Grab your favorite fall beverage — pumpkiny spicy stuff is fine, although, as will become evident, a stout Guinness might work, too — and see if you can glean some inspiration from this report of some of our bookselling work this fall.
WHEN YOU PLACE AN ORDER BEFORE MIDNIGHT NOVEMBER 15th, 2018
WE OFFER YOU A 30% OFF DISCOUNT
while supplies last, of course.
Afterwards these remain on sale at our customary 20% off for BookNotes readers.
Many who follow our BookNotes newsletter enjoy hearing about some of our escapades on the road when we lug boxes of books and crates of supplies to build shelves and drape upside down cartons and string lights and set up our off-site pop-up book displays. I thought I might dedicate this column to a report from the highways and byways.
It’s been a busy fall and we must publicly acknowledge our hard-working bookshop staff. They help order and process and box and load books (and return overstock, afterwards) and do paperwork for the stuff that makes our book tables what they are 
(even when they are doing the daily tasks of waiting on folks here at the shop.) Beth and I get a lot of love from those who see us out at events but we couldn’t do it without Amy and Diana and Patti and volunteer Debi. (And some people think it is “Byron’s bookstore.” Not at all.)
We want to thank those who trusted us to offer resources at their events. You know who you are, but we thank you for your invitations and support, getting us to play a role in your event, putting me on your stage. It’s been a blast. Except for the all-night set-ups, the sore backs and that time the power went off. Oh, and the beverage spill on those hardbacks, but I digress.
ONELIFE INSTITUTE GAP YEAR — INSPIRING EMERGING YOUNG ADULTS
Earlier in the fall I enjoyed some speaking engagements, too, including a wonderful trip to the Three Springs Camp site of the spectacular OneLife gap year program. As 
they think about culturally engaged, Biblically faithful, whole-life discipleship for those transitioning out of high school and into young adulthood (and maybe college) we talked together about vocation and calling, Kingdom and church, the Bible and life, creation and new creation, and life and learning. Al Wolter’s Creation Regained: The Biblical Basis for a 
Reformational Worldview (Eerdmans; $15.00) and OneLife director Derek Melleby’s Learning for the Love of God: A Student’s Guide to Academic Faithfulness (co-authored by Don Optiz) (Baker; $15.00) were books I recommended strongly. And lots of others, too, of course, from Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God’s Creation by Paul Marshall to Greg Jao’s booklet Your Minds Mission to Think by John Piper to Garden City by the popular John Mark Comer.) I’m not sure most of these gap year kids considering their futures were quite ready for Steve Garber’s stunningly good Fabric of Faithfulness: Connecting Belief and Behavior (IVP; $19.00) but that book is very much about the young adult years, and informed Derek and his OneLife teams in the good work that they do. Do you know it? You really, really should!
More recent publications that I alluded to included The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church by John Seel (Thomas Nelson; $16.99), Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of 
Self Reliance (St. Martins; $17.99) and the serious, brand new The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Press; $28.00.) Whoa! I doubt if the young students will read them but like Kenda Creasy Dean’s Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (a serious, big-picture must-read for anyone who cares about teen ministry) published by Oxford University Press ($26.95) these are vital, important, even game-changing resources for those working in this particular field of the Lord.
Interestingly, since I first wrote this, we’ve gotten three new books in this genre, on this topic, just this week. They look excellent. See Reciprocal Church: 
Becoming a Community Where Faith Flourishes Beyond High School by Sharon Galgay Ketcham (IVP; $17.00.) Tod Bolsinger says “This is not a youth ministry book, but a church leadership book. It is not about keeping our kids, but changing our churches. Reciprocal Church will require you to rethink everything you think you know about youth ministry and everything you forgot about being the church.” Kenda Dean says it offers “a theologically significant and refreshingly sane voice…”
Also brand, brand new, is The Passion Generation: The Seemingly Reckless, Definitely Disruptive, But Far From Hopeless Millennials by Grant Skeldon and Ryan Casey Waller (Zondervan; $16.99.) Looks good! I liked Waller’s book Broken which was published a year ago by Forward Movement.
These recent works are important volumes for those pondering young adult ministry these days. Any campus ministry staff reading along? You should know these books!
Another group from OneLife (from their Lancaster site) came to us here at the shop one sunny early October day in two large shifts, and I got speak to them and our staff helped them buy a bunch of books before they made their way back to Lancaster. We felt the energy from that whirlwind day for a week!. We talked one-on-one with more folks earnestly seeking good books in that one day than we do in most weeks! It’s so exciting being with those who realize they’ve got a lot to learn and know that books can impact their lives.
Such events and such interest in book advise reminds us why we’re in this business: we really think books can help people live better lives.
MESSIAH COLLEGE — WE LOVE COLLEGE STUDENTS
One of my friends who is a consummate book lover and avid reader of fiction and nonfiction is Don Opitz who co-authored the above-mentioned Learning for the Love of God. (If you know any college students who have any inkling of being a Christian in their college years, this would make a wonderful gift! It is actually dedicated to me, so I feel deeply connected to it, and commend it often!) Don graciously asked me to do a couple of chapel talks at Messiah College this fall and it was an honor to do so; I’ve spoken to the study body of other Christian colleges such as Gordon, Eastern, Grove City, Taylor, Geneva, and Montreat, so it was sweet speaking to the entire, large student body in their morning chapel. Later that evening I did a talk about the role of books and reading which was really fun. (Thanks to those students who hopped in a car a week later and visited us here in Dallastown!) And thanks to Don’s team, the worship band, and those who hosted me so well. Messiah is a pretty and hospitable campus.
I noted to the audience that years ago I helped name what was once a center for faith and cultural engagement on campus, Issachar’s Loft (which now does excellent work in experimental education, outdoors leadership training and the like.) To unpack the Issachar name I said in passing, I’d recommend my chapter in the book which I edited 
which is full of inspiring and visionary college commencement speeches called Serious Dreams: Bold Ideas for the Rest of Your Life (Square Halo Books; $13.99) where I write about 1 Chronicles 12:32, a verse God gave me in the 1970s about being known as those who “understood the times and knew what God’s people should do.” Oh, if our churches and fellowship groups and institutions of Christian higher education held out the vision of raising up a generation of sons and daughters of Issachar! That Serious Dreams book, by the way, besides my long introduction about the young adult years and discerning one’s vocation in small towns and rural places (not everybody gets the cool corner office in some spiffy high-rise in a world class city, after all) could be inspiring for nearly anyone. I’m proud to have pulled together guidance from the likes of Richard Mouw and Amy Sherman and John Perkins and Steve Garber and more and when I speak on college campuses I sometimes show it off. Anyway, I wish more older folks would read Serious Dreams, too, and think of younger adults they could share it with. If you’ve like anything you’ve heard me say out on the road this fall, chances are it’s clarified and expanded by the sharp authors in Serious Dreams.
NEAR-BY PC(USA) FRIENDS
And, speaking of campus pastor Don Opitz, Beth and I are always grateful for his enthusiasm for serious reading, whether it is fiction or theology, sociology or spirituality, even if he’s not a fan of the Enneagram! He and his wife helped us load up and lug boxes after a Presbytery display out his way that took a lot of time during a discouraging weekend. Their help was a true blessing!) One of the books we sold at that event, by the way, is one that the moderators of the PC(USA)have asked every 
PC(USA) church to read together, a serious study called Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said about the Poor by Liz Theoharis (Eerdmans; $25.00.) It’s a bit more demanding, but more overtly Biblical in nature than the previous one our denomination was reading together, the excellent Waking Up White And Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving. We’ve been to a few other Presby gigs this fall — just yesterday at the Baltimore Presbytery learning day — and featured this one at each place.
SOME IN-STORE EVENTS
We had some after-hours in-store events a month ago, too. I did a workshop with a very impressive group of Pennsylvania-based Southern Baptist campus ministry leaders (Baptist Collegiate Ministry.) Wow, where they an impressive and fun group! I was excited to connect with those who have years (and in some cases decades) of experiencing helping college students find a relationship with God through Christ and helping them connect their discipleship to their life in college. These campus workers – like my pals in the CCO and IVCF and Cru and such – have some “serious dreams” and it was an honor to host them here at Hearts & Minds. As you might guess I announced the book done for Beth 
and I as a gift honoring our 35th anniversary by the Square Halo Books folks called A Book for Hearts & Minds: What You Should Read and Why: A Festschrift Honoring the Work of Hearts & Minds Bookstore which was compiled and edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books; $18.99.) It is jam-packed with eloquent essays and inspiring pieces by various scholars and writers telling us about the books they most recommend in their fields. There are chapters by N.T. Wright and Calvin Seerveld and Denis Haack and Karen Swallow Prior and lists developed on fantasy and cookbooks and Bible study and films and politics and sociology and the arts and so much more. It’s a good handbook for anybody who loves books and reading about books. I swear, reading these chapters is more valuable for most of us than a year’s worth of The New York Times Review of Books.
Naturally, I also plugged a book I adore – Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish by C. Christopher Smith (IVP; $16.00.) I think I even recommended the exquisite Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers. Poets, and Journalists by Cornelius Plantinga (Eerdmans; $14.00.) What great tools these are to inspire others to become lifelong learners and serious readers.
TWO GUEST AUTHORS and TWO GREAT NIGHTS
If you read BookNotes regularly you know about the two wonderful author events we held this fall. People drove from far and wide to hear nationally-known historian John Fea, lecturing and discussing his important Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (Eerdmans; $24.99) which is important reading these days. We were beyond comfortable capacity with over 100 guests to hear Dr. Fea and we stayed until after 11:00 talking about faith and politics in the age of Trump even as we drank [or didn’t] Red State and Blue State Kool Aid or Green Party Tea. Ha.
A week later folks came out to hear our very smart literary friend, Liberty University literature professor Karen Swallow Prior, speaking on her new book about virtue and reading good books, On Reading Well: Finding the 
Good Life Through Great Books (Brazos; $19.99.) We love her other books, too, including her wonderful, beautiful, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T.S. Poetry Press; $17.99.) We had a good gathering for Karen, too – over 40 interested customers, at least, who loved her bookish knowledge and her bidding to read the good stuff. What good conversations great books evoke! We were very grateful she made the trek from Virginia to be with us. Publisher’s Weekly just named On Reading Well one of the best religious books of the year — congrats to Karen!
You can read my previous BookNotes reflection about why Fea’s Believe Me is so important, here. You can read my review of Prior’s On Reading Well here. They are still on sale, of course, so send us an order, please. These are well worth owning and make wonderful gifts for those who might find them stimulating. (And, yes, that 30% off deal announced at the start of this report is good until November 15, 2018.)
PRAXIS GATHERING – PLANTING NEW CHURCH COMMUNITIES
Thanks to the remarkable Praxis Gathering in Philadelphia for allowing us to bring some books to your impressive event. Click that link and take a look at these speakers, and know that we had all their books there. All but a few of these books we knew, and we were familiar with many of the authors so we really felt like this was our tribe. Kudos to them for having so many women, people of college, young and old, urban and rural, thought leaders and practitioners in the fine art of church planting and advancing a Kingdom movement. It’s very cool to be part of ecumenical events, and this gathering included missional leaders, church planters, and scholars from places as diverse as Missio Alliance, Plough magazine and publishing, and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. What fun. If this is something you are drawn to, you should plan to attend next year.
By the way, we had not heard of Rohadi Nagassar and since his book Thrive. Ideas to Lead the Church in Post-Christendom (Roberry Publishing; $15.99) is self-published, you may not know of it either. Those who publish on more conventional publishers – InterVaristy Press, Baker Publishing, Eerdmans, Fortress, Zondervan, Crossway, Abingdon, and the like – have a hard enough time getting their work known; self-published books are often only sold by the author at his or her events or out of the trunk of their car so most potential readers never hear of them. So here’s a good shout-out about a really good book by a fascinating speaker and leader. We’re thrilled to have discovered his book through this event. Why not help a brother out and help get this work better known? Our friend J.R. Woodward (I hope you know his IVP classic, Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World ) writes a vibrant foreword.
For many years, Rohadi has been a voice calling out from edges of the church. This book is a helpful primer for people that want to join him by intentionally choosing to live out the gospel at the edges of Christendom. His perspectives are raw and real. You owe it to yourself to take a look. – Jared Siebert, National Director of Church Planting, Free Methodist Church in Canada
Speaking of books that captured much of the vision and energy of that Praxis Gathering, I’d want to celebrate (as I do many places we go) the extraordinary book by Praxis speaker Christiana Rice (co-authored by Michael Frost) called To Alter Your World: Partnering with God to Rebirth Our Communities (IVP; $17.00.) I love that book and suggest it to anyone who wants to exegete your own community, discern what sort of issues need addressing, and how to help birth newness in those places. Very highly recommended!
COLORADO CHRISTIAN BUSINESS ALLIANCE (CCBA) FAITH & WORK CONFERENCE
While our daughter Stephanie – small town gal who is comfortable in the big city and a very ecumenical lay theologian in her own right – held forth staffing the Philadelphia Praxis gig, I left to fly to Denver, Colorado (and saw our other daughter who lives there.) What a blast to borrow my old CCO friend Craig Johnston’s convertible to tool around the city after serving his organization, the Colorado Christian Business Alliance at their annual conference. I am still telling folks about the three keynote speakers at their conference on faith and work, equipping business people to take up their work as holy callings, to think Christianly about business and management and work and calling and career and all of that. There are a lot of folks out there thinking about how Christ’s Lordship and Kingdom should shape 
their businesses. I was very moved (and really, really enjoyed hanging out with) Joel Manby author of Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders (Nelson; $19.99.) Maybe you saw Joel on Undercover Boss, where it became clear he was a man who was good to his workers and just in his economic dealings. Love Works is not overly academic, but is thoughtful and very, very helpful. We have lots of books about faith and business, of course, and many on economics, globalization and such. But this one is immediately useful for anyone wanting to be faithful and do things differently in your workplace leadership
While at the CCBA event I loved finally meeting an old facebook friend whose books 
I’ve reviewed, John Van Sloten. His most recent book is the fabulous Every Job a Parable: What Walmart Greets, Nurses, and Astronauts Tell us About God (Navpress; $14.99.) John gave an incredible presentation on finding God in the work-world, how paying attention to the actual work itself can reveal good stuff about who God is and how God’s world is structured. If “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19) and we are to be informed by the creation speaking to us (the fish, even, so says Job 12) a Christian perspective on work must go beyond the great starting point of calling and the obviously important concerns about integrity, business ethics, relationships, and love for others and actually be intentional about considering the literal stuff we work with. God is there, all around everything and being aware of the spirituality of the moment and the revelatory nature of our typical tasks at the job site can be nearly revolutionary. You can learn more about his book Every Job a Parable here. Thanks to everybody out at the CCBA event. If you are anywhere in the Rocky Mountain area, put it on your calendars for next year – we may not be able to take a book display out there, but I’m glad to play a small part.
(Here is a video of one of the talks I gave there last year. It’s pretty wild and I tell some interesting stories with a lot of verve. You might want to buckle up for this!)
WEE KIRK SMALL CHURCH CONFERENCE
Zooming back from there we packed up two of our larger fall events, our beloved, annual Wee Kirk conference at the lovely Laurelville Mennonite Camp and Retreat Center in Western PA. I like to pronounce Wee Kirk with a Scottish accent, since it is a very Presbyterian (USA, mostly) event and it is all about small church life. What good folks, what thoughtful book buyers, what encouraging Christian leaders who inhabit with confidence (usually) and joy (usually) their rural and small town spaces and represent God’s coming Kingdom in often quiet, smallish ways.
We all recalled our aging friend and supporter Eugene Peterson (he had not passed yet) who years ago so encouraged us as a speaker at Wee Kirk (as did the late, great Bible scholar, Ken Bailey.) We’ve had great speakers at Wee Kirk over the years and this year was no different.
Jordan Rimmer kicked off the event fabulously as he explained some of the semiotics of story and channeled a bit of his teacher, Leonard Sweet. He invited us to realize the power of story, the storied nature of our lives, the way we live into and tell about God’s story, what we sometimes call the four-chapter story of 
creation/fall/redemption/restoration. I’m glad he highlighted creative books like The Story of God 
The Story of Us by Sean Gladding (IVP; $17.00) and The Drama of Scripture: Find-ing Our Place in the Biblical Story by Craig Bartholomew & Michael Goheen (Baker; $24.95) and told folks to start Bible study groups using the great discussion resource All Things New: Rediscovering the Four Chapter Gospel by Hugh Whelchel (Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics; $8.00.) Yes!
Jordon is more theologically conservative than either Rob Bell (What Is the Bible?) or Rachel Held Evans (Inspired) or Peter Enns (The Bible Tells Me So) but noted how he enjoyed much of their insights into how the Bible works as a story. He highlighted a ton of books about story in neuroscience and work and pop culture and advertising, including titles like Mike Cosper’s The Stories We Tell: How TV and Movies Long for and Echo the Truth (Crossway; $15.99) and then Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel (Crossway; $15.99.) Such good books!
Grove City College Bible prof and Presby pastor James Bibza brought a very healthy and classic reminder of the storied nature of the Bible as well – one cannot avoid it – but his talks emphasized the historical reliability of the Bible, helping those of us who teach and preach to be clear about the absolute authority of the Word of God written. He cited heavy-duty scholarship such as The Inerrant Word: Biblical, Historical, 
Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives edited by John MacArthur (Crossway; $35.00.) His go-to, entry-level book on how to read the Bible well and faithfully is How To Read the Bible for All It’s Worth by Gordon Fee & Douglas Stewart (Zondervan; $22.99) and it is one of our biggest sellers in this field, so we were glad about that – you should have a few copies of it around to share with anyone who needs some helpful guidance on how to better read the Bible. It is reliable and interesting and very helpful.
We loved, as always, being with our friend Lisa Nichols Hickman. She did a stunning closing sermon inspired somewhat by earlier conversations she and I have had about Hillbilly Elegy and rust-belt geography; I had promoted Eliza Griswold’s brilliant, page-turning Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America to help us understand the confluence of Northern Appalachia and Rust Belt culture that is Western Pennsylvania; Lisa invited us to think about hard times and resurrection in our unique places. She could do a book about small towns and rust belt places like what Leonce Crump did for caring about urban places in his fabulous Renovate: Changing Who You Are By Loving Where You Are.
Lisa did three workshops, too, on her lovely book on prayer, 26 Ways to Pray the Alphabet: Daily Spiritual Practices to Help You Ask, Begin, Center, and Do (Abingdon; $6.99) which we like a lot, and the one that I had the great privilege of writing a foreword to called Writing in the Margins: Connecting with God on the Pages of Your Bible (Abingdon Press; $17.99.) She and her husband are ordained PC(USA) ministers and serve Wee Kirk so well. And Beth and I are real fans.
There were other workshops, of course, and they gave me lots of time up front telling about books they should be reading. We promoted two great books on rural life — God’s Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church by Bradly Roth (Herald Press; $16.00) and The Forgotten Church: Why Rural Ministry Matters for Every Church in America by Glenn Daman (Moody Press; $14.99) and two new books on small church life (Small Church Essentials: Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation… by Karl Vaters (Moody Press; $12.99) and Small Church Checkup by Phil Schroeder & Kay Kotan (Discipleship Resources; $16.00) along with last year’s Wee Kirk best-seller, Love Big Be Well a novel (in a series of letters by a 
small town pastor) by Winn Collier (Eerdmans; $16.99.) We told about some kids books, some basic spirituality stuff, and some of this years important books for this crew such as Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass (HarperOne; $26.99) and Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory by Tod Bolinger (IVP; $22.00.) I enjoyed highlighting a beautifully written, very poignant memoir by a pastor called Loving and Leaving a Church: A Pastor’s Journey by Barbara Melosh (WJK; $18.00.) Throughout this several day event over lots of food and among partipants who have become dear friends we had a blessed time chatting and praying and laughing and talking books.
CHRISTIAN LEGAL SOCIETY (CLS)
We left that event and parked our big white van full of Wee Kirk books in the driveway of a Pittsburgh-area friend (thanks Jefferson) who lives out near the airport and flew to the-stormy Western Florida so that we could be a part of the annual conference of the Christian Legal Society. CLS values our role in their work so much that they’ll do anything to get us to their big event. We packed up a rented truck full of books on jurisprudence and law, faith and culture, Christ and social concerns, worldview and philosophy and politics and government, and they drove it to the Tampa area for us. They bought us plane tickets so we could fly down, skipping out of Wee Kirk in a rush, and getting to the Florida conference site in time for our day-long set up in the CLS book room. We had a book signing that night, and with constitutional scholars like former Attorney General Edward Meese and Presidential advisor in the house we were on our toes. (And, oh yeah, we have a photo of Mr. Meese sitting in our book room, in case you don’t believe us!)
CLS has four main ministries – they promote and support legal aid clinics for the poor, they have a broad, general sort of ministry to encourage attorneys in their callings (with chapters all over the country), they do behind the scenes research and scholarship on religious freedom, doing legal work and litigation (including writing amicus briefs that have been cited by the Supreme Court), and they run a fun and effective ministry with law students at law schools all over the country. Their annual conference brings together those serving the poor, those working with prisoners and immigrants, as well as those doing litigation to ensure religious liberty and public pluralism. It takes two wings to fly a plane, some joke, suggesting that there is considerable political diversity in this healthy, important organization. Every profession should have a vibrant, thoughtful, well-staffed organization like this; we are truly honored to have played a small role in their events in recent years.
If any of this is new to you, by the way, I’d suggest reading the very impressive book by one of our biggest supporters and one of my best friends, the amiable, super-smart Michael Schutt. It’s called Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession (IVP Academic; $27.00.) More brief and concise is a nice little volume by CLS regular (and notable senior partner of a respected Chicago area law firm) John W. Mauck called Jesus in the Courtroom: How Believers Can Engage the Legal System for the Good of His World (Moody Press; $13.99.)
We met a pastor there who we had previously only talked with on the phone and it was so lovely to meet him. His name is Eric Mounts and he told us (so humbly) that he had a few lawyers in his church and he wanted to serve them well and love what they do. 
So he came to CLS to learn about lawyers – he even goes to the local circuit court to watch appeals, just to study up and learn how better to love the law and serve his parishioners. How about that! Mounts has written a devotional (which started out, again, for his own lawyer friends) called In His Chambers: A 91-Day Devotional Experience for Lawyers (WestBow; $17.95.) It’s really good (and our friend, CLS staffer and author of Redeeming Law Michael Schutt wrote the forward to it, offering that important imprimatur.) If you know any lawyers it would make a great gift. And – dare I say it without sounding too prideful – you most likely aren’t going to find it at your local religious bookstore or big box chain store. We go out of our way to stock this kind of book, so order some from us today!
One of our big sellers at the CLS conference was the very new book by Os Guinness called Last Call for Liberty.: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat (IVP; $27.00.) You can imagine that this was a perfect title to promote among these smart lawyers called into the world of law, public advocacy, and civic life, who know much about the pressures of the modern world, including details about legal precedent, constitutional interpretation and the like.
Guinness’s new book, rigorous and eloquent as it is, is not for legal scholars or about the philosophy of jurisprudence. It is written for ordinary (educated) Americans and is clear and potent as he compares and contrasts two great motifs in the West, two different views of freedom – one from the great American revolution of 1776, shaped by ideas and intentions of a certain worldview, if you will, and the French revolution of 1789. He makes a fair case that historically, the conservative movement has drawn on the American ideas and ideals (and are thereby fastidious about the constitution and Bill of Rights) while those leaning left are too often influence by a perspective of freedom drawing from the destabilizing French revolution. (You know how that ended up with the anti-religious vibe, the guillotine and all.)
OS GUINNESS AT SPRINGTON LAKE IN NEWTON SQUARE
Just a few weeks ago, with our CLS conversations still ringing in my ears, I was delighted to connect with Os again after having not crossed paths with him for a few 
years. I enjoyed, and was challenged, hearing him again (of course) and was jazzed selling his books to a big crowd at Springton Lake Presbyterian Church in Newtown Square, a bit outside of Philadelphia. His concerns about the sustainable future of the American experiment is almost palpable and reading this book carefully could be an important project. Each chapter is essentially a question, a challenging, asking us how we intend to nurture the roots and ideas that sustain our liberty. This is no simplistic screed against Trump or the fake news or whatever other symptom we have of our eroding moral center. Regardless of your own opinions of the issues of the day, this deep dive with challenge and inform you.
David Koyzis seriously studies this question of the role of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in our current political lives as profoundly as anyone in his Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (IVP; $27.00) and if this topic (discerning the spirits and ideologies of old that have influenced our country) I very highly recommend it.
But here in Last Call… Guinness brings his trademark passion and clarity to incisively offer a dozen key questions, a checklist, so to speak, for ordinary Americans to do some much-needed civic soul-searching. Which revolution has most decisively shaped us, our views of liberty, and understanding of government, our hopes for our culture? What is it about the autonomous views of law that emerged from the thought-leaders of the French Revolution that have seemed to capture the imagination and worldview of our day? Here is a video of one recent lecture by Dr. Guinness at the Trinity Forum which will give you a sense of his astute insight and compelling lecture style and the urgent content of this new book. Now would be a good time to get that stout that I mentioned… this is a hearty lecture, for sure.
For what it is worth, a very important historical study of all this that was written in the late 1800s by Groen Van Prinsterer, the political mentor of Dutch Christian social thinker (and founder of a Christian democratic political party in Holland) Abraham Kuyper. The significant Unbelief and Revolution (Lexham Press; $15.99) just came out in a newly translated, revised edition. I read these essays in the mid-1970s and I know I didn’t understand it much then, so I’m going to give ’em a go again, soon. It would be a valuable addition to those who have read Guinness and Koyzis. Kudos to Lexham for re-doing this older book and for what I’m told is a great translation by Harry Van Dyke. (Lexham also just this week released a huge volume of devotionals written by the younger Abraham Kuyper called Honey From the Rock so you can imagine we’re thrilled about that, too. It’s a large book and sells for $39.99 so our 30% off just might make it do-able, eh?)
By the way, that evening at Springton Lake Mr. Guinness happily shared the stage with one of the most artful, interesting contemporary acoustic rock shows I’ve seen in a while; part worship, part avant-garde folk pop, Young Oceans moved us deeply. The title of their new album is swiped from a line from Guinness’s classic The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose for Your Life (Thomas Nelson; $16.99) which I often say is one of my favorite books to recommend.
Well, the Guiness event came after we flew back to Pittsburgh after the CLS Florida event. The previous week we had flown back from CLS, picked up the Wee Kirk van from near the Pittsburgh airport, driving home in the middle of the night for five hours across the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We felt a deep satisfaction, if bone-weary exhaustion, humming “Rivers and Roads” by The Head and the Heart and, yes, “Homeward Bound” by Paul Simon. What a set of journeys we had; we had so many good conversations with so many different sorts of folks, book-lovers all.
A tree had blown down in our yard and even though we are grateful nobody was hurt, it’s a big mess; thank goodness our son is handy with his chain-saw. I had to give a talk the day after we got back to a very sharp group of international mission leaders at a nearby church which I did all hopped up on caffeine and enthusiasm about our book selling road trips, reminding folks once again why these blocks of paper and print are transforming tools that can change the world. We’ve staked our lives on it, and trust that you believe this too. The CLS truck was driven back from Florida and we picked it up and unloaded the dozens and dozens of boxes. Some of those boxes are still underfoot.
CCO STAFF TRAINING – A BOOKSELLING BONANZA
A week after that we headed back across the turnpike again to a two and a half day event serving the staff of the CCO (the Coalition for Christian Outreach) at their fall training event held at Antiochian Village, an Orthodox retreat center in the lovely hills outside of Ligonier, PA. We arrive there about 11 pm and set up a hefty display until about 7 am. Talking about books to these several hundred campus workers is about my favorite thing to do in the whole world. The joy of the Lord combined with adrenaline and coffee is my strength during those times, but when we get back with another van load of boxes to haul in and eventually unpack, I can be a bit discouraged.
At all of these events, we sell great titles, are surprised by what interests people, delighted that people still shell out hard-earned cash for books. Yet, we are sad that we don’t sell more — there are so many good ones and time rarely permits us to show the right ones to the right people. There’s so many titles yet to announce, good folks who need certain titles, resources that can help, we’re sure. If only we could connect better. On good days we sigh; other days I break down and weep.
We did sell some great books there at CCO, though. For what it is worth, several brand new ones stood out for them, including these:
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing Jay Stringer (NavPress) $16.99 I’ve raved about this before, an honest look at unwanted sexual behaviors and how we need to face our lusts, diving deeper into what drives us to do what we do. Highly recommended.
The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy Timothy Keller (Viking) $20.00 This had just come out and CCO folks are appreciative of Keller’s culturally-engaged vision, how he weaves a gospel-centered message even into studies like this, showing how the story of Jonah has relevance to our contemporary issues of race, immigration, urban ministry. This is a great little book.
Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice Eric Mason (Moody Press) $14.99 Again, CCO staff know Reverend Mason and his powerful inner city work at Epiphany Church in Philly — he has spoken at our Jubilee conference several times. It is very helpful for a passionately evangelical, theologically conservative, black pastor to teach us about what a faithful sort of being woke might look like. We sold out of this at CCO staff training, and we hope you order it from us, too.
Keep Christianity Weird: Embracing the Discipline of Being Different Michael Frost (NavPress) $7.99 I guess you’ve heard of the “weird” movement in cities such as Austin and Portland… The missional guru Michael Frost asks what the church might learn from those who want to keep their places full of innovation, quirky creativity, and who celebrate being odd-balls? The Bible calls the church “a peculiar people” so let’s revel in what Romans 12 calls being “non-conformed.” Frost rightly worries that we’re not weird enough and that God’s mission in the world is hindered when we lose our distinctiveness and joy. This short, pocket-sized book is a great little read, a good follow up to his fabulous, concise Surprise the World: The Five Habits of Highly Missional People (NavPress; $6.99.)
Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been Jackie Hill Perry (B+H Books) $16.99 Jackie Hill Perry was one of the Bible teachers at Jubilee last year and she was very impressive… Here she tells her life story, including stuff about her conversion, changing her mind about being lesbian, and adopting a Reformed theological orientation and she sets out to tackle issues of social justice. She’s a serious and thoughtful young black woman and a voice many great appreciate for her candor and grace. Keep an eye on her!
Others that were much discussed, considered:
Learning to Speak God from Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing–And How We Can Revive Them Jonathan Merritt (Convergent) $15.99 I’ve reviewed this previously and enjoyed Jonathan’s good writing and interesting thinking as he reminds us that words, especially religious/sacred/theological words are often not understood by our 21st century, post-Christian culture. Actually, some people do have some resonance with certain sacred language but because some terms have been weaponized and abused, we simply have to find better ways to say what needs to get said to share God’s grace with others. I will be very eager to hear what the astute, mostly young, CCO staff think of this and how it is useful in their evangelism and disciple-making work on secular campuses.
The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin Lauren Winner (Yale University Press) $28.00 This is surely one of the most interesting, semi-scholarly books I’ve read this year (although I am not yet finished with it.) Many CCO staff have read the best book on sin I know about — Cornelius Plantinga’s must-read Not The Way It’s Supposed To Be: A Breviary of Sin (Eerdmans; $22.00) — and this new book by Winner may be mining a similar vein. This is a healthy, helpful, studious exploration of one aspect of the fallen world in which we live, namely, that even good Christian practices — spiritual disciplines, celebrating Eucharist, and the like — are themselves damaged and can be damaging. Our friend Al Wolter’s in Creation Regained has a chapter called “structure and direction” that offers a template for discerning the essentially good thing in God’s creation and how it can be unfolded and practices wrongly, with distortion and harm. Winner gets this with astute insight, that there is characteristic ways hurt happens, even with the good stuff and good intentions. This is a very important. book.
Eternity is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place John Ortberg (Tyndale) $17.99 I’m glad I told you about this a few weeks ago, and I touted it at CCO. This is N.T. Wright and Dallas Willard re-articulated in Ortberg’s clear, upbeat, interesting way. A tremendous book and what an important truth to get deep in our bones — heaven is breaking into human history in the Kingdom of God and Christ’s reign and presences changes everything. Nice. Check out the DVD, too.
Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World A.J. Swoboda (Brazos) $19.99 We had a big stack of these alongside maybe 10 others on this topic at CCO staff training — I think it is the best recent book on Sabbath and one we’ve promoted anywhere we can. Happily, somebody in CCO had gotten it from us before and was telling friends about it so we sold a few. It. Is. Life-changing. It’s big and meaty and full of insight and a great book to work through slowly, even if it takes a long time. We really like this author and this is extraordinary. Very highly recommended!
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness Austin Channing Brown (Convergent) $25.00 We are proud to have been an early proponent of this extraordinary book, a memoir of a passionate, honest black woman making her way in the world these days. We sold quite a few to CCO friends last summer when we were together and they were back for more at this event. If you haven’t read it, you should; the writing is good and her story compelling. By the way, for those who have looked through this window of how a black Christian relates to her world and the largely white culture and want a bit more, we highly commend The Minority Experience: Navigating Emotional and Organizational Realities by Adrian 
Pei (IVP; $17.00.) It really is the next thing to read in this topic. Pei, an Asian-American, tells of his own experiences, but expertly adds the findings of research of the social sciences. Pei is an organizational consultant and here describes “key challenges ethnic minorities face in majority culture organizations, unpacking the historical forces at play and what both minority and majority cultures need to know in order to work together fruitfully.” Kudos to IVP for doing this kind of important, helpful publishing.
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA FAITH-BASED HEALTH MINISTRIES NETWORK
We really appreciate the work of this network that started to resource local parish nurses (we’ve got a goodly selection of books for congregationally-based health-care workers and those interested in parish nursing.) In recent years they’ve been organized through Eastern Mennonite University (who has a Lancaster campus, now.) This year they wanted to explore topics of trauma and shame and they picked an excellent speaker, a respected writer and Christian friend who a practicing psychiatrist. Beth took pages of notes and we’re still talking about neuroplasticity and how knowing a bit about neurology and brain studies can help in our faith development. We sold just these two books at their recent event and we couldn’t have been happier to connect with Curt again.
Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections Between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships Curt Thompson (Tyndale) $15.99 This is an amazingly practical book about relationships and spirituality, informed by neuroscience and the authors deeply integrated Christian view of psychiatry. It’s a great read and good for anyone who just wants to improve their life situation a bit or deepen their understanding of God’s guidance in their life. Very nicely done.
The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe about Ourselves Curt Thompson (IVP) $24.00 This has won any number of awards (including an appearance on our Hearts & Minds Books list in 2015.) It explores shame through the big picture of Scripture’s unfolding drama and then, in light of this frame, teaches how the brain deals with trauma and stress and shame and guilt and how God’s redemptive story can bring healing and wholeness. It is one of the best books on the topic I’ve read and we highly recommend it.
BALTIMORE PRESBYTERY LEARNING DAY
Maybe you saw a quick photo we sent out on social media showing the long line of books displayed at our gig hosted by our friends at Central Presbyterian in Towson, Maryland. We so respect them and it was a delight to be there again, this time, with the broader connectional church of the area PC(USA.) I got to do a workshop — yep, on reading and nurturing the Christian mind, being lifelong learners as we step into our callings and vocations. What a joy.
We displayed books, as we usually do, connected to the various workshops presented. Oh how I wish I could have snuck into each and every break out session to tell them the good books we had related to their topic.
For instance, there was a workshop on the opioid crisis. Among other things, we highly recommend Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America by Beth Macy (Little Brown; $28.00) which we named one of the best creative nonfiction titles of the year when we announced it this summer.)
You should know the heart-rending, faith-filled memoir published by Baker, On Pills and Needles: The Relentless Fight to Save My Son from Opioid Addiction by Rick Van Warner ($16.99) and, of course, Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff (Mariner Books; $15.99.) Although a few years old, the classic on our current crisis remains Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones (Bloomsbury; $18.00.)
The Baltimore Presbytery has a few interesting mission partnerships and we sold a number of books to enhance their work with the Dakota Presbytery — there are numerous First People’s tribes involved. Their workshop leader and panelists told 
about the indicting, scholarly resource Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery by Steven Newcomb (Fulcrum Publishing; $19.95.) You may know Newcomb from his role in the Dakota filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild’s compelling documentary “The Doctrine of Discovery: Uncovering the Domination Code.”s We suggested and sold a number of books about Native peoples, including the must-read Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way by the late Richard Twiss (IVP; $23.00.) His One Church Many Tribes (Chosen Books; $15.99) is a lovely intro to these discussions. We’re happy to stock a collection of his sermons that was put together after his untimely death called Dreamcatching: Following in the Footsteps of Richard Twiss compiled and published by Sue and Ray Martell (Cherohala Press; $15.95.)
I wish I could have talked to folks about Randy Woodley and his very weighty Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (Eerdmans; $25.00) and the fascinating book published by the Mennonite publishing house, Herald Press, Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry: Conversations on Creation, Land Justice, and Life Together edited by Steve Heinrichs (Herald Press; $24.99.) Wow.
There were several workshops about urban ministry (including one about working with angry youth) and a great one on faith development in family life. The speakers 
recommended the excellent Sticky Faith books by Kara Powell of Fuller Theological Seminary. For instance, we always stock and were glad to share her The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family: Over 100 Practical and Tested Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Kids (Zondervan; $15.99) and the one she did with Chap Clark, Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids (Zondervan; $16.99.) We like their teen curriculum book and DVD set, too, Sticky Faith Teen Curriculum with DVD: 10 Lessons to Nurture Faith Beyond High School (Zondervan; $21.99.)
One of the books that was recommended, among many, at this workshop was one that is a fine collection of spiritual practices and good ideas for thoughtful Christian families. Written out of the context of a mainline denominational church by Traci Smith, this pastor, a Princeton grad, sees these good ideas bearing fruit in ordinary church families. We really liked her earlier edition (Seamless Faith: Simple Practices for Daily Family Life) and appreciate the expanded version now called Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home (Chalice Press; $21.99.) What a joy to get to sell these kinds of books to those who care about faith formation in the home.
At these events, usually, the diversity of our selection curated for the particular group is appreciated. The other day we sold Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass and the new Tim Keller on Jonah. We sold the new Anne 
Lamott, Almost Everything and the Advent book, Advent, by rigorous Episcopal theologian-pastor Fleming Rutledge. We sold a copy of the new memoir by the late James Cone, Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody (Orbis; $28.00) and the new memoir Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels (Ecco; $27.99) right alongside the clear-headed apologetics of Tom Wright. We showed off the new Jan Peterson (that I told about in my video last week) Becoming Gertrude: How Friendships Shape Our Faith (NavPress; $14.99.) And we got to promote Sarah Arthur’s lovely A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle (Zondervan; $19.99.)
What fun telling people about Steve Garber’s Vision of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good (IVP; $17.99) and Jamie Smith and Tish Warren and Eugene Peterson and Os Guinness and Ruth Haley Barton and other favorites that we lug around everywhere we go.
And, we loved sharing a whole bunch of kids books. We’ll tell you about some of those before long.
What a job we’ve got. Even writing it here is a good reminder to us. Thanks for caring –we hope you find it helpful. We hope you are reminded of resources you may need.
For now, perhaps this list will allow you to imagine yourself shopping with us out on the road. Maybe you are a BookNotes reader we met at some of these (or other) events. We trust you’ll find something helpful here and maybe some ideas for gift giving or your next book club read. Why not help us with our huge unpacking process as we recover from this busy season of being on the road and send us an order today?
Don’t forget: any book mentioned, while supplies last, offered at 30% off until end of day Thursday, November 15, 2018. No foolin. This offer expires in less than 3 days.
After that the discount remains at 20% off the prices shown.
BookNotes
SPECIAL
DISCOUNT
ANY BOOK MENTIONED
30% OFF
(three days only)
order here
this takes you to the secure Hearts & Minds order form page
just tell us what you want
inquire here
if you have questions or need more information
just ask us what you want to know
Hearts & Minds 234 East Main Street Dallastown PA 17313
read@heartsandmindsbooks.com
717-246-3333
Bathed in Prayer: Father Tim’s Prayers, Sermons, and Reflections from the Mitford Series Jan Karon (Putnam) $20.00 I loved tilting my head a little and noting with a smile just how curiously nifty this idea is: yep, it is a real prayerbook from the soul and writing of a fictional character. I trust you know of the much-loved Mitford series and Father Tim’s sermons and prayers in those novels. Author Jan Karon tells for the first time some of her own story, too, sharing reflections and prayers as well. Pretty nice, eh? Father Tim’s prayers were a blessing to many in fictional Mitford, so why not for you, too. Stranger things have happened.
The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy Timothy Keller (Viking) $20.00 I trust I don’t have to tell you how much we respect this urbane and thoughtful Presbyterian pastor and thinker. Fortune magazine named him as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” and Newsweek suggested he is a “C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century.” At any rate, this is a nice, brief, engaging study of Jonah. He’s a master at showing the gospel of grace even in the Older Testamented stories and here he offers a provocative thesis suggesting that Jesus had Jonah in mind when he told the story of the Prodigal Son. In this new volume Keller brings questions of race and anger and living with difference and encountering “the other” into play — there was talk about calling it “Jonah and the City” as he reflects on how we love our neighbors well. Highly recommended!
Christians in the Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is at it’s Worst Ed Stetzer (Tyndale) $16.99 Stetzer — who on the video I think I call Brian, thinking of the Stray Cats dude, I guess — is an important missional writer and here he takes on the “culture of outrage” and how we can be more forbearing and gracious and hopeful rather than contribute to the high-volume drama and over-reaction that is epidemic these days. This is a really good analysis and vital reminder of how we ought to engage the culture around us. Blurbs on the back are from our friend Karen Swallow Prior and from important voices such as Samuel Rodriguez, the President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Bryan Loritts (I’m eager to read his brand new Insider, Outsider: My Journey as a Stranger in White Evangelicalism and My Hope for All of Us.)
White Picket Fences: Turning Toward Love in a World Divided by Privilege Amy Julia Becker (NavPress) $15.99 I really, really like the word-smithing writing style of this fine author; she has two previous books written as a mother of a special needs child. Here she writes with nuance and grace about the notion of privilege. In my little video announcement I not only assure you how much I like this, but quote from the lovely endorsement on the back from her friend Andy Crouch.
Whole & Reconciled: Gospel, Church, and Mission in a Fractured World Al Tizon (Baker Academic) $22.99 I spent some of my few moments on the video saying how much I liked Al, name-dropping him as an old friend, great music-lover, a guy who has visited our store. He used to work with Evangelicals for Social Action and here channels a 21st century sort of vision, drawing on his early friendship with Ron Sider and the wholistic “word and deed” Kingdom theology of Lausanne to offer a vision of whole-life discipleship, an exhortation for all of us to work for the reconciliation of a broken world. It carries endorsements by important voices such as Christopher J.H. Wright (of John Stott’s Langham Partnership) and the current director of ESA, Nikki Toyama-Szeto, and his North Park colleague Soong-Chan Rah. A wonderful forward is by Ruth Padilla DeBorst and his old boss Ron Sider has a very good Afterword. Whole & Reconciled is one of the great books of 2018 and we highly recommend it.
Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship – Year C, Volume 1 edited by Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery & Cynthia Rigby (Westminster John Knox) $45.00 I suggested in my little pitch in the video that this is in the tradition — almost a sequel — to the multi-volume series for lectionary preachers called Feasting on the Word. It is a bit different, though, offering a diverse world of scholars, teachers, and preachers, to weigh in on how the given lectionary text is connected to the bigger Biblical story (the Scriptural connection, placing the text in conversation with the meta-narrative and the unfolding context of the story of God) and on how the text can be related (connected) to the issues of the day. I like these connections offered, making this a useful tool for preachers and educators. Further, it offers worship resources for coherent worship planning inspired by the connectivity of the text that Sunday. Very nicely done. Blurbs on the back include high praise from Barbara Brown Taylor, Walter Brueggemann, Donyelle McCray (of Yale Divinity School) and Duke’s famous preacher and author Richard Lischer.
you about soon — a whole batch of very important new books came into the store. Coming back in our rented truck felt like Christmas with new releases awaiting from Brene Brown (a thoughtful Christian friend of mine calls Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. [Random House; $28.00] a “game changer”) and a new novel by Barbara Kingsolver, provocatively called Unsheltered (Harper; $29.99) and a serious new one by Lauren Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, 
Characteristic Damage, and Sin published by Yale University Press ($28.00.)
Speaking of friends, Lancaster-based writer Shawn Smucker just released Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor (Revell; $14.99.) Our staff back here at the shop knew I was eager to see it and texted me a photo of the cover the day it arrived.
Even more exciting to me is a major, major work in the on-going series by IVP Academic called “Studies in Theology & The Arts” entitled 
And, just yesterday — we haven’t even unpacked our road-tripping book vans, yet — we got the brand new book by Ben Sasse called Them: Why We Hate Each Other — and How to Heal (St. Martin’s Press; $28.99.) I’m sure you can guess that I’m a fan of this call to civility and am sure we want to commend it to you and yours.
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope 
She declares that “Chocolate with 81% cacao is not actually a food. It’s best use is as bait in snake traps. Also, a shim to balance the legs of a wobbly chair. It was never meant to be considered an edible. “ But then she preaches: “Don’t let others make you feel unsophisticated if you reach middle age preferring Hershey’s Kisses. So many of your better people do. Also, always carry a handful of Kisses in your backpack or purse to give away. People will like you more.”
It isn’t every day that we get to announce a handsome twentieth anniversary edition of a book that we think is among the most important and beautiful and influential of our lifetimes. I am thrilled to announce (again) a new, expanded edition of The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose for Your Life by Os Guinness (Thomas Nelson; $16.99.) It is a book we esteem greatly and is in the handful of “must reads” that I often cite as central to our own story here. We hope you know it, and sincerely hope you enjoy my brief rumination.
Dr. Guinness, by the way, has another brand new book entitled Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat (IVP; $27.00) which details an urgent challenge for us to be clear about the importance of freedom in our fraying civic culture, but I will tell you more about that later. For now, I want to express my deep appreciation for Guinness and his large body of work and remind you about why I so value this new edition of his most-read, classic book, The Call.
Os became known within evangelical circles as an eloquent and elegant speaker and a hefty thinker who was reliable and inspiring as a cultural critic and as a deeply spiritual leader; in all this, he was trusted, and his passions are uncompromising as he proclaims an historic orthodox faith. He has been used by God to stimulate hearts and minds for deeper considerations of the issues of the day and shows how a solid Biblical theology would inform us as we reject both the liberal stream of watered-down faith and the conservative steam of anti-intellectual, legalistic fundamentalism. That he tutored with students and friends of C.S Lewis, served alongside Francis and Edith Schaeffer, earned a PhD from Oxford, worked for the BBC, spent considerable time learning from sociologist Peter Berger while a senior fellow researching for the Brookings Institution, gave him a distinguished intellectual orientation and considerable gravitas. That he studied well and taught us about the deeper, subterranean roots of ideas and the practical forces and trends and practices of the culture but also cared deeply about injustices like race and poverty made him a particular asset to those trying to be, as we often said, “radical Christians.”
Having said all that, I want to remind you that The Call was one of the first contemporary, popular level books that developed the implications of this most important (but routinely misunderstood) theological doctrine, that of “calling” (and its related theme, “vocation.”) There is a huge renaissance of books on faith, calling, discernment, vocation, work, and serving God in varying spheres of society these days, and nearly all owe their moment to a series of talks Guinness did in the 1990s (including at York First Presbyterian Church) and the celebrated release of this seminal book in 1998. I do not think I am alone and I do not think I am wrong to suggest that the faith and work movement, the rise of marketplace ministry courses, the popular spread of conferences and workshops using the language of vocation and Christian views of work-a-day routines owe their existence in our time to how God was pleased to use this book as it was embraced by key leaders within the thoughtful end of the evangelical world.
the things I’m most proud of, although I still wish I could have found a talk of Guinness’s to put in there. Voices similar to Guinness are compiled – Steve Garber, Amy Sherman, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Richard Mouw, Claudia Beversluis, Erica Young Reitz, and the always inspirational wonder, civil rights activist, Dr. John Perkins!) Each of us in Serious Dreams are saying stuff to encourage young adults in that little anthology that mirrors much of what Guinness is doing here; I suspect strongly that each contributor had read it. I advise any young adults wanting some inspiring talks, homilies to get you going, friends on the printed page to help you along to pick up Serious Dreams. But to be really clear about their future and to be instructed well, for life, they should dig in and study Guinness’s remarkably substantive and formative book. I would rather you buy his book than my book!
You should know three quick things about The Call. Guinness is a master of making good points, offering a few sub-points, showing the threats or dangers or counters to those points, and summarizing each. For those that like sort of logical teaching, detail upon detail, close expression, bit by bit, this will thrill you with the sheer weight of fine content. Some of his legendary talks and other vital books are nearly byzantine in their expertly designed structure, but it always works. And, of course, there are well-placed quotes from fabulously interesting figures from Winston Churchill to Dorothy Sayers, from John Calvin to John Wesley, from Kafka to Carnegie.
WM. B. EERDMANS
The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in an Age of Trump Stephen R. Haynes (Eerdmans) $19.99 I haven’t read this yet but you may guess right from the start what it is about, and many Hearts & Minds friends are going to be interested. Yep, it is – among other things – about Eric Metaxas and his own work on and recent use of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German Lutheran who called us to “the cost of discipleship” and was executed for his resistance to the Nazi regime. You may know (I hope you do) Mr. Metaxas’ exceptionally readable, evangelically-minded, major biography entitled Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich (Thomas Nelson; $19.99.) Like his previous Wilberforce bio (Amazing Grace) and his more recent book on Luther, Eric has brought the drama, historical background, arcane details and big picture vision of major historical characters to a popular level with his captivating prose and robust storytelling. (His smaller, but thrilling, 7 Great Men and 7 Great Women are coming out in a single volume later this fall!) Metaxas is a clear, colorful writer, a passionate thinker, and his Bonhoeffer book is massive; that’s a good thing, in this case, as there is so much to say, and he says it so well that many a reader wished it wasn’t over, even after 600 pages! There are a lot of books out there by and about Bonhoeffer and there is little doubt that Metaxas’s has sold more than any other.
book has small details that are in error, but, given a relatively generous reading, is he mostly right and is he readable? If he’s significantly wrong, of course, then its popularity and vivid readability isn’t good, as it captivates readers and pulls them into a wrong-headed story. (On the other hand, while I’m at it, we surely know that a book can be pristinely perfect and if it is tedious or arcane or haughty or boring – as most books about Bonhoeffer are, if you ask me – then its accuracy or bold insight isn’t that valuable, since nobody reads it anyway.) Accuracy, wisdom, and enjoyable readability must combine to make a truly great book and I want to know the opinions of scholars who really care about Bonhoeffer; it is my hope that this new paperback by Haynes will be a helpful guide to some of this. I am less interested in those who are spiteful or jealous or who are in principle in opposition to evangelical faith, ruling Eric’s book out a priori. I am told that Haynes helps us sort through all this.
So this new Eerdmans book is asking about all of that, how the great life of a great thinker and faithful pastor might motivate us to be faithful within the quandaries and challenges of our own civic life these days.
Being Human: Bodies, Minds, Persons Rowan Williams (Eerdmans) $12.00 Many of our BookNotes readers will at least know who Rowan Williams is. For those that might not yet be familiar with him, he’s a very important British theologian, an Anglican priest and thinker who a few years ago was the worldwide Anglican communion’s closest equivalent to a figurehead, their Archbishop of Canterbury. After being the 104th leader to be elected to Archbishop of the Church of England (from 2002 – 2012) Williams has become the Master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge. He has written widely, in varied themes from St. Augustine to contemporary politics, from linguist theory to contemplative spirituality to the study of history and why it matters. It is amazing the sorts of things he is able to write about and everyone who relates to him is impressed with his humility and congeniality and his deep knowledge of the broad, global, Christian tradition. He is a pastor/scholar and a globally recognized public intellectual.
A few years ago Eerdmans started a little series of books by Rowan Williams and Being Human is the third in the trilogy. The first two were quite popular and remain good sellers in the right circles, ideal for those who want a succinct, intellectually stimulating introduction to basic Christian truths as understood within the broadly mainline denominations. The first was Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (Eerdmans; $10.00) and the second was Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life (Eerdmans; $10.00.) This brand new third volume – Being Human — continues this style of gracious, engaging prose about the things that matter most.
Religion & American Culture: A Brief History George M. Marsden (Eerdmans) $30.00 Yep, we shelled out a lot of dough to order these for our store, but I am convinced that any bookstore worth its salt should have cultural studies and history and anything written by George Mardsen, Christian historian par excellence. (Indeed, Professor John Fea calls him “one of our generation’s greatest American religious historians.”)
Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans) $30.00 I wish I had more time to spend some time with this so I could tell you the glories of it. I’m afraid I am going to have to be very brief, because I just can’t imagine how to explain this other than the bare basics.
theological rigor is seen in the remarkable work The Crucifixion, her fascinating (and very Biblical) preaching is seen in a large collection of sermons on Romans, while yet another draws on the old saying about preaching with the newspaper in the other hand; it is simply called The Bible and the New York Times and only a preacher as eloquent and elegant and as bold and cultured as Rutledge could pull it off
I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life Anne Bogel (Baker Books) $14.99 Oh my, a small gift-type book, compact sized and slim, that is jam-packed full of advice about reading, making a winsome (but not weak) case for reading widely. Bogel admits to being a “certified book nerd” and I’m sure you will love to spend some time with her by looking over her shoulder in this brand new book of bookish ruminations. What a great, great little book this is!
Anne Bogel’s new book will assure any such book addicts that they are not alone. And that we don’t have to be ashamed of our tastes and interests. In fact, after this faux-confessions bit, the second chapter is called “The Books That Find You.” Indeed – another reason I am wont to name more than just one or two books when somebody asks – after nearly 40 years of promoting books and reading, I still usually don’t quite know what exact book matches which exact reader. There’s mystery and magic to all this, and I do trust that God, perhaps disguised as a muse, working through a sales pitch or book review or BookNotes column, or a well designed book cover, helps the right book get to the person that needs it most. As midwives to this glorious process, we booksellers, reviewers, and literary cheerleaders, can’t take credit for the goodness that is birthed when a book finally finds its reader.
And now, I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel must be added to that short list – I could list more if you really wanted – of must-read books about books and the reading life. I’d Rather Be Reading is short, light-hearted at times, even clever, but very smart. A friend of mine suggested to Ms Bogel that she request the publisher put a picture of her own favorite reading chair on the cover, and it has a soft, living room feel that is inviting. But yet, I suspect that Bogel isn’t all that highbrow or bourgeois; I bet she reads so widely that she has a book with her wherever she goes and will plunk herself down whenever and wherever she can. She invites us to read widely and well, even if we don’t have a library in our home or a big comfy chair. She even addresses this a bit in a chapter called “Bookworm Problems.” I bet many of our best Hearts & Minds friends and customers will relate.
Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life Sarah Clarkson (Tyndale) $15.99 I am both thrilled and a tad frustrated that this spectacular book just came last week – it is one of three brand new books on reading that came out from Christian publishers this month and any one of them would be worthy of an excited announcement and a big push. With the understandably big buzz of Karen Swallow Prior’s weighty work on virtue formation by reading (you know we’re bringing her to Hearts & Minds this Friday night to discuss On Reading Well) and the charming I’d Rather Be Reading by podcast queen Anne Bogel, I certainly don’t want Sarah Clarkson’s amazing new book to get lost in the shuffle. It is so, so good, and you need to know about it. In a way, this book is close to what I often do when I give presentations on the value of reading and the role of reading in Christian discipleship and the joys of the reading life so I can say that I think (ahem!) that it is very, very important and stuff that needs to be said. It has a distinctively female take – it’s called Book Girl after all – but this book boy loved it and wants to recommend it with gusto. Male or female, you should get Book Girl right away, and an extra one to give away as a gift.
many of the strict and formulaic parenting books that helped us focus on the family in those years. (And I wonder if she is related to the 1970s era Eerdmans author Margaret Clarkson?) I recall her writing about family and marriage and pain and suffering in a voice that was thoughtful and wise, deep without being arcane. I think some linked her (or at least I do in my own mind) to C.S. Lewis and Francis & Edith Schaeffer, maybe to the likes of Luci Shaw and Madeline L’Engle. That is, she was theologically interesting and intelligent and artful. And now, she has a handful of books written with Sarah (such as The Life Giving Parent and The Life Giving Home.)
Oh my, it seems like she’s been listening in on some of my stock lectures on this stuff – ha! But she says it better; I loved Book Girl. Now, we can learn how much more there is to say about these benefits of books and the value of the reading life. There is so much good wisdom in here that I think anyone who likes to read and learn and grow will be underlining phrases and highlighting whole pages. Those of us who are confident this is important for the advancement of God’s Kingdom will want to share this with others. I think you could adapt the points and use them to teach others about the value of cultivating serious reading habits.
much here that I love that I want to just shout from the rooftop. Book Girl offers good, good content, intelligent but not daunting. It’s not only reassuring and so nice to hear her passion for good books and reading widely, but I think it is truly vital, giving us words and talking points to convince others about the value of books and the importance of study. I’m hoping you take me literally here – we all know folks who don’t read much and we also know people who wish they’d read more, but just can’t find the time, energy, or motivation. Book Girl will inspire them. You should give her book away and, at least, master her talking points about the value of the printed page.
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press) $19.99 I have written about this before, announcing it before it came out and just last week 
Tale of Two Cities, even The History of Tom Jones which is one of the early Victorian novels that attempted to bring moral meaning to the contemporary novel) and fairly contemporary ones, from Gatsby, a few short stories by George Saunder’s to the vivid, dark stories of Cormac McCarthy. (Her piece on the virtue of hope in The Road is fantastic, by the way!) This is most of what you need to know to enjoy and learn from On Reading Well — she links a particular virtue such as temperance, prudence, faith, kindness, or, patience to a particular novel or short story. What’s not to like about learning courage from Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or chastity from Edith Wharton, humility from Flannery O’Connor, or faith from the hard story of persecuted monks in Endo’s profound work, Silence. And wait ‘til you see what she does with Persuasion by Jane Austen that, for full disclosure, I’ve never read. You?
Wheaton, except for the presence of remarkable staff like her.) She carries the banner for evangelicalism well and tells about it nicely in her excellent and enjoyable testimony of why she still identifies as evangelical in her chapter in Still Evangelical? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning (IVP; $17.00.) It’s a book I’ve been trying to get people both evangelical and not to read. Her piece therein is solid and inspiring.
The way in which virtue is discussed – cardinal virtues and theological ones and heavenly ones — offers a big nod to a big tradition, but unless one likes that sort of accommodation to that particular way of telling the story of virtues, it might be a little curious. I suppose this might be a criticism (although for me it is a more inchoate instinct of concern and not a developed critique) but I note it here mostly as a heads up; you will benefit greatly from reading the first chapter which nicely summarizes this sort of virtue theory work, but it does draw on Aristotle and that ancient, classical language and taxonomy of virtue. I wondered why she didn’t at least bring Stanley Hauerwas into the conversation.
Firstly, Prior just loves these stories. I know this from other writing that she has done (more on that in a minute) and I wish it came through even more clearly in the book, although it does come through nicely. My hunch is she’s being a bit professorial and wanting to guide readers to discover the joys of reading the story – and the process, the art, of allowing the stores to shape them for the better – for themselves. She doesn’t gush, much, but Dr. Prior is a lover of literature, par excellence, and she trusts the stories are artful and powerful enough to do their thing on open-hearted readers. She is a bit nerdy (especially about Victorian stuff) and this passion for the printed page should inspire us all. She ends her introduction with the lines of Puritan Richard Baxter who says,“Good books are a very great mercy to the world.” It is good to be in conversation with someone who knows this so deeply in her bones.
because she is a representative of evangelical faith communities for the Humane Society and has written stuff about treating animals with dignity. (She has a chapter in Every Living Thing, an anthology attempting to bring a variety of religious voices into the conversation about animal well-being.) Being green seems to be a red flag for some. Or because she has arranged conversations to bring together in civil discourse those who are pro-life and those that are pro-choice. That she is a thoughtful, moderate, socially-engaged evangelical woman — she works with guys like Russell Moore and Daniel Darling, recent author of The Dignity Revolution, in the public policy division of her denomination – has made her a lightning rod for much spiteful opposition.
Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More Karen Swallow Prior (Thomas Nelson) $24.99 I so enjoyed Eric Metaxas’s fabulous, energetic foreword to Fierce Convictions, Karen Swallow Prior’s marvelous and important biography of 18thcentury British abolitionist Hannah More, where Metaxas writes about almost wanting to stop his research on Wilberforce (that gave us the book Amazing Grace) to focus on Hannah More. As he tells it, he only could pray that somebody else would soon take on this gargantuan job, writing the first major biography of this amazing pre-Victorian writer and public voice for social justice. It speaks volumes that Karen Swallow Prior – who loves books so much, but also has this desire to see evangelical faith as an agent for good in the world – took up the task. Her Fierce Convictions isn’t precisely about virtue, but, oh my, what a virtuous woman Hannah More was. And how influential. In Prior’s hands, this More biography makes history come to life and shows us what the “end game” of all this talk about “the good life” is all about.
Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me Karen Swallow Prior (T.S. Poetry Press) $17.99 I mentioned Karen Swallow Prior’s true love of books. Like her page-turning sisters mentioned above, Anne Bogel (I’d Rather Be Reading) and Sarah Clarkson (Book Girl), she’s smitten. Is the Pope Catholic? Wowza, this is so true, and it is abundantly, beautifully, clear in her creative memoir, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me. I have told you about that before, over the years, celebrating that she came up with this delicious idea of doing a memoir – her own memories of her growing up and into young adulthood – by way of describing a book that meant the most to her in that era of her life. What a grand idea, an autobiographical survey of the books that she loved or that had influenced her, season by season, through her (shall we say?) ups and downs. Many of us could draw up such a table of contents, at least – that would be a fun experiment, no? (for me it would also be the record albums that were playing year by year) — but few could pull off such a project as gracefully and with such solid, wise, insight as Prior.
The book is called A Book for Hearts & Minds: What You Should Read & Why – A Festchrift Honoring The Work of Hearts & Minds Bookstore (Square Halo Books; $18.99) and I suppose it’s fair to say we are one of the only places that stocks this anthology of great chapters about great books. What other book has Calvin Seerveld and Ned Bustard, N.T. Wright and David Gushee, Matthew Dickerson and Steve Garber, chapters on the best books about the Bible and cookbooks and poetry and urban planning and history and fantasy and creation-care and film more?
This coming Friday evening, September 14th, will be, we hope, a lovely convergence of some out of town fans and some local friends who are all showing up to hear Karen Swallow Prior share about her brand new book On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books (Brazos Press; $19.99.) She’ll start her talk here at 7:00 PM and be with us for a few hours. I can hardly contain myself telling you why hosting Karen is so very 
great for us. We pray she has a good time, but we know we sure will! Beth and I and our staff here are thrilled to have her help us understand better what we do. That is, she is going to remind us about the life-changing, culture-reforming, God-honoring, faith-building, power of books and literature. As you can tell from the title and subtitle of her book, Dr. Prior’s thesis is simple but profound: reading good books can help us live well. Great novels, particularly, can help cultivate our character. On Reading Well is as much about character formation, virtue theory, and the nurturing of our interior lives as it is about literature.
offers faithful public theology for the common good.) She is known for her own memoir Booked and the one-of-a-kind biography of the Victorian-era British abolitionist, great moral activist and novelist Hannah More, Fierce Convictions. She has brought together pro-choice and pro-life folks to talk about common ground and she serves as an evangelical voice within the Humane Society which works (as did Wilberforce and Hannah More) for animal welfare. She teaches lit at Liberty University which makes her that much more interesting to some. That the ecumenical Brazos Press published this book (in hardback, no less) illustrates how important it is and Prior’s own reputation as a significant voice within the broader faith community.The da
Prior will be doing another event in Lancaster (less than an hour away) on Saturday evening. Learn about the “book launch party” with Prior and see the artwork in On Reading Well done by Square Halo Gallery curator and Lancaster printmaker Ned Bustard 
I hope you noticed in our last BookNotes (the one about creatively written, passionate, narrative nonfiction and the value of memoir) that we announced that we are hosting author, college professor, and activist Karen Swallow Prior on September 14th, 2018, to talk about her brand new book On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books. Join us here in Dallastown for what is sure to be a lovely, stimulating evening.
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing Jay Stringer (NavPress) $15.99 We are really thrilled and deeply gratified to tell you about this brand new book. We are happy to celebrate its release in part because we knew the author when he was a young adult. His family lived nearby while his father did incredible work at a local church years ago. Many knew even then that Jay was destined for some kind of really thoughtful ministry. It’s nice when a former friend and Dallastown kid gets onto the national stage like this. Stringer has an MDiv. and an LMHC (which is to say he’s an ordained pastor and a licensed therapist) so he’s done some serious scholarship to back up his current private practice and consulting work. (More about that in a moment.)
tourniquet on it.” To their credit, many of the standard books designed to help porn-users offer gospel-based grace and the power that comes from surrendering to Christ. They don’t simply recommend we “say no” on our strength, but we allow God to give us fortitude to resist temptations. Although I believe Christian growth – what the theologians call sanctification – is more complicated than cheaply intoning that Luther line about “preaching the gospel to yourself” or insisting that Christ is sufficient, obviously gospel-based trust in Christ’s cross, God’s imputed righteousness, and the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit are essential resources. Of course, we don’t go it alone, and God is with us and promises to help us. True enough.
The data, Stringer insists, is not only intriguing, but also remarkably revealing about what is really going on among men and women who have sexual addictions, endure unwanted fantasies, act out in inappropriate ways, or are deeply involved in pornography and the like. As a clinician and therapist he has heard people talk about their sense of losing their very souls through experiences of trauma. Some have experienced sexual abuse, which has caused lasting pain and corrupted their desires in various ways. The first third of the book, under the unit “How Did I Get Here” draws on amazingly important research and assures us that understanding our unrelenting unwanted behaviors and our deepest stories is important.
Unleash: Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders Marv Nelson (Abingdon Press) $15.99 Speaking of books written by authors we know and love, this brand new book is by a former youth pastor friend from Pittsburgh. In fact, after a stint doing Middle School ministry and youth work, Marv Nelson worked with young adults and pastored a college and career age, campus church plant near the University of Pittsburgh. A few of my dear CCO friends worked intimately with him and everyone who knows him stands in awe at his genuine care, his kind spirit, his fun and effective approach and his keen ability to serve others even while leading them well. He is a pastor and leader that I greatly admire. We are happy to stock his previous book (good for anyone with doubts or in need of Christian basics, but especially for seekers and skeptics, called What Good is Jesus?)
But here is what’s better: this is about leadership development not only within yourself but among others around you. Marv Nelson has a knack for, as they say, investing in others. For pouring into others. (Well, it seems like a knack, just a natural thing, but as this book shows, Marv has thought a lot about how this works and has worked hard to explore what is faithful and effective as he’s sharpened those ministry arts.) Still, he easily calls out the best in others, he invites folks along in his own leadership work, slowly passing the reigns to others; he creates teams and delegates stuff and sets folks up to succeed (or maybe not) always guiding them with care and intentionality. He mentors others and knows how to get the deep stuff said and the good stuff accomplished. This book shows you how it’s done.
differently than the previous millennial cohort. How do we understand these Gen Z older youth? How can we work with millennials, most who are in their late 20s, now. (We can read John Seel’s brilliant, provocative, well-written The New Copernicans: Millennial and the Survival of the Church for starters!) Marv Nelson has worked with college-age twenty somethings for years and is a good, experienced guide.
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis Alan Jacobs (Oxford University Press) $29.95 We get any number of new academic books from university and other scholarly presses into the store but none have excited me lately as much as this. It is on my short list of books to read very soon – I am guessing I will name it as one of the most significant books of 2018. Anything Alan Jacobs writes is well worth reading; he is a wise scholar and public intellectual esteemed by many within evangelicalism and beyond. (Dr. Jacobs is distinguished Professor of the Humanities in the Honors Program at Baylor University.) His most recent previous book is the wonderful 2017 release How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds although we still tout his lovely The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. In some circles he is known for his “biography” of the Book of Common Prayer while in others he is most beloved for the great bio of C.S. Lewis called The Narnian.
The Eternal Current: How a Practice-Based Faith Can Save Us From Drowning Aaron Niequist (Waterbrook) $19.99 That evangelicals have been in the forefront of writing great books and advocating for deeper, even classic spiritual practices is nothing new, nowadays. For decades, I’ve said that this confluence – perhaps starting with Richard Foster – of previously skeptical evangelicals and monastic and mystical literature is one of the most significant religious trends of our lifetime. One only need to think of the beautiful body of literature in the last decades written by those in the evangelical tradition – Ruth Haley Barton, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Gary Moon, John Ortberg, Jan Johnson, Donald Whitney, Dallas Willard, Marlena Graves, to name only a few. Or, one only has to think of the broader tradition of spirituality that these evangelicals are in conversation with, popular authors from Richard Rohr to Joan Chittister, Elizabeth Liebert, Marjorie Thompson, Martin Laird, Joyce Rupp, Ronald Rolheiser, Thomas Keating; obviously, writers like Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton are on everybody’s lists. And nearly everybody in this field is now interested in Saint Benedict and Ignatius of Loyola and Practicing the Presence of God and works by medievals like Julian of Norwich and St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. Evangelicals used to protest our store because we carried those kinds of books; now folks don’t find it that surprising (even though most big-box chain evangelical bookstores still don’t carry them.)
The Dignity Revolution: Reclaiming God’s Rich Vision for Humanity Daniel Darling (The Good Book Company) $16.99 It’s not every day that serious theology is discussed on national TV, but Daniel Darling was set up nicely by “Morning Joe” on MSNBC as they talked about the Bible, God having made human’s in God’s image, and why that means we have certain Christian obligations to stand for those whose dignity is assaulted. (
All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way Patrice Gopo (Thomas Nelson) $16.99 Beth and I have been eager for this book to arrive as we are reading even more than ever on books by people of color, memoirs and reflections to help us understand our culture these days and learn to be more effective agents navigating various subcultures and to somehow be able to do the work of being agents of God’s reconciliation. As we noted in the last big BookNotes column, we love memoirs and are most eager to promote books when they are well written and nicely packaged. Well, All the Colors We Will See is a simply lovely volume, and the author is remarkable, as a gifted writer and as one with a curious, interesting story. A great blurb on the back by award-winning writer Bret Lott is pretty darn special, too. He notes Gopo’s “calm voice and winsome demeanor” which allows her to speak hard truths… including “what it takes to continue in Christ’s love despite the fallen and falling world around us.”
Later, we learn that she studied chemical engineering in Pittsburgh, at CMU, was married in South Africa, and then moved to a new home in the American Southland (with a husband who wasn’t American.) She has learned to be an evocative and luminous essayist, as a quick dip into nearly any page will show. As it says on the back cover, “Patrice’s life is a testament to the challenges and beauty of the world we live in, a world in which cultures overlap every day.”
Even Better than Eden: Nine Ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything About Your Story Nancy Guthrie (Crossway) $16.99 We really respect this thoughtfully conservative, Reformed Bible teacher. She has a podcast through the Gospel Coalition on learning how to teach the Bible that I hear is very good. (Michael Horton, the tough-minded, serious theologian, has said that Ms. Guthrie is “one of the best Scripture teachers I have ever heard or read.” Guthrie is obviously a good exegete, a fine teacher, and a colorful, if careful, wordsmith. Her books are valuable for many purposes and we commend them often. (That she has several books on grief and the ministry of walking with those in grief is itself significant, too.) Perhaps you know her several-volume study set called “Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament.” I like that she has that historical-redemptive hermeneutic, seeing the unfolding drama of the coherent Bible study, all of it pointing to Christ and his redemptive work.
Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught About Salvation, Eternity and Getting to the Good Place John Ortberg (Tyndale) $17.99 I love this, even though it just came yesterday and I’ve only glanced at it. Just holding it in my hand feels right – it’s a tiny bit differently shaped and the textured cover is cool. The title just shouts “N.T. Wright” but he’s not cited at all in the footnotes. (I checked.) I doubt he says “realized eschatology” because it just isn’t’ that kind of book. It is thoughtful and solid and lucid and passionate and very, very useful, I’m sure. And it does quote Dallas Willard, as all of John’s books do.
DVD Eternity Is Now in Session Video Experience John Ortberg (Tyndale Momentum) $36.99 There is also a DVD curriculum that is based on the content of the book. The DVD is creatively done, showing Ortberg teaching this material in five sessions. Perfect for an adult Sunday school class or a small home group. The package comes with a DVD and one workbook. You can buy extra participants guides singularly for $10.99.
Made for These Times: A Start-Up Guide to Calling, Character, and Work that Matters Justin Zoradi (Zondervan) $16.99 Oh my, how I wish I could explain the energy and vision of this author and our enthusiasm for telling you about it. I can brag a little, saying that the author tells more than once about his experienced of being mentored by dear, dear friends of ours at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Michigan. There, in his college years, Justin met Katelyn Beaty who wrote a very good forward (also giving a shout out to the influences of her college years and her engagement with pop culture, issues of the day, and learning the art of cultural discernment through our friends there in GR.) When an early reader wrote to me a week ago and said Zoradi sounds like he’d make a great speaker for our big Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh, I knew exactly why that is so. This guy was influenced by folks who helped shape that impressive annual gathering of young adults when they themselves were involved with the conference some 45 years ago. Zoradi is our kind of guy!
Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God Ruth Haley Barton (IVP) $22.00 Once again, InterVarsity Press and its “formatio” line of books has given us a gift, a beautiful even if challenging one. Many books about spirituality are lovely and warm, inviting us to disciplines or practices, but they are often mostly a reminder of God’s presence and of the gift of God’s daily guidance. Sweet. Ruth Haley Barton is one of the truly gifted teachers of our time and she has this sweet way in her books and DVD (Sacred Rhythms) that is exceptional; extraordinary. She is gentle, winsome, inviting, welcoming, encouraging, but also very clear about the sort of things that the classic tradition (and her hard-earned wisdom) has taught her, things that are asked of us, things we must do if we are going to be in a place where God’s transforming work can be fruitful. She doesn’t offer a new legalism or expect us to all become monastics. But yet, she knows the freedom and health that comes from submitted to some sort of rule of life. And, naturally, this comes to the question of finding space for God.
In fact, one of her early books, Invitation to Silence and Solitude now given a beautiful new dust jacket to match this brand new Invitation to Retreat) was very dear to her. Many loved it. On the speaking tour that ensued, and her teaching based on the book, so many folks replied that they’d just love to spend time away with God, they’d truly value solitude and scheduled silence – but they just don’t have the time. I’m not saying I was one of those people, but I might have been.
To wit, we come to this long-awaited book by Ruth Haley Barton, emerging from this long appreciation she has had about how difficult it is for many of us to do this kind of thing. She has taught (through her Transforming Center) spiritual practices for years, in many settings, and it often comes up: how in the world does one do a spiritual retreat, anyway?
The God Impulse: The Power of Mercy in an Unmerciful World Jack Alexander (Baker) $14.99 Almost anyone with some Biblical knowledge and a couple of good stories can write a book about showing God’s love, about the power of mercy. With a bit more savvy, one can analyze the culture a bit and show how very unmerciful we are. This isn’t rocket science, but not too many have done it very well.
One does not have to read The God Guarantee but this does feel a bit like a sequel or spin off of that previous work. If God is so reliable that we can trust the gospel above all things, then we can be free with our assets, we can be Good Samaritans, we can be liberated from self-concern and give ourselves away, we can forgive and show mercy. We can live as Kingdom people, as Sermon on the Mount people.
more, later, about one of our big events of the fall, hosting author Karen Swallow Prior here at the shop on September 14thas we celebrate her new book, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books. While that book is about how we can be spiritually and ethically formed by novels, she herself has also written a straight biography (of the poet-abolitionist Hannah More) and a memoir arranged around the books she most loved growing up, wonderfully called Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T.S. Poetry Press; $17.95.) We are glad for that lovely work, Prior’s first book, a small, literary memoir.
Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America Eliza Griswold (MacMillan) $27.00 Few readers outside of the greater Pittsburgh area will catch the reference of the title of the stunning new book, Amity and Prosperity, not realizing that they are names of two neighboring towns near Washington, PA. Locals know that these small towns are classic examples of the post-industrial geography of Western Pennsylvania. If Hillbilly Elegy famously portrayed the rustbelt ethos of Appalachian transplants into southern Ohio, Amity and Prosperity tells with vivid detail the contours of daily life in Washington and Green counties, the northern edge of Appalachia that is no longer sustained by coal fields or steel mills and that less than a decade ago faced an “energy gold rush” with an influx of workers and money and drugs, drilling for natural gas.
Educated: A Memoir Tara Westover (Random House) $28.00 This is one of those books that I can’t stop thinking about, well written and moving, but very sad and painfully hard, at times. The story cannot be captured briefly as it is multi-layered and the plot takes turns and turns and more turns as the author grows up in a secluded, dangerously off-the-grid family, goes to college, and, eventually, against all odds, to Cambridge and eventually earning a PhD from Harvard. What is so breathtakingly stunning about this story is that the author was raised with hardly any formal education on a mountainside farm in rural Idaho where her parents were fundamentalist Mormon extremists. Although she later comes to believe her father may have been bi-polar, she and her many siblings grew up fearing the Illuminati, the brain-washing forces of the public schools, the medical establishment, all part of a vast, Satanic government conspiracy, all of which they militantly avoided. Her father passionately preaches against the government, expecting the ends times and a violent apocalyptic attack on their property. This is made all the more real when some of their nearby militia neighbors, the Weavers, were murdered by government officials at the Ruby Ridge stand-off in 1992; even with that story as part of their growing up, they never knew the full truth of it as their father was so skewed in his paranoia.)
That Tara ended up getting her GED and passing the ACT was itself a miracle — she really had no schooling to speak of — and we are brought into her deep quandary as she bravely determines to leave her stern, bizarre, family and enter the devil’s territory in higher education. That she got to know some “normal” people and found ways to handle college is a large part of the story, and it is truly fascinating, at times funny, and at times exasperating as she makes wrong-headed choices, over and over. (How could she not – her mother is brain-damaged and yet a mogul making essential oils and homeopathic remedies and her father is a cruel, deluded, demanding patriarch.) The writing isn’t as witty as the extraordinary Liars Club, Cherry, and Lit by the spunky Mary Karr, but I kept thinking of those colorful stories as I was racing through Educated. Oh what some people go through, and how they find the means to cope and thrive.
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row Anthony Ray Hinton (St. Martin’s Press) $26.99 . When the extraordinary legal aid advocate and founder of Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson says that former death row prisoner Anthony Ray Hinton inspired him more than anyone he has ever met and when he notes that this new memoir will “inspire our nation and readers all over the world” it is not just typical back-cover hype. The Sun Does Shine will be remembered as a book that is both illuminating and emotionally powerful, simple and complex, and destined to be considered a classic in American prison literature.
You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir Melissa Ohden (Plough Publishing) $19.99 I may have mentioned this in a previous BookNotes but must name it again — it was a beautiful, captivating read, well told, but not exceptionally dense or heavy. The story is (on the surface, at least) a simple one, but it is rendered with such wise introspection and honesty that it became not only a great, entertaining read, but a gentle, good reminder about the meaning of love and redemption.
Burden: A Preacher, a Klansman, and a True Story of Redemption in the Modern South Courtney Hargrave (Convergent) $26.00 It isn’t every day a book comes along that was written in parallel at the same time an esteemed Hollywood film-maker was making a major motion picture of the same story. Andrew Heckler wrote the foreword to Hargrave’s book, telling how he was drafting the movie script even as she was writing the book; neither was based on the other. Still, the film will get a lot of attention as it is produced by Robbie Brenner of Dallas Buyers Club fame and stars Forest Whitaker, Usher, and other big names. It premiered briefly at Sundance, and will open nation-wide, soon.
Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America Vegas Tenold (Nation Books) $27.00 I started this new book the weekend of the anniversary of the awful alt-right uprising in Charlottesville VA a few weeks ago. I guess I wanted a way to commemorate the weekend and understand this growing nationalist impulse in American culture; I wanted to learn more and somehow spend time pondering this cancer in the culture.
Still, while a few of the alt-right white guys this intrepid reporter meets are truly unhinged, some are somewhat intelligent and seem, at times, almost reasonable and somewhat likable. Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Worker Party, is one of the major characters that Tenold comes to know. He is a person that a good friend of mine crossed paths with years ago (Episodes of him starting white pride student clubs at places like Towson State University are described. I recall talking with Christian groups on campus a few years ago about how to respond to this stuff and as I was reading Everything You Love Will Burn I got this sinking feeling in my gut – oh, God, it’s that guy that my friends used to debate, trying to call him to repentance and sanity. Little did we know how ideologically dangerous he’d become, how prominent…)
The Hundred Story Home: A Memoir About Finding Faith in Ourselves and Something Bigger Kathy Izard (Nelson) $16.99 I hope that most Hearts & Minds readers know the moving story of the formerly homeless artist Denver Moore who co-authored, with Ron Hall, his story Same Kind of Different as Me, made into a very touching movie last year. The wonderful follow-up to that memoir was What Difference Do It Make? and, just released this season, the eagerly awaited new one by Hall, Working’ Our Way Home. Those books (whether you’ve read them or not) and that story is a key to Izard’s good book.
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America Beth Macy (Little Brown) $28.00 I have not started this yet, but it is on my bedside table and I can’t wait. Beth Macy, you may recall, is the author of Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local – And Helped Save an American Town a book we’ve touted often – it is such a thrilling read of narrative nonfiction, delving deep into small town intrigue and heroic, reformist sorts of business-world efforts as a furniture manufacturer tries to keep his plant open and his workers employed. Macy is a talented storyteller and excellent journalist, reporting well after doing months and months (if not years and years) of tenacious research. After Factory Man she released, in 2016, TrueVine, a brilliant true crime expose, laden with sorrow and racism and also delight and complexity and goodness. I suspect neither gets as much attention as they deserved.
Do Something Beautiful: The Story of Everything and A Guide to Finding Your Place in It
(Re)Union: The Good News of Jesus for Seekers, Saints, and Sinners 
Debra and Alan Hirsch (who are known world-wide for their missional work and visionary approach to wholistic, risk-taking discipleship) say 
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness 
The Sound of a Million Dreams: Awakening to Who You Are Becoming 
Reframing the Soul: How Words Transform Our Faith 
King of the Campus