Christianity Today’s 2015 Book Awards

Last updated on: December 18, 2014 at 4:35 pm By Gene Veith

Christianity Today has announced its 2015 Book Awards. Two titles are recognized in the categories of Apologetics/Evangelism, Biblical Studies, Christianity & Culture, Christian Living, The Church/Pastoral Leadership, Fiction, History & Biography, Missions/Global Affairs, Spirituality, Theology/Ethics, Her.Meneutics. See the list and a little about each title here.

In my experience, this is usually a very good list, alerting me each year to some titles worth reading. I was a judge, actually, and I was glad to see that my top two choices in the culture category were chosen. You can see those after the jump. But go ahead to the main site for the entire list.

The descriptions of these two book are excerpted from longer reviews. Later, I’ll post my full reviews so that you can see why these books are so good. (more…)

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Making Christianity strange again

Last updated on: June 23, 2014 at 4:58 pm By Gene Veith

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Russell Moore thinks the persecution of Christians around the world might bring American Christianity back to life. Tagline to his post: “Christianity in this country is big, powerful, and familiar. We need it to become strange again.” (more…)

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Renounce Christianity or die

Last updated on: May 15, 2014 at 6:42 pm By Gene Veith

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Globally, we are back to the early Church.

A court in Sudan has sentenced a pregnant woman to death by hanging for refusing to renounce her Christian faith.

Twenty-seven-year-old Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, who is already the mother of a 20-month-old son, was convicted of apostasy on Sunday and given four days to abandon her faith.

On Thursday, Judge Abbas al-Khalifa handed down the death sentence in Khartoum after Ibrahim told the court, “I am a Christian.” (more…)

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The global war on Christians

Last updated on: January 8, 2014 at 7:39 pm By Gene Veith

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Religion journalist John Allen has written a book entitled The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution. The Washington Post has an interesting interview with him about the phenomenon. Read excerpts after the jump. (more…)

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“Radical” Christianity vs. regular Christianity

Last updated on: March 17, 2013 at 9:10 pm By Gene Veith

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The latest thing in contemporary Christianity is “radical Christianity.” From the Christian bestseller lists to programs in megachurches, Christians are being told that Jesus was “radical” and that they should give up their “middle class” “mediocrity” and start helping the poor. But how is this different from just liberal mainline Protestantism? And isn’t just another form of works-righteousness? For all the talk of the “demands of the Gospel” (doesn’t that turn the Gospel into Law?), I don’t hear anything about the Gospel. That is, Christ on the Cross atoning for sinners. Some of these teachers are making valid criticisms of typical evangelicalism, it seems to me, but they are slipping into some of the same mistakes, just in a different key. And it also reaches for the spectacular, minimizing ordinary life, a serious “theology of glory” rejection of vocation. (After the jump, read an account from Christianity Today and give me your take on this.) (more…)

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Projecting Christianity onto other religions

Last updated on: February 21, 2013 at 4:47 pm By Gene Veith

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David Forsmark makes a point made by our own loyal reader, author, and Nordic expert Lars Walker, speaking of the Norse deities. Forsmark writes:

Americans have a naïve view of religion. The religious freedom that is so ingrained in our tradition — and our Constitution — has morphed beyond tolerance to a sort of anthropomorphic acceptance of pretty much anything.

In other words, in order to prove how tolerant we are, we take our basically Judeo-Christian view of what religion and God should be, and assume all other religions share the same goals, have the same values, and are just differing manifestation of the same loving and just God.

Nothing could be further from the truth. (more…)

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