Jeff Crosby

Review: World of Wonders – A Spirituality of Reading

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Cover image of "World of Wonders" by Jeff Crosby

World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading, Jeff Crosby, foreword by Carolyn Weber. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609457) 2025

Summary: On reading as a spiritual practice and how books may transform our lives.

I love books on books. And I think many of you will especially love this book, World of Wonders. That was how I felt the first time I walked through the doors of the Reuben McMillan Library in Youngstown. It’s how I felt the first time I visited a Borders store when we were house hunting in the city where I now live. And its how I felt the first time I read Lord of the Rings.

The author, Jeff Crosby, is writing about all this and more. He believes in reading as a spiritual practice, a means by which we position ourselves to receive the grace of God. And in this book, he writes about how we may cultivate this practice and the various genres and types of books we may read along the way. After each chapter he includes a short statement from another reader on the chapter topic. And then he offers a list of recommended readings on that topic or theme.

Part One of the book lays foundations. Crosby explores why we read and tells his personal story of how reading Calvin Miller’s The Singer transformed him as a reader. He then elaborates his ideas on reading as a spiritual discipline through a “liturgy of reading” consisting of a number of practices, including building a list of books to read (in which he generously recommends this blog as a resource!). Finally, Crosby discusses the reading of scripture as a discipline. I appreciated his challenge to those of us who read many books to not allow this to supplant our reading of scripture! The temptation is real.

Part Two considers “The Wide, Wide, Wonderful World of Reading.” Four chapters consider the genres of fiction, poetry, diverse voices, and memoirs. Quoting Christine Seifert, he argues that “Research suggests that reading literary fiction is an effective way to enhance the brain’s ability to keep an open mind while processing information, a necessary skill for effective decision-making.” Likewise, poetry enhances our power of paying attention as we slow down and ponder. Diverse voices broaden our perspective and help build bridges of understanding. Finally, reading memoir deepens our capacity for reflection. He offers the example of Carolyn Weber’s Surprised by Oxford, the account of her intellectual and spiritual conversion to Christianity.

In Part Three, Crosby explores reading as a spiritual practice through the seasons of life. He recounts reading with children, reading as they left home, and reading while caring for aging parents. Crosby discusses reading as part of dealing with grief and loss. He speaks of reading in seasons of doubt. Daniel Taylor’s The Myth of Certainty was an important book for him. Reading can also be an important adjunct through the liturgical year. Lastly, he returns to his theme of wonder in how books may be our companions through all the seasons of wonder in our lives.

World of Wonders is a great book for readers who always are looking for a book recommendation. In addition, Crosby gives words to what is often our inarticulate sense of the spiritual importance of our reading. And it is good for Christians who realize that they’d like to read more but wonder where to begin. Crosby’s stories of his own reading journey are not from elite literary circles but from daily life. One thinks “that could be me.” And indeed it could. Welcome to the world of wonders!

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

Review: The Language of the Soul

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The Language of the Soul, Jeff Crosby (foreword by Suzanne Stabile, afterword by James Bryan Smith). Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2023.

Summary: A survey of the deepest longings of the human soul, within ourselves, for our world, and for the eternal.

Saudade. A word from the Portuguese that, strictly so, is untranslatable. Words like longing, yearning, nostalgia, the burning hearts of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. It is the desire for something more that takes us into the realm of the spiritually transcendent. Jeff Crosby believes these longings are the beckoning of God, speaking to the language of our hearts.

Crosby has been reflecting on these longings for much of his life and gestating this book for the past fifteen years amid a busy career in publishing. In this work, he weaves his own experiences, the thoughts of other pilgrims, and the strands of music that have been another of his great loves to identify ten longings of the heart:

  • The longing for home
  • The longing for an undivided self
  • The longing for forgiveness received and extended
  • The longing for friendship
  • The longing for spiritual transformation
  • The longing for peace
  • The longing for community
  • The longing to be freed from unhealthy fear and anxiety
  • The longing for meaningful work
  • The longing for heaven, our hearts true home

It’s striking to me that these longings are framed by our longing for home. I think of how I treasure the hours I spend in the various comfortable and pleasing spaces in and around my own home and yet revel in images of beautiful homes (usually with a library, leather chairs, and a fireplace looking out on a beautiful vista). We call our home Rivendell, after the refuge of Elrond in the Lord of the Rings, the last homely house. It strikes me we all long for that house, which Crosby identifies with the longing for heaven that we glimpse in those “thin places” where heaven is barely veiled–a passage of music, a scene in nature, a description in literature, a poem.

In between, Crosby explores the longings that permeate our existence. He invites us to recognize our discontent with fragmented, divided lives and to pursue the solitude, silence, and wise direction that is the path to a seamless existence. He shares his own experience of a panic attack and the practices of examen to recognize the presence of God amid the anxiety-producing concerns of our lives. He likens the burden of our own transgressions and grievances toward others as a rock-filled pack that confession and forgiveness of ourselves and others helps us unload. He speaks of a marketing meeting with one of the leaders of the Empty Hands Fellowship for a book project that was set aside because of a family in need in an unhealthy, mold-filled shack, exemplifying the richness of community we often only long for. He speaks of anam cara friends who never “should” on us, and take that away from us when we try to do it to ourselves. And this just from half of the ten longings.

As I mentioned, song as well as scripture and literature has been important to Crosby and one of the treats is that he offers a playlist for saudade and for each of the longings at the end of each chapter. I haven’t created all of these playlists but was able to create a playlist on Spotify for his Saudade playlist and suspect one can find most or all of his recommendations on a music streaming service.

Along the way, we learn from many of the spiritual writers Crosby has worked with over the years of his publishing career, yet Crosby weaves these into his own “playlist” as well, exploring our longings and the practices that draw us to the one in whom our longings find their fulfillment. As I read, I felt I was listening to one, still on the way, and yet living a purposeful, increasingly seamless vocation moving joyfully toward his, and our hearts true home.

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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.

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