Australia’s Christian book publishing continues to defy gravity, with a strong lineup of Christian books shortlisted for this year’s Australian Christian Book of the Year. Here are the judges’ top ten. The Other Cheek has added the publishers’ descriptions to the list
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Behind the Tears by Bruce Robinson Green Hill Publishing Dr Bruce Robinson discusses the different types of suffering that people experience today, how to understand why God allows it and, importantly, how to survive it. He also provides advice for the family members, friends and for churches when someone in their midst is suffering – i.e. ‘how to help not hurt’. Finally he talks about how anyone can grow from suffering into a warmer, brighter future. SOME OF THE KEY ISSUES DISCUSSED ARE: How common suffering is WHY God allows it How to grow from suffering Practical tips for those who suffer Practical tips for those who care for sufferers Practical tips for friends and churches Grief Cancer, mental illness, chronic diseases and pain Conflict, anger, disappointment and bitterness How to grow from suffering and turn it into service of others.
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Biblical Critical Theory Christopher Watkin Zondervan Academic
Christopher Watkin shows how the Bible and its unfolding story help us make sense of modern life and culture.
Critical theories exist to critique what we think we know about reality and the social, political, and cultural structures in which we live. In doing so, they make visible the values and beliefs of a culture in order to scrutinize and change them.
Biblical Critical Theory exposes and evaluates the often-hidden assumptions and concepts that shape late-modern society, examining them through the lens of the biblical story running from Genesis to Revelation, and asking urgent questions like:
- How does the Bible’s storyline help us understand our society, our culture, and ourselves?
- How do specific doctrines help us engage thoughtfully in the philosophical, political, and social questions of our day?
- How can we analyze and critique culture and its alternative critical theories through Scripture?
Informed by the biblical-theological structure of Saint Augustine’s magisterial work The City of God (and with extensive diagrams and practical tools), Biblical Critical Theory shows how the patterns of the Bible’s storyline can provide incisive, fresh, and nuanced ways of intervening in today’s debates on everything from science, the arts, and politics to dignity, multiculturalism, and equality. You’ll learn the moves to make and the tools to use in analyzing and engaging with all sorts of cultural artifacts and events in a way that is both biblically faithful and culturally relevant.
It is not enough for Christians to explain the Bible to the culture or cultures in which we live. We must also explain the culture in which we live within the framework and categories of the Bible, revealing how the whole of the Bible sheds light on the whole of life.
If Christians want to speak with a fresh, engaging, and dynamic voice in the marketplace of ideas today, we need to mine the unique treasures of the distinctive biblical storyline.
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Bringing Forth Life God’s Purposes in Pregnancy and Birth Youthworks Media
Pregnancy and birth bring a whirlwind of change to a woman’s body, identity, life and relationships. This is a huge transition, filled with excitement, uncertainty and anxiety.
What exactly is going on in our bodies? How do we make decisions about pregnancy care and birth? What will life be like as parents? What if something goes wrong?
But beyond these physical and emotional challenges, there is something even deeper going on.
Bringing Forth Life offers a unique look at pregnancy, birth and life with a newborn, preparing readers physically, emotionally and spiritually for these experiences and the Christlike transformation they promise. Weaving biblical perspectives and real women’s experiences together with the down-to-earth insights of a midwife, this book guides women and those supporting them along their childbearing journey. Bringing Forth Life goes beyond standard birth books as it leans on the wisdom of the ultimate life-giver to reveal the wonder and purpose of pregnancy.
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Disrupting Mercy Matthew Clarke with Annabella Rossini-Clarke Turning Teardrops into Joy What might mercy look like if, rather than being a naive approach to letting people off the hook, it radically infused our approach to justice? What if mercy was not merely kindness, nor a display of power by a superior to a needy inferior, but something disruptive and transformative at the centre of the Gospel?
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How to Find Yourself Brian Rosner Crossway
A Christian Answer to the Identity Angst of Our Culture
In the 21st-century West, identity is everything. Never has it been more important, culturally speaking, to know who you are and be true to yourself. Expressive individualism—the belief that looking inward is the way to find yourself—has become the primary approach to identity formation, and questioning anyone’s “self-made self” is often considered a threat or attack.
Prompted by his own crisis of identity, Brian Rosner argues that personal identity is formed not only by looking inward, but also by looking around to your relationships, backward and forward to your life stories, and upward to God. In How to Find Yourself, Rosner equips readers to engage sympathetically with some of the most pressing questions of our day. Challenging the status quo, he offers an approach to identity formation that leads to more secure and joyful self-knowledge: being known intimately and personally by God and following the script of Jesus’s life story.
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Imagination in an Age of Crisis Jason Goroncy & Rod Pattenden Pickwick Publications This book explores the vital role of the imagination in today’s complex climates–cultural, environmental, political, racial, religious, spiritual, intellectual, etc. It asks: What contribution do the arts make in a world facing the impacts of globalism, climate change, pandemics, and losses of culture? What wisdom and insight, and orientation for birthing hope and action in the world, do the arts offer to religious faith and to theological reflection? These essays, poems, and short reflections–written by art practitioners and academics from a diversity of cultures and religious traditions–demonstrate the complex cross-cultural nature of this conversation, examining critical questions in dialogue with various art forms and practices, and offering a way of understanding how the human imagination is formed, sustained, employed, and expanded. Marked by beauty and wonder, as well as incisive critique, it is a unique collection that brings unexpected voices into a global conversation about imagining human futures.
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Practicing Peace Michael Wood Wipf and Stock This book is about the practice of peace in daily life. Although most of us want peace, we often struggle to live it. Someone annoys us and we find ourselves in a vortex of conflict. When we care deeply about something it can be easy to burn relationships if we encounter people whose values differ from ours. We may ask ourselves, “How can we make a positive difference in the world without diminishing others or ourselves?” Michael Wood explores the practice of peace through the lenses of theology, contemplation, and action. Containing numerous real-life anecdotes, thought-provoking questions, and practical tools, this is a useful resource for anyone who wants to foster peace in their family, workplace, or community.
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Raising Tech-Healthy Humans Daniel Sih Spacemakers
It’s tough being a parent today, and much of this has to do with technology. “Raising Tech-Healthy Humans” is a positive, researched handbook to help busy parents set up their children and pre-teens with healthy tech and non-tech habits for life. This engaging 2-hour read will inspire, encourage, and guide you in the wonderfully complex task of raising tech-healthy humans.
“So simple, yet so satisfyingly deep”
Steve Biddulph, Best Selling Author of Raising Boys, Raising Girls and Manhood
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Religious Freedom in a Secular Age Michael Bird Zondervan Reflective
Discover how to responsibly defend religious freedom for all without compromising your personal beliefs.
Religious freedom is a bitterly contested issue that spills over into political, public, and online spheres. It’s an issue that’s becoming ever more heated, and neither of the global political polarities is interested in protecting it. While the political left is openly hostile toward traditional religion, the political right seeks to weaponize it.
How can we ensure that “religious freedom” is truly about freedom of one’s religion rather than serving an ethno-nationalist agenda
In Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, Michael Bird (New Testament scholar and author of Evangelical Theology) has four main goals:
- To explain the true nature of secularism and help us to see it as one of the best ways of promoting liberty and mutual respect in a multifaith world.
- To dismantle the arguments for limiting religious freedom.
- To outline a biblical strategy for maintaining a Christian witness in a post-Christian society.
- To encourage Christians to participate in a new age of apologetics by being prepared to defend not only their own believes but also the freedom of all faiths.
While Bird does address the recent political administrations in the US, his focus is global. Bird—who lives in Melbourne, Australia—freely admits to his anxiety of the militant secularism surrounding him, but he also strongly critiques the marriage of national and religious identities that has gained ground in countries like Hungary and Poland.
The fact is that religion has a lot to contribute to the common good. Religious Freedom in a Secular Age will challenge readers of all backgrounds and beliefs not only to make room for peaceable difference, but also to find common ground on the values of justice, mercy, and equality.
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The Future is Bivocational Andrew Hamilton Ark House Press
When I was in my 20’s and relatively new to paid ministry, I remember reading about another pastor in the deep south of our state who was employed as the school bus driver, alongside leading his local church. I vividly recall a moment where I thought, ‘Wow; how sad that you finished up at a church that couldn’t afford a ‘real pastor’.
I somehow assumed that the only reason a pastor would choose to work outside of the church was to pay the bills – to survive. Today, I am ‘that guy’, running a small irrigation business while leading a Baptist church, but surprisingly loving life and finding the combination to be both missionally engaging as well as conducive to developing church leadership that is in touch with the challenges of everyday people.
This book advocates for bi-vocational mission and ministry to be taken more seriously in the Australian context, particularly as we enter an increasingly secular landscape. It is a mix of story telling, theological reflection, insights from other bi-vocational practitioners, as well as simple, practical advice for pastors, churches and Bible colleges who wish to explore this as a mode of mission and ministry.