New Books in Christian Studies

Why did no other ancient society produce something like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community could have created a literary corpus so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable. For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Forged after Babylon's devastation of Jerusalem, it makes not victory but total humiliation the foundation of a new idea of belonging. Lamenting the destruction of their homeland, scribes who composed the Bible imagined a promise-filled past while reflecting deeply on abject failure. More than just religious scripture, the Bible began as a trailblazing blueprint for a new form of political community. Its response to catastrophe offers a powerful message of hope and restoration that is unique in the Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds. Wright's Bible is thus a social, political, and even economic roadmap - one that enabled a small and obscure community located on the periphery of leading civilizations and empires not just to come back from the brink, but ultimately to shape the world's destiny. The Bible speaks ultimately of being a united yet diverse people, and its pages present a manual of pragmatic survival strategies for communities confronting societal collapse. Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2023) is a tour de force.Jacob L. Wright is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Darnise C. Martin's Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (NYU Press, 2005) draws on rich ethnographic work in a Religious Science church in Oakland, California, to illuminate the ways a group of African Americans has adapted a religion typically thought of as white to fit their needs and circumstances. This predominantly African American congregation is an anomalous phenomenon for both Religious Science and African American religious studies. It stands at the intersection of New Thought doctrine, characterized by personal empowerment teachings,and a culturally familiar liturgical style reminiscent of Black Pentecostals and Black Spiritualists. This group challenges oversimplified concepts of the Black church experience and broadens the concept of Black religion outside the boundaries of Christianity—raising questions about what it means to be an African American congregation, and about the nature of blackness itself. Beyond Christianity adds a new dimension to the scholarship on Black religion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Kami Fletcher and Ashley Towle’s edited collection Grave History: Death, Race and Gender in Southern Cemeteries (University of Georgia Press, 2023), demonstrates how Jim Crow laws extended into the realms of the dead. Cemeteries throughout the Southern states either relegated Black funerals to the margins in existing cemeteries or excluded the community altogether, often citing the excuse that inclusion would create unrest amongst white lot-holders, and disturb the peace of the cemetery. Burial spaces become demonstrative of oppression, but could also signal resistance to oppression. This impressive text provides an essential primer in African American cemetery history and illustrates how the Black community created frameworks of community support to ensure that homegoing services were dignified and affordable. Chapters also explore the historic importance of African American burial grounds, where grave markers are uniquely important to the recreation of otherwise poorly documented communities. The chapters also lean into the problems intrinsic to interpreting the material culture of oppression, where historic Black identities risk becoming fixed within narratives of victimhood.The book includes workshop guidance for teachers, for use with students at all stages in the education process.Dr Julie Rugg is Director of the Cemetery Research Group, University of York, UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In comparison with other prophetic books, the Book of Ezekiel sets forth a unique angle on the relationship of the Lord's word and spirit. In his monograph, Word And Spirit in Ezekiel (T&T Clark, 2006), James Robson argues that the relationship between the Lord's spirit and the Lord's word in Ezekiel is to be understood not so much in terms of inspiration and authentication of the prophet, but in terms of the transformation of the book's addressees.James Robson is Principal of Oak Hill College, UK, and also the author of Honey From the Rock: Deuteronomy for the People of God, and Deuteronomy 1-11: A Handbook of the Hebrew Text.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

A centuries-old story with remarkable contemporary resonance, Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614 (Hurst, 2017) is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr's riveting and "richly detailed" (Choice) chronicle of what was, by 1614, the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history.Months after King Philip III of Spain signed an edict in 1609 denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death. In the brutal and traumatic exodus that followed, entire families and communities were forced to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. By 1613, an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory.Blood and Faith presents a remarkable window onto a little known period of modern Europe--a complex tale of competing faiths and beliefs, cultural oppression, and resistance against over-whelming odds that sheds new light on national identity and Islam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

“What is a man?” asks Hamlet. If all he does is “sleep and feed,” then “a beast, no more.” That’s not enough for Hamlet, and it’s not enough for Brant Hansen, who spreads the Gospel by radio and in print. He’s written a number of books, including his new one, The Men We Need, which asks and answers questions about men’s special role in our world, and the opportunity for joy and meaning. Hansen’s thesis is rooted in scripture and reflects what Catholics will recognize as the theology of the Body developed by St. John Paul II. It was a great book and our conversation was tremendously fun.This is the seventy-fifth episode of Almost Good Catholics and starts off our third season and the year 2024. My discussion with Brant is 52 minutes long, but then I’ve added fifteen minutes of Christmas music from Josh and Margot of the Great Space Coaster Band to celebrate. Brant Hansen’s website and radio show. The Men We Need by Brant Hansen (2022) and all of his books. Brant Hansen’s page and CURE International’s page on Wikipedia. Trailer for Wall-E (Disney and Pixar, 2008). The ever-growing Josh and Margot Christmas Album and the Great Space Coaster band website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

The exodus—the story of God leading his chosen people out of slavery in Egypt—stands as a pivotal event in the Old Testament. But if you listen closely, you will hear echoes of this story of redemption all throughout God’s Word.Using music as a of metaphor, the authors of Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture (Crossway) point us to the recurring theme of the exodus throughout the entire symphony of Scripture, shedding light on the Bible’s unified message of salvation and restoration that is at the heart of God’s plan for the world.Alastair J. Roberts (PhD, Durham University) works for the Theopolis, Davenant, and Greystone Institutes. He participates in the Mere Fidelity and Theopolis podcasts, and blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria.Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist theological seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Although Katharine Drexel has been the subject of several biographies, they have tended to treat her as a perfect human being whom the Church later transformed into a saint. Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision (Paulist Press, 2023) moves beyond the story of the heiress’s individual life devoted to God and shines a light on the work she did, assisted by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Drexel could have lived comfortably, wealthy and privileged, as a Philadelphia philanthropist but chose to found a religious congregation of women dedicated to working within Black and Indigenous communities―without receiving the bulk of the money left by Drexel's father.Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision is a critical biography of this American saint written within the context of the religious order she founded. It ties her sainthood to the Sisters’ ministries to Black and Indigenous communities; Margaret McGuinness's careful examination of the work Katharine Drexel and her Sisters accomplished brings a critical perspective to this important ministry in the Church. It deepens our understanding of these communities and renews our commitment to the difficult, ongoing conversation about race in America.Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church’s response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In 1570's New Kingdom of Granada (modern Colombia), a new generation of mestizo (half-Spanish, half-indigenous) men sought positions of increasing power in the colony's two largest cities. In response, Spanish nativist factions zealously attacked them as unequal and unqualified, unleashing an intense political battle that lasted almost two decades. At stake was whether membership in the small colonial community and thus access to its most lucrative professions should depend on limpieza de sangre (blood purity) or values-based integration (Christian citizenship). Max Deardoff's A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) examines the vast, trans-Atlantic transformation of political ideas about subjecthood that ultimately allowed some colonial mestizos and indios ladinos (acculturated natives) to establish urban citizenship alongside Spaniards in colonial Santafé de Bogotá and Tunja. In a spirit of comparison, it illustrates how some of the descendants of Spain's last Muslims appealed to the same new conceptions of citizenship to avoid disenfranchisement in the face of growing prejudice.Ethan Besser Fredrick is a graduate student in Modern Latin American history seeking his PhD at the University of Minnesota. His work focuses on the Transatlantic Catholic movements in Mexico and Spain during the early 20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Not everyone was convinced by the arguments of patriots during the American revolution. Among those who retained some degree of loyalty to the British crown were the majority of the clergy of the Episcopalian Church, as well as a smaller number of clergy from Congregational, Presbyterian and other protestant bodies. In this important new work, Gregg L. Frazer, professor of history and political science at The Master’s University, Santa Clarita, CA, surveys the arguments that loyalist clergy proposed. God Against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case Against the American Revolution (University Press of Kansas, 2018) is the first detailed account of this defeated intellectual tradition – a book that challenges many of our assumptions about the character and intention of the American revolution by putting debates about biblical interpretation at its heart.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies