Contents
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Can you breathe?
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Commentaries
6
New Testament Studies
10 Old Testament & Hebrew Bible Studies 12 The World of the Bible 14 History of Christianity 16 Biography 20 Theology 24 Church & Ministry 27 Religion & Society 30 Faith & Life 36 Prayer/Devotional
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Sometimes just breathing is hard. A viral infection in one’s lungs can be lethal. With starker moral valence and less elapsed time, so can a police officer’s knee on one’s neck. Without adequate ventilation, the human body expires. Many of us, we hope, will avoid contracting COVID-19, and most white people don’t worry about getting a knee on their neck. A figurative breathing problem, though, is all too common—not a physical assault but a species of hyperventilation. Someone pushes one of our buttons, again. The alarm bells ring, again. We gasp in the tweets and the headlines. We blow out—through the mouth, in short words and sentences—the alarm, the fear, the anger, the defensive denials, the explosive threats. The COVID-19 and anti-Blackness pandemics inflict physical damage, while the widespread tendency is a spiritual malaise, but as publishers we know they are related. And we know that sustained thought is necessary to address long histories of systemic failure to remedy structural racism and public health crises. Without ventilation, or with hyperventilation, the human body and the human spirit are at risk. What about you and me right now? Can your body breathe? In, slowly, through the nose, count to four, out slowly, through the nose, count to four. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And what about your spirit? How are you inhaling? What are you inhaling? And what are we as a publisher putting into the air? What is our role in the matter of Christian complicity in anti-Blackness, for example? In the acute maladies of the present cultural moment, and in the chronic sins of our long history? We are partnering with authors addressing such questions. On page 7, you’ll find Lisa Bowens’s book, which gives voice to centuries of previously overlooked African American interpreters of Paul. On page 18: Willie James Jennings’s After Whiteness, a “searing critique of Western Christian divinity school training.” Page 27: Decolonizing Christianity by Miguel De La Torre, a bold challenge to the oppressive worldviews ingrained in white Christianity. Going forward, with future lists, we will continue to seek diverse perspectives on the most pressing issues of our time. We welcome your suggestions. Write to me at eic@eerdmans.com. Wm. B. Eerdmans plans to publish forty-three books in our adult program between January and May 2021, then about the same number again from June to November. Maybe a couple of you can read eighty books in a year without hyperventilating. Most can’t. So we hope you will be able to take the time to browse this catalog. Relax, breathe, turn the pages slowly. Find the ones that address your concerns. Find the ones that raise questions that are new to you. When the books are in your hands, breathe them in through your eyes. Can what we do as authors, publishers, and readers help change what happens to bodies as well as spirits in our cities, prisons, nursing homes, and hospitals? Breathe in: Read. Listen. Think. Discuss. Breathe out: Hope. Plan. Speak.
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James Ernest Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
COMMENTARIES FOR CHRISTIAN FORMATION
Galatians N. T. Wright
C O M M E N TA R I E S
The first major biblical commentary from the pen of N. T. Wright Galatians is often read by Christians as being primarily concerned with the traditional doctrine of justification through faith, but it is also a text focused deeply on the political concerns of its specific historical moment. This commentary from N. T. Wright—the inaugural volume of the Commentaries for Christian Formation series—offers a theological interpretation of Galatians that puts that historical context of the book in dialogue with present questions, so that readers can understand both what Paul meant and what his writing might mean for us today. Each section of verse-by-verse commentary in this volume is followed by Wright’s reflections on what the text says about Christian formation today, making this an excellent resource for individual readers and those preparing to teach or preach on Galatians. The focus on formation is especially appropriate for this biblical letter, in which Paul wrote to his fellow early Christians, “My children— I seem to be in labor with you all over again, until the Messiah is fully formed in you!” TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction to Galatians
1. The Situation in Galatia 2. Paul’s Answer 3. Commentaries and Christian Formation
Galatians 1:1–17
1. Galatians 1:1–5: Apostleship and the Gospel 2. Galatians 1:6–9: Another Gospel? 3. Galatians 1:10–17: The Story So Far
Galatians 1:18–2:10
1. Galatians 1:18–24: First Jerusalem Visit: A Happy Relationship 2. Galatians 2:1–10: The Second Visit: Standing Firm
Galatians 2:11–21
1. Galatians 2:11–14: Peter in Antioch 2. Galatians 2:15–21: The Great Transformation
Galatians 3:1–14
1. Galatians 3:1–5: The Spirit and Faith 2. Galatians 3:6–9: Abraham and the Covenant 3. Galatians 3:10–14: The Curse of the Law
Galatians 3:15–29
1. Galatians 3:15–18: The Unbreakable Covenant 2. Galatians 3:19–22: Why Then the Law? 3. Galatians 3:23–25: Under the Paidagōgos 4. Galatians 3:26–29: Abraham’s One Family
Galatians 4:1–11
1. Galatians 4:1–7: The New Exodus 2. Galatians: 4:8–11: Don’t Go Back to Slavery!
Galatians 4:12–5:1
1. Galatians 4:12–20: True Friends and False Friends 2. Galatians 4:21–5:1: Two Women, Two Families, Two Covenants, Two Mountains
Galatians 5:2–26
N. T. Wright is one of the most highly respected biblical scholars in the world today and the author of over eighty books, including The Crown and the Fire, Following Jesus, For All God’s Worth, The Lord and His Prayer, The Way of the Lord, What Saint Paul Really Said, and Who Was Jesus? 978-0-8028-2560-5 | Jacketed Hardcover | 440 pages | $39.99 US $53.99 CAN | £32.99 UK | Available May 2021
1. Galatians 5:2–12: The Warning and the Challenge 2. Galatians 5:13–26: Love and the Spirit
Galatians 6:1–18
1. Galatians 6:1–10: Closing Exhortations 2. Galatians 6:11–18: Final Warnings and Example
The Commentaries for Christian Formation (CCF) series—edited by Stephen E. Fowl, Jennifer Grillo, and Robert W. Wall—serves a central purpose of the Word of God for the people of God: faith formation. Some series focus on exegesis, some on preaching, some on teaching, and some on application. This new series integrates all these aims, serving the church by showing how sound theological exegesis can underwrite preaching and teaching, which in turn form believers in the faith. Uniting these volumes is a shared conviction that interpreting Scripture is not an end in itself. Faithful belief, prayer, and practice, deeper love of God and neighbor: these are ends of scriptural interpretation for Christians. The volumes in the Commentaries for Christian Formation series interpret Scripture in ways aimed at ordering readers’ lives and worship in imitation of Christ, informing their understanding of God, and animating their participation in the church’s global mission with a deepened sense of calling.
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C O M M E N TA R I E S
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah
The Book of Amos
Thomas Renz
In this commentary on the book of Amos, Daniel Carroll combines a detailed reading of the Hebrew text with attention to its historical background and current relevance. What makes this volume unique is its special attention to Amos’s literary features and what they reveal about the book’s theology and composition. Instead of reconstructing a hypothetical redactional history, this commentary offers a close reading of the canonical form against the backdrop of the eighth century BCE.
In this commentary, Thomas Renz reads Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah as three carefully crafted writings of enduring relevance, each of which makes a vital contribution to the biblical canon. Discussing the historical settings, Renz takes up both long-standing issues, such as the relationship of Zephaniah to Josiah’s reforms, and the socioeconomic conditions of the time suggested by recent archaeological research. The place of these writings within the Book of the Twelve is given fresh consideration, including the question of what one should make of the alleged redaction history of Nahum and Habakkuk. The author’s careful translation of the text comes with detailed textual notes, illuminating some of the most outstanding poetry of the Bible (Nahum) and one of its most-difficult-to-translate chapters (Habakkuk 3). The thorough verse-by-verse commentary is followed by stimulating theological reflection, opening up venues for teaching and preaching from these prophetic writings. No matter their previous familiarity with these and other Minor Prophets, scholars, pastors, and lay readers alike will find needed guidance in working through these difficult but important books of the Bible. Thomas Renz is the rector of Monken Hadley, a parish within the Church of England. Previously, he taught Old Testament and Hebrew at Oak Hill Theological College, a seminary in North London. 978-0-8028-2626-8 | Jacketed Hardcover | 750 pages | $56.00 US | $75.99 CAN £45.99 UK | Available June 2021
M. Daniel Carroll R.
“M. Daniel Carroll R. has been a leading figure in Amos studies (among other areas) for decades. Here, in commentary form, is his definitive treatment of the book after a lifetime of devoted study to our most articulate prophet of judgment. Every page reflects meticulous scholarship with an eye on the most pressing concerns of Amos’s day and of our own, leavened and bettered by Carroll’s keen insight and judicious assessment. This will be the first commentary on Amos I consult for years to come.” — BRENT A. STRAWN Duke Divinity School
“This commentary is the culmination of a lifetime of work on Amos: a welcome contribution that effectively conveys the fruits of scholarly research to a wider audience. Carroll’s engagement with Latinx interpretation, in particular, draws helpful attention to the significance of this work for all Amos’s readers.” — CARLY L. CROUCH Fuller Theological Seminary
M. Daniel Carroll R. (Rodas) is Scripture Press Ministries Professor of Biblical Studies and Pedagogy at Wheaton College. Celebrating a heritage from both Guatemala and the United States, Carroll’s interest in and commitment to Old Testament social ethics was born during his time teaching in Central America, which largely was during the era of the Central American revolutions. He has written extensively on the prophets and on Old Testament social ethics, especially as it pertains to global migration. 978-0-8028-2538-4 | Jacketed Hardcover | 640 pages | $52.00 US | $69.99 CAN £42.99 UK | Available
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C O M M E N TA R I E S
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Letter to the Ephesians
ILLUMINATIONS COMMENTARY SERIES
Jonah Introduction and Commentary
Lynn H. Cohick “Cohick’s scholarship is exceptionally up-to-date, and her text is highly readable and relevant for commentary users interested in the message of Ephesians. She fairly engages other scholars and attends to the grammar and the ancient context, highlighting also ancient social realities that many commentators miss.” — CRAIG S. KEENER Asbury Theological Seminary
“With an emphasis on cultural backgrounds, New Testament scholar Lynn Cohick offers a fresh exposition of Ephesians that is historically grounded and theologically astute. This commentary should be on the shelf of every pastor, teacher, and student who wants to know not only what Ephesians means, but how its message can be applied to life today.” — KAREN H. JOBES Wheaton College
Lynn H. Cohick is provost/dean and professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary. Her other books include Christian Women in the Patristic World, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, and a commentary on Philippians in the Story of God Bible Commentary series. 978-0-8028-6842-8 | Jacketed Hardcover | 600 pages | $55.00 US | $73.99 CAN £44.99 UK | Available
Amy Erickson The dominant reading of the book of Jonah—that the hapless prophet Jonah is a lesson in not trying to run away from God—oversimplifies a profoundly literary biblical text, argues Amy Erickson. Likewise, the more recent understanding of Jonah as satire is problematic in its own right, laden as it is with anti-Jewish undertones and the superimposition of a Christian worldview onto a Jewish text. How can we move away from these stale interpretations to recover the richness of meaning that belongs to this short but noteworthy book of the Bible? This Illuminations commentary delves into Jonah’s reception history in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic contexts while also exploring its representations in visual arts, music, literature, and pop culture. After this thorough contextualization, Erickson provides a fresh translation and exegesis, paving the way for pastors and scholars to read and utilize the book of Jonah as the provocative, richly allusive, and theologically robust text that it is. Amy Erickson is associate professor of Hebrew Bible and the director of the Master of Theological Studies program at the Iliff School of Theology. 978-0-8028-6831-2 | Jacketed Hardcover | 500 pages | $70.00 US | $94.99 CAN £55.99 UK | Available May 2021
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE ILLUMINATIONS COMMENTARY SERIES:
RECENT NICNT RELEASES:
The Letter to the Romans, 2nd ed. Douglas J. Moo
Job 1–21
978-0-8028-7121-3 | Jacketed Hardcover | 1184 pages | $80.00 US
C. L. Seow
The Letter to the Galatians David A. deSilva
978-0-8028-4895-6 | Jacketed Hardcover 999 pages | $95.00 US
978-0-8028-3055-5 | Jacketed Hardcover | 622 pages | $55.00 US
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C O M M E N TA R I E S
Proverbs A Shorter Commentary Bruce K. Waltke and Ivan D. V. De Silva Since 2004, Bruce Waltke’s magisterial twovolume NICOT commentary on the book of Proverbs has been recognized as a definitive exegesis of the Hebrew text, groundbreaking in its illuminating analysis that the authors and redactors of Proverbs had organized their material into discernible clusters and groupings. Waltke and Ivan De Silva here offer an abridged and revised version of the preeminent commentary, which is more accessible to students, pastors, and Bible readers in general. In place of a technical analysis of the Hebrew text, Waltke and De Silva interpret the translated text, while also including their own theological reflections and personal anecdotes where appropriate. A topical index is added to help expositors with a book that is difficult to preach or teach verse by verse. At its heart, this shorter commentary on Proverbs preserves the exegetical depth, erudition, and poetic insight of Waltke’s original and maintains the core conviction that the ancient wisdom of Proverbs holds profound, ongoing relevance for Christian faith and life today. Bruce K. Waltke is professor emeritus of biblical studies at Regent College, Vancouver, and distinguished professor emeritus of Old Testament at Knox Theological Seminary, Fort Lauderdale. He was a translator of the New American Standard Version Bible and is also a member of the committee responsible for the New International Version. Ivan D. V. De Silva is instructor in religious studies at Trinity Western University and adjunct faculty at Pacific Life Bible College. 978-0-8028-7503-7 | Paperback | 528 pages | $38.00 US $50.99 CAN | £30.99 UK | Available March 2021
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BRUCE K. WALTKE:
The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15
978-0-8028-2545-2 | Jacketed Hardcover | 729 pages | $60.00 US
The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 15–31
THE TWO HORIZONS NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY
1–3 John Thomas Andrew Bennett The letters from John written to churches at the end of the first century CE possess meaningful theological insight for Christians today—in a sense, they were written for us. True to this sense, Thomas Andrew Bennett keeps historical speculation to a minimum and delves into the theological depths of 1–3 John in this commentary. He begins by providing a new translation of the text from the Greek, along with verse-by-verse exegesis, and then moves into an extended reflection on a litany of relevant theological topics, including questions of trinitarianism, creation, faith, atonement, eschatology, salvation, the nature of divine and human love, and the composition of the church. In these pages, readers challenged by Johannine metaphors (“walking in the light,” “children of God,” etc.) will find clarity, and pastors will find detailed guidance for teaching and preaching. Bennett’s scholarship is critical but confessional, academic but accessible, and, above all, rooted in a faithful reverence that seeks not to read 1–3 John as a detached outsider to the text, but as the author’s fellow believer, so that the text’s theological concerns can be spoken to once again in a fresh and compelling way. Thomas Andrew Bennett is affiliate assistant professor of theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and lead pastor of Coast Bible Church, San Juan Capistrano, California. 978-0-8028-7577-8 | Paperback | 222 pages | $29.00 US $38.99 CAN | £22.99 UK | Available April 2021
EERDMANS CLASSIC BIBLICAL COMMENTARIES
The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians F. F. Bruce After a lifetime of work that earned him the appellation “dean of evangelical scholarship,” F. F. Bruce’s legacy of defending the historical reliability of the New Testament and explicating its meaning remains influential today, and rightly so. This collection of three commentaries in one volume—Bruce’s final study of Paul’s writings— represents his legacy well. It received immediate acclaim upon publication in 1984 and an Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion award the following year. In these pages—now Bruce’s third volume in the Eerdmans Classic Biblical Commentaries series—this giant of twentieth-century biblical studies speaks still. F. F. Bruce (1910–1990) was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. The author of numerous commentaries and other books, he served as general editor of the New International Commentary on the New Testament from 1962 to 1990. 978-0-8028-7592-1 | Jacketed Hardcover | 470 pages
RECENT ECBC RELEASES:
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians RECENT THNTC RELEASES:
F. W. Grosheide 978-0-8028-7707-9 | Paperback | 416 pages | $40.00 US
Luke
A Commentary on the Revelation of John
F. Scott Spencer 978-0-8028-2563-6 | Paperback | 860 pages | $50.00 US
Matthew
George Eldon Ladd 978-0-8028-7590-7 | Paperback | 308 pages | $31.50 US
Jeannine K. Brown & Kyle Roberts 978-0-8028-2566-7 | Paperback | 589 pages | $38.00 US
978-0-8028-2776-0 | Jacketed Hardcover | 624 pages | $60.00 US
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DISCOVERING BIBLICAL TEXTS
Discovering Psalms
Content, Interpretation, Reception
Content, Interpretation, Reception
Discovering Revelation
Ralph K. Hawkins
Jerome F. D. Creach
Content, Interpretation, Reception
This concise introduction to the interpretation of the book of Exodus encourages in-depth study of the text and deliberate grappling with related theological and historical questions by providing a critical assessment of key interpreters and interpretative debates. It draws on a range of methodological approaches (author-, text-, and reader-centered) and reflects the growing scholarly attention to the reception history of biblical texts, increasingly viewed as a vital aspect of interpretation rather than an optional extra. Throughout Discovering Exodus, Ralph Hawkins gives strategies for reading the book of Exodus, including archaeological criticism. He also reviews key issues raised by Exodus and connects these issues to questions of how this important Old Testament book should be interpreted today. Ralph K. Hawkins is director of the program in religion and professor of Hebrew Bible and archaeology at Averett University, Danville, Virginia. He is also the author of How Israel Became a People. 978-0-8028-7262-3 | Paperback | 240 pages $22.00 US | $29.99 CAN | Available May 2021
“This introduction to the Psalms, by a scholar who has been studying them and praying them for decades, amply demonstrates their potential to feed our worship and revolutionize the way we pray.” — JOHN GOLDINGAY Fuller Theological Seminary
“The best introduction to the Psalms that I have ever seen. Readers will find answers to virtually every question that they might bring to their study of the Psalms, ranging from possible Davidic authorship to how the Psalms influenced the New Testament writers.” — J. CLINTON McCANN JR. Eden Theological Seminary
“In this lively and engaging book Jerome Creach introduces contemporary Christians to the book of Psalms and encourages them to use it for both study and worship. At a time when many churches are losing touch with the Psalms, he convincingly shows that they are at the spiritual heart of the Bible.” — JOHN BARTON University of Oxford
Jerome F. D. Creach is the Robert C. Holland Professor of Old Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. 978-0-8028-7806-9 | Paperback | 240 pages $22.00 US | $29.99 CAN | Available
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C O M M E N TA R I E S
Discovering Exodus
David A. deSilva The book of Revelation has been received over the past several centuries with both fascination and aversion, but one thing is certain: it has profoundly shaped Christian history and culture. And the way it has shaped history and culture has been determined, in large part, by how the book has been variously—and sometimes irresponsibly—interpreted. David A. deSilva addresses the interpretation and reception-history of Revelation in this compact, up-to-date, and student-friendly introduction to the book of Revelation, focusing on its structure, content, theological concerns, key interpretive debates, and historical reception. Discovering Revelation draws on a range of methodological approaches (author-, text-, and reader-centered) as complementary rather than mutually exclusive ways of interpreting the text. DeSilva pays special attention to defining features of Revelation, such as its use of sequences of seven as a major structuring device, its nonlinear plotline, and its deployment of contrast and parody. As deSilva writes, “A text as rich and multidimensional as Revelation calls for its readers to adopt a rich and multidimensional approach that draws upon a variety of interpretative angles and skills.” David A. deSilva is Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary. His many other books include An Introduction to the New Testament, Introducing the Apocrypha, and Galatians: A Handbook to the Greek Text. 978-0-8028-7242-5 | Paperback | 240 pages $22.00 US | $29.99 CAN | Available April 2021
Discovering Genesis
Iain Provan 978-0-8028-7237-1 $23.50 US
Discovering Matthew
Ian Boxall 978-0-8028-7238-8 $22.00 US
Discovering John
Ruth B. Edwards 978-0-8028-7240-1 $22.00 US
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Discovering Romans
Anthony C. Thiselton 978-0-8028-7409-2 $30.50 US
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N E W T E S TA M E N T S T U D I E S
Reading with the Grain of Scripture
Cruciform Scripture
Richard B. Hays
Christopher W. Skinner, Nijay K. Gupta, Andy Johnson, and Drew J. Strait, editors
“Richard Hays is arguably the most significant American New Testament scholar and theological interpreter of Scripture of the last half-century. Many of the essays in this wide-ranging collection have been groundbreaking and discipline shaping. Each one is highly perceptive both exegetically and theologically, for those dimensions of interpretation merge seamlessly in these exemplary pieces of rigorous scholarship as Christian discipleship. For many years I have told students and colleagues to read everything that Richard Hays writes; accomplishing that satisfying task is now much easier.” — MICHAEL J. GORMAN St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore
“This fine collection of essays represents the work of an outstanding scholar at the top of his game—intellectually rigorous, wide-ranging, and full of profound reflections that will enrich all those engaged in the theological interpretation of Scripture.” — JOHN M. G. BARCLAY Durham University
“Richard B. Hays opens this volume by modestly invoking Jesus’s parable about wheat and weeds growing together. But readers of Reading with the Grain of Scripture—and there will be many—will likely invoke a later line from Matthew 13: the scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven who ‘brings out of the treasure both what is new and what is old.’ Here we see both the abiding concerns of Hays’s career and their recent inflection in a volume that takes us across the canon of the New Testament and into the life of this fine interpreter. A most welcome contribution!” — BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA Baylor University
Richard B. Hays is George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament and former dean at Duke Divinity School. He is internationally recognized for his work on the letters of Paul and New Testament ethics. His book The Moral Vision of the New Testament was selected by Christianity Today as one of the 100 most important religious books of the twentieth century. 978-0-8028-7845-8 | Jacketed Hardcover | 464 pages $55.00 US | $73.99 CAN | £44.99 UK | Available
Cross, Participation, and Mission
Michael Gorman’s 2001 book Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross inspired a generation of scholars and was the first in a trilogy of New Testament theological works devoted to exploring the role of the cross, participation in Christ, and becoming the gospel in mission. Here, an assemblage of some of the best and brightest current New Testament exegetes honor Gorman’s work with contributions of their own, each of which further explores these three critical themes in various passages of the New Testament. “This is a collection of first-rate essays that celebrate Michael Gorman’s work by pursuing his own central concerns in fresh directions. Like his own work, they exemplify attentive exegesis that overflows into the theology and the life of the contemporary church.” — RICHARD BAUCKHAM University of Cambridge
CONTRIBUTORS
Ben C. Blackwell, Sherri Brown, Frank E. Dicken, Dennis R. Edwards, Rebekah Eklund, Dean Flemming, Patricia Fosarelli, Stephen E. Fowl, Nijay K. Gupta, Richard B. Hays, Andy Johnson, Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Brent Laytham, Christopher W. Skinner, Klyne R. Snodgrass, Drew J. Strait, and N. T. Wright.
Empire, Economics, and the New Testament Peter Oakes Foreword by Bruce W. Longenecker Peter Oakes has long been recognized for his illuminating use of Greco-Roman material culture and social-scientific criticism to interpret the New Testament. This volume brings together his best work and introduces a substantial new essay that challenges current scholarly approaches to paradoxical teachings of the New Testament. Of special interest to Oakes throughout this book is the concrete impact of economic realities and Roman imperialism on first-century Christian communities meeting in house churches. To address this, Oakes considers an array of textual and archaeological resources from first-century non-elite life, including extensive archaeological evidence available from Pompeii. Readers will find here a deep trove of wisdom for understanding the New Testament in the context of the Greco-Roman world. “Drawing together evidence from archaeological sites such as Pompeii, social science models, and various pictures of ancient economic relations, Peter Oakes imagines how a diversity of people in early churches would have responded to the gospel of Paul and related messages of Christ in the Roman imperial world. Impressive in its range, this collection is highly suggestive for interpretation of texts and the social-economic situation of those addressed.” — RICHARD HORSLEY University of Massachusetts Boston
Christopher W. Skinner is associate professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Loyola University Chicago. Nijay K. Gupta is professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. Andy Johnson is professor of New Testament at Nazarene Theological Seminary. Drew J. Strait is assistant professor of New Testament and Christian origins at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.
“Oakes has a unique ability to delve into ancient archaeological evidence and create a vivid and detailed picture of the communities who heard and were shaped by the New Testament writings. These essays provide stimulating and suggestive resources for interpreting Paul in his economic and imperial context.” — SYLVIA C. KEESMAAT
978-0-8028-7637-9 | Paperback | 268 pages | $35.00 US $46.99 CAN | £28.99 UK | Available January 2021
Peter Oakes is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester. His other books include Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level.
Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto
978-0-8028-7326-2 | Jacketed Hardcover | 240 pages $55.00 US | $73.99 CAN | £44.99 UK | Available
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African American Readings of Paul Reception, Resistance, and Transformation Lisa M. Bowens
N E W T E S TA M E N T S T U D I E S
Foreword by Emerson B. Powery Afterword by Beverly Roberts Gaventa
A historical survey of black Pauline hermeneutics from the 1700s to the mid-twentieth century The letters of Paul—especially the verse in Ephesians directing slaves to obey their masters—played an enormous role in promoting slavery and justifying it as a Christian practice. Yet despite this reality African Americans throughout history still utilized Paul extensively in their own work to protest and resist oppression, responding to his theology and teachings in numerous—often starkly divergent and liberative—ways. In the first book of its kind, Lisa Bowens takes a historical, theological, and biblical approach to explore interpretations of Paul within African American communities over the past few centuries. She surveys a wealth of primary sources from the early 1700s to the mid-twentieth century, including sermons, conversion stories, slave petitions, and autobiographies of ex-slaves, many of which introduce readers to previously unknown names in the history of New Testament interpretation. Along with their hermeneutical value, these texts also provide fresh documentation of black religious life through wide swaths of American history. African American Readings of Paul promises to change the landscape of Pauline studies and fill an important gap in the rising field of reception history.
“It is difficult to imagine a more timely and yet timeless narrative of biblical hermeneutics than this important—and often disturbing—volume from Lisa Bowens. She introduces us to interpreters of the apostle Paul we all need to know, though few of us do. This is not only a book about reception, resistance, and transformation, but also a book that offers hope and healing.” — MICHAEL J. GORMAN St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore
“Lisa Bowens has offered us an illuminating historical survey of various ways in which African American interpreters have engaged in vigorous, spirit-led readings of Paul’s letters. She demonstrates that many of their writings have countered oppressive readings by white interpreters who, tragically, buttressed violent practices of racism and slavery by pointing to Pauline prooftexts. By recovering the voices of these African American witnesses, Bowens helps us see that a hermeneutics of trust can be—and has been—a hermeneutics of liberation.” — RICHARD B. HAYS Duke Divinity School
“Lisa Bowens demonstrates how a broad range of African American men and women from the eighteenth to the twentieth century creatively adapted Paul’s writings in support of their various pursuits for social justice. Undoubtedly, readers will gain many new insights from this extraordinary book which adds both breadth and depth to Paul’s relevance for our present age.” — PETER J. PARIS Princeton Theological Seminary
“In this era of renewed reckoning with racial injustice, scholars, students, and laypeople alike must come to terms with New Testament scholarship’s long-standing and unforgivable occlusion of African American voices. With this volume, Bowens issues a clarion call: Black biblical interpretation matters. It has always mattered. May we all listen deeply and be transformed.” — MICHAL BETH DINKLER Yale Divinity School
“Among several fine recent books on African American use of Scripture, African American Readings of Paul is one of the very best. Lisa Bowens pays careful attention to what Black authors wrote about the apostle Paul, how they used his writings, and how they dealt with Pauline passages that seem to take slavery for granted. This book makes a signal contribution to American history, but also to general hermeneutical questions about understanding and using the Scriptures.” — MARK A. NOLL
Lisa M. Bowens is associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is also the author of An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare in 2 Corinthians 12:1–10. 978-0-8028-7676-8 | Jacketed Hardcover | 384 pages | $40.00 US $53.99 CAN | £32.99 UK | Available
“In African American Readings of Paul, Lisa Bowens ably proves how a select set of African American interpreters of Paul from the 1700s through the 1900s wrestled Paul from the grips of pro-slavery and anti-Black interpretations. Bowens demonstrates how these African American authors interpreted Paul in subversive, disruptive, and revolutionary ways.” — DAVID D. DANIELS McCormick Theological Seminary
“[This book] reveals an extensive African American (and proto-womanist) tradition engaged in the practice of reclaiming Paul from white supremacist and black patriarchal discursive modes.” — EMERSON B. POWERY from the foreword
“Lisa Bowens’s work provides a glimpse into the life and thought of people for whom the interpretation of Paul has been nothing less than a matter of life and death. They deserve our attention, our respect, our emulation.” — BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA
author of The Civil War as a Theological Crisis
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N E W T E S TA M E N T S T U D I E S
Jesus, the New Testament, and Christian Origins
The Messianic Theology of the New Testament
Perspectives, Methods, Meanings
Joshua W. Jipp
Dieter Mitternacht and Anders Runesson, editors
One of the earliest Christian confessions—that Jesus is Messiah and Lord— has long been recognized throughout the New Testament. Joshua Jipp shows that the New Testament is in fact built upon this foundational messianic claim, and each of its primary compositions is a unique creative expansion of this common thread. Having made the same argument about the Pauline epistles in his previous book Christ Is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology, Jipp works methodically through the New Testament to show how the authors proclaim Jesus as the incarnate, crucified, and enthroned messiah of God. In the second section of this book, Jipp moves beyond exegesis toward larger theological questions, such as those of Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology, revealing the practical value of reading the Bible with an eye to its messianic vision. The Messianic Theology of the New Testament functions as an excellent introductory text, honoring the vigorous pluralism of the New Testament books while still addressing the obvious question: what makes these twenty-seven different compositions one unified testament?
Foreword by David E. Aune In this up-to-date introduction to the New Testament, twenty-two leading biblical scholars guide the reader through the New Testament’s historical background, key ideas, and textual content. Seminarians and anyone else interested in a deep understanding of Christian Scripture will do well to begin with this thorough volume that covers everything from the historical Jesus to the emergence of early Christianity. Unique to this book is a special focus on interpretative methods, with several illustrative examples included in the final chapter of various types of scriptural exegesis on select New Testament passages. Readers are guided through the hermeneutical considerations of a historical text-oriented reading, a historical-analogical reading, a rhetorical-epistolary reading, argumentation analysis, feminist analysis, postcolonial analysis, and narrative criticism, among others. These practical, hands-on applications enable students to move from an abstract understanding of the New Testament to a ready ability to make meaning from Scripture.
“This wonderful book expertly invites students into the academic study of the New Testament, not simply surveying the contents of the New Testament, but also introducing the historical contexts which gave rise to these writings and their collection into a canon. Best of all, it will empower students to dive into New Testament interpretation by modeling various methodological approaches to its study.” — MATTHEW THIESSEN McMaster University
CONTRIBUTORS
Håkan Bengtsson, Samuel Byrskog, Ismo Dunderberg, Bengt Holmberg, Jonas Holmstrand, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Thomas Kazen, Dieter Mitternacht, Birger Olsson, Samuel Rubenson, Anders Runesson, Anna Runesson, Hanna Stenström, Kari Syreeni, Mikael Tellbe, Lauri Thurén, Håkan Ulfgard, Cecilia Wassén, Tommy Wasserman, Mikael Winninge, Karin Hedner Zetterholm, and Magnus Zetterholm.
Dieter Mitternacht is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong. Anders Runesson is professor of New Testament at the University of Oslo, Norway.
“Fantastically productive. ‘Jesus is the Christ’ is the core gospel confession. Yet how should it shape our theology and behavior? By a thematic reading of the New Testament that is creative yet faithful, Joshua Jipp shows that Jesus’s messianic identity is theologically generative and integrative in surprising ways. An important scholarly synthesis that feeds the mind, stirs the theological imagination, and encourages transformation into the king’s pattern of life.”
— MATTHEW W. BATES Quincy University
“I was initially skeptical about the value of a new New Testament theology, but Jipp makes a convincing argument that asking about the unity of these twentyseven pieces of literature remains a vital question. While respecting the diverse voices of the twenty-seven books, he builds upon a growing consensus in scholarship to discover that unity in the radical claim that Jesus is the singular messianic king. With thorough exegesis, theological synthesis, and demanding ethics, Jipp provides an invaluable resource for serious study and application of the entire New Testament.” — AMY PEELER Wheaton College
Joshua W. Jipp is associate professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. His previous books include Christ Is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology and Saved by Faith and Hospitality, which won the Academy of Parish Clergy’s Book of the Year award in 2018. 978-0-8028-7717-8 | Jacketed Hardcover | 480 pages | $50.00 US | $67.99 CAN £40.99 UK | Available
978-0-8028-6892-3 | Hardcover | 800 pages | $65.00 US | $87.99 CAN | £52.99 UK Available February 2021
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The Canonical Paul, volume 2
Paul and the Power of Grace
Paul’s Three Paths to Salvation
Luke Timothy Johnson
John M. G. Barclay
Gabriele Boccaccini
With the contextual framework in place from volume 1 of The Canonical Paul, Luke Timothy Johnson now probes each of the thirteen biblical letters traditionally attributed to the apostle Paul in a way that balances respect for historical integrity with attention to present-day realities. In doing so, Johnson reforges the connection between biblical studies and the life of the church, seeking to establish once again the foundational and generative role that the thirteen letters of Paul have had among Christians for centuries. Far from being a “definitive theology” of Paul, or an oversimplified synthesis, Interpreting Paul provides glimpses into various moments of Paul’s thinking and teaching that we find in Scripture, modeling how one might read his letters closely for fresh, creative interpretations now and into the future. Approached in this way, both in minute detail and as a whole canon, Paul’s letters yield rich insights, and his voice becomes accessible to all readers of the Bible.
Paul and the Gift transformed the landscape of Pauline studies upon its publication in 2015. In it, John Barclay led readers through a recontextualized analysis of grace and interrogated Paul’s original meaning in declaring it a “free gift” from God, revealing grace as a multifaceted concept that is socially radical and unconditioned—even if not unconditional. Paul and the Power of Grace offers all of the most significant contributions from Paul and the Gift in a package several hundred pages shorter and more accessible. Additionally, Barclay adds further analysis of the theme of gift and grace in Paul’s other letters—besides just Romans and Galatians—and explores contemporary implications for this new view of grace.
Foreword by David Bentley Hart
“This book’s larger forerunner, Paul and the Gift, was packed full—full of both content and significance. Paul and the Power of Grace, somehow, is much shorter and still offers all the goods. And more. With fresh material on other Pauline letters and considerations of the theological and social ramifications of God’s christological and unconditioned gift, this book does what its title promises: it studies and isn’t ashamed to speak the gospel that is the power of God—the gospel of God’s grace.”
Paul’s Three Paths to Salvation is an attempt to reconcile the many facets of Paul’s complex identity while reclaiming him from accusations of intolerance. Boccaccini’s work in reestablishing Paul as a messenger of God’s mercy to sinners is an important contribution to the ongoing conversation about Paul’s place in the contemporary pluralistic world.
Luke Timothy Johnson is Candler School of Theology’s Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus. He won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity. Johnson’s many other books include The Revelatory Body, Brother of Jesus, Friend of God, and The Writings of the New Testament. 978-0-8028-2466-0 | Jacketed Hardcover | 624 pages $60.00 US | $80.99 CAN | £48.99 UK Available May 2021
ALSO AVAILABLE: VOLUME 1 OF THE CANONICAL PAUL
Constructing Paul 978-0-8028-0758-8 Jacketed Hardcover 375 pages | $50.00 US
— JONATHAN A. LINEBAUGH University of Cambridge
John M. G. Barclay is Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University, England. His previous book Paul and the Gift was chosen as Book of the Year by Jesus Creed in 2015. 978-0-8028-7461-0 | Paperback | 200 pages $22.00 US | $29.99 CAN | £17.99 UK | Available
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM JOHN M. G. BARCLAY:
Paul and the Gift
“We no longer need to separate Paul from Judaism in order to claim his Christianness,” writes Gabriele Boccaccini, “nor do we need to separate him from the early Jesus movement in order to state his Jewishness.” With this guiding principle Boccaccini unpacks the implications of Paul’s belonging simultaneously to Judaism and Christianity to arrive at the surprising and provocative conclusion that there are in fact three paths to salvation:
N E W T E S TA M E N T S T U D I E S
Interpreting Paul
1. For Jews, adherence to Torah. 2. For gentiles, good works according to conscience and natural law. 3. For all sinners, forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.
“I find much to admire in Gabriele Boccaccini’s attempt to reconstruct Paul’s own vision of salvation. . . . This is a splendid and necessary book.” — DAVID BENTLEY HART from the foreword
Gabriele Boccaccini is professor of Second Temple Judaism and early rabbinic literature at the University of Michigan. He is also the founding director of the Enoch Seminar, a forum of international specialists in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam affiliated with the Society of Biblical Literature. In 2019, he was awarded knighthood by the president of Italy in recognition of his contributions to Italian culture in the world. 978-0-8028-3921-3 | Jacketed Hardcover | 182 pages $30.00 US | $40.99 CAN | £23.99 UK | Available
978-0-8028-7532-7 | Paperback 672 pages | $55.00 US
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O L D T E S TA M E N T & H E B R E W B I B L E S T U D I E S
Unto Us a Child Is Born
The Land and Its Kings
Isaiah, Advent, and Our Jewish Neighbors
1–2 Kings
Tyler D. Mayfield
A People and a Land, VOLUME 3
Foreword by Walter Brueggemann
Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos
Whether through a hymn, Handel’s Messiah, or the lectionary reading, the book of Isaiah provides a familiar voice for congregations during the season of Advent. So how do we create faithful, Christian interpretations of Isaiah for today while respecting the interpretations of our Jewish neighbors? Integrating biblical scholarship with pastoral concern, Tyler Mayfield invites readers to view Isaiah through two lenses. He demonstrates using near vision to see how the Christian liturgical season of Advent shapes readings of Isaiah and using far vision to clarify our relationship to Jews and Judaism—showing along the way how near vision and far vision are both required to read Isaiah clearly and responsibly.
Voices from the Ruins Theodicy and the Fall of Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible Dalit Rom-Shiloni
In The Land and Its Kings Johanna van Wijk-Bos accompanies the reader across a large sweep of the story of Israel, from the end of King David’s reign through the fall of Jerusalem approximately four hundred years later. She views these memories of Israel’s past, as they are woven together in Kings, from the perspective of the traumatic context of postexilic Judah. “With seasoned skill and unprecedented sensitivity, Johanna van Wijk-Bos sets forth a close reading of the books of Kings that echoes the perspectives of Israel after the Babylonian exile. This novel take on Israel’s past unveils the insights that such hindsight afforded in the aftermath of this people’s trauma. ” — GINA HENS-PIAZZA Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School of Theology
“Tyler Mayfield’s Unto Us a Child Is Born overflows with insight. I recommend it as a lucid way in which we Christians might envisage the power of Scripture for our world today.” — MARY C. BOYS
“This is a great companion with which to begin study of 1 and 2 Kings. Special emphasis is given to accounts mentioning women and the significance of their roles.” — RICHARD S. HESS
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Denver Seminary
“Whereas Christians traditionally read Isaiah as a prophet who predicts the coming of Christ, Mayfield demonstrates that Isaiah must be read from different angles as a book that gives expression to the issues that faced ancient Israel and Judah in the prophet’s own day as well as to some of the highest ideals of Judaism in our own.” — MARVIN A. SWEENEY Claremont School of Theology
Tyler D. Mayfield is the Arnold Black Rhodes Professor of Old Testament and director of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He teaches courses in biblical theology, ethical readings of Scripture, and prophetic literature and regularly leads a travel seminar to Israel and Palestine to explore ancient biblical sites as well as those of contemporary Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. 978-0-8028-7398-9 | Jacketed Hardcover | 200 pages $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available
Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos taught as professor of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary from 1977 to 2017. She serves the Presbyterian Church (USA) as an ordained pastor and is deeply engaged with issues of equity in terms of gender and race. 978-0-8028-7745-1 | Paperback | 352 pages $29.99 US | $39.99 CAN | £23.99 UK | Available
ALSO AVAILABLE: VOLUMES 1 AND 2 OF A PEOPLE AND A LAND
The End of the Beginning
Joshua and Judges 978-0-8028-6838-1 | Paperback | 352 pages | $29.99 US
The Road to Kingship
1–2 Samuel 978-0-8028-7744-4 | Paperback | 416 pages | $29.99 US
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Where was God in the sixth-century destruction of Jerusalem? The Hebrew Bible compositions written during and around the sixth century BCE provide an illuminating glimpse into how ancient Judeans reconciled the major qualities of God—as Lord, fierce warrior, and often harsh rather than compassionate judge—with the suffering they were experiencing at the hands of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which had brutally destroyed Judah and deported its people. Voices from the Ruins examines the biblical texts “explicitly and directly contextualized by those catastrophic events”—Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Lamentations, and selected psalms—to trace the rich, diverse, and oftenpolemicized discourse over theodicy unfolding therein. Dalit Rom-Shiloni shows how the “voices from the ruins” in these texts variously justified God in the face of the rampant destruction, expressed doubt, and protested God’s action (and inaction). Rather than trying to paper over the stark theological differences among the writings of these sixth-century historiographers, prophets, and poets, Rom-Shiloni emphasizes the dynamic of theological pluralism as a genuine characteristic of the Hebrew Bible. Through these avenues, and with her careful, discerning textual analysis, she provides readers with insight into how the sufferers of an ancient national catastrophe wrestled with the difficult question that has accompanied tragedies throughout history: Where was God? Dalit Rom-Shiloni is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She writes extensively on Hebrew Bible theology, group-identity conflicts, and the formation of sixth-century BCE literature. RomShiloni serves as editor-in-chief of the Hebrew-language journal Beit Mikra: Journal for the Study of the Bible and Its World and is the initiator and editor-in-chief of the Dictionary of Nature Imagery of the Bible project. 978-0-8028-7860-1 | Hardcover | 624 pages | $70.00 US $94.99 CAN | £55.99 UK | Available May 2021
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Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, volume XVII G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, editors Compiled by Ronald E. Pitkin This useful resource, which concludes the illustrious Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, provides TDOT users with an index to all sixteen previous volumes. The first part of this volume indexes keywords in Hebrew, Aramaic, and English, while the second part indexes all textual references—both biblical and extrabiblical. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. English Words 2. Hebrew Words 3. Aramaic Words 4. Old Testament 5. Apocrypha
G. Johannes Botterweck (1917–1981) was professor of Old Testament and Catholic theology at the University of Bonn, Germany.
Helmer Ringgren (1917–2012) was professor of Old Testament interpretation at the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
6. New Testament 7. Near Eastern Texts 8. Pseudepigrapha 9. Qumran 10. Josephus
Heinz-Josef Fabry is professor emeritus of Old Testament at the University of Bonn, Germany.
11. Philo 12. Rabbinic Writings 13. Early Christian Writings 14. Greco-Roman Literature 15. Qur’an
Ronald E. Pitkin is the former president of Cumberland House Publishing in Nashville, Tennessee. He also compiled the index for the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.
978-0-8028-2344-1 | Jacketed Hardcover | 1000 pages | $75.00 US | $100.99 CAN | £60.99 UK | Available January 2021
THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT “A tool that no Bible student can afford to ignore; it takes its place alongside Kittel as a classic reference work.” — CHRISTIANITY TODAY
“Highly recommended for all libraries in religion, theology, and biblical studies.”
“This is the standard reference tool in OT studies for in-depth word studies, and it undoubtedly will remain so for decades. It is well conceived and well executed in the main. . . . For its scope, depth and erudition, TDOT remains indispensable for any in-depth study of Hebrew words and word fields.”
“An important and interesting scholastic tool, essential for any library that serves serious Bible students, theological scholars, church-school teachers, pastors, or interested laypeople.”
— JOURNAL OF THE EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
— RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW
— CHOICE
“An invaluable series.”
O L D T E S TA M E N T & H E B R E W B I B L E S T U D I E S
Index Volume
— THE BIBLE TODAY
“Serious students of the Hebrew Bible will find this dictionary a valuable resource.” — JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
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Aramaic A History of the First World Language Holger Gzella
THE WORLD OF THE BIBLE
Translated by Benjamin D. Suchard
Holger Gzella is professor of Old Testament at the University of Munich, Germany. He previously served as professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at Leiden University.
In this volume—the first complete history of Aramaic from its origins to the present day—Holger Gzella provides an accessible overview of the language perhaps most well known for being spoken by Jesus of Nazareth. Gzella, one of the world’s foremost Aramaicists, begins with the earliest evidence of Aramaic in inscriptions from the beginning of the first millennium BCE, then traces its emergence as the first world language when it became the administrative tongue of the great ancient Near Eastern empires. He also pays due diligence to the sacred role of Aramaic within Judaism, its place in the Islamic world, and its contact with other regional languages, before concluding with a glimpse into modern uses of Aramaic. Although Aramaic never had a unified political or cultural context in which to gain traction, it nevertheless flourished in the Middle East for an extensive period, allowing for widespread cultural exchange between diverse groups of people. In tracing the historical thread of the Aramaic language, readers can also gain a stronger understanding of the rise and fall of civilizations, religions, and cultures in that region over the course of three millennia. Aramaic: A History of the First World Language is visually supplemented by maps, charts, and other images for an immersive reading experience, providing scholars and casual readers alike with an engaging overview of one of the most consequential world languages in history. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. The Oldest Aramaic and Its Cultural Context 3. Aramaic as a World Language 4. Aramaic in the Bible and Early Judaism 5. Aramaic between the Classical and Parthian Worlds 6. Syriac and the End of Paganism
7. The Second Sacred Language: Aramaic in Rabbinic Judaism 8. Not Just Jews and Christians: Samaritans, Mandeans, and Others 9. Aramaic in Arabia and the Islamic World 10. Modern Aramaic from a Historical Perspective
978-0-8028-7748-2 | Hardcover | 380 pages | $70.00 US | $94.99 CAN | £55.99 UK | Available May 2021
Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? William G. Dever In the last several decades, archaeological evidence has dramatically illuminated ancient Israel. However, instead of proving the truth of the Bible—as an earlier generation had confidently predicted—the new discoveries have forced us to revise much of what was thought to be biblical truth, provoking an urgent question: If the biblical stories are not always true historically, what, if anything, is still salvageable of the Bible’s ethical and moral values? Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? simplifies these complex issues and summarizes the new, archaeologically attested ancient Israel, period by period (ca. 1200–600 BCE). But it also explores in detail how a modern, critical reader of the Bible can still find relevant truths by which to live. “This book is both vintage Dever and refreshingly innovative. Dever’s strongly argued positions on the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and archaeological materials are presented in lucid and riveting language, accessible to all. In addition, Dever shows how biblical accounts—even problematic ones—are not devoid of meaning but rather are rich with the potential to provide lessons for contemporary life.” — CAROL MEYERS Duke University
William G. Dever is professor emeritus of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has served as director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology in Jerusalem, as director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and as a visiting professor at universities around the world. He has also spent thirty years conducting archaeological excavations in the Near East, resulting in a large body of award-winning fieldwork.
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“Bill Dever is one of the leading archaeologists of the Southern Levant in the last two generations, influencing the course of scholarship for more than fifty years. Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? critically synthesizes biblical history with modern archaeology, offering a detailed and compelling reconstruction of how things really were, as well as a stimulating assessment of the value of this history to modern readership. The book reviews both the biblical history of ancient Israel—from the period of the patriarchs, through the exodus and settlement in Canaan, to the period of the monarchy—as well as various aspects of Israelite religion, and examines them through the lens of archaeology and modern scholarship. It is a must-read for anyone interested in biblical history and in understanding its relevance in the modern world.” — AVRAHAM FAUST Bar-Ilan University
978-0-8028-7763-5 | Jacketed Hardcover |168 pages | $25.99 US | $34.99 CAN | £20.99 UK | Available
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Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Constructions of Jewish and Christian Identities David G. Horrell Foreword by Judith M. Lieu Some of today’s problematic ideologies of racial and religious difference can be traced back to constructions of the relationship between Judaism and early Christianity. New Testament studies, which developed contemporaneously with Europe’s colonial expansion and racial ideologies, is, David Horrell argues, therefore an important site at which to probe critically these ideological constructions and their contemporary implications. In Ethnicity and Inclusion, Horrell explores the ways in which “ethnic” (and “religious”) characteristics feature in key Jewish and early Christian texts, challenging the widely accepted dichotomy between a Judaism that is ethnically defined and a Christianity that is open and inclusive. Then, through an engagement with whiteness studies, he offers a critique of the implicit whiteness and Christianness that continue to dominate New Testament studies today, arguing that a diversity of embodied perspectives is epistemologically necessary. “Magisterial and far-reaching.”
— TERESA MORGAN
Gentile Christian Identity from Cornelius to Constantine
New Testament Apocrypha
The Nations, the Parting of the Ways, and Roman Imperial Ideology
Tony Burke, editor
Terence L. Donaldson Originally an ascribed identity that cast nonJewish Christ-believers as an ethnic other, “gentile” soon evolved into a much more complex aspect of early Christian identity. Gentile Christian Identity from Cornelius to Constantine is a full historical account of this trajectory, showing how, in the context of “the parting of the ways,” the early church increasingly identified itself as a distinctly gentile and anti-Judaic entity, even as it also crafted itself as an alternative to the cosmopolitan project of the Roman Empire. This process of identity construction shaped Christianity’s legacy, paradoxically establishing it as both a counterempire and a mimicker of Rome’s imperial ideology. Drawing on social identity theory and ethnography, Terence Donaldson offers an analysis of gentile Christianity that is thorough and highly relevant to today’s discourses surrounding identity, ethnicity, and Christian-Jewish relations. As Donaldson shows, a full understanding of the term “gentile” is key to understanding the modern Western world and the church as we know it.
University of Oxford
“An ambitious, impressive, and important work.” — MATTHEW THIESSEN McMaster University
“Learned and thought-provoking. . . . Touches upon a range of issues central to early Christian history and presents an entangled and ambivalent tale with ongoing relevance today.” — JAMES CARLETON PAGET University of Cambridge
David G. Horrell is professor of New Testament studies and director of the Centre for Biblical Studies at the University of Exeter, UK, where he has taught since 1995. His other books include The Making of Christian Morality: Reading Paul in Ancient and Modern Contexts and Becoming Christian: Essays on 1 Peter and the Making of Christian Identity.
Terence L. Donaldson is Lord and Lady Coggan Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at Wycliffe College in Toronto. He is also the author of Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament and Paul and the Gentiles.
978-0-8028-7608-9 | Jacketed Hardcover | 432 pages $55.00 US | $73.99 CAN | £44.99 UK | Available
978-0-8028-7175-6 | Jacketed Hardcover | 656 pages $75.00 US | $100.99 CAN | £60.99 UK | Available
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More Noncanonical Scriptures VOLUME 2
This anthology of ancient nonbiblical Christian literature presents informed introductions to and readable translations of a wide range of little-known apocryphal texts, most of which have never before been translated into any modern language. The second volume of New Testament Apocrypha features twenty-nine texts—including “The Adoration of the Magi,” “The Legend of the Holy Rood Tree,” “The Life of Mary Magdalene,” “The Travels of Peter,” and “The Investiture of the Archangel Michael”—each carefully introduced, copiously annotated, and translated into English by eminent scholars. These fascinating texts provide insights into the beliefs, expressions, and practices of a range of Christian communities from the early centuries through late antiquity and into the medieval period.
THE WORLD OF THE BIBLE
Ethnicity and Inclusion
Tony Burke is professor of early Christianity at York University in Toronto and founding president of the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature. He is also the author of Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha and coeditor, with Brent Landau, of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1. 978-0-8028-7290-6 | Jacketed Hardcover | 681 pages $75.00 US | $100.99 CAN | £60.99 UK | Available
ALSO AVAILABLE: VOLUME 1
New Testament Apocrypha
More Noncanonical Scriptures VOLUME 1 978-0-8028-7289-0 | Jacketed Hardcover | 635 pages | $75.00 US
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HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Migration and the Making of Global Christianity
Beginning from Jerusalem
Jehu J. Hanciles
James D. G. Dunn
Foreword by Philip Jenkins
The second volume in the magisterial Christianity in the Making trilogy, Beginning from Jerusalem covers the early formation of the Christian faith from 30 to 70 CE. After outlining the quest for the historical church (parallel to the quest for the historical Jesus) and reviewing the sources, James Dunn follows the course of the movement stemming from Jesus “beginning from Jerusalem.” Dunn opens with a close analysis of what can be said of the earliest Jerusalem community, the Hellenists, the mission of Peter, and the emergence of Paul. Then he focuses solely on Paul—the chronology of his life and mission, his understanding of his call as apostle, and the character of the churches that he founded. The third part traces the final days and literary legacies of the three principal figures of first-generation Christianity: Paul, Peter, and James, the brother of Jesus. Each section includes detailed interaction with the vast wealth of secondary literature on the many subjects covered.
A magisterial sweep through 1500 years of Christian history with a groundbreaking focus on the missionary role of migrants in Christianity’s spread Human migration has long been identified as a driving force of historical change. Building on this understanding, Jehu Hanciles surveys the history of Christianity’s global expansion from its origins through 1500 CE to show how migration—more than official missionary activity or imperial designs— played a vital role in making Christianity the world’s largest religion. Church history has tended to place a premium on political power and institutional forms, thus portraying Christianity as a religion disseminated through official representatives of church and state. But, as Hanciles illustrates, this “top-down perspective overlooks the multifarious array of social movements, cultural processes, ordinary experiences, and non-elite activities and decisions that contribute immensely to religious encounter and exchange.” Hanciles’s socio-historical approach to understanding the growth of Christianity as a world religion disrupts the narrative of Western preeminence, while honoring and making sense of the diversity of religious expression that has characterized the world Christian movement for two millennia. In turning the focus of the story away from powerful empires and heroic missionaries, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity instead tells the more truthful story of how every Christian migrant is a vessel for the spread of the Christian faith in our deeply interconnected world. “In Beyond Christendom and other writings, Hanciles did so much to define an emerging field. Now, it is wonderful to see him applying his insights about migration and mission to an earlier era—nothing less than the first three-quarters of Christian history.” — PHILIP JENKINS from the foreword
Jehu J. Hanciles is the D. W. and Ruth Brooks Associate Professor of World Christianity at Emory University. Originally from Sierra Leone, he is also the author of Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West and Euthanasia of a Mission: African Church Autonomy in a Colonial Context.
Christianity in the Making, VOLUME 2
“A wealth of historical insights about the earliest churches reflected in Acts and the letters.” — MICHAEL J. GORMAN in INTERPRETATION “A truly remarkable achievement, reflecting a lifetime of research, writing, teaching, and supervising.” — PAUL BARNETT in THEMELIOS James D. G. Dunn (1939–2020) was a renowned New Testament scholar and the longtime Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University. His many other books include The Theology of Paul the Apostle and Jesus according to the New Testament. 978-0-8028-7800-7 | Paperback | 1363 pages | $65.00 US | $87.99 CAN £52.99 UK | Available
ALSO AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK: VOLUME 1 OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE MAKING
Jesus Remembered
978-0-8028-7799-4 | 1037 pages | $60.00 US
978-0-8028-7562-4 | Jacketed Hardcover | 464 pages | $45.00 US | $60.99 CAN £36.99 UK | Available March 2021
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Teach Us to Pray The Lord’s Prayer in the Early Church and Today Justo L. González
“Great teachers always need great assistants, and in Teach Us to Pray we discover that Jesus—the true teacher of prayer—has enlisted Justo González to teach us to pray our Lord’s Prayer ever more faithfully. González has synthesized a treasure trove of wisdom from the early church with his own deep theological and pastoral insight. The result is a text I will reach for every time I teach the Lord’s Prayer, but more importantly, a text that will continue to shape my own praying.” — BRENT LAYTHAM
Justo L. González is a retired United Methodist minister and professor of historical theology. His more than one hundred books, which have been published in ten languages, include A History of Christian Thought, The Story of Christianity, A Brief History of Sunday, and Knowing Our Faith.
Saint Mary’s Ecumenical Institute
“I never miss the opportunity to read Justo González. The eminent Cuban American church historian has long provided a wealth of insight into the development of Christian doctrine as it has spread across the globe.” — MATTHEW BARRETT in CHRISTIANITY TODAY
978-0-8028-7796-3 | Paperback | 192 pages | $16.99 US | $22.99 CAN | £13.99 UK | Available
HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the oldest and most widely used short summaries not only of how Christians pray but also of what they believe about God, the world, and humankind. Justo González, whose textbooks have taught Christian doctrine and history to thousands of pastors, draws on Scripture, the church fathers, and his own life experience to make this vital prayer from the Christian past comprehensible for readers who want to understand—and live—Christianity in the present. Teach Us to Pray is for all who are learning or practicing Christian discipleship and ministry, from college students and motivated laypeople to veteran pastors and teachers.
The Beatitudes through the Ages Rebekah Eklund Foreword by Dale C. Allison Jr.
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . the mourners . . . the meek . . . the hungry . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers . . . the persecuted The Beatitudes are among the most influential teachings in human history. For two millennia, they have appeared in poetry and politics, and in the thought of mystics and activists, as Christians and others have reflected on their meaning and shaped their lives according to the Beatitudes’ wisdom. But what does it mean to be hungry, or meek, or pure in heart? Is poverty a material condition or a spiritual one? And what does being blessed entail? In this book, Rebekah Eklund explores how the Beatitudes and their interpretations have shaped—and been shaped by—the different eras and contexts in which they have been read. From Matthew and Luke in the first century, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham in the twentieth, Eklund considers how men and women have understood and applied the Beatitudes to their own lives through the ages. Reading in the company of past readers helps us see how rich and multifaceted the Beatitudes truly are, illuminating what they might mean for us today. Rebekah Eklund is associate professor of theology at Loyola University Maryland, where she teaches Scripture, theology, and ethics. She is the author of Jesus Wept: The Significance of Jesus’ Laments in the New Testament and coauthor, with Samuel Wells and Ben Quash, of the second edition of Introducing Christian Ethics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1. Meet the Beatitudes: Some Basic Questions 2. The Tangled Skein of Our Lives: A Whirlwind Tour through History 3. Drained of All Other Waters: The Poor in Spirit and the Poor 4. By Trials Furrowed: Those Who Mourn and Weep 5. Yield Your Ground: The Meek
6. Our Daily Bread: The Hungry and Thirsty (for Justice) 7. Stretching Out the Hand: The Merciful 8. Such Powerful Light: The Pure in Heart 9. The Heart of God: The Peacemakers 10. Mischief-Makers and Bandits: The Persecuted Conclusion
978-0-8028-7650-8 | Jacketed Hardcover | 352 pages | $35.00 US | $46.99 CAN | £27.99 UK | Available April 2021
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BIOGRAPHY
LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
Howard Thurman and Mother of Modern the Disinherited Evangelicalism
A Heart Lost in Wonder
A Religious Biography
The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears
Paul Harvey
Arlin C. Migliazzo
The Life and Faith of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Teacher. Minister. Theologian. Writer. Mystic. Activist. No single label can capture the multiplicity of Howard Thurman’s life, but his influence is evident in the most significant aspects of the civil rights movement. In 1936, he visited Mahatma Gandhi in India and subsequently brought Gandhi’s concept of nonviolent resistance across the globe to the United States. Later, through his book Jesus and the Disinherited, he foresaw a theology of American liberation based on the life of Jesus as a dispossessed Jew under Roman rule. As racial justice once again comes to the forefront of American consciousness, Howard Thurman’s faith and life have much to say to a new generation of the disinherited and all those who march alongside them.
Foreword by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
“An illuminating account of the life and legacy of Howard Thurman. . . . This should go far to raise the profile of a lesser-known spiritual leader whose writings, sermons, and mentorship helped lay the foundation for the civil rights movement.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)
“Howard Thurman was one of the few great intellectual giants and spiritual geniuses of the twentieth century! Paul Harvey is keeping his legacy alive!” — CORNEL WEST author of Race Matters
Paul Harvey is professor of history and presidential teaching scholar at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He is the author or coauthor of several books on religion and race in US history, including The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America, which was named a “Top 25 Outstanding Academic Title” by Choice magazine in 2013. 978-0-8028-7677-5 | Jacketed Hardcover | 256 pages $28.99 US | $38.99 CAN | £22.99 UK | Available
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Although she was never as prominent as Billy Graham or many of the other iconic male evangelists of the twentieth century, Henrietta Mears was arguably the single most influential woman in the shaping of modern evangelicalism. Her seminal work What the Bible Is All About sold millions of copies, and key figures in the early modern evangelical movement like Bill Bright, Harold John Ockenga, and Jim Rayburn frequently cited her teachings as a formative part of their ministry. Graham himself stated that Mears was the most important female influence in his life other than his mother or wife. In this first comprehensive biography of Mears, readers will find a religious leader worthy of emulation in today’s world—one who sought an alternative to the divisive polemics of her own day while staying fiercely committed to the faith. “A fascinatingly detailed portrait of an inspiring teacher and irrepressible leader.”
Catharine Randall Foreword by Lauren Winner “A warm and welcoming introduction to Gerard Manley Hopkins, which focuses not only on his poetry but also on his religion, thus filling in the blanks for all those who have wondered what inspired his groundbreaking artistry.” — JAMES MARTIN, SJ author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
“Catharine Randall wonderfully captures the sacramental sensibility of a poet and priest for whom the world, to those attuned to the Incarnation, is indeed ‘charged with the grandeur of God’ because the Holy Spirit ‘broods, with warm breast, and with ah! bright wings.’” — KENNETH L. WOODWARD former Religion Editor of Newsweek
“Catharine Randall has composed a luminous retelling of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s life as his intermittent awakenings to the mystery of the Incarnation. With great attention to detail, she bears witness to the sacramental moments when Hopkins’s poetry proclaims the revelation of God and Man as indissolubly joined together.” — DONALD E. PEASE Dartmouth College
— GEORGE MARSDEN
author of Religion and American Culture: A Brief History
“Arlin Migliazzo has given Henrietta Mears what she has long deserved: a thorough, judicious, and winsome account of her central role in shaping modern evangelicalism.” — MARGARET BENDROTH executive director, Congregational Library and Archives
Arlin C. Migliazzo is professor emeritus of history at Whitworth University, where he taught from 1983 to 2018. His many publications include books, articles, and essays on ethnic studies, the Pacific Northwest, colonial South Carolina, church-related higher education, the history of evangelicalism, and comparative democratic development. 978-0-8028-7792-5 | Paperback | 352 pages | $29.99 US $39.99 CAN | £23.99 UK | Available
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“The point of hagiography is not blunt emulation— few of us will read A Heart Lost in Wonder, or indeed Hopkins himself, and take up writing verse. Rather, saints deepen our questions, and A Heart Lost in Wonder is a hagiography insofar as the experience of looking at Hopkins’s faithfulness moves us to ask about our own.” — LAUREN F. WINNER from the foreword
Catharine Randall is scholar-in-residence in religion at Dartmouth College. She is the author of numerous books, including Earthly Treasures, The Wisdom of Animals, and From a Far Country. 978-0-8028-7770-3 | Paperback | 195 pages | $22.00 US $29.99 CAN | £17.99 UK | Available
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LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHY
Duty and Destiny
God’s Cold Warrior
The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill
The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles
Gary Scott Smith
John D. Wilsey
Amid the wealth of biographical material on Winston Churchill, little has been said about his faith. Duty and Destiny rectifies this, offering a nuanced portrait of a great historical figure considered everything from a “Godhaunted man” to a “stalwart nonbeliever.” Churchill was far from transparent about his religious beliefs and never regularly attended church services as an adult, even considering himself “not a pillar of the church but a buttress,” in the sense that he supported it “from the outside.” But Gary Scott Smith assembles pieces of Churchill’s life and words to convey the profound sense of duty and destiny, partly inspired by his religious convictions, that undergirded his outlook. Reflecting on becoming prime minister in 1940, he wrote, “It felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” In a similarly grand fashion, he described opposing the Nazis—and later the Soviets—as a struggle between light and darkness, driven by the duty to preserve “humane, enlightened, Christian society.” Though Churchill harbored intellectual doubts about Christianity throughout his life, he nevertheless valued it greatly and drew on its resources, especially in the crucible of war. In Duty and Destiny, Smith unpacks Churchill’s paradoxical religious views and carefully analyzes the complexities of his legacy. This thorough examination of Churchill’s religious life provides a new narrative structure to make sense of arguably the most important person of the twentieth century.
When John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—“one of the truly great men of our time,” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains indelible—most especially regarding his role in bringing the worldview of American exceptionalism to the forefront of US foreign policy during the Cold War era, a worldview that has long outlived him. God’s Cold Warrior recounts how Dulles’s faith commitments from his Presbyterian upbringing found fertile soil in the anti-communist crusades of the mid-twentieth century. After attending the Oxford Ecumenical Church Conference in 1937, he wrote about his realization that “the spirit of Christianity, of which I learned as a boy, was really that of which the world now stood in very great need, not merely to save souls, but to solve the practical problems of international affairs.” Dulles believed that America was chosen by God to defend the freedom of all those vulnerable to the godless tyranny of communism, and he carried out this religious vision in every aspect of his diplomatic and political work. He was conspicuous among those US officials in the twentieth century that prominently combined their religious convictions and public service, making his life and faith key to understanding the interconnectedness of God and country in US foreign affairs from World War I to Vietnam.
Gary Scott Smith is professor of history emeritus at Grove City College where he taught from 1978 to 2017. Smith was named the 2001 Pennsylvania Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents and Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush. 978-0-8028-7700-0 | Jacketed Hardcover | 255 pages | $28.99 US | $38.99 CAN £22.99 UK | Available January 2021
John D. Wilsey is associate professor of church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the 2017–18 William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also the author of American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea and One Nation under God? An Evangelical Critique of Christian America. 978-0-8028-7572-3 | Paperback | 240 pages | $21.99 US | $29.99 CAN | £17.99 UK Available February 2021
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T H E O L O G I C A L E D U C AT I O N B E T W E E N T H E T I M E S “Theological education is between the times—not just between one paradigm and another, but also between the resurrection of Jesus and the consummation of redemption at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Written from this time-between-the-times, the books in this series are shot through with confession, critique, hope, and joy. They offer not blueprints, but foretastes and yearnings. And they are written in the confidence that theological education will live on, not because this series proposes the next new model, but because God longs to be known.” — TED A. SMITH series editor
Beyond Profession The Next Future of Theological Education
Renewing the Church by the Spirit
Attempt Great Things for God
Daniel O. Aleshire
Theological Education after Pentecost
Theological Education in Diaspora
What should theological education become?
Amos Yong
Chloe T. Sun
In most parts of the world and especially where Christianity is flourishing, Pentecostal and charismatic movements predominate. What would it look like for the Western world—beset by the narrative of decline—to participate in this global Spirit-driven movement? According to Amos Yong, it all needs to start with the way we approach theological education. Renewing the Church by the Spirit makes the case for elevating pneumatology in Christian life, allowing the Spirit to reinvigorate church and mission. Yong shows how this approach would attend to both the rapidly deinstitutionalizing forms of twenty-first-century Christianity and the pressing need for authentic spiritual experiences that marks contemporary religious life. He begins with a broad assessment of our postmodern, postEnlightenment, post-Christendom ecclesial context, before moving into a detailed outline of how a Spirit-filled approach to theological education— its curriculum, pedagogy, and scholarship—can meet the ecclesial and missional demands of this new age.
While the narrative of decline haunts churches and seminaries in the United States, there is great hope to be found in the explosive growth of Christian populations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In light of this, much can be learned from points of intersection between the minority and majority worlds, such as Logos Evangelical Seminary, an ATS-accredited Chinese-language seminary in California—the first in the US. Chloe Sun makes the case here for why an ethnic seminary like Logos has much to teach us about the evolving possibilities for theological education in a society of cultural exchange, with many populations living in diaspora. Having herself been formed by an array of cultural influences, Sun recognizes and extols the richness of pluralism, recognizing in it the work of God, akin to the diversity instantiated at the biblical Pentecost event. In line with the mission of Logos, Sun’s vision is one of both humility and ambition, which begins by honoring the particularity of a person or group of people, and then moves outward to the universal, all-inclusive movement of the Holy Spirit.
Theological education has long been successful in the United States because of its ability to engage with contemporary cultural realities. Likewise, despite the existential threats facing it today, theological education can continue to thrive if it is reinvented to fit with the needs of current times. Daniel Aleshire, the longtime executive director of the Association of Theological Schools, offers a brief account of how theological education has changed in the past and how it might change going forward. He begins by reflecting on his own extensive experience with theological education and then turns to reviewing its history, dating back to colonial times. He then describes what he believes should become the next dominant model of the field—what he calls formational theological education—and explores educational practices that this model would require. The future of theological education described here by Aleshire would make seminaries more than places of professional preparation and would instead foster the development of a “deep, abiding, resilient, generative identity as Christian human beings” within emerging Christian leaders. But it is a vision that, while not a linear continuation of the past, retains the essence of what theological education has always been about.
Amos Yong is chief academic officer and professor of theology and mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. One of the most notable Pentecostal theologians writing today, Yong is the author and editor of more than four dozen books. 978-0-8028-7840-3 | Paperback | 163 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available
978-0-8028-7875-5 | Paperback | 176 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available March 2021
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Chloe T. Sun is professor of Old Testament at Logos Evangelical Seminary, the first fully accredited seminary in the United States that is dedicated to communities of Mandarin speakers. Sun is the author of eight books. A prominent leader in the global Chinese Christian community, she publishes in both Chinese and English. 978-0-8028-7842-7 | Paperback | 148 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available
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A NEW SERIES FROM EERDMANS PUBLISHING
After Whiteness An Education in Belonging Willie James Jennings In this inaugural volume of the TEBT series, Willie James Jennings shares the insights gained from his extensive experience in theological education, most notably as the dean of a major university’s divinity school—where he remains one of the only African Americans to have ever served in that role. He reflects on the distortions wrought by whiteness—and its related constructs of masculinity and individualism— but holds onto abundant hope for what theological education can be and how it can position itself at the front of a massive cultural shift away from white, Western cultural hegemony. After Whiteness is for anyone who has ever questioned why theological education still matters. It is a call for Christian intellectuals to exchange isolation for intimacy and embrace their place in the crowd—just like the crowd that followed Jesus and experienced his miracles. It is part memoir, part decolonial analysis, and part poetry—a multimodal discourse that deliberately transgresses boundaries, as Jennings hopes theological education will do, too. “A searing critique of Western Christian divinity school training and higher education overall.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)
Willie James Jennings is associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale University Divinity School. His book The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race won both the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion.
“After Whiteness is relentlessly hopeful . . . an incisive indictment against a white aesthetic regime, while yet a joyful proclamation of education’s wonder and holy desire for gathering. . . . In his plea for religious imagination and the secret agents of ‘fragment work,’ the always-inspired Willie James Jennings accomplishes an overturning that puts life-giving theos back into theological education.” — ANDREA C. WHITE Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
978-0-8028-7844-1 | Paperback | 175 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available
Transforming Fire Imagining Christian Teaching Mark D. Jordan
“We don’t need books about teaching so much as books that teach.”
Mark D. Jordan is the R. R. Niebuhr Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of ten books. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a FulbrightHays Fellowship, and a Luce Fellowship in Theology. toll free 800 253 7521
Considering Jesus himself taught in a variety of ways—parable, discussion, miracle performance, ritual observance—it seems that there can be no single, definitive, Christian method of teaching. How then should Christian teaching happen, especially in this time of significant change to theological education as an institution? Mark Jordan addresses this question by first allowing various depictions and instances of Christian teaching from literature to speak for themselves before meditating on what these illustrative examples might mean for Christian pedagogy. Each textual scene he shares is juxtaposed with a contrasting scene to capture the pluralistic possibilities in the art of teaching a faith that is so often rooted in paradox. He exemplifies forms of teaching that operate beyond the boundaries of scholarly books and discursive lectures to disrupt the normative Western academic approach of treating theology as a body of knowledge to be transmitted merely through language. Transforming Fire consults writers ranging from Gregory of Nyssa to C. S. Lewis, and from John Bunyan to Octavia Butler, cutting across historical distance and boundaries of identity. Rather than offering solutions or systems, Jordan seeks in these texts new shelters for theological education where powerful teaching can happen and—even as traditional institutions shrink or vanish—the hearts of students can catch fire once again. 978-0-8028-7903-5 | Paperback | 172 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available January 2021
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T H E O LO GY
In God’s Image An Anthropology of the Spirit
The Same God Who Works All Things
Michael Welker
Inseparable Operations in Trinitarian Theology
From the 2019/2020 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh
Adonis Vidu
In God’s Image describes how centering our culture on the human and divine spirit can revitalize four universally acknowledged characteristics of a thriving human existence: justice, freedom, truth, and peace. Inspired not only by religious sources, but also by scientists, philosophers, economists, and legal and political theorists, Michael Welker develops the idea of a “multimodal” spirit that generates the possibility of living and acting in the image of God. Welker’s new approach to natural theology explains why the human and the divine spirit cannot adequately be grasped in simple bipolar relations and why the human spirit should not be reduced to the rational mind. Addressing the question What is the calling of human beings? in the context of late modern pluralistic societies, he aims at explaining to believers and nonbelievers alike what it means to be persons created in the image of God, moved by a spirit of justice, freedom, truth, and peace. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1. The Breadth and Abysses of Human Existence 2. Human Spirit and Divine Spirit 3. Called to Justice 4. Called to Freedom 5. Called to Truth 6. Called to Peace
Michael Welker is senior professor at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and executive director of the Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology. He is the author or editor of dozens of books, including God the Spirit, The Work of the Spirit, God the Revealed, Creation and Reality, What Happens in Holy Communion?, and The Depth of the Human Person.
Classical trinitarianism holds that every action of Trinity in the world is inseparable. That is, the divine persons are equally active in every operation. But then, in what way did the Father create the world through Christ? How can only the Son be incarnate, die, and be resurrected? Why does Christ have to ascend before the Spirit may come? These and many other questions pose serious objections to the doctrine of inseparable operations. In the first book-length treatment of this doctrine, Adonis Vidu takes up these questions and offers a conceptual and dogmatic analysis of this essential axiom, engaging with recent and historical objections. Taking aim at a common “soft” interpretation of the inseparability rule, according to which the divine persons merely cooperate and work in concert with one another, Vidu argues for the retrieval of “hard inseparability,” which emphasizes the unity of divine action, primarily drawing from the patristic and medieval traditions. Having probed the biblical foundations of the rule and recounted the story of its emergence in nascent trinitarianism and its demise in modern theology, Vidu builds a constructive case for its retrieval. The rule is then tested precisely on the battlegrounds that were thought to have witnessed its defeat: the doctrines of creation, incarnation, atonement, ascension, and the indwelling of the Spirit. What emerges is a constructive account of theology where the recovery of this dogmatic rule shines fresh light on ancient doctrines. “The venerable doctrine that all of God’s ‘external’ works are always undivided is nearly ubiquitous in traditional Christian theology, and it has been seen as an important affirmation. It has not, however, always been well understood, and in recent years it has fallen out of favor in some circles. In this wide-ranging book, Adonis Vidu seeks to sharpen our understanding and defend the doctrine against its critics. His work will be a very helpful aid to further clarification and development of the doctrine, and it will repay careful study.” — THOMAS H. McCALL Asbury University
978-0-8028-7866-3 | Jacketed Hardcover | 168 pages | $29.00 US | $38.99 CAN £22.99 UK | Available February 2021 978-0-8028-7874-8 | Paperback | 168 pages | $21.00 US | $27.99 CAN | £16.99 UK Available February 2021
Adonis Vidu is professor of theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is also the author of Atonement, Law, and Justice: The Cross in Historical and Cultural Contexts; Theology after Neo-Pragmatism; and Postliberal Theological Method: A Critical Study. 978-0-8028-7443-6 | Jacketed Hardcover | 368 pages | $50.00 US | $67.99 CAN £40.99 UK | Available March 2021
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T H E O LO GY
A Theology for the Twenty-First Century
Deification through the Cross
Douglas F. Ottati
Khaled Anatolios
“Douglas Ottati’s one-volume systematics is a major theological production. With typical clarity, learning, and insight, his writing is immersed in the traditions of Christian faith, while always remaining alert to the challenges of modernity.”
A unified soteriology for the whole church
— DAVID FERGUSSON University of Edinburgh
“A Theology for the Twenty-First Century explores Augustinian, Protestant, liberal, and humanist traditions for wisdoms relevant to twenty-first-century constructive Christian theology. This creative theology results in deeply compelling practical wisdoms for the twenty-first century and what Douglas Ottati calls ‘hopeful realism.’”
— MARY McCLINTOCK FULKERSON Duke Divinity School
“Rarely has the exposition of a set of theological propositions been so spiritually refreshing, so intellectually stimulating, and so ethically challenging as Douglas Ottati’s Theology for the Twenty-First Century.” — WILLIAM STORRAR director, Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey
“It is always a wonder to witness a theologian delve so deeply into the ancient scriptures as Douglas Ottati does here. With characteristic wit and erudition, this unapologetically liberal theologian offers a systematic theology filled with wonderment and discernment.” — WILLIAM P. BROWN Columbia Theological Seminary
“Ottati has attempted something too few Christian theologians any longer feel obliged to provide—a systematically coherent account of all the major doctrines of the faith. But beyond this, he serves Christians in the twenty-first century well by attending to the unique challenges of our times: globalization, climate crisis, the resurgence of racially and ethnically defined hatreds, interfaith relations and claims to unique possession of truth, and the struggle to renew the institutions of civil society (among others).” — DAWN DeVRIES
An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation
It is commonly claimed that Western Christianity teaches salvation as deliverance from sin through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, while Eastern Christianity teaches salvation as deliverance from death—and as deification—through Christ’s incarnation. But is it really true that no normative, unified doctrine of salvation is to be found in Scripture and tradition? Theologian Khaled Anatolios, deeply grounded in both East and West, here advances a soteriology that speaks deeply to all Christians. He argues that both Eastern and Western perspectives are needed, and especially that Eastern theology and liturgy—contrary to Western misperceptions—hold cross, resurrection, and glorification together in an exemplary way. Anatolios uses the phrase “doxological contrition” to suggest that the truth of salvation is found both in Jesus’s perfect glorification of God and in his representative repentance for humanity’s sinful rejection of its original calling to participate in the life of the Holy Trinity. Deification through the Cross is a salutary rebuttal of the postmodern fragmentation that assumes no single, normative soteriology can apply globally. Anatolios systematically expounds an integrated soteriology, which he then puts into dialogue with various perspectives, including liberation theology, Girardian theory, and penal substitution. All who seek to understand and teach “the joy of our salvation” will find indispensable help in this magisterial retrieval of an often-misunderstood doctrine. “This is a deeply learned theological work at home with the whole Christian tradition, but it is much more than that. By finding anew the cross at the heart of the mystery of salvation, this theologian makes the joy of the gospel leap off the page.” — BRUCE D. MARSHALL
Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, Virginia
Perkins School of Theology
Douglas F. Ottati is Craig Family Distinguished Professor of Reformed Theology and Justice at Davidson College in North Carolina. He taught for many years at what is now Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and is a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is also a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Among his other books are Jesus Christ and Christian Vision and Hopeful Realism: Reclaiming the Poetry of Theology. 978-0-8028-7811-3 | Hardcover | 808 pages | $60.00 US | $80.99 CAN £48.99 UK | Available
“A triumph of sympathetic dialogue, transcending the easy dichotomies of much twentieth-century theology.” — ANDREW LOUTH Durham University
Khaled Anatolios is John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He was born in India and grew up in Egypt and Canada. His other books include Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine. 978-0-8028-7798-7 | Jacketed Hardcover | 480 pages | $50.00 US | $67.99 CAN £40.99 UK | Available
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T H E O LO GY
Ecotheology
Spiritual Healing
A Christian Conversation
Science, Meaning, and Discernment
Kiara A. Jorgenson and Alan G. Padgett, editors Foreword by Katharine Hayhoe Just as God loves creation, so are Christians called to care for it. Now, amid the accelerating degradation of our global environment, that task has taken on greater urgency than ever. How should Christians respond to the climate crisis and widespread pollution of earth’s water and air? How might Christian communities think about human responsibility to other living creatures? In roundtable format, Richard Bauckham, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Steven Bouma-Prediger, and John F. Haught navigate the layers of what it means for humans to live in right relationship with earth’s life systems. After each contributor’s essay, the other three contributors respond—including points of disagreement and questions— thereby modeling for readers productive and respectful ecumenical dialogue. “This company of excellent scholars has given us a textbook that advances the crucial task of showing why the environment matters for theology and for a helpful Christian witness.”
— WILLIE JAMES JENNINGS
SECOND EDITION
Sarah Coakley, editor Spiritual healing has been a cornerstone of Christian belief from its beginnings, although there are various interpretations of what exactly it is and how it happens. To address these questions, the contributors to this volume examine spiritual healing from a number of disciplinary perspectives—scientific, medical, historical, pastoral, theological, biblical, anthropological, and philosophical. Deftly edited by theologian Sarah Coakley, Spiritual Healing will satisfy discerning believers and skeptics alike in its rigorous pursuit of truth and meaning. CONTRIBUTORS Emma Anderson, Stephen R. L. Clark, Philip Clayton, Sarah Coakley, Thomas J. Csordas, Heather D. Curtis, Howard L. Fields, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Anne Harrington, Malcolm Jeeves, and John Swinton.
“This groundbreaking study of spiritual healing probes the scientific and philosophical issues with clarity and insight. Essential for anyone looking for trustworthy guidance on these issues.”
— KEITH WARD
Yale Divinity School
University of Oxford
“This book is indispensable to advancing the vital role of ecotheology. Carefully constructed to be dialogical, it brings the reader into a conversation that is illuminating, creative, and ultimately transformational.”
“With an expert editorial hand, Coakley compares, contrasts, and brings into engagement divergent and, in a few instances, seemingly unassimilable studies, asking their authors to confront each other in search of more capacious and availing answers. No small achievement!” — ARTHUR KLEINMAN, md
— MARY EVELYN TUCKER and JOHN GRIM authors of Ecology and Religion
Harvard University
Kiara A. Jorgenson is assistant professor of religion and environmental studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Alan G. Padgett is professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. 978-0-8028-7441-2 | Paperback | 248 pages | $24.99 US $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK | Available
A Grotesque in the Garden
Sarah Coakley is Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Emerita at Cambridge University and research professor at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. Her other books include God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay “On the Trinity”; The New Asceticism: Sexuality, Gender, and the Quest for God; and Sacrifice Regained: Reconsidering the Rationality of Religious Belief. 978-0-8028-7093-3 | Paperback | 256 pages | $35.00 US $46.99 CAN | £28.99 UK | Available
Hud Hudson Foreword by Michael Rea
A philosophical tale of sin and the commandment to love After several millennia living as a lone sentinel in the Garden of Eden, the angel Tesque is contemplating leaving his post in rebellion against God. Meanwhile, in another time and place, a professor of mathematics isolates herself in remote Iceland as she finds herself increasingly at odds with society. The connection between these two characters? A letter, a sentient dog, and a deep-seated resistance to the demands of love. A Grotesque in the Garden addresses some of theology’s thorniest problems, including the questions of divinely permitted evil, divine hiddenness, and divine deception, couching them in narrative form for greater accessibility. While Hudson’s story ultimately vindicates the virtue of obedience to God, it never shies away from troublesome theological issues. “This is not your average novel. It taps into deep religious themes to ask fundamental philosophical questions by means of a compelling and beautifully written narrative. If you yearn for tales that satisfy your head as well as your heart, and that leave you pondering some of the greatest existential questions human beings face, read this book.”
— OLIVER CRISP
University of St. Andrews
“Here is a book for those who appreciate both the literary and the philosophical—or more specifically, a literary pathway into the philosophical.” — PAUL COPAN Palm Beach Atlantic University
Hud Hudson is professor of philosophy at Western Washington University, where he has taught since 1992. He is also the author of The Fall and Hypertime, The Metaphysics of Hyperspace, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, and Kant’s Compatibilism. 978-0-8028-7817-5 | Paperback |168 pages | $16.99 US $22.99 CAN | £13.99 UK | Available
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Table and Temple
Separated Siblings
Jewish and Christian Origins
The Christian Eucharist and Its Jewish Roots
An Evangelical Understanding of Jews and Judaism
David L. Stubbs
John E. Phelan Jr.
Foreword by John D. Witvliet
Foreword by Rabbi Yehiel Poupko
In most modern discussions of the Eucharist, the Jewish temple and its services of worship do not play a large role. They are often mentioned in passing, but little work is done in grounding, organizing, or explicating the connections between these things and the Eucharistic celebration. In Table and Temple, David Stubbs sheds light on the reasons for this neglect and shows the important role the temple and its worship played in the imagination of Jesus and his disciples about what was to become a central Christian practice. He then explores the five central meanings of the temple and its main services of worship, demonstrating their relationship to the five central meanings of the Christian Eucharist.
In the minds of many American evangelicals today, Judaism exists in two places: the pages of the Bible and the modern nation of Israel. John Phelan offers to fill in the gaps of this limited understanding with the larger story of Judaism, including its long history and key facets of Jewish thought and practice, revealing a faith that is anything but monolithic or unchanging. An evangelical Christian himself, Phelan addresses what other evangelicals are often most curious about, such as Jewish beliefs concerning salvation and eschatology. Readers will emerge with more informed attitudes toward their Jewish brothers and sisters—those in Israel and those across the street.
Max Botner, Justin Harrison Duff, and Simon Dürr, editors
A historical survey of atonement theology through ancient Jewish and Christian sources “Taking a broad approach to the topic, this fine collection of essays by international experts combines close textual analysis with fascinating overviews of the diverse Jewish and early Christian discourses concerning repair of the ruptured relationship between humanity and God. Readers will find insights aplenty, and some real gems.” — JOHN M. G. BARCLAY Durham University
“It is rare to find a source which combines such varying voices and expertises in the way this volume does. Drawing on fresh and original scholarship in both Hebrew Bible and New Testament, Judaism, and early Christianity, Atonement should become required reading for anyone interested in this contested concept which remains central to the religious self-understanding of both Christians and Jews.” — LOVEDAY ALEXANDER University of Sheffield
“This provocative study, written with great clarity and hermeneutical insight, will encourage all Christians to think more deeply about the roots of our practices of coming together at the Lord’s table.” — RICHARD B. HAYS author of Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness
CONTRIBUTORS Christian A. Eberhart, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Martha Himmelfarb, T. J. Lang, Carol A. Newsom, Deborah W. Rooke, Catrin Williams, David P. Wright, and N. T. Wright.
Max Botner is assistant professor of New Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Justin Harrison Duff is a postdoctoral research fellow at St. Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Simon Dürr is a research associate in the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. 978-0-8028-7668-3 | Jacketed Hardcover | 256 pages $59.00 US | $79.99 CAN | £47.99 UK | Available
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“With the care of a scholar and the clarity of a master teacher, David Stubbs invites us into the ancient Jewish context that shaped the meal at the center of Christian worship. Employing figural reading of Scripture, he links five dimensions of eucharistic theology to their ancient roots in Jewish temple practices. At every step, he attends to the practical implications of his scholarly historical and theological discoveries.” — MARTHA L. MOORE-KEISH Columbia Theological Seminary
“John Phelan has provided a valuable, carefully researched book that explores areas Jews and evangelical Christians have in common and also where they differ. His illuminating work is must reading for those who wish to think more deeply and thoughtfully about why these siblings came to separate. But it also reveals how today there are positive signs that each sibling is seeking to listen to the other, shun caricatures, and grow in understanding, mutual respect, and sincere friendship.” — MARVIN R. WILSON author of Our Father Abraham
“Writing with a devout heart, keen mind, precise prose, spiritual wisdom, and humility, John Phelan has written one of the finest introductions to Judaism and the Jewish people that I know. With his warm embrace of the Jewish story even as he affirms his Christian faith, Phelan offers a model for ChristianJewish reconciliation, proving that ‘separated siblings’ can indeed be brought closer together. An instant classic that should become a standard reference for Christians—and for Jews too.” — YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI
David L. Stubbs is professor of ethics and theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He is codirector of the Hope-Western Prison Education Program, served on the task force in the Presbyterian Church (USA) that authored Invitation to Christ: A Guide to Sacramental Practices, and wrote a theological commentary on the book of Numbers.
John E. Phelan Jr. taught at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago for twenty-five years after serving two churches as pastor. He has been involved in JewishChristian dialogue for many years.
978-0-8028-7480-1 | Jacketed Hardcover | 416 pages $40.00 US | $53.99 CAN | £32.99 UK | Available
978-0-8028-7455-9 | Paperback | 352 pages | $25.00 US $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK | Available
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T H E O LO GY
Atonement
senior fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute
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CHURCH & MINISTRY
Foundations of Chaplaincy
Finding Jesus in the Storm
A Practical Guide
The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges
Alan T. Baker
John Swinton
An approachable overview of the nature, purpose, and functional roles of chaplaincy
People living with mental health challenges are not excluded from God’s love or even the fullness of life promised by Jesus. Unfortunately, this hope is often lost amid the well-meaning labels and medical treatments that dominate the mental health field today. In Finding Jesus in the Storm, John Swinton makes the case for reclaiming that hope by changing the way we talk about mental health and remembering that, above all, people are people, regardless of how unconventionally they experience life. Finding Jesus in the Storm is a call for the church to be an epicenter of compassion for those experiencing depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and related difficulties. That means breaking free of the assumptions that often accompany these diagnoses, allowing for the possibility that people living within unconventional states of mental health might experience God in unique ways that are real and perhaps even revelatory. In each chapter, Swinton gives voice to those experiencing the mental health challenges in question, so readers can see firsthand what God’s healing looks like in a variety of circumstances. The result is a book about people instead of symptoms, description instead of diagnosis, and lifegiving hope for everyone in the midst of the storm.
Chaplaincy is unlike any other kind of ministry. It involves working outside a church, without a congregation, usually in a secular organization. It requires ministering to those with starkly different religious convictions, many of whom may never enter a house of worship. It is, as Alan Baker writes, “ministry in motion.” Those who are embarking upon this unique and specialized call deserve equally unique and specialized guidance, and Foundations of Chaplaincy offers exactly that. Baker surveys the biblical and theological foundations of chaplaincy before enumerating four specific responsibilities and skills that define chaplaincy’s “ministry of presence”: providing, facilitating, caring, and advising. Baker’s thorough guidance on these matters is supplemented in sidebars with practical advice and anecdotes from over thirty chaplains currently serving in a variety of settings and organizations. Chaplains who serve in healthcare, in the military, in correctional institutions, in police and fire departments, on sports teams, on college campuses, and in corporations have essential roles to play in their respective organizations, but theirs is rarely an easy calling. With Foundations of Chaplaincy as an introduction and an ongoing reference, those called to this important vocation may be assured of having the tools they need to cultivate a strong, mission-driven pastoral identity rooted in their own theological tradition while simultaneously participating in a multi-faith team. “Chaplaincy is one of the most difficult ministries. Alan Baker knows from experience both the difficult challenges and the wonderful opportunities of being a pastor ‘of’ the church while not ‘in’ the church. Thank God he has written this muchneeded book on the subject. It is full of wisdom.” — RICHARD J. MOUW
“Learned, revealing, and deeply humane, Swinton’s study will mightily instruct and comfort many. Every pastor should read it. In fact, it deserves hosts of readers.” — CORNELIUS PLANTINGA Calvin Theological Seminary
“This book should be in the library of every pastor and at the bedside of anyone seeking to understand how God’s grace can weave through the disturbing pathways of those living with mental health challenges.” — WESLEY GRANBERG-MICHAELSON author of Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage
Fuller Theological Seminary
Alan T. Baker is a deeply experienced chaplain who now trains, supervises, and endorses prospective and current chaplains in a variety of settings. Baker’s experience includes service in college, corporate, and military chaplaincy. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Baker rose to the rank of rear admiral. He currently teaches at Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, and Wesley Seminaries. 978-0-8028-7749-9 | Paperback | 256 pages | $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available February 2021
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John Swinton is professor of practical theology and pastoral care at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and founding director of Aberdeen’s Centre for Spirituality, Health, and Disability. He worked as a nurse for sixteen years within the fields of mental health and learning disabilities and later also as a community mental health chaplain. 978-0-8028-7372-9 | Paperback | 224 pages | $25.00 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available
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Power in Weakness
Becoming What We Sing
Paul’s Transformed Vision for Ministry
Formation through Contemporary Worship Music
CHURCH & MINISTRY
CALVIN INSTITUTE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP LITURGICAL STUDIES
Timothy G. Gombis Foreword by Michael J. Gorman
David Lemley
Envisioning cruciform community built on resurrection hope
Contemporary worship music is ubiquitous in many Protestant Christian communities today. Rather than debating or decrying this post–worshipwars reality, David Lemley accepts it as a premise and examines what it means for us to be singing along with songs that aren’t so different from the pop genre. How do we cope with the consumerism embedded in the mentality that catchy is good? How do we stay committed to subverting cultural norms, as Christians are called to do, when our music is modeled after those cultural norms? How do we ensure that the way we participate in the liturgy of contemporary worship music rehearses a cruciform identity? Becoming What We Sing draws on cultural criticism, ethnomusicology, and liturgical and sacramental theology to process the deluge of the contemporary in today’s worship music. Lemley probes the thought of historical figures, such as Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen, Martin Luther, and the Wesleys, while also staying situated in the current moment by engaging with cultural philosophers such as James K. A. Smith and popular artists such as U2. The result is a thorough assessment of contemporary worship music’s cultural economy that will guide readers toward greater consciousness of who we are becoming as we sing “our way into selves, societies, and cosmic perspectives.”
After Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he turned from coercion and violence to a ministry centered on the hope of Christ’s resurrection. In earthly terms, Paul had traded power for weakness. But—as he explained in his subsequent letters—this “weakness” was actually the key to flourishing community that is able to experience God’s transformation, restoration, and healing. What would it mean for pastors today to take seriously Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians 11:1 to “imitate me as I imitate Christ” and lead their congregations in this way? Instead of drawing leadership principles and practices from the worlds of business, education, and politics—which tend to orient churches around institutional power and image maintenance—Timothy Gombis follows Paul in resisting the influence of the “present evil age” by making cruciformity the operating principle of the church. Gombis guides the reader through practices and patterns that can lead a congregation past a focus on individual salvation, toward becoming instead a site of resurrection power on earth.
“Both generous-spirited and critically nuanced, Lemley’s interdisciplinary work is precisely the kind of scholarship that will help worship leaders to discern not just what kind of popular music we ought to be singing in our corporate worship but how popular music might uniquely form in us a cruciform identity—rather than, at its worst, pull us into musical and cultural inertias that fight against the demanding patterns of the gospel.” — W. DAVID O. TAYLOR
“Most of the books I have read on pastoral leadership suffer from a fatal flaw. They try to ‘use’ Scripture to help pastors ‘succeed.’ But success is often connected to church size, money, power, and popularity. These kinds of books are misguided because they try to squeeze biblical material to fit into a worldly mold. Gombis subverts that approach by demonstrating the cruciform spirit of Paul’s ministry. Power in Weakness blends biblical insight with numerous case studies in real-life ministry today. This is not only one of the best ministry books I have read, but it is also an incisive study of Paul’s theology as well.” — NIJAY K. GUPTA Northern Seminary
Fuller Theological Seminary
David Lemley is assistant professor of religion at Seaver College, Pepperdine University. He is also a contributing author and hymn editor in A Teaching Hymnal: Ecumenical and Evangelical. 978-0-8028-7408-5 | Paperback | 272 pages | $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available January 2021
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Timothy G. Gombis is professor of New Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He is also the author of Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed, The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God, and a commentary on Mark’s Gospel in the Story of God Bible Commentary series. 978-0-8028-7125-1 | Paperback | 192 pages | $25.00 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available February 2021
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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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CHURCH & MINISTRY
The Beauty of Preaching
The Overshadowed Preacher
Preaching Christ from Leviticus
God’s Glory in Christian Proclamation
Mary, the Spirit, and the Labor of Proclamation
Foundations for Expository Sermons
Michael Pasquarello III
Jerusha Matsen Neal
Foreword by Will Willimon What does beauty have to do with healing the fragmentation within our churches? According to Michael Pasquarello, everything. Amid the cacophony of ugly political invective that dominates nearly every space today—including church— only God has the power to unify and heal through his truth and goodness, revealed in his beauty. And every Sunday, those in the pulpit have the opportunity and responsibility to share this beauty with their parishioners. Tapping into a long tradition that can be traced back to Augustine, Michael Pasquarello explores a theological definition of beauty that has tremendous revelatory power in a post-Christendom world. A church manifesting this beauty is not merely a gathering of people, but a place where God’s new creation appears in the midst of the old creation, ushered in by a pastor willing to make God the primary actor within the doxological craft of preaching. “Mike Pasquarello has reminded me what a beautiful vocation a beautiful God has given us.”
Using Mary’s conceiving, bearing, and naming of Jesus in Luke’s nativity account as a guiding metaphor, Jerusha Matsen Neal asks preachers to own both the limits and the promise of their humanness as God’s Spirit-filled servants rather than disappear behind a “pulpit prince” ideal. It is a preacher’s fully embodied witness, she argues, lived out through Spirit-filled acts of hospitality, dependence, and discernment, that bears the marks of a fully embodied Christ. This affirmation honors the particularity of preachers in a globally diverse context—challenging a status quo that has historically privileged masculinity and whiteness. It also offers hope to ordinary souls who find themselves daunted by the impossibility of the preaching task. “This is no manual for ‘success’ in the pulpit. To the contrary, Jerusha Neal offers up a rich study for the imperfect, the vulnerable, the marginalized—in other words, for those whose preaching is overtaken by the Spirit of the Risen Christ.” — BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA
— WILL WILLIMON
Baylor University
from the foreword
“This book is literally a life-giving gift for preachers and scholars who dare to confront their false shadows and courageously proclaim the good news of a risen and reigning Christ in an ‘anti-body’ world.”
“Pasquarello invites deep meditation on the idea of the sermon as doxology, a refreshing alternative to revisit in a context where words can function as weapons instead of plowshares, even from the pulpit.”
— KENYATTA R. GILBERT
— ANGELA DIENHART HANCOCK
Howard University School of Divinity
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
“Rich in wisdom, enlivened by stories of real preachers from all parts of the globe, this book is a feast for body and soul.” — ANNA CARTER FLORENCE
Michael Pasquarello III is Methodist Chair of Divinity, director of the Robert Smith Jr. Preaching Institute, and director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Beeson Divinity School. His other books include Dietrich: Bonhoeffer and the Theology of a Preaching Life and Sacred Rhetoric: Preaching as a Theological and Pastoral Practice of the Church. 978-0-8028-2474-5 | Paperback | 288 pages | $26.99 US $35.99 CAN | £21.99 UK | Available
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Foreword by Luke A. Powery
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Columbia Theological Seminary
Jerusha Matsen Neal is assistant professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School. An ordained American Baptist pastor with broad ecumenical experience, she has spent her ministry preaching in cross-cultural spaces.
Sidney Greidanus For pastors who take seriously the commitment to incorporate the entire Bible into their preaching, Sidney Greidanus’s books on preaching Christ from the major genres of the Old Testament have been a welcome gift. In his final such volume, Greidanus engages with the Old Testament genre of law and treats a book that is often seen as the most challenging of all: Leviticus. Preaching Christ from Leviticus reminds pastors and congregations that key christological themes—priesthood, sacrifice, atonement, holiness—first originated in Leviticus before they came to full flower in the New Testament with the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his call to holiness. Greidanus provides the basis for fully understanding these and other themes with an exacting analysis of Leviticus and then provides the foundations for ten sermons on Leviticus through topics such as the burnt offering, the ordained priesthood, the day of atonement, the sabbatical year, and the year of jubilee, as well as the commandments to be holy, to love your neighbor, and to love aliens and enemies. “Many pastors struggle with the Old Testament, and seminaries often do an inadequate job preparing their students in this area. For those who need help, Sidney Greidanus is an excellent teacher.” — TREMPER LONGMAN III Westmont College
Sidney Greidanus taught at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan (1990–2004); the King’s University College in Edmonton, Alberta (1979–1990); and Calvin College, also in Grand Rapids (1978–1979). Prior to his teaching career, he had served as pastor of two Christian Reformed Churches in Canada from 1970 to 1978. He is the author of several books, including the series of preaching Christ from the major Old Testament genres. 978-0-8028-7602-7 | Paperback | 344 pages | $35.00 US $46.99 CAN | £27.99 UK | Available March 2021
978-0-8028-7653-9 | Jacketed Hardcover | 256 pages $35.00 US | $46.99 CAN | £28.99 UK | Available
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PROPHETIC CHRISTIANITY
Becoming Badass Believers
Dear White Christians
Miguel A. De La Torre
For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation
“How curiously different is this white God from the one preached by Jesus who understood faithfulness by how we treat the hungry and thirsty, the naked and alien, the incarcerated and infirm. This white God of empire may be appropriate for global conquerors who benefit from all that has been stolen and through the labor of all those defined as inferior; but such a deity can never be the God of the conquered.”
Echoing James Cone’s 1970 assertion that white Christianity is a satanic heresy, Miguel De La Torre argues that whiteness has desecrated the message of Jesus. In a scathing indictment, he describes how white American Christians have aligned themselves with the oppressors who subjugate the “least of these”—those who have been systemically marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status—and, in overwhelming numbers, elected and supported an antichrist as president who has brought the bigotry ingrained in American society out into the open. With this follow-up to his earlier Burying White Privilege, De La Torre prophetically outlines how we need to decolonize Christianity and reclaim its revolutionary, badass message. Timid white liberalism is not the answer for De La Torre—only another form of complicity. Working from the parable of the sheep and the goats in the Gospel of Matthew, he calls for unapologetic solidarity with the sheep and an unequivocal rejection of the false, idolatrous Christianity of whiteness. Miguel A. De La Torre is professor of social ethics and Latinx studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. A modern Amos-like prophet who speaks out against myopic American Christianity, he has published over thirty-five books, including Burying White Privilege: Resurrecting a Badass Christianity and Reading the Bible from the Margins. 978-0-8028-7847-2 | Jacketed Hardcover | 224 pages | $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN £19.99 UK | Available March 2021
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM MIGUEL A. DE LA TORRE:
Burying White Privilege Resurrecting a Badass Christianity
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Decolonizing Christianity
SECOND EDITION
Jennifer Harvey Foreword by Traci D. Blackmon With the troubling and painful events of the last several years—from the killing of numerous unarmed Black men and women at the hands of police to the rallying of white supremacists in Charlottesville—it is clearer than ever that the reconciliation paradigm, long favored by white Christians, has failed to heal the deep racial wounds in the church and American society. In this provocative book, originally published in 2014, Jennifer Harvey argues for a radical shift away from the well-meaning but feeble longing for reconciliation toward a robustly biblical call for reparations. Now in its second edition—with a new preface addressing the explosive changes in American culture and politics since 2014, as well as an appendix that explores what a reparations paradigm can actually look like—Dear White Christians calls justice-committed Christians to do the gospel-inspired work of opposing racist social structures around them. Harvey’s message is historically and scripturally rooted, making it ideal for facilitating the difficult but important discussions about race that are so desperately needed in churches and faith-centered classrooms across the country. “Dear White Christians addresses whiteness head on and tells the too-oftenignored story of black power. . . . One of the clearest and most succinct diagnoses of the inadequacies of the popular reconciliation paradigm.” — SOJOURNERS “Dear White Christians is a must-read. This kind of unflinching analysis is both rare and powerful. . . . If every person in the pews of white churches read Harvey’s love letter to them, then our nation might actually have a chance to realize Dr. King’s vision of the beloved community.” — LISA SHARON HARPER author of The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right
Jennifer Harvey is professor of religion at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. Her other books include Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America and Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Racial Justice through Reparations and Sovereignty. 978-0-8028-7791-8 | Paperback | 317 pages | $25.00 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available
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27
RELIGION & SOCIETY
The Politics of the Cross A Christian Alternative to Partisanship Daniel K. Williams
Where do Christians fit in a two-party political system? The partisan divide that is rending the nation is now tearing apart American churches. On one side are Christian Right activists and other conservatives who believe that a vote for a Democratic presidential candidate is a vote for abortion, sexual immorality, gender confusion, and the loss of religious liberty for Christians. On the other side are politically progressive Christians who are considering leaving the institutional church because of white evangelicalism’s alliance with a Republican Party that they believe is racist, hateful toward immigrants, scornful of the poor, and directly opposed to the principles that Jesus taught. Even while sharing the same pew, these two sides often see the views of the other as hopelessly wrongheaded—even evil. Is there a way to transcend this deep-seated division? The Politics of the Cross draws on history, policy analysis, and biblically grounded theology to show how Christians can protect the unborn, defend marriage, promote racial justice, care for the poor, and, above all, honor the gospel by adopting a cross-centered ethic instead of the idolatrous politics of power, fear, or partisanship. Daniel K. Williams illustrates how Christians can renounce this and instead pursue policies that show love for our neighbors to achieve a biblical vision of justice. Daniel K. Williams is professor of history at the University of West Georgia. His other books include God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right and Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade. His published work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Christianity Today, First Things, and the Gospel Coalition.
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EMORY UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN LAW AND RELIGION
Bioethics
Pagans and Christians in the City
Gilbert Meilaender
Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac Steven D. Smith Foreword by Robert P. George Traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and other cultural developments in the United States wonder why they are being forced to bracket their beliefs in order to participate in public life. This situation is not new, says Steven D. Smith: Christians two thousand years ago faced very similar challenges. Picking up poet T. S. Eliot’s World War II–era thesis that the future of the West would be determined by a contest between Christianity and “modern paganism,” Smith argues in this book that today’s culture wars can be seen as a reprise of the basic antagonism that pitted pagans against Christians in the Roman Empire. Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City looks at that historical conflict and explores how the same competing ideas continue to clash today. All of us, Smith shows, have much to learn by observing how patterns from ancient history are reemerging in today’s most controversial issues. “Smith’s book is as engrossing, lucid, and jargonless a scholarly book as has ever been written.” — BOOKLIST (starred review)
Steven D. Smith is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego and serves as codirector of the university’s Institute for Law and Religion. His other books include The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom.
978-0-8028-7851-9 | Jacketed Hardcover | 336 pages $27.99 US | $37.99 CAN | £21.99 UK Available March 2021
978-0-8028-7880-9 | Paperback | 408 pages | $29.99 US $39.99 CAN | £23.99 UK | Available April 2021
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A Primer for Christians FOURTH EDITION
Amid continuing advances in medical research and treatment, Gilbert Meilaender’s Bioethics has long provided thoughtful guidance on many of society’s most difficult moral problems—including abortion, assisted reproduction, genetic experimentation, euthanasia, and much more. In this fourth edition, Meilaender updates much of the data referenced in the book and responds directly to recent developments, such as the CRISPR/Cas9 method of gene editing. Christians seeking discernment in this new decade will appreciate Meilaender’s circumspect writing and his ability to address the nuances of each issue while maintaining strong and clearly stated moral convictions. “A thoughtful introduction to the ethical questions surrounding medical issues at the nexus of life and death.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “Meilaender gives his reasoning, carefully worked out from Christian writings, for each of his major conclusions. . . . Concise and definite, his primer does its duty well.” — BOOKLIST “This pithy little book offers a vision and wisdom rarely found in volumes many times its size.” — JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN NURSING
Gilbert Meilaender is senior research professor at Valparaiso University. He served on the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2002 to 2009. His other books include Neither Beast nor God: The Dignity of the Human Person and The Way That Leads There: Augustinian Reflections on the Christian Life. 978-0-8028-7816-8 | Paperback | 172 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available
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The End of Memory
Sanctuary
Transforming Evangelism with Immigrant Communities
Remembering Rightly in a Violent World
Being Christian in the Wake of Trump
SECOND EDITION
Eugene Cho and Samira Izadi Page, editors
Miroslav Volf
Heidi B. Neumark
Foreword by Ann Voskamp
What does evangelism look like at its best? Evangelism can hurt sometimes. Well-meaning Christians who welcome immigrants and refugees and share the gospel with them will often alienate the very people they are trying to serve through cultural misconceptions or insensitivity to their life experiences. In No Longer Strangers, diverse voices lay out a vision for a healthier evangelism that can honor the most vulnerable—many of whom have lived through trauma, oppression, persecution, and colonialism—while foregrounding gospel claims. CONTRIBUTORS
Laurie Beshore, Andrew F. Bush, Eugene Cho, K. J. Hill, Torli H. Krua, Samira Izadi Page, Issam Smeir, Sandra Maria Van Opstal, Ann Voskamp, and Jenny Yang.
Rev. Eugene Cho is the President/CEO of Bread for the World. He is also the founder/visionary of One Day’s Wages, founder and former senior pastor of Quest Church, and the author of Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World Than Actually Changing the World? and Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk: A Christian’s Guide to Engaging Politics.
Foreword by Lenny Duncan
Winner of the 2007 Christianity Today Book Award in Christianity and Culture How should we remember atrocities? Should we ever forgive abusers? Can we not hope for final reconciliation, even if it means redeemed victims and perpetrators spending eternity together? We live in an age which insists that past wrongs—genocides, terrorist attacks, bald personal injustices—should never be forgotten. But Miroslav Volf here proposes the radical idea that letting go of such memories—after a certain point and under certain conditions—may actually be a gift of grace we should embrace. Volf ’s personal stories of persecution and interrogation frame his search for theological resources to make memories a wellspring of healing rather than a source of deepening pain and animosity. This second edition includes an appendix on the memories of perpetrators as well as victims, a response to his critics, and a recent James K. A. Smith interview with Volf about the nature and function of memory in the Christian life. “In all of Volf’s writing, theology illuminates life and life illuminates theology. Here this two-way illumination is at its very brightest.” — NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF author of Lament for a Son
“This is a book of profundity and wisdom, endowed with the authenticity of considerable personal suffering.” — SARAH COAKLEY University of Cambridge
Rev. Dr. Samira Izadi Page is the founder of Gateway of Grace Ministries, an outreach ministry to refugees. She is a Muslim-background believer from Iran and a sought-after speaker, workshop leader, and church mobilizer. She has a doctorate in missiology and is the author of Who Is My Neighbor? 978-0-8028-7865-6 | Paperback | 224 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available May 2021
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Throughout her nearly forty years in ministry, Heidi Neumark has strived to make communities of faith into sanctuaries amid the turmoils of life. Now, with the social and political upheaval of the years since Donald Trump was elected president, Neumark believes the true Christian calling is to live out a counterpoint to today’s prevailing spirits of exclusion and hatred. Using her own bilingual, multicultural congregation as a model, she moves through the seasons of the church calendar to reflect on what it looks like to live out essential Christian convictions in community with others. Sanctuary is an amplifier for the many voices crying out against policies and rhetoric that are cruel, dehumanizing, and dangerous. Neumark begins each chapter with a quote from Donald Trump that she defies and dismantles with the power of her own stories—anecdotes about offering shelter for queer youth in her city, supporting immigrants and asylum-seekers being harassed by ICE, and embracing her church’s diversity with a Guadalupe celebration, to name a few. Timely, but also timeless, this book speaks to the deep wounds of this era, inflicted before and during the Trump presidency, which will remain long past its end.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
No Longer Strangers
Miroslav Volf is director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School. His other books include Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. 978-0-8028-7867-0 | Jacketed Hardcover | 288 pages $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available January 2021
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“Powerful . . . Neumark adds her voice to the growing chorus of Christians calling for faith-based resistance to the Trump agenda.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Heidi B. Neumark is a Lutheran pastor who has served congregations in the South Bronx and Manhattan for almost four decades. In her present position, she is also the cofounder and executive director of a shelter for homeless LGBTQIA+ youth. She is also the author of Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx and Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith, about the discovery of her Jewish heritage and her grandfather’s death in a concentration camp. 978-0-8028-7839-7 | Jacketed Hardcover | 240 pages $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK | Available
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FA I T H & L I F E
Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies SECOND EDITION
Marilyn McEntyre Those who want to avoid simplistic partisan rhetoric and use words in a challenging, spirited way need practical strategies. This book offers a range of them. Drawing upon the work of exemplary contemporary writers, Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict shows how to speak and write clearly and generously. For example, we can attend more carefully to the effects of metaphors, recognize and avoid glib euphemisms, define terms in ways that retrieve core meanings and revitalize them, and enrich our sense of history by deft use of allusion. Contemporary readers are awash in many words that have been cheapened and profaned. But with deliberate use of intelligence and grace we can redeem their “sacramentality”—humanely uttered words can convey life-giving clarity and compassion. Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict is an homage to outstanding wordsmiths who have achieved that potential and an invitation to follow them in making well-chosen words instruments of peace. “Written with her signature intelligence and poetic flair, Marilyn McEntyre’s compelling new book, Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict, shows us how we might reclaim the nobility of language and its power to heal. It could not come at a better moment.” — PAULA HUSTON
Marilyn McEntyre “Like any other life-sustaining resource,” says Marilyn McEntyre, “language can be depleted, polluted, contaminated, eroded, and filled with artificial stimulants.” With the pervasiveness of vitriol and dishonesty today, language needs to be revived and restored. McEntyre opens Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with a sobering chapter on the current state of American public discourse. Pointing to the commercial and political forces that affect language use in American culture, McEntyre counters with twelve constructive “strategies of stewardship”— such as challenging lies (including widely tolerated forms of deception and spin), fostering the art of conversation, and encouraging playfulness and prayerfulness in tending to words. The second edition of this timely yet also timeless book includes updated cultural references and questions for reflection and discussion at the end, allowing a new generation of readers to apply McEntyre’s wisdom in a world that struggles with truth and graceful language more than ever before.
“A wonderfully composed treatise.”
— THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY
author of Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit
“For years, Marilyn McEntyre has been quietly shepherding us toward God’s intention of language as a gift rather than a weapon. She’s done it again. We need her brilliantly crafted words more than ever to show us again how to speak, live, and act in accord with the beautiful gospel.” — LESLIE LEYLAND FIELDS author of Your Story Matters: Finding, Writing, and Living the Truth of Your Life
“I can hardly imagine a more timely book at a more urgent time! Marilyn McEntyre has given us a startling reflection on words, metaphors, and poetry and how they illuminate or obscure the wide realms of politics, culture, and community. It is a book that is profoundly literate, vividly relevant, and plainly wise.” — LEANNE VAN DYK Columbia Theological Seminary
978-0-8028-7814-4 | Jacketed Hardcover | 212 pages | $21.99 US | $29.99 CAN £17.99 UK | Available
TABLE OF CONTENTS An Introductory Word to Readers Why Worry about Words? 1. Love Words 2. Tell the Truth 3. Don’t Tolerate Lies 4. Read Well 5. Stay in Conversation 6. Share Stories
7. Love the Long Sentence 8. Practice Poetry 9. Attend to Translation 10. Play 11. Pray 12. Cherish Silence Questions for Discussion
Marilyn McEntyre is the award-winning author of several books on language and faith, including What’s in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause (winner of a Christianity Today 2015 book award in spirituality), Make a List: How a Simple Practice Can Change Our Lives and Open Our Hearts, Word by Word: A Daily Spiritual Practice, and When Poets Pray. 978-0-8028-7889-2 | Paperback | 248 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN £15.99 UK | Available May 2021
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FA I T H & L I F E
The Love That Is God
Just Tell the Truth
An Invitation to Christian Faith
A Call to Faith, Hope, and Courage
Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt
Richard Lischer
Foreword by Sarah Coakley
What does it mean to live the Christian life with conviction?
“‘God is love’ is the radical claim of Christianity,” writes Frederick Bauerschmidt at the beginning of this little meditation on the essentials of Christian faith. In a rich yet accessible style reminiscent of C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton, Bauerschmidt breathes life back into that claim, drawing from Scripture, great Christian and non-Christian writers of the past, and his own lived experience to show just how countercultural and subversive Christianity is actually meant to be. Eschewing the abstract and dogmatic in favor of the relational and inviting, he offers something for everyone, from lifelong churchgoers and students of religion to the growing population of “nones” among younger generations who are increasingly seeking spiritual fulfillment outside of institutional Christianity. With further reading suggestions (both scriptural and nonscriptural) at the end of each chapter, The Love That Is God is the perfect starting point of a spiritual journey into deeper relationship with God. “I cannot help but believe that this book is destined to become a classic.” — STANLEY HAUERWAS author of Hannah’s Child
“In a period of destabilizing world suffering such as we are now passing through, this is a book that takes us back to the raw basics of our faith and restores hope in the cruciform God of Love of whom it speaks so eloquently.”
— SARAH COAKLEY from the foreword
“This book made me want to become a Christian all over again.”
—WESLEY HILL
author of Spiritual Friendship
“Bauerschmidt’s is a persuasive apologetic for the power and practicality of the core Christian message.” — RICHARD PEACE Fuller Theological Seminary
Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt is professor of theology at Loyola University Maryland and a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, assigned to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. 978-0-8028-7795-6 | Paperback | 147 pages | $18.99 US | $25.99 CAN | £14.99 UK Available
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Richard Lischer insists that Christians have a stake in the political and social conflicts that are dividing our culture. In whatever circumstance, Christians are obligated to tell the truth about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. In Just Tell the Truth, Lischer explores seasons of suffering, hope, and triumph in the light of the gospel. Drawing upon Scripture and the lives of both well-known and anonymous Christians, he helps his readers imagine what truthful living looks like. While remaining biblically and theologically rooted, the sermons eloquently engage the present moment, showing how Christian conviction has a place in the controversial realms of politics, racial justice, and the COVID-19 crisis, empowering Christians to find the heart of God in what is too often a heartless world. “With searing honesty, Lischer trusts God to show up in the words that give him something to say. God knows we need examples of sermons that avoid the sentimentalities of our culture, and this book does just that.” — STANLEY HAUERWAS author of Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir
“Rick Lischer is the virtuoso of direct, gripping, unpretentious pulpit eloquence. He always preaches as if God matters, as if nothing is more important than telling the truth about the One who is not only the way and the life but also the truth. What a joy, in this time when many friends of truth seem to have lost their voice, to hear Lischer speak the truth of Jesus Christ in a way that’s evocative, creative, demanding, beguiling, and faithful.” — WILL WILLIMON author of Accidental Preacher: A Memoir
“We trust Rick Lischer because he tells the truth about humanity. Because he knows who we are, we trust him to tell us who God is. And the God he tells us about transforms the people we’ve only just discovered ourselves to be. In these pages you’ll be found by the truth. But be careful. First ask yourself: do I want the truth to find me?” — SAMUEL WELLS author of Walk Humbly: Encouragements for Living, Working, and Being
Richard Lischer is distinguished professor emeritus of preaching at Duke Divinity School. His fourteen books include the prize-winning The Preacher King, the anthology The Company of Preachers (named a “Best Book” in 2003 by Christianity Today), and two beloved memoirs: Open Secrets and Stations of the Heart. 978-0-8028-7884-7 | Paperback | 200 pages | $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | £19.99 UK Available February 2021
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FA I T H & L I F E
Leading Lives That Matter
The Character of Virtue
What We Should Do and Who We Should Be SECOND EDITION
Mark R. Schwehn and Dorothy C. Bass, editors Leading Lives That Matter compiles a wide range of texts—from ancient and contemporary literature, social commentary, and philosophy—related to questions of vital interest for those who are trying to decide what to do with their lives and what kind of human beings they hope to become. This book draws upon both religious and secular wisdom, bringing these sources into conversation with one another. This second edition includes forty-seven new readings from a diverse array of writers, including Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Denise Levertov, Malcolm Gladwell, Julia Alvarez, Alice Walker, Martin Luther King Jr., Pope Francis, and Chung Tzu. “Here is an excellent tool that helps us reflect on how our lives acquire depth and weight, that offers guidance about who we should be and what we should do if we are to lead lives that truly matter.” — MIROSLAV VOLF Yale Divinity School
The Pilgrim’s Regress
Letters to a Godson
God, Improv, and the Art of Living
Stanley Hauerwas
MaryAnn McKibben Dana
C. S. Lewis
With an introduction by Samuel Wells
Foreword by Susan E. Isaacs
Timeless wisdom from a renowned theologian on living well
“We’re all improvisers, often without realizing it.”
Edited and introduced by David C. Downing
In each of sixteen letters—sent on the occasion of his godson Laurence Wells’s baptism and every year thereafter for fifteen years— Stanley Hauerwas contemplates a specific virtue and its meaning for a child growing year by year into the Christian faith. Writing on kindness, courage, humility, joy, and other subjects, Hauerwas distills centuries of religious thinking and decades of self-reflection into heartfelt personal epistles that are both timely and timeless. An introduction by Samuel Wells—Laurence’s father and Hauerwas’s friend—tells the story behind these letters and offers sage insight into what a godparent is and can be.
The famous improvisational principle of “yes, and . . .” has produced a lot of great comedy. But it also offers an invigorating approach to life in general, and the spiritual life in particular. From Moses to Ruth to Jesus, Scripture is full of people boldly saying “yes, and . . .” as they accept what life throws their way and build upon it. In this spirit, MaryAnn McKibben Dana offers seven improvisational principles for living, rooted in Scripture, psychology, theology, and pop culture. Now with questions for discussion and reflection, God, Improv, and the Art of Living will help readers become more awake, creative, resilient, and ready to play—even (and perhaps especially) when life doesn’t go according to plan.
“Hauerwas’s elegant book will provide any reader with insight and wisdom into living a virtuous life.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“A book to read and savor.” — N. T. WRIGHT author of Surprised by Hope
Mark R. Schwehn is senior research professor at Christ College, the honors college of Valparaiso University. Dorothy C. Bass is senior fellow in the Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts. 978-0-8028-7714-7 | Paperback 650 pages | $35.00 US | $46.99 CAN £28.99 UK | Available
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One of America’s best known and most highly regarded living theologians, Stanley Hauerwas is the author of many notable works, including God, Medicine, and Suffering; Hannah’s Child; Approaching the End; and The Work of Theology. 978-0-8028-7879-3 | Paperback 205 pages | $16.99 US | $22.99 CAN Available May 2021
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“Living well means improvising, which is a craft that can be practiced and honed. In MaryAnn McKibben Dana we have the gift of an honest, playful, and deeply wise guide.” — KEN EVERS-HOOD author of The Irrational Jesus
MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a writer, speaker, pastor, and the author of Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time. 978-0-8028-7834-2 | Paperback 240 pages | $16.99 US | $22.99 CAN £13.99 UK | Available
Wade Annotated Edition
Modeled after John Bunyan’s famous Pilgrim’s Progress, C. S. Lewis’s Pilgrim’s Regress represents a number of firsts for Lewis—the first book he wrote after his conversion to Christianity, his first book of fiction, and the first book he published under his own name. This splendid annotated edition, produced in collaboration with the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois, helps readers recover the richness of Lewis’s allegory. Often considered obscure and difficult to read, The Pilgrim’s Regress nonetheless remains a witty satire on cultural fads, a vivid account of spiritual dangers, and an illuminating tale for generations of pilgrims old and new. C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) taught English literature at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and wrote more than thirty influential scholarly and popular books. Among his many famous works are Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, the Chronicles of Narnia series, Miracles, and Surprised by Joy. David C. Downing is codirector (along with his wife, Crystal Downing) of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois. Founded in 1965, the Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College, Illinois, houses a major research collection of writings and related materials by and about seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. 978-0-8028-7899-1 | Paperback | 263 pages $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | Available
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FA I T H & L I F E
Family of Origin, Family of Choice The Gravity of Joy Stories of Queer Christians
A Story of Being Lost and Found
Katie Hays and Susan A. Chiasson
Angela Williams Gorrell
Foreword by Paula Stone Williams
Foreword by Miroslav Volf
Testimonies for LGBTQ+ Christians and all who love them
“My vocation was supposed to be joy, and I was speaking at funerals.”
What happens in a family when one member comes out? How does LGBTQ+ identity affect relationships with parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins? What does Christian love require and make possible for families moving forward together? A social scientist and a pastor, both from Galileo Church on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas, asked their LGBTQ+ friends from church to help them understand how they navigate relationships with their affirming, nonaffirming, and affirming-ish families of origin, even as they also find belonging in other families of choice. The resulting stories, crafted from interviews with fifteen queer Christians and family members, kept anonymous at their request, are as varied as the colors of the rainbow. Over the years, some grew closer to their families of origin; others grew more distant. Some were surprised by the hardness of heart they encountered; others were amazed by the breadth of their family’s love. Most all describe a trajectory, a journey, from the coming-out moment till now and beyond, as their families of origin, like all families, remain a work in progress. Katie Hays is the founder and lead evangelist of Galileo Church, a church that “seeks and shelters spiritual refugees,” especially young adults and LGBTQ+ people, in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas. She is also the author of We Were Spiritual Refugees: A Story to Help You Believe in Church. Susan A. Chiasson is a qualitative researcher who tries to understand, rather than predict, people’s beliefs and attitudes. Her work involves a lot of talking to people as she observes them at work or play, in interviews, and in focus groups. 978-0-8028-7857-1 | Paperback |162 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK Available April 2021
Less than a year after joining the Theology of Joy and the Good Life project at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Angela Gorrell got word that a close family member had died by suicide. Less than a month later, she lost her father to a fatal opioid addiction and her nephew, only twenty-two years old, to sudden cardiac arrest. The theoretical joy she was researching at Yale suddenly felt shallow and distant—completely unattainable in the fog of grief she now found herself in. But joy was closer at hand than it seemed. As she began leading Bible studies at a women’s maximum-security prison, she met people who suffered extensively yet still showed a tremendous capacity for joy. Talking with these women, many of whom had struggled with addiction and suicidal thoughts themselves, she realized: “Joy doesn’t obliterate grief. . . . Instead, joy has a mysterious capacity to be felt alongside of sorrow and even—sometimes most especially—in the midst of suffering.” In The Gravity of Joy, Gorrell uses her search for authentic, grounded Christian joy to reflect on the larger societal need for joy as a counteragent to the despair all too prevalent in the twenty-first century. Inviting action in response to the tragedies of addiction and suicide, she articulates a vision for communities that yearn for joy and “walk together through the shadows” to find it. Angela Williams Gorrell is assistant professor of practical theology at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary and an ordained pastor in the Mennonite Church USA. She is the author of Always On: Practicing Faith in a New Media Landscape. 978-0-8028-7794-9 | Jacketed Hardcover | 245 pages | $21.99 US | $29.99 CAN £17.99 UK | Available March 2021
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I Understand Pain, Love, and Healing after Suicide Vonnie Woodrick
FA I T H & L I F E
Foreword by Mariel Hemingway
Time doesn’t heal—love heals
Vonnie Woodrick is the founder of i understand, a nonprofit organization created in 2014 in loving memory of her husband Rob, who lost his battle with depression in 2003. Woodrick is passionate about comforting those affected by suicide and changing the conversation around mental health. She has previously been published in Woman’s World and is a monthly contributor to Women’s Lifestyle Magazine.
When Vonnie Woodrick lost her husband Rob to suicide in 2003, she found herself longing for one thing in particular: understanding. The stigma of mental illness loomed large over Rob’s death and made healing difficult. But Vonnie found the common assumptions surrounding suicide to be false. Rob was not “crazy.” He did not choose to take his own life. He was in agony and only wanted the pain to end. Why didn’t more people understand this? Over a decade later, Vonnie and her children created the nonprofit organization i understand to help others enduring this same grief and loneliness. Since its founding in 2014, i understand has become a haven of compassionate comfort and a powerful voice in the movement to change the way we talk about suicide so that it can be seen for what it truly is: a terminal effect of mental illness, rather than a deliberate choice. This is the story of how love transformed Vonnie’s brokenness into hope—not only for herself and her family, but for anyone struggling to emerge from the darkness of suicide. “I’m very grateful for my friendship with Vonnie and for her organization, i understand. My hope is that by sharing stories like this we can be more connected to each other and the struggles we face. Just as her story has touched my life, through this book it can now also touch the lives of others, near and far.” — TARA LIPINSKI Olympic champion figure skater
“This book is an invitation to be brave enough to share our demons with others, so that we can let them go.” — MARIEL HEMINGWAY from the foreword
978-0-8028-7804-5 | Paperback | 128 pages | $14.99 US | $19.99 CAN | £11.99 UK | Available
On Her Knees Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel Brenda Marie Davies Growing up as a conservative Christian, Brenda Marie Davies heard a consistent message—save yourself for marriage—that instilled in her guilt and fear about sex. But after moving to Los Angeles at nineteen and finding herself suddenly exposed to a world far outside her comfort zone, she was forced to wrestle with the power and problem of Christian purity culture. On Her Knees chronicles Davies’s spiritual journey over the course of a decade in LA, through marriage, divorce, unlikely friendship, and sexual adventure. Through it all, she refused to abandon her faith, and instead began tearing down the false idol of purity that she had been taught to worship. Told with raw honesty, sans obligatory shame, this is a story for anyone who wonders if it’s possible to love God and not be afraid of sex, with all its blurry lines and shades of grey. FROM THE AUTHOR
Brenda Marie Davies is a podcaster and YouTuber whose YouTube channel God is Grey—a “guide to becoming an inquisitive, fearless, sex positive, free thinking Christian in the modern world”—has over 100,000 subscribers.
I grew up in the heyday of purity culture and willingly took the oath to “save myself for my husband.” The problem with this culture—and there are many!—is that well-meaning teachers thought they could protect us from a fallen world. Pastors forgot that a number of teens, statistically, would have been raped or violated before learning these object lessons. Twelve-year-old assault victims found out they were chewed gum in the eyes of Jesus, in the midst of a misguided message. Their chance at purity was ruined, and it may have been due to what they were wearing. (“Modesty is hottesty.”) After enduring these messages, believing them to have been imparted by the Lord Himself, I grew into a woman who would suffer deeply and torturously in the palm of purity culture. This is my story, but there are countless others who have suffered greatly from the effects of the shame that purity culture perpetuates around sex and sexuality. People from around the world have shared their own stories with me on my YouTube Channel God is Grey. I share my story in the hope that it might bring some light to the reality of purity culture. Regardless of faith—or lack thereof—we know there is good and the absence of good in this world. God is Grey represents a divinity which resides in those absolute truths, in black and white. I believe in a Jesus, however, who manifested in a man’s body and walked beside us in this fallen world. He came to teach us to contend with the grey. The sword He gave us was Love.
978-0-8028-7853-3 | Jacketed Hardcover | 200 pages | $22.00 US | $29.99 CAN | £17.99 UK | Available April 2021
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Flashes of Grace 33 Encounters with God Patrick Henry
“I don’t know how to say what the grace of God is. What I can say is what it’s like for me.”
Patrick Henry was professor of religion at Swarthmore College from 1967 to 1984 and executive director of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research from 1984 to 2004. In retirement he is a monthly columnist for the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota, where he writes about the renewal of human community. He is also the author of The Ironic Christian’s Companion: Finding the Marks of God’s Grace in the World.
We all know about grace being amazing—after all, there’s a whole song about it—but Patrick Henry reminds us that that’s not all it is. It’s also intimidating, disorienting, demanding, reassuring, and sometimes even just downright mind-boggling. Describing thirty-three different aspects of grace based on his everyday experiences, Henry tells the story of a grace that is wide-ranging and comprehensive—if not always comprehensible. Rather than trying to capture and tame his encounters with God, he lets the mystery of memory speak for itself, exemplifying his mantra that being a Christian is about being “an explorer, not a colonizer.” Flashes of Grace is wise and grounded, earnest and light, faithful and quirky. Henry describes encountering grace in airports, baseball, hazelnuts, and just about anywhere else you can imagine, while engaging with dialogue partners ranging from King Saul and Saint Augustine to Yogi Berra and Captain Picard. For anyone longing to connect (or reconnect) with God, this book provides a surprising journey that broadens perspectives and explores strange new worlds, while loosening stiff spiritual joints so movement can be free and spontaneous.
FA I T H & L I F E
Foreword by Joan Chittister
978-0-8028-7864-9 | Paperback | 288 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available February 2021
Money Matters Faith, Life, and Wealth R. Paul Stevens and Clive Lim
A guide to investing in heaven and being “rich toward God”
R. Paul Stevens is professor emeritus of marketplace theology and leadership at Regent College, Vancouver, and chairman of the Institute for Marketplace Transformation, an agency that assists people with the integration of faith and work. Clive Lim is CEO of Leap International, an investment firm in Singapore. He is also adjunct marketplace theology lecturer at Biblical Graduate School of Theology and Trinity Theological College, both in Singapore, as well as visiting associate professor of marketplace theology at Regent College.
Christians often hesitate to talk about money in spiritual contexts, but in the Gospels Jesus talks more about money than about “religious” topics like prayer and heaven. Money Matters advocates following Jesus’s lead in engaging with matters of economy and finance in a faith-driven way, in both our individual and our corporate lives. The authors draw on their contrasting life experiences to offer a well-rounded look at money in the twenty-first century. Paul Stevens, who grew up well-off in Canada and worked as a carpenter, a banker, and later a pastor and professor of theology, finds a complementary voice in Clive Lim, who grew up without money in Singapore, and now works there as an entrepreneur and head of a family investment firm. With frequent scriptural references, Stevens and Lim offer insight into navigating the economic systems of today, aiming to help individuals, churches, and societies become faithful stewards who store up “treasures in heaven” by investing in the kingdom of God. Money Matters is a comprehensive yet accessible guide to integrating one’s faith with one’s approach to money. Just as the Bible variously treats money as a blessing, a sacrament, and a problem, so do Stevens and Lim approach this matter judiciously—avoiding the prosperity gospel on one side and the demonization of material wealth on the other. Capitalism is treated as what it is: a system that has created widespread opportunity and relieved poverty for millions while also exacerbating the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The authors’ wisdom is at turns theological, historical, and practical—and always focused on what it means to live with faithful integrity in our contemporary global economy. “For those wishing to put ‘mammon’ in its proper place and deploy it for Kingdom purposes, this book is required reading and will no doubt become another ‘classic’ in the Faith, Work, and Economics space.” — KENNETH J. BARNES author of Redeeming Capitalism
“Money Matters is the most relevant and expansive discussion on money. Period.”
— DAVE HATAJ
author of Good Work: How Blue Collar Business Can Change Lives, Communities, and the World
“These master teachers address the most challenging questions and the most difficult issues, ones that serious people the world over wrestle with about money, and why it matters so much.” — STEVEN GARBER author of The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work
978-0-8028-7751-2 | Paperback | 192 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available January 2021
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P R AY E R / D E V O T I O N A L
Morning and Evening Prayers
Praying the Psalms with Beads
Where the Eye Alights
Cornelius Plantinga
A Book of Daily Prayers
Marilyn McEntyre
In this little book, Cornelius Plantinga offers a month’s worth of prayers, with two for each day: one for the morning, looking forward, and one for the evening, looking back. Each prayer expresses some essential Christian longing on behalf of self and others—for faith, hope, love, wisdom, gratitude, peace—yet also makes space for any state of heart or mind by rejoicing with all who rejoice and weeping with all who weep. Articulate yet unassuming, Morning and Evening Prayers is for anyone seeking fellowship with God—from those who have prayed their whole lives to those who have yet to find the words.
Nan Lewis Doerr
Lent is about more than going to church on weekdays and giving up chocolate or social media. It’s also a time to form one’s heart and mind through study and prayer. In Where the Eye Alights, Marilyn McEntyre offers forty short meditations, based on excerpts from Scripture and poetry, that guide readers on a devotional journey from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday. As in lectio divina—the spiritual practice of reading Scripture repetitively and meditatively—McEntyre invites us to notice words that may give us pause and summon us to reflection. This book calls our attention to how the Spirit speaks through phrases that can open doors to deep places for those willing to sit still with them.
Faithful God, I have awakened to your new day. Let me rejoice and be glad in it. I turn to you at its threshold because I depend completely on your strength. I have not made myself, cannot keep myself, could never save myself. And so, loving God, I give myself to you for this day—my creator, keeper, and savior. Before I lie down to sleep, I commend all your children to your tender care. Be present with those who watch, or wake, or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, good God. Rest your weary ones. Bless your dying ones. Soothe your suffering ones. Shield your joyous ones—all for your own love’s sake. Amen.
Cornelius Plantinga is president emeritus of Calvin Theological Seminary and senior research fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. His previous books include Beyond Doubt, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, and Engaging God’s World, and his many articles and essays have appeared in such periodicals as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, and The Christian Century.
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The Psalms made intimate and tangible Life is often so busy and chaotic that even when we do find time to pray, our minds cannot settle and our thoughts drift to the stresses and concerns that pull our attention elsewhere. With the use of beads, however, our bodies are incorporated into the act of praying, allowing us to remain present with God in a state of peaceful meditation. Praying the Psalms with Beads guides the reader in a daily devotional habit that distills the entire book of Psalms into 182 five-minute prayers, allowing one to go through this whole cycle twice a year, gaining deeper familiarity with the psalms each time. By virtue of this repetition, the psalmists’ praises, laments, and supplications become something deeply felt instead of only distantly understood. The Lord is my shepherd, in whom I place all my trust. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall never be in want. You make me lie down in green pastures and lead me beside still waters. O Lord, you are my shepherd in whom I place my trust. Lord, you revive my soul. You guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Nan Lewis Doerr is an Episcopal priest who has served in six parishes, on two university campuses, and in one mission in the diocese of Texas. She is also the coauthor, with Virginia Stem Owens, of Praying with Beads.
Phrases for the Forty Days of Lent
Lent is a time of permission. Many of us find it hard to give ourselves permission to pause, to sit still, to reflect or meditate or pray in the midst of daily occupations—most of them very likely worthy in themselves—that fill our waking minds and propel us out of bed and on to the next thing. We need the explicit invitation the liturgical year provides to change pace, to curtail our busyness a bit, to make our times with self and God a little more spacious, a little more leisurely, and see what comes. The reflections I offer here come from a very simple practice of daily reflection on whatever has come to mind in the quiet of early morning.
Marilyn McEntyre is the award-winning author of several books on language and faith, including What’s in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause (winner of a Christianity Today 2015 book award in spirituality); When Poets Pray; Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict; and Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies.
978-0-8028-7881-6 | Hardcover | 144 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available May 2021
978-0-8028-7833-5 | Paperback | 223 pages | $15.00 US
978-0-8028-7698-0 | Jacketed Hardcover with Ribbon 144 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK Available January 2021
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