The editors list recent books on biblical studies and hermeneutics, religion and climate, philosophy of religion and mystical atheism, and the historical Muhammad, with publication details.
Book Recommendations
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Book Recommendations
Editors’ list of recommended 2026 books under headings: biblical study, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and politics, including Stephen Batchelor, Nadeem Nassar, Molly Crabapple and Rowan Williams.
Bartleby’s Resistance
Žižek’s reading of Melville’s Bartleby (‘I would prefer not to’) as resistance that steps outside the system rather than opposing it. The author applies this to Jesus, the Kingdom of God and a church captured by neoliberal methods.
Jesus and the Powers by Tom Wright and Michael Bird
Dominic Kirkham reviews Tom Wright and Michael Bird’s Jesus and the Powers. He finds it apologetic, and contrasts its Christendom-friendly history with a non-violent, Crossan-style Jesus movement.
Lived Religion: Simon Cross
Interview with Simon Cross, chair of the Progressive Christianity Network, on moving from evangelical faith to a processual, political reading of Jesus, shaped by bereavement, meditation and communities of resistance.
Stories in the Scriptures
Review of Robert Crompton’s Stories in the Scriptures, which reads Bible stories as a novelist, asking what real situations led ordinary people to tell these tales rather than what must be believed.
Mark: A Gospel of Resistance (Part 3)
Concludes the argument that Mark wrote parables for Jewish readers under Roman occupation, contrasts Mark with Matthew’s rules and clergy-friendly editing, and prefers Mark’s picture of healing and forgiveness.
What might Amos say to us now?
Reads the prophet Amos in his eighth-century context, his condemnation of the rich for mistreating the poor, and argues that his call for justice speaks to present inequality and geopolitics.
Different Gods
Tom Hall’s poem lists contradictory portraits of God and Jesus across the Hebrew Bible and Gospels, and asks what vision should guide the one life we have.
Poetic responses
Poetry editor’s column presenting poems sent in by members, including Tom Hall’s poem on the differing images of God in the Bible, and poems by Blake, Brooke, Dylan Thomas and others.