What thinking is not. John Piper has written about thinking in a new book. “Knowledge,” he says, “is the fuel of the fire of love for God and man.”
Category Archives: Non-fiction
Secularism Is Not the Neutral Ground It Claims To Be
Video of Hunter Baker on “The System Has a Soul: Lectures on Christianity and Secularism”
Klavan reviews Ellroy
Thriller writer nonpareil Andrew Klavan reviews James Ellroy’s new memoir, The Hilliker Curse, for the Wall Street Journal.
He admires the book, but sees (plausibly, in my view) some things the author apparently hasn’t noticed.
It would be pretty to think so. Yet one has the feeling that there is as much hidden here as revealed, that Mr. Ellroy’s belligerent candor disguises some deeper and still secret shame. How could it be otherwise? Every confession is also a mask. As all good crime writers understand: There’s no bottom to the perversity of the human heart.
Reformed Media Review Video of Republocrat
Let’s talk about this.
Why Can't Black Men Think On Their Own?
Anthony Bradley, author of the book Liberating Black Theology, writes about how difficult it is to be respected as a black man and an independent thinker. “Independent black thinkers are expected to ‘groupthink’ in ways that usually lead to rejection and isolation by multiple communities,” he says. For example:
To point out the unchallenged racism in some socially conservative circles renders the charge, “angry black man.” Pointing out that big government has never really helped black communities in the long-term while promoting economic empowerment within the context of markets as a sustainable mechanism for socio-economic mobility, invites the charge of being “a sell-out.”
Stephen Prothero and Reviews of "God is Not One"
Earlier this year, several blogs participated in a review tour for Stephen Prothero’s book, God is not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Rule the World and Why Their Differences Matter. Here’s a quote from the introduction.
To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each tradition attempts to solve a different aspect of the human condition. For example:
- Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
- Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
- Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
- Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is enlightenment
- Hinduism: the problem is the endless cycle of reincarnation / the solution is release
- Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is our return back to God and to our true home
When we gloss over these differences we fail to appreciate each religion on its own terms.
The book appears to be a survey and not an apologetic. This Lutheran reviewer said she wanted more from the Christianity chapter “wishing I could add to further clarification regarding . . . consequences that 95 theses had on the world.” Unfortunately, the list of blogs doesn’t link directly to the reviews, save one. So here’s a link to a review from someone who disagrees with the book’s central premise.
It Only Gets Freakier From Here
Author Terence P. Jeffrey talks with National Review Online editor-at-large Kathryn Lopez about his new book, Controls Freaks: 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life.
LOPEZ: Why is a book published in 1910 important to you, Mark Levin, and the Social Security Administration?
JEFFREY: In Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin notes that Columbia University economist Henry Rogers Seager, in his 1910 book Social Insurance: A Program for Social Reform, laid out an argument for an American welfare state anchored in a social-security program. As Mark pointed out, the contemporary Social Security Administration is so taken with Seager’s statist views that it has posted his book on its website. Seager was the consummate Control Freak, someone who wanted to eradicate the pioneering spirit from American life, and he pushed not only for a welfare state, but also for eugenics — literally advocating the sterilization of people he believed unworthy of breeding. Seager exemplifies how modern liberals parted ways with both the constitutional and the moral traditions of our nation.
LOPEZ: Is the conscience front the most insidious? Or is the speech front?
JEFFREY: Yes, conscience is the most insidious. Liberals today don’t just believe they can force you to pay for the killing of someone else’s unborn child (and brazenly tell you they are not doing it), they also believe they have a right to teach your five-year-old kindergartner that same-sex unions are a good thing — without ever telling you they are doing it. There is a reason why liberal politicians like President Obama don’t like school choice, even if they send their own children to very expensive private schools. They see the public-school classroom as a moral battlefield where they can wage a 13-year insurgency to capture the soul of your child.
Metaxas on Bonhoeffer: Extended Interview
This is remarkable. At about the 15 minute mark, author Eric Metaxas talks about how focused the Nazis were on race. Their corrupt view of purity and polluted ideas about the Jews became woven into almost every German, Christian and non. Bonhoeffer among a few others argued against the Nazis racism in part because he had seen racial division in the United States.
You Are What You See, by Scott Nehring
Scott Nehring is a sometime film writer and current film critic, who blogs at GoodNewsFilmReviews.com. He is also a Christian, concerned about re-taking popular culture—if not necessarily for Christianity (in the sense of making every movie have a gospel message), but at least for the encouragement of positive movies that elevate people’s lives.
You Are What You See (you can order it here, in electronic or softcover form) is his manifesto. (I need to mention that I received a free review copy.)
It would be easier to praise or pan his book if it had been the sort of thing I half-expected—either a call to “come out and be separate” from popular culture, or a point-by-point, guaranteed-or-your-money-back blueprint for cultural revolution. Instead, the author leaves a lot of room for individual decisions. Because freedom is part of the deal, and every Christian has his own gifts, strengths and weaknesses.
This is good. But it means the reader has to do a fair amount of work, forever asking himself “How does this apply to me, if at all?” “Where do I fit in the scheme of things?”
That, however, is the price of honesty and biblical fidelity. Continue reading You Are What You See, by Scott Nehring
Power Players Encourage Racial Tension
I heard the author talk about the ideas in his book on Brian Kilmeade’s show this morning. He was the one who broke the story on Obama’s long-time radical pastor. That’s what starts this video. Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal – America’s Racial Obsession