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Movie Reviews
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Written by Ron Salfen
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Monday, 20 December 2004 12:00 |
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'Finding Neverland' is the play within the play within the play that is really about finding the magic at the heart of imagination. And, fittingly enough, it's all about believing. Johnny Depp plays J. M. Barrie, the playwright who wrote Peter Pan. It's London, 1903. The theater is the exclusive reserve of high society: reserved people in reserved seats. Barrie has enjoyed some success, but he'd not gotten in touch with his 'inner child' enough to pen the story that would immortalize him. Until he met the Davies family. The Mom (Kate Winslet) is alone with her four sons, and somewhat destitute since her husband died. Her overbearing mother (Julie Christie) provides material relief, but emotionally, she's a dead weight. She constantly fusses about discipline and responsibility, and seriousness. As if, should there be any playfulness left in them at all, it would soon be snuffed out for lack of a belief that it was important. Sort of like Tinkerbell.
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Book Reviews
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Written by Ellen Logan
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Friday, 04 June 2004 00:00 |
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Bill Coffin is a man of intrepid one-liners and steadfast, exuberant faith. "Credo, I believe," as he says in the preface of this slim volume, "best translates 'I have given my heart to.'" (p. xv). Or, I would venture, two hearts. What comes through clearly in this compilation of sentences and paragraphs is God's incredible love for us, all of us, and, in gratitude, one person's giving of his "heart to the teaching and example of Christ" (ibid).
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Book Reviews
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Written by Edwin W. Stock
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Thursday, 29 April 2004 00:00 |
By Douglas John Hall
Augsburg Fortress. 2003. 2243 pp. Pb. $17.
— Review by Edwin W. Stock, Raleigh, N.C.
The author is a Canadian Lutheran scholar whose book was first delivered in 2002 as 10 lectures at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio. It is easy to read because it has an oral style. Yet, it is scholarly as it addresses Martin Luther's "thin tradition," a theology of the cross (theologia crucis) not well known or appreciated in Reformed Calvinistic branches, whose theology begins with the foundational pillar of the Sovereignty of God.
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Book Reviews
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Written by Ralph D. Bucy
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Thursday, 11 March 2004 00:00 |
By James M. Gustafson
Augsburg Fortress. 2004. 128 pp. $15.
— Review by Ralph D. Bucy, Harrisonburg, Va. From the cowardice that dares not face new truth
From the laziness that is contented with half-truth
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth
Good Lord, deliver us. (p. vii)
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Book Reviews
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Written by Stephen R. Montgomery
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Friday, 19 December 2003 00:00 |
By Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner
WJKP. 2003. 134 pp. Pb. $14.95.
— Review by Stephen R. Montgomery, Memphis, Tenn.
It has become a cliché in book reviews to state that "this is a book that should be on every pastor’s bookshelf and every church library." In the case of Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner’s The Spirit of Adoption: At Home in God’s Family, the cliché rings true.
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Book Reviews
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Written by Louis Weeks
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Wednesday, 03 December 2003 00:00 |
By William J. Weston
Geneva. 2003. 116 pp. Pb.
— Review by Louis Weeks, Richmond, Va.
How can the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) end its fixation on the issue of whether to ordain self-avowed, practicing homosexuals? How can it become a healthy denomination, focusing on evangelism, service and mission?
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Book Reviews
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Written by Judy Haas Smith
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Sunday, 23 November 2003 00:00 |
By Margie Little Jenkins
Integrity. 227 pp. Pb. $12.99. ISBN 1-59145-013-6
— Review by — Judy Haas Smith, Bedford, Pa.
Margie Jenkins, a Presbyterian elder, has written an important book. It ranks somewhere between the first-aid manual and the phone book, and should well be in every home. With a master's degree in social work, she has specialized in grief counseling and therapy for nearly 30 years.
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Book Reviews
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Written by Robert Dunham
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Friday, 07 November 2003 00:00 |
By Charles C. Brown
Trinity Press International. 2002. 333 pp. Pb. $20. ISBN 1-56338-375-6
— Review by Robert Dunham, Chapel Hill, N.C.
A decade after publishing the acclaimed hardback edition of Charles Brown's appreciative intellectual biography of Reinhold Niebuhr, Trinity Press International has made this important work more widely available in a paperback edition, updated by the author. The timing could not have been more auspicious (nor, perhaps, intentional), given the turn of world events in recent years.
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Book Reviews
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Written by Joyce MacKichan Walker
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Thursday, 23 October 2003 00:00 |
By J. Bradley Wigger
Jossey-Bass. 2003. 224 pp. $19.95. ISBN 0-7879-5588-4
— Review by Joyce MacKichan Walker, Princeton, N.J.
"The large conviction and concern of this book is that faith empowers family life and parenting" (p. 19). So states Brad Wigger in the first chapter of The Power of God at Home, and just so does he clearly summarize the purpose and usefulness of this book for ministry to, for and with families. Who, as a Christian parent, has not struggled with how to bring into our daily conversations and living our belief that God is the ground of who we are and why we exist; that this trust is one we want our children to witness in our homes and experience for themselves?
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Book Reviews
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Written by Mary Lib Phipps
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Friday, 29 August 2003 00:00 |
By Mary Cartledgehayes
Crown. 2003. 203 pp. $23. ISBN 0-609-60834-7
— Review by Mary Lib Phipps, Cary, N.C.
Grace is an exciting story of the path one woman chose at a point in her life when it was neither easy nor logical. Mary Cartledgehayes shares an honest and beautifully expressed impression of a few different, yet exhilarating, years in her life.
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Book Reviews
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Written by Lonnie J. Oliver
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Friday, 29 August 2003 00:00 |
By Katie Geneva Cannon
Continuum. 2002. 184 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-8264-1441-9
— Review by Lonnie J. Oliver, College Park, Ga.
Teaching Preaching is a creative, fresh approach to teaching and learning preaching form a perspective that integrates the Word of God with everyday challenges and opportunities. The book's style helps the reader to affirm the African experience in America through sound theology and with a clear methodology.
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