Contents 1
Commentaries
5
Old Testament & Hebrew Bible
8
World of the Bible
9
Biblical Studies
A Christian Miscellany Terrible Jokes, Curious Facts, and Memorable Quotes from the Garden of Eden to Armageddon Tim Dowley
11 New Testament & Early Christianity 16 Languages 17
Theology
22 Faith & Life 25 Christian Belief 29 Church & Ministry 31 Religion & Society 32 Evangelicalism 34 History
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A quirky collection of trivia, curiosities, and fragments—some interesting, some strange, some inspiring—from the Christian tradition, perfect as a gift or as a small coffee table book. You might be familiar with the Serenity Prayer. But are you familiar with the Anti-serenity Prayer? Maybe you can recite the Apostles’ Creed. But can you recite the Five Points of Calvinism? You probably know Psalm 23. But do you know about Shakespeare’s odd connections to Psalm 46?
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Perhaps you even know how many animals Moses brought with him on the ark. (Trick question! None!) But do you know how Noah illuminated the ark? (With floodlights!) A Christian Miscellany is the perfect companion to those who like piously showing off (boasting in the Lord!) and to those looking for some wit and wisdom to quote during the awkward silences between the blessing and the meal. Packed with fascinating lists, amusing anecdotes, inspiring poetry, and more, this little book is the ideal addition to any quirky Christian’s library or nightstand. Tim Dowley is a poet, playwright, and historian who has written widely on church history and Christian music. His many other books include Defying the Holocaust: Ten Courageous Christians Who Supported Jews, Christian Music: A Global History, Atlas of Christian History, Atlas of the European Reformations, and Introduction to the History of Christianity.
Romans A Theological and Pastoral Commentary Michael J. Gorman
C O M M E N TA R I E S
“Above all, Romans is a letter about Spirit-enabled participation and transformation in Christ and his story, and thus in the mission of God in the world.” This commentary engages the letter to the Romans as Christian scripture and highlights the Pauline themes for which Michael Gorman is best known—participation and transformation, cruciformity and new life, peace and justice, community and mission. With extensive introductions both to the apostle Paul and to the letter itself, Gorman offers background information on Paul’s first-century context before proceeding into the rich theological landscape of the biblical text. In line with Paul’s focus on Christian living, Gorman interprets Romans at a consistently practical level, highlighting the letter’s significance for Christian theology, daily life, and pastoral ministry. Questions for reflection and sidebars on important concepts make this especially useful for those preparing to preach or teach from Romans—the “epistle of life,” as Gorman calls it, for its extraordinary promise that, through faith, we might walk in newness of life with Christ. “Michael Gorman’s commentary on Romans faithfully illuminates the apostle Paul’s complex proclamation of the gospel. Gorman, a master teacher, provides a rich historical and theological exposition, never losing sight of the question of what matters for Christian communities today. This commentary belongs on the desk of everyone whose vocation is to preach and teach the gospel.” — RICHARD B. HAYS
Duke University
“Michael Gorman is that rare scholar of eminent distinction who is willing to read the Pauline letters as Christian scripture. His approach is ecumenically sensitive, appealing to what Protestants and Catholics hold in common. And his analysis reprises the great themes for which he is justly famous: participation, cruciformity, transformation, and mission.” — SCOTT HAHN
Franciscan University of Steubenville
“Michael Gorman’s commentary on Romans is an accessible and enriching journey into Paul’s most important letter. Gorman offers a cogent and compelling approach to the letter, full of great insights and details, in order to help pastors and students come to grips with Paul’s most famous text. This is Gorman at his exegetical best!” — MICHAEL F. BIRD
Ridley College, Melbourne
“As one expects from Michael Gorman, this commentary is theologically rich as well as spiritually inviting and edifying. It is accessible and practical yet well-informed. Aware of debates and engaging controversial questions, where necessary, Gorman remains characteristically generous and Christ-focused.” — CRAIG S. KEENER
978-0-8028-7762-8 • Jacketed Hardcover • 349 pages • $39.99 US $53.99 CAN • £32.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
Michael J. Gorman holds the Raymond E. Brown Chair in Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he has taught since 1991. A highly regarded New Testament scholar, he has also written Cruciformity, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, Becoming the Gospel, and Apostle of the Crucified Lord, among other significant works.
“This commentary is a splendid example of one of today’s leading Pauline scholars engaging Romans as Christian scripture. It offers an exceedingly clear and accessible participationist reading of Romans that is theologically, pastorally, and missionally insightful.”
— ANDY JOHNSON
Nazarene Theological Seminary
Asbury Theological Seminary
“Gorman christens Paul’s letter to the Romans ‘the epistle of life,’ a message of God’s saving grace that creates multicultural, cruciform communities in Christ. Gorman’s conversational style, accessible interpretations, and penetrating reflections unlock Paul’s message, inviting readers to participate in God’s missional work to pursue peace and justice in the church and among all peoples.” — LYNN H. COHICK
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Northern Seminary
“Michael Gorman reads Romans as a manifesto about participating in the life of God. The audience for this accessible commentary, like Paul’s original audience, is the community of believers, not just scholars. Since Gorman reads Romans as Christian scripture, we encounter the letter as a living document for the church today, and he leads us to encounter and embody God’s grace in Christ and through the Spirit.” — BEN C. BLACKWELL Houston Theological Seminary
The Letter to the Romans A Short Commentary
Frederick Dale Bruner 978-0-8028-7943-1
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Cruciformity Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross
Michael J. Gorman 978-0-8028-7912-7
Apostle of the Crucified Lord A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters
Michael J. Gorman 978-0-8028-7428-3
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THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMBINING SUPERIOR SCHOLARSHIP, AN EVANGELICAL VIEW OF SCRIPTURE
C O M M E N TA R I E S
The Book of Lamentations John Goldingay “Goldingay is one of my favorite commentators. He is an expert in getting in tune with the biblical book, he masters the scholarship, and he offers the reader a plain-spoken and sympathetic exposition. In his hands, Lamentations becomes a text for our times.”
“Goldingay offers a masterful analysis of the book of Lamentations—a fresh translation of this poetic masterpiece with thoughtful commentary and reflection that incorporate the latest biblical scholarship. This volume will be a valuable and timely resource for students, ministers, and scholars who will find it a joy to consult as they study Lamentations.”
— DAVID J. A. CLINES
University of Sheffield
— NANCY L. deCLAISSÉ-WALFORD
McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University
John Goldingay is the David Allan Hubbard Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous commentaries and books, including the NICOT commentary on the book of Jeremiah, Reading Jesus’s Bible: How the New Testament Helps Us Understand the Old Testament, and an original translation of the Old Testament entitled The First Testament. 978-0-8028-2542-1 • Jacketed Hardcover 248 pages • $40.00 US • $53.99 CAN £32.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah Hannah K. Harrington
“This is a timely must-read for scholars, practitioners, or those seeking to explore community crisis and renewal issues and the far-reaching consequences of Ezra-Nehemiah on modern concepts of Jerusalem’s status, purity, marriage, and societal reconstruction.”
— MIGNON R. JACOBS
Virginia Union University
“Hannah Harrington makes a significant contribution to the study of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah while offering pastors, lay readers, and academics alike an accessible commentary. Informed by extensive study, Harrington’s volume interacts with a wide range of scholarship and takes seriously the importance of the ancient historical context of Ezra and Nehemiah for interpretation.”
— PAUL S. EVANS
McMaster Divinity College
978-0-8028-2548-3 • Jacketed Hardcover 563 pages • $52.00 US $69.99 CAN £42.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
Hannah K. Harrington is professor of Old Testament at Patten University, Oakland, California. Along with her numerous articles on the Bible, Second Temple Judaism, and Christianity, Harrington’s other books include Holiness: Rabbinic Judaism and the Graeco-Roman World and The Purity and Sanctuary of the Body in Second Temple Judaism.
EERDMANS CLASSIC BIBLICAL COMMENTARIES
Collecting the best and most trusted Eerdmans commentaries from years gone by in a format that will keep them available to readers for years to come.
978-0-8028-8228-8 Paperback • 304 pages $35.00 US • $46.99 CAN £28.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah
The Book of Jeremiah
F. Charles Fensham
“Thompson’s Jeremiah rivals John Bright’s commentary as the best in English on Jeremiah. . . . His highly competent treatment lends itself to use by scholars and teachers as well as for sermon preparation and personal study.”
“This is a very useful commentary. The author’s scholarship provides a sound base. His bibliography is inclusive and up to date. He interacts with all important positions on major questions. His view is conservative and clearly reasoned. . . . A commendable work.” — BIBLIOTHECA SACRA
F. Charles Fensham (1925–1989) was professor of Semitic languages at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. The author of several books, including a commentary on Exodus, he also served as editor of the Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages.
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J. A. Thompson
— CHRISTIANITY TODAY
978-0-8028-8240-0 Paperback • 831 pages $50.00 US • $66.99 CAN £40.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
J. A. Thompson (1913–2002) was an Australian Old Testament scholar and biblical archaeologist who taught at the University of Melbourne and the Baptist Theological College of New South Wales.
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COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT AS THE WORD OF GOD, AND CONCERN FOR THE LIFE OF FAITH TODAY.
C O M M E N TA R I E S
The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapters 1–11 Bill T. Arnold
“The book of Deuteronomy can rightly be called a compendium of the most important ideas of the Old Testament.” So begins this commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, which Bill Arnold treats as the heart of the Torah and the fulcrum of the Old Testament—crystallizing the themes of the first four books of the Bible and establishing the theological foundation of the books that follow. After a thorough introduction that explores these and other matters, Arnold provides an original translation of the first eleven chapters of Deuteronomy along with verse-by-verse commentary (with the translation and commentary of the remaining chapters to follow in a second volume). As with the other entries in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Arnold remains rooted in the book’s historical context while focusing on its meaning and use as Christian scripture today. Ideal for pastors, students, scholars, and interested laypersons, this commentary is an authoritative yet accessible companion to the book of Deuteronomy. Bill T. Arnold is the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. At Asbury since 1995, he has served as vice president of academic affairs/provost, director of postgraduate studies, chair of the area of biblical studies, and director of Hebrew studies. One of the series editors of NICOT, Dr. Arnold is also the author of several other books, including Introduction to the Old Testament. 978-0-8028-2170-6 • Jacketed Hardcover • 720 pages • $60.00 US • $80.99 CAN • £48.99 UK AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2022
The Book of Numbers SECOND EDITION
Timothy R. Ashley This comprehensive and erudite commentary presents a thorough explication of the book of Numbers. Timothy Ashley’s introduction discusses such questions as structure, authorship, and theological themes, and it features an extended bibliography of major works on the book of Numbers. Then, dividing the text of Numbers into five major sections, Ashley’s commentary elucidates the theological themes of obedience and disobedience that run throughout the book. This second edition includes revisions that reflect Ashley’s decades of experience with the book of Numbers, as well as updates to the footnotes and bibliography that include many important works published in the last thirty years. Praise for the First Edition
“An excellent, well-informed treatment of an important and difficult book. . . . It holds many lessons for the pilgrim people of God.” — SOUTHWESTERN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
“A balanced and sensitive treatment. Highly recommended as a fresh and authoritative approach to this difficult but theologically rich Old Testament book.” — BIBLIOTHECA SACRA
Timothy R. Ashley is a retired minister and professor of biblical studies who taught at Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia, and Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Wisconsin. 978-0-8028-7202-9 • Jacketed Hardcover • 704 pages • $60.00 US • $80.99 CAN • £48.99 UK AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2022
OTHER RECENT NICOT TITLES The Book of Jeremiah John Goldingay 978-0-8028-7584-6 $75.00 US
The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah Thomas Renz 978-0-8028-2626-8 $56.00 US
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The Book of Amos M. Daniel Carroll R. 978-0-8028-2538-4 $52.00 US
The Second Book of Samuel
The Books of Haggai and Malachi
David Toshio Tsumura 978-0-8028-7096-4 $48.00 US
Mignon R. Jacobs 978-0-8028-2625-1 $48.00 US
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The Book of Zechariah Mark J. Boda 978-0-8028-2375-5 $58.00 US
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Romans Text, Readers, and the History of Interpretation Stephen Westerholm
C O M M E N TA R I E S
A wide-ranging study of the interpretation of Paul’s letter to the Romans throughout history, from Origen to Karl Barth. In anticipation of his Illuminations commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, Stephen Westerholm offers this extensive survey of the reception history of Romans. After two initial chapters discussing the letter’s textual history and its first readers in Rome (a discussion carried out in dialogue with the Paulwithin-Judaism stream of scholarship), Westerholm provides a thorough overview of over thirty of the most influential, noteworthy, and representative interpretations of Romans from nearly two thousand years of history. Interpreters surveyed include Origen, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Locke, Cotton Mather, John Wesley, and Karl Barth. Bearing in mind that Paul did not write for scholars, Westerholm includes in his study interpreters like Philipp Jakob Spener and Richard Baxter who addressed more popular audiences, as well as an appendix on a remarkable series of 372 sermons on Romans by beloved British preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones. A further aim of the book is to illustrate the impact of this New Testament letter on Christian thought, supporting Westerholm’s claim that “the history of the interpretation of Romans is, in important areas and to a remarkable extent, the history of Christian theology.”
978-0-8028-8221-9 • Jacketed Hardcover • 448 pages $49.99 US • $66.99 CAN • £40.99 UK
Stephen Westerholm is professor emeritus of early Christianity at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. His other books include Reading Sacred Scripture: Voices from the History of Biblical Interpretation (with Martin Westerholm), Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme, and Understanding Paul: The Early Christian Worldview of the Letter to the Romans.
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
EERDMANS CRITICAL COMMENTARY
The Gospel of Matthew Walter T. Wilson
A magisterial two-volume commentary that resituates the Gospel of Matthew in its first-century context.
978-0-8028-8181-6 • Jacketed Hardcover • 636 pages $45.00 US • $60.99 CAN • £36.99 UK AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2022
978-0-8028-8182-3 • Jacketed Hardcover • 612 pages $45.00 US • $60.99 CAN • £36.99 UK AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2022
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What was the original purpose of the Gospel of Matthew? For whom was it written? In these volumes of the Eerdmans Critical Commentary, Walter Wilson interprets Matthew as a catechetical work that expresses the ideological and institutional concerns of a faction of disaffected Jewish Jesus followers in the late first century CE. Wilson’s compelling thesis frames Matthew’s Gospel as not only a continuation of the biblical story but also a didactic narrative intended to help shape the commitments and identity of a particular group that saw itself as a beleaguered, dissident minority. Thus, the text clarifies Jesus’s essential Jewish character as the “Son of David” while also portraying him in opposition to prominent religious leaders of his day—most notably the Pharisees—and open to cordial association with non-Jews. Through meticulous engagement with the Greek text of the Gospel, as well as relevant primary sources and secondary literature, Wilson offers a wealth of insight into the first book of the New Testament for scholars, students, pastors, and interested laypersons. After an introduction exploring the background of the text, its genre and literary features, and its theological orientation, Wilson explicates each passage of the Gospel with thorough commentary on the intended message to first-century readers about topics like morality, liturgy, mission, group discipline, and eschatology. Readers interested in understanding what makes the Gospel of Matthew distinctive among the Synoptics will appreciate and benefit from Wilson’s deep contextualization of the text, informed by years of study of the New Testament and Christian origins. Walter T. Wilson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He is the author of Healing in the Gospel of Matthew: Reflections on Method and Ministry and the editor of New Testament Interpretation: A Practical Guide.
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Father Abraham’s Many Children The Bible in a World of Religious Difference Tyler D. Mayfield Foreword by Eboo Patel
The way we read the Bible matters for the way we engage the pluralistic world around us. For instance, if we understand the book of Genesis as narrowly focused on primary characters like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, we’ll miss the larger story and end up with the impression that God only cares about those who are “chosen.” In fact, the narratives of marginalized biblical characters reveal that God protects and provides for them also. What might this mean for Christians living in a world of religious difference today? In Father Abraham’s Many Children, Tyler Mayfield reflects on the stories of three of the most significant “other brothers” in the Bible—namely, on God’s continued engagement with Cain after he murders Abel, Ishmael’s circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant, and Esau’s reconciliation with Jacob. From these stories, Mayfield draws out a more generous theology of religious diversity, so that Christians might be better equipped to authentically love their neighbors of multiple faith traditions—as God loves, and has always loved, all humanity. “Tyler Mayfield offers an expansive translation and interpretation of three familiar sets of brothers—Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, and Esau and Jacob—particularly in terms of what it means to be ‘chosen.’ His bold premise is that the way we translate and view the forsaken brother in each duo, the one who is invisible and discounted in most interpretations, affects our ability to live in a religiously plural world, nation, and community and even our relationships at our own family tables. . . . While it’s not always easy or comfortable to go along with Mayfield, it’s definitely a journey worth taking. Wherever readers end up, they will have found plenty of food for thought along the way.” — CHRISTIAN CENTURY
“I love Tyler D. Mayfield’s book because he illuminates parallel parts of the Bible. In beautiful clear prose, he shows how the call and command of Christian scripture helps people connect being both faithful to the Bible and contributing citizens in a diverse nation and world.” — EBOO PATEL
from the foreword
“Through his rich and deep reading of the biblical stories of Cain, Ishmael, and Esau, Tyler Mayfield helps us see God, the Bible, our neighbors, and our neighbors’ religions differently. In today’s world, that’s a wonderful and needed accomplishment!” — BRIAN D. McLAREN
author of Faith after Doubt
“Religious pluralism is increasingly an unavoidable reality today, not only in how we see the world but also in how we experience our neighborhoods. As Christians are wrestling with these realities, many have assumed the ancient texts comprising their Bible have little to offer. Tyler Mayfield’s Father Abraham’s Many Children steps into this void with an accessible and creative approach that literally goes back to the beginning, to the book of Genesis, to uncover neglected stories of diversity that have been right in front of us all along.” — ROBERT P. JONES
978-0-8028-7945-5 • Paperback • 145 pages • $17.99 US • $23.99 CAN • £13.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Tyler D. Mayfield is the A. B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament and director of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. His other books include A Guide to Bible Basics and Unto Us a Child Is Born: Isaiah, Advent, and Our Jewish Neighbors.
O L D T E S TA M E N T & H E B R E W B I B L E
Rethinking Christian engagement with religious diversity through the stories of three marginalized characters in the book of Genesis.
“In a world in which incendiary antagonism toward other faiths is all too common, Mayfield invites Christians to engage religious pluralism with empathy and intelligence. The pastoral tone and searching discussion questions make this slim volume well-suited for those eager to examine inherited biases of Christianity and move toward a more audacious love of neighbor.”
— CAROLYN J. SHARP
author of Wrestling the Word: The Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Believer
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award-winning author and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute
“Mayfield brings stunning biblical scholarship to our most urgent work: to become Christian pluralists who love difference, as God surely does. By exploring the complexity of biblical narrative through marginalized figures we come to fresh awareness of those whom we have judged ‘less than’ and pushed to the margins today.” — KATHARINE RHODES HENDERSON
president of Auburn Seminary
“Lucid, innovative, and expansive. . . . An invaluable resource to those looking for a biblical basis for a new approach to religious pluralism.” — S. WESLEY ARIARA JAH
former director of the interfaith dialogue program of the World Council of Churches
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Unto Us a Child Is Born
Our Father Abraham
Sacred Misinterpretation
Isaiah, Advent, and Our Jewish Neighbors
Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith
Reaching across the Christian-Muslim Divide
Marvin R. Wilson 978-0-8028-7733-8
Martin Accad 978-0-8028-7414-6
Tyler D. Mayfield 978-0-8028-7398-9
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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
Warrior, King, Servant, Savior Messianism in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts Torleif Elgvin An exegetical and diachronic survey of messianic texts from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition up through the first millennium CE. Jewish messianism can be traced back to the emerging Kingdom of Judah in the tenth century BCE, when it was represented by the Davidic tradition and the promise of a future heir to David’s throne. From that point, it remained an important facet of Israelite faith, as evidenced by its frequent recurrence in the Hebrew Bible and other early Jewish texts. In preexilic texts, the expectation is for an earthly king—a son of David with certain ethical qualities—whereas from the exile onward there is a transition to a pluriform messianism, often with utopic traits. Warrior, King, Servant, Savior is an exegetical and diachronic study of messianism in these texts that maintains close dialogue with relevant historical research and archaeological insights. Internationally respected biblical scholar Torleif Elgvin recounts the development and impact of messianism, from ancient Israel through the Hasmonean era and the rabbinic period, with rich chapters exploring messianic expectations in the Northern Kingdom, postexilic Judah, and Qumran, among other contexts. For this multifaceted topic—of marked interest to Jews, Christians, and secular historians of religion alike—Elgvin’s handbook is the essential and definitive guide. “In his scholarly analysis that reads sometimes like a novel, Torleif Elgvin presents his account of the multifaceted figure of the Messiah in the Bible and many early Jewish texts. He delves into archaeology, history, and theology, and draws from literary and textual analyses of just about all the possible sources for this topic. He does so with the hand of a master who is expertly knowledgeable in all the texts, languages, and analytical skills.”
— EMANUEL TOV
God’s Righteousness and Justice in the Old Testament Jože Krašovec
Foreword by Craig G. Bartholomew
A semantic study of God’s righteousness and justice in the Hebrew Bible that opens up into exegetical, theological, and philosophical conclusions about the character of God and God’s relationship with humanity. God’s work of creation and salvation for the good of Israel, humanity, and the world manifests the nature of God’s being. Thus, if we can understand God’s characteristics of righteousness and justice, we can better understand God. In the Hebrew Bible, these aspects of God are not expressed by abstract concepts but by semantic elements within literary structures. From this premise, Jože Krašovec undertakes the present study to put semantics into dialogue with exegesis and theology to illuminate exactly how God’s righteousness and justice in the Old Testament should be understood. In the first part of the book, Krašovec analyzes occurrences of the Hebrew root sdq (meaning righteous) and other synonyms, working systematically through the entire Old Testament canon. In the second part, he builds off this lexical study with a more broadly exegetical, theological, and philosophical exploration of guilt, punishment, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Krašovec concludes, among other things, that the biblical writers use “righteousness” as an expression of God’s affection for faithful people, especially those in distress because of persecution. God’s righteousness therefore exists in the Hebrew Bible in relation to the righteousness of human individuals and communities. Justice—whether in the form of forgiveness for the penitent or punishment for those who have hardened their hearts against God—is always carried out with the goal of building better community among God’s people.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Torleif Elgvin is professor emeritus of biblical and Jewish studies at NLA University College, Oslo. With a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Elgvin has been involved in the official publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls since 1992. His other books include Gleanings from the Caves, a publication of scroll fragments and artifacts from the Judean Desert in the Oslo-based Schøyen Collection, and a ground-breaking book on the Song of Songs, The Literary Growth of the Song of Songs during the Hasmonean and Early-Herodian Periods.
Jože Krašovec is professor of biblical studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. A former president of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Krašovec is the author of numerous monographic studies and articles published in Slovene, English, German, French, and other languages. He also supervised two major new Slovenian translations of the Bible, first published in 1996 and 2021. 978-0-8028-8211-0 • Hardcover • 496 pages • $50.00 US • $67.99 CAN • £40.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
978-0-8028-7818-2 • Hardcover • 384 pages • $44.99 US • $60.99 CAN • £36.99 UK AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
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The Destruction of the Canaanites God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation Charlie Trimm
Suicide and Martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible Paul K.-K. Cho One particularly challenging aspect of the Hebrew Bible is its treatment of various forms of voluntary death: suicide, suicide attack, martyrdom, and self-sacrifice. How can people of faith make sense of the ways biblical literature at times valorizes these sensitive and painful topics? Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life surveys a diverse selection of Hebrew Bible narratives that feature characters who express a willingness to die, including Moses, Judah, Samson, Esther, Job, Daniel, and the “suffering servant” of Isaiah 53. The challenging truth uncovered is that the Hebrew Bible, while taking seriously the darker aspects of voluntary death, nevertheless time and again valorizes the willingness to die—particularly when it is for the sake of the group or in faithful commitment to God. Paul K.-K. Cho’s unflinching analysis raises and wrestles with provocative questions about religious extremism, violent terrorism, and suicidal ideation—all of which carry significant implications for the biblically grounded life of faith today. “In this splendidly argued, creative, learned, and readable volume, one of the preeminent biblical scholars of the younger generation offers striking new insights into no less momentous an issue than that of death and life in the Hebrew Bible. Buckle your seat belt: this book is likely to change your views on that issue and on a multitude of biblical texts in the process. Enthusiastically recommended!” — JON D. LEVENSON
An examination of the theological problem of divinely sanctioned violence in the Old Testament, with relevant background information and a survey of four different approaches to making sense of Israel’s destruction of the Canaanites. “Anyone who has read the Old Testament attentively knows that its pages perform many acts of brutalizing God-willed savagery. This linkage of God and violence is, on any reading, deeply problematic and troubling. Charlie Trimm has faced this issue honestly and without flinching, and he invites us to think again in ways that are both honest and faithful.”
O L D T E S TA M E N T & H E B R E W B I B L E
Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life
— WALTER BRUEGGEMANN
Columbia Theological Seminary
“Charlie Trimm takes some very difficult verses from the Old Testament and deals with them in an intellectually and theologically fair-minded way. He doesn’t tell readers how to think; he gives them different, competing views that allow them to think for themselves and to discuss with others. Too often Christians want to shut debates down; Charlie Trimm wants to elevate them, and in this book he does.” — PETER WEHNER
senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center contributor to the New York Times and the Atlantic
“Anyone who is disturbed by the violent depictions of God in Scripture (and how could any follower of Jesus not be?) will find much to chew on in this informative and engaging work.” — GREGORY A. BOYD
author of Inspired Imperfection: How the Bible’s Problems Enhance Its Divine Authority
Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School
Paul K.-K. Cho is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is also the author of Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible. For Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life, Cho was awarded the Louisville Institute’s first Book Grant for Scholars of Color. 978-0-8028-7541-9 • Paperback • 320 pages • $26.99 US • $35.99 CAN • £21.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
“Astutely lays the groundwork for a robust classroom discussion in which students can wrestle with the issues and develop their own approach to the problem of violence in the Old Testament.”
— CARMEN JOY IMES
Biola University
Charlie Trimm is associate professor of biblical and theological studies at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. 978-0-8028-7962-2 • Paperback • 127 pages • $14.99 US • $19.99 CAN • £11.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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THE WORLD OF THE BIBLE
Gods, Goddesses, and An Introduction to the Women Who Serve Early Judaism SECOND EDITION Them Susan Ackerman
James C. VanderKam
A wide-ranging study of women in ancient Israelite religion.
This accessible introduction to early Judaism surveys the history and literature of the Second Temple period, summarizes major archaeological discoveries, and describes the leadership positions, groups, and institutions of Judaism during this era. Now in its second edition, with additional material and updated throughout, this book remains the preeminent guide to early Judaism for anyone looking for a volume that is concise and accessible while still comprehensive—and written by one of the foremost experts in the field.
Susan Ackerman has spent her scholarly career researching underexamined aspects of the world of the Hebrew Bible—particularly those aspects pertaining to women. In this collection drawn from three decades of her work, she describes in fascinating detail the worship of goddesses in ancient Israel, the roles women played as priests and prophets, the cultic significance of queen mothers, and the Hebrew Bible’s accounts of women’s religious lives. Specific topics include: • the “Queen of Heaven,” a goddess whose worship was the object of censure in the book of Jeremiah • Asherah, the great Canaanite mother goddess for whom Judean women were described as weaving in the book of Kings • biblical figures considered as religious functionaries, such as Miriam, Deborah, and Zipporah • the lack of women priests in ancient Israel explored against the prevalence of priestesses in the larger ancient Near Eastern world • the cultic significance of queen mothers in Israel and throughout the ancient Near East • Israelite women’s participation in the cult of Yahweh and in the cults of various goddesses Susan Ackerman is the Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion and professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Women and the Religion of Ancient Israel; When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David; Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel; and Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah. 978-0-8028-7956-1 • Jacketed Hardcover • 304 pages $59.99 US • $80.99 CAN • £48.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
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“The second edition of James VanderKam’s Introduction to Early Judaism undoubtedly will enhance the impact of his first edition. His emphasis on archaeological discoveries and inclusion of more ancient literature are welcome additions, and the overall readability and organization of this work still makes it the most comprehensive and useful introduction to Second Temple studies.” — PATRICIA D. AHEARNE-KROLL
University of Minnesota
“VanderKam’s Introduction to Early Judaism is a standard in the field—a wide-ranging, popular, informative, and accessible volume. A newly revised and expanded edition of it is a welcome addition, for students and teachers alike.” — MATTHEW GOFF
Ancient Wisdom An Introduction to Sayings Collections Walter T. Wilson A survey of all major extant collections of wisdom sayings from antiquity across the Near East and the Greco-Roman world. “At a time when there is lively debate about the category ‘wisdom literature,’ Walter Wilson expands the debate by putting proverbial and gnomic texts of the Jewish and Christian traditions in conversation with a wide corpus of Greco-Roman and Near Eastern sayings collections. While he does not simply repeat traditional categorizations, he shows that there is much to be gained by a generic approach to wisdom literature, especially when it is informed by all the relevant comparative material from the ancient world.” — JOHN J. COLLINS
Yale University
“This wide-ranging volume offers students at all levels an authoritative guide to a complex and fascinating genre. It will become an indispensable companion for anyone interested in ancient wisdom literature and its social context.”
— TERESA MORGAN
University of Oxford
“Walter T. Wilson introduces readers to the world of intellectual elites who wrote or collected gnomic sayings long ago: their ideals, their aspirations, their realities, their fears. Anyone who values ancient wisdom will treasure this analysis focusing on the origin, themes, structure, and style of texts spanning millennia.”
— JAMES L. CRENSHAW
Florida State University
James C. VanderKam is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. Among his many other books are The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, and the two-volume commentary on the book of Jubilees in the Hermeneia series. He also served as an editor for thirteen volumes in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series and was editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature from 2006 to 2012.
Duke University
Walter T. Wilson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. His other books include a critical edition of The Sentences of Sextus and a commentary on Philo of Alexandria’s On Virtues. 978-0-8028-7543-3 • Jacketed Hardcover • 335 pages $34.99 US • $46.99 CAN • £28.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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BIBLICAL STUDIES
The Mind in Another Place
How We Read the Bible
My Life as a Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson
A Guide to Scripture’s Style and Meaning Karolien Vermeulen and Elizabeth R. Hayes
The memoir of one of the best-known and most influential New Testament scholars of recent decades—with reflections on the scholarly life and how it has changed over the years. “It is so important for biblical scholars to give an account of their own formation—the social, racial, and educational contexts that led to their work. This is what we find, in accessible prose, in Luke Timothy Johnson’s memoir. Readers will find a rich resource for studying the historical context of New Testament studies in the United States in the mid-twentieth century to the turn of the twenty-first century.”
— LAURA SALAH NASRALLAH
Yale Divinity School
“Biblical scholars rarely write books of the ‘I couldn’t put it down’ variety. But Johnson has done so. It is entertaining. It is informative (documenting, among other things, a field’s changes over the last half century). And it is wise, above all regarding the moral and intellectual virtues. If you aspire to be a historian of early Christianity or an exegete of its texts and cannot find yourself in this book, you need to pursue another line of work.”
— DALE C. ALLISON JR.
Through accessible explanations of twelve key stylistic elements that have been central to biblical scholarship in recent decades, How We Read the Bible provides all who study Scripture with the tools to understand what happens when we read and draw meaning from biblical texts. Rather than problematizing the divide between authors from the ancient world and a modernday audience, Karolien Vermeulen and Elizabeth Hayes bridge the gap by utilizing recent research on language and the mind to explore the interaction between the cues of the text and the context of the reader. With numerous examples from the Old and New Testaments and helpful suggestions for further study, How We Read the Bible can be used within any framework of biblical study—historical, theological, literary, and others—as a pathway to meeting Scripture on its own terms. “Reading the Bible is anything but straightforward. In this marvelous little book, focusing on both the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament, the two authors share many insights concerning the language and literary conventions of the Bible. As a result, anyone who reads it will become a more careful, accurate, and sophisticated Bible reader.” — MARC ZVI BRETTLER
Duke University
Princeton Theological Seminary
“Memories of another America, a monastic and seminary culture long gone, and even universities themselves could be a cabinet of curiosities. Not as Johnson tells it. The Mind in Another Place takes readers into the ‘passionate detachment’ of a life devoted to what the author admits is scholarship with a contrarian streak. A great read for anyone discerning if scholarship is the Mount Everest to climb.” — PHEME PERKINS
“How We Read the Bible is an accessible introduction to reading Scripture with help from cognitive stylistics. Vermeulen and Hayes welcome the reader to consider how they read the Bible by shedding light on the experience of reading itself. In the process, they have gifted their readers with a lucid and approachable handbook that provides plenty of diagrams, examples, and case studies. I highly recommend this book.”
— JEANNINE K. BROWN
Boston College
Luke Timothy Johnson is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. 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; The Writings of the New Testament; and the two-volume work The Canonical Paul.
Bethel Seminary
Karolien Vermeulen is FWO (Research Foundation—Flanders) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp. Elizabeth R. Hayes is affiliate assistant professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. 978-0-8028-7809-0 • Paperback • 208 pages • $24.99 US • $33.99 CAN • £19.99 UK
978-0-8028-8011-6 • Jacketed Hardcover • 278 pages • $27.99 US • $37.99 CAN • £21.99 UK
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BIBLICAL STUDIES
The Word of a Humble God
The Bible in the Early Church
The Origins, Inspiration, and Interpretation of Scripture Karen R. Keen
Justo L. González A concise history of the Bible: its creation, use, and interpretation.
Foreword by Michael Graves
In this book, celebrated church historian Justo González provides an overview of the composition and use of the Bible in the early church. He then briefly surveys the interpretation of the Bible throughout the ensuing centuries, giving readers a holistic sense of the Bible’s emergence as the keystone of Christian life, from its beginnings to present times.
“Scripture is a spring of life-giving, life-altering truth, but when we don’t understand how and why it came to us, we end up misusing it.” How did we get the Bible? And why does it matter? History reveals that Scripture can be used for both life-giving and destructive purposes. Discovering the Bible’s origins makes all the difference for fostering redemptive interpretation of Scripture. Bringing together both historical criticism and theology, this investigation examines ancient scribal culture through the lens of faith. What we find is a divine-human collaboration that points to the character of God and the value of human agency. In a concise presentation of a breadth of scholarship usually only found across multiple volumes, Karen Keen offers a vital introduction to the material origins of the Bible, theories of inspiration, and the history of biblical interpretation—with reflections on what this all means for us as we read Scripture today. Through the ins and outs of these important topics, and with the aid of thought-provoking questions and learning activities at the end of each chapter, Keen argues that the Bible and its origins reveal a humble God who invites us to imitate that humility—a humility that is itself the most powerful antidote to the misinterpretation and abuse of Scripture.
“González wears his considerable erudition lightly and shares it with readers all along the way. . . . The result is a short work ideally suited for classrooms, whether in congregations or seminaries, but equally suited to anyone interested in the development of the Bible within the context of Christianity’s earliest days.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“This is the best introduction to the Bible in the early church currently available. . . . Both conversational and dependable, hallmarks of González’s scholarship over the decades.”
— PETER W. MARTENS
professor of early Christianity at Saint Louis University
“Finally. A book on the Bible in early Christianity that answers the important questions that everyone asks and does it in a way that everyone will want to read. This is González at his best.”
— D. JEFFREY BINGHAM
professor of historical theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Michael Graves Introduction
Part One: The Making of the Bible 1. Context: People, Places, and Times 2. A Community Project 3. Dynamic, Not Static 4. Bible Variety and Canonization
Part Two: Inspiration
5. God and People Working Together 6. Inspiration and the Humility of God 7. Does God Speak Literally?
Part Three: Interpretation
8. Interpretive Variety 9. Beyond Chronological Snobbery 10. Who You Are Matters 11. Learning Humility Together
Karen R. Keen (ThM, Duke Divinity School) is a biblical scholar, author, and spiritual care provider who has taught biblical and theological studies in both academic and church settings. She currently teaches classes and leads retreats through the Redwood Center for Spiritual Care and Education. 978-0-8028-7869-4 • Paperback • 240 pages • $20.00 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
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“Reading The Bible in the Early Church is like being transported across time to experience Scripture the way the first believers would have encountered it. . . . This book is a wonderful introductory resource that fosters gratitude for the generations that preserved and passed down the Bible to us.”
— KAREN R. KEEN
founder of the Redwood Center for Spiritual Care and Education, Garland, Texas
“Justo L. González has gifted us in The Bible in the Early Church with a very personal, clear, and erudite introduction to the writing, use, and transmission of the biblical text for the life of the church.”
— ALBERTO L. GARCÍA
professor emeritus of theology at Concordia University Wisconsin
Justo L. González is a retired United Methodist minister and professor of historical theology. His more than one hundred books include The Story of Christianity, A History of Christian Thought, Teach Us to Pray, Knowing Our Faith, and A Brief History of Sunday. 978-0-8028-8174-8 • Paperback • 204 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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Helen Rhee
What did pain and illness mean to early Christians? And how did their approaches to health care compare to those of the ancient Greco-Roman world? In this wide-ranging interdisciplinary study, Helen Rhee examines the ways that early Christians viewed illness, pain, and health care—and how they were influenced both by their own tradition and by the milieu of the larger ancient world. Throughout the book, Rhee places the history of medicine, Greco-Roman literature, and ancient philosophy in fruitful dialogue with early Christian literature and theology to show the nuanced ways Christians understood, appropriated, and reformulated Roman and Byzantine conceptions of health and wholeness from the second through sixth centuries CE. Utilizing the contemporary field of medical anthropology, Rhee engages illness, pain, and health care as sociocultural matters. Through this and other methodologies, she explores the theological meanings attributed to illness and pain; the religious status of those suffering from these and other afflictions; and the methods, systems, and rituals that Christian individuals, churches, and monasteries devised to care for those who suffered. Rhee’s findings ultimately provide an illuminating glimpse into an instrumental way that Christians began shaping a distinct identity—both as part of and apart from their Greco-Roman world. Helen Rhee is professor of the history of Christianity at Westmont College. She is the author of Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity; Loving the Poor, Saving the Rich: Wealth, Poverty, and Early Christian Formation; and Early Christian Literature: Christ and Culture in the Second and Third Centuries. Rhee is also the ordained minister at Free Methodist Church of Santa Barbara, California. 978-0-8028-7684-3 • Jacketed Hardcover • 360 pages • $49.99 US • $66.99 CAN • £40.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
The Jesus Handbook
Edited by Jens Schröter and Christine Jacobi Translated by Robert L. Brawley Foreword by Dale C. Allison Jr.
An authoritative collection of first-rate scholarship on Jesus, his world, the outcomes of his life, and the quest to locate him in history. The Jesus Handbook is an indispensable reference work featuring essays from a team of renowned international scholars on the significance and meaning of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Rooted in historical-critical methodology, it emphasizes a diversity of perspectives and provides a spectrum of possible interpretations rather than a single unified portrait of Jesus. After an introduction that lays out the considerations of the task at hand, the authors survey the history of Jesus research and take a close look at the historical material itself—textual and otherwise. From this foundation, the Handbook then details the life of Jesus as best it can be known, before at last exploring the reception and effects of Jesus’s life after his death, especially in the first centuries CE.
N E W T E S T A M E N T & E A R LY C H R I S T I A N I T Y
Illness, Pain, and Health Care in Early Christianity
CONTRIBUTORS
Sven-Olav Back, Knut Backhaus, Reinhard von Bendemann, Albrecht Beutel, Darrell L. Bock, Martina Böhm, Cilliers Breytenbach, James G. Crossley, Lutz Doering, Martin Ebner, Craig Evans, Jörg Frey, Yair Furstenberg, Christine Gerber, Katharina Heyden, Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, Stephen Hultgren, Christine Jacobi, Jeremiah J. Johnston, Thomas Kazen, Chris Keith, John S. Kloppenborg, Bernd Kollmann, Michael Labahn, Hermut Löhr, Tobias Nicklas, Markus Öhler, Martin Ohst, Karl-Heinrich Ostmeyer, James Carleton Paget, Rachel Schär, Eckart David Schmidt, Daniel R. Schwartz, Markus Tiwald, David du Toit, Joseph Verheyden, Samuel Vollenweider, Ulrich Volp, Annette Weissenrieder, Michael Wolter, Jürgen K. Zangenberg, Christiane Zimmermann, and Ruben Zimmermann. Jens Schröter is professor of New Testament and ancient Christian apocrypha at Humboldt University of Berlin. Christine Jacobi is visiting professor of New Testament and ancient Christian apocrypha at Humboldt University of Berlin. 978-0-8028-7692-8 • Jacketed Hardcover • 720 pages • $74.99 US • $100.99 CAN • £60.99 UK AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2022
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N E W T E S T A M E N T & E A R LY C H R I S T I A N I T Y
Paul, Then and Now
The Apostle and the Empire
Matthew V. Novenson
Matthew Novenson has become a leading voice advocating for the continuing relevance of historical-critical readings of Paul even as some New Testament scholars have turned to purely theological or political approaches. In this collection of a decade’s worth of essays, Novenson puts contextual understandings of Paul’s letters into conversation with their Christian reception history, reckoning with the hermeneutical struggle to make sense of Paul as both a historical figure and a canonical muse. “Matthew Novenson has emerged as a leading Pauline scholar, and this fine collection of his essays indicates why. Through careful analysis of the sources, he insists on placing Paul honestly in the historical past, in all its strangeness from our point of view. But he has also thought deeply and clearly about the hermeneutical responsibility we undertake if we wish to activate Paul’s voice today. Lively, provocative, and self-aware, these essays are a rich resource for all who study Paul.” — JOHN M. G. BARCLAY
Durham University
“This fine collection of essays takes up a number of important issues in Pauline studies and displays at every turn Matthew Novenson’s remarkable capacity for astute questions and gracious engagement with the work of others. The results are insightful and instructive. This is must-reading for Pauline specialists.” — BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA
Princeton Theological Seminary
“In this very interesting book, Novenson pursues his primary interest in the original historical situations of the Pauline letters and their meaning in those contexts. At the same time, he studies other, later readings to clarify the differences between them and what the apostle was up to. This is a fascinating and original approach, and its fruits are worth considering seriously.”
Paul’s Implicit and Explicit Criticism of Rome Christoph Heilig Foreword by John M. G. Barclay
Was Paul silent on the injustices of the Roman Empire? Or have his letters just been misread? The existence of anti-imperial rhetoric in the writing of the apostle Paul has come under greater scrutiny in recent years. Pressing questions about just how much Paul actually addressed Rome in his letters and how publicly critical he could have afforded to be have led to high-profile debates—most notably between N. T. Wright and John M. G. Barclay. After having entered the conversation in 2015 with his book Hidden Criticism?, Christoph Heilig contributes further insight and new research in The Apostle and the Empire to argue that the case for Paul hiding his criticism of Rome in the subtext of his letters has more merit than previously claimed by scholars like Barclay. Moreover, he argues that there are also passages that contain more open denouncements of the Roman Empire that scholars have previously overlooked—for instance, in the mention of a “triumphal procession” in 2 Corinthians, which Heilig discusses in great detail by drawing on a variety of archaeological data. Heilig’s groundbreaking work constitutes a must-read for Pauline scholars but also for anyone interested in the intersection of Christianity and empire and how one of the Christian tradition’s most important teachers communicated his unease with the global superpower of his day. Furthermore, Heilig takes on larger issues of theory and methodology in biblical studies, raising significant questions about how interpreters can move beyond outdated methods of reading the New Testament toward more robust understandings of the ways ancient texts convey meaning.
— ADELA YARBRO COLLINS
Yale Divinity School
Matthew V. Novenson is senior lecturer in New Testament and Christian origins at the University of Edinburgh, where he is also director of the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins. He is the author of Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism and The Grammar of Messianism: An Ancient Jewish Political Idiom and Its Users and editor of Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity.
Christoph Heilig is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He has studied theology and biblical studies in Germany and Scotland and received a doctorate from the University of Zurich. His other publications include Paul’s Triumph: Reassessing 2 Corinthians 2:14 in Its Literary and Historical Context, Hidden Criticism? The Methodology and Plausibility of the Search for a Counter-Imperial Subtext in Paul, and God and the Faithfulness of Paul, which he coedited with J. Thomas Hewitt and Michael F. Bird. 978-0-8028-8223-3 • Jacketed Hardcover • 208 pages • $29.99 US • $39.99 CAN • £23.99 UK
978-0-8028-8171-7 • Jacketed Hardcover • 264 pages • $44.00 US • $58.99 CAN • £35.99 UK
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The Word of the Cross Reading Paul Jonathan A. Linebaugh Foreword by John M. G. Barclay
This collection of Jonathan Linebaugh’s most important work on Paul explores the merciful surprise at the heart of Paul’s gospel: a grace that, while strange and weak in worldly terms, is nothing less than the power of God, full of comfort and promise. Through twelve essays—two of them new—Linebaugh contextualizes and interprets key Pauline passages, does comparative readings of Paul in conversation with early Jewish texts, and enters into dialogue with Reformation theologians such as Martin Luther and Thomas Cranmer. Thorough and multifaceted, Linebaugh’s work is at once exegetical, historical, and theological in scope. Accordingly, The Word of the Cross is a rigorous scholarly enterprise that takes seriously Paul’s claim that the good news of Jesus Christ, despite appearing scandalous and foolish, in fact contradicts and overcomes the conditions of the possible through the power of God. “Those who have read or heard the scholarly work of Jonathan Linebaugh will know his trademark qualities: incisive analysis of texts, arresting turns of phrase, and a deep resonance with the theology of Paul. . . . There are few people today who can trace the contours of Paul’s theology with such sensitivity or utilize the history of theological interpretation with such creativity, and I am confident that everyone will come away from reading this book both enriched and provoked to think harder about the theology of Paul.”
— JOHN M. G. BARCLAY
from the foreword
“There are books of biblical scholarship that are learned, knowledge- and discussionadvancing, even important. Then there are a handful that won’t leave you alone, like a plangent tune or a poem whose images keep needling you: books that are learned but also insightful and humane, wisdom-deepening and conversation-altering; books that are not just important but also vital and enlivening. This is such a book. It is deeply conversant with the best of historic and contemporary Pauline scholarship; it features ground-breaking exegetical, comparative, and reception-historical work; and it is utterly memorable in its summons for scholars—and preachers—to hear afresh the heart of Paul’s good news as it shudders to an end for us at and on the cross.” — WESLEY HILL
Western Theological Seminary
“Underneath Jonathan Linebaugh’s remarkable gifts as a reader and a writer lies a profound capacity for genuine conversation. Here he places the letters of Paul in conversation with voices as divergent as the Wisdom of Solomon, Thomas Cranmer, Miguel de Cervantes, and George Eliot. The results illuminate, instruct, and edify. Those determined to restrict Paul to a corner of the first century need to stay away from this compelling interpreter, who shows on every page that the word of the cross persists as ‘merciful surprise.’”
978-0-8028-8167-0 • Jacketed Hardcover • 292 pages • $45.00 US • $60.99 CAN £36.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
Jonathan A. Linebaugh is associate professor of New Testament theology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is the author of God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans; editor of God’s Two Words: Law and Gospel in the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions; and the coeditor, with Michael Allen, of Reformation Readings of Paul: Explorations in History and Exegesis.
“This is a passionate and erudite exposition of Paul’s gospel. Biblical scholars and theologians will find brilliant exegesis that is deeply engaged both with Paul’s first-century Jewish context and with the history of interpretation. That alone makes this book well worth reading. But there is so much more. For those who long to hear the clarion call of Paul’s good news, here is hope in the midst of despair, courage for the faithless, the surprise of God’s scandalous grace for all—in short, the word of the cross.”
— SUSAN EASTMAN
— BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA
Duke Divinity School
Princeton Theological Seminary
“An outstanding set of studies that are not just about Paul but fresh articulations of Paul’s testimony to God’s revelation in Christ. Linebaugh navigates a remarkable range of literature—ancient, early modern, and contemporary—in the service of elucidating what is ‘of first importance.’ In short, these essays should be read by anyone interested in Paul.”
N E W T E S T A M E N T & E A R LY C H R I S T I A N I T Y
A collection of exegetical, historical, and theological essays on Paul’s letters, including reception history and comparative readings in conversation with other texts.
RELATED TITLES
— SIMON GATHERCOLE
University of Cambridge
“No matter how many times you have read Paul’s letters, this book will teach you something about their purpose. A careful exegete and astute theologian, Jonathan Linebaugh offers something rare in scholarship. He goes beyond purely historical or linguistic analyses of Paul to convey the essential shape of Paul’s theology. Clearly and often beautifully written, The Word of the Cross gives readers new appreciation for Paul’s answers to profound theological questions.” — SUSAN E. HYLEN
God’s Two Words
Law and Gospel in the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions
Jonathan A. Linebaugh 978-0-8028-7475-7
Reading Paul with the Reformers
Reconciling Old and New Perspectives
Stephen J. Chester 978-0-8028-4836-9
Paul and the Gift John M. G. Barclay 978-0-8028-7532-7
Candler School of Theology, Emory University
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N E W T E S T A M E N T & E A R LY C H R I S T I A N I T Y
Race and Rhyme
Women and the Gender of God Amy Peeler
Rereading the New Testament Love Lazarus Sechrest A leading womanist biblical scholar reads passages from the New Testament in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice. In Race and Rhyme, Love Sechrest utilizes her cultural experience and her perspective as a Black woman interpreter to draw out resonances between select New Testament passages and contemporary topics such as antiracist allyship, cultural assimilation, gendered stereotypes, the experience of Black women and girls in the American criminal justice system, group identity, privilege, coalition-building among diverse groups, and government’s role in providing social welfare. Through these creative and illuminating connections, Sechrest offers a rich bounty of new insights from Scripture—drawing out matters of justice and human dignity that spoke to early Christians and can speak still to Christians willing to listen today. Topics explored include: • antiracist allyship and Jesus’s interaction with marginalized individuals in the Gospel of Matthew • cultural assimilation and Jesus’s teachings about family and acceptance in the Gospel of Luke • gendered stereotypes and the story of the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John • the experience of Black women and girls in the American criminal justice system and the woman accused of adultery in the Gospel of John • group identity and the incorporation of Gentiles into the early Jesus movement in Acts • privilege and Paul’s claims to apostolic authority in 2 Corinthians • coalition-building between diverse groups and the discussion of unity in Ephesians • government’s role in providing social welfare and early Christians’ relationship to the Roman Empire in Romans and Revelation Love Lazarus Sechrest is vice president for academic affairs, dean of faculty, and associate professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. She is the author of A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race and Can “White” People Be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission.
A theological argument against the misogynistic heresy that God is male and an affirmation of the truth that God values women, supported by a deep reading of the New Testament incarnation narratives and other relevant biblical texts. God values women. While many Christians would readily affirm this truth, the widely held assumption that the Bible depicts a male God persists—as it has for centuries. This misperception of Christianity not only perniciously implies that men deserve an elevated place over women but also compromises the glory of God by making God appear to be part of creation, subject to it and its categories, rather than in transcendence of it. Through a deep reading of the incarnation narratives of the New Testament and other relevant scriptural texts, Amy Peeler shows how the Bible depicts a God beyond gender and a savior who, while embodied as a man, is the unification in one person of the image of God that resides in both male and female. Peeler begins with a study of Mary and her response to the annunciation, through which it becomes clear that God empowers women and honors their agency. Then Peeler describes from a theological standpoint how the virgin birth of Jesus—the second Adam—reverses the gendered division enacted in the garden of Eden. While acknowledging the significance of the Bible’s frequent use of “Father” language to represent God as a caring parent, Peeler goes beneath the surface of this metaphor to show how God is never sexualized by biblical writers or described as being physically involved in procreation—making the concept of a masculine God dubious, at best. From these doctrinal centers of Christianity, Peeler leads the way in reasserting the value of women in the church and prophetically speaking out against the destructive idolatry of masculinity. Amy Peeler is associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and associate rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Geneva, Illinois. She is the author of You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the coauthor, with Patrick Gray, of Hebrews: An Introduction and Study Guide. 978-0-8028-7909-7 • Paperback • 300 pages • $24.99 US • $33.99 CAN • £19.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
978-0-8028-6713-1 • Jacketed Hardcover • 400 pages • $39.99 US • $53.99 CAN • £32.99 UK AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
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The Gospel and the Gospels
Francis Watson
The compelling case for viewing early gospel literature as a unified genre that transcends conventional categories of canonical, noncanonical, and heretical. “In Gospel Writing Francis Watson brought us a deeply impressive work that has been described by reviewers as everything from ‘energetic’ and ‘wide-ranging’ to ‘brilliant’ and ‘breath-taking.’ Now we have its sequel, What Is a Gospel? And once again Watson’s impressive facility with the wider corpus of ancient Christian texts, his integrative creativity, and his sensitivity to meta-questions sparkle. Readers are in for some surprises relating to the ‘quest’ for the historical Jesus, the death of Judas, the currency of patristic consensuses, and much more besides. This is a book to celebrate!” — CHRIS TILLING
St. Mellitus College
“What happens when the ‘gospel genre’ is opened to an eclectic array of literary products ascribed to apostles (or their close associates) that focus on Jesus and his authoritative role—and when study of that literature is approached from historical and hermeneutical perspectives on ongoing processes of gospel traditioning, writing, and rewriting? This wide-ranging collection of essays, comprising a sequel to Francis Watson’s iconoclastic Gospel Writing, provocatively poses and responds to this question in ways that are sure to encourage, and shape, further discussion.” — JOEL B. GREEN
Fuller Theological Seminary
“This insightful and engaging monograph represents a much-welcomed challenge to the field. Watson takes little for granted and presents new points of departure in our analyses of ‘gospels’ both within and outside of the canon. Systematic, sharp, and bold in its conclusions, What Is a Gospel? will foster debate while remaining a rich resource for generations to come.” — ROBYN FAITH WALSH
Christian Proclamation and Early Jesus Books Simon Gathercole A robust scholarly defense of the distinctiveness of the canonical Gospels. Is there anything that makes the four New Testament Gospels different from other early Christian Gospels? The tendency among biblical scholars of late has been to declare the answer to this question no—that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were grouped together by happenstance and are defended as canonical today despite there being no essential commonalities between them. Simon Gathercole challenges this prevailing view and argues that there are in fact substantial differences of theological content between the New Testament Gospels and noncanonical Gospels. Gathercole shows how the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each include four key points that also formed the core of early Christian preaching and teaching: Jesus’s identity as messiah, the saving death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and Scripture’s foretelling of the Christ event. In contrast, most noncanonical Gospels—like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and Marcion’s Gospel—only selectively appropriated these central concerns of early Christian proclamation. “This is a book with a bold thesis. It argues that the four Gospels of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are theologically distinctive from other early Christian Gospels in that they alone present the full message of Jesus’s teaching, death, and resurrection, which are elements that are understood to be central to salvation. The case is prosecuted with great care, and all the relevant sources are meticulous sifted. The book’s argument will be hotly debated, and it must be read by anybody with a serious interest in the gospels and the message of Jesus.” — PAUL FOSTER
University of Miami
“Provocative, original, and elegantly written, What Is a Gospel? is a wide-ranging contribution to scholarly discussion about canonical and non-canonical gospels. It is full of new insights on old questions across the whole field of early Christian gospels. Vintage Watson!”
— SIMON GATHERCOLE
University of Cambridge
Francis Watson is professor of New Testament at Durham University, England. His other books include Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective and The Fourfold Gospel: A Theological Reading of the New Testament Portraits of Jesus.
N E W T E S T A M E N T & E A R LY C H R I S T I A N I T Y
What Is a Gospel?
University of Edinburgh
Simon Gathercole is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Cambridge, where he is also the director of studies in theology at Fitzwilliam College. He is editor of New Testament Studies, coeditor of Early Christianity, and a contributor to numerous publications, including Christianity Today and the Guardian. His other books include The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; What Did the Cross Accomplish? A Conversation about the Atonement, which he coauthored with N. T. Wright and Robert B. Stewart; and a translation of the apocryphal gospels for Penguin Classics.
978-0-8028-7292-0 • Jacketed Hardcover • 353 pages • $49.00 US • $65.99 CAN • £39.99 UK 978-0-8028-7759-8 • Jacketed Hardcover • 608 pages • $55.99 US • $75.99 CAN • £45.99 UK
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LANGUAGES
EERDMANS LANGUAGE RESOURCES
A Reader in Biblical Greek Richard A. Wright
A graduated reader of biblical Koine Greek for students, clergy, and scholars who have completed at least one year of Greek studies. This intermediate reader is for students, clergy, and scholars who have completed at least one year of Greek instruction and want to build reading proficiency. Through twenty-nine texts from the New Testament, the Septuagint, and noncanonical early Christian writings, readers will be exposed to a variety of different genres and authors while still being given enough content from each individual author to become acquainted with that author’s individual style. Notes within each selection gloss low-frequency words and clarify syntactical intricacies, and each new section of texts gradually increases in its level of difficulty, so that lessons can be worked through sequentially or as stand-alone exercises, as needed. Wright’s selections are all texts that Christians in the fourth century CE would have read, with intertextual connections between them that will stimulate discussion and reflection on the development of important ideas in the early church. Thus, this useful resource encourages progress both in Koine reading proficiency and in knowledge of Christian tradition. Richard A. Wright is professor of New Testament in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, where he teaches courses on the languages and literature connected with the study of the New Testament in its cultural context. His scholarship explores the intersection of the New Testament and early church with Greco-Roman philosophies and religions. 978-0-8028-7924-0 • Paperback • 248 pages • $24.99 US • $33.99 CAN • £19.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
A Greek Reader Companion to A Primer of Biblical Greek Mark Jeong A companion resource for use with N. Clayton Croy’s Primer of Biblical Greek, featuring dozens of simple, enjoyable narratives to reinforce the content and skills introduced by Croy.
“When I’m teaching New Testament Greek, I am always searching for resources that will invite my students to immerse themselves in the language and not just memorize a pile of vocabulary cards as a weekly obligation. Mark Jeong’s Greek Reader is an ideal companion in the teaching of Greek because it invites students into a world of narrative and delight that just happens to teach grammar and syntax along the way. I will be assigning this book every time I teach Greek from now on.” — ERIC D. BARRETO
Princeton Theological Seminary
“What a welcome and necessary addition to the repertoire of tools for Greek teachers! Students often struggle early on to read well because they read in small chunks and from the biblical text they already know. Jeong provides digestible and intriguing conversations and stories that track with students’ deductive learning, and, because the text is fresh, these passages provide a true assessment of the student’s understanding. I look forward to using and recommending this book.” — AMY PEELER
Wheaton College
Mark Jeong is an instructor of Hellenistic Greek and a doctoral student in New Testament at Duke Divinity School. He has published articles on the New Testament in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament and New Testament Studies. 978-0-8028-7991-2 • Paperback • 192 pages • $19.00 US • $25.99 CAN • £14.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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ALSO AVAILABLE
ALSO AVAILABLE
A Grammar of New Testament Greek
A Primer of Biblical Greek
Rodney A. Whitacre
N. Clayton Croy
78-0-8028-7927-1 • Hardcover • 522 pages • $49.99 US $66.99 CAN • £40.99 UK
978-0-8028-6733-9 • Paperback • 282 pages • $30.00 US $39.99 CAN • £23.99 UK
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Freedom and Sin
Seeing God
The Self-Emptying of Christ in Scripture and Theology Edited by Paul T. Nimmo and Keith L. Johnson
Evil in a World Created by God Ross McCullough
The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition Hans Boersma
Foreword by John E. Hare
Foreword by Andrew Louth
A fresh argument for a venerable but recently neglected solution to the problem of human freedom and divine sovereignty.
Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award in Theology/Ethics.
Seventeen distinguished scholars from the fields of biblical studies, historical theology, and systematic theology engage with the past and present significance of the doctrine of kenosis—Paul’s extraordinary claim in Philippians 2 that Jesus Christ emptied and humbled himself in obedience on his way to death upon the cross. CONTRIBUTORS
John M. G. Barclay, Matthew J. Aragon Bruce, David Fergusson, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Kevin W. Hector, Keith L. Johnson, Cambria Kaltwasser, Han-luen Kantzer Komline, Grant Macaskill, John A. McGuckin, Paul T. Nimmo, Georg Pfleiderer, Rinse H. Reeling Brouwer, Hanna Reichel, Christoph Schwöbel, Katherine Sonderegger, and Thomas Joseph White. Paul T. Nimmo holds the King’s Chair of Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen. His many other books include Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision, which won a 2009 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise. Keith L. Johnson is professor of theology at Wheaton College, where he is also the codirector of the Wheaton Center for Faith and Innovation. His other books include Theology as Discipleship and The Essential Karl Barth: A Reader and Commentary. 978-0-8028-7920-2 • Jacketed Hardcover • 368 pages $65.00 US • $87.99 CAN • £52.99 UK
“Why does God permit sin? Is there anything fresh to be said into contemporary discussions of the problem of evil? I would have thought not, but McCullough’s learned and lucid book has made me think again. It is an important contribution to the field, unusual in matching rigor and clarity of argument with a deep engagement with theological tradition.” — KAREN KILBY
Durham University
“Amazing as it sounds, this study may well offer a fresh floor for ‘philosophical theology’—a hybrid discipline as conversant in contemporary conceptual maneuvers as in rich inquiries into ‘God and the things of God.’ Ross McCullough provides a thorough canvas of the traditions involved, displaying both a learned and a light touch. The model for the book is not a summary ‘systematic theology,’ but rather the dialectical pilgrimage of Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed. Bravo!”
— DAVID B. BURRELL, CSC
University of Notre Dame
“This is both a retrieval of classical theological positions and a bold new effort to address the question of God’s involvement in our free choice to sin. The results are as analytically precise as they are theologically rich.” — KATHRYN TANNER
Yale Divinity School
“No theologian interested in the intricate question of divine and human freedom, divine causality and human sin (indeed every theologian worthy of the name should be deeply interested in these topics), can afford to ignore Freedom and Sin.”
In Seeing God, Hans Boersma explores the doctrine of the beatific vision—how the invisible God becomes visible to us. Boersma begins by examining what Christian thinkers throughout history have written about the beatific vision and then moves into a dogmatic articulation of the doctrine for Christians today. “This is theological reflection of the most illuminating kind.” — DAVID BENTLEY HART
author of Atheist Delusions and The Beauty of the Infinite
“A profound and important work.”
— SIMON OLIVER
Durham University
“An energizing book from one of today’s best theologians.”
— JANET SOSKICE
University of Cambridge
“A richly comprehensive historical account of theologies of the beatific vision.”
— JOHN MILBANK
University of Nottingham
“A striking manifesto, in the form of a gentle, subtle, moving, and encyclopedic tour through the church’s long reflection on our final destiny of gazing upon God’s face given in Christ.”
— EPHRAIM RADNER
Wycliffe College
“A wonderful and supremely worthwhile feat.” — LYDIA SCHUMACHER
King’s College London
Ross McCullough is assistant professor of philosophy at George Fox University and a faculty fellow in the George Fox Honors Program.
Hans Boersma is the Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, Wisconsin. His other books include Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry and Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church.
978-0-8028-8183-0 • Jacketed Hardcover • 256 pages $50.00 US • $67.99 CAN • £40.99 UK
978-0-8028-8019-2 • Paperback • 487 pages • $34.99 US $46.99 CAN • £28.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
— REINHARD HÜTTER
AVAILABLE JULY 2022
Catholic University of America
T H E O LO GY
Kenosis
AVAILABLE JULY 2022
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Calvin’s Ecclesiology A Study in the History of Doctrine Tadataka Maruyama
T H E O LO GY
Foreword by Richard A. Muller
A major study of John Calvin’s conception of the church that traces his evolving thought throughout the course of his life and writings. “After a lifetime of studying the Reformation, Tadataka Maruyama has written a masterly historical study of Calvin’s ecclesiology, setting out its development in the context of Calvin’s unfolding career as a reformer and theologian. He does not analyze the definitive version of the 1559 Institutes in isolation but rather shows how Calvin reached that point in his long and controversial career. This book cannot be ignored by any with a serious interest in Calvin’s theology.” — TONY LANE
London School of Theology
“Dr. Maruyama’s timely study Calvin’s Ecclesiology is an expansive and nuanced treatment of the reformer’s doctrine of the church and the many historical debates it has engendered. This book is a treasure, full of fresh scholarship, surprising discoveries, and sound historical judgment.”
— SCOTT M. MANETSCH
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
978-0-8028-8185-4 • Jacketed Hardcover • 493 pages $65.00 US • $87.99 CAN • £52.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Tadataka Maruyama formerly served as president and professor of church history at Tokyo Christian University. He is the author of The Ecclesiology of Theodore Beza: The Reform of the True Church.
“This book takes us on a wonderful journey as it shows us how Calvin’s dynamic ecclesiology gradually evolved out of the reformer’s encounter with Scripture, colleagues, and adversaries. Dr. Maruyama’s work is a great gift to Calvin scholarship but just as much to our present discussions on how and what church should be. Read this book if you want to know what Reformed ecclesiology means and how relevant it is.” — HERMAN J. SELDERHUIS
Theological University of Apeldoorn
“Maruyama’s work is a masterful account of the early Reformation context and its impact on Calvin as well as Calvin’s impact on the shaping of a Reformation ecclesiology in Geneva and beyond.”
— RICHARD A. MULLER
from the foreword
The Church’s Book Theology of Scripture in Ecclesial Context Brad East Foreword by Stephen E. Fowl
What role do varied understandings of the church play in the doctrine and interpretation of Scripture? “How we understand the church determines how we understand Scripture. Brad East grounds this basic claim in a detailed examination of three key heirs of Barthian theology—Robert Jenson, John Webster, and John Howard Yoder. . . . Future discussions about church and canon will turn to The Church’s Book for years to come.” — HANS BOERSMA
Nashotah House Theological Seminary
“Theologically informed, church-oriented ways of reading Scripture are given wonderfully sustained attention in Brad East’s new book. Focusing on Karl Barth and subsequent theologians influenced by him, East uncovers how differences in the theology of Scripture reflect differences in the understanding of church.” — KATHRYN TANNER
Yale Divinity School
978-0-8028-7815-1 • Jacketed Hardcover • 408 pages $49.99 US • $66.99 CAN •£40.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
“In this clear and lively volume, Brad East provides acute close readings of three theologians who have all tied biblical interpretation to a doctrine of the church. Building on their work, he proposes his own take on how the church constitutes the social location of biblical interpretation. In both his analytical work and his constructive case, East makes a major contribution to theological reading of Scripture.”
— DARREN SARISKY
Australian Catholic University
Brad East is assistant professor of theology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author of The Doctrine of Scripture and the editor of Robert Jenson’s The Triune Story: Collected Essays on Scripture.
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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
“A welcome clarification of where the conflict of biblical interpretations really lies: divergent understandings of the church. This is an important interruption of and contribution to a longstanding conversation about theological prolegomena.”
— KEVIN J. VANHOOZER
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
www.eerdmans.com
toll free 800 253 7521
Augustine’s Preached Theology Living as the Body of Christ J. Patout Burns Jr. Foreword by J. Warren Smith
978-0-8028-8022-2 • Jacketed Hardcover • 392 pages $45.00 US • $60.99 CAN • £36.99 UK AVAILABLE JULY 2022
J. Patout Burns Jr. is the Edward A. Malloy Professor Emeritus of Catholic Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He is the author of Cyprian the Bishop and the Church’s Bible volume Romans: Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators, and he is the coauthor, with Robin Jensen, of Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs.
Augustine is not usually thought of today as a preacher, but he delivered sermons weekly over the course of nearly forty years to his congregation in Hippo Regius and occasionally also in Carthage and other Roman cities he visited as bishop. The differences between his sermons and his theological treatises are striking but not surprising considering that the treatises targeted an elite, educated audience while his preaching was intended for Christians who lived—then as now—by the spoken and remembered rather than the written word. Where Augustine’s treatises were intellectual, intricate, and theoretical, the rhetoric of his sermons is characterized by conviction, emotion, and a firm commitment to putting faith into action. This volume by renowned Augustine scholar Patout Burns explores the theology of Augustine’s preaching. Utilizing recent advances in the chronological ordering of Augustine’s extant sermons, Burns traces the development of their core thematic elements—wealth and poverty, sin and forgiveness, baptism, eucharist, marriage, the role of clergy, the interpretation of Scripture, the human condition, and the saving work of Christ. He also identifies the influence and manifestation of significant controversies in Augustine’s preaching, most notably Donatism and Pelagianism. As Burns shows, most of Augustine’s groundbreaking insights on the relation of Christ to Christians were developed in his sermons. Like any good preacher, Augustine strove to establish a dialogue between Scripture and lived experience through his sermons—and did so quite effectively. Thus, pastors as well as scholars will benefit from Burns’s insight into the teachings of one of the most effective ministers in Christian history.
T H E O LO GY
Vital insights from Augustine’s sermons on the life of faith.
“What does a major theologian who addressed most of the doctrinal and political challenges faced by early Christians have to say when he looks out at a congregation with a passage from the Scriptures before him? In a masterly account of Augustine’s preaching Patout Burns moves through topics such as sin and forgiveness, riches and poverty, Eucharist, marriage, the human situation, Christ, and the church, citing passages from Augustine’s sermons. This is a book to be read slowly, marked, and inwardly digested.” — ROBERT LOUIS WILKEN
University of Virginia
KIERKEGAARD AS A CHRISTIAN THINKER
Recovering Christian Character The Psychological Wisdom of Søren Kierkegaard Robert C. Roberts A call to Christian discipleship that draws on the works of Søren Kierkegaard to illustrate how prevailing notions of Christianity are often at odds with genuine Christian character. “With wisdom and grace, humanity and humility, Roberts brings to life Kierkegaard’s penetrating psychology and his passion for Christian character formation. These reflections on virtue and the human condition combine rich insight with the power to transform lives. Readers will be indebted to Roberts for this gift.”
— REBECCA KONYNDYK DeYOUNG
author of Glittering Vices
“Robert C. Roberts is one of the very best writers on character in the past fifty years. In his latest work, he digs deeply into the writings of Søren Kierkegaard on issues related to character and virtue. The result is a book packed full of profound and applicable insights.” — CHRISTIAN B. MILLER
author of The Character Gap
978-0-8028-7316-3 • Jacketed Hardcover • 400 pages $49.00 US • $65.99 CAN • £39.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Robert C. Roberts is distinguished professor emeritus of ethics at Baylor University. Among his other books are Taking the Word to Heart: Self and Others in an Age of Therapies and Spiritual Emotions: A Psychology of Christian Virtues.
“In seeking to introduce Christianity into Christendom, Kierkegaard develops its ‘Aristotelian’ dimensions: a normative theory of our emotional life and the importance of rhetoric in Christian discourse. Roberts brings these often-minimized aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought to bright focus and in doing so provides a rich phenomenology of Christian emotions.” — MEROLD WESTPHAL
author of Kierkegaard’s Concept of Faith
“Kierkegaard has not traditionally been understood as a virtue ethicist, but Recovering Christian Character makes amply evident how fruitful a virtue ethical lens can be for understanding Kierkegaard’s project of reintroducing Christendom to Christianity. With characteristic clarity, wisdom, and generosity, Roberts enacts in this volume the kind of self-transformative reflection to which Kierkegaard invites his readers.” — JENNIFER A. HERDT
author of Putting on Virtue
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T H E O LO GY
Living Belief
Reading Theology Wisely A Practical Introduction
A Short Introduction to Christian Faith
Kent Eilers
Douglas F. Ottati
Art by Chris Koelle
A leading theologian’s concise guide to the beliefs, commitments, and practices of Christianity.
An introduction and guide to the practice of reading theology, with hands-on application exercises designed especially for students and other newcomers to the field. “In Reading Theology Wisely students are given a companion volume to accompany their theological studies so that character formation can advance in step with intellectual growth. When I was a theology student the book that did this for me was called A Little Exercise for Young Theologians. This can be that book for the next generation.” — SCOT McKNIGHT
Northern Seminary
“We need all kinds of invitations to theology, and in this book Kent Eilers extends a unique kind of welcome. Come in here, he beckons: unpack your bags, look around, and make yourself at home in the household of theological reading.” — FRED SANDERS
Torrey Honors College, Biola University
“Beautiful. . . . Drawing on Scripture, a range of theological sisters and brothers across time and space, and also art, story, film, architecture, and more, Eilers invites us into a generous space for reading theology well, with prayers, reflection questions, and suggested practices to help us along the way.” — SUZANNE McDONALD
Western Theological Seminary
“Dr. Kent Eilers has done us a marvelous service in providing us a practical yet profound guide to informed and imaginative reading that enlivens living faith. Artfully written and beautifully illustrated, this is a book sure to expand your mind, illuminate your imagination, and stir your heart. Take and read!” — TODD WILSON
cofounder and president of the Center for Pastor Theologians
“This book deserves the attention of believers as well as nonbelievers; of advanced scholars as well as beginning students. In it, believers will see that true faith leads to further questions and does not cancel doubt, and nonbelievers will see that there is reason in the answers of faith; scholars will see clear proof that when one truly understands something one can explain it clearly, and beginners will learn that faith is worth exploring.”
— JUSTO L. GONZÁLEZ
author of The Story of Christianity and A History of Christian Thought
“Though it has its origins in the college classroom, this volume will appeal to anyone interested in probing the basic questions of life in conversation with Christian wisdom. Who is ‘God,’ and what does such Holy Mystery have to do with this world, including us? The genius of Ottati’s work is this: he illuminates how theology is a source (rather than an obstacle) for piety and practical living. With story, song, and wry narrative style, he lures his readers into theological reflection that attends at once to the ordinary details of human life and to expansive wonder at the glory of God.”
— MARTHA L. MOORE-KEISH
J. B. Green Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary
“Living Belief is a deep but accessible introduction to Christian piety, which Douglas Ottati insists is not so much about subscription to a list of propositional truths as it is about asking good questions—about who God is, who we are (at our best and our worst), and what it means to find direction and hope in the God disclosed in Jesus Christ. Drawing on ancient creeds and biblical texts, Ottati demonstrates how Christianity seldom offers only one answer to our questions, and in doing so he invites us to discover richness, diversity, and vitality in theological tradition. Living Belief is a wonderful primer on Christian faith from one of this generation’s most important theologians.”
— JAMES CALVIN DAVIS
author of American Liturgy: Finding Theological Meaning in the Holy Days of US Culture
Kent Eilers is professor of theology at Huntington University, Indiana. His other books include Theology as Retrieval: Receiving the Past, Renewing the Church and The Grammar of Grace: Readings from the Christian Tradition. 978-0-8028-8178-6 • Paperback • 229 pages • $18.00 US • $23.99 CAN • £13.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Douglas F. Ottati is the 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. Among his other books are A Theology for the TwentyFirst Century and Hopeful Realism: Reclaiming the Poetry of Theology. 978-0-8028-7537-2 • Hardcover • 251 pages • $30.00 US • $40.99 CAN • £23.99 UK AVAILABLE JUNE 2022
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T H E O LO GY
Seeds of Faith
Harvest of Hope
Theology and Spirituality at the Heart of Christian Belief Mark A. McIntosh and Frank T. Griswold
A Contemplative Approach to Holy Scripture Mark A. McIntosh and Frank T. Griswold
An immersive introduction to the Christian faith that illuminates essential doctrines and propels readers beyond abstract knowledge to experience the living mystery who is God.
A simple but profound guide to praying the Scriptures throughout the seasons of the liturgical calendar and encountering the living mystery of Christ in the pages of the Bible.
“In this extraordinary distillation of learning, sifted by experience and purified by prayer, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold share a conversation that enlightens, enriches, inspires, challenges, and, in the best possible sense, comforts. . . . A profound testimony and testament that deserves to become a new spiritual classic.” — STEPHEN CHERRY
dean of King’s College, Cambridge
“With mutual respect and warm affection for each other, Frank Griswold and Mark McIntosh invite readers to join them in their eloquent, patient, and pastoral conversation about the mystery of God as Trinity. This profound and gentle book is itself an embodiment of human friendship and a testimony to the friendship of God with us in this life and the life to come.” — CYNTHIA BRIGGS KITTREDGE
“One of the great needs for the church today is the recovery of a truly contemplative understanding of sacred Scripture. Harvest of Hope invites us, both as individuals and as a community, into such a deeply meditative encounter with the Word. It’s thoughtful and deeply spiritual, and to read it is to be invited into prayerful intimacy with the God who is love.” — CARL McCOLMAN
author of Unteachable Lessons and Eternal Heart
“As you open the pages of this book, you will find yourself standing on holy ground. The text pulsates with a love of Scripture and a desire to invite the reader to encounter God through the text of Scripture. The result is a book that can change your life—you will never read Scripture the same way again.” — IAN S. MARKHAM
dean and president of Seminary of the Southwest
“Seeds of Faith is a beautiful and extraordinarily soulful meditation on Christian faith. It is a challenging book that does not shy away from the difficulties that anyone seeking to live in faith with honesty and integrity must inevitably face. But there is also such deep joy here, a sense of spiritual life arising from the heart of lived experience and opening out onto a horizon of endless love.” — DOUGLAS E. CHRISTIE
dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary
“Drawing on scriptural texts from the cycle of the church year, McIntosh and Griswold usher readers into their own interior process of lucid theological reflection woven into prayerful encounter with the Word. Here the disastrous rift that opened up between theology and spirituality in the Western church a millennium ago is healed. Reading this compelling and beautiful book is a grace in itself.” — JULIA GATTA
professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University
“In this engaging theological reflection, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold enter into the ‘conversation of true friends’ that urges us, in turn, to travel further into friendship with God in Christ. For the authors, God is the source of our true self, discovered through ongoing conversion and transformation. This fine book invites us to share in Jesus’s own self-giving love for the sake of others, as he draws us into his own relationship with the Father.”
— JOHN C. BAUERSCHMIDT
bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee
Mark A. McIntosh (1960–2021) was an Episcopal priest and theologian who was the inaugural holder of Loyola University Chicago’s endowed chair in Christian spirituality. He also served as canon residentiary of Durham Cathedral, UK. 978-0-8028-7973-8 • Paperback • 196 pages • $24.99 US • $33.99 CAN • £19.99 UK
Bishop Frank A. Juhan Professor of Pastoral Theology at Sewanee: The University of the South
“Warm, wise, and inviting, Harvest of Hope offers readers rich reflection on scriptural passages tied to the church’s liturgical year. When it is so common for believers and seekers to separate spirituality from deeply reflective theology, Harvest of Hope uses Scripture to bind them firmly together. This book will lead you to deeper patterns of prayer, more lively reflection on God, and a more enduring participation in God’s desire to be involved in your life.”
— STEPHEN E. FOWL
professor of theology and dean of the Loyola College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Maryland
Frank T. Griswold is the former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (1998– 2006). He continues to teach, write, lead retreats, and exercise a ministry of spiritual direction both in the United States and internationally.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-0-8028-7972-1 • Paperback • 176 pages • $22.99 US • $30.99 CAN • £17.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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FA I T H & L I F E
How Beautiful the World Could Be Christian Reflections on the Everyday Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt Meditations on life and faith from the author of The Love That Is God. “In an age where our theology often either wilts or bludgeons, we’re desperate for faithful, artful voices that speak into the grit of our world without adding to the clamor. We need words that pierce while carrying the lilt of love. We need true poets in the pulpit. Thankfully, we have Bauerschmidt’s haunting, holy sentences beckoning us toward the God of beauty and thunder.” — WINN COLLIER
pastor, director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination, and author of Love Big, Be Well
“By setting these winsome and memorable homilies out as poetry, Frederick Bauerschmidt highlights that every word counts and that the secret lies in the delivery. To read these homilies and commentaries is to clothe oneself with wisdom and grace.” — SAMUEL WELLS
vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London
“This beautiful collection couldn’t come at a better time. Deacon Bauerschmidt looks at our world with compassion, eloquence, and something all too rare these days: hope. These homilies reflect all the challenges of our age—from a lethal virus to heartbreaking violence—but reassure us that we are not alone. Grace abounds. God is near. Open these pages and you’ll truly appreciate how beautiful the world could be.” — GREG KANDRA
deacon, journalist, blogger, and author of A Deacon Prays
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. His other books include The Love That Is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith. 978-0-8028-8021-5 • Paperback • 242 pages • $22.99 US $30.99 CAN • £17.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
Hope A User’s Manual MaryAnn McKibben Dana What hope is, what hope isn’t, and how to find it in hopeless times. Hope is not optimism. It’s not toxic positivity. It’s not a promise of future success or progress. And it’s definitely not something that can be reduced to a scripty-font platitude on an Instagram post. So what is it? One thing is certain: real hope demands that we do something with it. That we live it out. That we use hope to participate in a bigger story playing out behind the bleak world we see on the news or in our social media feeds every day. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a person of faith, or someone disillusioned with faith, or someone who hardly ever thinks about faith: if you’re a human being who longs for a spiritual counternarrative to live by, this book points to one resilient enough to endure crises and crushing defeats. If you’re tired of hearing about some heavenly hereafter amid the pressing need for justice here and now, this is a book about hope for this world—not the next. After exploring what hope isn’t and then what it is, MaryAnn McKibben Dana reflects on the surprising place where hope is often found—in the messiness of our imperfect, flawed, beautiful human bodies. In the second half of the book, she talks about making hope real: sharing hope through stories, cultivating hope through simple practices, and nurturing hope in hopeless times— when only real hope can persevere. MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a writer, pastor, speaker, and ministry coach living in Virginia. She is the author of God, Improv, and the Art of Living and Sabbath in the Suburbs. Her writing has appeared in Time, the Washington Post, Huff Post, the Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, and Journal for Preachers, and was featured in a monthly column for Presbyterians Today for three years. She was profiled on PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly for her work on Sabbath and was recognized by the Presbyterian Writers Guild with the 2015–2016 David Steele Distinguished Writer Award. 978-0-8028-8231-8 • Paperback • 160 pages • $16.99 US $22.99 CAN • £13.99 UK • AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
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Make a List How a Simple Practice Can Change Our Lives and Open Our Hearts Marilyn McEntyre What if writing lists could literally change your life? “Goes well beyond the to-do list to invite new and creative ways of thinking and doing. . . . Readers of all kinds, from type A veteran list-makers to those whose blood pressure rises at the thought of making a list, will find much useful information here.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“You do not have to go too far into the book to discover that McEntyre has created a whole new paradigm shift, moving lists out of being simply to-do taskmasters and into being a tool to help us delve deeper into our lives and indeed into our very souls.” — THE PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK
“A perfect book for yourself or to give as a gift.” — SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW
“Brings lively attention to the way words can open multiple doors of memory, imagination, and reflection.” — RICHARD ROHR “Marilyn McEntyre reminds me of the power of language—to heal and instruct us, to challenge and shape us.” — SHAUNA NIEQUIST “Just one week into living with Make a List, I can already tell that this small book, which both invites me into a new practice and reframes one of my existing daily habits as a spiritual practice, will be life-giving and edifying.”
— LAUREN F. WINNER
“Encourages, guides, and directs. . . . Marilyn McEntyre embodies simple, patient kindness in her writing.” — MICHAEL CARD Marilyn McEntyre is a dedicated list-maker and the 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. 978-0-8028-8225-7 • Paperback • 202 pages • $16.99 US $22.99 CAN • £13.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
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Gaslighted by God Reconstructing a Disillusioned Faith Tiffany Yecke Brooks
FA I T H & L I F E
“We have a right to encounter God where we are. We have a sacred responsibility to experience God authentically.” What happens when the God we’ve been taught to believe in seems powerless to help us in the struggles of life? What do we do when the God we personally encounter no longer resembles the God we’ve been shown in narrow interpretations of the Bible? Many of those raised in the world of fundamentalist Christianity have been manipulated into accepting a false reality that runs counter to lived experience. The result is confusion, isolation, fear, shame, and trauma, often carried throughout one’s entire life. This book is for the victims of this spiritual abuse—anyone looking to reclaim their faith from legalism, nationalism, sexism, anxiety, intolerance, and other mechanisms of control utilized by the self-appointed gatekeepers of God. It’s for anyone who has learned that the real God is infinitely complex, that authentic faith is perfectly compatible with doubt, and that our suffering is not something we’ve earned. Gaslighted by God is not a book of easy answers—it’s a companion for those mourning the loss of a belief system who need their pain recognized and legitimized. Tiffany Yecke Brooks shows—through stories from her own life, conversations with Christians from a variety of backgrounds, historical anecdotes, and messy episodes from Scripture—that there can be faith after disillusionment. But it will be a different faith—bruised, battered, nuanced, and real, rather than one wrapped in tissue-thin platitudes and three-point sermons. It will be a faith empowered to see beyond who God “should” be to who God is. “Tiffany Yecke Brooks has written a moving book full of honesty, courage, wisdom, and faith. In always-searching scriptural reflections and sometimes-searing personal ones, Tiffany reveals to her reader what the Gospel writers already know: that the cross of Jesus Christ offers neither a tidy answer nor a magical solution to the problem of human suffering, only a humble, just, and holy human response.”
978-0-8028-7868-7 • Jacketed Hardcover • 252 pages • $22.99 US • $30.99 CAN £17.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
— MATTHEW ICHIHASHI POTTS
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University cohost of the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
“In Gaslighted by God, Tiffany Yecke Brooks eloquently gives a voice to those of us who through seeking God have found ourselves in the midst of deconstruction. With in-depth biblical study, modern-day narratives of people of faith, and an understanding of cultural evangelical conditioning, those who deconstruct will feel seen and validated.” — MEGHAN TSCHANZ
author of Women Rising: Learning to Listen, Reclaiming Our Voice host of the podcast Faith and Feminism
“If you’ve ever felt you just didn’t need another Sunday sermon, or someone saying, ‘It’ll all be okay,’ then Tiffany’s book Gaslighted by God should be on your nightstand. In her often-hard-to-read, raw book, she shows us a picture of a God that cares deeply for us, even through hardship and despair.”
Tiffany Yecke Brooks is the lead or contributing writer on more than two dozen books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers. She is the coauthor of Fear Is a Choice: Tackling Life’s Challenges with Dignity, Faith, and Determination (with NFL running back James Conner), Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstance (with Paralympic gold-medalist Mallory Weggemann), and the narrative nonfiction historical thriller Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth (with historian Claire Bellerjeau). She holds a PhD from Florida State University, where her dissertation covered, in part, cultural adaptations of stories from the book of Genesis. A popular speaker for student groups, faith conferences, and academic lectureships, Tiffany has taught literature and writing at Abilene Christian University, McMurry University, and the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
— JERUSHAH DUFORD
author, speaker, LPCA, granddaughter of the late Rev. Billy Graham
“It’s rare to find an open and honest conversation about faith that doesn’t use shame and scarcity to pressure the reader into agreeing with the author, but Tiffany does that in this book. I highly recommend Gaslighted by God to anyone struggling to reconcile their church hurt with the abundantly loving God they thought they knew.”
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— ANGELA J. HERRINGTON
faith deconstruction coach and founder of the Deconstructing Faith Summit
“In my work as a chaplain, I often meet with faithful people who are seeking healing after spiritual trauma, guidance through times of doubt, and little bits of wisdom for their frantic lives. Gaslighted by God is a book that speaks into those conversations and will be a resource for the winding spiritual journey.”
— SARA BARTON
university chaplain and associate vice president for spiritual life at Pepperdine University
God Gets Everything Affirming A Memoir of Faith, Sexuality, God Wants Katie Hays 978-0-8028-7856-4
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and Staying in the Church
Sally Gary 978-0-8028-7917-2
The Gravity of Joy A Story of Being Lost and Found
Angela Williams Gorrell 978-0-8028-7794-9
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FA I T H & L I F E
Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith Bekah McNeel
Sex, Tech, and Faith Ethics for a Digital Age Kate Ott Foreword by Mihee Kim-Kort
“This book is about the various ways that uncertainty shows up for parents who, having left or altered the faith they once knew, now must decide what to give their kids. It’s about church attendance, Bible memorization, school choices, and sex talks. It’s about forging new paths in racial justice and creation care while the intractable voices in your head call you a pagan Marxist for doing so.” After the spectacular implosion of her ministry career, Bekah McNeel was left disillusioned and without the foundation of certainty she had built her life on. But rather than leaving the Christian faith altogether, she hung out around the edges, began questioning oversimplified categories of black and white that she had been taught were sacred, and became comfortable living in gray areas while starting a new career in journalism. Then she had kids. From the moment someone asked if she was going to have her first child baptized, Bekah began to wonder if the conservative evangelical Christianity she grew up with was really something she wanted to give her children. That question only became more complicated when she had her second child months before White evangelicals carried Donald Trump to victory in the 2016 presidential election. Soon, Bekah found that other parents were asking similar questions as they broke with their fundamentalist religious upbringing and took on new values: Could they raise their kids to live with both the security of faith and the freedom of open-mindedness? To value both Scripture and social justice? To learn morality without shame? In Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down, Bekah calls on her skills as a journalist and gathers voices from history, scholarship, and her own community to guide others who, like her, are on a quest to shed the false certainty and toxic perfectionism of their past to become better, healthier parents—while still providing strong spiritual foundations for their children. She writes with humor and empathy, providing wise reflections (but not glib answers!) on difficult parenting topics while reminding us all along that we are not alone, even when we break away from the crowd. Bekah McNeel is a journalist, wife, and mother of two. Her work has appeared in Christianity Today, Sojourners, Relevant, the Texas Tribune, ESPN’s The Undefeated, the Christian Science Monitor, Texas Public Radio, and elsewhere.
A values-based, shame-free, pleasure-positive discussion of Christian ethics in response to a range of pressing issues in the digital age—including online pornography, dating apps, sexting, virtual-reality hookups, and sex robots. Digital innovation has rapidly changed the landscape of sexual experience in the twenty-first century. Rules-based sexual ethics, subscribed to by many Christians, are unable to keep up with new developments and, more often than not, seem effective at little other than generating shame. Progressive ethicist Kate Ott steps into this void with an expansive yet nuanced approach that prioritizes honesty and discernment over fear and judgment. Rather than producing a list of don’ts, Ott considers the possibilities alongside the potential harm in everything from the use of internet porn to the practice of online dating to human-robot intimacy. With the aid of thought-provoking anecdotes and illuminating research, Ott invites readers to wrestle with the question of how to practice a just and flourishing sexuality in the digital age—and does so by drawing on core values of the Christian tradition. A rich resource for both individuals and groups, Sex, Tech, and Faith includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter for those considering these issues in community, as well as extensive youth study guides for parents, pastors, and teachers in need of age-appropriate means of beginning these difficult conversations with teens. Readers of all backgrounds and identities will be challenged to consider how their choices and habits in the digital world can lead to sexual health, wholeness, dignity, and fulfillment—for themselves and those in relationship with them. Kate Ott is professor of Christian social ethics at Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey, and lecturer in practical theology at Yale Divinity School. A Christian feminist ethicist interested in the formation of moral communities, she is the author of Christian Ethics for a Digital Society and Sex + Faith: Talking with Your Child from Birth to Adolescence, and she lectures and leads workshops on technology, sexuality, and professional ethics for teens, young adults, parents, and religious leaders. 978-0-8028-7846-5 • Paperback • 208 pages • $22.99 US • $30.99 CAN • £17.99 UK AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
978-0-8028-8209-7 • Jacketed Hardcover • 256 pages • $26.99 US • $35.99 CAN • £21.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
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God Is
Mallory Wyckoff
A Transgender Man’s Journey with Scripture Shannon T. L. Kearns
God is Mother. God is Midwife. God is Hostess. God is Mystery. God is Home.
Foreword by Paula Stone Williams
Through scriptural reflection and personal stories about gender identity, an ordained priest moves the conversation beyond transgender inclusion to demonstrate the unique and vital theological insights transgender Christians can provide the church. Father Shannon Kearns is familiar with liminal spaces. He’s lived in them his whole life. And while his experience as a transgender man has often made it difficult for him to fit in—especially in the context of Christianity—it has also shaped his perspective in important ways on complicated, gendertransgressing aspects of theology and Scripture. In the Margins weaves stories from Shannon’s life into reflections on wellknown biblical narratives—such as Jacob wrestling with the divine, Rahab and the Israelite spies, Ezekiel and the dry bones, and the transfiguration of Jesus. In each chapter, Shannon shows how stories have helped him make sense of his own identity, and how those same stories can unlock the transformative power of faith for those willing to listen with an open mind and stand alongside him in the in-between. “I love Shannon’s conviction that resurrection is not a moment, but a process. There is a holy unfolding in this book, as Scripture comes to life in a fresh, accurate, and authentic way. In the process Shannon blesses us with the story of his own resurrection.” — PAULA STONE WILLIAMS from the foreword
Shannon T. L. Kearns is an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and the cofounder of QueerTheology.com, which has reached more than a million people all over the world through videos, articles, and online courses and community. A recipient of the Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowship in 2020–21, a Lambda Literary Fellow in 2019, and a FINNOVATION Fellow in 2019–20, Shannon is a sought-after speaker on transgender issues and religion as well as a skilled facilitator of a variety of workshops. 978-0-8028-7948-6 • Paperback • 216 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
CHRISTIAN BELIEF
In the Margins
Traditional language for God has been dominated by a single image—Father—and masculine norms. For some, this language is meaningful. For others, it is deeply problematic. In both cases, it’s limited. One thing is certain: God is More. Mallory Wyckoff believes it’s past time to expand the ways we think about God. Through personal story, theology, spirituality, and social justice (and highlighting the interconnectedness of each), Wyckoff explores feminine metaphors and untapped language for God—some biblical and familiar, some less well-known, but all revelatory of a God who is More than we’ve been allowed to imagine. As Wyckoff illustrates, when we expand the ways we image and engage with God, we are invited to see the Divine more fully—and, in the process, our neighbors and ourselves. Those who have felt alienated by the typical ways of describing God in Christianity will meet God anew: As a Seamstress who stitches tapestries out of our tatters of shame. As a Sexual Trauma Survivor who has suffered alongside those who have endured the worst. As a Mother who nurtures us to life with her body. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. God Is in the Waves 2. God Is Hiding under the Table 3. God Is More Than We’ve Been
Led to Believe
4. God Is Communicator 5. God Is and Is Not 6. God Is Creator 7. God Is Seamstress 8. God Is Mother
9. God Is Midwife 10. God Is Hostess 11. God Is Sexual Trauma Survivor 12. God Is Wisdom Within 13. God Is Home 14. God Is Mystery 15. God Is…
Epilogue
Mallory Wyckoff is a teacher, preacher, writer, and spiritual director who currently serves as Key Relationships Officer with Preemptive Love, a global community of peacemakers working to end war and stop the spread of violence. Having completed her dissertation on the impact of sexual trauma on survivors’ theological perception and spiritual formation, Mallory has a DMin from Lipscomb University in missional and spiritual formation. 978-0-8028-8208-0 • Jacketed Hardcover • 160 pages • $21.99 US • $29.99 CAN • £17.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
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CHRISTIAN BELIEF
Knowledge for the Love of God
Navigating Faith and Science
Why Your Heart Needs Your Mind
Joseph Vukov
Timothy Pickavance
Religious belief is often perceived as being in conflict with science— but does it have to be?
Foreword by Lee Strobel
What is the role of the intellect in the life of faith? Jesus commanded us to love God with our minds—but why? Isn’t simply believing enough? Confused on this point, many Christians choose to focus only on the role of their hearts in shaping their faith and consider that adequate. Some Christians go even further, arguing that knowledge exists in opposition to faith—that one must choose either the truth of science or the truth of the Bible. The reality is that our formation into Christlikeness relies heavily on our minds and that Christian belief is about thinking more, not less. Far from being a threat, the intellect is central to faith—so long as it is treated as an instrument of worship rather than as the object of worship. Knowledge for the Love of God is for followers of Jesus needing to better understand the crucial connection between faith and rationality. Timothy Pickavance shows how learning about who God is and what he has done, is doing, and will do draws us closer to him—just as in any relationship. With stories from his own experiences wrestling with this aspect of faith, Pickavance relates a compelling vision of how cultivating the intellect strengthens our Christian worldview, helps us gain freedom in Christ, and enables us to love God with our whole being. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter make this a book to be fruitfully shared among fellow believers desiring a deeper faith—one of heart, soul, strength, and mind. “This is the book I searched for in vain when my daughters were in high school and college. But now it’s available, and I am so, so pleased about how good it is. Professor Pickavance has managed to put a lot of life-changing philosophical content in a conversational, easy-to-read style. It feels like Pickavance is a wise old friend sitting down to have a chat with the reader. ”
— J. P. MORELAND
Not usually, says Joseph Vukov. In this short, accessible guide, Vukov advances three models for Christians to utilize when navigating the relationship between science and faith: conflict, independence, and dialogue. He argues that dialogue is the ideal model to follow most of the time—but not necessarily all the time. Through a philosophical approach grounded in compelling real-world examples, Vukov shows how no single model can be universally adequate, and how Christians must proceed with discernment according to the nature of the matter at hand. Considering a wide variety of illustrative issues—including cosmology, evolutionary biology, extraterrestrial life, miracles, brain death, and theoretical physics—Vukov introduces and describes each of the three models of interaction between faith and science, surveys their applications, and evaluates the effectiveness of each. Throughout, he encourages Christians to embrace a spirit of intellectual humility and remember that, at their best, faith and science converge in their relentless human pursuit of truth. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Intellectual Humility 2. Conflict 3. Independence 4. Dialogue 5. Choosing a Model
Conclusion References
Joseph Vukov is assistant professor of philosophy and graduate program director in the philosophy department at Loyola University Chicago.
author of Scientism and Secularism
Timothy Pickavance is associate professor and chair of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and scholar in residence at Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Newport Beach, California, where he is also a ruling elder. He is the coauthor, with Robert C. Koons, of both Metaphysics: The Fundamentals and The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics.
978-0-8028-7961-5 • Paperback • 184 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
978-0-8028-8195-3 • Paperback • 184 pages • $18.99 US • $25.99 CAN • £14.99 UK AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
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Why Belief Has Always Been Hard—and Still Is Terryl Givens and Nathaniel Givens Foreword by Richard J. Mouw
A deeper look at how people individually and collectively form religious beliefs—and what that means for faith in a society of declining religious affiliation. In this compelling inquiry into faith in a society of declining religious affiliation, acclaimed author Terryl Givens and his son, Nathaniel Givens, offer a fresh take on religious belief through the lens of contemporary research on psychology, cognition, and human nature. They also address two of faith’s foremost modern-day antagonists: rationalism—the myth that humans can or should make the majority of their choices based on logical thought—and scientism—the myth that science is the only reliable means of discovering truth. After reckoning with the surprising fact that people often don’t even understand their own beliefs and are influenced in ways they seldom perceive, the authors go on to describe genuine faith as an act of will—an effortful response to the deepest yearnings of the mind and heart—that engenders moral responsibility, the ability to embrace uncertainty, the motivation and means to relate to others, and the capacity to apprehend reality through nonrational means. Terryl Givens is a Neal L. Maxwell Senior Fellow at Brigham Young University. He formerly held the University of Richmond’s Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English, where he was professor of literature and religion. He is the author and coauthor of numerous books, including All Things New, The God Who Weeps, and The Crucible of Doubt. Nathaniel Givens has been published in First Things, the Deseret News, and RealClearReligion on the topics of faith and politics. With graduate degrees in economics and systems engineering, he is a data analyst and entrepreneur currently working with an international startup.
CHRISTIAN BELIEF
Into the Headwinds
Encountering Mystery Religious Experience in a Secular Age Dale C. Allison Jr. Despite widespread skepticism on the matter, a significant number of people today have stories of religious experience—moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions. How should rationally minded people respond? “Steeped in transparency and infused with a lifetime of world-class scholarship, Dale Allison has written a book that truly needed to be written, and that few others could have. He has gifted us all with a spiritually personal and pastoral exploration of the power of extraordinary religious experiences in shaping and defining the nature of faith. In my estimation, Encountering Mystery will join other such works in putting to rest any notion that God’s creation is limited to what we normally perceive.” — PETER ENNS
author of How the Bible Actually Works
“Dale Allison offers lovely, theologically informed reflections on how mystical moments, epiphanies, visions, prophetic dreams, and other surprising encounters leave us changed—those of us who experience them directly and those of us who hear about them from others we trust. We may, as Allison says, live in a secular age, but more and more of these stories surface as we open hospitable space for them and allow ourselves to be humbled and surprised by the joy they so often bring to us who are finding our way together on this ‘darkling plain.’” — MARILYN McENTYRE
author of Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies and Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict
“Highly respected scholar Dale Allison dares to raise important questions that academic protocol has too often excluded. Many of the case studies he offers will challenge our own presuppositions about the world—whatever they are—and for that reason are all the more important for us to consider. Allison rightly expands the repertoire of experience that studies of religion and Scripture must take into account.” — CRAIG S. KEENER
author of Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World
978-0-8028-8243-1 • Jacketed Hardcover • 140 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
Dale C. Allison Jr. is the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. His numerous books include Night Comes: Death, Imagination, and the Last Things and The Luminous Dusk: Finding God in the Deep, Still Places. 978-0-8028-8188-5 • Paperback • 263 pages • $21.99 US • $29.99 CAN • £17.99 UK AVAILABLE JULY 2022
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Humbler Faith, Bigger God
CHRISTIAN BELIEF
Finding a Story to Live By Samuel Wells In Humbler Faith, Bigger God, Samuel Wells offers a model for the renewal of Christian faith by considering ten great challenges to conventional Christianity. In each case he portrays the traditional position and the skepticism of the modern age as two rival stories. Transcending both, he then offers a revitalized Christian story that better renders the radical, courageous, and vulnerable nature of authentic faith. Wells is unwaveringly honest about the failures of the institutional church and acknowledges many people’s negative prior experiences of Christianity—making this a book for both Christians and non-Christians who have found the stories of their lives disrupted and now seek a fulfilling and truthful story to live by. “A book at once incisive, wise, compassionate, and deeply devout. Wells avoids with equal agility the traps of empty dogmatism and empty faddishness, never forgetting that it is the love of God and neighbor—on which depend all the Law and the Prophets—that provides the proper key to any interpretation of the Christian mystery.” — DAVID BENTLEY HART
author of Tradition and Apocalypse: An Essay on the Future of Christian Belief
978-0-8028-7931-8 • Jacketed Hardcover • 248 pages $22.99 US • $30.99 CAN • AVAILABLE NOW
Samuel Wells is vicar of St. Martin-in-theFields, London. His previous books include Walk Humbly, Incarnational Ministry, Incarnational Mission, Shaping the Prayers of the People (with Abigail Kocher), and Learning to Dream Again.
“I’m not sure who else alive could have written this book. Scholars are not usually this accessible. Pastors not usually this sharp-eyed. Critics not usually this devastating. Advocates not usually so beautiful. This unusual book calls to mind Augustine’s heart, Aquinas’s mind, Day’s activism, Temple’s leadership. You say I exaggerate? Take up and read before you tell me I’m wrong.” — JASON BYASSEE
coauthor of Following: Embodied Discipleship in a Digital Age
“God has surely heard it all: the complaints, the objections, the silence of a back turned on faith. Samuel Wells asks us—those of us who still believe that God can be found in Christian faith and its expression—if we have taken seriously the protests of our disbelieving neighbors. Now is the time for humility, church. Now is the time to listen. Now is the time for us to put up or shut up. Humbler Faith, Bigger God is here to help.” — KATIE HAYS
author of God Gets Everything God Wants
CALVIN INSTITUTE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP LITURGICAL STUDIES
Living under Water Baptism as a Way of Life Kevin J. Adams Foreword by Cornelius Plantinga What does baptism mean? And what do we do with it? Kevin Adams—an experienced pastor and church planter who has baptized people of all ages and spiritual origins—makes the case that baptism isn’t merely a one-time ceremony but something to be lived and affirmed throughout one’s life. In Living under Water, Adams shares stories that illustrate how baptism shapes one’s identity and enters us into an alternate narrative, one ongoing since the dawn of creation, through which we understand our truest selves with all our joy and trauma and by which we are united with a group of people unbound by race or language, continent or generation. “I’ve been reading Kevin’s book during a time when it feels like we are coming apart at the seams in the United States, and perhaps globally as well. But as I read, I felt rooted and grounded, invited into a larger and more substantial reality than my shifting one. That’s the great gift of this book.” — CHUCK DeGROAT
978-0-8028-7963-9 • Paperback • 266 pages $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Kevin J. Adams is the founding and senior pastor of Granite Springs Church in greater Sacramento, California. His other books include The Gospel in a Handshake: Framing Worship for Mission.
professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary
“This wonderful pastoral book encourages its readers to tune a keen listening ear to the stories of baptismal formation. So many discussions of baptism focus on points of contention; this one focuses on horizons of hope and healing. Congregations who study this book will expand their horizons for the many ways that God is seeding shalom in communities of faith through the gift of baptism.” — LEANNE VAN DYK
president and professor of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary
“This is an insightful, exciting, carefully researched, and timely analysis of the gift of baptism that will energize Christian practice. Using diverse stories from many traditions and times of the Christian church, as well as from popular culture, Living under Water provides both an invitation and a tangible pathway to embracing an everyday baptismal identity of faith in action.”
— EDWIN DAVID APONTE
executive director of the Louisville Institute
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The Pastor’s Bookshelf Why Reading Matters for Ministry Austin Carty For busy pastors, time spent reading feels hard to justify, especially when it’s not for sermon prep. But what if reading felt less like a luxury and more like a vocational responsibility—a spiritual practice that bears fruit in every aspect of ministry, from preaching to pastoral care to church leadership? The Pastor’s Bookshelf shows how worthwhile reading is more about formation than information and how, through reading, a pastor becomes a fuller, more enriched human being with a deeper capacity for wisdom and love, better equipped to understand and work for God’s kingdom.
“The Pastor’s Bookshelf is an invaluable resource for members of the clergy, though its bookish enthusiasm is even farther reaching than that.”
— FOREWORD REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW)
“Pastors who read and live by the wisdom in this book will be changed, as will their ministries and the people to whom they minister. This book belongs on every pastor’s shelf.” 978-0-8028-7910-3 • Paperback • 182 pages $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Austin Carty lives and pastors in Anderson, South Carolina. He is the author of High Points and Lows: Life, Faith, and Figuring It All Out.
— KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR
author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books
“In this warm and wise book, Austin Carty invites pastors to develop capacious reading habits, as wide and curious and wonderful as the world in which they serve. I hope this book is an occasion for many pastors to build new shelves of poetry and fiction, biography and memoir, all of them adventures in understanding humanity.”
CHURCH & MINISTRY
Foreword by Thomas G. Long
— JAMES K. A. SMITH
author of You Are What You Love
“I am gobsmacked by this book’s threefold beauty: its writing, its erudition, and the author’s deep commitment to what true reading can give not only pastors, but us all.”
— MARYANNE WOLF
author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
Chasing after Wind A Pastor’s Life Douglas J. Brouwer Foreword by Richard J. Mouw After forty years as a Presbyterian pastor, Douglas Brouwer wondered if he had spent his life, as the author of Ecclesiastes laments, “chasing after wind.” But he also had the unmistakable sense that it had been worthwhile—though not in the ways he had expected it to be at the start of his career. In this memoir, Brouwer recounts stories from throughout his life that speak to both the disillusionment and the joy of ministry in the current age of shrinking mainline churches. “A somber, meditative reflection that will give the fellow faithful, be they pastors or congregants, much to ponder.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“It’s one thing to have a talented, theologically well-formed Reformed pastor. It’s quite another thing for that pastor to be honest, truthful, courageous, eloquent, and interesting. Douglas Brouwer is that pastor. His book is bound to be known as one of the finest ministerial memoirs to come out of the last days of mainline Protestantism.” — WILL WILLIMON
author of Accidental Preacher
978-0-8028-8187-8 • Paperback • 238 pages $22.00 US • $29.99 CAN • £17.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Douglas J. Brouwer is a retired Presbyterian pastor who served churches in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, and Zürich, Switzerland. His other books include Remembering the Faith: What Christians Believe and How to Become a Multicultural Church.
“Douglas Brouwer is a fine writer and a compelling storyteller who, with disarming honesty, provides an intimate look at the unique life of a pastor. Chasing after Wind is a deeply satisfying read and I recommend it highly.” — JOHN M. BUCHANAN
former editor and publisher of the Christian Century
“In these pages, we encounter a thing far too rare—a pastor skilled in stringing together artful sentences, writing as a genuine human rather than a religious delegate clinching the script. If we had more stories like this, those of us who wear the stole would have a little more fear and trembling, and more wonder and laughter too.” — WINN COLLIER
author of Love Big, Be Well
“Douglas Brouwer’s memoir is an intelligent, candid, and absorbing account of a deeply felt ministry. He tells the truth about ministry in all its pain and joy. Absolutely compelling!”
— CORNELIUS PLANTINGA
author of Morning and Evening Prayers
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CHURCH & MINISTRY
What Do We Do When Nobody Is Listening?
That We May Be One Practicing Unity in a Divided Church Gary B. Agee
Leading the Church in a Polarized Society Robin W. Lovin Foreword by Adam Hamilton
A trusted senior statesman in Christian ethics and ministry addresses the crisis of political polarization threatening the existence of the church. Polarization and political gridlock have been the norm in the United States for decades. As that reality seeps into every aspect of our society, churches find themselves not only affected, but often at the very center of the conflict. What can pastors and church leaders do to restore unity in their divided congregations while still speaking the truth about important social issues? Widely respected pastor and ethicist Robin Lovin offers sage counsel in this helpful book, showing how our current situation of polarization came to be and arguing that Christians can shape a different response by learning to listen—to the Word of God, to the world, and to those who are not usually heard. “The church may be the last, best hope for healing our divided society. Professor Lovin offers a roadmap for how we might do just that.”
— ADAM HAMILTON
from the foreword
“Robin Lovin has a gift for summarizing complex cultural movements with a clarity and dexterity that others may only aspire to. Here’s an ethicist and theologian who brings light and hope to dispirited people frustrated by tense and even fighting times. Every pastor interested in helping a faith community stick together should be devouring these pages.”
— PETER W. MARTY
editor/publisher of the Christian Century
A pastor well-versed in leading diverse congregations reflects on the roots of church division and the virtues and practices that can promote the restoration of unity. “Gary Agee serves as the ideal guide for faith leaders and people of faith who take seriously Jesus’s call for unity that goes beyond simply ‘getting along.’ The path toward true unity requires us all to take to heart the real-life struggles in our world and to walk boldly toward a new way of living. That We May Be One is a timely and beautifully written resource for this crucial work.”
— DOUG PAGITT
pastor, author, and executive director of Vote Common Good
“This is a practical guide for churches who are ready to take steps to achieve something that is much easier to preach than it is to practice—Christian unity. Anyone who views the healing of racial and economic disparities as a desirable outcome of the church’s public witness will want to read this book.”
— CHERYL J. SANDERS
pastor, author, and professor of Christian ethics at Howard University
“The times in which we live are marked by strife, confusion, and division. Too often, that is our reality in the church as well as in the rest of the world. Gary Agee calls us to be better—to be the church and build true community. I pray we answer that call.”
— BISHOP TIMOTHY J. CLARKE
senior pastor of First Church of God, Columbus, Ohio
“Gary Agee issues a bold call for unity to a highly polarized church. He honestly deals with the challenges facing a church divided by race, politics, gender, sexual orientation, denomination, and the like. Yet Agee invites readers to embrace a posture of unity and implement a hermeneutic of inclusion. That We May Be One is hopeful, practical, and compelling—a must-read for twenty-first-century Christians!”
— CURTISS PAUL DeYOUNG
Robin W. Lovin is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. He formerly served as the William H. Scheide Senior Fellow in Theology at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey; as the Cary Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University; and as dean of SMU’s Perkins School of Theology. He is also a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and a contributing editor to the Christian Century. His other books include An Introduction to Christian Ethics: Goals, Duties, and Virtues and Christian Realism and the New Realities. 978-0-8028-8232-5 • Paperback • 176 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE JUNE 2022
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author of Coming Together in the 21st Century: The Bible’s Message in an Age of Diversity
Gary B. Agee is lead pastor of the Beechwood Church of God in Camden, Ohio, and serves as affiliated faculty at Anderson University’s School of Theology and Christian Ministry. Having previously taught church history at Anderson, he is also the author of A Cry for Justice: Daniel Rudd and His Life in Black Catholicism, Journalism, and Activism, 1854–1933 and Daniel Rudd: Calling a Church to Justice. 978-0-8028-8186-1 • Paperback • 165 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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How People of Faith Can Respond to Our Broken Health System G. Scott Morris
A Christian Moral Vision Alisha N. Mack and Charles C. Camosy
Foreword by Jim Wallis
Recovering the foundation of faith in a profession enduring the pressures of a rapidly changing health-care system.
Our health-care system doesn’t work for the most vulnerable. It’s time for people of faith to respond with concrete action to demonstrate God’s love and effect real change. Here’s how. The dialogue on how to fix US health care is mired in partisan policy debates. Rather than idly waiting for the gridlock to resolve, people of faith can live into their call to care for the underserved right now. Drawing from his experience as a medical doctor, a pastor, and the founder and CEO of the nation’s largest charitably funded faith-based health-care center, Scott Morris sheds light on how we can live out a crucial aspect of discipleship by ministering to those caught in the gaps. Through the stories of people too often ignored or dehumanized, Dr. Morris addresses the financial and social barriers to health care for low-income and undocumented individuals, the lack of affordable medications, the challenges of chronic disease and behavioral health issues, and the promising outcomes of faith-based care that treats the whole person. As we continue to reckon with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the inequities in our health systems it has highlighted, Dr. Morris’s book calls readers to awareness, action, and advocacy in their local communities on behalf of those who have no one else to turn to for quality care. G. Scott Morris is the founder and CEO of Church Health, a faith-based health-care center in Memphis, Tennessee, that offers care for those underserved by the US health system. Dr. Morris holds an MDiv from Yale University and an MD from Emory University. His other books include If Your Heart Is Like My Heart: A Pilgrimage of Faith and Health (coauthored with Shane Stanford) and God, Health, and Happiness: Discover Wholeness in Body and Spirit. 978-0-8028-8237-0 • Paperback • 184 pages • $18.99 US $25.99 CAN • £14.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
With the combined wisdom of Alisha Mack, a professor of nursing with many years of clinical experience, and Charles Camosy, an awardwinning bioethicist and theologian, Bioethics for Nurses advances a vision for a holistic Christian notion of nursing and health care with practical applications for everyday relevance on the job. Topics explored include the treatment of the whole person, relational care, using health-care resources justly to meet the needs of underserved people, and conscience protection. Through a series of case studies in the second part of the book, Mack and Camosy explore specific situations with far-reaching implications for nurses working in a range of fields. In the last part, the authors reflect on the future of nursing after COVID-19, making this an especially timely book for a pivotal moment in the history of the profession. “This book, rich with case studies, provides something different, needed, and useful. It focuses specifically on the work of nurses, and it attends to ways Christian beliefs might shape their work. We can hope that it will be used in many schools of nursing.” — GILBERT MEILAENDER
author of Bioethics: A Primer for Christians
Alisha N. Mack, DNP, RN, FNP-C, is assistant professor of nursing at Indiana Wesleyan University and a doctorally prepared family nurse practitioner. She is a member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and is certified as a health coach through the National Society of Health Coaches. Charles C. Camosy, PhD, is associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University. In addition to his articles that have appeared in publications ranging from the New York Times to the American Journal of Bioethics, he is the author of several books, including Losing Our Dignity: How Secularized Medicine Is Undermining Fundamental Human Equality. 978-0-8028-7892-2 • Paperback • 252 pages • $21.99 US $29.99 CAN • £17.99 UK • AVAILABLE JUNE 2022
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Christ and the Common Life Political Theology and the Case for Democracy Luke Bretherton Christ and the Common Life is an introduction to historical and contemporary theological reflection on politics that opens up a compelling vision for a Christian commitment to democracy. In dialogue with Scripture and various traditions, Luke Bretherton addresses fundamental political questions about poverty and injustice, forming a common life with strangers, and handling power constructively.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Bioethics for Nurses
Care
“Written with incisive clarity and remarkable accessibility, this book is not only a scholarly achievement of great note but also a useful tool for teaching and discussion in universities, seminaries, and churches.” — SARAH COAKLEY
University of Cambridge
“A monumental achievement in Christian political theology. Bretherton offers important, often breakthrough, reflections on the most significant issues in this field. ” — DAVID P. GUSHEE
Mercer University
“Christ and the Common Life will surely set the agenda in the field for a generation to come, orienting Christian political theology in the direction of justice.”
— VINCENT LLOYD
Villanova University
“This erudite synthesis and expansion of Bretherton’s work over the last two decades brims with insights into essential and interrelated topics, such as secularity, toleration, economy, sovereignty, and populism.” — AMOS YONG
Fuller Theological Seminary
Luke Bretherton is the Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology and senior fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. His other books include Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness, winner of the 2013 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. 978-0-8028-8179-3 • Paperback • 480 pages • $35.00 US $46.99 CAN • £28.99 UK • AVAILABLE NOW
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E VA N G E L I C A L I S M
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION BETWEEN THE TIMES
Gospel Witness through the Ages
The Hope of the Gospel
A History of Evangelism David M. Gustafson
Theological Education and the Next Evangelicalism Mark S. Young
A definitive history of Christian evangelism—including noteworthy persons, movements, and methods from the past.
A call for evangelical seminaries to renew their commitment to the centrality of the gospel so that the evangelical movement might become a more credible and compelling Christlike witness for the sake of the world.
“Evangelism might be one of the most misunderstood and under-practiced spiritual disciplines in the evangelical church today. In Gospel Witness through the Ages, David Gustafson has produced a valuable resource to help the church remember, theologically, what evangelism is while also offering a historical account of the various evangelism models and practices the church has employed throughout the last two millennia.”
“Mark Young, in The Hope of the Gospel, prophetically calls us into that liminal space which honors both the firm, historical theological roots which historically define evangelicalism and the new contextual realities of a growing, global evangelical movement.” — TIMOTHY C. TENNENT
president and professor of world Christianity at Asbury Theological Seminary
“I needed this book. It not only challenged my nostalgia for an evangelicalism that never really was exactly like what I have remembered it to be, but it also gave me new hope for evangelical theological education.”
— RICHARD J. MOUW
president emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary
“Against those who would give up on the identifier ‘evangelical,’ Mark Young pushes back with a vision of evangelical theological education in which the gospel is at the center. Young makes good in showing why a return to the gospel opens wide a doorway of hope.” — MARK A. NOLL
author of Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind
“By calling for a renewed vision of theological education, Young challenges us to examine our prevailing values and assumptions to embrace more fully God’s redemptive mission for the church and society.”
— KAREN AN-HWEI LEE
provost and professor of English at Wheaton College
— ED STETZER
dean of the School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership at Wheaton College
“I have known David Gustafson for many years. He is a faithful follower of Christ and a thoughtful and effective evangelist. This book will help you learn from history so you can make your best contribution as you seek to share Christ in a world that so desperately needs good news!”
— MARY T. LEDERLEITNER
author of Women in God’s Mission: Accepting the Invitation to Serve and Lead
“How can we proclaim the never-changing gospel to this ever-changing world? This is where David M. Gustafson’s Gospel Witness through the Ages is a supremely valuable textbook. It gives us a comprehensive survey of the history of evangelism. If we read this book, we won’t just learn from the mistakes of the past, but we will also stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. The baton of the one whose beautiful feet bring good news will be passed on to a whole new generation.” — SAM CHAN
author of Evangelism in a Skeptical World
“Those of us involved in Christian higher education have needed a learned, faithful, general history of Christian gospel witness for quite some time. Kudos to David Gustafson for meeting the need so well. His prose is crystal clear, his chapters are reliable, his judgments fair-minded and theologically edifying. This is now the go-to book on the subject.”
— DOUGLAS A. SWEENEY
Mark S. Young is the president of Denver Seminary, a large evangelical school with students representing over fifty denominations. Prior to coming to Denver he taught at Dallas Theological Seminary and served as founding academic dean of Evangelical Theological Seminary in Wrocław, Poland. 978-0-8028-7886-1 • Paperback • 151 pages • $19.99 US • $26.99 CAN • £15.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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dean of Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
David M. Gustafson is chair of the mission and evangelism department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He is also the author of Gospel Witness: Evangelism in Word and Deed. 978-0-8028-7728-4 • Paperback • 471 pages • $39.99 US • $53.99 CAN • £32.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind Mark A. Noll
E VA N G E L I C A L I S M
The prescient, perennially relevant, award-winning book from renowned evangelical historian Mark Noll, with a new preface and afterword by the author. In The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy substantial wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections. “More than a quarter century ago, Mark Noll issued a scathing indictment of the evangelical mind. The fact that the scandal has only intensified since then is a testament both to the depth of the problem Noll identified and to the urgent need to revisit its causes and reconsider its remedies at this critical juncture in evangelical history.” — KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ
author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
“Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind remains a fresh yet searing critique of anti-intellectualism in evangelicalism. The book is a powerful antidote for evangelicals swayed by soundbites, conspiracy theories, and political hucksterism. An eminent historian of the movement, Noll takes on a prophetic voice once again to save evangelicals from intellectual and spiritual death.”
— ANTHEA BUTLER
author of White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America
“This book changed my life. Like countless others who grew up in the thick of the scandal, I found Noll’s ‘cri de coeur on behalf of the intellectual life’ at once revelatory and convicting. In this new edition Noll tackles the post-2016 landscape head on, considering whether ‘the evangelical mind’ is in fact an oxymoron—and ensuring in the process that this book will remain a must-read for decades to come.”
— HEATH W. CARTER
coeditor of Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism
“Our Book of the Year [1995], Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind reminds us that ‘modern evangelicals are the spiritual descendants of leaders and movements distinguished by probing, creative, fruitful attention to the mind’ and challenges us to reclaim that heritage.” — CHRISTIANITY TODAY “Required reading for those seeking to understand the often peculiar relationship between Evangelical religion and secular culture, this is a brilliant study by—yes—a first-rate Evangelical mind.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “That anti-intellectualism is not inherent in evangelicalism Noll demonstrates by presenting evangelical intellectual history, primarily in the U.S., with scholarly thoroughness and journalistic accessibility. . . . Noll well exemplifies what he prays evangelicals generally will learn to value again: thinking like a Christian.” — BOOKLIST “An evangelical intellectual finds a kind of heresy in evangelicalism’s neglect of the mind.” — PETER STEINFELS in the NEW YORK TIMES
978-0-8028-8204-2 • Paperback • 307 pages • $28.99 US • $38.99 CAN • £22.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
Mark A. Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Notre Dame. His many other books include A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, and America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln.
“Mark Noll has written a major indictment of American evangelicalism. Reading this book, one wonders if the evangelical movement has pandered so much to American culture, tried so hard to be popular, and perpetuated such a do-it-yourself, feel-good faith that it has lost not only its mind but its soul as well. Clergy, seminary faculty, and laypeople need to take the message of this book to heart.” — ROBERT WUTHNOW
RELATED TITLES
“Those who would like to become acquainted with their evangelical neighbors will find no better book to serve as a guide than The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll, who is also the best personal guide to the subject that I know.” — MARTIN E. MARTY in COMMONWEAL
“This is a book that every American historian ought to read precisely because it makes one think hard about a subject and a discipline in a way that few books do.” — JON BUTLER in EVANGELICAL STUDIES BULLETIN
Evangelicals
Who They Have Been, Are Now, and Could Be
Mark A. Noll et al. 978-0-8028-7695-9
toll free 800 253 7521
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Bad Faith
Race and the Rise of the Religious Right
Randall Balmer 978-0-8028-7934-9
Reading Evangelicals How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith
Daniel Silliman 978-0-8028-7935-6
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HISTORY
Christian Parenting
LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
Wisdom and Perspectives from American History David P. Setran
Abraham Lincoln
What can the past teach us about what it means to be a “good” Christian parent today?
SECOND EDITION
In this illuminating historical study, David Setran catalogs the varying ways American Protestants envisioned the task of childrearing in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Comparing two main historical time periods—the colonial era and the Victorian era—Setran uncovers common threads, opposing viewpoints, and the cultural and religious influences behind the dominant parenting “postures” of each era. As he surveys these historical perspectives, Setran reflects on the legacy and future of Christian parenting, concluding that the Protestant heritage encourages the importance of intentional devotional practices, the development of close parentchild bonds, and the creation of godly household environments. In the end, he argues that all of these historical values are critical to the full expression of Christian parental love—a love that models Christlike sacrifice and guides children into the arms of their Creator. “This is more than an analysis of the history of Protestant parenting in America. Along the way, and especially at the close, wisdom garnered from the study of this history is presented in a way that makes this book a rich resource for our day. I wish I had it at hand when my children were at home. Warmly recommended.” — MICHAEL A. G. HAYKIN
professor of church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Reading this book challenges our assumptions, opens up our blind spots, and helps us begin to recognize other priorities than the ones we have settled for in our time. I love good historical storytelling, and Dave has a gift for helping us enter into the experiences of others. In so doing, we may begin to see ourselves more clearly.” — KEVIN E. LAWSON
Redeemer President Allen C. Guelzo The story of Abraham Lincoln’s faith and intellectual life—updated and revised with a new preface—from the three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize and best-selling Civil War–era historian Allen Guelzo. Praise for the First Edition “It is a testament to the strength of Redeemer President that the matters it addresses resist easy summary. The value of the book itself, however, is easy enough to state: Out of the countless volumes written about our 16th president, it ranks quite simply among the best.” — WALL STREET JOURNAL “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President is the best study of Lincoln’s religious thought, and all the better because it situates that thought in the context of Lincoln’s whole career. Guelzo’s purpose is to take Lincoln seriously ‘as a man of ideas.’ He succeeds admirably.”
— TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
“Is it possible that amid the voluminous literature on Abraham Lincoln, there is room for yet another study? Allen Guelzo’s Abraham Lincoln eloquently proves that there is, since religion has been sorely neglected by historians of Lincoln and the Civil War.” — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “A thoughtful, original book written in muscular prose. . . . Guelzo has contributed a new perspective on this much-analyzed figure.” — AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
professor of educational studies at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology
David P. Setran holds the Price-LeBar Chair of Christian Formation and Ministry at Wheaton College. He is the author of The College “Y”: Student Religion in the Era of Secularization and the coauthor, with Chris A. Kiesling, of Spiritual Formation in Emerging Adulthood: A Practical Theology for College and Young Adult Ministry. 978-0-8028-7476-4 • Paperback • 334 pages • $26.99 US • $35.99 CAN • £21.99 UK AVAILABLE JUNE 2022
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Allen C. Guelzo is a New York Times best-selling author, senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University, and the director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship for Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He has published several works on Civil War–era history, including Robert E. Lee: A Life, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. 978-0-8028-7858-8 • Jacketed Hardcover • 528 pages • $29.99 US • $39.99 CAN • £23.99 UK AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2022
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LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
HISTORY
An Odd Cross to Bear
Strength for the Fight
A Biography of Ruth Bell Graham Anne Blue Wills
The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson Gary Scott Smith
The fascinating life story, told critically but sympathetically, of a paragon of twentieth-century white Christian womanhood—and the wife of evangelist Billy Graham.
How faith sustained Jackie Robinson—both as an athlete and as an activist.
Ruth Bell Graham’s legacy is closely associated with that of her husband, whose career placed her in the public eye throughout her life. But, while it’s true that her identity was significantly shaped by her role in supporting Billy Graham’s ministry, Ruth carried a strong sense of her own agency and was widely influential in her own right, especially in the image she projected of conservative evangelical womanhood—defined by a faith that was deep, private, and nonpolitical. Beginning prior to Ruth and Billy’s meeting at Wheaton College, Anne Blue Wills chronicles the many other formative experiences of Ruth’s life— especially the first decade of her childhood living in a community of American medical missionaries in China. Throughout the biography, Wills focuses not on Ruth’s peripheral role in Billy’s life, but on her own interests, ambitions, and fears—as a devoted mother of five, as the fastidious manager of a household, as a devout and well-read Christian, and as a beloved writer and poet. Dealing honestly with a life of contradictory responsibilities that Ruth Bell Graham herself called “an odd kind of cross to bear,” Wills draws from nearly a decade of original research and presents a nuanced portrait of Graham apart from the reverential awe of her admirers and the oversimplified caricatures put forth by her detractors. In telling Graham’s story, Wills indirectly tells the story of millions of women who emulated Graham as a role model— women who spurned second-wave feminism and willingly submitted to patriarchy while maintaining an undeniable sense of independence and strength of conviction. Anne Blue Wills is professor and chair of religious studies at Davidson College. She is also the coeditor, with Andrew Finstuen and Grant Wacker, of Billy Graham: American Pilgrim, in which she wrote a chapter about Ruth Bell Graham’s influence on Billy Graham’s career. 978-0-8028-7581-5 • Jacketed Hardcover • 288 pages • $24.99 US • $33.99 CAN • £19.99 UK AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2022
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Having grown up a devout Methodist, Jackie Robinson identified with the theological convictions and social concerns of many of his fellow mainline Protestants—especially with the emphasis on dignity and justice in the Black church. This religious biography chronicles the important role of faith in Robinson’s life, from his childhood to his groundbreaking baseball career and through his transformative civil rights work—in the process, helping to humanize the man who has become a mythic figure in both sports history and American culture. “If, like me, you can’t learn enough about Jackie Robinson, you must read Gary Scott Smith’s book. Its focus on how Robinson’s progressive Christian faith supported his passionate commitment to social justice and his fight against racism, both in the world of baseball and in American society, is a vital contribution to understanding Robinson’s legacy and its significance to the field of religion and sport.” — REBECCA T. ALPERT
author of Religion and Sports and Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball
“Few sports figures have made a greater impact on American culture than Jackie Robinson. In this important biography, Gary Scott Smith examines the contours of Robinson’s Christian faith, showing how it shaped his life—inside and outside of baseball. Not only does Smith reveal how Robinson’s faith provided him the fortitude to be the first African American to play in the white major leagues, but he also shows how Robinson’s Christianity was at the center of a life devoted to fighting for racial justice in America.”
— CHRISTOPHER H. EVANS
coeditor of The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture
Gary Scott Smith is professor of history emeritus at Grove City College, where he taught from 1978 to 2017. In 2001, he was named Pennsylvania Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He is the author or editor of eighteen books, including Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill and Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents. 978-0-8028-7942-4 • Jacketed Hardcover • 320 pages • $24.99 US • $33.99 CAN • £19.99 UK AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022
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HISTORY
Reformed and Evangelical across Four Centuries The Presbyterian Story in America Nathan P. Feldmeth, S. Donald Fortson III, Garth M. Rosell, and Kenneth J. Stewart Foreword by George M. Marsden
A definitive history of the Presbyterian church in the United States, from its British foundations to its present-day expression in multiple American Presbyterian denominations. “I’ve been eagerly anticipating this volume for some time! It is far more comprehensive than anything we have had before. It not only pays close attention to the controversies in the twentieth century over orthodoxy and modernism but also shows the current and coming racial and national diversity of Presbyterianism.” — TIMOTHY KELLER
pastor emeritus at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City
“The most wide-ranging single-volume overview of the Presbyterian tradition now available. This is an extensive and evenhanded historical sourcebook for pastors, elders, professors, students, and interested laypeople alike.”
— LIGON DUNCAN
chancellor and CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary
“The history of Presbyterianism has often been characterized as a ‘split P’ narrative, with the story often being told from the perspective of one of the ‘splits.’ This wonderful book in no way ignores the diversity, but it succeeds—through a creative pan-Presbyterian team effort—in finding important common threads.” — RICHARD J. MOUW
president emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary
“With a masterly command of details crafted into unfolding narratives, Reformed and Evangelical across Four Centuries provides a sweeping overview of the precedents and pressures that have shaped evangelical Presbyterianism. It is comprehensive and meticulous in research.”
— WALTER KIM
Christ among Us Sculptures of Jesus across the History of Art Joseph Antenucci Becherer and Henry Martin Luttikhuizen A fascinating look at fifty-two sculptures of Jesus Christ from the third century to the present. No single figure has been featured with greater frequency in Western art than Jesus Christ. Sculptures, particularly—though they have received less notice than paintings—provide some of the most moving representations in their capacity to show Christ alongside us in three-dimensional space. In this “catalogue for an imagined exhibition,” two prominent art historians—one from the Roman Catholic tradition, one from the Protestant tradition—offer a guided tour of fifty-two sculptures of Jesus Christ from throughout the Western world. The chronological scope of the selection ranges from the third century to the present, with the work of well-known sculptors featured alongside the work of less familiar sculptors that deserve more attention. Along with lush, high-resolution photographs, each piece is accompanied by an essay that places it in context and brings it to life, so readers can experience the sculpture almost as vividly as they would in person. Those interested in devotional as well as artistic significance will find inspiration in the striking representations of Christ in his many forms: healer, sage, sovereign, and savior, from his humble yet majestic birth to his harrowing death and miraculous resurrection. Joseph Antenucci Becherer is the director and curator of sculpture at the University of Notre Dame art museum. Formerly he was the founding director and curator of the sculpture program at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park and professor of art history at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Henry Martin Luttikhuizen is professor of art history emeritus at Calvin University. He has coauthored and coedited several books on medieval and northern Renaissance art. Luttikhuizen also wrote numerous chapters for The History of Art: A Global View.
PCA pastor and president of the National Association of Evangelicals
Nathan P. Feldmeth is senior assistant professor of church history at Fuller Theological Seminary. S. Donald Fortson III is professor of church history and pastoral theology at the Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. Garth M. Rosell is senior research professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Kenneth J. Stewart is professor emeritus of theological studies at Covenant College.
978-0-8028-7406-1 • Jacketed Hardcover • 152 pages • $45.00 US • $60.99 CAN • £36.99 UK AVAILABLE AUGUST 2022
978-0-8028-7340-8 • Paperback • 384 pages • $29.99 US • $39.99 CAN • £23.99 UK AVAILABLE NOW
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