Review of Skyfall, Directed by Sam Mendes By ALEXIS NEAL M has a problem. Someone has stolen MI6’s list of all NATO agents embedded in terrorist cells around the world. (Obviously this someone was a big fan of Mission: Impossible.) And it would appear the same someone has a personal vendetta against her—someone with a gift for computer wizardry. Someone who is perpetually two steps ahead of MI6’s best agents. Obviously, this is a situation that calls for Bond. But... Read more
Review of The Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus, by David Janzen and a Community of Friends (Part 2 of 2) By ALEXIS NEAL And now for my biggest issue with this book. I said in Part 1 that I think Janzen’s idea of community lacks a solid gospel foundation. This is actually a twofold problem. First, Janzen veers dangerously close to a works-based understanding of salvation. Second, the communities he advocates are united... Read more
Review of The Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus, by David Janzen and a Community of Friends (Part 1 of 2) By ALEXIS NEAL The Christian church has ceased to be a body and has become instead a disconnected assortment of individuals. We no longer care for one another, meet one another’s needs, or walk alongside one another as the early church once did. “Church” has become somewhere we go once a week instead... Read more
Review of Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy by Matt Litton By COYLE NEAL In many ways, this book is the epitome of modern American Christianity: it is the result of a guy sitting alone in his basement thinking about himself and Jesus (see Chapter 1: “A Nomad in the Basement”). What is the result of his meditation? That we are too attached to material possessions, and should give them up (but not literally) in order to follow the... Read more
Review of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien Reviewed by PAUL D. MILLER I first visited Middle Earth when I was in middle school. I owned a thick, dark yellow copy of The Hobbit (1937). It smelled musty and old, which is just right for a book like this. Like many a ten-year-old, I fell under the spell of the elves and dwarves and wizards and daydreamed my way through 6th grade by fighting great battles against goblins and trolls. As is my... Read more
Review of The Great Chinese Revolution: 1800-1985 by John King Fairbank By KENDRICK KUO Studying China is less about studying a country, and more about studying a civilization, with all the complexities hidden within a supposedly unified edifice. China has a long history of integrating state, society, and culture, under the emperor who was himself integral to the balance of the cosmic order. With such a rich history, why do popular conceptions of the modernization of China revolve solely around... Read more
Review of Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed By PAUL D. MILLER It seems an odd time to write a history book in praise of John Maynard Keynes. We live in an economic world largely shaped, for the last seventy years, by his ideas. It isn’t doing too well at the moment. Nonetheless, that is what Liaquat Ahamed has done with Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World. The book, which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in History,... Read more
Review of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Directed by Alex Gibney By KENDRICK KUO Growing up, I heard about the story of Enron, but having lived overseas when the scandal broke out and only being a middle schooler at the time, it didn’t make a big impression on me. But after watching the film, I can better understand the ongoing conversation about regulation on Wall Street. Not in the specifics, but the broad milieu of strong resentment toward... Read more
Review of Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics and Learned to Start Living the Gospel by Alisa Harris. By COYLE NEAL I am always pleasantly surprised to be reminded that there is such a thing as the “evangelical left.” Not that I’m much of a lefty myself (as anyone who’s read more than two words of anything I’ve ever written knows), but I’m always nervous when something that is not the Gospel is overly connected with Christianity... Read more
A review of Unstoppable, Directed by Tony Scott By Paul D. Miller Tony Scott is famous for having made Top Gun (1986), one of the definitive action movies of the 1980s and coolest expressions of American nationalism on film, and for being the brother of Ridley Scott. Sadly, Tony was in the headlines this summer because he committed suicide. His final film, it turned out, was Unstoppable (2010). Tony Scott’s filmography does not boast the same monuments of modern cinema... Read more
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