Books
Shattering the myth of the first Thanksgiving
The Wampanoags shared the gifts of the land. The colonists responded with greed and ingratitude.
Ted Kooser’s poetry of the Great Plains resonates across the world
The beloved American poet lifts the everyday into the realm of the transcendent.
Reparations would help close the staggering racial wealth gap
William Darity and Kirsten Mullen make the case for finally addressing a great wrong.
For Valarie Kaur, love is sweet labor
A memoir of an activist whose life is grounded in Sikh mysticism
Christians have struggled to understand Judaism on its own terms
John Phelan’s book helps us unlearn what we thought we knew.
The woman who haunts the book of Job
In Diane Glancy’s poetry and prose, the cries of Native Americans echo the laments of Job’s wife.
Ivan the gorilla’s smart-mouthed sidekick gets his own sequel
Katherine Applegate’s books for children are just as engaging for grown-ups.
Danusha Laméris’s new book is filled with small kindnesses
A luminous poetry collection marked by joy and sorrow, humor and truth.
Take & Read: Global Christianity
Five books that take readers beyond Anglophone perspectives
Eddie Glaude revisits James Baldwin’s America
Begin Again’s call to repentance is, like Baldwin’s own language, substantially Christian.
Take & Read: New Testament
Has Paul been unfairly judged?
Yaa Gyasi’s beautiful novel embraces faith that changes and grows
Transcendent Kingdom explores an immigrant neuroscientist’s complicated relationship with evangelical Christianity.
Books for pandemic reading
Nine writers tell us about a book they’ve read recently that’s helped them reframe what it means to be a person of faith and a reader right now.
Take & Read: American religious history
Four new books that explore Black Americans’ religious witness
Lyz Lenz’s midrash on pregnancy and motherhood
Lenz blends storytelling and critique to explore the role of myths in defining women’s bodies.
Willie Jennings’s plea to create a new kind of theologian
After Whiteness is urgent reading for any institution that purports to care about God and race.
Take & Read: Practical theology
Five books that introduce new voices to the conversation
Marilynne Robinson’s new Gilead novel makes Jack Boughton make sense
Everything in Jack is a marvel.
Douglas Ottati’s liberal piety
The theologian starts by recognizing that we know enough to live fully in response to God’s grace.
N. T. Wright and Walter Brueggemann look to the Bible for wisdom during the pandemic
They both resist easy answers to the problem of suffering.