Karl Barth

Cornelius Plantinga Jr. contends that to be fully prepared to share a word from God with a congregation, a preacher should attend to storytellers, biographers, poets and journalists.

Rousseau and Barth each imagined arriving in heaven with his books. But the response they anticipated could hardly have been more different.

In addition to its roundup of book reviews, the Century's fall books issue features works that guest critics consider to be essential reading on three topics: John Calvin, Paul and preaching. A. Katherine Grieb's essential books on Paul are: Paul and His Letters (second edition), The Writings of St. Paul, Our Mother Saint Paul, Rereading Paul Together: Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on Justification, and A Shorter Commentary on Romans. Read her comments here.

In the New Testament, God's "violence" is a precondition of human nonviolence.