I got thinking the other day that I've recently had the unusual (for me) opportunity to read several manuscripts of upcoming books. This is a profound honor and gift. I'd like to list and briefly comment on them:

(1) Stanley Hauerwas, Hannah's Child. Eerdmans this fall. I had the opportunity to visit with Professor Hauerwas a couple weeks ago to receive his wisdom for a reader on theology and the university. Last fall he sent me an electric copy of his up-coming memoir as background for the interviews upon which I am still working and he is now revising the manuscript. I think that this will be one of Professor Hauerwas' most important works -- if not his most important. There is irony in Hauerwas writing a memoir in light of his theological emphases; but when one reads the work, one cannot but give thanks to God that God made Stanley a theologian because he couldn't get "saved." It has a poetic quality, a flowing prose,a dramatic story-line, Stan's straight forward honesty. It will demand a wide audience, and rank with noted spiritual biographies.

(2) Conor Cunningham, Evolution. Eerdmans. I have not seen the whole manuscript as it is not quite completed yet --- though he is entering indices stage. Conor's work shows a mastery of contemporary evolutionary theory and philosophical and theological insight. He shows how the "evolutionary positivists" and the Intelligent Design make claims far beyond the data. It is a surprising and profound treatment of the theological interpretation of evolutionary theory in line with orthodox Christian claims about God and creation. I look forward to reading the whole manuscript soon!

(3) D. Stephen Long. Speaking of God. Eerdmans (now overdue for publication!). If Steve engaged "God and goodness" in The Goodness of God, he now engages the issues of God and truth. The issue of the sense of the language about God, so prominent in the 60s and 70s has become sublimated in recent discourse as the issue shifted to theological method in the 70s and 80s. Steve here is at his theological best. He brings together the insights of the "postliberals," the "communio" catholics, the "Hauerwasians," radical orthodoxy, and Charles Taylor in a clear treatment about how we might speak well of God. I think that this is an extremely important work. We will read it in my summer class on "Apathei and Aseity as Names for the biblical God."

(4) James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Eerdmans, August release date. This is volume one in a three volume set by Jamie on :"Cultural Liturgies." Jamie continues his unbelievable productivity. I was asked by my friend, Todd Ream of the Honor's College at Indiana Wesleyan to participate in a forum on the book in Christian Scholars Review -- which I made progress on today. Jamie takes on Christian education. He places a "worldview" understanding of the Christian university within the deeper context of pre-rational embodied human desires. Christian worship, therefore, becomes the essential matrix for understanding Christian education as formation, not merely the impartation of information. I am hopeful that this work will inspire Christian universities to understand why it is that we have the ability to educate more thickly and truthfully than secularized, state and private, institutions. Another very important work.

(5) Paul Griffiths, Intellectual Appetities: A Theological Grammar. Catholic University Press, released in August. When visiting Duke, Professor Hauerwas lent me the manuscript of this work and I devoured it. He investigates the difference of intellectual appetites as understood in the pre-modern period, the difference between "curiosity" and "studiousness" as the vice and virtue for intellectual desire. He shows how Christians provide a much richer rationale for the intellectual life than those in the West who seek to learn in order to dominate or control. An absolutely beautiful book that reappropriates the Augustinian Thomistic tradition for understanding God and the world around us -- and ourselves.

One of the wonderful things about these works is their accessibility. Particularly the manuscripts by Hauerwas, Smith, and Griffiths are accessible to a wide audience. Bon appetit!