Robert C. Dykstra
A Radical Political Theology for the Anthropocene Era
Theology
“In this meticulous and moving political theology, LaMothe stares without flinching at looming ecological disasters and mass migration arising from climate change. Refusing facile assertions of hope along with nihilism and despair, LaMothe locates in moments of tender parental vulnerability and of tormented divine humility a path forward for responding to one another and to all creation. No one else could have written this stunning work.”
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
“Cancer Is Funny is a stunning monument to human perseverance and divine grace amid the specter of finitude. The very fact of its construction, like that of the ancient pyramids or the Taj Mahal, is as improbable as it is awe-inspiring and beautiful. The result is a wonder to behold. Jason Micheli is that rare Christian minister who serves up truth unvarnished, live-blogging with graphic honesty his experience of ingesting deadly poisons designed to spare his young life, against sobering odds, from an unforgiving cancer. Fasten your seatbelts, dear readers. There is turbulence ahead. Prepare to laugh and cry. Prepare to live and die.”
Theology
“Care of Souls, Care of Polis issues a clarion call for pastoral theologians, ministers, and churches to attend to unrelenting devastation unleashed by forces of neoliberal capitalism—a worldview measuring the worth of persons solely in economic terms—on the souls and psyches of individuals, families, and communities in the United States and around the globe. Ryan LaMothe is a rare and perfect guide for this perilous journey, fully expert both in the literature and practices of pastoral care and in nuances of economic and political theory. What emerges is a ‘redemptive discourse’ that subverts uncivil political speech and offers hope for renewed flourishing in human relationships.”
Church Leadership & Ministry
“Gene Fowler meticulously surveys pastoral literature on the abuse of ministers by their flocks and finds it lacking. Abandoning the usual focus on pathologies of individual parishioners, he draws on dynamic group psychology to propose a devastating alternative, namely, that entire congregations unconsciously propagate malevolence. In this stunning work, besieged clergy will find scholarship not only at its most rigorous but also most compassionate.”
Arts & Literature
“Carroll Arkema’s courageous meditations draw from empathy and introspection refined over a lifetime as a pastoral psychotherapist to demonstrate firsthand that words create our worlds. Discovering traces of transcendence in the convolutions of his own soul at every stage of life, from boyhood abuse and father hunger to facing the abyss in older adulthood, Arkema inspires hope that our lives too are ensconced in divine love.”
Men
“"In an era when highly edited versions of the self rocket through cyberspace via instant messaging, the meticulous empirical research of Forging the Male Spirit leads to a haunting but convincing counternarrative. Here young men yearn for slower, braver, face-to-face forms of intimacy with male peers and adult men. They find not in institutional religion but in ongoing same-sex support groups the true foundry of authentic masculine spirituality.”
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
“Donald Capps skillfully guides his readers into the strange world of severe mental illness, a neighborhood disturbingly close to home. He first offers the lay of the land by scrutinizing particular psychiatric classifications. He then carefully treks through gripping narrative accounts of those battling schizophrenia, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer's disease. Finally, with interpretive precision honed through a lifetime of attending to persons in pain, Capps risks his own stunning insights into the anguish and mystery of these lives. An exquisite and sobering journey.”
Christian Living
“Laughter is not the best medicine, according to Donald Capps in this subversive and at times very funny book, but humor can serve as a powerful placebo for alleviating stress in an age of anxiety. While religion and humor have seldom made for comfortable bedfellows, Humor Us provides compelling biblical support for ushering humor into the holy of holies. Through meticulous scholarly investigation of gospel parables and healing narratives, Capps invites readers to take 'imaginative possession of the shared experiences of Jesus and his disciples,' including shared humor. This book is a subtle but devastating indictment of humorless academic theology, while simultaneously offering pastoral comfort for anxious souls who labor and are heavy laden.”
Overture to Practical Theology
Theology
“In Overture to Practical Theology, Stevenson-Moessner's agonizing personal grief over the tragic death of her son, along with other ways human suffering manifests across an almost limitless spectrum, become acid test cases against which any facile theological claims must be weighed. Without dodging these cacophonous undertones, what emerges is an inspiring symphony of hope, or of hope against hope, derived from the author's unparalleled ability to discover surprising connections across all manner of divisions within and between persons, communities, disciplines, and epochs.”
The Coming Jesus and the Anthropocene
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“Political pastoral theologian Ryan LaMothe resumes his unparalleled immersion into sources and effects of climate change, here calling to account Abrahamic faiths—especially age-old assertions of the divine as sovereign overlord—and finding them wanting. LaMothe’s coming Jesus is less Marvel superhero and more a subversive way of life that accepts finitude, esteems creation, and commits amid waning hope to revitalizing care. Prepare to be devastated. Prepare to be set free.”
Evangelism & Missions
“In this meticulously researched book, Michael Gehring searches out underlying motivations that compelled C. S. Lewis, a respected Oxford don at the time of his conversion, to risk academic status and personal privacy in zealous pursuit of a vocation of Christian evangelism. . . . I learned so much from this book.”
“With unsurpassed precision and characteristic hope, Donald Capps coaxes from Erik Erikson's clinical essays on children and young people a battery of psychospiritual resources for countering threats of the melancholic self. The reader closes this book with renewed vigor, encouragement, and good cheer for facing the day.”
“While reading The Spirituality of Dreaming, I kept deeming it a sheer privilege to be led into the strangely familiar offline world we enter each night by so learned and lucid a guide as Kelly Bulkeley. As the leading researcher on dreams and dreaming in world religions, he amiably captures here a lifetime of scholarship in this pulsating, personal, playful invitation to delve into rich spiritual possibilities generated by our dreams. This is a brave and beautiful book. Prepare to be moved and enlightened.”
Toward a Pastoral Theology of Holy Saturday
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
“Wounded himself in body and soul while struggling to console soldiers devastated by the endless war in Afghanistan, US Army chaplain Adam Tietje wrests from psalms of lament and a vision of Christ’s descent into hell morsels of hope by which to forge ahead. The path here is treacherous, the destination never guaranteed. But Toward a Pastoral Theology of Holy Saturday proves Tietje an able and faithful guide to help us home.”
Christian Living
“Weathering the Storm pulsates with hope without hint of smoothing over rough seas of human trauma and tragedy. With raw personal transparency and innovative attention to the resilience of her closest mates, former Coast Guard officer and current university chaplain Tracy Mehr-Muska coaxes us into believing in our capacity to endure. She reminds us again why we are alive. There is no simpler way to say it: your life will be richer for having read this brave and beautiful book.”
NOTE: Only includes books currently in our catalog; not necessarily a complete list.
Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
Church Leadership & Ministry
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