I am dedicating this special Earth Day BookNotes to a long review of one new book, one that we are particularly excited about, for a variety of reasons, as you will see.

We’ve done other lists of ecological books, and we suggest revisiting those BookNotes columns and lists that are important to us, HERE, HERE, or this long and somewhat dated essay about, among other things, being disappointed by Kurt Vonnegut and living near Three Mile Island, HERE. Some of the books mentioned in passing may not even be in print anymore, and the prices are surely different, but many from these three BookNotes are easily available. I hope you enjoy my reflections. Thanks for caring.

Other than this big brand new one I’m reviewing today, I’d also most eagerly recommend these four fabulous books offering foundations for a Biblically Christian view of creation care; interestingly, the authors of which admire the work of the Gail Gunst Heffner and David Warners, who wrote the book that today’s book review explores. We’ve highlighted these others before so I won’t say much but had to highlight them as they are so good. The fourth one listed, published by Calvin College Press, is one where the authors of today’s book appear, as well. They obviously have a lot to offer.

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Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice by Steven Bouma-Prediger (Baker Academic) $25.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

I’ve raved about Steven’s previous works from his classic For the Beauty of the Earth to the fabulous Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. This recent one is smart and not at all simplistic, but really foundational, if you will. Everybody should read this. It’s a must, showing how creation-care should be an ordinary part of faithful discipleship.

Following Jesus in a Warming World: A Christian Call to Climate Action by Kyle Meyaard-Schaap (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

Kyle Meyaard Schaap is one of these fabulously passionate, delightful young leaders who is good at Bible teaching, theology, storytelling, knowing theoretical insights and offering down-to-earth practical guidance about faithful steps. Richard Mouw calls it “marvelously engaging.” Highly recommended.

 

Refugia Faith:Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth by Debra Rienstra (Fortress Press) $23.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19

This hardback is one of the most moving, graciously written, glorious book about eco-care that we know of. It explores with faith-informed glory all about caring for the Earth. Debra is cited by the book below as she should be (but she does teach with the authors at Calvin University in Grand Rapids.) This is one of the best books I’ve read in recent years, and it repays multiple reads. Truly lovely even as it makes you re-think much.

Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care edited by David P. Warners and Matthew Kuperus Huen (Calvin College Press) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I’ve explained this amazing collection of essays before and, curiously, all three of the above mentioned authors have chapters included. It should be better known, I’d think — there is a lovely, good foreword by Bill McKibben and an important afterword by Loren Wilkinson. Although the book is not overly heady or academic, it is audacious in many ways: it invites us to ponder whether the paradigm of “stewardship” of creation it itself a helpful way to think about our relationships with other creatures in God’s world. Maybe not, they say, in many ways, from many angles. There’s a lot in this rare volume and I find myself coming back to it for time to time. It would make a fantastic study book for those wanting to dig deeply into the subject. Here’s a fun bit of extra stuff designed for those wanting some visual aids in reading. And there is a podcast with a lively interview with each author of the chapter’s of the book. Hooray. What a good book this is!

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Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed: Restoring Ken-O-Sha Gail Gunst Heffner & David P. Warners (Michigan State University Press) $29.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.96

While on a panel at Calvin University’s Festival of Faith & Writing a week or so ago, I was asked, while sitting next to the wonderful Anne Bogel and Karen Swallow Prior, by our conversation partner, Jennifer Holberg, what books these days have brought me joy.

I rattled off a handful of fun, recent reads, books I’ve delighted in, either because they were a touch silly (like the great, smart novel by Bob Hudson, The Beautiful Madness of Martin Bonham telling the wild fiction of starting a college department about the love of God and how a local seminary objected) or just because they were so very well-written (Beth and I simply adored Lost and Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness by esteemed writer Kathryn Schulz) or that were truly funny, if dark, such as the most recent by a fabulous author Harrison Scott Key (How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told.) I could have mentioned Jennifer’s own book, Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape our Faith which is a book-lover’s dream and promises great delight for those that value reading and stories.

One that I mentioned is not intentionally funny or overly joyful, even, but it has brought more delight than anything I’ve had in my hands in ages.

This is one I’ve been waiting for.

Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed: Restoring Ken-O-Sha by Gail Gunst Heffner and David P. Warners is a book of hope, telling a remarkable story with great care and nuance, teaching, preaching, exploring, and documenting a decades-long, brave, hard, journey into reconciliation ecology as it informs the cleaning up and care of a creek that runs through the city and regions around Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed tells of the restorative work of many community partners organized through teams at Calvin College (now University) and their Office of Community Engagement.

It is a story I want to celebrate now — here in this special Earth Day edition of BookNotes —  because it is stunningly important and exemplary (as we shall see) but also because it is a long labor of love by two dear friends of ours. One of the authors, Gail Gunst Heffner, is one of our best and oldest friends in the world (who helped us launch our store in the early 1980s.) You should know we want to be a champion for her extraordinary work.

Gail has a PhD in urban studies and used her graciously outgoing personality to expertly serve the greater Grand Rapids area by harnessing the social capital and resources (and sometimes, sheer person-power) of Calvin College, finding ways to partner with agencies doing good work in the area. From racial justice topics to housing and public health concerns to big ecological issues, she served the Provost of the college by building neighborhood networks, serving on the Boards of nonprofits, writing grants, meeting with church, community, and civic groups, listening well so as to help the college learn what the city might need of it. I don’t know if other colleges have such an “Office of Social Engagement” but Gail has done remarkable work in this important role.

Her previous work for the college on academic-based service learning (twenty-some years ago she co-edited a ground-breaking book called Commitment and Connection: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education) already had cache as Calvin became recognized as one of the best examples of such academic-based service learning, department by department, helping students learn well by serving the community in particular ways, suited to their disciplines. That Gail and some of her colleagues from the service-learning world were asked to offer guidance to institutions of higher learning in the aftermath of the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa indicates her mature leadership in discerning and living into God-honoring initiatives of transformational social change.

And so the Plaster Creek Stewards came into being and was one of the many projects Gail (co)-organized and managed. Many Calvin colleagues — from the hard sciences to oral historians to computer science techies and more — joined the movement to recruit folks to clean up Plaster Creek, then considered one of the most polluted waterways in Western Michigan. We have followed her leadership on this from afar for more than a decade and have prayed for this book’s pages for years. What a joy to now hold it. And to tell you about it.

The other author of Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed, David Warners, is a brilliant scientist (with a specialty in botany), a scholar of creation care theology, and an excellent, beloved Calvin biology professor. He co-founded the Plaster Creek Stewards and took up the cause of stewarding Plaster Creek with whole classes of eager students, realizing early on that simple riverside restoration is incredibly complex. History, as they say, is messy, and such ecological projects are, like most everything else, rooted in history.

Gail understood better than most some of the deeper implications of the study of environmental racism (see her chapter on this in Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care called “Making Visible the Invisible”, mentioned above) while Dave knew well the exceedingly detailed webs of ecological complexity; together they and their teams started to share with those living in the watershed stuff about healing the degradation, reparations such as bioswales and rain gardens; they researched and warned about the dangerously high E-coli levels in the water, and why industrial pollution and agricultural run-off (that is, fertilizer from farms and lawns) upstream simply must be understood as it damages everything downstream. What does it mean to love your downstream neighbor, they asked. It’s an important question for all of us, since we are all situated in watersheds.

(Did you know there is a sub-science and movement of those helping care for urban waterways, coping not only with rainwater flash floods and sewer drains and underground streams and such, but urban wastewater and more? It is not a major part of this book, but you will learn a bit about this little understood scene; Plaster Creek is, largely an urban watershed.)

To start even small projects of river restoration one can clear brush and replant native plants and do any number of simple gestures of inhabiting a watershed in healthy ways. But, again, the bigger questions, as Reconciliation in A Michigan Watershed so painstakingly shows, have to do with how early European settlers understood water and their practices of managing it in certain ways, the rise of industrialization and urbanization and ways storm run-off and sewage treatment plants work. It has to do with agricultural policies and factory farms (and, yes, other sorts of factories that even in our day and age dump chemicals into creeks and rivers.) Plaster Creek Stewards very quickly became much more than happy college kids volunteering to clean up waterside litter or plant some lovely native flowers. They faced what we sometimes call structural and systemic matters, and questions of who gets a voice (“a seat at the table” as they say) and who calls the shots becomes urgent. They tell the story with flare; it is a bit unclear if they realized, starting the project so many years ago, what all they were getting themselves into!

I will never forget as long as I live the exact place Beth and I were — in our van while returning home from an out-of-state trip — when Gail called us to ask for immediate prayers. Their ongoing work in community development and grass-roots organizing led to sometimes contentious community meetings, town hall forums, civic gatherings, and zoning debates in boroughs and townships around Grand Rapids about policies and protocols. As the book tells — it’s a page-turner but not overly flamboyant — they had just received bomb threats!

Was it from industrial scale farmers? Racist opposition from anti-indigenous people movements? Fancy but ill-informed suburbanites who thought native plants would hurt their little near-by park? I’m paraphrasing here, but you can imagine the sorts of people that get up in arms (in this case, literally) when college activists, no matter how gracious and willing to listen, start talking green. One person got into the faces of our friends and spit out that they don’t trust academics and they don’t trust scientists. David and Gail are among the nicest people on the planet, and I wish the book told even more about how they felt and handled these egregious opponents, some most likely packing heat, as they tried to help restore this messy, abused waterway.

Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed: Restoring Ken-O-Sha has as its subtitle the indigenous people’s name for what the European settlers re-named Plaster Creek, and this is a very important aspect of the book. David and Gail learned early on that to truly understand the devastation of the watershed — that had been cared for wisely for centuries by the Hopewell people, the Anishinaabeg clans, and then what the French called the Ottawa — they would have to learn from and partner with Native peoples.

The chapters about the history of 18th and 19th century friendships and broken treaties, forced removals and residential schools, and all the rest of the devolving of peaceful, cross-cultural relationships, are captivating and compelling and tragic. Their accounts of visiting local burial mounds (most were destroyed by those forming the city of Grand Rapids, even as they drained the landscape starting in the mid-1800s) is very moving and their respectful citations of Native sources is fabulous.

For anyone who has been reading First Nations stuff (or learning about the Doctrine of Discovery) this will be good to take up after, say, The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery by Sarah Augustine (Herald Press) or Mark Charles & Soong-Chan Rah’s Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery (IVP.) I think Randy Woodley’s Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (Eerdmans) is essential reading, here, and would be a good companion volume to pair with Reconciliation… In fact, with their good section comparing worldviews and the assumption different worldview communities bring to their engagement with the natural world, and water, particularly, they might have cited his Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine (Baker Academic) Woodley is a respected Cherokee teacher, missiologist, and historian who brings a good word for any of us who think about these things.

Those of us not from the Great Lakes regions, I think, have much to learn from this quick but solid overview. We may know about the Appalachian Trail of Tears or the storied Plains Indians or the great struggles of the Sioux against Custer and the like; we are eager to learn about the lively cities in the American Southwestern deserts but for some of us, the Hurons and Ottawas are less known, I suspect. I might want to give a shout-out to last year’s National Book Award Winner The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk, published by Yale University Press, but Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed nicely does some of the heavy lifting for those wanting a glimpse of the history of Native Peoples and their encounters with the influx of Europeans into their homelands. To be clear, Heffner & Warners want to learn from the worldview of those who once lived in the watershed area not only as a justice issue but also for practical reasons: the Ottawa seemed to know a thing or two about rivers, fishing, farming, developing culture, housing, and watershed care long before we coined the phrase “sustainability.” Could we, even now, learn from local Native people? This book tells some stories and offers some good guidance, an aspect of the watershed restoration project that I had not quite expected. If you liked the beautiful, powerful Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer [Milkweed Editions] you’ll appreciate their efforts, I’m sure. Kudos!

In any case, Heffner & Warner’s eagerness to integrate the history of Native peoples and honor their capacity to live well within the watershed is a great value of the book.  How great it is that a major blurb on the back cover is from Ron Yob, Chairman of the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, who found it “extremely interesting.” He is right in saying that it is “written for the benefit of all living creation.” And non-living creatures, too, all of which, as these Reformed Christians so deeply understand, praise their Maker and give glory to God.

There are three units or parts of Reconciliation… that frame the telling of this story that unfolded year after year in Grand Rapids. The first they call “Discovered Ignorance” which is how they came to recognize the depths of the problem From some of Ken-O-Sha’s geologic past to the Plaster Creek watershed today, they explore the native peoples that once cared well for the river known (then, as the name, translated, indicates) for plentiful Walleyes.

And they tell how pollution was an early feature of white European colonial impact — missionaries and pioneers and those running trading outposts discovered gypsum along the banks of the Ken-O-Sha and they mined it fiercely, creating buildings and barges and railways to send the cheap fertilizer as far away as San Francisco. Coupled with the notoriously savage clear cutting of old-growth forests for the lumber barons — Grand Rapids still is considered one of the fine centers of the furniture industry — the stewardly care for the ecology of Western Michigan has been a disaster. Such disregard for creation came to a symbolic head when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland (just a bit south) caught fire in 1969! Of course, the polluted river had caught fire plenty of times before that and it was legendary in those parts, south of Lake Erie, the lake into which it flows. Ken-O-Sha, or Plaster Creek, flows directly into the Grand River, which not far away flows into the beautiful, but troubled, Lake Michigan. This, frankly, is part of the story of most of our regions and it is good to see how these authors invite us not to guilt but to honesty about our past and possibly present complicity in ecological brokenness.

After two chapters on naming the problems, the important Part 2 “acknowledges our complicity” by teaching us more about the interactions between the Ottawa and European immigrants, the fascinating development of European settlement in West Michigan and what they’ve learned from careful archival study about the impact upon Plaster Creek. There have been violent episodes in the harsh periods of colonization and too often attitudes of white, Christian, supremacy (that are seen yet today.) Their section called “Worldview Contrasts and Ecological Fallout” is a tremendous case study in how various groups perceive and engage in the world around them and what those with a more modernist worldview might learn from indigenous wisdom.

As social and natural scientists informed by what some might call a neo-Calvinist or even somewhat Kuyperian sort of world-and-life orientation — Calvin University is known for its legacy of “thinking Christianly” as they integrate faith and scholarship —  these author’s insights into the influences of world-and-life social imaginaries is delightfully evident; that a book on a major, scholarly publishing house like Michigan State University Press includes footnotes from the likes of James Sire, for instance, is notable. Naturally, our authors are fluent with many of our best eco-thinkers and writers, from Wendell Berry to David Orr, from Fred Bahnson and Norman Wirzba to Gretel Van Wieren, and the important Doreceta Taylor and the inspiring Richard Louv. It isn’t every day we see citations from Ched Myers’s edited volume, Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice but, obviously, it is important for them. You want “ecological literacy”? Dave can tell you the names of hundreds of plants and they both know the best books and authors which makes reading this a learned delight. Hooray!)

The biggest part of this 280 page book is Part 3, “The New Story of Plaster Creek: Committing to Restoration and Reparations” which is not only a history of their multi-pronged approach but  nearly a handbook for social change organizers anywhere. What a delight learning how they wrote grants, organized work crews, evoked artists and poets, partnered with civic leaders, faith leaders, science writers, municipal officials. How diligent, playful, and (often) effective they have been. What a joy — I’m not just saying this! — to be caught up in the energy of living out hopes and dreams, experiencing frustrations and set-backs, learning and teaching, building networks and finding new ways to engage others in caring for ecological responsibility in the local watershed.  They tell of working with schools and civic groups, with children and youth, and, obviously, with churches. Interestingly, in one page-turning part that built momentum, they are invited to speak at a local mosque, helping Muslim congregants do their part in caring for the environment. (And there is always the very real, human touch: they admit how Dave thought he was supposed to take his shoes off when entering the mosque, until he realized, later, he was the only one in sock feet. Ha!)

This last third of the book is thrilling, I’d say, and, as many books as I have read about environmental care, Biblical earthkeeping, stewardship, and the like, I have never quite pieced together quite so much about the incredible significance of watersheds and bioregions. (We live near the mighty Susquehanna, that flows into the Chesapeake, by the way, and there is good, good work going on in our area with The Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, The Watershed Alliance of York,  etc.) Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed is, obviously, a Great Lakes story, but, frankly, it could be easily adapted and used anywhere; it serves as a way to not only motivate and challenge but guide us all into being River Keepers.  If you think this is something your not interested in, I’d invite you to prayerfully give it a go — who knows, it might stir something. Who doesn’t value clean water and lovely streams and rivers?

There are colorful chapters on “developing engaged citizens through place-based education” and how to “asses the problems with applied research.” You will be delighted by their stories of “reconciling the human-nature relationship through on-the-ground restoration.” I learned the phrase “green infrastructure” by which they mean various sorts of low-impact development plans to enhance local ecosystems and “rainscaping” like vegetated buffers, channels, rain gardens, bioswales and such.

I mentioned that Gail has already written (a chapter called “Making the Visible Invisible”) on environmental racism and the structures and cultural habits that tend to put people of color at greater risk from toxic sludge and the like, so it is no surprise that this comes up in their fight for Plaster Creek / Ken-O-Sha. They have a section called “Loving Our Downstream Neighbors — a Call for Environmental Justice” which is informed and at times, dramatic.

How local congregations have taken up their call to public justice and cared well for their own facilities is a lovely part of the chapter on engaging faith communities. They tell a variety of stories (including a neat partnership with the National Wildlife Federation and their Sacred Grounds programs resourcing local congregations learn to plant and steward native plantings.

Ahh, and it isn’t always easy — they tell in the book about the EPA calling them asking them to create plans to educate churches upstream about the detriment of dumping farming wastes into the creek; when the feds call the local Christians saying that the polluters “… won’t listen to us but maybe they’ll listen to you”, you know it is a fascinating — and urgent — story!

(And, let’s face it — I suspect most of us don’t have freinds who end up with their smiling pictures on the EPA website, congratulating them on their hard work. Reading this book will help you understand why. Hooray.)

Some of you will love the chapter about raising up young ecological leaders — watch the inspiring Youtube video from the website Plaster Creek Steward showing highschool kids doing good work, trained by PCS.  All will be inspired by the last piece, entitled “An Invitation to the Work of Reconciliation Ecology Everywhere.”  Wow.

Two other quick notes about the book:

One of the ways David and Gail got academic colleagues and students involved was recruiting some to do oral histories of those who once lived near, or still do live within, the Plaster Creek Watershed. The Plaster Creek Oral History Project has not only been charming and interesting but really, really important. These first-hand accounts of the memories of the creek of older folks, the stories of post-WW II neighborhoods and their relationship with the streams and watershed, the stories of modern-day, local, urban kids or contemporary testimony of regional farmers, all make the book come alive. You will not want to miss a single one of these fascinating transcriptions of ordinary folks (some quite unaware of the dangers of chemical pollutants, say, and others who were very involved in working for cleaner waterways.) From stormwater run-off specialists to those working in the sewage-treatment industry, from the mayor’s office to ordinary folk who played and fished in the stream, these first hand stories are magnificent and occasionally quite arresting. This brings the book context and texture — even when the conversation partners called it a “crick.” I get that!

Also, and importantly, their language of reconciliation ecology is somewhat unique, but may be the vanguard of new and faithful ways to describe our projects of the future. They insist that God desires reconciliation between estranged people groups and between people and the creation itself. The interface of peacemaking and justice work between races, genders, and other conflicted groups with the disorientation we all experience when not in harmony with the creation itself is the nexus (they might say) of their gospel work.

That this vision is underpinned by their deep, serious, convictions about Christ’s redemptive arc and the creation-wide scope of Kingdom restoration should be evident, but the work, somewhat funded by Calvin University and inspired by their own life as disciples of the Lord of creation, fundamentally Christian as it may be, isn’t the focus of the book. In plain language, it bears witness to their faith and talks about congregations and worldviews, but it doesn’t feel like a “Christian” book, let alone a theological treatise. It is, of course, shaped and informed by their own wholistic Christian worldview, but it can easily be read by one and all as it is for the general public. In fact, that is one of the great genius points of this profound study — it is for the reading public, to mobilize ordinary folks, for the sake of the world.

This book deserves a wide readership, in part because it is so well told. And it does hope to inspire action; in that sense it has an agenda. It wants to serve the creation that is both glorious and groaning. The first line in the first page of the preface of Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed notes, “We live in a world of beauty and of wounds.”  After a few sentences, they say, “This book tells a story of splendor and provision while also revealing a story of disorder and degradation.”

This is the sort of book that we need more of — thoughtful, Christianly done, but with faith more between the lines, happily accessible to readers of various philosophical views, working out a Christian worldview for the sake of this world of “beauty and of wounds.” I am honored to tell you about it. Beth and I hope many purchase it and commit to working through it over this next season or so. I’m sure you will learn a lot. Maybe, just maybe, it will inspire us all to be agents of God’s reconciling work, even into our own unique places, embedded as we are, in our own particular watersheds.

“A fascinating and moving tale, and a fascinating and powerful book. Reconciliation ecology is a discipline we badly need, and its motto could well be “Unhealthy water reveals unhealthy relationships.” — Bill McKibben, author The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon

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For the last few days Beth and I have been at the breathtakingly exceptional Festival of Faith & Writing, sponsored biennially by Calvin University. Due to the dangers of Covid, they didn’t run the event for a few years, so this was a big year, bringing back old friends and new writers, publishers, booklovers and readers of all sorts. Due to work schedules, we’ve not attended often, actually, but it is always a great highlight of our year when we do. I am sure there is simply nothing like it anywhere with presentations by poets and novelists, children’s authors and essayists, filmmakers and critics. And a bookstore owner.

Thanks to those there who were so encouraging as I gave a whirlwind summary of our 40 years in the biz. And how about that panel conversation I got to be in with conference Director Jennifer Holberg (of Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape Our Faith) and Ann Bogel and Karen Swallow Prior? What an honor to be with these smart women. For those that want a taste of the event, I’d seriously recommend Dr. Holberg’s wonderful book.

Plenary addresses were by Mitali Perkins, former poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, the wonderful Yaa Gyasi, and Anthony Doerr who gave a talk on similes. Wow.

Over the past years there we’ve heard the great Katherine Paterson (whose lecture decades ago really was important for me — she even mentions it in her marvelous autobiography, Stories of My Life) and John Updike and Anne Lamott (we just got her brand new book in, last week, called Somehow: Thoughts on Love) and a workshop by Bruce Cockburn and presentations by Margot Starbuck and talk by James McBride (ooooh — I hope you know his recent novel The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.) As with those older events, the FFW 2024 was excellent; it’s rare for us, being with so many like-minded people who care about the printed page and who champion, in various ways, the reading life.

I suppose it is obvious that these people who are often very serious about Christian convictions but who hold their faith in a manner that makes room for others, who glory in what some might call “common grace”, and who value writing that raises the deepest questions of life (in novels and poetry, especially) that need not hammer down all the doctrinal details — yes, I suppose it is obvious that these are, in many ways, our tribe.

As I said, it was an amazing honor to get to do a workshop presentation, to be on a well-attended  panel (with the energetic new friend Anne Bogel (her little gift book I’d Rather Be Reading is fabulous!) and the brilliant, longer-time pal, Karen Swallow Prior, author, most recently, of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis) and even say a few words at a reception for poet and memoirist Jeanne Murray Walker (celebrating her Slant Book Leaping from the Burning Train: A Poet’s Journey of Faith. I had named that one of my favorite books of last year.) To get to celebrate Beth’s 70th birthday with our dearest friends and to spend days hanging out with book people is a rare joy indeed.

What a blast to hear authors we have written about here at BookNotes — Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See is a modern classic; Cloud Cuckoo Land, which Beth finally loved, is a bit more eccentric.) Yaa Gyasi (her Homegoing is truly epic, a must-read, and the follow-up, Transcendent Kingdom, as I’ve quipped before, is itself transcendent.) Tracy K. Smith’s latest is To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, about which it has been said to be “a stunning meditation on ritual and collectiveness that explores how older forms of inquiry — from song to prayer to ways of public gathering —might help us all survive violent times and address America’s shared history.” Imani Perry says she is “one of the most beautiful and profound writers of our time.” I very much loved her 2015 memoir Ordinary Light.)

Anyway, it has been busy and exhausting and intimidating and refreshing. Thanks to those who prayed for my talks. We are grateful.

And it is true, so true: we would not have any standing to say anything at these sorts of events if we had not a loyal legion of friends and customers who have supported our efforts over these last decades to somehow reimagine and redefine the nature of a Christian bookstore. I know we’ve not pleased everyone, but we will be forever grateful for those who have hung in there with us, who send us orders regularly, who support our small-town shop here in south-central Pennsylvania. Thank you, readers and book-buyers. Without you, our customers, there would be no Hearts & Minds.

And so, a short but pointed BookNotes, inviting you to pre-order a soon-to-be released book coming from Baker Academic. I’m sure it has the name of a few of you on it, and I’m hoping others will generate some conversations around this forthcoming title. It’s remarkable, if a tad on the heavy side.

Deep Reading: Practices to Subvert the Vices of Our Distracted, Hostile, and Consumeristic Age Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. DeSmith Roberts (Baker Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99 // NOT YET RELEASED – Due May 28, 2024  PRE-ORDER NOW. (Scroll to the end of the column for the easy, secure link to the Hearts & Minds order form page.)

This is a book that captures so much about the nature of reading for people of faith these days that it seemed perfect, now, to highlight it. It is written by three college professors (all who have PhDs from Baylor University) who have followed diligently the recent spate of Christian books about the reading life, the values of reading, and the ways in which books can be an asset to our formation as Christian people. They bring us up to speed with a gracious bunch of hat-tips to authors and books that we love to promote, including:

• Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior (T.S. Poetry Press) $19.99
• On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books (Brazos Press) $21.00
• Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish C. Christopher Smith (IVP) $18.00
• Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just Claude Atcho (Brazos Press) $19.99
• The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction Alan Jacobs (Oxford University Press) $21.99
• The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints Jessica Hooten Wilson (Brazos Press) $24.99
• Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice Jessica Hooten Wilson (Brazos Press) $24.99
• Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry Into the News Jeffrey Brilbo (IVP) $27.00

Just their opening introductory chapter — laden with a tone of academese as it sometimes is — is nonetheless thrilling, engaging a growing consensus that reading is a spiritual practice, that fiction and non-fiction both can be used by Godly folks seeking to be more alive to God’s world, and that in a culture that “amuses ourselves to death” with “restless devices”, we simply have to encourage the habits of reading widely and well. We must “care for words in a culture of lies” as Marilyn McEntyre puts it in her wonderful volume of that name.  And, yet, they are not re-iterating what has been said; they are not preaching to the choir. This brings something new and important, if a tiny bit tedious, to the table.

In fact, these authors are being a bit cheeky — carefully so, maybe too carefully so — in suggesting that while these books are helpful and good and proper and even transformational, they, in some ways, miss the mark by not going deep enough. That is, all of these aforementioned books, they claim, are mostly about the content of the books we read; we read in order to (however imaginatively and wisely) grasp the content, or at least be influenced by the content. I did not notice if they discussed C.S. Lewis’s famous lines in Experiments in Criticism that we are not to seek to “use” a book, but to “receive it” but it’s a helpful insight and apropos.

Their call to slower, engaged reading — “deep reading” as they call it — is less about what to read, but how to read.

And (big spoiler alert) they do not think the classic How to Read A Book by Adler and Van Doran is the right approach!

Their argument is bookish and they obviously enjoy reading widely. And they are very aware of the world in which we live, maybe more than most since they are teachers involved in the lives of young adults. There is no doubt —Griffis, Ooms, and Roberts, young, intelligent, women teachers that they are, get it.

They cite just the right stuff in their discussions of digital culture, including the fabulous research done about digital learning [done before the pandemic caused students everywhere to experience online learning, like it or not] called Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools by David L. Smith, Kara Sevensma, Marjorie Terpstra, and Steven McMullen published by Eerdmans. What a joy to see them engaging the work of Maryanne Wolf (Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain and Reader, Home Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World) and one of the very first serious books about reading that I read, the lovely The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age by Sven Birkerts. Naturally, Nicholas Carr of The Shallows shows up, as does Neil Postman. They are not alarmists about Google or ebooks, but they are helpful by offering a balanced critique and refreshing ways to counter the ubiquity of the virtual and helping us find ways to read well in these digital times. They have a bit about “digital tools and equity”, too, which I found fascinating.

They are also astute about reading literature by and about people of color, of reading books by those different than ourselves, understanding well the liberative results of engaging black books or those written by those who are not from the dominant culture. From The Pedagogy of the Oppressed to James Baldwin through Claude Atchko and Esau McCaulley to bell hooks and, then, authors writing from the perspective of those who have disabilities, they offer fruitful insights. You will be struck, as I was, by their section called “Beyond the Diverse Reading List” offering “inclusive practices to cultivate listeners.” Oh my, this is vital, potent stuff.

By the way, they interact with the work of Daniel Bowman, college English prof (and editor of a fine lit mag / poetry journal) and author of On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity. They have a section on “neurodiversity, accommodation and attention.” Kudos, there. Well done!

One of the big projects going on here in Deep Reading — beside the insistence that we must learn how to read in a truly Christian fashion, not merely refining what to read, causes them to look askance at canon-making and book lists — is how the movement promoting the formation of a Christian worldview (especially in Christian higher education, although I’d say, we, too, here at Hearts & Minds) can become wooden, ideological, overly rationalistic. We’ve never tried to promote some dogmatic ideology of “worldview” but I hear their concerns.

There is more than can be said, I suppose, but they learned some of this critique of certain expressions of wordlviewishness, it seems, from the wonderful worldviewish scholar, James K.A. Smith and they happily cite many of his works. From the deepest tracks in Desiring the Kingdom and Imagining the Kingdom to the one from the Top Ten Charts (You Are What You Love: the Spiritual Power of Habit, obviously) they use his work well, reminding us that we are shaped by habits, liturgies, ways of being in the world. The things we do, do things to us. That some people in Christian publishing and conservative circles promoted a rather rigid sort of worldview analysis, as if the notion of “worldview” was pretty much just old-school apologetics, is true enough, but not all uses of that word are connected with that kind of orientation.

(Decades ago some of those who most popularized worldview language in at least some corners of evangelicalism, published a book called After Worldview edited by Matthew Bonzo & Michael Stevens, reflecting on ways not to use worldview rhetoric as a tool against others; it was a plea to rethink worldview language in an era of dogmatic weaponizing of what was once life-giving and imaginative. But I digress.)

I am not ready to say if I understand or agree with the ways Griffis, Ooms, and Roberts critically engage notions of worldviews, but I am glad whenever folks speak out about the things that matter most, and they are surely onto something that I think most Hearts & Minds readers will care about. Again: kudos.  Again, Deep Reading, strikes a chord and is intriguing. You really should consider pre-ordering it.

They use David Smith’s pedagogical work a lot, too, like his “Reading Practices and Christian Pedagogy: Enacting Charity with Texts” found in Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning edited by David L. Smith and James K.A. Smith. They even quote the rare David Smith book (co-written with Barbara Carville) on the habits of hospitality needed to teach foreign languages well, The Gift of the Stranger: Faith, Hospitality, and Foreign Language Learning, which we always carry. All in all, they understand that our social imaginaries, our ways of being in the world, our world-and-life views, are embodied through formative habits, not merely by dumping more data (even if that data is good Kingdom content) into our brains. By drawing on the unrelated Smiths — David and Jamie — they bring a depth and vitality to this project of helping us nurture a big vision of why and how we read and how deep reading can undo and redo our worldviews.

Which brings us back to the main premise of this fabulous, rich, deep, important work.

They believe — and show, in impeccable detail — that reading deeply will equip us to be shaped by virtues that can help us withstand the onslaught of unhelpful forces (shall we call them vices?) emanating from the principalities and powers of our fallen world.  In this sense, this heady study of reading seriously ends up being really, really influential about very basic matters of Christian formation.

They name three relevant vices in the subtitle, and they are potent — distraction, hostility, and consumerism. If reading well can help unseat the power of these disordered forces in our lives, then bring on the books!

And to think we can take pleasure in reading while fighting the unseen forces that surround us? Yes, ma’am. This is great!

These three women are giving us a great assist in spiritual formation and anyone who cares about Biblically-wise, vibrant, intelligent, whole-life discipleship in our culture, will find this immensely helpful and, I’d think, gratifying. It isn’t simple or even always fun, exactly, but it is nicely written, in a serious sort of way, and it is stimulating and challenging and generative. These teachers help us develop practices for discerning wise reading and for them, wise reading can be (must be?) subversive. That is, this is not a book merely making us feel guilty for not adequately wading through the important bibliographies from the classic Western canons.

Rather, Deep Reading says, we must learn to pay attention. (The first chapter is about cultivating temperance — you’ll be fascinated with the connection.) And then, their “prudent reading practices” help us move “beyond dogmatism.”  Wow, this is provocative stuff.

I could offer more, but I’ll note one more thing. They talk a lot about reading communities. They are college educators, so I get that much of their experience is with professional colleagues who fret about efforts to shape their students. But I think many more of us are in “reading communities,” and even if their context is intentionally Christian higher education, if you are in a church, a Sunday school class, an on-line book club, a small group, or whatever, I think these deep reflections on deeper reading would be very influential in your ministry. Their reflection on “conversation as gift-giving” is beautiful stuff. This is not about reading for self-improvement or developing skills or becoming super-smart. The final chapter is about enjoyment, finally about “being human.”

Their earlier critique of consumerism leads them to big questions about what leisure is and the differences between entertainment and amusement. I had forgotten that pithy quote from Screwtape that they cite in a section about “practices that subvert consumerism” where a person says, after death, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.” Wow. This big afterword invites us to “reread.” It is a mighty ending piece, and it may leave you inspired or perplexed. Either way, it is unforgettable.

There are helpful summaries at the end of each chapter of the suggested practices. There are reflective questions to discuss (of course there are — they are inciting us to do this together, to become reading communities, after all.) These resources increase the value of the book quite a lot and you will be glad.

“This book eloquently joins the other voices calling us to soul-forming kinds of reading that can resist our descent into superficiality and hostility. Importantly, it goes beyond them in describing the actual practices that might get us there. All those who use text to teach others should read it. Anyone else who cares about reading and spiritual growth should join them.” — David I. Smith, Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, Calvin University

 

Pre-order this now and we will send it out at our 20% off discounted price as soon as it arrives. 

 

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BookNotes

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The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy Jim Wallis (St. Martin’s Essentials) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I can hardly say how much I loved this book, how much I value Jim’s perspective and clear-headed writing, and how badly I hope Hearts & Minds friends order it from us (sooner rather than later.)

This exuberant acclaim does not mean it’s a perfect book. As with most books we highlight here at BookNotes there are things that are off about it, stylistically and, I’d argue, in terms of some small bits of content. It’s not a big deal, though, as overall, the book is thrilling, challenging, insightful, urgent, and deeply, deeply faithful to the vision of gospel truths for the common good. The distinguished Princeton academic and activist Eddie Glaude has a remarkable forward. What a book!

I’ve always been a fan of Jim and my own early story, I sometimes say, is like his, just not nearly so dramatic. But I resonated in the early 1970s when I saw that very first, radical underground paper called the Post-American. I knew of a few radical prophets, Dorothy Day and MLK and the Berrigan brothers, but this gang of evangelical seminarians spoke my language. Soon enough we opened our bookstore and Jim was the first author event we hosted, a small, informal gathering when his fame was already growing. I remain deeply grateful for his willingness to befriend me a bit. My first published book review — on a Ron Sider book on nonviolence — appeared in Sojourners. I found myself in protests with him more than once and appreciated the magazine and the movement.

Wallis’s many books (from his first two, Agenda for a Biblical People and Call to Conversion to this brand new one) have emerged from this movement of increasingly ecumenical voices making a difference for the public good, inviting Biblical values of peace and justice, mercy and reconciliation, ecological stewardship and compassion for the distressed, into the conversations both in Washington DC and among the many (many) grass-roots activists forming networks of social change initiatives throughout the land. Sometimes the books have been edgy and prophetic, other times maybe less strident. Sometimes he seems deeply Biblical, and, in others, more generic about faith values. And, yes, sometimes some have accused him of being merely the flip side of the religious right, accommodating the complexities of faith to the mostly secular left. That’s a conversation worth having, I suppose — we have long argued for a non-partisan, third-way sort of approach that is neither right or left. (Joshua Butler’s brisk new little book calls Jesus The Party Crasher.)

Agree or not with Jim, he’s a voice to be heard and his books are always worth reading. Especially this one.

The last one (which came out in 2019) was a fabulous title that we highlighted here. Called Christ in Crisis? Reclaiming Jesus in a Time of Fear, Hate, and Violence it was about Jesus and how Jesus’s teachings were missed or misused in the political debate.  It developed themes from the 2018 “Reclaiming Jesus” declaration, and was necessarily a bit more Biblical / theological than some of his titles. Granted, for obvious reasons, he hits harder at the political and cultural right with their pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps / free market ideologies and endless loyalty to an harsh prison system and carelessness about (if not out and out resistance to) Biblical issues such as hospitality for the stranger, compassion for the hungry, and concern for the Earth. When the religious right blesses that sort of distorted and idolatrous political economy with their own brand of un-Christ-like flags and guns and patriotic piety, we should all see how damaging it is to authentic faith. Christ in Crisis? named all that. A refrain throughout the book was “Don’t go right, don’t go left; go deeper.” It invited us to return to the Jesus of the gospels and not allow him to be aligned with movements that were anything but Jesusy and the long preface in the second (paperback) edition written after the election of Donald Trump, during the start of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, is powerful, and, again, points us to “what a focus on Jesus can do for us, even in the direst times.”

Now, Wallis comes with an even harder-hitting, seriously passionate overview of much of his life’s mission, and he developed the heart of the book around six key Biblical texts. Again, he resists the secular left and the religious right, and invites us to a truly Christian perspective, rooted in Scripture.  No, it isn’t primarily an exegetical commentary, but he takes inspiration and much solid wisdom from these classic texts and shows their potential political implications. He invites others of various faiths (and of no faith) to grapple with the values inherent in these texts and he asks us to carry them into the public square with vigor.

Again, agree or not with all of his conclusions, it is hard to argue with the methodology, teasing out real-life social and political ramifications of key passages from the Bible.

Allow me to say this: there are other books that explore the details of the overstated sort of nationalism that has been discussed, everywhere, lately, and Jim’s book is not mostly a scholarly account of the rise of that sort of idolatry. He’s a preacher and an activist and  storyteller and he nicely mobilizes folks — including young adults (he speaks often of his class at Georgetown) including those with no apparent faith — to better citizenship and civic involvement and public life. He obviously knows many of the best scholars about white nationalism (and has had them on his podcast, “The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis”) but it isn’t that kind of an academic treatise.

For more rigorous historical depth to our analysis of where this trouble came from, see, just for instance, the updated Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Andrew Whitehead & Samuel Perry (Oxford University Press) or American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church by Andrew Whitehead (Brazos Press) or Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies by David Gushee (Eerdmans.)

It is not all that needs to be said, but the short Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right by Randall Balmer (Eerdmans) is vital, documenting how racial prejudice was one of the motivating forces with the rise of what was once called the religious right.

For more recent coverage, you simply must get the excellent The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by reporter Tim Alberta (Harper.) Jim Wallis’s new book is a great introduction to this urgent topic (but you will then want to go deeper with at least one of the above.) Or, if you’ve read some of this historical background with Biblical discernment and you now wonder what to do to bring our Republic back to sensible and just ways, and our churches away from this false gospel orientation, then you will want to read Wallis immediately.

Jim Wallis has a way of telling stories about pretty remarkable stuff from his experiences with pretty ordinary folk — a poor woman in his neighborhood who prayed so very well in their neighborhood food line, a couple of stories about the beloved youth baseball team that he coached for so many years, a dramatic arrest while taking a (nonviolent principled) stand in Congress, a lesson learned while chatting with pastor’s wife who put her foot down during unkind prayers after choir practice, a single mom he observed at Burger King, his meetings with Crips and Bloods gang members, his Zoom meetings helping train poll chaplains and lawyers willing to stand guard against voting rights repression, his young friend who lost his job at a Christian college due to his advocating for public justice and is happy to now be serving the homeless.

And, sometimes, he tells of somebody famous he met, and it is inspiring (without at all feeling like name-dropping or bragging.) He was friends with Dorothy Day. He knew Desmond Tutu, he has the privilege of telling stories from his pal Bryan Stephenson, he tells about the faith and courage of Raphael Warnock; his old friend Barbara Williams-Skinner once met the civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, and he tells of meeting Dr. Ray Guerrero, the sole pediatrician at Uvalde, Texas, who joined Wallis on the White House lawn in a coalition working against assault weapons.

Of course he’s on a first name basis with Bono. And, yes, with George W. Bush.

If you’ve never heard Jim’s story about Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright— who threatened him boldly when Sojourner’s was first breaking the story of the big money and creepy power behind what became the Moral Majority and the religious right — and the remarkable reconciliation that happened between the two of them before Bright died, you’ve got to read it.

Despite years and years of enacting public theology — some learned from the likes of radical protestors like Daniel Berrigan, but, it seems, more learned from civic educators like Catholic intellectual Jack Carr or evangelical Michael Gerson  or legislatures like John Lewis or social organizers from CCDA — two things, at least, are clear, again, in the story and work of Jim Wallis.

First, he was raised strictly evangelical, Biblically conservative, and when he went to seminary and helped with famous documents like 1973 “The Chicago Declaration” he helped exemplify what in those years were called “the new evangelicals” or the “young evangelicals.” He influenced (and was influenced by) Fuller Seminary’s William Pannell, the colorful preaching of Tony Campolo, the studious Bible teaching of Ron Sider, and the community development models of John Perkins. It is unclear if he really identified fully with evangelicalism — he’s delightfully ecumenical and was equally influenced by Episcopalian lawyer William Stringfellow and mainline preacher William Sloan Coffin, say — but when he starts talking about altar calls and prayer meetings and picking up your cross to follow Jesus, and highlighting Charles Finney and revivalism, you know he has deep roots in that particular tradition of American religion.

But more, as a teen and young adult he left his faith and certainly the evangelical church for a season, the one his parents helped lead, and moved in with a black family, getting a job with blue collar workers. On the inner city streets of late ‘60s Detroit he developed a relationship with — a life-long relationship with — the historic black church. He has said it before, but he is as tender and earnest here as he ever has been about the black church being his spiritual home. From black preachers and scholars like The Reverend Otis Moss III to Episcopal priest, Kelly Brown Douglas to Bishop Vashti McKenzie (and Edie Glaude who wrote the forward) Wallis knows this community and is committed to learning from and with them. He knows about the slave Bibles, the role of the spirituals, about hush arbors; his telling of all that, citing the likes of Frederick Douglas, subtly and humbly, is, again, worth the price of the book.

There are a few telling moments that those of us who have followed his work for decades might recall: oooh, how I shivered when he told the story (familiar to our family) of his getting a call from the evangelical Nicaraguan doctor, Dr. Gustavo Paragon, who said God told him to call a group at a retreat center in Pennsylvania, to tell them to start a resistance movement against the Reagan administration’s possible plans to invade that country. Those Pledge of Resistance cards and promises to do civil disobedience at congressional offices all over the country should we invade — according to Congressional aids that were in the rooms — helped dissuade the administration from a full-on invasion. (We were less successful in stopping the contras’ bloody attacks, funded illegally by Falwell and Ollie North and other corrupt Christian nationalists, although the nonviolent service of the Witness for Peace movement was part of the legacy of those years, too.)

Which is what makes The False White Gospel so very valuable; Wallis isn’t just jumping on a bandwagon, responding to a fad by yelping about nationalism, now, as if it is a new thing. He has been at this personally for more than 50 years! The book does do what needs to be done informing us about the history of the co-mingling of fundamentalist faith and extremist, far-right politics, especially in recent years. It warns about Trump and his MAGA movement in no uncertain terms and it is unsettling. Has the ugliness of far-right misinformation ever been so weirdly entwined with Christian lingo? Is it overstated to worry about fascism and authoritarian totalitarianism?

The False White Gospel shows powerfully the influences of race and racism in that tragic history of nationalism, white, so-called Christian nationalism. And he gets in the weeds of cultural habits and political policies. His pages on racist gerrymandering and voter repression and such should concern, and motivate, citizens of any political stripe, it would seem to me. Those who think the Republican Party is racially benign simply have to read this! He explains the data from books like The New Jim Crow or The Sum of Us or Just Mercy and frames it as the sort of brokenness that only the gospel can overcome. For the good of our land, for the good of ourselves and our neighbors, we have to resist the false (white) gospel of bondage and embrace the gospel of Jesus. That much, at least, is that simple.

But the book isn’t just a critique of racism (heck, he did that in old Sojo studies decades ago, speaking out consistently while on the road with John Perkins or Lisa Sharon Harper or Vincent Harding or Catherine Meeks or Cornel West, and decisively in America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, published by Brazos Press in 2016.) Rather, this new book is hoping to invite a conversation about “a remnant church” which can help offer principles and spirit to rebuild our frayed Republic, and shore up our best democratic impulses in a multi-racial and multi-faith context. Yep, he even nicely cites Abraham Lincoln. And, perhaps drawing on the gentle, wise, Parker Palmer, he invites us to find common ground and engage in honest dialogues — informally in the work world, neighborhood, or church, or in more structured ways. There’s even a guide in the back for civic minded circles that could foster hard conversations about the things that matter most for the sake of the Republic.

The heart of the book looks at six key Biblical texts, texts that serve sort of as touchstones for this manifesto for our movement. At one point I think he calls them iconic.

He looks at and fleshes out the public implications of these classic passages:

• Luke 10: 25-37
• Genesis 1:26
• John 8:32
• Matthew 25: 31-46
• Matthew 5:9
• Galatians 3:28

Perhaps because he spent some time as a pastor and partially because he knows how strategic pastors are in mobilizing Spirit-empower folks who are sent into the public square, he has a page of idea for pastors who might want to use the book, offering some advice about preaching and teaching and nurturing what he calls civic discipleship.

Civic discipleship. Not bad, eh? Truly and wisely shaped by Scripture, that is the alternative to the false white gospel.

Once we understand the way the MAGA movement with its lies and aggression and all manner of complicity have co-opted the gospel itself, what do we do?

Insightful books analyzing White Christian Nationalism have been appearing. But Jim Wallis asks the next crucial question — what does this mean for the church? His prophetic answer should galvanize our attention: a calls for a ‘Remnant Church,’ shaped by repentance, return, and restoration. Beyond analysis, this book provides clear answers which offer the hope of real transformation. — Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary Emeritus, Reformed Church in America; author of Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage and Future Faith: Ten Challenges Reshaping Christianity in the 21st Century 

Jim Wallis is a national treasure. In this powerful new book, he focuses our attention on the pernicious problem of American racism, but more importantly he inspires us to never give up hope on the great promise of American pluralism. — Eboo Patel, President of Interfaith America; author of We Need To Build

For more than fifty years, Jim Wallis has been calling on his fellow white evangelicals to live up to the teachings at the heart of their shared faith: loving their neighbors, doing justice, and pursuing peace. With American democracy hanging in the balance, Wallis’s message has never been more urgent. Without shying away from hard truths, The False White Gospel draws on Christianity itself to point the way forward to a multiracial democracy in which people of all faiths can flourish. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

FIVE MORE BOOKS TO HELP YOU CARRY ON  — WHAT TO DO NEXT

Saving Faith: How American Christianity Can Reclaim It’s Prophetic Voice Randall Balmer (Fortress) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I mentioned above, in passing, the short little book Bad Faith by historian Randall Balmer which is well worth reading. This newer one, Saving Faith — what a great play on words! — is his reminder that “any attempt to arrest the decline of Christianity in American must first reckon with its past, especially America’s ‘original sin’ of racism.” I think he is right.  E.J. Dionne has called him “one of our most discerning scholars about religion, one of the most passionate voices within his tradition, and one great storyteller.”

This is well researched and clear-eyed, although he grew up clearly in the evangelical subculture and he continues on in his dedicated Christian faith, so there is warmth and care, even though it can feel a bit stinging at times. Short and solid.

When God Became White: Dismantling Whiteness for A More Just Christianity Grace Ji-Sun Kim (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This just arrived, a bit early, and I haven’t studied it yet. I admire Grace Ji-Sun Kim a lot — her podcast (Mandang) is very impressive and widely respected. She has written a lot (and is, by the way, ordained as a PC(USA) pastor) most well-known, perhaps, Healing Our Broken Humanity. Although her PhD is from the University of Toronto and she teaches at Earlham (in Indiana) she resides in Pennsylvania. Hooray.

Look: when Christianity became Western, God seemed to become white. This ought not be a controversial claim but other such books exploring this oddity were viewed with suspicion by some (mostly white folks.) Why? It almost proves the point that we desperately need a book like this.

Christianity is rooted in the ancient Near East. We’re getting that, finally, in children’s Bibles showing Biblical characters and Jesus in ways that are historically accurate, and not as Europeans. But, still, we need a corrective to this view, and that which too often comes along with it — the myth of a white male God and a colonialist worldview. These views and postures, she will claim, have been harmful around the globe and we simply have to dismantle much of that.

We need to, as it says on the back, “recover a biblical reality of a nonwhite, non-gendered God.”  As one reviewer put it, this is a “liberating expose,” Kudos to IVP for helping us disentangle authentic faith from this white male power stuff, that only reinforces and authorizes white Christian nationalism. This looks really good.

Claiming the Courageous Middle: Daring to Live and Work Together for a More Hopeful Further Shirley A. Mullen (Baker Academic) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Wow, I’ve long admired Dr. Mullen — former president of Houghton College in New York state — and her long-respected work in faith-based higher education;  I know she nurtured students (and faculty) as President to be more deeply sensitive to multi-ethnic concerns, to an evangelical spirit of inclusion and care, and for a wise and courage sort of balance that often doesn’t get as much press as do the more dramatic calls from the extremes. Can one be prophetic from the center? What sort of habits of mind and heart and what sorts of virtues of courage are needed to come down on a prolonged, consistently thought out view that might be called an alternative to polarization?

Claiming the Courageous Middle came just a day ago — hooray! — so I don’t even know what all she may mean by this call to the courageous middle. I am sure it is not side-stepping deep Biblical mandates about justice or racial equity. It certainly is not a nice way of saying we need not engage in public matters and dare not be prophetic. I’m supposing that it will be a powerful call to be, indeed, Biblically prophetic by denouncing extreme ideologies of all sorts and of working for common ground, including the often excluded.

Dr. Mullen is a cultural historian (perhaps somewhat in the mold of Robert Putnam; I know she cites American Grace) and has been an evangelical mentor to many, so I am sure there is both serious social analysis and good, heart-warming stories. I like how committed this book seems to be for the principle of unity — what some call building the “beloved community” — or at least working towards something akin to it. Believe me, I appreciate how painful it can be to be misunderstood by “both” sides and to nonetheless try to be cruciform, somehow, arms outstretched to all. It’s hard.

I suspect this just might be a good book to read after the Wallis volume. It is what one scholar calls “a book of hope in the midst of despair.” Kudos to Baker Academic publishing for this.

I like how Walter Kim (of the National Association of Evangelicals) put it:

Mullen calls us to live and lead from the courageous middle — not a place of muddled thought and squishy compromise but of curiosity, humility, love for Jesus and others, and a confidence that God is not daunted by our moment.

John Inazu (whose fantastically delightful and exceptionally profound book, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect, I mentioned last week, and describe again, below, endorses it as “important” by saying this:

Mullen brings a lifetime of wisdom and experience to this meditation on the courageous middle. An important book full of resources, ideas, and practical steps for Christians seeking to faithfully navigate the deep differences in our society. — John Inazu, Sally Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University, St. Louis

Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect John Inazu (Zondervan) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

I celebrated this great, fun, wise, new book in last week’s BookNotes, noting that this notion of “learning to disagree” and moving towards a confident sort of pluralism was a mark of resurrection life in our broken, polarized culture. I firmly believe that, and this book is so profoundly wise (even if deceptively simple) I wanted to give another brief recommendation here, now. I loved this book!

I do not know if John Inazu — a distinguished scholar of law and religion at a mainstream, secular law school — would agree fully with Jim Wallis’s work, above. As an American of Japanese descent (and a decent, thoughtful human, and a justice-seeking Christian) he knows a bit about racial injustice. There is an very understated but moving story in a chapter on forgiveness in Learning to Disagree of his trip to the internment camp his grandparents and other relatives were forced into in the 1940. (His grandfather respectfully pursued meetings about the affront to his U.S. citizenship that this forced relocation and captivity caused, and they were punished for that as well.) After some local medical folks helped care for a two-year old son (John’s uncle, I think) his grandmother put an add in the local paper thanking the medical team for their kindness and care; it seems she was a good woman, but she learned to forgive (helped along when President Reagan offered a full apology on behalf of the government.)  It’s a moving chapter, but, like I say, it is casually told and nearly understated.

John is a law school professor and this book is written as a memoir, a report of a year of his life, the classes he taught, the students he guided, the campus politics (some quite tense with protesting students — you can imagine.) There are coffee shop conversations and golf games and flights to speaking engagements and comments about his home life. Mostly, he walks us through a few key classes and the main things he invites students to grapple with, always with a tone of wanting them to understanding the complexity of the law and the ways in which lawyers debate about the best interpretation and application of precedent and legal rulings. This is a beautiful example of hearing of a Christian professor telling how he lives out his calling and we get to learn much — about the content of law and the stuff taught in some law school classes, yes, but more about his formational role in deepening the empathy of his students and the graciousness with which they do or do not move into the world of complexity and polarization.

And it is just a delight to read; charming, even.

As Tish Harrison Warren writes in her excellent foreword, John “wades into the complexity of divergent ideologies he encounters eery day in his classroom and work and graciously invites us to have a front-row seat.” In this way, it is a “field guide” to understanding the limits of our own knowledge and move towards a healthier culture.

I love his self-effacing stories, his humor, his honesty. He is clearly a Christian, even in his theoretical framework for his approach to law and religion and culture and the meaning of justice, but there is little direct Bible stuff here. I’m glad for this kind of a “Christian book” that could easily be shared with any reader who cares about building a better world. His gentle reminders about learning to care and make room for others and disagree well, framed as they are by his stories of being a legal scholar and prof, and a dad and a church member and a friend and colleague, really makes this book shine.

Tish Warren jokingly notes how her pal John sometimes pops her bubbles of self-righteous zeal and indignation when she calls him to rail about this or that. He is a wise voice of moderation and grace, with a deep knowledge of legal opinions and precedents, and she respects that so much. She knows how tense it can be out there. And she knows that to be agents of God’s reconciliation means we have to learn better how to navigate our differences, not just rant about them.

She writes:

We can’t merely think our way to a better, healthier society — a society in which we know how to disagree well. Embracing convictions with both confidence and humility is a skill and a habit, a way of being that is practiced and grows over time. Learning to be a good neighbor, friend and coworker across deep differences is more often like learning to walk than learning a creed. It is an embodied art of relating to others and the world around us…. It is a practice, a craft, a dance, a vibe, a mode of living. We therefore must learn to practice civic virtues in our own contexts and our daily lives.

And then she extols John’s storytelling and the “granularity” of the relationships and conversations he writes about, explaining how they can help us. Inazu shows how healthy disagreement is not only possible, she says, but is, in fact, “the very path of wisdom, virtue, and love.”

She notes, in Learning to Disagree,

…John doesn’t just tell us that a convicted and kind pluralism is vital to the health of society; he brings us into the ordinary and mundane rhythms of his life as a legal scholar, a public thinker, a professor, a dad, a friends, a coworker, a church member, and a neighbor.

Join the Resistance: Step into the Good Work of Kingdom Justice Michelle Ferrigno Warren (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

Wow — this is a stunner of a book, well-written, exciting, visionary, hopeful about (and maybe helping widen) an awakening, an awakening that she says has been happening all over. As Wallis poured his life out for decades, and as the grass-roots activists and coalition builders and networkers he highlights illustrate, faith-based justice work has been a major part of the religious landscape for decades (and, historically, longer than than.) The vibrant sort of new leaders of the 21st century look like Michelle Ferrigno Warren — the CEO of Virago Strategies, a consulting group that provides strategic direction and project management for civic engagement campaigns. Who knew there was such a thing?? She has been in the middle of all kinds of stuff — she helped found Open Door Ministers in downtown Denver, which addressed poverty, addictions, and homelessness.

You may know her from the fabulous, passionate, and compelling book called The Power of Proximity. (It is a phrase Wallis uses, I think — no doubt because he knows her work!)

And the forward to this thrilling guidebook is by the great Latasha Morrison, who wrote the 2019 best-seller, Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation. (By the way, in mid-May 2024 her long-awaited second book is coming in hardback, Brown Faces, White Spaces: Confronting Systemic Racism to Bring Healing and Restoration  – Waterbrook; $27.00. OUR SALE PRICE WILL BE $21.60. You can pre-order it now at our BookNotes 20% off and we’ll put you on the waiting list, sending it in May.) She is a powerful force herself and it is fabulous to see her lovely introductory pages, complimenting her sister Michelle Warren.

So many people we admire give a hats off to Michelle — Lisa Sharon Harper says it is “full of relevant stories and practical tips — well-earned by hears of faith-rooted resistance and action.” Karen Gonzalez (Beyond Welcome) says “When Michelle speaks, I listen, because she embodies Christ’s command to love and serve those on the margins.” Robert Chao Romeo (author of Brown Church) says it is “an important guide”

I enjoy the blurb from Kristine Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network who says it,

Offers heartening lived experiences and inspiring faith lessons that will surely encourage both seasons advocates and newcomers to the work of social justice.

Kikki Toyama-Szeto, the executive director of Christians for Social Action, puts it nicely:

Join the Resistance is an opportunity to take a master class with a seasoned savvy leader.

This master class is something all of us can use (especially after being informed and inspired by the types of books mentioned above.) She talks about “stepping into the good work” and the first three chapters about “serving the movement” and she inspires bravery and more. Wow. The middle part is about that long arc and is an invitation to “stay at the table.” She has a great chapter on resilience and insight about “leveraging what you have.” It all rings very true to me but also seemed fresh and vital. You will be glad you read it. The third section (“Help Your People”) is about being rooted in peace, in love, and in joy.  Not bad, huh?

The afterword is by Dominique DuBois Gilliard, a leading black author and head of justice ministries in the Evangelical Congregational denomination. He ends the book well with some Biblical reflections and a reminder of marching orders we get from Scripture to  be “ambassadors of reconciliation and repairers of the breach.” Amen!

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Many Easter mornings I post on Facebook my favorite version of the hymn “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” as done by Mark Heard. It is a frail and folky version on acoustic guitar by the extraordinary singer-songwriter (who died too early years ago.) It sings of victory, but if not tentatively, at least humbly. It is earnest, sung by a guy who had seen plenty, who seemed tired.  It reminds me that we live in hope, but as the Bible teaches, that means we are still waiting. We talk about the “already but not yet” at Christmas and I think it is appropriate to temper our Easter jubilation with a bit of restraint.

I am still reeling from the discovery — how did I miss this? — that in the Luke account, the disciples who fell asleep while Jesus prayed and sweated blood in the garden the night of his arrest were exhausted with grief.

I find it increasingly hard to shift abruptly from the hard commemoration of the horrific death of my Friend and King, Jesus, to the glories of His resurrection (which I believe in with my whole heart.) Yes, he destroyed Death but I — like most of you, I assume — have lost too many loved ones this past year or so, have had painful ruptures in relationships, daily mourn the wars in too many places. We have seen some walk away from vibrant faith because of the gross witness of too many far-out fundamentalists. I need Mark Heard’s slow, simple version of this triumphant song, its confidence in an almost minor key.

Yes, Christ is Risen Indeed. But we must then, in the goodness of God’s grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit, in communion with our siblings in Christ, respond to this very good news about a very good gospel.

I sometimes call this way of living resurrectionary. How does new life and new creation show up in our lives? How can we point to “the day the revolution begun” (as N.T. Wright’s book on what Paul was up to in describing the death of Christ calls it)? What books might help us get a vision for being resurrectionaries? To call up another Heard song, how can we see “dry bones dance”?

Here are just a few random ones, some quite new, a few oldies.

Order any from us at 20% off. Just scroll down to the end of the column to see the links to our Hearts & Minds secure order form page.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Exploring Its Theological Significance and Ongoing Relevance W. Ross Hasting (Baker Academic) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Hastings, with two PhDs, is the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver. He’s written widely on the nature of the atonement and how it catapults us into the arms of a missional God, commission, as we are, to serve wisely in the world. Pastor Philip Reinders notes that this book is not just for preachers doing Easter sermons, but “for everyday resurrection living.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, he notes, “traces out the creation-affirming, salvation-expanding, hope-declaring theological trajectories and practical implications of Christ’s resurrection for full human living.”

That’s it! This lively book shows, as Oliver Crisp says, the role of the resurrection in “a fully worked out theological account of the Christian life.”

I hope this isn’t too academic for most of our readers — it has six chapters on the saving efficacy of Christ (which, as noted above, explores the vocational and missional trajectory of that) and it has several chapters on what he calls the “ontological significance” of Christ’s victory. This is rich, good stuff, well worth reading slowly and pondering for a lifetime.

In The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Ross Hastings demonstrates how central the resurrection is to the gospel, to Christ’s identity, and to our identity in Christ. Evangelical readers in particular will have their minds stretched and their spirituality enlarged by the dynamic resurrectional reality to which this book bears witness.       — Michael J. Gorman, author, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

The Resurrection Life: The Power of Jesus for Today Myron Augsburger (Evangel Publishing House) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

There are several good books— some rather breezy, others quite academic — about making the claim that Christ rose, bodily, from the grave. Some call that sort of writing apologetics as it makes a case for the resurrection, trying to persuade skeptics that it is sensible and true. We have them, and value them. As the apostle Paul said, if it didn’t happen, we who follow Jesus are to be pitied, presumably for staking our lives on something untrue.

Yet, it seems increasingly clear that in our postmodern and post-Christian culture we need more than good arguments for the truthfulness of the gospel accounts. It perhaps once was that if one could convince a skeptic, one could pretty much assume such a person would become a Christian — what else does a truth-seeker do, once persuaded? Nowadays, for a bunch of reasons, one can make a compelling case for the resurrection and folks might even agree, but still say, in so many words, “so what?”

I think Tim Keller’s previously mentioned (a week ago) book Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter (Penguin Books; $17.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60) is a masterpiece of making a solid claim for why the historicity of the resurrection is reliable, but, then, pushes towards the meaning and helpfulness of it all. He was an imaginative and compelling apologist for the 21st century, and I commend his book to you, yet again. That he wrote it while under a dire cancer treatment regimen shows much about how faith can provide “hope in times of fear.”

But, again, it seems that we simply must move forward towards vibrant and gracious lives that show the goodness and beauty of a resurrectionary life.

And I turn, again, to the wonderful Mennonite pastor and scholar, Myron Augsburger. This is an older book that never got the publicity it so rich deserved. It is a great little book, a good read and a challenge to life well in the power of Easter. We only have a few left, but I had to mention it.

Here is how one reviewer described it: “The truth of a living Christ sets Christianity apart from all other religions. How does Jesus’ resurrection impact our lives in the twenty-first century? Myron Augsburger contends that because Jesus is alive, the power of God is current to transform our lives and empower us for authentic Christian living. He stresses that the Christian life is one of relationship with Jesus and with the community of believers.”

That may sound fairly conventional, ho-hum, maybe, even, but trust me: The Resurrection Life is a fabulous companion as you ponder why it matters that we say “He Is Risen Indeed!”

Doing Evangelism Jesus’ Way: How Christian Demonstrate the Good News Ronald J. Sider (Evangel Press) $13.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.16

My dear friend and somewhat of a mentor, Ron Sider, was friends with Myron Augsburger (above) — their Anabaptist (Brethren & Mennonite) tradition gave them both an impeccable sense of the importance of solid doctrine and robust faith and lived obedience. Ron worked that out both in his representing evangelicals at ecumenical gatherings (and voicing more Biblically progressive views among conservative evangelicals) and always, always, lecturing about combining words and deeds, good ideas and lived action, faith and works.

He was gladly obsessed about that, so much so that some evangelicals thought he was a socialist for talking about the poor (almost) as much as the Bible does and many who cared about social reform though he was a bit of a pietist, which, actually, he was. I adored his big Kingdom vision and how he embraced some worldview language he picked up from neo-Calvinists he knew. In any case, he was a humble follower of Jesus, inviting us to live well into Christ’s Kingdom, through word and deed, prayer and politics.

Doing Evangelism Jesus’s Way is one of several good books that collected his sermons and lectures. I like it because it is succinct, solid, clear, and has a great chapter “If Christ Is Not Risen” that was first preached as part of a Lenten series at a Mennonite Church in Moundridge, Kansas. It’s perfect for this season —listen in as Ron reminds us all of the importance of an Easter faith, but also one the is connected to the Cross. His chapter on “The Essence of the Christian Faith — The Rising Link” is nearly a solid manifesto and worth the price of the book.

The Symphony of Mission: Playing Your Part in God’s Work in the World Michael Goheen & Jim Mullins (Baker Academic) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

I have shared about this often and I can hardly think of a better book to follow up the celebration of Easter than with this delightful (if substantive) invitation to “play your part” in God’s symphony of mission. Not to be misunderstood, this is not a call to drop everything and head off for the foreign mission field (although, that, too, may be a legitimate call to some.) Rather, this is about understanding the resurrectionary power that is redeeming the world — the “all things” of Colossians 1:15 – 20 — and exalting Christ through projects of the common good, each finding their part in the multi-dimensional movement of shalom.

Like an orchestra playing a complex but beautiful symphony, we all have our own part to play. Nobody has to do it all, nobody gets to be the only hero or big star. Together, we’ve got this.

I love these two authors — Mike Goheen is a writer and professor (who contributed a chapter to the expanded edition of Creation Regained by Al Wolters) and Jim is a pastor in Tempe, Arizona, with an emphasis on helping parishioners discern and live out their vocations in the world.

And hence, this book, full of lively resurrection hope, invites us to do all manner of stuff, enjoying a robust faithfulness as we participate in the missio Dei.

Here’s the table of contents —nine meaty chapters:

1. Story: Listening to the Symphony
2. Simplicity: Learning the Notes
3. Intentionality: The Movements of Mission
4. Stewardship: Displaying the Glory of the Father through the Work of Our Hands
5. Service: Displaying the Love of Christ by Washing the Feet of the World
6. The Spoken Word: Displaying the Power of the Holy Spirit by Opening Our Mouths
7. Listening: Finding Your Place in God’s Symphony
8. Performing: Participating in God’s Symphony
9. Sustaining: Persevering in God’s Symphony

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right Lisa Sharon Harper (Waterbrook) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

I often come back to this book to recommend to book clubs or small groups wanting to unpack the various implications of a full-orbed gospel message. As we’ve often said, Lisa is a courageous and faithful leader, a black woman who told much about her own history in the exquisite memoir about family genealogy called Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World–And How to Repair It All.

In The Very Good Gospel she does two audacious things: the first half follows the story of a good creation made with shalom that gets drug down into brokenness and sin due to our alienation from God and how the really, truly, extraordinary news is that God is bringing reconciliation to restore the many ruptures now in the formerly good creation. (That is, her rhetoric for a quick overview of the grand unfolding plot line of the Bible moves from shalom to alienation to reconciliation.) God is making all things new, not merely offering forgiveness from guilt and God is invested in making this world right, not merely taking us to some otherworldly place sometimes called heaven. That’s the first part.

The second part of this marvelous book is fleshing out what Christ-centered, gospel reconciliation looks like in various spheres — between nations, between the rich and poor, between races and genders and between us and other creatures. We have soul-deep alienation within our very selves and she writes about inner healing, all of this based on the goodness of a God who offers grace to restore us to a relationship with our Maker and Redeemer. This is a very good gospel and it is explained well in the first half of the book and worked out in a variety of arenas in the second half. What more could your group want?

In a serious foreword, the brilliant Walter Brueggemann finally commends her work by saying:

Harper bears witness to the thicker, true, understanding of a saving transformative, reconciling faith that is indeed “very good.”

Hope Ain’t a Hustle: Persevering by Faith in a Wearying World Irwyn L. Ince, Jr. (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I loved this book and could tell you about it at great length — I started it one Sunday last month and couldn’t stop reading — but the short version is that this is done by a spiritually upbeat, theologically well-informed, seriously missional, urban pastor, and it is on the book of Hebrews. Using Hebrews as his jumping off point (perhaps this was a sermon series at his church in Philly), Ince invites us to live in hope and to do so by exalting Christ Jesus. Hebrews makes wonderful connections, obviously, with the Older Testamented story of priests and kings and law and glory, how it all anticipates the coming of the fulfillment of God’s promises, in Jesus. It is not a commentary on Hebrews, as such, but it draws heavily on the book, inviting us to hold on to hope.

I started this column with a note about my appreciation of Mark Heard’s faithful, frail, rendering of an Easter hymn. If that resonated with you — the need for some reserve in our triumphant cheering about Christ’s victory since we live in a very hurting world and in a very damaged culture, certainly needing to embrace the “already but not yet” of Kingdom longing —  then you will appreciate this book a lot. It is a clear and accessible call to place our confidence in the finished work of our great high priest, and to thereby show confidence and hope.

Yet, we have grief and sorrow, anger and disappointment. We can face those things, though, not as people who “have no hope” but as those who live well in the face of injustice and scandal and sorrow. It is, as Tish Harrison Warren writes of it, “a wise book to help us to have eyes to see the beauty of Jesus anew.”

This seems like a perfect study for this post-Easter season. There are 10 chapters; less than 200 pages.

Irwyn Ince is a pastor’s pastor, offers us in this book an opportunity to experience honest, kind, and directive shepherding toward the reasonable and secure hope we have in Christ. — Christina Edmondson, co-author, Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation and author of Faithful Antiracism: Moving Past Talk to Systemic Change

An Invitation to Joy: The Divine Journey to Human Flourishing Daniel J. Denk (Eerdmans) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

You may recall a longer review I did of this when it first came out, or my second shout out when we named it one of the Best Books of 2023. It has not faded from my memory and I thought I should pick it up again, now, admitting to being a bit uncomfortable with abundance of Facebook injunctions to Easter joy. Obviously, knowing Death is defeated is a lot to be happy about, and a deep joy can pervade those who suffer. But still, really, how do we do that? What if don’t exude exuberant celebration?

Author Daniel Denk, a PCA pastor, knows all of this. From feeling the weight of the sorrows of the world to knowing his own foibles and pains, he nonetheless hears the Biblical call to joy.

As Christopher J. H.  Wright (Bible scholar, author, and global activist with Langham Partnership) says, it is “refreshing, rebuking, reviving, rewarding, and richly biblical and practical.”

“This book is refreshing, rebuking, reviving, rewarding, and richly biblical and practical.”

A book that promises all that makes me glad! And after Easter is a perfect time for it.  Denk, as Joel Carpenter notes, “knows life in its depths” and “he knows God.”  This is a great book to read after Easter, especially if you’ve lost some of your joy and no simple meme or quick reminder will help. This powerful book can.

Centering Jesus: How the Lamb of God Transforms Our Communities, Ethics, and Spiritual Lives Derek Vreeland (NavPress) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I was happy to promote this when it first came out a few months ago and am glad to do so again. It is a great, thoughtful, read, substantive and well-informed (oooooh, I love the footnotes) but chatty and conversational with stories and good illustrations. In terms of style, it is one of those sorts of books we like to promote because it is thoughtful without being dryly academic and it has both a clear Christ-centeredness (duh, the title, obviously) and yet has a significant boots-on-the-ground sort of practical trajectory. It covers a lot and is good for those who have been following Christ a long time and it is also good for those new to this sort of religious reading. It’s a great book.

The point, of course, is that Jesus is what — or should I say who — it is all about, and His indignity as the Lamb of God is not only pivotal, but transformative. As the subtitle implies, Christ can change all aspects of our lives, personal and social.

Vreeland is a discipleship pastor at the Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri, where the head pastor is Brian Zahnd, author, most recently, of the extraordinary Wood Between the Worlds. He wrote a previous book on a Mennonite publishing house called By the Way which was suggestive that we are to join Christ in a “way” of life. (We have long carried his fun little introduction to N.T. Wright’s vision called N.T. Wright and the Revolutionary Cross which is actually “A Reader’s Guide to The Day the Revolution Began.” Hooray for such a thoughtful pastor.

Centering Jesus offers a way beyond the terrible polarization in our world and, as it says boldly on the back cover, “When we lose our focus on Jesus, the church’s credibility suffers.” In this time after Easter it is easy to move into an ordinary time of less drama and less focus. In other words, as he reveals, we end up with a spirituality that is driven by our sense of self.

He looks here at spiritual formation, our moral lives, and our common life together in our congregations. Wow. It leads to maturity, civility, kindness, and more. This is resurrectionary faith, for sure. Highly recommended.

The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, The Flesh, and The War for Our Wants A.J. Swoboda (Zondervan Reflective) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Oh my, what a strong book this is. Don’t let the light pink cover fool you into thinking this is some rosy, light-weight book of cheer. I don’t mean to say it is a “downer” or overly complex, but it isn’t simplistic and it offers no cheap answers.

It is about how we are living in a moment in history when our desires, longings, and wants are being weaponized against us by cultural, spiritual, and relational forces. For many, we feel “torn asunder by the raging desires within.” (After spending some weeks reading books like I reviewed a week ago about the addiction crisis, such as The Least of Us and Raising Lazarus, I know this is so.)

Swoboda is a brilliant writer, a creative thinker, and has a good ability to popularize immensely complex matters. He is not the first to write about disordered desires — start with You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith if this is somewhat new to you — but he is wisely asking what we do with “unwanted desires” the the forces which seem to capture us with dumb wishes and finally don’t bring real human flourishing, anyway. He asks, “How do we cultivate desires which bring life and freedom and lead to Christ.” The Gift of Thorns addresses this sort of stuff.

I share this description from the back cover as it puts it so well; please read this:

The path forward is anything but easy. It is assumed by too many in the Christian community that desire is in and of itself bad or dangerous and must be crucified for simply existing. Desire is demonic for some. But, for many others–particularly in the secular West–desire must be followed through and through. This side deifies desire. But these two options sidestep the joy in the great challenge of finding God in our desire. There exists an ancient and sacred way that is forged around the life, wisdom, and power of Jesus and his Spirit. In short, what makes a follower of Christ is not whether or not we have desires. Rather, it is what we do with the desires we have.

Thorns — from the symbol of a broken creation in Genesis 3 to the odd sort of torture that ended up cornering Christ Himself — appear throughout the Bible. (Who knew?) This thematic repetition is part of the story, unpacked here.

The Gift of Thorns is new and I’ve yet to read it through. I can say without a doubt, though, that it could be a great tool for you or your group or church to move to a serious sort of discipleship, in the power of the Spirit, living out resurrection, even in this odd cultural moment of inordinate desire, consumerism, and secularization.

Professor Swaboda hosts the Slow Theology podcast with Dr. Nijay Gupta.

Practicing the Way: Be With Jesus / Become Like Him / Do as He Did John Mark Comer (Waterbrook) $26.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

The books of John Mark Comer are always among the best sellers we offer at the big collegiate event at Jubilee and this past February we sold out of this one. It was new, then — we had sent out our pre-orders a few weeks before — and there was a growing buzz. We were so happy that something so substantive was capturing the attention of these young adults.

Comer, as you may know, wrote Garden City (about work and rest and being fully human) and a best-seller called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, among others. He is honest about his life and is a good communicator.  This book — which channels a bit of Dallas Willard, I guess I’d say about being transformed into Christ-likeness from the inside out — is upbeat but serious. There will be soon a video curriculum, even as there is now an online podcast about the invitation to Godly practices as explained in the book. This is a big deal and you shouldn’t miss it.

In Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer brilliantly shows us what it means to follow Jesus, and here is the best part: as you read, you will want nothing more than to be on Jesus’ heels. We are a disciple-less generation, and yet, walking this closely with Jesus is our way back to the purpose of life. This is one of the most important books I have read in a decade, and if we would all follow in this way, our lives would change and the world would change. — Jennie Allen, author of Get Out of Your Head and Find Your People

This is part of what we mean when we talk about being Easter people, people of hope, people who live in the power of the resurrection — that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us and is touching the world, through us. It starts with small steps. How badly do you want this?

Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect John Inazu (Zondervan) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Okay, first this: John Inazu is a remarkable individual, a fine Christian man who is a professor of Law & Religion at Washington University. He’s smart and witty and very impressive, without being overly dramatic. A decade ago he wrote a scholarly work on the historic claim of freedom of religious assembly (Liberty’s Refuge on Yale University Press.) Later, he did a fairly academic, really great volume on pluralism (on the prestigious University of Chicago Press) that got him to Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan where he became good friends and partners-in-crime with the late Timothy Keller. They compiled a book together (and their two respective chapters were excellent) of people making a difference in the complex, secularizing world, letting their Christian lights shine in a way that is effective. (That was called Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference and included writers and artists and activists such as Lecrae, Kristen Deede Johnson, Sara Groves, Tish Harrison Warren, Rudy Carrasco, and more.) This brand new one is as popular and easy to read as the last one, but informed by his scholarly speciality about pluralism, equity, freedom for all.

And here’s the thing — it’s a real blast to read, arranged from the point of view of his role as a law professor, sharing stuff he teaches, reactions he gets from students, strategies he employs to get them thinking well, tools of the trade to nurture empathy. A good lawyer, he says, simply can’t just win arguments by touting facts and points. To be a good communicator one must listen, care, understand others. Holy smokes, who knew a memoir-esque account of a law prof could be so deeply gracious and kind and wise. And funny.

Learning to Disagree is quite practical and stands alongside many others these days on polarization and gracious communication, even if he surprises us by coming at it as he does. Of the others on this topic, this one is extraordinary. It is really well written — Shadi Hamid, a columnist for the Washington Post calls it “wonderful, quirky, beautifully written, and often quite funny” — and is not about winning, or even always trying to be persuasive and convincing (although that it part of it) but more foundational about “living with our deepest differences.” I suppose in a way, this is his on-the-ground, practical book for ordinary readers of his early Confident Pluralism.

Obviously we must not demonize people who think differently. Nor can we back down from taking stands, even in contrast to those who disagree with our moral convictions or policy positions. But, clearly, Inazu offers a better way, not demonizing and not compromising; he offers what decades ago Richard Mouw called “convicted civility.” It is easy to have convictions, Mouw often quipped, and easy to be polite. But to do both at the same time, to have strong convictions and be committed to civility? That’s the ticket.

And Inazu is thus far the best person showing us how it is done.

As Hamid continued in her rave review, “Unlike most books, this one might actually change how you argue, fight, love, and even hope.”

I’m not sure how much John talks about the resurrection, but if we want to show forth Christ’s Easter victory in Christ’s own way, we simply have to be captured by this bridge-building, creative way of “learning to disagree” and how to bear witness to God’s love in all things. As Habid noted, it might even help us learn to hope. Hooray. This is surely one of the great books of 2024.

Hopecasting: Finding, Keeping, and Sharing the Things Unseen Mark Oestreicher (IVP) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80  while supplies last

I loved this book when it first came out years ago and it never got much traction. It is out of print but we have a few and it seems like the right time to highlight it here, again.

Mark-O, as he used to be called, was a big name in evangelical youth ministry, emerging congregations that were grappling with cultural changes years ago, and was to live faithfully for Christ in the postmodern cultural context. He’s authored a number of books about mentoring youth and having fun instilling in kids a love for their churches.

In this stunning, helpful book — part visionary inspiration, part how-to guidebook and tool box — he wonders out loud why it is that some people seem so full of hope while others can hardly get out of bed, laden with apathy or anxiety? Hope is, clearly, elusive.

Not only is it hard to experience, it is hard to explain. What is hope? What sort of fresh perspective could a guy with a mid-life crisis have to offer? Drawing on everything from the music of David Crowder to the justice work against trafficking of IJM to the nuanced, fraught books of Walter Brueggemann, Oestreicher brings so much to our consciousness as we read. In what Jim Burns calls an “incredibly brilliant and very personal writing style” Mark-O tells some gut-wrenching stories and he does some good Bible stuff and he offers honest, hard-wrought words of true Kingdom hope.

Gary Haugen of IJM doesn’t endorse many books, even though he is an avid reader and globally recognized leader. Here is what he says — read it and see if this is something you need! Gary writes:

Mark Oestreicher offers deep encouragement for those of us who have ever struggled to cultivate transformative hope in hard places. Drawing on personal experience, he offers a practical path for pushing through fear and cynicism toward refreshing hope. I am grateful for the invitation Mark offers us here — an invitation into active, faithful confidence in the goodness of God. — Gary A. Haugen, president and CEO, International Justice Mission, author of Just Courage: God’s Great Expedition for the Restless Christian

Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is An Essential Christian Practice Steven Bouma-Prediger (Baker Academic) $25.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

You may recall how often I’ve highlighted this — and others like it. Since the victory of Christ over sin and Death indicates that the whole creation is being set free, then surely (surely!) ecological concern plays a hefty role in an Christian worldview worthy of the name. This book graciously makes that case, that creation care practices are simply a part of daily discipleship, it is who we are and what we do, as followers of the risen Lord of creation. It is as good a book on all of this as I’ve ever seen and can’t say enough.

Many whose other books are also brilliant and essential have chimed in. Norman Wirzba, Debra Rienstra, A.J. Swoboda, Ben Lowe, Jonathan Moor and others have said this is “a decisive case” that creation care is necessary, not optional, to faithful Christian living. It is a terrific book, inviting, thorough, poetic, wonder-full. What might happen if churches all over followed up the creation-healing message of the Bodily resurrection with a trajectory towards Earth Day, bearing witness that the Bible could be our primary ecological text and our discipleship will help us care for creation as a matter of faith and hope and love? This book could change everything.

Resurrection Matters: Church Renewal for Creation’s Sake Nurya Love Parish (Church Publishing) $14.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96

Nurya Love Parish is an Episcopalian priest and serves at Plainsong Farm, a farm-based ministry that we appreciate up in Grand Rapids, MI. Given the fantastic title, I’m delighted to highlight the small and altogether lovely little book Resurrection Matters: Church Renewal for Creation’s Sake.

 I love this little volume which includes a bit about food and eating, gardens and fields, living joyfully amidst what Regan Sutterfield, notes as “our declining church and endangered earth.” Short and sweet, it’s a great little start and very highly recommended. Yes!

The Art of Living in Season: A Year of Reflections for Everyday Saints Sylvie Vanhoozer (IVP /formatio) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

I sort of wish this book would have been released last fall as it starts — as a daily devotional arranged our the liturgical calander — in Advent. But it is brand new and so, so great, you can pick it up after Easter. As with other such year-long collections of readings, you can start at any point you’d like.

Another thing to know about it’s formate — it is richly illustrated with truly lovely botanical illustrations (of flowers and vegetables and gardens and the like.) Each chapter introduces what in her native Provence in southern France are called santons (“little saints” that one might see in a diversely peopled nativity scene.) Her own life has introduced her to many little saints and here she invites us to follow them not such as Christmas but throughout the year. This communion of little saints is beyond lovely, although it is quint and lovely, but a truly extraordinary way to invite us to daily, ordinary, discipleship.

Besides the fabulous full-color drawings the writing is beautifully crafted, what British poet Malcolm Guite and priest calls “tender, beautiful, and entirely original.”

Good thinkers and writers have zealously endorsed this new book — from Julie Canlis to Bobby Gross, Lancia Smith to Bill Edgar and more.  Read this fabulous blurb — what an amazing endorsement! Wow.

What then are we to do with this book so unlike any other? Shelve it all alone and give it pride of place? It is a work of art. Or might we slip it in a pocket to carry through the afternoon? Or better, allow ourselves to be carried by it through a calendar of seasons, instructed in the folkways of each one, in unexpected beauty and surprise? Might we allow this book to ask us questions, make us wonder, tell us new and ancient stories of other places, other times? And surely, if we listen, if we pay attention, we will see and learn. We will be charmed; we will be changed. For yes, this lovely book is just that fine. — Linda McCullough Moore, author of The Book of Not So Common Prayer

And this, from Vicar Sam Wells:

Sylvie Vanhoozer’s winsome and infectious compendium is about learning in practical and endearing ways to use our imaginations and behold Jesus becoming incarnate in the seasons of our days. But more profoundly, it is about letting our lives be transposed so we become characters in the story of God in Christ. Here you will find something for body, mind, and spirit to cluster round Christ’s earthy throne of grace. This book will make your soul grow. — Samuel Wells, vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, author Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a Story to Live By

Pentecost: A Day of Power for All People Emilio Alvarez (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

This little hardback came out about this time last year when the Fullness of Time series (compiled and developed by Esau McCaulley) was just getting started. Dr. Esau McCaulley had just released Lent and, naturally, on the heels of Lent and Eastertide and Ascension we soon move to the church celebration of Pentecost.  Dr. Emilio Alvaraz (with a PhD from Fordham University) is well suited to unpack the liturgical meaning of this church season — he is the presiding bishop of the Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches. He is also the provost for lifelong learning at Asbury Theological Seminary. All right, then, he’s our guy, eh?

Liturgical, renewal-minded, Orthodox, charismatic. You just don’t see all that together in one person that often and we are thrilled to remind you of this rich tradition where the church calendar’s commemoration of the day of Pentecost is taken seriously. It’s nice that he is familiar with Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Pentecostal faith traditions and helps us see the commonalities of our expressions of this season of the church calendar.

After a nice preface to the Fullness of Time series by Esau McCaulley, Dr. Alvarez offers a nice introduction to the power of Pentecost. And then he offers these four, short chapters:

1. Pentecost: A Feast of Fifty Days, First Fruits, and Harvest
2. Learning to Speak in Other Tongues: Pentecost and Its Multilingual, Communal Spirituality
3. How Shall We Move? Rituals of Pentecost
4. Pentecost Prayers, Hymns, and Scriptures

This volume offers a brilliant reflection on the meaning of the great feast of Pentecost. Alvarez masterfully weaves biblical and historical references to help readers see the powerful light that this feast brings to the world, namely the light of God’s manifest presence. Moreover, Alvarez’s anointed and beautiful writing creates a hunger for more of the divine light.  — Cheryl Bridges Johns, Director of the Pentecostal House of Study at United Theological Seminary author of Enchanting the Text: Discovering the Bible as Sacred, Dangerous, and Mysterious

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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 a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.33; 2 lbs would be $5.07. This is the cheapest method available and seems not to be too delayed.
• United States Postal Service has another, quicker option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.70, 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 $9.50. “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. Sometimes they are cheaper than Priority. 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. Keep in mind the possibility of holiday supply chain issues and slower delivery… still, we’re excited to serve you.

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