Thy Will Be Done: The Ten Commandments and the Christian Life | Gilbert Meilaender

Thy Will Be Done: The Ten Commandments and the Christian Life | Gilbert Meilaender

Gilbert Meilaender’s Thy Will Be Done is a creative attempt to think about the Christian life in dialogue with the Decalogue, or, the Ten Commandments. Meilaender’s treatment of the commandments is prefaced by a chapter on “The Law of Christ” wherein he situates the Decalogue within the larger context of the gospel, describing it as “instructional prophecy” (15). In this regard, he follows more closely with Karl Barth’s Law-Gospel reversal and Calvin’s third use of the law than he does with his own Lutheran tradition.

Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World | Michael J. Naughton

Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World | Michael J. Naughton

Michael Naughton, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, has given a thought-provoking gift to the church today. In a society driven by productivity and profits, he’s presented a powerful defense of what would have been known by all Christians just a generation or two ago: that we are finite creatures who have been given a divine calling (or vocation).

Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World | N.T. Wright

Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World | N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright’s latest book outlines seven themes, or “signposts,” that point to the reality of God, and that only find fulfillment and clarity in Jesus Christ.

The book, Broken Signposts, draws upon work done earlier by Wright in Simply Christian (2006), and in his recently published Gifford Lectures, History and Eschatology (2019). In this work, Wright focuses on seven themes: Justice, Love, Spirituality, Beauty, Freedom, Truth, and Power, and connects each one with the portrait of Jesus found in John’s Gospel. The result is a beautifully written, rhetorically persuasive, and devotionally rich work of biblical and theological apologetics.

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States | Andrew L. Whitehead & Samuel L. Perry

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States | Andrew L. Whitehead & Samuel L. Perry

In Taking America Back for God, Whitehead and Perry offer a helpful diagnostic of the engine of American nationalism, revealing both the fuel and force of the movement in but clearly also beyond the church. One of the most helpful insights was the distinction between evangelicalism – and a robustly biblical Christianity and ethic – and Christian nationalism. While many evangelicals hold to some form of Christian nationalism, it is clearly not innate to evangelicalism, and in many ways is diametrically opposed to it.

Providence, Race, and Formation: Reflections on The Christian Imagination

Providence, Race, and Formation: Reflections on The Christian Imagination

As I read Jennings’ book, I could not help but ask myself: Might we be carrying a mutated doctrine of providence in our own theological imaginations? As pastors, we are called to shape the theological vision of our congregations, to form them to see the world through the lens of the gospel, and to do the hard work of exploring the formation of our ecclesial imagination, both for ourselves and our congregation. So how might this mutation be infecting the Body of Christ today?

Tears We Cannot Stop | Michael Eric Dyson

Tears We Cannot Stop | Michael Eric Dyson

Michael Eric Dyson’s Tears We Cannot Stop promises to be “a sermon to White America”—a promise on which Dyson over-delivers. Tears is not merely a sermon; it is an entire liturgy. Whether or not it is truly for White America is, for the time being, an open question. Dyson’s tone and rhetoric often leaves him “preaching to the choir.” But even preaching to the choir has its place in the august history of homiletics. Dyson intentionally locates himself within the great American tradition of jeremiad. Thus, we are not surprised to find Dyson prodding and pleading his readers to return to the path of American holiness.

Preaching and Popular Christianity | James D. Cook

Preaching and Popular Christianity | James D. Cook

Time spent with the 4th century pastor posthumously surnamed “the Golden Mouth” proves a worthy investment for anyone who preaches or who thinks carefully about preaching. In recent decades, studies of Chrysostom’s preaching have focused on what his sermons tell us about the congregation. While this remains a worthy endeavor, James Cook’s Peaching and Popular Christianity shifts the focus back to the role of the pastor and the importance of preaching as a discourse.

The Preacher's Wife | Kate Bowler

The Preacher's Wife | Kate Bowler

Since the Yale historian Perry Miller ushered in the Edwards renaissance resulting in Yale’s twenty-six volume print publication of a number of Edwards’ works and the launch of edwards.yale.edu, where the remaining seventy-three volumes of the Edwards corpus may be accessed—scholars, pastors, and serious lay readers have become acquainted with a number of Edwards’ personas. Edwards is known as America’s theologian, a first-rate philosopher, revival preacher extraordinaire, and, more recently, a premier exegete of the Holy Writ (c.f. Sweeney, Edwards the Exegete).

Edwards the Mentor | Ryhs S. Bezzant

Edwards the Mentor | Ryhs S. Bezzant

Since the Yale historian Perry Miller ushered in the Edwards renaissance resulting in Yale’s twenty-six volume print publication of a number of Edwards’ works and the launch of edwards.yale.edu, where the remaining seventy-three volumes of the Edwards corpus may be accessed—scholars, pastors, and serious lay readers have become acquainted with a number of Edwards’ personas. Edwards is known as America’s theologian, a first-rate philosopher, revival preacher extraordinaire, and, more recently, a premier exegete of the Holy Writ (c.f. Sweeney, Edwards the Exegete).