Take and read

Reynolds combines a profound and wide-ranging rethinking of Christian theology from the perspective of disability with piercingly honest reflections on his experience as the father of a son with disabilities. Reynolds critiques the idolatrous “cult of normalcy” and explores the themes of human vulnerability, weakness, solidarity and hospitality against the backdrop of God’s creative and redemptive love.

Here is another searching theological reflection on disability, particularly intellectual disability, that draws on Yong’s experience of having a brother who has Down syndrome. Yong’s Pentecostal theology sharpens his discussions of Christian hopes for healing, and he offers thought-provoking reflections on disability in non-Western contexts.

Drawing on Barth, with support from Calvin and Luther, Boulton dispels the “pious haze” surrounding Christian discussions of liturgical matters. He argues that worship, like all other human activities, “takes place in the shadow of our ongoing sin . . . and in the light of God’s promised salvation.” Recognizing worship as a provisional form of life that God will one day put to an end, Boulton concludes with a substantial section on reforming liturgical design and practice in the direction of a “penitential jubilation.”

While Boulton takes aim at self-righteous churchgoers, Radcliffe, a British Dominican, speaks to Christianity’s cultured despisers—those who find going to church “boring and pointless.” Commissioned as the archbishop of Canterbury’s 2009 Lent book, Why Go to Church? portrays the Eucharist as a drama in three acts that gradually and gently draws our lives into the joy of God’s life and transforms our way of being in the world. Radcliffe brings to bear a mischievous sense of humor and familiarity with life in the global church.

Keller recasts process theology as a mysterious third way that rejects both the absoluteness of unchanging certainty and the dissoluteness of relativistic indifference. Putting aside the technical vocabulary of some process formulations, Keller draws widely on scripture, the great sweep of theological tradition, and popular culture to develop seven central thematic signs: truth, creation, power, love, justice, Christ and Spirit.

Founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Hunsinger compiled these contributions by religious and military leaders and human rights activists out of a troubled conviction that torture is being justified more openly than ever before in U.S. history. The selections range from historical, theological and military analyses to sermons and first-person accounts. In the three central parts of the book, an array of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders speak out against torture.

These two volumes (also available separately) bring together a decade of Coffin’s sermons from his years as pastor of Manhattan’s Riverside Church. In these sermons we see Coffin’s theology in action, whether he is railing against social injustice, musing on the death of his son Alex or puzzling over a difficult text of scripture. Alternately caustic, poignant and hopeful, these sermons are a pleasure to read.

Bonzo and Stevens trace spiritual and cultural themes across decades of Wendell Berry’s writings, finding that he offers comfort and challenge to classic conservatives and postmodernists alike. In the penultimate chapter the authors confront Berry’s criticism of Christianity as a world-rejecting religion, and offer up a Berryan vision of the church as a community called to sink roots into a particular place and to find abundant life within finite boundaries.