Thanks to those who sent encouraging notes about our last BookNotes newsletter. It is intense stuff reading about the bizarre accusations of a stolen election and it is tragic to learn of the former President’s affiliation with such gonzo bad guys as Alex Jones, Roger Stone, and the Oath Keepers rebels. We understand that good people and faithful Christians can disagree about policy considerations and since the Bible itself has a fairly complex social ethic, it isn’t always simple to deduce what policies are best for the common good. But the ludicrous “stop the steal” stuff has to be resisted with all our might and good Americans should refuse to support those who are complicit in any of that Trumpian illogic. I trust that those books helped make a case about the systemic nature of the January 6th “unthinkable” that many Republicans are still saluting. Anyway, although we didn’t sell many of those books, we’re glad you read my thoughts about them.

We still have those five that I reviewed at a 20% off, so let us know if we can ship any to you or yours.

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New books continue to come out and we are more than excited to share the news about some forthcoming gems, treasures of various sorts for all kinds of readers.

Here is a good list of forthcoming titles you can pre-order from us now. (Of course, as we often say, you can always pre-order anything, anytime.)

IF YOU ARE PRE-ORDERING MORE THAN ONE PLEASE TELL US IF YOU’D LIKE US TO SHIP THEM AS THEY ARRIVE OR HOLD TOGETHER TO CONSOLIDATE, SHIPPING TOGETHER WHEN THE LATER ONES ARRIVE. WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU WELL SO LET US KNOW AS MANY OF YOUR EXPECTATIONS AS YOU CAN.

Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions Temple Grandin (Riverhead) $28.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40 AVAILABLE NOW

This thoughtful hardback just arrived and I’ve not had time to peruse it, but, you know, she is just amazing, a remarkable person, leader, thinker, and educator. She has a knack for demystifying complex social and psychological science. This introduces us to a certain sort of person and their perceptions, based on her own vivid experiences, I’m sure, and the latest research. 

Dinosaurs: A Novel Lydia Millett (W. W. Norton) $26.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.56  AVAILABLE NOW

Do you know the award winning novel A Children’s Bible from a year or two ago? Wow. This is Millet’s stunning new novel, named as one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by the Boston Globe, Literary Hub and The Millions. It is the story of a man named Gil who walks from New York to Arizona “to recover from failed love.” You can expect that his life will be entangled with his new neighbors. One reviewer said the novel asks, “in the shadow of existential threat, where does hope live?” 

Blood from a Stone: A Memoir of How Wine Brought Me Back from the Dead Adam McHugh (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00  AVAILABLE NOW

You may know McHugh’s previous books such as his award-winning Introverts in the Church and the excellent, nearly contemplative paperback, The Listening Life. This brand new one, however, is about grief and loss and transition — helped along by the good gifts of God’s creation. Can this beleaguered, hurting author find healing through wine, friends, and the beauty of the French wine country or the glories of California’s central coast? Is there something to indeed savor, here?

With the first line being “This is the story of how wine brought be back from the dead” you know this is going to be interesting. As McHugh tells of his new take on an old story, he observes, “Most stories about religion and drink are stories of recovery. I’m not sure if mine isn’t a story of recovery too.”

McHugh is a sommelier and Certified Specialist of Wine who lives in Santa Ynez Valley, CA. And a very fine writer.

Adam McHugh’s stunning memoir, Blood from a Stone, brings a sideways beatitude: Blessed are the lonely, the detached, the fired, the tired, and the spiritually hungry. They will see God if they’re paying attention and willing to be surprised. Read, savor, and listen for the low hum of deep faith in this personal story of a man who writes with a keen awareness of grief and a self-deprecating honesty. You’ll leave with a renewed longing for food and meaning, cheese and history, and wine you can’t pronounce  — Emily P. Freeman, author of The Next Right Thing

Demon Copperhead: A Novel Barbara Kingsolver (Harper) $32.50  OUR SALE PRICE = $26.00  DUE OCTOBER 18, 2022

It has been several years since Kingsolver’s spectacular and very interesting Unsheltered. I have since re-read both of her collections of essays High Tide in Tucson and Small Wonders, both which I love. In this much anticipated story she puts a new twist on the Dickens classic David Copperfield, apparently, it is stunning. It has been called a tour de force and a virtuoso work. The short summary from the publisher summarizes the plot in a pedestrian way: “The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.” But, with Kingsolver there is always more going on, much more. I’m sure this is going to be much talked about these next months. 

Here are what some impressed advanced readers have said:

Demon is a voice for the ages — akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield — only even more resilient. I’m crazy about this book, which parses the epidemic in a beautiful and intimate new way. I think it’s her best. — Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

Readers see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath Demon’s self-protective exterior…. Emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. — Kirkus Review

A deeply evocative story…Kingsolver’s account of the opioid epidemic and its impact on the social fabric of Appalachia is drawn to heartbreaking effect. This is a powerful story, both brilliant in its many social messages regarding foster care, child hunger, and rural struggles, and breathless in its delivery. — Publishers Weekly

Liberation Day: Stories George Saunders (Random House) $28.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40  AVAILABLE OCTOBER 18, 2022

Those who follow the art of the short story know that Saunders is considered one of the true masters of the form. (His only real novel, I think, was the highly regarded Lincoln in the Bardo.) These new stories, we are told, explore “ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with fellow humans.” Well, that’s not too bad, is it? The Oprah Daily called it “pitch perfect” and “an exquisite work from a writer whose reach is galactic.” Allrightee, then.

Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time. — Khaled Hosseini

The Old Testament and God – Old Testament Origins and the Question of God  Craig G. Bartholomew (Baker Academic) $54.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $43.99  DUE OCTOBER 18, 2022

Speaking of a our de force… It is a bit tricky to explain this briefly, but we can say two quick things. Firstly, Dr. Bartholomew is one of the best Biblical scholars around, weaving together his deep understanding of the best way to read and keen insight about how to inhabit the unfolding drama of the Biblical story. The world “worldview” may seem a bit dated in these postmodern times but he is what I sometimes call a worldviewish thinker and writer. He studied with Cal Seerveld at Toronto’s ICS, after all, and now directs the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge, England. Secondly, this book, to put it boldly, is going to do in world of the Old Testament studies what N.T. Wright’s magisterial multi-volume set did for the New Testament. You will note the hat tip in Bartholomew’s subtitle to Wright’s “Christian Origins and the Question of God” series.

The Old Testament and God, the first in a four-volume series, examines what we should do with the Old Testament, argues for a “critical realist” approach, situates the Old Testament against the worldviews of the ancient Near East, and explores the character of Yahweh as he comes to us in the Old Testament.

Rave reviews come from the likes of Richard Bauckham, Tremper Longman, Matthew Levering, and Christopher J. H. Wright. Serious Biblical scholars should certainly consider this.

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle Jon Meacham (Random House) $40.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00  AVAILABLE OCTOBER 18, 2022

Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian. He has not done a new book of historical biography in a while and this is the one we’ve been waiting for. The endorsements have been predictably fabulous, insisting this is excellent history and a fine example of what I might call the relevance of good historical story-telling. Relevant, indeed. Listen to this:

In his captivating new book, Jon Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time. And There Was Light brilliantly interweaves the best of gripping narrative history with a deeper search for the complex interplay among morality, politics, and power in a life, in a democracy, and in an America ripped apart over slavery. Here Meacham takes us to the heart of the president who shaped events at ‘the existential hour.’ In doing so, he fortifies us to meet our own. — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Biography at its best, the great historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, paints an intimate portrait of an individual which simultaneously provides a sweeping view of history. With this deep, compelling work, Jon Meacham has achieved this gold standard. Written with wisdom and grace, his story of Lincoln’s complex moral journey to Emancipation mirrors America’s long quest to live up to its founding ideals. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

If Dr. Henry “Skip” Gates says it is a biography “for our time” and if Doris Kearns Goodwin says it achieves the “gold standard” for such books, you know it is one you should consider. I know most of us only buy a few books about history any given year and most of us only buy a few on Lincoln. This should be on everyone’s list, I’d think…

Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration  Karen Gonzalez (Brazos Press) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19  DUE OCTOBER 18, 2022

We have met Karen and think the world of her. Her previous book on immigration issues was a lovely read, passionate and solid. Kudus to Herald Press for that. Here, in her brand new one, she goes deeper, with even more zeal and understandable passion for making the story of immigrants — stories like her own — more central not only in the telling of the story of American immigration but in our speculation and theologizing about it all. The voices of the immigrant and refugee, the too often marginalized, ought to be more central in our attention and in our imagination and in our hearts.

Naturally, she tells a bunch of stories and she offers what can only be called a fresh Biblical hermeneutic to see how the Biblical stories interlock with those of her community. It’s a lively read, interesting, compelling, important. We just got them in and I’ve already skimmed it, realizing it is so very interesting. What a gem!

I like what it on the back cover:

Many of us have good intentions, working hard to welcome immigrants with hospitality and solidarity. But how can we do that in a way that empowers our immigrant neighbors rather than pushing them to the fringes of white-dominant culture?

Karen González draws from the Bible and her own experiences to examine why the traditional approach to immigration ministries and activism is at best incomplete and at worst harmful. She advocates putting immigrants in the center of the conversation and helps us recognize ourselves in our immigrant neighbors.

Here is the voice of her colleague at World Relief, Matthew Soerens:

Whether you agree with González’s conclusions or not —I  usually did, occasionally did not, and in a few cases am still wrestling with what I think, long after reading this poignant book — you will find Beyond Welcome to be challenging, constructive, and helpful.  — Matthew Soerens, US director of church mobilization and advocacy, World Relief; coauthor of Welcoming the Stranger

Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw (Zondervan) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99  DUE OCTOBER 21, 2022

One of the grand features of this radically Biblical volume (first published maybe a decade ago) is its extraordinary, full color imagery and hip graphic appeal. Edgy and cool, busy and splashy in a subversive sort of way, this illustrated book calls us to the Biblical images of exile and the words of the prophets, picking up the sort of stuff later spelled out in scholarly detail by the likes of Walsh and Keesmaat (in Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire/Demanding Justice, which Shane endorsed.) Of course, Jesus isn’t exactly running for office these days so we now need to figure what to do; we must improvise our way towards faithful socio-political views and public actions. This book will help and we are glad that the publisher is seeing fit to bring it out anew.

There is nothing like it. Hooray.

Things That Matter Most: Essays on Home, Friendship, and Love  Christopher de Vinck (Paraclete Press) $22.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39  DUE OCTOBER 25, 2022 (expected sooner)

Oh my, what a lovely, easy to read, and poignant little book. Some of our readers will love this and will love giving it as an encouraging gift for someone who needs a little “pick me up” with tender substance.

We’ve been fans of Chris de Vinck for years (probably since his stunning book The Power of the Powerless, which was a story about his own handicapped brother) released in the late 1980s. We have collected and read (and tried to sell) his essays and stories. He was, as you may know, a good friend and kindred spirit with the late Henri Nouwen and a very dear pal with Mister Fred Rogers. His most recent previous books included Ashes, a gripping World War II novel based on the experiences of his own relatives with the Nazi concentration camps and the life-long friendships that emerged and an sentimental holiday novel, Mr. Nicholas: A Magical Christmas Tale (with a forward by Joanne Rogers, Fred’s wife.) 

This new one has a grand introduction by one of our favorite people in the book industry, Jeff Crosby (formerly a bookstore worker, then a publisher at IVP, and now of the ECPA, and author of his own forthcoming book of reflections, The Language of the Soul: Meeting God in the Longings of Our Hearts. That isn’t due until next May but, yes, you can pre-order it now and we will be put on the waiting list.)

Jeff has long been a fan of de Vinck and has become a friend. His forward to Things That Matter Most: Essays on Home, Friendship, and Love is lovely, to say the least. He notes that it “helps us see with our hearts” which sounds more pious than it is, I think. With essays on fireflies and board games (and more on bugs) and much on the poignancy of human connection and empathy, and a section of pieces on humility, this is just really nice writing about things that matter, even if at first you haven’t pondered them. Like all good art, it nicely illuminates. 

I like collections of essays but this is designed with some larger fonts, pull quotes in sidebar boxes, and a touch of whimsy. It isn’t overly demanding or dense. I recommend it highly.

The Passenger: A Novel Cormac McCarthy (Knopf Publishing) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00  DUE OCTOBER 25, 2022

How do we begin to say the importance for serious booksellers of having a new McCarthy novel to sell? He is considered among the very best and it has been — not surprisingly — sixteen years since his last work. The Passenger is the first of a two volume series (the second, Stella Marris, comes in early December which you can also pre-order. There will even, then, be a boxed set of the two.) This novel is, on the surface, about a New Orleans salvage diver who is “haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursed for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death she cannot reconcile with God.”

McCarthy reigns as a titan of American lit — an undisputed heir to Melville and Faulkner, the subject of infinite grad-school theses, and a hard-nosed dispenser of what Saul Bellow called ‘life-giving and death-dealing’ sentences… It’s the humid, fevered, magniloquent, Bible-cadenced, comma-starved, word-drunk prose of what some fans consider his masterwork, Suttree. There’s a lot here. It might make your head spin… What it all adds up to — perhaps surprisingly — is a doomed and unsettling love story, a Platonic tragedy…. Electric and thunderous… An astonishing pair of novels. Taken together, The Passenger and Stella Maris are an intellectually breathtaking achievement. —Jonathan Miles, Garden & Gun

After sixteen years of characteristic seclusion, McCarthy returns with a one-two punch… The Passenger is an elegiac meditation on guilt, grief, and spirituality. Packed with textbook McCarthy hallmarks, like transgressive behaviors and cascades of ecstatic language, it’s a welcome return from a legend who’s been gone too long.        — Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire

Chilling and masterly…. His prose frequently approaches the Shakespearean, ranging from droll humor to the rapid-fire spouting of quotable fecundity. Dialogues click into place like a finely tuned engine. McCarthy has somehow added a new register to his inimitable voice. Long ensconced in the literary firmament, McCarthy further bolsters his claim for the Mount Rushmore of the literary arts. — Booklist

Heart Speak: A Visual Interpretation of Let Your Life Speak Sherrill Knezel in collaboration with Parker Palmer (formatio/IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40  DUE OCTOBER 25, 2022

I can’t wait to see this and I cannot say much about it other than tell you, simply, what it is. It is a colorful and creatively done visual adaptation of the classic book on vocation by Quaker writer Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak. If that book itself was gentle and generous, inviting us to take up a life that matters, listening well to our own hearts, this guides those who need a different approach to this material. There are infographics and calligraphied quotes and colorful hearts, a design style some call “sketch noting.”  I’m sure it is going to be very well done, not at all goofy, but not too psychedelic either.

The author, by the way, is a life-long doodler and “sketch noter” and she did a bit of research on the scribbling thing, taking in the brain science and data which she put into an excellent TED talk, telling her stories of the power of all of this, inspired somewhat by the author Mike Rohde. It’s amazing and you can watch it, here. (And you really should. But be sure to come back, since there’s more books to tell you about. Maybe it will remind you of a book I did a long forward to years ago by my friend Lisa Nichols Hickman, Writing in the Margins: Connecting with God on the Pages of Your Bible.)

Here’s what singer-songwriter, activist, and author Carrie Newcomber says about this soon to be released book inspired by Parker Palmer, Heart Speak:

The White Mosque: A Memoir Sofia Samatar (Catapult) $27.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60  DUE OCTOBER 25, 2022

Every now and then we hear of a book through industry journals or pre-pub newsletters and we are immediately struck by how very interesting a title or author may seem. This is exactly one of these — I’ve not previously heard of this writer, a highly regarded indie author, apparently, (known for fantasy novels) but here she is retracing some of the steps of her own people — Mennonites in the heart of Central Asia. 

One article about her started like this: “Sofia Samatar has a way with a sentence.” It goes on to mention her Nebula-and Hugo-nominated stories or novels and says, “her work has a way of pairing the mundane and the sublime with causal aplomb.” So there’s that that catches the eye.

But The White Mosque captured my attention further because the author once boarded at the well-known Mennonite high school near us in Lancaster, PA. Wow. Later, she fell into a rabbit hole, it seems, as she was trying to reshape some of her awareness of a group of German-speaking Mennonites who went to what is now Uzbekistan on a quest that “promised no less than the second coming of Christ.” Huh? Try as she might, she realized this was no novel, and her own journey to the site — lead by what one might call sort of a cult-leader — propelled her to weave together her own memoir into this odd, cross-cultural and inter-religious journey.  Ms Samatar is this child of a Black Somali Muslim and a white Mennonite and she became “obsessed with the story.”

As she grew into this life of two cultures she realized that what appeared to be, at first glance, “polar opposites” actually had considerable overlaps, confluences that helped shape how she now sees the world. Born and raised in Goshen, Indiana, she was, as they say, “a third culture kid” but she followed her parents around the globe. (Her father, Said Sheikh Samatar, was a professor of African history in Tanzania, London, Kentucky and Rutgers, NJ.  Her scholarly father wanted her, after her high schools years in Lancaster, to apply to Harvard or Yale but, against his wishes, she followed some friends to the quintessentially radical Mennonite college in Goshen, Indiana.)

I am not sure if this memoir covers her formative years, her reading habits (starting with Narnia, I’ve heard) or her marriage to another Mennonite writer, Keith Miller. The two of them did mission work, teaching high school in South Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War. With the country under curfew, both of them wrote and wrote — longhand.

This is a nonfiction story but, as she reports in a great article in Publisher’s Weekly, it’s “a nonfiction world that can still feel like a novel.” Writing it was surely transformative and we believe it’s a sleeper of a title that many of our customers will enjoy. I can’t wait. Pre-order it today!

The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race, and Religion  Clarence Jordan edited by Frederick Downing (Plough Publishing) $12.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $9.60   DUE OCTOBER 25, 2022 

I wonder if you know this terrific series of inexpensive, compact readers of significant Christian voices handsomely published by Plough Publishing? They have made very important contributions to Christian publishing by compiling these remarkable, compact, volumes. There is Love in the Void by Simone Weil, The Scandal of Redemption by Oscar Romero, The Reckless Way of Love by Dorothy Day, That Way and No Other by Amy Carmichael, and, recently, the fabulous Thunder and Soul by Abraham Joshua Heschel. The brand new one, The Inconvenient Gospel compiles the words and sermons and writings of Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia, as a “demonstration plot” of what the Kingdom of God might look like.

Beth visited there in the mid-70s and it was very influential, as you might guess. Years earlier they had been machine-gunned for being racially integrated and more than once their crops were burned. (To this day they have a fabulous mail order business of locally grown nuts; they shifted to out-of-state mail order since the locals boycotted them.) There are many stories about Koinonia Farms — Jordan was the preacher who told Millard Fuller to give away his wealth and come back to follow Jesus, which he did, starting up, eventually, a ministry called Habitat for Humanity. Jordan was a great Baptist who paraphrased the New Testament into what he called “The Cotton Patch” version, using colloquial Southern sharecropper lingo (Jesus is put in a peach crate, not a manger, and his best buddy was Rock.) He was known for being as blunt, and as kind, as Jesus.

These messages by Clarence Jordan (like the others in the series) are enduring but of all of them, this is the author whose writings may be the most likely to languish into obscurity. Big kudos to our Bruderhof friends for once again doing an excellent thing in adding the work of this rural Baptist preacher to this very distinguished series. Thoughtful ecological theologian Norman Wirzba calls The Inconvenient Gospel “an essential book.” Order one today.

(Watch this fabulous little documentary video where you can hear is voice and learn about his prophetic Kingdom work in Jim Crow Georgia.)

Care: How People of Faith Can Respond to Our Broken Health System  Scott Morris (Eerdmans) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19  DUE OCTOBER 27, 2022

Scott Morris is not as known as he should be, a real hero for those who know his good work in starting Church Health, a faith-based health care center in Memphis which serves the underserved with Christianly offering medical care. He’s been a strong voice for thinking faithfully about medicine and the spirituality of health and he has especially spoken for — and enacted — the need to include the poor and the vulnerable. The small but potent book Dust and Breath: Faith, Health, and Why the Church Should Care about Both by Kendra Hotz & Matthew Mathews tells of his work among the marginalized in Memphis as a case study of what churches can do to serve the health care needs of the poor. 

This new book, Care, is just what we need now, and Dr. Morris is a near-perfect author for the job. It is, as the subtitle suggests, less a call to start up Christian health care clinics, but how to push for, as citizens, a more comprehensive health care proposal for our broken health care system, which certainly will include private/public cooperation. I really do not know of any book quite like it.

As it says on the back, Morris draws on his experience as a medical doctor, pastor, and founder and CEO of the nation’s largest charitably funded faith-based health care center. As a United Methodist in the tradition of John Wesley, Morris knows a bit about the wholistic nature of the gospel — as his friend Jim Wallis writes in the moving preface, Wesley’s was a model for that kind of care for body and soul and he believed that special care must be given to the sick. Wesley was an advocate for and practitioner of the healing ministry of the church and that includes advocacy for good health care policy. 

There’s lots of stories here, both from the gospels and from contemporary America.  With endorsements from the likes of quality writers like Philip Yancey, this book is a winner. I hope health care workers, at least, join together to read it, as good, good things can come from small groups of folks reading dynamite books like this. 

Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? Timothy Keller (Viking) $27.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60  DUE NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Keller is a great communicator who is known for being quite fluent in the culture’s best thinkers and attuned to the conversations going on. He lives in Manhattan and has reached thousands with a wholistic, thoughtful, gracious Reformed worldview. I have a bone to pick with him from time to time but he nonetheless is a hero and model. He’s on that short list of authors who I think I’d read almost anything they wrote. He’s smart and yet not overly academic; he’s Biblically based and gospel-centered but not stuffy. We’ve got some connections with old mutual friends and influences and it has been an honor to sell books on occasion at his church — including one grand night with N.T. Wright, another with Bryan Stevenson, another with John Inazu as he presented (and then talked with Tim) about his then-new book on pluralism. I even got to speak about the vocation of bookselling once at one of his legendary faith and work conferences.

But here, this: along with a recent handful (on suffering, on prayer, particularly) he brings it down home and real personal. I’ve got an advanced copy of this one and I am so struck by how this brilliant theological mind with a disposition to talk about big cultural matters and equip Christians to be salt and light in their respective worlds, is also, truly, a pastor, and can guide ordinary folks into the hard stuff of Christian virtue. Like forgiveness. Wow.

Publisher’s Weekly tried to explain why it would be useful for bookstores to carry by saying it delivers a “thorough and eloquent apologetic for forgiveness” and another review assured us that it “presents a solid defense of Christian forgiveness theology within a modern, relevant context, quoting sources as varied as Augustine, Adele, Kafka, and Clint Eastwood…. Refreshing, accessible work on the basics of forgiveness from a Christian perspective.”

The subtitle tells much: it is both the “why” and the “how.” There are some exceptionally thoughtful but practical checklists and guidelines in several appendices, including on one forgiveness practices and another on achieving reconciliation. 250 good pages.

Liturgies for Hope: Sixty Prayers for the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between Audrey Allege & Elizabeth Moore (Waterbrook Press) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00  DUE NOVEMBER 1, 2002

Oh my, there are a lot of books like this coming out these days. Perhaps this wave of great new prayer books is inspired by the two exquisite, leather-bound volumes of Every Moment Holy or the online “Black Liturgies” created by Cole Arthur Riley (author of the stunning memoir This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us) or perhaps going back to the 2010 release of the groundbreaking Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals compiled by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enoma Okra. In any event, we’ve got recent, cool books like Prayers for the People: Things We Didn’t KNow We Could Say to God by Terry Stokes (Convergent Books) and Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life by Meta Herrick Carlson (Fortress Press) and her Broadleaf one called Ordinary Blessings for Parents: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Family Life. Maybe you’ll even recall our BookNotes rave about Cornelius Plantinga’s compact Eerdmans hardback, Morning and Evening Prayers.

Which brings us to Liturgies for Hope which releases in a few weeks. It is extraordinary, thoughtful, theologically substantive, raw; the prayers are long and often heartbreakingly honest and sometimes funny. I’m not sure about the language of “liturgies” these days since these are singular voice prayers, but they are solid and moving. The foreword is by Jon Tyson, pastor of Church of the City in New York, a guy I respect quite a bit. One of the authors works with the church and has received the Academy of American Poets Prize, among other awards. The other works in the publishing industry and serves the church on their creative team. 

There are amazing prayers here — good words for those complete in injustice, prayers for creativity, laments about public health, cries for those who are anguished by simply being alone, or by being too busy.  There are prayers of mystery, prayers of wonder, prayers of confession, prayers of joy, prayers of hope. And more. As good readers (and writers) Rich Villodas and Christie Purifoy say, below, this is a truly valuable resource. You should pre-order it today.

As someone who has spent many hours praying, here’s what I’ve come to realize: it’s still very hard to do. One of the best gifts that has helped me develop my life with God is the prayers and liturgies of others. I often need the words of others to help me form my own words. This is what Audrey Elledge and Elizabeth Moore do for us in this needed book. They offer beautiful words to help us access the longings of our souls and bring them to God. If you’re looking for a jumpstart to your spiritual life, start here. — Rich Villodas, lead pastor of New Life Fellowship and author of Good and Beautiful and Kind

This is a marvelous book. I am not surprised it emerged from one of the urban epicenters of our global pandemic — of course this fierce hope would grow in such a place and such a season. Audrey Elledge and Elizabeth Moore weave rich Scriptural imagery into powerful, prayerful poetry covering topics that are at once universal but also timely in their particularity. The liturgical pronouns shift between we, you, and I in a way that is spacious and welcoming. Best of all, this book compelled even this solitary reader to reach out to her friends; these are liturgies that simply must be prayed in the company of others.  — Christie Purifoy, author of Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace

Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story Bono (Knopf Publishing) $34.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $27.20  DUE NOVEMBER 1, 2022

I hardly have to say who Bono is (do I?) or even explain how much the powerful, often groundbreaking, music of U2 has meant to us over the years. From their earliest records (which we stocked before most knew who they were) to their most recent work, and all the colorful zeal of their fearless leader, we have been very big fans. Knowing how his faith continued to seep out, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes between the lines, but, often, directly, up front, out loud, Bono remains one of the most interesting followers of Jesus of our era.

I hope in this forthcoming memoir he describes his friendship with Eugene Peterson (who didn’t even take his call the first time Bono called him, since Peterson had no idea who he was!) and the beautiful video he and Peterson made, visiting together in Montana about the Psalms. 

Whether that small episode in Bono’s influential life appears or not, this is a book I know many of our customers will want to read. Others, I am sure, will want to give it as a Christmas gift. It’s on my list! 

Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture Christopher Watkin (Zondervan Academic) $39.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99    DUE NOVEMBER 1, 2022

This is another that I am awaiting my own advanced copy, which may not come, so I’m just guessing here. But I’m excited and think this may be one of the great tools for thinking about God’s story and how it engages the human story of cultures unfolding and our role in it all. Watkin is a sharp guy — there is no doubt about that — and he is trying to center the Biblical vision of Christ’s Kingdom allowing us all to be “in but not of” the world in which we find ourselves. I think this is going to be great. In fact, Dan Strange (Plugged In and Making Faith Magnetic) calls it “absolutely essential reading” and Natasha Moore of the Centre for Public Christianity calls it “urgent and a tremendously exciting read.” 

For what it is worth, Watkin has published conservative critiques of Foucault and of Derrida. He wrote a very stimulating and under-appreciated volume on how Genesis 1 and 2 are, for lack of a better phrase, “tools of cultural critique.” He argues that we need not get consumed by debates about Darwin and dinosaurs and the length of days or the Earth, but, rather, should pick up from our primal origin story, classic doctrines of the Trinity and the substantive importance of creation itself. As was said about that book, Thinking Through Creation,

These foundational, biblical truths of the Trinity and creation are among the richest sources of insights and tools for robust and sensitive engagement with contemporary culture. With diagrams and clear explanations both of the Bible and our contemporary world, Christopher Watkin reclaims the Trinity and creation from their cultural despisers and shows how these foundational doctrines speak into, question, and reorient some of the most important debates in today’s society.

And so, we now have this major volume coming out and we are excited to alert you to it. Here is how the publisher describes it:

In Biblical Critical Theory, Christopher Watkin draws a winsome vision for biblical cultural engagement in which faithfulness to Scripture and sensitivity to culture walk hand in hand. If Christians want to speak with a fresh, engaging and constructive voice within our culture, we need to press deeper into the core truths of the Bible.

Listen to this:

A book that I have been eagerly anticipating for years. … My prayers are that this book will bear much intellectual and spiritual fruit in many lives over the decades ahead.      — Timothy Keller, founding pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian, New York 

An important update of Augustine’s City of God, a proposal for making biblical sense of what is happening in contemporary culture. — Kevin Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, The Pastor as Public Theologian: Reclaiming a Lost Vision

Christopher Watkin’s expert, timely compendium of Christian Scripture’s subversive engagement of dominating themes of our modern age brings welcome healing to our world. — Esther Lightcap Meek, author of Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People

Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day’s Radical Vision and Its Challenge for Our Times  D. L. Mayfield (Broadleaf) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59  DUE NOVEMBER 8, 2022

This sits even now on my bedside and my frustratingly hectic pace of life these past few weeks (and a stack of other important volumes) has kept me from diving in as a wanted to. But any day now this will become one of my favorite books of the year, I am sure.

Those who know much about Dorothy and those who do not, I think, will be excellently served by this one-of-a-kind book. Mayfield is an edgy sort of post evangelical, I gather, and this puts her among the very best fans of The Catholic Worker,  the newspaper and movement. Jim Wallis, Lisa Sharon Harper, David Dark, Shane Claiborne and any number of non-Roman Catholic activists have drawn inspiration from Day’s radical lifestyle, her service of the poor no matter what, and her faithfulness to the church, despite all. My own journey has been crisscrossed by a number of CW folk and I must say that the extraordinary biography Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century by John Loughery and Randolph Blythe remains one of my all time favorite books. As I heard that DL was doing this one, I prayed that she knew Loughery and Blythe’s work and indeed she does. The footnotes are just fascinating and excellent. This author of Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith has now given us a perfect follow up to that fabulous memoir.

Unruly Saint is written by a very good writer and a good thinker, a woman who, like Dorothy, it seems, is seeking some new way to be faithful to God, to inhabit the Christian tradition well, to serve and love others. In this sense the book is almost a memoir, a story of Mayfield’s own encounter with Day. Although she seems very knowledgeable she says it is not, technically, a biography. It is Dorothy’s challenge to us, illustrated keenly as DL herself grappled with the woman and her books and her legacy.

One of Dorothy’s friends was Robert Ellsberg, now editor at Orbis Books. He has a forward in Unruly (quite an honor) and he says that Dorothy would have liked DL and would have liked the book. He quotes, as I had hoped, that great line at the end of The Long Loneliness, “It happened as we sat there talking and it is still going on.” He continues, “In her encounter with Dorothy, D.L. Mayfield has caught that spark. And in this book she passes it on.”

There are bunches of great endorsements of this, but that one is all we need. If Ellsworth says it is one to read, then trust that. Pre-order it today and we’ll send it out a bit early. 

The Heart in Pilgrimage: A Treasury of Classic Devotionals on the Christian Life Leland Ryken (Crossway) $34.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $27.99  DUE NOVEMBER 8, 2022

I have not laid eyes on this at all but the name alone — esteemed literary professor, Leland Ryken — gives you a hint that this will be a rich, classic, warm (if heady) collection, nicely made by Crossway (even with a ribbon marker.) It’s going to make a fabulous gift for those who don’t mind the older cadences and rhetoric of classic devotional literature.

Since I cannot say much, here are those who can, and do:

Having already opened the eyes of the body of Christ to its treasury of devotional poetry in The Soul in Paraphrase, Leland Ryken now widens our vision to take in the depth and breadth of two millennia of devotional prose. Running the gamut from the giants of the genre (Augustine, John Donne, Jonathan Edwards, Martin Luther, Brother Lawrence, Blaise Pascal, Julian of Norwich, Bernard of Clairvaux) to writers we do not usually identify with devotional writing (Florence Nightingale, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George MacDonald, Jane Austen, George Washington Carver), The Heart in Pilgrimage conducts its readers on a spiritual journey that is well worth taking. — Louis Markos, Professor in English, Houston Baptist University; author The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes

Whenever I am asked to recommend a volume that combines literary study with sound Christian teaching, I recommend Leland Ryken. His new collection of rich devotional literature will move to the top of my list of recommended works. The Heart in Pilgrimage is a treasury of wisdom and beauty to which readers will return again and again.” — Karen Swallow Prior, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books

Like cool water to a parched throat, Leland Ryken has produced a soul-quenching gift with this collection of devotionals. Filled with beautiful writing devoted to an even more beautiful subject, The Heart in Pilgrimage delivers the truths of the Christian faith through masterful expression, promising to awaken fresh affections for the Lord among believers of every stripe. — Collin Huber, Senior Editor, Fathom Magazine

Christianity and Critical Race Theory: A Faithful and Constructive Conversation Robert Chao Romero & Jeff Liou (Baker Academic) $23.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19  DELAYED – NOW DUE APRIL 2023

We have been waiting for a solid book like this with sympathies for racial justice activism and a knowing awareness that the Bible is clear about being, in a righteous way, woke. We must wake up to social injustices and imagine the new thing God is doing, calling out systemic injustices and helping us all grapple with where we are in this moment of history.

Naturally, some who have posited theories about the nature of the real world as we know it — as in the hard sciences, say — are atheistic, and of those, some are nonetheless congenial to Christian values and some are hostile. Some who are mostly right carry some odd baggage. It is, as they say, a mixed bag.

And so, in our efforts to be faithful Christian thinkers about the ideas that are in the air around us, we must “take every thought captive” and grapple wisely with the claims and the critique of every school of thought and every lively ideology. Things such as CRT.

Sadly, this particular school of thought has been bandied about with whole books against it, ill-informed preachers and writers throwing the baby out with the bath water, and, worse, getting on right-wing radio shows and firing up the crowds to get them to despise this “CRT” even as they hardly know what it is. Some pseudo-scholars have weighed in louder than they should have and even good friends have broken fellowship over their opinions of these second and third level authors. This forthcoming one is going to be wise and solid, I’m sure.

This book, I believe, will go to the primary sources, suss out what shapes them and how they have been influential. It will not suffer fools but it will not be partisan or ideological, either. As the publisher calmly puts it, “Their aim is to offer analysis and critique that go beyond the debates about social identity and the culture wars and aid those who are engaging the issues in Christian life and ministry. Reflection/discussion questions, exercises, a glossary of key CRT terms, and suggested readings make the book helpful for students or small groups.”

Here is the fascinating arrangement of the book. Notice this:

• 1. Creation: Community Cultural Wealth and the Glory and Honor of the Nations
• 2. Fall: Sin and Racism–the Ordinary Businesses of Society
• 3. Redemption: CRT in Institutions
• 4. Consummation: The Beloved Community

I cannot wait to get my hands on this. You, too? Pre-order it now and we will send it the moment it comes in — a bit early, we suspect.

Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology Through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-Earth Austin Freeman (Lexham) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59  DUE NOVEMBER 16, 2022

We’re very excited about this, seeing how a Protestant (with a PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and now teaching at Houston Baptist, no less) creates what some will no doubt consider to be the standard text on the theology of JRR Tolkien. Allow me to just crib from the publishers info — it so fascinating us and want to highlight it here:

J. R. R. Tolkien was many things: English Catholic, father and husband, survivor of two world wars, Oxford professor, and author. But he was also a theologian. Tolkien’s writings exhibit a coherent theology of God and his works, but Tolkien did not present his views with systematic arguments. Rather, he expressed theology through story.

In Tolkien Dogmatics, Austin M. Freeman inspects Tolkien’s entire corpus — The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and beyond — as a window into his theology. In his stories, lectures, and letters, Tolkien creatively and carefully engaged with his Christian faith. Tolkien Dogmatics is a comprehensive manual of Tolkien’s theological thought arranged in traditional systematic theology categories, with sections on God, revelation, creation, evil, Christ and salvation, the church, and last things. Through Tolkien’s imagination, we reencounter our faith.

By the way, did you know that although there are maybe a zillion or so books about Tolkien’s pal C.S. Lewis, I only know one book that literally explores and systematizes Lewis’s theological ideas? That is the brilliant little volume called Deeper Magic: The Theology Behind the Writings of C.S. Lewis by the lively Donald T. Williams, published by Square Halo Books. And, by the way, you should know their two exceptionally interesting books, C.S. Lewis and the Arts: Creativity in the Shadowlands and J.R.R. Tolkien and the Arts: A Theology of Subcreation. So much goodness!

Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Pádraig Ó Tuama (W. W. Norton & Company) $27.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.36  DUE DECEMBER 6, 2022

I hope you know the world-famous Irish poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama. His extraordinary, lovely book published by Broadleaf takes the name of his website, In the Shelter. He is interested there in questions of violence and exclusion, hospitality and home, shelter and redemption. In recent years he has become known for more than his peacemaking work in Northern Ireland (see his Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community or the moving Between the Bells: Stories of Reconciliation from Corrymeela) and is increasingly recognized as a poet of considerable skill and wide appeal. You may have heard him on NPR as he hosted the On Being poetry podcast called “Poetry Unbound.” It is from that project that he gets the title of this brand new volume.

This book is a collection of fifty poems (mostly by contemporary poets, such as, say, Ada Lemon or Ilya Kaminsky or Margaret Atwood) and he then offers pages and pages of wonderfully touching and observant reflection. He is not only a splendid curator of poems, he is a teacher, a guide, and a spiritual director. It is extraordinary.

Poetry Unbound is fifty poems and 300 pages of commentary revealing and confessing why a line of verse might make you weep. But more than that, it is a collection of moments and meditations and a turning toward the ways that some memories, of sorrow and joy, might make us hold on a little while longer, long enough in fact.– Reginald Dwayne Betts, author of Felon

Mesmerizing, magical, deeply moving…. If you are looking for a read that will warm your heart, inspire your creative mind, and renew your faith in the resilience of the human race, look no further. — Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees

Learning Humility: A Year of Searching for a Vanishing Virtue Richard J. Foster (IVP) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00  DUE DECEMBER 6, 2022 (expected sooner.)

I have not seen this yet but it is nearly a publishing event when the great Richard Foster releases a new book. His Celebration of Discipline continues to sell decades since its release date and this joyous, exceptionally well-read, and helpful Quaker — who knows the Catholic monastic tradition better than most Catholics — has given us many rich and lasting books. This one is culturally urgent and is curious — it is arranged by the sessions of the Lakota seasons.

These two quotes by two respected companions and friends explain the book wonderfully. Please read: 

Humility is an essential and highly nuanced topic for us Christians; there are such fine lines to be found–between humility and humiliation, self-regard and self-promotion, healthy self-esteem and the sin of pride. Foster finds the line and walks it beautifully. The idea that we do not try to attain humility directly but we ‘come at the matter indirectly. We simply take up those things that, in God’s time and in God’s way, will lead us into the virtue of humility’ is tremendously hopeful. It is worth the price of the book. — Ruth Haley Barton, founder of the Transforming Center and author of Sacred Rhythms

Destined to be another classic from Richard J. Foster, Learning Humility is a gift from a gifted writer. In this book we get to walk with Richard not only on the trails of Colorado but also on the terrain of the soul. Richard is a true scribe of the kingdom who brings forth treasures old and new (Matthew 13:52). The breadth and depth of the wisdom bearers he quotes is immense, from Peter and Paul, to Evagrius and Julian, to Chief Joseph and Underhill, to Kelly and Law, and to Murray and contemporary writers. Framed by the thirteen months and moons of the Lakota and filled with liturgies and litanies, this book ignited in me a hunger for humility in my own life. This is one of Richard’s signature gifts: he makes us long for difficult things by helping us see that virtues, like humility, are the pearl of great price, worth giving all we have to obtain it. This book is an engaging and insightful gem, and I am the better for having read it.   –James Bryan Smith, author of The Good and Beautiful God

This is a major volume on a simple subject. Oh my. Order it now.

Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious: Reframed and Expanded David Dark (Broadleaf Books) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19  DUE DECEMBER 13, 2022

Coming a few weeks before Christmas, this newly imagined, significantly edited, “reframed and expanded” edition of a great contemporary classic is sure to be a great read for many (and a great gift as well.) I did a pretty lengthy review of the first edition back five or six years ago. What a joy to see it is being reissued, soon.

Here’s the gist: David is convinced, rightly so, that everyone is religious. No one is, as they say, neutral. Or to shift the image a bit, everyone lives within a story. Everyone is coming from somewhere. Helping people realize the urgency of this human task of being honest about what drives or inspires us is a great gift and with Dark’s characteristic fluency in the popular arts and Americana literature and great religious thinkers, he can appeal to a very wide swath of good folk. His imagined reader — at least for the first edition — was perhaps the somewhat culturally hip and socially aware “spiritual but not religious” or maybe the proverbial “none.” As in “none of the above.” But, of course, life is too short for any of that. “Come on, I’m talking to you” as the Tears for Fears song went. Come on!

David is fiesty and gentle, kind and blunt. He loves the poetic nay-saying of Daniel Berrigan and the bold prophetic clarity of Southern Baptists like Will Campbell and Clarence Jordan. He loves The Simpsons and early on wrote about Radiohead and U2. These days he’s a bit of a twitter sensation, a righteous gadfly and minor pain in the backside to those who do not love their neighbors well, especially if they are celebrities who might do otherwise. He’s a lovely man, a strong thinker, and a vivid communicator. This book is all that.

Here is what the publisher suggests is in store in this updated edition:

“With the same keen powers of cultural observation, candor, and wit his readers have come to know and love, Dark weaves in current themes around the pandemic and vaccine responses, Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements, Critical Race Theory, and more. By looking intentionally at our weird religious background (we all have one), he helps us acknowledge the content of our everyday existence–the good, the bad, and the glaringly inconsistent. When we make peace with the idea of being religious, we can more practically envision an undivided life.”

For those of us who claim to be religious and those of us who religiously deny such labels, Dark grants us the gift and burden to think deeply about the imagination, scaffolding, and consequences of our religiosity. In reading his journey and cautions, my sense of personal accountability and religious identity were expanded. Such is a book that reads the reader and if we stick with it we gain insight into self and neighbor. — Christina Edmondson, scholar activist and host of Truth’s Table podcast, author of Faithful Antiracism.

David Dark is one of our most astute and necessary cultural critics. His work gracefully opens new doors of understanding and breaks down barriers between secular and non-, and it puts a lot of old mythology out to pasture with a daring affirmation at the heart of his radical critique. Life’s Too Short refreshingly ropes everyone in, insisting that we’re all in it together. We forget that. — Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

++++

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BookNotes

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DISCOUNT

20% OFF

Over the last few weeks I have had one of the most electrifying and harrowing reading experiences of my life. I have read a handful of books back to back and I want very much to tell you about them. No, I am not oddly obsessed (well, okay, maybe a little) but I feel strongly that I am trying to live into one of my life verses, 1 Chronicles 12:23, that the Lord gave to me in 1978. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure; it’s the one that mentions the “sons of Issachar” who “understood the times and knew what God’s people should do.” Our bookstore was designed and we continue to curate it, we sometimes say, to help cultivate wise sons and daughters of Issachar.

And so, I invite you to read my reflections on five books about the former President Trump’s campaign to stop the counting of proper votes in that dramatic 2020 election and his intention to overturn the certification of them in that fateful electoral college procedure on January 6th, 2021.

(As always, you can order them at our discounted prices by clicking on the link at the very end of this long BookNotes column.)

That Mr. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign started even before he was elected in 2016 when he warned, wrongly, that American elections are fraudulent, is well known. The spectacular hold the vast pattern of often egregious lies, QAnon nonsense, and conspiracy theories that went from wacky to weird to truly absurd, has had on his MAGA followers has been truly something to ponder. That some otherwise smart people have gotten caught up in this cult-like devotion (despite no evidence proving any of his election allegations) is both heartbreaking and mind-numbingly maddening. That otherwise fine Christian folks would fall for the exceptionally strange ideas proposed by outrageous oddballs like Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn and evil-doers like Roger Stone and Alex Jones is absolutely beyond me. How can Christian people live with themselves aligning themselves with such stuff?

That it all gave rise to bloody and murderous hand-to-hand combat — outnumbered police were stabbed with flags used as spears; one poor cop had his gas masked ripped off of him while held down and was sprayed mercilessly with bear spray — as a traitorous Republican mob stormed their way into the Capitol, some intending to prevent the peaceful transfer of power (and others, it seems, intending to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi) is a stain on the Trump movement that we must never forget. 

These five books are reputable and moving. I found them difficult to put down; if it wasn’t so very recent and true and consequential I’d say they were entertaining in a spy and mystery-thriller kind of way. They are excellently documented and offer horrific detail and new insights into what went on leading up to the uprising, perhaps the most momentous civic event of our lifetime.

That the Republic Party has increasingly been taken captive by a new generation of extremist Trumpians is certainly one of the most significant developments in our contemporary political landscape. How Mr. Trump’s flamboyant dishonesty about “the steal” captured the imaginations of so many remains inexplicable. These books do not answer this question although they are stand-outs among a cascade of new titles (with more to come) trying to figure out what the heck has happened to us as a nation, and, at least, what we should do about the riotous mob who attacked the Capitol to do political damage if not to stage an actual coup.

Behind much of it looms the question of what we should make of the fact that many of our fellow citizens either deny or minimize the violent realities of the January 6th take-over of the Capitol and who continue to believe, against all evidence, that the vote counting of the 2020 election was dishonest.

(That some who are most vocal about the outlandish and unproven allegation of a “Steal” are running for office — like in our own state with the religiously unusual candidate Mastriano [don’t get me started about his refusal to disavow the Rod of Iron cult] and how he targets fellow citizens for future injustice — should alarm any normal citizen, and certainly Biblically-informed Christians who should surely know better. But he praises the Lord and plays Steven Curtis Chapman songs at his rallies. Heaven help us.)

This is serious stuff, my friends, and we at Hearts & Minds take seriously our Issacharian role to alert you to these sorts of books. As always here at BookNotes, they are 20% off. Order some today by clicking on the link at the very end.

TWO MORE QUICK INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS: Because this terrible assault on truth and facts and law and order and the duly elected winner of the 2020 election has been conducted by those on the far-right side of the political spectrum and given how the mainstream GOP was largely complicit and implicated in this, these books will seem quite partisan. I am sorry. One does not need to be a loyalist to the Democratic Party or its policies (I am not) to believe that the Republicans have lost their moral center by refusing to distance themselves from the racist alt-right and failing to extricate themselves from the dishonesty of the Trumpian MAGA movement.

I often call for followers of Christ to be less politically partisan and to stand with the poor and oppressed and for righteous ways regardless of party affiliation. “Principles, not parties” is how one good Christian civic organization puts it. We must critique the philosophical ideologies of both major parties and I often cite the heavy but important book by David Koyzis, Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (IVP; $35.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00.) My dear and late friend Ron Sider was impeccable in this as can be seen in his manifesto about how to “think Christianly” about political policy, seen most thoroughly in his Just Politics: A Guide for Christian Engagement (Brazos Press; $24.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20.) There are plenty of other great books on nurturing a truly Christian sense of citizenship and political life but I mention these to remind us that we are not trying to be partisan. That isn’t the point.

In any case, of these five riveting reads, two were written by Republicans, one by a Democratic Congressman, and two by reporters whose affiliations I do not know. All are fair about the seriously unethical ways Mr. Trump comported himself and the incredibly odd situation with so many insisting, without any evidence, that the election was stolen. Each remind us that all of this is worse than most of us realize and that it is a cultural matter that we must more deeply understand.

Which leads me to a final point in my preamble. How in the world did so many people fall for the Big Lie and how does propaganda and disinformation make its way into the common citizenry? I have previously recommended Bonnie Kristian’s excellent new book Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (Brazos Press; $24.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99.) It is a wonderful read, eloquent and moderate in tone. (Given how wildly dangerous the QAnon and Stop the Steal stuff has been, I’d have wished for a bit more zealous outcry from here but she is exceedingly calm and exceptionally balanced.) Her study of mass media and groupthink and the ethics of news consumption and what to do about what we know and what we don’t know, is a must-read these days. As Jeffrey Bilbro (the gentle Wendell Berry scholar who wrote the beautiful Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry Into the News) said of it, Untrustworthy “is never condescending and always sympathetic; it is never partisan and always incisive.” Kristian offers specific ways to take action to combat “the truth crisis” in our lives, families, and church communities, even offering a wonderfully clear proposal for “a practical epistemology.”  Thank God.

Okay. Put on your seatbelts, friends. This is going to get bumpy. I hope you order several of these from us asap.

 Here are the books I will be describing.

• Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show Jonathan Karl (Dutton) $28.00   OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40
• The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It Mark Bowden & Matthew Teague (Atlantic Monthly Press) $28.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40
• The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th Denver Riggleman with Walker Hunter (Henry Holt & Company) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99
• Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell Tim Miller (Harper) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59
• Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy Jamie Raskin (Harper) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show Jonathan Karl (Dutton) $28.00   OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

Jonathan Karl is the Chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and the author of a previous work on the incessantly peculiar and often despicable behaviors of our 45th President, Front Row at the Trump Show. His crisp, informative reporting and essential fairness has been affirmed by many principled conservatives who endorsed his first book —Peggy Noonan (in the Wall Street Journal), the biographer of Ronald Reagan, Lou Cannon, the nearly impeccable George F. Will.

One significant critic said “we’ve read every book about the Trump presidency. This is the best.” 

This new one picks up where the previous left off, but it is travelling very certain ground—“the explosive account of the downfall of the Tump president and the betrayal of American democracy.” Karl has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent (and had remarkable access to him, including after Biden’s inauguration; there is a spectacular chapter at the end of Karl being hosted by Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

This is a vivid account of the last months of the Trump campaign by a highly qualified journalist. I have postie-notes and book-markers throughout this book highlighting hundreds of the jaw-dropping episodes that Karl tell. Some are utterly bizarre, others politically unorthodox, many just rude (such as how the Trump family broke the age old tradition of inviting the next President and his wife to visit in the White House before the inauguration; even though Trump had spent endless time trying to prove that Obama wasn’t even a real American, then President Obama and his wife entertained the Trump’s twice prior to their own move in day.) More egregious dangerous things unfold, as we know, and Mr. Karl gives us a front row seat.

It starts with the little known episode of how Mr. Trump’s royal “body guy” (a security guard who had previously been fired) was given an unprecedented position of power whereby he could fire almost anyone in the White House; the chapter called “The Purge” tells of the work of no-nothing Johnny Mentee. I could hardly believe my eyes learning about that. Karl moves to stories of Covid (and how the President knowingly risked spreading it to others, including the famous episode when Chris Christie got it) and the strange press conference where the President rambled on about possibly injecting cleaners. Poor Dr. Birx, who was sitting right there with the under secretary of Homeland Security who was equally aghast. It goes from bizarre to despicable when, in the next chapter, there is a moment by moment exploration of the famous church photo-op. You know — the one with the unjust, violent removal of protesters and the take-over of a local church while holding a Bible in a rather awkward manner. Whew.

Betrayal brings us into the frantic days of the election and the effort to overturn election results. On and on it goes for 350 pages and I wanted more when it was over.  There is so much included, and nicely written. Some have said it is the definitive account of the final months and no one reading it would deny that what happened at the end of 2020 was riveting to read about and enough to send shivers up the spine of most serious patriots. 

Betrayal convincingly makes the case that the period between Election Day and Inauguration Day was even more precarious than we knew at the time. Karl isn’t a progressive pundit or a hyperbolic columnist. He is one of the most-respected correspondents in DC He and so many others are saying: America was on the precipice of a constitutional crisis. And we could wind up back there again soon.          — Brian Stelter, CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter

The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It Mark Bowden & Matthew Teague (Atlantic Monthly Press) $28.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

This is one of the most detailed studies of the Trump Big Lie that I have read and should sure convince anyone anywhere that his conspiratorial accusations are nonsensical, incoherent, and often laughably ridiculous. You have to read the accounts of this dramatic story yourself to learn it all, but the short version is that it tells in narrative fashion — written with such verve that you almost think your reading a Grisham novel or spy drama — of the accusations of election fraud and what did or didn’t happen in each account. It would take pages to even summarize the many points and counterpoints but Bowden & Teague deserve an award for investigative reporting for this patriotic truth-telling. This is very, very informative and offers crucial information. One reviewer called it “a marvel of reporting.” Indeed.

Some of the accusations Trump’s people make (and continue to make) are just nutty and can be dismissed easily. There was a picture of somebody moving boxes and it was tweeted out with a caption insisting it showed shenanigans. On investigation it became obvious that the poll workers (under the constant gaze of bipartisan poll watchers) did this throughout their process, moving boxes from this location to that, counted and double-counted, moved from this space to that. There was absolutely nothing nefarious about the picture whatsoever.

In many of the cases — including some that the Trump team insisted was proof of fraud — Trump’s election count was actually in the lead. The claims of fake stuff happening was ludicrous, for starters, unkind to our many dedicated counters and poll workers who were doing their best and, frankly, foolish for Trump since he was winning in those very places he insisted stuff was fishy. How dumb.

The book goes into dramatic detail as it races across the country, follows the accusations and demands for recounts, the lawsuits (those thrown out and those that went to court where Trump’s team repeatedly lost. Lost, lost, lost. They had their day in court — sometimes tried by Trump-appointed judges! — and they lost. There is just no there, there. This book explains it all in dramatic storytelling, loaded with facts. 

The Steal is powerful on several levels and is a must-read for anyone curious about the legitimacy of the claims of fraud, the steal, the accusations of corruption. It takes these claims seriously at times and goes to great lengths to study the back story, the politics, the facts on the ground about how votes are counted and recounted, and how it all ends up. There is nothing like it in print and deserves to be widely known as we will continue to have to clarify the true truth to people who — for reasons that are beyond me — continue to believe against the evidence that the election was stolen.

Some of the claims that come into play are technical in nature (that is, claiming that Dominion computers could be hacked.) Upon closer look the allegations were just weird — claims about Venezuelan Hugo Chavez (who is dead) having intercepted computers that count votes (a literal impossibility, by the way, since the voting isn’t “on line.”) Claims that somebody in Germany was playing footloose with the votes. (Again, this is simply impossible. High school computer science geeks could explain this.) Sidney Powell and Rudy Giulianii continued to make outrageous claims of this impossible sort and continued to make them even after they were proven to be false. They were often chastised by judges during their proverbial day in court (get that: they evidence was so non-existence, that even Trump appointed judges mocked them and threw out the claims, almost always.) Still, they continued to spread falsehoods about the so-called stolen election, flagrantly repeating episodes that had been shown to be false. It took way, way too long for President Trump to finally cut loose the delusional Powell, but she did her damage.

The Steal explores the drama of these characters and their wacky schemes, going into great detail about the allegations made by the disgraced Attorney Powell and the scary Michael Flynn, of the Pillow Guy Mike Lindell and Jenna Ellis and the religiously heterodox Pennsylvania Gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. If this were a suspense thriller, a spy novel, we would say these characters are simply too outlandish to be true. But yet, here we are.

The book tells of the true believers — there is the confused Gary Phelman who demanded access to where other poll watchers already were because he has an unofficial “certificate” making him (as he put it, “the ears and eyes of the President of the United States” who was apparently sending out these unauthorized certificates) and the pushy Greg Stenstrom in Chester County who demanded to be allowed to go behind the scenes at a ballot counting spot (The Wharf, in Delco, PA) because he had an authorization to be a poll watcher in another part of the county. That was where that footage came from that went viral of a Republican poll watcher being excluded — there already were proper Republican poll watchers in place and Stenstrom simply wasn’t authorized to be in that location, so of course they didn’t admit him. But it sure looked bad on film and not only did it fire up the skeptical base about Democrat shenanigans, it so fired up Stenstrom that he brow beat a local judge to pass a ruling allowing him to delay the count and get himself in. (Where, importantly, there was no foul play.) Then there were the unscrupulous folks behind Project Veritas — and the over-reaction story about one poor postal worker in Erie, PA. You’ve got to read about him. Story after story, The Steal will keep you up at night, exploring fairly each allegation, state by state, to determine what really happened.

Over and over the stakes are high and these accusations were gaining momentum, passed around the internets among those expecting a steal — Mr Trump had said it would happen — reading trouble into all sorts of pretty normal stuff. The self fulfilling prophesies won the day, despite the facts of minimal election errors. Granted, the Covid pandemic and the necessary rules about social distancing didn’t help any; that differing states having different rules about mail-in ballots is discussed which gave rise to some understandable frustrations which were properly adjudicated in the courts. (Our own situation in Pennsylvania being one of the more sticky ones, actually.)

The final clause in the subtitle of The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It is important as the book looks at who the real heroes of our election were. It is, in the final analysis, a tribute to those who said “no” to the trouble-makers, who played by the rules and insisted others do, too. Some — like Brad Raffensperger, the Trump-supporting election guy (technically called the Secretary of State) in Georgia — famously stood their ground even when their preferred candidate lost the election. For bravely abiding by proper law and order with impeccable scruples they got death threats and vile phone messages, rape threats and hate mail and worse. Why the Trump-driven GOP didn’t “call out” those who are so vulgar and so unhinged is beyond me but I applaud this book for exposing the ugliness of some and the quiet heroism of others.

From Arizona to Michigan to Pennsylvania to George the threat of violence against those following the rules was sickening. Your heart will go out to those (often Republican) local leaders who didn’t fall for the groupthink of Trump’s pressure campaign and simply followed the evidence and stuck to the facts. And paid a price to do so. This book needs to be read.

There is a lot of content in this page-turner of a book, lots of drama; it is almost mind-numbing to what lengths the Trump MAGA team would go to try to save the election from being stolen, even as it became evident that the votes were legit and even after lawsuit after lawsuit found nothing. is a book that you will never forget about a movement that, sadly, we may not be able to forget. This stuff is not going away. The Steal is a book that is must to have on your shelf for future reference.

There are, by the way, three appendices included. There is a list of House of Representatives members who objected to certifying the electoral college results. There is a list of Senators who refused to certify the electoral college results. And there is a listing and guide to the lawsuits filed to challenge the 2020 election results. This, truly, will bring you up to speed.

The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th Denver Riggleman with Walker Hunter (Henry Holt & Company) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Okay, if Bowden and Teague are investigate reporters trying to fairly tell about the effort to undo the elections and the arguments about what was fudged, what was sound, what the complaints were and why those accusations all fall flat — all by immersing us in the stories of those who resisted these fly-by-night accusers (those they call “the true patriots”) then this book is an insiders look on just what happened and how it all went south, especially with the uprising on January 6th. This is one insider’s view and, man, is it spicy. And informative. And real.  Wow.

Denver Riggleman is quite a character. He served as a one-term GOP Representative in DC and because of his former career in the Air Force intelligence and experience with the NSA and expertise in the field of technical aspects of intelligence (tracking phone calls, just for instance) he served for a bit on The US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. (It was not a Commission, a la the popular 9/11 Commission, by the way, as that was voted down, after seemingly being agreed upon by the House Republicans.) We learn a bit about Riggleman’s story and how he came to serve the Committee as a technical advisor and investigator. It is colorful, a bit raw — he is not a polished writer but a straight shooting military guy who is concerned about all the partisan nonsense.

This is the first book by a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate — my hunch is not all on the Committee are glad Riggleman has published his own telling of his work so soon; he does seem to be a bit of a fast-moving, get her done kind of guy, so it makes sense. I have to tell you a bit about who Riggleman is and what qualified him to serve the Commission and why it is, I’ve come to believe, exceedingly valuable to have his side of things in print. His personal story interspersed with the drama of his technical investigations sure makes for one heckuva read. Wow — what a glimpse into the real world of intelligence gathering.

Three things about Riggleman. He was raised Mormon but left that world with some degree of appreciation — he’s a good guy at heart, I’m sure — but with a lot of red flags about cults, groupthink, superstition, conspiracy theories, and the like. He sees that stuff a mile away and he does not suffer fools gladly, as they say. He doesn’t cross over any lines — it could have been studied more — but his wondering why so many people fall for what he calls the “bullshit” (that’s about the least colorful thing he calls it) of the Trump MAGA accusations about a stolen election is tremendously interesting. His background in cults makes it even more so. He has seen radicalization in Afghanistan and the Middle East and cut his military teeth in the awful horror of the Serbian/Croatian wars so he has some experience in sizing up how people become “true believers” in a cause that is not rooted in reality or truth or goodness. Anyway, his growing up rough, the conversion of his family to a religious faith and his determination that it was somewhat cult-like is helpful.

Secondly, as I’ve said, he’s a military guy with tons of experience in cracking codes, tracking down hidden information, doing bigger things than finding missing phone numbers. But that’s where his expertise came in handy as he set up what he had hoped would be a several million dollar research center to trace the network of call contacts in the phone given to the Committee by Mark Meadows, President Trump’s Chief of Staff. The thousands of texts, images, calls, and connections are at first not useful information — they’ve got millions of lines of numbers, but at first no names attached — but he created a huge graph connecting who called who. He hired some geeks in Greensburg PA with various interfacing software programs to get on all this, trying to find out which unsavory characters — The Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, etc. — were most in touch with White House personnel leading up to the legal and bloody attack on the Capitol on January 6th. What he discovers will blow your mind.

As I have said before — and as I trust you surely know — everybody knew they were coming. The White House had contact with some who planned the insurrection, and it was well known that some who were coming were spreading the word to bring weapons. Anybody paying attention to Facebook and the web that week knew it was happening; those tuned to the deep web and the dark web (as Riggleman explains) would have known much more. The question is how connected the White House was, and did the White House’s connection with creeps like Roger Stone (and Bannon and the rest of the cast of violent and unsavory characters) indicate that they had hoped for a violent attack on the Capitol police and the congresspeople in the building?  In any case, Riggleman has contacts in the spy biz  and he routinely consults with police investigations and he tells some pretty cool stories about the gear and the people — he knows a guy, as they say — they recruited on a shoestring budget to suss out who was involved in this illegal uprising to storm the Capitol and attempt to murder elected officials like Mike Pence. At certain points I had to pinch myself to remember this wasn’t a fictional spy novel but something that actually happened in our own capitol just a year or so ago.

Thirdly, Riggleman has been a life-long redneck conservative. He is proud that he lived in Appalachia for a while and he’s got this blue collar demeanor and perspective. He is outspoken and blunt, daring and right wing. At least he was. Like many people I know he overlooks the flaws of the likes of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and sees them and their time as an honorable era of positive, even Godly, Republicanism. He knows his Constitution and he loved his GOP. But with the Trump stuff, he grew sour and when he ran for office and ran afoul the party line — standing against racism, for instance — he grew bitter about much of the far right ideology and its tribe. His time in the Freedom Caucus (with central Pennsylvania’s own far right ideologue Congressman Scott Perry) has given him keen insight into human behavior, party loyalty, the idols of ideology, and why the “stolen election” nonsense has taken hold.

Riggleman is the guy for this book, exposing the stupidity of much of the Big Lie and yet showing compassion for the people — like his own mother! — who believe it. His blow by blow description of how they piece by piece figured out who was talking to who leading up to the riots makes the book move along with page-turning speed and gripping, no-nonsense prose. And there is the big question looming: who used that phone in the White House early afternoon June 6th to call somebody inside the Capitol, someone rioting that very moment? That seems to be Riggleman’s “white whale” and he is passionate about following the evidence, looking at the facts and seeing where that leads. He is less concerned about partisan points and more about the answers to his tech kinds of questions, especially questions about what he called “the Rosetta Stone for the January 6th investigation” — Meadow’s phone texts which, he says, provided “a staggering amount of information.” 

I suppose you know that (as he puts it) “The White House is technically required to keep track of the commander in chief’s calls, thanks to the Presidential Records Acts, which was enacted in the wake of Watergate.” He notes that this sometimes leaves room for negligence, carelessness, and, sometimes deliberate misconduct.

And I suppose you also know that on January 6th the White House went dark for seven hours and thirty-seven minutes.

He writes,

I didn’t know why the White House went dark and I didn’t really care. As an intelligence officer, you learn not to make assumptions. It might have been an innocent mistake; it could have been a cover-up. What mattered to me — as the senior technical advisor to the Committee and as an American — was why they stopped tracking the calls, and what happened next.

As the answers unfold and we learn the details (or at least those he in good conscience could share; he sometimes says he can’t say more) we also learn more about who is involved in this big network of neo-Nazi groups and Oath Keepers and right wing religionists and ordinary Republicans who believed Trump and his MAGA team. More interestingly, he wonders why people fall for this stuff.

Which leads him to QAnon. He is adept at cracking into the dark web and he knows some stuff — he can’t even say what all, I gather — about the espionage needed if we are going to figure out who is inspiring folks to do violence and things like the plan to prevent the election to go through. That there are these way-underground dark web groups with chat boards and such, shaping the fevered fears of many that then are picked up in more mainstream ways, is an immense problem. That huge networks like Fox picks up and repeat truly outlandish stuff from the dark webs is jaw-droppingly dangerous for our society and, frankly, our safety. 

Denver Riggleman tells of some sick, nutty conspiracies that someone who is at least seemingly respectable reports in some relatively mainstream way. The fake stories (about election fraud, or worse) get on some far right network — Trump’s own alternative to twitter, say, or OAN network. Next it is picked up by the more popular Fox and soon the sketchy story has been seen by millions. And they almost all believe it is gospel. How does this happen? What are we to do? 

Just when I thought The Breach had sort of peaked and had reached its dramatic climax, the next chapter (“The Traitor”) blew me away. Holy smokes — people actually believe that what was once a Benghazi conspiracy fringy story could morph into an accusation that Obama’s SEAL Team Six didn’t really kill Bin Laden (there was a body double) and Obama had one of the SEALs murdered. This harebrained QAnon stuff was retweeted by then President Trump!

Riggleman and his co-writer Walker Hunger tell of a press conference where Trump was directly asked about QAnon and he obviously lied about not knowing about who they are. The reporter played along, graciously explaining its theory about the Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals that the Democrats were supporting. The NBC White House correspondent Shannon Pettypiece said to the President, “Does that sound like something you are behind?”  The Breach tells what happened next and reflects on the story:

There it was. Trump was standing behind the White House podium. He hd the prefect opportunity to use the full force of his presidential platform to denounce the most unhinged and angry aspects of Canon. The chance to have a positive impact on the segment of his base that was going off the rails was all teed up for him. Trump didn’t take it. Nope. Rather than doing what any remotely decent person would have done, he actually doubled down and almost endorsed QAnon’s dark, apocalyptic vision of world affairs.

After quoting verbatim what the President said about QAnon, he observes,

The end-times death cult conspiracies were now coming from behind the White House podium.

This is not a curious digression but is deeply connected to the “Stop the Steal” marches, the wild stuff Ginny Thomas has said (about Democrats being captured and put on barges headed to GITMO) and more. How have things gotten this unhinged?

Riddleman — again, think of his background as a former Mormon which he now views as somewhat cult-like and his expertise on the psychology of radicalization from his work in counterterrorism doing Air Force intelligence in hot war zones overseas — is very, very concerned about the influence of conspiracy theories. In fact, before losing his last election, one of his heroic bipartisan efforts was to pass an anti-QAnon Resolution in the House.

This has led him also to take on the notorious election denier and Trump friend Alex Jones. If the Proud Boys engage in (among other awful stuff) holocaust denial, Alex Jones claimed that the Sandy Hook murders of children was a hoax. And these are the guys the beloved President befriended. Every time I see a Trump sign or yard side I think of this, wondering if my neighbors approve of such evil ideas? We simply must say it: Alex Jones is a dangerous and wicked man.  Riddleman is a brave Republican, willing to speak out about this sickness in the party.

And then, in Chapter 10 — “The Byrne Identity” — the book reports even yet weirder stuff. Riddleman expose the war documents Trump’s people had and, indeed, the next chapter is called “Executive Disorder” which shows how many MAGA hard-liners wanted Trump to use EO 13848, stretching it’s meaning, enabling him to declare an emergency and send out the National Guard and take over voting machines. This stuff tending towards a coup (and more from the likes of madman Patrick Byrne spelled out in his unbelievable Deep Capture website) was in the air. Trump’s advisers were increasingly bizarre and unprofessional — from Powell to Giuliani to Jenna Ellis. As a military man and hyper patriot, Riddleman has no time for the scoundrels. Of former and onetime national security adviser and dangerously odd General Michael Flynn and his coup-plotting (on, for instance, a Newsman interview on December 17th 2020), Riddleman cannot restrain his disdain:

I think Flynn is a shameful and spineless disgrace. I also recognize him as a clear and present danger.

I could say more but you get the drift. This is a deep dive into the far fringe elements of Trumpworld. Oddly, these conspiracy-filed voices seem to be his most loyal fans and certainly were influential in the days leading up to the big plan to take over the Capitol if Mike Pence didn’t come through to overturn the election. Surely not everyone knows that so much of this is so far out or otherwise good citizens would be running for the hills (or sending Tump-mania packing.) This kind of stuff needs to be read, discussed, and we need to put books like this into the hands of those who favor election-denying candidates. This book has some colorful language. It’s quite a read. You should know it.

Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell Tim Miller (Harper) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I was not sure I wanted to review this book, as its subtitle is overly provocative and the writing laced with casual profanity. The young-ish, hip author has been the consummate Republican operative and is very well known within the higher-ups of the Grand Old Party. He did communication work for candidates, admittedly for short term gain (often doing negative ads.) He was not happy with himself. I am not alert enough to national politics to have know his name but those in the know in the Republican movement know him well. Since he early on realized Mr. Trump was not good for the country or the party Tim Miller has become anathema among his former friends and colleagues. He a self-confident worker and independent thinker so I have a hunch he doesn’t really care what they think of him. Except, well, he sort of undid a lifetime of professional friendships and, uh, his whole career. So there’s that.

I’ve got several good friends who are fond of the old political theory adage about how one may not want to see “how the sausage is made.” Well, this mea culpa gives us a very rare view into the back room deals and fund-raising plans and media appearances and campaign strategy meetings and red-eye private jet flights and all sorts of other gigs that make up typical big time American political efforts. Mr. Miller had never wanted to be an elected official so most don’t know his name. But he is known by those behind the scenes — and those who report on that stuff, such as pundit James Carville, who says, “Everyone should read this book, especially fellow Democrats who want to better understand our political foes.”

Here’s the short version of Miller’s fast-paced, snarky memoir: he rose to fame and influence in the RNC as one of the architects of its widely reported “autopsy” after the 2012 landslide for Obama. As a keen-eyed and principled strategist, he worked with other top-level leaders to forge a winning plan that would help Republicans appeal to more folks (women in the blue suburbs, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ persons) and help them stay true to conservative values in a changing postmodern culture. Quite a feat, but this guy knew his stuff and worked hard with all sorts of important (and in some cases famous) politicos. 

Miller was the communication director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and before that the chief spokesman for the Republican National Committee during Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential Campaign. He worked with McCain, even in Iowa. To say he’s been around is an understatement. (And, whew, the amount of late night drinking these guys do is truly remarkable.) There is candor and revelation (and, one has to wonder, maybe a hint of spiritual longing, with prayer even mentioned once or twice.) He did lots of interviews with old friends and co-workers asking how they (perhaps like himself) justified their work with candidates who they personally disapproved of. Naturally, many had jobs they needed and careers they wanted and, well, they were motivated often by just trying to stay afloat.

He actually has sort of a taxonomy of different ways different people could live with themselves working for stuff that was frankly wrong. These handful of chapters is very interesting and I think pretty insightful.

Interestingly he tells a lot of stories — once he was editing a fund raising newsletter that was targeting Republican senior citizens. It was laden with race-baiting and all sorts of alarmist scary stuff. He “red-lined” some of it but his bosses (and the candidate in question) told him that unless the press would write about this negative sort of fear-mongering stuff, he shouldn’t edit it. In retrospect he realized this was just wrong and he didn’t speak up.

Maybe you recall an old Sidney Lumet film called Power (with Richard Gere, Gene Hackman, Julie Christie, Denzel Washington) about the campaign consultants behind the scenes as they shape a candidate for public consumption and their own compromises with their own sense of ethics — it’s their job, after all. It’s a great movie about personal integrity and I kept thinking of it as I read this page-turning expose of how and why so many relatively normal, respectable, decent Republican players turned a blind eye to Trump’s corruption, narcissism, bad temper, crass materialism, no-nothing anti-intellectualism, routine dishonesty, and confusion about American politics and Republican principles. Why?

Why, indeed? We have heard that many Republicans privately despised the President (and many feared him as well, for understandable reasons.) Yet the question remains “How did this happen?”

Miller is angry and he is angry at himself. Yet he is not a jerk and this isn’t merely a hard critique, although it is that. He is understandably understanding. The jacket flap copy says he “cuts into all the hubris, ambition, idiocy, desperation, and self-deception for everyone to see” and he does. He names names, often, and describes long, heart-to-heart debates with key GOP operatives, pushing them to be honest with themselves, to speak out, to right the ship. It is bracingly honest, but while it promises to expose “the contortions of his former peers in the conservative establishment” he is not mean-spirited or ugly about it all. He is mostly heart-broken and alarmed. As he puts it, he “draws a straight line between the actions of the 2000s GOP and the Trumpian takeover of the Republican political class, including the horrors of January 6, 2021.”

That he tells of his coming out as a gay man (and the “mental gymnastics that enable him to justify becoming a hit man for homophobes”) reveals a lot. It is a gripping book, at times quite tender, and interesting in all sorts of ways. Beyond the political details, it is a profound study of what it means to be true to one’s values, to be authentic and honest, to have integrity. Wild as it is and as much cool, hipster lingo as there is, it is really worth reading. The author is earnest and it is to the point and is trying to cultivate a sense of honesty and integrity.

Consider this hefty endorsement:

When the history of this era is written, the dominant question will likely be, How did this happen? Tim Miller’s Why We Did It offers a crucial insider’s answer to that question. It’s a must-read report from the belly of the beast detailing how the unimaginable becomes inevitable. Looking back at a career in politics and being horrified at what you were part of is not the most fun exercise in life. Tim examines his role with clear honesty, sadness, and an amusing sense of the absurd. This is a big, important book. Read it. — Stuart Stevens, political consultant and co-founder of Strategic Partners & Media.

Or this, which captures much about Why We Did It:

Tim is a supremely gifted storyteller who writes with brutal honesty and stylish gallows humor about the GOP’s toxic mix of opportunists, joy riders, and grifters who enabled Donald Trump’s rise and guaranteed his enduring grip on the Republican Party. Tim takes a scalpel to the malignant tumor smothering American democracy by dissecting his own friends and onetime colleagues. The most valuable contribution of Tim’s book may be the anthropological examination of just how little separates a ‘normal’ Republican from an activist working to overthrow a free and fair presidential election. — Nicolle Wallace, Deadline: White House

Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy Jamie Raskin (Harper) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

This is the book I wanted to introduce first, but felt like maybe the others fit better early on the list. They are clear-headed and honest and robust in their investigations of the often utterly bizarre accusations of the Big Lie that so many have fallen for. I listed those first, but this one — oh my. It blew me away and is one of the most moving and compelling and tender books I have read in years. I said to Beth the other day it may have to be added on to my ever-changing list of Best Books I’ve Ever Read. I think it is almost that good and surely is unforgettable.

As you may know, Congressman Jamie Raskin is a Democratic leader from Maryland who helped with the first impeachment hearings against Donald Trump (that was the whole Russian election scam.) Before his time running (with his kids helping with the campaign) for a seat in Annapolis in the State House he was a good natured law professor. (He is a Harvard Law grad and a constitutional law guy, actually.) That is he pretty far left — sort of a fun and smiling Bernie, maybe — makes him super interesting as well.

We learn a bit about his famous dad (who had worked in the Kennedy administration for a which) who was arrested for anti-draft protest in 1968 with Dr. Spock and Rev. William Sloan Coffin (for those old enough to remember that) and how his father helped start the Institute for Policy Studies with Richard Barnet. He learned his justice-seeking, civil rights values in this remarkable setting in a famously loving family; the civic pride he and his family takes in him being an elected official and public servant is palpable. He has good chums all over the country and is pals with folks from various poltical persuasions. His voice was immediately friendly and inspiring. 

Perhaps you may also know that his beloved young adult son and best friend, Tommy, took his own life on December 31st 2019. The book opens with that unspeakable tragedy and while I have read other narratives of families bereaved by suicide, I have never read anything so heart-breaking and gripping. I knew this was part of the backstory of Jamie Raskin as he took up Nancy Pelosi’s call to become the lead manager of the second impeachment trail against Donald Trump for his dangerous role in inspiring and possibly planning the January 6th insurrection.

This personal loss faced so bravely is part of what is so unthinkable, the double entrance of the title almost too painful to admit. This book is the first time the famous House leader discusses the “unimaginable convergence of personal and public trauma.” What a story. What a book. I am deeply grateful to the Congressman for doing the hard work of facing all this and telling us about it in this stunning book.

Although he is candid about the pain of losing his son (and how his wife and two daughters processed that as well and how so many good people rallied around them) the main story is about going back to work— the first time since the death of his son a week previous — on January 6th. His grown daughter and a son-in-law went along (to watch after him, actually, they admitted, in case he couldn’t emotionally sustain himself) and then the attack began. This insider’s account of the fear of an active shooter coming after them, the bloody combat, the stabbings and neo-Nazi stuff (you can imagine how Jewish people felt) and the toxic bear spray — the Trumpian MAGA team had come armed to the teeth. It is the most riveting account of the attack I have read and it is gruesome.

One story: some of the Democratic congressional leaders, flat on their bellies, crawled to the other side of the room to lie in place with Republicans thinking that if the mob broke through and started shooting, they would surely pick off the Democrats first. Can you imagine!

Another story: Jamie was honorably concerned about his friends and colleagues in the great hall at the time, but he was firstly alarmed for his daughter and his son-in-law who had been escorted out and were hiding under a Congress person’s desk. Cell phone was spotty as the surreal attack continued, hour after hour. He was understandably panicked as he had just lost one child and sure didn’t want to lose another — even as he blamed himself for allowing her to come along. What a nightmare.

On it went. He saw a police officer stabbed with a flagpole being used as a spear — this is no time for snarky comments about how unpatriotic that is. These rioters were inspired by a well-dressed US President but they were there in gear, prepared for battle; for many nothing was sacred.

Unthinkable is about trauma, not only his own private hell but the trauma elected officials felt that day (even though some, who were crying in fear and screaming in outrage soon minimized the damage in egregious turnabouts for obvious partisan optics.) And yes, the book moves not only through the horror of that day from an insider’s view but to the process of recovery from trauma that all good citizens had to begin. Somewhat like the attack on Pearl Harbor or the forever infamous 9-11 attacks, this murderous uprising must live in infamy. The casualties were obviously less (but more severe than most realize or dare to recall) but the fact that it came from our own — fellow citizens, driven on with complicity from the White House, later with elected officials implicated — it is a tragedy that simply must be faced. And this book helps us do that better than any I’ve read.

The vivid telling of the uprising to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after an obviously legitimate election — with chants of being willing to capture and perhaps even execute Mike Pence if necessary — is the first part of the book. If it were only that part it would be well worth reading (especially, again, as there are portions — not digressions! — writing seamlessly about his family, his son, how Covid prevented healthy and life-giving interaction for so many.) But the rest of the book picks up with Raskin’s courageous leadership in the second impeachment trail. How that developed, the round-the-clock research his team had to endure, the professionalism and patriotism of the crew, it is all very impressive.

I keep wondering, dear Hearts & Minds friends, how BookNotes readers who favored the Republican candidate will respond to my telling of how much I appreciated this important book. I know Raskin is not without faults. Still, I hope you are willing to engage, as they say, and take an open-minded look at the arguments for the second impeachment and the magnitude of the sheer dedication and tenacity that drove those committed to finding and exposing the truth of the President’s involvement in the traitorous uprising. Agree fully or not with all that Mr. Raskin believes (I surely do not) he is a  good and caring public servant and I feel he has his shared some of his soul in this vulnerable, honest book. He gives me hope that some Congressional officials can embody a deep and caring sort of integrity, combing the personal and the poltical it ways that strike me as good.   

Raskin is a moving writer. For instance:

This is not a book about Donald Trump. Quite the opposite. It is about the people whose dreams and actions have allowed us to survive Donald Trump…

Tyrants tell stories only about themselves because history for them begins and ends with their own insatiable appetites. But my own story of despair and survival depends entirely on other people, above all the good and compassionate people, the ones like my son, Tommy, the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally — people just the right size for a democracy in which each person has one vote and one voice, where we are all ‘created equal’ and thus given an equal chance to lead a life of decency and integrity.

I have learned that trauma can steal everything from you that is most precious and rip joy right out of your life. But, paradoxically, it can also make your stronger and wiser and connect you more deeply to other people than you ever imagined by enabling you to touch their misfortunes and integrate their loses and pain with your own.

Yes, you will learn much of what you need to know about the nefarious alt-right groups that were inspired by the President and the vile uprising that tried to prevent the proper passing of the electoral college votes. Yes, you’ll learn about the President’s unseemly pressure upon (and then grotesque abandonment of) his Vice President. Yes, you will see how a few brave Republicans spoke out against the MAGA madness that had come to this. This is an excellent and informative book about all of that.

But, it is more. As David Remnick of The New Yorker has written about it,

Unthinkable is not a work of emotional austerity; rather, it is an unburdening, a howl, a devotional. The grief is nightmarish, but the love that suffuses the text is even more powerful—the love for family and a lost child, as well as a love for a fragile democracy. It takes its greatest inspiration from the idealism of Raskin’s son.

++++

TO PLACE AN ORDER

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

It is helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies

but you can use this as a general guide:

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

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.69; 2 lbs would be $4.36.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.35 if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $8.95. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

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

– DON’T FORGET TO LET US KNOW WHAT SHIPPING METHOD YOU PREFER –

BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

POST LABOR DAY SALE AND A FREE BOOK WITH EVERY ORDER                                      God At Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life by Gene Vieth, Jr.

FIVE DAYS ONLY – EXPIRES 9/30/22

30% OFF (WHILE SUPPLIES LAST)

We don’t usually tell our customers what to do with their purchases, but, ya know, I think I might be a bit pushy and suggest something. We’re a few weeks past Labor Day Sunday and I know more than one friend was a bit perturbed that there was no mention in their church about work or labor, no prayers for people at their jobs, no honoring of nurses, teachers, factory workers, engineers, unionists, or businesspeople. The proverbial butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers just don’t get much recognition in most churches, not even on Labor Day. 

So, why not share with your pastors and preachers a book or two, now while the memory is still fresh? It is likely they have never read anything like this. You could wait until next summer, I suppose, but, ya know, I think the time is now. We have a few at 30% off (for five days only) and we’ll throw in a free book we have a batch of, while supplies last.

We do not suggest being too pesky about it, of course — certainly there is no call to be unpleasant, even if you deeply long to be told that what you do matters to God and that your job site really is a venue for your own discipleship and spirituality. I know that there is some pain about the routine apathy towards your work life that you experience in church; I get it. So here’s a chance to gently educate your pastor, preacher, worship leader, educator, spiritual director, youth pastor, campus minister, or others on your congregation’s leadership team. We’ve selected a handful of great titles that we happen to be able to sell a bit more cheaply now and we’re happy to offer these resources for you or yours.

THE EXTRA 30% DISCOUNT EXPIRES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2022. After that they revert to the typical BookNotes 20% off.

I won’t go into great detail about them here since I’ve reviewed most of those at BookNotes before. If you have any questions, hop on our inquiry page and ask away. We’re here to help. (I’ve done some Zoom conversations with groups about these very sorts of titles and could do some show and tell with your adult ed committee if that would be useful.) In any case, check these out and order a few pronto. We only have a few of some of these and the extra discount is while supplies last.

Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human John Mark Comer (Zondervan) $19.99  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.99 

I’ll admit I adore this book and so respect Comer and his several good books. I have joked before about how hip and cool he is and how even the page design (with short sentences, a certain contemporary font and lots of white pace) appeal to younger readers. But his conversational tone and snark is one thing: his profound insight and solid help framing the topic of work and public life (and rest) by the large question of what it means to be human is, frankly, nothing short of brilliant. It’s a great read (nicely setting the stage, perhaps, for Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Colling by Andy Crouch, another personal favorite) and is very highly recommended.

Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work Tom Nelson (Crossway) $17.99       OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $12.59

We rave about this because it is written by a pastor who came to realize he was almost engaging in pastoral malpractice by getting everybody to sign up for church work and not faithfully equipping them to live out their faith in their workplaces. This is the story of how that church grew, with stories by a variety of congregants about how they think Christianly and serve God in their own career areas.  It’s really a very fine book, good for pastors or ordinary work-world folk. 

Living Salty and Light-Filled Lives in the Workplace Luke Bobo (Resource Publications) $16.00  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $11.20

I like this little book and really respect the author. Luke is a strong African American leader who worked for a while at Made to Flourish (an organization Tom Nelson founded to equip churches to minister well to their congregation in the work world and to steward their gifts to help make a difference in their communities.) We’ve all heard about being “salt and light” from Matthew 5 but few have spelled out the challenges of obeying Christ’s call in those 90,000 hours that we spend working over the course of our lives.

This small book — with a great forward by Jerome Barrs — helps both  blue-collar workers and white collar professionals to imagine how to live out faith in the workplace.  There are good discussion questions and the whole book is just under 100 pages. Nice.

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work Timothy Keller & Katherine Leary Alsdorf (Penguin) $18.00  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $12.60

I have long admired Tim Keller as an astute, evangelical pastor in New York, but his co-written here, Katherine Leary Alsdorf, is, similarly, nothing short of brilliant. She worked in the serious world of a global business corporation and came to faith in mid-life. Eventually she took over the innovative (and at the time, nearly groundbreaking) Center for Faith & Work at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York. She led them to create classes, professional groups, industry specific book lists, discussion guides and a Fellows program to train thoughtful young Christians to be faithful leaders in their various work venues. This book is still the gold standard on these things and every pastor should have it. There is a blurb on the back from Comment magazine’s review which, come to think of it, I think I wrote. I’m a fan.

Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World Michaela O’Donnell (Baker Books) 19.99  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $13.99

This is a 2021 release and is certainly one of the best books in recent years on this topic, inviting to a “path toward more more meaningful work that makes an impact.”  There are three main sections of Make Work Matter that starts off with “Where Do You Want to Go?” And shifts to several chapters under the heading “Who Will You Become?” leading to the final section, four profound chapters on “How Will You Get There?”

Dr. O’Donnell is executive director of the De Press Center for Leadership (at Fuller Seminary) and is not only an entrepreneur, teacher, leadership coach and sought-after speaker, she is a great writer. She helps hold out a dream of “closing the gap between what you’re doing now and the life-giving work you desire.” Ordinary pastors should be helping parishioners chart a way forward into this kind of discernment about their callings and careers, so this book could provide a model for many.

The recommending blurbs on the inside offer raves and come from some of the best people in their field, from Redeemer’s legendary Missy Wallace to the aforementioned Luke Bobo to great leadership writer Roy Goble (Salvaged: Leadership Lessons Pulled from the Junkyard), our old Pittsburgh pal Lisa Slayton (CEO of Tamim Partners and associate at Denver’s Institute for Faith and Work), Denise Daniels (Working in the Presence of God: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Work), Tod Bolsinger (Canoeing the Mountains), and, importantly, Dave Evans of Stanford, co-author of Designing Your Life. When this many good authors and leaders endorse a book, you know it’s worth having.

Daniel M. Doriani (Presbyterian & Reformed) $12.99  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $9.09

This thin book, in some ways, is a practical sequel to his more major volume, Work: Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation.)  In just a bit over 100 pages he has given us a great introduction to the topic, laden with stories, case studies, examples, and a passionate clarity that is nearly unsurpassed. Inspired by Tim Keller and his New York Center for Faith and Work, Dan starred the Center for Faith & Work St. Louis. 

If you’ve ever wondered how you can best serve God and your neighbor faithfully in your work, this study provides welcome encouragement and guidance. Discover what makes your work both good and strategically valuable — the develop a concrete plan to make a difference in your corner of the world. 

For the last year, my friend Dan Doriani and I have empowered twenty-five multicultural leaders through weekly cohorts on Work That Makes a Difference. These meetings and Dan’s book are transforming communities with hope. I highly recommend Dan’s book and invite you to join the team of faith-and-work disciple makers that ‘walk the talk’ by living the love of Jesus daily in the marketplace.–Brad Wos, Multicultural Director, Evangelical Free Church of America Central District

God’s Big Canvas of Calling and Renewal Dr. Stephen R. Graves (KJK Inc.) $10.00  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $7.00

I love this little book that, among other things (like its solid, lively content) is one of the nicest designed books in this list. Handsome, graphically arranged, well made with some handsome pull quotes and near blank pages. It is clear-headed, offers a very faithful wholistic vision of the full gospel unfolding towards the redemption  of all things, but also has some down-to-Earth strategy stuff about embedding the gospel in organizational health and development. Very impressive.

Discipleship with Monday in Mind: How Churches Across the Country Are Helping Their People Connect Faith and Work Skye Jethani & Luke Bobo (Made to Flourish) $8.99    OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $6.29

If you are taking me up on the suggestion to gift some books to your congregational leaders — or if you are a congregational leader — you really, really should consider this. It’s nearly pocket sized, compact and only about 90 pages. It is a great little book about which we can easily say there is simply nothing like it in print. (Yes there are some bigger and more complex books on mentoring people into marketplace ministry and the like — see, for instance, the fabulous Equipping Christians for Kingdom Purpose in they Work: A Guide For All Who Make Disciples by Tom Lutz & Heidi Unruh.) But this is short and sweet and has lots of great examples to offer encouragement. It is a short guide to expanding pastoral practice, attending to corporate worship and including all this work-world stuff into our spiritual formation and disciple-making programming. There is even a bit on including this in our mission and outreach work. Fantastic!

Work and Worship: Reconnecting our Labor and Liturgy Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson  (Baker Academic) $29.99  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $20.99

I remain so enchanted by this magisterial work — see my early review of it at BookNotes HERE or HERE — and am pleased to offer it here for those who want to share it with their worship planners and preachers. With the brilliant foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff you might realize it is mature and somewhat sophisticated and it is. But, importantly, as Wolterstorff highlights in his foreword, they see that the breach, the gap, the disconnect between faith and the works world can be healed not only by a theology of work and encouragement to see career’s as holy callings, but by integrating, naturally and regularly, our theology of work into the worshipping life of our gathering faith communities. That is we must sing it, pray it, recite it. There must be a more explicate connection between liturgy and labor and in this regard, this book is one-of-kind. It does not bring me joy to say that there is nothing like it in print, but it is also exciting. This simply must be on the shelf of every worship planner and worship leader, regardless of denomination of worship style. It is urgent.

Happily as many have said, Kaemingk and Willson know what they are doing. They are robust in their knowledge of a theology of work and a theology of worship. They are uniquely skilled to bring these things together and they offer tons of resources, litanies, prayers, hymns and songs, and more to help congregants worship well. 

Here, finally, is the book that will take the ‘faith and work’ conversation to new depths of intentionality. With theological clarity and real-world accountability, Kaemingk and Willson mend what we have rent asunder. Advancing scholarship in theology of culture, it is also a must-read for those who lead worship for workers–which includes, of course, everyone. This should become a standard textbook, for the sake of the church and for the sake of the world. — James K. A. Smith, Calvin University; author of You Are What You Love, On the Road with Saint Augustine, and How to Inhabit Time

Kaemingk and Willson make an inspired contribution to the underdeveloped connection between work and worship in Christian life. They do not take the predictable approach of beginning with a theology of work and applying it to worship; rather, they come at it from the opposite direction, proposing that when references to labor are faithfully represented in the liturgy, it forms us for the work we ultimately present to God in all vocations. — Constance M. Cherry, Indiana Wesleyan University; author of The Worship Architect

Born of years of deepening commitment and maturing insight, the great gift of this groundbreaking book is its remarkably rich study of Scripture and history, showing that the deepest, truest witness through the centuries comes from an understanding of liturgy and labor–which is surprisingly seamless. Work and Worship is a gift to the church. — Steven Garber, senior fellow for vocation and the common good, Murdock Charitable Trust; author of The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work

The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work  Steve Garber (IVP) $20.00   OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $11.90

Those who follow BookNotes know that I highlight this from time to time, a book of short essays that I simply adore. These pieces are tender and passionate, short and sweet. They are, in a way, reports from Steve’s amazing travels, teaching about the connections between work and worship, weaving together (as his earlier book put it) belief and behavior. What does it look like to be a person of profound integrity, whose life holds together, seamless? He’s no idealist and he is aware — deeper than almost anyone I know, I sometimes think — that the world is broken and that are all implicated. Sure, he’s a bit intense at times. But he usually writes with a lovely, light touch. This handsome, compact sized hardback has full color photos and a great feel in the hand. I love this book and we’re so glad it hints at the deep integration that relates worship and work, living deeply with visions of vocation. It mostly shows rather than tells, with good storytelling. Somebody you know will love it.

The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction Matthew B. Crawford (FSG) $17.00  OUR SPECIAL 30% OFF SALE PRICE = $11.90

Okay, this is the only one on the list not written out of an overtly theological perspective, although the insight and wisdom of Matthew Crawford is solid and lovely. You may know his much talked about book (a bit philosophical but a must-read, called Shop Class As Soul Craft in which he tells the story of his getting tired of his obtuse white-collar professional job and starting up his own motorcycle repair shop. It’s a great screed against the “information age” which fails to appreciate skilled workers, shop class, craftspeople.) This one is a “brilliant and searching new work of social criticism” which follows up his previous rumination on the ethical and practical importance of manual competence. If Shop Class extolled mastering our skills of working in the creation, this explores our fractured mental lives, the forces that seem to distract and disrupt us.  

This is not just a screed against computers or automation but he does argue that we must reckon with the way “attention sculpt the self.” He looks at the intense focus of short order cooks and ice hockey players, the “quasi-autistic behavior” of gambling addicts, the slow craft of building pipe organs. As it says on the back, “He shows that our current crisis of attend is only superficially the result of digital technology” because it really is a deeper question that pervade how Western culture understands humans in the world. This has radical implications, he insists, about how we raise children, design public spaces, and arrange democracy itself.

This cogent, analytic, book makes a strong argument and the attitudes we have about our life in the world, include our callings and careers, our work (and worship) might need to be reconsidered after reading it. It isn’t only about work, but it includes some cool stories of workers who use their skills well. I wanted to offer it here on this short list of key titles. Enjoy.

++++

TO PLACE AN ORDER

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

It is helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies

but you can use this as a general guide:

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

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.69; 2 lbs would be $4.36.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.35 if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $8.95. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

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

– DON’T FORGET TO LET US KNOW WHAT SHIPPING METHOD YOU PREFER –

BookNotes

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DISCOUNT

20% OFF

7 MORE NEW ONES – 20% OFF

Some folks seemed to appreciate the quick listing of 15 brand new books in the most recent BookNotes. I didn’t want to overdo it, but I had thought of listing these new ones as well.

So, here ya go, a postscript to the BookNotes from the other day — seven more that are quite new and in some cases brand new. I have hardly opened the pages of some of these (although a few I’ve read in advanced manuscripts form which the publishers were kind enough to share with me months ago.)  Here we go, announcements of new books about which I’m sure you would want to know. Send us an order to Hearts & Minds today. Use the secure order form at the end, and we’ll take care of the rest, deducting the discount with a smile.

Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture Justin Ariel Bailey (Baker Academic) $21.99 OUR DISCOUNT PRICE = $17.59

Yes, this is on the excellent Baker Academic imprint, but not all on that imprint are hefty textbooks. This is a bit serious but for any educated reader and anyone who wants to nurture their holy calling as culture makers it will be, I am sure, a excellent resource. As one reviewer put it, it is “equal parts innovative, surprising, and enlightening, this book sings.”

Interpreting Your World just came so I can’t say for sure, but I am guessing this book about a theology of flourishing is going to be stunning, something I’m going to savor through the fall and draw on for years to come. This is the broad book about a deep hunger for meaningful living — clearly in response to the triune God of the sacred story in Scripture — that seemed between the lines of Justin Bailey’s early heft volume on fresh ways to think about the art of apologetics, Reimagining Apologetics. For those aware of the nuances of various sorts of Reformed theologians, you might get a kick out of knowing Bailey teaches at Dordt University in Iowa. 

Here are two spectacular endorsements:

Bailey offers readers a profound gift. With clarity and skill, he introduces us to the dynamic ways theology and culture intersect. Rejecting simplistic and reductionistic Christian understandings, this book introduces us to the complex field of human action and divine grace that we call culture. — Matthew Kaemingk, Richard Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life, Fuller Theological Seminary, co-editor of Reformed Public Theology: A Global Vision for Life in the World and co-author of Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy

Justin Bailey’s theology is a theology of flourishing, a theology that understands an artist’s heart. His discourse enters into culture not just to engage it but to liberate it. This is a theology that is integrated and quite beautiful to behold. Interpreting Your World offers a lens for cultural goodness and for the sanctification of our imaginations; it is an invitation into new creation. — Makoto Fujimura, artist and author of Art and Faith: A Theology of Making and Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life

I’ve glanced through the discussion questions at the end of each chapter and they are provocative and interesting, making this ideal for a study group. His appendix on discerning the nature and meaning of cultural artifacts by way of the five lenses itself is extraordinary. Highly recommended.

The Church After Innovation: Questioning Our Obsession with Work, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Andrew Root (Baker Academic) $27.99  OUR DISCOUNT PRICE = $22.39

Oh man, I’m so excited about this. It just came and I can’t say much about it, but you may know that Root has been doing a whole series of very mature reflections on the nature of the church in these times, in this secular age. Yes, earlier works in the series put congregational life (and one on pastoring) into conversation with the likes of social critics and intellectuals like Charles Taylor.  

In each of these stimulating volumes — the previous one came out about a half a year ago, entitled Churches and the Crisis of Decline: A Hopeful, Practical Ecclesiology for a Secular Age — Root brings fresh analysis of the ways our Western culture and our contemporary trends have shaped and influenced how we presume churches ought to work and wonders, with great theological awareness, how authentic and faithful spirituality might mitigate these deforming influences. 

There are tons of amazing quotes on the back of this brand new book. Some are saying it is the best one yet — “perceptive and engaging, a godsend for leaders and pastors.” The back cover explains the book like this:

The call for pastors and congregations to be innovative can have a dark side: an obsession with contemporary relevance and entrepreneurship that lacks theological depth and promises burnout and exhaustion. The Church After Innovation shines a light on the problem and offers a treatment.

I like what Brian Brock (now at the University of Aberdeen) says, “There’s something satisfying about a story that is this big, bold, and revealing about how our cultural presumptions came to be — especially when so beautifully told.

“There’s something satisfying about a story that is this big, bold, and revealing about how our cultural presumptions came to be — especially when so beautifully told.”

And part of that big story, apparently, is going to be how chasing church innovation (often for the sake of numerical growth) may be rooted in our tacit assumptions — the air we breathe — learned from consumerism and late modern capitalism. Richard Beck puts in succinctly:

With penetrating analysis and prophetic force, Root exposes how the false idols of capitalism are being smuggled into the church through the Trojan horses of innovation and entrepreneurialism. A bold, necessary, and urgent book. — Richard Beck, Abilene Christian University; author of Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age

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

For decades and decades, the thoughtful, evangelical campus ministry InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has been shaped by their many Asian-American students, many who have risen to leadership within the large organization. For decades their publishing division, one of our favorite publishers, IVP, have released books about the identity and unique struggles of Asian Americans, espeically for college age young adults. 

For instance, the classic Following Jesus without Dishonoring Your Parents or Tom Lin’s Losing Face & Finding Grace: 12 Bible Studies for Asian-Americans; Invitation to Lead Guidance for Emerging Asian American Leaders by Paul Tokunaga, More Than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith edited by Nikki A. Toyama-Szeto and Tracey Gee, and Growing Healthy Asian American Churches edited by Peter Cha, S. Steve Kang, and Helen Lee, among others. Although more academic, I am very excited to see the forthcoming  Doing Asian American Theology: A Contextualized Framework for Faith and Practice coming in November 2022 by Daneil D. Lee. Send us a pre-order today!

Learning Our Names (which opens with a rumination by Sabrina Chan on the various itineration of her name in Mandarin and Cantonese) is a fabulous, excellent, new collaboration by four IVCF staff or former leaders — part of families from Hong Kong, India, Philippines, and the Hmong people group. Chan is the national director of IVCF’s Asian American Ministries, working out of Durham, NC, Daniel is now a pastor of a multi ethnic church in Dallas, de Leon is a doctoral student at Fordham (in NYC) and Thao works on campuses in Wisconsin. What a diverse and delightful set of contexts! Skimming the chapter titles and topics and discussion questions makes me want to read this soon. Kudos to this unique team for the gifts they’ve offered here and for the publisher who so handsomely designed it.

This book is, I suppose, firstly for Asian American persons and faith communities as the authors offer  up to the minute insights and guidance for navigating the unique waters of our times, looking at spirituality and discipleship, interpersonal relations, vocational calling and family and ethnic identity. Solid Christian perspective for those living in the “multiple tensions” of being Asian American Christians, coping with pressures of being seen as “the model minority” or the “perpetual foreigner.”

A timely and expansive exploration for both Asian Americans and those who want to learn by entering into the stories and experience of Asian Americans. — Nikki Toyama-Szeto, executive director, Christians for Social Action

They Came For Mine: Healing from the Trauma of Racial Violence Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts (Westminster John Knox) $19.00  OUR DISCOUNT PRICE = $15.20

This is brand new and I cannot say much other than it is humbling and moving to even it hold it in my hands, skimming the footnotes, seeing who this brave author draws upon and recommends, a bit about her story, her journey, her rigorous scholarship and her audacious commitment to the ongoing freedom movement. As you might guess, the title is an allusion to a riff she does on Martin Niemoeller’s famous speech about the need to stand up for each other. The book is, as the wonderful writer and lively thinker Dante Stewart (of Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle) puts it:

Part memoir, part mediation, part manifesto, this work has the character and skill of poetry, the brilliance of grace, the mystery of Black wisdom, and the illumination that the world we have been given is not all that there is to life.

If the book we’ve highly recommended for several years on this topic, Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience by Sheila Wise Rowe (with a foreword by Soong-Chan Rah) remains our first go-to selection on this complex topic, They Came for Mine may indeed be the natural follow up. It, too, cites the exceptionally moving My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (by Resmaa Menakem) and, of course, the must-read volume on trauma, Bessel Van Der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score. There is some overlap, I suppose.

But I gather that the new Lewis-Giggetts is (as you might expect from WJK) from a more liberationist perspective, with citations from James Baldwin, intersectional scholars, Toni Morrison, and a cadre of anti-racist workers.

The blurbs on the back are compelling. Two that illustrate the authors orientation, by significant writers in this radical tradition — Chanequa Walker-Barnes (professor of Practical Theology and pastoral Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary and author of I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation and Jacqui Lewis, who is described as a public theologian and the first Black or female senior minister at the progressive, multicultural Collegiate Church in Manhattan. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and Drew University, she is the creator of the MSNBC online show Just Faith and the PBS show Faith and Justice, in which she led important conversations about culture and current events. Jacqui is the author of Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World. 

As you can see, this volume stands in the robust tradition of womanist and activist black theologians and is clear about the ongoing trauma of inhabiting a black body in a culture defined by white supremacy. If you get that, this book will be a valuable guide to deeper awareness and deeper healing admist our racist society. If you are suspect of this claim, I invite you to consider it. It reminds us of why we must #SayHerName, sadly, over and over. This stuff is not going away, so we need serious resources like this. Please check it out.

Tracey Michael Lewis-Giggetts is author of the 2020 release, Choosing Your Lens: How White Christians Can Become Better Allies and is the founder of HeARTspace, a healing community that uses storytelling and the arts to serve those who have experienced trauma. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Essence Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more.

When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse Chuck DeGroat (IVP) $18.00 paperback                     OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I do not have to say much about this new paperback release as we have reviewed it before. It has been much discussed and really appreciated by many since it first came out in hardback — yep, in mid-March, 2020, just as the Covid pandemic was hitting us all. Not a great time for a book release, although, oddly, an important title for those very times. Maybe the know-it-alls didn’t “come to church” in person, but they were around. Not a few churches had hard fall-outs with strong personalities demanding this or that. 

One is tempted to cite The Talking Heads song and sigh, “Same as it ever was.” Yes, pride and stubbornness plagues any human organization and churches have plenty of oddballs and bullies. Maybe more than some organizations. We need to know how to handle such hard stuff.

When Narcissism Comes to Church is really good for any sort of congregation, and good for anyone to read even for other contexts, it certainly is a must for any congregational leader. It does focus on this particular diagnostic disorder: narcissism. DeGroat is a pastoral counselor and knows his stuff. He shows how these tendencies are around, all over many of our best churches and para-church ministries; he explores in wonderful prose how the narcissism disorder itself can show up. And what to do, with goodness and grace.  

There are, I might add, importantly, a couple of very good chapters on the narcissistic pastor.  Yup; that’s a thing.

Why does narcissism seem to thrive in many churches? This is a vital book, perhaps the only thing of its kind, trying to answer that. Blurbs on the back are from Dan Allender, Curt Thompson and Nancy Ortberg.  A great forward is written by Richard Mouw which says a lot. As Dan Allender puts it, When Narcissism Comes to Church is “a landmark work of wisdom, tenderness, honor, and hope.”

Now this landmark book is in paperback. It’s now a couple of dollars cheaper and you could buy several at our discounted price. It’s worth working through (as are, by the way, his other good books.) Congratulations, Chuck! 

Against Liberal Theology: Putting the Brakes on Progressive Christianity Roger E. Olson (Zondervan Reflective) $18.99

This is a book I tore through, eager to read and absorb, and I liked it a lot. Mostly. We are happy to commend it. Let me explain, too briefly.

I’ll just say three quick things. 

Firstly, this is not a book about what sort of social implications we think the gospel carries, what kind of public ethic we work for, how we ought to be people of justice, creation-care, racial reconciliation and the like. He favors that sort of robust Kingdom theology that sees — perhaps somewhat like the theologically impeccable friend of his, the late Ron Sider — the Bible relating to all of life and the Lordship of Christ over culture and its deforming idols. He’s thoughtful and, frankly, not conservative, theologically, and certainly not politically.  No worries there. This is a book about theology as such, and he goes to great lengths to be clear just what he is worried about (and what he is not addressing.) Don’t misunderstand the term “liberal” or “progressive” as having anything to do with politics as that isn’t his topic.

Secondly, although he is greatly concerned about a trajectory among some that for perhaps even understandable reasons, is moving towards deconstructing and eroding fairly classic, standard, historic doctrines of orthodox faith, he is not mean-spirited, not a fundamentalist, not judging motives, or fixating with nuances of small disagreements. He is no-nonsense in a way, just naming clearly what he sees and backing it up with quotes that alarm him (from the late Marcus Borg, say, or Brian McLaren or Doug Ottati — three gents I have met and, like Olson, can happily respect; Brian is an old friend who I very much appreciate.) Olsen is wanting to be clear and candid although his book isn’t quite as terse as, say, the classic Christianity and Liberalism written by the former Princeton professor J. Gresham Machen in 1923 — almost one hundred years ago.

Thirdly, while I am not totally in agreement with his assessment of the dangers of some liberal theology, he is, I think, mostly correct, in both his analysis of contemporary trends and his critique of older, classic, theological liberalism. He goes a good job, though, drawing on the magisterial volumes by Gary Dorrien, especially The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity, 1950-2005 and, naturally, shows the detrimental impact of the likes of Friedrich Schleirmacher, Adolf von Harnack, and Paul Tillich, up to John Spong, for instance.

Roger Olson has written many good books. Interestingly, in Against Liberal Theology he speaks of working for two mainline denominational churches — one pastored by a disillusioned Baptist, the other by a mainline liberal Presbyterian — so he has seen this lack of gospel-centered clarity play out in congregation life, in preaching and Christian ed, family ministry and mission. I see, now, why he wrote the very interesting Counterfeit Christianity: The Persistence of Errors in the Church (Abingdon Press.) I really liked his concise paperback, Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God, co-written with his own rather postmodern friend, the late Stanley Grenz. His largest volume is the wonderful clothbound, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity (IVP Academic.) Perhaps most germane to this new book is his 2008 release, How to Be Evangelical Without Being Conservative (with a forward by Scot McKnight.) It is out of print — ahh, if only it had sold more! — but we have a few left, natch.

McKnight endorses this one, too:

Roger Olson’s Against Liberal Theology is a courageous and calm definition, examination, and evaluation of the collapse of authentic, orthodox Christian theology in the minds, hearts, and hands of one liberal (not progressive) theologian after another. In their own words, Olson often shines a bright, piercing light on their own criticisms. This is a vintage example of Olson being Olson: he knows the literature, he is candid, he is fair, and he is unstinting in criticism of the pitfalls of liberal theologians. And he examines only those who overtly espouse ‘liberal’ in their theology. Those most attracted into progressivism and then into liberalism will benefit from a humble reading of this book. — Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary, author, most recently, of My Theology: The Audacity of Peace

Zero Hour America: History’s Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give Os Guinness (IVP) $23.00. OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40

It is never a bad day when a new Os Guinness book shows up. He is always my teacher, a long-time supporter of our family-run bookstore, and an admirable example of a Christian leader who speaks often in secular, scholarly circles — think tanks, study centers, action groups, professional organizations, civic projects, even the United Nations. His book The Call is on my short list of all-time favorite books. He is best known in evangelical circles, known for his astute observations, his impeccable, note-less speechifying, and his wise, non-partisan call for God’s people to be in but not of the world around us. He is sometimes known as a public intellectual, sometimes a cultural critic, often as a passionate evangelical preacher. His PhD is from Oxford where he studied the work of the significant Lutheran sociologist Peter Berger. Os describes his own inspiration drawn from the three scholars who most influenced his thinking and life in the wonderful Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. Those three influences, mentors of sorts? C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Peter Berger.

In Dr. Guinness’s last major book, the 2021 volume The Magna Carta of Humanity, he added a fourth to his list of most appreciated mentors, the beloved and highly respected late Rabbi of London, Jonathan Sacks. In that volume Guinness conscientiously showed connections between the Hebrew God and consequent Biblical worldview — shaped by ordered law and virtuous freedom — that so formed the best of Western views of civic life and certainly the framers of the US Constitution. As a Brit living in the US, Guinness feels a certain responsibility to honor his American guests by sounding the alarm at the dangers he perceives threatening our almost 250 year-old Republic.  (In 2012 he wrote a book called, notably, A Free People’s Suicide.) He has several books on what he once called “The American Hour” and is a globally respected voice on religious pluralism and sustainable freedom. He may be one of the best — if not best known — of democracy’s allies that the contemporary world may now have. That he has experienced the ravages of communist terror (he was born and lived his earliest years in China and lost loved ones to the Most takeover) is itself a poignant matter of personal credibility.

As he says throughout his Magna Carta book, and in many stirring lectures given in recent years, it is imperative that we reflect on the differences between the awful French Revolution of 1789 and the momentous US Revolution of 1776. Some of you may be old enough to recall that scene in Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live film (or book) showing the implications and historical consequences of these two vastly different revolutions, one leading to mass totalitarianism, the other to a flawed but beautiful vision of freedom for all.

It grieves me to say that I was not sure what to make of Zero Hour America since he had just published the weighty The Magna Carta of Humanity last year. I figured this was, perhaps — to use an image from the days of rock and roll recordings — a collection of outtakes, alternative versions, unedited extras, bonus tracks for the true fans. I think I was mostly right. And, as with those quirky CD releases, some of the newly released material from a previous recording session might have come from the cutting floor, stuff that didn’t make the first release. Or fiesty reworkings of some of the same stuff, maybe making it even more compelling; true fans will probably think they’ve heard some of this before, but with a new sort of reverb and some louder kick drums.

Perhaps this is wrong of me, and I do not mean it to be unkind. But Zero Hour is a slimmed down, passion-driven, cry of the heart — Os’s plea for us to wake up before it is too late. For careful readers, there isn’t much new, although, yet, every page has new quotes, new citations, new examples, re-saying much of what has been said before, underscored. He draws on such a wide array of sources, citing with approval ancient scholars from around the globe, seeming to particularly appreciate of the likes of Arnold Toynbee. And, of course, the great Abraham Lincoln. HIs working knowledge of global writers and the philosophy of historiography is a intellectual joy to behold.

As I said in my reviews of his previous book, I am in disagreement with him in his assessment of the nature of the threats to democracy. He, perhaps like Rod Dreher (just for instance) acknowledges the threat from the far right, but worries more about the Gramscian long march through the institutions by the so-called Marxian left. He alarms us about the “post-democratic, one-party technocratic elite that have emerged in America to replace American democracy with America’s newly forming authoritarian oligarchy.” I don’t exactly know who that is, or how they are doing that and he doesn’t say. He seems to think it is mostly “the elites” who opposed viscerally the former President Trump. That’s just odd. He condemns the “proto-authoritarians in the political sphere who are blind to their creeping authoritarianism”, now “marching under a banner…” and I guess he means Democrats, but is trying to be courteous in not saying so. That he worries about Black Lives Matters and woke businesses and postmodern professors and Foucault’s disciples isn’t so bad — he makes a fair point — but that he doesn’t talk about the insurrection of January 6th and former President Trump’s big lie, hoodwinking a major part of the American people into distrusting our modern elections, is a nearly unforgivable omission in a book like this, published in the last half of 2022. It is almost as if he wrote this a decade ago, before the notable horrors and massive disinformation of the last few years. 

Which is not to say we don’t need to read this book. In fact, those who are likely to be frustrated, as I am, with the direction and tone of the last few books by Os, may need it the most. People who are by constitution conservative and by principle Republican may not need this reminder, although they will be impressed with the balanced, thoughtful, faithful exegesis of our nation’s deepest impulses and ideas. He is not alt-right and has no particular partisan loyalties. Such readers will be fired up by Zero Hour, understandably so. 

Importantly, such conservative readers need to be reminded, by a spokesperson they can trust, that, indeed, slavery and racism remains an unreckoned with injustice that cries out to heaven for redress. Guiness is not a fan of the historical assumptions of, say, the 1619 Project (although he never spells out why) but make no mistake: he cares about social justice and has a Biblically-inspired vision of justice for all, each living “under their vine and fig tree.” He has an entire chapter called “Righting Wrongs.” He cares about the abuse of power.

However, again, it may be those of us who are in the center or who tilt left and who remain outraged at the chicanery of the Trumpian movement and the rhetoric of the MAGA idols, who need reminded of some very basic stuff, found — emphatically — here in the latest from the real Dr. Os.

In a rumination on Deuteronomy 17 where the Hebrew king was called to study the covenant “all the days of his life”, Guinness imagines how US Presidents might be called to lead well beyond their swearing in.

Like the great Jewish leader Moses or like Winston Churchill with his immense grasp of history, your task is to guide the destiny of the American republic with a profound and ever-growing understanding of the ideas and ideals of the American republic and the best and worst of the American past. To ‘make America great again’, Mr. Trump, and to ‘restore the soul of America’, Mr Biden, you must address what made America great in the first place.

I wonder if this, icing on the cake of The Magna Carta of Freedom, and its lively prelude volume, Last Call for Liberty, make a trilogy that might help us all clarify what our nation might be about. It is interesting that, in fact, Os calls for such a project to help us recover — or at least clarify — what freedom is within the American experiment.

Guinness writes, “What The Federalist Papers did for the Constitutional Convention, a fresh and powerful restatement of the founding character of America needs to do for our time.” 

“What The Federalist Papers did for the Constitutional Convention, a fresh and powerful restatement of the founding character of America needs to do for our time.”

It may not be read as widely as a major release on the international stage, but this could be the very sort of clarification some need.

Guinness’s big themes are reviewed in a final powerfully concise chapter called “Zero Hour America” which is pitched (as is most of the book) as a dire ultimatum. Yet, he is (as he puts it) “fired by hope” and insists that “a warning is not a prediction.”

Yes, he says, “America will fall — unless.” And in covenant hope, therein lies the call. That great “unless.” We may fine-tune what that entails, but he is surely right. We are in a kairos time. I have never heard Os so urgent, so passionate, so fiery.  Agree fully or not, this book is a grand summary and reminder, a manifesto of what we must do, soon.

++++

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BookNotes

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Thanks to those who ordered that marvelously enjoyable Stories of My Life by the great children’s writer and advocate for literacy, Katherine Paterson. What a joy to also send out books like her Great Gilly Hopkins and Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved. Not to mention our friend’s great book that we featured again last week,  Square Halo Books’ recent Wild Things and Castles in the Sky which we can’t say enough about.

This BookNotes is going to be a relatively rapid-fire listing of 12 new books we got into the store here within the last week or so. (Or in some cases, just yesterday!) I will try not to say much about them, other than that we ordered them months ago because we knew they’d be of interest to you, our peeps. We are glad you are so supportive of our efforts here at Hearst & Minds as we craft a somewhat different sort of Christian bookstore.  Enjoy these varied new releases – and send us an order, soon. We are eager to serve, happy to help.

Be sure to scroll thru to the end where you will find the secure “order” links. We are glad for your commitment to support small business. We’ll be sure to follow up personally. It’s what we do.

Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters Bob Smietana (Worthy) $27.00                                     OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

You may (or should) know Bob Smietana as one of the most respected writers on the religion beat. He is currently a national reporter for the wire service Religion News Service. Blurbs on the back include raves from the Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey and the important Ryan Burge (author of The Nones.) He’s been at this for decades and this is his description of our times, skillfully helping us see the trends, get the picture, understand the data, and sense our place in these complicated and serious times. A key concern is why people are leaving the church and what we might wisely do about it.

This is brand new and important. Don’t miss it.

Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and Yourself) David Zahl (Brazos Press) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Oh my, I’d like to tell you a lot about this – I’m part way through and find it a hoot and a half. The cover is weirdly funny and the title may be a bit obscure. Anthropology means a view of the human person (not necessarily cultural anthropology which studies, at least in our mind’s eye, rare tribes and far away people groups.) This, rather, is asking what we should think of ourselves, and other members of the pretty stupid (and grand) human race. It has been called perceptive, funny, subversive, nourishing. Zahl’s father, Paul, was a sober-minded and thoughtfully gospel-centered Episcopalian theologian (you should order his old Eerdmans book that we keep on hand, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life.) David founded the uber-cool Mockingbird Ministries and is the chief editor of the “Mockingbird” blog. Not long ago he wrote (and then expanded in the paperback version) the deep but really great Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It.) We’re fans.

This excellent, witty new study of human nature and how it influences our expectations (from friendship to work to politics to marriage) is a thoughtfully Christian study, but is deeply human and humane. It is liberating, really, to, well (and this is a bit simple) lower our expectations. As an old comedy album from 1971 put it, “We’re All Bozos on This Bus.” Do I hear an Amen to that?

And – dang, I like this! – this may be the only book on which Nadia Bolz-Weber and Mike Cosper both have endorsements. Nadia says “This is the book I have been waiting for: an antidote to all the self-help nonsense that weighs down our bookshelves and our self-regard.”

Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World Winfield Bevins (IVP) $20.00    OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Allow me to quickly say that I admire this author a lot. He is passionate about how evangelical and sacramental worldviews overlap and is convinced that many of our youngest, postmodern rising adults are drifting not from true faith but from a consumeristic and entertainment model of worship and church life. We really liked his book called Ever Ancient Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation And think he’s mostly right. We can hope so.

This new one now takes the author out and broadens it not just to a “new generation” but to all of us longing to reclaim ancient practices for everyday life and mission. As a Wesleyan, he gets a warm-hearted friendship with God, he preaches the gospel, and he has a robust cultural analysis and social engagement. He cares about reaching the world and he cares about congregational life. He knows that worship is formative and vital.

In this book he is, writing from his seat as director of the Center for Church Multiplication at Asbury Theological Seminary, showcasing his passion for mission and for a wholistic, missional mindset. We’ve got a million books on being contextualized and missional these days, but this is really fresh, bringing a liturgical awareness of the work of the people, for the sake of the world.

There is a lovely forward by Justo Gonzalez which should be greatly valued.

Christine Pohl weighs in, saying,

Rejecting common bifurcations of sacraments and justice, ancient creeds and current relevance, worship and mission, Bevins argues persuasively for a fresh integration of them in contemporary church life.

That’s really it, eh? No bifurcations! If only we could say it in Latin or something. What an invitation this must be. Can’t wait to study it and spread its wisdom.

God Is Mallory Wyckoff (Eerdmans) $21.99             OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

I heard from our great Eerdmans sales rep that we’d like this, and he got me some early pages. Wow.  I knew of Mallory from her work at Preemptive Love (which is high praise in my book, especially given some of their recent struggles.) Her DMin is from Lipscomb University (in “missional spiritual formation”) and she has done an advanced dissertation on the impact of sexual trauma on survivors theological perceptions and spirituality. Anyway, she is a young and rising star in Kingdom work and has been called “a trusted voice for people seeking to navigate their spirituality with curiosity, honesty, and courage.”

There are fabulous endorsements, too – Ian Morgan Cron, the great author (and, now, enneagram guru) says, “I urge you to accept my friend Mallory’s invitation to expand the ways you think about the Divine and live into a better, truer, story.”  From Richard Beck to Catherine Meeks, wise people have noted that this study of the nature of God written out of the author’s own experience is (as Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove puts it) “something both beautiful and disorienting.” This is authentic stuff, poignant and helpful.

Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson Gary Scott Smith (Eerdmans) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Yes!  This is the second book written by a friend and customer on the great Jackie Robinson. (I reviewed Michael Long’s 2017 Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography commending it heartily. Now he commends this one, saying it is “meticulously researched” and both “insightful and uplifting.” Further, Mike says “Strength for the Fight situates Robinson’s faith in wider society and culture as no other book does. It’s a significant contribution not only to our understanding of Robinson but also the growing field of religion and sports.”

Gary is an excellent and esteemed historian, now retired from years teaching college. (He did two massive volumes about the faith of American Presidents published by Oxford University Press which indicates his sophistication.) He happens to have a Christian passion for the poor and underserved and has done good work in personal service in multicultural settings in Western PA. In any case, it makes sense for him to tackle this icon; it stands as one of the best in the prestigious Library of Religious Biographies that Eerdmans happily continues to publish. This one is surely a must-read. Congrats, Gary!

Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation Brother Lawrence; translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Broadleaf) $25.99     OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

It brings me great joy to recommend this, a fresh and inviting translation of this beloved classic. I have gotten a lot of mileage using the basic storyline of Nicholas Herman, better known as Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, and his learning to pray while doing the dishes. His experience buying communion wine – exchanging filthy lucre, as they say, with heathens, no less, outside the walls of the French monastery yields a cosmic sense of oneness that rivals the famous passage of his vision in St. Louis told in Thomas Merton’s memoir. In any case, it preaches well, but I have to admit I haven’t truly adored the little book. Like many classics in the Renovare handbooks, I’m sort of like Jana Riess in her fun Flunking Sainthood. Yup; that’s me. But this handsome compact hardback with an excellent introduction to the life of Brother L, well, it just might be the book to bring his “spirituality of the ordinary” into our day and age. So far, I’m loving it and you just might as well.

Richard Rohr assures us that it is a “careful, comprehensive translation” and that it “beautifully captures Brother Lawrence.”  Others who pile on the praise include the staid and deep Martin Laird and the lovely Barbara Brown Taylor and even Jamie Smith, who colorfully notes that to get this book you just have to “imagine Mr. Rogers as a mystic.” Exactly.

More of You: The Fat Girls Field Guide to the Modern World Amanda Martinez Beck (Broadleaf) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

This is not brand, brand new, but I’ve not given it the shout out it deserves. Amanda Beck has written well about body image and weight issues and a spirituality of self-care in other books, including the very good Lovely: How I Learned to Embrace the Body God Gave Me. She is the co-creator and cohost of the “Fat and Faithful” podcast. She has received a lot of traction at her Instagram account which just indicates the remarkable need for resources like this. Beck’s passionate writing has been featured in various outlets, from the evangelical Christianity Today to the thoughtfully Jesuit America. Right on! It is an honor to care such vulnerable, thoughtful books.

A devotional author we like, Jessica Kantrowitz (365 Days of Peace) notes that,

Beck sets out to give the reader a knapsack of tools to navigate a world that is often unsafe and unjust for fat people. She emphasizes her signature line, “All bodies are good bodies.” This is a must-read for anyone with a body.

Elusive Grace: Loving Your Enemies While Striving for God’s Justice Scott Black Johnston (WJK) $19.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.20

The cover of this isn’t as classy as I’d wish – it really deserves to be an elegant hardback with deckled edge pages. With the lovely forward by Barbara Brown Taylor you are alerted that this is fully thoughtful and quite eloquent. Blurbs on the back are from great preachers such as Thomas Long and Cleophus LaRue, professor of homiletics at Princeton.

Yes, it is a bit provocative and yet delightful. (Barbara Brown Taylor asks, “In what other book can you find Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Franklin in the same sentence?”) It is a sweet call to intentional patterns of Christian community that form us and it is about civic-minded, public life. It is about “reclaiming virtue” and “retraining our hearts.” There is a lot about the church and there are study lessons and discussion questions making it ideal for small groups, adult classes, book clubs and such within your church.

Elusive Grace is filled with hope-filled guidance and it’s rightfully critical of much going on in our polarized society. He brings a lot of voices into conversation with Holy Scripture, from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Emily Dickinson to Mister Rogers. I could go on with other fun pop culture examples, but you get the drift.

Scott Black Johnston is Senior Pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. In the PC(USA) that’s not too shabby.

Creating Cultures of Belonging: Cultivating Organizations Where Women and Men Thrive Beth Birmingham and Eeva Sallinen Simard (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

This is brand new but we’ve been cheering for it for a year. As Mimi Haddad (President of CBE International) puts it, it is a “thoroughly researched, courageous critique of organizational practices and their impact on women and human flourishing. A must-read for women in Christian organizations.” I hate to admit it, but I know some who really need it, now.

The quote puts it clearly – it is a book inviting Christian organizations (from churches to mission agencies, nonprofits, schools, ministries, and parachurch groups) to reflect the diversity and justice of God’s Kingdom. Many of our best organizations desire to have women in positions of leadership, however this sometimes (for a variety of reasons explored here) sometimes proved difficult when the organizational culture is one that isn’t open. Sometimes the organizational culture silences women or even penalizes the unique giftings that women bring to the table. Obstacles are real, even in this day and age, and, sadly, a book like this is just what is needed – good data, important research, and lots of upbeat stories and solid guidance.

This guidebook is commended by organizational guru Tod Bolsinger and the wonderful writer and immigrant activist Karen Gonzales. (Karen has a new book coming in mid-October from Brazos which you can pre-order, naturally — Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration. She serves as the human resource director at World Relief.)

Beth Birmingham is an NGO leadership and organizational consultant, development researcher, trainer and former college professor. She works with TearFund USA and is involved in the status-quo disrupting organization Christian Alliance for Inclusive Development. Eeva Sallinen Simard is director of an international health project at World Relief and has more than fifteen years of experience working with missional NGOs. She is co-convener of the Wheaton College Network Initiative for Development, Gender, and Christianity.

Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith Bekah McNeel (Eerdmans) $26.99                                      OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

This is a beautiful, complex, rare, and interesting book. I don’t often say loudly that there is no such book on the market but this seems true to me – there is simply nothing like this out there. It is a true story, an evangelical church woman who got burned out when hurt by a seriously toxic situation and simply drifted from church and, perhaps, from faith. She was, as they say, deconstructing.

I will write more about this in an upcoming BookNotes (eventually) about this very topic of those drifting from faith and deconstructing their older beliefs, for better or worse and will naturally name this. For now, know this: this combines her earnest grappling with what she and her husband believe and how all that changed when she had children.

As it says in the introduction:

This book is about the various places and ways that uncertainty shows up for parents who, having left or altered the faith they once knew, and now must decide what to give their kids. It’s about church attendance, Bible memorization, school choices, and sex talks. It’s about forging new paths in racial justice and creation-care while the intractable voices in your head call you a pagan Marxist for doing so.

I like the books of Cindy Wang Brandt (such as her lively, lefty Parenting Forward: How to Raise Children with Justice, Mercy, and Kindness.) Her long, good endorsement where she raves about this starts, “I’m biased because I wrote one, but I love parenting books. These books answer the question: where do we go from here as a human civilization?” Or, I might say, they at least try to. If you wonder, too, Bekah’s book, she says, is for you, mostly as stories to consider. I

Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race Willie Dwayne Francois III (Brazos Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

We have more books on racism and justice and multi-ethnic ministry and reconciliation and the like that it is hard to know what makes any new ones necessary. But this. This. Oh my, this is mature and solid and important. I hope to write about it more. I’ve had an advanced manuscript and have been waiting for this day when it arrives, as it did a day ago. Congrats to Dr. Francois (with a DMin from Candler) who is senior pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville NJ and seems boundlessly tireless. He teaches liberation theology at New York Theological Seminary and has created Public Love Organizing and its PLOT (Public Love Organizing Training) program, doing anti-racism work all the while teaching at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

The rave endorsements on the back of this are from well known scholar activists, from Oberty Hendricks to Jennifer Harvey. Stephanie Paulsell of Harvard Divinity School says it is “an unflinching look at how the white noise of racism keeps us stalled out on the road to a true multiracial democracy and a call to cultivate practices that can get us moving.”

This is Biblical and theological but aimed at actionable steps. Kudos to Brazos, as always.

Necessary Christianity: What Jesus Shows We Must Be and Do Claude Alexander, Jr. (IVP) $16.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

Another brand new one that I’ve hardly looked at, but can assure you is solid, clear, poignant, and powerful, is this, Necessary Christianity. Bishop Claude Alexander, Jr. is the well-respected, black senior pastor of the Park Church in Charlotte NC and serves on the boards of numerous evangelical organizations (including the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities and IVCF.) This is, according to Mac Pier – who has written mighty books about prayer, by the way – “a brilliant exposition on the life of Jesus… by helping serious people of faith discover the “musts” of our followership of Jesus.” As Mac notes, Rev. Alexander helps us “live consequentially. Every major decision needs to be evaluated through the lens of Jesus’s musts on each of us.”

In other words, as Russell Moore puts it, this book is for you if you have trouble focusing on what really matters. This is about Christian maturity, about following Christ, about his cross and Kingdom. A few things are simply not optional, but necessary. This book explores what we do, day by day, and how to live with a sense of divine necessity, as he calls it. Nicely done.

There are six chapters and what looks to be a very good discussion guide in the back.  Hooray.

A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing Amanda Held Opelt (Worthy) $27.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

This came out a bit ago and I’ve mentioned it before but I just have to announce it again. It is, quite simply, a beautiful walk through 12 different grief practices. Amanda is the bereaved sister of the late Rachel Held Evans so it starts with her coping with that sudden loss. She writes well, includes some humor, and the book feels like a clever cross between a memoir of sorrow and an anthropologist’s survey of what might seem like oddball practices to the uninitiated.

There is so much here – it’s a great read. From fairly common habits (sending cards) to the nearly superstitious (covering mirrors) to the nearly amusing (see “funeral games” – who knew?) to the beautiful (like coping with fear through “telling the bees”), there is something here for everyone. Join Amanda as she sits shiva or as she takes in the beauty of funeral food. You will laugh, I bet, and you may cry. It’s a great book.

The fine writer Jen Pollock Michel says it “invites us to put our aching bodies in motion, to glimpse at the surviving we can all do.” Other fine raves on the back are from Sarah Bessey, Jeff Chu, Michael Card, and K.J. Ramsey, all authors we’ve commended here. Trust us – A Hole in the World is well worth having.

The Other Side of Hope Danielle Strickland (Nelson) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Oh my, there’s a lot to explain about this but I promised I’d keep it quick. I’ve read several books by this heroic and outspoken leader who has worked against trafficking for the Salvation Army in Canada and has served in a large church (which she left in solidarity with abuse victims that were not being taken seriously until their pastor was arrested.) She doesn’t always do the courageous and heroic thing, according to this fabulous read (which is nearly like a memoir, each chapter telling about episodes of her journey.) But, wow, how God has shown up, claimed and empowered her. I still recall her fabulous talk at the CCOs Jubilee conference a few years back and appreciated her podcast with the ever-upbeat Bob Goff. Diana gets around and is an author you should know.

Here’s the fun thing: half of this book is stories of her slowly finding hope in her ragged, rugged situations. It is hard to put down and I kept saying to myself “I’ll just read one more” and on and on I went, turning pages, until…

Well, until you have to turn the book over and start over from the back, with an upside-down new start. The designers imagined this way to get to “the other side” of hope and the second half is described as “flipping the script on cynicism and despair and rediscovering our humanity.” I suppose we could say we start with stories and then get to the theory, but even this second section is laden with examples and stories of folks she’s met on her walk on the wild side. What hard won hope! Flipping the script, for real.

If the front of the book sort of looks like a classy museum painting, the back is the backside, the dirty canvas, the wooden frame and wires. Cheers to Hannah McNeilly for this original package design. And thanks to the candor and hope of this broken servant of the Lord, Danielle Strickland. Buy it today if you like good stories, hard stuff redeemed by a God who is there.

Following Jesus in a Digital Age Jason Thacker (B+H) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

Jason Thacker is an amazing young scholar and this recent, compact book, while succinct, is weighty, full of substance and a bit of gravitas. It is a fine companion to one of our favorite reads of this year, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological Age by the remarkable Andy Crouch. Jason Thacker isn’t as charmingly eloquent but he’s solid and exceptionally sharp.

His first book (The Age of AI) carried an excellent forward by Richard Mouw, by the way, and this new one is less specific and looks at the broader scope of our technological age. He heads the ERLC Research Institute, researching technology and its impact. He is no Luddite but he is worried and here he calls God’s people to “step into the challenges of the digital age from a place of hope and discernment.” It’s a good perspective, a helpful way to lean into all of this, since most of us are nearly like the proverbial fish in water asking, “what’s water?”

Thacker invites us to pursue wisdom, truth, responsibility, and identity in our post-truth, curated, polarized age. Highly recommended.

In the Shadow of His Wings: 40 Uplifting Devotions Inspired by Birds Rosylnn Long (Bethany Publishing) $17.99                          OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This doesn’t take much to describe but I wish I could put it into your hands to open it and gaze at the beautiful, full-color pictures. It isn’t overly artful or eccentric, just solid faith-building devotions illustrated with wonderful, inspiring photos. One friend of the store recently said she read through three or four devotionals straight through — they were that good. Designed for a 40-day journey, maybe you, too, will breeze through, and then come back to ponder. But half the fun is enjoying the photography.

Rosylnn Long’s photography has been featured in Birds and Blooms magazine, Minnesota Weatherguide calendars, and other Minnesota publications. (So you can guess where she’s from.) She loves God and God’s creation and her study of birds has given her this unique opportunity to dwell with God in His creation, observing. Check out her prints at lynnlongprintscom. This handsome hardback makes a nice gift, eh? Order one today.

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BookNotes

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DISCOUNT

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One of the books I praised most heartily earlier this year was Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children edited by Leslie Bustard, Carey Bustard, and Thea Rosenburg (Square Halo Books; $29.99 – OUR BOOKNOTES DISCOUNT PRICE = $23.99.) It is one of my favorite books about books and certainly on the top of the list of books parents should have to inspire them to read widely to their kiddos. I like these kinds of books and whenever the opportunity presents itself, we recommend The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease (Penguin; $20.00) and the lovely, updated Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life by Gladys Hunt (Zondervan; $21.99)

Recently we’ve gotten into the store the terrific book called Mothering By the Book: The Power of Reading Aloud to Overcome Fear and Recapture Joy by Jennifer Pepito (Bethany House; $16.99) that comes with a lovely foreword by the great Sally Clarkson. We shouldn’t forget the wonderful work of Sarah Mackenzie (founder of “Read Aloud Revival”) and her book The Read Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids (Zondervan; $18.99.)

I like more reflective books on kid’s books as well. I can’t say enough about the stunning Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children’s Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls by Mitali Perkins (Broadleaf; $24.99.) You really should read it!  Recently, I’ve been dipping in to my old copies of the marvelous Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy (Simon & Schuster; $17.00) and the somewhat eccentric and deep Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children’s Literature by Jonathan Cott (University of Minnesota Press; $19.95.) There is in the new edition a forward by the ever brilliant (and perfectly suited for this nearly mysterious project) Maria Popova, founder of the weekly email newsletter, The Marginalian. As Jerry Griswold wrote about it in the Los Angeles Times Book Review,

“This book is a serious, even profound study of complex writers and the depth concealed under the hard-wrought simplicity of their stories.” 

Perhaps that is what some of the myriad authors in Wild Things and Castles in the Sky are getting at, which is why I loved it so. There is so much going on in “hard-wrought” simple stories that end up being not so simple after all. Co-editor of Wild Things, educator Carey Bustard, offers her kid’s lit reviews in her chapter framed by notions of goodness, beauty, and truth.  Artist and songwriter Matthew Clark’s piece mentions fantasy novelist George MacDonald and how he “gently scratches the surface to release the delicious fragrance of goodness.” Joy Strawbridge’s entry on Middle Grade Fiction is called “Growing Holy Imagination.” That’s it, isn’t it?!

In a chapter on suffering called “Cracks in the Creation”, Ashley Artavia Novalis writes wisely about various sorts of kid’s books that approach this tender topic with great empathy. Recalling a memorable Mister Rogers’ episode about the assassination of Robert F Kennedy she tells how Mister Rogers offered “a masterclass in how families can help children grieve and serves as a prime example of one of Mister Rogers’ key philosophies behind the neighborhood: “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.”” 

“In the same way,” Novalis continues, “good stories of adversity provide a language for suffering.” 

Which brings me to…

Stories of My Life Katherine Paterson  (Westminster John Knox) $22.00                                                 OUR BOOKNOTES 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $17.60

Which brings me to one of the great patron saints of 20th century (and early 21st century) children’s literature, the extraordinary Katherine Paterson. Had I been asked to do a chapter in a book like Wild Things and Castles in the Sky I’d have surely told of my own learning to love children’s books as an adult while reading (or listening to) Bridge to Terabithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, and Jacob Have I Loved, three of the most esteemed and honored of Paterson’s dozens of books. I will never forget the spectacular talk she gave at the 1998 Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing on the role of the imagination, the best of the keynotes that year, sandwiched between Elie Weisel and John Updike. She tells about that lecture, and staying in the Grand Rapids home of the legendary writer (and Calvin prof) Gary Schmidt for that weekend, when she got the phone call saying she won the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award, in her new book of memories, Stories of My Life. It is utterly magnificent, touching, and I found it captivating — a gentle but absolute page-turner!

I was very moved by this sprawling set of memories from her life, including what she has learned about parents and grandparents on her side of the family — she was a Womeldorf; her mother came from a grand Southern family, the Goetchius’s. We learn a bit about the colorful stories of her late husband — he was a Paterson (“with one t” she noticed, quickly) whose own father had very colorful years of, among other things, serving in World War One, being gassed, losing a leg, and being treated for TB. It is very nicely written with a calm and no-nonsense style. It was truly lovely, without being luminous, engaging without pretension. She says firmly in the beginning that it is not a memoir. It is, as the title sensibly proclaims, a set of stories from her life.

And what a life she has led. I can hardly say enough about this wonderful read about a wonderful Christian woman whose contribution to (and fame in) the world of contemporary children’s literature is nearly unsurmountable. She is, certainly, one of the great children’s writers of these times.

How can I persuade you to order this handsome volume full of entertaining and edifying stories of a life well lived? If you do not know that she was born in China (her parents were medical missionaries) who fled as a little one during the Japanese invasion, and who returned, only to be exiled again (mostly due to tensions with the communists that time) and you do not know that she herself was a Presbyterian missionary in Japan, if you do not know her moving stories like Bridge to Terabithia and her several nonfiction books about the role of the imagination and of faithful but not overtly religious storytelling, I hardly know where to begin. Any good library would have her many out of print children’s titles and now you can easily learn about her life and times.

Here are just a few fascinating and enjoyable moments you will encounter if you order Stories From My Life.

Firstly, you know you are in for a treat (and will be walking among the gods of stories) when you open the book to find a fabulous short intro by none other than Kate DiCamillo. She highlights a key moment of vulnerability in the narrative when she alerts us to Katherine’s story of being a child (home from the Chinese mission field, wearing second-hand clothing, a bit shy, and seemingly not welcomed into her new school) and not receiving any Valentine Day cards in school. Kate notes that Katherine writes that she told her mother many years later about this and she was, of course, aghast. Mother wondered why Katherine never wrote about the hurtful incident. As DiCamillo recalls, Katherine “answered her by saying, “All my books are about the day I didn’t get any valentines.”

And then, in her own great gift, the great Kate DiCamillo says:

This book is a valentine.

It is Katherine’s Valentine to her parents and to her children. It is her Valentine to life and to stories.

It is her valentine to us.

Kate Dicamillo also has badgered Katherine to include the story of Maude, a relative of her grandfather’s who was the last person to kiss Robert E. Lee, who, in turn kissed little Katherine. DiCamillo loved the story so, she threatened to write it up herself if Katherine didn’t write it down. So, yes, here is the bit about Lee, although, personally, I enjoyed the episode about her brother and the bones of Lee’s famous horse, Traveller. You will have to read it to discover that yourself.

The second foreword is so endearing and masterfully written and insightful that I’ve read it twice — it is by writer Nancy Price Graff and she tells of the twosome’s weekly lunch at a diner in their town in Vermont. For over twenty years the women have grown old together in their regular Naugahyde booth. Paterson has written 40-some books in fifty years, performing what she calls “the fragile magic” of spinning stores for children and young adults. But she doesn’t talk about her writing or much about her fame. 

“Week after week,” Graff writes,

…one of the great storytellers in the world has told me the story of her exceptional life. Diners no more than three feet away, deep into their meatloaf, are oblivious to the presence of the former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, the winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award. It would never cross their minds that the gray-haired woman sitting two booths over, wearing a turtleneck and a pink sweater, might have had dinner last week with the librarian of Congress or the empress of Japan.

The stories are not exactly chronological and in fact, starts with a good piece responding to “Three Frequently Asked Questions.” I was hooked. In one of these early pages she tells of being at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia. (Now known as Union, it was started when there was a need for theological education for women headed to the mission field or into educational tasks since the Presbyterian churches were not yet ordaining women so women were not as likely to attend a seminary like Princeton, say.) One of her favorite professors stopped her in the hall — he has been reading her exam —and said in made her wonder if she ever thought of being a writer.

Now I, the lifelong reader, the summa cum laude graduate in English literature, knew what great writing was, so how could Dr. Little imagine, on the basis of an essay on an exam, that I could be a writer? ‘No,’ I said primly. I had no intention of being a writer because I wouldn’t want to add another mediocre writer to the world.

Well, the prof pushed back, wondering if perhaps that was exactly what God was calling her to do.  Katherine tell us simply:

It was hard to imagine that God needed a lot more mediocre writers in the world, so I didn’t become a writer or movie star. I became a missionary.

Her first piece of writing, by the way, was a great Sunday school book for middle school age kids published in 1966, Who Am I?, which is still in print from Eerdmans. She was by then home from her Japanese mission experience (1957 – 1961), had married John whom she had met at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and was teaching in Pennington NJ, while John attended Princeton. By ’66 they had moved to Tacoma Park, MD.

One of the opening questions in that long opening chapter was “How does it feel to be famous?” Children and others ask this at book readings and interviews and it is a question she is not fully comfortable with. She tends to be shy, although has learned to be brave. She tells of being at very fancy dinners at a head table and being ignored. She has been shunted here and there on book tours and speaking engagements and sometimes mistreated. She reports that she’d come home whining to her husband that she is not treated “like a human being.”  This reveals both her insecurities, it seems, and her life’s overarching principle — that people, made in God’s image, should be treated with understanding and kindness. This matter of being uncared for comes up over and over and I found it quite gripping. Near the end of Stories… she admits that she wrote The Great Gilly Hopkins after pondering a question of how it would feel to be considered disposable. 

The Paterson’s have adopted two children, one from Hong Kong and one an indigenous Native baby. She and her husband were great parents, it seems. They have been foster parents, too, and it was painfully difficult. “After The Great Gilly Hopkins was published, I realized, belatedly, that I had put two foster children in the story. I might not have been Gilly. I might well have been William Ernest.”

She was an honorable child, usually, it seems, but playful and adventurous (and a good reader, bored with early school book readers.) There are stories of family in China, and of being back in the US, a “home” she did not know, of course. (Today we call this phenomenon being “third culture kids.”) Her parents loved her dearly, even though there were harrowing times of her dad being on Chinese riverboats trying to smuggle life-saving medicines and supplies to Christian hospitals for the Chinese people. There were times when he’d to travel undetected for remarkable distances, keeping away from the Japanese invaders and the young communists and certain military officials. What a story!

(Her parent’s backgrounds were fascinating themselves. She is somehow distantly related to Mark Twain. After WW I her father was cared for by a Mrs. Lathrop Brown, whose husband was a special assistant to the Department of Interior, high up in the Wilson administration. She had been a New York debutante and her husband had been Franklin Roosevelt’s roommate at Harvard. As a disabled veteran, he was fortunate to have her as a caregiver and she stayed in touch with her parents until she died. In fact, she sent boxes of children’s books to little Katherine in China. When they were exiled from China and spent an awful time in 1938 as refugees, she had arranged for a chauffeur to meet them at the boat in New York harbor.)

Katherine’s time in Japan is explained and there are a few memorable stories. It doesn’t take much —she’s working that ‘fragile magic’ — and I was in tears at a going away party which had a Japanese pastor reading Ephesians 2:14 (a personal favorite, about the dividing walls being broken down in Christ) and Paul’s revolutionary words in Galatians 3:28. It is especially powerful knowing that Katherine had admitted that she had trained to return to her native China. Going there on mission was not to be and when she was assigned to Japan — the feared and despised enemy that had attacked China (and perpetrated atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking in 1937) — it caused turmoil in her soul. Of course she went and then, knowing the language and caring for the people, a Japanese pastor says,

Katherine is young, I am old. She is a woman, I am a man. She is American. I am Japanese. When she was the child of missionaries in China, I was a colonel in the occupying army in Manchuria. She comes from the Presbyterian tradition, I come from the Pentecostal. The world would think it is impossible that she and I should love each other. But Christ has broken down the barriers that should divide us. We are one in Christ Jesus.

After her own sermonizing just a bit, she notes how the influence of Japan is evident in all her work. “My first three novels are set there, as well as the beautiful picture book The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, whose illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillard garnered a Boston-Globe-Horn Book Award.” She has translated some Japanese folk tales, as well, illustrated by the award-winning Suekichi Akab. She quietly notes that she wouldn’t be the writer she is if it were not for her four years in ministry there. “To be loved by people you thought hated you is an experience I wish everyone could have.” 

“To be loved by people you thought hated you is an experience I wish everyone could have.”

She loved her job as a teacher, then, first in 1955 reading aloud to poor rural kids in a one-room school in Virginia. Oooh, was she irritated that these kids were all said to be dumb because they supposedly had done poorly on IQ tests. These kids were not dumb! (And she henceforth distrusted standardized tests.) She doesn’t think she was much of a teacher but she gave them good experiences (including a trip to the National Zoo in DC that, trust me, was a great episode to read about.)

What I lacked in pedagogical skill, I made up for by reading aloud — everything fromThe Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Huckleberry Finn to Shakespeare. Macbeth was a class favorite — all that gore. I’m sure I skipped and explained airway through several pages of the play, but they had a taste of greatness anyhow.

I choked back tears when she tells of going to visit the little school in Lovettsville years later while passing through the region. It was now a community center so she found the newer building. School had just closed but teachers were there, cleaning up as they do on their last day. Katherine marveled at the well-stocked library. Nobody had time, really, to chat until it became evident that she used to teach there and some old-timer had some recollections of people she had known decades beforehand they realized who she was. Oh, were they pleased, confident that Bridge to Terabithia’s Lark Creek was based on Lovettsville. The current sixth grade teacher said that he tells their students that each year and they never believe him. She assured him that he was right. 

She also taught for a while in a Methodist boys school, teaching the Bible. There’s a great story there about a boy complaining about how all the kings of the Old Testament seemed to be getting killed and how irrelevant that all was. Before she could even answer, the classroom door was thrown open. “The history master was standing in the doorway, ashen faced. ‘The president has been shot,’ he said.”

She comments,

Without a word, we filed out into the common area where there was a large television set and watched in horror until Walter Cronkite finally announced the news that Kennedy was dead. The boys didn’t try to argue about the stupidity of the ancient Hebrew ever again.

This is a typical passage — casually reported yet full of pathos, poignant, even, and sort of sly. There are some fun laughs in the book —her young married life was hard and she had four young children (two of two different races) and yet she and her husband made do and did well. It’s a glorious part of the book, hearing about their married life and her efforts as a parent. 

One of the most moving stories comes at about page 270 as she tells of her son, David, finally getting a good friend; Katherine had been diagnosed with cancer and worried about her children, but David, especially, needed a good pal. And then one day he met Lisa. Who — to cut a tender story short — was suddenly killed, struck by lightning at Bethany Beach. This was, of course, the genesis of the tragic story of a boy/girl friendship and the way youth cope with death that became Bridge to Terabithia. (You may recall that in that story they read The Chronicles of Narnia together.) She hardly wanted to finish writing the story and tells of putting off doing the chapter when Leslie Burke would die. 

And to think Bridge to Terabithia has been maligned and banned! To think we have been criticized for carrying it!  

It is fascinating how Katherine Paterson has often written about serious things. Her story of struggling with her first novel, The Sign of the Chrysanthemum, comes to mind. It is nicely told and she tells us much, but she offhandedly observes that she was doing a juvenile novel set in 12th century Japan (with a storyline of ancient civil strife, poverty, and which included trafficking and a brothel) at the same time that the nation’s number one best seller of adult fiction was a calming, almost silly narrative about a seagull named Jonathan. If you are a baby boomer, you know what she means.

There are fun things to learn while reading Stories of My Life. She has a whole chapter called “Pets” and it involves more than their beloved dogs. Yes, the great Gilly Hopkins is named after Gerard Manley Hopkins. Jacob Have I Loved came out of thorny ground and a difficult time — her editor, the famous Virginia Buckley, had to push and pull to get her to develop it suitably. She missed the first Newbery Award press conference when a plane couldn’t land —Peter Spier was the only one who made it and he “single-handedly charmed the press and the American Library Association, melting the heart of blizzard-bound Chicago.” The story of what she allowed her kids to do with the first Newbery Award check —one thousand dollars was the prize amount and it was the most disposable income they ever had —is cute and made me chuckle. Her “self-effacing humor and extraordinary humility” (as the Publishers Weekly starred review put it) shines through over and over.  

Early on Paterson notes that there were stories she heard growing up as the family did the dishes together. She wondered why many of these stories were not passed on to her own now grown children and grandchildren. You never told us that, they’d exclaim. (The answer is easy — they had a dishwashing machine which eroded such family time.) In a way, this book was written for her own loved ones. She set about finding diaries and letters and researched things in far away courthouses and museums to get more information behind the anecdotal stories she grew up with. She added much from her own life, her writing career, her travels around the world as an internationally known figure promoting children’s literacy and the imaginative arts. 

We still have a copy of Gary Schmidt’s great 1994 biography — her Flip Flop Girl  had just come out, I think — simply called Katherine Paterson. Now, in Stories of My Life we have her own amazing story, told in her own way and in her own voice.

I will not spoil the last two chapters but they are tender and touching. The very last is short but she ponders that one famous reviewer said, looking back over her work, said that she is a writer of hope. Indeed. But there is something behind that, she insists, and it is the Biblical doctrine of grace. She cites the words to the hymn Come Thou Font of Every Blessing. She is now 90, doing well, and active at the First Presbyterian Church in Barre, VT, where, as she puts it, she has “experienced the true communion of the saints.” It is a lovely ending to a marvelously entertaining book.

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BookNotes

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This isn’t the BookNotes I was going to share this week, but a few conversations — with a devout Trump devotee, with a conservative skeptic, and with a radically Christian part of the resistance — has me in a bit of a funk. Why do we know so many different people, and like them all, mostly? How do smart, Biblically influenced people end up with so many different perspectives? And what’s wrong with all you people who don’t agree exactly with me on everything!  Seriously, though: why are things that I think are just cut and dry — like that the FBI (compromised as they have been in many ways in recent years) was right to insist that the former President be held to the facts of the law. That Trump is a dangerously dishonest, bad person; that seems self-evident, but yet…

One answer to some of this, as an aside, is found in a very important, forthcoming book on what sources of information and media outlets we trust and how we — especially as Christians — discern true truth from error and propaganda. We’ve already urged BookNotes readers to send us pre-orders for Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community by Bonnie Kristian (Brazos Press; $24.95 – our sale price = $19.99.) It releases October 11th but we hope to have it a bit early.

A current book, somewhat more scholarly, on, among other things, what the author calls “troll epistemology” is The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch (Brookings Institutions; $27.99 – our sale price = $22.39.) We need to be thinking through the deeper questions behind our current polarization.

So. I’m thinking about so-called Christian nationalism and those who see current events through the lens of this broad sense of  extreme American exceptionalism, alt-right history, and contemporary aggrievements. 

How do those of us who are not part of this deeply angry, MAGA worldview understand it? How should we think about friends, neighbors, and family who are entrenched in it as a serious ideology?

How we talk across political differences and how we cultivate a distinctly Christian view of the government and politics has been a much-discussed topic, here, and we’ll just refer you back HERE or HERE to BookNotes columns written with good book suggestions for those wanting a nonpartisan Biblical orientation on Christian politics. (Some of those books that I reviewed then were in hardback but have since come out in paperback and are less expensive then shown there. Give us a holler if we can help with any of that.) 

Here are some that are more current, less about Christian politics in theory and more directly about the rise of Christian nationalism and extreme Red-state ideologies. I mostly want to tell you about this first one, but then I’ll list a few more to round out this urgent BookNotes, two that are by those who might identify as conservatives, by the way, and two specifically for church leaders.

Red State Christians: A Journey into White Christian Nationalism and the Wreckage It Leaves Behind Angela Denker (Broadleaf Books) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I loved this book. I’ve mentioned this before, announcing that it seemed to be a good read, but now that I’ve read it, I’m wanting very much to recommend Red State Christians heartily. It’s unlike many public affairs and current events books in that it is written nicely, with lots of interesting stories of this Lutheran pastor with middle American roots (and a evangelical mega-church past) travelling around the classic sites of red-state religion. From a hip mega church in Orange County to deep south Pentecostal Trumpers, from conservative Lutherans in Missouri to conservative evangelical intelligentsia in DC, she travelled for more than a year conducting first hand interviews and writing about it in lovely prose that puts you in the place, with lots of local color and flavor. She was a working journalist before her call to ministry — in fact, was a pretty well known sports-journalist (as can be seen from her vivid and insightful chapter set in Florida called “Winners and Losers: Trump, Football and Christianity” which could have been a human interest piece in Sports illustrated.) She isn’t afraid to meet people and get behind the scenes for the story.

Here’s three things to know about the book.

Firstly, I think it is somewhat mis-named. It’s done by a publishing house which is mostly progressive and I think the lingo about “the wreckage” is fair enough, but the book shows more sympathy for the people embracing the right wing that such a title suggests. She truly was trying to figure out how the evangelical voting bloc helped the Trump presidency and she did so with grace and appreciation. She disapproves of aligning faith with far right politics, and she is writing for a more liberal audience, to be sure, but, still, she is often talking about her own people, her tribe, in some cases her own older friends and family members. She has a very nice touch and while her goal is to expose as inappropriate the unabashed loyalty to Christian nationalism and Trumpian politics, she is fair-minded and kind. 

She addresses this in a passionate new chapter in this edition. She was more eager to build bridges and find common ground back when she wrote the first edition (that carried a less loaded subtitle.) The persistence of the big lie, the politicalization of Covid and the January 6th uprising has made her less calm and her coming to grips with insatiable racism is painfully explained in that new ending.Still, even there, there are a few remarkably tender scenes and signs of hope; Had to when away tears from my cheek as I read. 

Secondly, she observes that not all conservative evangelicals are equally happy about Trump’s demeanor, policies, or the Republican Party’s recent support of his extremism. For instance, she meets in a swanky Orange County megachurch some people of color who are helping their congregations struggle with questions of diversity and racial justice— not an easy task in the OC. ) That chapter, called “Bibles and Boob Jobs: The Money and Influence of Orange County Christians” was careful and really interesting.  A world away was a great chapter of her own family roots, set in the soil of rural, Midwestern faming communities where she described kids from the local Lutheran church as “free thinking” if rather pro-Trump. 

There is another riveting chapter called “Less Conservative, More Consequential: Rural Rust Belt Red State Christians in Appalachia and Central Pennsylvania.” I won’t say much more, but, dang — she’s a good writer,  stopping off at an Eat ’N Park and focusing a bit on a young Christian lawyer from Altoona, doing her best to celebrate light and life in that rugged part of the Keystone State. (Note to Angela, though: we here in central Pennsylvania, North and South of Harrisburg, view Altoona as almost Western Pennsylvania. Just saying, sister.)  In yet another chapter Denker nicely explores conservative Roman Catholics who are harder on their current Pope than they are their beloved candidate. Fascinating. 

Thirdly, I think this book, easy to read as it is, generally gracious and open-minded as it may be, is still a wake-up call to many of us in the faith community to be aware of how deeply odd these times are. What are we to do in our churches when congregational leaders deny that Jesus’s words are important for civic life, when pro-family leaders rave about a pussy-grabber and conservative theologians support a regime unhinged from typical faith traditions of public theology? How odd that many seasoned politicos trusted a corrupt business tycoon with no political leadership skills, only to regret it when it was way too late. 

In any case, Red State Christians in its new, expanded edition, is a book I’ve been waiting for, a good guide to thinking helpfully, written in an anecdotal, journalistic way, about the complexities of our faith these days and what to think and do about the diverse American religious and political landscape. It really is a travelogue and exploration of people on the ground — she is neither cynical nor jaded, even as she brings her mainline denominational theology and spirituality into her honest evaluations of the interviews.

And while she was doing journalism and storytelling, not exactly research-based social science, she has a good eye: the Central/Western PA folk, while mostly churched, were not the same as the pro-life Pentecostals in the South. The Lutherans in the Midwest had a different vibe — and different reasons for their support for Trump — than, say, the slicker Lutherans in  Southern California. From Texas to Florida to Minnesota, she helps us realize that the religious MAGA movement is not at all monolithic

And, be prepared for some fascinating surprises. She almost liked Paula White, who insists she does not preach a “prosperity gospel” heresy and is deeply committed to racial unity. She dresses up, sure — in a leather jacket — but her church is not glitzy and her people are much less fancy than other Southern megachurches Denker visited. White insisted that she wasn’t that interested in Trump’s politics, but wants him to grow in faith in Jesus, as any good pastor would. Anyway, in a brutal and important chapter on #metoo and #ChurchToo, “Evangelical Women and Donald Trump: Who’s Grabbing Whom?” (including a tangential but powerful interview with Rachel Denhollander) it was a helpful and interesting contribution. From “Red-State Arabs: Christians, Muslims, and Evangelicals in Houston” to “On the Border: Donald Trump and Latinx Christians” we see the conflict in specificity. In a chapter primarily about abortion and another about gun rights, we see the complexity.  She tells the story of who the mostly — but not always — far right Red State Christians are. In the new conclusion to the 2022 edition she is more outraged than most of the book indicates, because most of the book is a beautiful testimonial of good storytelling, sociological insight, immersive journalism. It’s a great read.

The new ending includes her being graciously called upon by Red-State relatives to preside at a COVID-death of a relative, her husband’s 43 year-old brother. It is full of pathos — sadness and outrage, aware that some of the politicians and pastors who shunned vaccines and minimized the threat of the pandemic were to blame. This is not theoretical, folks, or distant. This book helps us understand much that we need to understand. Order it today, please.

The Psychology of Christian Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn In and How to Talk Across the Divide Pamela Cooper-White (Fortress Press) $21.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.80

I’ve reviewed this already and wanted to give it a mention here, again, It’s a bit more academic, but quite readable and heartfelt. Cooper-White is an Episcopal priest and professor of Psychology and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in NYC (and her husband, Michael, has served as President of the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg.) She has just three chapters, chapters that have been called “incisive” as she explores the troubling reality of Christian nationalism, its deep roots, and what to do about it. 

Specifically, after documenting the connections between white supremacy and Christian nationalism (and the longing for power) — all of which she calls “Unholy Alliances” — she explores cogently “why people are drawn in by extremists beliefs” which includes “conscious needs and unconscious lures.” Yep, there is some sense that for some, there deepening and unquestioning views are almost showing cult-like tendencies.

There is a lot packed into this chapter, some of it fairly basic (exploring “the need for belonging”) and some of it is fairly sophisticated. All of it is illustrated with stories of people she knows, friends and acquaintances, and stories of her travels into the far right. She mentions being at a biker rally in the summer of 2021, hosted by State Senator Mastriano here in central Pennsylvania. She compares and contrasts the gun-shooting ads of Marjorie Taylor Green and the Eliza Griswold New Yorker article about Shane Claiborne (and his book Beating Guns…) Beyond values and policy questions, she explores the nature of narcissistic leaders and the fascinating psychology of those lured by them.

It covers a lot of ground and we recommend it for one good survey, trying to imagine what is really going on.

This brilliant and courageous book is the best treatment we have of the complex psychological dynamics of the dangerous Christian nationalist movement in America. Without losing sight of the humanity of even the most racist and sexist of our fellow citizens, Pamela Cooper-White has given us a powerful and needed text on just how close we are to losing our democratic experiment.  — Cornel West, author Race Matters and Democracy Matters

The Flag + The Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy Philip Gorski and Samuel L. Perry (Oxford University Press) $21.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.56

Again, I’ve named this before, but wanted to list it again. Academic press volumes are peer reviewed and often scholarly, but this is, if deeply researched, still (as Kristin Kobes Du Mez says) “immensely clarifying. She calls it “sobering”and says, “Anyone who cares about the fate of American democracy should read this book.”

I’m very struck by this insightful comment about it by Beth Allison Barr, Professor of History at Baylor University and author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood:

Gorski and Perry make sense of the seemingly senseless January 6 uprising. Built on powerful evidence, they show how white nationalism wove itself into the very fabric of modern conservative values. By making visible the creation of white nationalism, this book gives me hope that we can unmake it. 

Barr notes that they “make visible the creation of white nationalism” and by that she means not only the updated and previously unpublished data on the 2020 elections, but, more importantly, the old, old story — going back to the late 17th century. It’s succinct but very helpful. Highly recommended.

Philip S. Gorski, Professor of Sociology at Yale University, is a comparative and historical sociologist who writes on religion and politics in early modern and modern Europe and North America. His work has been featured and discussed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and other national media outlets. He is the author, most recently, of American Babylon: Christianity and Democracy Before and After Trump (2020) and American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present (2017).

Samuel L. Perry is a sociologist of American religion, race, politics, sexuality, and families and serves as Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma. He has written for outlets like The Washington Post and Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The Economist, The New York Times, and elsewhere. He is the author or co-author of Growing God’s Family (2017), Addicted to Lust (Oxford 2019), Taking America Back for God (Oxford 2020).

The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with Christian Nationalism Paul D. Miller (IVP Academic) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

Leave it to IVP Academic to write what one observer calls “a compelling vision” and what the always balanced and insightful Amy Black (of Wheaton College) calls, “A refreshingly different approach.”  Even the impressive sociologist (see above) Samuel Perry says it is “Beautifully written from a conservative Christian perspective. Miller shows us all a better way.”

“Beautifully written from a conservative Christian perspective. Miller shows us all a better way.”

Many thoughtful scholars — from Karen Swallow Prior to George Marsden to John Inazu — have endorsed this with glorious recommendations. So have public activists like Michael Ware. 

I have only begun this magisterial work but here is some of why it is considered different: Miller is trained as a conservative political scientist from Georgetown University. (That in itself might give a hint since that department is known as rigorous and not liberal.) His most recent academic book is on Cambridge University Press, entitled Just War and Ordered Liberty and before that he wrote an important work rejecting calls for American restraint in foreign affairs (entitled American Power & Liberal Order: Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy,)The scholar knows a bit about this stuff as he has had boots on the ground. He has been the Director of the Afghanistan and Pakistan departments of the National Security Council and served as an intelligence analyst for the CIA. So there’s that.

Not all Christian nationalists are extremists involved in Trump’s big lie or complicit with January 6th insurrection tragedy. But if they care about the constitution and, more importantly, a Biblical sense of prudence and justice, they should read this book. It brings a sober tone for all of us and I’m impressed so far.

The Religion of American Greatness is a superb and essential book―engaging and fair minded, thoughtful and accessible, and oh so timely. It both explains and challenges an increasingly widespread, malicious movement―toxic Christian nationalism―that is doing great harm to America and to the Christian witness. The Religion of American Greatness is powerfully argued, honest, and never ungracious. It’s just the book we need, and Paul D. Miller is just the person to write it.  — Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, author of The Death of Politics

A much-needed and astute analysis of a major reality in the United States, a reality that challenges the very heart of this nation and of Christianity. Dr. Paul Miller brings to bear years of political experience, a deep commitment to Christian understanding, and a wellspring of scholarly comprehension to help us see what ultimately is wrong with Christian nationalism. A must-read.  — Michael O. Emerson, professor and Sociology Department head at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

I’ll be recommending this book to every thinking Christian I know who’s looking to understand why nationalism, and Christian nationalism in particular, is such a danger for the church and American democracy. Beautifully written from a conservative, Christian perspective, Paul Miller carefully engages the arguments for both nationalism and Christian nationalism, and shows them to be sorely lacking. Christian nationalism is illiberal, antidemocratic, and ultimately for Christians, unbiblical and inconsistent with authentic gospel witness. Miller shows us all the better way  — Samuel L. Perry, coauthor with Philip Gorski of The Flag + The Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy

Paul D. Miller, a politically conservative, patriotic, old-style Republican, offers a thoughtful Christian critique of the most recent versions of Christian nationalism and its antecedents. Conservative Christians who suspect he may be wrong should at least give him a hearing. More progressive Christians can also learn from this balanced and constructive approach — George Marsden, author of Fundamentalism and American Culture

Cold Civil War: Overcoming Polarization, Discovering Unity, and Healing the Nation Jim Belcher (IVP) $28.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

I wrote about this before and now seems an ideal opportunity to remind you of it. Jim is an old acquaintance, a man and scholar I admire. (He has worked as a pastor and a Christian college President but his PhD is in political philosophy from Georgetown.) This is a major, thoughtful work and few could have written anything like it.

It is a different sort of book than the others listed here, deeper, really, and it will annoy some (many?) Hear, hear.

As I noted in my earlier announcement of it, I am not sure I love it. We are indeed in a cold civil war and we do indeed need to overcome polarization. But this is not a “let’s find common ground and come together” sort of invitation to gracious deliberation. It is neither Parker Palmer’s generous Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit or Harold Heie’s ambitious Reforming American Politics: A Christian Perspective on Moving Past Conflict to Conversation although he should have cited it. (And while I’m mentioning Harold Heie, you should know his wise little volume done just last year, Let’s Talk: Bridging Divisive Lines Through Inclusive and Respectful Conversations that has nice little contributions by Richard Mouw, David Gushee, and Stan Gaede.) Anyway, the hefty Cold Civil War just isn’t that kind of book.

It is a serious study — and the footnotes alone, complete with lots of video links and website citations are well worth the price of the book for anybody wanting to study deeply in various sides of American political ideology. And it is a more theoretical approach, trying to get deeply at what sorts of varying players are leading the debates, and who is behind it. In this sense, Belcher offers a major contribution (even if I’m not sure he is always correct in his connecting the dots to these scholars, thinkers, intellectuals.)

He is somewhat in the vein of a book I often recommend, the heady but vital Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies by David Koyzis and it seems to inform Dr. Belcher’s “pox on all their houses” attitude. And, with insights from Yuval Levin and Patrick Deneen and natural law guy J. Budziezewski (from a book I bet I sold Jim at a conference years ago), he develops a fascinating four quadrant chart that places thinkers on both a left/right and up/down grid. It’s really the heart of his fascinating project.

Jim studied with Father James Schall (who taught him Plato and Aristotle) and as an evangelical, he linked those historic thinkers with the public theologies of Luther and Calvin and the like. In Cold Civil War his esteemed and serious background and lively faith is evident, even when he’s citing Tucker Carlson or Jim Wallis, Rod Dreyer or Jemar Tisby (not to mention Michael Sandel or Deidre McCloskey.) By the end of his ambitious assessment he argues for a “new vital center” which is somewhat of a synthesis, it seems. Naturally, he draws on DeTocqueville. He believes to get beyond and through all this the church must be heroic. It’s serious stuff, well worth pondering. We’ve got it at 20% off, so if you want a serious work that moves to new ground, order it today.

What Do We Do When Nobody Is Listening: Leading the Church in a Polarized Society Robin W. Loving (Eerdmans) $19.99                                   OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This is a very good book, useful for sober-minded, thoughtful, Christian people who want the church to bear witness — to be! — a community of moral seriousness and candid discourse. It is an astute work, not breezy or light, but not academic, either. There is a good discussion guide implying that the author and publisher hopes it might be used in small groups, book clubs, adult Sunday school classes or forums. It is trim size and five chapters make it ideal.

The first two chapters are about the problem, studying divisions and polarization. The first chapter explores general cultural polarization and the second is on the church. Along with an excellent, inspiring foreword by Adam Hamilton (who tells of getting to very opposing, both bluntly discouraging emails the same day by angry parishioners calling him either too conservative or too liberal. One said she would never come back, the other substantially decreased their giving) the problem is described and evaluated. This is important.

The next three chapters are aligned under the rubric of “Listening.” We are charged to listen to the Word, to the world, to those who are not heard.  The good extra ending chapter invites us to “take up space” and live with a certain sort of gravitas.

Calmly reasoned analyses of our sharply divided society are hard to come by. But Robin Lovin has a gift for summarizing complex cultural movements with a clarity and dexterity that others may only aspire to. Here’s an ethicist and theologian who brings light and hope to dispirited people frustrated by tense and even fighting times. Every pastor interested in helping a faith community stick together should be devouring these pages. — Peter W. Marty, editor The Christian Century

Lovin’s new book causes me to consider the question, ‘How is my congregation taking up space and serving as a witness to our overwhelming reality of God’s love and justice in what too often feels like chaos?’ I am thankful for the way Lovin frames our current reality and for his challenge to be a kind of witness that is different. — Shannon Johnson Kershner, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Robin Lovin graciously reminds us of some things we’d forgotten: that liberal means nothing if it doesn’t mean generous, that conservative means ensuring we never move on from Jesus, that disagreement is the source of most creativity, that faithfulness is tested by entering the marketplace of ideas rather than withdrawing into our bunkers. Crucially, he highlights the question, ‘Who are you listening to?’ as a test of both wisdom and renewal. It would be ironic for any reader coming to this book to require it to confirm ideas already fiercely held. Only read this book if you want to be transformed into becoming a blessing to the stranger who was once your neighbor. — Samuel Wells, vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, author of Humbler Faith, Bigger God

Preaching to a Divided Nation: A Seven-Step Model for Promoting Reconciliation and Unity Matthew D. Kim and Paul A. Hoffman (Baker Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE= $19.99

Oh my, I wish I had time and energy to review this book in greater detail as it is so very interesting, learned, and helpful, rooted, as it is, in a thoughtful, evangelical theological context. Preachers from other faith traditions (especially mainline Protestants) will learn much, even if, at times, the rhetoric is plainspoken and full of admonitions to prayer, to be guided by the Word, and so forth. Nothing disagreeable there, really.

What will be surprising to some who hold certain assumptions about the alleged monopoly of right ring politics or white supremacist attitudes within evangelical churches is just how radical and visionary this stuff is. 

Kim (who is of Korean family heritage and tells a heart-rending story about coming to greater insight about that) and Hoffman, who is white (a New England Quaker, no less) each have written previously about racial justice and the like. Professor Kim has an excellent book called Preaching with Cultural Intelligence and Hoffman has a book I’ve highlighted before entitled Reconciling Places which illustrated his public activism for the common good and the sorts of public theology that informs his efforts as an agent of reconciliation. Both of these guys are astute and their footnotes, the sources they draw from and the books they recommend, are excellent.

For instance, they draw wisely on the Oxford University Press paperback by Emerson Divided by Faith, they cite John Perkins and Brenda Salter McNeil, they use the work of Jamie Smith and Sheila Wise Rowe and Tish Harrison Warren. They quote Bible reference tools galore, commentaries, articles on homiletics.

Also, they draw on seminal works from Abraham Heschel and other theological classics, and when discussing standard-fair theology they use Donald Bloesch, J. I. Packer, Leslie Newbigin and John Stott, just for instance.  And yet, there are surprising citations and cutting edge mainline scholars represented as well. In other words, they are very well read, delightfully ecumenical, but tilting towards common-sense, evangelical sensibilities. It makes for a solid read.

In a way, I see this as a brand new companion volume — written with a slightly different focus and tone — to the excellent Alban Institute resource from a few years ago entitled Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide by Lutheran scholar and preacher Leah D. Schade (Rowman and Littlefield; $26.00; our sale price = $20.80.) It gives astute training for her fairly complex plan of a set of sermons shaped, in part, by congregational “deliberative dialogue” sessions.  If Kim and Hoffman draw on Timothy Keller and Peter Scazzaro, she draws on the likes of Leonora Tubbs Tisdale (of Yale Divinity School) and her book Prophetic Preaching and John McClure’s Roundtable Pulpit.

The useful framework in Preaching to a Divided Nation, the seven steps, is used to show how to preach to a politically divided congregation, and is attentive to various “isms” — classism, sexism, racism, ableism, and the like. It’s informative but never arcane; it’s nearly a practical field guide to real-world preaching and offers real encouragement for pastors wanting to be more candid and even prophetic in their preaching, They are attentive to these polarizing and fractious times, well aware how careful we must be. They encourage pastors to read widely and listen carefully and to speak judiciously. (That they have to remind preachers not to use racial and ethnic slurs struck me as odd, but I suppose they want to be very, very practical.)

The goal here is not just to sound off on hot topic issues or even to speak more prophetically in the pulpit, but to draw the Body together to a common vision and the mind of Christ. It has a big vision, a healthy view of the scope of redemption and knows that congregational growth and maturity is founded upon the redemptive work of Christ and the lively power of the Spirit. The goal of the book is to help pastors confront the divisions and work towards gospel reconciliation and real transformation in the congregation.

There are little charts and helpful tools to equip you who preach and teach to do it better — and lots of great information about what comes prior to writing the sermon, and what comes after. I’m no preacher and I loved it! It isn’t simplistic but it is clear and I think quite attainable. I think you’ll enjoy it, too, as there are lots of inspiring (and some honest) stories. They admit to learning some of this “the hard way” and that they are still growing as public theologians working for unity in the local church.

To flesh out their approach they not only have sample sermons and ideas and tools, there is an appendix with four excellent sermons, two by Hoffman, one by Kim, one by Sandra Maria Van Opstal, and one by Rich Villodas. There are several other helpful appendices included such as a brief rumination on critical race theory, a sample homiletical integrity covenant, a sample guide for a multi-church prayer and unity service and a helpful book list by topic.

I like the blurb on the back by Glen Packiam (and Indian-American preacher) who I admire greatly:

A stunning, scholarly, current, and critical guide for preachers to take seriously the complexity of preaching in a rapidly changing world.  — Glenn Packiam, pastor, New Life Downtown; author of The Resilient Pastor

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Imani Perry (Ecco) $28.99  OUR SALE PRICE= $23.19

I close with this suggestion even though, technically, it is not about the Red-State / Blue-State divide, the alt-right, or offering Christian insight into navigating our differences regarding white Christian nationalism and the like. But, somewhat like Red State Christians, it is a travelogue, memoiristic and at times a deeply impressionistic glimpse into 16 different American regions (and a bonus of her trip to The Bahamas and Havana.) From Annapolis to Memphis to Atlanta to North Carolina to Mobile to Louisville to Florida to Birmingham and more, her chapters are long, with first hand color and local interest with lots of backstory and serious history. It is, as the impressive and reliable Isabel Wilkerson says, “an elegant edition on the complexities of the American South — and thus of America.” 

“An elegant edition on the complexities of the American South — and thus of America.”

It is indeed elegant; I will name it as one of my favorite books of 2023, doubtlessly, but not only because it was mostly enjoyable for its fine and at times lush writing. More, it was because she introduced me to so much black history that I had only heard of in spurts or only knew a slight bit of. From the experience of blacks in Appalachia to the racism in her town of Princeton NJ to the glories of Fisk to her ruminations on the deeper south, South to America is eye-opening, amazingly full of truth and love. 

And yet, as a few reviewers have noted, she speaks of our “land of big dreams and bigger lies.” Uh-huh.

I have previously highlighted South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation and tried to assure readers it was well done, entertaining, even — Oprah called it “radiant” — but exceedingly important. I will do so again, listing it here as an anecdote to our failures to understand others. Here, Dr. Perry is writing about race and, as one of the great public intellectuals working today, she has much to teach us, regardless of your race. Most white folks, especially, I think, will be sobered and informed and be taken up in its good prose and vivid, instructional storytelling. As Natasha Trethewey (of the intense memoir Memorial Drive) notes, it is “part pilgrimage, part elegy, and a clarion call.”

South to America marks time like Beloved did. Similarly, we will talk not solely of books about the south, but books generally as before or after South to America. I have known and loved the South for four decades and Imani Perry has shown me that there is so much more in our region’s fleshy folds to know, explore and love. It is simply the most finely crafted and rigorously conceived book about our region, and nation, I have ever read.” — Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

++++

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

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.69; 2 lbs would be $4.36.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.35 if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $8.95. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

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

– DON’T FORGET TO LET US KNOW WHAT SHIPPING METHOD YOU PREFER –

BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

SPECIAL SALE — ONE WEEK ONLY

Buy any one book at 20% off, as usual.

Buy more than one at 30% OFF

Offer expires August 23, 2022

You may recall that earlier in the summer we reported here that we once again did an off-site event, the first such face-to-face event since the start of the pandemic. We are still concerned about the implications of long-Covid and the high rates at which the virus continues to spread, so it was a big deal for us. 

It was an event with our good friends and colleagues at the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach.) Some of you know that I remain an Associate Staff with them, helping with new staff training, speaking at some events. Beth and I serve them the best we can with book displays at staff conferences and some student events. It was our time working full time in campus ministry with them more than 40 years ago that inspired us to start our bookstore in 1982. Their annual Jubilee conference — inviting college students to think Christianly about the integration of faith and every aspect of life, including academic life — is a highlight of our year, and the best place in the country to see missional, vocational, whole-life discipleship evoked with gusto and grace and a whole lot of fun. 

(You can still visit our adjunct, virtual Jubilee Conference on-line bookstore that we created with about 60 categories of books, to see the sorts of stuff we suggested in helping students relate faith and their college careers, HERE.)

CCO, “CREATION REGAINED”… AND SO MUCH MORE

At this past CCO staff training event there was —among lots of other things — an hour and a half each day set aside to reflect on the book Creation Regained: The Biblical Basis for a Reformational Worldview by Al Wolters (Eerdmans; $15.00). Like another seminal book that came out that same season, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview by Brian Walsh & Richard Middleton (IVP Academic; $25.00), Creation Regained does a couple of very, very important things.

First, it reminds us of the scope of redemption —Christ is actually rescuing this Earth, with salvation truly being creation redeemed, so all of life is, in this potent view, essentially religious, spiritual; that is, there is no dualism between the realm of nature and of grace, no dichotomy between the so-called secular and the sacred.

We need to connect worship and work, closing the gap between Sunday and Monday. Others have said this well of late but in the 1970s, when Al Wolters (then at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto) gave the lectures that became Creation Regained to the CCO, I can tell you, it was exciting stuff. Traumatic for some, evocative for others. To think deeply about rejecting the idols of the age and the presuppositions of our culture’s fixation with metrics and quantity over quality, say, informed how the CCO began to think about its own context as an ecumenical (“trans-denominational”) campus ministry working in the context of higher education. Shortly after those heady years of asking if CCO would truly live out this calling to “take every thought captive” and think faithfully about how we did campus ministry (and, for that matter, why) several CCO staff people wrote books. All of Life Redeemed and At Work and at Play are now long out of print, but they were influential as we doubled down on this worldview-ish sense that we were inviting students to (as CCO even now puts it) “transform the world.”

Of course we never really took it all that seriously and the spirit of mainstream evangelicalism, for better or worse, continued to shape and form the ways in which CCO did its good work. They were instructed in contemplative spiritually by Ruth Haley Barton and racial justice by John Perkins and Brenda Salter McNeil (and, more recently, by Esau McCauley) and Biblical studies from many, including the late Kenneth Bailey. Jamie Smith spoke at a staff seminar and years ago they hosted Ron Sider on wholistic evangelism. From Marva Dawn to Bill Edgar, they’ve had a lot of pretty remarkable influences.

Over the years, CCO became known as a special and rather unique organization. Former CCO staffer Steve Garber famously did two books (Fabric of Faithfulness and Visions of Vocation) that highlighted the cogency of the CCOs vision for higher education and for work.

Other staff or former staff took what they were learning and created much-discussed books — for instance, you know we have promoted Sam Van Eman’s Disruptive Discipleship:The Power of Breaking Routine to Kickstart Your Faith and Erica Young Reitz’s After College: Navigating Transitions, Relationships and Faith and, more recently, the marvelously creative This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley. In fact, my own compiled collection of speakers who did great commencement addresses was earnestly dedicated to CCO staff who have nurtured so many students through their college years and helped keep their faith and idealism alive so they could live into Serious Dreams.

Still, over time, some of the passion for taking Al’s work seriously has faded, so the leadership wisely invited CCO outdoor educator (and philosopher) Sean Purcell to reflect a bit on some of the most essential parts of that distinctive vision. Al Wolters, who studied with philosophers like Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven at the Free University of Amsterdam eventually became an Old Testament prof but early in his career, inspired by Evan Runner at Calvin College, he taught the history of philosophy at ICS in Toronto; from his own time there, Sean was able to unpack some of the deeper implications of Creation Regained as a key text for our time, embodied and flexible, more a map than a plan.

LEARNING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

I had a bit of a hand in helping with that, and among other things, I highlighted the importance of Learning for the Love of God: A Student’s Guide to Academic Faithfulness by Don Optiz & Derek Melleby (Brazos Press; $17.00) which delightfully opens up some of these themes for young students, inviting them to see the very classroom as an avenue worship and service. That Don and Derek both worked for CCO and caught this vision of whole-life discipleship and translated it into this upbeat and readable book says much about how the CCO can be nimble and contextualized. They knew an easy-to-read and witty book would go far in helping students get a meaningful approach to this call to see their studies as central to and a venue for deepening their faith.

Naturally I also plugged Greg Jao’s booklet Your Minds Mission (IVP; $10.00) that I think every college kid should have. And for those wanting something even more eloquent, I suggested Cornelius Plantinga’s gorgeous, moving,  Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living (Eerdmans; $16.99.)

I say all this to you now since I know many BookNotes readers will be sending student’s off to college soon. These are gifts you should tuck into toothier going-away bags.

Many other authors these days are promoting a “culture making” vision (to use the title of the marvelous book by Andy Crouch) even if it was nearly revolutionary 40 years ago when Creation Regained hit us like a ton of bricks.

Many now draw on the creation/fall/redemption/restoration flow of Scripture (as Al did, opening those four themes up to show their significant influence in our thinking and imagining.) For instance, just consider the really great overviews of the Bible with this wholistic, institutionally engaged missional sort of trajectory, such as Exiles on Mission: How Christians Can Thrive in a Post-Christian World by Paul S. Williams (Brazos Press; $19.99) or the tremendously interesting The Symphony of Mission: Playing Your Part in God’s Work in the World by Michael Goheen & Jim Mullins (Baker Academic; $24.00.)  Recall the book we highlighted a month ago by the great Amy Sherman, Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society (IVP; $26.00) It’s just so rich, offering such a hopeful, good agenda. 

Or, as I highlighted in my talks to the CCO staff, the compact-sized hardback that is just so very interesting and helpful, eloquent and compelling, A Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work (IVP; $20.00.) Few can say so very much in such short essays, inspiring us to live an integrated life for the Missio Dei. .

So we talked about all that last month with the new and old CCO staff and I wanted to share that with you. Thanks for caring.

MEET YORK MOORE

Here, then, is what I’m also very, very excited to tell you about, if you care at all about this corner of our work.

CCO recently hired a new President/CEO, R. York Moore. While he wisely intuits much of the above, it isn’t exactly his background. York has worked for years with IVCF and has a heart for evangelism which he understands as much more than cheap soul saving; he insists that sharing the gospel with others is an announcement of God’s Kingdom, an invitation from a loving God that demands a response. He is a good and creative writer, too. He’s sharp, strategic, and enthusiastic. Even if you don’t know CCO well, please pray for him as he helps CCO move into a new season back on to campuses after a hard couple of years.

York has four books which we naturally celebrated at the CCO event. Because he has addressed CCO in the past (and even was a main stage speaker at Jubilee a few years ago) many of our older staff have some of his books. Alas, we ended up with a bit too many, so we want to offer them to you at a special discounted deal, now. Help support us as we serve the CCO by taking a few of these four books off our hands.

EXTRA SALE NOW — ONE WEEK ONLY

As is the custom here at BookNotes, most of the titles we highlight are 20% off. But if you buy more than one of these now, we’ll sell ‘em at 30% OFF. That’s a great dea! One week only.

Here they are.

Growing Your Faith by Giving it Away: Telling the Gospel Story with Grace and Passion R. York Moore (IVP) $17.00

OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE= $13.60
SPECIAL SALE PRICE – 30% off = $11.90

As it says on the back, “Talking about Jesus isn’t just good for the people who hear. It’s good for you, too.”

Yep, if you don’t want your own faith life to grow stale, lose it’s zip, fall into a spiritual rut, just share your path with others. As most of us know from experience (and as York explains) the Holy Spirit energizes you when you talk about God and the gospel with others and can awaken you to experience life in greater fullness.

The book has a couple of good things going for it — it is concise and to the point. It is loaded with stories. It reminds us of stuff we knew but calls us to rely on the Spirit as we find ways to tell the Story of God. 

The first six chapters are as clear about evangelism as any I’ve read and worth the price of the book.  The next seven are about various sorts of folks who God may bring your way and how to talk with them meaningful about God’s redemption and the life God has for them. From enemies to the hurting, those close to us to complete strangers, York offers examples and stories, strategies and plans of how to “meet them where they are” and be stretched to share good news with them. This is really good stuff.

As the publisher puts it, “Rediscover the energy and passion of following Jesus by telling his story. Grown your faith by giving it away.  Warning: the lives God changes may include your own!” Ha. May it be so.

Making All Things New: God’s Dream for Global Justice. R. York Moore (IVP) $18.00                                    

OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE= $14.40
SPECIAL SALE PRICE – 30% off = $12.60

It was nearly a decade ago but I remember it distinctly. I was longing for more good books that were serious about evangelism and were passionate about social change; books that wanted to offer, in Ron Sider’s famous phrase, “good words and good deeds.” Or, in the title of a book by Harvey Conn that was so very important to many in the CCO in the 1980s, “evangelism and justice.” This, I thought, was it.

York was not only a gifted mass evangelist and a passionate communicator of the simple gospel of grace through Christ, he was traveling around the world, observing and helping organizations (like IJM) that were were fighting sexual trafficking and modern day slavery. He was learning first hand not only about the racism and injustice he experienced as a poor kid growing up in Detroit, but global injustices. It seemed like new lights were going off in his head, new recesses being touched in his soul. His Kingdom vision was expanding from these often horrific first hand encounters and he told his unfolding story beautifully in Making All Things New.

Wonderfully, York places the Biblical call to justice within yet even the bigger, even more audacious dream of God’s plan to bring restoration to all corners of this broken planet. The cosmic dream of “all things new” is conjured up in the Bible in part by proclaiming how the will be liberty to the captives, the poor getting a Jubilee-like second chance for real restoration, swords beat into plowshares and the nations reconciled. Could this big picture of the Kingdom coming be what we mean when we invite people to faith? Does evangelism really entail all that?

Indeed. York guides us through Biblical teaching and stories and a passionate (and honest) account of the Bible’s own vision of the last days. There is judgement against evil, there is hope that evil will be smashed. And the meek inherit the earth.

The meek, naturally, need our help. (And perhaps, many of us need their help.) The oppressed and marginalized need our solidarity, at least, and our efforts. And we all need Jesus. 

This powerful book is one of a kind and I’ve read it three times. Each time — perhaps because I was at a different place in my own journey, my own reflections, or maybe my own season or mood — I got something a bit different out of it. (Ahh, the mark of a good book, eh?) I appreciate that York, in his remarkable efforts about educating people about social injustice and his work as a modern-day abolitionist, never gave up his desire to see ordinary people come to faith. He is, as I’ve said, a gifted evangelist. Few books relate the full-orbed Kingdom of God, the resistance to social injustice like modern day trafficking and global poverty, and the call to personal, evangelical faith, the way Making All Things New does. 

Agree fully or not with his big hope for the end times or his reflections on passages from the prophets and the epistles, his blend of judgement and grace, sin and redemption, I think you need this book! To this day there is nothing like it. We are happy to offer it here, glad to share that, indeed, this message resonates with the all-of-life-redeemed worldview that influenced the CCO back in the 1970s. God is good to bring CCO and this former IVCF evangelist together. Maybe you, too, can take inspiration in a book like this, fully clear about the gospel and fully visionary about the true hope for God’s intention to bring justice to the poor and liberation to the captive. 

Do Something Beautiful: The Story of Everything and A Guide to Finding Your Place In It  R. York Moore (Moody Press) $13.99

OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $11.19
SPECIAL SALE PRICE – 30% off  = $9.79

Although I suppose it isn’t the main thing, there is something about the many books that Moody Press does lately that have two color ink, nice graphics, a couple of handsome touches. It makes for a beautiful little product and since this book invites us to “do something beautiful” it certainly fits. Kudos to Moody for doing one of the best, simple books on evangelism of the new century.

(Yes, yes, there are recent ones that are heady and important. I’ve said before how fond I am of Models of Evangelism by Priscilla Pope-Levison (Baker Academic; $21.99) and how important the provocative The Invitation: A Theology of Evangelism by Princeton’s Richard Osmer (Eerdmans; $24.95) is. This decade has seen significant work in evangelism and related fields with books like Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church by James Beitler (IVP Academic; $25.00) and the lovely Mere Evangelism: 10 Insights from C.S. Lewis to Help You Share Your Faith by Randy Newman (Good Book Company; $16.99.) There are so many recent releases in this field, including very thoughtful ones.)

York, though, smart as he is, did something remarkable in Do Something Beautiful. He used what some of us call  —borrowing a term from Abraham Kuyper’s people, as explained in Richard Mouw’s All That God Cares About: Common Grace and Divine Delight — “common grace” and built a bridge with any who long for a more beautiful world. As he re-tells the big story of God’s good world gone awry, he invites us to a sort of redemption that is good, true, glorious, healthy — in a world: beautiful.

I suppose York (as a former philosophy student) knows a bit about aesthetics, but this isn’t an arcane and high-class rumination on Greek or Roman or Renaissance virtues. It isn’t about art, even, really, but about this multidimensional sense of the ineffable, the luminous, the lovely. In a “world made right” there is more. 

Although the book has a light and appealing tone, he does invite us to consider hard stuff and how God even promises to renew and restore those rough places. As he puts it:

The things that look hopeless in our lives are often used as an opportunity for God to show up and bring life out of death, bounty and beauty out of the ashes, and allow us to dream another dream.

One of the chapters of Do Something Beautiful is about “doing something beautiful together.” (Interestingly, this is the theme near the end of Andy Crouch’s seminal Culture-Making and appears again in Andy’s recent and must-read The Life We’re Looking For which is about technology.) Ahh, but, as York warns, “doing something together is easier said than done. Joining God in His work and initing others to join the work takes time and preparation.

He continues,

It is true that sometimes we “fall into” a community that is doing righteous and beautiful things, but more often, we have to do some work. Understanding where we are, where our home is, where our church has been and is going are all important starting points… (we) “exegete our community, analyzing its contours and content with an aim of understanding where the possibilities are.

This book is, simply, “your guide to the story of everything.” Nobody said York wasn’t audacious and bold. Yet this charming little book, energetic as it is in calling us to do something good and righteous, just and beautiful, is also gracious and inviting. It is both a book about how to do evangelism well and, well, it is a book of evangelism. I assure there are those who read it who find themselves desperately longing to be conscripted into this movement of God’s people, into this faith community, those who live for Jesus and show it by offering beauty to the world. Buy a few and give ‘em away and see what happens!

Seen. Known. Loved. 5 Truths About God & Your Love Language Gary Chapman & R. York Moore (Northfield) $9.99

OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $7.99
SPECIAL SALE PRICE – 30% off  = $6.99

Again, this is a nicely handsome little book, with three very cool die cut holes on the front and a cover that is a tiny bit off edge, showing forth the strips of color underneath. That Moody Press would spring for this extra touch of a handsome product is glorious and I’m a fan. That York wrote a good chunk of this with the Uber-famous Five Love Languages guru himself, is telling.

I do not know if it was Gary Chapman that realized the evangelistic nature of his various love languages schtick or if it was York who naturally saw the beauty and goodness of adopting those love languages into truths about how God may reach us. Either way, it’s genius!

Others have done this using the Meyers-Briggs personality tests, or the Enneagram, or other personality type theories adapted to prayer or one’s spirituality. Nobody has quite done this, using the Love Languages, and it is a thrill to read. One more tool in the toolkit for people (like you, too?) Who want to share the good news of the gospel with others but rarely know how to bring it up, get into it, actually do evangelism with others. This is one more way into those deeper conversations and it is a blast.

Most basically, it asks: “Could your love language guide you to a more meaningful life?”

The title doesn’t unpack it all, but get’s us started: We are seen. We are known. And we are loved! 

The book’s subtitle offers “5 Truths” and here they are:

• Chapter 1 – You Are Loved: The Words That Change Everything
• Chapter 2 – You Are Seen: You Matter and So Do Your Actions
• Chapter 3 – You Have Worth: The Gift of Being Accepted
• Chapter 4 – You Belong: Embraced for God
• Chapter 5 – You Are Known: Experiencing True Togetherness with God

The last little chapter (bringing the whole book to under 90 small pages) is called “Living Into Love.” Yes! As it says on the back cover, “We are all designed to uniquely desire love…”

As York himself puts it on the last page, “We become lovers when we are loved.”  This book can help you and your loved ones understand this more deeply, perhaps even discover it anew. It’s a very nice little volume, short and sweet and perhaps life changing.

++++

TO PLACE AN ORDER

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

It is helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies

but you can use this as a general guide:

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

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.69; 2 lbs would be $4.36.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.35 if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $8.95. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

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

– DON’T FORGET TO LET US KNOW WHAT SHIPPING METHOD YOU PREFER –

BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

As always, thanks to those who sent orders our way from the last BookNotes. After highlighting wise and balanced basic Christian growth titles I shared some about deeper spiritual life stuff on sabbath, St. Ignatius, the desert fathers and mothers, and the like and we enjoyed the response. Plus, folks are still pre-ordering the forthcoming Jamie Smith book, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now which releases September 20, 2022. It sells for $24.99 and we have it at the BookNotes 20% off, making it just $19.99. We will still have some of the free little guided journals that Brazos has made available for those who preorder it early. While supplies last, naturally…

In writing about and recommending resources for the transformation of your own interior lives, books such as those from Henri Nouwen and Ruth Haley Barton and that forthcoming one by Trevor Hudson joining the insights of St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard, we were highlighting books that might be called contemplative spirituality. 

However, even the quiet mystics and louder Pentecostals and most who want a true encounter with the living God would be quick to say that one of the classic disciplines of spiritual formation is reading the Bible. It must be read in community, be heard in liturgical worship, used in study and in our more common devotional reflections. Over and over. I’m no fundamentalist Bible thumper but after nearly a lifetime of small group study and Sunday school classes and being shaped by Biblically informed liturgy and sermons, the more open I am to hermeneutical fuzziness; I’ve read enough good commentaries and heard enough astute talks and chatted with so many ordinary folks to know that good people see things differently. But, man, I love studying the Bible, God’s Word that it is.

There’s a continuum, of course, from those who read it woodenly and literalistically (except, uh, when they conveniently don’t) to those who read it almost all figuratively and allegorically or worse. There are strengths and weaknesses of various camps and traditions, but I love the basic insights of Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart’s thoughtful classic How to Read the Bible For All That It’s Worth (Zondervan; $24.99) that insists that different genres of the Biblical literature need to be read differently. Naturally, God’s Word or not, we read a poem differently than a letter. History is different from dreams and parables are to be interpreted differently than epistles. Usually we read much of the Bible straight up, but sometimes it’s sarcastic or ironic and we should take the meaning to be the opposite of what it says. In any case, we read the Bible well if, at least, we read it literarily. 

One very recent book that explores this is by a theologically conservative black woman, Kristie Anyabwile, who helps us all a lot in Literarily: How Understanding Bible Genres Transforms Bible Study (Moody Press; $14.99; our sale price = $11.99.)  It’s short and sweet and good.

Jen Wilken, herself an expert Bible teacher and popular author says:

The power of language rests not just in what words are said, but in how they are said. The words of Scripture are no exception. Perhaps no tool is more useful, or more often overlooked, than a basic understanding of how the Bible speaks. Kristie offers excellent help to those who want to read the Bible as it is written: as a collection of different ways of writing, all telling one marvelous story.

Perhaps more meaty and a bit more literary itself is a recent book by Matthew Mullins, a Baptist English prof, who wrote Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures (Baker Academic; $22.99; our sale price = $18.39.) It’s impressive.

Listen to what James K. A. Smith says of this:

What if reading the Bible is a matter not just of discerning what it says but of attending to how it speaks? Then reading the Bible is more like experiencing a poem than processing a rule book. In this marvelous game changer of a book, Matthew Mullins invites readers to encounter the Bible as literature, not to diminish its revelatory authority but to break open its luminary capacity. I’m so glad this book is in the world. –James K. A. Smith, Calvin University; editor in chief, Image journal; author of You Are What You Love and On the Road with Saint Augustine

BOOKS ABOUT THE BIBLE, ON SALE —AND A FREE BOOK OFFER (SEE BELOW)

Here are a few other books, some fairly recent and some brand new, that might be useful as you spend summer days reflecting on the most important book ever sold. I assume you have a good translation and a study Bible or two. If not, give us a call right away. And, oh yeah, I’ve got some extra copies of a stunning book to share with our compliments if you buy something from this list (soon.) As always, just use the order form link at the end, which takes you to our secure order form at the website. Or, call us here at the shop. We’re in Monday – Saturday, 10 – 6 and if your in the area, we’re doing backyard customer service and easy curbside deliveries.

The Gospel of Our King: Bible, Worldview, and the Mission of Every Christian Bruce Riley Ashford & Heath A. Thomas (Baker Academic) $22.99        OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I name this because I believe deeply that the big picture of the transforming vision of the unfolding drama of the Bible is the most important thing to do. Any given passage simply must be seen within the big, redemptive Story, the kind of story in which we find ourselves. There are other Bible introductions and missionally-sensitive readings, but for now, this is a fav. Highly recommended. 

Two of my favorite writes are Craig Bartholomew (a philosopher) and Michael Goheen (a theologian.) Here is what they say about this.

The Gospel of Our King is a sheer delight. This is what happens when you bring together close attention to the Bible as a whole, worldview, and mission, just as they should be, with the overarching focus on the glory of God. A creative, accessible, and eminently practical work. –Craig G. Bartholomew, director, Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Cambridge

A wonderful book. Ashford and Thomas take us to the heart of the Christian faith. Their writing is engaging and the idols they challenge are timely, making this a book full of insight for faithful Christian living today.  –Michael W. Goheen, Missional Training Center, Surge Network of Churches-Phoenix, and Covenant Theological Seminary

What Is the Bible and How Do We Understand It? Dennis R. Edwards (Herald Press) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

This is a very small book, feisty and well written, by the powerful black author and Northern Seminary NT prof, Dr. Dennis Edwards (whose book Might from the Margins which we’ve reviewed at BookNotes is very good.) It’s part of the great little series called “The Jesus Way: Small Books of Radical Faith” which, while not exactly Anabaptist or Mennonite, have the Christ-focused and active bent that that tradition at its best nicely exemplifies. This is a fabulous introduction to basic questions many have about the Scriptures.

Here are the six chapters (each that have great reflection or discussion questions, making this ideal for a small group or Sunday school class.) 

• What Is the Purpose of the Bible?
• How Was the Bible Born?
• What Is the Center of the Bible?
• What Is the Spirit of the Bible?
• Who Gets to Interpret the Bible?
• What Impact Does the Bible Make?

Seven Things I Which Christians Knew About the Bible Michael Bird (Zondervan) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I’m sure I’ve highlighted this before, too, and, again, it is compact sized, not too hefty. Michael Bird is a fun and funny academic, a scholar from Down Under who, as you may know, has co-authored books with the world-class N.T. Wright. Bird is a prolific and important scholar (also online with a popular theological studies blog called “Euangelion” and a clever podcast with Amiee Byrd (called “Birds of a Feather.”) In any case, he’s a tremendous, balanced, honest evangelical. This book is excellent, and, even if basic, vital.

Young scholars as diverse as Dru Johnson and Aimee Byrd and Dan Kimball and Nijay Gupta all say everybody should read it. 

I love Aimee Byrd’s endorsement:

If you want to grow in your competence of reading Scripture and have a crackalackin’ good time doing it, read this book.

Let’s hope crackalackin’ good time is an Australian phrase she picked up on the podcast with Mike. In any case, she’s right — competence and crackalackin’. Order it today!

A Beginner’s Guide to Practicing Scriptural Imagination Kenneth Carter (Upper Room Books) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

If Seven Things is a moderately thick — just over 200 pages — compact-sized book, this is a thin compact sized one, weighing in at about 75 small pages. I suggest it here, though, as there is hardly anything like it. You will cherish it, I bet.

The first handful of pages describes what he means by forming our Scriptural Imagination, and why we need more than information, but immersion.  This is perhaps akin to using the technique of lectio divina but not exactly. In a way, it is less rigorous. In any case, his ruminations about this alone are worth the couple of bucks, good to remind you and helpful for you to share with others. Not everybody gets that, you know?

The heart of the book are four imaginative reflections on four texts which, in Carter’s skilled hands, offers two things. Firstly, he is showing us how to approach Biblical texts well, reflectively and imaginatively and seriously. Secondly, he is not only offering insights about imaginative reading, but, he says, these very texts will help solidify this vision of right brained (or whole brained, perhaps) reading.

The passages he offers us are The Vine and the Branches (John 15), The Sower, The Seed, and the Soils (Mark 4), The Feeding of the Multitudes (Luke 9) and The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25.) He has a small “what’s next” section which lists some places to try this sort of reading and a handful of books, contemplative and Biblical.

Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation Richard Foster (HarperOne) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

There are many great books on reading the Bible more slowly, meditatively, with a contemplative approach to actually come to know God and learn to hear the Spirit’s voice. This is a near classic by a delightful, ecumenical, Quaker who is doubtlessly one of the most important Christian writers of the last 50 years. This offers an intimate connection between Scripture and spirituality. 

To show its appeal, besides the “starred review” it got back in the day from Publishers Weekly, check out these three endorsements, from three different places in the big church pew:

Alluring warmth, empathetic breadth, and twenty-twenty perceptiveness, mild on sin but firm on grace, have together become the hallmark of the Renovare books. This pathway into the “with-God life” is a worthy addition to the study. — J.I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College and author of Knowing God.

Foster is a reliable, compelling guide for a life in which God is a defining agent. The news from Foster is good indeed: God is with us! — Walter Brueggemann, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, The Prophetic Imagination

You hold in your hands a very wise book written for anyone who craves a deep, palpable connection to God. If you want to discover new ways of entering the Bible, and letting it enter you, you will find no better guide than Richard Foster. — Lauren F. Winner, Duke Divinity School, Wearing God

Eugene Peterson (Eerdmans) $18.99                     OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

You may know Peterson’s magnum opus, in a way, his magisterial five part “Spiritual Theology” series. It starts with one of my all time favorite titles, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places published in 2004; Eat This Book is the second in the series although certainly stands alone and is perhaps the best-seller of the five. In it Pastor Pete engages us in a conversation, really, where he talks about reading the Bible, the nature of sentences, even, exegesis, Bible translations, lectio divina, the nature of language, and the like. Lauren Winner says of it,

“Deep, stirring, luminous, even profound — if you are going to read one book about reading Scripture, it should be this one.”

At the heart are three major chapters where he at once makes reading the Bible a bit easier, less complicated, even as he reminds us it is, as he puts it, uncongenial. In several good sections under each he deftly moves from “Scripture as Text” to “Scripture as Form” and on to “Scripture as Script.” Although you’ll love the opening one, “The Holy Family at Table with Holy Scripture.” He tells stories ancient and new, nothing sensational, just common folks spending a lifetime in the Word.

By the way, I hope you know his powerful and important quartet, considered the “vocational holiness” series by the late great Peterson. Designed for serious reading for serious clergy people who want to get back to basics, the four books are Peterson perhaps at his very best. I’m not a clergy person, of course, yet I adored these four volumes. They include Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, Working the Angles, Under the Unpredictable Plant and, finally, the The Contemplative Pastor. All are about the formation of the working pastor and that come back, time and again, to Scripture. To eating the book, as his later volume put it.

It may be that Working the Angles is the most fundamental of all. It is the shortest of the four, I think. It shows that, for Peterson, the heart of a pastor’s vocational holiness is to work the angles of three things — teaching people to pray, to read the Bible, and to receive spiritual direction from others. As a review in The Clergy Journal back in the day put it, “Get the angles right and the lines — preaching, teaching, and administration — will take care of themselves.” It is very much about reading, praying, and using the Bible in pastoral work.

For those who don’t feel right reading over the shoulder of a book that their pastor should read, the lovely Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading is a fabulous choice. All of Peterson’s many books are Biblical, but Working the Angles and Eat This Book spell out much of his most basic notions of how and why to read and pray and imbibe the Word of God.

The Bible Unwrapped: Making Sense of Scripture Today Meghan Larissa Good (Herald Press) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

For those who want a lively and upbeat and clever and really useful introduction to how to read the Bible well, influenced maybe a bit by Pete Ends, Walter Brueggemann, and N.T.Wright (amounts others) this just sings. It avoids the extremes of fundamentalist wooden readings and yet calls us to understand it well — using insights from the likes of Ken Bailey and Michael Gorman. As it says on the back cover,

Good delves into issues like biblical authority, literary genre, and Christ-centered hermeneutics and calls readers beyond knee-jerk biblicism on one hand or skeptical disregard on the other. 

I love that she calls us to a spiritually alive and intellectually credible communal discernment. She’s convinced there can be “deep and transformative wonder” about Scripture.

The Bible Unwrapped bears untold gifts…Do not let this unique gift pass by unopened and unenjoyed.  — Leonard Sweet, scholar, speaker, author, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith Through a Volcanic Future

How (Not) To Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-Women, Anti-Science, Pro-Violence, Pro-Slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture Dan Kimball (Zondervan Reflective) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

There are now bunches of books like this. Some are quite scholarly, some a bit goofy, some written out of exceptionally punctilious views of the inerrancy of Scriptures and some that are, if you ask me, dismissing way to much of the authority of Scripture. There is no doubt that we always need newly fresh answers to this age-old question — see, for instance, Paul Copan’s apologetic in Is God a Moral Monster? and its new followup coming in October, Is God a Vindictive Bully? I appreciate and recommend for basic readers the good books by David Lamb, such as his little classic, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist and Mark Strauss’s companion to it, Jesus Behaving Badly:The Puzzling Paradoxes of the Man from Galilee. I could go on.

This recent book by the energetic and hip church planter with a sense of humor, Dan Kimball, is really excellent for those who haven’t studied the serious stuff. The print isn’t too tiny, there’s some charts and stuff, lots of (ironically dumb) pictures, and it has interesting, and even funny quotes through-out. It isn’t funny, but the first epigram is by magic man Penn Jilette (the talkative one of Penn & Teller) who says, dead seriously, “Reading the Bible is the fast track to atheism.”  Is it so?

Many who are walking away from the faith, or deconstructing long-held beliefs, are doing so in part because they just can’t stomach some of the awful stuff of the Bible. If you’ve not been tempted to renounce our high regard for Scripture, maybe you’re not studying God’s Word that much, or you have an undeveloped moral sensibility. Keep at it, though, as God works on you and you become more Christ-like, you will at least wonder about some of this. You must!

As I say, there are more profound and more detailed studies, but this is a good place to start. With plenty of footnotes it’s just our 300 pages. Good paper and two color ink, makes it nice to handle. There’s a sic-session DVD, too, with Dan and his neo-punk haircut, walking you through some of this good material.

Don’t trust me? With recommending blurbs by Margaret Feinberg, rocker David Crowder, and the brilliant Tim Mackie (of the Bible Project videos), it’s obviously a solid start. Scot McKnight says it is “a book full of theological wisdom and pastoral care for honest Bible readers who have genuine and difficult questions about the Bible.” 

Holy Imagination: A Literary and Theological Introduction to the Whole Bible Judy Fentress-Williams (Abingdon) $39.99                                   OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99

There are intro to the Bible books which I most typically recommend. I’m sure you’ve seen me highlight The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story by Craig Bartholomew & Michael Goheen over and over. The easier, shorter version (maybe even good for bright high schoolers) is The True Story of the Whole World: Finding Your Place in the Biblical Drama. I adore Bartholomew’s little The 30-Minute Bible: God’s Story for Everyone, co-written by the extraordinary Bible teacher Paige Vanosky. I’m very glad that NavPress released the introductions to each book of the Bible in Peterson’s The Message as The Invitation: A Simple Guide to the Bible. For a cool young person who is an earnest seeker, I love The Big Story: How the Bible Makes Sense Out of Life by Justin Buzzard. These are my go-to volumes, recommended any time I get the chance. 

However, if somebody wants a major volume, a hefty and wondrously-written seminary textbook, this is increasingly the one I think of. Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams is professor of Old Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria (and before that taught at Hartford Seminary in CT.) She has a commentary on the book of Ruth, too. But this. Wow.

We have only sold a few of these but it is one of those rare books that each time we’ve sent one, the customer voluntarily replied to us later thanking us for selling it to them. How about that? They so loved it, found so much of worth, that they wanted us to recommend it to others.

“Studying Scripture demands dialogue” it says on the back. In fact, one of the assumptions of Holy Imagination is that “the many voices in Scripture form a dialogue with readers, which produces theological truths that are larger than the individual parts.”  Yes, we must know the context, social and otherwise. We must read literarily. But there is theology, emerging from the genres and how the literary characteristics and theological insights merge.

Like good poetry, we must pay attention. As with poetry, we must use our minds and our imaginations, which, in turn, are shaped by the text itself. As she puts it, “we return again and again, with more information and perhaps more experiences. The words are the same, but we are not; for that reason there are always new discoveries.”

At last, an introduction that students will enjoy reading, because it is at once engaging, informative, and eye-opening, as well as completely lucid. Fentress-Williams shows how many books of the Bible reflect the experience of marginalized persons and communities in precarious situations, and therefore how they speak in ways both realistic and encouraging to contemporary readers. Do your students and yourself a favor: adopt this text and get ready for serious conversation about ancient texts that never go out of date.  – Ellen F. Davis,Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School, author of Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, Opening Israel’s Scriptures, and Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible

God’s People Made New: How Exploring the Bible Together Launched Church’s Spirit-Filled Future Rachael J. Powell (Fortress Press) $18.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Many of our best customers are members of mainline denominational churches — once thriving Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal or United Methodist, say, and they have been in steep decline in membership for decades, now. Naturally, they are all seeking ways to steward this new time and new era in their own respective lives, and, many, insist (rightly, I think) that one of the causes of the crisis a few generations ago was a lackluster sense of Biblical authority and therefore a significant decline in Biblical literary. Data suggests, I’m told, that seeker sensitive community churches and many fundamentalist churches, even, are now walking that same dumb ground, failing to equip the community to be people of the Book.

This recent book, published by the ELCA press, is about this very thing. Written mostly as a memoir, actually, God’s People Made New tells the story of Pastor Rachael’s valiant effort to reintroduce her congregation in Albuquerque, to the glories and complexities of Bible study and the good trouble that can come from that.

Here is how the publisher explains it:

“Through the voices of congregants living in crisis and hope, creative investigation of biblical texts, and solid, accessible theological reflection, Rachael J. Powell offers hope for congregations.” They continue hoping that, “Readers will appreciate Powell’s wise pastoral companionship through the often exasperating yet life-giving process of helping a congregation discern who and what they are called to be.”

This is a simple notion — the Word of God matters. She “probes and celebrates” (as David Lose puts it) “the transformation we can expect when we all God’s word to breathe new life and purpose into God’s people,” 

I suppose this book could equally go on a list about congregational life and church renewal. Powells gets us there, by teaching us (with concrete tools) how to be empowered to hear God’s Word well. And, yes, preacher that she is, she calls on preachers to “claim their role in this powerful work.” 

Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew Scot McKnight (with a foreword by Hans Boersma) (IVP Academic) $20.00                            OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I’ve highlighted this before and, with its companion volume (see below) it’ a real winner. I know most common folks aren’t that interested in this in-house debate in the faith-based academy and in seminaries, but, you know, it’s important, and pretty fun. How illuminating to learn why Bible profs (like McKnight) want theologians to get in line, learn some stuff from them, and back off their fancy pants insistence that they hold the keys to the Kingdom. I’m being more pushy about all this than the gracious McKnight is, but, well, that’s what the book is about. Five things everybody should know, but that theological types should take to heart. Get it!  We need this reminder, believe me.

Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew  Hans Boersma (with a foreword by Scot McKnight) (IVP Academic) $20.00                           OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Okay, as I’ve said before (and, well, see above) this book, with its companion volume, is a real winner. I know most common folks aren’t that interested in this in-house debate in the faith-based academy and in seminaries, but, you know, it’s important, and pretty fun. How illuminating to learn why theological professors (like Boersma) want Bible teachers to get in line, learn some stuff from them, and back off their fancy pants insistence that they hold the keys to the Kingdom. I’m being more pushy about all this than the gracious Boersma is, but, well, that’s what the book is about. Five things everybody should know, but that Bible lovers should take to heart. Get it! We need this input, believe me.

Returning from the Abyss: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

Maybe you will recall my lavish praise on the first, and then the second, book in this ongoing set of adult Bible studies, short commentaries that focus on pivotal moments in the text when much changes. The first two volumes in the series (both also by Brueggemann) were on the much loved but rarely studied exodus narratives and the following desert satires about manna and Sinai.

The titles of those two are evocative: Delivery Out of Empire: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus and Delivered into Covenant: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus.

This new, third one in the series, Returning from the Abyss, is spectacular and accesible, even if it has 27 (short) chapters. Twenty-seven key, even pivotal moments in Jeremiah, eh? You got it. This is just remarkable, fascinating, even, and very usable. There are a few pithy questions after each chapter, making it easy to us. Very highly recommended.

The Lord Roars: Recovering the Prophetic Voice for Today M. Daniel Carroll R. (Baker Academic) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I’m not going to lie — it was this new title that made me want to share titles of recent interest about Biblical studies.  It may be the most important and lasting new book on this list — just a stellar brand new title that deserves to be shouted about.

The Lord Roars is complex and a bit academic, but any committed, educated reader can work through it. It was, after all, a set of lectures given, fleshed out a bit. The question on the table is how to hear prophets, whether they are alive today, in some generic sense, but, more specifically, how to hear and appropriate wisely the voices of the Hebrew prophets from the Bible. Danny Carroll taught at Denver Seminary and a few years moved over to the Old Testament department at Wheaton College. He is a passionate speaker, a prolific writer (about the Bible and about immigration issues — most recently see his Bible and Borders.) He is scholar of the prophets (having done a major work on Amos in the prestigious NICOT series.) We admire him immensely and anticipated this book, which arrived less than week ago. I dove right in.

The book announces that it offers “a new way to encounter the prophets” but I’ve not quite figured out what is utterly new. It is fresh and compelling and important. The world today “cries out for a prophetic word to the chaos, unrest, and destructiveness of our times.” Perhaps this book will at least inspire and motivate, if not equip and train many to hear the Word of the Lord.

Dr. Carroll R. (the letter at the end stands for Roeda, his Guatemalan grandmother’s last name) highlights three key ethical concerns of the Old Testament prophets (and he is surely not wrong in this) — injustice, worship, and hope. He shows how they can speak into our world, how we can be trained to be taken up in their questions.

The Lord Roars reminds me vividly of a line I read as a teenager in a book given to me by a friend, a book of poem/prayers by Malcom Boyd in which the priest said that we may read the prophets in church but we wouldn’t recognize one if he were to sit down beside us, which struck me immediately to be obviously true. Many in my  circles disregarded, for instance, Dr. Martin Luther King or Ceasar Chavez, to offer two important examples. But the thing is, Boyd was wrong: we didn’t read the Old Testament much, let alone the prophets, in our churches. In college as I was agitating for better working conditions and wages for mostly Chicano farm workers, an evangelical mentor told me I should read Amos. I’m not even sure I even knew who that was, let alone that he was a “farmer from Tekoa.” To this day, I thank Marilyn Phillips Slemenda and Jennie Korn Geisler for how they pushed me towards the prophets so many years ago.

Now, you can capture not only the heart of the prophets by way of this up-to-date scholar, and his set of important lectures but you can learn to really hear them — apply them, we might say. Or at least be captured by the themes that captured them, including a passion for justice, knowing deeply how failure to love God rightly almost always leads to failure to love neighbor. Yet, given this tragic situation — played out today, still, of course — can there be hope. Indeed, perhaps the most audacious message of the prophets is that there is hope.

The Lord Roars expertly taps three key texts from Amos, Isaiah, and Micah. This is the Word of the Lord, people. Please read these wise recommendations.

Perhaps some of us employ the adjective prophetic hastily or uncritically, but many more of us are reluctant to heed the words of prophets — even the prophets identified in the Bible. Carroll demonstrates why and how biblical prophets speak to a myriad of social issues, including many that we presently face. His rigorous exegesis, historical analysis, and cultural awareness converge to give Bible readers a better understanding of Scripture’s prophetic tradition and how it applies right now.  — Dennis R. Edwards, North Park Theological Seminary, Might from the Margins: The Gospel’s Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice

Carroll, easily one of our best scholars and teachers on the prophets, offers a concise and erudite — indeed, idea l— introduction to these all-important messengers of God. Carroll focuses on selected texts from Amos, Isaiah, and Micah while at the same time engaging everything from Don Quijote and Charles Dickens to immigration, the Inquisition, liberation theology, and much, much more. A masterful treatment. — Brent A. Strawn, Duke University, author The Old Testament Is Dying: A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment

The Lord Roars has helped me see how the prophetic imagination in the canonical biblical text can orient my motivations to see theologically and work ethically toward a better world. From a hermeneutic of trust, Carroll invites the reader to carefully consider what the word of God offers as a witness to a more just and less violent world conceived through theo-poetic justice. Manifestly, Carroll’s proposal challenges today’s Westernized Christian visions of a world trapped in left-wing and right-wing political ideologies.  — Oscar García-Johnson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, The Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God J. Richard Middleton (Baker Academic) $26.99        OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

I know I’ve promoted this before and I know that some may find it curious but I am telling you, this is one you really should consider. If you want to stay alive to God’s speaking through His Word and you are interested in the most plausible and faithful reading in light of what we know to be true about God and His ways, this, simply, is a must-read. As Brueggemann says of it, it is Bible “interpretation at its most daring and at its best.”

As you might surmise from the title, this carefully argued and very (very) Bible-drenched study says, finally, given what we know about Job and lament and God’s law and covenant, Abraham should have said no! Richard makes a very compelling case that we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac. “God desires more than silent obedience in difficult times.” Wow. This is amazing and the implications are vast. 

There are blurbs on the back from serious Bible scholars, for Rabbi Irving(Yitz) Greenberg (the President the Greenberg Institute for the Advancement of Jewish Life) and this from Carmen Joy Imes of Biola (see her excellent Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters) and the often cited (here, at least) Jamie Smith of Calvin:

In this groundbreaking work, Middleton dares to question Abraham’s unquestioning obedience in Genesis 22. His approach is robustly biblical-theological, but his outside-the-box thinking offers an intriguing new solution to two interpretive puzzles: the binding of Isaac and the testing of Job. The pastoral implications of this book make it a must-read for pastors and biblical scholars alike.  — Carmen Joy Imes, Biola University, Bearing God’s Name

I have been learning from Middleton for over twenty-five years. From him I learned that, in the Bible itself, God invites our questions and doubts. He showed me–through the Psalms and Job — that lament is faithful. This marvelous book exhibits the singular combination that is Richard Middleton: a deep and broad attunement to the Scriptures and a keen philosophical sensibility, both wed to a profoundly pastoral concern. A gift for both church and academy.  — James K. A. Smith, Calvin University, You Are What You Love

Voices Long Silenced: Woman Biblical Interpreters Through the Centuries Joy A, Schroeder & Marion Ann Taylor (WJK) $40.00        OUR SALE PRICE = $32.00

Let’s get down to brass tacks: if we want to hear the Word in all its prophetic power, we need all hands on deck. We need a community of interpreters, lots of voices, lots of teachers. Obviously, in the history of the church and too often even today, women’s voices are marginalized, if not silenced. This is changing, and this volume is a good illustration of how things are opening up. Joy Schroeder and Marion Ann Taylor have — as Wilda Gafney, professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School says, “gifted us” with a long survey of women’s biblical interpretation and it is “an extraordinary collection and will be invaluable in the classroom.”  But it is not just for the classroom. As Jaime Clark-Soles (New Testament prof at Perkins School of Theology) says, “I am awestruck by this book.”

As Jaimie Clark-Soles continues, importantly:

Spanning centuries from antiquity to today, it features female scriptural interpreters from across the globe from different denominational, class, cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. Joining them, the reader sojourns through history, learning the names and work of the interpreters, the historical and political contexts in which they operated, the methods they used to interpret, and why it is essential for us to engage their work if we truly desire a faithful rendering of our religious history. I cannot overstate the importance of this book or how rewarding it is to read—not a single wasted word.     —Jaime Clark-Soles, Professor of New Testament and Distinguished Teaching Professor, Perkins School of Theology

Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope Esau McCaulley (IVP Academic) $22.00                             OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

What an honor it was top be one of the first stores to have this when it came out late in 2019 (having an official publication date of early 2020.) We have been with Dr. McCaulley on two occasions and know him to be a solid guy, exceptionally well-education (in Scotland under N.T. Wright, itself a bit of story as a black Anglican there.) Now teaching at Wheaton College (and sending in the occasional well-crafted op-ed piece to the New York Times) McCaulley’s book has earned the status of being a major contribution to both black studies and Biblical studies.

We carry a number of books about how people of color have historically understood and taught the Bible. This, though, is simply the best of the best, hard-hitting and prophetic, yet measured and fair. A few have dismissed him, but many have been blessed by his good work and we are glad for this book. It is very, very highly recommended.

(Look for a small book coming from him later this fall, releasing in early November called Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal. It will sell for $20.00 but pre-orders will get our BookNotes 20% off, making it $16.00 It is the first in a series heis editing called “Fullness of Time.”)

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture Frank Thielman (Crossway) $15.99      OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

We carry all the little books in the serious-minded, “Short Studies in Biblical Theology” which makes the riches of what is called “Biblical theology” available to ordinary readers. This angle invites to ponder the interconnectedness of the big, unfolding story of God and the way themes and notions relate. It’s a great way to see how — as Sally Lloyd Jones puts it in her lovely children’s Bible inspired by this worldview — “every chapter whispers His name.”

This is a good one to start with, but try others in the series such as Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World by Thomas Schreiner; The City of God and the Goal of Creation by Desmond Alexander; From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation by Sidney Greidanus, The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer by Andrew David Naselli, or Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom by Gregory Beale. 

For those who like this series, there are two new ones coming in October that you could pre-order: Resurrection Hope and the Death of Death by Mitchell Chase and The Sabbath as Rest and Hope for the People of God by Guy Prentiss Waters., both which will sell for $17.99, but at 20% off they will each be $14.39. 

Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption L. Michael Morals (IVP Academic) $24.00 OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

We carry all the titles in the Essential Studies in Biblical Theology (ESBT) series edited by Benjamin Gladd. These books do almost scholarly, but quite readable, if detailed study of “central or essential themes of the Bible’s grand storyline” and this one is excellent, if a bit. This ongoing series is limited and seem to be nearly interrelated- they are highly recommended. And we think each enliven our understanding of the whole, and, of course, unlock precious insights into the organic unfolding drama of the whole Bible.

See, also, just for instance, Face to Face with God: A Biblical Theology of Christ as Priest and Mediator by Desmond Alexander; God Dwells Among Us: A Biblical Theology of the Temple by G.K. Beale; The Path of Faith: A Biblical Theology of Covenant and Law by Brandon Crowe;  Rebels and Exiles: A Biblical Theology of Sin and Restoration by Matthew Harmon; From Adam and Israel to the Church: A Biblical Theology of the People of God by Benjamin Gladd.

If you like this series and want to keep up, the next one coming arrives in early November and will be called The Hope of Life After Death: A Biblical Theology of Resurrection by Belhaven University scholar Jeff Bannon ($24.00.) You can pre-order it now, of course at our 20% off, making it $19.20.

and commentaries…

Whenever we suggest interesting books about the Bible and how to read it well, the question of commentaries comes up. The needs of different sorts of customers are diverse and we suggest things as basic as the Warren Weirsbe easy-to-read “Be” series to the higher-end, scholarly (and expensive) NICOT and NICNT, Pillar, the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament or other academic tomes. Each series has its own stellar ones; for instance, see the outstanding one on Acts by Willie James Jennings in the series Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (WJK; $40.00) or the Luke volume in that series by Justo Gonzalez (WJK; $45.00.) Many preachers like it when we suggest the solid, useful NIV Application Commentary series published by Zondervan and most are really great.  I hope you know the ongoing Story of God commentary series edited by Tremper Longman and Scot McKnight — they are so interesting, fresh, insightful and yet easy to use. I think the series we recommend the most for most folks is the exceptionally useful, paperback Bible Speaks Today series by IVP.  Every volume has the phrase “The Message of…” and they are all tremendous, even with discussion questions in the back, which is rare for a commentary. And, for really succint insight, don’t forget the compact sized, Old Testament for Everyone by John Goldingay and the New Testament for Everyone ones by N.T. Wright.

When useful and moving (!) academic commentaries come up, we always suggest the big two volume set by Frederick Dale Bruner, previously known as The Christ Book and The Church Book but now just called Matthew: A Commentary Volume One and Matthew: A Commentary Volume Two (Eerdmans; $41.99 and $46.99, respectively.) He also has a big one on John (The Gospel of John: A Commentary) which also offers his warm and wise and even profound scholarly but accessible insights. He released a smaller one a year ago on Romans.

four ON ROMANS

The Letter to the Romans: A Short Commentary Frederick Dale Bruner (Eerdmans) $26.99              OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Well, when one of our great scholars known for writing expert commentaries sets out to do a brief study of Romans (in just about 200 pages) we should pay attention. How fortunate the students at Whitworth University have been to have a professor like this in their lives!

“In this short commentary Bruner offers a clear, accessible interpretation of Paul’s account of our deep need of the Gospel and God’s loving provision in Christ. Illumined by a rich array of commentators throughout history, ample biblical cross references, and in language that grabs the heart, Bruner focuses on God’s offer of salvation as sheer gift. Mercifully free of jargon and arcane scholarly debate, but filled with contemporary allusions, the book is perfect for small Bible studies or adult education classes.”  — William A. Dyrness, Fuller Theological Seminary

“This commentary on the premier exposition of the gospel comes from one of America’s premier expositors of the gospel. Dale Bruner’s translation of Romans is fresh and clever, his exposition of Romans is disarmingly straightforward and insightful, and his personal testimonies at key passages illustrate the relevance of Romans for modern readers. This is not a solo commentary on Romans, however, for Bruner enlists testimonies from the Gospels and the confessions of the church to complement Paul’s liberating message, and throughout the commentary he introduces readers to the best insights of the best commentators on what he calls ‘the Fifth Gospel.’” — James R. Edwards, Whitworth University

“Bruner’s two massive treatments of Matthew and John are treasured in the church as reliable, inspiring, comprehensive studies. After a decade of further study, Bruner has done it again. This shorter study of Romans—which Bruner calls the Fifth Gospel—is once more a lucid, well-informed explanation of Paul’s premier letter. Good commentaries explain the text in its original form, provide theological insight into the text’s meaning and value, and then help us make use of the text for our living today. Bruner gets high marks in all three in a casual, personal format that is the hallmark of all his writing.” — Gary M. Burge, Calvin Theological Seminary

Romans: A Theological & Pastoral Commentary Michael J. Gorman (Eerdmans) $39.99                    OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99

It is hard to explain the significance of the unassuming servant leader that is Mike Gorman, but his many books are all exceptionally esteemed and he is, simply an author you should know. (To understand his influence, realize that there is, for instance, a book about his work which I raved about a while ago done in tribute to and in conversation with his notions of cruciformity. It is called Cruciform Scripture: Cross, Participation, and Mission edited by Christopher W. Skinner, Nijay K. Gupta, Andy Johnson, Drew J. Strait (Eerdmans; $35.00.)) Professor Gorman, who teaches at the fabulous Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, has a short, basic book on Revelation, several books on Paul, one heady one on John, and more. (And he’s writing again, so next year might see yet another New Testament commentary!)

In this, his most recent, which we announced back in the winter, Gorman offers a serious discussion of Romans, theological (that is, not mere Greek exegesis) and yet, as the title puts it, “pastoral.” I’m not exactly sure what that word connotes for you, but it suggests some practical, formational sensibilities, and I don’t disagree. It is, as Craig Keener says, “theologically rich as well as spiritual inviting and edifying.” 

Michael Gorman’s commentary on Romans faithfully illuminates the Apostle Paul’s complex proclamation of the gospel. While carefully explaining different possible interpretations, Gorman sets forth his own powerful reading of the letter: that it is a proclamation of the life-giving, life-transforming justice of God, as well as an urgent invitation to participate in the new community created by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Gorman, a master teacher, provides a rich historical and theological exposition, never losing sight of the question of what matters for Christian communities today. This commentary belongs on the desk of everyone whose vocation is to preach and teach the gospel.” — Richard B. Hays, Duke University

Michael Gorman is that rare scholar of eminent distinction who is willing to read the Pauline letters as Christian scripture. His approach is ecumenically sensitive, appealing to what Protestants and Catholics hold in common. And his analysis reprises the great themes for which he is justly famous: participation, cruciformity, transformation, and mission. Widely accessible, this commentary will be useful (on the one hand) to scholars, teachers, and preachers, and (on the other) to interested lay readers. — Scott Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Michael Gorman’s commentary on Romans shows why he is recognized as one of the most distinguished Pauline scholars in America today. Written for a wider audience, it explains the pastoral, theological, and spiritual dimensions of Paul’s most important letter for the church of our day. Eminently readable, always insightful, this commentary accomplishes what few have done: it makes Paul’s message accessible and relevant to the lives of everyday believers.    — Frank J. Matera, The Catholic University of America

Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Sermons from Paul’s Letters to the Romans  Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans) $24.50  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.60 

Many know dear Fleming, a long-standing Episcopal priest, working theologian and preacher, most recently from her stunning collection of seasonal sermons in the must-have Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ and her major work, Crucifixion. She has two smaller collection sermons on Good Friday . Many love her Battle for Middle Earth and her magisterial Undoing of Death, Lenten (and some Easter) sermons. There are others, including the recent collection of 52 great sermons, arranged as a once-a-week devotional called Means of Grace. We admire her so much and we’re glad she’s working on yet another manuscript. Pray for her!

Not so many customers order from us her lovely and inspiring and sometimes challenging collection of sermons on Romans, the epistle she calls “theological dynamite.” With dozens and dozens of sermons, this is over 400 pages and is itself dynamite. Highly recommended.

Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice Sylvia C. Keesmaat and Brian J. Walsh (Brazos) $29.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.20

This.  Wow. Amazing! I’ve reviewed Romans Disarmed more than once and have commended on it often, in part because of its verve and creative energy and in part because of how very compelling it is. It stands in the great tradition of their interactive, conversational, but deeply informed Colossians Remixed but offers even more — fictional characters, longer excursions into indigenous people’s sorrows, climate change, resisting the homogenizing influences of consumer culture — all deeply connected to the story of Paul’s letter to the conflicted and ethnically divided first century house churches in Rome, there under the boot heel of the ironically named Pax Romana. 

If you want to understand any of the New Testament, this playful but very detailed (just see the footnotes!) study helps put us there, right there. Sylvia earned her PhD in New Testament under NT Wright years ago and has deepened in her powerful exegesis but also in her creative storytelling. She and her hubby Brian take seriously the social context of first century Rome, the injustices, the radical implications of the enslaved being in sibling relationship with the rich and powerful who “owned” them — or didn’t, as the gospel insisted. You want deconstruction? Whew. I dare you to read this.  Gather in the kitchen of the home to listen to this letter from this guy named Paul and feel the tension, the struggle, the hardships and joy. Realize the importance of the women and men named near the end of the epistle and get this new perspective on Paul and his liberating message or real life redemption and the ethic of resistance to the forces of violence around us. 

Their study goes paragraph by paragraph with creative paraphrases and plenty of historical and contemporary cultural studies and radical application. They cite their colleagues N.T. Wright, Richard Hays, Michael Gorman, Chad Meyers and Elsa Tamez, but also Wendell Berry and Steve Bouma-Prediger and edgy social and political activists, all side by side. This is a true commentary, a handbook on contemporary discipleship, an argument for a life and lifestyle of utter grace. Agree or not with all of its conclusions, I cannot imagine a better book, if you are willing, to get you excited about the contemporary relevance of the gospel of Christ’s Kingdom and the subversive imagination it creates in communities that take the Bible seriously. 

Sylvia and Brian are two of my favorite Bible scholars. Whether you’re over-churched or under-churched, they stir in you a fresh curiosity for the Bible. This new book is perfect for scholars and new Bible readers alike, and for everyone in between. They rescue one of the most misused books of the Bible from the hands of colonizers and crusaders. And they help us listen with first-century ears to the anti-imperial love story of Romans. — Shane Claiborne, activist and author, Jesus for President

 

If you want to hear–and experience–Paul’s letter to the Jewish and gentile Christ-followers in Rome as you never have, read this book. And re-read it. Study it in your church circles. Talk about it with your friends. Assign it in your courses. As with their earlier Colossians Remixed, Keesmaat and Walsh have once again interwoven close textual reading of the New Testament (they clearly love the Scriptures!) with its unabashedly Jewish roots and its explosive relationship to the Roman imperial context. Most importantly, they bring the message of Romans into dialogue with our lives today, as we struggle to be faithful to the good news of Messiah Jesus in our own imperial context. — J. Richard Middleton, professor of biblical worldview and exegesis, Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College, author of Abraham’s Silence

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Bewondering God’s Dumbfounding Doings: God Talking to Us Little People in the Final Book of the Bible  Calvin G. Seerveld (Padia Press) $15.00  FREE with any purchase while supplies last

I wrote about this with great gusto in a heart-felt review I did when it first came out. It is a handsome paperback (with nice paper and a bit of art) and offers a handful of sermons Cal preached on the book of Revelation.  He’s astute and allusive, creative and majestic, even as he humbly guides the listeners at Toronto CRC into the God’s speaking, alive and well. 

Cal got us some for cheap and we’re happily offering this as a premium thank you gift for those of you reading BookNotes carefully and sending us orders. There’s a great endorsing blurb on the inside by Scott Hoezee, himself a great worship leader and preacher. Enjoy!

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I suppose I don’t really know what the dog days of summer are, but whatever they are, I think we’re in ‘em. It’s hot here, stifling, at times, and I’m tired. That’s not uncommon but, like many of you, I bet, I fell asleep a few pages into reading a brand new book last night. My head snapped up as it does but I couldn’t get my reading groove back on. I gathered up Beth and we watched some TV. 

Which reminds me that this regular feeling of being exhausted from work and worry about the world is nearly second nature to me, even if it isn’t the formation I’ve longed for. As so many good authors have told us, there are disciplines and practices we can take up to train ourselves towards greater openness to God. Habits of the heart which might yield greater health and wholeness and maybe even energy. Maybe the summertime schedule — dog days or not — can create a thin space for you to hear God speak somehow. Maybe these books can help.

For starters, before I share about four important new spiritual formation books (two not even out yet, two just out this week) I want to name in passing three rather special books about sane Christian growth. At the very least, you should know this kind of stuff. Some “self-help” books are actually incredibly profound, relating spiritual formation themes to our ordinary lives. Do you recall my rave announcement a month ago of The Good and Beautiful You: Discovering the Person Jesus Created You to Be by James Bryan Smith? What a good example of putting pretty profound insights about the interior life of spirituality into the realm of daily life and self care! 

Here are just a few more.

Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do Phillip Cary (Brazos) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.5

This has been re-issued with a slightly expanded format, sporting a new cover and a thoughtful new afterword. And (surprise) there’s a blurb by me on the back where I said (in our BookNotes review back when the first edition came out) “Tremendously rich and thoughtful and wonderfully written…This is solid pastoral theology, inviting deeper and more mature thinking about the slogans and cliches we hear to often.”  That is, it’s thoughtful and solid and ecumenical and — get this! — in light of the very truths of the gospel, we are set free from a lot of stuff we are encouraged to do; discipleship is a gradual long-term process as we experience the gospel in Christian community. 

Each chapter is a thing we don’t have to do such as “You Don’t Have to Hear God’s Voice in Your Heart” or “You don’t have to Let God Take Control” or “You Don’t have to Keep Getting Transformed All the Time.”  I liked the one called “Why Applying it to Your Life is Boring.” So there. 

I should note that this isn’t for those with anxiety disorders and doesn’t particularly address the fears and foibles of mental health issues. It wouldn’t be bad for those with that kind of anxiety, but in the title, here, it is more about those anxious about their faith, those fretting about their sin or Christian living, about those poised to buy yet another book which offers the formula for successful Kingdom living. Skip all of those. This rejects techniques and disapproves of simple, practical sermons-lite, inviting, instead, a richer, fuller, entrance into the classic forms of faith in a mature congregation.

Such churches remind us of the gospel.  Dr. Carey is the Scholar-in-Residence at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University so this book is a bit demanding. But it is great.

How about this blurb by Andy Crouch:

Yes! No! Whoa! There are so many terrific, alarming, insightful zingers in this book that I agreed, disagreed and, most of all, had to think about something on every page. Graceful and liberating, this book is a word of wisdom and hope that just might convince anxious Christians that the gospel really is better news than we’ve yet imagined.”–Andy Crouch, author, The Life We’re Looking For

The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, The Anxiety it Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises Sharon Hodde Miller (Baker) $16.99       OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Sharon Hodde Miller is an easy to read and upbeat best seller but she has depth and a thoughtful approach. We are happy to suggest her brand new one. Yep, it sounds like one of these hip new voices insisting they know just exactly what we need to do to grow into Christlikeness, and freedom and health, but, trust me, she is a theologically aware and psychologically sane author, inviting us to loosen the grip of control —or, as Rich Villodas puts in his good back-cover endorsement, “to be freed from the grip of the illusion control.”

Our self-help fascination and basic Christian growth industry is too often based on this very illusion, that we can be in control. As Miller shows, “The problem is, the more we seek the illusion of control, the more it betrays us. In place of certainty, it gives us anxiety. In place of predictability, it creates complexity. And in place of unity, it divides. It’s not just that we cannot control things, it is that we break them even more when we try.”

Hodde Miller is a fresh, upbeat voice but we respect her a lot. She’s got a MDiv from Duke and a PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She is the teaching pastor at Bright City Church in Durham, NC.

Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us Mark Yaconelli (Broadleaf) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I suppose this deserves a bigger review than I can muster now, but I really want you to know about the eagerly awaited new book by Mark Yaconelli which emerges from his work with The Hearth Community project. I’m excited about the book and glad he’s on Broadleaf.

Broadleaf is a theologically astute— if often quite progressive —mainline denominational press that does a variety of books, but many that might be considered self-help or personal growth or about interpersonal relations. Given their spiritual orientation and justice-sensitive framework, even their psychology books are deeply interwoven with sensible pastoral insights and often are written by those passionate about a Christian life that makes a difference in the world.

Many of our customers appreciate their edgy, mystical-but-practical books like How Not to Be Afraid by Gareth Higgins (Broadleaf; $24.99) or The Lightmaker’s Manifesto: How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy by Karen Warlord (Broadleaf; $26.99) that comes with rave blurbs from Romal Tun and Austin Channing Brown (and, for that matter, her colleague Brene Brown.) I’ve promoted their lovely The Sacred Pulse: Holy Rhythms for Overwhelmed Souls by April Fiet (with a forward by Chuck DeGroat) which is a gem of a little book.

This new hardback by storyteller Mark Yaconelli may be the best of their batch this season.

Yaconelli’s last book was the very special IVP title, published in 2016 and one we wouldn’t want to be out of, The Gift of Hard Things: Finding Grace in Unexpected Places (IVP; $16.00.) It showed him to be a good listener and a great storyteller. This new one is simply spectacular. As Anne Lamott says in her enthusiastic (and storytelling) foreword, “We need a teacher and a book such as this.”  Yes, he and Anne are long friends and she has written about him before.

Although I had met his famous, funny dad, Mike, a time or two, I have not met Mark. But I love how Anne describes him as she starts of her forward:

Mark Yaconelli is an unusual person, as brilliant as he is plainspoken. He is an activist and a homebody, a contemplative and a goofball, gentle in spirit and charismatic, funny, deeply articulate, and capable of both wonderful compassion and silliness.

And, she says, with a sly grin, I am sure, “He brings all these qualities to his new book.” Of course he does!

This brand new release is full of stories but it is not merely a collection of his colorful and poignant anecdotes. That would be itself worth whatever it costs to plunk down, but this is even better. It is a study of the role of stories, showing how our stories are vital and how knowing them of each other — the speaking and the listening, the telling and the receiving — can help form bridges of understanding. As the epigram from Barry Lopez puts it, it’s really all we’ve got — stories and compassion.

As the publisher notes, ”stories tether unto what matters most: our families, our friends, our hearts, our planet, the wondrous mystery of life itself.”

Yet, Mark says, the stories we’ve been telling ourselves as a civilization are killing us: Fear is wisdom. Vanity is virtuous. Violence is peace. This book is perhaps too elegant to be called a “counter-narrative” but that’s what Brueggemann might call it. Others have called it “an enchanting meditation on the power of storytelling in our individual and our collective lives.”

This is an immersive, elegant meditation, an offering of grace. Mark Yaconelli ushers us into rooms full of authentic stories, where facades fall and suffering and joy are metabolized. — Kirsten Powers, CNN Senior Political Analyst and New York Times bestselling author of Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts

FOUR BOOKS OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION

TWO AVAILABLE NOW, TWO COMING IN SEPTEMBER

Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again Ruth Haley Barton (IVP) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

A week ago this book showed up, a bit early, as we were furiously packing our last-minute stuff to throw in the truck as we headed to our first face-to-face off-site thing since early 2020. When I announced it up front to our CCO friends, I quipped —seriously — that I knew nothing about it. At that point I hadn’t even opened the cover, but some of the campus ministry staff in the room knew Ruth and many respect her work. They chuckled to hear me so speechless. For those who know me well, though, they caught my real meaning: I really don’t know much about this topic, even though I can tell you almost every major book published on the topic in the last 20 years.

Ruth herself knows this about me and has, in her lovely way, reminded me on occasion that burn-out and spiritual dryness is a serious risk for those in faith leadership positions, and she supposes that includes small town booksellers like me and Beth. She is right; of course she is.

I’ve made some improvements from my most earnest workaholic days although the urgencies of our work (and our financial instability, to put it nicely) sometimes just means we’ve got to do the work at weird hours and 7 days a week. I don’t mean to presume on God’s good grace, but there you have it.

And so, as I pre-ordered this book a half year ago I have to admit — as much as I adore Ruth as a person and as a writer, so would read anything she wrote (yep, she is one of those in my book!)— that I was thinking of our jam-packed sabbath keeping section. We’ve got Rabbi Heschel’s immortal classic, Sabbath, of course, and the must-read Marva Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting. I often start people off with the excellent (and very nicely written) The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan. What a book! We still love Dorothy Bass’s eloquent Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time and continue to recommend (and even read from) small portions from the glorious Sabbath by Dan Allender who insists that sabbath is not just about rest, but about play — re-creation. Eugene Peterson liked Matthew Sleeth’s 24/6 and with the brand new Agrarian Spirit by Norman Wirzba, we should revisit his broad and sensible way of life suggested in Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight.  And we have to list Walter Brueggemann’s Sabbath as Resistance. One of the most enduring and deeply spiritual volumes is simply called Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Mueller.

Yet, these days, if I am pressed to recommend just one, I’d say — for a heft study with lots of multi-dimensional, radical application — I’d suggest A.J. Swoboda’s Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World. Although, geesh, you really should read Marva Dawn!  And that Rest of God is just so nice.

Which brings us to Ruth Haley Barton who is now on the top end of that list of acclaimed titles. Yes! She brings her lovely style, her honesty and candor, even sharing about her own discovery of the health of sabbath keeping practices even as she was resisting it. It is telling and a generous start to which busy leaders will be able to relate. As these other books mostly say, we live in a frenzied culture, and this stuff is important — in part because God has commanded it, but also because (let’s just be honest) our jam packed busyness is not virtue; our fast-paced hustle is part of the problem of our culture’s disease.

Ruth’s book says on the back, noting how elusive balanced rhythms of work and rest can be, that “this rings especially true for pastors and leaders who carry the weight of nonstop responsibility.” Most know they need rest, she observes, “but might be surprised to find within themselves a deep resistance to letting go and resting in God one day a week.” 

There is reason that activist leaders like Brenda Salter McNeil (Becoming Brave) says this new book is “a prophetic wake up-call.” Black poet and East Village NY pastor Drew Jackson says it is a “must-read for anyone longing for freedom from the tyranny of endless work and overproduction.”

As I turned the pages slowly and pondered her meaning and my response, I felt invited into this journey without pressure or guilt. Or at least not much. My hat is off to Ruth for bringing some fresh words and passion and insights to this much-covered topic; she really is a very fine teacher and writer. If you know this topic well — even if you practice it well — I think you will love this book.  If you are in need of a compelling call to do it (or not do it, as the case may be) this could be it. It offers hard-won wisdom.

There are three things that set this book apart from the others. And they are huge. She gets it right and, again, it makes Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest, so valuable. 

Firstly, it is about the goodness of rhythm. This is a key aspect of creational reality, seasons and such, and we humans need to play our part, respond faithfully to the reality of days and weeks, months and seasons. She roots this in good stories and solid Biblical reflection. It is common sense, but radical, if delightfully phrased. She entices us into this pretty counter-cultural view of the clock. It is about the rhythms of work and rest, not legalistic adherence to a rule. 

Secondly, she invites us into common practices of sabbath and an ethos of sabbath-keeping in our faith communities. No other book is as candid about this and no other book could be as revolutionary for the churches — we are supposed to be doing this together. Or at least in tandem with others. Let’s face it — it is harder to avoid the frantic stuff of shopping and answering emails and being busy on Sunday if we realize few others in our own church or small group give a rip about these things. We feel like some mystic or lone Puritan, and it’s hard.  What if our whole church felt called to this liberating way of a rhythm of life, honoring the invitation to sabbath joy. What if it oozed from our pastors andChristian educators and what if we somehow had these conversations at church? Ruth says all this in helpful ways and the book includes a conversation guide for small groups and communities. 

(She has long been good at this, writing a book on the spirituality of leadership for pastors and those in ministry, then wrote a book on spiritual formation practices for groups, to be explored together, and she has one spiritual discernment practices for faith communities and their leaders.)

Thirdly — and this really makes this book both fascinating and vital. I hope we ordinary folk don’t avoid it because of this, but about a final third of it is about sabbatical. It is about pastoral replenishment and the need for extended periods of sabbatical time. I’m just reading this part now and I am finding it very convincing. 

I’ll admit as somewhat of an egalitarian who is paid much less and works harder than many ministers I know, I’ve never had much sympathy for these long periods off that some pastors get. Some already get exuberant days and weeks off, not to mention study leave. Except for college profs, who else gets such special treatment? Nobody I know.

And yet, they should. I believe that. And this book makes it crystal clear and even maps out ways to do so (without turning into an Alban Institute-type manual.) The subtitle of Embracing… is important: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again.The book is a must for church leaders, but, truly, I think it is for all of us to understand this whole business (and perhaps advocate for your pastor if need be.)

Sabbath, she shows, is “more than a practice.” It’s a way of life ordered around “God’s invitation to regular rhythms of work, rest, and replenishment.”  This means upending some of the way we think about work and wages, time and productivity. But she also is upbeat when she observes that well-rested and spiritually alive leaders are, in fact, better leaders, more fruitful and helpful than if they are exhausted and weary. Right!

In a way, this one is more foundational and perhaps more urgent for most of us, than her last one, but it now makes me want to read that one again, which I only skimmed. Now I want to read it carefully, savor it, maybe put some of it into practice. Like I said — I don’t really know that much about all this. Most of us, I suspect, are novices. Maybe you, too, might try her 2018 very lovely book, Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God.

But, please, for your own sake and for the sake of our churches and our world who needs us all to be well, don’t miss Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again. We’ve got it now at 20% off.

I like the invitation of Fuller prof and leadership guru, Tod Bolsinger (author of Canoeing the Mountains and Tempered Resilience) who writes wisely:

“Take a deep breath, be prepared for all that will be stirred up, and then bask in the teaching of this profoundly beautiful book.”

Courage for Caregivers: Sustenance for the Journey in Company with Henri J.M. Nouwen Marjorie J. Thompson (IVP) $20.00                          OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Marj Thompson has a new book!  About Henri Nouwen!  Stop the presses, friends, this is amazing new news and I am sure — whether you want to explore the gifts and challenges of caregiving or not — you will want this lovely new volume. Wow.

Marjorie Thompson gets credit for catapulting contemplative spirituality and a more monastic-type formational practice into the common experience of most church folks. She has served not only as a pastor and retreat leader in the PC(USA) but for a while directed spirituality stuff for the denomination. Her book Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (first released in 1995) is a true classic, a must have resource for both beginners in the deeper spiritual journey and for those well on their way. It even comes in a larger print edition, slightly oversized. That book has a forward by Henri Nouwen (and in the second, newer, expanded edition, also a piece by Barbara Brown Taylor.)

And here is what you may not know. One of Henri Nouwen’s best friends and sometimes-collaborator (from back in their Yale days) was John Mogabgab, who happens to be Marj Thompson’s husband. Which is to say, she knew Henri as a dear family friend, like, forever.

So what is this new book? It draws on the considerable writings and wisdom of Nouwen on the theme of caregiving. It is by Thompson but in each chapter — replete with stories of those giving care and those who are elderly or in hospice and the like — she draws on insights learned from Henri or his books. Ends up that she and John have done this kind of work for quite some time, starting with the era when they were close to Henri (who was writing much about pastoral care and the spirituality of compassion.) There is much more of Thompson than of Nouwen here, so the subtitle is just right: this offers spiritual sustenance for the journey of caregiving in the company of Henri Nouwen. 

(Forgive my aside, but it seems good to note right about here: Flying Falling Catching: An Unlikely Story of Finding Freedom is a recent biography of the years Henri joined the trapeze troupe, the Flying Roudleighs, which draws considerably on the final, unfinished manuscript Henri was working on when died. It is his “exhilarating true story of friendship and community and the Flying Trapeze.” You learn of his own woundedness and inner anguish and how his lifelong search for wholeness brings what author Lisa Napoli calls “a beautiful, moving story about interconnectivity, interdependence, and life’s rich, beautiful, complicated pageant.”)

Two more things about Courage for Caregivers: Scott Morris, the extraordinary Christian doctor and health ministry advocate from urban Memphis has a hand in this and wrote a brief preface. His nonprofit, Church Health, has long drawn from Nouwen in their gentle caregiving for the poor and this makes the book that much more lovely.

Secondly, while the first 100 pages are beautiful and worthy, there is an extensive leader’s guide and conversation resource making this ideal for training those doing caregiving type work, or deacons or Stephen’s Ministers or others hoping to hold the sacred stories of the hurting. There is even an appendix for a “retreat leader” that would use the book at an event. Further, there is a compendium of stories in the back and another with liturgical resources, stuff for congregations, and a several page biota guidance for congregations wanting to support caregivers. This is a great and useful resource.

There will be another IVP book coming soon, Hope for Caregivers: A 42-Day Devotional in Company with Henri J. M. Nouwen which you could pre-order as it is coming soon! $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80.

It is a stand-alone devotional, of course, but would make a very sweet companion volume to the Thompson book.

Streams in the Wasteland: Finding Spiritual Renewal with the Desert Fathers & Mothers Andrew Arndt (NavPress) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

RELEASE DATE – SEPTEMBER 13, 2020        PRE-ORDER NOW.

Well, what can I say about this stellar book — due out in September, now, they say — that both invites us into the lives of the early desert Mothers and Fathers and shows that they are exceedingly relevant to today’s world? I need to do a longer review later, but for now, I want to rave about this briefly, highlighting three simple reasons you should order this now. 

First, I’ll get it out of my system — you may not know much about this debate or may not care, but indulge me, please. Others have attempted to divest me of my bad attitude about the desert fathers and mothers, have tried to suggest they have much to offer, but my views have hardly changed much from the days when I said dear Henri Nouwen’s study of these early Egyptian mystics, The Way of the Heart, had more harm than help in it. To put it too simply, I thought — and still do, in some ways — that the desert saints were irresponsible to leave their places of life and worship to seek some early monastic experiences (monasteries as we think of them today were not quite invented yet.) I do not know of any serious Biblical warrant for this escapism, so I have said many a bad word about these Abbas. Further, I feared — and still do — that they were breathing the spirit of the intellectual air of those days which was essentially Gnostic or, at least, dualistic. They thought somehow God cared more about so-called spiritual things — the way of the heart — more than voting or taking out the garbage, play or work or making art. That may be what the pagan Greeks thought and it may be (ahem!) what many church leaders presumed in those days. They rejected the cultural mandate of Genesis 1 and 2 and assumed that the Christian religion was internal, private, and spiritual. It got the church off on the wrong foot and we’ve never fully recovered.

Okay, so I take some of it back. I’ve read parts of many books on these early monks who did miracles and taught prayer and love — one can hardly argue with that! — but none have convinced me that they were mostly right in their pilgrimage to the caves of the desert or that their worldview was sensible, let alone admirable.  Until now. Streams in the Wasteland seems to me to be a book like none other and I appreciate that Andrew Arndt explains these fourth century men and women and their vibrant witness against the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. 

Arndt avoids the deeper questions of whether these guys were really right in abandoning their churches and lives in the cities and towns from which they fled, and he avoids the question of whether any of us should really do that now. Who cares, really (my mind is pretty much made up about that) since this isn’t an academic book, and certainly is not an ideologically frantic and fearful sort of thing like Rod Dreher’s overblown Benedict Option. This just isn’t that kind of book.

Here is what he does do that is so very appealing. He shows how the simple truths (mostly about love) that inflamed these weirdos in the desert can be lived out in our own contemporary lives. He talks about the injustices of racism and he talks about work — it’s a very good chapter, too.  Who knew these desert gurus had it in ‘em? Their insight is fresh and relevant and nearly explosive. I am pondering this book, applying some of its simply truths to my own soul. I’m not sure if Arndt is fully adequate in explaining the creation-regained reality of a full-orbed Christian life in and for the world, but he comes close. As some of the Abbas taught directly, we are to be about the Kingdom of God. The methods of what we have to do to prepare ourselves for the outward journey may vary, but, for now, it sure seems they have a lot to say.

For what it’s worth, a few major books were written in the late 300s about these dudes. John Arndt of Colorado Springs draws a lot on John Cassian of France, whose own work finally was sorted and sifted into two books, Institutes and Conferences. By the way, as John explains, the monastery in Marseilles that Cassian later founded, emerging from his own interviews with the desert folks, became the template, so to speak, for Benedict of Nursia “whose famous ‘Rule of Saint Benedict’ still influences Benedictine, Cistercian, and Trappist monks to this day.” As Ardnt says, “Cassian’s careful distillation of the spirituality of the desert lives on.”

Okay, so he shows how lasting and how relevant and even lively this stuff is. It’s moving and clear and fun. I’m still not a fan of some of the tedious parables the desert fathers told, but I get it. They were profound men and women, some of few words, and their witness led many to deeper, real righteousness. And it can be tapped today. 

Streams in the Wasteland does just that as Arndt weaves into his narrative wonderful stories of his days growing up in a small-town, earnest, Pentecostal church in rural Wisconsin. He tells about people he knew, good people, those willing to be a bit odd for God — “peculiar people” as the KJV puts it. I was not raised in anything like that subculture but in a way it resonated. Or maybe I am projecting backward, wishing that I knew people with the deep kind of Godly love and power he saw graciously enacted as a child. Not sure why, but I was very deeply moved by his good storytelling, and longed for mentors and leaders like the kind he tells about — some from his youth, some from more recent congregations who have lived and struggled and served together.

You see, Streams in the Wasteland shows how the spiritual renewal of these radical Godly oddballs might speak to our own wasteland. He isn’t ideological or pushy, but in earnest, vivid, language and a few powerful stories, he shows that, indeed, many of us are beyond a boring faith or tired of right wing shenanigans — the problem is deeper than that. Our secularizing culture’s cross pressures are part of it (sure, he’s read Charles Taylor, or at least James Smith on Charles Taylor and is a thoughtful cultural critic) but as a pastor, he knows that people are longing for a real faith, an encounter with God, an experience of the Divine that isn’t sensationalized. 

Before Part One of the book is a great graphic announcing this Part One, “Into the Desert with God” which is explained like this:

Here we begin to explore the call to the wilderness: the spiritual horizon that guides our quest; the renunciation of the heart that makes it possible; and the practices that work the life of the Kingdom into us. 

Yes, there is a wild chapter called “The Great Renunciation” but it is followed by a sensible chapter showing the “essential habits for the with-God life.” 

The second major portion offers another graphic and the announcement of the section “Into the Desert with Others.” Oh my, these chapters are rich, full of ancient wisdom for modern churches. The chapter titles are plain enough and belie their profundity — “Called into Community”, “Saved into Community” and “Restored through Community.” The mothers and fathers, as they are called, of the fourth century “great renunciation” aren’t the first or only ones to teach us about community, but Arndt draws on their radical teaching and brings it into today. 

Here he names the local church as “the essential context” of the holy life — “No genuine Christian spirituality grows up without it.”  I am not sure if it is an Abba or Abbas that called this rebuke of self-directed spirituality “a discovery of the redemptive mystery God enfleshes in the church” but it sure is a good line, eh? 

Part Three is “Into the Desert for the world.” These chapters are called “Saving Speech” ( a topic the desert deserters had much to say, ironically), “Sanctifying Work” and “Divine Generosity.” That doesn’t sound weird, does it? Maybe even important for you? I’d say so. 

Here are the nice words on the graphic page setting apart Part Three:

A life rooted and ordered to God in Christ brings blessing to the world: our patterns of speech change, our work is sanctified, our lives become gifts given for the life of the world — living miracles that bear witness to the Kingdom.

Like Andrew Arndt’s previous book on the Holy Trinity — All Flame: Entering into the Life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — he draws on rich sources of old and contemporary writers. Naturally he uses Merton’s book on the sayings of the desert mystics; he uses Nouwen. Significantly, he tells how moving Benedicta Ward’s The Saying of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection was for him. He cites Mennonite scholar Alan Kreider (The Patient Ferment of the Early Church) and Alexander Schmemann (For the Life of the World) and modern authors from Wendell Berry to Eugene Peterson to Ronald Rolheiser. I like that he brings in his  New Life Church colleagues like Glen Packiam’s lovely Blessed, Broken, Given and Daniel Grothe’s important Power of Place. But most of the lengthy bibliography comes from citations of these old sayings and stories of the men and women of the late fourth century. Living in caves in the desert. Arndt has managed to bring what for me is the first convincing book about the wisdom of these “fathers and mothers” and how they might help us be more formed in the ways of King Jesus, even a way that might be considered human, humane, and beautiful.  Wow — I recommend it.

Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard Trevor Hudson (NavPress) $16.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59 

RELEASE DATE – SEPTEMBER 13, 2020        PRE-ORDER NOW

We are happy to get to announce this book — I’ve been carrying around an advance reader’s copy and wondering how to explain how good and rich and interesting it is. (Even if I hate the heavy metal font on the cover and headlines.)

For starters, we can say at least this: there is nothing like it in print. It really is, as the subtitle promises, an invitation to “find another way of life” and it does so by drawing on the ancient wisdom St. Ignatius of the early to mid 1500s and — get this! — the work of the late Dallas Willard who grew in fame at the end of the 20th century and was still alive and teaching just a decade ago. Ignatius was a Catholic reformer and spiritual teacher; Willard was a reasonable philosopher, student of human knowing, and quiet Protestant mystic. (He almost single-handedly convinced Richard Foster to write Celebration of Discipline, having mentored him a bit into the spiritual classics.)

Whether you know much about the famous”Ignatian method” of discerning God’s presence each day (and, throughout the day) or not, no matter. Whether you are drawn to the practical questions of Willard about how people change as they live in the Kingdom and what the renovation of the heart looks like, no matter. This little book brings them into conversation, so to speak, and it is illuminating, for sure.

Further — as if bringing these two giants into comparison, and learning a bit about what each taught as an approach to a life of lived, experiential, spiritual formation wasn’t enough to sell you on this book —  the author himself is a notable leader (some might say a master) of the things about which he is writing. Hudson is a United Methodist pastor from South Africa. As a white ally of the anti-apartheid movement, he is known for clear-headed and outspoken prophetic gestures. But he doesn’t wear that on his sleeve and many may not realize his fairly simple books — like one on the Serenity Prayer, another the Holy Spirit and short devotionals such as Pause for Advent and Pauses for Lent  — are deeply rooted in the inner life stuff of the monks and mystics and of modern day folk like Willard.

Hudson starts the book with the often-heard pastoral comments that people aren’t getting much from church or they wonder if “this is all there is” and the like, hinting, with hardly the vocabulary to say it, that they hunger for a holy encounter with God, a deeper sort of discipleship. This book, he says, is for those who are seeking. In fact, that is the first chapter’s topic — why we should seek, what makes one a true seeker? In our seeking we will discover others who sought after the things of God. In Seeking God Hudson tells about Ignatius of Loyola and Dallas Willard of California, two seekers of God.

This book is not a workbook, but it will appeal to those who like to process stuff. There are countless “seeking God exercises” with Bible scriptures to ponder and questions to consider,  prayers are given and there is stuff to do. This is as it should be as anybody familiar with Ignition spirituality would know.

Willard suggested to Hudson once that he should “guard his mind” and this becomes a powerful part of the exploration. As Hudson helps us towards the “Jesus way of discipleship” he recalls that he himself must watch his words; you see, much of this is quite practical. 

The Spiritual Exercises, especially when practiced with the benefit of a director or guide(or at least a small band of fellow seekers) allows us to see God permeating everything. “God-bathed” as Willard put it. 

William Barry is a lifelong Jesuit — the Catholic order and intellectual movement founded by Ignatius — and he wrote a good forward to the book.  He notes that Hudson “has mastered the inner dynamic that powers the Exercises and that has proven helpful to people for half a millennium.”  It will not just change your prayer life (and Barry has written several good books on that) but will help you “move to a deeper commitment to cooperating with God in the great project begun with the creation of this universe.” 

Much of the study material is done by Gary Moon, an expert in these things. There is even a free video series based on Seeking God and a full study guide by Moon. The book (and the free extras) make an ideal study for your group.

Richard Foster himself says, “I thank God for Seeking God.”   I say, “Amen!” Order it today.

As always, if you are ordering more than one title, and one is a pre-order, it is helpful if you say whether you want them sent together, later, or if we should ship one now and one later. You know the drill — tell us how to serve you best. Thanks.

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