There is a chasm between the abstract concepts and helpful theories of academia and the pressing concerns of living communities. Makarios bridges that gap, bringing together writers to publish essays and books that respond to urgent issues of our day.

For a sense of the kinds of writing we find compelling, see the following list of highly recommended essays and books below. These are some of the books and essays we gather reading groups around, some of which also feature in our short-term classes and long-term cohorts:

• Christianity Is Lost in the Bible: This Book Is an Intervention, by Tommy Givens with Michael Stone and Barnabas Lin

• The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin

• Outline of a Theory of Practice, by Pierre Bourdieu

• The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study

• Art of the Commonplace, by Wendell Berry

• The Body of Faith: God in the People of Israel, by Michael Wyschogrod

• Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope, by David Tracy

• The Star of Redemption, by Franz Rosenzweig

• The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel

• The Widening of God's Mercy, by Christopher Hays and Richard Hays

• Tastes Like War: A Memoir, by Grace Cho

• Truth and Method, by Hans-Georg Gadamer

• Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, by Ellen Davis

• Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber

• Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, by William Cavanaugh

• The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader

• The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

• "Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.," by Jenny Price

• "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam," by Martin Luther King, Jr.

• "The Body Politics of Eucharist," by Andrea Bieler and Luise Schotroff

• "The Politics of Interpretation," by Denise Kimber Buell and Caroline Johnson Hodge