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From the Publisher,

In The End of Evangelicalism? David Fitch examines the political presence of evangelicalism as a church in North American. Amidst the negative image of evangelicalism in the national media and its purported decline as a church, Fitch asks how evangelicalism’s belief and practice have formed it as a political presence in North America. Why are evangelicals perceived as arrogant, exclusivist, duplicitous, and dispassionate by the wider culture? Diagnosing its political-cultural presence via the ideological theory of Slavoj Zizek, Fitch argues that evangelicalism appears to have lost the core of its politic: Jesus Christ. In so doing its politic has become “empty.” Its witness has been rendered moot. The way back to a vibrant political presence is through the corporate participation in the triune God’s ongoing work in the world as found in the Incarnation. Herein lies the way towards an evangelical missional political theology. Fitch ends his study by examining the possibilities for a new faithfulness in the present-day emerging and missional church movements springing forth from evangelicalism in North America.

What would the practice of Christian spiritual formation look like in a New Kind of Christianity, for A New Kind of Christian practicing a Generous Orthodoxy? The answer - Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words. Brian D. McLaren acknowledges the breadth of spiritual traditions interested in life with God and offers an encounter with God in the Christian Scriptures.

Many will confuse McLaren’s reference to the breadth of interest in spirituality across human experiences as a flaunting of the Christian vision of life with God in Jesus. Yet, Naked Spirituality opens the reader up to spiritual practices growing out of life with God narrated in the Bible and expressed in the Christian tradition. McLaren encourages the reader to put off the idea we may contain God in our practices and instead practice the habits found in the Christian Scriptures, modeled in the life of Jesus, as a means to acknowledge human finitude and the need for God beyond G-d.

Brian draws out the implications of C.S. Lewis’ charge to avoid the danger of assuming we know more about the God we address in prayer than we actually know. He writes, “In so doing, we may falsely assume that our idea of God is identical to God, that the real God “out there” is no bigger and no different from the idea we have “in here” in our heads.” From there McLaren’s agenda is to guide the reader through the stages of Christian spiritual formation – Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony.

One day Christians may look at Naked Spirituality in the same way a previous generation of Christians will have viewed Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, as a classic.

PURCHASE: Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words
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EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have read this book and have a review which you’d like to share, please feel free to post your review in the comments below.

Best sellers often chronicle high profile “falls from grace.” Few people grew up in the aftermath of the kind of high profile “religious fall” as did Jay Bakker. He tells his story in his 2005 memoir, Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows. Publisher’s Weekly hoped Jay would find time to write more. He did.

In Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self, and Society, Bakker continues to use his discovery of grace in the shadows and offers a compelling vision of grace in an often un-gracious church. That’s right, Jay takes aim at the church in hopes of restoring a vision of grace that indeed revolutionizes everything challenging the church to become a transforming community full of grace.

Bakker demonstrates a keen grasp of Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians. In a day when the Apostle Paul gets vilified, Jay applauds the way grace is championed in the letter by the Apostle who “fell to grace” on a dusty road. Make no mistake, this is no domesticated treatment of grace. Bakker presses the reader to experience the discomfort of grace. That is, what shape it takes when offered to those frequently considered outside the pale of grace.

Bakker, the Outlaw Preacher, is oft accused of overstating how grace accepts us where we are without calling Jesus followers to a more fruitful life in the Spirit. Not so in this volume. Be challenged by this re-counting of what a “fall to grace” might mean for human beings often bent to wallow in un-grace.

PURCHASE: Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self & Society
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EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have read this book and have a review which you’d like to share, please feel free to post your review in the comments below.

Animating Christian themes is the purview of people given to the way of Jesus. We hope these necessary illustrations find form in our own lives. Occasionally we miss these episodes for lack of awareness. That is, the recognition God is at work in the details all around us, every day.

Tony Campolo does more than provide a collection of stories. He assembles something of a narrative walk through the integral themes of the Christian faith in the earthy stories he shares. It would be easy for some to view this as something of a compendium for writers and speakers, a resource for preachers. Instead of stories given to help leaders communicate better, Campolo offers vignettes intended to “feed” us on the imaginative, creative work of the Spirit.

Provocateurs need not be bombastic or obnoxious. Campolo is often characterized as an agitator of the faithful. In one of his short stories about prayer and his son, he gets to his point that we all “use” God in unhealthy ways, we simply do it in more grown up “speak.” There is little doubt Camoplo’s intention is centered on his interest to see the lost found and the captive liberated by the grace of God in Jesus.

Make Campolo’s stories your stories. Then, tell your own.

PURCHASE: Stories That Feed Your Soul: Inspiring Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People
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EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have read this book and have a review which you’d like to share, please feel free to post your review in the comments below.