At least in wealthier nations, we are living in an era of longer lifespans and lower birthrates. On a macro level, this translates into a larger population of older people needing care but fewer available caregivers. Closer to home, it means tough dilemmas for the adult children of aging parents, especially when they’re raising non-adult children of their own. In her book Making Good Return, author and speaker Kathleen B. Nielson wrings valuable insights from the pages of Scripture. As she writes, the biblical story of redemption “is not just the context of a Christian’s thinking about care for the aging; it is at the very heart of the matter.”
It’s possible, says pastor and author Jared C. Wilson, to write without being an honest-to-goodness writer—the kind who can’t help using words to make sense of the world, with or without the perks of money or acclaim. In The Storied Life, Wilson appeals to those who fit that description (or think they might), extolling the high calling of embodying God’s image with pens and keyboards. “Creative writing,” he writes, “is in fact a reflection of the creative meaning of the universe, a direct derivation from the Creator himself. He has made everything with words and has given even of himself as the Word. This isn’t some piddling around kind of stuff.”
It’s a common complaint in the “cancel culture” era that we’re too eager to mock, harass, ostracize, and even formally punish our cultural and ideological foes. But the authors of End the Stalemate see signs of growing hunger for a warmer, more generous approach to disagreement. Tim Muehlhoff (a communication expert) and Sean McDowell (an apologist) are professors at Biola University, both of whom practice regular public dialogue with believers and nonbelievers alike. Throughout their book, they offer “[exposure] not only to communication insights that explore how we can better approach differences, but also to how these insights are powerfully undergirded by biblical truth.”
Nowadays, it would strain credulity to imagine Russian government elites consulting with a group of American evangelicals, except as a cynical maneuver to bolster Russia’s image as a rebuke to Western decadence. Yet something like this actually happened in the early 1990s, as Soviet communism imploded. Traveling with the evangelical delegation were author Philip Yancey and John A. Bernbaum, the founder of Russia’s first Christian liberal arts university. In What Went Wrong? they give firsthand accounts of their experience (several chapters come from an earlier volume, Yancey’s Praying with the KGB) while reflecting on Russia’s turn toward authoritarianism and aggression.
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While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
Alcoholism among women is rising. Can the church help?
Political violence looms large in our national history, to our shame. It does not have to define our future.
