{"id":608,"date":"2009-01-01T12:46:26","date_gmt":"2009-01-01T12:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/01\/best-spiritual-books-of-2008.html"},"modified":"2009-01-01T12:46:26","modified_gmt":"2009-01-01T12:46:26","slug":"best-spiritual-books-of-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/01\/best-spiritual-books-of-2008.html","title":{"rendered":"Best Spiritual Books of 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beliefnet&#8217;s bloggers have been describing their favorite spiritual books of the year. Here are bottom line picks. Click through to read their explanations:<br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/jesus-creed-books-of-the-year-1.html\">Scot McKnight (a.k.a Jesus Creed)<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nKlyne Snodgrass&#8217; complete study of the parables: <em>Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus . <\/em><br \/>\nTom Wright&#8217;s wondrous and suggestive book on the resurrection: <em>Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church . <\/em><br \/>\nChris Wright&#8217;s thorough examination of the Bible through the lens of missional: The <em>Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible&#8217;s Grand Narrative .<\/em><br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/spiritual-religious-book-of-th.html\">Tony Jones (a.k.a New Christians):<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nJeff Sharlet&#8217;s <em>The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power . <\/em><br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/12\/top-5-best-spiritual-young-adu.html\">Donna Frietas (Idol chatter)<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nBest young adult fiction:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;<em>Breaking Dawn&#8221;<\/em> by Stephenie Meyer<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;<em>Graceling&#8221;<\/em> by Kristin Cashore <\/li>\n<li> <em>&#8220;The Graveyard Book&#8221;<\/em> by Neil Gaiman <\/li>\n<li><em> &#8220;The Cabinet of Wonders&#8221; <\/em>by Marie Rutkoski<\/li>\n<li> <em>&#8220;Bliss<\/em>&#8221; by Lauren Myracle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/12\/best-religious-books-of-2008.html\">Paul raushenbush (a.k.a Progressive Revival):<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of this World for Crucifixion and Empire<\/em> by Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker.<br \/>\n<em>Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small, The: Charting a Course for the Next Generation,<\/em> by Marian Wright Edelman.<br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/best-spiritual-book-2008-enlig.html\">Valerie Reiss:<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Enlightenment for Idiots<\/em> by Anne Cushman<br \/>\nWhich spiritual books from 2008 would <u>you <\/u>recommend?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beliefnet&#8217;s bloggers have been describing their favorite spiritual books of the year. Here are bottom line picks. Click through to read their explanations: Scot McKnight (a.k.a Jesus Creed) Klyne Snodgrass&#8217; complete study of the parables: Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus . Tom Wright&#8217;s wondrous and suggestive book on the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Best Spiritual Books of 2008 - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/01\/best-spiritual-books-of-2008.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Best Spiritual Books of 2008 - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Beliefnet&#8217;s bloggers have been describing their favorite spiritual books of the year. Here are bottom line picks. Click through to read their explanations: Scot McKnight (a.k.a Jesus Creed) Klyne Snodgrass&#8217; complete study of the parables: Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus . Tom Wright&#8217;s wondrous and suggestive book on the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/01\/best-spiritual-books-of-2008.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-01T12:46:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Best Spiritual Books of 2008 - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/01\/best-spiritual-books-of-2008.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Best Spiritual Books of 2008 - Steven Waldman","og_description":"Beliefnet&#8217;s bloggers have been describing their favorite spiritual books of the year. 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He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}