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

People reading Bibles.

Public Theology Project

What I Learned Teaching the Same Book Twice—20 Years Apart

When I first taught through Hebrews, I understood doctrine and discipline but not disappointment and disillusionment.

A blurred photo of a church congregation.

You Can’t Love the Church in the Abstract

Matthew D. Love

It’s easy to say you love the church universal, the whole bride of Christ. But Scripture unmistakably calls us to love the local congregation too.

Fragmented justice scales and red pen marks.

Gen Z Isn’t Asking Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

Jared Dodson

Christians have long asked how a good God can let evil happen. My students want to know when the evil will get their due.

Activists and students gather during a mini-concert and vigil to commemorate the lives of young women killed in incidents of gender-based violence at the University of Nairobi on February 14, 2024.

News

Kenyan Christians Battle Domestic Violence Epidemic

Harriet Chimea

Nearly half of East African women experience abuse at home. Church leaders are working to stop it.

HW-Brands-patriatch-of-america

The Russell Moore Show

HW Brands on the Patriarch of America

What does it mean to call someone the “father” of a nation?

An illustrated display of vegetables.

How God Helps Me Eat on $33 Per Week

It’s a very faith-stretching way to get by, compared to trusting in a salary and benefits.

An image of Franklin Graham.

News

Franklin Graham to Hold Evangelical Gathering in Authoritarian Belarus

Pastors of the small evangelical community are eager to unite, but religious freedom experts doubt the event will lead to greater freedoms.

The book on a green background.

Excerpt

In the Beginning Was the Word, Not the State

Robert J. Joustra

An excerpt from Christ and Covenant in Global Politics: A Christian Introduction to International Relations.