New Books In Christian Studies

God's mission is to reclaim the world. The church has a designated role to play. Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. Christopher Wright boldly maintains that the entire Bible is generated by and is all about God's mission. In order to understand the Scriptures, we need a missional hermeneutic, an interpretive perspective in sync with the beating heart of its great mission. Wright gives a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture through an understanding of: Who God is What he has called his people to be and do How the nations fit into God's mission In this revised edition of The Mission of God, Wright extends his classic discussion to consider the ways that the conversation on missional hermeneutics has developed since its original publication. With fully updated citations and additional chapters focused on gospel-centered holistic mission and on the issue of election and supersessionism, this new edition addresses the questions, criticisms, and insights that

The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration. Helen J. Nicholson's book Women and the Crusades (Oxford UP, 2023) surveys women's involvement in medieval crusading between the second half of the eleventh century, when Pope Gregory VII first proposed a penitential military expedition to help the Christians of the East, and 1570, when the last crusader state, Cyprus, was captured by the Ottoman Turks. It considers women's actions not only on crusade battlefields but also in recruiting crusaders, supporting crusades through patronage, propaganda, and prayer, and as both defenders and aggressors. It argues that medieval women were deeply involved in the crusades but the roles that they could play and how their contemporaries recorded their deeds were dictated by social convention and cultural expectations. Although its main focus is the women of Latin Christendom, it also looks at the impact of the crusades and crusaders on the Jews of west

In this (open-access) book, Susanna Elm radically changes our understanding of imperial rule in the later Roman Empire. As she shows, the so-called eastern decadence of the Emperor Theodosius and his successors was in fact a calculated revolution in masculinity and the representation of imperial power. Here, the emperor's hard yet soft, mature yet youthfully gorgeous beauty was central. Because the Theodosian emperors were divine—gods one could see—so was their beauty: their manliness was the face and body of God. The emperors' gorgeousness, their sparkling regalia, how they wished their bodies to be seen by their elite subjects—who authored the texts on which Elm's analysis is based—were as important as laws, taxes, and armies. Their vir-ness strategically deployed male same-sex erotic desire to enhance the unity of the realm in times of tension, incorporate the signifying potency of child emperors, and create a flexible yet stable model of Christian sovereignty. New books in late antiquity is presented by 

Conventional wisdom holds that tradition and history meant little to nineteenth-century American Protestants, who relied on common sense and "the Bible alone." The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past (Oxford UP, 2023) challenges this portrayal by recovering evangelical engagement with the Christian past. Even when they appeared to be most scornful toward tradition, most optimistic and forward-looking, and most confident in their grasp of the Bible, evangelicals found themselves returning, time and again, to Christian history. They studied religious historiography, reinterpreted the history of the church, and argued over its implications for the present. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, American Protestants were deeply interested in the meaning of the Christian past. Paul J. Gutacker draws from hundreds of print sources-sermons, books, speeches, legal arguments, political petitions, and more-to show how ordinary educated Americans remembered and used Christian histor

Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960 (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025) by Bo Tao uncovers the extraordinary world of a Japanese man who was once described as the “Saint Francis” or the “Gandhi” of Japan. A renowned religious figure on the world stage, Kagawa Toyohiko (1888–1960) received wide acclaim for his work as a street preacher in the slums of Kobe as well as his espousal of nonviolent methods of social reform. His reputation as a pacifist figure, however, rested uneasily with his wartime actions, which became increasingly supportive of the Japanese government and its expansionist policies. Reluctant to speak up against Japan’s increasing aggression in the late 1930s, he emerged as a full-blown apologist during the Pacific War, appearing on several Radio Tokyo broadcasts as a propagandist defending the interests of the state. Adopting a transnational approach that accounts for the rapid flow of information between Japan and the United States, Bo Tao examines the career of

Father Ron Rolheiser’s new book Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, which is about how to grow old well and be fruitful, first giving your life away and then your death so as to be a blessing. That’s a recipe for joy. We also talked about mysticism, St. John of the Cross, and some miraculous experiences in real people’s lives that reveal God abiding and deep love, mercy, and patience with us all; that is truly the Good News of the Lord. I really, really enjoyed this book, and this conversation. Father Ron grew up in on a farm on Cactus Lake, Saskatchawan, on the Canadian prairie. He joined the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1966 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1972; he has many degrees in theology and philosophy including a doctorate from the University of Louvain in 1983. He started writing a column, In Exile, over forty years ago, and has also written (by my count) sixteen books. He has been Provincial Superior of his order, worked in its administration in Rome for si

Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life (Reaktion, 2023) recreates medieval people’s experience of time: as continuous and discontinuous, linear and cyclical, embracing Creation and Judgement, shrinking to ‘atoms’ or ‘droplets’ and extending to the silent spaces of eternity. They might measure time by natural phenomena such as sunrise and sunset, the motion of the stars or the progress of the seasons, even as the late medieval invention of the mechanical clock was making time-reckoning more precise. Negotiating these mixed and competing systems, medieval people gained a nuanced and expansive sense of time that rewards attention today. Gillian Adler is Associate Professor of Literature and Esther Raushenbush Chair in Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She is the author of Chaucer and the Ethics of Time (2022) Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History;

Witchfinder General, Salem, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch-hunts and witch trials sounds archaic and fanciful, these terms relics of an unenlightened, brutal age. However, we often hear ‘witch-hunt’ in today’s media, and the misogyny that shaped witch trials is all too familiar. Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 2018. In Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials (Simon & Schuster, 2023), Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the global history of witchcraft and witch-hunts. As well as exploring the origins of witch-hunts through some of the most famous trials from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, it takes us in new and surprising directions. It shows us how witchcraft was reimagined by lawyers and radical historians in France, how suspicions of sorcery led to murder in Jazz Age Pennsylvania, the effects of colonialism and Christian missionary zeal on ‘witches’ in Africa, and how even today a witch trial can come i

In this recent monograph Sarcasm in Paul's Letters (Cambridge University Press 2023, Matthew Pawlak offers the first treatment of sarcasm in New Testament studies. He provides an extensive analysis of sarcastic passages across the undisputed letters of Paul, showing where Paul is sarcastic, and how his sarcasm affects our understanding of his rhetoric and relationships with the Early Christian congregations in Galatia, Rome, and Corinth. Pawlak's identification of sarcasm is supported by a dataset of 400 examples drawn from a broad range of ancient texts, including major case studies on Septuagint Job, the prophets, and Lucian of Samosata. These data enable the determination of the typical linguistic signals of sarcasm in ancient Greek, as well as its rhetorical functions. Pawlak also addresses several ongoing discussions in Pauline scholarship. His volume advances our understanding of the abrupt opening of Galatians, diatribe and Paul's hypothetical interlocutor in Romans, the 'Corinthian slogans' of First C

The Judeo-Christian Thought of Franz Rosenzweig (Liverpool UP, 2025) offers a new interpretation of Franz Rosenzweig's magnum opus The Star of Redemption, commonly treated as one of the high points of modern Jewish thought, and demonstrates its profound immersion in the Protestant conceptuality of its time. It argues that appreciating the decisive mark of Protestant thought on The Star solves many of its puzzles, challenges some entrenched hagiographic orthodoxies about Rosenzweig, and provides a unique perspective onto one of the most influential cases of the 'Protestantisation of Judaism'. The book shows that Rosenzweig's inventiveness resides in his weaving of Jewish and Christian motifs that result in an original scheme that is remarkably inclusive toward Judaism from a Christian perspective and remarkably inclusive toward Christianity from a Jewish perspective. The Star thus emerges anew, not simply as a work of Jewish thought that is 'influenced' by Christian theology but as a work that is more accura

Today’s battles over Christianity in U.S. public schools have deep roots. In the nineteenth century, disputes were largely between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics, but in 1905 Jews entered the conflict in a dramatic way. That Christmas, Frank Harding, a Presbyterian principal in Brooklyn, urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus. For Orthodox activist Albert Lucas, already fighting Christian settlement houses that sought to convert Jewish children, Harding’s remarks were the last straw. He accused the public schools of illegal proselytizing, and Jewish leaders quickly mobilized, petitioning for Harding’s removal and demanding clear limits on religious practices in public education—limits they argued were violated by Bible readings, the Lord’s Prayer, religious imagery, and Christmas pageants. When the New York Board of Education refused to act decisively, Jewish parents staged a citywide boycott of the 1906 school Christmas pageants, keeping as many as three-quarters of students home in some

In Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam UP, 2024) by Dr. Andrea Maraschi & Dr. Francesca Tasca, readers will find stories about medieval heresies and “magic” from an unusual perspective: that of food studies. The time span ranges from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages, while the geographical scope includes regions as different as North Africa, Spain, Ireland, continental Europe, the Holy land, and Central Asia. Food, heresies, and magical boundaries in the Middle Ages explores the power of food in creating and breaking down boundaries between different groups, or in establishing a contact with other worlds, be they the occult sides of nature, or the supernatural. The book emphasizes the role of food in crafting and carrying identity, and in transferring virtues and powers of natural elements into the eater’s body. Which foods and drinks made someone a heretic? Could they be purified? Which food offerings forged a connection with the otherworld? Which recipes allowed gaini

Religion and urban life are the most successful strategies of handling, enhancing, and capitalizing on human sociability. By integrating religious studies, archaeology, and spatial theory, Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli aims to re-describe the formation of Christ religion as urban religion in Citifying Jesus: The Making of a Roman Religion in the Roman Empire (Mohr Siebeck, 2024). Spanning almost four centuries of Christian literature from Paul to Augustine, the author shows that several characteristics commonly attributed to Christ religion are, in fact, outcomes of the distinct ways in which religious agents enact urbanity and interact with the urban space. The study brings the urbanity of religious agents into focus, shedding light on significant elements of religious transformation, innovation, institutionalization, empowerment, and resistance to power. Simultaneously, it explores the key urban features that shaped the emergence and development of Christ religion. Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli is Associate Profess

Johannes Zachhuber and Anna Marmodoro, eds., Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays (Oxford UP, 2025) This book presents Gregory of Nyssa's On the Six Days of Creation (In Hexaemeron) as a specimen of Early Christian philosophy. It comprises Gregory of Nyssa's text in its Greek original accompanied by a new English translation, and seven accompanying essays by international specialists from diverse backgrounds. Each essay focuses on a section of the text and the arising philosophical issues. The essays complement each other in offering multiple perspectives on how Gregory's text may be approached philosophically and positioned in relation to other, more or less contiguous, philosophical theories, including the early Greeks Anaxagoras and Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Rather than presenting a definite and exhaustive state of the art study of Gregory's text, this volume aims to open new pathways for research into In Hexaemeron. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by A

From the end of the American Civil War to the start of World War II, the Protestant missionary movement unintentionally tilled the soil in which American Islamophobia would eventually take root. What ideas did missionaries in Islamic contexts pass on to later generations? How were these ideas connected to centuries-old Protestant discourses about Muslims and gender beginning in the Reformation? And what bearing does this history have on the birth of Islamophobia and on Christian-Muslim dialogue efforts in the US today? In answering these questions, Re-inventing Islam traces the gender constructs that have informed historical Protestant perceptions of Islam, especially in the far-reaching textual, visual, and material influences of the American and British movement for missions to Muslims. This book first considers Protestant discourse about Muslim women and men from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Then it turns to the colossal archive of literature, images, and cultural objects that missionaries--and pa

Before the Scientific Revolution, Western medicine was thought in terms of humors: cheerful people were sanguine and had a lot of blood, fiery cholerics had an excess of yellow bile, gloomy Melancholics had black bile, and mellow phlegmatics had phlegm of course. And the balancing of humors—hot and cold, wet and dry—was the key to a healthy life. It sounds medieval, it is, rooted in ancient Greeks, but we Catholics like medieval things, and some of us—especially Juan Domínguez, author: Knight, Monk, King, Prophet: A Christian Man’s Guide to the Four Temperaments—has found wisdom in this way of thinking. And it’s a way of thinking that we hear in some more conservative, or traditional, Catholic circles, so it’s something I’ve been wondering about for some time. I’ve also been interesting in archetypes for since I first read Joseph Campbell and The Hero of a Thousand Faces many years ago. We also talk a bit about how one’s role changes over time and also whether these models are applicable to women as well as m

Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’ Daniel K. Falk is Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Thomas Becket and His World (Reaktion Books, 2025) explores the turbulent life and violent death of Thomas Becket, one of the most controversial figures of the Middle Ages. From a London merchant’s son to royal chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 elevated him to England’s most celebrated saint. Michael Staunton looks at Becket’s complex and contested legacy, drawing from Becket's own words and those of his contemporaries. Based on extensive contemporary medieval sources, this account offers a fresh perspective on Thomas Becket’s life and places him within the broader landscape of twelfth-century England and Europe – a time of rapid change, conflict and achievement. Thomas Becket and His World is perfect for anyone wanting to learn more about this pivotal figure in medieval history. Michael Staunton is Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. He is an internationally recognized expert on Thomas Becket. His books include The

Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (U California Press, 2025) is an open access tour-de-force study of the power of women's liturgical singing in late antique Syriac Christianity. Extending women's religious participation beyond the familiar roles of female saints and nobles, Syriac churches cultivated a flourishing but often-overlooked tradition of women's sacred song. Susan Ashbrook Harvey brings this music to life as she uncovers the ways these now-nameless women performed a boldly sung teaching ministry and invited congregations to respond aloud. By exploring their ritual agency, Harvey demonstrates how these choirs helped to shape the formative ethical and moral ideals of their congregations and communities. Women's voices, both real and imagined, enriched the ritual and devotional lives of Syriac Christians daily and weekly, on ecclesial and civic special occasions, in sorrow or joy, with authoritative theological significance and social and political resonance. Arguing fo

The twentieth century is understood as an era of growing, inexorable secularism, yet in Britain between the 1890s and the 1960s there was a marked turn to Rome. In the first half of the century, Catholicism became an intellectual and spiritual fashion attracting more than half a million converts, including fascinating artists, writers, and thinkers. What drew these men and women to join the church, and what difference did conversion make to them? In Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century (Yale UP, 2025), Melanie McDonagh examines the lives of these notable converts from the perspective of their faith. For the Decadent circle of Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde—who converted on his deathbed—artists such as Gwen John and David Jones, the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, and novelists including G. K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark, Catholicism offered stability in increasingly febrile times. McDonagh explores their lives and influenc