Dr. Anthony Bradley Publishes Eighth Book: “Something Seems Strange”

Dr. Anthony Bradley—an associate professor of Religious Studies, the program chair of Religious and Theological Studies, and the director of the Center for the Study of Human Flourishing at The King’s College—has a new book out this fall from Wipf and Stock Publishers, Something Seems Strange: Critical Essays on Christianity, Public Policy, and Contemporary Culture. Something Seems Strange is the sequel to Bradley’s 2011 essay collection, Black and Tired.

Bradley says that “offering a collection of smaller essays is something I picked up from Thomas Sowell,” the economist, social theorist, and syndicated columnist. Many of the essays included in Bradley’s book were published in WORLD magazine and for the Acton Institute, among other outlets, and explore how we as Christians make sense of our culture and world. In the introduction of the book, Bradley writes: “What follows in this book are theological and moral reflections on some of the social issues affecting our local, national, and global communities. The topics range from church life, to presidential politics, to public school education policy, and more—all examined from a theological perspective.”

Bradley does not shy away from controversial issues, and several reviewers of the book have called it “provocative.” Bradley says his essays are provocative in that he analyzes “the tribalism of liberals and conservatives alike in the church as well as the culture.” He refuses to tow the party line on issues, he says, and has been “uninvited from conferences, sidelined on discussions of social justice and racial reconciliation among evangelicals, attacked by progressives on economics, and considered suspicious by church planters establishing missional churches in cities like New York” because of his positions.

But Bradley is not controversial simply for the sake of being controversial. He writes from the Christian personalist perspective and says that he hopes that “readers will walk away from the book with an understanding of why it’s important to put the needs of people ahead of political or religious ideology, because people do matter.” He continues: “If we do not keep the dignity of the human person at the center of our prescriptions about public policy and culture, we run the risk of hurting the very same people we are trying to help.”

Something Seems Strange is Bradley’s eighth book. He hopes to do a book event at the College during the spring semester.

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