This month’s bookshelf is dedicated to our fathers and our children and all that they bring to our lives. This collection explores our fathers and youth or offers selections written by fathers, with content intended to enrich and empower our lives.
American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists
(2009, Oxford University Press) by John Wigger
American Saint is a definitive biography of Francis Asbury and, by extension, a revealing interpretation of the early years of the Methodist movement in America. Asbury emerges here as not merely an influential religious leader, but a fascinating character, who lived an extraordinary life. His cultural sensitivity was matched only by his ability to organize. His life of prayer and voluntary poverty were legendary, as was his generosity to the poor. He had a remarkable ability to connect with ordinary people, and he met with thousands of them as he crisscrossed the nation between his arrival in America in 1771 and his death in 1816.
John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri.
Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop (Religion and Social Transformation, 13)
(2022, NYU Press) by Erika D. Gault
Networking the Black Church provides a timely portrait of young Black Christians and how digital technology is transforming the Black Church. They stand at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement, push the boundaries of the Black Church through online expression of Christian hip hop and redefine what it means to be young, Black and Christian in America. Young Black adults represent the future of African American religiosity, yet little is known regarding their religious lives beyond the Black Church. This book explores how deeply embedded digital technology is in the lives of young Black Christians, offering a first-of-its-kind digital-hip hop ethnography.
Erika D. Gault is assistant professor in the Africana Studies Program at the University of Arizona and co-editor of Beyond Christian Hip Hop: A Move Towards Christians and Hip Hop. She is a scholar, poet, and ordained elder whose justice-centered work blends research, art, and religion to advocate for the rights of young Black people.
Celebrate Wonder Ages 9 Leader Spring 2021
(2021, Cokesbury)
Celebrate Wonder is a guide to quick and easy classroom preparation. It includes Bible background, flexible activities, step-by-step instructions, reproducible pages, helpful tips and a spiritual practice for the leader and the children. All activities are designed to help the children engage in open-ended exploration of the Bible stories and develop techniques for engaging their spirituality and faith for years to come.
Just Thinking: 365 Days of Developing Practical Faith and Hope
(2020, Author Academy Elite) by Dean Fulks, Chris Joseph, Sean Patrick
Relating the Bible to humorous, engaging stories, (like finding yourself on a live stage in front of 60,000 screaming fans at a rock concert), Just Thinking shares authentic insights that will inspire the faith of young and old alike. Just Thinking is a 365-day journey designed to develop the way you think about God. What you discover in Just Thinking will reshape the way you see God, others, and yourself.
Dean Fulks is the lead pastor at Lifepoint Church on the north side of Columbus, Ohio. He leads his local congregation and works with SEND North America to make disciples and multiply churches in Mid-Ohio, the Midwest, and the world. He and his wife, Angie, are the parents of three great kids.
Flourish (A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being)
(2012, Atria Books) by Martin E.P. Seligman
Flourish explores and refines the Positive Psychology movement, building on Dr. Seligman’s game-changing work on optimism, motivation and character to show how to get the most out of life, unveiling an electrifying new theory of what makes a good life—for individuals, for communities, and for nations. While certainly a part of well-being, happiness alone doesn’t give life meaning. Seligman now asks, What is it that enables you to cultivate your talents, to build deep, lasting relationships with others, to feel pleasure and to contribute meaningfully to the world? In a word, what is it that allows you to flourish?
Martin E. P. Seligman is the Robert A. Fox Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. His visionary work in Positive Psychology has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.
A Place for Truth
(2010, Veritas Books) by Dallas Wallard
A Place for Truth is a collection of content from some of The Veritas Forum’s most notable presentations, with contributions from Francis Collins, Tim Keller, N. T. Wright, Mary Poplin and more. Volume editor Dallas Willard introduces each presentation, highlighting its significance and putting it in context for us today. Also included are selected question and answer sessions with the speakers from the original forum experiences.
Dallas Willard (1935-2013) was a well-renowned, well-regarded Christian scholar and author. His other books include The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines (1988) and Renovation of the Heart (2002). Dr. Willard displays a scholarly acumen and a pastor’s heart, seeking to integrate philosophy, theology, and ethics with practical discipleship and Christian day-to-day living. A professor’s professor, Dr. Willard is interested in reaching out to skeptical college students and to their even-more skeptical professors. He has long been a professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, working in the field of logic and epistemology. Dr. Willard studied at William Jewell College, Tennessee Temple College, and Baylor University before earning a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin.
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
(2008, Doubleday) by John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us is a collection of blessings to help readers through both the everyday and the extraordinary events of their lives. It is a compelling blend of elegant, poetic language and spiritual insight that offers readers comfort and encouragement on their journeys through life as it looks at life’s thresholds—getting married, having children, starting a new job—and offers invaluable guidelines for making the transition from a known, familiar world into a new, unmapped territory. Blessing is explained as a way of life, as a lens through which the whole world is transformed.
John O’Donohue was a poet, philosopher and scholar, a native Gaelic speaker from County Clare, Ireland. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology from the University of Tübingen, with post-doctoral study of Meister Eckhart. His numerous international best-selling books include: Anam Cara, Beauty, Eternal Echoes, and Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World. More information can be found: https://johnodonohue.com/
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
(2017, Liverright) by Richard Rothstein
The Color of Law is a history of the modern American metropolis, which exposes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation―that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research, The Color of Law chronicles an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.
Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He lives in California, where he is a Fellow of the Haas Institute at the University of California–Berkeley.
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy
(2021, Roaring Brook Press) by Emmanuel Acho
In Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy, no question is off the table. Approaching every question with openness and patience, Emmanuel connects his own experience with race and racism—from attending majority-white prep schools to his time in the NFL playing on majority-black football teams—to insightful lessons in black history and black culture. Filled with honest answers and actionable advice, this book is a must-read for those in our youngest generation looking to understand and dismantle racism within their own communities.
Emmanuel Acho is a Fox Sports analyst and host/producer of “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,” a web series about racism to drive open and uncomfortable dialogue. After earning an undergraduate degree in sports management in 2012, Emmanuel was drafted by the Cleveland Browns. He was then traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013, where he spent most of his career. While in the NFL, Emmanuel spent off-seasons at the University of Texas to earn a master’s degree in Sports Psychology. In 2016, Emmanuel left the football field and picked up the microphone to begin his broadcast career. In 2018, Emmanuel was promoted within ESPN, where he served as the youngest national football analyst and was named a 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 Selection. In 2017, he and his family’s non-profit organization, Living Hope Christian Ministries, raised enough funds to build a hospital in rural Nigeria.