CBA Faith & Culture Finalists

At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure.

With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel.

Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, "I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted."

For orthodox Christians, the way forward is to take a close look at our history. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on caring over attempting to cure.

"Blending history with memoir, social worker Opelt examines death rituals and reflects on her season of grief in this devastating debut. . . . The fastidious research and acute analyses of grief traditions fascinate, and her insights are shattering. . . . Poignant and erudite, this is not to be missed,"---Publishers Weekly. 256 pages, hardcover. Worthy.

It is not an accident that racism is alive and well in the American church. Racism has, in fact, been taught within the church for so long most of us don’t even recognize it anymore. Pastor Albert Tate guides all of us in acknowledging the racism that keeps us from loving each other the way God intends and encourages siblings in Christ to sit together in racial discomfort, examining the role we may play in someone’s else’s struggle.

How We Love Matters is a series of nine moving letters that educate, enlighten, and reimagine discipleship in a way that flips the church on its head. In these letters that include Dear Whiteness, Dear America, and Dear Church, Tate calls out racism in the world, the church, within himself and us. These letters present an anti-racist mission and vision for believers to follow that helps us to speak up at the family table and call out this evil so it will not persist in future generations.

Tate believes that the only way to make change is by telling the truth about where we are—relationally, internally, and spiritually. How We Love Matters is an exposition of relevant Biblical truth, a clarion call for all believers to examine how they see and understand each other, and it is a way forward toward justice, reconciliation, and healing. Because, yes, it is important that we love each other, but it is even more important how we love each other.

What distinguishes "Christian nationalism" from healthy patriotism? In this clarifying work, former White House staffer Miller provides a detailed portrait of---and case against---a misguided "religion of American greatness." Learn why he believes such ideology is at odds with the genius of the American experiment and potentially devastating to both church and state. 304 pages, hardcover from InterVarsity.

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman shows how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas on religion, free speech, and personal identity. 

For fans of Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Strange New World offers a more concise presentation and application of some of the most critical topics of our day. Individuals and groups can work through the book together with the Strange New World Study Guide and Strange New World Video Study, sold separately. 

• Cultural Analysis from a Christian Perspective: Explores the history of the sexual revolution and its influence today
• A Concise Version of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Offers an approachable presentation of the points in Trueman’s popular book
• A Great Resource for Individual and Small-Group Study: Each chapter ends with thought-provoking application questions
• Part of the Strange New World Suite: Can be used with the Strange New World Video Study and Strange New World Study Guide

Our culture wants you to be happy. It rewards those who smile through the pain, who pretend everything's fine, who compartmentalize grief and get on with life. But everything's not fine. And God does not expect us to pretend it is. He wants all of us--including our pain. Perhaps nowhere in Scripture do we get as full a picture of the heights and depths of the human experience as in the Psalms. The outpourings of emotion never shy away from the darkest moments of life, and yet they also point toward the light--toward the God in whom we place our hope.

Inspired by Psalm 37, Voices of Lament is a powerful collection of reflections from Christian Women of Color on themes of injustice, heartache, and deep suffering. Their essays, prayers, poems, and liturgies lay bare the experiences of the oppressed even as they draw us into deeper intimacy with God and a more fulsome understanding of each other. For anyone who longs to better express and understand the beauty of lament held in holy tension with hope and love, this extraordinary collection presents both well-known and new voices from various ethnic and people groups and different generations, putting God's faithfulness on full and glorious display.