The Weekly Hit List: May 4, 2012

May 4, 2012 By

The Christian Century reviewed Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions by Arthur Boers. You must be a subscriber to read the entire review. Here is an excerpt:

“The more difficult task, however, and the one that Boers’s book mostly succeeds in provoking, is to look long and hard at ourselves, at the objects that command our attention and at the practices that make up our days. And then, after he holds up a mirror for us for a little while, Boers asks us the essential, if no longer new, questions: When do we rule our gadgets and when do they rule us? When does technology improve our lives and when does it bankrupt them? What habits might help us manage the omnipresent allures of a technological age? And what can we do if we find ourselves walking around with devices that are not, in the deepest sense of the word, working?”

Quick Hits:

The May 2012 issue of the Brazos Press newsletter, Border Crossings, has released and is available. To receive future issues in your inbox, click here to subscribe.

Peter Enns (author of The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins) was interviewed on Christian.co.uk for what he “thinks about Adam and why it matters one way or the other.”

Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good was reviewed by Tony Dickinson.

David G. Benner’s Spirituality and the Awakening Self: The Sacred Journey of Transformation was featured in the May list of resources in The Mennonite: “Benner shows that the  transformation of self is foundational to Christian spirituality.”

Christian Smith’s The  Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture was reviewed by Charlie Dean on his blog. “If you think deeply about faith, theology and particularly the Bible, you’ll really want to read this book – and better yet, discuss it with a few people.”

Nathaniel Claiborne reviewed Proverbs & Ecclesiastes (part of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series) by Daniel J. Treier on his blog.

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The Weekly Hit List: March 15, 2012

March 15, 2012 By

On the “Jesus Creed” blog, RJS posted the final blog entry of a series on Peter Enns’s The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins.

In a post titled “So How Then Should We Think About Adam?,” RJS concludes:

“The last two paragraphs of the concluding chapter are in many ways the best part of the book, a confession of faith and a vision of hope for the future.  Buy the book to read them (and the rest). The Evolution of Adam is not the last word on any of the questions of Adam, evolution, sin, or death. But it is an important contribution to the discussion.”

In case you missed it, the good folks at ‘Homebrewed Christianity’ posted a podcast interview with Peter Enns on The Evolution of Adam. It is a great discussion, and you can listen to the entire thing here.

Speaking of good folks, The Englewood Review of Books posted a review of The Evolution of Adam. Read it here.

Recently featured in the Patheos.com Book Club, Arthur Boers’s Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions has garnered a lot of attention. Here are some recent blog reviews:

Kurt Willems – “Watching Our Distractions”

“Happy Little Homemaker” Blog - ‘Living Into Focus  {Book Review}’

Carl Gregg – “‘Sorry I’ve Been Busy!’ How to Bring Your Life Back Into Focus”

 

 

Cross-Shattered Christ Giveaway

Congratulations to Chad Shively, Vanessa Small, C.C. Almon, Keith Clark, and Emily Plovick – they have each won a copy of Stanley Hauerwas’s Cross-Shattered Christ.

For more on this book, click here.

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The Weekly Hit List: March 2, 2012

March 2, 2012 By

Arthur Boers’ Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions was reviewed in the Englewood Review of Books.

They said:

“Boers takes a balanced look at technology, recommending not technological asceticism, but a critical look at how technology affects our attention, relationships, and time, our ability to place limits on our use and our possible addiction, and the way technology keeps us from being connected to our neighborhoods and environment. Here, again, Boers takes a practice-centered view, asking us to examine the consequences of our current practices and recommends alternative practices, such as the spiritual practice of consciousness examen and reclaiming sabbath, to counteract our distracting practices.”

Read the entire review here.

The past two weeks Living Into Focus has been featured in the Patheos.com Book Club. This has led to wonderful discussion and engagement with Boers’s book. Be sure to check it out.

On the “Jesus Creed” blog, RJS continued blogging on Peter Enns’s The Evolution of Adam in a post titled “Paul’s (First Century) Use of Scripture”.

Other bloggers have recently engaged with Enns’s book. Here are a few highlights:

Imago Dei Blog: “Some Visual Layouts”

Otagosh Blog: Part 1 and Part 2

Xenos Blog: “Adam and Paul”

Spirituality and the Awakening Self Giveaway

Congratulations to Terrance Tiessen, Edmund Fearon, Glenn Davis, Lesley Brighting, and Mark Lentz!

They have each won a copy of David Brenner’s Brazos book Spirituality and the Awakening Self: The Sacred Journey of Transformation.

Check back on Monday for our next Brazos Blog giveaway.

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Living Into Focus Book Club

February 29, 2012 By

A terrific conversation has been going on concerning Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters In An Age of Distractions at the Patheos Book Club. In an early post, Arthur Boers challenged us to think of focal practices that are meaningful and life-giving to us.

He writes:

“It’s a cliché now to talk about how quickly New Year’s resolutions break down. It’s often just too hard to impose and live by restrictions. Oughts, musts, and shoulds are all important, no doubt about that, but I for one do not find them very motivating.

Naming and honoring what gives one life is far more attractive and winsome. So, choose life.”

(Read the entire post here).

Various bloggers have responded to Arthur’s call and written about their own focal practices:

“Our Blessing, Our Curse” by Anna Quinn

“What Is Your Focal Practice?” by Jen Steed

“Grandparenting as a Focal Practice” by Bruce Epperly

To read more, or to share your own focal practice, be sure to check out the Book Club at Patheos.com.

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The Weekly Hit List: February 24, 2012

February 24, 2012 By

Arthur Boers’ Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions is currently a part of the Patheos.com Book Club.

There has been some wonderful interactions with the book and interesting input on “focal practices” by Dr. Boers and others.

Here are some highlights:

“Choosing What Matters: An Interview with Arthur Boers” by Deborah Arca

“Today’s Focal Practice: Eating Together” by Arthur Boers

“Grandparenting as a Focal Spiritual Practice” by Bruce Epperly

Check out the conversation – and even add your own “focal practice” in the Book Club Roundtable.

Rachel Held Evans wrote another entry in her series on Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible.

She writes:

“Maybe it’s just because I’ve lived in the Bible Belt my whole life, but when Smith writes that,  among evangelicals, Jesus often gets ‘sidelined by the interest in defending every proposition and account as inerrant, universally applicable, contemporarily applicable, and so on in ways that try to make the faith “relevant” for everyday concerns,’ I totally get it.”

 

On the “Jesus Creed” blog, RJS wrote another great post on Peter Enns’ The Evolution of Adam titled “Is the Adam of Genesis Not Paul’s Adam”:

“The approach taken by Enns here will no doubt stretch the thinking of many. To make his point more clearly Enns moves on in the next chapter to take a careful look at the way Paul used the Hebrew Scriptures in his writing and in his arguments. We’ll look at this in the next post.”

Spirituality and the Awakening Self Giveaway

For our current giveaway, five winners will receive a copy of David Benner’s new Brazos book Spirituality and the Awakening Self: The Sacred Journey of Transformation.

To enter, click here.

Winners will be announced in next week’s Hit List.

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Today’s Focal Practice: Walking

February 22, 2012 By

As part of the conversation on Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters In An Age of Distractions at the Patheos Book Club, we asked Arthur Boers to reflect on some specific practices that give him life. First up: walking.

“You walked in this weather?” people often ask me, as if walking is only pleasurable in a congenial climate. Will Ferguson a Canadian humorist once walked 500 miles in Ireland and when he grew frustrated with the perpetual precipitation, he was often told: “There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Or, as I once heard somewhere, only drivers complain about weather. So, yes, chances are I did walk “in this weather,” whether it was hot or cold, dry or wet, sunny or cloudy. Why not? Walking gives me life. (Read the rest at Patheos).

 Also, be sure to check out Bruce Epperly’s contribution to the Living Into Focus Roundtable: “Grandpareting as a Focal Spiritual Practice.”

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The Weekly Hit List: February 17, 2012

February 17, 2012 By

Frank Viola posted an interview with Christian Smith about The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture on his blog.

Read the entire interview here.

Rachel Held Evans continued to blog through Smith’s book with a post titled “Is there a difference between a ‘Christian worldview’ and a ‘biblical worldview’?”

Nita Steiner is also blogging through The Bible Made Impossible. Check out her latest post here.

On the “Jesus Creed” blog, RJS posted two entries this week that engaged Peter Enns’s The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins:

“YHWH is Creator and Redeemer, But is Adam Israel?”

“Out of Egypt? … Say What?”

Living Into Focus Giveaway

Congratulations to Linda Sheppard, Glen McCullough, Dan Brubacher, Wes Horn, and Andrew Keuer!

They have each won a copy of Arthur Boers’s new book Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions.

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Name One Thing That Gives You Life

February 15, 2012 By

Today we kick off a two-week feature on Arthur Boer’s Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters In An Age of Distractions over at Patheos.com in their Book Club Section.

At Patheos you can find an excerpt from the book, author Q&A, and more.

Start by checking out this original article by Boers on “Life-Giving Practices: Identifying What Matters Most.”

Intrigued? Then think about what gives you life, and submit your thoughts (300 to 500 words) to Patheos (books@patheos.com) for possible inclusion on Patheos in their roundtable discussion on this book (and for a chance to get a free book).

 

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The Weekly Hit List: February 11, 2012

February 11, 2012 By

Peter Enns’s new Brazos book The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins has received a lot of attention this week. Here are links to some blogs that have engaged with this book:

Ben Irwin’s Blog – Part 1   Part 2

DavidTLamb. com

A Biologist’s View of Science & Religion

“RJS” posted two more entries for the “Jesus Creed” Blog:

“What About Enuma Elish and Other ANE Myths?” and “Adam and Atrahasis“

Be Not Afraid: Facing Fear with Faith by Samuel Wells was reviewed by Church Times. The reviewer writes:

“My advice to readers is to take these essays one at a time and let them sink in. They are not the sort of pieces that demand, or even allow of, argumentative analysis — or, at least, not before their point has gone home. I got something from each. I specially profited from “Loving Yourself” and “The Discipline of Joy”. But there is much to value, not least in the biblical expositions, particularly of Old Testament stories.”

Read the entire review here.


Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible was featured in another post by Rachel Held Evans. She writes:

“While Smith does not question the inspiration and authority of Scripture, he questions attempts to reduce the Bible to a ‘blueprint for living’ with a simplistic attitude that begins with, ‘God said it, I believe it, that settles it.’ Instead, Smith argues that ‘Jesus Christ is the true and final Word of God, in relation to whom scripture is God’s secondary, written word of witness and testimony.’”

Her post is called “God Hates Cretans? (and other passages of Scripture we’d rather not talk about)”.

Living Into Focus Book Giveaway

If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our latest giveaway – Living Into Focus by Arthur Boers.

From Publishers Weekly:

“Boers offers a needed antidote to the way of life he maintains has hijacked our humanity: technology addiction. A Benedictine oblate, the author summons readers to become intentional about habits that will cost something–write a letter instead a shoot off an email–rather than default continually to the path of least resistance and pick up the TV remote.”

To enter the giveaway, click here.

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Giveaway: Arthur Boers’s Living Into Focus

February 8, 2012 By

We are very excited about Arthur Boers’s new Brazos book Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions.

For our next giveaway, we will be handing out five copies of the book.

About the book:

In today’s high-speed culture, there’s a prevailing sense that we are busier than ever before and that the pace of life is too rushed. Most of us can relate to the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time for the people and things we value most. We feel fragmented, overwhelmed by busyness and the tyranny of gadgets.

Veteran pastor and teacher Arthur Boers offers a critical look at the isolating effects of modern life that have eroded the centralizing, focusing activities that people used to do together. He suggests ways to make our lives healthier and more rewarding by presenting specific individual and communal practices that help us focus on what really matters. These practices–such as shared meals, gardening, hospitality, walking, prayer, and reading aloud–bring our lives into focus and build community. The book includes questions for discernment and application.
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Enter here:

This giveaway has ended.

Winners will be announced on the Feb. 17 Weekly Hit List

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