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.

With the cold weather we had for a couple weeks in January, I ended up reading twenty books this month. Admittedly one was an illustrated children’s book by Ned Bustard on St. Valentine and another was a chapbook of poetry by Vermont writer Amy Allen. That balanced Abraham Verghese’s eloquent but lengthy The Covenant of Water and some longish theology books on the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness and a book on reading the prophets in the light of Christ’s work. I enjoyed Richard Middleton’s Abraham’s Silence on the sacrifice of Isaac, although I differed at points with the author. He saw my review and was kind enough to send written responses that addressed my differences. I love that. And the book made me think more than many.

I would highlight three other books. One was Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days, a collection of essays–the title essay of which is a powerful true story. The other was a biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, an early Black poet and Ohioan. At the encouragement of another reviewer I follow, I really must get over to his house in Dayton, a historical landmark. The third is a history of Christian missions originating in the West from the late Andrew Walls. There are several other books here on Christian theology and spirituality, my latest reviews from two mystery series I’m reading, an early Graham Greene and a George Simenon and a few other delightful books I’ll let you discover.

Holiness: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Theology, Matt Ayars, Christopher T. Bounds, and Caleb T. Friedeman. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. A biblical, historical, and theological argument within the Wesleyan tradition for holiness understood as “entire sanctification” or Christian perfection, able not to sin and to wholeheartedly love God and neighbor. Review

The Devil’s Novice (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #8), Ellis Peters. New York: Mysterious Press/Open Road Media, 2014 (Originally published in 1983). Meriet Aspley is called the “Devil’s Novice” for his nightmares, his awkwardness among the brothers, and an attack leaving him consigned to Brother Mark, where he finds the body of a man he later confesses to have murdered. Review

The Prophets and the Apostolic Witness, Edited by Andrew T. Abernethy, William R. Osborne, and Paul D. Wegner. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. An exploration of how Christians should read Old Testament prophets in light of the work of Christ and of how the apostolic witnesses read them. Review

Abraham’s Silence, J. Richard Middleton. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. Challenges the traditional reading of the binding of Isaac that valorizes Abraham’s silence as unquestioning obedience and faith, contending that God wanted more than silent obedience. Review

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese. New York: The Grove Press, 2023. The story of three generations of the family of Big Ammachi of Parambil, the ever present reality of “the Condition” resulting in a drowning in every generation, a story both of love and the hope in advances in medicine. Review

These Precious Days, Ann Patchett. New York: Harper Collins, 2022. Essays on family, friendships, the life of writing and bookselling, and mortality. Review

The Yellow Dog (Inspector Maigret #6), Georges Simenon. New York: Penguin Books, 2014 (Originally published in 1931). Maigret is called in when a distinguished wine merchant is shot, followed by a murder, a disappearance and another shooting in which a common element in several instances is a yellow dog. Review

A Non-Anxious Life, Alan Fadling. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2024. Proposes, as an alternative to an anxiety-driven life of hurry, restlessness, worry, and performance, a life under the non-anxious presence of Jesus of stillness, rest, peace, and fruitful love. Review

After Dispensationalism, Brian P. Irwin with Tim Perry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023. A study of the history, key beliefs, and teachers of dispensationalism with an assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses along with a treatment discussing reading prophetic and apocalyptic books within their context. Review

Pray This Way To Connect With God, Hal Green. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023. A book on learning to pray, focusing on God’s initiative toward us to teach us to pray and prayer as focused on deepening our relationship with God. Review

Sweet Danger (Albert Campion #5), Margery Allingham. New York: Open Road Media, 2023 (Originally published 1931). Campion and friends seek to prove a rural family to be the rightful heirs of Averna, an oil-rich seaside village on the Adriatic while pursued by an unscrupulous financier. Review

Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, Gene Andrew Jarrett. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022. Perhaps the definitive biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African writers to achieve fame for his poetry and other writings. Review

Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice, Steven Bouma-Prediger. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023. A discussion of why and how earthkeeping is integral to following Christ, drawing upon scripture, Christian theology and Christian thinkers throughout the breadth of the church. Review

The Missionary Movement from the West (Studies in the History of Christian Missions), Andrew F. Walls, edited by Brian Stanley, foreword by Gillian Mary Bediako. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023. A history of the last five hundred years of Christian mission efforts from the Europe and North America. Review

A Gun for Sale, Graham Greene. New York: Open Road Media, 2018 (originally published in 1936). A paid assassin murders a foreign minister of war, creating an international crisis that could lead to war but is betrayed by the middleman who paid him, who he pursues even as the police pursue him. Review

Renaissance, Susan Fish. Brewster, MA: Raven | Paraclete Press, 2023. Approaching fifty, Elizabeth Fane suddenly leaves work she loves as an executive director of a non-profit and a family that has been her life, to work in the gardens of a convent in Florence, Italy. Review

The Spiritual Art of Business, Barry L. Rowan. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023. An exploration of how God can work both in us and in our world through our work. Review

Saint Valentine the Kindhearted, Ned Bustard (text and illustrations). Downers Grove: IVP Kids, 2024. A retelling in verse and woodcut illustrations of the story of Saint Valentine, centered on not only his kindheartedness, but that there is more to love than romance. Review

Mountain Offerings, Amy Allen. Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2024. A chapbook of narrative verse capturing memories of childhood, summer vacations in the mountains, growing love, parenting, and loss. Review

The Spacious Path, Tamara Hill Murphy. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2023. In our fragmented world, discusses how the idea of a rule of life, not as an ill-fitting structure but an intimate walk of listening and love with Jesus, may bring wholeness into our lives. Review

Book of the Month. Hands down, my choice has to be The Covenant of Water. The story features extraordinary characters like Big Ammachi and her namesake granddaughter Mariamma, who makes a crucial medical discovery of the cause of a medical malady that has afflicted the family. The narrative spans three generations, set in the Mar Thoma Christian community of South India in a time of national upheaval and transformation. It’s a big book but the skilled writing and flowing prose of Verghese, a medical doctor, drew me along.

Quote of the Month. I’ll leave you with a page of verse from Ned Bustard’s Saint Valentine the Kindhearted, published just in time for Valentine’s Day:

Roses are red, violets are blue,
sugar is sweet, and so are you.
This is the poem many share
to show how much they love and care.
Flowers and candy sent our way
ev’ry year on Valentine’s Day.
But why the cards that say, “Be mine”?
That’s all from dear Saint Valentine!

      –Ned Bustard

What I’m Reading. I’ve recently finished several books that you’ll see reviews of in the next days. One is the ninth in the Brother Cadfael series. Another both makes the case for God’s personal leadership in our lives and how we experience. The third is a memoir by a bookseller with a compound of small bookshops in the southernmost reaches of New Zealand, appropriately titled The Bookseller at the End of the World.

I’m a bit over 200 pages into Bob Spitz’s massive biography, The Beatles. All of what I’ve read so far is the arduous process undergone by this group, under several names and different personnel, before they became the Fab Four. Matt Mikalatos and Kathy Khang team up on Loving Disagreement, a far more spacious conception than mere civility for how Christians may differ, shaped by the fruit of the Spirit. Hope for God’s Creation is an effort by a Baptist theologian to articulate the theological framework that ought ground our care for creation. Persuasive Apologetics makes the case for persuasion and the use of an “eclectic” apologetic in Christian witness. Finally, I’ve just begun Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning Prophet Song. Set in Ireland, it envisions a turn to an authoritarian state that suspends rights like habeas corpus and “disappears” opposition, claiming emergency powers and using Orwellian tactics turning language inside out. Chilling to any of us who think “it can’t happen here.”

I hope these twenty books suggest a few reading possibilities for you. And, as always, do return the favor and tell me what you are reading!

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.