New Books in Christian Studies

Thomas Breimaier, "Tethered to the Cross: The Life and Preaching of Charles H. Spurgeon" (IVP Academic, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 9 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

"Tethered to the cross" is how the renowned nineteenth-century English Baptist minister Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892) described the task of ministry and his approach to preaching. For nearly four decades, Spurgeon served as the pastor of the church at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. But what specifically guided the reading of Scripture by the man known as the "Prince of Preachers"? Tracing the development of Spurgeon's thought and his approach to biblical hermeneutics throughout his ministry in Tethered to the Cross: The Life and Preaching of Charles H. Spurgeon (IVP Academic, 2020), theologian and historian Thomas Breimaier argues that Spurgeon viewed the entire Bible through the lens of the cross of Christ. This method led Spurgeon to interpret texts in a consistent fashion, resulting in sermons, articles, and instruction that employed cross-centered language, which was aimed at the conversion of unbelievers. With Breimaier as our guide, better understanding of how Spurgeon approached the task of interpreting Scripture and preaching the gospel might enable us, too, to be tethered to the cross of Christ.
Author

Thomas Breimaier (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is the Director for Learning and Training at Hope City Church in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Host

Michael Shaw is a PhD student in Historical Theology at Union College, Belfast, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Irish Baptist College. His research focuses on the thought of the Independent Puritan theologian Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646). His primary academic interests lie in historical theology, particularly early modern Baptist and Congregationalist theology and ecclesiology. He also serves as the Associate Pastor at Strandtown Baptist Church, Belfast.

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Francesca Sbardella, "Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister" (Berghahn Books, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 7 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Monasteries are typically characterized by physical and symbolic limitations on access as they are usually known through written texts and accounts by nuns who live in that world but do not allow others to have access. This has often resulted in research based on indirect sources. Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister (Berghahn Books, 2025) is the result of observant participation in which the ethnographer is a protagonist social actor in two French monasteries of Discalced Carmelite nuns. Francesca Sbardella experiences and narrates details of their everyday life that usually remain unseen but contribute to shaping community-building processes and, at the same time, construe the religious woman.

Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister (Berghahn Books, 2025) was translated from Italian by Claudio Bendazzoli, with a foreword by Simon Ditchfield and an afterword by Fabio Dei.

Francesca Sbardella is an anthropologist and historian of religion and a professor at the University of Bologna.

* This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we’re highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books.

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Gabrielle Thomas, "The Problem of the Devil in Cappadocian Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 7 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In The Problem of the Devil in Cappadocian Thought (Cambridge UP, 2026), Gabrielle Thomas questions the popular assumption that the devil served as the primary explanation for evil, sin, and suffering as early Christians grappled with all that is wrong in the world. Interrogating the status of the devil in the teachings of the Cappadocians – Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Macrina the Younger – she identifies their points of agreement, that the devil is a fallen angel, and disagreement, notably how Christ defeated him, his continued existence, and his ultimate end. In her investigation, Thomas engages fourth-century Christian thought in conversation with ancient philosophy, ancient history, classics, and biblical studies. She demonstrates how the Cappadocians negotiated myriad philosophical, theological, and spiritual problems with the devil. Thomas argues that the devil is not simply a strategy for explaining the problem of evil. Rather, the devil himself is the problem.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Gabrielle Thomas, an Anglican priest, is Dean and President of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Professor of Early Christian, Anglican, and Theological Studies at Yale Divinity School. She is the author of The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory of Nazianzus and For the Good of the Church: Unity, Theology, and Women and co-editor of Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at Umass Boston

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Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Bloodshed and Blessing: Stories of Sacrifice from Ancient Altars to the Holy Mass" (Sophia Institute Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Something deep within you recognizes it–the instinct that sacrifice matters, that something must be offered, that violence and beauty are woven together in ways that mere reason cannot explain. You are not alone. Civilizations throughout history have felt it.

In Bloodshed and Blessing: Stories of Sacrifice from Ancient Altars to the Holy Mass (Sophia Institute Press, 2026), Fr. Dwight Longenecker takes you on a gripping journey through ten ancient cultures, from the Aztecs to the Vikings, in which blood sacrifice was not the mark of barbarism but the beating heart of an entire worldview. And then he asks the question that will stop you cold: What if they weren’t so different from us?

Well, they weren’t. And once you see this reality, you can’t unsee it. Fr. Longenecker shows you that the violence, resentment, and desperate longing for meaning surging through our culture today are the very same forces that once drove men to the altar of sacrifice. The difference is that we have largely forgotten the One True Sacrifice that puts them all into perspective.

The ancient peoples were our ancestors – not just biologically but spiritually. Their worldview, so seemingly foreign to us, echoes down through the ages into our own deepest longings and anxieties.

In a culture surging with resentment and a desperate hunger for meaning, Fr. Longenecker shows you how sacrifice has always been humanity’s answer–a way of channeling violence into something transcendent, of transforming chaos into communion.

The questions people were asking then are the same ones we are asking now. And the answer, it turns out, has been on the altar all along.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker was brought up an Evangelical, studied at fundamentalist Bob Jones University, and later was ordained as an Anglican priest in England. After ten years in the Anglican ministry as a curate, a chaplain at Cambridge, and a country parson, in 1995 Dwight was received into full communion with the Catholic Church. He has published in numerous religious magazines and papers in the UK, Ireland, and the USA, writing on film and theology, apologetics, Biblical commentary and Catholic culture.

Daniel Moran’s writing about literature and film can be found on Pages and Frames. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches writing and co-hosts the long-running podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, available here on the New Books Network and wherever podcasts are found.

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Holly Crawford Pickett, "The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

After mounting London’s outdoor pulpit known as St. Paul’s Cross on 8th December, 1588, Anthony Tyrrell found himself perched before a skeptical audience. He stood in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral to declare his recantation of Catholicism and return to England’s official Protestant Church. The trouble was he had been there before – in January of the same year, in fact – to do the same thing. On that occasion, however, he had shocked on-lookers by delivering an anti-Protestant tirade instead of his promised recantation. How could Tyrrell, a serial convert, who eventually changed church affiliation as many as ten times, overcome the doubts of his suspicious audience? Tyrrell and similar converts who made multiple conversions understandably aroused suspicions of hypocrisy that made the performative character of public recantation troublingly evident. Yet as Holly Pickett argues in The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024), these performative elements are actually indispensable to any conversion, whether an individual’s first or fifteenth.

Serial converts served as uncomfortable reminders to their contemporaries that religious identity is always unverifiable. The first study to explore serial conversion as a discrete phenomenon in this era, The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England challenges confessional divisions within much early modern historiography by analyzing the surprising convergence of Protestant and Catholic in the figure of the serial convert. It also reveals a neglected strain of religious discourse in early modern England that valued mutability and flexibility even in the midst of hardening and increasingly narrow understandings of conversion.

Michael Shaw is a PhD student in Historical Theology at Union College, Belfast, and a Visiting Tutor at the Irish Baptist College. His research focuses on the thought of the Independent Puritan theologian Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646). His primary research interests lie in historical theology, particularly early modern Baptist and Congregationalist theology and ecclesiology. He also serves as the Associate Pastor at Strandtown Baptist Church, Belfast.

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Jamie L. Brummitt, "Protestant Relics in Early America" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Edward Blum interviews Dr. Jamie L. Brummitt on how new book Protestant Relics in Early America.

In Protestant Relics in Early America (Oxford UP, 2025), Jamie L. Brummitt upends long-held assumptions about religion and material culture in the early United States. Brummitt chronicles how American Protestants cultivated a lively relic culture centered around collecting supernatural memory objects associated with dead Christian leaders, family members, and friends. These objects materialized the real physical presences of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and souls of the dead on earth.
As Brummitt demonstrates, people of nearly all Protestant denominations and walks of life--including members of Congress, college presidents, ministers, mothers, free Black activists, schoolchildren, and enslaved people--sought embodied and supernatural sense experiences with relics. They collected relics from deathbeds, stole relics from tombs, made relics in schools, visited relics at pilgrimage sites like George Washington's Mount Vernon, purchased relics in the marketplace, and carried relics into the American Revolution and the Civil War. Locks of hair, blood, bones, portraits, daguerreotypes, post-mortem photographs, memoirs, deathbed letters, Bibles, clothes, embroidered and painted mourning pieces, and a plethora of other objects that had been touched, used, or owned by the dead became Protestant relics. These relic practices were so pervasive that they shaped systems of earthly and heavenly power, from young women's education to national elections to Protestant-Catholic relations to the structure of freedom and families in the afterlife.
In recovering the forgotten history and presence of Protestant relics in early America, Brummitt demonstrates how material practices of religion defined early American politics and how the Enlightenment enhanced rather than diminished embodied presence. Moreover, Brummitt reveals how the secular historical method has obscured the supernatural significance of relics for the Protestants who made, collected, exchanged, treasured, and passed them down. This book will be an essential resource for scholars and students of early American history, religion, politics, art, and popular culture.

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Robin Whelan, "Serving the Christian State in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

How did the state become Christian in late antiquity? Many scholars have traced the Christianization of the Roman world in the centuries following the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 312 CE. Robin Whelan, however, turns his attention away from the usual suspects in such accounts-emperors, empresses, bishops, ascetics, and other holy people-to consider a surprisingly understudied set of late ancient Christians: those who served the state as courtiers, bureaucrats, and governors. By tracing the requirements of regimes, the expectations of subjects, and patterns of engagement with churches and churchmen, he argues that that those who served the state in late antiquity could be seen-and indeed, could see themselves-as distinctly Christian authority figures-just as much as the emperors and kings whom they served, and the bishops and ascetics whom they governed. Serving the Christian State in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2026) is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Robin Whelan is Reader in Mediterranean History at the University of Liverpool.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston

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Sabrina Inowlocki, "Ancient Apologetics and the Bibliographic Imagination" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Ancient apologetics is usually treated as a literary genre or a branch of early theology. This Element offers a different account. It argues that many Jewish and Christian texts conventionally labeled 'apologetic' are better understood through a bibliographic and archival lens: They produce authority not only by defending doctrines, but by organizing books, constructing corpora, mobilizing archives, and regulating interpretation. Tracing a trajectory from the Letter of Aristeas to Jerome's De viris illustribus, this Element shows how citation, collection, cataloguing, and textual ordering made traditions appear authoritative. Examining Aristeas, Josephus, Tatian, Justin, Origen, Pamphilus, Eusebius, and Jerome, it argues that apologetics is best understood as a form of curatorial power through which ancient communities learned to think with books. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Sabrina Inowlocki is a Senior Research Fellow Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (IRCI) at the Australian Catholic University.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, "God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology" (T&T Clark, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

N. Gray Sutanto offers a fresh reading of Herman Bavinck's theological epistemology and argues that his Trinitarian and organic worldview utilizes an extensive range of sources. Sutanto unfolds Bavinck's understanding of what he considered to be the two most important aspects of epistemology: the character of the sciences and the correspondence between subjects and objects. Writing at the heels of the European debates in the 19th and 20th centuries concerning theology's place in the academy, and rooted in historic Christian teachings, Sutanto demonstrates how Bavinck's argument remains fresh and provocative. God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology (T&T Clark, 2021) explores archival material and peripheral works translated for the first time in English. The author re-reads several key concepts, ranging from Organicism to the Absolute, and relates Bavinck's work to Thomas Aquinas, Eduard von Hartmann, and other thinkers. Sutanto applies this reading to current debates on the relationship between theology and philosophy, nature and grace, and the nature of knowing; and in doing so provides students and scholars with fresh methods of considering Orthodox and modern forms of thought, and their connection with each other.

Dr. Sutanto serves as the Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Washington D.C. and an associate editor of the Journal of Reformed Theology. He has received visiting fellowships at the Theological University of Kampen-Utrecht and Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and is on the steering committee for the Reformed Theology and History Unit of the American Academy of Religion. Along with the theologian Herman Bavinck, Dr. Sutanto’s research interests are broad, ranging from modern Protestant theology, prolegomena, humanity and sin, the relationship between philosophy and theology, analytic theology, and Christianity and culture.

For previous NBN conversations on similar topics, see these interviews on Herman Bavinck's Christology and academic addresses or an introduction on Neo-Calvinism or the T&T Clark handbook on the global movement. For the NBN conversation on a Bavinck biography.

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David W. Congdon, "Who is a True Christian?: Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Who Is a True Christian?: Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how American Christians have tried to determine who qualifies as an authentic Christian and which beliefs should be treated as authoritative. Congdon approaches the question historically, tracing debates over terms such as orthodox, historic and biblical Christianity across the twentieth century and into the present.

The book distinguishes between describing Christianity as it has existed and prescribing what Christianity ought to be. It considers how theological disagreements, cultural identity and political conflict have influenced the boundaries Christians draw around their faith.

In its conclusion, the book proposes a more plural understanding of Christian identity through the ideas of polydoxy and religious autonomy. These proposals form the author's alternative to fixed definitions of a single, universal Christian norm.

Key Ideas:

The meaning of “true Christian” has remained contested rather than historically uniform.
Descriptive accounts of Christianity do not necessarily settle prescriptive questions about what Christians should believe.
Labels such as orthodox, historic and biblical Christianity developed within particular historical and cultural debates.
Religious identity in the United States is often connected to broader questions of culture, authority and politics.
The book closes by considering polydoxy and religious autonomy as alternatives to a single fixed standard of Christian identity.

Takeaway From the Conversation:

The conversation centers on the difficulty of defining authentic Christianity in a diverse and divided religious culture. Congdon's analysis raises questions about who has the authority to establish religious boundaries, how those boundaries have changed over time and what happens when one group claims the power to determine who belongs.

About Podcast Host

Angela Marie Hutchinson is the author of “Create Your Yes! When You Keep Hearing No,” named a Forbes No. 4 book to advance your career. She is a podcast host for New Books Network, where she leads conversations for the neuroscience and Christianity channels. Hutchinson is also a talent and intellectual property executive, former social media professor and BBC commentator. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.

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Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries" (Fortress Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been historically revered throughout the Islamic tradition. This began already in the Qur'an, where she is called by the name "Maryam." The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries (Fortress Press, 2025) examines the varied appearances of Maryam in different Islamic cultural and theological contexts. The chapters in this history extend from Maryam's scriptural mentions in the Qur'an and the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, her appearances in medieval debates regarding prophecy, citations of her virtuous model in Sufi discussions of piety, presentations in art and film, through to her role in modern interfaith relations.

Younus Y. Mirza is the Founding Director of the Barzinji Institute for Global Virtual Learning at Shenandoah University. He defended his dissertation in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Georgetown University and has taught at Millsaps and Allegheny Colleges. His research focuses on the relationship between the Bible and the Qur’an and the shared stories between them

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

YouTube Channel: here

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Dominic Roser et al., "All the Lives You Can Change: Effective Altruism for Christians" (Eerdmans, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

All the Lives You Can Change: Effective Altruism for Christians (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2026) is a practical guide for Christians who want their compassion, generosity and service to create meaningful change in the world. The book asks readers to look beyond good intentions and consider which choices can make the greatest difference in the lives of others.

The authors introduce effective altruism, an evidence-based approach to doing the most good, through a Christian framework. They connect careful reasoning, measurable outcomes and thoughtful stewardship with the biblical commands to love God and love our neighbors.

Drawing from Scripture, research and nonprofit experience, the book explores how Christians can give more wisely, choose careers with greater impact and direct their time, money and influence toward urgent global needs. It also encourages readers to expand their understanding of who counts as a neighbor, including people who may be distant, unfamiliar or easy to overlook.

Key Ideas:

Good intentions matter, but Christians should also consider the real outcomes of their efforts.
Loving our neighbor requires radical empathy that extends beyond the people and needs closest to us.
Every person has equal worth, but different causes and charitable approaches can have very different levels of impact.
Evidence, reason and data can serve as instruments of love when they help us understand what people truly need.
Giving to effective causes can sometimes accomplish far more than simply giving more.
Money, careers and influence are all forms of stewardship that can be used to address pressing and neglected global problems.
An impact-driven life is not about solving every problem. It is about faithfully focusing on the lives we genuinely can change.

One of the strongest ideas from the conversation is that Christian love should be centered on the person receiving help, not only on the intentions of the person giving it. Careful reasoning can help Christians become wiser stewards while taking Jesus’s command to love our neighbors seriously. If you read the book, you’ll learn practical ways to move beyond feeling overwhelmed with giving of your resources and focus on where your choices can create genuine change.

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Discovering the Latin Mass (with Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg): A Travel Guide for the Curious

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 4 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The reason Eduard Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and formerly Hungarian Ambassador to the Vatican, has written a ‘travel guide’ to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) is that he finds beauty, meaning, and joy in the experience of being a pilgrim in a foreign land. We pass through the doors—the portals—of the Church and the otherness of it pulls at our hearts and lays on us a bit of a yoke that will feel new. Especially for young people who’ve been crushed softly by the constant entertainment and accommodation, this hardness refreshes their souls, in the tradition of St. Augustine: “our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Is it surprising it is to learn how the first few times he attended the Traditional Latin Mass, he found it off-putting—“oh no, not those crazy weirdoes”—but of course that’s all the more reason for a travel guide; because he can be our guide, like Virgil for Dante to show us around this new world—or, rather, very old world—that is our Catholic inheritance.

the book, Discovering the Latin Mass: A Travel Guide for the Curious, from Sophia Press
the secret link at Sophia Press that Eduard Habsburg was told us about to claim five free copies of the book so that you might share the Traditional Latin Mass
Eduard Habsburg on Twitter/X
Latin Missal on Amazon

Here is my earlier conversation for Eduard Habsburg (from 2023):

Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg on Almost Good Catholics, episode 59: Long Live the Empire! The Habsburg Tradition in the Twenty-First Century

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Onyekachi Ugwu, "The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Gospel of John" (Mohr Siebeck, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 2 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The story of the woman caught in adultery in John’s Gospel has long stirred controversy. Given its checkered manuscript witness, many scholars don’t believe it belongs in John’s Gospel or even in the Scriptures at all, while others think it is Scripture but belongs in a different canonical setting, and still others, like our guest today, believe it is indeed authentically Johannine, foreshadowing Jesus’ own trial and his final victory over darkness.

Tune in as we speak with Onyekachi Ugwu about his recent monograph The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Gospel of John (Mohr Siebeck, 2026).

Onyekachi Ugwu earned his PhD at the Catholic University of Paris in 2024, and is a lecturer in New Testament studies.

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Katie Barclay, "The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Katie Barclay tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, and what it might mean today. From the furtive kisses of fated lovers Heloise and Abelard to The Godfather’s ‘kiss of death’, Professor Barclay shows how the kiss can be romantic, peaceful, transgressive, intimate, erotic and more. There are kisses that are bad ideas, dangerous kisses and funny ones. New kisses are invented and old ones fall out of favour. 

While the kiss continues to change, Professor Barclay shows that we kiss fewer people, and less often, than we used to. The Kiss reveals a cultural inheritance transmitted in story and song, art and literature, and through the everyday kisses that we receive from our parents, or reserve for our lovers; when we kiss, we kiss with the weight of history.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Marios Koutsoukos, "Restoring the Ancient Religion: The Theurgic Orthopraxy of Iamblichus" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Restoring the Ancient Religion: The Theurgic Orthopraxy of Iamblichus (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026) reconsiders Iamblichus’ Response to Porphyry, Late Antiquity’s seminal work on theurgy, which is often referred to as De Mysteriis. Was this text intended to be more than just a defense of ritualism or a philosophical crossing of metaphysical wits between Porphyry and Iamblichus? This volume examines whether De Mysteriis constituted a manifesto of restoration, a call to resignify and revive a religion that Iamblichus felt was spiraling into barren traditionalism.
Through a nuanced examination of Iamblichus’ theurgy, this book shows the emergence of a sophisticated philosophic-ritualistic system, one designed to reform religious practice through divine epiphanies and direct communication with the gods. Using a thorough textual analysis, this book uncovers crucial distinctions between theurgy and magic and explores the mechanics of divine illumination during theurgic rituals in the context of Iamblichus' intricate hierarchy of spiritual beings. In this system, this book demonstrates, material objects could become vessels of divine power and humans could become interlocutors with the divine itself.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Marios Koutsoukos received his PhD in Classics from the University of Liverpool, UK. His current research focuses on Late Antique theurgy, hermeticism, Graeco-Egyptian magic, animated statues and the survival of mystery cults beyond the sixth century. He also works as a fiction author, translator and screenwriter.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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George Savran, "Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch" (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025), George Savran brings his narrative interpretive approach to look closely at Jacob's shifting identity. Jacob is indelibly linked to his brother Esau in the Genesis narrative, and their complex relationship as twins foregrounds this problematic connection. Jacob's lineage is examined-he differs noticeably from his ancestors and his offspring in the complexity of his changing character. At times he is a "simple man" at the mercy of the demands of others; elsewhere he is a devious trickster eager to use his wits to achieve personal success. His search for a coherent identity, as it unfolds in this study, leads to his emergence as the patriarch of his family, compelled to make peace with his brother and his sons in the midst of ongoing conflict.

This study brings out how Jacob's mature identity is clarified further by his reactions to three unusual and unexpected encounters which shed light on his ability to recalibrate his self-understanding.

The first is his struggle with the man/angel at the Jabbok, where he receives a blessing with the name Israel, and comes to realize that his relationship to God is more complicated (and less predictable) than he had previously thought.
An additional insight comes the following day during his reunion with Esau, as he learns to appreciate him in a new way and compares beholding his face to "seeing the face of God". This is a remarkable admission by a brother who thought only the worst of his twin.
Jacob's rethinking his own self-importance emerges later in the Joseph story, when he is compelled to realizes that his insistence on his personal concerns will lead to the dissolution of his family.

Savran's interpretation of these reactions underscores their significance in Jacob's development, revealing a character of depth and resilience and giving new meaning to his role as the avatar of Israel.

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Jenny R. Labendz, "Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective" (Oxford UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective (Oxford UP, 2026) Jenny Labendz addresses distinct patterns within rabbinic eschatology that have been overlooked in scholarship and in Jewish thought. Contrary to what is usually expected of eschatology, this book demonstrates that the rabbis held a sustained eschatology of irresolution. While the rabbis occasionally waxed poetic along the lines of a perfected new world in the eschaton, a vast store of rabbinic texts depicts a deeply imperfect eschaton. This is the profound difference between rabbinic and early Christian eschatology.
Despite its differences from the Christian doctrine of perfection, rabbinic eschatology aligns neatly with a different Christian concept, namely inaugurated eschatology. The eschaton is not only be hoped for in the future, but can be attained in the present. The best of all possible worlds has not yet been entirely actualized, but it has been inaugurated, in the rabbinic view by the exodus from slavery in Egypt, the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, and the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. This is a paradigm shift for thinking about rabbinic eschatology, which rejects the dogmas and binaries that generations of scholars have taken for granted.

In this new book, Jenny Labendz explores the relationship between this world and the best possible world, the limits of that best possible world, and asks a crucially grounding question--what are we talking about when we're talking about the end of the world?

Interviewee: Jenny R. Labendz received her PhD from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2010 and was Associate Professor of Religious Studies at St. Francis College until 2025. She is also the author of Socratic Torah: Non-Jews in Rabbinic Intellectual Culture, published by Oxford University Press in 2013.

Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey out of Hasidism and Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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Emanuel Tov, "Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, Revised Second Edition" (Brill, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, Revised Second Edition (Brill, 2025) revises the first edition of this book (2004) which is long overdue. Many segments needed revision due in large part to the veritable flood of studies published in the wake of the first edition. In other cases, the author changed his mind in his continued study of the scrolls improved by the new images of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Hyperlinks to this library are now added to most references to the scrolls. This book covers many aspects of a handbook for those who study the scrolls, material culture, and edit scroll fragments.

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Sarah Rosenson, "Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation?

That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).

The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing.

Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a substitute for close reading but as an extension of it.

In our conversation, we discussed some of Genesis's most familiar stories from unexpected angles. What if Eve's pursuit of knowledge is more complex than simple disobedience? Why does Noah never challenge God's decision to destroy the world? What happens when Hagar's perspective becomes central rather than peripheral? Why does Abraham argue for the people of Sodom but remain silent when Isaac is placed on the altar? And how does the Joseph narrative negotiate the relationship between divine providence and human responsibility?

We also explore the broader methodological questions raised by the book. Does describing midrash as "fan fiction" make an ancient interpretive tradition more accessible, or does it risk misunderstanding it? How far can readers imaginatively expand biblical narratives while remaining faithful to the text? And what safeguards distinguish responsible interpretation from speculation?

Whether you are interested in biblical studies, literary criticism, Jewish interpretation, or creative writing, our conversation offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancient texts continue to invite new readings. More than providing answers, Rosenson's book encourages readers to ask better questions and, in doing so, to discover that Genesis remains as intellectually and ethically challenging today as it has been for centuries.

You can find more about Sarah and her work here.

Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands.

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Paul Helseth and David P. Smith eds., "New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929" (Routledge, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929 (Routledge, 2024) focuses on Princeton Theological Seminary and the theologians who taught there from the time of its founding in 1812 to the time of its reorganization in 1929. It confronts the standard assessment of Old Princeton in the historiography of North American evangelicalism and sets out why a new paradigm is needed. The volume critically engages with the 'Ahlstrom thesis' and other more recent scholarship concerning Old Princeton's relationship to the Scottish intellectual tradition. The contributions seek to move beyond Old Princeton's alleged indebtedness to Enlightenment thought and advance a more constructive reading of the Old Princetonians, their theology, and their place in the American evangelical experience. The book offers a fresh and more accurate assessment of the theological and philosophical assumptions that held sway at Old Princeton and through the seminary to the American continent and beyond. It will appeal to scholars interested in theology, religious history and intellectual history.

Paul K. Helseth (PhD, Marquette University) is associate professor of Christian thought at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Right Reason and the Princeton Mind (2010).

David Smith (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is pastor in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and adjunct faculty in historical theology at Erksine Theological Seminary. He received his M.Div. from Covenant Seminary (1995) and completed his dissertation, published as B. B. Warfield’s Scientifically Constructive Theological Scholarship in 2010, under John Woodbridge.

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Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Why has the Catholic Church in India become so engaged in environmental initiatives? And what does the wider Indian political context defined by an assertive Hindu nationalism mean for the ability of church actors to pursue environmental agendas? In this episode, we are joined by Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Nihar Gokhale who have examined these questions in the Indian state of Goa, focusing on church activities and outreach in the domain of sustainable agriculture and agroecology.

You can read more about their research on the relationship between Christian environmentalism, agroecology and the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in the edited volume Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia, published by Leiden University Press.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen is a Social Anthropologist at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Nihar Gokhale is a DPhil student in International Development at the Oxford Department of International Development.

Mette Halskov Hansen, your host, is a Professor of China Studies at the University of Oslo.

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Colin R. McCulloch, "Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024) Dr. Colin McCulloch examines how approaches to biblical counseling have diverged over the last generations, proposing John Owen's emphasis on Spirit-infused habitual grace as a helpful corrective and as a richer understanding of the dynamics of sanctification.

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Brook Wilensky-Lanford, "A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Ever since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant “city on a hill,” religion has been central to American life. Even as some found religious freedom—Rhode Island welcomed the Quakers, Jews, and Baptists that Massachusetts expelled as dissenters—indigenous people and Africans forced into slavery struggled to protect their religious practices. With the constitutional separation of church and state, it fell to the American people to decide: would they sharpen religion’s formidable powers of division, or reimagine its creative possibilities?

In A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026) Brook Wilensky-Lanford follows this essential American tension from first contact through the 2024 election. This is an expansive history of extraordinary religious questions, told through the ordinary people who grappled with them. It is a story of defiance: Anne Hutchinson, preaching against Puritan clergy; Reform rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise serving soft-shell crab to his kosher guests at an 1883 banquet; and Wovoka, a Paiute man who envisioned the Ghost Dance movement, which persisted in the face of violent government repression at Wounded Knee. It is also a story of community: Millerites waiting together in vain for Jesus’s return on a rainy October night in 1844; Chinese immigrants bringing Daoist and Buddhist gods to their California temples; Mormons pushing westward to build their “new Zion” in Utah. And in the last fifty years, it has been a story of muscular political power, as the religious right has sought to shape the present and paint the past in its own image.

At a moment when religion penetrates even the most secular aspects of American life, understanding its history is more essential than ever before. “It is in history that the very human work of religion happens,” Wilensky-Lanford shows us, “and in ordinary time that even the most carved-in-stone tenets can and do change.”

Brook Wilensky-Lanford is a religion writer, editor, and teacher. The author of Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and former managing editor of Killing the Buddha, her work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, and elsewhere. Currently the Associate Director of Sacred Writes Public Scholarship, she holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University and a PhD in Religion in the Americas from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she lives.

This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com

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Marinus De Jong, "A Church for a Secular World: The Development of Klaas Schilder's Ecclesiology" (Brill, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The relationship between the Church and the world has been a subject of debate since the Church's earliest days. In ⁠A Church for a Secular World: The Development of Klaas Schilder's Ecclesiology⁠ (Brill, 2025), Marinus De Jong explores how Stanley Hauerwas, with his emphasis on the Church as polis, made a significant contemporary contribution—one that has also faced strong criticism. This study examines the distinctive insights of second-generation neo-Calvinist theologian Klaas Schilder (1890-1952) on this issue. Neo-Calvinism is renowned for its development of Reformed theology, particularly in this area, and Schilder builds on this tradition with a critical eye. Engaging with the increasing secularity of the twentieth century, he carefully interacts with Karl Barth's writings while refining his own perspective. In doing so, Schilder's position comes close to the Anabaptist stance of Hauerwas, yet remains firmly rooted in the Reformed understanding of creation.

Marinus de Jong, Ph.D., is assistant professor of the theology of neo-Calvinism at Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. He co-editedThe Klaas Schilder Reader: The Essential Theological Writings (Lexham, 2022).

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Susanna Drake, "Veiling in the Late Antique World" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Veiling meant many things to the ancients. On women, veils could signify virtue, beauty, piety, self-control, and status. On men, covering the head could signify piety or an emotion such as grief. Late Roman mosaics show people covering their hands with veils when receiving or giving something precious. They covered their altars, doorways, shrines, and temples; and many covered their heads when sacrificing to their gods. Early Christian intellectuals such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa used these everyday practices of veiling to interpret sacred texts. These writers understood the divine as veiled, and the notion of a veiled spiritual truth informed their interpretation of the bible. Veiling in the Late Antique World (Cambridge UP, 2026) provides the first assessment of textual and material evidence for veiling in the late antique Mediterranean world. Susanna Drake here explores the relation between the social history of the veil and the intellectual history of the concept of truth as veiled/revealed.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susanna Drake is Professor of Religious Studies at Macalister College. Her first book was Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts.

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Annie Selak, "The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism" (Fordham UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Dr. Annie Selak (she/her/hers) is an expert in feminist ecclesiology. She studies wounds in the church, or moments where the church fails to live into its mission and causes harm. Racism, sexism, and the clergy sex abuse crisis are examples of the church failing to credibly be church. Guided by a feminist methodology, Selak integrates the lived experience of women with a robust vision for the church. Selak serves as a Visiting Scholar in the Center on Faith and Justice while working as a campus minister at a local independent school. She earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College and M.Div at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Selak has over 15 years of experience in Catholic ministry, and her writing has appeared in Modern Theology, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and America.

Her forthcoming book, The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism (Fordham UP, 2026) puts forth a vision of the church in the shadow of wounds, guided by a feminist methodology. Selak argues that the Catholic Church must confront its own injuries in order to credibly be Church. Using a feminist framework, she develops a new ecclesiology around three wounds, racism, sexism, and clericalism, that actively harm the Body of Christ and distort its witness.

Attentive to history, pastoral practice, and lived experience, Selak shows how each wound is both inflicted by the Church and borne within the Church. She offers the resurrected body of Jesus, scarred yet no longer bleeding, as a guiding metaphor for ecclesial renewal, a body that does not deny its wounds but is transformed through them. Drawing on Karl Rahner, she grounds hope in the reign of God while insisting on concrete institutional and spiritual conversion.

Written for students and scholars, ministers and lay leaders, The Wounded Church uncovers overlooked histories tied to racism, sexism, and the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and proposes clear theological principles for reform. The result is a constructive, pastorally engaged vision that tells the truth about harm and imagines credible paths toward change, accountability, and justice.

You can use the code “church2026” at the link here to receive a discounted book and free shipping.

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Kati Curts, "Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of the Episcopal Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of reincarnation,” mass marketer of antisemitic material, and employer who institutionalized a social gospel, Henry Ford’s contributions to American models of business were informed by and produced for an America he understood to be broadly Christian. Though Ford’s efforts at the head of the Ford Motor Company have commonly been understood as secular, Ford himself was explicit that his work in engineering and auto production was prophetic and meant to remake the world.

In Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America (NYU Press, 2025), Dr. Kati Curts presents a religious history of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company repositions them within critical studies of religion, examining how Ford transformed American religious practice in the twentieth century. Drawing directly on documents from Ford’s archive, it examines Ford’s mass production methods and bureaucratic reforms as examples of prosperity gospel traditions, illuminating the ways manufacturing and technology intersect with American religious practice. Bridging American religious and industrial history, Assembling Religion offers a new and surprising way to understand Ford’s impact on culture, commerce, and the technology of labor.

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Many Cultures, One Hope: Cultural Competence in the Uniting Church with guest Reverend Seforosa Carroll

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of The Cultural Competence Collective, we speak with academic theologian and Uniting Church ordained minister Rev Dr Seforosa Caroll about the role cultural competence plays in inter-faith dialogue. Through her experience growing up in multi-cultural and multi-religious communities, Seforosa carries principles of cultural competence–empathy, openness and a willingness listen–into her advocacy and ministry. Join us as we explore how cultural competence plays a key role in bridging inter-faith communication, and dive into Seforosa’s work in gender equality, climate justice, and advocacy for Indigenous knowledge.

Show notes

This episode is hosted by Dr. Matthew Tyne, an Academic Facilitator at the National Centre Centre for Cultural Competence. He comes to cultural competence following 20 years of working in international community development, especially in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and sexual health promotion with diverse communities in Australia.

Produced by: Adubi Plange, Dr Amy McHugh, Sarah Mashman

Podcast Artwork: Zein Arif

Resources

You can access more of Rev Dr Seforosa Carroll’s work through her Research Output academic profile.

Below are some of Seforosa’s works related to this episode of the Cultural Competence Collective:

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Matthew R. Crawford and Aaron P. Johnson, "Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian: Introduction and Translation" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University

Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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An-Ting Yi, "From Erasmus to Maius: The History of Codex Vaticanus in New Testament Textual Scholarship" (de Gruyter, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 21 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Codex Vaticanus is often regarded as a pillar of New Testament scholarship, ancient, authoritative, and decisive. In From Erasmus to Maius: The History of Codex Vaticanus in New Testament Textual Scholarship (de Gruyter, 2024) published by De Gruyter in 2024, Dr An-Ting Yi shows that this status was anything but inevitable.
Rather than focusing on the manuscript’s text, Dr Yi traces how Vaticanus gradually became authoritative. For centuries, it was known but rarely usable, constrained by restricted access, archival control, and scholarly methods that could not yet make sense of it. Only with nineteenth-century methodological shifts and, crucially, with its first printed edition did Vaticanus acquire the authority it now seems always to have had.

The book’s core insight is simple and powerful. Manuscripts do not possess fixed authority. They gain it through methods, institutions, and infrastructures. Well argued and meticulously researched, Dr Yi’s study is less about a single manuscript than about how scholarly canons are formed, stabilised, and remembered. From Erasmus to Maius invites readers to rethink not only textual criticism but also the construction of academic authority.

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Amy D. McDowell, "Whispers in the Pews: Evangelical Uniformity in a Divided America" (NYU Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Whispers in the Pews: Evangelical Uniformity in a Divided America (NYU Press, 2026) reveals how mundane social interactions in an evangelical church silence difference and reinforce right-wing conformity Small talk, whether enjoyed or despised, is often thought of as trivial and largely useless. In certain situations, however, it can be surprisingly powerful. Whispers in the Pews offers a bottom-up explanation of Christian nationalism, revealing how cultural homogeneity within evangelical church communities is upheld by an active, manufactured effort to dodge reflective engagement with topics that could stir up diverging points of view. Whispers in the Pews exposes how small talk is utilized to construct an appearance of social and political sameness in evangelical church communities. Based on an ethnography of a church that appeals to students, working class residents, and racial minorities alike in a politically divided Southern college town, McDowell showcases how churchgoers avoid consequential issues that could expose disagreements on border control, electoral politics, race and gender. By confining themselves to blander topics, the church, which prides itself on inclusivity, positions itself as welcoming to all. But by creating an environment in which certain topics are discouraged from discussion, a façade is developed in which everyone is assumed to believe the same things, and any sort of debate is silenced. Whispers in the Pews shows that the presumption that everyone is of the same mind makes it difficult for churchgoers to articulate or contemplate progressive views, and by extension, advances the idea that differences of opinion are un-Christian, and therefore un-American.

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Thomas A. Robinson, "Revisiting the God-fearer Thesis in the Development of Early Christianity" (T&T Clark, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Revisiting the God-fearer Thesis in the Development of Early Christianity (T&T Clark, 2025) examines in depth the theory, evidence, and trail of scholarly work on god-fearers. Thomas A. Robinson argues for substantial revisions in the depiction of the god-fearer phenomenon, the story of early Christianity and its engagement with both Jews and with the larger Greco-Roman population. Robinson provides a thorough analysis of the god-fearer theory, examining scholarly debate and primary literary and inscriptional materials put forward as evidence for the god-fearer theory.

Robinson begins with an exploration of the god-fearing community, its definition, or lack thereof, and its role as a bridge to Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. He then examines the key features of god-fearers, and the scholarly appeal to circumcision as the primary barrier preventing god-fearer conversion to Judaism. The volume concludes with an exploration of Luke's Acts and its readers and a thorough investigation of inscriptional and literary evidence supporting god-fearer theory.

Thomas A. Robinson holds a PhD in Religious Studies from McMaster University, having majored in Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman Era and minored in Indian Philosophy. He has taught world religions courses for over thirty years and has published several books on early and modern Christianity, co-authored a world religions text, and developed books and software for New Testament Greek. Among his other publications on early Christianity, he has authored Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways: Early-Jewish Christian Relations (Hendrickson, 2009) and Who Were the First Christians? Dismanting the Urban Thesis (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Mariam Goshadze, "The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars" (Duke UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 10 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars (Duke UP, 2025) Mariam Goshadze traces the history of noise regulation in Accra, Ghana, showing how the 1990s and 2000s conflicts between the Ga people and Pentecostal/Charismatic churches during the annual city-wide ban on drumming illuminates the inner workings of Ghanaian secularity and the importance of "traditional religions" to African urbanity. Goshadze shows how the drumming ban represents a reversal of the top-down model of noise regulation and illuminates the reality of Ghanaian secularity, in which the state unofficially collaborates with indigenous religious authorities to control sound. In so doing, Goshadze counters the tendency to push African “traditional religions” to the margins.

The author, Mariam Goshadze, is an Assistant Professor in the Study of Religion at Leipzig University.

The host, Elisa Prosperetti, is an Assistant Professor of African and global history at NIE/NTU in Singapore.

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Justin Michael Reed, "The Injustice of Noah's Curse" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 10 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Genesis 9, Noah plants a vineyard, and eventually becomes drunk and uncovered in his tent. Then we are told that Ham sees the nakedness of his father, but when Noah wakes up he curses Canaan, Ham’s son. For more than two thousand years, interpreters have struggled to make sense of this story, trying to fill its gaps and explain its ambiguities.

Tune in as we speak with Justin Michael Reed, who offers a novel explanation in his recent book, The Injustice of Noah's Curse (Oxford UP, 2025)

Justin Michael Reed is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Carmen Lansdowne, "Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission" (CMU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In my conversation with Rev. Dr Carmen Lansdowne about her book Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission (CMU Press, 2025), she emphasised the priority of truth-telling over comfort. Her work does not offer a polished narrative of reconciliation or a toolkit for “better mission.” Instead, it confronts Christian mission with its unresolved colonial entanglements and asks whether the church is willing to pursue justice rather than seek emotional closure.

Carmen’s language of a “broken heart” names the cost of remaining Christian while being Indigenous within institutions that continue to benefit from colonial structures. In our interview, she spoke candidly about vulnerability as a theological practice, not as confession for its own sake but as witness.

The book also challenges dominant ways of knowing. As Carmen explains, Indigenous epistemologies reveal how Western theology has privileged abstraction and certainty at the expense of relational responsibility and right action. For anyone engaged in theology, ministry, or scholarship, especially in North American, European, or settler contexts, this is a deeply unsettling yet necessary challenge.

During our conversation, Carmen also highlighted helpful resources and ongoing reflections available on her website, which readers and listeners may find valuable. You can explore them here.

She also writes regularly on Substack, where you can follow or subscribe to keep engaging with her thoughts beyond the book.

Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission poses a difficult but important question: What kind of church emerges when justice matters more than innocence? It is a question worth sitting with, uncomfortably and honestly.

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Kim Haines-Eitzen, "The Gospel of John: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The contentious life and times of the most widely cited book of the New Testament. Written some two thousand years ago, the Gospel of John is the only Christian Gospel to place Jesus at the creation of the world, and the only one where we find the stories of the raising of Lazarus, the woman taken in adultery, and the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. The Gospel of John also points an accusing finger at Jesus’s Jewish opponents and has been used by medieval crusaders, Protestant reformers, and white supremacists to legitimize antisemitic violence. In The Gospel of John: A Biography (Princeton UP, 2026) Kim Haines-Eitzen traces the legacy of this complex, beautiful, and at times deeply troubling work, from its composition in the late first century to its enduring power today. Haines-Eitzen sheds light on the book’s reception by early Christian gnostic and patristic commentators, its use in the Crusades and Reformation, its revered status among American evangelicals, and the many ways it has inspired novels, films, music, and art. The earliest papyrus fragment of an identifiably Christian Gospel is a fragment of John, and John is the only canonical Gospel that depicts Jesus as a savior who teaches openly about his divinity. Haines-Eitzen shows how John simultaneously carries a message of inclusion and intolerance, and how its story teaches us about the nature and enormous influence of scriptural religions. Compelling and provocative, The Gospel of John reveals how this dynamic, malleable biblical work has both unified and divided Christians over centuries of translation, interpretation, and creative reimagining.

Kim Haines-Eitzen (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1997) is a Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions with a specialty in Early Christianity, Early Judaism, and Religion in Late Antiquity in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Her most recent book is Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks and What It Can Teach Us (Princeton University Press, 2022), a project that traces how desert sounds shaped early Christian monasticism and includes field recordings she has made in desert environments. She is the author of Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford University Press, 2000), a social history of the scribes who copied Christian texts during the second and third centuries; and The Gendered Palimpsest: Women, Writing, and Representation in Early Christianity, which deals with the intersection of gender and text transmission (Oxford University Press, 2012). She is a member of the programs in Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Medieval Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell. For the 2024-25 academic year, she is a Fellow at the National Humanities Center where she is working on a new project, tentatively entitled Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Field Guide to the Apocalypse. To learn more about her recent work and her media appearances, visit her website: http://kimhaineseitzen.wordpress.com

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William Stell, "Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity" (Princeton UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 5 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Evangelicals claim that their opposition to homosexuality is an inherent feature of their faith, rooted in their unchanging beliefs about the Bible. Most scholars, journalists, and observers have accepted this account; in Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity (Princeton UP, 2026) William Stell upends it. Arguing that the antigay majority in evangelicalism has been less dominant and more vulnerable than previously thought, Stell describes a network of authors, ministers, and professors—all veterans of major evangelical institutions—who worked in the 1970s and 1980s to persuade Christians that their churches should affirm the relationships and ministries of gay and lesbian members. By the late 1970s, some even thought that these activists might shape the future of evangelicalism.
Of course, that speculation proved mistaken, and the antigay evangelical majority eventually overpowered the gay-affirming minority. Stell’s history of the rise and fall of evangelical gay activism shines a light on this largely forgotten chapter in American evangelicalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, Stell documents the work of four prominent activists: the founder of a predominantly LGBTQ+ denomination called the Metropolitan Community Churches, the leader of a gay advocacy organization called Evangelicals Concerned, and the evangelical feminist coauthors of the influential book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? By recovering the successes of evangelical gay activists and the struggles of their opponents, Stell’s account transforms how we think about evangelicalism, how we talk about the culture wars, and how we approach both religion in queer movements and queer activism in religious movements.

William Stell teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at New York University.

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Eric McDonnell, "The Formation of Psalms 1–3 and the Arrangement of the Hebrew Psalter" (Mohr Siebeck, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 3 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The shape and shaping of the Psalter continues to be one of the more fascinating areas of biblical research. In his recent monograph on Psalm 1-3, Eric McDonnell argues that Psalms 1 and 2 constitute a two-part preface, added to an earlier collection beginning with Psalm 3.

Tune in as we speak with Eric McDonnell about his new book, The Formation of Psalms 1-3 and the Arrangement of the Hebrew Psalter (Mohr Siebeck, 2026).

Dr. Eric McDonnell is Adjunct Professor at Emory University, Technical Editor for TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, Technical Editor also for Bible Odyssey, and Digital Initiatives Manager for Society of Biblical Literature/ SBL Press.

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Philip Abbott, "Sounds for a New World: The Christianizing Soundscapes of Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In the Greco-Roman world, gods were known to tame soundscapes, or acoustic landscapes. Zeus, Apollo, Orpheus, and other Classical deities demonstrated their power by bringing order to chaotic sound worlds, replacing cacophony with harmony. In late antiquity, Christians took up this archetype and applied it to Jesus. For many early Christians, the advent of Christ resembled the modern phenomenon of a musical key change, but on a grand scale: Jesus initiated a recalibration of the cosmic soundscape, ushering in a new world. However, according to many Christians in late antiquity, this universal key change was not yet complete. Late ancient Christians believed that they could participate in the ongoing sonic work of Christ by Christianizing the acoustic landscapes of the world.
In Sounds for a New World: The Christianizing Soundscapes of Late Antiquity (Oxford UP, 2026), Dr. Philip Abbott explores how late ancient Christians envisioned themselves as participants in the worldwide retuning effort, harmonizing the Classical world to the new Christian reality. Rejecting the sounds of traditional Greco-Roman and Persian cultures, Christians advocated a variety of sonic practices to realize their grand retuning endeavor, including shouting, singing, silent meditation, chanting, and even belching. From the Latin West to the Syriac East, late ancient Christians formed a polyphonous chorus of diverse voices all joining in the great harmonizing work of Jesus as they Christianized the soundscapes of the world.
For years, scholars have noted the monumental changes that took place in early Christianity during the so-called Constantinian Revolution. But Dr. Abbott turns our attention to an unexplored aspect of this transitional moment, arguing that it was not simply a political or religious revolution - it was a revolution of the senses. Central to this sensorial transformation was sound. As Christianity gained imperial power in the fourth century, Christians began the process of re-tuning the world for Christ.

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Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the consequences of near constant warfare on civilian populations, fighting forces, and the built environment. War and Community in Late Antiquity responds to this oversight by assembling archeologists, art historians, social historians, and scholars of religion to examine the impact of war on communities (households, cities, religious groups, elites and non-elites) and their reactions to ongoing stressors. Topics include the violence of everyday life as backdrop to that of war; the rhetoric of warfare and its significance for Christian authors; the effects of captivity and billeting on households; communal agency and the fortification of civilian spaces; and the challenges of articulating Christian imperial power in wartime.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susanna Elm She is the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kristina Sessa is Professor of History at The Ohio State University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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James Bultema, "Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016" (Springer, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016 (Springer Nature, 2026), James Bultema identifies and investigates four central factors that gave rise to the Turkish Protestant movement in the latter half of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first century. Drawing on qualitative interviews and historical studies the book explores the complex interplay of religious freedom, missionary activity, interdependent choice, and multilevel plausibility structures. An imperfect but sufficient religious freedom created the soil for the growth of mostly tiny Turkish Protestant churches that were countercultural and vulnerable, but also vitally interconnected. This work provides an extensive mission history of the Turkish Protestant movement.

The book is part of the Springer series Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies and was awarded the Science Award on Religious Freedom 2026 the Freie Theologische Hochschule (FTH) Gießen, Germany.

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Joanna Kline, "Narrative Analogy in the David Story" (Mohr Siebeck, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Have you ever heard echoes of the Genesis patriarchs in the story of David? If so, you're not alone!

Join us as we speak with Joanna Kline about her monograph, Narrative Analogy in the David Story (Mohr Siebeck, 2024) where she brings out parallels between Genesis 22-50 and 1 Samuel 16-1 Kings 2.

Joanna Kline earned her PhD from Harvard University, and is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Gordon College.

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S5E5 The Gospel According to Josephus: On the Final Days of Jesus Christ with Thomas C. Schmidt

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this fifth episode of Season 5, I interview Professor Thomas C. Schmidt, a historian who focuses on the New Testament, Patristics, and Eastern Christianity. An Associate Professor at Fairfield University, he is currently a 2025-2026 Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University.

Drawing on his new book, Josephus and Jesus (OUP, 2025), we discuss in this Part II of a two-part series the writings of the ancient historian Josephus and what they reveal about the historical identity of Jesus of Nazareth as well as the events surrounding the rise of early Christianity.

Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on our new Substack page, “Madison’s Footnotes.”

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Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two centuries earlier. The Council chose Tikhon (Bellavin), the son of a humble village parish priest, to be head of Russia's largest religious confession. At the time, the majority of Orthodox Christians were devoutly religious. Tikhon's vision of the Church, which he began putting into practice during his years as the Orthodox bishop of North America (1898-1907), was that of an organic body which welcomed the participation of all believers. The Bolsheviks had other ideas. They aimed to create a revolution that would be carried out by the state on behalf of the people. And they sought to eradicate religion as "superstition" and not only to disestablish the Church, but to destroy it altogether. Although the alternate Russia which Tikhon represented would be crushed by the superior force of the Bolsheviks, he helped navigate the Church through immense challenges so that, in the end, the Orthodox Church outlived the Soviet experiment. The People's Patriarch tells the story of the clash of visions for the new Russia in 1917 through the lens of the humble man chosen to lead the Church, whose life exemplifies the transformations within the Orthodox Church in late Imperial Russia and its fate during the Revolution. The People's Patriarch is the first critical biography of one of the twentieth century's most important Orthodox Christian leaders, based on an exhaustive use of previously untapped primary sources, including Tikhon's letters and encyclicals, previously classified documents from the top Bolshevik leadership and Soviet secret police, and materials from a dozen archives in five countries.

Scott M. Kenworthy is Professor in the History Department at Miami University (Ohio), where he also teaches for the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and Religious Studies programs.

Roland Clark is a Professor of Modern European History at the University of Liverpool.

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Leland Brown, "The First Pastors: Early Christianity’s Vision for Ministry" (Gorgias Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Most accounts of Christian leadership in the first two centuries focus on the diversity of leadership structures and the various cultural influences that impacted it. The First Pastors: Early Christianity’s Vision for Ministry (Gorgias Press, 2026) demonstrates that within these structures and contexts early Christians shared a clear set of theological convictions about pastoral leadership. Through literary and theological analysis of relevant passages in the Apostolic Fathers and New Testament, The First Pastors demonstrates four shared convictions about pastoral ministry: (1) the necessity of a particular kind of virtue for pastoral leaders, (2) the authority of pastoral leaders, (3) the essentials of pastoral work, and (4) the reality of pastoral suffering. These shared convictions emerge from the variety of communities represented by these texts and are so well attested to that they suggest a much greater degree of unity than is presently assumed in the field. Moreover, even with the various dating issues surrounding the Apostolic Fathers and New Testament, the agreement between these sets of texts show second-century Christians carrying forward the convictions of the first century. Finally, they present an interesting example of the coexistence and interaction between unity and diversity in early Christianity: theological unity persisted in diverse communities with varying practices and contexts.

Gorgias Press has generously offered a coupon code for listeners of this podcast. The coupon is valid until the end of 2026 on orders from the publisher’s website here. Use code LAUNCH40%

Leland Brown serves as a pastor in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina and is an adjunct professor at Phoenix Seminary. He studied patristics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and received his PhD with a focus on first- and second-century Christianity. He also serves as an editor for the London Lyceum. His research seeks to exposit how pastoral leadership has been understood and practiced in the history of the church.

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The Gospel According to Josephus: A Conversation with Thomas C. Schmidt, Part 1

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 1 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this fourth episode of Season 5, I interview Professor Thomas C. Schmidt, a historian who focuses on the New Testament, Patristics, and Eastern Christianity. An Associate Professor at Fairfield University, he is currently a 2025-2026 Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University.

Drawing on his new book, Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ (Oxford UP, 2025), we discuss in this Part I of a two-part series the stupendous life of Josephus, the ancient historian who lived in both elite Jewish and Roman circles his whole life, as well as the cultural, religious, and political world of the New Testament as found in his main works.

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Philip Wingeier-Rayo, "John Wesley and the Origins of Methodist Missions" (Abingdon Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 1 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

It is broadly understood that John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist movement that spread around the world in the eighteenth century. He is known for being a missionary in Georgia, his “heart-warming” experience at Aldersgate, field preaching, and the famous quote “the world is my parish.” But this book reveals John Wesley’s ultimate reluctance to send missionaries overseas, with several examples of Wesley’s rejection of world missions and occasions when he thwarted plans, including those of Thomas Coke, the Father of Methodist Missions.

John Wesley and the Origins of Methodist Missions (Abingdon Press, 2025) shows how ordinary immigrants, merchants, planters, soldiers, enslaved persons, and former slaves carried Methodism with them to such far-off places. They were not officially commissioned or authorized by Wesley, but rather traveled on their own, motivated by the love of God and neighbor, to share their faith with others. It was only after these Methodist societies were established, and after multiple appeals, that John Wesley and the British Conference agreed to send missionaries to assist. This book offers some reasons for Wesley’s hesitancy to send missionaries overseas and highlights the stories, challenges, and successes of the pioneers who spread Methodism around the world.

Byline Host:
Byung Ho Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in the History and Ecumenics program at Princeton Theological Seminary, concentrating in World Christianity and history of religions. His research focuses on the indigenous expressions of Christianities found in Southeast Asia, particularly Christianity that is practiced in the Muslim-dominant archipelagic nation of Indonesia. More broadly, he is interested in history and the anthropology of Christianity, complexities of religious conversion and social identity, inter-religious dialogue, ecumenism, and World Christianity.

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Hans A. Harmakaputra, "Christian-Muslim Relations in Post-Reformation Indonesia: Resistance, Identity and Belonging" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The post-Reformation era has witnessed a vastly changing landscape in Indonesian Islam, particularly with the emergence of conservative Muslim voices. Christian-Muslim Relations in Post-Reformation Indonesia: Resistance, Identity and Belonging (Edinburgh UP, 2026) explores several strategies of Christian resistance against the resurgence of conservative voices in Indonesian Islam to establish a coherent view of Christian responses and a greater understanding of Christian-Muslim relations after the Reformation in 1998. These different strategies demonstrate that, despite their status as a religious minority, Indonesian Christians are far from passive and submissive. Instead, they actively negotiate their identity and role in contemporary Indonesia’s shifting political and social context to cultivate a sense of belonging.

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Christopher Wright Mitchell, "The Song of Songs - Concordia Commentary" (Concordia Publishing, 2001)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

What is the Song of Songs about? Christopher Mitchell, in his Concordia Commentary, explains it as Solomon's most beautiful poem, containing a profound message of divine love, eschatological yearning, consummation, and eternal delights.

Join us as we speak with Christopher Mitchell about his commentary on the Song of Songs (Concordia Publishing, 2003)!

Christopher Mitchell is the Old Testament editor for the Concordia Commentary series, and author of scholarly and pastoral resources. He has an MA and a PhD in Hebrew and Semitic studies from the University of Wisconsin.

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S. D. Ellison, "Hope for a New David in the Psalter's Narrative Impulse: Reading the Psalms as Utopian Literature" (Fortress Academic, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Does the Psalter have a unified theme or message? Davy Ellison says, “Yes!” In his new book Hope for a New David in the Psalter's Narrative Impulse: Reading the Psalms as Utopian Literature (Fortress Academic, 2025), he argues that the Psalter’s narrative impulse sustains expectations of a better future by assuring readers that one day Zion will be glorified, enemies vanquished, and the Davidic dynasty embodied in a new Davidic king.

Join us as we speak with Davy Ellison about his book, Hope for a New David in the Psalter’s Narrative Impulse.

Davy Ellison is director of training and lecturer in Old Testament at the Irish Baptist College in Northern Ireland.

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Gijs Kruijtzer, "Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700" (de Gruyter, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

How do people justify what others see as transgression? Taking that question to the Persian-Muslim and Latin-Christian worlds over the period 1200 to 1700, Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700(de Gruyter, 2023) shows that people in both these worlds invested considerable energy in worrying, debating, and writing about proscribed practices. It compares how people in the two worlds came to terms with the proscriptions of sodomy, idolatry, and usury. When historians speak of the gap between premodern practice and the legal theory of the time, they tend to ignore the myriad of justifications that filled this gap. Moreover, a focus on justification evens out many of the contrasts that have been alleged to exist between the two worlds, or the Muslim and Christian worlds more generally. The similarities outweigh the differences in the ways people came to terms with the various rules of divine law. The level of flexibility of the theologians and jurists in charge of divine law varied more over time and by topic than between the two worlds. Both worlds also saw the development of ever more sophisticated justifications. Amid the increasing complexity of justifications, a particular kind of reasoning emerged: that good outcomes are more important than upholding rules for their own sake.

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Philip C. Almond, "Noah and the Flood in Western Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In a world beset by climatic emergencies, the continuing resonance of the flood story is perhaps easy to understand. Whether in the tortured alpha male intensity of Russell Crowe’s Noah, in Darren Aronofsky’s eponymous 2014 film, or other recent derivations, the biblical narrative has become a lightning rod for gathering environmental anxieties. However, Philip C. Almond’s masterful exploration of Western cultural history uncovers a far more complex Noah than is commonly recognised: not just the father of humanity but also the first shipbuilder, navigator, zookeeper, farmer, grape grower, and wine maker. Noah’s pivotal significance is revealed as much in his forgotten secular as in his religious receptions, and their major impact on such disciplines as geology, geography, biology, and zoology. While Noah’s many interpretations over two millennia might seem to offer a common message of hope, the author’s sober conclusion to Noah and the Flood in Western Thought (Cambridge UP, 2025) is that deliverance now lies not in divine but rather in human hands.

Philip C. Almond is Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought at The University of Queensland. A noted authority in the history of religion and of ideas, he has written many books on subjects as diverse as God, the Devil, the afterlife, witchcraft and witches, Adam and Eve, heaven and hell in Enlightenment England, and early modern demonic possession. His recent works include The Buddha: Life and Afterlife Between East and West (2024), Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History (2023), and The Antichrist: A New Biography (2020), all published by Cambridge University Press.

YouTube Channel: here

Twitter: here

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Daniel McClellan, "The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues" (St. Martin's Essentials, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Bible is arguably the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public spaces, people try to cut debate short by claiming that "the Bible says so!" However, they commonly disagree about what it actually does and doesn't say, particularly when it comes to socially significant issues. For instance, does the Bible say we should be on the lookout for an antichrist associated with the number 666? Does it say women shouldn’t wear revealing clothing? Does it say it’s okay to hit your kids?
In The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues (St. Martin's Essentials, 2025), Dan McClellan leverages his popular "data over dogma" approach, and his years of experience in the academy and on social media, to lay out in clear and accessible ways what the data indicate the Bible does and doesn't say about issues ranging from homosexuality, abortion, and slavery to monotheism, inspiration, and even God's wife. The Bible Says So is an invaluable resource for our fractious times.

Interviewees: Dan McClellan is an award-winning public scholar of the Bible. He has over one million followers on social media and is a host on the Data Over Dogma Podcast. Dan received his PhD from the University of Exeter and is currently an honorary fellow at Birmingham University's Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion.

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Manuela Ceballos, "Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Manuela Ceballos’ new book Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean (University of California Press, 2025) engages with the life and legacies of two sixteenth-century saints; the Spanish Christian Teresa de Jesús (also known as Teresa of Avila) and the Moroccan Sufi Sidi Ridwan al-Januwi. The book draws from rich Arabic and Spanish sources that moves us between Morocco and Iberia. In the process, we learn that these saints both descent from families of converts and as such blood and bodily pollution operated as material and metaphoric symbols to define their identities. Through this generative comparison, we see how constructions of blood and dung circulate across these varied but entangled temporal geographies to constitute notions of impurity and purity, such as in the case of the deathly hemorrhaging experienced by Teresa. In end though blood is used to set different boundaries around religious or racial identities, and even at times gender norms. As such, the discourses that are utilized for such argumentations are not stable, and so blood and how it is deployed is not the same across the stories of these two saints and their enduring legacies nor does it refract power consistently. This book will be of interest to those who think about embodiment, material culture, the early modern Mediterranean world, and Christian-Muslim mysticism.

Manuela Ceballos is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Shobhana Xavier is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Queen’s University. More details about her research and scholarship may be found here. She may be reached at shobhana.xavier@queensu.ca.

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Jon Stobart, "Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

An innovative approach in the field of material culture and consumption studies, Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Jon Stobart looks at the houses, consumption and lifestyle of Church of England clergy in the long 18th century, linking moral debates and popular representations of the clergy to the material culture of their houses and their motivations as consumers.
By focusing on ethical and moral dimensions of consumer practices, it challenges established readings of consumption in the long 18th century as an essentially secular process in which goods were markers of wealth, status and taste, by bringing the clergyman into the frame – their lives, their habits and their homes.
Cross-disciplinary in its approach, combining material culture and religious and social history and sitting at the intersection of these fields, Life in the Georgian Parsonage fills a significant gap, enhancing in important ways our knowledge of this group as a crucial but understudied set of 18th-century consumers, while also contributing to understanding the parish clergy of England in the context of 18th-century society and culture. Bringing together a wide range of source material – from probate inventories to personal account books, satirical prints to sermons, diaries to designs for parsonages – the author reconstructs the material lives and household arrangements of the Georgian clergy in glorious detail. Examining the parish clergy over this period of profound social and religious change through the lens of consumption, and consumption through the lives of these clergymen, has a transformative impact both on these areas of enquiry and on our understanding of English society in the 18th century.

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Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah talks to Dr. Laura Rademaker (Australian National University), the author of Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission.

The conversation explores the distinctive historical context of Australia’s Northern Territory as a location for Christian missionary activity. Tazin and Laura talk about the multiple tensions and elements involved in language interactions between monolingual English-speaking missionaries and multilingual Indigenous communities, against the background of settler colonialism.

Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission was published by University of Hawai’i Press in 2018.

About the book

Found in Translation is a rich account of language and shifting cross-cultural relations on a Christian mission in northern Australia during the mid-twentieth century. It explores how translation shaped interactions between missionaries and the Anindilyakwa-speaking people of the Groote Eylandt archipelago and how each group used language to influence, evade, or engage with the other in a series of selective “mistranslations.”

In particular, this work traces the Angurugu mission from its establishment by the Church Missionary Society in 1943, through Australia’s era of assimilation policy in the 1950s and 1960s, to the introduction of a self-determination policy and bilingual education in 1973. While translation has typically been an instrument of colonization, this book shows that the ambiguities it creates have given Indigenous people opportunities to reinterpret colonization’s position in their lives.

Laura Rademaker combines oral history interviews with careful archival research and innovative interdisciplinary findings to present a fresh, cross-cultural perspective on Angurugu mission life. Exploring spoken language and sound, the translation of Christian scripture and songs, the imposition of English literacy, and Aboriginal singing traditions, she reveals the complexities of the encounters between the missionaries and Aboriginal people in a subtle and sophisticated analysis.

Rademaker uses language as a lens, delving into issues of identity and the competition to name, own, and control. In its efforts to shape the Anindilyakwa people’s beliefs, the Church Missionary Society utilized language both by teaching English and by translating Biblical texts into the native tongue. Yet missionaries relied heavily on Anindilyakwa interpreters, whose varied translation styles and choices resulted in an unforeseen Indigenous impact on how the mission’s messages were received. From Groote Eylandt and the peculiarities of the Australian settler-colonial context, Found in Translation broadens its scope to cast light on themes common throughout Pacific mission history such as assimilation policies, cultural exchanges, and the phenomenon of colonization itself.

This book will appeal to Indigenous studies scholars across the Pacific as well as scholars of Australian history, religion, linguistics, anthropology, and missiology.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Todd H. Weir and Lieke Wijnia, eds., "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners, who explore the key challenges facing the organizations, churches, and government bodies concerned with religion and heritage.

Featuring polemics, case studies, and analysis, the volume is united by major themes,
including Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage, the (post)secular, interreligious heritage, sacred texts, museums, tourism, and contemporary art.

The book explores the shifting significance of Europe's historic churches, synagogues, and mosques, many of which are caught between declining numbers of worshippers, increasing numbers of tourists, and the pressure to find new uses. It also examines the key role religious heritage plays in political discourse, both in the interest of including and excluding religious minorities.

Todd H. Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Director of the Centre for Religion and Heritage at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Lieke Wijnia is Head of Curation and Library at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

James Bielo is an anthropologist and associate professor of religious studies at Northwestern University.

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David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent ancient magic; and (3) a series of contexts, from the written word to materiality itself, to which the term “magic” might usefully pertain.
The individual essays in this volume cover most of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, with essays by both established and emergent scholars of ancient religions.
In a burgeoning field of “magic studies” trying both to preserve and to justify critically the category itself, this volume brings new clarity and provocative insights. This will be an indispensable resource to all interested in magic in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christianity and Judaism, Egypt through the Christian period, and also comparative and critical theory.
Contributors are: Magali Bailliot, Gideon Bohak, Véronique Dasen, Albert de Jong, Jacco Dieleman, Esther Eidinow, David Frankfurter, Fritz Graf, Yuval Harari, Naomi Janowitz, Sarah Iles Johnston, Roy D. Kotansky, Arpad M. Nagy, Daniel Schwemer, Joseph E. Sanzo, Jacques van der Vliet, Andrew Wilburn.

David Frankfurter holds the William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. He joined the faculty of B.U. in the fall of 2010. A scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions with specialties in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, magical texts, popular religion, and Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods, Frankfurter’s particular interests revolve around theoretical issues like the place of magic in religion, the relationship of religion and violence, the nature of Christianization, and the representation of evil in culture.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Beth A. Berkowitz, "What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature" (U California Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Reading the Bible and rabbinic literature to reimagine the bonds between animals. Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus on animals' intimate lives, Beth A. Berkowitz examines the contribution of religious traditions and sacred texts to contemporary conversations about animals in What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (U California Press, 2026). Reading the four "animal family" laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpretations from ancient times to today, she examines the bonds that animals form with each other and reimagines family to include new forms of life and alternative modes of kinship.

Humanitarian politics—and biblical law—tend to take for granted that human interests supersede animal interests and that our moral obligation extends only to avoiding unnecessary suffering, but necessity is determined by humans. What Animals Teach Us About Families looks at animal emotions, animal agency, family diversity, and human response to reconsider the obligations and opportunities the animal family presents.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Beth A. Berkowitz is Professor and Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies, Department of Religion, Barnard College

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Su Hwa Keum, "From Juche to Jesus: A Study of Worldview Transformation Among North Korean Defector Christians in South Korea" (Pickwick Publications, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In From Juche to Jesus: A Study of Worldview Transformation Among North Korean Defector Christians in South Korea (Pickwick Publications, 2025), Su Hwa Keum explores the profound spiritual journeys of North Korean defectors as they navigate the transition from Juche ideology to faith in Christ. While many encounter the gospel during their escape, genuine transformation requires more than exposure – it is a deep, internal process. Through personal interviews and grounded theory research, Keum examines the key factors and processes that lead to lasting worldview transformation. She highlights how experiencing God enables defectors to “replace the logic of survival with the logic of grace.” A scholarly, insightful and deeply personal work, From Juche to Jesus sheds light on the journey of faith and renewal, offering a powerful perspective on how the gospel reshapes hearts, minds, and entire worldviews.

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Lynneth Miller Renberg, "Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg presents a lively exploration of the medieval and early modern attitudes towards dance, as the perception of dancers changed from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil.

The devil’s cows, impudent camels, or damsels animated by the devil: late medieval and early modern authors used these descriptors and more to talk about dancers, particularly women. Yet, dance was not always considered entirely sinful or connected primarily to women: in some early medieval texts, dancers were exhorted to dance to God, arm-in-arm with their neighbors, and parishes were filled with danced expressions of faith. What led to the transformation of dancers from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil?

Drawing on the evidence from medieval and early modern sermons, and in particular the narratives of the cursed carolers and the dance of Salome, this book explores these changing understandings of dance as they relate to religion, gender, sin, and community within the English parish. In parishes both before and during the English Reformations, dance played an integral role in creating, maintaining, uniting, or fracturing community. But as theological understandings of sacrilege, sin, and proper worship changed, the meanings of dance and gender shifted as well. Redefining dance had tangible ramifications for the men and women of the parish, as new definitions of what it meant to perform one’s gender collided with discourses about holiness and transgression, leading to closer scrutiny and monitoring of the bodies of the faithful.

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Lucy Donkin, "Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages" (Cornell UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 9 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Dr. Lucy Donkin’s Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2022) illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in which people in Medieval Western Europe and beyond experienced sacred spaces.

The ground beneath our feet plays a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in our relationship with the environments we inhabit and the spaces with which we interact. “The ground beneath our feet goes unnoticed for the most part. Yet it guides our steps and shapes our identity in many ways. We obey or disregard markings that indicate where to cross the road, stand back from the edge of the platform, or position ourselves on a sports pitch…Differencing convention in homes and places of worship remind us that our own treatment of the surface is culturally constructed."

Dr. Donkin argues that “In the Middle Ages too, the surface of the ground conveyed information to those who stood on it, prompted physical and imaginative responses, and marked out individual and groups in accordance with the values and concerns of the time. Indeed, in some respects, it played a greater role today in articulating space and identity, especially within ecclesiastical settings…. This book focuses on Medieval interaction with holy ground, within and beyond the church interior, asking how these shaped both place and people.”

By focusing on this surface as a point of encounter, Dr. Donkin positions it within a series of vertically stacked layers—the earth itself, permanent and temporary floor coverings, and the bodies of the living above ground and the dead beneath—providing new perspectives on how sacred space was defined and decorated, including the veneration of holy footprints, consecration ceremonies, and the demarcation of certain places for particular activities.

Using a wide array of visual and textual sources, Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages also details ways in which interaction with this surface shaped people's identities, whether as individuals, office holders, or members of religious communities. Gestures such as trampling and prostration, the repeated employment of specific locations, and burial beneath particular people or actions used the surface to express likeness and difference. From pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land to cathedrals, abbeys, and local parish churches across the Latin West, Dr. Donkin frames the ground as a shared surface, both a feature of diverse, distant places and subject to a variety of uses over time—while also offering a model for understanding spatial relationships in other periods, regions, and contexts.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Kevin Hart, "Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation (U Chicago Press, 2023), Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a meditation on Christian thought and secular philosophy. Drawing on Kant, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, and Husserl, Hart first charts the emergence of contemplation in and beyond the Romantic era. Next, Hart shows this hermeneutic at work in poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and others. Delivered in its original form as the prestigious Gifford Lectures, Lands of Likeness is a revelatory meditation on contemplation for the modern world.
Kevin Hart is Jo Rae Wright University Distinguished Professor at the Duke Divinity School.
Nathan H. Phillips is an independent scholar working out of South Bend, Indiana.

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Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, "The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In the midst of profound political changes in late seventh-century Egypt, after the end of Roman hegemony and during Islamic rule, a bishop named John from the city of Nikiu sat down to pen a chronicle. It is a puzzling and fascinating work that reimagines the established Roman genre of Christian world history as a dialectic between a Roman state that often failed to maintain Christian orthodoxy and Roman citizens who attempted to nudge the state in the direction of correct theology. In The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt (U California Press, 2025) Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga treats the bishop's text as a historical artifact of Egyptian cultural and intellectual history, one of the last works of an educated elite forced to use the tools of Roman education to tackle the crisis brought on by the end of Roman Egypt. Placing the Chronicle in its broader setting, Yirga positions the text as quintessentially post-Roman, arguing that it was a rearticulation of imperial ideology for and by post-Roman subjects that allowed them to explain and cope with the failure of the Roman state to maintain control of Egypt.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee Knoxville

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

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David Albertson, "The Geometry of Christian Contemplation: Measure Without Measure" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The writings of ancient and medieval Christian mystics were rediscovered in the twentieth century, and today they are read more widely than ever before. But do modern assumptions about religious experience influence how we hear those premodern voices? Do we do them justice by thinking of mysticism as interior and ineffable? Or can mystical experience intersect with the natural environment, and indeed the cosmos, which science calculates with precise quantities? David Albertson's The Geometry of Christian Contemplation: Measure without Measure (Oxford UP, 2025) suggests a fresh approach to the history of mystical theology that is oriented toward exteriority more than interiority, and toward the measurable world outside more than the invisible world within.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plotinus had taught contemplatives to close their eyes and withdraw into the soul. Most Christians followed his directions, but others dissented. In three critical episodes, an alternative model of Christian contemplation began to emerge: from Dionysius the Areopagite, to the Byzantine monks John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite, to eccentric humanists in medieval Paris. Together these episodes add up to a very different theological aesthetics, one that can enliven the modern study of mysticism and correct some of its imbalances. For in the centuries before the scientific revolution and the secularization of nature, Christians still saw God in the exterior world, not only the interior soul. God was not an ineffable and formless Absolute, immeasurable as the soul, but an infinite Measure who leaves behind geometrical traces in the figures of the world. The God who became a human body in the Incarnation not only entered time and matter, but also spatial extension, and with it the conditions of measure: points, lines, curves, shapes, planes, dimensions, and magnitudes.

Today the wisdom of this counter-tradition can strengthen the study of mysticism, not only by supplementing our contemporary fascination with negative theology by redefining what it means to name God positively, but by suggesting a new connection between Christian mysticism and the hyper-measured, hyper-technologized world that surrounds us.

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Lauren D. Sawyer, "Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Gaining mass popularity in the mid-1990s with the True Love Waits rally on the Washington Mall, purity culture began as an urge from evangelical conservatives for Christian adolescents to publicly commit to practicing abstinence until marriage. Throughout this decade and the next, millions of evangelical teenagers performed their commitment to sexual purity by signing pledges and wearing purity rings.

Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture (NYU Press, 2025) by Dr. Lauren D. Sawyer examines the shaping of purity culture in the United States, looking specifically at the experiences of white youth. It shows that white girls and white queer youth were vulnerable to the purity movement, but that they were also complicit in its white supremacist oppressive structure. It makes the case that purity culture follows in the footsteps of other purity movements in the United States, and is very much tied to centuries of anti-Black racism and xenophobia in US social history, seeing white youth as in need of protection, usually from a racialized, sexualized other.
While other works have focused on the ways in which purity culture has victimized young people, Dr. Sawyer argues that their perceived status as victims lets them too easily off the hook. White youth have been afforded the privilege of participating in purity culture’s harmful behaviors without being called to account. Closely reading adolescents’ stories of growing up in purity culture, she uncovers youth as agents, participants, and beneficiaries of its white supremacist framing, even as they were still vulnerable to its harmful teachings.

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Christopher J. Bonura, "A Prophecy of Empire: The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius from Late Antique Mesopotamia to the Global Medieval Imagination" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was one of the medieval world’s most popular and widely translated texts. Composed in Syriac in Mesopotamia in the seventh century, this supposed revelation presented a new, salvific role for the Roman Empire, whose last emperor, it prophesied, would help bring about the end of the ages. In this first book-length study of Pseudo-Methodius, Christopher J. Bonura uncovers the under-appreciated Syriac origins of this apocalyptic tract, revealing it as a remarkable response to political realities faced by Christians living under a new Islamic regime. Tracing the spread of Pseudo-Methodius from the early medieval Mediterranean to its dissemination via the printing presses of early modern Europe, Bonura then demonstrates how different cultures used this new vision of empire’s role in the end times to reconfigure their own realities. The book also features a new, complete, and annotated English translation of the Syriac text of Pseudo-Methodius.

New books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Christopher J. Bonura is Assistant Professor of History at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, and Visiting Assistant Professor Costigan Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Washington.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Jamie Kreiner, "The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction" (Liveright, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction (Liveright, 2023) by Dr. Jamie Kreiner presents a revelatory account of how Christian monks identified distraction as a fundamental challenge—and how their efforts to defeat it can inform ours, more than a millennium later.

Although we think of early monks as master concentrators, a life of mindfulness did not, in fact, come to them easily. Delving into the experiences of early Christian monks living in the Middle East, around the Mediterranean, and throughout Europe from 300 to 900 CE, Dr. Kreiner shows that these men and women were obsessed with distraction in ways that seem remarkably modern. At the same time, she suggests that our own obsession is remarkably medieval. Ancient Greek and Roman intellectuals had sometimes complained about distraction, but it was early Christian monks who waged an all-out war against it. The stakes could not have been higher: they saw distraction as a matter of life and death.

Drawing on a trove of sources that the monks left behind, Dr. Kreiner reconstructs the techniques they devised in their lifelong quest to master their minds—from regimented work schedules and elaborative metacognitive exercises to physical regimens for hygiene, sleep, sex, and diet. Blending history and psychology, The Wandering Mind is a witty, illuminating account of human fallibility and ingenuity that bridges a distant era and our own.

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Sonia Hazard, "Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media (Oxford UP, 2025) offers a fresh account of evangelical power by uncovering how the American Tract Society (ATS) leveraged print media to spread its message across an expanding nation. One of the era's largest media corporations and a pillar of the benevolent empire, the ATS circulated some 5.6 billion printed pages between its founding in 1825 and the eve of the Civil War. It wasn't just the volume of materials that mattered—it was the sophisticated media infrastructure that evangelicals developed for their message to reach readers, coast to coast. Media infrastructure refers to the material assemblages that work below the surface of media content, including the format of publications, the avenues of their movement, and the circumstances surrounding their reading. As a non-coercive yet effective form of power, infrastructure shaped how, when, and why readers engaged with evangelical texts. While showing how the ATS became a formidable force in American society during the nineteenth century, Empire of Print opens larger questions about the entanglements among people, things, texts, and institutions, the dynamics of power in a media-saturated world, and the salience of race, class, and region in the distribution and reception of media.

Sonia Hazard is an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University.

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Barry G. Webb, "Job: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary" (Lexham Academic, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The Book of Job confronts the troubling issues that life throws at us as we try to live in trusting obedience to God. How do we live in relation to God when we don't have answers for all of life's problems? Join us as we speak with Barry Webb about his recent commentary on Job, a book that reveals a God we can trust, even in our darkest moments. With detailed exegesis and biblical-theological synthesis, Webb explores Job's unique theology of creation, evil, wisdom, justice, redemption, and God's character, tracing these themes across the canon.

Barry G. Webb is senior research fellow emeritus in Old Testament at Moore Theological College in Newtown, Australia. His other books include The Book of Judges and Five Festal Garments.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu.

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Christopher J. H. Wright, "The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative" (InterVarsity Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

God's mission is to reclaim the world. The church has a designated role to play. Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. Christopher Wright boldly maintains that the entire Bible is generated by and is all about God's mission. In order to understand the Scriptures, we need a missional hermeneutic, an interpretive perspective in sync with the beating heart of its great mission. Wright gives a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture through an understanding of:

Who God is
What he has called his people to be and do
How the nations fit into God's mission

In this revised edition of The Mission of God, Wright extends his classic discussion to consider the ways that the conversation on missional hermeneutics has developed since its original publication. With fully updated citations and additional chapters focused on gospel-centered holistic mission and on the issue of election and supersessionism, this new edition addresses the questions, criticisms, and insights that have emerged during the intervening two decades.

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Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration.

Helen J. Nicholson's book Women and the Crusades (Oxford UP, 2023) surveys women's involvement in medieval crusading between the second half of the eleventh century, when Pope Gregory VII first proposed a penitential military expedition to help the Christians of the East, and 1570, when the last crusader state, Cyprus, was captured by the Ottoman Turks. It considers women's actions not only on crusade battlefields but also in recruiting crusaders, supporting crusades through patronage, propaganda, and prayer, and as both defenders and aggressors. It argues that medieval women were deeply involved in the crusades but the roles that they could play and how their contemporaries recorded their deeds were dictated by social convention and cultural expectations. Although its main focus is the women of Latin Christendom, it also looks at the impact of the crusades and crusaders on the Jews of western Europe and the Muslims of the Middle East, and compares relations between Latin Christians and Muslims with relations between Muslims and other Christian groups.

Helen J. Nicholson is Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University, UK. She has published extensively on the crusades, the military orders, and various related subjects, including a translation of a chronicle of the Third Crusade and an edition of the Templar trial proceedings in Britain and Ireland. She has just completed a history of Queen Sybil of Jerusalem (1186-1190).

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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Susanna Elm, "The Importance of Being Gorgeous: Gender and Christian Imperial Rule in Late Antiquity" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 6 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In this (open-access) book, Susanna Elm radically changes our understanding of imperial rule in the later Roman Empire. As she shows, the so-called eastern decadence of the Emperor Theodosius and his successors was in fact a calculated revolution in masculinity and the representation of imperial power. Here, the emperor's hard yet soft, mature yet youthfully gorgeous beauty was central. Because the Theodosian emperors were divine—gods one could see—so was their beauty: their manliness was the face and body of God. The emperors' gorgeousness, their sparkling regalia, how they wished their bodies to be seen by their elite subjects—who authored the texts on which Elm's analysis is based—were as important as laws, taxes, and armies. Their vir-ness strategically deployed male same-sex erotic desire to enhance the unity of the realm in times of tension, incorporate the signifying potency of child emperors, and create a flexible yet stable model of Christian sovereignty.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susanna Elm is Sidney H. Ehrman Chair and Distinguished Professor of History and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome.

Michael Motia teaches classics and religious studies at UMass Boston

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Paul J. Gutacker, "The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Conventional wisdom holds that tradition and history meant little to nineteenth-century American Protestants, who relied on common sense and "the Bible alone." The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past (Oxford UP, 2023) challenges this portrayal by recovering evangelical engagement with the Christian past. Even when they appeared to be most scornful toward tradition, most optimistic and forward-looking, and most confident in their grasp of the Bible, evangelicals found themselves returning, time and again, to Christian history. They studied religious historiography, reinterpreted the history of the church, and argued over its implications for the present. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, American Protestants were deeply interested in the meaning of the Christian past. Paul J. Gutacker draws from hundreds of print sources-sermons, books, speeches, legal arguments, political petitions, and more-to show how ordinary educated Americans remembered and used Christian history.

Lane Davis is an Instructor of Religion at Huntingdon College. Find him on Twitter @TheeLaneDavis

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Bo Tao, "Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960 (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025) by Bo Tao uncovers the extraordinary world of a Japanese man who was once described as the “Saint Francis” or the “Gandhi” of Japan. A renowned religious figure on the world stage, Kagawa Toyohiko (1888–1960) received wide acclaim for his work as a street preacher in the slums of Kobe as well as his espousal of nonviolent methods of social reform. His reputation as a pacifist figure, however, rested uneasily with his wartime actions, which became increasingly supportive of the Japanese government and its expansionist policies. Reluctant to speak up against Japan’s increasing aggression in the late 1930s, he emerged as a full-blown apologist during the Pacific War, appearing on several Radio Tokyo broadcasts as a propagandist defending the interests of the state.

Adopting a transnational approach that accounts for the rapid flow of information between Japan and the United States, Bo Tao examines the career of Kagawa as it unfolded within the context of the wars, imperialism, and economic depression of the early to mid-twentieth century. Using official documents and personal correspondence that have received scant attention in previous works, Tao reveals, for the first time at this level of detail, the extent of Kagawa’s cooperative relationship with the Japanese government, as well as the ways in which his idealized image was carefully constructed by his ardent missionary supporters.

This book provides a window into the global dimensions of broader cultural shifts during the interwar period, such as the rise of Christian internationalism and the Depression-era popularity of cooperative economics. Offering a holistic and nuanced exploration of the tensions resulting from Kagawa’s hybrid identity as a Japanese Christian, Cooperative Evangelist adds a new layer to our understanding of religion, empire, and politics in the shaping of social and international relations.

Bo Tao is Lecturer in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Chiba University in Chiba, Japan. His research interests include global history, U.S.-Japan relations, religion and politics, modern Japanese history, and the history of Christianity.

Shatrunjay Mall is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He works on transnational Asian history, and his dissertation explores intellectual, political, and cultural intersections and affinities that emerged between Indian anti-colonialism and imperial Japan in the twentieth century.

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Insane for the Light (Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 3 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Father Ron Rolheiser’s new book Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, which is about how to grow old well and be fruitful, first giving your life away and then your death so as to be a blessing. That’s a recipe for joy. We also talked about mysticism, St. John of the Cross, and some miraculous experiences in real people’s lives that reveal God abiding and deep love, mercy, and patience with us all; that is truly the Good News of the Lord. I really, really enjoyed this book, and this conversation.

Father Ron grew up in on a farm on Cactus Lake, Saskatchawan, on the Canadian prairie. He joined the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1966 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1972; he has many degrees in theology and philosophy including a doctorate from the University of Louvain in 1983. He started writing a column, In Exile, over forty years ago, and has also written (by my count) sixteen books. He has been Provincial Superior of his order, worked in its administration in Rome for six years, and taught theology in a number of august institutions. He still goes home to Cactus Lake, especially for Christmas.

We recorded this episode on December 9, 2025, the Feast of Our Lady of Gudalupe, and Juan Diego, and also the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This will be our Christmas episode too and the last episode of 2025 and the first of the new liturgical year, so in keeping with our tradition I will play some Christmas Carols from Josh and Margot of the Great Space Coaster band with whom I was singing these carols last week. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. God bless you!

Father Ron Rolheiser’s website, which includes his books and his column.
Father Ron’s new book, Insane for the Light (2025), at Penguin and at Amazon.
Josh and Margot’s Christmas Carols on Soundcloud.

Related Almost Good Catholics episodes:

Joseph Pearce on Almost Good Catholics, episode 10: What about Hell? CS Lewis and Theology of the Afterlife.
Fr Chris Alar on Almost Good Catholics, episode 61: Master Craftsman, Broken Tools: Why God Works Through Us, Hears Intercessory Prayers, and Grants Divine Mercy
Colleen Dulle on Almost Good Catholics, episode 107: Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter

And our discussion about Our Lady of Guadalupe on Almost Good Catholics:

Joseph González and Monique González on Almost Good Catholics, episode 74: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth: How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531

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Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm, "Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life" (Reaktion, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 21:53:00 +0000

Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life (Reaktion, 2023) recreates medieval people’s experience of time: as continuous and discontinuous, linear and cyclical, embracing Creation and Judgement, shrinking to ‘atoms’ or ‘droplets’ and extending to the silent spaces of eternity. They might measure time by natural phenomena such as sunrise and sunset, the motion of the stars or the progress of the seasons, even as the late medieval invention of the mechanical clock was making time-reckoning more precise. Negotiating these mixed and competing systems, medieval people gained a nuanced and expansive sense of time that rewards attention today.

Gillian Adler is Associate Professor of Literature and Esther Raushenbush Chair in Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She is the author of Chaucer and the Ethics of Time (2022)

YouTube Channel: here

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Marion Gibson, "Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" (Scribner, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Witchfinder General, Salem, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch-hunts and witch trials sounds archaic and fanciful, these terms relics of an unenlightened, brutal age. However, we often hear ‘witch-hunt’ in today’s media, and the misogyny that shaped witch trials is all too familiar. Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 2018.

In Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials (Simon & Schuster, 2023), Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the global history of witchcraft and witch-hunts. As well as exploring the origins of witch-hunts through some of the most famous trials from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, it takes us in new and surprising directions. It shows us how witchcraft was reimagined by lawyers and radical historians in France, how suspicions of sorcery led to murder in Jazz Age Pennsylvania, the effects of colonialism and Christian missionary zeal on ‘witches’ in Africa, and how even today a witch trial can come in many guises.

Professor Gibson also tells the stories of the ‘witches’ – mostly women like Helena Scheuberin, Anny Sampson and Joan Wright, whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men, such as King James I and ‘Witchfinder General’ Matthew Hopkins, who hounded them.

Once a tool invented by demonologists to hurt and silence their enemies, witch trials have been twisted and transformed over the course of history and the lines between witch and witch-hunter blurred. For the fortunate, a witch-hunt is just a metaphor, but, as this book makes clear, witches are truly still on trial.

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Matthew Pawlak, "Sarcasm in Paul's Letters" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In this recent monograph Sarcasm in Paul's Letters (Cambridge University Press 2023, Matthew Pawlak offers the first treatment of sarcasm in New Testament studies. He provides an extensive analysis of sarcastic passages across the undisputed letters of Paul, showing where Paul is sarcastic, and how his sarcasm affects our understanding of his rhetoric and relationships with the Early Christian congregations in Galatia, Rome, and Corinth. Pawlak's identification of sarcasm is supported by a dataset of 400 examples drawn from a broad range of ancient texts, including major case studies on Septuagint Job, the prophets, and Lucian of Samosata. These data enable the determination of the typical linguistic signals of sarcasm in ancient Greek, as well as its rhetorical functions. Pawlak also addresses several ongoing discussions in Pauline scholarship. His volume advances our understanding of the abrupt opening of Galatians, diatribe and Paul's hypothetical interlocutor in Romans, the 'Corinthian slogans' of First Corinthians, and the 'fool's speech' found within Second Corinthians 10-13.

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Daniel M. Herskowitz, "The Judeo-Christian Thought of Franz Rosenzweig" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Judeo-Christian Thought of Franz Rosenzweig (Liverpool UP, 2025) offers a new interpretation of Franz Rosenzweig's magnum opus The Star of Redemption, commonly treated as one of the high points of modern Jewish thought, and demonstrates its profound immersion in the Protestant conceptuality of its time. It argues that appreciating the decisive mark of Protestant thought on The Star solves many of its puzzles, challenges some entrenched hagiographic orthodoxies about Rosenzweig, and provides a unique perspective onto one of the most influential cases of the 'Protestantisation of Judaism'. The book shows that Rosenzweig's inventiveness resides in his weaving of Jewish and Christian motifs that result in an original scheme that is remarkably inclusive toward Judaism from a Christian perspective and remarkably inclusive toward Christianity from a Jewish perspective. The Star thus emerges anew, not simply as a work of Jewish thought that is 'influenced' by Christian theology but as a work that is more accurately characterised as 'Judeo-Christian'."

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Andrea Maraschi and Francesca Tasca, "Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam UP, 2024) by Dr. Andrea Maraschi & Dr. Francesca Tasca, readers will find stories about medieval heresies and “magic” from an unusual perspective: that of food studies. The time span ranges from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages, while the geographical scope includes regions as different as North Africa, Spain, Ireland, continental Europe, the Holy land, and Central Asia.

Food, heresies, and magical boundaries in the Middle Ages explores the power of food in creating and breaking down boundaries between different groups, or in establishing a contact with other worlds, be they the occult sides of nature, or the supernatural. The book emphasizes the role of food in crafting and carrying identity, and in transferring virtues and powers of natural elements into the eater’s body. Which foods and drinks made someone a heretic? Could they be purified? Which food offerings forged a connection with the otherworld? Which recipes allowed gaining access to the hidden powers within nature?

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Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, "Citifying Jesus: The Making of a Roman Religion in the Roman Empire" (Mohr Siebeck, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Religion and urban life are the most successful strategies of handling, enhancing, and capitalizing on human sociability. By integrating religious studies, archaeology, and spatial theory, Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli aims to re-describe the formation of Christ religion as urban religion in Citifying Jesus: The Making of a Roman Religion in the Roman Empire (Mohr Siebeck, 2024). Spanning almost four centuries of Christian literature from Paul to Augustine, the author shows that several characteristics commonly attributed to Christ religion are, in fact, outcomes of the distinct ways in which religious agents enact urbanity and interact with the urban space. The study brings the urbanity of religious agents into focus, shedding light on significant elements of religious transformation, innovation, institutionalization, empowerment, and resistance to power. Simultaneously, it explores the key urban features that shaped the emergence and development of Christ religion.

Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Cultures at the University of Bologna. Previously he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt and has spent research stays in Paris, Berlin, and Geneva. His research interests focus on the history of the ancient Christ religion, methodological advances in the study of ancient Mediterranean religious groups and traditions, issues of theory and method in the accademic study of religions, and the phenomenon of ancient and contemporary urban religion. He is conversant with issues of political theology, sociology of religion, critical theory of space, and critique of ideology (including religious ideologies).

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Scott D. Seligman, "The Great Christmas Boycott Of 1906: Antisemitism and the Battle Over Christianity in the Public Schools" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s battles over Christianity in U.S. public schools have deep roots. In the nineteenth century, disputes were largely between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics, but in 1905 Jews entered the conflict in a dramatic way. That Christmas, Frank Harding, a Presbyterian principal in Brooklyn, urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus. For Orthodox activist Albert Lucas, already fighting Christian settlement houses that sought to convert Jewish children, Harding’s remarks were the last straw. He accused the public schools of illegal proselytizing, and Jewish leaders quickly mobilized, petitioning for Harding’s removal and demanding clear limits on religious practices in public education—limits they argued were violated by Bible readings, the Lord’s Prayer, religious imagery, and Christmas pageants.

When the New York Board of Education refused to act decisively, Jewish parents staged a citywide boycott of the 1906 school Christmas pageants, keeping as many as three-quarters of students home in some neighborhoods. The board briefly barred sectarian hymns and religious material, but the decision provoked a fierce antisemitic backlash, framed in the press as a Jewish attack on Christmas, and most of the restrictions were soon reversed. The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906: Antisemitism and the Battle Over Christianity in the Public Schools (U Nebraska Press, 2025) shows how this conflict—over law, tradition, and the place of religion in public schools—has never truly ended. With decisive victories elusive, Jewish organizations today have shifted toward other, more strategic ways of confronting Christian nationalism.

Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the author of numerous books, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City (Potomac Books, 2020), the award-winning The Third Degree: The Triple Murder That Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice (Potomac Books, 2018), and The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo.

Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life.

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Johannes Zachhuber, "Gregory of Nyssa: on the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Johannes Zachhuber and Anna Marmodoro, eds., Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays (Oxford UP, 2025)

This book presents Gregory of Nyssa's On the Six Days of Creation (In Hexaemeron) as a specimen of Early Christian philosophy. It comprises Gregory of Nyssa's text in its Greek original accompanied by a new English translation, and seven accompanying essays by international specialists from diverse backgrounds. Each essay focuses on a section of the text and the arising philosophical issues. The essays complement each other in offering multiple perspectives on how Gregory's text may be approached philosophically and positioned in relation to other, more or less contiguous, philosophical theories, including the early Greeks Anaxagoras and Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Rather than presenting a definite and exhaustive state of the art study of Gregory's text, this volume aims to open new pathways for research into In Hexaemeron.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Johannes Zachhuber is professor of historical and systematic theology at Oxford. His books include Human Nature in Greogry of Nyssa, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, and Time and the Soul: from Aristotle to Augustine.

Anna Marmodoro is Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University. She’s written or edited half a dozen books including Metaphysics: an Introduction; Forms and Structures in Plato’s Metaphysics; Aristotle on Perceiving Objects, and most recently she co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Omnipresence.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Deanna Ferree Womack, "Re-Inventing Islam: Gender and the Protestant Roots of American Islamophobia" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

From the end of the American Civil War to the start of World War II, the Protestant missionary movement unintentionally tilled the soil in which American Islamophobia would eventually take root. What ideas did missionaries in Islamic contexts pass on to later generations? How were these ideas connected to centuries-old Protestant discourses about Muslims and gender beginning in the Reformation? And what bearing does this history have on the birth of Islamophobia and on Christian-Muslim dialogue efforts in the US today? In answering these questions, Re-inventing Islam traces the gender constructs that have informed historical Protestant perceptions of Islam, especially in the far-reaching textual, visual, and material influences of the American and British movement for missions to Muslims. This book first considers Protestant discourse about Muslim women and men from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Then it turns to the colossal archive of literature, images, and cultural objects that missionaries--and particularly missionary women--collected from Islamic contexts and used to inform and motivate their constituents.
Anglo-Protestants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries perpetually re-invented stereotypes about Muslims and used these negative images to achieve particular Protestant theological and political purposes, including missionary aims. They did so when disseminating gender critiques widely to Protestant men, women, and children. Why did they re-invent Islam? Deanna Ferree Womack argues that they did so to reinforce Protestant theological claims, to justify their evangelistic endeavors, to express both humanitarian concern and Eurocentric views of the world, and to support British and American cultural, economic, and military expansion. Simultaneously, however, this same missionary movement educated its constituents about diverse Islamic cultures, in part by providing humanizing images of Islam. Missionaries also formed personal relationships with Muslims that would open pathways toward formal efforts of Christian-Muslim dialogue after the mid-twentieth century. Americans have inherited all of these legacies. In revisiting this history readers will find new possibilities for building a more open and just future.

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Knight, Monk, King, Prophet (Juan Domínguez)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Before the Scientific Revolution, Western medicine was thought in terms of humors: cheerful people were sanguine and had a lot of blood, fiery cholerics had an excess of yellow bile, gloomy Melancholics had black bile, and mellow phlegmatics had phlegm of course. And the balancing of humors—hot and cold, wet and dry—was the key to a healthy life. It sounds medieval, it is, rooted in ancient Greeks, but we Catholics like medieval things, and some of us—especially Juan Domínguez, author: Knight, Monk, King, Prophet: A Christian Man’s Guide to the Four Temperaments—has found wisdom in this way of thinking. And it’s a way of thinking that we hear in some more conservative, or traditional, Catholic circles, so it’s something I’ve been wondering about for some time. I’ve also been interesting in archetypes for since I first read Joseph Campbell and The Hero of a Thousand Faces many years ago. We also talk a bit about how one’s role changes over time and also whether these models are applicable to women as well as men. I really enjoyed the conversation; I think you will too.

Juan Domínguez’s book, Knight, Monk, King, Prophet, on Amazon.
Juan Domínguez: ‘Simple Men’ on Substack.
Juan’s description of the book on Substack.
Juan Domínguez with Steven Caswell on Missio Dei.

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Daniel K. Falk and Rodney A. Werline, "Prayer in the Ancient World Vol.1" (Brill, 2027)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.
The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.
Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’

Daniel K. Falk is Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Michael Staunton, "Thomas Becket and His World" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Thomas Becket and His World (Reaktion Books, 2025) explores the turbulent life and violent death of Thomas Becket, one of the most controversial figures of the Middle Ages. From a London merchant’s son to royal chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 elevated him to England’s most celebrated saint. Michael Staunton looks at Becket’s complex and contested legacy, drawing from Becket's own words and those of his contemporaries.

Based on extensive contemporary medieval sources, this account offers a fresh perspective on Thomas Becket’s life and places him within the broader landscape of twelfth-century England and Europe – a time of rapid change, conflict and achievement. Thomas Becket and His World is perfect for anyone wanting to learn more about this pivotal figure in medieval history.

Michael Staunton is Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. He is an internationally recognized expert on Thomas Becket. His books include The Historians of Angevin England (2017).

YouTube Channel: here

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Susan Ashbrook Harvey, "Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (U California Press, 2025) is an open access tour-de-force study of the power of women's liturgical singing in late antique Syriac Christianity. Extending women's religious participation beyond the familiar roles of female saints and nobles, Syriac churches cultivated a flourishing but often-overlooked tradition of women's sacred song. Susan Ashbrook Harvey brings this music to life as she uncovers the ways these now-nameless women performed a boldly sung teaching ministry and invited congregations to respond aloud. By exploring their ritual agency, Harvey demonstrates how these choirs helped to shape the formative ethical and moral ideals of their congregations and communities. Women's voices, both real and imagined, enriched the ritual and devotional lives of Syriac Christians daily and weekly, on ecclesial and civic special occasions, in sorrow or joy, with authoritative theological significance and social and political resonance. Arguing for the importance of liturgy as social history, Harvey shows us how and why women's voices mattered for ancient Syriac Christianity and why they matter still.

New books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susan Ashbrook Harvey is Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of History and Religion

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Ayoush Lazikani, "The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing" (Yale UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

When they gazed at the moon, medieval people around the globe saw an object that was at once powerful and fragile, distant and intimate—and sometimes all this at once. The moon could convey love, beauty, and gentleness; but it could also be about pain, hatred, and violence. In its circularity the moon was associated with fullness and fertility. Yet in its crescent and other shifting forms, the moon could seem broken, even wounded.

In this beautifully illustrated history The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing (Yale UP, 2025), Ayoush Lazikani reveals the many ways medieval people felt and wrote about the moon. Ranging across the world, from China to South America, Korea to Wales, Lazikani explores how different cultures interacted with the moon. From the idea that the Black Death was caused by a lunar eclipse to the wealth of Persian love poetry inspired by the moon’s beauty, this is a truly global account of our closest celestial neighbour.

Ayoush Lazikani is a lecturer at the University of Oxford. A specialist in medieval literature, she is the author of Cultivating the Heart and Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, 1100–1250, and an associate editor for the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women’s Writing in the Global Middle Ages.

YouTube Channel: here

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Melanie McDonagh, "Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century" (Yale UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The twentieth century is understood as an era of growing, inexorable secularism, yet in Britain between the 1890s and the 1960s there was a marked turn to Rome. In the first half of the century, Catholicism became an intellectual and spiritual fashion attracting more than half a million converts, including fascinating artists, writers, and thinkers. What drew these men and women to join the church, and what difference did conversion make to them?

In Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century (Yale UP, 2025), Melanie McDonagh examines the lives of these notable converts from the perspective of their faith. For the Decadent circle of Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde—who converted on his deathbed—artists such as Gwen John and David Jones, the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, and novelists including G. K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark, Catholicism offered stability in increasingly febrile times. McDonagh explores their lives and influences, the reaction to their conversions, and the priests who initiated them into their faith.

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Steve Tibble, "Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood" (Yale UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Assassins and the Templars. Two groups that are now part of popular legend–and not just because of Assassin’s Creed, the massive video game franchise starring the former as its heroes, and the latter as its villains.

Steve Tibble takes on both these groups in his new book Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale UP, 2025). Steve takes us to the time of Crusades: a more crowded and dangerous Eastern Mediterranean, where varied groups–not just the Crusaders–jostled for power and influence. And he joins today to share how these two groups rose and, eventually, fell.

Steve Tibble is honorary research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of The Crusader Armies: 1099–1187 (Yale University Press: 2016), The Crusader Strategy: Defending the Holy Land (Yale University Press: 2020), Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain (Yale University Press: 2023), and Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land (Yale University Press: 2024).

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Assassins and Templars. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Reading the Bible with AI?: A Conversation with John Kaag, Philosopher and Co-Founder of Rebind AI

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Rebind combines reading with AI-chat to deepen learning and simulate the experience of conversing with some of the greatest scholars and thinkers. With Rebind, you can read A Tale of Two Cities with Margaret Atwood, Huck Finn with Marlon James, and Candide with Salman Rushdie. John and his team have recently launched the Rebind Study Bible, an interactive way to read, listen, and interpret the Bible with insight from scholars. As we head further into a world augmented by AI tools, Rebind is on the frontlines of embracing AI without destroying the art of deep, contemplative engagement. To give so insight into how Rebind is marrying scholarship with AI tools, I’m thrilled today to have John Kaag on the podcast.

For a free 7-day trial, visit this link

John Kaag is an American philosopher and chair and professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is co-founder of Rebind Publishing.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Judith M. Lieu "Explorations in the Second Century: Texts, Groups, Ideas, Voices" (Brill, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

As allegiance to Jesus Christ spread across the Roman Empire in the second century, writings, practices, and ideas erupted in a creative maelstrom. Many of the patterns of practice and belief that later become normative emerged, in the midst of debate and argument with neighbours who shared or who rejected that allegiance. Authoritative texts, principles of argument, attitudes to received authority, the demands of allegiance in the face of opposition, identifying who belonged and who did not, all demanded attention. These essays explore those divergent voices, and the no-less diverse and lively debates they have inspired in recent scholarship.

Judith M. Lieu is the author of Explorations in the Second Century: Texts, Groups, Ideas, Voices (Brill, 2025). She was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 2007-2018. She studied at Durham and Birmingham Universities and previously taught at The Queen's College, Birmingham, King's College London (where she was Professor of New Testament Studies, 1999-2006), and Macquarie University, Sydney. From January 2020–June 2021 she was Frothingham Visiting Professor in New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She is on the editorial board of a number of journals and series and was previously Editor of New Testament Studies. She is a Fellow of the British Academy (2014) and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019).

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Maia Kotrosits, "After Transformation: Rewriting Time, Christian Late Antiquity, and the Present" (Duke UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second and fourth centuries, when Rome transitioned from pagan to Christian worship, Kotrosits presents a condensed and evocative meditation on the profound effects of Christian imperialism across time and geography. She employs a collection of forms ranging from micro-essay and vignette to poem and fragment to capture human struggles with time and change, showing how the mundane and intimate details of our lives can themselves be conduits of historical knowing. Arguing for lyricism as a method, Kotrosits reclaims vulnerability, urgency, and storytelling in historical work to model new ways of writing the past and experiencing ourselves more fully in time. Above all, After Transformation is about the ironies of the ways that history is written against the reality of the ways that history is lived.

New books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review

Maia Kotrosits is a Visiting Scholar/Researcher, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School and an expert in ancient Judaism and Christianity, writing long histories of empire, colonialism, and race.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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David Chanoff, "Anthony Benezet: Quaker, Abolitionist, Anti-Racist" (U Georgia Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Wilberforce, Clarkson, Wesley. Britain’s great abolitionist activist Granville Sharp. Each of these consequential figures of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world were galvanized by the moral power of a modest Quaker teacher who never ventured more than a few miles from his home in Philadelphia: Anthony Benezet. While Benezet was buried in an unmarked grave, his fingerprints are all over the extinction of the Atlantic slave trade and the gathering strength of America’s own burgeoning abolitionist movement. He was a figure of global importance, “a saint,” Garry Wills called him, a great bearer to the rest of the world of the American ideals (no matter how compromised) of equality and liberty.
Anthony Benezet lived, by chance, at the nexus of radical Christianity and revolutionary democracy, and he fused the power of those two streams of morality in a way that changed lives and challenged political institutions so compellingly that the world became a different place because of him. But for all the magnitude of Benezet’s impact, he is largely unknown outside scholars of the period. He does not exist in any meaningful way in the widely read histories and biographies that define and amplify America’s historical consciousness.
In Anthony Benezet: Quaker, Abolitionist, Anti-Racist (U Georgia Press, 2025), preeminent biographer Dr. David Chanoff tells Benezet’s story—who he was, what he did, how he did it, and why it was that William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” of Pennsylvania provided the matrix for the historic transformation the abolitionist educator brought about. Indeed, Dr. Chanoff carves out a place for this forgotten American hero as a pioneering figure among those who launched American ideals onto the world stage.

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Melodie H. Eichbauer, "Law in a Culture of Theology: The Use of Canon Law by Parisian Theologians, Ca. 1120-Ca. 1220" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Law in a Culture of Theology: The Use of Canon Law by Parisian Theologians, ca. 1120-ca. 1220 (Routledge, 2025) considers the study of law within its intellectual environment. It demonstrates that theologians associated with the schools of Paris in the twelfth century, particularly Peter the Chanter and his circle, had a working knowledge of Romano-canonical tradition and thought about the human context of the law, which, in turn, reflected the environment in which each master worked. It begins by showing the extent to which law was woven into the fabric of the schools of Paris, and follows with individual case studies.

These case studies--marriage in Hugh of St. Victor's De Sacramentis and Peter Lombard's Sententiae, excommunication in Peter the Chanter's Summa de sacramentis et animae consiliis, crusade activity and heresy in Robert of Couçon's Summa penitentiae, homicide in Robert of Flamborough's Liber poenitentialis, and the faces of greed in Thomas of Chobham's Summa confessorum--demonstrate how each theologian drew upon legal thought, for what end he was using it, and how his use of law fit into contemporary legal thinking. A competency in law proved valuable to, and was tailored for, different types of ecclesiastical roles: teachers showing students how to analytically navigate complex questions of pastoral care, papal judge-delegate on the cusp of full-time administration on behalf of the papacy, penitentiarius of St. Victor and the students at the University of Paris, or diocesan management.

This book will be a useful resource for all students and researchers interested in medieval canon law, medieval theology and pre-modern law.

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Lara Silverman, "Singing Through Fire: A Memoir of Finding Surprising Joy in Life's Darkest Trials" (Isaiah 4320 Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

What if you fall in love on the brink of death? Singing Through Fire (Isaiah 4320 Press, 2025) invites readers into the Job-like true story of a young woman who loses everything-and dares to ask why a good God allows it. When Stanford Law graduate Lara Palanjian collapses on her dream job, she never imagines it will lead to four years bedridden-or to the love of her life. Enter Matthew Silverman: a witty, wise, and impossibly joyful youth pastor and professor facing terminal cancer. What begins with a few random encounters soon ignites an extraordinary, God-written love story that neither of them saw coming. As their unlikely romance unfolds between medical crises, late-night laughter, and unexpected musical performances, Matthew's unshakable faith challenges everything Lara thinks she knows about God's goodness-and what it means to walk with Christlike faith, resilience, and joy in the face of overwhelming grief and suffering. But with time against them, one question looms louder than the rest: What if this gift is only for a moment? Surprisingly funny and spiritually rich, Singing Through Fire is a modern-day "Job meets Lucille Ball." It explores what it means to suffer, love, and even laugh and make music while your life is burning down around you. It eloquently gives voice to the aching questions many sufferers quietly carry-then takes readers inside the breathtaking story of two people who found miraculous love and defiant joy amid heartbreaking loss. It reveals how God can use even our deepest pain to write the most beautiful love stories-even on the cusp of eternity.
Find and follow Lara on IG: here

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Józef Tischner, "The Philosophy of Drama" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Philosophy of Drama (U Notre Dame Press, 2024), by the Catholic philosopher Józef Tischner (translated by Artur Rosman, University of Notre Dame Press, 2024), explores human existence as dramatic existence—shaped by encounter, dialogue, temptation, and the hope for justification or salvation. In this conversation, Rosman reflects on the challenges of translating Tischner’s work and considers how his philosophical vision illuminates the lived experiences and moral crises of twentieth-century Europe. Artur Rosman is an associate research professor at the University of Notre Dame and editor-in-chief of Church Life Journal. Nathan H. Phillips is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in the philosophy of religions and theology.

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Naomi Baker, "Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 7 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Naomi Bakes joins Jana Byars to talk about Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century (Reaktion Books, 2025), a book that explores the stories of early modern Protestant women, including Rose Thurgood, Anna Trapnel, and Jane Lead, who defied the religious authority of their age. Voices of Thunder illuminates the stories and beliefs of a dozen seventeenth-century radical Protestant women, including a Colchester woman who feared that her four children would starve to death and a former maidservant from Yorkshire who was granted an audience with the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Their belief in spiritual equality empowered them to resist the status quo, questioning the authority of those who sought to lord it over them. From mostly humble backgrounds, they found ways to make their voices heard, creating some of the earliest autobiographical accounts in English and allowing us a rare and precious glimpse of the lives and experiences of women in the early modern era.

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Stephen Yuille ed., "The Works of John Cotton, Volumes 1-5" (Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 7 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

This episode features Dr. J. Stephen Yuille, Professor of Church History and Spiritual Formation at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Director of Puritan Publishing at Reformation Heritage Books. Yuille shares with the NBN about his new five-volume edition of The Works of John Cotton (Soli Deo Gloria, 2025).

John Cotton (1585–1652) was among the most influential Puritan pastors of his age, shaping church life in both England and New England. Yuille explains how this new edition traces Cotton’s thought across his major works—from his devotional classics, to his defense during the Antinomian Controversy, his exchanges on religious liberty, his writings on Congregational church government, and his apocalyptic sermons on Revelation and the Song of Solomon.

Together, this 5 volume set Cotton's complete works, published together for the first time since their original printing 400 years ago, reveals his vision of grace, godliness, and community that helped define early American religion. Listen as Stephen Yuille reflects on John Cotton’s enduring relevance for theology, history, and the study of faith in public life.

Your host, Ryan Shelton (Ph.D. Queen's University Belfast 2024), is a historian of seventeenth-century Christian literature and theology. His research focuses the development of covenant theology in trans-Atlantic puritanism and the poetry of John Milton.

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Hugo Méndez, "The Gospel of John: A New History" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 4 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Throughout the centuries and into the present day, the Gospel of John has indelibly shaped Christian theology and thinkers in significant ways, but major new questions are being raised about the genesis of that gospel, its relationship to other Christian writings and influences, and especially the masked identity of its author. In The Gospel of John: A New History (Oxford University Press, 2025), Hugo Méndez presents a provocative new thesis that the Fourth Gospel was produced under false authorial pretenses, in a period after the distribution of the preceding Synoptic Gospels, to propound not just a high Logos-Christology amenable to trends in prevailing Jewish and Greco-Roman philosophy from the first century CE, but also its author’s stark new vision of salvation in which believers could participate in Christ’s exaltation and deification in the present. To plot out his new history and as a reintroduction to the New Testament’s Johannine literature, Dr. Méndez joined the New Books Network recently to discuss John’s relationship to the historical Jesus and other early Christian writings, the “invented” identity of the Fourth Gospel’s “beloved disciple,” the gospel’s later attribution to John of Zebedee in the church fathers, and the “afterlives” of the “beloved disciple” as a letter and treatise writer in canonical and extracanonical Christian texts.

For a 30% discount on Dr. Mendez’s The Gospel of John: A New History from Oxford University Press, use code AUFLY30.

Hugo Méndez (Ph.D., University of Georgia, 2013) is Associate Professor in Ancient Mediterranean Religions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches New Testament and Early Christianity. His research interests include the Gospel and Epistles of John and the reception of biblical texts, figures, and images in late antiquity. He has published multiple books, including The Cult of Stephen in Jerusalem (Oxford UP, 2022) and the most recent edition of a popular introductory textbook about The New Testament (8th ed.; Oxford UP, 2023), co-authored with Bart D. Ehrman. His research has also been featured in the Journal of Biblical Literature, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, and New Testament Studies, among other prominent venues, and in his spare time, he enjoys cooking and spending time outdoors with his family. For more on Hugo’s work and research interests, visit his website at https://www.hugomendez.com/.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books/Bloomsbury, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Jennifer Barry, "Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Jennifer Barry confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history.

By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Dr. Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Dr. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Kenneth G. Appold, "Luther and the Peasants: Religion, Ritual, and the Revolt Of 1525" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Kenneth G. Appold joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Luther and the Peasants: Religion, Ritual, and the Revolt of 1525 (Oxford UP, 2025). The German Peasants' Revolts of 1525 were a defining moment both for the Protestant Reformation and the history of European culture. But while the conflicts are well-studied, they are typically analyzed today from political and socioeconomic perspectives, whereas the protagonists themselves framed them in religious and theological terms. Luther and the Peasants takes these perspectives seriously to offer a novel and timely reinterpretation of the uprisings. A detailed examination of peasants' religious lives reveals commitments to peace, social harmony, and the environment that came into conflict with spiritual priorities of the Protestant Reformation, notably with those of Martin Luther. Drawing on the peasants' own documents, such as the famous manifesto The Twelve Articles, the book provides a thorough re-examination their actions, including their negotiations with lords and their organization into bands and Christian brotherhoods, and a fresh analysis of their behavior in battle. This ritual reconstruction makes peasants' statements and behaviors historiographically legible for the first time, effectively giving voice to an illiterate rural people, and offers new ways of reading Luther's 1525 writings on peasants, which are among his most challenging works. In this context, the 1525 conflict between Luther and the peasants comes to light as the collision of two different religious worlds, each incomprehensible to the other. This, in turn, reveals the important role played by religion in a defining moment of early modern European history.

Kenneth G. Appold, James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation History, Princeton Theological Seminary.

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Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson’s life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious failure of Operation Market Garden, the harshness of a winter as a POW of the Germans during the closing stages of the Second World War, to the fall of North Korean capital Pyongyang in the early stages of the Korean War. Part of the very rare breed of Parachute Chaplains, in his case with the 101 st Airborne Division, Sampson spent much of his career as an army chaplain in the center of maelstroms of the 20th century. Throughout it all, Sampson offered a valuable Christian witness in the darkest of times and the most difficult of circumstances.

This second edition of his memoirs, Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) contains material on his service during the Korean War and occupation duty in Germany and Japan as well as the Second World War, with a new historical introduction by University of Scranton Professor Sean Brennan.

Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church’s response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1.

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Melissa M. Matthes, "When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter" (Harvard UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Since World War II, Protestant sermons have been an influential tool for defining American citizenship in the wake of national crises.

In the aftermath of national tragedies, Americans often turn to churches for solace. Because even secular citizens attend these services, they are also significant opportunities for the Protestant religious majority to define and redefine national identity and, in the process, to invest the nation-state with divinity. The sermons delivered in the wake of crises become integral to historical and communal memory--it matters greatly who is mourned and who is overlooked.

Melissa M. Matthes conceives of these sermons as theo-political texts. In When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter (Harvard UP, 2021), she explores the continuities and discontinuities they reveal in the balance of state power and divine authority following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK and MLK, the Rodney King verdict, the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, the Newtown shootings, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She argues that Protestant preachers use these moments to address questions about Christianity and citizenship and about the responsibilities of the Church and the State to respond to a national crisis. She also shows how post-crisis sermons have codified whiteness in ritual narratives of American history, excluding others from the collective account. These civic liturgies therefore illustrate the evolution of modern American politics and society.

Despite perceptions of the decline of religious authority in the twentieth century, the pulpit retains power after national tragedies. Sermons preached in such intense times of mourning and reckoning serve as a form of civic education with consequences for how Americans understand who belongs to the nation and how to imagine its future.

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Nicolae Steinhardt, "The Journal of Joy" (SVS Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A conversation with Fr. Bogdan Bucur and Dr. Razvan Porumb

This publication represents the officially authorized translation of T he Journal of Joy (SVS Press, 2025), carefully rendered to uphold the integrity of the original text in Romanian.

The ethos Steinhardt recommends to Christians is that of an aristocrat minus the stiff upper lip and aloofness, a style molded by kindness, calm, good manners, respect for the dignity of others, and thus for one's own dignity. Christ Himself, he emphasizes, always possessed ‘knightly’ traits: He is discreet, respectful; He knocks on the door and waits, never discouraged by a refusal; He is not suspicious but trusts, not greedy but gives abundantly; He forgives easily and completely; He is attentive and polite (‘Friend,’ He says to Judas, whose betrayal He knows well). In Him, there is no moralism or legalism, but rather the ability to discern in every person, beyond sin, the person that God calls and enables to love. Beyond totalitarianism, which is the fascination with power and death, and beyond market society, which holds up profit as its only god … If the journal of this resistance opens up for the future, it does so precisely because it is a Journal of Joy.

Olivier Clément, from the Preface to the French edition of the Journal of Joy

This is the Journal of Joy, a joy founded on the Resurrection, unconquerable by the manifest powers of death. Now at last available in English, its joy can help transform the petty anxieties that beset us.

Archpriest Andrew Louth, Professor Emeritus, Durham University

Translation by Paul Boboc, revised by Peter Andronache, with further revisions and explanatory notes by Peter Andronache, Bogdan G. Bucur, Nicolae Drăgușin, Brenda Mikitish, and Răzvan Porumb. Foreword by Răzvan Porumb.

About the Author:

Nicu Steinhardt, known in his later monastic years as Father Nicolae de la Rohia, was born in 1912 near Bucharest to Jewish parents. A refined scholar who had established himself as one of the most erudite voices of his generation, he was imprisoned by the repressive communist regime in 1960. Steinhardt asked to be baptized in his cell—“illicitly”—and eventually found profound joy amid the suffering and despair of the prison. After an extraordinary experience of Christ, the intense happiness accompanying him perpetually transfigured the cruel and gloomy surroundings into a luminous world permeated by God’s love and grace—which is why writing the Journal in the early 1970s was essential, even in the knowledge it would be banned by the communists. Nicolae Steinhardt, then a monk at Rohia, passed away in March 1989, nine months before the 1989 December Revolution toppled the communist dictatorship.

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Aram G. Sarkisian, "Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era (NYU Press, 2025) is an Immigration and labor history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the US

At the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of immigrants from the borderlands of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires built a transnational church in North America. The community that church leaders called American Orthodox Rus’ was created by and for working people, and transformed believers’ identities as Eastern European migrants, as Orthodox Christians, and as American workers.

Given how strongly the Russian Orthodox Christian community was tied to working class industrial life, this book makes the case that we cannot understand the scope of working class and immigrant religion in the United States without understanding American Orthodox Rus’. The work Russian Orthodox immigrants did in the Progressive Era United States occurred in factories, foundries, and mines; they lived mainly in industrial cities and mining towns; and they almost immediately got caught up in the most pivotal—and sometimes violent—political and social crises of their times, both nationally and internationally. To address their needs in these contexts, the Russian Orthodox Church expanded its missionary efforts in North America, forming a network of social and material aid for working-class believers. This book traces the rapid growth of this transnational religious world, then explores its unexpected collapse under the weight of the First World War, a global pandemic, and the transnational reach of revolutionary political change in Russia. A story of challenge and resilience, Orthodoxy on the Line complicates dominant paradigms in the study of labor and North American Religions.

Guest: Aram G. Sarkisian (he/him) is a historian of religion, immigration, and labor in the United States.

Host: Jenna Pittman (she/her), a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Duke University. She studies modern European history, political economy, and Germany from 1945-1990.

Scholars@Duke: here

Linktree: here

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Colleen Dulle, "Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter" (Image, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Vatican journalist Colleen Dulle discusses her new book, Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter, a memoir of the last seven years. In 2018, she started for the Jesuit Review, America Magazine, and that was when all of the terrible revelations of sexual abuse scandals, lies and coverups, about [former cardinal, later defrocked] Theodore McCarrick became the main story, then [former nuncio, later excommunicated] Carlo Maria Viganò’s schismatic campaign, then Jean Vanier, then Marco Rupnik. Each betrayal shook our faith. “One woe doth tread upon another's heel, / So fast they'll follow,” says Gertrude in Hamlet, learning of Ophelia’s death. Colleen talks about these and the fractured body of the Church, a “crisis of community” as well, among other topics. It’s a personal and raw discussion. But these fiery trials might be the proving crucible that has made her faith stronger, wrestling with God, as Jacob did, and throwing plates in honest anger, as Pope Francis recommended.

Colleen’s new book, Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter (2025)
Colleen’s writing at America magazine.
Colleen Dulle on Almost Good Catholics, episode 16: Marxists and Mystics: A Vatican Journalist discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal Constitution
Father James Martin, SJ, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 30: What if You’re Gay? Starting Conversations with and about LGBT Catholics.
Father Chris Alar on Almost Good Catholics, episode 61: Master Craftsman, Broken Tools: Why God Works Through Us, Hears Intercessory Prayers, and Grants Divine Mercy

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David M. Whitford, "The Making of a Reformation Man: Martin Luther and the Construction of Masculinity" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

David Whitford joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, The Making of a Reformation Man: Martin Luther and the Construction of Masculinity (Routledge, 2025). This volume explores how Martin Luther's life and teachings reshaped and redefined masculinity during the Reformation, offering a more nuanced portrayal of him as a man grappling with the complexities of fatherhood, marriage, and the battlegrounds of religious controversy. This book demonstrates how Luther forged a new ideal of Christian manhood by examining his struggles with monastic vows, his transformation of the household as a spiritual center, and his reshaping of male authority. Integrating insights from cultural historians, gender studies, and feminist scholarship, Whitford analyzes the intersections of gender, power, and religion during a time of profound social upheaval and change. Through Luther's personal transformation, this book reveals how early Protestant ideals of masculinity were intricately tied to broader religious, political, and cultural changes that reshaped Europe. By placing Luther within the wider context of religious and social transformation, this work offers a fresh perspective on his impact and the changing notions of masculinity in the early modern period. The Making of a Reformation Man is a valuable resource for scholars and students of the Reformations and gender theory, as well as readers interested in the broader implications of religious thought on societal roles and identity.

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Cooper Smith, "Allusive and Elusive: Allusion and the Elihu Speeches of Job 32-37" (Brill, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Within the Book of Job, Elihu is one of the most diversely evaluated characters. For example, are Elihu’s speeches so insignificant he’s absolutely ignored afterward, or do they actually form an introduction to the speeches of the LORD? What are we to make of Elihu?

Find out as we speak with Cooper Smith about his recent monograph, Allusive and Elusive: Allusion and the Elihu Speeches of Job 32-37. Smith helpfully approaches the speeches of Elihu by discerning their allusions to previous sections in the Book of Job.

Cooper Smith received his PhD in 2019 at Wheaton College, and is Adjunct Instructor at Trinity Christian College (Palos Heights, IL) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL).

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Octavian Gabor, "Immigrant on Earth: A Philosopher on the Road to Emmaus" (Wipf and Stock, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 4 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In a world where faith and reason are perceived as enemies, this book describes them as companions. Readers of Immigrant on Earth: A Philosopher on the Road to Emmaus (Wipf and Stock, 2025) are invited to travel into the souls of ordinary people and the minds of philosophers and theologians, experience the meekness coming from faith, or attempt to decipher complicated philosophical concepts. This is a book that reveals the human condition of being immigrants: people who apply for entry into the souls of those they encounter.

This is a deeply personal and honest book: it reads like a spiritual, philosophical and theological journal. Octavian Gabor weaves every reading, teaching, music, encounter into a personal spiritual tapestry that helps him span the prosaic, the every day and the sublime. He helps us look deeper into human relationships and into the hidden recesses of reality in order to discern the unseen presence of God.

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Vincent Pak, "Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual.

In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how language is at the centre of this particular iteration of neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation in personal lives.
Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to harm through change and transformation.

About Vincent Pak:

Vincent Pak is Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong. His work is located in the fields of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, where he’s interested in matters of gender, sexuality, and race. His monograph, Queer Correctives, considers the emergence of neo-homophobia in Singapore.

About Pavan Mano:

Pavan Mano is Lecturer in Global Cultures in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London. He works at the intersections of critical & literary theory, politics and culture. His first monograph, Straight Nation (Manchester UP, 2025), interrogates postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality in Singapore.

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Clara A. B. Joseph, "India's Non-violent Freedom Struggle: The Thomas Christians (1599-1799)" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

India's Nonviolent Freedom Struggle focuses on the Thomas Christians, a group of Christians in South India who waged a nonviolent struggle against European colonization during the politically volatile period of 1599-1799. India's Non-violent Freedom Struggle: The Thomas Christians (1599-1799) (Routledge, 2023) has three related objectives and unique characteristics. First, it offers a comprehensive study of primary sources that scholars have referenced but rarely studied in-depth. Second, it argues that the Thomas Christian narratives provide a unique position to challenge prevalent estimations found in canonical and postcolonial critical discourse on the nation. Third, it considers how an account of a nonviolent struggle by Thomas Christians further complicates received ideas of the postcolonial nation. It sheds light on the often-overlooked contributions of the Thomas Christians in India's nonviolent freedom struggle and challenges readers to reimagine the complex and often contentious relationship between colonizers and colonized.

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Mehari Tedla Korcho, "Ethiopian Diaspora Churches on Mission: An Intergenerational Perspective on Ethiopian Churches in the United States" (Langham Academic, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 1 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Diaspora churches have a tremendous capacity for mission as they practice their faith in the Western world, yet why do they fail to develop effective strategies to break out of their inwardly locked ministries? Addressing this question, Dr. Mehari Tedla Korcho’s book Ethiopian Diaspora Churches on Mission: An Intergenerational Perspective on Ethiopian Churches in the United States (Langham Academic, 2024) offers a thorough examination of Ethiopian evangelical churches in the United States, encompassing their historical, sociological, and missiological aspects. Drawing attention to the relatively overlooked nature of the 1.5 diaspora generation, those who came to the United States as children, he explores the missional potential of mobilizing the intergenerational context of Ethiopian diaspora church communities. Outlining a familiar narrative found in many diaspora churches, Dr. Korcho provides comprehensive, strategic recommendations for helping the first, second, and 1.5 generations of these communities engage in mission together. This work offers a fresh perspective to the field of diaspora mission studies through expounding the prospective impact of mission by the diaspora and the challenges faced in establishing missional partnerships

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Georgios Tsourous, "Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City" (Gorgias Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City (Gorgias Press, 2024) offers a comprehensive anthropological study of lived Christianity in Jerusalem’s Old City, with a special focus on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Anastasis. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, the study explores the experiences of the Rum Orthodox community, examining their internal dynamics and relationships with other Christian groups. Within the Church of the Anastasis, complex interplays emerge, as fragile legal agreements intermingle with ethnic and theological considerations, resulting in a complex reality of shared spaces and coexistence. A materialist lens is employed to study these dynamics, suggesting that the material aspects of religious practices play a crucial role in shaping borders and influencing perceptions of similarities and differences across them. Outside the Church's confines, in the Old City of Jerusalem, lay Christians, especially the local Palestinian Orthodox, engage in 'border-crossing practices', which often deviate from the Orthodox Church's approved practice. These practices reflect the flexible strategies local Christians adopt in their everyday lives in Israel, challenging established norms and boundaries. By capturing these dynamics, the book provides valuable insights into shared sacred spaces and offers a significant contribution to debates in the anthropology of Christianity and its material culture.

Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Blusky and IG: @robbyref

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Jennifer Barry, "Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Gender Violence in Late Antiquity confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Jennifer Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Jennifer Barry is Associate Professor of Religious at the University of Mary Washington. She is author of Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity and an expert on late ancient studies, early Christianity, later Roman antiquity, and gender studies.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studie at UMass Boston

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Christopher Joby, "Christian Mission in Seventeenth-Century Taiwan: A Reception History of Texts, Beliefs, and Practices" (Brill, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How do new ideas and beliefs take root when they cross cultural and linguistic borders? In seventeenth-century Taiwan, both Dutch and Spanish missionaries tried to replace Indigenous gods, practices, and laws with their own Christian traditions. Christopher Joby’s Christian Mission in Seventeenth-Century Taiwan: A Reception History of Texts, Beliefs, and Practices (Brill, 2025) explores this moment in history through a new lens: reception. Rather than focusing only on what missionaries brought, he looks at how Indigenous communities responded. Central to the story are experiments in translation and text-making, including ministers creating prayers and catechisms in local languages, and the invention of new scripts.

The legacy of these efforts stretched far beyond the seventeenth century, too. Some texts continued to shape religious practice in Taiwan after the Dutch were expelled in 1662, while others circulated in Europe, informing how outsiders imagined the island. By tracing these journeys, Joby shows how Taiwan’s early missions were not just local episodes but part of a much larger global history of translation, improvisation, and exchange. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of early modern Taiwan, the history of Christian missions, and the global circulation of texts and ideas.

And if you are interested in learning more about his work, you can listen to Joby's earlier appearance on the New Books Network to talk about an earlier book, The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900), here.

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Christine Shepardson, "A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity (U California Press, 2025) traces the rhetorical strategies of religious radicalization that encouraged fifth- and sixth-century miaphysite Christians to be willing to suffer physical deprivation and harm rather than abandon the church that the late Roman Empire defined as heresy after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. These Syriac texts created genealogies of orthodoxy and heresy, represented their heroes as martyr saints, and reminded their followers of God's coming judgment. Later they gained renewed relevance when they were copied and translated under the emerging 'Umayyad caliphate of Islam. This book reshapes representations of late antiquity by centering Syriac Christianity in these complex and politicized doctrinal conflicts. Tracing these rhetorical strategies not only sheds light on early Christian history in the Middle East, but also provides a rich case study of religious schism, devotion, and survival that continues to resonate today.

New books in late antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review

Christine Shepardson is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Tennessee Knoxville

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Matthew V. Novenson, "Paul and Judaism at the End of History" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The apostle Paul was a Jew. He was born, lived, undertook his apostolic work, and died within the milieu of ancient Judaism. And yet, many readers have found, and continue to find, Paul's thought so radical, so Christian, even so anti-Jewish – despite the fact that it, too, is Jewish through and through. This paradox, and the question how we are to explain it, are the foci of Matthew Novenson's groundbreaking book, Paul and Judaism at the End of History (Cambridge University Press, 2024). The solution, says the author, lies in Paul's particular understanding of time. This too is altogether Jewish, with the twist that Paul sees the end of history as present, not future. In the wake of Christ's resurrection, Jews are perfected in righteousness and – like the angels – enabled to live forever, in fulfilment of God's ancient promises to the patriarchs. What is more, gentiles are included in the same pneumatic existence promised to the Jews. This peculiar combination of ethnicity and eschatology yields something that looks not quite like Judaism or Christianity as we are used to thinking of them.

Matthew Novenson is the Helen H. P. Manson Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also an honorary fellow in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, where previously he held the Chair of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities. His monographs include Christ among the Messiahs (Oxford University Press, 2012), The Grammar of Messianism (Oxford University Press, 2017), Paul, Then and Now (Eerdmans, 2022), and Paul and Judaism at the End of History (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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The High Frontier: Gerard O’Neill’s Space Utopia

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

This is the first episode of Cited Podcast’s new season, Green Dreams. Green Dreams tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their dreams for our green future. Should we make those dreams reality, or are they actually nightmares? For the rest of the episodes, visit the series page, and subscribe today (Apple, Spotify, RSS).

In the 1970s, Gerard O’Neill drew up detailed plans for large space colonies. The Princeton physicist claimed that these colonies could beam limitless energy back down to Earth, solving all our environmental problems. As climate change accelerates, O’Neill’s once-forgotten green dream has become influential again; many of today’s corporate space evangelists refer to themselves as “Jerry’s Kids.” For solutions to Earth’s problems, should we look to the stars?

Plus, in the back half, we talk to Mary-Jane Rubenstein about the religious and colonial language of the early space evangelists, and why that language persists into the present day.

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Peter Arzt-Grabner "Letters and Letter Writing" (Brill U Schoningh, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

New Testament letters are compared with private, business, and administrative letters of Greco-Roman antiquity and analyzed against this background. More than 11,800 Greek and Latin letters – preserved on papyrus, potsherds, and tablets from Egypt, Israel, Asia Minor, North Africa, Britain, and Switzerland – have been edited so far. Among them are not only short notes by writers with poor writing skills, but also extensive letters and correspondences from highly educated authors. They testify to the literary skills of Paul of Tarsus, who knew how to make excellent use of epistolary formulas and even introduced new variations. They also show that some New Testament letters clearly fall outside the framework of standard epistolography, raising new questions about their authors and their genre. The introductions and discussions offered in this volume reflect the current state of the art and present new research results. Letters and Letter Writing (Brill U Schoningh, 2023) also presents over 130 papyrus and ostracon letters newly translated in their entirety.

Peter Arzt-Grabner is Associate Professor and head of the Papyrological Research Unit at the Department of Biblical Studies and Ecclesiastical History at the University of Salzburg. He is the author of Philemon (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003) and 2. Korintherbrief (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) as well as the co-author of More Light from the Ancient Near East: Understanding the New Testament through Papyri (Brill, 2023; with John S. Kloppenborg and Christina M. Kreinecker). He is also a series editor for Papyri and the New Testament (Brill) and Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).

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Brandon Bloch, "Reinventing Protestant Germany: Religious Nationalists and the Contest for Post-Nazi Democracy" (Harvard UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Germany’s Protestant churches, longtime strongholds of nationalism and militarism, largely backed the Nazi dictatorship that took power in 1933. For many Protestant leaders, pastors, and activists, national and religious revival were one and the same. Even those who opposed the regime tended toward antidemocratic attitudes. By the 1950s, however, Church leaders in West Germany had repositioned themselves as prominent advocates for constitutional democracy and human rights.

Brandon Bloch reveals how this remarkable ideological shift came to pass, following the cohort of theologians, pastors, and lay intellectuals who spearheaded the postwar transformation of their church. Born around the turn of the twentieth century, these individuals came of age amid the turbulence of the Weimar Republic and were easily swayed to complicity with the Third Reich. They accommodated the state in hopes of protecting the Church’s independence from it, but they also embraced the Nazi regime’s antisemitic and anticommunist platform. After the war, under the pressures of Allied occupation, these Protestant intellectuals and their heirs creatively reimagined their tradition as a fount of democratic and humanitarian values. But while they campaigned for family law reform, conscientious objection to military service, and the protection of basic rights, they also promoted a narrative of Christian anti-Nazi resistance that whitewashed the Church’s complicity in dictatorship and genocide.

Examining the sources and limits of democratic transformation, Reinventing Protestant Germany: Religious Nationalists and the Contest for Post-Nazi Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2025) sheds new light on the development of postwar European politics and the power of national myths.

Guest: Brandon Bloch (he/him) is a historian of modern Europe, with an emphasis on Germany and its global entanglements. His research and teaching foreground themes of democracy, human rights, memory politics, and social thought. Brandon is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Host: Jenna Pittman (she/her), a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Duke University. She studies modern European history, political economy, and Germany from 1945-1990.

Scholars@Duke: https://scholars.duke.edu/pers...

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jennapittman

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Cynthia Paces, "Prague: The Heart of Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Prague: The Heart of Europe (Oxford University Press, 2025) traces Prague's origins in the ninth century through the end of the Cold War. Highlights include the golden ages of Charles IV and Rudolph II; the religious conflicts of the Hussite and Thirty Years Wars; the rich culture of Europe's largest Jewish community; the rivalry between the city's German and Czech speakers; the World Wars and Nazi occupation; and the Communist era. Prague: The Heart of Europe highlights the complex culture of the city where Mozart premiered his magnificent Don Giovanni and where Franz Kafka wrote his foreboding tales.

Cynthia Paces is Professor of History at the College of New Jersey.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Cup Overflowing: How Christians Should Think about Wine

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows,” wrote King David in Psalm 23. The overflowing cup is the image that Gisela Kreglinger uses when talking about the abundance and extravagance of God’s provision for His children.

Gisela Kreglinger is the daughter of winemakers and grew up on a vineyard and winery in Franconia, Germany, where her family has been crafting wine for many generations. She has a couple of master’s degrees in biblical studies from Regent College and a PhD in historical theology from the University of St. Andrews.

She has written three books—Cup Overflowing, The Spirituality of Wine, The Soul of Wine—

and most recently she is the co-author of a Bible Study Series called Wine in the Word which is the topic of our discussion today. She’s a Lutheran scholar but I think this is a topic where we Catholics agree with her 100%.

Gisela Kreglinger’s website, The Spirituality of Wine
Wine in the Word Bible Study website.
Wine in the Word Episode 1 on YouTube.
Books by Gisela Kreglinger

An episode of Almost Good Catholics about the film Babette’s Feast which we also talked about in this episode:

Sr. Maria Catherine, OP on Almost Good Catholics, episode 55: You Set a Table Before Me: The Teenage Witch who Became a Dominican Sister.

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Joelle Kidd, "Jesusland: Stories from the Upside Down World of Christian Pop Culture" (ECW Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Jesusland (ECW Press, 2025) Joelle Kidd uses a blend of cultural criticism, humor, and personal memoir akin to Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror or Grace Perry’s The 2000s Made Me Gay, Kidd writes about her evangelical adolescence through the lens of Christian pop culture of the early 2000s, giving readers a peek into this odd subculture and insight into how evangelicalism’s growing popularity around the turn of the millennium has shaped culture and politics — including today’s far right. An empathetic, funny, and sharply critical collection of essays exploring the Christian pop culture of the 2000s and its influence on today’s politically powerful evangelicalism In 1999, after three years of secular living in Eastern Europe, Kidd moved back to Canada and was enrolled in the strange world of an evangelical Christian school. In Jesusland, Kidd writes about the Christian pop culture that she was suddenly immersed in, from perky girl bands to modest styling tips, and draws connections between this evangelical subculture and the mainstream, a tense yet reciprocal relationship that both disavows the secular while employing its media markers. But none of this was just about catchy songs: every abstinence quiz in a teen magazine was laying the foundation for what would become a conservative Christian movement that threatens women’s healthcare, attacks queer and trans rights, and drives present-day political division. Through nine incisive, honest, and emotional essays, Jesusland exposes the pop cultural machinations of evangelicalism, while giving voice to aughts-era Christian children and teens who are now adults looking back at their time, measuring the length of their skirts, and asking each other if their celebrity crush was Christian enough. With care and generosity, Jesusland shows us how the conservative evangelical movement became the global power it is today by exploring the pop culture that both reflected and shaped an entire generation of young people.

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Markus Vinzent, "Christ's Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the Second Century" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

This volume explores the creation of the collection now known as the New Testament. While it is generally accepted that it did not emerge as a collection prior to the late second century CE, a more controversial question is how it came to be.

Markus Vinzent, who had held the H.G. Wood Chair in the History of Theology at the University of Birmingham (1999-2010) and was Professor for Theology and Patristics at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London (2010-2021, ret.), is Fellow of the Max-Weber-Centre for Anthropological and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt (2011-present).

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Ambra Suriano, "Narrative Paths Through Mamre and Sodom" (T&T Clark, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

What is the narrative of Mamre and Sodom (Genesis 18-19) really about? Surprisingly, Ambra Suriano says the main topic has to do with the knowledge of good and evil.

Tune in as we speak with Ambra Suriano about her recent monograph, Narrative Paths Through Mamre and Sodom: The Oak and The Gate (T&T Clark, 2025).

Ambra Suriano studied philology and literature of the ancient world in Rome and got her PhD in biblical narratology in Aachen. She currently works at Lancaster University in the department of politics, philosophy, and religion, having been awarded a Marie Curie. She has published articles including “But Sarah Denied for She was Afraid,” which includes narratology in Genesis 18, and a piece on Josiah, “Outside the City Walls: Remarks on 2 Kgs 23,4-20.

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Madness & Acute Religious Experiences, with Richard Saville-Smith

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Host Pierce Salguero sits down with Richard Saville-Smith, an independent scholar of madness, religion, and psychiatry. We discuss Richard’s book Acute Religious Experiences (2023), which argues that frameworks from Mad Studies can get us out from under the academy’s current habit of either pathologizing or sanitizing religious experiences. Along the way, we talk about the power struggle between psychiatry & the humanities, the influence of Queer Studies on Richard’s work, and his reinterpretation of Jesus as a madman.

If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Acute Religious Experiences: Madness, Psychosis and Religious Studies (2023)

Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including PDFs of some of these resources.

Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.

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Hyun Ho Park, "Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 1 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence (Bloomsbury, 2023) Hyun Ho Park employs social identity to create the first thorough analysis via such methodology of Acts 21:17-23:35, which contains one of the fiercest intergroup conflicts in Acts. Park's assessment allows his readers to rethink, reevaluate, and reimagine Jewish-Christian relations; teaches them how to respond to the vicious cycle of slander, labeling, and violence permeating contemporary public and private spheres; and presents a new hermeneutical cycle and describes how readers may apply it to their own sociopolitical contexts.
After surveying previous studies of the text, Park first analyses Paul's welcome, questioning, and arrest, and how slandering and labeling make Paul an outsider. Park then describes how, through defending his Jewish identity and the Way, Paul nuances his public image and re-categorizes himself and the Way as part of the people of God. When Paul identifies himself as a Roman and later a Pharisee, Park examines Luke's ambivalent attitude toward Rome and the Pharisees, and assesses how Paul escapes dangerous situations by claiming different social identities at different times.
Finally, he discloses the vicious cycle of slander, labeling, and violence not only against the Way but also against the Jews and challenges the discursive process of identity construction through intergroup conflict with an out-group, especially the proximate “Other.” Furthermore, he demonstrates how the relevance of such scholarship is not limited to Lukan studies or even biblical studies in general; the frequent use of slander, labeling, and violence in the politics of the United States and other polarized countries around the globe demands new ways of looking at intergroup relations, and Park's argument meets the needs of those seeking a new perspective on contemporary political discord.

Hyun Ho Park is Associate Pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Yuba City, California and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian American Theological Forum.

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Brian A. Stauffer, "Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion" (U New Mexico Press, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), Brian A. Stauffer reconstructs the history of Mexico's forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of 1873-1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement--organized by indigenous, Afro-Mexican, and mestizo parishioners in Mexico's central-western Catholic heartland--the Religionero rebellion erupted in response to a series of anticlerical measures raised to constitutional status by the Lerdo government. These "Laws of Reform" decreed the full independence of Church and state, secularized marriage and burial practices, prohibited acts of public worship, and severely curtailed the Church's ability to own and administer property. A comprehensive reconstruction of the revolt and a critical reappraisal of its significance, this book places ordinary Catholics at the center of the story of Mexico's fragmented nineteenth-century secularization and Catholic revival.

Ethan Besser Fredrick is a graduate student in Modern Latin American history seeking his PhD at the University of Minnesota. His work focuses on the Transatlantic Catholic movements in Mexico and Spain during the early 20th century.

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Brian A. Stauffer, "Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion" (U New Mexico Press, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

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Francesca Stavrakopoulou, "God: An Anatomy" (Knopf, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.

God: An Anatomy (Knopf, 2022) present a portrait—arrived at through the author’s close examination of and research into the Bible—of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe—and every part of the body in between—this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.

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Nick Spencer, "The Landscapes of Science and Religion: What Are We Disagreeing About?" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to manipulate and change humans and their environment through genetic engineering, life extension, and AI is going to take a huge leap forward in the twenty-first century, provoking endless debates around humans “playing God”.

But what do we mean by this? Asking this question is surprisingly hard work. Attempts to 'essentialise' science, let alone religion, quickly run into trouble. Where are the boundaries? Whose definition of science is definitive? Which concept of religious is the authoritative one?

Ultimately, neither “science” nor “religion” can be pinned down to one single meaning or definition. Rather, they encompass a family of definitions that relate to one another in a complex web of shifting ways. Drawing on extensive research with over a hundred leading thinkers in the UK — including Martin Rees, Brian Cox, Susan Greenfield, A.C. Grayling, Ray Tallis, Linda Woodhead, Steve Bruce, Adam Rutherford, Robin Dunbar, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and Iain McGilchrist — The Landscapes of Science and Religion takes the much-needed step of asking what science and religion actually are, before turning to the familiar question of how they relate to one another.

Building on this, by paying particular attention to those who sense some form of conflict here, Spencer and Waite explore where the perceived conflict really lies. What exactly are people disagreeing about when they disagree about science and religion, and what, if anything, can we do to improve that disagreement and bring about a fruitful dialogue between these two important human endeavours.

Nicholas Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos, a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion and a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of a number of books including Darwin and God, The Evolution of the West and Atheists. He has presented a BBC Radio 4 series on The Secret History of Science and Religion, and has written for the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, New Statesman, Prospect and more. He lives in London.

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Michelle P. Brown, "Bede and the Theory of Everything" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Bede and the Theory of Everything (Reaktion Books, 2023) investigates the life and world of Bede (c. 673–735), foremost scholar of the early Middle Ages and ‘the father of English history’. It examines his notable feats, including calculating the first tide-tables; playing a role in the creation of the Ceolfrith Bibles and the Lindisfarne Gospels; writing the earliest extant Old English poetry and the earliest translation of part of the Bible into English; and composing his famous Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with its single dating system. Despite never leaving Northumbria, Bede also wrote a guide to the Holy Land. Michelle P. Brown, an authority on the period, describes new discoveries regarding Bede’s handwriting, his research programme and his previously lost Old English translation of St John’s Gospel, dictated on his deathbed.

Michelle P. Brown is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and was formerly Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library. Her books include Bede and the Theory of Everything (Reaktion, 2023).

YouTube Channel here.

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Mariam F. Ayad ed., "Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times" (American University in Cairo Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times (American University in Cairo Press 2024) brings together fourteen contributions from global scholars all considering the theme of daily life and the Egyptian Coptic Christian minority community. The essays focus on ancient, late ancient, premodern, and contemporary questions about art and resistance, poverty and wealth, gender and ecclesiastical agency, dress and power, and much more.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Dr. Mariam Ayad is Associate Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.

Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College.

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Adriana Carranca, "Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims" (Columbia UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

US-born Protestant evangelicalism has gone global to an extent of which many of us might be unaware. Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims (Columbia Global Reports, 2024) tells the story of Americans’ colossal mobilization to proclaim Christianity “to the ends of the Earth,” a movement that triumphed in the Global South, challenged the Vatican, then turned east in full force after 9/11 to spread the Gospel among Muslims. When the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq set off a wave of anti-American attacks and made the field too dangerous for US missionaries, thousands of disciples, particularly from Latin America, were mobilized to finish the task.

In Soul by Soul, journalist Adriana Carranca follows the pilgrimage of a missionary family from Brazil as they move to Afghanistan. Carranca brings us on a harrowing journey through the underground passages of the global evangelical movement as it clashes with the full force of militant Islamic groups in the Middle East and South Asia, where contemporary religious wars are being fought, soul by soul.

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David de Boer, "The Early Modern Dutch Press in an Age of Religious Persecution" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

David de Boer returns to the podcast to talk to Jana Byars about his first book, The Early Modern Dutch Press in the Age of Religious Persecution (Oxford UP, 2023). This book is available open source here. For victims of persecution around the world, attracting international media attention for their plight is often a matter of life and death. This study takes us back to the news revolution of seventeenth-century Europe, when people first discovered in the press a powerful new weapon to combat religiously inspired maltreatments, executions, and massacres. To affect and mobilize foreign audiences, confessional minorities and their advocates faced an acute dilemma, one that we still grapple with today: how to make people care about distant suffering? David de Boer argues that by answering this question, they laid the foundations of a humanitarian culture in Europe. As consuming news became an everyday practice for many Europeans, the Dutch Republic emerged as an international hub of printed protest against religious violence. De Boer traces how a diverse group of people, including Waldensians refugees, Huguenot ministers, Savoyard office holders, and many others, all sought access to the Dutch printing presses in their efforts to raise transnational solidarity for their cause. By generating public outrage, calling out rulers, and pressuring others to intervene, producers of printed opinion could have a profound impact on international relations. But crying out against persecution also meant navigating a fraught and dangerous political landscape, marked by confessional tension, volatile alliances, and incessant warfare. Opinion makers had to think carefully about the audiences they hoped to reach through pamphlets, periodicals, and newspapers. But they also had to reckon with the risk of reaching less sympathetic readers outside their target groups. By examining early modern publicity strategies, de Boer deepens our understanding of how people tried to shake off the spectre of religious violence that had haunted them for generations, and create more tolerant societies, governed by the rule of law, reason, and a sense of common humanity.

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Charly Coleman, "The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment" (Stanford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Charly Coleman's latest book, The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 2021) is at once a history of ideas, the economy, religion, and material culture. Pursuing the imbrication of the economy and theology with respect to both worldly and spiritual value and wealth, the book explores the emergence and development of a specifically Catholic ethic of capitalism particular to the French context in the century and more leading up to the French Revolution.

In its six chapters, the book examines the Eucharist, John Law's system, speculation and debt, usury, consumption, luxury, and more. By the time this reader reached the epilogue, it became clear that The Spirit of French Capitalism is both a history of the Age of Enlightenment and a genealogy/prehistory of the commodity fetishism elaborated by Marx and Marxist thinkers from the nineteenth century to the present. Faith in infinite wealth creation, obsessive consumption, pleasure, abundance, and enchantment are as much a part of the history of capitalism as scarcity, regulation, and restraint. Provocative and complicated, the book will be of great interest scholars and students of the histories of the early modern economy, religion, and the state in France and elsewhere, as well as the history of capitalism more broadly.

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century France and its empire. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email (panchasi@sfu.ca).

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Daniel I. Block, "Hearing the Gospel According to Moses: Chapters 24-34" (Inspirata, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

For renowned scholar Daniel Block, Deuteronomy is the “Gospel according to Moses.” In his farewell addresses, Moses calls God’s people to remember divine grace in salvation and their covenant relationship with him, as well as his revelation of a way of blessing in a lost world.

Tune in as we speak with Daniel Block about the third and final volume of his commentary on Deuteronomy.

Daniel Block is the Gunther H. Knoedler Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Wheaton College, and the author of numerous articles and papers, both scholarly and popular, and has written commentaries on Ezekiel, Judges, Ruth, and Deuteronomy.

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Karin Roginer Hofmeister, "Remembering Suffering and Resistance: Memory Politics and the Serbian Orthodox Church" (CEU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Remembering Suffering and Resistance investigates the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in shaping memory politics in Serbia following the fall of Slobodan Milošević. It argues that in periods of societal instability, religious institutions mobilise their memory potential to reaffirm their public relevance. The study analyses the Church’s mnemonic strategies—both liturgical and non-liturgical—within post-socialist, post-conflict, and post-secular contexts. By engaging in diverse commemorative practices, Hofmeister argues, the Church effectively reasserted its authority and legitimacy in Serbia’s public sphere after 2000.

Iva Glisic is a historian and art historian specialising in modern Russia and the Balkans.

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Benjamin J. Segal, "Kohelet's Pursuit of Truth: A New Reading of Ecclesiastes" (Gefen, 2016)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes—full of poetry and enigmatic imagery, these are among the most challenging books of the Bible to understand. Well take heart, because we have some help coming your way!

Tune in as we speak with Rabbi Benjamin Segal about his Gefen publications on the Ketuvim. We’ll talk with Rabbi Segal about his translations and commentaries on:

Kohelet’s Pursuit of Truth: A New Reading of Ecclesiastes, and The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love, and finally also Lamentations: Doorways to Darkness.

Rabbi Benjamin Segal is former president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, has authored many commentaries, other books and articles.

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David D. Hall, "The Puritans: A Transatlantic History" (Princeton UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

This book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role in the story of America. Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, David D. Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cultural movement that judged the Protestant reforms of Elizabeth’s reign to be unfinished. Hall’s vivid and wide-ranging narrative describes the movement’s deeply ambiguous triumph under Oliver Cromwell, its political demise with the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, and its perilous migration across the Atlantic to establish a “perfect reformation” in the New World.

A breathtaking work of scholarship by an eminent historian, The Puritans: A Transatlantic History (Princeton University Press, 2019) examines the tribulations and doctrinal dilemmas that led to the fragmentation and eventual decline of Puritanism. It presents a compelling portrait of a religious and political movement that was divided virtually from the start. In England, some wanted to dismantle the Church of England entirely and others were more cautious, while Puritans in Scotland were divided between those willing to work with a troublesome king and others insisting on the independence of the state church. This monumental book traces how Puritanism was a catalyst for profound cultural changes in the early modern Atlantic world, opening the door for other dissenter groups such as the Baptists and the Quakers, and leaving its enduring mark on what counted as true religion in America.

Ryan Tripp is part-time and full-time adjunct history faculty for Los Medanos Community College as well as the College of Online and Continuing Education at Southern New Hampshire University.

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Michael Niebauer, "Four Mountains: Encountering God in the Bible from Eden to Zion" (Lexham Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 5 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How can war stories, farming proverbs, and strange visions draw you closer to Jesus? In Four Mountains: Encountering God in the Bible from Eden to Zion, Michael Niebauer shows how to see the Bible's big story and meet with God in his word.

Four mountain-top encounters with God (Eden, Sinai, Tabor, and Zion) unify the Bible's grand story. The earliest Christians read Scripture with attentiveness to symbols and images like mountains and trees. Learning this method of reading helps us connect seemingly disparate stories and encounter God in his word. Gospel-rich, and Scripture-saturated, Four Mountains reveals how we can see Jesus on every page.

Open my eyes that I may see

the wondrous things of your law.

--Psalm 119:18 (New Coverdale Psalter)

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Margaret C. Jacob, "The Secular Enlightenment" (Princeton UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 3 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Secular Enlightenment by Professor Margaret C. Jacob, has been called a major new history on how the Enlightenment transformed people's everyday lives. It’s a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this landmark book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places with voices that have remained largely unheard until now, from freethinkers and freemasons to French materialists, anticlerical Catholics, pantheists, pornographers, readers, and travelers.

Jacob, one of our most esteemed historians of the Enlightenment, reveals how this newly secular outlook was not a wholesale rejection of Christianity but rather a new mental space in which to encounter the world on its own terms. She takes readers from London and Amsterdam to Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and Naples, drawing on rare archival materials to show how ideas central to the emergence of secular democracy touched all facets of daily life. Human frailties once attributed to sin were now viewed through the lens of the newly conceived social sciences. People entered churches not to pray but to admire the architecture, and some began to spend their Sunday mornings reading a newspaper or even a risqué book. The secular-minded pursued their own temporal and commercial well-being without concern for the life hereafter, regarding their successes as the rewards for their actions and their failures as the result of blind economic forces.

A wonderful work of intellectual and cultural history, The Secular Enlightenment demonstrates how secular values and pursuits took hold of eighteenth-century Europe, spilled into the American colonies, and left their lasting imprint on the Western world for generations to come.

Margaret Jacob is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her many books include The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans and The First Knowledge Economy: Human Capital and the European Economy, 1750-1850.

Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City

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Paul Vigna, "The Almightier: How Money Became God, Greed Became Virtue, and Debt Became Sin" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 2 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The pursuit of wealth is considered an essential function of human nature, and greed is an unspoken civic virtue. Many of us revere billionaires and Wall Street rain-makers, then complain about “the system” being rigged, and wonder why the country doesn’t seem to work for the little guy anymore. Some blame the Deep State for income inequality and corruption, and others blame capitalism, but the truth is that these issues have much deeper roots: our devotion to money is a manmade invention that has transformed over thousands of years to replace religion as the foundation of our society, and it is tearing civilization apart.

In The Almightier, journalist Paul Vigna uncovers the forgotten history of money, tracing the uneasy and often accidental alliance between wealth and religion as it developed from ancient city-states to today’s secular world, where religious devotion has receded and greed has stepped in to fill the void. Through engaging anecdotes, original research, and fresh perspectives on the causes of the many challenges we face today, Vigna makes a compelling argument that money has no power apart from the power we give it.

Paul Vigna is an author, journalist, editor and speaker, with a particular focus on capital markets and cryptocurrencies. He is the author of Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead and coauthor of The Age of Cryptocurrency and The Truth Machine. For 25 years, he was a reporter and editor for Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal, pioneering coverage of the cryptocurrency sector. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox, and PBS.

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Glenn Richardson, "WOLSEY" (Routledge, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Through a thematic and broadly chronological approach, WOLSEY (Routledge, 2020) offers a fascinating insight into the life and legacy of a man who was responsible for building Henry VIII’s reputation as England’s most impressive king.

The book reviews Thomas Wolsey’s record as the realm’s leading Churchman, Lord Chancellor and political patron and thereby demonstrates how and why Wolsey became central to Henry’s government for 20 years. By analysing Wolsey’s role in key events such as the Field of Cloth of Gold, the study highlights how significant Wolsey was in directing and conducting England’s foreign relations as the king’s most trusted advisor. Based on up-to-date research, Richardson not only newly appraises the circumstances of Wolsey’s fall but also challenges accusations of treason made against him. This study provides a new appreciation of Wolsey’s importance as a cultural and artistic patron, as well as a royal administrator and politician; roles which helped to bring both Henry VIII and England to the forefront of foreign relations in the early-sixteenth century.

Presenting Wolsey in his contemporary and historiographical contexts more fully than any currently available study, Wolsey is perfect for students of Tudor England.

Author: Glenn Richardson is a Professor of Early Modern History at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and is an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association.

Dr. Kristen Vitale Engel, Assoc. FRHistS, Department of History at Southern New Hampshire University, Global, Editor-in-Chief of "The Court Observer" for The Society for Court Studies, Submissions Editor for the Royal Studies Journal and International Ambassador for HistoryLab+ in partnership with the Institute of Historical Research.

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Hanno Sauer, "The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality " (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In this sweeping new history of humanity, told through the prism of our ever-changing moral norms and values, Hanno Sauer shows how modern society is just the latest step in the long evolution of good and evil and everything in between.

What makes us moral beings? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? And has it always been that way? Hanno Sauer's sweeping new history of humanity, covering five million years of our universal moral values, comes at a crucial moment of crisis for those values, and helps to explain how they arose -- and why we need them.

We humans were born to cooperate, but everywhere we find ourselves in conflict. The way we live together has changed fundamentally in recent decades: global mobility, demographic upheaval, migration movements, and digital networking, have all called the moral foundations of human communities into question. Modern societies are in crisis: a shared universal morality seems to be a thing of the past. Hanno Sauer explains why this appearance is deceptive: in fact, there are universal values that all people share. If we understand the origin of our morality, we can understand its future too.

With philosophical expertise and empirical data, Sauer explains how processes of biological, cultural, social, and historical evolution shaped the moral grammar that defines our present. Seven chapters recount the crucial moral upheavals of human history showing how the emergence of humankind five million years ago, the rise of first civilizations 5,000 years ago, and the dynamics of moral progress in the last fifty years are interrelated. This genealogical perspective allows us, on the one hand, to see the contradictions and potential conflicts of our moral identities; on the other, it makes clear that we share fundamental values that apply to all human beings at all times. Sauer's elegant prose, translated into English by Jo Heinrich, brings the history of humanity to vivid new life.

Hanno Sauer is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Utrecht University. He teaches ethics, metaethics and political philosophy.

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Religion in the Lands That Became America

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Until now, the standard narrative of American religious history has begun with English settlers in Jamestown or Plymouth and remained predominantly Protestant and Atlantic. Driven by his strong sense of the historical and moral shortcomings of the usual story, Thomas A. Tweed offers a very different narrative in this ambitious new history. He begins the story much earlier—11,000 years ago—at a rock shelter in present-day Texas and follows Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, transnational migrants, and people of many faiths as they transform the landscape and confront the big lifeway transitions, from foraging to farming and from factories to fiber optics.

Setting aside the familiar narrative themes, Dr. Tweed highlights sustainability, showing how religion both promoted and inhibited individual, communal, and environmental flourishing during three sustainability crises: the medieval Cornfield Crisis, which destabilized Indigenous ceremonial centers; the Colonial Crisis, which began with the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and the enslavement of Africans; and the Industrial Crisis, which brought social inequity and environmental degradation. The unresolved Colonial and Industrial Crises continue to haunt the nation, Dr. Tweed suggests, but he recovers historical sources of hope as he retells the rich story of America’s religious past.

Our guest is: Dr. Thomas A. Tweed, who is professor emeritus of American Studies and history at the University of Notre Dame. A past president of the American Academy of Religion, he is the editor of Retelling U.S. Religious History and the author numerous books including Religion: A Very Short Introduction, and Religion in the Lands That Became America.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who holds a PhD in American history. She works as a grad student and dissertation coach, and is a developmental editor for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast and the author of the Academic Life newsletter, found at christinagessler.substack.com

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Matthew V. Novenson, "Paul and Judaism at the End of History" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The apostle Paul was a Jew. He was born, lived, undertook his apostolic work, and died within the milieu of ancient Judaism. And yet, many readers have found, and continue to find, Paul's thought so radical, so Christian, even so anti-Jewish – despite the fact that it, too, is Jewish through and through. This paradox, and the question how we are to explain it, are explored in Matthew Novenson's Paul and Judaism at the End of History (Cambridge UP, 2024). The solution, according to Novenson, lies in Paul's particular understanding of time. This too is altogether Jewish, with the twist that Paul sees the end of history as present, not future. In the wake of Christ's resurrection, Jews are perfected in righteousness and – like the angels – enabled to live forever, in fulfilment of God's ancient promises to the patriarchs. What is more, gentiles are included in the same pneumatic existence promised to the Jews. This peculiar combination of ethnicity and eschatology yields something that looks not quite like Judaism or Christianity as we are used to thinking of them.

Interviewee: Matthew Novenson is the Helen H. P. Manson Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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Caroline Johnson Hodge, "The God of This House: Christian Domestic Cult Before Constantine" (Penn State UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Christianity is often thought of as a tradition of belief, interpretation, teachings, and texts. However, a scholarly focus on ideas overlooks how early Christian doctrine interacted with social exchanges in lay spaces.

Author Caroline Johnson Hodge fills this gap, shifting our attention from liturgical settings to religion as it was lived outside the prescriptions of congregations. Through a careful reading of the material record alongside print sources, Johnson Hodge shows that in the first through the early fourth centuries, Christians developed household rituals akin to traditional domestic cult practices around the Roman Empire, and this continuity contributed to the success of the new cult in the Roman world. Rather than a well-organized, universal domestic cult, Johnson Hodge finds that practices were flexible and varied, ranging widely from established household observances to unauthorized rituals, gravesite venerations, and the unpatrolled movements of women and slaves. Just as important as the official representations were the small gestures at hearths and doorways, the myriad ways in which followers of Christ incorporated their divine beings into the rituals of their households, shops, and tombs.

In bringing the lived-religion approach to bear on this formative period, Johnson Hodge’s study offers a fascinating portrait of a very “pagan” world within ancient Christianity. This book will be especially valuable to religious studies scholars and others interested in the origins of Christianity.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Caroline Johnson Hodge is Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the College of Holy Cross

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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John Givens, "The Image of Christ in Russian Literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Pasternak" (Northern Illinois UP, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In The Image of Christ in Russian Literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Pasternak (Northern Illinois University Press, 2018), Dr. John Givens of the University of Rochester discusses classics of Russian literature such as The Brothers Karamazov and Dr. Zhivago, as well as texts of less renown to English-speaking audiences, such as Tolstoy’s Resurrection. These texts and others, Givens suggests, portray Christ apophatically: that is, by showing who Christ was not, in order to illuminate who Christ therefore must be. In addition to the novels themselves, Givens cites sources such as personal correspondence and important theological works, thus bringing an English-speaking public to greater depth of understanding than would be possible simply by reading Russian novels in translation. Though focused on a specific topic, Givens’ book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in familiarizing themselves with some of the “greats” of the Russian literary canon.

Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism.

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Christopher Ocker, "Luther, Conflict, and Christendom: Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Martin Luther - monk, priest, intellectual, or revolutionary - has been a controversial figure since the sixteenth century. Most studies of Luther stress his personality, his ideas, and his ambitions as a church reformer. In Luther, Conflict, and Christendom: Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West (Cambridge UP, 2018), Christopher Ocker brings a new perspective to this topic, arguing that the different ways people thought about Luther mattered far more than who he really was. Providing an accessible, highly contextual, and non-partisan introduction, Ocker says that religious conflict itself served as the engine of religious change. He shows that the Luther affair had a complex political anatomy which extended far beyond the borders of Germany, making the debate an international one from the very start. His study links the Reformation to pluralism within western religion and to the coexistence of religions and secularism in today's world.

Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast.

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Ian Johnson, "The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao" (Pantheon, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Ian Johnson’s new book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon, 2017), was called "a masterpiece of observation and empathy" by The New York Review of Books, and The Economist, who included the book on its Best of 2017 list, said the book, "Shows how a resurgence of faith is quietly changing the country." The Guardian said the book is "full of moving encounters with Chinese citizens ... Johnson succeeds in having produced a nuanced group portrait of Chinese citizens striving for non-material answers in an era of frenetic materialism." I just finished the book myself and was stunning in its portrayals. If you hope to understand the trajectory of modern China, arguably the fastest-rising international superpower, understanding the religious Taoist, Christianity, folk religion, and Islam of China will be helpful, if not essential.

A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Ian Johnson is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New York Times; his work has also appeared in The New Yorker and National Geographic. He is an advising editor for the Journal of Asian Studies and teaches courses on religion in Beijing. He is the author of The Souls of China, Wild Grass, A Mosque in Munich, and The Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West.

Greg Soden is the host "Classical Ideas," a podcast about religion and religious ideas. You can find it on iTunes here.

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Beth M. Stovell, "Mapping Metaphorical Discourse in the Fourth Gospel: John’s Eternal King" (Brill, 2012)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How does the metaphor of Jesus as king unify the message of the Gospel of John?

Tune in as we speak with Beth Stovell about her monograph, Mapping Metaphorical Discourse in the Fourth Gospel. Beth's study shows how John’s Gospel describes the just character of Jesus’ kingship, the subversion of power implicit in his crucified form of kingship, and the necessity of response to Jesus as king and his reign.

Beth Stovell is Professor of Old Testament at Ambrose University, and is working on commentaries on Ezekiel, the Minor Prophets, Hosea, and the Gospel of John.

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Amir Hussain, "One God and Two Religions: Christians and Muslims as Neighbors" (Fortress Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Islam is a religion of violence and behind every Muslim there lurks a potential terrorist. Islam is a threat to values of the Christian West. They are like oil and water. Clearly, they don't mix.

One God and Two Religions: Christians and Muslims as Neighbors (Fortress Press, 2025) confronts these popular perceptions head-on. With keen insight and gentle understanding, Amir Hussain explores the differences between Christianity and Islam, as well as the many things these two enduring faith traditions hold in common - including, first and foremost, their belief in and desire to be faithful to the one, true God; their shared roots and scripture (from the Jewish faith); and the spiritual values of peace and social justice.

In all of this, the book invites the reader to a place of reconciliation, to a place where the truth and value of each of these great faith traditions can be recognized and honored by the other. In the end, the metaphor of oil and water is an interesting one for the reality of conflict and the hope for reconciliation between Islam and Christianity today.

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Daniel C. Matt, "Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation" (Yale UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Elijah is a zealous prophet, attacking idolatry and injustice, championing God. He performs miracles, restoring life and calling down fire. When his earthly life ends, he vanishes in a whirlwind, carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot. Was this a spectacular death, or did Elijah escape death entirely? The latter view prevailed. Though residing in heaven, Elijah revisits earth--to help, rescue, enlighten, and eventually herald the Messiah. Because of his messianic role, Jews open the door for Elijah during each seder--the meal commemorating liberation from slavery and anticipating final redemption.

Tune in as we speak with Daniel C. Matt about his recent book, Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation.

PLEASE NOTE: For a limited time, anyone can order the title at a 25% discount with free shipping, by using the code ELIJAH during checkout, at this link.

Also here are several video links related to Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation:

1) A conversation about Becoming Elijah between Daniel Matt and Barry Holtz at an event sponsored by the Center for Jewish History, in Manhattan, March 3, 2022:

2) A conversation between Daniel Matt and Estelle Frankel, sponsored by Chochmat HaLev, in Berkeley, March 31, 2022.

3) A talk by Daniel Matt on Becoming Elijah, sponsored by New Lehrhaus, in Berkeley, Sunday, April 3, 2022.

Daniel C. Matt is a leading authority on Jewish mysticism. He served as professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and has also taught at Stanford University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications, in addition to the The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (12 vols.), include The Essential Kabbalah (1995), God and the Big Bang (1996), and Zohar: Annotated and Explained (2002). Daniel also teaches an online Zohar course: www.sup.org/zohar/course

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Gary Kulik, "Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War's Forgotten Medics" (Texas Tech UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

During the war in Vietnam, thousands of young men served as conscientious objector medics. They had been certified by their local draft boards as noncombatants, but many would know intense combat nonetheless. Without weapons training, they ran through the infantry lines, answering the desperate call, "Medic!" Many displayed exemplary heroism even at the cost of their lives. With the end of the draft, we will never see their like again.

Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War's Forgotten Medics (Texas Tech University Press, 2025) tells their stories within the background context of pacifist churches in America. It is the first book exclusively devoted to such men, who emerged initially from the historic peace churches--Quakers, Brethren, Mennonites--and from Seventh-day Adventists, who would comprise roughly half of all conscientious objector medics serving in the Vietnam War. From World War II on, growing numbers of men from mainstream churches made the same choices, and after a Supreme Court decision in 1965, so too would men who claimed humanist and secular justification. The pages contain the stories of pantheists and Catholics, among others from the peace traditions.

Gary Kulik, who also served as a conscientious-objector medic, interweaves his own story into those he recounts, stories of fierce combat, stumbling accidents, moments of fleeting honor and ever-present death.

Gary Kulik served as a deputy director of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, near Wilmington, Delaware. Previously, he was a department head and assistant director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the editor of American Quarterly.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Allan Doig, "A History of the Church through its Buildings" (Oxford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A History of the Church through its Buildings (Oxford University Press, 2021) by Allan Doig takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories become embedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the standing history of passing waves of humanity.

This process takes on special significance in churches, where the arrangement of the space places members of the community in relationship with one another for the performance of the church's rites and ceremonies. Moreover, architectural forms and building materials can be used to establish relationships with other buildings in other places and other times. Coordinated systems of signs, symbols, and images proclaim beliefs and doctrine, and in a wider sense carry extended narratives of the people and their faith.

Looking at the history of the church through its buildings allows us to establish a tangible connection to the lives of the people involved in some of the key moments and movements that shaped that history, and perhaps even a degree of intimacy with them. Standing in the same place where the worshippers of the past preached and taught, or in a space they built as a memorial, touching the stone they placed, or marking their final resting-place, holding a keepsake they treasured or seeing a relic they venerated, probably comes as close to a shared experience with these people as it is possible to come. Perhaps for a fleeting moment at such times their faces may come more clearly into focus.

Bryan Toepfer, AIA, NCARB, CAPM is the Principal Architect for TOEPFER Architecture, PLLC, an Architecture firm specializing in Residential Architecture and Virtual Reality. He has authored two books, “Contractors CANNOT Build Your House,” and “Six Months Now, ARCHITECT for Life.” He is an Adjunct Professor at Alfred State College and the Director of Education for the AIA Rochester Board of Directors. Always eager to help anyone understand the world of Architecture, he can be reached by sending an email to btoepfer@toepferarchitecture.

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Claudia Setzer, "The Progressives' Bible: How Scriptural Interpretation Built a More Just America" (Fortress Publishers, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In her book, The Progressives' Bible: How Scriptural Interpretation Built a More Just America, (Fortress Press, 2024), Claudia Setzer argues that while conservative groups have often appealed to the Bible to support their positions, so too have many progressive voices rooted in the Bible, seeing their struggles in its narratives and characters, and drawing on its verses to prove the truth of their positions. Abolitionism countered pro-slavery arguments with copious biblical material. Women's rights advocates strongly disagreed with one another about whether the Bible was good news for their cause, but some argued that it was. Temperance, a broadly inclusive reform movement in the nineteenth century, employed arguments that reflected a critical, non-literalist stance to the text. Civil rights speakers identified with biblical figures and struggles, infusing their rhetoric with familiar verses. The Progressives' Bible foregrounds women, especially women of color, like Maria Stewart, Septima Clark, and Fannie Lou Hamer, while also considering the works of crucial figures like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. A final chapter describes contemporary social justice movements that draw strength from biblical and religious traditions, from Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant perspectives.

Interviewee: Claudia Setzer is a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY. Her books include The Bible in the American Experience (co-edited with David Shefferman), The Bible and American Culture: A Sourcebook (co-edited with David Shefferman), Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity: Doctrine, Community, and Self-Definition, and Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics, 30-150 C.E.

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Pope Leo XIV (with Christopher White)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Vatican Reporter Christopher White has just written book about Pope Leo XIV, our new Holy Father, an American, an Augustinian, from Chicago, from Perú; it’s a biography, but it also places Pope Leo in the Context of the Second Vatican Council, the legacy of Leo XIII and especially his predecessor Pope Francis and the synodal church of the last few years, and that was a show to which Chris White had court side front row season tickets and plenty of good stories about, some of which he shares today on Almost Good Catholics.

Chris’s book Pope Leo XIV, Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy (Loyola Press, 2025).
Chris’s talk about the Synod in San Francisco, 2024.

Here are some earlier episodes of AGC we referred to in this discussion:

Sr. Nathalie Becquart, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 36: Quo Vademus? The Pilgrim Church on the Road of Synodality
Bp. Athanasius Schneider, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 101: Salve Regina: The Power of the Rosary

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Jürgen Buchenau and David S. Dalton, "Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1940" (Simon and Schuster, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1940 examines anti-Catholic leaders and movements during the Mexican Revolution, an era that resulted in a constitution denying the Church political rights. Anti-Catholic Mexicans recognized a common enemy in a politically active Church in a predominantly Catholic nation. Many books have elucidated the popular roots and diversity of Roman Catholicism in Mexico, but the perspective of the Church’s adversaries has remained much less understood.
This volume provides a fresh perspective on the violent conflict between Catholics and the revolutionary state, which was led by anti-Catholics such as Plutarco Elías Calles, who were bent on eradicating the influence of the Catholic Church in politics, in the nation’s educational system, and in the national consciousness. The zeal with which anti-Catholics pursued their goals—and the equal vigor with which Catholics defended their Church and their faith—explains why the conflict between Catholics and anti-Catholics turned violent, culminating in the devastating Cristero Rebellion (1926–1929).
Collecting essays by a team of senior scholars in history and cultural studies, the book includes chapters on anti-Catholic leaders and intellectuals, movements promoting scientific education and anti-alcohol campaigns, muralism, feminist activists, and Mormons and Mennonites. A concluding afterword by Matthew Butler, a global authority on twentieth-century Mexican religion, provides a larger perspective on the themes of the book.

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Daniel I. Block, "Hearing the Gospel According to Moses Volume 2: Chapters 12-23" (Inspirata, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Some time ago, we spoke with Daniel Block about volume 1 of his Deuteronomy commentary, Hearing the Gospel According to Moses. Tune in as we hear from Dan now about his second volume, on chapters 12-23 of Deuteronomy, which he characterizes as “Responding to the grace of the LORD with righteous living.”

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John Eldevik, "Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and Its Manuscript Contexts" (Arc Humanities Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 6 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and its Manuscript Contexts by John Eldevik

During the Middle Ages, many Europeans imagined that there existed a powerful and marvel-filled Christian realm beyond the lands of Islam ruled by a devout emperor they called “Priest John,” or “Prester John.” Spurred by a forged letter that mysteriously appeared around 1165 and quickly “went viral” in hundreds of manuscripts across Western Europe, the legend of Prester John and his exotic kingdom was not just a utopian fantasy, but a way to bring contemporary political and theological questions into sharper focus. In this new study, John Eldevik shows how the manuscripts that transmitted the story of Prester John reflect the ways contemporary audiences processed ideas about religious conflict and helped them imagine a new, global dimension of Christianity. It includes an appendix with a new translation of the B recension of The Letter of Prester John.

John Eldevik is Professor of History at Hamilton College in Clinton (New York State), and has previously published on medieval social and religious history.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos

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Wang Yi, Hannah Nation ed., "Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement" (IVP Academic, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 5 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In this important body of theology, key writings from the Chinese house church movement have been compiled, translated, and made accessible to English speakers. The documents in Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement (IVP Academic, 2022) give readers an inside look at how the unregistered churches of China have endured despite government pressure and cultural marginalization. Wang Yi, the primary writer, is the pastor of a house church in Chengdu, China. He is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for refusing to comply with People’s Republic of China (PRC) regulations regarding church registration. There are also works by prominent voices such as Jin Tianming, Jin Mingri, and Sun Yi.

In our conversation, editor Hannah Nation proves to be an engaging and appreciative guide to these leaders’ theological, political and pastoral perspectives which are both uniquely Chinese and rooted in the historical doctrines of the Christian faith.

Dave Broucek is a lifelong student of and participant in the global mission of the church. He values research into the lesser-understood aspects of mission (singular) and missions (plural) as well as scholarship that addresses the big questions of mission theory and practice.

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Jonathon Stuart Wright, "Joseph and Aseneth After Antiquity: A Study in Manuscript Transmission" (de Gruyter, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Joseph and Aseneth: A Study in Manuscript Transmission (de Gruyter, 2025) expands a few verses from the book of Genesis into a novella-length work. It is increasingly used as a source for Judaism and Christianity at the turn of the Common Era. Scholarly attention has largely focused the work's provenance, the priority of a longer or shorter text version, and the implications for interpretation. But few have engaged with the work's manuscript witness and transmission.

This study returns to the sources. It considers how the redaction and translation of Joseph and Aseneth affected its interpretation, and looks at the interests of the redactors and copyists. Its findings warn against placing too much weight on details that lack such an importance in the manuscript tradition.

Important contributions made in this monograph include: a detailed study of the two earliest versions, the Syriac and Armenian translations; focus on the Greek manuscripts of the three longest families (f, Mc, a); analysis of four abridged versions (family d, E, Latin 1 and so-called "early modern Greek"); the first available synoptic edition of the Greek versions of the story, including the first edition of manuscript E.

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Abeneazer G. Urga et al., "Reading James Missiologically: The Missionary Motive, Message, and Methods of James" (William Carey, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

While books on a New Testament theology of mission abound, most of them focus on tried-and-true Scripture passages from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles while ignoring the contribution of the General Epistles. Reading James Missiologically: The Missionary Motive, Message, and Methods of James (William Carey, 2025) addresses this gap in missiological and biblical scholarship. Eighteen scholars and practitioners from a variety of nations and cultural backgrounds give a global perspective to James’s call to action among the poor. Their writing aims to inspire the church toward holistic engagement with the world as “doers of the word, not hearers only.” Reading James Missiologically is part of a series that includes Reading Hebrews Missiologically, Reading 1 Peter Missiologically, soon-to-be-released Reading Revelation Missiologically and other projected volumes.

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Jonathan Teubner, "Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Teubner, Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West (Oxford UP, 2025)

Through a unique blend of the personal and historiographical, Charity after Augustine is an exploration of why the Augustinian tradition’s attempts to build solidarity or social cohesion in the societies of the Latin West have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about justice. The conceit at the heart of the book is that the concrete practices of love or charity—almsgiving, works of mercy, good works—can tell us much about how religious leaders attempted to bind and hold communities together while also, in fits and starts with some startling reversions, attempting to expand the community and incorporate others. The first part probes the ways Augustine’s understanding of love is put into practice and how this understanding informs a tradition of political action inspired by Christian concepts of love and enacted through practices of charity. In a second, more expansive part, the book turns to the ways in which the Benedictine tradition as illustrated by Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux receives this vision, invigorates it with new visions of care and leadership, and puts it into practice in radically different contexts from those of Augustine’s age. At the heart of Charity after Augustine is an attempt to find a non-idealized vision of love that can inform thick, meaningful relations within a community that are not diluted by the inclusion of others

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Jonathan D. Teubner is a Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. This book is something of a sequel to his first, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition.

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

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Candace Lukasik, "Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Coptic Orthodox Christians comprise the largest Christian community in the Middle East and are among the oldest Christian communities in the world. While once the objects of American missionary efforts, in recent years Copts have been in the spotlight for their Christianity. A spate of ISIS-related bombings and attacks have garnered worldwide attention, leading to a series of efforts from US politicians, think tanks, and NGOs to re-channel their efforts into “saving” these Middle Eastern Christians from Muslims. The increased targeting of Copts has also contributed to the moral imaginary of the “Persecuted Church,” particularly among American evangelicals, which embraces the idea that Christians around the globe are currently being persecuted more than any other time in history.

Drawing on years of extensive fieldwork among Coptic migrants between Egypt and the United States, Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire (NYU Press, 2025) examines how American religious imaginaries of global Christian persecution have remapped Coptic collective memory of martyrdom. Transnational Copts have navigated the sociopolitical conditions in Egypt and the global consequences of the US “war on terror” by translating their suffering into the ambiguous forms of religious and political visibility. Candace Lukasik argues that the commingling of American conservatives and Copts has shaped a new kind of Christian kinship in blood, operating through a double movement between glorification and racialization. Occupying a position between threat and victim, Copts from the Middle East have been subject to anti-terror surveillance in the US even as they have leveraged their roles as “persecuted Christians.” Through Lukasik’s careful examination of the everyday processes shaping Coptic communal formation, Martyrs and Migrants broadly reveals how ideologies of spiritual kinship are forged through theological histories of martyrdom and of blood, demonstrating the global dynamics and imperial politics of contemporary Christianity.

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Stefanie Lenk, "Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 9 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Christianity is often considered prevalent when it comes to defining the key values of late antique society, whereas 'feeling connected to the Roman past' is commonly regarded as an add-on for cultivated elites.

Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) demonstrates the significant impact of popular Roman culture on the religious identity of common Christians from the fifth to the seventh century in the Mediterranean world. Baptism is central to the formation of Christian identity. The decoration of baptisteries reveals that traditional Roman culture persisted as an integral component of Christian identity in various communities. In their baptisteries, Christians visually and spatially evoked their links to Roman and, at times, even pagan traditions. A close examination of visual and material sources in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and Italy shows that baptisteries served roles beyond mere conduits to Christian orthodoxy.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Stefanie Lenk is a postdoc the university of Göttingen, and she’s held other postdocs and fellowship at the Universities of Bern and Hamburg. And she, along with Jaś Elsner, was Curator at the Ashmolean’s of the international exhibition “Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Girolamo Zanchi, "Confession of the Christian Religion" (Reformation, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In response to the Lutheran Formula of Concord, representatives of Reformed churches commissioned Girolamo Zanchi to draft a confession of faith acceptable to all Reformed churches. Zanchi patterned his Confession of the Christian Religion after the Apostles' Creed, giving it a broadly Trinitarian and redemptive-historical structure that emphasizes God's saving work for His people in His incarnate Son. It is a synthesis of his exegetical, doctrinal, and pastoral interests and stands out among his numerous publications as a useful and accessible overview of the entire Reformed theological system of doctrine. Although the project never attained confessional status at the ecclesiastical level as was planned, Zanchi's Confession proved influential in both the Reformed theological tradition generally and the development of Reformed dogmatics in particular.

Patrick J. O’Banion (PhD, Saint Louis University) is a historian, translator, and author of several books, most recently Girolamo Zanchi’s The Spiritual Marriage between Christ and His Church and Every One of the Faithful (Reformation Heritage Books, 2021). He teaches with Training Leaders International.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Sven Trakulhun, "Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 1 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Siam had been dealing with Christian missionaries for centuries, but from the 1830s a new wave of Protestant missionaries began to work in Siam, just as the European imperial powers were encroaching on Southeast Asia. They brought with them modern science and technology, which was of interest to the Siamese elite, but at the same time they challenged Siam’s official Theravada Buddhist religious tradition. Coincidentally, a reform movement in Siamese Buddhism got underway in the 1830s, led by Prince, later King, Mongkut (r.1851-68), then still a monk. The missionaries were largely unsuccessful in converting Thais to Christianity, but to what extent did the new Protestant Christianity influence the Buddhist reform movement?

This is the question that Sven Trakulhun seeks to answer in his new book, Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand (U Hawaii Press, 2024).

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Stephen Okey, "A Theology of Conversation: An Introduction to David Tracy" (Liturgical Press, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 25 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Sometimes described as "a theologian's theologian," David Tracy's scholarship has impacted countless thinkers around the globe. The complexity of his thought, however, has often made engaging his work into a daunting challenge. Combining analysis of the most influential features of Tracy's theology (theological method, the religious classic, public theology) with a retrieval of his more overlooked interests (Christology, God), Stephen Okey presents the essential themes of Tracy's career in accessible and insightful prose.

You can two interviews with David Tracy here and here.

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Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger, "Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies" (de Gruyter, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms, and healing invocations. The volume makes available a rich set of evidence of everyday concerns of love, justice, strife, and health in late ancient Egypt to readers outside of the niche community of scholars of Coptic language. You will discover ancient ritual texts including instructions for healing bowels, a formula for sleep, a spell request for a good singing voice, and a love spell for attracting the attention of a crush in a one-sided romance. You will also find a curious assemblage of divine names and a list of material objects necessary for offerings that suggest need for ingredients like sweat of a bee, foam from the mouth of a horse, frog blood, incense, or different types of plant matter. For scholars interested in history of late ancient Egypt, history of Christianities, Manichaeism, Coptic language, esoterica and magic in late antiquity, material culture, or manuscripts this monograph will provide an important resource for the study and expansion of the vocabularies, grammars, and material practices of ancient rituals.

Korshi Dosoo is is currently co-Principal Investigator of the “Corpus of Coptic Magical Formularies (CoMaF)” project based at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg.

Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Coptic at the University of Notre Dame and religious studies at Spelman College.

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Ryan Klejment-Lavin, "Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective" (American Society of Missiology, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The purpose of Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective (American Society of Missiology, 2024) is to describe how the North Korean refugee understanding of evil can shape missionary practice in the Korean Peninsula. The central research question guiding this study is, How do North Korean Christian refugees describe evil based on their lived experiences? Twelve North Korean Christian refugees were interviewed. The findings indicate that North Korean Christian refugees understand evil as the oppression of the vulnerable, primarily due to human activities, and as exemplified through governmental actions, human trafficking, and sexual violence. This study also discusses how North Korean refugees understand evil in light of theology, specifically teleology and theodicy, and explores how their understanding resonates with historic Christian beliefs in Korea. Analysis of the interviews provides practical implications for Christian ministry and theodicy as well as the sensitization of practitioners who work with North Korean refugees, specifically, to encourage practitioners to subvert the oppressive narratives that North Koreans are responsible for the evil that befalls them, and to be aware that refugees may have been traumatized by their own compatriots.

Dave Broucek is a career practitioner and student of the global mission of the church. He values research into the lesser-known aspects of missions as well as scholarship that addresses the big questions of mission theory and practice. He considers it a privilege to host authors such as Dr. Klejment-Lavin in order to introduce their work to a wider public.

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Toine van Teeffelen, "The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir (Wipf and Stock, 2024) is a narrative of a Christian family in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Based on diary entries and interviews from 2000 to 2023, the Dutch author--an anthropologist and peace activist--chronicles the spontaneous reactions of his Palestinian children and wife navigating the challenges posed by curfews and checkpoints. Problems of Palestinian school life are shown from the perspective of teachers and students. Against the background of Israeli occupation and settlement building, the intricacies of Palestinian culture in its daily rhythms and domestic spaces come to life. Throughout the pages, the key Palestinian concept of sumud, or steadfastness, is explored. The memoir details acts of creative nonviolent resistance, individual protests, affirmations of cultural identity, and inspiring examples of Muslim-Christian community. The book also reveals unexpected connections between Palestinian culture in the Bethlehem area and broader Christian values and traditions. An afterword reflects upon implications of Israel's war in Gaza.

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David G. Bonagura Jr, "100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today" (Sophia Institute, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

David Bonagura teaches classical languages and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and Catholic International University; he also teaches high school kids. He invited them to ask their questions about the faith, which led to some exciting classroom discussions and David’s new book—100 Tough Questions for Catholics—which we are talking about today.

David Bonagura’s website.
David Bonagura’s new book, 100 Tough Questions for Catholics .

David Bonagura’s previous appearance on Almost Good Catholics, episode 86: Jerome’s Tears: Death and Mourning in Christian Late Antiquity

Chris Odyniec and Jonathon Fessenden take on the question of theodicy on Almost Good Catholics, episode 58: The Book of Job: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

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Kirsten Macfarlane, "Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Early modernity has long been seen as a crucial period in the history of biblical scholarship, witnessing rapid advances in studies of Hebrew, Greek, and the ancient Jewish and Christian past. Historians have devoted much attention to how these developments were received by the academic and clerical elite, and yet there is little research on their reception beyond such exclusive circles. Some have even argued that ordinary believers had no interest in the demanding world of elite scholarship. According to current narratives, the Protestant laity were preoccupied by practical piety, scripture-reading, and devotional exercises, all of which were far removed from the dazzling polyglot erudition of the scholar.

Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Oxford University Press, 2024) offers an alternative account of popular religion in early modernity by reconstructing a striking and unstudied community of seventeenth-century puritan immigrants to North America. Composed of tradespeople without a university education, this community offers unparalleled evidence for lay engagement with even the most abstruse and challenging concerns of contemporaneous biblical scholarship. Drawing on whatever resources they could find, this group taught themselves the languages of biblical criticism; immersed themselves in the most specialized questions of controversial theology; and then promulgated, through their hard-earned learning, an unprecedentedly inclusive vision of education, society, and the church. By recovering their lives and interests, this book presents a new vision of lay puritanism in the Atlantic world, one marked by far greater ambition, critical thought, and intellectual boldness than ever before suspected.

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Julia McClure, "Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Julia McClure examines how changing concepts of poverty in the long-sixteenth century helped shape the deep structures of states and empires and the contours of imperial inequalities. While poverty is often understood to have become a political subject with the birth of political economy in the eighteenth century, this book points to the longer history of poverty as a political subject and a more complicated relationship between moral and political economies. It focuses upon the critical transformations taking place in the long-sixteenth century, with the emergence of the world´s first global empire and the development of colonial capitalism.

The book explores how the 'moral-political economy of poverty' - defined as a new and changing conceptualisation of and approach to poverty, across laws, institutions, and acts of resistance - played a critical role in the development and governance of the Spanish Empire. In so doing it offers insights into the negotiated nature of sovereignty, the construction of inequalities, and strategies of resistance. Empire of Poverty explains how the combined processes of the transition to global capitalism and imperialism in the long-sixteenth century wrought a moral crisis which led to the transformation of poverty and reconceptualization of the poor and how the newly emerging beliefs, laws, and institutions of poverty helped structure the inequalities of the new global order.

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Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 20 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendentalism - and the different ways they made monarchy sacred. Please listen to his interview on that book on the New Books Network!

This ambitious and innovative companion volume Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450–1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2024) tests and substantiates this approach using case studies from Kongo (1480–1530), Japan (1560–1614), Ayutthaya (Thailand, 1660–1690) and Hawaii (1800–1830). Through in-depth analysis of key turning points in the careers of warlords, chiefs and kings, a tapestry of unique characters and stories is brought to light. However, these examples ultimately demonstrate that global patterns of conversion can be established to illuminate the religious geography of the world today.

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Richard Calis, "The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius" (Harvard UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 19 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In the late sixteenth century, a German Lutheran scholar named Martin Crusius compiled an exceptionally rich record of Greek life under Ottoman rule. Although he never left his home in the university town of Tübingen, Crusius spent decades annotating books and manuscripts, corresponding with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, and interviewing Greek Orthodox alms-seekers. Ultimately, he gathered his research into a seminal work called the Turcograecia, which served for centuries as Europe’s foremost source on Ottoman Greece. Yet as Richard Calis reveals, Crusius’s massive—and largely untapped—archive has much more to tell us about how early modern Europeans negotiated cultural and religious difference.

In particular, Crusius’s work illuminates Western European views of the religious “other” within Christianity: the Greek Orthodox Christians living under Ottoman rule, a group both familiar and foreign. Many Western Europeans, including Crusius, developed narratives of Greek cultural and religious decline under Ottoman rule. Crusius’s records, however, reveal in exceptional detail how such stories developed. His interactions with his Greek Orthodox visitors, and with a vast network of correspondents, show that Greeks’ own narratives of hardship entwined in complex ways with Western Europeans’ orientalist views of the Ottoman world. They also reflect the religious tensions that undergirded these exchanges, fueled by Crusius’s fervent desire to spread Lutheran belief across Ottoman Greece and the wider world.

A lively intellectual history drawn from a forgotten archive, The Discovery of Ottoman Greece (Harvard UP, 2025) is also a perceptive character study, in which Crusius takes his place in the history of ethnography, Lutheran reform, and European philhellenism.

Richard Calis is an Assistant Professor in Cultural History at Utrecht University, who specializes in the history of science and intellectual history

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Timothy A. Lee, "The Syriac Peshiṭta Bible: The New Testament" (Gorgias Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 17 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

This is the first Syriac reader for the New Testament. It guides the reader through the Syriac New Testament Peshitta, glossing the uncommon words and parsing difficult word forms. It is designed for two groups of people. First, for students learning Syriac after a years’ worth of study this series provides the material to grow in reading ability from the primary texts. Second, this series is designed for scholars, linguists, theologians, and curious lay people looking to refresh their Syriac, or use them in preparation for their work of study, and teaching.

The Syriac Peshiṭta Bible: The New Testament (Gorgias Press, 2023) immerses the reader in the biblical texts in order to build confidence reading Classical Syriac as quickly as possible. To achieve this, all uncommon words that occur fewer than 25 times in the Syriac New Testament are glossed as footnotes. This enables the beginner or intermediate student to continue reading every passage unhindered. Therefore, this book complements traditional language grammars and is especially ideal for beginner and intermediate students learning to read Syriac. However, even advanced readers will appreciate the glossing of the occasional rare word.

Other features include:

Maps from the New Testament period with Syriac place names
Paradigm charts of Syriac nouns and verbs
A glossary of all the words not glossed below the text

The base text is the Antioch Bible which includes the Peshitta for the canonical Syriac books, and later translations (probably Philoxenian) for the rest which makes this ideal for readers.

For listeners who are interested in buying this tool for themselves, Gorgias has offered a 10% discount code for listeners of this podcast through the end of May 2025. If you order through the Gorgias website, simply enter the discount code NBNNTR10% at checkout. The book can be purchased from Gorgias here.

A preview of the book can be found here.

Timothy A. Lee is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on textual criticism of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, biblical interpretation, ancient history, and theology. Some of his work is published in journals such as Revue de Qumran, Textus, the Journal of Septuagint and Cognate Studies, and Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha. He has three previous degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Durham.

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Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675" (Cornell UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of witchcraft in everyday life in early modern Navarra. Belief in witchcraft not only emerged in moments of mass panic but was woven into the fabric of village life. Some villagers believed witches sickened crops and cows with poisonous powders, others thought they engaged in diabolism and perverted sex, and still others believed they lovingly raised toads used to commit evil deeds. Most villagers, however, simply saw witches as those with reputations of being mala cristianas—bad Christians. Dr. Rojas illuminates the social webs of accusations and the pathways of village gossip that created the conditions for the witch beliefs and trials of the period.

While studies of witchcraft in Spain tend to focus on the inquisitorial trials and witch panic of 1609–14, Bad Christians and Hanging Toads turns to witch trials conducted by the region's secular judiciary, Navarra's royal tribunals, tracing the prosecution of accused witches over 150 years. Using detailed evidence from trial records and neighbors' testimonies, Dr. Rojas vividly brings to life the women and men crafted as witches by their neighbors and the authorities and guides readers through the judicial process, from accusations and the examination of the evidence to sentencing and punishment.

By privileging the voices of villagers throughout, Bad Christians and Hanging Toads demonstrates that the inner logic of early modern European witchcraft trials can be understood only by examining of the local, everyday aspects of witch belief.

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Robert F. Darden and Stephen M. Newby, "Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Gospel singer and seven-time Grammy winner Andraé Crouch (1942-2015) hardly needs introduction. His compositions--"The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power," "Through It All," "My Tribute (To God be the Glory)," "Jesus is the Answer," "Soon and Very Soon," and others--remain staples in modern hymnals, and he is often spoken of in the same "genius" pantheon as Mahalia Jackson, Thomas Dorsey and the Rev. James Cleveland. As the definitive biography of Crouch published to date, Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch (Oxford University Press, 2025) celebrates the many ways that his legacy indelibly changed the course of gospel and popular music.

10 Songs chosen by the authors:

The Blood (Will Never Lose Its Power)
I’ve Got Confidence
My Tribute (to God be the Glory)
Satisfied
Bless His Holy Name
Take Me Back
Soon and Very Soon
Bless His Holy Name
Jesus is the Answer
Just Like He Said He Would

Robert F. Darden is Emeritus Professor of Journalism at Baylor University and the founder of the Black Gospel Music Preservation Project. He is the author of more than two dozen books and former Gospel Music Editor for Billboard magazine.

Stephen M. Newby holds the Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship as Professor of Music and serves as Ambassador for Black Gospel Music Preservation at Baylor University.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Claire McNulty, "Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660" (Routledge, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660 (Routledge, 2024) examines experiences of church discipline across parish communities through Edinburgh and its environs. The book argues that experiences of discipline were not universal, varying according to any number of factors such as age, gender, marital status, and social rank.

Adopting a case study approach, the book illuminates the voices of ordinary women as they appeared before their local kirk session (church court) where they navigated the church court system to settle neighbourly disputes, negotiate marriage contracts, or free their husbands from allegations of adultery. Edinburgh's Unruly Women argues that in the context of a deeply patriarchal society, experiences of discipline could not have been universal, but that in creating this strict culture of self-monitoring, the Church created opportunities for women to express power over one another, and indeed, over their male contemporaries.

By placing female parishioners at the heart of the book, filled with individual case studies, Edinburgh's Unruly Women appeals to students and scholars of early modern women, religion, and gender more broadly, and to those with more specialist interest in both ecclesiastical discipline and the history of early modern Scotland in the localities.

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Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 12 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?
The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.
In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract.

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Art and Its Holy Object (with Steve Auth)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 10 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

For the transcendental and numinous things, sometimes there are no words. But art—paintings, sculpture, music, film—can knock us sideways a little and help us see something, or understand a fleeting meaning, a dream we’ve woken from, that we try to hang onto.

He was a successful Wall Street investment guy for decades, but he had a deep love of art and art history; after brush with death and a re-conversion to his Catholic faith, Stev Auth applied both of those gifts in service of his lay apostolate of evangelization. Today we talk about his new book—Visions of the Divine: An Artistic Journey into the Mystery of the Eucharist (Sophia, 2025)—and how Our Creator speaks to us through his artists, his creative creatures, on Almost Good Catholics.

The book is filled with colorful photographs of inspiring masterpieces but small enough to carry with you to the museum or to read under a tree in the park. You can also read it with your computer at hand to look up the paintings online and magnify them as you read along with Steve’s conversational narrative (which is mostly how I read it).

Steve Auth’s book, Visions of the Divine (Sophia Press, 20205)
Steve Auth at the Regnum Christi website
Steve Auth at the Lumen website
Steve Auth’s video series Pilgrimage to the Museum at EWTN.

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Stephanie Schmidt, "Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain: Missionary Narratives, Nahua Perspectives" (U Texas Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 9 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A cornerstone of the evangelization of early New Spain was the conversion of Nahua boys, especially the children of elites. They were to be emissaries between Nahua society and foreign missionaries, hastening the transmission of the gospel. Under the tutelage of Franciscan friars, the boys also learned to act with militant zeal. They sermonized and smashed sacred objects. Some went so far as to kill a Nahua religious leader. For three boys from Tlaxcala, the reprisals were just as deadly.

In Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain (University of Texas Press, 2025), Dr. Stephanie Schmidt sheds light on a rare manuscript about Nahua child converts who were killed for acts of zealotry during the late 1520s. This is the Nahuatl version of an account by an early missionary-friar, Toribio de Benavente Motolinía. To this day, Catholics venerate the slain boys as Christian martyrs who suffered for their piety. Yet Franciscan accounts of the boys' sacrifice were influenced by ulterior motives, as the friars sought to deflect attention from their missteps in New Spain. Illuminating Nahua perspectives on this story and period, Schmidt leaves no doubt as to who drove this violence as she dramatically expands the knowledgebase available to students of colonial Latin America.

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Katherine Stewart, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Today, and for the past several years, many people both here and abroad have been trying to make sense of the radical right and its financial and ideological grip on the Republican party. Why is it that so many Americans have turned against democracy? What explains the authoritarian reaction of so many American citizens, even when that reaction works so directly against their basic interests? How is it that this anti-democratic trend has escaped the explanatory frameworks of pundits and scholars alike? Perhaps we need to re-frame the narrative about the MAGA movement and the various constituencies that have somehow conspired to undermine democratic values and replace them with radical libertarian principles joined by theocratic, White nationalist, and anti-intellectual ideals.

Addressing these concerns, Katherine Stewart has written Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (Bloomsbury Press, 2025).

Casting a light on the religious right’s “Funders, Thinkers, Sergeants, Infantry, and Power Players,” Stewart recounts her effort “to record what I have seen and heard from the leaders and supporters of the antidemocratic movement in the auditoriums and breakout rooms at national conferences, around the table at informal gatherings of activists, in the living rooms of the rank and file, and in the pews of hard-line churches. The story features a rowdy mix of personalities: ‘apostles’ of Jesus, atheist billionaires, reactionary Catholic theologians, pseudo-Platonic intellectuals, woman-hating opponents of ‘the gynocracy,’ high-powered evangelical networkers, Jewish devotees of Ayn Rand, pronatalists preoccupied with a dearth of (White) babies, COVID truthers, and battalions of ‘spirit warriors’ who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about undermining democracy at its foundations.” Over and against the idea that religion is a relatively insignificant factor in the rise of the radical political right, Stewart makes plain how Christian nationalism is “front and center” in the effort to solidify the power of the MAGA movement and Donald Trump’s presidency.

Richard B. Miller is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Emeritus Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Chicago. He previously taught in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University where he also served as Director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions. The author of numerous articles and books, the most of which is Why Study Religion? (NY: Oxford University Press, 2021). Bluesky.

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Nancy M. Rourke, "Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model" (Georgetown UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The images we use to think about moral character are powerful. They inform our understanding of the moral virtues and the ways in which moral character develops. However, this aspect of virtue ethics is rarely discussed.
In Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model (Georgetown UP, 2024) , Nancy M. Rourke creates an ecological model through which we can form images of moral character. She integrates concepts of ecology with Aquinas' vision and describes the dynamics of a moral character in terms of the processes and functions that take place in an ecosystem. The virtues, the passions, the will, and the intellect, are also described in terms of this model.
Ecological Moral Character asks readers to choose deliberately the models we use to imagine moral character and offers this ecological virtue model as a vital framework for a period of environmental crisis.

Sam Young is a recent PhD graduate from Cardiff University and now independent scholar, specialising in the theological history of French social Catholicism during the 1920s and 1930s.

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Astrid von Schlachta, "Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century" (Pandora Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 6 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Anabaptists, alongside the Lutheran and Reformed churches, were the third major current in the sixteenth century Reformation movements. From their beginnings, the Anabaptists were highly diverse and yet they shared some central beliefs and practices for which they were quickly persecuted – for example, defenselessness and nonresistance, the refusal to swear oaths, and the separation of church and state. Ideal for both teachers and students, this book provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the history and development of the Anabaptists, alongside the Mennonite, Hutterite, and Amish traditions that emerged from their movement.

Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century (Pandora Press, 2024) shows the cultural diversity of the Anabaptists over five centuries as they moved between persecution and toleration, isolation and social integration, and traditionalization and renewal. Amidst these tensions, the Anabaptist story is told here anew based on the current state of the field on the eve of its 500-year anniversary. Written by an established scholar of Anabaptist history, and expertly translated into English by Victor Thiessen, this comprehensive study appears in the Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies series, edited by Maxwell Kennel, and published by Pandora Press.

Maxwell Kennel is Senior Research Fellow with the Canadian Institute for Far-Right Studies (CIFRS), Director of Pandora Press, and Pastor at the Hamilton Mennonite Church.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Donald S. Prudlo, "Governing Perfection" (St. Augustine's Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

"In the beginning, God administrated." For as Donald Prudlo observes, "There can be no achievement without administration." In this book he seeks to restore the idea that while administration is necessary even in the institutional Church, holiness is not only possible for those charged with governance, but is a fulfillment and type of Christus Rector omnium, or "Christ, Ruler of all." Scrutinizing the relevant thought of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Thomas Aquinas, and Nietzsche, among others, Prudlo pursues the notion of order in governance and confronts both the bloat of bureaucracy and the "intoxicating nature of power." How can men and women who strive to live out humility and holiness likewise establish and participate in the structures that wield the powers of governance?

Four early popes are given close attention for their respective administrations: Damasus I, Leo I, Gelasius I, and Gregory I. Emphasis is also given to the specific administrative genius that emerges from the monastic orders, including the 'Pachomian solution' and the Benedictine Rule.

Governing Perfection (St. Augustine's Press, 2024) is an important contribution to the history of the papacy and origins of the modern-day Roman Curia, ecclesiology and its relevance to legal ordering, and administration within governance as affected by multiple legal and cultural traditions. It is a masterful presentation that provides both the framework and reflection needed to inspire true perfection the in administrative forum. The relevance and force of Prudlo's Governing Perfection makes it a choice follow-up to his recent translation of Bartholomew of the Martyr's classic, Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors (2022).

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Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000

How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in other words, does utopia look like in black?

These questions animate Aaron Robertson’s exploration of Black Americans' efforts to remake the conditions of their lives. Writing in the tradition of Saidiya Hartman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robertson makes his way from his ancestral hometown of Promise Land, Tennessee, to Detroit—the city where he was born, and where one of the country’s most remarkable Black utopian experiments got its start. Founded by the brilliant preacher Albert Cleage Jr., the Shrine of the Black Madonna combined Afrocentric Christian practice with radical social projects to transform the self-conception of its members. Central to this endeavor was the Shrine’s chancel mural of a Black Virgin and child, the icon of a nationwide liberation movement that would come to be known as Black Christian Nationalism. The Shrine’s members opened bookstores and co-ops, created a self-defense force, and raised their children communally, eventually working to establish the country’s largest Black-owned farm, where attempts to create an earthly paradise for Black people continues today.

Alongside the Shrine’s story, Robertson reflects on a diverse array of Black utopian visions, from the Reconstruction era through the countercultural fervor of the 1960s and 1970s and into the present day. By doing so, Robertson showcases the enduring quest of collectives and individuals for a world beyond the constraints of systemic racism.

The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America (FSG, 2024) offers a nuanced portrait of the struggle for spaces—both ideological and physical—where Black dignity, protection, and nourishment are paramount. This book is the story of a movement and of a world still in the making—one that points the way toward radical alternatives for the future.

The Black Utopians is a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History.

Kishauna Soljour is an Assistant Professor of Public Humanities at San Diego State University. Her most recent writing appears in the edited collection: From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle.

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Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 3 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate.

From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy. In this powerful new history of the era, acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East and the Crusades Simon Mayall focuses on some of the most significant clashes of arms in human history: the taking and retaking of Jerusalem and the collapse of the Crusader states; the fall of Constantinople; the sieges of Rhodes and Malta; the assault on Vienna and the 'high-water mark' of Ottoman advance into Europe; culminating in the Allied capture of Jerusalem in World War I, the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the dissolution of the sultanate and the caliphate, and the formation of modern Europe and the modern Middle East.

The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate (Bloomsbury, 2024) offers a wide, sweeping narrative, encompassing the broad historical and religious context of this period, while focussing on some of the key, pivotal sieges and battles, and on the protagonists, political and military, who determined their conclusions and their consequences.

Simon Mayall is a former soldier in the British Army, and an acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East, and of the Crusades. Much of his 40-year professional career was focussed on the Middle East, and he has strong family and academic interests in the region. His last appointments were as the British Government's Defence Senior Adviser for the Middle East, and the Prime Minister's Security Envoy to Iraq and the Kurdish Region.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Miles Pattenden, "Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700" (Oxford UP, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 2 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released in paperback. This study offers a radical reassessment of the history of early modern papacy, constructed through the first major analytical treatment of papal elections in English. Papal elections, with their ceremonial pomp and high drama, are compelling theater, but, until now, no one has analyzed them on the basis of the problems they created for cardinals: how were they to agree rules and enforce them? How should they manage the interregnum? How did they decide for whom to vote? How was the new pope to assert himself over a group of men who, until just moments before, had been his equals and peers? This study traces how the cardinals' responses to these problems evolved over the period from Martin V's return to Rome in 1420 to Pius VI's departure from it in 1798, placing them in the context of the papacy's wider institutional developments. Miles Pattenden argues not only that the elective nature of the papal office was crucial to how papal history unfolded but also that the cardinals of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries present us with a unique case study for observing the approaches to decision-making and problem-solving within an elite political group. We also talk about the process in light of the upcoming Conclave and the election of a new pope.

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Timothy Twining, "The Limits of Erudition: The Old Testament in Post-Reformation Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 1 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The history of early modern biblical scholarship has often been told as a teleological narrative in which a succession of radical thinkers dethroned the authority of the sacred word. The Limits of Erudition: The Old Testament in Post-Reformation Europe (Cambridge UP, 2024) tells a very different story.

Drawing on a mass of archival sources, Timothy Twining reconstructs the religious, cultural, and institutional contexts in which the text of the Old Testament was considered and contested throughout post-Reformation Europe. In so doing, this book brings to light a vast array of figures from across the confessional spectrum who invested immense energy in studying the Bible. Their efforts, it shows, were not disinterested, but responded to pressing contemporary concerns. The Limits of Erudition employs a novel conceptual framework to resurrect a world where learning mattered to inquisitors and archbishops as much as to antiquaries, and in which the pursuit of erudition was too important to be left to scholars.

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Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, "Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts" (Eerdmans, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early Christian texts. Yet enslavement remains an under-taught aspect of the context of the New Testament and early Christianity, leaving pastors, laypersons, and neophyte college students alike to fill knowledge gaps about enslaved persons, enslavers, living and laboring conditions, and much more with partial information, assumptions, or a range of highly technical and specialized monographs.

Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts (Eerdmans, 2025), co-edited by Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, takes on these issues, introducing readers to the textures, complexities, and material realities of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. International scholars with a range of expertise, from New Testament and early Christian studies to classics, theology, ethics, and more, contribute to a tapestry of introductory themes, topics, and interpretive frameworks with a wealth of literary, inscriptional, pictorial, and theoretical evidence from the material culture of Roman antiquity in this significant volume. Dr. Cobb and Dr. Shaner joined the New Books Network to initiate important conversations that they hope will continue in religious studies classrooms, schools of theology and divinity, and local church small group settings.

Christy Cobb (Ph.D., Drew University, 2016) is Associate Professor of Christianity at the University of Denver. She is the author of Slavery, Gender, Truth and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and has also co-edited a volume entitled Sex, Violence, and Early Christian Texts (Lexington Books, 2022). Dr. Cobb is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and her research and teaching interests include slavery, gender, sexuality, Acts, and Apocryphal Acts. In her recreational time, Christy enjoys reading novels, crafts, and spending time with her nine-year-old son in Denver.

Katherine A. Shaner (Th.D., Harvard University Divinity School, 2012) is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) as well as numerous articles on slavery in the New Testament. Dr. Shaner is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and regularly preaches and teaches in churches around the United States. In her free time, Katherine enjoys hiking in the mountains, reading historical fiction, cooking dinner for friends and spending time with snuggly dogs.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Donald S. Prudlo, "Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The work of St. Bartholomew of Braga, O.P. (1514-1590) appears here in English for the first time despite its long and enduring influence in ecclesiastical circles. His meditations on the office of pastor have provided critical insight bishops since their initial circulation and have helped form the most famous among them, including Bartholomew's proteges Charles Borromeo. Pope Paul VI ordered a copy of Bartholomew's work to be distributed among the Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council. Donald Prudlo's translation--Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)--situates St. Bartholomew of the Martyrs in his historical context as a lynchpin of Catholic Reform and affirms him as a figurehead of pastoral administration even in our own times.

A beautiful read, and Don discusses why every new bishop should have a copy, and every cardinal entering the conclave should keep Bartholomew's counsel in his discernment.

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John Van Maaren, "The Gospel of Mark's Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many" (Mohr Siebeck, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Does the Gospel of Mark reflect a post-Jewish, Gentile Christianity? Perhaps not. John Van Maaren says the Gospel of Mark should be read as an expression of first-century Judaism.

Tune in as we speak with John Van Maaren about his recent book, The Gospel of Mark’s Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many (Mohr Siebeck, 2025).

John Van Maaren earned his PhD from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (2019), and is currently FWF ESPRIT postdoctoral fellow, University of Vienna, Austria.

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Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration.

Why did these erstwhile foes end their schism and begin to make peace?

In this riveting study, Udi Greenberg shows that ecumenism grew out of a shared desire to protect against perceived threats to Christian life.

The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s (Harvard UP, 2025) overturns conventional wisdom about this revolutionary change by showing that the cause was not growing mutual tolerance but solidarity against the threats of socialism, feminism, and liberation movements.

By working together Christians could defend their dominance in European life by maintaining and reinforcing the inequality inherent in Christian hierarchical order.

Peacemaking between the confessions was accelerated by the rise of the Nazis, when Christian denominations debated their relations to each other and to nationalism, and was further pressed by the Cold War and decolonization, when Catholic and Protestant authorities formally declared each other "brethren in faith".

Working together, Catholics and Protestants designed Europe's economic policies, regulated its sexual practices, and shaped postwar relationships with the Global South. This coalition of Christians has grown more cohesive over time as they leveraged their alliance to maintain influence across a politically fractured Europe.

Listen to the New Books Network interview with Udi Greenberg about The Weimar Century: German Emigres and the Ideological Foundation of the Cold War

Author recommended reading: The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany's Twentieth Century by Dagmar Herzog

Hosted by Meghan Cochran

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Las G. Newman, "To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century" (Langham, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Christian mission in the modern era has generally been conceptualized as a Western endeavor: “from the West to the rest.” The rise and explosive growth of world Christianity has challenged this narrative, emphasizing Christian mission as “from everywhere to everywhere.” Dr. Las Newman contributes to this revitalized perspective, interrogating our understanding of modern missions history by drawing attention to the role of African West Indians in the spread of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa.

This comparative study of three nineteenth-century missionary expeditions critiques common narratives around West Indian involvement in the missionary enterprise. In To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century (Langham, 2024), Dr. Newman proposes that far from being misguided adventurers or nostalgic exiles, African West Indians were fueled by a quest for emancipation that was birthed in the crucible of Caribbean slave society. Acting as agents of the Western missionary enterprise, they nevertheless shaped an understanding of Christian mission as a force for justice and freedom that carried with it personal, religious, and socio-political implications. Dr. Newman argues that it was this conception, embraced and championed by African West Indians, that enabled the missionary project in Western Africa to survive, flourish, and ultimately take firm root in African soil. This study questions historical interpretations of the Western missionary endeavor, exploring the pivotal role of native agents in cross-cultural Christian mission and allowing readers to hear from marginalized voices as they tell their own stories of engagement, struggle, and liberation.

Dave Broucek is a former mission worker in the West Indies and a mission educator and mission administrator. As a lifelong learner in the field of global mission, he values authors who tell the lesser-known stories of mission history and who provide critical reflection on the practice of Christian mission. He considers it a privilege to host authors such as Dr. Newman in a project to disseminate their work to a wider public.

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Asa Simon Mittman, "Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England" (Penn State UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

From the battles over Jerusalem to the emergence of the “Holy Land,” from legally mandated ghettos to the Edict of Expulsion, geography has long been a component of Christian-Jewish relations. Attending to world maps drawn by medieval Christian mapmakers, Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England (Penn State University Press, 2024) by Dr. Asa Simon Mittman brings us to the literal drawing board of “Christendom” and shows the creation, in real time, of a mythic state intended to dehumanize the non-Christian people it ultimately sought to displace.

In his close analyses of English maps from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Asa Simon Mittman makes a valuable contribution to conversations about medieval Christian perceptions of Jews and Judaism. Grounding his arguments in the history of anti-Jewish sentiment and actions rampant in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England, Dr. Mittman shows how English world maps of the period successfully Othered Jewish people by means of four primary strategies: conflating Jews with other groups; spreading libels about Jewish bodies, beliefs, and practices; associating Jews with Satan; and, most importantly, cartographically “mislocating” Jews in time and space. On maps, Jews were banished to locations and historical moments with no actual connection to Jewish populations or histories.

Medieval Christian anti-Semitism is the foundation upon which modern anti-Semitism rests, and the medieval mapping of Jews was crucial to that foundation. Dr. Mittman’s thinking offers essential insights for any scholar interested in the interface of cartography, politics, and religion in premodern Europe.

Let's face it, most of the popular podcasts out there are dumb. NBN features scholars (like you!), providing an enriching alternative to students. We partner with presses like Oxford, Princeton, and Cambridge to make academic research accessible to all. Please consider sharing the New Books Network with your students. Download this poster here to spread the word.

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Patrick Schreiner, "The Ascension of Christ: Recovering a Neglected Doctrine" (Lexham Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The good news of Jesus includes his life, death, resurrection, and future return—but what about his ascension? Though often neglected or misunderstood, the ascension is integral to the gospel.

In The Ascension of Christ: Recovering a Neglected Doctrine (Lexham Press), Patrick Schreiner argues that Jesus’ work would be incomplete without his ascent to God’s right hand. Not only a key moment in the gospel story, Jesus’ ascension was necessary for his present ministry in and through the church.

Schreiner argues that Jesus’ residence in heaven marks a turning point in his three-fold offices of prophet, priest, and king. As prophet, Jesus builds the church and its witness. As priest, he intercedes before the Father. As king, he rules over all.

A full appreciation of the ascension is essential for understanding the Bible, Christian doctrine, and Christ’s ongoing work in the world.

Dr. Patrick Schreiner is Associate Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross and Matthew, Disciple and Scribe. Twitter: @pj_schreiner

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist theological seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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Shushma Malik, "The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm (Cambridge UP, 2020), Shushma Malik reconstructs the means by which the emperor Nero came to be identified with the New Testament's antichrist. Malik surveys the first four Christian centuries to show how Nero mythology developed, often in ways that were much more positive than we might expect, and how early Christians appropriated this tradition as an apologetic weapon, to demonstrate that their scriptures had in fact predicted the character of his reign. By the fifth century, this argument was less appealing, and largely dropped out of view among Christian expositors until its revival in the nineteenth century, by, among other writers, Oscar Wilde.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Katie Rose Hejtmanek, "The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon (NYU Press, 2025), Dr. Katie Rose Hejtmanek examines how this exercise program is shaped by American Christian values and practices, connecting American religious ideologies to secular institutions in contemporary American culture.

Drawing upon years of immersing herself in CrossFit gyms in the United States and across six continents, this book illustrates how US CrossFit operates using distinctly American codes, ranging from its intensity and patriarchal militarism to its emphasis on (white) salvation and the adoration of the hero and vigilante. Despite presenting itself as a secular space, Dr. Hejtmanek argues that CrossFit is both heavily influenced by and deeply intertwined with American Christian values. She makes the case that the Christianity that shapes CrossFit is the Christianity that shapes much of America, usually in ways we do not even notice. Offering a new cross-cultural perspective for understanding a popular workout, The Cult of CrossFit provides a window into a particularly American rendition of a Christian plotline, lived out one workout at a time.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Samuel Ross, "Qur’an Commentary and the Biblical Turn: A History of Muslim Exegetical Engagement with the Biblical Text" (de Gruyter, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Quran Commentary and the Biblical Turn (de Gruyter, 2024) examines the exegetical relationship between the Quran and the Bible in Islamic intellectual history. As the two have been called "intertwined scriptures" due to the Quran’s frequent invocation of biblical narratives and figures, a question is raised: what is the history of Muslims’ exegetical engagement with the biblical text? Through a survey of 179 Quran commentaries, the book establishes itself with foundations in the longitudinal history of the Bible in Quranic exegesis. From that point, the book offers detailed case studies and historical contextualisation of the history of the use of the Biblical text in Quranic commentaries, which culminated in a “Biblical turn” in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This Biblical Turn, which had global influences and impacts, did not only generate new Muslim views of the Bible but even new interpretations of the Quran itself.

Quran Commentary and the Biblical Turn makes interventions in several fields, including Quranic Studies and Biblical reception studies, as well as sub-fields of Islamic Studies focusing on tafsir and Islam in modernity. The book was awarded the BRAIS–De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World.

Samuel Ross is an Associate Professor at Texas Christian University in Dallas, Texas, USA.

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Faith Tibble, "Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings" (T&T Clark, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Jesus' Crown of Thorns has become one of the most ubiquitous features of Christian religious art, but was the original crown anything like the crown of popular medieval art and piety? The image conjured by art history is that of a bloodied, beaten Jesus, wearing a cruelly fashioned, woven crown made of sharp thorns. But this image is deeply misleading, based on a fundamental misunderstanding and possible mistranslation.

In The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings (Bloomsbury, 2025) Dr. Faith Tibble rectifies this misunderstanding, showing how The Crown of Thorns underwent a yet unrecognized artistic evolution. Dr. Tibble tracks the artistic progression of the Crown of Thorns from its first depiction in the 4th century, until the 11th century, when it begins to exhibit the artistic trends that are still recognizable today. In doing so, Dr. Tibble adds new perspective to our understanding of the ideologies associated with medieval Christianity - victory, humility, perseverance - and how those ideologies are exemplified in depictions of the Crown of Thorns. Dr. Tibble demonstrates the profound and unintended consequences of a simple misunderstanding of the Gospels, and examines an unexpected trajectory in European art.

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Jonathan Bryant, "Compassion and the Characterization of the Markan Jesus" (Brill, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Why does the Gospel of Mark make specific and repeated reference to the compassion of Jesus in the miracle stories? Compassion and the Characterization of the Markan Jesus (Brill, 2024) discusses the function that compassion has in the Markan characterization of Jesus, particularly in how the terminology employed depicts Jesus as entering the suffering of others. In doing so, it underscores how this portrayal is exceptional among the stories of miracle workers in ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish literature. In Mark, this compassion toward the suffering other is a central feature of the kingdom of God, an attribute the Markan audience is challenged to emulate.

Jonathan W. Bryant, Ph.D (2023), Loyola University Chicago, is Senior Editor of Bibles and Bible reference works at Tyndale House Publishers and is an ordained minister of The Wesleyan Church.

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Salve Regina (with Bishop Athanasius Schneider)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

“And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling [.…] And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (Mk 4: 37-41)

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, has identified the challenges of our age, “a new pagan society,” he calls it, and “anti-Christian”; others have said “post-Christian” or apostolic. Although the time is difficult, Bishop Schneider is not afraid. He tells us to pray and to have confidence in the power or the Rosary, its importance and efficacy. So, today we are talking about his new book, Salve Regina: A Rosary Crusade for Holy Popes (Sophia, 2025); he entreats us to petition God that He give us holy popes in the coming years, that the head may lead the body, as the church sails on into the unknown. He also talks about the traditions and history of the Rosary. We also talk about his remarkable life.

Bishop Schneider’s book, Salve Regina: A Rosary Crusade for Holy Popes
Bishop Schneider’s website, Gloria Dei
Bishop Schneider on Wikipedia

Another episode of Almost Good Catholics about the Rosary:

Annabelle Mosely on Almost Good Catholics, episode 12: Did God Just Wink? Seeing the Numinous All Around Us

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Nicholas J. Moore, "The Open Sanctuary: Access to God and the Heavenly Temple in the New Testament" (Baker Academic, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How can impure, earthbound humans gain access to God, who is holy and in heaven? In ancient Israel and much of the ancient world, the answer was obvious: by means of a temple.

Tune in as we talk with Nicholas Moore about his recent book, The Open Sanctuary: Access to God and the Heavenly Temple in the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2024), which explores how the heavenly temple emerged as an important theological concept for early Christians.

Nicholas Moore is Lecturer in New Testament at Cranmer Hall, St John’s College.

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Anna Maria Busse Berger and Henry Spiller, "Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 8 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Although the history of Indonesian music has received much attention from ethnomusicologists and Western composers alike, almost nothing has been written on the interaction of missionaries with local culture.

Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago (U California Press, 2025) represents the first attempt to concentrate on the musical dimension of missionary activities in Indonesia. In fourteen essays, a group of distinguished scholars show the complexity of the topic: while some missionaries did important scholarship on local music, making recordings and attempting to use local music in services, others tried to suppress whatever they found. Many were collaborating closely with anthropologists who admitted freely that they could not have done their work without them. And both parties brought colonial biases into their work. By grappling with these realities and records, this book is a collective effort to decolonize the project of making music histories.

Byung Ho Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in the History and Ecumenics program at Princeton Theological Seminary, concentrating in World Christianity and history of religions. His research focuses on the indigenous expressions of Christianities found in Southeast Asia, particularly Christianity that is practiced in the Muslim-dominant archipelagic nation of Indonesia. More broadly, he is interested in history and the anthropology of Christianity, complexities of religious conversion and social identity, inter-religious dialogue, ecumenism, and World Christianity.

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Richard Alfred Muller, "Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 7 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024), Dr. Richard A. Muller delves into one of the most controversial doctrines of Reformed Theology: predestination. Muller carefully investigates key incidents that illustrate the doctrine's complexity and development by surveying Reformed thought on predestination in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Along the way, Muller challenges distorted ideas about the placement of predestination in theological systems, naïve readings of Calvin based solely on his Institutes, simplistic representations of supra- and infralapsarian debates, and uncharitable views of Reformed theologians as hyper-dogmatists obsessed with their own tradition.

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Loretta Vandi, "Eufrasia Burlamacchi" (Getty Publications, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 6 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Eufrasia Burlamacchi (Getty Publications, 2025) by Dr. Loretta Vandi is a timely exploration of the skilful illuminated manuscripts of Sister Eufrasia Burlamacchi (1478–1548) demonstrates her artistry within this sometime neglected artistic medium. Within the convent walls of San Domenico in Lucca where she lived and worked, Burlamacchi attained high levels of artistic proficiency through her knowledge of drawing and colour technique, composition, treatment of space and proportions.

This book highlights that Sister Eufrasia was aware of the progress illumination underwent in contact with the artists we now include in the High Renaissance. She quickly established a style which she then passed on to younger sisters to establish a convent workshop where mutual exchange was the norm. Here, for the first time, Eufrasia Burlamacchi is recognized and discussed as an influential and gifted artist in her own right.

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Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 5 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate scoffed at Jesus (Jn 18:38), and that’s how we think about matters today in our culture—subjectively: my truth, your truth, etc. To make the argument that there is a knowable Truth (with a capital T) that is written in the world and in our bones, theologians Deborah Savage and Robert Fastiggi examine a selection of autobiographical accounts of ‘lived experience.’ They take a number of personal essays written by those who have erred from the path of Catholic social teaching and sexual morality—in the dark forest of the world, to borrow from Dante—and their subsequent disappointments and suffering. They examine these narratives through the anthropology of John Paul II and the authority of the physical and social sciences, including medical doctors. So, there is Good News for all of us: if we find ourselves lost and unhappy in our errant meanderings, the Church can bring us home. We can always choose, as God reminded Cain gently (Gen 4:7), “sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you may overcome it.”

Here is the book on the En Route Books website (which includes video links)here is the book on Amazon.com.
Deborah Savage’s website.
Robert Fastiggi’s website (as a theology professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary).
The article we refer to by Leah Fessler, “A Lot of Women Don’t Enjoy Hookup Culture—So Why Do We Force Ourselves to Participate?” Quartz Online, May 17, 2016.
Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI on Wikipedia and on the Vatican website.

Robert Fastiggi’s previous appearance on Almost Good Catholics, three years ago (recorded in February of 2022, on the eve of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine):

Robert Fastiggi on Almost Good Catholics, episode 7: Mother of All Nations: Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, Assumption, and Coronation of Mary

An episode of Almost Good Catholics on the same theme:

Garrett Johnson on Almost Good Catholics, episode 42: Who Do You Think You Are? Thorny Questions about Sex, Identity, and Catholic Doctrine.

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Jonathan Rauch, "Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy" (Yale UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Today I’m speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan’s book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Wafik W. Wahba, "Global Christianity and Islam: Exploring History, Politics, and Beliefs" (InterVarsity Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Together, the adherents of Christianity and Islam make up over half of the world's population, and their numbers are expected to keep growing. The influence of these two faiths—and their relations with each other—is seen in politics, economics, and social interactions. Religious identity and aspirations remain powerful and appealing to people around the world. Understanding global realities today requires understanding the histories and dynamics of the world’s largest religions.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Christianity and Islam, covering three interrelated areas:

historical developments and encounters,
the influence of religion on politics,
and religious beliefs and worldviews.

Wafik W. Wahba highlights key points of similarity and difference and particular factors that contributed to divergence between the Western world and the Muslim world. Exploring the various narratives that have shaped both Christianity and Islam, he argues, is crucial to understanding current trends in Christian-Muslim interactions and their impact on future relations between the two communities globally.

Drawing from decades of experience teaching around the world, Wahba clarifies core beliefs that influence the actions of Muslims and Christians and their attitudes toward the other faith. Global Christianity and Islam: Exploring History, Politics, and Beliefs (InterVarsity Press, 2025) demonstrates how learning from the past should help us avoid repeating mistakes in interactions between religious communities.

Dave Broucek, retired missionary, mission educator and mission administrator, is a lifelong learner in the field of global mission. He values authors who provide critical reflection on the history, theology and practice of Christian mission and considers it a privilege to host author interviews to disseminate their work to a wider public.

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Bruce L. Vernarde, "The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France" (Cornell UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Murder in a cathedral, horrific illnesses and deformities, narrow escapes from injury and death, a vengeful dragon, a wandering eyeball, a bawdy monk and other sinners redeemed—the accounts of miracles performed by the Virgin Mary gathered and translated in The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France (Cornell UP, 2024) provide vivid glimpses into medieval life and beliefs. Bruce L. Venarde provides fluent translations of the first five collections of Marian miracle narratives from France, written in the second quarter of the twelfth century and never before available in English.

The stories recorded in these collections—by Herman of Tournai; Hugh Farsit; Haimo of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives; John, son of Peter; and Gautier of Compiègne—offer descriptions of travel, living conditions, medical knowledge, conflict between and among lay and religious authorities, and the burgeoning cult of the Virgin Mary, which had only recently become important in Western Europe. Including notes, tables, and maps that orient and illuminate the texts, The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France makes these riveting tales available to readers seeking a view into the medieval past.

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Timothy A. Brookins, "Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Corinthians: Paul, Stoicism, and Spiritual Hierarchy" (Eerdmans, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The First Letter to the Corinthians begins with an admonishment of the church over their internal division and reliance on human wisdom. What exactly occasioned Paul’s advice has perennially troubled New Testament scholars. Many scholars have asserted that Paul disapproved of the Corinthians’ infatuation with rhetoric. Yet careful exegesis of the epistle problematizes this consensus.

In Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Corinthians (Eerdmans, 2024), Timothy A. Brookins unsettles common assumptions about the Corinthian conflict in this innovative monograph. His close reading of 1 Corinthians 1–4 presents evidence that the Corinthian problem had roots in Stoicism. The wisdom Paul alludes to is not sophistry, but a Stoic-inspired understanding of natural hierarchy, in which the wise put themselves above believers they considered spiritually underdeveloped. Moreover, Paul’s followers saw themselves as a philosophical school in rivalry with other Christians, engendering divisions in the church.

Combining scriptural exegesis and investigation of Greco-Roman philosophical culture, Brookins reconstructs the social sphere of Corinth that Paul addresses in his letter. His masterful analysis provides much needed clarity on the context of a major epistle and on Pauline theology more broadly.

Timothy A. Brookins is Professor of Early Christianity at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His research interests include the Pauline epistles and the Greco-Roman philosophical and rhetorical traditions. He is the author of Reading 1 Corinthians: A Literary and Theological Commentary and Ancient Rhetoric and the Style of Paul's Letters.

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Timothy Bertolet, "The Obedience of Sonship: Adamic Obedience and the Heavenly Ascension in Hebrews" (Fontes Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

What is the connection between the Sonship of Christ and his ascension in the book of Hebrews? You can find out by tuning in as we speak with Timothy Bertolet about his recent book, The Obedience of Sonship.

Timothy J. Betolet is Director of Theological Education for ABWE International. He also serves as adjunct professor at Lancaster Bible College.

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James M. O’Toole, "For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America" (Harvard UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The sacrament served as a distinctive marker of Catholic identity, shaping parishioners’ views of their relationship to God, their neighbors, and the wider world. But starting in the 1970s, many abandoned confession altogether. Focusing on the experiences of both laypeople and priests, in For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America (Harvard University Press, 2025) Dr. James M. O’Toole reconstructs the history of confession’s steady rise—and dramatic fall—among American Catholics.

In the early United States, the Catholic Church grew rapidly—and with it, confession’s centrality. Although the sacrament was practiced unevenly for much of the nineteenth century, frequent confession became common by the early twentieth. Both priests and parishioners understood confession as a ritual crucial for the soul, while on a social level, it established Catholic distinctiveness within a largely Protestant country. Today, however, even faithful Catholics seldom confess. The reasons for this change, Dr. O’Toole reveals, include the emergence of psychology and other forms of counseling; the Church’s stance against contraception, which alienated many parishioners; and a growing sense of confession’s inability to confront social problems like structural racism, poverty, and sexism. Meanwhile, increasing recognition of sexual abuse within the Church further undermined trust in clergy as confessors.

Sensitively attuned to the historical importance of confession, For I Have Sinned also suggests that, if the sacrament no longer serves the needs of US Catholics, the Church and its members might find new ways to express their ideals in the twenty-first century.

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David Hollenbach, "Human Rights in a Divided World: Catholicism as a Living Tradition" (Georgetown UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In his most recent book, Human Rights in a Divided World: Catholicism as a Living Tradition (Georgetown UP, 2024), Jesuit scholar and Georgetown professor, Fr David Hollenbach explains the Judeo-Christian roots of our concept of human rights and the contributions of secular institutions like the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). He explains further when it is right for a country to intervene in the affairs of its neighbors, codified by the UN in 2005 as the Responsibility to Protect in answer to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that gave lie to the world’s promise of “never again” after the horrors of the Holocaust. He contrasts the doctrine of R2P with the tragic case of a homicide in Kew Gardens in 1964 where 38 witnesses, all law-abiding “good people,” failed to intervene because they assumed someone else would do it. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asked God (Gen 4:9). “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer asked Jesus (Lk 10:29), to which Our Lord told the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Perhaps these questions are a little more complicated between sovereign nations than they are between travelers on a dangerous road, but Fr. David guides us through the Catholic Church’s moral teachings, the principles of proportionality and of just war, and the ability and desire to do something even when we can’t do everything.

Fr David’s book: Human Rights in a Divided World.
Fr David’s faculty website at Georgetown.
Responsibility to Protect, the R2P doctrine at the UN website.

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David D. Grafton, "Muhammad in the Seminary: Protestant Teaching about Islam in the Nineteenth Century" (NYU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Uncovers what Christian seminaries taught about Islam in their formative years Throughout the nineteenth century, Islam appeared regularly in the curricula of American Protestant seminaries. Islam was not only the focus of Christian missions, but was studied as part of the history of the Church as well as in the new field of comparative religions. Moreover, Arabic was taught as a cognate biblical language to help students better understand biblical Hebrew. Passages from the Qur'an were sometimes read as part of language instruction. Christian seminaries were themselves new institutions in the nineteenth century. Though Islam had already been present in the Americas since the beginning of the slave trade, it was only in the nineteenth century that the American public became more aware of Islam and had increasing contact with Muslims. It was during this period that extensive trade with the Ottoman empire emerged and more feasible travel opportunities to the Middle East became available due to the development of the steamship.

Providing an in-depth look at the information about Islam that was available in seminaries throughout the nineteenth century, Muhammad in the Seminary (NYU Press, 2024) examines what Protestant seminaries were teaching about this tradition in the formative years of pastoral education. In charting how American Christian leaders' ideas about Islam were shaped by their seminary experiences, this volume offers new insight into American religious history and the study of Christian-Muslim relations.

The Rev. Dr. David D. Grafton is the Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations on the faculty of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford International University

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Managerial Bishops Rule! Peter Brown on Wealth in Early Christianity (JP)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Peter Brown's fascinating Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton UP, 2014) chronicles the changing conceptions of wealth and treasure in late antiquity and the first centuries of Christianity. For our 2020 series in the rise of money (we also spoke to Thomas Piketty and Christine Desan) Brown related the emergence, in the 3rd and 4th century AD, of striking new ideas about charity and how to include the poor inside a religious community.

Brown explains the importance of civic euergetism in the Greek and Roman worldview–i.e. benefaction and charity strictly confined to the good of the city.

In early Christianity, this was replaced by compensatory almsgiving by the rich to benefit the lowly poor, or beggars. That notion of the rich being “less likely to enter heaven than a camel going through the eye of a needle”–that, says Brown, “was Jesus at its wildest.” Augustine even preached about almsgiving as “like a traveller’s check” that let the rich bank up credit in heaven.

But most crucial of all to Brown’s argument about changed ideas of wealth is that Christianity initiated the world-transformational notion of corporate identity. Before Oxford, before the East India Company, before IBM, the “managerial Bishop” (Brown’s brilliant coinage) is not wealthy in his own right, but is an agent of “impersonal continuity.”.Brown thinks Foucault got this kind of “pastoralism” in Church leaders partially right. But Foucault–“an old fashioned Catholic in many ways” Brown remarks slyly–underestimated the desire of the Christian community to designate a “consumer-driven” church hierarchy in which they can invest.

Pressed on the question of resonance to our own day, Brown (as a “good semi-Durkheimian of the Mary Douglas variety”) stresses that “these are almost incommensurable societies.” And he does note an ominous Roman parallel in present-day “personalization of power”–understanding the odious Putin by reading Seneca. Nonetheless, Brown makes clear his enduring admiration for Late Antiquity–compared to classical Greece and perhaps to our own day–because of its “remarkable tolerance for anomaly.” Brown has that too, more power to him!

Mentioned in the Episode

Peter Brown, Body and Society (1968)
Peter Brown,. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1968)
Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints (1981)
Peter Brown, The Ransom of the Soul (2015)
Evelyne Patlagean, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale à Byzance, 4e-7e siè (Economic Poverty and Social Poverty)
Augustine, Confessions (c. 400 AD and many other works available here )
Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978 (on priests and the importance of the pastoral or shepherding metaphor)
George Lakoff and Michael Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

Listen and Read Here.

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Colby Gordon, "Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature (U Chicago Press, 2024) offers a prehistory of transness that recovers early modern theological resources for trans lifeworlds.

In this striking contribution to trans history, Colby Gordon challenges the prevailing assumption that trans life is a byproduct of recent medical innovation by locating a cultural imaginary of transition in the religious writing of the English Renaissance. Marking a major intervention in early modern gender studies, Glorious Bodies insists that transition happened, both socially and surgically, hundreds of years before the nineteenth-century advent of sexology.

Pairing literary texts by Shakespeare, Webster, Donne, and Milton with a broad range of primary sources, Gordon examines the religious tropes available to early modern subjects for imagining how gender could change. From George Herbert’s invaginated Jesus and Milton’s gestational Adam to the ungendered “glorious body” of the resurrection, early modern theology offers a rich conceptual reservoir of trans imagery. In uncovering early modern trans theology, Glorious Bodies mounts a critique of the broad consensus that secularism is a necessary precondition for trans life, while also combating contemporary transphobia and the right-wing Christian culture war seeking to criminalize transition. Developing a rehabilitative acco unt of theology’s value for positing trans lifeworlds, this book leverages premodern religion to imagine a postsecular transness in the present.

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Chance E. Bonar, "The Author in Early Christian Literature" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

While scholars of ancient Mediterranean literature have focused their efforts heavily on explaining why authors would write pseudonymously or anonymously, less time has been spent exploring why an author would write orthonymously (that is, under their own name).

The Author in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores how early Christian writers began to care deeply about 'correct' attribution of both Christian and non-Christian literature for their own apologetic purposes, as well as how scholars have overlooked the function that orthonymity plays in some early Christian texts. Orthonymity was not only a decision made by a writer regarding how to attribute one's own writings, but also how to classify other writers' texts based on proper or improper attribution. This Element urges us to examine forms of authorship that are often treated as an unexamined default, as well as to more robustly consider when, how, for whom, and for what purposes an instance of authorial attribution is deemed 'correct.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Chance Bonar is a postdoc at Tufts University.

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

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Alexandra Verini, "English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women’s utopianism that extends back to medieval women’s monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.

The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women’s literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women’s intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself.

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Catalin-Stefan Popa, "The Making of Syriac Jerusalem" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

This book discusses hagiographic, historiographical, hymnological, and theological sources that contributed to the formation of the sacred picture of the physical as well as metaphysical Jerusalem in the literature of two Eastern Christian denominations, East and West Syrians.

Popa analyses the question of Syrian beliefs about the Holy City, their interaction with holy places, and how they travelled in the Holy Land. He also explores how they imagined and reflected the theology of this itinerary through literature in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, set alongside a well-defined local tradition that was at times at odds with Jerusalem. Even though the image of Jerusalem as a land of sacred spaces is unanimously accepted in the history of Christianity, there were also various competing positions and attitudes. This often promoted the attempt at mitigating and replacing Jerusalem’s sacred centrality to the Christian experience with local sacred heritage, which is also explored in this study. Popa argues that despite this rhetoric of artificial boundaries, the general picture epitomises a fluid and animated intersection of Syriac Christians with the Holy City especially in the medieval era and the subsequent period, through a standardised process of pilgrimage, well-integrated in the custom of advanced Christian life and monastic canon.

The Making of Syriac Jerusalem (Routledge, 2023) is suitable for students and scholars working on the history, literature, and theology of Syriac Christianity in the late antique and medieval periods.

Catalin-Stefan Popa is Research Professor in Church History at the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. He holds his Ph.D. from Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany (2016). In 2021 he received the venia legendi (habilitation) at Karl Franzens University of Graz, Austria. He published articles, and edited volumes on Syriac and Oriental ecclesiastical history, exegesis, and literature, including the monograph Gīwargīs I. (660–680). Ostsyrische Christologie in frühislamischer Zeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016). He is the editor-in-chief and founder of The Syriac Annals of Romanian Academy (SARA).

New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal.

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Gregory Soderberg, "John Brown of Haddington on Frequent Communion" (Wipf & Stock, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Shallow and quickly outdated Christian worship practices have left many searching for something with deeper roots. Many churches have rediscovered the importance of the sacraments, particularly the Lord's Supper. The number of churches that are observing more frequent communion continues to grow. What's lacking is guidance from the past on this issue. How did infrequent communion become a "tradition" in so many churches? What historical, political, and theological factors were involved? As one of the leading evangelical pastors and scholars of the late eighteenth century, John Brown of Haddington has much to teach. Not satisfied with the practice of his own Scottish Reformed tradition, Brown left a manuscript advocating more frequent communion among his papers after his death. It was published in 1804 but has remained inaccessible to a large audience until now.

Dr. Gregory Soderberg used Brown as one of his sources in his doctoral study of communion frequency in the Reformed tradition, which was the first full-length, scholarly treatment of the subject. Although Brown wrote for his own time, his arguments are still relevant. In John Brown of Haddington on Frequent Communion (Wipf & Stock, 2024), readers will find a brilliant mind engaging the issue of communion frequency with wit and erudition.

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Kristin A. Olbertson, "The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 9 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Kristin Olbertson is the first comprehensive study of criminal speech in eighteenth-century New England, traces how the criminalization, prosecution, and punishment of speech offenses in Massachusetts helped to establish and legitimate a social and cultural regime of politeness.

Analyzing provincial statutes and hundreds of criminal prosecutions, Dr. Olbertson argues that colonists transformed their understanding of speech offenses, from fundamentally ungodly to primarily impolite. As white male gentility emerged as the pre-eminent model of authority, records of criminal prosecution and punishment show a distinct cadre of politely pious men defining themselves largely in contrast to the vulgar, the impious, and the unmanly. “Law,” as manifested in statutes as well as in local courts and communities, promoted and legitimized a particular, polite vision of the king's peace and helped effectuate the British Empire. In this unique and fascinating work, Dr. Olbertson reveals how ordinary people interacted with and shaped legal institutions.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Manu Pillai, "Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity" (Allen Lane, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000

What is Hinduism?

For centuries, that question was particularly thorny, both for local Indians and for colonial outsiders. People inside and outside the country tried to define what Hinduism was. Missionaries grappled with Hindu practices, finding both similarities and dangerous differences with their own Christian faith. The East India Company adopted several Hindu rituals to keep the peace, much to the chagrin of officials back in London.

And, increasingly, Indians began to define what Hinduism meant as part of a broader political awakening.

Manu Pillai tells that story in his latest book Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity (Allen Lane: 2024)

Manu Pillai is the author of the critically acclaimed The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore (HarperCollins: 2016), Rebels Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (Juggernaut: 2018), The Courtesan, the Mahatma, and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History (Context: 2019) and False Allies: India's Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma (Juggernaut: 2021). Former chief of staff to Shashi Tharoor MP, Pillai is also a winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (2017) and holds a PhD in history from King’s College London. His essays and writings on history have appeared in various national and international publications.

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Ellen Fenzel Arnold, "Medieval Riverscapes: Environment and Memory in Northwest Europe, C. 300-1100" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Jana Byars talks to Ellen Arnold about Medieval Riverscapes: Environment and Memory in Northwest Europe, 300 - 1100 (Cambridge UP, 2024). Fishermen, monks, saints, and dragons met in medieval riverscapes; their interactions reveal a rich and complex world. Using religious narrative sources to evaluate the environmental mentalities of medieval communities, Ellen F. Arnold explores the cultural meanings applied to rivers over a broad span of time, ca. 300-1100 CE. Hagiographical material, poetry, charters, chronicles, and historiographical works are explored to examine the medieval environmental imaginations about rivers, and how storytelling and memory are connected to lived experiences in riverscapes. She argues that rivers provided unique opportunities for medieval communities to understand and respond to ecological and socio-cultural transformations, and to connect their ideas about the shared religious past to hopes about the future.

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Jeffrey Thomas Perry, "Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780–1845" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Most Americans today would not think of their local church as a site for arbitration and would probably be hesitant to bring their property disputes, moral failings, or personal squabbles to their kin and neighbors for judgment. But from the Revolutionary Era through the mid-nineteenth century, many Protestants imbued local churches with immense authority. Through their ritual practice of discipline, churches insisted that brethren refrain from suing each other before "infidels" at local courts and claimed jurisdiction over a range of disputes: not only moral issues such as swearing, drunkenness, and adultery but also matters more typically considered to be under the purview of common law and courts of equity, including disputes over trespass, land, probate, slave warranty, and theft.

In Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780–1845 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022), Jeffrey Thomas Perry explores the ways that ordinary Americans--Black and white, enslaved and free--understood and created law in their local communities, uncovering a vibrant marketplace of authority in which church meetinghouses played a central role in maintaining their neighborhoods' social peace. Churches were once prominent sites for the creation of local law and in this period were a primary arena in which civil and religious authority collided and shaped one another. When church discipline failed, the wronged parties often pushed back, and their responses highlight the various forces that ultimately hindered that venue's ability to effectively arbitrate disputes between members. Relying primarily on a deep reading of church records and civil case files, Perry examines how legal transformations, an expanding market economy, and religious controversy led churchgoers to reimagine their congregations' authority. By the 1830s, unable to resolve doctrinal quibbles within the fellowship, church factions turned to state courts to secure control over their meetinghouses, often demanding that judges wade into messy ecclesiastical disputes.

Tracking changes in disciplinary rigor in Kentucky Baptist churches from that state's frontier period through 1845, and looking beyond statutes and court decrees, Law in American Meetinghouses is a fresh take on church-state relations. Ultimately, it highlights an oft-forgotten way that Americans subtly repositioned religious institutions alongside state authority.

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Religious Freedom: A Conversation on the Conservative Tradition with John D. Wilsey

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In this conversation, we sit down with John D. Wilsey, Professor of Church History and Philosophy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, to tackle the urgent and often contentious topic of religious freedom in America. Drawing from his forthcoming book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (William B. Eerdmans, 2025), Wilsey examines how conservatives have historically understood religious freedom, how those views have evolved, and why the gap between past and present perspectives matters in today’s culture, and how it is the bedrock of American Government.

Wilsey addresses issues at the heart of this debate: How has the conservative understanding of religious freedom shifted, and what are the consequences of that shift?

Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

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Bernard McGinn, "Modern Mystics: An Introduction" (Herder & Herder, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Mysticism is not just a phenomenon of the past, but has been alive and flourishing in Chistianity, Judaism, and Islam over the past century, as well as in many of the other religious traditions. Best understood as a search for the transforming presence of God, the mystical tradition has necessarily undergone changes and developments as it has confronted modernity and its frequently anti-religious stance. Making use of ten exemplary mystics of the 20th century, including Catholic, Protestants, and Jews, Modern Mystics: An Introduction (Herder & Herder, 2023) argues for the continued importance of mysticism in the modern world and studies its ongoing transformations.

Bernard McGinn is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor emeritus at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where he taught for thirty-four years before retiring in 2003. McGinn has written extensively on the history of apocalyptic traditions, and especially on spirituality and mysticism. His major project is the multi-volume history of Western Christian mysticism under the general title of The Presence of God. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a Fellow of the Medieval Academy. McGinn has also\ served as President of a number of learned societies, such as the Medieval Academy and the American Society of Church History.

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Words and Silences: The Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Brian Harnetty’s recent record, Words and Silences, takes voice recordings made by the famed American Trappist monk Thomas Merton and sets them within Harnetty’s musical compositions. The meditative and revealing result has been lauded by critics in The Wire, MOJO, and Aquarium Drunkard.

In this episode, we share a Phantom Power exclusive: a brand new narrative piece that Brian created about the making of his record. “Words and Silences: The Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes” is much more than a behind-the-scenes look at Brian’s process. Harnetty’s audio diary is its own moving meditation on Merton, solitude, sound, media, and the self.

This is the second piece that Brian has shared with Phantom Power–you may remember his Forest Listening Rooms episode. Like that episode, this is something special. We highly recommend taking a walk in the woods or finding a quiet space to listen to this beautiful meditation. And after we listen, Mack talks to Brian about what we’ve heard.

(And, of course, we’ll have a longer version of the interview and our What’s Good segment for our Patrons.)

Who was Thomas Merton?

Thomas Merton was an author, mystic, poet, and comparative religion scholar who lived from 1915 to 1968. It’s hard to imagine a spiritual superstar quite like Merton appearing in America today. His first book, 1948’s “The Seven Storey Mountain,” became a best-seller and led to a flood of young men applying to join Catholic monasteries.

Merton had a major influence on spaces such as the progressive Catholic church Mack grew up going to. He was outward facing, committed to leftist causes, and fascinated by other religions, but at the same time, he retreated from his fame into his hermitage in KY. In The New Yorker, Alan Jacobs called him “perhaps the proper patron saint of our information-saturated age, of we who live and move and have our being in social media, and then, desperate for peace and rest, withdraw into privacy and silence, only to return.”

Brian Harnetty

Brian Harnetty is an interdisciplinary sound artist who uses listening to foster social change. He is known for his recording projects with archives, socially engaged sound works, sound and video installations, live performances, and writings. His interdisciplinary approach has been compared to “working like a novelist…breathing new life into old chunks of sound by radically recontextualizing them” (Clive Bell, The Wire).

Brian is currently a Faculty Fellow at Ohio State University’s Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme (2022-23), Harnetty is a two-time recipient of the MAP Fund Grant (2021, 2020), and received the A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art in Contemplative Practices (2018) and the Creative Capital Performing Arts Award (2016). He has also twice received MOJO Magazine’s “Underground Album of the Year” (2019, 2013).

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Sejong Chun, "Paul’s New Creation: Vision for a New World and Community" (Lexington Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Paul’s New Creation: Vision for a New World and Community (Lexington Book, 2023), Sejong Chun presents inter(con)textual readings of Paul’s new creation passages from the perspective of the Korean immigrant church in America. Chun focuses on Paul’s new creation’s cosmic dimension and ecclesiastical character and proposes the ekklēsia as a tangible embodiment. The author suggests that Paul, as a middleman, accomplishes the collective project of the Jerusalem collection with his Gentile churches to declare independence from the Jerusalem church authority and to demonstrate God’s alternative economy against the exploitative system of the Roman Empire.

Sejong Chun completed his PhD at Vanderbilt University. He currently serves as a visiting professor of the New Testament at Yonsei University as well as founder and senior pastor of New Creation Church in Daegu, South Korea.

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Peter Ramey, "The Word-Hoard Beowulf: A Translation with Commentary" (Angelico Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Beowulf is the product of a profoundly religious imagination, but the significance of the poem’s Christianity has been downplayed or denied altogether. The Word-Hoard Beowulf: A Translation with Commentary (Angelico Press, 2023) is the first translation and popular commentary to take seriously the religious dimension of this venerable text. While generations of students know that Beowulf represents a confluence of Christianity and paganism, this version—informed by J. R. R. Tolkien’s theory of language as the repository of myth—opens the hood to track the poem’s inner religious workings. It brings to light the essential Old English vocabulary, incorporating into the translation the divine titles used for God, specific names for evil and nonhuman creatures, and the precise language employed for providence and fate, along with terminology for kinship and heroism. Such features are not found in any other modern English translation, including Tolkien’s, whose text was never intended for publication. The Word-Hoard Beowulf draws upon Tolkien’s ideas and commentaries, however, to render a poem whose metaphysical vision takes front and center, delivering a richly restorative version of this early medieval masterpiece. The text is preceded by an introduction detailing the poem’s religious motivations and cultural context, and is accompanied by an expansive commentary. In short, this version allows readers to perceive precisely how in Beowulf (as Tolkien puts it) “the new Scripture and the old tradition touched and ignited” to produce the earliest English epic.

Peter Ramey is Associate Professor of English at Northern State University, where he teaches courses on medieval English literature, Latin, and linguistics. He has published articles on Beowulf and on Old and Middle English in Modern Philology, Philological Quarterly, and other scholarly journals, while also writing for a broader audience in his essays in Public Discourse and Front Porch Republic.

Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. You can also find his writing about books and films on Pages and Frames.

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Andrew Jotischky, "The Monastic World: A 1,200-Year History" (Yale UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

From the late Roman Empire onwards, monasteries and convents were a common sight throughout Europe. But who were monasteries for? What kind of people founded and maintained them? And how did monasticism change over the thousand years or so of the Middle Ages?

Andrew Jotischky traces the history of monastic life from its origins in the fourth century to the sixteenth. He shows how religious houses sheltered the poor and elderly, cared for the sick, and educated the young. They were centres of intellectual life that owned property and exercised power but also gave rise to new developments in theology, music, and art.

The Monastic World: A 1,200-Year History (Yale UP, 2024) brings together the Orthodox and western stories, as well as the experiences of women, to show the full picture of medieval monasticism for the first time. It is a fascinating, wide-ranging account that broadens our understanding of life in holy orders as never before.

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Martyn Percy, "The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England" (Hurst, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England (Hurst, 2025) by Dr. Martyn Percy offers a bold and unsettling truth: the British Empire and Great Britain are primarily English constructions, and the Church of England benefited from English enterprise and exploitation, serving as the spiritual arm of the imperial project. English Anglicanism has cast itself as the lead character in its own ‘serious fiction’—the main religious player in a drama of Church and Empire.

Yet, in collusion with colonialism, it is now trapped by historical amnesia. Dr. Percy examines the English interests concealed in appeals to Britishness, showing how slavery, exploitation, classism and racism upheld elitist and hierarchical worldviews that bolstered both Empire and Church. By viewing the rest of the world as lesser, both institutions have declined in global standing, now reduced to minor national players on the world stage.

Religious, social and political imperialism thrived on deprecating others, but those once marginalised have fought for equality and independence. Today, the worldwide Anglican Communion faces a new era of moral reckoning.

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Patrick Riordan, "Human Dignity and Liberal Politics: Catholic Possibilities for the Common Good" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

A deeply considered examination of the “common good” reconciling Catholic Social Thought with secular politics and philosophy.

The Second Vatican Council invites dialogue about the common good as the set of economic, political, legal, and cultural conditions for human flourishing, whether as individuals or as communities. However, some contemporary Catholic authors jeopardize this dialogue by polarizing liberalism and the common good, interpreting the commitment to individual liberty as incompatible with commitment to the common good.

Human Dignity and Liberal Politics: Catholic Possibilities for the Common Good (Georgetown UP, 2023) clarifies the meaning of the common good through the three lenses of Aristotelian practical philosophy, twentieth-century Catholic Social Thought, and political liberalism. It makes the case that embracing the common good does not entail a rejection of liberalism, but that a commitment to liberal politics is compatible with faithful adherence to the Catholic tradition. The book argues that liberal political philosophy is not only compatible with Catholic Social Teaching but may also be the most appropriate framework for communicating the richness of the Church’s tradition today. Furthermore, accepting political liberalism can facilitate collaboration in political life between those who hold different worldviews and foster an enriched discussion of democracy, human rights, and religious liberty.

Students and scholars of Christian ethics and political philosophy will benefit from this response to the challenges of dialogue about the “common good” in the context of the resurgence of this topic.

Sam Young is a recent PhD graduate from Cardiff University, specialising in the theological history of European social Catholic movements active during the crisis years of the 1920s and 1930s.

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Arthur Jan Keefer, "Proverbs 1-9 as an Introduction to the Book of Proverbs" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

How does Proverbs 1-9 function as a prologue or introduction to Proverbs 10-31? Arthur Keefer argues that Proverbs 1-9 teaches interpretive skills for explaining Proverbs 10-31 by instilling the competence required to understand this material.

Join as we talk with Arthur Keefer about his book Proverbs 1-9 as an Introduction to the Book of Proverbs (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Arthur Keefer is Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Australia, and Assistant Minister at The Scots’ Church, Melbourne. He has published several books on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

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Hunter Price, "Sacred Capital: Methodism and Settler Colonialism in the Empire of Liberty" (U Virginia Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In the early years of American independence, Methodism emerged as the new republic’s fastest growing religious movement and its largest voluntary association. Following the contours of settler expansion, the Methodist Episcopal Church also quickly became the largest denomination in the early American West. With Sacred Capital: Methodism and Settler Colonialism in the Empire of Liberty (University of Virginia Press, 2024), Dr. Hunter Price resituates the Methodist Episcopal Church as a settler-colonial institution at the convergence of “the Methodist Age” and Jefferson’s “Empire of Liberty.”

Dr. Price offers a novel interpretation of the Methodist Episcopal Church as a network through which mostly white settlers exchanged news of land and jobs and facilitated financial transactions. Benefiting from Indigenous dispossession and removal policies, settlers made selective, strategic use of the sacred and the secular in their day-to-day interactions to advance themselves and their interests. By analyzing how Methodists acted as settlers while identifying as pilgrims, Dr. Price illuminates the ways that ordinary white Americans fulfilled Jefferson’s vision of an Empire of Liberty while reinforcing the inequalities at its core.

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Erik Freas, "Palestine's Christians and the Nationalist Cause: The Late Ottoman and Mandatory Periods" (Routledge, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Palestine's Christians and the Nationalist Cause: The Late Ottoman and Mandatory Periods (Routledge, 2024) provides an historical overview of Palestine's Christian communities and their role in the Palestinian nationalist movement during the late Ottoman and British mandatory periods. More than being a history of Palestine's Christian Arabs, the book focuses on Palestine's Christians during the formative period of Palestinian Arab national identity, attentive to the broader topic of the relationship between nationalism and religion--in this case, between Arab identity and Islam. Whereas until recently historians have tended to assume that national and religious identities are distinct and mostly mutually exclusive things, more recent scholarship has addressed the fact that often there exists considerable overlap between the two, though it should be noted, often in ways that are not by any means inherently exclusive of those not belonging to the majority faith, as is the case here. The relationship is also an ever-changing one, hence the final chapter of the book, which functions as something of an epilogue regarding the current status of Palestine's Christians vis-à-vis their place in the nationalist cause and relationship with the broader Muslim population. The book will be of interest to historians and scholars focused on the modern Middle East, Palestinian history, Muslim-Christian inter-communal relations, and the relationship between nationalism and religion.

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Colleen C. B. Weaver, "The Fruits of Listening: Applying Qualitative Research Methods in the Design of Contextually Responsive Theological Education" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Theological seminaries and Bible institutes find themselves at the crossroads of preserving biblical faithfulness and of maintaining contextual relevance. What does faithful contextual relevance look like? How can theological institutions steer a course that will engage and serve the church through the men and women they equip for ministry and service?

In The Fruits of Listening (Wipf and Stock, 2024), Colleen Weaver designed a qualitative research project in the Protestant evangelical community in Madrid, Spain. Intentional listening was conducted on three seminary campuses and in the faith community. Seminary faculty and students and church attenders shared their perspectives, experiences, and hopes for transformative theological education. Congregants envisioned theological education that equips leaders to relationally empower the church to give witness in the society. Faculty and students described the contextual challenges they face as Protestant believers in Spain. They voiced narratives of how they must find ways to persevere amid pervasive scarcity and in a rapidly changing society.

Seminaries and churches around the world may recognize details of their own experiences in these stories and, importantly, receive resources for being contextually responsive in their situations.

Dave Broucek is a retired cross-cultural missionary/coordinator of continuing education/international ministries director. He interviews authors who provide critical reflection on the theology and practice of Christian mission.

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Glen L. Thompson, "Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China" (Eerdmans, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.”

Thompson presents the history of the Persian church’s mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China.

In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology.

Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website.

New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal.

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Dale C. Allison, "Night Comes: Death, Imagination, and the Last Things" (Eerdmans, 2016)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

When he was 23 years old, Dale Allison almost died in a car accident. That terrifying experience dramatically changed his ideas about death and the hereafter. In Night Comes: Death, Imagination, and the Last Things (Eerdmans, 2016) Allison wrestles with a number of difficult questions concerning the last things -- such questions as What happens to us after we die? and Why does death so often frighten us?

Armed with his acknowledged scholarly expertise, Allison offers an engaging, personal exploration of such themes as death and fear, resurrection and judgment, hell and heaven, in light of science, Scripture, and his own experience. As he ponders and creatively imagines -- engaging throughout with biblical texts, church fathers, rabbinic scholars, poets, and philosophers -- Allison offers fascinating fare that will captivate many a reader's heart and soul.

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Divya Kannan, "Contested Childhoods: Caste and Education in Colonial Kerala" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Contested Childhoods: Caste and Education in Colonial Kerala (Cambridge UP, 2024) traces a complex history of caste, race, education, and Christian missions in colonial south India. It draws upon the vast Protestant Christian missionary archives of the London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, and the Basel German Evangelical Missionary Society to showcase the processes of negotiation, tensions, and underlying violence in the encounters between European 'outsiders' and local populations on the question of education. It examines the interplay of caste and education in reshaping ideas and norms of modern childhood and lower-caste community building in the regions of Travancore, Cochin, and Malabar. Set against a comparative historical perspective, the book argues for a greater focus on subaltern histories, especially the meanings and practices associated with educating poor, lower-caste children within the confines of formal schooling and beyond.

Divya Kannan teaches in the Department of History, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, India. She is a historian of South Asia with particular interests in histories of childhood and youth, gender and sexuality, empires and colonial violence, histories of education, curriculum and pedagogy, Christian missions, and public and oral histories.

Khadeeja Amenda is PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies in Asia programme at the Department of Communication and New Media, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

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Edward Simon, "The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues: A Visual History" (Cernunnos, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

A companion piece to Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology and Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology, Seven Sins and Seven Virtues (Abrams, 2024) by Dr. Ed Simon completes this moral trilogy and finally considers God’s most enigmatic of creations: None of the conundrums of metaphysics are as baroque as the motivations of the human soul. Unlike the devils condemned to perdition and the angels compelled to paradise, humans are divine creatures that house within them warring impulses.

The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues: A Visual History (Cernunnos, 2024) examines the literary, philosophical, theological, and most of all artistic expressions of the seven deadly sins and their respective seven cardinal virtues, drawing upon millennia of history to gather a compendium of humanity at its best and its worst. As a volume, the book explores the Manichean nature of the human animal in all of its grandeur and canker, motivated by the faith that tales of damnation and salvation are the only stories that are ultimately worth telling.

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Angela Roskop Erisman, "The Wilderness Narratives in the Hebrew Bible: Religion, Politics, and Biblical Interpretation" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 4 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

What is the function of the wilderness narratives for understanding the Pentateuch and Israel and Judah’s historical experience? Drawing from literary and historical criticism, Angela Erisman creates a synthesis to offer a novel journey through the narratives of Exodus and Numbers.

Join us as we speak with Angela Erisman about her recent book, The Wilderness Narratives in the Hebrew Bible: Religion, Politics, and Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge UP, 2024).

Angela Roskop Erisman earned her MA in Hebrew and Northwest Semitics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her PhD in Bible and Ancient Near East from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion.

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Joel M. Rothman, "The Cosmic Journey in the Book of Revelation: Apocalyptic Cosmology and the Experience of Story-Space" (T&T Clark, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Cosmology and cosmic journeys play a significant role in biblical and extra-biblical texts, especially in apocalyptic narratives. What about for the book of Revelation? The answer is yes.

Join us as we speak with Joel Rothman about his recent book, The Cosmic Journey in the Book of Revelation: Apocalyptic Cosmology and the Experience of Story-Space (T&T Clark, 2023).

Joel Rothman recently earned his PhD at the University of Divinity in Australia.

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Constantine R. Campbell, "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek" (Zondervan Academic, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Verbal aspect in the Greek language has been a topic of significant debate in recent scholarship. The majority of scholars now believe that an understanding of verbal aspect is even more important than verb tense (past, present, etc.). Yet there still are no alternative accessible textbooks, both in terms of level and price. In the second edition, Constantine R. Campbell investigates the function of verbal aspect within the New Testament Greek narrative in light of the last fifteen years of the latest scholarship.

In Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek, Second Edition, Campbell has done a marvelous job in this book of simplifying the concept without getting caught up using terms of linguistics that only experts can understand. The book includes expanded and updated discussion, revised exercises, an answer key, a glossary of key concepts, an appendix covering space and time, and an index of Scriptures cited. Professors and students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, will use this is as a supplemental text in both beginning and advanced Greek courses. Pastors that study the Greek text will also appreciate this resource as a supplement to their preaching and teaching.

Constantine Campbell is Professor and Research Director at the Sydney College of Divinity, and previously served as Professor of New Testament studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago and Moore Theological College in Sydney. His first doctorate is in ancient Greek language and linguistics (Macquarie University, 2007). Campbell is the author of 19 books, with focus on ancient Greek, New Testament interpretation, and the apostle Paul. His book Paul and Union with Christ was the 2014 Christianity Today Book of the Year in Biblical Studies. His latest releases are Reading Paul as Christian Scripture (Baker Academic, 2024) and Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek, second edition (Zondervan Academic, 2024). Campbell was co-chair of the Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics section of the Society of Biblical Literature, and is an Associate Editor of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary series. He is an elected member of the preeminent scholarly guild, Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. Campbell is also a highly regarded jazz saxophonist and is a visiting instructor at The Australian National University School of Music. His second doctorate explores the fusion of jazz and traditional Greek urban music (Australian National University, 2024). He is the presenter of two documentary series on the apostles Paul and Peter. Campbell lives in Canberra, Australia.

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Stephen T. Pardue, "Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church" (Baker Group, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Christian theologians and students are aware that evangelicals in the Majority World now outnumber those in North America and Europe, and many want to know more about emerging voices in the global church. At the same time, these voices are largely absent from Western evangelical theology.

In Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church (Baker Group, 2024), Stephen Pardue seeks to bridge this divide by arguing, biblically and theologically, that it is imperative for Western evangelical theology to engage with the global church, and he provides examples of how this can be done. Case studies throughout the book illustrate opportunities for fruitful engagement with non-Western theology in various areas of Christian doctrine.

Dave Broucek is a retired cross-cultural missionary/coordinator of continuing education/international ministries director. He interviews authors who provide careful reflection on all aspects of the theology and practice of Christian mission.

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Michelle D. Brock, "Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town" (Manchester UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants.

This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age.

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Bianca M. Lopez, "Queen of Sorrows: Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy" (Cornell UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Queen of Sorrows: Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Bianca Lopez takes an original approach to both late-medieval Italian history and the history of Christianity, using quantitative and qualitative analyses of a remarkable archive of 1,904 testaments to determine patterns in giving to the Virgin of Loreto shrine in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Dr. Lopez argues that in central Italy, as elsewhere, the cult of the Virgin Mary gained new prominence at this time of unprecedented mortality. Individuals gave to Santa Maria di Loreto, which houses the structure in which Mary is believed to have lived, as an expression of their grief in the hope of strengthening family lineages beyond death and to care for loved ones believed to be languishing in purgatory.

Dr. Lopez establishes statistical correlations between different social groups and their donations to Loreto over time, uncovering informative new historical patterns such as the prominence of widow and migrant donors in the notarial record. The testaments also provide a social history of Recanati, revealing how its denizens venerated Mary as a saint with unrivaled spiritual power and uniquely sympathetic to grief, having lost her own son, Jesus. In the fourteenth century, plague survivors transformed their anguish into Marian devotion. The devastation of the plague brought the Virgin out of noble courts and monasteries and onto city streets. As Queen of Sorrows details, however, the popularity and growing wealth of Loreto's Marian shrine attracted the attention of the papacy and peninsular seigneurial lords, who eventually brought Santa Maria di Loreto under the control of the Church.

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Andrew Laird, "Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Andrew Laird, of Brown University, discusses Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2024). In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began teaching Latin, classical rhetoric, and Aristotelian philosophy to native youths in central Mexico. The remarkable linguistic and cultural exchanges that would result from that initiative are the subject of this book. Aztec Latin highlights the importance of Renaissance humanist education for early colonial indigenous history, showing how practices central to humanism — the cultivation of eloquence, the training of leaders, scholarly translation, and antiquarian research — were transformed in New Spain to serve Indian elites as well as the Spanish authorities and religious orders.

While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus' ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop's fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.

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Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, "Finding God in All the Black Places: Sacred Imaginings in Black Popular Culture" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Finding God in All the Black Places: Sacred Imaginings in Black Popular Culture (Rutgers UP, 2024), Beretta E. Smith-Shomade contends that Black spirituality and Black church religiosity are the critical crux of Black popular culture. She argues that cultural, community, and social support live within the Black church and that spirit, art, and progress are deeply entwined and seal this connection. Including the work of artists such as Mary J. Blige, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Prince, Spike Lee, and Oprah Winfrey, the book examines contemporary Black television, film, music and digital culture to demonstrate the role, impact, and dominance of spirituality and religion in Black popular culture. Smith-Shomade believes that acknowledging and comprehending the foundations of Black spirituality and Black church religiosity within Black popular culture provide a way for viewers, listeners, and users not only to endure but also to revitalize.

This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition here.

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David G. Hunter et al., "Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity: Authors, Texts, and Ideas" (Brill, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity: Authors, Texts, and Ideas (Brill, 2024) focuses on the history of early Christianity, covering texts, authors, ideas, and their reception. Its content is intended to bridge the gap between the fields of New Testament studies and patristics, connecting a number of related fields of study including Judaism, ancient history and philosophy, covering the whole period of early Christianity up to 600 CE.

The BEEC aims both to provide a critical review of the methods used in Early Christian Studies and also to update the history of scholarship.

The BEEC addresses a range of traditions, including iconographic, martyrological, ecclesiastical, and Christological traditions, as well as cultic phenomena, such as the veneration of saints. The history of the transmission of texts and the reception of early Christian writers are also addressed. The BEEC focuses on early Christianity from a historical perspective in order to uncover the lasting legacy of the authors and texts until the present day.

David G. Hunter is the Margaret O'Brien Flatley Chair of Catholic Theology at Boston College.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Theresa Keeley, "Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America" (Cornell UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America (Cornell UP, 2020), Theresa Keeley analyzes the role of intra-Catholic conflict within the framework of U.S. foreign policy formulation and execution during the Reagan administration. She challenges the preponderance of scholarship on the administration that stresses the influence of evangelical Protestants on foreign policy toward Latin America. Especially in the case of U.S. engagement in El Salvador and Nicaragua, Keeley argues, the bitter debate between the U.S. and Central American Catholics over the direction of the Catholic Church shaped President Reagan’s foreign policy.

The flashpoint for these intra-Catholic disputes was the December 1980 political murder of four American Catholic missionaries in El Salvador. Liberal Catholics described nuns and priests in Central America who worked to combat structural inequality as human rights advocates living out the Gospel’s spirit. Conservative Catholics saw them as agents of class conflict who furthered the so-called Gospel, according to Karl Marx. The debate was an old one among Catholics, but, as Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns contends, it intensified as conservative, anticommunist Catholics played instrumental roles in crafting U.S. policy to fund the Salvadoran government and the Nicaraguan Contras.

Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns describes the religious actors as human rights advocates and, against prevailing understandings of the fundamentally secular activism related to human rights, highlights religion-inspired activism during the Cold War. In charting the rightward development of American Catholicism, Keeley provides a new chapter in the history of U.S. diplomacy. She shows how domestic issues such as contraception and abortion joined with foreign policy matters to shift Catholic laity toward Republican principles at home and abroad.

Allison Isidore is a graduate of the Religion in Culture Masters program at the University of Alabama. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church’s response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. Allison is also a Video Editor for The Religious Studies Project, producing videos for the podcast and marketing team. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1.

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Olga Borovaya, "The 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel: Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The Rhodes blood libel of 1840, an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, was initiated by the island’s governor in collusion with Levantine merchants, who charged the local Jewish community with murdering a Christian boy for ritual purposes. An episode in the shared histories of Ottomans and Jews, it was forgotten by the former and, even if remembered, misunderstood by the latter. The 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel: Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era (Berghahn Books, 2024) aims to restore the place of this event in Sephardi and Ottoman history.

Based on newly discovered Ottoman and Jewish sources it argues that the acquittal of Rhodian Jews is adequately understood only in the context of the Tanzimat and the Sublime Porte’s foreign relations. Contrary to the common view that Ottoman Jews did not experience the impact of the Tanzimat reforms until the mid-1850s, this study shows that their effects were felt as early as 1840. Furthermore, this book offers a window onto life and intercommunal relations in the Eastern Mediterranean during the late Ottoman era.

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Matthew C. Godfrey, ed., "The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 7" (Church Historians Press, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Joseph Smith, the nineteenth-century American prophet who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can, at times, be considered an elusive historical figure. There were many forces that drove this man, along with the thousands of individuals who followed him, to create a flourishing religious movement that not only influenced minds, but fostered communities, built cities, and engaged in politics. The Mormons drastically influenced American culture, and they continue to impact the United States and the world in impressive ways. Join me as I talk with the managing historian of the Joseph Smith Papers project, Matthew C. Godfrey, about a recently released documents volume (The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 7: September 1839 - January 1841). The book explores the geographical, political, and theological significance of Nauvoo, Illinois (a Mormon hub along the Mississippi River), the extraordinary proselytizing missions by the Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles in England, and the further development of Mormon doctrine, especially the introduction of baptism for the dead. This new volume of the Joseph Smith Papers engages these topics with breadth and depth like never before, giving us a detailed view of how the Mormons negotiated their existence and growth within Jacksonian America and Victorian England.

Daniel P. Stone holds a PhD in American religious history from Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom) and is the author of William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet(Signature Books, 2018). He has taught history courses at the University of Detroit Mercy and Florida Atlantic University, and currently, he works as a research archivist for a private library/archive in Detroit, Michigan.

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Doris L. Bergen, "Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

During the Second World War, approximately 1000 Christian chaplains accompanied Wehrmacht forces wherever they went, from Poland to France, Greece, North Africa, and the Soviet Union. Chaplains were witnesses to atrocity and by their presence helped normalize extreme violence and legitimate its perpetrators. Military chaplains played a key role in propagating a narrative of righteousness that erased Germany's victims and transformed the aggressors into noble figures who suffered but triumphed over their foes.

Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany (Cambridge UP, 2023) is the first book to examine Protestant and Catholic military chaplains in Germany from Hitler's rise to power, to defeat, collapse, and Allied occupation. Drawing on a wide array of sources - chaplains' letters and memoirs, military reports, Jewish testimonies, photographs, and popular culture - this book offers insight into how Christian clergy served the cause of genocide, sometimes eagerly, sometimes reluctantly, even unknowingly, but always loyally.

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Robert D. Miller II, "Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God" (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Recognizing the absence of a God named Yahweh outside of ancient Israel, this study addresses the related questions of Yahweh's origins and the biblical claim that there were Yahweh-worshipers other than the Israelite people. Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, with an exhaustive survey of ancient Near Eastern literature and inscriptions discovered by archaeology, and using anthropology to reconstruct religious practices and beliefs of ancient Edom and Midian, this study proposes an answer. Yahweh-worshiping Midianites of the Early Iron Age brought their deity along with metallurgy into ancient Palestine and the Israelite people. Join us as we talk with Robert Miller about his latest book, Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021).

Robert Miller, II, O.F.S., Ph.D., is Ordinary Professor of Old Testament and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at The Catholic University of America.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Daniel B. Hinshaw, "Journey to Simplicity: The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga" (St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Daniel B. Hinshaw about his book Journey to Simplicity: The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga (St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2023).

The events of Fr Roman Braga’s life unfolded on three continents in complex and tumultuous times. In Romania, he lived through turbulent historical events, and he suffered for Christ under communist persecution. Later he continued his life and ministry in Brazil, and ended his days in the United States. He was a confessor of the faith and spiritual father of great wisdom and compassion, who shared Christ's love with all who came his way. This text presents the life of Fr Roman Braga, while also exploring the broader historical context in which he lived. Most fundamentally, it reveals the transfigured life of a man who is close to us in time, but who passed far beyond us in his spiritual life, who was not broken but rather transformed by God’s grace, even in the midst of the horrors of torture and imprisonment. He continues to shine as a beacon of God’s love, and a witness to His power to overcome even the greatest of evils.

All the royalties for this book go to support Holy Dormition Monastery in Rives Junction, Michigan, where Fr Roman was a spiritual father:

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David Dejong, "A Prophet Like Moses (Deut 18:15, 18): The Origin, History, and Influence of the Mosaic Prophetic Succession" (Brill, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In his recent monograph, David DeJong traces the history of Deuteronomy's concept of a prophet like Moses from the seventh century BCE to the first century CE, demonstrating the ways in which Jewish and Christian texts were influenced by and responded to Deuteronomy's Mosaic norm for prophetic claims.

Join us as we speak with David DeJong about "a prophet like Moses."

David DeJong (PhD, Notre Dame) is Assistant Professor of Religion at Hope College; his research and teaching focus on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and its interpretation in ancient Judaism and early Christianity.

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Farina King, "Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century" (UP of Kansas, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this deeply personal account, University of Oklahoma associate professor of Native American Studies Dr. Farina King describes the history and present of Diné dóó Gáamalii, Navajo people who, in her words, "walk a Latter-day Saints pathway." The book, Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century (UP of Kansas, 2023), uses her family's history of life in the LDS church to explore the complicated and very human relationships Diné people have with so-called Mormonism. Refusing to be defined by easy stereotypes, King's account shows people coming to the church and remaining in the church for deeply personal and deeply felt reasons, often in the face of prejudice both from within and without wider Indigenous communities. Diné dóó Gáamalii is the story of complex religious life in the American West, and a history of acceptance being found sometimes where it might be least expected.

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Markus Vinzent, "Christ's Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the Second Century" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Christ's Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the Second Century (Routledge, 2023) explores the creation of the collection now known as the New Testament. While it is generally accepted that it did not emerge as a collection prior to the late second century CE, a more controversial question is how it came to be.

How did the writings that make up the New Testament - The Gospels, the so-called Praxapostolos (Acts and the canonical letters), the Epistles of Paul, and Revelation - make their way into the collection, and what do we know about their possible historical origins, and in turn the emergence of the New Testament itself? The New Testament as we know it first became recognisable in more detail in Irenaeus of Lyon towards the end of the second century CE. However, questions remain as to how and by whom was it redacted. Was it a slow, organic process in which texts written by different authors, members of different communities and in various places, grew together into one book? Or were certain writings compiled on the basis of an editorial decision by an individual or a group of editors, revised for this purpose and partly harmonised with each other? This volume sketches out the complex development of the New Testament, arguing that key second century scholars played an important role in the emergence of the canonical collection and putting forward the possible historical origins of the text’s composition.

Markus Vinzent, who had held the H.G. Wood Chair in the History of Theology at the University of Birmingham (1999–2010) and was Professor for Theology and Patristics at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London (2010–2021, ret.), is Fellow of the Max-Weber-Centre for Anthropological and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt (2011–present). A recipient of awards from the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Agence Nationale de Recherche, France, he is the author of Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

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Amélie Barras, "Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations" (Stanford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 24 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations (Stanford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Amélie Barras explores why and how Christian nongovernmental organizations conduct human rights work at the United Nations. The book interrogates the idea that the secular and the religious are distinct categories, and more specifically that human rights, understood as secular, can be neatly distinguished from religion. It argues that Christianity is deeply entangled in the texture of the United Nations and shapes the methods and areas of work of Christian NGOs.

To capture these entanglements, Dr. Barras analyzes—through interviews, ethnography, and document and archive analysis—the everyday human rights work of Christian NGOs at the United Nations Human Rights Council. She documents how these NGOs are involved in a constant work of double translation: they translate their human rights work into a religious language to make it relevant to their on-the-ground membership, but they also reframe the concerns of their membership in human rights terms to make them audible to UN actors. Faith in Rights is a crucial new evaluation of how religion informs Christian nongovernmental organizations' understandings of human rights and their methods of work, as well as how being engaged in human rights work influences these organizations' own religious identity and practice.

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Blake Leyerle, "Christians at Home: John Chrysostom and Domestic Rituals in Fourth-Century Antioch" (Penn State UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

What did it mean for ordinary believers to live a Christian life in late antiquity? In Christians at Home: John Chrysostom and Domestic Rituals in Fourth-Century Antioch (Penn State University Press, 2024), Blake Leyerle explores this question through the writings, teachings, and reception of John Chrysostom—a priest of Antioch who went on to become the bishop of Constantinople in AD 397.

Through elaborate spatial and ritual recommendations, Chrysostom advised listeners to turn their houses into churches. Influenced by New Testament descriptions of the Pauline communities, he preached that prayer and chant, scriptural discussion and hospitality, and even domestic furnishings would have a transformational effect on a home’s inhabitants. But as Leyerle shows, Chrysostom’s lay listeners had different views. They were focused not on personal ethical change or on the afterlife but on the immediate, tangible needs of their households. They were committed to Christianity and defended the legitimacy of their views, even citing precedents from scripture in support of their practices

By reading these perspectives on early Christian life through one another, Leyerle clarifies the points of disagreement between Chrysostom and his lay listeners and, at the same time, highlights their shared understanding. For both the preacher and his congregations, the household formed a vital ritual arena, and lived religion was necessarily rooted in practice. Elegantly written and convincingly argued, this study will appeal to scholars of theology, classics, and the history of Christianity in particular.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Blake Leyerle is Professor of Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Paula Fredriksen, "Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years" (Princeton UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton University Press, 2024), Dr. Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople. It is a story with a sprawling cast of characters: not only theologians, bishops, and emperors, but also gods and demons, angels and magicians, astrologers and ascetics, saints and heretics, aristocratic patrons and millenarian enthusiasts. All played their part in the development of what became and remains an energetically diverse biblical religion.

The New Testament, as we know it, represents only a small selection of the many gospels, letters, acts of apostles, and revelations that circulated before the establishment of the imperial church. It tells how the gospel passed from Jesus, to the apostles, thence to Paul. But by using our peripheral vision, by looking to noncanonical and paracanonical texts, by availing ourselves of information derived from papyri, inscriptions, and archaeology, we can see a different, richer, much less linear story emerging. Dr. Fredriksen brings together these many sources to reconstruct the lively interactions of pagans, Jews, and Christians, tracing the conversions of Christianity from an energetic form of Jewish messianism to an arm of the late Roman state.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Andre Villeneuve, "Divine Marriage from Eden to the End of Days: Communion with God as Nuptial Mystery in the Story of Salvation" (Wipf and Stock, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In Divine Marriage from Eden to the End of Days (Wipf and Stock, 2021), André Villeneuve explores the mystery of God’s love in the Bible and ancient Jewish tradition.

Join us as we speak André Villeneuve about how Scripture portrays the covenant between God and his people as a divine-human marriage spanning through all of human history.

Dr. André Villeneuve is a Catholic theologian, biblical scholar, and Associate Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Jan Machielsen, "The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In June 1609, two judges left Bordeaux for a territory at the very edge of their jurisdiction, a Basque-speaking province on the Atlantic coast called the Pays de Labourd. In four months, they executed up to 80 women and men for the crime of witchcraft, causing a wave of suspects to flee into Spain and sparking terror there. Witnesses, many of them children, described lurid tales of cannibalism, vampirism, and demonic sex. One of the judges, Pierre de Lancre, published a sensationalist account of this diabolical netherworld. With other accounts seemingly destroyed, this witch-hunt – France's largest – has always been seen through de Lancre's eyes. The narrative, re-told over the centuries, is that of a witch-hunt caused by a bigoted outsider.

Newly discovered evidence paints a very different, still darker picture, revealing a secret history underneath de Lancre's well-known tale. Far from an outside imposition, witchcraft was a home-grown problem. Panic had been building up over a number of years and the region was fractured by factionalism and a struggle over scarce resources. The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. Jan Machielsen reveals that de Lancre was no outsider; he was a local partisan, married into the Basque nobility. Living at the Franco-Spanish border, the Basques were victims of geography. Geo-politics caused a local conflict which made the witch-hunt inevitable. The same forces eventually sent thousands of religious refugees from Spain to France where they, in turn, became new objects of popular fear and anger.

The Basque witch-hunt is justly infamous. This book shows that almost everything historians thought they knew about it is wrong.

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Justin Tse, "Sheets of Scattered Sand: Cantonese Protestants and the Secular Dream of the Pacific Rim" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Justin K.H. Tse captures the voices of Cantonese Protestant Christians from the San Francisco, Vancouver, and Hong Kong metropolitan areas as they reflect on their efforts to adapt to secular communities while retaining their identity and beliefs.

In the context of the transpacific region between Asia and the Americas, the “Pacific Rim” refers to a window of time in which predominant narratives emphasized skilled migration and the rise of multicultural societies—the era before the rise of Chinese nationalism in 2012 and the Hong Kong protests. Diasporic Cantonese Protestant Christians of this time were frequently portrayed as a homogenous people bringing their Chinese culture and Christian communities from Hong Kong to cities such as Vancouver and San Francisco—sometimes contesting liberal developments like same-sex marriage but also offering new democratic awareness.

Sheets of Scattered Sand: Cantonese Protestants and the Secular Dream of the Pacific Rim (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) challenges that depiction of Cantonese Protestants with authentic voices from the community. Based on research done in the San Francisco Bay area, Vancouver, and Hong Kong, author Justin K.H. Tse finds that Cantonese Protestants consider themselves “sheets of scattered sand”—politically disparate and ideologically fragmented, but united in a sense of tension with the secular world. Tse’s work serves as an illuminating prequel to contemporary stories of the Hong Kong protests and a newly emergent Asian American politics, underscoring the importance of incorporating these voices in wider reflections on Christianity and secularity.

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Nathanael Homewood, "Seductive Spirits: Deliverance, Demons, and Sexual Worldmaking in Ghanaian Pentecostalism" (Stanford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this fascinating interview, Nathanael J. Homewood discusses his new book,Seductive Spirits: Deliverance, Demons, and Sexual Worldmaking in Ghanaian Pentecostalism (Stanford University Press, 2024).

Pentecostalism, Africa's fastest-growing form of Christianity, has long been preoccupied with the business of banishing demons from human bodies. Among Ghanaian Pentecostals, deliverance is primary among the embodied, experiential gifts—a loud, messy, and noisy experience that ends only when the possessed body falls to the ground silent and docile, the evil spirits rendered powerless in the face of the holy spirit-wielding-prophets. And nowhere is Ghanaian Pentecostal obsession with demons more pronounced than with sexual demons. Homewood examines the frequent and varied experiences of spirit possession and sex with demons that constitute a vital part of Pentecostal deliverance ministries, offering insight into these practices assembled from long-term ethnographic engagement with four churches in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

Relying on the uniqueness of the Pentecostal sensorium, this book unravels how spirits and sexuality intimately combine to expand the definition of the body beyond its fleshy boundaries. Demons are a knowledge regime, one that shapes how Pentecostals think about, engage with, and construct the cosmos. Deliverance Pentecostals reiterate and tarry with the demonic, especially sexually, as a realm of invention whereby alternative ways of being, sensing, and having sex are dreamed, practiced, and performed. Ultimately, Homewood argues for a distinction between colonial demonization and decolonial demons, charting another path to understanding being, the body, and sexualities.

Nathanael Homewood is the Associate Director of Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota. His areas of specialty are global Christianity, religion and sexuality, African religion, and Pentecostalism. He has earned a B.A. in Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, an M.Div in Global Christianity from Yale Divinity School, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Rice University.

Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network.

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David J. Collins, SJ, "Disenchanting Albert the Great: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician" (Penn State UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

David J Collins, SJ joins Jana Byars to talk about Disenchanting Albert the Great: the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician (Penn State Press, 2024). Albert the Great (1200–1280) was a prominent Dominican friar, a leading philosopher, and the teacher of Thomas Aquinas. He also endorsed the use of magic.

Controversial though that stance would have been, Albert was never punished or repudiated for what he wrote. Albert’s reception followed instead a markedly different course, leading ultimately to his canonization by the Catholic Church in 1931. But his thoughts about magic have been debated for centuries. Disenchanting Albert the Great takes Albert’s contested reputation as a case study for the long and complex history surrounding the concept of magic and magic’s relationship to science and religion. Over the centuries, Albert was celebrated for his magic, or it was explained away—but he was never condemned. In the fifteenth century, members of learned circles first attempted to distance Albert from magic, with the goal of exonerating him of superstition, irrationality, and immorality. Disenchanting Albert the Great discusses the philosopher’s own understanding of magic; an early, adulatory phase of his reputation as a magician; and the three primary strategies used to exonerate Albert over the centuries.

In the end, Disenchanting Albert the Great tells the story of a thirteenth-century scholar who worked to disenchant the natural world with his ideas about magic but who himself would not be disenchanted until the modern era. This accessible and insightful history will appeal to those interested in Albert the Great, Catholic Church history, the history of magic, and Western understandings of the natural and the rational over time.

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Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee, "The Illustrated Cairo Genizah" (Gorgias Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.

In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history.

In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."

Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space".

In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.

See visual examples of the collection online.

Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit.

Recommended reading:

The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka
From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)

Hosted by Meghan Cochran

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Michael Plekon, "Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In an era where congregations are shrinking and fewer people engage with faith communities, Michael Plekon's book Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today (Wipf and Stock, 2024) offers a timely exploration of both the challenges and opportunities facing modern Christian ministry. Through detailed analysis, Plekon traces the factors behind congregational decline while also highlighting inspiring stories of parishes that have successfully reimagined themselves for contemporary times.

Our conversation today exemplifies what contemporary theological discussions should encompass - a profound dialogue about the relevance of Christian theology in our time, acknowledging both trauma and pain, while exploring the tremendous opportunity Christianity can offer each of us.

This is more than just a book discussion - it's a sustained meditation on the vocation, lives, and work of pastors in our changing times.

Michael Plekon is a unique voice in contemporary religious scholarship, bridging academic theology and lived spirituality. Born in Yonkers in 1948, he has dedicated his life to exploring what holiness looks like in modern times through both scholarly work and pastoral experience. As a professor at Baruch College (1977-2017) and an ordained priest who has served in both Western and Eastern Churches, Plekon brings a rare dual perspective to religious studies. His dozen-plus books, including the award-winning "Uncommon Prayer," focus on finding the sacred in everyday life and examining how modern saints - from Dorothy Day to Thomas Merton - navigate faith in contemporary society. Plekon's work is particularly relevant today as he explores the intersection of religious identity, social justice, and community building in an increasingly diverse America.

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Mou Banerjee, "The Disinherited: The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India" (Harvard UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

An illuminating history of religious and political controversy in nineteenth-century Bengal, where Protestant missionary activity spurred a Christian conversion “panic” that indelibly shaped the trajectory of Hindu and Muslim politics.

In 1813, the British Crown adopted a policy officially permitting Protestant missionaries to evangelize among the empire’s Indian subjects. The ramifications proved enormous and long-lasting. While the number of conversions was small—Christian converts never represented more than 1.5 percent of India’s population during the nineteenth century—Bengal’s majority faith communities responded in ways that sharply politicized religious identity, leading to the permanent ejection of religious minorities from Indian ideals of nationhood.

Mou Banerjee details what happened as Hindus and Muslims grew increasingly suspicious of converts, missionaries, and evangelically minded British authorities. Fearing that converts would subvert resistance to British imperialism, Hindu and Muslim critics used their influence to define the new Christians as a threatening “other” outside the bounds of authentic Indian selfhood. The meaning of conversion was passionately debated in the burgeoning sphere of print media, and individual converts were accused of betrayal and ostracized by their neighbors. Yet, Banerjee argues, the effects of the panic extended far beyond the lives of those who suffered directly. As Christian converts were erased from the Indian political community, that community itself was reconfigured as one consecrated in faith. While India’s emerging nationalist narratives would have been impossible in the absence of secular Enlightenment thought, the evolution of cohesive communal identity was also deeply entwined with suspicion toward religious minorities.

Recovering the perspectives of Indian Christian converts as well as their detractors, The Disinherited: The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India (Harvard UP, 2025) is an eloquent account of religious marginalization that helps to explain the shape of Indian nationalist politics in today’s era of Hindu majoritarianism.

Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh.

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Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, "Women and the Reformations: A Global History" (Yale UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Reformations, both Protestant and Catholic, have long been told as stories of men. But women were central to the transformations that took place in Europe and beyond. What was life like for them in this turbulent period? How did their actions and ideas shape Christianity and influence societies around the world?

In Women and the Reformations: A Global History (Yale University Press, 2024), renowned scholar Dr. Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks explores the history of women and the Reformations in full for the first time. Dr. Wiesner-Hanks travels the globe, examining well-known figures like Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth I, and Anne Hutchinson, as well as women whose stories are only now emerging. Along the way, we meet converts in Japan, Spanish nuns in the Philippines, and saints in Ethiopia and America. Dr. Wiesner-Hanks explores women’s experiences as monarchs, mothers, migrants, martyrs, mystics, and missionaries, revealing that the story of the Reformations is no longer simply European—and that women played a vital role.

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Shannon Gayk, "Apocalyptic Ecologies: From Creation to Doom in Middle English Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Shannon Gayk joins Jana Byars to discuss her new book. Apocalyptic Ecologies: From Creation to Doom in Medieval English Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a meditative reflection on what medieval disaster writing can teach us about how to respond to the climate emergency. When a series of ecological disasters swept medieval England, writers turned to religious storytelling for precedents. Their depictions of biblical floods, fires, storms, droughts, and plagues reveal an unsettled relationship to the natural world, at once unchanging and bafflingly unpredictable. In Apocalyptic Ecologies, Shannon Gayk traces representations of environmental calamities through medieval plays, sermons, and poetry such as Cleanness and Piers Plowman. In premodern disaster writing, she recovers a vision of environmental flourishing that could inspire new forms of ecological care today: a truly apocalyptic sensibility capable of seeing in every ending, every emergency a new beginning waiting to emerge.

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Charles C. Helmer IV, "The Lord Who Listens: A Dogmatic Inquiry Into God as Hearer" (Brill, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

What does it mean that God hears? Can a God who is "pure act" be affected in such a way? What does this mean for those whom God hears? Who are those people? Join Benjamin Phillips as he asks such questions of Charles Helmer IV, author of The Lord Who Listens: A Dogmatic Inquiry into God as Hearer (Brill, 2024).

More about the book: In The Lord Who Listens, Charles C. Helmer IV draws on Holy Scripture and the theology of Karl Barth to offer a theological intepretation of God's hearing. Prioritizing this neglected biblical theme, Helmer develops a theological grammar for speaking of God's hearing that maintains a strong creator-creature distinction and then proceeds to demonstrate the profound implications God's hearing has for the doctrines of anthropology, Christology and, thus, for understandings of the gospel. In contrast to passibilist-liberationist strategies, God's hearing is argued to furnish existentially and theologically superior resources for those who cry out to be heard by God.

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Yii-Jan Lin, "Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration" (Yale UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The metaphor of New Jerusalem has long been used to justify dueling narratives of America as the land of freedom with open gates and the walled city closed to all except those whose names are written in the book of life.

In Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration (Yale University Press, 2024), Yii Jan Lin explores the idea of America as the New Jerusalem from early European exploration and colonization; through the waves of Chinese immigration and exclusion; the open gates envisioned by Ronald Reagan in his Farewell Address; and the present day rhetoric about closing the wall at the southern border and the characterization of migrants as diseased and dangerous.

Yii-Jan Lin traces the use of this metaphor in newspapers, political speeches, sermons, cartoons, and novels throughout American history to portray a shining, God-blessed refuge and it's simultaneous opposite, where the unwanted are defined as unworthy for entry. Lin shows Revelation’s apocalyptic logic at work in these conflicting interpretations of the American dream, where judgement may be based on the deeds of the individual or judgement may be based on whether they are predestined for inclusion.

Author recommended reading:

- Heathen: Religion and Race in American History by Kathryn Gin Lum

- Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement by Jacqueline M. Hidalgo

Hosted by Meghan Cochran

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Talking with a Man Who Returned from the Dead (with Paul Zucarelli)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This is my second conversation with Paul Zucarelli who died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and the faith of his family. Since his resurrection, he has been serving God as a lay evangelist. In the earlier interview, we talked about his new book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church: An Inconvenient Truth, in which he made a strong case for the authority of the Roman Catholic church. This time we are talking about his first book, Faith Understood: An Ordinary Man's Journey to the Presence of God. He tells us about his experience of death, purgatory, and the light of the face God; he also describes his return to our breathing world and the power of faith and intercessory prayer.

Bishop Olmsted, the doctors, and Paul’s wife, Beth, and his son, Michael, recall his death and return in a short video.
Paul’s first book, Faith Understood: An Ordinary Man's Journey to the Presence of God.
Paul’s second book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church.
Paul’s website, Faith Understood.
Here are other videos of Paul telling this story.

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Denys Turner, "Dante the Theologian" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

An understanding of Dante the theologian as distinct from Dante the poet has been neglected in an appreciation of Dante's work as a whole.

That is the starting-point of Dante the Theologian (Cambridge UP, 2022). In giving theology fresh centrality, the author argues that theologians themselves should find, when they turn to Dante Alighieri, a compelling resource: whether they do so as historians of fourteenth-century Christian thought, or as interpreters of the religious issues of our own times. Expertly guiding his readers through the structure and content of the Commedia, Denys Turner reveals – in pacy and muscular prose – how Dante's aim for his masterpiece is to effect what it signifies. It is this quasi-sacramental character that renders it above all a theological treatise: whose meaning is intelligible only through poetry. Turner's Dante 'knows that both poetry and theology are necessary to the essential task and that each without the other is deficient.'

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W. Paul Reeve, et al., "This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

On July 22, 1847, a group of about forty refugees entered the Salt Lake Valley. Among them were three enslaved men, two of whom shared the religion, Mormonism, that had caused them to flee. The valley was also home to members of the Ute tribe, who would sometimes barter captive women and children to Spanish colonizers. Thus, the question of whether the Latter-day Saints would accept or reject slavery in their new Zion confronted them on the day they first arrived. Five years later, after Utah had become an American territory, its legislature was prodded to take up the question then roiling the nation: would they be slave or free?

George D. Watt, the official reporter for the 1852 legislative session, reported debates and speeches in Pitman shorthand. They remained in their original format, virtually untouched, for more than one hundred and fifty years, until LaJean Purcell Carruth transcribed them. In this eye-opening volume This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah (Oxford University Press, 2024), Carruth, Dr. Christopher Rich, and Dr. W. Paul Reeve draw extensively on these new sources to chronicle the session, during which the legislature passed two important statutes: one that legally transformed African American slaves into "servants" but did not pass the condition of servitude on to their children and another that authorized twenty-year indentures for enslaved Native Americans.

This Abominable Slavery places these debates within the context of the nation's growing sectional divide and contextualizes the meaning of these laws in the lives of Black enslaved people and Native American indentured servants. In doing so, it sheds new light on race, religion, slavery, and unfree labor in the antebellum period.

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Nina Valbousquet, "Lukewarm Souls: The Vatican facing the Shoah" (La Découverte, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The exceptional opening of the archives of the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) in 2020 did not end the controversies surrounding the silence of the pope in the face of Nazi atrocities. But, beyond the controversies, what do these new sources reveal? What do they contribute to our understanding of the Shoah, the Second World War and religious power? Do they allow us to grasp more finely the deep ambivalences of the Vatican, between charity and prejudice, in the face of anti-Jewish persecution?

Based on three years of examining these considerable funds in Rome, Lukewarm Souls: The Vatican facing the Shoah (La Découverte, 2024) probes the motivations and dilemmas of the people involved in this story, their voices but also their silences. Going beyond a classic approach focused on the pope and diplomacy, this work sheds light on the political, humanitarian, religious and cultural issues of the Holy See's choices. The book raises this question in the long duration of relations between the Church and the Jews in order to evaluate the weight of a centuries-old culture of hostility in the Vatican's responses to anti-Semitic persecutions, before and during the war, but also after the Shoah. Has this unprecedented level of violence against a minority shaken the old bedrock of Christian anti-Judaism?

Finally, by making the voices of those on the ground and the persecuted heard, in particular those of mixed Judeo-Christian families, this book questions more broadly the resilience of religion in the face of genocide and the capacity of our civil societies to respond to mass violence.

This book was originally published in French as Les âmes tièdes: Le Vatican face à la Shoah (La Découverte, 2024)

Geraldine Gudefin is a French-born modern Jewish historian researching Jewish family life, legal pluralism, and the migration experiences of Jews in France and the United States. She is currently a research fellow at the Hebrew University’s Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and is completing a book titled An Impossible Divorce? East European Jews and the Limits of Legal Pluralism in France, 1900-1939.

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Julia Kelto Lillis, "Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity" (U California Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways. Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this change and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity (University of California Press, 2022) illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Leila K. Norako, "Monstrous Fantasies: England's Crusading Imaginary and the Romance of Recovery, 1300-1500" (Cornell UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Monstrous Fantasies: England's Crusading Imaginary and the Romance of Recovery, 1300-1500 (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Leila Norako asks why medieval romances reimagining the crusades ending in a Christian victory circulated in England with such abundance after the 1291 Muslim reconquest of Acre, the last of the Latin crusader states in the Holy Land, and what these texts reveal about the cultural anxieties of late medieval England. Dr. Norako highlights the impact that the Ottoman victory and subsequent massacre of Christian prisoners at the battle of Nicopolis in 1396 had on intensifying the popularity of what she calls recovery romance.

These two episodes inspired a sense of urgency over the fate of the Holy Land and of Latin Christendom itself, resulting in the proliferation of romances in which crusading English kings like Richard I and anachronistic legends like King Arthur not only reconquered Jerusalem but committed genocidal violence against the Muslims. These romances, which—as Norako argues—also influenced Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, conjure fantasies of an ascendant global Christendom by rehearsing acts of conquest and cultural annihilation that were impossible to realize in the late Middle Ages. Emphasizing the tension in these texts between nostalgia and anticipation that fuels their narrative momentum, Monstrous Fantasies also explores how the cultural desires for European and Christian hegemony that recovery romances versified were revived in the wake of the so-called wars on terror in the twenty-first century in such films as Kingdom of Heaven and American Sniper.

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Matthew Elia, "The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery" (Yale UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery (Yale UP, 2024) offers a bold rereading of Augustinian thought for a world still haunted by slavery.

Over the last two decades, scholars have made a striking return to the resources of the Augustinian tradition to theorize citizenship, virtue, and the place of religion in public life. However, these scholars have not sufficiently attended to Augustine’s embrace of the position of the Christian slaveholder. To confront a racialized world, the modern Augustinian tradition of political thought must reckon with its own entanglements with the afterlife of the white Christian master.

Drawing Augustine’s politics and the resources of modern Black thought into extended dialogue, Matthew Elia develops a critical analysis of the enduring problem of the Christian master, even as he presses toward an alternative interpretation of key concepts of ethical life—agency, virtue, temporality—against and beyond the framework of mastery. Amid democratic crises and racial injustice on multiple fronts, the book breathes fresh life into conversations on religion and the public square by showing how ancient and contemporary sources at once clash and converge in surprising ways. It imaginatively carves a path forward for the enduring humanities inquiry into the nature of our common life and the perennial problem of social and political domination.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Matt Elia is Assistant Professor of Theology, Race, and Environment at Saint Louis University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Gabe Durham, "Bible Adventures" (Boss Fight Books, 2015)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In the beginning, a small unlicensed game development company was hit with divine inspiration: They could make a lot of money (and escape the wrath of Nintendo) by creating games for Christians. With the release of the 1990 NES platformer Bible Adventures, the developers saw what they had made, and it was good. Or, at least, good enough.

Based on extensive research and original interviews with Wisdom Tree staff, Gabe Durham's book Bible Adventures (Boss Fight Books, 2015) investigates the rise and fall of the little company that almost could, the tension between faith and commerce in the Christian retail industry, culture's retro/ironic obsession with "bad games," and the simple recipe for transforming a regular game into a Christian game: throw a Bible in it and pray nobody notices.

Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design at the IU International University for Applied Science, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, hosts the German local radio show Replay Value and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Watchlist.

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Parker Palmer on the Israel-Gaza War

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In times of profound crisis, when violence and hatred seem to dominate our world, we often search for voices that can help us navigate through the darkness while holding onto our humanity. Today's conversation with Parker Palmer, one of America's most respected Quaker elders and thought leaders, explores the complex landscape of faith, hope, and healing in the context of the Israel-Gaza war.

As an Israeli educator now living in America, I sit down with Parker to explore not only the devastating impact of the conflict on both Israelis and Palestinians, but also how this crisis has become a mirror reflecting deep tensions within American society. Through our dialogue, we examine what it means to maintain faith in the possibility of change when reality seems to offer no hope, and how the wisdom of touch and bodily connection might offer pathways to healing that weapons never could."

About Parker Palmer:

"Parker J. Palmer is a world-renowned writer, speaker, activist, and founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal. For over five decades, his work has focused on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality, and social change. His books, including 'The Courage to Teach,' 'Let Your Life Speak,' and 'Healing the Heart of Democracy,' have inspired millions worldwide. As a Quaker elder, Palmer brings a unique perspective that combines contemplative wisdom with practical engagement in social justice, making him a vital voice in conversations about faith, community, and social healing."

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Holy, Catholic, Apostolic (with Paul Zucarelli)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 7 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Paul Zucarelli died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and the faith of his family. Since his resurrection, he has been serving God as a lay evangelist. His new book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church: An Inconvenient Truth, makes a strong apologetic case for the authority of the Roman Catholic church. He goes into supernatural evidence: Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, uncorrupted bodies of the saints, and raising of the dead. He follows the history of the church from its foundation over the centuries with its schisms and fractures, down to this day when we Catholics disagree about the True Way. Can we humans be reconciled and reunited this side of the veil? That’s the question we tackle together.

Paul’s book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church: An Inconvenient Truth (Sophia Press, 2024)
Paul’s website, Faith Understood

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Mark Stoyle, "A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549" (Yale UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 3 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. Beginning as an argument between two men and their vicar, the rebellion led to a siege of Exeter, savage battles with Crown forces, and the deaths of 4,000 local men and women. It represents the most determined attempt by ordinary English people to halt the religious reformation of the Tudor period.

In A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 (Yale UP, 2022) Mark Stoyle tells the story of the so-called “Prayer Book Rebellion” in full. Correcting the accepted narrative in a number of places, Stoyle shows that the government in London saw the rebels as a real threat. He demonstrates the importance of regional identity and emphasizes that religion was at the heart of the uprising. This definitive account brings to life the stories of the thousands of men and women who acted to defend their faith almost five hundred years ago.

Mark Stoyle is professor of early modern history at the University of Southampton. An expert on Tudor and Stuart Britain, he is the author of seven books, including Soldiers and Strangers and The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog.

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Nicholas Spencer, "Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion" (Oneworld, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 1 Nov 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Most things you 'know' about science and religion are myths or half-truths that grew up in the last years of the nineteenth century and remain widespread today.

The true history of science and religion is a human one. It's about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It's about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history - Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it's about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say - a question that is more urgent in the twenty-first century than ever before.

From eighth-century Baghdad to the frontiers of AI today, via Song dynasty China, medieval Europe and Soviet Russia, Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion (Oneworld, 2024) sheds new light on this complex historical landscape. Rejecting the thesis that science and religion are inevitably at war, Nicholas Spencer illuminates a compelling and troubled relationship that has definitively shaped human history.

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Toni Alimi, "Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics" (Princeton UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Augustine believed that slavery is permissible, but to understand why, we must situate him in his late antique Roman intellectual context. Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics (Princeton UP, 2024) provides a major reassessment of this monumental figure in the Western religious and political tradition, tracing the remarkably close connections between Augustine’s understanding of slavery and his broader thought.

Augustine is most often read through the lens of Greek philosophy and the theology of Christian writers such as Paul and Ambrose, yet his debt to Roman thought is seldom appreciated. Toni Alimi reminds us that the author of Confessions and City of God was also a Roman citizen and argues that some of the thinkers who most significantly shaped his intellectual development were Romans such as Cicero, Seneca, Lactantius, and Varro—Romans who had much to say about slavery and its relationship to civic life. Alimi shows how Augustine, a keen and influential student of these figures, related chattel slavery and slavery to God, and sheds light on Augustinianism’s complicity in Christianity’s long entanglement with slavery.

An illuminating work of scholarship, Slaves of God reveals how slavery was integral to Augustine’s views about law, rule, accountability, and citizenship, and breaks new ground on the topic of slavery in late antique and medieval political thought.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Toni Alimi is Assistant Professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Alister E. McGrath, "The Nature of Christian Doctrine: Its Origins, Development, and Function" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Nature of Christian Doctrine: Its Origins, Development, and Function (Oxford UP, 2024) offers a groundbreaking account of the origins, development, and enduring significance of Christian doctrine, explaining why it remains essential to the life of Christian communities.

Noting important parallels between the development of scientific theories and Christian doctrine, Alister E. McGrath examines the growing view of early Christianity as a 'theological laboratory'. We can think of doctrinal formulations as proposals submitted for testing across the Christian world, rather than as static accounts of orthodoxy. This approach fits the available evidence much better than theories of suppressed early orthodoxies and reinforces the importance of debate within the churches as a vital means of testing doctrinal formulations.

McGrath offers a robust critique of George Lindbeck's still-influential Nature of Doctrine (1984), raising significant concerns about its reductionist approach. He instead provides a more reliable account of the myriad functions of doctrine, utilising Mary Midgley's concept of 'mapping' as a means of coordinating the multiple aspects of complex phenomena. McGrath's approach also employs Karl Popper's 'Three Worlds', allowing the theoretical, objective, and subjective aspects of doctrine to be seen as essential and interconnected.

We see how Christian doctrine offers ontological disclosure about the nature of reality, while at the same time providing a coordinating framework which ensures that its various aspects are seen as parts of a greater whole. Doctrine provides a framework, or standpoint, that allows theological reality to be seen and experienced in a new manner; it safeguards and articulates the core vision of reality that is essential for the proper functioning and future flourishing of Christian communities.

Alister E. McGrath served as Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and subsequently as Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion. He initially studied natural sciences at Oxford and holds a special interest in how scientific method can illuminate aspects of Christian theology. He also served as Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London, a position established in 1597. He has delivered the Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford, the Hulsean Lectures at the University Cambridge, and the Gifford Lectures at the University Aberdeen.

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Dominick Hernández, "The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature" (Gorgias Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's first two rounds of dialogue.

Tune in as we speak with Dominick Hernández about his monograph on the Book of Job, The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Gorgias Press, 2022)

Dr. Dominick Hernández is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and Director of Talbot en Español.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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S4E11 Religion and Republic: A Conversation with Miles Smith

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In our latest podcast episode, we sat down with historian Miles Smith, who teaches at Hillsdale College, to discuss his new book, Religion and Republic: Christian American from the Founding to the Civil War (Davenant Press, 2024). In this insightful conversation, we explored the book's themes, which examine the complex relationship between religion and politics in shaping the American republic. Smith delves into how religious beliefs influenced the political ideologies and actions of early American leaders and how these ideas continue to resonate in today's society.

During the interview, we touched on the impact of religious thought on the founding principles of the United States, the interplay between church and state, and the lasting influence of these dynamics on American political culture. Smith's depth of knowledge and engaging storytelling provided a fresh perspective on the nation's history, offering listeners a thought-provoking look at the intersections of faith and governance.

Miles Smith is a respected historian specializing in American intellectual and religious history, with a focus on how these elements shaped political identities. Currently a faculty member at Hillsdale College, his work is widely recognized for its clarity and thoughtfulness, making Religion and Republic a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the roots of American political thought.

Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

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Peter Joshua Atkins, "The Animalising Affliction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4: Reading Across the Human-Animal Boundary" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Animalising Affliction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4: Reading Across the Human-Animal Boundary (Bloomsbury, 2022) is a detailed investigation into the nature of Nebuchadnezzar's animalising affliction in Daniel 4 and the degree to which he is depicted as actually becoming an animal. Peter Atkins examines two predominant lines of interpretation: either Nebuchadnezzar undergoes a physical metamorphosis of some kind into an animal form; or diverse other readings that specifically preclude or deny an animal transformation of the king. By providing an extensive study of these interpretative opinions, alongside innovative assessments of ancient Mesopotamian divine-human-animal boundaries, Atkins ultimately demonstrates how neither of these traditional interpretations best reflect the narrative events.

While there have been numerous metamorphic interpretations of Daniel 4, these are largely reliant upon later developments within the textual tradition and are not present in the earliest edition of Nebuchadnezzar's animalising affliction. Atkins' study displays that when Daniel 4 is read in the context of Mesopotamian texts, which appear to conceive of the human-animal boundary as being indicated primarily in relation to possession or lack of the divine characteristic of wisdom, the affliction represents a far more significant categorical change from human to animal than has hitherto been identified.

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Risa Cromer, "Conceiving Christian America: Embryo Adoption and Reproductive Politics" (NYU Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 9 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In 1997, a group of white pro-life evangelical Christians in the United States created the nation’s first embryo adoption program to “save” the thousands of frozen human embryos remaining from assisted reproduction procedures, which they contend are unborn children. While a small part of US fertility services, embryo adoption has played an outsized role in conservative politics, from high-profile battles over public investment in human embryonic stem cell research to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Based on six years of ethnographic research with embryo adoption staff and participants, Dr. Risa Cromer uncovers how embryo adoption advances ambitious political goals for expanding the influence of conservative Christian values and power.

Conceiving Christian America: Embryo Adoption and Reproductive Politics (NYU Press, 2023) is the first book on embryo adoption tracing how this powerful social movement draws on white saviorist tropes in their aims to reconceive personhood, with drastic consequences for reproductive rights and justice. Documenting the practices, narratives, and beliefs that move embryos from freezers to uteruses, this book wields anthropological wariness as a tool for confronting the multiple tactics of the Christian Right. Timely and provocative, Conceiving Christian America presents a bold and nuanced examination of a family-making process focused on conceiving a Christian nation.

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Luke Clossey, "Jesus and the Making of the Modern Mind, 1380-1520" (Open Book, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 9 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

For his fifteenth-century followers, Jesus was everywhere – from baptism to bloodcults to bowling. This sweeping and unconventional investigation looks at Jesus across one hundred forty years of social, cultural, and intellectual history. Mystics married him, Renaissance artists painted him in three dimensions, Muslim poets praised his life-giving breath, and Christopher (“Christ-bearing”) Columbus brought the symbol of his cross to the Americas. Beyond the European periphery, this global study follows Jesus across – and sometimes between – religious boundaries, from Greenland to Kongo to China.

Amidst this diversity, Jesus and the Making of the Modern Mind, 1380-1520 (Open Book, 2024) offers readers sympathetic and immersive insight into the religious realities of its subjects. To this end, this book identifies two perspectives: one uncovers hidden meanings and unexpected connections, while the other restricts Jesus to the space and time of human history. Minds that believed in Jesus, and those that opposed him, made use of both perspectives to make sense of their worlds.

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William Cook Miller, "The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture" (Cornell UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations.

Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes.

By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new.

William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology.

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Mercy Ships (with Reanne Newquist)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 1 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Reanne Newquist tells me about her voyage on Mercy Ships bringing healthcare to some of the poorest people in the world, a mission started by Don Stephens in the 1970s and encouraged by Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Reanne, her husband, and her kids left everything behind, sold their home and sailed off to adventure and service. Most people go back to normal life, but Reann stayed on with Mercy Ships as part of the communications staff, spreading the word by talking with people like me (and you). Here is her story.

Mercy Ships website.
Mercy Minute podcast.
Reanne’s website.

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Harrison Perkins, "Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction" (Lexham Academic, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 1 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Covenant shapes our life with God. In Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction (Lexham Academic, 2024), Harrison Perkins shows how Christ and his work are the heart of that covenant relationship. Since God lives in covenant with his redeemed people, covenant theology provides a framework for Christians to grow in their life with God, to read the Bible, and to love the church.

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Jerome E. Copulsky, "American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order" (Yale UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 1 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A question has long hung over the the United States regarding the proper role of religion in public life. Those who long for a Christian America claim that the Founders intended a nation with political values and institutions shaped by Christianity. Secularists argue that those same Founders designed an enlightened republic where church and state should be kept separate.

American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order (Yale UP, 2024), Jerome E. Copulsky examines the Americans who rejected the secularism of American society, predicted the collapse of the nation, and hoped to develop a new and decidedly Christian commonwealth.

By reviewing extreme religious dissent from colonial times through the current age, Copulsky shows how these thinkers opposed the American orthodoxy of pluralist democracy on theological grounds. Their views are diametrically opposed to the idea of America as a place where multiple sects and creeds peacefully coexist. Each chapter explains a different strain of heresy, beginning with loyal Anglicans who opposed the American Revolution and ending with current National Conservatives who embrace illiberal populism in an effort to enact their vision of a Christian America.

Author recommended reading:

The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy by Matthew D. Taylor

Hosted by Meghan Cochran

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Uroš Kovač, "The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon" (Berghahn Books, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A compelling work that explores the lives and aspirations of young footballers with deep nuance and insight, The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon (Berghahn Books, 2022) shows how precarious masculinity, Pentecostal spirituality, and aspirations of prosperous futures are intertwining and interrelated in the everyday lives in Southwest regions of Cameroon.

Since the 1990s, an increasing number of young men in Cameroon have aspired to play football as a career and a strategy to migrate abroad. Migration through the sport promises fulfillment of masculine dreams of sports stardom, as well as opportunities to earn a living that have been hollowed out by the country’s long economic stalemate. The aspiring footballers are increasingly turning to Pentecostal Christianity, which allows them to challenge common tropes of young men as stubborn and promiscuous, while also offering a moral and bodily regime that promises success despite the odds. Yet the transnational sports market is tough and unpredictable: it demands disciplined young bodies and introduces new forms of uncertainty. The book unpacks young Cameroonians’ football dreams, Pentecostal faith, obligations to provide, and desires to migrate to highlight the precarity of masculinity in structurally adjusted Africa and neoliberal capitalism.

Uroš Kovač is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Groningen’s Centre for Religion, Conflict, and Globalization. He is a social anthropologist researching gender, migration, religion and development, often through the prism of sports in Africa and Europe.

Yadong Li is a PhD student in anthropology at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of the anthropology of state, the anthropology of time, hope studies, and post-structuralist philosophy. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, "Desert Ascetics of Egypt" (ARC Humanities Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Egypt is revered as the home of the famous Desert Ascetics, who first embraced a monastic life and established homosocial communities on the borders of their urban centres in the Nile Valley. Regarded as angels and warriors, the wisdom of the Desert Ascetics formed part of the oral and literary tradition of wonder-working saints whose commitment to asceticism was legendary and inspirational.

Desert Ascetics of Egypt (ARC Humanities Press, 2020) grounds the mythologized stories of Desert Ascetics in the materiality of the desert, demonstrating the closeness of the desert, the connections between non-monastic and monastic communities, and the exciting insights into lived monasticism through the archaeology of monasticism in Egypt.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom is the Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, the Senior Archaeological Consultant for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project, and Co-Director of Monastic Archaeology in Scotland at Lindores Abbey.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

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Courtney Ann Irby, "Guiding God's Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling" (NYU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

It is well-known that the institution of marriage has changed dramatically in the past few decades. However, very little research has focused on the role of religious institutions in helping couples form and maintain their relationships.

Guiding God's Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling (NYU Press, 2024) by Dr. Courtney Irby offers an examination of Christian marriage preparation programs, exploring their efforts to stabilise the institution of marriage and highlighting the tension between individualism and community in people’s relational lives. Marriage preparation programs offer a useful lens through which to trace shifts in both religious and family institutions because they set out clear and intentional articulations of marriage ideologies and gendered relationship scripts by faith communities. By documenting the changes in content and practices of Christian premarital education along with its advice regarding what makes a good marriage, the book charts the ways that religious communities have been transformed by and have helped to contribute to the individualization of faith and relationships.

Featuring archival research as well as first hand observations of four marriage preparation courses—two Protestant and two Catholic—along with seventy interviews with participating couples and leaders of these and other programs, the book offers a rare view of visions about how to realise a successful and faith-filled relationship. This examination of marriage classes offers key insight into how religious communities have responded to cultural changes in marriage, gender, sexuality, and intimacy.

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Steve Tibble, "Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land" (Yale UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land (Yale University Press, 2024), Dr. Steve Tibble presents a vivid new history of the criminal underworld in the medieval Holy Land.

The religious wars of the crusades are renowned for their military engagements. But the period was witness to brutality beyond the battlefield. More so than any other medieval war zone, the Holy Land was rife with unprecedented levels of criminality and violence.

In the first history of its kind, Dr. Tibble explores the criminal underbelly of the crusades. From gangsters and bandits to muggers and pirates, Tibble presents extraordinary evidence of an illicit underworld. He shows how the real problem in the region stemmed not from religion but from young men. Dislocated, disinhibited, and present in disturbingly large numbers, they were the propellant that stoked two centuries of unceasing warfare and shocking levels of criminality.

Crusader Criminals charts the downward spiral of desensitisation that grew out of the horrors of incessant warfare—and in doing so uncovers some of the most surprising stories of the time.

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Tone Bleie, "A New Testament: Scandinavian Missionaries and Santal Chiefs from Company and British Crown Rule to Independence" (Solum Bokvennen, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we are joined by the anthropologist Tone Bleie for a discussion of her book A New Testament: Scandinavian Missionaries and Santal Chiefs from Company and British Crown Rule to Independence (Solum Bokvennen, 2023), a pioneering piece of scholarship that innovatively rethinks the economic, legal, and social history of the power-laden relationship between a Scandinavian Transatlantic mission and the Santals, Boro and Bengalis of Eastern India, Northern Bangladesh, and Eastern Nepal. Based on decades of research, the book offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of historical encounters across the longue durée, transporting readers back to the medieval period and Danish and British Company Rule, through to the British Raj and the early post-Independence period.

Tone Bleie is Professor of Public Planning and Cultural Understanding at the University of Tromsø, The Arctic University of Norway.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen is a social anthropologist based at the University of Oslo.

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Iemima Ploscariu, "Alternative Evangelicals: Challenging Nationalism in Interwar Romania's Multi-ethnic Borderlands" (Brill, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Iemima Ploscariu about Alternative Evangelicals: Challenging Nationalism in Interwar Romania's Multi-ethnic Borderlands (Brill, 2024).

Evangelicals in interwar Romania were a vibrant mix of ethnicities, languages, and social statuses. Jews, Roma, Germans, Hungarians, Serbs, Ukrainians, and Russians sang, prayed, and preached in their native languages. Romanian statesmen perceived them as a danger for the construction of a strong post-WWI national identity. The lived religion of interwar Romanian evangelicals and their struggle through music for legitimacy demonstrates the close ties between national self-understanding and religion. The diverse groups of Romanian evangelicals reveal how minorities in 20th century Europe challenged established religious concepts and constructed their new identities.

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Jason Ramsey, "Reckoning with Change in Yucatán: Histories of Care and Threat on a Former Hacienda" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A perpetual tension exists between history and change, which is an issue long explored by historians and social scientists. Reckoning with Change in Yucatán: Histories of Care and Threat on a Former Hacienda (Routledge, 2023) engages with how best to look upon and respond to change, arguing that this debate is an important arena for negotiating local belonging and a force of transformation in its own right. For residents of Chunchucmil, a historic rural community in Yucatán, Mexico, history is anything but straightforward. Living in what is both a defunct 19th-century hacienda estate and a vibrant Catholic pilgrimage site, Chunchucmileños reckon past, present, and future in radically different ways. For example, while some use the aging estate buildings to weave a history of economic decline and push for revitalization by hotel developers, others highlight the growing fame of the Virgin of the Rosary in the attached church and vow to defend the site from developer interference.

By exploring how past and future are channeled through changing built environments, landscapes, sacred relics, and legal documents, this ethnographic study details how the politics of change provide Chunchucmileños with a common language for debating commitments to place and each another in the present. Against Western notions of ‘History’ as a relatively coherent account of change, Jason Ramsey suggests we reframe it as an ongoing performance that is always fractured, democratic, and morally tinged.

Jason Ramsey is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Canada. Based on fieldwork in Yucatan among former plantation laborers, he publishes on topics such as semiotics, ruination, value, and the anthropology of history.

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Philip Freeman, "Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor" (Yale UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Philip Freeman about his new book Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor (Yale UP, 2023).

Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire.

As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Philip Freeman is the author of over twenty books and is Fletcher Jones Chair of Western Culture, and Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Katharine J. Dell, "The Lord by Wisdom Founded the Earth" (Baylor UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The foundation of the earth, its division from the heavens and the waters, God's provision of all of nature as well as human and animal life, God's relationship to the world, and the ethics and morality of our human response; these key themes, related to both creation and covenant, emerge from the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. In her recent book, The Lord by Wisdom Founded the Earth (Baylor UP, 2023), Katharine J. Dell illumines the theological themes of creation and covenant by interpreting them through the lens of wisdom.

Tune in as Dell offers a fresh reading from texts in Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes!

Katherine J. Dell is professor of Old Testament Literature and Theology in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Aleksandra Djuric Milovanovic, "The Untold Journey of the Nazarene Emigration from Yugoslavia to North America" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What role does religion play in migration processes? What is the reason behind migration of religious minorities? Is religious affiliation a deciding factor in choosing emigration?

Some of these questions have been the focus of The Untold Journey of the Nazarene Emigration from Yugoslavia to North America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). As the field of migration history is very broad both chronologically and geographically, Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović focuses on the migration of religious minorities triggered by state repression and the socio-historical context of post-Second World War Yugoslavia. The history and development of the Nazarene communities is analyzed through the lens of religiously motivated persecution and migration from Yugoslavia to North America.

The Nazarenes, known as Apostolical Christian Church (Nazarene) in North America, represents a fascinating case study which bring new insights into policies towards minority religions during the communist era, migration patterns, and integration mechanisms in the host country. This book is applicable to contemporary forced migration contexts and to the role of religious communities in supporting the integration of refugees and migrants across the world. The reasons for fleeing, migration paths, and routes, life in the refugee camps and settling into the new society are present in the narratives of present-day refugees and migrants fleeing from conflict or religious intolerance across the globe.

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Marilynne Robinson, "Reading Genesis" (FSG, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative. In other words, academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherency, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true.

Both of these approaches preclude an appreciation of its greatness as literature, its rich articulation and exploration of themes that resonate through the whole of Scripture.

Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis (FSG, 2024), which includes the full text of the King James Version of the book, is a powerful consideration of the profound meanings and promise of God’s enduring covenant with humanity. This magisterial book radiates gratitude for the constancy and benevolence of God’s abiding faith in Creation.

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A Letter from Jesus (with Dann Aungst)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Dann Aungst was pretty far gone in his sexual addiction when Jesus grabbed him (figuratively) by the lapels and sent him (literally) messengers, a letter, and a locution during Adoration. He left the road of destruction and chaos and found himself on the road to purity. He then founded his apostolate (which he called The Road to Purity) after writing his inspired, From One Addict to Another. He talks about his story and also the roots of addiction in the human heart and how he helps seminarians advise us sinners in the confessional where they speak in persona Christi.

Dann’s Apostolate, The Road to Purity, and the gala this coming weekend, September 14, 2024.
The Road to Purity podcast.
Dann retells his story in great detail at the 2021 St. Thomas Aquinas Conference.
Dann’s first book, From One Addict to Another.
All of Dann’s books on The Road to Purity website and on Amazon.com.
The Prayer of Mary of Egypt on the Pappas Institute, an Orthodox Christian website, and about her life on Wikipedia and from the University of Notre Dame.

Here is another AGC episode on the same topic:

Michael John Cusick on Almost Good Catholics, episode 85: Knocking at the Brothel Door: How Disordered Desires are Actually Divine Desires

Here is the pilgrimage with Monique and Joseph González coming up with Inside the Vatican, and the related episodes from Almost Good Catholics:

Pilgrimage to Mexico: Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Flower World Prophecy 2024
Colleen Dulle on Almost Good Catholics, episode 16: Marxists and Mystics: A Vatican Journalist discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal Constitution
Father James Martin, SJ, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 30: What if You’re Gay? Starting Conversations with and about LGBT Catholics.
Joseph and Monique González on Almost Good Catholics, episode 74: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth: How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531.

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Edel Bhreathnach, "Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250" (Four Courts Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The history of monasticism in early Ireland is dominated by its flourishing during the sixth and seventh centuries, a period dominated by Columba of Iona and Columbanus of Bobbio, and later by the 'reform' spearheaded by Malachy of Armagh during the twelfth century. But what of monasticism in Ireland during the intervening period? Regarded as different from ' mainstream' Anglo-Saxon and continental monasticism, monastic life in Ireland has not been fully understood in scholarly discussions about the existence of distinct ' monasticisms' throughout Christianity.

The Irish sources, many written in the vernacular, are not accessible and are viewed as unconventional. The secularization of monasticism in Ireland has overshadowed evidence for a thriving lived monasticism. Edel Bhreathnach's book Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250 (Four Courts Press, 2024) concentrates on those men and women who followed a monastic life, especially between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, and who maintained a universal monastic ideology while incorporating monasticism into their own cultural environment.

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Martha Rampton, "Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000" (Cornell UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 9 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Martha Rampton, Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith.

As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essence of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it.

Martha Rampton is full of energy and excitement about her book and she and Jana Byars have a wonderful, spirited chat.

Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender.

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Jeannine Hanger, "Sensing Salvation in the Gospel of John: The Embodied, Sensory Qualities of Participation in the I Am Sayings" (Brill, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Recent scholarship focused on the role of embodiment within cognition and communication reminds us that part of how we “know” is through our physical senses. We only know the softness of a kitten by touching its fur, or the tastiness of bread by eating. How might this influence our understanding of biblical texts, such as Jesus’s claim, “I am the bread of life,” and the invitation to eat? Sensing Salvation in the Gospel of John: The Embodied, Sensory Qualities of Participation in the I Am Sayings (Brill, 2023) explores the I am sayings of John’s Gospel, their sensory elements providing an imaginative entry into the narrative and contributing tangible value to the participatory theology of the Fourth Gospel.

Jeannine Hanger has been involved in the Biola community since 2000. She earned a Master of Arts (2004) and Master of Theology (2009) at Talbot in New Testament Studies and has been teaching undergraduates in an adjunct role since 2009. She recently completed her doctoral studies (2021) at the University of Aberdeen, also in the New Testament. Her research interests revolve around the Gospels. More specifically she has enjoyed exploring literary approaches to texts seen alongside their ancient world contexts. Her thesis focused on participation with Christ in John’s Gospel, which led to an examination of sensory imagery, metaphor, and sense perception in ancient texts. These embodied approaches highlight concrete, tangible, and affective qualities of participation with Christ. This ties into her heart for students to know God through the Word with every aspect of their beings: heart, soul, mind, and strength. As the wife of a pastor, Jeannine has also been deeply invested in the local church.

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Laura Salah Nasrallah, "Ancient Christians and the Power of Curses: Magic, Aesthetics, and Justice" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Ancient Christians and their non-Christian contemporaries lived in a world of 'magic.' Sometimes, they used curses as ritual objects to seek justice from gods and other beings; sometimes, they argued against them. Curses, and the writings of those who polemicized against curses, reveal the complexity of ancient Mediterranean religions, in which materiality, poetics, song, incantation, and glossolalia were used as technologies of power.

Laura Nasrallah's book Ancient Christians and the Power of Curses: Magic, Aesthetics, and Justice (Cambridge UP, 2023) reframes the field of religion, the study of the Roman imperial period, and the investigation of the New Testament and ancient Christianity. Her approach eschews disciplinary aesthetics that privilege the literature and archaeological remains of elites, and that defines curses as magical materials, separable from religious ritual. Moreover, Nasrallah's imaginative use of art and 'research creations' of contemporary Black painters, sculptors, and poets offer insights for understanding how ancient ritual materials embedded into art work intervene into the present moment and critique injustice.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented Ancient Jew Review

Laura Salah Nasrallah is Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Aleksander Pluskowski, "The Teutonic Knights: Rise and Fall of a Religious Corporation" (Reaktion, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Aleksander Pluskowski of the University of Reading joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, The Teutonic Knights: Rise and Fall of a Religious Corporation, out 2024 with Reaktion Books. A gripping account of the rise and fall of the last great medieval military order. This book provides a concise and incisive introduction to the knights of the Teutonic Order, the last of the great military orders established in the twelfth century.

The book traces the Order's evolution from a crusader field hospital into a major territorial ruler in northeastern Europe. Notably, the knights constructed distinctive fortified convents, including their headquarters in Western Christendom's largest castle. The narrative concludes with the Order's fifteenth-century decline due to the combined effects of a devastating war with Poland-Lithuania and the Protestant Reformation. The result is an accessible overview of this pivotal corporation in European history.

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Mark Valeri, "The Opening of the Protestant Mind: How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

During the mid-seventeenth century, Anglo-American Protestants described Native American ceremonies as savage devilry, Islamic teaching as violent chicanery, and Catholicism as repugnant superstition. By the mid-eighteenth century, they would describe amicable debates between evangelical missionaries and Algonquian religious leaders about the moral appeal of Christianity, recount learned conversations between English merchants and Muslim scholars, and tell of encounters with hospitable and sincere priests in Catholic Canada and Europe. What explains this poignant shift?

Using a variety of sources--travel narratives, dictionaries and encyclopaedias of the world's religions, missionary tracts, and sermons, The Opening of the Protestant Mind: How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Mark Valeri traces a transformation in how English and colonial American Protestants described other religions during a crucial period of English colonisation of North America. After the English Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent growth of the British empire, observers began to link Britain's success to civic moral virtues, including religious toleration, rather than to any particular religious creed. Mark Valeri shows how a wide range of Protestants--including liberal Anglicans, Calvinist dissenters, deists, and evangelicals--began to see other religions not as entirely good or entirely bad, but as complex, and to evaluate them according to their commitment to religious liberty. In the view of these Protestants, varieties of religion that eschewed political power were laudable, while types of religion that combined priestly authority with political power were illegitimate. They also changed their evangelistic practices, jettisoning civilising agendas in favour of reasoned persuasion.

Dr. Valeri neither valorizes Anglo-Protestants nor condemns them. Instead, he reveals the deep ambiguities in their ideas while showing how those ideas contained the seeds of modern religious liberty.

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Localism (with Dale Ahlquist)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Dale Ahlquist is the founder the of the Society of G. K. Chesterton and Chesterton Schools, of which there are currently 70 and number is rising. He is also the editor of the book we are talking about today, Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching, from Sophia Press, which explores the economic and social questions of how we should organize out society. It is a third way, I think, that departs from both the big government solutions offered by our progressive friends and yet also the big business capitalistic model that sometimes alienates us from our labor and communities. Dale’s book brings balance and offers the focus on local community, both family and village, encouraging ownership, solidarity, and neighborly participation.

Dale’s book, Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching, from Sophia Press.
Dale Ahlquist and the Society of G.K. Chesterton and the Chesterton Schools Network.
Dale Ahlquist with Matt Fradd on the Pints with Aquinas podcast.
Dale Ahlquist on EWTN: The Apostle of Common Sense.
Rerum Novarum, encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, 1891

Here is the NEXT BOOK that Dale and I will be talking about on a future episode:

G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man from Word on Fire Press

Joseph Pearce, one of the essayists in Dale’s book, has also been a guest on Almost Good Catholics.

Joseph Pearce on Almost Good Catholics, episode 10: What about Hell? CS Lewis and Theology of the Afterlife.

Other Almost Good Catholics episodes on the subject of Catholic Education:

Joseph Nagel and Heather Skinner on Almost Good Catholics, episode 8: It's Elementary! Catholic Education in the 21st Century.
Pete Imperial on Almost Good Catholics, episode 90: What Would Jesus Say about Diversity and Inclusion?
Rich Meyer on Almost Good Catholics, episode 45: Education in the World not of the World: A School Director and Father Talks about Forming the Whole Child.

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Randall Stephens, "The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock n’ Roll" (Harvard UP, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

I was immediately drawn to the book The Devil’s Music by Dr. Randall Stephens, Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo. Dr. Stephens and I came across one another online and the book, which combines part rock n’ roll history, part American Christianity history, was an absolute delight for me. The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock n’ Roll out now from Harvard University Press (2018), tells the story of how my experiences with rock music in the 1990’s came to be. From the inside cover of the book, “When rock n’roll emerged in the 1950’s, ministers denounced it from their pulpits and Sunday school teachers warned of the music’s demonic origins. The big beat, Billy Graham believed, was “ever working in the world for evil.” Yet by the early 2000s Christian rock had become a billion-dollar industry. The Devil’s Music tells the story of this transformation. Enjoy our conversation.

Greg Soden is the host “Classical Ideas,” a podcast about religion and religious ideas. You can find it on iTunes here.

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Scott Harrower, "Trauma and Recovery in Early North African Christianity" (Medieval Institute Publications, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Powerful religious elements for living in the aftermath of trauma are embedded within North African Christian hagiographies. The texts of (1) The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, (2) The Account of Montanus, Lucius, and their Companions, and (3) The Life of Cyprian of Carthage are stories that offered post traumatic pathways to recovery for its historical readership. These recovery-oriented beliefs and behaviors promoted positive religious coping strategies that revolved around a sense of safety, re-establishing community relationships, an integrated sense of self, and a hopeful story beyond trauma. This book vividly demonstrates that hagiographies played a vital therapeutic role in helping early Christian trauma survivors recover and flourish in the aftermath of disastrous persecutions.

Scott Harrower (PhD, Systematic Theology) is Associate Professor of Theology, Church History, and Philosophy of Religion at Ridley College (Melbourne, Australia). He is also an ordained Anglican minister and has wide-ranging ministry experience in several countries. Dr. Harrower has published and regularly presents papers on topics such as early Christianity in Roman contexts, and philosophical responses to the problem of evil. In addition to Trauma and Recovery in North African Christianity (Medieval Institute Publications, 2024), his books include Trinitarian Self and Salvation and God of All Comfort: A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of This World.

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Duane A. Garrett, "Job: Evangelical Exegetical Commentary" (Lexham Academic, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The book of Job is challenging. Its Hebrew is often obscure, its length and subject matter are intimidating, and its meaning has been debated throughout the history of biblical interpretation. Thankfully, in Job: Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Lexham Academic, 2024), Duane A. Garrett presents a fresh argument for the book's meaning. Job demonstrates the inability of Wisdom, as a theological tradition, to solve the problem of evil.

Tune in as we speak with Duane Garrett about the book of Job!

Duane Garrett is the John R. Sampey Professor of Old Testament Interpretation and Professor of biblical theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Diana V. Edelman and Philippe Guillaume, "The Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures in Five Minutes" (Equinox, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures in 5 Minutes (Equinox Books, 2024), co-edited by Philippe Guillaume and Diana V. Edelman, is a digestible, concise, reader-friendly introduction to biblical scholarship for undergraduate students and lay readers alike. Written without technical language or jargon by diverse specialists in Hebrew Bible, its 83 chapters welcome readers into a range of topics, including the enduring questions of date, authorship, and source criticism for biblical books in addition to timely contributions of interest to 21st-century audiences, such as the Hebrew scriptures and archaeology, ecology, abortion, and sexual orientation/LGBTQIA issues. Meanwhile, although not a book-by-book or verse-by-verse commentary on the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament, their volume introduces familiar prophets and figures from the scriptural collection in novel and enlightening ways. Dr. Edelman and Dr. Guillaume joined the New Books Network to discuss the development of this primer on the Hebrew Scriptures and to preview its wide-ranging contents.

Diana V. Edelman (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1986) is Professor Emerita in Hebrew Bible at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Oslo, Norway. She has published widely on many aspects of the Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context and has cultivated specialties in the Bible and cultural memory, southern Levantine history and archaeology, identity formation reflected in the Hebrew Bible, and emerging forms of Judaism in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Among her recent scholarly contributions are chapters on “Deuteronomy as the Instructions of Moses and Yhwh vs. a Framed Legal Code” (in Deuteronomy in the Making: Studies in the Production of Debarim; de Gruyter, 2021) and “The Text-Dating Conundrum: Viewing the Hebrew Bible from an Achaemenid Framework” (in Stones, Tablets, and Scrolls: Periods of the Formation of the Bible; Mohr Siebeck, 2020), and she is also the author of The Origins of the ‘Second’ Temple: Persian Imperial Policy and the Rebuilding of Jerusalem (Routledge, 2005). In her recreational time, Diana is an avid amateur photographer and world traveler.

Philippe Guillaume (Th.D., University of Geneva, 2002) is Lecturer in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Berne. His research interests span the Hebrew Scriptures and include the use of prophetic scrolls in divination and rhetorical questions posed by these texts, both internally and in their historical reception. Philippe is author of Waiting for Josiah: The Judges (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004), Land and Calendar: The Priestly Document from Genesis 1 to Joshua 18 (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2009), The Economy of Deuteronomy’s Core (Equinox, 2022) and numerous journal articles and chapter-length contributions on texts, aspects, and economic issues within the Hebrew Scriptures, including “Debunking the Latest Scenario on the Rise of the Pork Taboo” (Études et Travaux, 2018), “Wonder Woman’s Field in Proverbs 31: Taken, Not Bought!” (Ugarit-Forschungen, 2016), Naboth’s vineyard (SBL/Bible Odyssey), and “The Hidden Benefits of Patronage: Debt” (in Anthropology and the Bible; Gorgias Press, 2010).

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Laura S. Lieber, "Staging the Sacred: Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Staging the Sacred: Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the importance of Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan liturgical poetry from Late Antiquity through the lenses of performance, entertainment, and spectacle. Laura Lieber proposes an account of hymnody as a performative and theatrical genre, combining religious and theatrical studies to examine how performers creatively engaged their audiences, utilized different modes of performance, and created complex characters through their speeches.

To truly consider performance and engage with these poems fully, Lieber urges readers to imagine the world beyond the page. While poetry and hymnody from Late Antiquity are usually presented in textual form, Lieber moves away from studying the text on its own, engaging instead with how these poems would have been performed and acted. The specific literary techniques associated with oratory and acting in Late Antiquity, such as apostrophe and vivid imagery, help craft a more accurate idea of liturgical presentations. Lieber suggests ways that these ancient poets could have used their physical spaces of performance by borrowing from the gestures and body language of oratory, mime, and pantomime.

A highly interdisciplinary study that will appeal to scholars across religion, theatre, literature, and beyond, Staging the Sacred proposes a novel interpretation of Late Antique hymnody and poetry as a performative genre, akin to oratory, theatre, and other modes of public performance, placing these works in their wider societal context.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Laura S. Lieber is the inaugural chair and Professor of the Transregional History of Religion at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Michael Motia in a Lecturer in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Victoria Smolkin, "A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism" (Princeton UP, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The specter of the “Godless” Soviet Union haunted the United States and continental Western Europe throughout the Cold War, but what did atheism mean in the Soviet Union? What was its relationship with religion? In her new book, A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism, Dr. Victoria Smolkin explores how the Soviet state defined and created spaces for atheism during its nearly 70-year history.

The Soviet state often found itself devising reactions to religion in terms of belief and practice. Religion, particularly Orthodox religion, was an ideological, political and spiritual problem for the state. The state, particularly during the Khrushchev era, needed to fill the ideological and spiritual void the absence of religion created in the hearts and minds of Soviet people. From the Soviet League of the Militant Godless to a cosmonaut wedding in the Moscow Wedding Palace, Smolkin’s use of primary sources effectively illustrates just how diverse the meaning of atheism could be from Lenin to Gorbachev. Smolkin’s work goes beyond the traditional accounts of Soviet atheism as a symptom of authoritarianism or as a secularization project to show that Soviet atheism’s purpose was fundamentally tied to the fate religion.

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is a History Instructor at Lee College.

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Ahreum Kim, "The Countercultural Victory of 1 John in Greco-Roman Context: Conquering the World" (T&T Clark, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In The Countercultural Victory of 1 John in Greco-Roman Context: Conquering the World (T&T Clark, 2023), Ahreum Kim re-examines conquering language in 1 John, arguing that when the letter is read with the context of Greco-Roman culture in mind, the conflict extends beyond in-fighting within the Johannine community. She suggests that the letter's author presents a consistent countercultural narrative due to concern about the predominant world, and proposes that the author exhorts the minority Johannine community to hold onto their belief while proclaiming that they are triumphant conquerors against the prevailing “world”.

Kim first examines how conquering language toward a Johannine nike utilizes militaristic undertones already familiar in Greco-Roman culture. She argues that each of the opponents mentioned is affiliated with “the world”, and it is ultimately the conquering of the world itself which marks the Johannine victory. Kim demonstrates that the author references the negative fear of the divine in the polytheistic world which contrasts with the Johannine love of God, and that his countercultural message continues to the very end, with a concluding warning against the many worldly idols. Finally, she posits that the battle with the Greco-Roman world is ultimately a conflict of pistis, comparing Roman soldiers achieving military victories with a pistis to their emperor, and the repeated emphasis on Jesus as the true Son of God.

Ahreum Kim recently completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor George van Kooten at the University of Cambridge. Her research spans across the New Testament and early Christianity, including Johannine literature, Jewish-Christian relations, and the disciples closest to Jesus. She is also the editor of Old and New: Essays on Continuity and Discontinuity in the New Testament, by Morna Hooker (Mohr Siebeck 2024).

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Lesley Smith, "Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Lesley Smith of Oxford University joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life (University of Chicago Press, 2023). It has been 140 years since a full biography of William of Auvergne (1180?-1249), which may come as a surprise, given that William was an important gateway of Greek and Arabic thought and philosophy to western Europe in the thirteenth century, and one of the earliest writers in the medieval Latin west on demonology. Lesley Smith's aims in this book are two-fold: first, to take a closer look at William, the human being, how he saw the world and his place in it; and to uncover William's interactions with his Parisian congregation through the nearly 600 sermons he left after his death.

Smith has mined these writings, unremarked in previous scholarship, to give us a different perspective on the schoolmaster, bishop of Paris, and strict theologian we have come to know: a preacher who spoke and ministered not just to the powerful and elite, but also to commoners, to the poor, and to the less fortunate. Through a study of the sermons, Smith creates a broader landscape of William's thought and life, highlighting his attention to the importance--and limits--of language, and his attempts to find a way to address the concerns of the larger populace. In his preaching, we get a sense of the balance William achieved, in the way he communicated religious teachings, in his understanding of the concerns of ordinary Parisians, and in his awareness of the ebb and flow of daily life in a medieval city. The book will interest scholars of intellectual history and philosophy, religion, and literary studies more broadly for Smith's innovative method of excavating the sermons in pursuit of William the person, and his humanity. An altogether "new" William for the twenty-first century.

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A Hidden Life (with Brian Zahnd)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What would you do in the place of Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter in 1943? Mumble your loyalty oath to Hitler like everyone else—or refuse and pay with your life? This martyr is a blessed in the Catholic Church and on the way to being canonized. He is also the subject of a transcendentally beautiful movie A Hidden life by Terrence Mallick in 2019. Pastor Brian Zahnd, author of the Wood Between the Worlds, talks about the man, the movie, and the martyrdom with me on Almost Good Catholics.

There’s a moment in our discussion where I say to Brian that, had I been in Franz’s shoes, I think I would have just gone along with the oath so that I could get through my service as a soldier, perhaps as a conscientious objector, driving an ambulance or serving as a medical orderly. This choice seemed to make sense because I would have honored my obligation to my little children, to my wife, to my farm and my village, and not worried about the abstraction of the oath. But by the time our conversation ended, I think I changed my mind. The whole point of our Faith is that we do not believe that death is an end but a beginning, and we believe that those who have gone home to the Lord are still with us—literally a communion of saints. So, I changed my mind over the course of this hour: and I now think, in conclusion, that the red crown of martyrdom is a grace offered to some of tremendous faith, and that God will help us take care of the family we leave behind in the world.

Pastor Brian’s webpage.
Pastor Brian’s book, The Wood between the Worlds (2024) from IVP, also on Amazon.
Bl. Franz Jägerstätter on the Vatican website and on Wikipedia.
Director Terrence Malick and The Hidden Life.
A Hidden Life (2019) trailer, IMBD, and on Amazon Prime.
Go Creative Interview with Jorg Widmer, the director of photography (DOP) of the film.
Inverse Podcast Interview about A Hidden Life with Brian Zahnd and Fr John Dear.

Here is my first talk with Pastor Brian:

Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 82: The Wood between the Worlds: Why Death on the Cross?

Here is the pilgrimage with Monique and Joseph González this coming September with Inside the Vatican, and the related episodes from Almost Good Catholics:

Pilgrimage to Mexico: Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Flower World Prophecy 2024
Colleen Dulle on Almost Good Catholics, episode 16: Marxists and Mystics: A Vatican Journalist discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal Constitution
Father James Martin, SJ, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 30: What if You’re Gay? Starting Conversations with and about LGBT Catholics.
Joseph and Monique González on Almost Good Catholics, episode 74: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth: How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531.

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Mark Sweetnam, "Paul's Last Letter: A Commentary on the Second Epistle to Timothy" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Second Epistle to Timothy is, by any standard, a remarkable document. Even as the apostle urges his friend and coworker hasten to Rome for a final meeting, the intimacy and urgency of Paul's words make clear his awareness that Timothy might not arrive in time to say goodbye. This makes the epistle deeply personal. But Paul has a much larger purpose in view than just Timothy's consolation. The epistle vibrates with Paul's concern for Timothy's endurance in the apostle's mission after Paul's death. Paul is at pains to emphasize for Timothy the seriousness of his responsibility, the difficulty of the context in which that duty will be discharged, and the divine assistance that will allow him to preserve and transmit the apostolic deposit to 'faithful men'. Even as he addresses Timothy, Paul is deliberately speaking beyond him to everyone who remains faithful to the apostolic gospel in the 'last days' following the apostle's departure.

Mark Sweetnam's Paul's Last Letter: A Commentary on the Second Epistle to Timothy (Wipf and Stock, 2024) provides a detailed but nontechnical treatment of 2 Timothy, which interacts with contemporary scholarship on the epistle, while providing a literary, rhetorical, and parenetic analysis of Paul's last letter.

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Zoe Knox, “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Secular World: From the 1870s to the Present” (Palgrave, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the most successful “new religious movements” to have emerged from the prophetic ferment within later nineteenth-century Protestantism. Always controversial, often persecuted, and well-known for their proselytising efforts, they have made a substantial contribution in terms of human rights, and they count numerous famous musicians and sports stars among their membership. I caught up with Zoe Knox, Associate Professor in Modern Russian History at the University of Leicester, to discuss her new book, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Secular World: From the 1870s to the Present (Palgrave, 2018), to talk about the ways in which this religious community has changed over time, and how it developed its distinctive attitudes towards politics, blood transfusion, and evangelism.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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Teresa Morgan, "The New Testament and the Theology of Trust" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The New Testament and the Theology of Trust (Oxford UP, 2022) argues for the recovery of trust as a central theme in Christian theology, and offers the first theology of trust in the New Testament.

'Trust' is the root meaning of Christian 'faith' (pistis, fides), and trusting in God and Christ is still fundamental to Christians. But unlike faith, and other aspects of faith such as belief or hope, trust is little studied. Building on her ground-breaking study Roman Faith and Christian Faith, and drawing on the philosophy and psychology of trust, Teresa Morgan explores the significance of trust, trustworthiness, faithfulness, and entrustedness in New Testament writings.

Trust between God, Christ, and humanity is revealed as a risky, dynamic, forward-looking, life-changing partnership. God entrusts Christ with winning the trust of humanity and bringing humanity to trust in God. God and Christ trust humanity to respond to God's initiative through Christ, and entrust the faithful with diverse forms of work for humanity and for creation. Human understanding of God and Christ is limited, and trust and faithfulness often fail, but imperfect trust is not a deal-breaker.

Morgan develops a new model of atonement, showing how trust enables humanity's release from the power of both sin and suffering. She examines the neglected concept of propositional trust and argues that it plays a key role in faith. This volume offers a compelling vision of Christian trust as soteriological, ethical, and community-forming. Trust is both the means of salvation and an end in itself, because where we trust is where we most fully live.

Teresa Morgan studied classics at Cambridge University, theology at Oxford, and violin and viola in London and Cologne. She joined Yale Divinity School in 2022, from Oxford University. Professor Morgan writes across Greek and Roman history, the New Testament, and early Christianity, especially on Greek, Roman, and early Christian ethics (e.g. Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire, 2007), Greek and Roman education (Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, 1998), and Paul (Being ‘in Christ’ in the Letters of Paul: Saved Through Christ and In His Hands, 2020). She is currently coming to the end of a four-volume investigation of the historical evolution, early religious meaning, and contemporary significance of ancient Mediterranean and early Christian trust and faith (Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 2015, The New Testament and the Theology of Trust, 2022, Trust in Atonement (2024), and The Invention of Faith (forthcoming). When this is finished, she plans to return to ethics with a study of the evolution of Christian ethics in the first four centuries CE.

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Sara J. Charles, "The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages (Reaktion, 2024) by Sara J. Charles takes the reader on an immersive journey through mediaeval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a mediaeval narrator – including a parchment-maker, scribe and illuminator – introducing various aspects of manuscript production.

Charles poses the question ‘What actually is a scriptorium?’, and explores the development of the mediaeval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press. With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labour, planning and networks needed to produce each individual manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, we can experience mediaeval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.

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Cordelia Heß, "The Medieval Archive of Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century Sweden" (de Gruyter, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The significance of religion for the development of modern racist antisemitism is a much debated topic in the study of Jewish-Christian relations. Cordelia Heß's The Medieval Archive of Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century Sweden (de Gruyter, 2021), the first study on antisemitism in nineteenth-century Sweden, provides new insights into the debate from the specific case of a country in which religious homogeneity was the considered ideal long into the modern era.

Between 1800 and 1900, approximately 150 books and pamphlets were printed in Sweden on the subject of Judaism and Jews. About one third comprised of translations mostly from German, but to a lesser extent also from French and English. Two thirds were Swedish originals, covering all genres and topics, but with a majority on religious topics: conversion, supersessionism, and accusations of deicide and bloodlust. The latter stem from the vastly popular medieval legends of Ahasverus, Pilate, and Judas which were printed in only slightly adapted forms and accompanied by medieval texts connecting these apocryphal figures to contemporary Jews, ascribing them a physical, essential, and biological coherence and continuity - a specific Jewish temporality shaped in medieval passion piety, which remained functional and intelligible in the modern period.

Relying on medieval models and their combination of religious and racist imagery, nineteenth-century debates were informed by a comprehensive and mostly negative "knowledge" about Jews.

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Katharine Sykes, "Symbolic Reproduction in Early Medieval England" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Katharine Sykes joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Symbolic Representation in Early Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 2024). In the early Middle Ages, the conversion of the early English kingdoms acted as a catalyst for significant social and cultural change. One of the most visible of these changes was the introduction of a new type of household: the monastic household. These reproduced through education and training, rather than biological means; their inhabitants practised celibacy as a lifelong state, rather than as a stage in the life course. Because monastic households depended on secular households to produce the next generation of recruits, previous studies have tended to view them as more mutable than their secular counterparts, which are implicitly regarded as natural and ahistorical.

Katharine Sykes charts some of the significant changes to the structure of households between the seventh to eleventh centuries, as ideas of spiritual, non-biological reproduction first fostered in monastic households were adopted in royal households in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and as ideas about kinship that were generated in secular households, such as the relationship between genealogy and inheritance, were picked up and applied by their monastic counterparts. In place of binary divisions between secular and monastic, biological and spiritual, real and imagined, Sykes demonstrates that different forms of kinship and reproduction in this period were intimately linked.

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Eyal Regev, "The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred" (Yale UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Eyal Regev's The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred (Yale UP, 2019) is he first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.

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Jonathon Lookadoo, "The Shepherd of Hermas: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Handbook" (T&T Clark, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Written in Rome as a book with revelatory intentions, the early Christian work known as the Shepherd of Hermas flourished especially in the second, third, and fourth centuries CE, was quoted as scripture by several church fathers, and, on the balance of manuscript attestation and translations from Greek to other languages, “is one of the most widely attested early Christian texts” (Lookadoo, 25). By contrast, outside of a niche of scholars, the book is widely unknown and underappreciated in the 21st century.

In The Shepherd of Hermas: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Handbook (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2021), Jonathon Lookadoo seeks to enable a wide range of readers to engage with this unfamiliar book via a focus on the text and message of Hermas, the theological themes with coherence to more familiar books of the New Testament, metaphors unique to Hermas’s “apocalyptic” imagination, and a digestible introduction to the enduring questions of critical scholarship such as authorship, date, authority/canonicity of the Shepherd, and its complex history of reception within the church. Dr. Lookadoo joined the New Books Network to discuss these issues and more from his worthy attempt to invite a wider circle of readers into the range of books that inspired forms of early Christian piety.

Jonathon Lookadoo (Ph.D., University of Otago, 2017) is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. His research interests range across the first two centuries of Christian history, with a particular focus on the Apostolic Fathers, while also taking interest in the writings of Paul and John and their reception in the second century. In addition to the present handbook on the Shepherd of Hermas, he is the author of The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade Books, 2023) and The Epistle of Barnabas: A Commentary (Cascade, 2022). In his spare time, he enjoys running, hiking, and KBO baseball.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Nicholas Orme, "Going to Church in Medieval England" (Yale UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

For people in medieval England, the parish church was an integral part of their community. In Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 2021), Nicholas Orme describes how parish churches operated and details the roles they played in the lives of their parishioners. While there was a considerable variety of experience over the centuries and between the parishes throughout England, the basic practices in them largely remained the same. These were supervised by a range of people, both lay and clerical, who staged the Mass and managed the church’s everyday operations. Their activities touched on the lives of the members of the community in a variety of ways, from regular attendance at daily and weekly services to celebrations marking the seasons and the great events of life: birth, coming of age, marriage, and comfort in sickness and death. And while the English Reformation transformed the relationship between England and the Roman Catholic Church, Orme shows how some of the changes associated with it were already underway before it began, while much of what went on in parish churches remained as before.

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Richard D. Oram, "Where Men No More May Reap Or Sow: The Little Ice Age: Scotland 1400-1850" (Birlinn, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Drawing together the evidence of archaeology, palaeoecology, climate history and the historical record, this first environmental history of Scotland explores the interaction of human populations with the land, waters, forests and wildlife.

Where Men No More May Reap or Sow: The Little Ice Age: Scotland 1400–1850 (Birlinn, 2024) by Dr. Richard D. Oram spans 450 years that saw profound transformation in Scotland’s environment. It begins in the fifteenth century, when the ‘Golden Age’ of the early 1200s was but a fading folk memory in a land gripped by the gathering grimness of a ‘little ice age’. Colder, wetter, stormier weather became the new normal, interspersed with brief episodes of warmer but still moist conditions, all of which brought huge challenges to a society on the knife-edge of subsistence.

Viewing the religious and political upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries against the cycles of disease and dearth that were ever-present into the later 1700s, the book explores the slow adoption and application of the ideas of ‘Improvement’ and the radical disruption of Scotland’s environment that ensued. Reformation, revolution and rebellion were the background noise to efforts to subsist and succeed through a hostile age, in which Scotland’s environment was an adversary to be tamed, mastered and made ‘polite’. As the last, bitter decades of the ‘little ice age’ were ground out in foreign wars, forced clearances and potato famines, Scotland prepared itself to embrace the Industrial Age.

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Tim Cooper, "When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter" (Crossway, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Our current culture seems to be increasingly divided on countless issues, including those affecting the church. But for centuries, theological disagreements, political differences, and issues relating to church leadership have made it challenging for Christians to foster unity and love for one another.

In When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter (Crossway, 2024), author Tim Cooper explores this polarization through the lives of two oppositional figures in church history: John Owen and Richard Baxter. Cooper highlights their individual stories while showing how their contrasting life experiences, personalities, and temperaments led to their inability to work together. After exploring these lessons from the past, readers will gain insights into their own relationships, ultimately learning how to love and live in harmony with their fellow believers despite their disagreements.

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Robin Darling Young et al, "Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Gnostic Trilogy is the best-known and most important work by the ascetic philosopher and teacher Evagrius of Pontus. Among the writers of his age, Evagrius stands out for his short, perplexing, and absorbing aphorisms, which provide sharp insight into philosophy, Scripture, human nature, and the natural world.

The first part of the trilogy, the Praktikos (The Practiced One), provides a diagnosis and treatment of the eight tempting thoughts. It was a foundational text for monastic asceticism and was the basis for the later Seven Deadly sins tradition. The second, Gnostikos (The Knower), explains how someone who has mastered the body and mental delusions should teach others. The third, longest, and most controversial, the Kephalaia gnostika (Gnostic Chapters), ranges broadly over the origin of the universe, the nature of rational beings, and the hidden symbols of Scripture. This part was responsible for Evagrius's condemnation as a heretic and, as a result, does not survive intact in the original Greek and must be restored from ancient translations.

Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy (Oxford UP, 2024) presents the Trilogy in its entirety for the first time since antiquity and provides a fresh, comprehensive English translation of all three works, in all their known ancient versions, both Greek and Syriac. Detailed explanatory notes, cross-references to Scripture, to ancient literature, and to Evagrius's other writings, as well as commentary on the translation techniques of the Syriac translators, provide the necessary resources for understanding this significant but puzzling text.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Robin Darling Young is Professor of Church History at the Catholic University of America.
Joel Kalvesmaki is a digital humanist and the editor of University of California Press’s book series Christianity and Late Antiquity. Find a link to his online Guide to Evagrius in the show notes.
Columba Stewart is executive director of HMML, sounds like heaven, but short for the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota.
Charles Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and the director there of the Center for the Study of World Religions.
Fr. Luke Dysinger is Professor of Church History and Moral Theology at St. John’s Seminary in California.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Francis X. Clooney, S.J., "Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

This autobiography--Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story (Bloomsbury, 2024)--traces Francis X. Clooney's intellectual and spiritual journey from middle-class American Catholicism to a lifelong study of Hinduism. Clooney sheds fresh and realistic light on the idea and ideal of scholar-practitioner, since his wide learning, Christian and Hindu, is grounded in his Catholic and Jesuit commitments, as well as in a commensurate learning with respect to several Hindu traditions that are most accessible to scholars willing to learn empathetically and in a participatory manner. What Clooney has learnt and written must be understood in terms of a love of Christ deeply informed by a Hindu instinct for loving God without reserve. A fundamental spiritual disposition - intuitions of God present everywhere - has energized his work over his long career, love giving direction and body to his professional academic work.

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Mark Letteney, "The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and Material Transformations" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and Material Transformations (Cambridge UP, 2023) traces the beginning of Late Antiquity from a new angle. Shifting the focus away from the Christianization of people or the transformation of institutions, Mark Letteney interrogates the creation of novel and durable structures of knowledge across the Roman scholarly landscape, and the embedding of those changes in manuscript witnesses. Letteney explores scholarly productions ranging from juristic writings and legal compendia to theological tractates, military handbooks, historical accounts, miscellanies, grammatical treatises, and the Palestinian Talmud. He demonstrates how imperial Christianity inflected the production of truth far beyond the domain of theology — and how intellectual tools forged in the fires of doctrinal controversy shed their theological baggage and came to undergird the great intellectual productions of the Theodosian Age, and their material expressions. Letteney's volume offers new insights and a new approach to answering the perennial question: What does it mean for Rome to become Christian? The book is open access at Cambridge Core.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Mark Letteney is an ancient historian and archaeologist working in the history of incarceration, book history, and the archaeology of military occupation. His second book, Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (co-authored with Matthew David Larsen) should appear in 2025.

Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston.

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Anthony Kaldellis, "The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world.

The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light.

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Krista E. Hughes et al., "Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World" (Penn State UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Operating on the premise that our failure to recognize our interconnected relationship to the rest of the cosmos is the origin of planetary peril, Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World (Penn State University Press, 2019) presents academic, activist, and artistic perspectives on how to inspire reflection and motivate action in order to construct alternative frameworks and establish novel solidarities for the sake of our planetary home.

The selections in this volume explore ecologies of interdependence as a frame for religious, theological, and philosophical analysis and practice. Contributors examine questions of justice, climate change, race, class, gender, and coloniality and discuss alternative ways of engaging the world in all its biodiversity. Each essay, poem, reflection, and piece of art contributes to and reflects upon how to live out entangled differences toward positive global change.

Constructive and practical, global and local, communal and personal, Ecological Solidarities is an innovative contribution to the discourses on relational and liberative thought and practice in religion, philosophy, and theology. It will be welcomed by scholars of World Christianity and theology as well as seminary students, activists, and laity interested in issues of justice and ecology.

Krista E. Hughes is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of the Muller Center at Newberry College.
Dhawn B. Martin is Executive Director of the Source of Light Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Elaine Padilla is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Latinx/Latin American Studies at the University of La Verne. She is the author of Divine Enjoyment: A Theology of Passion and Exuberance and coeditor of three volumes in the series Christianities of the World.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Jeremiah Coogan, "Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The development of Christian scriptures did not terminate once, for example, following Irenaeus and other influential patristic figures, the four gospels that would later be located at the front of the church’s New Testament were accepted by most churches and transmitted together in the same codex. Instead, erudite Christian readers employed new and innovative technologies to transform reading practices, calling attention to both narrative and other thematic similarities present across the gospels, and enabling cross-referential access from one gospel’s narrative sequence to another without amending the individual texts themselves. Such practices were facilitated by the sections and canon tables of Eusebius (ca. 260–339 CE), bishop of Caesarea Maritima in Roman Palestine.

In Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2023), Jeremiah Coogan discusses the editorial intervention of Eusebius within gospel manuscripts, including paratextual sectioning, tables of contents, and other prefatory material, at both a technical and conceptual level, locating the overall apparatus of this “evangelist” alongside broader late ancient transformations in reading and knowledge. Dr. Coogan joined the New Books Network to discuss examples of gospel reading that Eusebius permitted via his novel contributions to the gospels, related book technologies in his contemporary readerly environment, and the overall success of Eusebius’s sections and canons during the millennium that followed him—starting with Greek and Latin gospel manuscripts of late antiquity but also appearing alongside most biblical translations into the late Middle Ages, when modern chapter divisions and versification began to assume the dominant roles for sectioning texts that they have maintained into the present day.

Jeremiah Coogan (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2020) is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. His research and teaching interests span the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient Judaism, with a particular focus on Gospels and on the social history of early Christianity. His scholarship has been published in Early Christianity, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Journal of Late Antiquity, the Journal of Theological Studies, and in several other journals and edited volumes, and he is currently working on a new project that investigates how early Christians deployed literary and bibliographic categories to understand similarities and differences between Gospel texts. His first monograph, Eusebius the Evangelist, received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise in 2022.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Reid B. Locklin, "Hindu Mission, Christian Mission: Soundings in Comparative Theology" (SUNY Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

For some four hundred years, Hindus and Christians have been engaged in a public controversy about conversion and missionary proselytization, especially in India and the Hindu diaspora.

Hindu Mission, Christian Mission: Soundings in Comparative Theology (SUNY Press, 2024) reframes this controversy by shifting attention from "conversion" to a wider, interreligious study of "mission" as a category of thought and practice. Comparative theologian Reid B. Locklin traces the emergence of the nondualist Hindu teaching of Advaita Vedānta as a missionary tradition, from the eighth century to the present day, and draws this tradition into dialogue with contemporary proposals in Christian missiology. As a descriptive study of the Chinmaya Mission, the Ramakrishna Mission, and other leading Advaita mission movements, Hindu Mission, Christian Mission contributes to a growing body of scholarship on transnational Hinduism. As a speculative work of Christian comparative theology, it develops key themes from this engagement for a new, interreligious theology of mission and conversion for the twenty-first century and beyond.

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Yaakov Beasley, "Joel, Obadiah, and Micah: Facing the Storm" (Maggid, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Joel, Obadiah, and Micah all prophesied not after a calamity struck but right before a potential crisis or during the crisis itself. Facing immanent catastrophe, the Jewish people had to decide where their loyalties lay.

Join us as we speak with Rav Yaakov Beasley about his book Joel, Obadiah, and Micah: Facing the Storm (Maggid, 2024). He

draws from the best of traditional and contemporary scholarship to guide us through the prophets’ trials and tribulations, providing historical overviews of the period, and revealing the messages and meanings of these crucial prophetic works.

Rabbi Yaakov Beasley is the Tanakh Coordinator at Yeshivat Hesder Lev HaTorah and the host of the TanachTalks podcast.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg, "The Abrahamic Vernacular" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Contemporary thought typically places a strong emphasis on the exclusive and competitive nature of Abrahamic monotheisms. This instinct is certainly borne out by the histories of religious wars, theological polemic, and social exclusion involving Jews, Christians, and Muslims. But there is also another side to the Abrahamic coin. Even in the midst of communal rivalry, Jews, Christians, and Muslim practitioners have frequently turned to each other to think through religious concepts, elucidate sacred history, and enrich their ritual practices.

Scholarship often describes these interactions between the Abrahamic monotheisms using metaphors of exchange between individuals-as if one tradition might borrow a theological idea from another in the same way that a neighbour might borrow a recipe. The Abrahamic Vernacular (Cambridge University Press, 2024) by Dr. Rebecca Wollenberg proposes that there are deeper forms of entanglement at work in these historical moments.

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Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Watching the footage of the January 6 insurrection, Professor Bradley Onishi wondered: If I hadn't left evangelicalism, would I have been there?

Today’s book is: Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next (Broadleaf Books, 2023), by Dr. Bradley Onishi, which unpacks recent U.S. history to show how the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots. Combining his own experiences in the youth groups and prayer meetings of the 1990s with an immersive look at the steady blending of White grievance politics with evangelicalism, Dr. Onishi crafts an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to January 6. How did the rise of what Onishi calls the New Religious Right, between 1960 and 2015, give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond? What propelled some of the most conservative religious communities in the country—communities of which Dr. Onishi was once a part—to ignite a cold civil war? Through chapters on White supremacy and segregationist theologies, conspiracy theories, the Christian-school movement, purity culture, and the right-wing media ecosystem, Professor Onishi pulls back the curtain on a subculture.

Our guest is: Dr. Brad Onishi, who is a scholar of religion and cohost of the Straight White American Jesus podcast. His writing has been published in the New York Times, LA Review of Books, and Religion & Politics, among other outlets. He holds degrees from Azusa Pacific University, Oxford University, and L'institut catholique de Paris, and received his PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. A TEDx speaker and the author, editor, or translator of four previous books, Dr. Onishi teaches at the University of San Francisco. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and daughter.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here again to learn from even more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

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Andrew S. Jacobs, "Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What if the original teachings of Jesus were different from the Bible's sanitized 'orthodox' version? What covert motivations might inspire those who decide what the text of the Bible 'says' or what it 'means'? For some who ask conspiratorial questions like these, the Bible is the vulnerable victim of secular forces seeking to divest the USA of its founding identity. For others, the biblical canon suppresses religious truths that could upend the status quo.

Such suspicions surrounding the Bible find full expression in Gospel Thrillers: a 1960s fictional genre that endures and still commands a substantial following. These novels imagine a freshly discovered first-century gospel and a race against time to unlock its buried secrets. They also reflect the fears and desires that the Bible continues to generate. In Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible (Cambridge UP, 2023), Andrew Jacobs reveals, in his authoritative examination, how this remarkable fictional archive opens a window onto disturbing biblical anxieties.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Find more information on the Gospel Thrillers here.

Andrew Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and the Editor of Cambridge University Press’s book series Element of Religion in Late Antiquity. His Epiphanius of Cyprus: a cultural biography of Late Antiquity (UC Press, 2016), won the Philip Schaff Best Book prize from the American Society of Church History. Andrew has also just finished a stint as President of the North American Patristics Society. Find him at @drewjackeprof.bsky.social, or on X: @drewjackeprof

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. @mikemotia

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Natasha L. Mikles, "Shattered Grief: How the Pandemic Transformed the Spirituality of Death in America" (Columbia UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic left millions grieving their loved ones without the consolation of traditional ways of mourning. Patients were admitted to hospitals and never seen again. Social distancing often meant conventional funerals could not be held. Religious communities of all kinds were disrupted at the exact moment mourners turned to them for support. These unprecedented circumstances caused dramatic transformations of not only communal rituals but also how people make meaning after the losses of loved ones.

Shattered Grief: How the Pandemic Transformed the Spirituality of Death in America (Columbia UP, 2024) is an intimate portrait of how COVID-19 changed the ways Americans approach, understand, and mourn death. Based on extensive interviews incorporating a multitude of perspectives—including funerary and medical professionals, religious leaders, grief counselors, death doulas, spirit mediums, community organizers, and those who lost loved ones—it provides a snapshot of how people renegotiated spiritual and religious traditions, worldviews, identities, and communities during the deadliest pandemic in a century. Through these diverse and powerful voices, Natasha L. Mikles tells the story of spiritual innovation, religious change, and the struggle to achieve personal and national self-understanding against the backdrop of mass casualties. Compelling and accessible, Shattered Grief is an essential book for a range of readers interested in how we make sense of death and dying.

Natasha L. Mikles is an assistant professor at Texas State University. Her research interests revolve around lived interpretations of death, mourning, and the afterlife in diverse religious traditions ranging from contemporary American spirituality to nineteenth-century Tibetan Buddhism. She has written on topics like the Tibetan Gesar epics, contemporary Tibetan religion, spiritual mediums during the pandemic, and pedagogical reflections on teaching religion. She is also the editor of Journal of Gods and Monsters, and the co-editor of The Religion Matters Reader.

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Tabitha Stanmore, "Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic" (Bloombury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do?

In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might have been cunning folk: practitioners of “service magic.” Neither feared (like witches), nor venerated (like saints), they were essential to daily life. For people across ages, genders, and social ranks, practical magic was a cherished resource for navigating life's many challenges.

In historian Tabitha Stanmore's beguiling account, we meet lovelorn widows, dissolute nobles, selfless healers, and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I's astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in a bewildering world, buffeted by forces beyond their control. As Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach about how to accommodate the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today.

Charming in every sense, Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic (Bloombury, 2024) is at once an immersive reconstruction of a bygone era and a thought-provoking commentary on the beauty and bafflement of being human.

Tabitha Stanmore, PhD, is a specialist in medieval and early modern magic.

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Timothy Grieve-Carlson, "American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius (Oxford UP, 2024) explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensively misunderstood theologian who settled outside of Philadelphia from 1604 to 1707, Timothy Grieve-Carlson explores the Hermetic and alchemical dimensions of Kelpius's Christianity before turning to his legacy in American religion and literature.

This engaging analysis showcases Kelpius's forgotten theological intricacies, spiritual revelations, and cosmic observations, illuminating the complexity and foresight of an important colonial mystic. As radical Protestants during Kelpius's lifetime struggled to understand their changing climate and a seemingly eschatological cosmos, esoteric texts became crucial sources of meaning. Grieve-Carlson presents original translations of Kelpius's university writings, which have never been published in English, along with analyses and translations of other important sources from the period in German and Latin. Ultimately, American Aurora points toward a time and place when climate change caused an eruption of esoteric thought and practice and how this moment has been largely forgotten.

Timothy Grieve-Carlson is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Westminster College.

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Neena Mahadev, "Karma and Grace: Religious Difference in Millennial Sri Lanka" (Columbia UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Around the turn of the millennium, Pentecostal churches began to pepper majority-Buddhist Sri Lanka, setting off a sense of alarm among Buddhists who saw Christianity as a neocolonial threat to the nation. Rumors of foul play in the death of a Buddhist monk, as well as allegations of proselytizing in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami and during the final stages of civil war, spurred nationalist anxieties, moral panics, and even episodes of violence by Buddhists against Christians suspected of facilitating “unethical” conversions.

Through vivid ethnography and keen observations of media events, Karma and Grace: Religious Difference in Millennial Sri Lanka (Columbia UP, 2023) illuminates disputes over religious freedom and pluralism amid the rise of charismatic Christianity in Sri Lanka. Neena Mahadev explores the dueling efforts of Buddhist nationalists and Christian evangelists to reshape Sri Lanka’s religious, economic, and political landscapes. She considers theological and political impasses between Buddhism’s vast timescales of karma and Christians’ promises of the immediacy of their God’s salvific grace. While Christian missions spread “the Good News,” subsets of Buddhists produced bad press, sting operations, and disparaging media to impede born-again churches from taking root. In gripping detail, Mahadev recounts how modernist and traditionalist Theravāda Buddhists, Pentecostal newcomers, long-established Christian denominations, local deity and spirit cults, and the innovations of mavericks intermingle in a multireligious public sphere. Even amid trenchant conflicts, Karma and Grace demonstrates that social proximity between rivals is also conducive to religious experimentation and the ambiguities of identity that allow Sri Lankans to live with difference.

Neena Mahadev is an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale-NUS College and holds a courtesy appointment with the National University of Singapore.

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Elizabeth Aislinn O'Brien, "Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770-1940" (UNC Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Surgery & Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770-1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Elizabeth O’Brien foregrounds the racial and religious meanings of surgery to draw important connections between historical and contemporary politics regarding fetal and maternal healthcare. She traces practices of caesarean section and coercive Christianization throughout Mexico’s colonial period; patriarchal pregnancy management during republican state formation; and tubal ligation and vaginal bifurcation in Mexico’s twentieth century Eugenics movement. Surgery and Salvation has received several awards including the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies’ Judy Ewell Award; the Latin American Studies Association 2024 Best Book Award for the Nineteenth-Century Section; and Honorable Mention for the 2024 Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize (WAWH) as well as the Thomas McGann Prize (RMCLAS). O’Brien is an Assistant Professor of the History of Medicine and Latin American History at the University of California, Los Angeles. In this episode, O'Brien is interviewed by Leah Cargin (PhD candidate, University of Oklahoma).

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Verso l’Alto (with Christine Wohar)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Christine Wohar talks about Finding Frassati: And Following His Path to Holiness (EWTN, 2021), her book about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. The book is a biography, hagiography, and delightful conversation about the participation of the Communion of Saints in our lives and how can join hands with them in our daily lives. Like many of us, Bl. Pier Giorgio was a normal guy with a comfortable life, and he did normal fun things available to him a young wealthy, Italian a hundred years ago, like mountain climbing, Alpine skiing, studying at university, and playing pool with his friends. But he also showed extreme love for the Eucharist, care for the poor, evangelization, and chastity—so, normal, and yet extraordinary.

Not only was Bl. Pier Giorgio’s body free from corruption when it was exhumed 75 years after his death, but he also has a couple of astounding miraculous healing attributed to him through his intercession. Christine Wohar talks to me about this remarkable figure in the church and how we can follow in his footsteps.

Christine Wohar’s organization, FrassatiUSA, on the web.
Christine Wohar’s book, Finding Frassati from Sophia International Press and also on Amazon.com.
Kevin Becker on YouTube discussing the miraculous healing through Bl. Blessed Pier Giorgio and also an article about it.

Other Almost Good Catholics episodes that we referred to in this interview:

Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 17: Eternity Now: Talking about Mysticism with the Apostle to the Gangs of LA.
Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 82: The Wood between the Worlds: Why Death on the Cross?

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Ben Wright, "Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism" (LSU Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Ben Wright's Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism (LSU Press, 2020) demonstrates how religion structured the possibilities and limitations of American abolitionism during the early years of the republic. From the American Revolution through the eruption of schisms in the three largest Protestant denominations in the 1840s, this comprehensive work lays bare the social and religious divides that culminated in secession and civil war. Historians often emphasize status anxieties, market changes, biracial cooperation, and political maneuvering as primary forces in the evolution of slavery in the United States. Wright instead foregrounds the pivotal role religion played in shaping the ideological contours of the early abolitionist movement.

Wright first examines the ideological distinctions between religious conversion and purification in the aftermath of the Revolution, when a small number of white Christians contended that the nation must purify itself from slavery before it could fulfill its religious destiny. Most white Christians disagreed, focusing on visions of spiritual salvation over the practical goal of emancipation. To expand salvation to all, they created new denominations equipped to carry the gospel across the American continent and eventually all over the globe. These denominations established numerous reform organizations, collectively known as the "benevolent empire," to reckon with the problem of slavery. One affiliated group, the American Colonization Society (ACS), worked to end slavery and secure white supremacy by promising salvation for Africa and redemption for the United States.

Yet the ACS and its efforts drew strong objections. Proslavery prophets transformed expectations of expanded salvation into a formidable antiabolitionist weapon, framing the ACS's proponents as enemies of national unity. Abolitionist assertions that enslavers could not serve as agents of salvation sapped the most potent force in American nationalism--Christianity--and led to schisms within the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist churches. These divides exacerbated sectional hostilities and sent the nation farther down the path to secession and war. Wright's provocative analysis reveals that visions of salvation both created and almost destroyed the American nation.

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Peter Murray Jones, "The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Friars are often overlooked in the picture of health care in late mediaeval England. Physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, barbers, midwives - these are the people we think of immediately as agents of healing; whilst we identify university teachers as authorities on medical writings. Yet from their first appearance in England in the 1220s to the dispersal of the friaries in the 1530s, four orders of friars were active as healers of every type. Their care extended beyond the circle of their own brethren: patients included royalty, nobles and bishops, and they also provided charitable aid and relief to the poor. They wrote about medicine too. Bartholomew the Englishman and Roger Bacon were arguably the most influential authors, alongside the Dominican Henry Daniel. Nor should we forget the anonymous Franciscan compilers of the Tabula medicine, a handbook of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders.

The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England (Boydell & Brewer, 2024) by Peter Murray Jones restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Rachel Williams, "Tabernacles in the Wilderness: The US Christian Commission on the Civil War Battlefront" (Kent State UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Examining how a civilian organization used the Civil War to advance their religious mission.

Tabernacles in the Wilderness: The US Christian Commission on the Civil War Battlefront (Kent State UP, 2024) discusses the work of the United States Christian Commission (USCC), a civilian relief agency established by northern evangelical Protestants to minister to Union troops during the American Civil War. USCC workers saw in the Civil War not only a wrathful judgment from God for the sins of the nation but an unparalleled opportunity to save the souls of US citizens and perfect the nation. Thus, the workers set about proselytizing and distributing material aid to Union soldiers with undaunted and righteous zeal.

Whether handing out religious literature, leading prayer meetings, preaching sermons, mending uniforms, drawing up tailored diets for sick men, or bearing witness to deathbed scenes, USCC workers improvised and enacted a holistic lived theology that emphasized the link between the body and soul.

Making extensive use of previously neglected archival material—most notably the reports, diaries, and correspondence of the volunteer delegates who performed this ministry on the battlefront—Rachel Williams explores the proselytizing methods employed by the USCC, the problems encountered in their application, and the ideological and theological underpinnings of their work. Tabernacles in the Wilderness offers fascinating new insights into the role of civilians within army camps, the bureaucratization and professionalization of philanthropy during the Civil War and in the United States more broadly, and the emotional landscape and material culture of faith and worship.

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Jihye Lee, "A Jewish Apocalyptic Framework of Eschatology in the Epistle to the Hebrews" (T&T Clark, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In contrast to scholarly belief that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews envisions the transcendent, heavenly world as the eschatological inheritance of God's people, Jihye Lee argues that a version of an Urzeit-Endzeit eschatological framework - as observed in some Jewish apocalyptic texts - provides a plausible background against which the arguments of Hebrews are most comprehensively explained. Instead of transcendence to the heavenly world that will come after the destruction of the shakable creation, Lee suggests the possibility of a more dualistic new world.

By first defining Urzeit-Endzeit eschatology, Lee is then able to explore its place in both pre and post 70 CE Second Temple Judaism. In examining Enoch, the Qumran Texts, Jubilees, the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch and finally the Book of Revelation, Lee compares a multitude of eschatological visions and the different depictions of the transformation of the world, judgement and the new world to come. Bringing these texts together to analyse the issue of God's Rest in Hebrews, and the nature of the Unshakable Kingdom, Lee concludes that Hebrews envisions the kingdom as consisting of both the revealed heavenly world and the renewed creation as the eschatological venue of God's dwelling place with his people.

Jihye Lee is Assistant Professor in New Testament at Sudo International University in Seoul, South Korea. She also serves as Education Pastor at Amen Baptist Church, which is also located in Seoul. In addition to writing A Jewish Apocalyptic Framework of Eschatology in the Epistle to the Hebrews: Protology and Eschatology as Background (T&T Clark, 2021), she has published additional studies of Hebrews in the journal Novum Testamentum.

Information about the Novum Testamentum article that is mentioned in the podcast may be found here.

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Denva Gallant, "Illuminating the Vitae Patrum: The Lives of Desert Saints in Fourteenth-Century Italy" (Penn State UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

During the fourteenth century in Western Europe, there was a growing interest in imitating the practices of a group of hermits known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Laypeople and religious alike learned about their rituals not only through readings from the Vitae Patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers) and sermons but also through the images that brought their stories to life.

In Illuminating the Vitae Patrum: The Lives of Desert Saints in Fourteenth-Century Italy (Penn State University Press, 2024), Dr. Denva Gallant examines the Morgan Library’s richly illustrated manuscript of the Vitae Patrum (MS M.626), whose extraordinary artworks witness the rise of the eremitic ideal and its impact on the visual culture of late mediaeval Italy. Drawing upon scholarship on the history of psychology, eastern monasticism, gender, and hagiography, Dr. Gallant deepens our understanding of the centrality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers to late mediaeval piety. She provides important insights into the role of images in making the practices of the desert saints both compelling and accessible to fourteenth-century city dwellers, who were just beginning to cultivate the habit of private devotion on a wide scale.

By focusing on the most extensively illuminated manuscript of the Vitae Patrum to emerge during the trecento, this book sheds new light on the ways in which images communicated and reinforced modes of piety. It will be of interest to art historians, religious historians, and students focusing on this period in Italian history.

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Matthew Goldmark, "Forms of Relation: Composing Kinship in Colonial Spanish America" (U Virginia Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Drawing on literary texts, conversion manuals, and colonial correspondence from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain and Peru, Forms of Relation: Composing Kinship in Colonial Spanish America (University of Virginia, 2023) shows the importance of textual, religious, and bureaucratic ties to struggles over colonial governance and identities.

Dr. Matthew Goldmark analyses these ties as forms of kinship forged outside of the well-studied paradigms of sex, biology, and procreation. He demonstrates how colonial actors—Spanish and Indigenous—vied for power when they argued that identity could be shaped by spiritual fatherhood, standardised education, or the regulation of doctrine.

Forms of Relation illustrates why we must interrogate the dominant paradigms of mestizaje, heterosexuality, and biology that are too often left unchallenged in studies of Spanish colonialism, demonstrating how non-procreative kinships shaped the Spanish colonial regime.

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Jeremy Schipper, "Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial" (Princeton UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt that Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial (Princeton UP, 2022), Dr. Jeremy Schipper tells the story of a free Black man accused of plotting an anti-slavery insurrection in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822. Vesey was found guilty and hanged along with dozens of others accused of collaborating with him.

At the center of the book is an examination of how former slave Denmark Vesey used interpretations of the Bible to justify the revolt while members of the white establishment in South Carolina use that same Bible to support the slaveholders view of themselves as benevolent biblical patriarchs.

The book is a riveting account of a key moment in antebellum American history that underscores deep racial inequities and the assumed supremacy of white Christians during a time of violence, fear, and conflicting understandings of moral superiority and biblical truth.

Recommended reading:

The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History edited by Douglas R. Egerton and Robert L. Paquette

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Peter Hill, "Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East" (Oneworld Academic, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Peter Hill about his new book Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (Oneworld Academic, 2024).

In 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains, a thirteen-year-old boy watches a solar eclipse. Will it foretell a war, a plague, the death of a prince? Mikha’il Mishaqa’s lifelong search for truth starts here. Soon he’s reading Newtonian science and the radical ideas of Voltaire and Volney: he loses his religion, turning away from the Catholic Church. Thirty years later, as civil war rages in Syria, he finds a new faith – Evangelical Protestantism. His obstinate polemics scandalise his community. Then, in 1860, Mishaqa barely escapes death in the most notorious event in Damascus: a massacre of several thousand Christians. We are presented with a paradox: rational secularism and violent religious sectarianism grew up together.

By tracing Mishaqa’s life through this tumultuous era, when empires jostled for control, Peter Hill answers the question: What did people in the Middle East actually believe? It’s a world where one man could be a Jew, an Orthodox Christian and a Sunni Muslim in turn, and a German missionary might walk naked in the streets of Valletta.

Peter Hill is a historian of the modern Middle East, specialising in the Arab world in the long nineteenth century. His research focusses on political thought and practice, the politics of religion, and translation and intercultural exchanges. He also has a strong interest in comparative and global history.

Before joining Northumbria University in 2019, Peter was Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, University of Oxford. He has taught and designed modules in the history of the Middle East and global history, and the history of capitalism. In 2023 he was the winner of a Philip Leverhulme Prize in History.

Peter's first book, Utopia and Civilisation in the Arab Nahda, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. He has published several articles on translation, political thought and popular politics in the Middle East, in journals such as Past & Present, the Journal of Arabic Literature, and Journal of Global History.

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Frederick Klaits et al., "Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality (Bloomsbury, 2022), Frederick Klaits compares how members of one majority white and two African American churches in Buffalo, New York receive knowledge from God about their own and others' life circumstances.

In the Pentecostal Christian faith, believers say that they acquire divinely inspired insights by developing a "relationship with God." But what makes these insights appear necessary? This book offers a novel approach to this question, arguing that the inspirations believers receive from God lead them to take critical stances on what they regard as ordinary understandings of space, time, care, and personal value. Using a shared Pentecostal language, believers occupying different positions within racial, class, and gender formations reflect in divergent ways on God's designs. In the process, they engage critically with late liberal imaginaries of eventfulness and vitality to envision possibilities of life in a highly unequal society.

This text incorporates commentaries on Klaits' ethnography by LaShekia Chatman and Michael Richbart, junior scholars who have also studied and been part of Pentecostal communities in Buffalo.

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Pinky Hota, "The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Violence of Recognition: Adivasi Indigeneity and Anti-Dalitness in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the operations of Hindu nationalists and their role in sparking the largest incident of anti-Christian violence in India’s history. Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Pinky Hota explores the roots of ethnonationalist conflict between two historically marginalized groups—the Kandha, who are Adivasi (tribal people considered indigenous in India), and the Pana, a community of Christian Dalits (previously referred to as “untouchables”). Hota documents how Hindutva mobilization led to large-scale violence, culminating in attacks against many thousands of Pana Dalits in the district of Kandhamal in 2008.

Bringing indigenous studies as well as race and ethnic studies into conversation with Dalit studies, Hota shows that, despite attempts to frame these ethnonationalist tensions as an indigenous population’s resistance against disenfranchisement, Kandha hostility against the Pana must be understood as anti-Christian, anti-Dalit violence animated by racial capitalism. Hota’s analysis of caste in relation to race and religion details how Hindu nationalists exploit the singular and exclusionary legal recognition of Adivasis and the putatively liberatory, anti-capitalist discourse of indigeneity in order to justify continued oppression of Dalits—particularly those such as the Pana. Because the Pana lost their legal protection as recognized minorities (Scheduled Caste) upon conversion to Christianity, they struggle for recognition within the Indian state’s classificatory scheme. Within the framework of recognition, Hota shows, indigeneity works as a political technology that reproduces the political, economic, and cultural exclusion of landless marginalized groups such as Dalits. The Violence of Recognition reveals the violent implications of minority recognition in creating and maintaining hierarchies of racial capitalism.

Yash Sharma is a PhD student in Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati. His research is focused on the interactions of political mobilization and anti-minority violence within Hindu nationalist organizations in India. Twitter. Email: sharmaym@mail.uc.edu

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Hank Willenbrink, "Performing for the Don: Theatres of Faith in the Age of Trump" (Routledge, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

From his overwhelming embrace by evangelicals and other people of faith to his championing of policies and conservative judicial candidates long sought by right-wing Christians, Donald Trump’s candidacy, campaign, and presidency were empowered by believers of many stripes who employed different methods of rationalizing or Christianizing Trump and his administration. In Performing for the Don: Theatres of Faith in the Trump Era (Routledge, 2024), Hank Willenbrink examines this intersection of political power and religion through the lens of performance studies, in part via Trump’s own expressions but predominantly through mass media performances of his Christian supporters.

From Trump’s affiliation with his “court evangelicals” and televangelists to the 2018 film The Trump Prophecy and other prophetic/apostolic movements latching onto Trump’s ascension in service of dominionistic ends, and from his support among very conservative Catholics to the “cult” of Trump that has coalesced in conspiratorial online spaces advocating QAnon beliefs, the last decade has witnessed a mainstreaming of theology and ideology ripe for an interdisciplinary analysis of the performative aspects of Trump’s faith-based support. Dr. Willenbrink joined the New Books Network to discuss all these subjects as well as Christian nationalism in the present American political climate.

Hank Willenbrink (Ph.D. in Dramatic Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara) is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Theatre at The University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. A scholar and theatre artist, Hank has published on a range of topics like Hell Houses, the playwright Naomi Iizuka, the intersections of playwriting and nature writing, and the use of music in HBO’s Girls. With his wife, Dr. Yamile Silva, he co-edited an anthology of contemporary Spanish and Portuguese writing. Hank’s play, The Boat in the Tiger Suit, premiered in New York and is published by Original Works Publishing. He’s developed theatrical work internationally, including at Sala Beckett in Barcelona. Hank has also led several interdisciplinary, community-engaged projects that bring together students and community members of diverse backgrounds and disciplines to engage in deeper and more intentional ways through collectively created theatrical performance. Hank played in a number of questionable bands, co-founded the music blog We Listen for You, and hails from Toad Suck, Arkansas. He is currently continuing the research that he discusses on today’s podcast episode on his Substack: performingforthedon.substack.com.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) primarily hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: A Lecture by Anthony Grafton

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton, where he has taught since 1975. He is an historian of early modern Europe, and the author and co-author of over a dozen books, including The Footnote: A Curious History (Harvard University Press, 1997), and Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe (Harvard University Press, 2020).

In November 2006 he spoke to the Institute about Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Harvard University Press, 2006), which he co-wrote with Megan Hale Williams.

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Genji Yasuhira, "Catholic Survival in the Dutch Republic: Agency in Coexistence and the Public Sphere in Utrecht, 1620-1672" (Amsterdam UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Even in adversity, Catholics exercised considerable agency in post-Reformation Utrecht. Through the political practices of repression and toleration, Utrecht’s magistrates, under constant pressure from the Reformed Church, attempted to exclude Catholics from the urban public sphere. However, by mobilising their social status and networks, Catholic Utrechters created room to live as pious Catholics and honourable citizens, claiming more rights in the public sphere through their spatial practices and in discourses of self-representation.

Catholic Survival in the Dutch Republic: Agency in Coexistence and the Public Sphere in Utrecht, 1620-1672 (Amsterdam University Press, 2024) by Dr. Genji Yasuhira explores how Catholic priests and laypeople cooperated and managed to survive the Reformed regime by participating in a communal process of delimiting the public, continuing to rely on the mediaeval legacy and adapting to early modern religious diversity. Deploying their own understandings of publicness, Catholic Utrechters not only enabled their survival in the city and the Catholic revival in the Dutch Republic but also contributed to shaping a multi-religious society in the Northern Netherlands.

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Wise as Serpents, Gentle as Doves (with Dorcas Oyelade and Kailea Barte)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Dorcas Oyelade and Kailea Barté, two young women, still teenagers, organized a Christian club in a public at John Swett High School in Crockett, Northern California, where I am a teacher. The students worked with a Protestant NGO, Decision Point, which supported them even as they insisted on their First Amendment rights when there was opposition. The club has been an impressive success with many students joining them at lunch time, become interested in the Christian faith, and in some cases starting to go with them to church.

Decision Point website and YouTube channel.

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Nathaniel Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock, "T&T Clark Handbook of Neo-Calvinism" (T&T Clark, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

T&T Clark Handbook of Neo-Calvinism (T&T Clark, 2023) comprehensively demonstrates neo-Calvinism's unique contribution to theology and Christian philosophy. It offers excellent contributions on the movement's most important historical and thematic loci, including its impact on Reformed denominations and churches across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Divided into 3 sections, this handbook first surveys the entire landscape of the neo-Calvinist movement as it pertains to key theological topics. These loci, which range from revelation and Scripture to Christology and theological ethics, show that neo-Calvinist theologies are uniquely modern and yet typically confessional. The second section discusses the influence of key figures from the first and second generation of neo-Calvinist thought, including both principal figures like Abraham Kuyper and lesser known thinkers like August Lecerf. The final section charts the legacy of neo-Calvinism, in non-Dutch geographies, for other sciences, and for the church.

Cory Brock is the minister at St Columbas Free Church of Scotland in Edinburgh and part-time lecturer in Systematic Theology and Preaching at Edinburgh Theological Seminary. He is the author of Orthodox Yet Modern: Herman Bavinck's Use of Friedrich Schleiermacher (Lexham Press 2020).

Nathaniel Gray Sutanto is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Washington, USA. He is the author of God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology (T&T Clark, 2020).

Brock and Sutanto also coauthored Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction (Lexham Academic Press 2022). Listeners can find that interview here.

Listeners interested in topically related NBN interviews, should listen to Zach McCulley's interview with James Eglinton on Bavinck: A Critical Biography and Justin McGeary's interviews with Bruce Pass on The Heart of Dogmatics: Christology and Christocentrism in Herman Bavinck and On Theology: Herman Bavinck's Theological Orations.

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Robert D. Heaton, "The Shepherd of Hermas As Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Composed within the first Christian century by a Roman named Hermas, the Shepherd remains a mysterious and underestimated book to scholars and laypeople alike.

In The Shepherd of Hermas As Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), Robert D. Heaton argues that early Christians mainly received the Shepherd positively and accepted it unproblematically alongside texts that would ultimately be canonized, requiring decisive actions to exclude it from the late-emerging collection of texts now known as the New Testament. Freshly evaluating the evidence for its popularity in patristic treatises, manuscript recoveries, and Christian material culture, Heaton propounds an interpretation of the Shepherd of Hermas as a book meant to guide his readers toward salvation. Ultimately, Heaton depicts the loss of the Shepherd from the closed catalogue of Christian scriptures as a deliberate constrictive move by the fourth-century Alexandrian bishop Athanasius, who found it useless for his political, theological, and ecclesiological objectives and instead characterized it as a book favored by his heretical enemies. While the book’s detractors succeeded in derailing its diffusion for centuries, the survival of the Shepherd today attests that many dissented from the church’s final judgment about Hermas’s text, which portends a version of early Christianity that was definitively overridden by devotion to Christ himself, rather than principally to his virtues.

Robert D. Heaton teaches New Testament, Christian Origins, and Early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He also hosts podcasts for New Books in Religion. His research focuses on the New Testament canon and other early Christian literature, especially subcanonical books like The Shepherd of Hermas and the Apostolic Fathers. For more about Rob and his work, please see his website.

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Carlos M. N. Eire, "They Flew: A History of the Impossible" (Yale UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In the early modern era, seemingly impossible stories of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft were common and believable. The important question of the time was not if these things happened, but why. This was particularly true as the rise of Protestantism began to challenge Catholic beliefs in miracles and continued to be the case even after scientific research began to supplant religious belief in these phenomena.

In They Flew: A History of the Impossible (Yale UP, 2023), Carlos Eire shows how these events were an accepted component of early modern life. Based on firsthand accounts, Eire explores the stories of St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and others, to describe a world animated by a different understanding of the natural and supernatural. Eire examines why and how cultural, historical, religious, and scientific contexts plays a role in defining both the possible and the impossible.

Recommended reading:

Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred &

How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else

both by Jeffrey J. Kripal.

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Cory C. Brock and Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, "Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction" (Lexham Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Discover the rich theology of Neo-Calvinism. Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck sparked a theological tradition in the Netherlands that came to be known as Neo-Calvinism. While studies in Neo-Calvinism have focused primarily on its political and philosophical insights, its theology has received less attention. In Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction (Lexham Press, 2023), Cory C. Brock and N. Gray Sutanto present the unique dogmatic contributions of the tradition. Each chapter focuses on a distinct theological aspect, such as revelation, creation, salvation, and ecclesiology. Neo-Calvinism produced rich theological work that yields promise for contemporary dogmatics. This book invites readers into this rich theological trajectory.

"This book is the sign that [Neo-Calvinist] theology has now passed beyond the Dutch fairway. It has reached the international waters." --George Harinck

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Gale L. Kenny, "Christian Imperial Feminism: White Protestant Women and the Consecration of Empire" (NYU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced the idea of an “empire of Christ” that was racially diverse, but which they believed they were uniquely qualified to manage. America’s burgeoning power, combined with women’s rising roles within the church, led to white Protestant women adopting a feminism rooted in religion and imperialism.

In Christian Imperial Feminism: White Protestant Women and the Consecration of Empire (NYU Press, 2024), Dr. Gale L. Kenny examines this Christian imperial feminism from the women’s missionary movement to create a Christian world order. She shows that this Christian imperial feminism marked a break from an earlier Protestant worldview that focused on moral and racial purity and in which interactions among races were inconceivable. This new approach actually prioritised issues like civil rights and racial integration, as well as the uplift of women, though the racially diverse world Christianity it aspired to was still to be rigidly hierarchically ordered, with white women retaining a privileged place as guardians.

In exposing these dynamics, this book departs from recent scholarship on white evangelical nationalism to focus on the racial politics of white religious liberalism. Christian Imperial Feminism adds a necessary layer to our understanding of religion, gender, and empire.

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Timothy Morton, "Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology" (Columbia UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Hell on earth is real. The toxic fusion of big oil, Evangelical Christianity, and white supremacy has ignited a worldwide inferno, more phantasmagoric than anything William Blake could dream up and more cataclysmic than we can fathom. Escaping global warming hell, this revelatory book shows, requires a radical, mystical marriage of Christianity and biology that awakens a future beyond white male savagery.

In Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology (Columbia University Press, 2024) Dr. Timothy Morton argues that there is an unexpected yet profound relationship between religion and ecology that can guide a planet-scale response to the climate crisis. Spiritual and mystical feelings have a deep resonance with ecological thinking, and together they provide the resources environmentalism desperately needs in this time of climate emergency. Morton finds solutions in a radical revaluation of Christianity, furnishing ecological politics with a language of mercy and forgiveness that draws from Christian traditions without bringing along their baggage. They call for a global environmental movement that fuses ecology and mysticism and puts race and gender front and centre. This nonviolent resistance can stage an all-out assault on the ultimate Satanic mill: the concept of master and slave, manifesting today in white supremacy, patriarchy, and environmental destruction. Passionate, erudite, and playful, Hell takes readers on a full-colour journey into the contemporary underworld—and offers a surprising vision of salvation.

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Bronagh Ann McShane, "Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) by Dr. Bronagh Ann McShane investigates the impact of the dissolution of the monasteries on women religious and examines their survival in the following decades, showing how, despite the state's official proscription of vocation living, religious vocation options for women continued in less formal ways.

Dr. McShane explores the experiences of Irish women who travelled to the Continent in pursuit of formal religious vocational formation, covering both those accommodated in English and European continental convents' and those in the Irish convents established in Spanish Flanders and the Iberian Peninsula. Further, this book discusses the revival of religious establishments for women in Ireland from 1629 and outlines the links between these new convents and the Irish foundations abroad.

Overall, this study provides a rich picture of Irish women religious during a period of unprecedented change and upheaval.

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Catherine Michael Chin, "Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe" (U California Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 9 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A vivid and intimate glimpse of ancient life under the sway of cosmic and spiritual forces that the modern world has forgotten.

Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe (U California Press, 2024) immerses the reader in the cosmic sea of existences that made up the late ancient Mediterranean world. Loosely structured around events in the biography of one early Christian writer and traveler, this book weaves together the philosophical, religious, sensory, and scientific worlds of the later Roman Empire to tell the story of how human lives were lived under different natural and spiritual laws than those we now know today.

This book takes a highly literary and sensory approach to its subject, evoking an imagined experience of an ancient natural and supernatural world, rather than merely explaining ancient thought about the natural world. It mixes visual and literary genres to give the reader a sensory and affective experience of a thought-world that is very different from our own. An experimental intellectual history, Life invites readers into the premodern cosmos to experience a world that is at once familiar, strange, and deeply compelling

Mike Chin is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California Davis

Michael Motia is a Lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at UMass Boston (michael.motia@umb.edu)

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Eugene Rogan, "The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Destruction of the Old Ottoman World" (Basic Book, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 8 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Destruction of the Old Ottoman World (Basic Book, 2024) recreates one of the watershed moments in the history of the Middle East: the ferocious outbreaks of disorder across the Levant in 1860 which resulted in the massacre of thousands of Christians in Damascus.

Eugene Rogan brilliantly recreates the lost world of the Middle East under Ottoman rule. The once mighty empire was under pressure from global economic change and European imperial expansion. Reforms in the mid-nineteenth century raised tensions across the empire, nowhere more so than in Damascus. A multifarious city linked by caravan trade to Baghdad, the Mediterranean and Mecca, the chaos of languages, customs and beliefs made Damascus a warily tolerant place. Until the reforms began to advantage the minority Christian community at the expense of the Muslim majority.

But in 1860 people who had generally lived side by side for generations became bitter enemies as news of civil war in Mount Lebanon arrived in the city. Under the threat of a French expeditionary force, the Ottomans dealt with the disaster effectively and ruthlessly - but the old, generally quite tolerant Damascene world lay in ruins. It would take a quarter of a century to restore stability and prosperity to the Syrian capital.

This is both an essential book for understanding the emergence of the modern Middle East from the destruction of the old Ottoman world, and a uniquely gripping story.

Eugene Rogan is author of the bestselling The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1920. He is professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford and Director of the Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford.

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Jonathan H. Ebel, "From Dust They Came: Government Camps and the Religion of Reform in New Deal California" (NYU Press,2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 7 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

From Dust They Came: Government Camps and the Religion of Reform in New Deal California (NYU Press, 2023) tells the story of the federal government’s Depression-era effort to redeem Dust Bowl refugees in rural California through the religion of reform.

During the Depression hundreds of thousands of families left the Great Plains and Southwest to look for farm work in California. Seeing destitute white families living in filthy shelters, reform-minded New Deal officials built a series of camps to provide shelter and community.

Drawn from the archives of the federal camp system, Jonathan H. Ebel tells the story of the religious dynamics in and around the farm labor camps, making the case that they served as mission sites for the conversion of migrants to more modern ways of living and believing, centered around ideas of virtuous citizenship based on a foundation of seemingly secular values such as cleanliness, hard work, and family life. The migrants, particularly those who came from charismatic and conservative Protestant faiths, sometimes had different ideas about right living.

Ebel shows how the New Deal program was animated simultaneously by humanitarian concern and by the belief that these poor white migrants and their religious practices needed to be transformed for them to achieve a better life in a modernized, secular world.

Recommended reading:

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

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Late Have I Loved You (with John Michael Talbott)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

John Michael Talbott is a tremendously successful musician and writer; he is also the founder of a monastery—the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage in Arkansas—where he is Minister General today. He started as a Methodist and a country rock musician in the seventies and the story of his journey is amazing, from the encounter with Jesus he had at seventeen to the intense mystical experiences that he had later in life during an illness that brought him into closer communion with Our Lord.

John Michael Talbot’s website.
John Michael Talbot’s Wikipedia page.
Late Have I Loved You, album on Amazon Music.
Late Have I Loved You, book on Amazon.com.

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Sergio M. González, "Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin" (U Illinois Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

“Wisconsin has always been my home. It’s not a place, however, where I’ve always felt at home,” (ix) declares Dr. Sergio M. González in the first two lines of his acknowledgments for his recently published book Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging & Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press, 2024). These two sentences are the essence of the manuscript as González guides the reader through a one-hundred-year history of Latino migration, settlement, and religious life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and surrounding rural regions. Many different nationalities that fall under the banner of the “Latino” identity have made home, work, and life in Wisconsin, but their presence was met with varying scales of hospitality – the act of welcoming “the stranger.” He writes in the Introduction, “Strangers No Longer demonstrates that relationships within hospitality interactions are in fact relations of power” (3). It is through a framework of hospitality that González structures his manuscript to show how clergy and laity accepted, to varying degrees, newly arrived Latinos in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin religious institutions have a long engagement with Latino populations. From the arrival of Mexican immigrant laborers in the 1920s who were recruited as strikebreakers, to post-war Tejano and Puerto Rican migrants who were encouraged to assimilate into eurocentric ideals of belonging, and finally to the 1980s Sanctuary Movement in which Central American asylees sought protection from state and federal immigration enforcement, each of these topics and more are covered in Strangers No Longer. González skillfully crafts a narrative where the reader witnesses the development of the relationship between Wisconsin religious institutions and various Latino communities as one moving from a relationship of paternalism in the early 20th century to one of self-determination by the late 20th century. “Wisconsin Latinos pushed churches to acknowledge that they were no longer guests in their communities, or, in the words of the organizers of a statewide conference held in Appleton in 1974, ‘strangers in our homeland’” (141). By the 21st century, González asserts, the church had become a site for Latino political consciousness and resistance for decades.

González’s methodological rigor, clear writing, and strong theoretical grounding allow the reader to understand the delicate political, racial, economic, and spiritual power relations at play for Latinos in the Midwest during the 20th century. Strangers No Longer is a valuable read for undergraduate courses in Latino history, religious history, and social movement history. Alongside his academic work, González is building out his public history projects that offer primers on the sanctuary movement, immigration history, and Latino religious life in the Midwest.

Links to Dr. Gonzalez’s publications and projects:

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Jonathan A. Seitz, "Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 3 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) evaluates the role of nineteenth-century British missionaries in the early development of the cross-cultural relationship between China and the English-speaking world. As one of the first generation of British Protestant missionaries, Robert Morrison went to China in 1807 with the goal of evangelizing the country. His mission pushed him into deeper engagement with Chinese language and culture, and the exchange flowed both ways as Morrison—a working-class man whose firsthand experiences made him an “accidental expert”—brought depictions of China back to eager British audiences. Author Jonathan A. Seitz proposes that, despite the limitations imposed by the orientalism impulse of the era, Morrison and his fellow missionaries were instrumental in creating a new map of cross-cultural engagement that would evolve, ultimately, into modern sinology. Engaging and well researched, Protestant Missionaries in China explores the impact of Morrison and his contemporaries on early sinology, mission work, and Chinese Christianity during the three decades before the start of the Opium Wars.

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Joshua Paul Smith, "Luke Was Not a Christian: Reading the Third Gospel and Acts Within Judaism" (Brill, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 3 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

One orthodoxy of critical biblical scholarship on the Third Gospel, attributed by later Christian tradition to a companion of Paul named Luke, holds that its author was not ethnically Jewish but rather a Gentile of some kind, either a proselyte to Judaism, a “Godfearer” once attached to a diasporic synagogue, or perhaps a pagan convert to a form of early Christianity reverent to Israel’s scriptures.

In Luke Was Not A Christian: Reading the Third Gospel and Acts within Judaism (Brill, 2024), Joshua Paul Smith addresses the consensus for the supposedly Gentile Luke and concludes that no solid New Testament or patristic evidence exists to substantiate such a claim. Moreover, Smith suggests by means of a cognitive linguistic analysis of insider and outsider terms in Luke and Acts, as well as their author’s attitudes toward the Torah and intricate knowledge of Jewish festival celebrations, that these books were more likely to have been written by an individual enculturated in “a Jewish setting … among the Hellenistic Jewish diaspora” (p. 233). Smith joined the New Books Network to discuss this revision of his Ph.D. thesis, our ability to know an ancient author through their textual remains, and why it would be inappropriate to interpret Luke’s full-throated embrace of the Gentile mission as an indicator of his non-Jewish identity.

Joshua Paul Smith (Ph.D., University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology, 2021) teaches presently at Southeast Missouri State University. His research interests include literary and cognitive approaches to New Testament texts, as well as early Jewish and Christian identity formation. He is currently working on a short book on Acts for a general audience, and conducting research for an article that applies social network analysis to named characters in Luke and Acts. Additionally, he serves as Managing Editor for Reviews of the Enoch Seminar, publishing book reviews on a wide range of topics related to the study of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic origins.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Claire Weeda, "Ethnicity in Medieval Europe 950-1250: Medicine, Power and Religion" (Boydell and Brewer, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 2 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Students in twelfth-century Paris held slanging matches, branding the English drunkards, the Germans madmen and the French as arrogant. On Crusade, army recruits from different ethnic backgrounds taunted each other’s military skills. Men producing ethnography in monasteries and at court drafted derogatory descriptions of peoples dwelling in territories under colonization, questioning their work ethic, social organization, religious devotion and humanness. Monks listed and ruminated on the alleged traits of Jews, Saracens, Greeks, Saxons and Britons and their acceptance or rejection of Christianity.

Ethnicity in Medieval Europe 950-1250, Medicine, Power and Religion (Boydell and Brewer, 2021), provides a radical new approach to representations of nationhood in medieval western Europe, the author argues that ethnic stereotypes were constructed and wielded rhetorically to justify property claims, flaunt military strength, and assert moral and cultural ascendance over others. The gendered images of ethnicity in circulation reflect a negotiation over self-representations of discipline, rationality and strength, juxtaposed with the alleged chaos and weakness of racialized others. Interpreting nationhood through a religious lens, monks and schoolmen explained it as scientifically informed by environmental medicine, and ancient theory that held that location and climate influenced the physical and mental traits of peoples. Drawing on lists of ethnic character traits, school textbooks, medical treatises, proverbs, poetry and chronicles, this book shows that ethnic stereotypes served as rhetorical tools of power, crafting relationships within communities and towards others.

Claire Weeda is a cultural historian at the Institute for History at Leiden University, Netherlands. Her main fields of interest include ethnic stereotyping, the history of the body, Greco-Arabic medicine, and organic politics in Europe, 1100-1500.

Evan Zarkadas is a graduate student of European history at the University of Maine focusing on Medieval Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, medieval identity, and ethnicity during the late Middle Ages.

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Matthew Kadane, "The Enlightenment and Original Sin" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Matthew Kadane, Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, talks about his just new book, The Enlightenment and Original Sin (University of Chicago Press, 2024). An eloquent microhistory that argues for the centrality of the doctrine of original sin to the Enlightenment. What was the Enlightenment? This question has been endlessly debated. In The Enlightenment and Original Sin, historian Matthew Kadane advances the bold claim that the Enlightenment is best defined through what it set out to accomplish, which was nothing short of rethinking the meaning of human nature. Kadane argues that this project centered around the doctrine of original sin and, ultimately, its rejection, signaling the radical notion that an inherently flawed nature can be overcome by human means. Kadane explores these ambitious, wide-ranging themes through the story of the largely unknown Pentecost Barker, an eighteenth-century "purser" and wine merchant. Examining Barker's diary and correspondence with a Unitarian minister, Kadane tracks the transformation of Barker's consciousness from a Puritan to an Enlightenment outlook, revealing in one man's transformation large-scale shifts in self-understanding whose philosophical reverberations would (and have continued to) shape debates on human nature for centuries.

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Stephanie Joy Mawson, "Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines" (Cornell UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.

But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others...

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Nathan Lovell, "The Book of Kings and Exilic Identity: 1 and 2 Kings as a Work of Political Historiography" (T&T Clark, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 29 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Is the purpose of the Book of Kings merely to provide a reason for the exile, or is there a greater message of hope? Tune in as we speak with Nathan Lovell about his monograph, The Book of Kings and Exilic Identity: The Book of Kings and Exilic Identity: 1 and 2 Kings as a Work of Political Historiography (T&T Clark, 2022). Approaching the Book of Kings as a coherent narrative, Lovell argues Kings recalls the past in order to demonstrate what it means to be Israel in the present, encouraging God’s exilic people as they hoped for a future restoration.

Nathan Lovell is Director of Postgraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew at George Whitefield College, Cape Town, South Africa.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration.

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Mark Jantzen and John D. Thiesen, "European Mennonites and the Holocaust" (U Toronto Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

During the Second World War, Mennonites in the Netherlands, Germany, occupied Poland, and Ukraine lived in communities with Jews and close to various Nazi camps and killing sites. As a result of this proximity, Mennonites were neighbours to and witnessed the destruction of European Jews. In some cases they were beneficiaries or even enablers of the Holocaust. Much of this history was forgotten after the war, as Mennonites sought to rebuild or find new homes as refugees. The result was a myth of Mennonite innocence and ignorance that connected their own suffering during the 1930s and 1940s with earlier centuries of persecution and marginalization.

European Mennonites and the Holocaust (U Toronto Press, 2021) identifies a significant number of Mennonite perpetrators, along with a smaller number of Mennonites who helped Jews survive, examining the context in which they acted. In some cases, theology led them to accept or reject Nazi ideals. In others, Mennonites chose a closer embrace of German identity as a strategy to improve their standing with Germans or for material benefit.

A powerful and unflinching examination of a difficult history, European Mennonites and the Holocaust uncovers a more complete picture of Mennonite life in these years, underscoring actions that were not always innocent.

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Jerome’s Tears (with David Bonagura Jr.): Death and Mourning in Christian Late Antiquity

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 24 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Professor David Bonagura, theologian and Latinist, has translated and edited seven of St. Jerome’s letters dealing with death and mourning. This doctor of the church consoles his friends in first centuries of Christendom, describing death as sleep, and dying as our journey back home to God. And though the Mediterranean is big and fourth-century travel was slow, we see that the Christian community is surprisingly close. The letters also reveal some of the material history and mentalities of daily life which allow us a priceless glimpse across the centuries.

Professor Bonagura’s website.
Professor Bonagura’s book Jerome's Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning (Sophia International Press, 2023).

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Jason A. Kerr, "Milton's Theological Process: Reading de Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

This volume proposes a method for reading Milton's De Doctrina Christiana as an artifact of his process of theological thinking rather than as a repository of his doctrinal views. Jason A. Kerr argues that reading in this way involves attention to the complex material state of the manuscript along with Milton's varying modes of engagement with scripture and various theological interlocutors, and reveals that Milton's approach to theology underwent significant change in the course of his work on the treatise. Initially, Milton set out to use Ramist logic to organize scripture in a way that drew out its intrinsic doctrinal structure. This method had two unintended consequences: it drove Milton to an antitrinitarian understanding of the Son of God, and it obliged him to reflect on his own authority as an interpreter and to develop an ecclesiology capable of sifting divine truth from human error.

Consequently, Milton's Theological Process: Reading de Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost (Oxford UP, 2023) explores the complex interplay between Milton's preconceived theological ideas and his willingness to change his mind as it develops through the layers of revision in the manuscript. Kerr concludes by considering Paradise Lost as a vehicle for Milton's further reflection on the foundations of theology--and by showing how even the epic presents challenges to the fruits of these reflections. Reading Milton theologically means more than working to ascertain his doctrinal views; it means attending critically to his messy process of evaluating and rethinking the doctrinal views to which his prior study had led him.

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Wally V. Cirafesi, "John Within Judaism: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Shaping of Jesus-Oriented Jewishness in the Fourth Gospel" (Brill, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

While many have noted the general Jewishness of the Gospel of John, few have given it a seat at the ideologically crowded table of ancient Jewish practice and belief—until now.

Join us as we speak with Wally Cirafesi, whose book, John Within Judaism: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Shaping of Jesus-Oriented Jewishness in the Fourth Gospel (Brill, 2021), offers a reading of the Gospel of John as an expression of the fluid and flexible nature of Jewish identity in Greco-Roman antiquity.

Wally V. Cirafesi obtained his PhD from the University of Oslo, where he is Visiting Researcher in the Faculty of Theology. He has published on a range of topics related to the New Testament, ancient Judaism, and early Christianity, including Verbal Aspect in Synoptic Parallels (Brill, 2013).

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Lauren Horn Griffin, "Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England: History, Rhetoric, and the Origins of Christianity" (Brill, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England: History, Rhetoric, and the Origins of Christianity (Brill, 2023) argues that in order to understand nationalisms, we need a clearer understanding of the types of cultural myths, symbols, and traditions that legitimate them. Myths of origin and election, memories of a greater and purer past, and narratives of persecution and mission are required for the production and maintenance of powerful national sentiments. Through an investigation of how early modern Catholics and Protestants reimagined, reinterpreted, and rewrote the lives of the founder-saints who spread Christianity in England, this book offers a theoretical framework for the study of origin narratives. Analyzing the discursive construction of time and place, the invocation of forces beyond the human to naturalize and authorize, and the role of visual and ritual culture in fabrications of the past, this book provides a case study for how to approach claims about founding figures. Serving as a timely example of the dependence of national identity on key religious resources, Griffin shows how origin narratives – particularly the founding figures that anchor them – function as uniquely powerful rhetorical tools for the cultural production of regional and national identity.

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Siân E. Grønlie, "The Old Testament in Medieval Icelandic Texts: Translation, Exegesis and Storytelling" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The historical narratives of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible have much in common with Icelandic saga literature: both are invested in origins and genealogy, place-names, family history, sibling rivalry, conflict and its resolution. Yet the comparison between these two literatures is rarely made, and biblical translations in Old Norse-Icelandic have been neglected as a focus of literary study.

The Old Testament in Medieval Icelandic Texts: Translation, Exegesis and Storytelling (Boydell & Brewer, 2024) by Dr. Siân E. Grønlie aims to redress this neglect. It shows how the likeness between biblical narrative and saga narrative has shaped the reception of the Old Testament in medieval Iceland, even through multiple layers of translation and exegesis.

It draws on a wide variety of texts, including homilies, saints' lives, world histories, encyclopaedic works, and the biblical translations collectively known as Stjórn, to explore how medieval Icelanders engaged with Old Testament narrative in the light of their own vernacular tradition of storytelling. And above all, it argues that the medieval Icelanders understood and recognised in these well-known biblical stories a narrative art that was strikingly akin to their own.

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Donald Opitz and Derek Melleby, "Learning for the Love of God: A Student's Guide to Academic Faithfulness" (Brazos Press, 2014)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 11 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Donald Opitz and Derek Melleby about their book Learning for the Love of God: A Student's Guide to Academic Faithfulness (Brazos Press, 2014).

Most Christian college students separate their academic life from church attendance, Bible study, and prayer. Too often discipleship of the mind is overlooked if not ignored altogether. In this lively and enlightening book, two authors who are experienced in college youth ministry show students how to be faithful in their studies, approaching education as their vocation. This revised edition of the well-received The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness includes updates throughout, two new substantive appendixes, personal stories from students, a new preface, and a fresh interior design. Chapters conclude with thought-provoking discussion questions. Read a review of the book by local bookstore owner and friend of the authors here.

Donald Opitz (PhD, Boston University) is chaplain and senior director of Christian formation at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous articles and has worked as a pastor as well as a campus minister.

Derek Melleby (DMin, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a consultant with North Group Consultants. As the former Director of Calling & Career Development at Lancaster Bible College, Derek helped individuals connect to a sense of calling in their career. In that role, he served the student population, accompanying them on their journey to grow their self-awareness and develop the skills needed to make a positive impact on their communities. He has also provided executive leadership in a growth-oriented non-profit organization.

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Joanne Edge, "Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain: Questioning Life, Predicting Death" (York Medieval Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 11 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

When will I die? What is the sex of my unborn child? Which of two rivals will win a duel? As today, people in the later Middle Ages approached their uncertainties about the future, from the serious to the mundane, in a variety of ways. One of the most commonly surviving prognostic methods in medieval manuscripts is onomancy: the branch of divination that predicts the future from calculations based on the numbers that correlate to the letters of personal names. However, despite its ubiquity, it has been relatively little studied.

Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain: Questioning Life, Predicting Death (York Medieval Press, 2024) by Dr. Joanne Edge analyses the intellectual and physical contexts of onomantic texts in some 65 manuscripts of British provenance between around 1150 and 1500, focusing on its two main varieties It demonstrates that onomancies were copied, owned and used by a people from a wide range of literate society in late medieval England: medical practitioners; the gentry and aristocracy; university scholars; and monks. And it seeks to answer the question of why a divinatory device, condemned in canon law as "Pythagorean necromancy", enjoyed such popularity in mainstream books of religion, medicine, and scholasticism.

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Knocking at the Brothel Door (with Michael John Cusick)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Michael John Cusick argues that our addictions and disordered sexual desires are really a misdirected effort to reach God and live in connection with Him. How can this be? The crude simulation is but at poor substitute for the real thing, for the Truth. Yet in this fallen world, sinners repeatedly fall into the snares. “I do not understand my own actions,”—Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans—"For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” But like the prodigal son in the pigpen, we cannot but lift our eyes from the mud and think about the loving Father waiting for us at home.

Michael John Cusick, author, counselor, host of the wonderful podcast, Restoring the Soul, talks about what he has learned about addiction, disorder, mercy, and freedom, in his book Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle and also on this episode of Almost Good Catholics.

Michael John Cusick’s website.
Restoring the Soul intensive counseling ministry.
Restoring the Soul podcast, and on Apple.

Related Almost Good Catholics episodes:

Heather King on Almost Good Catholics, episode 4: Divine Intoxication: A Discussion about Grace, Sainthood, and Women in the Church
Mako Fujimura on Almost Good Catholics, episode 14: The Silence of God: The Meaning of Our Suffering and Redemption
Brant Hansen on Almost Good Catholics, episode 75: The Men We Need: What Men Are Supposed to Be Doing

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Jason F. Moraff, "Reading the Way, Paul, and 'the Jews' in Acts Within Judaism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The book of Acts is often misunderstood as reflecting anti-Judaism or promoting supersessionism. Jason Moraff, however, argues that Acts binds the Way, Paul, and the Jewish people together in a shared identity. Taking a historically situated approach, Moraff frames Acts' portrayal of the early church and Paul in relation to the Jewish people as participating in internecine conflict regarding the Jewish-tradition-in-crisis after the destruction of the temple.

Join us as we speak with Jason Moraff about his recent book, Reading the Way, Paul, and 'the Jews' in Acts Within Judaism (Bloomsbury, 2023).

Jason F. Moraff is assistant professor of biblical studies at The King’s University in Southlake, USA.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Lucy Barnhouse, "Hospitals in Communities of the Late Medieval Rhineland" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Lucy Barnhouse of Arkansas State University talks with Jana Byars about her new book, Hospitals in Communities of the Late Medieval Rhineland: Houses of God, Places for the Sick, out 2023 with Amsterdam University Press. From the mid-twelfth century onwards, the development of European hospitals was shaped by their claim to the legal status of religious institutions, with its attendant privileges and responsibilities. The questions of whom hospitals should serve and why they should do so have recurred -- and been invested with moral weight -- in successive centuries, though similarities between medieval and modern debates on the subject have often been overlooked. Hospitals' legal status as religious institutions could be tendentious and therefore had to be vigorously defended in order to protect hospitals' resources. This status could also, however, be invoked to impose limits on who could serve in and be served by hospitals. As recent scholarship demonstrates, disputes over whom hospitals should serve, and how, find parallels in other periods of history and current debates.

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Sean Griffin, "The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Dr. Sean Griffin's book, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus (Cambridge UP, 2019), takes on the question of the source materials for the Primary Chronicle, one of the most important texts for the study of medieval Russia. Griffin argues that key portions of the Chronicle have their origin in Byzantine liturgy. This thesis has broad implications for what is and can be known about the early Rus.' Griffin further argues that Rus' state power had a direct interest in liturgy, and he is carrying this interest forward into a forthcoming book on technologies of power in present-day Russia. Listeners interested in this latter topic should be interested in the present interview; the manner in which the Russian state has sacralized its power illustrates fascinating continuities, from the early Rus' to the present day.

Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism.

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Markus Vinzent, "Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

How do we know what we know about the origins of the Christian religion? Neither its founder, nor the Apostles, nor Paul left any written accounts of their movement. The witnesses' testimonies were transmitted via successive generations of copyists and historians, with the oldest surviving fragments dating to the second and third centuries - that is, to well after Jesus' death.

In Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings (Cambridge UP, 2022), Markus Vinzent interrogates standard interpretations of Christian origins handed down over the centuries. He scrutinizes - in reverse order - the earliest recorded sources from the sixth to the second century, showing how the works of Greek and Latin writers reveal a good deal more about their own times and preoccupations than they do about early Christianity. In so doing, the author boldly challenges understandings of one of the most momentous social and religious movements in history, as well as its reception over time and place.

Markus Vinzent has recently retired as Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College, London. He is a Fellow of the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies of the University of Erfurt. A recipient of awards from the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Agence Nationale de Recherche, France, he is the author of Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Michael Boler, "Introduction to Classical and New Testament Greek: A Unified Approach" (Catholic U of America Press, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The defining feature of this textbook is the treatment of classical and New Testament Greek as one language using primary sources. All the example sentences the students will translate are real Greek sentences, half of which are taken from classical literature and philosophy and half of which are directly from the New Testament. The advantage of this approach is that it highlights the linguistic, literary, and historical connections between classical Greece and early Christianity. Rather than having students memorize isolated tables and artificial sentences, Michael Boler spent years combing through thousands of pages of literature, philosophy, and scripture to find short, powerful sentences that not only teach the grammatical concepts in each chapter, but also contain seeds of wisdom that will spark wonder and discussion.

Introduction to Classical and New Testament Greek: A Unified Approach (Catholic U of America Press, 2019) is born out of classroom experience in a Catholic liberal arts university whose students were disappointed to be forced to choose between textbooks that taught classical Greek in isolation and ones that focused exclusively on the New Testament. By the end of this book, students will have read over 200 lines of scripture and an equal amount of ancient literature from Homer to Aristotle. They will also have the grammatical knowledge to continue to read classical and New Testament Greek. Each chapter contains a section at the end that delves deeply into the etymology and background of the words and passages encountered in the respective chapter. Professors will thus be able to use these chapters as a bridge to philosophical, theological, historical, and literary topics that will enrich the class.

Michael Boler is director and associate professor of classics as well as the director of the honors programs at University of St. Thomas, Houston.

Justin McGeary is director of Christian studies at John Witherspoon College, a PhD candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Union School of Theology, Wales, and tutor at Trinity House Tutorials.

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Making Moves (and Making Movies) in the Mission Field (with Temeko Richardson)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Temeko Ricardson grew up in the Protestant American tradition; she was a “GPK” (grand-pastor-kid) from a family of church leaders. She has been thinking about Christianity and social issues—failure to include God’s people into His Church, fractured families, homelessness—and how to weave out society together and spread the Gospel. She’s an entrepreneur, consultant, philanthropist, and filmmaker. Today we talk about her work and the content she had been making to “ensure people understand the greatness of having Christ at the center of their lives through entertaining content.”

Temeko Richardson’s YouTube channel.
Temeko Richardson’s IMDB page.
Temeko Richardson on Film Freeway.
At the Cross film website.
Interview with Ray Lewis, “Fatherless.”

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Crawford Gribben, "J. N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

J.N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism (Oxford University Press, 2024) describes the work of one of the most important and under-studied theologians in the history of Christianity. In the late 1820s, John Nelson Darby abandoned his career as a priest in the Church of Ireland to become one of the principal leaders of a small but rapidly growing religious movement that became known as the "Plymouth Brethren." Darby and other brethren modified the Calvinism that was common among their evangelical contemporaries, developing distinctive positions on key doctrines relating to salvation, the church, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the end times.

After his death in 1882, Darby's successors revised and expanded his arguments, and Darby became known as the architect of the most influential system of end-times thinking among the world's half-a-billion evangelicals. This "dispensational premillennialism" exercises extraordinary influence in religious communities, but also in popular culture and geopolitics. But claims that Darby created this theological system may need to be qualified -for all his innovation, this reputation might be undeserved. This book reconstructs Darby's theological development and argues that his innovations were more complex and extensive than their reduction into dispensationalism might suggest. In fact, Darby's thought might be closer to that of his Reformed critics than to that of modern exponents of dispensationalism.

Crawford Gribben is Professor of History at Queen's University Belfast.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at New Books Network.

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Michael Scott and Michael Collins, "Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context" (Vernon Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The enigma of William Shakespeare's religious beliefs has long tantalized scholars and enthusiasts alike. Vernon Press's latest publication, Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context (Vernon Press, 2022), dives deep into this mystery. The collection of essays, edited by renowned scholars Michael Scott and Michael J. Collins, invites a discourse on the profound impact of Christian faith and the religious controversies of Shakespeare’s era on his poetry and plays.

The contributors, unrestricted by any particular theoretical framework, freely explore the complex interplay between the medieval and the early modern, the Catholic and the Protestant, which colored Shakespeare’s England. This exploration reveals the openness of Shakespeare’s work to interpretation, highlighting the careful and sensitive readings by the contributors.

Despite the depth of analysis, the true nature of Shakespeare’s Christianity remains as indeterminate and elusive as ever. The essays collectively capture the breadth of opinions on Shakespeare’s stances, from being ambiguously evasive to taking definitive stances on the religious and political turmoils of his time.

Michael Scott, Fellow and Senior Dean at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, is a distinguished Shakespearean scholar with numerous publications under his belt, including Shakespeare and the Modern Dramatist and Shakespeare: A Complete Introduction. He has delivered lectures globally, from the USA to China, enhancing the understanding of Shakespeare's works worldwide.

Michael J. Collins is a Teaching Professor of English and Dean Emeritus at Georgetown University. His editorial works include Reading What’s There: Essays on Shakespeare in Honor of Stephen Booth. Collins has contributed extensively to the academic dialogue on teaching Shakespeare and reviewing Shakespearean performances.

Vernon Press – Bridging Scholarly Ideas and Global Readership

Vernon Press stands out as an independent publisher of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences. Their mission is crucial — to make scholarly ideas accessible to a broader audience while maintaining high standards of originality and intellectual rigor. Through their diverse catalog, Vernon Press engages with global readers, contributing to academic and public discourse.

Dessy Vassileva, the Marketing & Design expert at Vernon Press, brings a 360º multidisciplinary approach to her work at Vernon Press.

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John Tolan, "England's Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In 1290, Jews were expelled from England and subsequently largely expunged from English historical memory. Yet for two centuries they occupied important roles in mediaeval English society. England’s Jews revisits this neglected chapter of English history—one whose remembrance is more important than ever today, as antisemitism and other forms of racism are on the rise.

In England's Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023), Dr. John Tolan tells the story of the thousands of Jews who lived in mediaeval England. Protected by the Crown and granted the exclusive right to loan money with interest, Jews financed building projects, provided loans to students, and bought and rented out housing. Historical texts show that they shared meals and beer, celebrated at weddings, and sometimes even ended up in bed with Christians.

Yet Church authorities feared the consequences of Jewish contact with Christians and tried to limit it, though to little avail. Royal protection also proved to be a double-edged sword: when revolts broke out against the unpopular king Henry III, some of the rebels, in debt to Jewish creditors, killed Jews and destroyed loan records. Vicious rumours circulated that Jews secretly plotted against Christians and crucified Christian children. All of these factors led Edward I to expel the Jews from England in 1290. Paradoxically, Dr. Tolan shows, thirteenth-century England was both the theatre of fruitful interreligious exchange and a crucible of European antisemitism.

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James N. Neumann, "The Gospel of the Son of God: Psalm 2 and Mark's Narrative Christology" (T&T Clark, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What does it mean for the Gospel of Mark to portray Jesus as Son of God? Apparently far more than what past scholarship has recognized! James Neumann argues that Mark presents Jesus’ life from beginning to end as the actualization of Psalm 2, a coronation hymn describing the Davidic king as God’s “son.”

Join us as we speak with James Neumann about his recent book, The Gospel of the Son of God (T&T Clark, 2023).

James Neumann teaches New Testament as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Charles E. Curran, "Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian" (Georgetown UP, 2006)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Over the course of our 60th anniversary in 2024, we'll be revisiting some classic Georgetown books. First up is Loyal Dissent by Charles E. Curran.

Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian (Georgetown UP, 2006) is the candid and inspiring story of a Catholic priest and theologian who, despite being stripped of his right to teach as a Catholic theologian by the Vatican, remains committed to the Catholic Church. Over a nearly fifty-year career, Charles E. Curran has distinguished himself as the most well-known and the most controversial Catholic moral theologian in the United States. On occasion, he has disagreed with official church teachings on subjects such as contraception, homosexuality, divorce, abortion, moral norms, and the role played by the hierarchical teaching office in moral matters. Throughout, however, Curran has remained a committed Catholic, a priest working for the reform of a pilgrim church.

In 1986, years of clashes with church authorities finally culminated in a decision by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, that Curran was neither suitable nor eligible to be a professor of Catholic theology. As a result of that Vatican condemnation, he was fired from his teaching position at Catholic University of America. Yet Curran continues to defend the possibility of legitimate dissent from those teachings of the Catholic faith—not core or central to it—that are outside the realm of infallibility.

In this poignant and passionate memoir, Curran recounts his remarkable story from his early years as a compliant, pre-Vatican II Catholic through decades of teaching and writing and a transformation that has brought him today to be recognized as a leader of progressive Catholicism throughout the world.

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Philip Freeman, "Two Lives of Saint Brigid" (Four Courts Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

St. Brigid is the earliest and best-known of the female saints of Ireland. In the generation after St. Patrick, she established a monastery for men and women at Kildare which became one of the most powerful and influential centres of the Church in early Ireland.

The stories of Brigid's life and deeds survive in several early sources, but the most important are two Latin lives written a century or more after her death. The first was composed by a churchman named Cogitosus and tells of her many miracles of healing and helping the poor. The second source, known as the Vita Prima, continues the tradition with more tales of marvellous deeds and journeys throughout the island. Both Latin sources are a treasure house of information not just about the legends of Brigid but also daily life, the role of women, and the spread of Christianity in Ireland.

Philip Freeman's Two Lives of Saint Brigid (Four Courts Press, 2024) for the first time presents together an English translation of both the Life of Brigid by Cogitosus and the Vita Prima, along with the Latin text of both carefully edited from the best medieval manuscripts. Also included are an introduction, notes, and commentary to help general readers, students, and scholars in reading these fascinating stories of St. Brigid.

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D. Clint Burnett, "Christ's Enthronement at God's Right Hand and Its Greco-Roman Cultural Context" (de Gruyter, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

How did Psalm 110:1 become so widely used as a messianic prooftext in the New Testament and early Christianity? Part of the explanation may be related to the first century’s Greco-Roman political and religious context.

Tune in as we speak with Clint Burnett about his recent book Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand and its Greco-Roman Cultural Context (de Gruyter, 2020).

D. Clint Burnett holds a PhD in biblical studies from Boston College, where he is a visiting scholar. He focuses on interpreting early Christianity in light of the material culture of the Greco-Roman cities in which it was established. Clint is also a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, serving Old North Abbey in Knoxville, TN.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Jae Hee Han, "Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities—Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers—discussed prophets and revelation, among themselves and against each other. Bringing an interdisciplinary, historical approach to the topic, he interrogates how these communities used discourses of prophethood and revelation to negotiate their place in the world. Han tracks the shifting contours of prophecy and contextualizes the emergence of orality as the privileged medium among rabbis, Manichaeans, and 'Jewish Christian' communities. He also explores the contemporary interest in divinatory knowledge among Neoplatonists. Offering a critical re-reading of key Manichaean texts, Han shows how Manichaeans used concepts of prophethood and revelation within specific rhetorical agendas to address urgent issues facing their communities. His book highlights the contingent production of discourse and shows how contemporary theories of rhetoric and textuality can be applied to the study of ancient texts.

Jae Han is Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the program for Judaic Studies at Brown University

Michael Motia is a lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston

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Catholic in Palestine (with Fr Firas Abedrabbo)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

There have been Christians in the Holy Land for two thousand years; “we are the first church,” says Father Firas Abedrabbo who is from Bethlehem and works in Ramallah. He studied law in France and speaks excellent English and spoke with me about his experience as a priest in Palestine (the West Bank) during the Gaza War. We talk politics and history, but we also talk about how people in the middle of a war can see God’s love and His participation in our daily lives, even (or perhaps especially) in our darkest hours.

I am grateful for Josh Del Colle of South Dakota for this episode suggestion and for arranging the introduction.

Website of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem
Father Firas’s webpage.

Almost Good Catholics episodes with Father Piotr Żelazko in Jerusalem:

[Part 1] Fr. Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 71: Live from Israel: Catholics in the Holy Land Today
[Part 2] Fr. Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 73, starting at 55 minutes after my interview with Jay Richards: Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? The Debate between Natural Selection and Intelligence Design
[Part 3] Fr. Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 79, The Ground is Crying out to God: Live from Jerusalem Part 3

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Elizabeth Coggeshall, "On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Although we often think of friendship today as an indisputable value of human social life, for thinkers and writers across late mediaeval Christian society friendship raised a number of social and ethical dilemmas that needed to be carefully negotiated. On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2023) analyses these dilemmas and looks at how Dante’s strategic articulations of friendship evolved across the phases of his literary career as he manoeuvred between different social groups and settings.

Dr. Elizabeth Coggeshall reveals that friendship was not an unequivocal moral good for the writers of late mediaeval Italy. Instead, it was an ambiguous term to be deployed strategically, describing a wide range of social relationships such as allies, collaborators, servants, patrons, rivals, and enemies. Drawing on the use of the language of friendship in the letters, correspondence poems, dedications, narratives, and treatises composed by Dante and his interlocutors, Dr. Coggeshall examines the way they skillfully negotiated around the dilemmas that friendship raised in the spheres of mediaeval Italian literary society. The book addresses instances of inclusivity and exclusivity, collaboration and self-interest, hierarchy and equality, and alterity and identity. Employing literary, historical, and sociological analysis, On Amistà presents a genealogy for the innovative and tactical use of the terms of friendship among the works of late mediaeval Italian authors.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Claudio Ferlan, "The Jesuits: A Thematic History" (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In The Jesuits: A Thematic History (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023), Claudio Ferlan provides an exploration of the tradition of the Society of Jesus. Instead of focusing solely on the Society’s historical milestones and changes, Ferlan traces the continuity of key Jesuit themes over time—covering education, mission, social engagement, and more. The book moves between different periods and places, emphasizing how core Jesuit themes have retained their essence despite profound transformations in the Society and the world. Whether the reader is a scholar in Jesuit studies or simply interested in the Society’s history, the book offers an analysis of one of the enduring religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church.

This book is part of the Jesuit Sources imprint, IJS Studies: Research on Jesuits and the Society of Jesus.

Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting lecturer at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Twitter and IG: @robbyref Website: www.robertomazza.org

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Greg Jarrell, "Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods" (Fortress Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Greg Jarrell's book Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods (Fortress Press, 2024) uncovers how race, geography, policy, and religion have created haunted landscapes in Charlotte, North Carolina, and throughout the United States. How do we value our lands, livelihoods, and communities? How does our theology inform our capacity--or lack thereof--for memory? What responsibilities do we bear toward those who have been harmed, not just by individuals but by our structures and collective ways of being in the world?

Abram and Annie North, both born enslaved, purchased a home in the historically Black neighborhood of Brooklyn in the years following the Civil War. Today, the site of that home stands tucked beneath a corner of the First Baptist Church property on a site purchased under the favorable terms of Urban Renewal campaigns in the mid-1960s. How did FBC wind up in what used to be Brooklyn--a neighborhood that no longer exists? What happened to the Norths? How might we heal these hauntings? This is an American story with implications far beyond Brooklyn, Charlotte, or even the South. By carefully tracing the intertwined fortunes of First Baptist Church and the formerly enslaved North family, Jarrell opens our eyes to uncomfortable truths with which we all must reckon.

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Georgia Frank, "Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What can we know about the everyday experiences of Christians during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries? How did non-elite men and women, enslaved, freed, and free persons, who did not renounce sex or choose voluntary poverty become Christian? They neither led a religious community nor did they live in entirely Christian settings. In this period, an age marked by “extraordinary” Christians—wonderworking saints, household ascetics, hermits, monks, nuns, pious aristocrats, pilgrims, and bishops—ordinary Christians went about their daily lives, in various occupations, raising families, sharing households, kitchens, and baths in religiously diverse cities. Occasionally they attended church liturgies, sought out local healers, and visited martyrs’ shrines. Barely and rarely mentioned in ancient texts, common Christians remain nameless and undifferentiated.

Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) explores the sensory and affective dimensions of ordinary Christians who assembled for rituals. With precious few first-person accounts by common Christians, it relies on written sources not typically associated with lived religion: sermons, liturgical instruction books, and festal hymns. All three genres of writing are composed by clergy for use in ritual settings. Yet they may also provide glimpses of everyday Christians’ lives and experiences. This book investigates the habits, objects, behaviors, and movements of ordinary Christians by mining festal preaching by John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, and Romanos the Melodist, among others. It also mines liturgical instructions to explore the psalms and other songs performed on various feast days. “Unfinished,” then, connotes the creativity and agency of unremarkable Christians who engaged in making religious experiences: the “Christian-in-progress” who learns to work with material and bring something into being; the artisans who attended sermons; and, more widely, the bearers of embodied knowing.

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Erin L. Durban, "The Sexual Politics of Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Evangelical Christians and members of the global LGBTQI human rights movement have vied for influence in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. Each side accuses the other of serving foreign interests. Yet each proposes future foreign interventions on behalf of their respective causes despite the country’s traumatic past with European colonialism and American imperialism.

In The Sexual Politics of the Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti (University of Illinois Press, 2023), author Erin L. Durban shows two discourses dominate discussions of intervention. One maintains imperialist notions of a backward Haiti so riddled with cultural deficiencies that foreign supervision is necessary to overcome Haitians’ resistance to progress. The other sees Haiti as a modern but failed state that exists only through its capacity for violence, including homophobia. In the context of these competing claims, the book explores the creative ways that same-sex desiring and gender creative Haitians contend with anti-LGBTQI violence and ongoing foreign intervention.

As the episode neared its conclusion, Erin took a moment to shine a spotlight on the vital efforts of various organizations operating within Haiti, emphasizing the significance of their work and expressing a keen interest in bringing their endeavors to the forefront. The aim was not only to acknowledge these organizations but also to explore avenues through which individuals could offer their support, be it through donations, volunteering, or simply by raising awareness about their commendable efforts. These entities represent just a fraction of the many groups making a difference in Haiti, and include:

1. The Haitian Studies Association: An organization dedicated to scholarly research and academic excellence concerning Haiti and its diaspora.
2. The Lambi Fund of Haiti: A group focused on supporting economic justice, democracy, and sustainable development in Haiti through grassroots initiatives.
3. Partners In Health (PIH) in Haiti: A healthcare organization committed to bringing high-quality health care to some of Haiti's most remote areas.
4. Association of Haitian Women in Boston: An organization aimed at empowering Haitian women by providing them with resources to achieve social and economic stability.

Erin L. Durban is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, affiliated with American Studies; Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies; and the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Their scholarship works at the intersections of interdisciplinary feminist and queer studies, transnational American studies, critical disability studies, and critical ecologies.

Aleem Mahabir is a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. His research interests lie at the intersection of Urban Geography, Social Exclusion, and Psychology. His dissertation research focuses on the link among negative psychosocial dispositions, exclusion, and under-development among marginalized communities in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. You can find him on Twitter.

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Paola Tartakoff, "Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2012)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In 1341 in Aragon, a Jewish convert to Christianity was sentenced to death, only to be pulled from the burning stake and into a formal religious interrogation. His confession was as astonishing to his inquisitors as his brush with mortality is to us: the condemned man described a Jewish conspiracy to persuade recent converts to denounce their newfound Christian faith. His claims were corroborated by witnesses and became the catalyst for a series of trials that unfolded over the course of the next twenty months.

Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2012; paperback 2023) closely analyzes these events, which Paola Tartakoff considers paradigmatic of inquisitorial proceedings against Jews in the period. The trials also serve as the backbone of her nuanced consideration of Jewish conversion to Christianity--and the unwelcoming Christian response to Jewish conversions--during a period that is usually celebrated as a time of relative interfaith harmony.

The book lays bare the intensity of the mutual hostility between Christians and Jews in medieval Spain. Tartakoff's research reveals that the majority of Jewish converts of the period turned to baptism in order to escape personal difficulties, such as poverty, conflict with other Jews, or unhappy marriages. They often met with a chilly reception from their new Christian brethren, making it difficult to integrate into Christian society. Tartakoff explores Jewish antagonism toward Christians and Christianity by examining the aims and techniques of Jews who sought to re-Judaize apostates as well as the Jewish responses to inquisitorial prosecution during an actual investigation. Prosecutions such as the 1341 trial were understood by papal inquisitors to be in defense of Christianity against perceived Jewish attacks, although Tartakoff shows that Christian fears about Jewish hostility were often exaggerated. Drawing together the accounts of Jews, Jewish converts, and inquisitors, this cultural history offers a broad study of interfaith relations in medieval Iberia.

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Diane Winston, "Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan's Evangelical Vision" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 1 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

After two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but in 1983 something changed. Reagan spoke of his embattled agenda as a spiritual rather than a political project and cast his vision for limited government and market economics as the natural outworking of religious conviction. The news media broadcast this message with enthusiasm, and white evangelicals rallied to the president’s cause. With their support, Reagan won reelection and continued to dismantle the welfare state, unravelling a political consensus that stood for half a century.

In Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Diane Winston reveals how support for Reagan emerged from a new religious vision of American identity circulating in the popular press. Through four key events—the “evil empire” speech, AIDS outbreak, invasion of Grenada, and rise in American poverty rates—Dr. Winston shows that many journalists uncritically adopted Reagan’s religious rhetoric and ultimately mainstreamed otherwise unpopular evangelical ideas about individual responsibility. The result is a provocative new account of how Reagan together with the press turned America to the right and initiated a social revolution that continues today.

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Katie Barclay, "Caritas: Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self" (Oxford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 1 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Caritas, a form of grace that turned our love for our neighbour into a spiritual practice, was expected of all early modern Christians, and corresponded with a set of ethical rules for living that displayed one's love in the everyday. Caritas was not just a willingness to behave morally, to keep the peace, and to uphold social order however, but was expected to be felt as a strong passion, like that of a parent to a child.

Caritas: Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self (Oxford UP, 2021) explores the importance of caritas to early modern communities, introducing the concept of the 'emotional ethic' to explain how neighbourly love become not only a code for moral living but a part of felt experience. As an emotional ethic, caritas was an embodied norm, where physical feeling and bodily practices guided right action, and was practiced in the choices and actions of everyday life. Using a case study of the Scottish lower orders, this book highlights how caritas shaped relationships between men and women, families, and the broader community.

Focusing on marriage, childhood and youth, 'sinful sex', privacy and secrecy, and hospitality towards the itinerant poor, Caritas provides a rich analysis of the emotional lives of the poor and the embodied moral framework that guided their behaviour. Charting the period 1660 to 1830, it highlights how caritas evolved in response to the growing significance of romantic love, as well as new ideas of social relation between men, such as fraternity and benevolence.

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The Wood Between the Worlds (with Brian Zahnd)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

For Christians, the central event in history and in universe is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. This killing of God (or deicide) is so mysterious and terrible that it’s hard to even approach: what kind of a God would choose to be tortured and murdered by his rebellious creatures? Pastor Brian Zahnd’s poetic theology of the Cross (in The Wood between the Worlds) takes a kaleidoscopic approach, which turns this way and that, until that terrible cross reflects the light of God that dazzles with coruscating beauty.

Pastor Brian’s webpage.
Pastor Brian’s book, The Wood between the Worlds (IVP, 2024)
Tim Stewart’s interview with Brian on the Impact Nations podcast (February 2024)

Related Almost Good Catholics episodes:

David Basile on Almost Good Catholics, episode 39: Why a Savior? The Theology of Sacrifice and Redemption
Jeff Brannon on Almost Good Catholics, episode 40: O Death, Where is Your Sting? The Biblical Theology of Resurrection
Fr Chris Alar on Almost Good Catholics, episode 61: Master Craftsman, Broken Tools: Why God Works Through Us, Hears Intercessory Prayers, and Grants Divine Mercy
Sr Mary Josefa of the Eucharist on Almost Good Catholics, episode 68: Brides of Christ: Contemplative Life among the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

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William Bain, "Political Theology of International Order" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Is contemporary international order truly a secular arrangement? Theorists of international relations typically adhere to a narrative that portrays the modern states system as the product of a gradual process of secularization that transcended the religiosity of medieval Christendom. William Bain's Political Theology of International Order (Oxford University Press, 2020) challenges this narrative by arguing that modern theories of international order reflect ideas that originate in medieval theology. They are, in other words, worldly applications of a theological pattern.

This ground-breaking book makes two key contributions to scholarship on international order. First, it provides a thorough intellectual history of medieval and early modern traditions of thought and the way in which they shape modern thinking about international order. It explores the ideas of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Martin Luther, and other theologians to rise above the sharp differentiation of medieval and modern that underpins most international thought. Uncovering this theological inheritance invites a fundamental reassessment of canonical figures, such as Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes, and their contribution to theorizing international order. Second, this book shows how theological ideas continue to shape modern theories of international order by structuring the questions theorists ask as well as the answer they provide. It argues that the dominant vocabulary of international order, system and society, anarchy, balance of power, and constitutionalism, is mediated by the intellectual commitments of nominalist theology. It concludes by exploring the implications of thinking in terms of this theological inheritance, albeit in a world where God is only one of several possibilities that can called upon to secure the regularity of order.

William Bain is Associate Professor of International Relations at National University of Singapore. He is the author of Between Anarchy and Society: Trusteeship and the Obligations of Power (OUP, 2003) and editor of, and contributor to, Medieval Foundations of International Relations (Routledge, 2016) and The Empire of Security and the Safety of the People (Routledge, 2006). He has written widely on the theory of international society and the history of international thought.

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Brent M. Rogers, "Buffalo Bill and the Mormons" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In this never-before-told history of Buffalo Bill and the Mormons, Brent M. Rogers presents the intersections in the epic histories of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and the Latter-day Saints from 1846 through 1917. In Cody's autobiography he claimed to have been a member of the U.S. Army wagon train that was burned by the Saints during the Utah War of 1857-58. Less than twenty years later he began his stage career and gained notoriety by performing anti-Mormon dramas. By early 1900 he actively recruited Latter-day Saints to help build infrastructure and encourage growth in the region surrounding his town of Cody, Wyoming.

In Buffalo Bill and the Mormons (U Nebraska Press, 2024), Rogers unravels this history and the fascinating trajectory that took America's most famous celebrity from foe to friend of the Latter-day Saints. In doing so, the book demonstrates how the evolving relationship between Cody and the Latter-day Saints can help readers better understand the political and cultural perceptions of Mormons and the American West.

Brent M. Rogers connects the histories of William F. ""Buffalo Bill"" Cody and the Mormons, highlighting two pillars of the American West to better understand cultural and political perceptions, image-making, and performance from the 1840s through the early 1900s.

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Emily Conroy-Krutz, "Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations" (Cornell UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024) illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power. Were missionaries serving the interests of American diplomacy? Or were they creating unnecessary problems?

As Dr. Emily Conroy-Krutz demonstrates, they were doing both. Across the century, missionaries forced the government to articulate new conceptions of the rights of US citizens abroad and of the role of the US as an engine of humanitarianism and religious freedom. By the time the US entered the first world war, missionary diplomacy had for nearly a century created the conditions for some Americans to embrace a vision of their country as an internationally engaged world power. Missionary Diplomacy exposes the longstanding influence of evangelical missions on the shape of American foreign relations.

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Keith Bodner and Benjamin J.M. Johnson, "Characters and Characterization in the Book of Judges" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Characters and characterization are a key ingredient for interpreting the Bible, and perhaps no other book in the Bible is so full of challenging and outlandish characters as the book of Judges. From Ehud, the left-handed assassin to the zany adventures of Samson, the characters in Judges are memorable indeed.

Join as we talk with Benjamin Johnson about his co-edited work, Characters and Characterization in the Book of Judges (Bloomsbury, 2024).

Benjamin Johnson is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Director of The Honors College at LeTourneau University.

L. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu

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Janine Giordano Drake, "The Gospel of Church: How Mainline Protestants Vilified Christian Socialism and Fractured the Labor Movement" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In 1908, Unitarian pastor Bertrand Thompson observed the momentous growth of the labor movement with alarm. "Socialism," he wrote, "has become a distinct substitute" for the church. He was not wrong.

In the generation after the Civil War, few of the migrants who moved North and West to take jobs in factories and mines had any association with traditional Protestant denominations. In the place of church, workers built a labor movement around a shared commitment to a Christian commonwealth. They demanded an expanded local, state and federal infrastructure which supported collective bargaining for better pay, shorter work-days, and an array of municipal services. Protestant clergy worried that if the labor movement kept growing in momentum and cultural influence, socialist policies would displace the need for churches and their many ministries to the poor. Even worse, they feared that the labor movement would render the largest Protestant denominations a relic of the nineteenth century.

In The Gospel of Church: How Mainline Protestants Vilified Christian Socialism and Fractured the Labor Movement (Oxford UP, 2023), Janine Giordano Drake carefully traces the relationships which Protestant ministers built with labor unions and working class communities. She finds that Protestant ministers worked hard to assert their cultural authority over Catholic, Jewish, and religiously-unaffiliated working-class communities. Moreover, they rarely supported the most important demands of labor, including freedom of speech and the right to collective bargaining. Despite their heroic narratives of Christian social reform, Protestant reformers' efforts to assert their authority over industrial affairs directly undermined workers' efforts to bring about social democracy in the United States.

Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research interests focus on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on X @matthewfsimmons.

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Emil Hilton Saggau, "Nationalisation of the Sacred: Orthodox Historiography, Memory, and Politics in Montenegro" (Peter Lang, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Eastern Orthodox Churches in post-communist Eastern Europe are embroiled in long-running conflicts over ownership of territory, saints, sites, nations, and history. These often violent conflicts reflect political and national rivalries, most explicitly in former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. They are often understood as simplified ethnic-national tensions with religious overtones, but, as this book demonstrations, such an assessment overlooks the deeper theological and historiographical framework.

Emil Hilton Saggau's book Nationalisation of the Sacred: Orthodox Historiography, Memory, and Politics in Montenegro (Peter Lang, 2023) offers a detailed analysis of the theological backdrop behind these conflicts. It analyses how various strands of Eastern Orthodoxy have adapted to the contemporary political context, a process where history, memory, and politics are transformed to fit the needs of rival nations and churches. The book provides an in-depth analysis of this process and the transformations in church-related conflicts in post-communist Montenegro, where the Serbian Orthodox Church has been pitted against a rival Montenegrin church and Montenegrin government. Additionally the book provides an up-to-date and unique analysis of Eastern Orthodox historiography, modern Serbian theology, religion in Montenegro more broadly, and the roots of the violent clash between Orthodox believers and the Montenegrin government in 2019-2021.

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Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, "The Jewish Annotated New Testament" (Oxford UP, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 4 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

First published in 2011, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford UP, 2017) was a groundbreaking work, bringing the New Testament's Jewish background to the attention of students, clergy, and general readers. In this new edition, eighty Jewish scholars bring together unparalleled scholarship to shed new light on the text. This thoroughly revised and greatly expanded second edition brings even more helpful information and new insights to the study of the New Testament.

For Christian readers The Jewish Annotated New Testament offers a window into the first-century world of Judaism from which the New Testament springs. There are explanations of Jewish concepts such as food laws and rabbinic argumentation. It also provides a much-needed corrective to many centuries of Christian misunderstandings of the Jewish religion.

For Jewish readers, this volume provides the chance to encounter the New Testament--a text of vast importance in Western European and American culture--with no religious agenda and with guidance from Jewish experts in theology, history, and Jewish and Christian thought. It also explains Christian practices, such as the Eucharist.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Second Edition is an essential volume that places the New Testament writings in a context that will enlighten readers of any faith or none.

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David P. Gushee, "Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies" (William B. Eerdmans, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 2 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Why do some devout Christians support authoritarian leaders who threaten the very democracies that protect religious freedoms?

The resounding support from evangelical and conservative Christians for strident culture hawks like Donald Trump and other far right leaders may appear surprising, but exist within a long and broad history that spans continents and centuries.

Surveying global politics and modern history, David P. Gushee calls on Christians to preserve democratic norms, including constitutional government, the rule of law, and equal rights for all. He analyzes how Christians have repeatedly put aside their commitment to the teachings of Jesus from the Gospels when they are tempted by authoritarian and reactionary leaders who promise a return to mythical greatness defined by family values, natural order, and cultural superiority.

In Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies (William B. Eerdmans, 2023), He urges Christians to resist this urge by reviving the hard-won traditions of congregational democracy as fought for by American Baptist and Black Christian leaders.

Rev. Prof. Dr. David P. Gushee (PhD, Union Theological Seminary, New York) is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, and Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit (“Free University”) Amsterdam, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre.

Recommended reading:

Hidden Roots of White Supremacy by Robert Jones

Coming soon from David Gushee:

The Moral Teachings of Jesus (Cascade 2024)

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Miracle Man (with Joe McGivney)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 1 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Lifelong alcoholic Joe McGivney drank himself into brain damage and permanent disability. The day after being placed into the assisted care he would need for rest of his life, he sprang back to full recovery, restored health—it was a medical impossibility—for which he credits the intercession of Blessed Father Michael McGivney, his distant relative and the founder of the Knights of Columbus in the nineteenth-century Catholic charitable brotherhood and who is now being considered for canonization on the basis of the recorded intercessory miracles like the one Joe experience two years ago.

Joe and Nicole’s website
Joe McGivney’s book, You’re a Miracle, on Amazon.com
Blessed Fr Michael McGivney founder of the Knights of Columbus
Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome on the NIH website.

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Jeffrey D. Long, "Perspectives on Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, Scientific" (MDPI Books, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

What happens after you die? The book brings together fascinating theological and religious studies perspectives on a controversial yet pervasive idea: reincarnation. An estimated 1 on 5 Americans subscribe to this belief, despite their religious background. Why is this? What are the philosophical, spiritual, pragmatic merits of subscribing to reincarnation? What about the pitfalls? Does believing in reincarnation counter Christian teachings? Is it a uniquely Hindu practice? Join us as we explore these and other questions with Dr. Jeffrey D. Long, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College (PA) and editor of the open access peer-reviewed book Perspectives on Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, Scientific(MDPI Books, 2019).

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Harriet Lyon, "Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The dissolution of the monasteries was recalled by individuals and communities alike as a seismic rupture in the religious, cultural, and socio-economic fabric of early modern England. It was also profoundly important in shaping contemporary historical consciousness, the topographical imagination, and local tradition.

Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2021) by Dr. Harriet Lyon is a book about the dissolution of the monasteries after the dissolution. Dr. Lyon argues that our understanding of this historical moment is enriched by taking a long chronological view of the suppression, by exploring how it was remembered to those who witnessed it and how this memory evolved in subsequent generations. Exposing and repudiating the assumptions of a conventional historiography that has long been coloured by Henrician narratives and sources, this book reveals that the fall of the religious houses was remembered as one of the most profound and controversial transformations of the entire English Reformation.

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Safwat Marzouk, "Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel" (Mohr Siebeck, 2015)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Appealing to Monster Theory and the ancient Near Eastern motif of "Chaoskampf," Safwat Marzouk argues that the paradoxical character of the category of the monster is what prompts the portrayal of Egypt as a monster in the book of Ezekiel. While on the surface the monster seems to embody utter difference, underlying its otherness there is a disturbing sameness. Though the monster may be defeated and its body dismembered, it is never completely annihilated.

As Marzouk explains in Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel (Mohr Siebeck, 2015), Egypt is portrayed as a monster in the book of Ezekiel because Egypt represents the threat of religious assimilation. Although initially the monstrosity of Egypt is constructed because of the shared elements of identity between Egypt and Israel, the prophet flips this imagery of monster in order to embody Egypt as a monstrous Other. In a combat myth, YHWH defeats the monster and dismembers its body. Despite its near annihilation, Egypt, in Ezekiel's rhetoric, is not entirely obliterated. Rather, it is kept at bay, hovering at the periphery, questioning Israel's identity.

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Gwyn McClelland, "Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives" (Routledge, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 04:00:00 +0000

On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over sixty percent of the community. In Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests, and Catholic Survivor Narratives (Routledge, 2019), Gwyn McClelland presents a collective biography, where nine Catholic survivors share personal and compelling stories about the aftermath of the bomb and their lives since that day.

Examining the Catholic community’s interpretation of the A-bomb, this book not only uses memory to provide a greater understanding of the destruction of the bombing, but also links it to the past experiences of religious persecution, drawing comparisons with the ‘Secret Christian’ groups which survived in the Japanese countryside after the banning of Christianity.

Through in-depth interviews, it emerges that the memory of the atomic bomb is viewed through the lens of a community which had experienced suffering and marginalisation for more than 400 years. Furthermore, it argues that their dangerous memory confronts Euro-American-centric narratives of the atomic bombings, whilst also challenging assumptions around a providential bomb. Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki presents the voices of Catholics, many of whom have not spoken of their losses within the framework of their faith before. As such, it will be invaluable to students and scholars of Japanese history, religion and war history.

I asked Gwyn about three questions that we could face when reflecting on the complex survivor narratives provided by the Catholic victims of the nuclear Holocaust in Japan, or more precisely, what the book refers to as the "dangerous memory in Nagasaki."

Do Nagasaki Christians and their unique intercultural Mariology (i.e., Maria kannon and Maria with a keloid scar) present any issues to today's theology (especially with regard to their possible reception by the Vatican)?
How was John Paul II's visit to Nagasaki, which put an emphasis on human responsibility regarding war atrocities, received among the survivors who embraced the traditional interpretation of their losses as a sacrificial hansai (a burnt offering) or a part of setsuri (providence)?
How can the nation of Japan (both Catholics and the rest of the country) move forward in light of the dangerous memory of Nagasaki?

The author's responses to these questions reflected his intellectual virtue as a patient witness to the extraordinary life stories of the war victims in Nagasaki. The interview ends with a note of undying hope, the future possibility of transformative reconciliations that can move the whole country forward, while doing justice to dangerous memories.

Gwyn McClelland holds a Master of Divinity from the University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Japanese history from Monash University. He is the winner of the 2019 John Legge prize for best thesis in Asian Studies, awarded by the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA).

Takeshi Morisato is a philosopher and sometimes academic. He specializes in comparative and Japanese philosophy but he is also interested in making Japan and philosophy accessible to a wider audience.

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Jonathon Lookadoo, "The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch" (Cascade Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The letters of Ignatius of Antioch portray Jesus in terms that are both remarkably exalted and shockingly vulnerable. Jesus is identified as God and is the sole physician and teacher who truly reveals the Father. At the same time, Jesus was born of Mary, suffered, and died. Ignatius asserts both claims about Jesus with minimal attempts to reconcile how they can simultaneously be embodied in one person.

Jonathon Lookadoo's book The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade Books, 2023) explores the ways in which Ignatius outlines his understanding of Jesus and the effects that these views were to have on both his immediate audience as well as some of his later readers. Ignatius utilizes stories throughout his letters, describes Jesus with designations that are at once traditional and reinvigorated with fresh meaning, and employs a dizzying array of metaphors to depict how Jesus acts. In turn, Ignatius and his audience are to respond in ways befitting their status in Christ because Jesus forms a lens through which to look at the world anew. Such a dynamic Christology was not to cease development in the second century but continued to inspire readers in creative ways through late antiquity and beyond.

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Ed Simon, "Relic" (Bloomsbury. 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book, Relic, by Dr. Ed Simon was published in 2024.

Every culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Catholic martyr, the tooth of a Buddhist lama, or the cloak of a Sufi saint, relics are material conduits to the immaterial world. Yet relics aren't just a feature of religion. The exact same sense of the transcendent animates objects of political, historical, and cultural significance.

From Abraham Lincoln's death mask to Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse, Emily Dickinson's envelopes to Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick, relics are the objects which the faithful understand as being more than just objects. Material things of sacred importance, relics are indicative of a culture's deepest values.

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Homo sapiens catholicus (with Jeremy Holmes)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Theology Professor Jeremy Holmes of Wyoming Catholic College teaches a class called “Science and Theology,” which is about the Darwin’s theory of evolution and related topics, including the problems we encounter in the fossil record and our understanding of genetic change. I ask him about the discussions he has with his students and his colleagues and how where his investigations have led him.

Jeremy Holmes’s faculty webpage at Wyoming Catholic College
Professor Holmes’s book, Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words (Ignatius Press, 2021).
“Confederate Evolution Debate” from Gettysburg (1993)

Related Almost Good Catholics episode:

Jay Richards on Almost Good Catholics, episode 73: Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? The Debate between Natural Selection and Intelligent Design

Another Almost Good Catholics episode with Jeremy Holmes:

Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 20: Words and the Word: How Scripture Brings Us into God’s Eternal Moment

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Anthony Kaldellis, "Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium" (Harvard UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Though commonly used today to identify a polity that lasted for over a millennium, the label “Byzantine empire” is an anachronism imposed by more recent generations. As Anthony Kaldellis explains in Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Harvard University Press, 2019), this has contributed to the denial of the ethnic identity that most denizens of the empire had of themselves as Romans. Kaldellis traces the origins of this process of denial to the 8th century CE, with the papacy’s turn to the Franks as their protectors. The efforts by the Catholic Church to de-legitimize the Eastern Empire as the legatee of ancient Rome denied the self-identification of its residents as Romans, one that is reflected in much of the surviving literature from this era. This identity was so widely embraced by the residents of the empire as to make it a largely homogenous state ethnically throughout much of its existence, one that absorbed many of the bands of people from other ethnic groups who migrated to the empire over the centuries of its existence.

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Clare K. Rothschild, "The Muratorian Fragment: Text, Translation, Commentary" (Mohr Siebeck, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 6 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Discovered and published in 1740 by the Ambrosian librarian Ludovico Muratori, the so-called “Muratorian Fragment” has long featured for New Testament scholars as a piece of second-century evidence for a canonical impulse in early Christianity. Challengers to this second-century dating in recent decades have done little to shake a popular conception that the Fragment authentically reflects a remarkably early and idiosyncratic view on Christian scriptural collections that do not seem to have been meaningfully codified, by other means, until the late fourth century.

Stepping into this impasse with The Muratorian Fragment: Text, Translation, Commentary (Mohr Siebeck, 2022), Clare K. Rothschild freshly evaluates the text of the singly attested eighth-century manuscript and its wider context in situ within the “Muratorian Codex,” offering both a neutral presentation of the evidence as well as a novel argument attributing its composition to the orbit of the fourth-century treatise writer Ambrosiaster. The result is a true “critical edition” for the Muratorian Fragment, advancing scholarship and allowing fellow academics who marshal its data to confront the manuscript’s unparalleled oddity within the landscape of early Christian writ. Rothschild joined the New Books Network to discuss her conscientious handling of this “lightning rod in biblical studies,” its limited comparative material from prologues and early apologetics, and especially the ways that scholarship might progress beyond deeply held commitments to the Muratorian Fragment’s relevance to the question of the New Testament canon.

Clare K. Rothschild (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2003) is Professor of Scripture Studies at Lewis University. Her research interests range throughout the textual landscape of the New Testament and other early Christian texts, from Luke-Acts to Pauline texts and from the Apostolic Fathers to the Muratorian Fragment, and her other major publications with Mohr Siebeck have included Hebrews as Pseudepigraphon: The History and Significance of Pauline Attribution of Hebrews (2009) and The Benedictine Prologue: A Contribution to the Early History of the Latin Prologues to the Pauline Epistles (2023, with Jeremy C. Thompson). She is currently preparing a commentary on the Epistle of Barnabas for Fortress Press’s Hermeneia series and serves as General Editor of the journal Early Christianity and the Society of Biblical Literature series Writings from the Greco-Roman World. In her spare time, Rothschild enjoys yoga and playing cello in various small orchestras and ensembles.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Angela Kim Harkins, "An Embodied Reading of the Shepherd of Hermas: The Book of Visions and Its Role in Moral Formation" (Equinox, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Among early Christian books abandoned at the flipside of the canonical boundary, the Shepherd of Hermas is presently undergoing an exciting renaissance of scholarly interest from multiple critical angles. Accepting that the Shepherd was broadly reckoned as a catechetical scripture by early Christians after its composition and dissemination from Rome, Angela Kim Harkins interrogates the first section of the tripartite Shepherd known as the Book of Visions, which narrates Hermas’s visionary experiences in first-person voice.

In An Embodied Reading of the Shepherd of Hermas: The Book of Visions and its Role in Moral Formation (Equinox, 2023), Harkins argues that enactive reading can help to generate immersive experiences of Hermas’s revelations and explain the favor that the Book of Visions curried among ancient readers. Cognitive approaches also highlight how modern scholars, who are trained to read apocalypses “against the grain” in their search for historical or theological information, frequently do not stop to notice and appreciate the very things that made apocalypses engaging to a broad range of ancient readers and hearers. Harkins joined the New Books Network to discuss her book’s recent publication, the relevance of reading psychology approaches, and the breadth of apocalyptic works in Jewish and Christian antiquity.

Angela Kim Harkins (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2003) is Professor Ordinaria of New Testament at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry. Her research interests have focused on prayer in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, including the Hodayot or “Thanksgiving Hymns” from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. Among her eight publications in the last decade are edited volumes on the Shepherd of Hermas (De Gruyter, 2022, with Harry O. Maier) as well as Fallen Angels and the Watchers, both of whom are known through apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts. Angela was born in Seoul, South Korea, and presently serves as lead editor for the Journal of Ancient Judaism.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Sarah Diefendorf, "The Holy Vote: Inequality and Anxiety Among White Evangelicals" (U California Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Through two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a megachurch, sociologist Dr. Sarah Diefendorf investigates the ways in which the evangelical church is working to grow during a time in which cultural shifts are leading young people to leave religion behind. In order to expand, the church has revisited topics long understood as external threats to the organization, such as feminism, gender equality, racial inclusivity, and queer life—topics Diefendorf classifies as the “imagined secular” in the minds of evangelicals.

The Holy Vote: Inequality and Anxiety among White Evangelicals (University of California Press, 2023) shows, however, that the church continues to uphold already privileged identities even as it reworks its messages to appear more welcoming, offering insight into how White evangelical understandings about sex and families have shaped a political movement that has helped remake the Republican Party and transform American politics. In this enlightening work, Diefendorf highlights the complex origins of these understandings and considers their intersections with contemporary culture and enduring social inequalities.

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Daniel I. Block, "The Gospel According to Moses: A Commentary on Deuteronomy" (Inspirata Publishing, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

For the renowned scholar, Dr. Daniel Block, Deuteronomy is the "Gospel according to Moses." Moses' farewell pastoral addresses call God's people to remember his grace in salvation, covenant relationship with him, and his revelation of a way of blessing in a lost world.

Join us as we speak with Dan Block about his recent commentary on Deuteronomy.

Daniel I. Block is the Gunther H. Knoedler Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He is the author of more than 120 scholarly papers and articles on biblical texts and topics. His latest books include Ruth: The King is Coming (ZECOT, 2015) and Covenant: The Framework of God's Grand Plan of Redemption (2021).

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William R. Jankowiak, "Illicit Monogamy: Inside a Fundamentalist Mormon Community" (Columbia UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Angel Park is a Mormon fundamentalist polygamous community where plural marriages between one man and multiple women are common. Based on many years of in-depth ethnographic research, in Illicit Monogamy: Inside a Fundamentalist Mormon Community (Columbia UP, 2023), William Jankowiak considers the plural family from the points of view of husbands, wives, and children, giving a balanced account of its complications and conflicts. Through an extensive case study, the book not only gives the readers a real feeling for the society, but also invites us to rethink something essential about being human.

William R. Jankowiak is professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of Sex, Death, and Hierarchy in a Chinese City: An Anthropological Account (1993) as well as the editor of Romantic Passion: A Universal Experience? (1995) and Intimacies: Love and Sex Across Cultures (2008), among other books.

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Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Renowned historian of Mormonism Richard Lyman Bushman's latest book presents a vibrant history of a sacred object that gave birth to a new religion: the gold plates Joseph Smith said he discovered in upstate New York in the 1820s. Believers hailed Smith as a revered prophet and translator of lost languages while critics warned the public he was a dangerous charlatan. Two hundred years later the mystery of the gold plates remains.

In Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History (Oxford UP, 2023), Bushman offers a cultural history of the gold plates down through the years. How have they been imagined by believers, critics, and skeptics, by treasure-seekers, novelists, artists, scholars, and others?

In this interview, Bushman talks about his personal relationship to the project and whether he thinks the plates can help re-enchant a largely disenchanted modern world.

Hosted by Blair Hodges, host of the new podcast Family Proclamations, Fireside with Blair Hodges, and formerly the Maxwell Institute Podcast at Brigham Young University.

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Eugenio Refini, "Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque Italy" (Legenda, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

As per William Shakespeare, ‘all the world’s a stage’. But what if the human soul was a stage too? What if the stage of the world and the stage of the soul coincided? And what if the soul was also the main character of the play?

These questions are at the core of Eugenio Refini's book Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque Italy (Legenda, 2022), which explores pedagogical uses of allegorical drama in Italy in the decades around 1600, with a focus on the place of theatre in the education of female orphans in the hospitals of Venice. The consumption of morality plays is looked at as a form of spiritual practice modeled on long-lasting theatrical metaphors. In this context, tropes such as the theatrum mundi not only regained their literal meaning by being actually staged, but also turned into rhetorical devices able to promote the inner staging of the ‘world’ on the ‘spiritual’ stage of the soul.

Kate Driscoll is Assistant Professor of Italian and Romance Studies at Duke University. She is a specialist of early modern Italian and European literary and cultural history, with interests in women’s and gender studies, performance history, and the cultures of diplomacy and reception. Email: kate.driscoll@duke.edu.

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Nicholas Morton, "The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Nicholas Morton’s The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 (Oxford UP, 2020) explores the military history of the medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where ethnic, religious, dynastic, and commercial interests collided and the causes of war could be numerous. Conflicts persisted for decades and were fought out between many groups including Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, and the Crusaders themselves. Nic Morton recreates this world, exploring how each faction sought to advance its own interests by any means possible, adapting its warcraft to better respond to the threats posed by their rivals. Strategies and tactics employed by the pastoral societies of the Central Asian steppe were pitted against the armies of the agricultural societies of Western Christendom, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, galvanising commanders to adapt their practices in response to their foes.

In this episode, Nic joins me again to discuss histories of nomadic peoples fighting with and against the Crusader armies; what military history can tell us about the economic, social, and cultural history of the medieval Near East; and why Crusader history is still relevant to us today.

Maggie Freeman is a PhD candidate in the School of Architecture at MIT. She researches uses of architecture by nomadic peoples and historical interactions of nomads and empires, with a focus on the modern Middle East.

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"Apocalypto" and Mel Gibson (with Jonathon Fessenden)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The 2006 Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto, takes us into a decadent Maya civilization in the Yucatan on the eve of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. It could be a commentary on ancient Rome or the present-day US, but, because it is a new world for both the viewer and the forest-dwelling protagonists, we get to see it through ‘new eyes’ and a ‘beginner’s mind.’ It’s a great movie, a cinematic masterpiece. It also allows us to ask how Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic and such a human sinner—as we all are, though when he does something terrible it’s in the news—should proclaim the Gospel after he has fallen from his moral pedestal a few times. We also ask about how the Church should proceed given her many painful scandals. It was a great discussion on the Missio Dei podcast on YouTube and I’m delighted to share it here.

Our original YouTube interview on Missio Dei (October 1, 2023)
Apocalypto on the Best Pick podcast with John Dorney, Jessica Regan, Tom Salinsky and( guest) Joy Wilkinson (August 24, 2022)
The Making of Apocalypto documentary with Mel Gibson.James
Empires of death: Apocalypto (2006) on Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast with James Majewski
History article by Richard Hansen: “Relativism, Revisionism, Aboriginalism, and Emic/Etic Truth: The Case Study of Apocalypto.”

Related Almost Good Catholics episodes:

Joseph González and Monique González on Almost Good Catholics, episode 74: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth: How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531
Brant Hansen on Almost Good Catholics, episode 75: The Men We Need: What Men Are Supposed to Be Doing

Other Almost Good Catholics episodes with Jonathon Fessenden:

Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 37: Catholic Movies, Pt. 1: Silence and The Scarlet and the Black
Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 49: Catholic Movies, Pt. 2: The Mission and A Man for All Seasons
Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 58: The Book of Job: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 64: The Fourth Wise Man: Follow Jesus—He’s Getting Away!

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Neall W. Pogue, "The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement" (Cornell UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

How does the Bible instruct humans to interact with the Earth? Over the last few decades, white conservative evangelical Christians have increasingly taken positions against environmental protections. To understand why, Meghan Cochran talks with Neall W. Pogue about his book The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement (Cornell University Press, 2022) in which he examines how the religious right became a political force known for hostility toward environmental legislation.

Until the 1990s, theologically based, eco-friendly philosophies of Christian environmental stewardship were uncontroversial. However, when some in the evangelical community began to lean towards environmental activism in response to human caused climate change, their effort was overwhelmed by some conservative leaders who stressed a position against environmentalism. They ridiculed conservation efforts, embraced conspiracy theories, and refuted the expanding scientific literature. Pogue explains how different ideas of nature helped to construct a conservative evangelical political movement that rejected long-standing beliefs regarding Christian environmental stewardship.

On Henry Einspruch's 1941 Yiddish Translation of the Christian Bible

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today we are going to explore a peculiar volume in the history of Yiddish literature, the Yiddish translation of the Christian bible written by Khaim Yekhiel, “Henry,” Einspruch, titled Der Bris Ḥadoshe, first published in Baltimore in 1941.

The saga of Einspruch’s translation of the Christian bible is the subject of a new Yiddish drama, “The Gospel According to Chaim,” written by Mikhl Yashinsky, and recently produced by the New Yiddish Rep theater company in New York.

Interviewee: Professor Naomi Seidman is the Jackman Humanities Professor at the University of Toronto, in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies.

Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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Jacob L. Wright, "Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Why did no other ancient society produce something like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community could have created a literary corpus so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable. For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Forged after Babylon's devastation of Jerusalem, it makes not victory but total humiliation the foundation of a new idea of belonging. Lamenting the destruction of their homeland, scribes who composed the Bible imagined a promise-filled past while reflecting deeply on abject failure. More than just religious scripture, the Bible began as a trailblazing blueprint for a new form of political community. Its response to catastrophe offers a powerful message of hope and restoration that is unique in the Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds.

Wright's Bible is thus a social, political, and even economic roadmap - one that enabled a small and obscure community located on the periphery of leading civilizations and empires not just to come back from the brink, but ultimately to shape the world's destiny. The Bible speaks ultimately of being a united yet diverse people, and its pages present a manual of pragmatic survival strategies for communities confronting societal collapse. Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2023) is a tour de force.

Jacob L. Wright is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

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Kami Fletcher and Ashley Towle, "Grave History: Death, Race, and Gender in Southern Cemeteries" (U Georgia Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Kami Fletcher and Ashley Towle’s edited collection Grave History: Death, Race and Gender in Southern Cemeteries (University of Georgia Press, 2023), demonstrates how Jim Crow laws extended into the realms of the dead. Cemeteries throughout the Southern states either relegated Black funerals to the margins in existing cemeteries or excluded the community altogether, often citing the excuse that inclusion would create unrest amongst white lot-holders, and disturb the peace of the cemetery. Burial spaces become demonstrative of oppression, but could also signal resistance to oppression. This impressive text provides an essential primer in African American cemetery history and illustrates how the Black community created frameworks of community support to ensure that homegoing services were dignified and affordable. Chapters also explore the historic importance of African American burial grounds, where grave markers are uniquely important to the recreation of otherwise poorly documented communities. The chapters also lean into the problems intrinsic to interpreting the material culture of oppression, where historic Black identities risk becoming fixed within narratives of victimhood.

The book includes workshop guidance for teachers, for use with students at all stages in the education process.

Dr Julie Rugg is Director of the Cemetery Research Group, University of York, UK.

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Darnise C. Martin, "Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church" (NYU Press, 2005)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Darnise C. Martin's Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (NYU Press, 2005) draws on rich ethnographic work in a Religious Science church in Oakland, California, to illuminate the ways a group of African Americans has adapted a religion typically thought of as white to fit their needs and circumstances. This predominantly African American congregation is an anomalous phenomenon for both Religious Science and African American religious studies. It stands at the intersection of New Thought doctrine, characterized by personal empowerment teachings,and a culturally familiar liturgical style reminiscent of Black Pentecostals and Black Spiritualists. This group challenges oversimplified concepts of the Black church experience and broadens the concept of Black religion outside the boundaries of Christianity—raising questions about what it means to be an African American congregation, and about the nature of blackness itself. Beyond Christianity adds a new dimension to the scholarship on Black religion.

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James Robson, "Word and Spirit in Ezekiel" (T&T Clark, 2006)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In comparison with other prophetic books, the Book of Ezekiel sets forth a unique angle on the relationship of the Lord's word and spirit. In his monograph, Word And Spirit in Ezekiel (T&T Clark, 2006), James Robson argues that the relationship between the Lord's spirit and the Lord's word in Ezekiel is to be understood not so much in terms of inspiration and authentication of the prophet, but in terms of the transformation of the book's addressees.

James Robson is Principal of Oak Hill College, UK, and also the author of Honey From the Rock: Deuteronomy for the People of God, and Deuteronomy 1-11: A Handbook of the Hebrew Text.

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The Men We Need (with Brant Hansen)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

“What is a man?” asks Hamlet. If all he does is “sleep and feed,” then “a beast, no more.” That’s not enough for Hamlet, and it’s not enough for Brant Hansen, who spreads the Gospel by radio and in print. He’s written a number of books, including his new one, The Men We Need, which asks and answers questions about men’s special role in our world, and the opportunity for joy and meaning. Hansen’s thesis is rooted in scripture and reflects what Catholics will recognize as the theology of the Body developed by St. John Paul II. It was a great book and our conversation was tremendously fun.

This is the seventy-fifth episode of Almost Good Catholics and starts off our third season and the year 2024. My discussion with Brant is 52 minutes long, but then I’ve added fifteen minutes of Christmas music from Josh and Margot of the Great Space Coaster Band to celebrate.

Brant Hansen’s website and radio show.
The Men We Need by Brant Hansen (2022) and all of his books.
Brant Hansen’s page and CURE International’s page on Wikipedia.
Trailer for Wall-E (Disney and Pixar, 2008).
The ever-growing Josh and Margot Christmas Album and the Great Space Coaster band website.

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Matthew Carr, "Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614" (Hurst, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

A centuries-old story with remarkable contemporary resonance, Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614 (Hurst, 2017) is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr's riveting and "richly detailed" (Choice) chronicle of what was, by 1614, the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history.

Months after King Philip III of Spain signed an edict in 1609 denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death. In the brutal and traumatic exodus that followed, entire families and communities were forced to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. By 1613, an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory.

Blood and Faith presents a remarkable window onto a little known period of modern Europe--a complex tale of competing faiths and beliefs, cultural oppression, and resistance against over-whelming odds that sheds new light on national identity and Islam.

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Alastair J. Roberts, "Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture" (Crossway, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The exodus—the story of God leading his chosen people out of slavery in Egypt—stands as a pivotal event in the Old Testament. But if you listen closely, you will hear echoes of this story of redemption all throughout God’s Word.

Using music as a of metaphor, the authors of Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture (Crossway) point us to the recurring theme of the exodus throughout the entire symphony of Scripture, shedding light on the Bible’s unified message of salvation and restoration that is at the heart of God’s plan for the world.

Alastair J. Roberts (PhD, Durham University) works for the Theopolis, Davenant, and Greystone Institutes. He participates in the Mere Fidelity and Theopolis podcasts, and blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria.

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist theological seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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Margaret M. McGuinness, "Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision" (Paulist Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Although Katharine Drexel has been the subject of several biographies, they have tended to treat her as a perfect human being whom the Church later transformed into a saint. Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision (Paulist Press, 2023) moves beyond the story of the heiress’s individual life devoted to God and shines a light on the work she did, assisted by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Drexel could have lived comfortably, wealthy and privileged, as a Philadelphia philanthropist but chose to found a religious congregation of women dedicated to working within Black and Indigenous communities―without receiving the bulk of the money left by Drexel's father.

Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision is a critical biography of this American saint written within the context of the religious order she founded. It ties her sainthood to the Sisters’ ministries to Black and Indigenous communities; Margaret McGuinness's careful examination of the work Katharine Drexel and her Sisters accomplished brings a critical perspective to this important ministry in the Church. It deepens our understanding of these communities and renews our commitment to the difficult, ongoing conversation about race in America.

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Max Deardorff, "A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In 1570's New Kingdom of Granada (modern Colombia), a new generation of mestizo (half-Spanish, half-indigenous) men sought positions of increasing power in the colony's two largest cities. In response, Spanish nativist factions zealously attacked them as unequal and unqualified, unleashing an intense political battle that lasted almost two decades. At stake was whether membership in the small colonial community and thus access to its most lucrative professions should depend on limpieza de sangre (blood purity) or values-based integration (Christian citizenship).

Max Deardoff's A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) examines the vast, trans-Atlantic transformation of political ideas about subjecthood that ultimately allowed some colonial mestizos and indios ladinos (acculturated natives) to establish urban citizenship alongside Spaniards in colonial Santafé de Bogotá and Tunja. In a spirit of comparison, it illustrates how some of the descendants of Spain's last Muslims appealed to the same new conceptions of citizenship to avoid disenfranchisement in the face of growing prejudice.

Ethan Besser Fredrick is a graduate student in Modern Latin American history seeking his PhD at the University of Minnesota. His work focuses on the Transatlantic Catholic movements in Mexico and Spain during the early 20th century.

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Craig Keener, "Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels" (Eerdmans, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Are the canonical Gospels historically reliable? The four canonical Gospels are ancient biographies, narratives of Jesus’s life. The authors of these Gospels were intentional in how they handled historical information and sources. Building on recent work in the study of ancient biographies, Craig Keener argues that the writers of the canonical Gospels followed the literary practices of other biographers in their day.

In Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (Eerdmans, 2019), Keener explores the character of ancient biography and urges students and scholars to appreciate the Gospel writers’ method and degree of accuracy in recounting the life and ministry of Jesus. Keener’s Christobiography has far-reaching implications for the study of the canonical Gospels and historical Jesus research. He concludes that the four canonical Gospels are historically reliable ancient biographies.

Dr. Craig Keener is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 30 books, 6 of which have won awards in Christianity Today. Keener is also the New Testament editor for the award-winning NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, and is serving as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society. With more than a million copies of his books in circulation, Keener also serves the global church by teaching and lecturing all over the world.

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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Gregg L. Frazer, "God against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case Against the American Revolution" (UP of Kansas, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Not everyone was convinced by the arguments of patriots during the American revolution. Among those who retained some degree of loyalty to the British crown were the majority of the clergy of the Episcopalian Church, as well as a smaller number of clergy from Congregational, Presbyterian and other protestant bodies. In this important new work, Gregg L. Frazer, professor of history and political science at The Master’s University, Santa Clarita, CA, surveys the arguments that loyalist clergy proposed. God Against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case Against the American Revolution (University Press of Kansas, 2018) is the first detailed account of this defeated intellectual tradition – a book that challenges many of our assumptions about the character and intention of the American revolution by putting debates about biblical interpretation at its heart.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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Genealogies of Modernity Episode 7: A Genealogy of Gun Violence

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

The problem of gun violence is as old as guns themselves. According to historian Priya Satia, America’s present epidemic of gun violence has its roots in the industrial revolution. Satia tells the story of British gun-maker Samuel Galton, Jr., who was called to task by his Quaker community for manufacturing rifles. As a professed pacifist, Galton had to wrestle with the large-scale uses to which his weapons were put. So where do we look for answers about how to regulate guns? Some claim the answer has to lie in the past, in the nation’s founding documents. Others argue that novel technologies demand novel solutions. Solving the problem of gun violence may be a case where we need to make a strong modernity claim.

Researcher, writer, and episode producer: Christopher Nygren, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh

Featured Scholars:

Catherine Fletcher, Professor of History, Manchester Metropolitan University

Priya Satia, Professor of History, Stanford University

Special thanks: James DeMasi, Chloé Hogg, Jonathan Lyonhart, Pernille Røge, Jennifer Waldron, Catherine Yanko.

For transcript, teaching aids, and other resources, click here.

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Daniel Soars, "The World and God Are Not-Two: A Hindu-Christian Conversation" (Fordham UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The World and God Are Not-Two: A Hindu-Christian Conversation (Fordham UP, 2022) is a book about how the God in whom Christians believe ought to be understood. The key conceptual argument that runs throughout is that the distinctive relation between the world and God in Christian theology is best understood as a non-dualistic one. The "two"-"God" and "World" cannot be added up as separate, enumerable realities or contrasted with each other against some common background because God does not belong in any category and creatures are ontologically constituted by their relation to the Creator.

In exploring the unique character of this distinctive relation, Soars turns to Sara Grant's work on the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedānta and the metaphysics of creation found in Thomas Aquinas. He develops Grant's work and that of the earlier Calcutta School by drawing explicit attention to the Neoplatonic themes in Aquinas that provide some of the most fruitful areas for comparative engagement with Vedānta. To the Christian, the fact that the world exists only as dependent on God means that "world" and "God" must be ontologically distinct because God's existence does not depend on the world. To the Advaitin, this simultaneously means that "World" and "God" cannot be ontologically separate either. The language of non-duality allows us to see that both positions can be held coherently together without entailing any contradiction or disagreement at the level of fundamental ontology. What it means to be "world" does not and cannot exclude what it means to be "God."

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Joshua W. Jipp, "The Messianic Theology of the New Testament" (Eerdmans, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

One of the earliest Christian confessions—that Jesus is Messiah and Lord—has long been recognized throughout the New Testament. Joshua Jipp shows that the New Testament is in fact built upon this foundational messianic claim, and each of its primary compositions is a unique creative expansion of this common thread. Having made the same argument about the Pauline epistles in his previous book Christ Is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology, Jipp works methodically through the New Testament to show how the authors proclaim Jesus as the incarnate, crucified, and enthroned messiah of God.

In the second section of this book, Jipp moves beyond exegesis toward larger theological questions, such as those of Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology, revealing the practical value of reading the Bible with an eye to its messianic vision. The Messianic Theology of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2020) functions as an excellent introductory text, honoring the vigorous pluralism of the New Testament books while still addressing the obvious question: what makes these twenty-seven different compositions one unified testament?

Dr. Josh Jipp is associate professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. His previous books include Christ Is King: Paul's Royal Ideology and Saved by Faith and Hospitality, which won the Academy of Parish Clergy's Book of the Year award in 2018. Twitter: @TheRealJoshJipp

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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Milton Gaither, "Homeschool: An American History" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

With around two million children currently enrolled in home schools in the USA, no-one can doubt that the subject of Milton Gaither’s new book is timely. Gaither, a professor of education at Messiah College, PA, first published this study in 2008, but has updated his text to reflect both the levelling out of the number of children involved in the movement as well as to explain some of the scandals that have brought some parts of the movement into disrepute. Homeschool: An American History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) describes the long history of home education, from the colonial period to the present day, and it highlights the key roles played by individuals on the left, such as John Holt, and on the right, such as R. J. Rushdoony. Home education is changing, and might never have been more important than it is today – and this important new book explains why.

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David M. Freidenreich, "Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy" (U California Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Uncovering the hidden history of Islamophobia and its surprising connections to the long-standing hatred of Jews.

Hatred of Jews and hatred of Muslims have been intertwined in Christian thought since the rise of Islam. In Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy (U California Press, 2023), David M. Freidenreich explores the history of this complex, perplexing, and emotionally fraught phenomenon. He makes the compelling case that, then and now, hate-mongers target "them" in an effort to define "us."

Analyzing anti-Muslim sentiment in texts and images produced across Europe and the Middle East over a thousand years, the author shows how Christians intentionally distorted reality by alleging that Muslims are just like Jews. They did so not only to justify assaults against Muslims on theological grounds but also to motivate fellow believers to live as "good" Christians. The disdain premodern polemicists expressed for Islam and Judaism was never really about these religions. They sought to promote their own visions of Christianity―a dynamic that similarly animates portrayals of Muslims and Jews today.

David M. Freidenreich is Pulver Family Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College and author of Foreigners and Their Food: Constructing Otherness in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Law

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Isaac Soon, "A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

For generations, Pauline scholars have responded in different ways to the Apostle’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7), our clearest indication that Paul was disabled—some with clinical diagnoses along biomedical lines, more with reticence and agnosticism as to the specifics of Paul’s disability, and others with doubts that Paul could have accomplished his apostolic work had he been physically impaired.

On this episode, Isaac T. Soon joined the New Books Network to discuss his paradigm-pushing study A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul (Oxford UP, 2023), a revision of his recent Durham Ph.D. dissertation with the same title, which employs the insights of disability studies and “biographical criticism” not simply to exegete Paul’s enigmatic “thorn in the flesh” but to reflect more broadly on the Apostle’s rhetoric of disability and impairment in its ancient context. Simultaneously, Soon contends that by an awareness of embodied language in Paul’s letters and concepts of bodily normativity contemporaneous to him, we can know three of Paul’s disabilities: (1) inhabitation by a demonic/malevolent force, (2) penile circumcision, and (3) short stature. Meticulously researched, methodologically grounded, and robustly argued, this study offers thought-provoking resources for adherents of Paul, students of the ancient world, and Neutestamentlers alike to consider the impact of Paul’s physical body on the message that he was compelled to share among the first-century Gentile world.

Isaac T. Soon (Ph.D., Durham University, 2021) is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Dr. Soon’s research focuses on the intersection of New Testament and early Christian texts with disability studies, including a current project on conceptions of bodily normativity and the portrayal of early Christian figures in ancient literature. Previous work of Isaac’s has been published in forums such as the Journal of Biblical Literature, New Testament Studies, Novum Testamentum, Vigiliae Christianae, the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Religions, Early Christianity, the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, and the Journal for the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Mario Baghos, "From the Ancient Near East to Christian Byzantium: Kings, Symbols, and Cities" (Cambridge Scholars, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Mario Baghos's book From the Ancient Near East to Christian Byzantium: Kings, Symbols, and Cities (Cambridge Scholars, 2021) combines concepts from the history of religions with Byzantine studies in its assessments of kings, symbols, and cities in a diachronic and cross-cultural analysis. The work attests, firstly, that the symbolic art and architecture of ancient cities—commissioned by their monarchs expressing their relationship with their gods—show us that religiosity was inherent to such enterprises. It also demonstrates that what transpired from the first cities in history to Byzantine Christendom is the gradual replacement of the pagan ruler cult—which was inherent to city-building in antiquity—with the ruler becoming subordinate to Christ; exemplified by representations of the latter as the ‘Master of All’ (Pantokrator). Beginning in Mesopotamia, the book continues with an analysis of city-building by rulers in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, before addressing Judaism (specifically, the city of Jerusalem) and Christianity as shifting the emphasis away from pagan-gods and rulers to monotheistic perceptions of God as elevated above worldly kings. It concludes with an assessment of Christian Rome and Constantinople as typifying the evolution from the ancient and classical world to Christendom.

Buy this book with a 25% discount with the code PROMO25 at the checkout here.

Adrian Guiu holds a PhD in History of Christianity from the University of Chicago and teaches at Wright College in Chicago.

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Between Jesus and Krishna: Christian Encounters with South Indian Temple Dance

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

One of the eight national dances of India, bharatanatyam, partly originates from the area around Tranquebar. During the time that Tranquebar was a Danish colony, devadasis, women who did service at temples through dance, were patronized by the Thanjavur royal court. In 1623, a Danish–Icelandic soldier routinely observed the devadasis dancing outside the Masilamaninathar temple opposite Fort Dansborg, which he was guarding. His accounts of the dancers are interesting at two levels; first, they provide us with unique data on the role of the devadasis at the village level in seventeenth century Tamil Nadu. Secondly, they shed light on a certain imagination and perspective on Indian religion grounded in European Christian thought at the time.

Since the seventeenth century the dance of the devadasis has undergone a dramatic transformation, as it has been taken from its original setting to a national middle class arena in which females of very different socio-cultural backgrounds learn the dance now called bharatanatyam. Stine elaborates on her fieldwork done in one of the bharatanatyam dance institutions situated in New Delhi, and deals with reflections on Hinduism as well as Christianity through dance practice. Parallel to that some methodological reflections on the study on cultural encounters through dance are presented. Though set in very different contexts, the two accounts shed light on Christian perspectives on Hinduism through their encounter with a dominant South Indian dance form.

In this episode, Stine Simonsen Puri, explores history and practice of the Indian temple dance today called bharatanatyam through a focus on cultural encounters with the dance from both a Hindu and a Christian perspective. Being a board member of the Nordic Center India, part of the Faculty of Modern India and South Asian Studies as well as Teaching Associate Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional studies, Stine shares her expertise on Indian’s socio-cultural issues. Her knowledge especially stems from her extensive fieldwork at a bharatanatyam Dance School in New Delhi as well as her research part of the Tranquebar Initiative.

Marianne Tykesson is a student assistant as the Nordic Institute of Asia Studies and a Cross-Cultural Studies Student at the University of Copenhagen with a particular interest in the research of social injustice and cross-national encounters.

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

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Kathy Stuart, "Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Suicide by Proxy became a major societal problem after 1650. Suicidal people committed capital crimes with the explicit goal of “earning” their executions, as a short-cut to their salvation. Desiring to die repentantly at the hands of divinely-instituted government, perpetrators hoped to escape eternal damnation that befell direct suicides.

In Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin, and Salvation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), Kathy Stuart shows how this crime emerged as an unintended consequence of aggressive social disciplining campaigns by confessional states. Paradoxically, suicide by proxy exposed the limits of early modern state power, as governments struggled unsuccessfully to suppress the tactic. Some perpetrators committed arson or blasphemy, or confessed to long-past crimes, usually infanticide, or bestiality. Most frequently, however, they murdered young children, believing that their innocent victims would also enter paradise. The crime had cross-confessional appeal, as illustrated in case studies of Lutheran Hamburg and Catholic Vienna.

Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam.

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Julia Watts Belser, "Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole" (Beacon Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

A transformative spiritual companion and deep dive into disability politics that reimagines disability in the Bible and contemporary culture.

"What's wrong with you?"

Scholar, activist, and rabbi Julia Watts Belser is all too familiar with this question. What's wrong isn't her wheelchair, though--it's exclusion, objectification, pity, and disdain.

Our attitudes about disability have such deep cultural roots that we almost forget their sources. But open the Bible and disability is everywhere. Moses believes his stutter renders him unable to answer God's call. Jacob's encounter with an angel leaves him changed not just spiritually but physically: he gains a limp. For centuries, these stories have been told and retold in ways that treat disability as a metaphor for spiritual incapacity or as a challenge to be overcome.

Through fresh and unexpected readings of the Bible, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023) instead paints a luminous portrait of what it means to be disabled and one of God's beloved. Belser delves deep into sacred literature, braiding the insights of disabled, feminist, Black, and queer thinkers with her own experiences as a queer disabled Jewish feminist. She talks back to biblical commentators who traffic in disability stigma and shame. What unfolds is a profound gift of disability wisdom, a radical act of spiritual imagination that can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with each other and with our bodies.

Loving Our Own Bones invites readers to claim the power and promise of spiritual dissent, and to nourish their own souls through the revolutionary art of radical self-love.

Ilana Maymind is a lecturer at the Religious Studies Department at Chapman University.

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Genealogies of Modernity Episode 6: A Medieval Anti-Racist

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

What if racism shared an origin with opposition to racism? What if the condemnation of injustice gave rise both to an early form of anti-racism and to the racial hierarchies that haunt the modern era? Rolena Adornol, David Orique, María Cristina Ríos Espinosa tell the story of how Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican missionary to New Spain, came to racial consciousness in the presence of slavery. His intellectual rebellion spurred slavery’s apologists to more strident and sinister modes of defense – but also laid a lasting Christian groundwork for the fight against racial injustice.

Researcher, writer, and episode producer: Terence Sweeney, Assistant Teaching Professor, Honors College, Villanova University

Featured Scholars:

Rolena Adorno, Sterling Professor Emerita of Spanish, Yale University

María Cristina Ríos Espinosa, Professor of Arts, Humanities, and Culture, University of Sor Juana’s Cloister, Mexico City

David Orique, Professor of History, Providence College

Special thanks: Chiyuma Eliott, Michael Sawyer

For transcript, teaching aids, and other resources, click here.

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Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

It turns out that our familiar narrative of the Virgin of Guadalupe, when Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531 and left her image on his tilma, resembles an indigenous Mexican myth. And this myth of the Flower World in “Cuicapeuhcayotl” (“Origin of Songs”) has led some secular historians and anthropologists to conclude that the Catholic version must therefore be an imitation, a fabrication.

Yet Joseph Julián and Monique González concluded that the opposite was true. They argue “that God had prepared the Mesoamerican people to receive Christianity” that this Nahua myth had been inserted into history to make Our Lady comprehensible to the Nahua people—leading to ten million conversions—at a time when Spanish conquistadores and encomenderos were making a mess of the New World with their slavery and greed, polluting the evangelical work of the humble friars preaching Gospel.

Misa Azteca on Soundcloud, composed by Joseph Julián González
The book, Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy (Sophia Institute Press, 2023)
Missio Dei interview with Joseph and Monique González with Jonathan Fessenden

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Gary A. Anderson, "That I May Dwell Among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative" (Eerdmans, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The Tabernacle Narrative comprises passages in Exodus and Leviticus that detail the construction, furnishing, and liturgical use of the tabernacle. Given its genre and style, the narrative is often passed over by those reading Scripture for theological insight. What does Israel’s tabernacle mean for Christians today?

Join us as Gary Anderson shows how these passages shed light on incarnation and atonement both in ancient Israel’s theology and in Christian theology. Anderson is the author of That I May Dwell Among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative (Eerdmans, 2023)

Gary A. Anderson is Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought at the University of Notre Dame. His previous books include Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition; Sin: A History; and Christian Doctrine and the Old Testament: Theology in the Service of Biblical Exegesis.

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Abigail Agresta, "The Keys to Bread and Wine: Faith, Nature, and Infrastructure in Late Medieval Valencia" (Cornell UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

How did medieval people think about the environments in which they lived?

In a world shaped by God, how did they treat environments marked by religious difference? The Keys to Bread and Wine: Faith, Nature, and Infrastructure in Late Medieval Valencia (Cornell UP, 2022) explores the answers to these questions in Valencia in the later Middle Ages. When Christians conquered the city in 1238, it was already one of the richest agricultural areas in the Mediterranean thanks to a network of irrigation canals constructed under Muslim rule. Despite this constructed environment, drought, flooding, plagues, and other natural disasters continued to confront civic leaders in the later medieval period.

Abigail Agresta argues that the city's Christian rulers took a technocratic approach to environmental challenges in the fourteenth century but by the mid-fifteenth century relied increasingly on religious ritual, reflecting a dramatic transformation in the city's religious identity. Using the records of Valencia's municipal council, she traces the council's efforts to expand the region's infrastructure in response to natural disasters, while simultaneously rendering the landscape within the city walls more visibly Christian. This having been achieved, Valencia's leaders began by the mid-fifteenth century to privilege rogations and other ritual responses over infrastructure projects. But these appeals to divine aid were less about desperation than confidence in the city's Christianity. Reversing traditional narratives of technological progress, The Keys to Bread and Wine shows how religious concerns shaped the governance of the environment, with far-reaching implications for the environmental and religious history of medieval Iberia.

Benjamin Phillips is an MA student in History at Ohio University. His primary field is Late Antique Cultural and Intellectual History.

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Anna M. Grzymała-Busse, "Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State" (Princeton UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 3 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton University Press, 2023), political scientist Anna Grzymała-Busse corrects a long-standing distortion in the study of state formation in Europe, writing religion back into the story and examining, at once pithily and methodically, the multiple contributions of the Roman Church to the emergence of modern practices of secular statehood. Sacred Foundations expands the conventional geography of medieval European state practice and brings to bear a range of innovative data analysis, showing that not only the papacy, but also a host of individuals and institutions subsumed under the Church contributed to medieval Europe’s territorial fragmentation (especially in Germanic and Italian lands), to the genesis of state institutions and civil law, and to the emergence of a culture of taxation by consent. Sometimes through rivalry, sometimes through emulation, kings across medieval Europe acquired the necessary tools to multiply human capital, drive institutional innovation, and ultimately best the papacy at its own long-standing efforts at administration and secular rule.

Piotr H. Kosicki is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of Catholics on the Barricades (Yale, 2018) and editor, among others, of Political Exile in the Global Twentieth Century (with Wolfram Kaiser). His most recent writings appeared in The Atlantic and in Foreign Affairs.

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J. Christopher Edwards, "Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus" (Fortress Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 2 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In his book Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2023), J. Christopher Edwards explores the early Christian teachings regarding who actually killed Jesus. Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general population who have seen a Jesus movie or an Easter play and remember Roman soldiers hammering the nails. However, for early Christians, the detail that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers under the direction of a Roman governor threatened their desire for a stable existence in the Roman world. Beginning with the writings found in the New Testament, early Christians sought to rewrite their history and shift the blame for Jesus's crucifixion away from Pilate and his soldiers and onto Jews. During the second century, a narrative of the crucifixion with Jewish executioners predominated. During the fourth century, this narrative functioned to encourage anti-Judaism within the newly established Christian empire. Yet, in the modern world, there exists a significant degree of ignorance regarding the pervasiveness--or sometimes even the existence!--of the claim among ancient Christians that Jesus was executed by Jews.

J. Christopher Edwards is professor of religious studies at St. Francis College, Brooklyn.

Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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D. L. d'Avray, "The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400-c.1600" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400 – c.1600 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. David d’Avray asks: How did the papacy govern European religious life without a proper bureaucracy and the normal resources of a state?

From late Antiquity, papal responses were in demand. The 'apostolic see' took over from Roman emperors the discourse and demeanour of a religious ruler of the Latin world. Over the centuries, it acquired governmental authority analogous to that of a secular state – except that it lacked powers of physical enforcement, a solid financial base (aside from short periods) and a bureaucracy as defined by Max Weber. Through the discipline of Applied Diplomatics, which investigates the structures and settings of documents to solve substantive historical problems,

The Power of Protocol explores how such a demand for papal services was met. It is about the genesis and structure of papal documents – a key to papal history generally – from the Roman empire to after the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, and is the only book of its kind.

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E. T. Dailey, "Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 26 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

A princess born to the Thuringian royal house. A captive in war, forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family. A queen, who renounced her position, received consecration as a deaconess, and took monastic vows. A religious leader, who acquired a fragment of the Cross of the Crucifixion for her convent of Holy Cross in Poitiers. And, lastly, a saint, remembered for her healings, exorcisms, and extreme self-mortification. Such was Radegund, a woman who lived through an era defined by headlong change. Honored as a "mother" by subsequent Frankish kings and as a holy woman by her nuns and devotees, Radegund enjoyed a reputation for righteousness that spread throughout the whole of medieval Europe, with later queens emulating her pious achievements. For generations, she defined medieval queenship, female monastic practice, and the expectations associated with holy women. Today, she is often envisioned as a pan-European saint.

Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. E. T. Dailey presents a new interpretation of this remarkable woman, examining her vibrant life and legacy. Dr. Dailey shows how she succeeded in establishing a place for herself within this difficult and dangerous world, despite the trials she faced. He also demonstrates how Radegund achieved a position of prominence as a woman in a foreign land without resorting to the violence and intrigue that characterized the lives of other prominent women during this period. Based on a wealth of English, French, and German scholarship, this book will equip experts and lay readers with a concise, authoritative, and accessible portrait of Radegund.

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Diane Carol Fujino, "Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake" (U Washington Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

This episode, which is co-hosted with Michael Nishimura, features a conversation with Dr. Diane C. Fujino, the author of Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Reverend Michael Yasutake (University of Washington Press, 2020).

The book traces the activism of two siblings who charted their own paths for what it meant to be Nisei. Reverend Mike was an Episcopal minister whose politics changed with the historical contexts and circumstances surrounding his life, whereas Mitsuye is one of the most widely known Nisei feminists and writers and was among the first writers to discuss the experience of incarceration. Through detailing their half-century of dedication to global movements, including multicultural feminism, Puerto Rican independence, Japanese American redress, and Indigenous sovereignty, Reverend Mike and Mitsuye’s lives complicate the dominant narrative that depicts Japanese Americans moving toward conservatism in the later part of the 20th century. Their lives present, in the words of Fujino, “a song of hope that transforms the ruptures and displacement of incarceration and atomic bombs, that moves from invisibility to insurgent mobilizations, and that rejects the projected polite politics of the Nisei to build, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘a world transcending citizenship’ that demands in/sight for the blind, food for all those who hunger, and liberation for the captive, for all of us bound by colonial, racial, and patriarchal structures” (p.190).

Dr. Fujino is a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Broadly, her research examines Japanese and Asian American activist history within an Asian American Radical Tradition and shaped by Black Power and Third World decolonization. Nisei Radicals joins her other political biographies including Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama (University of Minnesota Press, 2005), Samurai among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). She is also co-editor of Contemporary Asia American Activism: Building Movements for Liberation (University of Washington Press, 2022).

Donna Doan Anderson (she/her) is a PhD candidate in History and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Michael Nishimura (he/him) is a graduate student in Sociology and Asian American studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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Jenny Benham, "International Law in Europe, 700–1200" (Manchester UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Was there international law in the Middle Ages? Using treaties as its main source, International Law in Europe, 700-1200 (Manchester University Press, 2022) by Dr. Jenny Benham examines the extent to which such a system of rules was known and followed in the period 700 to 1200. It considers how consistently international legal rules were obeyed, whether there was a reliance on justification of action and whether the system had the capacity to resolve disputed questions of fact and law. The book further sheds light on issues such as compliance, enforcement, deterrence, authority and jurisdiction, challenging traditional ideas over their role and function in the history of international law.

International law in Europe, 700-1200 will appeal to students and scholars of medieval Europe, international law and its history, as well as those with a more general interest in warfare, diplomacy and international relations.

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Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? (with Jay Richards)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Jay Richards PhD, OP discusses the new book to which he contributed a chapter, God’s Grandeur: The Catholic Case for Intelligent Design (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), edited by Ann Gauger. We take on the insufficient explanations of Darwinian orthodoxy which insists that our world—from the vast cosmos to the also vast (in its complexity) genetic code in our cells.

At the end of this episode (at 55 minutes), we hear an update from Father Piotr Żelazko in Israel as we enter the second month of the Gaza War.

Here’s the book, God’s Grandeur: The Catholic Case for Intelligent Design, edited by Ann Gauger (Sophia Institute Press, 2023)
Here’s Jay Richard’s webpage at the Heritage Foundation.
Here’s the debate between Jay Richards and Christopher Hitchens from 2008 at Stanford.
Father Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 71: Live from Israel: Catholics in the Holy Land Today.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Meghan Henning, "Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature" (Yale UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In her book Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature (Yale University Press, 2021), Meghan Henning illuminates how the bodies that populate hell in early Christian literature are punished after death in spaces that mirror real carceral spaces, effectually criminalizing those bodies on Earth. Contextualizing the apocalypses alongside ancient medical texts, inscriptions, philosophy, and patristic writings, this book demonstrates the ways that Christian depictions of hell intensified and preserved ancient notions of gender and bodily normativity that continue to inform Christian identity.

Meghan R. Henning is associate professor of Christian origins at the University of Dayton.

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Richard S. Ascough, "Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations: Organizational Models and Social Practices" (Cascade Books, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Exegetes have long relied on the framework of the Acts of the Apostles to understand the behavior and organization of Paul’s various ekklēsiai (assemblies), or church communities, from which Christ-groups have often been conceptualized as extensions from practices of diasporic Jewish synagogues. However, Richard S. Ascough’s work has been at the forefront of a scholarly movement emphasizing the relevance of data from Greco-Roman associations—occupational, cultic, ethnic, and otherwise—not only as a preferable model for understanding the constitution of early Christ-following communities, but also as fruitful comparanda for interpreting Paul’s letters, such as 1 Thessalonians and Philippians.

On this episode, Dr. Ascough joined the New Books Network to discuss Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations: Organizational Models and Social Practices (Cascade Books, 2022), a collection of his articles and essays on associations from the last 25 years detailing the road to the acceptance of association data within scholarship as well as the recruitment, self-promotion, socializing, and memorializing practices that these recoveries from antiquity reveal. Ascough discusses how he carved his own niche within biblical studies, from starting as a master’s student with a small group to translate previously unpublished inscriptions and papyri to ultimately showcasing the applicability of association behavior to early Christ-groups, Pauline and otherwise.

Richard S. Ascough (Ph.D., Toronto School of Theology, 1997) is a Professor at the School of Religion at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He has written extensively on the formation of early Christ groups and Greco-Roman religious culture, with particular attention to various types of associations. He has published widely in the field with more than fifty articles or essays and thirteen books, including Christ Groups & Associations: Foundational Essays(Baylor U. Press, 2022), Associations in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook (Baylor U. Press, 2012), and Paul’s Macedonian Associations (Mohr Siebeck, 2003). He has been recognized for his innovative and effective teaching in many ways, including the two top teaching awards at Queen’s University and a 3M National Teaching Fellowship (2018).

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Briana L. Wong, "Cambodian Evangelicalism: Cosmological Hope and Diasporic Resilience" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The Cambodian Civil War and genocide of the late 1960s and ’70s left the country and its diaspora with long-lasting trauma that continues to reverberate through the community. In Cambodian Evangelicalism: Cosmological Hope and Diasporic Resilience (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023), Briana L. Wong explores the compelling stories of Cambodian evangelicals, their process of conversion, and how their testimonials to the Christian faith helped them to make sense of and find purpose in their trauma.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork with Cambodian communities in the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Paris, and Phnom Penh, Wong examines questions of religious identity and the search for meaning within the context of transnational Cambodian evangelicalism. While the community has grown in recent decades, Christians nevertheless make up a small minority of the predominantly Buddhist diaspora. Wong explores what it is about Christianity that makes these converts willing to risk their social standing, familial bonds, and, in certain cases, physical safety in order to identify with the faith.

Contributing to ongoing dialogues on conversion, reverse mission, and multiple religious belonging, this book will appeal to students and scholars of world Christianity, missiology, and the history of Christianity, as well as Southeast Asian studies, secular sociologies, and anthropologists operating within the field of religious studies.

Byung Ho Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and Ecumenics, with a concentration in World Christianity and history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary.

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Jonathan Greenaway, "Theology, Horror and Fiction: A Reading of the Gothic Nineteenth Century" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

When one thinks of your typical horror movie and it’s usual imagery, a number of tropes may come forward. Graveyards behind old cathedrals, crucifixes and holy water, possessions and exorcisms. The uniting thread of all of these is that they are all tied to the religious. One might then wonder if there is some underlying thread of meaning beneath the facade.

Addressing this topic directly is Jonathan Greenaway in his book Theology, Horror and Fiction: A Reading of the Gothic Nineteenth Century (Bloomsbury, 2022). Surveying a number of well known works from this period, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Bronte sisters all the way up to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Greenaway finds works filled with various references and discussions of religious scripture, imagery and themes. What’s more, he’s able to follow these various occasions down into deeper territory, finding a subterranean conversation in much of this literature on themes of embodiment, createdness, epistemology, political institutions and ethical transgression. What Greenaway comes away with is insight into a dialogue between these two fields that will be richly rewarding to believers of both of them.

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Jeffrey Scholes, "Christianity, Race, and Sport" (Routledge, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

This book provides a rigorously researched introduction to the relationship between Christianity, race, and sport in the United States. Christianity, Race, and Sport (Routledge, 2021) examines how Protestant Christianity and race have interacted, often to the detriment of Black bodies, throughout the sporting world over the last century. Important sporting figures and case studies discussed include: the sanctification of baseball player Jackie Robinson; the domestication of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman; religious expressions of athletes in the NFL; treatment of African American tennis player Serena Williams; Colin Kaepernick and his prophetic voice. This accessible and conversational book is essential reading for undergraduate students approaching religion and race or religion and sport for the first time, as well as those working within the sociology of sport, sport studies, history of sport, or philosophy of sport.

Jeffrey Scholes is associate professor of religious studies in the Department of Philosophy and the Director of the Center for Religious Diversity and Public Life at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA.

This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com

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Walter A. Maier III, "1 Kings 12-22: Concordia Commentary" (Concordia, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The book of Kings tracks the division of Israel's kingdom into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, narrating each one's demise. Yet Kings is no mere history; the sacred record holds a message still relevant for God's people today.

Tune in for part two of our interview with Walter Maier III, this time on volume 2 of his commentary on Kings, which covers chapters 12-22.

Walter Maier III earned in his PhD from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages, and is Professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary.

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Walter A. Maier III, "1 Kings 1-11: Concordia Commentary" (Concordia, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The book of Kings in the Bible records more than 380 years of the history of Israel and its monarchy, from the last part of David’s rule to the end of the kingship in Judah, and emphasizes the role of prophets along the way.

Join us as we speak with Walter Maier III about the first of his two-volume commentary on 1 Kings, covering chapters 1-11, the rise and failures of Solomon’s kingship.

Walter Maier III earned in his PhD from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages, and is Professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary.

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Let Us Make Man in Our Image (with Paul Louis Metzger)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In our talk about his book, More than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (InterVarsity Press, 2023), and in addition to quoting Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, Paul Louis Metzger also quotes Indiana Jones. When seeking the Grail, he chooses the clay cup from among the gilded chalices, “that’s the cup of a carpenter,” is the metaphor of the inherent value of human beings, ends unto themselves, priceless and unrepeatable. So I ask him (Dr. Metzger, not Dr. Jones) how we keep this in our minds and hearts as we navigate a secular culture that prizes the exterior and utility. If we can figure that one out, then we’ve found our redemption in the poor baby shivering in a manger, and understood why ‘happy are the poor in spirit.’

Paul Louis Metzger’s faculty webpage at Multnomah University.
Paul Louis Metzger’s book webpage, More than Things (2023, IVP).
Conclusion of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Trailer for Gattaca(1997).
Trailer for Interstellar (2014).

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Megan Nutzman, "Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In the ancient Mediterranean world, individuals routinely looked for divine aid to cure physical afflictions. Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) by Dr. Megan Nutzman argues that the inevitability of sickness and injury made people willing to experiment with seemingly beneficial techniques, even if they originated in a foreign cultural or religious tradition. With circumstances of close cultural contacts, such as prevailed in Palestine, the setting was ripe for neighbouring Jews, Samaritans, Christians, Greeks and Romans to borrow rituals perceived to be efficacious and to alter them to fit their own religious framework. As a result, they employed related means of seeking miraculous cures. The similarities of these rituals, despite changes in the identity of the divine healers that they invoked, made them the subject of polemical discourse among elite authors trying to police collective borders. Contested Cures investigates the resulting intersection of ritual healing and communal identity.

This innovative study synthesises evidence for the full range of healing rituals that were practised in the ancient Mediterranean world. Examining both literary and archaeological evidence, Dr. Nutzman considers ritual healing as a component of identity formation and deconstructs the artificial boundary between ‘magic’ and ‘religion’ in relation to ritual cures.

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Austin Surls, "Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus: From Etymology to Literary Onomastics" (Eisenbrauns, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The obvious riddles and difficulties in Exodus 3:13-15 and 6:2-8 have attracted an overwhelming amount of attention and comment. These texts make important theological statements about the divine name and the contours of the divine character. In his book Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus: From Etymology to Literary Onomastics (Eisenbrauns, 2017), Austin Surls attempts to move beyond atomistic readings of individual texts and etymological studies of the divine name toward a holistic reading of the book of Exodus.

Join us as we speak with Austin Surls about the progressive revelation of the divine name in the book of Exodus.

Dr. Austin Surls is Assistant Professor of Old Testament Studies at Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary.

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Ed Simon, "Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology" (Cernunnos, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Ineffable, invisible, inscrutable--angels are enduring creatures across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and human experiences of the divine as mediated by spiritual emissaries are an aspect of almost every religious tradition. In popular culture, angels are often reduced to the most gauzy, sentimental, and saccharine of images: fat babies with wings and guardians with robes, halos, and harps. By contrast, in scripture whenever one of the heavenly choirs appears before a prophet or patriarch, they first declare "Fear not!" for terror would be the most appropriate initial reaction to these otherworldly beings. Angels are often not what we'd expect, but it's precisely in that transcendent encounter that something of the strangeness of existence can be conveyed.

Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology (Cernunnos, 2023) is a follow-up volume to Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology, and like the earlier title, this book offers an account of the angelic hierarchies as they've been understood across centuries and cultures and of the individual personages, such as the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel, who have marked the mythology of the West.

Ed Simon is the Executive Director of Belt Media Collaborative and the Editor-in-Chief for Belt Magazine and an emeritus staff writer at The Millions, which the New York Times has called the “indispensable literary site.”

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Carson Bay, "Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 4 Nov 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In this volume entitled Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2023), Carson Bay focuses on an important but neglected work of Late Antiquity: Pseudo-Hegesippus' On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio Hierosolymitano), a Latin history of later Second Temple Judaism written during the fourth century CE. Bay explores the presence of so many Old Testament figures in a work that recounts the Roman-Jewish War (66–73 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. By applying the lens of Roman exemplarity to Pseudo-Hegesippus, he elucidates new facets of Biblical reception, history-writing, and anti-Judaism in a text from the formative first century of Christian Empire. The author also offers new insights into the Christian historiographical imagination and how Biblical heroes and Classical culture helped Christians to write anti-Jewish history. Revealing novel aspects of the influence of the Classical literary tradition on early Christian texts, this book also newly questions the age-old distinction between the Christian and the Classical (or 'pagan') in the ancient Mediterranean world.

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Horace D. Hummel, "Ezekiel 21-48: Concordia Commentary" (Concordia, 2007)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Nov 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Volume 2 of the commentary on Ezekiel, by the late Horace Hummel, covers chapters 21 through 48, where after the prophesied judgment of nations, the Lord grants Ezekiel a wondrous vision of a new temple-city called "The Lord is There."

Join us as we speak with the editor of the Concordia Commentary series, Christopher Mitchell, about the second volume of the commentary on Ezekiel, Ezekiel 21-48 (Concordia, 2007), by the late Horace D. Hummel.

Rev. Dr. Horace D. Hummel served as Professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, for over twenty years.

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Marion Gibson, "Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" (Scribner, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

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Live from Israel (with Fr. Piotr Zelazko)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Father Piotr Zelazko is Vicar for the St. James Vicariate in Jerusalem and has been priest in Israel for fifteen years (he is a native of Poland and studied in Rome). He describes the Catholic Church in Israel today and also the broader Christian community. He discusses some of the challenges and many joys of the ecumenical work he does with Jews, Muslims, and the many other Christian denominations in the Holy Land. And he tells a lot of stories of pastoral work in Jerusalem and in the desert at Be’er Sheva.

The first 24 minutes of this recording are an update from Father Piotr about the current war between Israel and Hamas that began on October 7, 2023. The interview I recorded in August begins at 24 minutes.

Website of the Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew-Speaking Catholics in Israel.
Father’ Piotr’s webpage.
Father Abraham Shmuelof reading the Torah; Father Abraham’s biography.
Cardinal Pizzaballa’s offer to be exchanged for hostages.
The story of Rachel Edery who fed Hamas fighters with coffee and cookies when they came to murder her.
Hagiography of St. Louis.
“The Carousel” scene from Mad Men (about nostalgia).

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Philip Jenkins, "A Storm of Images: Iconoclasm and Religious Reformation in the Byzantine World" (Baylor UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In the eighth century, the Byzantine Empire began a campaign to remove or suppress sacred images that depicted Christ, the Virgin, or other holy figures, whether in paintings, mosaics, murals, or other media. In some cases, the campaign extended to breaking or wrecking images through what became known as iconoclasm. Over the following years, the emperors' zealous movement involved other acts that closely foreshadowed the Reformation movement that would sweep Western Europe in the sixteenth century. Like that later Reformation, iconoclasm marked an authentic revolution in religious sensibility, with all that implied for theology, culture, and visual perceptions of holiness. This was a pivotal moment in the definition of Christianity and its relationship to the material creation. It was also a time of critical encounters with the other Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam.

With A Storm of Images: Iconoclasm and Religious Reformation in the Byzantine World (Baylor UP, 2023), Philip Jenkins offers a compelling retelling of the saga of how the iconoclastic movement detonated ferocious controversy within the church and secular society as icon supporters challenged the image breakers. Decades of internal struggle followed, marked by rebellions and civil wars, purges and persecutions, plotting and coups d'état. After their cause triumphed, image supporters made the cult of icons ever more central to the faith of Orthodox Christianity. Iconoclasm marked a watershed in the history of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and it contributed to Western attempts to establish new empires.

The questions raised during these struggles are all the more relevant at a time when such controversy rages over public depictions of history and the removal of statues, monuments, and names associated with hated figures. As in those earlier times, debates over images serve as vehicles for authentic cultural revolutions.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Ji Li, "At the Frontier of God's Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

To a lively cast of international players that shaped Manchuria during the early twentieth century, At the Frontier of God's Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China (Oxford UP, 2023) adds the remarkable story of Alfred Marie Caubrière (1876-1948). A French Catholic missionary, Caubrière arrived in Manchuria on the eve of the Boxer Uprising in 1899 and was murdered on the eve of the birth of the People's Republic of China in 1948. Living with ordinary Chinese people for half a century, Caubrière witnessed the collapse of the Qing empire, the warlord's chaos that followed, the rise and fall of Japanese Manchukuo, and the emergence of communist China. Caubrière's incredible personal archive, on which Ji Li draws extensively, opens a unique window into everyday interaction between Manchuria's grassroots society and international players. His gripping accounts personalize the Catholic Church's expansion in East Asia and the interplay of missions and empire in local society.

Through Caubrière's experience, At the Frontier of God's Empire examines Chinese people at social and cultural margins during this period. A wealth of primary sources, family letters, and visual depictions of village scenes illuminate vital issues in modern Chinese history, such as the transformation of local society, mass migration and religion, tensions between church and state, and the importance of cross-cultural exchanges in everyday life in Chinese Catholic communities. This intense transformation of Manchurian society embodies the clash of both domestic and international tensions in the making of modern China.

Shu Wan is currently matriculated as a doctoral student in history at the University at Buffalo. As a digital and disability historian, he serves in the editorial team of Digital Humanities Quarterly and Nursing Clio. On Twitter: @slissw.

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Matthew Thiessen, "A Jewish Paul: The Messiah's Herald to the Gentiles" (Baker Academic, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Excavating and interpreting Paul’s thought, belief, ideas, and mission from his authentic letters and those otherwise attributed to him remains an ongoing effort in scholarship, with several competing perspectives vying for prominence. Matthew Thiessen advances an important reading of Paul within first-century Judaism, which he conceives not as a monolith of theological positions but rather as a spectrum of ideas that comfortably included Paul’s new belief in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and Paul’s own call as appointed envoy to deliver that good news to non-Jewish Gentiles.

On this episode, Matthew joined the New Books Network to discuss the recent publication of A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles (Baker Academic, 2023), a concise and accessible introductory study of this Diasporic Jew that yet embraces the “weird” in Paul’s thinking, including his advance of pneumatic “gene therapy” rather than “cosmetic surgery” for non-Jews who wished to partake in God’s promises to Abraham. According to Thiessen, Paul must be understood first in his own historical context, complete with the philosophical and scientific presuppositions common to the first century CE, before being imported into our theological present—a method that has potential to overcome the devastating effects of centuries of Christian supersessionism but also compels us to tackle the uncomfortable apocalyptic origins of the earliest Jesus movement.

Matthew Thiessen (Ph.D., Duke University, 2010) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. His research focuses on the rise of Christianity, particularly as it relates to early Judaism, and especially on contextualizing Paul’s letters within first-century Judaism. Atop numerous journal articles and chapter-length contributions, he has authored several books to that effect, including Paul and the Gentile Problem (Oxford University Press, 2016), Jesus and the Forces of Death (Baker Academic, 2020), and Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2011), which was awarded the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Jason C. Bivins, "Embattled America: The Rise of Anti-Politics and America's Obsession with Religion" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Histories of political religion since the 1960s often center on the rise of the powerful conservative evangelical voting bloc since the 1970s. One of the beliefs that has united these citizens is the idea that they are treated unfairly or are marginalized, despite their significant influence on public life. From the ascent of Reagan to the "Contract with America," from 9/11 to Obama to Trump--these claims have moved steadily to the center of conservative activism. Scholars of religion have approached these phenomena with great caution, generally focusing on institutional history, or relying on journalistic conveniences like "populism," or embracing the self-understandings of evangelicals themselves. None of these approaches is sufficiently calibrated to decoding the fierce convergence of online conspiracy theory, public violence, white supremacy, and religious authoritarianism. Accepting the narrative of Embattlement on its own terms, or examining it as mere turbulence on the path of American pluralism, overlooks how such deeper structural or atmospheric conditions work through this discourse to undermine the actual practice of democratic politics.

Exploring the impact of these claims through case studies ranging from the Tea Party to Birthers to anti-sharia laws, Embattled America: The Rise of Anti-Politics and America's Obsession with Religion (Oxford UP, 2022) digs deeper into the debates between Martyrs (those who profess persecution) and Whistleblowers (those who sanctimoniously refute such claims). Hidden beneath each of these episodes is a series of ambivalences about democracy that require attention. Jason Bivins argues that the claims of Martyrs and Whistleblowers are symptoms of America's larger failings to strengthen the conditions for democratic life, and thus that rather than engaging their claims on the merits, concerned citizens should reassess fundamental democratic norms as part of a broader challenge to embolden American citizenship and institutions.

Jason C. Bivins is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at North Carolina State University. He is the author of three previous books including, most recently, Spirits Rejoice!: Jazz and American Religion. He has written widely for popular and academic media, has taught for The Great Courses, and has recorded multiple albums of improvised music on guitar.

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Kids These Days (with Jane Sloan Peters)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Jane Sloan Peters remembers World Youth Day in Toronto back in 2002 when she was a teenager. She also talks about being a young mother and a teacher; she is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. We also discuss her articles in America Magazine, her teaching philosophy, and the faith journey she has been on since her teenage conversion to the present day.

Professor Peters’s faculty webpage at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx.
Jane Sloan Peters’s articles (several of which we discussed today) for America Magazine, the Jesuit Review.
Inside the Vatican podcast: “Deep Dive: How World Youth Day became an epic event for young Catholics” episode with Jane Sloan Peters (her interview begins at 28:40, though of course the whole episode is lovely).
Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize Lecture (1993).

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A. Katie Harris, "The Stolen Bones of St. John of Matha: Forgery, Theft, and Sainthood in the Seventeenth Century" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

On the night of March 18, 1655, two Spanish friars broke into a church to steal the bones of the founder of their religious institution, the Order of the Most Holy Trinity. This book investigates this little-known incident of relic theft and the lengthy legal case that followed, together with the larger questions that surround the remains of saints in seventeenth-century Catholic Europe.

Drawing on a wealth of manuscript and print sources from the era, A. Katie Harris uses the case of St. John of Matha’s stolen remains to explore the roles played by saints’ relics, the anxieties invested in them, their cultural meanings, and the changing modes of thought with which early modern Catholics approached them. While in theory a relic’s authenticity and identity might be proved by supernatural evidence, in practice early modern Church authorities often reached for proofs grounded in the material, human world—preferences that were representative of the standardizing and streamlining of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century saint-making. Harris examines how Matha’s advocates deployed material and documentary proofs, locating them within a framework of Scholastic concepts of individuation, identity, change, and persistence, and applying moral certainty to accommodate the inherent uncertainty of human evidence and relic knowledge.

Engaging and accessible, The Stolen Bones of St. John of Matha: Forgery, Theft, and Sainthood in the Seventeenth Century (Penn State University Press, 2023) raises an array of important questions surrounding relic identity and authenticity in seventeenth-century Europe. It will be of interest to students, scholars, and casual readers interested in European history, religious history, material culture, and Renaissance studies.

Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam.

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Gina A. Zurlo, "Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Gina A. Zurlo's book Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) is the first textbook to focus on women’s experiences in the founding, spread, and continuation of the Christian faith. Integrating historical, theological, and social scientific approaches to World Christianity, this innovative volume centers women’s perspectives to illustrate their key role in Christianity becoming a world religion, including how they sustain the faith in the present and their expanding role in the future.

Women in World Christianity features findings from the Women in World Christianity Project, a groundbreaking study that produced the first quantitative dataset on gender in every Christian denomination in every country of the world. Throughout the text, special emphasis is placed on women in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the period of Christianity’s shift from the global North to the global South. Easily accessible chapters – organized by continent, tradition, and select topics – introduce students to the wide variety of Christian belief and practice around the world. The book also discusses issues specifically relevant to women in the church: gender-based violence, ecology, theological education, peacebuilding and more. This textbook:

Provides a balanced view of women’s involvement in Christianity as a world religion and how they sustain the faith today
Introduces students to female theologians around the world whose scholarship is generally overlooked in Western theological education
Discusses women’s essential contributions to Christian mission, leadership, education, relief work, healthcare, and other social services of the church
Complements the growing body of literature about Christian women from different continental, regional, national, and ecclesiastical perspectives
Explores the contributions of contemporary Christian women of all major denominations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Oceania
Helps students become more aware of the unique challenges women face worldwide, and what they are doing to overcome them

Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement is an excellent primary textbook for introductory courses on World Christianity, History of Christianity, World Religions, Gender in Religion, as well as undergraduate and graduate courses specifically focused on women in World Christianity.

Sun Yong Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and Ecumenics, studying World Christianity and the history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her research interests center on the history of Christianity in East Asia and Protestant missions. She is especially interested in women’s experiences in their mission encounters and their participation in the formation of Christianity and social changes. Her research expands to social theory of religion, church-state relations, and politics of religion.

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Ben Witherington III, "Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary" (Eerdmans, 2004)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans has been foundational for Christianity, and well-studied throughout the history of the Church. Ben Witherington, however, gleans fresh insights by reading Paul's epistle in light of early Jewish theology, the historical situation of Rome in the middle of the first century, and Paul's own rhetorical concerns.

Join us as we speak with Ben Witherington III about his now classic commentary on Romans: Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Eerdmans, 2004)

Dr. Ben Witherington III is the Jean R. Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. A prolific author, Ben has written over 60 books, and has led numerous study tours through the lands of the Bible.

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Christopher M. Bellitto, "Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

This cultural history of humility reveals this lost virtue as a secret defense against arrogance and incivility.

History demonstrates that when the virtue of humility is cast aside, excessive individualism follows. A person who lacks humility is at risk of developing a deceptive sense of certitude and at worst denies basic human rights, respect, and dignity to anyone they identify as the enemy.

Christopher M. Bellitto's Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue (Georgetown UP, 2023), a cultural history and biography of the idea of humility, argues that the frightening alternative to humility has been the death of civility. In this book, Bellitto explores humility in Greco-Roman history, philosophy, and literature; in the ancient and medieval Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures and sermons; in the Enlightenment; and in contemporary discussions of education in virtue and citizenship. The author encourages readers to recover and reclaim this lost virtue by developing a new perspective on humility as an alternative to the diseases of hubris, arrogance, and narcissism in society.

This book offers a fresh perspective on this lost virtue for readers interested in finding a path to renewed civility.

Adrian Guiu holds a PhD in History of Christianity from the University of Chicago and teaches at Wright College in Chicago.

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Julian Goodare and Martha McGill, "The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland" (Manchester UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 9 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Julian Goodare and Martha McGill's edited volume The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland (Manchester UP, 2023) is about other worlds and the supernatural beings, from angels to fairies, that inhabited them. It is about divination, prophecy, visions and trances. And it is about the cultural, religious, political and social uses to which people in Scotland put these supernatural themes between 1500 and 1800. The supernatural consistently provided Scots with a way of understanding topics such as the natural environment, physical and emotional wellbeing, political events and visions of past and future. In exploring the early modern supernatural, the book has much to reveal about how men and women in this period thought about, debated and experienced the world around them. Comprising twelve chapters by an international range of scholars, The supernatural in early modern Scotland discusses both popular and elite understandings of the supernatural.

To find the card game Martha and Jana talked click here for Martha's website.

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Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein, "The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice" (U Notre Dame Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 8 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein's book The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice (U Notre Dame Press, 2023) explores African theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye’s constructive initiative to include African women’s experiences and voices within Christian theological discourse.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a renowned Ghanaian Methodist theologian, has worked for decades to address issues of poverty, women’s rights, and global unrest. She is one of the founders of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, a pan-African ecumenical organization that mentors the next generation of African women theologians to counter the dearth of academic theological literature written by African women. This book offers an in-depth analysis of Oduyoye’s life and work, providing a much-needed corrective to Eurocentric, colonial, and patriarchal theologies by centering the experiences of African women as a starting point from which theological reflection might begin.

Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein’s study begins by narrating the story of Mercy Oduyoye’s life, focusing on her early years, which led to her eventual interest in women’s equality and African women’s theology. At the heart of the book is a close analysis of Oduyoye’s theological thought, exploring her unique approach to four issues: the doctrine of God, Christology, theological anthropology, and ecclesiology. Through the course of these examinations, Oredein shows how Oduyoye’s life story and theological output are intimately intertwined. Stories of gender formation, racial ideas, and cultural foundations teem throughout Oduyoye’s construction of a Christian theological story. Oduyoye shows that one’s theology does not leave particularity behind but rather becomes the locus in which the fullness of divinity might be known.

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Andrew Monteith, "Christian Nationalism and the Birth of the War on Drugs" (NYU Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 8 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Many people view the War on Drugs as a contemporary phenomenon invented by the Nixon administration. But as Dr. Andrew Monteith shows in Christian Nationalism and the Birth of the War on Drugs (NYU Press, 2023), the conflict actually began more than a century before, when American Protestants began the temperance movement and linked drug use with immorality.

Dr. Monteith argues that this early drug war was deeply rooted in Christian impulses. While many scholars understand Prohibition to have been a Protestant undertaking, it is considerably less common to consider the War on Drugs this way, in part because racism has understandably been the focal point of discussions of the drug war. Antidrug activists expressed—and still do express--blatant white supremacist and nativist motives. Yet this book argues that racism was intertwined with religious impulses. Reformers pursued the “civilising mission,” a wide-ranging project that sought to protect “child races” from harmful influences while remodelling their cultures to look like Europe and the United States. Most reformers saw Christianity as essential to civilization and missionaries felt that banning drugs would encourage religious conversion and progress.

This compelling work of scholarship radically reshapes our understanding of one of the longest and most damaging conflicts in modern American history, making the case that we cannot understand the War on Drugs unless we understand its religious origins.

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Benjamin Savill, "England and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: Papal Privileges in European Perspective, C. 680-1073" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

England and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: Papal Privileges in European Perspective, c. 680-1073 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Benjamin Savill provides the first dedicated, book-length study of interactions between England and the papacy throughout the early middle ages. It takes as its lens the extant English record of papal privileges: legal diplomas drawn-up on metres-long scrolls of Egyptian papyrus, acquired by pilgrim-petitioners within the city of Rome, and then brought back to Britain to negotiate local claims and conflicts.

How, why, and when did English petitioners choose to invoke the distant authority of Rome in this way, and how did this compare to what was taking place elsewhere in Europe? How successful were these efforts, and how were they remembered in later centuries?

By using these still-understudied papal documents to reassess what we know of the worlds of Bede, the Mercian Supremacy, the West Saxon 'Kingdom of the English', and the Norman Conquest—locating them in the process within a comparative, Europe-wide setting—this book offers important new contributions to Anglo-Saxon studies, legal and documentary history, papal history, and the study of early medieval Europe more widely.

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Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Adoniram Judson was the 19th-century version of an American celebrity. Americans flocked to listen to his tales of being one of the first missionaries to enter the Kingdom of Burma. Americans wanted to hear of his mission in the Buddhist kingdom; Judson was reportedly uncomfortable with the attention.

These missions to Burma flopped among the Buddhist majority, but won converts among its minorities: the Karen, the Kachin, and others. Alexandra Kaloyonides covers these missions in Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom (Columbia University Press: 2023), her latest book.

Alexandra Kaloyonides is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where her teaching focuses on Buddhism. Dr. Kaloyanides serves as Associate Editor of Material Religion, served as Managing Editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and served as editor of the Asian Traditions section of Marginalia Review of Books, a Los Angeles Review of Books Channel.

Today, Alex and I talk about the missions to Burma, their success among the country’s minority groups, and how Christian faith became wrapped in the country’s identity formation.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Baptizing Burma. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Thomas E. Boomershine, "First-Century Gospel Storytellers and Audiences: The Gospels as Performance Literature" (Cascade Books, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 4 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Tom Boomershine, one of the pioneers of performance criticism for biblical texts, joined the New Books Network to discuss the publication of First-Century Gospel Storytellers and Audiences: The Gospels as Performance Literature (Cascade Books, 2022), a collection of his essays dating back to 1981. On this episode, we discuss his life and career in scholarship, his conviction that the New Testament be studied as an oral/aural (spoken/heard) experience, and his compelling argument that the Gospel of Mark was not first written and not merely experienced as a performance but also composed in a performance setting concurrent with the major events of the Jewish-Roman War (ca. 66–73 CE). Among other findings, Boomershine’s work provides insight into the narratively dissatisfying ending of the Gospel of Mark, which he performs on this episode, and although the extension of performance theory to other books of the New Testament is only presently in its infancy, he makes a case for its broad applicability beyond just the Gospel of Mark—even if, as can be argued, the composition of other gospels, letters, and books betrays their production within a more explicitly textual culture.

Thomas E. Boomershine (Ph.D., Union Theological Seminary, 1974) is the Founder of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media group (1982) at the Society of Biblical Literature and the Network of Biblical Storytellers International (1977). He has taught both in the academy and the church since his graduate studies, including serving as the G. Ernest Thomas Distinguished Professor of Christianity and Communication at United Theological Seminary (Dayton, Ohio) from 2004–2006 and as Professor of New Testament for over 20 years before that. His passions and research interests include telling the stories of Jesus by heart, the pedagogy of performing the gospels, and situating the gospels—especially the Gospel of Mark—in the context of ancient media culture as performance literature. His prior publications include Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling (Abingdon, 1988), The Messiah of Peace: A Performance-Criticism Commentary on Mark’s Passion-Resurrection Narrative (Cascade, 2015), and numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Ronna Detrick, "Rewriting Eve: Claiming Women's Sacred Stories As Our Own" (She Writes Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 3 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Rewriting Eve: Rescuing Women’s Stories from the Bible and Reclaiming Them as Our Own (She Writes Press, 2023), Ronna Detrick invites us into the presence and power of ten sacred, biblical women, revealing the endlessly relevant ways in which they speak today and showing how they can heal, embolden, and transform our stories.

Trapped in patriarchy and theological argument, dismissed as irrelevant, or viewed as unchangeable even as times change, these women’s voices, desires, and hearts have too often been silenced through misunderstanding and neglect. When they are reimagined, deconstructed, disentangled from doctrine and dogma, and heard on their own terms, these stories become a powerful inspiration and a source of discernment that reconnects us to a feminine lineage and a sovereign sense of self we’ve never known to call on or trust.

Detrick has combined her love of writing with a diverse and winding career that has included coaching, spiritual direction, professional development training, corporate leadership, and entrepreneurship. She shocked and delighted her audience in a provocative TEDx Talk, Redeeming Eve – Reimagining Everything, on an Eve who inspires and empowers women instead of shaming and silencing them.

Ronna Detrick holds both a Master of Divinity degree and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Business and Communications from Whitworth University.

Latoya Johnson is an editor, writer, and bibliophile with a master's in Humanities. Her research and writing interests include books and reading in popular culture, the public history of women's fiction, and women in Greco-Roman mythology.

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Adolph L. Harstad, "Deuteronomy: Concordia Commentary" (Concordia Publishing House, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Book of Deuteronomy, the Fifth Book of Moses, is foundational for both Judaism and Christianity. What makes Deuteronomy so significant? How does one apply its message today?

Tune in as we speak with Adolph Harstad about his recent Concordia Commentary on Deuteronomy.

You’re listening to New Books in Biblical Studies, a channel of the New Books Network, and I’m your host, Michael Morales.

Rev. Dr. Adolph Harstad served as a pastor for many years and was a professor at Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary. He has participated in archaeological digs and led study tours in Israel.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu.

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Michelle Karnes, "Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also in the period’s philosophical writing. Rather than constructions of belief accepted only by simple-minded people, Michelle Karnes shows that these spectacular wonders were near impossibilities that demanded scrutiny and investigation.

Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World (U Chicago Press, 2022) is the first book to analyze a diverse set of writings on such wonders, comparing texts from the Latin West—including those written in English, French, Italian, and Castilian Spanish —with those written in Arabic as it works toward a unifying theory of marvels across different disciplines and cultures. Karnes tells a story about the parallels between Arabic and Latin thought, reminding us that experiences of the strange and the unfamiliar travel across a range of genres, spanning geographical and conceptual space and offering an ideal vantage point from which to understand intercultural exchange. Karnes traverses this diverse archive, showing how imagination imbues marvels with their character and power, making them at once enigmatic, creative, and resonant. Skirting the distinction between the real and unreal, these marvels challenge readers to discover the highest capabilities of both nature and the human intellect. Karnes offers a rare comparative perspective and a new methodology to study a topic long recognized as central to medieval culture.

Michelle Karnes is professor of English and the history of philosophy and science at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages and the coeditor of Studies in the Age of Chaucer.

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Martina Mampieri, "Living Under the Evil Pope: The Hebrew Chronicle of Pope Paul IV by Benjamin Neḥemiah Ben Elnathan from Civitanova Marche (Brill, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Living under the Evil Pope (Brill, 2019), Martina Mampieri presents the Hebrew Chronicle of Pope Paul IV, written in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Italian Jewish moneylender Benjamin Neḥemiah ben Elnathan (alias Guglielmo di Diodato) from Civitanova Marche. The text remained in manuscript for about four centuries until the Galician scholar Isaiah Sonne (1887-1960) published a Hebrew annotated edition of the chronicle in the 1930s. This remarkable source offers an account of the events of the Papal States during Paul IV's pontificate (1555-59). Making use of broad archival materials, Martina Mampieri reflects on the nature of this work, its historical background, and contents, providing a revised edition of the Hebrew text as well as the first unabridged English translation and commentary.

Martina Mampieri has been granted a special mention of excellence in the Alberigo Award 2021 by the European Academy of Religion and Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose.

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Craig A. Hefner, "Kierkegaard and the Changelessness of God: A Modern Defense of Classical Immutability" (InterVarsity Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was not afraid to express his opinions. Living amid what he perceived to be a culturally lukewarm Christianity, he was often critical of his contemporary church.

But that does not mean Kierkegaard rejected traditional Christian theology. Indeed, at a time when many of his contemporaries were questioning the classical doctrine of God, Kierkegaard swam against the stream by maintaining orthodox Christian beliefs.

In Kierkegaard and the Changelessness of God: A Modern Defense of Classical Immutability (InterVarsity Press, 2023), Craig A. Hefner explores Kierkegaard's reading of Scripture and his theology to argue not only that the great Dane was a modern defender of the doctrine of divine immutability (or God's changelessness) in response to the disintegration of the self, but that his theology can be a surprising resource today.

Even as the church continues to be beset by "shifting shadows" (James 1:17), Kierkegaard can remind us of the good and perfect gifts that come from an unchanging God.

Craig A. Hefner is the Head of School at Covenant School in Huntington, WV. His work has appeared in publications such as the International Journal of Systematic Theology and the Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America.

Jackson Reinhardt is a graduate of University of Southern California and Vanderbilt University. He is currently an independent scholar, freelance writer, and research assistant. You can reach Jackson at jtreinhardt1997@gmail.com.

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Hammertime and Hanukkah (with Matthew and Leeanne Thomas)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Between 167 and 160 BC, Judas Maccabeus and his brothers led a revolt against the Greek tyrant who desecrated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Miraculously victorious, the Jews rededicated the Temple in a festival of lights that became the first Hannukah. A bloody tale of oppression, war, and ancient diplomacy, these books (Maccabees 1 and 2) are a bridge between the Old and New Testaments and are the first places that the Jewish Bible speaks of life after death, intercessory prayer, and purgatory.

Matthew and Leeanne Thomas edited and annotated these texts for the Ignatius Study Bible. Matthew is a theologian and professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He and Leeanne are both scholars of Biblical Hebrew; they met in graduate school and got married. She had also once been a candidate for ordination in the Anglican Church in Canada before becoming a Catholic. Today, the couple live in Berkeley with their four beautiful children.

The First and Second Books of the Maccabees, edited by Matthew and Leeanne Thomas, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible.
Matthew Thomas’s faculty webpage at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.
Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 02: Who Wrote the Bible? Sorting out the History of the Bible We Have.
Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 03: The Gospels in the Early Church: Evidence for the Chronology and Transmission of the Christian Scriptures.
Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 22: Better Call Paul How Did the Early Jewish Christians Understand “Works of the Law”?

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Michael Kochenash, "Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God" (Fortress Academic, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Michael Kochenash published his revised dissertation from Claremont School of Theology as Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic) in 2020. A student of Dennis R. MacDonald, Kochenash has continued to pursue a similar brand of mimetic criticism as his Doktorvater—that is, a branch of source criticism that sees the composition of early Christian and Jewish narratives as deliberate reconfigurations, imitations, and subversions of existing Greco-Roman cultural stories, models, and ideologies of the elite, governing class—with excellent results. Although the positionality of author to empire is more complex than can be characterized in a convenient soundbite, Kochenash argues that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written in part from their author’s narrative opposition to certain facets of Roman imperial logic, particularly those expressed in the recorded deeds of Augustus, propaganda spread through numismatic evidence, and in Virgil’s Aeneid, among other places, chiefly to spread an inclusive, pro-Gentile, and universalizing salvific message about the Lukan Kingdom of God. Kochenash joined the New Books Network to discuss all these topics and more from his unique comparison of Luke-Acts to cultural and political themes known to the author that scholars have continued to remember as “Luke.”

Rob Heaton, this episode’s host, has also written a critical review of Kochenash’s book, forthcoming with Rhea Classical Reviews.

Michael Kochenash (Ph.D., Claremont, 2017) is a Radboud Excellence Initiative Fellow at Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands) specializing in the New Testament and early Christian literature. He previously held teaching and research appointments in the United States and China. His research interprets early Christian and Jewish narratives as products of ancient Mediterranean literary production, with a special focus on their use of literary models from Jewish Scriptures and classical Greek literature. Among his previous publications are numerous journal articles and book chapters relating to Luke-Acts and other early Christian narratives, and he also co-edited Christian Origins and the New Testament in the Greco-Roman Context (Claremont Press, 2016), a Festschrift for Dennis MacDonald.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Nathan Bills, "A Theology of Justice in Exodus" (Eisenbrauns, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

What does the LORD's deliverance of Israel out of Egypt to worship and serve him have to do with justice? Quite a lot, it turns out. Join us as we speak with Nathan Bills about his recent book, A Theology of Justice in Exodus (Eisenbrauns, 2020)

Nathan Bills is Lecturer at Heritage Christian University College in Accra, Ghana, and is a scholar with the Theological Education Initiative.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu.

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Brides of Christ (with Sr Mary Josefa of the Eucharist)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Sister Mary Josefa of the Eucharist is a Benedictine nun in Missouri; she and the sisters of her community recently wrote a charming children’s book, Brides of Christ (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), which invites the reader into the rhythms of their contemplative life through the course of the day and cycle of the year. She talks about this life with me and also the discernment that drew her into it.

We also discuss the late Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster who founded their community who drew the attention of the world earlier this year when her exhumed body was miraculously not corrupted four years after death, nor her garments (though the fabric of her coffin was completely rotted away).

Finally, we discuss the special charism and Marian consecration of this Benedictine community who emulate the quiet, loving role of the Mother of God in the years between the Ascension of Jesus and her own Assumption, supporting the Early Church.

The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles website
The new book, Brides of Christ, from Sophia Institute Press
Articles about Sr Wilhelmina Lancaster’s uncorrupted remains: in the New York Times, in the Catholic News Agency, and in the Catholic Review.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Neil Tarrant, "Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and methods stretching from the late eleventh century to well into the sixteenth. Unlike earlier studies, Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science (U Chicago Press, 2022) engages the history of both learned and popular magic. Tarrant explains how the church developed a program that sought to codify what was proper belief through confession, inquisition, and punishment and prosecuted what they considered superstition or heresy that stretched beyond the boundaries of religion. These efforts were continued by the Roman Inquisition, established in 1542. Although it was designed primarily to combat Protestantism, from the outset the new institution investigated both practitioners of “illicit” magic and inquiries into natural philosophy, delegitimizing certain practices and thus shaping the development of early modern science. Describing the dynamics of censorship that continued well into the post-Reformation era, Defining Nature's Limits is revisionist history that will interest scholars of the history of science, the history of magic, and the history of the church alike.

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Religion and Politics in the Lord of the Rings

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork The Lord of the Rings delighted so many of us as children, yet it and its vast body of accompanying work, such as the Silmarillion, contain a rich depth not well understood by most adults. Tolkien's work reflects his academic interests in the history of language and the Medieval world, as well as his Catholic faith. What purpose and religious message does his writing contain? Does his work carry a political meaning?

Here to discuss is Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Chicago. In addition to her work on the history of Christianity, medieval liturgy, and the cult of the Virgin Mary, she teaches a popular course "Tolkien: Medieval and Modern," and has a series of lectures and writings mining the depths of Tolkien's thought and writing.

More on Rachel Fulton Brown here.
The syllabus to her course is here.
Her lecture series, "The Forge of Tolkien" is here.
Her blog, "Fencing Bear at Prayer" is here.
Dragon Common Room, which contains more lectures and information about creative writing, is here.

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

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Jacob Abell, "Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse: Contemplating the Walls of the Earthly Paradise" (Medieval Institute Publications, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Earthly Paradise was a vibrant symbol at the heart of medieval Christian geographies of the cosmos. As humanity’s primal home now lost through the sins of Adam of Eve, the Earthly Paradise figured prominently in Old French tales of lands beyond the mundane world. This study proposes a fresh look at the complex roles played by the Earthly Paradise in three medieval French poems: Marie de France’s The Purgatory of St. Patrick, Benedeit’s Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot, and Guillaume de Lorris’s The Romance of the Rose.

By examining the literary, cultural, and artistic components that informed each poem, Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse: Contemplating the Walls of the Earthly Paradise (Medieval Institute Publications, 2023) advances the thesis that the exterior walls of the Earthly Paradise served evolving purposes as contemplative objects that implicitly engaged complex notions of economic solidarity and idealized community. These visions of the Earthly Paradise stand to provide a striking contribution to a historically informed response to the contemporary legacies of colonialism and the international refugee crisis.

Jacob Abell is Assistant Professor of French at Baylor University. His work focuses on ecocriticism, religious studies, and the digital humanities.

Becky Straple-Sovers is a medievalist and freelance editor who earned her Ph.D. in English at Western Michigan University in 2021. Her research interests include bodies, movement, gender, and sexuality in literature, as well as poetry of the First World War and the public humanities. She can be found on Twitter @restraple.

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A Better Way to Buy Books

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book shopping while also supporting independent bookstores that are the backbones of many local communities.

Andy Hunter is CEO and Founder of Bookshop.org. He also co-created Literary Hub.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

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Jared Secord, "Christian Intellectuals and the Roman Empire: From Justin Martyr to Origen" (Penn State UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Early in the third century, a small group of Greek Christians began to gain prominence and legitimacy as intellectuals in the Roman Empire. Examining the relationship that these thinkers had with the broader Roman intelligentsia, Jared Secord contends that the success of Christian intellectualism during this period had very little to do with Christianity itself.

With the recognition that Christian authors were deeply engaged with the norms and realities of Roman intellectual culture, Secord examines the thought of a succession of Christian literati that includes Justin Martyr, Tatian, Julius Africanus, and Origen, comparing each to a diverse selection of his non-Christian contemporaries. Reassessing Justin’s apologetic works, Secord reveals Christian views on martyrdom to be less distinctive than previously believed. He shows that Tatian’s views on Greek culture informed his reception by Christians as a heretic. Finally, he suggests that the successes experienced by Africanus and Origen in the third century emerged as consequences not of any change in attitude toward Christianity by imperial authorities but of a larger shift in intellectual culture and imperial policies under the Severan dynasty.

Original and erudite, Christian Intellectuals and the Roman Empire: From Justin Martyr to Origen (Penn State UP, 2020) demonstrates how distorting the myopic focus on Christianity as a religion has been in previous attempts to explain the growth and success of the Christian movement. It will stimulate new research in the study of early Christianity, classical studies, and Roman history.

Benjamin Phillips is an MA student in History at Ohio University. His primary field is Late Antique Cultural and Intellectual History.

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L. M. Ratnapalan, "Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific: The Transformation of Global Christianity" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

How does Robert Louis Stevenson’s engagement with Pacific Islands cultures demonstrate processes of inculturation and the transformation of global Christianity?

L. M. Ratnapalan's book Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific: The Transformation of Global Christianity (Edinburgh UP, 2023) re-orients the intellectual biography of Robert Louis Stevenson by presenting him in the distinctive cultural environment of the Pacific. The book argues that Stevenson was religiously literate within a Scottish Presbyterian tradition and therefore well placed to grasp with subtlety the breadth and dynamics of a Christianized Pacific culture. It considers his legacy with respect to issues of indigenous sovereignty and agency and positions him within an important and wide-ranging modern debate about inculturation, defined as the emergence of Christianity from within a particular culture rather than imposed on it from outside. Through this study of a major Scottish writer, the book offers a model of interdisciplinary scholarship.

L. Michael Ratnapalan is Associate Professor of History at Underwood International College, Yonsei University. He has published widely on modern intellectual and cultural history, with a focus on Britain’s interactions with the wider world.

Joseph Gaines can be reached at jgaines1091@gmail.com

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Vincent W. Lloyd, "Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination" (Yale UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

This radical work by one of the leading young scholars of Black thought delineates a new concept of Black dignity, yet one with a long history in Black writing and action. Previously in the West, dignity has been seen in two ways: as something inherent in one’s station in life, whether acquired or conferred by birth; or more recently as an essential condition and right common to all of humanity.

In what might be called a work of observational philosophy—an effort to describe the philosophy underlying the Black Lives Matter movement—Vincent W. Lloyd defines dignity as something performative, not an essential quality but an action: struggle against domination. Without struggle, there is no dignity.

In Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination (Yale UP, 2022), Lloyd defines anti-Blackness as an inescapable condition of American life, and the slave’s struggle against the master as the “primal scene” of domination and resistance. Exploring the way Black writers such as Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, and Audre Lorde have dealt with themes such as Black rage, Black love, and Black magic, Lloyd posits that Black dignity is the paradigm of all dignity and, more audaciously, that Black philosophy is the starting point of all philosophy.

Vincent W. Lloyd is associate professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University. His previous books include Black Natural Law and the coedited Race and Secularism in America. He coedits the journal Political Theology.

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Oliver Crisp and Daniel J. Hill, eds., "Reason in the Service of Faith: Collected Essays of Paul Helm" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 8 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Paul Helm is a distinguished philosopher, with particular interests in the philosophy of religion. His work covers some of the most important aspects of the field as it has developed in the last thirty years with particular contributions to metaphysics, religious epistemology, and philosophical theology. In celebration of Helm's life's work, Reason in the Service of Faith: Collected Essays of Paul Helm (Routledge, 2023), edited by Oliver Crisp and Daniel J. Hill, brings together a range of his essays which reflect these central concerns of his thought.

Over thirty of Helm's selected essays and four unpublished articles are gathered into five parts: Metaphilosophical Issues; Action, Change, and Personal Identity; Epistemology; God; and Creation, Providence, and Prayer. The volume is prefaced with a short editorial introduction, and ends with an extensive bibliography of Helm's published works.

Demonstrating the important connection between Helm's theological and philosophical interests across his body of work, this collection is a remarkable resource for scholars of religion, philosophy, and theology.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Kerry P. C. San Chirico. "Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 7 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

On the second Saturday of each month, on the outskirts of the ancient city of Varanasi, Shiva's own city, thousands of shudra and Dalit devotees worship Yesu (Jesus) at a Catholic ashram. In an open-air pavilion more than three thousand women and men alternately sit, stand, and sing; they offer testimonials of healing, and receive the blessings of encounter from an unlikely deity. Facing this ocean of humanity is a 12-foot billboard Christ, arms outstretched, urging in Hindi: "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." At the lectern stands a saffron-clad priest offering teachings punctuated by hallelujahs, met with boisterous echoes.

Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras (Oxford UP, 2022) sheds light on a novel movement of low and no-caste devotees worshipping Jesus in the purported heart of Hindu civilization. Through thick description and analysis, and by attending to devotees and clergy in their own voices, Kerry P. C. San Chirico examines the worldview and ways of life of these Khrist Bhaktas, or devotees of Jesus, along with the Catholic priests and nuns who mediate Jesus, Mary, and other members of the Catholic pantheon in a place hardly associated with Jesus or Christianity. San Chirico places this movement within the context of the devotional history of the Banaras region, the history of Indian Christianity, the rise of low caste and Dalit emancipatory strategies, and the ascendance of Hindu nationalism. Attending to convergences and disparities between devotional Hinduism and charismatic Catholicism, Between Hindu and Christian demonstrates that religious categories are not nearly as distinct as they often seem.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

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Matthew W. Knotts, "On Creation, Science, Disenchantment and the Contours of Being and Knowing" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 5 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

For Augustine, the world is replete with meaning; it represents not merely a collection of facts to be catalogued but a repository of truths to be discovered and discerned, a view which contrasts with the one we have inherited as a result of the thought of figures such as Descartes, Newton, and Kant. What difference would it make to see the world as created?

In On Creation, Science, Disenchantment and the Contours of Being and Knowing (Bloomsbury, 2019), Matthew W. Knotts explores this question in close conversation with Augustine, according to whom our nature as God's creatures determines fundamental aspects of our identity and our knowledge. In a postmodern context informed by a renewed appreciation of the limitations of human nature and reason, Augustine once again emerges as an insightful and compelling source for further reflection.

Adrian Guiu holds a PhD in History of Christianity from the University of Chicago and teaches at Wright College in Chicago.

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Davide Rodogno, "Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 2 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930 (Cambridge UP, 2021) is a broad-ranging account of international humanitarian programs in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Near East from 1918 to 1930. Davide Rodogno shows that international 'relief' and 'development' were intertwined long before the birth of the United Nations with humanitarians operating in a region devastated by war and famine and in which state sovereignty was deficient. Influenced by colonial motivations and ideologies, these humanitarians attempted to reshape entire communities and nations through reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes. The book draws on the activities of a wide range of secular and religious organisations and philanthropic foundations in the US and Europe including the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, the Quakers, Save the Children, the Near East Relief, the American Women's Hospitals, the League of Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Eyad Houssami is a doctoral researcher focusing on ecology, agriculture, and education in post-independence Lebanon at the University of Leeds. His research and this work are supported by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/R012733/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities. Houssami also works as a consultant, organization leader, writer/editor, and theatre artist.

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Jaime M. Pensado, "Love and Despair: How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico" (U California Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 1 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Love and Despair: How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico (U California Press, 2023) explores the multiple and mostly unknown ways progressive and conservative Catholic actors, such as priests, lay activists, journalists, intellectuals, and filmmakers, responded to the significant social and cultural shifts that formed competing notions of modernity in Cold War Mexico. Jaime M. Pensado demonstrates how the Catholic Church as a heterogeneous institution--with key transnational networks in Latin America and Western Europe--was invested in youth activism, state repression, and the counterculture from the postwar period to the more radical Sixties. Similar to their secular counterparts, progressive Catholics often saw themselves as revolutionary actors and nearly always framed their activism as an act of love. When their movements were repressed and their ideas were co-opted, marginalized, and commercialized at the end of the Sixties, the liberating hope of love often turned into a sense of despair.

Brad H. Wright is a historian of Latin America specializing in postrevolutionary Mexico. PhD in Public History. Asst. Prof. of Latin American History at Alabama A&M University.

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Annie Rachel Royson, "Texts, Traditions, and Sacredness: Cultural Translation in Kristapurana" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Annie Rachel Royson's book Texts, Traditions, and Sacredness: Cultural Translation in Kristapurana (Routledge, 2023) presents a critical reading of Kristapurāṇa, the first South Asian retelling of the Bible. In 1579, Thomas Stephens (1549-1619), a young Jesuit priest, arrived in Goa with the aim of preaching Christianity to the local subjects of the Portuguese colony. Kristapurāṇa (1616), a sweeping narrative with 10,962 verses, is his epic poetic retelling of the Christian Bible in the Marathi language. This fascinating text, which first appeared in Roman script, is also one of the earliest printed works in the subcontinent. Kristapurāṇa translated the entire biblical narrative into Marathi a century before Bible translation into South Asian languages began in earnest in Protestant missions.

This book contributes to an understanding of translation as it was practiced in South Asia through its study of genre, landscapes, and cultural translation in Kristapurāṇa, while also retelling a history of sacred texts and biblical narratives in the region. It examines this understudied masterpiece of Christian writing from Goa in the early era of Catholic missions and examines themes such as the complexities of the colonial machinery, religious encounters, textual traditions, and multilingualism, providing insight into Portuguese Goa of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The first of its kind, the book makes significant interventions into the current discourse on cultural translation and brings to the fore a hitherto understudied text. It will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of translation studies, comparative literature, religious studies, biblical studies, English literature, cultural studies, literary history, postcolonial studies, and South Asian studies.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

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Who’s Afraid of the Catholic Integralists? (with Kevin Vallier)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Kevin Vallier is a philosophy professor and author of All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism (Oxford UP, 2023), a new book about Catholic Integralism, a mostly online intellectual movement that thinks the church should take over the state, something that made sense fifteen hundred years ago after the collapse of the Roman Empire, but not so much day in our pluralistic, democratic age. Professor Vallier’s goal is to help us all talk together with patience and grace (which includes really listening) to people we disagree with and regard as eccentric. So why not talk it over on Almost Good Catholics?

Kevin Vallier’s faculty website at Bowling Green University, Ohio.
Kevin Vallier’s personal website.
Kevin Vallier’s blogs at Reconciled.
Fr James Rooney, OP, critiques Integralism, in the Intellectual Catholicism podcast with Suan Sonna.
“What is Integralism, Anyway?” by Charlie Camosy, at the Pillar.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Joshua Daniel Schachterle, "John Cassian and the Creation of Monastic Subjectivity" (Equinox Publishing, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In John Cassian and the Creation of Monastic Subjectivity (Equinox Books, 2023), a revision of his 2019 dissertation, Joshua Schachterle evaluates the Institutes and Conferences of John Cassian with a keen eye toward the possibility that he envisioned monasticism as a version of Christian piety distinct from that of the institutional church. Schachterle elaborates on comments from a variety of monastic writings indicating that monks should “flee” from bishops, who characteristically sought to ordain these famous ascetic figures for broader church service and to enlist them for support in theological disagreements against the mounting ideological challenges of so-called heretics. Furthermore, Schachterle observes that materials internal to monastic discourses, ranging from the various collections of sayings (“apophthegmata”) of the Desert Fathers and Mothers to the writings of Cassian himself, formed a closed discursive system that made no meaningful appeals to the more mainstream institutional church fathers, and he argues that Cassian pursues a separate monastic authority based not on apostolic succession but on apostolic praxis, the notion that monastic practices such as prayer and asceticism can be traced back to the primitive church without recourse to genealogical rhetoric privileging the identities of bishops as guarantors of the true faith. Finally, Schachterle leans on Michel Foucault’s analysis of the creation of subjects to examine Cassian’s formation of a specifically Egyptian form of monastic subjectivity for his new Western audience, the monks of Gaul. Schachterle joined the New Books Network recently to discuss these topics, the origins of Egyptian monasticism, and more from his engaging study of John Cassian’s primary works.

Joshua Schachterle (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) undertook his doctoral studies after a long career as a punk rock musician and an equally long and overlapping career as a high school English teacher. His research focuses on the origins of Christian monasticism and how early monastic texts contributed to the formation and development of both eastern and western Christianity in the Late Antique period. He currently writes articles on the New Testament and Early Christianity, with subjects ranging from The Didache to the Gospel of Matthew and John the Baptist, for Bart Ehrman’s website and Early Christian Texts, and he has a forthcoming article in Cistercian Studies Quarterly on monastic uses of Scripture.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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How Should Protestants Engage With Natural Law Theory?

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Natural law theory is known to be more emphasized among Catholics than Protestants. Why is that the case, and should it be? Do Protestants need to focus more on philosophy? Today's guest, Andrew T. Walker of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, discusses why Protestants need natural law too, and specifically the work of the Madison Program’s founder and Director, Professor Robert P. George. We discuss Dr. Walker's book, Social Conservatism for the Common Good: A Protestant Engagement with Robert P. George, which features essays from a variety of Protestant scholars on Professor George and the importance of his contributions to the field of natural law.

Andrew T. Walker is associate professor of Christian Ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an associate dean in their School of Theology. He also serves as the executive director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement, as Managing Editor of WORLD opinions, and as a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

More on Natural Law, from a former JMP fellow here.
A little bit on New Natural Law here.
An overview of John Rawls here.
Rawls' "original position," where he advocates for his famous "veil of ignorance" here.
His recent article, "True conservatism is not mere progressivism in slow motion" in WORLD Opinions here.
His recent book review, "Were problems baked into the American cake?" in WORLD Opinions here.
"The Baby and the Bathwater," an essay co-authored by Professor George mentioned during the interview here.

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

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The Seven Deadly Sins (with Fr Chris Pietraszko)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Father Chris Pietraszko has been thinking about sin and redemption for the last year and a half as he has been writing a series of articles that will become a book. Relying on the Gospel, Catholic Doctrine, Thomas Aquinas, and his experience in the confessional, Father Chris explains the mechanism of sin, how it works in our lives, and how it is to be defeated. He reflects on his experience as a confessor and explains the relationship between the deadly and venial sins.

Articles by Father Chris Pietraszko from Missio Dei (including all of the ones about the Seven Deadly Sins)
Father Chris at the Kent Lambton Roman Catholic Family of Parishes
Many videos with Father Chris for listeners who would like to hear more

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates, "Noah's Arkive" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

At a moment when the world has tipped over into irreversible violence and corruption, a divinity contacts a righteous man. The man is directed to build a giant ship and bring aboard animals, who will spend an indefinite amount of time living, sleeping, and eating alongside Noah and his family. The rain begins to fall, and these survivors take refuge on the ark. After forty days, the survivors disembark and then have to figure out how to create a new settlement as the waters recede. This cryptic, elliptical ancient story has inspired theological commentary, architecture, and children’s toys, giving us an abundance of metaphors and narratives to understand our past, present, and future climate crises. Our continuing attempts to critically examine the ark narrative and its long afterlife in our imagination is the subject of Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates’s new book Noah’s Arkive, just published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2023.

Jeffrey Cohen is Dean of Humanities at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. Jeffrey’s previous books include Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman (University of Minnesota Press, 2015); Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: Of Difficult Middles (Palgrave, 2006); and Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages (University of Minnesota, 1999). Julian Yates is H. Fletcher Brown Professor of English and Material Culture at the University of Delaware. Julian’s previous books include Of Sheep, Oranges, and Yeast: A Multispecies Impression (2017); and Error, Misuse, Failure: Object Lessons from the English Renaissance (2002), both from the University of Minnesota Press.

More about the book:

In Noah's Arkive (U Minnesota Press, 2023), Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates examine the long history of imagining endurance against climate catastrophe—as well as alternative ways of creating refuge. They trace how the elements of the flood narrative were elaborated in medieval and early modern art, text, and music, and now shape writing and thinking during the current age of anthropogenic climate change. Arguing that the biblical ark may well be the worst possible exemplar of human behavior, the chapters draw on a range of sources, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ovid’s tale of Deucalion and Pyrrah, to speculative fiction, climate fiction, and stories and art dealing with environmental catastrophe. Noah’s Arkive uncovers the startling afterlife of the Genesis narrative written from the perspective of Noah’s wife and family, the animals on the ark, and those excluded and left behind to die. This book of recovered stories speaks eloquently to the ethical and political burdens of living through the Anthropocene.

Following a climate change narrative across the millennia, Noah’s Arkive surveys the long history of dwelling with the consequences of choosing only a few to survive in order to start the world over. It is an intriguing meditation on how the story of the ark can frame how we think about environmental catastrophe and refuge, conservation and exclusion, offering hope for a better future by heeding what we know from the past.

John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities at Boston College. He earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. In 2023, his dissertation won the J. Leeds Barroll Prize, given by the Shakespeare Association of America. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies.

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Janiece Johnson, "Convicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture" (UNC Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

On September 11, 1857, a small band of Mormons led by John D. Lee massacred an emigrant train of men, women, and children heading west at Mountain Meadows, Utah. News of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, as it became known, sent shockwaves through the western frontier of the United States, reaching the nation's capital and eventually crossing the Atlantic. In the years prior to the massacre, Americans dubbed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the "Mormon problem" as it garnered national attention for its "unusual" theocracy and practice of polygamy. In the aftermath of the massacre, many Americans viewed Mormonism as a real religious and physical threat to white civilization. Putting the Mormon Church on trial for its crimes against American purity became more important than prosecuting those responsible for the slaughter.

In Convicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture (UNC Press, 2023), religious historian Janiece Johnson analyzes how sensational media attention used the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre to enflame public sentiment and provoke legal action against Latter-day Saints. Ministers, novelists, entertainers, cartoonists, and federal officials followed suit, spreading anti-Mormon sentiment to collectively convict the Mormon religion itself. This troubling episode in American religious history sheds important light on the role of media and popular culture in provoking religious intolerance that continues to resonate in the present.

Joseph Stuart is a scholar of African American history, particularly of the relationship between race, freedom rights, and religion in the twentieth century Black Freedom Movement.

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Erin Raffety, "From Inclusion to Justice: Disability, Ministry, and Congregational Leadership" (Baylor UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

American Christianity tends to view disabled persons as problems to be solved rather than people with experiences and gifts that enrich the church. Churches have generated policies, programs, and curricula geared toward "including" disabled people while still maintaining "able-bodied" theologies, ministries, care, and leadership. Ableism―not a lack of ramps, finances, or accessible worship―is the biggest obstacle for disabled ministry in America.

In From Inclusion to Justice: Disability, Ministry, and Congregational Leadership (Baylor UP, 2022), Erin Raffety argues that what our churches need is not more programs for disabled people but rather the pastoral tools to repent of able-bodied theologies and practices, listen to people with disabilities, lament ableism and injustice, and be transformed by God’s ministry through disabled leadership. Without a paradigm shift from ministries of inclusion to ministries of justice, our practical theology falls short.

Drawing on ethnographic research with congregations and families, pastoral experience with disabled people, teaching in theological education, and parenting a disabled child, Raffety, an able-bodied Christian writing to able-bodied churches, confesses her struggle to repent from ableism in hopes of convincing others to do the same. At the same time, Raffety draws on her interactions with disabled Christian leaders to testify to what God is still doing in the pews and the pulpit, uplifting and amplifying the ministry and leadership of people with disabilities as a vision toward justice in the kingdom of God.

Bingwan Tian is a Ph.D. student at the University at Buffalo interested in the study of special education and citizenship education.

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Adam Jasienski, "Praying to Portraits: Audience, Identity, and the Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World" (Penn State UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Praying to Portraits: Audience, Identity, and Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Penn State University Press, 2023), art historian Adam Jasienski examines the history, meaning, and cultural significance of a crucial image type in the early modern Hispanic world: the sacred portrait.

Across early modern Spain and Latin America, people prayed to portraits. They prayed to “true” effigies of saints, to simple portraits that were repainted as devotional objects, and even to images of living sitters depicted as holy figures. Jasienski places these difficult-to-classify image types within their historical context. He shows that rather than being harbingers of secular modernity and autonomous selfhood, portraits were privileged sites for mediating an individual’s relationship to the divine. Using Inquisition records, hagiographies, art-theoretical treatises, poems, and plays, Jasienski convincingly demonstrates that portraiture was at the very center of broader debates about the status of images in Spain and its colonies.

Highly original and persuasive, Praying to Portraits profoundly revises our understanding of early modern portraiture. It will intrigue art historians across geographical boundaries, and it will also find an audience among scholars of architecture, history, and religion in the early modern Hispanic world.

Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam.

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Simon Mills, "A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship Between England and the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1760" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Simon Mills' book A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship Between England and the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1760 (Oxford UP, 2020) tells the story of three generations of Church of England chaplains who served the English Levant Company in Syria during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reconstructing the careers of its protagonists in the cosmopolitan city of Ottoman Aleppo, Simon Mills investigates the links between English commercial and diplomatic expansion, and English scholarly and missionary interests: the study of Middle-Eastern languages; the exploration of biblical and Greco-Roman antiquities; and the early dissemination of Protestant literature in Arabic. Early modern Orientalism is usually conceived as an episode in the history of scholarship.

By shifting the focus to Aleppo, A Commerce of Knowledge brings to light the connections between the seemingly separate worlds, tracing the emergence of new kinds of philological and archaeological enquiry in England back to a series of real-world encounters between the chaplains and the scribes, booksellers, priests, rabbis, and sheikhs they encountered in the Ottoman Empire. Setting the careers of its protagonists against a background of broader developments across Protestant and Catholic Europe, Mills shows how the institutionalization of English scholarship, and the later English attempt to influence the Eastern Christian churches, were bound up with the international struggle to establish a commercial foothold in the Levant. He argues that these connections would endure until the shift of British commercial and imperial interests to the Indian subcontinent in the second half of the eighteenth century fostered new currents of intellectual life at home.

Simon Mills is a senior lecturer in British and European History at Newcastle University

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Sophie Bjork-James, "The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family (Rutgers University Press, 2021) provides an account of how a theology of the family came to dominate a white evangelical tradition in the post-civil rights movement United States, providing a theological corollary to Religious Right politics. This tradition inherently enforces racial inequality in that it draws moral, religious, and political attention away from problems of racial and economic structural oppression, explaining all social problems as a failure of the individual to achieve the strong gender and sexual identities that ground the nuclear family. The consequences of this theology are both personal suffering for individuals who cannot measure up to prescribed gender and sexual roles, and political support for conservative government policies. Exposure to experiences that undermine the idea that an emphasis on the family is the solution to all social problems is causing a younger generation of white evangelicals to shift away from this narrow theological emphasis and toward a more social justice-oriented theology. The material and political effects of this shift remain to be seen.

Sophie Bjork-James is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. She has over ten years of experience researching both the US based Religious Right and the white nationalist movements.

She is the author of The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism’s Politics of the Family (Rutgers 2021, winner of the the Anne Bolin & Gil Herdt Book Prize from the Human Sexuality and Anthropology Interest Group (HSAIG)) and the co-editor of Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism (2020). Her work has appeared recently in American Anthropologist, Oxford Bibliographies, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Feminist Anthropology, and Transforming Anthropology. She has been interviewed on the NBC Nightly News, NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Radio 4’s Today, and in the New York Times. She has published op-eds in the LA Times, Religious Dispatches, and the Conversation among others. She is a senior fellow with the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right and a fellow with the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism and a board member for the Society for the Anthropology of Religion.

Joseph Gaines can be reached at jgaines1091@gmail.com

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Stanley E. Porter and Alan E. Kurschner eds., "The Future Restoration of Israel: A Response to Supersessionism" (Pickwick, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 8 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In The Future Restoration of Israel: A Response to Supersessionism (Pickwick, 2023)., a wide range of scholars write on the question of the promises of God to Israel. These essays put forward the position that unconditional promises were given to Israel, which have not been fulfilled in the church or any other entity. At the consummation, there will be a continuing role for the Jewish people, realized through their national and territorial hope of a restored-redeemed Israel.

Join us as we speak with one of the contributors, Michael Brown, about The Future Restoration of Israel.

Michael L. Brown holds a PhD in Near Eastern studies from New York University. He's written a variety of books, including Our Hands Are Stained With Blood, Job: The Faith To Challenge God, and Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. He has a nationally syndicated radio show, The Line of Fire, and hosts the YouTube channel AskDrBrown.

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Daniel G. Hummel, "The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation" (William B. Eerdmans, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 5 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation (William B. Eerdmans, 2023), Daniel G. Hummel illuminates how dispensationalism, despite often being dismissed as a fringe end-times theory, shaped Anglo-American evangelicalism and the larger American cultural imagination.

Hummel locates dispensationalism’s origin in the writings of the nineteenth-century Protestant John Nelson Darby, who established many of the hallmarks of the movement, such as premillennialism and belief in the rapture. Though it consistently faced criticism, dispensationalism held populist, and briefly scholarly, appeal—visible in everything from turn-of-the-century revivalism to apocalyptic bestsellers of the 1970s to current internet conspiracy theories.

Measured and irenic, Hummel objectively evaluates evangelicalism’s most resilient and contentious popular theology. As the first comprehensive intellectual-cultural history of its kind, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is a must-read for students and scholars of American religion.

Daniel G. Hummel is a historian of US religion and the author of Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations. He is Director of University Enagagement at Upper House, a Christian study center serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Maria Falina, "Religion and Politics in Interwar Yugoslavia: Serbian Nationalism and East Orthodox Christianity" (Bloombury, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 5 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The persistence of religion in modern Europe and the challenges of transitioning from a religious to a secular state has all too often been overlooked in the history of the Balkans. Indeed, the link between religion and nationalism in this region has long been considered natural, even historically inevitable. Religion and Politics in Interwar Yugoslavia: Serbian Nationalism and East Orthodox Christianity (Bloombury, 2023) challenges this assumption and shows that, in actuality, the region's political and spiritual identities clashed in a fashion that was just as important to the first South Slav state as the much vaunted 'national question' itself.

Focusing on the interwar era, Religion and Politics in Interwar Yugoslavia explores the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia. It examines the church's political vision and reveals how the Serbian Orthodox Church emerged both in reaction to and in interaction with the challenges posed by political modernity such as the establishment of the multinational Yugoslav state, the fear of secularization, and the rise of communism and fascism in Europe. Synthesizing analyses of ideologies and public discourses with stories of personal histories and individual agendas, Maria Falina's insightful study is therefore a significant contribution to the history of religion and nationalism in the Balkans.

Roland Clark is a Reader in Modern European History at the University of Liverpool, a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, and the Principal Investigator of an AHRC-funded project on European Fascist Movements.

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Michèle Miller Sigg, "Birthing Revival: Women and Mission in Nineteenth-Century France" (Baylor UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 5 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The nineteenth century witnessed a flurry of evangelical and missionary activity in Europe and North America. This was an era of renewed piety and intense zeal spanning denominations and countries. One area of Protestant flourishing in this period has received scant attention in Anglophone sources, however: the French Réveil. Born of a rich Huguenot heritage but aimed at recovering the religion of the heart, this awakening gave birth to a dynamic missionary movement—and some of its chief agents were women.

In Birthing Revival: Women and Mission in Nineteenth-Century France (Baylor UP, 2022), Michèle Sigg sheds light on the seminal role French Protestant women played in launching and sustaining this movement of revival and mission. Out of the concerted efforts of these women arose a holistic mission strategy encompassing the home front and the foreign field. Parisian women, led by Émilie Mallet, established schools to provide infants with food, safety, and religious education. Mallet and her friend Albertine de Broglie led the women’s auxiliary of the Paris Bible Society to design and carry out a strategy for large-scale Bible distribution and fundraising. In 1825 de Broglie pioneered the women’s committee of the Paris Evangelical Mission Society, which used the Bible Society model to promote international missions across their many networks. In meetings, publications, and reports to the annual General Assembly, the women reflected on their calling in the work of mission and fully embraced their identity as "true missionaries."

The success of women teachers and their presence as wives and mothers in the Lesotho Mission—exemplified by pioneering missionary wife Elizabeth Lyndall Rolland—proved that married couples serving together as models of Christian living were essential in opening the doors to missionary work in Africa. The story, and these women’s legacies, does not end in the field, however. Sigg demonstrates how the educational work of the missionary wives and their publications that shared good news of growing faith in Lesotho sparked local revivals in France. When the enthusiasm of the Réveil waned in the metropole and divisions mounted among Protestants, a movement of deaconesses emerged to renew the faith of French Protestants.

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The Fourth Wise Man (with Jonathon Fessenden)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Jonathon Fessenden, theologian and editor of Missio Dei, invited me to talk about The Fourth Wise Man, the 1985 film based on the 1895 Henry van Dyke novella, The Other Wise Man. It was a tale I had known as a children’s story, but it was a delight to learn more about it, to watch this movie (a few times), and to share this discussion with Jonathon. Martin Sheen plays Artaban, a Persian astrologer, a magus (one of the magi), who is following the star to the birth of Christ. But he arrives too late and spends the next thirty years pursuing Jesus, always one step behind, but always in His footsteps.

The first link below is to the movie itself (71 minutes) on YouTube:

The film, The Fourth Wise Man, on YouTube, also on Formed, and on Amazon.
Our video of this discussion on the Missio Dei website and also on YouTube.
Henry van Dyke’s eulogy for Mark Twain from the New York Times.
Henry van Dyke’s poem, “Time Is.”
Henry van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man on Wikipedia.
Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 37: Catholic Movies, Pt. 1: Silence and The Scarlet and the Black
Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 49: Catholic Movies, Pt. 2: The Mission and A Man for All Seasons
Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 58: The Book of Job: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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James Crossley and Robert J. Myles, "Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict" (Zero Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 2 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Alongside their collective acumen in traditional historical-critical and social-scientific approaches to the New Testament, James Crossley and Robert J. Myles bring a worthwhile dose of historical materialist criticism to historical Jesus scholarship in Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict (Zero Books/John Hunt Publishing, 2023). And while the Jesus they reconstruct from the various sources available for analysis may not evolve him into a Marxist or a modern socialist, Crossley and Myles regard the evidence for deprivation among the Judean/Galilean peasantry too significant to ignore, such that “revolutionary millenarianism” takes hold among these lower classes who yearned for a great reversal of material conditions and fortunes under a soon-to-be-revealed theocratic reign installing the “Jesus party” (that they occasionally, in a nod to the traditions of Marxist scholarship, refer to as a politburo) atop the forthcoming kingdom of God. This pair of scholars joined the New Books Network recently to discuss their “historical materialist Jesus” and their fresh contributions—from Jesus’s “mission to the rich” to his “preferential option for death”—to the ongoing quest to sift reliable historical data about the earliest Jesus movement from the outwardly theological gospels that remain our best sources for his life.

James Crossley (Ph.D., University of Nottingham, 2002) is Professor of Religion, Politics and Culture at MF Oslo and the Academic Director of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM). He has published widely on Christian origins and religion in English political history, including Spectres of John Ball: The Peasants’ Revolt in English Political History, 1381–2020 (Equinox, 2022).

Robert J. Myles (Ph.D., University of Auckland, 2013) is Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Divinity in Australia. Originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, he is currently Executive Editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. Among his publications are The Homeless Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014) and the edited volume Class Struggle in the New Testament (Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2019).

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Matthew Pawlak, "Sarcasm in Paul's Letters" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 2 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

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Timothy J. Christian, "Paul and the Rhetoric of Resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15 as Insinuatio" (Brill, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered why Paul leaves the resurrection discussion in 1 Corinthians 15 for the end of the letter? Have you pondered how 1 Corinthians 15 functions as the climax to 1 Corinthians? What precisely is Paul's rhetorical strategy in 1 Corinthians?

Tune in as we speak with Timothy Christian whose recent book answers those questions by exploring insinuatio, the Greco-Roman rhetorical convention used to address prejudiced or controversial topics—like resurrection—at the end of a discourse. The book is Paul and the Rhetoric of Resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15 as Insinuatio (Brill, 2022).

Timothy J. Christian is Adjunct Professor of Christian Studies & Philosophy at Asbury University and Associate Pastor of Wesley UMC in Canton, IL.

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Mark Giacobbe, "Luke the Chronicler: The Narrative Arc of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles in Luke-Acts" (Brill, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Did the author of the two-part narrative of Luke-Acts have a literary and historical paradigm in mind? Mark Giacobbe says, yes, that in certain key respects, Luke-Acts, using literary mimesis, was modeled on the two-part narrative of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles, with part one concerning a Davidic king and part two the acts of those who inherit the kingdom.

Join us as we speak with Mark Giacobbe about his recent book, Luke the Chronicler: The Narrative Arc of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles in Luke-Acts (Brill, 2023).

Mark S. Giacobbe earned his PhD at Westminster Theological Seminary, and is Teaching Pastor at Citylight Church in Philadelphia, PA. He also serves as adjunct faculty at Dallas International University in the Applied Linguistics Department.

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Stephen C. Taysom, "Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith" (U of Utah Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Joseph F. Smith was born in 1838 to Hyrum Smith and Mary Fielding Smith. Six years later both his father and his uncle, Joseph Smith Jr., the founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were murdered in Carthage, Illinois. The trauma of that event remained with Joseph F. for the rest of his life, affecting his personal behavior and public tenure in the highest tiers of the LDS Church, including the post of president from 1901 until his death in 1918. Joseph F. Smith laid the theological groundwork for modern Mormonism, especially the emphasis on temple work. This contribution was capped off by his "revelation on the redemption of the dead," a prophetic glimpse into the afterlife. Taysom's book traces the roots of this vision, which reach far more deeply into Joseph F. Smith's life than other scholars have previously identified.

In Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith (U of Utah Press, 2023), Stephen C. Taysom uses previously unavailable primary source materials to craft a deeply detailed, insightful story of a prominent member of a governing and influential Mormon family. Importantly, Taysom situates Smith within the historical currents of American westward expansion, rapid industrialization, settler colonialism, regional and national politics, changing ideas about family and masculinity, and more. Though some writers tend to view the LDS Church and its leaders through a lens of political and religious separatism, Taysom does the opposite, pushing Joseph F. Smith and the LDS Church closer to the centers of power in Washington, DC, and elsewhere.

Joseph Stuart is a scholar of African American history, particularly of the relationship between race, freedom rights, and religion in the twentieth century Black Freedom Movement.

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Lucy Moffat Kaufman, "A People’s Reformation: Building the English Church in the Elizabethan Parish" (McGill-Queen's Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In A People’s Reformation: Building the English Church in the Elizabethan Parish (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) by Dr. Lucy Moffat Kaufman presents the lived experience of the Reformation in Tudor England.

The Elizabethan settlement, and the Church of England that emerged from it, made way for a theological reformation, an institutional reformation, and a high political reformation. It was a reformation that changed history, birthed an Anglican communion, and would eventually launch new wars, new language, and even a new national identity.

A People’s Reformation offers a fundamental reinterpretation of the English Reformation and the roots of the Church of England. Drawing on archival material from across the United States and Britain, Lucy Kaufman examines the growing influence of state authority and the slow building of a robust state church from the bottom up in post-Reformation England. Situating the people of England at the heart of this story, the book argues that while the Reformation shaped everyday lives, it was also profoundly shaped by them in turn. England became a Protestant nation not in spite of its people but through their active social, political, and religious participation in creating a new church in England.

A People’s Reformation explores this world from the pews, reimagining the lived experience and fierce negotiation of church and state in the parishes of Elizabethan England. It places ordinary people at the centre of the local, cultural, and political history of the Reformation and its remarkable, transformative effect on the world.

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Joel D. Anderson, "Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland's Bishops Into the Roman Church, 1200-1350" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

With its expanding legal system and its burgeoning throngs of lawyers, legates, and documents, the papacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has often been credited with spearheading a governmental revolution that molded the high medieval church into an increasingly disciplined, uniform, and machine-like institution. Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland's Bishops Into the Roman Church, 1200-1350 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) offers a fresh appraisal of these developments from a surprising and distinctive vantage point. Tracing the web of textual ties that connected the northern fringes of Europe to the Roman see, Joel D. Anderson explores the ways in which Norse writers recruited, refashioned, and repurposed the legal principles and official documents of the Roman church for their own ends.

Drawing on little-known vernacular sagas, Reimagining Christendom is populated with tales of married bishops, fictitious and forged papal bulls, and imagined canon law proceedings. These narratives, Anderson argues, demonstrate how Norse writers adapted and reconfigured the institutional power of the church in order to legitimize some of the thoroughly abnormal practices of their native bishops. In the process, Icelandic clerics constructed their own visions of ecclesiastical order―visions that underscore the thoroughly malleable character of the Roman church’s text-based government and that articulate diverse ways of belonging to the far-flung imagined community of high medieval Christendom.

Dr. Joel Anderson is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maine. He is a historian of medieval Europe, and his research revolves around issues of communication, imagination, and authority, particularly in the high and late medieval church.

Evan Zarkadas (MA) is an independent scholar of European and Medieval history and an educator. He received his master’s in history from the University of Maine focusing on Medieval Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, medieval identity, and ethnicity during the late Middle Ages.

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Kyle A. Thomas and Carol Symes, "The Play about the Antichrist (Ludus de Antichristo): A New Verse Translation, Edition, and Commentary" (Medieval Institute Publications, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Play about the Antichrist (Ludus de Antichristo) was composed around 1160 at the imperial Bavarian abbey of Tegernsee, at a critical point in the power-struggle between the papacy and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In this new translation, Carol Symes provides the first full and faithful rendering of the play’s dynamic language, maintaining the meter, rhyme scheme, and stage directions of the Latin original and restoring the liturgical elements embedded in the text. Kyle A. Thomas, whose dedicated research provides the foundation for an analysis of the play’s broader contexts, also brings perspectives from the first fully staged modern production that tested the theatricality of the translation and provides a new historical and dramaturgical analysis of the play’s rich interpretive and performative possibilities.

In this discussion, Symes and Thomas discuss the significance of the play, surprising and fascinating things they learned while working on the book, and what the Play about the Antichrist tells us about what it means to be human.

Carol Symes is associate professor of history and theatre at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of an award-winning monograph on theater and public life in medieval Arras. Kyle A. Thomas is assistant professor of theatre at Missouri State University, specializing in medieval performance texts and strategies for their modern enactment.

Becky Straple-Sovers is a medievalist and freelance editor who earned her Ph.D. in English at Western Michigan University in 2021. Her research interests include bodies, movement, gender, and sexuality in literature, as well as poetry of the First World War and the public humanities. She can be found on Twitter @restraple.

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Owen Stanwood, "The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire" (Oxford UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Owen Stanwood's newest book, The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire (Oxford UP, 2019), places the history of Huguenot refugees in a global context, the first truly international history of the diaspora. In the early modern world these French Protestant exiles scattered around the world, fleeing persecution following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The story begins with dreams of Eden, as religious migrants sought to build perfect societies far from the political storms of Europe. In order to build these communities, however, the Huguenots needed patrons, forcing them to navigate the world of empires. The refugees promoted themselves as a chosen people, religious heroes who also possessed key skills that could strengthen the British and Dutch states. This embrace of empire led to a gradual assimilation. For over a century, they learned that only by blending in and by mastering foreign institutions could they prosper. While the Huguenots never managed to find a utopia or to realize their imperial sponsors' visions of profits, The Global Refuge demonstrates how this diasporic community helped shape the first age of globalization and influenced the reception of future refugee populations.

Elspeth Currie is a PhD student in the Department of History at Boston College where she studies women’s intellectual history in early modern Europe.

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Paul Hanebrink, "In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944" (Cornell UP, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In this important historical account of the role that religion played in defining the political life of a modern national society, Paul A. Hanebrink shows how Hungarian nationalists redefined Hungary--a liberal society in the nineteenth century--as a narrowly "Christian" nation in the aftermath of World War I. Drawing on impressive archival research, Hanebrink uncovers how political and religious leaders demanded that "Christian values" influence public life while insisting that religion should never be reduced to the status of a simple nationalist symbol.

In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944 (Cornell UP, 2018) also explores the emergence of the idea that a destructive "Jewish spirit" was the national enemy. In combining the historical study of antisemitism with more recent considerations of religion and nationalism, Hanebrink addresses an important question in Central European historiography: how nations that had been inclusive of Jews before World War I became rabidly antisemitic during the interwar period. As he traces the crucial and complex legacy of religion's role in shaping exclusionary antisemitic politics in Hungary, Hanebrink follows the process from its origins in the 1890s to the Holocaust and beyond.

More broadly, In Defense of Christian Hungary squarely addresses the relationship between antisemitic words and antisemitic violence and between religion and racial politics, deeply contested issues in the history of twentieth-century Europe. The Hungarian example is a chilling demonstration of how religious nationalism can find a home even within a pluralist and tolerant civil society.

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What Jesus Intended (with Bishop Todd Hunter)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Bishop Todd Hunter is an Anglican Bishop in Tennessee and author of What Jesus Intended: Finding Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion (IVP, 2023). He argues that, despite the troubles of the world and the messes we make, we should embrace Jesus’s invitation to follow him and live in his friendship and in his Kingdom right now. The goal is “being the cooperative friend of Jesus, seeking to live a life of constant creative goodness, for the sake of others, through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Bishop Hunter’s webpage on the Churches for the Sake of Others website.
Bishop Hunter’s new book: What Jesus Intended (IVP Press, 2023), including an excerpt.
Mike Angell, article: “The Accidental Anglican: Bishop Todd Hunter” (July 15, 2017)
Philip Kosloski, article: “Main differences between Anglicanism and Catholicism.” Aleteia (May 11, 2023)

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Sara Moslener, "Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence" (Oxford UP, 2015)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

First taking hold of the American cultural imagination in the 1990s, the sexual purity movement of contemporary evangelicalism has since received considerable attention from a wide range of media outlets, religious leaders, and feminist critics. Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (Oxford UP, 2015) offers a history of this movement that goes beyond the Religious Right, demonstrating a link between sexual purity rhetoric and fears of national decline that has shaped American ideas about morality since the nineteenth century.

Concentrating on two of today's best known purity organizations, True Loves Waits and Silver Ring Thing, Sara Moslener's investigation reveals that purity work over the last two centuries has developed in concert with widespread fears of changing traditional gender roles and sexual norms, national decline, and global apocalypse. Moslener highlights a number of points in U.S. history when evangelical beliefs and values have seemed to provide viable explanations for and solutions to widespread cultural crises, resulting in the growth of their cultural and political influence. By asserting a causal relationship between sexual immorality, national decline, and apocalyptic anticipation, leaders have shaped a purity rhetoric that positions Protestant evangelicalism as the salvation of American civilization.

From the purity reformers of the nineteenth century to fundamentalist leaders such as Billy Graham and Carl F.H. Henry, Moslener illuminates the evolution of a strain of purity rhetoric that runs throughout Protestant evangelicalism.

Sara Moslener is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religion at Central Michigan University, where she teaches courses on the history of religious and racial discrimination in the United States. Sara’s work has been featured in The Revealer, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Sojourners Magazine, Jezebel, Religion Dispatches, Religion & Politics, Religion News Service, and The Baffler. She has appeared on numerous podcasts and is a regular contributor to the podcast Straight White American Jesus.

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Master Craftsman, Broken Tools (with Fr. Chris Alar, MIC)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Father Chris talks about his devotion to Our Lady, and what he has learned from St. Maria Faustyna Kowalska, the poor Polish country girl, whose visions of and friendship with Jesus gave us Divine Mercy Sunday. Father Chris calls it the “Extra Credit of Grace.” We also talk about suicide and intercessory prayer and why God choses to work with broken tools. Fr. Chris is Provincial Superior of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception in the United States and Argentina.

Father Chris’s page on the Marian Fathers’ website.
Father Chris’s video about St. Faustina.
St. Faustina’s Diary online (in multiple languages)
Father Joe Roesch’s podcast: St. Faustina’s Diary in a year.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

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The Future of the Sacred Nation: A Discussion with Anna M. Grzymała-Busse

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

When it comes to the development of Western Europe there was religion and then there was science. That is how the story is generally told but Anna Gryzmala Busse believes that modern Europe owes more to the religious part of that than is generally appreciated. She has written Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton UP, 2023) and talks to Owen Bennett Jones about religion and the European state.

Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press.

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Robert Mills, "Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages" (U Chicago Press, 2015)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 9 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages (University of Chicago, 2015) explores the relation between sodomy and motifs of vision and visibility in medieval culture through the categories of gender and sexuality as we understand them today. Although substantial energy has already been devoted to examining the textual evidence of sodomy in the Middle Ages, Robert Mills's aim here is to add a further visual dimension to these discussions in what amounts to the first large-scale comparative analysis of sodomitical themes in medieval literary and visual art, built around an impressive range of texts and artworks from high and late medieval England, France, and Italy.

As Mills shows, sodomy does enter the field of vision in certain contexts, despite being associated with a rhetoric of unmentionability. He shows why sodomy appears when it does and in which media and genres (e.g., commentaries on the Bible and Ovid s Metamorphoses, in manuscript illuminations and sculpture); how it shifts categories as a means of becoming visible (e.g., appearing in narratives involving age difference or gender transformation); and how, as readers/viewers, the process of translating the medieval category of sodomy into the languages of the present is at once a necessity and an impossibility. In a single stroke, Mills revises the way we think about well known medieval literary and visual materials in the light of twenty-first century thinking and the interaction between the visual and the textual, bringing both literary and art historical discourse on the subject to a new level of maturity."

Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam.

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Daniel J. Soars and Nadya Pohran, "Hindu-Christian Dual Belonging" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Daniel J. Soars and Nadya Pohran's book Hindu-Christian Dual Belonging (Routledge, 2022) focuses on dual belonging within Hindu-Christian contexts. Written by experts in a variety of fields, the chapters explore the theological, philosophical, and cultural anthropological debates relating to religious pluralism, religious language, and social identity while addressing the fact that both Hindu and Christian forms of self-understandings have been significantly moulded through their interactions in South Asia and across certain Euro-American horizons. The limits of the definition of dual belonging are tested via case studies, and contributors address the question of whether there is anything distinctive about dual belonging across Christianity and Hinduism specifically.

A timely contribution to the emerging subject of dual religious belonging, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Hindu studies and Christian theology, Hindu-Christian comparative theology, religious pluralism, interreligious relations, the sociology and anthropology of religion, and comparative theology and philosophy.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

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David Tavárez, "Rethinking Zapotec Time: Cosmology, Ritual, and Resistance in Colonial Mexico" (U Texas Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Professor David Tavárez, historian and linguistic anthropologist, is Professor of Anthropology and at Vassar College. He is a specialist in Nahuatl and Zapotec texts, the study of Mesoamerican religions and rituals, Catholic campaigns against idolatry, Indigenous intellectuals, and native Christianities. He is the author or co-author of several books and dozens of articles and chapters.

This Dr. Tavárez’s third time on the New Books Network. He spoken twice in 2020 about his earlier work: his 2011 book The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico (from Stanford University Press), and his 2017 edited volume Words & Worlds Turned Around (from UP of Colorado). His new book, published last year (2022, University of Texas Press), is Rethinking Zapotec Time: Cosmology, Ritual, and Resistance in Colonial Mexico builds on his earlier work and is a magisterial and profound discussion of Zapotec ideas of cosmology and time, and how indigenous communities maintained and integrated their pre-Columbian beliefs, the quela li, or true custom, into the Colonial Spanish World and the Catholic Christian Faith.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of the Early Modern Spanish Empire. His dissertation on diplomacy and travel in the early sixteenth century is a forthcoming book from Brepols Press. He is also the host of the Almost Good Catholics podcast, part of New Books Network Academic Partners.

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Eric Vanden Eykel, "The Magi: Who They Were, How They've Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate" (Fortress Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 3 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Magi: Who They Were, How They’ve Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate (Fortress Press, 2022) is Eric Vanden Eykel’s second monograph overall and his first geared at a popular, non-scholarly audience. However, even scholars will find much to appreciate and more than a few narrative surprises from this thorough account of the Magi (often translated in English Bibles as “wise men” or “astrologers”), for it succeeds as an excellent recent example of uncompromising, but accessible, public-facing biblical scholarship. The author plumbs beyond basic exegesis of Matthew 2:1–12 to examine apocryphal texts, patristic treatises, and more recent tendential literature demonstrating how, despite palpable political undertones in the evangelist’s intentions to signify Jesus as the rightfully born “King of the Judeans,” the journey of the Magi has served as fertile storytelling fodder for Christians down the centuries, earning them names, royal backstories, sainthood, and perennial reverence for their recognition of Jesus’s nativity. Vanden Eykel joined the New Books Network to discuss all these topics and more from his attempt to unravel the mysteries of the Magi.

Eric Vanden Eykel (Ph.D., Marquette University, 2014) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Forrest S. Williams Teaching Chair in the Humanities at Ferrum College in Virginia. Dr. Vanden Eykel’s primary area of research is early Christian apocryphal literature, with a special focus on texts and traditions about the infancies and childhoods of Jesus and his mother, Mary. He has previously authored “But Their Faces Were All Looking Up”: Author and Reader in the Protevangelium of James (T&T Clark, 2016) and co-edited Sex, Violence, and Early Christian Texts (Lexington Books, 2022). In his free time, he enjoys making beer, running, and woodworking.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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John H. Walton, "Wisdom for Faithful Reading: Principles and Practices for Old Testament Interpretation" (InterVarsity Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 2 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The church has too often lost its way in reading the Old Testament for lack of sound principles of interpretation. When careless habits get us off track, we can lose sight of what the Bible is really saying, derailing our own spiritual growth and even risking discredit to God’s word.

We need a consistent approach to give us confidence as faithful interpreters. In Wisdom for Faithful Reading: Principles and Practices for Old Testament Interpretation (InterVarsity Press, 2023), the trusted Old Testament scholar John Walton lays out his tried-and-true best practices developed over four decades in the classroom. His principles are memorable, practical, and enlightening, including:

The Bible is written for us, but not to us.
Reading the Bible instinctively is not reliable and risks imposing a foreign perspective on the text.
More important than what the characters do is what the narrator does with the characters and what God is doing through the characters.
Not everything has a "biblical view."

Along with identifying common missteps, Walton's insights point the way to stay focused on what the Old Testament text communicated to its original audience—and what it has to say for us today. When we submit ourselves to be accountable to the authors' intentions we experience the true authority of Scripture, and faithful reading fuels a faithful life.

Using numerous examples across the breadth of the Old Testament and its genres, Walton equips thoughtful Christians to read more knowledgeably, to pay attention to God’s plans and purposes, to recognize good interpretations, and to truly live in light of Scripture. You may never read the Old Testament the same way again.

John H. Walton is professor of Old Testament, emeritus, at Wheaton College and Graduate School.

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Greg A. Salazar, "Calvinist Conformity in Post-Reformation England: The Theology and Career of Daniel Featley" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Calvinist Conformity in Post-Reformation England: The Theology and Career of Daniel Featley (Oxford UP, 2022) is the first modern full-scale examination of the theology and life of the distinguished English Calvinist clergyman Daniel Featley (1582-1645). It explores Featley's career and thought through a comprehensive treatment of his two dozen published works and manuscripts and situates these works within their original historical context.

A fascinating figure, Featley was the youngest of the translators behind the Authorized Version, a protégé of John Rainolds, a domestic chaplain for Archbishop George Abbot, and a minister of two churches. As a result of his sympathies with royalism and episcopacy, he endured two separate attacks on his life. Despite this, Featley was the only royalist Episcopalian figure who accepted his invitation to the Westminster Assembly. Three months into the Assembly, however, Featley was charged with being a royalist spy, was imprisoned by Parliament, and died shortly thereafter.

While Featley is a central focus of the work, this study is more than a biography. It uses Featley's career to trace the fortunes of Calvinist conformists--those English Calvinists who were committed to the established Church and represented the Church's majority position between 1560 and the mid-1620s, before being marginalized by Laudians in the 1630s and puritans in the 1640s. It demonstrates how Featley's convictions were representative of the ideals and career of conformist Calvinism, explores the broader priorities and political maneuvers of English Calvinist conformists, and offers a more nuanced perspective on the priorities and political maneuvers of these figures and the politics of religion in post-Reformation England.

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Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin, "Stereotyping Religion II: Critiquing Clichés" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Building on the success of Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichés, this follow up volume dismantles a further 10 widespread stereotypes and clichés about religion, focusing on clichés that a new generation of students are most familiar with. Each chapter includes: A description of a particular cliché; Discussion of where it appears in popular culture or popular media; Discussion of where it appears in scholarly literature; A historical contextualization of its use in the past; An analysis of the social or rhetorical work the cliché accomplishes in the present. Clichés addressed include: "Religion and science naturally conflict", "All religions are against LGBTQ rights", "Eastern religions are more spiritual than Western religions", "Religion is personal and not subject to government regulation", "Religious pluralism gives everyone a voice", etc. Written in an easy and accessible style, Stereotyping Religion II: Critiquing Clichés is suitable for all readers looking to clear away unsophisticated assumptions in preparation for more critical studies.

Brad Stoddard is Associate Professor in the History and Art History Department at McDaniel College, Westminster, MD. He researches religion in the United States. He is the author of Spiritual Entrepreneurs: Florida's Faith-Based Prisons and the American Carceral State (2021) and has edited or coedited several books. He is currently researching the topic of entheogens.

Craig Martin is Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, NY. His research interests include method and theory in the study of religion, discourse analysis and ideology critique, and poststructuralism. His books include A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion (2017) and Discourse and Ideology: A Critique of the Study of Culture (2022). He edits a book series with Bloomsbury titled Critiquing Religion: Discourse, Culture, Power.

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Barry G. Webb, "Job: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary" (Lexham Academic, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Barry G. Webb is senior research fellow emeritus in Old Testament at Moore Theological College in Newtown, Australia. His other books include The Book of Judges and Five Festal Garments.

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Queer Mysticism

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

We close Pride Month of 2023 with Jamie Staples talking about queer mysticism. This includes instances in medieval Christianity where an embodied and erotic experience of life, within and between persons, became the basis for an apprehension of divinity. The conversation particularly focuses on the poem “Dark Night of the Soul” by 16th century Spanish poet St. John of the Cross and the work of 14th-15th century English mystic Margery Kempe. Jamie shares his own story to show how queer mysticism can offer resources from within Christianity to build a personal and communitarian politics against fundamentalist discrimination and hatred.

Starting this fall, Jamie Staples will be Visiting Assistant Professor of Medieval English literature at Trinity College in Hartford. His research takes seriously the productive intersection of mystical theology and poetry in the development of alternative modes of critical thinking in the late Middle Ages. He's recently written two articles focused more specifically on the queer mysticism that he will be discussing today, one on the fifteenth-century Book of Margery Kempe, published in Romanic Review, and the other on the fourteenth-century poem Cleanness, published in Exemplaria.

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Joëlle Rollo-Koster, "The Great Western Schism, 1378-1417: Performing Legitimacy, Performing Unity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Great Schism divided Western Christianity between 1378 and 1417. Two popes and their courts occupied the see of St. Peter, one in Rome, and one in Avignon. Traditionally, this event has received attention from scholars of institutional history. In The Great Western Schism, 1378-1417: Performing Legitimacy, Performing Unity (Cambridge UP, 2022), by contrast, Joëlle Rollo-Koster investigates the event through the prism of social drama. Marshalling liturgical, cultural, artistic, literary and archival evidence, she explores the four phases of the Schism: the breach after the 1378 election, the subsequent division of the Church, redressive actions, and reintegration of the papacy in a single pope. Investigating how popes legitimized their respective positions and the reception of these efforts, Rollo-Koster shows how the Schism influenced political thought, how unity was achieved, and how the two capitals, Rome and Avignon, responded to events. Rollo-Koster's approach humanizes the Schism, enabling us to understand the event as it was experienced by contemporaries.

Joëlle Rollo-Koster is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Rhode Island. A scholar of the Avignon papacy, she is the author of Avignon and its Papacy, 1309–1417: Popes, Institutions, and Society and Raiding Saint Peter. In 2016, she was made Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

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Miri Rubin, "The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2014)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Middle Ages is a term coined around 1450 to describe a thousand years of European History. In The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2014), Miri Rubin provides an exploration of the variety, change, dynamism, and sheer complexity that the period covers. From the provinces of the Roman Empire, which became Barbarian kingdoms after c.450-650, to the northern and eastern regions that became increasingly integrated into Europe, Rubin explores the emergence of a truly global system of communication, conquest, and trade by the end of the era. Presenting an insight into the challenges of life in Europe between 500-1500 -- at all levels of society -- Rubin looks at kingship and family, agriculture and trade, groups and individuals. Conveying the variety of European experiences, while providing a sense of the communication, cooperation, and shared values of the pervasive Christian culture, Rubin looks at the legacies they left behind.

Miri Rubin is Professor of Medieval History at Queen Mary University of London and Head of the School of History. She was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Cambridge. She has taught at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and has held visiting positions in Paris, Princeton, and New York. Her research has explored areas of the religious cultures of medieval Europe, and has been influenced by an interdisciplinary approach which had benefited from the use of textual, visual and musical sources. She enjoys writing for diverse audiences and discussing history wherever engaged interest arises.

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David Wenham, "Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Jesus changed our world forever. But who was he and what do we know about him? David Wenham's Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure (Cambridge UP, 2021) is a concise and wide-ranging engagement with that enduring and elusive subject. Exploring the sources for Jesus and his scholarly reception, he surveys information from Roman, Jewish, and Christian texts, and also examines the origins of the gospels, as well as the evidence of Paul, who had access to the earliest oral traditions about Jesus.

Wenham demonstrates that the Jesus of the New Testament makes sense within the first century CE context in which he lived and preached. He offers a contextualized portrait of Jesus and his teaching; his relationship with John the Baptist and the Qumran community (and the Dead Sea Scrolls); his ethics and the Sermon on the Mount, his successes and disappointments. Wenham also brings insights into Jesus' vision of the future and his understanding of his own death and calling.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Christoph Heilig, "The Apostle and the Empire: Paul's Implicit and Explicit Criticism of Rome" (Eerdmans, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Was Paul silent on the affairs and injustices of the Roman Empire? Or have his letters just been misread? In The Apostle and the Empire: Paul’s Implicit and Explicit Criticism of Rome (Eerdmans, 2023), Christoph Heilig returns to the active research scene on Paul’s perspective toward Roman imperial ideology with a fresh contribution arguing that the Apostle’s critiques were not encoded or hidden within the subtext of his letters, but rather expressed openly when Paul saw reason to air his unease or discontent with emperors and governing logics of the Roman state. Heilig contends that scholars have previously overlooked passages that openly denounce the empire—for instance, the “triumphal procession” in 2 Corinthians 2:14, which he discusses in detail by drawing on a variety of historical, literary, and archaeological data. His capable discourse with a range of other scholars suggests that the search for Paul’s perspective on Rome may be trending beyond the reliance on coded critiques within the “hidden transcript,” which has largely allowed scholars to map their own assumptions or interpretive proclivities onto the Pauline epistles, into reevaluations of both offhand words and phrases from his letters and famous, but ambiguous, passages like Romans 13. Heilig joined the New Books Network to discuss the Apostle Paul, his range of interactions with the Roman empire, and the recent history of scholarly discourse on this subject.

Christoph Heilig (Ph.D., University of Zurich, 2018) is currently a postdoc at the University of Basel. This fall, he will lead an international junior research group at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, which will focus on narrative perspective in early Christian stories, and his own work on narratology in the letters of Paul has received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise in 2022. Christoph’s various research interests include the role of probability theory in biblical interpretation, the digital humanities, the potential of large language models such as ChatGPT for biblical exegesis, and much more. He has previously published two monographs dealing with the issue of Empire in Paul’s letters, Hidden Transcripts?: Methodology and Plausibility of the Search for a Counter-Imperial Subtext in Paul (Mohr Siebeck, 2015; Fortress Press, 2017) and Paul’s Triumph: Reassessing 2 Corinthians 2:14 in Its Literary and Historical Context (Peeters, 2017).

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

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Thomas Arentzen, et al., "Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality" (Fordham UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the past decade has witnessed a newfound openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Both the theological trajectory and the historical circumstances of the Orthodox Church differ radically from those of other Christian denominations that have already developed robust and creative reflections on sexuality and sexual diversity. Within its unique history, theology, and tradition, Orthodox Christianity holds rich resources for engaging challenging questions of sexuality in new and responsive ways. What is at stake in questions of sexuality in the Orthodox tradition? What sources and theological convictions can uniquely shape Orthodox understandings of sexuality? Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality (Fordham UP, 2022) aims to create an agora for discussing sex, and not least the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional in Orthodox contexts.

Through fifteen distinct chapters, written by leading scholars and theologians, this book offers a developed treatment of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world by approaching the subject from scriptural, patristic, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives. Chapters devoted to practical and pastoral insights, as well as reflections on specific cultural contexts, engage the human realities of sexual diversity and Christian life. From re-thinking scripture to developing theologies of sex, from eschatological views of eros to re-evaluations of the Orthodox responses to science, this book offers new thinking on pressing, present-day issues and initiates conversations about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity.

Dr. Thomas Arentzen is a researcher in the Department of Linguistics and Philology at the University of Uppsala.

Dr. Ashley Purpura is director of the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies program and Associate Professor of Religious Studies Purdue University.

Dr. Aristotle Papanikolau is Professor of Theology and Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture and Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University.

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Marcus A. Mininger, "Uncovering the Theme of Revelation in Romans 1:16-3:26: Discovering a New Approach to Paul's Argument" (Mohr Siebeck, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Paul's Epistle to the Romans is one of the most familiar New Testament books among Christians, and yet a major theme within the opening three chapters has largely gone unnoticed. Join us as we speak with Marcus A. Mininger who, developing a new approach, has unearthed the theme of revelation running through Paul's argument in Romans 1-3. We discuss his book Uncovering the Theme of Revelation in Romans 1:16-3:26: Discovering a New Approach to Paul's Argument (Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

Dr. Marcus Mininger is Professor of New Testament Studies and Director of Institutional Assessment at Mid-American Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana. He earned his PhD at Westminster Theological Seminary in 2017. He has taught courses at Princeton Theological Seminary, St. Joseph’s University, and Westminster Theological Seminary, and has delivered papers at various scholarly conferences and contributed articles to both popular and scholarly periodicals, and was appointed co-editor of the Mid-America Journal of Theology.

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Joshua D. A. Bloor, "Purifying the Consciousness in Hebrews: Cult, Defilement, and the Perpetual Heavenly Blood of Jesus" (T&T Clark, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In the Letter to the Hebrews, the “consciousness of sin” is a present problem for the recipients as a stain that causes dread, timidity, and restricted access, and it is also a “cosmic” problem, with the heavenly tabernacle needing to be purged of defilement. Join us as we speak with Joshua Bloor about his recent book: Purifying the Consciousness in Hebrews: Cult, Defilement, and the Perpetual Heavenly Blood of Jesus (T&T Clark, 2023). Hebrews, he explains, distinguishes between what Jesus achieves on earth and what he achieves in heaven. Bloor further offers an understanding of the motif of “consciousness of sin” and its role within Hebrews' cultic argumentation.

Joshua Bloor is Visiting Lecturer at Nazarene Theological College, UK. He is a pastor in Manchester, UK, and is the Leadership Programme Director for the UK Pioneer Network of Churches.

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Sofia Samatar, "The White Mosque: A Memoir" (Catapult, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In the late 19th century, a group of Mennonites leave Russia for what is now Uzbekistan. Driven out by Russian demands that the pacifist group make themselves available for conscription, and pushed forward by prophecies of the imminent return of Christ, over a hundred families travel in a grueling journey, eventually building a settlement and church that locals still remember fondly today.

Over a century later, the author Sofia Samatar comes across this story when exploring her own Mennonite heritage–and learns that there’s an organized tour. Thus begins a pivot key to her latest book, The White Mosque (Catapult, 2022), combining both historical narrative and travel writing, as Mennonites past and present make the journey to Central Asia.

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria (Small Beer Press: 2013) and The Winged Histories (Small Beer Press: 2017); the short story collection Tender (Small Beer Press: 2017); and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Her work has appeared in several 'best of the year' anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Samatar holds a PhD in African languages and literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and she currently teaches African literature, Arabic literature in translation and speculative fiction at James Madison University.

In this interview, Sofia and I talk about both the Mennonite travels to Central Asia, her own journey alongside it–and how that connects to her own experience as someone with multiple backgrounds.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The White Mosque. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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The Book of Job (with Jonathan Fessenden)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Fessenden, theologian and editor of Missio Dei, and I discussed this ancient and supremely interesting book on his podcast. The Book of Job is one of the oldest poems in our tradition. It is a joy to read and a puzzle to wonder about: why does God allow—even provoke—the Accuser to destroy Job’s life and test his faith? What does it mean for us when things are not going the way we hope? What is this troubled world, this vale of tears, for in the first place?

The video of our discussion of The Book of Job on the Missio Dei website and on YouTube
Jonathan Fessenden’s bio on Missio Dei
The Book of Job on the USCCB (US Conference of Catholic Bishops) webpage
The Book of Job (NABRE) on Bible Gateway
Professor Wesley Morrison, “God’s Answer to Job” (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
Bishop Barron’s sermon “Why Is Life So Full of Suffering” (2022)
Professors Sommers and Pizarro discussion on Job, “How Do You Solve a Problem like Theodicy?” on Very Bad Wizards (2019)
Jonathan Fessenden’s, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 37: Catholic Movies, Pt. 1: Silence and The Scarlet and the Black.
Jonathan Fessenden’s, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 49: Catholic Movies, Pt. 2: The Mission and A Man for All Seasons.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Lisabeth During, "The Chastity Plot" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In The Chastity Plot (U Chicago Press, 2021), Lisabeth During tells the story of the rise, fall, and transformation of the ideal of chastity. From its role in the practice of asceticism to its associations with sovereignty, violence, and the purity of nature, it has been loved, honored, and despised. Obsession with chastity has played a powerful and disturbing role in our moral imagination. It has enforced patriarchy’s double standards, complicated sexual relations, and imbedded in Western culture a myth of gender that has been long contested by feminists. Still not yet fully understood, the chastity plot remains with us, and the metaphysics of purity continue to haunt literature, religion, and philosophy. Idealized and unattainable, sexual renunciation has shaped social institutions, political power, ethical norms, and clerical abuses. It has led to destruction and passion, to seductive fantasies that inspired saints and provoked libertines. As During shows, it should not be underestimated.

Examining literature, religion, psychoanalysis, and cultural history from antiquity through the middle ages and into modernity, During provides a sweeping history of chastity and insight into its subversive potential. Instead of simply asking what chastity is, During considers what chastity can do, why we should care, and how it might provide a productive disruption, generating new ways of thinking about sex, integrity, and freedom.

Keep your eyes out for Lisabeth's next book, She Did It In Her Sleep, which focuses on the horrifying phenomenon that is comatose rape.

Frances Sacks is a graduate of Wesleyan University where she studied in the Science and Society Program.

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W. Gil Shin, "The 'Exodus' in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31): A Lukan Form of Israel's Restoration Hope" (Brill, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

There has been a dearth of study in Lukan scholarship on the transfiguration account and the enigmatic statement about Jesus' "exodus" in Jerusalem. Now Gil Shin has provided a model of new exodus based on the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15, illuminating along the way how the motifs of Moses and David are conjoined within a larger drama of the (new) exodus and the subsequent establishment of Israel's (eschatological) worship space. Join us as we speak with Gil Shin about his recent book, The "Exodus" in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31): A Lukan Form of Israel's Restoration Hope (Brill, 2022).

W. Gil Shin earned his PhD at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is Affiliate Professor of New Testament. He has published books and articles, including CEB Gospel Parallels (2012).

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Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In July 1813, a young American couple from Boston arrived in the Buddhist kingdom of Burma to preach the gospel. Although Burmese Buddhists largely resisted Christian evangelism, members of minority religious communities embraced Baptist teachings and practices, reimagining both Buddhism and Christianity in the process. In her new book, Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom (Columbia UP, 2023), religious studies scholar Alex Kaloyanides explores this history of power and conversion through the lens of sacred objects. Previously Tricycle’s managing editor, Kaloyanides now serves as an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Kaloyanides to discuss the religious material culture of 19th-century Burma, what we miss when we study religions solely through their texts, and how her research has shaped how she thinks about religious conflict today.

Tricycle: The Buddhist Review provides a unique and independent public forum for exploring Buddhism, establishing a dialogue between Buddhism and the broader culture, and introducing Buddhist thinking to Western disciplines. Tricycle Talks is a monthly podcast featuring prominent voices from within and beyond the Buddhist fold. Listen to more episodes here.

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Lloyd Daniel Barba, "Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Lloyd Daniel Barba's book Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California (Oxford UP, 2022) traces the development of Pentecostalism among Mexican-American migrant laborers in California's agricultural industry from the 1910s to the 1960s. At the time, Pentecostalism was often seen as a distasteful new sect rife with cultish and fanatical tendencies; U.S. growers thought of Mexicans as no more than a mere workforce not fit for citizenship; and industrial agriculture was celebrated for feeding American families while its exploitation of workers went largely ignored. Farmworkers were made out to be culturally vacuous and lacking creative genius, simple laborers caught in a vertiginous cycle of migrant work.

This book argues that farmworkers from La Asamblea Apostólica de la Fe en Cristo Jesús carved out a robust socio-religious existence despite these conditions, and in doing so produced a vast record of cultural vibrancy. Examining racialized portrayals of Mexican workers and their religious lives through images created by farmworkers themselves, Sowing the Sacred draws on oral histories, photographs, and materials from new archival collections to tell an intimate story of sacred-space making. In showing how these workers mapped out churches, performed outdoor baptisms in grower-controlled waterways, and built and maintained houses of worship in the fields, this book considers the role that historical memory plays in telling these stories.

Joseph Stuart is a scholar of African American history, particularly of the relationship between race, freedom rights, and religion in the twentieth century Black Freedom Movement.

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Down Deep in My Soul (with Fr. Maurice Nutt, C.Ss.R.)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In his new book, Down Deep in My Soul: An African American Catholic Theology of Preaching (Orbis Books, 2023), Father Maurice Nutt, a doctor of preaching from the Aquinas Institute of Theology and a Redemptorist priest, teaches us about African American oratorical and homiletic tradition and shows how it can enrich preaching in every church. This is a discussion about history, cultural anthropology, and the Roman Catholic Church. As always, we ask how we got here and where do we go next. I also ask Father Maurice to respond to Pope Francis’s recommendation that homilies should be kept under ten minutes. Finally, Father Maurice gives guidance that will benefit all preachers—and, in fact, all public speakers.

Father Maurice’s webpage
Father Maurice’s book, Deep Down in My Soul (Orbis, 2023)
Father Maurice’s spiritual direction ministry
Father Maurice on Almost Good Catholics, episode 21: We Shall Overcome: Sister Thea Bowman and the Black Catholic Experience

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Bradley Nassif, "The Evangelical Theology of the Orthodox Church" (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In the essays offered in The Evangelical Theology of the Orthodox Church (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2021), Bradley Nassif argues that an evangelical (gospel) vision is embedded in the entire structure of the Church, and must be kept clear and central in each local parish. He also explores the elements of faith that Orthodox and Evangelicals share, without glossing over their differences, thus offering a means of mutual understanding and enrichment. He concludes with the history of an emerging global dialogue between the two traditions.

Adrian Guiu holds a PhD in History of Christianity from the University of Chicago and teaches at Wright College in Chicago.

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Socialist Cultures and Politics of Secularism and Atheism

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Two new books on secularism and atheism in German and Soviet socialist cultures are reshaping scholarly understandings of the relationship between socialism and religion. Todd Weir and Victoria Smolkin show that socialist secularism and atheism were not concerned solely with destroying a tool of class oppression, as Marx had envisioned, but with creating a positive faith in science and materialism. Todd Weir is Professor on the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen and the author of the forthcoming Socialism and Secularist Culture in Germany, 1800-1933. Victoria Smolkin is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Wesleyan University and the author of A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton University Press, 2018).

Stephen V. Bittner is Special Topics Editor at Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History and Professor of History at Sonoma State University.

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Purgatory (with Tim Staples)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 9 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization at Catholic Answers. His piece, “What Happens in Purgatory?” is the most read article on the entire website. I ask him to explain what the Catholic Church says (and doesn’t say) about purgatory. How does purgatory work? ...and how about heaven and hell? How should we think about these ‘places’ and about eternity?

Tim Staple’s profile in Catholic Answers
Tim Staples’s article, “What Happens in Purgatory?,” in Catholic Answers, July 8, 2021.
What the Catechism teaches on the subject of purgatory (CCC #1030 – 1032)
1 Corinthians 3:11-15

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Craig L. Blomberg, "Jesus the Purifier: John's Gospel and the Fourth Quest for the Historical Jesus" (Baker Academic, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The third quest for the historical Jesus has reached an impasse. But a fourth quest is underway--one that draws from a heretofore largely neglected source: John's Gospel.

In Jesus the Purifier: John's Gospel and the Fourth Quest for the Historical Jesus (Baker Academic, 2023), renowned New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg advances the idea that John is a viable and valuable source for studying the historical Jesus. The data from John should be integrated with that of the Synoptics, which will yield additional insights into Jesus's emphases and ministry. Blomberg begins by reviewing the first three quests, reassessing both their contributions and their shortcomings. He then discusses the emerging consensus regarding demonstrably historical portions of John, which are more numerous than usually assumed. Peeling back the layers, we discover in Jesus's ministry an emphasis on purity and purification. The Synoptics corroborate this discovery, specifically in Jesus's meals with sinners. Blomberg then explores the practical and contemporary applications of Jesus the purifier, including the "contagious holiness" that Jesus's followers can spread to others.

Craig Blomberg is distinguished professor emeritus of New Testament at Denver Seminary in Littleton, Colorado, where he has taught for more than thirty years.

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Anantanand Rambachan, "Pathways to Hindu-Christian Dialogue" (Augsburg Fortress, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 1 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Hindus and Christians have a long history of interaction on the Indian subcontinent. Since the latter half of the twentieth century, with the increased possibilities for immigration, Hindus and Christians live side by side in many parts of the Western world and there are growing numbers of Hindu-Christian marriages and families. In North America, for example, the population of Hindus is approaching three million. Hindu students are attending many colleges with a Christian history and ideals. To avoid the dangers of these communities sharing geographical space but not understanding each other, Pathways to Hindu-Christian Dialogue (Augsburg Fortress, 2022) offers dialogue that fosters mutual understanding, respect, and learning in both communities.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

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You Set a Table Before Me (with Sr. Maria Catherine, OP)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 1 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Sr Maria Catherine was looking for Truth in the wrong places when she started practicing witchcraft as girl. But she found her way out of the darkness and into the Dominican Order; today she teaches theology and literature at JSerra High School in California. We talk about that journey and about the challenges facing young people today, the generation we are both teaching. In the second half of the program we talk about her favorite movie, which I just watched for the first time, Babette’s Feast.

Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987) on Wikipedia and IMDB.
Babette’s Feast trailer.
Mark Le Fanu’s article: Babette’s Feast: “Mercy and Truth Have Met Together,” June 22, 2013, Criterion.com.
Sr. Maria Catherine on the faculty page at JSerra High School.
Sr. Maria Catherine on the JSerra Podcast.
Sr. Maria Catherine on the Lumen Ecclesia podcast.
Rich Meyer, director of JSerra High School, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 45: Education in the World not of the World: A School Director and Father Talks about Forming the Whole Child
Ronald Reagan’s joke about the atheist and the cook.
King David, Psalm 23

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

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Defining Man and Woman: A Conversation with Abigail Favale

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 31 May 2023 14:53:45 +0000

Amidst fraught debates about what gender is, and how it fits into feminism, Annika sits down with Dr. Abigail Favale, an English professor specializing in gender studies and feminist literary criticism turned Catholic convert. Dr. Favale is now a professor and writer at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory.

Her latest essay, "From Post-Christian Feminism to Catholicism," is here.

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Martyrs in Mosul: A Conversation on Christian Persecution with Father Benedict Kiely

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

With Christmas approaching, in this episode we reflect on Christian persecution in the Middle East, the historic cradle of Christianity and the birthplace of Jesus, and the very different challenges Christians face in the East versus the West.

Annika sits down with Father Benedict Kiely, a Catholic priest who has devoted his ministry to serving Christian communities in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

Nasarean, his non-profit to help Christians in the Middle East is here.:

The Chinese Communist Party's re-translation of John:8 is here.

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New Books in Christian Studies

Thomas Breimaier, "Tethered to the Cross: The Life and Preaching of Charles H. Spurgeon" (IVP Academic, 2020)

Francesca Sbardella, "Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister" (Berghahn Books, 2025)

Gabrielle Thomas, "The Problem of the Devil in Cappadocian Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Bloodshed and Blessing: Stories of Sacrifice from Ancient Altars to the Holy Mass" (Sophia Institute Press, 2026)

Holly Crawford Pickett, "The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

Jamie L. Brummitt, "Protestant Relics in Early America" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Robin Whelan, "Serving the Christian State in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Sabrina Inowlocki, "Ancient Apologetics and the Bibliographic Imagination" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, "God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology" (T&T Clark, 2021)

David W. Congdon, "Who is a True Christian?: Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries" (Fortress Press, 2025)

Dominic Roser et al., "All the Lives You Can Change: Effective Altruism for Christians" (Eerdmans, 2026)

Discovering the Latin Mass (with Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg): A Travel Guide for the Curious

Onyekachi Ugwu, "The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Gospel of John" (Mohr Siebeck, 2026)

Katie Barclay, "The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

Marios Koutsoukos, "Restoring the Ancient Religion: The Theurgic Orthopraxy of Iamblichus" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026)

George Savran, "Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch" (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025)

Jenny R. Labendz, "Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Emanuel Tov, "Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, Revised Second Edition" (Brill, 2025)

Sarah Rosenson, "Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026)

Paul Helseth and David P. Smith eds., "New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929" (Routledge, 2024)

Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

Colin R. McCulloch, "Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling" (﻿Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)

Brook Wilensky-Lanford, "A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America" (﻿Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026)

Marinus De Jong, "A Church for a Secular World: The Development of Klaas Schilder's Ecclesiology" (Brill, 2025)

Susanna Drake, "Veiling in the Late Antique World" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Annie Selak, "The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism" (Fordham UP, 2026)

Kati Curts, "Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America" (NYU Press, 2025)

Many Cultures, One Hope: Cultural Competence in the Uniting Church with guest Reverend Seforosa Carroll

Matthew R. Crawford and Aaron P. Johnson, "Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian: Introduction and Translation" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

An-Ting Yi, "From Erasmus to Maius: The History of Codex Vaticanus in New Testament Textual Scholarship" (de Gruyter, 2024)

Amy D. McDowell, "Whispers in the Pews: Evangelical Uniformity in a Divided America" (NYU Press, 2026)

Thomas A. Robinson, "Revisiting the God-fearer Thesis in the Development of Early Christianity" (T&T Clark, 2025)

Mariam Goshadze, "The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars" (Duke UP, 2025)

Justin Michael Reed, "The Injustice of Noah's Curse" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Carmen Lansdowne, "﻿Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission" (CMU Press, 2025)

Kim Haines-Eitzen, "The Gospel of John: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2026)

William Stell, "Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Eric McDonnell, "The Formation of Psalms 1–3 and the Arrangement of the Hebrew Psalter" (Mohr Siebeck, 2026)

Philip Abbott, "Sounds for a New World: The Christianizing Soundscapes of Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

James Bultema, "Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016" (Springer, 2026)

Joanna Kline, "Narrative Analogy in the David Story" (Mohr Siebeck, 2024)

S5E5 The Gospel According to Josephus: On the Final Days of Jesus Christ with Thomas C. Schmidt

Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Leland Brown, "The First Pastors: Early Christianity’s Vision for Ministry" (Gorgias Press, 2026)

The Gospel According to Josephus: A Conversation with Thomas C. Schmidt, Part 1

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, "John Wesley and the Origins of Methodist Missions" (﻿Abingdon Press, 2025) ﻿

Hans A. Harmakaputra, "Christian-Muslim Relations in Post-Reformation Indonesia: Resistance, Identity and Belonging" ﻿(Edinburgh UP, 2026)

Christopher Wright Mitchell, "The Song of Songs - Concordia Commentary" (Concordia Publishing, 2001)

S. D. Ellison, "Hope for a New David in the Psalter's Narrative Impulse: Reading the Psalms as Utopian Literature" (Fortress Academic, 2025)

Gijs Kruijtzer, "Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700" (de Gruyter, 2023)

Philip C. Almond, "Noah and the Flood in Western Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Daniel McClellan, "The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues" (St. Martin's Essentials, 2025)

Manuela Ceballos, "Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean" (U California Press, 2025)

Jon Stobart, "Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission

Todd H. Weir and Lieke Wijnia, eds., "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)

Beth A. Berkowitz, "What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature" (U California Press, 2026)

Su Hwa Keum, "From Juche to Jesus: A Study of Worldview Transformation Among North Korean Defector Christians in South Korea" (Pickwick Publications, 2025)

Lynneth Miller Renberg, "Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022)

Lucy Donkin, "Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages" (Cornell UP, 2022)

Kevin Hart, "Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, "The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt" (U California Press, 2025)

David Albertson, "The Geometry of Christian Contemplation: Measure Without Measure" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Lauren D. Sawyer, "Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture" (NYU Press, 2025)

Christopher J. Bonura, "A Prophecy of Empire: The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius from Late Antique Mesopotamia to the Global Medieval Imagination" (U California Press, 2025)

Jamie Kreiner, "The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction" (Liveright, 2023)

Sonia Hazard, "Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Barry G. Webb, "Job: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary" (Lexham Academic, 2023)

Christopher J. H. Wright, "The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative" (InterVarsity Press, 2025)

Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Susanna Elm, "The Importance of Being Gorgeous: Gender and Christian Imperial Rule in Late Antiquity" (U California Press, 2025)

Paul J. Gutacker, "The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Bo Tao, "Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)

Insane for the Light (Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI)

Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm, "Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life" (Reaktion, 2023)

Marion Gibson, "Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" (Scribner, 2023)

Colin R. McCulloch, "Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)

Brook Wilensky-Lanford, "A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026)

Carmen Lansdowne, "Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission" (CMU Press, 2025)

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, "John Wesley and the Origins of Methodist Missions" (Abingdon Press, 2025)

Hans A. Harmakaputra, "Christian-Muslim Relations in Post-Reformation Indonesia: Resistance, Identity and Belonging" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)

Daniel M. Herskowitz, "The Judeo-Christian Thought of Franz Rosenzweig" (Liverpool UP, 2025)