Comedian Fugelsang assails the right-wing hijacking of Christianity in this potent debut call to recenter Jesus’s teachings. Arguing that fundamentalists have contorted scripture to support hyperconservative viewpoints, he contends that Jesus’s call for disciples to buy swords in the Gospel of Luke—which might seem to support violence—was very context specific. Elsewhere, he posits that white nationalism is expressly contradicted by Jesus’s interactions with Samaritans, prostitutes, and marginalized groups, and that support for the death penalty goes against Jesus’s emphasis on compassion and forgiveness. Far more relevant, he asserts, is the biblical refrain of fighting poverty and welcoming strangers—an imperative ignored by conservatives because such “inconvenient” teachings are harder to adhere to and undercut the human desire for “earthly power” that’s been supercharged by right-wing politicians. While the author’s potshots at Republican lawmakers (“Jesus... rejected earthly materialism, renounced the idea of revenge, and commanded us to welcome the stranger. I know, right? Just like Donald Trump”) might alienate some of the readers he claims to want to reach, the author’s blend of theology and humor energizes his thought-provoking talking points. Christians looking to push back against fundamentalist teachings will find plenty of ammunition in this acerbic and accessible treatise. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Essayist Slater debuts with a rich and freewheeling meditation on life, death, and impermanence. She centers her account around The Tibetan Book of the Dead, an eighth-century text that provides a postmortem road map for dead souls but can, the author contends, also help readers grapple with the finitude of life through its emphasis on embracing impermanence. To this end, she provides manageable suggestions like observing and accepting small, everyday endings—to a conversation, a meeting, or a weekend—and actively grounding oneself in the present rather than following the “monkey mind” between past and future, which sidetracks the brain into a shallower form of existence. While such lessons aren’t especially new, the author interweaves vivid memoiristic sections on encountering The Tibetan Book of the Dead during her grandmother’s funerary rites, meditations on Buddhist culture, and expansive explorations of the notion of impermanence and ambiguity, including in relationship to her own identity (“Looking back now at that time, I realize that, from a young age, I hadn’t been able to see my liminality, my racial and cultural heritage, as a gift”). The result is an intriguing and creative reframing of ancient Buddhist wisdom. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Christians should learn to seek God at life’s crossroads, according to this earnest if stilted guide from YouTuber McDaniel (All-Caps You). Recounting how she first embraced Jesus during a panic attack at age 14, she walks readers through how to approach their own “middle moments” in ways that let them “boldly live out their faith” rather than “staying comfortable.” To do so, they can cast aside their insecurities by leaning on God, make daily efforts to “intentionally talk with [God] and be with him everywhere we go,” read scripture, and prioritize faith even when it cuts against popular opinion. McDaniel’s message comes through most effectively when she shares how her belief has helped her endure such challenges as cyberbullying. Some of her analogies have a tendency to fall flat, however, as when she meditates on forging a “personal” relationship with God by reminiscing about dating her future husband during college (“Just as Josh wanted to personally spend time with just me rather than getting together with the whole friend group, so was I with God”). This isn’t perfect, but McDaniel’s fans will heed her unfailingly encouraging call to find strength through faith. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Stressed-out moms should find their value as “children of Christ” rather than merely as wives and mothers, according to this empowering guide. Courtney (5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter) explains how scriptural verses are twisted to support a notion of “biblical womanhood” that sees motherhood as a woman’s sole destiny and pressures moms to meet an unrealistic standard of perfection while ignoring their personal and spiritual needs. Moms can release themselves from “false guilt” by “growing in [their] relationships with Christ and spend[ing] time with his Word,” according to Courtney. More broadly, she encourages moms to adopt a manageable ethos of being present for their kids when it counts (not every moment of the day); simplify life when possible, including by cutting down on the amount of “stuff” they buy; and prioritize self-care. Along the way, Courtney offers a worthwhile counterargument to a church culture that suggests God wants women “to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of marriage or motherhood” and places undue weight on moms while denying the value of women who can’t or don’t want to have kids. At the same time, she calls on churches and other institutions to support women in ways that let them live fuller, more faithful lives. In a culture where social media is dominated by tradwives and other idealized portraits of motherhood, this strikes a chord. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Black American Catholics have been marginalized by racism in the church to the extent that the two identities are often considered incompatible, according to this erudite debut from Pratt, an assistant professor of sociology at Villanova. Tracing the history of Catholicism in America, she explains how it was founded on the backs of enslaved people, some of whom who were “owned” by Catholic churches or whose sale kept Jesuit institutions like Georgetown University afloat. Later, influxes of white Catholic immigrants—then considered “ethnic whites”—formed “ethnic parishes” in cities that excluded Black Catholics. As the dominance of those parishes waned after WWII, “ethnic white” Catholic immigrants became increasingly Americanized, transferring “racialized language and systematic othering” directed at each other to Black Americans. Pratt attributes the invisibility of Black Catholics partly to blatant exclusion from white parishes as well as a subtler marginalization in “cosmopolitan” spaces where mixed-race congregations are overseen by almost wholly white leaderships. Black Catholics have in response established their own parishes, which—despite being plagued by closings, reorganizations, and lack of institutional support—have succeeded in creating their own distinct identity via unique liturgical traditions, including gospel hymns and call-and-response homilies. Scrupulous and well researched, this is a much-needed portrait of an often-overlooked area of American Catholicism. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Anabaptism and the Black church can help the West to reform a “mainstream Christianity” rooted in power, control, and domination, according to this thought-provoking treatise from Hart (Trouble I’ve Seen), an associate professor of theology at Messiah University. The author traces how Western Christianity was birthed from “Christendom” that emerged in the ninth century as the Holy Roman Empire sought to “implement Christianity” via conquest and forced conversion. Such a Christianity, according to Hart, has functioned throughout history as a “coercive, top-down,” state-associated faith that seeks to “impose itself over the social order,” fueling the transatlantic slave trade, Native American displacement, and Jim Crow. Hart finds an antidote in the peace and “nonviolent resistance” of Anabaptism, a denomination that emphasizes the baptism of adults, and the liberative justice of the Black church–values that Jesus lived by, and that run counter to those promoted by today’s Christianity, which, in the author’s view, has seized on political and social issues as a skewed and morally damaging shorthand for belief. While Hart can be wordy, he’s consistently eye-opening in unpacking what it actually means to model one’s life after Christ, and he highlights the benefits of Anabaptism and the Black church while remaining clear-eyed about their faults. For example, he notes that some Black churches can be patriarchal and must extend “God’s justice” to all marginalized people, including by welcoming LGBTQ+ Christians and appointing women to leadership roles. Curious believers will find plenty to chew on. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

“God designed the table to be a space where we can leave our burdens behind and find deep, soul-level communion with him and others,” writes A Table Top Affair blogger Kuykendall (The Living Table) in this upbeat hospitality guide. Despite the popularity of picture-perfect Martha Stewart–style entertaining, hospitality isn’t about performing perfection but fulfilling God’s commandment to serve others, Kuykendall explains, even when the occasion is thrown together or last minute, like inviting neighbors to bring their own dinners to eat at one’s home. Encouraging Christians to consider what makes them feel welcome, she shares tips for creating inviting spaces and keeping easy, prep-free staples on hand, like Pillsbury crescent rolls or Ritz crackers. Other chapters focus on how to expand one’s community through events, including by organizing bring-a-friend get-togethers or inviting guests from different social circles. While Kuykendall’s tone can become preachy, readers will be won over by her cheery encouragement to cast aside perfection—“God isn’t coming to critique your burnt biscuits or mismatched plates”—and inspired by her frequent scriptural references, as when she notes that despite not having a home, Christ routinely fed misfits and strangers or invited them to join him. Even the most perfectionist Christians will be inspired to open up their homes. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Dulle, who covers the Vatican for America magazine, debuts with a potent insider’s look at some of “the most distressing stories” roiling the Catholic church. Among other issues, she unpacks women’s exclusion from key leadership roles in the Vatican, a practice that Pope Francis had begun to reform before his death, and the laborious process of canonizing saints, which can eat up decades and millions of dollars. (There’s “a strange tension,” Dulle points out, “that exists in the church between holiness, which Jesus made clear is easier for the poor to achieve,” and the great sums needed to officially recognize sainthood.) Elsewhere, she reflects on the emotional gauntlet of covering the church’s sexual abuse scandals, describing how she vacillates between numbness and anger and has come to the uneasy conclusion that “wrestling with the church’s problems [is] a key condition of my being Catholic.” Dulle buttresses her account with intriguing up-close details (including the ways in which the male-dominated Vatican culture is showing some preliminary signs of change), and delves deeply into the challenges that arise as the Vatican’s intricate traditions and labyrinthine bureaucratic processes come under the microscope of a global media, raising questions about the costs of upholding tradition and the cultural changes needed to reform calcified systems. The result is a revealing and often troubling portrait of a church in flux. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Historian Turner follows up They Knew They Were Pilgrims with a thorough biography of Mormonism’s enigmatic founder, Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844). The author traces Smith’s itinerant youth bouncing between New England and New York farms, his prophecies (most notably his “First Vision,” in which Jesus supposedly revealed to Smith that contemporary churches had “turned aside from the gospel”), his doctrinal innovations, his gathering of believers into several city-building projects, and his murder by a mob while awaiting trial for inciting a riot. Steering away from hagiography, Turner details Smith’s treasure seeking, his tendency to dodge legal problems, and his initial hiding of several of his polygamous marriages from his first wife Emma—while also crediting him for holding his church together amid dissent, “enabling others” to see heavenly visions, and assimilating disparate ideas and inspirations into an “original, attractive system” of doctrine and ritual. Turner lightly contextualizes Smith’s place in American history, but readers wanting a deeper understanding of his influences and contemporaneous events outside his community will wish for more. Still, Turner’s scrupulous research vividly brings Smith to life both as a religious innovator and as a colorful, eccentric personality who was skillful at cajoling would-be defectors and advancing ambitious plans but also rushed headlong into controversies and showed flashes of anger. The result is a scholarly yet highly readable account of a key figure in American religious history. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Pastor Smith (How’s Your Soul?) and psychologist Parrott (Crazy Good Sex) team up for a perceptive guide to challenging damaging beliefs. They argue that negative thoughts influence mood and quickly become so habitual that they’re ingrained in the brain, “unknowingly shaping who we become.” The types of negative thinking include thoughts of unworthiness, thoughts about wanting to please others, self-critical thoughts fueled by insecurity, thoughts rooted in entitlement that “exaggerate one’s own importance,” and thoughts that question one’s value and ability to be loved by God. Smith and Parrott provide concrete suggestions for replacing these with more useful thought patterns, including giving names to one’s “inner critic” and “inner champion” and having the latter question the former, and praying for those who might not deserve it (by extending undeserved grace to another person, the authors note, it becomes easier to understand that God’s love doesn’t need to be earned). Fluidly combining examples from scripture, science, and pop culture with actionable advice, the authors make a persuasive and upbeat case that the power to change comes from within. Christians stuck in a cycle of self-defeatism will want to pick this up. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink