Words are powerful. In the beginning, God spoke the universe into existence and ordered it according to its kind. At the crux of history, the “Word became flesh” (Jn. 1:14), and through His Spirit all of our disordered desires are being refashioned into a new harmony that will be consummated when His name will be on our foreheads (Rev. 22:4) and all creation will have been reconciled to the Word (Col. 1:20). As image-bearers of God, our words are also powerful and serve as an important aspect of subduing all of creation. As Christians, we have “divine power to destroy strongholds” in a spiritual warfare waged against arguments and thoughts that are opposed to God (2 Cor. 10:4–5).
For these reasons, Christians have a duty to improve their minds and engage words consistently and carefully. Soldiers who are ill prepared for battle can do more harm than good. Still, no one has the time or capacity to engage every idea or book. By pooling our resources, we can each fill important roles in our local community of faith as we fight the good fight. Below, the HSF contributors have provided some of our favorite reads from recent months that address a wide range of topics. Maybe it would be helpful for a small group from your church or neighborhood each to pick a book from the list to read and then hold a group discussion to explore how these various words inform our understanding of the world and how to live well in it. If you have a good suggestion for reading, please leave us a short review in the comment section.
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Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl, trans. Keith Gessen (McLean, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2005), 241 pages.
Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history of the Chernobyl disaster is, without a doubt, the most intriguing and engaging book I have ever been assigned to read for a graduate course. A collection of interviews from local peasants, scientists, firefighters, cleaners, relatives, and one self-congratulating Soviet government official, Alexievich’s disconnected narrative snippets are the perfect form to match the confusion surrounding the content of this nuclear accident. She masterfully ordered the various interviews in a manner that gives the broader book a subtle but definite melody that is siren-like.
At first, I thought the book was hard to put down because each new page held the promise of grizzly new information and fantastical scenes of historical horror. However, I eventually realized that Alexievich, while not ignoring the details of the disaster, was more interested in portraying how married couples with young children, peasant widows, soldiers-turned-nuclear-firefighters, and scientists faced and responded to the unimaginable. Their courage, confusion, and grit give the book unusual power.
Voices from Chernobyl has been eerily relevant this spring and summer as our social institutions have erratically responded to a national/global emergency for which scant reliable information exists but terrifying political ramifications ensue. Don’t start this book unless you intend to finish it quickly. Otherwise, you will be canceling appointments and losing sleep to read the next unnerving interview—just one more, then I’ll take a break . . . just one more . . . just . . .
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Clint C. Bass, The Caffynite Controversy (Oxford, UK: Regent’s Park College, 2020), 212 pages.
Clint Bass has exhibited excellent scholarship in Baptist studies for some time now, including a wonderful book on Thomas Grantham and English General Baptist theology. While I don’t always agree with Bass’s conclusions, his research is thorough and his analysis is keen. The same is true for Bass’s newest monograph on the Caffynite Controversy among seventeenth-century English General Baptists that the Oxford Publications series, Regent’s Park Centre for Baptist Studies, has published.
Bass explores the decades of controversy surrounding the English General Baptist Matthew Caffyn, who refused to address recurring accusations that he held a heterodox Christology. This controversy looms large in General Baptist history, and Bass provides the most thorough analysis of the events and key documents to date. Furthermore, Bass uncovers a couple of key documents in his research, which many thought no longer existed, and provides transcriptions in this work, making this volume an important contribution to Baptist studies.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Matthew C. Bingham, Chris Caughey, R. Scott Clark, Crawford Gribben, and D. G. Hart, On Being Reformed: Debates over a Theological Identity (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Pivot, 2018), 94 pages.
This small collection of essays considers a number of issues related to the topic of determining who is truly “Reformed.” Scott Clark and D. G. Hart contend that Baptists cannot rightly call themselves Reformed in part because they reject infant baptism. This claim would be true even for Calvinist Baptists who hold a similar soteriology. Clark and Hart would likely shudder (or chuckle) at the notion of “Reformed Arminians.” They’d certainly reject that Arminius was Reformed.
Of particular interest in this collection of essays is the first essay by Chris Caughey and Crawford Gribben on why the definition of “Reformed” must remain broad. They contend that no single Reformed confession exists, that key Reformed confessions conflict, and that most Presbyterians in America (who would consider themselves Reformed) have drastically altered the Westminster Confession of faith, particularly on the responsibility of the civil magistrate to maintain Christianity. For these reasons (and others), the term Reformed should not be used in such a narrow sense and those who police the use of the term are on unstable footing. The book is intriguing on the whole, but Caughey and Gribben’s essay is absolutely worth reading for Baptists interested in the Reformed tradition.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Tomie dePaola, Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011), 22 pages.
With a one-year-old running around, I read a lot of picture books these days. Mostly, this exercise is delightful; however, sometimes I need a break from Llama Llama Red Pajama (though The Very Hungry Caterpillar has more staying power). If you’re going to read something eighteen times in a row, it needs to be excellent to say (and to think about) and beautiful to look at.
Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise meets such standards. You may recognize Tomie dePaola by his Caldecott honor book, Strega Nona. In an author’s note at the beginning of this picture book, DePaola writes that it is based on Psalm 148 with illustrations inspired by the folk art of Puebla, Mexico. DePaola died in March of this year; he left for us many beautiful children’s books like this one for which we can “sing praise.”
—Recommended by Rebekah Zuniga
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Mark Dever, God and Politics: Jesus’ Vision for Society, State, and Government (Youngstown: 10Publishing, 2016), 57 pages.
Election years tend to surface questions about how Christians view their role in public life and American politics. I think it is always helpful to start with the question: “Does Christianity have a vision for the state and society as a whole?” In his recent little book, God and Politics, Mark Dever helps to answer this question. With attention to what the Bible says, Dever argues how Christians can believe that the “government is one of a number of enterprises that we can be involved in, that are not specifically Christian, but are good and even mediate the blessing of God to us. These things don’t need to be Christian to be in some real sense good and something that blesses people” (24). It might be easy to see the whole realm of politics as beyond repair, but I appreciate the encouragement to minister and think through positive ways to witness on the margins.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Jamie Dunlop, Budgeting for a Healthy Church: Aligning Finances with Biblical Priorities for Ministry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 176 pages.
Few topics receive less attention in formal pastoral training than church finance. After both undergraduate and seminary-level training for ministry, I can scarcely remember more than one class session that dealt with this important aspect of local church administration and planning. Thankfully, thoughtful books like Jamie Dunlop’s are now available to help pastors and church leaders connect the development of a church budget to the overall strategy and priorities of the ministry.
Dunlop’s book helpfully weds biblical principle and argument to specific questions surrounding church budgeting. He even provides some sample worksheets or rubrics for evaluating various aspects of the budget. I especially appreciated his suggestions for evaluating ministry partnerships, such as missionaries who are supported financially by the church. I strongly encourage anyone who has a role in crafting their church’s budget, or who oversees their church’s finances, to read this book and discuss it with others.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (New York: Picador, 2014), 263 pages.
The ethics of life and death continue to be areas for Christians to explore and seek to understand. Specifically, we should think through the intersection between medicine and technology and how these areas impact our lives in the end. I recently started exploring Atul Gawande’s work with some fellow chaplain colleagues and found his book, Being Mortal, to be especially helpful. Using research and personal experience, Gawande reminds us of the necessity of honoring people’s wishes with respect to medicine. I especially appreciate his focus on the wonderful work hospice and palliative-care specialists do to provide care and empathy in these situations. I encourage every pastor to pick up this book as families look for spiritual guidance during these hard conversations.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Ryan Hall, Run the Mile You’re In: Finding God in Every Step (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 224 pages.
Ryan Hall is a retired professional runner who competed in two Olympic Games. He holds American records for both the half marathon (59:43; 4:33 average pace) and the marathon (2:04:58; 4:46 average pace). And, to top it all off, he’s a Christian who is serious about his faith. He also helped found Run Free Training along with Jay Stephenson, which puts out a weekly podcast, as well as other features that runners may find helpful.
Last year Hall released Run the Mile You’re In. The book is divided among twenty-six chapters (corresponding to the twenty-six miles of a marathon), which address different topics such as vision, sacrifice, failure, success, identity, and faith. For example: “Comparison sucks the life out of what we are doing. We are all on a beautiful journey, so let us be thankful for every step, even if our journey looks different from someone else’s.”
Thus this book offers no quick-and-easy steps about how to run faster but is, instead, more thematic and memoir-like. Still, it’s interesting and inspiring. Readers will learn the extent to which the Christian faith factors into Hall’s running and, consequently, the extent to which it can factor into theirs. Christian athletes particularly should find Run the Mile You’re In to be a worthwhile read.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 298 pages.
Jacob Hamblin’s Arming Mother Nature offers a wonderful overview of how concern for the environment grew into a political industry that demands complete submission in the face of projected global catastrophes. His narrative casts new light on the catastrophic environmental movement by highlighting its links to the totalizing winner-take-all worldview of Cold Warriors.
Hamblin begins by considering the various ways that the United States and other countries have researched the possibilities of environmental warfare during the mid-twentieth century. He then argues that after satellites entered orbit in the mid-twentieth century, some scientists began to hold that humans had a responsibility to monitor the ecological health of the entire planet and oppose any kind of man-made destruction.
In order to fight these battles, radical environmental groups like the Club of Rome began demanding complete adherence to their demands in order to save the planet from projected destruction. Yet such arguments had little currency in American society until Richard Nixon’s administration began embracing environmentalism as a means of further isolating the Soviet Union from other countries and hastening their bankruptcy. This book is particularly relevant now because it provides good insights into the mentality of radical environmentalists and COVID-19 extremists alike, especially their reliance on the capabilities and wisdom of experts.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Jason Helopoulos, The New Pastor’s Handbook: Help and Encouragement for the First Years of Ministry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 208 pages.
I often hear folks say that a book can’t teach you nearly as much as life experience. Certainly, we can learn much from actually doing something rather than just reading about it. This point is also true of pastoring. However, The New Pastor’s Handbook is one book that does an excellent job of preparing the reader for pastoral ministry. This book is made up of forty-eight short chapters that deal with practical matters such as discerning God’s call, shepherding your congregation, as well as administration, accountability, and several pitfalls of young pastors. While I’m sure that this book just scratches the surface of many of these topics, at least it gives future pastors a glimpse of what they can expect.
—Recommended by Zach Vickery
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Michael Kibbe, From Topic to Thesis: A Guide to Theological Research (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016), 153 pages.
In what might be described as a mercifully short book, Kibbe gives instructions to theological students concerning how work from a topic to a thesis appropriately when engaging in research writing. While the book could be used at an undergraduate level, Kibbe gives a concise evaluation of how one should engage with research writing that is helpful for graduate students as well. He explains the importance of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, and how those distinctions effect how they’re used in a paper. He also helps the reader work through developing a thesis that will lead to a good draft. For those who are students right now, or are contemplating theological education at some point, this book is an incredibly short, helpful primer.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 200 pages.
Abraham Kuyper was an educator, politician, and theologian. In fact, he was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. In 1898 he gave six lectures at Princeton University, which became the book Lectures on Calvinism, originally published in 1899. Calvinism in this instance does not refer to narrow disagreements of soteriology but rather to the broader world and life view implications of Reformed theology. Consequently, a possible alternate title could have been Lectures on the Reformational Worldview or something similar.
Each of Kuyper’s six lectures serves as a chapter. Chapter one introduces the theological worldview of reformational thinking. Chapters two through five apply the principles that he established in chapter one to the topics of religion, politics, science, and art, respectively. Finally, chapter six considers the future. Lectures on Calvinism is a seminal work of reformational, worldview thinking, and I commend it to those in the Reformed tradition, including the Reformed Arminian tradition.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Aaron Menikoff, Character Matters: Shepherding in the Fruit of the Spirit (Chicago: Moody, 2020), 182 pages.
“A ministry not marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is like a ticking time bomb—it’s set to explode” (15). In this book, Aaoron Menikoff encourages pastors and other spiritual leaders not only to exhort their congregants to embody the fruit of the spirit but also to ensure that they are pursuing holiness in their own hearts.
If pastors are not careful, they will become experts at pointing out the sin of others while neglecting the sin in our own lives. Menikoff devotes one chapter to each aspect of the fruit of the Spirit where he discusses how that particular characteristic manifests itself in both the personal life of the pastor and their ministries. Many pastoral ministry books today focus on very helpful things like expository preaching, worship, and church government, but Character Matters helps pastors realize that it doesn’t matter how perfect their theology is if their hearts do not reflect the fruit of the Spirit.
—Recommended by Zach Vickery
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Michael L. Peterson, God and Evil: An Introduction to the Issues (Boulder: Westview, 1998), 147 pages.
Arguably the most difficult issue for apologists to deal with in regards to defending Christianity is the problem of evil, because, in part, it is more than one problem. Within this one area, we need to engage a host of issues and nuances in order to interact properly with detractors. Michael Peterson provides a very helpful book that concisely evaluates the major issues at play. He discusses the problem in the larger context of philosophy of religion, the logical problem of evil, the difference between defense and theodicy, and much more. Especially helpful in his volume is Peterson’s treatment of the problem of gratuitous evil. For those looking for an introduction to this important topic, Peterson’s work is a great place to start.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (San Francisco: Harper, 1997), 272 pages.
Months ago when the pandemic began I was reminded in several ways that plague and pestilence are nothing new in the history of God’s people. An article pointed me back to a chapter in a book I had started years earlier but had never read cover to cover—Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity. Stark, a prolific sociologist of religion, has been writing about Christianity as a social phenomenon for decades. This incredibly insightful work draws together many pieces that he has written in the past, forming a coherent argument for how Christianity came to be the dominant religious force by the fourth century A.D.
Of special note is Stark’s chapter on the role that epidemics played in helping Christianity to spread as paganism began to decline. For example, Greco-Roman paganism simply was unable to explain how to understand the significance of such widespread suffering. Moreover, it did not provide the theological or spiritual resources needed to navigate such a difficult time. Christianity, instead, gave both an explanatory basis for suffering, as well as giving a foundation for a practical, compassionate response. This is just one of many insights in Stark’s thoughtful, well-researched book that make it well worth your time.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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Stephen R. Turley, Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness, & Beauty (Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2014), 106 pages.
While attempting to acquaint myself with the modern resurgence of a classical Christian education in the Western tradition, I’ve often felt like I needed to learn a new language. Words like “moral imagination,” “wonder,” and “cosmic piety,” were, until recently, almost completely foreign to me. In this book, Stephen Turley explores three integral words (and the concepts they identify) for the classical tradition: truth, goodness, and beauty. He traces the history of these fundamental values from the world of Greece and Rome, through the life of the Church (East and West), and finally finds application for their renewed place in educating people today. Needless to say, these 106 pages are packed, and, at times, a bit dense. Nonetheless, each page can offer some wisdom to meditate on, whether you teach children or are simply pursuing for yourself that type of education that enables us to see “the totality of life as an integrative expression of the glory of God” (73).
—Recommended by Rebekah Zuniga
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