By: Julie Dodge on April 4, 2014
I’m going to be honest from the get go: I did not like this week’s book. James Davison Hunter’s “To Change the World”[i] left me unsatisfied. I know, how can it be? I read through various reviews of the book, thinking surely I must be missing something. The reviews were positive. One even referred…
By: Bill Dobrenen on April 4, 2014
I have been on a long spiritual journey; I am sure that many of us have been. This week’s reading and our last reading gripped my soul in substantial ways. Something must be happening in me. But answers to spiritual longings do not usually come in fancy packaging. In fact, the content that touched my…
By: Richard Rhoads on April 4, 2014
I love family traditions. Some of our traditions include, attending Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, watching fireworks on the 4th of July and going to our family cabin each summer. However, one tradition stands out as our favorite is, “The Buck Demolition Derby”. Each year, around the 4th of July weekend, a local motor…
By: Richard Volzke on April 4, 2014
In Hunter’s book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, explains how Christians try to use evangelism, politics, and social reform to change the world’s moral values. The author outlines how Christianity attempts to use these tactics and as a result, experiences both negative and positive…
By: John Woodward on April 3, 2014
I believe that the Church sincerely desires to make a positive impact on the world, to bring about a more Christ-like society where God is honored and people live under His Lordship and receive His blessings. But, for most of my life, it seemed as if the Church’s every effort to bring these positive change…
By: Sharenda Roam on April 3, 2014
How does media help change our shared and personal spaces and create ours and others’ identities? Pingree and Gitelman explores this idea in their book “New Media – 1740 to 1915.” They look at a variety of media including the zograscope, the physiognotrace, and the telegraph, as well as others. What I find interesting is…
By: Fred Fay on April 3, 2014
Last week I watched the animated movie Frozen. It is a Disney adaptation of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. I have two girls, young adults, who just love it. I found myself being taken in also by the story and music. The theme of rejection, family pain and finding one’s identity in a…
By: Chris Ellis on April 3, 2014
When many people think of new forms of media they might think of Twitter, Skype or whatever is the latest and greatest in communication (Holograms are next maybe? ). But to only think of those forms that are new for OUR current time and place is to miss some valuable lessons learned from studying when…
By: Ashley Goad on April 3, 2014
Several years ago, I interviewed for a youth pastor position in northern Virginia. One of the questions was, “How would you describe your ministry to students?” While the committee expected to hear about creative programs, wild games and big mission trips, I instead told them my greatest love in youth ministry was practicing the ministry…
By: Deve Persad on April 3, 2014
It was a different world. The patio at the back is only vague memory. What I remember more is the soft cushion of lush grass that grew on either side of the stone walkway that extended from that back patio. The walkway made its way through, winding a little bit, and then beyond the garden…
By: David Toth on April 3, 2014
It was August of 1979 when I loaded up my household goods and my family and drove to Toccoa, Georgia to attend Bible college. The plan to make this move had been activated two years earlier and most everything had gone well, except the economy. Unemployment was high and interest rates were higher yet. My…
By: Phil Smart on April 3, 2014
Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture by Lisa Gitelman, looks back so that she can look forward. I felt that this was a timely book as my son who is in his mid-20s came for a visit from Chicago two weeks ago. He had taken the train and as we met…
By: Michael Badriaki on March 30, 2014
When I get the chance to visit and live in various countries and communities, I always find myself wondering as to whether people in the non-western context experience vastly different effects of modernity. Charles Taylor’s book called Modern Social Imaginaries, labors to discuss the possibility of the presence of “multiple modernities”. Taylor notes: From the…
By: Michael Badriaki on March 30, 2014
While studying Bauman Zygmunt’ book called Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age, it was clear that the author provides a critique of modern-day social inequality, I couldn’t help but think about local and global inequity and disparities. I appreciated the perspective which promoted a vast understanding of the relationship between inequality, democracy and…
By: Michael Badriaki on March 30, 2014
In my opinion, Karl Polanyi’ book The Great Transformation, is a great resource for anyone who desires to understand the crisis of capitalism in the twenty first century. According Stiglitz, Polanyi’s book describes the great transformation of European civilization from the preindustrial world to the ear of industrialization and the shifts in ideas, ideologies, and…
By: Sam Stephens on March 26, 2014
A Brief Guide to Ideas by William Raeper and Linda Edwards provides a great overview of thoughts, philosophies and ideas of the Western world since almost the beginning. The book makes it plain and clear that philosophy cannot be brushed aside as lacking relevance in the present post modern, post Christian culture as it may…
By: Mark Steele on March 23, 2014
Raeper and Edwards in their book A Brief Guide to Ideas does a fair job summarizing philosophical and theological thought through the ages. What caught my attention was their chapter titled How Should Society be Organized (Raeper and Edwards 1997 p. 137)? I have had the opportunity to travel internationally the past few years, especially…
By: Richard Rhoads on March 23, 2014
Ever since my days in youth ministry I have always enjoyed a good slip and slide. A little soap, a good long sheet of plastic, a steep hill and a whole lot of water is all you need to have a whole lot of fun. So when I heard of the “Crazy Insane Water Slide”…
By: Michael Badriaki on March 23, 2014
Douthat’s book “, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics”, is an intense and sobering read. The author’s work is informative indeed and even though it’s a magnifying polemic on American Christendom, one can’t help but feel all sorts of emotions along with follow up inquiry. Case in point, what have I believed…
By: John Woodward on March 22, 2014
The Church in America is in decline. The question many recent books have asked is why and if there is any hope? Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity After Religion provides a generous dose of statistics to illustrate the extent of this crisis. She points out that in 1970, “some 95 percent of Americans said they were…
