Witch Wave podcaster Grossman (Waking the Witch) outlines in this pensive outing how readers can use magic to fuel their art. For Grossman, art is itself a kind of magic—an intentional “collaborating with a Creative Force in order to transform” both the artist and “whomever bears witness to the new thing they have made.” More traditional magical crafts can also serve as vehicles for creativity, she writes, noting that tarot decks can spark inspiration or draw out patterns in one’s art (for fabulist author Italo Calvino, tarot was “a machine for constructing stories” and helped him write The Castle of Crossed Destinies), while augury—the interpretation of signs—is a useful means of directing one’s attention to new and fruitful “areas of creative investigation.” Readers seeking step-by-step tips for casting spells or reading tea leaves will be disappointed, but Grossman’s exploration of what it means to create is expansive and inspiring, bolstered by intimate anecdotes of artists’ creative philosophies. For instance, she notes that jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, who saw music as “the spiritual expression of who he was,” framed his 1965 album A Love Supreme as an offering to God and accompanied it with a manifesto that highlighted his view that “thought, belief, and creativity are all connected to the divine.” This is a thought-provoking guide and a joyous ode to creativity’s many mysteries. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bible teacher Meyer (The Courage to Change) and Emmy Award–winning documentarian Stache (Chasing Wonder) team up for a lucid guide to tackling rejection with the help of one’s faith. In alternating chapters, the authors recount their own formative betrayals—Meyer’s abuse at her father’s hands and neglect at her mother’s, Stache’s uncovering of her husband’s pornography addiction—and lay out steps to recovery that center on remembering God’s unconditional love and using it to work toward self-acceptance. Elsewhere, they detail how to rebuild trust in betrayers when appropriate by choosing “hope over fear,” partly because anticipating rejection can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and one is better served by living in “the joy God promises rather than the dread of what someone else’s next action or decision might bring.” While there’s no earth-shattering advice here, the authors’ path to healing is clear and pragmatic, and their disclosures of how they grappled with rejections of their own are candid and affecting. Christians looking to move past stubborn grudges or old hurts will feel seen. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

These enlightening lectures from late spiritual teacher Dass (Polishing the Mirror) explore humanity’s alienation from its divine roots. The argument running through the lectures is that humans once lived in total harmony with their surroundings and one another (a kind of “Eden”). That idyll was punctured by a fall from grace that generated an illusion of separation, according to Dass, and all religion has been a subsequent attempt to return to “oneness.” The return from worldly to the formless and from the mind (and the attendant fear, egotism, and distrust that are responsible, Dass says, for many of the world’s problems) to the “intuitive heart” is impeded by the human instinct to judge and covet. It’s also blocked by the habit of “clinging” to one’s possessions, thoughts, and other attachments, though Dass nimbly notes that the notion of not clinging can itself be clung to (to some extent, he writes, one must embrace their humanity and make peace with their separateness). While the lecture format can make for a somewhat disjointed reading experience, Dass more than makes up for it with insights that are complex, erudite, and often personal (“I looked around at my human incarnation, and after all the years of trying to be divine, of clinging to the idea of divinity, suddenly I wanted to be human”). Spiritual seekers should snap this up. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Axios editor Kole (The Big 100) unpacks in this impassioned treatise how the links between “guns, religion, and politics” have tightened in evangelical communities over the past 50 years. The author finds an inflection point in the late 1960s and early ’70s, as increasing support for the Vietnam War and skepticism of the civil rights movement pushed evangelicals away from the relative pacifism of mainline Protestantism and toward a militaristic Christianity epitomized by a “tough-guy ethos” and an “increasingly masculine, almost warrior-like view of Jesus.” That philosophy, Kole argues, set the stage for evangelicals’ increased affinity for firearms, which was fueled by notions of America as a Christian nation (and thus the Second Amendment as divinely inspired) and a perceived need to defend their beliefs and their embattled “standing in American life.” Noting that an embrace of violence repudiates Christian ethics of love and forgiveness, the author calls on readers to demand commonsense gun control reforms and on pastors to frame gun control as an extension of Jesus’s pacifist teachings. While Kole’s definition of evangelicalism can feel overly broad, he makes trenchant points about how fear, change, and social instability have altered the role of faith and identity in America. It’s a revealing window into the evolution of one of today’s most divisive social issues. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Poet Michelson (Swimming Through Fire) offers a candid account of the horrors refugee children face in American immigration detention centers and how poetry can help them hold onto their dreams. Michelson began offering poetry workshops to detained migrant children in 2015 in hopes that writing would help them envision “a future beyond the... agony” of their circumstances. Poetry, for his students, became a “conduit” for hope, faith, and resilience (“The important thing is to keep going,” one child wrote, “even if you have to adopt a fake smile, because no one knows, nor could they imagine, what has happened in our lives”). Michelson shares horrifying details of the abuses and bureaucratic nightmares asylum seekers encounter at the Mexican border, and calls for humane alternatives to detention, which might involve a federal and local system of residency permits, healthcare, legal aid, and housing support. While the author’s critiques of the immigration system aren’t new, his meditations are heartfelt, and the inclusion of his students’ poetry does a valuable service in centering perspectives usually excluded from public debates about immigration and migrant welfare. The result is a surprisingly uplifting call to reform an unjust system. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/22/2025 | Details & Permalink

Morinis (With Heart in Mind), head of the Mussar Institute, which provides educational resources on Mussar, a 1,100-year-old “Jewish personal and communal spiritual tradition,” explores in this actionable manual how keeping Shabbat can spark spiritual growth. Morinis sees the holiday neither as a day devoted exclusively to rest nor a “rote performance” of ritual; instead it’s a chance for believers to enrich their spirituality by cultivating virtues, or “middot,” such as joy and trust. For example, readers can hone their sense of “sufficiency,” or, loosely, contentment (the Hebrew histapkut), by identifying “one activity in your routine that you tend to pursue with relentlessness” but that “really does not address any kind of basic need” and stopping it on Shabbat. As the habit slowly “loses its grip,” one’s spirit is freed up to connect with God. Elsewhere, Morinis details how readers can cultivate joy by approaching physical pleasures—like eating or sex—with an intentionality that recognizes the sanctity in the mundane. Bolstering the narrative with valuable prompts to help believers track their progress, the author meaningfully frames Shabbat as a lens through which readers can zoom in on what matters, “scrutinize” their spiritual challenges, and carry the resulting lessons into their daily lives. It’s a lucid guide to reinvigorating an ancient religious practice. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/22/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bible teacher Conner explains in her meditative debut why forgiveness is a central tenet of Christian faith. Forgiving others, the author suggests, is essential to maintaining relationships with other inherently “fallen” humans who invariably hurt one another; it’s also a means of extending to others the “radical grace” that Jesus offered to humanity. Conner is careful to clarify that forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting, which isn’t always practical and can mean unhealthily suppressing one’s emotions. A more realistic approach is a kind of dogged, day-to-day recommitting to mercy, reminiscent of God’s biblical vow to “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” She also explores in detail how forgiveness can be compatible with holding offenders accountable and need not entail reconciliation, which necessitates both “offender and offended” committing to repairing the relationship. Throughout, the author draws intriguing links to her own fraught efforts to forgive her unpredictable, alcoholic father for being absent for much of her childhood, and examines broader implications for today’s cancel culture, which, she argues, is a direct repudiation of “the mercy-filled and shalom-making culture Jesus was seeking to create among his disciples.” Christians who’ve had a tough time letting go of a grudge would do well to pick this up. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/22/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bevins (Simply Anglican), founder of the Christian nonprofit Creo Arts, offers a vivid defense of the creative arts as a vital extension of Christian faith. Art, Bevins writes, stems from an innate human longing for beauty that allows believers to transcend the everyday and briefly glimpse God’s spirit. In short, meditative chapters, he unpacks how art bridges cultural divides by speaking to universal human desires, connects creators to their own spirituality (in making art, people emulate “on a minute scale” God’s own “practice of creation”), and brings people closer to God (art allows the faithful to open up “the inner life” to the gospel). In a world where utilitarianism and speed have eclipsed the desire for beauty for its own sake, the author writes, Christians can deepen their spirituality by appreciating and making art, both via traditional creative pursuits and adding flourishes to such everyday tasks as cooking or hosting. He also calls on churches to support artists and use their insights to think more “creatively about sharing the gospel with a new generation.” This is a sincere and resonant testament to the power of creativity. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/22/2025 | Details & Permalink

The groundbreaking legacy of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt owes much to her deep Episcopalian faith, according to this thorough biography from Mitchell (Tread the City’s Streets Again), a professor of religion at Berkeley College in New York City. Arguing that many of his subject’s deepest convictions were “grounded in the teaching of Jesus” and that previous biographers have glossed over this fact, he highlights Roosevelt’s acute awareness of others’ suffering (she grew up near the impoverished Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan and was taught to be generous to the poor without judgment); her ability to “focus her attention and channel her energy” (borne partly of routinely memorizing Bible passages as a child); and her commitment to racial justice, even when her actions contradicted her husband’s. Mitchell makes a convincing case that Roosevelt’s moral compass was formed by her personal spirituality, the communal element of church life, and biblical narratives that subconsciously informed the way she perceived the world. It adds up to a fresh take on the influences that formed a key figure in 20th-century American history. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/22/2025 | Details & Permalink

Meditation teacher Knopp debuts with a luminous and layered account of her search for spiritual liberation. Driven by her “seeker’s heart” and the trauma of an abusive childhood, the author embarked on a quest across Europe, the Americas, and Australia in search of fundamental truths about life. Her initial wanderings took her to Nepal and an Indian ashram, but it was later in San Francisco when she first experienced a spiritual awakening. “What felt like a lightning bolt shot through my body,” she writes, recalling how she was struck by a “silent openness [that] was already calm and peaceful in an absolute way that required no doing... the invitation was to let everything simply be.” In a notable twist, the realization does not result in a happy ending but is followed by a darker phase in the author’s “spiritual homecoming” when she is raped by the leader of a yogic spiritual retreat in Germany. From there, Knopp launches into a discerning exploration of the interplay between trauma, fantasies of “enlightenment,” and the unwholesome dynamics of guru culture. Along the way, she contemplates how attempting to “bypass” her unprocessed childhood traumas via her spiritual pursuit partly pushed her into her violator’s hands. The result is both a nuanced exploration of diverse spiritual paths and a riveting narrative of a seeker’s fraught efforts to find peace. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/22/2025 | Details & Permalink