Philosopher Roser (Effective Altruism and Religion) teams up with Zhang, cofounder of the Centre for British Progress, and Bauman, director of Effective Altruism for Christians, to provide believers with a pragmatic guide for maximizing their positive impact in the world. To carry out Jesus’s call to live a “hopeful and impactful life,” the authors write, Christians must exercise “broad moral concern” toward “not just our immediate neighbors, but also those who are distant or very different from us.” One way to do so is to donate to charities based in the Global South, where funds can go further than in developed countries. When it comes to choosing a cause, readers should assess the issue’s importance, neglectedness, and tractability (how likely one’s actions are to have a positive impact), and narrow down organizations by examining empirical research on their initiatives. The authors focus mostly on financial aid but acknowledge that money doesn’t always address systemic factors that perpetuate social problems. To that end, they advise readers on voting to maximize global good and choosing careers that help tackle social problems. Throughout, the authors optimistically show how faith principles can be applied in a world where the advent of modern technology has created new challenges as well as “unprecedented” opportunities for leveraging aid as broadly and wisely as possible. Christian do-gooders will be inspired. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Debut author McKenna, CEO of Protect Young Eyes, an organization that equips parents with resources for shielding their kids from the harms of digital spaces, provides a thorough, faith-based guide to parenting in a technology-obsessed society. He breaks down the stressors faced by children growing up with “godlike technology” that gobbles up dopamine, stands in for real-life social connections, and exposes them to threats ranging from exploitation to anxiety. Parenting tech-savvy kids, he writes, is a holistic process that involves modeling good values (love of God, optimism) and healthy tech habits; establishing trust so children feel free to bring up their digital problems; and limiting access to “addictive” technology until young brains are equipped to handle their constant stream of impulse-driven rewards. (The author recommends smartphones starting in high school and social media at age 16.) McKenna’s comprehensive program combines nitty-gritty discussions of such topics as monitoring software, illuminating explanations of the drives that make tech uniquely appealing to kids, and ideas for fulfilling those drives in healthier, more productive ways. The result is an informative resource for parents eager to establish digital safety nets for their children. (June)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Tibetan Buddhist teachers Rotterdam and Oosthuizen debut with a comprehensive introduction to Chöd, the practice of “severance” or “cutting through.” Developed in the 11th century by the Tibetan Buddhist nun Machig Labdrön, Chöd teaches that reality, being, and mind are like the sky: all-inclusive, nondiscriminating, and ever-present. What keeps people from embracing them is a “root demon” that views the self as separate from the world, reinforcing the ego and causing suffering. Readers can “cut through” such attachments (to the self and the ego) via meditation practices that cultivate mindfulness and sharpen awareness, along with targeted reflections like considering what one is “holding and dragging around... unnecessarily.” Such practices help practitioners understand their oneness with the world and enter into Skymind, “the vast, luminous radiance of being,” where they can assume “radical responsibility” for their own lives and their role in the world’s “ongoing dynamics of justice and injustice, freedom and suffering.” Though repetitive descriptions of Skymind and nonduality occasionally slow things down, the authors’ smart exercises and encouraging tone make for a compassionate yet urgent call for readers to embrace the full, undiluted reality of life. It’s an excellent introduction to Chöd that honors the practice’s roots without getting mired in doctrine. (May)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Capitalism falsely frames life in terms of profit that benefit the powerful and damage the human spirit, according to this energetic if imperfect treatise. Pastor Garcia (The God Who Riots) argues that capitalism “manipulates us into thinking that our true selves are found on the other side of success,” trapping people in an endless race toward professional achievement. But worth is a result of God’s “unearned favor,” according to Garcia, and readers would be better served by separating their identity from their work, remaining “genuinely open to what the present moment has in store,” and focusing on connecting with their communities. Garcia explains how to achieve this in small ways, like spending quality time with friends and family, while working toward reshaping the capitalist system by strengthening workers’ cooperatives and other community organizations, speaking out about unfair labor conditions, and pushing for higher taxes on the rich. While Garcia sometimes resorts to rhetorical gymnastics to make his points (“Positive statements are inherently reductive.... If that person is good, then they’re not bad, and if that thing is bad, then it’s not good,” he writes in a vague entreaty for readers to shed rigid self-perceptions), he effectively makes a case for redefining one’s value as innate and rooted in one’s relationship to others and to God. This resonates. (June)

Reviewed on 03/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Yerby debuts with an upbeat call for Christian women to step out of their comfort zones and into their God-given calling. Drawing from her experience founding the Christian Entrepreneur Organization, she lays out how readers can take stock of their natural gifts, then brainstorm how to use them in ways that help others and honor God. Mapping out a path to one’s purpose also entails attending to God’s “gentle,” day-to-day nudges (e.g., heeding an idea that pops into one’s mind year after year) and planting seeds for success, like speaking about a topic one is passionate about “even when you have a small audience.” With patience and faith, she writes, the “gifts and ideas that God has placed in your heart” will eventually become “tangible fruit.” The author’s tone is refreshingly reassuring and optimistic, and her advice makes up for what it lacks in novelty with exercises and useful reflection questions (“What questions have you been avoiding asking God?... Once you can identify the questions you’ve been avoiding and the reasoning behind it, you can move forward toward getting the clarity you need to pursue your purpose”). Believers stuck at professional crossroads will be especially gratified. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

This illuminating study from Shabazz (Growing up X), the daughter of Malcolm X, mines her father’s 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca for a template for spiritual transformation, or awakening to the “truth of who were are.” Shabazz breaks her father’s pilgrimage into steps, from his initial alienation from the Nation of Islam and crisis of faith, through his “surrender,” or leaving behind of “cherished arguments with reality,” to his “liberating grief” over the traumatic losses of a spiritual community and a previously “unshakable” theological framework. Later steps on the path to spiritual transformation involved recognizing that one is part of an interdependent whole, a realization that aided Malcolm X’s abandonment of the Nation’s separatist philosophy and his reimagining of the struggle for Black self-determination on a global scale. Such an understanding of oneness is key for today’s activists, Shabazz explains, because “sensing the oneness of all life on this precious earth, [and] knowing how to honor [it]... is essential to understanding which actions are—and are not—ultimately directed in the service of liberation.” Bolstered by valuable insights into her father’s philosophy, Shabazz’s account offers a refreshing counterpoint to more self-focused spiritual transformation narratives. The result is a unique reconsideration of the legacy of a key figure in Black liberation. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Mehta (Beyond Chrismukkah), an associate professor of gender studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, traces in this fascinating account the convergence of contraception and the American religious left. In the 1950s, she writes, Cold War–era family values inspired a coalition of liberal Protestants and Jewish clergy to advocate for contraception, viewing it as a means of shoring up God-honoring marriages in which couples could enjoy sex and parent intentionally. As the diaphragm became a central part of the cultural conversation, some New York City clergy united with doctors to advocate for its availability in city hospitals—a measure that passed, though it was only available to married women. The 1970s saw contraception become aligned with women’s liberation, however, and after the Supreme Court ruled that single women could also be prescribed birth control, the religious left receded from the conversation and the right’s resistance soldified. The author robustly unpacks how the fight for contraception’s availability was often far from a “tale of feminist victory,” while teasing out the complex beliefs and histories motivating elements of the religious left, including those who didn’t support contraception (parts of the Black church, for example, saw it as a possible means of controlling the Black population). It’s an enlightening examination of the tangled intersection of faith, choice, and health in America. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Believers “are compromising their faith or leaving it altogether... because they’re being shaped more by secular culture than the historic Christian faith,” argues pastor Graham in his disappointing debut. He contends that secular society’s emphasis on individualism has seeped into church culture, perpetuating a faith that prioritizes personal wants and discounts the importance of worshiping God with a “surrendered heart.” Among modern society’s ills, he highlights cancel culture and the practice of “church shopping” rather than committing to one faith community, which is likely to cause “spiritual drift.” Graham finds the antidote in spiritual practices, like regularly reading the Bible and attending church, that can bring believers back to Christianity’s roots. But for all of his criticism of how believers supposedly pick and choose parts of Christianity, he fails to consider how much of the traditional church doctrine he espouses, including the opposition to gay marriage, arises from narrow readings of the Bible that often fail to account for historical context. Readers should proceed with caution. (May)

Reviewed on 03/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Therapist Ramsey (The Book of Common Courage) captures in this raw, evocative account the challenges of grappling with chronic illness. Determined to live with the inflammatory spinal arthritis, primary immunodeficiency, and adrenal insufficiency that had swallowed up much of her young adulthood, the author in her early 30s embarked with a friend on a road trip across the West Coast. But their exuberant visits to California’s redwood forests and the Pacific Ocean were derailed when the author suffered a massive health crisis that left her with frequent bouts of anaphylactic shock, debilitating pain, and other mysterious symptoms. Ramsey chronicles the ensuing hospital stays, doctor visits, surgeries, and calls with her insurance company as she struggled to get to the root of her sickness and receive competent care from a medical system that often neglects female patients. Along the way, she also worked to maintain her faith and grapple with the guilt and grief of relying on her loved ones’ care. Ramsey writes with heart and honesty about chronic pain, framing it as a deeply isolating experience but also a conduit to surprising moments of connection with, for example, a doctor who prayed for her, as well as her family and husband. Readers enduring their own health crises will be especially moved and inspired. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Ridgely (When I Was a Child), a professor of religion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, chronicles in this meticulous account the growth of an interracial Catholic community in Newton Grove, N.C., from the 1870s through the segregation era and beyond. Contrary to Gone with the Wind–style lore, Ridgely writes, plantation life fostered interracial association in Southern households (though “unequal status” permeated “nearly every interaction”), and it was traces of this former coexistence that the post-Reconstruction push for segregation sought to erase. In this context, in the 1870s, white Southerner John Carr Monk founded the Newton Grove parish after converting to Catholicism, whose doctrine of a “singular Body of Christ” he saw as validating his idea for an interracial church community where he could worship alongside his mixed-race half brother, Solomon Monk. Carr founded the parish as “interracial, albeit internally segregated,” with seating arrangements separating the races. A brief period of outright segregation began in 1939 and desegregation occurred in 1953. Ridgely makes clear throughout that Monk was no radical (his Southern upbringing and later medical studies in the North had imbued him with the racism of his day), and that the parish he founded was no “utopia” but a community that sought unity without equality as it struggled to maintain itself within the demands of the South’s white supremacist framework. Historians of American Catholicism will want this on their bookshelves. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/20/2026 | Details & Permalink