Some experts estimate that in Western nations as much as 50 percent of the adult population is now single. That is a statistic with tremendous significance for our nations, culture and churches. It is surely a statistic that is without historical precedent. Of course the decline of marriage coincides with increased sexual activity, showing that…
When I was younger, I had a friend who seemed to live somewhere in a grey area between reality and fantasy. He was able to deal with reality for periods, but would always slip back into strange little fantasies where he was a ninja or an elf warrior or something else equally strange. He and…
The Bible has long been the world’s best-selling book. While it does not appear on the bestseller lists, year after year, generation after generation, it continues to sell more copies than any other book. While the Bible continues to sell, it does not appear that many more people are reading it now than in previous…
I elected to read Freakonomics as part of my ongoing effort to engage with books that have become fixtures on the New York Times list of bestsellers. This title has spent many weeks on that list and has sold millions of copies. This is a bit surprising for a book dealing with the decidedly unsexy…
Classical music was once almost exclusively the preserve of white men. It was believed that women could simply not play as well as men, for they did not have the strength, attitude or resilience for many pieces of music. Over the past few decades, though, classical music has undergone a transformation. Musicians, rather than facing…
Malcolm Gladwell needs a haircut. This was one of the first things I noticed about The Tipping Point: the photo of Gladwell and his Yancey-like hair. It’s hard to take a guy with hair like that too seriously, but I’m glad that I did, as The Tipping Point is a fascinating book. The Tipping Point…
“As Americans we’ve come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified our parent’s generation. Things like abortion-on-demand virtually up to the moment of birth, judges banning the Ten Commandments from public places, a national explosion of middle-school sex, the slow starvation of the disabled, thousands of homosexuals openly flouting the…
Ariel Levy and I could probably not be more different. She is a liberal, feminist, democratic, New Yorker. I am a conservative, biblical, Canadian Christian. Yet Levy and I share a common concern when we look at women in our culture. Not too long ago, Levy began to notice a change in women. “I’d walk…
Damage Control makes for a good half-book. Were we to skim a little from the early pages and cut a few chapters from the back it would really be quite good. Somewhat unfortunately, the book is 170 pages rather than 80 or 90. Damage Control is a book that seeks to help Christians stop making…
“Throughout the book, I have recorded and reported speech in the words of the individuals interviewed. I have chosen to use the individuals’ slang, graphic descriptions, and vulgar language because they accurately reflect the way in which people think about and discuss pornography. The use of sexually explicit and crude language is part of the…
Wicca, and witchcraft in general, have seen a great resurgence in interest over the past few years. There are several factors that have contributed to this, not the least of which is the success of the Harry Potter books and movies. Witchcraft is widely-regarded as “just another religion” – one that is not much different…
This is the fourth article in a series about Mark Driscoll’s book The Radical Reformission. You can find the first article here and the second here and the third here. We are progressing through the book and have arrived at a chapter in which Driscoll begins to apply his understanding of culture and reformission. This…
A friend of mine, who is far more qualified than I am to make such judgments, tells me that Philip Ryken is among the top two or three preachers in the world today. That is quite a claim, but one I am more willing to believe as I continue to read Ryken’s work. Until a…
Having read The Fallacy Detective, written by Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn, I turned immediately to the second title in the Christian Logic series. The Thinking Toolbox is “like a toolbox – full of all kinds of tools you can use for different thinking tasks” (from the back cover). Like its predecessor, it is self-teaching and…
The Fallacy Detective, written by Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn, is a book designed for teens or adults that teaches how to spot common errors in reasoning. The goals for this book are clearly laid out in the introduction. When the reader has completed this book he should be able to put a high value on…
I am amazingly (and perhaps blessedly) naive when it comes to certain aspects of the spiritual battle that wages all around us. We know from Scripture that there is a constant spiritual battle being fought in this world, with human beings the bounty. We know that there is more to the world than what we…
Dining With the Devil is an interesting read, especially in light of the fact that the author, Os Guinness, is describing the very difficulties the church is facing today, even though this book was written over twelve years ago. It is difficult to know if his voice was prophetic or if very little has changed…
A couple of weeks ago I was browsing through my pastor’s library and remarking on the number of people who lay claim to “the next Reformation.” Over twenty years ago, Robert Schuller told us it would be a Reformation of self-esteem and more recently his protégé Rick Warren that it will be one of purpose.…
Brian Flynn is the founder and director of One Truth Ministries and leads “Now Age” seminars before churches and groups around the United States. But long before he felt such love and concern for the church, he was a psychic medium who hated Christianity with every fiber of his being. Running Against The Wind is…
Never have Christians tried to be so relevant, and yet never have they been so terribly irrelevant. How could this happen? It is this question that Os Guinness addresses in Prophetic Untimeliness, which claims to be “A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance.” Guinness says that the goal of the book is to explore how…