Buswell Bulletin: Book Highlights – March 2023
Each issue we highlight recently acquired books that are of particular interest or importance. (Inclusion on this list is not an endorsement.)
Handling Allegations in a Ministry: Responses and Investigations
Theresa Lynn Sidebotham
Illumify Media, 2022
Publisher Description:
Allegations of harm must be taken seriously. The health and reputation of the organization, the potential victim, and the accused are at stake. How do you go about investigating in a proper and godly way?
This handbook helps pastors, ministry leaders, board members, and HR professionals navigate the process of response and investigation, which may require outside expertise. With clear and practical guidance, this book will show you how to:
- Respond to complaints and make appropriate reports
- Listen to and protect those who may have been harmed
- Create a fair process and communicate it appropriately
- Take responsibility and restore those who have been harmed
Crises in the Psychotherapy Session: Transforming Critical Moments into Turning Points
Julian D. Ford
American Psychological Association, 2021
Review by D. L. Loers in Choice 60, no. 7 (March 2023):
Ford (Univ. of Connecticut) is truly a pioneer in the treatment of trauma. In this book he details how the crises inherent in trauma counseling can become turning points for genuine healing and change if the therapist becomes skilled in managing the emotional disregulation of the client and of him/herself. Ford presents the history of trauma care and the research that supports his approach, the FREEDOM framework, described in stages. Ford focuses in turn on the therapist; mindful awareness; core personal values; personal control; recognition of therapist triggers; emotional awareness; evaluation of core beliefs; defining core thoughts and beliefs; options for action (reactive and proactive); and making a contribution based on the therapist's core values and self-regulation. This framework is the core of trauma treatment and provides a safe space for the client if the therapist learns to skillfully manage the moments of crises and to use them as teaching opportunities. This volume is particularly valuable, as part 2 includes six transcripts of therapy sessions based on recorded sessions, as reenacted by graduate students. Each session is thoughtfully analyzed by Ford, and all are available to view as webinars at no cost through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Learning Center, which Ford has directed and developed over many years.
Recovering Christian Character: The Psychological Wisdom of Soren Kierkegaard
Robert C. Roberts
Eerdmans, 2022
From a review by Martyn Percy in Theology 125, no. 4 (July 2022):
Robert C. Roberts, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Ethics at Baylor University, first presented his vivid account of emotions as ‘concern-based construals’ in his book Emotions: an essay in aid of moral psychology (Cambridge University Press, 2003). In Emotions in the Moral Life (2013) he extended that account, exploring the ways in which emotions form the basis for moral judgements, how they account for the deeper moral identity of actions we perform, how they are constitutive of morally toned personal relationships such as friendship, enmity, collegiality and parenthood, and how pleasant and unpleasant emotions interact with our personal well-being. He then set out how, by means of their moral dimensions, emotions participate in our virtues and vices, and, for better or worse, express our moral character.
This dazzling book explores and unpacks the psychological wisdom of Søren Kierkegaard and ruminates extensively on the formation of character and the embedded virtues necessary for a Christian life. Drawing on rich reservoirs of reflection and analysis, Roberts sets out a convincing and exquisite invitation to re-form Christian character in the light of how we understand our affections, feelings, motivations and emotions. Chapters cover humility, faith, hope, love, patience, gratitude, joy, passion and virtues.
Excavations in the City of David, Jerusalem (1995-2010): Areas A, J, F, H, D and L: Final Report
Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron
Eisenbrauns, 2021
Endorsement from Yuval Baruch, Jerusalem Regional Archaeologist:
The excavations conducted by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron in the City of David augured a new era of large-scale archaeological research. They began their work in 1995 as a modest tourism development project in connection with Jerusalem’s 3000th anniversary celebrations. Today, more than 25 years later, the project is still underway. It was only natural for the academic committee of The Ancient Jerusalem Publication Series to begin publication with the astounding results of their excavations and research studies.
The Bible in Early Transatlantic Pietism and Evangelicalism
Edited by Ryan P. Hoselton, Jan Stievermann, Douglas A. Sweeney, and Michael A. G. Haykin
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022
Endorsement from Mark Noll:
The Bible in Early Transatlantic Pietism and Evangelicalism is a pioneering work for its thorough exploitation of primary sources revealing how major Pietist and evangelical figures (and others less well known) approached the Bible—sustaining some traditions from earlier Protestantism, responding in part to the intellectual conventions of the Enlightenment, but also promoting innovations of enduring significance in using Scripture.
Publisher description:
This collection of essays showcases the variety and complexity of early awakened Protestant biblical interpretation and practice while highlighting the many parallels, networks, and exchanges that connected the Pietist and evangelical traditions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation
Collin Hansen
Zondervan, 2023
Publisher description:
Timothy Keller takes readers behind the scenes to meet the people and understand the events that formed Keller's spiritual life and ministry priorities. Millions have read books and listened to sermons by Timothy Keller. But which people and what events shaped his own thinking and spiritual growth? With unfettered access to Keller's personal notes and sermons--as well as exclusive interviews with family members and longtime friends--Collin Hansen gives you unprecedented understanding of one of the 21st century's most influential church leaders. Spend any time around Timothy Keller and you'll learn what he's reading, what he's learning, what he's seeing. The story of Timothy Keller is the story of his spiritual and intellectual influences, from the woman who taught him how to read the Bible to the professor who taught him to preach Jesus from every text to the philosopher who taught him to see beneath society's surface. For the first time, Hansen introduces readers to Keller's early years: the home where he learned to tell stories from the trees, the church where he learned to care for souls, and the city that lifted him to the international fame he never wanted. You'll discover how to: understand the principles and practices that allowed Keller to synthesize so many different influences in a coherent ministry, take the best of Keller's preaching and teaching to meet emerging challenges in the 21st century, develop your own historical, theological, and cultural perspectives to shape your leadership. This is the untold story of the people, the books, the lectures, and ultimately the God who formed and shaped the life of Timothy Keller.
The Story of Abortion in America: A Street-Level History, 1652-2022
Marvin Olasky and Leah Savas
Crossway, 2023
From the Foreword by Robert P. George, Princeton University:
Olasky and Savas provide what they describe, aptly in my view, as a “street-level history” of abortion, in contrast with the formal, academic, and often rather abstract historical (or other) treatments of the subject with which hall of us today are more familiar...The Story of Abortion in America is a book for everyone, and not just a book for people who share the author’s moral convictions on abortion and the sanctity of life. It can and no doubt will be read with profit by people whose moral convictions are quite distant on these matters from those of the authors. And it can and will certainly be read with profit by the many people, in America and beyond, who experience ambivalence on the question of abortion and/or who do not fit neatly into one category or the other when asked, “Are you pro-life or pro-choice?”
The Biblical Mothers Deliver: The Chosen, the Saved, and the Disavowed
Nancy Klancer
Cascade Books, 2022
Publisher description:
What kind of mother must a woman be to give birth to "chosen" or "saved" peoples? The many stories of biblical mothers found in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are deeply concerned with this question and answer it in surprising and diverse ways. From Sarah, Abraham's wife, to Mary, the mother of Jesus, each mother embodies the type of woman her culture thought she had to be to produce a holy people set apart by God. The larger question of Klancher's book asks, to what end? What does it mean when different types of mothers are used to establish the value of some people over others? Her book explores this question and asks how the mothers' stories and their interpretation over the centuries have authorized diverse logics of sexual and racial difference that we live with today.
A Grammar of New Testament Greek
Rodney A. Whitacre
Eerdmans, 2021
From a review by Erich Merkel in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (October 2022):
Despite foibles, this book succeeds in being what it set out to be: an overview of NT grammar aimed at beginning-intermediate students, intended especially for those for whom the NT is a special text (though useful to others as well), and meant to be read through as well as occasionally consulted. It is no mean feat to write a grammar that can remain readable from cover to cover for over 400 pages, and still hold the reader's interest; and much can be forgiven the author who can combine clarity and erudition with such a performance.
Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement
Wang Li and others
IVP Academic, 2022
From a review by Zachariah Motts in Library Journal 147, no. 11 (November 2022), 114:
This is a tantalizing slice of the conversation in China surrounding freedom of conscience, nationalism, and the state’s role in religion... Readers know from the outset that Wang was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to nine years in prison and his church’s property was confiscated or destroyed, giving an eerie, urgent quality to these documents. However, perhaps surprisingly, this is emphatically not the story of a church in hiding. Wang held public services in an open church building, and his writings are vocal about the importance of doing this, even in the face of government pressure.
VERDICT: It is hard to avoid the historical echoes of Anabaptists and English Dissenters as a struggle for religious freedom plays out once again in a different key.
Humble Confidence: A Model for Interfaith Apologetics
Benno van den Toren and Kang-San Tan
IVP Academic, 2022
Publisher description:
Today's cosmopolitan, multicultural, and multifaith environments call for new approaches to apologetics. The world still needs the good news of Jesus Christ, but to relate the transcultural gospel to diverse and ever-changing contexts, we must free Christian apologetics from dominant Western habits of mind ill-suited to interreligious dialogue. We must listen and speak with both humility and confidence.
Benno van den Toren and Kang-San Tan provide a global, intercultural introduction to Christian apologetics. They present a model of apologetics as crosscultural dialogue and accountable witness, then explore how it plays out in relation to specific contexts and the major world religions—including primal religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, secularism, and late-modern spiritualities. Building on recent developments in apologetics and missiology, as well as their experience teaching internationally in Europe, Asia, and Africa, Van den Toren and Tan offer an approach that is conversational, patient, holistic, and embodied.
Filled with examples from Scripture and real-world experiences, Humble Confidence gives readers a travel guide to help find the most effective avenues for true dialogue in their own settings.