April Publishers Newsletter 2026

Dear Friends,

             Blessed Eastertide! New Orbis titles this April include assessments of the “living legacy” of two 20^th-century spiritual masters. Although their themes differ widely, both continue to shape spiritual reflection today.         

First, Teilhard de Chardin, the renowned French Jesuit, scientist, and theologian who died in 1955 (on Easter Sunday). Encountering Teilhard, edited by Juan V. Fernández de la Gala, gathers reflections from an international roster of theologians and thinkers assessing Teilhard’s legacy. Contributors including Ilia Delio, Matthew Fox, Brian Swimme, Joan Chittister, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, Kathleen Duffy, Tomas Halik, Leonardo Boff, and many others. As the editor notes, Teilhard lived during dark times—as a stretcher-bearer in World War I and later enduring exile and restrictions on his work by the Vatican and his Jesuit order. Yet, he wrote, “Do not be troubled by the difficulties of life, by its ups and downs, or by its disappointments… Want what God wants. Abandon yourself into the hands of providence, and trust blindly in that God who wants you just as you are.”

          Encountering Henri, edited by Stephen Lazarus, reflects the continuing influence of Henri Nouwen, the much-loved Dutch-born priest and writer, who died thirty years ago. The contributors include some who knew him well (including my own reflections on “Editing Henri”), while other testimonies are from people who discovered and came to know Henri only through his writings. It’s a wonderful way to make or renew acquaintance with a man who managed, despite his own fraught personality, to teach us so much about the life of faith, and our status as “God’s beloved.”

          Also available this month: Alfonse Borysewicz, a Brooklyn-based artist, has written Painting Prayer: Why Faith Needs Art—and Art Needs Faith. With full-color illustrations, he explores how creative experience benefits people of faith and what timeless faith brings to creative expression. Both memoir and manifesto, Fr. Jim Martin lauds it as “a vital contribution to discussions of faith and contemporary art.”

          Wes Howard-Brook is the author of two major works on the Bible, “Come Out, My People!” God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond and Empire Baptized: How the Church Embraced what Jesus Rejected, 2^nd-5^th Centuries. Both books are more than 500 pages long, and together make compellingly clear the tension throughout Scripture between a “religion of creation,” which brings life to all, and a religion of empire, that dominates and marginalizes. Now he has written a short, readable synthesis, no less compelling, for general readers, those in ministry anyone seeking a powerful statement of what discipleship means today: Creation or Empire: A Choice of Religions in the Bible and Beyond. Rev. Laurel Dykstra calls it “an accessible resource for . . . followers on the way, who seek to live joyful resistance.”

          Finally, I am sad to report the death of Bill Burrows, who served for twenty years as an Orbis editor. With his expertise in interreligious dialogue, mission, Catholic theology, and World Christianity, Bill edited many of the great theologians and scholars of our time: Aloysius Pieris, SJ, Raimon Panikkar, Peter Phan, Jacques Dupuis, SJ, David Tracy, Hans Küng, Andrew Walls, and many more. His contributions to global theology, and to Orbis Books, were incalculable. We are grateful to have known him, and for his invaluable contributions to mission.

Yours,

Robert Ellsberg