Artwork by Shantel Miller. New media roundup

Song for Susie Epp; Made to Live: A Physician's Journey to Save Life; Contact: The Artistry of Jesus in Nine Faces; The City-Wide Church: Unity That God Blesses; and more

New media roundup

• Song for Susie Epp, by Elma Schemenauer (Farland Press 2024). In her latest novel, Kamloops author and editor (formerly from Toronto) portrays a Western Canadian Mennonite woman’s faith being tested through contending with self-doubt, an enigmatic love triangle and an overbearing mother-in-law (elmams.wixsite.com/elma).
• Made to Live: A Physician's Journey to Save Life, by Dr. Paul Saba (Word Alive, 2020). A Quebec Christian doctor who fought against medical assistance in dying in court in the 2010s debunks myths about euthanasia and assisted suicide.
• Contact: The Artistry of Jesus in Nine Faces, by James Tughan (Nadir, 2023). A coffee table book that, in the author’s words, employs “languages of drawing and poetry to take the viewer through the Bible in a hop, skip and a jump” using images from this veteran Ontario artist’s arresting exhibition “Nine Faces of Christ” (TughanSemaphore.ca).
• The City-Wide Church: Unity That God Blesses, by Richard Long (One Way Ministries, 2024). Veteran Ottawa ministry practitioner goes deep into the biblical imperative of unity to stretch the imagination of readers on what is possible here and now using real-life stories, problem-solving scenarios and easily transferable principles (OneWayMinistries.ca).
• Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith, by John Longhurst (CMU Press, 2024). Columns written over a distinguished career as a faith reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press and other publications, raising thoughtful questions on religion and artificial intelligence, the challenges of making end-of-life decisions, 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion, apologies about residential schools and more.
• Unsettling Worship: Reforming Liturgy for Right Relations with Indigenous Communities, by Sarah Travis (Cascade, 2023). Presbyterian pastor and professor (Knox College, Toronto) explores the Reformed liturgy in its pattern of gathering, word, table, and sending, searching it both for colonial vestiges, and spaces of new possibility.
• Through the Lens of Motherhood: Trusting God in Times of Trouble, by Laurie Haughton (Word Alive, 2020). A photographer and artist blogged about the angers, hopes, disappointments and divine reassurances of parenting a child born with a rare congenital heart defect, and then revised the material into a book.
• The Riches of Your Grace: Living in the Book of Common Prayer, by Julie Lane-Gay (IVP Formatio, 2024). Personal essays by a Vancouver Anglican on how the Book of Common Prayer can help Christians root ourselves in the riches of God's grace, allowing the prayer book to shape an ordinary Christian life, anchoring us in Christ.

Canadian creatives

“This painting restores the lost connection to land, home and place through an intimate underground communal exchange. It was inspired by a moment of embrace deeply rooted in the love of Christ that I wanted to hold onto in the space of painting and share with others (Ephesians 3:17).”

Dwelling Place (48” x 24”, oil and gold leaf on wood panel) by Shantel Miller

Click the image at right for a larger version

Instagram.com/ShantelMillerArt

Watch a 10-minute video profile of Shantel Miller on YouTube

PAINTING © SHANTEL MILLER