Tripp York’s The Purple Crown

Tripp York, The Purple Crown: The Politics of Martyrdom (Scottsdale, PA: Herald, 2007), 200 pp.
In this review, I wish to second the back cover endorsement given to this book by William Cavanaugh: “I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the relevance of martyrdom to contemporary discipleship.” This book will win few converts, and [...]

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Chris K. Huebner’s A Precarious Peace

Chris K. Huebner, A Precarious Peace: Yoderian Explorations on Theology, Knowledge, and Identity (Scottsdale, PA: Herald, 2006), 249 pp.
A former doctoral student of Stanley Hauerwas at Duke, and current Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Huebner is a genuine rising star in among Anabaptist Theologians. Along with [...]

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Why I love Raymond Carver

It was Ernest Hemingway who first won my heart to fiction. Before him I had loved The Catcher in the Rye, but that was purely for its content. I had no appreciation for Salinger’s craft. I was only captivated the social criticism that seemed to have stolen all of my best insights [...]

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Review of James Torrance’s Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace

If the Torrance brothers stand for anything, it is the mediation of Christ. T.F. Torrance’s book by that title is labeled as a “devotional theology” on account of its scant academic apparatus, but it remains an extremely dense and thoroughly argued presentation of Christ’s mediatorial role between God and Man as the core of [...]

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Review of Paul Metzger’s Consuming Jesus

“That ain’t my culture and heritage!”
- Homer Stokes in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
 
[Many thanks to Eerdmans for the review copy. I've been meaning to get to this review for some time. But put it off for some time. Strange because the last review I wrote, for Ray Anderson's book, I whipped out right after [...]

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Jon Robertson’s Christ as Mediator

Multnomah recently picked up a fantastic addition to the Seminary faculty, Jon M. Robertson.  Robertson recently received his Ph.D. in historical theology from Oxford, and I’m glad to announce that I just checked out his recently-published dissertation from the library.  The title is Christ As Mediator: A Study of the Theologies of Eusebius of Caesarea, [...]

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Would You Rather…

When it comes to books that occupy big spaces in your heart, would you rather lend one of them and have them not read it, or read it and be unmoved by it?
Me, I definitely choose the latter. Right now, so far as I remember, I have three books out on loan. Chris [...]

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An Open Letter to Powell’s Books

I was unable to find any email address outside of the one with a 1,000 character limit at powells.com, and that of their (pretty lame) blog. I sent this to the blog a few days ago, but have not yet received a response, I decided I would address the anonymous reviewer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s [...]

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Ray Anderson’s Emergent Theology for Emergent Churches

Many thanks to InterVarsity Press for sending me the prolific Ray Anderson’s most recent book, An Emergent Theology for Emergent Churches (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2006). For a nice summary of the book by the author (who should be familiar to many in the blogosphere), check here.
After reading reviews by my friend Halden and [...]

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Essential Christianity

In our discussion of Blaise Pascal in my Church in the Age of Reason class, Dr. Scalberg placed the Pensees in a series of books that are accounts of “essential Christianity.”
Augustine, Confessions
Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ
Luther, The Freedom of a Christian
Pascal, Pensees
Richard Baxter, Reformed Pastor
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
D.L. Sayers, Mind of [...]

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