Issue: June/July 2021: Book Review Issue

Volume 21 Number 4

Editor’s Introduction June/July 2021: Book Review Issue

[1] In a year seized by multiple pandemics, we seek wisdom and courage for the road ahead.  In the words of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, [2] “It is uncanny that the human race as a whole is at the moment struck with a viral disease that attacks most powerfully our ability to breathe.  And uncanny again […]

Review: Dancing in God’s Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion by Arthur Ocean Waskow and Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder’s Meditations on Hope and Courage by Steven Charleston

[1] In March of 2020 the United States government responded to the existence of the coronavirus in our midst with a call to shut everything down for two weeks.  The worst of it would then pass over us, and we could resume our normal lives once more. [2] It didn’t work out that way. [3] […]

Review: Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry

[1] Sociologists Andrew L. Whitehead (Clemson University) and Samuel L. Perry (University of Oklahoma) compel us to reflect on the twin questions that motivate Taking American Back for God: “What is Christianity’s relation to American identity and civic life? What should it be?” (3). Although they clearly state that social science cannot answer these questions, […]

Review: The Violence of the Biblical God: Canonical Narrative and Christian Faith by L. Daniel Hawk

[1] In a “Letters” response to an appraisal of this book, author Daniel Hawk writes: “The review reveals that I missed the bar, and missed it considerably in some instances…I therefore find the critique painfully illuminating and appreciate [Shai Held’s] pressing it with all due force” (Christian Century, September 11, 2019, p. 6).  The reviewer’s […]

Review: A Nonviolent Theology of Love: Peacefully Confessing the Apostles’ Creed. By Sharon L. Baker Putt

[1] Dr. Murray Haar of Augustana University is famous among his religion department students for the bold warning posted on his office door. “Think…That you may be wrong.” This directive might feel out of place in many Introduction to Systematic Theology texts—the goal of which often involves preserving the interpretations and debates of Western European, […]

Review: Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life: A New Conversation by Bruce C. Birch, Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Larry Rasmussen

[1] This book is not simply a third edition of the foundational text used in many college and seminary classrooms over the years (including by this author) to study the use of Scripture as a source for doing Christian Ethics. (Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life, by Birch and Rasmussen, 1978, 1989) Instead, it […]