Abraham as Archetype, Abraham as Man

Last updated on: October 14, 2014 at 5:46 pm By Amber Stamper

As an academic, I am pretty much required by contract to embrace complexity: to be of scholarly (i.e., publishable) caliber, any argument forwarded must be nuanced; a literature review must incorporate a diversity of perspectives; the opposition viewpoint should always be acknowledged. In fact, what I often find to be the real beauty of academic argumentation is the way conversations unfold layer after layer, how one thought leads to another, how questions can be left open and unanswered or answered... Read more

Called: A Book Review

Last updated on: October 8, 2014 at 4:05 pm By Amber Stamper

I began reading Mark Labberton’s Called: The Crisis and Promise of Following Jesus Today the same morning that I met a new mom friend from my twins’ Gymboree class for coffee. Their family had recently moved back to America from Asia, where her husband had been involved in an anti-trafficking ministry, and she had taught at a mission school. She was explaining to me how she’d grappled with culture shock when she’d returned to America, especially in terms of the... Read more

Jon Sweeney on When Saint Francis Saved the Church

Last updated on: September 30, 2014 at 3:40 pm By Deborah Arca

“I don’t think we can really grasp Francis’s life today unless we see it through the lens of his struggles, and unless we meet the friends and followers who seemed to do all they could to screw up what Francis started.” — Jon Sweeney, author, When Saint Francis Saved the Church This month, popular historian and author of The Pope Who Quit Jon Sweeney releases his latest work of Catholic history. In When Saint Francis Saved the Church, Sweeney presents an intriguing portrait of... Read more

Preventing Suicide: A Book Review

Last updated on: September 25, 2014 at 5:13 pm By Amber Stamper

“Religion protects against suicide.” –Karen Mason, Preventing Suicide At the heart of the Christian gospel is the promise of peace and joy: peace in our redemption from sin and reconciliation with a Creator Who loves us; joy in the promise of an eternal and restored life to come. It is a gospel of hope and life. A gospel of freedom and grace. It is a gospel of such great and unfathomable goodness that two millennia of theologians and philosophers and... Read more

Unstoppable: A Book Review

Last updated on: September 24, 2014 at 5:17 pm By Amber Stamper

“Friday Night Lights” is hands down my favorite television show ever. I love everything about it: the characters, the story line, the music, the football, (Tami Taylor’s hair), and of course the wonderful and rare values of faith and family that it promotes. I started watching “FNL” because one of my best friends kept talking about how much she loves it. When I told her I’d added it to my Netflix queue though, she surprised me with a warning: commit... Read more

Providing Hope and Preventing Suicide

Last updated on: September 24, 2014 at 2:30 pm By Guest Contributor

by Anna Quinn Karen Mason’s Preventing Suicide arrived in my mail box the day before the call came that a friend’s husband had ended his life, so it was hard, but helpful, to read it. It provides a comprehensive overview of suicide prevention and integrates psychology with faith. Its essential theme, that faith is applicable both to suicide prevention and to dealing with its aftermath, held true for me in the aftermath of a friend’s death. Mason says, People ask... Read more

Colliding with Destiny by Sarah Jakes: A Book Review

Last updated on: September 23, 2014 at 2:43 pm By Amber Stamper

Colliding with Destiny: Finding Hope in the Legacy of Ruth, written by Sarah Jakes (daughter of Bishop T.D. Jakes), is a devotional centered on the story of Ruth designed to inspire women facing discouragement to have greater strength and faith while they await their moment of “collision” with the destiny God has planned for them. Each brief chapter contains an excerpt from the book of Ruth, a short contemporary anecdote (usually from Jakes’s own life) which she has chosen as... Read more

Reviving the Congregation: A Book Review

Last updated on: September 22, 2014 at 1:20 pm By Amber Stamper

As has become popular among writers of contemporary Christian non-fiction, Pastor Michael W. Foss assumes the rapid degeneration of the American church as a starting point for his latest book, Reviving the Congregation: Pastoral Leadership in a Changing Context. While I have written in the past about why such an assumption often reflects a simplistic analysis of statistical data and is usually indicative of a limited commitment to a single denomination, Foss does make explicit that his interest and experience... Read more

The Sacred Year: A Book Review

Last updated on: September 19, 2014 at 11:50 am By Amber Stamper

I began reading The Sacred Year the way I begin reading most books: on the treadmill. So my first observations about Michael Yankoski’s new work were important ones: specifically, that it is heavy and thick. Meaning this would need to be a speed-walk read (in which I hold the book in my hand while walking) rather than a sprint read (in which the book is thin enough to set on the small treadmill dashboard ledge, and I can pound away... Read more

Sobering Stats on Suicide

Last updated on: September 16, 2014 at 5:03 pm By Guest Contributor

This month in the Patheos Book Club, we’re featuring a new resource for religious leaders on suicide preparedness called Preventing Suicide: A Guidebook for Pastors, Chaplains and Pastoral Counselors. Author Karen Mason is an associate professor of counseling and psychology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a psychologist working in the mental health field since 1990. Suicide is a national health problem. For every highly publicized story, thousands take their own lives in what can only be described as a tragedy. While the... Read more