Pastoral psychotherapy, by president of Integrity International.--Misha Schutt.

Exile can be a frightening prospect.Like the Israelites in Babylon, Christians today may feel they are in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by a culture with customs and practices foreign to their faith. In these times of dislocation and powerlessness, God wants to help his people experience anew the possibilities of covenantal faithfulness.In Embracing Exile, T. Scott Daniels invites the church to embrace this modern time of 'exile' and to seize this unique opportunity to be a blessing to the culture around us.

The Christian church continues to seek ethical and spiritual models from the period of Israel's monarchy and has avoided the gravity of the Babylonian exile. Against this tradition, the author argues that the period of focus for the canonical construction of biblical thought is precisely the exile. Here the voices of dissent arose and articulated words of truth in the context of failed power.

The person of exile may be considered a wanderer, a nomad, a refugee, or a rebel. People of exile can be the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the outcast, the left out, and the pushed away. Different terms are used, but what defines them all is separation. Exile is a dangerous and dominant theme that runs through Scripture, through the lives of the people of Israel, and through the universal church. Women who have known the sacred place of exile are uniquely qualified to form a women's mission. The case is made for a momentum shift in missiological thinking. There is a desperate and aching need for a women's mission, which could lead the way to a women's missionary movement. The emergence of such a mission/movement is indeed fraught with skepticism and suspicion from many of those inside the church and leaders in the missionary world. But the radical, disruptive, costly following of Jesus to those "outside the camp" is our calling.

Gay spirituality represents a hidden strand in Western thought that was only publically declared from the Gay Liberation of the 1970s. Since "coming out", expressions of gay spirituality have proliferated in both number and diversity. Beginning with gay theology within Christianity, the phenomenon has now reached as far as Buddhism and neo-paganism. But, so far, critical analysis of the movement has been very limited largely because gay spirituality has been treated as a political and social movement arguing for rights and acceptance within religious circles. 'A Special Illumination' offers an indepth analysis and argues that gay spirituality should be placed at the heart of religion.

Russell Jeung's spiritual memoir shares the difficult, often joyful, and sometimes harrowing account of his life in East Oakland's Murder Dubs neighborhood and of his Chinese-Hakka history. On a journey to discover how the poor and exiled are blessed, At Home in Exile is the story of his integration of social activism and a stubborn evangelical faith. Holding English classes in his apartment (which doubled as a food pantry for a local church) for undocumented Latino neighbors and Cambodian refugees, battling drug dealers who threatened him, exorcising a spirit possessing a teen, and winning a landmark housing settlement against slumlords with a gathering of his neighbors—Jeung's story is, by turns, moving and inspiring, traumatic and exuberant. As Jeung retraces the steps of his Chinese-Hakka family and his refugee neighbors, weaving the two narratives together, he asks difficult questions about longing and belonging, wealth and poverty, and how living in exile can transform your faith: "Not only did relocation into the inner city press me toward God, but it made God's words more distinct and clear to me...As I read Scriptures through the eyes of those around me—refugees and aliens—God spoke loudly to me his words of hope and truth." With humor, humility, and keen insight, he describes the suffering and the sturdiness of those around him and of his family. He relates the stories of forced relocation and institutional discrimination, of violence and resistance, and of the persistence of Christ's love for the poor.

The swooning Victorian ladies and the 1950s housewives genuinely needed to be liberated. That much is indisputable. So, First-Wave feminists held rallies for women's suffrage. Second-Wave feminists marched for Prohibition, jobs, and abortion. Today, Third-Wave feminists stand firmly for nobody's quite sure what. But modern women--who use psychotherapeutic antidepressants at a rate never before seen in history--need liberating now more than ever. The truth is, feminists don't know what liberation is. They have led us into a very boring dead end. Eve in Exile sets aside all stereotypes of mid-century housewives, of China-doll femininity, of Victorians fainting, of women not allowed to think for themselves or talk to the men about anything interesting or important. It dismisses the pencil-skirted and stiletto-heeled executives of TV, the outspoken feminists freed from all that hinders them, the brave career women in charge of their own destinies. Once those fictionalized stereotypes are out of the way--whether they're things that make you gag or things you think look pretty fun--Christians can focus on real women. What did God make real women for?