Book Review: Through the River

Yesterday I found myself thinking I might share this book I’ve just finished with someone. I thought it might help.  I was immediately confused because my first impressions of Through the River weren’t good.
The book is Through the River: Understanding your assumptions about the truth. It is my latest read for review for the Viral [...]

Book Review: The Diversity Culture

I am finally writing my review of Matthew Raley’s The Diversity Culture for the Viral Bloggers Network.  I received two books at once and freaked briefly over the thought of reading and reviewing both within a month.  I had them both read on a three day vacation I took, but have let this one languish [...]

Book Review: A Prayer to Our Father

A Prayer to our Father by Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson was one of my two recent reads for viralbloggers.  I very much enjoyed pouring through this book in a couple of days.
I deeply appreciate that this book is co-authored by a Jew and a Christian. I further appreciate that they acknowledge in the introduction [...]

Bits that interest me

Probably like a lot of you, a wide variety of things pique my interest.  Here are a few I share today:
Blockbuster is closing 960 stores, ostensibly hurt by netflix and redbox.Thanks, Relevant Magazine.
Betting on horse racing is in such a decline NY is looking at its Off Track Betting filing for bankruptcy. Economist
Music publishers feel [...]

Healing Drought

What’s the best way to water your lawn?
The American Lawns website recommends 3/4 to 1 inch of water per week, and applying it “as infrequently as possible.”
I’ve known this for some time and have been practicing this summer.  We try to limit watering any part of our yard to once per week, and watering deeply [...]

Lover’s Quarrel with “A Lover’s Quarrel”?

Viral Blogger Book Review no. 2:
Warren Cole Smith’s “A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church.”
You are a backslider! You’re the worst kind of “Christian;” a lukewarm, liberal Christian.  You probably don’t’ even believe in the Bible!
So I can imagine the 18 year old Steve Heyduck saying, were he to meet the 45 year old Steve [...]

Word of the Ancestors

I’m reading Warren Cole Smith’s A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church, the second book I’ve received for review as a Viral Blogger.
In the chapter I just finished, Smith has critiqued the image-driven, multi-media hungry “stereopticon” tragedy of the modern evangelical church.  He concludes:
…dependence on the great stereopticon and rejection of the “foolishness of preaching” [...]

The Art of the Sermon

Last night was my first ever experience of Rob Bell in person preaching/speaking/delivering a message.   I intended to take notes, perhaps even twitter it, but found myself rather just listening, watching, absorbing.
Bell has been a major influence on me for these last 4 or 5 years, so seeing/hearing him in person was a joy.  This [...]

WDJW

What Did Jesus Watch?
I am reading Shane Hipp’s The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church. Hipps re-tells the story of the West in terms of the rsie of the printed word.  From my perspective, layering this over all the reading and research I have done in philosophy and [...]

Too Good not to Pass On

You’ve got to see this by David J. Wood.  here is all you need to read before clicking the link, of you haevn’t already:
Last week, I came across an article that drew upon firsthand interviews with folks who “manned” Mission Control. Here is the fact that leaped out at me: the age range [...]