Here are 56 books that T&T Clark Handbook of Public Theology fans have personally recommended if you like T&T Clark Handbook of Public Theology. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age

Ted Peters Author Of The Voice of Public Theology: Addressing Politics, Science, and Technology

From my list on listening to new voices in public theology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My own scholarly focus at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley has been on the interaction between theology, science, and culture. Science and culture are public. Here’s one of my questions: how can theological reflection and theological ethics contribute to the common good that includes everyone outside my faith community? Here's another: how can a biblical insight into human nature–especially the image of God and the fall into sin–help us to anticipate how human nature will affect the future course of events? Public Theology is a field into which I can fold my background and analyses.

Ted's book list on listening to new voices in public theology

Ted Peters Why Ted loves this book

In my opinion, we need public theologians who will knowledgeably and insightfully address new discoveries in science as well as new advances in technology. Here, in the middle of worldwide excitement and anxiety over the fast-moving developments in Artificial Intelligence, we have the best book to date on this topic.

Noreen Herzfeld holds two doctorates, one in computer science and the other in theology. She teaches in both fields. She knows whereof she speaks. What she says provides me with confidence in the face of an otherwise puzzling, if not threatening, future. 

By Noreen Herzfeld ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Artifice of Intelligence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

AI is becoming ubiquitous. Whatever its arrival portends for our future, whether riches or ruin, it cannot be avoided. The Artifice of Intelligence explores two questions at the heart of a theological response to AI. Is it possible for human beings to have authentic relationships with an AI? How does the increasing presence of AI change the way humans relate to one another? In pursuing answers to these questions, Herzfeld explores what it means to be created in the image of God and to create AI in our own image. It utilizes and expands Karl Barth's relational understanding of the…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of A Companion to Public Theology

Ted Peters Author Of The Voice of Public Theology: Addressing Politics, Science, and Technology

From my list on listening to new voices in public theology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My own scholarly focus at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley has been on the interaction between theology, science, and culture. Science and culture are public. Here’s one of my questions: how can theological reflection and theological ethics contribute to the common good that includes everyone outside my faith community? Here's another: how can a biblical insight into human nature–especially the image of God and the fall into sin–help us to anticipate how human nature will affect the future course of events? Public Theology is a field into which I can fold my background and analyses.

Ted's book list on listening to new voices in public theology

Ted Peters Why Ted loves this book

As previously mentioned, I like to get introduced to a wide spectrum of authors on a topic such as public theology. I want to learn how various contributors define “public theology” and how they move from theory to practice.

Sebastian Kim at Fuller in Pasadena and Katie Day at United Seminary in Gettysburg are pioneers in this newly minted coin of the theological realm. 

By Sebastian Kim (editor) , Katie Day (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Companion to Public Theology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award

Public theology has emerged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as theologians have increasingly entered the public square to engage complex issues. This Companion to Public Theology brings a much-needed resource to this relatively new field. The essays contained here bring a robust and relevant faith perspective to a wide range of issues as well as foundational biblical and theological perspectives which equip theologians to enter into public dialogue. Public theology has never been more needed in public discourse, whether local or global. In conversation across disciplines its contribution to the…


Book cover of Public Church: For the Life of the World

Ted Peters Author Of The Voice of Public Theology: Addressing Politics, Science, and Technology

From my list on listening to new voices in public theology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My own scholarly focus at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley has been on the interaction between theology, science, and culture. Science and culture are public. Here’s one of my questions: how can theological reflection and theological ethics contribute to the common good that includes everyone outside my faith community? Here's another: how can a biblical insight into human nature–especially the image of God and the fall into sin–help us to anticipate how human nature will affect the future course of events? Public Theology is a field into which I can fold my background and analyses.

Ted's book list on listening to new voices in public theology

Ted Peters Why Ted loves this book

Of the many outspoken religious leaders who have taken on the task of persuading the human race that it’s time to take action to save Planet Earth from environmental disaster, my favorite is Cynthia Moe-Lobeda.

I have been deeply and even frantically concerned about the threats to our planet’s fecundity since the early 1970s. And I’ve been frustrated that political and economic leaders have repeatedly derailed almost all attempts to take remedial action.

Working tirelessly over the last four decades, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda has mustered theological and ethical resources and pressed them into the service of raising consciousness not only for ecological urgency but for economic justice as well.

By Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Public Church as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America professes to be a public church constituted by God for its public vocation. Moe-Lobeda explores what it means for the ELCA to play a role in public life today. Sections focus on what it means to be a public church, obstacles to being a public church in public life, power for being public church, and providing public leadership. For the followers of Jesus, the ''way of living'' in public is a gift of God to the church. It is costly and dangerous, but yet gives life abundant, now and forever.


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of Postcolonial Public Theology: Faith, Scientific Rationality, and Prophetic Dialogue

Ted Peters Author Of The Voice of Public Theology: Addressing Politics, Science, and Technology

From my list on listening to new voices in public theology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My own scholarly focus at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley has been on the interaction between theology, science, and culture. Science and culture are public. Here’s one of my questions: how can theological reflection and theological ethics contribute to the common good that includes everyone outside my faith community? Here's another: how can a biblical insight into human nature–especially the image of God and the fall into sin–help us to anticipate how human nature will affect the future course of events? Public Theology is a field into which I can fold my background and analyses.

Ted's book list on listening to new voices in public theology

Ted Peters Why Ted loves this book

Paul Chung's distinctive voice within the public theology choir reminds us of the disruptions wrought by the colonial and now postcolonial periods. The coronach befits the victims of injustice while the crescendo befits the achievements of science and civilization.

Please visit Paul Chung's new international website, "Public Theology in Forum."

By Paul S. Chung ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Postcolonial Public Theology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Postcolonial Public Theology is a tour de force--theological reflection transformed by encounter with the most compelling intellectual discourses of our time. It offers prophetic challenge to the hegemony of economic globalization. Evolutionary science's encounter with life's limit questions requires an ethically responsible practice of scientific rationality, measured by sufficient, sustainable livelihood for all. Interreligious engagement compels us to take seriously the realities of cultural hybridity and social location in reimagining a polycentric Christianity. Postcolonial Public Theology makes the case for public theology to turn toward postcolonial imagination, demonstrating a fresh rethinking of public and global issues that continue to emerge…


Book cover of Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty

John Soboslai Author Of God in the Tumult of the Global Square: Religion in Global Civil Society

From my list on conversations about religion and politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I learned in college that the Roman Emperor Constantine was largely responsible for determining the shape of the New Testament, it shook my outlook on religion and how it worked. Since then, I’ve studied the interplay of religion and politics for over 2 decades and taught the subject at universities on both coasts. These books aren’t just ones I find useful in teaching, but each has fanned the flames of my fascination and broadened my awareness and perspective. I hope you enjoy and find yourself thinking differently after reading them! 

John's book list on conversations about religion and politics

John Soboslai Why John loves this book

Rarely has a book blown my mind like this one. Kahn lays bare the foundations of our modern political structures and how we adapt religious conceptions to imbue our states with a sacred aura. I’m fascinated by sacrifice and its place within our civic life, and this book highlights how nearly every aspect of our sovereign international system relies to some extent upon the concept.

It’s like a conceptual history of our modern nation-states that reveals them as ‘religious’ undertakings. While the other books on the list lay out the historical and sociological aspects of religion and politics, this book showed me how religion IS politics—and politics, religion—in unexpected and important ways.

By Paul Kahn ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Political Theology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this strikingly original work, Paul W. Kahn rethinks the meaning of political theology. In a text innovative in both form and substance, he describes an American political theology as a secular inquiry into ultimate meanings sustaining our faith in the popular sovereign. Kahn works out his view through an engagement with Carl Schmitt's 1922 classic, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. He forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary. The result is a contemporary political theology. As in Schmitt's work, sovereignty remains…


Book cover of Dante's Commedia: Theology as Poetry

George Corbett Author Of Dante's Christian Ethics: Purgatory and Its Moral Contexts

From my list on Dante and his religious world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by Dante since my first years at university. For me, reading Dante was the beginning of a journey, opening up a rich world of theology, philosophy, art, literature, science, and culture. As Professor of Theology at the University of St Andrews, I especially enjoy facilitating students’ first encounters with Dante, and seeing how Dante so often leads them, also, to a deeper appreciation of some of the greatest thinkers and makers of our civilisation, from Aristotle and Virgil to Aquinas and Giotto. 

George's book list on Dante and his religious world

George Corbett Why George loves this book

This collaborative volume, resulting from a seminal conference held in Cambridge in 2003, seeks to draw twenty-first-century readers’ attention again towards Dante as a theologian. It is a wonderful medley of essays on Dante and theology, with contributions by Dante scholars key to this theological reappraisal, including Robin Kirkpatrick, Peter Hawkins, and Christian Moevs. The volume concludes with David Ford’s clarion call for theologians to turn to, and learn from, Dante today: ‘Dante as Inspiration for Twenty-First-Century Theology.’  

By Vittorio Montemaggi (editor) , Matthew Treherne (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dante's Commedia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Dante's Commedia: Theology as Poetry, an international group of theologians and Dante scholars provide a uniquely rich set of perspectives focused on the relationship between theology and poetry in the Commedia. Examining Dante's treatment of questions of language, personhood, and the body; his engagement with the theological tradition he inherited; and the implications of his work for contemporary theology, the contributors argue for the close intersection of theology and poetry in the text as well as the importance of theology for Dante studies. Through discussion of issues ranging from Dante's use of imagery of the Church to the significance…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew

Kerry M. Olitzky Author Of The Sisters Z

From my list on introducing Jewish ideas to others.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a rabbi, educator, scholar and author who has led congregations, organizations and taught in rabbinical seminaries. As a result, I have always straddled the world of the practitioner and the academician. These books have informed my personal religious practice and outlook, as well as my academic approach to Judaism.

Kerry's book list on introducing Jewish ideas to others

Kerry M. Olitzky Why Kerry loves this book

Eugene Borowitz was the leading liberal Jewish theologian of the 20th and early 21st century. Although this book may be challenging for those disinclined to read dense theology, it is presented in a more popular way and contains a theology that has informed the lives of many Jews, including myself. 

By Eugene B. Borowitz ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Renewing the Covenant as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Borowitz creatively explores his theory of Covenant, linking self to folk and God through the contemporary idiom of relationship.


Book cover of Mid-Faith Crisis

Aubrey Sampson Author Of What We Find in the Dark

From my list on finding hope in loss and grief.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have, unfortunately, been invited into a club I never signed up for–the Griever’s Club. It’s not that my losses are exceptional, but I have been desperate to find meaning and hope in them in order to survive them. I lost my best friend of over 25 years to cancer and lost my dad on the same day–two years later–from an unexpected heart attack. I have known grief in other ways, too: unexpected job loss, disease, my children’s health struggles. As a pastor and a follower of Christ, it has been important to me to wrestle honestly for my own faith, and on behalf of other hurting readers.

Aubrey's book list on finding hope in loss and grief

Aubrey Sampson Why Aubrey loves this book

I had the advantage of reading an early copy of this book because Catherine is one of my closest friends. She and Jason have put their fingers on the pulse of what happens to your faith when you hit a crisis point or a trauma–and how that doesn’t have to lead to the untangling or shattering of all you believed.

Rather, there is a refining and freedom that comes from facing a mid-faith crisis and it can move you to a place of maturity, seasoning, and unburdened faith. 

By Catherine McNiel , Jason Hague ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mid-Faith Crisis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Navigating the Storm: Understanding the Crisis of Faith

Many of us embarked on our spiritual journeys filled with hope and certainty, only to find ourselves questioning the very foundation of our beliefs as life unfolded. The faith that once seemed unshakeable may falter in the face of broken trust, unanswered prayers, and the harsh realities of worldly suffering. But you're not alone―mid-faith crises are a shared human experience that can feel isolating yet are a crucial part of our spiritual journey.

In Mid Faith Crisis, authors Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague provide a compassionate exploration of this challenging phase. With…


Book cover of Under the Pendulum Sun

Allison Epstein Author Of A Tip for the Hangman

From my list on for people who don’t read historical fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love historical fiction in all its forms, from the multi-volume family epics to the Dear America middle-grade books I grew up with. And I really, truly don’t understand why historical fiction has a reputation for being dry, dull, or worst of all, like homework. Sure, there are some novels written for history buffs only, but the vast majority aren’t, and neither is mine. When I wrote A Tip for the Hangman, my goal was to write historical fiction that reads like a page-turner, not a textbook. The books on this list all pull off that trick beautifully, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Allison's book list on for people who don’t read historical fiction

Allison Epstein Why Allison loves this book

Mysterious victorian missionaries with dark secrets in the land of the fae. I truly do not know how to sell this book any better. I tend to recommend gothic literature for historical fiction newbies, since the emotional stakes are always so high and the plots often bend close to horror or fantasy, and this one is no different. The worldbuilding is spectacular, and it plays on the tropes of classic gothic novels in a way that’s knowing, clever, and never dry or stilted. No wonder Ng won the Hugo for best new author when she released this book—it deserves it.

By Jeannette Ng ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Under the Pendulum Sun as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Jeannette Ng brings a stunningly different Victorian fantasy that mixes Crimson Peak with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Victorian missionaries travel into the heart of the newly discovered lands of the Fae, in a stunningly different fantasy that mixes Crimson Peak with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Catherine Helstone's brother, Laon, has disappeared in Arcadia, legendary land of the magical fae. Desperate for news of him, she makes the perilous journey, but once there, she finds herself alone and isolated in the sinister house of Gethsemane. At last there…


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Tolkien's Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth

Janet Brennan Croft Author Of War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

From my list on adventure in the Tolkien criticism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been reading Tolkien since I was seven years old, mumblety-mumble years in the distant past, but it wasn’t till much later that I got serious about reading critical works on Tolkien, and then turned to writing about him, myself. Twenty years ago, I published my first book on Tolkien. Since then, I’ve edited a number of essay collections, published many papers, consulted on the Hobbit movies, amassed a respectable personal library, and edited Mythlore, one of the major journals in the field of Tolkien studies, since 2006. My love of Tolkien has led me on many adventures and to deep and abiding friendships around the world! 

Janet's book list on adventure in the Tolkien criticism

Janet Brennan Croft Why Janet loves this book

I am fascinated by the contradictions of Tolkien’s women and by the tension between Christian and pagan in his writing.

This book is particularly valuable for its explication of Tolkien’s integration of Marian and Valkyrie imagery, resulting in female characters of transcendental beauty and heroism. And the writing is absorbing and informative.

Book cover of The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age
Book cover of A Companion to Public Theology
Book cover of Public Church: For the Life of the World

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