Bestseller Bessey (Field Notes for the Wilderness), who writes the Field Notes newsletter, issues a sincere call for believers to keep their faith amid rising tides of “fear and despair and distrust.” Reassuring readers that “God can bring beauty out of the coldest ashes,” she recommends swapping apathy for hope by loving life’s “ordinary altars”—places where “the holy and commonplace intersect... and some part of your soul glimpses reality.” Doing so is not a means of ignoring reality but of honoring how deeply God loves creation, she writes. But loving the world also involves working to improve it in small ways, like picking up trash, making art, or pushing for legislative reform—actions that have the added benefit of guarding against despair. The author interweaves her wise insights with affecting personal anecdotes, recalling how enduring a car accident nearly 15 years ago forced her to slow down and appreciate, amid her suffering, valuable everyday experiences like spending time with her children. This will inspire Bessey’s fans and win her some new ones. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 10/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

Pastor Burke (Imagine the God of Heaven) draws on his work studying near-death experiences for this energetic reminder to live with intention. In his 20s, the author was an agnostic. Then he came across a book about near-death experiences that inspired him to find faith and eventually join the ministry. Building on a career spent studying near-death experiences, or NDEs, the author mines scripture and nearly 70 transcribed NDEs—many of which he collected— for lessons on living more fully. This involves loving others and oneself; forgiving even when it’s difficult; and finding purpose by reflecting on passions and formative experiences, while also realizing that “it’s not just what you do, but how and why you do it.” While the guidance is often well-worn, such as testimonies that illustrate the value of not working too hard, some stories are riveting and affecting. One woman, who endured physical and sexual abuse after being abducted at gunpoint, remembers realizing on the brink of death “why the Lord sent me back.... It was to allow me to endure the pain and all of the stages of healing, so that I can teach it to others”; she later became a trauma counselor. It’s an inspiring resource for believers seeking meaning. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/09/2026 | Details & Permalink

With this wise debut, missionary Wang aims to sketch out a “holistic understanding of work and calling” that decouples worth from professional productivity. She argues that society pressures people to find purpose in their jobs while the church emphasizes the importance of finding one’s God-given “calling,” both of which imply that “our career matters, with almost salvific consequences.” She combats this by arguing that one’s identity is bestowed by God rather than earned; that humans, like God, must complement work with rest; and that work is meant to honor God rather than please others or oneself. Additionally, she contends that one’s primary “calling” is to forge a “covenant relationship with God,” which can be fulfilled outside a professional setting—including by being a loving member of the church, spreading the gospel, and fighting to create a more just world. The author backs up her case with scriptural analysis and a candid account of attempting to parse her own complicated relationship with work after leaving a high-paying but unfulfilling role at Google. The result is a refreshing reminder for believers to embrace a broader understanding of their worth. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 10/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Walton (New Explorations in the Lost World of Genesis), a religion professor emeritus at Wheaton College, offers a measured and evenhanded guide to biblical interpretation. He argues that because the Bible is inspired by “God’s perspectives and insight into God’s plans and purposes” but written by humans, readers must analyze it in holistic and historically grounded ways. This involves analyzing verses “at the book level” rather than removing them from their context; understanding the difference between the text’s message and “tangential material that is presented along the way”; and viewing scripture in terms of its “importance to its original audience” rather than as an all-purpose guide “provided by God to resolve our theological and social debates.” (For example, biblical restrictions on same-sex marriage and divorce reflect cultural practices of the time, Walton suggests, not commandments for what modern marriages should look like.) Walton bolsters his sound analytical guidelines with useful discussion questions inviting readers to consider the hazards of “a verse-for-the-day approach” and distinguish between biblical references and affirmations. Pastors will find this a valuable resource. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Actor Sinise (Grateful American) shares a heartbreaking account of his son’s struggle with chordoma, a rare type of cancer affecting the spinal cord. McCanna Anthony “Mac” Sinise, a professional musician, was diagnosed in 2018 at age 27, following years of tailbone pain that he and doctors attributed to a biking accident. Despite chordoma being a highly treatable cancer with a 70% cure rate, Mac’s tumor grew back after an initial surgery to remove it, and the cancerous cells eventually spread to other parts of his body. Numerous rounds of aggressive chemo followed, along with immunotherapy treatments. After years of treatment, a case of pneumonia irreversibly damaged his lungs and Mac died in 2024. Sinise, a devout Catholic, is frank about the horrors of watching his son suffer but speaks reverently of how his faith allowed him to see the “silver linings” amid the pain, including valuable time spent with his family. Snippets from Mac’s texts and journals track his decline in harrowing detail. This wrenching tribute will stick in readers’ minds. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Priest Varghese (Church Meets World) offers an upbeat reminder that ordinary people can “shift the overall equation of humanity to the side of the good.” She illustrates with bite-sized stories what it means to enact such core Christian virtues as generosity, citing how her family delivered gifts to friends anonymously on Christmas. (Readers looking to “pass on the practice of kindness and generosity with joy and maybe without credit” can donate their money, time, skills, or kindness.) Elsewhere, she demonstrates the value of courage by recounting how her church successfully petitioned for the release of two parishioners unjustly detained by ICE. While such actions may feel small, she writes, they can exert an outsize effect on society and illustrate a more moral world in ways that inspire others. The author is refreshingly optimistic without being naive, and bolsters her stories with concrete suggestions for doing good in small ways, from buying flowers for a friend “just because” to inviting a stranger into a conversation. The result is an earnest testament to an individual’s power to make a difference. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/25/2026 | Details & Permalink

TEDx speaker Hammoud (The Return of the Prophet) muses on identity, faith, and purpose in this resonant memoir. Born in Beirut, the author enjoyed an idyllic childhood before the civil war forced his family to flee to Ontario in 1976. There he began to teach himself English with Sears catalogs and started going by Mike, though his attempts to assimilate didn’t protect him from mockery by cruel classmates who called him “camel jockey” and shoved him in hallways. A year of study and travel in Spain during university stoked pride in his identity as he marveled at the science, culture, and art that Arab Muslims brought to Europe, and after graduate school he began using his given name again. But then 9/11 cast “unspoken suspicion” on the Muslim community, automatically assigning “the word terrorist... to brown skin, to Arabic and Muslim names” and attempting to turn “our faith, which had always been our great strength” into “a liability we had to manage.” Despite the damage wrought by racial and religious hate (including attacks on mosques, murders of Muslims, and “systemic racism dressed in security protocols”), the author speaks passionately of reclaiming his name and identity, and of witnessing Western and Middle Eastern Muslim communities endure and rebuild through “the small, steadfast acts of faith that no government, militia, or headline could erase.” Poignant and deeply felt, this will stick with readers. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/25/2026 | Details & Permalink

Pastor Alcorn (Heaven) makes an earnest but flimsy case that “God’s eternal plan includes not only people but the goodness of his whole creation.” He argues that humans’ and animals’ destinies have been “intertwined” since biblical times, and that God has an “everlasting covenant” with animals as evidenced by his rescuing them from the flood on Noah’s ark. Based on such stories and the presence of animals as “major characters” in “the pre-fall eden,” Alcorn argues there’s “every indication” that they will exist side-by-side with humans in both heaven and the “new earth” of Jesus’s second coming. (“Why would God reveal his multifaceted glory in millions of animal species in his original creation, only to annihilate them, never again to reveal his attributes to his people through animals?”) Unfortunately, Alcorn spends much of the book repeating himself, overquoting from scripture rather than developing his argument, and speculating on such questions as whether animals might speak in heaven. Even ardent Christian animal lovers will be disappointed. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/25/2026 | Details & Permalink

Novelist Horn follows up People Love Dead Jews with another sharp and provocative analysis of antisemitism and why efforts to eradicate it have failed. She argues that antisemitism has historically purported that “Jews are destroying whatever you value most” (“If piety was a society’s ideal, Jews were impious blasphemers; if secularism was the ideal, Jews were backward pietists”), a belief “that turns bigotry into a righteous cause, because it makes people think they are fighting for their ideals.” Yet educational efforts to intervene have been unsuccessful, in part because they tend to be binary—either overfocusing on the Holocaust in ways that “other” Jews (one Holocaust museum educator reports that visiting students often ask if Jewish people are “still alive today”), or teaching that Jews are “just like” other groups, which reinforces assimilationist narratives and ignores Judaism’s unique cultural contributions. Horn finds a partial solution in teaching the full story of the Jewish people and their struggle to achieve “freedom and pluralism” in ways that model resilience and encourage curiosity. The author’s sharp analysis is bolstered by biting gallows humor and deep knowledge about the history and current state of antisemitism, gleaned from her experience studying it on college campuses, in high school classrooms, and at Holocaust museums. The result is a trenchant and brutally honest, yet often surprisingly optimistic, report on one of humanity’s oldest prejudices. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/18/2026 | Details & Permalink

Pastor Edwards debuts with a heartfelt meditation on the “mystery [of] the cross” told through a metaphor about parts of a house. Framing the home as a site of reverence and belonging—“you don’t have to understand every room in a house to feel at home there”—he argues that the “front door” of faith is understanding that God’s love saved humanity. Elsewhere, he conjures the image of a library to explore how Jesus helps believers rewrite their personal narratives; “the world tells us we are what we’ve done,” but Jesus “redeems our past and reimagines our future.” A window in the back of the house, meanwhile, offers a view of God’s promise of a more just world. Edwards rehashes his thesis about God’s love to the point of redundancy, but readers will appreciate his earnest discussions of a faith that’s at once tangible and mysterious, as well as his humanizing anecdotes, like a story about his young son “taking communion” with a slice of pizza. Curious believers will be moved. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/18/2026 | Details & Permalink