A Union University grad kindly sent me David Dockery’s summer 2010 reading list. It’s listed below (in original order) and will be of help to those of us who enjoy little more than a beach towel and a good read. Let me throw in a couple of quick comments: the Metaxas book on Bonhoeffer is excellent. You would not think 550 pages on a German pastor-theologian would read so quickly, but they do. If this was fiction, they would option... Read more
From a recent piece in the Christian Century (HT: Nathan Finn): As an undergraduate at Wheaton College I learned from several professors how natural it could be to link serious intellectual pursuits with simple Christian faithfulness. At Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the early 1970s I learned still more. Several faculty, led by David Wells, portrayed the faith as a thing of intellectual power and moral beauty stretching back over the centuries and—despite many blotches, missteps and disasters—deserving full commitment... Read more
Two major news stories suggest that men–and evangelical men–are in danger of extinction. The first is from Newsweek and is entitled “Saint Sarah: How Sarah Palin is Reshaping the Religious Right.” Here’s a key quotation from Lisa Miller’s essay: [W]hile leftist critics continue to shred Palin as a cynical, shallow, ill-informed opportunist, and new polls show her unpopularity rating to be at an all-time high—53 percent—Palin is now playing to her strengths. Even if she never again seeks elected office,... Read more
TEDS PhD student Andy Naselli just published his first dissertation with Logos, Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology (2010). It is a rich and engaging analysis of Keswick theology that is a genuine contribution to the academic guild. Graced with a foreword by Tom Schreiner, it is worth your attention–and your dollars. Learn more about how to understand Keswick theology through Andy’s scholarly spade-work (interview with Kevin DeYoung here). ********* This is a deeply... Read more
Caught this moving story in WSJ, the magazine of the Wall Street Journal. It’s from Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, the online personalized radio program: Music is a tremendously powerful medium. I was in a Pandora town-hall meeting in New York. Near the end, this fellow got up. He had lost his hearing about eight years ago and was reading our lips while we were talking. He said Pandora had changed his life. As a song starts playing, he... Read more
It’s time for a new BookNotes list. This being the list where we list a few recent noteworthy books. I’ve got four for you today. You’ve likely heard talk about the Great Commission Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, but until now, there has been no small, easy-to-read introduction to it. Jedidiah Coppenger of B&H Publishing has just edited a little volume entitled Retreat or Risk: A Call for a Great Commission Resurgence (B&H, 2010). I’ve looked through it, and... Read more
The latest issue of Christianity Today has a great article on cutting-edge discipleship material that seeks to address the lack of theological and biblical knowledge in the church. Entitled “Why Johnny Can’t Preach” and written by CT’s Collin Hansen, the piece sheds light on BibleMesh, an online discipleship tool that I have mentioned before (and for which I write). Hansen sums up the contemporary problem: Americans love their Bibles. So much so that they keep them in pristine, unopened condition.... Read more
The newest issue of the Journal for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (Spring 2010, Volume 15.1) has just been posted online. It looks as provocative and useful as ever. I’ve posted the full table of contents below; I commend all of the pieces to you. In particular, Rob Lister’s article on how a husband can lead his marriage in a godly way looks outstanding. So much good comes from a husband taking initiative to talk with his wife on a regular... Read more
Adam Gopnik, writer of renown at The New Yorker, has just penned one of the more engrossing cultural pieces on the person and mystery of Jesus Christ that I personally have seen in a good long while. Entitled “What Did Jesus Do?”, it is rich, rewarding, frustrating, deeply erroneous and a must-read for those who wish to interact with modern intellectual perspective on Jesus. Because the piece is so weighty, I am going to quote many portions of it. If... Read more
Denny Burk on “swagger wagons” is worth looking into. The video he links to will rock your world, particularly when the dad puts on a feather boa and clears his daughter’s tea table. Nice spoof on the strange and singular genre of rap videos (and strange and singular genre of minivans). ********** Roughly nine years after 9/11, the construction on future towers continues. The politics of the project are engrossing. Every millimeter of space is important in NYC. ********** Addressing... Read more
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