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book Reviews
Reviews from Reform
Jesus' Parables
About Making Choices by James Moore, published by Dimensions for Living
£5.99
If You Could Ask
God One Question by Paul Williams and Barry Cooper, published by Good
Book Company £4.99
James Moore's
short book, Jesus' Parables About Making Choices, comes with the clue to
its intentions inscribed on the back: "New Testament/Christian Living...
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Cromwell and
Scotland: Conquest and Religion 1650-1660 by R Scott Spurlock, published
by John Donald, £25
The story of
religious life in 17th century Scotland is generally told as an epic
struggle between Presbyterianism and Episcopacy. It is a measure of
Scott Spurlock's...
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Everyday
Hospitality: Simple Steps to Cultivating a Welcoming Heart
By Thea Jarvis,
published by Ave Maria Press £5.99
A
Song for Every Morning by John Davies, published by Canterbury Press £9.99
These two short books are offered as food for the soul. The first could
be compared to a pink frosted sponge cake hiding a challenging
sharpness...
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Evolving
God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion
By Barbara J King,
published by Doubleday £11.99
If you've found Dawkins and the other new
atheists too brash, and you want to have a serious look at how the ideas
of evolution and religion might fit together...
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Cherishing the
Earth By Martin J Hodson and Margot R Hodson Published by Monarch Books
£8.99
Planetwise (book
plus DVD and CD-ROM) by Dave Brookless Published by Inter-Varsity Press
£7.99 (book only) or £16 (full resource pack)
Both these books
are written to encourage Christians to see that it is an essential part
of God's will for us that we respect and care for creation...
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The Canterbury
Book of Spiritual Quotations, by William GD Sykes, published by Canterbury
Press £14.99
The compiler of
these quotations exercised most of his (Anglican) ministry as a chaplain
to colleges in London and Oxford. It was his experience and vision in
the latter...
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Surprised
by Hope by Tom Wright, published by SPCK £12.99
ISBN:
978-0281056170
Hope is quickly
turning into the theological virtue of the year.
In a book written
for all those interested in the meaning of life, Tom Wright addresses
questions like...
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Dietrich
Bonhoeffer: An Introduction to His Thought By Sabine Dramm Translated by
Thomas Rice Publisher: Hendrickson £10.99
I was first
introduced to Dietrich Bonhoeffer at 18. The testimony of the man's
life, giving up a safe teaching post in the United States to return to
Germany in 1939...
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Acts for Everyone (2 volumes) by Tom Wright,
Published by SPCK
Price: £9.99 each
ISBN: 9780281053087 and ISBN: 9780281055463
The Bishop of
Durham is a lively and learned writer, and his series on the books of
the New Testament is reaching a wide Christian public.
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Velvet Elvis –
Repainting the Christian Faith, by Rob Bell Published by Zondervan
Price: £8.99 ISBN: 9780310273080
There is a
fascination in the USA for a certain style of painting of Elvis Presley,
which is apparently known as a Velvet Elvis. But don’t let the
Elvis thing put you off this inspiring book...
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When Enough is
Enough: A Christian Framework for Environmental Sustainability,
edited by RJ Berry, published by Inter-Varsity Press Price: £11.99 ISBN:
9781844741809
This collection of contributions by Christian academics, of world renown in
their fields, seeks to give a Christian perspective on the question of
environmental sustainability...
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Gone for
Good? Church Leaving and Returning in the 21st Century, Leslie J
Francis and Philip Richter, published by Epworth, ISBN: 9780716206330
This report of
research on people leaving the church is a sequel to the 1998 Gone But
Not Forgotten by the same authors. This new research is particularly
valuable...
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God at Ground Level, Peter Cruchley-Jones, published by Peter Lang,
ISBN: 9783631574942
Whatever else might be said about the contemporary religious scene, it is messy,
complex and difficult to read. This collection, largely composed of empirical
research by four of our ministers...
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The Bible for
Sinners, Interpretation in the Present Time, Christopher Rowland &
Jonathan Roberts, Published by SPCK, ISBN: 9780281058020
The title of this book could mislead. Rather
than being concerned with sinners it appears to be aimed at religious
people who look to a closed biblical tradition, with its meaning set in
stone, as their authority for condemning others...
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Stories for
Children, Revd Dr Ian MacLeod, published by St Andrew Press, ISBN:
9780715208489
Children’s Time during worship doesn’t get any
easier. At its worst it can be an embarrassing way of involving children
for the entertainment of adults...
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The Debt Doctor, Robert Leach,
published by Canterbury Press ISBN 9781853117695
The availability of mortgages out of
proportion to income, the vagaries of interest rates and the ease of
obtaining credit cards, added to perennial causes such as illness and
unemployment...
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Community and Ministry: An Introduction to
Community Development in a Christian Context by Paul Ballard and
Lesley Husselbee, published by SPCK, ISBN 9780281058006
This book’s subtitle describes exactly what it
delivers. Much of the material was familiar to me from the first year
modules of the church-related community worker training course...
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The Last Week: What the Gospels Really
Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, by Marcus J Borg and
John Dominic Crossan, published by SPCK, ISBN 9780281059836
Some Christians today are tempted to leap
straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Day without reflection on what comes
in between, but this book challenges us to re-examine Holy Week,
particularly through Mark’s Gospel...
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The Social
Entrepreneur, by Andrew Mawson, published
by Atlantic ISBN 9781843546610
Lord Mawson’s
book is a mixture of testimony, autobiography, manifesto and good
practice for those whose restless ideas, and love of people, inspire
them to want more for the communities around...
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Black Voices
the Shaping of Our Christian Experience
by
David Killingray,
Joel Edwards, published by Inter-Varsity Press, ISBN:
1-84474-181-8
As a black British person, not very clued up about Black History, I was
intrigued by what this book might yield. Black Voices opens with an
overview of the presence of black people in Britain dating back centuries, long
before their arrival aboard Windrush....
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Post Colonial Black British Theology: New Textures and Themes
by Michael N. Jagessar, Anthony G. Reddie,
published by Epworth Press, ISBN 978-0716206255
Over half of
London’s regular church attenders in 2008 will be black. At the same
time more and more communities across the UK, far out beyond the major
urban centres...
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more
The Cross and
the Colliery by Tom Wright, published by
SPCK, ISBN 978-0-281-05971-3
Having taught in
a mining area of Yorkshire at the time of the miners’ strikes at the
beginning of the 1980s, which would eventually lead to the closure of
the pits in the area...
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The Bible:
The Biography by Karen Armstrong,
published by Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-396-1
This book is one
in the series Books That Shook the World. It doesn’t tell you a great
deal about what’s in the Bible (it’s not a Bible introduction), but it
tells the story of how it...
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Abide with Me: Prayers for Life’s Eventide,
by Carlee Hallman, published by Abingdon Press, ISBN 0687492203
The Language
of Love: Exploring Prayer, by John Moses,
published by Canterbury Press, ISBN 9781853117831
Praying With
the Bible, by Philip Law, published by
SPCK, ISBN 9780281059171
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Thinking
About Preaching, by Michael J Townsend,
published by Epworth Press, ISBN 9780716206163
In contemporary
society preaching has got a bad name. However, for most Christians,
preaching continues to build up and strengthen their faith on a weekly
basis. So the task of a preacher can be a daunting one....
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Nonconformist
Theology in the Twentieth Century, by
Alan PF Sell, published by Paternoster Press
ISBN: 9781842274712
In 1873 the
Christian author ER Conder asked where were the theologians who would be
influencing the teachers of 30 years later. Alan Sell points out that
the first 20 years of the twentieth century...
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Free Church Women’s Ministry, Edited by Janet
Wootton, published by Epworth Press pp 200 ISBN 978-0-7162-0606-4
£16.99
Rarely told and
rarely heard, this is the story of Free Church Women’s Ministry. Through
six informed articles and eleven personal stories...
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The Lord’s
Prayer - the York course for 2008. Course Material is available from
the York Courses Website:
www.yorkcourses.co.uk £2.75 for course
booklet £8.95 for audio cd
York Courses
began some ten years ago and have proved very popular. This experience
and success is evident in the well presented course material...
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No Easy
Answers: living with suffering by Barbara Baisley: new edition by
Christine Worsley, published by Inspire pp224 ISBN 978-1905958085 £9.99
I missed this
book first time round, but I am so glad I did not miss it this time.
Barbara Baisley was among the first group...
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here to read more
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