A Review of

Worshiping With the Church Fathers.
Christopher Hall.
Paperback: IVP Academic, 2010.
Buy now: [ ChristianBook.com ]

[ Read an excerpt of this book here... ]

Reviewed by Chris Smith.

Worshiping with the Church Fathers is the third volume of Christopher Hall’s four volume work on the Church in its earliest centuries.  This new volume, looks specifically at the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist, the practice of prayer and the spirituality of the desert fathers.  His objective is:

To present as clearly as possible the fathers’ understanding of what worship is and what it isn’t.  I have tried to allow them to speak for themselves, to present their case and then to encourage readers to make their own decisions as to the validity of the particular patristic viewpoints.

Hall does a fine job both of achieving his stated goal of letting the Church Fathers speak for themselves and of providing enough context through which the reader can understand the writings of the Fathers.  The book’s first two chapters explore the roles of baptism and the Eucharist respectively, with a particular emphasis on the sacramental (and material) nature of both practices.  Hall explains that the material nature of the sacraments is rooted in the incarnation of Christ:

(more…)

Thanks to Doulos Christou Books, we are giving away two (gently) used books by Henri Nouwen.  Both are in great shape and have clean pages!

• The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry (A perfect complement to the Christopher Hall book reviewed above).
• Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons.
  (Includes fold out flaps with color reproductions of 4 famous icons)

We will chose two lucky winners, the first will get his/her pick of these books.

How to enter to win this book:

1. Announce the contest on Twitter, Facebook or your blog: I just entered to win 1 of 2 Henri Nouwen books from The Englewood Review (@ERBks ).  You can enter too: http://ow.ly/1dqri
2. Post a comment to this announcement with your name and a link to your post for #1.
3. You may enter one time per day for the duration of the contest.
4. We will pick two winners at random from the eligible contestants and notify them this weekend.

The contest will end at 4PM ET on this Friday March 5.

Today is the birthday of the late author and illustrator Theodore Geisel (aka, Dr. Seuss).

Here are two articles on Dr. Seuss  from Mental Floss magazine with stories that offer a deeper look at his life and works:

• 10 stories about Dr. Seuss’s most beloved books
• 5 stories about Dr. Seuss himself.

And here is the movie of one of our favorite Dr. Seuss books, The Lorax:

Two excellent books that are being released in cheaper, paperback editions this week.  Now would be an excellent time to read them, if you haven’t already!

Acedia and Me:

A Marriage, Monks
and A Writer’s Life.
Kathleen Norris.
Paperback:
Riverhead,
March 2010.

Our 2008 Book of the Year!

[ Read our Review ]

[Buy the paperback! ]

Beyond Biotechnology:
The Barren Promise of Genetic Engineering.
Craig Holdrege and Steve Talbott.
Paperback:

University Press of Kentucky. 2010.

[ Read our Review ]

[ Buy the paperback! ]

ERB editors Chris Smith and Brent Aldrich will be speaking at Calvin College next Monday with our friend Ragan Sutterfield:

Taking Pop Culture Back to the People:
The Church as a Catalyst of Local Culture
A Lecture in the Calvin College Pop Culture Series

3:30 PM Monday March 8, 2010
Meeter Center Lecture Hall
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, MI

Free and Open to the Public.

The effects of several centuries of individualism and several decades of globalization, have served to disconnect us from our neighbors and from the places in which we live. Brent Aldrich, Chris Smith and Ragan Sutterfield will make a case that churches, as communities of God’s people guided by the redemptive mission of God, are not only essential to the reclaiming of the identity of their specific places, but can also serve to nurture a distinctive local culture that is of the people (i.e., popular). Brent, Chris and Ragan will also share stories from our own adventures in embodying this vision of the Church – Ragan as a farmer, Brent as a visual artist and Chris as a community developer and urban naturalist.

Facebook invitation (Share it with a friend!):
http://ow.ly/1d2CZ