HThe Case for God
Karen Armstrong. Knopf, $27.95 (432p) ISBN 978-0-307-26918-8
With characteristic command of subject and crispness, the prolific and redoubtable independent British scholar and former nun takes yet another run at the world’s religious history. At least nominally a response to the voluble “new atheism” of bestselling authors Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens et al., Armstrong’s book rightly, and characteristically, is bigger than those intellectual small fry. She paints, on a huge canvas, the evolution through time of the religious impulse in civilizations Western and Eastern (mostly Western). She’s conceptual, humanistic and exceedingly well-read. Religion is what we do and how we make meaning, which is perhaps why it’s appealed to scholarly types and just plain folks for millennia. Just as important, religion is also humility: knowing that you don’t know. God may be a mystery, but it isn’t because we’re dumb; that’s God’s nature. Her view of classical Greek philosophy through the lens of religion is refreshing, and it’s only one chapter in her articulate and accessible sweep through intellectual history. The “unknowing” of the mystics has its virtues and its place, but being well-read and knowledgeable makes one powerful and persuasive book. (Sept. 25)

H The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain
Scott Cairns. Paraclete Press, $17.99 (144p) ISBN 978-1-55725-563-1
Cairns (Compass of Affection), director of creative writing at the University of Missouri and convert to the Eastern Orthodox church, approaches the theological problem of human suffering with an elegant and inviting realism. This slim volume does not attempt to give readers every answer or, as he points out the irony of his title, provide a way to end all feelings of pain and loss. Instead, Cairns offers a new and liberating perspective, not divorced from suffering itself but appreciating the joy and illumination that may come after a period of sadness. Most impressive is Cairns’s ability to combine memoir with insightful theological interpretation. His repertoire ranges from The Brothers Karamazov to the writings of early church fathers and biblical Greek. Using his poetic skill while remaining conversational, balancing the cerebral and emotive, Cairns weaves his learning into short topical chapters that vary from the importance of communal religion to humility. This magnificent book omits the trite comforts often found in this subgenre and offers instead a rich tapestry of varied tone and content that will illuminate for readers their own experience with suffering. (Sept.)

HPaul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle
Pamela Eisenbaum. HarperOne, $24.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-072291-3
Ever since Augustine, the core of the Christian religion has trumpeted Paul of Tarsus as the original Christian who condemned Judaism’s emphasis on law rather than grace. In this provocative book, biblical scholar Eisenbaum points out that the traditional Christian portrait of Paul as a former Jew who converted to the Christian religion and transformed himself into a zealous proponent of Christianity is a misreading of Paul’s life and religious work. Drawing on the seven authentic Pauline letters, she recovers Paul for Judaism by showing convincingly that Paul did not have a conversion experience on the road to Damascus. Rather, he experienced a call from God to try to reunite God’s people in much the same way that the prophets of the Hebrew Bible received their calls to perform the same tasks. Eisenbaum carefully uncovers the many layers of Christian myth that have falsely imprisoned Paul the Jew, reclaiming Paul as a Hellenistic Jew within a historically plausible image of Judaism and demonstrating that Paul’s apparently contradictory writings make sense when this worldview is understood. Eisenbaum’s lively prose and meticulous scholarship provides a compelling new portrait of the apostle. (Sept.)

Christian America and the Kingdom of God
Richard T. Hughes. Univ.of Illinois, $29.95 (232p) ISBN 978-0-252-03285-1
Hughes (Myths America Lives By), a professor of religion at Messiah College, is a logical writer and talented biblical exegete. He makes a compelling case that the kingdom of God, with its radical vision of peace and justice, is really not of this world, and that the political kingdoms of this world inevitably corrupt over time, waxing imperial and then declining. Yet despite Hughes’s talents, the book seems rather last year. The Bible he cites often and at length is timeless, and his examples from American history also make sense to provide context for contemporary debates about American religion and politics. But the urgency of his analysis, especially the parts that take on the moral rhetoric and messianic vision of George Bush, is late to the critique party. That part has been ably done by many of the authors whose work Hughes cites. The author does bring a fresh Anabaptist emphasis on peace; God really does mean lay down your swords. On balance, this book is more useful as theology than as political analysis. (Sept.)

The Magnificent Obsession: Embracing the God-Filled Life
Anne Graham Lotz. Zondervan, $19.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-8470-6352-6
This is Lotz’s (Just Give Me Jesus) 11th book, and it details her interpretation and commentary on the story of the man she calls her spiritual mentor: Abraham. In his faith and his failures, Abraham offers a compelling example. Lotz, the second eldest daughter of Billy and Ruth Graham and founder of AnGeL Ministries, ticks off the lessons the life of Abraham offers: leave everything behind, let everything go and other conclusions drawn as Abraham’s faith grows and is frequently tried. Lotz offers an imaginative and deeply felt gloss on the details of the patriarch’s long life, drawing reflections, questions and guidance for daily living. She is deeply grounded in the biblical text, but also freely draws on her own life, sharing honestly without being excessively confessional. Evangelical Christians, particularly women, will be inspired by the depth of her faith and the power of her imagination in bringing to life a 4,000-year-old story. (Sept.)

Rashi
Elie Wiesel, trans. from the French by Catherine Temerson. Schocken/Nextbook, $22 (128p) ISBN 978-0-8052-4254-6
Nobel Peace Prize-winner Wiesel escorts readers to the 11th century world the Talmudic sage Rashi inhabited, rich in Jewish scholarship and rife with anti-Semitic violence, in this new installment in the Jewish Encounters series. With little concrete information about Rashi’s life, Wiesel paints an imagined portrait of the scholar, based on legend as well as what is known of Jewish communities in France during medieval times—and, of course, drawing from Rashi’s tremendous body of work. In a playful but poetic style, Wiesel tosses out many questions, answering them in a manner reminiscent of a grandfather recounting an important tale to progeny. Readers may be most struck, however, by Wiesel’s tender tone. It is as if Rashi lived in the last century, not the last millennium. For Wiesel, Rashi is not only a direct ancestor but also a “first destination,” a friend. “I love him,” he writes. Wiesel also attempts to introduce readers to Rashi’s commentary. Although these chapters may confuse those unfamiliar with Jewish texts, the book demonstrates the value of seeking a better understanding of this distinguished figure. (Aug.)

Images of Muhammad: Narratives of the Prophet in Islam Across the Centuries
Tarif Khalidi. Doubleday Religion, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-51816-1
Khalidi, a professor at the American University in Beirut and author of the seminal work The Muslim Jesus, explores the dynamic but misunderstood Prophet Muhammad. Khalidi studies his subject anew by dissecting the Sira, or biographies, of Muhammad, which cut across all Muslim traditions—including Sunni and Shia—and time periods. Drawing on these varied biographical sources, Khalidi presents a wholly new, unified and even surprising view of the man who founded Islam. Along the way, the reader learns about Islam through the story of Muhammad’s life. Though portrayed as a warlike tyrant by Western critics, Muhammad is said to have denied permission to a young man who wanted to engage in jihad, advising him to tend to his parents instead. Khalidi’s extremely well done chapter on hadith (the traditions of the Prophet) is at once an introduction to the concept of hadiths while also elucidating on the figure of Muhammad. The author emphasizes a point that the West has yet to accept: that in the single figure of Muhammad, Islam had both its founder and interpreter of the message, a hybrid Jesus-Moses figure. (Aug.)

We Don’t Do God: Blair’s Religious Belief and Its Consequences
John Burton and Eileen McCabe. Continuum, $19.95 paper (184p) ISBN 978-1-8470-6352-6
The title of this journalistic examination of former British prime minister Tony Blair’s religious convictions comes from a memorable quote that sprang from Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell, fielding a question about his boss’s religion. “We don’t do God,” Campbell told a reporter. Blair, however, did, and his faith has been highly evident since his 2007 resignation after 10 years as prime minister. The former head of Britain’s Labour Party converted to his wife Cherie’s Catholic faith, began the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and taught a course on faith and globalization at Yale University. Author McCabe, a journalist, examines the roots of Blair’s faith in his time at Oxford University and shows it playing out—or not—in a variety of Blair policies. Coauthor Burton, a Blair ally and mentor, doesn’t so much co-write as contribute bits of inside commentary, set off in italics; billing him as coauthor is an exaggeration. The book is insufficiently edited for American readers, who will immediately get lost at the British pop culture anecdote that opens the book. Still, this book commendably focuses on the religious side of Blair’s biography, supplying material for more considered assessments. (July)

Sneak Peek: Religion Book Reviews coming in PW Aug. 10

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Own Life
Donald Miller. Thomas Nelson, $19.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7852-1306-2
Miller, the accidental memoirist who struck gold with the likable ramble Blue Like Jazz, writes about the challenges inherent in getting unstuck creatively and spiritually. After Jazz sold more than a million copies but his other books didn’t follow suit, he had a classic case of writer’s block. Two movie producers contacted him about creating a film out of his life, but Miller’s initial enthusiasm was dampened when they concluded that his real life needed doctoring lest it be too directionless for the screen. Real stories, he learned, require characters who suffer and overcome. In desultory fashion, Miller sets out to change his own life—to be the kind of guy who seeks out his father, chases the girl and undertakes a quest. Along the way, he comes to understand God as a master storyteller who doesn’t quite control where his characters are going. An unexpected bonus of this book is Miller’s insights into the writing process. Readers who loved Blue Like Jazz will find a somewhat more mature Miller, still funny as hell but more concerned about making a difference in the world than in merely commenting on it. (Oct.)

Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter with the Gospels
Mary Gordon. Pantheon, $24 (240p) ISBN 978-0-375-42457-1
Novelist and memoirist Gordon (Circling My Mother) examines her faith by closely reading the four Christian gospels that recount the life of Christ in a kind of literary lectio divina (sacred reading). The accounts by evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the life of Jesus have a common subject and amazingly different treatments. Gordon tackles the power and puzzle of the Christian gospels with measure and imagination, providing welcome relief for those that scholarly or fundamentalist parsing leaves cold. Raised Catholic, she writes as a layperson and cradle believer thrilled and troubled by these history-shaping texts, unafraid to articulate questions: what does it mean to be perfect? what exactly is a miracle? Her savoring of particular lines is poetic and amplifies the beauty and sometimes ambiguous challenge of the language, stories and injunctions of the gospels. Like the much admired Joan Didion, Gordon is writing to find out what she thinks and lets readers listen in. Those whose faith is infused with humanism and love of the power of words will love Gordon’s words about matters and mysteries of faith. (Oct. 27)

A First Look at the Stars: A Starred Review Coming in PW Aug. 10

H The Future of Faith
Harvey Cox. HarperOne, $25.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-175552-1
What shape will the Christian faith take in the 21st century? In the midst of fast-paced global changes and in the face of an apparent resurgence of fundamentalism, can Christianity survive as a living and vital faith? With his typical brilliance and lively insight, Cox explores these and other questions in a dazzling blend of memoir, church history and theological commentary. He divides Christian history into three periods: the Age of Faith, during the first Christian centuries, when the earliest followers of Jesus lived in his Spirit, embraced his hope and followed him in the work he had begun; the Age of Belief, from the Council of Nicaea to the late 20th century, during which the church replaced faith in Jesus with dogma about him; and the Age of the Spirit, in which we’re now living, in which Christians are rediscovering the awe and wonder of faith in the tremendous mystery of God. According to Cox, the return to the Spirit that so enlivened the Age of Faith is now enlivening a global Christianity, through movements like Pentecostalism and liberation theology, yearning for the dawning of God’s reign of shalom. Cox remains our most thoughtful commentator on the religious scene, and his spirited portrait of our religious landscape challenges us to think in new ways about faith. (Oct.)