Editorial people create book titles that flirt with readers. They want us to pick it up, flip through and find it hard to put down. They want us to click into our cart and proceed to check out. This title won’t do that; it just doesn’t have much of a beat to dance to, overlooks most of our felt needs and doesn’t prescribe shallow remedies for why we don’t feel good about ourselves. The editorial people didn’t even want the... Read more

Amid the numerous religious and secular positive thinkers today who have commodifided empowerment and self-discovery, the term New Thought is curiously absent from their discussions. Read more

I was in conversation with a young man recently who had encountered and was drawn to what he called “the Jesus Story,” after searching through other traditions, but became frightened and repelled when he met what he experienced as all the rules that communities have about following the Jesus Way. How I wish I could have had Matt Litton’s book, Holy Nomad, to give him! In this imaginative and joyous paraphrase of the gospel of God in Christ, Litton gives... Read more

I’m not sure I’ve been quite so moved by a book as I was upon completing Making Friends Among the Taliban: A Peacemaker’s Journey in Afghanistan, by Jonathan P. Larson. In this remarkable true story of U.S. aid-worker Dan Terry’s life – and death – in remote Afghanistan over the course of 30 some years, author and life-long friend Larson weaves his incredible tale as told primarily through the stories of Terry’s Afghan friends. I found the story utterly captivating, inspiring,... Read more

“This is a book we’ve needed for a long, long time…” begins the foreword by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in the new book The Intentional Christian Community Handbook by David Janzen. Indeed, for the thousands of communities, both old and new across the country, who are humbly and courageously attempting to live out their faith in community, this book offers a much-needed and longed for “how-to.” Tackling such issues as how to deal with conflict, decision-making and leadership, accountability, developing common work... Read more

Matt Litton didn’t intend this but Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy resembles a deep dish pizza with everything on it. Even after you pick off what you don’t like, what’s left is still pretty good. By that, I mean that the book speaks to spiritual toddlers as well as to the marathoners among us. But the book’s style follows the line of pilgrimage or journey Litton strives to draw out. So it’s easy to start out through the... Read more

Have you ever felt like there was something more to the life you’re living? If so, a new book by Matt Litton, Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy, might be just the invitation you need to break free. Litton, an English teacher and author, wrote Holy Nomad based out of his own experience – and what he noticed around him – as a sort of meditation on being stuck … and getting free. We caught up with Matt this... Read more

Devin Brown’s The Christian World of the Hobbit traces the Christian roots of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was a lifelong Christian and his faith influenced his academic life and writing.  But, Tolkien’s work transcends Christianity insofar as divine revelation cannot be contained by any one religious tradition.  Brown asserts that “a reverence, celebration, and a love of the everyday is an essential part of Tolkein’s moral vision.”  (151) Long before the emergence of Christianity, these... Read more