"I read this book with joy. In the mid-twentieth century, Catholic scholars of the stature of Yves Congar and Jean Deanielou regularly produced historically informed biblical theology of the highest caliber. Catholic biblical theology explored Scripture's divine provision of historical-typological streams, through which the unity of the story of salvation comes into view. But biblical theology rapidly faded away after the Council, and this greatly weakened the ability of Catholic priests and laity to tell Scripture's story. Thus, for the new evangelization, I can't think of anything more important than the retrieval of Catholic biblical theology that Professor Smith accomplishes in this exciting and extraordinary book. A must-read for all seminarians and students of Scripture!" - Matthew Levering, James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary "Biblical theology is experiencing a new wave that is finally putting the temple back where it belongs - at the front and center of our thinking. Now riding on the top of this wave comes Steven Smith and his newly released biblical theology that is at once scholarly and accessible. Protestant and Orthodox readers, no less than Catholics, will glean countless insights from its pages." - Nicholas Perrin, Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical Studies and dean of Wharton Graduate School "Author Steven Smith brings readers on a focused tour of the temple in both the Old and New Testaments, demonstrating throughout the centrality of this theme. His book will help readers come to a deeper understanding of God's Word and of the importance of sacrifice and priesthood in God's plan of salvation. Accessible and clear, The House of the Lord is recommended especially for those readers for whom the Old Testament can seem to be a closed book." - Stephen Ryan, OP, Dominican House of Studies

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.

"In this book-length narrative poem, ... Wesley McNair takes us to rural Virginia, where his younger sister Aimee is adrift in a difficult marriage to Mike, an off-the-grid gun shop owner. As Aimee grapples with self-doubt and searches for solace in a vacuous megachurch, Mike's misunderstandings are magnified by the self-first ideology and fear-of-others philosophy swirling around him"--

A lucid depiction of the love between an 11 year-old boy and a Roman Catholic Priest.

Much that is commonly accepted about slavery and religion in the Old South is challenged in this significant book. The eight essays included here show that throughout the antebellum period, southern whites and blacks worshipped together, heard the same sermons, took communion and were baptized together, were subject to the same church discipline, and were buried in the same cemeteries. What was the black perception of white-controlled religious ceremonies? How did whites reconcile their faith with their racism? Why did freedmen, as soon as possible after the Civil War, withdraw from the biracial churches and establish black denominations? This book is essential reading for historians of religion, the South, and the Afro-American experience.