New Books in Catholic Studies
Episodes
Philip Abbott, "Sounds for a New World: The Christianizing Soundscapes of Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2026)
29 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the Greco-Roman world, gods were known to tame soundscapes, or acoustic landscapes. Zeus, Apollo, Orpheus, and other Classical deities demonstrated...
Jesus: Undercover Boss or God with Us? (Anne Blackwill)- Holy Week and the Passion
05 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As we move into Holy Week, the Triduum, Easter and its season, all Christians ask themselves ‘what is this all about?’ and why God created such an...
The Tree of Life (Bryan Zahnd)
08 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“The movie is a prayer,” says Bryan Zahnd, about Terrence Mallick’s 2011 The Tree of Life, his favorite movie of all time. Bryan has seen it fo...
Jane Ohlmeyer, "Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World" (Oxford UP, 2023)
22 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history of the world for the last two millennia. It is nation states...
Lucy Donkin, "Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages" (Cornell UP, 2022)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Lucy Donkin’s Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2022) illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in...
A. Bagliani and N, Şenocak, "A People's Church: Medieval Italy and Christianity, 1050-1300" (Cornell UP, 2023)
07 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and...
Church and State (Professors Dan Rober, Michelle Loris, and Charlie Gillespie): American Cardinals denounce US Foreign Policy
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Following Pope Leo’s State of the World Address in January of 2026, the three American Cardinals who are also diocesan archbishops Cardinal Cupich (...
Kevin Hart, "Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation (U Chicago Press, 2023), Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a med...
Daniel Eastman An, "Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism" (U California Press, 2025)
24 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the writings of ancient Christians, the near-ubiquitous references to the "fear of God" have traditionally been seen as a generic placeholder for p...
Jamie Kreiner, "The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction" (Liveright, 2023)
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction (Liveright, 2023) by Dr. Jamie Kreiner presents a revelatory account of how Christi...
Steven J. Brady, "Less Than Victory: American Catholics and the Vietnam War" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The first book of its kind, Less Than Victory: American Catholics and the Vietnam War (Cambridge UP, 2025) by Dr. Steven J. Brady explores both the ...
Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration. Helen J. Nicholson's book Wo...
Insane for the Light (Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI)
03 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Father Ron Rolheiser’s new book Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, which is about how to grow old well and be fruitful, fir...
Knight, Monk, King, Prophet (Juan Domínguez)
20 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Before the Scientific Revolution, Western medicine was thought in terms of humors: cheerful people were sanguine and had a lot of blood, fiery choleri...
Melanie McDonagh, "Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century" (Yale UP, 2025)
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The twentieth century is understood as an era of growing, inexorable secularism, yet in Britain between the 1890s and the 1960s there was a marked tur...
In the Footsteps of St. Thomas (with Bishop Daniel Timotheos): Spreading the Gospel in the Indian Ocean World
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bishop Daniel talks like a Texas Protestant in terms of Church Planting and giving your heart to Christ, but actually he is a bishop in the Orthodox C...
Józef Tischner, "The Philosophy of Drama" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Philosophy of Drama (U Notre Dame Press, 2024), by the Catholic philosopher Józef Tischner (translated by Artur Rosman, University of Notre ...
Thomas Smith, "Rewriting the First Crusade: Epistolary Culture in the Middle Ages" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The letters stemming from the First Crusade are premier sources for understanding the launch, campaign, and aftermath of the expedition. Between 1095 ...
Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films...
Kathryn Hurlock, "Holy Places: How Pilgrimage Changed the World" (Profile, 2025)
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This year, as they have for millennia, many people around the world will set out on pilgrimages. But these are not only journeys of personal and spiri...
Madeleine Chalmers, "French Technological Thought and the Nonhuman Turn" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
French Technological Thought and the Nonhuman Turn (Edinburgh University Press, 2024) traces a genealogy of thinking and writing about technology, ...
Colleen Dulle, "Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter" (Image, 2025)
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vatican journalist Colleen Dulle discusses her new book, Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter, a memoir of the last...
Susan Juster, "A Common Grave: Being Catholic in English America" (UNC Press, 2025)
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Nevis to Newfoundland, Catholics were everywhere in English America. But often feared and distrusted, they hid in plain sight, deftly obscuring t...
Steve Tibble, "Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood" (Yale UP, 2025)
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Assassins and the Templars are two of history’s most legendary groups. One was a Shi’ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order ...
Cup Overflowing: How Christians Should Think about Wine
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows,” wrote King David in Psalm 23. The ov...
Paul Mariani, "The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernity" (Paraclete Press, 2019)
06 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Mariani has spent fifty years writing poetry that celebrates the vibrant sacramentality of life in the twilight of Modernity, and writing the liv...
Brian A. Stauffer, "Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion" (U New Mexico Press, 2019)
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), Brian A. Stauffer reconstructs the history ...
Charly Coleman, "The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment" (Stanford UP, 2021)
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Charly Coleman's latest book, The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 2021) is at...
David de Boer, "The Early Modern Dutch Press in an Age of Religious Persecution" (Oxford UP, 2023)
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David de Boer returns to the podcast to talk to Jana Byars about his first book, The Early Modern Dutch Press in the Age of Religious Persecution (O...
Christopher Ocker, "Luther, Conflict, and Christendom: Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
27 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Luther - monk, priest, intellectual, or revolutionary - has been a controversial figure since the sixteenth century. Most studies of Luther str...
Allan Doig, "A History of the Church through its Buildings" (Oxford UP, 2021)
19 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A History of the Church through its Buildings (Oxford University Press, 2021) by Allan Doig takes the reader to meet people who lived through momen...
Gary Kulik, "Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War's Forgotten Medics" (Texas Tech UP, 2025)
19 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the war in Vietnam, thousands of young men served as conscientious objector medics. They had been certified by their local draft boards as nonc...
Pope Leo XIV (with Christopher White)
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vatican Reporter Christopher White has just written book about Pope Leo XIV, our new Holy Father, an American, an Augustinian, from Chicago, from Perú...
Jürgen Buchenau and David S. Dalton, "Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1940" (Simon and Schuster, 2024)
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1940 examines anti-Catholic leaders and movements during the Mexican Revolution, an era that resul...
John Eldevik, "Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and Its Manuscript Contexts" (Arc Humanities Press, 2024)
06 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and its Manuscript Contexts by John Eldevik During the Middle Ages, many Europeans imagined that there exist...
Michael Amoruso, "Moved by the Dead: Haunting and Devotion in São Paulo, Brazil" (UNC Press, 2025)
06 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the sprawling city of São Paulo, a weekly practice known as devotion to souls (devoção às almas) draws devotees to Catholic churches, cemeterie...
Jonathan Teubner, "Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West" (Oxford UP, 2025)
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Teubner, Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West (Oxford UP, 2025) Through a unique ...
Stefanie Lenk, "Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Christianity is often considered prevalent when it comes to defining the key values of late antique society, whereas 'feeling connected to the Roman p...
Maya Mayblin "Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the Turbulent Lives of Priest Politicians" (Fordham UP, 2024)
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A richly cinematic and compelling look at priest-politicians in Brazil and their religious and secular entanglements, Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desir...
Stephen Okey, "A Theology of Conversation: An Introduction to David Tracy" (Liturgical Press, 2018)
25 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes described as "a theologian's theologian," David Tracy's scholarship has impacted countless thinkers around the globe. The complexity of his ...
Julia McClure, "Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire" (Oxford UP, 2025)
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Julia McClure examines how changing conce...
Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culminat...
Art and Its Holy Object (with Steve Auth)
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the transcendental and numinous things, sometimes there are no words. But art—paintings, sculpture, music, film—can knock us sideways a little...
Nancy M. Rourke, "Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model" (Georgetown UP, 2024)
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The images we use to think about moral character are powerful. They inform our understanding of the moral virtues and the ways in which moral characte...
Stephanie Schmidt, "Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain: Missionary Narratives, Nahua Perspectives" (U Texas Press, 2025)
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A cornerstone of the evangelization of early New Spain was the conversion of Nahua boys, especially the children of elites. They were to be emissaries...
Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
04 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate. ...
Donald S. Prudlo, "Governing Perfection" (St. Augustine's Press, 2024)
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"In the beginning, God administrated." For as Donald Prudlo observes, "There can be no achievement without administration." In this book he seeks to r...
Miles Pattenden, "Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700" (Oxford UP, 2017)
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released ...
Timothy Twining, "The Limits of Erudition: The Old Testament in Post-Reformation Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The history of early modern biblical scholarship has often been told as a teleological narrative in which a succession of radical thinkers dethroned t...
Donald S. Prudlo, "Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The work of St. Bartholomew of Braga, O.P. (1514-1590) appears here in English for the first time despite its long and enduring influence in ecclesias...
Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025)
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration. Why did these erstwhile foes end their schis...
Asa Simon Mittman, "Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England" (Penn State UP, 2024)
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the battles over Jerusalem to the emergence of the “Holy Land,” from legally mandated ghettos to the Edict of Expulsion, geography has long b...
Faith Tibble, "Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings" (T&T Clark, 2025)
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jesus' Crown of Thorns has become one of the most ubiquitous features of Christian religious art, but was the original crown anything like the crown o...
Salve Regina (with Bishop Athanasius Schneider)
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling [.…] And he awoke and rebuked the wind, a...
Forest Issac Jones, "Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963-1972" (First Hill Books, 2025)
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Forest Isaac Jones is an award-winning author of non-fiction and essays, specializing in the study of Irish History, the US Civil Rights Movement and ...
Loretta Vandi, "Eufrasia Burlamacchi" (Getty Publications, 2025)
06 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eufrasia Burlamacchi (Getty Publications, 2025) by Dr. Loretta Vandi is a timely exploration of the skilful illuminated manuscripts of Sister Eufrasi...
Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality
05 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate scoffed at Jesus (Jn 18:38), and that’s how we think about matters today in our culture—subjectively: my truth...
Jonathan Rauch, "Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy" (Yale UP, 2025)
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I’m speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlant...
Bruce L. Vernarde, "The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France" (Cornell UP, 2024)
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Murder in a cathedral, horrific illnesses and deformities, narrow escapes from injury and death, a vengeful dragon, a wandering eyeball, a bawdy monk ...
James M. O’Toole, "For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America" (Harvard UP, 2025)
24 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The...
Alexandra Verini, "English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
16 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women’s utopianism th...
Ariane Sherine, "The Real Sinéad O'Connor" (White Owl, 2024)
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sinéad O'Connor, renowned for her angelic voice and activism, overcame a tumultuous upbringing to become a global protest singer and advocate for soc...
Jørgen Møller and Jonathan Doucette, "The Catholic Church and European State Formation, AD 1000-1500" (Oxford UP, 2022)
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Generations of social scientists and historians have argued that the escape from empire and consequent fragmentation of power - across and within poli...
Words and Silences: The Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes
24 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Harnetty’s recent record, Words and Silences, takes voice recordings made by the famed American Trappist monk Thomas Merton and sets them wit...
Andrew Jotischky, "The Monastic World: A 1,200-Year History" (Yale UP, 2024)
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the late Roman Empire onwards, monasteries and convents were a common sight throughout Europe. But who were monasteries for? What kind of people ...
Patrick Riordan, "Human Dignity and Liberal Politics: Catholic Possibilities for the Common Good" (Georgetown UP, 2023)
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A deeply considered examination of the “common good” reconciling Catholic Social Thought with secular politics and philosophy. The Second Vatican ...
Edward Simon, "The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues: A Visual History" (Cernunnos, 2024)
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A companion piece to Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology and Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology, Seven Sins and Seven Virtues (Abram...
Bianca M. Lopez, "Queen of Sorrows: Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy" (Cornell UP, 2024)
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Queen of Sorrows: Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Bianca Lopez takes an original approach to ...
Andrew Laird, "Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico" (Oxford UP, 2024)
18 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Laird, of Brown University, discusses Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico (Oxford University Pr...
David G. Hunter et al., "Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity: Authors, Texts, and Ideas" (Brill, 2024)
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity: Authors, Texts, and Ideas (Brill, 2024) focuses on the history of early Christianity, covering texts...
Theresa Keeley, "Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America" (Cornell UP, 2020)
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America (Cornell UP, 2020), Theresa Keeley analyzes ...
Doris L. Bergen, "Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the Second World War, approximately 1000 Christian chaplains accompanied Wehrmacht forces wherever they went, from Poland to France, Greece, No...
Amélie Barras, "Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations" (Stanford UP, 2024)
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations (Stanford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Amélie Barras explores why and how C...
Paula Fredriksen, "Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years" (Princeton UP, 2024)
23 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to domina...
Jan Machielsen, "The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In June 1609, two judges left Bordeaux for a territory at the very edge of their jurisdiction, a Basque-speaking province on the Atlantic coast called...
David J. Collins, SJ, "Disenchanting Albert the Great: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician" (Penn State UP, 2024)
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David J Collins, SJ joins Jana Byars to talk about Disenchanting Albert the Great: the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician (Penn State Press, ...
Michael Plekon, "Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In an era where congregations are shrinking and fewer people engage with faith communities, Michael Plekon's book Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Li...
Elyse Ona Singer, "Lawful Sins: Abortion Rights and Reproductive Governance in Mexico" (Stanford UP, 2022)
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mexico is at the center of the global battle over abortion. In 2007, a watershed reform legalized the procedure in the national capital, making it one...
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, "Women and the Reformations: A Global History" (Yale UP, 2024)
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Reformations, both Protestant and Catholic, have long been told as stories of men. But women were central to the transformations that took place i...
Talking with a Man Who Returned from the Dead (with Paul Zucarelli)
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is my second conversation with Paul Zucarelli who died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmste...
Nina Valbousquet, "Lukewarm Souls: The Vatican facing the Shoah" (La Découverte, 2024)
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The exceptional opening of the archives of the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) in 2020 did not end the controversies surrounding the silence of th...
Matthew Elia, "The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery" (Yale UP, 2024)
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery (Yale UP, 2024) offers a bold rereading of Augustinian thought for a worl...
Holy, Catholic, Apostolic (with Paul Zucarelli)
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Zucarelli died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and the faith of his family...
Mark Stoyle, "A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549" (Yale UP, 2022)
03 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. Beginning as an a...
Nicholas Spencer, "Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion" (Oneworld, 2024)
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most things you 'know' about science and religion are myths or half-truths that grew up in the last years of the nineteenth century and remain widespr...
Alister E. McGrath, "The Nature of Christian Doctrine: Its Origins, Development, and Function" (Oxford UP, 2024)
28 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Nature of Christian Doctrine: Its Origins, Development, and Function (Oxford UP, 2024) offers a groundbreaking account of the origins, developme...
Bruce Gordon, "The Bible: A Global History" (Basic Books, 2024)
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A “wonderful…highly comprehensive” (John Barton, author of A History of the Bible) global history of the world’s best-known and most influent...
Luke Clossey, "Jesus and the Making of the Modern Mind, 1380-1520" (Open Book, 2024)
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For his fifteenth-century followers, Jesus was everywhere – from baptism to bloodcults to bowling. This sweeping and unconventional investigation lo...
Mercy Ships (with Reanne Newquist)
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Reanne Newquist tells me about her voyage on Mercy Ships bringing healthcare to some of the poorest people in the world, a mission started by Don Step...
Jerome E. Copulsky, "American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order" (Yale UP, 2024)
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A question has long hung over the the United States regarding the proper role of religion in public life. Those who long for a Christian America c...
Courtney Ann Irby, "Guiding God's Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling" (NYU Press, 2024)
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is well-known that the institution of marriage has changed dramatically in the past few decades. However, very little research has focused on the r...
Steve Tibble, "Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land" (Yale UP, 2024)
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land (Yale University Press, 2024), Dr. Steve Tibble presents a vivid new history of t...
Jason Ramsey, "Reckoning with Change in Yucatán: Histories of Care and Threat on a Former Hacienda" (Routledge, 2023)
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A perpetual tension exists between history and change, which is an issue long explored by historians and social scientists. Reckoning with Change in ...
Edel Bhreathnach, "Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250" (Four Courts Press, 2024)
11 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The history of monasticism in early Ireland is dominated by its flourishing during the sixth and seventh centuries, a period dominated by Columba of I...
Martha Rampton, "Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000" (Cornell UP, 2021)
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Martha Rampton, Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how magic ...
Tracy Fessenden, “Religion Around Billie Holiday” (Penn State UP, 2018)
08 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Billie Holiday is one of the most iconic jazz performers of all time. Her voice is certainly unmistakable but for many her religious sensibilities may...
Naomi Leite, "Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging" (U California Press, 2017)
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging (U California Press, 2017) is a lively, readable exploration of "chosen" iden...
Aleksander Pluskowski, "The Teutonic Knights: Rise and Fall of a Religious Corporation" (Reaktion, 2024)
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Aleksander Pluskowski of the University of Reading joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, The Teutonic Knights: Rise and Fall of a Religious C...
Mark Valeri, "The Opening of the Protestant Mind: How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty" (Oxford UP, 2023)
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the mid-seventeenth century, Anglo-American Protestants described Native American ceremonies as savage devilry, Islamic teaching as violent chi...
Localism (with Dale Ahlquist)
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dale Ahlquist is the founder the of the Society of G. K. Chesterton and Chesterton Schools, of which there are currently 70 and number is rising. He ...