INTERVIEWER
Do you eat fish?
MARILYN ROBINSON (PULITZER PRIZE WINNER)
I’m generally a vegetarian of the ovo-lacto type, minus the ovo, yet I’m keenly aware of the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian. When he visited Mussolini in Italy he rejected the state dinner. He didn’t drink or smoke. I hold him up as an example of how an aversion virtue can be a negative sign.
“No one seems to have noticed, that a loss of a sense of shame means a loss of privacy; a loss of privacy means a loss of intimacy; and a loss intimacy means a loss of depth. There is, in fact, no better way to produce shallow and superficial people than to let them live their lives entirely in the open, without concealment of anything.”
Theodore Dalrymple: Our Culture, What’s Left of it
(HT: Mark Sayers)
My interview with Professor Dennis Okholm on his terrific book:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/05/16/dangerous-passions-deadly-sins-by-dennis-okholm/
The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, a former slave, is well worth reading if you have not already done so. Douglass thought highly of John Brown, the firebrand abolitionist, who determined violent means were justified to achieve worthy goals. Ironically, Douglass understood something that Brown did not: the pen is mightier than the sword. Here is the commentary of Douglass upon the death of Brown:
“With the Allegheny mountains for his pulpit, the country for his church, and the whole civilized world for his audience, John Brown was a thousand times more powerful as a preacher than as a warrior.”
(As quoted in Allen Guelzo, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 118).
I am asking a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick? Here is the next installment.
Evan Hock is Pastor of Trinity Fellowship Church. We met in the early 90s during our studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Among the many things I appreciate about Evan is his wonderful wit. Here are Evan’s selections:
I am asking a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick? Here is the next installment.
I met Roger Berry about thirty years ago. At the time, he served a church in the Bay Area as a pastor of evangelism and discipleship. I was working for Campus Crusade for Christ at Stanford. Roger moved to Austin a few years before we did. Since 1993 we’ve been meeting weekly for banter, encouragement, and accountability. You will see that he likes Keller!
Here is Roger’s list:
Basic Christianity by Stott
Prodigal God by Keller
Counterfeit Gods by Keller
Reason for God by Keller
How Will You Measure Your Life by Christensen, et al.
I am asking a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick? Here is the next installment.
Next up is Michael Svigel. Michael is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. Michael has the good sense to make my wife’s book, Good Christians, Good Husbands?, required reading in his American Church History class. Here are Michael’s picks:
I am asking a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick? Here is the next installment.
Colby Kinser is a dear friend and the pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Overland Park, Kansas. Here are Colby’s selections:
Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship”
Frost’s “Exiles”
“Center Church” or “Prodigal God” by Keller (serving different purposes)
“The Forgotten God” by Chan
A good survey book of OT and NT, or a good treatment of the Bible as story
I am asking a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick? Here is the next installment.
John Mark Reynolds is a gifted academic. He is the founder of the Torrey Honors Program at Biola and currently serves as Provost of Houston Baptist University. Here is John Mark’s list:
Plato’s Republic
C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength or Abolition of Man
Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
Schmemann, For the Life of the World
Dante’s Divine Comedy