Books

David Tracy once distinguished three audiences for the theologian: the church, the general public and the academic community. Joseph Ratzinger has spoken powerfully to all three.

Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks. This promises to be a fascinating, in-depth account of the physiological/psychological/emotive effects music has on us.

For a majority of mainline Christians, the NRSV is the biblical translation of choice. But the KJV is the English-language Bible on which all others stand.

The Little Way of Saint Therese of Lisieux: Into the Arms of Love, by John Nelson. Therese--who died of tuberculosis at age 24 and was canonized less than 30 years later--was an unassuming woman who found great joy in her littleness. This volume promises to be refreshing spiritual nourishment.

Robert Wuthnow's social history of the Midwest demonstrates how the values that emerged in the six decades before 1950 were reshaped in the following six decades. In most ways Wuthnow gets it right.

Gary Dorrien's spring Century article, which argued for economic as well as political democracy, whetted my appetite for the book that part of it was adapted from: Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice.

I have two major reading projects that I'll be continuing in tandem this summer. They may sound like polar opposites, but I find them to be quite similar.

The scholarly quest for the roots of the religious right has already passed through several iterations. Darren Dochuk's impressive book builds on this work and pushes the narrative back another generation or two.

Rebecca Solnit’s thesis is that paradise can arise from hell. If I am more pessimistic, perhaps that is due to accounts of natural disaster such as Emma Larkin's in her new book.

John Fea brings humility, patience and objectivity to controversial questions of religion and the founding era of American history. His book is a model of scholarly restraint.