Christian life and living well

Christian living

The Body Teaches the Soul

Justin Whitmel Earley
Zondervan, 272 pages

Evangelicalism has long been criticized for its lack of a robust theology of the body. For those looking for a more “embodied” faith, entering into Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy is often seen as the only way to satisfy a longing for an approach to Christianity that sees the body itself as a central vehicle for religious practice, but in his compelling and helpful new book, Earley explains from a Protestant perspective that our bodies have much to say about our walk with God. Earley contends we must see Christianity as a “habit project” that shapes our routines rather than merely a “head project” focused on having all of our theological ducks in a row. He focuses on breathing, mental health, food, rest, sickness, exercise, sex, technology, worship, and death as central to “practicing your way out” of the malaise of modern life. He desires for Christians to see each of these things as helping them fulfill their responsibilities as image bearers of God, loving Him and our neighbor. In each chapter, he suggests both a physical and spiritual discipline one can implement to give each area its due attention. Earley admirably integrates expert insights about what is good for the body with the timeless wisdom of Scripture. Rather than simply showing how the Bible confirms the insights of secular perspectives, he shows how the Word of God has always testified to our need to regulate bodily rhythms. Because God’s plan of salvation included the assumption of human flesh, it follows that Christian discipleship should focus on the interrelation of body and soul. Skeptics might identify Earley’s proposals as over-sacralizing the mundane because, with our emphasis upon the supremacy of Scripture, it can be jarring to consider anything that suggests our bodies have lessons of their own to teach us. But since Christ sought to redeem our humanity by taking a body of His own, we should imitate Him by prizing it as much as He did. —Flynn Evans

Classical studies

Christians Reading Classics

Nadya Williams
Zondervan Academic, 320 pages

This appealing and ambitious book argues that faithful Christians ought to read, study, and enjoy the great literature of classical and early-Christian antiquity. And yet a sea of troubles besets this claim even as it proves the urgency of Williams’ message. A first trouble: American society has become increasingly postliterate. Saturated in the spectacles of new media, fewer and fewer submit their minds to the quiet discipline of reading. A second trouble: Despite the Reformers’ encouraging a mastery of the classics as both humanizing and a model for good Latin composition, modern Protestants have all but abandoned this recommendation of their forebears. Williams counters these troubles in a series of short chapters, offering insightful and easy introductions to roughly 30 ancient authors. In each chapter, she shows how classic works can help us, here and now, to receive the gospel, just as the classical world prepared our ancestors to accept the revelation of Christ. She helps us draw nearer to those early Christians by deepening our understanding of the world that shaped them. And she shows how Homer and other great authors provide us with imaginative models for “character formation.” Williams brings a Christian’s understanding to these texts, appreciating their intrinsic qualities, while also highlighting the ways they anticipate the gospel and the ways the gospel itself fulfills and infinitely transcends them. —James Matthew Wilson

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Christian living

How To Remember

Andrew Osenga
Moody Publishers, 224 pages

Songwriter and musician Andrew Osenga invites readers to ponder the ways the American church has cut itself off from its historic roots and created a culture of consumerism that “unwittingly filtered out the parts that were too challenging, too boring, or too controversial to pass along as product.” Through a series of short essays, Osenga builds a case for a return to the forgotten songs, prayers, and practices that for centuries guided and equipped the church. He devotes about half of the book to an assessment of the important role of song, noting “that what we sing about God, and what we don’t, shapes us like a river carving a landscape.” The second half of the book persuasively advocates liturgy, confession, creeds, quiet, and even intergenerational ­connections. Osenga writes from the humble perspective of a fellow wanderer who, like the rest of Christ’s followers, is still working out his own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). The 38 chapters offer much to ponder, making it the kind of book best savored over a span of days rather than absorbed in one sitting. —Kristin Chapman

Economic history

1929

Andrew Ross Sorkin
Viking, 592 pages

This book retells the story of the Great Crash with color and urgency. Drawing on fresh sources, including unpublished Federal Reserve minutes and a Wall Street insider’s memoir, Sorkin recreates the drama through vivid portraits of financiers such as Charles Mitchell of National City Bank and Thomas Lamont of J.P. Morgan. The book excels at narrative: Scenes unfold like plays, from Mitchell’s desperate pledge to borrow $12 million to prop up his own stock, to Groucho Marx’s wry disbelief at prices soaring without dividends. Sorkin frames the crash as a story of hubris, credit, and the intoxicating optimism of the 1920s. He writes that “optimism becomes a drug, or a religion, or some combination of both” as debt draws “the wealth of tomorrow into the present.” These passages capture the frenzy but risk turning economics into mere parable. His portraits of Mellon, Coolidge, and Hoover are brisk, at times shallow, and his habit of comparing 1929 to modern crises introduces a whiff of revisionism. For conservative readers, the book’s strength is its attention to individuals and choices rather than broad ideological condemnation. Its weakness is the pull toward allegory. Engaging, vivid, but nowhere near the final word. —John Mac Ghlionn

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Literary criticism

The Way of Dante

Richard Hughes Gibson
IVP Academic, 248 pages

Dante Alighieri belongs to that rare class of authors whose profundity survives all attempts to rationalize or destroy it. His timelessness is made more potent by the depth and potency of his medieval religious philosophy. This view was very much the case for the Inklings, the famous group of 20th-century intellectual Christians who formed C.S. Lewis’ Oxford social group. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Inklings associate Dorothy L. Sayers all had their own respective journeys discovering Dante at different points in their lives and slowly recognizing the heights of his poetic skill. Sayers, in particular, would dedicate the final decade of her life to translating and lecturing on Dante. Lewis, Williams, and Sayers all wrote a great deal on Dante, but much of it is scattered or buried in dense analysis. This book synthesizes three streams of thought by showing the ways that these three friends and colleagues worked together in their analysis. The trio saw that the remarkable heights of Dante came from his ability to paint an image that pointed directly to God, reaching “altitudes no other poem could touch.” —Tyler Hummel

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

British history

The Rage of Party

George Owers
Constable, 576 pages

The so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England has long occupied a pride of place within traditional narratives of liberalism’s inevitable rise within the modern West. Its resultant Bill of Rights, Act of Toleration, and establishment of a satisfactorily constitutional monarchy under a greatly empowered Parliament are typically depicted as essential stepping stones toward the flowering of Anglo-American democracy in the late 18th century. What is often left out of such triumphalistic ­narratives is the rancorous partisan strife that took place. This book restores such factionalism to its rightful place for understanding post-1688 Britain. Owers manages to breathe a great deal of life into the somewhat forgotten years from the start of the reign of William and Mary to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. Whereas Whigs aimed to present themselves as the true, duly Protestant representatives of the revolution, Tories were inclined to maintain a traditional relationship between the crown and the government that managed to avoid the Catholic absolutism modeled by France’s Louis XIV. Whigs and Tories tussled with each other to win the affections of the given monarch to advance their own interests. Peppered throughout an otherwise political chronicling of events are vibrant personal portraits and scintillating anecdotes concerning its large cast of historical actors. —Flynn Evans

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Religious philosophy

The Christian Philosophy of Jacques Maritain

Jason L.A. West
The Catholic University of America Press, 344 pages

Jacques Maritain stands among the half-dozen 20th-century philosophers whose name will be recognizable beyond the university classroom. The story of his conversion from the brink of nihilism and suicide to a spirited and intellectually vital Catholicism, as well as the great revival of the faith he helped to stir among artists and thinkers alike, has been told many times. His name was the most widely known of the several generations of “neo-Thomist” philosophers who answered modern problems with ancient wisdom. Since his death in 1973, the most substantial books on Maritain have focused on his life rather than his thought. Jason L.A. West’s new study, therefore, answers a long-standing need. He gives us not the life, but the essence of his philosophy. This book will serve as the standard reference for Maritain’s work for many years to come. West’s book is comprehensive, careful, and compelling. —J.M.W.

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.