This book can make a case for something…here it is in a single word: redemption. Redemption is a religious word, but it’s a word taken from the slave market, entirely appropriate for a book titled The Art of Freedom. The Clemente Course offers a kind of secular redemption, and Shorris’s anecdotes show the beauty and grandeur of... Continue Reading

Put differently, there is an assumption that we can only believe that we have the writings God intended if there are very few (if any) dissenters and if there is virtually immediate and universal agreement on all 27 books.  But, where does this assumption come from?  And why should we think it is true?   When it... Continue Reading

Thus, given the ultimate political purpose of the book, the final problem with Moss’s thesis is not really historical at all. It is the fact that she fails to set the function of martyr narratives within the wider framework of modern politics. The problem is not martyr myths; it is that politics, stripped of any... Continue Reading

In luxurious, entertainment-soaked societies, people – especially Millennials – aren’t concerned with what is logical as much as they are about what is appealing. This is not necessarily how things ought to be, but how they are. How, then, can marriage defenders address this increasingly emotive, hostile environment? Enter “You’ve Been Framed: A New Primer for the Marriage... Continue Reading

In the not too distant future, the only couples replacing themselves in America will be religious couples. As Last puts it, although there are many good reasons to have a baby, at the end of the day, “there’s only one good reason to go through the trouble a second time: Because you believe, in some... Continue Reading

God So Loved, He Gave is a genuine joy to read. It forcefully reminds readers–or, perhaps, informs them for the first time–that Christ’s saving work and its corresponding call to faith and, ultimately, self-sacrifice flows from, and so reveals, the fundamental character of the triune God as deeply loving and profoundly generous. In that process,... Continue Reading

 I’ll just go ahead and sound like the bad Christian here. I often cringe at the thought of family devotions. It’s the combination of talking the kids into it, disciplining their behavior during (which majorly involves the skill to stay on topic), and the cheese-factor of many of the devotions we have tried. Doing family... Continue Reading

I hope there aren’t too many pastors who will be taken in by this. I couldn’t agree more with the line I saw in Jared Wilson’s twitter feed yesterday: “Pastors, your desperation to be relevant is easily manipulated.” Manipulation is exactly what is going on here, pastors, but the motivation is not the gospel. The... Continue Reading

In the end, Merling reminds us that we must ask the right questions of archaeology and not expect too much of it. He suggests that the relationship between the Bible (properly read) and archaeology (properly interpreted) is not static: “Both can help us better understand the other, but neither can, nor should, be used as... Continue Reading

I am sure my mother had days when she wanted to give toddler-me to gypsies, but no permanent record of these moments existed for adolescent-me to find. A few of those stories do survive in oral form, but they are retold with laughter, face-to-face, where tone and facial expression give them context. If my mother... Continue Reading