Liturgies Real and Imagined

Liturgies Real and Imagined

The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs by Martin Mosebach. Plough, 2019. Hardcover, 272 pages, $26. What Was Before: A Novel, by Martin Mosebach. Seagull Books, 2014. Hardcover, 248 pages, $27.50. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill This powerful little book...
Humanism, Reform, Heresy

Humanism, Reform, Heresy

Calvin’s Tormentors: Understanding the Conflicts That Shaped the Reformer by Gary W. Jenkins. Baker Academic, 2018. Paperback, 208 pages, $28. Reviewed by Chris Butynskyi In the wake of the five hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Christians are...
Create Your Own Tradition?

Create Your Own Tradition?

The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction by Justin Whitmel Earley. IVP Books, 2019. Paperback, 204 pages, $18. Reviewed by Casey Chalk “There is nothing new except what has been forgotten,” observed Marie Antoinette. Many such forgotten things that...
Christian Martyrs in the First Islamic States

Christian Martyrs in the First Islamic States

Christian Martyrs Under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World by Christian C. Sahner. Princeton University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 360 pages, $39. Reviewed by Jane Peters On February 15, 2018 in the village of al-Our, the Coptic Orthodox Church...
The Presence of the Counterkingdom

The Presence of the Counterkingdom

The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs. Oxford University Press, 2018. Cloth, 280 pages, $30. Reviewed by Adam Schwartz John Henry Newman once dubbed the Christian Church a “counter-kingdom.” As the historical embodiment of...