The first half of the book where Hauerwas lays out his theological work is very good, but I was less impressed with the sermons that make up the second half of the book. Certainly worth the read, especially if you are not familiar with Hauerwas and his interpretation, but it doesn't distinguish itself from much of Hauerwas' other works. His sermons are obviously designed for an academic audience not a primarily lay audience and that makes the audience of this work limited to people with a theological background.

Hauerwas' basic thesis that the bible should be taken away from the people and given back to the church to interpret is worth considering, even if you ultimately disagree with it. It will make you think and hopefully help you make your own decisions.

A clever political fairy tale where a utopian dream becomes a totalitarian nightmare and where pigs slowly adopt not only human attitudes but eventually physical characteristics. The story of Animal Farm, where the animals led by pigs overthrow their owner and set up their own society only find themselves exchanging servitude to the Jones for eventual even harsher servitude under the pig Napolean. Clever and thought provoking in a parable like manner.

There is a lot of information about Jurgen Moltmann's incredible life, but unfortunately it makes for somewhat dry reading. If you are familiar with his work, which most people who read this probably are, there will be a few new insights, but so much of his theology is an encounter with his own history that there are not that many surprises.

An excellent end to the series. The twist and turns are great, even on a second reading. An easy read that is engaging to a wide range of ages.

Roberta Gilbert does a good job of breaking down systems theory to its basics. This is a good intro, but also a good refresher for people who work with family systems theory. There are perspectives I had probably read before, but were placed in a way that I grasped them in reading this short book.

This is a very simple and helpful book. If you don't find something that can help you then you probably have the perfect relationship.

If you are just beginning to delve into the topic of Paul and how his message would resonate in the Roman Empire, this is a decent place to start. I have read works by many of the contributors so there was not a lot of new information for me, but this is what it is, a compilation of the SBL presentations. There are some very good scholars represented here including some from outside the realm of biblical studies and Richard Horsley does a good job of pulling it together.

This is a great attempt at taking the biographical information we know about Bonhoffer and those around him and painting a credible picture of the world through his eyes. Very well done!

It was interesting reading this work from a male perspective. Dr. Miller-McLemore makes a lot of excellent arguments from a theological, psychological and sociological perspective, and her perspective as a feminist, theologian and mother bring an untapped view into the theological discussion on work and family. I loved this book, and I found many of her points helpful in evaluating the unspoken pressures from the workplace on both women and men.

I was a little disappointed in this follow up to the Art of Reading Scripture. As with any collection of essays there are standouts and disappointments, but this focus on how to 'seek the identity of Jesus' which attempts to reunite the historical Jesus of NT scholarship with Jesus of the Gospels and the Christ of the church has a lot of good points, and yet it doesn't seem to carry the passion of its authors. The multiple perspectives and the scope also made this work a little to broad, rather than bringing out facets as the Art of Reading Scripture did.

Even though I have read this atleast five times there are still things I glean from each reading. There are individual points that one can quibble with at this point in Bonhoeffer's theology, particularly in light of his later writing in Ethics and Letters and Papers, but he still remains one of the most influential theologians even 60 years after his death.

The Fortress edition is helpful in filling in the gaps in documentation that Bonhoeffer leaves as well as giving some historical context to the work but ideally one only gets to glimpse Bonhoeffer's development by going through his work and Bethge's biography (or atleast Renate Winds much shorter one). Even apart from the background it is a work well worth any thoughtful Christians time.

This is just one of those great stories that was good enough to read a second time.

Willimon's book is similar to several other books he has written on the topic of ordained ministry. He makes some good points and has some good illustrations within the structure of community, cross and new creation (which he borrows from Richard B. Hays Moral Vision of the New Testament). Willimon is a good partner in trying to understand what the pastoral calling is about, but especially if you stop before the final chapter it sets a very tough standard for ordained leaders (the grace flows more freely in the final chapter using the image of new creation).

I may not be broadly read enough to get all the allusions within this, but it is a difficult to follow group of poems to follow. Bidart writes with a nice rhythm but the poems often center in on quite brutal sexual images or existential questions of inadequacy which makes for some depressing reading. It was not what I expected from the title.

This is a very approachable commentary on Isaiah by Brueggemann. It avoids getting caught in the weeds and comments more casually on the canonical picture of what is going on in Isaiah. Brueggemann also doesn't stretch, admitting the places where scholars are just not sure. Even though this portion of Isaiah can be a bit oppressive, the commentary does a good job of linking the messages of woe and hope together

This has some really cute lines, especially from Touchstone, but it is not one of Shakespear's best works in my opinion. Although it probably would be much better to see on stage rather than to read.

This was an incredibly quick read. It was enjoyable even though it said amazingly little about Eli Manning outside of the time between when he was drafted to when he won the superbowl. It does a good job of showing the pressure that Eli was under after the massive trade that New York had to make to make him a Giant and showing a lot about the Giants team and organization at the time. If you enjoy the sport of football it does give some good insight into the game and particularly how it is reported on.

A massive biography of an incredible man. Although not for the casual inquirer into Bonhoeffer's life (A Spoke in the Wheel is much better for this) it contains information that you will not find in any other source. In my opinion it is well worth the hours spent in reading to encounter in such a full way the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and to give a fuller context to his work than even the comments in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Works editions are able to do.

I remember reading a summary of this story in middle or high school, but it is nice to sit down with a classic and let it tell its tale. This is a very good story and its age only makes it more endearing. A simpler story from a different time.

Horrible and yet authentic. The poet invokes his words well but to a gut wrenching effect. Appropriate when all the poetry is related to war, and yet the poet perhaps does his job a bit too well.

There is a lot of information in a very approachable format on the history of the NFLs development from the 1960s to about 2006. The good, the bad and the ugly all show up and it helped make sense of a lot of the things I saw happening growing up but never really understood.