Shane Claiborne’s first book, The Irresistible Revolution, was one of the most influential and thought-provoking books I read last year. I wasn’t sure if I would like Jesus for President as much, since from the title and opening pages it seemed very much addressed to a U.S. readership. But Shane’s writing is so [...]
I’ve been meaning to read this one for awhile. I’m not sure why. I have all kinds of issues with people who tell me I should do more for the environment, especially if it involves changing my eating habits. I’ve blogged about this already and I will blog some more about it in the near [...]
In reviewing this book, I’ll resist the temptation to tell you the story of how Nathan made me buy it, and the story of his deep discontent with the book’s title and the sunflower on the cover, and even the completely irrelevant story of how he ran a red light, got a [...]
This book was recommended to me by my friend Christine, who always seems to be me to be an amazingly mindful and “together” parent, so of course I wanted to read it. It applies the same principles you would find in Zen Buddhist meditation practice to parenting. Given my interest in [...]
This was my one “heavy” book on this year’s Lenten reading list — a series of moderately scholarly essays by various evangelical writers and thinkers exploring whether there’s a place for Christian apologetics in a postmodern society.
Dry though it may be, the question interests me. This Lent I’ve been reading a fair bit about other [...]
One thing I find as I read through my LentBooks is that I keep making links and connections between them. In The Year of Living Biblically, there’s a point where Jacobs starts to study the New Testament and wonders if he can get anything meaningful out of it if he doesn’t believe in the divinity [...]
Like N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, Chris Blake’s Searching for a God to Love is one writer’s attempt to explain what Christianity means to him and to try to make it attractive to doubters and seekers — or to “unbelieving believers,” as Blake calls them. Also like Wright, Blake deviates from the trail blazed by C.S. [...]
N.T. Wright is one of those writers who has had a major shaping influence on my life and thinking. At a time when I was reading a lot of Biblical criticism and questioning whether it was possible for an intelligent, educated scholar to take the Gospels seriously as history, someone pointed me towards his [...]
Like lots of Westerners, I probably don’t know enough about Islam. I read No god by God (recommended by Catherine) in hopes of correcting that deficiency. It was a good choice.
Reza Aslan is a young, Iranian-born-but-living-in-America, scholar of Islam. I have no idea how other Muslims regard Aslan or this book, but he seems [...]
This is a book I’d heard about for awhile and was anxious to read. It’s the story of three women — one Muslim, one Jewish, one Christian — who began meeting together to talk about their three faiths, to explore differences and find common ground. Ranya, Suzanne and Priscilla didn’t know each other [...]
