In The Laughter of the Oppressed: Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison, and Endo, author Jacqueline Bussie attempts to tackle the following unanswered questions: What is the theological and ethical significance of the laughter of the oppressed? And what does it mean to laugh at the horrible–to laugh while one suffers? Read More

In Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US, Reverend Lenny Duncan uses his unique background and perspective to point out the problems he sees in his denomination, and in the Christian community at large. Formerly incarcerated, Duncan is now a black preacher in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which is the whitest denomination in the United States. Read More

In The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, Eugene McCarraher argues that capitalism is full of sacrament, whether or not it is acknowledged. This runs counter to the traditional view of capitalism as part of the “disenchantment” of the world, stripping material objects and social relations of their mystery and sacredness. Read More

In One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham, Grant Wacker records the story of one of the most influential voices in the Christian world. Billy Graham was a hugely successful preacher for more than five decades, and nearly 215 million people around the world heard him preach in person or through live electronic media. Read More

In #Charlottesville: White Supremacy, Populism, and Resistance, readers are asked to grapple with the fact that it may no longer be possible to be a moderate in this political climate. When white nationalists and their supporters clashed with counter-demonstrators in the college town of Charlottesville over the removal of a Confederate statue, it fundamentally changed the way many people thought about America. Read More

On Saturday, November 23, PLT alum Kelly Figueroa-Ray of St. Olaf College will take part in a session at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. The session is titled, Transgressing Borders: Immigration and Transformative Pedagogy in Religious Studies Classrooms. Read More

In Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White, William Sturkey tells the story of the Jim Crow South by bringing the readers into the homes of Hattiesburg families who lived through that era, those who struggled to uphold their southern “way of life” and those who fought to tear it down. Read More

In I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation, Chanequa Walker-Barnes disrupts the racist and sexist biases in conversations on reconciliation. She demonstrates how reconciliation’s roots in the evangelical, male-centered Promise Keepers’ movement has resulted in a patriarchal and largely symbolic effort. Read More

The Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation at the University of the South is a six-year initiative investigating the university’s historical entanglements with slavery and slavery’s legacies. Read More

Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologians for a Post-Christian World, by Wolf Krötke, is a book that demonstrates the continuing significance of these two theologians for Christian faith and life. Krötke is acclaimed as a foremost interpreter of the theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and in this book offers readers a chance to look with fresh eyes at the theologies of the two men. Read More