Sometimes we develop a large bibliography, describing books for a certain customer.  Even those we select things specifically for those needs in that setting, we sometimes feel like others might like to see our suggestions.  In this case, a person who helps college student who are doing short term mission stuff wanted resources that could help shape the habits of heart that would help these students care for justice, have empathy for and insights into the lives of the poor, and become more Christ-like servants of their needy neighbors.  It is a wide ranging list, and I hope somebody out there finds it useful.  It would be fabulous if this list were circulated around amongst those who care–or ought to care–about such concerns. And, to be honest, we desire to make a living selling these kinds of books.  Just yesterday we got a very earnest call from a sales rep selling Christian toothbrushes.  Some days we don’t know whether to laugh or cry, knowing what religion has become for so in this religious goods business.  Sadly, I suspect he has sold more of his peculiar wares than we will of ours.  So, check this out, pass it on, order from us if you can.  Together, we can learn and grow into people who care, and learn to serve.  Thanks. 

The Little Book of Biblical Justice  Chris Marshall (Good Books) $4.95  There is so much great stuff on the Biblical themes of justice (and Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger still ranks amongst my all time favorites, and surely one of the most important books of our time.)  Still, this is simple, clear, short, and inexpensive, written by a renowned Biblical scholar.  Excellent Scriptural foundation.

Reading the Bible With the Damned Bob Eckblad  (Eerdmans) $19.95  This is a spectacularly interesting account of reading the Bible (literally) with the poor, the homeless, and those on death row.  This encounter with “the damned” helps us see the central message of the Bible, God’s love for us in our brokenness, and how Christ’s Kingdom is bringing a new vision of inclusion, outreach and care.  I’m not sure you could assign the whole thing, but parts might be really useful…  The sequel that he wrote spells out more of the values of God’s reign and, again, could be very helpful.  It is called A New Christian Manifesto: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom of God (Eerdmans; $19.95.)  Some of this could be very, very useful in helping students understand the broadest themes of God’s concern for those who are marginalized or hurting.

Deep Justice in a Broken World: Helping Your Kids Serve Others and Right the Wrongs Around Them  Chap Clark & Kara Powell (Zondervan/youth specialties) $18.99  An absolutely fabulous collection of articles and pieces designed for those who are serious about teaching youth about service, missions, justice, the wholistic nature of God’s work, and the call to be agents of social change.  A must-have resource with contributions from Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, John Perkins, and many more!

Deep Justice Journeys: Moving From Mission Trips to Missional Living  Kara Powell & Brad Griffin (Zondervan/youth specialties) $9.99  This student journal is designed for those who want to make a difference, for those doing service projects of some sort, and who want to harness their compassion and idealism into a long-term commitment to missional lifestyles.  Creative, fun, provocative exercises, reflection questions and guides to further thinking.  Arranged in a “before, during, and after” format, with short readings and great discussion pieces for each experience.  Very, very good.

The Justice Project edited by Brian McLaren, Elisa Padilla & Ashley Bunting Seeber (Baker) $21.99  This soon-to-be-released book looks to be an absolutely stunning collection (I know some of the contributors, and count a few as dear friends.)  This will become “the” go-to book for those who need serious studies of the call to think faithfully about justice ministries.  Sections include essays on God and justice, justice in the Bible, in the US, in the greater world, and in the church.  Over 30 brief articles.  Due in Fall 2009.

Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace & Healing  Emmanuel Katongole & Chris Rice (IVP) $15.00  Again, there are many great books on the need for a vision of shalom, reconciliation and peace with justice, but this collection of short pieces from the new Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School is excellent.   Katongole is an African bishop (who has written about Rhwanda and Rice is known for books he has written about race.)

Hope Lives: A Journey of Restoration  Amber Van Schooneveld  (Group) $12.99  This is a great, great resource, handsome, insightful, full of teaching about poverty and compassion, some journalling pages, discussion stuff and moving graphics and pictures.  A five-week journey, with 25 daily readings and reflection opportunities; a few of the lessons are exactly what you’ve asked about.  Done in cooperation with Compassion International.

Crazy Enough to Care: Changing Your World Through Compassion, Justice, and Racial Reconciliation  Alvin C. Bibbs (IVP) $16.00  Nothing confronts a person’s faith quite like injustice, pain, suffering.  Where do we begin to live out our faith in service?  This collection of brief essays and discussion questions and Bible studies is one of the best handbooks and resource guides for discussions on compassion and justice.  Very practical and really useful for small groups.

Mission Trips That Matter: Embodied Faith for the Sake of the World  Don C. Richter (Upper Room) $15.00  I believe we stock nearly every book on short term missions that we know of, but this may be most useful for you as it is less about planning, getting shots, and learning to serve appropriately, but more on the inner journey of those who reach out, Biblical stuff for those on trips, activities and reflections and other stuff which offers ways to best understand the spirituality of these kinds of opportunities to serve.

Missio Dei: Students Talk About Service  James R. Krabill & Stuart Showalter (Mennonite Mission Network) $3.95  This small booklet is a collection of great stories of college students who have done short term missions, service projects, work camps and the like.  Brief stories and testimonials and reflections on how these experiences have shaped them.  Nothing like it in print!

Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World Chris Heuertz  (IVP) $15.00  Do you know the wholistic mission movement, Word Made Flesh?  Chris is their founder, and this is a spiritual journey into the heart of service, the stuff that is learned–humility, service, and such.  Excellent overview of the call to justice, tons of moving stories, and great insights about how these encounters with others effects our discipleship.

Hearing the Call Across Traditions: Readings on Faith & Service  edited by Adam Davis  (Skylight Paths) $29.99  This is a wonderful hardback published by a well-known inter-faith publisher;  with a forward by the progressive Islamic activist Eboo Patel, it is a very up-to-date, new voice.  A collection of voices, actually, old and new; from Cesar Chavez and Dorothy Day to Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dali Lami;  from Abraham Lincoln to Flannery O’Conner, Abraham Heschel to Gandhi.  Many religious leaders are excerpted making it a lovely resource

Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity  D
avid I. Smith (Eerdmans) $20.00  David is well known in Christian college circles for his helpful workshops on helping teachers integrate faith and learning, and for his philosophizing on how to create Biblically-shaped educational efforts.  His own scholarly work is on Christian views of foreign language learning (he teaches German at Calvin College) and is the director of a thinking that helps Christian teachers.  Here, he offers a calm discussion of what culture is, why it is pertinent for today’s college students, and why we need humility and hospitality in our personal interactions with those who are different than ourselves.  And excellent, foundational guide to thinking about our culturally interconnected world.  Very, very thoughtful, rooted in a mature Christian worldview.

Cultural Intelligence: Improving your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World  David Livermore (Baker) $17.99  Many have heard about “emotional intelligence” but here is a guide (esp for older youth or young adults) on being culturally aware.  Whether one is learning to be hospitable in the culturally diverse settings of our modern colleges, or preparing for a mission trip, this is a very insightful guidebook to cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity.  Excellent.

Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace  Cathleen Falsani (Zondervan) $19.99  This is a beautifully written collection of essays and articles where the other finds God showing up in the strangest of places.  From rock songs to mission trips, from finding grace in relationships to see God’s hand amongst refugees, she tells wondrous truths in memoir style.  Some chapters would be quite inspiring to your students, I’m sure.

Peppermint-filled Piñatas: Breaking Through Tolerance and Embracing Love  Eric Michael Bryant (Zondervan) $12.99  This is an exciting and youthful study of why evangelical Christians should be more embracing of others, how to reach out beyond mere “tolerance” and towards loving our neighbors, different though they may be.  Great, great stories, touching insights, great applications, on engaging others beyond boundaries.  Fun!

Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers  Elizabeth Newman (Brazos) $22.99  This is a serious, demanding book—quoting the likes of John Milbank, Alister MacIntyre,  and Gerhard Lohfink— and may not be as easily used with students, but I needed to mention it because of it’s brilliant exploration of the themes of hospitality and service within the setting of higher education.  Theologically astute, culturally profound, this is a serious and important study about resisting the modern world’s ways which erode Christian virtue of hospitality..

Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as A Christian Tradition  Christine Pohl (Eerdmans) $20.00 This book is one of the most important books of the last several decades, and has gotten the gracious practice of hospitality renewed attention.  Very, very good, and so important!  We’ve got other great books on this theme, some perhaps even more practical, but I think this is the very best.  A must-read.

Befriending the Stranger  Jean Vanier (Eerdmans) $15.00 Vanier started the L’Arche community movement where folks share lives with the mentally challenged; famous spiritual writer Henri Nouwen joined such a community before he died.  Here, the lovely and gentle Vanier reflects on building community and how to be compassionate to others and ourselves.  See also his brand new book, part of the Duke Reconciliation project, Living Gently in a Violent World (IVP; $15.00) co-written with Stanley Hauerwas. 

The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life  Henri Nouwen (Orbis) $18.00  This small hardback is a collection of magazine articles first done in the 80s in Sojourners.  What gentle and prophetic wisdom, reminding us of the virtues of saying no to fame and power and success, and embracing servanthood, humility and compassion.  The world lures us to “upward mobility” and the call of Christ is to “a self-emptied heart.”

Compassion: Thoughts on Cultivating a Good Heart  compiled by Amy Lyles Wilson (Fresh Air Books) $12.00  This is a small hand-sized, square book, produced with a modern and hip feel.  Yet, it is to be read slowly and deeply as these short essays are all about the various ways a more compassionate life honors God and our truest selves.  Very thoughtful, appealing, useful as we enhance our capacity to care.

Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life  Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison (Image) $10.95  A true classic of grace and care, this deeply spiritual reflection could be used with anyone going to mission projects, doing service work, or just wanting to experience the power of God’s care as we care for others.  Rich, wise, thoughtful…

Improving Your Serve: The Art of Unselfish Living  Charles Swindoll (Word) $13.99  This isn’t on missions or engagement with the poor but a wonderful, basic book on being a servant to others.  The most thorough book on the topic I’ve seen!

Be Last: Descending to Greatness  Jeremy Kingsley (Tyndale) $12.99  Pretty standard fare evangelical inspiration, noting that humility + service = greatness.  Energetic and exciting, he shows how to more faithfully follow Jesus by having a servant’s attitude.

Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor  Gary Smith (Loyola Press) $17.95  This radical Jesuit priest has followed his calling to serve the poor in inner city Portland, and his journal is insightful and powerful.  Showing love amidst despair, this honest study is extraordinary…

The Twenty Piece Shuffle: Why the Poor and Rich Need Each Other  Greg Paul (Cook) $13.99  A seasoned and poetic urban activist (from Toronto), Paul writes passionately, creatively, and frankly.  One of the most urgent books about urban service I’ve yet seen, it is very moving.  Highly recommended!  His earlier book God in the Alley (Multnomah; $12.99) is a bit safer, less edgy, but shows how we can be Christ to others, and how others can be Christ to us.  Again, highly recommended.

Touch: Pressing Against the Wounds of a Broken World  Rudy Rasmus (Nelson) $14.99  This is a powerful collection of stories from the renowned African American church in Houston, Rudy’s life, his response to God’s grace and his passion to touch others with God’s love. 

New Neighbor: An Invitation to Join Beloved Community  Leroy Barber (Mission Year) $14.99 We are one of the few bookstores stocking this marvelous collection of very short pieces alongside stunning full-color photography of folks reaching out to be good neighbors.  What insight, some of it so poetic, artfully presented as the story moves from needs observed to gifts offered, injustices observed and restoration seen.  Where is community?  Here!  What a marvelous, marvelous hand-sized book, and spectacular resource about service, care, friendship, justice and the formation of what King called “the beloved community.”

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself   Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert (Moody) $14.99  There are many great books offering strategies for urban ministry and many also on public policy, the pros and cons of welfare, etc, etc.  Respected scholar and activist Amy Sherman writes, “I can honestly report that this is the single best book I’ve seen on this topic.”  The chapter called “short term missions (without
doing long term harm)” is very good for those who design such experiences and could be helpful as you think through guiding students into service projects.  Done in cooperation with the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College, Chattanooga, TN. Outstanding.

The Spirit of Service: Exploring Faith, Service, and Social Justice in Higher Education  Brian Johnson & Carolyn O’Grady  (Anker Publishing) $40.00  Not sure if you need anything like this, but while I’m listing great titles, I thought I should note this important scholarly text on service learning and such.  Pretty interesting.

Commitment and Connection: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education  Claudia Beversluis & Gail Gunst Heffner (University Press of America) $58.00  It is rare I get to say that there is absolutely nothing like this in print;  what a great need this extraordinary work has filled.  This is the work of one of the most important voices in the country for academically-based service learning, a resource that goes discipline by discipline, showing how an experiential and service-oriented vision can enhance learning in that arena, and focus the Christian scholarship in that field for greater human flourishing and social justice. I cannot recommend this more highly for anyone serious about service, learning, the integration of faith and higher education, or anyone seeking a more creative vision for service projects and thoughtful missional living.  Kudos to Calvin College in Michigan for making such a major contribution to the field.  A must for every church-related or faith-based institution of higher learning.

HERE IS A LIST I COMPILED FOR A FRIEND WHO IS A LEADER, DOING A WORKSHOP ON INTERCESSORY PRAYER, MOSTLY FOR FOLK IN A MAINLINE PROTESTANT CHURCH.  SHE’S QUITE FAMILIAR WITH THE MORE CONTEMPLATIVE SIDE OF SPIRITUALITY, BUT NEEDED SOME MORE FOUNDATIONAL STUFF ON PRAYER. THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE WITH YOU WHAT I WROTE TO HERE.  ENJOY.

Of course, just for the record, we both know that prayer and a prayerful lifestyle, includes more than intercession.  You know we handle oodles of books on spirituality, the classic spiritual disciples and practices that enhance our contemplative experiences, centering prayer, deeper intimacy with God, the work of Christ-like formation and reflections upon our inner lives.  I haven’t listed any here any standard spirituality books, but rather, just those more generally on prayer, and more specifically, on intercession (or those that have good sections about intercession.)  I didn’t list any more books about healing ministry, since you have a few (I still love the wise and modest Stretch Out Your Hand by Tilda Nordberg and Bob Webber from Lancaster Seminary and of course Fr. McNutt’s Healing is a classic) but do let us know if you want any ideas in that arena of intercession or on ministries of healing prayer.  Thanks again.

Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom  Stan Grenz (Eerdmans) $14.00  This expanded edition has a forward by Eugene Peterson and is a fabulous, serious-minded reflection, for personal and communal praying.  Very thoughtful, perhaps not for beginners.  It brings to mind the one by the UCC scholar Donald Bloesch, The Struggle of Prayer, which is sadly out of print. 

Prayer: Does It Make a Difference?  Philip Yancey (Zondervan) $21.99  In lesser hands, this would still be a fabulously interesting book, but with Yancey’s graceful and honest style, it has become a well-respected study of what is really going on when we pray.  Powerful, fresh, elusive, insightful and important. 

Praying: The Rituals of Faith Lucinda Mosher (Seabury) $16.00  This is from the remarkable series called “Faith in the Neighborhood” which attempts to develop inter-faith sensitivities by seeing how different faith traditions “do” various spiritual practices.  (For instance, there is one on grief, one on belonging, etc.)  This is for anyone with an ecumenical heart, or who may be involved in interfaith coalitions.  This encourages even shy Christians to talk to their neighbors about prayer and their own religious practices.  Nice.

The Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God  James Houston (Victor) $16.99  This is one of a magisterial and profound five-volume series called “The Soul’s Longings.”  Maybe a tad deep and dry, it is still wonderful, meaty, and important work written by a scholar who knows the Catholic medieval, Reformation, and Puritan literature, C.S. Lewis and all the rest.  What a great gentleman, teacher and author, offering here a very thoughtful book helping us learn that prayer isn’t a dreary exercise or a difficult skill, but a way to be friends with God, shaped largely on how we perceive God.  Very Scriptural, theologically aware and yet wisely pastoral.  Houston helped start the DC-area C.S. Lewis Institute, and was a major influence at Regent in BC for years.  Very important.

The Heart of Prayer: What Jesus Teaches  Jerram Barrs (P&R) $14.99  Barrs is a conservative, Reformed evangelical and I think this is one of the most solid explorations of prayer I’ve seen.  It shows, too, how prayer is essential for a graceful life of discipleship, how God understands our weaknesses, and how we must be honest about our need to improve our prayer habits.  Thoughtful and wise and highly recommended.

The God Who Hears  W. Bingham Hunter (IVP) $16.00  This includes reflections on all the best questions—are faithful prayers always answered? Does prayer change God’s mind? How can I be close to an invisible God? And how to do it, pray regularly and faithfully and effectively? Poet Luci Shaw writes “Though I’ve prayed all my life I needed the fresh, refreshing thinking and writing that I found…Hunter has opened up God’s heart and turned my understandings of dialogue with him upside down.”  Fairly short chapters and great discussion questions make this perfect for personal study or small group conversation.

The Folly of Prayer: Practicing the Presence and Absence of God  Matt Woodley (IVP) $15.00  This is the author of the fun and challenging book Holy Fools and this is a serious continuation of that theme:  it is crazy to belief this stuff, folly–well, at least in light’s of the world’s logic and practices of power and control.  Brand, brand new, I look forward to hearing good reviews of this power little book which offers eleven “Biblically landscaped pathways” to prayer.  That last phrase is so important, since many don’t know how to endure in prayer when God seems so distant…

Lord Teach Us To Pray  Alexander Whyte (Regent College) $24.95  Eugene Peterson has often raved about this deep study by the renowned Scottish preacher.  Learned and yet imaginative, this is a series of sermons he preached in the winter of 1895, rooted deeply in various Biblical prayers.

Daring to Draw Near  John White (IVP) $15.00 (regular sized) or $10.00 (slightly edited, smaller sized)  This is one of my all time favorite books on prayer, a study of pray-ers and their prayers in the Bible.  What we can learn about God and the diverse sorts of prayers that Bible characters prayed!  I’ve been highly recommending this for 30 years!

Great Prayers of the Old Testament Walter Brueggemann (Westminster/John Knox) $16.95  Because of my love for the John White book, I can’t wait to get into Walt’s great-looking study.  You can imagine the rich language, the thick Biblical study, and yet this is readable, designed for adult ed classes or small groups.  Well worth the time, I’m sure. 

Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home  Richard Foster (HarperOne) $23.95  Oh my.  Although not all of these styles or methods of praying are intercessory, many are, and I cannot say enough about this moving sequel to the extraordinary 20th century classic, Celebration of Discipline.  It is truly one of my all time favorite books, and nearly anyone can relate to at least some of the many chapters, each offering a different way to pray.  Inspiring, reflective and yet very instructional and helpful.  Wow.  You might want to know that this is available in an audio-book form, in CD.

Dimensions of Prayer: Cultivating a Relationship with God  Douglas Steere (Upper Room) $12.00 While much of this is gentle, deeper spirituality informed by Steere’s reflective Quaker perspective (it is no surprise that Tilden Edwards and Parker Palmer have endorsements) it also has some truly wise insights about intercession and the cost of praying for others.  Very, very nice.

Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers  Richard Pratt (P&R) $12.99  Pratt of course means to keep our eyes open to the needs around us, but even more, suggests that since we are talking to God, we need to know about God, God’s attributes and characteristics.  There are charts and diagrams and teaching devices here that walks the reader through substantial Reformed theology regarding God and our role in praying for others and ourselves.

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World  Paul E. Miller (NavPress) $14.99  I know this man’s marvelous prayer ministry, his engaging teaching, his prayer-drenched efforts and love for Christ and His ways. (In fact, he wrote the fabulous Love Walked Among Us: Learning to Love Like Jesus.) He invites us to face the facts that pray is hard work, but offers a warm and refreshing vision of thinking about prayer in new and Biblically sound ways.  I especially appreciate his candid look at cynicism, and ways out of it…As J.I. Packer says, it is “honest, realistic, mature, wise, deep.  Warmly recommended.” 

The Life of Prayer: Mind, Body, Soul  Allan Hugh Cole (Westminster/John Knox) $16.99  This seminary prof from Austin has written about raising boys, grief and other pastoral concerns, and here gives a brand new, very practical and discerning book.  Phyllis Tickle says it is “the most complete tutorial on the basics of Christian prayer I have ever seen.”  That speaks volumes in my book, and hope to study it soon.

Too Busy Not to Pray  Bill Hybels (IVP) $15.00  Many have said this is the best book they’ve ever read, many more say it is the best book they’ve read on prayer.  It is accessible, clear, and oddly moving, calling us to slow down and draw near to God.  It is challenging and comforting, inspiring and helpful.  A must for beginners, and a great way to refresh your commitments.  Mavelous.

Prayer  O. Hallesby  (Augsburg) $7.99  This little gem is a 20th century masterpiece, a world-famous classic to enrich and deepen your prayer life.  This edition has a study guide making it ideal for study groups or adult ed classes.  Richard Foster did the forward, saying that the book itself “breathes prayer…a book full of grace and mercy, jubilee and challenge.”  A must-have resource!

Simple Ways to Pray: Spiritual Life in the Catholic Tradition  Emilie Griffin  (Sheed & Ward) $19.95  This author is well known among liturgical folks and those who read widely in contemplative spirituality.  (You may know here Clinging which, although out of print, is a classic.)  This is such a sweet and practical little guide, including classic prayers, tons of ordinary information, helpful overviews of many approaches to prayer.  Her insight about different techniques, styles, and types of praying is really helpful.

Mighty Prevailing Prayer  Wesley Duewel (Zondervan) $14.99  It is hard to do a list of books on prayer without listing Dr. Duewel, a passionate leader of intercessory prayer.  He has written about prayer in the cause of world evangelization (Touch the World Through Prayer) and is a serious practitioner!   He covers how to have greater faith, how to have perseverance, the prayers of agreement, fasting, etc etc.  A deeper level work by a thoughtful and zealous evangelical.

Prayer Power Unlimited J. Oswald Sanders (Discovery House) $9.99 Sanders was from New Zealand and wrote the famous devotional My Utmost for His Highest.  Here, he offers great insights about intercession, knowing God through prayer, resisting disillusionment, struggling with questions of God’s sovereignty, and how to be a deeper, more fruitful prayer warrior.  He discusses five characteristics of balanced prayer, including some practical application lessons.  I think the somewhat goofy title belies a very wise little book.

Talking to God in the Dark: Praying When Life Doesn’t Make Sense  Steve Harper (Upper Room) $13.00  I trust Harper very much, and this slim book is faithful, honest, real.  He acknowledges his own struggles with prayer and has a very helpful section on praying for others, and praying for yourself.  I’m so glad there is a resource like this and hope that pastors and spiritual directors give it out often to those in dry or frustrated or hurting places…ask me about Michael Card’s books on lament, too, on this theme…very helpful.

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer  C.S. Lewis (Harvest) $13.00  Well, why not list this–Lewis was a wonderful correspondent and his letters are always fascinating, amusing, and often quite poignant.  Here he offers timeless, friendly advice, mostly on praying. 

A Simple Way to Pray  Martin Luther (Augsburg) $16.95  This little letter, written by the great reforming priest to his barber, Peter, is often cited.  This small hardback has a sweet forward by Marjorie Thompson (Soul Feast) who notes that it is a childlike treatise.  Serious and yet so understandable and simple. 

The Power of Personal Prayer: Learning to Pray with Faith and Purpose  Jonathan Graf
(NavPress) $10.00  The founder of Pray magazine, this emerged from his work with a network of church-based prayer leaders.  Particularly helpful is his identification of obstacles to serious prayer work.  Very useful.

Intimate Intercession: The Sacred Joy of Praying for Others  Tricia McCary Rhodes (Word) $14.99  The great writer and pastor Mark Buchanan says “This is a great book on prayer for the simple reasons that it actually makes you want to pray.”  My, my, this is great writing, interesting and elegant and creative and lovely.  I suppose it is marketed more to women with the nice flowery cover, but I seriously recommend it to anyone with a heart for intercessory prayer.

The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer  Andrew Murray (Bethany) $8.99  This is pretty old school, 1800s-era revival stuff, but many feel that it is a real classic, somewhat like the great London preacher, Charles Spurgeon.  While I’m mentioning Murray, I should list his classic With Christ in the School of Prayer (there are several editions, from a mass market paperback to even a handsome hardback for $
7.97.)  As a late 70’s 20-something, I viewed it as a bit too staid, until Richard Foster insisted it was one of the best books he ever read.  If it shaped Richard, that is something, eh? 

Together in Prayer: Coming to God in Community  Andrew Wheeler (IVP) $15.00  This is a resource to help small groups think about prayer, and actually pray, together.  This is a rare kind of book, and will be very useful for leaders or anyone wanting to learn to intercede together.

The Rhythm of God’s Grace: Uncovering Morning and Evening Hours of Prayer  Arthur Paul Boers (Paraclete) $15.95  This Mennonite pastor is one of our great writers about the inner life and here, Eugene Peterson says, “This could well be the most important teaching on prayer you’ll ever get.”  A rich resource for nourishing the spiritual life…

The Prayer-Given Life  Edward Stone Gleason  (Church Publishing) $12.00  As we all know, Episcopalians use their prayer book—The Book of Common Prayer–which has marvelous resources for intercession.  This is a hymn to the power of the prayer book and includes stories and testimonies and reflections.  For those with a more eucharistic theology or liturgical yearning, this is a wondrous study of formal prayer.

Praying With the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today  Scot McKnight (Paraclete) $15.95  McKnight is a well-known progressive evangelical scholar and here he gives helpful chapters on how the Orthodox pray, how Roman Catholics pray, how Anglicans pray, and why even non-liturgical folk might want to explore the liturgical practices of communions that stem back to the earliest church.  He studies Jesus’ prayers, and moves into the use of the Divine Hours.

In Constant Prayer Robert Benson (Word) $17.99 This is in the “Ancient Practices” series which I have blogged about on occasion.  This is the most eloquent, yet simple, telling of the story of “fixed hour” prayer I have seen.  Very beautiful and very moving.

Praying for Dear Life: A Reason to Rise, Strength for the Day, Courage to Face the Night Thomas R. Steagald  (NavPress) $12.99  A conversational writer of great skill (he’s got endorsing raves from Frederick Buechner and Lauren Winner) he tells of his own spiritual practices, his hobbled-together times of daily office and why this United Methodist pastor prays as he does.  I loved this book and really wish we could promote it widely!

Lord Have Mercy: Praying for Justice with Conviction and Humility  Claire Wolfeich (Jossey Bass) $21.95  This is in the renowned “Practices of Faith” series and each chapter narrates a story of prayer for some aspect of social justice and global peace.  It is surprisingly complicated stuff, learning to not use prayer as an ideological weapon, and the stories are really illuminating  (do you pray for or against a war, the death penalty, abortion, or whatever…) This is careful research on six examples of modern Christians involved in social engagement and humble prayer served them.  A rare sort of book, ideal for those with these concerns.  By the way, the Roman Catholic activist James McGinnis just released a lovely little handbook for global intercession, country by country, called Praying for Peace Around the Globe (Ligouri; $10.95.) Perhaps that might be a helpful resource.

The Power of a City at Prayer: What Happens When Churches Unite for Renewal Mac Pier & Katie Sweeting (IVP) $12.00  This may be a bit too evangelically-minded for some (the Brooklyn Tabernacle pastor Rev. Jim Cymbala and charismatic leader Che Ahn, have endorsements.)  But so does the Honorable Rev. Floyd Flake (retired African American congressman, social justice advocate, and pastor of Greater Allen AME Cathedral in NYC.)  Urban missions leader Ray Bakke has the forward, illustrating that this is a wholistic and culturally-engaged resource, telling of a large prayer gathering, interceding for New York and her churches.  Can pray change a city?  Who knew NYC had such a splendid past of hosting ecumenical prayer gatherings?  

Becoming the Answer to our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals  Shane Claiborne &
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (IVP) $13.00  I deeply respect the zany servants of the poor that these two young activists are, but who knew they are guys of deep prayerfulness, who understand the desert fathers and mothers, the mystics and monks–and know how to apply them to the fast-paced and urgent world of today?  They really are wise, here, informative, inspiring and reminding us that God uses us even as we respond to our own prayers, in obedience and action and care.  We can’t say enough about this, often suggest it, for those who desire passionate discipleship, social action, and who know that prayer should be at the heart of all public witness and struggle.  Very highly recommended!  

A few years ago I did a book review column that really meant a lot to me.  (Then, in the pre-blog era, I did them every month and they are still archived in the “reviews” section here at the website.)  I told about a new nature writer that I discovered, a woman who occasionally writes for Orion, and whose work I really, really loved.  Her name is Kathleen Dean Moore and one of her wonderful books is called Pine Island Paradox.  Another is called Holdfast, another is Riverwalking and they are truly among some of the best essays I’ve read, drawing out themes of philosophy and religion, marriage and family and commitment, caring for home and caring for nature.  And, lots of good ol’ adventure, outdoorsy stuff.  You can read that review here, and I would be pleased if you did, as I still hold her work in utmost respect. 

I’ve rarely found anyone who can write like she does, but the nature writing genre continues to grow and there are authors who take my breath away.  My wife Beth and I have both recently finished the stunning and haunting book Trespass: Living on the Edge of the Promised Land (North Point Press; $15.00) by Amy Irvine, and we continue to talk about it as it haunts us so.  Set in the Redland canyons and deserts of Utah, it evokes a very strong sense of the place making for a memorable reading journey;  I was  holding those last few chapters, reading slowly, so I could savor them, when I heard that it had been chosen as the Orion magazine Book of the Year.  Orion is a remarkably literate environmentalist journal, with contributors like and Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry and Terry Tempest Williams.  I have to say I’m a little proud for choosing Trespass before they did.   I may write more about it eventually, as it is a serious study of belonging amidst hostility (the redneck locals hate “tree huggers and the upright, Mormon locals hate anybody who isn’t like them, it seems) of competing visions of progress, a story, finally, of loss and hope.  Irvine and her husband work to protect wilderness land, even as in the Bush years, land was being sold off for drilling and desecration.  She tells of her time in the desert, recovering from a dysfunctional family of origin, coping with her own inner turmoil as she bonds with her passionate new husband, recalling ancient Pueblo culture and not-so-ancient Mormon history.  It is a heavy and beautifully written book, insightful and lovely and troubling and unforgettable.  And so keenly aware of place: colors, smells, experience of light and soil, temperature, sensations of God’s extraordinary creation near the famous four corners region of South Eastern Utah.  Like Terry Tempest Williams’ famous Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, this is quintessential nature writing woven together with a woman’s own memoir full of politics and faith and love.  It is a wonderful sort of literature that I truly love.

Here are a few you might like:

One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World Gordon Hempton (Free Press) $26.00  This new book is written as a road trip story, a guy in his Vee Dub, and a bunch of high tech recording equipment, trying to find places of utter quiet.  Hempton is the world’s leading recording of environmental sounds, and his “one square inch of silence” project (which includes trying to chance jet patterns and resist tourist helicopter rides above National Parks) is incredibly important.  Here, he tells of what he sees, who he meets up with, the places he goes and, mostly, what he hears.  Documentarian Ken Burns calls it “a gem of a book.”  Includes an enhanced CD with sound recordings and photos from his historic trek. 

We Took to the Woods  Louise Dickinson Rich  (Down East Books) $16.95  The New York Times wrote in 1942 that this was “uncommonly good reading…” and to this day, it stands as a classic study of a cherished dream awakened into full life.  She and her husband lived in the back-country of Maine and wrote these reflections after her morning chores each day.  She continued to write for magazines (from Outdoor Life to the Saturday Evening Post to Good Housekeeping, even.)  Very nice.

Reading the Lanugage of Home  John Elder (Harvard University Press) $20.50   I have written at length about this mavelously literate book, one of my all time favorites,  I read it at a time that it moved me very, very deeply and have found myself telling folks about it ever since.  Elder is known in the environmental/nature writing world, and here he spends a year (as a lit prof) reading–and doing—a late and relatively unknown Robert Frost poem.  It is mostly about paying attention to the woods around your place, which Elder does in a series of hikes, culminating in a dangerous maiden voyage of a canoe he and his son made.  The book is thrilling for it’s attentiveness to place, for the descriptions of New England landscapes, for the joys of a day hiker.  And, it is very, very important for how it frames the history of thinking about landscape and wilderness in the United States, blaming some key figures for macho disinterest in Eastern landscapes in favor of the more rugged Western terrain.  This is really, really brilliant—natural history, philosophy, ecology, poetry, and family drama, in one exquiste work.  Here is my older review of this and some others… 

This Common Ground: Seasons on an Organic Farm  Scott Chaskey (Penguin) $14.00  Travel writer Peter Matthiessen write
s “An almanac and handbook for the community organic gardener, with hard-earned practical lessons in counterpoint with fine touches of insight, poetry, and the earthy lyricism of weather and the seasons.”  Another reviews says, “Chaskey’s book is so well-rooted that one can almost shake the fine Amagansett silt from its binding.”  A great reminder about our connection to the land, and a lovely meditation on life lived in harmony with nature, in service to a purposeful cause.

A Northern Front: New & Selected Essays  John Kildebrand (Borealis Books) $22.95  It may be that handsome collections of smart essays published by the Minnesota Historical Society don’t often show up on lists provided by theological booksellers, but this rare treat is, indeed, a treat.  I suspect if first learned of it through our favorite rural memoirist, Michael Perry, or perhaps by poet/undertaker Thomas Lynch, who has called Hildebrand “one of our most reliable and essential witnesses—as essayist of that most daring sort that sets forth on a sea of words, relying on language to keep afloat his searches in the natural and interior worlds.”  Liked to Aldo Leopold or Edward Hoagland, he writes brilliantly and “leads without pushing, emotes without gushing, chums readers with scraps of information yet leaves them sated.”  Mostly set in the northern climes, it says this on the back cover: “both as a place, and an idea of that place—and reveals the passionate ways Americans define a given land as home.”

Bone Deep in Landscape: Writing, Reading, and Place  Mary Clearman Blew (Oklahoma University Press) $12.95  This is mostly one woman’s life in the Rocky Mountains West, and excellent writing about prairies and blizzards and scorching sun, set in Montana and Idaho.  Very enjoyable, this is part of the on-going Literature of the American West” series.

The Wild Places  Robert Macfarlane (Penguin) $15.00  This celebrated and passionate author writes of genuinely wild places in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales as he embarks on a series of breathtaking and beautifully described treks. From climbing to swimming, in all kinds of weather, he gets to snowy woods and ancient meadows and rugged cliffs and phoshporescent seas…well, his prose is stunning, his travels amazing.  As one reviewer notes “Prose as precise as this is not just evocative.  It is a manifesto in itself.  Macfarlane’s language urges us to gaze more closely at the wonders around us, to take notice, to remind ourselves how thrillingly alive a spell in the wild can make us feel.”  Vivid and joyful.

Desert Solitaire Edward Abby (Touchstone) $14.95  One simply cannot avoid the presence of this book on the landscape of nature writers and desert ecological activists.  Considered a masterpiece of the genre, it inspires and informs Williams and Irving and Moore and others, and is cited by folks as diverse as farmer Wendell Berry and Al Gore.  Of course he was a curmudgeon, didn’t like the fancy day trippers who came to his canyon-land and his novel The Monkey Wrench Gang inspired militant folk trying to protect the earth from irreparable harm.  I loved this lonely, beautiful work and hope some might take it to heart.

Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont’s Champlain Valley and New York’s Adirondacks  Bill McKibben (Crown) $16.95  McKibben is beloved as an essayist, social critic, and environmentalist.  Here, he writes in straightforward prose the story of this grand, classic trail. Great for anyone who likes hiking.

Out There: In the Wild in a Wired Age  Ted Kerasote (Voyageur Press) $16.95  This little hardback is about paddling a wilderness river, from the vastness of Canada’s Northwest Territories to the Arctic Ocean, and is a reflection on (one would think) “getting away from it all.”  Yet, with the advent of satellite phones, this is about his paddling partner’s decisions to stay in touch with others.  Adventure travel.  Wired world.  Remoteness and solitude.  Cell phones and cyberwires.  This is a thoughtful bit of nature writing with some good musings on the meaning of the nature of our times.  Highly recommended.  He also wrote When The Wild Calls: Wilderness Reflections from a Sportsman’s Notebook  (Taylor Trade; $24.95.)

The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature  Gerald May
        (Harper) $13.95  My goodness, how I loved this book.  I suppose it isn’t fair to list it as a category of pure nature writing, since May is very eager to share his spiritual journey, the healing he experiences, even as he was dying of cancer.  Who knew that his eminent psychologist cum spiritual director was such an outdoorsman?  With a lovely introduction by Parker Palmer, this narrates his hikes and treks, some exciting encounters (with a bear) and some rather mundane insights, exquisitely told.  As Tilden Edwards notes, “Anyone reading this precious gem can’t help but be left closer to their own true nature, the nature of the earth’s wilderness that we share, and the wild loving wisdom that mysteriously animates and guides our steps.”  Mysterious and touching.

A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise: 20 Young Writers on Finding a Place in the Natural World  edited by Bonnie Tsui  (Sierra Club Books) $19.99  This is not your “fathers” nature writing or sportsman’s guide.  Here are edgy young writers doing essays about integrating nature into their lives, and how they struggle to balance travel and home, branching out and having roots, going far and eating local.  Some are pretty outrageous, some inspiring, a couple pretty amazing.  These short pieces are all by serious, under 30 writers, kicking back and telling it straight.  Actually, it is pretty remarkable and a lot of fun.

Two in the Wild edited by Susan Fox Rogers (Vintage) $13.00  Women’s outdoors adventure writing is nearly its own genre, and this is representative of some of the great stories, writing and insights offered by gutsy women who lace up their boots and head out to climb, hike, bike or travel all over the globe—together.  Some of these are pretty fun, a few quite tender, all are well written. 

Living on Wilderness Time: 200 Days Alone in America’s Wild Places  Melissa Walker (University of Virginia Press) $24.95  This heavy hardback is made well, rugged, I suppose, like the content.  Here the author is one the road, on the loose, in the wilderness (as one reviewer noted.)  She thinks and lives outside the boundaries, and has been likened to the glorious and influential writer Rick Bass.  What an odyssey, this mid-life woman, setting out to discover adventure in order to discover life.  Risky, solid,  rare.

Soul Survivor: A Spiritual Quest Through 40 Days and 40 Nights of Mountain Solitude Paul Hawker (Northstone) $15.95.  I chuckled when the little “category” tag on the back of this paperback reads “spiritual adventure.”  Yep, that is it;  Hawker felt  “restless and rudderless” in his mid-40s and he set off to reclaim his spiritual self by going solo to the treacherous Tararua Mountain Range in New Zealand.  The author is a well respected TV documentary producer and here he bares his own soul, even as he explores
the snowy peaks.

Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey  Bill Roorbach (Dial) $14.00  I am not sure where I first discovered Roorbach’s prose, but he is renowned as a writer—” a marvel in a genre that’s tough to master” says National Geographic.  One reviewer said, “You’ll be homesick for a place you’ve never visited.”  This chronicles Roorbach’s determination to explore a stream from its mouth to its elusive source.  What fun.

Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees Nalini M. Nadkarni (University of California Press) $24.95  This handsome hardback is a delight to hold, and a book like few others.  Nadkami is a scientist and a poet, a scholar and activist.  Here is what it says in the flyleaf: “World-renowned canopy biologist Nadkarni has climbed trees on four continents with scientists, students, artists, clergymen, musicians, activists, loggers, legislators, and Inuits, gathering diverse perspective on our affinities with trees.”  Between Earth and Sky is a rich tapestry of personal stories, information, and illustrations, from science to symbol, culture, and religion.  Fascinating, learned, and altogether satisfying.

American Earth: Environmental Writings Since Thoreau  Edited by Bill McKibben (Library of America) $40.00  I cannot tell you how solid this sturdy hardback is, with ribbon marker and solid pages full of the best nature writing of our recent centuries.  Essential writings from Walt Whitman to John Muir, Frederick Law Olmsted to Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot; Aldo Leopold, John McPhee and Paul Hawkens and Buckminister Fuller.  There are those who we ought to have on our shelves: E.B. White, John Steinbeck, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, and a few surprises (P.T. Barnum, Woody Guthrie, Lyndon Johnson, Philip K. Dick) and some contemporary classics such as Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver and Barbara Kingsolver.  Happily, a few important theologians are included such as Cal DeWitt The introduction to each writer’s excerpt is exceptionally useful and are themselves an education in literature, science, ecology, and beauty.  We cannot recommend this enough.  The best book of its kind.

For those who may want an overtly spiritual approach to relating faith and the outdoors, of course we might recommend any number of books on God’s care for creation, our task as human stewards, and titles on Biblically-inspired books on Earth-keeping. (Just for instance, how ’bout the recent and great Green Revolution: Coming Together for Creation Care by Ben Lowe (IVP; $15.00) or   Some, though, are more specifically about recreation, enjoying wilderness experiences, finding God while in nature,  even devotions in the wilderness.  Here are some that fit that bill.  There really are some interesting ones, that’s for sure. 

A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations for the Outdoors compiled by Bernard Brady & Mark Neuzil (Brazos) $12.99  A handy collection of very thoughtful meditations from the likes of Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Thomas Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Francis Schaeffer, and more.  The most thoughtful collection of its kind, with an outlined plan good for day hikes, or can be used on longer treks following another suggested cycle of readings. Once again, kudos to Brazos.
 
Devotions for Outdoor Adventures  Larry Wiggins, Jack Harris & Amy Garascia  $10.95  Created by friends of Hearts & Minds, we are proud to promote this lovely paperback full of devotional thoughts from and for (as the subtitle puts it) Backpackers, Hikers, Climbers, Canoeists, and Other Outdoor Enthusiasts.  These are solid evangelical reflections on the Word and the world, inspiring, insightful and perfect for the outdoors.  Handsome pen and ink drawings of cliffs, crags, birds, and such are themselves worth meditation upon.  Nothing quite like it in print!

Earth’s Echoes: Sacred Encounters with Nature  Robert Hamma (Sorin) $12.95  An inter-faith perspective by a Catholic author invites seekers of all kind to find God in nature by way of a series of lyric exercises and experience.  From the seashore to the forest, mountaintops, or meadows, these brief meditations are jumping off places for learning to pray by experiences God in creation.  A very attractive little book!

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature Thomas Merton (Sorin) $16.95  This compact hardback collects some of the most extraordinary nature writings, and some of the more mundane observations, by the beloved monk and mystic.  Merton’s love of nature is well known; these wise ruminations were prescient in foreshadowing a faith-based appreciation for creation and an ethic of stewardship.

Sacred Earth: Writers on Nature & Spirit compiled by Jason Gardner (New World Library) $12.95  This is a splendid, compact sized collection of some of the great nature writers of our time, from Edward Abbey to Chet Raymo, Diane Ackerman to Sue Hubbell.  Most are not overtly religious, fewer are obviously Christian.  Still, taking the likes of Wallace Stegner or Barry Lopez into the woods can be a marvelous experience.

Earth Gospel: A Guide to Prayer for God’s Creation  Sam Hamilton-Poore (Upper Room) $18.00  This is truly a full-on prayer book, a green one, with Biblical prayers, litanies and written prayers and meditations.  Nothing like it in print!

Renewal in the Wilderness: A Spiritual Guide to Connecting
with God in the Natural World  John Lionberger (Skylight Paths) $16.99  The opening story of this guys coming to experience God for the first time on a wilderness trek with Outward Bound mid-life trip is itself worth the price of the book.  This guy, who had been thoroughly unchurched, found himself drawn to Christ and eventually became ordained, commissioned to help others experience God’s presence in the outdoors.  He brings an interfaith approach, from a mainline church setting, leading trips of various sorts.  Clear, inspiring, fun, helpful.

A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways Into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism  Rabbi Mike Comins (Jewish Lights) $16.99  It may sound a bit corny, but Torah Trek is a specifically Jewish outdoor education ministry, and these stories which explore the connections between God, wilderness and Judaism and fabulous for anyone to read.  Mindfulness exercises for the trail, meditative walking practices, Four-Winds wisdom from the Jewish tradition and m
ore.  Grounded and practical.  Who knew?

God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi  Rabbi Jamie Korngold (Doubleday) $11.95  It has to take some chutzpah to use a moniker like “Adventure Rabbi” but this Reform Jewish woman rabbi has it.  And, here, she wisely weave ancient teachings with personal narrative of her time in the outdoors, her leading trips, and doing remarkable Scripture study in the grandeur of creation’s wilds.  Despite our hectic pace, she maintains, people of any or no faiths can find renewal in the wilderness, and appreciate nature as God’s good gift.  Very nicely done.

Landscape as Sacred Space: Metaphors for the Spiritual Journey  Steven Lewis (Cascade) $16.00  This brief work is a significant contribution to spirituality and theology that is exceptional and important.  Nearly brilliant, reflective, insightful and very compelling, this study draws on the serious work of Beldan Lane and articulates how land and place can help in spiritual formation.  Physical spaces are named in the Bible–mountaintops, valleys, deserts, rivers–and these clearly serve as symbols on our journey, apt metaphors for moments in everyone’s life.  Anyone interested in the outdoors and who enters into wilderness experiences will surely find this a helpful companion for thinking about what can be learned in creation, not so much about creation itself, but about our inner landscapes.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountaintop Spirituality
Beldan Lane (Oxford University Press) $17.95  This is a classic and beloved narration of this thoughtful theologian and spiritual director doing both mountain and desert hikes, drawing deeply on the Biblical material and the legacy of “desert” or “mountain” spirituality writers.  Part hiking guide, travel narrative and theological study, this is spirituality at it’s finest, interacting with creation, journey, wilderness and Scripture.  Serious, hefty and very rewarding.  Highly recommended for serious students and well loved by many.

Landscape of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality  Beldan Lane (Johns Hopkins University Press) $25.00   An innovative and scholarly study that broke new ground (no pun intended) this historical survey traces how geography and place shapes spirituality writing.  This is an under-appreciated text, significant and serious.

The Fragrance of God  Vigen Guroian (Eerdmans) $13.00  This is a wonderful and wondrous little book by a mature and elegant writer, an Orthodox scholar and ethicist, writing here lovely prose about, well, gardening and his own journey through life.  Great stories, great illustrations, homilies, even.  As Frederica Mathewes-Green says of it, “Earthy in all the best senses.  (It) recalls us to the beauty of creation.  Guroian is expert at demolishing the kind of spirituality that gets overly spiritualized; he reminds us that God fills and blesses this blooming, growing, changing world.”  Equally rewarding is his lovely little similiar volume Inheriting the Garden: Meditations on Gardening  (Eerdmans) $ 12.00.  Gotta love a guy who plants keeping in mind the colors of the liturgical calander.

Walking On Water: Reflections on Faith and Art Madeleine L’Engle (Shaw; $13.99)  The paperback is out of print, but this squatty sized hardback is less expensive anyway, and a delight to hold.  Happily, holding it is something you will want to do, as this is captivating, well written, full of grace and truth.  A few artist friends insist this is the book to read first if one want to think through a Christian perspective in her art.  I love Michael Card’s endorsement:

We do not learn creativity by means of ‘how to.’  There are only incarnations of creativity, which speak, instruct, guide, and inspire.  In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle shares the enfleshment of the Creative in her own life and in the lives of others.  She helps us hear the call to become what, in truth, we already are: creative imagebearers of the God who first reveals himself as an Artist.

Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith Luci Shaw (Nelson; $19.99)  Luci is a beloved poet, a great Christian writer, a leader in Christian publishing, and, in her older years, still as active and hopeful and generative as ever.  This is a book many of us have been waiting for, the reflections of her own creative process, her ruminations on not only how faith informs art, but how art animates faith?  From Emily Dickinson to Annie Dillard, she draws on the best writers of our time to discuss this grand, grand matter.  There are writing exercises for those so inclined and excellent discussion questions for the rest of us.  This is provocative and challenging, accessible and a joy to read.  We commend it often, wish that it might be read widely, and assure you that it, like the Walking on Water written by her best friend Madeleine L’Engle, would make a perfect gift for an artist you want to encourage, or an arts supporter who you want to more effectively inspire.  This is breath for weary bones!

Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts  Philip Ryken (P&R; $5.99)  At this price, with this vivid insight, this is the bargain of the decade!  Perhaps what Schaeffer’s little Art and the Bible did for a previous generation of culturally-savvy young evangelicals, this wonderful apologetic could also do for our own.  This makes a Biblical and theological case, rooted in historic faith—Ryken’s father is the renowned literature scholar from Wheaton, and he, the pastor of 10th Presbyterian in Philadelphia.  With members of the renowned symphony in his parish, and students from the near by art school, he has to be up on this stuff.  As one committed to an intentionally faithful world and life view, he naturally has a keen appreciation for the common grace of excellence in the arts.  This is a manifesto, a Bible study, a call for gentle, caring action in a world in need of goodness and beauty.  Buy a bundle and give ’em out!

Finding Divine Inspiration: Working With the Holy Spirit in Your Creativity  J. Scott McElroy (Destiny Image; $15.99)  I don’t know about you, but I sometimes worry when Spirit filled folks start asserting that it was God’s own Dove that caused them to do this or that, told them this, led them there, simple of that, Praise Jesus.  Many of us are happy for such gracious moments, but prefer a more humble, subtle rubric in talking about it.  Still, I couldn’t resist this author when we first spoke, nor his book when it came, and found it to be a true (dare I say it?) inspired work.  McElroy is a good, good, guy, who has done the requisite homework, has reflected on the need for a Christian perspective in aesthetics, and desires to hone his craft with excellence and nuance.  And, yes, he helps us remember to call forth the giftings of the Spirit, to rely on God, to fine, as he puts it, “divine inspiration.”  Not a bad idea, ya know?  Kudos to Mr. McElroy.  His presence at the IAM gig was a delight, and we recommend his book to you.

Relectant Partners: Art and Religion in Dialogue Ena Heller (MoBia; $35.00)  Do you know the MoBia (Museum of Biblical Art in New York?  It is a thrilling, top-class art museum dedicated to art whose focus is something about the Biblical texts.)  Ms Heller is the energetic and brillantly aware curator director of this creative spot.  She’s also a fabulous scholar of the interface of faith and art, and this major work shows her insight.  Packed with illustrations, plates and example of creative work.  Highly recommended.

God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art  Daniel A. Siedell  (Baker; $24.95)  Ever since meeting Daniel at Jubilee 09, I am drawn more and more to this thick and serious book.  I’ve seen some of his compiled books of shows he has curated and watched him interact with other artists.  This may be, in many ways, a huge jump into a new circle of discourse, a shift and deepening of perspective and method.  Not every evangelical book on a Christian publishing house bears an endorsement by the prestigious (secular) scholar of contemporary art, Dr. James Elkins.  Nor do many bear a blurb by IAM founder and creative director, Makoto Fujimura.  There is a passionate embrace of common grace (as Books & Culture editor John Wilson puts it) and there is very, very much to celebrate here.  As much about modern art as art criticism, as much about a Christian worldview as the act of celebrating common grace.  A must-read for anyone serious about the conversations and practices of faithful Christian engagement with modern culture.

Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue William Dyrness (Baker; $22.00)  This was one of the first in the prestigious Baker “Engaging Culture” series, and bears endorsements by world-class scholars such as Jeremy Begbie (Cambridge, St. Andrews, Duke) and E. John Walford and Gregory Wolfe.  I like the way this includes reflections on the role of art in modern society, how Christian artists might thrive in the secular gallery scene and larger art worlds, but also how arts can be properly “exploited” (is that a fair word?) for Christian worship.  The Protestant church, particularly, has for too long been largely insensitive to the traditions and joys of visual art, and this is a major, hefty contribution.

Sense of the Soul: Art and the Visual in Christian Worship William Dyrness (Cascade Books; $23.00)  This brand new book is, as the title reveals, much more about the nature of the artistic life of the church, and how good art can enhance good worship.  It is produced by the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary.  Surely one of the most important centers of its kind, this book is an indication of the rich traditions and insights that are in conversation with Christian folk of all sorts.  It includes some fascinating reportage of the grass-roots way art and v
isual elements are, in fact, incorporated into worship.  Dyrness has thought this through well (see Visual Faith) and now he has listened and observed well, using his interviews as springboards into illuminating insights.  An important bit of research, with important consequences for the health of the people of God.  

Inclusive Yet Discerning: Navigating Worship Artfully Frank Burch Brown (Eerdmans; $20.00) Anyone following the important conversations about worship renewal in the past decade has surely heard of the prestigious and helpful Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, MI.  John Witvliet has done heroes work, here, and in this “Liturgical Studies” series of books, he’s brought out important and thoughtful resource for the renewal of contemporary worship practice.  This volume is about the relationship of theology, worship, and the arts—“a complex interweaving” as Jeremy Begbie puts it in his rave review.  Frank Burch Brown is known for his work in Indianapolis (Christian Theological Seminary) and the University of Chicago Divinity School.  Those interested in thoughtful Christian art criticism know well his book Good Taste, Bad Taste, Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life (Oxford University Press; $35.00) which was one of the most talked about books in Christian arts circles a few years back.  This new book is exciting as he offers insight based on his own obvious care for the subject and his interest in a practical theological aesthetic that will serve the churches well in their efforts for more lively and mature worship.  Still, it isn’t a guidebook as he is in conversation with scholars such as David Bentley Hart, Pope Benedict, David Tracey, Carl Daw, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Barth, and sociologists like Robert Wuthnow.  Fascinating stuff.

Art in Service of the Sacred  Catherine Kapikian  (edited by Kathy Black) (Abingdon; $25.00  This is without a doubt the most invaluable resource for anyone interested in seeing what contemporary artists are doing to adorn their churches, worship spaces, camps, retreat centers, chapels, fellowship halls and other sacred spaces.  Many congregations today are examinging the role the arts play in creating an more enhanced sacred space, and how the arts can help usher folks into the very presence of God.  The work of the artist and the work of the church are bound.  There is a DVD included in this book which shows numerous examples of good efforts made to enhance various sort of settings, with notes on the installations.  Art and art-making need not be done for the church, but it certainly should be one venue, for some artists.  Whether you are a visual artist or a creative type in the congregation, whether you are a worship leader or a supporter of the local arts, you should have this resource handy.  The author, by the way, is director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary.

Beauty:  The Invisible Embrace: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope John O’Donohue (Harper; $23.95)  I have a local artist friend who has found such inspiration here, she has me tell others about it.  I am not sure what mature Christian thinkers like Seerveld or Wolterstorff would thing of this glorification of the notion of beauty, but it is a moving experience to read these spiritual reflections, even if I’m not sure he gets it completely right.  Written by the beloved Celtic spiritual writer known for Anam Cara and his new great offering, Blessings. Here is the kind of stuff you will find in this charming work:

The Beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and wonder of some eternal embrace.  It unites us again with the neglected and forgotten grandeur of life; for in some instinctive way we know that beauty is no stranger.  We respond with delight to the call of beauty because in an instant it can awaken under the layers of the heart some forgotten brightness.

Imagination and the Journey of Faith  Sandra M. Levy (Eerdmans; $18.00)  This book asks why we are so open to mystery, to glimpses of the Transcendent in our daily lives.  Levy is both a clinical psychologist and an Episcopal priest and she is a good guide, it seems to this journey to deeper imagination.  I suspect you should read Brueggemann’s The Propehtic Imagination alongside it, and Seerveld’s call to allusivity in Rainbows for the Fallen World. But this looks really, really good, and with endorsements from Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner (of Wheaton) and Jerome Berryman (of Godly Play fame) this is surely an important and vital new work.  Interestingly, she insists upon the irony that the postmodern culture has eroded the features of our imagination, and that sound theological inquiry must include a witness to this hurting, beleaguered culture.  Sacred stories and good art will help, she says, so this book should have been popular at our recent arts events.  Spread the word!

The Beauty of God: Theology and the Arts edited by Daniel Treier, Mark Husbands & Roger Lundin  (IVP Academic; $22.00)  Much, much has happened since IVP published in the mid-1970s Francis Schaffer’s two brilliant little, life-saving essays Art and the Bible and Art in the Bible as a booklet entitled Art and the Bible (IVP; $8.00.)  How great that it was recently re-issued in a small paperback with a new forward.  Now, years later, after having done numerous enduring, excellent basic books on the arts like the wonderful Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity by Michael Card ($13.00), Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts by British rock critic Steve Turner ($13.00) and the must-read, top-notch, nearly perfect Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts by Hilary Brand & Andrianne Chaplin ($30.00) they have now released a stunning collection of scholarly contributions in a variety of aesthetic and arts-related fields.  From Jeremy Begbie on Bach to Bruce Ellis Benson on David Bentley Hart, from E. John Walford on “Broken Beauty” to the thoughtful and prolific scholar/artist Bruce Herman on the same, to Roy Anker on film and Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner on poetry, and so much more, The Beauty of God is a noteworthy contribution for serious Christian artists and scholars approaching the questions of divine beauty and ruminations on the theological meaning of the arts in a fallen world.  This book is not only a serious addition to our libraries on the arts, but is a major step forward for theologians who are able to so cogently and respectfully write in interdisciplinary ways.  I still recommend IVPs early easy books for those starting out on the journey of relating faith and art.  For those more advanced, this is a true gift, and example of the maturity of the discourse emerging from the thoughtful Christian center.

The Portal of Beauty: Towards a Theology of Aesthetics  Bruno Forte (Eerdmans: $30.00)  I will admit that this book is a bit pricey for the slim 120 pages, but it is, shall we say, nearly historic.  Forte is the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy, and preached at the final retreat of Pope John Paul.  As a spiritual guide to the Pontiff, Forte was trusted as a deep man of faith, a thoughtful and solid theologian, and a good observer of the culture of the emerging 21st century.  Here, we have his reflections on beauty.  He is influenced somewhat by the magisterial work of Balthasar and Evdokimov, but also of Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and other such luminaries.  Robin Jensen of Vanderbilt (The Substance of Things Seen is another recent, important w
ork) calls him “lucid and eloquent” and that “we are reminded that beauty is both transcendent and terrifying, calling us to consciousness of our mortality.”  Luci Shaw says  “if you are sick of banality and superficiality, dive into Portal of Beauty and be refreshed and enlarged.”  Wow.

The Creative Life: A Workbook for Unearthing the Christian Imagination Alice Bass (IVP; $15.00)  This larger sized workbook is an excellent and thoughtful guide to, as she says, unearthing your imagination.  Not quite as “new agey” as, say, the useful classic The Artists Way by Julian Cameron (which we happily stock), this is an inspiring and useful guidebook full of exercises for Christ-centered artistic growth.  Very nicely done.

Creativity and Divine Surprise: Finding the Place of Your Resurrection  Karla M. Kincannon (Upper Room; $15.00)  This is a book that we don’t always know where to shelve here in the shop.  It is, in fact, about spiritual formation, how to deepen your relationship with God as you discover your own creativity.  The endorsements are from the likes of Marj Thompson (Soul Feast) and Reuben Job, the renowned author of prayer books and meditative aids.  It may be a bit unusual for those used to more traditional devotional practices, but for anyone with a creative streak, this could be a real boost.  Not every book invites us to be artsy and spiritual, creative and God-like.  As one reviewer said, “Prepare to have your senses attuned to the Holy in all things.”

The Soul Tells a Story: Engaging Creativity with Spirituality in the Writing Life  Vinita Hampton Wright (IVP; $15.00)  Wright is a respected novelist, a serious Christian, and a good writer.  Here, she ably guides us into using writing as an avenue for our own spiritual growth.  Again, whether you are an artist or not, as one made in the image of a Creator-God, you can sense the sacred in your creative efforts.  Rave reviews from Luci Shaw, Lauren Winner and other fine wordsmiths make this a must-have for anyone interesting in the writing life.  (I assume, ahem, you have Bird-By-Bird by Lamott and The Writing Life by Dillard.  Right?  Of course you do.)

Writing Tides: Finding Grace and Growth Through Writing Kent Ira Groft  (Abingdon; $20.00)  I’ve been wanting to give another shout out to this brother for a while: Kent is a good friend, a dear, dear, man, and an accomplished spiritual director.  He’s written very creative books about the spiritual journey, has helped folks learn experiences of the soul that help in knowing God more deeply.  (Another excellent book, on men’s spirituality, is cleverly entitled The Journeymen.)  He is a compassionate coach, an inspiring writer himself, offering exercises, quips and quotes to help you on your way.  Again, not so much about being a professional writer, but how anyone can be more expressive in journaling, writing memoir or informal written storytelling.  Very nice.

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World  Lewis Hyde (Vintage; $14.95)  This is a book, recently out in a 25th anniversary edition, is one that we have stocked in the store, but I don’t think I ever realized how remarkable and important it is.  Mako Fujimura, in fact, built his Encounter 09 IAM talk around this, and all were truly impressed.  David Foster Wallace says of it, “No one who is invested in any kind of art can read The GIft and remain unchanged.”  The famous novelist and critic Margaret Atwood writes, “The best book I know of for talented bu unacknowledged creators.  A masterpiece.”  You know that we have been promoting for nearly a year, now, the wonderful work by Andy Crouch, Culture Makers: Recovering Our Creative Calling (IVP; $20.00).  I think he might like that line about “unacknowledged creators.”    Yet, are all acknowledged, by God.  May our culture soon more appropriately realize the importance of cultural creatives, artists, writers, patrons and philanthropists who help keep the world turning with color and insight, sound and not too much fury.  Rainbows for a fallen world, Seerveld calls, em.  Fresh Olive Leaves brought back to the ark–signs of life amdist the destruction.  Given away for free, acknowledged or not.  Bruce Cockburn has a song called The Gift.  I wonder if it inspired by this book?

Tune in to the BookNotes blog soon as I do another list of actual books of Christian artwork.  From the latest glorious book by Bruce Herman to the work of Ted Prescott, to several books by Dutch painter Anneke Kaai, and a spectacular paperback collection of wood engravings by Peter Smith, we will have some descriptions and sale prices of some lovely gift books, collectors items, and books which show examples of the sorts of modern faithful art I’ve been writing about.      

In my announcement of this book in my last BookNotes blog post (January 7, 2009) I ruminated on the ways in which many Christians tend not to be very articulate about how they relate their Sunday-morning worship to their Monday-morning work.  Or, how some churches or para-church ministries tend to whip people up into (good) enthusiasm for this or that cause, project, emphasis, or calling.  I myself have hoped that folks I knew–students I taught, Bible study groups I knew, customers here at the shop or my own congregational friends—-would get excited and learn to specialize in social justice work, peacemaking, or creation-care, only to be disappointed when that race relations study group feel flat or that Bread for the World chapter fizzled out.  Similarly, I had hopes that many would see their professional lives as the most obvious place they served Christ and learn to use the language of calling and vocation, resulting in new marketplace ministries, study groups on calling and career, prayer requests about the job site and the ethical dilemmas they faced within their mission fields of corporate America.  How we long for more astute Christian conversation about the arts, film, culture.  Many good folks, and many good friends, are doing wonderful and dedicated work and while there are obviously many shallow and nominal churches that can’t get much of a vision for anything of substance, there are many who are vibrant and trying to equip people to think outside the sanctuary.  We are glad and grateful, and even harbor a bit of pride that we’ve on occasion helped fan those flames, sold some books, introduced people to authors or organizations, served as networker or resourcer.  There are more solid and interesting Christian books about both social concern and workworld ministry, cultural engagement and thinking about the arts and sciences, say, than ever before!  We live in thrilling times as younger evangelicals are rejecting legalism and a fixation on churchy and are living as spiritual leaders, working as cultural entrepreneurs. Just think of this years much discussed release Culture Making by Andy Crouch (IVP; $20) (and how we here at BookNotes and our friends at catapult and comment are mentioned!)  Yes, much, much is good and we see many God-honoring accomplishments (as we hope you do) from our vantage point in this small corner of the Kingdom. 

Yet, I wrote in the last blog, much of the recent flurry of new missions, websites, publishing, and projects may be short-lived, and sometimes feels haphazard, piecemeal, ad hoc.  Most folks I know, from the most apathetic or nominal churchgoer to the most energetic Christian servant, are not sensing the rest of God, not seeing their lives cohere, not feeling integrated.  They may be inching towards a more Biblically faithful, missional Kingdom vision, but they still don’t seem to “see” all of life in light of faith.  Some otherwise thoughtful Christians think the most awful stuff in one side of life;  leaders who seem to have a mature perspective on some things do the darnest things in other arenas.  Faith, for many, is still something “added on” or alongside of the ordinary stuff of life.

By way of introducing this splendid new book, I insisted that a major, serious, life-saving practice for the project of nurturing whole-life discipleship, the kind of integrated and consistent faith that sees God at the center of all things and refuses dualism and cultural accommodation, is to be intentional about regularly studying, thinking through, talking about what constitutes a uniquely Christian world-and-life-view.  Yes, we are excited about and are confident about the urgency of selling books about a distinctively Biblical worldview.  We’re told we are one of the few stores in the nation that have a “worldview studies” section.

Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview
by Michael W. Goheen & Craig G. Bartholomew (Baker; $19.99) is an
 excellent edition to the essential worldview library.  We heartily recommended it.  Even now, we have it on our checkout counter, but few seem to notice it…

I wanted to tell you just a bit more about why this book is so helpful and why it should be noticed.  As most worldview books do, this carefully explores the fascinating sub-categories of questions, the multitude of matters that we must understand if we are to be fruitful in our worldviewish living and our worldview conversations.  For instance, just what is a worldview, anyway?  And why, again, does it matter?  How is worldview different than just knowing theology or being dedicated to our religion?  What is the role of the Bible?  How can we “see” life in light of the grand narrative unfolded in the Scriptures?  What should we know, instance, about the essential goodness of God’s world (derived by the doctrine of creation)?  What should we think about sin, being aware of and troubled by the horrific nature of sin and dysfunction even as we assert that, in Christ, the curse is being lifted and God’s reign extends “far as the curse is found”?  Do we really belief that the end of things is not really an end (where we jettison history and are removed to an ethereal dimension called heaven) but is a new beginning with new creation, as the city of God brings healing and restoration and rescue to this good but hurting world?  (If we tell others about faith in evangelism, but we explain this four-chapter story, or is it really just about sin/forgiveness?)  How can being four-storied “creation-fall-redemption-consummation” Christians make a difference as we share with others that everything we do matters to God, that all things have eternal significance, and there is, therefore, no hard distinction between the realms of the so-called sacred and secular?  How does all this stuff effect our daily experience of life?  How does it shape our character as we involve ourselves in churches that teach this full-orbed Christian perspective?  What does it really mean to “take everything thought captive” and once we learn to do that, what difference does it make in the seemingly mundane moments of ordinary holiness–shopping, voting, choosing movies, cooking, singing, or making up our minds about public controversies such as abortion, global warming or health care policy?    And, too, how are worldviews—the meaning systems that help us orient ourselves in the world—-communal in nature?  Is it proper to talk about the worldview of our culture?  Is there an ethos amongst our neighbors that shapes our society guided by what they share as common vision of the purpose of reality?  Do our schools and media outlets presume or reinforce that basic way of life?  What should we do, turn off the news?  Send our kids to private schools?  Protest Desperate Housewives?  And what difference does the local church make in all of this?  A Christian vision of life and times will surely equips us to live with the answers to these things in our very bones, a part of who we are, how we “see” and presumed into the habits of our ordinary living and speaking.

This book lays the foundational groundwork, offers the framework, for thinking fruitfully about this kind of stuff and how to have a wise and legitimate Christian witness in the real world.  It is serious, but not overly theoretical.  It often offe
rs practical sorts of insights (although never simplistic or glib), helping us not only gain this comprehensive perspective rooted in our understandings of the broad scope of Christ’s relevance–He is Lord of all and redeeming all of his creation!—but sensing a direction to pursue, a path towards which to journey as we together learn to seek first God’s Kingdom.  It is, as I’ve said, these kinds of books, and this one in particular, offers a take on an essential and urgent story to understand, explains a central bit of material to grasp and absorb, which is vital Christian insight for living well.  What could be more practical, I often say, than the rather simple act of polishing your eyeglass lenses, or getting proper prescription for your glasses?  This book is a cheap trip to the optometrist.

Further, this book places this contemporary vision of a uniquely and distinctively Christian way of seeing and living, based in this worldviewish eyeglasses adjustment, into the crossroads of the early 21st century landscape.  That is, the stories our culture tells us, the advertisements and movies, the journalists tellings and the science reports, the textbooks used in schools and, sometimes, even the sermons we hear in church, are, in one way or another, teaching us to believe in the myths and values of the modern world, even as that modern world is changing.  The voices and values coming at us are a jumble, set into this time of cultural crisis, this shifting epoch in which we now life.  I refer to the shift from the story of modernity (faith in science, a rationalistic worldview, the confidence in progress, individualism and self-assurance, the ascendancy of the West with its systems and bureaucracies, institutions and values) to the era of postmodernism.  What comes after modernism is perhaps yet to be seen but there little doubt that we “aren’t in Kansas anymore” and that, as my friend Walt Mueller’s lovely collection of family essays put it, Opie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. (Standard; $12.99.)  From the rocketing of iphones into our social experience to the rise of an experience economy, from the multi-culturalism that we now celebrate to the rejection of the older absolutes of science, from the disenchantment with suburban sprawl to the mocking irony that is now standard humor for the millennial generation, we have are moving rapidly into a new era.  It seems to me that the only things that are staying the same are our age-old fascination with materialism, and, despite the global financial crisis, the virtual world of postmodernism is still hyper-consumeristic.  (See the spectacular book, creative and interesting called The Trouble With Paris by Aussie Mark Sayers (Nelson; $14.99 and the hip and stunning DVD; $39.99) for a very helpful survey of how to break out of this fake world of plastic promises, as the subtitle puts it.  It says, interestingly, the Biblical story of incarnation and the subsequent Christian worldview is the antidote to virtual restlessness and glamor-driven materialism. It is fabulous for high school or college age students.)  And, sadly, we continue to war with one another, nation and against nation, tribe against tribe. (Our authors do not talk about this much, as I wish they would have;  they do cite Hope for Troubled Times by Bob Goudzwaard, Mark VanderVennen and David Van Heemst (Baker; $19.99) which has a very thoughtful critique of the ideology of militarism and national security.)  Older norms about right and wrong give way in the social sector—teen pregnancy and the breakdown of the family is rampant, for instance—and in the global world, sexual trafficking and disregard for civilian populations in war is again on the rise.   In some circles the helpful deconstruction of the idols of autonomous Reason has given way to nihilistic relativism.  (That is, we perhaps used privilege only scientific data and the reductionism of propositions but now some believe in no truth, content to shrug “whatever” about nearly anything.)  Add to this the rise of economic globalization and the reaction of radical Islam, and you deepen your awareness of just how complex this junction is.   Yes, we are “at the crossroads” and the Christian worldview–our daily discipleship that is lived out in joyful and coherent ways that reflect our deepest convictions about the nature of things, who we are and why we are here—must be understood, lived and spoken of in the pluralistic context of the “crossroads” of modernity and postmodernity.  Although the above is my own rambling quick reminder of the shifts of our times, this is the cultural setting that Goheen & Bartholomew have diagnosed wisely. 

Is this too much for you to study?  Is it too much for your church group, college fellowship, or Bible club to tackle?  I don’t think so.  We live in serious times and such serious steps are called for.  I hope Living at the Crossroads is an important resource for you and yours this coming year.  If you know this worldview stuff, it is an excellent refresher, or, perhaps, “next step” in deepening your awareness, vocabulary, conviction and enthusiasm for this wide-as-life-vision of the meaning of the gospel.  If you have not read a book about worldview, then this is a great and serious starter.  That they are not only informed by the worldview books I mentioned in the last post (Transforming Vision, Creation Regained) but the great 20th missiologist Leslie Newbigin and the great 21st Bible scholar N.T. Wright, makes them especially reliable guides.

And—please understand—this is not just for eggheads or intellectuals.  We all long for coherence and integrated lives.  We are not content with a narrow faith and the more attentive we are to the Bible, the more we come away informed by this comprehensive claim that Christ makes over all of life.  Such coherence and integrity leads to joy.  It is as simple as that: life lived out of a distinctively and intentional Christian worldview is more complicated (everything matters) and demanding (we cannot conform to the ways of the world, not in voting, or shopping, in sexual matters or business matters or recreational matters.)  Yet, in that cost of discipleship comes joy.  I think Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life touched something deep about all this, and it is revealing just how popular that was a few years back. In this postmodern world, we sense things unravelling, and we yearn for meaning, purpose, direction.  A comprehensive framework for understanding things makes for a purposeful life.  It makes for a joyful life.  It makes for a righteous life. 

The authors of Living at the Crossroads seem to know this.  The book, while soberly written and quite comprehensive itself, does offer glimpses of deep joy.  There are hints of happiness in this big picture book, such as their lovely exposition of a portion of God’s Grandeur, the wonderful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Or when they say little things like “the Christian worldview gets you interested in everything!”  Or when they say that the original shalom of God’s creation allowed for human “flourishing…luxuriant and thriving.”

In the introduction, each other tells a bit about themselves, and how they came to write Drama of Scripture, and this natural follow-up, Living At the Crossroad.  I love the enthusiasm of those who see the rich helpfulness of worldview thinking, and they have had moments when they realized that the faith as they knew it, as they were living it, was not nearly all it could be.  Maybe you may find your own experiences to be similar or maybe there are those you know you might need this kind of “second conversion.”  Listen:

Mike grew up in a Baptist church.  The gospel that was preached there was one of individual, future, and otherworldly salvation.  It was all about going to heaven when you die…During Mike’s seminary years he began to see that the gospel that Jesus preached was a gospel of the Kingdom.  The goon news is much bigger than Make has been led to believe: God is restoring his rule over all of human life in Jesus and by the Spirit.  Further reading during those seminary years in literature that explored the Christian worldview began to open up the implications of this scriptural insight for a Christian approach to the public life of culture.  It was exciting, akin to a second conversion!  The gospel had something to say about all of human life.

The story continues to explain how Mike and his wife began to be more intentional in studying the arts, how music and performance became important to their children and how educational perspectives and practices changed for them.   It continues, “For Mike, worldview is about opening up the wide-ranging scope of the gospel and the church’s mission to embody that gospel.  Few things excite him as much as helping Christians to see the length and breadth and depth of God’s love for us and his world.”  Who wouldn’t want to read a book by a guy who is turned on by that calling, helping us understand these things?

Craig, now a highly regarded and published Biblical scholar, has an even more fascinating story.  He grew up apartheid-era South Africa.

Craig was radically converted to Christ in his teens through the evangelical youth group of the Church of England (into which he was eventually ordained as a minister.)  Like Mike’s Baptist church, Craig’s Anglican church was evangelistic and alive but had nothing to do say about the oppressive, racist social context in which they lived.  Really committed Christians went into “full time ministry” (as pastors or missionaries); it was better to stay away from politics, since, after all, (or so it was reasoned) the government was appointed by God.

…He went to Bible college in Cape Town, where he was exposed to Reformed theology and the worldview thinking of Francis Schaeffer (though this was never explicitly brought to bear on the South African situation.)  Later Craig began to think through Schaeffer’s work, and he realized that if the gospel is a worldview, then it applies to all of life, including politics—a dangerous insight to have at that time in South Africa.

…Craig believes that what South Africa went through then, and the general failure of the evangelical Christians to relate their faith to the realities of South African life, have a great deal to teach us now about the vital importance of understanding the gospel as a worldview.  We know how from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission what terrible injustices were perpetrated in South Africa during the apartheid years under its’ “Christian” government.  How was it that evangelical Christians could not see the evil right in front of them?  How was it that, on the whole, evangelicals ended up reinforcing this evil rather than challenging it?  One important answer is that they lacked a coherent Christian worldview.  How different might the history of South Africa have been if evangelicals there had combined their “passion for souls” with a sense of Christ’s Lordship over all of life?

It is not just fundamentalist churches that have disengaged from social concerns or who have been “so heavenly minded that they are little earthly good” as the old saying has it.  Mainline churches, too, have, in their own ways, segregated faith from life. Or water-down faith to some subjective inner hope or outward ritual.  Some who are most sophisticated about Biblical truth fail to live by its over-arching themes.  Some, as I suggested in our last post, get fired up about a proper and good Biblical mandate—-concern for the poor, world missions, contemplative prayer—and yet don’t see this new-found passion as much more than a quick-fix cure for what ails the mediocrity of the church.  Or they fixate upon it as the latest fad, only to move on to something else—-contemporary worship, fighting trafficking, keeping Sabbath, doing hospitality—when that fails to provide clarity and fruitfulness.  All kinds of Christians, from all kinds of churches, and all sorts of congregations, I am confident, would benefit from studying this kind of material to give substance and foundation to the various aspects of their discipleship, and to frame their work by the biggest meaning-giving picture.  Goheen and Bartholomew have seen the worst of privatized, sentimentalized piety, and (since they work in this field, especially in Christian higher education, they’ve seen the dangers of overly abstract formalized worldview categories, as if a worldview isn’t really a matter of the heart, which is is.  They have a splendid grasp of the Bible, and how the story of God makes sense of our lives in ways that the secular Enlightenment of the West cannot.  They understand the crossroads, they realize the importance of the question, as one chapter puts it “What time is it?”  They can help us makes sense of things.  We applaud them for their work, we are happy that the publisher chose to release this now, and we are very happy to commend it to you.

Since they move teach this material at Redeemer College in Ontario, they have developed a great website, with teaching ideas, outlines, discussion resources, even slides.  Check it out here.

  Let us know if we can talk further about this field, or if you have other concerns about this discipline of developing a Christian worldview perspective.  We believe that an embodied and timely faith can make a difference, in our lives, in our churches, in our communities and in our world.  Nothing would please us more than to know folks are brought great joy as they live for a great purpose, glorifying God by helping rescue the planet.  We are selling books for that reason.  We hope you buy some, for that reason. 

A closing comment seems proper, since they themselves have a brief closing section.  After a few good chapters that offer worldviewish insights for thinking distinctively about several areas of life (business, politics, education, sports) they have a final word to pastors.  Those who are called to help others live out daily discipleship, to connect faith and lifestyle, to understand worldview as it enables a coherent way of life must be particularly wise and careful as they teach and embody this comprehensive style of faith.  Our witness in the world is, in fact, communal, so the renewal of the local church is of utmost importance.  And, they remind us, that includes guidance in the most fundamental things: learning to trust God as we inhabit rhythms of rest and solitude.  Indeed, ” Only a vigorous spirituality can sustain us in our task.”  From Eugene Peterson to the Catholic document Starting Afresh from Christ, they offer wise counsel about sustaining an active and faithful witness by balancing a dynamic interaction between action and contemplation, work and prayer, witness and worship.  Guidance by the Spirit into this multi-faceted and robust Kingdom lifestyle will give hope.  Maybe we won’t see vivid signs of cultural renewal, maybe we will not experience much social change or church growth, but we will be people of hope.  This final postscript about these gentle and deep things reminds me of how gifted these authors are to keep us well-rooted and Biblically-shaped.  This is, dare I say it again, life changing stuff, wise and good and important.

Tonight I’d like to offer a bit of a tangent to last night’s breathy announcement about the brand new Timothy Keller book The Prodigal God: Recovering the Hearts of the Christian Faith (Dutton; $19.95.)  I hope you saw that blog post, descibing the significance of this very important and lovely new book.  One friend asked how it might compare to the classic 1992 book by the late Catholic priest and devotional writer, Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (Image; $16.00.) It is a line of thought I almost pursued in that post, but it seemed a bit much.

Still, I can’t shake the question.  I am sure others have read Nouwen, and many have been touched by his work, including this notion of being God’s dearly beloved, perhaps gleaned from Brennan Manning’s borrowing the phrase from his friend Henri.  I wonder what others think?

I suppose we might say a few things that might be helpful at least in terms of style and impressions.  I hope you followed some of the links we offered about Keller; he is a very, very important figure and his books are important. And he is a writer we appreciate.  More, as we hinted last night, we like his work, his vision for cultural renewal, the way Redeemer witness to a wholistic and sophisticated Kingdom vision.  He is very different than Nouwen, though.

Not to oversimplify (there have been whole books written by him) Henri Nouwen was a gentle and kindly writer, a mystic, whose early stuff channeled Thomas Merton and a bit of late 60s angst for personal meaning and social revolution. Who of us who read The Wounded Healer or Out of Solitude (with its cool black and white photos) in the 70s will ever forget the way he captured the times, our deepest longings and confusions, with creative appropriation of mystical spirituality (before that phrase was used outside of monastic circles.)  As he moved from the chaplency at Yale towards international stature—America wrote that he was comparable only to Lewis in impacting popular religious publishing—he maintained his personal touch, sharing deep thoughts of his inner journey with his loyal fans, Protestant, Catholic and non-affiliated seekers.  He dared us to follow the real Jesus, described in ways that may have been one part monastic spirituality, one part counter-cultural politics (liberation theology, solidarity with the poor, faith-based nonviolence, feminism) with a splash of earnest depth psychology.  He was always gracious, renowned for his authentic care for those around him and his struggle with his own fame.  Book after book referred to his “journey” or his “cry” or the “movements towards love” or the “road to Daybreak.”  He was a man in transition, on the move.  He yearned for greater intimacy with others, experimented with various forms of intentional community, and saw the sacred eucharistic practices pointing to the realities of the unseen world: God is love, and we are to treat all others like God’s children.  He often wrote about the need for mystics to be busy, and for activists to be rooted in the love known through solitude and silence.

Like Merton and other true Christian mystics, he knew God as Father, spoke of his devotion to Christ, and moved out of an animated discernment of the leading of the Spirit.  His love for God lead to a humble attempt to serve the lost, make peace in the world, and speak truth to power.  Near the end of his life he was living in an intentional community of the mentally disabled, the L’Arche community in Toronto (founded by Jean Vanier.)  Henri traveled sometimes to fancy speaking engagements with his friend Adam, a developmentally disabled member of the L’Arche community and, without a hint of exploitation or drama, would invite Adam to share the stage, offering his remarks to the gathering as well.  (For many, the book Adam [Orbis; $16.00] is one of his most beautiful.)  He always kept a journal, wore his heart on his sleeve, loved and cried and thought hard about the nature of our broken Western civilization and how the simple foolishness of the gospel might be lived out as a counter-weight to the stuff that keeps us in bondage to “the house of fear” and from knowing we are loved.  

Philip Roderick , who has a lovely little book called Beloved: Henri Nouwen in Conversation (Eerdmans; $20.00) that includes a CD recording of the interviews, introduces his subject by saying that Nouwen “was a delightful admixture of vulnerability and intention, of passionate intensity and colourful exuberance.”  From what I can gather, that gets it about right.

Return of the Prodigal Son is his most beloved book and, I believe, his best seller.  It is, for those that do not know, considered one of the great religious books of our time, and has been translated into many languages.  It is a curious work, it is part personal memoir, sharing his heart, his struggles, loneliness, insecurity (and from what we know from posthumously published journals, tributes, and personal testimonials from those who knew him well, he was deeply wounded inside, insecure and sometimes depressed.) Return is also part Biblical exegesis, the most extended bit of Bible study he ever published.  Making it special, though, is how he exegetes the text in light of the famous painting by Rembrandt, the painting that graces the cover of the book.  There is quite a long story—-which I have heard directly from one of the principles—about Nouwen going to Saint Petersberg in Russia to sit before the painting (and a miracle which strangely allowed the immovable communist guard to allow him a special privilege of sitting for a day before it undisturbed.)  As he did with a precious earlier book reading an icon, Nouwen “reads” the painting, and allows it to tell him the story.

What transpired in those long silent hours, the broken yet vibrant priest, the hurting man with such awareness of God’s calling him beloved, the bold peacemaker making peace with God’s world, this renowned writer sitting in stillness as the light faded over one of the most important (and rarely seen) paintings of Western history?  Nouwen has been a mentor and dear brother to many.  He has shared their agony of self-hatred, felt the inner sting of  rejection.  It is no wonder he, a Dutchman who loved the arts and reveled in the goodness of God’s world, yet who had this dark side, would so resonate with the brooding picture of the destitute prodigal received by the loving father.  It was, for him, spiritual transforming.  He died a few years later while on his way back to Russian to film a documentary in front of the renowned painting.

And so, I think we might say that the right-brained persona of Nouwen is quite different than the person of Dr. Keller—intellectual, driven, church-planter, Reformed theologian and no-nonsense apologist.  Keller’s excellent new book, while briefer than Return of the Prodigal Son, has more overt theological substance.  It draws on the facts of God’s grace in direct, doctrinally crisp and coherent ways.  It is graciously written and very moving, yet it feels rather different than the Nouwen one.  As we noted in the last post, Keller effectively turns the typical reading of the parable on its head and shows that God’s extravagant grace, especially shown to the up-right and responsible son, is the heart of the story.  God is the one who has given all, is spent, is prodigal, his costly self-giving offered to save the lost.   Keller is a culturally engaged, urbane and intellectual man of letters (he sites novels and films as easily as Puritan theologians) but at heart he is a Reformed  Presbyterian pastor.  He tells of the gospel of Christ as seen in the doctrine of the atonement.  He brings into conversation with bohemians and the bourg
eois, the great goodness of the cross, the power of saving grace, the true experience of new life.  Keller’s The Prodigal Son is not the least bit brutish or harsh, and it is certainly not dry, but is spoken with urgent pastoral authority, insisting that solid doctrinal understanding of the grace of God will lead to the experience of new life, new affections, new habits, new relationships and renewed cultural engagement.  Getting this parable right will not only makes us feel loved–and for Nouwen, that was almost everything—but it will set us into the community of the reign of God, allowing us to live obedient and Godly lives of relevant discipleship.  

Nouwen, in contrast to this teacherly instruction about the meaning of the Bible’s message of grace, written helpfully for seekers or the nominally Christian, sits before this painting in awe, bringing his own burning heart, his own needs and insights.  There, he discovers—not unlike Keller— God’s initiative and good grace.  In The Return of the Prodigal Son he writes, “I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.”  He writes as a contemporary Catholic mystic, an art critic, a memoirist, yet one who understands that all is grace.  He has read the best scholarly literature (as we noted last night about Keller, Nouwen, too, has read the important work of Kenneth Bailey.) Yet, Nouwen’s insights are less formulated in terms of careful literary analysis of the text, let alone systematic Biblical doctrine, but in terms of his own experiences of the story, mediated by the Rembrant painting.

These two books are both remarkable tellings of the tale, both tender and vital, smart and solid.  Many who are drawn to Nouwen’s contemplative style would do well to ponder the clarity with which pastor Keller teaches.  Those who have been touched by Keller’s call to engage this important story of Jesus, this revelation of how grace has cost God (but is free for us) might do well to move next to the thoughtful spirituality of Father Henri.  These truly are helpful complimentary volumes, with Keller (please notice) writing mostly about God, and Nouwen’s tender book first carried the subtitle of “A Meditation on Fathers, Brothers and Sons.”   Now, it is subtitled “A Story of Homecoming.” 

And all of us who care about the integrity of the tellings of these stories should be well rooted in the Biblical scholarship that unpacks and develops this classic parable. A few weeks ago we celebrated the amazingly rich and important work in Eugene Peterson’s new book, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers  (Eerdmans; $24.95) which attends to the language of Jesus, especially in his parables. We cannot say enough about it, and significant others insist it is the book of the year!  

In last night’s blog post about the new Keller book, I mentioned that he recommended Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys Luke 15 by Kenneth E. Bailey (Concordia; $18.99.)  You should also know about The Cross and the Prodigal: Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants (IVP; $15.00.) A more recent Bailey book compares this marvelous story of Jesus with one of the most formative narratives of the Old Testament people of God, the story of Jacob.  Jacob and the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel’s Story (IVP; $18.00) finds dozens of connections in the two tales and is one of the most exciting books of Biblical scholarship I have ever read.  Dr. Bailey, himself informed by years of living in peasant villages in the Middle East (and interfaith dialogue about Jesus in places such as the University of Cairo) understands the cultural influences that surround the writing of first century parables, and knows well the brilliance of Rabbi Jesus’ use of Hebrew Scripture.  He truly is one of the world’s most important New Testament scholars because of this. You will be amazed—as both Dr. Keller and Father Nouwen were–by the brilliance of this unassuming former Middle Eastern missionary, Western Pennsylvanian, Ken Bailey.  His newest release, by the way, is a collection of serious Biblical studies, rhetorical explorations of the best ways to plumb the depths of the gospels: Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes  (IVP; $23.00) We highly, highly recommend it.

Lastly, did you know that Bailey wrote a screenplay based on this important story of the forgiving, gracious father, written with an eye to use it in Arabic evangelism and discipleship?  He filmed in Egypt, hired Arabic actors and filmmakers to do the whole thing, in Arabic, of course; it comes with English subtitles.  What an amazing, special, and rare way to study this classic story anew.  We stock Finding the Lost in DVD and it sells for just $20.00.

Finally, a closing word from Keller, whose new book we celebrate this month:

Jesus does not divide the world into the moral “good guys” and the immoral “bad guys.”  He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves.  We are just going about it in different ways.  Even though both sons are wrong, however, the father care for them and invites them both back into his love and feast.

This means that Jesus’s message, which is “the gospel,” is a completely different spirituality.  The gospel of Jesus in not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism.  Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles—it is something else altogether.

The gospel is distinct from the other two approaches: In its view, everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change.

                      Timothy Keller
                      The Prodigal God: Rediscovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

In my enthusiastic announcement at the BookNotes blog this June I confidently stated that Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh (Eerdmans; $24.00) will be the Book of the Year.  Perhaps I was a bit rash, since so many truly great titles have subsequently been released  (I admit I’m writing this postdating it, in the fall since I didn’t get to this review earlier.)  Still, I insist that this book is one of the most important in ages, a thrilling, if demanding, read, and a great example of the wonderful kinds of books that are being written these days.  This book is deeply, profoundly Christian, radically faithful, and wondrously interdisciplinary.  There are a few trouble spots and a few annoying tics, but my criticism, which I will raise eventually, should not keep you from taking it seriously.  I again announce that I suspect it will be named as the Hearts & Minds book of the year.

There are lots of fine books, many good ones this year, and we are grateful to be in the business of recommending many.  Every now and then, though, one comes along that stands out, and although it may not be for everyone, we truly try to promote it widely.  We are often told that customers appreciate this, since some of the best religious books are not sold in typical bookstores.   I say this from time to time, I know, but I couldn’t be more sincere or more urgent: for serious Christians, those who care about how God’s Word impacts and shapes our thinking and living, who desire an integrated worldview that can propel us towards distinctive cultural engagement, who wants to learn more about the nature of our times—Jesus told us to read the signs, recall—Beyond Homelessness is a must.  Yes, a true must-read.    As Marva Dawn puts it in her very enthusiastic recommendation, “Broadly researched and splendidly written, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants truly to comprehend and mend our culture.”  Amen.

The book was written in community and deserves to be read in community.  I hope you are able to find a conversation partner (at least) or a small group to work through it together.  That may not be easy for some of us, although perhaps one can inspire somebody to join in the work.  You may need to give it away, literally putting it into the hands of those who need such a jolt. 

Authors Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh are serious about co-authorship: their collaboration is an intentional practice which itself is rooted in their convictions and habits as members of communities, networks, organizations and churches.  That they lament the breakdown of community is not merely an academic topic of study for them, but an existential crisis that they feel; they carry the pain of our dislocating culture, this way of life that disconnects us from things that matter, this dis-ease of our times. They have long shown solidarity (literally) with those who feel this most acutely, the poor, and the thoughtfully aware students.  The so-called losers and the prophets. And yet, they live in such a way as to witness against the ideologies and currents of individualism of free market modernity.  There is much joy in a fallen world and their embrace of (and subsequent study of and writing about) the sorrows and injustices of our world has lead them to creative lifestyles of sustainability and caring, which engender a fascinating kind of happiness.  They are involved in care for creation, and care for the poor and care for their loved ones.  They’ve made tough decisions about how to do life, what to buy, how to raise their children, what to focus their scholarly careers upon, what kinds of homes and homelives to nurture. (When Brian’s wife Sylvia was lecturing about consumerism a few years ago and mentioned in passing that their children had never been to a McDonald’s, but were planning to go to a birthday party of a friend at one,  participants gasped!  Ha!)  Their personal dispositions and experiences of discipleship are informed by their deep sadness about the horrors of life, as well as their study of the same.  And, yet, as in the Wendell Berry poem, The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front Manifesto, they “practice resurrection.”  And do they ever!

(By the way, as a nifty aside: the two small and long out of print paperbacks that had the Mad Farmer’s poems in them have just been re-issued in an oversized edition (imagine a nice children’s picture book) complete with wood cuts, some additional poems, including some by others writing about the Mad Farmer, and an bit of introductory stuff.  The new The Mad Farmer Poems is published by Counterpoint.  It sells for $25.)  

Which is to say, they don’t have any personalistic narrow faith, that want to shake things up a bit,  they aren’t perfect, and they know it, but they live boldly by God’s grace.  They try to live what they write about; their serious and at times complex theoretical work emerges from their own contexts, their activism, ministry, teaching and relationships within their local communities, their ordinary lives of playing, resting, recycling, gardening, writing, feasting, speaking and teaching.  And, they have fun doing it.  And do they ever!

Not long ago Brian showed me some pictures of students from his University of Toronto campus ministry who came out to Russet House Farm (an educational sustainable farm where he and his wife, Bible scholar Sylvia Keesmaat and their children share life with a handful of other homesteading Christian friends and assorted friendly beasts.)  Half of the group spent some time as Sylvia taught on the Biblical theme of bread while the other part of the group learned the homemaking art of bread-making.  As those engaged in the Bible study worked, they were aroused by the sensual aroma of the fresh baking bread as it wafted into their room.  Of course they then changed places so all got to handle the Bread of the Word and the bread for their tummies.  For a hint of the kind of substantive, politically charged and highly relevant (and invigorating) study of Scripture they did, see Sylvia’s great chapter called “Gardening in the Empire” in the small “road map” anthology Eat Well published by *cino.  Or her amazing chapter in the Advent devotional, Advent of Justice (Dordt College Press.)  Or her brief manifesto for how her approach and style of Biblical research can offer the best insights of serious study and engagement with the latest trends in Biblical studies for the faithful living of God’s people.

Walsh has written some of my all time favorite books and although this new one is his most demanding, it is a natural follow up to his developing body of work such as Transforming Vision (with Richard Middletown) Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be, (also with Richard Middleton)  Subversive Christianity: Imaging God in a Dangerous Time and Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (with Sylvia Keesmaat.)   Most of these were co-written, and they each illustrate this rare blend of serious Biblical study, diligent cultural awareness, prophet denunciation of idols and social injustices, and, yes, great joy.

Bouma-Prediger, who teaches at Hope College in Holland MI, is also a great
example of a scholar with activist leanings, a passionate and involved Christian leader.  He has previously written an academic survey on ecological theological concerns among some of the leading theologians of our time, The Greening of Theology, and the vital For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian View of Creation Care (part of the Engaging Culture series of Baker) and has done serious work edited the works of Lutheran scholar Joseph Sittler.  For the Beauty… is the most significant, thoughtful, and theologically insightful (innovative while avoiding the weird pantheism and other heresies of other academic theologians) book on the subject and we recommend it heartily.  Again, his research has been rooted in his activism and his own commitment to place.  He is (as Ron Sider called for in his excellent Christian Scholars Review article) a faithful scholar/activist.

And so, the new Beyond Homelessness book has integrity.  The authors know what they are talking about, they are experienced writers, speakers, cultural critics who live out of a beautiful confidence in the abundance of God’s good creation and the goodness of God’s abundance love.  They live with others, for Christ, in what their often-cited Canadian rock singer Bruce Cockburn has called, “a world of wonders.”

But what in the world is this wondrous book really about? To say the authors have integrity and are great scholars and committed activists isn’t enough.  It is tricky to easily summarize (in part because this book is truly breaking new ground and covers so very much territory.)  Let me explain.

Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement makes a complex argument, or a set of interlocking arguments, about literal homelessness—as jarringly incongruous as an iceberg in the Caribbean, as one inner city worker put it—and the economic and social ideologies that help cause and  enforce it.  These portions of the book include first hand accounts of their friendships with homeless folks, relief workers, refugees, undocumented immigrants,  rescue mission staff and urban renewal activists.  (Brian spent the better part of a year as a “theologian in residence” at an innovative homeless shelter in Toronto where many of these friendships developed, although both he and Steve have traveled throughout the world and have been involved in ministries of education,  advocacy and mercy for years.)  There are scholarly insights, and lots of academic footnotes, citing government documents, briefs and scholarly research on the problems of the urban underclass  (and, importantly, not just the heart-wrenching struggles of the urban poor, but also vital recommendations and advocacy on housing policy. A few years back Brian was asked to give testimony at a hearing about the relationship of culture, worldview, homes and house policies in New Zealand, so he’s been writing on this for a while, too.)  This bit of writing is interesting and important for us to know, I am sure, and they blend together careful illustrations,  fabulous storytelling and astute  policy analysis with Biblical reflections, in a way that is truly rare.  Their gifts and diligence is extraordinary, their commitment to “read the world and read the Word” is exemplary, and the result is a book which is nothing short of spectacular. 

(I suspect that some will find their rhetoric about justice, and their take on the policy questions, a bit too close for comfort, sounding, as they do at times, like Amos or Jeremiah.  Still, I’d observe that even in their most hard hitting explication of Biblical mandates about justice and social re-orientation, they are graceful;  they know we do not build God’s Kingdom and all our protest and advocacy are just signposts point the way of the coming shalom of the eschaton.)

They are serious critics of free market economics and ideologies of growth, as well, and some will flinch at this.   Agree or not with their social democratic and lefty worldview, their case, and their writing, is formidable.  I believe one will be blessed to read it, and it deserves to be discussed, debated, refuted or refined.  They would be happy to have critics expose their ideological missteps or their unhelpful proposals.  They would love to discuss, as faithful followers of Christ, how best to related Word and world.  So do read this, even if you have your doubts about their bold project. And be glad, at least, as their example of a natural integration of spirituality and scholarship, of their own stories and their discernment about the story of our times, is inspiring, even if you don’t agree with all of their methods or conclusions.  If you share their concern about the world, have a heart for understanding the social context(s) of the poor, and desire to live into these question guided by the Story of God, then this book will be a helpful ally.

Their full analysis hinges on a large claim they make, a meme they’ve been following for a decade or more, namely, that God desires us to find a sense of home; God’s redemptive gift in Christ is, in many ways, best described (as in the U2 song) “a sort of homecoming.”  As Shane Claiborne says about the book, it is “a daring explanation of one of the most primitive longings in all of us—home.)  Even though God is moving to restore us to our places of belonging—inclusive communities, safe families, the creation itself—the socio economic forces of our times are working against that. 

Shane is so right.  It is a daring exploration!  It is a daring exploration in a least three ways I will mention. Firstly, Bouma-Prediger & Walsh explore this theme of homecoming in Scripture better than anyone to date.  From creative personal monologues between most chapters (these could be nicely compiled into a little devotional book just themselves and would be considered brilliant) to their more systematic exploration of the flow of the Biblical narrative and its implications, they unpack this material with an energy, a confidence and a clarity that is as inspirational as enlightening.  In an era when evangelical pietism is slowly emerging from its dualistic narrowness, they push hard and demand nothing but the fullest Biblical perspective.  As the notion of a public theology and a wholistic discipleship is getting traction in the evangelical world, they push us farther, not just reciting the rejection of the sacred/secular dualism that they so clearly critique in the earlier books.   In fact,  they tweak the grand telling of the Biblical meta-narrative of creation/fall/redemption into homemaking/exile/homecoming, or, similarly, being placed/ displaced/restored to place (or, yet again, we could put it saying that we find ourselves with God in a garden turned wilderness which is moving towards a promised gardened city.) 

They do this with spectacular  Biblical study–how do they come up with this stuff, if not by spending hours and hours “in the Word” as we evangelicals say!  They draw insightfully on scholars as diverse as Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright, Christine Pohl, Langdon Gilkey and Mirslov Volf and yet going beyond them in significant ways.  There is in this work a unique theological breadth that is refreshing and when they shift in to high philosophical gear, as they do from time to time (what is a home? a family?  Do necessary psychological boundaries enforce exclusion?  How has postmodernity facilitated a nomadic way of life that erodes identity?  how do we know any of this?) they really show their academic chops; both are top-flight philosophy students and popularizers.  Footnotes and fascinating citations fly: James Olthius, David Tracy, Peter Berger, Merold Westphold, John Caputo, Jacques Derrida, Zygmunt Bauman, Albert Borgmann, Edward Said.  Whew,
this is a rich feast for those of us who don’t have time to read quite so much in philosophy or social ethics, a helpful and invigorating introduction to the state of contemporary thinking.

If you don’t know these names, don’t worry.  These two guys are born teachers and while they don’t intend to “dumb it down” they usually avoid the abstraction and attitude that sometimes hinders scholarly writing done for the academic guild.  That is, they are servants of us, the readers, bringing us along, even through some strange waters.  They chase a few rabbit holes that go deep, but they usually explain why;  we get that they are not showing off or being obscurantists, but that they really believe that knowing this stuff is important.  It is a part of their task, part of our calling, to be responsible agents in our 21st century exile.  How do we get “home from nowhere” (as new urbanist author James Howard Kunstler puts it?)  They are helpful guides, and you will learn a lot–a lot that is important— from their vast knowledge.

Secondly, besides their Biblical, theological and philosophical depth, Bouma-Prediger & Walsh shine as sharp (and sometimes very entertaining) cultural critics.  This—on the heels of Walsh’s Colossians Remixed—may be one of the most daring and bold bits of Christian cultural analysis I’ve seen.  (And, yes, I read a lot of Christian authors on this, from the new Tom Beaudoin to the new David Wells, from Stan Hauerwas to Bob Goudzewaard,  from Rita Brock to the recent Pope.)  Their deep cultural criticism, too, is playfully and helpfully culturally engaged.  This goes way beyond an obligatory Douglas Coupland quote or Matrix allusion, or Radiohead line, more than a common reflection on the postmodern turn.  They are savvy to pop culture but also do remarkable discernment of social realities and they’ve named some qualities of our culture that seem nothing short of original. 

For instance.  they cite the pathos of angst-ridden alternative music world, offering glimpses into the significance of the current theme of being lost, of homelessness, of the possibility (or impossibility) of finding home.  I heard Brian once play a recording of a live Tori Amos rendition of the always moving Somewhere Over the Rainbow where she tellingly dropped off the last phrase into inaudible longing, deconstructing the promises of hopeful homecoming.  From this awareness of this sort of postmodern anxiety and placelessness (think of the sterile and yet tacky exurbs as explored in The Geography of Nowhere) they move back to the hyper-modern social forces—choice, change, individualism, mobility, hot-wired virtual reality, capitalistic consumerism, globalization—and show how ideologies of placenessness and lifestyles of social mobility and disdain for the local, create an ethos of postmodern exile for many.  (Just when the going gets tough, exploring the philosophical roots of this current cultural state,  they tell of a movie or novel—In The Air is a story about a rich business traveler trying to get his millionth frequent flyer mile aware before the airline collapses who literally has no real home. This, by the way, form the same novelist who gave us the college age cult classic Thumbsucker.)  Wendell Berry helps bear some of the load, but it really isn’t that difficult to get: people don’t care about their places much anymore and we move around leaving a trail of unfulfilling friendship beyind, even as we re-decorate our new places from the standard stuff at Pottery Barn.  We just don’t care much about our places.   And this may be, in part, as James Howard Kunstler colorfully argues in Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere because our late modern built environments are so poorly constructed and spiritually degrading that we do not have a credible human habitat that is worth caring much about.)  And so, we have a culture where folks are no longer citizens, but consumers, and even as consumers, we feel dis-placed, ill-at-ease, uncommitted, and apathetic, hyped and sold a bill of upbeat goods.  This anxiety creates increasingly inhumane lifestyles—the guy who lives in the air makes for a good novel, but it is a brutalizing way to live, to have a house but no home… To care about the causes of urban poverty and the structures of injustice that hurt the poor, we must also give attention to the broader themes of homelessness as a metaphor.  Their linking these things is amazing, provocative, and worthy of much consideration.  I hope this creates many important conversations among cultural critics and social theorists, among social activists and those who work with the upper middle class.  There is plenty of brokenness everywhere, and while the details may differ (the harsh realities of the urban homeless, the rural migrant, or the despairing yuppie, their problems (and solutions) may be inter-related.

Urban activist Shane Claiborne gets at this on the back cover:
 

Whether we are in the lonely suburbs or the lonely slums, whether we are cultural refugees or undocumented immigrants, here is good news.  In these pages is a call to community, to live deeper, to discover that if we have the eyes to see and the imaginations to dream it, there is another world at hand where every alien and orphan and estranged executive has a home and a family, for there is a kinship that runs deeper than culture or class or biology or nation.  There is a family born from a Creator who breathes life into the very dirt, a God who tabernacles with a nomadic groups of slaves looking for a land of promise, a Savior who enters the world as a refugee in the middle of genocide, a homeless rabbi who is leading us home. 

I’ve suggested that Walsh & Bouma-Prediger are notable for at least three reasons.  First, I affirmed their Biblical-theological-philosophical depth, which I cannot overstate.  Next, I celebrated their stunning, original insight relating the metaphor of pomo homelessness and angst with literal homelessness and economic injustice.  

Thirdly, in Beyond Homelessness these authors frame much of our dislocation from culture and home and place (figuratively and literally) by our disregard for the creation itself.  This should not be surprising that they emphasis this; as far back as the seminal The Transforming Vision, Walsh rooted a Christian worldview in not only the doctrine of the far scope of Christ’s redemption, but in the primordial story of the creation itself, and creation theology has been a central aspect in all of his books.  Bouma-Prediger, of course, is, by profession, a professor of environmental sciences and religion (I have already said, but will again, that For the Beauty of the Earth is a truly excellent book, one of the top books of its kind!  Steven, by the way, has a really wonderful, creative, interesting and inspiring talk/presentation called God the Homemaker and Recycler: A Biblical Case for a Green God in the think audio magazine from our good friends at the  Work Research Foundation, now known as Cardus.)  This is a great part of the book, heady, important, and pregnant with implications, as it must be.  From Aldo Leopald to Wendell Berry, from David Orr to Bill McKibben (who offers a lovely and important endorsement on the cover) the environmental insights from the best writers of our time are gathered to address the ecological crisis that looms large.  Yet, this is not another simple call to responsible evangelical creation care, nor an alarmist cry against climate change.  It is an exploration and discernment of a crisis of worldview, of our very understanding of our selves and our place on Earth.&nbsp
; They do this very thoroughly, in very helpful ways.

Note, for instance, their citation of this thick quote from Norman Wirzba, scholar of rural life at Duke Divinity School, and author of Living the Sabbath,

The eclipse of divine transcendence, once understood to be he source of and goal of the world, created a hole that would be filled by humans beings who now positioned themselves as the center or source of meaning and value.  No longer microcosms of the creation, people are the autonomous beings who, in an expression of rational freedom, chart and direct the fate of themselves and the world.  Again, the history of this development toward autonomy is complex.  But what emerges is a self  cut off from the world of which it is a part and a world shorn of all remnants of final causality. 

Or, as they summarize, “Having banished or pacified God, we have enthroned ourselves at the center of things…with ourselves at the center and the world a machine, nature gets reduced to the status of an object—merely an object to be used, and, if necessary, abused.”  A few sentences later, they continue, “It is not surprising, then, that the eclipse of agrarian life, the predominance of technology, the abstract character of modern life, and the perceived irrelevance of God have also contributed to our inability to understand ourselves as God-wrought creatures and the world as divinely crafted and lovingly sustained creation.”

A bit less prosaically, they quote mystic Thomas Berry, who says that are deaf and dumb, “Our scientific inquiries into the natural world,” he argues, “have produced a certain atrophy in our human responses,” so that, “we cannot speak” to the forms of existence around us.  “Emotionally we cannot get out of our confinement,” he continues, “nor can we let the outer world flow into our own beings.”  Therefore, “we cannot hear the voices of the world around us or its tragic despoilment and ongoing destructions.”  

Yet again, they explore this theme, quoting a character in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Animal Dreams, “To people who think of themselves as God’s houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief.  Or stupid.  A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today.”  They add, “If you believe we are “permanent houseguest” as the Bible affirms we are, “sleeping on God’s coach,” as Kingsolver puts it, then you can only agree with this assessment and share the anger and sadness it contains.”

This sprawling, complex, exciting, stimulating, challenging book is truly interesting, a great book for those who enjoy good books.  It will make you think, you will learn new things, there will be authors cited (in the text and the footnotes) and musicians quoted (Bruce Cockburn, obviously, is very insightfully used.)  I really hope that many will take it seriously.  And, once again,  the occasional chapters which are Biblical monologues are themselves worth the price of the book—you’ve got to read them to appreciate these creative glimpses into the Biblical story.

For full disclosure, I should note a few minor concerns.  I wish at times that the critique of conservative economics was argued with a touch more generosity, recalling that some good people, people who care deeply about these things,  just disagree about the nature of poverty, economics, and the best sorts of proposals that will help ensure a stewardly economy.  I would think that perhaps even noting their awareness that there are some very sharp thinkers (and very seasoned urban activists) who do not share their left-wing critique of the idols of growth, and the notions and values of the neo-conservatives.  One need not be an acolyte for the Bush administration, or a groupie of the Acton Institute to raise legitimate questions about how best to improve the economy, how to propose Biblically-informed ways to enhance urban renewal initiatives, and ways around the commonly known dead-ends of the welfare state.  I do not mean they should be less strident, (with 35,000,000 living below the poverty line in the US alone, according to Ron Sider’s very helpful and recently updated Just Generosity, they should be strident!)  but perhaps a bit more interaction with those who would be their critics would have made for a strong (if admittedly, longer) book..

Also, at times, I think they drift into academic lingo that would be better suited for a philosophy text.  I understand that they are fluent in the discourse of the academy and they both understand the value of thinking through the deepest things.  Above, I noted that this is, in fact, a strength of the book, the way they can guide us through amazingly diverse and complex theorists.  Occasionally, though, they lapse into jargon.  (I understand the usefulness of using “priveleges” or “legitimizes” as verbs, and the potent bite that carries, even if it is a bit odd to some ears.  But I sure don’t want to hear anything about “praxis” when I’m reading about homemaking; that just ain’t right. ) Still, a few times they just can’t help themselves and if I didn’t know better I’d think they were just a bit too geeky. Hmmm? Anybody who knowingly cites Bono, though, can’t possibly be that highbrow.  So join me in skipping a couple paragraphs every once in a while.  (Another full disclosure: I studied all the footnotes, so maybe I’m the geeky one.)  If the book seems a bit dense, it is only on occasion.  And some will relish these little tangents into the ether. 

Lastly, I think the book would be helped if there were a bit of a discussion/experience/action guide for steps “beyond homelessness.”  Both of these scholars are engaged in mentoring others, and living lives of joyful if subversive socio-political reform.  Their stories are compelling, but a few ideas about next steps and living into this home-coming sojourn would help typical readers at least think about how to form communities of resistance to the alienating forces of the displacing culture.  We need stories, examples, directions and suggestions of  how to build lives of daily discipleship on the journey home. (One good example of this is the work of Tom & Christine Sine, whose Mustard Seed Associates connects folks working at these themes from around the world;  Tom tells tons of stories in his The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time.)  Maybe Walsh & Bouma-Prediger (or their students) could create an action-oriented accompanying website with pictures of bread-making guides, discussion stuff for the book, and appropriate projects. (BW does blog at the EmpireRemixed site, and I linked to Russett House above.)  Or a brief list of “next books” to read, rather than the monstrously long bibliography of academic texts.  I suspect that these guys figure that local readers can talk amongst themselves and prayerfully discern the Spirit’s leading.  Perhaps so.  This huge book is so broad, though, that just a little more help in processing it all would have been appreciated

I do not want to end on this note of small criticism, as my minor concerns are way outweighed by the conspicious strengths, those I listed, and more.  Perhaps it is best to give them the last word:

Walter Brueggemann has argued that “the key pathology of our time, which seduces us all, is the reduction of the imagination so that we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted to do serious imaginative work.”  There is something about life in urban homogeneity that strips us of imagination.  There is something about being anonymous consumers that leaves us unable to imagine life otherwise.  And there is something about all of th
is that renders us numb, as emotionally disconnected from our own placelessness as we are from the homelessness of others.

Hope requires liberated imaginations….

At the heart of the Christian gospel is the message that we are all homeless, but that there is a home in which our yearning hearts can and will find rest.  That home is creation redeemed and transfigured a place of grace that is inhabited by an indwelling God of unfathomable love.  The Christian gospel, in other words, is a grand story or redemptive homecoming that is at the same time grateful homemaking. 

In our over 25 years of bookselling, a few authors stand out for their passion, their large interest in their work and their enthusiastic support for our feeble efforts to sell a few of their titles; titles they usually believed—without pride or presumption—might make a difference in the world.  We’ve looked to them as models of a thoughtful and serious presence within the publishing world and promoting their work helped define our calling here.  Some have sheer enthusiasm, a sharp mind, or a colorful personality and we are energized by listening to them (think Tony Campolo, or, differently, Marva Dawn or Lauren Winner.)  Others are weighty and understated, but the substance and caliber of their work attracts serious listeners and readers (think, for instance, Eugene Peterson, Os Guinness, or Ron Sider.)  In their own ways, these sorts of authors are most memorable for their ongoing pubic witness through their excellent books, their important and gifted writing and the vital content of their ministries.  We have been grateful for their friendship to us here at Hearts & Minds.

And there is Tom Sine.  Sine speaks faster and with as much gusto as Campolo, yet 
shares the earthy spirituality of Eugene Peterson; he is fluent and thoughtful about global trends and international affairs and also in the daily, local details of what he calls     “whole-life discipleship.”  And he phones us some days just to encourage us out here in small town central PA.  You see, he believes in the extravagant sowing of seeds and the world-changing power of mustard seeds.

In the mid to late 1970s, as a young evangelical with very public interests, I was hungry for good books and like-minded allies.  In 1980, I believe, I realized (with great delight) that Tom Sine’s groundbreaking The Mustard Seed Conspiracy was, well, groundbreaking.  While some friends and I were studying the history of ideas and the deformation of culture from the impact of idolatrous ideologies and worldviews (reading the likes of Francis Schaeffer, Herman Dooyeweerd, Nicholas Woltersdorf, or Bob Goudzeward) others joined together as we signed up to protest the not so cold war militarism of the arms race.  Influenced by Sojourners and The Other Side and Jim Wallis’ early books, which drew on leaders such as John Howard Yoder, William Stringfellow, Dorothy Day, James Cone,  and Dan Berrigan, we forged communities of action and creative resistance.  Most evangelicals, nor many mainline folks, in those years didn’t care much about the world at all, though, and both the cultural worldview reformers and the political/social activists impressed me with their desire to live out the faith in relevant, transformational ways.  The Mustard Seed Conspiracy seemed in ways to combine various diverse streams, and Sine’s watershed book seemed to have a serious understanding of the broadest social and ideological trends yet invited radical action.  I am only one of many who found that book extraordinary.   Beth heard him at the Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh in those years, and was very impressed, quoting Calvin and Ellul. 

Among the many authors Sine cited (and he always cites a lot) were leaders who became my own heroes and mentors, James Skillen, Ron Sider, John Perkins.  MSC raised a prophetic cry from the evangelical center.  Sine believed that ordinary church folk could make a difference, not just the heavy cultural critics or the exceptionally dedicated resistance protestors.  And he was right.

Years later, as movements and traditions solidified and authors became better known, Tom kept at it, mixing the groups, networking younger voices, doing a string of inspiring, upbeat, invigorating books, drawing always on this wide array of sources, pushing this unique blend of social critique, deep spirituality, radical social action.  From the excellent, brief, introductory study Taking Discipleship Seriously: A Radical Approach (still a must-read and highly recommended) to the critique of the American Dream in Live It Up, from the fairly academic Cease-fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture Wars to the fabulous Finding Your Purpose (better than Purpose Driven Life, as I said in these pages years ago) his books have been consistently interesting and helpful.  Ravi Zacharias famously named Mustard Seed vs McWorld as one of the most important books he’d ever read.  Tom Sine has been an important conference speaker, organizer, consultant and workshop facilitator over the last 25 years, even as he has been based in intentional community, and—importantly, given his calling—in serious relationship with folk from all over the world, especially, it seems, in the U.K. and Down Under.  I think it is fair to say that he stays put and is widely traveled, knows the ordinariness of a real place and yet sees the biggest of pictures.

Sine has been palpably hopeful (his book Wild Hope is sadly out of print) and exceedingly creative, alongside his wife Christine, herself a former Mercy Ship doctor, and author (most recently of Godspace which is a lovely and helpful book on rest, and life’s rhythms.)  When they offer lectures or seminars they might tell stories from Africa, or insist on a closing celebratory feast.  They might have you up and dancing or sitting in prayerful silence or reciting a Celtic blessing.  (They might even have you doing all of those things, just in the first half a day!)  They believe in the sanctified imagination, in a pedagogy that is communal, joyful, and active, and they believe that learning can be transformational.  As I said, there are certain authors who deeply believe in the power of their books, not due to pride or presumption, but because they believe that God uses ordinary folk like themselves to make an impact.  Why else would an author work hard to write a book if they didn’t significantly hope that it will find an audience who will be transformed by it? Sadly, though, many of the Sines’ books have been under-the-radar, I’m afraid, not selling as well as they should;  yet they’ve changed lives.  They are considered by important thinkers to be pivotal.  I’m not sure if Sine coined the phrasing “missional” but he has been a part of that conversation, that movement, inviting folks to joyous lives of simple living and radical service for the Kingdom of God, the shalom of the planet.  Almost all of his books have been critically acclaimed, and we have several of them still on our shelves here.  We are grateful for the chance to have these kinds of resources to recommend and are honored to call him a friend and H&M supporter.

Tom Sine’s persona, his presentations, and his books are infectious; as much as any author I know, Tom backs up his writing with a wild life of faith-filled hope, experimenting (to borrow Ghandi’s phrase) with truth.  He and his comrades in the mustard seed conspiracy breath together (that is the meaning of the word) to cook up (sometimes literally) a new world.  From multi-ethnic meals to multi-denominational worship experiences, he nurtures community, facilitates networks, evokes Godly imagination and insists with every fiber of his being that God’s intentions for His planet is seen in the redemptive restoration of Jesus the Servant King.

So, Tom the statistician and futurist, Tom the Celtic mystic and worship poet, Tom the world missions guru and global storyteller, has left a mark.  The Mustard Seed Conspiracy< /b> (now oddly out of print) has been considered one of the most influential Christian books of the 20th century.  Ask the best leaders and they all will cite him as influential in their journey.