Time to begin looking ahead at the books of 2006. Leading our first report on coming attractions is a new edition of George Marsden's Fundamentalism and American Culture (Oxford Univ. Press). The March/April issue of B&C features an excerpt. A book that may seem far afield but that in fact complements Marsden's landmark study is D. G. Hart's John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist, just out this month from P&R. "However offbeat Nevin's thought may sometimes appear," Hart writes, "his assessment of popular Christianity in the United States was arguably the most astute from the perspective of historical Protestantism that any American Reformed or Presbyterian ever formulated." Quite a claim! Check it out.
As the grandson of missionaries to China (where my mother lived until the age of ten), I am interested in missionary biographies and memoirs. I've seen some essays by Tim Bascom that have whetted my enthusiasm for his book Chamelon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia, coming from Houghton Mifflin in June. And speaking of biography, Michael Kazin's A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan is due next month from Knopf; that too will be covered in B&C.
The cover-package of our May/June issue will focus on preaching and the state of the pastorate. And the subject of preaching brings to mind At Canaan's Edge (Simon & Schuster), the concluding volume of Taylor Branch's trilogy on America in the era of Martin Luther King, Jr. Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, coming from HarperSanFrancisco in March, collects sermons by Frederick Buechner, some of them appearing in print for the first time.
Several years ago in the pages of Books & Culture, Alan Jacobs named Wole Soyinka and Czeslaw Milosz as the greatest living writers. Milosz has left this world, but the Nigerian Nobel laureate is still writing. A new memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, is due in April from Random House.
A writer very different from Soyinka, but resembling him in his willingness to say what he thinks, is Harvey Mansfield, the distinguished professor of government at Harvard University. It's Yale University Press, however, that will be publishing Mansfield's Manliness in March. No doubt this book will be on Larry Summers' reading list. Also known for calling it as he sees it is Richard John Neuhaus, whose Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth will be published in March by Basic Books.
Finally, if you are a fan of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux, you are in luck—but you'll have to wait until July for Pegasus Descending (Simon & Schuster). It will be odd to read about Robicheaux post-Katrina.
We'll be back with more coming attractions down the road.
The Shrine Next Door | A superb study of Chinese popular religion helps to set the context for the appeal of Christianity in China today. (Nov. 8, 2005)
Dissecting Divorce | A new book by Elizabeth Marquardt offers a child's-eye-view of divorce. (Oct. 25, 2005)
Heavenly Real Estate | A geography of art in New York at the midpoint of the 20th century. (Oct. 18, 2005)
Narnia Etc. | A chronicle of reading. (Oct. 11, 2005)
How Wide the Divide? | A proposal for compromise between "value evangelicals" and "legal secularists" on church-state issues. (Sept. 13, 2005)
Twenty years ago, Republicans, Democrats, evangelicals, gay activists, and African leaders joined forces to combat AIDS. Will their legacy survive today’s partisanship?
The late pastor theologian gave strong counsel to me and so many others in ministry.
Twenty years ago, Republicans, Democrats, evangelicals, gay activists, and African leaders joined forces to combat AIDS. Will their legacy survive today’s partisanship?
The Spirit is at work, but so are the mechanisms around high-production sets.
