This is sort of a “classic” in the church ministry genre, but was a first-time read for me. There’s nothing earth-shattering now, but I imagine it was fairly revolutionary when it was published in 1978. It isn’t that today’s churches have mastered discipleship — we certainly haven’t — there are just a lot more materials available today. The Trellis and the Vine, for instance, covers many of the same topics, but is more practical and relevant to the 21st-century.
Still, there is something encouraging to be reminded that there are no “new” ideas in church ministry (at least, none that are based on Scripture). In every generation, faithful scholars, preachers, and theologians remind us that God never changes, and His design and purpose for His Church remains the same. He desires that every Christian would be growing into spiritual maturity, while simultaneously making disciples of others.
This book will make a good addition to any Christian’s library, and is a quick easy read. Buy it here.
Just War as Christian Discipleship: Recentering the Tradition in the Church rather than the State. Daniel M. Bell Jr. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009.
Dan Bell’s ‘Just War as Christian Discipleship’ is a wonderful introduction to the Just War tradition. Bell names the work as written for the non-specialist who is interested in learning both the history and current use of the tradition. While the book excels as an introduction, in many ways it transcends the category of introductory text book. More than simply recounting the various strands of Just War thinking, Bell offers a thorough re-thinking of the Just War tradition’s most recent form.
Bell refers to the most common and current form of the Just War tradition as Just War Public Policy Check list (PPC). This PPC strand of the tradition is represented by those who view the tradition primarily as a set of criteria for the use of political leaders in crafting public policy. Bell critiques the PPC strand of the tradition by suggesting we consider Just War as a form of Christian discipleship (CD). The aim here is to see Just War as a means of embodying the kinds of specifically Christian practices and commitments that lead to faithful discipleship during times of war and peace.
As an example of his claim that this book is written to aid the Church’s reflection on discipleship in the midst of wars and rumors of wars, each chapter concludes with an exploration of the way the Just War tradition challenges the Church. These sections help the reader to see how seemingly abstract discussions of criteria directly connect to the life of the Church. For example, the criteria of legitimate authority challenges the Church to examine the kind of leaders it produces and supports.
Throughout the book, Bell is interested in the reader not only learning the tradition, but learning to live the tradition well. Bell names this living as a form of Christian discipleship. He admits that it will be costly and difficult. Indeed, it will be impossible without the grace of God. However, for that very reason, Just War (CD) presents the Church with an opportunity to bear witness to the Lordship of Christ even and especially in times of war.
Have you heard that Alphabet Soup magazine is starting a Junior Reviewers Club for kids aged 6 to 12?
You can write reviews of books you love, and go on our list of club members who would like to receive free books to review. Your reviews will be published in the Write On section of Alphabet Soup magazine, or occasionally here on Soup Blog.
Membership to the Junior Reviewers Club is free, and club members can be individual children, or a primary school class. (In the case of a class, we will send one book for the class to read together, and class members can write a collaborative review, or individual reviews).
While club membership is open to Australian and overseas children, currently we can only send review copies to Australian addresses due to the high cost of postage. (But members outside Australia are welcome to submit reviews of their own books, and receive the members’ newsletter.)
Parents and teachers can request an application pack by emailing the editor.
Diapora Dialogues Features Young Writers - Photo Courtesy of Dreamstime.com
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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Young Writers from the Edge
Join us this March as high school students in Etobicoke, Danforth-Crescent Town, Jamestown and Malvern present their brand new creative writing at reading events in their neighbourhoods.
In Young Writers from the Edge, Diaspora Dialogues’ youth writing program, students work with professional mentors to develop their writing skills in three different forms, including fiction, drama, poetry, graphic novel, and journalism.
Based on the work developed through these workshops, the youth will present their pieces alongside their mentors at a celebratory reading event. Don’t miss the chance to hear our city’s freshest emerging writers!
For more information, contact Julia at 416-944-1101 x 277 or julia@diasporadialogues.com.
Young Writers from the Etobicoke Edge
Presented in partnership with Lakeshore Arts and Toronto Cultural Services
When: Thursday, March 4th, 2010 – 6 pm
Students from: Father John Redmond CSS and Lakeshore CI
Mentors: Julie Tepperman, Emily Pohl-Weary, Kerri Sakamoto, Isaac Thomas, Melissa Dean
Where: The Assembly Hall – 1 Colonel Samuel Smith Park Drive (SE corner of Kipling Ave and Lake Shore Blvd W)
Young Writers from the Danforth-Crescent Town Edge
Presented in partnership with S Walter Stewart Branch
When: Friday, March 5th, 2010 – 6 pm
Students from: East York CI and Danforth CI
Mentors: Emily Pohl Weary, Catherine Graham, Diana Tso, Lauren Kirshner and Nicholas Keung
Where: S Walter Stewart Branch Library – 170 Memorial Park Avenue (Danforth and Coxwell)
Young Writers from the Jamestown Edge
Presented in partnership with Albion District Branch
When: Saturday, March 6th, 2010 – 6 pm
Students from: North Albion CI, Kipling CI, Thistletown CI, and Monsignor Percy Johnson CHS
Mentors: Andrea Thompson, Andrew Mitrovica, Philip Adams and Greg Beettam
Where: Albion District Branch Library – 1515 Albion Road (Albion and Kipling)
Young Writers from the Malvern Edge
Presented in partnership with Malvern Branch
When: Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 – 6 pm
Students from: Lester B Pearson CI and Blessed Mother Teresa CSS
Mentors: Julie Tepperman, Ibi Kaslik and Tory Woollcott
Where: Malvern Branch Library – 30 Sewells Road (Neilson and Sheppard Ave E)
Diaspora Dialogues is supported by Maytree, Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, the George Cedric Metcalf Foundation, TO Live With Culture, and the Vital Toronto Fund through the Toronto Community Foundation.
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If the world lacked bookstores, I have every reason to think that this human race will be deprived of imagination, character and clarity.
Through books, we are drawn to its characters, plots, suspense, thriller and conclusion which seals our anticipation. Add pre-loved bookstores and there’s more excitement at hand to any book lovers and eager book hunter like me.
I’ve always been a regular at pre-loved bookstores. Salvos, Vinnies, garage sales, small Ops shops operated by churches and the spread of quaint pre-loved bookstores has taken my fancy. I recently came across Owl, a well stocked pre-loved bookstore at Archer St, along O’Connell St in North Adelaide, and instantly fell in love. With an inviting bohemian reading room, a chaise lounge and an antique fireplace, it provides a calm and reflective background as you hover over rows and rows of books.
I came across some bargains and picked up three books for under $4, plus another at $8. A steal indeed!
The Diary of a Married Call Girl by Tracy Quan follows a stream of journal entries of a married woman, Nancy, who’s living it big but falls into the darker side of frolic and sharing her body with other men, other than her rightful spouse. Am looking forward to reading Nancy’s vivid and humorous notes to her diary.
Love takes you Home by Julie Capaldo, embraces 13 delicious meals and recipes retold in wonderful snippets of Grace Sabato pilgrimage in soughting life’s beauty and experiences which starts from the kitchen. This one should offer food to my soul, and no doubt I shall devour this with a big bite!
I got The String by Morris Lurie as I thought it would be a good read for my young sons when they can appreciate a short novel in a few years time. Morris wax lyrical of fatherhood, friendship, grief and love via eleven linked stories.
My favourite read so far and I haven’t finished this read is Preethi Nair’s One Hundred Shades of White. Satchin and Maya, siblings, lives are changed dramatically when they move from India to London, only to discover later that their father’s dad has left them penniless in an alien culture. As they struggle to keep it together, the children are kept in the dark of their father’s other double life. He is in fact alive, and with another family of his own. I will share my review at my soonest and cannot wait to share this riveting plot to all.
Enjoy some photos of my finds from Owl bookstore and I managed to snap some pixs from Owl too.
Till then, I hope you untap some hidden bookstores wherever you may be. Happy reading! xx
Parts of this book, I loved and other parts, I really disliked. The writing is incredible when it describes Edgar’s relationship with his family’s dogs. So poignant and believable! However, I found the ghost element of the story unbelievable. All and all, it’s an enjoyable read and probably a must for dog-lovers. The book really redeems itself by not analyzing the villain. You get to do that all on your own.
Book Bitch says: It’s decent, but not worth all of the hype
By Arthur C Clarke and Frederik Pohl, HarperVoyager, €22
Published in The Sunday Business Post on August 31st, 2008, reviewed by Alex Meehan
It’s always tempting to address a writer’s body of work through their most recently published book, and never more so than when the writer in question has recently passed on.
Arthur C Clarke died in March this year aged 90, having started The Last Theorem in 2002.Unable to finish it due to his ailing health, he invited fellow science fiction heavyweight Frederik Pohl to complete the book, although he apparently read and approved the finished draft just a few days before his death.
However, it would be a real shame if this massively influential author’s legacy as a futurist and writer hinged on this final novel.
The Last Theorem tells the story of Sri Lankan protagonist Ranjit Subramanian and his obsession with Pierre de Fermat’s infamous mathematical theorem. In real life, Fermat’s last theorem went unproven for 357 years until 1995, when Andrew Wiles published a proof.
In Clarke and Pohl’s novel, the story begins by introducing Ranjit as the son of a Hindu priest and a student in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. He is obsessed with maths and astronomy, and when he is caught in a compromising situation with his best friend Gamini Bandara, his father disapproves, not because Gamini is male, but rather because he is of the wrong social class.
As a result, Ranjit is temporarily disowned by his family and, in a bizarre twist of events, is kidnapped by pirates and held captive for several months. With nothing to do except think about maths, he hits upon a solution to his life’s obsession – Fermat’s last theorem.
When he’s released and the proof is published, Ranjit is catapulted into a position of global recognition. As a result of his new found fame, he comes into contact with representatives of a shadowy international organisation, Pax per Fidem (Peace through Transparency), keen to recruit his services as a mathematician.
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Ranjit can initially find out little about this group until an overnight military attack on North Korea brings them into the light of public scrutiny. Pax per Fidem is the guardian of a new super weapon held in common by the largest of Earth’s nations – silent thunder.
Based on electromagnetic pulse technology, the weapon destroys all electrical devices for hundreds of miles in every direction but leaves people unharmed. When North Korea is effectively neutralised as a nuclear threat, a new period of peace arrives as rogue nations around the world are rendered impotent.
However, unbeknown to the people of Earth, a race of overlord beings known as the Grand Galactics have had their attention drawn to Earth by the unmistakable trace signatures of nuclear explosions.
The book follows Ranjit throughout his life from youth to old age, taking in his involvement in the new world order that emerges as a result of the use of silent thunder, as well as his marriage and subsequent children.
However, the characters around Ranjit are not well fleshed out and, as a result, it’s hard to stay truly immersed in the story.
The Last Theorem is an imaginative and challenging book, but many of its ideas and themes will already be well known to Clarke’s fans. Most, such as the use of space elevators and the question of man’s place in a wider universe likely to have intelligent life, have been dealt with before in previous works, most notably in Fountains of Paradise, Childhood’s End and the hugely influential 2001: A Space Odyssey.
What this book does very well is to take some fascinating science and maths, and make them intelligible. It’s just a shame the story doesn’t carry its technological payload a bit more proficiently.
Just War as Christian Discipleship: Recentering the Tradition in the Church rather than the State. Daniel M. Bell Jr. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009. 
Have you heard that Alphabet Soup magazine is starting a Junior Reviewers Club for kids aged 6 to 12?
Arthur C Clarke died in March this year aged 90, having started The Last Theorem in 2002.Unable to finish it due to his ailing health, he invited fellow science fiction heavyweight Frederik Pohl to complete the book, although he apparently read and approved the finished draft just a few days before his death.