“Why does it feel so hard to not be numb? Because there is a war waging for our hearts, to shut them down. To disable those who love Jesus, and especially those who are surrendered.” — Jennie Allen, Restless This month, the Patheos Book Club is featuring popular Bible teacher and author Jennie Allen’s new book, Restless: Because You Were Made For More. We caught up with Jennie this week to ask her about the inspiration for her book, her writing process... Read more
Book Review The Angel Effect by John Geiger I have always loved stories of angels, most of them in my reading shaped by accounts from scripture. John Geiger’s gathering of actual “sensed presence” encounters from people around the world, from many spiritual traditions and from those without such a tradition, is a remarkable collection of personal accounts. They are varied, arise on many occasions and have different meanings to those who experience them. Geiger is clear bout his intention to... Read more
By Father Robert Cormier Author, Better Than We Believed The Church’s Prayer for You Based on the Books of Robert J. Cormier (www.thefaithkit.org) We, God’s people, make this prayer for you our brother (sister). We pray that from the moment you wake up, every single day, you feel the attention and love from God that have also been yours all night long. We pray that you know that your life matters, and that as you go forward and help others... Read more
By Amber Stamper Assistant Professor of Language, Literature, and Communication at Elizabeth City State University, NC Nashville megachurch pastor Pete Wilson’s most recent book—Let Hope In: 4 Choices That Will Change Your Life Forever (Thomas Nelson 2013, $15.99)—is among the latest additions to an ever-expanding pantheon of works by Christian writers on the subject of hope. A brief scan of my own personal collection reveals some of the classics on this subject that have touched me most deeply: N.T. Wright’s... Read more
With Elvis Presley’s birthday coming up on January 8 (he would have been 79 years old this year), we’re featuring a new book on the King’s spiritual life in the Patheos Book Club. The Seeker King: A Spiritual Biography of Elvis Presley explores the spiritual search Elvis pursued throughout his life, and the surprising places it took him. We caught up with biographer Gary Tillery to find out more about what Elvis was searching for and what was most surprising... Read more
The first century is a time whose stories evoke controversy as perhaps no other period in the history of religion. Who was “the real” Jesus? The answer to that question has altered loves for better and for worse until our very day. So a book like Jesus: First Century Rabbi, by Rabbi David Zaslow, which tries to answer the question, demands serious attention. His work actually continues a recent trend of books trying to better understand who Jesus was, by placing... Read more
By Amber Stamper Assistant Professor of Language, Literature, and Communication at Elizabeth City State University, NC Fascination with the “historical Jesus” has occupied scholars for well over two centuries, and myriad portraits of Jesus have emerged to line the bookshelves of religious historians and theologians alike: “Jesus as social revolutionary,” “Jesus as political radical,” “Jesus as Jewish Messiah,” “Jesus as wisdom teacher,” “Jesus as feminist/liberal/socialist/conservative.” Each new publication is ever hopeful of shedding light on the “real life” of a... Read more
This month at the Patheos Book Club, we’re featuring a new book by author and priest Father Robert Cormier aimed straight at the hard questions of faith. Better That We Believed is a book of questions and responses, told through the stories of ordinary people like you and me. People that struggle with anger, with depression, with anxiety, with lack of faith. Fr. Cormier seeks to show each one, that a belief in God is the antidote to their ills,... Read more
“When people in Ancient Greece, or in Biblical times, or the Middle Ages, or in the First World War, or today, talk about angels intervening, historians have always dismissed their accounts as lies or considered them allegorical. I am now convinced that these are real, lived experiences. When people talk of angels, they should be taken seriously.” — John Geiger ‘Tis the season for angels, and here at the Patheos Book Club, we are indeed taking them seriously after reading John Geiger’s... Read more
By Bethanie Ryan My favorite part of Rabbi David Zaslow’s new book, Jesus: First-Century Rabbi, is Chapter Eight: Hebraic Thinking. Not because his characterization of Jewish thought was new to me, because it wasn’t. Not because it was the easiest part for me to understand, the whole book is very readable. It’s because, as a Catholic, I got it. I understood “Hebraic thinking.” I had a hint that a light-bulb moment like this was going to happen when he set... Read more
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