I’ve got a new book (and other news)

If by some minor miracle you haven’t yet heard, I’ve got a new book out, An Introduction to God: Encountering the Divine in Orthodox Christianity, with a foreword graciously provided by my friend Jonathan Jackson. (It also includes a sneak preview of his forthcoming book, The Mystery of Art.)

You can listen to an interview I did with Bobby Maddex about the book, read an interview I did with Holy Trinity Bookstore (Jordanville, NY), and you can also read the first review (by writer Ben Cabe). And yes, it’s on Amazon (including Kindle), as well as iBook for you Apple users. I believe the Nook edition should be soon available, as well.

It’s a very different book from Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. My hope for it is that it can reach people outside of Christianity entirely who may not see what the point is in faith in Christ, as well as reaching people who are already in church who may not have a really deep engagement with what faith in Christ really is about. And of course I believe that those who really are engaged will find here the same Christ Whom they know and believe in.

In other news, I published an article with First Things this past week that has gotten decent attention, “#WeAreN: The Invisibility of Holy Land Christians,” which addresses the plight of the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East:

As a kid growing up in Evangelical churches, I would occasionally hear about the ultimate in Christian travel—the Holy Land tour. And the tour would be followed up some months later by a slide show showing where its members had gone. The slides featured ancient stone buildings, panoramic views of Jerusalem, and sunglass-wearing Americans standing atop of the Mount of Olives with the golden Dome of the Rock in the background. But I don’t remember anyone ever talking about the Christians living there. There were pictures of churches, sure, but did anyone actually go to church there?

Read the full piece. I hope to publish some more at FT, as well.

You may also notice that this weblog is at a new site. Ancient Faith Ministries has launched itself into the blogosphere with a series of nine networked weblogs (with more likely to come), including both this site and Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. Not everything’s quite in order yet, but we’ve had a “soft launch” this past weekend, and a landing page is up, though it’s still very basic in design. You’ll see some blogs you recognize as well as some new ones. All of this will eventually be integrated into the full Ancient Faith website, along with audio and things to purchase. I’m pretty excited about all this.

The old Roads from Emmaus site will exist for another week or so, but eventually all the old links will point here. If you poke around, you’ll see that all the old posts have been imported here, too. Thanks especially go to Gabe Martini (design) and Fr. John Schroedel (server-side administration), who made all this technically possible, as well as to John Maddex (head of Ancient Faith Ministries), who actually thought all this sounded like a good idea. That crazy guy.

Anyway, thanks for coming along for the ride. Let me know what you think of the new book.