Nicholas Wolterstorff
History & Biography
“Abraham Kuyper was such a titanic figure in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, such a volcano of prodigious energy and imagination in so many areas of life, that I have long assumed that his genius would elude capture by any biographer. James Bratt's biography, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat, proves that I was mistaken. This is Kuyper -- not always likable, but always astounding. And it's a page-turner besides.”
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
“Abraham does not shirk from saying that in his grief he could not reason about the death of his son or about his grief. He does not shirk from saying that we have no theological explanation for the untimely death of children. He does not shirk from saying that, though we live without explanations, we nonetheless have ground for hope. Readers will find this honesty refreshing and consoling. It captures their experience, and it gives them permission to set aside pious talk and voice their own grief.”
Arts & Literature
“The engagement of theologians with the poetry of recent times has usually consisted of giving theological warrant to beauty and aesthetic gratification, of finding analogies between poetry and theology, or of discovering Christian themes in Christian and non-Christian poets alike. David Mahan, in An Unexpected Light, has achieved something distinctly new and different. He has taken three examples of Christian conviction inhabiting the contemporary world in the form of poems by Charles Williams, Micheal O'Siadhail, and Geoffrey Hill. With lovingly close attention to both form and content, he has brought to our attention the 'inscape' of these examples of Christian inhabitation in poetic form. And he has judiciously asked what Christian theologians can learn from a close reading of these poems for their own way of inhabiting our world today. It's an admirable achievement!”
Arts & Literature
“Art Seeking Understanding is a cornucopia of reports of cutting-edge work. A recent development in philosophical aesthetics is the rise of interest in aesthetic cognitivism: the claim that engagement with works of art often enhances understanding. And a recent development in empirical psychology is innovative inquiries into the psychological dynamics involved in engagement with works of art. Art Seeking Understanding honors Sir John Templeton’s wish to promote empirical studies into spiritual experience by bringing together these two developments by reports of twenty-three empirical studies, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, into ways in which engagement with works of art stimulates and enhances understanding of spiritual realities. Groundbreaking contributions to a beckoning new field of inquiry.”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“Using the tower of Babel story as a frame, Li Ma shows how the desire for growth, influence, and fame in the evangelical church, both in the US and around the world, has led to scandals and the subversion of Christianity. Using an interdisciplinary approach, she analyzes in detail the televangelism movement, the megachurch movement, the Promise Keepers movement, and the new-Calvinist movement. What makes her discussion of these developments stand out from others is her creative exegesis, the richness of her multidisciplinary analysis, and the vast range of her references. An informative and illuminating read!”
Christian Living
“Eloquent intertwined reflections by the artist Makoto, on creating canvases whose beauty honors the victims of massacres and tragedies, and by the lawyer Haejin, on securing justice for the victims of human trafficking. There are many books on beauty and many on justice, few on both beauty and justice. What makes Beauty and Justice stand out from even those few is the authors’ inspiring vision of the intertwining of beauty and justice in shalom and their highly original employment throughout of the Japanese concept of Kintsugi: mending a fractured vessel with gold, making it more beautiful than it was before. What a gift!”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“Common sense is usually bland and boring. Nigel Biggar's book Behaving in Public, however, is full of common sense that is anything but bland and boring. That's because Biggar employs his common sense polemically to show what's deficient in one and another position on speaking as a Christian in public, and to point to alternatives. Over and over I found myself saying, 'Yes, of course; he's right.' This is a wonderfully fresh, perceptive, and sensible discussion.”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“[An] eloquent, challenging, and deeply spiritual book.”
Four (and a half) Dialogues on Homosexuality and the Bible
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
Foreword
(wrote the foreword)
Arts & Literature
“In the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago there is no obviously religious art: no Madonnas seated on thrones, no cherubs, no ascetics gazing heavenward, no doves descending. It all appears thoroughly secular. But suppose that, with eyes of faith and informed about the lives and times of the artists, one looks closely and reflectively at what is there rather than at what is not there. That is what the writers in this collection do. And what they see is art haunted by transcendence on the one hand and despair and brokenness on the other—and, here and there, by celebration of the beauty of the ordinary. It turns out that the distance between Fourth Presbyterian in Chicago and the Modern Wing is not as great as many think. Take and read—and have yours eyes opened.”
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
“Grief's Liturgy is extraordinary; there is nothing like it. It's a grieving celebration of love--as is every true lament. What makes it stand out from all other contemporary laments is that Postema gives to the grieving celebration of love for his wife a moving and imaginative liturgical form. The writing is beautifully poetic and spare, as all speech in the face of death should be. And it's concrete, often achingly so. Wonderful! To be savored.”
Bible Studies & Devotionals
“What a wonderful idea: take a short passage from a literary work, compose a brief meditation on the theme of the passage, and conclude with a text from Scripture that encapsulates the meditation. . . . Knol and Karsten bring it off with deftness, grace, empathy, and insight. It’s a treasure.”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“Jesus inaugurated his ministry by proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God. What does that long-ago event have to do with us today? Everything, say the authors of Jesus and the Powers. The fundamental character of authentic Christian political activity, they argue, is ‘building for the kingdom.’ Using their skills as esteemed New Testament scholars, the authors first illuminate what Jesus would have meant by ‘the kingdom of God’ and then explore how present-day Christians can build for the kingdom. I know of no other book that comes even close to locating, so insightfully and in such rich detail, Christian political activity within the context of the coming of the kingdom. Given what is happening in politics today, their call for Christians to engage as workers for the kingdom could not be timelier.”
Philosophy
“It is very difficult to bring a historical philosopher into dialogue with present-day philosophers without evident signs of strain. Jean Porter brings off this difficult feat with aplomb in Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. She moves back and forth with ease between an exhaustive knowledge and penetrating interpretation of Thomas's texts and the discussions taking place in philosophy today on the same and related topics. A very impressive achievement.”
Philosophy
“Over and over Evans illuminates Kierkegaard’s always suggestive, but often dark and baffling, rhetoric. Over and over he shows that the conventional interpretation of Kierkegaard’s thought is mistaken. What emerges is a Kierkegaard I did not know—a Kierkegaard that most of us did not know. This is as good as commentaries get.”
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
“In this beautifully written and brutally honest book, Jason Jones tells the story of the accidental death of his three-year old son, of his anger at God's apparent indifference, until he discovers God with him in his grief, and of his struggle to once again find joy and meaning in life, without forgetting his son or his grief. People in grief often think and say what they've been told they ought to think and say. Reading this gripping book will give them permission to be themselves: to cry out in grief, to be angry, to wrestle with their doubts.”
NOTE: Only includes books currently in our catalog; not necessarily a complete list.
Arts & Literature
Church Leadership & Ministry
History & Biography
Theology
Philosophy
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
Reason within the Bounds of Religion
Philosophy
Preaching & Worship
Philosophy
Until Justice and Peace Embrace
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
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