A Hard Column to Write — books about peacemaking and the Gaza War crisis. ALL BOOKS 20% OFF. Order now, please.

This is a hard column to write, but I have felt led to do this for a while, now. We have a lovely Advent book list in the wings, but need to do this first. A few customers asked, so here we are: a few recommended titles to help us think about the ongoing sorrows in the Middle East.

Please know this isn’t comprehensive; it’s not even close to all of the titles we have on our shelves on this topic here at the Dallastown shop. We may be a small-town bookstore but we’ve carried a wide range of selections about this topic since we opened almost 40 years ago. And we still have some on the shelf, solid, if a little dated.

In this arena, there are so many adjacent topics, too, on which we have many good books— from Christian-Muslim dialogue (and evangelism) to theological questions about Christians and Jews and the God of the Hebrew Bible, not to mention Christian postures towards the secular nation of Israel. How to grapple with a just response to terrorism has been a hot topic since even before 9 -11 and we are glad for those who raise profound questions about the nature of such a fight. Of course there are questions of what sorts of principles or values should guide US foreign policy and their relationship to Biblical teachings about peace and public justice.

I have been engaged in some good discussions online in recent weeks with a handful of friends who take issue with my own calls for a cease fire in the war in Gaza. Everyone I know (except for some extreme Trump followers) opposes Russian aggression in Ukraine. But regarding Israel’s war in Gaza, views are seriously divided. Those I’m reading, and friends who write to me, are good thinkers, well-informed historically, and most are deeply agonized by the horrors that they believe need to be inflicted on the terrorists who have been a vile menace to Israel for decades.

We should all be shaken by the horrific massacre of innocent civilians in Israel on October 7th. There is no justification at all, ever, for such gross evil.

Still, everyone should know that this whole last year has been an increasingly dangerous time in the Gaza Strip with an unusual number of Palestinian deaths, long before the atrocities committed by Hamas on 10-7. This has long been more than a cold war; my own friends with connections in the region are all just devastated. Please pray.

I observe two things about my friends who routinely try to hold my pacifist feet to the fire. One is related, or so it seems to me, to the thesis of that famous book by Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind; they send me articles from nothing but secular sources. That they are often from unusual, far-right papers only highlights the main problem of Christian citizens forming their opinions largely by reading secular thinkers and ideologically-driven reporters. From this camp, there seems to be no desire to “think Christianly” or to nurture the particular habits of the Christian mind; they seem immune to concerns found in Noll et al and offer nothing theological, distinctive, uniquely Christian. This is not good.

For instance, a person of long involvement in church life (in a conservative church more fussy about doctrinal details than most) has little to no theological substance to his opinions, knowledgeable about one side of the conflict as he may be. I don’t know if he is right or not, but his method, the way he comes to his political opinions, are, for a serious Christian, wanting, if not scandalous. When he is advocating for violent methods to achieve the peace of Jerusalem, I keep pressing for a methodology to his analysis that is consistently Christian. A simple read like The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor by Kaitlyn Schiess (IVP; $18.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40), which asks how we form our political opinions, would be good for such folks. I also recommend the heavier, more scholarly call to resist ideologies of both the left and the right, found in the brilliant Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies by David Koyzis (IVP Academic; $35.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00.)

Another concern about recent discourse here in my inbox. One correspondent essentially thinks that the direct teachings of Jesus and Paul are not exactly relevant in the public complexities of contemporary geo-politics. He is a principled guy, morally serious, ethical, even, and I admire him immensely. His ethical approach seems to be one of counting up the greatest good outcome and then sadly limiting overt Biblical political teachings. Some thinkers in this camp call themselves realists, admitting that their approach smacks of pragmatism, teetering near the bad adage that “the end justifies the means.” Some who tend to think like this wouldn’t exactly say out loud that specific Bible texts are inadequate for social ethics but might say that as we use our sanctified imaginations to “work out with fear and trembling” our views, we can support terrible violence as the least of other awful options, no matter what a Bible prooftext says.

One guy worries that my own tendencies to side with the most suffering people — clearly in this situation the Palestinians and civilians in devastated Gaza — is naive. Even if motivated by a desire to show God’s love and follow Christ’s command to be peacemakers, hopes for diplomacy and gospel-centered peacemaking initiatives finally are unhelpful (they say) as such proposals fail to deal adequately with real evil; in this case the deep hatred of many Jihadists (and fighters in Hamas) and their tenacity in their goal to destroy Israel. Not a few Christian pundits have been saying this lately, at least those who justify the thousands being killed in Gaza. (Many other generic evangelical folks I see on Facebook and other places don’t even try to think Christianly/ethically about the war, they just parrot the uncritical, pro-Israel line that they somehow think is proper. I guess they’ve never read Amos or Jeremiah.)

I do not believe it, exactly, but it is a helpful way to remind us of the complexity of Middle Eastern peace talks: some say that if Palestinians lay down their arms there could be Middle East peace but if Israel lays down their arms, they would be annihilated by those who have promised to do so.

Do the Bible and the teachings of the Lord Jesus matter in a world like this? Is there a way to lean into the thrust of the Scriptures’ call for reconciliation, for us to take up the way of Jesus and to be lovers of enemies and peacemakers, without being naive or resorting to immature proof-texting? What should honest, Biblically-shaped citizens think and do in this fallen world? These are admittedly big, hard questions. Most of us just gape at the complexity and struggle to discern some good thing we can do.

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A FEW MOSTLY RECENT BOOKS ABOUT WAR and CHRISTIAN FAITH

Before we look at a handful of books about the Middle East, and particularly the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts, here are a few titles to help us think about the hard teachings of Jesus about what some call Biblical nonviolence and the more typical position that suggests that war is sometimes the best option, even for those who love God and want to do right in the world.

I’ve written about this before and commend at least these two BookNotes columns to you: HERE and HERE, for instance. Use the search bar at the website to perhaps find other pieces I’ve written.

War: A Primer for Christians Joseph Allen (Texas A&M University Press) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

This is as thin and easy a book on the topic as you’ll find, an entry-level overview of three perspectives. It has succinct chapters on those who hold to Biblical nonviolence, seeing all war as always sinful, those who hold to the historical just war theory (a model that allows that war might be the tolerable, best option to restore just order, even if it must be determined to be legitimate and constrained) and those who fall into a crusading mentality, suggesting it is God’s will and a noble thing to fight for the good.

Too many fall into that foolish third option, I think, but the debate between the two responsible options down through church history, remains a live conversation. This little book is a fine orientation to the different views.

War, Peace, and Violence: Four Christian Views edited by Paul Copan (IVP Academic) $26.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

This is one of those great back and forth volumes with four different authors from four different perspectives. When you are finally done, you’ve got four main arguments under your belt, and everybody’s rebuttals. What a classroom this book can be. (And only in about 225 admittedly dense pages.) I very highly recommend it.

You’ll have to get into it yourself to see how compelling each argument can be but the four views are described as a “just war view”, a “Christian realist view”, a “nonviolence view”, and a “church historical view.” All of these writers are dedicated Christians and good scholars of topics such as Christian ethics, political philosophy, and international affairs. In a sense, two have two different takes on why Christians should sometimes go to war and two others are less clear about that, standing with those who resist the worldliness and brokenness of war.

Is coercive force and the violence of war ever legitimate? Must Christians always advocate that their country turn the other cheek? Are pacifists who take Jesus’ injunctions literally the only ones that can help us do justice and love mercy? If we should endorse war, are there ethical limits that must constrain the waging of battle? These are huge questions for any time and in any place, but are burning for us now. Please consider this book.

(For what it is worth we have a copy or two of a very old book just like this, published in the 1970s by IVP called War: Four Christian Views edited by Herman Hoyt.)

A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition: Christian Foundations and Practices Eric Patterson (Baker Academic) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

Patterson is a scholar-at-large who has served in the US military and at the US State Department. I’ve read a number of books about the history and execution of the just war theory and this may be the very best. It is thoughtful but lively, a very accessible introduction showing, then, how the just war theory works out in a number of specific areas of statecraft and security issues.  I highly recommend it.

Patterson has written widely on public theology and international issues, including the 2022- released, edited volume, an anthology (co-edited with Robert Joustra) Power Politics and Moral Order: Three Generations of Christian Realism: A Reader (Cascade Books; $39.00.)

A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition has been getting great reviews, too.

A marvelously clear book on just war. Patterson shows a profoundly deep grasp of the two-thousand-year-old Christian tradition by explaining when war is just and when believers may participate. This is no dry treatise; it is loaded with examples: from The Hunger Games to Harry Potter, from The Lord of the Rings to Narnia–not to mention Augustine, Tertullian, and Origen. A must-read for church leaders.” — Captain David Iglesias, JAG, US Navy (retired); Wheaton Center for Faith, Politics, and Economics, Wheaton College

A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence: Key Thinkers, Activists, and Movements for the Gospel of Peace David C. Cramer and Myles Wentz (Baker Academic) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

It may be that this book — co-authored by a Mennonite with a PhD from Baylor and a Baptist professor from Abilene Christian University — is one of the most indispensable such books offering excellent and fresh explorations about the Biblical basis for peacemaking. It looks at eight slightly different forms/styles of Christian nonviolence — who knew?  As Eric Gregory of Princeton University writes, “this book lifts up diverse representatives that reveal the breadth and urgency of Christian nonviolence in a world where violence wears many faces. This accessible volume is highly recommended for the church… and all who care about peace.” Yes!!

Whether you argue with their interpretations or relish the gift of their expansive vision, you will find an impressive Christian exploration of lived practices and traditions of nonviolence. — Traci C. West, Drew Theological School

Disarming the Church: Why Christians Must Forsake Violence to Follow Jesus and Change the World Eric A. Seibert (Cascade) $40.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00

I bristle at the high price, but the book is almost 325 pages and covers as much as almost any we know. It has Biblical study, theological reflections, true stories and careful analysis leading to concrete proposals for conflict resolution and hope for a better way that war and violence.

Dr. Eric Seibert is a Professor of Old Testament near us at Messiah College and has struggled long with healthy approaches to the ugly and violent texts of the Bible discerning how to use them within the church and public life. This fairly recent book is a major compendium of much that should be known, moving from Biblical studies to practical application in both international issues, and in our personal lives. Whether you are most interested in the basic doctrinal/Bible content or the complicated geo-political concerns or how to be a peacemaker in various aspects of daily life, there is much here. What a book.

Dr. Siebert’s brand new one, by the way, is Redeeming Violent Verses: A Guide for Using Troublesome Texts in Church and Ministry (WJK; $25.00; OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00.)

It makes a case why we should include these hard passages in preaching and Christian education and offers seven constructive ways to do so. It is readable and well-considered, with good reviews from Philip Jenkins, Caryn Reeder, O. Wesley Allen, and others. Adam Hamilton says, “Every pastor and those responsible for teaching children and youth in the church should read this book.” Wow.

 

Speak Your Peace: What the Bible Says about Loving Our Enemies Ron Sider (Herald Press) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I recommend this whenever anyone asks (rare as it is, admittedly) for an easy to read, Biblically-sound, evangelically-grounded, nicely written survey of the topic of Biblical nonviolence. It is an adapted, easier-to-use version of one of Ron’s major works, If Jesus Is Lord: Loving Our Enemies in an Age of Violence (Baker Academic; $28.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40.) Whether you chose the adapted, shorter edition or the bigger one, everybody should grapple with this beautifully compelling stuff. As Duke’s Stanley Hauerwas writes in the foreword of, “By providing close readings of Jesus’ work and teachings, Sider helps us see that nonviolence is not a side issue in Jesus’ ministry, but rather is at the very heart of the kingdom Jesus proclaimed.”

In times when most Christian institutions are focused on how to preserve, protect, and gain more earthly positions, a prophetic voice emerges to remind us of our core calling and duty in life as followers of Christ. As does any prophet in history, Ron Sider reminds us and challenges us to become the true peacemakers that Christ calls us to be. —Sami Awad, founder and programs developer of Holy Land Trust

Speak Your Peace is a timely word in a world where violence is a daily global occurrence. Ron Sider’s love for Jesus, Scripture, and others comes through in his humble and thorough exploration of nonviolence as radical action. Sider dares us to consider Jesus’ call to love our enemies not as an idealistic goal, but as a realistic policy to be implemented in word and deed by individuals and communities.  — Kathy Khang, co-author of Loving Disagreement and Raise Your Voice.

The Gospel of Peace in a Violent World: Christian Nonviolence for Communal Flourishing edited by Shawn Graves & Marlena Graves (IVP Academic) $40.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00

If ever there was a book that proves the silliness of the claim that theologically traditional evangelicals have little to say about social concerns or public ethics, this surely lays that old story to rest. Shawn and Marlene are pious, Godly folks and sharp scholars. They’ve spent enough time in the trenches of activism to know the important issues and they know their Bibles well enough to weigh in thoughtfully and graciously. It is a bit on the academic side, but, whew, what a fresh batch of essays and a great resource this is. I have announced it before, but it’s good to recommend it again, now, when it is so needed as the world’s issues are pressing down upon us urgently.

Here in The Gospel of Peace they have gathered contributions from all sorts of pastors, theologians, peace activists and social change practitioners, showing how a Biblical nonviolence framework can help bring light and hope around any number of contentious issues, from race and gender to disability and immigration. A holistic vision of shalom will call us to resist war but to work against food insecurity, to care for the ecology of Earth and the outcasts on the earth.

I’ve raved about this grand resource before, and think it is useful now more than ever. There are (to just name a few) contributors such as Drew Hart, Mae Elise Cannon, Randy Woodley, Kathy Kang, Ted Grimsrud, Lisa Sharon Harper, Thomas Yoder Neufeld, and more. Hooray.

Nonviolent Action: What Christian Ethics Demands But Most Christians Have Never Really Tried Ronald J. Sider (Brazos Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Those who follow the just war theory — as does the Reformed thinker Richard Mouw, who wrote the excellent forward — are supposed to believe that war is to be a last ditch effort. Every imaginable option is to be tried before moving to death and destruction. In this extraordinary book — drawn somewhat on the classic research of Gene Sharp, among others — Sider documents how war has been turned away or lessened and mitigated the damage and suffering, when citizens unite to resist the war-makers. Can nonviolent direct action work? Can organized citizen action play a truly helpful role?

We know the famous stories of Gandhi and MLK in the racist American south, but are they just anomalies? Sider shows that, no, they are not. Nonviolent intervention has worked and sometimes worked remarkably well. This book was close to Ron’s heart as he attempted to make a case that Biblical nonviolence was not idealistic Mennonite wishful thinking, but should be aggressively pursued by people who claim to love the ways of Jesus. Sider’s Nonviolent Action is an exciting and inspiring book and, as Mouw and others have shown, it really is a must for those in the just war theory, who promise to support war only when it is the last resort after other peaceful efforts have been tried and found wanting.

Listen to Dr. Robert George, an esteemed, conservative ethicist at Princeton:

When Ron Sider talks, I listen. When he writes, I read. Whether or not one is a pacifist — I am not — one has something to learn about the power of nonviolent protest and resistance from Dr. Sider’s careful and thoughtful study of successful nonviolent movements against tyranny and oppression.

 

Not In God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Schocken Books) $16.95 OUR SALE PRICE = $13.56

I do not want to spend too much time explaining the exceedingly thoughtful, deep, compelling, and wise insights from the late and greatly esteemed thinker and Jewish leader, Jonathan Sacks. Published in 2015, this was, still, seemingly done in the awful years after 9-11, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ISIS. Many of us in the West learned about suicide bombers and fatwas and jihad. Of course, Christians have their own ugly history of crusades and religious wars and disgusting inquisitions. It seems that from time past to now, God is used to motivate religious violence.

What does an astute scholar and Jewish leader say about all this? This book is nothing short of brilliant — and he warns that ISIS-like extremist attacks will be more prevalent as years march on. I highly recommend it for serious readers, those wanting an eloquent study of this complicated topic.

The rave reviews go on and on. Here are two:

Sacks’s sobering yet soul-stirring new book . . . [offers] an ingenious rereading of Genesis. . . . His brilliance as a theologian radiates. — Irshad Manji, The New York Times Book Review

Sacks’s analysis reflects an erudite mind fully engaged with philosophy, politics, and social studies of the most rigorous kind. It is when he turns his attention and all these resources to a theological engagement with the connection between religious faith and violence that he makes his greatest contribution . . . I cannot think of a more important new book for people of faith to read and study together . . . Jonathan Sacks is an enlightening presence for the whole world, and his message resonates today more powerfully than ever. — Michael Jinkins, President, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

ABOUT THE ISRAELI / PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

in no particular order…

A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land edited by Mae Elise Cannon (Cascade Books) $40.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00

When I want a balanced, faithful, astute, and caring guide into the complexities of the Holy Land I think of Mae Elise Cannon and her leadership at the outstanding nonprofit ministry, Churches for Middle East Peace. With a PhD in history (and a speciality area of studies on the history of American Protestant church engagement in Israel and Palestine) and a host of books about the interface of spirituality and social justice, she is nothing short of an international treasure.

A Land Full of God (the back cover says) “gives American Christians an opportunity to promote peace and justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 30-some essays are accessible, from diverse authors and perspectives, and sure to be received as immensely informative. From the historical, political, religious, and even geographic tensions, this book “walks readers through a biblical perspective of God’s heart for Israel and the historic suffering of the Jewish people, while also remaining sensitive to the experience an suffering of Palestinians.”

I like that they talk about being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, for the poor and for public justice. Ultimately, it is “a pro-Jesus approach to bring resolution to the conflict.”

Ron Sider was still alive when this came out and he was happy to offer a lovely blurb. He was a friend to Mae and her team and admired them greatly. He wrote:

If you care about peace and justice in the land where Jesus lived and died, then read this excellent collection of thoughtful, probing essays from a wide range of viewpoints. The writers are scholars, pastors, activists, theologians, all struggling — from their vigorously different perspectives! — to be faithful to the Prince of Peace. A good read that will leave you much better equipped to understand all sides and therefore work more effectively for just reconciliation in the Holy Land.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salam – Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan Books) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Several years ago there was a bus accident in Israel. The bus was filled with Palestinian school children. As Nathan Thrall explains in this captivating, immersive bit of world-class reporting (it has been called “luminous and “a masterpiece”) five-year old Milan Salama died in the crash. This is a gripping and poignant story of his father (Abed) as he gets word of the accident and sets out to find if his little boy is alive.

“The scene is chaos — the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing and others cannot be identified.” Abed sets off on an odyssey, of sorts. It is, of course, every parent’s worst nightmare.

The dust jacket explains that horror is compounded by the “maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles that he must navigate because he is Palestinian. It was in the early parts of this book that I realized the accuracy of the apartheid (for which, you may recall, Jimmy Carter was criticized as it was in the title of his book on the Middle East conflicts.) From being on the wrong side of the separation wall, to holding the wrong ID to get t through military checkpoints, to having the wrong papers to enter Jerusalem, “Abed’s quest to find Milan is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters who lives and histories unexpectedly converge.”  The story has been acclaimed with Thrall being hailed for his “indelibly human portrait.”

Please read these illustrative endorsements. They are important.

I know of no other writing on Israel and Palestine that reaches this depth of perception and understanding… One could read the book as a précis of modern Palestinian history embedded in the personal memories of many individuals, each of them drawn in stark, telling detail. To get to know them even a little is a rare gift, far more useful than the many standard, distanced histories of Palestine. — David Shulman, New York Review of Books

Propels the reader across a geography that is partitioned behind walls and into enclaves, revealing in visceral, human detail what Israeli subjugation means, and how it shapes the most intimate corners of the Palestinian experience. With empathy and grace, Thrall transforms this incomprehensible, avoidable loss into an ode to a father’s love. — Tareq Baconi, author of Containing Hamas

Nathan Thrall’s book made me walk a lot. I found myself pacing around between chapters, paragraphs and sometimes even sentences just in order to be able to absorb the brutality, the pathos, the steely tenderness, and the sheer spectacle of the cunning and complex ways in which a state can hammer down a people and yet earn the applause and adulation of the civilized world for its actions.    — Arundhati Roy, Booker Prizewinning author of My Seditious Heart

The Vanishing: Faith, Loss, and the Twilight of Christianity in the Land of the Prophets Janine Di Giovanni (Public Affairs) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

This is one of those little known books that has gotten extraordinary acclaim.  Aidan Hartley of the Daily Telegraph says she is “One of our generation’s finest foreign correspondents.” While a write for the Financial Times says, commenting on how crucial it is to real the human stories behind the news, that “Janine Di Giovanni does this with heartbreaking eloquence” Michiko Kakutani wrote in the New York Times that Ms di Giovanni “writes here with urgency and anguish — determined to testify to what she has witnessed because she wants “people to never forget.”

Even the for the first five hundred years of its existence, the Christian church hardly left the Middle East — it spread to Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, and Syria. The Vanishing is, in a way, a study of how the story since then “is of a slow-moving catastrophe, a gradual but seemingly inexorable erasing of the Christian faith from the land its origins.”

Apart from the wars and persecutions of recent years, this is a fascinating and beautifully rendered story. She is a war reporter, though, and as she set out to document the stories of disappearing people, she traveled to “some the most beleaguer Christian outposts” (many that had been neglected or mostly abandoned. To get at what she is writing about, think of Iraq’s Assyrians to Egypt’s Copts, to the few remaining Gaza Christians. About a fourth of this remarkable 2021 book is set in Gaza.

Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel Elias Chacour (Baker Books) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I will not go on and on about this as I am hoping you have heard of it. The book that first came out in the 1980s is now maybe in its fourth cover design and we have had them all. Elias Chacour is the Archbishop of the Melkite Church (with a degree not only from a seminary in Paris but from Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and is, to put it simply, considered the MLK of the Middle East. He is Arab (he grew up in a small Palestinian village in Galilee.) When the tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed (and nearly one million forced into refugee camps in 1948) Fr. Elias began “a long struggle with how to live out his personal spirituality.” As the back cover puts it, “In Blood Brothers he blends his riveting life story with historical and Biblical research to reveal a too-little known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is an international bestseller and one of the most enduring books we’ve sold here in the past 40 years.

I’ve got some stories around this book, how it has influenced many — not to mention a fun story of how Chacour charmed his way into a Bible study at the home of then US Secretary of State, James Baker, shown hospitality by Baker’s wife, Susan. (Baker surprisingly met with him and they became dear friends in faith and now has a great afterword to the updated edition of Blood Brothers.) Elias Chacour has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and we could pray that someday his witness will bear fruit. This book is simply unforgettable.

The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope Munther Isaac (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I have friends that helped arrange and speak at a major conference several years ago called “Christ at the Checkpoint” which called for contextualized theology set in the horror of the checkpoints, symbolizing the crass repression commonly known by Palestinians. That event and movement is now directed, actually, by this Lutheran pastor, who is pastor of — get this — Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Yes, that Bethlehem. You know where it is, right? This is a deeply moving story, starting with Rev. Isaac’s boyhood amidst the decades of occupation and war. As his friend Mae Elise Cannon writes, “The reading of Isaac’s Palestinian narrative in no way negates Jewish ties to the land” but it does tell an often-unheard side of the story. It is, in the words of Mark Labberton (President of Fuller Theological Seminary) “a clear, passionate, honest, rendering of this ignored and distorted narrative of Palestinian Christians.”

Did you know there is a wall encircling Bethlehem which, for many, stands as a sad symbol of the segregation between Palestinian Christians and Muslims in this era of occupation. This sort of political and social context is unsustainable Biblically speaking and Pastor Isaac — who has a PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies — exposes the disinformation and misuse of Scripture, not least around uncritical North American evangelical support for Israel.

Evangelical mission educator and leader Vinoth Ramachandra says The Other Side of the Wall is “a heart-rending cry for truth and justice on behalf of the Palestinian church.”

Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace edited by Paul Alexander (Pickwick Publications) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

At the time of compiling and editing this, Paul was the Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary at Eastern University and a leader of Evangelicals for Social Action. Not bad for a Pentecostal guy (who has done remarkable research on the early anti-war views of the Assembly of God denomination.) I admire him a lot.

This book invites us to think about everything from land in the Bible to the end times, memories of the holocaust and the possibility of peace in the Middle East. Is Christian Zionism a faithful stance, and what about the possibility of a Palestinian state? Palestinian evangelicals along with others from the USA and Europe gathered to pray and talk, seeking insight about these crucial topics. This book came out of that historic event and is exceptionally important. I think it should be known as important testimony (a record of the hearts and minds of those gathered in those years) and for the wisdom and guidance that emerged. As one critic put it, “the result clarifies difficult, complex issues and points the way toward a just solution.”

There are thirteen serious chapters from authors you should know — Jonathan Kuttab, Mitri Raheb, Alex Award, Colin Chapman, Gary Burge, and Mae Elise Cannon, among others.

Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land Gerald McDermott (Brazos Press) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

I suppose most BookNotes readers know that there is more than one view of the relationship of Christians and the Jews and the land of Israel. Some think that since Acts 10, at least, when the gospel went out to the Gentiles, the church of Jesus Christ is the “new Israel” mentioned in the New Testament. Such folks think that all peoples (including Jews) need Jesus and God plays no favorites, as Peter preached. Jewish or not, people need the church.

But what is the church if not a movement following the Messiah of the Old Testament people of God, grafted in to that very people of God. It isn’t hard to realize that to think about covenants and God’s promises will make complicated a simple “supersessionism” (the theology that the church replaces Israel in the grand drama of redemption.)

This book is at once wary of uncritical dispensationalist Zionism but yet, in the words of one reviewer, “not content to only take on supersessionism, McDermott reworks covenantal theology to argue that there remains a covenant with Israel, which includes the land.” Ecumenically-minded Lutheran scholar Robert Jenson (of the Center of Theological Inquiry) suggests that “this book could be a historic breakthrough.”

Israel Matters is, in the words of Rabbi Eugene Korn (of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, in Israel)

…a balanced interpretation of Christian theological tradition regarding Judaism and a close reading of the Bible that both strengthens Christian belief and makes room for the Jewish people in their covenantal homeland.

For what it is worth, after a bit of fiesty conversations around this book, Dr. McDermott — the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School — complied and edited a major volume of various contributors entitled The New Christian Zionism: Fresh Perspective on Israel & The Land (IVP Academic; $30.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00.) With serious scholars on a variety of topics, this is a major rethinking.

One of the chapters that might be important now is “Theology and Morality: Is Modern Israel Faithful to the Moral Demands of the Covenant in Its Treatment of Minorities?” by Shadi Khalloul.

 

Zionism Through Christian Lenses: Ecumenical Perspectives on the Promised Land edited by Carole Monica Burnett (Pickwick Publications) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

This is edited by a woman who is a Catholic scholar (specializing in the patristics and church fathers) who also teaches New Testament Greek at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC. She has several advanced degrees and here pulls together a Lutheran, two Roman Catholics, two Episcopalians, an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and a UCC pastor, all who explore the ramifications of ancient Israel’s covenant. What should we think, today?

Naturally, she invites her team to explore the early church’s theological insights as well as post-reformation experiences of these various branches of mainline Christianity. It is a rare ecumenical project and urgent, so urgent.

In the midst of the dilemma and crisis of the quest for peace, each contributor uses his or her lens to analyze the problem and offer helpful suggestions to promote a solution based on the demands of international law, as well as a solution worthy of faith in the God who loves all, cares for all people equally, and works through us to include rather than exclude the other. . . . It is time to listen to the voices of these insightful contributors.  — from the foreword by Naim S. Ateek, Director, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem

Mapping Exile and Return: Palestinian Dispossession and a Political Theology for a Shared Future Alain App Weaver (Fortress Press) $39.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $31.20

Wow, what a scholarly, imaginative, and fascinating read book this is! Weaver is a big name in the prominent Mennonite Central Committee relief organization but before his job as Director for Strategic Planning he served Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and was a project coordinator in the Gaza Strip. (Did you know that peace-loving, Jesus-following Mennonites have a presence there?) With a degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School, Epp Weaver is ecumenical and a brilliant scholar. He has written widely on the Middle East (for instance Under Vine and Fig Tree: Biblical Theologies of Land and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.) Weaver knows how vexing “issues facing not just theology but also political theory, sociology and other disciplines” are for this Middle Eastern conflict.

Get this: he here studies Christian appropriation of Zionism but — through an analysis of Palestinian refugee mapping practices for returning to their homeland, he argues against “political theology embedded in Zionist cartographic practices that refuse and seek to eliminate evidence of coexistence” Can we redraw the territory? Yep, he studies mapmaking as a key to understanding how home-coming is dreamed of.

As one writer said about this head volume, saying that this is a “beautifully conceived and beautifully written book.”

Stan Hauerwas exclaims:

Maps and trees: good God — is it all about maps and trees? It is about maps and trees if Alain Epp Weaver’s brave and no doubt controversial reading of  the Palestinian exile and return is close to being right.

He continues,

Agree or disagree with Epp Weaver, no one will come away from reading this book without a better understanding of the complex relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. But more important is that Epp Weaver’s philosophical and theological suggestions give hope.

Chosen? Reading the Bible Amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $14.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.20

I’ve highlighted this before and affirm Rabbi Michel Lerner’s words when he says that “Brueggemann has done a great service to the Jewish people and to all who rely on the Hebrew Bible as a guide to life by demonstrating in the this book that there is no straight line between those ancient holy texts and the oppression of the Palestinian people by expansionist Zionist government in modern Israel.” Okay, wow.

Brueggemann is a wild scholar, a passionate thinker and preacher, and he loves justice (as he knows the God of the Bible loves justice.) He also has very close relationships with Jewish scholars and modern day Israelites. Was the promise of land to Moses permanent and irrevocable? How should we read the Bible in light of the modern situation? It is complicated and we think this is a useful tool to help us understand more of how to read the Bible well.

Chosen? has four succinct chapters and a Q & A section with Brueggemann, even a glossary of terms and a good study guide. There are even some guidelines for respectful dialogue as this could get heated. This is a good little resource and we are glad to recommend it.

The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope Kelley Nikondeha (Broadleaf Books) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

When we do our 2023 Advent list next week you can be assured that this will be high on that list. It came out last year and we were thrilled to recommend it. The author, as I’ve explained, has written two other excellent books — she is a white woman married to an African and has written evocatively about themes of adoption (literally and theological.) When she told me she was hoping to study this topic of Palestine by way of an Advent devotional I thought it was nothing short of brilliant.

Now, with war waging, there is a deeper urgency for this moving set of 10 good chapters. Brueggemann is right when he says as only he can that “the good new of Advent-Christmas is news that destabilizes and emancipates.”

Kelley Nikondeha eloquently weaves together the first Advent story and the present-day stories of Palestinians, creating invigorating insights for present-day Christians. Palestine then and now, its people, and the politics of the land are a common thread throughout the book, bringing us to a place to genuinely grapple with the meanings of deliverance, peace, justice, and hope. Through her personal encounters, Kelley makes the Palestinian experience visible in a world that has made them invisible. If you are looking for an Advent read that dives into new and raw paths, then The First Advent in Palestine is for you. — Shadia Qubti, Palestinian Christian peacemaker and co-producer of Women Behind the Wall podcast

After On the Incarnation by Athanasius, The First Advent in Palestine by Kelley Nikondeha is the best book I’ve read on the incarnation, peace, and hope. Buy it, read it, and embody it in your community! — Peter Heltzel, author of Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation

Jerusalem: The Biography Simon Sebag Montefiore (Vintage) $23.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40

I recently started a book about entrepreneurs in Israel looking at data that explores why there is so much tech, art, so much good health, a lot of happiness regardless of attacks from neighbors and the routine threat of war. (It is called The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World by Dan Señor & Saul Singer, the new follow-up to their bestselling Start-Up Nation.) I wanted something more historical, though, a really big picture. Jerusalem by Montefiore (which has sold over a million copies since its release in 2011) is magisterial, a New York Times Notable Book and a Jewish Book Council Book of the Year. This big book is what I wanted although I’ve only started it, finally.  Some have said that it helps you fall in love with the city, that it is itself a treasure. Bill Clinton said it is “spectacular.”

At over 735 pages, you can imagine that it tells the whole epic history. The Wall Street Journal said it is “Magnificent… showing it’s “breathless tension.” The Economist says the author has “an elegant turn of phrase and an unerring ear for the anecdote that will cut to the heart of a story. A joy to read.” In these hard days, this might be a joyful and wise read.

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Sadly, as of November 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

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Five About Five — 5 books reviewed in each of 5 categories ON SALE NOW at Hearts & Minds

I sometimes like to switch it up a bit, as they say, doing at BookNotes here a little thing we call Five About Five. I’ve got five categories of books and I’m going to name five fairly new or recent books in these five categories. I’m going to try to be brief, at least in comparison to our usual wordy BookNotes, and hope the five new books I mention for each grouping are sort of in conversation with each other. I could do other categories, of course, and name other new books, too, but, for now, let’s do five recent books in five categories. That’s 25 titles. This is fun.

FIVE NEW BOOKS EACH in FIVE CATEGORIES

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE

The Beginning of the Story: Understanding the Old Testament in the Story of  Scripture Timothy J. Geddert (Herald Press) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I want to suggest this as a great guide to the Old Testament, maybe especially for those looking for a fresh approach that shows both the integrality of the story, how it holds together, and also how the violence and hard sections are to be understood. Can we rediscover the essential beginning of the most important story ever told?

Geddert understands the Bible as a grand story (which is not that unusual these days) but his teaching about it is fresh and powerful, clear and helpful. It is informed by good scholarship but it is easy to read. It points us to the God of the Bible, who, of course, is seen most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ. This, therefore, is a “must read” for followers of Jesus (as Derek Vreeland author of Centering Jesus puts it.)

Timothy Geddert is a long-standing professor of New Testament at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary; he has a PhD in NT from Aberdeen in Scotland. We’ve carried his other books and we are grateful for his visionary, solid, helpful work.

Light of the Word: How Knowing the History of the Bible Illuminates Our Faith Susan C. Lim (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

As Randolph Richards puts it, “Lim invites you to walk alongside, to see how faith in Jesus is enriched by faith in God’s Word.” Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist (and host of The Disrupters podcast) notes that she “absolutely loves how Light of the Word reads like a poignant memoir and drops wisdom like a well-researched history book.”

I like that this book “unpacks how the history of the Bible bolsters our faith and anchors us through the changing tides of time.” It is designed to help Christians not only acknowledge that the Bible is God’s Word but, more, that we can have confidence in the reality of its trustworthiness.

Being in a Bible study with Susan and her family for the last five years, I have witnessed firsthand Susan’s passion for the Scriptures and the powerful and gracious work God has done in her life through the Scriptures. My confidence in Scripture has been strengthened and my heart has been refreshed by reading Light of the Word, and I believe this book will serve you well, no matter where you are in your faith journey. It is a book I will come back to again as a trusted resource. — Eric Geiger, senior pastor of Mariners Church

Reading the Bible Around the World: A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics Federico Alfredo Roth and others (IVP) $22.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

As the back cover shouts, “It’s an exciting time to be reading the Bible.” We are, most of us, encountering readers with perspectives, experiences, and cultural  orientations different than our own. Anyone honestly learning about how to read the Bible simply must grapple with the diversity of perspectives. This is, of course, a question of hermeneutics, and how our social location influences the questions we ask, even the naive reading of the text. That some of our diversity comes from other cultures around the world is a given. This book helps us gently enter this varied, complicated world.

Who we are shapes how we read, as it says on the back cover. Guided by these expert teachers, readers will gain a deeper understanding of the influence of theor own social location and how to keep growing in biblical wisdom by reading alongside the global Christian community.

Behold and Become: Reading Scripture for Transformation Jeremy M. Kimble (Kregel Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Kregel is a conservative Christian publisher that is respected by evangelicals, and this book highlights a fairly creative, surprisingly open minded perspective on how the Scriptures can help us “not merely for information, but for being saved by God and changed through his words.”

We all know the stories of the Bible are often rhetorically powerful. And those who believe it is God’s Word, believe the power is also, well, Spirited. Right? But how does that work? How can we more properly understand and explain that the Scripture’s authority is based on the truthfulness of the texts? Can the Bible’s own efficacy operate in a way that helps us come to know the Triune God?

This is a complex book — I haven’t studied it carefully enough to say if I even agree with it all. But if, as they say, we “become like what we behold” it may be important to ask what the Scriptures allow us to behold.

The prophet Isaiah assures us that God’s Word will accomplish the purpose for which God has sent it, but what is that purpose? To give God’s people need-to-know information for salvation is clearly part of the answer. The title of Jeremy Kimble’s timely book gives us the other part of the answer: Behold and Become. Head knowledge alone is not enough. The church needs to retrieve this Pauline insight: beholding the glorious God with unveiled faces is a gracious means of becoming more like him (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). God’s Word gives God’s people what they need to grow, the material for formation unto godliness and Christlikeness. — Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Listening to Scripture: An Introduction to Interpreting the Bible Craig G. Bartholomew (Baker Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I have written about this one in more detail in a previous BookNotes, explaining how I so very much respect this learned, eccentric, solid Biblical scholar. He has studied a lot, and brings so much together, from reformational philosophy to Christian aesthetics to solid hermeneutics to a palpable passion for living out the Biblical story, in the modern world. In a way, Listening to Scripture is sort of a shorter and more personal version of a much more academic, scholarly text that was widely acclaimed. I’m so glad for this rigorous read, aimed at thoughtful laypeople.

Please consider this. It is one of the best books of its kind — how to read wisely and thoughtfully and fruitfully — that we have seen in quite some time. Highly recommended. Know and Bible study leaders, Sunday school class teachers expositors of Scripture, Bible thumpers, preachers or pastors? This is solid and a serious but engaging read.

FAITH & SCIENCE

God Speaks Science: What Neurons, Giants Squid, and Supernovae Reveal About Our Creator John Van Sloten (Moody Press) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

You might recall that I raved about this the week it was released, just a few months back. It is a “joy filled expedition into experiencing God’s majestic, everywhere presence.”

In a way, this book isn’t a sophisticated philosophy of science, seeking to integrate general revelation in nature and Biblical revelation. It isn’t even exactly about what some call the “faith and science” conversation. It is a flat-out, wholesome, energetic, celebration of Christian folks who serve in a variety of scientific callings and how their insights can enhance our common knowledge. — scientific information matters! — and our faith. It is, finally, a book about doxology.

“We were made to wonder, “ Van Sloten says. As a Calgary-based writer and former pastor, he knows how to touch people’s lives, and in this exceptional book, he honors those who do scientific research by explaining, in each chapter, something about their work, and blesses us all by showing how these insights of common grace can point us to God and the Kingdom of Christ. We can live with greater awe of our Creator when we know a bit about how science works.

Whether you are a beginner in learning about the sciences or whether you are yourself a serious scholar in a certain scientific discipline, you will enjoy this upbeat, deeply ponderous book. Hooray for John and his lovely curiosity and fabulous storytelling.

What Hath Darwin to Do With Scripture: Comparing the Conceptual Worlds of the Bible and Evolution Dru Johnson (IVP $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

This new book is written not by a scientist but by an impressive, multi-disciplinary Biblical scholar. He is extraordinarily gifted, theologically wise, solid and reliable, and yet — get this — says that “Believe it or not, the book of Genesis might have been the most Darwinian text in the ancient world” Throughout the opening books of Scripture, we find ideas, he says, “that would become prominent insights of the biologist Charles Darwin, interlaced with the Bible’s one-of-a-kind origin story.”

The Hebrew creation accounts, Johnson argues, “weave together three key themes” on the origins and development of humans and animals. These are nearly Darwinian, it seems — the connection of scarcity, cooperation and violence, the fitness of creatures to their environment, and the genealogical aims of sexual reproduction.

Granted, this is intriguing, even provocative, thoughtful stuff. It is what might be considered imaginative. It is what the famous University of St. Andrews scholar Andrew Torrance says is “at once both cautious and creative.” It is what the IVP Academic editor calls “mind-blowing.”  For what it is worth, Dr. J is not a wildly liberal theologian, but has exceptional regard for the Holy Word.

He admits it is a bit of a “weird project” and, among many others, from Templeton Research grants to folks at the Creation Project at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, he thanks philosopher Esther Meek. Wow.

What hath Eden to do with the Galapagos Islands? As Dru Johnson explains, more than one might expect —  Kenneth Keathley, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Christianity & Science Herman Bavinck (Crossway) $32.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

I am not theologically learned enough nor scientifically informed enough to say much of great import about this book other than to say that Bavinck helped create (with his colleague the great Dutch statesman Abraham Super) a movement of Reformed Protestants who desired to honor God by thinking Christianly about all of life. Before the “culture wars” made Darwinism and climate change and such fighting words, he wrote clearly, if densely, about how a uniquely Christian worldview would help us shape our thinking about the natural sciences. First published in Holland in the  very earthy 20th century, this shows our orthodox, Biblical faith can inform the natural sciences and how a Biblically-infused worldview can enhance our scientific learning. Indeed, Bavinck was influential in shaping the first non-governmental, Protestant Christian University (the Freje, in Amsterdam.)

This was translated by N. Gray Sutanto, James Eglinton, and Cory C. Brock.  Any Kuyper or Bavinck fans out there?

The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World Janet Kellogg Ray (Eerdmans) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Okay, just to be clear, Janet Ray is an enthusiastic science educator, explainer, and communicator. She holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction and has been teaching biology in colleges for nearly twenty years. She has great experience and, as a person of faith, understands the debates and conversations and what is often behind them. She gets it. She is hoping readers will learn how to hold true to your faith and also embrace modern science.

As an evangelical Christian and science educator, she dives into various contemporary hot button issues, from Covid-19 and vaccines to genetic research and (of course) questions about the compatibility of the Bible, Christian theology, and evolution. As Thomas Jay Oord puts it, “Janet Kellogg Ray writes like a journalist, thinks like a scientist, and makes connections to everyday life like a pop-culture expert.” She’s got wit and moxie and doesn’t take herself too seriously.

Jim Stump (of BioLogos and host of the Language of God podcast) says the book is “accessible and engaging.”  Love that! Highly recommended.

Navigating Faith and Science Joseph Vukov (Eerdmans) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Joseph Vukov is a professor of philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. He is sharp and thoughtful, deeply aware of the philosophical assumptions surround this conversation about science and faith. The relationship of the two (faith and science) need not be oppositional, of course, and the discussing don’t have to be inherently full of contention. The book and its approach seems really, really wise.

Curiously, the aforementioned Janet Kellogg Ray has a nice endorsement. She explains:

Joseph Vukov has good news for you! Vukov sets the table and invites us to sit down. He asks us through three frameworks for productive dialogue and skillfully equips us to know how and when to apply them in the context of science and faith.

WOMEN IN THE BIBLE

Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church Nijay K Gupta (IVP Academic) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

I’ve mentioned this before but Gupta is such a rock star in the guild of Biblical scholars that we are delighted to recommend it again. This book is fascinating, well researched, clear, passionate without being strident.  One reviewer called it a “an important journey throughout the New Testament” Another says he “skillfully uncovers the stories of a range of female leaders, teachers, and missionaries, and highlights their relevance for today.

With a PhD from the University of Durham, Dr. Gupta is professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. He has several commentaries and edited the huge second edition of the IVP Academic Dictionary of the Paul and His Letters.

Mary and the Interior Life Jeremiah Miriam Shryock, CFS (Paraclete Press) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

While some of the latest batch of books about women in the Bible are exegetical and making a case about women’s role and tasks and work, this is a different sort of work, careful, thoughtful, but contemplative and meditative. It seems to be a delightful read (I’ve only dipped in briefly.) The foreword is by Father James Dominic Brent, OP (who is at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington) notes how complex it is to write about Mary and our relationship with her. Catholic or Protestant, it is an important question and while this book is more than a study of what some call Mariology, it is, Brent says, well done, showing how a love for Mary points us to a love for Jesus.

Father Shrycock, a Franciscan, studies spiritual direction and it shows; in this book he tells of his own devotion to Mary, how he learned that “the whole world needs your ‘yes’ to God.” We, too, can learn from Mary how to follow Christ with all of our heart.

Fr. Donald Haggerty (who wrote a notable book of St. John of the Cross) says it is “a must-read for everyone aspiring to enter more deeply into the life of holiness…”

Jesus Through the Eyes of Women: How the First Female Disciples Help Us Know and Love the Lord Rebecca McLaughlin (The Gospel Coalition) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I have written about Rebecca McLaughlin before, highlighting her books of apologetics, the award-winning, Confronting Christianity and it’s follow up, Confronting Jesus, and her small screed, The Secular Creed and honor her work as a thoughtful, sharp, writer. Geesh, she has a PhD in Renaissance literature from Cambridge (not to mention a theology degree from Oak Hill College in London.) We notice whenever she gets a new book published.

This is a trim-sized, smaller book, fairly brief (about 175 pages) easy-to-read and helpful, even, a book that Julius Kim (of The Gospel Coalition) said was “mind-stimulating and soul-stirring.” That’s a great endorsement, eh?

Naturally, we see and learn more about Jesus than just about the women, and as we use their eyes to see the Master, we can find new angles and fresh insights. These life-changing accounts of women who met the Lord are mostly well-known and often-discussed. There are lots of books like this. And we should never tire of them.

Rather than view women as risks, liabilities, or burdens, Jesus invites them to draw near. With her characteristic and refreshing blend of scholarship and empathy, Rebecca McLaughlin invites us to examine the stories of women woven throughout the ministry of Jesus, searching for the common threads of good news. And a clear, unhesitating message emerges: ‘Suffer the women to come unto me.’ Herein is instruction and encouragement for women and men alike seeking to live as brothers and sisters in God’s family. — Jen Wilkin, author, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character and None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That’s a Good Thing)

Women Who Do: Female Disciples in the Gospels Holly J. Carey (Eerdmans) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Holly Carey is professor of biblical studies and chair of the Biblical Studies Department at Point University in Georgia. She examines here what it means to be a dispel — and makes the narrative-critical case that women best embody discipleship in the Gospel and Acts. What? Whoa!

As Joel Green of Fuller Theological Seminary notes,

If asked to name Jesus’s disciples, most of us would focus on the well-known men — Peter, James, John, and the rest. In this important, well-crafted study, Holly Carey fills out that picture by emphasizing Jesus’s overlooked female disciples.

We need books like this — granted it is not the first on this topic, but still feels pioneering. In their socio-political context, this really is something, and her unpacking “women who do” is surely going to be inspiring for many women and men. As Joel Green writes, “If we want to talk about what it means to follow Jesus, we do well to take her advice: Follow the women!”

“If we want to talk about what it means to follow Jesus, we do well to take her advice: Follow the women!”

Eve Isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions Julie Faith Parker (Baker Academic) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

Again, I have highlighted this one already, but wanted to give it an encore push. Julie Faith Parker is a fascinating and perceptive writer. With a PhD from Yale she is a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary and “biblical scholar in residence” at Marble Collegiate Church. She has taught at General Theological Seminary, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, at New York Theological Seminary and among incarcerated students at Sing Sing Prison. She is a good teacher and very deeply respected. She writes with energy and has great empathy.

The great Lutheran New Testament scholar Mark Allan Power writes,

A wonderful book. Readers will inevitably be convinced of two things: feminists can love the Bible, and Bible lovers can (and probably should) be feminists!  — Mark Allan Powell, professor (retired), Trinity Lutheran Seminary, author of Introducing the New Testament

AFRICAN AMERICAN and MULTICULTURAL STUDIES

Black Theology and Black Faith Noel Leo Erskine (Eerdmans) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I suppose it isn’t important but the hardback cover is striking to me, seeming to harken back to a 1970s title, something seminal, pioneering. Yet this is fresh, new, if connected to the great tradition of black theology. Erskine, who teaches at Candler School of Theology (at Emory), has written several scholarly books about faith and black history, about Caribbean theology (even one about Marley and Rasta.) He feels deeply and has been involved in the project of decolonizing theology, has reflected on pastoral care from a third world perspective. A book of his from years ago that influenced me a bit is King Among the Theologians.

The important Dwight Hopkins (now at the University of Chicago) has said that:

Noel L. Erskine has gifted us with the definitive argument and persuasive proof that Black faith and Black religion in the western hemisphere began with the majority populations of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and Latin America, and not in the United States. This is a foundational paradigm shift, and Black theology and womanist theology, if they are to remain authentic, must shift as well.

After a lifetime of these unique books about subsets of black scholarship, he now brings to us what might be his magnum opus. He covers Marcus Garvey and various views of sin and redemption in the older black church. He works with salvation and liberation, womanist writers, theology after Cone, up to BLM activists.

Kamari Maxine Clarke of the University of Toronto says it is “a phenomenal contribution to the field.”

Troubling the Water: The Urgent Work of Radical Belonging Ben McBride (Broadleaf Books) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

When Cornel West has a blurb on the front cover saying a book is “visionary and courageous” I take notice. We all should. Agree or not, this is important, vivid stuff, and West is an extraordinary scholar whose advice we should heed. Another blurb that I found compelling and made me want to stock this one is Father James Martin (whose new book, Come Forth, is about the resurrection of Lazarus) who called it “an urgent, vibrant, and necessary call for justice, which is just what God asks — demands — of all of us.”

This really is a clarion call, a manifesto, an exploration, of the call to justice. Yet, it brings into that “urgent work” the question of belonging.

This author is a seasoned urban activist (you’ll love his insightful story about a public hearing about bike lanes in Oakland) and you’ll appreciate, I hope, his drawing on the great work of Bryan Stevenson and Rev. William Barber. The deep stuff here is going to be helpful for anyone on the road to this kind of witness, or anyone who has been in the trenches.

Listen to Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel and Fortune:

At once practical and profound, Ben McBride’s Troubling the Water reflects the hard-earned wisdom of the author — a practitioner and prophet. McBride’s own story offers invaluable guidance for all who wish to be healing agents in our writhing world. But this is not a simple how-to book. McBride leads readers to the heart of the problem–we are failing to see each other (and ourselves) as human. Then he casts a vision and points the way toward a radical kind of belonging that challenges us all to the core. Read this book. It will change you.

Read this book. It will change you.

A Longing to Belong: Reflection on Faith, Identity, and Race Michelle Lee-Barnewall (Zondervan Reflective) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I just started this and it is gracious, kind, and thoughtful, a book about belonging, also, but not from the vantage point of a seasoned black activist (see above) but by an Asian American professor at Talbot School of Theology at Biola in Los Angeles. She has written a good book on the parables of Jesus and won a number of awards by the gracious, reasonable Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian. In this book she does nothing less than “exhorts readers that standing in awe of God transforms us.”

This looks to be an excellent, excellent, uplifting study of identity, who and whose we are, in light of her own passion for reconciliation. Can our longing for belonging “shape the way we think about ourselves and our life together?” She says yes, and that includes our mutual responsibilities to and for one another.

She is a good writer, a gracious storyteller, a beautiful person, surely, with lovely endorsements from colleagues like Octavio Esqueda.

Although it is a lovely, challenging thoughtful read, this endorsement cuts right to the chase:

This book can facilitate a conversation that will reduce the racial divines in our Christian organizations, ministries, and churches. — Sheryl Takagi Silzer, multicultural consultant for SIM, author of Biblical Multicultural Teams

Unfractured: A Christ-Centered Action Plan for Cultural Change Shot Welch (Chosen) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I first read Skot Welch a few years back when we highlighted the powerful and important Plantation Jesus: Race, Faith & A New Way Forward (Herald Press) that he co-wrote with Rick Wilson and Andi Cumbo-Floyd. It was very good and I’ve had my eye on him ever since.

I ordered this sight unseen, and thought maybe it would be about more general questions of societal change and renewal within the institutions of our saying culture. But, no, it is, quite specifically, about racial and multi-cultural tensions and the need for a Christ-centered plan to do, well, all the things the above books are lamenting and proposing. Can Unfractured be a tool to actually live out in practical ways answers to our fractured world?

So far, I can say that this is clear-headed, honest, not too controversial, practical, useful. It is for the church, thinking that Christian organizations must get their own house in order and that we “hold the redemptive solution our world needs, one that puts Christ at the center, modeling conciliation that leads to lasting reconciliation.”

He invites readers to “celebrate your identity in Christ and our diverse cultural makeup.” I like that he proposes that we “embrace a new kingdom language” and, as said, that we explore a Christ-centered perspective. Can we build united, diverse community? Can we create a setting where hard but crucial questions are explored with compassion? If you don’t need help with any of that, you can skip this book. But I am sure that we all need a lot of help. This is, at least, for those new to this project, or those who are faltering.

Welch has been a key advisor on diversity and inclusion (he tells stories from churches but also from Fortune 500 Companies and folks in the arts and entertainment world.” He is the founder of Global Bridgebuilders.

The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth Jermaine Fowler (The Row House) $28.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

I have not yet studied this recent New York Times bestseller but it has gotten excellent advanced publicity and critical reviews. It is one of those books that is going to be talked about and perhaps considered a must-read for those working in this field of equity and inclusion, justice and reconciliation. Fowler is a clear writer, a good storyteller — the couple of pages I’ve dipped into had me captivated. I like that he calls himself an “intellectual adventurer.”  (And, yes, he grew up going to the free library, being inspired by books of all sorts.)

There are those, even in religious circles these days, who say that slavery was somehow benign. There are those who, even if they are disgusted by the injustices of slavery or the years or Reconstruction that gave us the growth of the KKK, still care to know little about black history. This offers good words in the context of broader human history. I think it is going to be tremendous and want to suggest it here.

Fowler sees historical storytelling and the sharing of knowledge as a vocation and a means of fostering empathy and understanding between cultures. A deft storyteller with a sonorous voice, Fowler’s passion for his material is palpable as he unfurls the hidden histories.—Vanity Fair

CULTURAL CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling – Expanded Edition Andy Crouch (IVP) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

When this book first came out — 15 years ago (hence, this new anniversary edition) I could hardly believe it. This. This. This was much of what we were about here at Hearts & Minds, why our little contribution to the world mattered, and why we tried to create a bookstore that was somehow a different sort of place than most Christian bookstores (remember them?) Or most big chain bookstores that were popular. Andy explained, with erudition and wise insight, so much about the Bible and faithful discipleship and social responsibility and the possibilities of change and the nature of our cultural artifacts. The phrase “culture making” became a watchword, and his stuff on various postures, if heeded, might have prevented the worst of the subsequent culture wars and church-influenced disasters. It is one of the most important books we’ve seen in the forty years we’ve been in business and we were glad to have had a very tiny connection to its promotion early on. We admire Andy and he and his family are, I am proud to say, customers of ours. We are grateful.

We are now glad for this new, updated edition. It is mostly the same magisterial volume it first was — but with a lengthy afterword which takes the shape of a dialogue between Andy and Tish Harrison Warren. It is excellent, insightful, provocative and such a joy to read thoughtful Christians (who aren’t so arcane as to make us scratch our heads.) They note that one big cultural artifact that isn’t discussed in Culture Making is the iPhone, which had not come out yet, 15+ years ago. Of course, Crouch has gone on to write about our digital culture (I adored The Life We’re Looking For) and the conversation with Tish in the new afterword explores wisely this new milieu and the ongoing call by God to steward well the potentialities of our life and times.

In this expanded edition there is also a very extensive study guide, good for anyone, of course, but especially designed for small groups, book clubs, entrepreneurs, or church folk wanting their congregation to learn to be more faithfully savvy about the world God calls us to. It’s important, not incidental or only for artists. Lauren Winner said, “I am hard-pressed to think of something that twenty-first century American Christians need to read more”  Indeed.

“I am hard-pressed to think of something that twenty-first century American Christians need to read more”

Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement – 15th Anniversary Edition Steven Bouma-Prediger & Brian J. Walsh (Eerdmans) $39.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99

Speaking of 15th anniversary editions, this, too, is one of my all-time favorite books and I am thrilled that it has recently been reissued in a new, expanded 15th anniversary edition. It is a fairly hefty volume but there is so much going on that it could nearly be seen as several books in one. Yet, in holds together brilliantly, moving from studies of the poor and unhoused to the ways in which we disregard place (our individualistic, nomadic culture) and why, for some, we are less enthused about placed embodiment because we have a view of heaven that is disconnected to the real world of creation. That one of the authors — the great Steve Bouma-Prediger at Hope College in Holland, MI — is an ecologist (his own recent book Creation Care Discipleship is one of my choices for “best books of the year”) the disregard for climate change and creation care fits into this study of why, really, we have a crisis in housing. They offer a big picture and they connect the notes with pathos and hope.

There are vivid Biblical vignettes scattered throughout showing just how very “Jesusy” (to use Anne Lamont’s famous word) their project is.

This is no simple call to care for the poor, although nothing would please the authors more if we and our churches opened our doors to those in need with a bit more conscientious energy. More, this is a multi-dimensional study of our “culture of displacement.” Why is it, they ask, that there are people with houses (perhaps multiple houses) but who have no sense of place, no belonging, no true home, really, and even while there are, in fact, people who are unhoused or under-housed and yet who have a network of loved ones, people they care about, a place to belong. In a way, they may not have houses, but they have homes. What is a home? What is the task of homemaking? How does the Biblical meta-narrative shape our understanding of home, exile, and homecoming? What might be done for those on the margins of our society when we learn to counter our “culture of displacement”? This book is more urgent now, and more relevant, than it was when it first came out.

There is, in this new anniversary edition, a new foreword by Ruth Padilla DeBorst which is excellent. And, significantly, there is what is called a Postscript but which is really a long, new chapter. It is amazingly good. In this full, new chapter the authors bring their story up to date, looking at the current crisis of homelessness, they cite some more moving poetry and songs and Bible verses, interact with some good theologians (such asThe Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything by Miroslov Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz) engage some philosophers and ethicists (and of course, Wendell Berry) as they propose a “phenomenology of homefulness.” Importantly, they spend some time in a place in Austin, Texas with a guy named Alan Graham, creator of Mobile Loaves and Fishes and author of Welcome Homeless. (You can listen to a podcast of Graham chatting with Brian about the new edition of the book and Graham’s work HERE. Check it out.)

I can’t say enough about this new edition, it’s big picture cultural criticism and it’s imaginative reforms for how we think about these matters. It really is a graduate course in contemporary contextual theology and the best thinking I’ve seen yet on these very themes. The book, in that sense, is a bargain.

We are hoping to arrange having a livestream online conversation with Brian about the book that will be hosted by their good publisher, Eerdmans, before long. Stay tuned! In the mean time, buy the book, now on sale.

The Church in an Age of Secular Mysticisms: Why Spiritualities without God Fail to Transform Us Andrew Root (Baker Academic) $28.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

I may have given this a shout out previously but it is so important it deserves to be on this little list of five about culture. As I hope you know Andrew Root has a series of five other books about how the culture of the world around us has infiltrated and shaped the thinking that goes on in most churches. He draws on various important social critics (think of Charles Taylor and his influential work on our “secular age”) and shows how congregations and pastors have to think hard about all that in order to find faithful renewal and appropriate growth. (I love the title of one The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time Against the Speed of Modern Life and The Church After Innovation: Questioning Our Obsession with Work, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship. See what he’s doing there?

Well, this one explores our recent fascination with spirituality, with (again) our view of the very self. He brings in some pretty heady social critics, and you will learn a lot. His helping us get a better grasp on the cultural context in which many perceive our talk about spirituality is a great gift. Wow, this is really important stuff, cultural astute, insightful, and somewhat provocative.

It is also (he says in the introductory pages) the final book in this six-book series. He has to make some arguments about late modernity, do some review, build a framework and then tackle the “spirituality” question. Near the end he goes to the Rhineland mystics and tells of an encounter with Jewish scholar Franz Rosenzweig, connecting that with Martin Buber.  It is what a prof at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary calls “a theological gem.”

Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West Andrew Wilson (Crossway) $29.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

One might think this would be put in our history section, and I suppose that is where it goes. It is a close and fascinating reading of things that happened in 1776, starting with seven events, actually. So, obviously, history, right?

However, the creative argument Wilson makes in this extraordinary book has such implications for our understanding our times, too, I’m listing it here with other titles of cultural and social concern. In short, he maintains that the seeds of the post-Christian West were sown in the late eighteenth century. This revolutionary era was decisive in many ways — he explores 7 — shaping the way in which faith and life developed subsequently. This is cultural analysis of the highest sort — and fun! For what it is worth, this isn’t a woke liberal complaining about Jefferson enslaving people (which, of course, is it’s own valuable criticism that must be said, over and over) but it is a moderately conservative evangelical theologian wondering how we became “Western” and “Democratic” and “Romantic” and more. While historian Thomas Kidd says it is “an intellectual tour de force and a model of Christian scholarship” it is, frankly, more. Matthew Lee Anderson says it is “arresting.” It certainly is interesting.

Note this, from two of our great Christian public intellectuals:

Andrew Wilson’s book is extraordinary in every way: extraordinary in the breadth of research; extraordinary in the multitude of world-significant events that Wilson identifies for 1776; extraordinary in the depth of his insight on what those events meant (and continue to mean); extraordinary in the verve with which he makes his arguments; and, not least, extraordinary in the persuasive Christian framework in which he sets the book. Remaking the World is a triumph of both creative historical analysis and winsome Christian interpretation. — Mark Noll, Professor of History, Regent College; author, America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911

Andrew Wilson is a wise and witty guide through the eventful year 1776 (eventful in, as he shows, sometimes surprising ways). He convincingly demonstrates that we’re still living in the wake of that historical moment–and offers shrewd suggestions for how Christians might navigate those rough waters. — Alan Jacobs, Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Baylor University, author of Breaking Bread with the Dead

Christ Among the Classes: The Rich, the Poor, and the Mission of the Church Al Tizon (Orbis Press) $35.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

I respect my old pal Al Tizon very, very much. He has written much (including some great record reviews) and even in this book there is an appendix, a tribute written to his friend and mentor Ronald J. Sider, who died almost two years ago, now. For those of us who knew Ron, Al’s tender and helpful eulogy is nearly worth the price of the book.

It isn’t am inexpensive book, though, so you need a bit more than his tender and wise overview of Sider and his influence nice as that is. And you get it, for sure. This is an exceedingly thorough, careful, rigorous study of the Biblical visio not economic justice and how, in fact, our income inequality is such these days that God surely groans, along with the oppressed. It is no surprise this bit of liberative economics is published by Orbis Press.

Professor Tizon (He teaches adjunct at North Park in Chicago ad pastors Grace Fellowship Community Church in San Fransisco) is known for his book Whole & Reconciled: Gospel, Church, and Mission in a Featured World which is one of the very best evangelical studies of the wholistic nature of the gospel and how Kingdom visions of reconciliation ought to be central to the redemptive mission of God’s people in the world.  Here, he provides the prophetic denunciation of injustice a bit more bitingly and invites us to understand, really understand, classism. As Fr Benigno Beltran puts it, “Al Tizon’s book goes right to the heart of the matter: classism is an affront to the God of justice, and if the wealthy do not repent, the human are will soon perish from the face of the earth.”

All sorts of missional leaders and missionary thinkers have endorsed this as a powerful bit of cultural critique. An East African worker for SIM International, a Bishop in the Church of Uganda, even Jonathan Bonk, executive director emeritus of the Overseas Missions Studies Center. Bonk, by the way, raves, saying how everyone could benefit from a careful reading of this volume. He notes that if change is going to occur, “it might begin with this modest but hard-hitting book.”

Rev. Eugene Cho (President and CEO of Bread for the World) says it calls the reader and Church “to deeper self-examination of classism, while calling us to follow and embody Christ.”

As the good pastor and evangelical he is, Tizon has provided thoughtful discussion questions so Christ Among the Classes can be used in a small group, book club, or adult ed class. There are also sidebars of “action steps” and proposed ideas for further engagement with the material, moving us to experiment and work towards a more reconciled world. This is a really useful resource.

By the way, on this theme, we recently got into the store the new book by bestselling nonfiction author Stephanie Land, author of Maid, which was made into a popular Netflix show. Land’s new one is called Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education (1 Signal Publishing / Atria) $28.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40. I know that is six in this category, but I had to sneak it in. Publisher’s Weekly calls it “stirring” and Neil Gaiman says it is “a beautiful memoir.”  Insofar as economic anxiety and class differences are part of our cultural make-up, this could be important for anyone wanting to understand the times.

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Sadly, as of November 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

We will keep you posted about our future plans… we are eager to reopen.

We are doing our curb-side and back yard customer service and can show any number of items to you if you call us from our back parking lot. It’s sort of fun, actually. We are eager to serve and grateful for your patience as we all work to mitigate the pandemic. We are very happy to help, so if you are in the area, do stop by. We love to see friends and customers.

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18 Great (mostly new) Children’s Picture Books — ON SALE at Hearts & Minds

Our hearts are full — there is a new Sufjan Stevens album and some new friends have signed up for our BookNotes newsletter, giving me hope that there are those who care about literary quality without being stuck in a snooty, classical elitism. Good folks, good books, orders coming in from all sorts of places, folks needing various kinds of help. We’re here, eager to serve. Thank you.

I have been wanting to celebrate some of the many recently released good picture books that we have in our children’s section; with Beth away visiting a grand baby, I’ve been thinking about reading to little ones. Here is a random selection of some new, recommended titles. I know it is a limited style (mostly) for a certain young age group, but these are fun and I’m so happy to tell you just a bit about them. Enjoy.

All get the BookNotes 20% off discount. Scroll to the very bottom to see the links to our secure website order form page. Thanks.

Walter Brueggemann’s Big Imagination – A Biography for Children Conrad L. Kanagy, illustrated by Audrey Kanagy (Mastof Press) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

This little paperback, simply done with pastel illustrations, is an oddly moving book that (as Duke Divinity School Professor Ellen Davis notes) “has to be a genre unto itself.” Indeed. It is a biography of a (post-critical) Biblical scholar, for little ones. And it is really something!

I hope you know that Conrad Kanagy (a sociology professor and former Mennonite pastor) recently spent years talking with Walter Brueggemann about his life and crafted an authorized, insightful (and for Bible geeks, at least) hard to put down biography of Saint Walter. Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination tells the story for adults and Conrad kept thinking, as he was writing this biography, that he wanted his grandchildren “to know this remarkable man who has learned that despite his failure and shortcomings, he is deeply love by God and held in God’s arms.” Amen, right?

This little book shows how the shy Walter came to find words and stories as a way to understand the world, learning to love books in his rural upbringing, and most obviously in the stories of the Bible. As a world-famous scholar, seminary professor, critic, author and churchman, Brueggemann has called us (in his over 100 books) to be creative and imaginative, trusting that somehow the God of the Bible is present, now, calling us to be prophets against our own idolatrous culture. Mostly, Brueggemann deepened his confidence about the mysterious ways of the God of the Bible. Kanagy wanted to help children see all this and a small central Pennsylvania publisher agreed. Walter Brueggemann’s Big Imagination is a hoot. It even ends with the rare line these days, “The End.” What fun. Hooray.

I love children’s books. And I love Walter Brueggemann. So this is a magical combo, a holy cocktail, like cookies and cream or ice cream and sprinkles. It is just spectacular. Here’s a book that can be read and reread, loved and cherished by kids and kids at heart. May it inspire you to celebrate who you are and make the world a better place just like Walter!” — Shane Claiborne, activist, author, Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person 

Something, Someday Amanda Gorman, illustrated by Christian Robinson (Penguin) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

We all know the brilliant Presidential inaugural poet (and bestselling author) Amanda Gorman. Her collaborating artists, Christian Robinson has won the coveted Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor awards. What a handsome, lovely, good book.

On the flyleaf it says, “You’re told that / This won’t work / But how will you know / If you never try?

Even children know that sometimes the world feels broken. Problems seem too big to fix. Amanda reminds us that  we all have the power to make a difference. As it says on the flyleaf, “With a little faith, and maybe the help of a friend, together we can find beauty and create change.”

Did you love her boisterous, fun (poetic) children’s picture book Change Sings (illustrated by Loren Long)? Are you aware of her “Writing Change” initiative to support grassroots organizations dedicated to advance literacy? She’s a Harvard grad, esteemed poet and this book for kids  maybe 4 – 8; it is a fabulously fun, wise work.

A Walk in the Woods Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney & Brian Pinkney (Neal Porter Books / Holiday House) $18.99

To even mention this chokes me up a bit; Jerry Pinkney was one of the great illustrators of children’s books in the last decades of the 20th century and, importantly, into the 21st. A black leader and artist, he illustrated many of our favorite picture books and when his son Brian started working, we were thrilled. This was, as far as I know, the last book Jerry Pinkney was working on when he died in 2021. Son Brian picked up the work in what must have been an honor and, maybe through tears, a blast.

Nikki Grimes, I’m sure I don’t need to say, is an esteemed black writer, a poet and respected children’s writer. She has done overtly Christian work, worked with publishers like the esteemed Eerdmans line of books for children, and is an award winning writer at the top of her craft.

As the cover writing tells us,

Confused and distraught after the death of his father, a boy opens an envelope his dad left behind and is surprised to find a map of the woods beyond their house, with one spot marked in bright red. The woods had been something they shared together. Why would his father want him to go alone?

The treasure trove he finds reveals something more for them to share, and some peace amid the grief. His dad knew what he really needed was a walk in the woods.

Art mirrors life in this remarkable picture book by New York Times bestselling author Nikki Grimes, Caldecott Award-winning illustrator Jerry Pinkney, and Jerry’s son Brian Pinkney, who complete the artwork after his fathers passing.

Art mirrors life in this remarkable picture book by New York Times bestselling author Nikki Grimes, Caldecott Award-winning illustrator Jerry Pinkney, and Jerry’s son Brian Pinkney, who complete the artwork after his fathers passing.

Colorful Mondays: A Bookmobile Spreads Hope in Honduras Nelson Rodriguez & Leonardo Agustin Montes, illustrated by Rosana Maria & Carla Tabora (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Eerdmans, the great theological publisher out of Grand Rapids, travels the world to acquire often eccentric and artful books, some of the best the world has to offer. This grand, colorful, and wonderfully illustrated book is based on a real bookmobile program in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It focuses on the strength of disadvantaged children and, as the back cover says, “the creativity of those helping them to imagine a better future.”

Luis loves Mondays, the day the bookmobile comes to his sad neighborhood (called Villa Nueva.) The bookmobile brings stories that “burst with life, laughter, and color.” Every Monday fills Luis and his friends “with a joy they can’t wait to take back home.”

The contrast between the somewhat somber first pages and the bright splashes of color that enhance the pages as the bookmobile arrives is nothing short of glorious. I’d say this should be nominated for a coveted Caldecott Award. Kudos to translator Lawrence Schimel and to Eerdmans for bringing it to English speaking children. Buy a few and give them out to book lovers (and librarians) everywhere!

When I Go to Church, I Belong Elena Evans, illustrated by Rebecca Evans (IVP Kids) $18.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I’ve got three quick things to say about this very, very special book. First, I was a bit unsure at first, but a few years ago, when IVP started earnestly doing kids books, I was quickly won over. If you buy children’s books, just buy as many as you can afford from this thoughtful, fun, list.

Secondly, it is striking to me that so many publishers do so many good books for children about faith and God and the Bible and spiritual growth, but there simply are not that many books about church life. A few of the more liturgical publishers do some nice ones for those in “high” churches but, be that as it may, it is striking how few good books there are like this one. And this one is perfect.

Thirdly, this is, to be honest, about kids with disabilities, differences, and is for neurodiverse kids, kids for whom going to church might be scary or off-putting or might bring out some small bits of weirdness. Actually, my guess is that this is most kids from most families. Has anybody had a fully smooth and lovely experience getting kids to feel at home in church?

It does say this on the back: “Finding my place in God’s family as a child with special needs.”

In this lovely picture book it says “I like to go to church because I know I’m always welcome.”

“I like to go to church because I know I’m always welcome.”

This great book offers a strong view of the Body of Christ as a real community that cares and a local congregation that, in the midst of doing ordinary church stuff, creates space for differences, helping everyone feel God’s love. When I Go to Church, I Belong is for little ones, but for us all, really, offering a glimpse of the holy work of hospitality and inclusion. To be honest, I think every church should have one or two of these laying about.

God Hears My Song Heather Lean, illustrated by Morris Handbook (Lucky Hippogriff) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

We get enough poorly constructed self published books that we’ve grown cynical about some indie presses and small publishers, but this is a great relief, a gem, a treasure. We were lucky to discover the odd little Lucky Hippogriff outfit. Hooray.

This book — dedicated to all children! — is sweet, classy, and heartwarming It uses the conventional styling of rhymes, offering an inspiring tribute to the beauty of God. It has lines like this:

You fill my days with sun so bright / That bathes the world with warmth and light.”

Nice, sweet, expressions of gratitude about as we are reminded that we are never alone. God is there. God hears. God loves.

There are some tears, some fears, and a lovely array of global kids in various scenes. Nice.

Psalms of Wonder: Poems from the Book of Songs Carey Wallace, illustrated by Khoa Le (Flyaway books) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

This may be our vote for one of the very best children’s picture book of the season. There are many great ones, but we are really charmed with the artful telling, the subtle, lovely illustrations, the classy, solid presentation. Flyaway makes some very good books for children and this is a rich, alluring, keeper.

We have been fans of the writing of Carey Wallace since being introduced by mutual Christian friends in NYC years ago. Her first book was an unforgettable novel (The Blind Contessa’s New Machine) about the invention of the typewriter. Her first children’s book is one of the great books of the last decades (I’m not kidding) called Stories of the Saints: Bold and Inspiring Tales of Adventure, Grace, and Courage lushly and creatively illustrated by the great Nick Thornborrow. In any case, she ought to be well known and this new collection of retold Psalms is a great book to have, to hold, to read, to share.  A Psalm, she says, “is a song that we sing to God.” As it says on the back, “Through many generations, people have called on the beloved ancient songs to express their deepest emotions to God and one another.” Yes!

Actually, I think putting these Biblical Psalms in a book calling them poems, from a book of songs, is helpful.

These are arranged, by the way, with several Psalms put (sometimes with full page art) around themes of “Songs of Wonder”, “Songs of Courage”, “Songs of Comfort”, “Songs of Joy”, “Songs of Protection”, and “Songs of Love.” Thanks be to God. And thanks to Carey and Khoa. Well done.

A Wild Promise: An Illustrated Celebration of the Endangered Species Act Allen Crawford with an introduction essay by Terry Tempest Williams (Tin House) $35.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

I don’t know if this is mostly an art book with excellently alluring graphics (illustrations and bright, wild calligraphy) and some text, or an encyclopedia of good information, that is nicely illustrated. I think the vivid portrayals — some exceptionally striking, believe me! — will grab you first, but the details of the facts about various animals is very interesting and, somehow, cumulatively, a song of lament. Or mourning. Or maybe celebration, since the 1973 bipartisan passage of the Endangered Species Act protected — ensured — so many of God’s vulnerable species a good chance of survival. In one of the masterpieces of beautiful bureaucracy in the 20th century, this lovely act of conservation is now, sadly, being eroded. Terry Tempest Williams — whose adult book Erosion has several sobering chapters on the former President Trump’s decrees to undo the 1973 Act — has a beautiful introduction to this stunning book.

Read it and weep, yes. But enjoy, too, in awe and wonder. Know that most of the book is just a glorious tribute to wonderful creatures a fabulous book for older kids and youth. How artful! What fun!

A Wild Promise is done by an acclaimed artist who beautifully illustrates over eighty animals that embody the spirit, legacy, and commitment of the Endangered Species Act. Forgive me for cross-referencing here, but it pairs wonderfully with the amazing Lenten book by Gayle Boss (and wonderfully illustrated by David Klein) Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing. Or, for that matter, the new children’s version of their Advent book about animals in hibernation, All Creation Waits:The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings. I’ll be saying more about that lavish new edition in an upcoming Advent book list. In any case, A Wild Promise is nothing short of spectacular. Spectacular!

The greatest enemy of life on Earth is not fossil fuel, but human hubris. In our eleventh hour, the art of Allen Crawford and the words of Terry Tempest Williams offer witness and warning. A Wild Promise celebrates the lives that have been saved by the Endangered Species Act, even as that half-century act itself is endangered. This gentle, strong book marks this moment of peril and promise. We can ignore, and thereby accept, the dark tsunami of extinction moving through sea and air and across the land faster than any previous wave. Or we can find the power of our humility and our wider kinship. We can reconnect our children and ourselves to the rest of nature. We can reverse the deepening loneliness of our species. We can turn the tide. — Richard Louv, author of Our Wild Calling and Last Child in the Woods

The World God Made Hannah Anderson, illustrated by Nathan Anderson (B+H Kids) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I hope you know the contemporary wordsmith Hannah Anderson. She is a young theological writer, inspirational but real, glorious, even. I respect her immensely and she and her husband, Nathan, himself a professional illustrator, have done a fabulous and popular book of wonderful nature writing called Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit.  Now they’ve done a splendid children’s book, a creative rumination on Psalms 104.

I like the way B+H Kids tell about it:

God gives us all the earth and calls it home.

Celebrating the wonders of nature, this retelling of Psalm 104 invites you to enjoy and explore the world God made. Moving from one feature of the natural world to the next–from the sky and earth to the animals and oceans–the book’s lyrical language introduces questions from a child’s view. What about when strong winds blow? When birds fly far away? When the night is long? Each uncertainty is met with a truth about God’s character to comfort children and give them the confidence they need to explore the world around them.

Hannah Anderson’s stirring words are joined by Nathan Anderson’s soft, realistic watercolors. Together they have created a book with a timeless aesthetic and readability, one that will resonate with families who celebrate the beauty of nature and the wisdom that comes from the world God made.

Winter Gifts: An Indigenous Celebration of Nature Kaitlin B. Curtice, illustrated by Gloria Felix (Convergent) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

This is a lovely, sweet book showing the life (and interior thoughts and fears and joys) of a modern-day American girl of Native descent. It is unclear from the story what tribe the girl, Dani, is from, but the story describes her friends who are Anglo, black, and Asian American as they play in the snow (they go “sledding”) and drink hot cocoa. The author, herself a follower of Jesus who is an important writer of indigenous insights (we carry all three of her important books) and how they inform her Christian faith, lives in Philadelphia, so this book seems to be a story of an indigenous girl in a dominant culture school somewhere where there is snow. Maybe in Pennsylvania, even.

The plot is simple — she learns from her family about listening well to Grandmother Nature and caring for creation, but her friends don’t get her. She shares with her parents how she was teased and they resolve to be faithful to their indigenous wisdom, looking for gifts from creation itself. Dani takes comfort in speaking with a favorite tree. Eventually her classmates come around and want to see her tree and a fort she built and all ends well.

It was moving, actually, that there was this tension in the story when the kids didn’t understand her wisdom about Winter being a time of receiving creation’s gifts of darkness, waiting, resting. That a few Potawatomi words are used makes this a special treat.

By the way, the girl’s name in the story is Dani, and a brief note tells us that Dani (Dah-nee) is the Potawatomi word used to describe the affection toward a beloved or special daughter. Curtice tells us that “Dani represents not just the special love we share with our human families but also our special status as the beloved children of Creator and of Earth, who was made by Creator to be our mother.”

Gloria Felix, the illustrator and animation artist, is Purepecha, born and raised in Uruapan, in Michoacán Mexico.

African Heroes: Discovering Our Christian Heritage Jerome Gay, Jr., illustrated by John Joven (New Growth Press) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This is a super cute book and a great addition to the many, many books highlighting black history and African American kids. But wait! These kids are learning not about African-American history but about Africans. This is an amazing book happily accomplishing any number of things, including helping children (uhhh, and their parents) learn about the earliest years of church history.

In this story, the kids, Jordan and Jasmine, ask their dad, who loves history, if there are any Christians who look like them that God used in the past to help the church grow.  And dad playfully gives a lesson we all need. What fun pictures there are of Lactantius and Pachomius the Great, Cyprian of Carthage and  Cyril of Alexandria, Perpetua and Felicity, Athanasius and so many others. These are church leaders of the first few centuries and (like Augustine, from Africa) were not white. Did you know Tertullian grew up in Carthage which is in Tunisia.

In a Bible study just the other night somebody asked about the faithful Ethiopian who worked in the Queen’s court and his encounter with the gospel through his conversation with a Spirit-directed Philip. When I mentioned that he was black, one friend gasped. She had never thought of that!

This is a great, great book, highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn about early church theologians, what they did, what they were known for, their apparant qualities and robust faith.  Congrats to Rev. Gay — he’s done a number of books but I think this is his first for children.

The Treasure: Ancient Story Every New of Jesus and His Church Marty Machowski, illustrated by Flavia Sorrentino (New Growth Press) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

At almost 250 pages, this is one of the more hefty kid’s books we’ve gotten in the store lately. I like the vivid, colorful design of this one a bit more than than the pictures in his popular The Ology and Wonder Full. This one is a bit more zany, edgy without being over the top odd, with nice color and standard children’s illustrations that could be in a Disney-type book.  Ms Sorrentino, by the way, lives and works as a freelance illustrator out of her hometown of Rome, Italy. She loves creative expression and in The Treasure does the work of a lifetime, as Machowski weaves a Bible study of the books of Luke and Acts (with a fictional story, too.)

Readers follow the adventures of Mira and Theos, who discover a sea captain’s personal  journal that offers clues to a hidden treasure. The can only solves the riddle of the treasure, however, by studying two ancient scrolls. (Yep, that would be the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.)  What a book!

The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible Chrissie Muecke, Jasmin Pittman Morrell, & Teresa Kim Pecinovsky (Shine) $32.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

You may recall us promoting the Shine On children’s storybook Bible as one of the very best out there, a large-sized, creative project done by a collaboration between The Brethren Press and Herald Press. The Peace Table is in that spirit, by those two Anabaptist publishers, and it is perhaps the best children’s storybook Bible we’ve yet seen. There are several favorites, each with strengths, but the color and drama and interactive prompts and allusive invitations to enter the story are simply stunning. We are excited and true fans of this stellar, new storybook filled with Bible stories, respectfully told.

The design is expert and while creative, not so artsy as to be distracting. There is lots of color, but much is pastel or muted. The art (from 30 different artists) is diverse with different fabulous styles from around the globe. Most are exceptionally compelling. There are 140 stories, all accompanied by prayer ideas, questions to ponder, and action ideas for families to discuss and consider. There are twelve “peace paths” that encourage children to “explore the ways that peace themes are woven throughout the Old and New Testaments. (There is a nice resource piece, too, that explains how God’s promises of shalom, fulfilled in Christ, equip us for peace with God, self, others, and creation itself.) This book is extraordinary and very highly recommended.

God’s Big Promises Bible Storybook Carl Laferton, illustrated by Jennifer Davison (The Good Book Company) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39 

Many faithful followers of Hearts & Minds know that we are very fond of the good work of Carl Laferton and his great series (all illustrated wonderfully by the clever Catalina Echeverri) called “Tales That Tell the Truth.” Each of those tells a Bible story with a unique angle (what some theologians might call the historical-redemptive hermeneutic) that points to Christ’s redemption and the hopeful promises of His coming Kingdom. From God’s Very Good Idea Storybook: A True Story of God’s Delightfully Different Family to The Christmas Promise to Goodbye to Goodbyes Storybook: A True Story about Jesus, Lazarus, and an Empty Tomb to The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross and so many more, we’ve enjoyed surprising customers with these great books. I like Laferton a lot.

Now, finally, Mr Laferton (who lives in London and spent his life teaching the Bible to children) has done a storybook Bible for young children. Here he offers these 92 “foundational stories faithfully told.”

The children’s illustrations are vivid and colorful and mostly realistic in style. The artist is based in Northern Ireland. It is not a giant volume but it is over 400 pages. Very nicely done.

The Story of God Our King Kenneth Padgett & Shay Gregory, illustrated by Aedan Peterson (Wolfbane Books) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

It is hard to explain the glory of this book for indie publisher Wolfbane. It is slightly larger than most typical picture books and gloriously so. The artwork seems to be computer generated, with a certain edge of graphic novel realism. As such, it is beautiful and gripping, a good edition to any home or church library. It is a follow up and companion volume to The Story of God With Us which we have promoted before.

What makes this exceptional, though, and why we were eager to track it down and make it available to our customers is because (or so it seems to me) it is nearly one of a kind. It looks at the kingship of God, the coming of Christ as the reigning one, the King of His Kingdom. The theme o fGod’s kingship over the whole creation and the royal nature of His people (and, the subsequent, eventual defeat of all evil) is expressed Biblically and theologically. This ancient story is still unfolding as we live in this now-but-not-yet world.

There are splendid blurbs on the back cover by Melissa Kruger (of the Gospel Coalition) and the great Matthew Bates (I’ve recently recommended his powerful, readable book Why the Gospel?) and the thoughtful Hebrew prof Michael Heiner. It’s fascinating how they have serious writers and theologians weighing in on this colorful kid’s book.

I hope your church celebrates the feast of Christ the King Sunday (right before Advent begins), what Roman Catholic Churches mightily call the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. The Story of God Our King by Kenneth Padgett and Shay Gregory can help.

Big Feeling Days: A Book about Hard Things, Heavy Emotions, and Jesus’ Love Aubrey Sampson, illustrated Natalia Basilica (NavPress) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

You may know the very touching contemporary books by the young writer Aubrey Sampson. I have raved about her book describing her sorrows and how she learned the language of lament (The Louder Song) and a good one about intimacy with God called Known.

Big Feeling Days is sweet and solid and honest. My fear is that some will find it a bit corny. It is not. It uses great imagination (and nice, basic, modern-looking illustrations) to show children in various states of emotion, often of hard stuff, sadnesses of all sorts, running to the arms of and often smiling Jesus. I’m very sure this will be a blessing to many, if used with discretion, at just the right time. It really can help little kids with big emotions know “that God loves them and is right next to them, no matter what they feel.”)

The kids are often wearing colorful costumes — symbolic, perhaps? — and Jesus (did I mention?) is often smiling. This is gospel-centered goodness. Knowing that all of us have God-given emotions and all sorts of complicated feelings makes this lovely book ring true. It even has small touches of sparkles. I highly recommend it. So does psychologist and writer Dan Allender Listen to him here:

I love children’s books if they tell the truth, engage the heart, and invite one’s imagination to grow. Aubrey Sampson has exquisitely told the truth about emotions that feel too big for one’s little body and soul to bear. The simple but profound reality that big adults and little children feel overwhelmed at times and don’t know how to manage bad days that make us mad and sad touches the heart and invites us all to imagine and receive the care of Jesus, who can calm the winds and still the raging seas. I can’t wait to read this brilliantly written and illustrated book to my grandchildren. — Dan B. Allender, PhD, professor of counseling psychology and founding president of The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, author of The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions about God

The Brothers Zzli Alex Cousseau, illustrated by Anne-Lis Boutin (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers) $17.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I mentioned how sometimes Eerdmans finds international books that have a rare feel for those who read pop American kid’s books. This is a good example. It is bright and charming, yes, but a bit odd. It is a poignant story about a bear family’s search for home and belonging.

Who knew that it would spark lasting conversations about the struggles of refugees, the impact of prejudice, and what it may mean to welcome others, even outsiders.

Would you give a home to somebody who has been on the road for a long time? They’d be good company, it is said. But they are bears. Very funny, active bears. The story is dense and the art is busy and detailed (and funny.) This is an amazing work of children’s art. Kudos to this French pair, famous there, for storytelling and vivid illustration. Wow.

Saints: A Family Story John Cavadini & Catherine Cavadini, illustrated by Anastassia Cassady (Paraclete Press) $25.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

This is brand new and, I am sure, destined to become a classic in the genre. There is simply no other book of which we are aware on the topic of Catholic Saints that is so informative and so exquisitely captivating with this realistic, superb portrait art. In a way this is not a typical children’s book, although the writing is upbeat and lovely. It is designed to be read together, to help encourage families to read about saints (from history or from the Bible.) The art is stunning, and somewhat diverse. (Besides a wild, wild-eyed, long-haired John the Baptist, on the other page there is a big bug, I’m guessing, uh, a locust. Yep, there are these smaller depictions and insets. A few of the pictures are edgy and iconographic, others (like the cover) more realistic. The picture of blessed Franz Jaegerstaetter hugging his wife over his scrippled letters is heartbreakingly powerful.

There is a great bibliography at the end, and a GR code for even more content.  An excellent resource for families with older kids. Or no kids. It’s amazing.

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Sadly, as of November 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

We will keep you posted about our future plans… we are eager to reopen.

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BRAND NEW: “How to Know a Person” by David Brooks — and 12 more, briefly described. ALL 20% OFF from Hearts & Minds

This has been a fun week sending out bunches of pre-orders — almost all that we mentioned as forthcoming in that BookNotes a few weeks ago have now come into our Dallastown store. From the raw, brave poetry of Katy Bowser Hutson (Now I Lay Me Down To Fight) to the extraordinarily beautiful leather-bound prayer book, Every Moment Holy III to the fascinating new Mark Noll study of the early reception of C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis in America, we are eagerly sending special orders out. A few of you asked us to hold your orders until the release of Eugene Peterson’s sermons for the church year (Lights a Lovely Mile) which just arrived and David Dark’s creative and compelling We Become What We Normalize and that is scheduled to arrive quite early, any day now.

In this BookNotes we want to alert you to a book which just arrived and about which I’m thrilled. Agree or not with all of David Brooks views as he does his PBS punditry, he is a fascinating gentleman. We’ll describe his brand new How To Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen and then I’ve put together a small handful of a dozen other similarly thoughtful, (mostly) recently published, culturally-savvy titles that I might call “smart self help books.”  This is a delightful column to do, but also urgent, very urgent. With an epidemic of loneliness and too much despair among all sorts of people — ages, classes, races, religions, demographics — we need all the help we can get. I hope you know how important these books about personal growth and health can be and that you don’t scorn (as some serious literary types do and as some gospel-centered zealots do) this genre of sensible, useful books helping us live well.

As always, thank you for your support of our family business. Most of us have seen our share of sorrows and even comedians are now doing riffs about how hard daily life can be, so we hope this short BookNotes list gets shared widely. We believe bookselling is a ministry, and we earnestly hope this helps serve you as we we strive to be holy and human and known.

How To Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen David Brooks (Random House) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

We first discovered Brooks with his book done in the early days of the new millennium that I just adored — if you knew us then, I probably tried to press it into your hands: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. What a fun and frankly breathtaking array of insights around a somewhat snarky critique of bobos. For those who aren’t familiar with it, you really should order it from us; here is how the publisher says sets it up:

Once it was easy to distinguish the staid Bourgeois from the radical Bohemians. This field study of America’s latest elite — a hybrid Brooks calls the Bobos — covers everything from cultural artifacts to Bobo attitudes towards sex, morality, work, and leisure.

Brooks went on to do another fascinating study on somewhat similar territory about home landscaping and lawns and the worldviews of forward thinking young Americans, again, a book I so enjoyed and really loved, entitled On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense.

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement came out a few years later and took “obscure but potent social science research” and made it what the New York Times Book Review called “startling.” Listen to this quote about it from The Philadelphia Inquirer about the genius (and big vision) of the creatively written The Social Animal: “Provocative and fascinating… seeks to do nothing less than revolutionize our notions about how we function and conduct our lives.”

While known as a moderately conservative thinker (having moved more centrist over the years, I think) with a congenial presence on many talk shows and in The New York Times, as a writer (fabulously popularizing interesting social science research) Brooks became an even bigger bestseller with The Road To Character which, for those with the eyes to see, indicated a journey the serious thinker was on: what does it mean to be good? Can we serve others, care about our civic and public lives, and be happy? What sort of virtues are needed for such decent work?  He was writing about the likes of Dorothy Day and other social reformers, and admitted in the acknowledgements that he was in conversations with some evangelical scholars and his pastor friend, the late Tim Keller. Rumors in our circles were that he was becoming a Christian. He married a very, very sharp young thinker, a journalist from Wheaton College. The Road to Character became well known across the spectrum of mainstream readers but evangelical Christians were among his most alert followers. I liked that book a whole lot, serious and readable as it was. The Guardian sad it was powerful, a “haunting books that works its way beneath your skin.”

When he did his major release about mid-life and the third season of life, asking what comes next for the successful professional who achieved worldly success and was still seeking — cue U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and catch the Christian themes in that great quest song — and realize that perhaps Mr. Brooks had, indeed, found something lasting and something eternal. It seemed as if he was identifying himself as a practicing Christian. That aside, even for the most secular reader, The Second Mountain: The Quest for the Moral Life was a lifeline. The Washington Post called it “Deeply moving, frequently eloquent, and extraordinarily incisive.” He was, I’d say, a public intellectual, respected if not always understood. Perhaps a bit of a bobo himself, a social animal on a road to character and on a second mountain (okay, somebody stop me!) he now tells, in the start of this new work, that he was raised with a slogan “Think Yiddish, act British.” Raised in a well-educated, thoughtful, verbose family, he was taught well. He says “there was love in our home, we just didn’t express it.”

One needn’t be aware of the arcane details of elite institutions of higher education to get the gist of his education and culture when he admits that his alma mater (the University of Chicago) was, as the saying goes, “A Baptist school where atheist professors teach Jewish students about Saint Thomas Aquinas.” He says wryly that he fit right in. Ha!

By the next few pages of How to Know a Person you learn about his stodgy intellectual neediness and his emotionally repressed self reserve. He talks about the joy of being on a panel discussion about the arts in public life with some theatre people, a singer, a famous actress. Unlike DC confabs that he was used to there was comradely and joy, joint purpose and congenial caring. He didn’t quite know how to emote, but he tried. It was fantastic. He resolved to explore this more, and he quips, “Yes, I”m the guy who had his life changed by a panel discussion.”

Funny? Yes. Serous — given the horrors of mounting rates of suicide and the nearly routine accounts of chronic loneliness — yes, again, yes. How to Know a Person is about the art of relationships, of being seen, and of seeing others. It is a bit surprising for most think-tank, political pundits, but fans will not be surprised. We’ve seen it coming.

I, for one, am delighted and glad. He is still pushing us to think well about civic life and challenges my own left of center politics a lot. I admire him, his graciousness and wit, and how sensible he often is, reminding those on the right to care for the poor, say, and those on the left that a major legislative victory about a social service safety net still isn’t enough — we need to care for our neighbors and be involved in the lives of others.

He doesn’t say anything about it, but I think an important bit of information that may be important to some of our BookNotes readers is that the wife of David Brooks, the impressive Ann Snyder, is the editor of Comment magazine, a rigorous, artful, deep journal of public opinion, standing somewhat in the older heritage of Abraham Kuyper and reformational worldview perspectives. Brooks cites a piece in the new book from Comment written by black memoirist Dante Stewart where he explains how notions of memory and history were important for black folks inspired by writers like Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes — it is a good section. That Anne and David share a love for literature and the arts is vital as they see that our faithful presence as God’s agents in the world must include the sort of ineffable (and often sublime) awareness that comes as we attend to the aesthetic dimensions of our social lives together.

(One of my favorite books in recent years is the nearly 500 page anthology Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year co-edited by Anne Snyder, published by Plough [regularly $35.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00.] That Snyder guided and contributed to that project of conversation and meaningful social discourse with writers as diverse as Marilyn Robinson, Tara Isabella Burton, Jeffrey Bilbro, N.T. Wright, to the aforementioned Dante Stewart and dozens more is an indication of her strong, ecumenical gifts; surely that hospitable practice of good conversations has shaped David’s own sense of the nature and possibilities of a healthy life in these times. I’d like to be the first to suggest that there is a connection between that book and this new one, both emerging from the Brooks/Snyder household.)

To cut to the chase, Mr. Brooks observes that “there is one skill that lies at the heart of any health person, family, school, community organization or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen — to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”

As the publisher notes, “The act of seeing another person,” Brooks argues, “is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.”

“The act of seeing another person,” Brooks argues, “is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.”

Oh my. How does this happen? What a generous and curious question!  Brooks’s “trademark curiosity” pushes him to research the fields of neuroscience and psychology — not to mention theatre, philosophy, history, and education. He has his own personal desire to grow and change, so the book seems well researched, finely crafted, and deeply heartfelt.

In his acknowledgments he notes a crew of friends, writers and editors and pundits. He mentions two good guys who were close to him who he now misses: Mike Gerson and Tim Keller. He doesn’t cite either in the book, I don’t think, but, as with his wife Anne’s connections to Comment, if these authors and Christian leaders were in his own circle as he was writing this, it seems to add an exceptional degree of poignancy and even heft. I’ve got a dozen books waiting on my most urgent stack. I’m bumping this one up and starting it asap. Won’t you join me?

TEN MORE (MOSTLY) NEW BOOKS ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS, PERSONAL GROWTH, SMART GUIDES TO SELF IMPROVEMENT (and a gorgeous one about civility.)

Humility Illuminated: The Biblical Path Back to Christian Character Dennis Edwards (IVP) $22.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

I have read other books of Edwards — now an academic leader and dean at North Park Seminary near Chicago — and I respect him immensely. He’s done Bible commentaries (I Peter in the Story of God Bible Commentary series) and, most recently, a splendid book that we highlighted just a few years ago at BookNotes, Might from the Margins: The Gospel’s Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice published by the good folks at Herald Press. To read about such empowering social transformation based so clearly on the upside-down Biblical teachings of God’s Kingdom was thrilling and I’ve been awaiting anything new from this wise brother.

There have been a few other important books on humility in recent years (think of the extraordinary 2022 one by Richard Foster, Learning Humility) but I have a hunch this brand new one is going to become a classic. It explores this paradoxical power, especially in the New Testament, showing how it is a distinctive mark of the Christian.

This seems to be a book for us all, but certainly for serious-minded followers of Christ who want the church to be a community of those following the revolutionary path of Christ.

In a way, this might be an important, even urgent book to read in tandem with the one by David Brooks — Edwards offers a more explicitly Biblical and theological study and my hunch is it would be a good pairing.

Dennis Edwards eloquently writes that the (all-but-extinct) virtue of humility ‘brings truth’s light by throwing back the shutters of arrogance and opening the window of curiosity.’ Similarly, this wonderful book–by someone who embodies its subject–offers a window into the multifaceted Christian identity marker of humility before God and others, throwing back the shutters of distortion and misunderstanding. Well-researched, wise, and highly readable, this is a timely book for all Christians in an age of competition, self-promotion, and division. — Michael J. Gorman, Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, author of Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

The Science of the Good Samaritan: Thinking Bigger About Loving Our Neighbors Dr. Emily Smith (Zondervan) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Dr. Emily Smith is a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine / Surgery at Duke University and at the Duke Global Health Institute. She became known as the “friendly neighborhood epidemiologist” through her social media outlets during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is my sense that we need her now more than ever.

What does it mean to love your neighbor in todays’ fraught, divided world? She takes us to Jesus’s story of the Good Samaritan, which is good, but not surprising. But then she brings her expertise as a scientist and, as she tells of her journey from small-town Texas to a prominent university position, you realize this is a very entertaining and special book. With some lovely teaching and inspiring vignettes, she invites us to a pretty radical vision. We can find shared values with people from different backgrounds, faiths, and cultures. We can reach outside our immediate circles to bring in those on the margin. Can we bridge the gaps that so divide us?

She has lots of lovely chapters, upbeat and energizing, moving from “Centering” to “Cost” to “Courage.” Her appendix of great books that have influenced her is wide-ranging and fascinating. This new book looks really, really nice.

Let’s Look Together: Henri Nouwen as Spiritual Mentor Robert Wicks (Orbis Books) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Again, this is a new title for us and we’re thrilled to highlight it, although I’ve yet to study it carefully. I hope you know the prolific Robert Wicks. We heard him speak more than 30 years ago and knew then that he was a saint and a true publishing force. He’s since written many books from his position (now emeritus) at Loyola University in Maryland, where he specialized in pastoral care, psychology, nursing, theology, and education — from Merton to medicine, as somebody quipped once. A Catholic renaissance man with a broad, caring vision, this is a book that, despite the cottage industry of books about Nouwen, is one that has never done. What a great idea it is!  Let’s Look Together unpacks for us things from Henri’s extraordinary life and his many books as it relates to how he did spiritual direction, guided others, mentored people. Both in the fairly formal settings of monastic life and in the looser campus ministry world of higher education (and later, as a teacher) Fr. Nouwen cared for others and influenced them deeply. He cared, he walked with, he listened, he guided, through good times and bad.

In the middle section, the heart of the book, Wicks invites us to explore four key themes in Henri’s spirituality and how they were generative and influential for how he leaned into the practice of mentoring others. These four topics are (1) desert wilderness, (2) ordinariness, (3) compassion and community, and (4) vulnerability and prayer.

There is a nice chapter on influential mentorship now, not only how Nouwen did it, but how we can do it today. We, too, are called to inform at least ourselves and perhaps take up the high calling of walking with others through their own spiritual formation as we make disciples. This little book should appeal to anyone who is intrigued by Henri Nouwen and, I’d think, those who read about leadership, disciple-making, mentoring, teaching. Hooray.

No Greater Love: A Biblical Vision for Friendship Rebecca McLaughlin (Moody Press) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

I do not mean to suggest, by putting this fresh new book on this list, that Rebecca McLaughlin is cut from the same cloth as David Brooks. But she does have a PhD in Renaissance Literature from Cambridge (not to mention a theology degree from the impressive Oak Hill College in London.) She writes for The Gospel Coalition, often following up themes of her important, popular book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World Largest Religion. Her little book The Secular Creed is one done by TGC which many find succinct and clear. She is known for imaginative and creative apologetics from a conservative Protestant viewpoint and here she surprised some by writing about the tenderness of true friendship.

She notes how good it is to have friends, how supportive and gracious they can be as they comfort us and spur us on. Yet, she says, “friends can also grind us to the ground, exploit us, or invite us to sin.” Okay, then. This happy little paperback may be covering some important, hard ground.

McLaughlin continues about what she hopes to share in this book about what she calls a “love that’s been neglected and malnourished in our modern world” saying:

Slowly, tenderly, with many stumbles along the way, I think I’ve learned to better navigate the contours of this glorious and hazardous gift called friendship.

Love Big: The Power of Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World Rosella Haydee White (Fortress) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

This isn’t brand new, but it isn’t that old and I thought of it, again, now. I list it here because it was a thrilling, easy read but also to put it perhaps in conversation with the conservative evangelical vision of McLaughlin, say, and the thoughtful traditionalism of Mr. Brooks. This is less about friendship as such, but more generally about relationships and the power of love. She is a bold storyteller, a leadership coach, a visionary who cares not only about personal friendships but about this generative power that love unleashes, a power to make a difference in the world, hurting and hollow as it often is. One reviewer, journalist and good author Jeff Chu, says her “vulnerable storyteller offers a much-needed reminder of the expansive holistic love of an incarnate God who creates, liberates, sustains.”

There is a lovely blurb on the back (perhaps the last one she ever offered) by Rachel Held Evans who says Roze White “is the mentor you’ve always wanted — kind, wise, insightful, and incisive.” I gather that Rachel knew her well.

The excellent forward is by the always surprising writer and former pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber who speaks honestly about Roze’s ministry of encouragement to her during an agonizing time of self-doubt. Nadia doesn’t use these words, but I gather she felt known, and per David Brooks, “deeply seen.”

Living Connected: An Introvert’s Guide to Friendship Afton Rorvik (New Hope Publishing) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Okay, this isn’t brand new, either, but I just had to list it here. It is a book like no other, and I am sure there are folks out there who are going to love it. Yep, some of us are introverts (or whatever Enneagram or Meyers-Briggs numbers that includes) and well, gee-whiz. A friendship book for introverts!  Introverts do so much well, as Jorvik notes. “They listen well, feel deeply, and think carefully. They also take delight in quiet, and they happily spend time alone.” Do you get the tension, here? Listen up: even if you are not an introvert, if you are in relationships with any, you need this book as well.

Introverts, like it or not, need friends, and, yes, God calls introverts to “live connected.” As Rorvik understandably quips, “No small challenge!”

Three cheers for this friend of Hearts & Minds who is a fine writer (she tells us that she “savors words”) and who loves the outdoors. She embraces her introversion as a gift. And has given us a great gift in this book which will be a real gift for many.

Please read these two great recommendations by two trusted friends:

Afton Rorvik gets me. If you’re an introvert, she gets you too. She knows a bit about what it is to live in your skin. In Living Connected, Rorvik leads the reader down a path of discovery and self-understanding. I discovered grace to embrace how and who I am as well as fresh strategies to live well―and to live loved―as an introvert. No one who’s an introvert should miss this book!” Margot Starbuck, author of The Grown Woman’s Guide to Online Dating

Living Connected is not just for introverts. It’s for anyone navigating friendship in the twenty-first century. If you are an introvert, Afton Rorvik gets it. She will validate your needs while encouraging you to come to the table with your unique offering. If you’re in relationship with introverts, Living Connected, will help you to better understand  what it’s like for them to live in an extroverted culture. Anyone wanting to be a better friend will find encouragement and wisdom in this book. — Dorothy Little Greco, author of Making Marriage Beautiful

Beyond Chit-Chat: Sharing Stories That Matter to Build Deeper Connections in Faith Communities Dave Daubert & Elaina Salmon (Day 8 Strategies) $12.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $9.60

We have mentioned other small books by Dave Daubert — an ecumenically fluent Lutheran church consultant and wise coach and leader — such as several short books about being Lutheran in the modern world, a great book on being an online/in-person “hybrid church” and the practical and energetic The Invitational Christian. He knows a bit about congregational health, personal growth, framing it all with a missional sense of being God’s agents of justice and peace in the world.  We are pleased to announce his newest here. What a fun, little book with a down-home, plain-as-day title — Beyond Chit-Chat.

In a way, this is not a self-help /personal book and we hardly should put it in the relationships section — we have a growing good section about talking together, communication skills, listening well, managing conflict, and the like. It is really more a guide to how Sunday morning conversations can be deeper than talk of sports, weather, and the like. He’s a church consultant, recall, and know this is pitched to congregational folks.

As Rev. Dave puts it, “People don’t have the safe space, the tools, or the encouragement to share deeper and tell about the places where God has healed, brought joy, accompanied them in suffering, and all the other things the gospel declares God does all the time in their own lives.”

Beyond Chit-Chat is about learning to at least begin to “crack the veneer of mere niceness.”

It can be read alone but I think it might be good to read it with a friend or a group. Want to find tools to not only share our lives more but to have that spill over into congregational life, even stories to share in worship? This is a simple read, a handy guidebook, an open-hearted, real-world, down to Earth, (and super witty) guide to help you learn to listen well and tell better stories. It helps us with conversations with consequence, as one friend of mine puts it. Hooray.

The Six Conversations: Pathways to Connecting in an Age of Isolation and Incivility Heather Holleman (Moody Press) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

This is a very nice study, a bit more substantive than the great beginners guidebook, above. It offers practical skills for connecting to others (including her “Four Mindsets to a Loving Conversation”) which is one among many best practices she has accumulated and experienced and describes. She has researched well and, yes, practiced it all. (Dr. Holleman is a beloved teaching professor at Penn State University in central PA.)

This one is short and a fairly quick read, and yet invites us to consider really serious stuff like how God has actually made us — she names the social, physical, emotional, cognitive, volitional and spiritual aspects of our humanness —which is a more accurate and rich description than many religiously oriented books. This multi-dimensional orientation is really helpful. Conversation may be harder these days (note the subtitle about isolation and incivility) but she invites us (and teaches us how) to grow in the art of “the six conversations.” Nicely done.

As a communication professor, I am constantly looking for resources and guides to help my students better engage in the process of relationship building. I am so excited about The Six Conversations by Heather Holleman. At a time when people are increasingly divisive, we need more trained communicators who are willing to build bridges.  — Heather Thompson Day, author of It’s Not Your Turn: What to Do While You’re Waiting for Your Breakthrough

Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship Justin Whitmel Earley (Zondervan) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Here is what I wrote in an earlier BookNotes a few weeks ago. I wanted to share it again:

I hope you know Justin Earley’s amazing previous IVP book called Common Rule: Habits of Purpose in an Age of Distraction. (It was just re-issued in a slightly expanded edition with a new study guide.) It offers nice graphics and charts and nicely colored ink on creatively designed pages to show how there are things in our lives we need to do less of, and things we need to do more of, daily, weekly, monthly. It is one of the very few self-management books that makes sense to those of us with allergies to such stuff, and its design is a gift for those who like grids and charts to make things do-able. He roots his advice in theories of habits and desires and inner transformation, even as he offers right-on, whole-life advice about Christian maturity. The book is a very wise blast of really helpful info and we get orders for it regularly. Yay.

The second one applied much of this same approach and writerly energy (and nice design) to family life, parenting and whatnot. It was called Habits of the Household and, again, is simply stellar, useful, fun. Give it to any young parents you know! It’s really, really good.

This brand new one seems to carry a similar edge and elan, written with energy and honesty (and some multi-colored ink on the cleverly designed pages, complete with line drawings and cartoons.) What fun.

The Made for People book is not cheesy nor simplistic, and the topic is deadly serious. It is, as Kyle Idleman put it, “a clarion call to covenant friendship — a deep abiding love that comes from vulnerability.”

Loneliness has become a cultural epidemic and it literally affects the health and happiness of millions. As it says on the back cover, “busyness, fear of vulnerability, and past pain often stop us from developing the deep friendships we long for. But it’s not supposed to be this way. You were made for people.”

God has made us in God’s own Triune image as people to be in relationship. We, these days, for various reasons, need to relearn key habits that “foster a lifestyle of friendship.” Isolation is not helpful and it need not be the story of our lives. Earley — a busy dad and business lawyer — has a lot to tell and a lot to teach. Just the table of contents is inspiring. I’m going to check it out. Maybe you should start a group to read it together, folks who might deepen in Biblical wisdom for deeper relationships.

Who You Are: Internalizing the Gospel to Find Your True Identity Judy Cha (Zondervan Reflective) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I almost didn’t list this here because I wanted to a longer more substantive review and because it seems at first blush to be a major contribution to Christian psychology. Dr. Cha (who has am MA from Westminister Theological Seminary and a PhD from Eastern University) is a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in relationship counseling. Much of her work focuses on what we used to call “self image” but perhaps might more properly be called identity. Much of this, in her New York City practice, includes conversations around ethnicity and multicultural issues. Her deeply integral view of therapy and her balanced philosophy of counseling is profoundly Christian, even if it seems her approach is somewhat other than mere “Biblical” counseling. For what it is worth, she serves as the Director of the counseling services at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, hired, I suppose you could say, by one of her profound spiritual mentors, the late Reverend Timothy Keller.

For those that know Keller, some of this will seem familiar, her emphasis on rooted out the heart idols of whatever one rests their deepest identity in, the gospel transformation that comes from a profound grasp of grace, of justification, of adoption. This handy guidebook to self improvement and personal growth really is seriously rooted in a gospel-centered (and might I suggest, Reformed) worldview that affirms what Kyle Idleman says about it, ” the Biblical remedy to our contemporary ailments.”

Beth and I have a dear friend who is a professional therapist and her counseling practice was significant influenced by Judy Cha. Our friend assures us that she is the real deal, wise and practical, seriously spiritual and yet helpful in the most useful ways, Biblical, gracious, and good. Throughout Who You Are, Dr. Cha explores what she calls her “Gospel-Centered Integrated Framework for Therapy” that she developed at Redeemer Counseling Services. Naturally it will be useful for counselors, psychologists, pastors, and others who help others, but it is so readable and upbeat that nearly anyone would surely benefit from it.

Gwen White (of Circle Counseling in Philadelphia) notes that Cha “takes complex psychological material and makes it accesible and compelling.”

The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves Alexandra Hudson (St. Martin’s Press) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

This brand new book is, as Jonathan Haidt says on the front cover, “Beautifully written and meditative.” There are a lot of books on civility these days, some quite lovely, inspiring, hopeful. But few get that kind of accolade from such a serious scholar and respected public intellectual. This is one you should know about.

Here is the fuller quote from Professor Haidt about The Soul of Civility:

As face to face interactions have been replaced by digital interactions, incivility has exploded, with dire consequences for democracies. In this beautifully written and meditative book, Hudson shows us the treasure we are losing in civility, and how to regain it. She reaches back into history and up to a vision of human potential. Along the way, she touches your soul and inspires you to do better. — Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind and Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, New York University.

Here is another earnest recommendation from another wise leader, Don Eberly, a long advocate for what used to be called “civil society” which can be enhanced by supporting “mediating structures.”  Don Eberly writes:

In The Soul of Civility, Lexi Hudson, one of the most original thought-leaders of her generation, plumbs the depths of American and classical thought on the centrality of a robust civic community in nurturing the habits of pluralistic democracy. This book should be at the top of the reading list for anyone who is eager to reconnect with a vital part of our heritage, and to rediscover a proven path to renewing America’s social institutions. –Don Eberly, author of Restoring the Good Society and America’s Promise

The Soul of Civility was just released and I’ve already stayed up late skimming it, struck by its moving watercolor cover and the author’s opening story about heading to Washington DC and living by rules from her upbringing, mostly about politeness and manners. She said it worked well. Until it didn’t.

You can read how she handled the shock and awe of her early years in DC and her being driven to deeper study and sturdier habits of heart. You should consider her excellent opening bit about the differences between civility and politeness. Her story is pretty great, and it is inspiring to follow along as she studies, thinks, reads, teaches, and talks about civic grace and what is really at the root of our dismaying, dangerous divides. She is a remarkably learned person, having read deeply in ancient books and contemporary issues.

Hudson eventually created a TV series (Storytelling and the Human Condition) for The Great Courses and founded of Civic Renaissance, a publication and an intellectual community dedicated to reviving the wisdom of the past to help us lead richer lives in the present. I wonder if she is working with Braver Angels, a stellar, thoughtful, citizen movement working to restore our frayed republic which has some deep resonance, I think. If you know them you’ll love Alexandra Hudson.

(There is a lovely free offer on the last page, too, inviting you to her content on the Wondrium platform. As she puts it, you’ll enjoy a “globe-spanning, time-jumping, media-traversing tour of the human narrative tradition” that helps us understand who we are and our place in the world. Consider it a thank-you gift for reading and an invitation to be a life-long learner.)

Faithfully Present: Embracing the Limits of Where and When God Has You  Adam Ramsey (The Good Book Company) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

It isn’t every day that a throughly evangelical / gospel-centered book starts off with a Wendell Berry quote, but when I saw Ramsey’s choice epigram about “The Given Life”, I knew he was a wise pastor and most likely a fine writer. So far, I have not been disappointed in this recent release by this hip, Australian pastor. As hip, Seattle pastor Alex Early puts it in his solid forward, making the case that the author lives what he preaches, “Adam has joined the off-key band of those of us who lives our lives upside down, exchanging ambition for faithfulness, being present to where and when we are, rooted in what Jesus describes as abundance (John 10:10).

The first 8 chapters are under the heading of Time. With all the self-help guidebooks to managing our time, not so many reflect on the meaning of our moments. Here, Ramsey ruminates in rich, lovely language about time, the times, seasons, lulls, hurry, pauses, memory, and funerals. The next section of chapters appear under the heading of Place and include reflections on here (“earthly places”), bodies (“human places”), others (“relational spaces”), and eternity (“heavenly places.”) A beautiful epilogue (I jumped ahead, I’ll admit) has the hope-filled title of “Time Unlimited in a Place Uncursed.”)

The writing is peppered nicely with great quotes from fabulous writers; it isn’t every book that cites Lewis Mumford and Anne Lamott, Tish Harrison Warren and (again) Wendell Berry, Alan Noble, Andy Crouch, N.T. Wright and Craig Bartholomew, all alongside the poet Anna Akhmatova.

We are so busy thinking about the next thing, Ramsey warns, that we are “at risk of missing the main thing: the people and places God has put in front of us, right here, right now.” Can we find contentment with our given life? This is a wise, joyful, vital resource to help us find joy in little things and freedom from at least some of the idols of the age.

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Sadly, as of October 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

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15 recent releases reviewed – BookNotes specials – ON SALE NOW – Hearts & Minds

With the tragic news in the world of the Middle East I was tempted to share books about that extraordinary, pained part of the world. We have books on the remarkable history of Israel, the pros and cons of Christian Zionism, about the daily grind of vile repression — more horrible than most realize — experienced by the Palestinians. Demands for justice for Palestinian civilians living in Gaza does not for one second in any way indicate support for the evil done by Hamas soldiers. Of course, not everyone living in Gaza supports such terrorism. (Interestingly, we just got in the new Orbis Press book by Mitri Raheb, one of the best known Christian theologians in Bethlehem, Palestine, and, not long ago, the fabulous book Blood Brothers by Palestinian Christian peacemaker Elias Chacour, was given a new cover and reissued. There are, of course, a lot of Arab Christians living alongside their Muslim neighbors.)

I also considered sending out a list of books about the ethics of modern warfare, the Biblical basis for nonviolence, the pros-and-cons of the just war theory. Certainly, that scholarly apparatus has formed the basis of most Christian thinking about war, insisting that the ends do not justify the means, that diplomacy is ever vital, and that military might must be restrained and constrained. Israel, now, must hear — but under current leadership will not, I am afraid — that their violence must be restrained; war should not be waged for revenge. Christians, of all people, should be clear about that. Those who understandably want to stand with Israel after the recent horrific savagery against civilians should serve them well by insisting they not stoop to the awful methods of their enemies. Anyway, we have books on all of that.

If you have a sincere desire to read more about the conflicts of colonized Palestine or the ethics of warfare, say, please write to me and we’ll see what suggestions might serve you best. I realize there are tons of columns and essays and articles on the internet now and I don’t want to add to the noise.

Here, then, are ten fairly recent books that I explain with my typical wordiness, and five more that I say a bit less about. These are all to be commended, good, good work that will help shape us as decent, Biblical people in a complicated world. Read on — scroll down to order, all at 20% off. Thanks for caring and for your support of our independent bookstore.

 

Just Discipleship: Biblical Justice in an Unjust World Michael J. Rhodes (IVP Academic) $32.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

There are many, many books that have come out in the last two decades (thanks be to God, finally) from evangelical publishers speaking clearly about the Biblical basis of the work of social justice and how such wholistic resistance to the forces of evil should be a natural part of our discipleship, central to our spiritual formation, integral to the proclamation of the gospel. Those backlash books saying such talk is worldly or leftist or worse are mostly awful and we don’t need to even talk about all that. The Bible is so very clear and Biblically-inspired justice work is part and parcel of the Christian life. We’ve said that and tried to offer resources on that since the day we’ve opened.

Just Discipleship: Biblical Justice in an Unjust World by Michael Rhodes (a lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College) is prime among the many good resources that have come out lately and may be the best, most thorough, most illuminating call to this wholistic understanding of the gospel I’ve seen in years. It explores what justice is in the Bible and it probes about how to be faithful to the mandates of Scripture in our very broken world. It is what M. Daniel Carroll says is “a clarion call.” Other blurbs on the back are from reliable thinkers such as the great Carmen Imes of Biola University and Malcolm Foley (director of Black church studies at Truett Seminary.) The famous Pauline scholar John Barclay of Durham says it is “a timely challenge to the church to become just people in a deeply unjust world.” Amen! This book is a solid, Biblical guide and at just under 300 pages, seriously amazing. We very highly recommend it.

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

Like books on social justice (see above) there have been plenty, lately, of fine books about eco-theology, Earth-keeping, Christian stewardship of creation and such. Some are quite focused on the Bible while some are faith-based but pretty scientific and ecological; to be honest, some are fascinating but nearly theologically suspect, promoting a new age sort of pantheism. With the climate emergency becoming more obvious, books keep coming out and we are grateful.

No one has written more passionately, expertly, generatively, and faithfully than professor of Reformed theology (at Hope College) and adventuresome outdoorsman Steven Bouma-Prediger. His For the Beautify of the Earth (first released in 2001) remains, in its updated second edition, a must-read classic in the field; his book on ecological virtues called Earthkeeping and Character is truly exceptional and a real favorite — again, a must-have book, I’d say. He has amplified the work of Lutheran scholar Paul Santmire and, with Brian Walsh, recently had re-issued an anniversary edition of the exceptional Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement. Bouma-Prediger’s work should be more widely known and when I heard he had a new volume coming out on why creation-care should be a natural, integrated component of our discipleship, I was excited. I’d read anything Bouma-Prediger writes (especially knowing that, with luck, there would also be a quote from singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn among the pages.) He’s that good.

But, I’ll admit, I wondered what else more he had to say, having said so very much of such great value already. Was this just going to be a dumbed-down re-hash of his earlier, major volumes. I’d take that, of course, but was curious and eager to see what his new one would be like.

And, wow, was I happy to see how lovely and good this new one is.  Creation Care Discipleship may be now my favorite book on the subject, certainly “a decisive case that creation care is necessary, not optional, to faithful Christian practice.” There is fresh thinking, great stories, and tons of Biblical vignettes with insightful, even profound take-aways.  With rave, rave reviews on the back from the likes of Norman Wirzba, Debra Rienstra, Ben Lowe, Jonathan Moo, and others — including his mentor H. Paul Santmire — Creation Care Discipleship is a masterpiece, readable, upbeat, Biblical, practical. I adored this book, liking so many of the details (not least of which is that it is dedicated to staff at a camp that he loves, set in the heart of the Adirondacks.)

I was twenty-one years old when I read my first Bouma-Prediger book. From that moment on, my life has been a sequence of events reverberating from reading this brilliant thinker. This book will have the same effect on a whole new generation. I can’t commend it enough. — A. J. Swoboda, author of After Doubt

On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts James K.A. Smith (Brazos Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

When Jamie was at the height of his popular fame, running on the slipstream from You Are What You Love (and the three more meaty books that You Are What You Love summarizes, Desiring the Kingdom, Imagining the Kingdom, and Awaiting the King) this book came out in hardcover and was in almost all circles immediately praised. It was at once an honest travelogue, a nearly postmodern account of angst and searching, an introduction to the life of Augustine, a reminder that faith influences daily life, and an invitation (especially for younger adults) to be shaped by some of the deepest instincts of the “patron saint of the restless heart” as Augustine has been dubbed. Of course older adults read it, too, more older than younger, I suspect, and I announced it as one of my very favorite books in 2019. I am sure I re-said it in 2020 and put it on our “Best of the Year” books of that year again. I’d have done it yet again if I could have gotten it by you. Ha.

This is an engrossing volume on a mid-life crisis where Smith and his wife literally go to Italy and follow the footsteps of the quintessential restless pilgrim. The Northern African young dude wanted fame and fortune and it didn’t work out. Jamie’s book is less a systematic study of St. Augustine and more a guide to living, how to ask questions as he did, to follow one’s quest, to make room, finally, for God. As Bob Crawford (of the Avett Brothers) put it, “This book is Smith’s Born to Run.

It is now out in paperback (and, thankfully, the full color plates of the artworks seen on their trip are still there, in lovely full color.) We are grateful for this less costly volume, and we cannot be happier than to once again suggest it to our BookNotes readers. It really is one for those of us who find ourselves in this orbit of books often recommended by Hearts & Minds. (I mean, even just this: where else do you find a book with a blurb on the back by one of the most prominent philosophers of our time, Charles Taylor and the roots rocker from the Avetts?)  Restless or not, how cool is that?

You will hear more about this long-awaited, brand new paperback edition, I hope. It is a tour of the human heart, a search for down-to-Earth spirituality, a deeply faithful study of one of the most important figures in Western history. It is one of the grand releases in this year of 2023. Why not buy a few for your group or friends?

The Augustine Way: Retrieving a Vision for The Church’s Apologetic Witness Joshua D. Chatraw & Mark D. Allen (Baker Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Perhaps you will recall that I mentioned this one a month or so ago; I really feel like it needs to be highlighted again, especially in light of Smith’s Augustine book coming out in paperback. Who was this Saint Gus, anyway? There are numerous scholars who have rave blurbs on this one, serious, good thinkers, from Kristen Deede Johnson to Curtis Chang to Rowan Williams to Sarah Coakley to Keith Plummer. It is a book that is not just for academics, but is meaty enough to stimulate almost any good reader. As the ecumenical accolades indicate, it is both deep and wide, both savvy about contemporary culture and deeply committed to the local congregation. It shows much about Augustine and retrieves his early church vision and approach for twenty-first century faith.

This glorious hardback book is essentially a thought experiment: what would Augustine likely say or do as a pastor today; how would he articulate and defend the faith? As Alister McGrath puts it, “This ‘apologetics of retrieval’ opens up some theologically rich and apologetically compelling approaches.” That’s putting it carefully. I’d say it’s a heck of a read, lighting a fire to connect ancient dots to today! Yes!

I love how Justin Ariel Bailey (who wrote Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age notes that Chatraw and Allen “calls us to recenter the local congregation and to renew the polluted cultural ecosystems where we live.” He explains how it offers not merely a sophisticated plan to control a conversation (or win an argument) but offers,

A more excellent way: a non anxious posture of persuasion that is critical and contrastive, intellectual and imaginative, humble and hopeful.

Called Into Questions: Cultivating the Love of Learning Within the Life of Faith Matthew Lee Anderson (Moody Press) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

For those who aren’t quite up for the “back for the future” approach of the above retrieval of Augustine project (above) this easier to read, upbeat book could be just what you need. Anderson is a researcher and professor in Baylor University’s Honors College and is one smart guy (he holds a DPhil in Christian Ethics from Oxford University.) But still, he’s down-to-Earth, youngish and upbeat; he even hosts a fun podcast (Mere Fidelity.) His earlier book was a lovely little guide for college students, say, or others, who wanted to explore faith with intellectual curiosity which we have called The End of Our Exploring: A Book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith.

This new one is an expanded and updated version of that smaller one, and it is an excellent call to think well, to ask good questions, to appreciate creativity and curiosity, and to have the courage to follow through one’s seeking.

He explores “the anatomy of a questioning life” suggesting that healthy questions (and seeking for reasonable answers) is not the same thing as a destructive sort of deconstruction. It ought not be seen as troubling, but should build a playful sort of confidence in Christ.

We will not be free of doubt’s shadow, he says, until we see God face-to-face. “Faith gives us confidence in Christ; it empowers us to live and die based on God’s goodness despite our struggle to see or understand it.”

Makes sense, huh? For Anderson, questioning can be liberating, but we must approach our curiosity and doubt in a redemptive way. Very nicely done.

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

Every now and then a book comes along that is basic, simple, clear, but yet upon greater attention, it reveals just how exceptional it is. Such a book rocks your world, or, maybe, says everything so well that you may well have long believed, but you see your old assumptions in fresh energy. It’s the kind of book you want to pass out at church or within your fellowship circles and say this. This. This is what I mean.

I resonate so with Derek Vreeland’s new book and it may be because it is bold enough to say what need to be said, a common sense thing, but radical: Jesus should be at the heart of our faith, our lives, our discipleship, our churches, our evangelism and our disciple-making. “When we lose our focus on Jesus,” he insists, properly, “the church’s credibility suffers.”

We wonder how to proceed with all the hostility brewing in our world? He says we need a renewed vision of Jesus as the Lamb of God who can lead us into the peaceable way of the Kingdom of God.

As it says on the back cover,

When we fail to keep Jesus at the center of our lives, we lean into the desires of our hearts more than the desires God has for us. As a result, our entire spirituality becomes driven by the self.

Centering Jesus shows us how to keep the focus on Jesus in three central areas of our lives — our spiritual formation, our morality (by which he means our virtues and ways of living) and our common life together within the local church.

From the prelude citing Johnny Cash to the final grand quote from Saint Augustine, Vreeland gets around. He draws in Jamie Smith and Miroslov Volf, he is fluent in Orthodoxy (and the formational traditions of the Jesus Prayer, citing Frederica Mathewes-Green and Kallistos Ware.) He knows much about Desmond Tutu and John Perkins and he quotes Dallas Willard and Michael Gorman and of course, N.T. Wright.

You may not know his previous book with the somewhat cryptic BTW as the title, which stands for By the Way which is actually a very strong book on evolving and deepening spirituality that shapes our daily discipleship. The subtitle of that often missed one is Getting Serious About Following Jesus which includes a lovely bit of teaching about what we might call liturgical prayer. That one pretty obviously led to this new one, Centering Jesus. In light of our current politics awash in religious fundamentalism and right-wing nationalism, I think focusing on the Lamb of God (that is, not a donkey or an elephant, as he whimsically notes) is just what is needed. Highly recommended.

Listening to Scripture: An Introduction to Interpreting the Bible Craig G. Bartholomew (Baker Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I could go on and on about the many books done by the creative and prolific Dr. Craig Bartholomew; he has published book of Christian philosophy, cultural studies, explored the relevance of the reformational worldview thinking of what has come to be called the neo-Calvinist or Kuyperian movement. He has been a farmer and a scholar, a public intellectual and (perhaps) a preacher. He is currently the director of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge and is perhaps most known for his astute, creative, fruitful Old Testament scholarship. From small books (like The 30-Minute Bible) to more hefty ones, introductory guides to technical commentaries he is — trust me on this — one of the great scholars in Old Testament work today. (Just a month ago, for instance, he co-authored a major work on IVP Academic called The Minor Prophets: A Theological Introduction [IVP; $45.00.])

This recent book, Listening to Scripture, is plenty meaty, ideal for a college course or serious adult ed class. It is, actually, a brand new work, not an abridged, popularization of his more scholarly work on hermeneutics, even if it emerges from that valuable work. I love the way he can cite technical scholars from across the theological traditions and yet offer reflective study questions that are more akin to devotional lectio divina sorts of prompts. He can talk about Newbigin’s missional theories or the need to use the Psalms of lament around issues of injustice even as he invites us deep into the story, using our imaginations to meet the God behind the text, and hear the Spirit from the text. This is thoughtful and pious, creative and useful. I can’t tell you now much I hope it is used in church groups and for Bible study leaders all over.

Here a few who agree that this is a book worth having:

Like Aaron Copeland in his classic What To Listen for in Music, Bartholomew helps readers of the Bible to know what to listen for in Scripture and how to do so with attention and intelligence, in spirit and in truth. He uses both ears, the academic and the devotional, and three hermeneutics (liturgical, ethical, and missional) to listen especially to what is most important: God’s address, words that guide and govern the church today. — Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Listening to Scripture is remarkably expansive and accessible in its vision and applicability as it guides Christians through an integrative journey of personal devotions, academic study, preaching and teaching, and missional outreach. It is the integrative vision that I have been hungering for and that my students and fellow congregants so desperately need. — Megan C. Roberts, Prairie College

No one has taught me more about reading Scripture seriously as both an academic and a committed Christian than Bartholomew. While I –and you— may not agree with all of his methods or conclusions, this book is without a doubt an excellent primer for hearing the voice of our triune God in the text of Holy Scripture.  — Matthew Y. Emerson, Oklahoma Baptist University

Loving Disagreement: Fighting for Community Through the Fruit of the Spirit Kathy Khang & Matt Mikalatos (NavPress) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Every now and then a book comes out that I can genuinely say (a) I didn’t see that coming, and (b) I don’t think anybody did: there is no other book like this, and (d) hooray and thanks be to God — we really need this! I might even add, why didn’t anybody think of this sooner?

I’ll tell you why — it takes these two wild, funny, outspoken, good writers to do a book like this, for starters. Khang has written a power book called Raise Your Voice very much about how to make a difference by speaking up, and is known as a mighty voice herself for racial and social justice and Matt has, as screenwriter, novelist, Biblical scholar, and creative devotional writer, has made me laugh more than most evangelical authors. They both know a bit about conflict, about how to work with a diversity of folks (Kathy has long lead multiethnic ministry and has published on being an Asian American woman leader) and — get this -about the power of the Holy Spirit to bring virtues and graces into our lives that actually allow us to be peacemakers in a very rough world.

Who would have thought that a story on the “fruit of the Spirit” (and there are only a few really good ones on that theme) could be harnessed to the realities of forming community where disagreement and conflict will occur? Where it must be asked, “What does it look like to love someone you disagree with?”

Whether it is contention within the local church or disagreements in the broader culture — and the sins of commission and omission that plague our speaking poorly or not speaking at all — this book will bring “unique insights into how the fruit of the Spirit informs our ability to engage in profound difference and conflict with love.”

The cover is so striking, you should have the book laying around — buy a few because friends are going to pick it up and wonder about it. Loving Disagreement is a treasure-trove; I’ve just begun to read it and I’m sure that good things will emerge into our lives when we follow the principles taught and modeled and celebrated in this feisty book. There is gentle strength to be found, friends, and the fruit of the Spirit can be brought to bear into areas where community is disrupted. This — there is nothing like it.  What a book!

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

Perhaps you, too, have been moved by the cry to “say her name” and to commemorate those people of color killed by police. The movement to say their names is potent (and rooted in the way, also, Latino people would cry presente! When commemorating those killed (with US weapons) in the repressions in El Salvador so many years ago. Saying a name is vital, humanizing, a simple kindness, with vast repercussions.

This book is less directly political but there is much social significance, it seems to me, in the title. Of course, it also addresses an elephant in many rooms, the resistance some folks have to learning names they fear are hard to pronounce or even to learn the different cultural and national backgrounds of those who are Asian American. This lovely, wise, and inspiring book invites us all to glimpse into the lives of Asian Americans and join them in learning about names, about cultures, about issues and identities and joys and sorrows. This book is worth its weight in gold, I’d say, so very important and so very precious. Knowing somebody’s name.

Interestingly, many Asian American Christians have thought hard about questions not only of racism and discrimination and such, but just good stuff about self-awareness, faith, friendships, cross-cultural friendships, and, yes, in this book, the huge question os discerning one’s vocation.

I think that his book is somewhat designed for Asian American Christians; some would say that many in their community are being set apart for God’s very special purposes in our time. It will help those in Asian American contexts to celebrate who they are and their own sense of being seen, named, accepted. The team that put this great resource together are from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asian backgrounds (one from Hong Kong, one who is Indian-American, one who is Philipino, and another who is a Hmong American) living faithfully in the US after striking family stories of migration and more. The multiple tensions that have shaped ethnic minorities in unique ways come to the fore, of course, but this book also is a beautiful example of affirmation and learning. Kudos to IVP for once again putting together this sort of volume. 

And, by the way, for more theologically-minded specialists, don’t miss Doing Asian American Theology: A Contextual Framework for Faith and Practice by Daniel D. Lee which IVP Academic ($28.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40) which draws on interpersonal neurobiology and trauma theory, released about a year ago.

The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology R.L. Stollar (Eerdmans) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Okay, I want to say this book is a pioneering effort, the first of its kind and so forth but it really isn’t. But it certainly feels that way, fresh, energetic, vital, new, challenging, groundbreaking. Stollar has written often and some of the chapters had early expression in the Unfundamentalist Parenting blog run by Cindy Wang Brandt (and who wrote the forward to this brand new book.) She deserves and gets plenty of credit.  So does Marcia J. Bunge, author of Child Theology and editor of the big volume, The Child in Christian Thought.

Stollar proposes a liberation theology of the child that puts children in the center of our churchly life. As the book says, “By lifting up children — truly valuing and learning from them —we can build up the Kingdom of God here in our communities.”

I have not studied this carefully yet (it just came a day or two ago) but I know that Stollar (who studied at St. John’s College and has worked in child protection advocacy, offers a prophetic call, which is said to be thoroughly compelling.

Christian educators of course have to grapple with this, as should parents, Sunday school teachers, pastors, youth leaders, those who work in various capacities serving kids. At 325 pages, it’s a lot. But this is important, innovative, and one of the very small handful of books that explore this mighty theme. I think it’s important.

In this prophetic, compelling volume, R. L. Stollar calls attention to the rampant manifestations of anti-child discrimination that often go unnoticed and offers an urgent, compassionate alternative. The Kingdom of Children paves the way forward by calling people of faith to realize their professed commitment to children through child liberation theology. Anyone who cares about the Christ child will benefit from this much-needed book. —Julie Faith Parker, author of Valuable and Vulnerable: Children in the Hebrew Bible

With a passion for data, strategy, and the good news of Jesus and other prophets, R. L. Stollar has given us a gift of spirit. The Kingdom of Children is profoundly original, profoundly challenging, and profoundly encouraging. Children, Stollar insists, are bearers of prophetic imagination, and we must learn to regard them this way. We get to honor and revere their clairvoyance instead of fearing it and shutting it down. The world children bear witness to, through curiosity and creativity, is our actual world, one in which God sees everything our violence tries to hide and deny, a world in which children, our resident actualists, have the right to not be beaten or driven to despair by parents and other alleged adults, the right to liberation. Take up and consider what Stollar sets down in this actionable text. We have holy work in front of us — David Dark, professor of theology at Belmont University, author of We Become What We Normalize

Although I did not describe each of these ten stellar titles adequately enough, I hope you got the gist and the reasons for our sending these recommendations to you. Here are some more new ones that I won’t describe in detail. I suspect you’ll know if they happen to have your name on ’em.  Again, all are 20% off. Scroll down to the end to see the order link.

The Bible Is Not Enough: Imagination and Making Peace in the Modern World Scot McKnight (Fortress) $19.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.96

I think Scot McKnight is one of the great thinkers and Bible teachers writing these days, and I’d recommend, without hesitation, anything he writes. This is on one hand brilliant and needed, but yet feels (in the first few chapters) a bit cranky; a bit dense, not even all that appealing (to me, a Biblical pacifist, no less.) But yet, he continues to crank it out, short and not so sweet, offering good reasons why Biblical peacemaking is required work and takes imagination and improvisation. The Bible is sufficient for teaching us about salvation, of course, but for most of life, it simply is not enough. We’ve got some sanctified work to do.

There are fabulous, rave reviews from Joel Green (of Fuller) and Greg Carey (of Lancaster Theological Seminary) and Myles Werntz (of Abilene Christian University) among others. I loved his little Fortress paperback The Audacity of Peace (in the “My Theology” series) where he explains nicely his intellectual grappling with the Biblical instruction from Ron Sider and the theology of Bonhoeffer and the like. Reliving his own thoughtful struggles with the Biblical texts about violence was fabulous, and shapes this punchy, wise, and urgent volume. I am grateful to McKnight for his honest, frank, and deeply Biblically-influenced survey and invitation. 

Eve Isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend our Assumptions Julie Faith Parker (Baker Academic) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

It should go without saying that church history is replete with even good people doing bad exegesis and terrible interpretation. Augustine on women, horrible Southern Presbyterians affirming slavery during the civil war, modern preachers telling us to be rapture-ready as we claim promises of health and wealth. Even as brother McKnight shows in his manifesto, above, we need wise interpretation, and imaginative ways to live out the texts that we understand as God’s Holy Word.

And so, this is, as one reviewer put it, “an amazing book of power, insight, and challenge.” There is great Bible study here, good history, and fascinating storytelling. Do you need to have your assumptions “upended”? Don’t we all? This may or may not be for you the final word on so many complicated Biblical stories about gender, but is is honest and very interesting and a good example of a feminist scholar who obviously loves the Bible. Check it out!

Centering Discipleship: A Pathway for Multiplying Spectators into Mature Disciples E.K. Strawser (IVP / Praxis) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Whew-ie, there’s a lot to say about this book, but I want to be brief. Co-published with the good folks at Missio Alliance (and with a foreword by JR Woodward) this woman, with a degree is Osteopathic Medicine) is bi-vocational lead pastor of an innovative church in Hawaii. This is an executive leader with the V3 movement, so has been influenced deeply by the evangelical energy of the very thoughtful missional movement. It is not surprising to see Debra Hirsch (of Forge) offering a good endorsement. She observes how transformational it is when a church gets serious about helping members follow the way of Jesus and notes that this amazing book is “both compelling, as it is rooted in a lived story, and impressive, as it suggests practical ways to make this happen in your church.”

There are oodles of books about mentoring, disciple-making, putting discipleship (and thereby disciple-making) at the heart of the local church, pushing for whole-life faithfulness in ways the influence congregational mission and local culture. But there is something about this one, as it is smart and relevant and hopeful and practical. As it says on the back cover, Centering Discipleship is a gutsy, practice-based guidebook for leaders who are doing the hard work of reimagining and restructuring their churches and communities to turn spectators into missional, mature, followers of Jesus.

When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion Laura E. Anderson (Brazos Press) $19.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I have been working on a book list for those in the throes of deconstruction, or those scared by their doubts, or others who are entering into new phases of their faith lives, maybe experiencing what Sarah Bessey called being “out of sorts.” There’s a lot — memoirs, sociological studies, evaluations from various theological angles and perspectives. More on all that later…

This, though, is an urgent title for those who have experienced religious trauma — and it seems like the numbers are frighteningly high — or know someone hurt by toxic religiosity. There may be other books from other orientations, but this one seems unique in that it is by a woman with a PhD who is a trauma-informed psychotherapist (and cofounder of the Religious Trauma Institute.) She knows this stuff from a clinical perspective and has tallied horror stories from dozens if not hundreds of clients. Can those who leave a super high-demand, high-control religious system (whether a bona fide cult or an extreme fundamentalist organization) survive, move forward, find healing (and be open to trusting God again?) This is said to be both compassionate and wise, with lots of data and help.

It is ideal for those who, in the words of Sarah Edmondson (who wrote a book about her escape from the NXIVM cult), are in the “muddy aftermath” of their exit from extreme religious groups.

Matthew Paul Turner says it is “the most comprehensive, reflective, and helpful book about recovering from church abuse that I’ve ever read.”

Rooted Faith: Practices for Living Well on a Fragile Planet  Sarah Renee Werner (Herald Press) $18.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I’ve got a pet peeve. I hate seeing people leave their car engines idling, like in the grocery store parking lot (or the Hearts & Minds parking lot; ahem!) It is so wasteful — don’t people care about pollution? Their own pocketbook when they have to fill up with gas? Yet, it is a different era than it once was — I recall when PresidentJimmy Carter said we need to conserve energy and put on a sweater on national TV like Mr. Rogers. Yes, he was mocked mercilessly, but some understood and many agreed. When I was a younger Christian there was a topic called “simple lifestyle.” We knew the Bible rejected crass materialism and we desired — out of love for neighbor and love for the planet — to walk more gently on the Earth. There were a bunch of books on this question of simplicity and wise use of natural resources and it was often even a category when we’d go out to do book displays. Ron Sider wrote about it, true enough, but so did a lot of non-Mennonites.

Well, the other day, gripping about a car needlessly spewing out exhaust for what seemed like an hour in a parking lot, I wondered why there aren’t more books on living well on our fragile planet. Why aren’t we more robust in being careful, stewardly, frugal?

Enter the brand new title Rooted Faith: Practices for Living Well. This is the book that could help re-ignite a church-wide conversation about the ethics of our consumerism, our carbon footprints, the impact of all our stuff. I am so very happy to see it.

“Drawing on Scripture, Christian history, and practical theology, Sarah Renee Werner invites readers into a new way of seeing ourselves in relationship with the rest of creation. She offers tangible practices for opening up our hearts to both the beauty and tragedy around us and guides us toward meaningful action to restore creation.” It is winsome, practical, and actually, quite lovely. Hooray!  Debra Rienstra of Refugia Faith, says, “…begin here.”

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  • United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.12; 2 lbs would be $4.87. This is the cheapest method available.
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Sadly, as of October 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

We will keep you posted about our future plans… we are eager to reopen.

We are doing our curb-side and back yard customer service and can show any number of items to you if you call us from our back parking lot. It’s sort of fun, actually. We are eager to serve and grateful for your patience as we all work to mitigate the pandemic. We are very happy to help, so if you are in the area, do stop by. We love to see friends and customers.

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7 SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED BOOKS TO PRE-ORDER NOW from Hearts & Minds – ALL 20% OFF – N.T. Wright, Eugene Peterson, Fleming Rutledge, David Dark, Douglas McKelvey, Mark Noll, Katy Bowser Hutson

We’re grateful for the Facebook “likes” and the kind words sent after my big review of the new Conrad Kanagy book The Prophetic Imagination of Walter Brueggemann. It is an amazing biography, so interesting and helpful to understand some of the quandaries and issues in contemporary Biblical scholarship (not to mention church life.) Brueggemann is an immeasurably important scholar and preacher and we are grateful for Conrad’s diligence in telling his story. I’m not going to lie: I wish more people had ordered it. Maybe you’re putting it on your Christmas list. Don’t forget to tell your loved ones, we have it at 20% off. Walter, with all his Biblically-driven anti-capitalism, wouldn’t want you going to Bezos.

Hope you also enjoyed the follow-up BookNotes, a summary of many of Brueggemann’s best. A serious Biblical scholar said it was the best such list he’s seen. Actually, I’m working on another (shorter) list like that, diving into the deeper Brueggemann backlist, the album cuts, as the late night FM DJs used to say. But that must wait because now, I’ve got the great privilege of telling you about some really important and truly wonderful books that are coming out soon. A few are coming very soon, a few in a few weeks, some later in November. We suspect we’ll have a few of them here in the Dallastown shop before the due date. You can pre-order them now — we will appreciate it if you do.

(If you are ordering more than one, be sure to tell us if you want us to send them as soon as they arrive or if we are to consolidate and send ‘em together. It’s up to you. Our order form page at the website is pretty easy to use and you can type in notes to us to clarify just how you want us to serve you.)

Please consider these coming down the pike: serious faith-based, nonfiction volumes that are worth knowing about. All 20% off. I won’t say too much, as this is urgent. Here ya go:

Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul’s Greatest Letter N.T. Wright (Zondervan Academic) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99 // RELEASING OCTOBER 17, 2023

It has been several years since a new book by Tom Wright and many of his faithful fans and friends have been long awaiting this one. He said years ago that he has revised his own views (as portrayed in his Romans contribution to the respected New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary) and we can all now benefit from his years of grappling with this central bit of kerygma.

This is one of the biggest titles of the year in the field of Biblical studies and I am sure it will be brilliant and inspiring. Even if you disagree some, as you well might. (Between you and me, I’m eager, too, to see what great Romans commentators he cites. Michael Gorman? Douglas Moo? Beverly Gavanta? Frank Matera? Scot McKnight? NT wrote the forward to Conformed to the Image of His Son by Haley Grandson Jacob. How about the book by his former student Sylvia Keesmaat and her brilliant Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice, co-written by Brian Walsh, a very old pal of Tom’s)? I’m really looking forward to this and it will be hard to keep working here the day it comes. Ha.

You should know that, from what I can gather, it is not a full-on line-by-line study of the grand epistle but focuses on “the heart of Romans” in Romans 8. That makes sense, and there is so much packed in there that it will be a great way into the bigger picture of the way the book heralds God’s Kingdom coming.

Having spent his life studying and living the writings of Paul, N. T. Wright offers Into the Heart of Romans with his hallmark exultant themes and dense yet conversational prose. With this fresh foray, he teaches readers not only how to understand this chapter but how to read Paul. Excellent for personal study, group discussion, or congregational preaching, he allows those who might feel nervous around such a vital theological chapter to gain their bearings. This book offers not just a detailed map but a personal guide through the intricate pathways of Paul’s proclamation. I was led to gratitude for the clarity I gained, wonder at the brilliance of Paul, and praise for the grace of God in the victory of Jesus Christ. — Amy Peeler Professor of Biblical Studies, Wheaton College

In his engaging, inimitable style, Tom Wright leads us into a profound encounter with one of the most profound chapters of Scripture. Challenging typical interpretations and offering new ones, he helps us see Romans 8 as a call for the church to enter the world’s polyvalent pain in sync with the triune God. A much-needed challenge.             — Michael J. Gorman, Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, St. Mary’s Seminary & University

N. T. Wright has long made it clear that Romans 8 is a text that is dear to his own heart and understanding of Paul. In this book, we encounter Wright as pastor, professor, and scholar. He teaches us how to read a text (as professor), what he discovers in the text (as scholar), and why Paul’s message in one of his most significant passages still matters for the church today (as pastor). It was also refreshing to witness Wright model the ability to grow as an exegete revising one’s opinion when better readings present themselves. This book is an exemplar of a pastorally and exegetically rich analysis of a dense but rewarding section of Paul’s most famous letter. — Esau McCaulley, Professor of New Testament, Wheaton College

Lights a Lovely Mile: Collected Sermons of the Church Year Eugene H. Peterson (Waterbrook) $27.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60 // RELEASING OCTOBER 31, 2023

I have seen an advanced copy of this and am positive that it will be a lovely, handsome hardback, solid and helpful, full of previously unpublished sermons. I suppose you know that before his iconic Biblical paraphrase (The Message) he was a working pastor. He faithfully preached for decades to the small congregation of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, MD. We still have customers there and we are grateful for how his years there shaped them, and him.

There have been a few other collections of Eugene’s sermons from his early years —  As Kingfishers Catch Fire is a must-have anthology for those who want solid messages and This Hallelujah Banquet actually offers a series of sermons he preached on the book of Revelation! This forthcoming one is arranged them from his messages during different seasons of the church year, so you’ll get several for Advent, one for Christmas, five for Epiphany (thank you!)  a bunch for Lent, a bunch from his many Easter Sundays, a lot for the season of Pentecost, and, of course, many set in “Ordinary Time.”

There are 41 sermons here, in 300 pages. It’s going to be a great book.

Paul Pastor, a writer who helped compile these, says in the beautiful introduction, “Like any good writer, every good preacher is an artist who paints by means of words. But while the writer paints on the still surface of space (the page, kept blank), the preacher paints on the flowing surface of time.”

As editor, he continues:

Whether this historic seasonality is part of your faith tradition or not, it’s our hope that by encountering Eugene’s preaching in the season in which he delivered it, you’ll experience some of the “fit” his words were intended to encourage, as truth of Christ dovetails with some space you create for it in your daily life.

Epiphany: The Season of Glory Fleming Rutledge (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00 // RELEASING NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Last year the first of these small sized hardbacks came out, introducing us to the meaning of a certain season of or event within the liturgical year. In a series edited by Esau McCauley called “The Fullness of Time” we saw McCauley’s Lent and, shortly thereafter, Pentecost by Emilio Alvarez.

A month ago we received the wonderful Advent: The Season of Hope by Tish Harrison Warren and Christmas: The Season of Life and Light by Emily Hunter McGowin. Maybe you got them alread — we’ve got plenty (for now, at least.)

Soon, we hope to receive the next in the set of “Fullness of Time” guidebooks, penned by one of the great theological writers of our time, the Rev. Dr. Fleming Rutledge. We have prayed for her as she was writing this succinct book and we cannot wait to see this little volume, which will surely be a treasure. All we know is that it will be, like the others, a small sized hardback, maybe about 175 pages. J. Todd Billings of Western Seminary says it is “written with joyful urgency yet patient wisdom.”

With palpable reverence and predictable erudition, Fleming Rutledge unearths the riches of the most overlooked season of the liturgical year. Epiphany is all about glory, chiefly the glory of the person of Christ revealed in majesty and power as the King of the Jews and Lord of the Gentiles in key moments of the biblical drama. In Epiphany and the season leading up to Lent, the church gathers a fresh chance to behold the glory of her Lord and to renew itself in the work of proclaiming his glory to the world. — Katelyn Beaty, journalist and author of Celebrities for Jesus 

Watch this short video by Dr. Esau McCauley as he describes the “Fullness of Time” series:

We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence David Dark (Broadleaf) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59  // RELEASING NOVEMBER 14, 2023

I finished an early review galley of this late last night and I didn’t want it to end. I esteem David so much and while his prose can border on the eccentric and I sometimes have to read a sentence twice to conjure its meaning, I have to say that the experience of reading this was one of the most creative encounters I have had in a long while. David is a poet, a deep thinker, a usually plain speaker, and a genuinely gracious, good person; he is gentle, even, even as he calls for forthright rebuke of evil and invites us not to be complicit in the unrighteous stuff going down all around us. And you know, it’s going down all around you.

He knows what he’s talking about. He has shifted his views a million times — humans are “a process” he says — from being a passionate disciple of Rush Limbaugh to nurturing a lasting admiration of the blunt Godly witness of Daniel Berrigan and Dorothy Day. That he writes a bit like poet / resister Fr. Daniel is, perhaps, no accident. Yet, he was born and bred in the South and he has that going on, maybe a bit like a postmodern Will Campbell.

I have told some of his story before, and will return to this book again here at BookNotes, I am sure. Space does not permit me to hold forth now, but know that this is, in one way, a bit of an extension of his wonderful explorations of pop culture in his book Everyday Apocalypse and the yearning, prophetic reminder that we all live in stories and have agency of one sort of another to make a difference, as expressed in the must-read (newly edited, altered, and seriously expanded) Life’s Too Short To Pretend You Are Not Religious.

We Become What We Normalize is a reminder that we are shaped by the stuff we do, and the stuff we allow, and, as he puts it, we “become” the water we swim in. We are always becoming. Our choices reverberate, they make culture. Nobody is above the fray; life is political. God is not mocked, Empires are going to Empire, and, yet, we can take up “transformative justice.” We can bear witness. HIs stories are vivid, sometimes even embarrassing as he bears his soul and admits his struggles. Like from the first paragraph.

I gather that Dark thinks that we are always and everywhere either being reactive or reflective. We are too often driven by shame and fear. Yet, maybe some realization can break on through — if we receive the gifts of artists and poets and activists and children of all sorts — and repentance can lead us to refreshing ways of being alive, present, real, raw, agents of the day of the Lord. He explains all that in uplifting prose that just never gets tiresome, even if it is ponderous. Without a hint of condescension, he invites us in. Controversial as some of his views may be to some readers, his tone is utterly honest and utterly hospitable. His radical commitments to nonviolence just seep through into his writing style, generous and gracious even as he offers firm rebukes, mostly to himself.

As he asks, “Is this thing on?” Are we connecting? Is it working? He only does it a few times, but when he says “Reader, it gets worse” or calls to us with that personal line — “Reader” — he builds a bridge that movingly deepens our engagement. Yes, this is risky stuff. He invites us to perform exorcisms. Yes, David, it’s on. I hear ya.

I promise you that this remarkable book has some gonzo weirdness within and that it is not just bohemian hipster talk. He is playfully getting us to see, to play along, to own and manage our feelings — maybe with a little help from Mister Rogers. I bet you’ll love the chapter “What Does Apocalypse Wants from Me?” But, uh, when he gets to “Robot Soft Exorcism” and names the demons as “White Supremacist Antichrist Poltergeist” your head will be spinning. He does not beat around the bush. No worries. It’s just “observational candor.” You can do this. Tune in. Stay with him. This is a great, witty, honest, complex, and healing book, edifying and challenging, irritating and inspired..

He quotes so many artists and thinkers and writers and Tennessee activists, it’s a blast, really. Learn, here, from LeBron James and Octavia Butler, Lupe Fiasco and Wendell Berry, Greta Thunberg and Larycia Alain Hawkins.

Noting how our “presumed consent functions as a free pass for abuse” (and making the case that we ought not let “deferential fear do our thinking for us”) he offers a line from Thoreau, who, David says, once asked himself:

“What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?”

He, too, in jail in the 1840s seemed to have known that “we are what we normalize.”

David continues,

“In the land of the free, what do I owe people whose lives are endangered by my silence? We are not without resources. Courage, it often turns out, is contagious. Group courage is righteously intoxicating. Others have been here before. Come together. Education, the practice of freedom, is forever.”

Every Moment Holy, Volume III: The Work of the People edited by Douglas McKelvey, art edited by Ned Bustard (Rabbit Room Press) $35.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00  //  RELEASING NOVEMBER 10, 2023

If you know Every Moment Holy (Volume I) and Every Moment Holy: On Death, Grief and Hope (Volume II) then you know well the beauty of these classy, eloquent, modern prayers for ordinary life. You know the impeccable design, the linocuts by Ned Bustard, the hints of red ink on rich cream paper, the satin bookmarked. Mostly you know how these responsive readings and liturgies can bring you to tears or offer theologically-rich language for very human situations.

This forthcoming third volume, unlike the first two, offers prayers not only by Doug and offers art not only by Ned. A host of sharp folks are involved in helping us consecrate “every moment” and find words to pray in particular situations.

As the good folks at Rabbit Room put it, “Every Moment Holy: The Work of the People is a book of over 100 new liturgies (and lots of new art) for daily life, drawing on a range of writers, artists, poets, songwriters, pastors, and illustrators (with Douglas Kaine McKelvey both writing and editing). With prayers by Malcolm Guite, Ellie Holcomb, Philip Yancey, Ruth Chou Simons, Sho Baraka, Andrew Peterson and more, this collection represents a community of believers engaged in the work of reminding all of us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose and eternal hopes even in the midst of the everyday moments that make up our lives.”

C. S. Lewis in America: Readings and Reception, 1935-1947 Mark Noll (IVP Academic) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00  //  RELEASING NOVEMBER 14, 2023

I am sure you know that there is a virtual cottage industry of books about C.S. Lewis. We love them and stock bunches. From Pursuing an Earth Spirituality: C.S. Lewis and Incarnational Faith (a favorite done last year by Gary Selby) to A Compass for Deep Heaven: Navigating the C.S. Lewis Ransom Trilogy (edited by Diana Pavlac Glyer) to Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C.S. Lewis (by the great Gina Alfonzo) to The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind (a must-read by Jason Baxter) — just to name a few recent ones that are excellent — our shelves are jammed. Not to mention many biographies and, of course. Jack’s own writings.

This one, though — whew! It ought to be a publishing-world event as it seems to be exploring new material, new content, new perspectives — just when you thought everything important that needed to be said about Lewis has been said. These were lectures given by a world-class historian, offering some great new insight on the post-war reception in the states of Lewis’s early work. Many may not know that Lewis was being read here in the US before the international sensation of The Chronicles of Narnia or the apologetics of Mere Christianity (which were, of course, first given as live lectures on the BBC in the 40s but not released in the US until 1952.) Mark Noll here explores (in what were the fabulous Wade Center’s Hansen Lectureship presentations last year) his research and assessment of who, really, was reading Lewis and how he influenced Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelicals (not to mention ostensibly secularist and elite journals and papers) in his early years of writing. Drawing on two seminal essays done in the popular Catholic America in 1944 (which are reprinted in an valuable appendix) Noll makes a remarkable case. We learn about Lewis, about why people took him seriously, and we learn, yes, a bit about American religiosity.

After each chapter there is a brief response from another religious scholar. It’s all so informative and helpful (to understand Lewis, to understand how to present the gospel in a winsome voice, and a bit about the US mid-20th century religious landscape.) Jerry Root eloquently compares this book to a brilliant painting summarizing, “What emerges is a masterpiece.”

From elite, secular newspapers to denominational magazines, C. S. Lewis’s writings commending the Christian faith had an enthusiastic reception in America. In this prophetic and timely book, preeminent historian Mark A. Noll has uncovered the secret of Lewis’s success: he was deeply learned, theologically focused, and unusually creative. Noll himself brilliantly models how to embody these traits today.  — Timothy Larsen, McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College and author of George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles

This is a deeply informed, fascinating account of the varying fortunes of C. S. Lewis’s writings in America. Initial misunderstanding and mistrust give way to respect, and then to reverence, and ultimately to something not far from idolatry. Noll tells the tale vividly, and the responses from Johnson, Farney, and Black point out some vital implications of this history for Christians today. A welcome addition both to Lewis scholarship and contemporary Christian self-reflection. — Alan Jacobs, distinguished professor of humanities at the Honors College, Baylor University, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

Now I Lay Me Down to Fight: A Poet Writes Her Way Through Cancer Katy Bowser Hutson (IVP) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80  //  RELEASING NOVEMBER 14, 2023

I cannot tell Katy’s story but should know that she is an artist and friend, a customer we admire very much. She and her musician husband (yes, he once played with VOL) have made their home in Tennessee and have used their creativity to raise kids and nurture friendships and serve churches and make goodness. Katy has played and sung on the excellent children’s albums (you should know Rain for Roots) and is a mom and working poet. Beth and I have followed her as a writer — she had a piece in the great Square Halo Book It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God and co-wrote the lovely books of children’s prayers with Tish Harrison Warren and Flo Paris Oakes Little Prayers for Ordinary Days. (In fact, for those who follow this stuff, you might want to know she has a piece in the volume about children’s literature edited by the late Leslie Bustard and others, Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.)

And then she got cancer.  And has lived to tell about it, making poetic beauty out of the horrible. The publisher notes that she “writes in resistance to sickness, of wrestling toward beauty.” Word has gotten out about this forthcoming volume, so boldly written, and nicely accentuated by art of Jodi Hays, and we already have a waiting list. Why not join it now and send us a pre-order?

Our friend Margie Haack has been Katy’s friend and wrote this:

What do you do if you wake up one day to find your breasts are insanely on fire with a vicious invader who plans to kill you unless you take the chemo journey without so much as a promise of survival? Because you are young, a wife and a mother with hopes to live for other stories, you have no choice. You take the journey. And if you are a poet, you ‘walk this poisonous way’ hoping, praying, negotiating, and writing all the while. In this collection Katy moves through the halls of medicine and the corridors of pain to find she is only a ‘tiny speck of glory, barely sparking,’ but one carried in the arms of Jesus. Out of the crucible of cancer comes this rare collection of poems sure to be a comfort to any who have cussed, fought, and cried their way through an unwanted diagnosis or any of the heartaches and griefs common to humankind. — Margie Haack, author of The Exact Place and No Place and is co-director of Ransom Fellowship

Hear this, from the forward by Tish Harrison Warren, author of her own harrowing, hopeful exploration of prayer in hard times, Prayers in the Night,

The poems in Now I Lay Me Down to Fight are luminous, honest, heartbreaking, and at moments even funny. They are at once defiant yet surrendered, buoyant yet profound, faithful yet never trite. To read them is to encounter a beautiful and brave soul who invites us into her vulnerability, illness, and mortality through images and stories as human as they are hopeful. I cried reading these verses — no surprise given the subject and my love for the poet. What did surprise me was how much I smiled as well. Katy Hutson has descended into the darkness of cancer and there wrought beauty, goodness, wisdom, and even abundance.

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Sadly, as of October 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

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A (Partial) Readers Guide to Some of the (Many) Books of Dr. Walter Brueggemann — ON SALE NOW at Hearts & Minds

I hope you saw yesterday’s BookNotes review inviting you to pre-order the wonderful, forthcoming biography of Walter Brueggemann, Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography by Conrad L. Kanagy.  I did a good review of that exciting, soon-to-be-released book (please check it out HERE and share it if your so inclined.)

I promised a soon-to-follow “Reader’s Guide” to some of the many important books of Dr. Brueggemann. It took a lot of work, but here you go, my quick summary of the most important books by Walter Brueggemann. You might want to get a drink, maybe even a strong one, and settle in.

ALL OF THESE LISTED BELOW ARE 20% OFF — and some are discounted off already lower prices. Scroll down to the very end of the column to see our order form links where you can safely enter credit card info. We’ll send ’em out right away  — or hold them until the forthcoming biography releases in mid-October, if you pre-order that. Just let us know how we can best serve you.

A (PARTIAL) READER’S GUIDE TO (SOME OF) THE BOOKS OF WALTER BRUEGGEMANN

Brueggemann is allusive, evocative, charmingly good with words, one of the most interesting writers in the field of Biblical studies. He is, I think, theologically quirky. He is a poet, a man whose very rhetoric is deeply grounded in the cadences of the Biblical text, even though he has studied radical thinkers from Karl Marx to Paul Ricour. He notices things about the Bible — from the rhetoric to the political setting to the wit or sarcasm or exuberance in the original Hebrew. He preaches endlessly and so has, alongside producing oodles of serious scholarship, hefty theology, and academic commentaries, released tons of collections of essays, articles, speeches and sermons, some of them short and somewhat accessible. He even has several books of prayers, which are edgy, raw, provocative and yet often lovely. He has been writing since the mid 1970s and done nearly 100 books.  I will group a handful of them under a few general categories or types.

For what it is worth, Walter has himself named what he sees as his most important or seminal works in a few pages in the above mentioned forthcoming biography Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography by Conrad L. Kanagy. I’m not going to argue. Or maybe I will…

START HERE: TEN GOOD INTRODUCTIONS

I’m just going to say it; Brueggey is an acquired taste. Some of passionate professor’s academic works, groundbreaking as they were, struck me as pretty technical and just too deep for nonprofessionals like me. There was a spark that one sometimes doesn’t see in such high-level technical scholarship, but still. I’ll name some of those shortly. But for beginners — or those who just don’t need the heavy stuff — here are six great collections that will introduce you to this master of the Biblical text, applied to contemporary society.

Real World Faith (Fortress Press) $24.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.96

This is the newest such release, drawn from a series of blog posts Walter had done not long ago. It shows the urgency of Biblical texts to inspire contemporary prophetic imagination and “real faith for the realities of the world.” A bit personal and playful at times, expressing gratitude and tender care, it captures this wise, even eccentric, scholar weighing in on the world at large and his own thoughts as he enters his 90s. 31 entries in 250 pages. I’m really enjoying it and find so much already that I’ve shared with others. Excellent.

 

The Peculiar Dialect of Faith (Cascade) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

This is a shorter collection of perhaps more serious blog posts, relating to themes of “Biblical utterance” and his routine influences of “imaginative probes into the mystery of God’s creation and into the hidden complexities of human hurt and human hurt.” The rhetoric of the Bible is always relational, which itself critiques the modern styles of discourse. Old Testament prof Rolf Jacobson calls it “quintessential Brueggemann!” Kathleen O’Connor says that these luminous essays illustrated why he is esteemed as a singular wordsmith.

Deliver Us: Salvation and the Liberating God of the Bible (WJK) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

This is one of three currently available anthologies grouped by topic, published as “The Walter Brueggemann Library.” Black preacher and activist Jacqui Lewis says, “You will need this on your shelf.” She is right. In these dark times, this starts with the narratives of liberation in Exodus which illustrates much, so much. Some of these chapters are themselves worth the price of the book. And there are good reflection questions to help you process it, or, better, to use it as a small-group read.

 

Our Hearts Wait: Worshiping Through Praise and Lament in the Psalms (WJK) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Again, this is a wonderful new collection as part of the themed studies brought together as “The Walter Brueggemann Library.” I suppose you know that Brueggemann has done exceptional work on the Psalms and this brings together some of his seminal essays, journal articles, chapters from various books. Good discussion questions make it useful for a small group read.  If you’re interested, I think this is a must.

 

Hope Restored: Biblical Imagination Against Empire (WJK) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Oh my, what can I say? This is perhaps one of the very best ways into the oeuvre of Dr. Brueggemann and, yet, an inspiring refresher course for those who have read much of his work.  There are good chapters from an early book on the Old Testament and a rare journal article for preachers. There are some pieces from his small book on the prophets and a bit from Hope Within History, a personal favorite, if older. Very interesting; urgent, even. Good discussion questions. Highly recommended.

 

Spirituality of the Psalms (Fortress) $11.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $9.59

Below you will see our listing of two other classic works on the Psalms. This mass-market sized, small book in the “Facets” series offers brief and brilliant treatments, in this case, a concise summary of much of Walter’s passion for reading, praying, and living the Psalter.

In the first chapter, he writes:

“The life of faith expressed in the Psalms is focused on the two decisive moves of faith that are always underway by which we are regularly surprised and which we regularly resist: out of a settled orientation into a season of disorientation, and from a context of disorientation to a new orientation, surprised by a new gift from God, a new coherence made present to us just when we thought all was lost.”

Materiality as Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (WJK) $18.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This is one of the shorter books Walter has done and there are questions for discussion and reflection following each of these five chapters. What is materiality? You know, stuff. There is no hard dichotomy in the Scriptures between the seemingly sacred and secular, and ordinary stuff and how we use it is critical. The subtitle is clear: this is about nurturing moral active and public ethics for living in the real world. He is evocative and has scholarly footnotes, but this is ideal for those wanting to see the social implications for Biblical faith. He looks at food, money, the body, time, and place and asks how our faith influences our stewardship of these opportunities. One reviewer said this is a succinct manifesto of Brueggemann’s most important work. Jim Wallis has a lengthy forward called “A Compelling Worldly Faith.”

Gift and Task: A Year of Daily Readings and Reflections (WJK) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

When this came out a few years ago — following the liturgical assignments for Year B — many were thrilled. Of course, it can be used any year, and in Gift and Task Brueggemann gives us a full year’s worth of daily readings, reflections on the texts of the day. I cannot believe this book isn’t better known among us and used rigorously. What a gift.

There is probably no single Scripture scholar whom I would sooner endorse or want to thank than Walter Brueggemann. He has not only introduced us to the courage and importance of the biblical prophets but has also turned out to be one himself. Western culture needs his prophecy now.  — Richard Rohr, OFM – The Center for Action and Contemplation

A Wilderness Zone (Cascade) $23.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40

There are so many collections and anthologies of Walter’s many, many essays and articles, but this recent one seems really helpful, locating, as he does, his faith and Biblical work in the middle of current socio-political issues and cultural trends. Here is how he puts it:

In these several pieces I have worked to trace out possible interfaces between specific scripture references and matters at the forefront of our common social life. It is my hunch that, almost without fail, such an interface creates a very different angle of vision for any element of our common social life, because it situates such a topic in the context of the biblical narrative that is occupied by the holy agency of God. Such an alternative angle of vision helps to defamiliarize us from our usual discernment according to the master narrative of democratic capitalism that is most widely shared across the spectrum of conservatives and progressives. Because our common angle of vision shared by progressives and conservatives has a very low ceiling of human ultimacy, we (all of us!) easily come to think that our particular reading of social reality is absolute and beyond question, even if dominated by a tacit ideology. It is my bet that an interface with biblical testimony can and will de-absolutize our excessive certitude and permit us to look again at the social “facts” that are in front of us. I do not think and do not suggest that such interfaces with scripture are inevitable; they are rather suggestive, impressionistic, and fleeting, the kind of linkage that is available in the matrix of faith that is not fixed on certitude.

Simply put, we have no one like Walter Brueggemann. . . . Here, he outpaces all others once again, amazes us once more, as he ranges easily across the full span of Christian Scripture with not-infrequent, equally dexterous engagements with economic and political theory, race relations, philosophy, liberation, migration, and much, much more. And so, again, I repeat: we have none like Walter. Take and read!” — Brent A. Strawn, Duke University, author, The Incomparable God: Readings in Biblical Theology

Tenacious Solidarity: Biblical Provocations on Race, Religion, Climate, and the Economy (Fortress Press) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

I wasn’t sure where to list this one — it’s hefty — but it is an excellent, thick example of how Walter allows the Bible to speak into, in often surprising ways, the most contemporary themes and topics of contemporary culture. As the lengthy and excellent introduction by editor David Hankins puts it, Brueggemann excels at undermining those who want to somehow separate dispassionate Biblical scholarship and contemporary ethical pronouncements. Brueggemann always reads with this kind of trajectory and so these essays are compiled from fairly recent talks, sermons, essays, and presentations among groups of Bible scholars, laypeople, activists, and others.

It is a big book and some of the pieces are somewhat demanding. Yet, it is Brueggemann at his best, exploring the Biblical text, evoking connections that resonate, drawing implications by listening well to the voice of the text, sacred Scripture that it is, and putting it into context with the daily news, contemporary (or older) secular scholars, the latest headlines.

Here’s how others explain how important it is:

With his characteristic skill and wisdom, Walter Brueggemann demonstrates again in this collection of recent essays the generative and transformative potentials of biblical texts to name and confront urgent challenges of our time. His interpretations model a compelling dialogue between biblical texts, interdisciplinary scholarship, and incisive, contemporary social, political, and economic analyses. The result utterly captures the imagination and urges and inspires the building of a far more welcoming, forgiving, generous, and sustainable future together.  — Christine Roy Yoder, Columbia Theological Seminary

I was taught to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. It was faithful advice. Of course, there are times (like now) when a steady tide of distressing newspaper headlines can overwhelm even the most biblically savvy of preachers. Do not fear, says Walter Brueggemann, pointing calmly to the book in our other hand. Tenacious Solidarity is unmatched in rifling through Scripture’s pages and finding there wisdom and courage for the living of these days. –Scott Black Johnston, pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church

BASIC TOOLS TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE

The Bible Makes Sense (Franciscan Media) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

This was a small, early book that has been released by several different publishing houses; it is magnificent, even if provocative at times. It insists that the Bible cannot be co-opted or read properly through the lease of the classic cultural left or right; it is beyond social liberalism or cultural conservatism and wants to have us enter its world and listen to it’s strange cadences of a unfolding story that brings hope and new ways to imagine the world. (Actually he critiques what he describes as the “The Modern-Industrial-Scientific Model,” “The Existentialist Model,” and “The Transcendentalist Model,”offering instead am “Historical-Covenantal” approach. Eight or nine chapters and a summarizing piece at the end.

Reverberations of Faith: A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes (WJK) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00  (This is a limited time, special sale price; new copies will come in at $49.00. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.)

This is literally a handbook, a set of over 100 A to Z entries explaining words, people, places, ideas, and themes. This is what one reviewed called “a theological jewel” and often shows the deep interconnection of these various words and places and notions. I refer to it often and sometimes it is a tad puzzling. Other times it is nothing short of brilliant. It is always useful. This is fantastic.

Money and Possessions (Interpretations) (WJK) $50.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $40.00

You may know the Interpretation Bible commentaries (Brueggemann did two of them, actually, on Genesis and on both books of Chronicles.) They are critical, serious, but readable, designed for preachers and teachers. Some are better than others.

In any case, in the spirit of that series, they expanded the brand to include major mainline denominational scholars weighing in on key themes and topics. Those are all very useful and none more than this one on economics. This big whopper of a volume is, in Brueggemann’s own estimation (or so he told Conrad Kanagy when he asked) one of the most important volumes he ever wrote, a classic example of what he hopes to do as he unleashes the complicated teachings in the Bible about a topic for today. There is a whole lot in Holy Scriptures about money and possessions and while others have tried, nobody has documented all this content in one provocative volume.  Almost 345 awesome pages.

From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (WJK) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

This is almost a little handbook, a brief introduction to each of the prophets, major and minor. He explains the complicated socio-political contexts — the setting of North or South in the divided Kingdom, the threat from Assyria, the post-exilic preachers in Babylon, etc. — and is as succinct as any little such book I know. Nicely done. 120 pages.

 

 

The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Fortress) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

I’ve mentioned in my comments on Kanagy’s book, above, that this was the first Brueggemann book I ever read – thanks to Peter J. Steen! — and I’ll admit it was above me at the time. Still, it is not one of his most rigorous, but a moderately academic, a serious but readable study of land and place, throughout the Bible, Known, of course, as an Old Testament scholar, he does here push into New Testament content a bit as well. It is magnificent and nearly majestical, a theme within the Biblical literature that if you don’t understand it, you will fail to be fully grasped by the Kingdom vision of the Scriptures. He was one of the first Biblical scholars to draw on Wendell Berry, too, so there’s that. I wish he had attended to Revelation 21 and 22…

The Book That Breathes New Life: Spiritual Authority and Biblical Theology (Fortress) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00 (This is a limited time, special sale price of the hardbacks prices [regularly $35.00] at the cheaper paperback price. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.)

This is a part of a trio of handsome hardbacks that Fortress did years ago and while it my not be my favorite book about the authority of Scriptures, it is one of the helpful resources to show what Brueggemann thinks. I recall years ago when a strict evangelical (whose views of the Bible I mostly agreed with) express disapproval about Brueggemann’s liberal views. I thought of the parable Jesus told of the one boy who said he would do the bidding of the father, but did not. The other boy said he refused, but did obey. There are bunches of authors who have written about inerrancy and the battles for the Bible and calling us to know and live the Scriptures, but they don’t really do it faithfully themselves and frankly just bore me. And there are those like Brueggemann who will quip, about a Psalm or prophetic utterance, “But, ya know, it’s just a poem.” And then he invites you to stake your very life on it. This book collects some of his academic pieces about how God speaks through these contested texts of sacred Scripture and where he places himself along with other giants of 20th century Biblical scholarship.

By the way, a fun piece making this interesting for some of our readers: years ago our friend J. Richard Middleton (who has gone on to publisher stellar, groundbreaking books) politely disagreed with Brueggemann about something he wrote, and ended up doing an article in the Harvard Theological Review. Brueggemann ended up mostly agreeing with young Richard and his response to the piece is offered here, entitled “Israel’s Creation Faith: Response to J. Richard Middleton.” He has some others pieces about Von Rad and about Brevard Childs, (of course he does) but for some of us, the Middleton response will be the first chapter we read.

A FEW ESSENTIAL SHORTER WORKS ON BOOKS OF THE BIBLE OR THEMES

Listen carefully. A few of these are rigorous, demanding, paradigm shifting. A few are less academic and good for groups. I’ll try to explain which are which. This short list only names few of his many important books, including full commentaries on Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalms, and more. (I’m not even going to list those, but we’ve got ‘em.) Here are a few of my favs.

The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Fortress) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

This introduces the notion that there are essentially three kinds of Psalms, poems of what he calls “Orientation” (where God is in heaven, Jerusalem is upheld, and all is right with the world), psalms of “Disorientation” (where exile is threatened or sin has overwhelmed and things are dark. These are mostly laments, a genre he helped recover in our lifetime) and “Re-orientation” where, after exile or sin, things are re-covered, but perhaps with greater sobriety. God reigns, grace abounds, but they know, now, what has happened. This threefold schema has been the most generative insight about any part of the Old Testament that I think has been uncovered in the last 50 years at least. That is parallels the grand story of creation – fall – redemption is not lost on him or others. This, in a nutshell, is the way to sing and pray and reflect on the realty, grief, and hope of our lives.

The Psalms and the Life of Faith (Fortress) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.30

This is a collection edited by Patrick Miller of some of Brueggemann’s best scholarly work on the Psalms and I know important Christian thinkers and leaders who say this is one of the best things they’ve ever read of his. As Brueggemann points out, when these Psalms are proclaimed, they make claims about reality (and, as Miller writes, “they shape reality in ways more potent and shocking that we usually realize.”) This study of the use of the Psalms by the church and what we might recover in using them more wisely is simply one of the best resources on this stuff written in our times.

From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: Introducing the Psalms (WJK) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

Edited by Brent Strawn, an OT professor from Candler and increasingly known as a Brueggemann protege and spokesperson in his own right, this volume in a sense represents the later insights and teachings about the Psalms, a culmination of years of research and preaching. He looks at some lesser known Psalms and makes available fresh visions of praise and re-orientation for ordinary church leaders. (One reviewer from Baylor University notes that “the articulation of the world envisions by the Psalms and its challenge to our world in chapter 2 of the book are alone worth the price of book!) You could say that about a number of this brilliant, readable, pieces.

Abiding Astonishment: Psalms, Modernity, and the Making of History  (WJK) $14.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.69  This is a limited time, special sale price; new copies will come in at $22.00. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.

I’m not even sure if this is still in print but we have a bunch, delighted to name it now as a volume in the old “Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation” series. It is thin, academic, and an amazing survey (if you stick with it) about this trend in understanding the role of rhetoric and utterance and praise in the Scriptures. The title itself is so quintessentially Brueggemann and indicates what you’ll get in on if you join him in this little study.

For what it is worth, this is a short but rigorous study of what is called the “Psalms of Historical Recital” (which is to say Psalm 78, 105, 106, and 136) where Brueggemann considers what these pslams are saying on their own terms and how their truths stand in contrast to the making of modernity and the values of our own age. Wow.

Using God’s Resources Wisely: Isaiah and Urban Possibility (WJK) $14.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.69  This is a limited time, special sale price; new copies will come in at $17.00. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.

This is a slim book that packs a wallop, that is full of promise and hope even as it looks at injustice and exploitation (as described so vividly in the book of Isaiah.) Yet, there is a restoration afoot and God’s call is to live into a wise stewardship of our resources. This book was exceedingly good when it came out — they were first given as talks to Presbyterian Women in the very early 1990s — and in his preaching about the urban crisis and the ecological crisis he was breathtakingly prescient. This book could be read more profitably today than then, and it was very good, then. He uses the provocative phrase of some of Isaiah being an artistic-theological history of the city of Jerusalem” and thereby a case study in an urban environmental crisis. Highly recommneded.

Delivered Out of Empire: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus – Part One (WJK) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

I hope you recall our review of this in a previous BookNotes a year or so ago. It is a reader-friendly study of the Book of Exodus with a eye to the pivot points on which the text shifts and the story deepens or changes. What a great way to study these rhetorical points in the story and the great moments that come alive in his vivid storytelling and astute scholarly look. Great study questions, too, make this ideal for small groups.

 

Delivered into Covenant: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus – Part Two (WJK) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

Yep, Part Two, picking up at Exodus 16:10. Brueggemann has spent his life studying these texts and it is so good to reflect with him on how the story unfolds and what it might mean for us today.

 

 

 

Returning from the Abyss: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah (WJK) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

Using the same insightful and user-friendly sort of approach as in the two-part Exodus study (above) he here parlays his life-long study of and preaching on Jeremiah into this adult study  (27 chapters) of key texts in the book where things pivot or become vital or clearer. These shifts make a world of difference, sometimes 9and sometimes only are obvious to the reader who is paying close attention.) Simply amazing. There is nothing like this and I hope the editor (Brueggemann protege Brent Strawn) finds others to do more in this “Pivotal Moments in the Old Testament” series.

MID-LEVEL THEMATIC WORKS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE

The Prophetic Imagination (Fortress) $21.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.80

Oh my, so, again, this is the one to read. I think it was my third time through that I began to “get it” and that was after I heard him so I had learned to slow drawn, draw out the words the way he does, and take it in slowly. I came to understand a bit of this powerful insight about the pathos of sorrow — breaking through the denial — that the great prophets had (from Moses to Jeremiah to Jesus) and how tears, therefore, are subversive. (I”ll admit, my friends Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton helped me immensely in the second half of their vital Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be as they countered the postmodern incredulity towards meta narratives with a Brueggemann-esque reply that in this meta narrative, the leading character suffers and dies. It is not an oppressive totalizing narrative, but an upside down one and therein lies its power to stand against a “royal consciousness.” Tears are subversive! I bet ya didn’t see that coming?

As I know you know, this kind of “prophetic imagination” is not about predicting the future nor is it mostly about advocating for lefty social justice issues, but is a deeper matter. One of the top few books I’ve ever read, even though it took me a bit, and I’m still processing it all. Kanagy’s biography is right, it is, in many ways, his signature book and an apt description of Walter’s gift to the church.

Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks (Eerdmans) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I think this is one of the most under-appreciated books in Brueggemann’s huge library. It is, or so he says, the long-awaited sequel to The Prophetic Imagination.  Naturally, much revolves — like all the prophetic literature — around the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The prophets either were fighting the denial (the Hebrews assuming they were GOd’s people and nothing truly bad would happen to them) or they were in despair in exile, wondering if they could ever be loved by God again. Breaking through despair and denial takes a sturdy grasp of the really real, an honest and compelling practice of lament, and the prophetic gift of the hopeful imagination. After the 9/11 attacks, Brueggemann’s handy schema of the importance of 587 BC became palpable for many of us. This book is, literally, about having a prophetic imagination.

As Shane Claiborne, author and activist puts it:

Walter Brueggemann is a legend. . . . With typical Brueggemann brilliance, here he brings the prophets of old into the contemporary world and dares us to look through their eyes. If you love Walter, you’ll love this. If you’ve never heard of him, get ready to get hooked.

Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Fortress) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

I always counted this as the sequel to Hopeful Imagination and to this day it has the same cover design as did the original version of Prophetic Imagination. So it is a companion to that groundbreaking book (even if Reality Grief and Hope was later designated as the official follow up.) It is a great, serious read.

I tell customers that if they appreciated Prophetic Imagination then this is a natural next read, asking the same question: how did these prophets of hope and new energy have the audacity to conjure up such claims? Go back to Israel during the most sour years of captivity, when Israel had been decimated and the temple destroyed? Build a highway through the desert for God’s sake? Where did these kind of dreamers come from? I loved this taut, serious, study of the post-exilic prophets, among others.

This description I found somewhere is a bit clunky as formal prose but it explains the book well:

Professor Brueggemann here examines the literature and experience of an era in which Israel’s prophets faced the pastoral responsibility of helping people to enter into exile, to be in exile, and to depart out of exile. He addresses three major prophetic traditions: Jeremiah (the pathos of God), Ezekiel (the holiness of God), and 2 Isaiah (the newness of God). This literature is seen to contain the theological resources for handling both brokenness and surprise with freedom, courage, and imagination. Throughout, Brueggemann demonstrates how these resources offer vitality for ministry today.

Israel’s Praise: Doxology Against Idolatry and Ideology (Fortress) $26.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

It took me years to squeeze in various Brueggemann books; as much as I liked him, and as valuable as the books were (and as many tapes as I listened to) as I was still a novice. Somewhere, years ago, long after this 1988 book was released, I tackled it in earnest and I will never forget how the “lights came on” as I realized, through Brueggemann’s expert analysis, that some praises in the Bible were illegitimate; some were idolatrous, and sometimes what we casually cite as beautiful, sweet passages, are, in fact, in context, wicked. They gave voice to a priveledged royal consciousness that was aligned with the ruling empire — think of our own beloved patriotic songs (and Jimi Hendrix’s subversive deconstruction, as a black man, playing the “Star Spangled Banner” in an electric, fuzzy blues version at Woodstock, understood, by some, as protest and resistance.) Yes, praise is our duty and delight but what if praise is misguided? Or used against the idols? Can true doxology unmask and resist false ideologies?  What are the differences in the point and theology of the royal enthronement Psalms, say, the the liberative messages “from below” that come from, say, Exodus or the second part of Isaiah?

This is beautiful, heavy stuff on praise, yes, but also an astute critical assessment of how the Bible has more than one voice, and some parts, even praises, may be counter to the true God of redemption. Wow. Let this sink in.

Ichabod Toward Home: The Journey of God’s Glory (Eerdmans / Wipf & Stock) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

First done by Eerdmans, I am grateful that this publisher reissued it. It is a fascinating study of 1 Samuel 4 – 6. (He has deeper more systematic commentaries on some of the historical books.) In this dramatic section, we have the famous story of the ark of the covenant being captures by the Philistines (but finally returned to Israel.) God’s glory with them, gone, and returned. (Creation-fall-redemption? The three-day story of Christ alive, dead, and resurrected?) This ancient story has, Brueggemann shows, profound relevance for nurturing images of faith and for our social lives today.

In a fascinating gesture not uncommon in Brueggemann’s studies, he compares all this to the modern consumer three day weekend and shifts to how this rendering of God’s glory and the Ark narratives contrast (“contradicts”) the dominant narrative of our own culture “with our strident emphasis on self-indulgence, narcissism, and self-sufficiency.”

As the back cover puts it, “In looking anew at what this story reveals about God’s glory — or kabob, from which the name Ichabod derives — Brueggemann builds a powerful new theology of God’s sovereignty.”

Journey to the Common Good (WJK) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I had nearly worn out my cassettes of these brilliant lectures offered Regent College in British Columbia when the first edition of the book came out in 2010. Then, after the killing of George Floyd, Brueggemann wrote a new chapter, re-introducing the themes of these lectures that were offered there at the thoughtful evangelical graduate school in Vancouver. I would say this is one of the truly great Brueggemann books, bringing his years of serious study to fruition in lively lectures, provocative and deeply Biblical, pushing his listeners to greater faithful engagement.

In the lectures, as is the won’t of Regent, they had their own staff reply and respond, and Brueggemann, in the cassette tapes, replied to their good feedback. I wish that were in the book. Still, this is a masterpiece of a little book, three major lectures. Here are the titles of each chapter:

  • The Journey to the Common Good: Faith, Anxiety, and the Practice of Neighborliness
  • The Continuing Subversion of Alternative Possibility: From Sinai to Current Covenanting
  • From Vision to Imperative: The Work of Reconstructing

Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now (WJK) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I suppose this is not his deepest scholarship but it truly brings together themes he has written bout often and spoken of in workshops I’ve heard for decades. It is Walter that first pointed out to me (I’m dense, okay?) that in the two tellings of the 10 commandments and the mandate to keep sabbath, one is given with the reasoning because of the creation mandate: God rested on the seventh day, so we should, too, image bearers that we are. The other recording of the Ten Words comes, however, with a different prelude, offering a different rational, It is because “you” were once slaves in Egypt, at the whims of the Pharaohs brick quotas, the ever increasing workload. “You don’t have to live like that!” I have heard Walter insist, with such passion that I will never, ever forget it. Sabbath as Resistance draws on this subversive logic of God to resist the oppression of the overlords, the consumer culture, the capitalist systems, inciting that we can resist all of that with this simple Biblical command.

The new edition has a good study guide and it makes a great book club title, useful for adult Sunday school classes or Bible study groups. There are six good chapters, each with a different Biblical text. Nice.

Publishers Weekly called this “concise but significant.” Indeed.

A Glad Obedience: Why and What We Sing (WJK) $22.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

I can hardly say how great this is and I could go on and on naming groups that might read it together. The choir in a mainline church? The praise team at your mailing church? Your worship band at your evangelical mega-church? The book club at the senior center where surely folks still remember the old hymns? With a foreword by John Witvliet, you know it’s solid, good stuff.

The first part of this — four solid chapters — are under the rubric of “Why We Sing” and it his unique take on four different Pslams (104, 107, 105, and 106.)

Part Two is “What We Sing” and there are about 15 reflections — with his prophetic imagination attuned and his deep Biblical worldview functioning well — on various sorts of songs, hymns, and old gospel tunes. He loves this stuff and if you read his biography you’ll be reminded of how much a conventional church guy he really is. I love this book, and I think of the elders in my own family and my wife’s family who lived as much by the hymnbook as anything. There is nothing quite like this on the market and I do highly recommend it for those who want his deeper, evocative language in conversation with Psalms and hymns to recover what Luke Powery calls “our primary doxological vocation.”

A Mandate to Difference: An Invitation to the Contemporary Church (WJK) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00  This is a limited time, special sale price; new copies will come in at $30.00. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.

This is one of those often-missed Brueggemann books which is a collection of heady papers, challenging sermons, provocative messages, and inspiring lectures given — mostly circa 2005 — that in one way or another related to the life of the local church. These are serious lectures and papers (or typical Brueggemann-esque sermons) on ministry, urban mission, sabbath, congregational identity, conflict, worship, ministry. They hang together, more or less, and are all deep in the Biblical literature, explicating the extraordinary insights Brueggemann gets from pondering our primary texts.

As he reminds us so often, “our faith is not about pinning down moral certitude’s. It is, rather, about openness to wonder and aw in glad praise.” Can this habit and practice — doxology — allow us to “courageously defy political polarization, consumerism, even militarism” in our churches? Can our church’s push us into the world not with fearful anxiety but as peacemakers in the culture? This book seems to me to have been maybe 20 years ahead of its time. Get it today!

BOOKS OF PRAYERS

There are some new prayers and prayer-poems in the forthcoming Kanagy book and he says that maybe, years from now, the prayers will be that which will most last. I don’t know about that but they are stunning, provocative, useful. He famously prayed before each class that he taught, and I’ve experienced those prayers on rare occasions at events. These books are remarkable.

Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Water Brueggemann (Fortress) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

Prayers for a Privileged People (Abingdon Press) $25.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

 

Acting in the Wake: Prayers for Justice (WJK) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

Following into Risky Obedience: Prayers Along the Journey (WJK) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

 

BOOKS ABOUT PREACHING

Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation (Fortress) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.30

Written in the late 1980s, this remains a classic text in contemporary homiletics and is one of the top books Brueggemann recommends to understand his body of work. At least once he suggested it was his own favorite! He has always studied the rhetoric of the Bible utterances and it was natural for him to translate that into Biblically inspired poetic theories of “daring speech.”

Fascinating, eh? Did I mention it’s a classic?

 

The Word Militant: Preaching a Decentering Word (Fortress) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

He reminds us that preaching has always been “an audacious task” and invites preachers to takes seriously all that is at stake. Veteran thinker and preacher (and author of a handful of preaching texts) William Willimon says that “Brueggemann proves an emergency and shame an d accommodated culture-bound, tamed, therapeutic church with his fecund prophetic re-descriptions and creative transpositions that speak the biblical word into our time and place.” Yup. He even sounds like Brueggemann when he says that God is “ceaselessly interesting.”

Yes, the word has made preachers militant. Yet, yet, y et certainly not in the manner of the violent January 6th rioters. You understand that he doesn’t mean that. Read this to understand a better way.

Cadences of Home: Preaching Among Exiles (WJK) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I love this book and have read it more than once. The notion that we are exiles here in post-Christian, post-Christendom America is compelling and generative. Can he fuel our own imaginations to preach through honest speech in a way that leads us to radical ways of faithfulness in but not of the world? His reflections on how the church is in a situation somewhat comparable to the ancient Israelites captivity in Babylon is instructive, and his provocative call to preach like that is so is extraordinary.

 

The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word (Fortress) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

This handsome hardback gets serious about how we actually can preach an “emancipating word” and what the “practice” of preaching towards a Christian imagination looks like.

Listen to Sam Wells, a great storyteller, theologian, and liturgical preacher:

Walter Brueggemann’s early work on prophecy and imagination has become foundational for a whole generation of preachers and scholars. Here he returns to perhaps the most characteristic of all his myriad ventures, with unaltered vigor and razor-sharp edge. Prophets are not just provocateurs: they are those who profoundly love their people, deeply — Sam Wells, author of Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a Story to Live By

The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education (Fortress) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

Admittedly, this is not about homiletics, but it fits to list it here. Now in a revised and updated second edition (with an excellent new forward by Amy Erickson) The Creative Word seems to have comesout of that period when Brueggemann (after earning his ThD at Union in New York) felt called to get a PhD in educational theory. (He was, after all, a Dean and active teacher at a seminary and felt the need to learn more about pedagogy and Christian education.) This book is not about preaching, per say, but about nurture and formation, about pedagogy and education — think of the remarkably innovative new approaches developed decades ago from John Dewy to Paulo Freire. Yet, it really is yet another heavy study of the notion of the canon, the notions of the Word of the Lord, the structures within the Old Testament, and the way a high regard for the formation of these many texts together can shape a congregations worldview. In a way, it is asking how congregations equip their youth and how they assimilate new members.

As the back cover promises,

“Brueggemann here offers a framework for education in the structure of the Hebrew Bible canon, with its assertion of center and limit (in the Torah), of challenge (in the Prophets), and of inquiry (in the Writings).”

Alrightee, then. Whew.

THREE MAJOR SCHOLARLY WORKS

Old Testament Theology: An Introduction (Abingdon Press) $32.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60 (This is a limited time, special sale price; new copies will come in at $42.00. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.)

This is not as scholarly as it may seem and is readable to most educated adults. It’s a nice overview of the entire Old Testament and the theology that emerges from the various streams, threats, writers, genres, and literary voices in the unfolding history of ancient Israel.  It does intend to offer a model for doing theologizing with full engagement with the Biblical text.  The publisher describes it as Brueggemann portrays the key components in Israel’s encounter with God as recorded in the Hebrew Bible. Creation, election, Torah, and the divine hand in history–these and other theological high points appear both in their original historical context, and their ongoing relevance for contemporary Jewish and Christian understanding.

Terrence Fretheim, a prominent Old Testament scholar, now retired from Luther Seminary, says that it’s effect “is to present the reader with a remarkable tapestry that lingers long in both mind and heart.”

Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy  (Fortress) $35.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

Some might say that this is the most important of the many works of Dr. Walter Brueggemann, his lifetime achievement, but I wouldn’t be so sure. It is, doubtlessly, his most academic magnum opus and in our forty years of bookselling cannot think of a comparable theological title that garnered so much anticipation, attention, discussion and debate. Releasing in 1997 (and weighing in at 2 1/2 pounds and 778 pages) it is monumental and complex. The ideas are complex, the writing is technical, and while it still carries some of Brueggemann’s clever zeal and charm, it is dense and at times obtuse.

No lesser light in the field than Phyllis Trible (herself at Union in New York where Walter once studied) says “This monumental endeavor offers an abundance of ideas that will carry Old Testament theology well into the twenty-first century.” She observes that he “understands that the standard formulations of the past but yield to new speech for new situations.”

His friend and critic Terence Fretheim notes that Walter is one of the few biblical scholars who “commands the range of scholarship, the insights into texts, and the theological imagination to take up this task.”

We have an edition that has a searchable CD-Rom with it. It’s no longer available, but we’e got a few. Order now while we have that edition. Pretty cool.

An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible (Fortress) $27.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

This came out a decade after Theology of the Old Testament and offers a distillation, a summarizing and somewhat less technical reflection on his majestical major text.  It is less than 200 pages and promises to “distill a career’s worth of insights into the core message of the Hebrew Bible. The work presents the theologian at his most engaging, offering profound insights tailored especially for the beginning student.”

Well, I’ll admit, I still didn’t get into it. It is important, and a major overview of his deepest considerations about the “unsettled” God of the Bible. I’m intrigued by his claim that the Old Testament shows God with four “conversion partners” — Israel, the nations, creation itself, and the individual human being — who help God enact the divine purpose.

TWO FESTSCHRIFTS IN HONOR OF BRUEGGEMANN

God In the Fray: A Tribute To Walter Brueggemann (Fortress) $35.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

This is an extraordinary festschrifts, some scholarly articles offered up in honor of Walter and a few about him, including the (exceedingly friendly) critical pice by Terence Fretheim that Kanagy discusses in his forthcoming biography. It is a very illuminating piece, deep and complex but a must-read for those deeply interested in Brueggemann’s Theology in the Old Testament. You’ll find here some of the major mainline Biblical scholars who were peers (and some who were students) of Dr. B, from Norman Gottwald to Kathleen O’Connor to Phyllis Triple to Claus Westermann to Timothy Beal, among many others. There is a splendid response by Brueggemann himself, characteristically gracious and lucid.

Shaking Heaven and Earth Essays in Honor of Walter Brueggemann and Charles B. Cousar  (WJK) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20  This is a limited time, special sale price; new copies will come in at $34.00. Get them at this cheaper price, only while supplies last.

This is a double festschrift, offered when these two professors (now Emeritus) at Columbia Theological Seminary were retiring, Brueggemann, of course, a professor in Old Testament and Courser who was a legendary New Testament guy. They have worked together often and these essays are examples of the high-level scholarship their educational ministries nurtured. They both were closer readers of the Biblical text, both believed God truly shared the world, and that we respond in doxology and justice-seeking. The book is offered also for their “gifts of collegiality and friendship” “with deep love and gratitude.” I enjoy this kind of stuff and it is a fabulous collection of various sorts of scholars and preachers showing their work.

Of the two volumes, this one is a bit more readable, it seems, less technical, with pieces from the likes of Beverly Gavanta and Leander Keck and Carol Newsome. Solid, thoughtful, applicable stuff, all about transformative study and the role of these two wild and prophetic gentleman. Naturally, there is a god pice by Cousar and a lovely and touch reply by Brueggemann at the end.

And don’t forget yesterday’s posting where I reviewed the forthcoming authorized biography of Brueggemann by Elizabethtown (PA) sociologist Conrad Kanagy, entitled Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography. We are taking pre-orders and will send it out when it arrives in early-to-mid October. (Click back to yesterday’s BookNotes for my review and all the details.) It is priced at $24.99 but we have it at our BookNotes 20% OFF — $19.99.) We sure would appreciate it if you helped us spread the word. Thanks.

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Sadly, as of September 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

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PRE-ORDER: “Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography” by  Conrad L. Kanagy – 20% OFF

In this BookNotes I’m going to tell you about a book that we think you should pre-order, a book that is coming mid-October, and is one of the most interesting, unique, and I’d say important books of the year. Some of us have been wanting something like this for years now, and it is finally (almost) here. And it is truly extraordinary, very illuminating, a great read.

I’m inviting you to order the forthcoming biography of Walter Brueggemann penned by central Pennsylvanian, Conrad Kanagy. I’ve read the early version and I’m a huge fan. I’ll tell you a bit about it so you can determine if it is something you want (or something you want a bunch of to give away or to use for a book club.) It’s a good one.

After my review of the forthcoming bio, I’ll post tomorrow a big “reader’s guide” to some of the essential Brueggemann books and suggest a few of my own favs. He’s written up towards 100 books — some tour de force groundbreaking volumes, others nice collections of essays or sermons or prayers — so I can’t list them all. We have almost everything that is currently in print.

But first, the forthcoming biography. Then, tomorrow, the big list. You can find your way to the bottom of this column and click on that order link to enter credit card info. Thanks.

Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography  Conrad L. Kanagy (Fortress Press) $24.95  OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $19.96  not yet released – due mid-October 2024

Conrad L. Kanagy is a well-respected Mennonite pastor, leader, and author who is also a sociologist, and professor of sociology at Elizabethtown College here in central PA. That he discovered Brueggemann long after Brueggemann had been publishing gives him the enthusiasm of a recent convert to this giant in the field of Biblical studies. Kanagy did a deep dive into some of Brueggemann’s books (including on Jeremiah, which were seminal) and, of course, the classic — arguably one of the most important books in Biblical scholarship in the last 100 years — The Prophetic Imagination. He used Brueggemann’s book in his own work evaluating various concerns in his own denomination and realized some resonance; Brueggemann, undisputedly a leader in the guild of Biblical scholarship, is, at heart, what we used to call a churchman. He loves the local church and spent a career training pastors. He did this, though, as Kanagy’s forthcoming biography shows, by reading widely across the disciplines, but especially in the social sciences. He was a sociology major in college, before going to Eden Seminary in the 1950s. Kanagy, in his discovery, was coming to know a soul mate.

As Kanagy tells it in this fabulously readable, even artfully crafted, narrative, he understood that Brueggemann was influential in the guild; his remarkable gift and passion was for drawing critical scholars away from dry speculations and tediously detailed literary studies to energetic and generously interpretive exegesis for the sake of hearing the voice of the God behind the Biblical text. He has brought this nearly evangelical passion to his field, offering what I might cheaply call a third way between near dismissal of the text in liberal camps and fundamentalist literalism on the other hand. Besides exceedingly academic work offering this fresh articulation for Biblical studies in the guild, Brueggemann has also been powerfully influential in the mainline church (and, in greater or lesser degrees) within the evangelical movement as well. Both camps have had their beefs with him, and yet he is the closest thing to a Old Testament Biblical studies rock star we’ve got, only somewhat analogous, I’d say, to N.T. Wright in the New Testament world.

Kanagy wanted to know this important, if controversial, figure and determined to do a series of interviews (mostly over Zoom) to let Walter tell his story. This “theological biography” is the thrilling result.

Again, there were a few things that seemed to draw Kanagy to this project, besides his own genuine appreciation for the books and articles by Brueggemann and Walter obviously being  influenced by sociologists, from Emile Durkheim to Karl Marx to Peter Berger.

As the story develops we see that Brueggemann made some hard (if, in retrospect, understandable) choices of not being a pure academician, not working solely in the high-octane world of the theological academy, but by teaching in seminaries designed to serve those heading into the ministry. (We learn that at one point, mid-career, Walter turned down a prestigious job offer to teach at a fancy-pants divinity school.) Walter’s famously tireless commitment to the church, shown in his doing workshops for congregations, preaching around, for serving many denominations, was apparently appealing to the Mennonite Kanagy. Had Walter just been another esteemed but arcane Biblical scholar with a few heady books under his belt my sense is that he would not be as well known or as well loved as he is. Kanagy’s book portrays Brueggemann as a church guy, who — despite some famous leadership in scholarly circles, seminal lectures known the world over, and controversies caused at the Society for Biblical Literature, say — mostly taught preachers to wrestle with the Bible with and for their congregations.

(I have been to events with Brueggemann and I could tell some lovely stories of his passion and zeal and humor and special attention given to me, the lowly guest bookseller at congregational gigs or denominational retreats. I’ve been with him at a Bread for the World banquet and at more than one central PA church. I’ve been with him as he lectured with UCC clergy, with Epsiopalian congregants, with Presbyterian folk. The first time I heard him in the early 1980s I had snuck into the State Pastor’s Conference with a pastor friend’s name tag; Moltmann was there, too, but Brueggemann blew me away. I almost had those cassette tapes memorized. Always he is passionate about the Word of God but aware of the world of mainline church life as he would speak to small groups of working pastors or interested lay folk. I always came away struck by how someone of such scholarly influence and prestige would show up in Harrisburg or Lancaster or a bland Philly suburb. His service to God’s people is as striking as it is extraordinary.)

Yet, he served as President of the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) and has friends (and a few critics) within the scholarly guild. By knowing the critical theories so well (and assuming what some evangelicals might think is too much from that liberal tradition) and being grounded in the best of mainline/ecumenical studies of the last century — he studied at Union with the famous James Muilenburg and was profoundly influenced by Von Rad and Brevard Childs and Norman Gottwald and knows everybody doing critical scholarship — he had a certain gravitas among those doing that sort of work, thereby (as I might put it) earning the right to be heard. With a near photographic memory and massive capacity for reading the critical literature, he could call those in that tradition to repent of Enlightenment-based sorts of rationality, epistemologies of hubris and certainty, and to implore them to move towards the realities of a faith-based submission to the deepest questions offered by the Biblical texts. Again, that he would draw on the likes of Paul Ricoeur, was deft and impressive.

Kanagy comes back to this often, this both/and capacity of Brueggemann to speak the language of the most modernist scholar (and, eventually, the postmodernist ones, too) even as he pushed through their dead-ends and cul-de-sacs and invited them to a more robust, wholistic, lived, encounter with the God behind the texts. Kanagy makes much of this and it brought, at least to this reader, more sympathy and gratitude for the price Brueggemann has paid within the scholarly community of mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish scholars. Kanagy reports a few examples of this tension, and the tension it brought; for instance, he describes in detail a Christian Century review of three needlessly critical/arcane commentaries on Jeremiah that Brueggemann lambasted, indicating the uselessness of such hermeneutical dead-ends.

He also cites — fair enough — a very critical speech given (which was included in a chapter in God in the Fray, a festschrift in Brueggemann’s honor) by Walter’s friend Terry Fretheim, who took Walter to task for failing in any number of scholarly details and holding too many theological ambiguities. Later, Brueggemann spoke highly of Fretheim as their theological disagreements (and Fretheim’s public critique) were less important than their friendship and mutual respect. Kanagy’s Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination is loaded with this kind of fascinating stuff about his life and the balancing of aspects of his thinking and his ministry, his ever-evolving scholarly work and his public offerings.

Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination not only shows in passionate detail some of the battles of Brueggemann’s career as Bible scholar to the churches, but how he routinely pushed towards a generative and socially disruptive vision, the “prophetic imagination” of that seminal 1978 book. (And, who knew that somehow the editors who helped name that stunning work drew on a line from Flannery O’Connor?) This radical vision of how the prophets came to imagine that things could be otherwise — filled with pathos and daring to confront the cultural accommodation of God’s people (whether Moses or Jeremiah or Jesus) — was, in so many ways, imparted, nearly imputed, by Brueggemann to his students and listeners. It is no surprise that his poetic passion for imagining new social policy that emerges from the texts of Scripture — and, man, Brueggemann shows that nearly any passage has public implications! — ends up influencing Christian peace and justice activists in the streets; there is a section in Kanagy’s book about Walter’s many articles published in Sojourners and about his friendship with Jim Wallis.

Back when I was much younger and a bit more impudent, I once gently chided Walter for not getting arrested in gestures of civil disobedience; it seems that his Biblical and prophetic directives sure would have compelled that kind of public resistance. But, still, his courage and assistance to those on the picket line, in the soup kitchens and free medical clinics and advocating for immigrants and others marginalized by church and state has been consistent and healing ballast for those in the struggle. I wish Kanagy might have explored some of the public stuff Brueggemann did do, speaking at protests or preaching on the streets or joining those doing mission projects. There is no reference to friendship with Dan or Phil Berrigan, say, although Walter appreciated their mutual mentor, Abraham Heschel.

The book does explore, and Kanagy does speak, however, about another aspect of Brueggemann’s life which, as a biographer, he had to investigate; let’s give it that generic name of his background; his family of origin. There are no awful stories there, other than the impact of Walter having grown up rural and poor, with a relatively uneducated father who became an innovative and respected small town pastor. (Respected by some, that is; there is a terrible story of a snooty Missouri Synod Herr Doktor pastor who would not even shake Brueggemann’s father’s hand, humiliating him deeply.) Walter’s mother was demanding and those who have heard Brueggemann speak candidly, as he does in workshops and retreats, may have heard him speak of having been in therapy some of his adult life. He has studied Freud and others, trying to figure out the vexed relationship with his loving, good, German family. Kanagy is  never inappropriate and there are no hidden secrets revealed, but a few key moments in his upbringing come up, over and over, actually. It’s revealing, instructive, and, again, garners more sympathy for Walter as he admits to ongoing puzzlement about his family of origin and the pietism of his immigrant denomination and the faith in which he was brought up.

Speaking of which, he was, as most know, part of a stream of gentle, German Reformed Calvinists that merged with another such tributary, who then merged with New England congregationalists to form the United Church of Christ (UCC.) I wish Kanagy might have mentioned a bit more about this historic merger and if Brueggemann was involved; his first books were on the UCC press, I believe, including his famous Living Into a Vision which was reissued years later as Peace.) Walter’s first seminary job — he was a farm hand as a kid — was at his father’s old seminary, Eden, founded in 1850 near Saint Louis, which, years before Walter arrived, had one of the Niehbur brothers as dean (and the other on the Board.) Brueggemann’s own interest in weaving together insights from sociology with Biblical theology was affirmed there, even as he became a young dean, himself, appreciated greatly by nearly everyone there.

And so, Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography is just that — a personal biography, yes, but with a special view to Brueggemann’s ongoing theological development, in light of his speciality, the exegesis of the texts of the Bible which he knows so well. (To be clear, he is not trained officially in theology proper, but is a Bible scholar, not a theologian as such.) By speaking in such lively terms about the possibility of knowing the God of the Bible and actually caring about communities of faith that pray and sing hymns and baptize babies and serve the poor and do what ordinary churches do, he lives his life at the intersection of Biblical studies and congregational life.

As an older gentleman, now, (he was born in 1933 so you do the math) his conversations with Kanagy were winsome and wistful, energetic at times, honest, even painful. But, mostly, the interviews reflect on Brueggemann’s own sense of the call to study and grapple with and proclaim the good news of God’s promised regime change, the reign of God breaking into human history, most clearly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. His lifetime spent upsetting the arcane, critical worlds of (nearly) unbelieving Biblical scholarship as well as the co-opted, captive churches (left, right, or center), made for a hard but dramatic life. Kanagy raises so much, reports back from the interviews with elan and appreciation, and sometimes digresses to show how Brueggemann connects the dots between the Bible and our emerging postmodern times.

Kanagy’s voice is the present one in the book, but the topic comes alive. Those who have met Brueggemann will appreciate this so much, hearing him in these stories and reflections and those who have not will come to a better appreciation of the man and his work.

One other little part of the book that makes it especially enjoyable: Kanagy brings in four or five “conversation partners” as he tells how they were profoundly influenced by Walter’s teaching, friendship, and guidance. New hope was found, new directions discerned, and younger scholars and pastors tell of their own encounters with Brueggemann as teacher and mentor. One was literally suicidal and reading Brueggemann’s The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (the first book I ever read of his in maybe 1980) and then hearing him preach saved his life!

A few of these names will be known by those who follow Brueggemann’s publishing career as they have gone on to write books with him, such as Clover Reuter Beal, who published a book called An On-Going Imagination: Conversations About Scripture, Faith, and the Thickness of Relationships (WJK; $18.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40) and Carolyn Sharp, who teaches a course at Yale Divinity School on Brueggemann, who has given us Living Countertestimony: Conversations with Walter Brueggemann (WJK; $20.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $1`6.00) as well as her excellent guide to Brueggemann’s work, Disruptive Grace: Reflections on God, Scripture, and the Church which, although mostly an anthology of Brueggemann’s best work up to that time, was curated and introduced helpfully by Sharp. (Fortress; $35.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00.) These fine folks who discovered Walter’s influence as young scholars, pastors, or activists, and their testimony about his generative role in their lives, is fascinating.

I think Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination is a book that will be enjoyed by anyone who has appreciated his work and, I think, will be important for those who are seriously engaging with his core theories and visions. If you hunger to know more about how the Bible relates to modern life, this isn’t a programmatic guide, but it is a glimpse to the most important Biblical scholar doing that kind work yet today.

We very highly recommend this fascinating biography to those serious about studying Biblical texts, their rhetoric, and their subsequent evocative power to shape our imaginations or to those who just want to learn about the life, background, passions, and career of this exceptionally popular Christian scholar.

Here we see biblical scholarship embedded in a contemporary life of struggle, conviction, commitment, and prayer. For preachers, teachers, scholars, readers who cannot leave the Bible alone because God won’t leave them alone, this book helps us make sense of our experience and our sense of what is still possible with God. — Ellen F. Davis,  Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School, author of Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship, and Ministry

Walter Brueggemann is the clearest biblical prophet of our time. He is not just a magnificent scholar of the prophets or their best theological interpreter, but Brueggemann himself is a prophet to and for our troublesome days. Walter would be the first to deny such accolades. And this is why Conrad Kanagy’s theological biography is so needed. Kanagy, in rich and critical detail, documents what Brueggemann has seen and heard, studied and learned, reflected upon and then preached and written. This book reveals what it looks like to speak the Word of God’s truth to power in the face of all our ideological manifestations of falsehood. As with the prophets, justice is his measure and the marginalized are his focus. Yet, as Kanagy shows, Walter is a kind man who walks humbly with his God. –Jim Wallis,  founding editor, Sojourners, Director of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, author of Christ in Crisis? Reclaiming Jesus in a Time of Fear, Hate, and Violence

I can think of no biblical scholar more worthy of a biography than Walter Brueggemann, the most gifted, insightful, and prolific scholar the field of Old Testament studies has ever seen. Conrad Kanagy has provided us with just that in a volume that is equal parts biography of Brueggemann, an account of his career, and reflection on his breakthrough book, The Prophetic Imagination — all written in an engaging, lively style. Kanagy’s treatment consistently delivers profound insights into all three of these things (and their remarkable interrelations) and is especially noteworthy in its attention to Brueggemann’s early years: how formative his family of origin, his upbringing, and his pre-professorial days were to all that followed. Even if you know Walter and his work well — or just think you do — be prepared to learn an immense amount in this book, which left me yet again awed and inspired by one whom I deem no less than a modern-day prophet. — Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament; Professor of Law, Duke University, author Lies My Preacher Told Me: An Honest Look at the Old Testament

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TO PLACE AN ORDER 

PLEASE READ, THEN SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK ON THE “ORDER HERE” LINK BELOW.

It is helpful if you tell us how you want us to ship your orders.And if you are doing a pre-order, tell us if you want us to hold other books until the pre-order comes, or send some now, and others later… we’re eager to serve you in a way that you prefer.

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

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

  • United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.12; 2 lbs would be $4.87. This is the cheapest method available.
  • United States Postal Service has another, quicker option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.50, if it fits in a flat-rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.20. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
  • UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. Sometimes they are cheaper that Priority. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know.

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Sadly, as of September 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

We will keep you posted about our future plans… we are eager to reopen.

We are doing our curb-side and back yard customer service and can show any number of items to you if you call us from our back parking lot. It’s sort of fun, actually. We are eager to serve and grateful for your patience as we all work to mitigate the pandemic. We are very happy to help, so if you are in the area, do stop by. We love to see friends and customers.

We’re happy to ship books anywhere. 

We are here 10:00 – 6:00 EST /  Monday – Saturday. Closed on Sunday.

12 new books and the chance to PRE-ORDER “The Just Kitchen” (Weston & Woofenden) – 20% OFF

Welcome to another weekly BookNotes, the newsletter of Hearts & Minds, a small-town bookstore (where we are still struggling with Covid-safety questions and doing backyard customer service) here in south-central PA. We’re in our 40th year and for a long while we’ve been sending out these book reviews, announcing just some of the many books we carry. All the old BookNotes are all archived at our website.

Sometimes we curate themed reviews, listing recent books that more or less fit a topic. For instance last week we did a set of mostly short books, mostly for pastors who might need some refreshment; here we did one on recent books about racial justice; here is a longer review of More Than Things and some other books that fit with the heavy book on the theological /philosophical social ethic of personalism. Here’s one we did on books about nature writing, creation-care and eco-theology.  I hope you saw this one on books on masculinity and what some call “toxic masculinity.” And those are just from the last few months.

Often, though, we just tell about a batch of new books that have arrived here that we are hoping to mail out to our faithful online customers. Here’s one of those sorts of catch-all BookNotes, naming a dozen books that are, mostly, quite new, the sorts of thoughtful stuff we thought many of our readers might care about. ALL ARE 20% OFF.

FIRST though, there’s an invite for a very special pre-order that we’re eager to tell you about. You can pre-order anything, anytime, but this one — The Just Kitchen: Invitations to Sustainability, Cooking, Connection, and Celebration by Derrick Weston & Anna Woofenden is fantastic and it’s coming soon. Read on!

Read down to the very end of the column so you see all twelve, and then simply click on that link at the bottom to place an order. Or click the one that says “inquire” if you have questions about any of these — or anything else. As a full-service bookstore, we’re happy to help.

LET’S START WITH THIS VERY SPECIAL PRE-ORDER OPTION

The Just Kitchen: Invitations to Sustainability, Cooking, Connection, and Celebration Derrick Weston & Anna Woofenden (Broadleaf Books) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE 20% off = $23.99 / PREORDER NOW

NOT YET RELEASEDdue October 10, 2023

Derrick is an old Pittsburgh Presbyterian, urban ministry guy, and now a food and faith podcaster and gardening activist in Baltimore. His official bio says that he manages the Rockrose City Farm on Baltimore’s east side, growing food for ministries that distribute to those who are food insecure. A documentary filmmaker, producer, and former Presbyterian minister, Derrick is a firm believer in using one’s voice and the media to inspire and enact social change. Indeed!

You may know of Anna, who wrote a book we adored and that I wrote about briefly a time or two here at BookNotes, This Is God’s Table: Finding Church Beyond the Walls. That great memoir was about her essentially creating a fresh expression of the inclusive church by inviting folks to urban gardening. Her bio notes that she remains the pastor of both The Garden Church and Feed and Be Fed Farm in San Pedro, California. She is said to be “passionate about spirituality, justice, food, the earth, beauty, compassion, and community.” She is now based in Northampton, Massachusetts.

This forthcoming book is a delight. Slightly oversized like a good cookbook (it does have recipes!) it is, as one Colorado reviewer put it, “a heart-warming, soul-satisfying, and salivating meditation on the spiritual dimension of foodways.”

As you might guess if you follow any of this sort of writing at all, there’s a lovely endorsement by the important leader in the field, Nate Stucky, who directs Princeton Seminary’s “Farminary.” Stucky says:

Like a carefully and lovingly prepared meal, Derrick Weston and Anna Woofendon have given a rich and generous gift in Just Kitchen. With honesty, humility, and great generosity of spirit, Derrick and Anna echo a truth I learned from the keepers of the kitchen in my own family–there’s more going on in the kitchen than we usually realize. Yes, it can be a complicated and difficult space, but it can also be a space of interaction, preparation, transformation, reflection, healing, community, mutuality, celebration, and hope. For anyone who has longed for a guide to a more meaningful relationship with the kitchen, Derrick and Anna graciously show the way–recipes included.

Just Kitchen is one of our most anticipated books of the fall. There are short, smart pieces scattered throughout it with rich sidebars, interviews, and inserts. There are stories galore, reflections, meditations, poems and recipes. It is both serious and inviting, profound and friendly. Hooray. We expect it a bit early and hope to send ‘em out in early October.

A DOZEN NEW BOOKS ON A VARIETY OF TOPICS — ALL 20% OFF

Pastor, Jesus Is Enough: Hope for the Weary, the Burned Out, and the Broken Jeremy Writebol (Lexham Press) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I almost listed this in the previous BookNotes which highlighted some quick reads for pastors that may feel a bit demoralized. I wanted to call it Pastor, Jesus Is Enough, Already, but that was a bit too whimsical for the content.I suppose one reason I didn’t cite this one in that bunch for pastors is that it is intense. Honest. Complex. Biblically engaged. Really real, even raw, but deeply, profoundly gospel-based and Christ-centered. It’s strong, but not simple or cheery.

Writebol is a pastor of a big church and executive director of a publishing venture called Gospel-Centered Discipleship. They are impeccably about Christ and his grace, missional, evangelical. Writebol fits the perfect pastor mold, modeling solid doctrine and Biblically-oriented faith, caring and Christ-like. But yet. But yet. He knows something can go wrong — deeply wrong. And these days, even in his own ministry, things can take a bad turn.

Not only are pastors (perhaps now more than ever) discouraged and hurting, but some (get this) are more in love with their ministry than they are with their Lord. Some may serve the Kingdom, but they ignore the King.  Maybe that is part of what sets this book apart, as it explores those who are so dedicated and who try to be so “more than enough” that they don’t feel like they even need God. Mainline pastors like Eugene Peterson wrote about this decades ago, this love for the organized religious delivery system (church, in that view) that is disconnected to a real, live, daily walk of faith.

Another thing that really sets apart Pastor, Jesus Is Enough is the format, his way into this heavy topic. He explores the famous seven letters that Jesus (through John) wrote to the cities in Revelation 2 – 3. You know some of them, at least… it’s a good approach, an uncommon book on these seven words. Jeremy discovers, alas, that these are not just to the churches (each with a unique foible or sin) but to pastors of those churches. In each, the leaders (whether tired or hurting, drifting or sinfully straying) are reminded of Christ’s sufficiency. These are warnings but also promises. They are, Writebol tells us, “words of life.” It’s a very good book.

Hopeful Lament: Tending Our Grief Through Spiritual Practices Terra McDaniel (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

Well, I love to say often how much I trust InterVarsity Press and how much I appreciate their eye for good writing, thoughtful, evangelical-ish authors, solid authors of mature faith, addressing the reading world with verve. This book sure seems to be quintessential — for thoughtful readers, but not academic, for those wanting serious reading, but work that is down to earth, practical, useful.

And this topic — oh my, Terra McDaniel is surely not the first to advise those in grief towards classic contemplative disciplines, but this may be the first major book about this tool. She insists that we need to rediscover the lost practice of lament, which can help us to process personal and communal mourning. She calls it “tending” our grief. I’ve just begun this and love it already.

As it says on the back, “Hopeful Lament makes space for the powerful act of crying out before a loving God and offers provoking reflection questions, embodied practices, and includes applications for families with children.” This is designed to help us all better learn to journey gently through suffering, discerning how it can be transformative.

Lament and sadness go together, but they are not the same thing. Terra McDaniel poignantly shows how Christian lament is about disciplined sadness, holy prayer, formative practices, and believing in the possibility of hope without rushing to joy prematurely, all because of Christ. We will all grieve, there is a way to learn to grieve well, and this is a faithful guide and companion. — Nijay K. Gupta, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary and author of Tell Her Story

In Thought, Word, and Seed: Reckonings from a Midwest Farm Tiffany Eberle Kriner (Eerdmans) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

It’s a standard question in author interviews: have there been books that you’ve purchased just because of the cover. Ha! Book lovers everywhere know the answer to that. Of course. And we do it here, taking on a stack of inventory, convinced that a classy cover will necessarily mean classy writing. Of course, that’s dicey and sometimes not at all the case. But it often rings true as sparkling prose inspires a designer to do her best, finding cover art that captures the tone of the book itself. That certainly is the case with the cleverly titled In Thought, Word and Seed.

The woodcut art on the cover, by the way, is from 1918, by Dutch artists Julie de Graag.

Cover aside, this is a brilliantly crafted collection of lyrical essays, what Phil Christman (of the seriously acclaimed Midwest Futures) called a “beautifully written book.” He continues, saying that it “turns the cliches of an evangelical childhood into a robust adult faith, the fragments of American history into a story of repentance and renewal, and a beat-up bit of land into a life-giving farm.” Okay, then.

In the excellently done, thoughtful introductory foreword by Thomas Gardner, Gardner calls these pieces, so much about literature and land, “spiritual improvisations.” Another writer said In Thought, Word, and Seed offered “smorgasbord of genres.” It is tasty, but somewhat demanding. These are rich, serious essays, full of ruminations on writing and literature, simply and compellingly entitled Field, Grass, Forest, Clearing and Wattle. An epilogue ends with “Christ Have Mercy.”

My friend Brian Walsh, co-author of Romans Disarmed and Beyond Homelessness has a lovely blurb. Claude Atcho (of Reading Black Books) says it is “genuinely remarkable and gloriously undefinable.” Beth Felker Jones notes the shades of Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Julian of Norwich. She assures us it has a voice all its own and she says that voice is “luminous. Audacious. Holy.”

Ever buy a book for the cover and the amazingly wise and superlative blurbs by people you trust?

Trust me, this is a lovely, thoughtful, book, complicated and not easy to describe, even though the random essays weave together and developing into a memoir of a bookish couple (she is a English prof at Wheaton who has written a scholarly classic offering a “eschatology of reading”) who also care about home and place and land. Their northern Illinois “Root and Sky Farm” farm is quite a rugged place. Her ruminations are intelligent and beautiful.  Very highly recommended.

The Liberating Arts: Why We Need Liberal Arts Education edits by Jeffrey Bilbro, Jessica Hooten Wilson & David Henreckson (Plough Publishing) $19.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.96

In the past generation there was (thanks be to God) somewhat of a renaissance of the notion of distinctively Christian learning. There has been much worldviewish scholarship and Biblically-grounded social initiatives, thoughtful engagement with the world in fresh, dynamic, and uniquely Christian ways. We have tried to underscore and amplify this kind of deeply Christian orientation that yields fruitful Kingdom insight for learning and life (across the college curriculum and in all zones of professional and public life.) Three cheers for the many good books on faith and life, worship and work, prayer and politics, spirituality and science, even for what philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd called “the inner reformation of all the sciences.”

Many of the best such books, (some written years ago, now) that called for a new energy for integrating faith and scholarship were inspired by a more-or-less Reformed world and life view; some drew on the beloved quotes of public theologian Abraham Kuyper (you know, the “every square inch” guy.) If Christ is indeed claiming “every square inch” of creation, then we need those who consider each and every square inch, who can help us along the journey, in if not of the world.

Enter this new book by a mostly younger generation of scholars and practitioners, lovers of books and of life-long learning, many who are not rooted in the Dutch reformational vision of Kuyper et al. Some of the many good writers here may be in that circle of influence but most are not, or so it seems. This is, in the best sense, a delightfully ecumenical book.  From Peter Mommsen (of the Bruderhof) to Rachel Griffins (from Spring Arbor University), from David Hsu (who has worked in industry and is now in the engineering department at Wheaton) to L. Gregory Jones (formerly of Duke, now President of Belmont), these are all leaders from mostly other Christian faith traditions, each saying why the liberal arts still matter.

It is just thrilling to read pieces by the likes of Emily Auerback who founded the Odyssey Project and co-hosts University of the Air on Wisconsin Public Radio, and Zena Hitz, of St John’s College in Annapolis (and author of Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures ofd An Intellectual Life) and the brilliant critic and scholar Jonathan Tran of Baylor. There are a few classical education advocates, Steve Prince, a black visual artists, now at William and Mary, and Columbia University medical ethics doctor Lydia Dugdale who wrote the widely-acclaimed Lost Art of Dying. It didn’t surprise me to see here the eloquent Anne Snyder, the editor of Comment and host of the Whole Person Revolution podcast.

This new cohort of educators and public thinkers are here “reimagining and re-articulating what a liberal arts education is for and what it might look like in today’s world.”  I like how many of them are showing how all of this plays out in spaces outside of the typical college classroom. Whether you are connected to institutions of higher learning or not, The Liberating Arts is a treasure trove.

As the back cover puts it:

“In each chapter, dispatches from innovators desire concerned ways this is being put into practice, often outside the academy, showing that the liberals arts are not only viable today, but vital to our future.”

Not every book on a mostly Anabaptist, indie-press publishing house gets a rave review in Harper’s Magazine. As Jon Baskin notes, this book is “lucid and inspiring” and that it shows how the liberals arts “remind us that nothing is more fundamental to preparing citizens to live in a pluralistic society.”

Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies David P. Gushee (Eerdmans) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

This was another one of these books that we have long been awaiting — I had the privilege of getting an advanced copy and was taken in by its study of jurisprudence and political history — and while I thought of grouping it with a forthcoming BookNotes column on books about the rise of white Christian nationalism and the “red state Christian” phenomenon of those who have fallen for the MAGA idolatry, I just couldn’t wait. We’ll list this with others, later — there are a lot, these days — but, for now, it’s good to announce any new David Gushee book that arrives, especially one that is so judicious. Yes, he is sure that the American republic, and her democratic ways, is in danger. There are authoritarians who are, too often, weirdly promoted by a reactionary sort of Christianity. And this book cautiously, carefully, teaches about what ideologies are behind some of the global trends towards anti-democratic and authoritarian regimes.

Gushee was once a young evangelical being tutored by the best in public theology — from Ron Sider to James Skillen to Glen Stassen and informed by important scholarship such as that by Michael Walzer — and in those years he was often in conversation with politically conservative faith leaders (think of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, say) so you could reasonably say he has been at this a long time. The struggle against bad Christian sorts of nationalisms has been in the wind for as long as Gushee has been a Christian and this, now, is his clear-headed manifesto for what Hak Joon Lee of Fuller Theological Seminary calls “a timely, eloquent, and compelling apologetic for democracy.”

Two things you might want to know: first, Gushee shows that our political chaos and the rise of religiously-motivated authoritarians is not merely a US phenomenon; he has a chapter each on the recent drift towards anti-democratic impulses in Poland, in Orban’s Hungary, and in Bolsanaro’s Brazil. You will learn much, I bet, and it will be alarming, even if the prose is sober. Wisely, too, David frames these three chapters with two historic explorations (“Reactionary Politics in France, 1870 – 1944” and “The Politics of Cultural Despair in Germany, 1853 – 1933.”) He admits that every chapter here is short and the material succinct. But it is strong and illuminating and offers details that are good to know, case studies to help us see more clearly the dangers of “authoritarian reactionary Christianity” in our current Trump-era United States.

David helpfully looks that three Christian traditions whose robust public theologies offer pro-democracy undergirding, traditions from which we can learn as we deepen our political mindfulness and civic habits of firming up our Republic. He has a chapter each (and a big ‘ol chart) on The Baptist Democratic Tradition, the Black Christian Democratic Tradition, and Covenantal Christian Political Ethics.

(Please remember here that he is not necessarily advocating for the Democratic Party, as such, but is writing about the broader traditions that affirm democracy.)

This carefully researched book is accesible but should be interesting for scholars and specialists. There are discussion questions for groups serious enough to want to read it together, something I’d highly recommend. We indeed live, as John Adams put it, in “serious times.” This thoughtful, judicious work is a major contribution towards revitalized and faithful Christianly-shaped, pro-democracy renewal.

Just listen to these wise promotional endorsements by important public scholars:

David Gushee has written that rare book that combines reader-friendliness, moral clarity, and political detail. A stellar accomplishment much needed today. Gushee sets America’s sociopolitical rifts in context and guides the reader to big-picture thinking about what’s at stake in the world today, and he does it in a way that is both elegant and heartfelt. Read it and give it to everyone you know.  — Marcia Pally, author of White Evangelicals and Right-Wing Populism: How Did We Get Here?

Unflinching in his analysis, David Gushee traces the sobering history of Christianity’s all too frequent complicity in authoritarian rule. Yet Gushee also shows how Christians have within their faith the tools to restore democracy at this critical juncture. Reminding readers that democracy must be fought for, Gushee equips the American church for this battle. Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies is an immensely important book for our present moment. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Calvin University, author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

This is an important book. It asks about the ways in which Christians may favor autocratic politics over democracy and does not shy away from difficulties. It analyses how authoritarian regimes can legitimate their power by playing into religious sentiments. Thus, it gives a theological foundation to the need for political awareness within Christian circles. — Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics –  And Where Do We Go From Here Kaitlyn Schiess (Brazos Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Well, if the vibrant and semi-scholarly Gushee book, above, inviting us to resist an alt-right Christian takeover of our public institutions doesn’t quite grab you, this one, also about faith and politics and the Bible, might suit better for you. (Or, ideally, get ‘em both!)

Kaitlyn Schiess, with a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary, is now working on a PhD at Duke, and wrote one of the very best introductory books on why people of faith should be careful about forming political attitudes and civic habits. In her groundbreaking The Liturgy of Politics, she invited us to ponder how we are formed, how our virtues and instincts and public views develop (and from what sources.) Not wanting to be beholden to any worldly ideology right or left, she calls for us to be truly Biblical as we evaluate the many competing political ideologies influential in today’s public debates. If that book showed her to be wise beyond her years (as James Skillen put it in his review), this book steps back a bit and reflects on how use (and, often, misuse) of the Bible has always been a part of the American civic discourse.

The Ballot and the Bible is good history, a book that has been recommended by folks as diverse as history-writers Jemar Tisby (The Color of Compromise) and Karen Swallow Prior (The Evangelical Imagination) and politico Michael Wear. Michael (the president and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life) and author of the forthcoming The Spirit of Our Politics, says it offers “keen, level-headed, and perceptive insights” into the use of Scriptures in our political life.

She starts the book with the puritan Biblical interpretations during the colonial years, has a good chapter on Romans 15 and American identity, a bit on the Bible “through slave-holding spectacles” during the Civil War era, and moves from the social gospel (and the unique hermeneutics of that movement) into the various views of Scripture on both sides of the civil rights struggle. She has a good chapter on the conservative movement of Bush and Reagan who believed in “the magic of the market” and had a “small government” hermeneutic even as another chapter explored the notions of Biblical eschatology during the cold war. (That chapters offered a clever nod to Hal Lindsey by calling it “The Late Great United States.”)

On she goes, comparing and contrasting the use of the Bible by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and one chapter on Donal Trump’s appeal to evangelicals.  The closing chapter is called “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city” which offers a wise reflection on “Jeremiah 20 and Political Theology.”  Throughout the book she offers this dual concern, both the peril and the promise (as she calls it) of Biblical references in political life.

The Bible Explained: A College Student’s Guide to Understanding Their Faith Cyril Chavis Jr. (Hides Publishing)  $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I bet you don’t know this book. And you should, really. If you care for college students at all, or if you work in campus ministry, this great new title could be a real resource for your work.

Time or space does not allow me to describe all the wit and clever writing in The Bible Explained nor can I say much about what makes it useful, other than the obvious. And that includes three main features.

Firstly this is designed for black college students. The author is himself in campus ministry at Howard University, and that means it is, itself, an extraordinary resource, emerging as it does from his thoughtful work among the intellectually curious (and sometimes skeptical) African American students there. The author is one of the handful of black campus works for the PCA-related Reformed University Fellowship. He knows his way around black youth culture. (His own seminary degree is from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.) Dig that.

Secondly, this is a book that wisely invites seekers into the broad narrative of Scripture. Sure, there is plenty of stuff about interpreting given texts, rules of the road for reading the Bible, explanations of genre and context. But helping people come to a deeper, appropriate understanding of God’s Word is offered with a combo of common-sense reading strategies and classic, basic hermeneutical insights, with this big picture vision of the scope of the story, the whole unfolding drama of God’s mighty acts and redemption promised and fulfilled.

Thirdly, although it is a complex and healthy conversation to have, I’ll say that it is clear that the author is himself not only good Bible teacher who wants to help young adults discover the Scriptures for themselves, but he is an evangelist, wanting people to meet the God behind the story, the Christ who is the star of the story, and Spirit who directed the writing and keeps the sacred story alive even now.

God is “more glorious and enjoyable than you ever knew,” Chavis promises, with a hint of the famous answer from the Westminster Catechism, which he surely knows. Yet, he invites young adults into this hope of glory, by way of teaching them about the Bible.  Even though it is written by a black pastor to black students at historically black colleges and universities, I think it is useful for nearly anyone wanting a sensible way to introduce the Scripture afresh to seekers.

One young black woman from Howard University wrote to thank Cyril for this rather rare book. She wrote, “Thank you for thinking of us the whole way; I felt seen and thought about as a black reader.”  Nice, huh?

Spiritual Practices for Soul Care: 40 Ways to Deepen Your Faith Barbara L. Peacock (Baker Books) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

My goodness, gracious, what a jam-packed set of wise suggestions for anyone who wants to try something new, fresh, classic, deepening their own sense of connection to the divine, actually growing in their spiritual lives! This book is for anyone who has felt stalled by heavy talk of mystical disciplines or who hasn’t had time to ponder a whole, transformative Rule of Life or settled into life-changing rhythms. In other words, this is about simple, restorative practices that you can do today.

In fact, each chapter has “today” in the titles. Stuff you can do today.

Barbara Peacock is an award-winning author as well as a passionate spiritual director. (Her master’s is from Princeton Theological Seminary and her DMin from Gordon Conwell.) She is in Charlotte NC and is known for her groundbreaking book about spirituality within the historic black church tradition. You may know it, Soul Care in African American Practice, published by IVP.

Here, she invites us, yes, to “embrace rhythms that lead to true flourishing.” But she knows that many need help in learning about and trying spiritual practices that can be put into practice right away. If you yearn to go deeper and learn some new options for your quiet time, this book is tremendous.

In each entry she has a “soul care leader” in which she gives a little biography of somebody known for that teaching, and it’s a wide array of leaders, from Henry Blackaby to Howard Thurman, John Newton, Marva Dawn, Dallas Willard, and so many more. And, she has a “Scripture Focus” for each practice.

It is arranged around seven sections (with several practical “today” chapters under each.) She writes well around “Soul Care Living”, “Soul Care Directing”, “Soul Care Discipling”, “Soul Care Restoring”, “Soul Care and Self-Care”, “Should Care Reflecting”, and “Soul Care Liberation.” She has short, suggestive and instruction chapters like “Reading Today” and “Chastening Today” and “Storytelling Today” and “Entering Today.” From very obvious (one on exercising — Serena Williams is her guide for that one — and one on praying) to the more allusive— “Readying Today” or “Dwelling Today” — she covers a lot of ground and offers wise counsel. This is a great handbook, a treasure trove. You should get it!

What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World Aaron Rosen (Broadleaf Books) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Sometimes a book is just so very interesting, so unique and compelling, I have to tell you about it. And when the author makes themselves known as someone immediately likable, generous, charitable, curious, interesting, well, the book is a winner. In this case, the thesis of the book is striking and the author (a serious Jewish scholar of the arts) seems to be a heck of a guy. I’m impressed. I think some of our readers are going to love this one of a kind book.

Here’s the short version, although it deserves a more detailed survey and critique. It is trying to invite readers into an ethical space where they imagine what Jesus would see — based, mostly, on accounts in the gospel of what he did see — and, in a way, replace the nearly vapid WWJD slogan. Actually, drawing on the likes of The Imitation of Christ, Rosen knows that asking how to do the things that Jesus did is pretty revolutionary, even if rendered nearly copied by today’s consumerist culture. Still, it’s not a bad question, WWJD, and Rosen only wants to expand and deepen it.

He is a visual guy, a Jew who teaches Christian seminarians (at Wesley Theological Seminary in DC.) He is engaged often with Christian comrades in the movement of artists and writers who publish in Image (he thanks Jamie Smith and Lauren Winner.) His wife is an Episcopal priest, so he knows the Christian tradition well. And he is drawn to the Jesus described in the New Testament.

Here’s the thing: as Professor Rosen helps us learn to “see” in fresh ways, through the Jesus lens, let’s say, he is inviting us to a renewed vision of “radical empathy.” And as an arts curator, he does that not only through a close reading of episodes from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but from the great history of art devoted to the scenes of Jesus. He defends this, as a Jew, in the first chapter with a moving story from the great Jewish novel, My Name is Asher Lev, the memorable part where Lev is chastised by his Jewish art mentor when he wants to turn away from all of the pictures of Jesus in the art museum. Just a few pages in and you know this is going to be a great, fun, and challenging book.

Bill McKibben says it is “a clever — and timely  — way to phrase this question.” Eboo Patel (the Muslim founder of Interfaith America) says it is “an interesting, creative, and compulsively readable book.” It is all of that, interesting, clever, timely, and readable. I think, mostly, it will help us all understand Jesus just a bit more, live into the chasm between what we claim and what we do, by discerning a bit about how we see. What an intriguing, captivating book!

The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers are Considering Christianity Again Justin Brierley (Tyndale Momentum) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Okay, just for starters, this isn’t written by our Dordt College friend Justin Bailey, who wrote Reimagining Apologetics, which might be simpatico with Justin Brierley’s new one. Brierley’s new Surprising Rebirth… has nicely emerged from his long years of working in a UK broadcast interviewing atheists, mostly. He documented that in a nice little book a few years ago called Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years Of Talking With Atheists, I’m Still A Christian. Unbelievable, almost, that his show, Unbelievable, brought many with such harsh critiques of Christian faith to the fore, and he struggled with them all, discerning answers to the most common objections non or anti-Christians have with historical Christian conviction.

This new one is a more wide-ranging survey, and is remarkable, suggesting that — against what the popular press might be saying — there may be a return to belief in recent times.

The book has nice blurbs from the likes of Philip Yancey — if Yancey likes something, you know it is well written and thoughtful. Phil calls it “stimulating” and notes that it “sounds a hopeful note.” This hopeful note, curiously, was inspired by an interview Brierley did with  an agnostic journalist who sensed that the rigid atheist of a decade or so ago was in decline. This book was the fruit of his deeper analysis and vast numbers of interviews, conversations, and debates (both public on his radio show and in personal dialogue.

The forward to The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God is by N. T. Wright, who the author works with often in England. A good number of famous thinkers show up, here, from Jordan Peterson to Tom Holland and he narrates the debates he hosted, such as the one between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins. So, clearly, he’s no slouch and this is not a simplistic screed or overblown hope. Just the stories of the people he’s met are fascinating, but his project, weaving them into a note of hope, is fascinating and rather compelling. I think some of our readers need this book.

Curve-ball: When Your Faith Takes Turns You Never Saw Coming (Or, How I Stumbled and Tripped My Way to Finding a Bigger God) Peter Enns (HarperOne) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is a book I couldn’t put down and, agree or not, it is interesting, honest, appealing, and sensible. I have been wanting to write about it, but have been waiting for a long-in-coming, epic BookNotes I want to do about the passel of books about doubt, deconstruction, and the trend of evangelicals leaving the tradition, if not the faith. But I just couldn’t wait for that big post, and wanted to name this one, here, now.

It is indeed about what some call deconstruction. Dr. Enns was a conservative Bible scholar who taught at the exceptionally strict Westminster Theological Seminary and was booted out there when he opened himself to minor differences within their hyper Reformed faith system. He wrote a brilliant book about that called The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our Correct Beliefs and then wrote a handful of books about how his view of the Bible developed and how to wisely read the Bible more faithfully.

Curveball, in a way, is a personal memoir and a guide to how to navigate faith when questions arise and one realizes one must be honest before the big questions. As Thomas Jay Oord puts it, “Pete Enns’s spiritual memoir combines wit and wisdom, along with biblical and theological insights! The vision God Pete humbly proposes is different from the one many of us were given. And far more winsome.” I guess this is a theme of the book — shown in the subtitle, especially — that as we grow and leave some unfruitful for untrue notions behind, we can find a bigger, truer, better, God, not the simplistic constructs of whatever theological system in which you were taught.

With blurbs on the back from Sarah Bessey and Brian McLaren and Jonathan Merritt, my fear is that some customers, allergic to these sorts of writers, may think ill of the author and not give the book a chance. Yet, as Merritt nicely says on the back, the book “reminds readers that with crises are not something to be feared but are opportunities for spiritual growth that can hep you re-embrace God as more beautiful, loving, and mysteries.”

Isn’t that what you who are understandably concerned about the ease of talk of deconstruction these days want, for those drifting from faith to return, sobered, but in love with God all the more? Pete is funny and he is smart and he is a bit cynical, but he loves God, and this book shows it. Who knows what life will throw our way next? Curveball will help. And even if you’re not in a scary or disconcerting space of deconstruction, you’ll learn some stuff. Enjoy and ponder.

A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ John Andrew Bryant (Lexham Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

There are bunches of books — some very serious, some less so — on mental health issues these days and, to be really frank, when publishers known for solid, no-nonsense historically conservative theology weigh in, I sometimes worry. Are they so dogmatic for doctrine that they miss the human messiness of our fallen world? Can such theological worldviews accommodate the loose ends of hurting people without shunting off the pain to some gospel-centered cover-up? Or, worse, subtly blame the victim?  It happens.

Yet, I respect Lexham Press. And I couldn’t shake that cover, with the first and last words nearly off page, sliced, on the edge?  Further, greatly appreciate the woman who wrote the forward to this, Kathryn Green-McCreight, herself the author of the extraordinary memoir about her bi-polar disorder, Darkness Is My Only Companion. And then I realized that I was at a conference with this guy, once. His formate housemates are among our best customers, dear friends in Western PA who we deeply respect. No wonder I liked the smell of this.

Once I started it I realize it was a very special book. There is a glossary in the front – a bit odd, maybe — naming phrases he uses in the book. When one is as mentally ill as Mr. Bryant, things can get dark. As a poet and artist, he does an excellent job being especially creative in the writing even as his theology and prose are clear as a bell. It blends honest and human-scale creative writing with straight-arrow, Biblical insight, true truth of the best sort.

Some of the trauma John experienced, he only alludes to, but I know it has to do with church abuse and abandonment. There have been other serious pains, and this chronic illness. As a seminary trained thinker, though, he knows a thing or two that we all can learn from. A Quiet Mind is both for anyone wanting insight about a Christ-centered view of mental health issues, and for anyone struggling with mental illness. This is a handsomely designed paperback, creatively written, and with exceptionally solid, Biblical orientation. I am sure some will come to value it. Spread the word.

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Sadly, as of September 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad and now getting worse. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good — those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family who live here, our staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

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Lots of books for different sorts of pastors and their needs. ON SALE NOW (Hearts & Minds) 20% OFF

If you missed last week’s BookNotes due to the long holiday weekend that some Americans enjoyed, we invite you to check it out here. Although I highlighted a few fairly recent books that are useful for living well as leaders and church workers, I reviewed two significant new books. One was called Metanoia: How God Radically Transforms People, Churches, and Organizations From the Inside Out (by the prolific missional author and Aussie gadfly Alan Hirsch.) The other one called The Scandal of Leadership (by JR Woodward) studies the question of nurturing wise and Christ-like leadership by taking on the principalities and powers (and domineering leadership styles) a theme not explored in any other leadership book I know.

The other day I talked to a pastor about these very books. He wondered if they were for him, heady and well-footnoted as they are. He seemed by his own account a bit lackluster, not burned out, but demoralized by all the things you can imagine might demoralize an otherwise Godly Christian worker.

Which got me thinking.

I figured in this BookNotes I’d just share a bunch of books that might bring refreshment and stimulation for pastors young or old, nothing too heavy. None of these are a silver bullet and none should be the only book a pastor reads for his or her professional development but I sincerely think these could be helpful to any tired leader. The list isn’t comprehensive and tilts towards mostly recent titles. (Although don’t miss the three classics at the end, one dating to 1974.) If you are a minister looking for a nice read, or wondering what book to use in a collegial book group, or if you want to gift your pastor with a book, maybe some of these might help.

All are, as always, available at the Hearts & Minds bookstore here in south central Pennsylvania, or you can easily order them at our website. The links below lead to where you can safely enter credit card digits (or just ask us for an invoice so you can pay later if you’d rather.) Scroll all the way down so you don’t miss anything and see the order link at the end. Thanks.

Again, for the record, some of these are written to and for pastors or other congregational leaders. I’m pitching this BookNotes to the pastors among us, even though I know most readers and customers are not clergy.

 

I do hope everybody realizes that most of these are, in fact, good for anyone wanting some nice reading and while I say these are “for a pastor” you can stretch that a bit with almost all of these. Also, maybe you know a pastor or two. Feel free to share. Thanks.

FOR A PASTOR WANTING TO BRUSH UP ON CREATIVE WAYS TO SPEAK ABOUT GOD

Speaking of God: An Essential Guide to Christian Thought Anthony G. Siegrist (Herald Press) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

The back cover asks “Do you ever think you’re forgetting how to talk about God?” Theology is, this author asserts, nothing more or less than speaking together about God. Still, “a lot of us don’t know where to start.”

Siegrist is a Canadian Mennonite who has written for Missio Alliance and reminds us of “common threads of thought and practice across traditions.” His missional vision is savvy, but at heart, he is thinking that the unfolding drama of Scripture — the “sweeping epic” as he calls it — is the “scaffold” for this accessible book. He’s upbeat and clever, and plumbs the depths of all manner of writers, thinkers, mystics, pastors. I like that the back cover blurbs are from a Lutheran (Dorothy Bass), a Wesleyan from West Virginia, and a Kierkegaard guy, the dean of theology at Westminster Theological Centre, an innovative British ministry that tilts a bit charismatic. Something for everyone!

God Turned Toward Us: The ABCs of Christian Faith Will Willimon (Abingdon Press) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Okay, it ain’t Frederick Buechner who was known for several theological alphabet books. It is nearly an homage to him, a good, maybe better, theological handbook written in the form of a deceptively simple ABC book. Grant, Willimon is not an award winning novelist and memoirs, but he is a darn good storyteller (and has, for the record, written both a novel and a memoir.) He’s not Presbyterian, like Buechner was, nor was he quite as urbane, although he was the chaplain at Duke for a while. Down home Southern, Methodist, a Barth scholar and lover of God’s church, this really is an amazing book. A Central Texas Conference bishop said “Reading God Turned Toward Us is like walking through a diamond mine.” Nearly every page is worth the price of the book. As the back cover puts it, “The challenge of the Christian life is learning to talk Christian. Somebody has got to tell us, give us the words that open the door to the faith called Christian. Each of us is due the delight of discovery in submitting to God’s talk to us.”

The book is organized by “the words the church teaches us to use to talk about ordinary life apprehended by a God who is Jesus Christ.” These are short, meditative reflections upon key concepts that guide Christians, new or longstanding.

Kenneth Carder, himself a retired bishop in the United Methodist Church, notes:

This is no ordinary book about Christian belief and practices. Rather, it is a sometimes jarring, always interesting, consistently insightful and persistently provocative invitation to talk the talk and walk the walk of Christian discipleship.

The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Rediscovering the Adventure of the Christian Faith Trevin Wax (IVP) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

This medium sized hardback is itself a handsome book, and it is well worth having. No matter what theological persuasion you, dear reader, find yourself in, it’s an exceptionally erudite and energetic reminder of the core stuff, paradoxes and all. It invites us to a beautiful orthodoxy, to truth seen and experienced as a grand adventure — think Chesterton, or Lewis, maybe — and what Katie McCoy called “the consuming wonder.” It is, doubtlessly, a clarion call to the historic Christian faith, without being overly narrow.

Trevin Wax shows that traditional orthodox Christianity might not be as glossy and glamorous as Christianity gone worldly, but it is ancient, majestic, global, and glorious. It is a tried and tested alternative to the faddish and fragmentary fakes that masquerade as Christianity in some places. Trevin is not pushing dry doctrine but passing on fresh fire that is thousands of years old.  –Michael F. Bird, academic dean and lecturer in New Testament at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia

The Love That Is God: An Invitation to the Christian Faith Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt (Eerdmans) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

When we reviewed this a year or so ago a number of thoughtful customers just raved. They really liked it and one person ordered more. I figured that it was ideal for those interested in Christian theology but not wanting a tome or a text. This small book is poetic and glorious, even if rooted in profoundly serious, ecumenical Christian theology. The author is a renowned Catholic professor at Loyola University in Maryland and a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, assigned to the Cathedral. I have never met him.

Stanley Hauerwas, no slouch himself, says “I cannot help but believe that this book is destined to become a classic.” Wesley Hill says “This book made we want to become a Christian all over again.” For the right kind of reader, this reflection breathing new life into the ancient claim that God is Love can bring new ideas and deep renewal, I’m sure of it.

Sarah Coakley wrote the foreword and she insists that:

This is a book that takes us back to the raw basics of our faith and restores hope in the cruciform God of Love of whom it speaks so eloquently.

FOR A PASTOR WANTING TO BE RE-INSPIRED BY THE BIBLE

Re-Enchanting the Text:  Discovering the Bible as Sacred, Dangerous, and Mysterious Cheryl Bridges Johns (Brazos Press) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

Okay, this, too, maybe isn’t as simple as I’d wish for this list, but it’s a marvelous, new study and I’m convinced it is going to provoke fresh thinking about the Scriptures. Here’s the straightforward thesis of this serious book: “In an age when the Bible has been stripped of its sacredness and mystery and functional biblical illiteracy reigns, this book makes the case that we must work to re-enchant the text in order to return the Bible to its rightful place in the lives of Christians.”

Dr. Johns got her PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary even though she, herself, is Pentecostal. The scholarly Pentecostal icon Amos Yong raves. A professor from Duke eagerly says it provides “a way forward.” Holy smokes, even Walter Brueggemann exclaims, “One can only voice a vigorous ‘yes’ to this wise and welcome book.” Lisa Bowens (of Princeton Theological Seminary says it is “powerful and compelling.” Okay, then. I think it may be just what you need.

This book amounts to a bold Pentecostal intervention in current discussions about the theological interpretation of Scripture. Johns’s vision for a Pentecostal ontology of Scripture is not just for Pentecostals–it is a gift to the church catholic, born at Pentecost.– James K. A. Smith, Calvin University; author of How (Not) to Be Secular, Thinking in Tongues, and You Are What You Love

Sacred Belonging: A 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture Kat Armas (Brazos Press) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Oh my, this brand new book deserves a bigger review, but just know that it is arranged as a set of short readings, but they are unlike nearly any you’ve read before. They are a tad quirky, passionately engaged, deeply transformative, loyal to Christ and His Kingdom, which is to say, written with an out to the outcast and outsider.

You may know her great book Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength. This new one, Sacred Belonging, is, in the words of Arielle Astoria (a poet, author, and spoken word artist) “an invitation into a deep, expansive, and healing way of encountering Scripture.”  Looks amazing!

Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters Carmen Joy Imes (IVP Academic) $22.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

One of my favorite books this year, and one of the great new friends of Beth and me this year, Being God’s Image by Biblical scholar Carmen Joy Imes is a delight, a provocation, a reminder, a stimulation, a great study of what the founding creation narratives have to say to us today. What does it mean to be human? How does our gender matter? What is our relationship to the Earth itself? Importantly, how does the Bible shape our understanding of our life and times?

The cofounder of the well-loved and widely respected Bible Project, Tim Mackie, calls it “an accessible and profound exploration of this most important Biblical theme.” There is a remarkable forward by J. Richard Middleton, and if he thinks it’s important, you should read it. Hooray.

Harvest of Hope: A Contemplative Approach to Holy Scriptures Mark McIntosh & Frank Griswold (Eerdmans) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I have discussed this in previous BookNotes suggesting it is a great addition to the growing number of books which invite us to a contemplative, prayerful engagement with the Scriptures, a lovely and holy experience by two elder statements (McIntosh died in 2021) within the Episcopalian church. It’s a very special book.  See, also, by the way, the lovely companion volume that they did together, Seeds of Faith: Theology and Spirituality at the Heart of Christian Belief (Eerdmans; $24.99.)

FOR ANYONE NEEDING TO GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUNGER VOICES OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

Hear Us Out: Six Questions on Belonging and Belief Sue Pizor Yoder and Co.Lab.Inq (Fortress Press) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

I’ve mentioned this before and it is so very interesting, I just have to tell you again. Anyone interested in unchurched young adults will want to hear these narratives describing the bunches of conversations this team had, mostly with folks in the Lehigh Valley in Eastern Pennsylvania. The team found both the nones and the dones (that is, those that have no religious affiliation — as in “none of the above” on the religious survey and those that once did but are “done with that.”)

The book includes a lovely bit of description of the desires and hope and methodologies of the team (made up mostly of pastors) did the research and it tells, often with great eloquence, their own surprise in the things the interviewees told them. The ideas that emerge from the research are generous, and, in a way, points mostly to the need for us all to share our stories, to listen well to “co-create a more just world, and take seriously the call to Love.” Brian McLaren wrote a fabulous foreword and we learn much important stuff for congregations that want to (as he puts it) “learn to welcome emerging generations into their midst.”

FOR A PASTOR WHO IS TIRED AND NEEDING TO DEVELOP SPIRITUAL RHYTHMS

The Weary Leader’s Guide to Burnout: A Journey from Exhaustion to Wholeness Sean Nemecek (Zondervan) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

There is a virtual cottage industry these days releasing often very good books on clergy burnout. There are books about the physical ill-health of many pastors, books about stress and tension and unbearable expectations. From time management to dealing with faith-based conflict, being a Christian leader is hard work. Many of the books are wise and thoughtful.

I highlight this one because it is readable, fairly concise, and really wise. To respond to this epidemic of burnout, Nemecek gives us not only a helpful diagnosis but a guide to recovery (or, better, prevention.) His wife is the acclaimed published poet Amy Nemecek (The Language of Birds) so that’s nice, too. He is a regional director in Western Michigan for “Pastor-in-Residence Ministries, which coaches pastors into recovery from ministerial stress.

Sacred Strides: The Journey to Belovedness in Work and Rest Justin McRoberts (Thomas Nelson) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Okay, first this: I’ve raved about this before, encouraging Hearts & Minds friends of all sorts to buy it. I admitted, though, that it is casual and upbeat with lots of stories, including some very funny ones. Justin is a dear friend, a mentor to many, nearly a spiritual director to artists and leaders and others who are culture-makers maybe a bit off the beaten path. He’s a singer-songwriter, pretty hip, and refreshingly honest about his own journey, his own soul, the stuff he’s learned the hard way. Serious as all this may be, he’s not just an upbeat writer, he is hilarious.

Sacred Strides nicely uses the image of walking, one foot, the next foot, the stride. That is, it is not about an arbitrary “balance” between work and rest. It truly is about rhythms and practices, about the joy of work and the necessity of rest, over together, as we learn to lean on God. All of it moves us to a space where we can know we are beloved, truly so. Unless you like your religious books to be necessarily stodgy or arcane, this book is a must. Love it.

The Spacious Path: Practicing the Restful Way of Jesus in a Fragmented World Tamara Hill Murphy (Herald Press) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

This is another book that will surely be on our “best of 2023” list later this year, and is both a simple invitation (“into a life ordered by restful rhythms of listening and love” and a call to develop some sort of a Rule of Life. This is not arcane or weird or overly monastic; she makes a fine case, beautifully, for the ancient Benedictine wisdom becoming a lively and fruitful part of our modern lifestyle.

It could be an uphill climb since some of that language of “rules” is foreign to us, or maybe has been hurtful, if you’ve been a part of an overly zealous rules-based religious background. Trust me, A Spacious Path is just that, spacious, inviting us to the journey, a way, a path. It is a restful and healing journal, a helpful guidebook, a beckoning.

Clergy will hopefully know a bit of this language but the book is beautifully written, mixing personal narrative and solid teaching and ancient sources. There are guided prayers and meaningful reflections. It’s a great tool, a lovely resource to lean into. Highly recommended.

Tamara is a person we respect, a writer whose works have shown up in fabulous places like Plough and Englewood Review of Books (she quotes Joan Chittister and Dorothy Day and Annie Dillard and other top flight writers) and is a trainer of spiritual directors. She is a lay leader in the Anglican Church of North America and a mature, lovely writer.

FOR A PASTOR WANTING TO REFRESH HIS OR HER SPIRITUALITY

The Language of the Soul: Meeting God in the Longings of Our Hearts Jeff Crosby (Broadleaf Books) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I have raved about this before so consider this your reminder that, yes, you really did intend to get this but never got around to it yet. Pastors will love the storytelling stuff that will inspire sermons and the deepest truths that so eloquently open up reflection and spiritual pondering. Of course the book isn’t just for ministers, not at all, but I highlight it here as an easy read that could be truly refreshing for those needing some organization to their teaching, longing, hoping. It’s a great, great book.

There is some stuff, too, about discerning one’s call, about the theme of finding “home” and about learning the language that most deeply resonates with the deepest longings. He famously cites lots of music (of all sorts) since sometimes, ya just need the lyrics of a good ballad, rock songs, or the tones of a jazz piece to capture these sublime things. Again, The Language of the Soul is a treasure, highly recommended for leaders who need to learn, well, this peculiar insight about our heart’s deepest longings. You will find it an invaluable help, I am sure.

Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality David Bender (IVP /formatio) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

There are so many good, rich, thoughtful, transformative books on spiritual disciplines and practices one hardly knows where to begin. I often, for meaty readers, suggest Ruth Haley Barton and Richard Foster. This, those, is short and powerful, reminding us beautifully that “Only God deserves absolute surrender because only God can offer absolutely dependable love.” There is a tender forward by M. Basil Pennington, and a nice set of reflection questions.

 

Unteachable Lessons: Why Wisdom Can’t Be Taught (and Why That’s Okay) Carl McColman (Eerdmans) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I nearly devoured this book, realizing I needed to slow down and ponder its delightful truths, its powerfully honest stories, its Biblical hints and its call to silence, to trust. McColman is the author of many books on classic church spirituality, contemplative practices, and discovering encounters with God through the mystical tradition. (See, for instance, his Big Book of Christian Mysticism,) Here, as a Lay Cistercian, he tells of discovering a way of knowing God that is beyond dogma, not constrained by perfect doctrine or certainty about stuff, just embracing a God who meets us at every step. (Hey, preacher and teacher — let the provocative title of this book sink in just a bit. Ha!)  Unteachable Lessons is lovely, a bit edgy, but what the extraordinary mystical writer Martin Laird calls “sure-footed.” It is also what Marilyn McIntyre calls “deft and funny.” Did I mention I really, really liked it? Surprisingly so.

James Martin, the funny and prolific Jesuit (who has a brand new big one, by the way, called Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle) says of Unteachable…

Riveting, inspiring, and beautifully written, a moving account of finding God admits both the laughter and tears in life.

Bearing God: Living a Christ-Formed Life in Uncharted Water Marlena Graves (NavPress) $10.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $8.79

A brand new one, written by the author of the award-winning The Way Up Is Down, this little book is slim, and creatively written, offering “stories and teaching about discerning God’s will and discerning a sense of call in the midst of life’s storms.” It’s an extended and playful riff on Mark 4. I’ve just started it and it’s so good.

Graves makes the point that as believers “we are all little vessels carrying Jesus.” Our lives, the boats in which we carry Christ and his gospel, will venture out to sea… How do we respond when the storms come? How imaginative is that?

This book is, one reviewer said, “brimming with keen theological insight and personal stories speaking with a voice for the marginalized.” Drawing on diverse quotes from St. Ireneus and the Desert Fathers and Mothers right up to the likes of Fight Club and Tattoos of the Heart, it is a neat little book. Short and sweet and an ideal little read to refresh you in your task.

FOR A PASTOR NEEDING SOME REASSURANCE AND SELF-CARE

Now I Become Myself: How Deep Grace Heals Our Shame and Restores Our True Self Ken Shigematsu (Zondervan) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Okay, I’d refer you back to my previous rave review of this potent and beautiful self-help book that invites us to grapple with our “true self” and to let go of shame and dysfunction. It does this, though, in the most faithful and spiritually mature way — by inviting us to understand the God who loves us, breath in the gospel itself, and develop intentional practices of contemplative spirituality that can create space for God to do God’s work.

Super-busy pastor John Mark Comer — who wrote the hip and fabulously interesting The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry —  says:

Utterly wonderful. Emotionally attuned, self-aware, thoroughly researched, well written, seamlessly blending theology, spirituality, psychology, rooted in ancient practices and yet culturally engaged: there’s so many good things I could say about this book, but the main thing is: read it.

I could say this for most of the books on this list, but I feel like I should underscore it here: shame-based fears and hurts seem nearly ubiquitous and, pastors, you may want to have a few of these around to share with folks you talk with. Right?

FOR A PASTOR WANTING TO BE REMINDED TO KEEP ON THEIR TOES

Keep Christianity Weird: Embracing the Discipline of Being Different Michael Frost (NavPress) $7.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $6.39

I said I wanted to keep my suggestions on this list fairly quick reads, mostly easy stuff. This one is quite short, pocket-sized, and backs an oversized wallop. And it’s a hoot. You know that phrase “Keep Austin Weird”? It seems some other cities have adopted that kooky vision, not making their place just a tourist trap like every other place, but affirming their eccentricities, their edge, not being afraid to let their freak flag fly. So it may be with the best local churches.n Can we, too, “keep Christianity weird?” The back cover puts it allusively, but you’ll get it:

“Jesus Is Different. Go and do likewise.” I know, right?

We are to be off-center, unique, not “of” this world. So let’s resist the allure of acceptability, and “get back to the unsafe roots of our faith.” You’ll be challenged and chagrined. Smile away and get serious.

Why the Gospel? Living the Good News of King Jesus with Purpose Matthew W. Bates (Eerdmans) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

In an adult Sunday School class in our church last week I was going on about the truest understanding of the gospel. We showed the spectacular, brief, Bible Project video called “What is the Gospel?” and underscored the Biblical teaching that the regime change that has happened in the resurrected Jesus, the creation-redeeming vision inaugurated by Jesus known as the Kingdom of God, is what the very good gospel really is all about. In contrast to more sentimental liberal views or more dogmatic fundamentalist views, this Kingdom vision really helps us frame the “God with Us” new-creation promises of the Scriptures.

Anyway, this small book is as keen on this stuff as any I’ve read, and a quick, but provocative read. It is a book not just asking what the gospel is but why it is so needed. It is a bold reminder that Jesus is King. I wish every pastor and church teacher would wrestle with it.

FOR A PASTOR NEEDING TO PRAY

Morning and Evening Prayers Cornelius Plantinga (Eerdmans) $20.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.79

This hand-sized hardback remains a treasure for those wanting a sets of small prayers, each “expressing some essential Christian longing on behalf of self and others — for faith, hope, love, wisdom, gratitude, peace — and which yet also makes space for any state of heart of mind by rejoicing with all who rejoice and weeping with all who weep.”

Plantinga is a gracious and thoughtful writer, the president emeritus of Calvin Theological Seminary. Very, very nice.

Kneeling with Giants: Learning to Pray with History’s Best Teachers Gary Neal Hansen (IVP) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

I wanted to recommend books on this list that were short and accessible, really useful for busy pastors. This one is meaty and lengthy, so, sorry. Yet, I happily mention it here because it is simply the best book I know of for clergy wanting to deepen their prayer lives. (Or to teach others the same.) The chapters are really interesting, there is some great information about various Christian leaders — from early church folks to medieval saints to Calvin and Luther, up to a few contemporary voices. From each one learns a certain sort of practice — that anonymous Russian monk prayed The Jesus Prayer;  Puritans wrote their prayers, Andrew Murray has much to teach about intercession.

I like that more than once the author invites us not just to study this stuff, but to do it. He’s an excellent, gracious teacher — he was a much-loved seminary prof for years — and knows the hearts and lives of pastors well. Highly recommended.

FOR A PASTOR WANTING TO THINK ABOUT HIS OR HER LITURGICAL WORK

A Body of Praise: Understanding the Role of Our Physical Bodies in Worship W. David O. Taylor (Baker Academic) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

This is a bit scholarly but is invigorating. There is nothing like it in print — nothing! So this, dear brothers and sisters, is a must.  It is exactly about what the subtitle says. And everybody who does anything in worship — from planners, leaders, liturgists, preachers, or in-the-pew worshippers — needs to ponder all of this.

I like this for a bunch of reasons, in part because it explores the body in such a sound and interesting way, offering a foundation not just for understanding worship, but so much of our life in the world. In a sense it is one of those handful of essential studies on what it means to be human and how Christ’s own bodily resurrection might impute righteousness (and, sometimes, healing) to our own. Taylor shows well that all of this is not (as Joel Scandrett of Trinity School for Ministry) puts it, “merely about having a body, but being embodied.

The endorsements are by remarkable thinkers and practitioners, from Rowan Williams to Constance Cherry, from Singapore lecturer and scholar Simon Chan to Northern Seminary’s Beth Felker Jones.

As I’ve indicated, I think this is important for anyone, anytime, but for pastors “wrestling with the long-term impact of the pandemic on our worship practices” it is, as Rowan Williams insists, “an indispensable resource.”

Earth Filled with Heaven: Finding Life in Liturgy, Sacraments, and other Ancient Practices of the Church Aaron Damiani (Mood Press) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

This is a lovely little book, easy to read, handsome to hold, fabulous in style, quick and clarifying. Here’s the thing: Damiani serves as the lead pastor of Immanuel Anglican Church in Chaco. Which is to say, he didn’t used to be an Anglican, so is a recent convert to all things liturgical. (I’m thinking, like, what Anglican or Episcopalian church has a “lead pastor” and not a rector, huh?) So he’s speaking as a newbie, sort of, which makes it ideal for those of us not deeply familiar with or rooted in the sacramental tradition. He raises up the centrality with a lovely zeal and clarity that some books on liturgics seem to miss. He is, after all, a nearly charismatic evangelical.

Soooo, with pastoral warmth, Father Damiani offers “an engaging glimpse into the ancient practices of the historic church — into rhythms that quietly nourish us with the life of Jesus.”

There is stuff in here on the eucharist and baptism, liturgical prayer, and the church calendar, There’s lots of insight about living the Christian life once shaped by profound worship — for instance, how to see the “fallen broken world crammed with the beauty and glory of God.”

I suppose Earth Filled with Heaven isn’t mostly about worship skills, so to speak, but for worship leaders, this “sacramental” worldview may help you take seriously the formative work you do as a liturgist, no matter how informal or contemporary your worship style may be. Nice.

Living Under Water: Baptism as a Way of Life Kevin Adams (Eerdmans) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I did a lengthy review of this months ago and it strikes me that it would be nice to list it here, again. It is one of the great books from the “Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies “ series (edited by the great John D. Witvliet.) There’s a foreword by Cornelius Plantinga, and, if that doesn’t inspire you, you might know that Adams has written other lively and clever books (The Gospel in a Handshake: Framing Worship for Mission, for instance) and this, now, is as interesting as any book I’ve read on the subject. Hooray.

It is at once a theology of baptism, and a story about his own liturgical and worship and congregational practices, a delight to read for anyone who cares about church life and mission outreach. Also, it is a wise and generative rumination on the implications of “living under water” once the baptized comes to know what the heck it is all about. It is pastorally wise, exciting, and ecumenical in the best sense. Covering all sorts of stuff, it is, as counselor Chuck DeGroat says of it, “a happily grounded book.”

I adored Living Under Water, learning of his casual church planting efforts, his sensible gospel appeal to seekers, his discussion of baptism in the setting of the messy, local church, and its great implications for us all. No matter what sort of baptismal practices you and your church promote, this book is really interesting.

What Language Shall I Borrow? The Bible and Christian Worship Ronald Byers (Eerdmans) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This book now sells for considerably more, but we have some at the earlier price and since it was one of the first in the aforementioned “Calvin Institute of Christian Worship’s Liturgical Studies” series, I wanted to name it here. Byars is, shall we say, a fairly conventional, Presbyterian Church guy (professor emeritus of preaching and worship at Union in Richmond) who worked on the wording of the beautiful, PCUSA Book of Common Worship and, decades ago, wrote wisely, if a bit firmly, about the likelihood of an erosion of reverent worship practice with the rise of contemporary and seeker-driven services. With many of our biggest evangelical church worship programs arranged with a bunch of songs from a stage of performers and a cool talk, he is, doubtlessly right.

Many need this book that came out 15 years ago more than ever, I’d say.  It is an important conversation to have. He is asking how worship “soaked in the deep wells of Scripture” can be nourishing to believers and he asks what sorts of communal speech most honors God and communicates wisely to the gathered community.

As it asks on the back, “What language is most appropriate for worship? Should it lean toward the colloquial, perhaps targeting those attending a worship service for the first time? Or should it be a language with deeper roots, the language of a community that, for the most part, already loves the God to whom worship is offered?”

And, I might add, what do we do when many long-time members, who indeed love God passionately, don’t know the Bible, the Biblical language, the lingo and theological meanings of words, stories, phrases?

This is a remarkable study asking important questions but, on its own, is nearly a (scholarly) devotional, with pages of word studies and Bible reflections. It is instructive, eloquent, and a guide to building bridges between ancient words that communicate today.   Leanne Van Dyk of Western Theological Seminary says it is “an indispensable encouragement for pastors and worship leaders.”

By the way, if you don’t know the rich, famously exquiste, very old hymn from which this book takes it’s title, maybe you really should consider it. Ya dig where I’m comin’ from?

FOR A PASTOR INTERESTED IN SHARPENING HIS OR HER PREACHING

Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us Mark Yaconelli (Broadleaf Books) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Okay, this amazingly moving book isn’t about preaching. It’s not a homiletics text. This really is about the amazing gift of storytelling, and reports how Yaconelli has gotten people into rooms to listen to, to receive one another’s deepest stories. He uses this openness to other’s hearts in hard places, actually, even in war-torn militarized zones, and the writing here is exceedingly powerful.

I think I suggest it here because it affirms the power of words, the influence of language, the significance of our human communication. For Yaconelli, himself theologically trained (he was a Presbyterian pastor for a long while) this is holy ground. He gives some advice and tells some stories. It might remind some preachers that, yes, this stuff can really make a difference. What a book.

Preachers Dare: Speaking for God Will Willimon (Abingdon Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I know, I know, not every preacher is going to want to read a homiletics text. As much as I’m geeky enough to enjoy any number of them — some are fantastic! — I realize that, oddly, as important as preaching is for most preachers, they generally don’t read up much on the art of preaching. Some want to just trust God, some feel they are too busy writing the darn thing each week and have no time to read about it. And some just trust their own human charm and communication skills to carry them through. I get it.

Preachers Dare is a fascinating book and highly recommended (taking its title, we are told, from a hint by Karl Barth who said “Christian preachers dare to talk about God.” Yup. And with God’s help!

This book is a dissent against homiletics as an exclusively human endeavor (call it, rhetoric) or homiletics as a taxonomy of effective sermon forms and sales (poetics.) Willimon says “The only good reason to bother people with a sermon, the sole rationale for investing a life in this vocation, is theological.

Blurbs on the back of Preachers Dare are really strong. Joni Sancken says it is “a splash of cold water, waking preachers up to the generative power of God’s own triune speech.” The great Paul Scott Wilson says it is written with “sparking wit and deep spiritual insight.” The clever Jason Mitchell makes you want to read it, unless, maybe you’re scared to. You might be “haunted by the truth that the only good reason for someone to show up for your sermon is, that, in it, there will be a word from the Living God.” Wow.

If you are bold enough to have this conversation with your people, you may want to order from us a copy or two of the companion volume by Willimon called  Listeners Dare: Hearing God in the Sermon. It’s $16.00; OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59.)

FOR ONE CONCERNED ABOUT THE LOCAL CHURCH

The Church: God’s Word for Today John Stott (IVP) $14.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $11.20

You want short and sweet and solid and stimulating? This is, as award-winning historian Mark Noll says, “a book to a new generation of readers.” This is vintage Stott, drawn from his large book The Contemporary Christian, which has now been broken down into sensible small volumes. This is the center of that big book, less than 100 pages on the value of the church. I think it is more spot on than it was decades ago.

There are four succinct chapters and no pastor will be unmoved by this clear-headed thinking. They are, firstly, the secular challenges to the church, then a section on evangelism through the local church, and then an excellent chapter on dimensions of church renewal, and finally a good piece about the church’s pastors. Kudos to Tim Chester for editing this, bringing it just a bit more up to date. The original preface to the big remains, a wise rumination on time, and living in the middle of the “now but not yet.” A great little resource.

Delighted: What Teenagers Are Teaching the Church About Joy Kenda Creasy Dean, Wesley W. Ellis, Justin Forbes, Abigail Visco Rusert (Eerdmans) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

In the eyes of many, certainly in the eyes of many young people, the word “joy” is not one that is associated with the local church. But, of course, it should be.

What if youth ministry (and discipleship for all ages) is somehow connected to God’s joyful delight in us, which — curiously — as this book shows, is something young people seem to know.  Kara Powell, popular young ministry writer from Fuller Youth Institute, says “After reading Delighted, you’ll love young people differently and you’ll certainly view yourself differently, too.

I suppose this book, written by veteran youth works and theologians of and for youth ministry, is not designed to give hope to struggling congregations, but it sure can’t hurt. It is energetic and smart, exploring the difference between happiness and joy. If we can teach our kids that, it just might rub off on the rest of us.

Youthfront leader Mike King notes that we are in the midst of an “emotionally stressful culture of contempt.”Can “Joy” make a difference? Can we find some faithful way to allow our exuberance to sustain us, even through dull or hard times? This is a book about youth ministry, but I think any congregational leader (or parent) would appreciate it immensely.

When Church Stops Working: A Future for Your Congregation Beyond More Money, Programs, and Innovation Andrew Root and Blaire D. Bertrand (Brazos Press) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

I’ve highlighted this before but it’s so good, I wanted to bring it to your attention again. Short, accessible, practical, it draws deeply on the previous, profound (and fairly academic) works of Andrew Root, such as Churches and the Crisis of Decline: A Hopeful, Practical Ecclesiology for a Secular Age and The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time Against the Speed of Modern Life and The Church After Innovation: Questioning Our Obsession with Work, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship.

(The brand new one in this big and important series is due out in the next few weeks from Brazos and you can PRE-ORDER it from us now: The Church in an Age of Secular Mysticisms: Why Spiritualities Without God Fail to Transform Us; $28.99 – OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19.)

Anyway, When the Church Stops Working is not merely a watered-down summary of those bigger volumes, although that would be one easy way to describe it. It has new content, lots of ideas for faithful, adaptable, ministry. If the bigger volumes analyze the problems of church and culture, this offers guidance for what to do about it, in reasonable, if radically Christian ways. As you might expect he says to put away our gimmicks and strategies and programs and learn what it means to wait on the Lord. Beautiful, human, real. You should get this one, for sure!

The Great Dechurching: Whose Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take To Bring Them Back Jim David & Michael Graham, with Ryan Burge (Zondervan) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is already a much talked about resource which offers lots of great and useful data, research you need to know about, exploring what some might say is one of the largest and fastest religious shifts in US history.

One person notes that this shift is bigger than the impact of the First and Second Great Awakenings combined, but “in the opposite direction.” Tens of millions of regular Christian worshippers have decided to stop attending church, leaving, too often, little explanation as to why.

Unlike more academic treatises that are strong on data but not so passionate about real answers for local congregations, or somewhat simplistic evaluations, The Great Dechurching offers sober thinking and practical advice.

The book is based on what is said to be the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America, conducted by trusted sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe.

Becoming the Church: God’s People in Purpose and Power Claude R. Alexander, Jr. (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I hoe you know Bishop Claude Alexander, a senior pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina He severs on any number of boards of important, internationally known para-church groups but is most beloved in his large, multi-ethic church. He’s a great black preacher and his writing is clear-headed, moving, and solid. You may recall his lovely little book Necessary Christianity which we highlighted last year.

He starts this book –which is informed considerably by the book of Acts — admitting that people today have given up on the church. Those within and those who are outsiders disregard the local institution. Yet, God has not given up on it, he insists, and he shows here how we have sometimes forgotten what we are to be about. By looking at how Jesus’s first followers served him and how the Holy Spirit shaped their life together, he hold out the possibility of a renewed 21st century church. This is an imaginative study of the early church with a view of how it help us “become the church.”

There are 15 chapters, upbeat and inspirational, some creative side-bars and a power epilogue. You should check it out. There’s a great study guide in the back, too. Yes!

FOR A LEADER WANTING TO UNDERSTAND THE ALT-RIGHT AND CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church Andrew Whitehead (Brazos Press) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I’ve highlighted this before but want to simply say that it seems to me to be a must-read for all of us, and certainly for church leaders who have any right-wing members of their church who are involved in this stuff. Which is to say, most congregations.

Granted, it isn’t an uplifting quick read like many on this list. One reviewer did note that it is “crisply written and utterly compelling.” So there’s that.

We need this book, though. As I showed in the last review, it’s really solid, well known, expertly researched but deeply rooted in the faith community.

And many recommend it.

We need this book. Now. With skill and grace, Whitehead explains the dangerous ideologies undergirding Christian nationalism, traces how it has infected the church, and provides practical guidance for those of us fighting it in our own communities. This is a book you should give to your friends, your family, and your pastor.  — Beth Allison Barr, professor, Baylor University; author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

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

I said I wanted to keep most of these short and sweet. Balmer’s new Saving Faith is small sized, thin hardback; at under 100 pages it shows how we can reckon with the heritage of complicity in racism and, through stories and analysis and Biblical teaching, invite us to get real and get going. As Rob Wilson-Black puts it, it may seem like “a stinging indictment” but for some of us it will read like a blessing, a “long-awaited healing treatment.”

More can and must be said, but any church leader wondering how to weave this stuff of concern into his or her parish ministry will want to have this on hand.

There is, by the way, an appendix of the tremendous and justly famous 1973 “Chicago Declaration of Social Concern” written by the likes of Hearts & Minds friends and mentors, Ron Sider, John Perkins, Richard Mouw, and Jim Wallis. It was nice to see that reproduced. Right on!

FOR A PASTOR WANTING TO THINK THROUGH HOW TO DISCIPLE OTHERS

Go: Returning Discipleship to the Front Lines of Faith Preston Sprinkle (NavPress) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I don’t know about you but I’ve often been squeamish about recommending books on disciple-making. We don’t need an overly organized strategic plan and we don’t need formulas since mentoring and life-on-life care-giving should emerge organically from relationships and context. Still this is one I highly recommend as it gives some basic data (compiled by Barna) on what ordinary church folks think the word discipleship means, and how, then to begin to mentor others into a more robust, lived-out faith.

There is some indictment here, but also really great stories and tons of ideas to show how we can do what Jesus did with his earliest followers. We need this fun little book.

Discipleship with Monday in Mind: How Churches Across the Country Are Helping Helping THeir People Connect Faith and Work Skye Jethanie & Luke Bobo (Made to Flourish) $8.50  OUR SALE PRICE = $6.80

Maybe you should do something to help adults think through the implications of their faith for their jobs and careers? Maybe you aren’t ready for a full-blown dive into the faith and work movement, but, geesh, there really are a lot of neat things people are doing. This small book is short but potent, loaded with ideas, showing how real pastors have helped their churches connect faith and work.

This little gem is concise and practical and rare. We are really proud to recommend it.

Spiritual Direction: A Guide to Giving and Receiving Direction Gordon T. Smith (IVP) $15.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.00

Again, this little book is potent, if succinct. As always, Smith has a way of writing profoundly — with not a bit of fluff — and always to the point, with grace. This short book reminds leaders that they are to be companions on the spiritual journey with others. Perhaps you need a spiritual director (this book will help you discern if that is the case and what one might do for you) and how to be one yourself, in a general, pastoral manner which doesn’t entail going to a monastery and being a full time mystic.

This is about the spiritual journey, about how we need not be alone in our questions, and how pastors can help make sense of the spiritual growth of others, with them, offering encouragement and discernment, insight about prayer and the process of hearing the Spirit speak into our lives. This really is an excellent, concise guide to being a spiritual guide or friend, especially for pastors, but truly for anyone.

Color-Courageous Discipleship: Follow Jesus, Dismantle Racism, and Build Beloved Community Michelle T. Sanchez (Waterbrook) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This is a great resource that asks what race has to do with discipleship, and then proceeds to offer a program in mentoring others in faith formation with an eye to forming Christians who see anti-racism work (and multi-cultural sensitivities) as integral to their discipleship in Christ.

I like the solid, evangelically-minded work on being Biblically and proactively involved in racial inequity but I really like how they link it to the gospel, to faith formation in the local church, and the process of forming disciples to become the beloved community. It isn’t super short, but it is accessible and an easy read. Kudos!

FOR A PASTOR WHO HAS YET TO READ THESE SMALL CLASSICS

In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership Henri Nouwen (Crossroad) $14.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96

Short but remarkably lasting, this is Nouwen’s deeply personal exploration of the three temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness. You will come back to this time and again, despite the awfully bland cover. It’s a gem and a classic. Extraordinary.

 

 

 

Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life Henri Nouwen (Image) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

Written in the mid 1970s and one of the enduring Christian books of the last 50 years, this small but potent read invites us to hospitality and more. There are three sections, about the journey inward to the needy self, outward towards others, and upward to God, under the rubric “from illusion to prayer.” A must-read, lovely and moving.

 

 

Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity Eugene Peterson (Eerdmans) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

This was the first of the four great books in Peterson’s “Vocational Holiness” series, and looks at just three essential aspects of ministry: praying, reading the Bible, and offering spiritual guidance. (Well, one preceded it but was added into the quartet later.) This isn’t super-short, but it’s so refreshing and sensible that it just might transform your paradigm for ministry.

 

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Sadly, as of August 2023 we are still closed for in-store browsing. COVID is not fully over. Since few are reporting their illnesses anymore, it is tricky to know the reality but the best measurement is to check the waste water tables to see the amount of virus in the eco-system. It is bad; worse than it was two years ago, even. It’s important to be aware of how risks we take might effect the public good as those at risk, while not dying from the virus, are experiencing long-term health consequences. (Just check the latest reports of the rise of heart attacks and diabetes among younger adults, caused by Covid.) It is complicated, but we are still closed for in-store browsing due to our commitment to public health (and the safety of our family, staff, and customers.) Our store is a bit cramped without top-notch ventilation, so we are trying to be wise. Thanks for understanding.

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