Love Your Enemies

Arthur C. Brooks (Broadside)
American public discourse is angry. Worse, Arthur C. Brooks argues, it is filled with contempt, “an enduring attitude of complete disdain.” The antidote to such contempt is love. Written for a secular audience but suffused with Christian values, Love Your Enemies outlines how Americans could, and why they should, practice a more loving form of disagreement with others. “My point is simple,” Brooks writes: “love and warm-heartedness might not change every heart and mind, but they are always worth trying, and they will always make you better off.”

CityServe

Dave Donaldson and Wendell Vinson, editors (Salubris)
According to Dave Donaldson and Wendell Vinson, “The local church isn’t adequately equipped to meet the growing complexity of spiritual, mental, and social brokenness in our communities, which has resulted in outsourcing compassion to government and national nonprofit organizations.” CityServe addresses that deficiency by curating 47 articles from multiple authors on various aspects of church-based compassion ministries. The result is a useful collection of “proven leadership principles and best practices from industry-leading professionals.”

Soul Set Free

John Lindell (Charisma House)
“The gospel is the key that will unlock your soul and set you free,” writes John Lindell. “It changes everyone and everything it touches.” And it can be expressed in a single word: grace — “the distinguishing feature of the gospel, what sets Christianity apart from every other world religion.” Drawing on Lindell’s gifting as an expository Bible preacher, Soul Set Free walks readers through Romans 1–8, showing how the apostle Paul’s ancient message has eternal relevance to the personal struggles of today.

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2019 edition of Influence magazine.