looking, hefty hardback — the embossed printing gives you a feel that it was done on an old printing press — has gotten some great reviews since it came out late this fall. I like the big subtitle on the cover: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous man in Europe — and Started the Protestant Reformation.
In a way, this is a good study of Luther and the rise of the Protestant reformation — just in time for the 500th anniversary here this year! But what makes it so curiously interesting is that it the author is an expert in — get this — the sixteenth century book business. As one scholar said, Brand Luther tells two tales. The first is an engaging biography of Martin Luther. The second is a stimulating account of the first time the printing press helped shape a mass movement.”
The reviews and back cover endorsements, by the way, are all of notable scholarly pedigree. Big, big book author Diarmaid Maccullouch has nice words, as do four or five mainstream historians and authors of books about the reformation era. For instance, Bruce Gordon of Yale Divinity School calls it “authoritative and beautifully written” and says that “Pettegree’s book provides a radical take on a revolutionary figure.” Karin Maag, professor of history and director of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies at Calvin College calls it “perceptive and engaging” concluding that,
Pettegree’s lucid and persuasive account offers an unparalleled insight into this outstanding early modern example of effective use of communication techniques that allows Luther’s message to take hold.
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Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission Michael Gorman (Eerdmans) $28.00 I do not need to say much about this recent release in the “Gospel and our Culture” series, as I’ve written about it a time or two before. I am delighted to note that Mike is a friend and customer, a supporter of our messy little shop here in Dallastown, and that he is as kind and personal and interesting in talking with us as he is when he is engaging in heady conversations with pals of his like Tom Wright or Richard Hays. Mike’s response to Fleming Rutledge’s serious presentation about her (Hearts & Minds Book of the Year award winner) The Crucifixion of Christ in December (at Saint Mary’s Ecumenical Institute where he teaches) drew pleasantly and insightfully on his own body of work, including a trilogy of academic works on Paul cap-stoned by this recent 2015 release. One doesn’t have to read Professor Gorman’s Cruciformity or Inhabiting the Cruciform God to appreciate Becoming the Gospel as it stands alone quite nicely. But there is a movement and trajectory to his work, and it moves us, to use the words he so diligently unpacks, to a formation that is participatory and missional. Whole life discipleship? Servant leadership? Kingdom living? Missional church? Walking the Jesus Way? All of these contemporary buzz words and phrases bring together the death of Christ, executed for our sake by the powers and the victory of the in-breaking reign of God. This kind of Biblical scholarship can surely fund a certain sort of thick, relevant, costly discipleship. Such a way of living out our faith can most fully be embraced as we deepen our understanding of what Paul proclaimed and taught about Jesus the Christ. This book, carefully argued and detailed as it, is as scholarly books are, will help us, I am sure of it. One of the best books of Biblical scholarship this year!
Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Three Views of the Bible’s Earliest Chapters edited by Charles Halton, with James K. Hoffmeier, Gordon J. Wenham, and Kenton L. Sparks (Zondervan) $16.99 I love these point/counterpoint books, of which there are many,and some are amazingly complex (a brand new one in 2016 is about faith and politics, with five differing views!) This one only has three, and each of the three authors respond to the others, making this a bit more manageable and useful. In a nutshell, the three authors contend that (a) the earliest stories of Genesis are actually history, (b) some sort of proto-history, or (c) actually just storytelling of an ancient sort that was not what we today think of as actually history. The project was assigned quite succinctly: each author was asked to explain what sort of writing they think early Genesis represents, and why they hold to that understanding. Secondly, there were asked to ruminate on how that interpretive approach effects how they read the Scriptures and how that effects other portions of the Bible, if it does. And thirdly, they were given three distinct texts and were asked to explain them, the story of the Nephilim (Genesis 6: 1-4), Noah and the Ark (Genesis 6:9 – 29) and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9.) This exercise allows each author to show forth how their particular view informs how they handle specific passages and stories. As you can see, this is not a rehash of debates about the poetic structure of Genesis 1 or whether or not the fall described in Genesis 3 is allegory, what with the talking snake and all. This particular book and this debate is not so much about origins or evolution.
Prostitutes and Polygamists: A Look at Love Old Testament Style David T. Lamb (Zondervan) $16.99 From the moment I saw the hilarious cover, I knew I’d like this book by the popular author of God Beha
Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are Shauna Niequist (Zondervan) $16.99 I didn’t want to name this under the category about daily devotionals or spiritual formation in Part One of our “Best of 2015” lists. Although Savor is a lovely collection of 365 short daily readings, with a Bible verse starting each reading, by an inspirationally Christian writer, it seemed somehow something other than that. This is a way to dip in to previous writings of Shauna Niequist and add in some new reflections and suggestions for gracious living. The format is like a daily devo, but the approach is broad. We are invited to trust God, to trust the goodness of the world God made: reality is hard, tragic, even, and Niequist knows this, but through it all we can rally to see the grace God offers, a shot at redemption in the mundane ordinary stuff of life. Savor really is a call to pay attention to daily life, to savor the details, to enjoy and feel (and lament) what is really around us. Wonder, joy, goodness, betrayal, sadness, failure. One of Niequist’s book is called Bittersweet, after all, and there are excerpts of it here.
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America Jill Leovy (Spiegel & Grau) $16.00 To explain: I have been brought to tears, weeping many times this year listening to a powerful song called “The New Jim Crow” on the latest Indigo Girls album One Lost Day. The heady book of that name by Michelle Alexander to which the song alludes is a serious study of the racism undeniably evident in the crisis of what is now called mass incarceration. One of our selections for Best Books of last year – now out in paperback – was a passionate, story-filled, illuminating similar work called Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by African American legal activist Bryan Stevenson (who we first heard at the Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh years ago, introduced to us as he was by Tony Campolo, Bryan’s college mentor.) With the much-discussed scholarship of Alexander’s New Jim Crow and the best-selling passionate testimony about Bryan Stephenson’s legal aid work told so well in Just Mercy – not to mention the horrors of police violence and dramatic debate about law enforcement tactics and judicial outcomes in places like Ferguson, MO – American is on high alert about the issues of urban crime, about police work, about race and class and economics and politics in the complex work for the common good in our urban centers. Add in the popularity of so many Law and Order type crime shows, and the award winning power of The Wire, and you realize that this recent book by award winning journalist Jill Leovy was poised to be a best-seller. Released last January in hard-cover, now out in paperback, it was doubtlessly one of the best books I read all year – I sat on the couch and would hardly budge, reading, reading, reading, exclaiming on every page how very interesting and eye-opening it was. I’m not much of a true crime buff, but this was simply spectacular, how it was written, the pacing and story arc, and the actual story and topic. I wrote about it (here) and cannot say enough about it.
Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel Russell D. Moore (Broadman Holman) $24.99 Anyone who has heard or met Rev. Moore will know him to be a kind and gracious man, thoughtful and serious-minded about how to live out the full-orbed implications of the true gospel in a culture that he believes to be fading quickly from health and wholeness. Yet, he is a man alive, on a mission, and is full of generous hope. He has written widely (for instance, a good exegetical book about the temptations of Jesus, and a rousing book about the need for reform and charity in the field of orphan care and adoption.) This recent book captures his sense of urgency, but tempered with grace and hope. It is exceptionally significant; a bellwether book indicating huge changes afoot in what has often been called the Christian right.
True You: Overcoming Self-Doubt and Using Your Voice Adele Ahlberg Calhoun & Tracey D. Bianchi (IVP) $16.00 I think the IVP Crescendo line of books is doing some of the most consistently good titles in the religious publishing world today. I’ve read most of them and think they are a blast — always interesting, caring and warm, but not smarmy or condescending, the way some evangelical books for women tend to be. This wonderful book, which is exceedingly relevant and very, very important, is a perfect example of the thoughtfulness and wisdom that goes into these sorts of books. It is savvy and smart, but not academic or arcane. It is full of deep Christian insight, nicely explained. It is honest and real and helpful.
Beautiful Feet: Unleashing Women to Everyday Witness Jessica Leep Fick (IVP) $16.00 We have dozens and dozens of books on evangelism, and I get tell you my favorite few, our top ten, or suggest some that would be good for you given your own religious orientation or denominational ethos. From the most progressive mainline church to the most rigid Reformed ones and anything in between, there are resources that can help us all grapple with what it means to bear witness to God’s saving grace in Christ and to find ways to help unchurched folks find a relationship with God, reconciled with their Maker by receiving God’s forgiveness. I think most of us don’t do this very well, and everybody is anxious about not offending anyone (and those that aren’t, well, they probably should be.) In this pluralistic, post-Christian world, there are great, fresh opportunities to advance the Kingdom of God by inviting people and families, organizations and institutions, into an awareness of the mercy that surrounds us and into a submission to the Lordship of King Jesus. It’s exciting, complicated, and not a little bit perplexing.
Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as a Spiritual Practice Beldon C. Lane (Oxford University Press) $24.95 I have written about this often, and there is no doubt that it is an outstanding, outstanding book, helping us all – campers, hikers, paddlers, wilderness adventurers or not – to appreciate how Biblical heroes and spiritual saints can be more deeply appreciated when read and pondered in the great outdoors. I haven’t done any hiking in years, I am sad to say, so I especially love the opportunity to do some vicarious adventuring along with my spiritual development. This is a really nice resource and a lovely book.
Rewilding the Way: Break Free to Follow an Untamed God Todd
From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding Our World Norman Wirzba (Baker Academic) $19.99 This book deserves accolades for a number of reasons, and is significant on a number of fronts. First, I should remind you that it is the most recent (and maybe the last) in the long series of books edited by James K.A. Smith called “The Church and Postmodern Culture.” Launched by Smith’s own wonderful first one, Whose Afraid of Postmodernism. These are fascinating examples of serious Christian scholars interacting with European philosophers like Derrida and the like. The whole series attempts to use our theological resources to help us grapple with the critique made by these deconstructionists, rather then merely disagree with them, or avoid their hard-hitting social criticisms. So kudos to Smith and the authors he’s worked with to create this set of books.
On Care of Our Common Home (Laudato Si) Pope Francis (Word Among Us Press) $12.95 I suppose you know about Encyclical Letters, the rare and formal times a Pope offers to his Roman Catholic flock and the listening world a declaration of what he takes to be God’s will, Christian truth for the church and for the cultures of the world. Much has been made of Pope Francis’ radical ways — that he took the namesake of the old Saint Francis of Assisi is important — and his own former ministry among the poor in his native South America influenced him significantly. 
From Tablet to Table: Where Community is Formed and Identity is Formed Leonard Sweet (NavPress) $14.99 I offer this award somewhat tongue in cheek – Sweet really has the capacity to read volumes and volumes (ancient spiritual saints, contemporary postmodern theorist, the latest cultural critics and preachers) and draw on their most pithy lines and insights as he weaves his own books, some big and significant, some more moderate in size and ambition. He has released nearly a book a year for a decade now, or so it seems -it’s hard to keep up – and most have been delightful, curious, interesting, informative, inspiring. Last year he did a nearly magisterial book on preaching (cleverly entitled Giving Blood) and, I’m glad to report, this year’s book is a short, slim one. I’d be resentful if he did two huge, demanding volumes back to back.
Slow Pilgrim: Collected Poems Scott Cairns (Paraclete Press) $39.00 I will admit to this right up front. I don’t know much about poetry, and, frankly, go through phases, long phases, where I don’t pay much attention to these glorious gifts of word play and verse. (I do pay attention to well-written song lyrics, but that is, admittedly, a different art.) Every now and then, though, I relish a certain poetic work, discover a certain poet, and I pay more attention. Are you maybe like that? Few Americans buy much poetry, and although we have a unique selection here, we don’t sell much poetry at all.
I Pray in Poems: Meditations on Poetry and Faith Dave Worster (Morehosue Publishing) $16.00 Did you resonate with what I wrote about, that some of us just don’t pay enough attention to poetry? This book may be for you. (Of course, if you are already a poetry lover, then this book will thrill you to no end.)
Revealed: A Picture Bible for Grown Ups edited and compiled by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $37.99 You may want to know that this was one of our biggest sellers this last quarter; it was released a week and half before Christmas, an artful Bible-lover reviewed it briefly in the serious journal First Things, and the next thing you know we were shipping this handsome, provocative, coffee table picture Bible all over the country. And overseas! What fun.
Runaway Radical: A Young Man’s Reckless Journey to Save the World Amy & Jonathan Hollingsworth (Nelson) $15.99 I was going to list this as one of my favorite memoirs of the year, a back and forth tale told by a young adult committed to radical faith and serious visions of making a difference the world and his conventionally Christian mother, watching as the son’s deep faith becomes extreme, driven, weird, even, and as he ends up in Africa serving in a mission compound and is shamed and abused as toxic religionists there add to his bondage and confusion. What a fascinating, relevant, and heartbreaking story, a story of young adult faith development, of the dangers of religious zeal, of the confusions about what Steve Garber calls “proximate justice” – that is, that we in a fallen world need to learn to live with something other than the very best and full, proper realization of God’s will. You can’t always get what you want, the old rock song reminds us, but some young radicals miss this, and filled with idealism and a thin view of the tragic, end up bruised and broken. This was the hard experience of Jonathan Hollingsworth and in Runaway Radical his story is told mostly through the eyes of his mother.
One Thousand Wells: How An Audacious Goal Taught me to Love the World Instead of Save It Jena Lee Nardella (Howard) $24.00 Again, I want to celebrate this fabulous book, one that I exclaimed about as I was reading it, and wrote about the day I was finished with it. Jena Lee Nardella is a brave soul, a social entrepreneur who has worked with the very cool band Jars of Clay as they endeavored with her help to start an innovative wholistic mission project providing clean water and educating about clean blood, to help alleviate disease in Africa. It is important stuff, but enjoyable: IJM President Gary Haugen says it is “a delightful read.”
Christian Historiography: Five Rival Views Jay Green (Baylor University Press) $34.95 We are not an academic bookstore, really, and although we carry some scholarly and university press titles, we are a little picky – some say not nearly enough – about the sort of scholarly books we promote in various academic fields. It is a looming question, even in a world where “all truth is God’s truth” and in common grace there is so much to be appreciated and learned: what philosophical underpinnings shape the popular notions of various scholarly fields, or various camps within those fields, and of the particular scholars within those disciplines? How do we bring God’s health and wisdom and Biblically-informed insight to academic discourse, genre by genre, department by department of the modern university? From the details of neurological science or trauma studies to the insights of literary criticism or film studies, from the data found in sociology to the latest studies about climate change, from the debates about theories of jurisprudence to the complexities of aesthetics or architecture, it should be evident that no academic sphere is philosophically neutral, that no scholarship is religiously disinterested, that every scholar believes in something that informs her work. All theories are grounded in the longings and ultimate concerns of the human heart and therefore, seeking to discern the contours of the influences in each field is a major concern for Christian scholars in the academy. It should be obvious, but it usually isn’t, that this is the very calling of Christian academics, and their students, but for thinking Christians in the world at large, it is no less of a necessity; how do we discern the wisdom and truthfulness of the ideas coming at us from presidential candidates, popular science magazines, or between the lines in popular entertainment and advertising? We are always looking for books that thoughtfully engage the foundational theories in any given field, that discern the assumptions and religious-like values that shape the development of those fields, and help us all figure how to, as some put it, develop a uniquely Christian viewpoint as we “integrate faith and learning.”
The Art of Memoir Mary Karr (Harper) $24.99 Yes, I’m ashamed I haven’t read more than a page or two of this, but I’m honoring it here anyway. 
good are rock solid in faith and perspective, philosophical without being arcane, and serious without being dry. So they’ve gotten this whole-life discipleship thing just right: God cares about all of life and we are invited to take up our role as ambassadors of CHrist’s Kingdom, exploring normatively in all aspects of life. So when they write about leadership, they are inviting us to take up vocations within history, inspired by the whole Biblical story, and discover and embody practices that are consistent with that story. It’s a truly wonderful little book, nicely done, and, as I say, published by this groovy new Western PA publishing venture.
Public Justice. In Unfolding Opportunity: Why Escaping Poverty Requires a Shared Vision of Justice (Falls City Press; $11.99.) Falls City and CPJ give us a handful of topics that are obstacles for those trying to get out of poverty, and areas in need of attention and reforming efforts on the part of those who want to be serious about actually doing something to fight poverty. It’s brief chapters and practical tone make it ideal for young justice activists, it seems, almost a handbook for faithful Christian engagement. In each topic, there are three sections, each penned by either Michael Gerson (famous pundit and former White House speech writer), Stephanie Summers (Director of CPJ) and Katie Thompson (young justice advocate, editor of the CPJ Shared Justice blog.) They look at the facts about the issue, frame it in light of important Biblical themes and Christian insights, and then tell of case studies and good examples of work local groups are doing as an example of actual projects to be considered. Richard Mouw has a very helpful foreword. Three cheers for this great little resource, and three cheers for CPJ choosing this fresh new voice in the publishing world: Falls City Press.
Go Set a Watchman Harper Lee (Harper) $27.99
The Story of God’s Love for You Sally Lloyd-Jones (Zondervan) $14.99
Staying is the New Going: Choosing to Love Where God Places You Alan Briggs (NavPress) $14.99 I loved this easy-to-read, brief book, and was very impressed with the author’s ability to bring together astute social analysis about our mobile culture and the disinterest in a living local that came with late modern capitalism, with the best of recent missional thinking (for churches but mostly for ordinary folks in their daily lives.) It has just enough solid cultural criticism to be meaty, and tons of fantastic, fascinating footnotes, and it has just enough stories and examples to make it come alive with actionable practicality. As you might guess, this spends some time not only pondering how to imagine a deeper sense of place but inviting us to practices that enhance our care for the local, from supporting farmers markets to indie cafes to local civic organizations. This book is well-informed, helpful, inspirational, and exactly the sort of new missional vision that needs explained and underscored. There’s a tiny bit of hipster new urbanism stuff here, but Staying is the New Going is equally great for those deepening their care for rural life, small towns, and more conventional middle class suburbs. It is sure to touch your heart and help you see your place with different eyes.
Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human John Mark Comer (Zondervan) $20.99 When I reviewed this I said it was a delight, breezy and fun, arranged to appeal to younger readers (it looks like a Rob Bell book with white spaces and some minimalist page design.) It gets at the truths that are so much discussed in so many churches these days, that our faith makes us more fully human, our work matters to God, we are called to vocations for the common good, and throughout all our culture making we are invite by God to relationships, to rest, to wonder.
The Road to Character David Brooks (Random House) $28.00 This has been one of the most discussed books this year in some circles, at least, and it deserves any accolades it garners. We are eager to highlight its significance, its rich storytelling, its serious-minded and thoughtful approach to how we come to be the people we are. Brooks – who seems to be on a journey towards Christian faith – has released a handful of important books that blend 20
The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Tell Believe About Ourselves
Accidental Saints: Finding God in all the Wrong People Nadia Bolz-Weber (Converge) $23.00 I know that many, if not most, of our BookNotes readers will be suspicious of some of Bolz-Weber’s mainline Lutheran theological tendencies, and will disapprove of her ready acceptance and advocacy for persons within the GLTB community. Some will be put off by her cussing – before her come-back-to-Jesus journey that led to ordination in the ELCA she found herself addicted and working in the late night, very blue, comedy circuit. Some will object to her lefty and progressive worldview which verges on self-righteously indignant. I doubt many will mind the artful images from the liturgical calendar famously tattooed across her arms and chest, but it is hard to miss. Still, Bolz-Weber writes like a dream, the book was among the most interested and touching I read all year, and her memoir-like journalism about her edgy emerging faith community (The House of All Sinners and Saints in Denver) contained unforgettable characters and unforgettable theological insights. I loved this book. Disagree with her understanding of doctrine or her embrace of the bohemian sub-culture, but Accidental Saints is about finding God’s grace in bizarre situations, the ups and downs of postmodern church planting, and about God’s own glory seen in the works of mercy, justice, advocacy and art of God’s people in this unusual cultural setting.
It’s Not What You Think: Why Christianity Is About So Much More Than Going To Heaven Jefferson Bethke (Nelson) $17.99 If Nadia’s book, above, is a high-octane, colorful telling of post-modern, emerging mainline liturgical faith in the setting of cultural bohemians, this book, at first blush, is the polar opposite. Bethke is culturally conventional and theologically conservative as a Reformed young adult in what seems like a spiffy megachurch. He is in many ways nearly as much of an icon of a certain sort of faith expression as Nadia is for another. You may know how he was catapulted to fame after a lively video called “Jesus is Greater Than Religion” went viral a few years back. Next came a book by the same name exploring more of this wild and passionate Christ-centered vision and it was surprisingly good. This Jefferson Bethke fellow obviously had more than a five minute YouTube sensation in him and as a young evangelical pastor has a keen ability to take serious Biblical truths and show us out to apply them to our lives in orthodox, faithful ways.
Grounded: Finding God in the World – A Spiritual Revolution Diana Butler Bass (HarperOne) $26.99 For a variety of reasons I read and re-read this, dipping in again and again, throughout the fall and early winter. It has stimulated my own thinking, brought great joy – at times tears to my eyes, and a much-needed renewal to my soul – and at times, not an insignificant amount of frustration. This is not the time or place to detail my frustrations with certain lines and certain authors she cites approvingly other than to say there are moments that she seems, to me, to nearly set up a caricature of those she finds wanting, a “straw man” ploy. For instance, Bass talks about an “elevator” view of God and faith, as if the faith of most church folks is merely about going to heaven, zipping out of this world, to be with an otherwise distant deity. Perhaps it is because I rail about such gnostic otherworldliness myself that I am sensitive, now, to being fair about such critiques. Ahh, but yet: even if most who hold to fairly conventional faith and evangelical doctrines don’t quite match her cartoon of them, she is right – so right! – that faith is too often personalized and made internal or disconnected to life in God’s good world. There is a sense that God cares more about the so-called spiritual than the so-called ordinary, secular life, and this book is yet another resource to disabuse us of this wrong-headed and unbiblical view.
Finding Livelihood: A Progress of Work and Leisure Nancy J. Nordenson (Kalos Press) $14.95 This handsome paperback is certainly one of the finest literary works I’ve read all year.
Happiness Randy Alcorn (Tyndale) $24.95 When I saw this one word title, and saw the rather sentimental (boring?) cover, I was less interested than I might have been; many of us tend to push away from anything that seems shallow or tepid or which suggests that faith is wedded to the materialism of the American Dream. We might even roll our eyes in this broken, needy, world with the notion that God wants us to be happy. Of course, you should know, as I should have, that Randy Alcorn does none of that, is a fine, fine scholar, drawing on Puritans and hefty theologians that have struggled deeply with Biblical promises and human suffering and the deep glories of knowing God. I have to list this as one of the significant books of the year, in part because of the meticulous research Alcorn as put into this, the informative footnotes, the hefty theological under-girding of this complex, lengthy, and helpful study. I get the sweet cover, I think — it wants to shout to the casual browser that this isn’t a dry tome, laden with arcane quotes from old-school heavyweights that is only for scholars or theologians. Yes, it is heavy, and yes, it quotes significant pastors of an earlier era, but it is written for ordinary folks, those wanting a Biblically-infused vision of one of the most common questions of human existence: can we be happy, and what does that mean? Kudos.
Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian Wesley
Serious Dreams: Bold Ideas for the Rest of Your Life edited by Byron Borger (Square Halo Books) $12.99
passionate message about changing the world by taking up radical visions of vocation preached to graduates from a Master’s program at Geneva College in Western Pennsylvania, and also a gentle introductory chapter inviting young adults to dig in to their hometowns, attending to their hearts, nurturing a sense of place as they are transitioning out of college and into a life of quiet faithfulness. Both the big picture call to social transformation and the Berry-esque invitation to stay put and live local are found here, although most of the chapters — they were graduation speeches offered with great hope at Christian colleges, after all — tend towards the former, with energy and vision and helpful guidance from very wise women and men. But I award this not because of my role, but because of the caliber of the authors compiled and the consistency and often beauty of their messages, inviting young adults to think well about the next stages of their lives, seeking God’s ways as they find themselves in new jobs and new places working out their hopes and dreams in a very needy world. What an honor it was to edit the writings of Richard Mouw, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Claudia Beversluis, Amy Sherman, Steve Garber, John Perkins. These are each stellar individuals, most of them famous writers themselves, and all significant spokespersons for a certain way of inviting us to weave together belief and behavior and live out culture-shaping, whole-life discipleship. There is a fantastic short epilogue by Erica Young Reitz (who has a book coming out next year with IVP called After College.)
Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms Timothy and Kathy Keller (Dutton) $19.95 We were thrilled to have a brief conversation with Tim about this when we were staffing our book display at the Redeemer Presbyterian Center for Faith & Work conference; the book was just about to come out and he explained how much it means to him, and how he and Kathy have learned to practice (even amidst her own struggle with chronic pain and sustained illness) to read the book of Psalms through each month. This daily devotional is grounded in his solid exegesis of the passages but also in their intimacy with God, their appreciation of how the Psalms point us towards the gospel, and how followers of Christ can, like Jesus himself, draw great insight and sustenance from the devotional reading of these poems, songs, Psalms. The book itself is beautiful, compact sized with two color ink and a ribbon marker. It is one you will want to use, over and over.
The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy Susan S. Phillips (IVP) $17.00 The richness of this beautiful book is exceptional, and I want to award it as one of the very best books of the year. I’ve written about it recently, but thought I’d quote our first comments about it at BookNotes when it released last summer:
Wearing God; Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God Lauren Winner (HarperOne) $24.99 Again, you may know that we’ve mentioned this often and have been glad to tell about it, over and over. We have been boosters of Ms. Winner’s books since her first extraordinary memoir, Girl Meets God. We are thrilled that there was released, just a few months ago, a new, expanded edition of her great second book, Mudhouse Sabbath. We have often recommended her Real Sex and I was deeply touched by her sad memoir, Still: Mid-Faith Crisis. In this new book about unusual images and metaphors for God used in the Bible she steps away just a bit from memoir (although it is still written in her signature style and offers glimpses into her own journey in appropriating these images.)
The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans) $45.00 This major work has gotten more advanced rave reviews and remarkable blurbs than any such book I’ve seen in years; major theologians, Bible scholars, denominational leaders and seminary profs all agree that this is a book that is stunning in scope, beautiful in its lucid, careful, prose, and passionate in its formulation of a view of the atonement and the work of the cross that seems to be both ancient and contemporary. Rutledge is perhaps on the more conservative end of the spectrum within her more liberal Episcopalian denomination (she was one of the first women officially ordained by the Episcopalians back in the 70s and has been a stalwart thinker, pastor and preacher within the Anglican communion until her recent retirement from parish ministry.) Even if new and edgy thinkers might find her a bit traditionalist, older school evangelical scholars might find her too progressive or ecumenical. We, of course, think this is a good place to be – too conservative for the liberals, too liberal from the conservatives – and brings a fresh, exciting, new vision to bear that helps us get beyond these stereotypes and binaries. More significantly, though is how she is significantly committed to breaking open the Bible itself, and offers significant, insightful, fascinating rumination on not just theology, but on Scripture. It is one of the major books of our time, a tour de force, magisterial, and one that should read widely.
The Gospel and Pluralism Today: Reassessing Lesslie Newbigin in the 21st Century edited by Scott W. Sunquist and Amos Yong (IVP Academic) $28.00 I hope you know how important Newbigin has been — of his many, many books, his 1986 Foolishness to the Greeks is my favorite, but his most important and respected and discussed is his Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (published by Eerdmans in the late 1980s.) He has written about epistemology, about mission, about culture, about the Bible, about the shifts in the West from modernity to post-modernity. Indeed the important Gospel in Our Culture Network emerged from a Newbigin study group. He was an exceptional missionary, churchman, scholar, and Christian leader and his nuanced reading of secularizing pluralism — and how to bear witness in fruitful ways in such a culture — were groundbreaking. This book explores not only the impact of his thinking, it continues his work by analyzing the nature of 21st century Western pluralism, and it asks how we might continue to do misisons at home and abroad inspired by these generative insights.
The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: JRR Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams Philip and Carol Zaleski (Farrar Straus Giroux) $35.00 I am sure this deserves a very special shout out, an honorable mention and more. Not a few very smart folks I respect insist it is one of the best books they’ve ever read, and a few have found it very helpful in their own appreciation for how Lewis & Company did their work. This is not the first book on the Inklings, nor will it be the last. Others have similarly explored the essential art of collaboration nurture at their legendary gatherings and the Child. In a year when there have been several significant books about Lewis and Tolkien et al, this is said to be a tour de force, a spectacular and major work.
A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysms of 1914 – 1918 Joseph Loconte (Thomas Nelson) $24.99 This was one of the best of the several Lewis-related books I read this year and I was pleased to have written about it when it first came out. Many critics have extolled it’s historical and sociological insight, specifically about the spirit of the age as it impacted Western Europe, philosophically, religiously, psychologically, and how this Earth-shattering epochal change in outlook – caused by the horrors of World War I – effected these writers. Lewis and Tolkien both saw awful action in the Great War and it affected them in ways that no one has explored so diligently before. This is a great book for understanding the cultural shifts that came to greater flower in the late 20
Women and C.S. Lewis: What His Life and Literature Reveal for Today’s Culture edited by Carolyn Curtis and Mary Pomroy Key (Lion Hudson) $17.95 There has been way too little written on this topic, and aside from a few major works (I think of the under-appreciated A Sword Between the Sexes? C.S. Lewis and the Gender Debates by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen) there hasn’t been a sustained attention to this in decades. Sexism in Narnia? Or in Screwtape? On among the Inklings? And what should those who appreciate Lewis make of the attacks by the likes of Pullman, who declared Jack a misogynist? Well, what a provocative and important set of questions, and what a fine and fair collection of essays on the topic. It is thoughtful, informed, and altogether fascinating.
Midnight Jesus: Where Struggle, Faith, and Grace Collide Jamie Blaine (Nelson) $15.99 Oh my, what a fun, interesting book that I simply could not put down. Few books this year struck me so, as I enjoyed the antics of this late night intake counselor at a psychiatric clinic, an intervention specialist, and drug and alcohol social worker. From getting beat up by crazed clients to hanging out with the sad and suicidal to telling of his beautiful relationships with the down and out, the lost and lonely, Jamie Blaine is a saint, a strange one, perhaps, a blue-collar, pin-ball playing man of the streets with a generous streak a mile wide and a knack for immediately bonding with the strange ones, those with ripped and worn heavy metal tee shirts, with abused strippers, with con men and stilted lovers and autistic kids. And did I mention that some of the most glorious, glorious writing in the book is describing the glories of his side hustle, working as a DJ at the local roller rink? I’m not kidding; this book is about reaching out with few answers but an abiding conviction that God Is There and, in the person of Jesus, invites us to trust in goodness.
How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History’s Greatest Poem Rod Dreher (Regan Arts) $29.95 I have written about this at length, and shared my appreciation for this often in these last months. Before I actually read it, I admired how handsomely it was designed, and shelved it under literary criticism; it is, after all, a study of Divine Comedy.
Ordinary Light: A Memoir Tracy K. Smith (Alfred Knopf) $25.95 I love memoirs and have not long ago written a brief explanation of why it is helpful to see how other narrate their lives. When a book is both beautifully written and tells the tales of a fascinating life, such a story grabs me and entertains me, and I come away enriched. Tracy Smith won the Pulitzer Prize a few years back for her Life on Mars and has proven herself a remarkable, stellar author, a delightful writer with flowing prose that is artful without being obscure. She has remarkable recall of her mature observations and great wit as she grew up in a large African American family in the 1980s and on. Her mother was a devout Christian – together they read Little Visits With God every night and Smith embraced a fascinating fastidiousness about being a good child. As she came to meet extended family members, talked with her scientist father, and eventually learned the stories of her parents involvement in the earlier days of the civil rights movement she increasingly comes into her own. Reading Ordinary Light is nearly effortless, yet a literary delight. The opening scene, telling of the death of her mother, was gripping, perfectly realized. What a great, great book.
Going Into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man Robert Christgau (Dey Street Books) $27.99 Okay, this may not be for everyone, but I think it is one of the most enjoyable and exciting books I’ve read all year. I wrote a very long review of it, which I’ve not posted (email me if you want to see it.) This is the vulgar and at times brilliant memoir of one of the top two or three rock critics of the last 50 years, and an author who helped, literally, shape the craft of rock journalism. His album reviews and rock star interviews are legendary (and brilliant) and this book tells the fascinating (at times exasperating, at times hilarious, at times nearly breathtaking) back story of his work in the rising field of rock music from the 60s on. More, besides the cool reports of this backstage scene, that party and that interview with this or that mega-star – yes, you know the biggest stars of our lifetime! – Christgau spends a lot of time telling about how small magazines got started, how bigger, mainstream journals began to accept album reviews, and what it was like to write both major pieces and smaller reviews for some of the most immediately recognizable media outlets of our time. In this sense, it is about the vocation of being a writer, a critic, a working magazine journalist. Mr. Christgau’s professional passion (the art of journalism, the craft of writing, the making of a living with words, doing intellectual criticism) is a theme of the book (and of my longer review) as he takes up networking other rock writers, pursuing serious on-going conversations about the nature of this work, what it is trying to accomplish and how to do it well, doing workshops, even teaching, eventually, essentially inventing a new craft, a new vocation, creating the calling of rock critic. (There are, as I try to explain in my reflection on the book, parallels here for thoughtful Christian journalists who themselves have networked and confab-ed and sweat blood and tears to make a difference in their salons and zines and alternative publications.)
The Year Without A Purchase: One Family’s Quest to Stop Shopping and Start Connecting Scott Dannemiller (WJK) $16.00 I have written about this a few times, and I think, come to think of it, that I laughed out loud more reading this book last summer than any book I read all year. And, it was inspiring, up-lifting, well, in a way. It made me realize I’m not alone in this dumb struggle to figure out a sane lifestyle. Anyway, I have to give this some honorable mention, and will do so by reprinting what I’ve said before.
Joy in the Journey: Finding Abundance in the Shadow of Death Steve & Sharol Hayner (IVP) $16.00 There are a number of customers who have purchased this book from us this fall, and are suggesting it be named the book of the year. It really has had that impact, and, although brief, it is a very powerful story, by an important figure. Hayner worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and in those years I had the privilege of crossing paths with him a few times. Steve ended up
The Pastor as Public Theologian: Reclaiming a Lost Vision Kevin Vanhoozer & Owen Strachan (Baker Academic) $19.99 Again, this is one I have written about before and, I trust, is one that you will agree is a “no brainer” as one of the most important books of the year. This wise and passionate call for churches to see their pastors as resident theologians, and for clergy to see as part of their own calling the on-going task of being a theologian with and for the congregation, is one we who care about reading and books would naturally sound out: what pastor worth his or her salt isn’t reading seriously, citing authors, teaching about what they are learning, helping congregants deepen their discipleship by engaging in the task of doing theology? 
The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry Mandy Smith (IVP) $16.00 I believe this beautifully written book — even though it seems to be mostly for pastors — would be an excellent read for anyone involved in church leadership or engaged in congregational ministry and certainly for those doing para-church ministry. Mandy is a vibrant young-ish woman serving as the lead pastor in an interesting urban church near the university section of Cincinnati, and has grown weary of the expectations, metrics and high-pressured methods that often accompany church work. Through hardships, tears, and much profoundly spiritual reflection she has learned to articulate how weakness and vulnerability can (as the apostle Paul himself insists) lead us to rely on God, be empowered in fresh ways by the Holy Spirit, and find greater union with the very human, suffering Christ. Pastors and leaders are, after all, human.
Servants and Fools: A Biblical Theology of Leadership Arthur Boers (Abingdon Press) $19.99 Wow, I was excited to read this as soon as I heard about it – Boers, a Canadian Anglican who spent most of his life as a Mennonite, is a favorite author, and I’ve read most of his many books, on discipleship, spirituality, conflict resolution, The Lord’s Prayer, and that great book where he draws on Albert Borgman’s philosophy of focal practices, called Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distraction. I knew this would be hard-hitting, a prophetic critique of how we’ve too often presumed and bought into the reigning assumptions about leadership, strength, power, organization and the rest. Less personal and tender and funny as Many Smith, they would both certain appreciate each other. Thanks be to God that there are courageous authors who are thoughtful and intentional about being Biblically-shaped leaders, and helping us all see what that might entail.
Radical Sending: Go To Love and Serve the Lord Demi Prentiss & Fletcher Love (Morehouse) $18.00 We have hundreds of books about congregational health, about church revitalization, about both the theology of church and the spirituality of local faith communities. Many are excellent, and we enjoy letting church leaders in on the benefits of reading widely in this genre of books about church life. Many, however, seem overlapping, and, although still useful, it is rare to find one that is really offering new insights, new stories, fresh and vital guidance. Radical Sending is such a book, and I’d say there is hardly a book on the market like it.
Fools Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (IVP) $22.00 In mid-June, when this book released, I did a very lengthy rumination on it, explaining who Dr. Guinness is, highlighting a few of his many books, and noting why I thought he was the perfect author for this necessary topic. I was thrilled with Fools Talk and was stimulated, provoked, challenged and encouraged by working through it. It was intellectually stimulating because (for among many reasons) Guinness is weaving together the potent insights of three great thinkers who have influenced him: C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Peter Berger. I knew without a doubt that I would name it as one of the very best books of the year.
Who Rules the Earth: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet & Our Lives Paul Steinberg (Oxford University Press) $25.99 As I hope you know, we stock a large number of books about the interface of faith and environmental studies, what we’ve come to call creation-care. Evangelicals, especially, have written excellent books about eco-theology, about our call to steward well the goodness of the creation, and how lively faith can propel us not just to more simple, sustainable lifestyles, but to bigger matters of how we live with the “groaning creation” (Romans 8.) We carry books that are not overtly Christian, too, studies of the debates about climate change, handbooks for green living, and more. This remarkable book, though, isn’t exactly about the science or policy of global warming, but it does offer exceedingly important insights for anyone interested in the big questions about what has to happen for a more sustainable global economy in our 21
Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in a Troubled World Soong-Chah
Bigger on the Inside: Christianity and Doctor Who edited
Culture Care Makoto Fujimura (Fujimura Institute) $25.00 I trust you know our friend Mako Fujimura, one of the leading abstract painters working in the serious American art world. A Japanese-American (who graduated from Bucknell University here in central Pennsylvania) he has kept alive and developed a painstakingly caring, Japanese form of painting (using expensive, glimmering crushed minerals.) He has become an tireless public intellectual, writing, lecturing, hosting exhibits, forming organizations such as the renowned International Arts Movement. (And his recent appointment as Director of the excellent Brehm Center at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.) As a thoughtful evangelical Christian, Mako has articulated well a deeply Biblical vision of the arts, and a faith-based perspective on art criticism and the practices of the faithful aesthetic life. We carry most of his many books, and was honored to be one of the very first bookstore to stock this handsome, handcrafted paperback (with a very creative onion-skin paper dust jacket) produced recently by Fujimura’s own organization in New Jersey.
The Day Alternative Music Died: Dylan, Zeppelin, Punk, Glam, Alt, Majors, Indies, and the Struggle Between Art and Money for the Soul of Rock Adam Caress (New Troy Books) $16.99 Speaking of rock criticism, and the history of writing about the popular arts in intelligent ways, this book was truly one of the most thrilling I’ve read all year, and one I so enjoyed writing about at great length. You should read my reflections on it, but you should at least know this much: the subtitle says much: it is about the swing back and forth between art and commerce. Indie music, decade by decade, has meant different things to different rock music lovers, but has typically been created by the co-opting of aesthetic concerns, big labels mimicking edgy, fresh artists, and allowing commercialization to rule. Alas, another sort of indie scene develops, until it, in time, is tamed and popularized and finally cop-opted by business concerns of record labels and sales and “the industry” (from Rolling Stone to the Grammy’s to MTV.) Nobody escapes the astute observations and critical evaluations of Caress, a fine Christian scholar and passionate (and incredibly knowledgably) rock music fan. A stellar blurb on the back by the exquisite writer and media critic Sven Birkerts further illustrates that this is an important book, one that should be read and understood by anyone interested in the popular arts and the world of contemporary music.
75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know: The Fascinating Stories Behind Great Works of Art, Literature, Music and Film Terry Glaspey (Baker Books) $29.99 What a great, lovely, interesting, and inspiring book this is — it is almost like a coffee table book, but the content is so inspiring and educational and important, it deserves to be taken more seriously than an attractive gift book for art lovers, although it is that. We surely must honor it with a very honorable mention.
All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr (Scribner) $27.00 
Swim, Ride, Run, Breathe: How I Lost a Triathlon and Caught My Breath Jennifer Garrison Brownell (Pilgrim Press) $18.00 What a fascinating, well written memoir, the nicely and honestly told story of a very un-athletic woman training for the tri. I was hooked on her clever writing from the very first page (I kid you not) and was drawn in to story of her bookish, mainline-Protestant expression of faith (she is a UCC pastor) and her nearly perplexing drive to do this big thing. In part, she wanted to learn to be more comfortable in her own body. A large part of the story — which is not the expected story of feeble person winning against all odds, hip, hip, hooray — is her honest telling of her good marriage with her husband, Jason, who is in a wheelchair. He has a form of muscular dystrophy so his own body issues loom large in her consciousness as well. As a mid-life, liberal Protestant pastor in Portlandia, as the wife of a sharp guy who is in a wheelchair, as a “dedicated non-athlete” she discovers quite a bit along the way.
The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus Dallas Willard (HarperOne) $26.99 I hope you know the late, great, Dallas Willard, and his rich, thoughtful books that are deep and penetrating, without being obscure or scholarly. He was a philosophy professor and a spiritual director schooled in the deepest classics. He was brilliant and yet humble, a writer about the ways the Kingdom of Christ break into our lives, often from the inside out. He was an excellent thinker with a practical bent, the best sort of guide and coach. His wrote a good handful of books about spiritual transformation.
Simply Good News: Why the Gospel is News and What Makes it Good N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $24.99 You most likely know that we are huge fans of Tom Wright, and admire his intellectual rigor, his broad involvement with various schools of thought and his cordial friendships with scholars from all over the map, so to speak. We believe he is, when properly understood, a wonderful example of being forward-thinking and relevant, certainly, but faithful and solid to historic Biblical insights and theological verities. Why not start off the hear either dipping in to Wright in an introductory way, or recalling many of his oft-spoken views.
Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture and the Good Life edited by Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Fortress) $39.00 What a book, a serious-minded, thoughtfully-prepared, applicable study of joy and its repercussions in the church and the world! Joy is a primary call, these authors tell us, and a central reality of life lived in God. Surely we need more serious Biblical and theological study of this pleasant, but perplexing, topic. Such a study dare not be glib or disinterested in the complex hardships of our fallen world. It would have to explore joy in our own lives, show how our own spiritual formation practices might help, and how that might allow us to live better in the world, in the culture, such as it is, with more care and compassion. Joy and Human Flourishing is just such a book. It includes pieces from Jurgen Moltmann, N.T. Wright, Marianne Meye Thompson, Mary Clark Mochella, Charles Mathewes, and, of course, Volf. These are agents of shalom and this offers what John Ortberg calls “a grand project on a vast and vibrant scale.”
Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness, and Justice Brenda Salter McNeil (IVP) $16.00 This new hardback is a great, great little book and gives a fabulous overview of the Biblical basis for racial reconciliation and pushes us towards true and lasting answers. We can see the inequality, we understand the problems, but are we ready to rise up in faithful action? What steps should we take to offer gospel-centered, wholistic, spiritual answers for racial justice?
Great Commission Great Compassion: Following Jesus and Loving the World Paul Borthwick (IVP) $16.00 I love the slogan that is on the back cover of this new book: “We follow Jesus into all the world, and we follow his example in all we do.” Right — we do His work in His way, called to whole-life discipleship, serving others in faithful ways.
Jesus Without Borders: What Plains, Trains and Rickshaws Taught Me About Jesus Chad Gibbs (Zondervan) $15.99 I could list this as a memoir as it is nearly a straight travelogue, a delightful journey nicely told, exuberant and funny at times, about a guy traveling around the world. But I list it here: Gibbs doesn’t just want to offer a literary memoir of his journey, but he wants us to understand a clearer picture of how other Christians all over the world worship, and what we can learn from their practices and lifestyles. It isn’t exactly about world missions and it isn’t exactly about global justice and it isn’t directly about multi-culturalism. He has more than a dozen chapters, writing about what he learned in places as diverse as Russia and Brazil, Japan and India, The Netherlands and Uganda and, well, it really can help us all be more globally aware as world citizens, and more, as a multi-ethnic and multi-national Body of Christ.
Nonviolent Action: What Christian Ethics Demands But Most Christians Have Never Really Tried Ronald J. Sider (Brazos Press) $19.99 I wrote about this when it first came out last winter, and now, at years end, wish to tell you again about how very inspiring this is, and how very sensible it seems to me — if risky, courageous, demanding. I would be so very happy if some of our faithful customers took it up in their reading plan this new year. It would make a great study or book club title to talk about.
Restoring All Things: God’s Audacious Plan to Change the World Through Everyday People Warren Cole Smith & John Stonestreet (Baker Books) $16.99 This is another good book I’ve previously announced, a notable one in 2015. I loved much of this, and it has some great strengths: it combines a Biblically big vision of what God is doing in our world — bringing Christ’s Kingdom to bear in all of life, followers of Jesus becoming salt and light in the world but not of it. Yes, it sees that God is bringing grace and hope to all, in various ways, in all manner of spheres and places. So I likes it’s wholistic vision, and it is a good way into this evangelical truth that God is at work in the world and we are invited to join in.