New Books in Christian Studies

In Paul’s New Creation: Vision for a New World and Community (Lexington Book, 2023), Sejong Chun presents inter(con)textual readings of Paul’s new creation passages from the perspective of the Korean immigrant church in America. Chun focuses on Paul’s new creation’s cosmic dimension and ecclesiastical character and proposes the ekklēsia as a tangible embodiment. The author suggests that Paul, as a middleman, accomplishes the collective project of the Jerusalem collection with his Gentile churches to declare independence from the Jerusalem church authority and to demonstrate God’s alternative economy against the exploitative system of the Roman Empire.Sejong Chun completed his PhD at Vanderbilt University. He currently serves as a visiting professor of the New Testament at Yonsei University as well as founder and senior pastor of New Creation Church in Daegu, South Korea.Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Beowulf is the product of a profoundly religious imagination, but the significance of the poem’s Christianity has been downplayed or denied altogether. The Word-Hoard Beowulf: A Translation with Commentary (Angelico Press, 2023) is the first translation and popular commentary to take seriously the religious dimension of this venerable text. While generations of students know that Beowulf represents a confluence of Christianity and paganism, this version—informed by J. R. R. Tolkien’s theory of language as the repository of myth—opens the hood to track the poem’s inner religious workings. It brings to light the essential Old English vocabulary, incorporating into the translation the divine titles used for God, specific names for evil and nonhuman creatures, and the precise language employed for providence and fate, along with terminology for kinship and heroism. Such features are not found in any other modern English translation, including Tolkien’s, whose text was never intended for publication. The Word-Hoard Beowulf draws upon Tolkien’s ideas and commentaries, however, to render a poem whose metaphysical vision takes front and center, delivering a richly restorative version of this early medieval masterpiece. The text is preceded by an introduction detailing the poem’s religious motivations and cultural context, and is accompanied by an expansive commentary. In short, this version allows readers to perceive precisely how in Beowulf (as Tolkien puts it) “the new Scripture and the old tradition touched and ignited” to produce the earliest English epic.Peter Ramey is Associate Professor of English at Northern State University, where he teaches courses on medieval English literature, Latin, and linguistics. He has published articles on Beowulf and on Old and Middle English in Modern Philology, Philological Quarterly, and other scholarly journals, while also writing for a broader audience in his essays in Public Discourse and Front Porch Republic.Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. You can also find his writing about books and films on Pages and Frames. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

From the late Roman Empire onwards, monasteries and convents were a common sight throughout Europe. But who were monasteries for? What kind of people founded and maintained them? And how did monasticism change over the thousand years or so of the Middle Ages?Andrew Jotischky traces the history of monastic life from its origins in the fourth century to the sixteenth. He shows how religious houses sheltered the poor and elderly, cared for the sick, and educated the young. They were centres of intellectual life that owned property and exercised power but also gave rise to new developments in theology, music, and art.The Monastic World: A 1,200-Year History (Yale UP, 2024) brings together the Orthodox and western stories, as well as the experiences of women, to show the full picture of medieval monasticism for the first time. It is a fascinating, wide-ranging account that broadens our understanding of life in holy orders as never before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England (Hurst, 2025) by Dr. Martyn Percy offers a bold and unsettling truth: the British Empire and Great Britain are primarily English constructions, and the Church of England benefited from English enterprise and exploitation, serving as the spiritual arm of the imperial project. English Anglicanism has cast itself as the lead character in its own ‘serious fiction’—the main religious player in a drama of Church and Empire.Yet, in collusion with colonialism, it is now trapped by historical amnesia. Dr. Percy examines the English interests concealed in appeals to Britishness, showing how slavery, exploitation, classism and racism upheld elitist and hierarchical worldviews that bolstered both Empire and Church. By viewing the rest of the world as lesser, both institutions have declined in global standing, now reduced to minor national players on the world stage.Religious, social and political imperialism thrived on deprecating others, but those once marginalised have fought for equality and independence. Today, the worldwide Anglican Communion faces a new era of moral reckoning.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Patrick Riordan, a Senior Fellow in Political Philosophy and Catholic Social Thought at Campion Hall, Oxford, explores the intricate dance between Catholic teachings and liberal politics. He delves into how the common good enriches human dignity and promotes just societies, emphasizing that liberalism can coexist harmoniously with Catholic social thought. Riordan challenges the dichotomy between faith and political engagement, urging for collaboration across diverse worldviews to foster human rights and democracy. His insights pave the way for a richer dialogue on the common good.

How does Proverbs 1-9 function as a prologue or introduction to Proverbs 10-31? Arthur Keefer argues that Proverbs 1-9 teaches interpretive skills for explaining Proverbs 10-31 by instilling the competence required to understand this material.Join as we talk with Arthur Keefer about his book Proverbs 1-9 as an Introduction to the Book of Proverbs (Bloomsbury, 2020).Arthur Keefer is Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Australia, and Assistant Minister at The Scots’ Church, Melbourne. He has published several books on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Palestine's Christians and the Nationalist Cause: The Late Ottoman and Mandatory Periods (Routledge, 2024) provides an historical overview of Palestine's Christian communities and their role in the Palestinian nationalist movement during the late Ottoman and British mandatory periods. More than being a history of Palestine's Christian Arabs, the book focuses on Palestine's Christians during the formative period of Palestinian Arab national identity, attentive to the broader topic of the relationship between nationalism and religion--in this case, between Arab identity and Islam. Whereas until recently historians have tended to assume that national and religious identities are distinct and mostly mutually exclusive things, more recent scholarship has addressed the fact that often there exists considerable overlap between the two, though it should be noted, often in ways that are not by any means inherently exclusive of those not belonging to the majority faith, as is the case here. The relationship is also an ever-changing one, hence the final chapter of the book, which functions as something of an epilogue regarding the current status of Palestine's Christians vis-à-vis their place in the nationalist cause and relationship with the broader Muslim population. The book will be of interest to historians and scholars focused on the modern Middle East, Palestinian history, Muslim-Christian inter-communal relations, and the relationship between nationalism and religion.Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Blusky and IG: @robbyref Website: www.robertomazza.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Theological seminaries and Bible institutes find themselves at the crossroads of preserving biblical faithfulness and of maintaining contextual relevance. What does faithful contextual relevance look like? How can theological institutions steer a course that will engage and serve the church through the men and women they equip for ministry and service?In The Fruits of Listening (Wipf and Stock, 2024), Colleen Weaver designed a qualitative research project in the Protestant evangelical community in Madrid, Spain. Intentional listening was conducted on three seminary campuses and in the faith community. Seminary faculty and students and church attenders shared their perspectives, experiences, and hopes for transformative theological education. Congregants envisioned theological education that equips leaders to relationally empower the church to give witness in the society. Faculty and students described the contextual challenges they face as Protestant believers in Spain. They voiced narratives of how they must find ways to persevere amid pervasive scarcity and in a rapidly changing society.Seminaries and churches around the world may recognize details of their own experiences in these stories and, importantly, receive resources for being contextually responsive in their situations.Dave Broucek is a retired cross-cultural missionary/coordinator of continuing education/international ministries director. He interviews authors who provide critical reflection on the theology and practice of Christian mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In the early years of American independence, Methodism emerged as the new republic’s fastest growing religious movement and its largest voluntary association. Following the contours of settler expansion, the Methodist Episcopal Church also quickly became the largest denomination in the early American West. With Sacred Capital: Methodism and Settler Colonialism in the Empire of Liberty (University of Virginia Press, 2024), Dr. Hunter Price resituates the Methodist Episcopal Church as a settler-colonial institution at the convergence of “the Methodist Age” and Jefferson’s “Empire of Liberty.”Dr. Price offers a novel interpretation of the Methodist Episcopal Church as a network through which mostly white settlers exchanged news of land and jobs and facilitated financial transactions. Benefiting from Indigenous dispossession and removal policies, settlers made selective, strategic use of the sacred and the secular in their day-to-day interactions to advance themselves and their interests. By analyzing how Methodists acted as settlers while identifying as pilgrims, Dr. Price illuminates the ways that ordinary white Americans fulfilled Jefferson’s vision of an Empire of Liberty while reinforcing the inequalities at its core.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.”Thompson presents the history of the Persian church’s mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China.In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology.Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website.New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies