Like the proverbial quiet before the storm, we pause this week in our Best Christian Book of All Time Tournament (BCBATT). Nominations closed over the weekend, and the brackets won't be announced until next week. This seemed an appropriate time to ponder the question: What is a Christian book, anyway? When I called for people to nominate their picks for the “best Christian book,” I expected there to be some differences of opinion about what constituted a “Christian book,” as well as questions about how to choose which … [Read more...] about What IS a Christian Book? (A Working Definition)
C. S. Lewis
Best Christian Book of All Time: Early Nominations
The nominations are coming in for our Best Christian Book of All Time Tournament (BCBATT for short). So far, more than 140 different books have been nominated, ranging from the 2nd to the 21st centuries. Here are a few of the books receiving multiple nominations: Augustine, Confessions Augustine, City of God Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion G.K. Chesterton, … [Read more...] about Best Christian Book of All Time: Early Nominations
Insights from works by people from other worldviews?
James W. Sire addresses another excellent question from Micheal Hickerson, ESN Blog Contributor: Should Christians worry if they find themselves enjoying or gaining insight from artistic, literary or academic works by people from other worldviews? I know that this has been a question within the Christian world from the ancients to the present. Didn't Tertullian (c. 160-230) ask, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” But, though I was brought up in a modestly fundamentalist community, the question has always … [Read more...] about Insights from works by people from other worldviews?
Bielo: The Textual Economies of Bible Studies
James Bielo's Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study closely observes several Bible studies in Lansing, Michigan. I've been reading and blogging about the book this summer as part of my efforts to gain a sense of the academic perspective on evangelical Christians[1. You may have noticed that Bielo capitalizes "Evangelical," while I don't. The style of our blog has generally been not to capitalize the word, but I've maintained Bielo's own usage in my quotations.]. In this week's chapter, … [Read more...] about Bielo: The Textual Economies of Bible Studies
C.S. Lewis’ humility in reflecting upon the Psalms
This is not a work of scholarship. I am no Hebraist, no higher critic, no ancient historian, no archaeologist. I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself. If an excuse is needed (and perhaps it is) for writing such a book, my excuse would be something like this. It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to a master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, … [Read more...] about C.S. Lewis’ humility in reflecting upon the Psalms