Books
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Continuing the experiment of dusting off this creaky old blog, here are the best theology books I read this year (not necessarily published this year!): Teresa Morgan, Trust in Atonement: Teresa Morgan is a scholar of classical antiquity as well as New Testament and early Christianity, and she brings this perspective to bear in developing Read more
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Adam Hamilton, Why Did Jesus Have to Die? The Meaning of the Crucifixion (Abingdon Press, 2025) Adam Hamilton is the pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS, one of the largest Methodist churches in the country. He’s also the author of numerous books and bible studies where he’s tried to carve out Read more
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Someday–maybe next year, who knows?–I’ll get better about tracking the books I read. Heaven knows I read a bunch of stuff this year that has already slipped into the misty recesses of memory. But until I get my act together, I thought I’d note some books in theology and religion that stuck with me for Read more
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I recently re-read Keith Ward’s Christ and the Cosmos, which was published in 2015, but which I didn’t feel like I really digested upon my first reading. (Not that I fully digested it this time either!) In this book, Ward offers a multi-part trinitarian theology, fleshing out in more detail arguments he’s made elsewhere (particularly Read more
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Georgia Harkness (1891-1974) was a 20th-century theologian and church teacher who could hold her own with the theological bigwigs of the day (Barth, Tillich, Niebuhr) while writing accessible works of theology aimed at lay people. Her books have an almost C. S. Lewisian ability to convey profound theological ideas in lucid prose. (What she lacks Read more
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One of my new year’s quasi-resolutions was to be a bit more intentional about recording and reflecting on the books I read. Looking back on 2016 I was dispirited by the number of books I could barely remember reading, much less had really digested. To remedy this, I’m going to try to jot down at Read more
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I really enjoyed Rev. Adam Hamilton’s recent book Making Sense of the Bible. It’s an overview of the nature of the Bible—how and when it was written, how the books were compiled and ultimately canonized—and a persuasive effort to reconcile its very human character with its “God-breathed” status. We mainline Christians usually emphasize that we Read more
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Shamelessly plagiarized from my Goodreads page: Go Tell It On the Mountain, James Baldwin A vivid, searing exploration of religious, racial, sexual, and individual identity. An American classic. Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin A very different book from Go Tell It On the Mountain, but still occupied with the nature of the self, its desires, and Read more
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I should say, books I read in 2014. Most of these weren’t published this year. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, H. W. Brands A compelling and readable (indeed, almost novelistic) account of the life and times of our 32nd president. Brands doesn’t gloss over his flaws, Read more
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There’s a lot going on in Douglas Ottati’s Theology for Liberal Protestants–much more than I’m going to be able to cover in a blog post (or several). But as I’m nearing the end of the book, I think what will stick with me most is Ottati’s insistence on a cosmic theocentric piety.* What does this Read more
A Thinking Reed 