Summertime Reading

Books to talk about over the barbecue grill or to take with you to the backyard hammock

Walking the Bible: A Journey By Land Through the Five Books of Moses, by Bruce Feiler. A young, funny journalist makes a 10,000-mile journey across the Middle East to answer this question: "Is the Bible just an abstraction, or is it a living, breathing entity with relevance to contemporary life?" (Perennial).

Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired, by Benson Bobrick. The lively, scandalous twists and turns of the evolution of the English Bible—what we know today as the King James Version (Penguin Putnam).

Seeing With Our Souls: Monastic Wisdom for Every Day, by Joan Chittister, OSB. Reflections on 12 qualities of the soul that ask us to identify the political, spiritual, economic, and cultural choices we make (Sheed & Ward).

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins. A provocative and powerful look at the implications of Christianity's expansion in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Oxford University Press).

The New Testament—Introducing the Way of Discipleship, edited by Wes Howard-Brook and Sharon H. Ringe. Commentaries by various authors, including Ched Myers, A. Katherine Grieb, and Neil Elliott, on the New Testament's challenge of radical discipleship (Orbis Books).

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Sojourners Magazine July-August 2002
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