Note: I received a review copy of this title from the publisher. Over the years, I’m sad to say that parts of my undergraduate experience have sloughed off, scoured away by the pressures of life. But I doubt I’ll ever forget Dr. Mark Talbot, my sophomore-year philosophy professor. He’d broken his back at the age…
Evangelicals like to say they love the Inklings, that group of Oxford-associated authors who produced lots of narrative-friendly prose during the 1940s. But do something for me, would you? Name as many of them as you can. I suspect that most can readily recall C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and probably a few will cite…
Note: I received a review copy of this title from the authors. As an undergraduate, I studied literature, immersing myself in the tortuous metaphors of John Donne, the heartrending tragedies of Shakespeare, and the philosophical piety of Dostoevsky. I love how a talented author can make my heart sing with only twenty-six letters and a…
People have all sorts of different college experiences. Some party. Some make lifelong friends. Some lose themselves in obscure political causes. But me? I spent a disproportionate period of my higher education lugging around Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, a nigh-thirteen-hundred-page tome that I eventually came to call The Big Blue Doorstop. My family’s denominational heritage…
I’m not exactly proud of this, but I think it’s time I finally copped to it: I got my six-year-old addicted to video games. Ironically enough, I was six myself when I got my first real taste of electronic entertainment. The original King’s Quest made my Apple IIe’s floppy drive shudder as though suffering from…
If you’re a doctrinally focused type (and I definitely deserve that descriptor), then picking a children’s Bible for bedtime reading can be a chore. Bad options abound, books that are either too twee or too serious. Too old-fashioned or too progressive. Too doctrinal or too loose with essentials. Too … well, you get the idea….
Note: I received a review copy of this title from the publisher. Over the years, I’m sad to say that parts of my undergraduate experience have sloughed off, scoured away by the pressures of life. But I doubt I’ll ever forget Dr. Mark Talbot, my sophomore-year philosophy professor. He’d broken his back at the age…
Anyone remember Beverly Cleary’s celebrated series of Ramona novels? The eight books centering on the childhood of one Ramona Quimby captured my attention early. I remember reading about Ramona’s sister Beezus arguing with her mother as to whether or not they’d made a wrong turn in the car. I remember how Ramona squeezed an entire…
You’ve got to hand it to Andrew Peterson: The man isn’t afraid to take a risk. I first saw Peterson perform at Wheaton College’s Edman Chapel, a venue we fondly termed The Big Blue Cave. Few musicians seemed to be able to handle its cavernous acoustics, but I remember how Peterson filled the venue with…
I’ve never despised electronic books. Let me make that clear from the outset. Yes, I remember expressing some ambivalence when e-books started becoming mainstream. After all, I have chronic dry eyes spend most days staring at a screen for hours on end. Still, I’ve almost come to prefer pixels over paper in recent years. Thanks…
Over time, families develop their own private mythology, so to speak. Down the weeks and months and years, distinctive metaphors and figures of speech start to accrete around the ordinary stuff of life. For instance, when dealing with the emotional ups and downs that came with caring for a chronically ill family member, we would…
It’s 7:34 p.m., and I’m tired. My day is nearing the 14-hour mark. There are still dishes to be done, checkbooks to be balanced, and shirts to be folded. But first, I need to brush my oldest’s teeth. The pediatric dentist has told us that while kids can technically manage their own oral hygiene by…
