Great Reads From 2025

I’ve read fewer books this year compared to most. And many of them were about ancient Jewish religious evolution—not generally the sort of topic most people are interested in. But never fear, there were some other fascinating books in my reading this past year. Here’s ten of them! The first three, by the way, are all old classics well worth the effort of finding in a used bookstore or ordering online. 

A Wizard of Earthsea. (Ursula LeGuin): This is science-fiction classic first published over fifty years ago. A young wizard, over time, learns all about wisdom and his own personal demons. The emphasis is on how much he had to learn. Along the way, besides describing the world of Earthsea, Le Guin explores racism, ambition, and (I’d say, though it wasn’t a thing when she wrote it) systemic evil. The story moves at a fast pace, is written with great clarity—and best of all, invites the reader to fall in love with its hero, Ged. 

Doctor Glas. (Hjalmar Soderberg): I picked this one up in Sweden, visiting a cousin who pointed out that, “yes, there is great Swedish literature.” And well, this is a fine book. In it, a rather jaded doctor is moved by the tragic marriage of a female patient. And ultimately, he solves this lady’s problems—in the most unexpected manner. It’s a study of life’s meaning, medical ethics, and abusive relationships. The church doesn’t come in for any accolades here, either. I’d especially recommend it for doctors and people interested in denominational politics. 

A Lost Lady. (Willa Cather): Here’s another oldie but goodie. The lady in question is a study in contrasts. I couldn’t help but think of The Great Gatsby as I read it. Marian attracts many suiters, but some-how I don’t think that she finds what she is looking for in any of them. Its setting is the West just after the transcontinental railroad was finished. She’s surrounded by wealthy old men who have made their money cashing in on America’s manifest destiny. Tightly written, stylistically amazing, and a case study in why you should never presume that the answers of the day are necessarily the answers that will make the world, or you, a better person. 

James. (Percival Everett): Everyone seems to agree that this is one of the best books of 2025. I wouldn’t disagree. What if Huck Finn’s story had been told by Jim? It would be both the same and completely different. Twain was an early advocate for Black equality. And yet, his ideas are dated by his era and social milieu. James, however, gets what it means to be Black from the inside—and perseveres. 

Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany. (Norman Ohler): This is a book about the war on drugs—that is, how the Nazis fought WWII on drugs. Not a new book, but for me it was a new window into both Nazi Germany and Hitler. The Nazi’s massive use of drugs to bolster both the troops and the Fuehrer isn’t exactly old news. However, Ohler tells a riveting story that adds both color (not nice ones) and a deeper understanding of the depth of Nazi folly. A page turner. 

The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries. (Donald Prothero): I’ve been fascinated by evolution ever since I served as a student member on the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship in 1984-85. Our topic was Creation and Cosmogony. We set out to understand how current scholarship would deepen our understanding of Biblical texts. Our focus was on cosmic evolution, but one of my assignments was to read and review several new commentaries on Genesis 1-11 and Psalm 104. That meant thinking hard about my presuppositions about Adam and Eve. I finished the year with a life-long habit of staying current on all kinds of evolution. This book, told in an entertaining voice, was a real pleasure to read. Perfect for anyone who wants a sense of why, if evolution is a theory, it’s a theory only to the degree gravity is a theory too. 

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global. (Laura Spinney): Here’s a history of the Indo-European language from ancient (proto) times to the present. Spinney is a good writer, and when you’re done, you will have a deeper understanding of how (for example) we came to speak English, and where it and many other languages came from. Her research is up to date on the many factors that influence language change through time and space, the archaeological evidence, and the genetic evidence. It does get a bit dense sometimes, but the characters, civilizations, and turning-points you encounter along the way are fascinating. 

An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence. (Zeinab Badawi): In spite of knowing better, a lot of us still think of Africa as a dark continent lost in problems of its own making. The truth is quite different. Badawi explores the rise and fall of Africa’s great civilizations, the horrific toll of Western violence through colonialism, empire building, racism, sexism, the clash of religions, and of course, the slave trade. Badawi is optimistic about Africa’s future, though cautious. My only wish is that she might have spent more time on Bantu expansion. But her book is a tonic for those of us schooled in the old missionary stories about bringing the gospel to (so-called) savages. A welcome historical paradigm change. 

Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes. (William M. Schniedewind): So, one of my current projects is to understand the evolution of Judah’s and Israel’s religion, and particularly the evolution of their ideas about God (or, more usually, the gods). Schniedewind, like most current scholars, believes that Deuteronomy (or at least an early version) came together near the end of the Judean monarchy, and that the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures followed. The stories, myths, and ancient written records that comprise those scriptures were curated for hundreds of years by scribes—in Samaria, the countryside, and in Jerusalem itself. This book explores who they were, what they did, and how different historical events such as the destruction of the temple, exile, and return from exile all impacted the process. I would have wished for more background on the ur-myths, stories, and how they were first brought into the scribal process. Still, it’s a book packed full of information—even if the writing is a bit dull sometimes. 

Inyoni and the Pale Man (John Suk): Okay, so this is a book I’ve written myself. It’s a historical novel set during the Boer (Anglo, African) War in Southern Africa. Pieter Ryken is a young Dutch teacher who wants to be a good man, but isn’t sure that it is possible. The novel moves from rural Netherlands to the brothels of Cape Town to Boer farmsteads in Transvaal, to the Siege of Mafeking. Along the way readers are invited to reflect on sexual violence, racism, orthodox religion, and how one deals—or doesn’t—with moral temptation. Okay, it’s the best book in this list. A real page turner! You can order it from my publisher, Archway Publishers, a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster; or, you can get it from Amazon.ca (or .com) or Indigo. Would love it if you left a review on Goodreads or any of the platforms mentioned.

My Agnosticism: Longing and Thirst

 

         In 2012 I interviewed for the position of minister at Lawrence Park Community Church (LPCC). Along the way one of the search committee members asked me if I believed in God. Belief in God had become a talking point at LPCC since the previous minister had been a post-theist. That is, he thought that at a minimum God’s time in the church was up, and that this was a good thing. He leaned to thinking there was no God at all.

         I answered the committee that I wasn’t really sure.

         LPCC hired me. I served that congregation for nine years—the richest years of my career. It was a big-tent church. We were made up of people who liked the community but maybe not orthodoxy tests, people who did and didn’t believe in God, and people who just were not sure. We tried to think of theology as a playground rather than a battlefield. We tried, together, to figure out what a good life was, how we might live such a life, and how we might spread our privilege around by doing good works and seeking justice. All of us were impressed by the example of Jesus.

         And I was their minister. When pressed—and sometimes when not—I admitted to my congregants that I did not know whether or not there was a God. I was agnostic.

         What did that mean? Well, ironically, the person who best summed the matter up for me was someone trying to explain his (mostly) Christian and (partly) Jewish faith—the New York Times columnist David Brooks. He described what William James called moments of “an ineffable joy and exultation,” numinous experiences in the mountains, and on subway trains, that ultimately convinced him that there was a God. (See “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be.” Dec. 22, 2024). 

         I have not had such experiences, something that I have written about in my book, Not Sure: A Pastor’s Journey from Faith to Doubt, and in articles published in Christian Century and other journals. I do not doubt that Brooks was deeply moved by such experiences to change his ideas about faith. But I can’t personally identify with them myself, in spite of having sought them for years at silent retreats, through searching of scripture, in worship, and by practicing spiritual disciplines such as prayer and fasting. 

         So, over all, I do not identify with Brooks’ personal story. However, along the way, Brooks makes one claim that resonated with me. “The most surprising thing I’ve learned since then is that ‘faith’ is the wrong word for faith as I experience it. The word ‘faith’ implies possession of something, whereas I experience faith as a yearning for something beautiful that I can sense but not fully grasp. For me faith is more about longing and thirsting than knowing and possessing.”

         And that is exactly what agnosticism is for me—that longing and thirsting to understand what I cannot fully grasp—love, or beauty, or the meaning of life. But whereas Brooks a turns to religion as the explanation for what he cannot grasp, I have learned that what is just beyond the rim our understanding is mostly what scientists are working on, with quite a bit of success.  There is no God of the gaps, no God of the numinous, for me. 

         From here on, however, as much as I respect Brooks, I think he gets faith, spirituality and religion mostly wrong. He quotes Rabbi David Wolpe, who denigrates spirituality and celebrates religion: “Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world.” 

         Such broad generalizations not grounded in evidence. Spirituality is an emotion? So what? Are emotions somehow less valuable or beneficial than religious obligations? Do emotions require less work to understand and integrate into your life? And is spirituality just an emotion? Is it not far more complex, emotions being just one facet? And as for religion being obligation, yes, we’ve all heard of Calvinistic or Fundamentalistic legalism, of women’s so-called obligation to obey their husbands, or gays’ obligation to never love. Remember Julian Barnes’ warning. “Religion tends to authoritarianism as capitalism tends to monopoly.” Sure, religion is obligation, but the obligations are often horribly misplaced. 

         To continue, does spirituality merely soothe while religion mobilizes? Do not both religion and spirituality both sometimes soothe, or sometimes not? To suggest soothing is bad, or that it belongs primarily to spirituality but not religion, or that spirituality can’t mobilize while religion can—well, all of these ideas are just silly and not borne out by experience. And as long as we’re talking mobilization and religion, let’s not forget the Evangelicals and MAGA and Christian nationalism, or the Southern Baptists and Presbyterians and slavery, or the role religion has played in harassing gay people, women, or promoting the worst kinds of colonial empire building. And all these are just for starters. Mobilization can be good or bad.

         And why would anyone say that spirituality is merely a matter of self-satisfaction? Again, this is a claim without any justification, and self-evidently false if you think about it. Whether Ghandi or Einstein, Seimone Weil or my one-time neighbour, Sarah . . . there are plenty of spiritual people who are not satisfied with the status quo, who seek justice, who engage in (sometimes at great personal cost) uncomfortable and self-sacrificial acts. And yes, religious people are often dissatisfied with the world, which might explain the crusades, or 100-year religious wars in Europe, or the inquisition, or the persecution of Jews (who have always been scapegoats for all sorts of worldly dissatisfactions). 

         So, what of Brooks’ former agnosticism? I will not claim that it is the best option or only option. But for me, personally, agnosticism baptizes my longing to know more, to seek out strange new truths and let go of unconvincing myths. In most religious people’s eyes, agnosticism might make for a poor spirituality and religion both. But it is what I’ve got.

I suppose, at this point, I could write a tome about how matters such as the evolution of the God Yawheh from an ancient tribal God to the one and only God of the universe, in Judaism left me doubting that this is the one and only God. (For more on this, see the Aug 18 and Oct 15, 2022 posts in this blog.) Or, I could explain why the problem of evil leaves me doubting that possibility of a good God. And there is even a little part of me that argues I should go back and reread some of Nick Wolterstorff’s or Alvin Plantinga’s books. I admired them a great deal, so shouldn’t I give them another chance? And then there is my personal agnosticism abyss—the many joys and comforts I have foregone now that I have left behind not only God, but the church I grew up in, its community, and my place in it. Changing one’s mind isn’t always easy or cozy.

As a half-way measure, by way of avoiding agnosticism, I’ve even tried on different kinds of Christian religion, ones that would give me room to embrace God while not being tied down to some narrow dogmatic confession about who this God is or what the actual truth about this God is. I went from mainline theologians like Douglas John Hall or Walter Pannenberg to more radical theologians such as Richard Kearny, John Caputo, or Catherine Keller. However, I found much in their works to be so complex, so full of “just so” arguments when it came to unique descriptions of God, as to be both unappealing and unconvincing.

In the end, I was reminded of something Malcom Muggeridge once said. "One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse; they believe in anything." Perhaps so, at least sometimes. But in light of a fantastic variety of Christian sects and radical theologians, it is worth asking why Muggeridge didn’t think Christians are the credulous who will believe anything. Now, my old religion seems to me to be much like a very impressive cell phone without reception. It was always in airplane mode, if you will. The infrastructure, coding, icons, and algorithms and are all there, but there is no signal to enliven it all.

Ultimately, agnosticism is a refusal to be credulous. It is an attempt to keep an open and searching mind. Agnosticism is not doubt, which, after all, belongs to faith. Agnostics simply admit a truth they may not much like, namely that they, even after much effort, do not know. I am agnostic.

          This is not decision by indecision. It is, rather, the difficult decision to admit to one’s own limitations. My agnosticism creates a longing and thirst to explore life’s mysteries rather than a belief that I can know and can possess ultimate truth.