The Little Friar

J. Webb Mealy's Bad Place:  Or, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Hell, But Were Afraid to Ask  is a book I so wanted to read and enjoy.  The thesis of the book is one with which I agree:  Christians have so misunderstood the New Testament notion of "hell" as "eternal conscious post-mortem punishment", a notion that requires a drastic re-reading from the biblical text in order to sort out.  What I found in this book, though, is a clear thesis -- a correct thesis -- in search of a depth of scholarly treatment.  There just simply isn't much to this book.   The writing is mediocre.  The conclusions are overdrawn from the evidence presented.  Too often the author stacks the deck in favor of his own conclusions without the clear evidence to support those conclusions.  This is sad, because I think the evidence is there in the biblical text.   What this book ultimately needs, then, is a much better editor, to help t...

Sam Hastra and Sam Cocar's Practicing the Monastic Disciplines:  Finding Deep Spirituality in a Shallow World  is not what readers would most likely expect from its title.  This isn't an academic tome on classic monasticism.  Instead, it's a very practical, very pastoral, extremely modest handbook on becoming a follower of Jesus in a world so insistent we follow other leaders.   In this delightful little book, the authors work together to craft short chapters that highlight how the desert mothers and fathers -- those Christians who lived and prayed in the mountains of the Mediterranean East in the fourth century -- "wrestled with many of the same issues we wrestle with today".  These women and men were not attempting to earn their salvation (as, sadly, most Protestants envision them).  Instead, they were working out that salvation in a divisive and distraught world.  These were soldiers of Christ who fought the principalities and powers of th...

David Ritchie's Why do the nations rage?  The demonic origin of nationalism  gives us a timely account of the biblical connections between "the nations", "the powers and principalities" and "idolatry".  With a pastoral heart and a keen theological mind, Ritchie writes a book that every Christian in America needs to read.  He explores what is perhaps the problem of life in America for faithful followers of Jesus Christ:  The idolatry of Nationalism. The biblical realism of Ritchie's account is one that theological conservatives will find speaks a language they can understand.  And the crisp theological critique of what St Paul calls "the principalities and powers of this world" echoes the biblical drama of salvation that centers on Jesus Christ -- in a way that modern theological liberals will find engaging.  In short, the religious fervor that betrays so much modern American nationalism will find in this book a deep and abiding critique t...