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Hope After Church Hurt: How to Heal, Reengage, and Rediscover God’s Heart for You

Joe Dobbins. Chosen, $18.99 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-0-8007-7264-2

Pastor Dobbins debuts with an ill-considered guide for Christians who’ve endured sexual abuse, judgment and exclusion from pewmates, and other forms of “church hurt.” Though he acknowledges that “the place that should be known for lifting burdens is too often known for adding to them,” Dobbins generally recommends staying within the church rather than leaving it (“Asking God to move in your life without [the church] is like asking a carpenter to build without a hammer or a surgeon to heal without a scalpel”). He offers advice for retaining faith amid crisis, harnessing “God’s Spirit” to forgive offenders when appropriate, and remembering that God has a plan (sexual abuse survivors are assured they’ve reached a “crucial turning point where [their] testimony is being shaped by God”). Despite the author’s positive intentions, the offensive tone, dizzying lack of nuance (he conflates the shame he felt after seeing pornography with the trauma of those who have endured “physical, violent, or even criminal” sexual abuse), and frequent contradictions (after devoting a chapter to encouraging readers to “stay planted” at their current church community, Dobbins writes that “the change we need is another church”) make this more of a harm than a help. Christians will be best off giving it a wide berth. (June)

Reviewed on 04/12/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Life: My Story Through History

Pope Francis. HarperOne, $28.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-338752-2

Pope Francis (A Good Life) provides a plainspoken overview of how some of the most significant events of the 20th and early 21st centuries shaped his life and morals. Among other episodes, he examines how the news from Nazi Germany he heard during his childhood in Argentina awoke him to “the persecution of Jews”; remembers watching the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, a recollection that leads him to call for Christians to build “bridges instead of barriers”; and suggests that the events of September 11 offer a lesson in the importance of decrying “the use of the name of God to justify slaughter.” Elsewhere, Francis covers the creation of the EU, the 2007–2008 Great Recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite a tendency to meander (as when his recollection of the 1969 moon landing awkwardly launches into a critique of technology’s ills), readers will be fascinated by the insights into how these historical events influenced a transformative pope who broke with his more conservative predecessors by recognizing and blessing same-sex civil unions and entertaining the possibility that atheists could go to heaven. Catholics will value this chance to see the leader of their church in a fresh light. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 04/12/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Ghosted: An American Story

Nancy French. Zondervan, $29.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-310-36744-4

Ghostwriter French (co-author with of Home and Away) turns her gaze inward for this candid memoir. A lifelong conservative who collaborated on the biographies of such high-profile right-wing figures as Sarah Palin, French found herself “at odds with [her] own community” in 2015 when she and her husband, political commentator David French, refused to support Donald Trump. The decision was especially personal for French, who’d survived sexual abuse and spoke out about the willingness of the supposedly pro–“family values” Republican party to excuse Trump’s admissions of groping women. An “ever-widening gap” between the author and the Republican establishment grew into a chasm as she was alienated from her church community and frozen out by former clients. After her husband publicly criticized the president in the National Review, the couple was warned by the FBI that they might be a target of domestic terrorist Cesar Sayoc, who mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democrats ahead of the 2018 midterms. Realizing that “my unwillingness to bow the knee to an unsuitable president was the most American thing I’d ever done,” French “quit” the GOP and decided to tell her story of witnessing Trump’s ascent and the ensuing transformation of the Republican party from the “outskirts of the powerful.” French balances her frank, up-close political analysis with an uplifting message about the faith that sustained her: when she was “ghosted by political friends, spiritual allies, and even some neighbors... [God] showed up and occasionally took my breath away.” This will resonate with never-Trumpers dreading the former president’s next run. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life

Jamie Kern Lima. Hay House, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4019-7760-3

In the rousing follow-up to Believe IT, IT Cosmetics founder Lima helps women harness their self-worth to lead more personally and professionally fulfilling lives. After launching her makeup company in 2008, the author saw how the belief that she was “worthy of love and belonging” helped her transform a startup based in her living room into a thriving company she sold to L’Oréal for $1.2 billion in 2016. Sharing lessons gleaned along the way, Lima outlines how to reframe rejection in empowering ways (for example, by reminding oneself that noes are “God’s... protection” from those who aren’t “assigned to my destiny”). She also encourages readers to dismantle beliefs that friends and family “won’t love us if we reveal who we truly are,” and realize that labels—whether bestowed by others or self-applied—are not verdicts on one’s identity. Anchored by vivid recollections of her professional triumphs—including how she pushed back against producers’ warnings not to show women with skin issues on a home shopping channel advertising segment (she did, and IT Cosmetics became the most popular brand in the channel’s history)—Lima’s case for discounting untrustworthy external voices and relying on “inner knowing” is uplifting, even if the religious overtones sometimes feel out-of-place. This inspires. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Loving Your Black Neighbor as Yourself: A Guide to Closing the Space Between Us

Chanté Griffin. Waterbrook, $17 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-593-44559-4

White Christians can harness their faith to better support the Black community in church, at work, and beyond, according to the wise and broad-minded debut from Griffin, a contributing writer for the Washington Post. Advising that a strong spiritual grounding is “the foundation from which we love ourselves and our neighbors,” Griffin encourages readers to draw on God’s grace and forgiveness to set aside their pride and honestly assess whether they’ve been guilty of racism or racist microaggressions. After doing so, readers can begin to “close the space between you, God and your Black Neighbor.” Foregrounding “racial humility,” or the willingness to admit fault and learn from others, Griffin suggests such concrete steps as consuming Black news publications and other media sources, living in a racially diverse neighborhood to offset redlining and unequal resource distribution, and making one’s church more hospitable to Black congregants. Interweaving biblical analysis, prayer, and step-by-step guidance, Griffin outlines a clear vision for replacing performative allyship with a lifelong engagement on matters of racial justice. The result is an actionable resource for believers looking to build a more equitable world, starting from within. (June)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Born Royal: Overcoming Insecurity to Become the Woman God Says You Are

Oneka McClellan. Waterbrook, $24 (208p) ISBN 978-0-593-44568-6

Pastor McClellan debuts with an invigorating call for Christian women to form a “royal sisterhood” that fosters faith, self-worth, and communal support. Reminding women of their “limitless value” in divine eyes, McClellan encourages readers to use the confidence conferred by such a status to weather periods of personal uncertainty, effect change in their churches and communities, and support and uplift other women. The aim, she writes, is to create a sisterhood in which women bolster self-esteem and celebrate each other’s differences in order to “lift up the name of Jesus” communally and globally. While tired stereotypes sometimes distract from the message (God “sees you as pure” despite past transgressions; women are God’s “chief servants”), McClellan wisely makes room for the complexities of modern womanhood, both individually (“You can be tough and tender. You can be strong and kick butt, but you can also be soft, speaking words of life”) and collectively (“The royal sisterhood will be on display when... both stay-at-home moms and working moms notice the inherent strength in one another and call it out for the whole world to see”). The result is an inspiring invitation for “God’s daughters” to fortify their spiritual bonds and strengthen themselves and their communities in the process. (July)

Reviewed on 03/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening

Henry Shukman. HarperOne, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-335610-8

Meditation is rooted in a boundless “original love” that has inspired all of creation, according to the contemplative if meandering latest from zen teacher Shukman (One Blade of Grass). Guiding readers on a path toward such a love, Shukman outlines four “inns,” or resting points, where one can learn the value of mindfulness (through which “we learn to love ourselves... to have compassion for the way we suffer”); support (connecting with others and with the meditative practice itself); absorption (finding fulfillment and total presence in the moment); and awakening (to an “infinite love” that connects the practitioner to the universe). Guided meditations and tips elucidate these concepts and how readers can practice them, as do frequent anecdotes from the author’s life. To illustrate absorption, for example, Shukman recalls growing up with severe eczema and learning to access a mental “refuge” within the extreme pain by, paradoxically, letting go of his desire for relief: “I couldn’t get there by wanting to... the door opened by itself.” While the surfeit of personal examples sometimes takes things off track, Shukman’s graceful prose and eye for nuance allows him to build an effective case for cultivating an “ever more breaking heart” that can love and be loved with total openness. Meditation practitioners of all levels will find inspiration in Shukman’s wise guidance. (July)

Reviewed on 03/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

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An Introduction to Magic: A Guide to Crystals, Fairies, Palmistry, Tarot, and the Zodiac

Nikki Van De Car et al. Running Press, $18 (184p) ISBN 978-0-7624-8769-1

Van De Car (Wellness Witch) teams up with Mikaila Adriance (Candle Magic), Pliny T. Young, and Eugene Fletcher (Fairies Oracle Deck) for a concise and visually appealing beginner’s guide to magic. In sections devoted to crystals, fairies, palmistry, tarot, and the zodiac, the authors provide basic advice for using crystals during meditation and reading tarot with a three-card spread; background on the symbolism of the heart, head, and life lines in palmistry; and an eclectic cultural history that touches, among other topics, on fairies in literature and myth. Newbies might wish for more hands-on guidance than what’s presented in the relatively bare-bones meditation exercise and the chapter on fairies, which notes that whether such spirits “favor you ultimately depends on the kind of energy you exude” but doesn’t explain how readers might model such an energy. Still, the grounding in magical history is solid, and readers will be inspired by the authors’ viewpoint that magic “silently exists in the quiet moments of coincidence that occur in your daily life... you just need to know... how to look for it.” It’s a useful jumping-off point for those curious about developing their own magical practice. Illus. (July)

Reviewed on 03/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

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When God Became White: Dismantling Whiteness for a More Just Christianity

Grace Ji-Sun Kim. IVP, $17.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-5140-0939-0

Theologian Kim (Invisible) methodically deconstructs “white maleness as an ideology and theology” that has found its way into churches, Christian culture, and religious iconography. A Korean immigrant to Canada in the 1970s, the author was ridiculed by classmates for her “Asianness” and made to recite the Lord’s Prayer in public school. The overwhelming message, she writes, “was clear: to be a good immigrant of color, conformity with the national white norm was imperative.” Her family soon joined a local church, where she learned about a “white, male Jesus” in songs and at Sunday school. Kim traces the genesis of white Christianity to the early Roman empire, when Jesus was depicted as light-skinned to “reinforce... the desires of those who held power and authority,” giving rise to a Eurocentric faith that was spread by missionaries. In the place of a white God, she implores readers to envision a nonwhite genderless “Spirit” who celebrates diversity and inspires Christians to seek justice for all. While the author’s static prose undercuts the impact of her childhood recollections, readers will welcome her ambitious efforts to imagine a more inclusive faith through a mix of theological musings and such real-life examples as Korea’s “women churches,” which ordain female ministers and provide “solace to... patriarchal oppression in society.” It’s a thought-provoking invitation for readers to broaden their notions of the divine. (May)

Reviewed on 03/22/2024 | Details & Permalink

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The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith

Jim Stump. HarperOne, $29.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-335094-6

“You don’t have to choose between the well-established science of our day... and authentic Christian faith,” according to this comprehensive and passionate study. Stump (Science and Christianity) constructs a wide-ranging and nuanced case that dismantles literalist interpretations of the Bible. He notes, for example, that in Genesis, the reported cubic footage of Noah’s ark could not have physically contained “two of all living creatures.” Elsewhere, he adeptly reframes evolution using biblical precedents that suggest God “didn’t create things the way they were ultimately intended to be” (for instance, instead of filling the world with people, God urged Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply”). Other sections detail how Stump’s own perusal of scientific research brought alive “God’s creativity and delight in creation” in deeper ways. Throughout, Stump marshals fine-grained textual analysis to convincingly frame the Bible as a divinely inspired text written by ancient people with “very different scientific knowledge” than today’s humans have. He’s less persuasive on how souls evolved in humans, which he links to the development of bipedalism and language. Still, his logical and nuanced approach stands a good chance of reaching those struggling to find a meeting point between the natural and the supernatural. Admirers of Janet Kellogg Ray’s Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? will be pleased. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/22/2024 | Details & Permalink

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