New Books in Christian Studies

Bestselling author Timothy Keller and legal scholar John Inazu bring together a thrilling range of artists, thinkers, and leaders to provide a guide to faithful living in a pluralistic, fractured world. How can Christians today interact with those around them in a way that shows respect to those whose beliefs are radically different but that also remains faithful to the gospel? Timothy Keller and John Inazu bring together illuminating stories--their own and from others--to answer this vital question. Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference (Thomas Nelson, 2020) gathers an array of perspectives from people thinking deeply and working daily to live with humility, patience, and tolerance in our time. Providing varied and enlightening approaches to reaching faithfully across deep and often painful differences, Uncommon Ground shows us how to live with confidence, joy, and hope in a complex and fragmented age.Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Though Churchill harbored intellectual doubts about Christianity throughout his life, he nevertheless valued it greatly and drew on its resources, especially in the crucible of war. In Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill (Eerdmans, 2021), Smith unpacks Churchill’s paradoxical religious views and carefully analyzes the complexities of his legacy. This thorough examination of Churchill’s religious life provides a new narrative structure to make sense of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century.Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Beacon, 2020) reveals how faith traditions have always passed down tools for self-examination and debate, because all religious ideas—not just extremist ones—can cause harm, even as they also embody important moral teachings.Scripture’s abiding relevance can inspire great goodness, such as welcoming the stranger and extending compassion for the poor. But its authority has also been wielded to defend slavery, marginalize LGBTQ individuals, ignore science, and justify violence. Grounded in close readings of scripture and tradition in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, religious scholar Rachel Mikva shows us that the Abrahamic religions have always been aware of their tremendous power both to harm and to heal. And so they have transmitted their sacred stories along with built-in tools—interpretive traditions—to do the necessary work of taking on dangerous religious ideas and fostering self-critical faith.Rabbi Rachel Mikva is the Rabbi & Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, and Senior Faculty Fellow of the InterReligious Institute at Chicago Theological Seminary, Illinois.Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Digital dualism, or a sharp division between online and offline activity as "virtual" or "real" has long been a feature of liturgical studies and discussions around worship gatherings for theorists and practitioners alike. Teresa Berger's new book @Worship: Liturgical Practices in Digital Worlds (Routledge, 2017) provides a manifesto for more nuanced thinking about digital mediation, materiality, ecclesial gathering, and sacramental presence in our digitally suffused world. While this book was published several years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the careful thinking Berger presents here can certainly guide church leaders and participants in present and future conversations as worshiping communities find themselves facing prolonged seasons of online gatherings and digital devotion.  Ryan David Shelton (@ryoldfashioned) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

When John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—“one of the truly great men of our time,” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains indelible—most especially regarding his role in bringing the worldview of American exceptionalism to the forefront of US foreign policy during the Cold War era, a worldview that has long outlived him. God's Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles (Eardmans, 2021) recounts how Dulles’s faith commitments from his Presbyterian upbringing found fertile soil in the anti-communist crusades of the mid-twentieth century. After attending the Oxford Ecumenical Church Conference in 1937, he wrote about his realization that “the spirit of Christianity, of which I learned as a boy, was really that of which the world now stood in very great need, not merely to save souls, but to solve the practical problems of international affairs.” Dulles believed that America was chosen by God to defend the freedom of all those vulnerable to the godless tyranny of communism, and he carried out this religious vision in every aspect of his diplomatic and political work. He was conspicuous among those US officials in the twentieth century that prominently combined their religious convictions and public service, making his life and faith key to understanding the interconnectedness of God and country in US foreign affairs from World War I to Vietnam.Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Enter the remarkable untold love story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon is esteemed for his writing, preaching, and passion for the Lord. But behind the great man was a great wife—and between the man and wife was a profound marriage. Yours, Till Heaven: The Untold Love Story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon (Moody Publishers, 2021) invites you into the untold love story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon to discover how the bond between this renowned couple helped fuel their lifelong service to the Lord. Discover how Charles and Susie traversed the challenges of loneliness, physical affliction, popularity, controversy, and other trials together with a heavenly vision. Just as the Spurgeons lived their lives as witnesses of Christ, in Yours, Till Heaven their marriage continues to be an example for how all marriages today can remain faithful, loving, and joyful despite the challenges that life may bring. With historical precision and narrative craft, Spurgeon scholar Ray Rhodes Jr. captures the inner-life of this Victorian romance that not only served the Spurgeons in their day, but that can also continue to empower and encourage couples today.Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Folklorist Robert L. Stone presents a rare collection of high-quality documentary photos of the sacred steel guitar musical tradition and the community that supports it. The introductory text and extended photo captions in Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus! Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community (University of Mississippi Press, 2020) offer the reader an intimate view of this unique tradition of passionately played music that is beloved among fans of American roots music and admired by folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and other scholars.In 1992, a friend in Hollywood, Florida, introduced Stone to African American musicians who played the electric steel guitar in the African American Holiness-Pentecostal churches House of God and Church of the Living God. With the passion, skill, and unique voice they brought to the instruments, these musicians profoundly impressed Stone. He produced an album for the Florida Folklife Program, which Arhoolie Records licensed and released worldwide. It created a roots music sensation.In 1996, Stone began to document the tradition beyond Florida. He took the photos in this book from 1992 to 2008 in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida, and at concerts in Italy. The images capture musicians as they play for worship services before spirit-filled believers singing, dancing, shouting, praying, and testifying. Stone gives the viewer much to witness, always presenting his passionate subjects with dignity. His sensitive portrayal of this community attests to the ongoing importance of musical traditions in African American life and worship.Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

How do we understand the nuances of efforts by Christian conservatives to affect American law – and evaluate their success? What lessons do they hold for other social movements? Dr. Amanda Hollis-Brusky, associate professor of politics at Pomona College and Dr. Joshua C. Wilson, professor of Political Science at the University of Denver join the podcast to discuss Separate But Faithful: The Christian Right's Radical Struggle to Transform Law and Legal Culture (Oxford UP, 2020)The book evaluates whether activists pushing for lawyers and judges with a Christian Worldview have been able to achieve their goals and transform American legal culture. This impressive book contributes to our general understanding of social movements, legal mobilization, and constitutional development – but also the specifics of how the Christian Conservative Legal Movement (CCLM) has attempted to transform American law from secular and liberal to Christian and natural. While many people know of The Federalist Society’s attempts to influence scholarship, they may be less familiar with the push to create separate law schools and legal institutions that teach from a Christian worldview such as Regent University Law School, Liberty University Law School, and Ave Maria School of Law. This thoughtfully written and well-researched book uses a modified version of Support Structure Theory and extensive data collected by the authors to interrogate why the New Christian Right rejected the lower-cost, lower risk infiltration approach to support structure building in favor of “a mix of parallel alternative and supplemental approaches.” The book includes a helpful model (the Support Structure Pyramid) for conceptualizing litigation-based movement support structures, institutions, and their relationship to legal change. The podcast includes a conversation about the evolution of that particular conception (and what the authors might change). Their analysis of different forms of capital (human, social, cultural, and intellectual) allows Hollis-Brusky and Wilson to assess the actual and potential capital outputs of each institution and the extent to which the Christian Conservative Legal Movement achieved their goals. The Christian Right has struggled to influence the legal and political mainstream but it has succeeded in creating a space of resistance to unify and connect those who seek to challenge “a dominant legal culture” seen as “incorrigibly liberal.” In the podcast, the authors discuss how they brought together Hollis-Brusky’s scholarship on the Federalist Society (Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Oxford, 2019) and Wilson’s earlier research on The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, and American’s Culture Wars (Stanford, 2013) to create this nuanced, collaborative book.Susan Liebell is an associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Why Diehard Originalists Aren’t Really Originalists recently appeared in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and “Retreat from the Rule of Law: Locke and the Perils of Stand Your Ground” was published in the Journal of Politics (July 2020). Email her comments at sliebell@sju.edu or tweet to @SusanLiebell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In November 2015, Pope Francis made a call to theologians to explore whether Catholic practice ought to be amended to include Christians from different churches in full participation in the Eucharist. Thomas O’Loughlin replies in his book, Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press Academic, 2019). This is an insightful and practical book exploring theological arguments for intercommunion. O’Loughlin builds on the initial sketches offered by Pope Francis, and investigates the grammar of meals as an anthropological community building activity, the role of the Holy Spirit in liturgical practice, and the teleology of Eucharistic ritual. This is an accessible and important book contributing toward an ecumenical posture of unity across Christian traditions, and is as valuable for its approach and tone as for its penetrating insights. Tom O'Loughlin is Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. Ryan David Shelton (@ryoldfashioned) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Elesha J. Coffman's Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith (Oxford UP, 2021) takes a careful look at Mead’s religious origins and influence. As a famous American anthropologist, Mead’s intellectual contributions to mid-century culture has been fruitfully studied. Coffman offers insight into a neglected aspect of Mead’s life—her religious views. Born into a home with secular agnostic parents, Mead chose a religious path as a child and joined the Episcopal Church. As an anthropologist she believed in the significance of ritual and the importance of service but rejected many of the particulars of her chosen faith. From De Pauw University to Columbia University, through multiple love affairs and marriages, travels and publications, Mead became an influential public intellectual, developing her own perspective on social ethics. Her high-profile and expansive view of human development that did not reject religion offered the opportunity to contribute to mid-twentieth century liberal Christianity on multiple fronts.Elesha J. Coffman, an associate professor of History at Baylor University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies