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Kirmmse’s new translation of Kierke­gaard’s homiletical reflections on Mat­thew 6:24–34 captures the sermons’ beauty and gravitas. From the lily and the bird we can learn silence, obedience, and joy—but these are not easy dispositions to adopt. Silence involves listening, and listening to God is risky: “Only in much fear and trembling can a human being talk with God, in much fear and trembling.” Obedience to God means enduring suffering with hope: rebuilding the nest each time it is de­stroyed; bursting forth in glorious bloom even if we know we are to be mowed down in the next moment.

This book will not shatter paradigms or destabilize worldviews. It will make readers think, and sometimes laugh, as they are introduced to (or fondly recall) the thought of Protagoras, Socrates, Aristotle, Augus­tine, Descartes, Pascal, and Kierke­gaard. Groothuis, who teaches philosophy at Denver Seminary, is known as a Christian apologist. Here he en­gages in apologetics of a different sort, arguing (at times in a curmudgeonly way) for the use of logic and precision in philosophical thought. At the same time, he holds up humility as a virtue.

Emptiness can alternatively mean too little or too much. It is sometimes unclear where emptiness is distinct from excess.

The history and struggles of the Nigerian movement known as Boko Haram are more complicated than they first appear.

For Rabbi Goldstein, the Bible is “a complex, existential expression of uncertainty and confusion, of yearning and hope, of wonderment, suffering, and joy. . . . It doesn’t offer us rigid answers; it graces us with fellowship.” Goldstein investigates Cain, Jeremiah, Job, and other biblical figures in the context of larger questions about meaning, knowledge, and ethics. How do we appropriately fear a merciful God? How might moral responsibility change as human knowledge evolves? In what ways might repentance involve returning? In the end, the questions linger.

Do pollsters create what they purport to study? Wuthnow examines the power and limits of polls and surveys on American religion.

We wish something would prove beyond doubt that Someone obliged us large-brained, bipedal primates with a breath of consciousness.

Americans are still processing the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, the Chicago boy who was lynched while visiting relatives in Mississippi. These poems provide a wrenching retelling of the story that even after 60 years is as raw and unresolved as ever. Philip C. Kolin gives a compelling voice to Emmett, his mother Mamie, his uncle Moses, and even the white woman who accused Emmett of whistling at her, thus fueling the hatred that led to Emmett’s lynching.

What humankind needs is a love that sticks around, a love that stays put, a love that hangs on. That’s what the cross is.

Are science and religion enemies or friends? Neither, says Peter Harrison—but they're both forms of virtue.