Crafting a New Evangelical Imagination

Crafting a New Evangelical Imagination

The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis By Karen Swallow Prior. Brazos Press, 2023. Hardcover, 304 pages, $26.99. Reviewed by James E. Hartley. “All great systems, ethical or political, attain their ascendancy over...
Reading as a Spiritual Practice

Reading as a Spiritual Practice

Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice By Jessica Hooten Wilson. Brazos Press, 2023. Hardcover, 208 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by James E. Hartley. “Until very recent years, civilized folk took it for granted that literature exists to form the...
The Celebrity-Industrial Complex

The Celebrity-Industrial Complex

Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits are Hurting the Church By Katelyn Beaty. Brazos Press, 2022. Hardcover, 208 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by James E. Hartley.  “The celebrity,” opined Daniel Boorstein, “is a person who is known for his...
Beyond Black and White

Beyond Black and White

The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright. Library of America, 2021. Hardcover, 240 pages, $23. Reviewed by James E. Hartley Richard Wright’s most recently published novel is a cause célèbre. The Man Who Lived Underground, originally written in 1941, was...
Is the Religious Right Really so Incomprehensible?

Is the Religious Right Really so Incomprehensible?

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism By Benjamin M. Freidman. Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. Hardcover, 560 pages, $37.50 Reviewed by James E. Hartley Sometimes it seems like discussions in this country are taking place in two isolated camps. Every now and then, that suspicion...