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The Departed Who Haven’t

UP THE HILL JAMES CALVIN SCHAAP NEW RIVERS PRESS, 2014 E-BOOK $6.99 There is an appealing sense of redemption in the notion that our daily cares might extend in a purified form beyond the limits of our temporal lives. The linked stories in James Calvin Schaap’s collection Up the Hill offer several versions of that essential redemption. Most of the characters in these stories, including our central narrator, inhabit the cemetery “up the hill” from the town of Highland, Iowa;…
December 31, 2015
Actuality: Real life stories for sermons that matter
Reviews

Stories that Bring Sermons Home

Actuality: Real Life Stories for Sermons That Matter ACTUALITY: REAL LIFE STORIES FOR SERMONS THAT MATTER SCOTT HOEZEE ABINGDON PRESS, 2014 176 PAGES $14.24 (PAPER) Scott Hoezee launched this book at a festive gathering of friends and colleagues in the seminary where he teaches. Though he is a teacher of preachers and the readership for his book is pastors, the guests were not limited to them. The book assumes a lively relationship between the pastor and his congregation, and thus…
October 31, 2015
Abraham Kuyper bust
Reviews

Kuyper’s Dilemma: The Church

Going Dutch in the Modern Age GOING DUTCH IN THE MODERN AGE: ABRAHAM KUYPER’S STRUGGLE FOR A FREE CHURCH IN THE NETHERLANDS JOHN HALSEY WOOD JR. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013 256 PAGES $78 (CLOTH) The statesman-theologian Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) left behind a rich but complicated and sometimes controversial legacy. At the height of his influence, Kuyper had already started a national daily, mobilized the Netherlands’ first modern party, founded a private university “free from state and church” and stood at…
October 31, 2015
Reviews

Taming of a Firebrand

FIERCE CONVICTIONS: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF HANNAH  MORE, POET, REFORMER, ABOLITIONIST KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR THOMAS NELSON, 2014 $14.99 306 PAGES How is it that a prolific writer, a beloved teacher and an influential reformer could be lost in the annals of history? And how are we to reclaim her? Enter Hannah More, an 18th-century playwright, novelist and pamphleteer, and Karen Swallow Prior, her latest biographer. In Fierce Convictions, Prior draws on a rich archive of literature, life writing and local…
September 1, 2015
Reviews

A Cure for Flinging Scripture Around

GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: THE BIBLICAL CASE IN SUPPORT OF SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS MATTHEW VINES CONVERGENT BOOKS, 2014 $17.97 224 PAGES THE BIBLE’S YES TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: AN EVANGELICAL’S CHANGE OF HEART MARK ACHTEMEIER WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS, 2014 $13.83 144 PAGES THE BIBLE'S YES TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE In 2010 I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Stanley Hauerwas at Duke University. During the meeting, Hauerwas spoke of the need for the church to…
July 1, 2015
Reviews

Fighting Gendercide from within the Church

THE CROSS AND GENDERCIDE THE CROSS AND GENDERCIDE: A THEOLOGICAL RESPONSE TO GLOBAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS ELIZABETH GERHARDT IVP ACADEMIC, 2014 $16.28 185 PAGES At the conclusion of my recent class The Global Politics of Human Rights, a student made the observation that when we discuss the basis for human rights or discuss the nature of human-rights problems, we try to understand them through the lens of faith. But when we talk about solutions to human-rights problems, we…
July 1, 2015
Reviews

A Kindly Ballet of Serious Questions

Lila, by Marilynne Robinson LILA MARILYNNE ROBINSON FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 2014 $15.60 (HARDCOVER) 261 PAGES Marriage counselors would certainly have discouraged talk of a marriage between an aging Presbyterian pastor in Gilead, a small Iowa town, and an orphan 40 years younger who had only years of wandering with an itinerant group to show for her life. This novel, the third in a trilogy that includes Gilead and Home, builds on the lives of ministers Ames and Boughton –…
April 23, 2015
Reviews

Finding Roots for Change in Our Faith

Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis INHABITING EDEN: CHRISTIANS, THE BIBLE, AND THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS PATRICIA K. TULL WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS, 2013 $14.24 200 PAGES In a mountainous region of India, far from the congestion of populous city life, a nun from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity sits eating her lunch on a train. As she finishes a takeout box of chicken, she leans toward the pane of glass separating her from the exquisite mountains rolling…
April 6, 2015
Reviews

North-South Relationships in the Global Church

Sister Churches, By Janel Kragt Bakker SISTER CHURCHES: AMERICAN CONGREGATIONS AND THEIR PARTNERS ABROAD JANEL KRAGT BAKKER OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013 320 PP. $26.96 Christianity is rooted in the Middle East and flourished in North Africa for centuries. Yet since the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity under Constantine in the fourth century it has been perceived as a Western religion, and for 17 centuries Christianity has been closely tied to the cultures and peoples of the North Atlantic.…
February 28, 2015