Dr. Timothy Johnson, “Finding God in the Questions”

The author is the ABC News physician and journalist (like Luke!).  This is a very ambitious book, and generally quite good, marred only by a little political correctness and quickness to criticize religious conservatives and the rich (but I shouldn’t overstate that:  on the big questions, he comes down the right way, believing in God, … [Read more…]

Charles Stanley, “How to Listen to God”

“Not bad,” I wrote in my notebook after reading this book.  It’s not brilliant, but straightforward, well-organized, and generally believable. As you’d guess from the title, there’s lots on prayer and meditation and their importance.  He advises, for one thing, just to be quiet and clear your mind.  I especially liked his discussion of how … [Read more…]

Ravi Zacharias, “The Grand Weaver”

Mr. Zacharias is a good man, but I was disappointed in this book.  It’s not heretical or wrong — just not persuasive or on point.  And he doesn’t really deliver on what’s promised in the secondary title, “How God Shapes Us through the Events of Our Lives,” namely how God weaves our destiny, etc.  He … [Read more…]

Robert Alter, “The Book of Psalms”

The secondary title is “A Translation with Commentary,” and that’s what it is:  You read the translated psalm, and then the author’s footnotes explicate the psalm and also explain some of his translation decisions.  The commentary is succinct and incisive, neither philosophical nor roaming. The author is quite an accomplished scholar, and he takes the … [Read more…]

Terence E. Fretheim, “The Pentateuch”

The author is “a Christian and a Lutheran” (37). The discussion in chapter one of ways to read the text is interesting and thought-provoking (some politically correct elements creep in, though).  He makes the point that the themes in Genesis cannot be forgotten in interpreting Exodus and the rest of the Pentateuch.  Wikipedia, by the … [Read more…]

P.G. Wodehouse, “The Mating Season”

This is a stretch, but I’m a Wodehouse fan, so I thought I’d note that in this book he pokes fun at Constable Dobbs, who reads Robert G. Ingersoll, an American agnostic.  I’ll also note that elsewhere Jeeves observes that Nietzsche is “fundamentally unsound” (from the short story “Jeeves Takes Charge,” later included in the … [Read more…]

Dorothy L. Sayers, “The Mind of the Maker”

Sayers was a British contemporary of C.S. Lewis’s, and a Christian fellow traveler who is well thought of by many conservatives and Christians. This book is all right, but I have to say that based on it I’m not so impressed that I’m inclined to read her systematically.  She is sometimes obscure, and sometimes overreaches. … [Read more…]