“GENTLY, Lord, oh, gently lead us,
Pilgrims in this vale of tears . . .
Suffer not our hearts to languish,
Suffer not our souls to fear”
from Thomas Hastings, “In Sorrow”
All posts by Phil
Relief at Last
The fourth issue of Relief Journal is out and with it a new website. Great work!
It’s Hard to Be a Dad
Some people don’t know anything about manhood. Thanks to Tony Woodlief for setting them straight.
A real man, on the other hand, protects and provides for his family, and partners with his wife to train up his children in the way they should go. He isn’t necessarily gabby, but his children know in their souls that he loves them. He is patient and kind. He lays down his life for his family every day.
I’ll agree with that. Fatherhood is hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Athol Dickson on Christian Fiction
“I believe Christian fiction in general is now at least as good as all the other genres. I think this is slowly becoming an accepted fact, even among publishers and critics outside the Christian world. In fact, it seems to me most of the opinions one still reads to the contrary are from Christian writers who have not managed to get published, and one suspects their motives, to say the least. I say this as an extremely demanding reader. I do not finish about half of the novels I start, because I cannot bear poor craftsmanship or boring stories, regardless of the message. I will not support a Christian artist simply because he is a Christian. That would demean Christianity itself. But these days I find myself abandoning non-Christian novels with about the same frequency as Christian ones, so yes indeed, we have come a long, long way.” Thus spake Athol Dickson earlier this year.
The Fervent Exercise of the Heart
America’s greatest theologian, Johnathan Edwards, was born on this day in 1703. From his work Religious Affections, he wrote:
. . . who will deny that true religion consists, in a great measure, in vigorous and lively actings of the inclination and will of the soul, or the fervent exercises of the heart. That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull and lifeless wouldings, raising us but a little above a state of indifference: God, in his Word, greatly insists upon it, that we be in good earnest, fervent in spirit, and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion: “Be ye fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). . . . ‘Tis such a fervent, vigorous engagedness of the heart in religion, that is the fruit of a real circumcision of the heart, or true regeneration, and that has the promises of life; “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (Deut. 30:6). If we ben’t in good earnest in religion, and our wills and inclinations be not strongly exercised, we are nothing.
Bookaholics’ Guide to Book Blogs
This book is “meant to capture this moment … a book blog keepsake, when book blogs are exploding across the web … in it we talk about the ones who are good, who should be sought out, communicated with and encouraged.” [via Books, Inq.]
Choice, Choice Everywhere! When Will It End?
So it’s Banned Books Week for the American Library Association, and people are taking to the streets to ban or burn their favorite books. What? That’s not happening in your neighborhood? Well, don’t just sit there. Go to the library and complain about something. Freedom of choice in reading starts with you.
So have you read a “banned book” lately? Funny how you got hold of one. Black market book fair, I guess?
Speaking of choice, O.J. Simpson’s book, So What If I Did It?, has been published, and Barnes and Noble apparently announced that they would not distribute it. The public arose to say they wanted it, and the bookseller recanted. As Charles Kaine writes, “Barnes and Noble, on a daily basis, declines to carry dozens, if not hundreds, of titles, and yet we do not get a daily press release from them announcing what they won’t be carrying. Why did they choose to make this one book so special?” Why? They were trying to win some publicity points, of course. Maybe they did.
Still, Kaine argues against their initial decision. “When large corporations start making choices for us,” he says, “deciding for us what we can and can’t read based on what they perceive to be the popular opinion, we, the American public, are in serious danger of losing our right to choose.” But isn’t that the nature of the publishing process, people at large and small corporations deciding whether a manuscript should be published? If we had all the choice we could stomach, every writer would be published, and that would not be a victory for the American or world reader. (Enter The Blog to glut the reader’s stomach.)
Books are published from a community, are they not? The publishing community, composed of editors, writers, managers, designers, publicists, printers, and booksellers, take a manuscript from idea to print. Some of them hold the reigns on every potential book, holding it at standstill or spurring it forward to publication. There are good stories that are not being published and bad ones that are. Do we want more bad stories to choose from or responsible editors to hold them back?
The real battle over choice is in the news business. In that arena, editors filter stories through a condescending elitists grid. Where’s the choice there? And public education–where’s the choice there?! Okay, I’ll stop.
New Discovery House Website
Discovery House Publishers has revised their website and is offering free shipping on all orders through Sunday, October 7.
In other info tidbits, if you are looking for the WaterBrook Press site, follow this link, not this one.
And if you’re longing for another of those books about books, something along the lines of a “hilarious epic fantasy” involving a city which is akin to “a gigantic second-hand bookshop,” you could do worse than cracking open The City of Dreaming Books.
A Bowl of Yuck Stirred with a Nasty Spoon
Lynn Vincent asks what would be up for grabs “if Hell had a menu.”
Free linkage to Terrible Blogger
Here’s a link to an interesting post on a design blog:
I’m a terrible blogger. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to be a good blogger, but every time I sit down at my computer thinking, “I must write something to post on Peachpit’s blog today,” I get up hours later having had a fine time Web-browsing and cyber-slacking; having learned many fun and interesting things; having discovered interesting connections between people I know; and having done no writing, editing, or even responding to email. Even just the thought of blogging is unproductive for me.
I hear ya. Mmm, hmmm.