The Return

Review:   The Ragamuffin Bible: Meditations for the Bedraggled, Beat-up & Brokenhearted Zondervan 2013 Brennan Manning.   If you have not had the opportunity to read any of his works the sidebars and devotional thoughts tucked into this NIV Bible will give you a taste of what he had to say.   Sadly, he died recently.    The Ragamuffin Bible is a keeper for me.   This one I like.   The size, the type set, the feel is just right.   I will not comment on the Biblical text itself since I am no expert in that field.   I can say that I like the way it reads though.   This version in dual column, paragraph style with a few explanatory notes at the bottom of the page as needed. Of course, the chapter and verse markers are maintained. If you need to have cross references, concordances and the like, a study Bible might be more to your liking. This one is for reading and pondering. If I have done my math right, there are ab...

Review: A Call to Resurgence: Will Christianity Have a Funeral or a Future? Mark Driscoll Tyndale House Publishers 2013 The title says it all.   The premise is do or die essentially.   Driscoll presents the current situation as he sees it, how it got that way, and what to do about it.   There’s a lot of good stuff in this book.   He likens the current religious climate to that of what the disciples faced back in their day.   Pluralism and a government that endeavors to protect all the different world views out there, as long as there’s no trouble.   He does not emphasize that religious freedom is one of the founding freedoms of this country, even if you don’t agree with any of them.     Driscoll’s work does do something needful.   It calls to its readers to clarify their beliefs, their world view if you will.   Does it match the way the readers live or match what the readers say?   Does it line up with Scripture? ...

Review: How to Talk to a Skeptic Donald J. Johnson Bethany House Publishers 2013 Finally!   Someone has finally said it---you have to know what you are talking about to speak intelligently to skeptics (and anyone else) about God, Jesus, Christianity and all the topics that surround that.    People are looking for real answers to questions.   Many of them anyway.   That means any Christian that wants to join the conversation has to have worked through what and why he holds the beliefs he does.   The Christian that wants to join the conversation must be aware of the world around them.    What Johnson has done to give his readers an example of how that is done.   From his own admissions, it’s not an easy task.   In a first step his advice is not to be baited into an argument.   It is to be a conversation.   Start with some information as to where the skeptic is “coming from” or discover how his vision of how thi...