Posts about books that I’ve read.
I was googling “best gospel books” or something like that and, lo and behold, I found the subject of this blog post, namely Leo Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief. My thought then was, well, Tolstoy was one of the great writers of all time, and a committed Christian, and so it would make a lot … [Read more…]
I’ve discussed here on this blogsite my suggestion that the Lord’s Prayer is structured as a chiasm, including an argument that the center of the Prayer (promising that we will forgive others) is especially important, as is characteristic of chiasms. So I wanted to note that I recently discovered that it is commonly noted that … [Read more…]
Is There a God? I have some good news for you, gentle reader: I can recommend to you a wonderful apologetics book by a distinguished Oxford philosophy professor, it’s only 123 pages long, and you can read it right now for free since the whole book is online here [link: https://ia801904.us.archive.org/13/items/RichardSwinburne/RichardSwinburne-IsThereAGod.pdf ]. I was led … [Read more…]
The last letter that the apostle Paul wrote was likely Second Timothy, and on the last page of the current issue of Touchstone magazine there is a thoughtful column about it (Patrick Henry Reardon, “As It Is Written …: The Library Left Behind,” Touchstone, July/August 2024, at 56; here’s the link). The column focuses, in … [Read more…]
Joseph Epstein is what used to be called, and I guess still is, a “man of letters.” That is, he is a writer of his own books, essays, and shorter pieces, on a wide variety of nonscientific subjects, as well as a literary critic. If you’ve run across him lately, it’s probably through short columns … [Read more…]
These two books were cited in one of the extensive (and valuable) endnotes in the excellent Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald T. Tacelli. Since the two were mentioned together and cover similar subject matter, but with each taking — as Kreeft and Tacelli put it — “a very different view,” I thought … [Read more…]
John Knox (c. 1514-1572) was a Scottish minister and Reformed theologian, who was a leader in his country’s Reformation and, indeed, the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. This book is one of the “Long Line of Godly Men Profile” series, other titles of which I’ve also reviewed on this blogsite. The idea of … [Read more…]
This is a very engaging book, with an exciting premise: It imagines what it would be like if St. Paul and the prophet Muhammad were to have a formal debate on whether or not Jesus was resurrected (!). The idea is that MIT has been able to create two opposing lifelike holograms that, by computers … [Read more…]
I’m a fan of Professor Peter Kreeft’s, put this book on my Christmas list, and (thanks, kids!) received it. I read it right away, and it’s short (93 pages) and sweet. And I’m happy to begin a Happy New Year for readers with a work that focuses on a happy topic. The first part of … [Read more…]
This is a good book, and an unusual one. Its core idea is how to present a rather specific apologetic argument. The first part lays out that argument in some detail, and the remainder focuses principally on responding to various objections. Woven in throughout are pointers on effective, person-to-person evangelism. Hence the book’s epigraph: “Be … [Read more…]