"Lenny Duncan is an unlikely pastor. Formerly incarcerated, formerly homeless, and formerly unchurched, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA]. Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make the headlines, but Duncan connects the church's lack of diversity to its lack of vitality. sees something else at work -- drawing a direct line between the church's...

Bolz-Weber reclaims the term "pastrix," used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors. Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, a former stand-up comic, Bolz-Weber sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious leader material-- until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral, surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics. She realized: these were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor.

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Communist ..." Few today recognize the name Martin Niemöller, though many know his famous confession. In Then They Came for Me, Matthew Hockenos traces Niemöller's evolution from a Nazi supporter to a determined opponent of Hitler, revealing him to be a more complicated figure than previously understood. Born into a traditionalist Prussian family, Niemöller welcomed...

"Examining the inner life of Martin Luther, the founding leader of the Reformation, the author reveals a literary genius who was full of contradictions and whose Ninety-Five Theses began the greatest upheaval and transformation of Christianity in history"--NoveList.