Category: Personal

On the Americans with Disabilities Act Turning 35

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ADA 35
ADA 35

Cross posted from Turning Aside

July 26, 2025 marks the 35th anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For many in the disability community this anniversary is marked both with a desire to celebrate what progress has been made in securing our basic rights, but also with lamentation and frustration at how far we still must go. While (for now) public laws and codes require most public spaces to theoretically meet a bare minimum standard of accessibility (which is generally nowhere near sufficient to earn that label), the collective consciousness of the nation still seems to default to ableism.

I want to believe that the ablism as the default mentality is done out of ignorance instead of malice, but I know it is often a mixed bag. There are people who insist that it is their God-given right to mock the disabled, cruelly insisting on making us the brunt of their jokes or calling us “snowflakes” if we ask them to not use the R-word. Even the current President mocked a reporter’s disability at one of his rallies and his fan-base had no problem with it. So, I see the malice and the cruelty that fuels ablism, but I also see the ignorance.

When I was a kid in grade school the trend on the playground was to tell stump and Helen Keller jokes – making those with limb differences, deafness, and blindness their punchlines. People did this in front of me – a person with a limb difference. I thought we were beyond such ignorance as a culture, but in recent years I’ve been hearing stump jokes resurface – often told to my face cluelessly by people who are utterly ignorant that they are using my very existence to elicit a laugh.

Groups of friends plan events in upstairs locations and never wonder why I can’t attend. At parties I am left sitting alone while groups stand in a circle chatting a few feet away, clueless that I physically cannot do the same. I attempt to join meet-up groups only to discover that they too meet in inaccessible upstairs rooms, or at places with no parking (assuming anyone can park blocks away on the street), or at standing only venues, or at outdoor venues with loose gravel yards that my mobility devices can’t manage. These locations are never chosen with a deliberate purpose to exclude the disabled, it just never ever occurs to them to think about accessibility needs.

Or since developing mobility disabilities I’ve had to pay closer attention to accessible parking spaces. More often than I ever would have imagined I see handicapped spots full of cars without the necessary tags or plates. There have been times when I’ve been at a restaurant for a couple of hours in view of the handicapped spots and over and over again I see cars pull into them with no plates or tags and the person run into some store (usually a liquor store or pizza place) for 5-10 minutes. A selfish, self-centered behavior that puts their momentary convenience above the actual needs of others. When I mention this occurrence to store managers I get told that they don’t want to offend customers by having them ticketed or towed (which tells me clearly that they don’t care about offending their disabled customers). When I mention this habit to friends, they are incredulous and say that they can’t imagine anyone doing that so it must never really happen. Selfishness and ignorance.

The ADA was a start; but it is up against a culture that still looks down on disability. I’ve joined and followed disability groups in the last few years and have been shocked by the sorts of comments trolls leave there. Even the mere suggestion that a house be built with accessible features sparks outrage from these people about how the disabled are lazy, want handouts, and want to ruin life for “normal” people. Liturgies at churches still include prayers for the healing of the disabled – treating us as problems to be dealt with instead of people to be included. If I dare to mention that it is not my disabilities, but the inaccessibility of the world around me that limits me even the most open-minded people I know try to argue with me. When I mention Disability Pride Month the most common response I get is confusion about why I would be proud to be disabled and not just desire to be cured. Ableism abounds.

Fifteen years ago on the 20th anniversary of the passing of the ADA I wrote this blog post about attitudes in the church about the disabled. In the very place where I would have hoped that the disabled would be welcomed and embraced, I was finding deep aversion to including us. Since then, my disabilities have multiplied, but I’ve seen little progress in society in thinking differently. Back then I rarely talked about disability, but now I realize that unless more of us use our voice and challenge all forms of ablism (both ignorant and malicious) then nothing will ever change. Acceptance, inclusion, and accessibility should be the norm, but we are not there yet. I wish more had changed in the past 35 years, but there is still a long way to go.

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Welcome Back to onehandclapping

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Old onehandclapping header

I started this blog, onehandclapping, back in 2005 when I was a new mom in the middle of deconstructing my faith and trying to figure out how I could use my voice. At first the blog was a random assortment of book reviews, commentary on politics and pop culture, silly memes and quizzes, and pictures of my life. Over the next decade as I grew in my writing and explored my beliefs it became more theology and social justice oriented. It saw the publication of my books, my experiences as a conference speaker, my time in seminary, and the development of the Emerging Church movement that I was a part of.

Then it went silent. My life got complicated. Relationships fell apart. Trauma and betrayal made it hard to even feel like writing. Special needs kids entering their teen years and all the joys and sorrows that entails took nearly all my energy and their struggles were not my story to tell. A global pandemic and the rise of fascism in the United States made living uncertain. Personal health issues lead to multiple surgeries that eventually left me with mobility issues and multiple disabilities. Life consumed me, I allowed myself to be caged, and I lost myself as a result. Then computer problems ended up deleting most of the blog and not everything was able to be recovered. I sat with an empty blog for a long time unsure of what to do with it.

And a decade went by.

So now, 20 years later, I’ve decided to republish onehandclapping. And I’m going to do it mostly as it was. Some posts have been lost to the digital nether, some posts of family pictures and updates I am leaving off, and some posts that were links go nowhere these days. But the blog is a fascinating glimpse into my development of thought and into the world as it was during that time. There are many things I wrote that I no longer agree with. There is commentary on pop culture that is no longer relevant (my speculations on what will happen on LOST) and pop culture that is now problematic (Harry Potter, Joss Whedon…). How we interact with media has change in those 20 years – pictures, memes, quizzes, and articles are now posted on Facebook or Instagram while blogs are for more serious lengthy writing. But it is a history of my story of deconstruction that shows my evolution and so it is being posted as it was written during that time. I probably will revisit some older posts as I try to explore in writing who I am now, but the archives exist as they were.

As I’ve grown older and dealt with trauma both physical and emotional, I am a different person. I’ve grown more liberal and compassionate, and yet far more timid in using my voice. I want that to change. Writing helps me and for years I’ve been too scared and stuck to write. I need to make myself speak again. I need to engage deeply with thought again, connecting ideas and stories. It will look different than it did 20 years ago because I am different. My beliefs, my interests, and my dreams have shifted as the years passed by, but there is still so much story to tell.

So, I welcome you back to onehandclapping and invite you to join me as I rediscover my voice.

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The Deep Silences

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“Where a story-teller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of the silence. … Who then tells a finer story than any of us? Silence does. And where does one read a deeper tale than upon the most perfectly printed page of the most precious book? Upon the blank page.” – Isak Dinesen, “The Blank Page”

As I contemplated the emptiness of the silence in my life, I was reminded of a story that has haunted me ever since I first read it some years ago in college. Isak Dinesen’s short story “The Blank Page,” although well-crafted and seeped in rich language appears simple enough as a story, but it is the silence of the blank page it offers that remains with the reader. I hate to summarize such a poignant (and truly very short) tale, so I highly encourage you to read it in full here. But it is a tale of an old story-teller who tells of an old order of Carmelite nuns in Portugal who spun the finest linen in all the land. So fine that it was used for the bridal sheets of the daughters of the noble families of the land. The bridal sheet that would only be used once and then the morning after hung out on the balcony to proclaim to the world that the bride had indeed been a virgin. The nuns would then receive back the central part of the sheet, a dark stain upon snow white linen, and hang it in a gilded frame in the convent’s main hall. Visitors would come to gaze upon these “marks of honor” and find their own meanings in the markings. But of course, there is one sheet that differs from the others, one that within its golden frame remains snow-white from corner to corner – a blank page. And as Dinesen writes, “It is in front of this piece of pure, white linen that the old princesses of Portugal—worldly wise, dutiful, long-suffering queens, wives and mothers—and their noble old playmates, bridesmaids and maids-of-honor have most often stood still. It is in front of the blank page that old and young nuns, with the Mother Abbess herself, sink into deepest thought.”

There is more meaning in the untold stories, the what-ifs, the dreams, and the unexpected turns of life than in the seemingly perfectly constructed tales. The depths of questions, of pain, and of pleasure in the silences are their own stories. The silence is sometimes deep.

I’m ready to plumb those depths.

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The Empty Silences

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It’s been quiet here on this blog of late. It’s been hard to write. Hence the silence.

I feel like my life has been buffering – in such a constant state of transition that nothing ever seems to be fully resolving. Ideas that bounce around in my head of all the intriguing topics I want to explore in writing remain locked away inside there. When life just seems to be one giant emotional quandary that I can’t (for a variety of reasons) write about here, it somehow seemed false to prattle on about theology, and culture, and faith, and all those things that felt so far outside myself. And so I inevitably became silent, even as I ruminated in my own silence. Yet the longer I kept my thoughts inside and kept my voice silent, the more filled with silence my own mind became. Because I felt I couldn’t speak, I lost the ability to have anything to say.

The silence became an empty silence.

121On my trip to England and Wales this past December I visited the ruins of Caerphilly Castle in Southern Wales. My visit fell on a weekday in the off-season on a near-freezing and drizzling day. Needless to say I was the only person touring the castle that afternoon. At first I was secretly delighted to have the crumbling archways, damp corridors, and blustery towers to myself. But I wanted more than just the silence of the ruins. I wanted to know its stories or at least to populate its grand hall with tales of conquering knights and court intrigue. But devoid of listening ears, the emptiness of its silence pervaded instead. More than that the stories weren’t being told, it felt like they had drifted away over time as the silence retook the crumbling stones.

 

It reminded me of that thoroughly Welsh poet R.S. Thomas’ poem “In Church”

Often I try
To analyse the quality
Of its silences. Is this where God hides
From my searching? I have stopped to listen,
After the few people have gone,
To the air recomposing itself
For vigil. It has waited like this
Since the stones grouped themselves about it.
These are the hard ribs
Of a body that our prayers have failed
To animate. Shadows advance
From their corners to take possession
Of places the light held
For an hour. The bats resume
Their business. The uneasiness of the pews
Ceases. There is no other sound
In the darkness but the sound of a man
Breathing, testing his faith
On emptiness, nailing his questions
One by one to an untenanted cross.

Sometimes it takes encountering the emptiness and asking questions into the silence before one realizes that the shadows have advanced on an inanimate body. Sometimes to embrace that silence in the darkness is a needed respite. But sometimes it slowly takes possession until the moment one realizes the walls no longer tell stories and that inanimate body in shock realizes that it is half-sick of shadows and wonders if it is possible for dry bones to live once again.

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Closer to Fine – Wild Goose 2013

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“I’m trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you’ve ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it’s only life after all”
– Closer to Fine, Indigo Girls

I didn’t know if I could do Wild Goose this year. After Mike informed me at the beginning of the summer that our marriage of 13+ years was over, life was turned upside down. I was in shock. I went into survival mode. I haven’t been able to write and I barely knew how to put into words the turmoil I was going through. The idea of going to the Wild Goose, intended to be our family vacation this year, was overwhelming. I’ve always been a private, reserved person emotionally – which has usually simply been code for not being real. But somehow I knew that I couldn’t go to the Wild Goose this year and not be real. For once, to not refrain from being open and honest and fully myself. It’s just that sort of gathering – raw and dismantling.

Wild Goose has been a place where for the last couple of years I have found hope. Hope for the community that despite not knowing if or what it believes still calls itself the body of Christ, but more importantly hope that a better world is indeed possible. The nature of a festival moves one beyond pretense and comfort, where it is easier to see that there is good at work in the world despite the apathy and ignorance that usually cloud our vision. I caught glimpses of that hope this year, but in all honesty I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to grasp hold of those glimpses as they flickered by. Everything was simply too close to allow hope and revolution to capture my imagination this year.

I needed something far more basic. I needed the fantastic community of friends I have developed over the past decade, but whom I only get to see maybe once or twice a year at these events. I needed long conversations over beer, late-night dance parties in the mud, and hot-tubbing until the wee small hours of the morning. I needed to laugh and let go enough to be able to see how deeply real and deeply absurd it was to be up on a stage caked in mud fielding questions about how to talk to teens about masturbation and how BDSM challenges the dangers of patriarchy.

And I needed to stand in a field Saturday evening singing along with the Indigo Girls, as loudly as I could, the lyrics to Closer to Fine and discover that I actually meant them.

148On Friday I had gathered at the beer tent for one of my favorite Wild Goose traditions – Beer & Hymns. Believers and skeptics join together over beer to sing with that wonderful mix of awe, irony, nostalgia, and anger the classic robust hymns of the Christian tradition. Yet not even with a wistful nostalgia could I join in on singing It is Well with My Soul. Of course it is not well with my soul. And the very lines that “thou hast taught me to say it is well with my soul” represent the very aspects of the faith world that I fear the most these days. I’m done being told what to believe, what to feel, how to act, how to process, how to package things up in meaningless but convenient packages. I’m done parroting the faith equivalent of “I’m fine” just because it is expected of me. That pull to appear to accept that all is well kept me from treating my depression for years. I don’t play that game anymore.

But amidst the community at Wild Goose, I found that while I could not sing It is Well with My Soul, I could sing Closer to Fine.

That despite my tendencies to overthink, overanalyze, internalize, and take everything far too seriously I am able to let go enough to just be. Some days that means be okay, other days, be a complete mess. And that’s okay.

So thank you Wild Goose for letting me dance in a field and realize – “There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in crooked line. The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.”

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Life, Advent, Writing

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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here. Life got complicated. More complicated than usual. And blogging seemed to be the easiest thing to step away from for a season. It was hard to write, but I’m discovering that it’s even harder to not be in the practice of writing. I need writing to think, to work through ideas, to be alive. But I’ve slipped out of the habit. I’ve stopped working at getting the words out of the murkiness of my head onto (figurative) paper.

I need that. I need to write again.

And I want to use the season of Advent to do that. For the past six years, my Advent meditations have been my form of spiritual reflection during this time of year. Working through ideas, dwelling on particular themes and creating a reflection out of that is my language of worship. I need to do that again. I’m saying that here, so it is out there, so I have to do it.

But it will be different this year. In the past I have been drawn to the idea that Advent is a period of waiting for the light. And that still is an idea that resonates strongly with me. But leading up to this season this year, I’ve been repeatedly encountering the idea of finding the beauty in the darkness – of living faithfully in that darkness. It’s a theme that has come at me from so many different arenas recently that I feel like I have no choice but to reflect on that this Advent. What does it mean to wait in the darkness?

So from that I plan on writing reflections this year on the Sundays of Advent exploring the darkness. It scares me, but of course that means I need to face it and wrestle with it.

As part of that, I have also collated and revised the past five years of my Advent reflections in a Kindle eBook. As I focused on anticipating the light during those years, the book is aptly called Celebrating the Light: Reflections for the Sundays of Advent. It is intended to be used for personal or family worship, or to be read in corporate worship gatherings. Permission is given for the reflections to be used in any way that benefits others as long as attribution is given. So if you, your friends or family, or your church is looking for a resource this Advent season, please check out Celebrating the Light.

But as we enter into Advent this year, I will be thinking about darkness and invite you to join me there.

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Talking about The Hunger Games and the Gospel

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Things have been a bit crazy around here with the release of my book The Hunger Games and the Gospel. I loved the books (and can’t wait to see the movie), so it’s been a blessing to be able to write about the ways this powerful story can help us better understand our faith. As I wrote in the book –

To explore the intersection of The Hunger Games and the Gospel is to discover echoes of the good news in the pages of these young adult science fiction books. The good news that Jesus taught of the Kingdom of God offered tangible ways for how a world full of injustice and oppression can be transformed into one of hope—which was a message of good news back when Jesus first preached it and still is for us today. And it’s a message that resonates all throughout the imaginative narrative of The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is not the Gospel, or even an allegory of the Gospel story, but it reflects the good news, helping to illuminate the path of Kingdom living for readers today.

I wanted to share here a few of the things I have posted elsewhere about The Hunger Games as well as some of the things others have been saying about it. And for all my readers here – thank you so much for your support!

From my article The Hunger Games: An Allegory of Christian Love – Huffington Post Religion (their title, not mine).

After first reading “The Hunger Games” series, I was surprised to encounter the “Team Peeta” and “Team Gale” rivalry on many of the fansites. Maybe it is because I am not a teenage girl, but I was dismayed to see such a profound story reduced to the trivial level of Twilight’s love triangle. Yes, in this tale of young Katniss Everdeen’s struggle to survive in the dystopian world of Panem, her friends Peeta and Gale are presented as potential love interests. But “The Hunger Games” trilogy is not a mere love story; it is a story about Love.

While it might seem strange to say that a dystopian young adult novel about children killing each other for the entertainment of an indulgent privileged class is about love, as the trilogy unfolds love emerges as the theme holding the narrative together. This is not simply romantic love, but the kind of love that nurtures and sustains life. Those familiar with the teachings of Jesus would recognize it as the sort of love he requests of his followers. Love that sacrifices itself for the sake of others, that sees the hurt and pain in the world and offers healing, and that sees the hungry and feeds them.

From my article Life Under Empire – Sojourners April 2012

THE HOPE IN the face of oppression that Jesus offered is still good news for the world today. Defiant hope may be one reason Katniss’ story resonates with so many readers. We in the United States could be the new Roman Empire or the real Capitol. The districts that labor to meet our needs, often under harsh conditions and for little pay, are the countries of the developing world. Our wealth and power allow us to impose unfair trade laws and build unregulated factories in other countries so that we can live in relative opulence while others toil to provide our food, clothing, and electronics. And as in Panem, anyone who questions our supremacy may face dire consequences.

Praise for The Hunger Games and the Gospel

  • “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Julie Clawson finds everyday justice in the Hunger Games trilogy, but what may surprise and delight is that she reads the story so well and writes so beautifully about the lessons she finds there. Everyone who loves The Hunger Games should read this book.”
    – Greg Garrett, author of Faithful Citizenship, One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter, and The Other Jesus
  • “Are we living in the United States of Panem? The Hunger Games trilogy’s depiction of a wealthy, totalitarian regime that exploits its conquered neighbors is more than fiction. The series brings to life the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day and suggests a searing indictment of contemporary American imperialism. Using a framing structure of the Beatitudes, Julie Clawson powerfully explores Katniss’s suffering as a lens for understanding Jesus’ passion for loving our neighbors and building a better world.”
    – Jana Riess, author of Flunking Sainthood and What Would Buffy Do?
    Jana posted further comments at her blog as well.
  • “What happens when the dystopic world of Panem, ancient biblical faith and contemporary life in a consumerist culture all meet? You get a book like “The Hunger Games and the Gospel.” And it all comes down to living under the oppressive power of empire. Suzanne Collins’ wonderful Hunger Games trilogy cries out for precisely this kind of Christian cultural engagement. Always honoring the integrity of Collins’ work, Julie Clawson plays with the resonances and analogies that can be drawn between the trilogy, the Bible and contemporary life in empire. Working from a breadth of biblical knowledge and taking the virtue ethic of Jesus (usually named the Beatitudes) as her starting point, Clawson offers us a reading rich in wisdom, prophetic insight and hope for living a subversive life in the face of empire. I am very excited about this book–and it is sending me back to the original trilogy for yet another read.”
    – Brian J. Walsh, author of Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination and co-author of Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement 

    Brian also posted about the book at the Empire Remixed blog.

  • “There is no questions that The Hunger Games Triology has touched something deep in the psyche of its millions of readers, stirring up the questions and uncertainties that we all foster about our future. With sharp clarity and stunning insight, Julie Clawson not only helps us understand our visceral response to the series, but does so by interweaving it with Jesus’ Beatitudes. The result points realistic a hope for today and for the future.”
    -Jamie Arpin-Ricci, author The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom
  • A great review from Marty Alan Michelson
  • Rachel Held Evans writes –
    “I admit I am usually skeptical about books that claim to offer a “Christian perspective” on popular culture. But I trust Julie Clawson. And she does not disappoint. Not unlike the Hunger Games series itself, I read The Hunger Games and the Gospel in one sitting. Clawson does a fantastic job of reminding readers that Collins’ world of occupation, oppression, excess, and poverty is not so far removed from our own, and that it is exactly the kind of world in which Jesus himself lived.”
  • And mentions in the Desert News and the National Review.
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The Hunger Games and the Gospel

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My new book, The Hunger Games and the Gospel, is soon to be released as an ebook through Patheos Press and I’m excited to finally get to share the cover. Pretty awesome.

As most of you know I am a huge sci-fi/fantasy geek and fell in love with the Hunger Games trilogy as soon as I read it. Writing this book not only allowed me to spend time with a story I deeply appreciated, but to connect it to my Christian convictions and passion for justice. Stay tuned for more details, but for now I’ll leave you with a brief overview of the book –

In a globalized world full of uncertainty and injustice, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series has captured the imaginations of readers looking for glimmers of hope. The tale of Katniss Everdeen’s journey of survival in the post-apocalyptic country of Panem, where bread and circuses distract the privileged and allow a totalitarian regime to oppress the masses, parallels situations in our world today. Our culture’s hyper-consumerism and obsession with constant entertainment as well as the worldwide economic and political systems that prey upon the weak and the poor are evidence that the imbalances and injustices described in Panem don’t just exist in speculative fiction. At the same time, the series’ themes of resistance to oppression and hope for a better world, portrayed honestly as messy and difficult endeavors, echo the transformative way of life Jesus offered his followers.

The Hunger Games and the Gospel explores these themes in the Hunger Games that have resonated so deeply with readers by examining their similarity to the good news found in Jesus’ message about living in the ways of God’s Kingdom. Taking the rich statements of the Beatitudes which serve as mini-pictures of God’s dreams realized on earth as in heaven, each chapter reflects on how those pictures are exhibited both in the narrative of the Hunger Games, and in Jesus’ time, and then explores their significance for our own world. Readers are invited to allow the inspiration of the Hunger Games help them live in the ways of the Kingdom of God by discovering how they too can work towards to possibility of a better world.

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2011 Books

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For the past six years I have been posting at year’s end all the books I read in the previous year. The list is mostly for myself as it is a convenient way to keep track of when I read certain things, but I know I also love looking at other people’s reading lists, so I might as well put mine out there as well. This year’s list is not as diverse as in past years as seminary has me reading mostly theology books, but they were good reads and I finally got to read some books that I had been meaning to for some time. I did return to favorites this year – reading the Hunger Games again and the Kushiel books for what must have been the 7th or 8th time. I also finally got around to reading the Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, which I highly recommend. In the fiction realm as well, I also really enjoyed Veronica Roth’s Divergent – a dystopian young adult novel about a world where people are divided into factions depending on the virtue they exhibit most strongly. It reads a bit like Hunger Games meets Ender’s Game, but if you’ve spent time in Chicago, the book is worth it just for the post-apocalyptic downtown Chicago setting. As for non-fiction, it was nice to finally read through Moltmann’s Theology of Hope and Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness – both were great reads. I also loved James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me, which I think should be required reading in order for anyone to graduate college. The book highlighted for me how much I don’t know about history as well as the ways education is often used as a tool of control instead of as a means of teaching truth or encouraging students to think. It’s a disturbing, but helpful read.

I wish I had more time to read these days, but here’s my list of books I read this past year. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these books, and any recommendations for what I should read next year.

Non-fiction

Fiction

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2010 Books

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So once again I’m posting the lists of books I read this past year. This is more of a personal post to reflect back on where I’ve been, but maybe others can get a good recommendation or two out of it.

There were books I had to read and those I read for research that are on the list only because I read them. Some, like those by Dobson and Grudem, were painful reads, but served as needed reminders of how much hatred towards women still exists in the church. But the point of the list is the good recommendations. Hands down, the best fiction books I read this year (and in a long time) were Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games Trilogy. Intricately written, they explored the personal and social ramifications of bread and circuses entertainment. Violence and extravagant living always have a price and the books explore (through a fantastic story) the tale of those forced to pay that price. I highly recommend picking up the series and reading it immediately (it’s written for young adults so they are quick reads).

As for non-fiction, I covered a decent amount of territory this past year. I appreciated the postcolonial works I read (especially Chung Hyun Kyung’s Struggle to be the Sun Again) and want to continue to read such books in the upcoming year. My favorites from the year though would have to be Walter Brueggemann’s Out of Babylon and Wes Howard-Brook’s “Come Out My People!”: God’s Call Out of Empire and Beyond. Obviously both dealt with similar subjects – exploring the biblical texts as springboard for commentary for how the people of God should relate to living in empire today. Brueggemann’s text is short and inspiring. Howard-Brook’s text tackles the whole of scripture – becoming the biblical survey book I have always wanted to read. He pulls in not just biblical criticism, but theology, and history, and anthropology, and linguistics. It’s a book that doesn’t limit the Bible to one small lens (which always misses the forest for the trees), but attempts to read it as a holistic text that speaks truth to us today. I bought it for research purposes and ended up being unable to put it down (all 500+ pages of it). It is a great resource and an engaging read.

Non-fiction

Textbooks

Fiction

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