This has been a month of considering both the current state of the church and what it could be. Tim Alberta’s book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory and Mike Cosper’s Land of My Sojourn are outstanding examples of the former. Humility Illuminated and Loving Disagreement were examples of the latter. A couple other books centered on the value of two other groups often marginalized in our congregations–children and the disabled. Season of Beauty combines a collection of great writing with great art for our journey from Lent to Holy Week through Eastertide. Some other reading highlights included a mammoth biography of The Beatles, a delightful memoir titled The Bookseller at the End of the World, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, the 2023 Booker Prize winner, and Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger. There were some spiritually enriching books on how God guides us personally and how God may form us through suffering. And I continue with great delight to work my way through the Cadfael and Campion series
Dead Man’s Ransom, Ellis Peters. New York: Open Road Media, 2014 (Originally published in 1984.) Following the Battle of Lincoln, Hugh and Cadfael arrange a prisoner exchange between a young Welsh nephew of Owain of Gwynedd for Sheriff Prestcote, which becomes a murder investigation when Prescote is smothered before the Welsh can depart. Review
God Leads Personally: Why It’s True and How It Works, Robert DiSilvestro. Seville, OH: Bezalel Media, 2023. A biblical exploration of how God leads people, concluding that God leads people personally and not just by general principle, and how we may be led by God and avoid deception. Review
The Bookseller at the End of the World, Ruth Shaw. Auckland, NZ: Allen & Unwin, 2022. The story of two small bookshops and their customers in the southernmost part of New Zealand, and the long journey of the bookseller running from trauma, broken dreams, and adventures until re-united with her first love and her work as a bookseller. Review
Persuasive Apologetics, Jeffrey M. Robinson. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2023. Discusses how we use various apologetic approaches adapted to the various people we meet, thoughtfully and gently seeking to undercut their objections, giving reasons for our hope in Christ. Review
Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility, Andrew J. Spencer.Brentwood, TN: B & H Academic, 2023. A theology of creation care that grounds an ethic of stewardship and hopeful practice, anticipating the new creation. Review
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023. A mother tries to hold her family and life together as Ireland descends into authoritarian rule. Review
Land of My Sojourn, Mike Cosper. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2024. The narrative of a former church leader who stepped away from a toxic leadership culture, the disillusionment that followed, and how reflections from a sojourn in Israel helped him process and find restoration. Review
Loving Disagreement, Kathy Khang & Matt Mikliatos. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2023. Moving beyond impasses or civil discourse to loving one another in Christian community while honestly engaging our conflicts through the working out of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Review
Season of Beauty, compiled by Editors at Paraclete Press. Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2024. A collection of scriptures and reflections of great Christian writers along with reproductions of great works of art for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide. Review
The Kingdom of Children, R. L. Stollar, Foreword by Cindy Wang Brandt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023. Summary: A liberation theology of the child that centers children in our theology and ecclesial life, arguing for their full humanity and their place as participants in the life of the whole church. Review
How Ableism Fuels Racism, Lamar Hardwick. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2024. An argument that ableism is an important lens through which to understand racism, because both create a hierarchy of superior and inferior bodies. Review
The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz. New York: Little, Brown, 2005. A biography of the band from its beginnings, rise, Beatlemania, studio work, and demise, with mini-biographies of each of the Beatles, their manager, Brian Epstein. Review
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023. Naomi Klein, a liberal activist and writer finds herself being confused with another Naomi, once a feminist now become an anti-vax advocate and darling of the extreme right. Review
Wisdom from the Witch of Endor, Tikva Frymer-Kensky. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2024. A modern midrash on the witch of Endor and four lessons or rules we may draw from her story. Review
The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, Curt Thompson, MD. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023. Drawing on the experience of Paul, described in Romans 5 and using the insights of neurobiology, a psychiatrist explores how hope may grow out of suffering as one learns one is secure in the presence of God and of a caring community. Review
Death of a Ghost (Albert Campion #6), Margery Allingham. New York: Avarang Books, 2023 (first published in 1934). Campion and Stanislaus Oates investigate two murders connected to the house of Belle Lafcadio and the unveiling of famous works of her deceased husband John. Review
Gentilly Terrace, Gordon Peter Wilson. Austin: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2023. A tale of petty and systemic graft interwoven with a troubled family, an FBI investigation and a budding love affair, all centered around a Vietnamese grocery in East New Orleans. Review
Humility Illuminated, Dennis R. Edwards. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. A study of humility throughout scripture, showing it as the distinctive identifier of those who follow Jesus. Review
The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory, Tim Alberta. New York: HarperCollins, 2023. A several years-long study of why much of the evangelical movement turned to hard right, nationalist politics, ignoring character and embracing the pursuit of power to enforce its vision of American greatness. Review
Book of the Month. This was a clear choice. Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory combines thorough reporting with personal engagement and a clear passion for God. This is not the angry hatchet job of an exvangelical, but rather a man of deepening faith, who has persisted out of love for a church he sees straying far from God’s purposes.
Quote of the Month. This William Butler Yeats poem was going through my mind as I read Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger and came up again in a collection of Joan Didion essays I began reading today:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
What I’m Reading. As I mentioned, I’ve just begun Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a collection of essays she wrote in the 1960’s when she was living in California. I just finished The Pilgrim of Hate number 10 in the Cadfael series. There is a finely written description of a miraculous healing that was worth the price of admission, and Cadfael has a reunion with Olivier and confesses his relationship with Olivier to Hugh. Fire Weather chronicles the Fort McMurray fire of 2016, and the sheer power of these fires and the disbelief that it could overrun this oil industry town. Leadership or Servanthood builds on the intriguing observation that while there are many calls to servanthood in the Bible, nowhere are we exhorted to train “leaders.” On the (Divine) Origin of the Species builds on an acceptance of evolutionary biology to explore how the qualities that make us distinctly human, particular that capacity to collaborate with others, reflects both evolutionary processes and the hovering Spirit of Creator God. Craig Bartholomews’s The Minor Prophets is a deep dive into The Twelve, the books at the end of the Old Testament that are anything but minor in their message.
The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014! It’s a great way to browse what I’ve reviewed. The search box on this blog also works well if you are looking for a review of a particular book.