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Sometimes we like to do BookNotes columns around a theme. Put the topic you are most interested in — memoir, the arts, work, books about nationalism and extremist religion, prayer, racial justice, church life, mental health, novels — into our search engine box at the BookNotes archives at our website and see what comes up. Even our last post had a theme — indie press or self-published books by authors we know and which we thought you should know about.

And of course our bi-weekly podcast “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” always has a theme. (The last episode mentioned three books on American history, the one before that three books about embodied living, and before that, three about Dallas Willard.)

Sometimes, though, so many good titles come out in a given season and there are so many books I’m dipping into — this one, that one, oh, my, yet another! — that I just have to tell you about them all. Here are twenty random titles, sort of an omnibus BookNotes, highlighting books that came out in the last month or so that I’m excited about. A few are brand spanking new. Get some iced coffee or sweet tea or whatever your go-to summer beverage is, sit down, and discover these new releases. Some you have heard about, maybe even anticpated. And a few I’ll bet you haven’t discovered yet. Here we go. Enjoy.

ALL BOOKS MENTIONED ARE 20% OFF.

Christ and Covenant in Global Politics: A Christian Introduction to International Relations Robert J. Joustra (IVP Academic) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I’m not going to lie: I wanted to give this a large five star review but never got to it. It arrived when I didn’t have the capacity to do a serious review and, anyway, I soon realized it was, as they say, above my pay grade. Rob is a friend and an immensely talented thinker, scholar, and teacher. He has taught in a lively cohort of reformational scholars — think of Al Wolter’s Creation Regained as a starting point for an intentional inner reformation of the disciplines — at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario. Besides hammering out this rigorous plot line of a “Christian realist” perspective with sharp students for many years, Rob has also contributed to major academic tomes, editing serious volumes including Power, Politics, and Moral Order: Three Generations of Christian Realism – A Reader his own PhD dissertation eventually published to acclaim in 2017 by Routledge (The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom: Why Foreign Policy Needs Political Theology.) For those who are less apt to read such a mighty scholarly text, we continue stock his smashing cowritten book on Eerdmans called How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith & Politics at the End of the World. And I loved the book he and his wife Jessica co-edited, Calvinism for a Secure Age: A Twenty-first Century Reading of Kuyper’s Stone Lectures. In his free time, he edits the impressive Review of Faith and International Affairs. As you can see, he is prolific and serious. He just took a position of the Spoelhof Chair of political science teaching at Calvin University.

To place him further, you might think of the more philosophical writings of Richard Mouw or the “third way” orientation of David Koyzis (Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey and Critique of Contemporary Ideologies) or perhaps, Nicholas Wolterstorff. He cites bunches of serious political philosophers and historians, not least of which is Daniel Philpott, of Notre Dame, whose Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations remains hugely important, although some of our readers might appreciate his Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation.

Christ and Covenant in Global Politics is a rare book, semi-scholarly but accesible and grappling with major scholars and trends in the field, bringing what he thinks is a uniquely Christian perspective to bear. He draws on classic Augustinian thought and asks what political power ought to look like in a secular age with idolatrous political economies (and nuclear weapons.) It is not lefty pacifist and it is not hawkish, either. The inveterate Paul Marshal pretty much raved about its contribution to the field of global statecraft — at least by offering a fresh, covenantal framework — in Providence.

With the current debate about foreign policy being led by bombastic nationalists like Hegseth, Christians wanting to be well-informed about public theology that might offer substantive answers and not just reactionary sloganeering about peace and justice, need a book like this. As one who leans towards Biblical nonviolence, I admit to not knowing exactly what modern states ought to be or do about gross injustice and I need to learn from the likes of Joustra. From Gaza to Ukraine, the blood cries out. Agree or not, Joustra’s book is a major step towards good thinking and I seriously commend it. Read it through to the end.

Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence Pope Leo XIV (Our Sunday Visitor) $18.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.16

The books about the dangers and benefits of AI keep coming out; just reading reviews of the most thoughtful ones is a big task.  A few years ago I did a big column about Christian perspectives on technology and then on the digital culture and then a few specifically on AI and that is a good place to begin (HERE.)

Some of the new ones are almost too simplistic — as if AI is just a tool we use, rather than waters that engulf us, as several have said. Others are so dense and deep that one wonders who will read them. We still need thoughtful, discerning, and somewhat practical guides (perhaps like the book coming out next month, Human Raised: Nurturing Connections, Curiosity, and Lifelong Learning in an Age of AI by Dr. Dana Suskind, which comes recommend by her friend Kristin Du Mez, a recommendation we’ll take to the bank.) And we need more foundational books, asking what it means to be human, one of the biggest questions.

Enter Pope Leo of Chicago. This is his first Encyclical Letter so it is a big deal. Even though ti is 165 pages (with notes) it is a relatively quick read, serious without being needlessly dense. We have carried most of the papal encyclicals as they are often very good reading for ecumenical readers — for any readers — and except maybe for the wonderful Laudato Si’ – On Care of Our Common Home on ecology, this has been the most talked about since, oh, maybe Pacem in Terris in 1963.

Far be it from me to try to unpack or explain Magnifica Humanitas but it does at least two things clearly, both a bit of a paradox. It honors the glory [Leo uses the word “grandeur”] of the human person made in God’s image (despite our sinfulness and capacity for great evil) and it affirms that the possibilities of creating technologies is a fundamentally good thing, even though they can be developed in inappropriate ways. It is more sophisticated than saying generative AI is a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill (nobody thoughtful says it that simply since every tool is embedded in a construct, tainted, if you will, and freighted with baggage.)  Leo XIV worries about “new forms of dehumanization” and yet points us to Christ (who was fully human) “the splendor of which no machine can ever replace.”  With digitalization and robotics and AI, the Holy See asks, “will we construct a new Tower of Babel or rebuild the walls of Jerusalem?”

It is theologically mature, thoughtful, of course, and well written. Centering the call to wise discernment for the sake of the common good, Pope Leo, it is said, “proceeds a path forward that can safeguard human dignity.”

Every Somewhere Sacred: Rescuing a Theology of Place in the American Imagination  Ben Norquist & Brian Miller (IVP Academic) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

I had an early version of this and had wanted to suggest it months ago, as a pre-order, but I just didn’t get to it. Now that it is out I feel like I want to do a longer, serious review, as it certainly warrants it. I is one of the most impressive books I’ve read this season. I hope those with the ability to do a longer review rise to the occasion as this is, I’d say, one of the most important books of the year. Yes!

Every Somewhere Sacred is the sort of book that is certainly in our wheelhouse — contemporary cultural studies in light of a distinctively Biblical worldview, framing our social imaginations by both what ought to be (a sense of place, caring about land and home as God’s beloved creation) and what is (stolen land, careless stewardship, injustices of all sorts, placelessness.) I get excited by the Biblical / theological foundation and the spirituality of the ordinary that reminds us that, as it says on the back cover, “each of us is placed by God in a specific somewhere.”

I love books about a sense of place and can send lists of other key titles that we adore if you ask. (The most meaty, perhaps, is Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today by Craig Bartholomew not to mention Walter Brueggemann’s biblical classic, The Land: Place as Gift, Challenge, and Promise, and the short but potent Race and Place: How Urban Geography Shapes the Journey to Reconciliation by David Leong, all of which they cite alongside everything from studies of the postmodern urban landscape to agrarian stuff by Norman Wirzba and Wendell Berry.)

These two great co-authors do theological studies of land and place — The Home of God : A Brief Story of Everything by Miroslav Von and Ryan McAnnally-Linz naturally comes up, for instance, all considered in light of kinship notions from indigenous theology (see the great Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagine Our Future by Native writer Patty Krawec and, very importantly for their project, work such as Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine by Randy Woodley.) I do not know the exact relationship between their work and their writing, but I know that Ben has spent recent years working for the stellar organization Christians for Middle East Peace which necessarily took him to questions of settler repression, land claims, and stories of place in Palestine, the West Bank, and Gaza. It is set in North America, to be sure, but his experiences with the exiled and dispossessed surely colored his heart and insight.)

From the broad frontier ideologies in the ninetieth century America to modern notions of ministry in unique places — suburbs, say, or rural cultures — this book brings in all kinds of insight, making it a thrill of a read, exciting and educational and informative. If you are a life-long learner, it’s like a Master Class and yoiu will come away informed and enriched. More, though, from the very first places you know (think for a moment) this matters; it matters deeply. Norquist and Miller convey passion and even urgency knowing that people of faith must do better at bringing their deepest convictions to bear upon our culture making and place-keeping, stewarding our gifts of embodiment in space. In fact, one major chapter in assisting us to tell a better story about place offers “four themes for rereading Bible stories about land.” They remind us that “land and place are not an add-on to the relationship between God and people; they are integral aspects of God’s plan throughout history.”

The inner city. Appalachia. Native American reservation. Suburb. The Holly Land. National park. Big city. The South. Flyover country. Vegas. What does your imagination see, hear, taste, feel, and small when you think about these places? What scenes and characters come to mind?

Of course, places can tell stories, but perhaps more to the point, we tell stories about places. Landscape matters for people of faith and for how we tell the story of our faith. It colors our views of ministry and how we live in our ordinary lives. This major volume, a sparkling, lively, thoughtful work, Everywhere Somewhere Sacred is one of the best books in this whole genre yet done.

Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things Brian Zahnd (IVP) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Oh my, I’m not sure how to review this fairly and succinctly. There is so much going on here, so much good prose and so much to think about. I think I’ve read everything by Zahnd and raved about his last few, all nice hardbacks from IVP. I’m eager to sell this one, too, and give it 4 and a half stars! That’s pretty darn good!

Why not five stars? Well, maybe I’m picky or take Colossians 2:8 too particularly, but I want to protest his early chapters — fascinating and largely right, in spirit, at least — about modernity’s disenchantment and secularism’s dead end which he answers with an overt call to a Christian sort of Platonism. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he wrote that Paul was following the footsteps of Plato. What kind of Jew does Zahnd think Paul was? As a Hebrew, my hunch is that he was steeped in a doctrine of creation that was anything but Platonic.

You know the drill, even if you’ve never studied philosophy. Plato promulgated this hard dichotomy between the body and the soul. (See also my little unnecessary rant about that when I reviewed the healthy The Body Teaches the Soul by Justin Early.) That dualism created a split-level worldview that assumed what is “really real” is the invisible stuff (almost like the Christian Science cult that things normal things are an illusion) which then was integrated into conventional Christian theology as a tension between the seemingly secular and the sacred. Theologians call it a dualism between nature and grace. Look, most of us admit to it when we’re honest: there is for most of us a gap between worship and work, between liturgy and life, between Sunday and Monday. The most astute thinkers, I believe, blame our vacillating between world-flight eschatology (waiting for the rapture to whisk us away from this corrupt world which is destined to burn) and crassly idolatrous accommodation to the culture around us on the early church accommodation to the dualisms inherited by Plato, and, later, Aristotle.

Still, I agree with where Zahnd is going with Unseen Existences and he isn’t wrong, even if he didn’t have to quote Plotinus for crying out loud. Or C.S. Lewis, which is where this gets even more interesting.

Zahnd is right to call the famous Anglican apologist and novelist a Christian Platonist, and even though this is debated in some of the academic books about Lewis, it is refreshing to see it stated so boldly and backed up with fabulous quotes from his essays and from Narnia. I disapprove of this in Lewis and disapprove of Zahnd’s affirmation of it, but, dag, it still brought tears to my eyes reading his quotes from The Last Battle. Zahn’s use of Lewis clarifies for me why I’m irritated by the dualism that pops up in C.S. I want to say we are not made for some other place and our longing for home is not for some other creation. It is not even for some unseen aspects of the creation.

A properly Biblical view of creation that includes what we typically call the supernatural is needed, and I’m afraid Zahnd doesn’t quite bring it. At least we should start with Richard Middleton’s powerhouse A New Heaven and New Earth and maybe something like God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation by Jonathan R. Wilson or Dennis Hollinger’s Creation and Christian Ethics: Understanding God’s Designs for Humanity and the World. Or Alexander Schmemann’s’s For the Life of the World with that first potent line, “we are what we eat.” Zahnd writes a bit about Bulgakov, who taught Schmemann when they were exiled from Russia in Paris and he admits that Bulgakov’s dense work “pushes the synthesis of Platonic philosophy and Christian theology to it’s utmost, but I do find it fascinating.”

So do I. And I applaud this amazing exploration of the unseen things of the Christian life, the really, real life. Like I said, I give it four and a half stars.

The titles of each of the chapters are incredibly allusive and hint at a robust creation theology: into the wonder, on the road, under the oaks, under the fig tree, under the stars and the like. He gets to this, finally, by a beautiful study of the “tears of Jesus” which is as incarnational as it gets, almost. Further up and Further In, indeed.

Much has been written lately about how the old adage that some are “so heavily minded they are no earthly good” is self-defeating, that to indeed be truly of earthly good we need a fully Biblical view of heaven. Brian Zahn has helpfully pushed back against escapist theology and has no interest in a “pie-in-the-sky, I’ll-fly-away-when-I- die, in the sweet-by-and-by theology” as he puts it, even on the back cover. He’s stands with others these days inviting us to remember heaven, to “embrace the divine mystery of the spiritual realm.” I like his use of the language of pilgrimage. He says a journey towards home “fosters in us a love for both the heavenly and the earthly.” I hope he’s right and that readers who ponder this impressive work grow not into pagan Platonists obsessed with mystery but to wonder-filled followers of the Risen King of a creation regained.

Letters on Living the Faith C.S. Lewis (HarperOne) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Despite what I said above about Lewis being inadequately critical of Plato’s negative influences, I am truly delighted to share this incredibly useful and wonderful new edition of the “best of” Lewis’s big three volume set of letters (and more.) Those volumes of letters (which he viewed as part of his ministry) are over 3500 pages! Chosen and edited by the wonderful David Downing (on of our very best contemporary Lewis scholars), this selects letters that are both distinctively Lewis — my, he had a style, a voice, a tone, didn’t he, not to mention a knack for metaphor — and arranged to make it especially useful as a guide for faithful Christian thinking and living.

Letters on Living the Faith is a trim sized paperback and has those neat “French fold” covers — flaps that give the impression of a hardback’s dust-jacket — and a rich green and gold design. It would make a lovely little gift — fancy, but not too much, loaded with content, but, again, not too much. The opening intro by Downing is called “Mentor by Mail” which is perfect.

Downing, by the way, edited the compact Lewis compilation The Reading Life and On Writing (and Writers.) This collection of his personal correspondance is the third from Downing and we should be glad.

There are long and short letters, some very short. You’ll find his opinions on prayer and spirituality, on love and the Bible. He has a section on psychology, on Christian formation, and “putting faith into practice.” There are a few about Roman Catholics and confessions of his own struggles. You’l love the few questions he answers about Narnia, and, of course, his letters about consolidation and grief.

A few of these letters will catch the attention of Lewis-lovers; there is correspondance with Sheldon Vanauken and  Walter Hooper, Dom Bede Griffiths and his brother Warnie, Arthur Greeves and that famous “American Lady.”

Here is a lovely lecture given by Downing at the Wade Center highlighting his work selecting these letters and reading a bunch. David is casual and funny and really knows so much. You might enjoy it.

Fully Beloved: Meeting God in our Heartaches and our Hopes Timothy Jones (Thomas Nelson) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This is not the only book on this list that I might have passed over if a very dear and well-read, reliable friend had not told me about it. We have carried Timothy Jones books before — years ago we loved his lovely Awake My Soul: Practical Spirituality for Busy People and The Art of Prayer — but how many books on being loved by God do we need? We have hundreds! But then I recalled what a fine writer he is, and how we haven’t seen anything new in ages. Jeff Crosby assured me it was excellent, and I am so, so glad I have it a change. Fully Beloved touched me so deeply it is hard to explain. And I am not one with a weak ego, I don’t think. I know I am loved by God and by many who are dear to me. But, man, I needed this.

The subtitle is important — it is nothing short of eloquent in describing in lovely prose just how hurting many of us are (and, yet, somehow, still have hopes and dreams.) Can God be there for us? What if we do not sense God’s presence? (Or as the back cover puts it, “Would God ever ghost you?”) Do we really know God’s love?

This perennial question is one of the most urgent we can ask, and Jones is an expert and generous guide. He doesn’t force the questions, but tells stories that evoke our own grieves and longings, wrestlings-with-God. Maybe you’ll get banged up, like Jacob, but these struggles are worth facing.

And here is what else makes this book unique (besides the careful, beautiful writing.) The book is, without saying it, about the Trinity. It is the Triune God that loves us, and even though it is full of stories (and the stories of those who have gone before us, from Augustine to Julian of Norwich, to Emily Dickinson) Fully Beloved is a primer on the Trinity.

Please don’t think that its topic makes it impenetrable or obscure. Nothing could be further from the truth — trust me on this! Jones has a lovely touch, offering a compelling book about the deepest matters of the human heart. And even as he shows how God is committed to redeeming our pain and brokenness (in part through our own engagement via ancient Christian practices), he teaches us well about love. He learned, even as a pastor, that “Love is the startling invitation of the Trinity and the extravagant answer to the most pressing questions” of his life. And maybe of yours.

On the back it says this: Fully Beloved is a beautifully evocative, pastoral look at our soul’s sacred thirst, leading us to a truth so full that it reaches deep into our hearts losses and transforms them into a stubborn, breathless, abundant joy that knows what it means to be fully beloved.”

Solidarity: The Work of Recognition Rowan Williams (Bloomsbury) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

I have not read this yet, but the blurbs on the back are striking: Slavoj Žižek says it is a “magisterial vision of true comradeship.” A.N. Wilson says it is “a treasure trove of wisdom and insight” Another reviews says it is a better vision “again cynics and opportunists.”

Solidarity is asking what it means that we have shared burdens and hopes. This is what makes human solidarity possible, something I think I first heard reflected well years ago from Richard Mouw. This is said to have similar “quiet optimism” and should have lots to offer those seeking “a new form of communion, tracing the fragile path between innermost and out worlds.”

It seems that he may also be saying that our common humanity — our shared burdens and hopes — is “less a choice than a predicament” Hmmm. I suppose that suggests it can be done well or less well. What does it look like to be people who recognize the dignity of others? Are we really in this together? What does it mean to be an ally of others on the road to public justice?

From the table of contents we realize Williams is in his rather scholarly mode, interacting with public intellectuals (include Eastern European political philosophers) with some help from others naming what we mean by human rights, what paradoxes come with empathy (towards strangers, even) and a theology of complicity a la Bonhoeffer. Just over 300 pages.

Pastoring for Monday:  Help Your Congregation Integrate Faith and Work Matt Austen (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

You may know how we’ve promoted Matthew Kaemingk’s hefty and splendid Worship and Work and the more practical follow-up, Worship for Workers. Both offered resources for worship planners, liturgists, and pastors to help insinuate into worship notions of serving God in the work world. Praying for workers, singing hymns about the vocation of work, offering liturgies for butchers, makers, and candlestick makers, is essential if we want to spiritually empower ordinary folks to serve God with some distinction in their workaday lives. I’ve expressed before how grateful we are that some congregational leaders are taking up this challenge. I suppose I needn’t say that most are pretty silent. As business people, my wife and  don’t get prayed for at my church even on Labor Day.

Maybe this will help, backing up from the unique questions of the relationship of liturgy and life in the world, but asking how pastors can allow their own calling as pastors to shape their congregants in ways that empower them to live out a Kingdom vision of vocations. With warmth and grace, this book (in the words of Joran Raynor who wrote The Sacredness of Secular Work) “affirms the sacredness of seemingly secular vocations and equips church leaders with practical tools to disciple believers where they spend most of their time — at work.”

There is no doubt this book is savvy (attending to the vocational restlessness and anxiety many feel) ad invites folks who are unsure how their faith can guide them in their workplaces. But, mostly, it offers concrete pathways, almost like a toolkit, full of fresh ideas and strategies to hep congregants live out their faith in their jobs and various callings. Highly recommended.

The Pastor as Midwife: Life-giving Leadership for the Healing of the Church Shawna Singer Gaines (IVP) $24.99  // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Do you recall a couple of months ago I raved about a book that I insisted was one of my favorite titles on pastoral work I’ve ever read? It was called The Pastor as Gardener and it brought not only a hobbyist appreciation for back yard gardening but also a radical agrarian vision (a la Wendell Berry and Norma Wirzba, say) to bear on the slow, patient work of being a steadfast pastor. Oh how I loved that book. Well, here is one almost to match, a thrilled, evocative, and wonderful read, another great book of clergy that brings a fresh and generative metaphor to the art of pastoring. Male or female, this book is, yep, about the practice of midwifery and how that translates into caring pastoral ministry.

Shawn Singer Gaines suggests that the pastor as shepherd model is less useful than it once was (as a metaphor it worked “in a world when congregations were full, pastors saw clearly where they were headed, and hazards were preventable.” But now, it is obvious, “we find ourselves in a different moment, one in which the church is in great pain: congregations are dwindling, denominations are fracturing, and church scandals have become all too common.” We need a new imagination, the back cover of this book insists, one which “captures the hopefulness of God birthing something new in the midst of the pain of the old creation.”

Yep. Who among us hasn’t used that metaphor — God birthing something new over which we are called to be midwives of sorts? I know I have.

This book has this lovely, fascinating connection to actual midwifery practice but also is rich with Biblical insight.  (I might add that it starts with a rich theological anthropology rooted in Genesis 1.) God makes us in love, call us “very good.” Can pastors get into that, helping by using this word-picture to live into this idea. Gaines reminds us that “pain is pregnant with possibility.”

And is written with what Andrew Root says is “beautiful writing and deep insight”

Shawn Singer Gaines is a seminary trained pastor, but is not a midwife, although she birthed two children with their help. And she loves Call the Midwives, so there’s that. I’m sure she feels like she knows a bit about the topic. And as a big epilogue to her second section she reprints Drew Jackson’s memorable poem based on Luke 1, “God Speaks Through Wombs.”

I like that this book centers God’s love, the goodness of our creaturely bodies, and that —like a trained midwife — a pastor is called to some art and science of what she calls “being  somewhere between mastery and powerlessness.” We trust the Spirit at work, using us to help bring new things to life.

You will be impressed with her rigor and the breadth of her good citations (from Peter Steinke to Ruth Haley Barton; from Eugene Peterson to Brené Brown, from William James Jennings to Robin Wall Kimminer.)

Wise and tender, Shawna Singer Gaines recovers a biblical metaphor deeply needed — Beth Felker Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine

We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and The American Dream Machine Alissa Wilkinson (Liveright) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

This book had arrived in hardcover and I feel badly I didn’t highlight it then. It just came out in paperback and it is a perfect time to pick it up. It is a great read, an engaging bit of cultural commentary and social history by way of looking at the life and work of Joan Didion. Some of us know her for her incredibly popular journalism writing — magazines, journals, memoirs, studies and reviews, not to mention several award winning, best-selling novels — during mostly the end of the 20th century or the early 21st. I thought she was a New Yorker, and she was. Anybody interested in the literati of recently passed decades knows her name and many love her journalism and books.

But I didn’t know she was also a California girl. She moved to Hollywood — enamored with John Wayne of all people — and took it upon herself to write screenplays in the late 60s. She lived in LA from the mid-60s to the mid-80s when she returned to the East Coast. Where have I been to not know that. And John Wayne?

Heather Clark has an amazing blurb on the back of We Tell Ourselves Stories calling it a “gripping cultural history of Joan Didion’s relationship with Hollywood, politics, and America itself…”

She continues that Didion’s spare prose,

“…captured the disillusion of a generation. Alissa Wilkinson expertly conjures that time and place I this smart, moving, and lyrical account of Didion’s California dreams.”

Didion wrote about LA, about the beaches (she lived in Malibu) and was deeply involved in Hollywood. She loved the movies and she understood their role. She understood “the rhythms of American movie-making” and while this book is about more than this, it particularly explores how Hollywood shapes the American imagination.

Another reviewer (Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir) says it is more than “an essential contribution to the Didion canon,” but, more, “it delves into the evolution of American consciousness with dizzying intelligence and insight,”

Alissa, you may know, is a former Kings College film studies prof, a cultural and film writer for Christianity Today, a correspondent for Vox, who now is a premier critic for the New York Times. Funny, I mentioned her above noting that she co-wrote a lively book on apocalyptic pop culture and politics with Rob Joustra. Her previous work was the utterly charming Broadleaf book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking and Living from Revolutionary Women.

The Gospel and My Black Skin: Confronting the Past, Reclaiming the Future Dr. JP Foster (Zondervan) $22.99 //OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

The joys of seeing what God is doing in someones life — testimony! — are deep and the stories endlessly fascinating. Also, as most memoir readers know, the stories of human brokenness and sin are also endless. JP Foster has written a book both documenting the sin and evil of historic and contemporary racism (also as he has experienced it) and testifies to what God is doing, alive and well, working for wholeness and justice for all. The Gospel and My Black Skin is more than a memoir, but accompanied by such good storytelling and vulnerable testimony that it reads almost like one.

We have hundreds of books on racism here on our shelves — old and new, secular and deeply religious, academic and simple. I almost skipped this one as I figured we just don’t need more on topic, urgent as it is. And hardly anybody buys these books from us, anyway.

And then my well-read and utterly reliable friend, Bible prof and scholar / author Carmen Joy Imes, gave me an early heads up. She said it was one of her all time favorite reads and simply a must.  Wow. I promised her we’d check it out and be sure to stock a few. (Carmen has subsequently mentioned this book more than once in her own blog and popular videos.)

She was right. Foster has a way with words, tells an amazing story, and is both prophetic and candid about naming racism in our culture but, also, show how the gospel got under his black skin. We wondered (and he is not the first nor the last) if he could trust a faith that has been used to hurt people who look like him.

In case we need reminded, the back cover copy starts like this:

As Christian nationalism rises, history is distorted, and churches remain silent in the face of injustice, a growing number of Black Christians are questioning the faith they inherited, while others have already walked away from it.

Dr. Foster — now a pastor of one of the largest African American churches in Los Angeles and an adjunct affiliate teacher at Biola University — is an up-and-coming national treasure on spiritual formation, church life, Biblical studies and ministries.  (Interestingly, he came up as a student through Biola.) Her offers powerful lessons we all need reminded of and, as Dr. Imes put it, “will challenge readers of any race to rethink their ideas about where Christianity came from and who shaped it to become what it is today.” She says it is both a healing balm and an urgent message.

I’m very excited about this new book and am convinced it brings some stuff to our attention that goes behind the important (if not uncommon) Biblical teaching on multi-ethnic ministry, racial reconciliation and social justice. It reminds us that the earliest days of the Christian movement had African roots and that we must “reclaim the original Christian message of liberation, justice, dignity, and oneness.”

There is a solid foreword by the impeccable Lisa Victoria Fields, CEO of the Jude 3 Project (and author of When Faith Disappoints.)

Churn: The Tensions That Divides Us and How to Overcome It Claude Steele (Liveright) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is not brand, brand new, but came out a few months ago. I’m embarrassed I’m only telling you about it now as it has been (by me, at least) long-awaited. It is a follow-up to his widely respected and fascinating book Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. Dr. Steele is a social psychologist and researched who has served in what only can be called prestigious ways in higher education. including Provost of Columbia University, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UC Berkeley, and Dean of the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. His theories about how people cope with stereotype threats and maintain self-worth even amidst internal and social tension have been widely discussed. His books have been said to have “Malcolm Gladwell-like clarity.

To help place him if you are unfamiliar, think of the NPR show and podcast Hidden Brain with the lovely Shankar Vedantam; Steele (I googled it) has been on Hidden Brain and I can’t wait to listen to that older episode. I hope he is on again talking about churn, his brilliant word about the inner tensions experienced — it is more than a feeling — when people face stereotype threat. In a real sense, Churn is the next step after his groundbreaking Whistling Vivaldi, and, I might suggest, even better.

Steele opens the book with a succinct but very helpful description of an imagined episode: two black parents are coming in to meet their son’s white teacher. Imagine what they worry about: the teacher may not have much racial sensitive, but, on the other hand, might be a gifted educator for their son. They know well the stereotypes and assumptions out there; the white teacher may subconsciously hold some of those nasty prejudices. Or maybe not. Similarly, the white educator knows well the racial attitudes that some black parents fear white teachers hold. Are these parents suspicious of her? Will any criticism of their sons classroom performance be seen as racist? Maybe. Maybe not. They both are churning.

By the way, Steele and some of his colleagues in higher education set out to find out how — through designed experiments — a white professor can give critical feedback to a Black students and have that feedback be trusted. You’ll read about that in the chapter called “Being Wise, Not Color-Blind” and, as you might guess, I loved that chapter about being wise about these things.

The great second chapter asks “Where Does Church Come From?” It is worth the price of the book to be introduced to Henri Tajfel (who was a Jewish POW in World War II) and his experiment about personal and group identity based on the arbitrary “dot estimator” experiment.

The book is loaded with more examples, stories, and episodes — some true, some illustrative — that bring home the churning funk of our times. (Okay, he doesn’t use the word funk, and who knows if he knows the old James Taylor song.) His stories are so helpful, but what is even more compelling are the social science research project he described. It is edge of your seat stuff, documenting — sadly, tragically — the racist assumptions baked into the cake of our times.

Much of this is about our sense of identity. This is human stuff; any person who wants a calmer world should care, but Christian people, especially, know deeply how identities can be de-formed and distorted. Do we know what we are (creatures made in the image of God) and who we are (beloved children of God, messed up but loved redemptively?)  We care about fighting stereotypes since the New Testament over and over resists them. So when Steele writes about identify formation and the churn that goes on in our heads due to feared stereotyping, man, this is stuff we care about. Right?

And, as he goes on to show as the book carefully unfolds, trust is the issue, the “critical ingredient of successful diversity in many of the everyday settings and relationships of our lives; that wiseness — seeing full humanity in human difference — was a mindset for winning trust between people of otherwise wary identities.” We have to create opportunities for people to tell you about their values, their needs, and their own agendas. Conveying faith in the other party’s potential” is a way to build trust and he has a chapter on it called “Trust in the Face of Power.”  Later, he has a chapter on how we can make institutions wise. I know some of our BookNotes readers need this book. Am I right?

Of course, churn isn’t only about African American and white interactions. LGTBQ, Muslim, Asian-American, disabled, and other subgrouping live daily life shrouded by a sense that the majority culture (and sometimes other minorities) may or may not hold assumptions and prejudices about them. Early on he tells a story about a large, Black woman who was a serious hiker on the Appalachian Trail; my goodness, the stereotypes she faced about endurance athletics and wilderness hiking and the rudeness of strangers towards her! Apart from the structural questions built into systems, the daily churn is costly and must be relieved. In a society increasingly diverse, it behooves us all to know what to do. Certainly if your church is theologically, culturally, ethnically, or economically, diverse, you’ve got to get more skills to deal with the social tensions that lurk. More diversity causes more churn. Claude Steele’s Churn: The Tensions That Divide Us and How to Overcome It can help. It’s a good read. Highly recommended.

Churn is the most hopeful book I’ve read in a long time. Grounded in social psychological research yet remarkably jargon-free, this book makes clear why we often feel anxious in our daily interactions, especially in diverse settings, and what it takes to reduce that anxiety and build trust between people, even those with whom we disagree — Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times

Ten Movements of the Jesus Way: Shifting From Worldly Self-Interest to Radical Discipleship Graham Joseph Hill (IVP) $20.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.79

There are a lot of fine books on following Jesus — we have shelves of them. Some even uses the language of “the Jesus way” (not least, Eugene Peterson’s one.)  I noticed that this one talks about “movements” of the way, so it didn’t sound formulaic, but, still, we’ve got too many calls to follow, guides to discipleship, pointers towards Christian living. I know a lot ofvery good, missional, ecumenically-minded evangelicals are writing out of Australia, but still.

And then I noted an intriguing blurb by Jack Sara, an evangelical leader who grew up in the Old City of Jerusalem, got involved with the holistic and multi-cultural vision of Lausanne and is not president of Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank of Palestine. If he likes it, that means a lot. Another early endorsement was from Grace Ji-Sun Kim, a professor from Earlham who is prolific and radical. She noted Hill’s storytelling and how his practical wisdom “invites readers into a lifelong journey that requires intention, practice, and courageous reimagining of how we live.” I got an early manuscript and was immediately hooked.

These ten movements are compelling, offering critique of worldly idols and religious accommodation. It is hard, but hopeful, moving us from one way of being to another. For instance, the first chapter is “Moving from Material Success to Spiritual Riches.”  The next is “From Power to Servanthood” And on we go, moving from indifference to justice and moving from legalism to grace and moving from expressive individualism to community. The last — I impatiently jumped ahead, laughing at myself after I realized the irony — is called “Moving From Frenetic Activity to Slow Discipleship.”

What is the cost, the call, and the joy of counter-cultural discipleship in these days. Listen to graham Jospeh Hill from down under. He fully gets our cultural moment of polarization and consumerism and inequality and the like. We can embrace the inclusive love of Jesus and bear witness to a better way. Join the movement!

Wonder: 52 Conversations to Help Kids Fall in Love with Scripture Meredith Miller (Worthy) $29.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

Our parenting section continues to grow with tons of older books and lots of new resources. Many look very good and a few seem rare with insight. (For instance, I’m excited about the new one by Mary Van Geffen called Parenting a Spicy One: A Compassionate Guide for Raising a Deep-Feeling and Wonderfully Strong-Willed Kid. (Revell; $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59.) Oh how I wished we’d had that twenty-five years ago. One of the endorsements on it is by a woman named Meredith Miller, a pastor (of Pomona Valley Church) who wrote the absolutely excellent Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From.

And that Meredith Miller’s recent one is a large size, hefty hardback just jam packed with open-ended and generously imaginative Bible study with the sub-title “A Grown-Up Guide to Exploring the Bible with Children.” I love the tone and useful size of Wonder and I trust the author. Her undergrad degree was from Westmont and her advanced studies were at Fuller where she was a curriculum consultant for the esteemed Fuller Youth Institute. The book is arranged into 52 sections and equips grown-ups to talk about the stories intelligently with children.  It’s sort of a Biblical overview, a reference tool, and a family devotional wrapped in one.

God of All Promises: A Poetic Pilgrimage Through Genesis Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

It seems like there is a never-ending fount of Brueggemann essay collections, books compiled of his amazing blog posts, collections of his prayers, even older books being reissued. We stock them all, anything Brueggey related. But this. This might be the last bona-fide new book of his that he did before his death a year or so ago.  And it is stunning in more ways than one.

It was over forty years ago that the published his famous Interpreters commentary on Genesis. Now, so many decades later, with so much learning and insight under the bridge, he sets out to pray back the Bible to God, turning each chapter of Genesis into a prayer. A poem that functions like a prayer. It is both insightful and devotional. It’s a remarkable way to end a career known for deep scholarship and passionate activism in the church and world. I am touched by the very poignancy of this, even though if you were ever with him you know that he was always poetic and prayerful.

Listen, please, to these lovely tributes:

These ‘prayers and probes’ have been inspired by one last reading through the book of Genesis by a master exegete, who, as it turns out, is also a master poet. How appropriate! This little book is a treasure, left to us unexpectedly by one who has taught us much. And in this last contribution, he continues teaching. One can almost hear his voice when reading these prayers, like one following Brueggemann on a poetic pilgrimage one last time through the text he loved so well.  — Bill T. Arnold, Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, Asbury Theological Seminary

This rich collection testifies to Brueggemann’s abiding love of the Hebrew Scriptures and his wisdom about spiritual formation. His expositions of Genesis texts are saturated with poetic drama, theological depth, and ethical honesty. This book is beautifully suited for Bible studies, devotional reading, and discussion groups eager to link biblical theology with contemporary issues. — Carolyn J. Sharp, Professor of Homiletics, Yale Divinity School

Brueggemann’s God of All Promises provides a devotional lens to explore the book of beginnings. Intentionally theological, these reflections model a way for us to, in his words, ‘pray back’ to the text. Moreover, the poetic form of each entry reminds us of the ways in which the Bible is inherently poetic, dialogical, and invitational, calling us into a space where we can be challenged, surprised, delighted, sometimes troubled, but always transformed. This is a great resource for individual and group study.  — Judy Fentress-Williams,  Professor of Biblical Interpretation, Virginia Theological Seminary

Paul for the World: A Ground Vision of Finding Meaning in This Life — Not Just the Next Nijay K. Gupta (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE – $15.99

Any time there is a new book by the profile and important New Testament scholar, Nijay Gupta, it is worth celebrating. This one I am especially jazzed about for a couple of reasons. You can tell from the subtitle that it picks up on themes I often share (not least in my concerns about a small part of the otherwise great book by Brian Zahn, above.) In a nutshell, the old gospel song “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through” is just wrong. And (as NT Wright has been helpful in explaining) the Rabbi Apostle Paul would offer important grounding for life on the ground. Paul’s vision for vibrant discipleship starts right here, right now.

Besides taking this dumb idea to the woodshed one more time, insisting that the Apostle’s letters are about transformed living amidst a pagan culture, Gupta offers a compelling and coherent Pauline theology to undergird our real-world concerns.  The first section of this volume (3 chapters) are under the heading of “holy worldliness.” (I first heard that phrase in a long-out of print book from Fortress by Richard Mouw.) That’s it!!

More to the point, Paul for the World is very much a sequel to the previous (very informative) book by Gupta called Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling. This question of how the first century Christians resisted the Empire of Rome is a hot topic these days and there is much to learn and Gupta not only knows the historical and theological stuff, he’s an energetic and upbeat writer, more fun than most.  (Just think of Nadia Williams’s Cultural Christians in the Early Church (Zondervan; $26.99) or The Patient Ferment of the Early Church by Alan Kreider (Baker Academic; $32.99) or Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World Like the Early Church by Stephen Presley (Eerdmans; $24.99) or the older, but powerful Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry Hurtado (Baylor University Press; $19.95.) And while we’re at it, you know I often give a shout out to Romans Disarmed: Doing Justice / Resisting Empire by Sylvia Keesmaat & Brian Walsh  (Brazos Press; $34.00.)

Anyway, Gupta’s Paul for the World is a follow up to his first-century study, Strange Religion. He notes at the outset that while that book allowed us to enter that first-century world and learn about our early church siblings, it was less prescriptive about how we, today, should be “weird, dangerous, and compelling.”  It seems this new one on Paul offers more direction, showing the details of what live out the implications of Romans 12: 1-2 might look like.

Paul really did address the issues of their day, if only we have the eyes to see. He has impressive chapters on here and now justice, ethnic equality, economics, work, friendship, athletics, wellness, and the arts. Wow. You’ve got to see this, believe me.

I love the concluding final chapter, “A Resurrection Revolution for This World.” It is centered around some points in Moltmann’s A Theology of Hope and his “on the ground” eschatology.

This is a beautiful book. Beautiful, challenging, reorienting. With his scriptural wisdom and deft writing, Gupta calls us to see Paul through new eyes and find the hope of Christ not just in the world to come but in how we live our lives right now. Gupta reminds us that what we do matters, because Paul’s vision of a world made new is a hope worth fighting for. Get this book to renew your heart and give you the courage to act more like Jesus. — Beth Allison Barr, professor, Baylor University; author of Becoming the Pastor’s Wife.

The Essential Herman Bavinck: A Reader and Commentary edited and with commentary  by Gayle E. Doornbos & N. Gray Sutanto (Baker Academic) $59.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $47.99

At over 550 pages this is the biggest book on our June list, and one of the bigger books of the year.  And yet it is manageable with excellent introductory comments in front of each major section; Jessica Joustra, formerly of Redeemer University and now at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids, nicely calls it “orienting” and says it is a “gift to all theology enthusiasts.” Serious Reformed readers probably know about the large, multi-volume series on dogmatics done in recent years of the early 1900s neo-Calvinist and this one volume work brings together some of his best systematic, Biblical, and public theology in one large volume. Let’s call it a greatest hits collection from his earliest writing to his mature years.

More than the most popular, this “essential” volume brings together the most significant (or  seminal and suggestive) work done by Herman B, work that set the wide-as-life redemptive vision for Kuyper and, a century later, some of my own heros who founded the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. That Kuyper and Bavinck became known as founders of a movement of Dutch Reformed “neo-Calvinism” is important to know; that their concerns about everything from science to the arts to political pluralism to common grace have significantly shaped some quarters of generous Reformed thinking is undeniable. For those wanting to go to the source and read the dense professor Bavinck first hand, this is undoubtedly the go-to work.

Dangerous Songs: The Psalms and a Gloriously Disrupted Life Richard Bruxoort Collegian (Broadleaf Books) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

I have followed Richard Bruxvoort Colligan on and off for years, it seems. He is a Lutheran, I think, an indie-rock folkie musician who has done bunches of liturgical and earnest church music. He holds an MA in theology and the arts from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and a DMin in grief work from Eden Seminary. He is director of spiritual formation at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Rochester, Minnesota and — no surprise — is a study of the Psalms. And this is his long-awaited book.

Blurbs on the back might give you a feel if you think this might be for you. Christine Valters paintner, an expansive spiritual writer — her latest include Give Me A Word and Breath Prayer — says “I so love this book!” Brian McLaren raves. Marcias McFee — creator of the Worship Design Judie and author of Purveyors of Awe: Elements for Curating a Life of Spiritual Depth says it gift us “turns of phrase that delight and widen our perspective what is happening around us and inside us.”

She continues:

“His enthusiasm for a deep dive into the whoops and hollers, groans and teeth-gnashing, as well as the quietude and contemplation of the spiritual journey, is like being transplanted to a spot all our own near a stream of living water. Soak it up, friends.”

Some of our friends know the UCC author and musician Bryan Sirchio, director of the Convergence music Project. He simply says that Colligan “has brought the Psalms to life for me as never before.”

Dangerous Songs is a dangerous book. It might rock your world, calling you to rethink the very notion of Scriptural engagement, wondering if a real-world reflection might be more transformative than a dogmatic commentary. Hearing how a modern musician and artist grapples with these ancient songs must might scare you. Maybe you’ll roll your eyes. Or, maybe you, too, will find that, as McLaren put it, “these Psalms can guide you into a life of thriving, even in grief, despair, fury, and bewilderment.”

If Only We Could See: Reimagine Creativity, Compassion, and Calling Through the Extraordinary Life of Lilias Trotter Jennifer Trafton (B+H) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

There is so much that could be said about this luminous, hefty hardback, but I want to be brief. I’ll say just this: If Only We Could See is a major biography of a late nineteen century missionary from London who gave up artistic fame to move to the deserts of North Africa. We have followed books about her (there have not been many) and have corresponded with her foundation (The Lilias Trotter Legacy.) For a while we had some books about her, and discovered a documentary film made about her called Many Beautiful Things directed by Laura Waters Hinson. (You can watch it for free online visit liliastrotter.com/watch) I gather that the wonderful creative and artful writer Jennifer Trafton was drawn to Trotter by this film as well.

Trotter, as I noted, was on the cusp of what might have been world-wide fame when she moved to a very poor part of London, following her deep Christian faith and desire to share the gospel with others. If Only We Could See explores some of her dramatic conversion and life and her call to Africa. In this sense, it is a moving missionary biography. There have not been that many truly inspiring mission biograhies lately so this is a particular stand out.

However, Lilias continued to pain while in Algeria. And it is here that Trafton draws out even more than interesting missionary storytelling. There are full color reproductions of some of her watercolors (one for each chapter, at least) and she explores the relationship between creativity and compassion. How Trotter’s own love of her place poured out in her exquiste paintings.

Granted, “turning away from worldly recognition and social convention” and forging her own path is itself inspiring. But, as Trafton puts it “her artistic and spiritual journeys intertwined as she expanded the many-colored canvas of her creativity to embrace not only the sweeping vistas of the Sahara, but also the lives of the Arab people she loved.”

You may know the biographer Trafton from her work with The Rabbit Room (she is in, with Malcolm Guite and others, the fantastic collection The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad and contributed to Every Moment Holy Volume III. She was even in that final Wingfeather collection. Oh, and had a piece in the Square Halo anthology Tolkien and the Arts: A Theology of Subcreation. It is an honor to get to tell you about her latest labor of love.

B+H notes on the back cover that if Only We Could See is more than the story of one remarkable woman, but “an invitation to experience the beauty of creation with fresh wonder, to look at our neighbors through new lenses, and to discover what “beautiful possible life awaits each of us as we follow the call of the Divine Artist.” It’s a beautiful project and a stellar volume.

The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land Aziz Abu Sarah & Maoz Inon (Crown) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

This is not brand, brand new but recent, and has gotten remarkable acclaim. We had a few customer eager for it. It is gorgeously written, humane, honest, and, as you might suppose, written by a Muslim and a Jew. Maoz is a peace activist whose parents were killed in the October 7 Hamas attack. When Abu Sarah was young, his broth­er was killed by Israeli forces after being beat­en in prison for throw­ing rocks.  Both are involved in peace building tourism and know well the understandable fears and resentments held by various stakeholders, Muslim, Christian, and secular Arabs and Israelis of different sorts. As one Jewish book reviewer put it, it is “filled with pain and promise.”

As the authors themselves say, “There is a mirror between Israel and Palestine, each of us reflecting our own rage back at ourselves. We must break this mirror and look one another in the eye to humanize the other side, but even more important, to recognize our own humanity.”

 The Future Is Peace is a remarkable book that brilliantly captures Martin Luther King’s ‘inescapable network of mutuality.’ It’s a passionate book, carefully constructed and heartbreakingly true. The message is both simple and immense: We are all helixed together by our humanity. As a guide to the torn heart, it also allows a vision of repair. — Colum McCann, Apeirogon: A Novel and American Mother

Poverty Abolitionists: Faith, Activism, and Hope for Difficult Times David Beckman (Bloomsbury Academic ) $27.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

I don’t know anything about how important writers end up on the publishing houses that they do, but David Beckman — former World Bank economist, former director of Bread for the World, the Christian lobbying group founded by Lutheran pastor Art Simon — deserves to be on this world class press. It’s notable, and he has now given us a work that is as urgent as it is         strategic. And the forward by world-class travel writer and TV host, Rick Steves! What a blast.

(Steves has long been an anti-hunger activist and has been especially active with BFW, or Bread as it is sometimes called. Hooray.)

Beckman brings to us in Poverty Abolitionists what other BFW executives have done (Art Simon before him, and Eugene Cho after him) and which he has done before — speaking in a tone that is deeply faith based and yet inviting; ecumenical and gracious as can be, and, alongside the generous piety and Biblical inspiration, loaded with both policy advocacy and lots of data and facts about poverty, hunger, and food programs. It connects faith and facts, vision and down-to-earth proposals. It is not only inspiring and convicting, but it gives you tools to get to work.

He learned lessons while heading Bread and here he shares stuff about learning, about ecumenical alliances, about translating faith in to realistic civic activism. How do we get other people (especially in our churches) to care about The Farm Bill on funding SNAP or USAID? And how do we get them not just to care but to join in specific citizen advocacy?  This book explains how.

Much of this is about organizing, about enticing others to care, about warming the conversation and building a bigger table to get folks involved. He does explain facts about how we are able to stop poverty and reduce hunger but, more, he shows how getting involved makes people feel (there is even a bit of neuroscience) and how we can enhance efforts to work together. How do we act, now in this crisis moment? What do we do about those who push back; what about MAGA? Can we act now to work in democratic ways, given the challenges? What about getting younger folks involved? How do we make room for fresh leadership?

The always charming Steves is right; “we need this book now!”

David Beckmann always connects facts to faith. He tracks the reduction of poverty in recent decades and directly relates it to the moving of a loving God in history. He documents how the US government is now making life harder and even deadly for poor and hungry people; and hears a call from God to push back. David Beckmann’s book will help people move from discouragement to becoming faithful poverty abolitionists. — Jim Wallis, The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy

Bad Religion Good News: An Honest Guide for the Spiritually Disappointed Scott Bessenecker (Herald Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

There are so many books inviting readers to a more progressive edge of Christian practice, throwing in our lot with the poor, rejecting legalism and strict dogmatism, celebrating common grace and wonder, moving from theological certainty towards mystery and wonder. Some who write like this are enchanting but end up — if I may gently say — throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Legitimate concerns devolve into wholesale deconstruction. Some people rave against rules they hardly understand. The pain and passion makes for vibrant writing and I’m glad for voices that help standard church folks see where they’ve hurt others.

Bessenecker is strong on his critique of ordinary religion, and this is nothing new. His book documenting those who stood with the poorest of the poor The New Friars came out 20 year ago out of which came a radical call to rethink missions funding and global equity and more in Overturning Tables: Freeing Missions from the Christian-Industrial Complex. I’ve been told more than once that his 2009 classic, How to Inherit the Earth: Submitting Ourselves to a Servant Savior, is one of the most transforming books they’ve ever read. Bessenecker has earned the right to speak hard words to us and he remains resolutely and gladly an orthodox follower of Jesus. He works for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in their Global Engagement and Justice department.

Bad Religion looks more directly at what the back cover calls “our checkered past.” As Publisher’s Weekly put it, “This accounting of the church’s structural sins if bold, thorough, and evenhanded.”

Scott insists that the best way to cope with the disappointments in our faith communities is not to leave the church. (He has been part of the same congregation for more than 40 years.) He knows that some have experienced terrible trauma at the hands of toxic religion and he convinces readers that discussing this is essential. We care not cover up the churches past and present sins.

Yet, even as he has experienced great disappointments, he knows that God is good. He knows wounds can heal. He knows that we an embody “the prophetic alternative to domination that the church was always meant to be.”

We stock almost all the main books done by Herald Press and are glad for this new one. It is written with compassion and even humility. It is mature but not tame. Scott testifies to the richer spirituality he has found in his journey, and invites readers to join together to make the church better.There are fabulous discussion questions at the end of each chapter, layered for individuals (often rather internal, inviting us to reflect about personal stuff) and for groups. Some are conversational and designed for healthy discussions. Finally, there are “embodiment” sections with suggestions to guide groups to further action.

Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith J D Vance (Harper) $35.00 //OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

I sometimes list books that we don’t whole-hearted recommend. We usually have our reasons, and we usually explain why we think a questionable book might be worth your while. And you know our old joke, that we stock “something to offend everyone.” I don’t want to make light of this — I’ve sweated bullets about it — but I wanted to list this new hot seller, assuring you we can send it if you want. But I feel a bit soiled suggesting it.

I’ll say three quick thing. First, I haven’t read it, but I hope to. I understood, even back then, the criticisms of Hillbilly Elegy — it seems not to be deeply understanding of Appalachian culture and, as a kid raised in the broken homes of the rust belt, the book maybe should have been called something else. Still, I found it compelling and regularly suggested it. (We didn’t think the movie was very good, btw.) If this new book is as interesting as his first, I’ll want to read it.

Secondly, though, I’ve read several good reviews (I rarely read reviews by others until I release my own) from several different theological and political places. Three come to mind, each that said it was shallow about how his Catholic faith shaped his current politics. If this is, as many suspect, a soft sort of launch towards a possible run for President, it is woefully inadequate. It seems he has some big gulf between what he claims to believe about faith and public life and what he actually advocates. That he doesn’t even mention — or so they say — the long-lived Catholic social teaching is illustrative of this blighted faith that fails to fund a faith-based public theology that has anything to do with Christ.

Thirdly, I remain hopeful that the story of a former atheist coming to Christian faith — despite his despicable politics and public behavior — is a good thing. Vance is an obviously very public figure who has written about his conversion. Let’s stop the dumb jokes (I’ve said to myself) about how they have a Protestant church on the cover and set aside a bit of the partisan anger, to give the guy a chance to tell his story. Granted, my fear is that it will reveal that he doesn’t know much about the faith and that what he does claim to know is less than faithful. (Just track down his interview with conservative and Catholic Ross Douthat which I gather left Douthat scratching his head; check this out about 20 minutes in which is Vance sounding good.) Still, one can hardly think of a more public conversion in recent years, so I hope our friends won’t mind me giving this a tentative recommendation, not as a good book by a great man, but as a possibly important book which, if even in tentative ways, points to the saving power of Jesus.