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 man standing under the Taiwan flag looking through binoculars to a tattered Ukrainian flag.

The Bulletin

Midwest Primaries, Taiwan’s Ukraine Lessons, and Abortion Pill Case

Clarissa Moll, Russell Moore

Indiana and Ohio hold primaries, Trump travels to Beijing, and the Supreme Court considers the abortion pill.

The book on a red background.

Review

The Lies—and Truths—That Keep Some Black People Out of Church

Haleluya Hadero

A California pastor’s book confronts the painful parts of Christian history but points to the healing power of the gospel.

A damaged Christian church near the National Police Headquarters in downtown Khartoum.

News

Sudan’s Civil War Destroyed Hospitals and Churches

Emmanuel Nwachukwu in Khartoum

Local doctors and Christians are trying to rebuild lives in the capital city.

Three books on a blue background.

Review

Are Near-Death Experiences Evidence for Heaven?

Three theology books on the afterlife.

A pile of colorful clothes overlapping each other.

Thrifting to the Glory of God

Ann Byle

Shopping secondhand and donating our own items echoes Jesus’ renewal of discarded lives.

A 'No Kids Zone' sign at the entrance of a cafe in Seoul.

‘No-Kids Zones’ Abound in South Korea. But Kids Aren’t Pests.

Ahrum Yoo

In a country with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, children are seen as a nuisance. But they are a blessing that can pierce the idols of efficiency.

Farmers harvest tea leaves at a tea plantation in Bomet County, Kenya on February 4, 2026.

News

Iran Tensions Threaten Kenya’s Largest Export Industry: Tea

Moses Wasamu

Christian farmers struggle to avoid bankruptcy.

A girl walking on floating stepping stones.

Q&A: Douglas McKelvey on Gen Z’s Lack of Rites of Passage

Interview by Ashley Hales

The Rabbit Room’s newest prayer book urges readers to join God’s mission in young adulthood.