Pages of plenty

LITTLE ROCK — Revelation of the Magi Revelation of the Magi, translated by Brent Landau (HarperOne, $22.99)

Not much is written in the Bible about the Wise Men, or the Magi, as they are often called, but they are an important part of the Christmas story. Often depicted as three kings who bring gifts to the newborn king, they are mysterious characters. A newly discovered manuscript in the Vatican library reveals a fantastical story about the Magi and their mystical origins in the land of Shir.

According to the story, the Magi were descendants of Seth, Adam and Eve’s third son. From him, they learned of the prophecy of the star and for generations they waited, watching the skies for its arrival. What follows is a tale of adventure and surprising revelations.

Landau not only translates the story from the ancient language of Syriac, he also explores the manuscript itself - who wrote it, when and why.

- Christie Storm Preaching With Sacred Fire Preaching With Sacred Fire, An Anthology of African American Sermons, 1750 to the Present, edited by Martha Simmons and Frank A. Thomas (Norton, $45)

It’s nearly 1,000 pages long, this book of sermons by prominent black Americans. It contains the words of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson and JeremiahWright, plus generations of giants who preceded them.

It took eight years for the editors to compile this extraordinary collection, which spans the centuries. For students of the Bible and disciples of the civil rights movement, Preaching With Sacred Fire is an awe-inspiring work.

This is a book worth savoring and celebrating, a book for the ages.

- Frank Lockwood Mere Churchianity Mere Churchianity, by Michael Spencer (Water-Brook, $13.99)

I was a brand-new Kentucky blogger, posting online and wondering if anybody out there was reading my work. So it gave my spirits a great boost when Michael Spencer, aka The Internet Monk, gave a plug for my website a couple of weeks after its debut.

Spencer, you see, was one of the wisest and wittiest voices in the blogosphere, a Kentucky evangelical who loved God passionately, but who was wary of the institutional church. Last year, WaterBrook recognized Spencer’s genius and asked him to write a book. Spencer was writing Mere Churchianity when he discovered he was terminally ill. Doctors found cancer on Dec. 4, 2009, and by April, Spencer was dead.

The Internet Monk is survived by his wife, two children and this extraordinary book.

- Frank LockwoodMy Spiritual Journey My Spiritual Journey, by the Dalai Lama with Sofia Stril-Rever (HarperOne, $25.99)

The Dalai Lama has written volumes on compassion, nonviolence and happiness, but in his latest book the Tibetan leader turns inward to reflect on his personal faith. Tenzin Gyatso was only 2 years old when he was identified as the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama. Today he is known as one of the greatest teachers of the age, but in the book, the Dalai Lama writes: “I am just a human being.” He goes on to highlight three stages of his life - his childhood, his life as a Buddhist monk and his role as the Dalai Lama. He relates lessons he has learned at each stage and shares his hopes for humanity.

His memories of childhood are punctuated by stories of his mischievous deeds. But his friend and interpreter reveals that although his childhood was filled with the love of his parents, the boy was also lonely and subject to punishment from his teachers, “with a whip that had a gold handle, but hurt no less than ordinary whips.” Despite the hardships of his life, readers will find that the Dalai Lama is very modest, laughs often and has an unflagging hope for the future.

- Christie Storm Stuff Christians Like Stuff Christians Like, by Jonathan Acuff (Zondervan, $12.99)

Acuff writes advertising for Georgia-based Home Depot and Chick-fil-A, but he spends his free time writing about what he calls “the funny side of faith.” His blog, stuffchristianslike.net, became an Internet sensation after its launch on March 21, 2008. Acuff is a Bible Belt evangelical, so he’s not laughing at Christians, he’s laughing with them.

So what, precisely, do Christians like? Here’s a sampler: using Vacation Bible School as free baby-sitting; giving out tracts instead of Halloween candy; watching R-rated movies - but only if they’re violent; crockpots at potlucks; and disguising gossip as prayer.

- Frank Lockwood Sacred Treasure of The Cairo Genizah Sacred Treasure of The Cairo Genizah, by Rabbi Mark Glickman (Jewish Lights, $24.99)

In Jewish tradition, the Almighty’s name is sacred. So holy is the name of God that, when written down, it sanctifies the paper or parchment that bears it. This creates a problem, of course, when the writings grow old, wear out or fade away. The name of the LORD - in written form - can’t be carelessly discarded, soiled, shreddedor hauled to the county landfill. It deserves a proper burial or storage in a “genizah” - a temple room where damaged and destroyed spiritual texts are deposited. Such a repository was kept in the attic of the Gen Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. Stacks of scraps of paper bearing the name of God, some of them more than 1,000 years old, were discovered by a Cambridge University-affiliated rabbi in 1896. In all, more than 300,000 documents were discovered. The collection included passages from the Hebrew Bible, but also copies of contracts, correspondence and children’s primers.

Sacred Treasure tells the story of The Cairo Genizah and one of history’s greatest treasure troves. These are, as the book’s subtitle states, “amazing discoveries of Jewish history” from an Egyptian synagogue attic.

- Frank Lockwood A New History of Early Christianity A New History of Early Christianity, by Charles Freeman (Yale University Press, $35)

This history is a secular overview of the first 400 years of the Christian church. Freeman offers a new theory of the Resurrection, but the book is strongest when it pieces together the meandering journey the early church took to develop its theology. Jewish, Greek and Roman influences are given their due, and readers are introduced to the diverse ideas of the budding church’s early theologians.

The chapter on martyrdom is chilling, and Paul’s contributions to the church’s growth and philosophy get special attention. As usual, Freeman (author of The Closing of the Western Mind) writes clearly and avoids the tediousness that can afflict scholarly texts. The book includes a timeline, a glossary, footnotes and a suggested reading list.

- Randal Hunhoff

Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett (Vintage, $16)

In the old days, missionaries might have called the Piraha “godless savages.” These days, they’re referred to, somewhat more tactfully, as members of an “unreached people group.” Whatever the label, none of these Brazilian jungle dwellers has ever - to the best of anyone’s knowledge - converted to evangelical Christianity. Missionary/Bible translator Daniel L. Everett is determined to change that.

But it’s hard to harvest the souls of these illiterate but happy hunter-gatherers. They have no concept of sin, Satan, heaven, hell - or compound sentences. They have no alphabet. And they have few sexual taboos.

If you enjoy reading about brushes with anaconda, crocodiles and piranha, you’ll enjoythis book. If you want to know what it was like to be a missionary in the pre-cell-phone, pre-satellite TV, pre-Internet age, you’ll be captivated by Everett’s adventures.

But don’t expect an altar call at the end. This book takes an unexpected detour.

- Frank Lockwood The Amish Way The Amish Way, by Donald Kraybill, Steven Nolt and David Weaver-Zercher (Jossey-Bass, $24.95)

The authors of the bestselling Amish Grace, which focused on the aftermath of the 2006 school shootings in Nickel Mine, Pa., explore Amish spiritual practices in their latest book. Readers are offered an inside look at this complex faith group, their personal beliefs and theology, as well as some of their peculiarities.

Readers will discover the joys to be found in Amish life, including contentment and a sense of security, as well as the downsides, such as a loss of privacy. The book offers a glimpse into an Amish worship service, which the authors describe as “an incubator for patience.” Three hours long, it’s a time of slow singing and long prayers and even longer sermons. The book also explores church discipline and shunning, as well as everyday issues of parenting and family life.

- Christie Storm Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Viking Adult, $45)

This book is easy to start but tough to finish - 3,000 years of well-told history crammed into 1,184 pages. MacCulloch, a professor of church history at Oxford, won international acclaim for The Reformation: A History, which came in at under 900 pages.

His latest book is even more ambitious. Some critics have called it a masterpiece.

MacCulloch, the son of a clergyman, grew up in the Church of England, but his book is far from Eurocentric. It is an ambitious and audacious history of the faith at all times and in all places. Like a lot of church histories, Christianity takes us on a journey from Jerusalem and Rome to Constantinople. But it doesn’t stop there - it travels to Ethiopia and England, to India and China and everywhere in between.

This book is an extraordinary accomplishment and an excellent read.

- Frank Lockwood God Is in the Manger:

Reflections on Advent and Christmas God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, based on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Westminster John Knox Press, $12.95)

Advent, the weeks leading up to Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus, is a season of joyful anticipation. It’s also a season of waiting, something theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer learned well while in a Nazi prison camp during World War II. The outspoken critic of Hitler was jailed for two years and eventually hanged. While in prison he wrote letters, poetry and personal reflections. He also celebrated Advent and Christmas away from his family and friends. Many of those writings have been compiled in this book of Advent and Christmas devotions.

The book includes devotions for each day of Advent and the 12 days of Christmas, as well as for the day of Epiphany. The journey begins with waiting in week one and continues on through the concepts of mystery, redemption and incarnation before arriving at Christmas Day. Despite his dire circumstances, Bonhoeffer held onto hope found in Christ, and that hope shines through in this collection.

- Christie Storm

Generation Ex-Christian Generation Ex-Christian, by Drew Dyck (Moody, $13.99)

The percentage of Americans who claim to be Christian is dropping, polls show. And young adults are more likely than the rest of us to have no religious affiliation. Most of these Americans are “born again” atheists, agnostics and freethinkers who have abandoned Christianity. “Most unbelieving outsiders are old friends, yesterday’s worshippers, children who once prayed to Jesus,” writes Drew Dyck.

A youthful editorial manager for Christianity Today International, Dyck introduces us to a number of these ex-Christians - and claims that they can be reached and redeemed. These church-shy backsliders want “empathy, not arguments,” Dyck says. And many of them are turned off by business-as-usual religious institutions. “They don’t want pizza and video games,” Dyck writes. “They want revolution and dynamism.”

Christianity Today is the Time magazine of evangelicalism and they’re lucky to have a writer of this caliber working for them. This is a fascinating book, casting light on the spiritual state of millions of disillusioned former Christians.