September Publisher's Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Thirty years ago this month our friend and author Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest and renowned spiritual writer, died suddenly while passing through Amsterdam on his way to film a documentary in Russia. After attending his funeral in Toronto, I returned in a state of dazed sorrow. We had been working together on what turned out to be his final book, Adam: God’s Beloved. Yet, the next day, I found waiting for me a letter addressed in Henri’s unmistakable hand. Evidently writing some weeks before, he thanked me for our friendship and looked forward to our ongoing collaboration.

I could hardly have known how prescient his words were. Remarkably, our collaboration has continued through these years to the present, with Orbis blessed to have published more of Henri’s work, including The Selfless Way of Christ, The Road to Peace, Ukraine Diary, Community, Jesus: A Gospel, and many more. This year we published Encountering Henri, edited by Stephen Lazarus, which includes reflections by people who knew him (including my own account of “Editing Henri”) and others shaped by his message. Thus, his mission continues: calling readers to deeper intimacy with Jesus and solidarity with a wounded world.

Several new titles deal with the role of faith in a world marked by suffering and injustice. David Gushee’s Job in Exile: A Guide for Spiritual Refugees is a remarkable contribution to the many commentaries on this, one of the bible’s most challenging stories. In a striking turn, Gushee relates Job’s plight to the situation of many—particularly in the LGBTQ community—whose experience has made it impossible to accept the verities of their traditional religious communities and thus renders them exiles. The conclusion of Job is notoriously mysterious, and yet it ends with the suggestion that God validates Job’s wrestling with faith, while admonishing those who speak of God while neglecting compassion. 

David Neuhaus, a Jesuit priest, brings an unusual backstory to Conquest or Leaven: Reflections of a Catholic Priest in Palestine/Israel. The son of Orthodox Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, he grew up in South Africa, moved to Jerusalem, learned Arabic, became a Catholic, and finally a priest. His unique immersion in the diverse communities of Israel/Palestine allows him to unravel the complex knots that bind the land in a cycle of violence and injustice. The mission of the Church, he says, is to serve as a leaven, called to “integrate, permeate, and transform” society, inspired by a spirit of “prophetic hope.”

Finally, in Ecological Sin: Rupture of Relationships, Father Joshtrom Kureerthadam calls for an ecological conversion that we might turn from the sins of hubris, carelessness, indifference, desecration, greed, joylessness, and hopelessness that rupture our relationships with God, our neighbor, and with the earth itself. Celia Deane-Drummond calls this “profound and beautifully written book . . . essential reading for all who care about the earth and the protection of our common home.”

With thanks for our friendship and our ongoing collaboration.

Robert Ellsberg

Publisher