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Ethics

At the Altar of Wall Street: The Rituals, Myths, Theologies, Sacraments, and Mission of the Religion Known as the Modern Global Economy, by Scott W. Gustafson. Money has become a kind of god and our relationship to it a kind of worship, replete with liturgical orderings and sacramental offerings. Gustafson incisively lays bare our faith that capitalism will simultaneously make us rich and save us from the moral and material excesses of those riches.

Theology

Black Practical Theology, edited by Dale P. Andrews and Robert London Smith Jr. This excellent handbook on practical theology is structured by “trialogues” between black church leaders, practical theologians, and prominent scholars in Bible, theology, and ethics. The result is a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach to issues that concern all Christian communities, including education, poverty, gender, race, immigration, HIV/AIDS, and the justice system.

Old Testament

This Strange and Sacred Scripture: Wrestling with the Old Testament and Its Oddities, by Matthew Richard Schlimm. The Old Testament is deeply and sometimes distressingly strange to modern Christians (as it was also to many ancient readers). Schlimm does not explain away the bizarre or unsettling; rather, he shows how it is sometimes in the very peculiarities of scripture that we can find illumination. I have successfully used this book with first-semester seminary students. It is engagingly written and full of wisdom.