It Was Good: Performing Arts to the Glory of God edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) regularly $19.99 ON SALE 10% OFF — $17.99
As most BookNotes readers know, we here at Hearts & Minds are passionate about stocking books that relate historic Christian faith to the complexities of modern life. That includes offering books that can serve as resources for those wanting to serve God well in various spheres of life, in different areas or arenas within society’s many institutions, sub-cultures and neighborhoods. We believe that the God who created the world and who became incarnate in it cares fiercely about our material lives in the world and it seems that we are one of the only Christian bookstores in the country that has whole sections of the shop dedicated to showing off wise and thoughtful books about how live faithfully in various spheres of culture. We stock books on science and architecture and sociology and engineering and economics and art and urban planning and philosophy and sex and farming. From family life to political life, from work to worship, God cares and we enjoy surprising customers by highlighting books that aren’t often found in many religious bookshops: racial justice and mathematics, pop culture and psychotherapy, literature and third world development, environmental science and poetry. We are all called to bear God’s image in this hurting world of wonder and books are tools – and healthy bread for the journey – to help us discover our vocations, honor God in our work, help create a more just society, and a flourishing culture. We love hearing about how our books help followers of Jesus become the salt and light He calls us to be, scattered in every area of life.
We regularly revisit this topic, explaining this holistic “all of life redeemed” theological vision which we and our staff attempt to bring to our task as booksellers, and hope that being reminded of the many different categories and kinds of books offered here – “bearing fresh olive leaves” as our friend Calvin Seerveld allusively put it – might be a blessing.
Of course, as we often have to say, our inventory is not on line — just years of our archived BookNotes newsletter and the many books we celebrate there most still on sale. You can use the website’s inquiry page for any sorts of questions you may have, though, and we can develop lists and suggestions to those who ask, on almost anything. We like to say that we can get almost anything in print.
But there are some books that we get particularly enthusiastic about.
Which brings us to a book that we are very, very happy to announce, a book for which many of us have been eagerly awaiting. It is called It Was Good: Performing Arts to the Glory of God.
It is the third in a series of handsomely created books about the arts, each edited and designed by our friend Ned Bustard. Ned is a Lancaster-based graphic designer and steward of a small indie press, Square Halo Books. Square Halo Books is a publishing venture that is widely respected for doing books about faith and the arts. Although they have published 
over a dozen books about Christianity and art, and several beautiful art books, they have released a few others not directly about the arts – Deeper Magic: The Theology Behind the Writings of C.S. Lewis by Donald T. Williams, for instance, my own Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life and a pair of books on Genesis and on Revelation (The Beginning and The End.) Revealed: A Storybook Bible for Grownups is remarkable. Another recent one from Square Halo that isn’t exactly on the arts (and that we really, really like) is by Tom Becker, called Good Posture: Engaging Current Culture with Ancient Faith. In many ways it is nearly a gentle, fun, manifesto for their publishing program. We highly recommend it and, like all their other books, are happy to stock it here at the shop.
I might suggest, though, that their most important books have been a wonderful pair called It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God and It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. Both bring together theorists and practitioners to reflect on some important aspect about the art and practice of doing faith-inspired art. In both, they’ve had contributions from well-known writers (Timothy Keller, Sandra McCracken, Gregory Wolfe, Makoto Fujimura) and many who are not known outside of their particular field of expertise but are excellent in what they do. To curate such edited volumes has been both a challenge and a joy for Ned as it is no small matter finding artists and musicians who are theologically mature, good at their craft, who have been intentional about thinking about how they integrate faith and art, and who can actually describe and write about their own particular 
experiences in the arts. Some painters or musicians do their work very, very well, but are not particularly adept at talking about it, let alone writing a chapter inviting others to learn or take inspiration from them. And, sadly, as with the books integrating Christian thinking about other professions, there just isn’t the demand for these kinds of books that there should be. As you can imagine, It Was Good volume one and volume two were both labors of love, and both are, thankfully, absolutely must-have resources for anyone remotely interested in the creative arts. Alongside a handful of others, they are modern-day classics in the genre of theologically informed aesthetic vision that can inform our own appreciation of the arts.
You can read my lively BookNotes reviews of IWG: Making Art HERE and IWG: Making Music HERE.
The brand new It Was Good: Performing Arts to the Glory of God is unlike any other book on the market so it would be a great gift for anyone you know who is in, or aspires to be in, the world of the performing arts.
IWG number three includes 22 easily read chapters and is arranged in a format similar to the previous two. That is, there are somewhat allusive chapter titles that seem to correspond with (often) one-word themes. For instance, there is a chapter on hospitality, one on listening, another few on story, and a useful one on expectations. These are helpful for anyone – who couldn’t stand to be reminded of how to trust God more in a chapter that starts with an actor crying in a dressing room when she learned that she didn’t get a part she had hoped for? Although many of these chapters are fairly simple, with commonplace wisdom, they are firstly written to and for other performing artists which suddenly makes them a gift of great grace, especially for those starting out in their work in the performing arts. One great chapter on marriage is written by a woman in theater whose husband is a traveling musician; as one who works with his spouse in a family business, I found the chapter very helpful. The opening chapter by Ned Bustard on what it means that we are to live for God’s glory is, again, while designed for artists, obviously, is general and insightful enough that it would be well worth reading for any of us. His opening story of a young cellist in his church and her fear that she wasn’t able to glorify God in her musical endeavors is telling, and his apologetic for God-glorifying art and culture and living is well worth reading more than once.
If some of the chapters are light and nicely inspiring a few are very good in their mature expositions of the calling of artists. Ransom Fellowship’s Denis Haack has a fabulous rumination on story (as a way of describing the allure and importance of contemporary film.) After quoting a line by a critic in The Atlantic, who said “Fiction can briefly offer the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” Haack writes:
To live in a world populated by creatures made for story, the calling to be a storyteller is a high calling, indeed. Making good films is a spiritual act, pleasing to God even if there isn’t a single religious thing, narrowly defined, in the film.
There are two pieces by sound engineers—on one the splendor of sound recording (you will never skip that part of the Academy Awards again!) and the other by a guy who works the soundboard at live concerts. One of the very best chapters is on “incarnation” and offers a theology of acting among “exploited image bearers.” It is very impressive that there is a chapter by classical dancer Jenifer Ringer, who had a best selling memoir of her work and struggles with the New York City Ballet, Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet. I really liked the two pieces on horror, one by the impressive screenwriter Brian Godawa. Brian Chan’s chapter about monsters explains how “the pained villain speaks to our humanity.” Again, this stuff will be very useful to those working in the film industry, say, or who are dancers or actors. But I think those of us who are not professionals or working in the arts will certainly enjoy them. I sure did.
For instance, I was very moved by an excellent chapter on “consistency” by an actress in New York, Elizabeth Richard. (She happens to be a Tony Award nominee.) As she told the story of Estelle Getty, who played Sophia on The Golden Girls and garnered numerous Emmy nominations, and of an enduring producer she has worked with and even the long, hard work of Nobel Prize wining playwright George Bernard Shaw, I was strangely inspired. (She also referred back to a story in It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God which indicates she’s done some of the reading and thinking so necessary to be faithful in this arena.) Also, I was very, very impressed with a captivating chapter about stage and set design. Marlaina Seay’s emphasis on sin was almost a bit heavy-handed but her obvious joy in creating appropriate mood-enhancing lines and spaces with just the right lighting and color had beautiful hints of redemption, making it one of the strongest pieces in the collection.
If anyone needs a book that often speaks clearly to those who might, for stuffy theological reasons, have doubts about the performing arts, know that most of these authors are theologically conventional and obviously involved in evangelical church life. There is no lack of piety and nothing inappropriately edgy or odd. One of the early chapters describes a “green room” ministry that artists can have doing quiet evangelism and mentoring among other performers. One great piece on performance itself starts with an episode that will seem odd to non-fundamentalists, when one pastor worried about too much inflection and drama in how someone read the Scripture in church! These essays ought not be off-putting to more mainline denominational or ecumenical readers – in fact, perhaps the strongest piece in the book includes a serious (Reformed Protestant) study of Pope John Paul II’s important and generative “Theology of the Body” and its implications for artists and actors, particularly. Penned by Camille Hallstrom, who founded the theatre department at Covenant College, it is very, very good. Entitled “Dignity” and exploring the imago dei,it is perhaps the most important chpater for actors and actress in the whole book, exploring profound ethical and artistic matters of what to do on stage. It even ends with flourish, sharing a poem by former Minister of Culture in Nicaragua, Ernesto Cardenal.
The back few pages that offer the biographies, resumes, and professional accomplishments of the contributing authors is itself an amazing read – the qualifications of most of those writing here are top-shelf. They have mixed sound with expert recording artists, they have premiered plays in prestigious locations, they have danced with the best ballets in the world, they have made award- winning documentaries. There is a house manager of a major playhouse, there are those who have worked on well-known TV shows, there are those who teach in well-respected university departments. Whether one is drawn to the stage or enjoys serious TV, whether one is a dancer or a film-maker or actress, there is something in this book for you. Like its first two predecessors, It Was Good: Performing Arts to the Glory of God is a rare resource and a great read.
Two very impressive pieces bookend It Was Good: Performing Arts for the Glory of God. The first is a short foreword exclaiming how very useful this book is, written by David H. Kim, the Director of the Center for Faith and Work of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. (David helped edit the Faith and Work Study Bible, in fact, and brings his deep Kuyperian worldview to bear in ministry with Manhattan business people, educators, professionals of all kind, including, of course, artists.) He suggests that although this book is designed to help artists relate their faith in meaningful ways to their calling in their performing careers or avocations, it is also important for all of us. To be schooled in caring about aesthetics and the arts and the value of performance and the practical life of artists is itself a good thing for us all.
Kim writes:
Square Halo has done the church a great service. With each chapter, you will encounter the creativity and craft of those involved in various aspects of the performing arts. Through each chapter, my hope is that you will discover the reality of a Gospel that awakens the church to see the passing brokenness of this world through renewed eyes. A church that grasps the reality of pervasive grace is one that is compelled to bring hopeful works into all aspects of our world. Our current culture is in desperate need of just this kind of witness.
David ends his lovely essay where he began, describing the impact the performing arts can have:
I hope you will engage the performing arts and that through those experiences your growing attentiveness to our world will allow you to see that despite the tragedy of its brokenness there remains the glorious promise of unimaginable renewal.
The closing chapter of the book is one of the very finest. It is by an increasingly well-known film critic, Alissa Wilkinson, now a culture reporter and film critic at Vox.com. It is a wonderful piece, well written, as you would expect, and illustrating the profound sort of perspective that she has developed on her task as critic. She starts with a look at the negative reputation of the critic by noting the “skinny, sour-faced restaurant critic” Anton Ego from Pixar’s Ratatouille, and the way in which film critic Pauline Kael famously destroyed director David Lean’s confidence and career after his Bridge on the River Kwai.
“But is this the only path for the critic?” she asks. Can the critic actually have her work properly directed by love? Can the good critic help build culture rather than tear it down?
Wilkinson’s insights are profound here as she offers her reflections on “horizons, gestures, and postures.” She is channeling a bit of Andy Crouch’s Culture Making, and James K.A. Smith (as she did somewhat in the co-authored book How to Survive the Apocalypse about the political implications of zombies, et al.) and it makes for a particularly thoughtful, insightful contribution.
Square Halo Books is to be commended putting out these good books. Kudos to Mr. Bustard for the behind-the-scenes work of nurturing relationships with so many artists in so many fields from so many venues which has borne fruit in this series of three It Was Good books. The bibliography in the back of this new one is thorough, but not exhausting, listing only the very best faithful scholars (of the likes of Jeremy Begbie, Calvin Seerveld, Madeline L’Engle, Cameron Anderson, Steve Turner, Sandra Bowden, William Edgar, Dorothy Sayers, and the like.) making it an ideal reference tool.
David Kim is right – Mr. Bustard has given a great gift to God’s people. Many others have also offered very cool rave views of IWG: Performing Arts… Scholar and professor William Edgar (himself a jazz pianist) says it is “must reading for anyone hoping to understand how the arts work for a Christian perspective.” Max McLean writes, “This is a wise book written by experienced practitioners who have been in the trenches of creating art from a Christian worldview. It ain’t easy, and if you want to try it, I suggest you read this book.”
Image journal’s Gregory Wolfe gives a “standing ovation.” And isn’t that what any performing artist hopes for? All I can ad is “encore, encore!
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Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Setbacks and Difficulty People Bob Goff (Nelson) $16.99 I can’t wait to read this brand new release by one of my favorite people and one of heckuva fun writer. Goff is a great storyteller and, man, does he have a lot to talk about – his work fighting international slavery, reforming laws in Uganda or his well known efforts forming schools (even in war zones in Somalia and Iraq) make for great testimony. So this is going to be great. He is a lawyer, motivational guy, and great dad and husband and friend to people all over the world. Did I mention the Somalia and Iraq thing? He’s full of good humor and seems to be fearless. The book is going to be great.
If you haven’t read his first collection of wild pieces, or the very good book by his wife and partner Sweet Maria, by the way, called Love Lives Here: Finding What You Need in a World Telling You What You Want (B+H; $17.99) you certainly should and I’m confident that you’ll enjoy them and will be pressing them into the hands of anybody you know who likes to read. The word of mouth buzz on Love Does has been one of the coolest things we’ve seen in our years of bookselling; everywhere we go people know this book. (And, happily, Love Does and Love Lives Here are the sort of books that can hook even though who don’t typically read much.) I also recommend his Love Does DVD curriculum ($29.99) which is a fun five-week course with Bob doing his Bob thing, leaking Jesus over everybody and somehow both reassuring and challenging and equipping us.
The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson Stanley Hauerwas (Eerdmans) $21.00 There are many who know that Dr. Hauerwas, Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke University, is one of the most important living theologians today, a deep philosopher, a colorful speaker, and a vibrant and robust proponent of character formation by submitting to Christian practices within the church. That is, the church shapes and forms us to be God’s people in the world that, if we are following Jesus, at least, is going to be controversial and counter-cultural. He has written bunches of books, some quite scholarly, and is known all over the globe.
The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships Suzanne Stabile (IVP) $24.00 and The Path Between Us Study Guide (IVP; $9.00)There are a lot of diagnostic tools to help us understand ourselves and others, from Meyers-Briggs to Love Languages and more. Learning about the nine Enneagram types has been incredibly popular this last year or two with several good books recently released. Customer keep telling us how much these books mean to them and how they’ve enjoyed these insights. Among our favs of recent titles include The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher Heuertz (Zondervan; $18.99) and Mirror for the Soul: A Christian Guide to the Enneagram by Alice Fryling (IVP; $16.00.) But Suzanne Stabile’s first major book, co-authored by the always great and so interesting Episcopal priest Ian Cron, The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery (IVP; $24.00) has been by far the biggest seller and most discussed Enneagram book in years. This is, in part, I think, because it is so lively and fun and also because Stabile and Cron have had tremendously popular podcasts. It’s a great book.
Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age Craig Detweiler (Brazos Press) $19.99 I love the writing and work of Craig Detweiler who has been one of the leading voices offering a thoughtful evangelical voice in the studies of popular culture, the modern zeitgeist, and faithful ways to navigate the world of entertainment, digital culture, video games, movies, and such. We take his book iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives almost everywhere we go, hoping that it will inspire folks to attend more deeply about the very water we swim in, to discern a bit about the times, being better equipped to follow Jesus’ command to be “in but not of” the world. Detweiler does his good work, linking theology and Christian perspectives with social and cultural and historical analysis, so I trust him a lot. I was delighted to learn that he just recently took a new position as the president of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, a graduate school founded by our friend Dan Allender. What a good gift he will be to them.
One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race John M. Perkins (Moody Press) $15.99 This is a handsome linen hardback, sans dust jacket, with nice red endpapers and it seems to have some gravitas to it. It is said that this is Dr. Perkins’s last book. I don’t know about that but I am sure that any time this African American leader writes something, many people should buy it, pass it around, share his work widely, and make your friends and churches know how important it is. If this is aid to be his “parting words” you should pay attention. There is a lot packed in here and he speaks plainly. In fact, he asks for our willingness to listen since he is an elder and doesn’t have time to mince words.
Jon Foreman of the band Switchfoot wrote a great afterword for One Blood and it offers a great reminder of the need too keep fighting the good fight, in the power of love. Throughout the book there are some other pastors who have chimed in, offering glimpses into how some churches have embodied and lived out this message Perkin’s brings. There are some prayers, some verses to look up, some thought-provoking questions, so it’s ideal, especially to give to rising leaders or younger folks.
Granted, King himself had his own besetting sins and foibles. (The scene in the must-see film Selma when King calls gospel singer Mahalia Jackson late at night to sing to him his favorite hymn because he was so scared is based on a true incident.) He and his associates, like all of us, had feet of clay. Yet, America hasn’t in years seen the likes of public theologians such as those that marched with King – just think of the Jewish leader Abraham Heschel, black Baptist preacher and King’s Lieutenant Ralph Abernathy, or the Presbyterian William Sloane Coffin, converted to public justice issues after a stint in the CIA. These were leaders that were well read, deeply conversant in the best American political theory, and profoundly committed to thoughtful engagement with Scripture.
I want to cry out when I hear ministers (of any race) and public officials (of any party) quoting King as if they know something about him or care about his social agenda when it is evident they do not. (Mike Huckabee scolded Black Lives Matters activists saying King wouldn’t have approved when that was not self-evident. How dare he suggest he cares what King thought when in so many ways he obviously does not?) I sometimes wonder how many people who cite him have read even a single of his many books?
A good place to determine if we want to align ourselves with Dr. King’s vision is to read books by and about him.
The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster) $16.00 Taylor Branch is widely respected for his massive, magisterial three-volume history of “American in the King Years.” This one is a smaller, vivid, accessible summary of the bigger set and offers helpful background and texture to King’s work. The best way to learn the most important episodes of the civil rights movement; highly recommended even though they are not all about Dr. King.
March Book One, March Book Two, March Book Three John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Mate Powell (Top Shelf Productions) $14.95, $19.95, $19.95 I hope you know these excellently done, slightly oversized graphic novels that tell the biography of this grand civil rights leader who worked closely with King. Congressman Lewis, as you may know, is the only living main stage speaker from the famous March on Washington and, of course, was a leader at Selma and beyond. While not only about King, it is a great way into these stories and that era, especially for those who appreciate comic books and graphic novels.
Martin Luther King Jr. for Armchair Theologians Rufus Burrow (Westminster John Knox) $18.00 I hope you know these “Armchair Theologians” books — they really are very interesting, complete with a few helpful cartoons. They aren’t really whimsical, but they are designed to study serious stuff about various theologians and their intellectual influences. There are bunches of them (on Luther, Bonhoeffer, Augustine, Calvin, Wesley, Aquinas, and more.) This one is solid, interesting, helpful, fun. You will learn a lot, I’m sure.
Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero Vincent Harding (Orbis) $16.00 I have long admired the colorful Harding, a storyteller of the first order, a passionate and decent leader of the movement. (His There Is a River is another classic in the literature of the black struggle for freedom in America.) He knows the stories, he knows why we must keep telling them, and he offers here a hard reminder of what King stood for.
Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation Jonathan Rieder (Bloomsbury) $16.00 King’s short letter written from a jail cell to moderate, sympathetic clergy, remains one of the classics of American literature; the rhetoric and eloquence of it is nothing short of brilliant. Professor Rieder explores the setting and the implications of this period of King’s life. It is widely considered a major contribution and was highly reviewed when it came out a few years ago.
I Have A Dream: Sermons and Writings That Changed the World Martin Luther King, Jr. (Harper) $15.99 There are bigger anthologies (such as the large A Testament of Hope) but this is the best, most economical one-volume collection of his most important writings.
The Radical King edited by Cornel West (Beacon Press) $16.00 The contemporary philosopher, activist, and public intellectual selects and introduces various letters, speeches, and essays of King’s that best illustrate his radical social vision. I hope you know West and his several books (including a recently re-issued Race Matters.) He has done us a great service to offer this particularly curated selection and a few explanatory notes about each reading. We have good studies of “the domestication” of King; this one allows you to read his words for yourself.
The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Jason Sokol (Basic Books) $32.00 This new hardback is great social history, reminding us well what King was up to his last year, what happened in the immediate aftermath of his murder (where would the funeral be held, how would they move the body, who would attend, why didn’t President Johnson show?) and how the subsequent riots effected the nation. This is a riveting read, highly recommended.
Reflections by Rosa Parks: The Quiet Strength and Faith of a Woman Who Changed a Nation Rosa Parks (Zondervan) $ This fabulous book used to be out as Quiet Strength and it is great to see it again with this excellent cover and nice, hand-sized, square, gift-book format. This is inspiring, of course, and is a fine way to learn a bit about the early days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and also to hear about the classic faith of many of Kings friends and influences. Love it!
A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation Based on His Experiences Beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott Rev. Robert Graetz (NewSouth Books) $26.95 Graetz was in 1955 when the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, a young white Lutheran pastor of a mostly black church. He has learned quite a lot over the years and some of our friends in the CCO have gone on civil rights tours with him. This is a rare and very special contribution, nicely done. There is a forward by John Lewis.
Called to the Fire: A Witness for God in Mississippi: The Story of Dr. Charles Johnson Chet Bush (Abingdon Press) $21.99 There are so many books like this, quiet, moving, informative stories that you may have never heard, lesser-known saints who served God despite all. This moving tale tells of Dr. Charles Johnson who was the key African American witness to take the stand in the trial famously dubbed the “Mississippi Burning” case by the FBI. Dr. Johnson was a young preacher fresh out of Bible College and became a voice for justice and equality in the segregated south. As the publisher says:
I’m glad we sang in our church “Christ Is Alive,” #246 in Glory to God, the PC(USA) Hymnal, which was written for Easter Sunday, 1968, by United Reformed Church minister and hymn-writer Brian Wren. It was penned for that hard late-60s Easter a few days following the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. It sings of the historical reality of the resurrection of Christ and, perhaps like Wesley’s famous “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” speaks of Christ alive now, alive in the present tense.
I haven’t followed much of a serious Lenten practice this year and I regret not being more disciplined or focused. But what I did do was listen almost exclusively to the latest album by Bill Mallonee,
The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $18.99 This is the one I raved about 
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $15.99 Many have said that this book is their favorite of Wright’s and its orthodox commitments and its innovative argument for creation regained is eye-opening and life-changing. We are so glad this is now out in paperback and hope it is widely used in study groups and book clubs. I assume most BookNotes readers know of its importance, especially in showing the grand vision of the restoration of the cosmos prefigured in the bodily resurrection. The implications are vast and he points us in the right direction, in much detail, with much vigor.. Now it is available for the first time in a more affordable paperback. Thanks to God.
First, there is the short, lovely, wise, and useful little book called Living in the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life by Eugene Peterson (NavPress; $17.99.) This is my favorite book on what we call the “post-resurrection appearances” of Jesus, which includes a chapter called “Resurrection Wonder”, another called “Resurrection Meals” and a third called “Resurrection Friends.” Each is a reflection of Biblical text and he naturally draws out a particular spiritual practice from each. He shows how every day can be a Resurrection Day as we encounter the risen Christ and a formed in His ways by his presence among us.
Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks Diana Butler Bass (HarperOne) $26.99 I have written often about Diana Butler Bass, a fine scholar of religion, a student of and reporter about healthy congregational life, and a memoirist whose book about being formed by various Episcopal churches (Strength for the Journey: A Pilgrimage of Faith in Community) has recently been updated and re-issued.
So, Diana Butler Bass has done a deep dive, as they say, into the nature of and value of gratitude. I am as eager as any to read this and admit that I need it more than most. I am glad she is a serious social critic and cares about not only individual happiness and personal meaning and resilience and such, but radical social reform and cultural renewal. In fact – surprise! – this is one of the great fruits of being people of gratitude; it is, she says, “what we most need now.” In Butler’s hands, I am sure, this virtue is not recommended as a sentimental or cheap pick-me-up by looking on the bright side. It is a profound spiritual practice that can be transforming and renewing and will help — if practiced — alter the politics of our time. In this regard, it is subversive.
Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible Elizabeth F. Caldwell and Carol A. Wertheim (Westminster John Knox) $25.00 I have been wanting to describe this marvelous new children’s Bible for a while now and it never seemed to fit our Book Notes schedule and I now realize I want to shout about it here – it is very thoughtfully done, a rare and intentionally created storybook Bible done by very highly-respected Presbyterian educators. But a longer more serious review will have to wait as I’ve got so much to say about it.
Prayers for Young Children Martina Steinkuehler, illustrated by Barbara Nascimbeni (Eerdmans) $16.50 We have really liked Steinhuhler’s illustrations in the excellent Images of God for Your Children so was glad to see her slightly modern, just a little choppy artwork to bring interest and color to these marvelous re-telling of Biblical prayers. The prayers are not sentimental or dumbed-down; there is an index showing the Biblical allusions in each of the nearly 80 pages.
God’s Very Good Idea: A True Story About God’s Delightfully Different Family Trillia Newbell, illustrated by Catalina Echeverri (The Good Book Company) $14.99 We announced this here last fall and thought I’d just copy my review here, again: I think I will name this as our top children’s book of the year, or very near the top. It’s just stunning in how interesting it is, how it relates the simple gospel to remarkable implications, and how it gets the full-orbed vision of the Kingdom of God being that redemptive force which rescues and renews the very creation. We sometimes talk about creation-fall-redemption and this book gets it! God’s very good idea was a good and safe and colorful creation and God is not giving up on God’s good idea. Jesus will come –as the big story of the whole Bible shows in it’s unfolding drama – to save the lost and redeem the creation, which includes a restoration of the (get this!) ethnic and personality and gender diversity of the original creation.
The Garden The Curtain and the Cross: The True Story of Why Jesus Died and Rose Again Carl Laferton illustrated by Catalina Echeverri (The Good Book Company) $14.99 The playfully excellent Cataline Echeverri did the artwork on this one, too, and fits nicely to offer this overview of the big Biblical story – a good garden, a sinful mess, a savior who comes as a serving King, and that great episode of the curtain in the temple torn. God’s redemptive vision of reconciliation and restoration in Christ’s death and resurrection is shown here in a way that is better than almost any children’s book I know – so well done, so creatively offered, so insightfully wise about capturing Christ’s work in the context of the bigger Scriptural framework of promise and deliverance. Do you want kids to be a part of this grand story to be invited in? This is a very useful resource and very cool at that.
Not Especially Special Katie Savage illustrated by Emily Henebrey (Katie Savage) $16.99 This is brand new and I bet you haven’t heard of it yet. But you just might because this book is so good it is only a matter of time until it gets known and widely loved. We so appreciated Katie Savage’s previous book, a wonderfully realized set of thoughtful reflections, sort of a memoir about her finding God in ordinary life called Grace in the Maybe: Instructions on Not Knowing Everything about God (Howard Books; $15.99) that when we heard she was doing a children’s book we just had to see what it would be like. It is, as we expected, very impressive, a fun and winsome story well told, with a lovely message of God’s love for everyone, for the specialness we all have, despite our various callings and gifts.
When God Made Light Matthew Paul Turner illustrated by David Catrow (Waterbrook) $11.99 Turner became know a decade ago as a sassy and funny voice for an emerging generation of open-minded, post-evangelical leaders. I think he wrote for the likes of Relevant and wrote some fun books poking at the silly, insular stylings of in-house evangelicalism. One had to like his boldness and his wit. I’m a fan.
Herodotus the Hedgehog Jen-Luc Buquet (Eerdmans) $17.00 Eerdmans Books for Young Readers brings to North America a lot of books from overseas and they are often exceptionally creative, curious, eccentric even. They do solid Biblical and theological stories and then they do stories with good moral messages about kindness or justice or creativity and such. And then do remarkable books like Herodotus the Hedgehog.
The NIV Action Study Bible (David C. Cook) $12.99 This uses some of the art of the graphic novel/comic book stylings of the Action Bible and puts it with the full text of the NIV. If I had this Bible as a boy, I’m telling ya, man… well. Who knows? I do think this will appeal to many, from little ones who like comics to even older ones who like graphic novels and action-adventure stories. There are nice sidebars and introductions to each book and some info graphics but the heart of this Bible are the many Action Bible illustrations. Three cheers!
Reformation ABCs: The People, Places, and Things of the Reformation – from A to Z Stephen Nichols, illustrated by Ned Bustard (Crossway) $16.99 This came out just one year ago and since we are now in the middle of the extraordinary 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant reformation (how often does a culture commemorate a 500th anniversary of anything!?) I figured we should run this again, from last year’s Easter Basket Suggestions post.
Nichols and Bustard teamed up before in a truly wonderful The Church History ABCs (Crossway Books; $16.99) which came out a few years ago as a slightly oversized hardback, counting down all kinds of good stuff from church history as an ABC book. Like some ABC books, it works on two levels — yes, for young ones learning to play with letters and learn various words across the alphabet. But these sorts of books can be deceiving — there is a lot of content, and will be sure to inform and even delight anyone with a bit of interest in history. I bet you will learn something!
All the Tales from the Ark Avril Towlands (Lion Press) $9.99 In the mid- 1990s there were a set of three books that were very popular, first in England, and then in the US; these tales about Mr. and Mrs. Noah managing a menagerie were fabulously entertaining, curious stories that told the imagined stories of what different animals experienced on the ark. This new edition offers over 400 pages of these great stories in one hand-sized paperback. And what stories they are – what fun! This isn’t a picture book and although you could read it out loud as a family even for little children, the reading level itself is probably about a third grade level.
The Day God Made Church: A Child’s First Book About Pentecost Rebekah McLeod Hutto, illustrated by Stephanie Hig (Paraclete) $15.99 Again, I’ve recommended this here before and we display it at churchy events and folks love it. There is very little on the Pentecost story and this is one which – in really colorful design and creative text — captures the mystery and importance of this day which many consider “the birthday of the church.” This very colorful paperback uses powerful storytelling and healthy Biblical education and a stimulating, creative picture book helping us learn to celebrate a day in the church calendar that is sometimes overlooked. Pentecost is 50 days after Easter so this is great to give now. It is stunning.
Why Should the Devil Have All the God Music? Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock is a fabulously interesting book and, like the best rock and roll biographies – among my personal favorites include Testimony by Robbie Robertson of The Band and the splendid Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970 and the must-read Beatle’s study by Larry Norman’s friend, Steve Turner, called Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year – it includes lots of stuff about music and song lyrics and production of albums and rock tour stories, but also fair amount of fun celebrity gossip and, thank goodness, some social and cultural and religious commentary. How can one reflect on an artist who hung out with The Jefferson Airplane and opened for Jimi Hendrix and chatted with Paul McCartney and sang about racism and poverty and against the rootlessness of a materialistic generation not explain a bit about the ethos of the 1960s? Norman came of age, and gave voice to Christian faith amidst the California counter-culture; his art was a loud and often-controversial critique of bad religion and boring church and it stood (at least in the early days) as part of the broader zeitgeist which critiqued the bankrupt values of the American dream and the sins of the American empire.
who feared the riots and the KKK and the guns of the Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army, those of us who participated in early Earth Day activities, who marched against the war, who wept at the napalm used in Viet Nam, who grew cynical from Watergate and wondered why our churches seemed less interested in these hugely ethical and spiritual matters in our culture than they should have been, found in Larry’s music a Christian who seemed to understand us. Yes, those of us who listened to Dylan and Simon and Garfunkle and yelled out the chorus of “Four Dead in Ohio” as a lament, we needed the Jesus-drenched lines of Norman, too, and I wished the deep, deep pathos of that longing for relevant Jesus rock came through more in this book. In those days, Larry was the closest thing we had and thinking about it still conjures for me dread and joy and passion and frustration and hope.
Less grandiose and perhaps more fun, if you’ve ever enjoyed cool Christian rock – think Mark Heard or Keaggy or Charlie Peacock or the 77s or Sam Phillips or the best work of Amy Grant or VOL or POD or Gungor or Lecrae or Switchfoot or Sara Groves or Jennifer Knapp or Crowder – you know that you owe it to yourself to learn a bit more about the grand-daddy of all this.
It is a true biography and less a study of the movement that Larry Norman was a part of, but it explores and reflects on much that is important, that was generative and influential; I believe it would have been an even stronger book if Thornbury had cited seminal works about the way in which rock music had within it the tensions of art and commercialism. If he had explored and reflected more on the meaning and social implications of the details he shares – fascinating ones like how Pat Boone funded early Norman records and how Norman protégé Randy Stonehill had legal battles with producers in England and why agents and DJs and critics – not to mention fans – loved Norman but his record sales were marginal and why we ended up with Christian bookstores that carried gospel music in a way Tower Records didn’t, and so forth. And why-oh-why Christian followers, especially, were confused (and some, outraged) by his less overtly religious recordings (see the great chapter on So Long Ago in the Garden, for instance.) The promo for the book notes that this previously untold story is set “at the dawn of the culture wars” and that is a helpful reminder of the big picture this is about.
Fortunately, geeky Greg Thornbury (now serving at the New York Academy of Art) is very aware of these aesthetic and cultural concerns and has spent years ruminating and writing on them – what does it mean to be “in the world but not of it”? How do Christians serve as “salt and light” within the arts and popular culture? What is the role of God’s people to shape and influence cultural trends? How should we think about these things well? Although I may have wished for a bit more direct comment about all this, it is there between the lines, and in some of the footnotes, making Thornbury a very, very appropriate and helpful teller of this big tale. And what a tale it is.
And he was, indeed, important, as Thornbury helps us appreciate. Billboard called Norman “the most important songwriter since Paul Simon.” The Huffington Post published an article dubbing him “The Most Amazing Artist You’ve Never Heard Of.” The Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry has honored his album Only Visiting This Planet as a “cultural, artistic, and/or historical treasure.”
band People! played at the first big Be-In in Haight Asbury with Janis Joplin and the Dead and the beat poet Alan Ginsberg) and nicely notes some of the stars he hung out with and perhaps influenced – some say that The Who’s Tommy was somewhat inspired by Norman’s own work in developing rock operas, even as he crossed paths with the guy who played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar. He chatted with Neil Young and Stephen Stills in their Buffalo Springfield days; years later he played on the White House lawn for Jimmy Carter.
and the fans that did or didn’t like him. I think much of the tone and texture of casual, non-fundamentalist, but still fiery evangelical outreach among youth in the 70s helped shape the nature of evangelicalism today. Of course some of his songs were in the influential Young Life songbooks that so many used at church camps and youth ministry events and the rise of para-church ministries (even like the CCO) took shape with long-hair and bell bottoms and Good News Bibles and Bible studies while sitting in circles on the lawn like hippies. That there is a sizable non-fundamentalist, culturally-savvy, socially relevant, and yet deeply orthodox Christian movement among baby boomers and their offspring comes in some ways from this legacy of the Jesus Movement days.
It’s a long story but we have copies of two important, rowdy Mark Heard albums from the early 1980s, Stop the Dominoes and Victims of the Age. Tell us which one you want, absolutely free. You can listen to it while reading Why Should the Devil Have All the God Music? Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Alan Thornbury.
Reconstructing The Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (IVP) $20.00v I have read all the other books that Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove has written and he is a thoughtful theologian, serious activist, great storyteller, and a very good author. You may know that, somewhat like his friend Shane Claiborne, he grew up fundamentalist, went to Eastern University and with the help of thoughtful evangelicals there grew into a faith that is Biblically orthodox, prayerful, and deeply committed to a rule of life that includes community living, nurturing a sense of place, serving others, standing with the marginalized and oppressed, and worshiping humbly amongst a diverse family of believers. He has told much of his own story in several other books, all which I recommend heartily.
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America Jennifer Harvey (Abingdon Press) $22.99 This is a book many of us have been waiting for. Let me be brief and to the point: few books of which we are familiar are at once this theologically astute, radical in their approach to racial justice, and yet practical as a handbook for parents who need help raising their children. Professor Harvey has been writing about racial justice for decades (and most recently did the heavy, prophetic, Dear White Christians published by Eerdmans.) She is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church.
Love Big Be Well: Letters to a Small Town Church Winn Collier (Eerdmans) $16.99 We named this as one of the very best books of 2017 and celebrated it as my favorite novel of that year, too. It is a novel, a series of letters from a quiet but eloquent, down-to-Earth but very smart pastor of a cranky, lovely, fascinating, small-town, small church. I love the way pastor Eugene Peterson calls it “a tour de force” and continues:
Shalom Sistas: Living Wholeheartedly in a Brokenhearted World Osheta Moore, with a foreword by Sarah Bessey (Herald Press) $16.99 Osheta Moore is a great writer, an upbeat, passionate, contemporary black woman with a voice that is unforgettable. Her bio says that her work has been featured at Sojourners and SheLoves Magazine, A Deeper Story, The Art of Simple, ReKnew, and Rachel Held Evans’ blog. Men and women both have endorsed this upbeat book – Dennis Edwards says it is “Practical, engaged, theologically informed, poignant, and witty.” Christina Cleveland says that Moore has “a gift for blazing a path toward liberation, hope, and purpose.” Maybe you saw her piece this fall in The Christian Century.
New Worshipping Communities: A Theological Exploration Vera White & Charles Wiley (WJK) $20.00 This slim book deserves a bigger review later, but I have to list it here for a few quick reasons. It is a book that documents the theology of and the stories about the recent effort within the PC(USA) (that’s the mainline Presbyterians) to plant 1001 new congregations. That they call them “new worshipping communities” may bring to mind the Fresh Expressions movement and certainly indicates a missional vision, not just conventional church planting. Friends at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary have been a part of this and some of this book came out of a convocation that met there to draft documents and continue the conversation about this audacious move. Since this is our own denomination, we are thrilled to suggest that it seems like this new book is stellar, a fresh and helpful contribution to the growing literature on church start ups, planting, missional communities, fresh expressions, etcetera.
Good Faith: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re Irrelevant and Extreme David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons (Baker) $15.99 That this book is co-produced by the Barna Organization and Q is an indication that it is both research-based and creatively applied, both Biblical and deeply relevant. Kinnaman is the genius and dear man behind Barna and Gabe is the guy who puts together the Q Ideas events, high-class, TED-like gatherings for thoughtful Christians desiring to witness well in our contemporary culture. Both have a passion for equipping churches of all kinds (although they are both evangelical) for navigating the issues of the day, understanding facts and data, and moving towards a vision for cultural flourishing and the common good. I respect them both immensely and hope you’ve read them.
Still Evangelical? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning edited by Mark Labberton (IVP) $17.00 This book is one of the most important books for me these past months and I poured my heart into a review that tried to explain to our BookNotes readers who evangelicals are (that is, they are not the same as fundamentalists) and why many are so very disturbed by the way the media has insisted that most evangelicals are pro-Trump. Many have gotten the idea that all evangelicals are nearly white supremacists, very anti-immigration, resistant to the facts about climate change, and are willing to look the other way about sexual violence — from President Trump or the allegations about Judge Roy Moore, say — as long as right wing politicians are elected.
Kingdom Collaborators: Eight Signature Practices of Leaders Who Turn the World Upside Down Reggie McNeal (IVP) $16.00 This is another fantastic book from The IVP Praxis line, a creatively serious line of useful resources to equip leaders for contemporary ministry. Those who know Reggie McNeal know him as a long-standing voice for what we now call the missional church; he was talking about being outward focuses and Kingdom oriented for decades and his vibrant speaking schedule has made him a well-known and well-trust voice among church consultants and leadership coaching. He works for something called GoodCities and is a senior fellow for the Leadership Network. This book is brand new.
The Monk’s Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966 Robert Hudson (Eerdmans) $23.99 I know, I know, we announced this earlier in the week and I raved a bit. I’m so excited, and the foreword itself is just fantastic. What a very cool idea, written by a very reliable author who is obviously bonkers over Dylan and Merton, too. Ya gotta love a book that says that “Cables to the Aces is when Merton went electric.” If you get that, you’ve gotta get this book!
The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church David John Seel, Jr. (Thomas Nelson) $16.99 This is another we did a very long review of in BookNotes a month ago and now want to move more, so hope the extra discount will encourage you to read it, maybe with a group. This includes some sweeping overviews of Western history and the shifts in culture that some call postmodern. It summarizes a lot of the research on Gen X and millennials and Gen Z and such. It isn’t sloppy and it isn’t simplistic, but it does offer a fresh and powerful summary of what’s going on, how it is that churches can build new relationships of honor and trust among their emerging adults, and what we all can do to, like Copernicus of old, navigate a new world that is appearing with new ways of understanding the cosmos and our culture and ourselves. This is a great read and more important than you may know. Highly recommended.
Four Views on the Church’s Mission edited by Jason Sexton (Zondervan) $16.99 I hope you liked my long review of the Jubilee conference in the last BookNotes, and noted that this is a particular way of telling the gospel story, a way that sees the Kingdom of God as the central theme of Jesus’s ministry and work. His community, His people, the Body of Christ, the Church, is core to that story, of course, but, in this reformationally worldviewish telling, God is redeeming all of life and, therefore, thinking Christianly about economics, say, is as important as theology, and the work of the plumber or journalist or midwife is as important as the minister, priest, or nun.
Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship Gregory Boyle (Simon & Schuster) $26.00 I trust I don’t have to say much about this – we raved about it when we first announced it a few months ago, and many heard Father Boyle on NPR’s Fresh Air, I think. Lots of folks were buzzing about how moving this story of “Homeboy Industries” (the job-training program and community Boyle founded in inner city LA, Compton, to be exact.) The first book that was a huge New York Times bestseller was Tattoos on the Heart and this carries the story of Boyle and his homeboys forward. Boyle has been called brave and humane and brilliant. His writing has been called “astonishing” and “jaw-dropping.” Tattoos of the Heart is remarkable and this is no less so. We have a big stack and we are hoping you’ll appreciate the good discount and pick it up now. What a story!
In our last post where we highlighted some brand new books (and some long-standing hardbacks that have been finally released in paperback) we noted that we had just gotten back from the big Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh. If you are new to BookNotes or the Hearts & Minds bookstore you may not know that this great event for 4000 college student run by the campus ministry organization CCO (with whom Beth and I are involved) is one of the most important things we’ve ever had the privilege of being involved with. We were involved as a member of the 
early committee for the event over 40 years ago to being an occasional speaker (yep, Beth and I both) and, in the last few decades, as book provider. I suppose, counting up my time on stage promoting books at the event I may have been up front as often as nearly anyone – and they keep allowing us to come back! It is an honor to invite students to “read for the Kingdom” and it is a hard but true joy to choose and lug and curate and set up (and lay out the cash for) a big pop-up bookstore each February in Pittsburgh.
prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 61) so many years later which then became the first lectionary text Jesus used in his first sermon (Luke 4) – was to be so much more than these cheap misappropriations. I’m sure you know that it included land redistribution, forgiveness of economic debts (it’s why we say “forgive us our debts” in the Lord’s Prayer) and other restorative social and economic policies. Years were shaved off of indentured servant’s obligations, prisoners got out of jail, animals got to rest, the land was to lay fallow, in a move ripe with environmental stewardship and an extraordinary experience of trusting the provisions of an abundance creation overseen by a gracious God. All of this good social policy stuff about second chances and renewed social infrastructure and the revival of stewardly economies, conjuring up the teeming blessing of shalom in Genesis 1 and 2, all was to begin on the day of atonement.
You know Jesus as the Christ, as Savior, Redeemer, Bread of Life, Lord, King, friend. I suggest you add “Jubilee Bringer” to the names of Jesus you use in your holy imagination and in your prayers and liturgy. Of course, “Kingdom-bringer” is another way to say the same thing: the Kingdom is at hand; the commonwealth of God, the reign of restoration has begun; the future age of new creation has broken into the now of real life! It is simple: we “seek first the Kingdom” (Matthew 6:33) and everything else falls into place. We preach the gospel “to all creation” (Mark 16:15) and long for “all things” to be reconciled (Ephesians 1:10.) We give all we have for that treasure in that field, we enter the Kingdom and, alas, “all things are made new, we are new creations!” Through Christ’s cross the dysfunctions of the idols and powers of this world are undone (Colossians 2:15) and “all things” are reconciled (Colossians 1:20.) All things?
As happens every year, I got teary and occasionally wept as I watched my younger colleagues at the CCO leading their college age students into this broad vision of God’s redemptive work in the world at the annual Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh. Time and again in powerful main sessions and engaging workshops and vivid, loud worship, nearly 4000 students and lots of others were invited into a view of life that gives account for the goodness of creation and it’s God give orderliness and potential, the brokenness we know that comes from autonomy, sin, idolatries, stupidity, and cruelty, and, further, a vision of God’s grace that leads to redemption in Christ and true hope for the renewal of life as God intends.
As you may know, the CCO arranges the Jubilee conference in those four major parts, with main stage gatherings moving from presentations on the goodness of creation to the awful fall into sin and the subsequent disruption of the world God made, on to the redemption Jesus brings and ending with a message of hope for the restored creation (what some might call “realized eschatology.”) By Sunday morning the worship and music and speakers inspire students to live into the tension of the “already but not yet” of Christ’s promises of healing the cosmos. “All things (re)new(ed)” promises Revelation 21 and 22 — our lives can be decisively shaped by this hope. Through union with the resurrected, ascended, and returning Christ, we can be the change we want to see. We are pregnant, as it were, with the promise of future hope. We are the light of the world, Jesus said, and we point people (through our good works, He also said) towards the good promises of Kingdom come, which is creation renewed.
There is, as N.T Wright wonderful ponders in Surprised By Hope and as Richard Middleton studies in every more detail in A New Heavens and New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (which ends in a great study of Luke 4, by the way), continuity between this world and the next.
the centers for spirituality and formation these days talk more about mystical union with God and intimate friendship with Jesus than being shaped by the virtues of Christ to become vessels for all-of-life, love-of-neighbor, “seek the peace of the city” sort of restorative work. It is why we were so glad to tell people about Kyle Bennett’s Practices of Love: Spiritual Disciplines for the Life of the World (Brazos Press; $17.99) that show how spiritual practices help us reconfigure and live in new ways in the real world. It makes perfect sense that James K.A. Smith wrote the forward to Kyle’s book and that they both have spoken at Jubilee. This Jubilee vision is, if nothing, integral.
For instance, we love books such as All Things New: Rediscovering the Four Chapter Gospel Why It Matters by Hugh Whelchel (IFWE; $6.99 — although that is one we have under the clearance sale section at 30% off for the next four days) and A Christian Worldview: A Students Guide by Philip Ryken (Crossway; $11.99) which explain the significance of these four “acts” of the Biblical drama. One of our favorite small groups guides for this is the rare and wonderful Reintegrate Your Career with God’s Purposes by Bob Robinson (Good Place Publishing; $14.00) I hardly know any other simple resources that invite conversations about this coherent Biblical story that shapes how we think about all of life being redeemed. Do you? I wish we’d sell these routinely – they are so useful and so rare. They will create some fresh conversations in your circles, I’m sure!
We hope you know Richard Mouw’s thought-provoking book about the continuity between culture and redemption and new creation in his little book When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem (Eerdmans; $15.00.) Again, I promise you’ll both enjoy its crisp writing and learn something new from it – some have found it confounding and others have found it clarifying. Will there be Beatles recordings in the New Earth? It is a serious question and he’s got a proof-text based on the ships of Tarshish!
You can pick up the hardback (usually $24.99) at our 30% off sale price now ($17.50) while supplies last, or get the brand new paperback at the 20% discount announced in the previous BookNotes offer. We only have a couple hardbacks so let us know asap if you want one at 30% off.
of the big Biblical drama. It’s a light before our path, which is to say it illuminates what we know about the world so we can walk wisely in the ways of the Lord in every zone of life. Many of the “how to read the Bible” books we promote there have that as a feature, such as Michael Goheen & Craig Bartholomew’s The True Story of the Whole World: Finding Your Place in the Biblical Drama (Faith Alive; $15.99) or Sean Gladding’s The Story of God, the Story of Us: Getting Lost and Found in the Bible (IVP; $17.00 or The Big Story: How the Bible Makes Sense Out of Life by the fun writer Justin Buzzard (Moody Press; $13.99.)
Books matter. Books are important tools for thinking about the implications of this worldviewish perspective and good authors can be wise guides to help us think deeply about God’s intentions for creation. To be faithful agents of God’s redemptive purposes in our time we need more than the Bible, more than good church services, more than passion for the relevance of the gospel. We have to think it through, un-learn and re-learn some stuff, and work it out. Why did God in all of God’s wisdom, create humans with capacities to mirror God’s own care for the world God so loves? How does our sexuality or our thinking or are propensity to play or our ability to be creative or our deep need to work or the joy of learning or the call to rest or our spending of money or our capacity to make stuff or our kinship in families, not to mention our ethnicity and gender – all human things — fit into our Christian lives, our discipleship, our walking in the way of the Lord through this hard but wonderful world?
I’d say we even have to learn to ask the right questions, and good books can stimulate our minds and enlarge our hearts and guide us into this sort of curious, probing wisdom, with a view to working out a Kingdom viewpoint in all of life.
There are good books on everything, almost, and not enough people have access to these riches. And, more importantly, germane for this “all of life redeemed” missional Jubilee vision, we take so many books to the conference in order to help conferees discover resources about their own passions and pursuits, the offices to which they are called and their various tasks and duties, as students, friends, relatives, church members, citizens and so forth. The conference is for college students and the life of the mind as they think about their studies, of course, but it also means that we show off books on sexuality and dating, learning to step into what is playfully called “adulting,” and stuff like being a better friend or son or daughter. We sell a lot of “self-help” titles about shame and pain and how God’s grace equips us to forgive and move beyond hurts and setbacks and the insecurities many have. (Does your church help hurting people see the gospel as the balm they need to heal their anguish, to cope with their anxiety? I hope so.) And, naturally, for those still trying to figure out the truthfulness of this Christian story (can such good news really be true?) we sell popular-level introductions to the gospel, books for those with questions and doubts and books that make a good case for the credibility of this story we find ourselves in.
I was glad, by the way, to sell the paperback edition of David Dark’s allusive book Life’s Too Short To Pretend Your Not Religious (IVP; $17.00) and David Skeel’s not-quite-postmodern True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World (IVP; $16.00) alongside the more popular Case for Christ and Case for Faith and other books of evidences and apologetics for those wanting to persuade their friends of the goodness of the gospel way. Hooray for good tools, too, like Os Guinness’s Fools Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (IVP; $22.00) and Richard Mouw’s Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (IVP; $16.00) and Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World by Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer (IVP; $22.00.)
Besides the arts and sciences, books about a Christian view of literature or computer science or nursing or film or business or special education – we think they should read a few books just about what we call “the Christian mind.” For this crowd I like John Piper’s passionate Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Crossway; $15.99) although I really, really like one by Philip E. Dow called Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development (IVP; $17.99.) It is lovely, nicely written and stimulating new ground; it is one faculty and anyone who prides themselves in thinking well should read too. I like to show off the brief Called to the Life of the Mind: Some Advice for Evangelical Scholars by Richard Mouw (Eerdmans; $10.00) mostly because it is so brief. Students don’t know John Stott, these days, but his very classic book (that we passed out at our grand opening 35 years ago!) called Your Mind Matters (IVP; $9.00) is one that pushes back at the sensationalism and anti-intellectualism in some evangelical circles. This stuff if foundational, I’d say.
I think the late, great James Sire (who has spoken at Jubilee more than once and whose recent death was discussed at the book tables more than once) would have been proud to see books about worldview and the Christian mind, including his own Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (IVP; $22.00) and Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling IVP; $20.00.) I know Sire loved The 
Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview by Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton (IVP; $22.00) and we had all of Walsh and Middleton’s other books too. Man, I wish folks would order Subversive Christianity: Imaging God in a Dangerous Time by Walsh (Wipf & Stock; $17.00) – it’s incredibly potent, thoughtful, deep, urgent, and one of the chapters was one of the meatier lectures ever given at Jubilee, years and years ago!
alongside Sire and Walsh and Middleton and Al Wolters and Mark Noll and the like. Steve used to direct the conference decades ago, so it is always special to show Fabric of Faithfulness and Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good (IVP; $17.00), too. Both are eloquent, beautiful, stimulating, enduring books of Jubilee vision and whole-life discipleship. 
by the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation and this year both Acton Institute and the wonderful Made to Flourish (founded by Tom Nelson) helped out. Do you know Tom Nelson’s Work Matters: Moving From Sunday Worship to Monday Work? Tom’s vision of seeing churches and pastors motivated and equipped to encourage their congregants in their work lives is lovely; his new book is on why we should know a bit about how the structures of economics unfold and how church folk can take up their lives not unaware of economic forces is called, beautifully, The Economics of Neighborly Love: Investing in Your Community’s Compassion and Capacity (IVP; $16.00.) If you can, you should sign up for next year’s JubileePro. – it’s a great afternoon event, and then you get in to Jubilee for the big Friday night opening.
are not as well read as we ought to be and our capacity to think well is being eroded daily. We were glad to sell Alan Jacob’s How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds (Currency; $23.00) and Christopher Smith’s Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods (IVP; $16.00) two books we love. As much as I rejoice in telling you about how our book display was appreciated at Jubilee and how books have made a difference in so many lives, it is also true that indie bookstores (especially of the religious and theological sort) are increasingly becoming a thing of the past.
Garden City Work, Rest, and What It Means to Be Human John Mark Comer (Zondervan) $16.99 This is one of the best, refreshing, upbeat, fun books to read about all this good stuff. The design suggests a Rob Bell book. We really appreciated John Mark’s encouragement to us at Jubilee; he’s a good guy and did a great job Sunday morning. Buy a bunch of these and pass them out!
God Has A Name John Mark Comer (Zondervan) $16.99 . This is John Mark’s most recent book and it is oddly breezy yet profound, inviting us to know the name of God, to be in relationship with this God who cares. Interestingly, Comer suggests that the passage where God reveals God’s own name (in Exodus 34) may be the most quoted verse of the Bible in the rest of the Bible. Very nicely done.
The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life Os Guinness (Thomas Nelson) $17.99 Over and over I remind people that this is a beautiful, potent, elegant, thoughtful must-read. I think it is a very important work, one of my own personal favorites, and we highly recommend it. Get it now while on sale and you will want to read it more than once.
Culture Making Discovering Our Creative Callings Andy Crouch (IVP) $22.00 Again, this is one of those books that is nearly a must-read, essential to understand the Jubilee conference and Jubilee Pro as these ideas have been so significant in our community. This is a book that explores the “cultural mandate” of imaging God well in the world by using our creativity and abilities to learn to enhance the world God has given us and make a contribution. Andy did a splendid job at Jubilee –if you saw his video from an older Jubilee (where he plays as Bach piece as he did this year) it will be clear how very thoughtful and articulate he is.
Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power Andy Couch (IVP) $25.00 I can’t tell you how powerful and important this is. Most readers of BookNotes have some sort of cultural power and most of us need to be a bit more intentional about considering Christianly the goodness, troubles of, and redemptive practices that might help heal our weird relationship with institutions of power. Highly recommended.
Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing Andy Crouch (IVP) $20.00 This small hardback is still being discussed in places who have read it together and it is more than clever, it is a stroke of genius to have this formulation of how to do more than “balance” power and strength on one hand and risk and vulnerability on the other. Can we embody both? What are the implications? How we can learn to be fully human, exercising our gifts in cruciform service? One of the most generative books we’ve read in years…
A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World Katelyn Beaty (Howard Books) $14.99 With a forward by the energetic, globally-followed justice activist Christian Caine, this may seem like quite the upbeat manifesto. But, although it is very well written – Beatty was a print journalist and eventually editor of CT, after all – but it is sober and wise and thoughtful and down to Earth. As you may know, we love books on calling and vocation and it is no surprise that Beaty has been to both Jubilee and Jubilee Professional… she’s thoughtful and highly respected, offering here the only good book in this field, linking calling and vocation to women’s experiences in the workplace and the world at large. It’s well worth having, a good book to share.
Learning for the Love of God: A Student’s Guide to Academic Faithfulness Derek Melleby & Donald Opitz (Brazos Press) $15.00 Okay, you are reading all of this and you realize you know young adults who are in college who never heard of Jubilee, or are too far away to come (although we had folks there from California and Tennessee and Florida and Michigan and Indiana) or who wouldn’t be inclined to come, even if they could. I get that. Not every young adult is comfortable thinking about God and church and Christ’s Kingdom and they sure don’t get that it connects to their experiences in college. I want to invite you to consider giving this book to them. (I’m not just saying that – I really hope you seriously give it your consideration. Whom do you know who needs this?) It explores how most American’s view college life (either it’s a blast a la Animal House or it’s super studious as a ticket to academic success and a future career with a good paycheck) and how God might be offering a different view of the young adult years. What if we could actually see God in the classroom? What if we study to know God’s world and ourselves better? What if we took up a liturgy of learning that helped us connect religion and life? I suppose you’ve heard that I adore these two authors – they are among my best friends – and that this book is dedicate to me. It is an honor I don’t take lightly, and it is a book I wish I could sell more widely. Please consider it. Now is a time to get it on sale. Your young student friend will be glad you cared.
The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Good Can Be Made Right Lisa Sharon Harper (Waterbrook) $15.99 You may recall that this is one of the books we’ve touted the most lately, and we like the way Lisa does the c-f-r approach, but using fresh and Biblical language. She shows the blessed shalom of the good creation, the harsh alienation due to sin, and the cosmic reconciliation brought by Christ. In Him, the Prince of Peace, the alienation can be healed — indeed, in the second half of the book she explores how reconciliation can occur in so many areas where there are hostilities and pain, from our own body images to class differences, ethnic tensions to our relationship with the earth itself. This is very good news, indeed.
Go: Returning Discipleship to the Front Lines of Faith Preston Sprinkle (NavPress) $14.99 I am a big fan of this book and I’ll tell you why: discipleship — as in the Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer, say — is something folks are confused about. Are we all called to be disciples? What does that even mean; what does it look like? Does it mean one must also be a disciple-maker, as in a mentor or leader or something? Well, this book tries to clear up some confusion, and uses some nationally-gathered research, too, which is always interesting, to know what church folks across denominational lines think they this this elusive word means. Sprinkle thinks it is a good and useful word, and explores how our minds matter in how we think about life and times, so we should read and learn. (Sound familiar? Right on!) He talks about work and callings, aware that for many of us, the workplace is the main venue in which our faith is lived out. His refusal to have a large gap between Sunday and Monday, or between, say, evangelism and social action, shows he’s a new generation leader, offering a balanced and passionate, relevant and faithful, thoughtful and engaging sort of way to follow Jesus. Thanks to the Barna Group for working on this project and thanks to Sprinkle for helping us think just a bit deeply (if colorfully) about what sort of renewal we should be seeking in these days.
Breaking the Idols of Your Heart Dan Allender & Tremper Longman (IVP) $16.00 Dan is a good friend of the CCO and his words of kindness and blessing to us meant more than he may realize. What an honest, raw, important storyteller he is, a seasoned therapist, thoughtful Christian psychologist, whose work about shame and hard stuff is informed by a wise, narrative view of the unfolding drama of God’s work in our lives and in the world. I think it is fair to say he was influenced as a young man by the Jubilee vision of the CCO — the creation/fall/redemption worldview stuff talked about in, say, Al Wolters’ Creation Regained or Walsh & Middleton’s Transforming Vision is in his bones. This is a creatively written approach study of Ecclesiastes, actually, colorfully co-written by a respected Old Testament scholar, highlighting the search for life’s ultimate meaning. Really good.
God Loves Sex: An Honest Conversation about Sexual Desire and Holiness Dan Allender & Tremper Longman (Baker Books) $16.99 This is another brilliant collaboration with Hebrew Bible scholar Tremper Longman and, like Breaking the Idols, they use a fictionalized story as a device as they watch a group of women and men walk through the Song of Solomon and struggle with the goodness, hurtfulness, and glories of redeemed sexuality. What a great resource!
To Be Told: God Invites Your to Co-Author Your Future Dan Allender (Waterbrook) $15.99 This was maybe the most popular book at Jubilee this year, and for good reason. It invites us to name our life’s story, to be self-aware about our pains and trauma, and to allow God to re-write a new story. This is really thoughtful material and we very highly recommend it. A number of CCO staff used this before Jubilee and the conversations, we’re told, here rich and important.
Bold Love Dan Allender & Tremper Longman (NavPress) $17.99 Readers polls have continue to report that this is one of the best books people have read and it is surely one that is necessary and profoundly helpful. It isn’t easy, though, as it pushes us towards a deep and Christ-like love. Can we learn to love even a fool? What about those who have hurt or abused us? Can we love parents that have failed us? What do we make of the desire for revenge? Can we seek justice even as we are gracious? What’s with “turning the other cheek?” How can we avoid contempt and violence—can love be creative and even cunning? Jesus calls us to love and this bold book helps us get there. Brennan Manning called it “dazzling” and Dr. John Miller said it was “the best modern book on love I’ve ever read.” Wow.
Leading with a Limp Dan Allender (Waterbrook) $15.99 The tag line on this, if not exactly a sub-title, says it clearly: “Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness.” Really? Yep, Allender breaks convention and suggests we need not always lead from our strengths; in fact, perhaps our very brokenness is the sore spot that God might use to make us into great leaders. (Shades of the Enneagram, perhaps? He doesn’t mention that.) I think this is counter-intuitive and brilliant, offering a refreshing exploration of weakness and pain, hope and leadership, how to cope with betrayal and loneliness and more. What a good read it is, too – especially with chapters like “No More Jackasses” and stories drawn from the failure of a construction company. And great debates he has, in the endnotes, with his editor. (He admits, when his editor asked him some tough questions, he wrote back, “Ron: Leave me alone.”) What are your flaws? How can you “take advantage” of them? Flawed, but healthy, leaders, Allender says, “are successful because they’re not preoccupied with protecting their image. They are undaunted by chaos and complexity. And they are ready to risk failure in moving an organization from what it is to what it should be.” Hmm. Maybe a “limping leader” is the kind of person God uses to accomplish amazing things.
The Good Life Trip Lee (Moody Press) $11.99 AND/OR Rise: Get Up and Live in God’s Great Story Trip Lee (Thomas Nelson) $16.99 Let’s face it, it’s fun having a bone fide rock star – in this case an expert rapper, star in the hip-hop world along with his friends Lacrae and Sho Baraka and Propaganda (who were at Jubilee last year.) These are Trip’s two books, both really useful, clear, encouraging. The first, The Good Life is compact sized and makes a great gift for one who is seeking faith, who wonders what it means to life a good life, and how faith can help. Is the meaning of it all a nicer car and bigger house, getting what you think you want? Or is there more? Nicely done, for sure! The second, Rise Up, is his dramatic book about taking faith and discipleship seriously, about allowing God to touch you so you are a useful vessel, and being a part of the uprising of God’s Kingdom. Passionate, solid, inspiring, this is a great intro to relevant faith for anyone who might appreciate a book from the world of pop culture. Blurbs on the back are from NBA and NFL stars and the cover is way cool.
Welcome to the Revolution: A Field Guide for New Believers (Thomas Nelson) $12.99 AND/OR Free Book Brian Tome (Thomas Nelson) $14.99 We’ve promoted Tome’s introduction to Christian faith –Welcome to the Revolution on the opening night of Jubilee for years. I like it’s feisty invitation to be a part of some big God movement, but how it reminds newcomers to faith that they must learn the Bible, experience prayer, be involved in community, worship well, and serve. Welcome… is a fine introduction for young Christians who need these basics; I could see it even being used in confirmation classes if the kids are somewhat mature or creative. Free Book, though, is a step deeper, laden with fun and funny stories, really zealous and creatively written and it is about, well, freedom. Christ calls us to follow Him on this revolutionary adventure and that means we have to get away from religiosity and legalism and being tied up. Christ sets us free. Brian says, “I am a fanatic about freedom.” The gospel is about grace. We can be free to live abundantly and take risks for the Kingdom once we get this under our belts. It’s a great book, dissing the world’s systems (even the religious world) that wants people to buckle under, duped into fear and anxiety about being good enough. By the way, as it says on the cover “not that kind of free.” Ha, I wish. But we do have it at 30% off, which ain’t bad.
The Language of Faith and Science: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions Frances Collins & Karl Giberson (IVP) $22.00 Everybody needs a good handle on how to think about science these days. There is no doubt that many of us, even young adults, are curious about faith and science and we sold a lot of various sorts of books on this kind of thing at Jubilee. We have a brand new book in fact, just released by IVP, making the case that a healthy view of faith and science will help the church in its engagement with young adults. (Written by researcher Greg Cootsona it is called Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults. Drop me a note if you want more info on it.) I think this popular, sturdy volume by Francis Collins & Karl Giberson is a very good, very accessible work that would be useful for most of us to have on our shelves. 
Mariner: A Theological Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge Malcolm Guite (IVP) $35.00 Okay, I’ll admit this wasn’t a huge feature at Jubilee, but I share it because I wanted you to see some of the specialty sorts of stuff we take for, in this case, mostly, lit majors, I suppose. (Or those who are huge fans of Malcolm Guite and his liturgical poetry, which should be everyone reading this.) We take a lot on the arts, aesthetics, pop culture, music, poetry, writing and such. This very new book is a serious contribution not only to the faith and literature genre, but it the latest in the significant “Studies in Theology and the Arts” series that we so esteem. We have each of the others (which all pertained to contemporary visual arts and aesthetics, so this, on literature, was a surprise.)
Glimpses of Another Land: Political Hopes, Spiritual Longing Eric Miller (Cascade Books) $22.00 I raved about this a few years ago when it first came out; Eric is a friend (and a former school teacher from here in the York area) who has been a well-loved history professor at Geneva College in Western PA. He is a very thoughtful guy and he writes for places like the Front Porch Republic blog; that is, he makes it a real point to seek a “third way” between the left and the right. He’s a localist, if you will, a story-telling, oral history buff inspired by the likes of Wendell Berry and Bill Kauffman and, more significantly, Christopher Lasch. He helped co-write a major, scholarly book on a Christian philosophy of history and has a lovely blurb on the back of friend John Fea’s substantial, readable, Why Study History. But this – well, it’s a glorious collection of delightful, interesting, dare I say at times prophetic essays, ruminating on Pennsylvania, baseball, football, education, a sense of place, being post-partisan, true patriotism, seeking hope in fallen times, always hope. What does that mean, and, literally, what does it look like?
All Things New: Rediscovering the Four Chapter Gospel Hugh Whelchel (Institute on Faith, Work, and Economics) $6.99 I mentioned this one above, linking it to the structure of the Jubilee conference itself, noting that it is one of the only small, inductive Bib le studies – look up the verses and talk about them – that shows the whole inter-related creation-fall-redemption-restoration story of the gospel. A fifth week shows why salvation cannot be truncated to merely the middle two chapters of the story (we are sinners and God forgives us, the assumption most make about the definition of the gospel) and a sixth session explores why it matters. We are one of the few bookstores carrying this and we’re eager to let you know even selling them at such a low profit margin, here, just because we really, really want to get ‘em out there. Order one, see what you think, and then order more for your small group, leadership team, Bible study, mentoring relationship, work-world fellowship group, or Sunday school class. Hang on — this is good, solid Bible teaching.
Jesus in the Courtroom How Believers Can Engage the Legal System for the Good of the World John W. Mauck (Moody Press) $13.99 AND/OR
A Beautiful Mess: How God Recreates Our Lives Danielle Strickland (Monarch) $12.99 Danielle Strickland did an amazing job at Jubilee, upbeat, perky, fun, crazy-funny, and yet serious, thoughtful, well-informed, and deeply passionate about God’s call to serve the poor and be agents of justice. She has been a strong leader and preacher within the Canadian Salvation Army for years and is now involved in a major initiative to stop the pipeline of kids from foster care ending up on the streets, trafficked and abused. You will be hearing more about that, I’m sure. We really recommend this powerful book. Shane Claiborne, after noting that it may feel like a punch at times, says it is “a beautiful book.” Amen.
The Ultimate Exodus: Finding Freedom from What Enslaves You Danielle Strickland (NavPress) $14.99 This book was first published in the UK and here is a fabulous, recent edition published here. I do not know of any book that accomplishes this project so well, exploring the Exodus narrative as a metaphor for our own journey to freedom. She sounds like some upbeat blend of Max Lucado and Walter Brueggemann, drawing on liberation theologians and social change advocates and personally alive conventional evangelicals, offering up a great, great book to read, or to use in a small group.
The Liberating Truth: How Jesus Empowers Women Danielle Strickland (Monarch Books) $12.99 Yes, the rumor is true: I promoted from up front at Jubilee the little book by Nigerian novelist called Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists. It’s based on her lovely TED talk and we think that in this ages of #metoo, it was important to say, although we’ve said it endlessly for decades. Thoughtful evangelical feminists have spoken at Jubilee in years gone by, from Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen to Elaine Storkey to Mimi Haddid to Lisa Sharon Harper. Anyway, if one wants an inspiringly upbeat, fabulously inspiring, Biblical basis for why I felt compelled to highlight Adichie’s little book, I’d happily recommend Strickland’s The Liberation Truth. 
The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms Timothy & Kathy Keller (Penguin) $17.00 AND God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Devotions in the Book of Proverbs Timothy & Kathy Keller (Penguin) $20.00 The famous New York Presbyterian scholar and pastor, Tim Keller (who is one of the most well-known contemporary writers in this crowd) was not a Jubilee (although we are sort of proud to note that Kathy was at the precursor to Jubilee, sponsored by the network that became the CCO in the early 70s.) These two very classy hardback devotionals (and all of his books, actually) were there. They are so nicely done and so solid, we featured them prominently at the conference. We’ve got some left over and figured we’d bless you with a good deal, while supplies last. Very highly recommended.
Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology James K.A. Smith (Baker Academic) $22.99 We had a big stack of these at Jubilee and I announced from the main stage that I still think Smith’s You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit is one of the most important books of the decade. But I have to admit, the three big ones that were summarized in You Are What You Love — that would be Desiring the Kingdom, Imagining the Kingdom and the most recent, Awaiting the King — were for the most part too academic for most undergrads who aren’t quite aware of this level of sophisticated Christian public theology. That this new one grapples with questions of public ethics (inspired by the often dense Oliver O’Donovan) and with urgent matters of how we construe race and racism (in engagement with Willie James Jennings’s brilliant and provocative Yale University Press volume, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race) indicates, I suppose, that these aren’t for everyone. Jamie is coming to York and Lancaster April 6th, so you might want to start working on this one now, though. We’ll offer it at the 30% off sale price for these four days.
Strange Days: Life in the Spirit in a Time of Upheaval Mark Sayers (Moody Press) $13.99 I have said often that I am a huge, huge fan of Mark Sayers, the brilliant Aussie cultural critic and missional church pastor. His lively but insightful Vertical Self is amazing and I still think his playful critique of hyper consumers (The Trouble with Paris) is potent. His study of Kerouac (The Road Trip That Changed the World) is pretty great (it’s really the only Christian approach I’ve ever read.) He has a book on leadership called Facing Leviathan on how to lead and create while in this cultural storm. Sayers has just started a new podcast done with John Mark Comer, so it was fun to give a shout-out about that at Jubilee – Comer wrote to me saying that Sayers is just such a darn fun writer. Well, I figured I could convince young adults to get Strange Days if they were touch a bit with their anxiety about this crazy season we’re living in, what with Trump bragging about the size of our nukes and our tensions with Russian and nearly weekly terrorist attacks and the refugee crisis still looming all over the world. Things are changing fast, with fairly benign changes like transgendered bathrooms and deeply scary things like school shootings. What in the world is going on out there? How do we find the power and comfort of the Holy Spirit in these strange days? I don’t know if the Gen Z gang didn’t get the allusion to the album by The Doors or didn’t get the brilliant move of early 1900s neon on the cover, speaking of strange days. Anyway, we have a big stack of these and I’m a fan. Buy this easy to read book to get a quick handle on the troubles of our times and try to develop discernment about these strange days.
Beyond the Modern Age: An Archaeology of Contemporary Culture by Craig Bartholowme & Bob Goudzwaard (IVP Academic) $30.00 After that, then, as I’ve said often in these pages, you should consider the recent book Beyond the Modern Age by philosopher and Bible scholar Craig Bartholomew and globally recognized economist and social critic Bob Goudzwaard. I named this as one of the most important books of 2017 and still commend it; it really is one of the most insightful studies of the roots of modern culture and the spirits of the age that I have read in a decade. Goudzwaard, by the way, is an amazing man and he spoke about modern idolatry at Jubilee many moons ago. We don’t have many in stock, but we’ll give you 30% off on that, too, if you want a deeper dive into the spirit of the age.
A Book for Hearts & Minds: What You Should Read and Why (A Festschrift in Honor of the Work of Hearts & Minds Bookstore) edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $18.99 I suppose you know the story of this, how the owners of Square Halo Books surprised us with it on our store’s 35th anniversary in late November. It has in it all sorts of lovely quotes about Beth and me and our bookstore, but it is mostly a collection of pieces by folks doing book reviews, lists of good stuff that serious readers would want to know about. We hoped we’d move a bunch of these at Jubilee, but it just didn’t happen.Young people starting to develop their libraries need books about books, wise guides and well-written annotated bibliographies, so this book done in our honor (apart from being a delightfully cool memento of our store’s work and anniversary) might have been useful, but we didn’t have time to really get it into the hands of those who are learning to read widely. I suppose knowing that you need books about books like this and wanting to read these engaging ruminations by important folks is itself an acquired taste. We know some of our regular customers have really, really liked it and even ordered more to give away to their own fellow book-lovers.
Surprise the World! The Five Habits of Highly Missional People by Michael Frost (NavPress) $6.99
The Monk’s Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966 Robert Hudson (Eerdmans) $23.99 Oh, if time permitted, I’d love to tell you more about this. Eerdmans, of course, is known for super scholarly Bible commentary, thoughtful contemporary theology, books about a Reformed worldview, and, sometimes, sometimes, just spectacular creative nonfiction. Last year saw Holy Spokes on finding God in the midst of urban biking by Rev. Laura Everett and an amazingly creative and deeply interesting study of “the audacity of ambition” in the Bible study/travelogue The Great Wall of China and the Great Salton Sea by Russell Rathbun. Recently there has been the eloquent book Make a List: How a Simple Practice Can Change Our Lives and Open Our Hearts by the must-read Marilyn McEntyre.
Paul: A Biography N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $29.99 I have been working my way through an early version of this and recalling other great books I’ve loved on Paul, including some of Tom’s own. But this really is nothing like anything I’ve read. There are some other fine bios of the great apostle, but none that are so informed by such a fine scholarly awareness of context and culture.
What Are We Doing Here? Essays Marilynne Robinson (Farrar Strauss Giroux) $27.00 I loaned out my advanced copy of this to somebody who had need of it a few months ago, so, alas, I have only read a few of these heady, erudite pieces. We are so glad it is now here, and hope some of our fine thinkers and good friends will order it pronto. It is a well made book; it just feels hefty and nice, released by own of the great old publishing houses, FSG. Allow me to aver that this is one of the most important books of the year as it collects together the theological lectures offered by this literary figure, lectures she mostly gave at very prestigious locations.There are pieces from the University of Virginia, from renowned universities in Sweden and England, lectures from Princeton, Veritas Forum presentations, talks given at Stanford and Harvard and the like. There’s a fine lecture on the “theological virtues” given at Regent College in British Columbia and a few pieces that were later published in swanky, literary outlets like Harpers and The Nation. She is, I’d say, one of a handful of renowned public intellectuals in our time, and in these chapters she “trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith”
Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23 Dallas Willard (Thomas Nelson) $22.99 Just a few weeks ago I was lamenting the lack of an adequate amount of high quality books on the beloved 23rd Psalm. There are a few lovely ones, yes, a few standards, a couple of edgy cool ones, but nothing that is meaty enough to be profound, and none that are truly essential. Interestingly, just two weeks ago I was revisiting some Dallas Willard books, watching him on video, reading John Ortberg’s great books about him. Beth and I met Dallas once, years ago, and in a brand new edition of Richard Foster’s seminal Celebration of Discipline we are reminded in a foreword that it was Dallas who first encouraged Richard to write that important, important book. His sense of how inner transformation works, what Christ’s grace means, practically, is extraordinary.
A Gospel of Hope Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $20.00 Old Testament scholar and UCC preacher Walter Brueggemann is endlessly generative – words I’ve heard him say about the Bible itself – and it seems in recent years there has been a good effort to dip into his massive amount of source material and make it available in less daunting and more readily usable ways. There have been some new devotionals and day books, Bible studies and of course collections of sermons. This approach of this slim hardback is a great idea and I hope it is bought widely and shared.
The Prayer Wheel: A Daily Guide to Renewing Your Faith with a Rediscovered Spiritual Practice Patton Dodd, Jana Riess & David Van Biema (Convergent Books) $23.00 Okay, I’ll admit it. I don’t have any idea if this is all it’s cracked up to be, but I’m intrigued. Or at least I’m intrigued with seeing who out there is intrigued. I’m still learning the basics – still crazy after all these years, ya know – and maybe I need some extra ancient-future trick to deepen my rather ordinary prayer life. Maybe maybe not. For what it is worth, I respect these writers a lot and I think they are doing something brave and very interesting. There is a nice foreword by Fr. James Martin, the writer of all things Jesuit, and I trust him considerably.
Fundamentalist U: Keeping Faith in American Higher Education Adam Laats (Oxford University Press) $29.99 Despite the cheesy halo on the cover, and the frustrating conflating of evangelical and fundamentalist – – a move the author acknowledges is problematic – this book would have been ideal to show off at Jubilee, if only it had come in time. It’s a great study! I’d even call it vital for campus ministers, faculty, and serious academics or others who care about higher education, especially Christian higher education. (It is my contention that books about Christian higher education – such as the extraordinary Diversity Matters: Race, Ethnicity, and the Future of Christian Higher Education edited by Karen Longman (which we awarded as a Best Book of 2017) – are important for anyone interested in the integrity and health of college and university life. Even campus workers or staff at secular private colleges or church-related liberal arts schools or major state universities should study up on this parallel story within the history of American higher ed. It is why I loved George Marsden’s classic Soul of the American University so very much, and why I think this kind of book is good to make available to anyone working in colleges or universities.
Barefoot Revolution: Biblical Spirituality for Finding God Paul Marshall (Paraclete Press) $16.99 We carry all the lovely books of Paraclete Press and when they did this – the author is a spiritual director in Sydney, Australia, a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary, and the leader of a charity serving the poor and oppressed called Mustard Seed Global — I knew this one looked special. It is for those looking for God, but also, I gather, for anyone wanting a deeper faith, a more disciplined commitment, a relationship with God that is palpable but also responsible. It is very much about one’s interior life, one’s experience of the love of God but yet it is also about the bigger, adventurous response to that. I think of significant books like Kyle Bennett’s Practices of Love: Spiritual Disciplines for the Life of the World (Brazos Press; $17.99) or other books that offer a balanced sort of inner/outer kind of spirituality, that is both about spiritual formation and the cost of a life of service and robust discipleship.
Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot Mo Isom (Baker) $14.99 I hope you know Mo Isom. Her autobiographical testimony, Wreck My Life was a fun read and popular among young women and men and many sports fans. She is the former All-American goalkeeper for the LSU soccer team that has been featured in all the great sports outlets, from ESPN to Sports Illustrated and has even been featured on SportsCenter Top-10 Plays. She is a widely followed blogger, outspoken Christian who has offered wise and winsome invitations to allow the gospel to shape one’s identity and calling and life.
The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God Dallas Willard (HarperOne) $14.99 Yes, finally, in a brightly-colored, lovely cover (which they have called a 20th Anniversary Edition.) This surely has been one of the great books of the last twenty years and, even though it is a study of the reign of God and the Sermon on the Mount, it is more about spiritual formation, about character formation, about living well within this ecology of a God-given life. Many a reader has found it to be among the best books they’ve ever read. Others find it an introduction to Dallas Willard and some of his other books are among their all time favorites. There is little doubt it is esteemed, wonderful, important.
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $15.99 Since the Jubilee conference goes out of its way to frame Kingdom living as joining God’s mission in the world, hoping for the full restoration of the good but fallen creation, it is a shame this book didn’t arrive until the day after the conference. In many ways, those authors who have most influenced the CCO in these matters – I’m thinking Al Wolter’s and his Creation Regained and Brian Walsh & Richard Middleton’s Transforming Vision – have themselves influenced N.T. Wright, it seems that this is truly one of the most significant books of recent decades for my own Jubilee tribe, saying afresh and with great detail what we said when we started the conference with some Kuyperians more than 40 years ago. Surprised by Hope is more heady and detailed than most undergrads may want to tackle, but it is simply a must-read. (I have used the DVD curriculum for it more than once.)
The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $18.99 Well, this could be a perfect book to dive into these very next weeks as we move towards Holy Week and a more intentional time of reflection on the meaning of the cross. Indeed, the popular Adam Hamilton has said that “One of the most important books on the cross ever written.”
Or, I hope you saw the post we did about our friend and neighbor Chris Rodkey, who did an exceptionally interesting coloring book for adults that follows the lectionary, called Coloring Lent: And Adult Coloring Book for the Journey to Resurrection. See our review,
The Good of Giving Up: Discovering the Freedom of Lent Aaron Damiani (Moody) $12.99 This is one of the books I highlighted last year, but simply have to describe it briefly again in this list. It is not a daily devotional, but a fine, reflective book –handsomely designed with some purple ink to start off each chapter – offering a fairly conservative, Protestant rumination on why this practice (typically considered more Roman Catholic than evangelical) is healthy and useful. Granted, “giving up something for Lent” can be construed in odd ways, and any ritual can become wooden or routine, but, as Damiani happily explains, his doubts about Lent have been overcome and he now sees it, when done with proper motivation, as a sort of “springtime for the soul.” This is a very helpful resource for those who aren’t familiar with Lenten practices or who want just want to be more intentional about the season, “clearing to make room for new growth.” I know this was really appreciated by a few customers last year, and I wanted to commend it again, now.
The Art of Lent: A Painting a Day from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sister Wendy Beckett (SPCK/IVP) $15.00 This is a small, square-sized paperback made nicely with glossy paper and excellent art reproductions gracing every other page. On the facing pages the esteemed Carmelite sister and art historian, Sister Wendy, offers remarkable insight that is at once a blend of interesting art facts and art historical exploration and inspiring faith-shaping wisdom. There are over forty paintings, some quite famous and others lesser known, each explaining succinctly and with a natural, winsome invitation to use them prayerfully. This is so nice I’d recommend getting a few – it’s a wonderful book to share with the unsuspecting, one who might not ordinarily read a Christian book or who might not take up a more conventional Bible study. The book is wonderfully designed, too, with full color pages and good graphic lay out. Highly recommended.
Hanging By a Thread: The Questions of the Cross Samuel Wells (Church Publishing) $9.95 This is a thin book but the writing is no only eloquent but often profound. Wells was the articulate predecessor to Will Willimon when he left his position as Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. Wells has since returned to England where he is not Vicar of St. Martin in the Fields in London. (I named his Incarnational Ministry: Being With the Church one of the Best Books of 2017; the sequel, Incarnational Mission: Being with the World just arrived.) Hanging by a Thread is also new and includes short provocative pieces circling around this remarkable statement: “There was a time when the cross was an answer: today, the cross is a question.” Each piece “revisits the harrowing story at the very heart of Christianity.” As it says on the back:
Holy Solitude: Lenten Reflections with Saints, Hermits, Prophets, and Rebels Heidi Haverkamp (Abingdon) $14.00 Haverkamp is a writer, retreat leader and an ordained Episcopal priest. She is also a Benedictine oblate at the extraordinary, ecumenical, Holy Wisdom Monastery in Wisconsin (and author of the lovely Advent devotional, Advent in Narnia: Reflections for the Season.) In this Lenten guide there are six weeks of reflections, with each week offering meditations on a certain theme, related to the practices of solitude and silence.
The Glory of the Cross: Reflections for Lent from the Gospel of John Tim Chester (The Good Book Company) $12.99 We really like Tim Chester, who has written books from his native UK on this publishing house and on Crossway here in the States. He’s gospel-centered, grace-based, Reformed and missional. I like him a lot, and his energy and clarity about Biblical teaching is helpful. Here he walks readers through the gospel of John with a bit of Lenten tone, although it isn’t deep or mystical, nor heady and visionary. It’s just solid, standard, stuff, a bit of meat amidst the milk, but accessible and interesting and edifying. These meditations really do push us towards the foot of the cross where we “gaze at Christ in all his glory.” And if that doesn’t get you — that God’s glory is most revealed in this horrid, suffering, then maybe you should benefit from this warming and solid work. 47 short readings.
A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $13.00 Again, I mentioned this last year, but I’m afraid some won’t click the link offered above to see that list, so I felt like I wanted to be sure it wasn’t missed. It says on the back, “We begin our Lenten journey addressed by the remarkable assurance that the God who summons us is the God who goes along with us.” If I am attending well to this, I can get choked up just reading that line. Of course, this feisty, poetic, scholarly, passionate Old Testament scholar is good on stuff pertaining to times of wilderness and wandering “from newly freed Hebrew slaves in exile to Jesus’s temptation in the desert.” God has always called people out of their save, walled cities into uncomfortable places, revealing paths they would never have chosen.
Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out: A Bible Study for Adults Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $14.00 This is one of those books that is not created as a Lenten study but just cried out to be listed now. It is, in fact, a Bible study, full of Bible notes and discussion questions and stuff to look up and process. Okay, maybe the format isn’t that creative, but a set of short Bible lectures by Brueggemann and then conversation questions, is a remarkable resource. There is nothing quite like it among the dozens of Brueggemann books.
Interrupting Silence illustrates that the Bible is filled with stories where marginalized people break repressive silence and speak against it. Examining how maintaining silence allows the powerful to keep control, Brueggemann motivates readers to consider situations in their lives where they need to either interrupt silence or be part of the problem, convincing us that God is active and wanting us to act for justice.
The Journey to Jerusalem: A Story of Jesus’s Last Days John Pritchard (WJK) $14.00 There has been so much written – scholarly and popular – about Jesus’ last week. Last year, for instance, we commended the excellent academic study by Andreas Kostenberger & Justin Taylor called The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week and the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived. This year has seen a fabulously, short resource that is an imaginative retelling of the Gospel of Luke, from Luke 9:51 where Jesus “sets his face to go to Jerusalem.” This is good for anyone who wants to learn a bit, “get in the mood” (which is a crass way of putting it) or needs to get reacquainted with the story if a fresh way. It is great for small groups, too, and includes weekday readings for Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. There is a poem for each Saturday, too, so, with the format and the reflection and discussion apparatus, it is more than just a historical novella. This is a fine small group option, written by the last Bishop of Oxford and Archdean of Canterbury. Pretty darn nifty, eh?
Messy Easter: Three Complete Sessions and a Treasure Trove of Ideas for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Jane Leadbetter (IVP) $14.00 I hope you know about the innovative, intergenerational creative arts programs for churches to us — or anyone, for that matter — as a way to express worship and invite newcomers into an experience of one’s faith community. These “Messy Church” services started in the UK and we carried their creative guides as imports several years ago. (Thanks to 
Make a List: How a Simple Practice Can Change our Lives and Open Our Hearts Marilyn McEntyre (Eerdmans) $21.99 I know it might be a bit of a stretch to suggest this as a Lenten reading, but, well, maybe not. Let’s make a list:
Blessed are the Unsatisfied: Finding Spiritual Freedom in an Imperfect World Amy Simpson (IVP) $16.00 We were delighted to meet Amy Simpson at a Parish Nursing conference here in Central PA a few years ago, and were blown away by her honest, insightful, riveting telling of her family’s story about her mother’s schizophrenia. Her book Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission tells that tale, and offers accessible, wise insight. Her own foibles are shared candidly in Anxious. I greatly suspect that this new one, Blessed are the Unsatisfied, is deeply informed by her own narrative and her deep awareness of mental health issues, but it is a more general book than that, designed for any readers who are pondering how to find meaning amidst life’s disappointments.
As Drew Dyck (himself an author you should know) says on the back, simply, “How freeing it is that being unsatisfied doesn’t mean I’m a defective Christian!” He continues, “Simpson gave me permission to stay hungry for ultimate satisfaction while providing strategies for pursuing the abundant life of which Jesus spoke.”
Disruptive Discipleship: The Power of Breaking Routine to Kickstart Your Faith Sam Van Eman (IVP) $16.00 This is one of those books that is perfect for the “I want to read something about spiritual growth that challenges me to a deeper walk with God and a better manifestation of faith, hope, and love but not by reading a Lenten devo” kind of book. I often summarize Sam’s wonderful insight about needing to break our routines and get “outside our comfort zone” to disrupt our spiritual status quo so we might experience some kind of true maturity and growth, by noting that he says that that is why we give something up for Lent. We just do some 40 day experience and see how God shows up, hoping that the little exercise of self-sacrifice might afford some new occasion for growth. (Or maybe, truth be told, we just do it because we heard we should and don’t reflect or maximize or even debrief the experience to see if it bore fruit. Maybe we don’t even think it is supposed to bear any particular fruit.)
Made for a Miracle: From Your Ordinary to God’s Extraordinary Mike Slaughter (Abingdon) $18.99 If this were by another author, I’d leave it off this Lenten list. It seems a bit upbeat for this time of year, and given the great insight in books on spiritual longing and dissatisfaction by Amy Simpson’s and the nuance of Hanging by a Thread by Wells, it might even seem out of synch. But I like Slaughter, an admittedly upbeat United Methodist mega-church guy, who has been surprisingly outspoken against commercialization of Christian holidays and who has written good pastoral stuff on suffering and several books about simple living and faith economics in a needy world. He starts this book about miracles with a rumination on the holocaust-produced masterpiece Mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It has endorsements from Will Willimon (who calls it a “empowering, hope-filled book) and Rachel Billups (who wrote Down to Earth and Sent) who talks about its “grit.”
Okay, so this is a fine, Biblical study about health and wholeness and mission and justice and faith and works and service and the Kingdom breaking into our lives, both personally and in society. It is about the amazing stuff God just might be willing to do and how we can cooperate with that. In fact, as Slaughter makes clear over and over, miracles are not “for” us, but God working through us, “for others.” As Rev. Slaughter examines two aspects of the miracle stories in Scripture and shows how there are always two components – divine action and human responsibility.
Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World A.J. Swoboda (Brazos Press) $19.99 Wow, what a gift, a hard, challenging, lovely, grace-filled gift of very good writing, contemporary cultural analysis, spirituality and radical discipleship with the trajectory towards a good, good life. A good life lived in resistance to the ethos of the age, the idols of the times. I am so eager to read this brand new (but long-awaited and much-publicized) major new work by one of my favorite contemporary writers and while I hope it doesn’t supplant more traditional Lenten devotionals, it surely could be the most important book you read this season. Perhaps the most important book you’ll read all year.
Swoboda’s book carries a lovely foreword by Dr. Matthew Sleeth, who, as a Bible-believing medical doctor came to sense a call to resign his medical practice and work on more preventive medicine, namely environmental studies. His several books on creation-care and his wife’s wonderful Almost Amish: One Woman’s Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life on a more normative, sane, stewardly lifestyle, are all wonderful, and his good words here point us towards the insight that Swoboda isn’t interested in a merely legalistic response to not working on Sunday, just resting up a little. No, this is closer to the remarkable Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight by environmental theologian Norman Wirzba. That book is a serious stunner, too, for how Wirzba (a friend of Wendell Berry’s I might note) shows the counter-cultural lifestyle implications of God’s principles of Jubilee justice, shalom, rest, and stewardship. But A.J. Swoboda is a poetic writer, too, making his challenging prose sing in a way that isn’t always as present in the books of his mentors in this topic — Marva Dawn, Wirzba, Tilden Edwards, Abraham Heschel, of course. They are wondrous authors in their own right, but John Mark Comer is right in saying AJ is “soulful” and Ken Wytsma is right in called Swoboda’s book “rich and energetic.” A longer review will have to discuss his extraordinarily wide research and the brilliant sources upon which he draws – from the lovely evangelical wordsmith Mark Buchanan (his book The Rest of God is a delight) to patristics and Puritans, to generative thinkers such as Miroslov Volf, Richard Mouw, Celtic mystic John Donoghue to Jewish journalist Judith Shulevitz and back to Wendell Berry and Marva Dawn. To see Moltmann and Barth quoted with Dorothy Bass and Barbara Brown Taylor next to Eugene Peterson is just a delight.