Can't Change the World? You Can Still Be Faithful.

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Impossible Christianity isn’t DeYoung’s sexiest work. It is clearly and solidly written. It can be read in a couple of hours or subdivided to be consumed over a few days. It tends to be more sermonic than ground-breaking. Nevertheless, it is a good and helpful book.

This is the sort of book that would be a great gift for the struggling parent of young children wondering how the treadmill of dishes, laundry, activities, and meals could matter in eternity. This is the sort of book that can serve as a reminder to those who are not leading ministries that their contributions are vitally important. Impossible Christianity offers a kind word for those who are struggling to find meaning in the repetition of daily life. As such, it is a valuable book for the church.

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How the West Got WEIRDER

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For Americans the year 1776 has legendary status. It is, of course, the year that the Continental Congress declared the United States independent from the colonial power of Britian.

As it turns out, the year was actually globally significant in a number of other ways. The Industrial Revolution was getting into full swing, there were a number of significant philosophical movements afoot whose effects we are still discovering today.

Andrew Wilson’s book, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West is an attempt to bring many of those streams together to help explain how the world got turned upside down.

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The Blessing of a Limited Life

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Guardrails keep us on the pathway. They prevent us from falling off the cliff. They give us comfort that, though the paneling on our car may be damaged, if we slip on the icy road, yet we will not die.

A mountain road without those guardrails leaves us with a much greater fear. And that fear brings with it a greater pain. We experience that pain whether or not the worst happens, because we know there is a much higher likelihood that it will.

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Education as Moral Formation

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More than a decade into our home education experience, Macauley’s book fairly represents what we have been trying to do. I commend For the Children’s Sake to parents trying to figure out how to make a choice about educational methodologies. The Charlotte Mason approach is worth consideration, at least.

Macauley is realistic about the approach. She repeatedly notes areas in which she didn’t always get it right, because any educational process entails imperfect humans helping imperfect humans to learn. But she also provides illustrations of ways that her chosen approach can be self-correcting.

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Freedom and the Costs of Technology

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As a society, we need to think about the costs that technological expectations place on all of us. We need to think about how poor infrastructure exacts a permanent tax on each household. It may be that costly bike/walking trails and real bike lanes on roads could open up opportunities for reduced economic burdens in the long run. It may be that the cost of printing hard copies of things and not using the latest whizz-bang app could lower entry requirements for society.

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School and Wonder at God's Creation

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Whether we are studying the interaction of heavenly bodies, the multiplication tables, or the differences between a noun and a pronoun, we should never cease to consider the big picture. The God who created all things did so with order and continues to maintain the world in that order. Our response should be wonder at the works of his hands and a desire to understand his handiwork better.

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What Is the Greatest Threat to the Church?

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It would be interesting to see the results of a “person on the street” poll of self-identified evangelical Christians on the question, “What is the most significant threat to the church?”

I have a sneaking suspicion that the results would be much more indicative of the sources of media is most popular among the surveyed population than a real threat. Is the biggest threat CRT (are we even talking about that anymore?), “wokeism” (whatever that is), the effects of the sexual revolution, corporate greed and capitalism, political and social persecution of Christians, sexual abuse?

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Love Never Fails, Even if Memories Do

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This is a book that offers encouragement to those early in their Alzheimer’s journey. There is dignity for those who suffer from the malady. Subtly, Martin encourages readers to examine the assumption that we are our memories and that we cease to be who we are as a result of cognitive decline. Kathleen’s distinct personality remains with her to the end; that offers hope for all parties in the face of diagnosis.

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