Christopher B. Wolf. Giving Faith a Second Chance: Restarts, Mulligans, & Do-Overs. FaithWalk, 2007. 192 pp.
An appeal to those who have felt betrayed by organized religion to give faith a second chance.
There is a perception by millions that the church doesn’t care about them and is only trying to recruit them to build its numbers. This has left many to feel forsaken by the church and, as a result, a distance from God with no compelling reason to return to the church. In this book a young pastor extends his outstretched hand to those who have left the church, acknowledging their feelings of alienation, to walk with them in their search to find a way back to God.
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Christopher Hitchens. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hachette, 2007. 307 pp.
In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos.
With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
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Ray Comfort. What Did Jesus Do? A Call to Return to the Biblical Gospel. Genesis, 2005. 176 pp.
What Did Jesus Do? A Call to Return to the Biblical Gospel answers the skeptic’s question “Where is the Law used evangelistically?” The cynic will be surprised to find that three chapters of this book are devoted to Jesus and His use of the Ten Commandments to reach the lost. Two chapters are devoted to Paul’s evangelistic use of the Law. Paul imitated Jesus. So did Stephen, James, Peter, John the Baptist, and Jude. So did Spurgeon, Wesley, Whitefield, and others down through the ages. Each of these men of God did what Jesus did: they used the Law to reach the lost.
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Mark DeVine. Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: Following Jesus at All Costs. B&H, 2005. 179 pp.
Imprisoned and eventually executed for his opposition to Hitler’s regime, the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer continues to fascinate and inspire Christians across the world. His life epitomizes authenticity, commitment, and sacrifice. Devine writes, “When a man willingly exposes himself to suffering and death for his faith and for others, we take notice and with good reason. While martyrdom neither proves nor produces a spiritual giant, the possibility does arise, and this piques a distinctive longing common to followers of Jesus Christ.”
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Mac Brunson & Ergun Caner. Why Churches Die: Diagnosing Lethal Poisons in the Body of Christ. B&H, 2005. 216 pp.
We are all too aware of the damage poisons can have on our bodies. These ailments find their way into us, invading us, infecting us, and spreading throughout us until the illness is felt all over. There are spiritual poisons that work this way as well, except these ailments invade another kind of body-the spiritual body of Christ. Like the diseases of our physical bodies, these diseases slow the body down, crippling it to function at less than capacity. They limit what the body can do and the effectiveness it can have. If not treated, these diseases can lead to death.
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Richard D. Phillips & Shannon L. Phillips. Holding Hands, Holding Hearts: Recovering a Biblical View of Christian Dating. P&R, 2006. 184 pp.
What does the Bible say about dating? Nothing. And Everything!
This book offers a biblical view of relationships and provides insight on issues of commitment, attraction, and more.
When you date someone, you’re more than just holding another’s hands; you’re holding that person’s heart.
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Robert Royal. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West. Encounter, 2006. 280 pp.
Secular humanists and other progressives have been predicting the demise of religion for the past 250 years. But they keep running into a problem—those who were supposed to be liberated by secular gospel that God Is Dead aren’t buying it. Why not? Since the Greeks and Romans, as Robert Royal explains, religion has nurtured the development of the individual and of Western culture itself. Christianity and Judaism collaborated to create a dialogue between faith and reason that determined the history of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, and several Enlightenments, including our current postmodern moment. Royal concludes that modern democratic societies are intimately tied to a Christian view of the dignity of the human person and the health and survival of free institutions.
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Eddie Gibbs. Leadership Next: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture. IVP, 2005. 237 pp.
Our culture is constantly changing, often faster than we can adapt to it. Christian leaders struggle not only to acquire new skills and insights but also to unlearn what they already know. As both the church and the world change, so too must Christian leaders and their very notions of leadership.
Veteran church growth expert Eddie Gibbs maps out how Christian leadership must change in light of new global realities. Styles of leadership are changing, from hierarchies to networks and from compartmentalization to connectivity. Gibbs assesses the dynamics of leadership teams, identifies healthy leadership traits, and looks to how new leaders are identified and developed. This incisive analysis is a comprehensive resource for current and emerging leaders serving in churches, parachurch organizations and beyond.
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James Emery White. Serious Times: Making Your Life Matter in an Urgent Day. IVP, 2005. 192 pp.
How can we make our lives matter?
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson lived in serious times. And, because they chose to live serious lives, they turned the course of history.
As the modern era transitions into postmodern turbulence, we, too, find ourselves in serious times. How can we make a difference in the world around us? How can we be an influence for Christ? Most important, how can we make our lives matter?
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Ray S. Anderson. An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches. IVP, 2006. 236 pp.
If the emerging church movement is looking for a theology, Ray Anderson offers clear and relevant theological guidance for it in this timely book.
Reaching back through time, Anderson roots an emergent theology in what happened at Antioch, where Saul (Paul) and Barnabas were set apart for a mission to establish churches outside of Jerusalem–among Gentiles who had to be reached in their own cultures. He shows how the Lord Holy Spirit himself revolutionized and inspired how the message of salvation was offered to others, and provided a model to follow.
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