Content tagged with “faith” under “My Library”

“This is a fable. It was written by a Brazilian author in 1988, and has something of a cult following. A friend recommended it. It’s a story that’s also intended as self-improvement (I think…?). It’s about an ancient Spanish shepherd who travels into Africa to find his destiny. He has a dream about…”

“A wonderful book – some cross between a road trip buddy movie and a psychedelic drug experience. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but the basic premise is that when immigrants came to America, they brought their gods and superstitions with them. Norse gods, and Pagan gods, and elves and leprechauns…”

“A bit of a mixed bag. I feel like the book is geared towards people who know what Christianity is, but need to be convinced of it? It’s not the introduction of Christianity to the completely unknowing that I thought was going to be. The book clearly make some good arguments and some good framing…”

“I had to stop reading this. I gave it fully 100 pages, but just couldn’t figure it out. I don’t know what the point of the book is. It’s some kind of metaphysical treatise about…something. Given the title, I assume the writer was trying to explain how we develop some higher level of awareness, but…”

“This a lovely, coffee table-ish book about the Bible. It’s a sequential tour through the Bible, story by story. Every story you’ve ever heard from the Bible – they’re all in here. The chapter header explains the characters in the story, the themes, the timeframe of the events, and the verse…”

“Meticulously-researched biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who became an outspoken resistor of the Nazis, and an eventual plotter in Hitler’s assassination, for which he was executed just before the Allies would have reached him. The book really doubles as a history of the rise…”

“This book is a rebuttal (?) to a prior book called The Benedict Option . I haven’t read that book yet. Apparently, The Benedict Option claimed that the world was so fundamentally broken that Christians should just retreat to our own spaces and wait for the end of the world (I assume – that’s the…”

“I don’t know where to go with this one. I read it on a recommendation from a friend. It’s…religious science fiction? Is that a thing? The basic idea is that a pastor goes to another planet to try to convert an alien race to Christianity. The author has no history of Christian writing (I don’t…”

“I read a longer book of Doyle’s essays, and I’ve become sort of obsessed with him. Doyle has a remarkable ability to notice the spiritual and the most mundane things. This is a book about 100 prayers (little essays, really) about seemingly boring things. Doyle makes you understand how amazing they…”

“Stroebel was a Chicago crime reporter, and he approaches his investigation to the divinity of Jesus with an analytical bent. Each chapter is an examination of one aspect of doubt, and to resolve it, he interviews one noted scholar in that field. Here are the questions, which are a good…”

“This book was wildly controversial, for good reason. The author – Stephen Wolfe – is unapologetically pushing for a very unpopular point-of-view in the current social and political climate. Here is his argument: Christianity is the only true religion Government exists to encourage citizens to live…”

“A very short book that basically boils down to having some period of God-centered quiet time. Giving it a higher rating because I appreciated that it was short – it had a simple, concise point, and it was just long enough to handle that. Someone else might have tried to pad this out to trade…”

“this is a solid book with a simple message: make sure your Christian organization is serving God rather than more earthly metrics. he basic premise is that you trust in God, and produce qualitative rather than quantitative results. It gets a bit repetitive, but then there’s a big chapter at the end…”

“This is a book that would offend and anger a lot of people. I get that. I read it so I could understand a friend’s point-of-view a little better. I read it at the same time as The Boniface Option which is even more extreme, but I’m calling out the chance of offense here just because of the title….”

“This is the third Gabriel Allon novel I’ve read (there are presently 23 of them). It was probably the weakest of the three. There’s always an organizational villain. In the other novels , he demonized Israel and the Swiss banking industry. This time it’s the Catholic church – or a faction within…”

“This is Christian/Conservative spy fiction, if that’s even a thing? It’s perhaps telling that the cover has a praise quote from Rush Limbaugh, and there’s another from Sean Hannity on the inside flap. (The author was on Limbaugh’s payroll earlier in his career, apparently.) This is #4 in a…”

“ A pleasant book about overcoming negative self-talk through Christian faith. There’s a lot of evangelism in here, and some of it is repetitive. The book is at its best when it offers a few ‘lifehack-ish’ things you can do to re-direct your thoughts when they turn dark. ”

“ It’s hard to categorize this one, but I enjoyed reading it. It’s not a book for new believers – more for existing believers who want/need to take the next step. It’s about pushing the sliders to 11. I don’t know where that fits in, genre-wise. A motivational? ”

“This book was written in 2003, but that doesn’t matter because the events it talks about have happened over a millennia or so. This is a discussion of the ‘problems’ that Islam has with the West: why terrorism and anger toward the West are on the rise all over the world. In the end, the list wasn’t…”

“I enjoyed this book. It’s very short and has a very focused point: in the entirety of our spiritual lives, there’s nothing more important than the sacrifice Christ made at the cross, and this is something we need to think about and acknowledge every single day. The book talks about three related…”

“This is a book in favor of intelligent design – of the idea of creationism – which I’ve historically been very skeptical of. The promise is right there in the title: Darwinism, or naturalistic evolution, is at odds with Christianity and must be ‘defeated.’ The author is a law professor at at UC…”

“My wife bought me this at the Global Leadership Summit. It was one of the top three selling books there (which is her criteria for buying me books for my birthday). The book is…awful? I almost don’t want to call it that, because I don’t think I was the target audience. I think the target audience…”

“I love Davis’s ‘don’t know much about’ books. He takes BIG subjects and writes about them in interesting ways. Kind of a frequently-asked-questions mode. He starts nowhere in particular, and meanders around, in a good way. His writing style is engaging and interesting. He can make any subject…”

“I didn’t like this book. My daughter was reading it, so I read it along with her. The book is maybe a bit scattered. It starts by just hammering on the existence of Hell and the magnitude of eternity. I didn’t love this, because it seemed to imply that the only reason to follow Jesus was to avoid…”

“This is a classic of science fiction, clearly. By some accounts, it’s the greatest sci-fi novel ever written. I had been meaning to tackle it for years, but this took on increased urgency with the new film coming out (it was supposed to be this year, but the COVID pandemic has pushed back the…”

“Absolutely, one of the best books I’ve read in years. Enraging in places, it’s one of those books where you watch the protagonist suffer, and make choices you don’t really understand because you’re not as deep into the situation as they are. But, in the end, you have some appreciation for how they…”

“This book was recommended by a friend. This friend is a social, religious, and political conservative, with very specific opinions on the separation of genders. I did not want to like this book. But, in the end, I agreed with far more than I disagreed with. The book is very well-written. The first…”

“This book makes the case that (1) the world is better now on almost every quantifiable dimension than at any other time in its history, and (2) this is because of the decline of religion. Pinker’s main point is that religion is bad and makes the world a worse place, and the improvement in life over…”

“A memoir of a broken life. Jack Deere is a world-renowned theologian, but he hasn’t talked much about how his own life often spiraled out of control behind the scenes. His son took his own life, his wife struggled deeply with alcoholism, and Deere himself often alienated other people and made…”

“A good look at the Christian/Biblical teachings behind physical fitness and a health diet. Turns out, sloth and gluttony are the two deadly sins we tend to cast a blind eye to, because they’re considered socially acceptable sins. Not an Earth-shattering book. If you’re looking for practical diet…”

“I read this chapter-by-chapter for a men’s Bible study. I don’t quite remember all of it, but the basic idea was to help the reader find some spiritual service position in their church or some other ministry. It took three things into account: Your skillset (‘gifts’) What you like to do…”

“This book wasn’t what I thought it was. I found it in a Hacker News thread about ‘books that made you look at the world differently.’ Also, I kinda thought it was about game theory, which I’m genuinely interested in. This is a book about philosophy. The author posits that there are two types of…”

“I’ll freely admit that a lot of this went over my head. This is not an approachable book. It’s very academic and more appropriate to seminary students. However, it does make clear the critical point that the modern Christian bible was formed through curation and the actions of mortals combing…”

“Here’s the basic idea – When we’re young, we have what’s called ‘fluid intelligence.’ We’re energetic, creative, and not weighed down by old thinking and prejudices. But, as we get older, our thinking moves to ‘crystallized intelligence.’ Basically, we get wise. At this point, we have wisdom – lots…”

“ I didn’t review this book right away, and in the meantime, I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry , by the same author. Because of this, it’s hard for me to separate the two books in my head – they’re about very similar themes. Maybe go read that review? A lot of it applies to this as well. ”

“This is a solid introduction to Christian apologetics. When I started it, I was tempted to dismiss it as lightweight, but then I conceded that I’ve read a lot of apologetics. If you haven’t, this is a really good one to start on. The chapters cover. The rationalism of faith The problem of good and…”

“What’s interesting about this book is that there’s just very little information about the actual process of creating the King James Bible. Not much of the historical record of the actual translation process remains. So, what the book does is concentrate on the societal, political, and religious…”

“Although regarded as a classic of the Christian faith, this is actually a novel. It’s a short story of a man who is living in a gray, depressing town. He catches a magic bus which takes him to an amazing land in the sky where he watches a series of interactions between ghosts and spirits. The…”

“I don’t know how I ended up buying this book. I just found it on my Kindle. I bought it at some point, but I have no memory of it. It’s translated from Korean, and you can tell. The verbiage is stilted. And I just didn’t get it. The book didn’t seem to be saying anything original or interesting….”

“I wasn’t the target market for this book, so my 5-star review is more intended at how I think it would be needed and used by the reader for which it’s intended. This is book meant to be given to new Christians. The idea is that you need move from the ‘hype’ of the Christian festival or event where…”

“I don’t know if I actually finished this. I might have, or I might have abandoned it. It’s tough to tell, because the book is just so repetitive. The author makes a central point: as Christians, it is our responsibility to make the world a better place, and to help our fellow humans in real ways,…”

“A short book that combines evangelism with etymology. The basic premise is that the English word ‘praise’ has seven separate meanings in Hebrew. The Hands of Praise The Fools of Praise The Music of Praise The Expectation of Praise The Posture of Praise The Songs of Praise The Shout of Praise The…”

“Wonderful book about the influence of the Christian church in the years since the death of Jesus, up until current times. Covers art, charity, education, politics, etc. Full-color illustrated, and easy to digest. Regardless of your faith situation, it’s a great look at the history of the common…”

“Much better than I expected. As a Democrat, I read this as a counterpoint to my inherent views and found that I liked it quite a bit. Colson is a very good writer, and the book is engaging. While I didn’t agree with everything he said, he makes some very good arguments in places, and the book…”

“Read this on the recommendation of a friend … who happens to be a former seminary professor. 99% of this went way, way over my head. It’s dense. The book is actually three essays transcribed from lectures Barth gave in the 50s. Man, it’s a lot. Not rating this because I was not even close to the…”

“So, this is actually a reread , even though I didn’t have any notes from back when I read it for the first time (probably in 2010 or so?). I do remember this was recommended to me by a guy I sat next to on a plane. He was reading the Bible, and we got into a discussion about that, then realized we…”

“Let me first say this: my review here is not necessarily an endorsement of Sam Allberry’s specific views. But I am saying that this is a very well-written book, from an objective stance. Allberry is an English pastor who ‘experiences same-sex attraction’ (SSA). Those are his words. He doesn’t refer…”

“I really enjoyed this book. It’s a travelogue by a Jesuit priest of a trip he took to the Holy Land with a friend. In it, he travels to different locations associated with Jesus’s ministry to follow in the footsteps of the Messiah. He writes so well. It just flows very naturally, and he captured…”

“Less of a book and more of a promo for the IJM ministry. Short; read it in 45 minutes. Reminded me of ‘The Hole in the Gospel’ in that he picks an obvious point (there is injustice in the world and people don’t deserve to be slaves) and just hammers away at it for 150 pages. It was a big argument…”

“I had to stop reading this one. It was recommended to me by a friend, but I was pretty uncomfortable with it. It’s a modern, snarky novel that purports to be an alternate version of the Gospels, written by Jesus Christ’s best friend, Biff. …yeah. There was the obvious sacrilegious angle that I…”

“This is a re-read for me. I originally read it 10 years ago, and it’s still amazing. Frances Collins was the head of the genome project. He led the team that mapped the human genome. He is also a Christian. He discusses the reconciliation of science and faith, and makes a compelling case that the…”

“I didn’t ‘read’ this so much as I skimmed it, then gave a presentation on it. The book was given to me by the middle school youth leader at Central Church. I’m a coach for the youth group leaders there, and she wanted me to do a training on it. It’s a short book – the 167 pages is even deceptive,…”

“So, it’s tough not to like this book, because Sam Acho is an engaging writer and seems like a lovely person. But the book is unfocused, and doesn’t seem to go anywhere. The title (and subtitle) hint that’s it about letting the world see ‘the real you.’ But the result is really just a bunch of…”

“This is a re-read from 25 years ago. It should probably go down as one of the great ‘new apologetics.’ Greg Boyd was a seminary professor, and his father was agnostic. The book is a series of letters they exchanged about faith over three years. The father raised virtually every single complaint and…”

“I read this as the second novel in the series. It’s better than the first one (‘The Magician’s Nephew’), but still pretty thin. There are no layers to the story of the plot – it’s very linear, very superficial. There are no twists. It seems like a heavy allegory of the Christ story, but apparently…”

“A book about the need to devote oneself completely to the Christian faith – to be a ‘follower, not a fan.’ The book is well-written, fun to read, but I don’t know if I was the right audience. The target appears to be the already committed Christian who might be at a crossroads, trying to determine…”

“This is another one of those books that should be a blog post. The basic idea is this: lately – and especially during COVID – people are putting their political affiliation first, and their faith second. They’re Democrats or Republicans first, then maybe Americans second, and then Christians third….”

“This book was written 1910. R.A. Torrey was a traveling evangelist. I gather he was one of Dwight Moody’s ministry partners. The book is a treatise on all aspects of the Holy Spirit (defined as the part of God that dwells within the believer after conversion). Example chapters: The Personality of…”

“This is an epic historical novel. It covers about 50 years in the life of a 12th century English town called Kingsbridge. It’s not fantasy – there’s no magic, no dragons, etc. The book represents actual life in the Middle Ages. The central conflict is the building of a cathedral in Kingsbridge….”

“This book is an attempt by Douglas Wilson to convey a ‘theology of work,’ and explain how any work is blessed and sacred. The book is promoted as more of a celebration of working slowly – plodding away at something, rather than trying to rush through it. Wilson is a theologian. He’s very prominent…”

“I think I need to read this again. It’s complicated. The author is attempted to explain why war is so prevalent and violent in the Old Testament, but – on first reading, at least – it sounds like a very delicate skirting of the issue. If there was a central point or excuse, I missed it on the first…”

“This is a short book that examines the parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15. I read this chapter-by-chapter for a men’s Bible study group. Unfortunately, I lost the main point of it. I remember it being quite good and interesting, but I can’t recall what it was. (I might-re-read at some point,…”

“I didn’t read this all at once – I read it bit by bit, for a men’s Bible study class. So it’s a bit harder to review than normal. The book is a discussion of ‘holiness,’ and how and why should pursue it by reducing the amount of sin in our lives. It explains why we should seek holiness, why that’s…”

“This is the second of John Mark Comer’s books I’ve read in the last month. They were both recommended by my daughter. This is what I would call an ‘inspirational title.’ Meaning, Comer isn’t telling us anything that we don’t already know, he’s just trying to prompt is to do something about it. We…”

“Wonderful book examining the conflict between evolution and creationism. The author is a professor at a Christian college. To be fair, I am tempted to rate this book lower, primarily because it was lazy about it’s subtitle – and I’m a stickler for titles and subtitles. You either support them or…”

“This book caused quite a stir when it was published in 1994. This is the quote that upset a lot of people: The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there isn’t one. The author was basically saying that evangelical Christians have stopped thinking rationally about anything. Unfortunately, it was…”

“I’m going to have to read this book again. Slower, maybe in a group. This is a book of philosophy that attempts to prove, logically, that belief in God is rational, and that atheistic arguments to the contrary are not valid. It’s roughly divided into three parts: Belief in God is rational Science…”

“A lovely, contemplative book about the idea of a higher power and all the imprints that has left on humans and the human condition. The point is not laser-focused. It doesn’t build to a larger point or big conclusion. Each chapter is a meditation on some aspect of how the human world intersects…”

“This was written by the guy who played Dwight from The Office . I’ve never seen that show, but I gather he was funny in it. He’s a practitioner of the Bahá'í faith. He was born into it – his parents were Bahá'í converts. That faith is a lot like universalism – it roughly believes in monotheism, and…”

“About halfway through this book, it became obvious that it wasn’t a traditional book. I think this is a book clearly designed for a Bible study group. (I don’t remember where I got the book, honestly. I might have picked it up at church somewhere.) Either that, or it’s a promotional tool. It’s…”

“Despite the subtitle, which sounds vaguely sacrilegious, this is a pro-Christianity book. The author is a seminary professor. The gist is that modern Christians don’t understand how strange Christianity would have seemed to the Romans back in 100 AD or so. Roman culture was just not used to things…”

“I read most of this book. I finally bailed on it towards the end. It’s a look inside the minds of Middle Eastern terrorists, and why they did what they did. I gathered that the author was assigned to some hospital in the Middle East, and had the opportunity to interview a bunch of them over time,…”

“A short, excellent book about fundraising for faith-based causes. It presents a new paradigm of fund-raising, more focused on the giver than the gift. It runs the risk of perhaps being too idealized, and it’s business fiction, which comes with all the risks of being stilted and awkward (it’s guilty…”

“This book traces the history of Christianity by defining 12 ‘turning points,’ which are pivotal moments in its development. These range from the Council of Niceo, to the Reformation (the Diet of Worms, actually), to the Edinburgh Mission conference in 1910. It was a good book, and certainly…”

“Let’s get the format out of the way: this book is presented as a conversation between a Christian Black man and a Jewish woman. The man is a sportscaster and the woman is a Jewish activist. It is supposedly their dialectical about the struggles of being Jewish in the world today. Some years ago,…”

“This was recommended by a friend. I assumed it was straightforward self-help, but it’s something very different. It should be classified as ‘New Age.’ There’s a lot in here about ‘spiritual energy,’ which does nothing for me. I was willing to overlook that, but then the author started to make…”

“I didn’t like this. But what bothers me is that I don’t know why I didn’t like it . I am very interested in the subject matter. This should absolutely be a book I like. I have no idea why I couldn’t connect with it, but dreaded picking it up. It’s about a journalist who wanders around the Holy…”

“I quite enjoyed this. It approaches the subject of Christian belief through a deconstruction of the Apostles and Nicene creeds, taking them apart, sentence by sentence, and examining what each part means. Understand that this is not an apologetic – there’s not much justification or proof offered…”

“This is a lovely book of short essay chapters which explain teachings of the New Testament that we clearly often forget. Each one starts ‘If Jesus was serious…’ Examples: then we will trust God more and politics less then we will recognize the illusion of control that money creates then we will…”

“This is a book structured around dissecting the Nicene Creed, sentence by sentence. I feel like it should have been more explicit about that. From the title, you might think that this is a book for neophytes – perhaps people new to the faith who are searching for answers. But it’s not that kinda…”

“ A summary and commentary on the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. ”

“Excellent book about the inadvertent damage we do when trying to help. It discusses how to help other communities and countries without accidentally making things worse – how to help in such a way that you build the community itself up, instead of just throwing money and volunteer hours at…”

“A wonderful look at the historic figure of Jesus Christ and his continuing impact on the world. The book is not necessarily evangelical – it’s more historical than anything. It discusses the changes Jesus and Christianity brought about to the treatment of women, our relationship to government, and…”

“Wonderfully unique book written by a father and son, both of whom were Christian pastors and leaders. The son lost his faith and became a secular humanist and ‘humanist chaplain.’ This book was written a few years later by both of them, which explains why the son left the faith, and (gently)…”

“This book scratched an itch I’ve had for a long time. A friend referred to it as ‘activity over intimacy,’ and Jethani captures this by identifying four ways of relating to god, and why they’re flawed: Life From God: Wanting the benefits that come from God without the work. Life Over God:…”