Book Reviews

Book Reviews are listed beginning with the most recent issue.

Click on the book review title to view the full text.

You can also browse journal issues by topic (“categories”) or author by using the top menu.

Book Review: The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain And Reclaiming Their Power by Courtney B. Vance and Dr. Robin L. Smith with Charisse Jones

[1] The rise of death by suicide by African Americans is increasingly becoming a prominent topic of discussion in the African American community.  The recent passing of Dr. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey, an administrator at Lincoln University, a historically Black university in Missouri, highlights the mental well-being of African American people.[1] Religious communities, social service organizations, […]

Book Review: The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke

[1] Holiday seasons are among the most difficult for those in mourning.  Well-meaning platitudes fall short, leaving friends at a loss for words, not knowing how to accompany loved ones engulfed in sorrow or facing death. [2] Letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke from 1907 to 1925 offer an intimate glimpse into the great poet’s understanding […]

Book Review: Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair by Christian Wiman

[1] Christian Wiman grew up in an evangelical church in Texas, living a dark childhood with “my father vanishing, my mother wracked with rage and faith, my siblings sinking into drugs.” [2] Now a professor teaching religion and literature at Yale Divinity School, he is the author, editor or translator of thirteen books of poetry […]

Book Review: We Are Electric: Inside the 300-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds by Sally Adee

[1] Science and technology writer Sally Adee has written a book that provides a summary of the research demonstrating that electric currents run throughout bodies, even in the mind, and every living thing (the field of bioelectricity).  This is a valuable volume for Christian ethicists and for any Christian thinker interested in what theology can […]

Book Review Introduction: December 2023/January 2024

[1] As we enter the Christmas season, Diane Yeager reviews The Magi: Who They Were, How They’ve Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate by Eric Vanden Eykel.  From the history of biblical interpretation to contemporary literature to the covers of Christmas cards, the Magi capture our imagination. Yeager’s review explores Vanden Eykel’s scholarship and concludes […]

Book Review: The Magi: Who They Were, How They’ve Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate by Eric Vanden Eykel

[1] The Magi is a hybrid book by teacher/scholar Eric Vanden Eykel that seems designed to engage scholarly literature sufficiently to establish his reliability as a biblical scholar while also offering an analysis that will be both accessible to and engaging for college students and laypeople.  His project is essentially one of “high popularization”—a commitment to […]

Book Review: The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts by Karen Armstrong

[1] The Lost Art of Scripture by Karen Armstrong is one of the most important books I’ve read in a long time. I don’t say that lightly. It’s not an easy read. But it is well worth the effort. Karen Armstrong is a prolific author who has written numerous books on a variety of theological […]

Book Review: White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones

[1] Several years ago, I was finishing up my STM and in the last stages of the candidacy process, looking at paperwork for congregations that were hoping to call a new pastor. As the reality of this hit me, so did the weight of my studies. Instead of feeling excited, I felt dread. There are […]

Book Review: Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons by Joshua Dubler and Vincent W. Lloyd

[1] After years of activism and protests, the simple statement “Black Lives Matter” became more than a hashtag or a chant. It made the leap from the streets to homes, offices, and institutions. It became part of our personal conversations and our national conversation. Even those who react negatively cannot deny it or make it […]

Book Review: A Cold, Descending Fog: Letters Home and a Memoir from Wartime Berlin, 1939-1940 edited by Stewart Herman III

[1] The summer of 1939 afforded Stewart Herman Jr. his last idyll as a pastor of the American Church in the heart of Nazi Germany, little though he knew it at the time. An opportunity to travel for six weeks through Scandinavia and the Baltic states, heading northward beyond the Arctic Circle, proved an invigorating […]