Books

Here are the Century book reviews that got read the most online this year.

Gerard Russell’s account of disappearing Middle Eastern religions has an elegiac quality. It’s heartrending and often infuriating.

Other states have a history of violence, suspicion of government, and more Baptists than people. What makes Texas different? Robert Wuthnow says it’s oil.

In Ian Leslie’s telling, curiosity is far from a valued quality. Augustine, he notes, equated curiosity with temptation.

For Ben Quash, scripture and tradition are givens. Our task is to discover and reinterpret what we have been given.

At such ideologically charged times, it is hard to discern what a life of Christian faithfulness looks like. Miguel De La Torre offers a good resource.

Mark Achtemeier and I once faced off at General Assembly over gay ordination. Sixteen years later, he preached at my ordination.

In The Deconstructed Church, Gerardo Marti and Gladys Ganiel give us a comprehensive and revealing ethnographic study of the worldwide phenomenon known as the emerging Christian movement.

When I go backpacking, I pack light—no laptop, no phone, and especially no books. But reading Belden Lane, I’m tempted to begin toting a tome or two.

David Keck offers a refreshing addition to the conversation about vocational expectations. Eugene Peterson’s vision of holiness resonates with Keck, but Keck takes a different tack.

Few Americans today could identify any of FDR’s vice presidents. Yet little surprise is occasioned by Peter Baker’s treatment of Dick Cheney as a costar with George W. Bush.

Fabrizio Amerini’s analysis creates precision about Aquinas on beginning-of-life issues—something other accounts, especially abortion polemics, often lack.

In a crucial scene of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, Lila spends the morning thinking, has lunch, then thinks some more. Why isn’t this boring?

Christmas recommendations from Century editors and columnists.

Chris Keith sets out to answer two questions. What lay at the heart of the conflict between Jesus and some of the religious authorities of his day? And how, if at all, did Jesus read Israel’s scriptures?

Engagement in serious, respectful conversation with other religious traditions is important and urgent. Leo Lefebure details why it’s also difficult.