Columbia Seminary
Publications
Our alumni are pastors, teachers, chaplains, CEOs and more. Many are writers! We celebrate our alumni authors and encourage you to engage with their work. If you would like to add your book to this list, please complete the form at the bottom of this page.
Reading the Bible with Brueggemann: Scripture’s Power to Remake the World
Let the Word speak freely.
Walter Brueggemann has been one of the most influential Old Testament theologians of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. With an almost relentless pace, Brueggemann has significantly shaped biblical theology in the modern era, publishing 150 books and numerous articles. In his faithful and provocative interpretation, Brueggemann insists that the Bible has the power to remake the world, wresting the church’s imagination away from the military consumerism of the dominant culture and toward a radical vision of God’s reign, characterized by love of God and justice for the neighbor.
Reading the Bible with Brueggemann presents the development of Brueggemann’s thought through nine of his most significant works, from the foundational Prophetic Imagination to the magisterial Theology of the Old Testament and beyond. In a clear and readable style, Williamson allows scholars, pastors, and laypeople alike to read the Bible with Brueggemann and learn from and apply Brueggemann’s theological method.
Liberating Church: A Twenty-First Century Hush Harbor Manifesto
While the North American church grapples with an eroding position of privilege in society, there is a liberating vision of church from the margins. This manifesto defines eight marks of liberating churches that were identified through research of antebellum hush harbors. Hush harbors were the covert gatherings of enslaved Africans to worship and organize for change free from the surveillance of plantation Christianity. Liberating Church explores how the marks of antebellum hush harbors are being lived out now in several faith communities. This book offers a guide for anyone who wants to embrace innovative models for building spaces of faith and activism with structural critique and spiritual power.
Sacred Enticement:Skeptic’s Journey to Faith
In “Sacred Enticement: A Skeptic’s Journey to Faith” author Greta Reed recounts the story of her own journey from teenage skeptic to philosopher to person of faith. On the way, she examines and critiques assumptions that undercut religious belief, encounters new ways of understanding the language of faith, draws nourishment from contemplative nuns, and uncovers a nuanced understanding of what lies at the heart of a faithful life. “In this fine book, Greta Reed challenges us to revisit the ancient questions and mysteries that continue to give rise to the religious impulse. If you’re wondering whether faith is viable in this kind of world, she invites us to consider that it may be the only way to vitality.” –Rev. Nibs Stroupe, Pastor Emeritus, Oakhurst Presbyterian Church
I will begin with a confession…
I don’t like change. I have clothes that I bought 3 decades ago, and still wear…because, well, why would I buy a new garment when I still have one that functions as a perfectly good T-shirt? I don’t like it when the store rearranges the bread aisle, and I can’t find the one item I went in to buy. I create a room arrangement of furniture I like and keep it that way for years.
I don’t like change.
But like it or not, we know that change happens. And we know as faith communities that the world outside our doors, our ministry context, has changed…even as we have kept on doing what we’ve always been doing.
The PC(USA) declined in members from 1,302,043 in 2019, to 1,140,665 in 2022, a loss of 53,105 members in three years.1 Many of us have seen similar declines in our own congregations.
The old ways of functioning as a congregation are no longer working for many of us. If nothing else, Covid-19 made this plain. But if we are honest, our ways of being church hadn’t been working for some time, even before Covid. We have seen empty pews and even emptier Sunday School rooms. The old “build it and they will come” is no longer effective. More than merely numerical decline, or a temporary blip, we face a world of vast change outside our door. The decline in numbers is only a symptom. It is not simply that membership numbers are down, and thus so is giving to the church. It is not only that the church holds less sway in the world than it used to. It is that we don’t know how to be a relevant body of Christ in and for the changing world.
Why, though, has the church not kept pace with change outside our doors? Urgency drives change, yet for the most part we have not felt any urgency to change, despite a multiple decades long decline.2 There is resistance to change, for change always involves risk and loss. Change requires energy many of us simply do not have.
Seeing the need for change in business more than twenty years ago, Ronald Heifetz and others at Harvard Business School began to use the terms “adaptive change” and “adaptive challenges.” Adaptive challenges are those problems which require new learning. They require tools, skills, and wisdom we do not yet have. The church is facing adaptive challenges all the time, on every front. Change is disruptive and difficult. This is true on a communal, personal, and on a neurobiological level. When we are learning new things, doing new things, we are literally re-wiring our brains.It is hard to know exactly what to do, but we are faced with the hard truth that doing what we have always been doing no longer works.
That’s Me in the Closet: A Spiritual Memoir
Steven Andrews grew up atheist. He’s bisexual. He was a foster child. He was abused and neglected. Nonetheless, God came to find him, and he became a college convert to Christianity. He is now a Presbyterian pastor, a nascent counselor, a husband, and a father. None of that was inevitable. This book is the story of how all that came to be. It’s a narrative of vulnerability and authenticity. It’s a journey through evangelism, queer identity, and healing from trauma. It’s a plea for the future of the mainline church. Most of all, it’s one person sharing their story and encouraging you to share your own—as we all strive to be the people God made us to be.
Disability and the Way of Jesus: Holistic Healing in the Gospels and the Church
What does healing mean for people with disabilities?The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus offering physical healing. But even as churches today seek to follow the way of Jesus, people with disabilities all too often experience the very opposite of healing and life-giving community: exclusion, judgment, barriers. Misinterpretation and misapplication of biblical healing narratives can do great damage, yet those who take the Bible seriously mustn’t avoid these passages either.Bethany McKinney Fox believes that Christian communities are better off when people with disabilities are an integral part of our common life. In Disability and the Way of Jesus, she considers how the stories of Jesus’ healings can guide us toward mutual thriving.How did Jesus’ original audience understand his works of healing, and how should we relate to these texts today? After examining the healing narratives in their biblical and cultural contexts, Fox considers perspectives from medical doctors, disability scholars, and pastors to more fully understand what Jesus does as he heals and how he points the way for relationships with people with disabilities. Personal reflections from Christians with disabilities are featured throughout the book, which concludes with suggestions for concrete practices adaptable to a variety of church settings.Bridging biblical studies, ethics, and disability studies with the work of practitioners, Fox provides a unique resource that is both theologically grounded and winsomely practical. Disability and the Way of Jesus provides new lenses on holistic healing for scholars, laypeople, and ministry leaders who care about welcoming all people as Jesus would.
How Lonely Sits the City: a Novel
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans journalist Maggie McBride and her housekeeper Eloise Jackson find themselves living in the empty city in a time nothing has prepared them for. Together they must learn to navigate a harsh new reality as they face personal tragedies and challenges beyond their worst nightmares. How Lonely Sits the City deals with issues of race, loss, betrayal, faith, and love. Originally published in 2019 as The New Normal, an honorable mention award winner in the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
Forgetting the Former Things: Brain Injury’s Invitation to Vulnerability and Faith
In August 1996 Tamara Puffer was a young, newly married violinist-turned-pastor serving a large suburban church. Her growing work with people living on Atlanta’s streets was beginning to reshape her theology and her calling, but a serious car accident derailed her carefully planned career path. Forgetting the Former Things is a rare tapestry of first-person faith journey woven with gritty theological reflection and persistent hope. Puffer writes honestly, poignantly, and often humorously about her efforts to accept limitations and to reimagine her life under radically altered circumstances. She finds solace in the stories of biblical women as she also wrestles with negative images of disability in Scripture. She embraces her self-described role as a “minister of vulnerability” in this troubling national moment–as jobs, healthcare, and affordable housing are evaporating for so many, as countless people feel terrorized by discrimination or the threat of deportation–boldly casting her lot with others whose marginalization cuts deeper. At a time when traumatic brain injury is in the national spotlight, and many families, churches, and communities seek deeper understanding, Tamara Puffer provides in these pages an insightful, inspiring, and much-needed gift.
A Creation Poem… An Ancient Story of Beginnings for Today’s Children and the Adults Who Love Them.
One of the best things I ever learned came from the late Dr. H. Stephen Glenn. Steve said that, “if a teenaged child has 5 adults who will listen to them, take them seriously, and not shame or blame them for their questions, that child is practically immune from ever attempting suicide.
Here’s the thing… the world is a whole lot more complicated now than ever before and we can’t wait until they’re teenagers to start!!!
A Creation Poem… lets you start where they are! With wonder!!! This intentionally inclusive book is a mystical poem with artwork created to draw them into a place where THEY belong… and you, with them!
When Kids Ask Hard Questions: Faith-filled Responses for Tough Topics
When your kids ask the big questions, what will you say?
Our kids are wrestling with harder and more complex issues than ever before. How do we respond to their questions thoughtfully, honestly, faithfully? In this collection from more than 30 progressive young parents, pastors, and experts, listen in on responses to some of today’s toughest topics – from gender identity, racism, bullying, suicide, and gun violence, to divorce, blended families, money, technology, faith, and more – and learn how to craft your own faithful answers.
When Kids Ask Hard Questions models thoughtful and faithful responses to the big questions and shares how to create safe spaces for the important, on-going conversations with the kids in your life.
While the responses are aimed at children aged 5-12, many chapters include suggestions for pre-school and older kids/teens as well. Each essay includes a resource list for further exploration.
Download the FREE Study Guide for Parents, Caregivers, and Small Groups
When Kids Ask Hard Questions, Volume 2: More Faith-filled Responses for Tough Topics
From the creators of When Kids Ask Hard Questions comes MORE questions—and thank goodness, responses!—on today’s tough topics. In an increasingly complex world, children deserve thoughtful responses informed by our progressive faith values. In this second volume for parents, teachers, and faith leaders, respected experts, pastors, and parents address more than two dozen tough topics, offering theological perspectives and suggestions for comforting and spiritually guiding children.
Topics include:
Hope for Moms: It’s Tough Out There, but So Are You
Hi there, love. It’s tough out there, isn’t it?
Many of us did everything we could to prepare for becoming moms, but there just wasn’t any way to know what might lie ahead. Most of us have, at one point or another, looked around and wondered if we are alone in our parenting challenges.
Hope for Moms offers a heartfelt guide for mothers navigating both the joys and heartbreak of being a mom, sharing Anna McArthur’s personal journey through parenting difficulties such as learning disabilities, LGBTQ+ identities, and adoption. Structured around a triage plan that helped the author prioritize her family’s needs, it includes practical insights, quotes, and reflection questions to support moms in their journey of resilience and soul care. With gentleness and humor, McArthur provides reassurance to mothers, reminding them they have the strength to not only survive motherhood, but thrive.
If you’re a mom who feels overwhelmed by the curveballs life has thrown your way, you aren’t alone—yes, it’s tough out there, but so are you!
Caring Ethics: The Other Side of the Bed
In Caring Ethics, author Robert R. Morris gently presents what if scenarios no one wants or likes to think about, but which we all eventually confront. How to decide how long to keep a parent on a ventilator? Should I donate a child’s organs and tissues? Should I be making decisions for my friend’s estranged family? Through real world experiences readers will begin to wrap their minds and hearts around the unimaginable paths others have traveled and begin to gather an understanding of their own set of answers and values.
The book is divided into sections on Attachment, Anxiety, Agendas, Anger, Authority, It is filled with people grappling with these issues. Each section concludes with a series of questions meant to encourage and motivate the reader to consider options. Fair warning: there are no clear cut answers here. Which is intentional. Feelings can teach us because complexity often spurs deeper learning. This book is not a how to manual; instead it fosters the readers thinking, about values, opinions, and perspective, which in the end, may make us all more forgiving, understanding and helpful people.
