Jesus and the Holocaust: Reflections on suffering and hope by Joel Marcus (Eerdmans, £14.99 (£13.50); 978-0-8028-7435-1).
"Jesus was a Jew. Yet nineteen centuries after his death, hatred inspired in part by the long-standing tradition of Christian anti-Judaism played a significant role in the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust. How are Christians and Jews to deal with this jarring historical incongruity? Joel Marcus— a Jew by birth, a Christian by choice — offers stirring meditations on the relationship between the deaths of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the death of one innocent Jew on the cross."
Intimate Jesus: The sexuality of God incarnate by Andy Angel (SPCK, £12.99 (£11.70); 978-0-281-07240-8).
"The first book to to offer a full, frank and academically responsible discussion of Jesus’ experience of sexuality, as revealed in key texts (and subtexts) in the Gospels. Intimate Jesus: The sexuality of God incarnate dares to consider the provocative question: how did Jesus, who was fully human, and fully divine, experience human sexuality?"
Flourishing: Why we need religion in a globalized world by Miroslav Volf (Yale. £14.99 (£13.50); 978-0-300-22713-0). New in paperback.
"In this book, Miroslav Volf sheds light on how religions and globalization have historically interacted and argues for what their relationship ought to be. Recounting how these twinned forces have intersected in his own life, he shows how world religions, despite their malfunctions, remain one of our most potent sources of moral motivation and contain within them profoundly evocative accounts of human flourishing."
Still Valued and Blessed: Serving God in our senior years by Patrick Coghlan (Kevin Mayhew, £12.99 (£11.70); 978-1-84867-905-4).
"What exactly is old age? Grey hair? A pension? A state of mind? Whatever it is, and however it is defined, one thing is for sure: God wants our lives to continue to be valued and blessed. In his new book, Still Valued and Blessed, author Patrick Coghlan encourages everyone entering and journeying through old age to do so with a positive attitude and to live a spiritually fruitful and fulfilling life."
A Short History of Medieval Christianity by G. R. Evans (I. B. Tauris, £10.99 (£9.90); 978-1-78453-283-3).
"What did people really believe in the Middle Ages? Much of our sense of the medieval period has come down to us from the writings of the learned: the abbots, priors, magnates, scholastic theologians and others who between them, and across Christendom, controlled the machinery of church and state. For G R Evans too much emphasis has been placed on a governing elite and too little on those - the great mass of the semi-literate and illiterate, and the emergent middle classes - who stood outside the innermost circles of ecclesiastical power, privilege and education."
Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.