This only shows a part of our large book display…

What a joy to be out on the road, setting up big book displays at events (like our beloved Wee Kirk small church conference where I got to do a workshop on reading and a keynote talk on God’s big mission) and, just a few days ago, the fabulous, yearly gathering of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) this year held in Washington DC.

Despite the wide range of politically informed scholars and thinkers at that event, the conversations were civil — one woman brought us from candy after she realized we would not be voting for her preferred candidate; lawyers often love to argue and it was fun holding forth with law professors and circuit court judges and scholars of jurisprudence. Okay, I didn’t really hold forth, I listened and learned (except, well, when I didn’t.) What an impressive gathering. Like at our rural and small church gathering, it’s so good to be with those who want good books. And they bought books, believe me! Thanks be to God for the opportunity to serve sharp folks of varying church traditions working out their own callings and careers and deepening the contours of their public theology. One could say we were in our wheelhouse.

For those who might get a kick out of what we sold at the CLS event — alongside single copies of this or that book on government or prayer or marriage or missions or grief or history or Advent devotionals or Every Moment Holy or the new N.T. Wright (The Challenge of Acts) or the new devotional of Tim Keller’s writings (Go Forward in Love)— there were a few big sellers. Rebecca McLaughlin was there from her home-base in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has worked with Veritas Forum and we almost sold out of everything of hers we took. (Her Confronting Christianity and Confronting Jesus are top-notch volumes of apologetics and her little book about friendship, No Greater Love, is vital, actually, as we form communities that show forth brotherly and sisterly love.) We have all of her books, of course, and you can get them at our BookNotes 20% off. Even her little one on Christmas –  Is Christmas Unbelievable? Four Questions Everyone Should Ask about the World’s Most Famous Story.

And naturally, many appreciated heady books such as the brand new academic survey of the ideological roots of some branches of critical theory, To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse by Carl R. Trueman (B+H Academic; $34.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99) or, less philosophical and more moderate in tone,  The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust by Francis Collins (Little Brown; $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $30.00.) We literally had hundreds of books in the cultural studies section, from classic positive ones like the must-read, fabulous Culture-Making by Andy Crouch to recently released social criticism such as The Uses of Idolatry by William Cavanaugh (on Oxford University Press) to big picture (and dare I say brilliant) “architectonic” cultural discernment such as Beyond the Modern Age: An Archaeology of Contemporary Culture by Bob Goudzwaard & Craig Bartholomew.

There was a breathtaking panel on AI with some very sharp attorney’s who have explored the legal ramifications of this generative intelligence and who pondered deeply about the age-old but oh-so-vital question “what does it mean to be human?”

Jason Thacker (known for his thoughtful scholarship and the popular little book, Following Jesus in a Digital Age) was there on the panel as well, offering great insight about this very matter; so much depends on our clarity about the Biblical truth of people being made in the very image of God. His book The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity was ahead of its time and has just now be re-issued in paperback (with a lovely forward by Richard Mouw.) (Zondervan; $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99.) We have his other work, too, but for most of us, this is the best, basic, theological guide to this sort of stuff. We have a lot of other books with theological reflections, on AI — send me an email if you want a longer list — but I’d say to start with this one.

Many were delighted to see the fresh (surprising, even) new take on things by the conservative cultural critic Rod Dreher, in his brand new Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age (Zondervan; $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99.) which Dreher might suggest is the antidote to his previous broadside to “live not with lies” or his friend Aaron Renn’s book Life in the Negative World about how best to challenge the confusions of the post-Christian cultural milieu.

Living in Wonder is itself wondrous and we were glad some appreciated it there. You probably read our two previous BookNotes entries about it, but if you haven’t yet, you should consider it! That’s Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age.

We featured a lot of books about political theory and Christian approaches to public and civic affairs; we had a section against Christian nationalism that annoyed a few folks, I supposed, one-sided as it tended to be. I made an up-front announcement on the exceptionally balanced and sober Citizenship without Illusions: A Christian Guide to Political Engagement by David Koyzis (IVP Academic; $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40.) We had books calling for reform of criminal justice, like the good books by the Mennonite restorative justice thinker, Howard Zehr (Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times) or the more brainy 2023 Crossway book by Matthew Martens, Reforming Criminal Justice A Christian Proposal or books like the IVP titles Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores (by Dominique DuBois Gilliard) and Rethinking the Police: An Officer’s Confession and the Pathway to Reform by black police officer Daniel Reinhardt. There are a lot of helpful resources for those of us wanting to think through the challenges and point towards necessary reforms.

We loved hearing H. Knox Thames, author of Ending Persecution. He is a respected global peacemaker and religious freedom advocate, telling of his years serving as a State Department diplomat helping global government agencies understand the role of religion (and competing religions) in regional conflicts and discovering plausible, just resolutions. His brand new, semi-scholarly work on the University of Notre Dame Press just came out and when announcing it I blurted out that I think he should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. You heard it here first…  He has served our country through work on the Helsinki Commission, the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and other such projects. Thames was a State Department appointee to the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief and is a current member of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield (USCBS), an organization dedicated to preventing the destruction and theft of cultural property during armed conflict and natural disasters. For now, read his splendid Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom (University of Notre Dame; $45.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $36.00.)

For those running legal aid clinics for the poor, they were glad to see a book I had just last week announced at BookNotes, Redemptive Service: Loving Our Neighbors Well by Lisa P. Stephenson & Ruthie Wienk (Baker Academic.) I hope they noticed the important recent book by the great black preacher and activist William Barber and his associate Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, White Poverty: How Exposing Myths about Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (Liveright Publishing.) Naturally, we showed off Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, one of my all time favorite books, by the great Bryan Stevenson, who is making a difference through his Equal Justice Initiative.

For anyone doing anti-poverty work, we have a rare little book co-written by the late Michael Gerson, on how the best ways out of poverty take a deliberate cooperation on the part of government, non-profits and private sector efforts, and personal aid; that is, both justice and charity.

Unleashing Opportunity: Why Escaping Poverty Requires a Shared Vision of Justice by Michael Gerson, Stephanie Summers, and Katie Thompson (Falls City Press; $11.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $9.59) illustrates the sort of public theology and robust commitment to principled pluralism promoted by the Center for Public Justice who sponsored this fine little book. It briefly explores five key issues that are taking a disproportionate (and often feasting) too on low-income folks. There is some helpful analysis and great stories — we hoped some at the CLS gathering would notice it. Anyway, we had a lot of these sorts of resources at the event.

We have long been a fan of Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang who work for World Relief, the relief and development arm of the NAE. Their book Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate (IVP; $22.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39) was game-changing for many and it was a delight to know that Matt was at CLS. (We have dozens more on this topic if you want to reach out.)

Matt also co-authored a fabulous little (and very inspiring) book on refugee ministry (with the great Stephen Bauman) called Seeking Refuge: On the Shores of the Global Refugee Crisis (Moody Press; $13.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $11.19) which, of course, we featured. Most recently, Soerens co-authored a profound and important book inviting us to realize that God’s church includes many who are not part of the dominant ethnic culture, who have experienced some things in a way some of us have not, have been demeaned or persecuted, marginalized, oppressed, or impoverished. Knowing their stories, is very, very urgent and will help our own churches stay fixed on the ways of God’s Kingdom. Check out this important book — you will be better having read it; I know I was. Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church by Matthew Soerens and Eric Costanzo and Daniel Yang. (IVP; $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19.)

A number of the lawyers at CLS work on the topic of religious freedom, both for individuals (of any or no faith) and organizations or institutions. We featured more than a dozen books that we carry just on this topic alone, most prominent this year being Liberty for All: Defending Everyone’s Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age by Andrew Walker (Brazos Press, with a great foreword by the impressive Robert George) and the lively Michael Bird’s 2022 release, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government (Zondervan.) We were glad to have the excellent collection edited by our old friend Art Lindsley and his colleague Anne Bradley Set Free: Restoring Religious Freedom for All (Abilene Christian University Press) which includes pieces by most of the major scholars of the field.

Still, as vital and interesting as these kinds of remarkable books may be, most folks at such a conference are not fighting on the front lines of religious freedom or social injustice or prison reform. Most are ordinary attorneys, offering legal counsel to businesses or small town clients. They work in tax law or real estate or property or bankruptcy or in medical stuff. Like most of us, they are trying to do their job well, with competence and care, informed by Biblical principles and Christ-like values. We had some standard-fare books that I love along those lines, from Work Matters (Tom Nelson) to Every Good Endeavor (Tim Keller & Katherine Alsdorf) to Women, Work, and Calling: Step Into Your Place in God’s World (by Joanna Meyer) to the new, lively, The Sacredness of Secular Work: 4 Ways Your Job Matters for Eternity (Even When You’re Not Sharing the Gospel) by Jordan Raynor. Perhaps a bit more allusively and broadly, we sold a number of Steve Garber’s Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good which I hope you know I love. We even had a stack of some of my own edited volume, Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life which I thought might be inspiring for some of the law students or recent grads. Chapters were first done as commencement addresses for college grads heading out to the workforce by the likes of Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Perkins, Amy Sherman, Rich Mouw, me, and more…

Of all these general sorts of books on work and calling, there are those that are specifically about lawyering. For years, the go-to, necessary book for those working in this field was the fabulous The Lawyer’s Calling: Christian Faith and Legal Practice by Roman Catholic attorney, Joseph Allegretti. More meaty and rooted in a robust evangelical worldview is the essential volume by our dear pal Mike Schutt, called Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession (IVP Academic; $30.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.79.) It remains, in many ways, the gold standard of a thoughtful resource in this field. What a book!

 

The Servant Lawyer: Facing the Challenges of Christian Faith in Everyday Law Practice by Robert F. Cochran (IVP; $28.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40.)

This year, at long last, we saw the release of a book we have been eager for, an easy-to-read, enjoyable one for ordinary lawyers that is practical and profound, useful and readable, less theoretical then these other standards, but rooted in a comprehensive Christian orientation. As yoiu can see, the new one is called The Servant Lawyer: Facing the Challenges of Christian Faith in Everyday Law Practice by Robert F. Cochran, a man we admire very, very much. We’ve highlighted it here at BookNotes but having it featured at the national Christian Legal Society gathering felt like a launch party.

The book carries a lovely foreword by law prof John Inazu. Even as I often say that every career should have a single, ground-breaking and seminal book like Redeeming Law by Cochran’s friend Mike Schutt, I now also say every career should be so fortunate as to have a scholar and practitioner unfold basic Christian notions for thinking and serving well in their particular career area that is as practical as The Servant Lawyer. The Servant Lawyer is simply the perfect book for ordinary lawyers! We rejoice that Christian lawyers have these great resources and that they hopefully inspire other professional fields — engineers, doctors, architects, social workers, bankers, teachers — to develop books that are not too hard and not too simplistic, not too theoretical but not merely about being nice and honest on the job, but explores habits and practices and dispositions to think faithfully and serve well at work.

We applaud Cochran for being such a good thinker. He has written other serious works and edited a very useful one called Law and the Bible: Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions, (where his own chapter was co-written with his old friend, the late Dallas Willard.) His academic and teaching prowess helps him know how to draw out good stuff about the daily practices of lawyering. This new The Servant Lawyer addresses real-world situations experienced by most lawyers and “charts the way toward a truly Christian practice of everyday law.” Bob is the Brandeis Professor of Law Emeritus at Pepperdine and now is a scholar at James Davison Hunter’s important UVA think-tank, The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

 OS GUINNESS

One of the great experiences at our event last week was getting to see and hear and sell books for one of our longest supporters and friends, Dr. Os Guinness. It has been a while since we’ve seen the erudite scholar and social critic, and it was just wonderful to be together, if only for an evening. His address was eloquent and serious and he said one thing that struck me. He noted that whoever is declared the winner in the election, the struggle to reform the ethos of America and deepen our civic education about the first things of the Republic, in Biblically faithful ways, will be ongoing.

The more important date, he suggested, isn’t this current election or the upcoming inauguration day, but, rather, a few short years from now — 2026 which will be the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. It is true that historians observe that many great empires have a shelf life (so to speak) of about 250 years. In that context, Guinness’s last few titles (which even I have suggested may sound a bit alarmist) may be prophetic and urgent: see below my brief descriptions of compelling books with ominous titles such as Zero Hour America, Last Call for Liberty, A Free People’s Suicide. Maybe his passion for renewing a failing civilization is worth hearing yet again.

Os has been a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies, a Guest Scholar and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum and the EastWest Institute in New York. He was the lead drafter of the Williamsburg Charter in 1988, a celebration of the bicentennial of the US Constitution, and later of “The Global Charter of Conscience,” which was published at the European Union Parliament in 2012.

(For a glimpse into his effective speaking and diligent thinking, take a look at him doing an informal lecture to a group of students, here) or an older, moving presentation on his classic The Call, here.)

Here are 12 of the books by Os Guinness, all of which we have highlighted at BookNotes before.

ALL ARE ON SALE – 20% OFF.

The Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How It Changed America Forever  Os Guinness (IVP) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

This is one of the first (if not the very first) books I read by a thoughtful evangelical on matters of society and culture. I often wonder where I’d be in my life if God didn’t bring this book into my life as a young adult, offering an example of culturally-relevant and timely Christian thinking. He looks extensively at the mid-20th-century, organizational, capitalist culture and the 60s counter-culture with astute, prophetic insight, finally showing that they are both inadequate. The “third way” he points towards is a full-orbed understanding of the Kingdom of God. A few years ago they did an anniversary edition with an updated introduction, suggesting why this analysis is helpful yet today. I even have the great honor of having an endorsement blurb on the inside. Right next to the prominent historian Mark Noll, who called it nothing short of a “bolt from the blue” that is “even more timely than when it first appeared.”

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose for Your Life Os Guinness (Thomas Nelson Publishers) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This may be Dr. Guinness’s most enduring work and a book that set off (eventually) a landslide of books about vocation and calling, a Christian sense of the marketplace and the work world, and a movement of evangelicals integrating faith and careers. Developing a Christian view of work is now known to be a central aspect of our whole-life discipleship and no other book has been as seminal, delightful, provocative, and vital. One of my all time favorite reads which I have revisited often. I hope you own it.

Fools Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion Os Guinness (IVP) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Some have suggested this is one of the greatest books by this great writer and Guinness himself may say it is one of his favorites. He looks at three great influences in his life and what they taught him about the art of persuasion. (The three key leaders are C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and the sociologist Peter Berger.) We must do more than merely state our opinions (about faith or politics or culture) and then get mad when others don’t agree. We need this counter-intuitive application of “fools talk” and to learn the art of persuasion.

Among the many stellar reviews this book has received since it released in 2015, listen to this from his (late) good friend, Reverend Timothy Keller:

Os Guinness’s books have been invaluable for the Christian church for decades. A great deal of what I know about communicating the faith in modern times I learned from him. This book does not disappoint. Unlike most books on apologetics, it addresses the actual dynamics of conversation and persuasion –as well as providing an unusually comprehensive range of accessible and useful arguments and appeals for the truth of Christianity. I highly recommend it. —Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City

I love how Mary Poplin (whose own journey of faith as a Christian academic was clarified when she worked with Mother Teresa) alludes to Dorothy Sayers when commending Os Guinness:

There is no doubt that Western culture has lost its understanding and attraction to the truth embedded and realized in the life of Jesus Christ. As Dorothy Sayers said in 1947, ‘The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.’ Os Guinness, in his characteristically clear and insightful style, helps us recover the art of persuasively making the case for the truth of Christianity. Fool’s Talk uniquely suggests we use, not the eager-to-win argumentative styles of the twenty-first century, but the persuasive styles of the church fathers, Old Testament prophets, New Testament writers and Jesus himself as our models. The irresistible nature of their reasoning and Guinness’s brilliance in explaining them is a sure guide. — Mary Poplin, author of Is Reality Secular? and Finding Calcutta

Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization Os Guinness (IVP) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

This is a hard-hitting book, still winsome as he often is, but a serious call to be people with spine and backbone, to be nearly impossible as the world judges, those who know what we believe and why we believe it and are willing to askew worldly privilege or status or acceptance as we stand for God’s truths in a fallen world. Can we be brave and wise and good and “impossible”? Agree or not with every detail of his social analysis or forward-looking agenda, this is a book we all need reminding us of the cost of discipleship.

Guiness, as I have said before in our many BookNotes reviews, was born in China (to missionary parents, serving selflessly there among the poor) and lost two brothers in his family’s harrowing escape from Communist persecution. Some sound the alarm about, say, aggressive secularism or radical Islam, and, frankly, I sometimes think they are fear-mongering, perhaps for their own profit or ideology. Not so, Os Guiness — who has earned the right to call us to face reality (“without flinching: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion”) and to be faithful and full of goodness, despite all. This is a book unlike many you will pick up and we do recommend it.

With his unique blend of incisive clarity and prophetic vision, Os Guinness has written a book that will challenge, encourage, and awaken us to live wholeheartedly for Christ in this ‘grand clarifying moment.’ I recommend Impossible People as a book for such a time as this. — Amy Orr-Ewing, director, The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics

The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom Os Guinness (IVP) $22.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

In the CLS lecture the other evening Os reminded us of the upcoming 250th anniversary of our country’s founding and wondered out loud if such a significant marker may be somewhat ominous — many historians suggest that most empires do not last much longer. Will we keep our grand Republic? Are our democratic practices, institutions, and structures adequate for our time? Understanding the foundation of our nation’s founding is key, this admiring Brit thinks, and in this he offers one of the most powerful overviews of the roots of American politics that you will ever read; he links our views of freedom not only to insights from the Romans and before that, the Greeks, but from the Hebrews. Note the important subtitle, here. The book is dedicated to the late public intellectual, the Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

This book should be read by anyone who is concerned about the future of America and of Western civilization. In warning that Western freedoms are under threat, Os Guinness is not issuing an angry culture-war call to arms but a rational, cogently argued case for looking again at what made America and the West so successful in the first place. Guinness is a masterful writer. He pulls no punches in his critique of what ails the postmodern West. His arguments will and should be hotly debated, but they should not be ignored. —Rob Gifford, senior editor, The Economist

Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat Os Guinness (IVP) $26.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

In this powerful book Dr. Guinness observes:

“The hour is critical. The American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. Conflicts, hostility, and incivility now threaten to tear the country apart. Competing visions have led to a dangerous moment of cultural self-destruction. This is no longer politics as usual, but an era of political warfare where our enemies are not foreign adversaries, but our fellow citizens.”

The roots of this crisis, he believes, is (at least in part) that we have adopted a vision that is more rooted in the revolutionary fervor of the French Revolution instead of the more healthy approach of the American solution, so the question is, in a nutshell, do we stand on the shoulders of those from 1789 or 1776? This is not the blather of Christian nationalism or sentimental patriotism, but a serious question of our roots and branches as a nation and as a culture. The book is arranged as a series of 10 questions on how we understand freedom, how we plan to sustain freedom, how we are vigilant about the institutions critical to freedom and whatnot. He asks if our constitutional republic “will be restored or replaced?” What a grand, important question, underlying a set of very good inquiries.

The final afterword is offered as a stirring conclusion, “American’s choice: Covenant, Chaos, or Control.” This is classic Guinness, a clarion call to the things he cares so much about. Don’t miss it.

Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give Os Guinness (IVP) $23.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19

This shares even more of Dr. Guinness’s profound appreciation for the structures of American freedom and liberty, based on Judeo-Christian principles enclosed in the Declaration and Constitution. He is understandably alarmed — you can feel the looming crisis in the title — and, I gather, troubled (and perhaps sometimes angered) that many Americans seem to care little about our civic foundations and the dangers of losing our distinctively American principles for ordering freedom. Are we unaware that history is offering us this current ultimatum?

Even at the CLS event, more than one person linked Os’s observations, tireless talks, and books as in the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville — a “visitor’s careful observation of the American experiment.” Discover here a stirring vision for faithful citizenship and renewed responsibility, not only for the nation but also for the watching world. Here he brings great detail and further focus to his concern that we are a people caught between two revolutions (the American, of course, and the French, whose spirit animated the destructive Russian and Chinese revolutions.) He outlines seven key foundation stones of freedom which we simply must understand.

He makes a compelling case that we are in an urgent “civilization moment” with a (soon to close?) window of opportunity to renew our civic virtues. Of course, as a God-fearing evangelical, he is quick to call us to God’s ways, to trust in Christ’s Lordship, to allow the Spirit to guide us towards repentance and renewal. He is not hopeless, but this book is full of passion and concern.

The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and the Making of a World Safe for Diversity Os Guinness (IVP) $17.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

We are proud to stock this (as with all the others, and more) book of Guinness even though — truth be told — we don’t find many who are interested in buying it from us. Alas, it is a great read, important, insightful, wise. There is great analysis and some powerful stories. Like with the Knox Thames book above, this captures some of the most vexing and most thrilling things going on in the world today where we see the intersection of human rights and religious faith, global diplomacy and Christian mission. While not overtly a book about world missions and being of such savvy international insight that it could and should be read by those who do not share his animating Christian orientation, The Global Public Square at least should be you your radar screen. Global affairs matter and we should be aware of the ways in which “making the world safe for diversity” can be a key principle to bring groups together in decent common cause. Guinness travels all over the world lecturing on these (and similar) themes and he is uniquely positioned to speak to our 21st century global setting.

I found this to be an exceptionally potent book and I’m a bit sad it isn’t among his better known volumes. He takes much of the serious work he has done (in, say A Free People’s Suicide, and, decades before, the Williamsburg Charter on first amendment freedoms) and applies these to the global public square.

Here is how the publisher describes it:

Recognizing that tyranny takes on secular as well as traditional guises, Os Guinness seeks a return to the first principles of religious and political freedom. Hearkening back to the “soul liberty” of English Puritan Roger Williams, Guinness argues that a society’s greatest bulwark against abuse lies in its people’s freedom of conscience.

There are commendation quotes affirming this book by exceptional figures. For instance, a former senior director of the National Security Council, (yes, working out of the White House) and the director of Georgetown’s  Religious Freedom Project. Tremendous author and global freedom activist Paul Marshall weighs in as well with a very valuable blurb. Please read these, among many, vital endorsements:

“One of the foremost religious-liberty thinkers of our time, Os Guinness sets a soaring goal for this book: establishing a vision of religious freedom (‘soul freedom’) that accommodates competing truth claims about who man is and why he exists, guarantees freedom and justice, and builds stability amidst a fragile world order. Guinness succeeds magnificently. This book should be required reading for the secularist and the theocrat alike. Its Global Charter of Conscience is a blueprint for all the peoples of the world–both in the West and beyond–struggling to achieve for themselves just and lasting regimes of ordered liberty.”  –Thomas Farr, director, The Religious Freedom Project, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs

“For a generation now, Os Guinness has stood as one of our most consistently prophetic voices. In this latest book he returns to a lifelong concern: the precarious status of religious liberty in a fractured world. Drawing on a breadth of insights from history, philosophy, sociology and theology, Guinness makes a compelling case for the primacy of ‘soul freedom’ as the only enduring foundation for securing peace and human flourishing in our fractious era of unprecedented pluralism. And he does so in his inimitable way, with passion, eloquence and civility. It is a challenging yet ultimately hopeful message that demands to be heard, and to be acted upon.” — William Inboden, University of Texas-Austin, former senior director, National Security Council, the White House

“Os Guinness consistently tackles salient and difficult issues and, while giving due recognition to their complexity, analyzes them in clear argument and expounds them in lucid prose. In The Global Public Square, he does so again. Contemporary problems of diversity and religious freedom are massive, urgent and growing, but our deep differences are seldom addressed in other than a shallow way. This short but wide-ranging and eloquent defense of freedom of religion and conscience, and civility and plurality–which the author summarizes as ‘soul freedom’–provides much-needed insight and guidance in our common future.” — Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and coauthor of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide and Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God’s Creation

Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times Os Guinness (IVP) $20.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $16.79

Guiness admits here that we live in dark times. He reminds us that many Christians wonder if modernity has made Christian though essentially irrelevant and impotent. As more and more scholars explore life in a “secular age” some realize there are glimmers of hope and surprising possibilities, despite our failing churches and conflicted cultural battles.

This is about how the church has done much good in society throughout history — through the best art and literature, “building cathedrals and universities, proclaiming God’s goodness…” Can we nurture this whole life vision for all-of-life redeemed sort of cultural renewal? Only as we do things in God’s ways, for God’s glory. Renaissance is a hopeful book, a succinct appeal for cultural transformation. Unlike some spiffy calls to social engagement, Os draws on his knowledge of key points in history. He offers wisdom and insight, passion and a prayer at the end of each chapter. It’s a favorite of mine and reminds us (alongside his more academic studies of American politics and his less than optimistic take on American dispositions these days) that he is, as a strong Christian leader, a man of great hope and joy.

One of my favorite, short Guinness books it would be our deep pleasure to receive your orders.

Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Times Os Guinness (IVP) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I could wax on and on about this…. Who doesn’t want to make the most of our time in this fast-paced and hectic age? The title alone is intriguing and I think important. We all love the “Carpe Diem” slogan (and, for some of us, Tony Campolo’s rousing sermons about it.) But Os astutely reminds us that we can’t very well seize the day without knowing something about the day. What time is it, culturally? Where are we? What does faithfulness look like in this particular cultural moment? Sheer passion or exhibiting moxie to grab the gusto simply isn’t an adequate Christian perspective. We sure needn’t be driven by FOMO. What, really, are we seizing? And why?

What we should rather do is nurture habits and skills of discernment — about the times, yes, but also of learning to listen to God’s own voice — and respond in obedience to his call. It seems this upbeat and relatively practical book could be seen as a decades-later revisit of The Call. I refer to it as a sequel although it clearly stands on its own. A great, stimulating read.  Come on!

The Great Quest: Invitation to an Examined Life and A Sure Path to Meaning Os Guinness (IVP) $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Several years ago Os helped produce a series of remarkable studies, used often in business or executive circles, studying important literature or vital social critics to open the door to discussions about values and truth, renewal and grace, social virtue and more. They have gone out of print, but this book may have emerged from that initial study, exploring what Socrates meant when he said that the “unexamined life” was hardly worth living. Many more or less believe that but few are diligent or brave enough to ask the biggest questions and search for an authentic, coherent, plausible worldview. Is there such a thing as “a sure path to meaning”? Why or why not?What does an examined life look like? What kind of questions might we ask and how do we know what to seek? What should we read and study? Are there guides along the way? This little book is thoughtful but not dry, serious but not deadly. It has tons of inspiring information but is only 130 pages. You should have a few on hand, just in case.

Signals of Transcendence: Listening to the Promptings of Life Os Guinness (IVP) $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I adore this little book and am glad to have commended it often before here at BookNotes. It is a collection of brief biographies, exploring the intellectual and spiritual longings of those who sought for something more. From Tolstoy to Lewis to one of Guinness’s own beer-brewing relatives to one of his own academic mentors, Peter Berger (who may have coined the phrase “signals of transcendence”), he offers these testimonials of serious seekers who listened to the echos. Not all are Christians, by the way, but each captured something about the mystery of life (Philip Hallie asks why goodness happened in a place that hid Jews during the Nazi terror.) Each story shows how things in the creation (Chesterton being taken by a dandelion, say) or in our longing hearts, become clues for those wanting to make sense of our human existence.

I like how the publisher puts it:

Through unsatisfied longings or disillusionments that yet yielded glimpses of beauty or joy, these moments drew people toward epiphanies of transformation. And the same can be true for us, should we have the courage to follow the signals wherever they may lead.

Listen for the signals. And discover what more awaits those with ears to hear.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Os Guinness is releasing several forthcoming books over the next season or so, self-published and soon to be available. Please let us know if you want volume 1 as soon as we can acquire it; it is entitled Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds (Kildare Press.)

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

Great new books keep coming and we have dozens and dozens — children’s books, Bible study guides, New York Times bestselling novels, history, science, psychology, stunning memoirs and provocative social science. We’ve chosen almost 20 brand news ones to describe briefly. Whether you are reading this before or after the US election we are in momentous times and we’d be honored if you’d glance back at the books on politics we’ve listed over the last half year — yep, you can scroll on back and be inspired or depressed or stimulated or provoked. There are some really interesting releases and some very wise authors. For now, though, here’s to some well done new titles that have to be on a curated Fall Hearts & Minds list. Enjoy.

We are glad for those who use public libraries and, of course, appreciate anyone who shops at their own small-town local indie bookstore. We bookstore owners scattered all over this county, are all, in one way or another, in this together, and we are glad that you support places that stock real books for your browsing pleasure. But, ya know, we really do need the business and are glad for orders sent our way here in Pennsylvania. We are told we’re a bit unique in the ecosphere of book providers and if you like any of this, we would be grateful for your support.

BEFORE WE TELL YOU ABOUT THE BRAND NEW ONES, HERE ARE A FEW WE PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED AND NOW HAVE IN HAND. Pre-orders have been sent out and the authors, publishers, and we, here, thank those who reserved some. It helps. You can go back to our website archives of previous BookNotes and search for my original reviews if you’d like, but I’ll fill ya in here. They are still quite new, so we figured we should celebrate them again. Here are a few…

All are 20% off. You can click on the “order” link at the end. Thanks.

Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive Russ Ramsey (Zondervan) $29.99 // SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is a book that I so appreciated and on which I have a blurb on the inside endorsements page. What an honor. A sequel to the collection of artists looked at in Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith, each chapter telling the moving stories of the anguish or doubt in the lives of famous artists. And how they can help you! So good.

 

The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is N.T Wright (Zondervan) $29.99 // SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is about the size of Wright’s recent (and important, I think) Into the Heart of Romans. Not a major, technical commentary, but not an overly succinct guide (like in his usefully brief Acts for Everyone.) This modest hardback so far packs a wallop and brings his visionary understanding of the Kingdom coming — what some call realized eschatology — to bear on the adventures in the exciting book of Acts. Perfect for anyone needing some inspiration for their Bible reading without wanting a super technical commentary.

By the Word Worked: Encountering the Power of Biblical Preaching Fleming Rutledge (Baylor University Press) $19.99 // SALE PRICE = $15.99

We were honored to announce this a while back, inviting folks to pre-order it from us. Her first book with the prestigious Baylor University Press, it is the edited transcript of her “Parchment Lectures” given at Truett Theological Seminary on the topic of homiletics and a robust theology of the Word of God.

Editor Kimlyn Bender (professor of Theology and Ethics at Truett) writes in the introduction of hearing Fleming the first time at a conference at Princeton. Bender recalls the striking person and her sermon (on the topic of the Word of God in John’s gospel), writing:

I knew when I heard it that I had heard more than the words of a fiery Episcopalian. What overwhelmed me was the content to which it pointed, indeed the gospel to which it gestured. I could speak of Reverend Rutledge’s many intellectual and rhetorical girts, as well as of her wit and graciousness that I experienced in our conversations at the conference, but what truly struck me was the sermon itself.

Dr. Kimlyn recalls Rutledge later reflecting on customs of preaching about the characters involved in the Transfiguration story, and exclaiming, “I don’t want to hear about Peter, I want to hear about GOD!”

From Bible to Barth, Northrop Frye to Caravaggio, William Willimon to Flannery O’Connor and always back to the Bible, this new Rutledge book offers great insight about the power of the proclamation of the Word of God in our churches.

Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis Norman Wirzba (Yale University Press) $26.00 // SALE PRICE = $20.80

Wirzba is a very fine writer, a scholar who teaches (at Duke) theology and spirituality, is an editor of compilations of Wendell Berry writings, a farmer, himself, and — yes! — a friend of Hearts & Minds. It’s an honor to know such folks and he really is full of — as Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury and no slouch on the academic front) puts it, “concentrated moral energy.” Even the title of this new one (that we announced months ago, it seems), Love’s Braided Dance, is thick with nuance and allusive suggestion, poetic and delightful. But it is no flight of fancy. The book is a study of this world as it is, complicated and in crisis. Listen to Mako Fujimura who has a splendid endorsement blurb on the handsome back cover:

Peering straight into the heart of the darkness of our violent world, Norman Wirzba invites us on a riveting journey of hope. Love’s Braided Dance choreographs a movement for a sacred dance of forgiveness with love and courage.

How about that? “A journey of hope… with love and courage.” We need love and courage more than ever this days and if this lovely text gives us signposts of hope, it is worth every penny. Of course he draws on agrarian principles, applying that imagination, creational vision to the world today.  I can’t wait to read the chapter “A Hopeful Architecture” and have high expectations for the second to last, “A Hopeful Economy.” Hope grows, as he puts it, “in places of belonging.” This book will help you find your place. Highly recommended.

Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World) $30.00 // SALE PRICE = $24.00

Perhaps you will recall that we announced this suggesting it is the first collection of essays and nonfiction pieces he has put together in a book in quite a while. He did a moving memoir in 2008 (that we still stock) and the award winning Between the World and Me, followed by an important collection of his journalistic essays, We Were Eight Years in Power — subtitles “An American Tragedy.” He moved into fiction, the Black Panther Wakanda books (The Water Dancer), his take on Captain America, etc. Now he is back with public affairs work, good writing with striking insights about American power and privilege and his work as a black scholar.

His important essay on Gaza in The Message collected was debated in a national TV interview a few weeks back and it seems there is much controversy, about the piece and about his reaction during the episode. You should read it yourself.

Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age Rod Dreher (Zondervan) $29.99 // SALE PRICE = $23.99

I highlighted this and had hoped for a lot of pre-orders; not too many saw it at that time, I guess. It’s now out and it is a beautiful book. Maybe some readers have had enough of his negative cultural assessments and alarmist calls to create conservative Christian enclaves (The Benedict Option and Live Not By Lies.) This beautiful, engaging book reads perhaps more like his wonderful memoirist works like How Dante Can Save Your Life, say. This book, as I noted before, is about being open to a sense of wonder, responding to the even weird paranormal stuff that we all know about but often don’t cope with. These stories of those captured by deep meaning and the mysterious aspects of life are nothing short of splendid.

Some have said this new book is his best, and it well may be. Yes, there is some Charles Taylor-esque expose of modernity’s disenchantment, but he explains it wonderfully. It really is a thrilling story of a hurting man’s struggle to find hope amidst the mystery. Put on some old Van Morrison and give it a read.  Highly recommended.

The Scandal of the Kingdom: How the Parables of Jesus Revolutionize Life with God Dallas Willard (Zondervan) $29.99 // SALE PRICE = $23.99

Thanks to those who pre-ordered this; gathered together well after his death, this collection of pieces on the parables is being billed as a sequel to The Divine Conspiracy Part Two. Which makes it nearly “The Divine Conspiracy Part Three.” Richard Foster suggested that The Divine Conspiracy was one of the great books in all of church history (and Foster would know, given his impeccable breadth of reading) so any follow-up from Willard on this theme is obviously welcomed. He is missed by many, and his influence continues to grow as witnessed by the bold forward by the energetic John Mark Comer. There is also a study-guide type workbook, too. Wow.

The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust Francis Collins (Little Brown) $30.00 // SALE PRICE = $24.00

When we announced this earlier this summer we were thrilled that it was coming. We got a few pre-orders and the author had a few media appearances. There was a great program at the always-worth-watching Trinity Forum conversation. Kudos to them for hosting that (even though, almost inexplicably to me, some were nasty in firm rebuke.) Despite the contentious policies set in place during the pandemic to assure some sort of public health and the less than fully understood virus, Collins kept at his job doing his best, allowing his theology and values and scientific mind to lead his work as scientists and policy advisor.

There is always a fringe sort of conspiracy set who despise what most science figures say these days, but there are also those who we might describe as “in the middle” or not fully decided about what might have been better in those frightful years when thousands were dying each day. Those folks need this unflinching retrospective and beautiful testimony of Collin’s good work. Anyone who wonders about the different ways of knowing God’s creation and the different ways of talking about public health, the insight about wisdom is nearly brilliant. For anyone — as Senator Roy Blunt puts it, “seeking common ground and common goals” The Road to Wisdom is a great illustration of how Collin’s served and what he stands for.

Many know that Collins has worked with those in the cystic fibrosis community, having discovered some of what causes that deadly disorder. He writes music for kids in wheelchairs and speaks and sings at gatherings for those who are stuck ill. He doesn’t brag about any of this, but I know that is the sort of good man he is, a doctor and scientist with a heart of gold, influenced by his conversion to Jesus Christ. His call for listening, for wisdom, for hope, is exactly what we need.

An inspiration; and unflinching look at Francis Collins’s life as a research scientist, a man of faith, and a servant-leader who oversaw the work of our nation’s medical research agency through turbulent times. — Yo-Yo Ma

A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality Kathleen Norris & Gareth Higgins (Brazos Press) $19.99 // SALE PRICE = $15.99

In my advance announcement of this I exclaimed how much I have appreciated Gareth Higgins’s other books on film, and how surprised I was that literary figure Kathleen Norris (a) knew the Irish Higgins and (b) loved movies so much. She has written lovely, even holy, memoirs about her faith journey and interior life and like Annie Dillard, say, is esteemed as an eloquent writer and keen observer of faith and life. Who knew she loved the movies?

And that anybody could think of a book like this, chronicling how to think about life from birth to death…  this is really, really fascinating!

A Whole Life in Twelve Movies comes with a fabulous foreword by the Jesuit James Martin and explores a film (or sometimes two) each about birth, childhood, community, “The Breaking and Remaking of the Self”, two chapters on vocation, relationships, overcoming success, generosity, transforming conflict, death and beyond and a final one (on a film called Into the Great Silence). There is a “for further viewing” section, too naming other films to enhance one’s life journey. This book is a great idea, a self-help sort of book of extraordinary guidance through life by way of telling about the characters and plots of important films. I didn’t know all of the cinematic features, but sure did know some. Can you guess in which chapter they explore Babettes Feast? Wonder Woman 1984? The Fisher King?  The oldest one they explore is from 1937 and then they jump to 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. They have several from the previous decade and the most recent was released in 2020. Pretty cool, huh?

Reading the Bible Latinamente: Latino/a Interpretation for the Life of the Church Ruth Padilla DeBorst, M. Daniel Carroll R., and Miguel G. Echevarria (Baker Academic) $19.99 // SALE PRICE = $15.99

I highlighted this sight unseen on a June BookNotes list of important, forthcoming titles on reading the Bible well, including a number inspired by the much lauded announcement of the pioneering The New Testament In Color edited by Esau McCauley. In that BookNotes I said that we:

…simply couldn’t miss this opportunity to name it with these others. We respect Ruth Padilla Deborst immensely (and still am astonished she showed up with her famous father in our store one day years ago) and we love Danny Carroll who we met years ago as well. Echevarria haș a contribution in the above-listed New Testament in Color; his PhD is from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is professor of Greek at Southeastern in Wake Forest, NC. He did the recent Engaging the New Testament: A Short Introduction for Students and Ministers published just this Spring, also by Baker Academic.Together they have given us what Justo González has called an “unexcelled” introduction to the topic. Perfect, eh?

Again, to be clear, we list these books not just for, in this case, Latino or Latina readers. No, this is for the breadth of all of God’s people. An unexcelled basic introduction to Latina and Latino readings of Scripture. It tells the church at large that the Bible is still relevant in our day and will be relevant wherever believers are willing to take the risk of reading it with new eyes.

Reading the Bible Latinamente reminds us that the only way to understand the word of God honestly and clearly is to see it through one’s cultural identity and social location. The authors make the case for a beautiful and transformational reading–a reading that liberates rather than discriminates, marginalizes, and oppresses people. This book is not just for the Latino/a church but for the whole of God’s people. — Al Tizon, North Park Theological Seminary, author, Christ Among the Classes: The Rich, the Poor, and the Mission of the Church

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Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown) $32.00 // SALE PRICE = $25.60

I suppose most BookNotes readers will know of the remarkable social critic, excellent writer, podcaster, and person of faith, Malcolm Gladwell. He has written fun and intriguing books that have made their way into the public discourse over the last decades. One of his most famous was the runaway best-seller, The Tipping Point published early in the new millennium. The subtitle was “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.” I’m still a fan.

Alas, Gladwell is one of those honest thinkers who wants to admit when he’s wrong or when he has changed his mind. His weird collection of arcane details and his astute study of experience and big data makes him, now, reassess. Revenge of the Tipping Point is his sequel, almost 25 years later that as the jacket discretely puts it, “reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light.  He’s exploring what we might call “the dark side” of social epidemics and tipping points. You can hardly believe all the stuff tells about from interviewing the world’s most successful bank robbers to those with alternate takes on everything fro Covid to the opioid crisis. He’s concerned about social engineering but he gets there by an opening chapter on Miami and another on “The Magic Third.” What a book.

A Prophet in the Darkness: Exploring Theology in the Art of George Rouault edited by Wesley Vander Lugt (IVP Academic) $36.00 // SALE PRICE = $28.80

This book fits well among others in the essential IVP Academic series, Studies in Theology and the Arts; we stock them all and think they are excellent resources for those interested in this growing field You may recall our rave review of the wonderful Eerdmans hardback published recently by Wesley Vander Lugt (Beauty is Oxygen.) While this one is less aimed at ordinary readers as that one is, it still is fascinating enough that we hope it gets many, many readers.

Vander Lunt edited this collection of fabulous chapters, each working on various aspects of the vision portrayed by Rouault. In many ways, I am attracted to this due to the groundbreaking book published (now out of print) by Square Halo Books where Mako Fujimura and historian Thomas Hibbs explored some little known, even rare, Rouault pieces. That seminal, small work may have inspired some of these contributors — Hibbs is in here and he footnotes that early title, and Square Halo friends James Romaine and William Dyrness are here, too. What a splendid collection of older and younger scholars of aesthetics and art history!  There are a lot of essays I’m looking forward to, but I started with Pittsburgh-based artist Pamela Rossi-Keen’s chapter, “Art in Community: Rouault, Walter Brueggemann, and Postindustrial Imagination.” Wow.

There are plenty of Rouault reproductions in A Prophet in the Darkness but there is also a centerpiece of artistic interludes, full color plates of other authors, some inspired by the great Frenchman.

And, for BookNotes friends who will care, there is a beautiful, final afterword, two poems by Leslie Anne Bustard, originally written as she beheld the beauty of the original Square Halo volume of Rouault paintings.  What a very, very nice touch in an otherwise splendid book. Kudos to IVP for keeping this kind of Christian scholarship alive.

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

Well, speaking of friends of Square Halo Books and their manager / printmaker Ned Bustard, John Hendrix is an illustrator, designer, and graphic artist that Ned knows well and that we have often talked about together. Many adore his two children’s books based on miracles and parables in the gospels, and every year we enjoy his children’s picture book Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914 but he is perhaps most known for the excellent graphic “novel” edition Faith Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler. Like that one, Mythmakers interweaves handwritten text and cool design with graphic art in his signature style and, yes, tells the extraordinary story of the friendship between two of the great fantasy writers of the 20th century, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

The two men’s friendship (wonderfully explored in books like Diana Glyer’s insightful Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings or the magisterial The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip & Carol Zaleski or Clyde Kilby’s handsome Paraclete collection A Well of Wonder) has rarely been some charmingly portrayed than in this new artful edition and we are sure Mythmakers will be on many a Christmas list in a month or so. We are honored to have mentioned it early on, glad it has just arrived, and thrilled to know we might get to send  some out. It’s a solid, sturdy hardback, over 200 pages, full color illustrations on every page.

The Holy Ordinary: A Way to God Mark Longhurst (Monkfish Book Publishing Company) $18.99 // SALE PRICE = $15.19

I could go on and on about this readable little book and perhaps will revisit it again later in the season. It’s on a small indie press but should become well known as it is just so clear and helpful; it is nearly a bell-weather book about the nature of contemporary faith, church life and religious expression. We have, I might add, known Mark for a long time and admire him very much. He hints at some of his story in The Holy Ordinary and it is not uncommon (if more vivid than for many of us, perhaps.) Mark was raised as a preacher’s kid in the evangelical mold, went to a Christian college, increasingly became wisely aware of the flaws of the more strict side of evangelicalism and moved to a devout and passionate faith informed by mainline denominational approaches to the Bible, prayer, witness, worship, and justice. He became a pastor in the UCC and advocated for an inclusive, gracious faith and, in his own telling, was still longing for more, hungry for a deeper encounter with the goodness of the God he so readily proclaimed. The heart of the book is how any of us can find a more contemplative and mystical encounter with God but Longhurst’s own backstory is what we might simply call a journey from evangelicalism to mainline Protestantism to ecumenical mysticism. He is still ordained as a Protestant preacher but he works with Father Richard Rohr, well known Franciscan mystic and social activist who wrote a lovely blurb for Mark’s book calling it “wonderful” and “dear to his heart.”

There is a deeply holy way to life that is wholistic and mystical but which still attends to the ordinariness of raising children and being involved in civic life. Yes, he draws on medieval saints (like Hildegard of Bingen) and modern spiritual writers (his stuff on Merton is very good) and is a good guide for anyone, even if one isn’t involved in a traditional church at the time. This openness and graciousness (even as he offers more Bible study than many books on the contemplative streams of experimental spirituality) make it an ideal book for folks of all backgrounds.

There are four main units or parts to this journey. The first is entitled “Contemplation” and starts with a meditation called “Say Yes.” This is about living vibrantly and “showing up to reality.” I liked that he drew not only on Merton but Howard Thurman.  The second part is on “Connections” (and he invites us to “sing to the cosmic Christ like John Muir” and calls us to love animals (“like St. Francis”) and “Make Sense of Angles Like a Scientist.” He explores here the significance of the resurrection and reflections on the trinity. Part three is on “Liberations” which shows, again, that an attentiveness to the interior life necessarily makes us more aware of the injustices of the world. He ruminates with James Baldwin and is honest about racism. He calls us to be “subversively joyful.” I love it!

The fourth part is a bit longer and is under the rubric of “Embodiment,” he is both very practical here (making room for the holy, creating sacred space, meeting God in the arts, and more) and, again, reminds us that we pray in and through our bodies.

The final part is called “Transformations” and here we “enter that dark night” and even prepare for death. There’s some profound stuff here (including a nod to the Shakers, actually, who welcomed Christ’s arrival so distinctively.

For years, I’ve been wishing for a book that could introduce ordinary people to the spiritual life in a healthy, honest, accessible way. Mark Longhurst has written what I’ve been waiting for. As inviting as a warm conversation in front of a crackling fireplace, The Holy Ordinary may be what you’ve been waiting for too.— Brian D. McLaren, author of Naked Spirituality: A Life With God in 12 Simple Words and Faith After Doubt

The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today Jennifer Powell McNutt (Brazos Press) $19.99 // SALE PRICE = $15.99

Jennifer Powell McNutt is an author whose name should be increasingly known; she has contributed to several projects, co-authored volumes (like the short and compact but fully astute Know the Theologians) and has done major, academic work (particularly around Reformation history; one of her weighty texts is a book called Calvin Meets Voltaire set in 1798.) She is a lively and beloved professor and chair of the  Department of Biblical and Theological Studies at Wheaton College and it may be that this becomes a break-out book for her, alerting many to her good writing and fabulously creative, faithful mind. I heard she just lectured at Princeton, which is notable.

This great book is, as you can tell from the title and important subtitle, a book exploring the seminal role of Mary Magdalene in the New Testament. (That it, it is not Mary the mother of Jesus, of Magnificat fame.) This Mary M. was, of course, among the last to bear witness to the death of Christ at the cross and was the first at the empty tomb. Her role in the ministry of Jesus (in all four gospels) was, as Professor McNutt says, “pivotal in many ways.” How so? Read this — there’s so much to learn. For instance, get this: church tradition tells of her important role in the first century having perhaps been a missionary and church planter. This book happily helps us learn about that, too. As the publisher explains:

McNutt invites readers along on her journey through southern France, tracing the path remembered by some church traditions as where Mary Magdalene spread the gospel. Christians will learn from the disciple known as the “apostle to the apostles” how to embrace Jesus’s calling to “go and tell” with faith and courage. They’ll also be encouraged by the reminder that God uses ordinary, imperfect, and unexpected people to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

You know that I value good book endorsements and trust those who are in the know about things. I’m telling you, you should notice those who have endorsed The Mary We Forgot — After a great forward by her colleague Esau McCaulley, it is like a who’s who of youngish Bible scholars and Christian writers we adore. Check this out:

“It is difficult to praise this book too highly. I commend it to all who want to follow Jesus, especially those interested in the attention, dignity, and tasks of ministry that he gave (and gives) to women in the church. Highly recommended!” — Tish Harrison Warren, Anglican priest, former New York Times columnist, and author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night

“The fanciful story of prostitute-turned-saint makes for good drama, but what does Scripture really say about this Mary? McNutt rightly dwells on what the Gospels teach: her faith and deep devotion to Jesus. This was a delight to read.” — Nijay K. Gupta, professor, Northern Seminary; author of Tell Her Story

“At a time when we have forgotten so many biblical women, this book calls us to remember one of the most crucial. Take up and read!” — Beth Allison Barr, professor, Baylor University; bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood

“A rich and provocative book that brings the larger biblical narrative to life again.” — Karen Swallow Prior, author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis

“McNutt leaves no stone unturned in her quest for the real Mary Magdalene. This book was a joy to read!” — Carmen Joy Imes, associate professor, Talbot School of Theology; author of Being God’s Image and Bearing God’s Name

His Face Like Mine: Finding God’s Love in Our Wounds Russell W. Joyce (IVP) $18.00 // SALE PRICE = $14.40

Oh my, I needn’t say much about this, but it is a very, very powerfully written,  thoughtful, eloquent, honest, raw, well-written study of God’s own suffering found in our own, and His love to be experienced when we are most wounded. One reviewer said it left him breathless.

For anyone who suffers — and is that not all of us? — this is a lovely, artful, good read, but also offering a clear-headed (if maybe a bit surprising) theology of God, an exploration of the nature of God and God’s involvement with us, here and now. What a wonder.

To be honest, I liked the look of this when it first came out last summer, but I hadn’t explored it. Now that I have started it, I am sorry I didn’t say more sooner. Listen to this from IVP:

Russell Joyce was born with a rare craniofacial disorder called Goldenhar syndrome, where the left side of his face was not formed. Years of patchwork surgeries made him more outwardly presentable, but not without deep pain and physical and emotional scars. But a life-changing encounter broke through to him with a power he never thought possible, in the very place he never thought to look — his broken face.

This set Russell on a journey to understand what was hindering him and others from experiencing the power of God’s grace and being truly set free. During a season of starting a new church in Brooklyn, New York, he learned how the broken places of our lives can be transformed when Jesus meets us in the realities of our woundedness. God doesn’t love us despite our wounds but through those very wounds. By his scars we are healed, and we can find new depths of freedom in Christ, scars and all.

A warning: this journey will not be easy. A promise: it will be well worth the risk.

Church planter, Ralph Moore reflects,

“‘Yes, you are broken. But you are not ugly. Do you hear me? There’s a difference. I choose you as you are. I will always choose you.’ In a visualization exercise, Russell Joyce spoke those words to his younger physically scarred self. Understanding that Jesus and our loved ones embrace us, scarred as we are, is key to this incredible book. I’ve seldom come across something that speaks to the secret pain I carry. This book brought healing to my soul as it will to yours.”

Scripture Hymnal Randall Goodgame (Rabbit Room Press) $29.99 // SALE PRICE = $23.99

I suppose you know the great fiction and fine work put out by the classy little collective in Tennessee known as The Rabbit Room. Maybe you at least know the beautiful (three volumes) known as Every Moment Holy. That their name is a nod to Inklings lore, they are, shall we say, really cool and solidly creative.

Their latest releases is this lavishly produced, just slightly oversized hardback hymnal, with two color ink, some wonderful litanies and prayers in the back, and handsome embellishments of lovely design touches. It’s a great book to behold, a great book to hold.

The heart of Scripture Hymnal, though, is the theologically rich and wonderfully curated set of Scriptural songs written and chosen that connect head and heart, Bible and music. That Indelible Grace founder Kevin Twit is thanked in the acknowledgements might tell you something. Goodgame is known as an Dove Award winning songwriter and is respected and beloved for his Scripture-based songs. This carries out that effort, offering word for word Scriptures in songs that can be sung alone in devotional settings, in small groups or at home, or in congregations.

The interior illustrations are by the talented Stephen Crotts.

Gifts & Gratitudes – A Year of One Thousand Gifts: A Journal Ann Voskamp (Thomas Nelson) $22.99  // SALE PRICE = $18.39

Sacred Prayer – 90 Days of Intimacy With God: A Journal Ann Voskamp (Thomas Nelson) $22.99 // SALE PRICE = $18.39

Many, many folks a few decades ago were swept up in making One Thousand Gifts a best seller and there were subsequent gift editions and podcasts and all sorts of stuff celebrating this then new author, Canadian farmer and mom, Ann Voskamp. She has gone on to do any number of lovely books and Advent calendars and more, but, still, some think of her One Thousand Gifts as her most enduring, lovely, inspiring work.

Gifts & Gratitudes brings back the great writing of that landmark book by arranging them in short excerpts alongside full color (rather rustic) photography and very class interior design and graphics. There is space for journaling, too, in these heavy-stock paper pages. All in all, this is a devotional journal that includes excerpts of One Thousand Gifts and arranges them in a beautiful gift volume.

The second book mentioned, Sacred Prayer: 90 Days of Intimacy with God continues the style with very contemporary, classic graphics and photos on handsome paper. This, too, is more of a journal, with daily spaces for your own writing, alongside prayer prompts for every day (for three months.) Some of the writing from this attractive book is taken from her more recent volume Waymaker: Finding the Way to the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of. What a lovely adaptation of that thoughtful work into a prayer journal.

Redemptive Service: Loving Our Neighbors Well Lisa P. Stephenson & Ruthie Wienk (Baker Academic) $26.99 // SALE PRICE = $21.59

Oh my, I could write about this for pages, but I can also tell you about it very quickly. It is, almost without a doubt, the most thoughtfully readable, upbeat, but solid exploration of a Biblical theology of loving our neighbors that has come out in ages. It offers a distinctively Christian, sophisticated evangelical approach to redemptive service. It draws on old writers we love like Brian Walsh & Richard Middleton, John Perkins and Bryant Myers and contemporary social critics like Amartya Sen and Matthew Desmond. And the first part, especially, features tons of great Bible teaching with excellent footnotes drawing on remarkable Scriptural teachers from a wide breadth of scholars.

Decades ago there was a much-discussed divide among those who favored preaching the gospel and those who did social action, caring for the poor or standing for justice. Debates between those favoring word or deed plagued us — it was a cheap stereotype then (and not at all the case now, in any case) but many saw this as the differences between “conservative” evangelical churches and more mainline “liberal” ones. In our circles, at least, Ron Sider blew that apart with his insistence on both/an and did a string of books insisting on a Biblical view which brings together word and deed, gospel proclamation and embodied prophetic action against injustice, prayerfulness and political action. So many followed suit and the books making a case for a holistic Kingdom approach fill shelves of our bookstore. (Just think of Al Tizon’s must-read Whole and Reconciled: Gospel, Church, and Mission in a Fractured World as one example of fresh thinking on this.)

Enter Lisa P. Stephenson and Ruthie Wink of Lee University who both work with what is called their Benevolence Program. Old-fashioned as that phrase may seem, their opened-up understanding of the value of benevolence and their theological foundation, offered here with rich, careful, study, makes this one of the best introductions to this topic we have seen in years. It compares and contrasts benevolence and service and the pursuit of justice, showing how this service to others  is central to our identity and mission as Christians. It is up-to-date and vital.

Blurbs on the back of this readable if nearly academic book are themselves masterful. Mimi Wariboko of Boston University (a Pentecostal scholar) and Stephen Offutt of the Baylor Institute for Studies Religion and Fuller’s famous Amos Yong all insist that this book demonstrates how anti-poverty work and other social change activities are key to faithful Kingdom living. One reviewer notes that “at the core of a flourishing Christian community is a symphony plurality of callings that articulate the common good of God’s Kingdom.”

Since these authors have PhD’s and are teachers of young evangelical students, they’ve learned something about how to pitch this wholistic vision and how to help others discern their own callings into ministries of social change. They are fluent in the educational pedagogy known as service-learning and their college offers global perspectives (which is evident in the book.) They can help us all discern God’s call to care and give us good direction on ways that can develop. This really is a very, very important book and I hope many consider working through it.

The Gift of Small: Embracing Your Church’s Vocation Allen T. Stanton (Fortress Press) $26.00 // SALE PRICE = $20.80

Do you remember that in the last BookNotes I mentioned that we’d be showing books, speaking and leading workshops for the annual Wee Kirk conference in Western Pennsylvania? Wee Kirk is Scottish for “Small Church” and this gathering invites those with small congregations to join together to celebrate their unique gifting and their own problems and possibilities. We have bunches of books on small congregational life (with books on small church leadership, doing education in a small church, administrative stuff, missional vision, and more, not to mention books helping us understand the contemporary contours of small town life, rural settings, and the like.)

The Gift of Small is a brand new one that is concise and clear and affirms the context of typical small churches. He warns that worrying too much about numbers and growth is not only unhealthy but perhaps idolatrous, an almost unconscious capitulation to idols of efficiency and numbers and metrics of quantity over quality. I think he is really right, and I like not only his storytelling and his up-to-date research and data on church size and styles, but his hopeful invitation to think about vocation and calling. The relationally-rich, non-programmatic small church creates a network of friends that can help members attend to God and appreciate a sense of God’s call.

I’m not sure he does it justice but Stanton spends a few pages interacting with my friend Steve Garber and his important Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good which many of our customers have found deeply stirring. This notion of vocation is important to Stanton (both the vocation of the church and the vocations of the membres) and it is good to have him discuss this, as so few books about congregational life do. Stanton is aware of blue collar and rural people and wants the small church to be a community that is formative in the way at which Garber suggests (even if Steve’s stories are not set in Appalachia.) Stanton is a United Methodist small church pastor and health care worker in rural Tennessee. His previous book was Reclaiming Rural: Building Thriving Rural Congregations. Congrats to him for this new one, one of the ones I highlighted at Wee Kirk 2024.

American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial – And My Own Jonathan Alter (BenBella Books) $29.95 // SALE PRICE = $23.96

American Reckoning  just released this week and I am half way through. I can’t wait until my after-midnight reading time tonight to pick it up again. He is a clear, spunky, good writer who has honed his craft in years and years of Newsweek columns and in countless other mainstream media stories. He is a storied writer, having done books on FDR and has developed close friendships with many of our contemporary politicians (most famously, Alter did the best big biography there is of Jimmy Carter called His Very Best and an excellent pair on his friend Barack Obama.)

We learn a lot about Alter in the first portion of American Reckoning as he talks about his civic minded, politically active family, his mother’s involvement in Chicago politics and his being shaped by her values and of women in public life. (In the year Martin Luther King famously lived in a slum in Chicago, Alter’s mother hosted him; Jonathan would have been about seven years old when the famous MLK visited.) Years later, he became close to John McCain, knew the in-house tensions and good working relations between Obama and Biden (even though I gather Alter isn’t a big fan of Biden even if he understood Biden’s antipathy towards those with elite educations and higher-class lifestyles.) Somebody dubbed him a “Zelig of journalism.”

As one who reported on — sometimes affirming and sometimes not — political leaders of various stripes, having been in their meetings, travelled on their planes, imbibed in after-hours libations and conversations, and came to know many decent public servants, you can suppose how he came to disdain Donald Trump and his break-the-rules revolutionary style and his rich-man’s demeanor and arrogance. Alter knew Trump decades ago in New York City and wrote stories on him in the last century about his consistent dishonesty and the embarrassment he was to working people in the hard-scrapple city of the Big Apple. He knew in those years Trump’s pal the notorious Roy Cohn — remember when Nixon sued Trump and his father for blocking Black people from renting their apartments? Years later when Trump said so many bad things (more than once!) about veterans, Alter took it quite personally; he loved his dad who was a WWII hero and he was close to McCain, who Trump mocked for being a Viet Nam torture victim and POW. Alter cares about this human-scale stuff and he also cares about the Constitution and he cares about his country, even as he has struggled to maintain idealism and hope in these complicated days.

When Alter, who comes across (to this reader, anyway) as a decent, patriotic, Democrat-leaning, public scholar and fair-minded journalist, gets a chance to be one of only a handful of reporters allowed into the Trump trial (for abusing political funds to pay off Stormy Daniels) he jumped at the chance. He actually didnt want the job since he knows so many details already of Trump’s mendacity, but he felt called, like he had to do it. Alter is emotionally fraught over how many fellow citizens approve of such a cad (not to mention how Trump acolyte Judge Aileen Cannon ruled for more and more delays for the Florida case about the former President refusing to turn over classified documents he had at Mar-a-Lago) and he takes Trump’s nod to those who rioted at the Capitol on January 6th quite personally — as we all should, it seems to me. He despises Trump and all that he has done so his moment-by-moment reporting of this astonishing trial is free-wheeling and opinionated. Plus, he has cancer and, as the subtitle of the book reveals, he is facing his own sort of reckoning.

As he puts it, pondering how the rule of law is so important, and the former President’s own suggestion that he will not accept outcomes of the upcoming election, “That’s why it’s important to invest a sordid trial with the constitutional grandeur it now deserves.”

It is a sordid trial and Alter doesn’t sugar coat it; it is not a classy, profound meditation, but a street level look as the whole thing unfolded. If you like courtroom drama, you’ll find it here.

Jonathan Alter’s American Reckoning is a wonderful hybrid — a memoir of an extraordinary career in journalism, a political history of our recent past, and above all an insightful account of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York. It’s also a cry for decency and democracy at a critical moment. — Jeffrey Toobin, author of Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Rightwing Extremism

John Lewis: A Life David Greenberg (Simon & Schuster) $35.00 // SALE PRICE = $28.00

Well, speaking of books about famous people, few leaders of recent memory have been as fondly remembered by most — a few hated him — fellow politicos than the civil rights leader and friend of MLK, John Lewis. From his days on that famous bridge in Selma to his days in the US Congress, Lewis has been a stalwart leader — dare we say  a drum major — for justice.

The late Mr. Lewis has written his own books (in 2012 he released a book called Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America) and a few years ago Jon Meacham wrote the well-received His Truth Is Marching on: John Lewis and the Power of Hope. We are glad that some who read “graphic novels” know of the comic-style illustrated three part biography about Lewis, called March Books One, Two, and Three.) But no one has done the sort of major, serious, thorough biography that he was due, and now our wait is over.

I haven’t started this yet, but it is said to be of the calibre that would put it alongside, say, eminent Pulitzer Prize winning volumes such as King: A Life by Jonathan Eig,  Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom by David Blight and The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcom X by Les Payne. Congratulations to David Greenberg for giving us such an important new volume about a true American hero.

Invisible Jesus: A Book About Leaving the Church and Looking for Christ Scot McKnight & Tommy Person Phillips (Zondervan Reflective) $22.99 // SALE PRICE = $18.39

We have so many books about those who have deconstructed their fundamentalist faith and those wanting to understand why so many are leaving even less strict churches. There is nearly a cottage industry of these books and in part because they are often so moving and interesting and in part because we mourn this trend and want our customers to understand it, we stock many. This is yet one more. But…

It does seem to me that this is a bit different than many that offer (often understandable) laments about mistreatment in churches or incoherent mixes of political or social opinions which masquerade as Biblical truth. No, this isn’t just another recital of those important criticisms, but is an invitation for all of us to first listen. McKnight and Phillips, one a working Bible teacher and author and the other a working pastor, suggest that “instead of seeing today’s movement of deconstruction as a problem to solve, could it be a prophetic voice resisting a distorted gospel?”

They tell us about recent studies and share the results of many candid interviews they did. They look at various themes and strains within and among those leaving the church and offer stories of those who have tried to make sense of former convictions that no longer seem true, those who have deconstructed but not given up faith. There are those who may stay away from church in part because they want to be faithful to Jesus and His ways and they see church as part of the problem, not an ally to their own growth and spiritual formation. Wow.

As the back cover puts it, “Invisible Jesus is a prophetic call to examine ourselves and discern whether the faith we practice and the churches we belong to are really representative of the Jesus we follow. Each chapter examines a different topic and offers biblical reflections that call us to not only listen more carefully, but to change how we live out our faith as followers of Jesus today.”

Perhaps you will recall the important book about goodness that McKnight co-wrote, reflecting about how congregations could develop a culture of tov, a Hebrew word he explores. In A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing Tov and then in Pivot The Priorities, Practices, and Powers That Can Transform Your Church Into a Tov Culture, he gives us principles to help avoid abuses and toxic relationships in overly harsh churches. This new Invisible Jesus is not unrelated as he sees that some who are leaving the church are practically right to do so: they see the problems of arrogance and the idols of certainty and the lack of safe acceptance and they wonder if they can endure. Scott McKnight and  Tommy Phillips help us listen well and wonder how to take seriously the charges against us. Can deconstruction be a form of conversion, away from consumeristic religion and towards the real thing? Can the Jesus who is at the heart of Christian faith still be the number one thing?

Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments Joe Posnanski (Dutton) $30.00 // SALE PRICE = $24.00

Joe Posnanski is without a doubt one of the top tier, if not the top king, of sports writers in America. He is awarded for his eloquence and insight and he is beloved for knowing so much about the sports he writes about. Sports fans everywhere know him and those who like reading about sports love him. We have a few fans who adore his two recent baseball books, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments and, of course, The Baseball 100.

Lifelong student of the game, Posnanski here writes as eloquently about a very different sport and, yet, it shines with the same eloquence and passion and fun and interest as his baseball books. I have had a favorite football book before — oddly, I know, it was by wild man novelist Steve Almond who wrote in 2015 (when we were learning most about brain injury in the sport) Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto. And I loved Season of Life: A Football Star, a Boy, a Journey to Manhood, the wonderfully told story of Baltimore Colt’s captain Joe Ehrmann and his conversation to Christ, written by esteemed Sport Illustrated penman Jeffrey Marx. But this season I’m going to start these 100 moments to explore why we love football. Why We Love Football is going to be great, I’m sure.

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts Oliver Burkeman (Farrar Straus & Giroux) $27.00  // SALE PRICE = $21.60

Do you know the best-selling smash Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. That’s in paperback, now, and is ideal for those who are obsessed about our “lengthening to-do lists, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction.”  It was a bit philosophical, thoughtful and wise; a few of our customers said his questions about resisting the futile modern fixation of getting everything done helped them reframe their use of time and their daily choices. He is not overtly writing as a person of Christian faith although somebody told me that he cites one of my own favorite theological writers — maybe Jamie Smith, or maybe Andy Crouch. In any case, he is said to be bright and gracious and helpful.

This new one, Meditations for Mortals, is almost what we might call a daily devotional, or a set of thoughtful (almost secular) inspirational readings. This isn’t claptrap or cliched inspirational bromides but good stuff to ponder, mature advice, interesting ideas. Cal Newport (Slow Productivity and Deep Work) says it is “More than a book of ideas, Meditations for Mortals offers a practical path towards personal transformation.”

How does this happen? Newport continues,

(This) helps you sidestep the shallow allure of frenetic busyness and find a liberating joy in the limits and imperfections of life. A must-read.

Krista Tippett applauds his “personal, literary, and journalistic adventures into wisdom” and suggests this is a “retreat of the mind” and is a “very special book.” She says we should read it “for the sake of our aching world as well as the state of our own souls.”

By the way — this is so interesting: he is on a mainstream secular publisher and he writes that he favors Buddhist practices of meditation; maybe he’s into Zen and other sorts of psychological / spiritual habits. But yet, in his fascinating annotated bibliography he cites several contemporary Christian writers (like Covenant College’s Kelly Kapic and Mockingbird’s David Zahl’s Low Anthropology and evangelical faith/work writer Jordan Raynor) and identifies them as such. He has epigrams by C.S. Lewis and is as up-to-date as commending Hearts & Minds fav Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times by Elizabeth Oldfield. And he says, “If you’re the sort of person who enjoys cold showers and punishing triathlons, you might try exploring Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. So there’s that. And his appendix is an “index of afflictions” —which you might even want to turn to first.

God Has a Name: What You Believe About God Will Shape Who You Become John Mark Comer (Nelson Books) $25.99  // SALE PRICE = $20.79

We reviewed this when it was released several years ago, now, in a handsome, uniquely shaped paperback. One person told us it was the most life-changing book she ever read and not a few people were deeply struck by his description of God’s own self-revelation in giving us a name. This is solid, serious, theology made playfully cool and upbeat for contemporary readers. There are even some cool line drawings that remind you of some editions of Rilke or something. I was glad for that black paperback, but it has now been expanded, given a new subtitle, some different back cover copy, and put into a more standard hardback (sans dust jacket per his other books like The Ruthless Elimination or Hurry or the new blockbuster Practicing the Way.)

We are told there are more than 4000 more words in this expanded edition (on the practice of contemplation, mostly , I think) and the slightly different format is itself nice. It does seem to be of renewed interest because of the contemplative spiritual practice shared in Practicing the Way and the new workbook size companion guide. If you already have the older paperback of God Has a Name I can’t say it is worth it to get this new hardcover. If, though,  you are somewhat new to the Comer party, or have only just looked at the great (free) online streaming “Practicing the Way” video course, you might want to pick up this newly released, handsome edition. Like the others by Comer, we have it at 20% off.

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 // SALE PRICE = $15.99

This just arrived (a bit early) today and I’ve not had time to look at it yet. But we ordered a bunch (sight unseen, as is often the case in this biz) for at least two reasons. First, heaven knows we need books on this topic. There are a lot, but we need more. Please, God, help us heal the wounds of so much hurt. And, secondly, Langberg may be truly one of the most knowledgable and insightful and vital authors on this topic of toxic faith, church abuse, the abuse of power, and the psychology of recovery. She has a PhD from Temple and as a psychologist (with more than 50 years of experience) she is thoroughly, deeply Christian. (Her remarkable book, Suffering and the Heart of God was done years ago before “trauma informed scholarship” was a thing, but she surely named it well, published by the gospel-centered folks at New Growth Press; her important work on understanding abusive churches, Redeeming Power, was done not long ago by Brazos.)

And so, we are pleased to announced the brand new guide to becoming the sort of church that can resist abuse and, in truth, care for the victims. There are several books emerging now that the scandals of sexual abuse in churches is well known — think of the two Tov ones by Scot McKngiht or the latest by Aimee Byrd (The Hope in Our Scares.) But none of the many are written by a therapist who has such expertise about serving the abused as Langford nor by one who has put herself on the line working to expose the offenders and stand with the hurting. She is a person who we should listen to.

This is a book for every Christian, but it is also 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. — Rachael Denhollander, speaker, author, and victim advocate

As one of the foremost psychologists of our time, Langberg unpacks how the church can once again reflect the true beauty and character of Jesus: the preeminent good shepherd. A must-read book for both the sheep and the shepherds who guide them.
— Boz Tchividjian, attorney for abuse victims and founder of GRACE

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

YEP, here it is again, the offer extended, re-posted below, with the 30% off discount deal and an offer of a free book sent your way — IF YOU ORDER BY END OF DAY WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024. I’ve newly included just a few other titles, too, on the front end, and then the rest of this BookNotes is a repeat of the one I posted previously. If you missed that earlier deadline for the 30% off deal, here is a second chance. Hooray!

We’ve got lots more on this topic, but I was pretty satisfied with the array of titles I listed for you a few weeks back, more or less arranged by ease of reading and scholarly depth. As voting day draws near, most of us have an awareness of the importance of this election (and some, I’m sure, are adamant about your thoughts and opinions; I sure am.)

I’ve been doing a Faith & Politics class at my church and videos of it can be found at First Presbyterian Church of York’s Facebook page or at the church website. I’m pretty excited and a bit goofy at times and the sound isn’t great on one of them but most folks have enjoyed the course and I invite you to check it out. (This week I review just a bit about Jesus and his first sermon about the Year of Jubilee and then move into the drama of Paul’s civil disobedience and trials in Acts to set the stage for a quick look at Romans 13.) We are glad for those who have tuned in as I try to offer a big picture overview of the good of politics, what the Bible says, and general principles for thinking well about our citizenship. We’re calling it “Elephants and Donkeys and the Lamb (Oh My)” with a clever nod to the Wizard of Oz. Ha. The point, of course, is serious and I hope whatever your political passions are, you’ve done some thinking about how you relate your faith (if you are a follower of the Lamb of God) to your public life, your civic involvement, and your voting up and down the ballot.

I sometimes say that how we end up voting is somewhat less relevant than how you came to decide; that is, the process of thinking it through matters. (I favor the process offer by Ron Sider in Just Politics, for instance [see below], but it is notable how some who have strong political opinions seem not to have taken diligent steps to allow their Biblical faith to color their political values and candidate choices.) I hope you have a reasonable Biblical hermeneutic, that you’ve read a bit about law and justice in the Bible, the grand history of Christians in political life, that you have a coherent public theology. Otherwise, we can get stuck in conventional secularized loyalties to parties and ideologies that may or may not be consistent with a Christian worldview or a faithful political agenda. The process of being formed in civic holiness isn’t easy, I’ll admit, but we are grateful that some have said that our books have helped.

For those that want a quick dip into this conversation about books that offer a way to think about Christians stewarding well their gift of citizenship, I invite you, also, to listen to my latest “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast, in which I describe three books on faith and political life. You can watch the Zoom conversation on YouTube or listen podcast-style on Apple or Spotify. We say in the program notes that we offer 20% off on any books mentioned, but if you order any of those in the next three days, we’ll do 30% off and send along a free book added in, too. That OFFER EXPIRES at midnight OCTOBER 23.

In this BookNotes I am going to give a fresh shout-out to five other relevant books, then just re-post that big listing from two weeks ago about the vocation of citizenship. We are extending our 30% off offer for a few more days.

If you feel so inclined, I’d ask you share this. We’d love for folks to see our suggestions. Thanks

Here are the five that I’ve added in to this redux BookNotes. I wanted to spice it up with a couple that I hadn’t listed before. They are very good reads, one and all.

Each are 30% off until October 23rd; after than back to the more typical 20% off BookNotes special.

“Here Are Your Gods” — Faithful Discipleship in Idolatrous Times Christopher J.H. Wright (IVP Academic) $22.00 /  OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $15.40

I have noted before how much I appreciated this, a fabulous book drawn from a couple of well received talks by the international ministries director for Langham Partnerships in the UK. He has written a lot of books, including a magisterial one called The Mission of God, and more.  This exploration — the title comes from the Israelite exclamation given at the sight of the golden calf — not only is an astute study of idolatry but then offers particularly keen insights about what we might call political idolatry. It’s really, really good.

Tremper Longman (author of The Bible and the Ballott, named below) says it is a “must-read for Christians as they engage with the political process.”) Duke Divinity School Old Testament professors Ellen Davis reminds us that Wright’s insights relate to “mission, creation care, justice, work, addiction-treatment, and the cultivation of theological maturity and ethical integrity.” She says it is “a sobering call to repentance and the renewal of Christian vocation.”

The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance Bethany Hanke Hoang & Kristen Deede Johnson (Brazos) $24.00 / OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $16.80

This is one of my all-time favorite books by two authors I so respect and I can hardly say enough about it. Briefly, it is a study of justice and — get this! — the need for a persevering hope in our passion for justice. That is, while we serve a faithful God who does not falter, we (as it says on the back) need a “deep perseverance we can’t muster on our own.” Despite the staggering needs of a broken and unjust world, we need God’s strength to keep us going and profound Kingdom hope to keep on keeping on.

This very fine work is, in the words of Andy Crouch, “a deep, wide, wise contribution to a truly comprehensive understanding of justice.” Despite the violence in our world and corruption on our political systems, this is a real encouragement. Delightful is word that comes to mind, but that makes it sound maybe a bit light-weight, and it is not. It is (in the words of Dan Allender) a “glorious book.” When books carry such fine endorsements by scholars like Nicholas Wolterstorff and global activists like Gary Haugen, and educators like Kara Powell, you it is book worth having on your shelves. In the months ahead, you will need to have it near at hand.

I love how The Justice Calling does, indeed, invite us to the vocation of being agents of justice. It is serious, but inviting. The Bible has more about this topic than most know, and this book offers the needed Biblical theology of justice from the whole story of Scripture. Yet, as I’ve said, it also has this spiritual formation piece and tone, offering a call to hope, a guide to perseverance. There is real promise and great possibility taught here. It isn’t about politics, as such, but the call to justice is part of our own discipleship and public fidelity, so this is a great resource as we think about civic life and the values the might shape our voting. Highly recommended.

Jesus Takes a Side: Embracing the Political Demands of the Gospel Jonny Rashid (Herald Press) $17.99 / OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $12.59

You might recall the name of this author — Jonny Rashid — from the candid and pathos-filled telling of the story of the now-defunct, radical, Brethren church in urban Philly, Circle of Hope, told so well in Eliza Griswald’s Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church. I reviewed that book in a previous BookNotes and have already discussed Jesus Takes a Side. My previous review of Rashid was written before I read about his fiesty role in the anti-racist work of Circle, and reading Griswald on the painful struggle within that earnest congregation helps shed some light on Jesus Takes…

Be that as it may, the book is darn good. From Drew Hart’s riveting foreword through the many stories Rashid tells — he grew up in central Pennsylvania and felt in his very body the discrimination faced by people of Arab descent in the racist US, especially during President Trump’s “Muslim travel ban”, for instance — I couldn’t put it down. Jesus Takes a Side is an unashamed, progressive Biblical study showing how Jesus always sided with the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized. This is a Bible-based, evangelical sort of liberation theology that insists we may not (espeically in the name of civility and graciousness) refuse to take the explicit teachings of Jesus seriously and stand, in fact, where he would stand. Drawing on James Cone and Howard Thurman, Walter Brueggemann and Abraham Joshua Heschel, Melissa Florer-Bixler and Willie Jennings and so much more, this passionate young pastor has offered a controversial book that, as author Kurt Willems  puts it, “will provoke important conversations about what it means to follow Jesus in any political system.”

Ministers of Propaganda: Truth, Power, and the Ideology of the Religious Right Scot M. Coley (Eerdmans) $26.99 /  OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $18.89

Oh my, I should have been pushing this earlier as it is an excellent study, a great book that (as the back cover says), “exposes the inner workings of the religious right’s propaganda — and how Christians can resist it.” It isn’t just an expose of the misogyny and complicity in racist movements idolatrous nationalism that plagues the religious wing of the MAGA movement, but is a careful study of their rhetoric and prooftexting (and what he explains as “motivated reasoning.”)  Professor Coley teaches at Mount St. Marys University in Maryland and lives in Lancaster, PA. He’s a respected scholar and popular teacher.

Ministers of Propaganda fills a real need in the literature, not only offering a wise and balanced Christian assessment of the far religious right, Christian Nationalism, and such, but shows how that movement has taken hold, how it has promoted itself and disseminated its frankly undiscerning and at times idolatrous views of culture, church and state. As historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez puts it, Coley “brings a philosophical scalpel to evangelical truth claims,” where, as she puts it starkly, “much of what passes as ‘biblical’ can better be understood as propaganda, as the deliberate obfuscation of reality in the interest of propping up self-serving hierarchies of authority and submission.” Wow. She is in the middle of it and her own historical research overlaps with his, so her evaluation is important and reliable. If you have been shaped by evangelical takes on creationism, race, gender, and the like, or if you’ve read Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne, this will be an important book for you. His penultimate chapter (“Christo-Authoritarianism”) is really something and the final word, “Resisting Christo-Authoritarianism” is vital. I recommend this one.

List to Andrew Whitehead, an exceptionally reasonable scholar, author of American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church:

I couldn’t put this book down. Coley skillfully provides a framework that reveals how and why influential portions of American Christianity have consistently failed to embody the command of Jesus to love our neighbors as ourselves. Equipped with this knowledge, readers will be able to recognize these mechanisms at work, faithfully confront those advocating only for self-interested expressions of Christianity, and pursue a more just future for all.

How to End Christian Nationalism Amanda Tyler (Broadleaf Books) $27.99 /  OUR 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $19.59

Wow, this book just came out and while it is a guidebook for those of us who want to dismantle the false ideologies of extreme Christian Nationalism — written by the lead organizer of Christian Against Christian Nationalism — it is also an introduction to the movement and will be useful resource for the years to come. We are glad to announce it and offer it at this extra discount.

Ms Tyler has a great writer’s voice in this easy-to-read books; she strikes the right notes from her background as attorney and civic leader, life-long Baptist and Christian activists. The names of those she thanks in the acknowledgments are a whose who of those researching and writing about this controversy within the public square. She obviously knows her stuff and this has energetic endorsements from Jemar Tisby, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Anthea Bulter, William Barber, Robert Jones, Liz Theoharis, Bradley Onishi, and people from non-Christian faith perspectives, too, such as Eboo Patel and Rep. Jamie Raskin (who calls it “a gift to America in dangerous times.”)

Here is how it starts:

“When did you become radicalized about Christian nationalism?”

The question from the journalist jarred me. I had never though of myself as a radical about anything. I’m a mild-mannered person, and freinds have long remarked on my ability to remain outwardly calm and collected in stressful situations. As an attorney, I’ve spent my career steeped in rational inquiry, measured analysis, and logical argument. I’m a lifelong Baptist, and I lead a religious advocacy group, so I spend a lot of time preaching, participating in Bible studies, serving on church committees, and going to potlucks.  I’m also a mother, so I have volunteered for the PTA, packed countless lunches, and read many bedtime stories. I wasn’t sure what was so radical about days spent reading Supreme Court opinions, writing sermons, and making dinner for my family.

I also associate the term radicalized with extremist violence, something that must be roundly condemned no matter its source. We see radicalization all around us in the nation and in the world, and I had never thought of the term as having anything to do with me. How did working to maintain the separation of church and state and to protect faith freedom for all people become radical?

How to End… is a fabulous and reasonable project, a good primer, a hopeful guide to making a difference in turning around the public reputation and witness of people of faith who have been involved in politics in unhelpful ways. Amanda Tyler seems like a gem.

Part way through this fine book she talks of her work (years ago) for a Democratic political figure in Texas and how people would flood his public events with ugly chants and scary posters. Soon enough they started bringing guns; this alt-right anger (in those years against Obamacare plans) lead to — in her telling — the awful, bloody rampage of the US Capitol on that infamous January 6th. (You know, the one the former President Trump called “a day of love.”) We must disentangle evangelical and Biblical faith from this extremist and authoritarian civil religion even as we advocate for pluralism and religious freedom and sanity. There is work to do, and this guidebook will be useful for many.

Okay, three more days, folks. Here’s the BookNotes we sent out a few weeks ago. Enjoy.

+++

ALL OF THESE ARE ON SALE AT AN EXTRA DISCOUNT FOR THEE MORE DAY ONLY. Order now and get 30% OFF. After that they will return to our customary BookNotes 20% discount.

 

AND — we will offer a free book that we have selected for you, to be sent (while supplies last) with any purchase from this list. Cheers.

I’ll group the recommendations in a few categories or levels of sophistication. The categories are a bit fluid, I’ll admit. I hope you read through the whole important list.

101 – BASIC, ACCESSIBLE  BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP

201 – MORE SERIOUS, READABLE BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP

301 – MODERATELY ADVANCED READS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP

401 – IMPORTANT BOOKS ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & CULTURAL ANALYSIS –

URGENT BOOKS ON THE DANGERS POSED BY THE EXTREMIST RIGHT WING

Again, all books are 30% off until October 23, 2024. And we’ll send two free ones, while the bonus supplies last.

101 – BASIC, ACCESSIBLE  BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP 

The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life Vincent Bacote (Zondervan) $18.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.29

This little classic makes the simple case of why we must think about the call to engage culture and care about political life in light of God’s call to holiness. A lovely, very brief introduction to a wide-as-creation, Biblically-informed vision of public life. Buy a bunch!

Dr. Bacote teaches at Wheaton College and has published widely about the Bible, the Holy Spirit, public thinking, civic life, racial justice, and the theology of Abraham Kuyper.

 

Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How To Engage Without Losing Your Friends on Selling Your Soul Denise Grace Gitsham (Bethany House) $16.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

A really basic guide to American citizenship and Christian faith by an experienced Republican politico. Although she tilts right, her first allegiance is to the gospel and for building unity.

There are endorsements on the back not only from a Fox News commentator but a Democratic Senator. Maybe not my own favorite but a good starter resource for someone you may know.

How To Be a Patriotic Christian: Love of Country as Love of Neighbor Richard Mouw (IVP) $18.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.60

I adore this little book, always in awe at how Mouw can bring his professional training as a political philosopher in the Reformed tradition to bear in a way that is readable and enjoyable and instructive and helpful. This lovely book is a great starter for reminding us of why patriotism — properly understood — is a good thing, even though it can go ugly and even idolatrous at times.  I appreciate his “on the other hand” balance and his insight that our patriotism should be an avenue of love of others. Solid.

 

Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk: A Christians Guide to Engaging Politics Eugene Cho (David C. Cook) $17.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.59

Many of us have admired Cho for his passionate work not only as an innovative evangelical pastor but his radical work on poverty and wages. His work with immigrant communities in his home state of Washington has been studied and praised. But now he is most known as the CEO of Bread for the World, the premier citizens action group that works on legislative efforts that help mitigate hunger, both globally and in the US. BFW is a group we should all appreciate — their long-time President, the late Arthur Simon was a friend and regular customer — and Cho wrote this upbeat book about civility and effectiveness in political activism before he took over the leadership of Bread. This is a very fine book, thoughtful and insightful. Enjoy!

Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or the Elephant Patrick Miller & Keith Simon (David C. Cook) $17.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.59

I know that some of our customers enjoy the provocative Truth Over Tribe podcast where these dudes regularly remind Christians that they dare not be loyal primarily to a tribe, a party, a group other than the church of Jesus Christ. Like the book, it is enjoyable and yet really thoughtful. Many of us feel exhausted by tribalisms of all sorts and while this does not shy away from political involvement, it puts it within the context of the ideologies of tribalism that are so very hard to avoid these days. Can truth and love win out over tribalism and fear?

The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics Curtis Change & Nancy French (Zondervan) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

  Chang is a long-time, thoughtful theological scholar having written on the likes of Augustine and Aquinas. Now a working psychologist, he partners here with long-time civic activist — until a few years back, exclusively with the Republican Party — Nancy French. Both have come a long way in pondering how a Biblical view of humility and hope can guide us through the “how” and “what” of complex political conversations. They offer some “types” of approaches and postures, ranging from the harsh ideologue to the hurting cynic. There is a better way of conversing and they invite us to think Christianly less about political philosophy but about comporting ourselves with graciousness and Christ-likeness.

The Party Crasher: How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide Joshua Ryan Butler (Multnomah) $17.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.90

I, at least, couldn’t put this one down and hope you will also find it engaging and helpful.  It is really helpful and a necessary guidebook to understanding the lay of the land in ways that are a bit more wise and interesting than the routine left vs right continuum. Using a matrix quadrant of four views, Butler suggest these perspectives are almost like religions for some people and people of Christian faith ought not be taken in by any of the four tendencies. I think he is right in exposing the religion-like commitments that undergird these orientations of progress and responsibility and identity and security (as he names them.)

After this astute orientation, he offers Biblical insight rooted in a vivid understanding of who Jesus is as Lord and how his disruption (as Party Crasher) can bring hope to our partisan mess. He offers ten political commandments for Christlike engagement, too. Some are pretty common sense (and oh-so-necessary) and others are surprising and nearly brilliant. A fun and provocative book.

Kingdom and Country: Following Jesus in the Land That You Love edited by Angie Ward (NavPress) $16.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

As you may know, I’m often frustrated that the media and many thoughtful Christian leaders put all evangelicals in the same far-right basket of those who go along with the MAGA movement’s nutty claims about the last election being stolen and who are willing to support a candidate who gives the nod to racists in the KKK and  violent thugs like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Of course this is not at all the case, and this collection of informative and inspirational pieces is such a good example of ordinary evangelicals who care about justice and the common good, who see the Bible as guiding them to resist overstating the ideologies of the right or the left. What do you do when the priorities of God’s Kingdom clash with political trends? A great handful of rising leaders within the broader evangelical movement. There are women and men from different social locations and ethnicities, too, giving a fresh batch of insight and passion. Most admit there are few easy answers and following Christ is complicated. Very highly recommended.

By the way, see another in this “Kingdom Conversations” series edited by Angie Ward called The Least of These: Practicing a Faith Without Margins (NavPress) $16.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies N.T. Wright & Michael F. Bird (Zondervan) $22.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.09

I have previously reviewed this one, of course, and we have been proud to feature it at events over the summer and fall — there is no doubt that these Biblical scholars have thought well about public life and the threats to democracies around the world in these dangerous days. But, to be clear, they are Bible guys, and here they study the Scriptures, especially the New Testament teaches about “the powers” and what it means that Christ has conquered them. I’ve read a few other theological studies of the powers — think Berkof, say, or Walter Wink, or Marva Dawn — but this is doubtless the best, most readable, study of a Biblical basis for our Christian political witness. Of course we love how it explores the nature of the Kingdom of God, framing the upheaval of our day by the light of the here-but-still-coming reign of Christ.

201 – SLIGHTLY MORE SERIOUS, READABLE BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP 

The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor or Kaitlyn Schiess (IVP) $18.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.29

A generation of young Christians (and old ones, too) are weary of the political legacy they’ve inherited and are hungry for a better approach. This asks how we should form our political convictions and how we can explore the habits and practices that inform our visions of citizenship and the public good. This is nearly brilliant, a must read for one and all.  Blurbs on the back sing its praises from Makoto Fujimura, James Skillen, Karen Swallow Prior, Molly Worthen, Matthew Kaemingk, Michael Wear. Right on — an absolute must-read for anyone interested in political faithfulness.

This explains it well and why you will value it. Not only for you own earnest self-evaluation but as entertain others in conversations about how they form their views.

How should Christians vote? In the last several years, this question has become a dividing line in the church, polarizing the people of God into opposing camps and fracturing the Christian community along worldly fault lines. With wisdom beyond her years, Kaitlyn Schiess recognizes the folly of centering on this question and instead focuses on a better one: What sort of people are we being formed into? With biblical grounding, theological depth, and the spiritual urgency of a next-generation leader, Kaitlyn lays the groundwork for a better, more faithful approach to political engagement. After finishing this book, here is the one thing I know for sure: we have not seen the last of Kaitlyn. — Sharon Hodde Miller, author, Nice: Why We Love to Be Liked And How God Calls Us to More and The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

Compassion & Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement Justin Giboney, Michael Wear, and Chris Butler (IVP) $24.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.80

This is a fabulously rich, enjoyable read that explores questions of social justice and moral order as it pertains to the common good. These authors worked in what they called the “AND” campaign — think of the gospel called to speak the truth in love. Or, as the title summarized, compassion and conviction. This shows how we who follow Jesus in light of a Biblical orientation may sometimes feel too progressive for conservatives and too conservative for progressive. We needn’t be stuck in this continuum, really, but this campaign is trying to help us be more faithful, wholistic, balanced approach.

What an honor for the to have the black political activist Barbara Williams-Skinner write the powerful foreword.

The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life Michael Wear (Zondervan) $18.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.29

When I reviewed this at BookNotes earlier this year I raved and now I want to rave again. This is not a simple guide to thinking faithfully about politics (let alone about how to vote) but is more foundational, inviting us to ask how our hearts are, what sort of soulful approach we should have as we think about political service in God’s complicated world. Few books related prayer and our political responsibilities so well, that’s for sure.

Surely most of us need a deeper interior life, a view of knowing the world and how things work that is informed by the spirituality of a Biblical worldview. I love Michael Wear and would read anything he does. In this book he is deeply and wonderful informed by a wide reading of the whole corpus of the great Christian philosopher Dallas Willard. There is simply nothing like this one in print. Don’t miss it.

Wear’s 2017 book about working for and then leaving the Obama administration (as a very young man) is still very well worth reading — it’s Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America (Thomas Nelson; $16.99.) / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

The Bible and the Ballot: Using Scripture in Political Decisions Tremper Longman (Eerdmans) $25.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.19

The good Dr. Longman is one of the great Biblical scholars and teachers working today and here he has several significant chapters on what we might call a political hermeneutic; that is, how do we read the Bible to ascertain a “Biblical perspective” on modern civic life? These are well done, thoughtful, nuanced but not overwrought or arcane. It’s complicated, granted, but he offers some warnings and advice. The second half of the book offers a nuanced Biblical orientation towards a number of hot topics from immigration to pro-life concerns to questions about nationalism to racism, poverty, and more. After amassing the Biblical data, he wisely calls for a principled pluralistic in applying Scriptural wisdom into our modern, secular, political landscape. This is, at least, a handy resource to have around.

Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit Parker Palmer (Jossey Bass) $17.95 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.56

I do not need to say much about this, I trust. Parker Palmer is a gentle, quiet, insightful author, a Quaker who has written with passion about public life most of his life. He has written about teaching, the reform of higher education, famously about vocation and “listening to your life” and about how concern,generally, about the spirit (or the Spirit) of our lives matters, also to our public and cultural endeavors. From the journey inward to the journey outward he has been a good and wise guide.

Here he draws us into this invitation to listen well, to be decent neighbors, to work hard for a civil and gracious public order that invites reform and human caring. I’m not sure if his nonviolent circles and kind initiatives of finding common ground are potent in this polarized age, but I’d like to think they are. We are, I think most agree, in this together. We can appreciate others and we can hold tension in life-giving ways. Right? Can we form community among our own often tense communities? Palmer offers here five “habits of the heart” that can be developed in everyday settings like families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations, and workplaces to help restore an ethics of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” A distinctively Christian contribution might want to say more than that (in fact, Palmer wants to say more than that) but it’s a good start, eh? A lovely and heartening book.

301 – MODERATELY ADVANCED READS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP 

Just Politics: A Guide for Christian Engagement Ronald J. Sider (Brazos Press) $26.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.20

I have maintained ever since this first came out years ago that it was simply the best book on a Christian approach to political life that I have yet read. He draws on a wide range of thinkers and activists, offers an impeccable commitment to the authority of Scripture, and calls us not only to research the Bible well but also to, in light of a broad Christian vision of life and society, evaluate well the data on the ground about key issues. (That is, for example, even if we agree that social policy ought to be biased in favor of the poorest among us, good folks can disagree about whether or not, in fact, for instance, raising the minimum wage helps the poor in the long run.) So, here, Sider gives us an inspiring process of how to think well about politics as such and how to humbly but responsibly develop a consistently Christian view of best approaches to policies and, finally, to voting. The late Ron Sider badly wanted us to be biblically grounded and factually responsible and graciously active. It isn’t a difficult read, really, but it is thorough — although not even 250 pages. You can do this!

James Skillen, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Public Justice, says,

Ron Sider builds on years of experience and conversations with Christians across a very wide spectrum. His balance is better than that of most who want to influence politics for the better. And biblical faith is the solid platform on which he builds and balances. Listen to Ron carefully before taking your next step. Just Politics — that’s what we need!  — James W. Skillen, founder and former president, Center for Public Justice, author The Good of Politics

The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship. Daniel K. Williams (Eerdmans) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

Now out in paperback this is, as the publisher puts it, “a theologically and historically informed treatise on a Christian approach to politics that foregrounds the priorities of God’s Kingdom instead of blind partisan loyalty.” It has been called “judicious” and Williams has been called “one of our finest historians on evangelicals and politics.”

Listen to this:

We live in a time when far too often partisan politics and catchy slogans replace thoughtful Christian engagement. Fiery rhetoric is often detached from fair-minded assessment of the past and present. It occurs on both sides of the aisle. Thankfully we have people like Daniel K. Williams, who offers both the nuance of a historian and the concerns of one committed to the fullness of ancient Christian concerns. This book will at times surprise, but also hopefully inform and encourage, those seeking to more faithfully navigate the debates of our age. — Kelly M. Kapic, author You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News

Citizenship Without Illusions: A Christian Guide to Political Engagement David T. Koyzis (IVP Academic) $18.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.60

Wow! Hooray! This shipped to us more than a month early, arriving before I had time to do the major review that it so richly deserves. This thoughtful project is a somewhat more accessible and practical follow up to his magnum opus, one of the more important books of civic life to have been published in the last 25 years, Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (see below.) That major work shows the deep roots of Western culture and how the binary fountainheads of political ideologies of our times — simply but, the left and the right — are more related, philosophically, then many realize. How can people of serious faith navigate the complex ideologies that pull us towards these particular (if distorted) visions?

Once one realizes the dangers of imbibing too deeply from the wells of these secularized visions, that is, once we reject the illusions and most profound claims of the left and the right alike, how then shall we vote? Well, it isn’t that simple because, for Koyzis, responsible citizenship is much more than showing up to vote every four years. What does it look like to engage wisely “without illusions” in our day by day citizenship? Can we enter the public square without betraying our own deepest convictions? Can we wisely compromise and yet offer a faithful, gracious voice? This book is fabulous, serious, important. It is just out — we’ve got it now at 30% off. Hooray. Don’t miss it.

In an age of heightened political division and widespread insistence on individual rights, often to the detriment of a vision for the public good, this primer on the task of being faithful Christian citizens is a breath of fresh (principled!) air. While reflecting the erudition of a senior political science scholar, Koyzis’s book is eminently readable, theologically grounded, and insightfully practical for anyone wanting better to live in the tension between the heavenly kingdom of God for which we pray and the broken earthly political and social contexts in which we all live. — David Guretzki, president, CEO, and resident theologian, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

Citizenship Without Illusions is the best one-stop treatment of political citizenship written by the most significant evangelical political theorist of our day. In it, Koyzis makes a case for political engagement as a divine vocation in which our allegiance to Christ is primary and our allegiance to political parties and platforms is secondary. His ability to turn complex political realities into practical frameworks for action is second to none. Highly recommended. — Bruce Riley Ashford, senior fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology

Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters Miranda Zapor Cruz (IVP Academic) $24.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.80

My, my, let me tell you that this is perhaps my favorite new book on this topic of the season so far — stunning almost, brimming with insight, remarkable clarity, page-turning writing, balanced, wise, vital views. This “helps us learn from Scripture and from Christians of the past as we discern how to be salt and light in our own time and place.”  The author is a popular professor of historical theology at Indiana Wesleyan University. She holds a PhD in religion politics and society from Baylor University and an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary. Wow. This is one you should have to last nearly a lifetime.

The most comprehensive understanding of the role of the Christian believer in national politics from a biblical, theological, and historical perspective to date. A classic for generations. — Jo Anne Lyon, general superintendent emerita of The Wesleyan Church

This book is a trust guide for any and all believers who are struggling to faithfully navigate the oft-bewildering and sometimes downright distressing landscape of American public life. — Heath W. Carter, Princeton Theological Seminary, co-editor, Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism

The Good of Politics: A Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Introduction James W. Skillen (Baker Academic) $24.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.80

Jim Skillen has been a hero in my view (especially for his work in founding the Center for Public Justice) and has been a good friend to Beth and me over the years. He has written a lot, some of it brilliant, some a bit arcane. This is his magnum opus, or so it seems, with a detailed survey of how the government has been understood by different thinkers throughout church history. As he honors the unfolding of social diversity and the rise of the possibilities of the modern state Skillen stands solid on Augustinian notions of the sovereignty of God and yet shows how even Augustine’s seminal The City of God, as important as it is, is itself mired in more than one political theory. Ditto with Constantine, Aquinas, Althusius, Calvin, John Locke, etc. There is so much to know and this is more than an introduction, believe me.

The detailed second half of The Good of Politics offers a birds-eye view of various political issues in light of his argument for what Kuyper called “sphere sovereignty” and both principled pluralism and  structural pluralism. If you take it slow this repays the work tenfold. One of the primer Christian political thinkers in our lifetime, a quiet scholar and patient gentleman. You should read his astute, important work.

Church, State and Public Justice: Five Views edited by P. C. Kemeny (IVP Academic) $35.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $25.19

This book came out in 2007 and remains as important now as it was then. One of these back and forth that can be so illuminating as five authors offer their particular viewpoint and the others offer critical feedback. We have here top notch authors representing what might be called a Roman Catholic view, an Anabaptist / Mennonite view (by the great Ron Sider), a mainline Protestant social justice perspective, a principled pluralist view (informed by the legacy of Dutch and Reformed leader Abraham Kuyper and modern advocate Jim Skillen) and a classical separationist view by a  Baptist professor at Baylor.  This is really fascinating and truly informative. Your head might spin a little but we all need to consider the various options and learn the strengths and weaknesses of those who have spent their lifetime in Christian political service and scholarship.

Five Views on the Church and Politics edited by Amy Black (Zondervan Academic) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

Not unlike the above volume edited by Paul Kemeny, this one, edited by Wheaton professor Dr. Amy Black (author of the lovely, lively, Honoring God in Red or Blue: Approaching Politics with Humility, Grace, and Reason) includes five scholars from robust religious traditions, each going back and forth with the others. Here is how they arrange the debate:

An Anabaptist view (which they call “Separationist”, being the most limited possible Christian involvement in politics) is represented by Thomas Heilke; a Lutheran approach (called “Paradoxical” includes a robust witness and a strong separation of church and state) which is represented by Robert Benne; there is a “Black Church, prophetic” witness (which reminds us that the church’s mission is to be a voice for communal reform) and is represented by Bruce Fields; there is a Reformed (or “Transformationist” vision which emphasizes God’s sovereignty over all things, including churches and governments) and is represented by James K. A. Smith and the Catholic view (which they call “Synthetic” which encourages political participation as a means to further the common good of all people) and is represented by J. Brian Benestad. For what it is worth, Jamie Smith’s reply to each one is itself a stellar example of solid ecumenical insight and helpful, gracious critique. Smith’s role in this is brilliant.

Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Political Strategies for the Health of the Nation edited by Ronald J. Sider & Diane Knippers (Baker) $24.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $17.49

This big, now out of print, book is one we still recommend (we have only a few left) as it is nothing short of extraordinary, fabulously conceived and deliberately edited with a wide range of thinkers. The two editors (now both solving their differences in heaven) were themselves representing two very different orientations (Sider was at the time the often lefty President of Evangelicals for Social Action and Knippers was the President of the very conservative Institute for Religion and Democracy.) The contributions to this 380+ page volume include scholars we respect — from political writers and leaders like Paul Marshall and Stephen Monsma to profs of public theology like Dennis Hollinger and Max Stackhouse and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Some are known on issues around life and bioethics (Nigel M. De S. Cameron) and others think Biblically about peacemaking (like Glen Stassen.) On the ground congressional staff like Mark Rodgers contribute and other women and men with evangelical theology and public policy experience contribute. This is not only a call to sophisticated civic responsibility, but a handbook of big-picture thinking and specific topical policy proposals. Included is the impressive document “For the Health of the Nations.” Perhaps a bit dated? I’m not so sure…

401 – IMPORTANT BOOKS ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies David Koyzis (IVP Academic) $35.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $25.19

I have alluded to this above — his new one is more practical and designed for ordinary citizens — and I insist it is one of the most important volumes in decades. He insists that the philosophical movements that gave rise to what today we might call “liberals” and “conservatives” are much more alike that we often realize and as we unearth the assumption behind these ideologies, we realize that as Christians attempting to be faithful in our formulations of our political theories, we really ought to be careful not to fall into visions of change inspired by these essential pagan illusions. What a book! Careful, thoughtful, wise, this is complex and rich, important for anyone serious about developing a uniquely Christian discernment about modern politics. The newer expanded edition has a great introduction by Richard Mouw.

David Koyzis introduces readers to the range of political theories that have emerged and competed for dominance since classical times. He carefully and respectfully separates wheat from chaff in each of them in terms of a Christian worldview, and in a style that is clear, irenic, and persuasive. The second edition helpfully updates the first in terms of major political events of the past two decades. In an increasingly polarized world, this kind of book is essential reading for concerned citizens of all political and religious leanings.” — Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, professor emerita of psychology and philosophy, Eastern University, author Gender and Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World

This second edition of David’s great book is a gem. The brighter light he now shines on his assessment of modern ideologies comes from an in-depth assessment of the story each tells and the idolatry exhibited in each one. This also pushes Christians to examine the extent to which we may be compromising our dedication to God by bowing (even unconsciously) to other gods for political guidance. In this day of heightening nationalism, racism, terrorism, and sheer ignorance, the message of this book could not be more urgent or important. Read and discuss it carefully even if it takes weeks to do so. The multiple forces at work in our homelands and around the world will not be thwarted or redirected by one election or one major event. Christian love of God and neighbor demands responsible civic service and that requires the kind of understanding provided by Political Visions and Illusions. — James W. Skillen, founder and former president of the Center for Public Justice, author, The Good of Politics

Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology James K.A. Smith (Baker Academic) $27.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.90

This is the third major piece of the “Cultural Liturgies” trilogy. You may know Smith’s summarizing volume You Are What You Love which captures in lovely, readable prose the profound insights of these three major volumes. What you may know now is that he wrote that one — You Are What You Love — before he wrote this third major one and, in fact, as he explains in the beginning, he changed his mind a bit. So good as that third section of You Are What You Love is, Awaiting the King explores political theology with other conversation partners and with other conclusions. It’s mind-blowing, serious but important. Kristen Deed Johnson of Western Theological Seminary (and co-author of The Justice Calling) says it is “masterful” and “constructive.”

One of the great contributions is how seriously he takes the important scholarship of Willie James Jennings (The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race) and his deft, detailed examination of the heady work of Oliver O’Donovan. Whew.

Not every book of public theology has endorsements from Yuval Levin and Stanley Hauerwas and even Eric Gregory of Princeton. This is impressive stuff as he sets out “to reform Reformed political theology.” Wow.

Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis James Davison Hunter (Yale University Press) $40.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $28.00**

**This book is currently out of stock and we are unclear when they will be available again. We have a waiting list.

Called his “melancholy masterpiece”, the recent, weighty, Democracy and Solidarity is certainly one of the books of the decade, exploring with in-depth and scholarly rumination what sort of shared values a democracy like ours needs to survive and if we have lost such plausible unity in our era of nihilistic culture wars. When I first announced this a few months ago at BookNotes I cited Jon Meacham’s back-cover blurb which reminds us of its importance.

Meacham, author of The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, writes:

With his characteristic wisdom and acuity, James Davison Hunter has written an important and illuminating work on the cultural roots of our current democratic discontents. For those seeking to understand how we got here – and what we can do now – this is a vital book.

I first heard of social historian Jackson Lears from Ken Myers on his astute Mars Hill Audio services. Lears continues to be an astute cultural critic and it makes sense that he would know Hunter. Lears writes about this fresh and challenging interpretation of America in crisis:

Hunter has the insight to discern the nihilism pervading our politics, the courage to see its authoritarian consequences, and the wisdom to imagine humane alternatives.

Calvin in the Public Square: Liberal Democracies, Rights, and Civil Liberties  David W. Hall (Presbyterian & Reformed) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

I have been dipping into this big volume again for a class on politics I’m teaching at my church — it came out as part of the Calvin 500 series of books from P&R in 2009 — and I must say I’d love to be able to teach more of this, even if it is above my pay-grade. Hall is a rigorous historian and informed Calvin scholar and this makes the case (whether one likes the magisterial Institutes or not) that the experiment in local governance in Geneva in the mid 1500s was a vanguard of new thinking about human rights and the common good, shaping much of the development of Western political science and even revolutionary transformations. There’s a reason why, centuries later, the British King George squawked about “that Presbyterian war” in 1776. What a major work this is.

In the past two decades, a small cottage industry of important new scholarship has emerged documenting the distinctive Calvinist contributions to the development of Western theories of law, democracy, and human rights. In this engaging volume, David Hall offers a crisp distillation of the latest scholarly findings and a clarion call to reclaim the Calvinist pedigree of some of our most cherished political ideas and institutions. — John Witte, Jr., Professor of Law, Director, Center for the Study of Law and Religion Emory Law School, author Christianity and Law: An Introduction

Why Liberalism Failed  Patrick Deneen (Yale University Press) $19.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.30

It is above my pay-grade as a small-town bookseller, I’m afraid, to say much about this short but much-cited volume. Professor Deneen teaches at Notre Dame and, if you are reading this part of BookNotes, I suspect you know that he does not mean “liberalism” in the sense of being a contemporary Democrat (a lefty on the continuum of liberal to conservative) but classical liberalism, the ideology from the Enlightenment, written into our Declaration of Independence, inspired by the likes of John Locke. That is, in liberal modernity we are free of the superstitions and constraints of the Medieval world and extol a value-free world where each person does what they want — highlighting individualism and freedom and rights and the like. In a way, this understanding of classic liberalism is part of being modern in the secular age. Does that sort of political ideology (that often animates the right and the left in contemporary American political discourse) really work? Can it be sustained? Is our liberal political order in disarray, in part, because it has succeeded? Rod Dreher wrote in the American Conservative back in 2018 that it was the most important political book of the year. David Brooks says, in a blurb in the expanded second edition, that most debates these days are really less about policy but more about “basic values and structures of our social order.” He’s right, I think.

And listen to this:

Bracing. . . . Deneen comes as a Jeremiah to announce that Tocqueville’s fear that liberalism would eventually dissolve all [its] inheritances . . . may now be fully upon us. –  Ross Douthat, New York Times, author, The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

American Covenant: How the Constitution United Our Nation – And Could Again Yuval Levin (Basic Books) $32.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $22.40

What an amazingly well-informed book this is, just chock-full of new insights and ideas. In the words of a recent review by the young scholar Brad Littlejohn, “the basic structure of the book is methodical and easy to follow. After articulating (his) basic theses, Levin devotes one chapter to each of to the basic building blocks of our constitutional system: federalism, the Congress, the Presidency, the courts, and our party system (a slightly later innovation, to be sure, but one that he considers “a missing piece in the constitutional puzzle”).

He continues,

Each chapter begins with a masterclass in constitutional history, mining the Convention debates and the Federalist papers for insight into how each element of our political order was designed to build consensus through friction. Each then explains how and why we have lost our way, either by misunderstanding the purpose of these institutions, failing to nurture the norms that sustain them, or by consciously trying to do end-runs around them in order to achieve more decisive policy action.

In comparing and contrasting Yuval Levin’s view of our fellow citizen’s shared assumptions with the more pessimistic evaluation of Hunter (see above) he muses:

Our politics increasingly takes place within the funhouse mirrors of a thousand overlapping media ecosystems, each purporting to tell us what our fellow citizens and governing authorities really believe. Judging by many of those data points, it is certainly not implausible to conclude that we are in uncharted territory, and perhaps past a point of no return: we no longer have sufficient agreement on the basics of anthropology and morality that can serve as the starting points for political negotiation.

Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give Os Guinness (IVP) $23.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.79

Guinness has been one of my favorite authors for decades and he writes about a variety of topics and themes, but he has done in the last six or seven years a trilogy of titles that speak to his perception that America has drifted from her balance of ordered liberty, sustained by the virtues of the citizenry, and that we are in a serious crisis point. Zero Hour is a punchy, passionate cry from the heart, informed by his extraordinary knowledge of Greco-Roman civic philosophy and insights from the America Founders who shaped a new set of political ideas (in contrast, he is wise to remind us) to the secularizing and finally authoritarian impulses of the French Revolution. Over and over Guinness brings new evidence, fresh explanations, and renewed energy to this big project of understanding the decline of the United States. He is worried, but not hopeless. As Steve Forbes (of Forbes Media) notes, Os “longs to see it return to the grand vision of its founding ideals.”

If Zero Hour insists that America has lost its way and will fall (“unless…”), his naming seven key foundation stones of freedom is a helpful pathway towards defining and ordering our life together. These are eloquently offered, as always, but, in a way, are keys to further (much-needed) conversation. As always, Guinness is realistic but proclaims a message of hope. His passionate reminder of the urgency should not be minimized and his gospel-driven reliance on God dare not be forgotten.

For more detailed and thorough teaching — important books that came from Os before the succint and feisty  Zero Hour America — I recommend his 2021 release The Magna Carta of Freedom: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom (IVP; $22.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.09) which brilliantly relates the book of Exodus and a Jewish view of freedom with the secularizing ideology of the French Revolution. It is dedicated to the great British Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks. This is one of Guinness’s most important and foundational books to understand what is behind the motif of freedom in the American revolution. I have read it twice and while there will be sections you may not fully agree with, it is simply indispensable these days.

Before that, he wrote in 2018 his political masterpiece, now out in paperback, Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat (IVP; $26.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.89.) The publisher summarizes this robust call for active and informed citizenship like this:

The American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. Will conflicts, hostility, and incivility tear the country apart? Os Guinness provides a careful observation of the American experiment, offering a stirring vision for faithful citizenship and renewed responsibility for not only the nation but also the watching world.

Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy Luke Bretherton (Eerdmans) $35.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $24.50

Big and thick and richly drawn, this magisterial volume is one of the best examples of Christian political theology I have ever seen. David Gushee calls it “a monumental achievement” and Cambridge University scholar and author Sarah Coakley says it is written “with incisive clarity and remarkable accessibility” and is a “scholarly achievement of great note.” It is also, I’d say, inspirational, drawing as it does on Biblical insights about being a neighbor and about the most foundational ethic of all: love. It is a major, important, lasting contribution.

Bretherton is a distinguished professor of Moral and Political Theology and senior fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Deeply learned and humane, Bretherton’s book surveys the landscape of political theology while making its own argument for ‘why Christians should be committed to democracy as a vital means for pursuing a flourishing life.’ Bretherton’s five case studies — on humanitarianism, Black Power, Pentecostalism, Catholic social teaching, and Anglicanism — are nothing short of a master class in different Christian conceptions of political flourishing. — Cathleen Kaveny, author Prophecy Without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square

Luke Bretherton has been thinking hard about the polis, plurality/pluralism, and democratic citizenship for a long time. This erudite synthesis and expansion of [Bretherton’s] work over the last two decades brims with insights into essential and interrelated topics, such as secularity, toleration, economy, sovereignty, and populism. This book makes the case for democracy and establishes the framework for discussions in Christian political theology for the next quarter century. — Amos Yong, author, Renewing the Church by the Spirit: Theological Education After Pentecost

The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here Kaitlyn Schiess (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

I hope you know the name Kaitlyn Schiess (I commented on her Liturgy of Politics above.) She is a PhD student (studying with Luke Bretherton, in fact, at Duke) and has already shown herself to be an astute observer of the unfolding conversations about solidly, graciously, Christian political options. This isn’t, granted, heady political philosophy, but I listed it here as it is less about forming a Christian political mindset as it is an overview on how the Bible has been too often misused in public discourse. There have been many who have written about this exact thing — I still like a book by a Jewish scholar in 2007 called Thumping’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics — but this historical study is without a doubt the best work on the topic to date.

Beth Allison Barr has called it “clever, judicious, and remarkably persuasive” and Skye Jethani says it is a “must read.”

Whether you lean left or lean right, whether you come from a red state, blue state, or a purple one, if you are a Christian who seeks to apply biblical principles to your political thinking, you will find something instructive, challenging, and enlightening in this book. — Karen Swallow Prior, author of The Evangelical Imagination

Recharging the American Experiment: Principled Pluralism for Genuine Civic Community James W. Skillen (The Center for Public Justice) $9.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $6.99

I have mentioned Jim Skillen often and highlighted above his major, wonderful volume The Good of Politics. This is a more complex work, but not super-scholarly. It might be a bit demanding only because it is written out of a framework and using arguments that are not typical within our assumed binary political continuum. Skillen here sets out to bring an innovative vision of building civic community by explaining both principled pluralism and confessional pluralism and how that political lingo and governmental agenda from a reformational worldview  — with roots in Kuyper’s political party in early 1900s Holland, actually — might recharge our nearly bankrupt America civic life. Fascinating and, for those who are eager, a vital project.

This Is Going to Hurt: Following Jesus in a Divided America Bekah McNeel (Eerdmans) $24.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $17.49

This isn’t a book about political philosophy, as such; heck, it is hardly a book about politics since it is so centered on people’s stories. But McNeel is a talented, snarky — and, really, really funny — political reporter. As an old-school investigator she has carted herself all over, talking with people about their hopes and fears and hurts. And this book — shocking in some regards — is a vividly told report from the front lines of our divided culture where people are not only arguing, but, often, ignoring the bruised and bleeding, nearly right under their (our?) noses. It is, finally, a book about compassion. It is an unashamed call to care.

Former conservative/evangelical Frank Schaeffer wrote a remarkable foreword, noting that the sacrifice of self for another is “the highest sacrament of all.” He continues, “The promise of sacrificial mercy McNeel offers is unconditional, based only on faith and love. And that alone is the answer to suffering”

This book offers, as another reviewer noted, “a compelling challenge to the narratives that separate us from the suffering of others and, for the sake of healing, calls us to deeper compassion for all humanity.”

In this fiesty, remarkable read, McNeel tells of kids who are facing huge mental health challenges; she writes about immigrants, about those who are victims of climate change; about the poor and the abused. She is candid about re-thinking some of her narrative around the Covid crisis. There’s a great chapter about (as she calls it, “the mockumentary”) of critical race theory (and “why kids use the n-word.”) In a chapter that will disturb some, she offers human-scale and tender reports from the complicated abortion debates. As a Texan, she knows quite a bit about gun culture, and enters the discussion about mass shootings. Holy smokes, this is a brave, caring book — clever, passionate, raw, real. As the wonderful Mae Elise Cannon (author of The Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World) tells it, “McNeel doesn’t shy away from addressing critical divisions within the church while calling us to respond ore faithfully as witnesses to the cross.”

At the end of each chapter MnNeel offers the same set of bullet-points showing where the key fissures are, what might be done to build bridges, what trade-offs might be necessary, and how the “Us vs them” mindset has damaged our conversations on this topic. Despite these keen take-aways, Ms McNeel is a master storyteller and believes in the power of stories; that’s the heart of it. One chapter is called “Turning the Stories Inside Out.” This is one heck of a book and I name it here because I am sure this sort of human solidarity with those who suffer injustices is, frankly, a core piece of any political philosophy that dares to suggest it is Christ-like.

URGENT BOOKS ON THE DANGERS POSED BY THE EXTREMIST RIGHT WING

Your Jesus Is Too American: Calling the Church to Reclaim Kingdom Values over the American Dream Steve Bezner (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

This lively author trains church planters, is an executive of the Texas Baptists, and a professor at Truett Theological Seminary. He’s beloved and respected for an evangelical vision that calls us to confront the idols of power and influence that have eroded principled Christian ways. Although he is beloved in his context — Beth Moore wrote the lovely forward; Beth Allison Barr says she’s giving it away to friends and family — others esteem it as well. Philadelphia African American pastor Eric Mason affirms the book’s Christ-centered worldview. Michael Wear says the author has “put his heart into this book” even as he calls for obedience to the way of Jesus. This warns about how the ideologies of various political movements can quickly erode the clarity and power of our Christian discipleship. This is a great, readable book, a good reminder for one and all.

American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church Andrew Whitehead (Brazos Press) $24.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $17.49

I have highlighted this several times in recent months and find it to be both warm and semi-scholarly, a clear-headed and inspiration book by a serious academic; he is, by the way, trained as a sociologist and he follows the data in ways most of us do not. He’s written on other prominent publishers and here distills much of his research and thinking for a Christian audience. It is one of the best studies of so-called Christian nationalism, explaining what it means, exploring how prevalent it is, and reflecting on why it all matters to those wanting an effective, Biblical faith. Excellent.

American Christian Nationalism: Neither American Nor Christian Michael W. Austin (Eerdmans) $17.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.59

This is brand, brand new by an author we’ve followed for years. (It was just a few months back when we were celebrating his lovely book (Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and the Life of Christ. Professor Austin also wrote the very important book QAnon, Chaos, and the Cross: Christianity and Conspiracy Theories which grows more timely and urgent with each passing week.

This succinct new one shows how nationalism is contrary to both American values and Christian virtues and then he offers a simple vision for a better form of civic engagement. This is, as Daniel Williams writes, for Christians who are “dismayed by the contemporary state of American politics.” Joel Looper (of Another Gospel) notes that it avoids “any hint of a polemical tone” Wow.  By the way, there is a very good foreword by the respected and eloquent Marlena Graves. We obviously need this short (86 pages) but potent book.

The Violent Take it By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy Matthew D. Taylor (Broadleaf) $32.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $23.09

When historian Kristin Kobes Du Mex says a book is “required reading for anyone seeking to understand Christian nationalism” I take notice.

After hearing him one Sunday morning on NPR I realized he is a vibrant Christian with a charismatic church past, and that his passion is more than academic or even patriotic, but from a place deep in his own heart. He understands his topic — the New Apostolic Reformation movement of so-called prophets and apostles — and understands well their interest in spiritual warfare, the Seven Mountains mandate, the Jericho Marches, the Cyrus stuff, and more. That January 6th was organized in part using conference calls from Pentecostal preacher Paula White’s office in the White House should be front page news. That these neo-Pentecostals, who call themselves Apostolic prophets, are very different then the older school fundamentalist Moral Majority (who at first rejected Trump as too worldly) and are all-in about the lies of the 2020 election steal and the like, is vital to understand.

Other authors who have written about the extremist Christian right — Bradley Onishi (of Preparing for War) and Katherine Stewart (of The Power Worshippers), and Samuel Perry (of Taking America Back for God) and Jim Wallis (of The False White Gospel) all give urgent reviews for this being not only meticulously researched but a major contribution to our understanding of public religion in our age. The radical charismatic movement has catapulted from the fringes and into the center of MAGA politics and the implications are fast. This “propulsive” account of the network of this new version of the Christian right is an important expose. This is a piece of the puzzle we have to understand.

Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor Caleb E. Campbell (IVP) $18.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.60

One of the longer and most heart-felt reviews I’ve done this year was in the BookNotes last July when I explored the importance of this beautiful, painful, energetic, and very helpful book which helps us realize that the very far fringes of the QAnon / Proud Boys / alt-right that approves of militias and winks at the KKK and the like is, frankly, not really Christian. That is, to counter this cult-like devotion to this extremist ideology will take more than kind conversations but a serious-minded missional strategy that is committed to loving others and sharing the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Christian Nationalists are neighbors to be loved and we need a pastoral response that is gospel-centered and gracious. Yes, it is, as one reviewer put it, “ a sobering assessment of the heretic elements of American Christian nationalism” but it also is written by one with “a deep love for those who have fallen into its trappings.” I so appreciate the love and grace and commitment to truth that pastor Campbell shows in this guide to ministering faithfully to “Christian” nationalists.

The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism Tim Alberta (Harper) $35.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $24.50

Tim Alberta is a respected journalist and a Christian — an evangelical pastor’s kid, in fact — who has covered the ugliness of the far right, having written a mainstream bestseller (American Carnage.) When Trump loyalists and MAGA believers assailed him at his own father’s funeral, he realized that he had to write more intentionally about extremist Christians and the theologically weirdness of our times. He is not only one of our best political reporters, but he is a gracious and solid Christian; he cares about this stuff a lot. There is a large amount of sordid detail here, but you will need to keep turning these 475+ pages. Even those who follow political news will be shocked at the ways in which the GOP has co-opted so many on the religious right. This is trenchant and revealing, compelling and deeply moving. If you saw him in his many media appearances (watch the one on The View, for instance) you will know how good he is at explaining complex matters with care and insight.

Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity Joel Looper (Eerdmans) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

This one was highlighted alongside my BookNotes review of Disarming Leviathan and it “offers his fellow evangelicals a theological rationale for resisting Christian nationalism.” Politicized evangelicals seem to think they are fighting liberal and secularizing forces but Looper shows that it is they who are eroding the first things of the gospel, mixing up the church and the state, reducing religion to civic values from a (mis)remembered past.

I hope you saw the excellent review of this in Christianity Today that highlighted that while the author firmly exposes the nonsense of some of the leaders of the Christian nationalistic right — Eric Metaxas, Robert Jeffress, Stephen Wolfe — he also explores the public theology, such as it is, of others who are lesser known. This not only reflects on Trump’s inadequate view of Christian faith but critiques others of the Christian right for grounding their civic views in ideologies other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember the Apostle Paul’s warning about adopting a false gospel? We should all take heed. Looper helps.

Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America Sasha Abramsky (Bold Type Books) $30.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $21.00

This just recently came out and I am almost finished with it already. I have to admit there were times I had to stop to catch my breath; reading this has brought up great turmoil in my own life, mostly around the radicals who — despite thousands dying of Covid in 2021, with hospitals and morgues on overload — started movements, sometimes violent, against anyone who believed in masks, social distancing, or quarantining. As the awful virus spread, there were thousands and thousands who formed groups to take over small town councils and push back against what they thought were draconian policies. To this day it is a hot-wire topic and those who were anti-vax seem to often deny the reality of their neighbors who were dying. Of the morgues. Of the stress of the nurses and doctors. Add to this the complexities of the BLM protests and the political tensions around, eventually impeachment trials and the like. From Trump to George Floyd to wild fires to school closings to the so-called lock down measures, the first half of our current decade was pretty horrid. Abramsky is understanding of the vast tensions in our cultural air and he tries to be fair to all involved.

(He is a fair and honest reporter, telling the backstory of lots of colorful characters, but doesn’t cover up the nutty stuff that happens — rumors that Antifa activists were coming in a white bus to destroy a small town, for instance and citizen vigilantes brought out their long-guns against their neighbors who were peacefully protesting about racial injustices.)

This riveting report studies a town in Washington and the ways in which well-meaning, even conservative public servants were hounded (sometimes with the most vile, sexually abusive and threatening language — utterly by otherwise super-spiritual Christians, even) by those who had entered this extremist campaign to make America great again. This is a book full of trauma and local conflict. It has been called chilling and disturbing. We all know it is true. There are, as Jeff Sharlet (author of the must-read Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War) writes, “real people in this ultimately reported book, real consequences — and also real hope.”  Is authoritarianism a problem? You bet. Do many want to upend standard institutions of civic life? Sadly, more than you may know.

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• United States Postal Service has an option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.83; 2 lbs would be $5.58. This is the cheapest method available and sometimes is quicker than UPS, but not always.
• United States Postal Service has another, quicker option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.70, if it fits in a flat-rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.50. “Priority Mail” gets more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. Sometimes they are cheaper than Priority. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Keep in mind the possibility of holiday supply chain issues and slower delivery… still, we’re excited to serve you.

BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

30% OFF

Welcome, again, to the regular BookNotes newsletter from Hearts & Minds, an indie bookstore in Dallastown, Pennsylvania. After that last, large BookNotes listing recommending books on faith and politics (grouped in four sortings, from easiest to most sophisticated, and then another group of a few on the dangers of Christian nationalism and the alt-right) I thought I would do a shorter listing of titles that are being featured at an off-site event we are helping a bit with this coming weekend.

We do a number of off-site events and we so appreciate those who invite us into their spaces of learning and renewal, allowing us to enhance their conferences and retreats with book displays.

Currently we have a hefty set of books at the Southeast Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature, this year hosted by the good folks at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA. While the scholarly workshops are on a variety of seriously literary topics the general theme is on the imagination of one George MacDonald, so we were thrilled to be invited to share titles there. The great UK poet and writer Malcolm Guite is speaking as well, so, again — thanks to SERCCL and Covenant (and one of our favorite customers there who is heading up book sales for us.) Wish we were there.

Soon we will be in Western Pennsylvania at one of our favorite annual events, the 2024 Wee Kirk Conference. Wee Kirk is Scottish brogue for small church and we adore this down-to-Earth gathering of Presbyterians (held at the lovely Laurelville Mennonite Retreat Center.) It’s always a great event with gathered faithful from small towns and rural areas. We hear church leaders, seminary professors, Bible scholars (and me, this year, doing both a keynote talk and a set of workshops.) Pray for Beth and I, please, and for all those salt-of-the-Earth folk attending the lovely Wee Kirk event.

At the end of October we will sell books at a very different sort of event, an always captivating, rather sophisticated gathering of Christian attorneys and jurists and religious freedom advocates who come together under the auspices of the Christian Legal Society. It’s an important event held in a swanky venue and they treat us very well; we work hard to bring a helpful array of titles curated for this sort of audience, exploring their vocations. From speakers like Os Guinness and Rebecca McLaughlin (and a prominent Supreme Court Judge from Uganda!) we will be on our toes, hoping to serve them well.

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s World Missions Initiative McClure Lecture and WMI Conference / October 11 – 13

For this BookNotes we are showing books which will be on display at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s World Missions Initiative annual McClure Lecture and the following WMI conference. The theme of the event is “Mission in the Margins: Lessons and Practices from the Global Church.” Participants there will have a QR code linking to this BookNotes for each of these titles (selected by the WMI speakers) which obviously relate to the authors and presentations at the event. Isn’t that cool? We wanted to share this with our broader audience and subscribers, knowing that, firstly, at least, it is designed for the PTS missions conference and 2024 Don McClure lecturer, Dr. Harvey Kwiyani.

We thought you’d enjoy seeing — alongside the previously mentioned events — the sorts of stuff we find ourselves involved with, giving thanks to God for the various ways God’s people are on the move, serving here and there, in literature programs in higher education, in rural and small churches, in law practices and judiciaries, and, as shown below, among those working out innovations of faithfulness in gospel proclamation throughout the globe.

As always at BookNotes, the titles we show are all at a 20% off discount. We’ll show the regular prices and then the special BookNotes / WMI conference discount.

Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to see the links to our Hearts & Minds Bookstore secure order form page where you can safely enter credit card info. Just tell us what you want, fill in the data, and we’ll reply promptly to confirm everything.

Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility, and Co-Development B. Hunter Farrell & S. Balajiedlang Khyllep (IVP Academic) $26.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

I so admire Hunter Farrell (the director of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s World Mission Initiative and the great association director, Bala Khyllep. Hunter was once the director of world mission for the PC(USA) and has studied at both the Sorbonne and has a PhD in anthropology from a prominent seminary in Per. Bala is a pastor in the Pc(SA) with a ThM from Princeton; he belongs to the Khasi people and grew up in northeast India. Together they are heros in the world missions movement, combining evangelical zeal and ecumenical study and academic acumen and deep, deep awareness of the continuing crisis facing mission as it is practiced by North American congregations. I have reviewed this remarkable book before but as you can guess it critiques the colonial-era assumptions of mission “launched from a position of power” and, instead, invites local congregations to resist the harmful effects of such “selfie” approaches and move to partner with churches from the global south and majority world Christian movements.

As it explains on the back, this book offers a Christ-centered theology of mission rooted in companionship, an appetite and competence to engage across differences with cultural humility, and insights and strategies to accompany local and global neighbors in what they call co-development.

Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West Harvey Kwiyani (Orbis Press) $40.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00

While Orbis Press is a legendary and storied Catholic publisher that became known for publishing books of liberation theology (out of their Maryknoll Society offices in New York ) and rigorous theological works that advocate for a missional mindset that is culturally relevant and framed by a passion for the poor, they are also known for extraordinarily thoughtful scholarship on global missions (from a variety of perspectives.) This important book, by an African leader and missionary to Europe [did you get that!], is quintessentially cutting edge missiology, a book which is part of the ongoing series of the American Society of Missiology. It’s an important read by an important scholar/practitioner.  Congratulations to Dr. Kyiyani for doing the Donald McClure lectures at PTS this year.

Harvey Kwiyani is a Malawian theologian at the Church Mission Society in Oxford, UK, where he leads the Centre for Global Witness and Human Migration, and manages the World Christianity and Diasporas programs. He serves as Executive Director of Missio Africanus, an intercultural mission training initiative that seeks to equip and empower the global church for mission in Europe.

Africa Bears Witness: Mission Theology and Praxis for the 21st Century edited by Harvey Kwiyani (Langham Publishing) $34.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $27.99

What a joy it is to get to serve organizations like the WMI and what a joy to suggest books by globally-relevant books published by the Langham Partnership’s publishing program. Langham, you may know, emerged from the evangelical work of holistic preacher and leader, the late Rev. John Stott. Stott’s multi-faceted mission vision is perhaps taken more seriously in other parts of the world and not enough people in the US know the books coming from the Langham’s UK organization, but this is one great example.

Africa Bears Witness is said to be a “remarkable collection of essays which explores the role of African Christianity in God’s mission around the world, offering an empowering look at the work God is accomplishing in and through the African church.”

Harvey Kwiyani is a Malawian theologian at the Church Mission Society in Oxford, UK, where he leads the Centre for Global Witness and Human Migration, and manages the World Christianity and Diasporas programs. He founded Missio Africanus, an intercultural mission training initiative that seeks to equip and empower the global church for mission in Europe. Having long-served in mission in Europe and North America, he writes on cross-cultural mission and leadership, and has authored several books, including Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West (Orbis Books.)

A Practical Discipleship Model That Fosters Maturity: Responses to Tradition, Divinities, and Witch Doctors in the Context of the Anyuwaa Church Owar Ojulu (Wipf & Stock) $24.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

This African leader is a pastor in a small town and a very rural part of Western Pennsylvania — I did some student teaching in 1976 in one of the villages where he now pastors a Presbyterian Church — and he is known and beloved. This book tells his story and ministry insights from his work in both Western Ethiopia and Western Pennsylvania.

“Standing on the bridge between God’s word and God’s beloved world among Anyuwaa people, Owar Ojulu insightfully traces the touchpoints where the gospel takes distinctive shape. In this work we receive a compelling, urgent, and universal call to discipling; the model that Ojulu has provided for doing so with contextual sensitivity, prayerful partnership, and spiritual hope is a gift to the Anyuwaa church and Christians everywhere.” — Beth Lindquist McCaw, associate professor of ministry, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Based on a lifetime of ministry in western Ethiopia and among the Anyuwaa diaspora in North America, Owar Ojulu proposes a culturally appropriate discipleship as a strategy to help the Anyuwaa church reclaim the gospel in their own context. This book can help the Anyuwaa church and US Christian leaders seeking to help their churches become more faithful and relevant to the world.” — B. Hunter Farrell, director, World Mission Initiative, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

“Discipleship is difficult in any cultural context, but especially with those whose pre-Christian cultural influences continue to permeate every aspect of their worldview. Owar Ojulu’s excellent study on practical discipleship is not only for the Anyuwaa church, both in Ethiopia and the Diaspora, but for all who work among people groups who are struggling with the proper balance between their old way of life and their new life in Christ.” — Larry W. Caldwell, professor of intercultural studies and Bible interpretation, Kairos University

Migration and the Making of Global Christianity Jehu Hanciles (Eerdmans) $47.99 /  OUR SALE PRICE = $38.39

I suppose this could be described by using the annotation from the publisher — it is called “a socio-historical study of the spread of Christianity through the lens of human migration and intercultural exchange.” Yes, it is a scholarly contribution, beautifully published by Eerdmans, and considered magisterial. But it is also passionate and insightful, offering a new conceptual framework for the role of migration in the formation of the global church. It has rave reviews from The Calvin Theological Journal and Religious Studies Review, and, importantly, a lush and wonderful foreword by the amazing Philip Jenkins.

Jenkins writes:

In Beyond Christendom and other writings, Hanciles did so much to define an emerging field. Now, it is wonderful to see him applying his insights about migration and mission to an earlier era — nothing less than the first three-quarters of Christian history, the years before 1500. This is a remarkably ambitious goal, which he accomplishes with great success. Throughout, we must be impressed by his range of scholarship, and his acuity, as he roams through so many diverse eras and locales. He never lets us forget the links and parallels that bind those early centuries to our own day. This is an adventurous transnational history, which demands to be read and cited.

Jehu J. Hanciles is the D. W. and Ruth Brooks Associate Professor of World Christianity at Emory University. Originally from Sierra Leone, he is also the author of Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West and Euthanasia of a Mission: African Church Autonomy in a Colonial Context.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Ilan Pappe (One World Publications) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

In a previous BookNotes where we recommended resources to help us understand the ongoing tragic situation in the Middle East and ways to be thoughtful peacemakers during the war in Gaza, we named this searing, illuminating volume. We noted that it is historically significant — written by an Israeli historian! — breaking ground by reporting on facts not widely realized by many in the West. It is edgy and passionate and vital reading. 

Here is how the publisher describes its project; read this, please:

The renowned Israeli historian revisits the formative period of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred, and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called “ethnic cleansing.”

Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the Middle East.

Alongside some Pittsburgh area activists, this workshop is led by Shireen Awwad Hillal, Director of Bethlehem Bible College Community & Outreach and Samuel Munayer, a Palestinian theologian.

Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, the Bible Mitri Raheb (Orbis Press) $24.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

Again, we have highlighted this before and it is important to have it there at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary WMI conference. Decolonizing Palestine powerfully exposes the ties between “settler-colonial geopolitics” and various faith claims, decolonizing not only the land in which he lives, but our own theological discourse and attitudes. It is a short but weighty book.

Rev. Mitri Raheb is a Lutheran pastor (he served as the senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from June 1987 to May 2017 and as the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land from 2011-2016) and continues to speak around the world, inviting support for his various NGO works and his efforts to do public theology. He is also the founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. He has published dozens of books and we have stocked many over the years, from Faith in the Face of Empire to In the Eye of the Storm, and more. Decolonizing Palestine is his most recent.

Urban Ministry: An Introduction Ronald E. Peters (Abingdon Press) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

There are many many books on urban missiology and this good one rings true in many ways, on many levels. It is a serious text, a guide for preparing those doing ministry in urban settings, but it is written nicely, standing among other classics in the field. One of the great strengths is that the author himself is an exceptional example of savvy urban leadership, both in church and the broader community. Ron’s work in the Metro-Urban Institute at PTS is one example of the integrity of this important text.

As the publisher writes, Ronald Peters clarifies the nature of urban ministry as a theological discipline by showing how its core values of love, justice, community, and reconciliation (among others) engage the issues of economics, education, family life, public health, ethnic relations, and religious life in the urban environment. Arguing that the city has always served as an arena of God’s activity, Peters articulates a theological rationale for urban ministry that is both hopeful and yet realistic, affirming that God loves the city and its people and encouraging practitioners to do the same.

Ronald E. Peters is Henry L. Hillman Associate Professor of Urban Ministry and Director of the Metro-Urban Institute at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion Gregory Boyle (The Free Press) $19.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

We are glad that the urban ministry workshop at the WMI conference will be recommending this as it is a true, modern classic, a great read by a great man. We have long stocked all of Fr. Boyle’s books (also Barking to the Choir and The Whole Language and the art-filled, full-color devotional, Forgive Everyone Everything.) For those that may not be familiar, Boyle works with great compassion and care within the gang culture of south L.A. and offers jobs (and spiritual transformation) through his famed Homeboy Industries. Considered nearly a modern classic, this is a fabulous book.

By the way, we are now taking pre-orders for his forthcoming volume, to be released in early November, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. ($30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00.)

An astonishing book . . . about suffering and dignity, death and resurrection, one of my favorite books in years. It is lovely and tough and tender beyond my ability to describe and left me in tears of both sorrow and laughter. – Ann Lamott, author, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope

Heaven’s Passport – For a Fuller Life on Earth Samuel Calian (Sam Calian) $19.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This new, self-published book by the former President of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is a special addition to the books on display at the “Missions in the Margin” WMI conference. Sam has an accomplished past and has written widely in his context serving both Presbyterian higher education (a book on pursuing excellence in seminary training), for ordinary church leaders (The Spirit Driven Leader), and on congregational vitality within the mainline denominational setting (see, for instance, his 1999 volume, Survival or Revival: 10 Keys to Church Vitality.) I recall fondly a splendid book he did decades ago featuring dialogue between Protestant and Orthodox churches.

This new one uses the metaphor of a passport, a guide to purpose and faithful stewarding of our gifts and hopes. He offers clear-headed and devotional insights about living an ethical life and allowing God to work in us…

This is what he says about it:

Each of us is created in God’s image, the imago Dei, with all that implies about our lives to be spiritually empowered to leave the world a better, more just, and humane place honoring God’s creation. Readers will use this book not only as a resource for strengthening their own inner sense of living under God’s grace, but also as one’s biblical passport.

As we noted, all of these books are related to specific workshop or speakers at the 2024 WMI conference at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Folks there, as well as any BookNotes readers, get 20% off. Just click below which will take you to the secure order form page. Tell us what you want and we’ll take it from there. Happy to help, eager to serve. Thanks, all.

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TO PLACE AN ORDER 

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

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

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

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

• United States Postal Service has an option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.83; 2 lbs would be $5.58. This is the cheapest method available and sometimes is quicker than UPS, but not always.
• United States Postal Service has another, quicker option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.70, if it fits in a flat-rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.50. “Priority Mail” gets more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. Sometimes they are cheaper than Priority. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Keep in mind the possibility of holiday supply chain issues and slower delivery… still, we’re excited to serve you.

BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

Thanks to those who have recently sent orders our way. We literally depend on your support to keep our lights on here in Dallastown and we are more than grateful. In the last months of BookNotes we’ve highlighted titles on spirituality and birdwatching, work and Bible study, poetry, ecology, disciple-making, the arts, family relationships, church life; we’ve featured books on wonder, grief, social media, vocation, a Christian philosophy of history, and on practical virtues like discovering habits of joy. We’ve featured fun travelogues and unforgettable biographies, but not as many novels as we wished. From our interior lives to our culture-making, from theology to the arts to the sciences, we’ve enjoyed inviting folks to read widely so as to freshen our imaginations for that sort of discipleship Peterson called “a long obedience in the same direction.” We are proud of our friends and readers and appreciate your involvement in this movement of reading for God’s Kingdom. Hooray.

In this BookNotes I am going to do an epic listing (with fairly brief remarks, hard as that may be for me) about the vocation of our citizenship. Yep, here’s a big list of books on politics. I’ve mentioned many of these before, but wanted to offer these again.

If you feel so inclined please share this (if it doesn’t cause you too much grief. Or maybe, especially if it might!) Thanks.

ALL OF THESE ARE ON SALE AT AN EXTRA DISCOUNT FOR TWO WEEKS ONLY. Order now and get 30% OFF. After that they will return to our customary BookNotes 20% discount.

AND — we will offer a free book that we have selected for you, to be sent (while supplies last) with any purchase from this list. Cheers.

I’ll group the recommendations in a few categories or levels of sophistication. The categories are a bit fluid, I’ll admit. I hope you read through the whole important list.

101 – BASIC, ACCESSIBLE  BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP

201 – MORE SERIOUS, READABLE BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP

301 – MODERATELY ADVANCED READS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP

401 – IMPORTANT BOOKS ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & CULTURAL ANALYSIS –

URGENT BOOKS ON THE DANGERS POSED BY THE EXTREMIST RIGHT WING

Again, all books are 30% off until October 17, 2024. And we’ll send a free one, while the bonus supplies last.

101 – BASIC, ACCESSIBLE  BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP 

The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life Vincent Bacote (Zondervan) $18.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.29

This little classic makes the simple case of why we must think about the call to engage culture and care about political life in light of God’s call to holiness. A lovely, very brief introduction to a wide-as-creation, Biblically-informed vision of public life. Buy a bunch!

Dr. Bacote teaches at Wheaton College and has published widely about the Bible, the Holy Spirit, public thinking, civic life, racial justice, and the theology of Abraham Kuyper.

 

Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How To Engage Without Losing Your Friends on Selling Your Soul Denise Grace Gitsham (Bethany House) $16.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

A really basic guide to American citizenship and Christian faith by an experienced Republican politico. Although she tilts right, her first allegiance is to the gospel and for building unity.

There are endorsements on the back not only from a Fox News commentator but a Democratic Senator. Maybe not my own favorite but a good starter resource for someone you may know.

How To Be a Patriotic Christian: Love of Country as Love of Neighbor Richard Mouw (IVP) $18.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.60

I adore this little book, always in awe at how Mouw can bring his professional training as a political philosopher in the Reformed tradition to bear in a way that is readable and enjoyable and instructive and helpful. This lovely book is a great starter for reminding us of why patriotism — properly understood — is a good thing, even though it can go ugly and even idolatrous at times.  I appreciate his “on the other hand” balance and his insight that our patriotism should be an avenue of love of others. Solid.

 

Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk: A Christians Guide to Engaging Politics Eugene Cho (David C. Cook) $17.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.59

Many of us have admired Cho for his passionate work not only as an innovative evangelical pastor but his radical work on poverty and wages. His work with immigrant communities in his home state of Washington has been studied and praised. But now he is most known as the CEO of Bread for the World, the premier citizens action group that works on legislative efforts that help mitigate hunger, both globally and in the US. BFW is a group we should all appreciate — their long-time President, the late Arthur Simon was a friend and regular customer — and Cho wrote this upbeat book about civility and effectiveness in political activism before he took over the leadership of Bread. This is a very fine book, thoughtful and insightful. Enjoy!

Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or the Elephant Patrick Miller & Keith Simon (David C. Cook) $17.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.59

I know that some of our customers enjoy the provocative Truth Over Tribe podcast where these dudes regularly remind Christians that they dare not be loyal primarily to a tribe, a party, a group other than the church of Jesus Christ. Like the book, it is enjoyable and yet really thoughtful. Many of us feel exhausted by tribalisms of all sorts and while this does not shy away from political involvement, it puts it within the context of the ideologies of tribalism that are so very hard to avoid these days. Can truth and love win out over tribalism and fear?

The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics Curtis Change & Nancy French (Zondervan) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

  Chang is a long-time, thoughtful theological scholar having written on the likes of Augustine and Aquinas. Now a working psychologist, he partners here with long-time civic activist — until a few years back, exclusively with the Republican Party — Nancy French. Both have come a long way in pondering how a Biblical view of humility and hope can guide us through the “how” and “what” of complex political conversations. They offer some “types” of approaches and postures, ranging from the harsh ideologue to the hurting cynic. There is a better way of conversing and they invite us to think Christianly less about political philosophy but about comporting ourselves with graciousness and Christ-likeness.

The Party Crasher: How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide Joshua Ryan Butler (Multnomah) $17.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.90

I, at least, couldn’t put this one down and hope you will also find it engaging and helpful.  It is really helpful and a necessary guidebook to understanding the lay of the land in ways that are a bit more wise and interesting than the routine left vs right continuum. Using a matrix quadrant of four views, Butler suggest these perspectives are almost like religions for some people and people of Christian faith ought not be taken in by any of the four tendencies. I think he is right in exposing the religion-like commitments that undergird these orientations of progress and responsibility and identity and security (as he names them.)

After this astute orientation, he offers Biblical insight rooted in a vivid understanding of who Jesus is as Lord and how his disruption (as Party Crasher) can bring hope to our partisan mess. He offers ten political commandments for Christlike engagement, too. Some are pretty common sense (and oh-so-necessary) and others are surprising and nearly brilliant. A fun and provocative book.

Kingdom and Country: Following Jesus in the Land That You Love edited by Angie Ward (NavPress) $16.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

As you may know, I’m often frustrated that the media and many thoughtful Christian leaders put all evangelicals in the same far-right basket of those who go along with the MAGA movement’s nutty claims about the last election being stolen and who are willing to support a candidate who gives the nod to racists in the KKK and  violent thugs like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Of course this is not at all the case, and this collection of informative and inspirational pieces is such a good example of ordinary evangelicals who care about justice and the common good, who see the Bible as guiding them to resist overstating the ideologies of the right or the left. What do you do when the priorities of God’s Kingdom clash with political trends? A great handful of rising leaders within the broader evangelical movement. There are women and men from different social locations and ethnicities, too, giving a fresh batch of insight and passion. Most admit there are few easy answers and following Christ is complicated. Very highly recommended.

By the way, see another in this “Kingdom Conversations” series edited by Angie Ward called The Least of These: Practicing a Faith Without Margins (NavPress) $16.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies N.T. Wright & Michael F. Bird (Zondervan) $22.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.09

I have previously reviewed this one, of course, and we have been proud to feature it at events over the summer and fall — there is no doubt that these Biblical scholars have thought well about public life and the threats to democracies around the world in these dangerous days. But, to be clear, they are Bible guys, and here they study the Scriptures, especially the New Testament teaches about “the powers” and what it means that Christ has conquered them. I’ve read a few other theological studies of the powers — think Berkof, say, or Walter Wink, or Marva Dawn — but this is doubtless the best, most readable, study of a Biblical basis for our Christian political witness. Of course we love how it explores the nature of the Kingdom of God, framing the upheaval of our day by the light of the here-but-still-coming reign of Christ.

201 – SLIGHTLY MORE SERIOUS, READABLE BOOKS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP 

The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor or Kaitlyn Schiess (IVP) $18.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.29

A generation of young Christians (and old ones, too) are weary of the political legacy they’ve inherited and are hungry for a better approach. This asks how we should form our political convictions and how we can explore the habits and practices that inform our visions of citizenship and the public good. This is nearly brilliant, a must read for one and all.  Blurbs on the back sing its praises from Makoto Fujimura, James Skillen, Karen Swallow Prior, Molly Worthen, Matthew Kaemingk, Michael Wear. Right on — an absolute must-read for anyone interested in political faithfulness.

This explains it well and why you will value it. Not only for you own earnest self-evaluation but as entertain others in conversations about how they form their views.

How should Christians vote? In the last several years, this question has become a dividing line in the church, polarizing the people of God into opposing camps and fracturing the Christian community along worldly fault lines. With wisdom beyond her years, Kaitlyn Schiess recognizes the folly of centering on this question and instead focuses on a better one: What sort of people are we being formed into? With biblical grounding, theological depth, and the spiritual urgency of a next-generation leader, Kaitlyn lays the groundwork for a better, more faithful approach to political engagement. After finishing this book, here is the one thing I know for sure: we have not seen the last of Kaitlyn. — Sharon Hodde Miller, author, Nice: Why We Love to Be Liked And How God Calls Us to More and The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

Compassion & Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement Justin Giboney, Michael Wear, and Chris Butler (IVP) $24.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.80

This is a fabulously rich, enjoyable read that explores questions of social justice and moral order as it pertains to the common good. These authors worked in what they called the “AND” campaign — think of the gospel called to speak the truth in love. Or, as the title summarized, compassion and conviction. This shows how we who follow Jesus in light of a Biblical orientation may sometimes feel too progressive for conservatives and too conservative for progressive. We needn’t be stuck in this continuum, really, but this campaign is trying to help us be more faithful, wholistic, balanced approach.

What an honor for the to have the black political activist Barbara Williams-Skinner write the powerful foreword.

The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life Michael Wear (Zondervan) $18.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.29

When I reviewed this at BookNotes earlier this year I raved and now I want to rave again. This is not a simple guide to thinking faithfully about politics (let alone about how to vote) but is more foundational, inviting us to ask how our hearts are, what sort of soulful approach we should have as we think about political service in God’s complicated world. Few books related prayer and our political responsibilities so well, that’s for sure.

Surely most of us need a deeper interior life, a view of knowing the world and how things work that is informed by the spirituality of a Biblical worldview. I love Michael Wear and would read anything he does. In this book he is deeply and wonderful informed by a wide reading of the whole corpus of the great Christian philosopher Dallas Willard. There is simply nothing like this one in print. Don’t miss it.

Wear’s 2017 book about working for and then leaving the Obama administration (as a very young man) is still very well worth reading — it’s Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America (Thomas Nelson; $16.99.) / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $11.89

The Bible and the Ballot: Using Scripture in Political Decisions Tremper Longman (Eerdmans) $25.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.19

The good Dr. Longman is one of the great Biblical scholars and teachers working today and here he has several significant chapters on what we might call a political hermeneutic; that is, how do we read the Bible to ascertain a “Biblical perspective” on modern civic life? These are well done, thoughtful, nuanced but not overwrought or arcane. It’s complicated, granted, but he offers some warnings and advice. The second half of the book offers a nuanced Biblical orientation towards a number of hot topics from immigration to pro-life concerns to questions about nationalism to racism, poverty, and more. After amassing the Biblical data, he wisely calls for a principled pluralistic in applying Scriptural wisdom into our modern, secular, political landscape. This is, at least, a handy resource to have around.

Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit Parker Palmer (Jossey Bass) $17.95 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.56

I do not need to say much about this, I trust. Parker Palmer is a gentle, quiet, insightful author, a Quaker who has written with passion about public life most of his life. He has written about teaching, the reform of higher education, famously about vocation and “listening to your life” and about how concern,generally, about the spirit (or the Spirit) of our lives matters, also to our public and cultural endeavors. From the journey inward to the journey outward he has been a good and wise guide.

Here he draws us into this invitation to listen well, to be decent neighbors, to work hard for a civil and gracious public order that invites reform and human caring. I’m not sure if his nonviolent circles and kind initiatives of finding common ground are potent in this polarized age, but I’d like to think they are. We are, I think most agree, in this together. We can appreciate others and we can hold tension in life-giving ways. Right? Can we form community among our own often tense communities? Palmer offers here five “habits of the heart” that can be developed in everyday settings like families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations, and workplaces to help restore an ethics of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” A distinctively Christian contribution might want to say more than that (in fact, Palmer wants to say more than that) but it’s a good start, eh? A lovely and heartening book.

301 – MODERATELY ADVANCED READS ON POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP 

Just Politics: A Guide for Christian Engagement Ronald J. Sider (Brazos Press) $26.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.20

I have maintained ever since this first came out years ago that it was simply the best book on a Christian approach to political life that I have yet read. He draws on a wide range of thinkers and activists, offers an impeccable commitment to the authority of Scripture, and calls us not only to research the Bible well but also to, in light of a broad Christian vision of life and society, evaluate well the data on the ground about key issues. (That is, for example, even if we agree that social policy ought to be biased in favor of the poorest among us, good folks can disagree about whether or not, in fact, for instance, raising the minimum wage helps the poor in the long run.) So, here, Sider gives us an inspiring process of how to think well about politics as such and how to humbly but responsibly develop a consistently Christian view of best approaches to policies and, finally, to voting. The late Ron Sider badly wanted us to be biblically grounded and factually responsible and graciously active. It isn’t a difficult read, really, but it is thorough — although not even 250 pages. You can do this!

James Skillen, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Public Justice, says,

Ron Sider builds on years of experience and conversations with Christians across a very wide spectrum. His balance is better than that of most who want to influence politics for the better. And biblical faith is the solid platform on which he builds and balances. Listen to Ron carefully before taking your next step. Just Politics — that’s what we need!  — James W. Skillen, founder and former president, Center for Public Justice, author The Good of Politics

The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship. Daniel K. Williams (Eerdmans) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

Now out in paperback this is, as the publisher puts it, “a theologically and historically informed treatise on a Christian approach to politics that foregrounds the priorities of God’s Kingdom instead of blind partisan loyalty.” It has been called “judicious” and Williams has been called “one of our finest historians on evangelicals and politics.”

Listen to this:

We live in a time when far too often partisan politics and catchy slogans replace thoughtful Christian engagement. Fiery rhetoric is often detached from fair-minded assessment of the past and present. It occurs on both sides of the aisle. Thankfully we have people like Daniel K. Williams, who offers both the nuance of a historian and the concerns of one committed to the fullness of ancient Christian concerns. This book will at times surprise, but also hopefully inform and encourage, those seeking to more faithfully navigate the debates of our age. — Kelly M. Kapic, author You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News

Citizenship Without Illusions: A Christian Guide to Political Engagement David T. Koyzis (IVP Academic) $18.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.60

Wow! Hooray! This shipped to us more than a month early, arriving before I had time to do the major review that it so richly deserves. This thoughtful project is a somewhat more accessible and practical follow up to his magnum opus, one of the more important books of civic life to have been published in the last 25 years, Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (see below.) That major work shows the deep roots of Western culture and how the binary fountainheads of political ideologies of our times — simply but, the left and the right — are more related, philosophically, then many realize. How can people of serious faith navigate the complex ideologies that pull us towards these particular (if distorted) visions?

Once one realizes the dangers of imbibing too deeply from the wells of these secularized visions, that is, once we reject the illusions and most profound claims of the left and the right alike, how then shall we vote? Well, it isn’t that simple because, for Koyzis, responsible citizenship is much more than showing up to vote every four years. What does it look like to engage wisely “without illusions” in our day by day citizenship? Can we enter the public square without betraying our own deepest convictions? Can we wisely compromise and yet offer a faithful, gracious voice? This book is fabulous, serious, important. It is just out — we’ve got it now at 30% off. Hooray. Don’t miss it.

In an age of heightened political division and widespread insistence on individual rights, often to the detriment of a vision for the public good, this primer on the task of being faithful Christian citizens is a breath of fresh (principled!) air. While reflecting the erudition of a senior political science scholar, Koyzis’s book is eminently readable, theologically grounded, and insightfully practical for anyone wanting better to live in the tension between the heavenly kingdom of God for which we pray and the broken earthly political and social contexts in which we all live. — David Guretzki, president, CEO, and resident theologian, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

Citizenship Without Illusions is the best one-stop treatment of political citizenship written by the most significant evangelical political theorist of our day. In it, Koyzis makes a case for political engagement as a divine vocation in which our allegiance to Christ is primary and our allegiance to political parties and platforms is secondary. His ability to turn complex political realities into practical frameworks for action is second to none. Highly recommended. — Bruce Riley Ashford, senior fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology

Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters Miranda Zapor Cruz (IVP Academic) $24.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.80

My, my, let me tell you that this is perhaps my favorite new book on this topic of the season so far — stunning almost, brimming with insight, remarkable clarity, page-turning writing, balanced, wise, vital views. This “helps us learn from Scripture and from Christians of the past as we discern how to be salt and light in our own time and place.”  The author is a popular professor of historical theology at Indiana Wesleyan University. She holds a PhD in religion politics and society from Baylor University and an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary. Wow. This is one you should have to last nearly a lifetime.

The most comprehensive understanding of the role of the Christian believer in national politics from a biblical, theological, and historical perspective to date. A classic for generations. — Jo Anne Lyon, general superintendent emerita of The Wesleyan Church

This book is a trust guide for any and all believers who are struggling to faithfully navigate the oft-bewildering and sometimes downright distressing landscape of American public life. — Heath W. Carter, Princeton Theological Seminary, co-editor, Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism

The Good of Politics: A Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Introduction James W. Skillen (Baker Academic) $24.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.80

Jim Skillen has been a hero in my view (especially for his work in founding the Center for Public Justice) and has been a good friend to Beth and me over the years. He has written a lot, some of it brilliant, some a bit arcane. This is his magnum opus, or so it seems, with a detailed survey of how the government has been understood by different thinkers throughout church history. As he honors the unfolding of social diversity and the rise of the possibilities of the modern state Skillen stands solid on Augustinian notions of the sovereignty of God and yet shows how even Augustine’s seminal The City of God, as important as it is, is itself mired in more than one political theory. Ditto with Constantine, Aquinas, Althusius, Calvin, John Locke, etc. There is so much to know and this is more than an introduction, believe me.

The detailed second half of The Good of Politics offers a birds-eye view of various political issues in light of his argument for what Kuyper called “sphere sovereignty” and both principled pluralism and  structural pluralism. If you take it slow this repays the work tenfold. One of the primer Christian political thinkers in our lifetime, a quiet scholar and patient gentleman. You should read his astute, important work.

Church, State and Public Justice: Five Views edited by P. C. Kemeny (IVP Academic) $35.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $25.19

This book came out in 2007 and remains as important now as it was then. One of these back and forth that can be so illuminating as five authors offer their particular viewpoint and the others offer critical feedback. We have here top notch authors representing what might be called a Roman Catholic view, an Anabaptist / Mennonite view (by the great Ron Sider), a mainline Protestant social justice perspective, a principled pluralist view (informed by the legacy of Dutch and Reformed leader Abraham Kuyper and modern advocate Jim Skillen) and a classical separationist view by a  Baptist professor at Baylor.  This is really fascinating and truly informative. Your head might spin a little but we all need to consider the various options and learn the strengths and weaknesses of those who have spent their lifetime in Christian political service and scholarship.

Five Views on the Church and Politics edited by Amy Black (Zondervan Academic) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

Not unlike the above volume edited by Paul Kemeny, this one, edited by Wheaton professor Dr. Amy Black (author of the lovely, lively, Honoring God in Red or Blue: Approaching Politics with Humility, Grace, and Reason) includes five scholars from robust religious traditions, each going back and forth with the others. Here is how they arrange the debate:

An Anabaptist view (which they call “Separationist”, being the most limited possible Christian involvement in politics) is represented by Thomas Heilke; a Lutheran approach (called “Paradoxical” includes a robust witness and a strong separation of church and state) which is represented by Robert Benne; there is a “Black Church, prophetic” witness (which reminds us that the church’s mission is to be a voice for communal reform) and is represented by Bruce Fields; there is a Reformed (or “Transformationist” vision which emphasizes God’s sovereignty over all things, including churches and governments) and is represented by James K. A. Smith and the Catholic view (which they call “Synthetic” which encourages political participation as a means to further the common good of all people) and is represented by J. Brian Benestad. For what it is worth, Jamie Smith’s reply to each one is itself a stellar example of solid ecumenical insight and helpful, gracious critique. Smith’s role in this is brilliant.

Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Political Strategies for the Health of the Nation edited by Ronald J. Sider & Diane Knippers (Baker) $24.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $17.49

This big, now out of print, book is one we still recommend (we have only a few left) as it is nothing short of extraordinary, fabulously conceived and deliberately edited with a wide range of thinkers. The two editors (now both solving their differences in heaven) were themselves representing two very different orientations (Sider was at the time the often lefty President of Evangelicals for Social Action and Knippers was the President of the very conservative Institute for Religion and Democracy.) The contributions to this 380+ page volume include scholars we respect — from political writers and leaders like Paul Marshall and Stephen Monsma to profs of public theology like Dennis Hollinger and Max Stackhouse and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Some are known on issues around life and bioethics (Nigel M. De S. Cameron) and others think Biblically about peacemaking (like Glen Stassen.) On the ground congressional staff like Mark Rodgers contribute and other women and men with evangelical theology and public policy experience contribute. This is not only a call to sophisticated civic responsibility, but a handbook of big-picture thinking and specific topical policy proposals. Included is the impressive document “For the Health of the Nations.” Perhaps a bit dated? I’m not so sure…

401 – IMPORTANT BOOKS ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies David Koyzis (IVP Academic) $35.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $25.19

I have alluded to this above — his new one is more practical and designed for ordinary citizens — and I insist it is one of the most important volumes in decades. He insists that the philosophical movements that gave rise to what today we might call “liberals” and “conservatives” are much more alike that we often realize and as we unearth the assumption behind these ideologies, we realize that as Christians attempting to be faithful in our formulations of our political theories, we really ought to be careful not to fall into visions of change inspired by these essential pagan illusions. What a book! Careful, thoughtful, wise, this is complex and rich, important for anyone serious about developing a uniquely Christian discernment about modern politics. The newer expanded edition has a great introduction by Richard Mouw.

David Koyzis introduces readers to the range of political theories that have emerged and competed for dominance since classical times. He carefully and respectfully separates wheat from chaff in each of them in terms of a Christian worldview, and in a style that is clear, irenic, and persuasive. The second edition helpfully updates the first in terms of major political events of the past two decades. In an increasingly polarized world, this kind of book is essential reading for concerned citizens of all political and religious leanings.” — Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, professor emerita of psychology and philosophy, Eastern University, author Gender and Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World

This second edition of David’s great book is a gem. The brighter light he now shines on his assessment of modern ideologies comes from an in-depth assessment of the story each tells and the idolatry exhibited in each one. This also pushes Christians to examine the extent to which we may be compromising our dedication to God by bowing (even unconsciously) to other gods for political guidance. In this day of heightening nationalism, racism, terrorism, and sheer ignorance, the message of this book could not be more urgent or important. Read and discuss it carefully even if it takes weeks to do so. The multiple forces at work in our homelands and around the world will not be thwarted or redirected by one election or one major event. Christian love of God and neighbor demands responsible civic service and that requires the kind of understanding provided by Political Visions and Illusions. — James W. Skillen, founder and former president of the Center for Public Justice, author, The Good of Politics

Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology James K.A. Smith (Baker Academic) $27.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.90

This is the third major piece of the “Cultural Liturgies” trilogy. You may know Smith’s summarizing volume You Are What You Love which captures in lovely, readable prose the profound insights of these three major volumes. What you may know now is that he wrote that one — You Are What You Love — before he wrote this third major one and, in fact, as he explains in the beginning, he changed his mind a bit. So good as that third section of You Are What You Love is, Awaiting the King explores political theology with other conversation partners and with other conclusions. It’s mind-blowing, serious but important. Kristen Deed Johnson of Western Theological Seminary (and co-author of The Justice Calling) says it is “masterful” and “constructive.”

One of the great contributions is how seriously he takes the important scholarship of Willie James Jennings (The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race) and his deft, detailed examination of the heady work of Oliver O’Donovan. Whew.

Not every book of public theology has endorsements from Yuval Levin and Stanley Hauerwas and even Eric Gregory of Princeton. This is impressive stuff as he sets out “to reform Reformed political theology.” Wow.

Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis James Davison Hunter (Yale University Press) $40.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $28.00**

**This book is currently out of stock and we are unclear when they will be available again. We have a waiting list.

Called his “melancholy masterpiece”, the recent, weighty, Democracy and Solidarity is certainly one of the books of the decade, exploring with in-depth and scholarly rumination what sort of shared values a democracy like ours needs to survive and if we have lost such plausible unity in our era of nihilistic culture wars. When I first announced this a few months ago at BookNotes I cited Jon Meacham’s back-cover blurb which reminds us of its importance.

Meacham, author of The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, writes:

With his characteristic wisdom and acuity, James Davison Hunter has written an important and illuminating work on the cultural roots of our current democratic discontents. For those seeking to understand how we got here – and what we can do now – this is a vital book.

I first heard of social historian Jackson Lears from Ken Myers on his astute Mars Hill Audio services. Lears continues to be an astute cultural critic and it makes sense that he would know Hunter. Lears writes about this fresh and challenging interpretation of America in crisis:

Hunter has the insight to discern the nihilism pervading our politics, the courage to see its authoritarian consequences, and the wisdom to imagine humane alternatives.

Calvin in the Public Square: Liberal Democracies, Rights, and Civil Liberties  David W. Hall (Presbyterian & Reformed) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

I have been dipping into this big volume again for a class on politics I’m teaching at my church — it came out as part of the Calvin 500 series of books from P&R in 2009 — and I must say I’d love to be able to teach more of this, even if it is above my pay-grade. Hall is a rigorous historian and informed Calvin scholar and this makes the case (whether one likes the magisterial Institutes or not) that the experiment in local governance in Geneva in the mid 1500s was a vanguard of new thinking about human rights and the common good, shaping much of the development of Western political science and even revolutionary transformations. There’s a reason why, centuries later, the British King George squawked about “that Presbyterian war” in 1776. What a major work this is.

In the past two decades, a small cottage industry of important new scholarship has emerged documenting the distinctive Calvinist contributions to the development of Western theories of law, democracy, and human rights. In this engaging volume, David Hall offers a crisp distillation of the latest scholarly findings and a clarion call to reclaim the Calvinist pedigree of some of our most cherished political ideas and institutions. — John Witte, Jr., Professor of Law, Director, Center for the Study of Law and Religion Emory Law School, author Christianity and Law: An Introduction

Why Liberalism Failed  Patrick Deneen (Yale University Press) $19.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.30

It is above my pay-grade as a small-town bookseller, I’m afraid, to say much about this short but much-cited volume. Professor Deneen teaches at Notre Dame and, if you are reading this part of BookNotes, I suspect you know that he does not mean “liberalism” in the sense of being a contemporary Democrat (a lefty on the continuum of liberal to conservative) but classical liberalism, the ideology from the Enlightenment, written into our Declaration of Independence, inspired by the likes of John Locke. That is, in liberal modernity we are free of the superstitions and constraints of the Medieval world and extol a value-free world where each person does what they want — highlighting individualism and freedom and rights and the like. In a way, this understanding of classic liberalism is part of being modern in the secular age. Does that sort of political ideology (that often animates the right and the left in contemporary American political discourse) really work? Can it be sustained? Is our liberal political order in disarray, in part, because it has succeeded? Rod Dreher wrote in the American Conservative back in 2018 that it was the most important political book of the year. David Brooks says, in a blurb in the expanded second edition, that most debates these days are really less about policy but more about “basic values and structures of our social order.” He’s right, I think.

And listen to this:

Bracing. . . . Deneen comes as a Jeremiah to announce that Tocqueville’s fear that liberalism would eventually dissolve all [its] inheritances . . . may now be fully upon us. –  Ross Douthat, New York Times, author, The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

American Covenant: How the Constitution United Our Nation – And Could Again Yuval Levin (Basic Books) $32.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $22.40

What an amazingly well-informed book this is, just chock-full of new insights and ideas. In the words of a recent review by the young scholar Brad Littlejohn, “the basic structure of the book is methodical and easy to follow. After articulating (his) basic theses, Levin devotes one chapter to each of to the basic building blocks of our constitutional system: federalism, the Congress, the Presidency, the courts, and our party system (a slightly later innovation, to be sure, but one that he considers “a missing piece in the constitutional puzzle”).

He continues,

Each chapter begins with a masterclass in constitutional history, mining the Convention debates and the Federalist papers for insight into how each element of our political order was designed to build consensus through friction. Each then explains how and why we have lost our way, either by misunderstanding the purpose of these institutions, failing to nurture the norms that sustain them, or by consciously trying to do end-runs around them in order to achieve more decisive policy action.

In comparing and contrasting Yuval Levin’s view of our fellow citizen’s shared assumptions with the more pessimistic evaluation of Hunter (see above) he muses:

Our politics increasingly takes place within the funhouse mirrors of a thousand overlapping media ecosystems, each purporting to tell us what our fellow citizens and governing authorities really believe. Judging by many of those data points, it is certainly not implausible to conclude that we are in uncharted territory, and perhaps past a point of no return: we no longer have sufficient agreement on the basics of anthropology and morality that can serve as the starting points for political negotiation.

Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give Os Guinness (IVP) $23.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.79

Guinness has been one of my favorite authors for decades and he writes about a variety of topics and themes, but he has done in the last six or seven years a trilogy of titles that speak to his perception that America has drifted from her balance of ordered liberty, sustained by the virtues of the citizenry, and that we are in a serious crisis point. Zero Hour is a punchy, passionate cry from the heart, informed by his extraordinary knowledge of Greco-Roman civic philosophy and insights from the America Founders who shaped a new set of political ideas (in contrast, he is wise to remind us) to the secularizing and finally authoritarian impulses of the French Revolution. Over and over Guinness brings new evidence, fresh explanations, and renewed energy to this big project of understanding the decline of the United States. He is worried, but not hopeless. As Steve Forbes (of Forbes Media) notes, Os “longs to see it return to the grand vision of its founding ideals.”

If Zero Hour insists that America has lost its way and will fall (“unless…”), his naming seven key foundation stones of freedom is a helpful pathway towards defining and ordering our life together. These are eloquently offered, as always, but, in a way, are keys to further (much-needed) conversation. As always, Guinness is realistic but proclaims a message of hope. His passionate reminder of the urgency should not be minimized and his gospel-driven reliance on God dare not be forgotten.

For more detailed and thorough teaching — important books that came from Os before the succint and feisty  Zero Hour America — I recommend his 2021 release The Magna Carta of Freedom: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom (IVP; $22.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $16.09) which brilliantly relates the book of Exodus and a Jewish view of freedom with the secularizing ideology of the French Revolution. It is dedicated to the great British Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks. This is one of Guinness’s most important and foundational books to understand what is behind the motif of freedom in the American revolution. I have read it twice and while there will be sections you may not fully agree with, it is simply indispensable these days.

Before that, he wrote in 2018 his political masterpiece, now out in paperback, Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat (IVP; $26.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $18.89.) The publisher summarizes this robust call for active and informed citizenship like this:

The American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. Will conflicts, hostility, and incivility tear the country apart? Os Guinness provides a careful observation of the American experiment, offering a stirring vision for faithful citizenship and renewed responsibility for not only the nation but also the watching world.

Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy Luke Bretherton (Eerdmans) $35.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $24.50

Big and thick and richly drawn, this magisterial volume is one of the best examples of Christian political theology I have ever seen. David Gushee calls it “a monumental achievement” and Cambridge University scholar and author Sarah Coakley says it is written “with incisive clarity and remarkable accessibility” and is a “scholarly achievement of great note.” It is also, I’d say, inspirational, drawing as it does on Biblical insights about being a neighbor and about the most foundational ethic of all: love. It is a major, important, lasting contribution.

Bretherton is a distinguished professor of Moral and Political Theology and senior fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Deeply learned and humane, Bretherton’s book surveys the landscape of political theology while making its own argument for ‘why Christians should be committed to democracy as a vital means for pursuing a flourishing life.’ Bretherton’s five case studies — on humanitarianism, Black Power, Pentecostalism, Catholic social teaching, and Anglicanism — are nothing short of a master class in different Christian conceptions of political flourishing. — Cathleen Kaveny, author Prophecy Without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square

Luke Bretherton has been thinking hard about the polis, plurality/pluralism, and democratic citizenship for a long time. This erudite synthesis and expansion of [Bretherton’s] work over the last two decades brims with insights into essential and interrelated topics, such as secularity, toleration, economy, sovereignty, and populism. This book makes the case for democracy and establishes the framework for discussions in Christian political theology for the next quarter century. — Amos Yong, author, Renewing the Church by the Spirit: Theological Education After Pentecost

The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here Kaitlyn Schiess (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

I hope you know the name Kaitlyn Schiess (I commented on her Liturgy of Politics above.) She is a PhD student (studying with Luke Bretherton, in fact, at Duke) and has already shown herself to be an astute observer of the unfolding conversations about solidly, graciously, Christian political options. This isn’t, granted, heady political philosophy, but I listed it here as it is less about forming a Christian political mindset as it is an overview on how the Bible has been too often misused in public discourse. There have been many who have written about this exact thing — I still like a book by a Jewish scholar in 2007 called Thumping’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics — but this historical study is without a doubt the best work on the topic to date.

Beth Allison Barr has called it “clever, judicious, and remarkably persuasive” and Skye Jethani says it is a “must read.”

Whether you lean left or lean right, whether you come from a red state, blue state, or a purple one, if you are a Christian who seeks to apply biblical principles to your political thinking, you will find something instructive, challenging, and enlightening in this book. — Karen Swallow Prior, author of The Evangelical Imagination

Recharging the American Experiment: Principled Pluralism for Genuine Civic Community James W. Skillen (The Center for Public Justice) $9.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $6.99

I have mentioned Jim Skillen often and highlighted above his major, wonderful volume The Good of Politics. This is a more complex work, but not super-scholarly. It might be a bit demanding only because it is written out of a framework and using arguments that are not typical within our assumed binary political continuum. Skillen here sets out to bring an innovative vision of building civic community by explaining both principled pluralism and confessional pluralism and how that political lingo and governmental agenda from a reformational worldview  — with roots in Kuyper’s political party in early 1900s Holland, actually — might recharge our nearly bankrupt America civic life. Fascinating and, for those who are eager, a vital project.

This Is Going to Hurt: Following Jesus in a Divided America Bekah McNeel (Eerdmans) $24.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $17.49

This isn’t a book about political philosophy, as such; heck, it is hardly a book about politics since it is so centered on people’s stories. But McNeel is a talented, snarky — and, really, really funny — political reporter. As an old-school investigator she has carted herself all over, talking with people about their hopes and fears and hurts. And this book — shocking in some regards — is a vividly told report from the front lines of our divided culture where people are not only arguing, but, often, ignoring the bruised and bleeding, nearly right under their (our?) noses. It is, finally, a book about compassion. It is an unashamed call to care.

Former conservative/evangelical Frank Schaeffer wrote a remarkable foreword, noting that the sacrifice of self for another is “the highest sacrament of all.” He continues, “The promise of sacrificial mercy McNeel offers is unconditional, based only on faith and love. And that alone is the answer to suffering”

This book offers, as another reviewer noted, “a compelling challenge to the narratives that separate us from the suffering of others and, for the sake of healing, calls us to deeper compassion for all humanity.”

In this fiesty, remarkable read, McNeel tells of kids who are facing huge mental health challenges; she writes about immigrants, about those who are victims of climate change; about the poor and the abused. She is candid about re-thinking some of her narrative around the Covid crisis. There’s a great chapter about (as she calls it, “the mockumentary”) of critical race theory (and “why kids use the n-word.”) In a chapter that will disturb some, she offers human-scale and tender reports from the complicated abortion debates. As a Texan, she knows quite a bit about gun culture, and enters the discussion about mass shootings. Holy smokes, this is a brave, caring book — clever, passionate, raw, real. As the wonderful Mae Elise Cannon (author of The Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World) tells it, “McNeel doesn’t shy away from addressing critical divisions within the church while calling us to respond ore faithfully as witnesses to the cross.”

At the end of each chapter MnNeel offers the same set of bullet-points showing where the key fissures are, what might be done to build bridges, what trade-offs might be necessary, and how the “Us vs them” mindset has damaged our conversations on this topic. Despite these keen take-aways, Ms McNeel is a master storyteller and believes in the power of stories; that’s the heart of it. One chapter is called “Turning the Stories Inside Out.” This is one heck of a book and I name it here because I am sure this sort of human solidarity with those who suffer injustices is, frankly, a core piece of any political philosophy that dares to suggest it is Christ-like.

URGENT BOOKS ON THE DANGERS POSED BY THE EXTREMIST RIGHT WING

Your Jesus Is Too American: Calling the Church to Reclaim Kingdom Values over the American Dream Steve Bezner (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

This lively author trains church planters, is an executive of the Texas Baptists, and a professor at Truett Theological Seminary. He’s beloved and respected for an evangelical vision that calls us to confront the idols of power and influence that have eroded principled Christian ways. Although he is beloved in his context — Beth Moore wrote the lovely forward; Beth Allison Barr says she’s giving it away to friends and family — others esteem it as well. Philadelphia African American pastor Eric Mason affirms the book’s Christ-centered worldview. Michael Wear says the author has “put his heart into this book” even as he calls for obedience to the way of Jesus. This warns about how the ideologies of various political movements can quickly erode the clarity and power of our Christian discipleship. This is a great, readable book, a good reminder for one and all.

American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church Andrew Whitehead (Brazos Press) $24.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $17.49

I have highlighted this several times in recent months and find it to be both warm and semi-scholarly, a clear-headed and inspiration book by a serious academic; he is, by the way, trained as a sociologist and he follows the data in ways most of us do not. He’s written on other prominent publishers and here distills much of his research and thinking for a Christian audience. It is one of the best studies of so-called Christian nationalism, explaining what it means, exploring how prevalent it is, and reflecting on why it all matters to those wanting an effective, Biblical faith. Excellent.

American Christian Nationalism: Neither American Nor Christian Michael W. Austin (Eerdmans) $17.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.59

This is brand, brand new by an author we’ve followed for years. (It was just a few months back when we were celebrating his lovely book (Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and the Life of Christ. Professor Austin also wrote the very important book QAnon, Chaos, and the Cross: Christianity and Conspiracy Theories which grows more timely and urgent with each passing week.

This succinct new one shows how nationalism is contrary to both American values and Christian virtues and then he offers a simple vision for a better form of civic engagement. This is, as Daniel Williams writes, for Christians who are “dismayed by the contemporary state of American politics.” Joel Looper (of Another Gospel) notes that it avoids “any hint of a polemical tone” Wow.  By the way, there is a very good foreword by the respected and eloquent Marlena Graves. We obviously need this short (86 pages) but potent book.

The Violent Take it By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy Matthew D. Taylor (Broadleaf) $32.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $23.09

When historian Kristin Kobes Du Mex says a book is “required reading for anyone seeking to understand Christian nationalism” I take notice.

After hearing him one Sunday morning on NPR I realized he is a vibrant Christian with a charismatic church past, and that his passion is more than academic or even patriotic, but from a place deep in his own heart. He understands his topic — the New Apostolic Reformation movement of so-called prophets and apostles — and understands well their interest in spiritual warfare, the Seven Mountains mandate, the Jericho Marches, the Cyrus stuff, and more. That January 6th was organized in part using conference calls from Pentecostal preacher Paula White’s office in the White House should be front page news. That these neo-Pentecostals, who call themselves Apostolic prophets, are very different then the older school fundamentalist Moral Majority (who at first rejected Trump as too worldly) and are all-in about the lies of the 2020 election steal and the like, is vital to understand.

Other authors who have written about the extremist Christian right — Bradley Onishi (of Preparing for War) and Katherine Stewart (of The Power Worshippers), and Samuel Perry (of Taking America Back for God) and Jim Wallis (of The False White Gospel) all give urgent reviews for this being not only meticulously researched but a major contribution to our understanding of public religion in our age. The radical charismatic movement has catapulted from the fringes and into the center of MAGA politics and the implications are fast. This “propulsive” account of the network of this new version of the Christian right is an important expose. This is a piece of the puzzle we have to understand.

Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor Caleb E. Campbell (IVP) $18.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $12.60

One of the longer and most heart-felt reviews I’ve done this year was in the BookNotes last July when I explored the importance of this beautiful, painful, energetic, and very helpful book which helps us realize that the very far fringes of the QAnon / Proud Boys / alt-right that approves of militias and winks at the KKK and the like is, frankly, not really Christian. That is, to counter this cult-like devotion to this extremist ideology will take more than kind conversations but a serious-minded missional strategy that is committed to loving others and sharing the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Christian Nationalists are neighbors to be loved and we need a pastoral response that is gospel-centered and gracious. Yes, it is, as one reviewer put it, “ a sobering assessment of the heretic elements of American Christian nationalism” but it also is written by one with “a deep love for those who have fallen into its trappings.” I so appreciate the love and grace and commitment to truth that pastor Campbell shows in this guide to ministering faithfully to “Christian” nationalists.

The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism Tim Alberta (Harper) $35.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $24.50

Tim Alberta is a respected journalist and a Christian — an evangelical pastor’s kid, in fact — who has covered the ugliness of the far right, having written a mainstream bestseller (American Carnage.) When Trump loyalists and MAGA believers assailed him at his own father’s funeral, he realized that he had to write more intentionally about extremist Christians and the theologically weirdness of our times. He is not only one of our best political reporters, but he is a gracious and solid Christian; he cares about this stuff a lot. There is a large amount of sordid detail here, but you will need to keep turning these 475+ pages. Even those who follow political news will be shocked at the ways in which the GOP has co-opted so many on the religious right. This is trenchant and revealing, compelling and deeply moving. If you saw him in his many media appearances (watch the one on The View, for instance) you will know how good he is at explaining complex matters with care and insight.

Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity Joel Looper (Eerdmans) $19.99 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $13.99

This one was highlighted alongside my BookNotes review of Disarming Leviathan and it “offers his fellow evangelicals a theological rationale for resisting Christian nationalism.” Politicized evangelicals seem to think they are fighting liberal and secularizing forces but Looper shows that it is they who are eroding the first things of the gospel, mixing up the church and the state, reducing religion to civic values from a (mis)remembered past.

I hope you saw the excellent review of this in Christianity Today that highlighted that while the author firmly exposes the nonsense of some of the leaders of the Christian nationalistic right — Eric Metaxas, Robert Jeffress, Stephen Wolfe — he also explores the public theology, such as it is, of others who are lesser known. This not only reflects on Trump’s inadequate view of Christian faith but critiques others of the Christian right for grounding their civic views in ideologies other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember the Apostle Paul’s warning about adopting a false gospel? We should all take heed. Looper helps.

Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America Sasha Abramsky (Bold Type Books) $30.00 / OUR EXTRA SPECIAL SALE PRICE = $21.00

This just recently came out and I am almost finished with it already. I have to admit there were times I had to stop to catch my breath; reading this has brought up great turmoil in my own life, mostly around the radicals who — despite thousands dying of Covid in 2021, with hospitals and morgues on overload — started movements, sometimes violent, against anyone who believed in masks, social distancing, or quarantining. As the awful virus spread, there were thousands and thousands who formed groups to take over small town councils and push back against what they thought were draconian policies. To this day it is a hot-wire topic and those who were anti-vax seem to often deny the reality of their neighbors who were dying. Of the morgues. Of the stress of the nurses and doctors. Add to this the complexities of the BLM protests and the political tensions around, eventually impeachment trials and the like. From Trump to George Floyd to wild fires to school closings to the so-called lock down measures, the first half of our current decade was pretty horrid. Abramsky is understanding of the vast tensions in our cultural air and he tries to be fair to all involved.

(He is a fair and honest reporter, telling the backstory of lots of colorful characters, but doesn’t cover up the nutty stuff that happens — rumors that Antifa activists were coming in a white bus to destroy a small town, for instance and citizen vigilantes brought out their long-guns against their neighbors who were peacefully protesting about racial injustices.)

This riveting report studies a town in Washington and the ways in which well-meaning, even conservative public servants were hounded (sometimes with the most vile, sexually abusive and threatening language — utterly by otherwise super-spiritual Christians, even) by those who had entered this extremist campaign to make America great again. This is a book full of trauma and local conflict. It has been called chilling and disturbing. We all know it is true. There are, as Jeff Sharlet (author of the must-read Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War) writes, “real people in this ultimately reported book, real consequences — and also real hope.”  Is authoritarianism a problem? You bet. Do many want to upend standard institutions of civic life? Sadly, more than you may know.

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

30% OFF

How about that last BookNotes — some fabulous brand new books and some important ones to consider pre-ordering. You can pre-order anything, of course —- just visit our inquiry page or our secure order page at the website — but we wanted to let you know about a few especially good ones coming in the next few weeks. Most we’ll have a bit early, I’m sure. We were proud of that mix of suggested titles, so if you missed that, check it out, HERE.

And at least one or two customers are still talking about the special Labor Day BookNotes, not only with books about work and a Christian view of our labors, but a handful of fabulously-written memoirs or creative nonfiction that explore various work settings. Fun, huh? Check that one out HERE.

The last two podcasts were fun, too — one listed three sorts of books about work (that was a Labor Day feature) and then in the next one I told about three good books about reading the Scriptures. Another “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast (describing three books about prayer) is about to drop today (you can find it at our Facebook page, eventually; you can watch us on Youtube or just listen on Apple or Spotify.) They release every other week.

And, yes, the 20% off discounts are all still good. Hooray for that.

We’re looking forward into the fall when there’s a new commentary on Acts coming from N.T. Wright (see below), an important collection of pieces on preaching coming from Baylor University Press by our friend Fleming Rutledge, and the previously mentioned Reading the Bible Latinamente edited by Ruth Padilla Deborst & Danny Carroll, R is coming in early from IVP. In early November will have the next Norman Wirzba book (Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis on Yale University Press) which I know I need, and the new one by Catholic priest and gang-land activist, Gregory Boyle (Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times.) In what will surely be seen as one of the great publishing events of the year, a long-waiting new volume (with the curious title The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World) by the exquisite author of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer will be available in mid-November. It’s only $20.00 in hardcover and with our BookNotes discount, you’ve got to get it.

It’s going to be a good season (and I’ve only named a few of the best nonfiction highlights) and we’ve got some great and rather practical ones here, now. Thanks be to God, right?

Here, then, with no further ado, are eight brand new ones that we have here at the Dallastown shop and four excellent forthcoming ones you really ought to pre-order now.

Longing for Joy: An Invitation into the Goodness and Beauty of Life Alastair Sterne (IVP) $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

What can I say briefly about Alastair Sterne and this extraordinary book? Please know it is very, very highly recommended. I know a number of customers loved the excellent book we pushed a year ago, The Invitation to Joy: The Divine Journey to Human Flourishing by Daniel Denk (which was released by Eerdmans) and I wasn’t sure we needed yet another book on joy; to be honest, many such titles seem less than serious, glib almost. But Sterne is an amazing person (who has worked closely with more than one of our favorite friends and customers) so we realize how good he is, as a thinker and writer and, well, as a person. You may recall his excellent previous book (that came out maybe four years ago) called Rhythms for Life: Spiritual Practices for Who God Made You to Be which was a down-to-Earth reflection on spirituality with a solid vision for vocation and our real-world callings. That book should be better known among us, I’d say.

Longing for Joy is now his brand new one and his thesis is both lovely and profound. True joy (not cheap happiness) is connected to goodness and beauty. We long for this — is being haunted too strong a word? — and he invites us into this desire, even if we struggle with what might be generally called mental health issues. It is hard to describe how moving this nicely construed and excellently rendered work is. I’m only part way through and concluded I had to lead off with it in this BookNotes. As a reader, you are going to appreciate it, I’m sure.

There is something here for all sorts of readers, by the way. The gorgeous first chapters are about our longings, including profound meditations on presence and absence, joylessness and cultivation of virtues. The second portion includes “the story of joy” which is Trinitarian, which chapters on the Father, Son, a pair entitled simply Crucified and Resurrection, and one on the Spirit. The large third section are pieces about the possibilities of joy in all manner of settings and contexts. It’s all so good.

And I’m not alone in thinking this. Karen Stiller (we reviewed her excellent book on holiness — Holiness Here — a month or so ago) says that “Like a master craftsman, Sterne weaves story, Scripture, and meaning into the most convincing case for joy I’ve read yet.”

I was delighted to see an author who has not released anything new in quite a while who is a writer I esteem immensely, Mike Mason (The Mystery of Marriage, The Mystery of Children, Champagne for the Soul) had a solid endorsement on the back. Mason writes,

Through rich storytelling and wise teaching, Alastair Sterne is an excellent guide to those cozy rooms, fireside parlors, and old summertime porches in that beautiful place you may have forgotten–the House of Joy.

Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Area of Being Human Carlos Whittaker (Thomas Nelson) $19.99 / OUr SALE PRICE = $15.99

This is another book that I can only mention briefly as too long of a review would be unfair. This unfolds as part memoir, part report from the front-lines of a rather unique set of experiences, and a guidebook to practical ways to live more faithfully and fruitfully amidst the noise and blessings of the internet. I don’t want to spoil the fun.

One need not, in fact very few could, do what this creative writer did. He takes nearly two months off to live in a fresh place and context (two fresh places, actually) to see what he could learn about our lives with screens. I love the cover, crossing out “Dis” and replacing it with “Re” since that is sort of the end game, here, disconnecting for a while to find ways tog et reconnected, rightly.

(By the way, even though he doesn’t mention it, this reminds me a bit of the older book by my good friend Sam Van Eman who wrote The Disruptive Discipleship: The Power of Breaking Routine to Kickstart Your Faith which is about how we might change up our lifestyle for a bit, trying some odd experiment or fresh change to learn some new patterns of faithful discipleship. This Whittaker book doesn’t work the theory the way outdoor educator Van Eman does, but he shows it — this is one heckuva disruption and one heckuva kickstart to some new patterns. It really is a fascinating project and you’re going to want to listen in, reading along for fun, and for good ideas to take home into your own life.

Simply put, as you might get from the title, Carlos Whittaker goes to a monastery to hang out with monks and then he goes to an Amish farm and joins their household for a time.

As it says on the back cover, most of us “have gotten so used to notification and alerts, pings and rings, that even if we don’t want to be on our phone so much, we don’t know what to do about it.” I can relate, can’t you?

(Aside: there are a lot of good books on what to do; I’d recommend at the very least the splendid The Life We Always Wanted by the astute thinker and wonderful writer, Andy Crouch.)

If you like chatty conversational books with a lot of storytelling, this work of creative nonfiction covers what Whittaker learned in his several weeks with the monks at Saint Andrews. His very first encounter with Father Patrick (who he likens to a brother of Patrick Swayze and Gandalf) will make you smile, and from there on out your in with him in this rather intense Benedictine way of life, which, of course, at first, he hates. This is not the famous Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris, which I have a sneaking suspicion he’s never heard of. For their part, the monks didn’t know or care that he is a popular evangelical writer. (And he was surprised that, uh, monks these days have phones. So there’s that.)

The second section is written of his time with the Miller family (in what he calls the Amish School.) In this section he’s in Ohio, working on a farm with a fascinatingly simple Anabaptist family. Although at least they talk (a lot) there is an awkwardness here for this black, very modern gent, not unlike what he first experienced with the monks. It’s a different experience for sure — no silent meal partners here — and he learns quite a lot. It’s a breezy, fun account, and we’re sure it will off some “tools and motivation” for living a bit less encumbered. It’s fun and a bit funny and — with his brain scan with his hero Dr. Amen (I tempt you, but no spoilers in this review!), Carlos’s last era (at his own home) shows just how to finder deeper relationships in a tech-saturated world.

Living With Grief Nicholas Wolterstorff (Cascade) $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This is a book that is short and simply stunning. I’ll admit I was so taken in part because I hadn’t heard it was coming, although many have wished for it for decades. It is short and seriously profound and my hands shook when I turned the first pages. Let me explain.

Nicholas Wolterstorff is arguably one of the world’s most renowned philosophers, having done major, heady works on Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Oxford, etc. He is a theologian, as well (at least in the sense of doing philosophical theology) and has serious books about the nature of God, the experience of knowing God, the importance of liturgy, and has written widely about the relationship of worship and work, prayer and politics. His passion for Christian thinking about what we might call political philosophy (what is justice?) is equal to his knowledge of aesthetics and his interest in the arts. His wonderful autobiographical book ,In This World of Wonders, tells his own story as a Calvin College graduate and his journey into the wider world of intellectual renewal within evangelicalism, his role in the scholarly community, and his efforts for public justice. He even contributed a wonderful graduation speech to my own edited book, Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life and we admire him greatly.

A key moment in his life, in 1983, however, was and remains horrible. His adult son died suddenly in a hiking accident, and, as any father would be, he was overcome with grief. A personal journal he kept in the aftermath — passionate, powerful, poignant — called Lament for a Son is a near classic among those who read about the topic of grief. Nick notes often that it was not written to be published or read widely but friends convinced him it would give others a model of honest, raw, Christian grieving. He published it reluctantly in the late 1980s, and we have had it regularly in our big grief section at the shop ever since.

This, then, a half a lifetime later, is one in which he offers some systematic and serious ruminations on how to cope with life’s sorrows. It’s been a long time coming.

There are just a few dense, short chapters. He explores “What is Grief?” and “What to Say.” He has a major chapter called “Owning and Disowning Loss and Grief” followed by “Owning Loss and Grief Redemptively.” The final chapter — succinct but wise — is “Where Is God in Loss and Grief?”

If Lament for a Son was a cry of grief, a cry of the heart, Living with Grief is “descriptive, reflective.” If the first was called passionate and poetic, he says this one is “dry, literal, prosaic.”

This extraordinary and I’d say nearly historic book has its genesis in some lectures Wolterstorff gave at Fuller decades ago; he had even lost the manuscripts in the subsequent years. A friend of his who had used those lecture notes in a class at a local prison (that also reads together Lament for a Son) had Nick joined that class a time or two to speak. It was at these prisoners urging that he revisited (and revised) those long lost Fuller lectures and now offers them here, finally, now. It is not for everyone (and neither is Lament for a Son.) But it is one many of our readers should read and some will cherish.

Ignite Your Soul: What Exhaustion, Isolations, and Burnout Light a Path to Flourishing Mindy Caliguire (with Shawn Smucker) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Many of us who have followed the many books that have come out in the last twenty-five years or so about spiritual formation, soul care, and spiritual direction might know Mindy Caliguire’s name. She did a small, quiet book about spiritual friendship and another that I thought was brilliant called STIR: Spiritual Transformation in Relationship which explored the stages of growth and how intentional relationships allow us to explore our faith formation together. (You’ll see some of her influences in the important work of Ruth Haley Barton at the Transforming Center, if that helps place her a bit for you.) So if she does a new book, it is going to be upbeat and delightful but also very well considered and helpful.

A second feature of this, besides the significance of the author and her solid reputation and experience in this space — she works with folks in churches and marketplace settings and offers guidance in a superb, online community named the Soul Care Collective — is that it is co-authored with a dear friend, central Pennsylvania’s Shawn Smucker. Sean is an amazing person, a novelist, co-writer, blogger, podcaster, and (get this!) a fairly recent bookseller having opened, with his wife, a lovely little shop in Lancaster, PA. Sean has an eager passel of followers and they will be delighted to know he has come alongside Mindy and helped her with this nice, new book.

To be clear, this book carries weight; a sort of hopeful seriousness, I’d say, but it shares pain and seems to really understands the complex moods and conditions of many modern readers. Are you burned out?  Might you say you are in a “bone-dry existence” or in a season where you miss (or don’t even miss) a once fiery (or at least glowing) experience of faith? She, too, has walked through this valley of the shadow. She gets it.

She writes, with exquisite honesty,

“The destruction that tore through my parched soul was not the end of the story. Nor does it have to be the end of yours.”

 

Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Area and Place Ben Lansings and D. J. Marotta (IVP) $24.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I’ve been waiting for this book for months (having chatted with the author last winter) and it just came in —nearly a month early!  Hooray. We’re very excited by this handsome, illustrated guide to various sorts of saints, done on heavier stock paper, making this a grand volume, if slim, with some true heft. D.J. Marotta is a savvy, young, Anglican priest in Richmond (who has a great vision to reach college students, by the way and works with the CCO for that purpose.) Marotta wrote a wonderful previous book that we highlighted here at BookNotes a while back, called Liturgy in the Wilderness: How the Lord’s Prayer Shapes the Imagination of the Church in a Secular Age. Readable but astute, informed by the best thinkers, with some prophetic oomph to it, that little volume is a delightful gem.

But this one is perhaps even more delightful as it is a co-authored project with an artist who is involved in Redeemer Anglican there in Richmond. He has been doing these string “modern icons” on social media for quite some time. It is fabulous to have pastor/writer D.J add his thoughtful devotional essays. The sense that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses is nearly palpable.

This sort of book (a saint-a-day, so to speak) is time-honored and so very useful. Those who use them love them! From the important devotionals of Orbis editor Robert Ellsberg like All Saints or Blessed Among Us to the soon-to-be released artfully designed work of Kreg Yingst, Everything Could Be a Prayer: One Hundred Portraits of Saints and Mystic ( I hope you saw our invitation to pre-order it) this brand new one can stand comfortably, wisely, even, with them. And the art — wow. It’s a full color illustrative graphic style (very different than the wild work of Yingst) and drawn to hint at the stylings of icons.

I like how there are some short essays in here — how to pray over these pictures, an overview of church history, a bit about why such diverse, global folks are portrayed and held up as those who bear witness and speak to us today. It shows their feast day (if they are formal saints in the Catholic or Orthodox churches) and helpful stuff about them all. There are favorites here and, I suspect, some you do not know much about, if at all. Marotta’s insights and Lansing’s art are a great combo. This book is a blessing.

Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spirituality Hungry Brad East (Eerdmans) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I’m not going to lie: this cover doesn’t grab me. I’m not sure who it is for. But you know what? It’s a thrill nonetheless, a fabulous resource, a great guide to Christian faith and growth. It’s not goofy or dumbed down, but its epistolary style makes it warm and gracious. East is a professor of theology at Abilene Christian University (and has a rather academic work on the church and another on reading the Bible in the church.) Here he is inviting God’s people to think about the task of saint-making. I’m part way through and it is inviting, warm, personal.

Is it for young people? I think so, I guess, but not just teens or young adults. It is written not by the good Professor as a scholar, but as a fellow pilgrim, perhaps something like a mentor, or even a confirmation sponsor. If you’ve ever hoped to disciple another, you need this fabulous guide to the spiritual life in Christ.

Yet, even if it is for “future saints” (we are all currently saints, if yet sinners, so I’m not pleased with the title) it is, clearly, of great value (and enjoyment) for those of any age or stage. This is one of the best guides to the habits and practices and convictions and insights we need as saints moving into deeper friendship in the church of Christ.

Since these are letters there are no shown footnotes or citations. But the back is jam-packed with endnotes, by sentence, citing, more often than not, Scripture and church Fathers, ancient theologians and a few more recent, from Lewis to Barth to Bonhoeffer. It ends with a small, black and white icon. Kudos.

Blurbs and rave reviews on the back of this are impressive. Wow — Rowan Williams, Alan Jacobs, Tish Harrison Warren, Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew Levering, Miroslav Volf, all top-class leaders, writers, thinkers. They all affirm East’s serious invitation to those who may be familiar with the faith, having been raised in the orbit of the church, but who are restless, bored, distracted, and mostly untutored. Letters to a Future Saint is a rare and vital work.

The Practicing the Way Course Companion Book: An Eight-Session Primer on Spiritual Formation John Mark Comer (Waterbrook) $24.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

I am not always a fan or workbooks and supplemental resources that go with primary texts. I know some enjoy the questions and blank spaces for journalling or reflection, but sometimes it just feels like an add-on, as if the publisher needs yet another item. But not always.

This is one of the best study guides I have ever come across and I can’t say enough about it. (Except to say that it is also available for free for download at John Mark Comer’s “Practicing the Way” online ministry, and, despite that, I still want to commend this oversized, thorough companion guide.)

If you’ve been around me lately you may know we have a huge stack of Practicing the Way here at the shop and have been talking about how much I appreciated not only the book but the fabulously made, really solid, really interesting free streaming classes based on the book. When our Presbyterian adult ed class went through it this summer we all agreed it was so good. We downloaded the free discussion questions and wished for more time to explore the extra content offered in the handouts.

That free extra content is designed to be used with the free online class, and I very highly recommend that visual content. But it parallels the book, so even if your not interested or able to stream the course, The Practicing the Way Course Companion Books is tremendous to own, to use, to share. Good, good stuff.

The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World Christine Rosen (W.W. Norton) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is named, by the prestigious publisher, as “social science” and I suppose I cannot argue. It is also profoundly theological, deeply philosophical, and, so far, a heck of a great read. I’ve appreciated Ms Rosen since her serious memoir, ahead of its time, I think, My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood, and have appreciated her scholarly presence with books on, for instance, the history of the eugenics movement. She has been affiliated with Hunter’s Institute for Advanced Studies of Culture at UVA and works currently as a Senior Fellow at the the important, conservative American Enterprise Institute in DC.

I love the title (the subtitle, though, is odd since we clearly are not in a disembodied world, even if there are online tendencies and some odd ideologies that suggest as much.) Still, we get her drift, don’t we? And for anyone cares about this anti-Gnostic concern, the question of how to experience real life in an increasingly technologically mediated world, Rosen has thought hard about it all.

She is no Luddite, as far as I can tell, but she does want to know “what kind of a person is formed in an increasingly digitized, mediated, hyperconnected, surveilled, and algorithmically governed world?” Well, wow. What do we gain and what do we lost when, as she suggests, we “no longer talk about the ‘Human Condition’ but the “User Experience’?

Yep, if you worry at all about all this talk of AI and the metaverse and venmo and TikTok challenges and (yes) online conspiracy culture, this book could provide insight and solace.\

Just listen to this, which ain’t no algorithy, but my own selection to share with you, for real; I’ve met Alan Jacobs and I’ve read Alan Jacobs; you can trust this:

Christine Rosen has written a wonderful book. It is not merely a warning against algorithmic control of our lives, but, more essentially, an encouraging guidebook to the recovery of personal experience in all its manifold forms. The Extinction of Experience reconnects us with our own lives in marvelous ways.–Alan Jacobs, author of Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

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When PRE-ORDERING more than one forthcoming book please let us know if we should send them as soon as they release or if we should hold one and consolidate it with another, sending them together. Whatever you prefer…

Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway Stephanie Duncan Smith (Convergent) $26.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80  – ON SALE DATE = October 15, 2024

I’ve had an advanced copy of this for a while and have been itching to tell you about it. The opening epigraph is a line from a Madeleine L’Engle poem and early on she tells about a YA novel by the great Gary Schmidt, so I knew I was going to love it.

Even After Everything is, in my view, one of the best books I’ve read all year; it will, without a doubt, be in our annual Best Books of the Year list. It’s very well written, very raw and yet beautiful. I respect this good writer and her remarkable gifts of crafted fine sentences, fine paragraphs, fine pages. This is a great read, a very good book.

It is so well written and captivating I suspect that for some of us who value glorious spiritual autobiography and memoir will not even care (at first) what it is about. Her subtitle makes it sound a bit like a standard-fare guide to Christian growth, and insofar as she offers insights and hard-learned wisdom, it does give readers fresh perspectives and solid ideas that can help them along the way on their journey. It reminds us that we are not alone and in her story one can take away much.

But, wise as she is, I don’t want to invite you to this only because you will learn or grow or be aided in your spiritual practices. Rather, this is one of those texts that, as Lewis reminds us in Experiments in Criticism, we should first “behold.” That is, enter in, with eyes wide open.

Not only is Duncan Smith’s prose surprising and vivid, this is a rare memoir in that it chronicles her own deep grief and pain (she experienced two miscarriages) and arranges the narrative alongside the church calendar. I suspect a book of sorrow though he liturgical year has been done before, but I can’t think of such a work.

This is more than a clever device; it is central, substantive, important, amazing. In her telling the tale this way, something odd happens. There is an interaction (I think of Crowder’s song “Beautiful Collision”) of disorientation and reorientation.

She lost her first pregnancy on the winter solstice’s longest night (“just as the world readied to celebrate its most historic birth on Christmas”) and, oddly, gave birth (after an unexpected and rather uncertain pregnancy) to a daughter nearly one year to the day of her loss. This marked — tears stream down my face as I even write this — “the peak of pandemic death in their city.” As my advanced galley copy puts it, “This clash prompted a desperate search for steadiness, in which the liturgical year became an anchoring force.”

An anchoring force. What a phrase.

This is the best (and I’ve read a few) books on the liturgical year I have ever read, even though it isn’t a book that we will put in the nonfiction section of our church room it is a memoir, a story, a book of marriage and sexuality, of progeny and death, of loss and birth and sadness and joy

She writes, in Even After Everything, alongside personal episodes, reflections like this:

Shauna Niequist writes of a friend who was in a session with his spiritual director. He was chronicling the great disappointments of his life when, “all at once the usually reserved priest book in and yelled his name. “These are the terms! Now what’s the invitation?”

These are the terms: Every one of us is loosed into a world where anything can happen, nothing is secure, and anxiety has a hell of an imagination. We are haunted by the whole kingdoms of hypotheticals — ghost futures spiraling out in every direction. And when the contractions come calling and the what-ifs start wilding, our vital systems begin to clench.

It’s enough to make anyone forget how to breathe.

I read that newborns learn to breathe from their mothers, by synching the rhythms of their heart rate, their inhale and exhale, to hers. In the closeness of chest to chest, they learn the most vital sign. Heart to heart, they learn how to live.

So maybe that’s the invitation: Stay close to the beating heart of love…. Let love be the tempo, trust its steadiness, lean in close.

Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age Rod Dreher (Zondervan) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99  – ON SALE DATE = October 22, 2024

If the above mentioned memoir is beautifully written and raw and enlightening, so, too, this one, in a different style, is captivating, very well-written, smart and inspiring. I cannot do justice to the many remarkable stories and the great, substantive chapter. Dreher is a great memoirist, a potent cultural critic (I did not like his last two books much) and here, has given us a splendid bit of perusal storytelling — his own deepening of faith in a season of very hard times — shaped by his sharp social studies. If you know the names of the amazing Iaian McGuilchrist, say, or (of course) Charles Taylor, you will be pleased to know their serious work has informed some of his teaching about the secularizing forces of the post-Enlightenment West.

I, for one, need tiring of reading yet another take on how we got into our modern mess. In this excellent telling, we significantly lost a sense of a social imagination that supposed what some might call the “supernatural.” We are a people who scoff at miracles (even as we deeply long for them.)

We have more than a dozen great books that explore the shift in the cultural milieu given the rise of the secular age; in various ways and with various strengths, many help us place ourselves historically, know what time it is, so to speak. Knowing why our friends and family think as they do, dream as they do. They help us discern at a deep level what went wrong and why even for those of us with lively faith, it is hard, sometimes. Really hard.

And, we have books that share with readers a vision of the spirituality of the ordinary, affirming a sense of wonder. We have a shelf full of just such books and a few are well known — A Tree Full of Angles, Tortured Wonders, A Liturgy of the Ordinary, Eyes to See: Recognizing God’s Common Grace in an Unsettled World, and so many more. Yet this new Rod Dreher book is more than an eloquent plea to recapture wonder, to stand in awe, to enjoy the goodness of God’s world and our place in it, but it is a guide to how to do that, even when it seems complicated. This is more than sighing at the beauty of a sunset or being attentive to how glory streams all around. And it is more than a theology of the possibility of miracles, but it is both, actually. It is one of the most stimulating, thought-provoking, and excellent books I’ve read in ages.

If time permitted I’d quote fabulous paragraphs and great quips, but I’ll just note this: he starts the story with a reasonable guy who has been haunted by his experiences with UFOs. And then another who fears he has been plagued with demons. Dreher is an Orthodox Christian so he does not rule out the possibility of the demonic; indeed the sensor wonder of much of Orthodox faith sets the stage for some of his opening us to the fullness of life. Although this book isn’t about the paranormal, as such (see the fairly recent Encountering Mystery by brilliant New Testament scholar Dale Allison or the anticipated book [coming in a few weeks, also by Eerdmans] by evangelical Bible guy Alan Streett called Exploring the Paranormal: Miracles, Magic, and the Mysterious.) But I would say read Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age. I am working through it and it is more than a delight, it is itself wondrous. Wow.

Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us about the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive Russ Ramsey (Zondervan) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99 – ON SALE DATE = October 22, 2024

I wonder if you recall that about a year or so ago Russ Ramsey — who has written well about his own near death experience, and other theologically-rich topics of practice living — did a stunning, fabulous, easy-to-read, but so informative book called Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. Like a few other excellent and enjoyable introductions to art appreciation from a Christian orientation, Rembrandt…. was not just about Rembrandt (although that first chapter about him was spectacular) but each chapter invited us to discover some of the world’s most celebrated artists and their work. I enjoyed it a lot and said so here at BookNotes.

Earlier this year Ramsey’s people — him or the publisher I do not know — invited me, of all people, to offer an endorsement of this new one, sort of a sequel to the Rembrandt one. Wow! I’m no art critic and I at first almost demurred.  But then I wondered if they invited me to this sacred task because they wanted to have potential reader realize that ordinary folks can enjoy such a book, that is it is not primarily about aesthetics or deep art criticism or for those who already know plenty about paintings old and new, Like it’s predecessor, Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart it is full of stories, the glorious stories of we humans who ache, who sin, who fear, who need to struggle to even stay alive some days. Van Gogh did have a broken heart and therein lies some of his artistic beauty. That is why we need such paintings and artwork in our lives, to “teach us about wonder and the struggle…”

This forthcoming one, Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart is, I think, better than the first.

Here is what I said for my book blurb. I wonder if it will be in the real books once they come out in a few weeks; if so, probably in an edited, slimmed-down version. I do love the book and am glad for it’s energy, honesty, and how it invites us into these stories of fascinating artists.

In Russ Ramsey’s fabulous follow up to the fabulous Rembrandt Is in the Wind he offers more well-told stories of artists — some who you will know, some who you may not — which becomes a door flung wide to big questions, urgent questions, about the very things that matter most. With verve and gusto he tells us about details of the artist’s lives and helpful interpretations of their work, sharing his own journey to appreciate these paintings done by other hurting humans who, flawed as they may be, still carried the imprint of the image of God. Among the many contributions this book makes is how great creativity sometimes emerges from great sorrow and how, therefore, we who also ache can take comfort in the gestures and symbols and colors and stories of great art. Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart is a book to own and a book to share.  — Byron K. Borger / Hearts & Minds

The Challenge of the Book of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is N. T Wright (Zondervan) $26.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80  – ON SALE DATE = October 22, 2024

Okay, friends. I have no idea what to say about this, other than that Wright is the sort of author who ordinary readers can benefit from and to whom deeper scholars will want to pay attention, just to see what the prolific New Testament scholar has to say… in other words, this book should be on your list.

I love the book of Acts and although we’ve got our favorite commentaries on this grand story by Dr. Luke, I’m positive this one will be on the short list of the most often recommended. I think any of us who care about the Bible will be glad to hear Wright is doing a new one; I do not know this for sure, but I’m guessing it is somewhat analogous to but maybe more detailed than his lovely Into the Heart of Romans. The forthcoming Challenge of Acts is 176 pages

(For what it’s worth, The Bible Speaks Today: The Books of Acts by John Stott is absolutely splendid and just about the only one you’d need for most ordinary readers and Willie James Jennings Acts in the “Belief Theological Commentary” commentary series is nothing short of brilliant at times. We love the “Story of God Commentary” series and Dean Pinter did the Acts on in that fabulous series and so interesting; F. F Bruce’s NICOT is, of course, a classic.)

That Wright is asking questions about the nature and task of the church (drawn from a culturally-sensitive reading of Acts, of course) is important. In this day and age it is among our greatest needs, getting clear about the local church. I trust he’s going to be really helpful on this.

Here is the bit, swiped from the publisher website:

Acts is a substantial book. It sits right in the middle of the New Testament, looking back to the four Gospels and ahead to the mission of the early church. It provides a framework for our understanding of the letters; but it does more than that. Acts offers a sophisticated and nuanced view of what it means to think of the gospel of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, going out into the world over which Israel’s Messiah claims the status of Lord.

This Christian movement and thinking, detailed in Acts, entailed confronting the wider culture of the Greek and Roman world, as well as the culture of the Jewish world, which provides us today with an important message as we ourselves face new questions about gospel and contemporary culture.

From the renowned author of Into the Heart of Romans, N. T. Wright brings to the book of Acts his expert’s eye on theological nuance and cultural context, distilling it down into an introductory commentary, perfect for anyone looking to take their own reading a little deeper and discover the profound (and often forgotten) potential of the church and the Way of Jesus Christ.

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Every Moment Holy Volume III “Pocket Edition” edited by Douglas McKelvey (Rabbit Room Press) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

At last, the beautiful third volume of the exceptional series of prayer books for ordinary folks on ordinary days, is now out in a lovely compact sized, flexible, soft leather. The first had responsive prayers (in their lingo, “liturgies”) in two-color ink for all manner of events in one’s life, from drinking morning coffee to having a yard sale, from going on vocation to going to bed, from praying about having “too much information” to putting up a Christmas tree. There are just an amazing array of heart-felt and eloquent liturgies here for every imaginable occasion. It comes in larger size, leather-bound hardback and the compact sized, soft leather edition.

The second one has liturgies for recital or meditation, to be prayed during times of grief, loss, sorrow, and lament. Again, this one (in handsome tan) is available in both the regular size, leather-bound hardback or in the smaller sized, soft/flexible leather. This one is a must for pastors needing words and liturgies for all manner of sadness, sickness, and sorrow.

The third one — again, on random, daily experiences — is compiled by McElvey but composed by a handful of scholars, parents, pray-ers, and poets (some whose names you may know) and had only been available (until now) in the striking, blue leather-bound hardback. We are thrilled to announce that now Volume III is out in the smaller, compact-sized, soft, flexible, blue leather edition. Hooray. These three are all designed with good linocuts and art, done sharply in classy typography, nicely printed on good paper with sewn in ribbon markers. Kudos to Rabbit Room and our friend Ned Bustard who did artistic oversight.

Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church Abram Van Engen (Eerdmans) $26.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

Yes, as above, poets can write prayers. Liturgical renewal needs writers of hymns and fresh writing of laments and more, but what about poetry, as such?  This book reminds us of the value of poetry, a theological framing of poetical gifts, and makes the case that slowing down to attend to the play of words for which poetry is known, is a spiritual necessity. When it says “the church” in the subtitle it does not necessarily mean in worship or even congregational use. This book is for God’s people in their reading lives. Yes, we all need to think faithfully about the creative arts, both beholding and creating, especially the literary arts. This is one of the best arguments for the value of poetry we have yet seen. Poet Christian Wiman says it is “brilliant, humane, intelligent, and necessary.” Wiman notes, and I agree, that this great book has something for everyone, the novice or the expert. Whether you love poetry or are a bit unsure, this is a great read.

Please (please) read these excellently-put endorsements from two authors whose voices and suggestions we trust:

I’ve been waiting for someone to write this book. Sensitive to newcomers and even skeptics, Abram Van Engen is a warm, wise, generous guide into the manifold gifts poetry offers. A master teacher and thoughtful scholar, Van Engen writes as a fellow human, a pilgrim on the way with us, sharing his experiences with poetry to entice us to find our own. At once practical and existential, this book is a master class and a love letter. Like the Ancient Mariner, I will be grabbing people by the lapels and pressing this book into their hands: Here’s why poetry is the song you didn’t realize your heart wants to sing. — James K. A. Smith, Calvin University, author of You Are What You Love and How to Inhabit Time

We need poetry more than ever. In our moment in history, words have often been rendered cheap, combative, and manipulative. But poetry calls us back to the beauty, depth, and power of careful, crafted words. A gifted teacher and writer, Abram Van Engen is a deft guide for those new to poetry and those who have enjoyed it for decades. His vital exploration and expert curation of great poems rejuvenates our imagination, giving us new eyes to notice our own lives–with all the joy and pain they hold and hide–and to glimpse God’s work in and among us. I will return to this luminescent book again and again. — Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night

Flyover Church: How Jesus’ Ministry in Rural Places Is Good News Everywhere  Brad Roth (Herald Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I’ve written about Roth before as I loved his book God’s Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church, also published by this astute Mennonite press. There are a good number of books about small churches but most do not look at the uniquely rural context of many small churches. And while this book isn’t exactly about small churches, it is about small places. What some of the big-wigs on the coasts call, sometimes with diversion, flyover states.

Flyover Church invites those in rural or even small town places to ponder how this unique context — both the strengths and weaknesses, so to speak — can shape how we incarnate the good news of God’s Kingdom in those often out-of-the-way places.

Brad Roth is a pastor in rural central Kansas. He grew up baling hay, tending sheep, and shearing Christmas trees on a farm in Illinois. He is a graduate of Augustana College, Harvard Divinity School, and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. Brad obviously has a heart for serving God and God’s people in rural communities and helps us all appreciate that, and he seems passionate about sharing faith in word and deed. While we all aspire to such seamless living, integrating what we do and say and how we live, there is something notable in his Mennonite tradition that reminds us to incarnate the gospel in real community. And, maybe something about rural USA, too, that thrives on this kind of down-to-Earth show and tell. The Flyover Church is a great read, thoughtful and interesting and important. Hooray.

In this book, Brad Roth opens the soul of the small-town pastor, describing our struggles and challenges, not to cause us to abandon ministry but to give us hope and perspective by helping us understand ourselves and the communities we serve. Writing with personal reflection, insightful research, and theological clarity, Roth gives us insight into what it means to be a rural pastor. Like his previous book God’s Country, this book is invaluable and is on the must-read shelf of books on rural ministry. — Glenn Daman, author of The Forgotten Church: Why Rural Ministry Matters for Every Church in America

Flyover Church is a gift to the whole church. Brad Roth offers a compelling portrait of rural churches, a portrait whose beauty is drawn from the hope and hardships of ministry in rural places. This book offers important truths about the rural church, and in doing so reminds us that these congregations are full of deep and meaningful ministries. — Allen Stanton, consulting fellow at University of the Ozarks and author of Reclaiming Rural: Building Thriving Rural Congregations

Technology and Christianity: Essays on the Interface Egbert Schuurman (WordBridge Publishing / Paideia Press) $24.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.96

This is a rare book, published in the Netherlands, imported through Paideia Press in Canada. It’s important and we are grateful to announce it. I’ve been a fan of the often difficult but deeply insightful and therefore rewarding author Egbert Schuurman since I first came across a little book he wrote in the 1970s published by Wedge Books, affiliated with the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. He was evangelical, broadly Reformed, culturally aware, prophetic in its Biblical orientation, bringing a Godly orientation to the details of our mechanistic and engineered world.  I used it with engineering students, glad that it was not as cryptic or negative as, say, the important Jacque Ellul, without allowing for any idolatry or neutrality in our perspective on the applied sciences. He continued to write philosophical work on technology and it’s role in the modern world, mirroring (or maybe even influencing) Albert Borgman (who, interestingly, became friends with Eugene Peterson, who often got his friends reading Borgman.)

Technology and Christianity brings this reforming view to the theories of technology and is, in essence, a greatest hits or collection of best essays of professor Schuurman — some newly translated for the first time in English! We cannot stress enough how important it is for all of us to be pondering how we relate our faith to our lived experience of a world mediated by so much engineering, so much technology. To think faithfully about the sciences and creation, about the goodness of the built environment and the ideologies of growth and efficiency the deform it, about how the zeitgeist causes our imaginations to suppose it is normal for things like algorithms to do our thinking for us, even as we should know in our bones that the possibilities of technology is a blessing from God who put human minds to the task of discovering possibilities in the realm of technique. Capitalism and philosophies of reductionism have deformed our imaginations and we want to, with Schuurman, insist that God’s world is good, fallen, and yet, in fresh obedience to the ways of Jesus, being redeemed. This collection of heavy essays about Christian views of our technological world is a gift for those thinking about such things. Kudos.

A funny aside: some know that we have greatly promoted two books by our friend Derek Schuurman — Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology, and one he co-authored, A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers; they’ve got the footnotes of Professor Egbert Schuurman, and they obviously shared the reformational roots, in the line of Abraham Kuyper, even. I assumed they were father and son, and maybe said that publicly. Curiously, the younger Derek is no relation; the last time I saw him at Calvin University, we chuckled again about that. So similar but no obvious relation.

The Mystics Would Like a Word: Six Women Who Met God and Found a Spirituality for Today Shannon K. Evans (Convergent) $26.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

This is another brand new one that we just got in and while I haven’t studied it, I am sure it is going to be fantastic. One of our staff was quite taken by one chapter, and I know folks we admire have greatly appreciated it. For instance, Sarah Bessey (we raved about her recent Field Notes for the Wilderness) says it is “illuminating and powerful.. and one she has “wanted for ages.”  K.J. Ramsey (Book of Common Courage) says Evans writes with “humor and humanity.” And, Ramsey teases us with one of the better lines in an endorsing blurb I’ve read in a while, Evans “welcomes us into a larger, weirder, and more compelling spirituality than we commonly encounter today.”

As a Catholic mystic feminist, Evans can be a bit weird for some, I suppose. And others have given us feminist analysis of saints before (think of the remarkable work of Mirabai Starr, who endorses this one, too, by the way.) But there does seem to be something about this one. She cares about this hurting world and is candid about why a feminist vision can be helpful. She is the author of the Brazos Press gem Feminist Prayers for My Daughter. Do you know it?

Still, unique as this may be, it is finally about mystics you have known of, but maybe don’t know much about. This looks like a great primer for those wanting to become familiar with Margery Kemp, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Therese of Lisieux, and Catherine of Siena.  It’s hard not to want to know more about these amazing (audacious) women who “forged a spirituality that is more inclusive, surprising, and empowering than we ever imagined.”

Calvin for the World: The Enduring Relevance of His Political, Social, and Economic Theology Ruben Rosario Rodriguez (Baker Academic) $27.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Wow, there are so many things going on in this fabulous book that I hardly know where to begin. I guess you can tell from the title itself that this author must be an extraordinary scholar — he’s got a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary and teaches theology (and Latin American politics) at Saint Louis University so he is obviously learned, even, we find, in quite an interdisciplinary manner. Who can speak knowingly into the idols of our time and the principles of Reformed thinking about public theology, knowing a bit about political theology and economics? I’m excited just to learn new stuff about the application of long-revered Christain principles to our very modern world.

And, obviously, this isn’t just any generic sort of public theology, but he is asking how we might appropriate the life and teaching of the Frenchman who lived in Geneva in the 1500s, Jean Calvin. Can the controversial Calvin be fruitful for funding our faithful discipleship today?  Smarter folks than I will have to weigh in on if Rodriguez accomplishes his audacious goals in this relatively short book (it’s about 175 pages.) Some — like Dr. Luis Rivera Pagan, an emeritus professor at Princeton — have called it “an excellent contribution to the analysis of the importance of Calvin.” Dr. Elsi McKee, another retired emerita professor, says it is lively and relevant, even exciting.

One of the things this engaging (if academic) writer is doing is putting Calvin in his original context. Those who know anything about Calvin’s ministry knows (although may not think about it) that he lived in a city rife with debate about the wisdom of allowing immigrants and refugees. (Calvin was an immigrant, of course, exiled, in a sense and was active in his support of the refugees.) He has long been considered one of the early public theologians that gave us a framework for thinking about democracy (and, boy, do we Presbyterians like to vote on things!) Not a few American revolutionaries, we can recall, were Calvinists. (For a quick primer on this, see, just for instance, The Legacy of John Calvin: His Influence on the Modern World by David Hall, published by P&R during the 500th year commemoration in. 2008; for more detail see Calvin in the Public Square: Liberal Democracies, Rights, and Civil Liberties or, from a traditionally free-market perspective, see Calvin and Commerce: The Transforming Power of Calvinism in Market Economies, both co-edited by Hall, also published in the “Calvin 500” series by P&R.)

Dr. Rodriguez is not the first to suggest there are solid connections between Calvin and third world liberation theologians — read Reformed thinker/activist South African Alan Boesak, for instance (as Rodriguez does.) Rodriguez’s chapter on Calvin’s reception in Latin America is itself incredibly informative. Even if you’ve not read Bonino, say, this is good stuff.

Can the theological legacy of the Reformed, social leader, pastor, and public theologian John Calvin be expanded from mere systematic formulations about predestination and the like? The tradition of neo-Calvinists (or Kuyperians) from Holland do that well. Here, a major thinker is evaluating the ups and downs of this Reformed legacy and — in the words of Kenneth Woo of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary — “unveils that vision’s liberative potential for theologians during and since the Reformation era.”

Jesus for Everyone – Not Just Christians Amy-Jill Levine (HarperOne) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

A year ago Any-Hill’s acclaimed 2020 The Bible with and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently was released in paperback by HarperOne and this one is her second serious, if popular-level book with them. We admire her in many ways and enjoy her verve and writing style, that has been described as scholarly work “that reads like a good sermon.” This very new one, Jesus for Everyone, is a major, long-awaited release, written, at first, for those unfamiliar with the facts of Jesus’s life and teachings and the fascinating complexity of taking it seriously. Professor Levine, as you should know, is not a Christian, but a more liberal Jew who attends an Orthodox synagogue. She makes her living at a Christian seminary teaching mostly Christians on their way to do gospel ministry. And she knows about our Lord as well as most, believe me.

This new hardback should instigate a lot of lively conversations. It’s lively, thoughtful, funny and provocative. You should know about it…

To be clear, she is not a believer and certainly not a Christian. Yet, she is upbeat and passionate (if creative and quirky) about teaching the Bible, especially the gospels on the life of Jesus, particularly doing close readings of texts and what they do and not not say, and wondering what they may or may not mean. In a sense she is in a tradition with others searching for “the historical Jesus” and seems to know and cite everybody across history and the spectrum of denominational and scholarly persuasions. Her footnotes are simply fascinating.

Levine is firm in rebuking wrong-headed stereotypes about Judaism (including those who insist that Jews didn’t allow men and women to talk in public, which the gospels themselves refute often, or that Pharisees believed that keeping the law would save them.) She is hard on mainline liberal theologians and some evangelical pastors, less for the pastoral skills or church leadership (she would be agnostic about such things) but about their lack of honesty about the texts and their lack of awareness of first century Judaism. She’s a piece of work, and we enjoy her feisty writing. Barbara Brown Taylor has said her writing startles with its “brilliance and pluck.”

This book — originally started to invite atheists to consider Jesus, but broadened her scope to any (nones and dones, for instance, or fellow Jewish congregants) —covers a lot of how the gospel accounts speak to 21st century concerns. From economics to health care, women’s concerns to race and ethnicity, from marriage and singleness to politics, and more, she invites us to “meet Jesus in His time and ours”

The Gospel of John: The Beginners Guide to the Way, the Truth, and the Life Amy-Jill Levine (Abingdon Press) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

DVD – The Gospel of John DVD: A Beginner’s Guide to the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Abingdon Press) $44.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $35.99

Leader’s Guide – The Gospel of John: The Beginners Guide to the Way, the Truth, and the Life Leader’s Guide (Abingdon Press) $15.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Amy-Jill Levine, described above, also just released this brand new, six-chapter book and video series on John (you can also buy the DVD and/or Leader’s Guide at our sale price) which is a paperback Abingdon Press companion to one she released last year in short book and/or video format, The Gospel of Mark: A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News, so she is a busy scholar, popularizing her many lectures (at Vanderbilt where she teaches first New Testament and early Jewish studies) into easy to read, if sometimes provocative books and video presentations. What fun. As noted above, she is not a Christian but teaches any who are interested — mostly Christian seminarians — about how to study the gospels while sensitive to the truths about first century Judaism. She is quick to point out anti-semitic notions and wrong-headed ideas about Jews, Pharisees, or Middle Eastern customs, which she knows a lot about. These are fiesty, fun, easy to read, and should provoke hearty conversation…

The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story Richard B. Hays & Christopher B. Hays (Yale University Press) $28.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

This book came into the shop a bit early and we have sent out the pre-orders already. We are thrilled to see a new book by the eminent New Testament scholar whose long-awaited book reverses his previous position (after 30 years) on same-sex relations and their permissibility within the context of Biblical sexual ethics. Aided by his son, also a Biblical scholar of considerable seriousness, this is said to be a major work, obviously on a prestigious university (peer-reviewed) academic press. It is important.

I’ve got two quick things to say about this since I have not yet studied it. Firstly: anytime Hays speaks or teaches we should pay attention. I know of people who disagree with him about a few things he writes or ways in which he relates a Biblically informed worldview and social ethic to the world around us, but they still like and respect him greatly. He’s a good, earnest thinker, a significant scholar, and a very nice guy who should be honored as such.

Secondly, his vital and wise books such as Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Baylor University Press), Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (Yale University Press), The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Eerdmans) or his magisterial The Moral Vision of the New Testament: a Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethic (HarperOne) and certainly the large collection of miscellaneous pieces and essays, Reading with the Grain of Scripture (Eerdmans) all show his deep commitment to the Scriptures and the unfolding story of the canon. That he (Emeritus NT Professor at Duke) and his son Chris — an OT Professor at Fuller —have worked hard on this volume is significant. As one reviewer noted, the release of this book “is an event of historic significance.”

Quarrels regarding the Bible and human sexuality have ossified in recent decades, afflicting entire denominations and ostracizing many. In this remarkable book, Christopher Hays and Richard Hays combine intelligence, humility, and generosity in a conversation that is instructive both within and beyond communities of faith. — Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary, author, Romans: A Commentary

When the best interpreters reread the Scriptures with intellectual acumen and humility, as well as keen attention to the Spirit’s call for reconciling love, both church and academy are strengthened. Praise God for this book. — Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School, author, Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship, and Ministry

Briefly, I suppose it might be helpful to note that a sharp and gracious thinker who disagrees with Hays and Hays, Preston Sprinkle, has written a long and detailed critical review at his own Center’s website. If Sprinkle is correct, I am a bit disappointed that the book didn’t forge the new ground that I assumed that it would. I appreciate the general graciousness of Sprinkle’s strong critique, and yet wonder what he misses in this book that has been admired by many others. All I can say is read it yourself and make up your own mind.

Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right Arlie Russell Hochschild (The New Press) $30.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.70

Perhaps you know Arlie Hochschild for her previous, much-discussed 2016 volume Strangers in the Own Land which developed from her time living among conservative and right-wing workers in a polluted area of Louisiana. As a social scientist and liberal activist (from Berkeley, California, no less) she wondered why folks would support government policies that, in fact, enabled the pollution that was killing them. She famously befriended a lot of such folks and that book was laden with insightful reports. She tells of a Tea Party activist whose whole house was swallowed by a sinkhole, yet who championed the rich New York candidate whose policies would not help them one bit. As she warms to the people she meets, she writes about the “anger and mourning on the American Right.” The humility of the book’s author and it’s tone earned it accolades among smart readers across the political spectrum. And, yet, the quandary remains.

I have not even started this brand new one, Stolen Pride, but I am sure I will. I’ve read several advanced descriptions and I’m confident that it is as important (and as empathetic) as Strangers in Their Own Land. One “starred review” at Publisher’s Weekly says she is in this new one revisiting the same humane themes and sociological concerns as Strangers but this time interviewing Appalachian residents of Pikeville, KY, considered to be one of the whitest, poorest, and most conservative counties in the country — “to understand how the once purple coal town turned deep red.”

She discusses “the pride of paradox” which is (quoting the PW review) “the tension between dwindling economic opportunities and the belief that one’s successes or failures in life reflect one’s abilities.” The upshot? Get this: as she will show, residents “blame themselves and feel ashamed when their lives don’t turn out as they hope.” And how does this cause them to vote for the likes of Trump? That is the question of her thesis, that his “shamelessness proves a cathartic release” when they support him, failing to acknowledge obvious systemic wrongdoing ( such as the opioid addictions foisted on them or awful extractions like mountain-top removal.)

In a recent interview Hochschild notes that “red states are a prime target for someone for whom shame is almost a political ore that he picks for.” She continued:

“Trump has what I would call a ‘shaming ritual.’ First, he’ll say something transgressive. Then, he’ll make himself the victim of shaming from a punditry that says “you can’t say that, that’s not American.” Then he’ll roar back at his shamers. I think of this as a very powerful ritual that satisfies. Some of the people I came to know, I ran my interpretation of this by them and they would know what I was talking about — this cathartic performance of shame was recognized as part of his appeal.”

Like other academic studies of rural and poor white regions, it becomes clear that not all of the disadvantaged fully favor the MAGA movement; this impressive study will give us much to think about and ponder about why and how people construe their lives and work out their public values.  Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right is going to be cited, I predict, for years to come.

Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class  Sarah Smarsh (Scribner Books) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I’m delighted to tell you about this, as I so, so loved her previous two. This collection of essays might include a few pieces you’ve seen if you read widely in journals and magazines and online places, but I bet for most of us, this is going to be fresh and new writing from a woman who loves her midWestern identity. Her memoir, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth told a somewhat different sort of story than the one drawn by J.D. Vance, and was often talked about alongside social conscious works such as Nigel and Dimes and Evicted. I adored it, mentioned it often, and was moved by her honest, upbeat writing about her hardscrabble upbringing in rural Kansas and eventually going off to college, with a complicated set of cultural expectations and experience.

If I like Heartland I enjoyed her spectacular, short but astute, and wonderfully realized study of Dolly Parton called She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs. Sort of a tribute to all women who grew up poor and work firmly in the working class, Smarsh gets Dolly’s poverty, her work ethic, her congenial feminism, and her roots music that becomes a huge pop culture empire. What a story!

And so, this new one is a collection of essays. Bone of the Bone. The prestigious Kirkus Review gave it a rare starred review calling its impact “staggering.” They say, “This powerful reckoning with the costs of being poor should be required short-form nonfiction reading.”

One of my big disappointments this year at the wonderful Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing was that my schedule was such that I just couldn’t get to her workshop there or to another gig where she was speaking at the Festival. It would have been a blast, and I was curious about her conversation about faith and culture and art and social progress. I suspect reading this won’t be quite as much fun, but it’s a good call, anyway. I’m looking forward to it.

Plundered: The Tangled Roots of Racial and Environmental Injustice David W. Swanson (IVP) $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I could write an entire BookNotes on this spectacular volume but I will be brief. For those who followed his previous book Discipling the White Church, you know that Swanson is a theologically evangelical, passionate, well-read pastor of a multi-racial church in a mostly black neighborhood in urban Chicago. With neighborhood has roots in the black freedom struggle going back to Frederick Douglas and Ida B. Wells and MLK and Gwendolyn Brooks, those who lived, preached, worked, or wrote there have taught Swanson a lot.

Including this expansive understanding that the damage done by white supremacy and economic systems that have been extractive, simply must be repaired; we are partnering, as Christians, with a God who is restoring all things, including these two most systemic and vile aspects of our modern world — racism and environmental injustice. As others have shown in great detail, the two overlap in what is sometimes called environmental racism. Swanson admits he has not written a book making this case, really, but assumes it. What are the Biblical and theological resources we have in our faith communities to create practices of creation care and racial justice in our own places? Plundered does help us understand the problem but, more, digging deep into the idols of greed that have deformed our place in the world, invites us to ways to reverse the urgent situation.

The conversations about moving beyond mere stewardship (oh, if he had only cited the best collection of short pieces on this, the must-read Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care, edited by Dave Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun published by Calvin College Press in 2019) towards a more wholistic approach to humankind relationships to other creatures naturally leads Swanson to draw on wisdom from ingenious thought leaders (from Robin Zimmerman of Braiding Sweetgrass fame to Randy Woodley, who wrote  Shalom and the Community of Creation and Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview) and black scholars and activists. (Indeed, he cites bell hooks, often, including the famous interview she did with rural, white, agronomist, Wendell Berry.) In my limited reading in this field, I would suggest that there is simply nothing like it. Thanks be to God!

You know I’ve recently featured the book by the aforementioned Calvin University biologist David Warners called Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed: Restoring Ken-O-Sha. His co-author, Gail Gunst Heffner has a chapter on environmental racism in that previously mentioned collection, Beyond Stewardship and it, too, is an excellent overview of this interdisciplinary topic. Her brief chapter brings into focus some important questions that shape the book Gail and Dave did on this Western Michigan watershed. They know, like Swanson, that our rationalist and often individualistic ways of doing theology have got to shift so that we can learn from Native peoples and other marginalized folks. This book models this and shows us how to proceed.

Another writer who is also an inner-city Chicago pastor is Jonathan Brooks (lead pastor of the famous Lawndale Christian Community Church) and he says of Swanson’s Plundered that it uses “beautifully written imagery, amazingly honest narratives, and sound biblical and historical research.” Indeed. As many who have endorsed it note, it is really interesting, very honest and super inspiring. And I would say very, very important. 

For what it is worth, Swanson has long loved the great outdoors, studied environmental science in college and was especially keen on wilderness trips, camps, adventure education and outdoor ministry. That God drew him to the life of a pastor, in an urban setting, no less, is a surprising story he tells a bit in the beginning. That he now is uniting his old love for creation and passion about creation-care with his insights learned from living as a part of the black community our nation’s third largest city, is a sweet, perhaps nearly ironic, gift of God. Read this book.

Sharing the Crust: A Communion of Saints in a Baltimore Neighborhood Mark Gornik (Cascade Books) $27.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

We will have this book in stock any day now and I can’t wait to see it. Mark Gornik, now an urban pastor and educator in New York, wrote this book about his early work — legendary, actually — forming a socially-engaged, intentional PCA church in an economically hurting 70-block neighborhood in Baltimore, called Sandtown. The multi-faceted work attracted a lot of attention in the 80s and everybody from John Perkins to Habitat for Humanity leaders to Joni Eareckson Tada crossed their paths.

Joni? Yep, because, you see, one of the main movers and shakers of this wholistic Kingdom outpost was himself wheelchair bound. His name was Allan Tibbels and those that knew him (and his wife, Susan) remember them as amazing people. The work Allan did, as a white guy in a largely black neighborhood, and how this PCA church (called New Song) got off the ground and into issues like housing and healthcare, education and the arts, is the stuff of urban ministry legend. Gornik tells of the small changes and slow growth, the serious peacemaking and community development done in and through New Song. Mark Gornik’s To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City remains a must-read standard in the field or urban ministry, and now this, a personal story which is said to be exceptionally inspirational and informed by solid Kingdom theology. Yes!

Can pain, loss, and hope co-exist? Injustice, deprivation, and celebration? How does individual calling, communal vocation, the search for justice, and commitment to place relate? Mark Gornik’s evocative ode to radical friendship and community building ‘on the journey towards new creation’ offers embodied and generative responses to such urgent questions. I could not put it down! — Ruth Padilla De Borst, associate professor of world Christianity, Western Theological Seminary

For what it is worth Allan’s moving story was written about very well in a concise chapter by Gornik in a big hardback book (that perhaps inspired the writing of this broader one about the folks at New Song) called People Get Ready: Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice edited by Peter Spade, published by Eerdmans.

One of Us: Reflecting on the Radical Mystery of the Incarnation A.D. Bauer (Square Halo Books) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99   DUE SEPTEMBER 17

I am always happy when somebody I know writes a book and this forthcoming one is no exception. Alan — his pen name is A.D. — is a pastor and seminary prof and, importantly, one of the chief leaders/owners of Square Halo Books. You know Square Halo for their beautiful gift books of Christian art, and their truly essential books reflecting on creative, aesthetics, the arts, and books about that interface of faith and the artistic realm. Square Halo Books is one of the great gifts in the faith-based publishing world and every Christian bookstore should carry their stuff. We’re glad our customers have grown to appreciate their many title. A.D. Bauer is behind most of that, just so you know.

Here he is at his geeky self, though, pondering big questions that theological types think of. The start of the book suggests it may be a bit of a personal help in one’s own struggles of faith and life, but, frankly, he doesn’t connect those dots much. It’s a grand, readable, down-to-Earth exercise in theological speculation. doctrinal teaching, and Biblical study. And if that isn’t practical, then nothing really is. So even though some authors may be more chatty and help you apply the lessons learned in a more lively or intentional manner, few are as honest and systematic and careful. This is a lay-person’s introduction to one of the chief matters of the Christian faith: who Jesus is and, if, as we all say, he is fully human and fully divine, how, then, did he live? And does it matter?

A. D. asks questions like whether or not Jesus could really be tempted. I mean, really tempted? Or, he wonders why Jesus, if fully God, had to grow in knowledge as it says in Luke 2:52. When he heals, is he doing that as God, or as a faithful human? (The gospels give examples of when Jesus couldn’t heal. What’s with that?) And what is going on with Jesus being filled with the Spirit? (You thought He was one with the Spirit, right?) When He dies and descends into hell, what happens to the Trinity? As a human, can we really understand us mere mortals?  Admit it — you’ve asked these sorts of questions yourself, and what Bible study group doesn’t have at least one (annoying?) person who keeps asking these oddball kinds of curious questions? I sure wish Bauer was in our Bible study when these kinds of things come up. He knows his stuff.

Of course, these questions actually aren’t odd at all. And the answers A.D. gives are solid, Biblical, informed by his own diligent pastoral study of the texts of Scripture. He brings in a lot and it’s fun and a good example of doing Scriptural study.(You can see this care in his other Square Halo Books, The Beginning: A Second Look at the First Sin, The End: A Readers’ Guide to Revelation, and the very helpful How to See: Reading God’s Word With New Eyes.) He doesn’t tell a lot of stories, he doesn’t get cute or fancy, he just plows onward, following the lead of this question or that, answering the best he can, with a conviction that such insights will lead us to a deeper understanding of who Jesus was (and is!) and how his humanness can be formative for us in our own spiritual growth. This stuff is not simplistic, but it is clear-headed. It is not easy, but it isn’t arcane.

As you might guess — and if you haven’t guessed this, you really need this book! — he spends some times reflecting on what some call the “self emptying” of Christ’s power and divinity (the Greek word is kenosis) described most vividly in the famous passage of Philippians 2: 5-11. Frankly, I think he doesn’t say all that should be said about this key text and I’d have wished for greater clarity about a thing or two. It is clear that in some sense, Jesus gives up the privileges of his divinity, although no orthodox theologian suggests he gives up his divinity.

Some theological teachers use examples of extreme views to show what they do not teach, and Bauer does this a bit, almost caricaturing writers or thinkers who, for instance, overestimate (or underestimate) the human nature of Jesus or the divine nature of Jesus. Maybe in his circles this is a live concern — I frankly don’t know if I know anybody who is unaware that we must fully emphasize both/and; that is, Jesus isn’t half and half, part human and part God, He is fully human and fully divine. This was settled in the 4th century (with Saint Nicholas famously bloodying a heretics nose over it.) I don’t think I know anybody Christian who denies, in theory, the full humanity or deity of Jesus, although some may not think through the implications of it all. Which is why this book, and others like it, are so important.

There are a lot of books on this these days, and while One of Us doesn’t engage with any of the recent ones that insist we can learn much from Jesus’s humanity (or even the classic, On the Incarnation by Athanasius) but it can happily stand next to the others on the mystery of the what we call the incarnation. It will, Bauer promises, help you see that Jesus really is “one of us” and that will lead you to love Jesus all the more.

Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistorical Age Sarah Irving-Stonebraker (Zondervan Reflective) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99  DUE SEPTEMBER 24

I love a good book about why history matters, about how we should view history Christianly, and how we can “steward the past” as this author puts it. I’m excited to see this — it looks fantastic. It is, for the record, I suppose, nice to see a woman historian writing warmly about this matter of historiography and why it is so important in this rootless age. I love the evocative title, don’t you?

By the way, Irving-Stonebraker is Professor of History and Western Civilization at Australian Catholic University. She received her PhD in History from the University of Cambridge and held a Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford. (She converted from atheism to Christianity while an Assistant Professor at Florida State University.) Her first book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire, won the Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Nonfiction. She and her husband  live in Sydney, Australia, with their three children and are members of an Anglican church in the Diocese of Sydney.

The Message Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00  DUE OCTOBER 1

I bet most of our BookNotes readers have at least heard of the award winning, brutally honest, and very compelling writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates. We have carefully recommended reading Between the World and Me his vivid anti-racist manifesto, and his collection of essays Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Not as many have purchased from us, even though we have long touted, his very moving memoir of growing up in urban Baltimore, The Beautiful Struggle. And many know his Black Panther comics and that fantastical novel, The Water Dancer.

Now, after many years, he has returned to his long-form essay style, giving us a collection long awaited by many. It was going to be a book about writing, but…

Here is what the publisher tells us:

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic Politics and the English Language but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories–our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking — expose and distort our realities. In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city–a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.

“Coates is intellectually fearless . . . unshackled by political or racial ideology, humane in his judgments, respectful of facts, acutely aware of the difference between what is knowable and what is not.” —The New Yorker

 

Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God Mandy Smith (NavPress) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19   DUE OCTOBER 8

Oh my, this is one I had the great privilege of reading in an early manuscript form, and have even written an endorsement for. I don’t know what of it will actually be on the book, but here is what I said on reading my friend Mandy Smith’s amazing, honest, new work:

“Years ago Mandy Smith wrote an exceptionally important book called The Vulnerable Pastor about ministers being real — honest about their fears and doubts and weakness. Here in Confessions of an Amateur Saint she shows us exactly what she means and how it is done, modeling a painful vulnerability that is rare, especially among professionally-trained clergy. I came away stunned, amazed, a bit disturbed, and very, very grateful. I promise you that you have never read a book like this. Her creatively-written meditations, laments, questions, and prayers reveal a deep longing for God and candor about the hard stuff of life and ministry which will invite you to own up to your own struggles that, when named, will lead to healing and hope. Vital for pastors and truly useful for all.”

I could say more. I think I’ll just invite you to read this (no matter who you are or what your relationship is to church leadership.) It’s that interesting, human, real. And if you are, in fact, a Christian leader, and certainly if you are a pastor with any complications or difficulties at all, you need this book.  I hope we get some orders!

Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself–And to God–When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering Chuck Degroat (Tyndale) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19   DUE OCTOBER 8

This has truly been one of the most anticipated books of this season for many of our friends. Degroat is a very fine counselor, an excellent writer, and an astute observer of the human condition, even in congregations (see his stellar When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.) We came to admire him greatly when we discovered his very first book, nicely done by Faith Alive, called Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places. When it came out more than a decade ago there were less honest, readable, Biblically-informed books that honored our “wilderness” experiences of fear and lack of clarity. That one invites us to a faithful sort of freedom, and it has influenced his other mature books (like Wholeheartedness which was on being too busy, being exhausted, and coping with what he called “the divided self.”)

In any case we haven’t seen this one yet and we look forward to getting our hands on it soon, We may get it a bit early, and if so we’re eager to send out our pre-orders. Want to add your name to this list?

Your Jesus Is Too American: Calling the Church to Reclaim Kingdom Values Over the American Dream Steve Bezner (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99   DUE OCTOBER 8

My goodness, there are a lot of good books these on this question of Christian nationalism, civil religion, and the idols of American greatness and power. I’ve recommended several. Bezner is a well-respected pastor, a southern Baptist, and is said to be able to speak clarity about these things without causing too much offense; he wants to reach conservative Christians, especially, and I suspect this will not be an off-putting screed full of “prophetic” fervor. As BookNote readers know I don’t mind those sorts of hard-hitting studies of the far right and we need to expose those who would drag Christ into the gutter of Q-Anon nonsense, KKK racism, the vile and violent Proud Boys, and other sorts of ungodly extremism. But, for most, we are not into all that (although we may be considering aligning ourselves with those who have given the nod to that stuff) and we just need to focus a bit on who Christ is, the Kingdom values that should guide our patriotism, and how to sort out the worldly ways of the American Dream from authentic Biblical values. My hunch is that this is nothing too new, but spoken in an accessible and fresh way. My hunch is it will ruffle some feathers, but not needlessly. My hope id that it will be read widely and used wisely.

A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality  Kathleen Norris & Gareth Higgins (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99  DUE OCTOBER 15

Wanted to highlight this, quickly, to let you know about it if you haven’t heard. This might win our award for the most unexpected book of the year! You hopefully know our admiration for the wonderful spiritual writer and memoirist Kathleen Norris. She wrote in the mid 1990s the hauntingly beautiful Dakota: A Spiritual Geography and then became even more famous for her best-seller The Cloister Walk. She did a thoughtful memoir about her college years (the Virgin of Bennington) and another about her seasons of depression (Acedia and Me.) Some adore her playful, Buechner-esque theological dictionary, Amazing Grace. And I love her very small book (one of my personal all-time favorites which I’ve read numerous times) called The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work.

But movies? Who knew?

Gareth Higgins, on the other hand, is a genius from Northern Ireland , a real film maven and an informal contemporary theologian. He did a book on film on the old Relevant publishing venture decades ago, which I loved, and we are one of the few bookstores who still carry his spectacularly interesting (and wonderfully named) Cinematic States: Stories We Tell, the American Dreamlife, and How to Understand Everything which looks at movie by or about or set in each of the 50 states. His social justice activism and his care for the arts — especially film — is legendary. His most recent book was the exquisite How Not to Be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live When Everything Seems Terrifying (to which, I’m now recalling, Katherine Norris wrote a good foreword.)

The respected (and often funny) Jesuit priest, James Martin, writes the foreword and says, among other things:

“Reading this beautiful book is like having an endlessly fascinating conversation with two friends about film, when those two friends are always wise, thoughtful, and funny and have inspiring things to say about the movies they love.”

Everything Could Be a Prayer: One Hundred Portraits of Saints and Mystics Kreg Yingst (Broadleaf) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99   DUE OCTOBER 15

I really hope we get some pre-orders on this — what a blast to get to recommend and sell it. Yingst is an amazing writer, a profound thinker, and a quirky folk artist, doing colorized woodcuts and lithographs, block prints that are full of earthiness and joy and pathos. This book has already gotten a lot of buzz and I’ve been curious how many seem to know him from different circles and movements. Hoooray.

I first discovered the visual art of Kreg Yingst because he did some stunning album cover work for Bill Mallonee. Those who know me know how I adore his 1990s Athens-based band Vigilantes of Love, and how I loved even more his prolific solo work. Bill’s Neil Young-like blend of Americana country and folk and some blazing guitar work and heart-felt, gritty vocals and brilliant lyrics combine to create some of my all time favorite records. Yingst had small cartoon-like illustrations capturing something about every song on one of Bill’s fairly recent CDs (2019’s Lead on Kindly Light) and not long ago, Bill re-issued an older CD from the VOL days, Welcome to Struggleville, in high quality vinyl and got Yingst to do the stunning album cover art design. I don’t play vinyl anymore but I almost bought it for the artwork.

And then I realized he enhanced the beautiful little Lenten book called A Different Kind of Fast by Christine Valters Painter. Wow.

And now we realize he is a great writer as well, doing these extraordinary devotional essays on various saints and mystics, here accompanied by his unusual, folk-style portrait art. I want to say it’s part Robert Crumb / part Ned Bustard, but that’s not quite right. It’s breathtaking, provocative, endlessly curious. And the writing shows his wide sense of God’s presence amidst lots of different kinds of saints. Rave reviews are from Ruth Haley Barton (who recommends it for visio divina) and Karen Wright Marsh (who has written her own books on how such a cloud of witnesses can inspire us) and mystic Carmen Acevedo Butcher and poet Drew Jackson. Everything Could Be a Prayer is unique and powerful. Highly recommended.

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BookNotes

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Happy Labor Day!

Let’s start from a beautiful quote about work from a book about praying the Psalms, a book by an Alaska fisherwoman (and remarkably wide-ranging author), Leslie Leyland Fields. The quote is from Nearing a Far God: Praying the Psalms with Our Whole Selves. (NavPress; $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59.)

In a chapter called “Beholding Creation” (on Psalm 8) Leslie writes beautifully about the nature scenes around her on Harvester Island where they’ve spent the winter building their house, looking out at “a brilliant azure bay and emerald mountains, some still with snow.” She is with her young children. Her husband is about to go out to work on an overnight shift on their fishing skiff. “Two figures in neon orange roars past the beach, off to the fishing nets around the island.”

“There’s goes Daddy!” Naphtali calls in her munchkin voice. “When will he be back?”

“He’ll be back around midnight, when you’re sleeping,” I tell her. But you’ll see him in the morning.”

As Duncan’s skiff disappears around the island my mind and heart follow him. I know what’s ahead for the skiff tonight. It’s take-up night, when arm over arm they pull all the nets out of the water, as directed by Fish and Game. We do this at least a dozen times a summer, often in crisis mode: sometimes when storms rage, or the nets are full of fish or kelp or both. I think of the last time I went out to help. My back remembers. My hands remember, crabbed with carpal tunnel syndrome as I picked fish from the nets as fast as I could.

In a perhaps incongruous manner I think of a line by scholar and teacher, Calvin Seerveld, who writes in the memorable piece “The Flash of a Fish Knife” about his father, a fishmonger, and his fiesty but ethical retail sales work with his Long Island customers eyeing up the fresh catch. But that isn’t the connection that first came to mind for me. Seerveld, in another essay, tells of preparing lectures on the history of the philosophy of aesthetics from a Christian historiographic perspective, and was working all night at the kitchen table when his teenage son got up — as I recall it was like 5:00 am — to deliver morning newspapers. Their eyes caught, as the son saw his father still working hard, “the night shift” as Seerveld simply but movingly put it.

Different folks in different careers — a fisherman and the son of a fisherman — and many, many of us, work the night shift sometimes.

Our hats are off to you, no matter your employment, paid or unpaid… Happy Labor Day.

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Most years about this time I honor a few of the books that have come out about living Christian faith in the work-world. It’s been a passion of ours since we opened and we’ve been glad more and more church folk realize that a missional vision of advancing God’s kingdom and influencing the world for the better must include equipping folks to think about their jobs as holy callings — vocations, avenues of service, mission fields. We love God and serve our neighbors by adding to the world’s economy (and faithfully understand that in ways that are often immeasurable by the reductionistic metrics of money and Mammon; some of our best work isn’t even paid, but it contributes so very much to the common good.) We are, as Andy Crouch put it so memorably in Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, one of the great books that can help think creatively about our vocations in the world, “culture makers.” As humans made in the very image of our Creator, it’s what we do. As we reflect the  image of our worker/maker-God, we do work and make something of the good (now fallen and being redeemed) world of wonders in which we live. To use the language of Genesis 2, we cultivate.

We celebrate today not only with the typical stuff of Labor Day (the dignity of work and justice for workers) but try to remind anyone within listening distance that this is nearly a high holy day in the church of Jesus Christ. If only pastors and people understood it so.

In this BookNotes, in PART ONE, I’ll list a few newer resources (most published within the year) and then, just for fun, will share a big handful of memoirs and other titles set among various careers or jobs (see PART TWO, below.) I loved so many of these books and will just give a shout out to a bunch across the spectrum of workplaces and job opportunities that are captivating and illuminating. Holy spaces, all, even if the writers don’t always know that.

Please see some of the older BookNotes Labor Day columns HERE, HERE, or HERE. I am fond of a story or two I tell HERE, even though we had to take down the link to the powerful James Taylor song, “Millworker.” I hope you those old BookNotes columns (knowing the prices on these old lists are in most cases no longer current.)

PART ONE

Here are fifteen rather new-ish titles to know about, perhaps to pair with some of the older ones listed at the links above.

Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation: 25th Anniversary Edition Parker Palmer (Jossey Bass) $25.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

This has been on the top of the lists for many who have appreciated his generous, broad, deeply spiritual (but plainly spoken) invitation to pay attention to our interior lives and discern God’s call upon us. Perhaps best combined with something more robustly theological (like, maybe The Call by Os Guinness or Visions of Vocation by Steve Garber, or Calling and Career by Gordon Smith) this book by this thoughtful, honest, Quaker, is a classic. The brand new edition includes a short new chapter, which is gracious and good, reflecting, too, on the most popular chapter in Let Your Life Speak, the one about suffering. This concise meditation is warm and elegant and beautiful and has been for some a true life-line.

The Sacredness of Secular Work: 4 Ways Your Job Matters for Eternity (Even When Your Not Sharing the Gospel) Jordan Raynor (Waterbrook) $25.00  / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

Surely most Christians know that life is worth living, and living well, even when we’re not “sharing the gospel.” But there it is: the “great commission is not the only commission.” Our jobs, our work, our vocations, and such, all matter. “From baristas and entrepreneurs to stay-at-home parents and coaches” our daily jobs have intrinsic value. Thought this has been made abundantly clear in any number of good books, so wasn’t (I”ll admit) fully enthused with another book on the topic, but man-oh-man, this is one of the best I’ve read in years, and it’s combination of research, Scripture, storytelling, and vivid illustrations and case studies makes the case powerfully and helpfully. His footnotes are splendid, he’s read widely in the field, and he offers inspiring ways our work can “reveal God’s Kingdom on Earth” here and now. I agree with Randy Alcorn (best-selling author of Heaven) when he says “I think the smile of God is on this book.”

(Jordan Raynor, by the way, wrote one of the great books about these very themes for children, a delightful and informative picture book called The Creator in You, illustrated by Jonathan David [Waterbrook; $12.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39.] It came out in 2022 and we’ve happy to stock it.)

Faithful Work: In the Daily Grind with God and for Others Ross Chapman & Ryan Tafilowski (IVP) $15.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $12.00

Below I will mention Jeff Haanen, the recently retired founder of the highly regarded Denver Institute for Faith & Work. To put it bluntly, Ross Chapman took his place as CEO of the Denver Institute and has stepped up to fill those shoes. While he has theological training and has worked in community and economic development in a medium sized mid-Western town, he was made for this job and is at the helm of one of the great think-tank/resource centers for helping people relate to work, economic systems, professional institutions and the structures of our modern world as redemptive influences. Chapman’s good co-author, Ryan Tafilowski, is a pastor in Colorado and has served as a “theologian in residence” (his PhD is from University of Edinburgh) for the Denver Institute; he brings some pastoral care to the topic as well.

It is a short, compact-sized book which proves not only their ability to introduce the complexities of this hefty topic in concise and sensible ways, but their profound ability to inspire and cast visions of vocation for one and all. It fills a real need in this growing library of books on relating faith and work, for sure.

Faithful Work is general and basic, short and sweet, and you should buy a couple to give away; pastor’s should keep ‘em on hand, at the ready when conversations about “following Jesus everywhere” comes up. It is among the best concise one’s we’ve got.

Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World Michaela O’Donnell (Baker Books) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Although this came out a few years ago, it is relatively recent and, as one of the very best books on this topic, it deserves an extra shout out here and how. O’Donnell is executive director of Fuller Seminary’s Max De Pree Center for Leadership. She has a brand new book with faith-at-work leader, consultant (and Hearts & Minds champion) Lisa Slayton called Life in Flux: Navigational Skills to Guide and Ground You in an Ever Changing World. More on that anon.

O’Donnell’s recipe includes discovering what God is calling you to do in a changing world, defining where you are in this season of work, embracing what the Bible says (and doesn’t say) about calling, developing a mindset and habits suited for the new world of work, and reflecting, then, on how to work out ways that sustain you on the journey. Not bad, huh?

Lived Vocation: Stories of Faith at Work Timothy K. Snyder (Fortress) $21.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

There is so much that I like about this book, not least of which is the lovely, little pen and ink drawing scattered through-out. (They are reminiscent of an old hippy cookbook we used to love, and the illustrations here are tremendous.) Also, this collection of reflections, while rooted in a solid worldview that affirms the God-saturated nature of reality and the broad scope of Christian redemption, has a different tone than some, offering testimonials of the lived experience of ordinary folks, what the Academic Dean of Austin Presbyterian Seminary (David Jensen) says it “a beautiful interweaving of story and theology, testimony and tradition.” He notes that it is “a model of how theology is done in community, always connected to the Christian life.”

I am not sure the doing of theology proper is the goal of Christian discipleship or that the theologizing done in the workplace is the best part of it all, and, in fact, this book affirms that. This is a complex matter, and lay folks doing good work (often in frustrating settings) do indeed think on their feet about God and the role of the Spirit, about broken systems and Kingdom alternatives, about how to live and more and have their being empowered by knowing God. Sure, but they also tell stories of service and grace and getting jobs done. This is no simple guide to finding meaning at work, but the ethnography pays off with profound insights as you hear reports of person after person in everyday life.

Faith at Work: Christian Vocation in the Professions edited by David W Joy (Concordia) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I love these sorts of collections with a number of authors weighing in from their own professional expertise. And what fun this is, with chapters by a pharmacist, a counselor, a lawyer, a nurse, a business person, a public health worker, and a coach.

The first part includes several strong Biblical studies (about work in both the Old and New Testaments) and a good piece by Loy on human and cultural flourishing. There is a chapter on economic systems, and a rare piece on “preaching to professionals in a secular world” by Concordia Seminary prof, Peter Nafzger.

For what it’s worth, Concordia is a conservative Lutheran publisher so most of these contributors bring an evangelical tone and a Lutheran theological orientation to the task. Even if you are not Lutheran (heck, you may not even be Protestant) this is well worth reading.

Faithful is Successful: Notes to the Driven Pilgrim edited by Nathan Grills, David Lewis, & Joshua Swamidass (Outskirts Press) $19.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.96

We were delighted to discover this — a book that emerged from a discipleship training school known as the Harvey Fellows program — as it shows a real variety of practitioners sharing about how they think and live faithfully in their respective fields, from arts to finance to higher education to international affairs. Before the thoughtful testimonials, though, about half the book offers significant rumination on questions that haunt us all —there is good writing on questions of how we discern vocations, what we mean by “integration” and how we might balance our various callings, especially when family and career may be in tension. There are good chapters on ambition, on how we measure success, what a “full-time life” looks like. And then the chapters on “God in the work.”

For what it is worth, Grills is a Public Health Physician, working in disability and chronic disease prevention in India — he is Australian, but his PhD is from Oxford. Lewis is a political science professor at Vanderbilt in TN and Swamidass is a professor of Immunology and Pathology,  Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

Proving Ground: 40 Reflections on Growing Faith at Work Graham Hooper (Christian Focus) $14.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

It isn’t every book that has an endorsement saying it is “…warm, witty, biblical, personal, and kind.” Don’t we all want that kind of a Barnabas-type character coming alongside us to give encouragement and assistance? Indeed, Graham Hooper (who was once “a Senior Executive with a global infrastructure company” – whatever that is) is an Australian business person working in Tanzania. So he’s been around. And, this message is universal — God cares about all manner of work, in all sorts of places, done by all kinds of people. There is good news here: Jesus is present to all of us (not just ministers or priests, not just missionaries or those in church work.) Our loving God is real, and cares, and can help us through the pressures and “tests” of our faith. If you’ve experienced conflict or confusion, setbacks or frustrations at work, this book is for you.

Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That transforms Our Outer World Jeff Haanen (IVP) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.29

Jeff, a writer and entrepreneur, was the founder of the Institute for Faith & Work in Denver, CO, and is one of the grand leaders of this ongoing movement in the world these days, helping people think Christianly and live faithfully in their jobs, careers, and workplaces. As many good books as there are, now, on this, I’d read anything Haanen writes as he has earned the respect of so many. And, further, this book surprisingly is a rare read, a book about cultivating the interior lives for faithful living in-but-not-of the workplaces we find ourselves in. As it says on the back,

“Many today are experiencing social isolation, deep anxieties about the future, and various difficulties in the workplace. For too many of us, work seems tedious, painful, or meaningless. And we don’t know what to do about it.”

Blurbs on the back are from the great writer Philip Yancey, pioneering pastor who wrote Work Matters and founded “Made to Flourish”, Tom Nelson, the great leader at Redeemer Center for Faith and Work (and co-author, with Tim Keller, of the premiere book on this subject, Every Good Endeavor) and more. This really is a lovely, exceptionally wise, deeply balanced and very important resource showing the emotional, relational, vocational, intellectual, and public aspects of our “seamless lives.” So good.

Women, Work, and Calling: Step Into Your Place in God’s World  Joanna Meyer (IVP) $15.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

I’ve mentioned the Denver Institute; their staff have been busy writing, lately, sharing the fruit of their years of groundbreaking work in cultural renewal, championing the integration of faith and labor, and equipping many to be faithful stewards of the many gifts of work and career God has given us. Hooray. Joanna Meyer has been a leading contributor to their work of social flourishing and here offers her unique voice as a woman in the faith and work conversation, and offering keen insight about how women can serve God, even despite some unique challenges and obstacles around gender in the marketplace.

This small book is worth its weight in gold, as they say, and I commend it to women and men. I really enjoyed it. It covers various aspects of this on-going movement, bringing foundational insights up to date (that is stuff about the value of work and the nature of our callings) but also notes how, in fact, the church has often not only been lax in helping workers relate faith to their career areas, but has particularly missed opportunities to disciple women.

I knew of a big church, once, that was getting on board with helping folks discern their true vocations and was starting to have seminars on workplace witness and thinking about the essential value of work done in occupations and careers. And guess where they located and hosted these critically important events? Within their men’s ministry. Can you imagine?

Joanna Meyer is upbeat and gracious, wise and practical, theologically sharp and fully aware of the challenges of many women as they take up their influence in their working lives. Hooray.

Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life David Bahnsen (Post Hill Press) $28.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

This author’s father was a prolific Bible scholar (and working pastor) appreciated by many, a visionary within the seriously Reformed camp as he was compelling. This son, David, here, shows himself an equally important voice. The book captures his serious views of the good and revelatory nature of creation; he knows his Kuyper and his Bavinck and his Puritans and his Dorothy Sayers. Besides being well read in economics (I love it when I see a reference to the much-discussed Deirdre McCloskey) he is, in his own job, a private wealth management firm. He not only thinks that hard work is good for the soul, but he thinks we have to know a bit about finances and economics. Fair enough. I’ll live with the charts and graphs to follow his passionate stuff about “compounding and accumulating sufficient assets” and something that is apparently called “liquidity events.”

Not only does Bahnsen offer some thinking about retirement and finances and more (he worked for Morgan Stanley for a while) he fairly interacts with other books on the market. For instance, he spends considerable time exposing the false binary (rooted in a dualism between nature and grace, to use theological lingo) of a popular author who invites professional types to rethink their mid-life lives as “halftime” (and move from “success to significance.”) Bahnsen puts it very well, in a manner I’ve often said myself about that well-intended popular book.

He writes, that:

‘Success panic’ does not come because we need to make a different plan for the second half of life. It comes because too many people are being misled about the first half of their lives. If you aren’t taught that your work is inherently valuable to God, and is an integral part of His Kingdom, it’s no surprise that you’d panic upon finding yourself successful in a career you thought was existentially meaningless. A financial survival objective at least keeps your head in the game. But would we have an epidemic of midlife success panic if we taught the existential benefits of work to people of all ages? I think not.

Exactly.

If you, like me, wondered whether a book with a non-ironic, old school telephone on the cover could be relevant, just try to skip that aesthetic and marketing snafu. And skip the forward, where a buddy of his speaks all manner of outlandish untruths about the current state of the literature about faith and work. He must have not been following our BookNotes lists for these past decades and suggests there isn’t anything much of worth out there. Huh? I found it hard to read on, assuming Bahnsen agreed with this puff of nonsense. He is wrong about that, but, still, Full-Time is a vivid, smart and even fiesty reminder of what is at stake in getting this stuff right.

Saving the Protestant Ethic: Creative Class Evangelicalism and the Crisis of Work Andrew Lynn (Oxford University Press) $35.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

This book is academic in nature, a serious bit of researched and peer-reviewed scholarship, but stands as one of the exceptionally significant studies of this faith and work movement, the most important book of its kind since David W. Miller and the Princeton University’s “Faith and Work Initiative” released Faith at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement in 2006.

In fact, David Miller himself offers keen insight about Saving the Protestant Ethic.Miller writes:

The faith at work movement is an ongoing and evolving social movement, not a flash in the pan or a passing fad. Andrew Lynn brings us a strong contribution to the growing number of scholarly studies of the surprisingly diverse nature of the faith at work movement. Lynn’s provocatively titled Saving the Protestant Ethic focuses on and brings us fresh insights into the conservative evangelical Protestant wing of the movement, whose search for meaning and purpose drives their economic activity.

There is much going on here, and the reviewer of a good piece in FareForward about it is right to say, (her) “brief summary surely fails to capture the depth and breadth of Lynn’s extraordinary descriptive project.”

Lynne get the nuances of Protestant sorts of faith traditions and here focuses a bit on the differences between fundamentalists and evangelicals, and has intriguing chapters like “The Four Evangelical Theologies of Work”, “From the Christian Right to the Corporate Right”, and (in chapter seven) “From Culture Wars to Cultural Stewardship.” Wow.

Andrew Lynn (who has a PhD in sociology) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia where he works with James Davison Hunter. His work spans organizational theory, religious studies, and the history of ideas surrounding ethics and economics.

Sacred Strides: The Journey to Belovedness in Work and Rest Justin McRoberts (Thomas Nelson) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

You may recall that I’ve mentioned this a time or two, once before it came out, another time as I did a recap of great books we sold at the Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh last winter, and I know I’ve named it to customers looking for books on rest and sabbath and the like.

Justin is a good friend, a great artist, a singer-songwriter (and now published poet) and life coach.

I want to highlight Sacred Strides here, again, too, on a list for Labor Day, since it offers what many find to be a whole new way to approach the struggles of finding balance between work and rest. You know how many of us have work or church or civic demands even as we hunger for play and recreation, caring for friends and family, not to mention ordinary tasks like shopping for groceries and doing the laundry.  For too many, being busy is like some badge of honor and even as we know it isn’t right, the books that insist we slow down and knock off the idol of finding our worth in our work are fine but not altogether useful. Our work does matter, and there are public callings that are equal to the vocations of parenting and marriage, say. If all of life is being redeemed and work and place, worship and work, are intertwined, how do we do this full life in God?

Justin flips the script just a bit and invites us to realize that, like with walking, we don’t think left foot, right foot, so much as we stride, following a natural, balancing rhythm of interconnected movements. He says it better but his fun and often funny stories invites us to “adopt a new posture toward our day to day lives.” That is, we don’t “balance” work and rest and neither fully affirms our essential belovedness. We start there, embracing a deeper sense of God’s care for us and then discover how to care and work, rest and share, all in ways aligned with our gifts and temperament.

Justin says, “Rest has helped me know I am Beloved in and through my work, and not as a reward for it.” Amen? Read this upbeat, creative set of chapters, linger over them, work your way through them and fine new energy for worship and work, play and prayer, rest amidst our running. Stride, friends. This book is a fun and wild ride, one I very highly recommend.

Plenty Good Room: Co-Creating an Economy of Enough for All Andrew Wilkes (Broadleaf) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

As mentioned, in God’s good but fallen creation, we are called to work for the common good. We love God by loving our neighbors and a major way most of us do this is by doing something productive with our time; we work, entering that complex network that MLK waxed eloquently about. As he noted, for most of us we’ve interacted with workers from all over the globe even before we’ve left the breakfast table. And so, it is wise when talking about faith at work, being creative in the marketplace, living into a vision of vocations, that we also attend to the structures and contexts of our idol-rich culture of late modernity.

People in the Republican movement these days, mostly Trumpian MAGA folk, are always complaining about socialism (as if paving roads and having laws about air pollution or regulations on surgical units at the local hospital, or, heck, even funding schools and libraries are some how left-wing.) Well, I’m no socialist, although I rejoice daily for the simple health care reforms (inadequate as they were) of the Affordable Care Act. I’m no socialist, but it doesn’t hurt us one bit — and could help a lot — if we know something about the best arguments made about the traditions of democratic socialism. This book can help.

Andrew Wilkes is a black pastor in Brooklyn and a self-professed black socialist with a degree in political science. Trained in a thoughtful, mainline seminary, and well schooled in black history, he draws on older sources like W.E.B. Du Bois and Fannie Lou Hamer as well as modern thinkers from womanist scholars like Keri Day and Katie Cannon and minority theologians like Cornel West or Gustavo Gutierrez or Peter Paris. Happily, he cites the great collection of Martin Luther King Jr. compiling speeches on work and labor, All Labor Has Dignity edited by Michael Honey.

I was struck by how this book draws not only on the great traditions of black theorizing and work for the re-ordering of society, but also Wilkes deep awareness, as an activist, of working groups and think tanks and movement networks like the New Economy Coalition or The Transnational Institute or The Economic Policy Institute. Not too many books have citations on economic details alongside quotes from Karl Barth or inspiration lines from Howard Thurman.

As a scholar-activist for economic democracy, Rev. Wilkes is on the board of the Labor-Religion Coalition of New York and the Institute for Christian Socialism. He knows his stuff. This book isn’t overly academic, though, and offers to readers some faith-based ingenuity for systems that offer “plenty good room — not just for a few, but for all.”

Life in Flux: Navigational Skills to Guide and Ground You in an Ever Changing World Michaela O’Donnell & Lisa Pratt Slayton (Baker Books) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I have announced this previously although since it is quite new, I wanted to list it again, even though it isn’t precisely about the interface of work and spirituality, callings and careers, or jobs and our daily discipleship. Because Michaela wrote Make Work Matter and because Lisa has worked mentoring leaders as Christians in secular work spaces (and consults with many, now, through her Tamim Partners firm) they both are heros in this whole field. They here are writing as leadership coaches and while this wise guide to knowing yourself and how to “do the inner work of waking up and letting go” is generally written for nearly anyone to read, it is (or so it seems to me) especially useful for those in the flux of career changes, job stress, professional challenges, and the like

The stories are great, the metaphors rich and useful, the skills and insights and prayers are perfect. Do you need encouragement, vision (and practical help) to navigate (as they put it) in the fog? Welcome to one of the very best books I’ve read on living in flux.

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PART TWO:

THIRTY fun memoirs or essays by authors with different careers, reflecting on their work and passions. All all 20% off, while supplies last.

A FUNERAL DIRECTOR  The Depositions: New and Selected Essays on Being and Ceasing to Be Thomas Lynch (Norton) $27.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.36

Lynch is a poet and an undertaker and his first book, The Undertaking: Life Notes from the Dismal Trade is one of my favorite books, ever. I’ve written elsewhere how much it meant to me when my father was unexpectedly killed in a car accident. It’s an eloquent and rare book. Except Lynch followed it with others, and those are equally splendid, and in this anthology of pieces from five of his prose volumes, there are also some new chapters. He is a spectacular essayist, a splendid person, and a person who has given voice to the sense of vocation that many funeral directors have. There are other books on being a funeral director (if your interested, you should read the two great ones by central PA undertaker Caleb Wilde, and a great, edgy memoir called Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by the great Caitlin Doughty, about working in a crematorium) but this introduction to Lynch shows forth his holy calling in working with the dead.

AN AMATEUR HOME-BUILDER All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House David Giffels (Harper) $20.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $16.79

Those who know me well know that this is one of my favorite authors, a guy from Akron, Ohio. Who knew Akron was once a high-brow town, laden with arts and culture and new money. And who knew that, by the end of the 20th century, it was crumbling and fine old mansions that were falling apart at their glorious old seams, were going for a steal.

Author and rock and roll fan and part time woodworker David Giffels buys such a place and he and his wife and a group of beer swilling pals set out to rebuild that house, turning it into a home, a real home. Pitched as a “delight” and “a truly wonderful books” and “full of heart and cheer” the reviewers are right. It is also exceedingly poignant, even as he learns what it means to grow up and make a home. Surely home-making is one of our most human of callings, and this book which starts as a comic story of a fixer-upper, ends up being a beautiful (if hilarious) reflection on satisfaction and love and grace.

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

I love preacher Van Sloten; his first book was called The Day Metallica Came to Church and his second was as much of a spot-on Labor Day title as any listed above, called Every Job a Parable: What Walmart Greeters, Nurses, and Astronauts Tell Us about God. I have gone on and on about that before, as I have this one. Of course science can point us to God, and the glories of creation remind us of all kinds of holy things. The point here, for our purposes now, though, is that each chapter of God Speaks Science is John’s telling of an interview with a scientist. A different specialist reveals her secrets, describe their calling, tells of their work in the field. From biology to chemistry, from brain science to the vocation of being a hydrologist, these chapters remind us in a delightful way how seemingly secular work can be deeply, profoundly spiritual.

A TRUCKER The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road Finn Murphy (Norton) $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I did a long review of this when it first came out, so taken was I about this trucker’s life story that drove him to drive. He’s a really smart dude, a good writer, and his life as a long-haul mover was really, really entertaining.  In sharing with you about it, again, now, I recall just how much I enjoyed and respected this fascinating guy and this remarkable story.

The Long Haul got a lot of rave reviews and I was glad to see the UVA philosopher turned motorcycle repair guy, Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft commend it. He called it “funny and sad and wise, and it shows us the lives of people we depend on.”

A SMALL BUSINESSMAN and HEMP FARMER Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West Finn Murphy (Norton) $17.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I don’t know which of Finn Murphy’s books I liked best; as a small business guy (who shares his opinion that the word “entrepreneur” is too long and snooty), I loved this book, set in Boulder, Colorado, and other locations along the Front Range. You will learn a lot about legal CBD which is actually fascinating, and there are vivid scenes of working in the building trades — his $35,000 run to Home Depot is pretty amazing!  As you join Finn Murphy on this thrilling ride into the world of small acreage farming, business start up, global sales, cops, shipping, and growing legal hemp. Murphy literally bought the farm out near Boulder and decided to plant this crop that had been in legal exile for almost a hundred years. The introduction alone will have you wanting to keep turning the pages, excited to find out what happens next in this upbeat, funny, tragic, delirious story. The title is clever but a bit of a misnomer, as he grows this crop not for getting high, but for non-hallucinogenic, medicinal and other quite noble uses.

I might mention that I think this dude is the real deal (I loved his “voice” and perspective in The Long Haul, too.) I trust him and would follow his antics anywhere. His care for the chronically underemployed, transients, and cash-only workers is beautiful. The description of the Polish guy (formerly a PhD in industrial engineering from Krakow) who comes to empty his worker’s porta-potty, on page 105, and what Tadziu says about his new job on page106 is worth the price of the book. However, just for the record, Murphy doesn’t articulate a sense of holy calling or even a serious sense of vocation, even though he is clearly excited and driven. He got into The Hemp Space to strike it rich, make some much needed dough, likening himself to others who followed a boom (like the Gold Rush or the Silver Rush) into the Rocky Mountain State. Still, his descriptions of the work and the workers, are a blast, and, frankly, pretty honorable.

Murphy has some experience of starting up a business — for a while he was one of the premier importers of premier cashmere, complete with a private jet in swanky New England, but this, out in the Wild West —I’m telling you what: this is one start-up story you won’t forget…

A GARDENER and WRITER Soil: The Story of A Black Mother’s Garden Camille T. Dungy (Simon & Schuster) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Ha, yet another Colorado story. Like most of our best nature writers there is indeed a sense of calling, indeed, a sense of transcendence even, when they explore, stand in awe and wonder, and write, when they put pen to rugged journal (or fingers to sturdy laptop) as they see and ponder the great outdoors. Dungy is a literature professor living in Fort Collins, Colorado, and her sense of vocation as a teacher seems clear enough. Her husband, too, is a very dedicated, caring prof.  But she is also a writer, a published poet, and she is under contract to write this book — something about land and flowers, gardening and earthkeeping. She is taking care of her own plain lawn, nurturing indigenous plants, and more. It’s hard but beautiful work.

Her ability to write such luminous prose about foliage and bugs, slugs and butterflies, grasses and trees, is nothing short of remarkable. That she is called to this work, in a white neighborhood, as a black woman, adds to the drama and passion. This is glorious; very highly recommended.

A CHEF Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection Robert Farrar Capon (Modern Library) $20.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Capon was known as a theologian and Bible teacher; he was a writer (a book called Bed and Board on family life, a theological novel and a handful of extraordinary books of Biblical studies, among others.) But if his calling was to be an Episcopal priest and writer, his avocation of cooking (and being a food critic for the New York Times for a season in the 1960s) is what he is perhaps most known for. Certainly is it why he is most beloved; or, should I say that his most popular book, Supper of the Lamb, is so beloved. I can count on one hand the number of books that seem well known and appreciated by folks across the theological and denominational spectrum, and I can tell you of bunches of folks who have actually tried to replicate the extraordinary recipe for lamb that makes up the heart of this rare, gorgeously written, treatise.

Of course there is more than that, here. As the back cover says, it is “on everything from prayer to poetry to puff pastry.” And there is fabulous stuff about knives and that unforgettable bit about the glories of the onion. The subtext might be a book on the holy work of cooking and the calling that many have to create dishes — and maybe a life — that “will alway be more delicious than it is useful.”

COAL MINERS and LAWYERS and ADVOCATES Soul Full of Coal Dust: A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia Chris Hamby (Little, Brown) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

This big book illustrates a sense of calling in so many ways — the call of the lawyers, the advocates of justice, the journalists, the medical docs who testified, over and over, the Union reps, and, of course, the writer, Chris Hamby, himself, are noble people fighting a “David versus Goliath” sort of campaign for justice. The dignity and hard, hard work of the coal miners themselves, men (and some women) who lived in the coal mining towns and suffering the consequences of going to work underground. I mentioned in my hefty review of this (the BookNotes that was posted November 1,2021) that my paternal grandfather died of complications from black lung, and this book was very, very important to me. I really recommend it.

If you know the kind of workers and unions and social service folk in the small mining towns of Appalachia (in this case, mostly northern Appalachian, from Southwestern Pennsylvania into West Virginia and Western Virginal) you will so appreciate this. If you don’t know much about Appalachia, this is the book to read. If you like stories of the struggle for justice against all odds, exposing the corruption of big business (and, sometimes, the complicity of the government) you have got to read Soul Full of Coal Dust. Yes, some jobs are exceedingly hard, even dangerous. The dignity of those growing up in this industry and portrayed beautifully. What a book.

A CIVIL SERVANT IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom: The Future of Religion in American Diplomacy Shaun A. Casey (Eerdmans) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I wanted to list this as it is a serious, careful, heady study of the author’s role in John Kerry’s State Department and his leading the newly formed “Religion and Global Affairs project at State. He studied at Harvard Divinity School and taught public theology at Wesley in DC when he was tapped to enter the world of global conflicts and US diplomacy by helping train a team of those who could help leaders navigate the religions driving much of the complexity of the world’s politics. I’ve read books about spies and books about soldiers and while this doesn’t (on the face of it) have as much adventuresome doom, I kept turning pages, wanting to know more about how early 21st century statecraft was or wasn’t influence by Christians called to help the world understand the spirituality of geopolitics. It’s quite a calling and quite a book.

For what it is worth, I suspect Madame Secret Madeline Albright’s book, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (Harper; $18.99) would also serve to scratch this itch, to see how world-class, major players in geopolitics were shaped by a sense of the call to public service and how, as Christians, they navigated their complicated work, day by day. I haven’t read her book yet, but it ought to be known as an example of a woman of integrity doing difficult work, as prayerfully as she could.

A WOODWORKER The Lost Carving: A Journey to The Heart of Making David Esterly (Penguin) $24.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

Watch for our every-other-week podcast (“Three books from Hearts & Minds”) to drop on Wednesday of this week where I regale listeners with my opinions in three sorts of books about faith and work, one genre of which served as an inspiration for this column: stories of people who found a sense of calling in their work or describe their passion with such gusto that is surely seems like a true vocation. This book is one of those and the writing is glorious, the story amazing, but the plot is easy to explain.

The oh-so-short version is that David Esterly is so taken with the beauty of the woodwork — done by master craftsman Grinling Gibbons in the late 1600s — in a certain British cathedral that he visits as a child that he cannot help but take up the career of being a woodworker. Years later, that very cathedral catches fire and the wonderfully artful woodwork is destroyed. Spoiler alert: craftsman David Esterly is brought in to repair the very place that drew him to the art of woodworking in the first place. As one reviewer put it, it is uncommon that he is “a visual artist who can coax as much beauty from words as he can from his primary medium.” What a story!

Laura Miller wrote in Salon that the book was “profound and wondrous, rich in thought and lovely in style.”

A VOCATIONAL LEADER The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work Steve Garber (IVP) $20.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

This is not a memoir or a study of any one job, but it beautifully illustrates Steve’s rare ability to capture in his own unique and eloquent writing style, the ordinariness of so much that glorifies God. From how hamburgers are made at Elevation Burger restaurant to his own growing up with a scientist dad (and a rancher grandad) to stories of economic reforms being promoted by the global candy makers, Mars, Corporation, he tells (in short chapters) something about how folks long for an integrity that relates faith with life. There is a real tapestry here, and that woven fabric is pictured in the first photo that goes with the first essay.

You see, each short piece is enhanced with a photo, usually directly related to the theme of the essay. I once described this as an on-to-road journal, with Steve telling of talks he’s given, people he’s met, organizations he has consulted with, groups he has taught. From colleges asking about the vocation of teaching and learning to film makers creating some of the world’s most famous movies to business execs yearning to get behind the emptiness of a crass bottom line, he invites us into stories of integrity where (as he has said in another book) “vocation is integral, not incidental” to our faith and discipleship.

The quiet, gentle, eloquent storyteller who listens to others so very carefully and writes such compelling vignettes has, himself, had a lot of jobs. He writes about some here. And he sees the high calling of ordinary people in songs and books he reads too — you’ll appreciate his words on the importance of Charles Dickens and I hope you love his comments about Les Mis.

One of the first lines is typically intense, profound, and vital, until you realize it is also a joke. Most of life, he says, is pretty autobiographical. Garber’s small and easy to read collection yearning for a seamless life, named A Seamless Life, is mostly autobiographical and so it is a joy to read, near Labor Day, or any day. Highly recommended.

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

I have highlighted this wonderfully written before here at BookNotes, celebrating how its tender prose captures much about the land, the place, the contours of a life of faithfulness caring for this place. As mid-Western scholar and writer Phil Christian puts it, she turns “the fragments of American history into a story of repentance and renewal, and a beat up bit of land into a life-giving farm.”

Kriner, an English prof at Wheaton College, is attentive to stuff that matters, and it seems to me this is the sign of one called to this sort of work; to any work, really. In this beautiful combination of memoir and literature and nature wiring and social analysis, she invites us to care about our place, which is a calling we all have.

A FURNITURE MANUFACTURER Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local — and Help Save an American Town Beth Macy (Back Bay Books) $17.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

Beth Macy is clearly an example of one called to a vocation — she is a journalist and her books have inspired many. (She is more recently known for Dopesick, made into the captivating, must-watch, Netflix series, and it’s sequel, Raising Lazarus, where characters who respond to the call to care rise up to help those addicted to fentanyl and other crazy-making third-wave opioids.) In this older one, though, she tells a businessman in Bassett, Virginia, who fights to save the storied furniture factories and realizes he must fight the cheap, off-shore imports coming from China. In scenes to vivid to explain easily, he walks the factory floors, encourages the struggling workers, meets with distributors and retailers, and, yes, finally goes to China to track down the cheap knock offs and find out why the government is facilitating this fiasco that is destroying one of the great regions of manufacturing in the US.

Macy tells of “leal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, sheer grit, and cunning” to grow the company and save hundreds of jobs. Yet there are these hidden truths about the modern industrial practices in our neoliberal and globalized economy.

This is narrative nonfiction at its very best and I couldn’t put it down. Macy’s soul as a writer meets the souls of the workers, here, and she traces their fearless leader John Bassett III, a “shrewd and determined third-generation factory man.” I do not know if the words vocation or calling even appear in this epic story. They don’t have to.

A STEEL MILL / FOUNDRY SUPERVISOR Stronger Than Steel: The Wayne Anderson Story R.C. Sproul (Harper & Row; Value of the Person Consultants) $20.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I knew Wayne Alderson a bit when I worked at a Presbyterian Church in McKeesport, PA in the years of transition from the greater Pittsburgh areas being known as the City of Steel and the Steel Valley to being, by the end of the 1980s, a quintessential rust-belt city, writ large. Before all that, in the mid-1970s Wayne Alderson worked for management, running a struggling and racially tense foundry called Pittron in Glassport, PA. There was a hard and ugly strike there and things were bad, as the book explains. Seeing his work as a Christian — Alderson was being mentored at the time by his pastor and also Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul, who later wrote this book about him — he felt that he was called by God to do respectful work with others and his grace and imagination and Godly grit changed the face of the factory. He felt called to encourage his workers and he invited blue collar union guys to a Bible study, which had a huge impact. From there, they resisted racism and alcohol abuse and more. Anderson’s efforts at reconciliation between labor and management went nearly national — an innovative program teaching respect caught on in several places in various industries.

Wayne’s team of new followers of Jesus (and some who liked the respect and sense of calling to the community of dignified work who perhaps were not followers of Jesus) brought change and productivity to that Pittron Plant.

This second edition of the book tells more of Wayne’s story, penned by his daughter, Nancy, who carries on his legacy of taking up the vocation of being a change agent in industrial relations. What an example of somebody taking their faith into their work-space.

A WRITER Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Anne Lamott (Anchor) $17.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

There are bunches of books about writing and most illustrated what Annie Dillard calls “the writing life” or how Wendell Berry writes about “standing by words.” (I adore, by the way, Wendell Berry’s under-appreciated honoring of the writing of New Jersey medical doctor and poet William Carlos Williams in his The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford.) Of the many helpful, and often autobiographical volumes we have for writers, I still most often recommend Anne Lamont’s, which is funny and wise, a good story and with much helpful stuff on being a writer. The opening pages alone, tell about her father, a writer, are always inspiring to me every time I open the book. Writing is, of course, about paying attention — “bird by bird, buddy,” as her father put it when her ten-year-old brother was overwhelmed doing a huge report on birds for school. Bird by bird, indeed. Bird by Bird is a modern classic.

A PROSECUTOR / SOCIAL WORKER Confessions of a Former Prosecutor: Abandoning Vengeance and Embracing True Justice Preston Shipp with Eric Wilson (Chalice Press) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This new book is an extraordinary example of someone who senses a strong call to being an agent of god in the world and who lives that out. There are complications along the way, including a twist of fate that “revealed how he enabled an unjust sentence for a 16-year old girl.” He discovered that “in the justice according to Jesus, adversaries can become allies.”

As David Dark notes,

Preston Shipp shares the microphone with a great cloud of loving and mostly living people you’ll want to look up and possibly track down to enter the healing game he describes…. The door to it is right here in these pages.”

Yep, his “ongoing conversion” is described as he steps into a life-long vocation of reforming America’s juvenile justice system.

Shipp’s calling led him to become an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Tennessee. Now he is the Associate Policy Director for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

A PHILOSOPHER and COLLEGE PROFESSOR In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life in Learning Nicholas Wolterstorff (Eerdmans) $27.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Talk about a life well lived. Wolterstorff is certainly one of the leading Christians scholars of our lifetime and in his impressive career he has written as a philosopher who is drawn to several reassuring themes. He has written about aesthetics and about justice; curiously, he has written exceedingly deep tomes about the nature of God, the nature of Christian worship, and the ways in which the arts might enhance such worship. Not everyone cares about his justice work, his political science or his philosophical examinations of liturgy and worship. But they care about his suffering.

Years ago, Nic lost a young adult son and his private journal, short, honest, compelling,  and called Lament for a Son became a best seller and remains a classic in some circles. Many feel like they know him as he feared his hurting soul in that little volume.

This autobiography tells vignettes from his life about his marriage and his Christian growth, about his experiences in South Africa and (years ago) in Palestine as he became increasingly an advocate for peace and justice among the world’s most marginalized. He continues to think and speak and write with a Christ-like sensitivity to those who are hurting and excluded.

Surely being a scholar, a teacher, indeed a philosopher, is a unique calling, not for everyone. But for anyone who is a beneficiary of the teaching and writing of such scholars, knowing their own backstory, how they came to be where they are, their own sense of calling, is a beautiful gift. In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life in Learning is, I think, a splendid must-read for anyone who follows his Dutch and Reformed church background. (His role in founding a CRC church in Grand Rapids known for gorgeous and somewhat innovative liturgy which helped give rise to the immensely popular Calvin Institute of Christian Worship is told here, as are fascinating details such as his collection of well-crafted furniture and his artful consideration of architecture, including building their own home.)

This is the memoir of one called to Christian scholarship, the story of a professor who has traveled as a public intellectual around the world. It’s a wonder, in a world of wonders.

TEACHERS What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World Taylor Mali (Berkeley) $15.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $12.00

Do you know this impassioned defense of teachers and why we need them now more than ever. Written a few years ago when at a dinner party somebody seemed to scoff at his work as a teacher and asked, “What do teacher’s make?” Well, in a talk that went viral, a poem/sermon that is breathtaking for its power, he replies You can imagine the good stuff that teachers make. It is sharp and funny and in this book he not only offers that famous reply but offers other poignant t stories of a life committed to teaching.

Kirkus Reviews called it “A valentine to teachers everywhere. Big, bright, life-lessons in a pocket-sized package.” I loved this and hope others taking up the calling of education would be inspired in this kind of way.  Only one with a high sense of calling says stuff like “I teach for the fire.”

A TEACHER The Flourishing Teacher: Vocation Renewal for a Sacred Profession Christiana Bieber Lake (IVP) $25.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

While this is wonderfully written and is packed full of school and personal life stories, I’ll admit it isn’t a memoir or even a happy sort of collection of tidbits like the wonders in the little Taylor Mali book, above. The Flourishing Teacher is a major work, a standard, now, I’d say, in our education section. There may be other great ones about developing a Christian viewpoint on pedagogy, books about how to Christianly conceive of schooling and teaching, but this gets to the heart of things in a way that most teachers will deeply appreciate. The very subtitle is the tip-off — “vocational renewal for a sacred profession.” Amen to that, eh?

The way Lake helps her readers understand the sacredness of their profession, and the way she invites vocational renewal is by walking the teacher through twelve months of her year. Starting in August (otherwise known as “Embrace the Lace”) she offers stories and guidance and episodes in this call to enter more conscientiously the rhythms of the academic calendar. Whether you need help in or out of the classroom, whether you work in public schools or are a college teacher, this introduction to the “landscapes of self-care, student engagement, and in structural struggles” is sure to help. Even as one who is not a teacher, I resonated with her call to “rediscover your passion for this vocation.”

ARTISTS Art and Sacrificial Love: A Conversation with Michael D. O’Brien Clemens Cavallin (Ignatius Press) $14.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96

There are dozens of great books about aesthetics and creativity, the calling of the Christian artist and the theology or spirituality of being a creative. So many are among my favorites, but most are, if witty and delightful, still didactic. For this list, I mostly wanted stories, and this short book is written nearly in the style of a novel, a nicely told report of the conversation between two Roman Catholic artists. While O’Brien is better known as a novelist — Father Elijah, The Fathers Tale, Eclipse of the Sun, Sophia’s House, and more) — he started as a painter. (There are full-color reproductions of some of Cavallin’s visual work and some of O’Brien’s paintings as well.) This is a tender and personal and deeply religious conversation about the anguish and the joy of being a Christian in the late modern world, and, particularly about being an artist.

As Cavallin (who is Swedish) prepares you to enter this conversation, he writes,

While writing this book I had in mind especially those of you who …  feel drawn to art as an expression of a strong Christian vocation. It need not be sacred art, but any form of art that takes the Christian beliefs and life of the artist seriously and who does not accept a strong division of reality and oneself into secular and religious, private and public, matter and spirit.

ECOLOGISTS and COLLEGE PROFESSORS Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed: Restoring Ken-O-Sha Gail Gunst Heffner & David P. Warners (Michigan State University Press) $29.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.96

I have reviewed this major work twice before and now I want to suggest it yet again, to be read through the lens of one’s sense of call and how God guides folks to commit to decades long work, work that matters over the longer haul.

Gail and David are friends and I know what some might call their social imaginary, their Reformed worldview, their own sense that the grace they’ve experienced in Christ should set them into the world as culture-makers and Kingdom witnesses, pointing the way to goodness and justice and social healing. They’ve got this stuff in their bones and Beth and I enjoy and admire them greatly.

Yet, this book is a detailed and captivating story less about their faith and motivation — although they speak explicitly about it at times — but more about this dream that they had, this project, this hope to recruit college students, institutional authority, church and state, together, to help heal an old and very polluted stream that ran through downtown Grand Rapids, where they lied. What started out as a hope to study and document and eventually restore this notoriously depleted and depleted waterway in a complex watershed (of rural, suburban, small town and highly urbanized environments) because a decades long campaign, funded in part by the DEA and backed by numerous neighborhood associations and river keepers, to literally reimagine how watersheds are seen and how faith is expressed. Their passion for this educational and culturally-reforming movement — resisting some of the chief idols of our time — shines through, even as they share (as is fitting for a peer-reviewed, semi-academic work) the scientific, ecological, and policy matters they were working towards.

Much of the story shows not only their dream of ecological faithfulness (and their faith’s engagement with what some call “reconciliation ecology”) but their work as educators and Christian college leaders. Dave is a scientist and his calling to do research, and teach students to engage in meaningful science work, is more than a delight, but a real  privilege to see. Gail’s tireless efforts to harness the social capital of the university to seek the common good of the community and her long-standing efforts in academic-based service learning are clearly a high calling. To read how the two of them, in their respective vocations, with lots of others joining in, sustained this large project of empowering others to care for the clean up of Plaster Creek is a great, great example of faithfulness explored together, being guided by their respective vocations. That they have stewarded well this project steadfastly over many years is what this book finally shows us. Hooray.

Breaking Through: My Life in Science Katalin Kariko (Crown Publishing) $28.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

Dr. Kariko is a Hungarian-American biochemist who specializes in RNA-mediated mechanisms. She is an adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and her research was foundational in the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines. Which is to say, she saved lives, tens of thousands of lives.

What an inspiring story, filled with the hardships of growing up in the bleak, communist Hungary where her father was a butcher their home lacked running water. She tells of her remarkable immigration to the US and the gift of a postdoctoral fellowship (in 1985) with the hope of remaking a corner of the field of medicine. She documents her struggles as a woman researcher doing studies in what was considered (then) rather arcane. She was disrespected, experienced failures, yet was persistent. She knows the power of tenacity — geesh, there’s a scene where is is plagued with cockroaches in a windowless lab — and the importance of this virtue as scientists search for answers in the gaps of establish knowledge. She was being methodical in her research, pushing for years for innovation and, when the Covid-19 virus caused a global pandemic, her work on mRNA became vital. She tells her story, here, in what Jennifer Doudna (a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry) “a riveting testament to resilience and the power of unwavering belief. ”

WAREHOUSE WORKERS, ETC. Fulfillment: American in the. Shadow of Amazon Alec MacGillis (Picador) $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

As you know, I love narrative nonfiction, that creative sort of reporting and expose that draws us in, giving us well-written descriptions and backstory. This is one of the very best, and important book and a book whose value (according to a piece in the Financial Times) “at this moment in history is unmistakable. Sarah O’Connor continues that this richly reported portrait is “not of a company, but of the country it has helped to reshape.”

There are other books that look in greater detail about the unjust and corrupt business practices of the Amazonian behemoth, but this book mostly features the workers for the many fulfillment centers Amazon has built all over the land. It features extraordinary stories of extraordinary goings-on, from Seattle to Texas to Washington, DC to the way in which they turned a famous, storied steel mill outside of Baltimore and rehired the steel workers to work the conveyor belts in the fulfillment center. In Ohio, “a hard-bitten cardboard maker moves from job to job, while his employers supplant auto manufacturers and bring dead-end work to dead shopping centers.”

To show how Amazon has impacted the retail world, MacGillis studies the now shuttered central Pennsylvania chain, The Bon Ton (and has a section on the Queen Street shopping plaza that is just a few miles from our shop.) It spends some time showing how Jeff Bezos ushers lobbyists and government contractors into his Kalorama mansion.

Fulfillment vividly details the devastating costs of Amazon’s dominance and brutal business practices, showcasing an economy that has concentrated in private hands staggering wealth and power while impoverishing workers, crushing independent business, and supplanting public-governance with private might.

As hurtful as this outfit has been to us and our bookstore (and to the health of the bookstore industry at large) and as bitter as I am about this sordid story, my heart went out to the workers, those in trucking and transportation and warehousing, those who work in data centers and delivery hubs. As the back cover of this wonderfully written book puts it, across the country, “civic fabric is unraveling and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.”

A SOLDIER Waging Peace: One Soldier’s Story of Putting Love First Diane Oestreich (Broadleaf) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I hope you recall our big review of this when it released in 2020. The book was a very memorable read and I hope the author is continuing to reach out to many, telling her story of a vocation misunderstood, and the crisis that obliged her to reconsider.

You see, Diane was in the US Army and as a combat medic was deployed to Iraq and, in an episode that seems shocking but should not be surprising, she was commanded to run over an Iraqi child to keep her convoy rolling and keep her battle buddies safe. As she entered the country and was faced with the war, she pondered her own faith, what Jesus taught (as she recalled from Sunday school) and what she really thought she would do if she had to kill. Alas, she was quickly confronted with this choice she never thought she’d have to make.

The story is moving and poignant, adventuresome and well told. I shouldn’t spoil it, but I suppose you can guess that she must speak up and refuse to fight in this awkward setting in the war zone. She ponders long and hard what faithful Christian discipleship entails and wonders what it means for her to be a Christian called to love our enemies.

Waging Peace is a moving book, obviously written by a person with a large patriotic streak. This is no left-wing screed from an old hippy pacifist. But she does conclude that God comes first and that her faithfulness to the way of Jesus her Savior means she also must stop waging war and must, as the title say, wage peace. Let’s just say this threw the proverbial monkey-wrench into her workplace. My heart went out to her, I admired her so, and hold this book up not only as a clear-headed testimony of one soldier who walks away, but as an example of the courage some of us may need if we are forced to compromise our convictions or values in our various jobs. Take courage.

A NUN Cloistered: My Years as a Nun Catherine Coldstream (St. Martin’s) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I have had this on my stack to read this summer and I’m about to dive in…. It’s going to be a slow, careful read, I think, as it is considered “a memoir of emotions felt viscerally.” There are spiritual insights, I’m told, and “beautifully crafted lessons.” It is about her idealist call to this vocation, her deep loneliness, and in what might be a mesmerizing style, a glimpse not into the rigors of a conventional, cloistered, monastery, but her discontent and her conclusion that she had to leave the religious life.

Many list Kathleen Norris’s spiritual memoir, Cloister Walk, as an all-time favorite, and perhaps this will be somewhat similar. I adored a book I read years ago about the long call into the Jesuit priesthood, A Long Retreat: In Search of a Religious Life, written by Andrew Krivak, a guy who ends up falling in love and after years of taking up that vocation, followed his heart out of the priesthood and ministry. I have heard nothing but fantastic things about Cloistered: My Years as a Nun and I’m eager to join Coldstream in her own journey towards sensing a call, and the realization— think of Henri Nouwen’s moving failure to discern a call to live among the poor in Central America as described in Gracias. — that this was not for her, or at least not anymore. Wow.

A DOCTOR The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine Ricardo Nuila (Scribner) $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40  We also have a handsome hardcover on sale for $20.00 if you’d like that…it would make a nice gift.)

Called “gut-wrenching” and “unforgettable” and “lyrical” and “as warm and humanely written as it is urgent and necessary”, The People’s Hospital is “an antidote to hopelessness” and is said to be “a call to action wrapped in powerful storytelling.”

Ricardo Nuila is a physician who follows five uninsured people from Houston, Texas as “their struggle for survival leads them to a hospital where insurance comes second to genuine care.” The story unfolds around each of these patients — one is a restaurateur whose insurance doesn’t cover his growing cancer expenses, another is a college student and retail clerk, yet another is a young mother with a high-risk pregnancy, and the fourth is an undocumented immigrant. Geronimo is a 36 year old whose liver failed puts him in a situation where his meager disability check disqualifies him for Medicaid.  Yet, despite the detail and poignant storytelling as we follow these main characters, the county hospital called Ben Taub is the place that becomes the main character and Dr. Nuila works with empathy and care to explore how the broken medical system can be restored in a way that could help these clients. Nuila works like a saint called to these ill patients (even though he would not put it that way) and his story will give you hope.

Besides his writing and his work at Ben Taub, Dr. Nuila is a professor of medicine and medical ethics and health policy at Baylor College of Medicine where he directs the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) program.

A MOTHER and WIFE Stretch Marks I Wasn’t Expecting: A Memoir on Early Marriage and Motherhood Abbie Smith (Kalas) $15.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $12.76

We have so many good books on parenting that they are falling off the shelves. From every possible perspective and on every imaginable topic, there are Christian (and otherwise) books for almost anyone. Many are very good. Some convey good information but are a bit didactic.

Every now and then we get one that is less a parenting guidebook but a story, a memoir, as this one is, of a young woman who traces the ups and downs of her interior life as she navigates the newness of her recent marriage and eventually her new motherhood. There is nothing tragic or even odd about all this except insofar the woman is a thoughtful Christian leader and was unmarried for quite a while. And there are now some new things to adjust to, some new self identify, some new sense of this new season of calling.

I have long admired Abbie and Beth and I were delighted to promote this book when it was new. Somewhat literary (but not arcane or overdone) it is a honest account of her taking up her vocation as young mom as a young woman. We adored it. Enjoy!

A PREACHER / PASTOR The Preaching Life Barbara Brown Taylor (Cowley Books) $17.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.36

There are chapters in this first book of Barbara Brown Taylor that I nearly have memorized. As an occasional public speaker, there are paragraphs here that are great to quote, stories from her memoir that I retell and cite. There are a few great pages about how a holy sense of sacrament can color how so many ordinary people do their jobs and she recounts the — a truck driver, a gardener, a doctor, a word processor. As she tells of her own story of vocation, coming to sense she was called to ministry, I was mesmerized and inspired.

The second half of this book is a collection of her famously well-crafted sermons. They are well worth reading and as I recall, most are very good. But it is her life story, her girlhood, her sense of vocation, her early approach to imagination and Bible reading, and worship that captivates me. And, again, those sections on vocation are precious. This is a great, short collection of essays that essentially form an early auto-biography of Taylor’s own call.

UNEMPLOYED and THE BUILDING TRADES The Cliff Walk: A Job Lost and A Life Found Don J. Snyder (Back Bay Books) $21.99 / OUR SALE PRICE – $17.59

This is a beautiful, provocative memoir that has stayed in print since the mid-1990s and I will never forgetting reading it, being so dumbfounded at the author’s stupid pride — he lost his job as a college professor and couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife or others near him. For months (!) as he struggled to find work. This reflection (the first half of the book, mostly) about unemployment, especially among the previously white collar, may seem dated, now, but the feelings and shame and financial worries are clearly the same, if not worse. Snyder’s hope to quickly find another job dissipated and soon he was living a lie. As an English prof and writing teacher, at least he could, later, tell the story with candor and great feeling.

Of course, driving the narrative is this sense of his own lack of identity; he still viewed himself as a college professor: it is who he is.

The second half of the book offers what I have often said is some of the most brilliant writing about blue collar work, being a construction work and roofer, that I have ever read. The job he gets is working on is for mansions overhanging the spectacular cliffs off the New England coast, in Maine. The work is dangerous and in dangerously cold weather. It is painful to read about; just dreadfully painful. And here his epiphany kicks in.

As Snyder finds his groove, comes to loves his new job, he finds what he now can say is some sense of calling and we waxes eloquent about the sanctity of working with ones hands. This, this, this is what he was meant for, and his vivid writing about this difficult work in the building trades is nothing short of stunning.

A ROCK STAR and SOCIAL REFORMER Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story  Bono (Knopf) $34.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $27.20

I’ve got my list of favorite books by or about rock stars, and this, doubtlessly, is on the top of the list. (Yes, even better than the great big memoir by Bruce Cockburn, Rumours of Glory and the hard to forget and even bigger volume by Jann Wenner, Like a Rolling Stone. ) What is so amazing about this one, besides just how very interesting it all is, and how overtly Christian it consistently is, is how grand of a life Bono and his boys in the band have lived. The way they have leveraged their fame for the good of the world, advocating against world hunger and singing in war zones, and lobbying key world leaders for justice and peace. He knows famous artists and statesmen, he knows religious leaders (and reads good Christian books) and yet can rock and roll (and sometimes party) with the best of them. By turns exciting, sad, tragic, hopeful, radical, provocative, sensible, inspiring, Surrender tells a long and important story in a fun but important voice. I’ve said it before at BookNotes and will say it here, again: this is a great book, and a great illustration of somebody who felt called by God to do this work, and through it all, found ways to live into this vocation, this odd vocation, of being one of the most important rock stars the world has ever known.

A FAILED MISSIONARY and his MOTHER Runaway Radical: A Young Man’s Reckless Journey to Save the World –  When Doing Good Goes Wrong Amy Hollingsworth & Jonathan Hollingsworth (Thomas Nelson) $15.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

I suppose on Labor Day as we celebrate a sense of calling that many fell about their jobs I can name one that seriously went awry. I wrote about this when it first came out and I have thought about it often over the years. As we fan the flames of Kingdom enthusiasm, as we invite people to discern the still small voice of God guiding them along their way, can we overdo it? Might there be safeguards in place to assure us that those we love or advise or influence don’t go off the deep end?

Jonathan Hollingsworth writes his story with honesty and bravery. His mother, writer Amy Hollingsworth wrote every other chapter, telling her side of the complicated and painful story. (Amy Hollingsworth, by the way, has written a number of very good books, but is perhaps best known for her friendship with Mr. Rogers and his book on him, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers — speaking of a guy with a calling to work in media.)

If I was doing a more lengthy review I’d explain more of this extraordinary story, but the short gist is simply this: having read a number of popular “radical” Christian books in his college years, young Jonathan is taken with a passion to serve the poor. He gets rid of most of his stuff, rejecting American commercialism and materialism. On the face of it, it seems to me, it is troubling, with just an extreme view, but I’ve known Catholic Workers who have built an honorable life in radical resistance to injustice and it may be a live, Christian political option. But something was amiss, this quick turnaround, this extremism, this — may be call it youthful arrogance?

The story continues that Jonathan strikes up a friendship with a mission school in Africa and he goes there with a guitar to teach music. It does not go well. The school is not as progressive as he had been led to believe and, eventually, he realized they are strictly fundamentalist, and toxic. They are abusive, and, almost as bad, they misrepresent themselves to their gracious donors stateside. His attempt to discuss these concerns gets him branded as a troublemaker and (you have to read it to fully understand) they essentially hold him captive. He wants to leave and he simply cannot.

In retrospect he and his mom write this story of what it means to follow one’s heart in Christian service, what it’s like to live into a calling, what it means to serve well but not be weird or dysfunctional or harming about it all.

Obviously we don’t please God by doing this or that, let alone getting involved in less than healthy missionary projects. This painful story not only harms the idealistic faith of Jonathan, but for a while confuses his relationship with his mother and father, his home church, his old friends, and, eventually, the children he went to help in the first place. What a book this is, a cautionary tale, and more.

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Our jobs and callings are, as we say, cursed with thorns. Even as redeemed children of God, we see through a glass darkly. We long for the day about which we sing at Christmas in that great line from “Joy to the World.” Jesus comes to make his blessings known — where? The famous line does not say “in our hearts” but, properly, “far as the curse is found.” Does the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus effect how you think about the creation goodness of work, the fallen nature of the thorns, and how Christ is bringing His redemptive Kingdom to bear “far as the curse is found” — even in your workspaces?

Many of the stories above are not particularly religious, but they offer a creative window into different kinds of ways people follow their passions and do their jobs. Some end well, some do not. Let’s continue to read and write about this, working, always, as my friend Steve Garber puts it, for a “seamless life.”

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

Can you believe it is almost September? Oh my.  Here are some books that are coming soon, good for you to PRE-ORDER NOW.

Of course you can pre-order nearly any book, any time, and we are delighted to serve you by getting you on a waiting list of whatever you’re most eager to receive. There are so many good books coming out this fall, so stay tuned.

For now, here are six that many of our customers will surely be interested in. They are important. Three are adult books, there’s one kid’s book, and two study Bibles. We list the dates they are to be released and in some cases I suspect we’ll get them early.

ALL ARE 20% OFF. If you are ordering more than one, please tell us if you want them shipped consolidated together when they all arrive, or if we should send each one out promptly as soon as it releases.  Whatever suits your fancy. Thanks.

The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance Jemar Tisby (Zondervan) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99  RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

I hope you know Jemar Tisby, PhD — the popular, if controversial, scholar / activist from Mississippi who has done great work educating church folks (and others) about American history and fighting racism. (Dr. Tisby’s PhD is in history from the University of Mississippi, an esteemed, Southern institution of higher learning and he has been an active Christian leader and spokesperson for racial justice for a long time. We respect him greatly.)

Tisby’s first book (and excellent, accompanying video curriculum), The Color of Compromise, explored the ways in which church people of various sorts compromised at strategic times throughout American history to accommodate themselves to the racial animus at the heart of much of the American experiment. It was well-researched, honest (about both the good and the bad) and a real wake-up call for those who may not have realized just how very implicated and complicit many Christian churches were to both overtly evil racism and more subtle sorts of institutional discrimination and systemic harms. It garnered some push back, I suppose, but was most very highly regarded. I helped lead an online group using the videos and it was a fabulous learning experience.

The second book picked up where the last chapter of The Color of Compromise ended, with the natural question of what we are to do; how shall we then live, to use Biblical language. It was called How to Fight Racism and was excellent. There is a video curriculum for that as well with a lively study/participants guide. How To…came out in 2021 (with a paperback release in 2023) and by then the harsh voices of the evangelical right were now on higher alert, making (foolish) public accusations that Tisby was a Marxist, that he was teaching a pagan sort of CRT, etc. etc. (Yes, as if you couldn’t guess, the sloppy, attack journalist Megan Basham makes an inaccurate statement about him in her recent, disreputable, Shepherds for Sale.) We have promoted Jemar’s work gladly here and we are grateful for his research, his prophetic clarity, and his steadfastness. You should order this book and support this brother.

The soon to be released, The Spirit of Justice is, in a way, a return to his first passion, telling the stories of the history of race and racial justice in the US. Pitched as a follow-up to The Color of Compromise, it is, in a way, the reverse: this is the story of those who stood up to be counted, who did the right thing. Just as there were those who perpetuated racist ideas and unjust policies, those who compromised, so, too, there are those who told a better story. There were those who created positive proposals, whose churches took stands, who raised the bar, paid the price, made a difference. These true stories are extraordinary examples of those who realized their faith demanded that they (in various ways in various places) agitated for justice.

The back cover gives one great reason why this book is so very urgent. It says:

When the struggle for racial justice gets discouraging, history can give us hope. These true stories from the past will inspire you to keep up the fight.

As Tisby notes, “we cannot be passive in our efforts to learn the lessons from the past. We must recommit ourselves to gaining hope, inspiration, and wisdom from our ancestors…”

This historical survey covers a lot. There is some stuff about the colonial era, the pre-Civil War years full of colorful characters and abolitionists; this is all very, very interesting and inspiring. He moves to an era of “building black institution” and names leaders and organizations that were thrilling to learn about. He has the requisite (and always fascinating) stuff on King and the others of the largely faith-based civil rights movement. He names women, of course, all along the way, but has one chapter dedicated to “women of the movement.” His section on the latter days the civil rights movement (the late 1960s into the 70s) introduces us to amazing stories of the theologians like James Cone and political leaders like Shirley Chisholm, and the extraordinary Myrlie Evers-Williams who brought renewal to the troubled NAACP in the 1990s. I was only a little surprised and really delighted to see his tribute to famous Roman Catholic sister Thea Bowman. This guy knows his stuff!

Near the end of the book Tisby looks at the rising generation of young Christian activists and writers (and, again, we were delighted to see that he honors Cole Arthur Riley and offers a sampling of some of the other great Black Christian writers who have emerged in recent years. His curation of who to highlight and his explanations about why they are important is beautiful.) All of this gives me great hope. I bet it will for you, too.

A short review like this can only hint at the great amount of good content in this book, and we invite you to get it on your shelf as soon as possible. Sure there are other books on black history, even others on black Christian leaders. Not long ago I celebrated Awakening to Justice: Faithful Voices from the Abolitionist Past from the “Dialogue on Race and Faith Project” published by IVP Academic ($28.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40. And just a day ago we got the brand new book Yonder Come the Day: Exploring the Collective Witness of the Formerly Enslaved by Jasmine L. Holmes (Baker Books; $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19.) We’ve got so much to learn from our American past and the “great cloud of witnesses” of people of faith who have gone before are cheering us on. Let’s get on with it. Don’t worry if somebody calls you woke. This is a path for the righteous, and this soon-to-be-released book by Jemar Tisby will help us all. Highly recommended.

The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust Francis S. Collins (Little, Brown and Company) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00  RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

I trust that you have at least heard of the great scientist, physician, public health leader (and exceptionally gracious Christian) Dr. Francis Collins. Known world-wide as an advocate for the disabled and sick (he discovered the gene issue that causes Cystic Fibrosis) and for a part of his public life was the director of the NIH program that was mapping the human genome. His work has been groundbreaking and he gives the credit to God for his abilities and for the ways in which science and medicine can be a blessing.

He wrote a lovely, powerful book about how the glories of science can point to God (The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief) and a popular-level but somewhat detailed study of genetics in 2011 entitled The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine. As his fame grew and he had more opportunities to share his faith with the watching world, and, importantly, colleagues in labs and research institutions, he put together a reader, a great collection of essays or book excerpts that presents the Christian faith for smart skeptics. (That fabulous anthology is called Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith.) Eventually, his team successfully sequenced all three billion letters of our DNA. He went on to serve three presidents as the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Collins was instrumental with a few other Christians whose vocations had them working in the field of science to start a think-tank and resource center that proclaimed a perspective on the integration of faith and science that is called BioLogies. Rejecting “young Earth creationism” for a more nuanced sort of Christian appreciation for evolutionary data, he co-authored a very helpful guidebook for understanding this congenial sort of Christian worldview that “thinks Christianly” about the task of science. It is called Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions, published in hardcover by IVP in 2011.

When Covid hit and the pandemic ravaged the world, his work increasingly became focused on public health; even though at one point 3,000 people were dying each day, some people (including those who identified as evangelicals) resisted taking precautions and we know many agitated citizens got very angry about the government’s efforts to mitigate the crisis. (My recent study of a handful of books about the rise of the far right and the militias and what led to the attack on the Capitol on January 6 of 2021 are connected to this.) It grieves me to think that one of the finest scientists and public voices of evangelical faith in our day has been maligned and attacked…

And so, this forthcoming book is not only a sight for sore eyes — it has been a while since Collins has published anything new — but it was written from and speaks about these last hard years and into this cultural moment as wisely as anything I’ve read lately. Yes, there are stories of science and the ways in which we should or shouldn’t “trust the science” (and what that even means.) But besides his hope to reinvigorate a similar (if somewhat more generic) public conversation as has BioLogos about what science is and isn’t, The Road to Wisdom does something more profound: it is inviting us to question what we mean by truth. And how we might even get beyond the mere reliability of facts and data, to a deeper sense of truthfulness, something akin to fidelity, to deep knowledge, to wisdom. Yes, the title is apt: Collins sees these four components of his subtitle (truth, science, faith, and trust) as part of a path towards wisdom.

It is just lovely to see a book that has such a wide and prestigious list of endorsers. From cellist Yo-Yo Ma to Kay Redfield Jamison (author of the An Unquiet Mind) to Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel laureate who wrote A Crack in Creation, to the aging statesman former President Bill Clinton, to Philip Yancey who calls him “a national treasure.” Listen to Jane Goodall, certainly one of the most known scholars of our era:

This book should be read by anyone, Christian or non-Christian alike, who is seeking meaning or trying to make sense of our troubled times. — Jane Goodall

The Goodall quote is an indication of a few good things: The Road to Wisdom could be enjoyed by nearly anyone, regardless of their own faith or philosophical views.  In a way, there is a bit in here on our deepest beliefs — what is truth is religiously-laden, of course — and his call to faith is potent but gracious. I’d give this book to anyone who is even mildly open to religious reading.

But, more, a bit of the book is about trust, and he mostly means trusting one another as a culture, as fellows in our land. He addresses our polarized society directly and he tells some tragic stories about the hostility he faced as he stood nearly at the center of the storm about Covid regulations, masking, vaccines, and more. I could write a review just on the penultimate  “trust” chapter…

The last section is called “Hope and a Plan of Action.” I’ve read it twice. I will revise it again — it’s very good. It is not rocket science, and he could have gone deeper, but it is a lovely and powerful message, a good guide, a helpful plan for moving forward.

The book is dedicated “to the memory of my friend and spiritual mentor the Reverend Tim Keller.” Order it today and we’ll send it out promptly. Thanks for caring.

To Gaze Upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice Samuel Parkison (IVP Academic) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00 RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 9, 2024

I know not everybody who reads our BookNotes cares about hefty historical theology, but I was excited about this as soon as I saw it announced. The publisher entices us to work through this serious stuff — which has fabulous advanced reviews — by saying this:

Though the doctrine of the beatific vision has woefully been forgotten in the church today, Samuel Parkison argues that the beatific vision is central for the life of the church today. Through close readings of Aquinas, Dante, Calvin, and more, Parkison reminds us of the beatific vision’s historical and contemporary significance.

I’m very eager to see this and hope some of you may be, too. I just want to make one concern — not really a disclaimer, since I haven’t seen the book.

One of the things that has most transformed much of the best evangelical thinking and living these days has been a recovery of the full gospel story — which is the announcement of the Kingdom of God, inaugurated in Christ — and the trajectory that the Bible gives us towards the renewal of all creation. Since we are not going to spend eternity in heaven, but Christ comes down to be with us (see the last chapters of the Bible!) that is, since everything in life matters, we need a piety which embraces the spirituality of the ordinary and worldview that affirms our embodied, day-to-day living in a good, if broken, creation that is truly being restored in Christ Jesus.

Although eschatology isn’t the most important matter in theological knowledge, I suppose, it could be argued that what we think of how our story ends, where we and history are going, what our lives are about as we hope in the future, decisively effects how we live now. And if we are right about what (just for instance) Richard Middleton so beautifully lays out in his major work, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology or, about what N.T. Wright invites us to in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, we will have a missional vision that is gritty and down-to-earth, seeing the connections between creation and re-creation, between incarnation and resurrection. All of life is redeemed as Christ Himself is glorified by summing up “all things in Himself” as it is allusively put in Ephesians 1:10. So I want nothing to distract us from our calling as stewards of creation and nothing to detract from the Bible’s own narrative trajectory of creation regained. Behold, it says at the end of Good Book, God is making “all things (re)new(ed.) Right? You betcha!

Now the notion of the beatific vision, insofar as I understand it (which I probably don’t — another big reason why I’m eager for this book to release soon) is that we are caught up at the End with the beautiful vision of Jesus, upon whom we will gaze in extraordinary splendor. In heaven we will see Him face-to-face. What a hope! Who doesn’t want that?

I do hope, though, that this author and his book, Gaze Upon God, does not pit one aspect of the true story of the whole world that says we will live in a renewed Paradise, enjoying God’s world as God wanted us to in the beginning, as if seeing Jesus somehow removes the context (what Al Wolter’s once called “the circumference”) of the scope of redemption. I hope it is not either/or but both/and (we see the glories of the new creation and we see God face to face, in the very face of Jesus.)

Some who have taken great inspiration and have staked their very lives on a transforming vision from pondering the implications of a conviction about a (re)new(ed) creation (and the consequential affirmations of cultural duties and enjoyments in the creation that God so loves, here and now) have needed to get past an otherworldly sort of spirituality and an ethereal eschatology. Speculating about the rapture and fixating too much about heaven, have, in fact, crippled many of us and we have learned to resist such misguidedness. Rather, with a proper understanding of God’s story, we’ve championed books with titles like Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God’s Creation by Paul Marshall and Heaven Is a Place on Earth: Why Everything You Do Matters to God by Michael Wittmer. Both of these, by the way, are by authors who love Jesus with all they’ve got and I’m sure are eager for his promised return to heal the “vandalization of shalom” that sin has caused.

So what should we believe about the mystical significance of this encounter with the face of God? What even is the beatific vision? Is it mostly a Roman Catholic thing? Can its insights and power and solace and hope be harnessed for more faithful living in these complicated days? I’m sure that Parkison will show us how a retrieval of this doctrine will inform our daily Christian lives.  (In fact, see chapter 6 for this exact theme.) We must resist (as G-C professor Adonis Vida puts it, “a captivity to a pragmatist and naturalist understanding” of the nature of our faith and salvation. Perhaps this is — to draw the matter very broadly — part of our need to think about “re-enchantment” in a so-called secular age. Hmmm.

Here’s the table of contents:

1.  What Is the Beatific Vision?
2.  Biblical Foundations for the Beatific Vision
3.  A Cloud of Witnesses, Part One: Pre-Reformation Historical Witness
4.  A Cloud of Witnesses, Part Two: Reformation and Post-Reformation Historical Witness
5.  Retrieval for Reformed Evangelicals
6.  The Beatific Vision and the Christian Life
7.  Postscript: The Beatific Vision and Global Christianity

It makes perfect sense that one of the great ecumenical, historical, and dare I say sacramental theologians of today, Hans Boersma, likes this book and heartily commends it. Boersma says:

This is easily the best primer on the beatific vision today. Samuel Parkison’s scholarly yet wide-ranging treatment — Scripture, history, philosophy, theology — makes To Gaze upon God a valuable resource and accessible textbook. Grounded in a realist metaphysic, Parkison’s moderate Reformed approach judiciously encourages evangelicals to take seriously the tradition’s teaching on the transformative vision of God. Parkison effectively puts to rest the notion that the Reformation did away with belief in the beatific vision. Here is a book sure to rekindle our longing for happiness in God. — Hans Boersma, Nashotah House Theological Seminary, author of Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry

Listen to Michael Haykin, a Baptist church history prof and scholar of the Puritans, who seems to anticipate my own concerns and makes me think that Gaze Upon God is not going to fall into the things I worry about (above.) It might have proven nice for author Sam Parkison, too, since he himself writes, as a Baptist, “Should I even be talking like this?” Ha. Check this out:

This overview of the history of Christian reflection on the beatific vision is an extremely important study, for it rightly reveals the central place that the hunger to gaze upon God has had in Christian tradition. But this is a hunger that far too many Western evangelicals in this ‘Secular Age,’ as Charles Taylor has termed it, seem to have lost and even rejected as pie-in-the-sky pietism. May this study be used by God to reawaken this hunger and so empower our witness to the ever-present God in this day! — Michael Haykin, professor of church history

Hey, one other nifty thing about this forthcoming title. The author — who has penned several other books on God, the Trinity, and such — is a theology professor in (get this): The United Arab Emirates. Did you even know there is a seminary there? Hooray for this.

NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Bible edited by Preston Sprinkle (Zondervan)

gray hardcover $49.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $39.99

tan imitation leather $79.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $63.99

When ordering don’t forget to tell us which edition you want.

RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 10, 2024

The Zondervan company that manages the rights to the NIV translation does many nice study Bibles, and we stock a lot, from the seeker-oriented Quest Study Bible to the rigorously evangelical Biblical Theology Study Bible edited by D.A. Carson, from the excellent globally-minded Justice Study Bible to the gospel-centered The Jesus Bible, from the NIV Faith & Work Study Bible (where there is even a sidebar entry about me, believe it or not) to the lovely Encouraging Word Bible by Max Lucado, from the various artful ones that have room for coloring (Journal the Word for Woman, for instance) to the useful Cultural Background Study Bible. Of course, by far, the best-selling, classic study Bible is the NIV Study Bible which has been around for decades and updated several times. Each of these many study edition comes in hardback or softer, nice imitation leather-bound editions, so there are plenty of solid options.

[And these are only some of the ones available in the popular NIV translation. Give us a holler if you want to know about other good translations, from the NLT, NRSVue, ESV, CEB, NASB, KJV or NKJ, or the Roman Catholic American Standard translation, among others. And we are fond of Peterson’s great paraphrase The Message. We have a lot!

And now, one more in the NIV family of study Bible editions.

The NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Bible draws its name from a often-used trope in various quarters that God’s coming but not fully here yet Kingdom is “upside down” from the ways of this world. I’m pretty sure that Preston Sprinkle, who edits this multi-author, major Bible resource, read the classic on the Sermon on the Mount, The Upside Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill, a remarkable book published by a Mennonite publisher, Herald Press, decades ago. I think of Kraybill’s provocative study whenever I hear the phrase, but I know it has been used by all manner of speakers and preachers. There is no doubt that it rings true: everything about Jesus’s ways is counterintuitive. Let’s hope the notes of this study edition bring that out, showing the alternative community God’s people are to be shaped into if we allow the unfolding drama of God’s Word to color and form our posture and imagination, our faith and our practice. I’m assuming the notes will be mostly centrist evangelical in their theological persuasion, using writers from a variety of denominations, informed by up-to-date scholarship without being overly critical or trendy. They promise to pick up on themes in the Biblical text that point us to ways we are to — as their marketing slogan puts it — “Think Deeply // Love Widely.”

Like any good study edition the soon to be released Upside-Down Kingdom Bible will have hundreds of side-column notes, good introductions to each book of the Bible, full-page articles throughout. Zondervan Bibles uses a type font that has proven to be easy on the eye for sustained reading and this is in an 8.5 font. There is a two-color page design and ribbon markers.

You know that we believe that God calls believers to (as the promo for this study edition puts it) “live faithfully in a way that flips the wisdom of worldly kingdoms on its head.” We are excited about this one, for sure.

I’m sure it will have textual notes that open up our understanding of a Biblical perspective on topics such as race and ethnicity, creation care, the arts, leadership and power, science, abortion, wealth and poverty, lament and grief, gender and sexuality, politics, baptism, singleness and friendship, technology, immigration, mental health, social justice, violence and warfare, and many others contemporary topics. Few study Bibles offer comment on big social issues of this sort and I’m hoping this will help some of us who are have developed habits/instincts of using a more personal sort of interpretive impulse to see how the Bible shapes even the most public and social of concerns. These notes and essays alongside the Scripture are all indexed in a large set of pages in the pack, too. Hooray.

I haven’t seen it yet (and not everyone always agrees with Sprinkle, the team’s project overseer; for instance he has written a book about being committed to Biblical nonviolence, which puts him at odds with most evangelicals, and he is as gracious as he can be while still holding conventional views of sexuality and gender, which puts him at odds with most mainline churches that are inclusive of LGTBQ sisters and brothers.) I don’t know all of the contributors, but they will surely be men and women of depth and integrity. It’s a great idea for a study edition and we look forward to having it here at the shop soon. Here is what their marketing team says about it:

In a culture that has become exponentially polarized, it can be difficult to think deeply and love widely. The NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Bible provides readers with thoughtful, Scripture-based notes from a diverse set of trusted Christian voices and explores difficult issues facing Christians today, with features that are honest, nuanced, and filled with grace.

The Book of Belonging: Bible Stories for Kind and Contemplative Kids  Mariko Clark & Rachel Eleanor (Convergent Books) $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99  RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 24, 2024

There are so many great new children’s books coming that it is hard to know what to highlight but we certainly want to celebrate this forthcoming release that already has considerable buzz. The Book of Belonging is (as they explain) designed for families seeking a Bible storybook that reflects the diversity of God’s people and for every reader seeking a more expansive and wondrous view of God. I don’t want to label it “progressive”, really, and many religious books these days feature a multiethnic caste of colorful characters. But the exceptionally thoughtful text and rich illustrations present “some of Scripture’s most important and overlooked stories — including many female-centered ones — alongside old favorites reimagined to convey greater inclusivity, diversity, and historical representation.”

Taking a cue, perhaps, from the “wondering” approach of resources like “Godly Play” or the lovely children’s Bible Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible by esteemed educators Elisabeth Caldwell and Carol Wehrheim, this Book of Belonging offers more than narratives, but and guided wonder moments, mindful practices, and other creative ways to engage the text of Scripture. With this theme of “belovedness” that appears, children will learn who God is and much about God’s heart and the fact of their being loved and delighted in. As the authors like to say,  “When it comes to the love of God, everyone belongs.”

This gentle, gracious Bible story book offers forty-two Bible stories with aesthetically-pleasing colorful illustrations on every page.They would want you to know that the art showcases a variety of body shapes, ages, abilities, and skin colors and, also, uses historically accurate depictions of Jesus and God’s people, including original Hebrew and Greek names with historically accurate depictions. This is going to be great.

Here is what the publishers tell us about the creators of this long-awaited resource:

Mariko Clark is a Japanese American author, mother, and storyteller on a mission to help kids embrace diversity and wonder. Her time as an editor with National Geographic Learning sharpened her ability to make complex topics accessible and engaging. She lives near Indianapolis where she equips kids and caregivers with spiritual resources to navigate the messy middle, wrestle with tough questions, and find community in the journey.

Rachel Eleanor is an illustrator known for doodles of questing travelers, friendly spirits, and all manner of creatures. She uses drawing as a way to explore the wilderness within and without, focusing on themes of spirituality and mindfulness. Her whimsical characters have inhabited books and stationery, championed brands, and even bedecked beverages. She lives in Atlanta.

NRSVue Westminster Study Bible with the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal Books (Westminster/John Knox) hardcover $55.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $44.00  RELEASE DATE OCTOBER 1, 2024

If the above NIV “Upside Down Kingdom” Bible has a contemporary feel, it is surely upbeat and useful for ordinary readers. It is not aimed at scholars or those that follow postmodern literary devices or critical theory. Although it is interdenominational, it will no doubt tilt evangelical and theological traditional.

No so, the Westminster Study Bible. I haven’t seen this, yet, either, but my hunch is that it will be geared to a much higher academic level (not unlike the NRSVue, the translation it uses, which is a tad more demanding to read, unlike the more colloquial NIV (or, even more so, the New Living Translation, say.)

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) has been the chosen translation in many mainline denominational churches for decades, so PCUSA, Episopalians, Lutherans, most United Methodist and UCC folks would all know this translation as their pastor’s preaching Bible. As of last year, the NRSV has itself been updated — the “ue” at the end stands for “updated edition” making it the NRSVue.

Not only is this study Bible a bit more on the scholarly side, the social context of the interpreters and the theological persuasions of those writing the notes are, it seems, more mainline denominational and therefore more open to fresh, even critical, takes on the meaning of a given text.

Listen carefully how the publisher puts it:

The first entirely new study Bible to utilize the recently released New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), The Westminster Study Bible includes interpretive materials from over eighty leading biblical experts who, as teachers in a variety of educational settings, are sensitive to how the biblical texts have been received, what their cultural and social consequences have been, and how readers might hear them now in multiple contexts. Paying close attention to interdisciplinary connections, contemporary students, teachers, and other readers from diverse backgrounds will find the WSB both useful and relevant.

They continue:

The key features of the WSB attend to the cultural impact of the Bible in its original setting as well as its impact on later readers and communities, up to and including the present day. Study notes open up the biblical texts and explore cultural insights from the ancient world as well as help readers to grasp how certain texts may have functioned in much later periods and far different settings. Together, these two points of access—back then and since then—allow readers to have a richer, fuller discussion about the meanings of the Bible.

There are plenty of articles and sidebars as well. Some of the pieces will be on topics such as:

The Bible, Gender, and Sexuality, The Bible, Race, and Ethnicity, The Bible and Social Justice, The Bible and Visual Art, The Bible in Film and Media, The Bible in Music, The Bible in Literature, The Bible in Museums, The Bible, Science, and the Environment.

Unique, eh? And fascinating.

There are excursus topics, too, on themes such as “woman wisdom” and “Black and beautiful” and “Slut-shaming as Prophetic Discourse” and one called “Frederick Douglass, Paul, and Onesiumus.” Whether you are interested in questions about “the divine mandate to exterminate the Canaanites” or examples of feminine imagery for God or Revelation in popular culture, there are all kinds of these extra features to help readers grapple with how the Bible has inspired certain attitudes and practices and how maybe we need deeper conversation about what these texts actually say and how they can be faithfully construed.

There are nearly 100 ecumenical scholars who have contributed to this major new study Bible. The general editors are :

• Emerson B. Powery, Professor of Biblical Studies and Dean of the School of Arts, Culture, and Society at Messiah University
• Stacy Davis, Professor of Religious Studies and Theology and Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Saint Mary’s College
• Mary F. Foskett, Wake Forest Kahle Professor of Religious Studies and John Thomas Albritton, Fellow at Wake Forest University
• Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law at Duke

Go Forward in Love: A Year of Daily Readings from Timothy Keller Timothy Keller (Zondervan) $26.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59  RELEASE DATE OCTOBER 1, 2024

This book will arrive late in September and since most of the world is just learning about it now, we are delighted to be able to assure you that we will stock it. We’re so grateful to get to write a bit about it here, now, and, of course, offer it at our BookNotes 20% off.

I do not have to reiterate the importance of this eloquent, thoughtful, and widely-read, generous thinker. Keller was a pastor who came to a deeper faith during his college years here in central Pennsylvania and studied at Westminster Theological Seminary near Philadelphia. His own intellectual journey and that which most influenced him is beautifully explored in the fascinating biography by Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Zondervan; $26.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59.) Keller was honored in a book of tribute testimonials (that are fantastic, by the way) called The City for God: Essays Honoring the Work of Timothy Keller edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books; $24.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99) and it is a book Tim saw before his death last Spring. He loved it, and so will you.

In any case, this new collection is compiled from selected excerpts of his many beloved works. Like most devotionals, it offers a thought for each day, on the many things he wrote about, from prayer to cultural engagement, from forgiveness to our callings in the work world. He has written about Bible characters, about evangelistic encounters, about social justice, about love for God and love for neighbor. He is known both for tender stories of grace (as seen in one of his most popular, The Prodigal God) and for rigorous, culturally-wise apologetics for the modern world, like in his important Making Sense of God. And, of course, there are pieces drawn from a book he wrote while dying of cancer on hope in the power of the resurrection. Once can hardly go wrong.

Some folks may not have the time or energy or capacity to read through his many books which, while not academic, may be a bit more rigorous than many books on Christian living. This way to dip in to his body of written work in very short snippets is ideal. 365 days of Keller. Hooray.  It would, it seems to me, make a great Christmas gift for anyone who might be longing for an intellectually respectable and yet deeply spiritual book.  Pre-order it now and get our 20% off.

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BookNotes

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DISCOUNT

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If you intended to read the last BookNotes but didn’t, here’s a quick link. I described (mostly) recent books that I found compelling, even transformative; perhaps life-changing. There were creative books on the Christian life but before I listed those I briefly listed 10 very different kinds of books on sharing faith with others. I know using the “e” word (evangelism) doesn’t sell books, but at least I tried, right? Check it out and note how I explained the tone of each.

This week I’m in a bit of funk — it’s been going on a while, I know — in part because of my research into the history of the Republican Party and how the far, extremist right wing (many who are armed and dangerous) has infiltrated the party that was once known for traditional family values and the free market. For a variety of reasons that vex political scientists, social analysts, and contemporary historians the MAGA movement has become the ideological home for militias, border vigilantes, skinheads, the KKK and newer Trumpians like the Boogaloo Boys and the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters. How did that happen? What are we to do?

(For those that wonder, by the way, I find no comparable infiltration of violent far left extremists into the Democratic Party. This is not to say that there is nothing to criticize about the Left or the Dems, but I am not, here, describing books about either Party. I’ve been reading for more than a year about the violent extremists found in unholy organizations such as the KKK and Aryan Nation and Oathkeepers. Black-masked (anarco-leftist) Antifa has been disruptive in some cities, usually countering the far right, but they have not been involved in party politics, as such. As far as I can tell Homeland Security are not documenting much of a threat from domestic terrorists on the left; in this era, at least, the threat is from the fringes of conservative moments.)

In this BookNotes I want to highly recommend several important books, including two riveting reads each about brave undercover cops who infiltrated these dangerous (and sometime murderous) extremist groups. These are fingernail-biting, page-turning books that will keep you up at night. I can’t say which is better so get ‘em both. They are both remarkable. Let’s start with those. And then we’ll explore another very different book called We Become What We Normalize by David Dark. As always, here, they are all on sale – 20% off.

The Hate Next Door: Why White Supremacists Are All Around Us — and How to Spot Them by Mason Browning, with his wife Tawny Browning (Sourcebooks) $17.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.32

This came out a year ago and I’ve just discovered it and I burned through it, staying up late on work nights, as I was so drawn in to his wild expose of the cult-like “changing face of hate.” A good-hearted Mormon cop becomes (with only minimal support from his PD) an undercover detective hanging out with various sorts of skinheads and neo-Nazis which lead him to ever more dangerous militias — some which were not necessarily driven by racism but were seriously anti-government and some who were explicitly racist, even organizing “hunting trips” to murder immigrants sneaking across the Arizona border. These seemingly fringe groups (well, not the skinheads) were often involved in Republican politics and had covers as community minded legitimate civic groups. These militas and their training camps (some affiliated with churches) were often overlapping with other White Power groups and Matt Browning, under a pseudonym, got to know most of the major players in the Western US. After eventually being outed, and having jailed many of the violent offenders, he and his wife became international experts, serving law enforcement all over the world about the growing scourge of hate groups.

Part way through his career, when bumping into violent border militias or skinheads at the local Walmart, say, his wife got involved and became, curiously enough, an unofficial gatherer of intel. Tawny was serving as a producer of a TV series on fundamentalist Mormon cults that engaged in polygamy and was helping women and girls escape that scene when she realized the overlap — one of the reason a particularly fearsome cult of polygamists practice their incestuous worldview was to keep their “seed” racially pure. She was as passionate as her husband to study and learn and connect the dots of these groups. Together they had a front-row seat to the rise of White supremacy. From learning about the sorts of Doc Martens favored by real skinheads to the various symbols, tattoos, numbers, patches and slogans of the various iterations of the Klan or the militias, The Hate Next Door is eye opening, well told, and — at times — inspirational.

Inspirational? Browning works hard to be a good dad and husband and speaks about the stress of undercover work and the PTSD that set in as he lived with so much evil. He worries, still, about guys that got away, about murders he maybe could have prevented, about losing ground in the work to expose these dangers. He’s a good guy and there is a light touch as he chats about all this. There is even some humor. I’d like to meet this guy; after reporting about all the groups he infiltrated and all the tension, you feel like you know him. His writing style is super approachable. And I’d love to meet Tawni, too. If they made a movie of this I wondered who would play her?

The book offers some good advice near the end, offering wisdom on coping if you know somebody in one of these hateful cults. He ends with a balanced (if brief) treatment of attending Trump rallies and noticing “so many guns” — guns among the leftist protestors and, even more, among those with racist slogans and anti-Jewish sentiments in plain view. He recognized the tattoos and symbols and patches on many of the January 6 insurrectionists, proof that many who attacked the Capitol had extremist connections; he and his wife were on a first name basis with the head-dressed QAnon Shaman. (Browning is quick to remind us, by the way, that many fellow-citizens who think the 2019 election was rigged are not therefore racist nor necessarily violent.) He loves his country, he loves seeing the good in things, and yet he has this passionate calling to inform us about this crazy, alarming stuff happening, often under our noses.

At the Trump rally in Harrisburg a few weeks ago the local news team covered the large lines waiting to get in to the rally on an exceptionally hot day and had footage of those at the event before they entered the building. As often happens, happy folks mugged for the camera, knowing they’d appear in the background of the newscaster. One guy walked by and flashed an odd hand symbol. It was weird. Having read this book, I now know what it was; I have gone back and watched it over and over. Right at our central PA Republican Party event, there it was. I wasn’t shocked. Hate next door, indeed.

White Robes and Broken Badges: Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing the Evil Among Us Joe Moore (Harper) $32.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

Holy smokes, what a book. (It’s brand new – maybe you heard him on Fresh Air earlier this week.) Joe Moore is a fine, clear, writer. He clearly tells a story that I just couldn’t put down. Like the above-mentioned The Hate Next Door, it is a page-turner and one that I think is vitally important for us to read and talk about. I’ve mentioned before our own run-in with the Klan here at our shop in Dallastown, and although racist hate groups have changed much over the years, they remain the granddaddy of all the variations of hate groups. Like most of the far right groups, they hate blacks, Latinos, Asians, gays, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and nearly anyone who does’t fit their view of conservative, American rightness.

Their story has been well told. You know about their rise after the Civil War and then their revival in numbers and hatefulness in the early 20th century. (One of the great, award-winning books we highlighted a year or so ago is A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over American, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by the great nonfiction scholar and bestselling author, Timothy Egan (Penguin; $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40.) I suppose you know some Klan chapters — often called klaverns — view themselves as explicitly Christian. (Ahh, remember that book I highlighted last month called Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity by Joel Looper – duh.) Some groups seem more taken by their anti-Semitism than being anti-Black and most use the Heil Hitler salute as much as their other secret codes, like KIGY. Many are willing to commit heinous acts of intimidation and perhaps murder.

Joe Moore was an Army Special ops guy. He was a sniper and notes that he served in locations that are sealed and he may not tell us. Throughout the book he draws on his military training — skills of observation, ways to drive, ways to enter a room, and obvious hand-to-hand combat strategies. When he was working as a welder — coping with PTSD from what he suggests included the sorts of shootouts and killings you see on TV shows about spies that he encountered in special operations — he was recruited, almost out of the blue, by a Florida FBI guy. They asked him how he liked rednecks.

So begins his complex plan to become a Klansman which, in Central Florida, in this secret organization, it isn’t simple. The initiation ceremony (held out on a side road in the middle of no-where, near Lochloosa Lake, which made him think he had been found out and they were going to kill him) was described in detail as he became a Knight. This outfit was different than the Klansman we got to know in the amazing Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America by Vegas Tenfold, who, as a left-wing journalist somehow got embedded in a whole gang of alt-right groups, including the guys who planned the infamous Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville VA. In that story some of the KKK guys were nearly bumpkins, as I recall, and their cross burning ceremony was almost laughable. Not so the armed men Moore was getting to know, who met under the Saltire Cross, the older mystic insignia of the KKK, also known as the Blood Drop Cross. Some guys were friendly enough, but Joe had seen Mississippi Burning that is based on the investigation of the 1964 murders of civil rights workers. He knew what these guys could do. And they had the firepower to back up the horrendous stories they told him.

Joe’s awareness of makes and models of weapons certainly helped him earn cred within this new circle of brothers. He was often “carrying”, himself — he had no back up in this undercover work — but his appreciation for rare weapons (including old German pistols and handguns) made it clear that he could be an asset to the Klan. I won’t spoil all the details but he is assigned a major assassination attempt on a candidate running for US President that they especially hated: one Barack Obama. As the day approached they gave Moore a high-end Barrett M107A1 sniper rifle and he had to somehow figure out how to botch the job without his cover being blown. He had done all the necessary recon and various associates were going to be in place, including a getaway car with false plates gathered from a Klansman in the Department of Transportation. It was, as they say, down to the wire.

As it ends up, they did not kill Obama that day during the Kissimmee Florida campaign stop, he was soon enough elected, and the network of various sorts of Klansmen were elated. The election of our nation’s first Black President caused an immediate, almost overnight, increase in interest in the Klan. As the KKK learned the art of the deal (by using the internet and changing their image a bit) they recruited, in nearly every state of the union, hundreds and hundreds of angry, white men.

I do not want to blow the story for you as it unfolds like a novel and you’ll be on the edge of your seat as he attempt to balance this real-world life of being undercover among serious haters — some redneck rural guys, some who went to church, maybe, and others who were fairly sophisticated workers in law enforcement, themselves!  There is a reason Moore hates bullies and why he took this job so seriously. The book explores the interior life of such a detective and the psychic wear it does being around foul-mouthed and despicably hateful people much of his working days. That he had a wife and kids and was trying to keep them safe is part of the story. It doesn’t always go well, and, as you will see, there are issues with the feds, local cops, the FBI, and more. If only he had a pal like Matt Browning.

Joe Moore gets out of the undercover biz for a while and, when an opportunity presents itself, he is sucked back in. There is family drama, concern about his kids, obviously questions about his safety and his mental health. The extended connection with border militias and white supremacy groups and KKK klaverns, who are not unlike the New York mafia families, is dreadfully stressful. His spy work put him in danger. (Did you know that when the government puts you into a witness protection program you can only take a limited amount of your stuff; family heirlooms, pictures, his children’s beloved toys were all lost as they were rushed to another state.) Moore’s passion to help expose these thugs.

As he puts it, “I watched a group that had long proclaimed itself he “Invisible Empire” gradually emerge from the shadows to unite the disparate forces that continue to roil this country today.”

Best-selling author Brad Meltzer says “White Robes and Broken Badges is a gut-punch of a book… this is one you shouldn’t miss.”

The forward is by Congressman Jamie Raskin who was a member of the House Select Committee on the January 6th attack. He obviously knows much about these radical groups that have become part of a political assault on America. He compliments Joe Moore’s bravery, and notes that Joe shows how there are sheriff offices and police departments that allow the Klan to work and sometimes commit crimes with impunity. (Hence the “Broken Badges” of the title. That is a theme in The Hate Next Door as well.) Some of these groups have toned down their hate-speech a bit and have found welcome in the Republican Party which should be concerning to all Americans, but especially morally-serious conservatives. Moore, like Browning, is a military guy, a law-and-order type, and not particularly interested in liberal activists, let alone anti-police rhetoric or Marxist stuff.

They want the facts and they have risked their lives to bring us these dramatic stories. Moore, like Browning, is convinced we must know about the danger. There is much to learn.

We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism Andy Campbell (Hatchette) $29.00  / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

I won’t say much about this because I’ve highlighted it before at BookNotes. It is a brave book, a book that tells exactly who this right-wing fight club is and what they are about. It starts with an exceptionally vulgar overview of the early cable show Gavin McInnes (founder of The Proud Boys) ran and how show after show he spewed anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-women, sexual politics, mocking men who did not live into his views about exceedingly toxic masculinity.

It is, as a former FBI special agent Ali Soufan puts it, “an investigative feat” and “essential reading for those wrestling to understand how homegrown extremist movements take hold and wreak havoc in America.”

This study of creeping fascism and violent extremism is so unbelievable it is almost funny at times — indeed, Vegas Tenfold, who knows extremist groups as well as nearly any reporter in America, says it is hilarious. I don’t know about that, it does explain how this movement with their cute little uniforms became popular among nationalists and more conventional white supremacists, and how they came to become enforcers for many in the MAGA movement and even the Trump campaigns. Beyond just normalizing street violence and crude attacks, they are endangering much of what we value as Americans. This book will be hard to forget.

Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love: How a Violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation Thomas A. Tarrants (Nelson Books) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

For those who wonder how one can get out of the depths of the far-right worldview, I should remind you of an older book we have highlighted before, but that we still happily stock. It is written by a friend who I’ve admired for his kindness and grace and gentleness and his gospel-centered missional vision. Thomas Tarrants (formerly of the C.S. Lewis Institute in DC) writes in Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love of his own deep, dark involvement in anti-semitic and racist actions affiliated with one of the most violent of KKK chapters in the Mississippi Klan. You’ll have to read the almost unbelievable story yourself, but in 1968 Tom was arrested — after a bloody shoot-out — for attempting to bomb a Jewish leaders home. The short version is that Tom went to jail and while in prison started thinking and reading and he became a Christian. After many years his sentence was commuted and he ended up co-pastoring a bi-racial church with a black pastor. This book tells, as the subtitle puts it, “how a violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation.”

Another book he wrote that is now out of print was done with his friend and mentor John Perkins, each pondering how they hated the other race and how God changed their attitudes. In this one, he more fully and candidly tells his terrible story and gives glory to the God who is able to change the heart and life of an extremist turned terrorist. What a story! Tom is quick to say that God’s work in his life is “undeserved mercy.” What a testimony!

Consumed by Hate Redeemed by Love come with rave reviews and heartfelt endorsements. John Perkins, of course, has said much about it, including that it is “amazing.” Mark Batterson calls it “simply astonishing.” Os Guinness writes that, “…in showing how grace and forgiveness broke into his own life to give him a second chance, Tom Tarrants points the way for all who strive to rid America of this terrible scourge and the hatred that breeds it.” Exactly.

Listen to this from novelist John Grisham writes:

As a kid in Mississippi in the late 1960’s, I remember the men of our church discussing the Klan’s bombing campaign against the Jews. The men did not disapprove. Later, I would use this fascinating chapter of civil rights history as the backdrop for my novel The Chamber. Now, one of the bombers, Thomas Tarrants, tells the real story in this remarkable memoir. It is riveting, inspiring, at times hard to believe but utterly true, and it gives some measure of hope in these rancorous times.

Cherie Harder of the Trinity Forum beautifully notes:

Tom Tarrant’s extraordinary, often horrifying, and miraculous story offers both insight and instruction. He shows the ways in which hate warps the mind and corrupts the heart, as well as the allure of scapegoating and rigid ideology and the human carnage left in their wake. But this is ultimately a story of amazing grace — how one blinded by hate learned to see, to love, to reconcile. And it offers hope, showing the possibilities for the flowering of such grace, even on the cultural battlefields of our own riven land.

The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War Jeff Sharlet (Norton) $18.99  / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Again, just a reminder of this eloquent, elegant, and expansive bit of reportorial courage that we have highlighted before. Highly acclaimed, it is not mostly about the KKK or skinheads; it doesn’t focus on high-profile Proud Boys or anti-semitic stars such as President Trump’s, on-again/off-again friend Nick Fuentes, but rather, ordinary people in small towns and seemingly inconsequential places. A master of the art of compelling, creative non-fiction expose, this is “attempting to capture the mood of the nation at this fraught moment, that others in the future may know how it felt to live through the present…”

The Undertow explores the religious dimensions of many who are unhappy with the culture as it is and are deeply troubled and troubling people. This is beyond what he explored in his books on “The Family.” As the back cover notes, Sharlet “journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread.” And yet this book isn’t only an expose of dark stuff. They say this book explores “a geography of grief and uncertainty amid rising fascism, and reckons with a decade of American failures — all while celebrating the courage of those who sing a different song of community, of an American long drama of and yet to be born.”

Across the country men “of God” glorify guns while citing Scripture and preparing for civil war. Political rallies are aflame with giddy expectations as religious revivals. On the Far Right every thing is heightened — love into adulteration, fear into vengeance, anger into white-hot rage. Here, in the undertow, our forty-fifth president, a vessel of conspiratorial fears and fantasies, continues to rise to sainthood, and the insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, killed January 6 at the Capitol, is beatified as a martyr of white womanhood.

Jeff Sharlet has written for many major publications, teaches writing at Dartmouth, and had his book The Family turned into a popular Netflix documentary. What a glimpse this is of the “slow civil war” brewing, about which we should all be concerned.

Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis James Davison Hunter (Yale University Press) $40.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00

Okay, we’ve highlighted this one before as well and we are pleased to have sold a few. But I wanted it on this list, even if it is different in style and tone than these other gripping page-turners described above. If those keep you up late waiting to see what the hell happens next, this might put you to sleep. But, no matter: keep trying to wade through this. It has been a struggle for me, I’ll admit, but I know enough to know that Hunter is always on to something. He does a major, academic, book about once a decade or so — his last was Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality (Yale University Press in 2018) but before that the much-discussed To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World on Oxford University Press released in 2010, I think.)

Democracy and Solidarity is not a boots-on-the-ground look at white supremacy or a memoir about investigating goons racists. It isn’t even a spicy survey of the vile stuff coming from the extremes these days, but, rather, it is a scholar’s deep search into the underlying currents that give shape to civic life within our Republic. Can our democratic ways be sustained, and if so, what is needed? For those who are alarmed by the far right, as we all should be, this will put it into a deeper, and perhaps, finally, even more alarming context.

From various quarters, from the far right and the moderate right, to the moderate liberal view to the progressive left, there is a breakdown in shared assumptions about what makes our pluralistic culture tick. Can we renew the cultural assumptions of classical liberal democracy? Call it, as some have, a “sweeping history of American culture wars” or “a fresh and challenging interpretation of American in crisis”, this book is insightful and wise, a cry against the nihilism that seems to be an undercurrent of much of the breakdown of our discourse and shared values.

If you are the sort that likes to read one or two major, challenging books a year, this should be on your list. If you are a scholar, political scientist, professional theologian, or cultural critic, this obviously is a must. If you read the likes of Aaron Renn, Carl Trueman, Os Guinness, the late Jean Bethke Elshtain, Yuval Levin, Patrick Deenen or even Hannah Arendt, you should read Hunter. By the way, he thanks Tim Keller in the acknowledgments.

I especially liked this paragraph from Democracy and Solidarity:

As it was at time of the Founding, so it is now: liberal democracy in the late modern world will not find renewal without the moral imagination to envision a public life that transcends the present warring binaries, and with it, a fresh vocabulary with which to talk about and pragmatically address the genuine problems the nation and the world face. It would be a renewed ethical vision for the re-formation of public life, for the institutions that sustain it, and for the citizens who put it into place. This vision would be embedded in a mythos that doesn’t deny the story of America, but reframes it toward what it could yet be. Democratic politics would not be that vision, as I say, but it would serve it all the same. To imagine it and to give it voice would require poets more than power brokers

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I am sure most of us have heard of neo-Nazis and other cult-like extremist groups and maybe have had first hand encounters. Certainly we know those who have fallen under the sway of conspiracies and far-out propaganda. (Just a day or two ago online I saw a comment on a friend’s Facebook page alleging the Democratic Party of sexual trafficking. Really??) It is hard to know what to do; certainly, despite Sharlet’s language of an approaching “slow civil war” we should pray for no government shoot-outs like at Ruby Ridge or the terrible horror of the government bombing of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas or the infamous police fire-bombing of the black MOVE headquarters in a Philadelphia neighborhood in1985. There has to be a better way (and one such way, centering the gospel of Jesus Christ to so-called Christian nationalists, is explained in Disarming Leviathan, which I have mentioned several times last month.)

Of course, most of us just have to cope with ordinary relational conflicts, awkward conversations, daily questions of when to speak up and when to stay silent, how to care well for others and steward our own agency and use our moral compass in helpful ways. Maybe we are called to resist the Nazis and protest candidates who give them cover, but, for many of us, our fidelity will be less dramatic. Reading up about the dangers of the alt-right is an urgent matter for us all, I think, but pondering how to respond — beyond the obvious of being kind to all, trying to “speak the truth in love” and speaking graciously — is tricky. I think one way to consider that big question, one of the puzzle pieces, comes from the pen and big heart of a good friend, David Dark. The title of his book (which we’ve highlighted previously but would invite you to consider once again) is We Become What We Normalize. That is a phrase worth pondering.

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

This is another book that we’ve highlighted before and yet I want to revisit again, here, now, too quickly. It is a book to read more than once and it is a book to ponder, maybe discuss with others. If the brave Joe Moore and Matt & Tawni Browning (above) are right that we must be vigilante and speak out against racism and anti-semitism and violent militias, and if the scholar Hunter is right that we need poets more than power-brokering pols in this fraying culture, then this book may be the life-line we need. It will poke and prod and — as a poet often does — make us scratch our heads. I can’t say that enough, and it is mostly a good thing; this book is a bit weird. In a good way.

And there are so many great lines to underline, commit to heart. “Courage is contagious”, he says. Yup. Our “presumed consent functions as a free pass for abuse.”  “In the land of the free, what do I owe people whose lives are endangered by my silence?

I’ve alluded to this before and I trust it doesn’t scare anybody off. He uses some funny words and he writes creatively. He’s deeply rooted in popular culture and can cite Bono and Kendrick and his friend Jessica Hopper (we carry her amazingly thoughtful work, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic) and he goes on about Octavia Butler, who, among other things, was a highly-awarded a black sci fi writer. Ya dig? No, he doesn’t say that, but he does invite us to “slow your roll” and offers, in a beautiful section about Fred Rogers, what he calls a “psychic blast of care.” He recommends what he calls “observational candor.” He thinks basic self-respect demands of us that we, at least, “not disgrace oneself” by being aware of our “embodied particularity.”

Is this thing on? Yes, he says that often, and explains exactly what he means.

Ya dig?

Here is one of the provocative and vital chapter titles: “What Does Apocalypse Want From Me?” In other words, as he also puts it, we are called to “the prophetic task of naming what’s happening.” And ponder what it calls forth from us.

You see, what we allow to pass as speakable and acceptable will become normalized. Think of it simply: when we don’t protest a racist quip, racism becomes, or at least joking about racism becomes, acceptable. Normal. Our decision to not resist this has normalized it, for the room, and, perhaps — is this thing on? — for ourselves. Who is watching and listening as we make decisions? Certainly at least our own souls. David knows that as Biblical people we are called to conversions, to be transformed. We are called to be prophetic, to be open to the Spirit as the Spirit moves us to care for the common good, to create beloved community.

He is from the South, a former fundamentalist (and Limbaugh ditto-head, which he owns beautifully) and having discovered Southern folks like MLK and John Lewis, Clarence Jordan and Will Campbell, Fannie Lou Hamer and Wendell Berry, R. E. M. and Anthony Ray Hinton, plus a host of others who were religiously motivated agents of justice and goodness, he took into his worldview writers and activists from outside his culture of birth — Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan and James Baldwin and Larycia Hawkins, all agents of shalom.

You know me and my book-evaluating habits: I love seeing who informs the authors we commend and their footnotes are usually a good sign of how interesting the book is. David is a goldmine. He contains multitudes (a line he swipes from Whitman.) He’s a literature prof, too, so he knows his Jane Austin and his Thoreau and his Shakespeare. Just saying. Right next to LaBron James and rocker poet Pattie Smith. What a fun, fun book.

There is a method in the madness and it is this: we must learn to see the brokenness and the sin in ourselves and in our culture, and make wise decisions when and how to speak up against it. We become what we “sit still for” he says. What we “let slide.”  We become what we abide and the culture reflects the very ideologies and bad spirits we allow free reign. To use the language of Berrigan, we must resist.

As Dark puts it, “Honoring and remaining fully alive to your own conscience is the human assignment.”

Call it a postmodern riff on the old Edmund Burke quote about how all that really evil needs is for decent folks to remain quiet.

Again, what do we owe people whose lives are endangered by our silence?

We are, many of us, deeply aware of that, knowing we are implicated; wanting to be faithful, we may even be used to saying out loud what we think, of bearing witness, of letting our lights shine, but, David suggests, only up to a point.

And then he notes,

“Moving past that point is the risk of drama and the privilege of comedy. Both serve as a form of catharsis and both, at their most intense, can be difficult to categorize. …”

That is interesting, I think, but just an illustration of how he invites us to consider the arts — classic and contemporary, written or live — to help us see what we may not want to see. His own appreciation for artists and poets has helped him, and it could help us. (For a more conventionally written study of this, just for instance, see Mary McCampbell’s Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy Fortress Press; $28.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40. She too is a Southern Christian thinker who writes about the poppiest of pop culture and seriously classic European lit.)

Can we grow? Can we learn about the violence poured out on the least of these, the way public figures have become complicit with abuse and injustice, how we have become complicit? Want to do something about the rising dangers explored in the above books? David notes, “We don’t want to know what we don’t want to know until we do.”

That’s why we do what we do here at the bookshop: we believe God’s Spirit is alive and well, inviting people, wooing people, to be so full of the awareness of the grace God gives and so full of regenerate wonder at the goodness all around — I don’t like Blake as much as David does, but I get it, a little at least —that we can’t help but sing along with “How Can I Keep From Singing?” We break out in awe and become something new, the new humanity of peacemakers (described so beautifully at the end of Ephesians 2, for instance.) Which means, maybe slowly, maybe suddenly, we now want to know more. We are ready to take new steps. We just can’t normalize the bad stuff any more.

Bad stuff within our own lives (perhaps our apathy) or that the complex sorrows and damages of the world.

David gives us in this book a lot of stories, some wild speculations, his own vivid ruminations, some candid confessions about his mistakes and confusions. It is beautiful to see an outspoken voice for justice, a witty teacher who nicely embodies that old saying that good religion should “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” On Twitter and in this book Dark boldly calls us to confront the powers, even as he admits his own complicity and failures. That sort of honesty isn’t in every book you pick up, ya know. We Become What We Normalize is a very rare book, indeed. I am happy to recommend it.

David uses two words that I wish he’d define a bit better — I’m slow, I guess, or not fluent in his spiel. I stuck with it and it all made good sense (so I guess he might say, what’s the problem, then? Fair enough.) But, still, a heads up. He talks a lot about being a reactive person or a responsive one. There’s a difference. One is not so good, the other is more richly human and humane and righteous. The goal of this book is to resist the shame and ego and fear and whatever else is causing us to be reactive and to “slow our roll” and consider our own lives, our own hearts, our own motives and concerns, and to be responsible humans, using our God-given agency, even on and in God’s good internet and what more formal guys call the public square. Can we do that? I suspect we all need some help.

You know that I’ve commended thoughtful tools for helping us be faithful in how we speak (a key component of a peacemaking lifestyle) that respects others well. Titles like Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict by the poet and writer Marilyn McEntyre, Love is the Resistance by Ashley Abercrombie, Six Conversations by Heather Holleman, Learning to Disagree by John Inazu, and the fabulous, one-of-kind Loving Disagreement: Fighting for Community Through the Fruit of the Spirit by Kathy Khang & Matt Mikalatos, are some of our favs that we suggest. These days we all need some extra skills in this area.

But We Become What We Normalize by David Dark is on another level — playful and creative, yes, deadly serious, indeed, full of humble stories and holding up heros who might inspire our own creative resistance. For instance, he tells about Bree Newsome, that brave woman who shimmed up that South Carolina Capitol flagpole and removed the pro-slavery rebel flag, “in the name of Jesus.” Yes, she was arrested, but so? She also made history.

David also lifts up the testimony of Greta Thunberg, his own Sunday school teacher dad, Tami Sawyer (of Shelby County, Memphis, TN who campaigned to make more public a public park by removing statues of terrorist Nathan Bedford Forrest), the whistleblower Reality Winner, alongside the aforementioned Fred Rogers, and others who are, in his memorable phrase, “artisans of moral seriousness.”

There is one thing that I think I highlighted in the BookNotes review I did previously. I wrote about what may be his two most remarkable chapters. First, he describes how to be more discerning about what he playfully calls “White Supremacist AntiChrist Poltergeist.” That’s a mouthful and a headful and you’ve got to read it. What a chapter! (Later, he also names these as “reigning deceptions.”) Then he writes about what he playfully calls “Robot Soft Exorcism.” It is a bit odd but exceedingly curious in how it explains and explores what the Bible calls principalities and powers. (See Michael Bird and N.T. Wright’s recent Jesus and the Powers for a sensible, book-length treatment.) I like how in this chapter about exercising robots, David largely explores how to delineate the humans within the robots.

To be, as some put it, both pastoral and prophetic.

He writes,

I wrestle not against flesh and blood. But I do get a little punchy with our reigning robots. I owe it to the flesh and blood within the robots to get punchy. I owe it to myself. This calls for discernment.

With enough care (breathing and speaking slowly) I can choose contemplation over projection, responsiveness over reactivity. I can gather my wits and remember, The robots aren’t people, but they do contain them. They, in fact, are powered by them…

He wants our engagement “to bend towards love.” He wants us to “address our fellow human beings as something other than their robots.” I don’t know any other book that struggles to make clear our complex contexts and milieu, laden as they are with idols and ideologies, in zeitgeists and social imaginaries, our decisions shaping institutions and bureaucracies, that then in turn shape (captivate?) us. Ha — you’ll be glad he doesn’t write like that!  He does say “reactivity can’t drive out reactivity.” He doesn’t want “power-over” another, but shared humanness, “power-with.”  It is not “us vs them.” “There is no them, as the healing mantra has it,” he says.

A line to share from his chapter 6, a bit more than half-way through: “beauty prepares the heart for justice.” He writes movingly about the famous story of contralto Marian Anderson not being allowed to sing at a DAR event in 1939 when Eleanor Roosevelt gave up her spot among the DAR and invited Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for an integrated audience.

Near the end of the book Dark quotes one of my favorite Wendell Berry books, Berry’s study of poet (and doctor) William Carlos Williams of Rutherford, New Jersey. Berry expands on William’s adage “No ideas but in things.”  Again, this is granular.

Did I mention that this book uses a lot of poetry and visionary stuff to make some very profound points? Or at least to raise up stuff that might become profound points for us?  Bringing our most responsible selves into the world (“especially when we feel belittled, shut down, or silenced” ) is, again, as David suggests, “our most essential task.”

He closes the book with this great and hopeful and generous line: “Let’s have at it together.”

What do you say? Order one today, please, and maybe spread the word.

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TO PLACE AN ORDER 

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

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

• United States Postal Service has an option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.83; 2 lbs would be $5.58. This is the cheapest method available and sometimes is quicker than UPS, but not always.
• United States Postal Service has another, quicker option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.70, if it fits in a flat-rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.50. “Priority Mail” gets more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. Sometimes they are cheaper than Priority. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Keep in mind the possibility of holiday supply chain issues and slower delivery… still, we’re excited to serve you.

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