By: Mitch Arbelaez on April 5, 2014
I began reading To change the world by James Hunter back in 2010 shortly after it was published, but like most books I start and seldom finish, Hunter’s book experienced the same fate. My modus operandi is to see another title that catches my interest and I move on to other pastures. As I once…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on April 5, 2014
While reading Hunter James Davison book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, I found his third essay on the theology of faithful presence a great reminder to examine how I am doing in my relationship with God and others around me. Hunter begins with a…
By: Carol McLaughlin on April 5, 2014
It was impossible to read James Davison Hunter’s book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World without considering recent events both locally and nationally. Two weeks ago a sudden and unexpected mudslide wiped out a small community in Washington State, leaving devastation and death in its…
By: Liz Linssen on April 4, 2014
Hunter’s work, To Change the World, attempts to explain why so few Christians have had significant influence for the Kingdom of God upon society in late modern times. Coming from a different and more pragmatic view than that of Douthat, Hunter believes that the means to changing the current anaemic Christian climate in America is…
By: Michael Badriaki on April 4, 2014
“Can Bone Save The World?” Another way to ask the question might be; is Bono redemptive? I have my hunch, but I have another story to share about my introduction to Bono. Now, I had listened to the music of the band U2 here and there, but a number of years before I came to…
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 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: 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: 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: 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…
By: Liz Linssen on March 21, 2014
According to Douthat, American Christianity has lost its moorings from the harbour of the orthodox faith. We are in an age where “the only Jesus who really matters is the one you invent for yourself.” [i] Where accommodationists imitate Jesus’ “scandalously comprehensive love, while ignoring his scandalously comprehensive judgments.” [ii] A period when conspiracy theorists…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on March 21, 2014
A couple of years ago, I was invited to share about my ministry with a mission committee at one of my ministry partner churches in the area. I gave them an overview of what we do and how their generous support helps us provide our communities with basic physical needs by building elementary schools, for…
By: rhbaker275 on March 21, 2014
I was encouraged in my Focus 40 devotion for day ten leading up to Easter. It addressed, in a round-about way, the theme in much of the book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat.[1] The devotion, written by missionary Kelly Philips, faces the problem of how Christianity, which includes each…
By: Bill Dobrenen on March 21, 2014
What do you see in the picture above? What you see may depend on what you are looking for. Also, what you see one moment may not be there the next moment, or it might be the opposite of what you saw in the first place. Or perhaps you see two different things at the…
