Is Christianity a fairy tale for the infantile? Or worse, a cruel fantasy? Such questions reflect the skepticism of outsiders and the doubts of insiders. The answer isn’t a louder faith to shout them down, but a humbler faith that points to a bigger God. Samuel Wells illustrates this through his engagement with 10 difficult questions about Christianity. In each case, he portrays the traditional position and the skepticism of the modern age as two rival stories, transcending both to offer a revitalized story that better renders the radical and vulnerable nature of authentic faith.

As a collection of 66 books spanning thousands of years, the Bible can be daunting in size and scope. In The Heart of It All, the Canterbury Press Lent book for 2020, Samuel Wells simplifies the Bible's complexity and presents the entire sweep of its narrative in 18 key themes.

Richard Rohr Rohr goes through the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, explaining the historical and cultural context of each verse and offering guidance for what it means for Christians today.

In the first half of life, we are naturally preoccupied with establishing ourselves; climbing, achieving, and performing. But as we grow older and encounter challenges and mistakes, we need to see ourselves in a different and more life-giving way. This message of falling down - that is in fact moving upward - is the most resisted and counterintuitive of messages in the world's religions. Falling Upward offers a new paradigm for understanding one of the most profound of life's mysteries: how those who have fallen down are the only ones who understand "up".

This brief, accessibly written volume introduces key figures, texts, and themes of the mystical tradition and shows how and why the mystics can speak to the church today. Jason Baxter, an expert educator and storyteller, explains that the mystical tradition offers a more robust understanding of God than our current shallow conceptions.

Life throws us “curve balls”—from devastating personal losses to world tragedies. These events often leave us doubting God, the Bible, and our faith. But instead of pushing away our reservations, we should embrace them, Peter Enns argues. A leading biblical scholar and Christian mentor, Enns has never been afraid to question the Bible or Christian beliefs. Such thoughtful inquisitiveness, he argues, is part of God’s plan. He wants us to question, because doing so actually leads to a stronger, lasting faith.

An exploration of how we can be transformed by the God who gives abundantly and who forgives unconditionally.

Reading Revelation Responsibly is for those who are confused by, afraid of, and or preoccupied with the book of Revelation. In rescuing the Apocalypse from those who either completely misinterpret it or completely ignore it, Michael Gorman has given us both a guide to reading Revelation in a responsible way and a theological engagement with the text itself. He takes interpreting the book as a serious and sacred responsibility, believing how one reads, teaches, and preaches Revelation can have a powerful impact on one's own—and other people's—well-being.

Corrymeela is Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. At its heart is a simple pattern of daily worship that is structured around meditation on the Gospels. This prayer book captures the essence of the Corrymeela prayer experience for everyone who wishes to incorporate its spirituality into their regular prayer practice.

The activist, nun, and esteemed spiritual voice who has twice appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday sounds the call to create a monastery within ourselves - to cultivate wisdom and resilience so that we may join God in the work of renewal, restoration, and justice right where we are.

In recent years, the theological—and, more specifically, Roman Catholic—question of the supernatural has made an astonishing return from seeming oblivion. David Bentley Hart's You Are Gods presents a series of meditations on the vexed theological question of the relation of nature and supernature. In its merely controversial aspect, the book is intended most directly as a rejection of a certain Thomistic construal of that relation, as well as an argument in favor of a model of nature and supernature at once more Eastern and patristic.

In 15 New Testament Words of Life, New Testament expert Nijay Gupta explores the most important words found in the New Testament. He makes their meaning clear so that these words can become—once again—life giving words for modern Christians as they were for early Jesus-followers. For those first readers of the New Testament who chose to follow Jesus, these words were words of life and they can be again for Jesus-followers in the modern world.

For much of recent history, individuals and institutions could plan, execute, and flourish with their visions of a better world. Volatile, complex forces could be addressed and confronted with planning and management. But crisis is a great revealer. It knocks us off our thrones. It uncovers the weaknesses in our strategies and brings to light our myths and idols. Our past strategies run aground, smashed by unpredictable and chaotic waves. Yet in the midst of the chaos of a crisis comes opportunity.

"What must I do to gain eternal life?” The rich man who asked this of Jesus was told to sell all he had and give to the poor. But, more importantly, he was told, “Come, follow me!” Franciscan Casey Cole challenges us to let go of something more difficult than material wealth: expectations, anxiety, comfort, wounds, enemies, power - and our very selves. Speaking from both personal and pastoral experience, he outlines the stumbling blocks that turn us away from following Jesus as true disciples. The response to “What must I do?” is simple but not easy: Let go. Now.

In Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, Tim and Paul discuss the relational disappointments that we all suffer both in and out of the church. But they are also optimistic about the power of Christian beliefs to redeem and restore our relationships. Rather than presenting new or sophisticated techniques to make relationships flourish, the authors instead focus on the basic, Christian character qualities that can only be formed in the heart by the gospel.