For the next few weeks, I would like to do a series over one of the best books I read last year. It is an odd series to do because it is about a book that I first heard about on here, through Scot reviewing it. But I wanted to write about this book, because I thought it might be helpful to talk about the book in conversation with ministry at the local church level. The book is Endangered Gospel: How Fixing the World... Read more

NPR by AP: Add 100 consecutive wins to the UConn Huskies’ long list of milestones. Given the team’s glitzier numbers linked to national championships, 11 titles and counting, it may seem ho-hum with no added significance. Geno Auriemma’s squad already owns the longest winning streak in Division I college basketball history. UConn beat its own record of 90 consecutive wins earlier this season with little fanfare. Getting No. 100 was a little tougher than many of the previous 99, which... Read more

Steven McAlpine: At one stage [Imago Dei, the image of God] was the byword (words?) among missional groups and in every funky church planting book. The future of ministry was Imago Dei. We were all going to do mission that honoured the reality that all humans are made in the image of God. Something has derailed that and dumped Imago Dei in the same bargain bin as those rose gold tap fittings. I blame politics.  Or at least the increasing tendency for the growing schism... Read more

The final chapter of Tim Keller’s new book Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical turns to what Keller finds is the best argument for Christian faith. Bottom line: it is Jesus. He starts the chapter acknowledging that the previous chapter (see Is it Reasonable?), and for that matter much of the material in the book, provides a convincing argument that it is reasonable to doubt the scientific materialism and secular humanism that governs much of Western culture... Read more

From Internet Monk, where a series starts on Adam and the Genome, but this is a short clip from a good beginning sketch of the book: Did I mention that this is an important book?  The foreword is by Tremper Longman.  He serves as a Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.  Tremper Longman, III is an Old Testament scholar, theologian, professor and author of several books, including 2009 ECPA Christian Book Award winner... Read more

From Matthew Milliner: Golf was a symbol of Graham’s amity with America. Indeed, Wacker claims that hundreds of photos of Graham enjoying high-profile, high-green-fee golfing events circulated in major magazines. But then, reports Wacker, something changed: The debacle of the Nixon presidency, which Graham had strongly supported, signaled a turning point, if not consistently in practice, at least in aspiration. The sordid revelations released with the Nixon tapes saved Graham from himself. They forced him back to the drawing boards... Read more

So says  Kenneth Woodward in his new book, Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama. Beginning with the occasionally-cited quip by Martin Marty — evangelicalism is “the religion you get when you get religion,” Woodward makes a case that evangelicalism is “essentially an entrepreneurial religion” (129). The genius, the energy, of Evangelicalism lies in its protean drive to fashion ever-new ministries and movements in order to segment and target new audiences as... Read more

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more