Popular culture in Christian perspective Some of you may recognize the name Ted Turnau. On Ransom’s website you can find an eBook by Dr.…
Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (David Koyzis, 2003)
I have found the last couple of election cycles in America to be disappointing. Not because of the astounding amounts of money raised and…
The Juvenilization of American Christianity (Thomas E. Bergler, 2012)
A faith stuck in adolescence In the 1940s experts predicted the decline of religious belief in America, and had the survey data to back…
Sharing God’s Passion: Prophetic Spirituality (Paul Hedley Jones, 2012)
The Story of a Passionate God Fifty years ago, the great Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel published The Prophets, a sprawling, two-volume study of…
Travels in Siberia (Ian Frazier,2010)
A forbidding, exotic, abused land Siberia first entered my consciousness through the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. My introduction to him came in his brilliantly…
Margie’s 2012 Christmas Gift List
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett I’m not certain this book will satisfy everyone. But the characters will not leave my head. The sign…
Character v. Personality
Books / Culture / Maturity and Flourishing
As Susan Cain points out in her fascinating book, Quiet, American society went through an important cultural shift in the opening years of the…
A Cloud of Witnesses (Alister McGrath, 1990), Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy (Bradley Green, 2010), Early Christian Thinkers (Paul Foster, 2010)
Some who came before We are part of an unfolding story, and no amount of wishing otherwise will change that reality. Those who came…
The Psychopath Test (Jon Ronson, 2011)
Labeling without conscience On May 27, 2011 I happened to catch an episode (#436) of This American Life on National Public Radio called “The…
When Life Goes Dark (Richard Winter, 2012)
Meeting the blues with grace Some Christians believe that all forms of mental illness or emotional distress are really spiritual problems in disguise. It’s…