James F. Kay

A Kingdom We Can Taste

Preaching & Worship

“Each of these sermons by David Davis welcomes our questions and doubts on the way to meaningful affirmations. Through these thoughtful reflections capturing congregational conversations, we too journey from Advent to Easter, thinking things through with a worshiping community intent on understanding both the Scriptures and the faith. Here is a pastor-preacher who never stops listening to his people and to the Word.”

Crossover Preaching

Preaching & Worship

“As the United States moves toward its 2040 demographic change from a white majority nation, Jared Alcántara's study of Gardner C. Taylor provides a timely guide for preachers emerging into the intercultural world in which America's churches are increasingly situated. Readers will find both inspiration and instruction through Alcántara's depiction of Taylor as one who boldly 'crossed over' to address audiences well beyond those of his own Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn. Highlighting Taylor's improvisational adeptness and contextual awareness, Alcántara brings to the fore Taylor's contribution to an intercultural homiletic, and one that still holds promise for the church today.”

Professor Schmoot Has Lost His Keys Again

Fiction

“Reminiscent of David Lodge's satirical takes on British academic life, Christopher Morse drills relentlessly into the troubled industry of American theological education. Those who passed through this system in the ’70s and ’80s will readily recognize the cast of characters at Star-Cross Seminary, not least ourselves, as we fumble and bumble on the road to Emmaus.”

Rudolf Bultmann

Theology

“Who better than David Congdon to take us into the work of Christianity's greatest interpreter of Scripture in the modern period? With an expert's grasp of the entire architecture of Rudolf Bultmann's thought, Congdon leads the reader through its conceptual entry points. Here is a reliable primer, likely a classic, to guide both beginning students and well-schooled theologians away from the misconceptions, even myths, so often bedeviling treatments of Bultmann.”

Suicide and the God of Grace

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“Suicide remains the last taboo topic among Christians. Pastor Mark Koonz rescues silence with long-overlooked scriptural insights. While sinful, suicide is nowhere ‘the unforgiveable sin’ in the Bible or in centuries of Christian reflection. Acknowledging our confusions and questions, find here a conversation opening toward the God of grace. This book will be welcomed by clergy, caregivers, families, and friends struggling with the wrenching ‘Whys?’ and the ‘Now What?’ left behind by those they love.”

Systematics Critical and Constructive 2: With Compendium Interactions

Theology

“In this second volume of his Systematics, Ronald Ray once again wields his pen in both critical and constructive directions. . . . On the critical side, the author argues that to believe the Christian message does not mean believing everything propounded as ‘religious’—or taught in the name of Jesus Christ! . . . For those for whom constructive and critical thought remains a calling worthy of the gospel, this important work is highly recommended.”

The Fall and Sin

Theology

“In a time when speaking of sin, 'original' or otherwise, has disappeared from the 'feel-good' ethos of our culture, Marguerite Shuster's unblinking study of the human condition reawakens our slumbering responsibility and recalls us to unsentimental hope in Jesus Christ. Her intellectually sparkling sermons, speaking directly to her hearers alongside her theological expositions, show how 'the Fall' remains pertinent in proclaiming the gospel. In these pages we find a theologian -- and a preacher -- in worthy succession to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr.”

The Only Sacrament Left to Us

Theology

“Chris Currie surveys the fault lines between Barth's opening doctrine of revelation and his later doctrine of reconciliation. Does Barth's turn to Jesus Christ alone as God's sovereign Word to the whole world displace his earlier emphasis on the church's mediating proclamation of the Scriptures in sermon and sacrament as the divine word's promised means of grace? While some have argued so, Currie's new mapping of the terrain of Barth's thought shows how the threefold Word of God continues to matter for the mission of the church in service to the world.”

The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 4

Preaching & Worship

“Ecumenical in breadth, magisterial in authority, and pastoral in intentionality, Old's multivolume history of preaching is a landmark in American intellectual history. Old views preaching as an act of worship, and his own prodigious scholarship likewise stands in service to God. Old has bequeathed to the church of the twenty-first century the definitive history of preaching, a spiritual feast for scholars and preachers alike for years and years to come.”