Faculty Books

Reckoning with History: Settler Colonization, Slavery, and the Making of American Christianity by William Yoo

Reckoning with History confronts the histories of settler colonialism and slavery and illumines how these two devastating realities informed and ultimately deformed Protestant Christianity in the North American colonies and antebellum United States. In this book, William Yoo analyzes primary sources from Indigenous, African, European, and American perspectives to construct a narrative that honors the stories of Indigenous peoples, enslaved and free persons of African descent, Indigenous rights advocates, and abolitionists. The book’s broad scope—which covers individuals and movements representing Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other Christian traditions—provides a timely and telling message for every Christian seeking racial justice today.

Sacred Tension: Embracing Dissonance and Dialogue in the Old Testament by William P. Brown

“The Bible was not written for passive readers or lazy listeners. It was written for active engagement, deliberation, dialogue, and debate, because the Bible itself is fundamentally a conversation.” –Old Testament professor and scholar William P. Brown, from Sacred Tension

Embrace the complexities of the Old Testament with curiosity and courage.

As people of faith, the words of the Bible are sacred. They tell us about our spiritual heritage and convey our ever-present hope. But sometimes, if we’re being honest, the Bible — especially the Old Testament — can bring more confusion than clarity. Apparent contradictions and a wide variety of different accounts about God, faith, and humanity’s role can leave us perplexed with more questions than answers. How are we to read the Bible in a way that helps us understand its deepest truths?

Preaching Philosophy: French Thought for Gospel Proclamation by Jacob D. Myers and Sunggu A. Yang 

Philosophy preaches, and the pulpit preaches philosophy. As with all guilds, homiletics orients itself around a canon that constitutes its ways of being, behaving, and belonging. Part of the process of becoming a homiletician entails demonstrating one’s mastery of certain concepts and texts. Doctoral research in homiletics maintains its disciplinary boundaries by requiring students to demonstrate familiarity with and understanding of those authors who have established the “proper” methods and modalities of preaching.

In Preaching Philosophy, Jacob D. Myers and Sunggu A. Yang stage an intervention at this foundational pedagogical site by challenging the philosophical assumptions operative in the works of a selection of canonical characters and texts in the field of homiletics. The book arises from the conviction that critical homiletical scholarship must extend beyond those authors and texts that predominate preaching syllabi in North American seminaries and divinity schools. Furthermore, Myers and Yang argue that it is not enough to challenge another’s wisdom on how to preach faithful and effective sermons. Rather, one must also discern and question the a priori assumptions undergirding said wisdom. This is precisely what Preaching Philosophy seeks to do: to trouble the philosophical assumptions presupposed by foundational figures in homiletics.