We now proceed down the hallway to the second chapter of N.T. Wright’s book, Surprised By Scripture. The question posed here concerns whether we really need a historical Adam, and the answer, as far as I can make out, is no, probably not. At the end of his reasoning, Wright says, “I do not know …
Gautama and the Ant War
It has been a while, I might note, since I have worked through a book, chapter-by-chapter. Even though no one has been clamoring for it, they ought to have been, and so here I am with another one. The book I have selected was just released by HarperOne, and is N.T. Wright’s latest — Surprised …
Book of the Month/June 2014
This book is why God gave us scholars. The connection between evolutionary Darwinism and “scientific” racism is a straight line connection, and Richard Weikart draws it carefully. Weikart handles sensational material, but does not do so in a sensationalistic way. He produces so many damning quotes he has to deliver them with a forklift. But …
Saved By the Bell
I didn’t want to read Piketty’s book Capital, and probably wouldn’t have, but now comes a development that removes every trace of all my guilt and shame. I didn’t want to read it because he believes in way-progressive tax rates, which is grabby, grabby, grabby, and grabby, grabby, grabby is contrary to the spirit of …
Book of the Month/May 2014
These are the best of times and the worst of times, to coin a phrase. For conservatives, I mean. These are the worst of times because a dedicated band of people is doing quite a demolition job on the republic, and it really takes a lot of work to get that much damage done. Impressive, …
Not Cool at All
I just recently finished reading Not Cool by Greg Gutfeld. It is a book filled with astounding insights and unnecessary crassness, and all from someone who describes himself as a “troubled agnostic.” Gutfeld sees, as few other people do, that our politics is a matter of preening, and that the whole country is a maladministered …
Book of the Month/April 2014
I have been blessed by David Wells for many years. This book, God in the Whirlwind, is the capstone of a particular writing project, one that began with No Place for Truth. I read that book in 1994, and have been faithfully reading his other contributions as they came out. The other books, well worth …
Book of the Month/March 2014
This small accessible book is a very sane and very good introduction to a much controverted subject. I write this review as an observer of rap, and admittedly not as a devotee. In fact, I recently told a friend that if I write about it too much, I will undoubtedly commit a howler or two, …
Book of the Month/February 2014
I have enjoyed Virginia Postrel’s writing for years. Her first book, The Future and Its Enemies, was a great treatment of our modern Luddites, our quasi-Luddites, our neo-Luddites, and our Luddites in denial. It was really good. In The Substance of Style, she showed an acute aesthetic sense in her survey of modern technology and …
Book of the Month/January 2014
Charles Krauthammer has noted, more than once, and I have quoted him, I also think more than once, that liberals don’t care what you do, so long as it is mandatory. This coercive spirit driving them applies to everything, and what once used to be used as a reductio ad absurdum in our debates with …