by Daniel Migliore. WJKP, 2008. Pb., 128 pp. $16.95.
by Mark Labberton. InterVarsity Press, 2007. Hb., 200pp. $18.
edited by Amy Plantinga Pauw and Serene Jones. Columbia Series in Reformed Theology. WJKP, 2006. Hb., 280 pp. $29.95.
by Robert Jewett in collaboration with Ole Wangerin. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008. Pb., 272 pp. $22.
Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: 2007. Hb., 203 pp., $24.95.
The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, by Jim Wallis. HarperOne, 2008. Hb., 352 pp. $25.95.
Before you read the first word of Jim Wallis’ transformative new book, you know something is different. Lined up like a political and theological renewal of the old television show The Odd Couple are names we know separately as representatives of vastly different worldviews.
Picturing Christian Witness: New Testament Images of Disciples in Mission, by Stanley H. Skreslet. William B. Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0802829562. Pb., 263 pp. $24.
Hope in Conflict: Discovering Wisdom in Congregational Turmoil, by David R. Sawyer. The Pilgrim Press, 2007. Pb., 176pp. $20.
The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical, by Shane Claiborne. Zondervan, 2006. Pb., 368 pp. $12.99.
Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, by Stephen M. Barr. Notre Dame, 2003, pb. 2006. ISBN 0-268-02198-8. Pb., 313 pp. $18.
Encounters with Jesus: Studies in the Gospel of John, by Frances Taylor Gench. WJKP, 2007. Pb., 170 pp. $16.95.
In his book Imagining a Sermon (Abingdon, 1990), Tom Troeger suggests a marvelous image for readers in the church. He pictures the shelves of a pastor’s study as a “city,” the residents of whom are the authors of the books whom the pastor engages in conversation through reading.
This book is certain both to challenge and to enrich our preaching. J. Barrie Shepherd is both a poet and a preacher and so it is not surprising that his writing is more intuitive than analytic and more metaphorical than argumentative.
The liturgical renewal movement produced significant changes to the worship patterns of Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant congregations during the last fifty years. For Presbyterians, increase in communion frequency, recovery of a fuller liturgical year, and the use of the Revised Common Lectionary all serve as major milestones on the road to a richer worship life. In the midst of fairly rapid changes in worship practice, a fuller theology and practice of baptism has remained elusive.
Ten years ago I moved from a different part of the country to northern New Jersey, within easy commuting distance of New York City. Needless to say, the context of ministry changed dramatically for me. New Jersey is one of the most diverse and densely populated states in the country. Formerly, an interfaith marriage meant a Roman Catholic and a Protestant. Now, there are many Christian-Jewish and Christian-Muslim marriages in the congregation. The local clergy association includes Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and others.
Great Themes of the Bible, Vol. 1, by W. Eugene March. WJKP, 2007. ISBN 0-664-22918-2. Pb., 143 pp. $14.95.
I began each semester in seminary focused on organization.
Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose by Kirk Byron Jones. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007. ISBN 0787984523. Pb., 188 pp., $21.95.
She had been dead for perhaps two decades when I became their pastor, but the people of the church in rural Southside Virginia where she had taught Sunday school for some forty years still quoted Mrs. Cowie: "A Christian is not supposed to have fun!" Kirk Byron Jones dares to disagree. In Holy Play: the Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose Jones asserts not only that life is to be enjoyed but that having fun is living faithfully and that our passions and joys are means through which we discover divine purpose for our lives. To use Jones's words, "This book will teach you how to stop waiting for God to tell you what to do and start confidently doing what God has been inspiring you to do all along" (xiv).
The Necessity of Reforming the Church, in Calvin: Theological Treatises, edited by J. K. S. Reid. WJKP, 2000 (Reprint, The Westminster Press, 1954), pp. 183-216. ISBN 9780664223670. Pb., 356 pp. $39.95.
There is a haunting, enigmatic characteristic to Calvin's writing. You rarely catch this at first. It all seems to be so didactic and straightforward. But as you spend more time with him, you begin to sense that there is more than meets the eye. And as this occurs, you cannot help but wonder why you assumed at first that you understood what he said.
Tight lipped when it came to self-disclosure, expository of the text in a pre-critical way, deeply layered from the earlier theologians he had absorbed, and, above all, persistent in his analysis of the human will, Calvin's own style seemed to wall off further penetration. Over the course of the years, however, I came to find that the structure of his texts, the choice of his themes, and the syntax of his writing began to yield more. Like many human fathers, our father in the Reformed faith was more complex than I had thought.
Augustine, Teaching Christianity, intro., trans., notes by Edmund Hill, O.P. The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. New City Press, 1996. ISBN 1-5648-049-X. Pb., 259 pp. $22.95
Teaching Christianity (De doctrina christiana) was written in two parts. The major portion was written (396) shortly after Augustine became bishop of Hippo Regius and shortly before he wrote the Confessions (397-401); the latter portion was composed about three decades later (427). To some degree the Confessions and Teaching Christianity interpret each other. The former describes the restless wandering of the human heart until it rests in God. The latter offers rules for finding in Scripture God's message to the wanderer. Augustine would have us see that Scripture guides and encourages the yearning rather than satisfying it. Faithful interpretation and communication of this divine address will engage the "unquiet" of the audience and urge it on.
In Pursuit of the Almighty's Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism, by James Hudnut-Beumler. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807830798. Hb., 288 pp. $29.95.
Early in the American Protestant experience a decisive shift took place. The forms of Christianity that had been conceived of and supported as public goods in the European context came to be regarded as private goods in this new setting. James Hudnut-Beumler's account of that historical turn and the ensuing story is an important volume for any concerned about issues of money in the life of American churches.
Does your church library seem musty? Do you need to update your children's section? Here are a few fresh new titles children (and their parents and grandparents who bring them) will welcome into your church library.
Honor: A History, by James Bowman. New York: Encounter Books, 2007. ISBN 1594031983. Pb., 265 pp. $18.95.
Every good playground has its own hierarchy. James Bowman does not dismiss this as mere childishness. He sees human history modeled in the playground hierarchy and writ large. "Dominant nations and their leaders are expected to give demonstrations of their dominance so as to avoid the necessity of having to establish it by fighting. When such demonstrations are ambiguous or unconvincing, fighting and all that implies of heartbreak and misery ensues."
Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade -- And How We Can Fight It, by David Batstone. HarperSanFrancisco, 2007. ISBN 0061206717. Pb., 320 pp. $14.95.*
Reading David Batstone's Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade -- and How We Can Fight It reminds me of the speech that William Wilberforce delivered to Parliament on May 12, 1789. Wilberforce had introduced the first bill abolishing the British slave trade and after a lengthy and impassioned speech before Parliament, he concluded by saying: "The circumstances of this [Slave] Trade are now laid open to us. We can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it [by]. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of the way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it."
In a war-whipped, politically polarized, and consumer-confounded world, Walter Brueggemann in his new book shares his conviction that the Church "must recover and re-embrace its own mission" and live in tension with a world that suggests the answers are found in technology, empire politics, militarism, and acquiring more "stuff". He invites the Church to consider that it is listening to a script that is shouting the gospel of fear and anxiety instead of the word of God. There is an alternative script found in God's word, a script that speaks to the discontent and disconnect of those of us who are in the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ.
Brueggemann cites Old Testament prophets who called for restoration and newness, prophets who called for an alternative way of life in covenant with God, and of course, he points to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, the One who feeds the hungry, touches lepers, and welcomes children.
An educator colleague of mine once related her frustration at her congregation's resistance to welcoming children into worship. One Sunday, as the children were leaving after the children's sermon, an usher remarked, only slightly under his breath, "NOW we can worship!" It's enough to make one weep. This compelling book represents Joyce Mercer's search, as she puts it, for a child-affirming theology and for a church that truly welcomes, cares for, and advocates for children.
In our consumerist economy nearly every aspect of life has been commodified. A faith community can find it difficult to resist the "market construction of childhood," one that emphasizes forming children to be responsible consumers of what society has to offer. Mercer suggests that even religious discourse gets caught up in the language of the market. Think of the prevalence of the phrase "target demographics" in our discussion about church transformation and outreach. Our understanding of the needs of childhood, the purpose of the church, the role of a community of faith are all threatened by a market-driven culture that often includes, Mercer argues, an insensitivity to the poor, to those who cannot effectively be consumers.
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