Resources on Book Reviews
Booknote: “Meditations on Preaching” by Francis James Grimké
First year students at Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson are introduced to the remarkable life, ministry, and writings of Francis James Grimké through Thabiti Anywabile’s The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors. Born in 1850 to a white South Carolina plantation owner and slave mother, Grimké lost his father at an early age and, along with him, the protective care that sheltered him from some of the inherent brutality of the slave system. After escaping the cruelty of a white half-brother, he was recaptured and sold to a Confederate officer. After emancipation, Grimké proved himself a gifted and industrious student, graduating from Lincoln University and, later, Princeton Theological Seminary. At Princeton, he was among the last of Charles…
Read MoreWhen I finish a book, I add it to my list of books read. At the end of this post are the books I completed in 2017. The year was marked by celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Although I’ve used it as a reference and resource for lectures on the English Reformation, until now, I had never made time to read from cover to cover Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation: A History. Perhaps there’s a more comprehensive single-volume work on the Reformation, but I’m not aware of it. Over the past several decades, a number of young and intelligent Reformed folk have left Protestantism for Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Their concern is the shallowness of Protestant worship and…
Read MoreFor the next nine weeks, Lynne teaches again one of her favorite books, The Iliad, this time at Manchester Academy. I enjoy the new purchases that crop up around our home. I owe my love of The Iliad to one man, Dr. John Reishman, one of the outstanding literature professors at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Until his class, I don’t recall reading a work of ancient Greek literature, and, had I made the attempt, the ability to navigate the text would have been sorely lacking. I needed a teacher, and found one in Dr. Reishman. Since then, I have read The Iliad several times in the translations of Fitzgerald, Lattimore, and Fagles, and a very small portion…
Read MoreMy father established a nightly routine for me that continues to shape my life today. After supper from 1963 to 1969, we sat side-by-side on the couch and watched the evening news, either the Huntley-Brinkley Report or Walter Cronkite. During those years, I was exposed to people and events that would remain life-long interests: the space program (I loved watching the Mercury and Gemini launches), the war in Vietnam (with its tragic tallies of killed, wounded, and missing), political races (the first I remember is the 1966 Callaway/Maddox Georgia gubernatorial contest), and the civil rights movement. I was sitting next to my father when I learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April 1968. The Atlanta church we…
Read MoreMy interest in America’s Pacific War (1941-1945) began in elementary school. One of our readers included the story of Jimmy Doolittle’s Tokyo Raid. I was captivated by the stunning story of 16 Army B-25 Mitchells that were outfitted for this unique objective and flown by specially trained crews. Launched from an American aircraft carrier that had slipped to within several hundred miles of Japan’s coast, the odds of survival were slim. Theirs was a no-return mission. After dropping their bombs, the crews headed for destinations in China and Russia, harrowing escape attempts that led to freedom for some, and prison, torture, and death for others. Doolittle’s Raid came less than six months after Pearl Harbor. The enemy was caught off guard and…
Read MoreThe books I completed during 2016: Jason Roberts, A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became the World’s Greatest Traveler J.I. Packer, Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J.C. Ryle (including the full text of the first edition of Ryle’s, Holiness) C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism Sarah L. Delaney and A. Elizabeth Delaney with Amy Hill Hearth, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters First 100 Years John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (part 1) Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors Warren and David Wiersbe, Ministering to the Mourning: A Practical Guide for Pastors, Church Leaders, and Other…
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