New & Noteworthy 2025

Seven books we’re looking forward to in the new year.

Illustration by E S Kibele Yarman

The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World

David Zahl (Brazos Press)

The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism

Brad Edwards (Zondervan)

Bearing Witness: What the Church Can Learn from Early Abolitionists

Daniel Lee Hill (Baker Academic)

Made to Tremble: How Anxiety Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to My Faith

Blair Linne (B&H)

Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World

Lee Strobel (Zondervan)

Beyond Church and Parachurch: From Competition to Missional Extension

Angie Ward (InterVarsity Press)

Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age

Edited by Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa (Crossway)

- More from Matt Reynolds

Also in this issue

This first issue of 2025 exemplifies how reading creates community, grows empathy, gives words to the unnamable, and reminds us that our identities and relationships proceed from the Word of God and the Word made flesh. In this issue, you’ll read about the importance of a book club from Russell Moore and a meditation on the bookends of a life by Jen Wilkin. Mark Meynell writes about the present-day impact of a C. S. Lewis sermon in Ukraine, and Emily Belz reports on how churches care for endangered languages in New York City. Poet Malcolm Guite regales us with literary depth. And we hope you’ll pick up a copy of one of our CT Book Award winners or finalists. Happy reading!

Cover of the January / February 2025 Issue

Christianity Today January/February 2025

News

How NYC Churches Guard Endangered Languages

Emily Belz in New York

Skeptical Conversations About Converted Skeptics

Living Like a Monk in the Age of Fast Living

Evan B. Howard

Reading—and Eating—as Communion

Krista Tippett on Wishful Thinking Versus Hope

Mike Cosper and Krista Tippett

On Rabbits, Redemption, and the Written Word

Timothy Dalrymple

War Changes Everything—and Nothing

Mark Meynell

At My Mother’s Deathbed, I Discovered the Symmetry of a Long Life

The Bestseller that Made Church Cool—and Optional

Review

The Best Books for Christian Men Aren’t Always About Being Men

News

The Good Book for Baby Names

Daniel Silliman

AI and All Its Splendors

Qualms & Proverbs

How Do I Find My Identity in Christ When I So Want to Be Married?

Beth Moore, Kevin Antlitz, and Kiara John-Charles

Review

Good Readers Need More Than Good Reads

Matthew Mullins

Review

No One Told These Ink-Stained Dreamers to Make Books. They Just Did.

Andrew T. Le Peau

News

The Balm of Gilead Grows Again, Maybe

Daniel Silliman

Something Holy Shines

Malcolm Guite

Public Theology Project

How a Book Club Taught Me to Live and Die

The False Gospel of Our Inner Critic

Testimony

I Turned to New Age Psychedelics for Salvation. They Couldn’t Deliver.

Ashley Lande

Christianity Today’s 2025 Book Awards

CT Editors

Christianity Today's Book of the Year

CT Editors

Our Latest

A picture of a dove flying in light.

Come, Thou Long-Expected Spirit

W. David O. Taylor

The Holy Spirit is present throughout the Nativity story. So why is the third person of the Trinity often missing from our Christmas carols?

Photos of Mike Cosper and Representative Adam Kinzinger.

The Bulletin

Brown University Shooting and The Last Republican

Mike Cosper, Clarissa Moll

Violence at Brown, and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger talks about Jan 6, courage, and global affairs.

A burned church building in Mangu, Nigeria on February 2, 2024, following weeks of violence and unrest in the Plateau State.

News

Amid Fear of Attacks, Many Nigerians Mute Christmas

Emmanuel Nwachukwu

One pastor has canceled celebrations and will only reveal the location of the Christmas service last-minute.

An image of MLK

A Time of Moral Indignation

Daniel Silliman

CT reports on civil rights, the “death of God” theology, and an escalating conflict in Vietnam.

Three book covers.

A Heartwarming Book on Sin

Three books on theology to read this month.

Analysis

Bondi Beach Shooting Compels Christians to Stand with Jews

The Bulletin with Josh Stanton and Robert Stearns

Jewish-Christian friendships offer solace and solidarity after antisemitic violence.

Two men sit at a table in what remains of their devastated Beirut apartment in 1984 during Lebanon's civil war.

Who Writes History When There Is No Winner?

Lebanon’s civil war is a taboo subject. A group of Christians and Muslims is broaching it.

Brandon Engman as Young David in Angel Studio’s David.

Review

Review: Angel Studios’ ‘David’

Peter T. Chattaway

Artistically, it’s ambitious. Narratively, it works. But it’s no “The Prince of Egypt.”