Biography

Howard Thurman and the Disinherited

A Religious Biography

Paul Harvey

Teacher. Minister.  eologian. Writer. Mystic. Activist. No single label can capture the multiplicity of Howard  urman’s life, but his in uence is evident in the most signi cant 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  urman’s faith and life have much to say to a new generation of the disinherited and all those who march alongside them. march alongside them.

“An illuminating account of the life and legacy of Howard  urman. . . .  is should go far to raise the pro le 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  urman 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  e Color of Christ:  e 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

Mother of Modern Evangelicalism

The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears Arlin C. Migliazzo Foreword by Kristin Kobes Du Mez Although she was never as prominent as Billy Graham or many of the other iconic male evangelists of the twentieth century, Henrie a Mears was arguably the single most in uential woman in the shaping of modern evangelicalism. Her seminal work What the Bible Is All About sold millions of copies, and key  gures 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 in uence in his life other than his mother or wife.

In this  rst comprehensive biography of Mears, readers will  nd 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  ercely commi ed to the faith. while staying  ercely commi ed to the faith.

“A fascinatingly detailed portrait of an inspiring teacher and irrepressible leader.” — GEORGE MARSDEN author of Religion and American Culture: A Brief History “Arlin Migliazzo has given Henrie a 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 Paci c 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

A Heart Lost in Wonder

The Life and Faith of Gerard Manley Hopkins

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  lling 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 a uned 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 a ention 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

“ e 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,  e 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

Duty and Destiny

The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill Gary Sco Smith

Amid the wealth of biographical material on Winston Churchill, li le has been said about his faith. Duty and Destiny recti es this, o ering a nuanced portrait of a great historical  gure considered everything from a “Godhaunted man” to a “stalwart nonbeliever.”

Churchill was far from transparent about his religious beliefs and never regularly a ended church services as an adult, even considering himself “not a pillar of the church but a bu ress,” in the sense that he supported it “from the outside.” But Gary Sco 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. Re ecting 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.”  ough 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.  is 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.

Gary Sco 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   een books, including Religion in the Oval O ce:  e 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

God’s Cold Warrior

The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles John D. Wilsey

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 signi cantly since that time, but his in uence 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. A er a ending 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 a airs.” 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 o cials 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 a airs from World War I to Vietnam.

John D. Wilsey is associate professor of church history at  e Southern Baptist  eological 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

“ eological 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. Wri en  om this time-between-the-times, the books in this series are shot through with confession, critique, hope, and joy.  ey o er not blueprints, but foretastes and yearnings. And they are wri en in the con dence 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 Daniel O. Aleshire What should theological education become?

 eological 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  t with the needs of current times.

Daniel Aleshire, the longtime executive director of the Association of  eological Schools, o ers a brief account of how theological education has changed in the past and how it might change going forward. He begins by re ecting 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  eld—what he calls formational theological education—and explores educational practices that this model would require.  e 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.

978-0-8028-7875-5 | Paperback | 176 pages | $19.99 US $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available March 2021

Renewing the Church by the Spirit

Theological Education after Pentecost Amos Yong

In most parts of the world and especially where Christianity is  ourishing, 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 a end to both the rapidly deinstitutionalizing forms of twenty- rst-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- lled approach to theological education— its curriculum, pedagogy, and scholarship—can meet the ecclesial and missional demands of this new age.

Amos Yong is chief academic o cer and professor of theology and mission at Fuller  eological 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

Attempt Great Things for God

Theological Education in Diaspora Chloe T. Sun

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  rst 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 in uences, 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.

Chloe T. Sun is professor of Old Testament at Logos Evangelical Seminary, the  rst 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

A N E W S E R I E S F R O M E E R D M A N S P U B L I S H I N G

Willie James Jennings is associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale University Divinity School. His book  e Christian Imagination:  eology 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. 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  eology.

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 re ects 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 shi away from white, Western cultural hegemony.

A er Whiteness is for anyone who has ever questioned why theological education still ma ers. 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. theological education will do, too.

“A searing critique of Western Christian divinity school training and higher education overall.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)

“A er 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 ‘ agment 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.”

Considering Jesus himself taught in a variety of ways—parable, discussion, miracle performance, ritual observance—it seems that there can be no single, de nitive, Christian method of teaching. How then should Christian teaching happen, especially in this time of signi cant change to theological education as an institution?

Mark Jordan addresses this question by  rst 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 o en rooted in paradox. He exempli es 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 transmi ed merely through language.

Transforming Fire consults writers ranging from Gregory of Nyssa to C. S. Lewis, and from John Bunyan to Octavia Butler, cu ing across historical distance and boundaries of identity. Rather than o ering 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  re once again.

978-0-8028-7903-5 | Paperback | 172 pages | $19.99 US | $26.99 CAN | £15.99 UK | Available January 2021