InterVarsity Press

Review: A Just Passion

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A Just Passion: A Six Week Lenten Journey, Ruth Haley Barton, Sheila Wise Rowe, Tish Harrison Warren, Terry M. Wildman, and others. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: A six week Lenten devotional consisting of brief excerpts from works by InterVarsity Press authors, scripture readings, and breath prayers, considering how, in the passion of Christ, we lament the injustices of the world, find healing in the redemptive work of Christ, and enter into Christ’s heart for justice for the oppressed.

Lent is a season of fasting (except on Sundays), where we begin by remembering that we will die, we lament our sins and those of the world and the impact of these on others. It is a time of repentance and drawing close again to Christ, walking in the way of his passion and anticipating the hope of Easter Sunday. For many, some form of Lenten devotional reading is a part of their practices from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, the forty days of Lent.

A Just Passion follows in that tradition, offering readings for the forty days of Lent (Sundays excepted because Sunday is a feast and not fast day). The readings are drawn from the writings of InterVarsity Press authors, each reading of two short pages of reading. Among those included are Ruth Haley Barton, Tish Harrison, Warren, Eugene Peterson, Esau McCaulley, Sheila Wise Rowe, Dominique DuBois Gilliard, John Perkins, Tara Beth Leach, and Soong-Chan Rah, just to give you a sense of the stellar lineup represented here.

Also included in each week’s readings are a lectionary reading drawn from the First Nations Version of the New Testament, an English translation for indigenous peoples of North America, whose lead translator is Terry M. Wildman. One day each week includes a “breath prayer” in which we breathe in a short invitation or supplication to God and breathe out a line of response or release. For example, the breath prayer of week one is (breathe in)”Blessed are those who hunger” and (breathe out) “They will be filled.”

The readings focus on the inextricable link between the passion of Jesus and the pursuit of justice. They begin with Tish Harrison Warren reminding us that on Ash Wednesday, the ashes are to remind us that we are dust, that we die, and to hold on to what is real. John Perkins reminds us that Jesus was love incarnate, a mission of reconciliation his son Spencer died pursuing, and that he continues in West Jackson. Mark E. Strong tells the story of a young boy who has nothing for the offering and climbs into the basket, offering himself, which is truly the living worship of every Christ follower. Bethany H. Hoang, director of International Justice Mission, speaks of the exhausting work of fighting injustice, work that only can be sustained if begun in prayer. Christ outpoured in our lives is the beginning of our pursuit of justice.

Each reading gives the author and book from which it is sourced and an index by days gives more complete publication information. Not only is this a wonderful “sampler” of the authors who write for InterVarsity Press, this is a well-conceived and substantive collection that helps us enter into Christ’s passion while calling us into the pursuit of justice. Vice President of InterVarsity Press Cindy Bunch introduces the collection, offering specific practices we might consider in the pursuit of justice. If you are still looking for a Lenten devotional, this one is well worth your consideration.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.

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Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. Expanded edition. Andrew T. LePeau & Linda Doll, edited by Al Hsu. Foreword by Jeff Crosby and Robert A. Fryling. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: A narrative history of this evangelical publishing house, a division of a campus ministry, upon the publishing house’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

I was a high school junior, eager to grow in and share my faith due to the influence of the local version of the Jesus Movement upon my life. One of our leaders, a former InterVarsity student leader, invited a group of us to his home and showed us a table full of books and invited us to buy (very cheaply) anything that interested us. I chose Know Why You Believe by Paul Little and read it from cover to cover as it spoke to the questions both I and the people I shared Christ with were asking. That was my first exposure to the quality publications of InterVarsity Press, over fifty years ago. In later years, my son started asking the same questions and I took him out for Saturday breakfasts to discuss the book–and lots of other things.

It was an utter delight to read this history of InterVarsity Press. I should mention at the outset that I’m hardly an impartial reviewer. I work for the campus ministry of which InterVarsity Press is a part. I’ve had the privilege to know many of the people in this book, both living and with the Lord, and count some as friends. I’ve lived through a number of the organizational events mentioned in the book. I’ve even been a guest at a couple of the sites that the Press called home. And of course, I’ve read most of the books mentioned here, using many of them in ministry with students as well as being spiritually formed by many of them.

The very beginnings of InterVarsity Press are rooted in collegiate ministry as well as InterVarsity’s connection with InterVarsity Fellowship in the UK. Thoughtful literature was considered an indispensable part of work with students, particularly in the early years where students saw a staff worker maybe once a semester. The UK connection was also important, because the earliest books came from IVF’s publishing and the history notes the continued influence of UK authors from John Stott to J.I. Packer to N.T. Wright on InterVarsity’s publications. These were voices that were evangelical, thoughtful, and articulate–addressing the concerns of students–and as it turned out, a wider audience.

One of the key early moments was the first Bible Study guide published in the US on the Gospel of Mark, written by Jane Hollingsworth. It set an early precedent of women being represented and affirmed, not only in InterVarsity’s field ministry but in its publications. The book tells the story behind many of the publications that established InterVarsity Press as a publisher: the transcription of Paul Little’s lectures on evangelism into How To Give Away Your Faith, the work of editor James Sire with Francis Schaeffer, the connection with John White, a psychologist who wrote The Fight and a lengthy list of other books for IVP, the discovery of Calvin Miller’s The Singer and Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction in the “slush” pile, launching the publishing careers of both authors, and the brief stopover in the UK that led to publication of J. I. Packer’s Knowing God.

The account describes the organizational development of the Press, including the move to its own facilities in Downers Grove–first a house, and later a former auto dealership, and finally the move of the offices to join their warehouse in Westmont, Illinois. We are also introduced to the succession of leaders and editors who gave organizational and editorial leadership: directors Joe Bayley, Jim Nyquist, Linda Doll, Ken DeRuiter, Bob Fryling, Jeff Crosby, and Terumi Nichols, the current president of InterVarsity Press, and editors like Jim Sire, Andy LePeau, Jim Hoover and Dan Reid with academic books, and current editors including Al Hsu, Cindy Bunch, and Jon Boyd. One of the great partnerships at IVP was that of Jim Nyquist and Jim Sire (“the two Jims”). It waa during this time that InterVarsity Press really came into its own and became the resource to thoughtful evangelicals that it continues to be to this day.

The book doesn’t gloss over controversies, perhaps the most significant of which was an early “cancelling” effort by Franky Schaeffer of a book titled Brave New People, which advocated a strongly pro-life stance throughout, but in dealing with the most extreme cases of birth fetal abnormalities (like fetuses without a brain) allowed that these were the only cases where an abortion may even be contemplated. The book was labeled pro-abortion for mooting even this rare possible exception and attacked in various articles, leading to the loss of some InterVarsity donors, picketing at the press, and the withdrawal of the book, causing consternation among other authors, wondering if this could happen if the public didn’t like something in their books. The history explores the particular vulnerability exploited in this instance–the connection between the Press and the donor-supported campus ministry of which it is a part that is not the case with many publishers.

The expanded edition includes coverage of the last twenty-five years of the Press’s work, including a major expansion of its academic publishing, and various new lines like Formatio dealing with spiritual formation and Praxis dealing with issues of practical theology. The history also highlights the huge growth as a publisher of numerous authors who are people of color, of women authors, and the recent launch of a new line of IVP Kids books.

The book has something of the feel of a “family history” and one senses the uproarious fun, the high professional and ethical standards, and sense of mission that have characterized this publishing organization. It gives one a sense of the risks and judgments publishers must assess, and the changes in the marketplace that publishers must nimbly negotiate. For those of us whose lives have been touched by InterVarsity Press books, it is a delight to learn the stories behind the books that have spoken into our lives.

And since I’ve already noted how this is a departure from my usual reviews, I will depart one more time to express to my friends at InterVarsity Press how grateful I am to God for you for the commitment to Christian thought, to publishing authors of color and women, to addressing hard issues and not shrinking from taking positions that not all will embrace. I’ve found J. I. Packer’s assessment, quoted in this book, to be amply true:

“Some publishers tell you what to believe. Other publishers tell you what you already believe. But InterVarsity Press helps you believe.”

Thank you, InterVarsity Press, for helping me know why I believe, and for fifty years of helping me believe more deeply.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

New Studies in Biblical Theology

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Yesterday, I reviewed W. Ross Blackburn’s The God Who Makes Himself Known. This is one of forty-four volumes currently in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series (with more forthcoming) jointly published by the Apollos imprint of InterVarsity Press in the United Kingdom and InterVarsity Press in the United States. The series strives for readability, avoiding specialist jargon or untransliterated terms in the biblical languages. D. A. Carson is the series editor and has articulated the goals as follows:

New Studies in Biblical Theology volumes focus on three areas:

  • the nature and status of biblical theology, including its relationship to other disciplines
  • the articulation and exposition of the structure of thought from a particular biblical writer or text
  • the delineation of a biblical theme across the biblical corpus

I try to pick up new volumes as they are released because I have found them of high quality, combining scholarship and devotional insight. Here are the reviews that have appeared in posts at Bob on Books over the years, to give you a sampling of this series. You can count on more in the future.

The God Who Became Human (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Graham Cole. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. A biblical theology of the incarnation. Review

Hear My Son (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Daniel J. Estes. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Studies on the first nine chapters of Proverbs. Review

Covenant and Commandment, Bradley G. Green. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014. In light of the Reformation doctrine of justification by grace through faith, Green considers the place of works, obedience and faithfulness in the Christian life. Review

With the Clouds of Heaven (New Studies in Biblical Theology), James M. Hamilton, Jr. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014. A study of the biblical theology of Daniel, including its structure, key themes, how the book influences both early Jewish literature and the New Testament, and how it connects to key themes throughout scripture. Review

Preaching in the New Testament (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Jonathan L. Griffiths. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017. An exegetical and biblical theology of preaching from the texts of the New Testament. Review

The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Andrew T. Abernethy. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016. A thematic approach to understanding Isaiah organized around the idea of ‘kingdom’ exploring the nature of the king, the agents of the king, and the realm and people of the king as elaborated throughout the book. Review

Unceasing Kindness (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Peter H. W. Lau and Gregory Goswell. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016. A study of the theological themes that may be discerned in the various placements of Ruth in the canon, and the broader themes of unceasing kindness, famine, redemption, divine and human initiative, and the mission of God connecting Ruth with the rest of scripture. Review

The God Who Makes Himself Known (New Studies in Biblical Theology), W. Ross Blackburn. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012. A study of the theology of the book of Exodus contending that it reflects God’s missionary purpose to make himself known to the nations through Israel. Review

The distinctive cover design looks good on your bookshelves. If you’ve acquired some of these and would like to fill out your set, InterVarsity Press offers a special discount as high as 50% off depending on the number of titles you are purchasing at their website. Of greater importance is that these works are great references at a reasonable price that complement the teacher’s personal study of biblical texts or theological themes in scripture.

James W. Sire (1933-2018)

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The Christian world lost a wonderful scholar and apologist Tuesday night. And I lost a friend. James W. Sire passed into the more immediate presence of the Lord he so deeply loved on Tuesday evening.

I first came in contact with Jim’s ideas long before I ever met him. I was a college student at a leadership camp in 1974. One of our sessions was on this idea of “Christian world view.” One of the presenters shared material he had heard in a seminar with a university professor by the name of James Sire. He included seven “world view questions” that became a valuable tool whether reading a textbook on counseling psychology or talking with someone who was not a Christ-follower whose view of life I was trying to understand. His questions were:

  1. What is prime reality—the really real? To this we might answer: God, or the gods, or the material cosmos. Our answer here is the most fundamental. It sets the boundaries for the answers that can consistently be given to the other six questions. This will become clear as we move from worldview to worldview in the chapters that follow.
  2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?Here our answers point to whether we see the world as created or autonomous, as chaotic or orderly, as matter or spirit; or whether we emphasize our subjective, personal relationship to the world or its objectivity apart from us.
  3. What is a human being? To this we might answer: a highly complex machine, a sleeping god, a person made in theimage of God, a naked ape.
  4. What happens to a person at death? Here we might reply: personal extinction, or transformation to a higher state, or reincarnation, or departure to a shadowy existence on “the other side.”
  5. Why is it possible to know anything at all? Sample answers include the idea that we are made in the image of an all-knowing God or that consciousness and rationality developed under the contingencies of survival in a long process of evolution.
  6. How do we know what is right and wrong? Again, perhaps we are made in the image of a God whose character is good, or right and wrong are determined by human choice alone or what feels good, or the notions simply developed under an impetus toward cultural or physical survival.
  7. What is the meaning of human history? To this we might answer: to realize the purposes of God or the gods, to make a paradise on earth, to prepare a people for a life in community with a loving and holy God, and so forth.

Eventually, he added an eighth question as he understood that world view wasn’t simply about ideas but also how we lived and oriented our affections and commitments in light of them.

8. What personal, life-orienting core commitments are consistent with this worldview?

I was delighted a few years later when this list of questions on a handout was turned into a book, The Universe Next Door. By that time, I had begun working in collegiate ministry and this was one of my “go to” books as I engaged with people from all sorts of backgrounds, and as I sought to help Christian students confidently engage others with different ideas.

Meanwhile, Jim had left his teaching position to work for InterVarsity Press. Even before his own work was published, he played a key role in editing a number of the works the Press published by Francis Schaeffer. He served for a number of years as Senior Editor at the Press and played a key role in its growth in the world of Christian publishing. All during this time, he continued publishing his own works, including Scripture Twisting, Discipleship of the Mind, and one of my favorites that actually was mocked by Jimmy Fallon, How to Read Slowly (about which I subsequently wrote). He eventually published four more editions of Universe Next Door, selling over 350,000 copies. (I understand from an email I received from him in December that he was working on a sixth edition at the time of his death.)

That would be enough for many people, but not for Jim. His next career was as a campus lecturer. I had the privilege to host him several times at Ohio State, and what I appreciated was not only his winsome and witty engagements with students and faculty, but how he would delight in personal conversation with someone seriously questioning.

It was during this time that I had several opportunities to get to know Jim more personally. One year, I was assigned as one of the staff leaders in a seminar called “Agents of Transformation.” I had never gone through the seminar before. The person leading became ill just beforehand and the powers-that-be decided that they wanted me to lead the seminar. I would have been lost had it not been that Jim was with us that week as a “resource.” What so impressed me was how he supported me in leading sessions that he probably knew backwards and forwards while I was making it up as I went. We ended up having a marvelous time with the 40 students on hand, often just one step ahead. His humility and support was an incredible encouragement.

Jim never stopped learning and growing. Habits of the Mind and Naming the Elephant both reflected his own evolving and deepening understanding of the idea of worldview, and how we think. A couple of his last books, Why Good Arguments Often Fail and Apologetics Beyond Reason (review) reflected his experience as an apologist and a deepening understanding of the spiritual dynamics of engaging with people in their journey to faith.

We saw each other regularly over the last twenty years at our InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministry meetings. Jim always cared deeply about the university world and our efforts to connect the love of God and the love of learning. One of the talks I remember him giving spoke about the divide between the humanities and the sciences, and his belief that this, too, was reconciled in Christ.

Because so many of Jim’s books had to do with topics related to the life of the mind, people may not have been aware of how much Jim loved God, and loved what he saw of God in the scriptures. He wrote a number of Bible studies and Learning to Pray Through the Psalms and Praying the Psalms of Jesus. In Learning to Pray Through the Psalms he wrote:

“How can I not begin without thanking our great God who inspired the psalmists and gave us those marvelous records of the prayers of the ancient Hebrews! This book is a meditation and an encouragement to meditation prompted by the texts of those who poured out their souls to God. So thanks quickly go to those hearty souls who wrote the psalms and displayed for us such a vast panorama of human thought and emotion, thus freeing us so many centuries later to bare our heart and mind before the God who fashioned us and intended us to be like himself.”

This man’s work touched the arc of my adult life. He helped build a publishing house with a sterling reputation for evangelical conviction coupled with fine scholarship. He engaged with countless seekers and sceptics. He gave valuable advice and support to a ministry seeking to reach the elite world of scholarship. And all of it was with grace, wit, and humility. And now he joins the “hearty souls” of the ages in the more immediate presence of the God to whom he spent his life pouring out his heart. Further up and further in, my friend!

Still Evangelical?

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I follow different publishers on Twitter as one way of learning about their latest books. On Saturday, I saw and responded to this tweet from InterVarsity Press:

Bob Trube on Twitter Yes I am still evangelical Evangelicals who have become ensnared with the politics of the Left or the Right have left in sacrificing the centrality of Christ …

I sent this reply:

“Yes, I am still evangelical. Evangelicals who have become ensnared with the politics of the Left or the Right have left [evangelicalism] in sacrificing the centrality of Christ [for political access and influence].” (Bracketed words add clarity for what was an abbreviated, tweet response.)

The tweet is no doubt part of a campaign to promote a new book, Still Evangelical?, that wrestles with the question, in the aftermath of the 2016 election, whether they still want to identify with the evangelical tribe. The book is on my “to read” pile, so look for a review in the near future.

My response reflected a “moment of clarity” earlier in the week. I was participating in a retreat of faith leaders involved in collegiate ministry at the university where I have worked in collegiate ministry over twenty years. The majority of those in the room were mainline Protestant, Catholic, or representatives of other religions. In the course of the day, exercises moved from fun, but relatively non-threatening discussion to the point of sharing about our religious identity. I was paired with a woman from what I would characterize as a “progressive Protestant denomination” and her views reflected that. Do I play coy, go vague, or tell the truth?

I went for truth with the qualification that evangelicalism for me had nothing to do with political captivity to the Left or the Right (and I do think both have occurred in recent American religious and political history). I went on to say that for me, this identifier goes back to the root of the word “evangel” as good news, and that David Bebbington’s “Quadrilateral” is still a useful rubric for what I consider near and dear, and in what I believe this good news consists:

  • Biblicism doesn’t mean for me a wooden literalism but that God hasn’t left us in the dark, but in a variety of ways from poetry to prophecy to history, God has spoken a trustworthy word to bring us the light of God’s grace and how we might live in consequence of that grace, and that the Bible is crucial in defining the character of the new community of God’s people and how they live out the life of faith together.
  • Crucicentrism,  that God has broken into our estrangement from him in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, what we desperately needed. As I said in my tweet, Christ is central to my faith, the focal point of all of scripture and my hope in life and death.
  • Conversionism. The good news is that because of what Christ accomplished, we are no longer left to efforts to try harder to be better, struggling against the tyranny of self. We are “new creations” in Christ, people in whom life has begun anew, cleaning the slate of all our wrongs, and providing a new capacity, the indwelling Spirit of God, enabling us to live into that new creation life.
  • Activism. The grace of God moves us to a life of pursuing the beauty and goodness that reflects that grace, while making known in our words as well as our deeds the extravagant love of God revealed in Christ and the offer of new life in him for all who believe.

This movement, with all its flaws led the way to the abolition of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, provided the basis of social work in our cities, has fought human trafficking on a global basis, as well as provided the impetus for a missions movement, flawed at times, but also resulting in indigenously led Christian movements throughout the world, including one in China that may soon be the largest in the world.

In sharing this, I came to a moment of clarity that “evangel” and “evangelical” are good words, and there is really nothing quite like them as identifiers for a life shaped by this good news. I have also been reading To Light a Fire on Earth by Bishop Robert A. Barron, one of the leaders of the “New Evangelization” in the Catholic Church and have been impressed by how unashamedly he uses the terms “evangelism,” “evangelical,” and “evangel” throughout the work.

No doubt these carry some distinctive valences for Barron, and yet what strikes me is not only his unashamed use of these good words that so many evangelicals are fleeing from, but also that in the effort he is leading within Catholicism, one can detect some of the same distinctives one sees in Bebbington’s Quadrilateral, distinctives I will elaborate in my forthcoming review.

All this leads me to the conclusion that it is time to reclaim this identity, and this good word rather than to slink away from it, either in identification or affiliation. It’s time for us to say to those who have co-opted this identity for a politically captive idolatry that they have lost their way, they have strayed from their first love, and we would love for them to repent, but that they should not use “evangelical” for what is a type of “national” or “political”  or racially homogeneous religion.

My fear, and it is a temptation I recognize in myself, is that in walking away from the identifier “evangelical,” whether we leave the “tribe” or not, is that we will also walk away from the good distinctives that are part of Bebbington’s Quadrilateral. (I am aware that some, like Timothy Gloege have advocated that we ought to abandon these, and I think John Fea has responded well to this contention.) This temptation to mute our identification and what makes it distinctive seems to leave us with a vague religion defined by what we are not, perhaps some form of personal piety, and maybe an impetus toward do-good-ism.

My sense is that instead we need to press more fully into that identity in ways that address our present crisis. I could see us pressing into listening hard to the whole counsel of God in the Bible rather than our selective readings. I could see us pressing into the way the work of Christ is for all without distinctions of gender, class, race, or national origins and the implications for a society deeply riven by these divisions. I could see us pressing into the transforming power of conversion and what that means for so many in our society without hope. I could see us pressing into an activism that explores how each and all of us might live out callings that pursue beauty, goodness and truth in a world where there is far too much ugliness, evil, and lie.

All this lies behind my response to InterVarsity Press’s tweet. Yes, I’m still evangelical. And unashamedly so.

[I would also commend a great article by a colleague that explores this same landscape, Evangelicalism: It’s a Brand but its Also a Space.]

InterVarsity Press Website Update

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InterVarsity PressAnyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that a number of the books I review (about a quarter I would estimate) are published by InterVarsity Press. Call it an occupational hazard of working for the collegiate ministry that is the parent organization of which InterVarsity Press is part. We have the opportunity to purchase new releases at a significant discount, all books for a good discount, and they send us occasional freebies. Not a bad fringe benefit, eh?

Recently, when I went to link to a book I was reviewing, I discovered that InterVarsity Press (hereafter, IVP) has completed an elegant update of the website. I visit a number of publisher websites and was very impressed with the look, navigability, and content of the site.

First the homepage. For those searching for a specific title, there is a search bar just below the IVP logo allowing searches by keywords, titles, authors, or series names like “LifeGuide.” Opposite the search bar is a free shipping offer, log in and cart (yes you can have an account and buy stuff direct!). Below the searchbar you see the site menu. “Books” lists categories of books you can search under. “IVP Academic” includes a listing of their academic line books, a textbook locator for professors, instructor resources, an exam or desk copy request form and a catalog request. “About our authors” features authors, provides author booking information and allows you to contact authors through IVP. “Special offers” includes info on their book club, and special programs for commentaries, sets and bulk discounts. There is finally a selection just related to the book club.

Below a rotating banner with clickable features appear IVP’s latest releases. Scrolling down the page, one finds a row of boxes (which may change over time) but feature a “Hard Saying of the Day,” an e-book of the week, a “Meet Our Authors,” and a chance to subscribe to newsletters for the different publishing lines of IVP.  Further down, is a row of “Trending Now Books”. By clicking on the covers you can go to the page for the book. Then you come to a row listing the different lines of IVP books and currently featured titles in each line — IVP Academic, IVP Books, IVP Connect, Formatio, and Praxis. Each drop down describes the line, and in addition to featured books shows featured authors and news.

At the very bottom of the page you can access a number of options under “Resources,” “Partners,” “Help” and “About. Two that I will highlight:

  • The “Daily Quiet Time Study,” a long time feature that provides a biblical passage and discussion questions from one of IVP’s study guides. I was glad to see they kept this feature–a great place to go for substantive daily Bible reading and study.
  • “Discussion guides” leads to a page showing over sixty discussion guides for books published by IVP, a great resource if you are looking for a book to discuss in a group.

If you go to a page for a book, you will find a good size rendering of the cover, publication data including page counts and ISBN numbers, a discounted price and order button. Below these are a description of the book, endorsements, and an author profile. To the right of these are a table of contents, a press kit link for the book (downloadable PDF), related IVP books, and other books by the author published by IVP. One thing I noted that they eliminated from the former website were Goodreads reviews from readers (I suppose one can go to Goodreads for these). Overall, this makes for a cleaner appearance of these pages.

I suspect they are still refining some features on the site. I discovered that clicking on the “Hard Saying of the Day” takes one to a “this page does not exist” page.  When the site first went up, I was dismayed that the former links to the site I had used for many of the books I reviewed had the same problem. Now when you click on links for a book under the old website system, they forward to the current site for the book. Thanks for fixing that,  IVP, so that I don’t have hundreds of links that don’t work on my blog! I should also note that I have not tried using the mobile version of the site extensively. I did discover that for some reason, when I tried entering something in the searchbar, I could not keep the search bar or my Android keyboard visible, and thus could not search. At this point, I would say the site feels more computer- than mobile-friendly.

All in all, IVP has created a new, very up to date looking site with a clean appearance, easy navigability, and many features for book buyers and for readers. There are no pop-ups or overlay ads that can be so annoying. What one finds is a site that makes getting information about a book you might be interested in easy, allows you to order that book, or in many cases, an e-book easily (which provides a higher return to the publisher than going to that big online seller) and offers some wonderful free resources to enhance your devotional and reading life.