Christmas Giveaway! Win Three of Our Top Books!
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi everyone,
We at KTF Press love books! So, this Christmas we are giving away some of our favorites! One lucky subscriber who signs up for a paid subscription, upgrades their subscription, or gifts a subscription to someone else will get three of our top picks detailed in the resources below.
Subscriptions between Thursday, December 22 and Sunday, December 25 are eligible. The winner will be notified next week!
Cole Arthur Riley’s, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us, is a book that I will be reading and reflecting on for years to come. Its passages are painful and healing. There are phrases that pull you into the darkness of this world and illuminate it at the same time. Like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Riley describes in beautifully harsh details the struggles of being a Black woman in a world that is at war against her. And like Baldwin, she wrestles with a God who won’t let her go. Its 15 chapters are distinct yet connected stories that will leave you full and longing for more at the same time. The book is not a light read, nor should it be taken in one sitting. But it is certainly one to return to like the liturgies that ground so many faith communities. Because that’s what this book did more than anything — it grounded me. And I think it will do the same for you.
How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States is an invitation to look at the depth and breadth of pride, exceptionalism, and entitlement that mark the outlook of the United States toward the rest of the world. To decolonize our faith and uncouple it from Christian Nationalism, we must wrestle with the sheer scale of the American Empire. This is especially true considering that there are many places that America calls its own but don’t show up on the maps shown to the children in this country. As the author, Northwestern University historian Dr. Daniel Immerwahr, makes clear, we rarely mention that the Philippines were part of the US from 1898 until Japan invaded on the same day as the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Moreover, few people are aware of the policies and postures towards Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, Samoa, and the other nine territories that the United States claims as its own. Yet, the experiences of these people mirror those of enslaved Black Americans and Native people displaced by western expansion. The book is focused, fast-paced, and informative.
At the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a video circulated of a brave young girl confronting a group of soldiers. The thing is, that video is actually ten years old, the girl is not Ukrainian but Palestinian, and the soldiers she is confronting are Israeli. Her name is Ahed Tamimi. Tamimi garnered international attention back in 2012, when the video first went viral. But the footage captures just one of many incidents that have defined her life under Israeli occupation. She was imprisoned at 16 years-old and witnessed the incarceration of both parents as well as the killing of multiple family members. All of this and more is chillingly chronicled in her recently published memoir, They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom. Tamimi is well aware that her proximity to whiteness contributes to her place in the spotlight as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Palestinian. She recognizes that her story is just one of millions who suffer under Israeli occupation and apartheid. Thus, the book, in many ways, tells not only her story but the story of her family, her village, and her people.
Thanks for reading, don’t forget to subscribe, and get ready for an amazing essay to hit your inbox tomorrow from the one and only Tamice Spencer-Helms! To read Jonathan’s fire piece from last week, “A Practical View of White American Folk Religion Contrasted with Real Christianity,” click here.
Wishing you all a blessed Christmas!!
The KTF team