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...
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...
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...
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...
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." –...
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...
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 ...
Travel with Erickson in The Soul of the Family Tree to learn how the spirits of your ancestral past can guide you today.Growing up in a passionately Norwegian-American town in Iowa, travel writer Lori Erickson rolled her eyes at traditions like Nordic Fest and steaming pots of rømmegrøt. But like many Americans, she eventually felt drawn to genealogy- the “quintessential hobby of middle age.” Her quest to know more about the Vikings and immigrants who perch in her family tree led her to visit No...
Too often, all oppressed people in America are lumped together under the moniker “people of color,” as if each group’s experience under the yoke of systemic racism has the same economic and social repercussions. But the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) hold a unique claim to economic and reparative justice: for ADOS, after all, is the only group whose ancestors were forcibly brought to America, enslaved, built much of the wealth of the country, yet continue to be specifically excluded from...
At first glance, preaching and advertising seem worlds apart from one another. One tries to proclaim love of God and neighbor; the other tries to sell you something that you may or may not need. Yet both must compete with other ways we receive and process information in an increasingly distracted world. While most of the time preaching simply tries to muddle through this situation, advertising knows that it must continually relearn how to reclaim its audience's attention–and keep it.
Believing...
Psobriety helps people in recovery develop and strengthen their spirituality with daily readings on each of the 150 Psalms. This daily devotional features the beloved, comforting words of the Psalms to encourage and support those in recovery from alcohol and substance abuse. The ancient poems give voice to the full array of human emotion, seeking the mercy and guidance of a Higher Power. A recovering alcoholic, author Jeff Dafler shares his own journey to sobriety, as well as wisdom fr...
A decade ago, Walter Brueggemann called the church to journey together for the good of our community through neighborliness, covenanting, and reconstruction. He distilled this challenge to its most basic issues: Where is the church going? What is its role in contemporary society? What lessons does it have to offer a world enmeshed in turbulent times?
Published originally in 2010, Journey to the Common Good spoke to an era defined in large part by America’s efforts to rebuild from an age of terr...
Named one of the Top 10 Books of the Year in 2020 by the Academy of Parish Clergy
“Drawing on his own spiritual journey, David Gushee provides an incisive critique of American evangelicalism [and] offers a succinct yet deeply informed guide for post-evangelicals seeking to pursue Christ-honoring lives.” —Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Calvin University
Millions are getting lost in the evangelical maze: inerrancy, indifference to the environment, deterministic Calvinism, purity culture, racism, LGBTQ d...
Jesus is not white. Jesus is not American. Jesus does not want to make America great. While many of us grew up looking at gleaming portraits of Jesus with blond, flowing hair and hearing sermons reaffirming that we have the answers to save a fallen world, the real Jesus—a Middle Eastern Jew preaching radical, humble, self-emptying love—calls us to a different life. As we see oppression and hate run rampant in our nation, it’s as if Christianity has lost sight of the red letters altogether. Sheri...
