Ten Theology Books to Watch For – May 2025

The Soul Also Keeps the Score: A Trauma-Informed Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

Robert McChesney, S.J.

(Liturgical Press)

Research suggests that up to 70% of adults will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime. But where does this affliction reside? The bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score introduced readers to the neurobiology of trauma, demonstrating how terror and isolation inhabit and reshape both brain and body. But what about trauma’s effects on the soul? In The Soul Also Keeps the Score, Jesuit counselor and chaplain Father Robert McChesney argues that psychology must be complemented by insights from the discipline of spirituality.

In this pioneering work, McChesney interprets the classic sixteenth-century mystical text of the Spiritual Exercises as born in violence to the body and soul of their author, the traumatized, battle-wounded-turned-saint, Ignatius of Loyola. Grounded in Ignatius’s colorful narrative and influential pathway to God, McChesney insists that the two languages of mental health and spirituality can speak in one voice. Whether you are a spiritual, pastoral, or mental health professional, member of the care circle, or wounded seeker, The Soul Also Keeps the Score unlocks a treasure trove of fresh insight and hope.

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Micah: Introduction and Commentary (Illuminations Series)

Carolyn J. Sharp

(Eerdmans)

Written by Carolyn J. Sharp, a leading scholar of biblical prophetic literature, this commentary provides scholars and preachers with a thorough overview of historical, literary, and theological dimensions of the book of Micah. The commentary also examines Micah’s reception history by Jewish and Christian interpreters and considers Micah’s witness as valuable for ecological ethics.

The volume is part of the Eerdmans Illuminations series, in which authors employ the full range of biblical scholarship to illumine the text from a wide variety of perspectives, including the engagement and impact of the text through the centuries.

Excerpt from the commentary: “In oracle after beautifully crafted oracle, through diverse and artful rhetorical means, Micah teaches his community to remain resilient through national and regional traumas; he urges them to engage in active resistance of the depredations of the elite and the violence of invading armies; he exhorts them to reform their understanding of YHWH’s requirements for ethical life and faithful theological praxis; and he invites them to rejoice in the divine deliverance they had known in days of old and can envision for the future restoration of Zion. As contemporary readers and communities gather around the book of Micah, we too can find in its pages extraordinary resources for resilience, resistance, reformation, and rejoicing.”