We’ve been busy lately doing several off-site events. Struggling to know what to box up and lug and set up is taxing mentally and physically (most have no idea how complicated it all is) but the joy of seeing eager shoppers at our pop-up book displays is almost overwhelming. We thank God for this change to serve.

Being with authors as they present to gathered groups is a treat. We recently got to be with Andy Crouch for an evening in Baltimore, to sell books of Tara Isabella Burton at an Episcopalian event (thanks Chris and Ben) and was delighted to spend time with former Houghton College President Dr. Shirley Mullen (author of Claiming the Courageous Middle) during an event with long-time friends of the United Church of Christ in the Keystone Conference. Tonight Beth and I will be with Haejin & Mako Fujimura as they speak in Lancaster about their co-authored book Beauty & Justice which will be nothing short of wonderful.

This week in BookNotes, however, we want to give a big shout out to those involved in a thrilling event held last Saturday right here in central Pennsylvania, the annual Racial Justice Summit hosted at the First Church of the Brethren in the Allison Hill neighborhood of Harrisburg. Nicely organized by a team led by Dr. Drew Hart of Messiah University, this year the Summit had three stellar saints sharing from the main stage. All three were authors whose books we stock and it was a privilege to meet all three. Not to mention Drew’s three books. I’ve mentioned most of these before, but because we have some left over (I often over-order for events) we are doing a one week sale with some extra savings for you.

30% OFF (one week only)

All of these books will get a 30% off discount UNTIL MAY 8th 2026.  After that they return to our normal BookNotes 20% off.

Got that? For one week, through next Friday, you can get 30% off any of these vital titles. While supplies last. Tell your friends!

BOOKS BY SHEILA WISE ROWE

Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience Sheila Wise Rowe (IVP) $19.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.99

Dr. Rowe is known throughout the world (she and her husband lived in South Africa for a decade) as a keen observer of not only racist systems and cultural injustices, but how that perversely generates what can sometimes be called trauma among those impacted by ongoing mistreatment. Of course it isn’t just gross racism that wears down people of color but the micro-aggressions, the memory, the need to be on-guard. White readers of a certain age learned this with the extraordinary and influential (for a time) memoir called Black Like Me in the mid-1960s or from classic black literature from that era; think of The Invisible Man, say.

Sheila Rowe in this book has given us just about the best overview of this personal consequence of living in a racist culture and I recommend it (very heartily) not only for people of color (the main audience) but for anyone who wants to understand what it is like to feel the weight of this sort of harm. White counselor and theologian Dan Allender calls it “a magisterial gift for those who have suffered harm as persons of color and a revelation for those whose whiteness has served as a pair of blinders from racial trauma.” He calls it a “must-read for al who hunger for righteousness.”

Each chapter tells a of an interview / case study of a certain sort of experience and throughout she not only offers Biblically-informed, wise counsel, but also her own stories and experiences.  Whether you like memoir-like storytelling, social science, history, Bible teaching or hope-filled practical application Healing Racial Trauma is a very impressive read. Buy a few and start a book group!

Seeds of Racial Healing: 52 Devotions for Navigating Through Trauma Sheila Wise Rowe (IVP) $21.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $15.39

This is a compact sized devotional that can be used once a week for a year, or daily, if you’d like, for almost two months. Or just read it straight through! Although there are some exercises and prayers that invite a slower more intentional reading, so you’ll want to be attentive to the deeper things you are feeling as you ponder this content.

Seeds of Racial Healing are for those of any ethnicity who has experienced some sort of racial trauma or who resonate with the need to spend some gentle time prayerfully considering one’s hurts and needs. The world is packed with discrimination and even racially motivated violence and all of have (to some degree or another) carried the weight of the world in ways that may not be healthy. We must come to terms with the wounds of this world and we can do so with the help of the pastoral guide, a trained and trauma-informed professional (with an advanced degree from Cambridge, no less.) As black writer and advocate for the poor Terence Lester has written, ”This book offers space to breathe, to be honest with God, and believe that healing is still possible.”  I’ve dipped in and read through a number of these and they are really top-notch.

Young, Gifted and Black: A Journey of Lament and Celebration Sheila Wise Rowe (IVP) $18.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.29

I recall enjoying giving a little description of this when it was brand new a year or so ago in front of thousands of college students at the Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh. I noted that I think anyone can and should read a book like this, and it is fascinating, for sure, but it is designed to affirm the lives of those who are black youth. She did an incredible amount of research and has stores galore in here.

The title of the book, it is cool to know, is from a famous1969 song by Nina Simone which was later covered by Aretha Franklin; the late Chadwick Boseman referenced it in an acceptance speech at the Screen Actor’s Guild award (while being honored for his role in Black Panther.) Rowe’s great opening quote and story doesn’t attribute the playwright Lorraine Hansberry but she knows all about that, too. It’s a great legacy for her to be standing on as she brings the affirmation to young women and men of our cultural moments.

The interviews here are life-affirming and inspirational but it does not cover up the pain; the subtitle reminds us of the journey of lament we must voice.  Rowe invites readers to engage with embodied practices that “become like life preservers on uncharted waters” (as author and pastor Juanita Rasmus puts it.) This is a tribute to both black excellence, the sorrows of so many emerging adults, and a celebration of all who model resilience and flourishing.

Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe (IVP) $19.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.99

Although Sheila Wise Rowe was presenting at the excited Racial Justice Summit in Harrisburg last weekend, her esteemed husband was with her and it was an honor and delight to meet him. He has worked in higher education (and now teaches at Gordon Conwell near Boston, Massachusetts.) He and Sheila (a professional powerhouse couple and a lovely pair) worked on this book for years, making it, again, a truly rare find. There are a lot of books on leadership but few that are about the emotional life of the leader and that is informed by trauma-sensitive psychology.  And written by two black evangelicals leaders. Pastors should know this, for sure, but it isn’t primarily about pastoral leadership but more general about anyone who serves, does ministry, offers influence, mentors others, and thinks about leadership regardless of the space. In which they find themselves.

I mentioned that it is for those who think about leadership; there is quite a cottage industry of books about leadership capacities and practices. This is a must. However, I’d also say it is for anyone, maybe especially for those who don’t think about leadership much.

There’s a lot of dysfunction in churches and the corporate world and the nonprofit sector. I know some of you reading this feel isolated and maybe confused. The five themes of Healing Leadership Trauma — invitation, attachment, remembrance, healing, and reconnection.  — will be a breath of fresh air. Highly recommended.

BOOKS BY DOMINIQUE DUBOIS GILLIARD

Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores Dominique Dubois Gilliard (IVP) $18.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.29

One of the things I value about InterVarsity Press show they so often offer uniquely Christian perspectives on various career areas and callings, helping Christians relate faith to work and their various vocations. (Heck, they just did one on hobbies.) They also have lots of solid, Biblically-shaped books about all manner of social issue, from sexual abuse to creation care, gun violence and the abortion questions.  This extraordinary book is an example of IVP offering us all a resource for any and all who care about our civic life, about crime and punishment, about police and law and prisons and such. It should go without saying that it is a must-have for anyone who works in law enforcement, criminal justice, the prison system or in the judiciary.

But more than a righteous book for good folks in law enforcement or criminal justice careers, it is for any of us who need reminding how structural injustice works. For anyone who thinks that something as harmful as racism is merely a matter of personal prejudice or that speaking of white privilege is somehow unnecessary. In this case, Gilliard — the director of the racial righteousness program of the Evangelical Covenant Church and an ordained ministry — explores why it might be that the US has more people locked in jails and prisons than any other country in the history of the word. He offers a Christian lens through which we can study what has come to be called mass incarceration (and how it has become a lucrative industry.) He unpacked what some call the school-to-prison pipelines in some under resourced schools and proposes some ways “authentic rehabilitation, lasting transformation, and healthy reintegration”  can happen within this broken system.

I suppose most BookNotes readers know of the groundbreaking 2010 book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It documented the facts about inequitable punishments faced by Blacks and is still often discussed. Publishers Weekly gave Gilliard’s Rethinking Incarceration a starred review, saying it is “an outstanding addition to this incredibly important conversation.” Indeed.

Subversive Witness: Scriptures Call to Leverage Privilege Dominique Dubois Gilliard (IVP) $24.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $17.49

In the riveting presentation done by Rev. Gilliard at the Harrisburg Church of the Brethren Summit, the theologically and racially and generationally diverse folks rose to their feet (and to the book table), searching for the book that further shared his many compelling points. Much of his talk about justice and reconciliation and boldness and fidelity in the face of a dangerous Empire, came from this great book. It is, I am happy to say, rooted in Bible stories, freshly proclaimed and interpreted with surprising relevance. From Pharaoh’s daughter we learn about leveraging privilege to resist systemic sin. He has a chapter (based on Esther) about standing in solidarity (and three cheers for his preaching about Vashti, too.) Moses births liberation and Paul and Silas come in the picture, as well. Of course, he has chapter of Jesus’s own incarnational model of “abandoning and leveraging privilege to proclaim good news.”) Too few books explore Zacchaeus as well as Dominique does here. He boldly has a whole chapter on the call to repentance, and the final chapter of Subversive Witness is “producing fruit in keeping with repentance.”

If anybody who bad-mouths being “woke” or dismisses out of hand every bit of critical race theory they should read this fabulous book that offers a radical critique of privilege and power all the while drawing on classic Bible characters and their redemptive stories. God is at work in the world and as we learn from Scripture, we can be empowered by God’s own Spirit to resist the tragedies of injustice and help bring repair to this broken world. From his wonderful allusions to Isaiah 58 to his exploration of Luke 4 and on and on, Dominique Dubois Gilliard here give us a book that many of us should study. Hooray.

“This book is an absolute gift that can shakes out of our discontent…” —Jenny Yang, co-author of Welcome the Stranger

BOOK BY ISAAC SAMUEL VILLEGAS

Migrant God: A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice Isaac Samuel Villegas (Eerdmans) $22.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $16.09

Villegas’s presentation at the Harrisburg Summit focused on work he does as a Mennonite minister around issues of immigration justice. The book is one of dozens we stock on this hot topic and it is recent and up to date. One of the great features of his lecture — I won’t say it was a pleasure, exactly, as some of it moved us to tears, but it was an excellently crafted talk! — was that it deftly combined data and research with stories and testimony. Yes, we had graphs and charts and gruesome maps documenting deaths of migrants in Arizona and yes there was data enough to convince even skeptics that our nation is not going about our adjudication of migrating people (made in God’s image) in a good or decent manner.

But Villegas was engaging as a speaker with stories about artists who commemorate the deceased out of simply decency, about meals eaten with immigrants (and Christmas tamales made by hand in detention centers when anything from the commissary is vastly overpriced.) About active resistance as ICE brutes kidnap fellow citizens or those seeking legal asylum. After soberly listing the names of the individuals who have died (usually under suspicious circumstances) while in US detention just this year we cried out after each name (in the fashion of those bearing witness to those disappeared by right wing death squads in Central America during their most terrible war years) “Presente!”

Migrant God is applied theology, shared with very good writing, with stories and Scripture. The analysis and information of each chapter starts with episodes “on the ground.” (Perhaps you have read some of Villegas’s stories in The Christian Century or Anabaptist World.) From the humanity found in migrant shelters to nonviolent direct action protests, Isaac takes us to the sites of the good work many are doing to resist dehumanization and injustice. As the back cover puts it, it is “a stirring read for anyone who wants to shift the conversations about immigration toward a more holistic Christian vision of life lived in solidarity with migrants.” As Isaac pointed out, the Bible really is, after all, a story of migration…

Isaac Villegas’s Migrant God isn’t just a book full of powerful, often overwhelming, stories. It is certainly that. But it is also a book that serves as a powerful, often overwhelming, political ‘vision of belonging’ — reminding us that amidst the darkness of what nations do daily to God’s migrant people, a light overwhelms the darkness, and the darkness has neither overcome nor comprehended it. — Jonathan Tran, associate dean for faculty and associate professor of theology in Great Texts, Baylor University; author of Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism

BOOKS BY DREW G.I. HART

In the latest “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” I am interviewed by a CCO friend about these three Drew Hart books; watch the half hour impromptu conversation at YouTube or listen in, true podcast style, at Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way theChurch Views Racism Drew G.I.Hart (Herald Press) $16.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $11.89

I do not have to belabor this — I’ve written about all three of Drew’s good books before — but Hart is an important voice for a variety of reasons. Not least, he is a a Pennsylvania Anabaptist (raised Brethren-in-Christ and now a member of First Church of the Brethren in Harrisburg.) While he is not alone, the historic Anabaptist movement has been largely white. (Speaking of mostly white denominations, Hart got his PhD at a Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia; ya can’t blame him since he’s often seen sporting a Phillies cap.) So he has navigated some things and has a ton of savvy insight from his lived experience within his minority denomination. He is now a beloved prof at Messiah University here in central PA.

I’ve often suggested to people that Trouble I’ve Seen is one of the best introductions to a vivid, Christian prophetic denunciation of racism that moves us to action.  As Efrem Smith puts it, “you won’t be comfortable with this read, but you will be led into the deep waters of the social dilemma and reality of the race matrix.” In the end, he says,”the church can be a bridge over these troubled waters.” The book is bracing but is practical, too, as he makes suggestions for exactly how churches can take steps to live in greater solidarity with the oppressed.

The book is energetic and captivating, too. You’ll learn a lot about the Bible and a bit about hip-hop; about Bonhoeffer, too. You’ll hear his stories of being at a largely white, evangelical Christian college and about a trip to Kenya, and his encounters on the urban streets of a mid-sized US city. It’s a very worthy read.

Who Will Be a Witness? Igniting Activism for God’s Justice, Love, and Deliverance Drew G. I. Hart (Herald Press) $18.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.59

If Trouble I’ve Seen was passionate and poignant and powerful as an introduction to the Biblical call to be anti-racist, Who Will Be a Witness? is more so. It is a thicker, more thorough book, its scope is broader, and it is even more laden with stories and Biblical and theological studies. It seems wrong to say it is entertaining, but it is engaging, as they say these days, captivating as a bona-fide page-turner. Again, we are fans of this book and have highlighted it before. I am grateful for its big picture vision of Kingdom activism and how Hart draws so many themes together in calling us to a spiritual awakening of the sort that would resist political and social injustice and struggled against the principalities and powers.

One can sense how his vision in this book is a bit broader (or at least articulated and framed around God’s desires beyond racial matters) and how even though it is a popular level read, he’s rooted in serious learning. The great Otis Moss III writes on the back:

Drew Hart is a brilliant public intellectual, preacher, and cultural critic… Do yourself a favor and purchase this book.

Richard Hughes — a peacemaker par excellence (especially around polarizations in higher education) — says that it is “brimming over with moral urgency.” And these days, that is a good thing.

The best-selling album of 1973 (before Drew’s time — I’m dating myself) was 1972s The World Is a Ghetto by the horn-driven, funky, samba-influenced Black band War. It seemed to almost draw gospel themes and black power critique and hints at global concerns. I just happen to be listening to it again these days, and it dawns on me that maybe that’s what Who Will Be a Witness? does — moves the liberating power explored by the likes of James Cone, say, into the global vision a radical church in language ordinary people can get.. Can we inspire our people for this kind of good work? This book will help.

Making It Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church Drew G.I. Hart (Herald Press) $21.99 // OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $17.59

I raved about this when I first reviewed it briefly at a previous BookNotes and while I know it’s a bit hard to sell — Anabaptism? The Black Church? — I think at this price you can’t go wrong.

Look: we often speak, sometimes loudly, about being ecumenical and reading widely. One of the small things that seems to be appreciated by many of our Hearts & Minds customers and friends is that we invite folks to read outside their comfort zones. Maybe conservative political thinking for progressives? Maybe mainline Protestant theologians for evangelicals? Maybe some Russian Orthodox spirituality for Mennonites? And who doesn’t love Henri Nouwen and Mother Teresa, just two of the hundreds and hundreds of Catholic authors we stock. We are all made richer as we expose ourselves (sometimes carefully) to new authors and fresh ideas. Right?

And so, a book about two minority and historically persecuted churches, together? Win-win!

Dr. Hart is a partisan, as a scholar of the black church standing within the Anabaptist tradition. But this book is an informative and valuable read even if you don’t buy his thesis that these two faith traditions are, in a way, the answer to the obvious problems of generic, evangelical, mega-church spirituality. Not to mention the often bland mainline Protestant practice. If (and these are my words, not his) mainline, ecumenical Protestant theology has the tendency to erode Biblical truth and lose a gospel centeredness ending up leaning towards a milquetoast accommodation to whatever, and zealous evangelicalism goes off the rails towards a legalistic fundamentalism, then (unless one becomes Catholic or Orthodox) how do we regain a beautiful and socially relevant mere Christianity? Maybe to keep us honest (whether we are liberal Protestants or conservative evangelicals or something else yet again) we need the witness of our brothers and sisters in the historic black church and our brothers and sisters in the historic peace churches.

Making It Plain has that agenda, making a vibrant and sensible case that these traditions, insofar as they haven’t bowed the knee to cultural idols and the political zeitgeist, have healing waters from which we can all drink. Hart shows how their unique tendencies and postures and lifestyles is in some ways more faithful and helpful than bland Protestantism or fiery but overly personal evangelicalism. He’s on to something, ya know.

Part of what drives this insightful story — I hardly have to say it — is that corroding the Biblical vision of his previous two books (racial justice, say, and shalom-building liberation activism) are the blights of white supremacy and Christian nationalism. If these idols and ideologies have been centuries in the making, maybe we need equally ancient ways to provide a counter to them. Maybe the black church and the Anabaptist tradition, both who were shaped by their being on the margins, have something to offer to counter the domination and violence, even the colonialism and power-mongering that exists today. I very highly recommend this book as a creative and even exciting little thought experiment, as an example of humility in learning. Stretch yourself, learning about the spiritual impulses of these two faith traditions — faith traditions that are known, at least, for taking Jesus seriously. That’s a good start, eh?

Latasha Morrison (author of Be the Bridge) is a black Christian leader who notes that “Hart doesn’t just critique the church. He equips us to live the gospel with courage and clarity.”

 

And one of his good friends (and his podcast partner) Jarrod McKenna, calls this “an incendiary invitation to Anablacktivism” and says it shows “the fire of radical discipleship that our Lord wishes were already ablaze.”

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In my latest “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast I am interviewed by a CCO friend about these three Drew Hart books; watch the half hour impromptu conversation at YouTube or listen in, true podcast style, at Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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BookNotes