Best Christian Writing 2002

This year's volume brings together an elegant and engaging array of essaysby Christian luminaries tackling relevant issues. These writers distill theriches of belief into lucid explorations of faith and truth, reflectingthe many dimensions of Christianity in the new millennium.

• Frederica Mathewes-Green, who wrestles with some of the negative results of feminism in "Three Bad Ideas for Women and What to Do About Them."
• Richard John Neuhaus, examining the tensions and richness of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in "Salvation Is from the Jews."
• Barbara Brown Taylor, offering a meditation on the confluence of the holy and the unholy in our lives in "The Derelict Cross."
• Walter Wangerin JR., recalling the steady, unpretentious wisdom of his farmer father-in-law in "One Man on a Tractor Far Away."
• Philip Yancey, sharing his lifelong love of G. K. Chesterson in "The 'Ample' Man Who Saved My Faith."

This year's volume brings together an elegant and engaging array of essays by Christian luminaries tackling relevant issues. These writers distill the riches of belief into lucid explorations of faith and truth, reflecting the many dimensions of Christianity in the new millennium.

• Frederica Mathewes-Green, who wrestles with some of the negative results of feminism in "Three Bad Ideas for Women and What to Do About Them."
• Richard John Neuhaus, examining the tensions and richness of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in "Salvation Is from the Jews."
• Barbara Brown Taylor, offering a meditation on the confluence of the holy and the unholy in our lives in "The Derelict Cross."
• Walter Wangerin JR., recalling the steady, unpretentious wisdom of his farmer father-in-law in "One Man on a Tractor Far Away."
• Philip Yancey, sharing his lifelong love of G. K. Chesterson in "The 'Ample' Man Who Saved My Faith."

Publishers Weekly

As editor of the literary review Books & Culture, Wilson is well equipped to survey the world of Christian writing, and he has once again assembled a collection of essays that stimulates and surprises. The presence of writers like Walter Wangerin, Frederica Mathewes-Greene and Philip Yancey will be no surprise, of course, but other less well-known authors like Garret Keizer (The Enigma of Anger) and Sarah E. Hinlicky make equally graceful and compelling contributions. The writing is "Christian" because the writers are (with one exception, Amy Schwartz, an observant Jew who contributes a perfectly tuned updating of C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters); the topics range from teaching to farming, from birth to death. There may also be something distinctively Christian about the way that these essays fuse the written word with personal encounter. Yancey celebrates G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Bottum rereads Dickens; Hinlicky bids farewell to her dying grandfather; Sam Torode contemplates an ultrasound of his unborn son; Wangerin remembers his father-in-law, a lifelong farmer, and Gabriel Said Reynolds explores the faith of his friend Mojtaba, a Shi'ite Muslim. A few of the essays are systematically theological, but in most, Christian faith serves as a source of indirect illumination, equipping the writers to perceive deeply without introducing artificial glare and shadows. Christian readers will be heartened by this collection; others may be surprised at how universal the best Christian writing can be. (Dec.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture, the Christian review of literature, and editor-at-large for its parent magazine, Christianity Today.