This month’s collection of reviews, seventeen in all, includes a review of a wonderful set of theological reflections on Christmas that explores ways our practices of lights, decorations, and gifts may reflect our theology of the incarnation. I also reviewed a forthcoming book on the cross, thought-provoking and well-written though I could not agree with some of the conclusions of the writer. I also had the somewhat puzzling experience of reading a book on reading Barth that didn’t so much give me pointers in reading Barth as it did the author’s reading of the great theologian. Likewise, I reviewed a book that seemed to be offering a dialogue on two approaches to Paul, It turned out it was two older essays set beside each other with one of the authors being deceased! This left the reader to provide the dialogue!

On a more positive note, I began the month reading a thoughtful book on how certain kinds of constraints facilitate our spiritual growth. I delighted in seeing the first book by a blogger who helped me through the pandemic, which expanded on her ideas as a Christian epidemiologist of we might expand our vision for loving neighbors through understanding some of the global public health challenges we face today. I worked through a great commentary on John in the “Through Old Testament Eyes” series and a thoughtful book on suffering. Along the way, I read a couple Campions, a Cadfael, and the first in the Cork O’Connor series by William Kent Krueger. Rounding out the month, I read a history of Istanbul spanning over two millenia, an account of Lincoln’s sixteen days at Grant’s headquarters at the end of the Civil War and how it changed him, and a Nobel Prize-winning novel by Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese novelist.

Finding Freedom in Constraint, Jared Patrick Boyd. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2023. Proposes that constraints in terms of spiritual practices in the context of community, expose our inner desires, allowing them to be healed and formed by Christ. Review

Look to the Lady (Albert Campion #3), Margery Allingham. New York: Open Road Media, 2023 (Originally published in 1931). Albert Campion assists the Gyrth family in protecting a priceless chalice in the family for hundreds of years against an international theft ring focused on creating private collections of priceless treasures. Review

Reading Karl Barth: Theology That Cuts Both Ways, Chris Boesel. Eugene. OR: Cascade Books, 2023. A synopsis of the major themes of Barth’s theology and theological ethics, showing how his theology “cuts both ways” against the theological left and right while it centers on God’s “Yes” to us in Christ. Review

Christmas, The Season of Life and Light (Fullness of Time series), Emily Hunter McGowin. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2023. Spiritual and theological reflections to aid readers in their celebration and spiritual formation around the season of Christmas. Review

Istanbul, Thomas F. Madden. New York: Viking, 2016. A history of this great city at the meeting place of Europe and Asia from the Byantine Empire beginning in 667 BC through the modern Istanbul up to 2016. Review

The Wood Between the Worlds, Brian Zahnd. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, (Forthcoming) 2024. An approach to the kaleidoscopic theological meaning of the cross. the center of the biblical story through the lens of poetry. Review

Lincoln’s Greatest Journey, Noah Andre Trudeau. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2016. A day by day account of the final trip Abraham Lincoln took for sixteen days at City Point, Virginia, the headquarters of Ulysses S. Grant, and how this transformed Lincoln. Review

The Sanctuary Sparrow, Ellis Peters. New York: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, 2014 (Originally published in 1983). A young traveling entertainer at a wedding seeks sanctuary in the abbey, pursued by a mob accusing him of murdering and robbing the groom’s father while Cadfael and Hugh explore the possibility of other suspects closer to home. Review

Iron Lake (Cork O’Connor #1), William Kent Krueger. New York: Atria Paperbacks, 2019 (20th Anniversary edition, originally published in 1998). A murdered judge and a missing paperboy sets former sheriff Cork O’Connor onto the trail of a conspiracy, a trail on which this won’t be the last death. Review

John Through Old Testament Eyes, Karen H. Jobes, series editor Andrew T. LePeau. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2023. A commentary focused on the Old Testament backgrounds of “history, images, metaphors, and symbols” found in John’s gospel, along with applicatory reflections. Review

Paul, Narrative or Apocalyptic, Christiaan Beker and N.T. Wright. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023. Essays by two leading N.T. scholars representing the main distinctive views of Paul, either focusing on the age to come and the return of Christ to inaugurate new creation or the narrative continuity with the covenant fulfilled in Christ opening into the inclusion of the Gentiles. Review

Even If He Doesn’t, Kristen LaValley. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, (Forthcoming February) 2024. Summary: A memoir of facing suffering and all the questions of why and where is God and does God hear. Review

Police at the Funeral (Albert Campion #4), Margery Allingham. New York: Open Road Media, 2023 (Originally published in 1931). A request to find a missing uncle turns into a multiple murder investigation in an unhappy Cambridge manor. Review

Every Book Its Reader, Nicholas A. Basbanes. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. A celebration of those who compiled book lists and made recommendations, the impact of books on various individuals, and the reading lives of famous individuals. Review

Now I Lay Me Down to Fight, Katy Bowser Hutson (Foreword by Tish Harrison Warren). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023. Poems and essays tracing one woman’s cancer journey and how she encountered God amid the brokenness of her body. Review

The Science of the Good Samaritan, Dr. Emily Smith. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Books, 2023. A book that looks at what it means to love our neighbor through the lens of global public health. Review

A Quiet Life, Kenzaburo Oe (Translators: Kunioki Yanagishita, William Wetherall). New York: Grove Press, 1998. Ma-chan, a quiet, college age woman is left to care for her older brother who has a neurological disorder and younger, college-bound brother while her father, a famous writer, sorts out his life and faith in California on a writer’s residency. Review

Book of the Month: Now I Lay Me Down To Fight. As the husband of a breast cancer survivor, Katy Bowser Hutson’s little book of poems and essays resonated in so many ways with our experience, although no two cancers or cancer journeys are alike. Her writing captures well the distinct challenges of chemo, surgery, and radiation, the fears, the exhaustion, the bodily indignities, and the spiritual journey with all its ups and downs. You are, know, or will know someone who faces this. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t find this book helpful.

Quote of the Month: Kristen LeValley has written a thoughtful book on her own experience of facing suffering and what it meant to cry out to God with her questions amid that experience. She made this valuable observation to encourage both those who suffer and those who walk with them:

“We don’t have to tie things up with a pretty bow to make sure we’re presenting God in the best light. We don’t have to justify our heartbreak to prove that God is still good. We don’t have to find a target so it will make sense. We don’t have to defend God’s goodness by dismissing the pain of our experiences” (p. 187).

What I’m Reading. Over the Christmas holidays I began Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water, a gorgeously written novel set in South India spanning much of the twentieth century. I’m about 400 pages into this 700+ page novel and can’t say enough good about it. I just finished a book on a Wesleyan theology on holiness arguing for the idea of entire sanctification–something I’ve not heard much about in recent years. I’m also reading The Prophets and the Apostolic Witness: Reading Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel as Christian Scripture. The authors explore to what extent we may read these books not only in terms of their context but in light of the work of Christ. Abraham’s Silence explores the significance of Abraham’s silence when commanded by God to sacrifice his son. This is an incident I’ve thought long on and am eager to see what J. Richard Middleton will say. Hal Green’s book Pray This Way To Connect With God is a rich book on page organized into short, two page reflections on the natire of prayer and how we may do so. Finally, I’m in the middle of my eighth Cadfael, loving this series more with each book.

In case you missed them I posted several end of the year posts you might enjoy

Bob on Books Best of 2023. My choices of the best books I’ve reviewed in a number of categories in 2023.

Bob on Books Readers Choice Books of 2023. These are the ten most viewed reviews of 2023.

Bob on Books 2024 Reading Challenge. A different kind of book challenge.

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.

Working in collegiate ministry, it seemed a good idea to read some books related to higher education, one on Christian colleges, and one on free speech and speech codes in the academic world. Also apropos were a couple of books on science and faith, one a review on theology after Darwin, contributed by guest reviewer Paul Bruggink. Two books outlined approaches to counseling and personal transformation. A pair of books were set in the Roman world, one from the point of view of slaves, and one from emperors. One was a memoir on the writing methods of biographer Robert Caro and one considers “place” and the arts. Place is always a theme of Wendell Berry’s books and a recent collection of his essays was part of this month’s readings as well as one considering how we lost an opportunity to address greenhouse gases that affect the place for all of us, the earth. Finally, a lifelong Inkling lover can’t go too wrong without reading something about one of them–in this case Tolkien, his methods, and his works. Here are the reviews!

Fundamentalist U: Keeping Faith in American Higher Education, Adam Laats. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Traces the ways eight institutions that developed with the rise of fundamentalism in the 1920’s responded to the changing fundamentalist/evangelical movement and wider trends in higher education and American society up to the present time. Review

Science & Faith: Student Questions Explored, Hannah Eagleson, editor. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic, 2019. A collection of essays addressing various questions on the relationship of science and Christian faith, incorporating groups discussion questions for use with small discussion groups. Review

A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters, Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D. New York: Avery Books, 2019. An introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a psychological counseling approach that develops psychological flexibility through learning acceptance rather than resistance or flight from painful thoughts and reality, and how we may pivot toward commitments rooted in what we value most deeply. Review

Finding Ourselves After Darwin, Stanley P. Rosenberg ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. This book presents and discusses multiple approaches to thinking about the image of God, original sin, and the problem of evil in light of biological evolution. Review

Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing, Robert A. Caro. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. Less a full biographical memoir than a description of the author’s methods of researching material for his books, writing them, and the question that has driven his work. Review

Placemaking and the Arts, Jennifer Allen Craft. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. Considers the “place” of the arts in placemaking, particularly in the settings of the home, the church, and the wider society. Review

A Week in the Life of a Slave (A Week in the Life Series), John Byron. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019. A creative re-telling of the story of runaway slave Onesimus that casts light on the institution of slavery in Greco-Roman society and the church’s response. Review

The Soul of an American President, Alan Sears and Craig Osten with Ryan Cole. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019. Traces the spiritual heritage and growing religious faith of Dwight D. Eisenhower, especially through the years of his presidency and later life. Review

Losing Earth: A Recent History, Nathaniel Rich. MCD/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019. An account of the lost opportunity of the 1980’s to address climate change and the birth of the polarized dialogue that exists to this day. Review

The Road to Middle-Earth, Tom Shippey. New York: Houghton Mifflin, rev. ed. 2003. A study of Tolkien’s methods in creating the narratives of Middle-Earth, including words, names, maps, poetry, and mythology. Review

The Winding Path of Transformation, Jeffrey Tacklind, Foreword by Cathleen Falsani. Downers Grove: IVP/Formatio, 2019. The author proposes that spiritual growth means walking in paradoxical tensions of glory and humility lived out in a winding journey toward the transformation of our character and spiritual freedom. Review

I, Claudius, Robert Graves. New York: Vintage International, 1989 (first published 1934). A fictional autobiography of Claudius, of how a physical handicap and speech impairment enabled him to escape death by intrigue until he rose to emperor. Review

Boundaries for Your Soul, Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2019. A therapeutic approach to dealing with overwhelming emotions through a process of understanding them as parts of oneself, allowing one’s Spirit-led self to befriend and care for these parts, and integrating the parts as a “team of rivals” within one’s life. Review

What You Take With You, Therese Greenwood. Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2019. Therese Greenwood had minutes to evacuate her home as the Fort McMurray fire approached. The book recounts both her escape, and reflects on what she took, and what this revealed about her life.Review

The Tyranny of Virtue, Robert Boyers. New York: Scribners, 2019. A distinguished liberal scholar critiques the new academic orthodoxy, one that defines virtue through the excoriating of privilege, identity, safety, microaggression, ableism, and appropriation, creating an academic tyranny in which people fear to speak their minds under threat of denunciation. Review

Our Only World, Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2015. Eleven essays on various subjects related to our care for our world and its people emphasizing the local and the sustainable. Review

Best Book of the Month: Perhaps it is because I am working on a book, but I especially enjoyed Robert Caro’s Working. I could never see myself spending the time in archives or re-writing as Caro does, but neither will I write the definitive five-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. His doggedness in tracking down the facts, his passion for understanding the ways of power, and commitment to excellence was inspiring. Most of all, there is the diligence of showing up and writing every day.

Quote(s) of the Month: One of the more sobering books I read this month was Losing Earth. Nathaniel Rich spoke to why the discussion of climate change is so loaded. The truth is that none of us likes to think of a catastrophic die-off of many of the species on earth, including possibly our own. He writes:

We do not like to think about loss, or death; Americans in particular, do not like to think about death. No matter how obsessively one follows the politics of climate change, it is difficult to contemplate soberly an existential threat to the species. Our queasiness even infects the language we use to describe it: the banalities of “global warming” and “climate change” perform the linguistic equivalent of rolling on sanitary gloves to palpate a hemorrhaging wound.

Even his language of “existential threat” feels a bit sanitary to me, but he puts his finger on the problem: no one wants to admit that we may have signed the death warrant of our children or grand-children’s generation. It is almost too terrible to contemplate or even to admit for most of us. Hence we mock or cast aspersions upon a young, autistic woman who has the temerity to ask the world’s leaders, “How dare you?” Yet I do not wish to end here, because we still must consider how we will live the days given us. Wendell Berry helped me in writing:

In this essay and elsewhere, I have advocated for the 50-Year Farm Bill, another big solution I am doing my best to promote, but not because it will be good in or for the future. I am for it because it is good now, according to present understanding of present needs. I know that it is good now because its principles are now satisfactorily practiced by many (though not nearly enough) farmers. Only the present good is good. It is the presence of good–good work, good thoughts, good acts, good places–by which we know that the present does not have to be a nightmare of the future.

Current reads and upcoming reviews. I’ve just completed Tim L. Anderson’s Into His Presence which explores a theology of intimacy with God. Many of us start with experience or a romanticized idea of relating to God (“Jesus is my boyfriend”). Anderson starts with scripture and the wealth and wonder of intimacy with God on God’s terms. Shundrawn Thomas, a CEO of a financial services company, reflects on what makes work joyful, which has as much to do with our approach to work as the work itself. His book, appropriately is named Discover Joy in Work. I am thoroughly enjoying The Reformation and the Irrepressible Word of God. The importance of scripture has come under attack for bibliolotry and other shortcomings, but these authors explore the Reformers belief in scripture as the Word of God, and the power of preaching and use of scripture faithful with this conviction to transform lives. The Storm on Our Shores describes a forgotten battle on Attu, an island at the end of the Aleutians briefly occupied by the Japanese during World War II, centered around a Japanese surgeon who had trained in America, and the American soldier who killed him. Finally, I’ve flown to or through O’Hare Airport countless times. With A History of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, I’m learning about this place where I’ve spent so much time, including who O’Hare was.