One of the most important reads of my ministry life was Confessions of a Reformissional Rev by Mark Driscoll. In a time when I really needed a good old fashion kick in the can, this book was just that. Of course, when Driscoll wrote the book in 2006, Mars Hill Church was a very different… Read More »
Allow me to interrupt your interruption
Bart Ehrman annoys me to no end. Don’t get me wrong. I love reading his books most of the time. He’s one of my favorite apostates. (And I use this term in the correct Greek sense. It means “to stand away from.”) What annoys me about Ehrman is the way he uses rapid fire statements… Read More »
Review – Find Our Way Again
Brian McLaren has made a writing and lecturing career out of being controversial. Sometimes I think he creates controversy where there is not enough so that he can be on the other side of it. As I’ve said in other posts, I like the questions McLaren asks. I don’t necessarily agree with his conclusions, but… Read More »
BOOK REVIEW – Unlikely Disciple
You’re a non-religious, nineteen year old journalism student at an Ivy League college. What should you do for the spring semester of your sophomore year? Why not attend the nation’s largest Christian liberal arts college in cognito and learn about this group from the inside out? That’s exactly what Kevin Roose did, and as a… Read More »
BOOK REVIEW – The Strategically Small Church
If there is one thing that I, as a pastor of a small church, find annoying about church growth literature it is that it is almost always written by guys who planted churches. This sounds weird, but it is true. Most books on church growth are ‘ground-up’ books. They start with a plant team and… Read More »
BOOK REVIEW – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Heinlein is not the world’s worst character writer, but he’s certainly in the top 25. No matter how unique his characters are (whether Mike Smith in Stranger in a Strange Land or Manuel Davis in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), they are almost always predictable. This particular book had an interesting premise, but… Read More »
A New Kind of Christianity – The Pluralism Question
Read previous posts in this series: Introduction The Narrative Question The Authority Question The God Question The Jesus Question The Gospel Question The Church Question The Sex Question The Future Question I have rarely read a book where I went back and forth chapter by chapter, but McLaren has made me do just that. I… Read More »
A New Kind of Christian – The Future Question
Read previous posts in this series: Introduction The Narrative Question The Authority Question The God Question The Jesus Question The Gospel Question The Church Question The Sex Question I have to be honest. I did not really know what to do with this chapter of A New Kind of Christianity. I agree with McLaren’s sentiment… Read More »
BOOK REVIEW – A History of Venice: Queen of the Seas
Medieval European history has been an ongoing fascination for me for the past couple of years, probably since reading 1453: The Holy War For Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West by Roger Crowley. Here is a huge chunk of history – roughly a thousand years! – that is virtually ignored in most… Read More »
A New Kind of Christianity – The Sex Question
Read previous posts in this series: Introduction The Narrative Question The Authority Question The God Question The Jesus Question The Gospel Question The Church Question For some reason, every time I write about the issue of sexuality, I get myself into trouble. I’m not sure how I do it, but I do. McLaren seems to… Read More »
