From the category archives:

What I’m Reading

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Atheist Delusions

November 4, 2010

Here’s an extended excerpt from David Bentley Hart’s excellent book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. It is well worth reading the entire book, but this particular section — in chapter one, which is called “The Gospel of Unbelief” — helps to remind us that a so-called purely secular world might not, in [...]

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The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith

February 4, 2010

In the decade before he wrote The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg spoke to “more than two hundred Christian groups throughout North America.” Originally invited as a historical Jesus scholar, he writes that these talks inevitably moved to “larger questions of the Christian life: God, faith, the Bible, biblical authority, atonement, resurrection, the creed, prayer, [...]

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Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

January 28, 2010

Medical prescriptions often include warnings about repeated use: Repeated use may cause insomnia, for example. Or breathing problems. Maybe seizures. Possibly hallucinations. At least with medications we’re given fair warning. The language we use every day, on the other hand, doesn’t come with similar cautions. And it’s a pity, because the repeated use of words [...]

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Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

January 19, 2010

The date was October 31. The year 1512. A few days earlier, Michelangelo had completed the masterpiece he had been working on for the prior four years and four weeks – the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Now it was time to celebrate. Pope Julius II had been hosting a banquet for [...]

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Alphabet Juice

January 14, 2010

The title alone is remarkable: Alphabet Juice – The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory. It’s by Roy Blount Jr., who will be familiar to anyone who listens to National [...]

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Wolf Hall

December 23, 2009

I just finished Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, a work of historical fiction that recounts the events leading up to the English Reformation through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who served as one of Henry VIII’s closest advisors. In probably the most famous retelling of this story – Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, which [...]

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Team of Rivals

November 5, 2009

I just finished Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It is an astonishing reminder of Lincoln’s capacity to weather the difficulties and trials of the nation during the Civil War, while dealing compassionately and patiently with the egos and political aspirations of those around him. Earlier this summer, I [...]

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