Religion Books

Not one to buy positive motivational books I gave this one a try because I admire the author. There is a load of ideas one could adapt for personal use in this book. he author does not try and sell you on 'his program'. He is just sharing what has worked for him and his programs over the years. You pick and choose what you want to do with it.
It is also a good insite into a major college football program.

I almost stopped reading this book after the first hour because I was afraid I would have to rethink my perspective.
I might have to change my ways.
I'm going to set some life changing goals and its all because of Jim Tressel.
I thought this was going to be a "Book of quotes", but its not, its deep.
I actually feel like a better person.
To be a championship team, you must first become a group of individual champions.
It has a religious feel to it, but in a broad and general "Be a good person, find inner peace, be the best you can be in whatever you do, go do good things in your community" type of way.
I already knew Jim Tressel was some kind of super human, i just had no idea how super he was.

Apparently Jim Tressel has been a huge impact on my life without me even knowing it. Imagine how hard this was to accept for a Penn State Graduate. My high school football coach was on Jim's Youngstown State Penguin teams before he started coaching us in the late 1990s. Apparently my former coach learned from one of the best as hundreds if not thousands of these ideas and quotes from the book were used all through out my high school football career. This book was a nice trip down memory lane. My former coach was one of the most influential people in my life so I guess I owe a lot to Jim for passing on such great teachings.

I can still remember running across the width of the football field 53 yards and then turning and running back 53 more yards during those scorching June and July conditioning drills. We had to do it 20 times before we could make the team. This is all detailed in the book. Jim's website is also great allowing you to print out some of the goal setting pages in the book.

I think it must be weird for people to read that Jim didn't get upset after losing the national championship. It really puts things in perspective when the coach of such a big program stays humble. Granted i still don't understand the sweater vest, but like I said I am a Nittany Lions fan. Anyone (PSU fans included) will appreciate this book and it might even help you put some things in your life in better focus.

Just ask yourself: "If the game of life ended tomorrow would you consider yourself a winner?"

The Winners Manual is a guide for living one's life but the emphasis is throught sports so it appeals to folks who normally would not want to read a self-improvement book. My 16 year old son started reading this book and realized it was full of great ideas to become more successful in life and not just about Ohio State Football! This book is a WINNER.

This book was a joy. It's one of those that you savor, reading a little at a time. There isn't a page that doesn't have a story or anecdote that will touch your heart. I especially liked the section on hope where Maurice Clarett was mentioned. Coach Tressel is a treasure. Thank you for writing this.

Although I have only read the first one hundred pages or so, I found myself chuckling out loud at points. The only other author who has illicitted that affect on my is Davis Sedaris. A basic knowledge of christian theology is helpful to understand the "inside jokes" but not necessary to enjoy this book. The recount of Jesus (Josh) as preteen acting out biblical stories, the likes of Lot and the Sodomites is absolutely hysterical. In addition to the biblical satire, such humane issues like adolescent love (and lust) are addressed in an authentic, charming manner. I look forward to finishing it and would recommend a read.

Entertaining, provocative, fun to read. The story of Christ told in a very different and amusing fashion, still escaping sacrilege.
Have given several as gifts to friends who have also thoroughly enjoyed the book!

Will you enjoy Christopher Moore's LAMB, the story of Jesus Christ's lost years as told by his bosom buddy, Biff (a.k.a. Levi)? That is the question, and a lot depends upon your sense of humor. First of all, if you take your religion seriously, maybe you shouldn't even start the book. Second of all, what makes you laugh? Toilet humor? Sexual humor? Monty Python-style humor? Saturday Night Live-type humor? Lay it on with a cudgel humor? If the answer to many of these questions is "yes," then I say go for it and give Moore's iconoclastic romp a ride.

For me, the book had many strengths and weaknesses. As a strength, I see Moore using humor as a vehicle to promote tolerance in Christianity, a device I liked. Also, the book covers some of the basic tenets of Buddhism and Hinduism by having Joshua (Jesus) and Biff (Levi) travel to China and India. Moore did his research not only on this, but on the historical setting and history of Christ's lifetime under the Roman occupation, and good information can be gleaned underneath all the jests. Finally, many, many lines in this book are genuinely funny.

For weaknesses, I'd start with the book's unevenness. Certain narrative arcs are dwelled on for too long, while others (most notably the ending) are inexplicably rushed. Also, the same humor which serves Moore so well can betray him at times. That is, he goes over the top and perhaps grows too insistent now and then. For instance, use of profanity for shock-value humor (say, coming out of the Lord's and certainly out of Biff's mouth) lose their shock value once the card is played too often. And the plot begins to collapse when Moore introduces monster chases and the abominable snowman. Monsters and yetis? It's just too much and probably would best have been deleted so he could focus on his main plot.

This review is conflicted. I surely do not want to dissuade you from reading it, I just want you to gauge the style of writing and humor you like before taking the plunge. If you like a breezy read and savor Adam Sandler/Will Ferrell movies, you'll probably be 5-starring this book. If you're like me and have your limits with all that frat-boy fun (yes, you like to indulge, but moderation is your byword), then proceed with caution.

I absolutely adore this book! This is one I can read over and over again, and still be able to laugh! Even though it's a fictional book, it makes Jesus (Joshua)human and you enjoy following Biff and Joshua on their search for what it means to be the Messiah. The angel Raziel is hilarious, too, with his aspiration to become Spider-man! This book got me hooked on Christopher Moore!

It has been a while since I read this book but it is really really good. It is not meant to be taken literally for those of you out there that can't tell that. Christopher Moore is a hilarious writer but this book seems to let the humor seep in slowly and less obviously than many of his other books. This is a super quick easy and fun read. It really gives a humorous insight to the time period of Christ's life that is left out in the Bible.

Highly Recommended for any one.

I think that there is an incredible amount to learn in Jesus For President. Shane does an excellent job with many different topics. The bottom-line is very practical ways of living for Jesus and making Him the leader of our lives. There are some sections that are harder to read than others, but overall a great book that I will keep.

I literally could not put this book down. I learned more from reading this than I did taking 2 semesters of Old testament and New Testament and years of bible study. I like the way the author breaks the book down into themes. I loved the graphics, the type.. everything. I think every person who calls him or herself a Christian should read this book. It will challenge you on a personal level. It is so different from what is out there on the shelves. I highly recommend this book.

This was an amazing book. Its a book about Jesus for people who don't wanna waste anymore time with organized religion. It goes back to who Jesus really was and how the modern church of today is actually almost a polar opposite of the early church.

When I first saw the title, I thought, "Here's someone who came up with an intriguing catch phrase so they could sell a book during an election year." I couldn't have been more wrong.

This book is serious. It carries a high reverence for God and a high respect of the truth of the Scriptures. It packages 4,000 plus years of political and religious history in a way that is easy to comprehend, without dumbing down. It is both academic and born out of real life experience. The authors love God and love people, and this book is a fruit of their inspiring, Christ-centered faith.

My fellow Americans... my fellow Christians... please read this book.

the perfect Kingdom will not come
in mortal time and yet
my our service here and now
the cornerstone is set...

the individual and communal
both must play a role
either overemphasized
will stunt the human soul

Again big props for this book the Basics of Biblical Greek is a need for all Greek students the book, workbook, cd and CDrom are all perfect and come with a high recommendation!

A "must-have" with the Grammar book of the same name. Plenty of translation exercises to compliment the grammar lessons.

The entire study package of Basics of Biblical Greek which includes the textbook, the study guide, the vocabulary cards, the summary sheet, and the lecture CD's is a blessed fruit of a long, thoughtful, meticulous, and high-tech labor of one of the world's best New Testament Greek scholars. I have to admit I have not studied Greek from other professors, but after studying Mounce, I simply can not imagine a better way to teach students an introduction to Biblical Greek than the one Prof. Mounce implements in this study packet. The structure and methodology are so impressively organized that I believe, without trying to diminish the role of an instructor, one can study by himself or herself without taking the class at a seminary. From start to finish, Prof. Mounce designs the lessons with solid exegesis skills as the goal in mind. He wastes no time but immediately exposes students with translation exercises using real Scripture passages in the study guide, even early in the first few chapters when he barely starts with nouns.

The lessons are divided into three major parts; nouns, adjectives and verbs. Each chapter begins with exegetical insights related to the topic being taught in that particular chapter. He then moves on by explaining the English and Greek forms. The nouns and adjectives are not too bad. They are usually divided into three types of declensions. While the nouns usually take on one of the three declensions, the most common configuration of adjectives is either 3-1-3 or 2-1-2 where the first, second and third numbers indicate the declension type for masculine, feminine and neuter genders, respectively. There are some discussions on special-case nouns having slightly abnormal endings; pant and ent, for examples. Now verbs are considerably more challenging because they not only have more numerous categories and rules, but the biggest obstacles are the tense stems and when they form the real verbs through a combination of augments, tense-formatives, connecting vowels, and personal endings. The trouble can be illustrated by comparing it to having to memorize the English present, past and perfect tenses of irregular and regular verbs which the Greek version has six; present, future active, aorist active and passive, perfect active and passive, instead of three in English. And each of these six stems has different forms not only depending on the person and number, but also on the voices; active, middle, and passive. On top of these, there is another parameter, called aspect, where these verbs take on other forms, the indicative covered in the early chapters of the verbs, subjunctive, infinitive and imperative. Some are similar if not the same as the indicatives, which make them even harder to distinguish which one is which. Here Prof. Mounce reminds students to always watch for the contexts. Context is your best friend when it comes to translation. There is no easy way of getting around this issue completely except in my view, to get the Greek Morphology text, also by Mounce. At the end of some chapters, there is coverage on extended materials that deal with special cases, additional rules in translation, contraction and morphology.

The summary sheet consists of all important rules involving word formation, verb-ending charts, and all the forms of frequently used verbs. It serves as a handy guide for students when doing the translation so they don't have to flip through the pages of the textbook. Some flipping of pages is inevitable, though, because the last few pages of the textbook has the list of major lexicons.

There are two types of drills in the study guide. The first is chapter-by-chapter review where students are asked to parse ten words in a table having the forms that have been covered up to that chapter. Next, there is a warm-up translation section consisting of seven short phrases or sentences to be translated before the real translation exercise begins with twenty sentences; some are long ones. From my experience, I sometimes had a headache after completing the translation work due to the intensity it involves in figuring out not only what the words mean, but also their forms, and how to restructure the sentence in English format that both are understandable and make sense. The second type of drill is the exam-type where the test materials are combined every five chapters. The tasks include parsing, grammar rules, and translations usually from a New Testament passage.

As in any other languages, learning Greek requires extra memory power, but not brute-force memorization of every single word indiscriminately. Prof. Mounce always warns students only to memorize special-case words and rules such as endings and contractions, instead of every single word with all its garden variety of forms. Excellent advise.

Needless to say, I delightfully endorse Prof. Mounce as your virtual Greek instructor. If you decide to homeschool yourself, you can purchase the complete combo set at teknia dot com. I don't think Amazon sell the lecture CD set. But even if you are taking the class at the seminary, I don't see any harm for you to buy the combo set anyway, though you probably won't need the lecture CD's provided you have an excellent instructor.

This is a great product. The corresponding book is also great. Even if you are looking into Greek for reasons other than religion, I would recommend this series. It moves quick, but is easy to understand. At the end of each chapter of the book you do a few pages, and after chapter 2 you are already translating easy greek! The book and workbook are just great products and William Mounce is a great teacher

As I now this is one of the best grammar books for biblical greek.
For me it was very helpfull but you need practice for learning biblical greek. More than half of this book is with verbs.

The entire study package of Basics of Biblical Greek which includes the textbook, the study guide, the vocabulary cards, the summary sheet, and the lecture CD's is a blessed fruit of a long, thoughtful, meticulous, and high-tech labor of one of the world's best New Testament Greek scholars. I have to admit I have not studied Greek from other professors, but after studying Mounce, I simply can not imagine a better way to teach students an introduction to Biblical Greek than the one Prof. Mounce implements in this study packet. The structure and methodology are so impressively organized that I believe, without trying to diminish the role of an instructor, one can study by himself or herself without taking the class at a seminary. From start to finish, Prof. Mounce designs the lessons with solid exegesis skills as the goal in mind. He wastes no time but immediately exposes students with translation exercises using real Scripture passages in the study guide, even early in the first few chapters when he barely starts with nouns.

The lessons are divided into three major parts; nouns, adjectives and verbs. Each chapter begins with exegetical insights related to the topic being taught in that particular chapter. He then moves on by explaining the English and Greek forms. The nouns and adjectives are not too bad. They are usually divided into three types of declensions. While the nouns usually take on one of the three declensions, the most common configuration of adjectives is either 3-1-3 or 2-1-2 where the first, second and third numbers indicate the declension type for masculine, feminine and neuter genders, respectively. There are some discussions on special-case nouns having slightly abnormal endings; pant and ent, for examples. Now verbs are considerably more challenging because they not only have more numerous categories and rules, but the biggest obstacles are the tense stems and when they form the real verbs through a combination of augments, tense-formatives, connecting vowels, and personal endings. The trouble can be illustrated by comparing it to having to memorize the English present, past and perfect tenses of irregular and regular verbs which the Greek version has six; present, future active, aorist active and passive, perfect active and passive, instead of three in English. And each of these six stems has different forms not only depending on the person and number, but also on the voices; active, middle, and passive. On top of these, there is another parameter, called aspect, where these verbs take on other forms, the indicative covered in the early chapters of the verbs, subjunctive, infinitive and imperative. Some are similar if not the same as the indicatives, which make them even harder to distinguish which one is which. Here Prof. Mounce reminds students to always watch for the contexts. Context is your best friend when it comes to translation. There is no easy way of getting around this issue completely except in my view, to get the Greek Morphology text, also by Mounce. At the end of some chapters, there is coverage on extended materials that deal with special cases, additional rules in translation, contraction and morphology.

The summary sheet consists of all important rules involving word formation, verb-ending charts, and all the forms of frequently used verbs. It serves as a handy guide for students when doing the translation so they don't have to flip through the pages of the textbook. Some flipping of pages is inevitable, though, because the last few pages of the textbook has the list of major lexicons.

There are two types of drills in the study guide. The first is chapter-by-chapter review where students are asked to parse ten words in a table having the forms that have been covered up to that chapter. Next, there is a warm-up translation section consisting of seven short phrases or sentences to be translated before the real translation exercise begins with twenty sentences; some are long ones. From my experience, I sometimes had a headache after completing the translation work due to the intensity it involves in figuring out not only what the words mean, but also their forms, and how to restructure the sentence in English format that both are understandable and make sense. The second type of drill is the exam-type where the test materials are combined every five chapters. The tasks include parsing, grammar rules, and translations usually from a New Testament passage.

As in any other languages, learning Greek requires extra memory power, but not brute-force memorization of every single word indiscriminately. Prof. Mounce always warns students only to memorize special-case words and rules such as endings and contractions, instead of every single word with all its garden variety of forms. Excellent advise.

Needless to say, I delightfully endorse Prof. Mounce as your virtual Greek instructor. If you decide to homeschool yourself, you can purchase the complete combo set at teknia dot com. I don't think Amazon sell the lecture CD set. But even if you are taking the class at the seminary, I don't see any harm for you to buy the combo set anyway, though you probably won't need the lecture CD's provided you have an excellent instructor.

Recently I decided to teach myself Greek. I've attempted it before using other grammars without much success. The main stumbling block for me was that other authors assumed I knew what sujective case or nominative predicate meant. I didn't, but Mounce gives the reader a crash course in English grammar along with the Greek lessons. Learning has actually turned out to be fun and easy! I simply cannot recommend this text highly enough.

The workbook, flash cards and vocabulary CD are great adjuncts to the text.

I purchased the book to help with Bible translation work. It is a reasonable resource for this type of work. As with all things there is no easy substitute for hard work. Greek Grammar is probably more difficult than most - so it is not a book that you can pick up and within a short time be able to speak and read Greek. Still requires lots of work. There is a lot of reading, memorizing and studying. You also have to have an extensive understanding of the grammar of your mother tongue.

This is the best grammar I have used in my 18 years in the ministry. I have tutored Greek students on occasion and have found this grammar to be the best grammar available. The "inductive" approach is very easy to follow. I highly recommend this grammar as a primary to anyone reviewing their Greek (or secondary grammar to any student) who wants a clear overview of Koine Greek. I use it as part of my daily reading and study.
After learning Dr. Mounce's noun and verb rules for recognizing the "roots," I no longer need to memorize so many paradigms. Once I learned the morphology of the language, the large amount of memorization other grammars require is greatly reduced. This grammar is a must study (or review) for any preacher or teacher working in the New Testament Greek text.

This book has proven to be an excellent way for me to learn enough Biblical Greek to at least have an understanding of why different interpretations of scripture are debated among scholars. I am a lay reader of Biblical Greek and Hebrew and this more or less beginner course was very helpful. Prof. Mounce keeps the reader encouraged with his count of NT Greek word occurrences and a tally of the number of words in the NT one can read based on vocabulary progress from chapter to chapter. Why, after only learning the vocabulary of 8 chapters and only 72 Greek words, I can read over 50% of the words in a Greek NT. (Of course, that means I must skip around to read half of the NT and I am reading words like "and" and "the" etc. a lot, but it is a fun way to keep up with progress. The exegetical insights at the beginning of each chapter are very interesting ways of gaining a sense of the reasons for varying interpetations of scripture.

It's a great book for even a man to hear to reach the insights of the female soul and how God sees them.

This read was an amazing experience, I highly recommend this book to women in every walk of life. I read it along side Experiencing God, and the two just supported each other so well. This is a must read, its starts off slow, but just wait for it...its wonderful. What a blessing.

I recommend this for all women! If you are unsure of your role as a woman of GOD, this book will clear up your confusion. It helped my walk with the LORD to be stronger and concrete. HE cares for us dearly and I think Eldredge captures that completely! I urge all women to read this, because GOD has used Eldredge to convey everything that women question.

This book is captivating! Really. Well-written, each chapter impacts you and leaves you with the question, "How can there be any further revelation?" and then there is. It doesn't cater to the perfect woman, nor does it impose any 'burdens' on you to be one. Rather, it explains why you are stressed, frustrated and not living the life God intended for you but hiding behind the mask of dominating or desolate woman (or in my case, flip-flopping between both). Prepare for tears, even if you think you are a strong woman - God is waiting to reach you in this book and make you understand how truly captivating you are.

Yeah, I know, the title of this review seems weird, but I picked this book up to read more about my wife. The only problem is, I definitely don't think this was written for men. So, now that is out of the way, I'll move on...

I think this is an excellent book to really capture the essence of a woman. From the guys who brought you "Wild At Heart" for us men, they really take the time to explain how a woman works and how they can better understand themselves. The reason I said before that it was written for women is because they assume that you understand what they're talking about, probably being a woman reading the book, and that all the concepts just flow. For a guy, its a little hard to understand, but my wife seems to love it.

Overall, I think its a great read for any woman looking to explore why they are the way they are and how to deal with the feelings and emotions that come from being a woman.

I had attended a lecture series in which this author discussed his research about heaven and the upcoming book. I read the book and enjoyed listening to the audiobook in addition.

This book was a real eye-opener for me. It's one I want to read again and again because there is so much to absorb. Absolutely fascinating!

It is amazing how little we consider the topic of heaven. We are so tied up in earthly cares and concerns that we do not spend the time to consider the specifics of our eternal destination.

In this regard, Randy Alcorn has put together a tremendous book on the subject that is both well researched in terms of biblical truth and well thought out in terms of the challenges and distractions that we each face.

I strongly urge you to buy this book. It will help you focus your life differently. It will help you to do what we are commanded in Colossians 3:1-2 ... "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." Read it, learn it, know it - you won't regret it!

Alcorn has written a terrific book on the topic of "Heaven". One of the wonderful experience when reading "THe Heaven" is that I feel my understanding about heaven and life after death is being challenged. "The Heaven" gives me an opportunity to rethink about my understanding and interpretation in the scriptures on this particular topic. Alcorn has made some sound exegesis and used some very good examples from the scriptures to support his view and argument. Alcorn mindfully explains and elaborates his point of view on heaven. Alcorn is able to turn heaven as described in the scriptures into a 3 dimensional picture allowing audience to visualize what the actual life of heaven will "possibly be like". He makes heaven such a very interesting topic to think about. Indeed, it needs to acknowledge Alcorns's insight into the topic of "Heaven" and his effort in putting this book together. However, it will also be true and fair to say that many of Alcorn's views on heaven are speculations and personal opinions. It needs to be read with cautions and tested with the golden standard, the bible. Anyhow, I have to say "The Heaven" is indeed a worth reading and definitely inspiring book to read.

I learned a lot from this book, and recommend it to everyone. Mr. Alcorn goes to great lengths to show the Scripture behind his writing.

This book has helped me appreciate my journey toward God. I have had my conflicts with pleasing others and yet believing that in the end it doesn't matter who is happy with me. The pull to please others is so strong when I lose sight of God. My relationship with God has grown simply by understanding who He is just that much more.

In an age of overwork, programs and performance based assessments (of everything), this is a liberating book which majors on God loves for us, such great love. Jacobsen emphasises our need to know God and to abide in Him. He reassures us that we are loved unconditionally and that our service flows from our security in Christ, not as a method to attain that security. Thanks Wayne.

This book along with it's recommended selections, has literally changed my life. To find, in print, the very things I have wanted to believe about God for so long has been indescribable!

If you view your life in Christ not as a religious thing you do but as a journey, you will want this book in your backpack.

If I had to rate the five most infulential books in my life this one would definitely be on the list. For anyone who is tired of running on the "God is Good...You're Bad...Try Harder treadmill", this book is a source of rest. For anyone who is fatigued at viewing their circumstances through a warped crystal ball that alwasy leaves them wondering if God really cares, this book is a profound journey worth taking. This book had a radical effect on my spiritual journey.

I wish that I had what he has. Such a beautiful soul. A wonderful book to take along wherever you go, to quiet the mind.

This is a book, of amazing depth; each paragraph is a meditation; if you contemplate each, the meaning will open up; try it, you'll be amazed.. well actually you'll be THAT in which amazement arises... if you get the point.

I really enjoyed this book - it definitely gave me a fresh new perspective on life.

I keep this wonderful little book at my bedside and wouldn't think of traveling without it. The subjects (chapters) indicated in the table of contents make it easy to find concise help for issues that may cause anxiety and/or frustration in one's daily life. It's a real treasure!

I have just read 'The Power of Now', and had actually read 'Stillness Speaks' before that. I would recommend buying 'The Power of Now' first if mindfulness is fairly new to you. The Power of Now provides more of a foundation for the mind, before going beyond mind and into presence. 'Stillness Speaks', on the other hand, is condensed snippets that are like immediate portals into stillness and sanity for those who have some familiarity with mindfulness/meditation already, as I did. That said, I found 'Stillness Speaks' an immediate and refreshing facilitator of stillness/presence/being for me....and it continues to be this each time I pick it up. A homecoming to 'sanity'. It cuts through mental noisiness, reminds me of my depths and that life is here and now.

In 'Power of Now' Tolle suggests we listen with more than the mind, almost like listening with the body when we read. I instantly recognised in this description my primary mode of reading spiritual texts, and you may too; and I find Tolle's writing very nourishing when read in this subtle way. If my mind is too dominant and I'm in resistance to the moment, however, his writing appears to lack depth or interest, and the way appears barred to me! This suggests to me that his writing does indeed come from a place of being, and not from an egoic, mental level. While I'll read others for more mind-food, I'll continue to dip into Tolle for soul-food and instant peace.

Shane Claiborne has written a highly personal account of his journey as a follower of Christ and the call he feels to live radically for Christ. Much of The Irresistible Revolution is inspirational. Shane writes primarily to American evangelicals, who he calls out of their depressingly normal lives. Along the way, he levels numerous criticisms at the church, many of which seem on target.

The American evangelical church is in many ways indistinguishable from secular culture -- by its materialism, marketing, bigger-is-better mentality, and celebrity adoration. Worship services and youth ministry have almost become forms of entertainment. The church cultivates believers, but not always followers. Shane challenges his readers to take Jesus at his word when he spoke about the poor being blessed; the last being first; loving our enemies; denying ourselves; and serving Christ himself by serving the poor, lonely, sick, and imprisoned. And Shane criticizes the mixture of faith, patriotism, and conservative politics that characterize parts of the evangelical landscape.

Shane doesn't beat up his readers. He writes with a light, often humorous touch. He teaches almost entirely through stories, mostly his own. One of his appealing qualities is his willingness to take the unconventional route, to take risks for God. He seems to have cultivated an enjoyment of risk-taking, almost like that of a prankster. There is a streak of mischievousness that runs through his stories.

I wanted to like this book. There isn't very much about my walk of faith that I would call radical. Serious and heart-felt, yes. Sacrificial, to a degree. But radical, very little. One line from the book has stayed with me: "We have insulated ourselves from miracles. We no longer live with such reckless faith that we need them. There is rarely room for the transcendent in our lives."

However, as I read deeper into the book I began to notice many problems. By the end of the book I was pretty tired of these problems, several of which I describe below. Nevertheless, The Irresistible Revolution contains many good observations and will probably inspire and stick with many readers.

Now for the problems:

- I noticed an occasional harshness, even scorn, toward Christians with whom Shane disagrees. I don't know why he thinks this attitude is okay.

- Shane criticizes the mixture of biblical faith and right wing politics that exists in much of the church today. But his own politics are clearly left wing and his own faith and vision for the church are just as tinged by those politics. Nowhere does he acknowledge the truly difficult judgments involved in rightly engaging the culture with the gospel. Nor does he acknowledge the long cultural and moral slide that the Christian right has tried to address or propose alternative ways to address it.

- Shane is anti-war and anti-death penalty. His theology on these issues is anchored in Jesus' teaching to love our enemies and appears to preclude any use of violent force under any circumstances. Does he even believe the fight against the Axis powers in World War II was wrong? One of his heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. Shane approvingly quotes Bonhoeffer and calls him a fellow resister, but nowhere mentions the problem (for a pacifist) that Bonhoeffer tried to assassinate Hitler.

- Shane condemns the Iraq war, but the war he condemns is a straw man. Based on his description, one would think the war is merely an American conquest of Iraq. In fact, it is more complicated, consisting of a war to depose Saddam Hussein, a war against the Jihadists who subsequently poured into Iraq to destabilize the new democracy, and a civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

- At times Shane seems anti-capitalist, but he does not make his position completely clear, nor does he say what economic system would be an improvement over capitalism.

- Shane seems to romanticize the poor and credit to them a nobility that I don't see. He even refers to them as his teachers. The poor, at least the poor in America, are not simply victims of economic injustice. In my (limited) experience working with the homeless in San Francisco, I have mostly encountered people with a complex of problems, many being of their own making, and poverty being just one. These people are created by God and deserve practical help and love, but they are not particularly romantic or noble.

- In his anti-war and anti-poverty advocacy, Shane often expresses mushy sentiments about how we're all one big family, regardless of country, race, class, or religion. At times he seems to confuse the Body of Christ with the family of mankind. He sometimes sounds like mainline Protestantism of 50 years ago, with its de-emphasis of orthodox doctrines and its emphasis of the social gospel.

- Early in the book Shane refers to himself as a postmodern: "The things that transform us, especially us 'postmoderns,' are people and experiences. Political ideologies and religious doctrines just aren't very compelling, even if they're true." Perhaps I'm reading too much into these lines, but I found them disturbing. As a philosophical ideology, postmodernism holds that objective truth either does not exist or cannot be known; all one can know are stories, and no story is better than any other story. Reality, truth, and value are held to be arbitrary cultural and linguistic constructions. But Christianity has always claimed that objective truth exists and is knowable -- truth about God, mankind, and the world -- not exhaustive truth, but real truth. I don't know what we're left with if we abandon this philosophical foundation.

- Shane rightly asks what Jesus has to say about this life and this world, but at one point he asks a strange question: "Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now?" But Paul came very close to answering this question in 1 Corinthians 15: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." And: "If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" If the gospel offers anything, it offers hope -- hope that we are not accidents, that we are loved by a good God, that our lives are going somewhere, and that we don't face personal extinction at death. It is only this hope that gives sufficient impetus to follow Jesus.

Yes, by my rating you can see that I love this book, however that's not what I intend to write about. I simply want to say that you should not rely on the reviews to form your opinion of this book.

I have repeatedly recommended this book to my friends, Christian or not, and whether they liked it, or agreed with it etc, it made them think, it created dialog. For those reasons alone I recommend this book. I do not believe that simply because one reviewer claims it to be biblically grounded, or not biblically grounded should change your decision to read it you need to read it and make your own decisions because whether you agree with him or not there are some important concepts that need to be considered even those who rated it poorly have said this. If you feel like you won't agree and don't want to lend money to the cause then go to a library, buy a cheap used copy, or borrow one. It would be irresponsible to make a judgment about the author based on someone else's review.

"Christianity," says author Shane Claiborne, "often has offered little to the world, other than the hope that things will be better in heaven." This statement appears on the first page of the book, and it's a big clue that Shane isn't spinning a newer, fresher version of the same old predictable Christian party line that everyone else repeats. In fact, the whole purpose of The Irresistible Revolution is to present a radical idea of what it means to be a Christian. Even more importantly, it's about how one man, without aggrandizing himself, chose to do something daring, heroic and good with his life. Instead of buying into the prescribed formula for Christian living, Shane challenges us to break free of the empty roles and rituals "the living dead" pledge allegiance to, and take the path of Love. He talks about how he was "suffocated by Christianity, but thirsty for God."

Say good-bye to Jesus message t-shirts, big expensive churches, and tele-evangelical pleas for followers and cash. Say hello to a man who speaks in love, acts in love, serves humanity in love. This book is a collection of Shane's autobiographical stories about his transformation from a cookie-cutter evangelical youth to a disciple who thinks outside the box and who isn't afraid to shine his light for the world. We are fortunate to be on the planet at the same time with one so aware and one so willing to walk the talk. If you only read one book this year, make it Irresistible Revolution, and allow the passion from Shane's mega big heart to move you to loving action.

Message of Love:
"People always want to define you by what you do. I started saying "I'm not too concerned with what I'm going to do. I am more interested in who I am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people."

What does it mean to love and how is love of God demonstrated? This is the fundamental question Shane explores and answers. Is it by passing out God-flyers on street corners, or is it by passing out bread to the homeless and poor and then teaching them how to make bread for themselves? In January 1997 Shane and five other like-minded cohorts moved into a little row house in Kensington, a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia, and formed The Simple Way. The Simple way is not just about managing poverty, but completely ending it.

"There are plenty of liberals who talk about poverty and injustice but rarely encounter the poor, living detached lives of socially responsible but comfortable consumption." To eradicate poverty it's essential to redefine the meaning of family and to become radically inclusive. There should be no difference between your relationship to someone who's connected to you by marriage, blood, religion or nationality and to someone who lives in the street or another country. Violence and disregard is born out of a narrow, rigid belief about family. Shane asks us to consider "what happens when people fall in love with each other across class lines?" There is nothing worth killing for, but there's something worth dying for -- and that is the love in our hearts that we have for each other.

Did you know that each day 35,000 children in the world starve to death? It's like a 911 event every single day or a tsunami that never ends. Poverty is not created by God. It's created by you and me because we don't see our brothers and sisters as ourselves. What's needed are concrete acts of love. No one can see God, but we can see each other, and God can live in and through us. Shane recommends "instead of waiting for God's special plan for your life, go find where God is doing work, and join in."

This guy understands what Jesus would REALLY do. This book is easy to read and hard to put down. It appeals to my idealistic side. I recommend it for Christians and people considering Christianity.

Definitely worth reading. Will be a 'tough' read for most of us as it lays out what being a true christian is and most of us aren't even close to living it out as it's spelled out here..and I tend to agree with this 'brothas overarching view. However, it does offer a glimpse of hope...even if we all have to take little steps everyday to achieve it and some of the stories he tells are truly uplifting. True there's not much in the way of "middle ground" offered or a step by step guide as pointied out by several reviewers...but that's not the point...Jesus didn't give 49% or 90% effort. It WAS all or nothing. I think what needs to be expanded on is ok, for some, all or nothing might be difficult for most of us, b/c we're already born in and entrenched in the capital economy...we didn't really choose it, we're here now...where can indivuals (with debt, child support, existing health issues, etc) begin. I think if Shane extends more on the "little things" that can lead us as individuals to becoming a true Christian...it would make it more inviting and at least more understanding for some of those on this list of reviewers. Shane, don't stop what you're doing. It is inspiring and yes infectious.