This summer we would like to share some good reads we discovered over the past few months. These selections represent a wide array of topics we think will interest you. Some selections will be great for personal reading, others for family time. Most of all, we think they will broaden your understanding of God’s creation and His work in it because they have had that result in our lives. Please leave us your favorite reads in the comment section.
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Kim Brenneman, Home Management: Plain and Simple ([n.p.]: Kim Brenneman, 2017), 352 pages.
Kim Brenneman, homeschooling mother of nine and Iowa farmwife, has compiled her wisdom into this handy, straightforward reference book geared toward helping any size home function more smoothly and with more love. Beginning with essential principles concerning the reality before us as homemakers, the attitude and work ethic required of us, and the necessity of balance in the family dynamic, Brenneman then methodically moves through a week of homemaking tasks the old-fashioned-way: Laundry Day, Town Day, The Lord’s Day, etc. I greatly appreciate that Brenneman not only gives tips for managing systems or cleaning appliances but also truly understands the balance needed for keeping a functioning home while homeschooling and caring for little ones. Although I do not personally adhere to some of her advice about babies, and despite the presence of a few typos, I have benefited greatly from many ideas in this book and recommend it for anyone managing home life.
—Recommended by Rebekah Zúñiga
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Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (East Peoria, IL: Banner of Truth Trust, 2022), 232 pages.
This classic was written by the seventeenth-century Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs. In it, he contrasted the excellence of contentment with the evil of murmuring, describing contentment as the disposition of the person who has placed himself in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment is simultaneously rich and practical, best read slowly over an extended period of time. “The righteous man can never be made so poor, to have his house so rifled and spoiled, but there will remain much treasure within” (23).
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Life and Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 251 pages.
Cicero is an author I did not expect to love, but I have been especially impressed with his sense that thought and action do not stand in contrast with one another. If fact, they are wed together. Thus, Cicero was committed to the practical application of philosophy. He based his ethic on the conviction that mastering virtue had the ability to refine a person and, by extension, the society in which he lived. His engagement with politics, religion, mythology, and philosophy all work toward the same goal: training up a virtuous society. On Life and Death greatly encouraged me to make good habits, respect my elders, and value righteous friendship.
—Recommended by Sarah Lytle
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Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (New York: Sentinel, 2022), 253 pages.
Live Not by Lies challenges its readers to live with integrity. In 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published an essay titled “Live Not by Lies,” where he asked men and women to stand up to falsehoods spread by the totalitarian state. Rod Dreher considers the universal application of Solzhenitsyn’s call from 1974. Though we do not live under a harsh totalitarian regime, we do live in culture dominated by falsehoods of all sorts. Dreher tells us that we have a choice to make: we can affirm the lies or the truth. Each chapter tells a story of heroes who stood up to totalitarian rule. While we all hope to affirm the truth like they did, this calling is difficult to practice. Solzhenitsyn agreed that standing up against lies is a daunting task. Live Not by Lies emphasizes just how important it is to keep our eyes open—to watch what we say and what we do. Dreher does not encourage paranoia or distrust; rather, he commends virtuous living in sunshine and in rain.
—Recommended by Sarah Lytle
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Allen Johnston Going, Bourbon Democracy in Alabama, 1874–1890 (1951; repr., Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1992), 256 pages.
Allen Johnston Going’s Bourbon Democracy in Alabama, 1874–1890 has been one of my favorite reads for the year so far. While it was originally written in 1951, Going’s classic work remains the definitive study of Alabama politics during the Redeemer years following Reconstruction. He succinctly and clearly lays out the geographical and social political divisions within the state, the various political debates of the day, and the significant political actors who battled one another over control of Montgomery. I found the conflict over whether to use the state government for social reform, economic development, industrialization, and crime management fascinating, and it helped me to understand better how Southern state governments negotiated the balance of power with the federal government and became more centralized under the influence of nationalist Republican politics after the Civil War.
I especially appreciate the perspective Goings brings to the racial dynamic in Alabama politics during these contentious years. While later historians, often with good reason, highlight the use of politics to serve the goal of racial oppression, Goings, who was writing before the turn to racialized historical analysis in the 1960s, saw the issue the other way around. He held that racial division in Alabama was greatly exacerbated by the nature of run-of-the-mill state politics that must carefully consider the most likely means of being elected and maintaining power in government. The fact that the vast majority of black Alabamians voted Republican during Reconstruction and lived in southern counties that had historically dominated the imbittered and impoverished northern counties in state politics, meant that after Reconstruction ended, the geographical and political divisions of the state made it very difficult for politicians to resist the temptation to stoke the racial fears that followed emancipation to further their political careers. While I think Going’s interpretation incompletely addresses the racialized nature of politics during the period, his work provides an excellent palliative to the modern obsession with critical race theory.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603–1689 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023), 492 pages.
Not all history books are fun to read, but this one is. Most of my research focuses on seventeenth-century England, so I am familiar with the major political and religious developments during the century. However, when reading Jonathan Healey’s The Blazing World, I seemed to be discovering seventeenth-century England all over again. This experience is due in large part to Healey’s ability to zoom in on specific locales and give nuanced details about a given town or region while also considering national religious and political issues. I learned a great deal about economic developments during the century, including valuable insights like the relative wealth of yeoman farmers (like Thomas Monck) in the mid-seventeenth century. Healey’s overall goal, however, is to show how the seventeenth century is a sort of bridge in English history between the ancient world and the modern world.
I suspect I would have different views on religion and economics than Healey. In several places, Healey discusses sexual matters (especially his discussion of James I) that might make some readers uncomfortable. Yet his larger point about how pivotal the seventeenth century was in English history, as well as how much changed over the course of the century, is well demonstrated. If you are interested in English history, I recommend the book.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 306 pages.
In Righteous Discontent, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham offers an enlightening exploration of the motives, methods, and goals of the women who worked to found the Woman’s Convention as the women’s auxiliary organization for the National Baptist Convention (NBC) at the turn of the twentieth century. At the time, the black Baptists who made up the NBC were predominately Southerners and numbered approximately 2.3 million, making it the largest Baptist denomination in America. Higginbotham’s account of how women like Virginia Broughton, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Sarah Willie Layten worked to build Sunday schools, fund missionary and educational endeavors, promote virtue among their members, and establish the institutional structure of the Woman’s Convention, highlights the essential role that the laity play in the growth and ministry of any church. I especially appreciate Higginbotham’s recognition that the common faith of the believers in the South provided pathways to ease racial tensions in local communities. Even though the immediate results of black and white cooperation were limited compared to our modern sensibilities, they were significant for the time.
While this historical study offers the most value to readers interested in black Baptist history, Higginbotham’s interaction with the writings and speeches of these women and their supporters and opponents provides intriguing insights into the broader women’s movement among impoverished Southerners, black and white, and its associations with Northern social reformers, feminism, and Progressive politics.
While I appreciated much of the research and historical narrative that Higginbotham has brought together, her theoretical analysis regarding the nature of racial and gendered identity is fundamentally flawed. She draws deeply from the philosophy of Michel Foucault to explain the nature of individual identity in relation to the broader culture. Higgenbotham, therefore, considers the attempts by black women to conform to Biblical Christianity a form of white cultural oppression and any deviation from the cultural hegemony as a virtuous act of subversion. For this reason, my recommendation of Righteous Discontent comes with a strident warning to read carefully and discerningly.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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David King, Your Old Testament Sermon Needs To Get Saved: A Handbook for Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2021), 160 pages.
The Old Testament is a rich treasury of divine truth to be mined by expositors, but it also presents numerous challenges when being preached. David King, a Southern Baptist pastor, has identified one of the most challenging difficulties for preachers, namely, the danger of preaching what he refers to as “synagogue sermons” from the Old Testament. In his concise but compelling book, King offers theological and practical insights into how to avoid preaching merely moral principles that could be just acceptable to a Jewish congregation as they are to a Christian one. In contrast, King suggests a methodical approach to preaching the Old Testament that focuses on Christ as the fulfillment of redemptive history. His basic premise, derived from Luke’s statement in Luke 24:27, is that the entire Old Testament needs to be viewed through the lens of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This book not only possesses a clever title but also serves as a useful resource for pastors and preachers who want to point their congregations to Christ from every part of the Old Testament.
—Recommended by Daniel D. Mann
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C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938; repr., New York: Scribner, 2003), 158 pages; Perelandra: A Novel (1943; repr., New York: Scribner, 2003), 190 pages; That Hideous Strength (1945; repr., New York: Scribner, 2003), 384 pages.
I have just finished reading C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogyfor the third time. I read it about twenty years ago when I was attempting to read all of Lewis’s works. My impression then was that I liked it but not that I loved it; I also thought at the time that the last one, That Hideous Strength (1945), was tonally and conceptually distinct from the first two, Out of the Silent Planet (1938) and Perelandra (1943). I began going through them again about eight years ago but made it only through the first two, partly because I got overwhelmed with coursework for my PhD. My thought then was that I enjoyed Out of the Silent Planet but got bogged down considerably in Perelandra; in fact, whenever the topic of the Space Trilogyarose in conversations after that point, I would sometimes observe that I did not care too much for Perelandra and could not see what other people saw in it.
Well, I find I must eat my words. While all three books bear tonal and conceptual distinctions, they most certainly bear tonal and conceptual similarities. My failure to see them before was not because they did not exist; it was simply my failure to understand what Lewis was doing throughout these books. Additionally, I must say, I immensely enjoyed all three books, , especially Perelandra. In retrospect, I got bogged down in that book because I was subconsciously imposing a contemporary, plot-driven structure onto a novel that does not follow that format, and I did not sufficiently appreciate other, more classical forms of storytelling.
This experience has taught me the importance of humility. Sometimes we do not appreciate an artifact in the moment, and we may even have “good,” rational reasons for holding that opinion at a particular time in our lives. But we should be cautious about being too sure of our views. Understandably, we think well of our thinking at nineteen or twenty-nine; we do the best we can for that moment in our lives. But sometimes we simply need more experience in reading, learning, and living. Why should the Matt Bracey of thirty-nine rely on the opinion of the Matt Bracey of twenty-nine or nineteen?
I intend to post an article later this season reflecting more fully on my experience with The Space Trilogy and its themes, but suffice to say, I loved it and commend it to you.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Rudolph Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 270 pages.
For some time, I have been interested in the life and work of Edward John Carnell. In the middle of the last century, Carnell was a promising scholar, president of Fuller Seminary, and a top-rate apologist. In fact, he wrote An Introduction to Christian Apologetics while he was in doctoral studies and won a writing award through Eerdmans. That said, many people have not heard of Carnell because of his untimely and unfortunate death from an overdose of sleeping medication. Because of the unique tension of Carnell’s life, I have found him to be a fascinating figure. Rudolph Nelson agrees. Moreover, Nelson’s book, though often more critical than I would be, observes the razor edge that Carnell often walked. Carnell was often too conservative for the secular elite but too ecumenical for the conservatives. Especially later in his life, he received much criticism. Nelson seeks to chart Carnell’s success and failures, as well as to give an evaluation of his work and life. While I do not agree with all of Nelson’s findings, I think this book serves as a helpful word of warning for those that might put too much hope in the halls of academia.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Leland Ryken, ed., The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems (Wheaton: Crossway, 2018), 262 pages.
I have been working my way through this collection one poem at a time on Sunday afternoons. Leland Ryken has collected classic devotional poems and arranged them chronologically, including after each poem some helps with difficult words and a page or so of his own commentary on the history, impact, and/or meaning of the poem. While many collections of poems can quickly become overwhelming, Ryken has limited his selection to just under one hundred poems, and the separate pages and headings for each poem encourage lingering on just one at a time. I have greatly enjoyed revisiting some well-loved poems in this volume and being introduced to many more; I highly recommend it as a gift for yourself or a loved one.
—Recommended by Rebekah Zúñiga
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James Sire, A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 111 pages.
Apologetic books are a dime a dozen. Much like books on ministry, each apologist has his or her own way of doing apologetics. Some argue for cultural apologetics (like Paul Gould) or Bridge-Building Apologetics (like Lindsey Medewalt) or reforming apologetics (like J. V. Fesko). What James Sire argues for is simply a humble apologetic. It takes true care and intellect to put together a book that is so accessible and helpful, while at the same time not watering down ideas. Sire’s little book covers the definition, values, and limits of apologetics, as well as practical advice on how to use specific arguments in actual conversations. Lastly, and maybe most helpful, Sire dedicates a chapter to discerning a call to apologetic ministry. I do not make this kind of statement often, but I think this book is a must-read for any aspiring young apologist. It presents all the important Biblical truths in a clear way.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Eric C. Smith, Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 337 pages.
Eric Smith’s Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America traces the rise and growth of the Baptist movement in America through the life and ministry of Oliver Hart. Hart is best known for his ministry at Charleston Baptist Church, which was one of the most significant Baptist churches in the South during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hart was a key figure in the Charleston Baptist Association but was also connected with the highly influential Philadelphia Association of Baptists (Calvinist Baptists). Born in Pennsylvania, he was licensed by the Philadelphia Association before moving to Charleston to pastor during his most fruitful years of ministry. Hart was driven out of Charleston by the British in 1780 and spent the remainder of his life ministering in New Jersey.
It is fascinating to learn about how Hart related so well to so many people and how the Lord used his ministry. The revivalist George Whitefield would occasionally visit Hart’s church in Charleston. Yet a consistent refrain throughout the book is Hart’s balanced approach to “ardor” and “order.” By this distinction, Smith means that Hart took church membership and discipline seriously. He did not let the evangelical revivals diminish his views on Baptist ecclesiology and the right ordering of the church. But Hart also did not reject the emphasis (the “ardor”) of the evangelical revivals on the necessity of repentance, faith, and the new birth. I find this trait in Hart particularly admirable.
While I have a few quibbles with Smith’s treatment of General/Free Will Baptists in the period, I highly recommend the book. Additionally, Smith has not only produced this excellent university press book (along with others) but also is a faithful pastor who finds a way to produce works like this one in his spare time. That is to be commended.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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Brian J. Tabb, All Things New: Revelation As Canonical Capstone (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 280 pages.
The book of Revelation is an intimidating book, and for most readers, it is “a riddle that fascinates and frustrates” (1). However, in his recent book, Brian Tabb helps readers view the book of Revelation in a new light. He argues that “Revelation brings the scriptural narrative concerning God, his people and his world to its grand conclusion” (24). This book unfolds in three parts. In the first section, Tabb writes a chapter on each person of the triune God, demonstrating how the sovereignty of the Father, the kingship of the Son, and the empowering ministry of the Spirit culminate in Revelation. In the second part of the book, the author focuses on how the suffering, witness, and worship of God’s people reaches its climax. Finally, in the third section, the themes of judgment, salvation, and restoration are brought to consummation. In the end, Tabb’s book is not only valuable for anyone who is teaching through Revelation but also for all who aspire to a better understanding of Biblical theology and the grand narrative of Scripture.
—Recommended by Daniel D. Mann
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