The six sections of this collection are like a sequence of musical variations on the theme of personal identity as it develops from childhood to death. The first section evokes the poet’s experience of being lost, of his search for identity, and of his being found by God. Section II, in a kind of echo of Section I, celebrates the successive seasons of nature and functions as a metaphor for the movement through a life. Section III is a boisterous fugue on the high drama of clouds in the course of a day, from dawn to nightfall. Section IV, in a series of portraits of persons (and of a cat!), some dead, some living, intimates the mystery of friendship, love, and loss. Section V contains narratives, drawn from history and nature, that extend this mystery to the link human beings intuitively sense between this world and a “world elsewhere.” In the final section, the poet’s personal experience resurfaces as he contemplates, with wonder and gratitude, his course through the years from childhood to old age, even through death itself to the “far country” he has sensed and longed for all his life.

Theologian and scientist Denis O. Lamoureux suggests that a common assumption of biblical interpretation fuels this struggle. Many Christians think Scripture is supposed to align with science in some sort of way. This idea is known as "scientific concordism" (or simply "concordism"). But Lamoureux demonstrates that the Bible has an ancient science. During the inspiration of Scripture, the Holy Spirit came down to the level of the biblical writers and allowed them to use the science-of-the-day as a vessel for delivering life-changing, inerrant spiritual truths. Dr. Lamoureux explains how moving beyond concordism leads to a peaceful and God-honoring relationship between modern science and our Christian faith.

Readers will face multiple possibilities regarding suffering and its theological explanations and have to make choices about which one they find most plausible. Each decision will lead to further complexities and new choices, helping readers see how theological choices lead to certain conclusions. This book does not offer final answers. Instead, it introduces the "theological" possibilities, both Christian and non-Christian, that readers can explore and wrestle with so they can make informed decisions about their beliefs.

In Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship, distinguished theological researcher Anne-Marie Ellithorpe delivers a constructive and insightful exploration of the place and nature of friendship as innate to being human, to the human vocation, and to life within the broader community. Of particular interest to members and leaders of faith communities, this book responds to contemporary concerns regarding relationality and offers a comprehensive theology of friendship.

What happens when a five-century tradition of Christian pacifism no longer needs Jesus to support nonviolence? Why does secularity cause this dilemma for Mennonites in their theology of peace? Layton Boyd Friesen offers an ancient theology and spirituality of incarnation as the church's response to the non-resistance of Christ. He explores three key aspects of von Balthasar's Christology to help Mennonite peace theology regain its momentum in the secular age with a contemplative union with Christ.

What if God is as rational as our own existence? Sitting in a pub one Christmas Eve, two friends hash out their doubts and questions about God, the Trinity, and existence itself. They agree that the Christian Trinity does not make much sense, yet when they look at the origins of the universe, they realize it also does not make sense, and for exactly the same reasons. And if the enigma of the Trinity is the same one underlying the universe, then perhaps the Trinity is as rational to believe in as our own existence. Yet as the night goes on, they realize the same tact can be taken with lots of other mysteries as well, including free will, the soul, God, eternity, truth, and meaning. If such things were not real, then would we even exist to talk about it?

If we pick up the Bible as God’s word and at the beginning read with trepidation, then the whole of the Bible is so read. This book was written to help Christians navigate some of the forces of modernity, which have crept into the church and influenced the way Christians view the reliability of the biblical creation account and more generally the Bible. Its purpose is to encourage readers to see the steadfastness of God’s word as a way of making sense of our lives and the world we live in. It hopes to show that a faith-based-historical-reading of Gen 1–3 provides a more trustworthy explanation of reality than atheistic evolutionary theories or reading the Genesis story as a make-believe myth. But the book is not a polemic, per se. It proposes a faith-based-historical-reading of the creation story in hopes of learning more about God, creation, and ourselves.

Every day we are formed by what we see on social media. Every day we are formed by the new Netflix special. Every day we are formed by the hot-button topics of the culture that appear on our news feeds. In fact, every single day we are formed as we interact with the world around us. We learn from it, are taught by it, and live from it. So what is the faithful Christian to do when they can’t help but be shaped by the world around them? What is the believer in Jesus to do when the world opposes so much of his teachings? This book seeks to answer those questions by turning to the lost art of catechesis. This book seeks to turn the tables on formation by the world by providing formation through the word. This devotional work utilizes an updated form of The Westminster Catechism, Scripture passages, brief reflections, and prayers to help form believers into more robust disciples. Who knows, maybe this process will provide a way for us to no longer be formed by the world but rather, to begin forming the world to reflect its great redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Flannery O'Connor and Stylistic Asceticism explores the impact style has not only on a story's meaning, but on the reading experience. O'Connor's sparingly wrought stories, particularly in their climactic moments of divine disclosure, invite characters and readers alike into invitations of graced encounters that often wound even as they bless. Flannery O'Connor and Stylistic Asceticism draws out the force and vulnerability in reading spare stories of graced encounters by identifying a kinship with a much older form of storytelling: biblical Hebrew narrative. Focusing on the climactic scenes of O'Connor's Wise Blood and Genesis 32's account of Jacob's nighttime wrestling, Rachel Toombs offers a fresh take on the theological impact of spare narration. These stories invite readers into a posture akin to prayer where in an uncluttered space we see ourselves as we truly are and there meet God.