Rachel Held Evans concluded her blog series on Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. Her final post is titled “Taking the Bible seriously means embracing its tension and complexity.”

She writes:

“And so, for me, leaving behind biblicism and embracing the ambiguity, tension, and nuance of Scripture has been both frightening and liberating. I no longer live with the security of having a simple, infallible blueprint for living…but I no longer live in fear and denial when the Bible turns out to be difficult to understand and apply.”

On the “Jesus Creed” blog, RJS continued to post on Peter Enns’s The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins.

In “Paul’s Adam and the Gospel,” RJS writes:

“This chapter raises many important questions we could discuss. There are no easy answers I fear. A simple retreat to an ancient understanding of human origins, neglecting the persuasive evidence for an old earth, evolution, and common descent, is an option an increasing number of us find untenable. The way forward requires that we wrestle with both the science and the theology.”

The blog “Scripture Views” also posted on Enns’s book. Read the review here.

Tim Høiland posted a review of Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good.

He writes:

“Volf goes on to say that faith shouldn’t be idle, but active in all spheres of life, though it must not be coercive either. As Christians, he says that we can bring a unique vision of human flourishing and the common good to the public square, along with the resources to realize it. Even so, we must grant to other religious and political groups whatever rights we claim for ourselves.”

Back in January the Sojourners blog posted a review of Brian Walsh’s Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination. Since it never appeared on The Weekly Hit List, we wanted to highlight it now.

The reviewer, Steve Stockman, writes:

“Kick[ing] at the Darkness gave me a refresher course in my Christian worldview. It led me into theological thinking and inspired me to imagine the way the world is — and how the world can be — and how, as a preacher, I can at least attempt to share those thoughts in ways that are perhaps a percentage as creative and imaginative as Bruce Cockburn.”

Hauerwas’s Cross-Shattered Christ Giveaway

Don’t forget about our current book giveaway for Lent. You can enter to win a copy of Stanley Hauerwas’s Cross-Shattered Christ from the Brazos Blog.

To enter, fill out the form here.