The Books We Loved This Year 2023

The Yale Center for Faith & Culture is full of readers—and we love sharing what we’re reading, especially when we find books that connect so deeply with our mission and values. We believe actively reading is an essential part of helping people envision and pursue lives worthy of our shared humanity. What you’ll find below are just a few of our favorite books that helped us envision and pursue our own lives worth living in 2023. We hope you’ll read and enjoy them along with us.

Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Diamonds on the Soles of Our Shoes

A reflection on Jesus's Teaching on Wealth, Affluence, & Generosity, featuring discussions of the rich young ruler, Peter Singer and the Pond Case, and How Much A Dollar Cost? by Kendrick Lamar.

Evan Rosa

A Theological Resource for Giving Tuesday

After the frantic for-profit deals of Black Friday and Cyber Monday comes the flurry of non-profit appeals on Giving Tuesday. Henri Nouwen offers reflective questions about the relationship between money and power, our feelings about giving, and connecting to why we give charitably.

Ryan McAnnally-Linz

Love in a World of Enormous Difference

What if home is supposed to be more than something we simply define? Could we be called to become a home for each other? Natalia Marandiuc joined Evan Rosa on For the Life of the World to discuss the meaning of home, the self, and our agency to create.

Natalia Marandiuc

How to Read Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor is known for her short stories in which “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” But it’s often those ugly, mean, disgusting, scandalizing, violent, weird, or downright hateful characters in Flannery O’Connor stories that become the vessels of grace delivered. So, how should we read Flannery O’Connor? Jessica Hooten Wilson (Pepperdine University) joins Evan Rosa to open up about Flannery O’Connor’s life, her unique perspective as a writer, the theological and moral principles operative in her work, all as an immense invitation to read O’Connor and find the beauty of God’s grace that emerges amidst the most horrendous evils. Includes a discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Greenleaf.”

Jessica Hooten Wilson

A World Out of Joint

What are the possibilities of homemaking in a world out of joint? What does it mean for Christians to be on a pilgrimage? To be sojourners in the world? Ryan McAnnally-Linz joins Evan Rosa to discuss what it means for Christian life to be a journey not from here to there, but from here to … here.

Ryan McAnnally-Linz

You Are A Tree

Theologian Joy Marie Clarkson (King's College London) discusses her most recent book, You Are a Tree: And Other Metaphors to Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer.

Joy Marie Clarkson

Chinese Political Theology

Theologian Peng Yin (Boston University School of Theology) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to discuss the role of theology and religion in Chinese public life—looking at contemporary foreign policy pitting Atheistic Communist China against Democratic Christian America; the moving story of Christian communist political dissident Lin Zhao; and the broader religious, philosophical, and theological influences on Chinese politics.

Peng Yin

Pursuit of a Life Worth Living

“What we’re trying to do is offer students an opportunity to think critically about the most important question of their lives across important and enduring lines of difference. That can only be good for them as individuals and as global citizens.”

Matthew Croasmun

Gathering Joy

Willie Jennings

The Future of Theology

George Marsden

Life Worth Living and the University

Jonathan Holloway