Kingdom Buildings: Your church and churchyard as assets for mission by Kenneth Padley (Canterbury Press, £20 (Church Times SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £16); 978-1-78622-623-5).
“Kingdom Buildings reveals the overlooked potential of church buildings and grounds as tools for mission and growth. . . Blending theology, ecclesiology and hands-on advice, Kingdom Buildings offers both a fresh vision and practical steps to tackle even the most daunting challenges. It shows how small, affordable changes can spark momentum and create lasting impact, while also guiding readers to make wise, long-term decisions for the good of future generations.”
The Bible, Gender, and Sexuality: Critical Readings, edited by Rhiannon Graybill and Lynn R. Huber (T&T Clark, £38.99 (£35.09); 978-0-567-71678-1). New in paperback
“This volume collects both classic and cutting-edge readings related to gender, sex, sexuality, and the Bible. Engaging the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and surrounding texts and worlds, Rhiannon Graybill and Lynn R. Huber have amassed a selection of essays that reflects a wide range of perspectives and approaches towards gender and sexuality.”
The Image of God: The problem of evil and the problem of mourning by Eleonore Stump (OUP, £25 (£22.50); 978-0-19-896630-2). New in paperback
“This is the problem of mourning: even defeated suffering in the post-Fall world merits mourning. How is this warranted mourning compatible with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? The traditional response to this problem is the felix culpa view, which maintains that the original sin was fortunate because there is an outweighing benefit to sufferers that could not be gotten in a world without suffering. The felix culpa view presupposes an object of evaluation, namely, the true self of a human being, and a standard of evaluation for human lives. This book explores these and a variety of other topics in philosophical theology in order to explain and evaluate the role of suffering in human lives.”
Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.