Love, marriage, and everything that follows are evergreen topics for religion and spirituality publishers, and forthcoming books are delving into many of the challenges today’s families face. New titles highlight the role faith can play in overcoming hardships and maintaining healthy family life for everyone from couples considering marriage to parents of teenagers who need encouragement.
To Hannah Phillips, an editor at St. Martin’s Press, it’s a new era for religion books in the category. “Books that address faith and family dynamics are no longer rigid and one-size-fits-all,” she says. “We’re seeing a wonderful range of narratives that reflect and accept shifting perspectives.”
Coming from St. Martin’s in March 2024, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon features both investigative journalism and firsthand experience with leaving the evangelical church, in an effort to define the movement known as exvangelicalism. McCammon, a national political correspondent for NPR, describes how her beliefs about God changed while covering Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, when she saw the “power and influence that evangelical Christian beliefs held on the political right,” according to the publisher. The book examines the origins of the exvangelical movement; explores its impact on culture, politics, and more; and tells the stories of its members.
Phillips says McCammon “aims to reach anyone who has struggled with leaving the church and is unsure of what comes next in any aspect of their life, but especially in how they choose to raise their own family.”
Books on how to raise faithful children are changing, as well. “A lot of us have been told that helping kids grow spiritually is one-size-fits all,” says Caitlyn Carlson, senior editor at Tyndale. “But it turns out that ‘one size’ rarely fits our kids or our lives.”
The publisher’s Little Habits, Big Faith: How Simple Practices Help Your Family Grow in Jesus by Christie Thomas (July 2024) urges readers to start small when it comes to teaching their kids about God—30 seconds a day, to be exact. It’s in this amount of time that a simple habit can be initiated, according to Thomas.
“I love how Thomas offers an empowering helping hand—a guide for investing in your unique family and unique pace of life in as little as 30 seconds a day,” Carlson says.
Hope Bolinger, managing and acquisitions editor at End Game Press, notes that fathers have far fewer titles to choose from than mothers when it comes to areas of marriage, parenting, and family life. “We don’t find many faith-family books on dads—ones that appreciate everything they do and uplift them,” she says.
End Game Press is working to reverse that trend, starting with I Love You Dad! by Blythe Daniel, Helen McIntosh, and William Daniel (May 2024). It features “dad jokes, beautiful verses, and bite-size prose from each of the authors,” according to Bolinger, who hopes the book “can serve as a great encouragement for dads everywhere.”
Surviving the hard days
Several new books address some of the biggest problems adults face today in their relationships with both spouses and children. A major pain point for couples is unprecedented levels of stress, writes family and marriage therapist Elizabeth Earnshaw in Till Stress Do Us Part: How to Heal the #1 Issue in Our Relationships (Sounds True, Sept. 2024). The book is intended to help readers identify and better cope with underlying stressors that can lead to conflict, such as parenting, domestic duties, and work, in an effort to protect relationships. Drawing on examples from both her personal experiences and those of her clients, Earnshaw provides scripts, practices such as meditation, and reflections intended to balance responsibilities among partners and improve communication.
“Stress is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to consume your life or your relationships,” Earnshaw writes. “If you’re feeling defeated and unsure what to do next to save your relationship, this book will give you the tools to take action now.”
Chris Graebe and wife Jenni Graebe, who cohost the Rhythm of Us podcast, target overwhelmed readers in The Rhythm of Home: Five Intentional Practices for a Thriving Family Culture (NavPress, June 2024). Highlighting what the authors call the “habits of flourishing families who love God and truly enjoy each other,” the book lays out steps for parents to take in order to create a “joy-filled family culture” and a home life that reflects their values, according to the publisher.
For worried parents of soon-to-be-adult children, You’ll Make It (and They Will Too): Everything No One Talks About When You’re Parenting Teens (WaterBrook, Aug. 2024) addresses issues related to trust, control, and communication in families. Author Amy Betters Midtvedt, a mother of five and writer for Today Parenting, shares personal stories about trying to set curfews and coping with the development of ADHD, anxiety, and other mental health issues in teenage children, in addition to offering prayers for “a lifelong loving relationship” between parents and children, according to the publisher.
Susan Tjaden, executive editor at WaterBrook & Multnomah, says You’ll Make It can help parents feel less alone. “I know from experience that parents of teens often don’t know what to do or who to turn to when their kids do something unexpected or potentially humiliating, or when their kids are struggling with all that today’s world throws at them—which can be a lot,” she adds. “Amy’s comforting and sometimes humorous voice helps to normalize the emotions parents have in these situations and provides the reassurance they—and their kids—are going to make it through.”
Designed to meet parents in times of severe challenges, When the Whole World Tips: Parenting Through Crisis with Mindfulness and Balance by Celia Landman (Parallax, out now) draws on Buddhist teachings and practices intended to create “a presence of love and care for your children even in their most difficult moments,” according to the publisher. Landman is a mindfulness educator who has experience supporting individuals impacted by trauma, addiction, and anxiety, and the book centers heavily on mental health challenges.
Parallax published When the Whole World Tips because of its focus on “the transformative power of mindfulness and self-compassion,” says editor Miranda Perrone. The book addresses what Perrone identifies as “a crisis of emotional imbalance and anxiety prevalent in modern parenting,” and she calls it “a vital resource for parents seeking to reclaim their inner stability and foster a nurturing environment for their children, even amidst life’s most challenging circumstances.”
Tyndale Refresh is publishing another title on mental health, Raising Mentally Strong Kids: How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults (Mar. 2024). Author Daniel G. Amen, a psychiatrist and brain disorder specialist with 10 brain-specific healthcare clinics across the U.S., wrote the book with child psychologist Charles Fay. They provide tools aimed at addressing defiance, meltdowns, and power struggles in an effort to motivate kids and establish healthier relationships, according to the publisher.
Forming solid unions
New books are going beyond the faithfulness, love, and joy that are at the core of biblical teachings about marriage. Faith communities today have shifted their articulations of holy matrimony as well as gender, intimacy, and sexuality, writes Courtney Ann Irby in Guiding God’s Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling (New York Univ., May 2024). Irby, a sociology professor and director of the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program at Illinois Wesleyan University, examines the marriage preparation programs of both Catholic and evangelical churches and analyzes efforts made by religious institutions to help couples with their relationships.
Jennifer Hammer, senior editor at NYU Press, says Guiding God’s Marriage illustrates how faith communities are responding to cultural changes related to marriage, while also revealing various approaches to fostering healthy unions. “By drawing on the author’s fieldwork in four marriage preparation classes and her interactions with the couples taking them,” Hammer notes, “the book is able to offer really intimate insights into what these communities conceive of as having a healthy and faith-filled marriage.”
Licensed counselors Robert Paul and Tara Lalonde are also weighing in on what it takes to build a healthy union in Empowered to Love: Discovering Your God-Given Power to Create a Marriage You Both Love (Focus on the Family, July 2024). The book describes strategies for strengthening marriages that include better self-care, communication exercises, ideas for adding romance, and more.
Two forthcoming titles delve into issues with intimacy in marriage and how to find healing. Sheri Mueller, a licensed clinical professional counselor, examines long-held assumptions about male and female desire in I Want Him to Want Me: How to Respond When Your Husband Doesn’t Want Sex (Tyndale, July 2024). Carol Tanksley, a minister and physician, focuses on sexual wholeness in Sexpectations: Reframing Your Good and Not-So-Good Stories About God, Love, and Relationships (Chosen, Feb. 2024). The book encourages readers to acknowledge their sexual history, such as porn addiction or other emotional and psychological factors, in order to achieve “true intimacy with God and others,” according to the publisher.
Plugging into spirituality
Growing kids’ faith lives is at the core of several titles for the whole family. In Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age (Harvest House, Apr. 2024), author Melissa B. Kruger addresses “cultural pressures and influences vying for teens’ attention” and lays out ways to establish an environment where faith can grow, according to the publisher. “My ultimate hope for my children is not that they would be wealthy or prosperous as the world defines success,” Kruger writes in the book. “My ultimate goal is that their souls will prosper.”
Audrey Greeson, acquisition editor at Harvest House, says, “This book calls parents to cultivate their own personal relationship with God and spiritual health in order to be rooted in him and draw peace and wisdom from him during the ups and downs of raising teens.”
And, in an ongoing trend, religion publishers are exploring the impact technology has on young people’s faith development, as well as overall family life, in new books.
Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family: How to Navigate a Media-Saturated World—and Why We Should (NavPress, May 2024) is by the staff of Plugged In, the entertainment and technology review website of the Christian ministry Focus on the Family. The book features a collection of research and analysis of trends related to the impacts of social media, music, streaming services, video games, movies, and more on the mental health, sleep patterns, attention spans, and social skills of children. The publisher calls it “a must-read resource to help you understand the media your children consume.”
Zondervan’s The Opt-Out Family by Erin Loechner (June 2024) is designed “for any family who’s concerned about the amount of time their kids are on screens,” says Carolyn McCready, executive editor at the press. “Erin comes to this topic of families, kids, and technology with insider knowledge. She was a pioneer on the internet and building major social media and internet presences before platform was even a thing. Now she’s a parent, and the research she’s seen about our kids, social media, screen time, and brain development is alarming. Her aim with this book is to go behind the scenes and use the secrets of the tech wizards and the platform experts to help today’s families find practical and livable ways to create better and more satisfying lives off screens and outside of the internet.”
According to McCready, The Opt-Out Family is one of the most important books she has worked on this year, because it supplies readers with “a vision and a plan for a counter-cultural way forward.” She adds, “This message feels incredibly timely and absolutely necessary as millions of parents are struggling with this issue in the life of their kids and their families.”
