My first post of the year focused on great new books features eight volumes published in 2020 and two published in 2021.
- (5.0) Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It by Brian D. McLaren (St. Martin’s Press, 2021)
- (4.5) The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020)
- (4.5) Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth by Will Mancini and Cory Hartman (Baker Books, 2020)
- (4.5) Hope in Disarray: Piecing Our Lives Together in Faith by Grace Ji-Sun Kim (Pilgrim Press, 2020)
- (4.0) Navigating the Future: Traditioned Innovation for Wilder Seas by L. Gregory Jones and Andrew P. Hogue (Abingdon Press, 2021)
- (4.0) The Meal that Reconnects: Eucharistic Eating and the Global Food Crises by Mary E. McGann (Liturgical Press Academic, 2020)
- (4.0) A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture that Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer (Momentum, 2020)
- (4.0) Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice edited by Britney Winn Lee (Fresh Air Books, 2020)
- (3.5) The World is About to Turn: Mending a Nation’s Broken Faith by Rick Rouse and Paul O. Ingram (Chalice Press, 2020)
- (3.5) How to Lead: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers by David M. Rubenstein (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
Faith After Doubt
Brian McLaren is the rare church futurist who has offered a bold, consistent, and relevant message for over a decade. His latest book, Faith After Doubt, builds on his prior work by introducing a new four stage approach to faith development: Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony. More importantly, it effectively explores the importance of doubt – in McLaren’s own spiritual journey, in the lives of those seeking to follow the Way of Jesus, and in the lives of those who follow order their lives by other religious ways.
More McLaren
Brian McLaren has been mentioned on this blog on numerous occasions, including:
- Top 5 Tweets of 2020 (December, 2020)
- Top 10 Books of 2016 (December, 2016)
- Shaping the Future of Christianity (October, 2016)
- Review of Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, & Mohammed Cross the Road (September, 2012)
- Review of Naked Spirituality (May, 2011)
More Great Books
Be sure to check out So What Faith’s Top Ten Books of 2020.
So What?
Doubt matters. Doubt is an essential component of faith.
- Think about the churches you’ve participated in. How did each encourage or discourage engaging in religious doubt?
- Share an example of a time doubt was particularly helpful or generative in your own journey of faith.