Friends, I have $50 to spend on books. What should I buy?

My new philosophy on book buying is to 1) buy books I want to read but can’t get from the library or 2) buy books that are so good I want others to borrow them from my collection.

Books in the first category tend to be older and/or marginal. Books in the second category kick ass. These are books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, “A Pattern Language”, or “Orthodoxy”.

Here are some promising candidates:
The Myth of the Rational Voter
After Virtue
Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education
The Undercover Economist

Others?

In light of the past conversations we have had on the role of myth and faith, it has been suggested to me that I start a post on the Church’s attitude toward other religious traditions. This suggestion arose as a result of past comments on this forum regarding the apparent exclusiveness of Christianity.

In other words, the questions we must grapple with are:  How have missionary efforts been viewed as imperialistic manuevers and expressions of a Western superiority syndrome? How can the Church, as only a small respresentation of worldwide spirituality, claim the sole monopoly on “truth”? And, perhaps most importantly, what is this biblical mandate to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19)?

To most Christians, these inquiries seem rather silly or irrelevant. Or just plain no-brainers. I think that is unfortunate. But I also understand that the believer wants others to experience this Christ-event that has meant so much to them. So I’ll leave it at that for now. What thoughts have you all?

Just a quick update, all.

Congrats again to Branden and Jennifer and little Eva. May health and happiness be theirs forever.

I am now writing for Film . com, I will post links to my articles when they arise. It’ll be once a week. I’m kind of excited about writing for a legitimate outlet.

I’m also running a weekly radio show on BiolaRadio, http://www.biolaradio.biola.edu. It’s Wednesday pacific time from 7-8pm. If anyone has any good ideas for that, I’d be glad to hear them. The show’s called Almanac, and it’s a little bit of this and that.

Other than that, it’s very busy! I’m reading Emerson this weekend, and working on the company website. Whee.

Hello everyone, it is my greatest joy to introduce to you my daughter, Eva Mae Stone.

The rumors are true, Jennifer’s water broke on Sunday morning and 60 hours later little Eva came into the world.   The next one is her in the “torture chamber”.

We are now home and our neighbors set up this nice welcome home decor.

I will save details for later.

IF I were to vote in 2008 at the national level….

Hey folks, Jennifer’s water broke yesterday morning. I haven’t heard any news since 1pm yesterday afternoon so I’m sure we’ll hear something soon. Be sure to keep them all in prayer.

Its been over a year since I gave this workshop talk, and almost that long since I reread it.  I don’t think I’ve lived up to it, but I find it tremendously inspiring to go over it again.  I don’t know if the different ideas and examples in it are as meaningful to other people as they are to me.  Everybody has certain favorite scripture verses that they weave together into a vision of Christian Life.  This talk presents most of mine, in a systematic way.

What are yours?