I’m grateful for the good feedback on the last BookNotes — we’re glad that customers care about what we do here at the shop and especially our involvement in the big, hectic, and, frankly, visionary college age conference, Jubilee, run by the CCO out in Pittsburgh. People know that there is, with Jubilee, in the words of Bob Dylan, a “tight connection to my heart.” The CCO was influenced early on by those calling for a Christian worldview that would fund a movement for the reformation of scholarship, nurturing habits of heart and mind that would “think Christianly” in light of the grand story of the Bible (from creation to new creation)  and, in some low-key and ecumenical way, that is the genesis of our bookstore, too. It’s why we carry books on nursing and art, engineering and politics, urban planning and neuroscience, education and business, law and agriculture. It was fun showing you just a few of the many books we had at Jubilee, an example of the good literature available to help ordinary folks serve God across every sphere of life.

Here is the link to three 7 or 8 minute book announcements I made at Jubilee, captured live by a good friend. Order these at 20% off, too. Whew.

I mentioned how enthusiastic young adults can be when they hear this full gospel proclaimed, when they hear in a compelling way that God truly takes delight in their love for science or wilderness backpacking or creative writing or health care or sports. The arts and sciences, the trades and careers, are not secular or sequestered off from our spirituality and discipleship, but are, as Steve Garber sometimes says, “integral, not incidental.”

Although this week I’m reading Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal by Esau McCaulley and The Good of Giving Up: Discovering the Freedom of Lent by Aaron Damiani and Malcom Guite’s poetry-driven devotional Word in the Wilderness, I can’t get Jubilee’s holy hubbub out of my head. So, for your enjoyment, here are a bunch of other very random selections of a few of the books we showed at Jubilee. Part two, so to speak.

It’s a random list, but coheres in that, for each topic, it must be said that Christ Himself holds it together (Colossians 1:17.) And that these are urgent books of the sort that many religious bookstores may not feature. All are 20% off.

Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God’s Creation Paul Marshall (Thomas Nelson) $15.98  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.78

One of my all time favorite reads, this is whimsical and profound, upbeat with great stories, but rock-solid, offering a reformational worldview’s implications for science, politics, work, rest, art, play, technology, and more. There’s a good overview of the “creation/fall/redemption” Biblical narrative and a great chapter on worship and another on evangelism within this “all of life redeemed” perspective. For decades this has been one I’ve recommended to illustrate how distinctive a Kingdom vision for living out faith in all areas of life can be. It’s a blast, by a playful but serious-minded political scholar. Kudos to the great Lela Gilbert for helping turn this book into a masterpiece of enjoyable prose.

Call this nearly a Jubilee handbook but, to be honest, truly, it will be good for you!

A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology J. Richard Middleton (Baker Academic) $31.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $25.59

If Marshall’s book, above, offers a delightful introduction to a realized eschatology where God isn’t rapturing us to some ethereal heaven but it returning to judge and renew the good creation, renewing it into a livable creation laden with shalom, the Richard Middleton’s volume is the scholars best study of this topic from this perspective. I am sure you recall us raving about Richard’s excellent (if always somewhat provocative) works, from the magisterial The Liberating Image to his recent, ground-breaking Abraham’s SIlence. Two of the most important books in the history of the CCO and their Jubilee conference were co-authored by Richard, 1985’s The Transforming Vision and 2000s, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be. He gave a great main stage keynote presentation at Jubilee when this A New Heaven and A New Earth came out.

Besides his almost tedious explication of hundreds of Biblical texts and his careful connecting of so many Scriptural dots, there is a closing pair of chapters on how Jesus, in Luke 4, preaches on Isaiah 61, drawing on the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus. These are under the rubric of the “ethics of the Kingdom” and while the book may be more meaty than some young students are used to, it is a must-read resource for anyone needing this corrective or want a Biblical reason to care about the flourishing of all creaturely life.

Not Home Yet: How the Renewal of the Earth Fits into God’s Plan for the World Ian K. Smith (Crossway) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Maybe life is too short for you right now to wade through the big Middleton book, listed above. It is your loss, of course, but I get it — we can’t all afford major volumes and may not have the capacity to work through such a hefty tome. Okay. No worries –  try this one. Not Home Yet offers, in the words of ethicist Scott Rae of Biola University, “a vivid picture of how this earth matters to God — our work, our communities, and the physical world.”

In fact, the great Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman (who knows a thing or two about all of this) says:

“I have never seen such a clear articulation of the theme of creation and re-creation anywhere.” Tremper Longman III

Okay, then. This book’s discussions of the covenant promises and the future hopes and how it all matters now sounds a lot like the theme of the Jubilee conference. How our understanding of our future restored home in a renewed creation influences us now is a key matter and Smith (a Greek professor in Sydney, Australia, by the way, who has worked in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu) explores it succinctly and persuasively. Three big cheers for this small book.

What Are Christians For? Life Together at the End of the World Jake Meador (IVP) $22.00          OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

Jake spoke at Jubilee a few years ago and he was a fabulous speaker, a good guy to be around, and a fine example of a young, excpetionally orthdoox thinker who has an open mind and a passionate heart. He knows the importance of the creational realities — “thick” Keller calls it — and how we can (we must!) find an alternative to the predictable polarizations of the left and right. In personal faith and public theology, in deep spirituality and robust civic commitments, Jake seems to truly live in a better way than this fragmented world has to offer.

The book title, of course, is a bit of a double entendre. What are we “for” (as in, we should be known for what we are for, not what we are against) and, the bigger question — what’s the point of it, all. Why does God call us to mission in this world and what difference does all that make?

I love that this wise young scholar talks about his embeddedness in his Kansan home and struggles with the powerful work and trenchant critique of whiteness found in Willie Jennings, in light of the neo-Calvinsim of Herman Bavinck. Who does that? Who reads that widely?

A voice in the wilderness of current culture wars, Meador has written a provocative and unsettling Christian critique of modernity. Deftly incorporating an arresting selection of voices, many far too lightly dismissed by Christians as their ideological antagonists, Meador presents an inspiring, bracing, and rigorously orthodox vision of Christian life, thought, and community as a hopeful response to its challenges and possibilities.  — Alastair Roberts, adjunct senior fellow, Theopolis Institute

By the way, don’t miss his first book, which I loved (and had at Jubilee, naturally) called In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World. 

Post-Truth? Facts and Faithfulness Jeffrey Dudiak (Wipf & Stock) $12.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $9.60

This thin book, co-published by ICS (The Institute for Christian Studies) in Toronto and their Center for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics, is a gem, but it was hard to navigate conversations towards it. We had it under philosophy proper (the smallest book in that category) and under cultural analysis. The book has only 50-some pages and they are edited transcripts of three lectures given about the nature of truth in our society.

As a reformational worldview philosopher, he has some keen insights into what we mean by truth and what “facts” are. Naturally, he notes that all facts are understood within the contingencies of human creatureliness. Everybody sees and interprets things in light of their own point of view. You know the C.S. Lewis quote about that, I’m sure. So he doesn’t just drill down on an Enlightenment epistemology to counteract the so-called “post truth” era. It’s better than that.

Further, he “eschews the kind of easy response that trades pluralistic solidarity for tribalistic certainty.” Okay, that’s a mouthful, but this succinct book really is a joy to read, very interesting, underline-able. He looks at what and how we know, what social trust is and why it is fraying, and how we can find a deeper vision based on a Biblical worldview, not just a simplistic “correspondence” theory.

Three rave blurbs are on the back, from Curt Thompson, Gayle Beebe (of Westmont College who says Dudiak writes “with the depth of Dallas Willard and the clarity of C. S. Lewis”) and James K.A. Smith, who calls Post-Truth “a manifesto for the university.” Curt Thompson notes:

Dudiak delivers wisdom that startlingly overtakes us . . . and kindness, the depth of which in many respects is the very vehicle that carries it so compellingly. . . . Our author has tossed our world, drowning as we are in the deep end of the pool of late and postmodernity, a life vest that, should we dare to put it on, will not simply keep us from dying. It will teach us to live.

That We May Be One: Practicing Unity in a Divided Church Gary B. Agee (Eerdmans) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I have to say a thing or two: unchurched or even most churched college students are pretty clueless when it comes to the variety of congregations and denominations that make up the Body of Christ. If they are nondenominational or Baptist or go to a Community Church, they don’t know what that implies. They may be United Methodist or CM&A and not know that; many Presbyterian Churches, for instance, don’t even say on their website whether they are PCA, PCUSA, EPC, ECHO, or whatever. (And don’t get me started about historic black churches or Protestant Latino congregations.) I think Roman Catholic kids know they are Catholic, at least.

And so, CCO’s bold tradition of being interdenominational, challenged as it sometimes may be, remains a passion of ours and we always take books to any church or faith gathering on being ecumenical. Indie Bible guys like Francis Chan have weighed in (many collegiates know him, so his Letters to the Church and Until Unity were happily noticed.) We always carry the books by our friend John Armstrong (such as his must-read Tear Down These Walls: Following Jesus into Deeper Unity but, I know, it’s a hard sell to college kids, whether they are Anglican or Lutheran or Reformed or Orthodox.)

This one seemed fairly simple, full of amazing content, by a Church of God pastor from Ohio. He has written about racial reconciliation, and has an amazing book on a Roman Catholic publisher (Liturgical Press) on the black Catholic leader Daniel Rudd. (How, you ask, does a white Church of God guy come to know so much about a black Catholic. Good question. It says something about the author’s integrity and experience, knowing a bit about different denominations and theological traditions other than his own.)

Anyway, this book offers what Doug Pagitt (director of Vote Common Good and fiesty author) calls “the ideal guide for faith leaders and people of faith who take seriously Jesus’s call for unity that goes beyond simply ‘getting along.’” Enough said?

Here’s more, from Curtiss Paul DeYoung:

Gary Agee issues a bold call for unity to a highly polarized church. He honestly deals with the challenges facing a church divided by race, politics, gender, sexual orientation, denomination, and the like. Yet Agee invites readers to embrace a posture of unity and implement a hermeneutic of inclusion. That We May Be One is hopeful, practical, and compelling–a must-read for twenty-first century Christians!

I don’t think any of these sold at Jubilee at all, despite all the leaders from partnership churches that were around. We try. Maybe you should give it a shot? It’s a good one!

Your Calling Here and Now: Making Sense of Vocation Gordon Smith (IVP) $18.00                      OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

We have bunches of books on calling and vocation and some are quite profound. Some are upbeat and practical, a few more are theologically serious. Gordon Smith (an author whose books I would read on any topic) has a classic in this genre, Courage and Calling. His small Consider Your Calling is very short, a guide to praying about discernment for one’s sense of call. Both are superb.

Your Calling Here and Now is a lovely blend of both his more foundational book about calling and his short books on praying. This does a bit of both, showing how our vocation is “more than a job” but how to understand the notion well. He expands his book about prayer, knowing that for many, God may call us to different places and jobs in different seasons of our lives. The question posed in this book is what are we to do at this time and place. Who are we meant to be and what are we called to do — here and now.  As Mark Buchanan puts it, “this book is both a primer and compendium.” Lots of good insight and lots of good stories, too. Yay.

The Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith Barbara Brown Taylor (HarperOne) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

When I am doing talks on vocation or calling or sensing God’s presence in the ordinary, I often quote long passages from Barbara Brown Taylor’s first memoir, The Preaching Life. It never gets old. This one is another of my favorite books (ever) and while it doesn’t seem to attract interest among the evangelical college student set, their leaders and other older folks in the room noticed. (And also the companion, Learning to Walk in the Dark, another personal favorite.)

I liked that the Dallas Morning News reviewed this saying, cleverly, “Not a page-turner, it is a page-lingerer.” As Barbara puts it, it is exploring the turf “where our feet hit the floorboards.” Lauren Winner (another Jubilee veteran speaker) says, “I have been reading Barbara Brown Taylor for years now, and nothing she has written has stirred and inspired me quite as much as An Altar in the World.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work Matthew Crawford (Penguin) $17.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

Although this best selling book may be a bit academic for some in the blue collar trades, there is always an expertly run conversation or panel with dozens of trade school guys at Jubilee — this here they interviewed a famous ecologically-aware, creatively-minded builder whose clients rave about his vision of stewardship — and, as expected, this wise book came up.  It is the eloquent story of a white-collar philosopher type who got tired of what seemed to be the ambiguous meaninglessness of his pushing papers, who left it all and set out to open his own motorcycle repair shop. As a mechanic, now, he offers — in really glowing and at times even funny prose — a lament for the loss of shop classes, and reminds us of the benefit and joy of working with one’s hands.

I hope you know this extraordinary book, and the amazing follow up, The World Outside Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction and his most recent, Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road. He may not identify himself as a follower of Jesus but he not only gets a sense of purpose and care about the world, but he is so obviously rooted in and attentive to the particularities of a real world, what we at Jubilee call “creation.”  This book about the connections to our work and our bodies and our world is nothing short of brilliant.

The Missional Disciple: Pursuing Mercy & Justice at Work – A Six-Session Course Redeemer City to City (Redeemer City to City) $14.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

We are thrilled to stock this extraordinary, handsome, unique study guide for those wanting to go a step deeper into the project of relating faith in the workplace. As disciples of Jesus, our workplaces are often our primary place of mission — this missional vision arising from a high and holy view of vocations in the workweek is increasingly well known. But, as they suggest even on the back cover of this great resource, “We sometimes fail to recognize two key dimensions of our work — mercy and justice.”

This is designed around short videos presented by leading practitioners and theologians (with links to the videos in the book), The Missional Disciple explores this very matter, how mercy and justice are not only central to the biblical story but are also at the heart of God’s character. It’s created for small group use (but you could do it yourself, of course) it is “packed with case studies, community discussion questions, simple practices and prayer prompts” and “will help you discover a holistic paradigm and equip you to become a restorative presence in your everyday workplace.

Whether tending to beds in a hospital or starting a business, sitting at a call center or waiting tables in a restaurant, this workbook invites you to grasp hold of your identity as a missional disciple and to integrate mercy and justice within your industry.

There are case studies from education, finance, filmmaking, hospitality, the commercial arts and more.

The Missional Disciple: Pursuing Mercy & Justice at Work Six-Session Course doesn’t presume you’ve read Keller and Leary’s magnum opus on this, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work but it doesn’t hurt. We pushed that at Jubilee, of course.

The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions Winifred Gallagher (Harper Perennial) $14.99          OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

At Jubilee students and others are nicely interested in our sections about place, about urban planning, even architecture and design. General titles like this (and her lovely previous one, House Thinking) — or the more rigorous Poetics of Space — show, quite practically, why place matters to us. Drawing on research in behavioral and environmental sciences, Gallagher explores our reactions to light temperature, the seasons, and other natural phenomena, and our interaction with the built environment. What fun.

It goes alongside more theological books like Finding Holy in the Suburbs by Ashley Hales or The Suburban Christian by Albert Hsu, say, or books we have about small town life or rural ministry. Naturally, we had a stack of the wonderful The Power of Place by Daniel Grothe. We love Eric Jacobsen’s Sidewalks of the Kingdom (including Eugene Peterson’s brilliant forward) and his exquisite The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment. We love the short book by old Pittsburgher Lee Hardy, The Embrace of Buildings (a “second look at walkable city neighborhoods.”) I seriously think Walsh & Bouma-Predigar’s Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement is a very serious must-read in this whole area of home and place, exceptional and formative. It’s hefty and a truly great book.

Technopoly:The Surrender of Culture to Technology Neil Postman (Vintage) $15.95         OUR SALE PRICE = $12.76

We often sell Postman’s remarkable Amusing Ourselves to Death and we are glad. What a combo of history, cultural studies, observations about mass media, and the need for a renewal of reading and thinking well. This one is in many ways a follow up and it is riveting. Is it dated? Perhaps. But yet, I think it’s stirring call to be “loving resistance fighters” seems resonant with Romans 12:1-2 — the things we do, literally, with our bodies are, in fact, worship. But we dare not be conformed to the ways of this world, must have a renewed Christian mind, as we show forth God’s good plans for life in the world. Can this (now deceased) Jewish scholar help us? Yes, yes, indeed. As one reviewer put it, this provocative book is “a tool for fighting back against the tools that run our lives.”  Whether it is in politics or health care or entertainment or religion, we’ve given over many aspects of our lives to a realm of technology. What an indictment!

The quote isn’t too sexy, but the important New York Times Book Review highlights how well written and cogent this book is:

Mr. Postman puts his ideas across with energy, conviction, and considerable verbal dexterity. His illustrations of how new technologies can alter society are vivid and thought-provoking.

 

Techne: Christian Visions of Technology edited by Gerald Hiestand & Todd Wilson (Cascade) $34.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $27.20

We so appreciate the thoughtful Center for Pastor Theologians (co-founded and directed by Todd Wilson) and their ongoing series of books from confabs they pull together for working pastors with intellectual chops, combining scholars, practitioners, and clergy to figure out how the church can help folks navigate the peculiar quandaries of our contemporary culture. They’ve done thoughtful and edifying books on sexuality, or creational theology, on ecumenism and the sacraments. This is a major contribution (from a 2019 conference) asking about our increasingly complex (and often conflicted) relationships with technology. It is very new and we are thrilled to commend it. It isn’t, by the way, a guide to using screens in worship or directly about how digital culture affects congregations or being hybrid in our church meetings. It’s more foundational and philosophical.

There are 15 mature chapters coming in at about 250 pages. I do not know most of the contributors (except Andy Crouch, whose chapter I read immediately, Karen Swallow Prior, who has a good word on the technologies of reading, and Christian sociologist Felicia Wu Son, author of Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together, which we stock, and her extraordinary volume Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood Presence and Pace in the Digital Age.)

I’m not sure who I thought would buy this at Jubilee — engineers and computer sciences had the good books by Derek Schuurman [see last week’s post, for instance] and others, and church leaders had lots of choices more directly engaging congregational ministry. Still, this is really good. I think it should be widely read.

God and Gadgets: Following Jesus in a Technological Age Brad Kallenberg (Cascade) $22.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

We promote this each year at Jubilee, but it is burned into my brain from the year Jamie Smith was a keynote MainStage speaker, riffing on the goodness of creation that can be distorted by the idols and ideologies and habits and practices of the age, and he had this book on the big screen. He was citing it, saying that we should all read it. Bookseller that I am, I was thrilled. And then the beeping started, what I thought was a fake fire alarm that Smith had contrived to go off as part of his spiel about distrusting our technologies. Nope. A first in Jubilee history, it was the real fire alarm and all 2500 of us had to evacuate the building. Over an hour later we reconvened and Smith heroically tried to start again, only to have the darn mis-firing alarm start up again — beep, beep, beep, all the way through his call to “occupy creation.”

Anyway, as Smith would have said, this is a very good book, asking how technologies are embedded in the modern West. Drawing on his engineering background (and, admittedly, schooled by Wittgenstein) and informed by his study of theology, Kallenberg (of the University of Dayton) invites us to see “the blind spots of modern, technological culture.” It will help you ask better questions, redemptive questions, even.

Why Study History? Reflecting on the Importance of the Past Joh Fea (Baker Academic) $22.00   OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

This short book is not the shortest call for Christian students to take up history studies but it is by far the best and at about 175 pages, is very, very readable. We really respect Dr. Fea’s good work (he teaches at Messiah University near us here) and his love of the craft of being a historian is (as history prof from Geneva College, Eric Miller, put it) “infectious.” Miller continues, Fea’s “knowledge is inspiring. Serious readers of Why Study History? will find their own love and knowledge of history deepened in satisfying and fruitful ways.’

You may know Fea from his online work with the popular Current journal or his award-winning Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? Or his co-edited volume (with Eric Miller and Jay Green) called Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s Vocation. That big text is published by the University of Notre Dame and is also highly recommended. But everybody should consider Fea’s Why Study History? Yes!

The Mind of the Maker Dorothy L. Sayers (HarperOne) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Every year at Jubilee we try to sell a few of these, a quintessentially important book written by the esteemed Oxford graduate, friend of Lewis and the Inklings, playwright, mystery novelist, Dante scholar, and reluctant Christian apologist. Her Anglican reflections on the creativity of God, the meaning of art, the call to do good work, and to reflect in our very lives the redemptive purposes of the Triune God are foundational, important not only as a historic, evangelical manifesto, but truly wise and useful for each of us today. Three very big cheers that this is still in print and that the Inklings-related authors are still viable.

The introduction to this fine collection is my none other than Madeline L’Engle.  For a nice collection including an overview of her various sorts of writing, by the way, see her Plough Publishing volume The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers expertly edited by Carole Vanderhoof. We had that whole series at Jubilee, of course.

Dear Doctor: What Doctors Don’t Ask, What Patients Need to Say Marilyn McEntyre (Broadleaf Books) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I’ll admit that this didn’t fly off the shelves at Jubilee. Knowing that many young adults aren’t concerned about speaking honestly to their primary care physician (they may not even have a relationship with a primary care physician) we thought this book would be of interest to those going into health care fields. Certainly every doctor (as I have said before when I reviewed it two years ago) should read it as professional training, but so should nurses and physical therapists and others who have authority over the bodies and lives of patients. It is really, really good and very, very important.

So we put it next to other books offering up a faith-based perspective on medical matters and the reform of health care, from Attending Others: A Doctor’s Education in Bodies and Words by Brian Volck to Called to Care: A Christian Worldview for Nursing by Judith Shelley and Arlene Miller and Care: How People of Faith Can Respond to Our Broken Health System by the great urban doc from Memphis, Scot Morris.

Marilyn, you may know, is someone who we read earnestly and recommend regularly; her day job is teaching literature in a med school, helping those preparing to become doctors know well the literature of illness, the memoirs of chronic pain, the poetry of grief. Her (faith inspired) view of the humanities as being helpful to med students is inspiring and good. So she has a lot of first hand experiences with medical professionals.

This, though, is written from the point of view of a patient, and each fairly short chapter reads like a memoir or maybe a devotional. She evokes so much, insists on our agency and integrity, and calls on well-paid doctors to pay attention. So good. So important.

Disability and the Way of Jesus: Holistic Healing in the Gospels and the Church Bethany McKinney Fox (IVP Academic) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

As we said in the last BookNotes, we have a hefty collection (in the store and showed off at Jubilee) of books about disabilities, special education, being inclusive in the church, and living well as a person with particular disabilities. From Same Lake, Different Boat to Disability and the Gospel: How God Uses Our Brokenness to Display His Grace to On the Spectrum to My Body Is Not a Prayer Request and so many more, we are glad for the many books coming out. If only we could sell some, getting them out there.

This is a major work, a blending of Biblical studies, ethics, and disability studies, all with a practical eye to congregational life. She interviews doctors and disability scholars and pastors to more fully understanding Jesus’s own healing narratives and why “Christian communities are better off when people with disabilities are an integral part of our common life.” Bill Gaventa called it “a joy to read.” There is a major foreword by John Swinton. Keep an eye on Bethany McKinney Fox — she is amazing.

Completing Capitalism: Heal Business to Heal the World Bruno Roche and Jay Jakob (Berrett-Koehler) $19.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.96

We have followed these guys for years (and one has been to Jubilee, in fact.) Our good friend and Hearts & Minds fan Steve Garber writes about them in his lovely collection of short, eloquent essays, A Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning Worship and Work. (Steve has also explained this business book by saying it is “Neither charity nor corporate social responsibility, but rather a way for sustained profitability, Completing Capitalism argues for making money in a way that remembers the meaning of the marketplace.”

Bruno Roche has been the chief economist for Mars, Inc. since 2016 and Jay Jakub has been the senior director of a research project — he links it to the Bible’s teaching about shalom within the year of Jubilee’s vision, actually — to help Mars (yes, the world famous candy company) could be more faithful, stewardly, wholistic, caring for land and workers, supply chains and processes, even while turning a profit. Can a global business corporation really find different metrics for measuring success, putting the goal of maximizing profit for shareholders in a broader, better context?

Driven by an astute sense of Christian values, the book doesn’t present their work as a “Christian perspective” but is making a major contribution for the world at large. We have been very glad to promote this kind of book whenever we can. Bruno and Jay are heros, and this book is vital.

A major breakthrough on creating an economy that works for all. The thinking is rigorous and backed up by careful research on how mutuality-based practices in social, human, natural, and financial capital can change the economic well-being of society. This work now sets the gold standard for how the private sector can go beyond lip service in making a major positive impact on the world. — Peter Block, author The Answer to How is Yes

Some endeavors require intellectual, emotional, or spiritual courage. Bruno and Jay have demonstrated all three in fleshing out this valuable piece of work on behalf of Mars, Incorporated, our associates, and all stakeholders, including the planet. I truly hope it evolves, as I believe it can and must, the dialogue regarding capitalism’s future and its crucial role in our world going forward. — Stephen Badger, Chairman of the Board, Mars, Incorporated

Kingdom and Country: Following Jesus in the Land That You Love edited by Angie Ward (NavPress) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This is another in the “Kingdom Conversations” series and it is really, really good. Not exactly developing a uniquely Christian view of statecraft or an academic study of politics (and, boy, we have plenty of those) Kingdom and Country does what many really want, at least for starters. It explores our alliance to God’s Kingdom and asks how we can navigate the polarizations and stresses in our public life. The authors are mostly youngish, missional, a bit edgy, well-informed, vibrant. I’ve read every chapter and can’t say enough about it. Kudos.

In this we have excellent, inviting, conversational chapters by Rod Wilson, Mandy Smith, Alejandro Mandes, Juliet Liu, Sean Palmer and more. It’s highly recommended. See also, Ward’s edited volume When The Universe Cracks: Living as God’s People in Times of Crisis which we also had at Jubilee. We’re taking pre-orders for the third in this series which comes in early April, The Least of These: Practicing a Faith Without Margins. Jubilee’s dynamo Danielle Strickland will have a chapter in that one. Hooray. (NavPress; $16.99 – OUR SALE PRICE = $13.56.)

Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day Kaitlin B. Curtice (Brazos Press) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

Okay, I’ll admit it: we didn’t have this at Jubilee because it just came. But we sure would have; it releases officially any day now, and we are thrilled to just show it off, here. We had her first two at Jubilee (and sold at least one of each!) We adore her first Paraclete Press spirituality book Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places and her much-discussed Brazos Press book from 2020 which expertly explores more about her indigenous (Potawatomi) spirituality (Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God.) Living Resistance, in a way, picks up, it seems, where Native ends, carrying out a public theology and native Christian approach to resist the brokenness of the world.

‘Resistance’ has become “tokenized” these days and (as her friend Glenn Doyle put it) “while ‘resistance is a hashtag and ‘wholeness’ an industry, Living Resistance is a lifeline reconnecting us with our human calling.” It is a fierce book (in an era when that word is used too often, as well.) But she is gentle and fun, a great storyteller and activist.  She quotes fellow wordsmith poet Padraig O Tuama and Native writer Patty Krawec and others I’ve never encountered. Wow.

A Year of Playing Catch: What a Simple Daily Experiment Taught Me about Life Ethan D. Bryan (Zondervan) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

A book written by one of our favorite people on the planet (and not his first, nor his last, we hope) Ethan Bryan’s book about playing catch with somebody new every single day for a year was put in two places in our big Jubilee display. First, obviously, we had it under sports and recreation. There are a number of very astute books (some pretty academic) about sports and play, including some that expose the idols and corruption in some of the big sport industry, asking how theologically-aware folks can be agents of transformation, in but not of, that big professionalized world. Others are maybe more devotional in nature, and there are some, like Game Day for the Glory of God, that are good not just for athletes but for anybody who is a sports fan, short, pointed, helpful.

Ethans’ book offers a delightful reminder of what we might call — he’s more eloquent and narrative driven, so he doesn’t quite say this — the normative principle for sport, and that is play. He enjoys tossing the ball back and forth and as his year unfolds it becomes its own kind of competitive match — can he do it? And my, oh my, what redemptive things goes on between the planning and the throwing and the catching. As one friend of his put it, between the dreaming and the coming true. So, yes, this is a book about sports and baseball, play and recreation. Is there a career in recreational planning or play therapy for adults? If so, this book is a must!

We also put it under memoir because it is, after all, a rip-rolling read about a guy spending a year doing this great project. Whether one is really interested in baseball or having a catch or not, the writing is captivating and his tender stories are sure to inspire. What a fun and wholesome and powerful book.

The Big Story: How the Bible Makes Sense Out of Life Justin Buzzard (Moody Press) $13.99           OUR SALE PRICE = $11.19      

Some years at Jubilee I promote this from up front, hoping to persuade many to consider it.  It covers some of the same “big story” around which the conference is organized but, also, it really is designed for beginners or even seekers who wonder if life makes sense. Does that story (of unfolding redemptive history) speak to our stories, now? Justin Buzzard is himself a great storyteller and invites us into the Bible’s dynamic plot, wondering if we can jump into it, or, better, whether it can jump off the pages and into our own lives? It is a great intro to the Bible, an apologetic for a truly Biblical imagination about life and times, and a call to embrace the truest story of all, which can make sense of both the beauty and the brokenness of our lives and our world.

I think we need to be reminded every single day that we are part of a Bigger Story, part of something greater than ourselves, and that each of our stories matter a great deal. To be reminded of that truth is to live in Hope.”The Big Story”gives the reader that gift of Hope. — Sally Lloyd-Jones, author, The Jesus Storybook Bible

The Bible is the story of God’s great love for His creation, what He once called very good. And this incredible story culminates in the coming of Jesus, and our being invited, throughHim, to find our true place in His story. My friend Justin captures this with earnestness, care and clarity as he paints for us the beautiful picture of what God is doing in the world, and where we find our place in His story. — Leonce Crump, Renovation Church, author of Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are

Post-Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture Gene Edward Veith (Crossway) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Sometimes the best way to communicate the distinctives of a Christian social imagery, a Kingdom vision, as we say at Jubilee, is to use contrast. We are all called to be discerning and agile in our (gracious) critique of society’s formulations and ideologies and practices. This book is a guide to this practice, offering serious, historical, cultural analysis about things such as views of the meaning of our humanness, our roles as social institutions, our understanding of family and sexuality. In our rather barren culture — a secularized society with a dizzying array of wrong-headed ways to think and be — Veith offers a conservative, more-or-less Lutheran alternative. I don’t think he is fully right all the time, and I wish he’d have worded a few things a bit differently, but, still, it is what Karen Swallow Prior calls “a library in miniature” that should be on all our bookshelves.

Can a book offer undaunted hope in a post-Christian world? Can it give us some resources for distancing ourselves from the worst of our secularized worldview and invite us to a more robust and multi-faceted Christian mindset? This popular author (a lit proof and culture editor of World Magazine) can help. He likes the early reformation artist Lucas Cranach, so there’s that.

The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place Andy Crouch (with an afterword by Amy Crouch) (Baker) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

My Tech-Wise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices Amy Crouch & Andy Crouch (Baker) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Andy, as I said in the last BookNotes naming his Culture Making and the superlative, recent The Life We’re Looking For, has been a speaker at Jubilee often. We’ve promoted his pocket-sized Tech Wise Family even for those who are not parents as it offered, in my view, some of the best insights and practical guidance for navigating this digital culture of ours, and we’ve highlighted it often. Written several years beore his exquiste The Life We’re Looking For it is still a fabulous little book and highly recommended.

Amy, his daughter, wrote much of My Tech-Wise Life while a student at Cornell. In a way it is a sequel to the previous book, showing how she, as a young person, experienced digital devices while having such conscientious parents. She attended Jubilee as a student and it was so, so good to have her back this year as a workshop presenter. Hooray.

My Tech-Wise Life incorporates a bit of recent research data from the Barna Group making it very interesting for anyone who works with youth or young adults (or anybody who has a smartphone, laptop or computer, for that matter.) This bit of data shows how urgent fresh thinking about all this is. But the heart of the book remains Amy’s good insights, down-to-Earth and practical, about growing up in these days and the technological choices she has made. After each chapter, dad Andy chimes in with some lovely affirmation, a little fatherly advice, a few choice stories, and the occasional scholarly push-back. Together, this daughter/father team has given us a truly great little book. We were happy to feature it at Jubilee and we are pleased to remind you of it here. Pick up a few, while our supplies last.

Jesus, Beginnings, and Science: A Guide for Group Conversations David A. Vosburg & Kate Vosburg (Pier Press) $14.95                                   OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96

Speaking of family projects, this duo includes a professor of chemistry at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California and an IVCF campus minister. Both, obviously, are deeply engaged in higher education, wanting to invite others into thoughtful engagement with academic discourse and Biblical truth.

This good volume — endorsed by the likes of Wheaton College Old Testament prof John Walton and Research Associate for the Faraday Institute on Science and Religion Dr. Ruth Bancewicz — offers various Biblical insights about creation’s enduring role in the Biblical narrative and invites open-ended conversation, even leaving room for gracious disagreement. They tend towards a theistic evolutionary view, but this conversation surely is useful for those with creationist impulses or those who are aware of the intelligent design school.

What does the Bible say about creation? About human origins? About science itself as a noble human enterprise? This is ideal for anyone wanting to have faith-based conversations about science and certainly should be in the tool kit of anyone doing campus ministry or working in science circles. With 12 sessions, this Bible study workbook is a treasure trove for interested and curious folks. The wide-ranging bibliography in the back is itself worth the price of the book.

Learning Our Names: Asian American Christians on Identity, Relationships and Vocation Sabrina S. Chan, Linson Daniel, E. David de Leon, and La Thao (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I was deeply touched by a few quick conversations I had at Jubilee with Asian American students and also with several international students. (There were students from Africa, China, and South America that I chatted with.) This book — asking “what’s your name?” — is so very important and maybe the best evangelical resource we’ve yet seen about Asian American ministry. With ongoing violence and tension and marginalization and an array of cultural stories and backgrounds, this book is vital.

The authors are a team of East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian backgrounds and they explore “what it means to learn our names and be seen by God as we are shaped by migration, culture, and faith.” There are tensions for all of us, but certainly the multiple tensions of being Asian American Christians there is much to discover and many ways to lean into God’s work.

Learning Our Names is a sorely needed reflection on how God is healing and setting apart Asian American followers of Jesus to be instruments of transformative hope.      — Russell Jeung, cofound of Stop AAPI Hate

On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts James K.A. Smith (Brazos Press) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

At our conference, Jamie Smith is well-known, at least among older Jubilee aficionados, and he has spent time with CCO staff talking about his essential book, You Are What You Love and the heady but important How (Not) To Be Secular: On Reading Charles Taylor. Students sometimes pick up his wonderful collection of short essays, Discipleship in the Present Tense: Reflections on Faith and Culture which I’d gladly press into anyone’s hands; it is so good.

We didn’t sell many of his most recent (How to Inhabit Time) but this one, man, this one is one every young adult should read. On the Road with Saint Augustine is about the patron saint of restless hearts and explores Augustine’s ancient journey to Italy in search of… well, Jamie and his wife retraced these steps and there are art pieces and more in this fabulously designed book. It is a spectacular read, highly recommended.

Sure, it’s a bit more than your typical Christian self-help book, and there are allusive lines on the back like this:

“This is not a book about Saint Augustine. In a way, it’s a book Augustine has written about each of us.”

On the Road with Saint Augustine is a learned, large-hearted, and quite lively introduction to Augustine, or to life by way of Augustine, or to God by way of both. The variety of Smith’s references is astonishing, as is the seamless way he moves among them. I expect many modern readers will find themselves–and, crucially, much more than themselves–in this book.  — Christian Wiman, author of My Bright Abyss and Every Riven Thing

Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children edited by Leslie Bustard, Carey Bustard, & Thea Rosenburg (Square Halo Books) $29.99                                  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I suppose we could have added this to our parenting section — we had plenty of titles shown, since, well, it’s never too early to help students think about this possible side of their lives (not to mention displayed for the many married adults in the space, including CCO staff, many of which have little kids.) But we featured it in our education section, since school teachers more than anybody care about good kids books.

I’ve highlighted this often before so won’t go on and one, but you know this great book had dozens of fine authors sharing about why a certain genre of kids books is important and suggesting things they particularly recommend. There are a variety of different sorts of authors (across the spectrum of denominations, races, ages) and the books they highlight are unique — some you’d expect, some that might surprise you, and some, I bet, that you’ve never heard of. This is a vision for “why you should want to help little ones see castles in the sky.” If you know a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or anyone who cares for children, this book makes a great gift.

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies Marilyn McEntyre (Eerdmans) $19.99                                 OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I can hardly think of an off site event, a conference or book show that we do not take this elegant collection of chapters about being good stewards of the words we use. This is what one reviewer called “a wonderfully composed treatise” and it is just that, what I might call an eloquent manifesto. This second edition is timely and enhanced, allowing a new generation of readers to apply McEntyre’s wisdom “in a world that struggles with truth and graceful language more than ever before.”

This truly is one of my most often-recommended books, strategies for being wise in this world of hype and spin and conflict. The discussion questions make it ideal for a book club. At Jubilee we displayed Caring for Words in the section about reading literature, we also had it in the section for writers, and we had one (next to her very literate Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict) in a section on engaging culture. Not many books get displayed in three different spots!

Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit Hannah Anderson with illustrations by Nathan Anderson (Moody Press) $15.99             OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Hannah Anderson is a great writer and we had all of her books at Jubilee. In fact, I heard one workshop leader recommended her All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment. We had this slightly oversized, artful one, though, in our big section about appreciating nature, creation-based Biblical studies, and outdoor adventure stories, from John Muir to contemporary black mountaineer, James Edwards Mills. [Okay, that is two different categories at Jubilee, adventure education and appreciating creation.] Hannah’s lovely book fit right in,; Tish Harrison Warren says it “delights, mesmerizes, intoxicates…” and Sandra McCracken says it “captures my heart at the core.” It’s a real celebration of beauty and a call to pay attention to God who shows everywhere, even among the things you see and hear, season by season. Nice.

Discovering God through the Arts: How We Can Grow Closer to God by Appreciating Beauty and Creativity Terry Glaspey (Moody Press) $16.99           OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Terry has long been a good acquaintance and we’ve admired his many books over the years. We promoted this one when it first came out and named it as one of the Best Books of 2021. We had it all propped up at Jubilee, hoping students would take a look, see its beauty and good design, and realize it offers one-of-a-kind guidance on using the arts as a spiritual practice. Of course we Jubilee would say, and we would affirm (and so would author Terry Glaspey) that in terms of God’s call to be mature in our aesthetic life, we don’t need to “use” the arts; as Hans Bookmaker once put it “art needs no justification.” Granted.

But yet, there is this way in which — call it intersectional, maybe — that good art can be read in terms of our own spiritual formation and this book invites us to allow good paintings, sculptures, poems, novels, music, to invite us to pray, to care for the poor, to be aware of so much that directly impacts our discipleship. Can you grow closer to God and mature in your faith walk by learning to appreciate the arts? Yes, yes, you can. Terry Glaspey is a genius for putting this compendium together, a finely crafted and brilliantly conceived volume. It was just one of very many in our arts section, but wanted to highlight it as a particularly good one.

Everyday Activism: Following 7 Practices of Jesus to Create a Just World J.W. Buck (Baker) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Jubilee great (who has appeared often over the years, from the late 1970s on) John Perkins has a nice endorsement on this for his friend, church planter and leader of Pax, J.W. Buck. If Dr. Perkins says it is worth reading, we should listen. He writes:

In Everyday Activism Buck helps us imagine a more just world by living like Jesus on a daily basis. I recommend this book for all Christian who want to see justice roll down.  — Dr. John Perkins

Osheta Moore (who wrote Shalom Sisters and Dear White Peacemakers, both which we had at Jubilee) says it is a book that “shows us how to love and seek justice from a wholehearted and grounded place. I cannot recommend tis book enough.”

“I cannot recommend tis book enough.”  — Osheta Moore

Not bad, eh?

The seven practices for “slow social change” include thoughtfully resisting over thoughtlessly complying, loving your neighbor over fearing your differences, seeking forgiveness over revenge, resting over endlessly working, practicing nonviolence over violence, and more. He has something he calls “the Justice matrix” which is worth the price of the book and an appendix called a “Jubilee Action Plan.”

With endorsements from Walter Brueggemann to Kathy Khang to Randy Woodley to Drew Jackson, and more, this young buck is a rock star. If you’ve wanted to get involved in some kind of justice work but aren’t sure where to start, this practical book will “show you how you can develop everyday habits drawn for the life of Jesus that make the world a better place.” Yes!

Healing Conversations on Race: Four Key Practices From Scripture and Psychology Veola Vazquez, Joshua Knabb, Charles Lee-Johnson, Krystal Hays (IVP Academic) $24.00                                  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

For as long as we have been selling books at the Jubilee conference we have had a mighty big section on prejudice and racism, on what we might now call being anti-racist and agents of God’s reconciling racial justice, and much about diversity and multi-ethnic ministry. Each year we bring more and more, from older civil rights-era classics to edgy new stuff. We offer a lot of different angles and perspectives, too, so there is something there for everyone. The related consolation of topics in their field are key issues of our age, and it would be foolish to think we can be Jubilee people, living into God’s dream of a restored world, without addressing that elephant in the room.

Of the many new ones, I’ll just share this one since it shows not only how race complicates our relationships (even when we reject racism and seek to walk a better path together.) This book is well rooted in scholarly research and unites behavior and social sciences to help us learn essential information and Biblical perspectives, offered with helpful case studies, discussion questions, journaling prompts and more. It uses research from psychology, attachment theory, emotionally-focused therapy and more, helping us all build our knowledge and capacities, our self awareness and our sensitivity to the way the world works.

The authors are colleagues on the College of Behavior and Social Sciences faculty of California Baptist University. This is brand new and looks really, really interesting for those wanting to go further and deepen our skills and habits.

Practices of Love: Spiritual Disciplines for the Life of the World  Kyle David Bennett (Brazos Press) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

We had rows and rows of books about spirituality at Jubilee, from devotionals to prayerbooks, books about praying and books about spiritual disciplines. From ancient classes to modern leaders like Henri Nouwen and Ruth Haley Barton, Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, Howard Thurman and Jan Johnson, we covered a lot of territory. Students have heard of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and, interestingly, the brand new Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools. So, yeah.

We are always just a little worried about any gnostic tendencies, any navel-gazing habits, too much inward focus leading to what Dennis Ockham has called “sanctified narcissism.” We have to get all this properly understood. I think of a fabulous book warning about all this that I read thirty some years ago called Being Human: The Art of Spiritual Experience by Ranald Macaulay & Jerram Barrs which I told one student about when he wanted Cloud of the Unknowing. Sometimes one just wants to say to read Eugene Peterson instead and let it go at that.

Alas, here is a book that emerged, in part, in conversations about all this, by a guy who has been to Jubilee (as a student and year later as a presenter.) This book simply calls us to imagine our spiritual disciplines in light of their capacity to allow us to love our neighbors well. Can even spirituality, at first blush the most intimate and personal aspects of our faith, actually have public implications. Can our silence help us listen well? Can our fasting cause us to feast well with neighbors in acts of generous hospitality? You get the drift. This book is nearly one-of-a-kind, complete with an allusion to Kierkegaard in the title. James K.A. Smith wrote the excellent intro. Check it out.

Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? Timothy Keller (Viking) $27.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

I have suggested that part of Jubilee is designed to inspire students to integrate their faith into their studies of their various academic disciplines, to think well and Christianly, about their course work and majors. I regularly celebrate Learning for the Love of God: A Student Guide to Academic Faithfulness (written by my pals Derek Melleby and Donal Optiz very much out of their experiences as campus minister’s working with students after hearing such talk at Jubilee) and great little booklets like Greg Jao’s Your Minds Mission or the always eloquent Cornelius Plantinga and his beloved Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living — a must-read for anyone who loves learning, but certainly for college students.

But, as you might guess, as I insinuated in the previous post about Jubilee, many students are hurting, anxious, full of hard stuff, and haven’t really read much about anything in their short lives. So they gravitate to self help books, resources on coping with stress or books about dating or titles about finding your identity in Christ. I get it.

This is one we featured as it is a cut above or a bit deeper than some that are very, very useful. (I adore the simple eloquence of Lewis Smedes oddly named Forgive and Forget.) We always feature the one by Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness.  As you might expect, Keller draws on them both, moving from the broader scope of social and political forgiveness (and the argument that it is not socially useful) to the most intimate, soul-searing moments of personal forgiveness.

This is obviously a book about forgiveness, its many implications, and, further, the gospel of Christ that invites us, and even empowers us, to do what we might not otherwise want or be able to. This is theology 101, made personal, practical, but with a keen sense of the social and cultural implications. It is brand new and highly recommended.

Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious David Dark (Broadleaf Books) $18.99       OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

We had a several of these displayed in two different places at Jubilee — for seekers, those hip, aware, skeptics that the book was clearly first written for, and under basic discipleship, since, really, this is a wide-ranging book that is about, well, everywhere, everywhere, all at once.

I’ve shared about it years ago when it was out in a lovely first edition, and I wrote about it a few months back when the second, revised and expanded edition came out. David has changed a bit over the years (“he not busy being born is busy dying” said Saint Bob) and he wants people to know that he not only has added some good writing to this already spectacularly written book, but that he has excised some things as well. He has, as he says, repented. I’m not sure about all of that (I loved the first edition) but this really is a fiesty volume that notes that we just can’t be “done” with religion. It is, broadly understood, the witness to everywhere we’re up to. And who isn’t up to something, right?

This revised and reframed text weaves new stuff about the pandemic, vaccine responses, Black Lives Matter, #churchtoo, the hullabaloo about critical race theory and more. It’s provocative, urgent, poetic, a bit mystifying at times, and, frankly, one of the most amazing books you will ever encounter.  One chapter reminds us that “Policy is Liturgy Writ Large” and in another he says “Hurry Up and Matter.”  The blurb from Richard Rohr on the front says it is “a call to consciousness and compassion.” Yup.

Ordinary Saints: Living Every Day to the Glory of God edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

It was a blast to give a quick description of this brand new book up in front of thousands on Jubilee stage. Even those that couldn’t spring for it were delighted, it seems, to hear about a collection of spiritually-aware, theologically-informed essays about movies, knitting, working in retail, reading comic books, roller skating, coping with chronic illness, lovemaking, drawing, making playlists, Muppets, and more. We noted that there is a chapter about therapy, about mental illness, about poetry (and another about pretzels.) The shout-out chapter that got a cheer was when I said there was one on napping. “It’s a spiritual activity we must practice,” I quipped.

From Calvin Seerveld on knowing to Bruce Herman on painting to A.D. Bauer on grand parenting Margie Haack on raising chickens to Curt Thompson on being present, there is so much richness here I can hardly explain it. It’s a practical application of the CCO’s Jubilee vision: there are no “sacred/secular’ dualisms and in a Biblical orientation, God can be glorified in nearly everything. Even Malcom Guite’s chapter on smoking a pipe is pretty compelling.

The book is lavishly illustrated and is a suitable, lasting artifact for the 20th anniversary of Square Halo Books. It was my honor to highlight it at Jubilee 2023. Soli Deo Gloria.

TO PLACE AN ORDER 

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It is very helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies but you can use this as a quick, general guide:

There are generally two kinds of US Mail options, and, of course, UPS. If necessary, we can do overnight and other expedited methods, too. Just ask.

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.85; 2 lbs would be $4.55.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.50,  if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.20. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Just saying “US Mail” isn’t helpful because there are those two methods, one cheaper but slower, one more costly but quicker. Which do you prefer?

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