Was America founded as a Christian nation—or is the truth far more complex?In God We Trust invites readers to think and reflect critically about the truths and complexities of the role of religion and the founding of America in order to separate history from political ideology and to understand why this distinction matters for the future of our nation and democracy.Both supporters of Christian nationalism and those who oppose it often pick and choose pieces of American history to support their o...
Pedagogy of the Ancestors is a practical and inspiring guide for anyone called to teach, mentor, and shape future generations with intention, humility, and compassion, knowing that our daily choices are the rain that waters the seeds of tomorrow.Ancestors embody the past, and they also offer spiritual guidance and friendship to those coming of age. We see this across cultures and religious traditions. Communities rely on ancestral wisdom to educate and nurture future generations, but oppres...
"A sobering assessment of the evolution of Christian nationalism." -Publishers Weekly"A timely and clarion call to action if we are to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States and our American style democracy against the rising tide of home grown fascism, authoritarianism, civic corruption, and political violence." - Midwest Book Review"Awareness must precede action. Boedy’s book is a superb resource for raising awareness more widely among those who care about religious freedom...
Are you a clergy member called to speak on faith, justice, and activism beyond church walls? From Pulpit to Public Square is your essential guide to finding your authentic voice in public, non-ministerial settings.
From Pulpit to Public Square equips preachers to offer prophetic and pastoral witness beyond the pulpit, navigating the challenges of speaking with integrity from a faith perspective. It offers bold strategies for speaking in ways that make a difference. Through insightful reflections...
As Christians, what should we believe about hell?
Instead of offering a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all answer, Ronald Allen and Robert Cornwall guide the reader through the historical interpretation of hell. They begin with the voices of the Hebrew Bible, extrabiblical, and New Testament texts and the voices of the early, medieval, Reformation, and modern church, pointing out the three main Christian views today—literalism (hell exists, and those there will suffer for eternity), annihilationis...
Organizations have a responsibility to ensure that people who come there to work, worship, or volunteer won’t experience harm.At a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are being systematically dismantled—stripped from government agencies, corporate initiatives, and institutional policies—the need for genuine, sustainable culture change has never been more urgent. Superficial checklists and one-time training sessions are not enough. True transformation requires a trauma-inform...
Turn the traditional generational groupings on their head through this examination of Black life, culture, and the struggle for racial justice in the United States. The Shaping of Black Identities explores the generations of African Americans who have lived in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and the impact that living in the United States has had on them. Jimmie R. Hawkins examines how identity is formed and shaped by internal and external forces. He investigates collective memory...
A 2024 Foreword INDIES Award FinalistMany people are aware of the injustices Black Americans have suffered over the centuries but feel powerless when it comes to repairing the harm done.The inequality remains even after laws and policies have been corrected. Calculating and implementing financial reparations will require large-scale government action, which can feel out of reach or overwhelming for the average person. Robert Turner provides an accessible guide for individuals and groups wanting ...
A 2024 Foreword INDIES Award Finalist"An urgent and passionate commentator, [John Pavlovitz] lives in the tension between despair and hope." - Presbyterian Outlook
"John Pavlovitz's Worth Fighting For is a stirring playbook for Christians who strive to ensure that kindness triumphs over toxicity. Forthright and encouraging, Worth Fighting For envisions a grassroots revolution of love led by a 'compassionate coalition of those who give a damn.'"-Foreword Reviews
John Pavlovitz has inspired mill...
Joyful and daunting opportunities to live into God's dream of justice and beloved community are compelling and available. Hope, says Luther Smith Jr., is essential to the needed personal and social transformations that prepare us for such sacred opportunities. Yet genuine hope is often confused as merely wish fulfillment, optimism, or perceiving better tomorrows. In Hope Is Here! Smith describes how we truly perceive and join "the work of hope" enlivening us to a life that is oriented toward imm...
Of all the things modern people of faith overlook or choose to ignore in the Bible, stories of sexual exploitation are near the top of the list. This isn’t so different from our world today, when victims of trafficking, rape, and harassment are dismissed and disbelieved, their stories twisted and erased. Trauma-informed educator and minister Camille Hernandez dives deep into the Bible’s stories of exploitation and abuse to name the difficult truths buried in Scripture, address the forms such vio...
A 2023 Indies Award FinalistA blend of heart-wrenching memoir and astute cultural analysis, Out of Focus will help heal individuals harmed by evangelicalism’s toxic influence and inspire Christian communities to pursue a path of love and inclusion.When a mass shooter killed five people in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, grieving people graffitied James Dobson’s Focus on the Family headquarters with the words “Their blood is on your hands.” Such an accusation against evangelicalism comes ...
Homiletics textbooks often discourage the use of humor in preaching, regarding it as trivializing or distracting. The result is that many preachers have failed to understand humor’s positive power, demoting it to the opening joke to get a guaranteed guffaw to warm up the crowd. Humor Us!, the second volume in the “Preaching and… series,” is a collaborative effort by homiletician Alyce M. McKenzie and humor scholar Owen Hanley Lynch that promotes humor, a force capable of great good, to its right...
Austen Hartke’s groundbreaking, best-selling book is now updated and expanded with new insights and terminology, plus new materials for study groups, preaching, and pastoral care.In 2014, Time magazine announced that America had reached “the transgender tipping point,” suggesting that transgender issues would become the next civil rights frontier. Years later, many people—even many LGBTQIA+ allies—still lack understanding of gender identity and the transgender experience. Into this void, trans b...
Various ideas float around about the subject of last things, leading many Christians to conclude that they don’t know what to think about the subject. Yet at the core of the Christian doctrine of last things lies two simple and complementary hopes: that God ever and always offers hope for our individual futures and for the future of the whole world.In this helpful book, Allen and Cornwall explain how we don’t have to subscribe to sensationalist theories or sketchy interpretations to believe in C...
"In 30 short chapters, Peters takes us through some of Jesus’ parables, Jesus’ encounters with people seeking his help, Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Reclaiming that core message can be as powerful today in helping people find hope and resilience as it was 2,000 years ago, David tells us. I agree. This is a must-have volume for pastors, small-group leaders, chaplains and anyone who cares about the lives within their families, their local congregations and their surrounding communities." –...
The United States is suffering through a season of social and political division unseen since the Civil War. Unrest over long-standing social (especially racial) injustices are confronting new, antidemocratic perspectives and practices. So much is at stake. Will this country fulfill or abandon its historic commitment to equality and civil liberties? Can a nation so divided come together again? These questions cut to the core of the beliefs articulated by Christian communities. How can we as peop...
For nearly fifty years, Katherine Paterson’s stories have captured readers young and old. From Bridge to Terabithia’s Leslie Burke to the unforgettable Gilly Hopkins to countless others, her characters are woven into the memories of several generations. Paterson’s writing has always explored the rich emotional landscape of childhood, for she has never forgotten how she felt as a child herself. The writer she became grew from her own fascinating life, told here in a collection of stories that rea...
2023 Winner of the Wilbur Award for Book of the YearBlack Americans’ resilience during centuries of racially motivated violence is beyond remarkable. But continuing to endure this harm allows for generations of trauma to fester and grow. Healing has to be the priority going forward. For decades, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts clung to her upbringing in the church, believing that racial reconciliation would come through faith and discipline, being respectable, and doing what’s right. But when her...
2023 Award of Excellence, Religion Communicators CouncilLike most Americans, Presbyterians in the United States know woefully little about the history of slavery and the rise of anti-Black racism in our country. Most think of slavery as a tragedy that “just happened,” without considering how it happened and who was involved. In What Kind of Christianity, William Yoo paints an accurate picture of the complicity of the majority of Presbyterians in promoting, supporting, or willfully ignoring ...
Armed with only six passages in the Bible—often known as the “Clobber Passages”—the conservative Christian position has been one that stands against the full inclusion of our LGBTQ siblings. UnClobber reexamines each of those frequently quoted passages of Scripture, alternating with author Colby Martin’s own story of being fired from an evangelical megachurch when they discovered his stance on sexuality. UnClobber reexamines what the Bible says (and does not say) about homosexuali...
As the cultural conversation around race, gender, and sexuality has evolved, straight, white men are becoming increasingly aware of their privilege. But many may be left thinking, “OK, what am I supposed to do about it?” “We need a way forward beyond feelings of guilt, overwhelmingness, anger, and denial.” “We are looking for transformative guidance that helps us be the good guys we want to be.” Straight, white, male pastor Chris Furr offers a guide to deconstructing that privilege in Straight W...
A “Be-It-Yourself” Guide to Anti-racism for Churches and Church Leaders Whether you have been an ally for years or just recently opened your eyes to racial injustice, guiding your predominantly white church toward anti-racism is a daunting task. Where do you even begin? White churches especially feel an urgency to respond but at the same time suffer a sense of overwhelmingness and futility, as if no one action, sermon series, or service project will solve the problem of racism in America. And ...
The Ten Commandments are more than a list of ancient rules. Beneath the surface, they offer a profound invitation to healing and transformation. In this unique Bible study, readers will discover that the Ten Commandments are words from the heart of God, given to reconcile creation to Creator and God’s people to one another. In Words of Love, Eugenia Anne Gamble dives into each of the Ten Commandments and examines their application for modern-day Christians, going beyond the letter of the law to ...
In this compelling and informative volume, Jimmie R. Hawkins walks the reader through the many forms of Black protest in American history, from pre-colonial times through the George Floyd protests of 2020. Hawkins breaks American history into five sections, with subsections highlighting how Black identity helped to shape protest during that period. These protests include slave ship mutinies, the abolitionist movement, the different approaches to protest from Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Dubois, and...
