October 15, 2014

Christian Wiman offers further evidence that his voice is among the most compelling in contemporary poetry. These poems are filled with theological conundrums, unanswered questions, brutal answers to questions never formed, and above all, contradictions.

Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that contemporary American politics have taken an extreme turn that has all but eliminated bipartisanship and compromise.

One cold afternoon in 1975 in a small rented bedroom in Antwerp, the young Mormon missionary Craig Harline (Elder Harline in Mormon parlance) had a faith crisis—though it is not quite right to call it that.

The Deepest Human Life is an elegantly written, impassioned, and sometimes disjointed plea on behalf of philosophy. Scott Samuelson invokes poets, novelists, and theologians to defend the dialectical process that Socrates imparted.

Why do most white evangelicals vote Republican? How has this affected Republican politics? Matthew Sutton gives us our first good account of how and why evangelical political views developed the way they did. Three elements were crucial—premillennial eschatology, World War I, and the Puritan heritage. 

Why did northern whites support a limited set of rights for blacks during Reconstruction, but then abandon them in the 1870s, and do little to stop the racial violence of the 1880s and beyond? Two new books shed important new light on such questions.

Let it be said at once: this is the best book ever written about Billy Graham. I found this an absolutely captivating book and have read every word, including the footnotes.

This is a book about deep, protracted, unrelenting sadness, and it knows it.