The year after I graduated from college, I lived in an apartment in the West End of Richmond, VA. There was a public library about a half mile away from my apartment. Occasionally I would walk to the library, but it was an unpleasant experience. In that half mile, I had to walk along two … Continue reading How Should Christians Engage with the Built Environment? A Review
Tag: Books
Yours Is the Day, Lord, Yours Is the Night: A Review
I did not grow up in a church tradition that emphasized the praying of written prayers, but I have come to love them as an adult. I don't use them as a replacement for my own spontaneous prayers, but as a way to "prime the pump," giving me words to express what is in my … Continue reading Yours Is the Day, Lord, Yours Is the Night: A Review
The Anger Workbook: A Review
When I was a kid, I had a bad temper. If things weren't going the way I wanted them to, I would react by yelling and throwing things. Although I don't yell and throw things much anymore, anger is still part of my life in more subtle ways when I see people acting unjustly or … Continue reading The Anger Workbook: A Review
Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism: A Review
With 2012 being a presidential election year, politics is constantly in the news. One perennial question is what role evangelical Christians will play. But who are evangelicals, and how did they come to occupy the role they do in American politics? Kenneth J. Collins presents his readers with a historical survey that answers that question, … Continue reading Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism: A Review
Neighbors and Wise Men: A Review
Tony Kriz writes that he was raised in a two-team world. "My two-team world was one of the spiritual haves and have-nots. The 'haves' were Christians. The 'have-nots' were everybody else" (13). Kriz was working as a missionary in predominantly Muslim Albania when his notion of a two-team world was shattered. He encountered people who … Continue reading Neighbors and Wise Men: A Review
Unbroken: A Review
Louis Zamperini is an incredible man with an incredible story: one of the world's best mile runners in the 1930s, he competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics while still a teenager. When World War II began, he went to the Pacific as a bombardier. In May 1943, his plane crashed. He floated on a life … Continue reading Unbroken: A Review
The Lost World of Genesis One: A Review
The relationship between scientific accounts of origins and the account found in Genesis is a controversial issue, and has been at least since the Scopes Monkey Trial. Every now and then it spills into the news here in the United States, when people who are firmly entrenched on either side come in conflict with one … Continue reading The Lost World of Genesis One: A Review
Book Review: Imagine
There has been some controversy about this book. It came out in late July that Lehrer made up quotes from Bob Dylan and Raymond Teller in it (and had to leave his job at the New Yorker; see here and here), and the publisher stopped selling it. It’s a shame, because it really is an … Continue reading Book Review: Imagine
Book Review: A Failure of Nerve
Edwin Friedman was a rabbi and family therapist whose writings on leadership, including the book Generation to Generation (written for congregational leaders), were shaped by family systems theory. A Failure of Nerve was intended to be his magnum opus on leadership, but he died in 1996 before he could complete it. In the book, Friedman … Continue reading Book Review: A Failure of Nerve
The Slavery of “Freedom”
We Americans love to talk about freedom. We call ourselves "the land of the free"; our Declaration of Independence talks about liberty as an "inalienable right"; there are still few things that can get an American riled up like the threat of a loss of freedom. But our freedom is in jeopardy, says Os Guinness … Continue reading The Slavery of “Freedom”
Elliot Ritzema 