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What are you reading to stay robust in your thought life? How do you keep that missional imagination alive and redeem culture for the common good? I personally need books that are realistic but promote resilience of vision for kingdom ethics in a broken world, books that see God as above all human problems. To that end, I suggest the following: Gordon E. Carkner, PhD, Meta-Educator 

Radcliffe Camera Library, Oxford, UK

Brad Edwards, The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism. Zondervan, 2026 

Diane Kalen-Sukra, Lead with Civility: A Handbook for Uncivil Times. 2026. 

Roger Scrutin, On Human Nature. Princeton University Press, 2017; and Beauty: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2011. 

Makoto Fujimura, Art is a Journey Into the Light. Yale University Press, 2025. 

The Gospel After Christendom: An Introduction to Cultural Apologetics (editors: Collin Hansen, Skyler R. Flowers, and Ivan Mesa), Zondervan Reflective. 

Paul T. Sloan, Jesus and the Law of Moses: The Gospels and the Restoration of Israel within First-Century Judaism. Baker Academic, 2025. 

Amy Orr-Ewing, Forgiveness: Reclaiming its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear. 2026. 

Os Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom. InterVarsity Press, 2021. 

N. T. Wright, Creation, Power, and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion. 2025. 

Christian Wiman, Zero to the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. (poetry) 

Isabelle Hamley, Embrace Justice: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2022. SPCK, 2021. 

Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel: Interpretation. Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1990. Ute also loves his commentary on Isaiah. 

Karen Hao, The Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s Open AI. Penguin, 2025. 

Christopher Watkin, The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Tracing the Roots of Colonialism, Secularity, and Ecology. Cambridge University Press, 2025. 

Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands?: On Christian Resilience. 2026. 

Michael Edwards, Untimely Christianity: Hearing the Bible in a Secular Age. 2022