Most of our BookNotes columns celebrate new books or they highlight authors I think you should know about. Our curation is intentional, trying to find the sorts of authors and books we can champion and that our audience — that’s you! — might purchase. Sometimes I wax eloquent, sometime in full-on fan-boy mode. When I’m most long-winded, some love it. A few roll their eyes and skim. I get it.

For this edition I’d like to highlight some books to supplement our list about Lent from a few weeks ago. (Visit the archived BookNotes at our website if you want to scroll back and see those.)That post described more obviously Lenten devotionals and books about this liturgical season. As I walked around our shop this week I kept seeing titles that just seemed right to list for reading in this somber season; some are quite new, some are older. It’s a good list for the curious.

Most of you know the standard practices that accompany this season and the Lenten spiritual tone. If this is new to you or you are talking to someone who worked up the courage to ask what that ashen smear on your forehead was all about a few Wednesdays ago, I’d recommend Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal by Esau McCaulley. It is part of the “Fullness of Time” series which includes short volumes about the history and habits of each season of the church calendar.

Unlike some BookNotes I am not going to be too wordy. I’m going to name the book and say why I think it would be useful to read during this time of year. I’ll keep my comments brief (ish) so I have time to share a lot of titles. Maybe something here will speak to you.

As always, these are offered to you at our BookNotes 20% off. If you saw it here it would be good to remind us of that. We’ll reply promptly, do the discount, and send ‘em right out. Our order form page is secure for card info although, as we say there, we can also just send you an invoice and you can pay by check later. Hope that helps.

I’m saying to myself keep it brief, Borger.

Slow Theology: Eight Practices for Resilient Faith in a Turbulent World A.J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Two great, prolific authors offering lighter ways to think about faith in a slower mode, hearing God’s voice despite our fast-paced world. These everyday practices to resist our frenetic pace of living (and thinking) help us embrace our own theological journey, taking in wonder and mystery and rest, admit our pain and find an enduring spirituality, believing together with others. This is absolutely right, and perfect for slow reading these next weeks. One of my favorite recent books!

Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep Tish Harrison Warren (IVP) $23.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19

I’ve often said how much I appreciate her clear but thoughtful style, her eloquence and honesty. This is a perfect Lenten read as it is about being honest with our doubts and pains and struggles — praying in the dark, in that metaphorical sense. But it is grounded in the literary evening prayer in the Book of Common Prayer and what compline is about as an evening practice. Do you ever feel all you can do is keep watch? This will accompany you and you won’t feel so alone. Highly recommended.

Liturgy in the Wilderness: How the Lord’s Pray Shapes the Imagination of the Church In a Secular Age D. J. Marotta (Moody Press) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

DJ is a young Anglican priest in Richmond and I respect his work there immensely. You may recall him as the co-author (with artist Ben Lansing ) of Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place.) Anyway, this was his earlier book and it is on the Lords Prayer and is very nicely done in nine excellent (and succinct) chapters. I mention succinct as you might think this could be weighty, covering stuff about modernity, the wilderness of these barren times, how to use our imaginations and how what Jamie Smith calls “liturgies” might refresh our habits into life-changing new loves. Pray really does shape our believes which, of course, shapes how we live. This is subversive stuff, perfect for Lenten pondering.

With God in Every Breath: A Guide to Drawing Closer to Jesus Through Your Senses Whitney R Simpson (NavPress) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I love that more and more authors about the contemplative life write that they affirm an embodied existence and creatureliness sense of living in God’s creation, even as we nurture our souls. Whitney Simpson has been at this for a while —an earlier book on Upper Room seems like a forerunner of this one (that handsome workbook is called Holy Listening: with Breath, Body, and the Spirit; she has an Advent one, too, called Fully Human, Fully Divine which underscored Christ’s incarnation’s implications for our “whole selves.”) Anyway, after a stroke at age 31, Whitney learned to attend to her body, pay attention to her breathing and more, and has now helped us all learn the practices of finding God and experience God through our senses. She is not the first to do this, but it is still rather rare, and this book is a wonderful guide and a good blessing. She writes like a mystic at times but is always aware of the really real in our very bodies. (He essays on why she uses The Message paraphrase is fantastic, by the way.) 30 short chapters have wonderful ideas, good exercises, sensory cues, short prayers — it is practical and inspiring. There’s helpful stuff like breath prayers and further ideas I bet you haven’t thought of; here are habits that could help us all live into Lent and Easter and beyond.  As she advises, “when life gets loud, get quiet.”

How the Story of Jesus Changes the Way We See Everything Andrew Arndt (Herald Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

When I reviewed this before I highlighted how wonderfully it is written. The foreword by Marilyn McEntyre says as much. It is about the liturgical calendar, about seeing all our life-time in light of the light of Christ, and how that can shape our own character in Christ-likeness. Winn Collier (who wrote that great biography of Eugene Peterson, A Burning in My Bones) says the sentences “sing and simmer.” What a joy. And what good idea to focus on Jesus during Lent. This offers a full picture of the full gospel, written with imaginative and nearly prophetic prose.

Seeing the Gospel: An Interpretive Guide to Orthodox Icons Eve Tibbs (Baker Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Everyone should know something about icons even if using them — perhaps I should say beholding them — isn’t part of your actual tradition. These religious renderings are designed as windows into eternal truths and many who write them (we learn that they iconographers don’t use the language of “painting” them) are deeply driven by a spiritual hope, offering these as gifts for the spiritual formation of others. This is as winsome and interesting and helpful a book on the topic as we’ve seen (and it is lavishly illustrated with icons to ponder.) As Hans Boersma  says, “Tibbs explores iconography as a divinely given exegetical guide.” There is great beauty and truth here. A fabulous foreword is by Reformed thinker Richard Mouw, offering an ecumenical touch. So good.

Holiness Here: Searching for God in the Ordinary Events of Everyday Life Karen Stiller (NavPress) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Lent is a time to ponder holiness and this is one of the best books on the subject you will find anywhere. She invites us to ponder how holiness is “sacred and mysterious. It’s breathtaking and beautiful — and we’re meant to live it daily.”  Naturally, we ask: Really? And What does that look like? Here she offers insightful reflections oral sorts of mundane stuff and “stirs the spaces in your soul that need refreshment.” Not your typical book on virtue and repentance, although there is clarity about that. This is Biblical, humane, and fruitful holiness revisited. Perfect for this season of repentence.

When Life Feels Empty: 7 Ancient Practices to Cultivate Meaning Isaac Serrano (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I suppose we could list a dozen books that might guide seekers or doubters or anyone struggling with faith but I wanted to suggest at least one really good new one for those with this particular ache. Serrano is a pastor in California and is on the leadership team of the ReGeneration Project (and is an adjunct prof at Western Seminary in Portland and California.) He’s a really good writer and an obviously thoughtful guy.

I recommend this for anyone who feel as if something is missing. As it says on the back, “like the story you’re living lacks purpose or direction.” The modern secular narrative, of course, erodes or negates meaning and transcendent purpose but even for those who believe in some higher power, we are living any differently because of it. Our lives feel languid, at best, even though we believe the gospel.

In this creative, elegant read, Serrano uses philosophical reasoning and lots of stories and good theology and wise insights to help us develop practical steps that can “replace the empty promises of materialism with the profound depth of a life center on God as Father.” This is wise and good, inviting us to embody the deepest meanings of church pratices and Christian discipleship in the world. It’s very good.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die? The Meaning of the Crucifixion Adam Hamilton (Abingdon Press) $21.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

Some years during Lent I highlight a couple books about atonement theories, about deeper conversations about the meaning of the cross. We should read a book about the cross of Christ maybe every year or so since it is so central to our faith. I really books like the magisterial Cross of Christ by John Stott and the magnum opus by Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. The last two years I’ve given very serious kudos to Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross by Brian Zahnd.  Friends have insisted that I read Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death by Andrew Remington Roller. For a pocket-sized excerpt, beautifully made, see the wonderful (if traditionally formulated) What Did the Cross Achieve? by J. I. Packer. You know I’m a fan of The Day the Revolution Began by N.T. Wright which systematically looks at the verses about the cross in the writings of Paul, studying them afresh in light of the doctrine of new creation. Yes. All of those are 20% off.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die? is by one of the great communicators or nuanced faith in our day, a thoughtful and balanced United Methodist pastor who is respected by many folks from across the reasonable theological spectrum. In this new one, Adam Hamilton offers a variety atonement theories and seems to offer fair critique of some and fresh takes on others, offering a classic and yet very contemporary approach. Six chapters.

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom G.K. Beale (Crossway) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

This is one of many fairly dense but succinct volumes in the “Short Studies in Biblical Theology” done by the mostly Reformed and clearly evangelical, classy publisher, Crossway. These short books bring world-class conservative scholars to do relatively accesible versions of larger works of Biblical Theology. (That is, drawing themes from throughout the unfolding redemptive narrative or plot of Scripture rather than, say, using the decidedly un-narrative approach of Systematic Theology.) Beale is one of the most brilliant Scripture scholars around with a keen interest in eschatological visions and new creation hope in the Old and New Testaments. Here he does this marvelous little project of documenting ironic reversals, redemptive signals — the ironies of it all. The most obvious (besides the resurrection itself where death is undone by death) is that in the Christian life power is perfected in powerlessness. Get it? Perceptive and fascinating.

The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World David Zahl (Brazos Press) $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I’ve spilled some ink on this and highlighted some about it before. I’ll just remind you that it brings notions of grace in the Bible a very fresh and contemporary new coat of paint, using the language of “relief” — an emotion or gut feeling we all long for.  The gospel is obviously not about shame or burdens, and he calls us to embrace Christianity “as a refuge rather than as a project, a beacon of hope instead of a vehicle of shame.” Maybe refreshment? Give up a faith that demands performance and perfection and embrace the gospel as the gift of grace. Zahl, the head of Mockingbird Ministries, is pretty amazing.

You Can Trust a God With Scars: Faith (and Doubt) for the Searching Soul Jared Ayers (NavPress) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I raved about this when I first wrote about it, saying out tender and funny and passionate and cool it was, citing rock music and cool films and serious literature, all pointing seekers and doubters to the reliability of a God so audacious as to come to earth to die. If you know anybody who sees no point in existence, I beg you to share this book with them. If you, yourself, need a reminder of the core of the gospel, told in honest and raw ways, I commend this wonderfully-written primer to you. It is unlike any other introduction to the faith I know and it is hard-earned by a good, good guy.

Speaking of scars, I guess Lent is an ideal time to read this, trusting again this sad, sacred story of the betrayed and murdered Lamb of God.

Any of us who have found ourselves in “the borderlands between faith and doubt” or suffering from church fatigue or unsure what to make of biblical claims will find in these stories and reflections a hospitable invitation to take a long second look. Maybe even to venture through the doors of a church. Jared Ayers meets readers in the shadowy places of uncertainty not with arguments but with stories that help even the deeply disenchanted reimagine a life in which faith is sustaining and a vigorous community of thoughtful believers is possible. — Marilyn McEntyre, author Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

Bearing God: Living a Christ-formed Life in Uncharted Waters Marlena Graves (NavPress) $10.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $8.79

What does in mean in this season of Lent to discern God’s will and call in the midst of such turbulent waters, such turbulent times? What does it mean that Jesus might still the waters (as in Mark 4)? And what if — as Marlena Graves imagines powerfully — what if we are the boat in the story, bearing Jesus and the disciples? Aren’t we all vessels carrying Jesus, being a part of his Light? What does that mean, to carry Christ, to bear God?

This wasn’t written as a Lenten resource, but, man-oh-man, if you put a Lenten title on this, it would certainly be a wonderful book to ponder in this season of getting right with God and submitting to His ways in our stormy world. Marlena is a woman we like very very much and a writer and scholar we respect. Her book The Way Up Is Down is one I used in a Lenten reading group two years ago and it still haunts me. I adored her first one about a relatively poor, Pentecostal person discovering the desert fathers and mothers. She has done good work in public witness and has written and edited volumes speaking peace into our culture of injustice. In this little six chapter meditation, you’ll be invited to venture out to sea and to become a person of Christ-like refuge. We can be “Christ-formed” in these disorienting times!

Jesus and the Disinherited Howard Thurman (Beacon Press) $16.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

I hope you have heard of this twenty century classic, one of the books Martin Luther King carried with him to jail; Thurman was a very impressive educator and black leader and a writer of deeper spirituality. We stock most of his several Quaker reflections and a devotional of his work (and more than one important biography.) But this is his classic, one of the seminal books of public theology and liberative spirituality of our time. Rev. Otis Moss III says that “no other publication in the twentieth century has upended antiquated theological notions, truncated political ideas, and socially constructed racial fallacies like Jesus and the Disinherited.” First published by Abingdon Press in 1949, this more recent edition has a new foreword by Kelly Brown Douglas alongside a classic foreword by the great Vincent Harding.

I See You: How Love Opens Our Eyes to Invisible People Terence Lester (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

One of the classic spiritual practices of the Lenten season is almsgiving — serving the poor. This book goes beyond mere giving (which is hard enough for some of us, I know) but to a richer, fuller sort of thing: seeing. What does it mean to actually recognize and “see” and befriend and come to know (and be known by) those who might be marginalized, stigmatized, such as those experiencing homelessness? There are a lot of myths about poverty and race and the poor in our culture and this lively book not only breaks down many assumptions about those who are sometimes called “the underclass” but it invites us to a Christ-like care, to enter real relationships with real people (who we often overlook.) There are lots of stories here, mature spirituality stuff, helpful sidebars and suggestions. Look: we don’t care much about what we don’t really see. This humbling (but also inspiring) book is ideal for this season. Love can open our eyes, perhaps even “the eyes of our hearts.”

As another bonus, if you like it you can then buy for a young one Terence Lester’s fabulous children’s picture book talking about these issues (with his own daughter, Zion) called Zion Learns to See (IVP; $18.00 // 14.40.) It’s very nice. Lester and his family live and work in Atlanta. He is the founder of Love Beyond Walls. His new book is an autobiography, From Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice.

A Hope Observed: Finding Solace Through Share Stores of Grief David Bannon (Paraclete Press) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I could write about this at length but I promised to be succinct this time. I’ll say this: years ago Bannon wrote a wonderful, wonderful book about artists who felt great pain and whose pain suffused their work. He wrote it as an Advent book and it worked well — you’ve heard of blue Christmas, of course. Bannon had suffered greatly and his honest struggle to find art and words to cope honest during the holidays was a great gift. It is sadly now out of print.

But his work continued and here he put together a marvelous collection of origins and stories of those who have suffered and those who have experienced loss. These stories are arranged nicely, with great art of lovely design touches.  The excellent writing and remarkable art are arranged in themes under the titles grieve, cope, hope, and love. Whether your grief is new and overwhelming or lingering, it is comforting to know you are not alone and it is good to read some of the wisest words. A very impressive endorsement on the back is from Gerald Sittser (author of the unforgettable A Grief Observed.)  That means a lot.

This is the Door: The Body, Pain, and Faith Darcey Steinke (HarperOne) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

This is brand new and I have not read it. I read a few pages here and there and the prose is stunning. Her bibliography is very extensive and mostly unknown to me — except, maybe The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry, a Dorothy Soelle book, and Merton’s Raids on the Unspeakable. And she has a section on Simon Weil. Steinke is an award-winning novelist and memoirist and has taught at many of the most prestigious universities in the world.  She here shares of her own physical pain after back surgery, journeys to Lourdes, meets sufferers of all kinds, including the mastectomy of her mother and the brain cancer of her preacher father. Despite the fluid, graceful prose and high-minded theory, she tells of a conversation she had, over hot-dogs, with Curt Cobain. I am not sure I am saying that this is a Lenten book, but if you are in pain this season, this could bring insight and solace of some kind.

Walking with God Through the Valley: Recovering the Purpose of Biblical Lament May Young (IVP) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

If the above gift-book style collection of excellent writing on grief and loss and renewed hope isn’t quite your need, now, this rigorous study of lament in the Bible might be stimulating and important. The church needs the practice of lament. This book explores the topic and offers some insight about what it all looks like.  Can this practice of lament — protest and crying out — lead to healing and liberation? Young teaches at Taylor University and has written widely about the Psalms and about global Christianity. Very, very impressive in under 200 pages.

Crying Out to God: Experiencing Grace Through Psalms of Lament Wendy Alsop (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This is a brand new 8-week Bible study experience in a line of IVP produced workbooks that are interactive, thoughtful, and more than simple inductive observations and questions. This study offers a deep encounter with God through Scriptures and it is the best (one of the very only) studies on the Psalms of lament I have seen. Wendy Alsup wrote a powerful, theological solid book called Companions in Suffering: Comfort for Times of Loss and Loneliness (and has often written in thoughtful, evangelical publications. Melissa Kruger of The Gospel Coalition says it is for “the weary, discouraged, the sick, and the suffering.” Although not directly a Lenten resource, what better time to explore how the Psalms cry out against all that is not right in our tragic world? As it says on the back, “Whether our response is rage or tears or numbness, the Bible offers an avenue for our paint: Lament.”

Crying Out to God offers a daily set of individual studies and reflections and then group sessions for once a week. It’s an excellent format with some pen and ink drawings as well.

Being Christian After the Desolation of Gaza edited by Bruce Fisk and J. Ross Wagner (Cascade) $39.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99

With the US and the right wing administration of Israel joining in yet another brutal war, it is vital to ask — among lots of other questions worth debating about the ethics of war-fighting — what it looks like on the ground, among the victims. This book, obviously, is not about Iran, but it is a very recent release from many people of Christian faith who know the Palestinian battlefields well. These are essays by many who have worked in social service, Christian ministry, and peacemaking project in the Middle East for decades and some are exceptionally astute, almost rare. Lent is always a time to come before God asking for the Spirit to make our hearts more compassionate and for our vision to be ore Christ-like. Part of this must be to ask what faith means in these days of war. After the Desolation of Gaza is a groundbreaking book and although it is thick — almost 20 mostly hefty chapters in just under 375 pages — it is important.

Reviving the Golden Rule: How the Ancient Ethic of Neighbor Love Can Heal the World Andrew DeCort (IVP Academic) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

I’ve been intending to write a major review of this but just can’t finish it. I want to say that this is one of the most important books in the field of social ethics and public theology I have read in a decade. Agree or not fully with his profound and Biblically-attentive study and conclusions, it is clear that he is right in insisting that we must love our neighbors. His Facebook posts are amazing (and often long, essays in their own rite) and he reminds us that we must not view others as the enemy, not any “other.” He is wanting to show God’s love to each and every person and in this he is nearly revolutionary. In Reviving the Golden Rule he traces the history of the idea from the ancient world to today.

If you’ve read any Martin Luther King or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, say, you will appreciate this. There is a great study guide, a short annotated bibliography on neighbor-love, and then a much more extensive bibliography.  Other ethicists have called it rare and impressive and masterful.

The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (Orbis Press) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

Again, this is one we’ve highlighted several times before and even named it as one of my personal favorites of last year. Granberg-Michaelson is a great guide to this vital topic — the spirituality of justice work — since he has first-hand experience in everything from public policy work with a US Senator to street protests and community organizing to years of working with ordinary church folks and global church leaders, not to mention a deep and abiding, grounded sort of spirituality. A previous book, Without Oars: Casting Off Into a Life of Pilgrimage (another favorite) documents his own journey as a pilgrim, learning an embodied sort of spirituality as he moves from what you might think of as church dogma (however good and proper) to a lived encounter with the Spirit. Anyway, Lent is a time to deepen ones spiritual habits and also a time of caring for the poor and working for justice. The Soulwork of Justice is ideal for these next weeks. I’d highly recommend it.

Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk, and True Flourishing Andy Crouch (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I have decieded to read this during Lent this year as one of my own hopes to learn more about a Christ-like way to think about power and influence, suffering and humility. The apostle Paul famously said his strength is in weakness and this is truly one of the great (and needed!) upside-down ways of the Kingdom of God. It preaches well, but we need this marvelously written, very insightful book to show us (using a four way or 2 x 2 grid rather than a continuum) how to embrace both strength and weakness. Near the end of this invitation Andy wisely reminds us of Christ’s own suffering, his journey towards weakness, the brilliance of the gospel in all it’s counter-cultural relevance. This is what love looks like, how human calling takes its best shape, how following Jesus can allow us to be people who have the confidence to take risks, for love’s sake. This is one of the best little books I’ve ever read and Lent seems the perfect time to spend more time in it’s life-changing pages.

Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace Mark DeYmaz (NavPress) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Yet another new one about which I should write much more, but which I will just tell you pretty quickly what it is about. The title and subtitle says it all — it is about a Protestant (evangelical) who has written much about multi-ethnic ministry and forming racially diverse congregations who discovers the powerful simplicity of the famous Prayer of Saint Francis. We all know it, but how seriously do we take it, line by line? And can praying this prayer with intentionality perhaps be a way (as the sub-title puts) to “become more like Jesus.” Isn’t that what Lent is about? Praying for spiritual formation, becoming Christ-like in a way that allows us to better serve others.

Can’t we all become a little more Christ-like this season? Doesn’t “Make me an instrument of Your peace” sound like a prayer we all need, now?  Leonard Sweet (whose recent book Jesus Imagination: Maker, Mender, Minder, Master I wrote about not long ago) says, “Mark DeYmaz doesn’t just write about peace — he hands you the tools to make it.”

Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week Jason Porterfield (Herald Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I’ve written about this extensively in years past so won’t belabor it, although I am glad to remind youth it is brilliant, easy to read, ad a great way to follow carefully the story as the gospel-writers have it unfolded for us. It is well known how much emphasis the gospels place on the final passion week of Jesus and this book shows how the drama starts on what is often misunderstood and misapplied, the event often known as Psalm Sunday. Jesus comes into the City of Peace (which he soon enough wears over) not on a war-horse or chariot but on a donkey, a dramatic, prophetic gesture for those who have eyes to see. Porterfield unpacks the peace-making themes of Holy Week and there is no better book to help us live into and perhaps embody the story of Jesus’s final days.  There is a good group study guide included as well.

Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate Steven Garber (Paraclete Press) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I know I’ve pitched this to you before. I said in was one of my favorite books read in 2025 (although it came out just in January of 2026.) I reviewed it again, and told you much about it as I invited you to our online webinar where I interviewed the author for an hour or so. We hardly scratched the surface so I suggested it, yet again, in an early Lenten list, thinking this beautifully rendered book telling of Steve’s own carrying the weight of the world seemed right for this sober season. It is a sober book, but yet — believe me — there are glimmers of glory, the grand (Hobbit-like) adventure we are all on, bringing us thrills and pains, joys and sorrows. Until Christ comes in glory to do what the Bible and the creeds say He will do, we work with hints of hope. This conversation about the “proximate” — not expecting everything, not being utopian, not triumphalistic, but not complicit or cynical, either — is perfect for Lent. In Christ we hope. In Him we wait. In Him — the suffering King — we hold on the best we can, still not finding fully what we’re looking for. That can be devasting or it can be liberating. With Steve’s wise help, it can be a key to flourishing and health.  Read it now tapping into the virtues proper to the season. Or maybe right after Easter, in resurrectionary hope. Sooner or later, you’ll need this. We are delighted to suggest it to you now.

Killing a Messiah: A Novel Adam Winn (IVP) $23.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19

I don’t have to say much about this other than to say it is a fictionalized account of the death of Christ as passover approaches in the city of Jerusalem. It is, as he puts it, a “political tinderbox.” Adam Winn is a professor and author of several scholarly works on the gospel of Mark, especially understood in light of the influence of first century imperial pressures. How was the early church’s Christology developed under Cesar and what is the relationship between the writing of the New Testament and the realities of Empire. Anyway, he knows his stuff and this is a fresh imagination of the events leading up to Jesus’s execution. What a better time to read a novel like this. Wow.

Shades of Light: A Novel Sharon Garlough Brown (IVP) $21.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

Some of you who have followed us for a while will recall my rave review of this novel about a young Christian social worker who faces burnout from job stress, a broken heart from a relationship break-up, and, frankly a serious bout of depression. Wren takes refuge in a retreat center run by her aunt and in a story that Publishers Weekly called “heartbreaking and enthralling” she slowly finds some solace and healing with her aunts gentle spiritual direction and the retreat center’s calming influence. Shades of Light is a great story and there is a really good (six week) study guide for personal use or book clubs ($13.99 // $11.99.) I won’t give away a key plot event, although the next review gives it away.

Remember Me: A Novella About Finding Our Way to the Cross with the devotional and artworks “Journey to the Cross” Sharon Garlough Brown (IVP) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

A novella, of course, is a very short novel. Longer than a short story, but not quite a full novel, this is just 100 pages. It is a story formed by letters sent by Katherine Rhodes, the director of the New Hope Retreat Center to her niece Wren who — as told in the fuller novel Shades of Light — finds a partial way to cope with her depression when her aunt invites her to paint contemporary artworks for an upcoming Stations of the Cross service. Remember Me picks up that story as Katherine share her own grief (coupled somehow with the pain of our savior) making this a perfect Lenten read.

But get this: the final chapters of Remember Me has the (fictional) program and artwork from the (fictional) Stations of the Cross as done by the fictional Wren. Ends up, this program of reflection and the full color art pieces (reproduced in full color on glossy paper inserts) makes a great Lenten devotional. The real life artist Elizabeth Ivy Hawkins stood in as the character Wren and painted these paintings of the Stations as she thought Wren might have and described them in this real devotional. The paintings are created in Shades of Light which causes Katherine to write what becomes Remember Me, where the art and devotional are included. What a great idea, eh?

Liberated at the Cross: Peace and Reconciliation in God’s Kingdom Kristel Acevedo (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I am telling you, I have never seen such a rich and thoughtful small group Bible study on the topic of the cross and the social implications of a theology of atonement for peace and public justice. Okay, I’ve never seen any kind of Bible study on this (although there is a huge body of often academic literature showing how the cross brings both personal justification and cosmic reconciliation, how Christ’s death defeats the principalities and powers, how the victory of Christ in resurrection leads to a Kingdom of healing and restoration, etc. etc. etc.) If you know that vast literature — whether its the teaching about the cross from John Stott or Ron Sider or James Cone or Jorgen Moltmann or Brian Zahnd or Sylvia Keesmaat or NT Wright or others with their unique contributions — you may have longed for their full-orbed visions of the transformative power of the cross to be offered in accessible Bible study formats. This is it and I am excited and grateful to Kristel Acevedo and to IVP for daring to do such a helpful, radical, faithful resource. Get a bunch and spread the word.

Each section is enhanced with bold super-graphics and bright headlines and cool, colorful design and each week has QR codes that have amazing videos to watch; this is not your father or mother’s fill-in-the-blank Bible study booklet. Nope, this is chock-full of ideas and activities and good, good conversation starters to help you be rooted in the cross and dream for a better world. The best part, of course, is the solid Biblical study you’ll do for six or more sessions. There are review pieces, “self-check” notes, closing prayers and more. Kristel, by the way, is discipleship director at Transformation Church a multiethnic community (pastored by Derwin Gray, author most recently of Lit by Love) near Charlotte NC.

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BookNotes

Some years, after the massive and important Pittsburgh Jubilee conference (put on, with a bit of help from us, by the campus ministry outfit the CCO) I write a reflection, reminding readers how much fun the hard work is, how many books we sell about all manner of topics, and why, for many churches, the vision promoted at this conference about living into God’s promises of new creation — thy Kingdom come, on Earth! — is still underdeveloped. The CCO’s team putting together great keynote talks about the good creation, the seriousness of the fall into sin, the life-changing nature of Christ’s redemptive work, and the hope of living now in anticipation of God’s cosmic restoration, coupled with dozens of workshops on everything from science to journalism to the arts to business is nothing short of genius.

You can read some of my older celebrations of this event and how much it means to us (and our business) HERE, HERE, or HERE. Sorry, the sales mentioned are long over. Ha.

You can watch or listen to the last handful of our “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast where I talked over a series of episodes about some of the seminal thinkers and best-selling books over the course of the conference’s last 50 years. Listen at Apple or Spotify or watch us on YouTube. The Jubilee ones start with Episode 48 and I’m doing another one soon.

AND, if you want to know even more you can enjoy any number of episodes of the podcast “Fifty Jubilees Story Project” made by the great Jen Pelling for the CCO (again easily found on Apple podcasts or Spotify. ) I’m in the very first one, in fact, as these conversations tell stories of former staff or participants in the yearly conference. I know every one of the people involved in these fun interviews and I’m not going to lie — a few of them brought tears to my eyes. It may seem like insider baseball, as they say, but if you are interested in the best ways to bring God’s Kingdom transformation to young adults, enjoy these fabulous chats.

For those who were praying for us and the stamina needed during the weeks of very hard work running the pop-up bookstore there, thank you. Beth and I both survived pretty well with the help of a large team of volunteers. Two of our best friends and H&M supporters came in for four days before the event to help us pack and lug and load boxes into the big rental truck. We are grateful that so many from all over care about our work here and the Jubilee conference is one dramatic example of our vision and vocation.

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A DOZEN NEW BOOKS YOU HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT — on sale, now.

After the Lenten list last week, I’m eager to curate another list of what we think are vital resources for those who making reading a spiritual habit and for those who want to know about some of the important resources for this end of February in the year of the Lord, 2026. You can order by clicking on the link at the very bottom. Please and thanks for doing that.

God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal N.T. Wright (HarperOne) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

I hardly know what to say about this other than it may be the most important theological /Bible book of the year. If you like the way I described the Jubilee conference, above, inviting students to think of their studies, their sports, their shopping, their work, their relationships, their future callings as citizens and employees and church members (etc) in light of the redemptive trajectory in the Bible towards God’s renewal of all things, then this book explores that with Biblical detail, fleshing out at least some of the feisty implications. The final talk from the Main Stage at Jubilee, with praise songs capturing this very theme, is laden with hope for an embodied future, a new earth and Wright here shows that this isn’t some quirky schtick of the CCO but is the very heart of the gospel message. As I often say here, if your church doesn’t proclaim the incarnational nature of the Kingdom of God then they aren’t proclaiming the real Bible message. Personal salvation alone is not the gospel. Social transformation alone is not the gospel. We live with a story and in the Bible that unfolding drama goes from a good creation fallen but restored into a new creation. Wright is the one who helps us see this, maybe better than anyone writing today.

He has always had a fairly wholistic and Biblically faithful approach to the multidimensional realities of the story of Israel’s God and the church of Jesus Christ. He’s never preached a personalistic or overly pious pie in the sky sort of faith. He filled in some fabulous details with this Kingdom teaching in How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels which he preached about, some of you recall, in the backyard of our store, but spelled out the details of a renewed creation in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (which hit the shelves in 2008 and people are still talking about it.) In a way, this new God’s Homecoming might be considered a sequel or follow up to Surprised by Hope. He seems to be saying that while he has long rejected the dualism (taught by the likes of Plato or Aristotle and too many church thinkers) between body and soul that leads to a hard dualism between the secular and sacred, even heaven and earth, he wants to say now that God’s plan and promise to reunite heaven and earth is *the* key to unlock so much of the Bible’s message.  The story of creation to new creation is the Biblical story and the hope of the gospel.

Here, the vivid thinker Time magazine called “one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought” explores all kinds of Bible teachings and themes and shows how new creation insights bring into focus the real meaning of topics from glory of God to the temple, the meaning of exile and the nature of the gospel accounts. He is helpful with a nuanced view of the Kingdom and, of course, wise ways to understand Paul and the early church. He ends by showing how we “switched the script” and how to re-read the texts faithful. There are big implications for worship, evangelism, and prayer, vocation, work, and the running of our churches. My, my, this is, maybe, a deeper dive and summary of much of his life’s work.

I haven’t studied the details or even the footnotes very carefully yet, but three other books (besides Wright’s Surprised by Hope) come immediately to mind. Although I wouldn’t say that God’s Homecoming is only about eschatology (a study of the end times) it obviously is exploring how our vision of the final restoration of creation must influence our current understanding of the Bible, our faith and daily discipleship, and our mission in the church as God’s vanguard of the coming Kingdom. The book that is doubtlessly the best undergirding for Wright’s hopes is J. Richard Middleton’s groundbreaking and hefty A New Heaven and New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic; $31.99 // 25.59.) It’s big and a bit dense but it is a must. (His epilogue about why all this matters is wonderful and his exploration of the implications of the Year of Jubilee, there, are brilliant!)

I suppose you know my appreciation for another hefty, rich volume called Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement by Steven Bouma-Prediger & Brian Walsh (Eerdmans; $39.99 //OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99) where they explore the notion of original home-making (and fallen home-breaking and redemptive home-coming) as motifs for our stewardly care for the world. It unpacks this wholistic vision (by way of talking about the housing crisis and homelessness as well as the carelessness with which we experience place and creation-care) better than anything I know. Brian has often talked in detail with Wright about these things, which Wright has often acknowledged. (It is notable, I think, that the book Brian and his wife Sylvia Keesmaat wrote on Romans called Romans Disarmed is cited by Wright in his concise Into the Heart of Romans.) Anyway, Beyond Homelessness is generative and I suspect that it influenced N.T. a bit.

A third volume which obviously opens us up to the “homecoming” of God is The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything by Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz (Brazos Press; $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00.) It came out in 2022 in hardcover and was just released a few months ago in paperback. I can’t wait for a review of Wright’s God’s Homecoming by Volf — that would make perfect sense, eh?

As it says on the back of God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal:

“Everything changes when you begin to believe God’s plan has never been to leave the world he created and loves, but to dwell with us.” Indeed.

 

Sabbath Gospel: A New Narrative of Time, Rest, and the Work of the Church G.P. Wagenfuhr & Amy J. Erickson (IVP Academic) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Holy smokes does this look mighty. Serious and scholarly, but with a fine writing style and practical sections, this seems like an incredible work, blending insights discerned with fresh and rigorous Biblical scholarship and good stuff for ordinary folks (and pastors or anyone working in congregational or parachurch leadership.) There are even discussion questions for brave groups willing to work through a 250 + page volume.  Wagenfuhr is a Presbyterian pastor in Yakima, Washington and Erickson lectures in theology and ethics at St. Mark’s National Theological Centre in Australia.

Although I’d categorize this as a book of Biblical studies, it is clear it provides research offered for sake of the harried and hurting. It is for pastors who are hyperactive and ordinary folks who are exhausted. It offers a rejection of the idols of the culture — more and more and more! — and invites us to “anticipate the true rest that only comes in God’s reign.”

I mentioned, above, the Jubilee conference that has been going on yearly for 50 years. When we named the conference back in 1976 a Dutch neo-Calvinist philosopher was guiding us through the famous book The Politics of Jesus by Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder; it showed the link between Jesus’s first sermon (Luke 4) and his text of the day (Isaiah 61) which draws on the Jubilee initiative in Leviticus 25. Not having done much reading from Leviticus, I had never head of the Year of Jubilee. Sabbath Gospel explains that, too, inviting us to notions of ultimate rest (think of Hebrews) to which we are invited. Yes, in Christ the Jubilee rest is gifted. Yes, in Christ, we can experience — now but not yet, here but not fully — the regime of shalom, rooted in rest. We don’t have to earn or achieve or try to deserve it. Sabbath, as explored by this wonderful book, is gospel language — gift and grace.

Yes, these authors are indebted to NT Wright. They quote remarkable books, from Seeing Like a State to early works by Jacque Ellul (and Marva Dawn on Jacque Ellul) to the rare book, Sabbath Economics by Ched Meyers.  Of course they love the respected old Jewish rabbi Abraham Heschel and his work The Sabbath and cite, importantly, Sabbath as Resistance by Brueggemann.

You may need to rest after working through Sabbath Gospel: A New Narrative of Time, Rest, and the Work of the Church but, believe me, you will rest better than you ever have, getting this stuff in your bones. We recommend it highly.

Becoming Neighbors: Common Good Made Local Amar D. Peterman (Eerdmans) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

This little book came just today and although it is slim (under 100 pages) it is potent and wonderfully done. I think it would be ideal for outreach committees or adult ed classes or book clubs or small groups. There is a great foreword by James K.A. Smith which shows how important it is and the blurbs on the back are stellar. From Eboo Patel to Karen Swallow Prior, many have raved about the beauty of the words and healing, hopeful count. Hannah Reichel (For Such a Time as This) calls it “provocatively practical.” Joash Thomas (The Justice of Jesus) says it is “a hope-filled, prophetic reimagination of what the church was always meant to be.”

My friend Stephanie Summers (of the impeccably balanced Center for Public Justice) says very nice things about it. So does the eloquent Anne Snyder (of the equally eloquent Comment magazine.) So does John Inazu, who did a fabulous job, by the way, at Jubilee with his thoughtful book of legal theory (Confident Pluralism) and his delightful “year-in-the-life” book about being a professor on a conflicted campus, Learning How to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect. Talk about local!  Anyway, if Inazu recommends it, that’s worth listening to!

Amar Peterman was a leader in the civic networks movement of InterFaith America and founded Scholarship for Religion and Society. He holds an MDiv from Princeton Seminary (and I think is doing a PhD at the University of Chicago.) He’s convinced that we can best cultivate the common good by starting in our own neighborhood. He offers five wonderfully written and provocative chapters, each inviting us to care well for our neighbors and our neighborhoods. It’s beautiful and potent, not dense but perhaps what might be called thick (that is, not a thin telling.) He cites the likes of Norman Wirzba, Christian Wiman, Oliver O’Donovan, Hartma Rosa, William James Jennings, so he’s delightfully brainy. There is even an old Rubem Alves quote!  Talk about short and sweet. I hope Becoming Neighbors is discussed often, all over.

Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning with and Reimagine Faith Rachel Held Evans (HarperOne) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I guess most of our readers (whether they appreciate her much or not) know who Rachel Held Evans was. Her first book was a memoir about growing up in a strict fundamentalist family and church in Dayton, Tennessee, the town famous for the Scopes Trial. First called Evolving in Monkeytown, I suspect that many potential readers didn’t know what that meant so they changed the title and reissued it as Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions. She wrote several books poking fun at legalism and strict configurations of faith, whether it was A Year of Biblical Womanhood or the poignant Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church. We met once and had a few deep conversations; we debated a bit and she was funny if firm. She has become sort of the poster-girl for a generous faith that rejects toxic formulations and invites gracious, inclusive, generous practices. She was dubbed by The Atlantic, “the hero to Christian misfits.”

Jeff Chu, author of Good Soil, one of our favorite books of last year, was devastated when his good friend and comrade died unexpectedly. I can’t imagine how hard it was, emotionally, but he responded to Rachel’s husband’s request and finished Rachel’s last manuscript, in her spirit, knowing much about her writerly style and trajectory. That book was called Whole Hearted Faith and I’m sure I said somewhere that it was her last book.

Happily, if bittersweet, her good friend Sarah Betsy, edited and brought together a whole bunch of Rachel’s previously unpublished [in book form] essays, articles, chapters (maybe journal entries?) and serious facebook postings and nicely put them together as only a good editor can, and we now have what I really do believe will be the final posthumously published book by Rachel Held Evans. The chapters are short but compiled well, bringing various pieces together in what truly feels like a major contribution to our reformulations and reconsiderations of faith both public and personal.

There are six major units or parks, each with maybe a dozen or more chapters. They include:

• An Evolving Faith: Essays on Doubt, Asking Questions, and the Cost of it All
• The Unholy American Trinity: Essays on Patriarchy, White Supremacy, and Religious Nationalism
• Casseroles, Evangelicalism, and the Kingdom of the Hungry: Essays on the Church
• All Right, Then, I’ll Go toHell: Essays on Gender and Sexuality
• Still a Bible Nerd: Essays on Scripture
• Telling the Truth: Essays on Life in the Midst of It All

Throughout, in each of these sections, are a few very appropriate pieces by friends and conversations partners such as Matthew Paul Turner, Shauna Niequist, Sarah Bessey, Scot McKnight, Shane Claiborne, Lisa Sharon Harper, Kathy Khang, Jen Hatmaker, Osheta Moore, Micha Boyett, Cindy Wang Brandt, Pete Enns, Kaitlin Curtice, and many more. All are exceptional writers and dear, dear people of character. You won’t want to miss her “meditation on nursing”, a penultimate piece called “Lent for the Lamenting” and the final chapter, the first I read, “Her Last Act as a Blogger: A Reflection by Amanda Held Opelt” (her sister.)  Sarah Bessey’s afterword “Go Forth, Woman of Valor” is beautiful. Braving the Truth is a very special book, mostly her own words and yet plenty of tribute, plenty of grace. We recommend it.

Lit Up With Love : Becoming Good News People to a Gospel-Starved World Derwin L. Gray (NavPress) $12.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

I know not everyone has time or disposition to wade through major hardback texts. I know some want a short and succinct shot in the arm (or what Dylan called a “shot of love.”) Or maybe you want to share a book with somebody but it can’t be too thick or pricey. Or maybe you’re looking for an accesible little book for a small group or one-on-one mentoring session. This little book is a gem and we’re happy to tell you about it. I hope it sells like hot-cakes.

If I were to say it is about evangelism, I suspect that will be a less than winning selling point so I’ll try not to use the E-word, even if that is how I’d best describe it. But please forget the bad images of pushy big-mouths or the person who is “that guy.” The world is hungry for answers, creative, winsome people with a big vision of life’s deepest meaning really can — when lit up with love — bear beautiful witness to the work God is doing in the world. If any of the above titles makes sense — reimagining apologetics, embodying faith, living into the story of new creation, caring for the brokenness of the world, working for racial and multiethnic reconciliation, affirming a high view of work and our callings in the world — then this little volume by a well-known black pastor will scratch where it itches for you and your friends. I’m sure of it.

Lit Up is a book about how to be the sorts of communities that when they talk about God people response well because they think it makes sense.  It is rooted in a full-orbed vision of the Kingdom, not a truncated, bullet-point formula of faith. It shows how we can become people who “develop a heart for the hurts and longings of the people in our lives” and are “living the adventure of being an everyday missionary.”  I won’t use the high-powered marketing lingo of this starting something like a catalytic movement or how “living loved” will change the reputation of the church in your community and therefore transform the world. But it sure can’t hurt, eh? Who doesn’t need a little help learning to love well and share faith in honest ways? And it is fun that Derwin Gray used to be a pretty significant NFL star who came to faith as a professional football player and eventually went on to study theology and church planting. Very cool.

This has 10 short chapters each followed with some “holy habits” and some discussion questions and a closing prayer making it fantastic for a small group or book club. There is also a fee church hit. With small-group curriculum videos, even possible sermon outlines for those who want to go big with this little guy. Gray is the cofounder and lead pastor of Transformation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. N.T. Wright says that his “passion for Jesus and the gospel leaps off every page.”

Discipling the Diseased Imagination: Spiritual Formation and the Healing of Our Hearts Justin Ariel Bailey (Baker Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I often wonder how best to mentor others, to teach and inform and influence. I’m a lowly bookseller and do some public speaking, traveling here and there on rare occasions to talk about the importance of reading widely, preaching about the ways in which being a life-long learner can inform our faith and our visions of discipleship. What does it mean, really, in the famous text, to “make disciples of all nations”? And how do you do it in this day and age?  I’ve got my list of books about disciple-making and this now, is a vital addition. I’ve just started it but it is by far the most provocative and faithful and thoughtful book on the topic I’ve read in years.

Justin Bailey is a professor of theology (and the dean of chapel) at Dordt University. If you’re reading carefully, I alluded, above, to a Dutch philosopher who was teaching some of us back in the mid-1970s when we cooked up the idea of the Jubilee conference. That leader, a flamboyant philosophical evangelist named Pete Steen, had connections at Dordt College and Justin Bailey (when he spoke at Jubilee a few years ago) was happy to be reminded of the connections between Pittsburgh and Sioux Center, Iowa, between CCO and Dordt.

And now Bailey has a brand new book which, it seems to me, will be really useful for those such as the campus workers in CCO (or IVCF or RUF or Cru or Navs or at the Christian Study Centers or Fellows Programs, etc. etc.) who are tasked with guiding young adults in their faith journey. Although not written about shaping the lives of teens or those in confirmation classes, I’d say it offers a grand foundation for those doing that kind of work, too. Do you teach Sunday school? Mentor others in outreach groups? Are you a parent or teacher? This book is for you!

In fact, it isn’t even exactly about teaching others, but about understanding our own damaged imaginations and how our own faith formation can only develop if we reconsider how to find healing for our distorted imaginations.

Bailey’s main point his that the imagination should be at the center of our discipleship (that is, our Christian growth, internally and outwardly, so to speak, informing how we live out our faith.) If it is central to our own sanctification, this sort of intentional attention to our imagination therefore needs to be a part of the effort of those shaping and cultivating and nurturing others in their faith journey. Obviously, growing as a Christian or mentoring others in their own growth as Christians involves a lot more than transferring data, even if that content is Bible-rich and theological sound. Inner transformation is more than learning facts about religion. Duh.

I loved his hefty previous book called ReImagining Apologetics which invited us to reach others in outreach and persuasion by telling a better story than that which they are currently living; that is, apologetics can be more than arguing about the reliability of the Bible or the viability of a life in Christ or the importance of truth. Rather, we can use myth and the arts to rekindle the imagination so as to evoke a desire for deeper more wonderful things. Now, in Discipling the Diseased Imagination it seems like he has written a sequel, rather than focusing on using the imagination to enfold others into the Christian story but to mentor and build up others in the faith by forming not only the mindset the heart and spirit.

The modern sickness of the soul runs deeper than most diagnoses are able to reach,” says Joshua Chatrow, author of Telling a Better Story: How to Talk about God in a Skeptical Age. Of Justin Bailey’s book he continues, “Discipling the Diseased Imagination is the treatment plan the church sorely needs. With a rare blend of intellectual depth, pastoral care, and elegant prose, Bailey prescribes a vision for the Christian life that is honest, humane, and hopeful.”

Oh my. Isn’t that what you want for your life, for your church, for your witness to your unbelieving neighbors and friends? My pal Alex Sosler, who has a new book on hip hop, by the way, says that Justin Ariel Bailey writes artfully and convincingly and that “to reimagine is a moral imperative of possibility.” Yes.

The first chapter is about imaginative perception and the second is about prayer. The third is about resistance and the next is about attention. Do you believe God is still speaking? Do you believe we need to foster a wondrous sense of being alive to that? Listen to Bailey who is orthodox and rigorous and prayerful and yet eager to help us discover a broader spirituality of human-ness, of glory, of goodness.

Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow Jay Stringer (Convergent) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

Okay, we’ve been suggesting books about living into a grand and robust vision of the gospel which takes fully the Bible’s teaching about the good sturdiness of creation, the radical and debilitation corruption caused by sin and idolatry, and the hopeful, substantial healing promised by Jesus the King of the coming new creation. Our speaker the first night of Jubilee, Drew Hyun, nicely describes the reality of these Biblical motif that we all know in our bones. His book is called Beautiful, Disappointing, Hopeful. Right? We all have these experiences of a good world gone south and we all need some way to make sense of the hope we long for. Much of this — as Augustine told us centuries ago and as many, many writers and preachers have said of late (many drawing on James KA Smith’s marvelous You Are What You Love)  — all hinges on matters of desire. What do you want, Jesus asks early in the gospel of John. It’s a good question.

Dan Allender, a name who shows up often here at BookNotes, helped start at graduate school of psychology and advance studies of counseling inspired, in part, by this deep perspective on the nature of the heart’s longings, attending to story and desire. How do we cope with longing and loss, how to we live out of our own authentic stories, if we aren’t self-reflective about what drives us, what we want, what we love?

Jay Stringer is an amazing young scholar who wrote a singular book seven or so years ago among a sea-full of mostly ineffective ideas about resisting pornography and other sexual brokenness. This was called Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing (NavPress; $18.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.16) and was based not only on his big picture, deep assessment of the nature of longing in the human heart, but on his own survey (one of the largest of its kind) about those who had unwanted sexual issues. “Listen to your lust,” he advised, not because lust was good or acceptable, but because putting a tourniquet on it, saying no, doing what all the other hundreds of books and pamphlets and Bible studies and pastoral messages said do simply wasn’t working. Most know that, frankly, those with unwanted sexual desires, even Biblical Christians empowered by the Spirit to want to do the right thing, find it complicated to break sexual compulsions. Jay invited readers to deep and honest awareness of what’s really going on, below the surface, under the hood. It’s a book we are glad to sell and that we think is for many a godsend.

And now (releasing next week) we have a brand new book that in some ways goes deeper and wider than the quite specific Unwanted. His faith is still evident and his helpfulness as a counselor is obvious, but Desire is a bit of a broader study, at once both more philosophical (about theological anthropology, I might suggest) and scientific (brain studies, attachment theory, etc.) His scope, now, is not just helping people with porn addictions and the like but asking how we even understand this human experience of longing. What is desire, really, and where does it come from?

And how cool is this — the best-selling author Will Guidara, a chef (whose high-end restaurant was the basis of several scenes in the TV hit The Bear) and author of Unreasonable Hospitality has called it  “a master class in caring for the human spirit.” Chef Guidara says that “Desire turns the work of hospitality inward, changing how you understand love, purpose, and what it means to serve those around you, and yourself.” I know Jay lives in New York City but I hadn’t seen that coming. Nice, eh?

Dan Allender, one of Jay’s mentors, has long talked about God’s story and our longings being fulfilled as we allow God to author our story, as we find our meaning in delving into our personal story in light of God’s redemptive story. (That Dan came to faith in part through that Dutch philosopher I mentioned who helped us name Jubilee is not inconsequential; from his earliest days as a collegiate follower of Jesus he was rooted in a philosophy of life and culture and a theology of the human person and grace that saw things others often missed. And so he’s a world-class leader, now, as is Jay Stringer.)

Jay did a massive bit of social science research and tons of interviews (number in the thousands, I’m told) to discover much about what people think about their own desires. We learn, in Desire, what he calls findings and skills and the like, making it researched based but immanently helpful. From a desire for personal growth (and ways we sidestep it) to a desire for intimacy (and how we create “rituals and routines of love” to sustain our affections) to even practical reflections on depression and joy, loneliness and friendship, the search for meaning and faith, Stinger’s years of work have paid off.  He is curious about all of this deeply human stuff and he invites us to fight our shame and be real about it all — can we become curious stewards of our own desires? Do we even know what we want? This book is provocative and a major work to study and discuss.

I’ve only scratched the surface. We can send them out next week when Convergent officially releases it. You should order it now!

Here is a bit of what the publisher has shared about it; I quote:

“Desire drives our search for intimacy, meaning, and joy, but it can also lead to shame, betrayal, and self-sabotage. Too often we are encouraged to silence it, distort it, or treat surface-level symptoms like loneliness, low desire, or porn use — without listening to what our longings are really telling us.

In Desire, Stringer shows how to decode those clues and transform your story. Drawing on unforgettable stories from his clinical practice–individuals and couples navigating everything from childhood scars to purity culture, professional exhaustion to sexual difficulties, codependency to self-doubt — he shows you how to ask the questions you’ve been avoiding and move toward the healing you didn’t know how to seek.”

Jay Stringer brilliantly invites us to a well-researched, richly imagined, and compellingly written understanding of what he calls the inner civil war of competing desires. His scholarship and personal honesty will give you a new path to offer kindness to your soul and the conflicts that have beset you. I say with no fear of exaggeration — this will be one of the most important books you will read for knowing yourself and others. — Dan B. Allender, PhD, professor of counseling psychology, founding president of the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology

Jay Stringer wants to give you permission — permission to stop running; to stop trying so hard; to stop the self-criticism; and, most of all, to start desiring again. This book is a much-needed corrective to strategies that get you almost there — but never quite feeling free and healed. Desire has the immense power to actually help people change and grow. Take this invitation to excavate buried desires and move toward an authentic, whole, and integrated you! — Sheila Wray Gregoire, author of The Great Sex Rescue

Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice L. Daniel Hawk (IVP Academic) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

I have long said that IVP and IVP Academic have been the premier evangelical publisher and, at the same time, also the premier Christian publisher doing readable, useful, transformative book on racial reconciliation and racial justice. In recent decades all legitimate publishers everywhere joined in and nearly every faith-based publisher has something in their catalogues about race, anti-racism, or ethnic diversity. IVP has been publishing these kinds of books since the 1970s.

Early on, IVP — perhaps because of their connection to the evangelical campus ministry outfit IVCF which has worked on large city campuses since before there was an IVP publishing house — have done books for Asian American’s navigating Christian faith and for Latinos as well. Hooray. And, in recent decades they’ve pioneers books by and for and about indigenous peoples (such as Saving the Gospel from the Cowboys and books on diversity by Native leader Randy Woodley.) This past year they released the First Nations Translation New Testament and the First Nations Translation: Proverbs and Psalms. We stock those in hardback and paperback and a nice imitation leather.

Which is just to say that it makes sense for IVP to do this extraordinary scholarly history of white settlers spreading across North America and how they “crafted and enacted an epic story of their God-given dominion — over the land, over Indigenous nations, and over the future.” As Hawk explains, “Their narrative constructed a myth of innocence that justified a massive program of violence and dispossession by suppressing a darker history. That history still reverberates today.”

Daniel Hawk, with a PhD from Emory University, is professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio.  He is considered a published expert in postcolonial Biblical study. Here he is doing the necessary backstory to the turn in postcolonial theory and simply writes — as a descendant of White settlers — American history (with theology and Biblical scholarship combined) to show how to bust up the myths of Manifest Destiny.

Every Moment Holy: Rites of Passage Douglas McKelvey, illustrated by Ned Bustard (Rabbit Room Press) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

This just arrived today and we are thrilled. This is not the time to do another extended review of the previous three editions, or discuss in detail the glories and wonders, the theological depth and  quotidian, prayerful usefulness, the aesthetic richness of language and the artful classy design of the first three volumes of Every Moment Holy.

I hope you know the belovedness of the three full-sized, leather-bound hardbacks and their smaller, flexible, leather-bound compact editions, as well.  Their popularity has nearly created a movement of liturgical prayer in houses, markets, college dorms, businesses, playgrounds, garages, workplaces, bedrooms, kitchens, yards, cars, and more. The taupe-colored first volume (in larger or smaller versions) include random liturgies and prayers for every imaginable occasion, some whimsical, some incredibly wise (if rare) while others are sort of standard (for hospitable visits, first days school, various hard moments.) The second — in those gorgeous tan editions — focuses on loss and lament (those were the most used, it seems, in Volume I so in Volume II they did more prayers for loss and sadness and complicated moments, richly illustrated with Ned Bustard’s striking graphics. Volume III (in large or smaller) is the bright blue one, with prayers and litanies composes by a variety of poets and pastors and the artwork (while still that black and white linocut /woodcut style) is by a handful of artists. Ned still designed the layout, the parts in red ink, the ribbon marker, and so forth. The three volumes (each in two sizes and prices) are precious and beautiful and have sold everywhere we go.

At last there is now a fourth and it is just a tiny bit different to behold and use. Every Moment Holy: Rites of Passage could be described as prayers and liturgies for young adults in transition. They have called it “a companion for early adulthood” and there are prayers about the unique day-to-day trials, joys, hopes, and griefs of these “critical years.”  There are more than 150 prayers  and liturgies for classes, graduations, dating, anxiety, job interviews, seasons of doubt, travel and more. There are over 30 illustrations by Ned Bustard.

The size is just a little different two. It is a leather-covered hardback, like the larger editions of the first three, but just a bit more trim in size, a bit thinner. It’s a fabulous size, in a rich brown with a Bustard linocut on the front. Not as small and chunky as the smaller editions but not as large as the bigger hardback editions, it feels just right. Hooray.

And guess what? Most of us are in transition and could use these prayers and litanies for knowing how to make good choices, for hosting our doubts, for seeking God’s will, to pray before an awkward social gathering, for cultivating gratitude, consuming media (for solo gamers.)

On the dedication page it reads:

For all who heed the wild call

to set foot upon this pilgrim road,

to take up your cross and follow Christ

wherever he might lead.

Run hard. Finish well.

 

Let’s gather at the Wedding Feast.

Strong Allies: Creating, Cultivating, Restoring Leslie Anne Bustard & Théa Rosenburg and others (Square Halo Books) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I’m pretty proud of my pal Ned Bustard, a dear friend and admired artist and “Barnabas” for artists. He and his teams founded Square Halo Books, run out of his Lancaster home office, in part, to deepen the literary contribution of artists writing about aesthetics, creativity, art history, and the importance of ordinary saints doing culture-making in our good but fallen world. In his own other job as graphic designer and printmaker, Ned has helped with the extraordinary success of the Every Moment Holy prayer books (see above) we couldn’t be more pleased to see his rising reputation.

You may recall us sharing about the death of his wife a few years ago. She was his ally in writing and publishing and curating their Square Halo Gallery in downtown Lancaster and was a poet and essayist in her own right. We have enthusiastically promoted her co-authored must-read Wild Things and Castles in the Sky a “guide to choosing the best books for children.” We so very much appreciate Tiny Thoughts I’ve Been Thinking: Selected Writings that include her essays and poems, published posthumously. Poet and her friend Malcolm Guite called it “a little trove of beauty and wisdom in the midst of ugly and confusing times.”

Well, one of the things Leslie and I (and Leslie and Beth) talked about from time to time was the Biblical / theological discussion about properly understanding gender roles and, particularly the vision and vocation of woman. She tried hard to develop what she and I more than once called “a third way” beyond the polarizing dogmas of the far feminist left and the far evangelical right. She herself was part of a lively and artful PCA congregation so we disagreed about some considerable matters, but I valued (really valued!) Her efforts at bridge building and discerning a Biblically solid and Reformed theological alternative to women-despising misogyny. More than polemical, too, she wanted to invite women into a generative and active role as women. The subtitle in this new collection of her pieces — finished by her close friend Théa Rosenburg — is important Strong Allies is not merely a “position” in the discussions about gender roles, it is a vivid and delightful and restorative call for women to be collaborative with others (male or female.) This really is Leslie’s gentle and lovely manifesto, written as only she could have, with plenty of strong insight and plenty of charm and grace.

The title is important as Leslie felt she had come up with the key to her particular take on the vocation of women, and that is the Hebrew word ezer, used in Genesis 2:18. It is often translated as helper (or in King James language, “helpmeet”), but that sometimes is used in ways that seem merely an assistant, not mutually valuable. She shows that the only other times that word is used is when the Biblical writers use it to describe God. God’s helpful, faithful, cultivating, creating, restoring power. Obviously, the linguistics of this part of being made in the very image of God suggests no secondary servant status. Ezer, Leslie realized, is a word loaded with fresh insight and poetic power.

Since she never fully finished her manuscript during her cancer years, Théa, with Ned’s full approval, found other women to weigh in, to share their insights, to tell stories, to make this whole vision of collaborative femininity for God’s reign become real, practical, down-to-Earth. So we have well-known writers and friends from Luci Shaw (perhaps offering her last written essay) to Margie Haack to Christie Purifoy to Karen Swallow Prior and many others, each sharing a story or insight. The book is visionary and thoughtful but also tender and practical; it is written for women and men, I’d say. Yes!

(And, for the record, for the three people who might care about this, she cites the rare book by Creation Regained author Al Wolters, a collection of scholarly pieces on Proverbs 31 called The Song of the Valiant Woman published by Paternoster in the UK. Just saying.)

No matter ones social status, stage of life, career, constraints or talents,  “Strong Allies calls women in every walk and stage of life to love the people around them in the places where he has planted them…”

I love the blurb on the back saying “countless books have been written about what women can and can’t do. But this book asks the question: “What did God make women to be?”

Leslie’s beautiful book not only shows us Scripture’s strong vision for women to be strong allies, but brings that vision to life in the stories of dozens of women then and now in a wide range of life circumstances. Personal and tender, practical and inspiring–we finally have a guide to biblical womanhood! — Carmen Joy Imes, author of Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters

Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest James Martin, SJ (HarperOne) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I could write about this for pages and pages but I’ll say just three quick things. I suppose you know of James Martin, a famous and often very funny Jesuit priest who sometimes appears on Colbert and has written many titles, including good ones on Jesus, on pilgrimage, on prayer, and on the Jesuits. He’s a fine writer and a good, good guy. This is his memoir of coming of age, his many summer jobs, and discerning his eventual call into the priesthood, which sort of surprised everybody. It’s a great fun read.

So, point number one: it’s a great fun read by an important Christian writer so you ought not miss it.  If you don’t buy it from us, visit your local library! It’s a delight to read, inspiring, and upbeat, humorously written with lyrical moments of lovely insight. Although I spend some of my days reading some heady stuff, I so enjoy dipping into this each night and I’m going to miss his clever voice when I’m done. Enjoy!

Point number two: it’s about work, summer jobs, all kinds of dumb and enchanting occupations, written about with zeal and idealism (except, well, when he tells about his often hilarious goof-ups and oddball antics — like being a caddy at one of the fanciest old country clubs in the country while not knowing a single thing about golf. Or trying to collect payment for a free paper he delivered to people who never requested it.) Anyway, we all need to honor the work of our hands (and the word of others hands and the theological conversation about workday callings and careers often skews to the professional and corporate. What fun to read about odd jobs and the life of a teen trying to make sense of the value and dignity of common labor.

Thirdly: Jimmy Martin grew up in the 1970s in a wonderfully colorful very middle class neighborhood outside of Philadelphia and describes childhood games and youthful anxieties and teen problems. And he nails it! I am not quite a decade older but this resonated so much, a fabulously fun glimpse into a world not unlike my own growing up. From the avocado colored decor and shag rugs (none of which we had) and saving money to buy 45s and albums and paperback books, and talking about the concerns about money (there were some rich kids around, but not many) and status and class and dating, it all rang so true.  This coming of age story — told through the jobs he had — is not merely a nostalgia piece (although it is charming to reminisce so well) but, like any really good memoir, a glimpse into the interior lives of folks making their way in the world. The remarkable memoirist Mary Karr notes in her rave review that “there is no greater quest or romance than this.”

I won’t even talk about what would be a major fourth point: Martin goes to the University of Pennsylvania, graduates from the Wharton business school and does sort of grow up. He becomes a corporate tool for a while (his word) spending time in New York City and eventually, even famously, discerning a call to ministry. I’ve not finished the story yet, but I see it coming. I do not think he will wax overly spiritual about how being called to what Catholics call the religious life is somehow better than so-called secular life. For him, though, becoming a Jesuit was finally a sweet spot and we can all be glad. That he finds God through it all is lovely and good; that he isn’t done writing yet might indicate that his priestly vocation also includes being a very good writer. Hooray!

Start with a Word: On the Craft and Adventure Writing Marilyn McEntyre (Eerdmans) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I sure hope I’ve done our job here as (at least one of) your book guys by highlighting the prolific work of the lovely and wonderful writer Marilyn McEntyre. I’ve often shared that she has been a literature prof working at a med school, helping wanna-be doctors and medical researchers understand more deeply the humanity of it all, reflecting on classic and modern literature and poetry and essays on illness and grief and bodies and hope. She knows how to use words well and uses them in this extraordinarily important work. Obviously we are fans.

Further, I think in every talk or class I’ve done on the reading life I’ve done since the summer of 2009 I’ve cited her fabulous book (originally given as the esteemed Stone Lecture at Princeton) Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. When I get carried away here, I recall her chapter (one of her “stewardship strategies” for words) is to “love the long sentence. Ahem.

Just recently I had reason to revisit Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict and at Jubilee a weekend ago I pressed her When Poets Pray into the hands of a young writer. From daily devotionals to Biblical pieces to literary criticism, she has created a notable body of work. And now she tells us, in her eloquent prose, just how it’s done.

One would think that reading a book about writing by a master writer would be a coup de state. But, alas, not every good writer shows their finest prose in teaching about their craft. Some are wise and useful, others are pleasantly delightful but more rare are those books about how to write that are a joy to read. Enter Marilyn McEntyre, a profoundly Christian thinker with a wide palette of reading and a broad vision of being a good writer.  This, I am sure, is going to be a favorite book of the year, although I’ve only dipped in. It is very new and you are among the first to hear about it, so enjoy! Buy it now, even if you aren’t an aspiring writer (and certainly if you are.) I need it, in more ways than one!  You too?

I know I might sometimes overstate the importance of who endorses a book, although it remains an important keystone for my initial evaluations. Marilyn has had writers and reviews far more important and skilled than I praising her work. From Reformed writer Cornelius Plantinga to the interfaith mystic Carol Zaleski; from thoughtful, evangelical singer-songwriter Michael Card to the famous Catholic activist Richard Rohr, so many have appreciated her work. I love a long blurb on the back of this one by Scott Cairns, the extraordinary Orthodox poet. New York pastor and poet (and half of the band The Welcome Wagon, who has played with Sufjan Stevens, by the way), Vito Aiuto, says that “studying with Marilyn McEntyre helped set the trajectory of my creative life.” Wow. Now we can all take in her instructions with what looks like a great, great resource.

By the way, the very first chapter is, not surprisingly, to “read like a writer.” Yes!

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If you enjoyed this newsletter feel free to share it with those who might enjoy it as well. If you want to purchase any of these we sure hope you’d send the order our way. All books mentioned are 20% off. Click on the link below. Happy reading in these hard times.

  

FIFTEEN BOOKS TO ACCOMPANY YOU ON YOUR LENTEN JOURNEY

If you’ve read our last several BookNotes you know there have been some trying times in the Borger household, and, also, that we have been consumed — as we always are in February — with prepping for and (with a lot of volunteer help) running the largest off-site book display we do each year, offering a pop-up bookstore for the CCOs annual Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh. Maybe you’ve seen a few Facebook posts (a couple ended up at our store’s group page) and I know more than a few of you were praying for us as we sold books about the wide-as-life transforming vision that undergirds the CCOs work of helping college students understand their majors as holy vocations. It is a joy to see others (especially young collegiates) buy books so they can think Christianly as they take up their places in God’s world, living into habits that allow them to be agents of God’s redemptive work from the workplace to the neighborhood to the public square.

Which is just a long way of saying we’ve been busy and are, as I’ve said to some friends who’ve asked, “exhilarated but exhausted.” Still, I feel badly that we just haven’t gotten a big Lenten list to you yet. Thanks for your patience as we all now shift into this season of sober spirituality, heading towards the cross.

We’ve done some pretty hefty lists in years past and many of those titles are still very useful. We even have some of them in stock now, and we can usually get more in a matter of days. Go to the BookNotes tab at our website and put “Lent” into the search box and see what comes up.

Check out these (mostly) new ones and send us an order if anything catches your attention. And if you wonder what this whole business even is, try our favorite introduction to the reason for the season, Lent: A Season of Repentance and Renewal by Esau McCaulley (IVP) $21.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59. It’s one of several in the great Fullness of Time series. It makes a nice little gift this time of year, too.

TEN (mostly) NEW ONES

Here are ten Lenten ones that are new this year and the five more that just seemed good to tell you about. As always, all are offered to you here at 20% off. We’re grateful for our online friends and enjoy our mail-out ministry. Thanks for your partnership. Read on!

Wardrobes and Rings: Through Lenten Lands with the Inklings Malcolm Guite, Julia Golding & Simon Horobin (Canterbury Press) $20.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.79

As we await the first volume of the extraordinary epic telling of the King Arthur legend redone by Malcolm Guite coming in April, we can dip into this, a great little Lenten reader which is arranged nicely as an introduction to various writings of the collaborative fellowship of Lewis, Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and others (and their heros, including George MacDonald, T.S. Eliot, and G.K. Chesterton.) Each entry describes the particular writer in view, a survey of the part of the story under consideration (say, the Turkish delight scene from Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe or something from the Ransom “space trilogy” or a spotlight of Sam from LotR as “one who serves.”) This book would be fun and formative to read anytime, but the 40-day Lenten format, complete with Biblical texts and a prayer, makes it ideal for this season.

Christ in Our Midst: Daily Lenten Reflections Through Scripture & Gregorian Chant Paraclete Press $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This handsome hardback is unlike any Lenten devotional we’ve seen in ages. There are QR codes throughout that link each devotional reading to a recording of a Gregorian chant, richly and traditionally performed. The publisher has a robust collection of award-winning chant recordings and it is nice to see them applied in a book. Each day’s reading offers a Scripture, a meditative reflection, and sacred chants to hear (and, dare I say, sing along with.) As it says on the back, “On this journey toward Easter, you will discover a wellspring of peace, stillness, and joy that is both ancient and ever new.”

Meeting Jesus on the Road: A Lenten Study Cynthia M. Campbell with Christine Coy Fohr (WJK) $17.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

A short, compact-sized resource from the beloved Cynthia Campbell, this is a lovely looking volume designed (as Kara Eidson puts it) “with reflections and practices that encourage full integration of mind, body, and soul.” Dr. Campbell is former president of McCOrmick Seminary and retired pastor of a large PC(USA) congregation in Louisville. She and Fohr collaborated before in a previous Lenten book called Meeting Jesus at the Table.

What’s also fun about this is there are introductory videos for each chapter (for group or individual use, of course) on YouTube. This really is a “come and see” invitation to pilgrimage with the Master.

When Did We See You? A Lenten Exploration of Poverty & Wealth Elizabeth Mae Magill (WJK) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

If you know your Bible even a little bit you know that concern about wealth and poverty is a major, unavoidable concern. The title of this book, of course, comes from Matthew 25. I want to suggest that this release is not done by a publisher grasping at wild straws to come up with a trendy Lenten curriculum. It’s not a liberal author trying to be radical for some hip marketing reason. No — it’s solid, Bible stuff, theologically grounded in gospel teaching.

And, you know, old-timers use words like charity and chastity and almsgiving in this season. When Did We See You is a Lenten book that was waiting to be written.

Like most of us, it seems that this author, a Disciples of Christ pastor with some experience with the underserved and poor), struggles to cope with the tensions the texts bring to us. Is it wrong to plan for the future? Is a saving account an act of holding (as the early church fathers might say — read Chrysostom!) How do we engage with matters of economic justice?

Anyway, this offers a chapter for each week of Lent with reflection questions for each day. There are litanies for Ash Wednesday and for Good Friday. She’s added good stories from real congregations and offers lots of practical ideas about how you and your community might get involved to alleviate poverty. There’s a lovely epilogue for Easter morning, too. Hallelujah!

Sacred & Still: Embrace the Holy Rhythms of the Lenten Season Julie Fisk, Kendra Riehl & Kristin Demers (Tyndale) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This is a very handsome hardback with some nice design touches, making it a volume you’ll want to pick up and hold. It has a slightly classy feel, with two color ink, a reflection piece to ponder after the reading and prayer as well as a practice or application they called “sacred rhythms.”  As we surrender to Christ more deeply and make spacer God to work, we will perhaps understand Easter afresh.

Maybe this year the sacred beauty this season will bring healing and purpose in His presence.

Everyday Gospel: Easter Devotional Paul David Tripp (Crossway) $7.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $6.39

Paul Tripp is a pastor in Philadelphia who has written bunches of popular books and who drills down on the gospel-centered life based on the grace found in appropriating the cross of Christ for our inner formation. His New Morning Mercies is one of the biggest selling yearly devotionals in years, and his more recent one, Everyday Gospel is another intense hardback set of 365 reflections. This new Lenten one is adapted from portions of that.

It is curious that it isn’t called a Lenten devotional. I’m guessing his deeply Protestant / Reformed orientation makes him and his publisher reluctant to use that word that seems Roman Catholic. I’m just guessing, but this four-week set of 30 daily readings is not for post-Easter reading or about Eastertide. It’s a two-pages-a-day devo leading up to Easter.  It draws from all of Scripture from creation to new creation and offers a rumination and prayer for each day. Nice.

Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter — Revised and Expanded Plough Publishing $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

Hey — notice this! The fabulous Bread and Wine has been considered one of the great anthologies of our generation (a companion to the equally wonderful Advent reader called Watch for the Light) and it has now been significantly expanded with dozens of new readings and new authors. Brilliant. Man, the folks at the Bruderhof community do good work; we stock almost every book they’ve done. And this significantly expanded new edition is well worth having, especially at our sale price.

If you don’t know, this handsome hardback has short excerpts of primary source readings from a delightfully wide range of voices from throughout church history — from Augustine to Chesterton to Madeleine L’Engle to Bonhoeffer. You’ve got bits by Merton and Dorothy Sayers, Howard Thurman and Wendell Berry, Watchman Nee and Edith Stein and John Stott. The new excerpts represent, again, the best classic and contemporary Christian writers. Importantly, the new expanded version takes readers through Eastertide to Pentecost.

Thanks to the good folks at Plough (I hope you know their classy magazine by the same name.)

A Just Passion: A Six-Week Lenten Journey Ruth Haley Barton, Sheila Wise Rowe, Tish Harrison Warren, and others (IVP) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I know this one is not new and I’ve mentioned it before but it is relatively inexpensive, easy to use, and includes an incredible array of our favorite authors. Created from the stable of IVP authors, it offers excerpts of various books, nicely curated and arranged with breath prayers for each week. There is a lovely (sometimes subtle, sometimes less so) on social justice and a Biblical call to public righteousness and servanthood. More than a few are writers of color.  I’m such a fan I have to mention it again. Please consider A Just Passion.

Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing Gayle Boss, illustrated by David G. Klein (Paraclete Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This is another repeat from other years — there are so many good older titles — that I find so interesting and unique that I wanted to name it again. Yep, it is a Lenten devotion, each reading inspired by a different animal. Endangered species, actually. The Bible says the whole creation is groaning, waiting for redemption (see Romans 8) so this makes perfect sense and I’m grateful for the authors and publisher for bringing this to us, relating creaturely delight to the dangers of being vanquished, to the hope of redemption. In a way, this is just lovely natural history with fun stuff to learn about. But with Gayle Boss’s wise ways, it really does become a Lenten resource. And the wood cuts are truly excellent.

Wild Hope is a companion volume to the very lovely Advent book about hibernating animals, All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings, also illustrated expertly by David Klein. Boss lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The Ignatian Workout for Lent: 40 Days of Prayer, Reflections and Action Tim Muldoon (Loyola Press) $5.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $4.79

This mass-market sized paperback is a sharp little resource, a 40-day guide offering “40 ways to grow closer to God.” Obviously, it is rooted in the Ignatius method, reminding us that Lent is not primarily about giving up something but a time of seeking internal change — realigning our wills with God’s will by taking on the heart and mind of Christ. Not bad, eh?

We’ve got quite a lot of Ignatian resources here at the shop, and this little one looks very useful. We only have a few of these but hope more will arrive soon.

FIVE OTHERS FOR THIS SEASON

Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends Carmen Joy Imes (TUMI Press) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I adore this well designed book in the bigger “Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics” series produced by an urban ministry team at Taylor University. Carmen is a good friend and grand supporter of Hearts & Minds and — hooray! — did one of the best Jubilee talks last weekend in the history of the storied Pittsburgh conference. (More on that next time.) Dr. Imes is a respected and beloved Old Testament professor and prolific author. This is a book which is perhaps not as well known and it’s a shame as it is a treasure.

Praying the Psalms with Augustine is not a Lenten resource (although it seems so very apropos) and it will take you further than the Lenten season. (There are eight sections here.) Besides the insights drawn from Saint Gus and other early Christians, Carmen teaches us well, opens up the Psalms as a prayer resource, and then offers a fabulous ending section of further resources and guidance to “continue the conversation.” This is a book, as they say, of “soul work and soul care.” Thanks be to God.

Wisdom’s Call: 100 Meditations for a Life in Christ K.A. Ellis (Moody Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

What a delight it was to be greeted by Karen Ellis at Jubilee this past weekend. She did one of the most creative presentations ever done on that main conference stage as she did an eloquent one-woman retelling of the death of Christ, leading to an incredibly moving singing of an older black spiritual and “Amazing Grace.” What a way to invite people into the redemption story.

Dr. Ellis is a serious scholar of global Christianity (and has travelled to marginalized communities the world over.) As a black theologian she has focused deeply on the spirituality of public witness and social ethics. (Her husband is old Jubilee friend Carl Ellis, author of my favorite book of black history, Free At Last.) This handsome recent hardback offers 100 meditations about our union with Christ, inviting us to ponder the deeper meaning of being a follower of Jesus, born from above and in solidarity with His Kingdom. It is, finally, a book about life, about God’s ways, about wisdom.

You could read two a day (morning and evening, maybe?) for Lent, even if it isn’t exactly designed as a Lenten resource. It sure feels like an ideal book to read this season, leading to Holy Week, eh?  Wisdom’s Call.

Heaven Meets Earth: A 40-Day Journey of Transformation Through the Nicene Creed Josh Nadeau (Thomas Nelson) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Oh, wow, this is very cool. A nice, trim-sized hardback with glossy paper and full-color illustrations (done by Nadeau who runs something called Sword and Pencil.) Of course it has a short phrase from the Creed, a meaningful meditation, and a bit of original art. I like how the reflection sometimes explains a feature of the illustration, helping us really use the art in a reflective manner, and seeing how it illumines the ancient words for modern times.

The back cover invites us to “step into a sacred rhyme that blends ancient tradition with a present-day insight.” You know it was the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed’s formation (in 325 AD in Nicaea, in modern-day Turkey.) It’s not Lenten, precisely, but it sure seems apropos, doesn’t it?

Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate Steven Garber (Paraclete Press) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I have shared much about my deep appreciation for this author and this major work. Maybe you saw our conversation online that was shared as a webinar — it’s at our store’s Facebook page. Steve is a good friend and one of the most interesting people I know. As joyful and hopeful as he is, he knows well the hurts of the fall, the wounds of the world, the wages of our idolatry. If there was ever a book that was germane and appropriate for a Lenten read, this is it. Garber leans into the cross, hopes for heaven, but for now he writes wonderfully about the trials, the distortions, and sadnesses of our messed world.

Do you feel alienated these days, maybe even from family and friends, from church, even? Are you weary? Do you want to make sense of life and seek a coherent and truthful way to know? Do you want to embody what you really know in honest ways? Hints of Hope is about this (Lenten) theme of the proximate. We may not “give something up for Lent” but we do need to take up practices of wrestling with the difficulties living well in these days.

I will keep reminding our customers of this eloquent, profound book, so you might as well pick it up now. Lent is a perfect time to ponder making peace with this wacky world and embracing the pains of the world as a spiritual practice. Read it slowly, perhaps with others.

Blessed Are the Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole Micha Boyett (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

If you are seeking solace or leaning in to this Lenten season with some sort of hope for a renewed faith, this lovely, beautiful book — part memoir, actually about longing and hope and the Sermon on the Mount — will be a great companion. A true companion, I’d say.

Memoirist Mary Karr says it is a “graceful, moving book that should required reading” that “conjures spiritual solutions for very real problems.” Nadia Bolz-Weber calls it “breathtaking.”

I will quote the back cover to explain it succinctly:

When Micha Boyett’s son was born with Down syndrome and later diagnosed with autism, she was drawn into the ancient teachings of the Beatitudes. There, she found an invitation to honor her limits in a world that values performance, perfection, and strength over mercy, meekness, and the longing for justice.

In Blessed Are the Rest of Us, Boyett invites us — especially those of us who are burned out, tired of performing, living with grief, feeling exhausted, or powerless — to discover our wholeness not in our own accomplishments but in the dream God has for the world.

  

The first month of the new year — which delightfully started with Christmastide and carried us into the light of Epiphany — kept us busy, doing what seems to shape my early days of January, naming my favorite books of the previous year. In two large BookNotes I named personal favorites and “Best of…” titles, awarding those I felt I simply had to highlight for you. I missed a few good ones, skipped some for some quirky reasons, but, by and large, curated for you a great, great batch of books. I’m sure you care about your reading habits and we are honored that you allow us to speak into your life, suggesting titles both serious and fun.

Thanks to those who are praying as Beth goes through her weekly chemo infusions. She’s switching the meds around a bit and shifting to every three weeks (for about a year, yet.) So far, she’s coping well. Pray for her strength, please, as she needs extraordinary stamina for the big book display we do at the Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh next week. It’s been a concern ever since the treatments began last fall.

We closed the month with two webinars, live on-line conversations, first with author and photojournalist Dorthy Greco (who Beth and I like very much) about her powerful book For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America Zondervan; $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99.)

Sadly the tech gods failed us and we were unable to get a usable recording from that memorable night. We thank everyone who watched, live, and for those who purchased the book from us. It’s important.

Earlier this week we had an almost hour and a half conversation with my long pal and serious conversation partner in life, Steven Garber, celebrating his new book Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate (Paraclete Press; $24.99  // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99) HERE is the recording of our tender and often touching conversation. I really hope you find time to watch it; Garber is too good, honest and gentle and thoughtful about the things that matter most.

With all that, we’ve got some ground to cover. January started with some really good-looking titles, books that seem just right for our Hearts & Minds community of fans and friends. Let’s get to it.

All the books mentioned are 20% off. Use the link at the end which takes you to our secure order form page. You can safely enter credit card info or, as we say there, we’re happy to just send a bill so you can pay later. We also say there that we can send almost anything almost anywhere so if you’d like us to gift wrap or tuck a little note in for a special recipient, don’t hesitate to let us know. Please remember we have tons of stuff we don’t write about here. Let us know whatever you might be looking for.

TEN GREAT NEW BOOKS – ALL 20% OFF

Of Prophets, Priests, and Poets: Christian Formation at the Gates of Hell Brian J. Walsh (Cascade) $23.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40

I want to lead off with this because it may be the book I care most about this new season. As some of you know, Brian is a friend and a writer I respect deeply. He was influential in my life when I was in my mid-twenties, and he was one of the early people we brought to Hearts & Minds, back when The Transforming Vision came out, the seminal work he did with Richard Middleton. (If you follow our “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast you may recall my naming it a few episodes ago as an important book for those of us who have worked on the Jubilee collegiate conference in Pittsburgh.) Anyway, this is a new collection of a handful of very important sermons, essays, speeches. It is, as always, creatively written, astute, provocative, and righteous.

Last year Brian did a book I reviewed at BookNotes and then re-reviewed in my Best Books list a month ago. We really do recommend Rags of Light: Leonard Cohen and the Landscape of the Biblical Imagination Cascade; $23.00 // OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $18.40) and I can’t say enough about its nearly brilliant insight into both Cohen and the Bible.

You may know that I’ve touted the two big Bible commentaries he co-authored with his wife, Sylvia Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed and Romans Disarmed. Both are unlike anything you’ve ever read, I promise you. I return to them regularly.

A number of years ago Brian left his innovative work as an urban pastor (he spent a year as a “theologian in residence” at a homeless shelter) and was also a campus minister for the CRC at the University of Toronto. The first chapter (and the book’s title) comes from his autobiographical reflections shared among his campus ministry friends when he retired which was later posted at the Empire Remixed website. I had read it there and was blown away. If you have anything to do with campus ministry, it’s a must-read; check it out either there online or on this valuable little volume.

The rest includes previously published stuff on public justice, on poverty, or the Bible (always the Bible) and a few are important discussions about the way in which the world “worldview” has changed over recent decades and his own disillusionment with some of the conversations about relating faith and learning.(A fabulous piece from The Christian Scholars Review co-done by ecologist Steven Bouma-Prediger is nicely included.) There’s a great fictional conversation about trying to “think Christianly” without a clarity about living the gospel, even in hard places. Resisting the idols of the culture is a Biblical call that is important to him — perhaps more than anyone I know, which says a lot — and a critique of ideologies and unsustainable practices pervades the book’s prophetic insight and fuels its prophetic power.

There is, of course, as Brian has long known, power in the arts and the imagination. (He gets some of this from The Prophetic Imagination but has been teased about the regular Bruce Cockburn quotes in his early books, although he has done brilliant sermons inspired by texts from other bands and singers and poets.) So it doesn’t surprise us that he does his modern-day equivalent of the ancient Jewish preaching technique known as targums — a live (improvised?) and relevant, expansive updating of Scripture, and, man, his poetic targums are something. The last one, inspired by verses in Colossians after the election of Donald Trump, made me weep.

As socially incisive and prophetic as this book is, it is, deeply, a book of joy and a book of love. As he ruminates about the need for a less thin sort of discipleship, for a process of being formed into a Christ-like community, he both explains his passion for the displaced and homeless, and offers a better vision for us all, about homecoming and joy.

I cannot explain all of this now, but I know there are those longing for some sane way out of the idols of white Christian nationalism and the ungodly stuff many American evangelicals have fallen for. The Spirit is calling us to join God’s work in repairing the world. This book will inspire us to get going in these disorienting times.  It is dedicated to his good friend and academic colleague when there were at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, James Olthius.  Nice!

Light for the Way: Seeking Simplicity, Connection, and Repair in a Broken World Sojourners (Broadleaf) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

Had this released in December — it is brand new in January — we would have raved about it and suggested it both as a great gift for those looking for a justice-minded, profoundly Christian, but rather progressive daily devotional or who would like such a volume. I supposed it isn’t exactly a daily devotional, but it is a rich anthology, a collection of some of the finest pieces that have appeared in Sojourners magazine (one of the view journals we used to sell in our store and that was very formative for us in the last decades of the 20th century and into more current years.) Jim Wallis — their founder and the first author we ever hosted in our bookstore in the early 1980s, I think — is no longer with them, and new issues and new ecumenical voices continue to offer often powerful and beautifully written essays and journalism for our jagged times. This book celebrates their last 50 years. A few of us might remember that they started as The Post American and moved to DC a half a century ago, now, forming an intentional community amongst the poor and agitated for peace and justice and social righteousness there and increasingly, around the world.

Here we have some of their best essays, from old timers like Wallis and Daneil Berrigan and  Rabbi Arthur Waskow and the ever present Rose Marie Berger. What a delight to see a memorable piece by children’s author Katherine Paterson and long-time reporter and Sojo friend Julie Porter interview literary memoirist Kathleen Norris.

Many of these essays and columns (arranged by theme) are by younger, contemporary voices. Sure there’s Bill McKibben and Brian McLaren and Walter Brueggemann, but there is wonderful writing by recent writers, from J. Dana Trent to Isaac Villegas to Mike Kim-Kort. I loved that Kaitlin Curtice and Kat Armas are in here. There are standard Sojourners-type pieces like Ched Myers’ “Jesus’s new Economy Grace” as well as unique ones like Mitchell Atencio’s “A Black Christian Approach to Veganism – An Interview with Christopher Carter.”  From Rose Marie Berger’s interview with Wendell Berry to Margaret Atwood’s “What About the Meek” you’ll find some high-profile folks, but many of these essays are quiet meditations and wise proposals.  Kudos!

At the moment, I cannot think of a better tonic for the spirit than this new collection from Sojourners, which has been in the business of encouragement for as long as some of us have been alive. Whether you are ready for refreshment from some of your favorite authors or on the lookout for new sources of inspiration, you will find them here.             — Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

Leading Worship for Workers: How to Design Liturgies for All of Life Matthew Kaemingk and Kathryn Roelofs (Baker Academic) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

In our online conversation, Steve Garber and I hinted on occasion, and got explicit from time to time about a huge theological and spiritual impulse that drives both of us, namely that there is an integrated connection between worship and work. God is redeeming, in Christ, all areas of life and this means we who have a missional vision of whole-life discipleship can bring God’s light to our careers and vocations. As Garber put it in the conversation, we need to help “butchers, bakers, and candlestick matters” learn that their work matters to God.

This is, as you may know, one of the big themes that drives the Jubilee conference that the CCO hosts out in Pittsburgh next week and is the biggest thing Beth and I and our volunteer team do all year. We will see Steve there as well as Matthew Kaemingk, co-author of this splendid and rare brand new resource co-published by the good folks at Made to Flourish.

Kaemingk, along with his Calvin Seminary prof Cory Wilson, did Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy, a hefty and extraordinary volume that does the heavy lifting of helping us think about the ways in which church worship can equip ordinary folks in their ordinary jobs.  It was meaty, with some very useful tools, prayers, litanies, songs. It is a must-have for anyone in congregational church leadership and certainly for anyone who helps plan or lead worship.

The brand new Leading Worship for Workers is the handbook just filled (23 chapters and more than 230 pages!) with vital, even transformational resources. It just arrived (just in time for Jubilee) and we will have to review it more carefully later, but we rejoice in this one-of-a-kind volume. It really is, as one reviewer notes, “wonderfully grounded in the realities of local church life.” No matter your worship or liturgical tradition or style, it’s important for you.  How many do you need?

Sabbath Gospel: A New Narrative of Time, Rest, and the Work of the Church G.P. Wagenfuhr & Amy J. Erickson (IVP Academic) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

With the big Jubilee conference coming up in Pittsburgh next week, we’ve been naturally thinking about the Biblical call to sabbath, the seven days that in Hebrew literature become seven months and seven years, and then — the glorious 7 x 7 49th into the 50th year — which was to signal the great and radical social restoration outlined in passages like Leviticus 25.  Isaiah dreams about it and Jesus uses His Spirited words as the text for his inaugural address (in Luke 4.) Jubilee has come! The Kingdom of God is breaking loose among you.

That is only a part of this hefty and amazing work. The heart of it is laden with Jubilee themes, it seems to me, but the main point is this: the major call to keep sabbath is given by God twice in the Old Testament. The first time it is said that we are called to rest because of God and God’s ordering of time in creation. God rested, after all. But the second time the law is given and sabbath is proclaimed — remember Exodus? — the reason we are told we are to rest is because of the liberation from Pharaoh. That is, Sabbath (as Brueggemann boldly puts it in Sabbath as Resistance) is a call to resist the brick-making quotas, the machinery of extractive capitalism and workaholism and the consumerism that demands it. We don’t have to live like that, “enslaved” to the system of more and more and more. If the creation story funds the one call to sabbath, the liberation story funds the other.

Wagenfuhr (pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Yakima, WA) and Amy Erickson (a lecturer in theology and ethics at St Mark’s National Theological Centre in Australia) combine here to teach us a lot about the Hebrew Scriptures, the way sabbath themes are threaded throughout the ongoing Biblical narrative and about Jesus’s fulfillment of this promise of true rest and social transformation.

Theologically profound yet practically grounded, this work casts a compelling vision for individuals and communities striving to live with faithfulness and sustainability amid the hyperactive pace of contemporary life. — Alan Hirsch, Reframation: Seeing God, People, and Mission Through Reenchanted Frames

Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian Miroslav Volf & Christian Wiman (HarperOne) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I love everything about this new release — its shape (just a tiny bit smaller than typical) and the two authors (one of our great poets and essayists and one of my favorite theologians.) I even love its epistolary style. (Yes, yes, I, too, have been smitten by the novel of letters called The Correspondent by Virginia Evans so I’m all for this, a real-life correspondence.) This Glimmerings just glimmers, with thought, with wonderful writing, with friendship.

I hope you know Volf, a thoughtful theological writer who teaches at Yale Divinity School and helps run the Yale Center for Faith and Culture which has researched and advocated for everything from a Christian view of the arts to the nature of human happiness to a meaningful engagement with public life, even pop culture. Anyway, Volf brings scholarly work down to nearer ground level and that he would take up a set of letters with one of the era’s great poets is not that surprising.

Wiman, as you may know, was known and respected as a top-shelf poet and editor of poetry magazines; now he, too, teaches at Yale and writes for the likes of The Atlantic, The New Yorker and Commonweal. His return to something akin to his childhood faith (after getting a brain tumor) was chronicled in the moving memoir My Bright Abyss. He continues to do essays and poems (like Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair.

And here they are, in what is going to be one of the most cherished books of the year. Believe me.

Beautiful, glowing. even impassioned reviews and endorsements are from Mary Karr (who says it is “destined to become a classic’) and Rowan Williams and Eliza Griswold and Pádraig Ó Tuama Nicholas Wolterstorff. Nick says “I know of nothing like it. Take, read, and savor.”

Weathering Change: Seeking Peace And Life’s Tough Transitions Courtney Ellis (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Hooray — this book just arrived and while I haven’t read it yet, I’ve been waiting and I’m glad it’s here a bit early. Courtney Ellis is an active social media voice and, more importantly, a pastor at Presbyterian Church of the Master in Mission Viejo, California. She’s written several earlier books; they were lovely and basic; one on happiness, one on mothering, another on decluttering. Good, playful, well written. But then she experienced some serious grief and wrote about it in an excellent, excellent book called Looking Up: A Birder’s Guide to Hope Through Grief which so many people loved for so many reasons. It was well written, sweet on stuff about birding and the life of loving the outdoors, and it was a memoir of grief. It was a great read.

This new one is about change, about transition, about the unexpected (or maybe we see stuff coming.) She notes that some changes we look forward to and celebrate (think of a wedding or the birth of a baby.) Others may be “a shift we fear” and of course there are those things like moving or changes that come with a broken relationship or aging. Tell me about it.

The key to Weathering Change, I think, is how the natural world — God’s creation which speaks! — is central to our process of weathering change. (The word “weathering” is intentionally chosen, no doubt.)  Like in her Looking Up, she weaves together nature writing and beautiful, even fun, stories of attending to creation, and draws from it healing insight.

Courtney Ellis’s Weathering Change teems with a tumble of life: sage thrashers and ocean tides, falcons and microbes, bears and goldfinches. Amid this kaleidoscopic tour of the earth’s wonders, Ellis reveals a shimmering thread of wisdom about managing change. At a moment in history when change feels overwhelming and pervasive, Ellis’s witty and gentle prose brings nature’s wisdom to bear on our human experience, drawing from her own family life and pastoral ministry as well. Spend a little time with this congenial companion, reveling in delight and wonder and God’s provision, and you will feel more at ease with change-and less alone. Debra Rienstra, Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth

I am sure this is going to be a great read, really well done, thoughtful, and loaded with enduring insights. Who doesn’t need some help and hope in these turbulent times?

Praying Their Way: 24 Prayer Practices for Kids and the Adults Who Love Them L. Roger Owens with Mary Clare Owens (Upper Room Books) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

It’s rare when we get to highlight a book by a kid; Mary Clare, daughter of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor Roger, was 14 when she wrote this with her dad.  Roger has written other very good books for the “everyday contemplative” exploring how ordinary folks can embrace certain practices of the monastic life and practice “the heart of Christian spirituality.” You’ve got to check him out if you don’t know his readable, fun, useful books.

But this. Wow. He told me he was working on this two years ago (he spoke at the Wee Kirk small church conference in Western PA) and I was intrigued. Now we see just how good it is.

Praying Their Way is pitched as offering a new vocabulary for talking to kids about prayer. Indeed, this is a good guide to how parents can have a creative, gentle, allusive sort of style in doing spiritual formation with their children. Sure, he’s a seminary prof, but this isn’t about imparting doctrine 9at least not directly) but inviting kids to find those liminal spaces where God is showing up. This is about prayer practices to try with kids from, oh, say, maybe 9 or 10 years old up to 14 or so

As it says on the back:

Whether you’re a parent, pastor, Sunday school teacher, or other adult seeking to raise kids in a life of faith, Praying Their Way will equip you to embark on a joyful journey of discovery and holy connection with the kids you love.

As you explore these practices with our children, you may find that your own relationship with God is deepened and enriched as well.

After each chapter, Roger invites his daughter to offer her own input as she writes about doing this thing. 

The first twelve fairly short chapters are about friendship with God; it is on prayer. The second six are more specific practices about various places and styles (from praying with your body, praying in nature, praying for justice, and, of course, praying the Scriptures.) Join this daughter and dad as they learn together. Very nice!

Generously Reformed: Theology Rooted Deep and Reaching Wide J. Todd Billings, Suzanne McDonald & Alberto La Rosa Rojas (Baker Academic) $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

We’ve had a few people on a waiting list for this and we were delighted to get to send it out a little early. Brand new — and I haven’t touched it yet — I am sure this is a book that will be discussed and applauded (and criticized) for the rest of the year. It’s important and I’m sure just the sort of thing we need.

I’ll just say two quick things. All three authors teach Reformed theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland Michigan. I love that place! Rooted in the tradition of the RCA (the Reformed Church in America) it is known for both a robust sort of wide-as-life redemptive vision of neo-Calvinism and a generous orthodoxy. They host, just for instance, the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination, which says something, eh? Billings became known for the hard, hard story of his starting an academic book on the lament Psalms when he was diagnosed with a life-threatening tumor and as the book came to life it was lauded from all quarters. Joined here by two colleagues at Western (McDonald teaches systematic and historic theology and Rosa Rojas is director of the Hispanic Ministry Program and a professor of ethics) which models a collaborative spirit. That’s a good start, I think.

It has already earned raved reviews from people I respect. Rich Mouw calls it “a wonderful book that is surely destined to take its place among the classics of Reformed theology.” Jennifer Powell McNutt of Wheaton says it is insightful and thought-provoking, “a gracious response to the question of what it means, and does not mean, to be Reformed.” Kelly Kapic not only applauds the content but “the gracious tone.”

Longtime devotees and the newly curious alike will find much in these pages that clarifies and commends Reformed theology’s deep roots and expansive vision of God and God’s commitment to us. — Kenneth J. Woo, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, author of John Calvin: Refugee Theologian

We have needed this book for years, and at long last we have it — a generous, thoughtful, accessible introduction to the Reformed tradition. A must-read for Christians today. — Kristen Deede Johnson, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, author of The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance

If you associate Reformed theology mainly with tulips, this book will deepen and broaden your impression. Highly recommended!  — Michael Horton, Westminster Seminary California, author of Core Christianity: Finding Yourself in God’s Story

Set Me Free: The Good News of God’s Relentless Pursuit Lecrae (Zondervan) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

Oh man, we’re excited about this, but, again, it just arrived. Just in time for us to take it to Jubilee next week in Pittsburgh. The hip-hop artist and memoirist, Lecrae, has spoken and performed at Jubilee so I’m hoping today’s college students know the fame he had a few years back. It is good to follow such strong, black, creatives in the public square and we respect him a lot.

Lecrae, here, is doing a blend of poetry and essays, spoken word pieces and fine literature. And some polemics. The style seems to range from playful to deadly serious, from obviously spiritual to allusive. It is sure to be of interest to those who may be a bit disillusioned in their faith, “wandering away from the people and places you once called home” He notes that “the wilderness is often a faith-strengthening place.”

This will lead to an encounter with God who “cares for your dignity, both body and soul.” It suggests a spirit of liberation. As before, he writes about freedom.

Set Me Free is a hardback (sans dust jacket) with glossy paper, lots of art and graphics and reverse color ink, a couple of moody pictures, cropped with an edge. It’s very, very cool. It is hip to say it looks hip? I dig it.

Jesus Imagination: Maker / Mender / Minder / Master Leonard Sweet (The Salish Sea Press) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

This is the new one from Len Sweet, a master of remarkable lines, clever prose, creative thinking. He’s a United Methodist pastor and preacher and bills himself as a semiotician. (You know Jesus himself lamented those who don’t know the signs of the times.) Futurist or not, he is socially aware and culturally wise and breathes Jesus, often in ways that might cause others to wheeze. Man, he’s something. I promised myself years ago that I’d read every book he does, and I’m trying to keep up. (His last one was about football and I haven’t touch it yet.) This one is really new and it ain’t slim. But the print is an easy-to-read size, there’s that.

He suggests here that Jesus’s greater miracle may be his imagination. He envisioned the world differently (and his vision changed everything!)

As it says on the back, Sweet “invites readers into a creative consciousness of Christ — the tekton, the artisan who didn’t just fix what was broken but reimagine what it meant to be human. Jesus didn’t see the world as a machine to manage but as a garden to end a story to retell, a masterpiece still in progress.” Wow.

Maybe, he suggests, reading this book won’t just offer new ideas, it will be an initiation. He also calls it a summons.

I  studied his numerous footnotes and was (as always) intrigued and almost jealous of his wide reading and memory and capacity to use just the right quote. There are lists and blessings and short, punchy sections on all kinds of related stuff. Put on your seatbelt, it’s a wild ride, although he offers helps — “dance steps” and discussion guides and outlines. I opened it at random and read some pull quotes; one made me smile, one made me roll my eyes, and one blew me away. Jesus used parables and metaphors to evoke a holy imagination so Sweet is in good company. And evoking this is, I think he’s saying, the redemptive mission of God.

To be clear, I don’t think this book is necessarily for creatives or those interested in big ideas although he offers many. I think it may be for anyone interested in Jesus and who is “navigating a world flattened by algorithms and starved of wonder.”  As he says,”step into the divine workshop.”

I think it may be for anyone interested in Jesus and who is “navigating a world flattened by algorithms and starved of wonder.”

  

In my heart I want to write a longer review of Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate by Steven Garber (Paraclete Press) than I have already written. We had, happily, a long list of pre-orders waiting for this January 2026 release simply from my description months ago. I suspect, actually, that most of you who pre-ordered it did so because you know of Steve’s great integrity and serious writing, his grace and insight, because you have been with him at conferences or workshops, at coffee shops or long walks on a college campus. You have had conversations of consequence. Or, you see his long, eloquent Facebook posts. Those who have read his Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior or Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, or the wonderful collection of short pieces called The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love & Learning, Worship & Work, know he is simply one of the most significant and fascinating Christian writers of our day.

As much as I want to walk with you through a close reading of Hints by offering a looooong review, talking about his big ideas and his tender stories, I’m going to refrain.

In this BookNotes I want to whet your appetite for a conversation about the book. Yep, we are hosting a free online webinar (what a clunky word, that) this coming Tuesday (February 3, 2026, at 8:00 EST.) Won’t you please register and join us?

Steve and I will chat about his years writing this new book, his travels, his cares and concerns, his hope for the book. He’ll most likely probe my heart as well, and, as long-time friends can, we’ll have a rather intimate conversation with many more joining in. You’ll be able to make comments or ask questions in the “chat” feature of Zoom (although, no worries, you won’t be on the screen.) We really hope you join us.

If you care about Hearts & Minds (and we are so very grateful that so many really do) Beth and I hope you will make time to join us as I interview a very important author as we talk about a very important book.

Here is the link you must use to pre-order. Once you sign up you will get a confirmation and you will get a link to use for the event.

Again, our evening with Steven Garber starts at 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time this coming Tuesday, February 3, 2026.

You must register by clicking the above link.

Hints of Hope has a wonderful foreword by Makoto Fujimura, the abstract artist known world wide for his deep Christian faith and his work in the ancient Japanese style known as Nihonga. It is an excellent bit of writing itself, and including Mako in this lovely book indicates at least two things: first Steve is a fan and patron of the arts and he writes about artists of various sorts through the book. Mako writes how he feels honored and seen in Garber’s prose. Steve has long looked to artists — including rock stars and writers — for glimmers of insight and for their articulation of things many of us feel. In the book, Steve will describe novels and films that will thrill your creative heart. And he’ll quote Bob Dylan. More than once. And Hobbits. There are a lot of Hobbits.

Secondly, Makoto was born in America, raised in Japan, and attended college here in Pennsylvania. He was perfect to introduce the book. Steve is drawn to folks from all over the world and I do not think I know anyone who has so many international friends. Hints of Hope is jam-packed with amazing stories of faithful folks, serving God and loving their neighbors the best they can, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in South America. Although he tells of his and his wife’s families — in Pennsylvania, Colorado, California, Kansas, Virginia — and many stories are set in middle America, many of the stories are not set in North America. The endorsements, too, are from around the world.

Josef Luptak (a cellist and curator of a music festival in Bratislava who Steve writes movingly about) insists that the book is “absolutely necessary” in these dark times. Cosma Gatere (himself the director of a consulting group in Nairobi) notes that the book has “inspiring anecdotes from places as diverse as Bethlehem and Beijing.” Tony Soh, the CEO of a national philanthropy centre in Singapore, says the book is so good it will be “a companion for life.” From South Korea to Birmingham, from Norway to Brazil to Nashville, Tennessee, the accolades have poured in from little-known but remarkably faithful women and men.

(If you want to see a really, really fine review by Steve’s friend singer-songwriter and Academy Award-winning record producer, Charlie Peacock, visit the Hearts & Minds facebook page where I have it posted. Or track down Charlie’s writing on Substack. It’s a grand review!)

Romel Regalado Bagares, who studied at the Sorbonne and the VU in Amsterdam and now is a human rights lawyer in the Philippines, calls the various chapters “luminous” and suggests that this book is about what it means to be human, how to navigate our own being implicated in the sorrows of the human condition. He writes,

“Garber’s stories of fraught travels, unexpected encounters, and unforgettable characters remind us that the weight of true love is the lightest in the heart, even as we bear the wounds and scars of human frailty.”

And that, my friends, is what this extraordinary book is about. Can we learn to love the world even as we know how wounded it is? Can we be at peace with that, living responsibly in a fallen world? Can we mourn the sadness and still seek some sort of substantial healing?

You’ve heard the theological phrase about the Kingdom of God, saying we live in the “now and not-yet”? That is what Hints of Hope is about. Living proximately, not expecting everything, hoping for love’s sake but facing our limitations and evil’s persistence. Can we care about the world, our culture, our institutions, our neighbors, enough to have them see the light of Christ without needing to think we can build the Kingdom here and now? This is no psycho-babble and it’s not cheap, but, I think, it is a key to true resilience.

And bearing the wounds of Christ is not just a Lenten notion, it is the heart of Christian humility and spiritual formation.

In a letter to readers, Dave Evans of the Stanford Life Design Lab writes:

Steven’s peerless staying power to never look away from the beauty and the brokenness has hammered out practical and true ways to engage the proximate and become more human in the bargain. While taking us deep into the full and unvarnished reality of this world, he will do so not harshly, for as he says, “it all turns on affection” and Steven is nothing if not affectionate. So, come along. Accept the invitation to plow this life deep, and unearth mature hope. You won’t be the same, and you won’t be disappointed.

“Plow this life deep and unearth mature hope.”

Please share this with anyone who might want to join us this Tuesday evening for an hour or so of gentle conversation and an overview of Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate by Steven Garber (Paraclete Press) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

 

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This is a quick new BookNotes reminding you of the special webinar we are doing this Tuesday night (January 27th at 7:30 EST) where I’ll be interviewing author Dorothy Littell Greco, author of the recently published For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America. (Zondervan; $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99.)

As I shared in the last BookNotes it will be an upbeat and fascinating conversation, if on a heavy topic. Greco, herself a journalist, will be great to interview and we invite you into our conversation as we discuss this painful but nearly ubiquitous problem. She will tell how she defines the word, why it’s important to examine the impulses, habits, and systems that create cultures of harm, and what to do to heal from toxic masculine forces in various sectors of culture and church. You can see a bit more of my celebration of the book in our Best Books of 2025 (part two) BookNotes a week or so ago or in the previous one where we announced this event (and another upcoming webinar with author Steve Garber, scheduled for next week.)

Here’s the link you must use to pre-register; they will then send back to you a free Zoom link which gets you to our virtual program. We hope you can join us.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/misogyny-in-america-with-dorothy-greco-and-byron-borger-tickets-1980724025881?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

 

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TEN RELATED RESOURCES

Malestrom: How Jesus Dismantle Patriarchy and Redefines Manhood Carolyn Custis James (Zondervan) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

James’s book Half the Church is a great resource about women in the global church and is a great read, but this one is urgent and helpful, a great book That I know Dorothy recommends. God is dismantling patriarchy in the trajectory of the Biblical story and we need a new kind of man for living in God’s Kingdom. New Testament scholar Michael Bird says it is “book that every Christman man needs to read.”

 

Recovering from Biblical Manhood & Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose Aimee Byrd (Zondervan) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Given how ecumenical we are here at Hearts & Minds we have a variety of views on this topic, from a diversity of perspectives. Byrd is fascinating to me as she was one part of a denomination that does not ordain women and has written thoughtful books of theology for thoughtful evangelical women. Here she studies Scripture and church history to critique a specific movement among conservative evangelicals that have strict gender roles which she shows is not necessarily Biblical or faithful.

Scot McKnight says she offers “enduring wisdom and wit…”

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Liveright) $18.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.16

We, of course, were early fans of this best-selling and much discussed book (back when it was still only in hardcover) and have appreciated historian (and beloved Calvin University professor) Du Mez’s rigorously researched history and really engaging style. This is a study of muscular sorts of masculinity that were promoted in the last half of the 20th century within the evangelical movement in ways that, to some, were seemingly benign but that ended up being harmful in and of themselves and, further, became linked to right-wing movements of extremist patriarchy, white supremacy and more.

Simply a must-read for the riveting social history and powerful Christian insight.

Man Up: The New Misogyny & the Rise of Violent Extremism Cynthia Miller-Idriss (Princeton University Press) $29.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.96

Du Mez’s fans will say “we told you so” when they see this incredibly well-researched, very thoughtful book — called luminous and disturbing — which explores the relationship of women-hating and far-right extremist. It is known that most mass shooters are misogynists and virtulantly homophobic. One can no longer avoid the facts she shows about the ugliness against women deeply embedded in movements of violent extremists, from neo-Nazis down to Proud Boys and local militias and even less dramatic groups. Think of Andrew Tate. (That our tax-funded Department of Justice just ran an except of a song favored by neo-Nazis and skinhead types to recruit ICE agents may not be related, but, geeze…) These sorts are among the people who are involved in the MAGA movement and it is frightening. That some purport to be religious (like the KKK, or, more mainstream, like the ministries of theobros like Mark Driscoll ) is preposterous, but there it is. The data is clear and both gendered violence and hate groups are on the rise. This book is important to expose real-world connections.

Importantly, Dorothy Greco does not focus (in her book) on the extremes of this ideology as she is rightly concerned that it could minimize our concerns about more ordinary, daily encounters of systems biased against women — in healthcare or the work-world or church, say. Still, this increasing radicalization is important to understand and it would make an important follow up on For the Love of Women.

Complicit: How Our Culture Enables Misbehaving Men Reah Bravo (Gallery Books) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

This recent work has gotten great praise; it has been called “fiercely vulnerable and impressively researched.” Complicit (a great, provocative title) is honest and grave and (as Kate Block puts it) “a text that imbues #MeToo-era discourse with a fresh voice.” Reah Bravo worked for Charlie Rose and obviously has some first hand stories of workplace discrimination and pretty toxic stuff; she is self-aware and a good writer. It got outstanding reviews, noting it’s balance and nuance. Read Greco’s stories in For the Love of Women and then come back to this and read about “soldiering on in stilettos.” Whew.

The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct Ruth Everhart (IVP) $19.99  // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

An exceptional read by a women who has told in an earlier book about her own experience of rape (while a student at a Christian college years ago) and her later leaving her denomination so she could, without barriers, become ordained into the ministry of Word and Sacrament. (She is a PC(USA) minister. With that deeply personal care and great empathy, Everhart wrote this groundbreaking book in 2020 and it is a must-read. Kudos to her and to IVP.

By the way, although sexual abuse in the church is legendary and evil, that particular sin is not the only manifestation of misogyny in the church; Greco’s For the Love of Women looks at this topic (sexual abuse and cover-ups, toxic male power mongering in the church) but gender-based misconduct and harm from patriarchy is broader then this egregious sort of violence.

Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth and How Everyone Can Speak Up Tiffany Bluhm (Brazos Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This deserves a longer review (and I did write about it when it came out in 2021.) For now, just know it is exceptionally important, exploring the dynamics of power and the lack of accountability that occurs within many church and ministry contexts. One reviewer called it “devasting” while Belinda Bauman (co-founder of #SilenceIsNotSpiritual) says it is “an absolutely must read book for our age, breathing courage into survivor and ally alike.” Action is not optional.

When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded Diane Langberg (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Dr. Langberg is a recognized theologically-trained psychologist and trauma scholar so she has seen “the crushing trauma of sexual abuse, trafficking, domestic abuse, and rape — and it’s cover-up.” Yes, there are cover-ups, some of them obvious and gross. Gulp. We really need her  several books, about suffering, about power, and more. When the Church Harms God’s People is concise and powerful.

I think of a very powerful page or two in Greco’s For the Love of Women on the death threats and abuse faced by Anita Hill when she charged (Supreme Court Judge) Clarence Thomas with his creepy abuse. I wept when reading that small bit, especially knowing some of my more conservative friends admire him. Hurting women are too often ignored, their stories disbelieved, abuse minimized. (Think of how President Trump survived his disgusting stories about abuse.)  People and systems collude and churches and ministries fail to reflect the love and care of Christ. Langberg is very helpful giving very good advice to church leaders.

Abuse-survivor, whistle-blower, advocate, lawyer, and Christian leader Rachael Denhollander says it is “a book for anyone wounded in the name of Jesus or seeking to understand who Jesus is and what the church is designed to be.” Very nicely done.

Safe Church: How To Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in Christian Communities Andrew J. Bauman (Baker Books) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

As we’ll see in our on-line author discussion Tuesday night with Dorothy Greco, she wants to not only name and diagnose the problem of misogyny but wants to offer helpful on-ramps to new efforts and practices of hope and healing. She affirms this author and cites this book.

Sheila Wray Gregoire (author of the important The Great Sex Rescue) says it will “haunt you — and it should.” But then says it inspires us to “go and do something about it.” Exactly.

Dan Allender says Bauman “has with immense wisdom and humility addressed the exegetical, theological, cultural, and traumatic bonds that need to be broken to create not only equity and safety but flourishing for both men and women. This book is a tour de force…”

We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Anchor Books) $10.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $8.00  //  OUR SALE PRICE = $6.40

I have often highlighted this short essay, made as a pocket sized but handsome paperback, and wanted to mention it again. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a world-renowned African novelist who lives part time in the US and in her homeland of Nigeria. This is a piece written to her good friend, a Nigerian pal who recoiled at the notion of Adichie saying she was a feminist.
Not unlike some contemporary religious folks, the word seems to seem needlessly divisive, carrying negative baggage, for some, almost a curse word. And that is inaccurate and needless, I’d say. We all should be feminists.

She pleasantly shows that there is no intended hatred for men implied (as Dorothy Greco says herself; to resist hatred of women does not mean we hate men.) Chimamanda uses her lovely gifts as a prose writer and her incisive insight about discrimination (in traditionalist African cultures and in modern Western cultures) that good people should all resist.  Can we “dream about and plan for a different world,” she says. “A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves.”

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You are warmly invited to join me the next two consecutive weeks as I interview two very, very impressive authors.

These conversational webinars are being hosted by us here (virtually) at Hearts & Minds, put together with help from the publishers (Zondervan and Paraclete, respectively) and will feature an hour or so with two wonderful writers, thinkers, communicators, and passionate advocates for a better world. You have heard me talk about both authors and both books at previous BookNotes so I will be brief.

Please feel free to share this with somebody who might appreciate knowing about these free online discussions. I sure do wish others beyond our circles would hear about these two outstanding events.

First, you are invited to spend an evening with Dorothy Littell Greco, author of the recent book (which I named as a “Best Books of 2025”) For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America published by Zondervan. It sells for $19.99 and at our 20% off BookNotes discount it is just $15.99.

There has been a lot of concern expressed in recent years about mistreatment of girls and women in our society (even in churches of various stripes and denominations.)  Dorothy (who has worked as a journalist and is a long-time writer) helps us understand the nature of this devious misogyny and what we can do about it. As I noted in the previous reviews I did at BookNotes, her book is very informative about this problem in various sectors of social life — sexism in the work-world, the church, entertainment, healthcare, education, our intimate family lives and more — and, happily, it is hopeful. It is rooted in gospel-hope!  For the Love of Women offers well-researched diagnosis and truly helpful steps to not just uproot but to heal from this painful stuff.

It is a heavy topic, we know, but I have been told I’m an okay interviewer and I know Dorothy is a great conversationalist. We’ll chat about the book — maybe about her other books a bit, even, and her calling as a writer — as she give us suggestions for moving forward to a future that pleases God and brings healing to the public and personal hurts many have experienced. I am confident that it will be an important time. Spread the word, soon, won’t you?

It is this coming Tuesday evening, January 27th.

Join us at 7:30 EST this coming Tuesday night, January 27, 2026 at 7:30 pm EST.  Log on and listen in; there will be a way to ask questions and make comments, too, through the online chat feature at Zoom.  It’ll be good to gather.

Below is the link which allows you to pre-register. It’s a secure site which will then send back to you a link which is your free access to the online Zoom discussion of For the Love of Women with yours truly and author Dorothy Greco, at 7:30 EST on 1-27-26.

Use this registration link for the webinar with Dorothy Greco:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/misogyny-in-america-with-dorothy-greco-and-byron-borger-tickets-1980724025881?aff=oddtdtcreator

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One week later, on Tuesday evening, February 3, 2026 (at 8:00 pm EST) will be another free online evening of conversation and it will be a fabulously generative time, a conversation with one of the most interesting and thought-provoking and Christainly faithful people I know, my long-time pal and ally, Steve Garber. Any time with Steve — a phone call, a Facebook post, a Zoom meeting — is precious and inspiring, so our Evening with Steve Garber will be what he sometimes calls “a conversation with consequence.” I’m sure of it.

As you may know, we were among the first to get his brand new book, officially released this week, from his lovely publisher, Paraclete Press, Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate. The usual price of this very handsome paperback (with French folded covers) is $24.95 but at our BookNotes newsletter sale price it goes for $19.99.

I wrote in one of my early announcements of it that I am sure it will be listed as one of the very best books of 2026.

Hints of Hope is eloquent, literary, and filled with captivating tellings of long stories, complex examples of good men and women all over the world who have dared to make a difference in this hurting world. Filled with visions of vocation, they make peace with the notion that they cannot do everything and are glad to do what God gives them to do, repairing the world little by little, in faith, hope, and love. That word proximate — think approximate — says so much and undergirds the important title: Hints of Hope.

I sincerely hope that some who are energized by our webinar with Dorthy Greco this Tuesday will then come to be strengthened for the long haul of a life of Kingdom service by Steve on February 3rd. That starts at 8:00 Eastern and you’ll be able to type in questions and comments online. It’s going to be quite a conversation, I promise.

Below is the link which you must use to pre-register. Once you pre-register they will send you confirmation back which will be the link you must use to join the fun. Pre-register asap, please.

You must register in advance for this webinar with Steve Garber:

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As of January 2026 we are closed for in-store browsing.

We are doing our curb-side and back-yard customer service and can show any number of items to you if you call us from our back parking lot. We’ve got tables set up out back or can bring things right to your car. It’s sort of fun, actually. We are eager to serve and grateful for your patience. We are very happy to help, so if you are in the area, do stop by. We love to see old friends and new customer

Okay, friends, I hope you saw my big PART ONE of our epic FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 list. It is agonizing trying to rate or judge these books, some of which have become absorbed into part of my being, my memory of the year, my sense of things. Not every book leaves a mark, and I like skimming a lot — an occupational privilege and hazard. But so many are so good. The earlier post was mostly a list of my true favorites. Thank you to those who trusted my suggestions and took us up on a few. We live for this. And, whew, some of those books were really amazing for me.

Use the secure order form (the link is at the bottom) to order more and we’ll do the discounts and take care of the rest.

But there’s more. A lot more. Here, then, is the even more epic PART TWO of the best books of 2025. I’m not going to differentiate between those that are really, really great and those that are stellar and those that are fabulous and those that are necessary. Words fail me. Let’s just say these all richly deserve an honorable mention. I’ve already announced or reviewed most of these at BookNotes so use that search box in our BookNotes tab at the website to search out what you can find, if you need to.

Here we go, presenting true honorable mentions, some of the great books of 2025 (in no particular order.)

You don’t have to fret about finding the best; I’ve curated that for you. Send us an order today. All are 20% off.

 

You Can Trust a God With Scars: Faith (and Doubt) for the Searching Soul Jared Ayers (NavPress) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

This truly was one of my favorite reads of 2025 and I still grab it off the shelf and page through it, looking for memorable stories, paragraphs, lines and phrases. Ayers is a great writer, a fine storyteller, astute about those who are suspicious of faith or who have been burned by harsh churches. I loved his movie and rock music citations, his general ability to bring just the right story or illustration to the narrative, and his very solid Biblical and theological insight. There are reflections about these complicated days but there is a high and constant view of Christ, too. This book actually covers so it is an enjoyable primer for anyone about the basics (and even legitimacy) of the Christian faith. As Leanne Van Dyk has said, it is a book for those who yearn.

Let me just say two quick things that I mean as utter and sincere selling points, features that delight me even if they aren’t central. First, it is lovely to see a PC(USA) pastor — born and raised in nondenominational churches, by the way — writing such a thoughtful book on NavPress. While some may think of them as a house that mostly does rather formulaic discipleship resources or inductive Bible studies, this is just one of many, many examples of NavPress doing some of the best books in the evangelical publishing landscape. So kudos for this bridge-building, faithful work. And, secondly, it’s nice to see an author who grew up in central PA making a national name for himself. I hate to be sentimental, but, man, I’d like it if you ordered this book so we can send it out from Jared’s old stomping grounds. You Can Trust a God with Scars is good for seekers, for the hurt ones, but also for any of us who need a good read to build faith and joy. And I went to high school with his parents. Come on!

Clear, compelling, and propelled by a soaring Christology, Jared Ayers breathes fresh air into the fathomless mystery of what it means to have a wounded healer God on our side. For a doubting, cynical generation, this pastoral, humble, persuasive voice is a giant step forward in the journey of faith seeking understanding. — Eric E. Peterson, founding pastor of Colbert Presbyterian Church

In an age of disillusionment and disenchantment, we need wise pastoral voices who bring a curious mind, an awakened heart, and a lively, compassionate pen to our many perplexing questions. We need voices like Jared Ayers’s, and I’m excited to support the work he’s creating and the beautiful gospel it evokes.— Winn Collier, director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary and author of A Burning in My Bones and Love Big, Be Well

Birds in the Sky, Fish in the Sea: Attending to Creation with Delight and Wonder Matthew Dickerson & Matthew Clark (Square Halo Books) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

We’ve raved about this more than once (and highlighted it at two different events this past year, first, when it was brand new, at the big Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh last February where it sold out!) It is a lovely meditation on creation, nature-writing, Bible reflection, affirming the wonder and beauty of God’s good world. The linocuts and woodcuts of Matthew Smith are clever, fun, curious, and at times stunning. It’s a beauty, full of delight but also urgent. This is important stuff. One of the very best books of 2025. Spread the word.

And, you know, if Marilyn McEntyre — one of the great wordsmiths of our time and a true lover of literature —like it, it’s worth getting. I love her lines, here, endorsing it.

Whether you rarely venture into woods and wild or revel in nights under starlight, or simply love the local park, this visually lovely and richly thoughtful book will invite you to look again and be amazed and delighted at the creatures with whom we share the planet and the mystery of being at all, including those “formed to frolic.” The rare combination of personal reflection, poetry, biblical understanding and exquisitely detailed images makes it a book to linger over, reread, and share.
—Marilyn McEntyre author of Midwinter Light: Meditations for the Long Season

The Core of Christian Faith: Living the Gospel for the Sake of the World Michael Goheen (Brazos Press) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

This. This is. This is one of the best books I’ve read all year and I’m very eager to commend it. I’ve reviewed it before in BookNotes so I won’t repeat myself, but just want to offer a celebratory hip, hip, hooray.

Goheen’s name is important in some circles as he helped Al Wolters revise and expand his famous Creation Regained: The Biblical Basis for a Reformational Worldview. He famously co-wrote The Drama of Scripture with Craig Bartholomew and then they did two follow ups, Living at the Crossroads (about the formation of a Christian worldview) and Christian Philosophy (for students studying in university.) If you know anything about our own origins story here at Hearts & Minds you’ll see his sort of perspective over much of what we attempt, offering resources to help people think missionally about all of life being redeemed.

Eventually, Goheen was called to really put into practice this transforming vision for missional living by starting a training center for some like-minded churches in Arizona. I absolutely adored his exceptional The Symphony of Mission: Playing Your Part in the God’s Work in the World (2019) which shaped much of his work in Arizona. He mentions training folks to get this wholistic Kingdom picture. How does he transmit that I wondered, this symphony of mission, everybody living out faith in their respective zones of life? What’s the secret sauce?

Now we know. The Core of Christian Faith is a book that summarizes the teaching he offers at The Missional Training Center in Phoenix on how to “live the gospel for the sake of the world.”

It is not pure or heady systematic theology as you might think from the title.  As the publisher explains, Goheen “lays out a formation process that guides Christians to (1) return to the good news as a comprehensive and powerful message of God’s kingdom, (2) recover the Bible as the one true story of the whole world, (3) retrieve a deep consciousness of their missional identity, and (4) engage in a missionary encounter with culture.”

If time permitted, I’d say more. I hope those who like theology will order this, and it will maybe push them toward application a bit (and, maybe, a reformation of the core truths they sometimes obsess about or how to express those core truths.) And if you are skeptical of the language “core truths’ and doctrinal stuff, I invite you to think this through with Goheen. It will surprise you at how energizing and formative it can be.

Goheen distills a lifetime of pastoral and academic wisdom into a compelling vision for the church’s role in God’s redemptive mission. Built around a fourfold core for discipleship, it offers a practical and profound framework for faithful living. A timely and Spirit-filled invitation, this work will inspire congregations to embrace their vocation for the sake of the world. — Summer Montoya, director of spiritual formation, Redemption Church Gilbert

You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press) $21.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

We have honored Karen for her fine and thoughtful writing over the years. I was taken with her amazing memoir written in light of books she loved; what a joy that she did the first major biography of abolitionist and novelist and poet Hannah Moore (Fierce Convictions) and then we hosted her in the store when she did the groundbreaking book about virtue and reading (On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books.) Karen has left her mark with various sorts of resources on cultural engagement and, of course, literature. She has worked in higher education for years, and has had reason to counsel many young adults as they discerned their future vocations and careers. When she attended the collegiate Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh last year with other campus ministers who use the language of calling and vocation, she exclaimed tome that this was her tribe! 

And then this book came out this summer. I tis a compact hardback, not a tome, with a beautiful cover. I was going to be impressed and I knew I’d learn much, as I always do from her, but I’ll admit I was just a tiny bit worried, or at least aware, that there have been a plethora of such titles here of late. Like the topic of faith and work, we went from hardly anything a few decades ago to nearly a glut. Would You Have a Calling really bring new insights or fresh inspiration?

The answer is assuredly yes. It is one of the best little books on this topic, parsing the nuances of vocation and calling, of various meanings and the implications of this lingo. It is gracious but instructional, lovely, but full of quality information. There is big picture vision about purpose and destiny, but there’s lots of common sense, too. And we need common sense in this breathy conversation about this big topic of the search for meaning and purpose.

The second half brings something new to this topic, too, so even if you think this theological / worldviewish foundation is something you understand well, I commend how she brings the virtues of the true, the good, and the beautiful to the topic. Either half of this fine book should be award-winning. Together there is no doubt. You Have a Calling by Karen Swallow Prior, is one of our favorite books of 2025 and we name it with this very honorable mention.

All Things Together: How Apprenticeship to Jesus Is the Way of Flourishing in a Fragmented World Heath Hardesty (Multnomah) $19.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

Oh my, what a book this is, and what a great recommendation I want to offer. Yes, yes, an honorable mention, but also a full-throated suggestion for a fun read, full of stories and Godly orientation, helping “our fragmented liger an be made whole.” It invites us to “come apprentice to the One who brings healing to a fractured world.” As I have said more than once in our BookNotes this past year, I have a friend I admire who has compared Heath Hardesty’s writing to a young Eugene Peterson. I frankly would not have made that connection, but he is talented, wise, full of citations from literature (and pop culture in a way rarely found in Eugene’s books), and he offers a deep, winsome invitation for a “long obedience in the same directly.”

As I noted in a previous review, you gotta love a book — well, at least I love a book — about spirituality and faithfulness that is written, smartly written, by a blue-collar guy. His descriptions of his varied jobs were droll, if not out and out funny. I appreciate a pastor who has worked, literally, in plumbing and yet seems like a sage. Or, as one reviewer noted, has the soul of a poet.

In a way, this call to apprentice to Jesus is working in the same fields as Dallas Willard did, or as John Mark Comer does now. Full-life, spiritually-rooted formation in our creaturely bodies (oh how I love Romans 12: 1-2) is known to be what is needed — church is not a venue for inspiring entertainment or even pious worship but there is some integral connection between liturgy and life, between our interior lives and spiritual formation and how we actually live in the world This book offers great storytelling and well-told examples of those who are longing for something big to live for and want to know how to become the kind of people who can take up that adventure. He is writing about integration, a whole life, a multi-dimensional embodiment of following Jesus everywhere.

Jon Tyson the cool writer and pastor in New York City has a very impressive foreword in which he warns us not to read this book too quickly. He says to prayerfully look for those places in our lives that are “unseamed” (as opposed to seamless.) He is right. This may be one of the best books of its kind in 2025 but I think we will need most of 2026 to allow its advice to get through to us. Get it now and read it slowly.

There are six chapters in Part One under the heading “Re-Imagining Apprenticeship” and there are seven chapters in Part Two, habits and practices for “Re-Inhabiting a Fragmented World.”  This is a really good book.

Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (Orbis Books) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

I’ve named this several times and each time I was impressed with how much I appreciated this book. Some of us have been trying to bridge the age-old gap between spirituality and justice (and dare I say, between love of God and love of neighbor) for much of our lives.

Those taken by a vision of our interior lives (from monastic contemplatives to pious Pentecostals) often miss the implications of their warm hearts for the broken world, especially broken systems and political injustices. Similarly, those called to the front lines of anti-war work, standing for the oppressed (and, these days, against our own government’s violent arrests of many fellow citizens!) are seemingly disinterested in things of the spirit. Let alone the Spirit. And so, on we go, various churches emphasizing one part of the gospel, and each side missing a huge component of Biblical faithfulness.

Since author Wes Granberg-Michaelson has served as the head of his denomination (the Reformed Church in American) and has spent decades with several global ministries (including the World Council of Churches) he surely knows this ungodly dichotomy and has spent much of his living trying to bring folks together, evangelicals and Catholics, prayer warriors and social justice warriors, those who care about the Word and those who care about the world.

In this book — absolutely a vital read for us all, now, and a “Best of 2025” — Wes is less trying to solve the bigger problem of how to bring together various tribes within the church, but, rather, how to bring the strengths of at least two major traditions into the same person. Can we be contemplatives, knowing God and our interior true selves deeply and be people of action, even activists? Can we do the “soulwork” of justice work?

There are a precious view books on this topic. Thomas Merton, of course, wrote about it, as did Parker Palmer, and, recently, Daniel Wolpert did Looking Inward Living Outward: The Spiritual Practice of Social Transformation. That could be a companion volume to Wes’s major work.

The Soulwork of Justice means a lot to me, not only because I feel strong that this is very important and not only because I trust Wes very much. (He’s a Hearts & Minds customer, after all.) More, though, I think this book has ministered to me, struck me, formed new thinking about age-old stuff. I raced through an advanced manuscript Orbis kindly sent my way, and then I read it again, later, slowly.

Complete with old diary entries (which are exceptionally illuminating) Wes offers four movements (as he calls them), each feeling a bit to me as if by a modern-day Henri Nouwen, maybe with some edge from Richard Rohr.  He forged these four moves from his years of pastoral work and social action. (Did you know he used to be a top aid to an anti-war Republican Senator? Did you know he was for years the right hand-man to Sojourners founder Jim Wallis?) While anyone can benefit from this splendid work, it seems on the face of it that Soulwork is written for citizen activists and those aching to make a difference in the world. It is a guide to the inner work they must do if they are going to be whole themselves and not foist their issues on their public justice groups and peacemaking efforts.

He and his wife are now gently shepherding a small, rural Lutheran parish, and loving it. They are adept in Enneagram stuff, spiritual direction standards, and deeply Biblical sorts of spirituality. I admire this guy so much, and think Soulwork deserves not only much acclaim but much discussion. Why not buy a few and circle up some friends and ponder this together?

The Transforming Fire of Divine Love – My Long Slow Journey into the Love of God John H. Armstrong (Cascade) $27.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

Years in the making by one of the preeminent ecumenically minded evangelicals of our lifetime. John has been a pastor and evangelist, a leader at the top levels of evangelical networks, a fabulous and popular speaker, prayer warrior, midwife of renewal. But in the last twenty years he walked away (and in some cases was forced out) of some conservative (often Reformed) circles because his heart was breaking with the divisions in the Body of Christ. He took inspiration from an older essay and sermon by J. I. Packer and then committed himself to reach out to Catholics and mainline Protestants, Orthodox leaders and open-minded evangelical friends. His organization his called ACT3.

John has written several books on unity in the church and the kind of love that we need if we are going to adequately renew the Body of Christ in inter-denominational ways. All of his books are vital, important, gentle, and not as provocative as some say. He’s solid as a rock. We have them all.

And, now, this year, he has given us what may be his most meaty book ever, a substantial study of the nature of divine love. He is not the first to try to probe this inscrutable fire, but his humble study is one of the best I’ve ever read on this topic.  The thoughtful forward is by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (who also has a book on this Best of 2025 list.) Too many of our starting assumptions about the nature of God fail to start with the assertion in 1 John 4 that “God is Love.” This is a “readable primer to help you develop a doctrine that, he suggests, “can free you from guilt, fear, and many misconceptions we have about God.”

Five Views of the Gospel edited by Michael Bird & Jason Maston (Zondervan Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Although some of these CounterpointsBible & Theology can be tedious, the back and forth of varying perspectives and the edenic tone, even in the critiques, are always very edifying and informative. It’s like reading four theology books in one, along with the responses of each author. Here we are approaching one of the most important topics, one that, sadly, is not settled. The older school debates between so called liberals and fundamentalists, or mainline vs evangelical, are less nuanced and unhelpful. While this conversation— all from solid folks who affirm the authority of Scripture and stand in solid historic faith traditions — sheds light on this huge matter. What do we mean (and more importantly, what does the Bible mean) when we talk about the gospel? If we don’t reflect on this every now and again, I’m convinced we will not serve God well. So this is a core book on a topic that needs clarifying and robust debate.

We have here what we might call the “King Jesus Gospel” (offered by Scot McKnight), the “Reformation Gospel” (by Michael Horton of Westminster West), “The Wesleyan Gospel (proclaimed by David deSilva), a Pentecostal perspective (by Julie Ma, with a PhD from Fuller, now a prof at Oral Roberts) and a Liberationist view (by Shively T. J. Smith; she is a much-respected United Methodist and ecumenical scholar, involved in the revisions of the NRSVue, and a professor of New Testament at Boston College.)  The discussions are illuminating to say the least.

I liked Craig Keener’s comment that he found himself “agreeing with much in each essay and hoping that such dialogue can help us synthesize the best insights of each, while keeping Jesus’s identity and work at the center.”

 

Nijay Gupta notes that it will help readers “ponder the width, height, and depth of the glory of the good news of the Messiah.”

By the way, for those who follow these things, Matthew Bates, who I appreciate a lot (see his little book Why the Gospel: Living the Good News of King Jesus with Purpose) did an important book this year that I haven’t read but seems award-winning. It is called Beyond the Salvation Wars: Why Both Protestants and Catholics Must Reimagine How We Are Saved. Some bigwigs at a Southern Baptists seminary were so alarmed they had a big video presentation about it, warning readers, and Bates replied that they slandered him, saying things about his alleged claims in the book that he did not say and that no charitable reading could deduce. Such dishonest is an affront to the God of the gospel and such overreactions are in bad form. In light of that dust-up, Five Views of the Gospel is that much more appealing and their discourse is a model of congenial debate.

Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life Grace Hamman (Zondervan) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Last year we highlighted Hamman’s lovely Jesus through Medieval Eyes. While technically not an exact sequel it is a companion volume, another study of how the medieval world framed and shaped folks into classic Christian virtues. There has been a rediscovery, in recent decades, of both the value of studying the middle ages, and, importantly, the nature of character formation, virtue ethics, and how we are conscripted into a story that shapes who we are. This book explores how that happened in ages past and how these “old paths” might offer something useful for our own efforts of wondering how to become better people.  She does this with an insightful realization of the medieval habit of coupling of virtues and vices, and explains it all by drawing on letters and sermons and art and more. Fascinating and very helpful.

For any of us who struggle with vice and virtue (that’s a joke, since that’ all of us, eh?) Ask of Old Paths could be a delightfully interesting, informative, and finally a transforming read, helping us learn how to live “a whole and holy life.”

Becoming God’s Family: Why The Church Still Matters Carmen Joy Imes (IVP) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I liked the first volume in this trilogy a lot. It was called Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters (and campout in 2019); I simply adored the sequel, Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters and it was spectacular seeing her at the Pittsburgh Jubilee conference a few years ago [and she will be there this year, speaking there February 14 and preaching from the main stage on the 15th.] The great Christopher Wright wrote the forward to the first and former Jubilee keynoter Richard Middleton wrote the forward to the second. She’s a good writer, charming even, and a respected scholar, as you can tell from these other names eager to work with her.

Wheaton College prof (and Anglican priest) Esau McCaulley, author Reading While Black, wrote a great foreword to 2025’s Becoming God’s Family. Again, this is an indication of how many folks from varying circles value her work. With this third in the set, she has created a must-have trilogy of titles. I really believe these are some of the most accessible but profound Biblical studies resources of this century!

Becoming God’s Family is a theology, or I guess I should say a Biblical foundation, for the church. We are calling into a tribe, a community, a family, and this didn’t start in the time of Jesus or Pentecost. The early church and its struggle to find unity amongst great differences, is based on the covenantal promises of a God who calls creation into being and forms a community. The church is the upshot of a long, complex, and painful drama unfolded in the Bible.

As with the other two in this series, Carmen has links and suggestions throughout from The Bible Project. The guys who do that are young colleagues of hers, having studied under her own beloved professors. This summer, by the way, she invited people to shop with us, and recommended, among weeks of online videos full of ideas, a book by her first academic mentor, the late Ray Lubbock, who wrote Reading the Bible for a Change: Understanding and Responding to God’s Word.

Anyway, Becoming God’s Family: Why The Church Still Matters by Dr. Carmen Joy Imes, is one of the great little books of the year. Use it in your church!

The Anxious Generation Goes to Church:  What the Research Says about What Younger Generations Need (and Want) from Your Church Tom Ranier (Tyndale) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Okay, should a summary of another bigger, esteemed (and truly award winning) volume win a Hearts & Minds award? Yes, yes indeed! The popular church consultant Tom Ranier here has done a huge service by summarizing much of the data from the mammoth The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Haidt is one of the great social scientists and public intellectuals of our time (and intellectually, he has become know as one who is not notably aligned with any ideological school of thought as far as we I can tell and is generally respected by scholars of the left and the right.) Yet, Haidt’s important work on the “rewiring” of children today needs to be updated, explored, nuanced, and— importantly for most of us here —applied to the unique struggles of Christian families, local churches, and youth ministries. So, while it may sound cheesy, The Anxious Generation Goes to Church is just what we need, asking (and answering) how church folks can respond to the alarming data and concerning trends documented in Haidt’s big work.

And, Rainier notices, young kids are going back to church. Some of the research he uncovers is actually hopeful. If the church is ready for them.

Of course Haidt is not the only one who has done good research into the rising generation or sounded the alarm about the harmful effects of screen technologies and social media on kids today. His coining of the phrase “the anxious generation” has stuck, though, and Rainer and his team are to be applauded for their bringing this practical and useful resource to us. Kids are interested in faith and many are emotionally fragile. What shall we do to serve them well in our congregations? Dare I say every church leader should be grappling with this?

There is a wise and useful foreword by Ryan Burge, another scholar with a knack for helping church folks get the big picture and discern what to do about it all. Look for his brand new book, by the way, just out, called The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us (Brazos; $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59.) We just got it in and it looks important.

Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love Michael John Cusick (IVP) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE  = $20.80

There have been a number of recent books relating the interesting psychological notion of attachment theory to our alienation from God and self and description union with Christ and deeper spirituality in terms of, well, being well-held. I heard Walt Brueggemann allude to this 30-years ago and it blew me away. We may be uneasy in life because we didn’t form the most durable and gracious attachments in our babyhood or childhood, but God, the nurturing divine Mother and Father who holds us well, can heal that, once we know we are, as Nouwen often put it, beloved. People were almost weeping in the middle of a Brueggemann talk on Isaiah.

Michael John Cusick is the CEO and founder of Restoring the Soul, an intensive counseling ministry in Denver. He is a licensed professional counselor, spiritual director, and former assistant professor of counseling at Colorado Christian University. I don’t recall that he cites Brueggemann in this book (nor does he call God Mother) but he’s drawing on this deep well of relating our spiritual resilience and helpful faith with this matter of “sacred attachment.” Man, he writes wonderfully and offers a fresh take on spiritual formation literature — so much so that I want to name this as an honorable mention for one of the best books of 2025.

There are good discussion questions at the end, too, making it useful for a group or to read with a friend or counselor. The writing is vivid, the examples, stories, and illustrations ring true. It is poignant and strong. As Ken Shigematsu (pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, British Columbia, and author of Now I Become Myself: How Deep Grace Heals Our Shame and Restores Our True Self) writes, “I absolutely love this book! Cusick not only brilliantly unpacks insights from Scripture and psychology, but with breathtaking courage and generosity, he reveals his life to us so we can experience the joy of wholeness.”

Wow, listen to this from Curt Thompson; he should win an award for best book blurb:

We don’t believe we are loved until we feel it in our chests. Given how infrequently this happens, no wonder we are as exhausted as we are. But thanks be to God,  Michael Cusick takes us on a deeply personal and comprehensively practical journey that invites the reader into the wide place to stand of which the psalmist writes. A wide place in which you become the beauty and goodness that you have been destined to become. Read this book and rest. Read this book and be revealed. But mostly read this book and know — in your chest — what it means to be loved. — Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame and The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope

The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation Evangelical Families Marissa Franks Burt and Kelsey Cramer McGinnis (Brazos) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

The religious book world — especially the enterprising evangelical book world — has for decades churned out hundreds of books about family and marriage. We have read scores and happily sold many. Yet (as much as Beth and I love talking about are marriage and as much as parenting littles meant to us) we’ve never been as big of a fan as some, I guess of these self-help guides

First, some Christian marriage and parenting books imply, wrongly, that the Christian life is mostly about focusing on the family. Secondly some were just odd, and some dangerously bad.  Although we have carried a wide range of resources — secular ones, those from mainline and Catholic publishers, and, yes, many from traditionalist publishers like Focus —we anchored our family section with warm resources like Feast of Families by Virginia Stem Owens, or thoughtful stuff like Rodney Clapp’s Families at the Crossroads: Beyond Tradition Modern Options and of course our favorite Gender and Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. What fun we used to have showing Parenting Is Your Highest Calling: And 8 Other Myths That Trap Us in Worry and Guilt. And how we appreciate the classy prose of Michael Mason in books like The Mystery of Marriage and The Mystery of Children. In more recent years we loved the Dorothy Greco title Making Marriage Beautiful. I could go on — there are so many good ones.

But yet, for every Parenting for Peace and Justice we’d sell, or The Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas or Seasons of a Family’s Life: Cultivating the Contemplative Spirit at Home by Wendy Wright we’d have folks looking for manuals affirming (unbiblical) sexist gender roles and super-strict discipline techniques. Beyond the almost cult-like stuff (BabyWise, Bill Gothard) there were seemingly fine books that had some ugly content.

This has all come to light in a recent must-read book called The Myth of Good Christian Parenting. We name and honor it here not because it was a favorite book or a delight but because was hard, but important. It includes a detailed look at bad books and programs that masqueraded as faithful. Gulp.

I couldn’t put it down and I will admit it made me uncomfortable at times. The sign of a good book.

This title deserves a very honorable mention for the detailed and nearly comprehensive study they have done about Christian parenting books over the last decades. Some of this includes older stuff, and some are fairly recent. It is an expose, a critique, and a positive call for better thinking, better resources, and more gentle way to be faithful to Christ as we raise our children. This hit close to home, mostly because there was so much in the book about the Christian publishing industry, the titans of our era (Dobson, etc.) and how we really should have been more discerning. There are powerful stories and compelling suggestions. This book is important. Thanks to the authors, Marissa Franks Burt and Kelsey Cramer McGinnis, and to Brazos for their brave, helpful work.

The Deep-Rooted Marriage: Cultivating Intimacy, Healing, and Delight Dan B. Allender & Steve Call (Thomas Nelson) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

As I hinted above, and as I wish Burt and McGinnis might have made a bit clearer, not all faith-based family-themed books were dreadful. Yes, good people may disagree about gender roles and toxic views may not damage their books. (I disagree with Tim and Kathy Keller’s minor excursion into headship, for instance, but still regularly recommend their very intelligent Meaning of Marriage.) Anyway, there are great books in this genre, and some have been written by Dan Allender. I’m not even sure I always like the way Dan, a gentle and thoughtful hero in my book, has phrased everything (in, say, books he co-wrote with Bible scholar Tremper Longman like The Mystery of Marriage, a fine study on IVP, or God Loves Sex, an excellent book on Baker.)  So, in light of the above title, and aware that not even our best writers and thinkers  get it right all the time, I was unsure what I’d think of this new one.

But, wow. What a book!

I am eager to announce this as one of the favored books on my 2025 list. It’s a gem, thoughtful, deep, informed by profound studies about our interior lives, our traumas, our longings and desires. We have to be honest about what we bring to our relationships, which can create what singer-songwriter Mark Heard call “a climate of love.” We’ve got to work on it. I love Allender & Call’s used of the word cultivating. The words in the subtitle are so good — cultivating this honest ecology of grace and authenticity and attention to our stories can create “intimacy, healing, and delight”. This focus makes this book extraordinary.

The Deep-Rooted Marriage is not the simplest marriage book, but it is one of the better books in this whole genre in many a year. Certainly one of the best books of 2025. Three cheers for intimacy, healing, and delight! Three cheers for these two collaborative authors.

The Redeemed Reader: Cultivating a Child’s Discernment and Imagination Through Truth and Story Janie Cheaney, Betsy Farquhar, Hayley Morell & Megan Sabin (Moody Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

How can we not honor this book as a major contribution for Christian parenting? What a significant website and newsletter they have and what a good book this is, collating and sharing their robust vision of thoughtful parenting by using great books with children. They have done amazing work and every parent (or church library) should have this.

I may not word every paragraph as they do, and I don’t worry quite much as they do about some of the philosophically complicated themes in children’s books these days, but they are routinely thoughtful, make an excellent case for the points they offer, making The Redeemed Reader a volume that stands on the shoulders of the still lovely Honey for a Child’s Heart and the must-have Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children published in 2022 by Square Halo Books. The Redeemed Reader authors even cit Leslie and Théa and Cary from Wild Things so that’s nice. Their commitment to “truth and story” speaks volumes and they know their stuff.

Hooray for this. Get The Redeemed Reader: Cultivating a Child’s Discernment and Imagination Through Truth and Story for any Christian parent you know. (And then follow it up with Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.)

Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together Ilana Kushan (St. Martin’s Press) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

Can I list a book that I haven’t read? Okay, I started it. And read a handful of amazing reviews and long interview with the author, Ilana Kushan. I feel like I know this book but, in the name of transparency, really, I haven’t gotten to it yet. But I am confident I have to name it. It is simply breathtaking in its style, a thoughtful memoir about reading. About being read to, and about reading to children.

Here is why I’m so enamored with the idea of putting this on a list of Best Books of 2025. You see, the author is Jewish mother of five living in Jerusalem. She is passionate about reading, but only gradually comes to learn “how to relate reading not as a solitary pursuit and an escape from the messiness of life, but rather as a way offering connection and teaching independence.” This book is about her introducing literature — sacred and secular, as she puts it — to her children. She realizes it makes her a more compassionate reader herself and (yep)a better mother.

One of the bits in this remarkable book is her telling about reading the Torah with her children. Of all the many books there are about reading, even memoirs about reading, even about the power of reading to children, there are very few that I know that are, in fact, about reading Scripture together.

Children of the Book is arranged in five parts (corresponding to the first five books of the Bible.)  She finds “profound parallels between the Biblical narrative and the daily rhythms of parenthood.”

She tells of “the first picture books that create the world through language for babies to the bittersweet moment our children begin reading on their own, leaving us behind, atop the mountain, as they enter new lands without us.”

This has been richly called luminous and from the bits I’ve read, I’d agree. It is beautiful, profound, and a delicious meditation on shared stories and “a life richly lived through literature.”

Contesting the Body of Christ: Ecclesiology’s Revolutionary Century Myles Wentz (Baker Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Okay, this is another that I’m still working through and I can’t not list it. It is amazing, if scholarly, and fresh, if a very detailed study. I like Myles Wentz a lot. (He wrote a brilliant little book just a few years ago called From Isolation to Community and before that co-wrote a very compelling “field guide” to Biblical nonviolence.) His PhD is from Baylor and is the professor of Baptist Studies at Abilene Christian University in Texas.

This book — which carries a foreword by the weighty Canadian Anglican Ephraim Radner — is hard to explain, but it is basically using the four classic phrases about the church (“one, holy, catholic, and apostolic”) to see how congregations and church groups did or didn’t live into the theology implied in the phrases. That is, it is about our unity and our holiness and more. He shows how they were “remade, contested, and reaffirmed in surprising and innovative ways.”

Tom Greggs is at the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton and says, “Wentz leads readers in a scholarly way through stories and journeys of the Spirit’s work in the church…Global in horizon and ecumenical in foundation, outlook, and scope, this book offers a wise and exciting account of the four marks of the church in a way that offers hope and looks to renewal. It deserves reading and rereading by church people and theologians alike.”

See. You know I love this stuff. It may be over my head, but those of us born in the 20th century (or, shall I say, born again in the 20th century) should recall that these were tumultuous times for churches around the world. In this book, Werntz explores the landscape of twentieth-century ecclesiology. And it’s complicated and studious but it mattesr.

The publisher reminds us that:

The church changed tremendously in the twentieth century, with new churches emerging and old churches being renewed. This period encompassed the birth of the World Council of Churches, the rise of American evangelicalism, the Second Vatican Council, the coming of age of charismatic Christianity, and more.

I didn’t realize it when I decided to name it as one of the significant books of the year, but I now see that Christianity Today gave it their 2025 Book Award of Merit in Academic Theology. Told ya so. Ha!

The Hybrid Congregation: A Practical Theology of Worship for an Online Era Michael Huerter (IVP Academic) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

Some years I’ve done lists of nothing but books from academic presses or scholarly houses. Or I’ve awarded the best of this sort, making it seem like I read more heavy stuff than I do. But, still, in this award I’m wanting to honor a combo of a genre (academic or university press books) and a topic (books about the local church and her worship.) To be honest there are dozens of fabulous-looking scholarly works in categories like liturgics, jurisprudence, aesthetics, sociology, history, or science. And, as you may guess, we have dozens of new books on the local church and various sub-themes from mission to conflict, leadership to worship. Anyway, we’ve got a combo here, a scholarly book on the local church. Whew.

One of the most useful recent titles that is pretty academic but important for even ordinary church leaders is, I think, this year’s The Hybrid Congregation. It is a popular version of his academic dissertation at Baylor on the nature and contours and spirituality of the online experience of church and how traditional congregations might develop hybrid ministries in healthy ways. There are huge theological implications and fascinating sociological points. Huerter asks, “In the constant flux of the digital revolution, what must churches understand about digitally mediated interactions in order to make effective decisions” about them?

This serious book includes interviews with leading scholars and practitioners (conducted by Zoom, I note with a smile.) It is in this sense these are “digital ethnographies” and he explores several online groups that have, in fact, fostered meaningful community.  As the back cover explains, there is “reflection on church participating, embodiment, mediation, and virtuality in digital and hybrid spaces.”

If you are interested, use the inquiry page to ask for more resources on this if you want something practical and easy. I do not think this is impractical, but it is heavy, with diversions into studies of critical thinkers like Adorno and reflections about media ecology, of the working nature the internet, of the importance of music in church worship, the relational theology of Martin Buber and a look at what he calls “online ritual communities.” His views about music are worth the price of the book, and his call to form community in the digital age is excellent.

One cannot summarize brilliant projects like this, but I can say this: he is neither utterly opposed to digital community (as if talking on line isn’t real or doesn’t happen physical, which is obviously does) not is he unaware of the important voices calling for a resistance to the seemingly disembodied ways of the digital environment. Listen to how Terry York (author of Let Our Words Become Flesh) put it:

Whether we fear the hybrid congregation or fantasize about it, Huerter keeps our feet on the ground. He calms the fears of virtual-hesitant individuals and asks the virtual veterans to see beyond the screen. The questions raised offer an opportunity for us to reexamine our worship practices and to consider what expressions of embodiment they privilege or marginalize. — Terry W. York, author of Let Our Words Become Flesh

With the diagnostic rigor of his academic mind and the compassionate bedside manner of his pastoral heart, Michael Huerter gives a compelling and thorough assessment of the congregation in the digital age. Especially after the dislocations of the past decade, this book lays bare the myriad interlocking systems that produced our current moment of fracture and encourages us to refocus on the task of building richly textured Christian communities, whether online or off. — Joshua Kalin Busman, assistant dean of the Esther G. Maynor Honors College and associate professor of music at University of North Carolina at Pembroke

1 Corinthians: A Theological, Pastoral & Missional Commentary Michael Gorman (Eerdmans) $39.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99

I hate to have to say this but I’ll admit, it is a massive, often technical commentary and I just didn’t read it all (yet.) But, believe me, it is one of the best in this genre in a long time, and Gorman is, as always, nothing short of brilliant in his formulation, style, and substance. I had reason to want to study I Corinthians a bit this fall and I was glad for this stellar resource. It is big, detailed, with lots of academic footnotes, but still is readable, upbeat, even, and designed to be useful to educated readers. That is, it isn’t a highbrow treatise for the academic guild or even just for seminary profs and Bible teachers. I think anyone with some awareness of Biblical studies or who has read a commentary before, would handle this fine.

Gorman here brings together cultural studies and exegesis, theological background and a bit about the history of interpretation, a concern for how to live this out faithfully in our congregations. The subtitle is not just a catchy phrase, but is Gorman’s Godly heartbeat. It’s clear in this volume. My, my, this is what a commentary should be!  It deserves very honorable mention when we’re looking at books published in 2025. Kudos, Mike. Thank you.

Some of the Words Are Theirs: The Art of Writing and Living a Sermon Austin Carty (Eerdmans) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I sometimes, when touting this book on a podcast or before a group (or in my BookNotes review last summer), say this last, but I’ll lead with it: the title is a line from A River Runs Through It. That’s the kind of writer Carty is; we should know this well because he wrote one of my all time favorite books The Pastor’s Bookshelf: Why Reading Matters for Ministry. (I am not a pastor, of course, but I know a lot and care about many of them, and so I ate this up and used it in workshops and speaking engagements wherever there were clergy. Or people who might give books to clergy.) The Pastor’s Bookshelf is fantastic.

And so this is maybe even a bit more arcane. I mean, what self-respecting Christian bookworm wouldn’t want to read a book about pastors and reading. But a book on homiletics? On writing? Really?

I am sort of a nerd and like homiletics texts, or at least some of them. The role of the sermon is important in the worship of God and too often, well, it’s hard to crank out good ones every week. It’s hard, taxing, important work. I was very eager to year Austin’s eloquent and bookish words. It is an art, he notes, and part of that art is living it. Yup. Wow.

I adored this book. I think pastors and preachers and Sunday school teachers and professors and writers should all read it. If you care about pastors, or maybe don’t like pastors, you should read it. It is somewhat of a memoir so it isn’t painful, I promise. Sure there are good textbooks to wade through but the fairly short Some of Their Words Are Theirs is a real joy. One of my favorite book of 2025, honorably awarded.

A Teachable Spirit: The Virtue of Learning from Strangers, Enemies, and Absolutely Anyone A. J. Swoboda (Zondervan Reflective) $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I can’t believe it has been out since the Spring and I reviewed it that long ago. I’ve highlighted it at more than one conference this summer and fall (and year-end podcasts) and declare it as one of my favorite books of the year. Truly.

Why, you ask? Well, I’d read anything by AJ (and really commend his other co-authored 2025 book Slow Theology: Eight Practices for Resilient Faith in a Turbulent World.) I appreciate his passions and wide knowledge — he has written books about eco-theology, doubt, suffering, the Holy Spirit, a famous on on the sabbath; his Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War for Our Wants that came out last year was way under-rated and a incredible read. So he writes a lot and is engaging and entertaining and informative.

But this new one has a special place because is sort of close to my own calling as a bookseller and occasional public speaker and sometimes Sunday school teacher. I want folks to see themselves as life long learners, as those being formed in ways where their faith makes a difference (in but not of the world, as I sometimes remind.) Having a “teachable spirit” is a New Testament phrase that gets at it poignantly. What are you learning this season?

Do you have a teachable spirit? Are you willing to learn (even from surprising places?) Do I?
In this fabulous book Swoboda ruminates on learning from everybody from children to experts, enemies and the dead, popular culture and our elders. The first chapter is on learning how to learn. It’s not just about reading books, but I can’t help but think that bookworms and readers will adore this. Hooray for this.

The Sabbath Way: Making Room in Your Life for Rest, Connection, and Delight Travis West (Tyndale) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I am not sure I met Travis West when I spoke at Hope College a few years ago and when I wandered around the offices at Western Seminary also there in Holland, Michigan. But, man, I wish I would have. I’ve got a number of mutual friends who admire West immensely (not least of which is the great writer Winn Collier who stewards the Eugene Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination there at Western Seminary.) I know people who have taken his energetic Hebrew classes and I have heard from others about his joy, his charm, his love, his integrity.

And yet, it has not always been easy as this captivating book shares. He and his wife have been through their share of tragedies and illnesses and their life together — beautiful in so many ways — has been painful. So it is with many of us, eh?

As I kept turning the pages in this excellent read I kept wondering what sort of person has this kind of tenacity and resilience and vulnerability and candor about life’s pains and yet is joyful present, happy to serve God and others. How does he do it? How does his wife, stricken with chronic pain, do it?

One of the keys is this congruence between their inner and outer lives. Robust as his whole-;life discipleship obviously is, The Sabbath Way invites us to a posture of delight, even of play. His exploration of sabbath themes — a day of rest, yes, but also a lifestyle of trust, a lifestyle of connecting with others — reminds me of a rare friend or two. I admire this book and I admire the author. It was a joy to write about it when it came out early in the summer and we are sure it is one of the most lovely books of the year. It was a personal favorite and if you love the Scriptures, you’l appreciate his insight. If you like reading about Sabbath, obviously, this is a winner and you will love it. If you long for a life of delight, rooted in the goodness of creation and the presence of God in all things, this book will foster and cultivate a spirituality of your days that will help sustain you.

These two excellent quotes (among many others) show why we think this was such a great book for 2025 and, certainly, a blessing as we move into 2026.

Reading this book feels like having a dear friend gently lead us into God’s presence. Without downplaying our busyness or our pain, it welcomes us into God’s rest, into the goodness of his life and love. This is so different from what we normally see and experience in the world and the church. We all need this book– I certainly did! — Kelly Kapic, professor at Covenant College,  author of You’re Only Human

I need The Sabbath Way; you need The Sabbath Way. With cultural and economic forces that seem outside our control, we need to hear Travis West’s encouragement and wisdom to slow down, pause, breathe, and re-member our bodies, minds, and souls. This is not a call to enhance performance. It is a call to enhance our humanity. The Sabbath Way is a deeply spiritual and deeply humanizing project, and a timely gift to a culture desperately in pursuit of its next accomplishment. — Emerson Powery,  Dean of the School of Arts, Culture, and Society; professor of biblical studies at Messiah University.

For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America Dorothy Littell Greco (Zondervan) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

As I’ve noted on the one above, there are some books that deserve honorable mention as one of the best books of 2025 even if they aren’t necessarily charming and pleasant and delightful. This author, Dorothy Greco, is in fact, charming and pleasant and delightful, and, in fact, wrote a rare book about marriage that is about beauty in relationships — Making Marriage Beautiful. She and her husband seem to have that lovely quality, and she wrote about it also in another book that is a bit on the rare side, a book to deepen the joy of those married for a while, called Marriage in the Middle: Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges, and Joys. She is super smart so in both of those books she does some cultural studies stuff, honoring the paradoxes (crisis or opportunity?). and moves beyond simplistic formulas. She can be fun and funny. So we like her a lot. But, alas, this recently-released book has been on her heart and mind for a long time and while we’ve never met, she has asked us to send books on occasion, so we’ve had an inside glimpse of some of what she was working on. Wow.

With a background in public policy stuff but well formed by a good local church, as a thinker who is a gracious writer, Dorothy is ideal to bridge the hefty gap between fans of feminist studies that use words like misogyny and patriarchy and more conventional evangelical Christians. The book is published by Zondervan, after all, so it is no progressive screed.

So if any BookNotes readers wonder, let’s lay that to rest: she’s written lovely books on marriage published by two stalwart evangelical presses (David C. Cook and InterVarsity Press.) This cannot be dismissed as “woke.”

But, also, let’s be honest: this is exploring some really dark stuff. It’s hard-hitting and, I think, an exceptionally valuable resource to accompany the post #metoo movement, such as it may be, to figure out how the church should react to the horrors of sexual abuse and crass sexism. In its gospel-centeredness, it is full of realistic hope.

And, to be clear, misogyny isn’t always seen in domestic violence and sexual abuse (which happens, we know, even in the church.) It is often subtle or systemic or related to structural / policy matters. Like racism, we must work on our own hearts and attitudes but we must also address the forces and systems, and For the Love of Women does just that. It is serious, but not dry. We really think our customers should order it.

We name this as one of the most important books published this year, and we are proud to have it be released by a respected voice in our Christian publishing landscape. I think it should be widely read, seriously discussed, prayed over and deeply considered.

As Carolyn Custis James (author of Half the Church and Maelstrom) puts it, “only when we understand the depth of the crisis will we be able to find remedies both globally and in our own cultural context. Dorothy has made a significant contribution to our understanding, and I pray her book will be widely read by women and men alike.” Well put!

Good people can, of course, disagree about the meaning of Biblical texts about women’s ordination or the meaning of the word “headship” in the New Testament. We strongly favor what we take to be the faithful position of affirmation and full authority women leaders. But this book goes beyond intramural debates (not that they are not urgent) and is deeper, more systematic, exploring the way abusive masculine privilege has harmed girls and women, in various sectors of the church and world. For the Love of Women is seriously Christian with insight for the local church but it offers a vision of the common good, helping to bring healing and restoration across various zones of our social life together.

For the Love of Women explores how this harm to women has been encoded and “baked in” to the spheres of healthcare, government, the workplace, media and entertainment, the church, and, yes, in our most intimate relationships.  Sadly, alarming trends and mean rhetoric are on the rise in America.  We’ve got work to do.

Those we trust have also raved about it. Professor Soong-Chan Rah calls it ‘essential.” Dr. Marlena Graves calls it “undeniably outstanding.” Listen to this urging by another award-winning author:

For the Love of Women is a prophetic, pastoral, and grace-filled book. If you are a woman, you will see something of your own experiences in these pages. If you know a woman, you will see something of her experiences here. If you love a woman — any woman, including yourself — I urge you to read this book which wisely and lovingly exposes a great wrong that is deeply woven into our whole world (including the church, and then wisely and lovingly points a way forward. — Karen Swallow Prior, You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful

PLEASE NOTE: WE WILL BE HOSTING A FREE ONLINE CONVERSATION  WEBINAR WITH DOROTHY GRECO ON TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 27, 2026.

I’ll highlight it again, soon, with details on how to register for this evening with Dorothy Littell Greco about her outstanding book. Mark your calendars now, please.

 

 

Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics Sara Billups (Baker) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Holy smokes. I’ve got this on my bedside, and have been reading it in bits and pieces, wanting to linger, and then speed up, gulping down pages, stunned. It’s so good. I’ll admit it’s one I’m still working on, but, man, this is a powerful read, a book that combines vulnerable storytelling — about her gambling-addicted father, about drunks and the Mafia — and keen insight about culture and our awful polarized situation. Its play on words is striking, eh? We think, rightly, that she will speak of neurology and anxiety, but there is also this sense that there are cultural systems (I’d call them principalities and powers) that are weirding us out. Yes, this examines problems in our bodies and in the Body of Christ.

As it says on the back, “it’s no wonder we’re overwhelmed.”

Her situation in a complicated family and with her own evolving faith is well told — an earlier book was Orphaned Believers: How a Generation of Christian Exiles Can Find the Way Home is also wonderfully written and explains so much — and I’m grateful for her serious insight and her memoir like ruminations. This book deserves the attention it is getting and I hope will become a best-seller in 2026.  It launched in her hometown Seattle just this November.

Sara Billups masterfully takes her reader by the hand and honors the deep complexity of what it means to be human and follow Jesus in a world like ours. This is a thoughtful, challenging, and hopeful read. — Aundi Kolber, Try Softer and Strong Like Water

An extraordinary — and extraordinarily wide-ranging — tour through the valleys of anxiety that shape so much of modern life. Nervous Systems brims with rare candor, wisdom and humor. I loved it. — David Zahl, The Big Relief

Insane for the Light: A Spirituality  for Our Wisdom Years Ronald Rolheiser (Image) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

I was a little surprised how many (relatively speaking for our small mail-order biz) of this were ordered when we first announced it in late October. It was a good seller for us, and I guess that is part because Rolheiser is known. He is, I am sure, one of the most beloved spirituality writers today. He is a Catholic priest and the back blurbs are from James Martin and Richard Rohr and Sister Helen Prejean. It’s not every day we see a book endorsement from Basic Pennington, and the Celtic writer Herbert O’Driscoll weighs in as well (saying that Rolheiser can be lyrical, even, but “never sentimental — and all the time he is absolutely grounded in reality.”) SO, yes, when he has a major new book, it is noticed by those who follow these kinds of ordinary mystics.

But also, let’s face it. I think many of our BookNotes fans are aging, approaching their wisdom years. Maybe our gang needs this sort of thing. From excellent books like Aging Faithfully (the great little book by Alice Frying) to Parker Palmer’s On the Brink of Everything (with the wonderful subtitle “grace, gravity and getting old”) to Aging: Growing Old in Church by Will Willimon, just for instance, there are a lot of titles like this. It’s good to have Fr. Rolheiser bringing his incarnational sort of down-to-Earth spirituality to bear on this season of life.

I have not read this yet. I just turned 71. I guess I need to, eh? I’m sure it’s a winner, so here we go. Yes!

The Justice of Jesus: Reimagining Your Church’s Life Together to Pursue Liberation and Wholeness Joash P. Thomas (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I’ve highlighted this already and could go on and on. Allow me just to offer a few friends who have raved about Father Thomas and about his book. You’ll note something significant in these enthusiastic endorsements and that is that they all realize (it is a theme of the book, actually) that Jesus — a Jewish Messiah shaped by the Hebrew Scriptures, the law and the prophets —  not only cares about justice but created a church that must also. Joash Thomas studied at Dallas Theological Seminary and was nicely shaped by the best impulses of evangelicalism. He loves the Word, he loves the living Word, and he is committed to the local congregation, the body of Christ. Some books on justice work are not as evidently rooted in the experience of the local worshipping body. So, hooray for this. It is significant and beautiful enough that it would deserve this “best book of the year” award if were just about justice; it really is full of insight and, as a person from India, Rev. Thomas draws on the experiences of the majority world church. This is important.

But, The Justice of Jesus is also about the local church and how to do life together in a way that really does bear witness to the work God is doing among us and through us in a world of need.

Here are the key chapters:

• Part 1: Cheap Justice Versus the Justice of Jesus
• 1. Why Justice Seems Antithetical to the Western Church
• 2. The Cost of Just Discipleship
• 3. How Churches Today Are Prioritizing Justice
• Part 2: Decolonizing the Western Church
• 4. Decolonizing Our Theology
• 5. Decolonizing Our Communities
• 6. Decolonizing Our Budgets
• Part 3: How Your Local Church Can Prioritize the Justice of Jesus
• 7. Prayer
• 8. Advocacy
• 9. Partnership

Listen, please, do these short raves:

Joash Thomas is a gift to the world, and so is this book. I’m so glad Joash loves the church enough to critique it. Pass this book on to everyone you know. — Shane Claiborne, activist and author of Jesus for President and Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical 

Joash’s deep love for the church shines from every page as he invites us all into the group project of liberation. — Sarah Bessey, editor of A Rhythm of Prayer; author of Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith

A timely and courageous gift to the global church, this book will leave you grateful for its depth, clarity, and uncompromising authenticity. — Danielle Strickland, advocate, and author of The Other Side of Hope: Flipping the Script on Cynicism and Despair and Rediscovering Our Humanity

Liturgies for Resisting Empire: Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World Kat Amas (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

We here at Hearts & Minds received this book by a favorite Cuban-American writer in October and it released officially in early November. I adored the cover and just lingered over it for a bit, and then announced it at BookNotes. We adored her IVP book Abuelita Faith about women on the margins (and what they can teach us all about Biblical wisdom and spiritual and emotional health and persistence.) Her 40-Devotional Sacred Belongs was a powerhouse that came out in 2022 and we recommend it for anyone who needs to be reminded of radical truths about belonging.

Liturgies for Resisting Empire combines the special juices of both — passion, Biblical study, social action, a disposition to hear the marginalized, and shows us how to resist the dehumanization increasingly known in this secularized, modernist culture. To be sure, much of the ugliness comes from the Trump administration and the MAGA ideologues who applaud brutal ICE agents doing unspeakable things even to US citizens, supporting a level and sort of authoritarian police brutality we’ve not seen in our lifetimes. If we ever were reluctant to use dramatic language about resistance to the empire, it is time to take up that rhetoric. Indeed, there is an evil empire underscored by principalities and powers and they must be named and resisted. As you should know, we need prayer and wisdom and courage and faith, solid, theologically informed and Biblically-based, if we are going to form the beloved community and offer shalom in our messed up world.

Praise the Lord for voices like Kat Amas, and thank God for Brazos Press that brings such healthy, provocative, and important prose to us all. Liturgies for Resisting Empire is not only a favorite book of 2025, it is one of the most urgently needed. I put it here with some of my other “must reads” of the last year, and now is the time to give it a try.

For what it is worth, as I was surprised to see, and as I explained in my early review, it is not a prayer book or even a collection of “liturgies” (if you mean by that prayers or responsive readings.) Yes, each chapter starts with an invocation and ends with a benediction. There is a closing prayer, creatively worded, earnest and powerful. But the heart of the book are the homilies, if you will, good, strong prose, explaining what we mean by resisting empire (the first chapter is about joy) and why a deeply spiritual set of practices and rituals will be useful to keep us going in these times. If you wonder what people mean by decolonizing our thinking and writing, this is a great example. If you wonder how the early church sustained its witness in light of the brutalities of their day, this is a good read. Black writer Danté Stewart says her words “dance and sing in a way that made me rethink what it means to dance and sing and write as a theologian.”

“Armas makes her mark as one of the most brilliant biblical scholars of her generation.”          — Karen González, The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong

Racial Justice for the Long Haul: How White Christian Advocates Persevere (and Why) Christian Jeske (IVP Academic) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Okay, I’ll admit I’m cheating a bit on this one. The official release date was early January 2026 but we had it a month early (thanks IVP!) reviewed it at BookNotes. The author is a vibrant, even plucky writer (we loved her earlier book on traveling the world with a missions vision, 2012’s This Ordinary Adventure: Settling Down without Settling), not to mention a research piece about the work world in South Africa. We appreciate her global and spiritual journey (influenced by some of the same justice-minded evangelicals that inspired us over the last decades.)  Now, she’s an anthropology prof at Wheaton, and has spent years researching this incredible book. There is nothing like it that we know of, a series book that is both informed by social science, shares lots of fascinating stories, and draws vital lessons for how to maintain a commitment to an obviously urgent task.

As this hefty project illustrates there is a fairly unique methodology here which included interviews with Christian leaders of color and White advocates. The qualitative ethnographic research is nicely shared, offering real-live examples of how white Christians can learn from leaders of color.

Insofar as Jeske is offering insight (as the subtitle puts it”) about persevering in advocacy, in a sense, this research and spiritual wisdom is good for anyone wanting to take up “a long obedience in the same direction.” We do not need flash-in-the-pan gestures or activists zipping from cause to cause. Tenacity based on humility, advocacy that is brave and long-suffering, vision that recognizes the nature of slow, reforming change, all are parts of how we keep going.  There is stuff about lament and there is writing about grace. The stories are detailed and inspiring.

I think of Steve Garber’s new book Hints of Hope about how to be at peace with the proximate. I think of the inner work needed as explored in the aforementioned Soulwork of Justice by Wes Granberg-Michaelson. I think, yes, of Liturgies of Resisting Empire, named above. Sure, these are wise books to put into conversation, allowing each to shape you into a faithful servant of God’s Kingdom, for the rest of your life. Jeske is a very important ally and can point us towards sustainable discipleship and a way forward. Racial Justice for the Long Haul was not short or simple but one of the great books I’ve been reading in the last month and we honor it now. Order it today!

The Art of Asking Better Questions: Pursuing Stronger Relationships, Healthier Leadership, and Deeper Faith J.R. Briggs (IVP) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

When this released early this fall it was an instant hit and if you haven’t ordered it yet, I’m sure you should and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Briggs is, as always, a handy wordsmith and an effortless writer (or, that is, reading him is effortless and he seems so fluid as to make it seem easy.) Yet, he has worked at his craft and he has worked at his pastoral efforts and even learned from his failure. (His first great book was, in fact, about ministry failures, dramatically called Failed. After that, I loved his Ministry Mantras that I often recommend for leadership teams, elders, boards and pastoral staff.) This new one is for anybody, and I mean anybody!

This books does just what he says in the subtitle — it offers clues to a deeper faith (learning to be curious about faith and asking questions about things that matter most is key) but, more, it invites us to ask questions of ourselves and of each other. Leaders need a self-awareness and asking good questions will help, but (again) whiter one is a leader as such The Art of Asking Better Questions is a skill that can be learned (and needs to be, I’m afraid.) JR has put his finger on something here and his wisdom is fantastic.

It seems the part of the book that will be most decisive for many is the stuff about asking questions of others. And of course, learning to listen well to what we hear. His visionary / big picture stuff is a delight, but he gets practical, too, offering samples and stories and strategies.

These habits and postures and skills can be learned; asking good questions is an art, but who doesn’t need stronger and better relationships? Get a few today and share them widely. You’ll be glad you did.

Tim Keller on the Christian Life:The Transforming Power of the Gospel Matt Smethurst (Crossway) $27.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

I think I had this on the short (ha) list of books I wanted to celebrate in this big list of best books of 2025 before I opened the cover. The book just looked great, modern but not weird, sophisticated but not stuffy, well made but not excessively expensive. It was a well made volume and a delight to look through. I had heard that the late Presbyterian pastor’s wife, Kathy Keller, had told a mutual friend that she loved this book, that even though she did not know the author and the book wasn’t written out of Redeemer’s impressive network, she was, almost surprisingly, delighted at how it captured Tim’s heart, his desire for a Godly and wholistic ministry in one of the the world’s largest cities. Tim Keller on the Christian Life tells that story, of course, but like a series Crossway does on other church leaders from the past (Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Bonhoeffer, Stott) it is more about what we can learn from their life and teaching. As such, this is a fabulous book not just for Keller admirers, but for anyone who wants to grow in an intellectually serious but spiritually robust way.

Keller was, on one hand, an old-school Reformed Calvinist who was taught at Westminster Theological Seminary. Although much of that school’s tradition is less than what we might call culturally engaged or attentive to the nuances of  a secularized, pluralistic culture, there were influences there — just read Harvie Conn’s book Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace or the cultural studies stuff by the brilliant Bill Edgar (also a jazz pianist and scholar of black gospel music) — and they rubbed off on Tim considerably.

Another school of thought within the broader Reformed tradition is the influence of the great theologian, social reformed and pastor turned Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper. Yep, he was the Dutchman who preached about “every square inch” of the good but fallen creation being claimed and restored by Christ, the animated head of what became known as neo-Calvinism (and which influenced our beloved Jubilee conference held in Pittsburgh, sponsored by the CCO whose motto is “transforming college students to transform the world.”) Keller, besides his gospel-centered vision of a transforming understanding and appropriation of justification through faith alone also had this socially-transforming cultural vision. It is no surprise his church started an innovative Center for Faith and Work and hosted speakers from pluralism advocate John Inazu, artist Mako Fujimura, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, and Biblical scholar N.T. Wright.

Tim Keller on the Christian Life is a great read, even if you are not interested in the gospel as it is articulated in the old school Reformed dogma or the neo-Calvinism of contemporary Kuyperianism. Smethurst doesn’t even go into all of that exactly, but from my perch here at Hearts & Minds, Keller was not only amazing and influential, as this book shows in practical chapters about prayer and suffering and social action and grace, his ministry and writing brought together some themes that many ordinary church folks could learn from. It’s one of the great books of 2025 and deserves an honorable mention.

Read it in tandem with the authorized Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen and the fabulous little collection done in 2022 by Square Halo Books, The City for God: Essays Honoring the Work of Timothy Keller. But don’t miss Tim Keller on the Christian Life.

Disciples of a White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood Angela Denker (Broadleaf) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

I had an advanced copy of the manuscript for this last winter and started it promptly; it came out in March. I am not sure when I finally worked in a book review at BookNotes but — as is often the case when we’re busy — I am sure I did not do it justice. I wished, in refreshing myself with it again, that I had pushed it harder, promoted it more widely. It is a good, good read, an inviting and interesting, and yet very, very important. Deadly important.

I like Angela Denker a lot. She was raised in an independent fundamentalist church and knows well the odd way some fundamentalists, charismatics, and conservative evangelicals have gotten mixed up with right wing extremism. We all know that the current mixed syncretism of idols of power and race with Christianity has eroded the witness of the church and given religious cover for terrible offenses. The way in which (religiously-inspired) hate groups are on the rise — and I’m talking about stuff beyond Trump’s affinity for the Proud Boys or even Tucker Carlson’s platforming Nick Fuentes and his neo-Nazi Groypers —is one example of this cultural moment. Angela Denker has a first hand understanding of the parts of the religious landscape that inform some of this stuff. Her study of patriarchy and how boys are shaped and formed within conservative church communities — from standard macho stuff found all over to deeply troubling misogyny — is detailed and graciously reported. It feels almost like a memoir, the best sort of embedded journalism as this mainline Lutheran pastor visits and talks with those who are raising boys to become soldiers in the culture wars and sometimes, macho fighters for white supremacy.

We really, really liked Denker’s earlier book, Red State Christians which also had a first-hand, memoir style as she invited readers to join her on her quest to understand fundamentalist and others who found themselves supporting MAGA and Trump. Because some of these people were once her own tribe, she was a perfect guide. As a mother of two young boys herself, she, again, cares about this topic and has some skin in the game.

As the back cover puts it, in Disciples of a White Jesus Denker “casts her journalists eye across the US as she explores modern American boyhood’s connection to the alarming rise of white nationalism and white supremacy.”   I love Jemar Tisby’s wise observation (that the book is about identity and its malformation.) Read this:

This is a book about identity — its loss, its malformation, and the struggle to forge new ones. With the tenderness of a mother and the insight of a scholar, Denker pulls us off the path of easy outrage and leads us to look more closely at the inner lives of white boys and men. For those of us who seek a healthier church, community, and nation, Disciples of White Jesus is timely and essential reading. — Jemar Tisby, author of The Color of Compromise and The Spirit of Justice; professor of history at Simmons College of Kentucky

Readers should not be fooled by Denker’s storytelling ease and graceful prose into thinking this is simply another anodyne book about child-rearing. Her arguments about the sources and the persistence of racism, misogyny, and what she calls ‘brutish masculinity’ are powerful and, sadly, all too relevant. More important, she offers a way out — the examples of godly men who are working to subvert this toxic culture.  —Randall Balmer, author of Saving Faith

Becoming a Person of Welcome: The Spiritual Practice of Hospitality Laura Baghdassarian Murray (IVP) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

There are times when we give a title a “Best Book”of the year award because is it utterly captivating, delightfully great read as we say. Other times, we celebrate a book because it is breaking new ground, offering really fresh insight or contributing something important to a given topic or genre. Sometimes we think it is a significant book that needs to be considered by anyone working in that field. Happily, in Becoming a Person of Welcome any one of these motivations would convince me to give this an honorable mention; she covers so much. It really is engaging and wonderfully done. It really does offer new insight, bringing the popular conversation about and teaching on hospitality to a new level, for those who read it. And, yes, I’d say it is a must read for anybody thinking about this ministry or this theological topic.

The joys and value of this book are many and I could write more. In a nutshell we can say that this is the spirituality of hospitality, that is, what sort of interior character down need to create a posture that is hospitable. Hospitality, Murray shows, is not merely a practice, something we do. Yes, we do it — show grace to strangers, invite people to our homes, allow our time to be interrupted, learn from others, greet newcomers to our spaces with welcoming gestures and the like — but she is asking, down deep, are we living out of a well of graciousness, are we really welcoming, do we have hospitable hearts.

For some other writers, I think, this deeper dive to the nature of our inner lives and this call to explore in our spiritual formation ways to become the kinds of people who know how to be hospitable, might seem either strict and shaming or it could be cheesy and overly pious.  Laura Baghdassarian Murray strikes a beautiful balance and presents a book that we stock in the store on our shelf about hospitality and on our shelf about spiritual formation. Hooray!

Why Christians Should Be Leftists Phil Christman (Eerdmans) $23.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19

You can read my longer review of this from early last Fall but, I’m telling you, it really was a book I couldn’t put down. I didn’t always follow every line (although many were brilliantly conceived and eloquently written) and I didn’t agree with some, but, again, man: this was a Book of the Year for sure. You may not like it at all — that too many terms aren’t fully defined is one beef — but I think it would be a very valuable book to go through. Maybe with a group, even a politically and theologically diverse group, if you can manage it.

Phil Christman is a superb essayist, writing many columns and published pieces and two short collections, centered on his life as a blue-collar midWesterner. His first publisher of those two was a fitting indie outfit called Belt Press (as in Rust Belt) and, again, they were highly regarded in the world of letters. The first was MidWest Futures (2020) and the second was  released in 2022 with the delightfully provocative title How Not To Be Normal.

I don’t think most know it, but he used his writerly chops to help edit a day-by-day devotional of the writings of John Calvin (now out of print.) He was raised, I gather, in a fairly strictly fundamentalist culture, or at least indie evangelical, and ended up at a Calvinist institution. His writing appears sometimes in the Bruderhof’s Plough journal and he teaches writing at the University of Michigan and also in a nearby prison. Anyway, he’s deeply middle America and writes cleverly, self-assuredly, with candor and wit, and is mostly pretty straight forward. He can be biting but usually he is charming and the book is full of grace.

I say all this to suggest that he is a good read, a reliable thinker, and that Why Christians Should Be Leftists is a rare sort of book. It does not have the fire of old-school evangelicals like Tony Campolo or Ron Sider; it isn’t dense liberation theology or even sophisticated political theory. He knows his stuff, but it’s mostly what I might call a meditation, a straightforward polemic, reflecting on the values of Jesus and how, if we are to be consistent in following the Rabbi, then we should align ourselves with movements that are anti-war and that urge charity and justice for the poor.

Of course he mocks ideological Marxists and in this day and age it needs to be said that one can be left-leaning, even socialist, without being a communist, or even a pinko.  If you care about the Sermon on the Mount, say, and if you have ever been involved in any local organizations of a civic nature, you have to read this book. And if you haven’t, well, you really have to read this book. It was a personal fav for me in 2025.

 

Leftists don’t have to be Christians, and Christians don’t have to be leftists, but there’s a case to be made that the vision of the Sermon on the Mount ought to be honored above all in a politics of equality, where the last can be first not just in God’s eyes, but in the arrangements of this world too. Here that case is made with a wit, vigor, and steadfast attention to grace that are pleasures to witness in themselves. Read the book, and whether or not you find your conscience prompting you to walk into a socialist meeting, you will be challenged to think more deeply and more prayerfully about the proper outworking of your faith. — Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense

The Father You Get And the Ones You Make, Believe In, And Become Patton Dodd (Broadleaf) $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I adored this good book, whipping through it quickly because I wanted to find out what happened next. Patton Dodd is a writer I’ve long admired and a quite good thinker, and an eloquent representative of thoughtful, generous faith. He’s also funny. This memoir is his accounting of his own life through the lens of the men in his life — his own alcoholic father, other guys he admired, step-fathers and pastors and more. And, of course, how all of this influenced his own parenting style when he became a dad himself. I loved those parts.

It was the early 2000s, I think, when I crossed paths with Patton; maybe he was writing for an impressive journal edited by Andy Crouch. He was smart and funny and incisive in his insights about living faithfully in the modern world. But yet, we learned more in a powerful memoir called My Faith So Far: A Story Conversion and Confusion about his early immersion in a Pentecostal-type megachurch and a season at Oral Roberts University. Yet, he knew the messiness of faith and his story colorfully told of his navigation through certain sorts of exuberant religion and the real life angst of a Gen X kid turned religious adult.

This new one, The Father You Get, is a great read for men, for dads, but, to be honest, for anyone wanting a lively account of a man’s thinking about his own life and dad. Good or bad, alive or dead, you have a dad, right? It is amazing to me that remarkable blurbs on the back, some by those who themselves have had some issues with their fathers — Ian Morgan Cron, Jonathan Merritt, Nancy French, Stephen Prothero.  It has been called brave and riveting and stirring and funny and insightful. It certainly was a personal favorite of mine in 2025 and I’m naming it a Best Book… with a manly back slap and big high five.

Here is how he explains what’s he up to:

This book is a memoir that is also about the work of storying yourself. It’s pegged to fatherhood, but it’s not just about men. It’s about coming to terms with the influences that formed you and the influence you have on the people you love.

I write about my dad, a mess of a man who messed up his family. I write about the father figures I pursued, the fatherly God my mom believed in, and the father I’ve been trying to become. I make fun of myself a lot, because storying myself helped me get comfortable with all my downsides.

Yup. This is one you ought to read. You’ll laugh and maybe cry and thank me later.

Rooted: A Spiritual Memoir of Homecoming Christy Berghoef (Reformed Journal Books) $22.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

Geesh, it seemed so long ago, almost a lifetime ago, even though it’s only been 15 years since Christy Berghoef wrote her amazing first memoir, a book called Cracking the Pot which reflected on how this “cracked pot” shifted from strict Calvinist doctrine and Republican politics to become a questioning, authentic, caring voice of a generative faith that was aligned with what then was called the “emergent” movement. Names like the great Phyllis Tickle and Brian McLaren and other well known thinkers graced the back of the book as she narrated her journey out of some pretty weird right wing stuff in DC as her husband started a progressive church plant; it was the sort of book that was more rare then than now, post-evangelical progressives finding their way in the world. But it stands as a great read and more than relevant now.

Now there’s a different name for this movement of evangelical young adults shifting away from their legalism and shame cultures — deconstruction — but in the emergent village of the early aughts, there was a encouraging and mostly positive vibe of reforming faith by rejecting Enlightenment-based postures of certitude and creating space for postmodern styles of worship. She wrote about some of this in her own voice, telling her own story and it was a great memoir. Shortly thereafter her smart husband wrote a book (we have that one, too) called Pub Theology: Beer Conversations and God. And to think, a dozen or more years later, back in Western Michigan, he ran for US Congress.

His running for congress is a critical point in Rooted — would their family even be safe given the militias and hate groups operating in their region? —and but it is her story, not his, and their journey home to a flower farm in Michigan is both charming and gut-wrenching, beautiful and intense, a wondrous bit of prose and, finally, an exceedingly hopeful story. I love the subtitle, about homecoming, don’t you? That they could manage to return to her parents plot of land and family business in a rigorously doctrinaire church culture within a famously red county with their hippie back-to-the land sense of beauty and awe and their capacious faith (he is now a UCC pastor) and pull it off is a sign of grace and God’s miracles. Rooted is about homecoming, yes, but it is also about slower living and inner healing, it is about forging friendships through neighborliness and nurturing a sense of place. It is about girl hood memories and a nearly middle aged mother. It is, yes, a story of a new kind of faith from what they experienced before, but it is not didactic. It is a memoir, a story, a journey.

I adore this book of her journey, a memoir of this stage in her life.  Endorsements for this are compelling and lovely, from Parker Palmer and singer-songwriter Carrier Newcomer and Marilyn McEntyre.

The always hopeful Bill McKibben says:

Those of us lucky enough to have known a place and a community well and deeply will recognize all the joys and complications in this book; for others, it will be an eye-opening and heart-opening account of what’s still possible in this country.

The Place of Tides James Rebanks (Mariner) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

I’ve almost saved the best for last, but that isn’t fully honest as I’m not even finished with this. I’ve known for months that I wanted to read this and that I’d love it and that I’d want to somehow celebrate it as a great book of our time, by a renowned, almost Scottish writer. (He lives in the Lake District of Northwest England near the famous Highlands.) His book The Shepherd’s Life is a stunner, beautiful and powerful and lyrical and wise, about being a sheep farmer. The writer of H is for Hawk called it “bloody marvelous.” We all love James Herriot, of course, and mean no disrespect, but this guy is a world-class author, a legend in the world of literature and letters. And he’s a sheep farmer and ecologist. His writing has been called “transfixing” and “elegiac as a tender hymn to a disappearing way of life.”

Here’s a funny little story. When I was publicly interviewing writer Jeff Chu — himself an “accidental farm hand” — about his book Good Soil, a question came from the audience about what he is reading now. The stakes feel high for me in such situations (especially if the learned writer and expansive reader asks if I know the book. Gulp.) Jeff said he had the new Rebanks in his bag (I think I’m remembering this correctly) and I was thrilled but perplexed as the book had not been released yet. He got it in the UK (or maybe somebody sent it from the UK) and so he had a jump on it. I exclaimed how exciting this was, how eager I was to read it (as a mortal in the US) once we get them. I think it was like a week or two later when The Place of Tides came in. I recalled how glorious Jeff said it was, how he so appreciated the writing (not to mention the author’s sense of place, his ecological vision, his work as a naturalist of sorts, alongside his farming and herding.) Rebanks has a degree from Oxford and used to have a job which — on the first page of the book — took him to the Arctic to an island along the coast of Norway. Norwegians took conservation seriously, his boss told him, and they could learn from them.

“Everything I knew about Norway could have been written on the side of a cinnamon bun,” in one of the most entertaining lines of the year.  Soon enough he leaves the dull office of the tourist board on the island of Vega “asking the questions I was supposed to ask” and got on a fishing boat heading farther out to sea, to an even further flung island, exploring the lives of wild women he had seen in pictures, caring for birds in epic Arctic wildlife. And so his adventure begins. You will be hooked by the first couple of pages.

And maybe, for you, too, this beautiful, enchanting volume, A Place in Tides, will be a book of the year.

A FINAL HONORABLE MENTION TO EXTRAORDINARY, INNOVATIVE SMALL GROUP STUDY GUIDES

The Community Practice: A Four-Session Guide to Cultivating Community in the Way of Jesus John Mark Comer (Waterbrook) $14.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.20

I hope you know the marvelous book from a few years ago called Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. We always keep it on hand. There are free online lectures and conversations about the book at his “Practicing the Way” website and they are really excellent — they are some of the best video stuff I’ve ever seen.

There is a jam-packed, fairly large course book that we sell that goes with the streaming content for Practicing the Way.

John Mark and the talented folks at “Practicing the Way” have now spun off a good handful of other spiritual practices (some from the first course, others new) offering four-week streaming on line (free) programs that are just stellar. You can even access online the free study guides to be used with these fabulous streaming lectures but it’s a lot to copy and a little complicated. We sell the real study guides that the publishers have released — crisp, intersting, multicolored, with enhancing color photos and worksheets and homework assignments and space for journaling. The videos are among the best I’ve seen anywhere and the workbooks are superb. We don’t always think workbooks are needed for classes watching videos but in this case we really recommended them.

The one shown here on “the community practice” course is one of several such four-week books — on sabbath, solitude, generosity, simplicity, prayer, service, Scripture, fasting — but this one is maybe the best (so far.) Comer weaves together Bible text and neuroscience and academic theories about group building and good advice about being intentional about forming small fellowship groups with whom we regularly eat together, share joys and sorrows, confess our sins and struggles, and remain loyal through conflict. Given the pervasive power of American individualism, this four week course is not enough, but it is plenty. It is fantastic and a good, good start to learning the practices of community. Get this little study guide and download the free streaming videos to see if you’d want to share them in your church or group. Highly recommended.

Let Peace Reign: Love, Justice, Dignity in God’s Kingdom Drew Jackson (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $

IVP has alway done very workable, solid, helpful study guides. The LifeGuide Bible Study series remains our biggest sellers (although we are really glad for their New Testament for Everyone study guides created with just a page of content before the questions by N.T. Wright.) There are others.

Lately they’ve done some that are a bit more artfully done, with a more colorful format and a super classy design. They’ve got QR codes for more content (everything from poems and spoken word testimony and lecture.) And the group interaction is more complex, with various levels of involvement and different sorts of sharing (and some prayer practices) making them more interesting than merely answering the inductive questions (the format of the LifeGuide series.)

I do not know if the handful studies that look like this with the super graphics and bold print and creative explorations will be well branded as a series, but there currently arefour and they are called the Made for PAX Bible Study Series as they apply the principles from the Made for PAX ministry about everyday discipleship that includes working for peacemaking, equity and wholeness.

As much as the Bible talks about shalom, as much as we are called to be agents of God’s receptive reconciliation, as direct as Jesus was about peacemaking, there is precious little in the conventional small group format on this essential theme. We are thrilled — thrilled! — to celebrate this series and, in particular, this recent study written mostly by a speaker, poet, and public theologian who loves bringing together the themes of public justice and peacemaking with a poetic sense of contemplative reflection. Drew’s upbeat resource is ideal for groups just beginning a justice-journey but will be appreciated by those wishing to have a small group study on this topic. Whether you are an activist or not, Let Peace Reign is a six week interactive study with QR codes to watch more live videos that you will find truly enriching, challenging, and faithful.

Others in the Made for PAX Bible Study Series include:

Liberated at the Cross: Peace and Reconciliation in God’s Kingdom — A 6-Week Interactive Bible Study with Video Access by Kristel Acevedo (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99 We’ve been waiting for a lifetime for a Bible study guide like this — the strong visuals, the QR links, the interactive poems and such. The strong content of the power of the cross, the liberation Christ’s Kingdom brings, the solid teaching about this wholistic sort of redemptive vision— may goodness. This is excellent and groundbreaking!

We met Kristel, by the way, at Jubilee last year — she is amazing. We have another Bible study resource she did and she (and her work)  is highly recommended

Migration: Experiencing God’s Care for Immigrants – A 6-Week Interactive Bible Study by Alexis Busetti & Dorcas Cheng-Tozun (IVP) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59 This one has brilliant, contemporary art and a few QR codes to bring up stories, poems, and testimony. Wonderfully multi-sensory. There is nothing like it.

Mental Health: Experiencing God’s Care for Our Mind, Body, and Spirit – A 6-Week Interactive Bible Study by Dorcus Cheng-Tozun (IVP) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

What church isn’t talking about this? Which small group doesn’t know somebody struggling? I would bet that may readers of BookNotes have been looking for a small group study on this topic.

This one also has brilliant, contemporary art and a few QR codes to bring up stories, poems, and testimony. It is made with a real contemporary design flourish and the interactive content looks really helpful.

As of January 2026 we are still closed for in-store browsing.

We are doing our curb-side and back-yard customer service and can show any number of items to you if you call us from our back parking lot. We’ve got tables set up out back or can bring things right to your car. It’s sort of fun, actually. We are eager to serve and grateful for your patience. We are very happy to help, so if you are in the area, do stop by. We love to see old friends and new customers. 

This is PART ONE of our epic BEST BOOKS OF 2025 LIST. Part two is coming soon.

Three bits of prelude before our big awards show, naming our favorite books of 2025.

First, thanks to those who have prayed or reached out to us regarding Beth’s breast cancer and chemo treatments. She has had remarkable faith and courage and, frustrating and painful as it is, we’re hanging in there. She continues to work most days and she is truly grateful for the cards and notes (especially those tucked into payments.) We are grateful for your business this past year and glad for your support. We appreciate, now more than ever, orders and prayers, preferably both. Ha.

Secondly, a thank you to those who have shared their appreciation for the informal “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast that we do almost every other week. They are posted, eventually, at the store’s Facebook page, but always at Apple or Spotify podcasts or you can watch us chat at YouTube. My conversation partner — Phil Schiavoni or Sam Levy from the CCO — set me up to talk about three titles (although I do usually manage to sneak a few other title shout-outs and author name-drops — imagine!) A number of folks advised me to do this, so we’ve been doing it for a couple of years without much traction. Maybe this will be the year it takes off. We are grateful for those who appreciate my yapping.

Thirdly, setting up books at off site events has always been part of our vocation and we’re glad to meet people out and about. From a local Presbytery event to a Bonhoeffer event at Gettysburg Theological Seminary to Water Street Mission’s day with Curt Thompson to the inspiring Poiema arts conference here in York to a weekend with Brian McLaren in State College, amongst others, we had a blast lugging boxes and selling books, so we thank those who invite us places.  What a joy to serve God’s people here and there.

A stand-out event this year was the delight we had in being the first bone fide bookstore to show off the then brand new A Beautiful Year by our long-time pal Diana Butler Bass. Diana spoke (accompanied by her very cool and book-loving husband, Rick) at Highland Presbyterian Church in Lancaster and you can hear her presentation about the book HERE. (Watch for my enthusiastic announcement in the beginning, too. Huzzah.)

We’ve again hosted a few online webinars this year, too, and we have two more scheduled soon — stay tuned for information about an online evening with Dorothy Little Greco on her book For the Love of Women (January 27th) and, then, the following week, a live webinar conversation with one of my besties, Steve Garber, discussing his brand new Hints of Hope on February 3rd.

But I’m getting ahead of myself as I wanted to thank those who joined us virtually this fall for a splendid evening with Jeff Crosby talking about his fabulous Paraclete book World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading (you can still watch it here) and another online gathering with the altogether lovely and eloquent Kathleen Norris; we talked about her recent book Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disabilities, Faith, and Love. It is no surprise that I recall it as one of the great privileges of our career, chatting with Kathleen about her sister, Becky.

And speaking of (daunting) conversations with authors (gracious as they always are) we were honored to host Jeff Chu, talking about his splendid, multi-faceted, beautifully written memoir Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand; thanks to local folks who came out to FPC to spend an evening with Jeff with plenty of locally sourced Chinese snacks. Here’s my BookNotes column before the event.

Perhaps the most rewarding event was a quiet pair of talks which were, in my view, among the highlights of the year. The dearest life-long friends of Beth and I include Gail Heffner who, with her colleague at Calvin University, Dave Warners, wrote a university press book last year about their decade-long struggle to build a coalition with college students and many others to help clean up a very polluted stream that flows through Grand Rapids, Michigan. Called Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed: Restoring Ken-O-Sha and vibrantly documenting their work (both the details of watershed clean up and restoration and the formation of and teaching about what they’ve called reconciliation ecology), we brought them here during Earth Day weekend to partner with two watershed groups in Central PA. It’s a busy weekend for those working in creation care so turn-out wasn’t huge, but the conversations with Gail and Dave, first at a Mennonite church near a famous creek in Lancaster and then the next morning at a cafe near the Codorus Creek in downtown York, were rich and important. You can read my BookNotes column before those events HERE. It’s pretty interesting if I do say so myself.

I could go on, thanking folks as different as the congregation at Duke Chapel who had me zooming in to their adult forum more than once this year to Market Square Presbyterian Church that hosted me doing a four week class on reading as a spiritual discipline and Kingdom adventure. And all of those who have helped us lug in and tear down at big CCO events. You know who you are.

All of these events mean a whole lot to us and when you order books from us (we hope you know) you are somehow joining in this story of a small-town bookstore trying to offer enthusiasm and some degree of wisdom about reading widely in these distressing times. Your support matters, believe me — we need every order we can get!

God’s world and Word are durable, despite the brokenness all around, and we seek — as Garber puts it — hints of hope. At least that, often through good stories and poems and memoirs and history and theology texts and mores about public affairs. Christ is Risen and even in the hardest times of vile political leadership and terrible public policy and war and hunger and pollution and all the rest, we know God is with us. And books help us live into that big story of redemption, joining God’s work in the world, learning from (and even enjoying) the fruits of authors who have shared ideas and dreams and visions (in fiction and nonfiction) with us. What a privilege to serve you as we read widely for the sake of God’s Kingdom coming, “on Earth as it is in heaven.” Thank you for your love of books and your support of our work at Hearts & Minds.

Okay, from webinars and podcasts to big conferences and author events, you know the main day-to-day work is (for you and me both) finding time to read real books, to open pages, to underline and ponder, to enjoy and share, to cherish the printed page. It’s pretty quotidian (a word I first learned from Kathleen Norris.) I hope our weekly reviews help you sort through the clutter and advise you a bit about what to read next.

You know I don’t like top ten lists (even though I did a great countdown with two other brilliant readers and podcasters, which you should listen to HERE. Joshua Johnson’s Shifting Culture work is amazing and you should support his media feeds. ) I don’t like ranking books or saying these are “best.” Some are significant, some are beautiful, some are great, each in their own way. And there’s little account for taste and preference — we’ve sure learned that in our nearly 45 years of bookselling.

So, with that backpedaling and qualification, I’ll share if not the best books, certainly my favorites (to read myself or to proclaim to others.) It’s my quirky bookseller’s list, my picks for something like the Best of 2025. It was a very good year.

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FIRST: MY OWN PERSONAL MOST FAVORITE TOP 16 BOOKS OF 2025

World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading Jeff Crosby (Paraclete Press) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Of course I have to lead off with this, the most charming and inspiring book about reading I have ever read. Jeff’s clarity and graciousness and eagerness to share why people of faith should read widely is a gift, an antidote to the anxiety we feel when we recall the downward shifts in reading, cultural literacy, education. With brief contributions by several others and fabulous book lists after each chapter, this book is not only a delight but a very, very helpful resource to have and to share.

I want to be an enthusiastic cheerleader for World of Wonders and hope you might consider sharing it with someone you know. Let’s spread the word! See one of my reviews HERE.

The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s Paul Elie (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) $33.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.40

I suppose this is tentative choice for my favorite book of the year, learned and detailed, almost 500 pages of excellent writing exploring the lives and faith (such as it was) of writers, poets, rock stars, painters, social activists, and artists of various sorts. From Vaclav Havel and Salmon Rushdie to U2 and Dylan and Pattie Smith (and so many more) to Andy Warhol and Martin Scorsese to C. Everett Koop and Act Up, he weaves extraordinary plot lines and connects dots of what he calls “crypto-religiosity.” I could go on and on; the Vanity Fair review says it like this: “Elie’s synthesis of the era is virtuosic and revelatory. And his mini-narratives are set pieces, laid out with such intricate detail that the book, at times, feels as finely chiseled as a work carved from Carrara marble.”

Phil Christman (whose own 2025 book will appear in our next list of honorable mentions)) said in the Chronicle of Higher Education that “Elie rarely encounters an artist about whom he cannot find something intelligent to say . . . The Last Supper is an altogether admirable piece of crypto-religious culture in its own right . . . I finished the book with a renewed appreciation for the way belief itself is a complicated thing.”

Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People Imani Perry (Ecco Press) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

Imani Perry is one of the great public intellectuals of our day (think of her award winning South to America which I raved about a few years ago) and I’m grateful that she writes so very well and is so able to switch from paragraphs of great historical detail and philosophical depth to beautiful anecdotes and heart-breaking reports and delightful phrases exploring the glories of the ordinary. This deep study of African American culture (and, also, African cultures) and the fascination with the color blue is almost audacious in making an oddball case that a color matters to a people group, and breathtaking in the ample evidence she offers.

Black in Blues has been called everything from exquiste to searing to extraordinary to fascinating to brilliant and is doubtlessly one of the best books of the year. There are glorious passages I read out loud to my wife and bitter studies of ugly slave ships and other degradations; there are lovely reflections on plants and flowers and there are memoir-like ruminations on her own travels, ancestors (and color choices.) There is an extraordinary familiarity with so much — again, Perry is a world-class scholar, teaching at Princeton University —and while some pages of Black in Blues are almost arcane and dense, there are captivating stories of bluesmen and pop songs. There are wise and enchanting comments about stuff you may know about and I assure you there will be eye-opening things you will learn. I loved this book and as painful as some portions are, I very highly recommend it.

“Black in Blues is a stunningly original journey in search of the historical origins of the very soul of African American life and culture. Along the way, Perry shows, with telling detail and in engaging prose, how ‘The Blues’ became Black, and how Black people became ‘Blues People.'” – Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand Jeff Chu (Convergent Books) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

How can I not name this, an unforgettable book by my friend Jeff Chu. As noted above, we hosted Jeff here in York this past summer when the book was new, and his relational styled friendly presence was a blessing, even as he did not shy away from speaking hard truths many of need to ponder. As I’ve explained, it is a book about his sense of a call to seminary which ended up focusing on the innovative “Farminary” program at Princeton Seminary. He comes from a family of legendary Chinese cooks (and pastors) but he knew little about agriculture, so this memoir is fun and a real page-turner, even as it explores hard stuff — struggles in seminary to integrate faith and learning, the role of food and cooking in his Chinese-American family culture, stuff about being gay and stuff about racism and stuff about complicated relationships within family systems.

I agree with the many rave reviews who have insisted that this is a glorious book that invites readers in, makes readers feel cared for, reminds us of important truths about love, about grace, about God and goodness. He’s an excellent writer and Good Soil is certainly one of my favorite books in recent years. Enjoy!

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America Beth Macy (Penguin Press) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

I hope you saw my long review of this a few weeks before Christmas as I explain why I so appreciate the solid investigative writing of thereat Beth Macy, and why this book — about her returning to a struggling rust-belt town in Ohio where she grew up — resonated so, and is so very important for all of us. Want to understand, again, the white rage that leads lower income folks struggling with disenfranchisement and addictions and all manner of rural poverty stuff to adopt the MAGA ideology? What a better story of mid-American small town life than, say, Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy? Want to know what happens when a writer known for her concern for ordinary folks — think of her great book about the struggles of the North Carolina furniture industry, Factory Man, or her two books on the opioid crisis, Dopesick and Raising Lazarus — goes home to her own hard girlhood and wonders what would happen if she were a student in that embattled school nowadays? Read Paper Girl for a great, page-turning story of this woman and her old home-town (and the high school reunion committee torn asunder by racism and MAGA stuff) and read Paper Girl for a civic lesson on the ground of middle America and its struggles these days. Unforgettable.

Rags of Light: Leonard Cohen and the Landscape of Biblical Imagination Brian J. Walsh (Cascade Books) $23.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40

I think I said in one of my BookNotes reviews that I’m not that big of a Leonard Cohen fan and,  yet, I adored this incredible book exploring his lyrics (folk and rock music and his published poetry and spoken word work) and comparing and contrasting them with Biblical texts. Walsh, is admittedly, a friend and hero, and I’d read anything he wrote — you should too, perhaps starting with a brand new one coming this week called On Prophets, Priests, and Poets: Christian Formation at the Gates of Hell. But even taking into consideration that I tend to enjoy books written by friends, and I’m a sucker for thinking about faith and popular culture, and I like the idea of relate song lyrics (wisely and fruitfully) to Biblical passages, even though I’m disposed to like this, I wonder if others will like it as much as I did. And I am almost sure of it.

If you want to get into the Scriptures, being activated by a Biblical imagination, and see how the Bible can be opened up well, putting God’s Word into conversation with the 20th century Jewish poet (Cohen died in 2016), Rags of Light is a great guide. Too many handle the Bible poorly (and people quote song lyrics cavalierly, I think.) Walsh does neither; he gets Cohen’s body of work and takes his words seriously, and he’s got a solid and generative hermeneutic of standing within the Biblical text (inspired by the likes of Richard Middleton, who wrote the foreword, and Walter Brueggemann, say.) I’m telling you, there is nothing cheesy or simplistic (let alone a fanboy paean) here, but just a fabulous, fun, inspiring, reflection of the laments of this pop star and a healthy does of Old and New Testament faith.

You should get it, even if you’re not a Cohen fan. And if you are, what are you waiting for? One of my favorite books of 2025.

Makers By Nature: Letters from a Master Painter on Faith, Hope, and Art Bruce Herman (IVP Academic) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

I have previously tried to wax eloquent in BookNotes about this exquisite book and am glad to name it now as one of my absolute favorites of the year. Although more can be said, I’ll just say three things about why it is on my short list of best books of the year and why you should consider ordering it.

Firstly it is a beautifully made (paperback) book, one of the best I’ve seen in recent years, with good touches of color and artful design. If you care about books you will love having this. Secondly, although Makers By Nature is written by a renowned visual artist inviting us to think about our creative selves and our role as makers, it does cover so much, with Bruce sharing his years of true, faithful wisdom about calling and prayer and pain and relationships and hope and work and yes, hope. So even if you are not a painter, you will enjoy and benefit from this treasure chest of good writing. Thirdly, it is written as a set of letters to various people; it is a device, I gather (although some of the people are real.) This makes it a personal and tender and dare I say exciting read.  Highly recommended.

The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy Matthew Taylor (Broadleaf Books) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $ 26.39

Sadly, I have felt compelled to read a good handful of books these past few years about the extremist right that is so damaging our country, the neo-Nazis and MAGA conspiracy nuts, the lying President and those who have locked arms with him, sexual predator that the has been. Specifically, there have been many books exploring how people of so-called Christian faith have fallen for this far-out, pagan stuff, usually under the rubric of Christian Nationalism. You, I hope, have read at least one of the many critiques of this undisciplined frame of mind, from solid Christian thinkers like Tim Alberta or Amanda Tyler or Dave Gushee or Caleb Campbell or Paul D. Miller. Most of them are jam-packed with revelations and loaded with facts.

Among these many good books, though, there is a missing piece.  There is a major part of the far right anti-democratic movement that has rallied behind Trump and helped with the January 6th attack on the Capitol that few writers have explored and that is what is called the “New Apostolic Reformation” of neo-Pentecostals driven by what they call the “Seven Mountains Mandate.” This plan — to exercise Godly influence over key spheres of society and culture — does not sound bad (at first, to me anyway) until you realize they (a) really view this as a project of conquest and theonomy and that (b) they are pretty spiritually eccentric and at times even heretical about their views of prophecies, dreams, super-natural visions, and alleged direction from the Holy Spirit. The NAR has been theologically exposed as dangerous for years, but now that they are using their networks to (as one put it) “co-opt the way of Jesus for political domination” it is essential we know about them. The Violent Take It By Force (a Bible verse that Taylor reports was all over twitter the day of the Capitol riot, affirming the rampage) is an amazing book that fills the needed gap with incredible detail.

Taylor is a good journalist (with charismatic experience himself) and he goes into riveting detail about each of the major players in this politicized NAR movement. He looks at Paula White,  Lance Wallnau, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, Peter Wagner, Ché Ahn, song-leader Sean Feucht, and others who have literally millions of followers all over the world. The “charismaticization of the far right” is one of the most significant and unexplored topics of our age, and this book nails it. I couldn’t put it down and I am sure I will remember it as long as I live.

Art Is: A Journey Into the Light Makoto Fujimura (Yale University Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I do not have to say much about this splendid, rich book. We were very glad to get many pre-orders from our previous announcement in BookNotes. Mako is an admired painter, a great voice for a creative and generative view of faith and culture, and a friend of Hearts & Minds. We have sold quite a few of his several books over the years — his first, Refractions, was re-issued in an anniversary hardcover edition in 2024 — and his excellent Yale University Press, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making (with a good forward by N.T Wright), that came out in 2021 came out in paperback this year. Art Is is his follow up and is one of his most handsome and perhaps best books he has yet done. He is inviting us to ponder how art might (to put it prosaically, as he never does) inspire us. It is, as Christopher Rothko put it on the back cover, that “Art is awareness, a journey of looking and listening that encompasses the worlds around and within.”  As art is a door to the imagination and faith, this is a stellar reflection on how and why that is.

So many have raved about this; listen to Joyce Yu-Jean Lee of the famous NY Pratt Institute, who says,

Through an intimate studio tour, Art Is invites creative souls into Mako’s painting process — fusing the alchemy of light with his theology of making. This luminous, heartfelt reverie fosters an embodied connection with God, humanity and nature–an inspiring read.

Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land Ross Halperin (Liveright Publishing) $31.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.59

It took me a while to explain the details of this detailed, journalistic report of a multi-faceted Christian public justice ministry in Honduras; it is a big book and my long BookNotes review didn’t even do it justice. I wish my efforts there to promote it were somehow circulated more widely as people the world over should know if this amazing effort. A couple from Calvin College (now University) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, started this heroic effort to fight corruptions, gang violence, drugs, violent cops, political complicity, election fraud, and more, and this reported risked years of his life following them and their local allies there to tell this riveted story of faith and justice and peacemaking and hope.

It is sticky and messy and complicated. They don’t always get it right and they don’t always succeed. They consult with the likes of IJM’s Gary Haugen and hammer out ideas, week by week, month by month, year by year. (Kurt Ver Beek’s fruitful thinking, based on years of experience in the barrio, can be seen in a book he co-wrote with his Board member Nicholas Wolterstorff, an impressive Christian political philosopher. That 2019 book is fabulous and is entitled Called for Justice: From Practice to Theory and Back. Of course we reviewed it at BookNotes and have it still.)

If you read one book about what wholistic Kingdom efforts might look like in an unjust land, Bear Witness should be it. This gripping story is hard to beat. Kudos to a secular publisher doing this story about evangelical Christians, and kudos to Kurt Ver Beek and his team for following God’s call to make a difference in their lifetime.

The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien John Hendrix (Abrams Fanfare) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

If you have been paying attention at all, you surely know of this beautiful graphic novel-type, illustrated volume. I’ve touted it time and again, on podcasts and at BookNotes, taking it to nearly every book display we’ve done, anywhere, this year. It really is a treasure to see and a joy to watch people browse through it. I’m not going to lie — it’s nice when they order a few, as folks often do once they see it.

Hendrix is a very talented graphic designer, perhaps most known for his well-executed and powerful paperback The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler (which has been a bestseller since it came out in 2018.) Pitched as a cartoon book for kids, Mythmakers is ideal for thoughtful middle school or older teens, but, to be honest, I suspect we’ve sold as many to adults. It is, to put it simply, about the creative process of Lewis & Tolkien’s as they collaborated to make stories. Their epic mythmaking, Hendrix seems to suggest with the sidebars and cartoon speech bubbles, is not merely for fun or even merely the art of doing fiction. Behind their friendship and artfulness and writing and mythmaking is a scheme, a vision to push back against the sterile reductionism of secularized modernity.

Yep, offering myths like Narnia or the Ransom trilogy or the legendary stories of Middle Earth and the Lord of the Rings series is, this colorful, fun books illustrates, is a way to fight the erosion of goodness and beauty and truth and virtue and God that is lost in the modernist worldview. They saw this in the dark days of the mid-twentieth century and their faith (one famously Protestant, the other Catholic) allowed profound fellowship and a last aesthetic of storytelling that truly has changed the lives of countless readers. This fun book explores how it all worked.  Hooray. How many might you get?

Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death of the Family Dairy Farm Ryan Dennis (Island Press) $30.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.79

I wrote about this at length in a BookNotes column before Christmas and I can’t stop thinking about this well told, down-to-Earth, poignant memoir about a colorful family of dairy farmers in Western New York. I know that some Hearts & Minds friends know the farming world; we even have generations of dairy farmers in one side of our family. This book tells the drama and danger and daily joys of running a dairy farm with keen insight and fabulously interesting ruminations.

Barn Gothic really does help readers be reminded of the hardship of farming in this modern sort of capitalist culture; yes, it rails against the infamous “go big or go home” push from the awful Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (under Nixon) and the vast (!) repercussions  of industrial farming. (And know this, Trump’s Sonny Perdue is just as terrible, pushing farm consolidation and profiteering from the seed and petrochemical businesses.) However tragic all this is, making the work harder and less fulfilling, Barn Gothic is no Wendell Berry-inspired screed or public policy manifesto (although there is a short appendix that is the best history of all this I’ve seen.) No, this is a memoir, a family tale, a story about family and community and work and play and rural life and — perhaps most poignantly — a story about fathers and sons.

The third main man in this generational story, the author Ryan Dennis, grew up wanting to work the farm and  excelled at his good work with the planting and the herds, the milking and the repairs, the harvesting hay and meeting with the co-ops, etc. etc. Alas, he soured on it a bit, and, simultaneously, developed a passion for writing. He goes off to college, eventually get an MFA and a PhD (in Galway, Ireland.) He returns home when he can, but he will not take over his father and mother’s farm. He has become a writer. And what a book he has given us, a tender gift, sad and true and, oddly, a joy to read. Highly recommended.

American Bulk: Essays on Excess Emily Mester (W.W. Norton) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Most years I am enamored with fresh writers who can turn a phrase, and we have been early fans of writers who eventually became household names (at least in some circles.) We met Barbara Brown Taylor when she only had a few collections of sermons in print and to this day I quote from The Preaching Life. We loved the writing of Kate Bowler before her first book came out; Anne Lamott, Nadia Bolz-Webber, and Sara Miles are wordsmiths whose prose often blows us away.

Although not writing with a theological orientation and offering little of direct spirituality, American Bulk is so thoughtfully done, deeply considered, and gorgeously, energetically written, that I almost think of Ms Mester in a league of our other favorite writers. She has been called “sly”, “humane” and “dryly witty.” She is a bit punchy, has a great, easy-to-follow storytelling style, loves Costco, but brings a cultural and even philosophical heft to a few of her curiously captivating stories. This book is much more memoir than critical essays, but the genre of storytelling does yield to some analysis of the American tendency to hoard. Yep, this is a poignant, passionate, funny, and at times profound study of materialism and compulsive shopping. And did I mention hoarding?

What happens when consumption starts to consume you back?

Inquisitive and deeply observed….In a late-stage capitalism heaving with choice, Mester assumes the role of a millennial Virgil with both style and grace. Mester forges a compassionate route through brand-name overabundance to better understand the impulse to consume. — Shelf-Awareness

American Bulk is composed of some of my favorite nonfiction essays on family, capital, love and dysfunction that I’ve ever read. It’s a refreshing and needed reframing of what all these things mean, today, right now, as the neon haze of fast-food signs flicker from their long-time dominion of the American experience. Mester examines our compulsion to consume with careful incisions that I kept highlighting and coming back to, just to whisper the words to myself to make their clear-eyed cleverness my own. — Arabelle Sicardi, beauty writer and author of the The House of Beauty: Lessons from the Image Industry

A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance Diana Butler Bass (St. Martin’s Essentials) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

You know this one, perhaps our biggest seller of 2025, even though it only came out in November. We’ve posted a bit about it and highlighted it in podcasts. Thanks to Diana and Rick — big name authors with a hugely popular Substack — for suggesting that folks order from us. We picked up some new customers and friends though that and got to send out a boatload of this lovely and thoughtful weekly devotional on the church calendar.

In my introductory comments above I suggested that you check out a video (from Highland Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, PA) and watch Diana discuss why she wrote this book and the subversive public theology that can emerge from simply paying attention to a truly Christian view of time. As you would expect, she puts it wonderfully. We can think more creatively and faithfully about our way in the world when our imaginations are shaped by a different calendar, and this set of Biblical readings following the liturgical may be the best book of it’s kind.

Diana is not the first to do this sort of year-long collection readings around the church year, but A Beautiful Year is a watershed book, very highly recommended.

The Uncool: A Memoir Cameron Crowe (Avid Reader Press) $35.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

I wondered if I should list this thinking it was a guilty pleasure, and when I was a guest on Joshua Johnson’s amazing “Shifting Culture” podcastI was a little chagrined and excited to hear that he listed this among his favorites of the year. Well, me too, brother, right on. It is, if you haven’t heard, the life story of the famously young (he was in high school) writer for Rolling Stone in the early and mid 1970s. The film Almost Famous was made about him, and Cameron Crowe — who had scored rare interviews with everybody from Dylan to Greg Allman to Zeppelin to Bowie to Joni — went on to make several important films. To say he was a wunderkind is putting it mildly.

Cameron was a lovable kid, a true lover of rock and roll, an ardent fan of the sort who had so many albums that said so much about his identity. (I relate, friends, I relate.) He was a very good writer in his day, and would tour for weeks on end (yes, skipping school) with Yes or The Eagles or Kris Kristofferson to get a good interview. I loved the stories about the magazine, about the politics and culture of the 70s, but, mostly, about the music and the stars. What a story.

Of course, as a good memoir, there is much more going on. He had a sister (who loved the Beach Boys and other lovely songs) who took her own life. His mom was a wild one, eccentric and unique (and wanted him to go to law school.) As he ages and goes into film, the story stretches out and I didn’t want it to end. It was a tender, good story, despite the occasional scenes of drugs and such which were surprisingly less influential than I even expected.

The book starts with a memory of the first time he heard Dylan (with his mom!) and then, in real time, was writing the liner notes for the first major boxed set of Dylan albums (Biography.) Oh my, I thought, this is going to be a heckuva read, at least for boomers like me. Hooray.

Roots and Rhythm: A Life in Music Charlie Peacock (Eerdmans) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

If I ended the year with a fun music memoir (the above-mentioned Uncool by young Rolling Stone reporter Cameron Crowe)  I almost started it with an advanced copy of a book that released in February 2025, the incredible Roots and Rhythm by CCM artist, producer, thought-leader, and cultural creative, Charlie Peacock. I did a long review of this marvelous book last winter but I name it now as surely one of the great reads of the year. I enjoyed it, I learned much, I admired Charlie even more than I did, and I marveled at how God has worked in this artist’s life. What a read!

Charlie, as you may know, was both a punky sort of alt rocker as a young kid, new to Christian faith, who put out several really good albums in an era of CCM (contemporary Christian music) when much was stupid, derivative, sloppy, or cheesy. Yet there were true stars, serious artists, people wanting to be “in the world but not of it” in their rock and roll worldview. Charlie was a leader in those years, playing with bands and helping many. He became a producer and worked with — as he says on page after page after page of this fascinating autobiography —names that are recognizable as stars in the CCM world (Amy Grant, say, or Switchfoot) and whose names you would know from AM or FM radio. Yep, he has worked with rockers and jazzmen, with soul singers, and has met everybody from Al Green to Jackson Browne to Bono to Grammy winners The Civil Wars. He’s not only met them, he’s produced some of their recordings!

It isn’t every Christian book published by Eerdmans that ends up getting reviewed in Variety magazine (which called it “absorbing and exquisitely written”) along with an incredibly interesting interview. So this is a book that tells of his own journey to faith, his thoughtful sort of discipleship as a creative (he is friends with Steve Garber, for instance, who has an nice blurb on the book) and how he has promoted this thoughtful vision, with his wife Andi, by forming these Art House places in a few key cities, spaces for good conversations about faith and life and justice and art.

Roots and Rhythm: A Life in Music is a good retrospective of a colorful life of a real do-er, a guy who left his mark (and is still doing so, despite chronic headaches — pray for him, please.) He names gear and tech stuff from the recording studios, he names record label execs and talks about deals and offers and plans and betrayals. It is fascinating for those of us who follow pop culture, and more for those who want to hold up examples of people who have lived with integrity in a particular profession. He’s a good thinker, a fine writer, and an admirable person. Praise be to God.

8 UNFORGETTABLE BOOKS I READ THIS YEAR THAT WERE PUBLISHED PREVIOUSLY

In some cases they came out in paperback in 2025, so it counts…

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted Suleika Jaouad (Random House) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

We had this book with its great hardback cover for a year and I told folks I started it, but I never really read it seriously until this year, now that it is out in paperback. Friends, this story of a woman who gets a rare and debilitating sort of Leukemia as a college student and her love-life and family struggles as she goes through treatment is — I am not exaggerating — one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read. I adored it, even if her life and worldview is very different than my own. This is what a book can do, give you a glimpse, an entertaining glimpse, even, of some of the most horrible stuff faced by some of us. That my wife had just been diagnosed with her breast cancer as I had started this one seemed like a weird coincidence and I am glad Beth’s prognosis and treatment was nothing like Jaouad’s. But still, this book meant a whole lot to me this year.

The last third of the book (a tiny bit of spoiler) is about a road trip she takes, meeting people who had written to her (when she became known as an online cancer celebrity of sorts, due to a New York Times column she did about being a young adult with serious chronic illness.) This road trip is a blast and incredibly poignant making for a very satisfying read. Not overtly religious or theological, of course, but I still recommend this to our Hearts & Minds friends.

(Have you seen American Symphony, the documentary made by her husband, Jon Batiste? Yep, that’s her, and their falling in love is part of the second half of Between Two Kingdoms.)

Paul: A Biography N. T. Wright (HarperOne) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

We announced this when it first released with enthusiasm knowing what we knew about Wright and his work on Paul — I’ve read some of his academic stuff — and was so happy for it, but never got around to reading it in earnest. It got rave, rave reviews, called majestical and erudite and compelling, etc.

It is one of the only ones of his more popular level titles that I had not read but it wasn’t until I was doing an adult ed class in my church this Fall that I realized I needed this big picture of the life of Paul. I had a dozen books spread out before me, and this one captivated me more than all the others. I read from it out loud in many of the weekly classes, and I couldn’t put it down. Maybe you are like me and go in study phases — the prophets for a season, maybe the Gospels on you do a deep dive into the Psalms or whatever — and this opened up so much of the New Testament letters that it has become one of the vital books in my list of must-reads.  I made me care about Paul even more and understand his essential Kingdom work in those years. I made me admire Tom that much more, again, too. What a book.

Read it along with The  Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is, perhaps, or The Day the Revolution Began, but Paul: A Biography is the best book on Paul and an introduction to his life and message and work that I have read.

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World Barry Lopez (Random House) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Barry Lopez is an excellent wordsmith, a great travel writer, a passionate naturalist, a vivid reporter who embeds with researchers studying, oh, say, wolves in the Arctic or the temperatures in Antarctica. He has traveled in rural Africa, the jungles of Asia, the deserts of the great American Southwest. He is observant, thoughtful, eloquent, at times nearly spiritual. I have long adored his writing and his gracious bravery— I think it was, to be honest, Eugene Peterson who first turned us on to him. Peterson had ordered a bunch of Lopez books from us, and said something about how he admired him as a person and as a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. I was fascinated

I hadn’t read much Barry Lopez since that first little bit decades ago, so when this posthumously published collection of pieces came out — some from travel magazines, some from more scholarly journals, some from outfits like National Geographic or maybe Orion, I knew I wanted to pick this up. I thought it was going to be essays about climate change and such, and it sort of is, as the “burning world” is the backdrop for his courageous research and writing. But if there is any theme to this collection it is the “embrace fearlessly” and the humility to do so. There are standout pieces about Alaska, and an incredible story or two about Antarctica — so interesting!

Lopez did not take the task of writing lightly. . . . Sentences shimmer and punch. . . . In one of the 27 essays that are collected here, he tries to pin down the point of it all: ‘The central project of my adult life as a writer,’ he says, ‘is to know and love what we have been given, and to urge others to do the same.’  He loved this world, and did his best, and pointed us the way. — The New York Times

Mesmerizing . . . The book reviewer runs out of superlatives, quailing before the work of the nature writer, essayist and fiction writer Barry Lopez (1945-2020), whose insight and moral clarity have earned comparisons to Henry David Thoreau. . . . To read Barry Lopez is to put yourself in the hands of a master observer who is enthralled by the strange beauty of our fragile planet, and who will be the first to tell you how little he actually knows. — The Wall Street Journal

How to End Christian Nationalism Amanda Tyler (Broadleaf) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

This was, by all accounts, one of the classic recent works on the dangers — religiously to our Christian message about the gospel and politically to our fragile institutions that uphold our Republic —of so-called white Christian Nationalism.  It came out in 2024. Tyler is a hero for many, a Baptist from Texas who has studied theology and has a law degree and has often advocated for a robust (Christian) understanding of pluralism and the health of the public square. Like many Baptists she is passionate about the separation of church and state and has now become one of the leaders of a movement offering a solidly Christian appraisal and alternative to this hybrid / syncretistic idolatrous worldview of religious nationalism.

Yet, although I knew she was wise and prudent and thoughtful and solid, I hadn’t read the book. Until we were asked to bring a batch (and other such titles) to a lecture she was giving at a Bonhoeffer conference at the United Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg. I figured I should bone up on the book before I met her and am I ever glad I did. It was spectacular, clear, thoughtful, wise, balanced, all that I had hoped. And she was an excellent presenter, sharp and Biblical and passionate and strategic.

Tyler bought some books from us and we enjoyed meeting her. Importantly, I became a fan of her book and want to name it here as one of the most important resources we’ve discovered this year. I hope you know it. We have plenty, ready to send them out. Colossians 2:8 notwithstanding, I think your going to need them…

In God’s Good Image: How Jesus Dignifies, Shapes, and Confronts Our Cultural Identities J.W. Buck (Herald Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE= $15.99

Again, it is sometimes hard to keep up with the releases of so many good books and, like you, we have an endless stack of what online folks call their TBRs (to-be-read.) This was on my stack when it came out last year and I just didn’t get to it until 2025. It is a good read, not exactly an anti-racist title, but a deeper dive into the broader question of ethnicity and identity and what it means that we are made in God’s image. A gospel-orientation can help (as the subtitle puts it) dignify and shape our cultural identity. Oh yes, and confront them if they are distorted or become idolatrous.

In God’s Good Image by an author whose other book we read a a year or two ago, Everyday Activism: Following 7 Practices of Jesus to Create a Just World and loved how he wove together deep piety and faith with habits of activism. With a big view of redemption and how spirituality can infuse action for justice, deeply evangelical but a true activist, Buck was a rather rare bird, or so it seemed, common-spirit. His degree was from the evangelical school Biola, which itself is fascinating.

This book about cultural identity must have emerged from his academic work and his dissertation advisor has a great forward. Buck himself tells about his own experience as a white guy in this diverse class of folks from all over the world. Being of a majority race or ethnicity is a very different experience than it is for those who are minorities, and this book will help us understand and respect that. For those doing multi-ethnic ministry or racial reconciliation work, this will be a real asset. If you are new to this, I’d very highly recommend it.

Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See Bianca Bosker (Penguin Books) $19.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

I hope you recall the big review I did of this at BookNotes earlier in the year. There’s a few things that might offend some delicate readers, but, mostly, it is an immersion in the world of high art — museums, studios, galleries — mostly in sophisticated postmodern New York City. The author did a similar book on the often arcane and colorful world of high-end wine culture and this, too, is her grappling with a skepticism about the whole scene.

Bosker starts the book admitting that as an educated and cultured person she knew enough not to say out loud (when looking at an abstract art piece) that “my four year old could have done that” but, yep, she thought it. She wondered, really, if that is art. What is art. Who knows? Who decides? And why do some seemingly simplistic splashes of color sell for a thousand dollars while maybe another might go for a million or more? And yet another is mocked. Who’s to say?

The colorful and brave Bosker (also a wife and mother) soon learns that the serious art scene is skeptical of outsiders and with access hard to come by. Many are wary of critics and there are spies and operatives and such, who can make or break openings or showings. There is money and there are drugs, although sometimes little of either and sexism and bias. There is, though, always art, and colorful connoisseurs, aficionados, critics, reviewers, writers, buyers sellers, and artists and the occasional celebrity. She spends a year or more hanging with them all and what she learns is amazing. She is an interesting, revealing, witty writer and you’ll be pulling for her as you learn a lot about a world you most likely don’t know at all. Wow. What a blast. Hold on.

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma Claire Dederer (Vintage) $17.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

I am glad I read this late this year and was still finishing it last week (granted, in 2026) when the sad, sad news broke about Phillip Yancey’s affair, which brought this book into relief in a big way for me. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to name it as one of my favorite reads this year but it certainly is one of the important ones. I have a friend or two who won’t stop talking about it and I think it is a very significant bit of thinking and a very impressive bit of writing.

Monsters is a long meditation about what we do about art that we love when we learn that the artist was a bad person, who has done terrible things. From Woody Allen to Miles Davis to Picasso, from David Bowie to Michael Jackson, to Richard Wagner, to dozens more, she asks what to make of their important art (art that you may love, that you may even find life-saving) knowing what you know about their abuse or racism. She calls them Monsters and she talks about what she calls “the stain.”

I get it. In our own world we’ve had to ask, do we return the good books of serial rapist Ravi Zacharias? Yes. Do we continue to put money in the pockets of known abusers? Insofar as we can help it, no. We never liked Mark Driscoll and his macho, manic ugliness, anyway, so, obviously not. But what about the fine early books of Eric Metaxas who has gone off the deep end with election conspiracies and a weird adoration from Trump that is nearly devoid of reason, let alone Biblical fidelity? What about writers who are addicts, say?  What about Philip Yancey?

Ends up that Dederer doesn’t have easy answers, either. It is complicated, and this is, partially at least, a study about the nature of fans, for fans. She talkes about different sorts of failures of humans, and different sorts of loyalty fans have; and, more than ever, our knowledge of the biographies of the artists color our perception of their work. She has a long chapter about women writers who leave their children (as she has done at times) and in another dazzling piece, she ends up realizing she had to stop drinking, as she was betraying her family and herself through her daily boozing. She calls herself a Monster, suggesting that we all are, after all. She doesn’t seem to know anything about Christian theology but this is a study, finally, of sin and grace. As she eloquently pokes around the themes of the brokenness of humans and of the need for some kind of mercy for us all, she almost sounds, well, you know; Christian.

Dederer is a very intellectual writer and literary critic with long pages of dense prose (naming critics I never heard of and authors I hardly knew) suggesting to me that she is in a fairly insular world of highbrow literature of a certain era, assuming her readers know what in the hell she’s talking about. I skipped a bit, annoyed. But then I backtracked, got the vibe again, and was riveted by her stories of coping with good art done by bad people. To laugh at Annie Hall or not? To value the cinema of Roman Polanski? To listen to Bowie’s middle period or not? Her chapter on Miles Davis is amazing. I was gobsmacked by her revelation of her own excessive drinking and her realizations of what we might call the human condition. Her love for her teen kids and their friends is evident and her care about right and wrong in a #metoo world is deliciously commendable. I really loved most of this important work.

She spends some time exploring the role of subjectivity in art appreciation (duh) and seems to know only certain sorts of texts about aesthetics, making me smack my head at times. Her passion for an ethical sort of love for art — poems, novels, rock or jazz or classical albums — is beautiful and inspiring, but the book is at its best when it moves from highbrow critical theory and tells the stories about her watching a movie with a friend, or how other women felt about hearing stories of this or that artists abusive ways; her chapter on Raymond Carver was stunning. I suspect this is a question all of us face at one point or another — what do we do about books or movies that we love created by broken people. What’s love got to do with it?

This heady book will help.

Star Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding True Faith April Ajoy (Worthy) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

As I said above I have read and written about many books on the foibles of those involved in the Christian nationalism world. From truly evil stuff like some of Trump’s followers putting up with neo-Nazi antisemites and ugly hatred for people from other countries, to conservative Christians who end up seduced by a certain sort of political worldview without understanding much about civic ideologies and what the Bible demands of us to resist the ways of the world, I have read many. I skipped this one — okay, I’m going to be honest here — because I didn’t like the cover. Or the title, even. I saw some great reviews by people I respect, but just couldn’t pick it up. Don’t judge a book by its cover, I often way, but I hated those sparkles, even if they were ironic.

Earlier this year I was trying to find just the right book for a customer wanting to explore this topic, a customer who was really part of the conservatively evangelical megachurch world, a pretty traditionalist reader who wanted to move into some awareness of the dangers of blending too much right wing stuff with authentic Biblical teaching. I started to read this story of this Christian gal who walked away from that stuff and — behold! — I couldn’t put it down. From Ajoy’s childhood singing a patriotic song on Jim Bakker’s PTL show on through her participation in the “March for Jesus” rallies and cheesy campaign videos for Republican candidates, she tells it all with verve and self-awareness. It was, like the blurbs had promised, an amazing read, fun and funny, energetic and Godly, a perfect memoir about an evangelical who loved Jesus and realized she needed to get rid of some of this nationalistic ideology from her walk. I realized the power of the cover, even, and this became a favorite title for those who want this sort of a read.

If you only have time to read one book on the state of American Christianity this year, it should be Star-Spangled Jesus. — Jonathan Merritt, author of Learning to Speak God from Scratch

Star-Spangled Jesus is the Rosetta Stone for understanding white Christian nationalism. Behind all the stats and the polling are the people who subscribe to this ideology, and few will even come close to April Ajoy’s first hand experience in the movement. Star-Spangled Jesus will help you understand white Christian nationalism’s hold on so many people and the danger it poses to democracy and the church. — Jemar Tisby, author of The Color of Compromise and The Spirit of Justice

9 GREAT BOOKS FROM 2025 THAT I INTENDED TO FINISH THIS YEAR BUT DIDN’T (YET)

but I can assure you they are fabulous, of a notable, award-winning calibre.

Your Soul is Required: The Theology and Sermons of C.T. Vivian edited by Joanna Walker et al (Fortress) $39.00  // OUR SALE PRICE = $31.20

Anyone who knows anything about the civil rights movement or 20th century African American history knows the importance of C.T. Vivian. His Black Power and the American Myth is still read, 50-some years after its initial publication and his memoir It’s in the Action remains a vital glimpse at his relationship with his fellow leaders of the movement. This book fills a huge gap, a collection of his sermons and some assessment of his theological views. Compiled by friends and family, it is a recent tribute and excellent resource. I’ve dipped in and will continue to read them as the Spirit moves.

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity Paul Kingsnorth (Thesis) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

This book will have you hooked on the first page; it is so well written and interesting and even captivating, I have turned the pages eagerly, delighted that such an important critique of the myths of science and technology and progress that have shaped the secularized modern West, is also so charming and gracious. Kingsnorth is amazing, a person who has come to Christian faith (in part through his reading Wendell Berry.) Yes, he is concerned about “the machine” and how, now, the big question is what it means to be human.

While there are some wise insights showing how both the left and the right sides of the political spectrum have (by and large) carried water for The Machine and this damaging worldview, he gets a little cranky about progressive’s legitimate concerns about social justice and multi-ethnic justice. I set the book down reluctantly to ponder more and need to finish it soon.  I will have no difficulty as it truly is well written and an enjoyable (if learned) read. Some of the great social critics alive today have raved about it. (And other reviews, delighting in his great prose and capacious mind, have still called it “vexing’ and “overwrought.” I get that.) Read one thoughtful review (in Mere Orthodoxy) that worries about what seems to be an uncharacteristic blind spot by Felicia Wu Song: here.

What Is Wrong with the World? The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid Timothy Keller (Zondervan) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Yes, this is about the doctrine of sin and as theological discourse goes, Tim Keller is one of the most engaging and accessible popular theological writers in our lifetime. Although not an academic work, it is intellectually sound and stimulating and vital, enough for me to name it as a favorite this year. It was released late in the fall and good as it is, I needed to set it aside for a bit. Is it fair to say a book about sin is a fun read? That a book asking one of the deepest questions we can ask is a good read? Yes, indeed.

Many these days seem to have rejected much of evangelical theology in part because of an understandable revulsion to how some conservative preachers have failed to honor the goodness of humans, the joy of being alive, the common grace that has allowed for great beauty in the world. Keller doesn’t miss that stuff. Others have left the faith because they think the way some have described the work of Christ on the Cross has been nearly abusive, as if a mean-spirited God needs to get some pound of flesh. Granted, these are concerns, and if anybody can articulate the historic doctrines of sin and redemption with winsome balance and compelling exploration, it is Keller.

I suspect some will find it too traditional (he was traditionally Reformed, after all, a PCA church planter, trained at Westminster Theological Seminary.) Still What Is Wrong With the World is a book that needs to be grappled with. Agree or not, I hope you agree it is one of the worthwhile books of the year.

Twelve Churches: The Unlikely History of the Buildings That Made Christianity Fergus Butler-Gallie (Avid Reader Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I am not alone in singing the praises of this mammon studio church history, a deep dive into twelve different places, reflecting on how a certain sort of faith and a certain theme within church history developed over time at that particular place. We study beauty and justice and renewal and sex and violence and evangelism and all sorts of topics by way of looking at churches in Africa, Europe, Palestine, the US, Asia, South America, the Caribbean — all over the world!

This big, fat, book is a treasure trove of incredible learning and you’ll have a blast reading about these congregations, some dating back to the earliest days of Christianity. There is great beauty and goodness to be found in these places, and much weariness and corruption. From the blood-wash marble of Canterbury Cathedral to the bombed out windows of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham to the glories of Hagia Sophia (in Istanbul) or St. Peter’s in Rome, Twelve Churches looks at twelve places and twelve eras.

The Devil Reads Nietzsche: A Public Theology for the Post-Christian Age Michael McEwen (B+H Academic) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Inspired by the brilliant work (and title, The Devil Reads Derrida) by James K.A. Smith this fabulous little (but meaty) book came out in the Fall and it look me a while to get to it. I’ve got my excuses. Once I studied the footnotes, I knew he was drawing on the best Christian philosophers (even Dooyeweerd) and contemporary thinkers like Jamie Smith, so I knew I wanted to see where this was going. There are a number of interesting Christian studies of the great atheist philosopher, and efforts to learn from his rebukes about Christianity. I haven’t finished this yet (I said it was meaty) but I’m sure that it is one of the best books of this sort to come out this year.

Here is how the publisher describes McEwen’s project:

The Devil Reads Nietzsche intends to both excavate Nietzsche and explicate how American culture has selectively adopted and appropriated Nietzschean ideals into its stories, symbols, and practices. To be clear, this project is more than a historical excavation of Nietzsche; it’s primary aim is to disciple readers to engage with cultural ideologies from within the biblical-theological narrative, and an interaction with the grandfather of postmodernism and deconstructionism will serve as a “case study” of how we might do this charitably, wisely and winsomely.

Dordt College professor Justin Ariel Bailey, author of Reimagining Apologetics and the excellent Interpreting Your World, says that the sort of public theology that McEwen is working towards, is “clear-eyed, irenic, and hopeful, inviting that, after all has been heard, Christianity’s story is more capacious than Nietzsche’s parodies…”

Practicing Life Together: A Common Rule for Christian Growth Paul J Gutacker (MoodyPress) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I am very glad to name this as one of the most important small books of 2025 for a couple of reasons and while I admit (sadly) to have not finished it yet, I couldn’t be more grateful for this particular bit of work. Gutacker, for starters, is, by all accounts, a gem of a guy, a gentleman and a scholar. He mentors students in an important think-tank like community, a study center at Baylor University in Texas called The Brazos Fellows. In his work there — affirming the life of scholarship and bringing faith and learning together in fruitful ways — he ends up needing to guide young academics into this vibrant life of the mind done for the glory of God. The book he wrote about forming a rule of life for fellowship groups of young adults — a rave review on the front cover is by Alan Jacobs — is a rare blend of theological thoughtfulness and gracious attentiveness to the life situation of young adults. He invites students to grow wisely in faith and uses contemplative and classic spiritual practices as ways into forming community and lasting friendships.

Although the setting is the Christian Study Center movement, it is, in a way, Life Together for any 21st century young adults, bringing Bonhoeffer’s little classic to life for today. As the back cover says, perhaps with a potent play on words, “left to our devices, to our whims and impulses, we find ourselves distracted and discouraged.” The only way to build a rule of life, he says, is to do it together.

From life at the table to the life of prayer, from learning to wonder and learn to the “lifelong project of discernment” Gutacker serves the Brazos Fellows and this little book has come out of this real-life experience of helping groups commit to specific practices that can be formative and life-giving. If you know anybody who is interested in building Christian community, if you’ve read Life Together (or done the excellent four part “Community Practice” offered by John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way curriculum) then Practicing Life Tougher is the next book you need. Short, powerful, important, I tip my hat with joy.

Brooding Upon the Waters: A Memoir of Farming, Fishing, and Failure in America’s Lost Landscape Howard Schaap (Slant Books) $22.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

The editor of Slant Books wrote me a note a while back along with an advanced copy of this manuscript, insisting that it nearly had Hearts & Minds name on it. He knows us well, and knew I would like the format of memoir, the feisty, vivid prose, the ruminations on small town and rural life, even the Dutch Calvinism of the writer, a professor at Dordt College in Iowa. The pathos of this story — a story of mental illness, connected to a place and a landscape, a dad and a troubled family farm in an often suffocating faith tradition — is poignant and makes for a powerful reading experience.

Oh, how I recommend it for a meaningful glimpse of life in this part of Minnesota, near what some call The Driftless region. But, more, the joy and delight of memory, the memory of farming and fishing, overrides the failures, especially fishing. I’m part way through this beautiful book and had to stop in order to read more books in this list and write. But it is on my bedside and I’m dipping in whenever I have a free moment. It is a bit rare — Slant should be more widely known — and it is extraordinary.

Once in a great while, the story of one man’s hard life can explain the demise of an entire culture. A hauntingly tragic tale told with immense tenderness, Brooding Upon the Waters sheds the light of grace upon our troubled times. Never have I read a more beautifully written, profoundly loving memoir from the heart of America’s heartland. — Paula Huston, author of The Hermits of Big Sur

On Holy Ground: Finding Your Story of Identity, Belonging, and Sacred Purpose Keith Anderson (Cascade) $21.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.80

Often, when I hear of a new book, I order one to skim through, wondering if it might catch my attention and be useful for others. Will I love it? Can I sell it? As a bookseller, that’s always the question — will a book, no matter how nicely written, be helpful, and worth a person’s limited finances? Will anybody care?  I’m aware that there are plenty of fine books designed to help people grow in their faith and while I mean no disrespect, they are a dime a dozen.

I didn’t have to wonder, really, about On Holy Ground as I have followed Keith Anderson for much of our career and have read other books he has done. He has not churned out dozens, but has only written when he needed to, short, wise books of Christian discipleship and daily Christian living. Basic but mature, accessible but well written. I trust this guy. And, wow, this one is bringing together themes he has worked on much of his life.

Here is a sense of what this book brings together, a spirituality of the ordinary that allows us to be so sure being loved that we belong, and can therefore be used by God to love others well, working for a redemptive “ecosystem.” Read this:

There is a universal human need to understand our identity and find belonging and sacred purpose in the most daily moments of our lives. When we know our identity as the beloved of God, our lives take on practices that are urgently needed in our divisive culture today, starting with compassion, hospitality, and discourse, and joining a movement to boldly proclaim Abba’s love. Sacred purpose involves everything we do on holy ground, which is where God walks with us, before us, and alongside us–in time and place. As we enter the fray, we find ways to live as people of justice, grace, and conviction, seeking the kingdom of God as our priority as we address those issues that are so charged and divisive today: race, inclusion/exclusion, individualism, and trauma. Within the image of an ecosystem, we understand that — Scripture (the living word) points us to Jesus (the incarnate word), who calls us to sacred purpose (a living relationship of following Jesus), at our own altars in the world, for all of our lives.

Over a long lifetime, I have known no one wiser than Keith Anderson. On Holy Ground is a resounding call to embrace what it means to be human and gift others with the face of God. There has never been an era where it is more important to rediscover the roots of our reason to be on this earth and to do so with wonder and joy. This profound and beautiful book will do far more than transform your life–it will set a course for a kinder world. — Dan B. Allender, founding president, The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology

Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump Molly Worthen (Forum Books) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

I trust you’ll understand that I have not finished this big book of remarkable history by one of the great young public intellectuals and scholars writing today. Over 430 pages, Spellbound works out a complex thesis, about the role of charisma, a distinctive aspect (she shows) throughout American history.

She goes to good lengths explaining what she means by charisma — it has to do with leadership, sure, but a certain sort of persona who has some sort of power to engage listeners and make them followers. This may be a natural born sort of charm and ability to influence or it may be crafted and used for good or evil. That the ancients and the Bible refer to charisma (even as an anointing of the Holy Spirit of God) her usage is more broad (yet not unrelated.)

The riveting opening sequent in the lengthy and potent introduction is set in1634 with that memorable woman in Puritan New England, Anne Hutchinson. Her Bible study is attracting more or more people and they are critical even of local clergy and their sermons.

She moves quickly to October 1919 when Marcus Garvey was shot, only to live and lecture about liberation exuberantly in Philadelphia a few weeks later. The crowd went wild.

Next up is a scene in Florida from Donald Trump’s campaign in the fall of 2016. She narrates it well. These glimpses span nearly four centuries and “encompass wildly different ideas about supernatural and worldly power.” This, also, is what this amazing book is about, trying to see how people have attempted to “understand and harness the invisible forces that infiltrate their lives.”  What is the relationship between God and charisma, between leaders and followers, between different manifestations of power, even the supernatural sort and the overtly political sort?

Years and years in the making, this hefty book deserves many accolades here at the end of 2025. It will continue to sell and be talked about in 2026, I am sure.  Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, a freelance journalist and scholar, and, recently, was appointed as a Fellow of our Trinity Forum. Her fairly recent adult conversion to Christianity, I have been told, developed while writing Spellbound.

 Spellbound is a wild and satisfying romp through the history of American religion and politics, and a simultaneously sober and hopeful appraisal of the present moment.  —Los Angeles Review of Books

Elegant and insightful, Spellbound is an important contribution to the urgent project of understanding America in our time. — Jon Meacham, author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

 

Although I’d rather muse on Epiphany, I suppose it’s okay to exclaim Happy New Year! And, as you will see, I’m hoping to make good on this new year window of opportunity by suggesting a few great daily (or weekly) devotionals. New Year resoluter or not, who doesn’t want a fresh start, taking on spiritual practices that can create habits that are life-giving and transformative?

You too, by the way, might help in this bookish ministry by buying something for someone else. You know as well as we do that there are some folks who aren’t big readers and who don’t have the capacity or interest to read a long-form study of Christian theology, let alone a mature perspectival exploration of their work or public lives. So a devotional is the best they can do for Christian formational reading and we should help them now while the time is ripe.

I’ll list a few I’m excited about — you shouldn’t have to waste time fretting about what to read, and with this list you won’t have to.

(Although, truth be told, we have hundreds of others — old ones and new ones, cute ones and dry ones, short, simply ones, and others that have more intellectual heft. There are fancy leather ones and cheap paperbacks, some written with whimsy, others with deeply Biblical intensity; some are for 30 days, some are a year long. We’ve got daily, prayerful volumes of old medieval saints or collections of excerpts of great writers like Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, MLK, Richard Foster, Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, N.T. Wright, Richard Rohr, or Tim Keller.  Let us know if you need further help.)

And, as I’d hope you’d expect from Hearts & Minds, we do have a few that are good for people in their various work-worlds or unique situations. For instance, our dynamic friend Megan Foltz, RN, has a fabulous little devotional for nurses called Anatomy of Holiness. Educators will appreciate This Year, Lord: Teachers’s Prayers of Blessing, Liturgy, and Lament by Sheila Quinn Delony. History buffs will love Faith and History: A Devotional edited by historians at Baylor, Christopher Gehrz and Beth Allison Barr. I suppose it is more of a study, but scientists (or science majors in college) should have Jesus, Beginnings, and Science: A Guide by David & Kate Vosburg. I’ve appreciated the recent 100 Prayers for Writers: Creative Fuel for Inspired Work by Bob Hostetler. Scholars and profs should know Growing in Understanding: Devotions for Christian Academics by Dirk Jongkin which we get from the UK. Finding God in the Garden: Devotions for Every Season would appeal to anyone with a green thumb. And we’ve often celebrated Heaven and Nature Sing 365 Daily Devotionals for Outdoor & Nature Lovers edited by Sharon Brodin for hikers, rock climbers, paddlers, and others who play in God’s great outdoors. Married couples might consider the tender collection of stories and lessons in Devotions for a Sacred Marriage: A Year of Weekly Devotions for Couples by Gary Thomas or the serious, daily devo by Tim & Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple’s Devotional.  Send us a note if you have specific needs. We’re here to help.

FIFTEEN GREAT DAILY DEVOTIONALS

A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance Diana Butler Bass (St. Martin’s Essentials) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

I have highlighted this before and have shared that introducing Diana at a Lancaster (PA) presentation helping launch this book a month or more ago was one of the highlights of our year. Her lovely, thoughtful, provocative lecture explained why she wrote this book and how attention to the seasons of the church calendar might be just what we need to enhance our radical loyalty to Christ’s reign, even as we are faced with nearly insurmountable social and political problems. The book is beautiful, the spirit is lovely, the chapters solidly Biblical. I mean, they are really Biblical, and very interesting, packed with fresh insight.  It starts in Advent and has plenty of food for thought for the whole year.

Bill McKibben notes that many can hardly “summon the energy or the hope required” for being a Christina now, but, in this moment, Diana goes deep.  Brian McLaren says this book will be celebrated as one of her best. Anne Lamott is right to call her “a brilliant scholar and a wonderful storyteller.”

Rhythms of Faith A Devotional Pilgrimage Through the Church Year Claude Atcho (Waterbrook) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I’ve announced this before, too, but I want to suggest again that it is so very good I’m sure you’ll be blessed spending time with it each day. If Diana’s book, above, has a set of weekly meditations, this is a daily reader, so the devotions are a bit more brief, more succinct, perhaps, but they are loaded with stories and examples and insights. Like many BookNotes readers, Atcho is a fairly recent convert to honoring the flow and rhythms of the liturgical year — he was raised in a more non-liturgical setting and is now (besides being a community college professor) an Anglican priest. He tells about how this church calendar thing has shaped him, and it is nothing short of wonderful. Supplement A Beautiful Year with Rhythms of Faith. You won’t regret it

Every Day for Everyone: 365 Devotions from Genesis to Revelation N. T. Wright & John Goldingay (WJK) $27.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

I’ve explained this before in a fairly simple way: you may know that N.T Wright did a set of short, succinct Bible commentaries called the New Testament for Everyone. It includes his own translation of the text and there is one (or sometimes two) volumes on each book of the New Testament. Part-way through that popular series the good folks at WJK (a Presbyterian publishing house)  realized they could use an “Old Testament for Everyone” commentary series that would offer similarly succinct but wise insight. And it would have to have a fresh translation of the text and (I gather they said) it had to be done quickly. The brilliant and exceptionally reliable John Goldingay took up the task and started doing the “Old Testament for Everyone” book by book by book. He worked hard and just after Wright’s NT set was being completed, Goldingay’s OT set was done. Hooray.

And here, my friends, are excerpts of those two sets of commentaries, first, the “…for Everyone” ones on the OT by Goldingay and then, in the second part of the year, the NT entries by Wright.  Every Day for Everyone unfolds chronologically and is a great resource for dipping into at any point, and exceptional for a daily guide to reading the Bible thoughtfully.

Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year Christine Valters Paintner (Broadleaf) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

We have long been a fan of Christina Paintner, the online abbess at Abbey of the Arts, a virtual global monastery offering retreats, prayer services, books, and resources to nurture contemplative practices and creative expression. We’ve appreciated her quiet, gentle books on Celtic spirituality, on creativity, on communing with creation, books like her recent, quite handsome Broadleaf title, Breath Prayer.  This new one is not merely a faith-based version of a popular trend, but is nearly a mystical call. “Your word is waiting,” she says, “hovering just beneath the surface. All you need is the quiet courage to listen and receive it.” She’s an expert spiritual director and guides us here to listen and wait and “open yourself to deeper sources of wisdom in order to embrace a guiding word that will anchor your life for the coming year.” Whew.

Writer Jon Sweeney (who has a brand new book called Experiencing God: 36 Ways According to Saint Francis, by the way) says of it, interestingly, “This book helped me feel the difference between the din and the hum of the world. With its help, I’m learning to quiet the one and embrace the other.”

Daily Doctrine: A One Year Guide to Systematic Theology Kevin DeYoung (Crossway) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

I just recommended this earlier today to a customer wanting to dig more deeply into Reformed theology, but who isn’t well-read in the genre. This handsome hardback seemed to be meaty enough for her tastes and yet, it being a daily reader in a devotional format seemed to help make it more accessible, do-able. DeYoung is an energetic PCA pastor and thinker and writer and here offers a set of readings, one a day for a week, each week or a different topic.

This is no-nonsense but warm, rich and full and majestic, pointing us to God and God’s attributes and how God has worked in the world. If you want to get into the glories of historic/classic Protestant views of justification and sanctification, union with Christ and Kingdom service in the world, thinking through the core tenets of the faith from the Triune God to the dignity of the human person to the seriousness of sin to the work of Christ to the nature of the church to the hope of new creation, this book of “daily doctrine” could be just what you’re looking for.

Enough for Today: 40 Reflections for Surviving the Wilderness Donna Barber (IVP) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I love these rather small, compact-sized volumes that carry plenty of insight but are not as daunting as a major, year-long read. And this brand new one — oh my, I so respect this author. She is a black woman activist leader and a bit of a contemplative. She was cofounder of The Voices Projects which (as they say at their website) “gathers leaders of color – who work in the arts, business, church, media, politics and education – for important conversations about the current challenges and triumphs within our communities and our role, as cultural influencers, to bring about change.”

Anyway, we loved Donna Barber’s Bread for the Resistance: Forty Devotions for Justice People and have long awaited a new one from her candid and inspiring pen. This is for anyone who has been in lament — from illness or anger, experiencing violence or other sorts of trauma — and she offers good words to hold on to in the midst of the wilderness. As she says, “Don’t walk away. Rediscover the God of your first love and find a way forward with renewed hope and faith.”  You can face your fears, rediscover your identity, and — yes!  — find manna, “enough for today.”

We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor edited by Liz Theoharis and Charon Hribar (Broadleaf) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I hope you know of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, founded by the dynamic Black pastor, Rev. Dr. William Barber. Both Theoharis and Hribar work for the Poor People’s Campaign (Rev. Dr. Liz is co-chair with Barber and Dr. Charon Hribar is a co-director of theo-musicology and movement arts for the Campaign. In other words, she is, artfully, the movement song leader — what a bit of brilliance!

So of course, the singers known as Sweet Honey in the Rock have a blurb on the back of this, saying We Pray Freedom “offers a powerful blueprint for individuals, churches, unions, and organizations to work together toward liberation, justice and equality for all.” Nice, huh?

With other raves from the likes of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Richard Rohr, this book of prayers and rituals and liturgies is a vivid companion to one that came out just a few years ago, We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign. To be clear, there are a real variety of prayers and services but there are also reflections about them, studies on them, even discussion questions to help mobilize folks to “pray with their feet.” If you are involved in organizing around poverty or food banks or anti-racism work, this collection will be useful for you.

For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional Hanna Reichel (Eerdmans) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Resources like this are rare and important, at least for many of us. It is a solid, Biblically-based, theologically-sophisticated little guide for “ordinary Christians seeking to live faithfully in extraordinary times.

Look closely at the cover and you’ll notice the classic SOS symbols, hinting that this is for those of us who know our society is in trouble. The MAGA movement is pressing against democratic rules and many fundamentalist churches have made right wing extremism a shibboleth, a central part of their false gospel. And so many folks are falling for it, with right-wing violence at an all time high. (And violence from the extreme left wing isn’t very pretty, either.)  Sure most of us are frustrated that Trump names stuff after himself — from buildings to bills to bombers — almost all the time; sure we hate his stupid midnight tweets that sometimes are vulgar and repulsive, filled with vitriol and name calling. His cozying up to neo-Nazis and his disdain for the poor simply must be resisted. This little devotional is for those who know about our perilous times and want inspiration to keep on keeping on.

Kristen Kobes Du Mez — a reliable and sane and pleasant voice amidst the hubbub — says the book contains “remarkable historical and theological depth” and exclaims that “this is the book I have been waiting for.” Jemar Tisby says “each entry is immediately relevant to our current context yet also echoes with ancient wisdom.” Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, in discussing the hard work of care and discernment (“of interpreting the past for the present”) writes that “For Such a Time as This reveals Hanna Reichel to be a master of the craft.”

Reichel is a professor of theology at Princeton and an elder in her PC(USA) church.

The Art of Living in Season: A Year of Reflections for Everyday Saints Sylvie Vanhoozer (IVP) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

This was a big seller last year and we explained that it was wonderfully, wonderfully written, creatively developed around famous creche sets popular in the author’s native France, and that it followed the liturgical year, and the seasons of creation, inviting us into the story of God in the realities of ordinary life. Those that got it loved it, or so we’ve heard. This past Advent we promoted her new small one, The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting, which was a big hit. She’s such a fine writer and brings this unique, artful flavor. Highly recommended.

My spiritual life has long been shaped by the liturgical calendar, but this book opened a cornucopia of new insights (and delights) for me. I was utterly charmed, a smile dancing on my face as I read each chapter. The adventure starts in Vanhoozer’s native Provence with its distinctive Advent traditions, and from there she artfully shows us by her felicitous language and personal example how to incorporate the wisdom of her tradition where we each live and work. Along the way she helps us taste a culinary spirituality, inhabit an earthy theology, and practice a neighborly hospitality, all the while anticipating our eternal home with God. — Bobby Gross, author of Living the Christian Year: How to Inhabit the Story of God

Means of Grace: A Year of Weekly Devotions Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

One of the great theologically-inclined preachers of our time, we have long promoted Rev. Rutledge’s fine works. I trust you know her major works and her collections of sermons (and her most recent little gem, Epiphany: The Season of Light.) This fabulous hardback collection of 52 sermons offers an excellent resource for the formation of your own life and discipleship and a good way to come to better familiarity with the preaching style and doctrinal content of Fleming’s good words. Cornelius Plantinga, a wordsmith and preacher we trust, says she writes with “clarity, deftness, wit, and grace.” We very highly recommend this to accompany you this or any year. As Plantinga promises, her masterly command of Scripture “becomes a powerful magnet for our attention.” Don’t you long for that?

Read these impressive endorsements, please:

This brilliant collection from Rutledge’s sermons leads us into the beauty of the church calendar, in which time itself forms us in the truth of the gospel. That the themes of Rutledge’s sermons naturally lend themselves to the pattern of the liturgical year is a testimony to the depth and range of her theological insight and her profound care for the church. Rutledge is not only a gifted theologian and homilist, but a profoundly gifted wordsmith as well, and her luminous prose gives insight on each page. I will be using this book for my own devotions, and I commend Rutledge’s wisdom to the whole church. — Tish Harrison Warren author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night

A church year’s worth of biblical meditations by the great Fleming Rutledge? Yes, please! Rutledge is one of the best preachers of our time because of her relentless focus on the boundless grace made available to us in Jesus Christ. With a preacher’s heart, an incisive mind, and a lively theological imagination, she opens the gospel to us week by week. What a gift. — Alan Jacobs author of How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

I cannot think of a more reliable guide to escort us through the church calendar with weekly devotions than Fleming Rutledge. Her love of holy Scripture and the sacred calendar combined with her half century of preaching expertise make Means of Grace a precious gift. From Advent through Ordinary Time, the words of Fleming Rutledge are indeed a means of grace to help us behold the glory of Christ. — Brian Zahnd author of The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross and When Everything’s On Fire: Faith Forged From the Ashes

We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation Brian McLaren (Jericho) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I really like Brian McLaren, as a person and as a writer. I think among some more traditionalist evangelicals he is viewed with some suspicion but I think that is mostly unfair. Sure, he shifted from his independent, Bible church decades ago, engaging questions of postmodernity and helped a generation of younger emerging evangelicals evolve into a more ecumenical, standard sort of mainline Protestant vision, always with a missional vision of God’s call (in the Bible!) to love and serve others, pointing the way to God’s grace which leads to reconciliation and the common good.  Yes, he is known for some innovative (but don’t we usually appreciate that?)

Brian has written good books of spirituality (I even have a blurb on Naked Spirituality) and he has done some remarkable work on the interconnectedness of global issues, from ecological degradation to world hunger. He has done older books on church renewal and ecumenical thinking and he has done Biblical studies resources, including a few on the teachings of Jesus. I enjoy him, respect him, and even when there are lines in some books that I wished might have been differently rendered, all in all, he is a fruitful thinker, a good writer, and an example of the sort of creative leader that we encourage folks to read and discuss.

His year-long devotional, We Make the Road By Walking, is a generative book, useful, full of hope and joy and faith and action. I very highly recommend it — if you are a fan, you really should have it. If you are not, I’d invite you to check it out. His lovely themes here of spiritual formation and the re-orientation we get as we truly hear and do the Biblical story — what the Bible calls repentance — and then the possibility of responses of fidelity, gestures of obedience and action, are all superlative.

Starting with famous meditations on being human and our longing for awe and wonder and the need to discover meaning, ending with Christ’s death, resurrection, and the Holy-Spirited action of the church, We Make the Road is a guide to being fully alive, in faith and hope. Yes!

God Didn’t Make Us To Hate Us: 40 Devotions to Liberate Your Faith from Fear and Reconnect with Joy Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail (Tarcher) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

Here is how “Father Lizzie” is described at her Epsiopalian Church plant in Austin, Texas: “Named one of Sojourner Magazine’s “12 Women Shaping the Church” in 2025, Rev. Lizzie is known for her passionate, fierce, and colorful reclamation of Christianity as a writer, priest, online creative, and proud mom of two. Lizzie has lived all over the world, with her boots now rooted in Austin, Texas. She’s living her dream as the founding planter of Jubilee Episcopal Church! She is passionate about evangelism for a God who makes each of us for joy, which is why you might see her doing silly dances and talking about church history on Instagram & TikTok with her combined 100k followers, or on her podcast with fellow Episcopal priest Rev. Laura called And Also With You.

As you might guess, this devotional is upbeat and chatty, fun and funny, vibrant and very well written. It is ideal for those who have reason to think that Christianity is not for them or for those who have been excluded or hurt by judgmental types and traditionalist churches. Her parish is, as you might surmise, inclusive of LGBTQ folks hints at working out an embodied sort of queer theology. Progressive as it may be, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us is — as I see it — evangelical and full of good, gospel-news. The title says it all, and this is a healthy invitation for those who have deconstructed their faith to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say, That is, it is an invitation to faith in God’s goodness and love and grace a call to find wholeness among God’s people.

Two more quick notes: in each major section she starts with a brief essay, exploring a myth (or fairly standard teaching that is questionable) countering it with a mystery. There are beautiful, playful, upside-down insights that show what she’s doing in this upbeat book.  And then, secondly, there are some poignant and tragic bits in the book, too, as Lizzie shares family loss and how she coped with trauma on her way to some sort of healing. She’s a good pastor, inviting us to this audacious goodness without failing to name how broken things really are.

Everything Could Be a Prayer: 100 Portraits of Saints and Mystics Kreg Yingst (Broadleaf) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is a remarkable, artful set of modernistic icons, block print designs of 100 saints and mystics. Many you’ve heard of but I suspect there are some you may not recognize. Some are stylized in incredibly creative ways and almost all of them work stunningly. I’ve got my favorites — Thomas Merton is splendid, Harriet Tubman is spot on, and Corrie Ten Boom, with shaved head and concentration camp attire, took my breath away. John Perkins was maybe my favorite, rendered so well. The Nigerian Catholic eco-warrior Wangari Maathai is fabulous, Tutu is cool in dark shades, Frederick Buechner was nice to see. The black African Saint Augustine is brilliant as was Benedict of Nursia. A few struck me as odd — I didn’t love the Dorothy Day, or John Wesley, or Mother Teresa, although he writes about them well. I’m not sure why I didn’t love the picture of Brother Lawrence, although the spoons hanging in the background were a nice touch. Not sure how dear Clare of Assisi might have been rendered differently. I didn’t like the C.S. Lewis one at all.

But these are small, picky matters. Okay, so I don’t like how Yingst did Luther’s nose. The overwhelming artfulness of this, though, is vivid and provocative and amazing. I’ve been dipping into this for a year now, and am still enchanted. The writing is solid, descriptive and reflective, with a good lesson drawn from each portrait. The quotes and the Scripture is helpful.

The overall design of each piece is sometimes really captivating too —the weirdness of Columba, the way Abba Antony’s hands stretched out in prayer frame his anguished supplication, the pencil in the picture of Bonhoeffer, that peanut in the one about George Washington Carver, the dove of peace hovering largely over nonviolent activist Eileen Egan, the ladder in the print of John Climacus and his “divine ascent.” I was deeply moved by the mushroom cloud in the background of Akashi Nagai (whose wife was burned at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.) This book has so, so much. Use it prayerfully, read it devotionally, follow the Advent or Lenten guides in the back. Kudos to artist and writer Kreg Yingst.  Wow.

Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place D. J. Marotta, illustrated and details by Ben Lansing (IVP) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

If the above-mentioned Everything Could Be a Prayer offered provocative woodcuts with bold graphics and somewhat progressive tendencies — including Black Elk and Oscar Romero and Sojourner Truth and Albrecht Durer — this one has a just somewhat more classical feel. The devotional pieces are a bit longer (well written by the Anglican pastor D.J. Marotta) and the art more of a graphic novel sort of illustration. It is masterful and I so, so appreciate it. Several customers have ordered and reordered it.

It is hard to compare the two as, on one hand, they are very similar (and both came out last year.) But yet, Our Church Speaks, rather than written by a rather renegade bohemian artist, it is by a team of Anglican Church planters, sharing how their church stands in the global tradition of worldwide saints. In fact, these are mostly characters with Feast Days in the classic tradition of the church calendar. If Yingst happily does Henri Nouwen or Christina Rossetti, Our Church Speaks offers wonderful illustrations and graphic designs of (with a few additions) those whose lives are celebrated within the church calendar. The opening essay — “Saints Over Celebrities” — is nearly worth the price of this big, handsome book.

There are 52 entries here, from Benedict & Scholastica to Johann Sebastian Bach, from Teresa of Ávila to Catherine of Sienna. The first picture is Gregory of Nazianzus while the second is Mary Slessor and the third is Thomas Aquinas. Their description (and rendition) of Absalom Jones is fantastic and they’ve got some other historic black Christian leaders, like Harriet Tubman and MLK.  Other ethnicities are shown and saints from nearly every continent are richly portrayed. They are uniformly interesting, very informative, and beautifully rendered. I’m a big, big fan, and I am sure this fabulous book will guide many into a deeper sense of our worldwide faith.  The appendices are amazing, too, by the way — one shows the chronological listing of saints by century, the other listing the saints by geography and there is a concise guide to (globally-aware) church history. This is solid, interesting, faithful stuff. Very highly recommended.

Sacred Seasons: A Family Guide to Center Your Year Around Jesus Danielle Hitchen, illustrations by Stephen Crotts (Harvest House) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I cannot say enough about this just slightly oversized hardback that includes rich woodcuts, full color photography, activities, poems, prayers, and liturgies for families wanting to live into the riches of the church calendar. The author is not a high-brow Anglo-Catholic or anything that liturgically sophisticated, just an ordinary Christian mom trying to see how their family, and yours, might have fun following the church year. As with the best books about or devotionals for the church seasons, it is focused on the person of Christ, God’s work in the world and the major holidays. As poet Malcolm Guite puts it, Sacred Seasons is “a warm, winning, and above all practical introduction to the traditional church year.”

More than an intro to the notion of following a Christian calendar, it is a guide to how to “make Jesus the center of your family’s year” and a classy handbook chock-full of ideas on how to follow these time-honored traditions. There are opportunities to remember, yes, and fun ideas and even recipes to help you observe the liturgical seasons. It is tangible, useful, rooted in the grandest vision — a Christ-centered view of time.

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