By: Brian Yost on September 4, 2014
To read or not to read, that is the question. At least that seems to be the question posed by Pierre Bayard in his book How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Bayard draws our attention to an obvious but often overlooked reality; we can’t read everything and we immediately begin to forget that…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on September 4, 2014
As I am completing this assignment on Visual Faith, I am on assignment here on the tropical, Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Yes, missions is a tough job, but someone has to do it. As I am “suffering for the Lord” in this beautiful three story hacienda located on the northern coast of the island…
By: Liz Linssen on September 4, 2014
I remember while working as a lecturer in a university in Seoul, talking to a fellow colleague, Mr. Kim. He was an art professor there and he showed me some of his personal work: sculptures of heads which were part pig, part human. I asked him why he created such art and he told me…
By: Deve Persad on September 4, 2014
From Miriam-Webster’s Dictionary: 1 an opening especially in the wall of a building for admission of light and air that is usually closed by casements or sashes containing transparent material (as glass) and capable of being opened and shut. 2 a means of entrance or access; a means of obtaining information. Adding a window to…
By: Dawnel Volzke on September 4, 2014
I can’t say that I have always enjoyed reading, especially those books outside of genres that most capture my interests and attention. Looking back, I must honestly admit that I haven’t truly read any textbook or novel in its entirety. Despite this admission, I have been able to effectively gain the knowledge needed through my…
By: Ashley Goad on September 4, 2014
Growing up, I attended worship every Sunday at Springfield Friends Meeting in High Point, North Carolina. Quaker meeting houses are not known for their ornate decorations or visual art. In fact, this statement is included in our Book of Discipline, Faith and Practice: “Paintings, crosses, and stained glass are all outward symbols, or representations, of…
By: Jon Spellman on September 4, 2014
If I’m completely honest, when it comes to academic texts, I must admit to expending a lot of mental energy figuring out what portions I can get away with not reading while still capturing the essential message of a book. In the time spent attempting to avoid them, I could probably get those portions read…
By: Mary Pandiani on September 3, 2014
Reflecting on the title of our first book, How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, my hope was to find some practical tools that would provide an efficient mechanism to get through all the anticipated, required, and copious reading. While I enjoy reading, articulating main points comes with laborious effort because of my desire…
By: Nick Martineau on September 3, 2014
I have a 5-year-old daughter and soon we will start teaching her to read. Should we even bother? I read a lot of books when I was younger but truth is I can’t even recall what they were actually about, not to mention what they were even titled. What was the point? While those are…
By: Dave Young on September 3, 2014
My first response to the title of Pierre Bayard’s book– “How to talk about books you haven’t read”—was to think it was a joke. The author couldn’t intend for us to feign knowledge we don’t possess, could he? That response got to the heart of what I found interesting as well as uncomfortable about this…
By: Jon Spellman on August 29, 2014
Author’s note. The Kindle edition of the book provides “locations” rather than “pages.” In-text citations are reflective of this. For many, the discipline of ecclesiology is neither practical nor prophetic. Rather, ecclesiology is understood by most to be primarily and essentially reflective, pondering the historical progression of the church in an attempt to understand it…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 16, 2014
Karl Polanyi first wrote The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time in 1944. Much has changed (understatement) since 1944; and yet… And yet, unfortunately, one of the things that has not changed is our need to still learn some of the lessons that Polanyi suggested were needed back in 1944 (Joseph…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 15, 2014
In the beginning…out of nothing…God created. We, created in the likeness of the Maker who makes all things, are ourselves world-makers. This is our birthright. There are those who still actively name this birthright and call us to living into its freedom, joy and responsibility. The Presbyterian Church USA works toward “renewing the church to…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
Murray Jardine leads us down a path that many have noted before, but he does a good job of it. Namely, our scientific and technological capabilities are outstripping our ability to morally process their implications before implementing them into our lives. Throughout his book, The Making and Unmaking of Technology Society: How Christianity Can Save…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
In case you haven’t noticed a significant amount of people think something is wrong with America. Now, it’s hard to believe that anyone really takes this idea seriously, because when you think about it, really think about it, what changes actually get made? Are there still uncharged inmates at Guantanamo? Do we still have the…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
In Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence, Mary Kate Morse does something amazing. She gets us outside of living inordinately inside our heads. That is, it’s not that we are overthinking things (though that can happen); instead, it’s that we have had a tendency to incorrectly be thinking about a lot of things. …
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
This blog post is being driven from reading William T. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire and Vincent J. Miller’s Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture. However, I have recently written another blog post on a related reading dealing with economics, socio-political interaction and faith. I engaged Max Weber’s The…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
The Rebel Sell: How the Counterculture Became Consumer Culture by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter is interesting. I offer that ambivalently. It’s interesting in some intriguing, thought-provoking ways and unfortunately it’s also interesting in some Orwellian, Huxleyan Brave New World kind of ways. One begins reading The Rebel Sell expecting some critique of failed countercultural…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber essentially needs no introduction. It is a classic in western culture and even more broadly known and referred to than this around the world. However, being a classic, it can be something of which people and to which they refer without ever having actually…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 14, 2014
Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s by D. W. Bebbington is – as the title suggests — a text about a historical exploration of Evangelicalism in modern Britain. However, it is also about much more than this. While Bebbington specifically reviews the socio-cultural aspects of Evangelicalism in Britain,…
