This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.
Bernard Lewis’ The Arabs in History is was first published in 1958, revised in 1993, and is still fruitful for the beginning … [Read More]
This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.
J. M. Roberts’ The Penguin History of Europe is the best one-stop history of Europe available. (Norman Davies’ Europe: A History is … [Read More]
A good missiologist (whether North American or International) is first and foremost a theologian, but also a student of other disciplines such as world religions, cultural anthropology, history, current affairs, and anything else he can get his hands on in order to understand his context. By studying world religions, the missiologist learns to understand the core beliefs and religious practices of those to whom he will minister. From cultural anthropology, he learns to pay careful … [Read More]
Ghost Wars
A wise man would refuse to lug even the paperback version of Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars to bed, for fear of being crushed to death if he dozes off in mid-sentence. However, despite being 712 pages long Coll’s volume is well worth the read for anyone interested in U. S. involvement in Afghanistan beginning in 1979 and spanning more than two decades.
Coll’s book is not a history of Afghanistan, per se, but rather a … [Read More]
Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe
Reviewed By: Bruce Riley Ashford
Martin Meredith’s Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe is not a book for the faint of heart. It is an account of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence, the (culturally Christian) Mugabe’s rise to power, and his metamorphosis from responsible revolutionary into brutal dictator willing to slaughter his own people, including friends and associates.
Mugabe was born the son of a village carpenter. He was … [Read More]
The Ayatollah Begs to Differ
Reviewed by: Bruce Riley Ashford
The Ayatollah Begs to Differ is a lively little romp through the recent history of Iran and a peek into the Persian soul. The author, Hooman Majd, is an Iranian-American who wields an incisive, eloquent, and witty pen. Although he was educated in the West, he was born in Tehran, is the son of an Iranian diplomat, the grandson of an ayatollah, and has served as a … [Read More]
Global Context Series: A New Christendom with New Faces
By: Bruce Riley Ashford
Philip Jenkins believes that we are living in the midst of a monumental moment in religious history, and he has written two books to make his case. The first, The Next Christendom, contains the meat of his argument while the second, The New Faces of Christianity, follows up on certain strands of the argument. The following is a brief review of both books.
Jenkins was … [Read More]
Global Context (East Asia-China): Chinese Lessons
By: Bruce Riley Ashford
This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.
Chinese Lessons is a lively, witty, and intimate portrait of five Chinese nationals who … [Read More]
Global Context (Afghanistan): A Thousand Splendid Suns
Reviewed by: Bruce Riley Ashford
This series of posts deals with the global context in its historical, social, cultural, political, economic, demographic, and religious dimensions in particular. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.
Khaled Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is a … [Read More]
There are a number of interesting articles that have appeared on the web in the past few days. I thought I would point out a handful of them.
In case you missed it, new BtT contributor J. D. Greear blogged here yesterday about his views on Calvinism.
My fellow SEBTS church historian Steve McKinion weighs in on “Third Generation Conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention” at Baptist 21. This is the first post in a three-part series.
Tom Ascol … [Read More]
