Song in My Heart: The spiritual canticle of St John of the Cross for everyone by Elizabeth Ruth Obbard (New City, £7.50 (£6.75); 978-1-905039-40-1).
“The Spiritual Canticle was born from the heart of a man who knew that the love of God costs ‘not less than everything.”
The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie (Bloomsbury, £14.99 (Church Times SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £12.99); 978-1-4088-8685-4).
“The captivating prequel to the treasured Grantchester series follows the life, loves and losses of a young Sidney Chambers in post-war London.”
Re-Thinking Children’s Work in Churches: A practical guide, edited by Carolyn Edwards, Sian Hancock and Sally Nash (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, £19.99; 978-1-78592-125-4).
“Drawing on current scholarship and research by authors with experience of a range of International contexts who are experts in their field, this accessible guide focuses on approaches that encourage spiritual, physical, mental and emotional development in children.”
Full of Character: A Christian approach to education for the digital age by Frances Ward (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, £16.99 (£15.30); 978-1-78592-339-5).
“Engaging with current philosophers and thinkers, this book looks at what are the roots to our human condition. It looks the wisdom that traditional Christianity can bring to a Western culture preoccupied with post-truth, individualism and utilitarian methods of thinking. The desire for a fulfilling life is a common motivation to people, regardless of religious faith or non-faith.”
The Birth of Modern Belief: Faith and judgment from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment by Ethan Shagan (Princeton, £27; 978-0-691-17474-7).
“This landmark book traces the history of belief in the Christian West from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, revealing for the first time how a distinctively modern category of belief came into being. Ethan Shagan focuses not on what people believed, which is the normal concern of Reformation history, but on the more fundamental question of what people took belief to be.”
The Providence of God: A polyphonic approach by David Fergusson (Cambridge University Press, £21.99; 978-1-108-46657-8).
“The concept of providence is embedded in the life and theology of the church. Its uses are frequent and varied in understandings of politics, nature, and individual life-stories. Parallels can be discerned in other faiths. In this volume, David Fergusson traces the development of providential ideas at successive periods in church history. These include the early appropriation of Stoic and Platonic ideas, the codification of providence in the Middle Ages, its foregrounding in Reformed theology, and its secular applications in the modern era.”
Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.