To preface, my wife and I are involved in the organization that the authors helped to found in Nashville, Tennessee, but what this essay lacks in objectivity, I hope to regain in honest intimacy. This memoir relates the story of how Hartley’s family escaped the “Brentwood Bubble” (Brentwood is a well-to-do suburb of Nashville) while encountering the Mwizerwas. Having fled the genocide in Rwanda during the 1990s, the Mwizerwas became refugees in Nashville and rebuilt…
For my job, I work in a technical field with high-level people in medical research who make important decisions that impact many. Thus, though I am not a primary decision-maker, anything I can do to better understand their mindsets and the impact of their decisions benefits my organization and my career. It is with this perspective that I approach this book. In it, Taleb uses a rare philosophical approach to business by addressing how we…
Technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be as much of a problem as a help. As an instrument, it can make mass killing much easier. Indeed, nuclear bombs enable the world to potentially destroy itself in less than an hour. Yet technology can enable human flourishing as well. For instance, I develop software professionally that I hope will help my domain (medical research) advance. How are we to understand technology, a concept as…
I studied this book with my Presbyterian Sunday School class over the summer of 2021. It contains a long prologue, seven short meditations on Jesus’ seven last words from the Cross, and an epilogue. Meacham speaks from the Christian Episcopal tradition, one that respects the Bible but does not embrace Biblical literalism. At several points, he acknowledges the “mystery” or “uncertainty” of faith. He also talks at length about the value of partaking of regular…
Albert Camus is one of my favorite literary figures of all time. I favor authors rooted in the Christian and classical literary traditions, and Camus fits this description well – even though he made no profession of faith after childhood. (Another fascinating and controversial book contends that Camus sought baptism just before his sudden death.) To me, Camus’ words capture the human condition very well. This biography, born out of college classes Meagher taught, attempts…
The American Civil War comprises one of the most complex stories in a complex nation’s almost-250-year history. Further, the Christian religion is its own complex entity, even when just restricted to the southern states. In this work, Peterson seeks to combine both subjects in a study of the work of chaplains in the Confederate armies. He does a detailed job in collecting primary sources about southern religiosity during the war. However, on the historical front,…
Please read my post on this book on the Englewood Review’s website. What Does the Bible Say About Strangers, Migrants, and Refugees?By vanThanh NguyenCopyright (c) 2021New City PressISBN13 9781565483767Page Count: 144Genre: Religion/Christianity, Sociologywww.amazon.com
To the casual observer, it has become obvious that America needs more and deeper racial education and reconciliation. Many of the efforts focus their literature on social topics like being anti-racist. In this book, Gates offers a different take – a history of African-American religion. Religion and social justice understandably intermix in this tale. He provides us with a beautiful, cogent expression of how America got to its present situation. He also offers us hope…
Theological memoirs (or memoirs in theology) have been “a thing” since St. Augustine of Hippo wrote his autobiographical and masterful Confessions in the fourth century. Butler Bass adds her voice to the mix with her story. In so doing, she hopes to encourage us to rediscover the Christian God and the Christian faith. While acknowledging the limitations of any experience-based, somewhat arbitrary categories, she organizes her work according to six personality traits of Jesus. None…
An ascetic is someone who eschews physical comforts in favor of a vivid spiritual life. Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian pastor whose books won him fame, fortune, and respect, was a modern-day ascetic. He sought to run his ministry and career in an attempt to live as a (Protestant) saint. He eschewed leading his church and his life like a business and instead favored a life away from the limelight. Collier’s biography – achieved with the…