Category Archives: books
Held in the Light
On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison, 31-year-old devout Quaker, husband, and father of three, stood outside the Pentagon, poured kerosene over his body, and struck a match. He immolated himself to express his deep concern over the escalating war in … Continue reading
The Tiger’s Wife
In Teá Obreht’s first novel The Tiger’s Wife (Random House, 2011), the author weaves together multiple storylines set in the country of her birth, the former Yugoslavia, and stretching back from the present to the end of the Ottoman Empire. … Continue reading
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Resisting Evil
U.S. Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson (1943-2006), who protected Vietnamese civilians from his fellow U.S. Army troops during the My Lai Massacre The British political philosopher Edmund Burke famously said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is … Continue reading
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Love Wins
There’s much to like about Rob Bell’s bestseller Love Wins. It’s short—less than 200 pages of large, often widely spaced print, which would probably be about 100 pages in a more normal font. It’s accessible. There’s no theological jargon that … Continue reading
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Death with Interruptions
“The following day, no one died.” That’s the first line of Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate José Saramago’s novel Death with Interruptions. At least since Gilgamesh people have been fascinated with the idea of immortality. But is it a good … Continue reading
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Religion, for Better or Worse?
Wilberforce holding the broken chain of slavery, Christ Church, Chelsea. True religion brings salvation, frees us from the bondage of sin and guilt, and fills us with love for God and our neighbors. False religion damns us and makes us … Continue reading
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Peter J. Gomes
(1942-2011) The Rev. Dr. Peter J. Gomes died yesterday. He was the longtime minister at Harvard University’s Memorial Church. His bestselling books like The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus and The Good Book have informed and inspired many, including me. Requiescat in … Continue reading
Less Says More
We live in a sound-bite world of tweets and text messages. Even fiction writers are learning literary economy. Inspired by a six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”), the genre is called flash fiction, microfiction, … Continue reading
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Canon Fodder
Gospel of John Fragment, Papyrus 52 (ca. 125 CE), John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK “History is written by the victors,” Winston Churchill famously observed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Christian church. In the early fourth century as … Continue reading
Hindu Classic
I just got back from a six-week research trip to Germany, which caused me to become a blog slacker for a while. I’m now leaning into my course prep for a summer section of “Western Civilization in Global Context.” To … Continue reading
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