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The Book: The Thinking Toolbox: Thirty-five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn

:10 -- The Gist: Provides a basic introduction to practical thinking skills. Lessons cover such topics as : When it is dumb to argue, How to defeat your own argument, Using the scientific method, Brainstorming, Who has a reason to lie? How to analyze opposing viewpoints, How to analyze evidence and sources, How to list reasons why you believe something, et al.

:20 -- The Quote: "A source is any place we get information about something. Books, newspapers, movies, the person next to you on the bus, and the label on your mattress can all be sources of information. When looking at sources, you will quickly realize that while some sources can be trusted, others cannot." (p. 76)

:30 -- The Good: Each chapter is brief, self-contained, and provides a list of exercises that help reinforce the lesson. (View a sample chapter (PDF))

:40 -- The Bad: Although it claims to be "written for ages 13 through adult", most teens will find it too simplistic to keep their attention.

:50 -- The Verdict: This short textbook, along with its companion, The Fallacy Detective, provide enjoyable, easy-to-understand lessons on reasoning. Homeschooling parents will find it a useful supplementary resource; parents whose children attend public school will find it an essential remedial tool.

:60 -- The Recommendation: Inquisitive students, ages 9-13, should enjoy this introductory course on thinking.

The Book: Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by Mark D. Roberts

:10 -- The Gist: Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts, a pastor, blogger, and Harvard-trained New Testament scholar, examines and refutes some of the most common criticisms of the Gospels and shows why we can trust their reliability.

:20 -- The Quote: "The more time I spent with some of the leading New Testament scholars in the world, the more I came to respect their brilliance and, at the same time, to recognize the limitations of their scholarly perspectives. I saw how often conclusions based on unsophisticated assumptions were accepted without question by the reigning scholarly community, and taught uncritically as if they were all, well, Gospel truth." (p. 18)

:30 -- The Good: Roberts examines the best arguments presented by those who challenge the Gospels' critics in order to make his convincing case for their trustworthiness.

:40 -- The Bad: The undue attention paid to responding to The Da Vinci Code mania mars this soon-to-be classic work.

:50 -- The Verdict: (From the blurb I wrote for the book jacket) Can We Trust The Gospels? caught me completely by surprise. While I knew a scholar of Mark Roberts' caliber could convince skeptics the Gospels are reliable, I never expected to have my own preconceptions uprooted and replaced with a more solid trust in these biblical texts. This book not only makes a compelling case for trusting the Gospels, it illuminates the creative ways in which God worked to bring us His word.

:60 -- The Recommendation: This brilliant little book deserves to be widely read by both skeptics and believers.

The Book: Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men, and Devil-Worshippers Who Became Saints by Thomas Craughwell

:10 -- The Gist: Craughwell, a Catholic diocesan newspaper columnist, provides 28 biographical sketches of thieves, heretics, drunkards, rapists, Satanists, and other "notorious sinners" who later became followers of Christ and were canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

:20 -- The Quote: "The inescapable fact remains that nowhere in the four gospels does it ever say that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute or in the any other way sexually promiscuous. True, the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke say that Christ cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, but that is not reason to assume that the demons made her a loose woman. Christ cast devils out of plenty of men too, but no one suggests that they were licentious." (From the Introduction)

:30 -- The Good: Craughwell helps dispel the myth that saints are moral superheroes and shows that saints are made by God's sovereign grace.

:40 -- The Bad: The subtitle gives a misleading impression. Rather than being exceptionally vicious evildoers, many of the saints profiled were merely garden-variety sinners (St. Genesius, Scoffer; St. Peter Claver, Dithering Novice; St. Pelagia, Promiscuous Actress, etc.).

:50 -- The Verdict: Craughwell does an admirable job of filling in the details that are usually glossed over with "he/she was once a great sinner." The brief snapshots from the "Whey They Were Heathens" period of these famous lives shows that the canonized are not that different from the rest of us saints. Although the natural audience for the book is Catholics, evangelicals and other Protestants would do well to read this brief biographical collection. Too often we tend to act as if church history began with St. Paul, skipped over to the Reformation, and then lay dormant until the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Saints Behaving Badly helps remind us that there are numerous sinners-turned-saints from our past that we can still learn from today.

:60 -- The Recommendation: For biography buffs, church history geeks, and anyone who has wanted a Cliff Notes version of Butler's Lives of the Saints.

What is scripture? Is it divinely inspired or merely the product of flawed humans? What is its purpose and how can it be interpreted? Christian Theologies of Scripture, edited by Justin Holcolmb, examines how traditions and theologian have attempted to answer these sorts of questions throughout the church's history. The essays focus on three broad historical eras--the patristic and medieval, reformation and counter-reformation, 19th and 29th centuries--as well as the contextual theologies derived from feminism, postmodernism, and the African-American Church.

The comprehensive scope of the book makes is ideally suited for pastors, seminarians, and other serious students of theology. Interested laymen, however, will appreciate the chapters dedicated to their specific tradition. Michael Horton, for example, provides an enlightening introduction to the reformation and counter-reformation movements that clarifies that the "Controversy between Rome and the Reformation did not center on the nature of scripture in terms of inspiration and authority, but came to a head over the question of sufficiency."

Read Introduction by Justin Holcomb; Table of Contents

Subject matter: Biblical criticism and interpretation, theology

Recommended for: Seminarians, pastors, theologians.

Related: Common Grounds Online (blog where Justin Holcomb is a contributor)

In the year 1560 a group of English scholars who had fled to Geneva during the reign of Queen Mary I (“Bloody Mary”), set about the task of translating the Bible. This version, known at the Geneva Bible or “Breeches” because of the peculiar choice in rendering of Genesis 3:7*, quickly became one of the most popular translations the era. Brought to America on the Mayflower, this version was found in almost every Puritan household. It was the Bible read by William Shakespeare, John Donne, and John Bunyan.

Copies of the 1560-1665 editions are rare, but GenevaBiblePages.com makes it possible to own individual pages of these historic texts. The pages are available framed, mounted, or preserved in a transparent acid-free archival sleeve. The review copy I received was of a framed page from Ezekiel, published by Christopher Barker in 1599. The page is remarkably well-preserved, having been printed on linen rather than on paper like modern Bibles. Although slightly browned, the page looks like it could have been printed in the last century rather than 400 years ago.

The unmounted pages sell for $24.99 (including shipping), a reasonable price for an item that may have once belonged to our Puritan forefathers. The framed page comes in an 11" x 14" oak frame between 2 panes of glass, and highlighted in a black bevel cut double mat. While the frame is lovely, it is difficult to justify the $94.99 price tag. (For that price I'd recommend buying four unmounted pages.) Pages which were not suitable for framing have been cut in half vertically, encased in an acid-free archival sleeve, and made available as bookmarks (a set of 2 for $14.99 w/free ground shipping). The bookmarks would make a great low-cost thank you gifts for pastors and church leaders.

Pre-1640 King James Bible pages are also available in each of these formats.

Recommended for: Bible collectors; admirers of Puritan culture; history buffs; Reformed pastors

[Disclosure statement: GenevaBiblePages.com is a BlogAd sponsor of EO.]

*Genesis 3:7: (using modern spelling) "Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches."

There is one thing to always keep in mind, my father said, summing up his views on choosing a wife, “Cooking lasts, kissing don’t.” Considering that my mother considered Spam to be one of the four food groups, I can understand why he thought this advice was essential. Still, it seemed that there should be more that I should know so when I began my own search for a mate I turned to Christian books on dating and marriage.

After reading dozens of books explaining how to kiss dating goodbye, how to say hello to courtship, and how burning desires can lead to burning for eternity, I devised a simple standard by which to judge their advice. The criteria was based on how they answered the question, “How do you find Mr./Ms. Right?”

In With One Voice: Singleness, Dating and Marriage to the Glory of God, Alex and Marni Chediak provide the ultimate answer: It is more important to become a certain type of person than it is to find a certain type of boyfriend/girlfriend.

What are you doing to become the sort of person who would be winsome and attractive to the kind of person you want to marry? (p. 45)

Such candid questions and refreshing candor is the hallmark of this supurb book on dating and marriage. It is filled with advice that is redemptive, realistic, and relevant.

Unlike many similar works written by Christians, the Chediaks do not advocate going back to the “good ol’ days.” Much of what passes today for “Biblical patterns of courtship” is, after all, simply the cultural norms of 19th century America. Instead, the Chediaks carefully delineate between biblical principle and optional cultural and societal norms and show how that must guide our choices.

Their approach is “counter-cultural” in the original sense of the term. For example, they address the very real problem of staying on the “search” too long and letting suitable candidates for marriage slip away.

It is noteworthy that women more frequently make this objection that the right man has not yet pursued them. Women do have a unique responsibility to respond to, nurture, and affirm male initiation in this area, and the last thing I’d want to do is make a women feel guilty for being committed to doing so. That said, women can also (perhaps unwittingly) make the mistake of settting unrealistic expectations. Many woman, for example, believe that there must be a “perfect match” for them out there, and its their job to wait for them. This may seem romantic, but it is horribly debilitating. As soon as she’s lost that first rush of emotion and is getting to know him as a flawed human (and not the paragon of perfection her ignorance initially allowed him to be) she feels obligated to end the relationship. This happens with some frequency where women have been duped by the media into thinking that marriage must be a state of perpetual bliss and that, if it is not, something must be wrong with their partner. (p. 46-47)

With One Voice is filled with such practical wisdom. The Chediaks willingness to address the real struggles that singles face (e.g., “How far can a couple go sexually before marriage?”) is what makes it a truly invaluable resource. This is the type of book that I wish I had found –and my wife had read—before I traveled down the path to lifelong commitment.

Subject matter: Courtship, dating, marriage

Recommended for: Christian singles; Mature-minded high school and college-age teens

Related: Alex Chediak's Blog

Some books are destined to become obsolete. Many works that were once fresh and contentious are now viewed, with retrospective chronological snobbery, as quite obvious and inarguable. Take, for example, Joel Tiffany�s A Treatise on the Unconstitutionality of American Slavery in which he contends �the assumption that the Constitution guarantees slavery, are so absurd and ridiculous as necessarily to destroy all such argument.� While Tiffany�s work may be of interest to historians, no modern reader needs to read it to be convinced that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to own slaves. Such an idea is indeed, to the modern reader, both absurd and ridiculous.

Ramesh Ponnuru�s new book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, will likely suffer a similar fate. A century from now Americans will consider it absurd and ridiculous to think that the Constitution guarantees the right to abortion, much less embryo-destruction, euthanasia, and infanticide. Until that time comes, though, Ponnuru�s tightly argued, imminently persuasive book will remain essential reading for anyone concerned with the politics of bioethics.

Unfortunately, many people, particularly those unfamiliar with Ponnuru�s writings in National Review, will never see past the inflammatory title (and the Ann Coulter blurb on the cover). They will dismiss the book as the screed of yet another partisan hack, rather than an understated, carefully researched work by a brilliant young conservative intellectual.

The provocative title, though, is rather apt. As he writes in the introduction, the phrase �party of death� is �meant to be descriptive, not (purely) pejorative." Ponnuru builds such a convincing case that all but the most intemperate Democrats will begrudgingly admit that the phrase is all too applicable.

Ponnuru is unapologetically �pro-life�, his argument built on a foundational premise rooted in human dignity:

Conversation and narrative are two of the most overused buzzwords in the modern church. The emergent church, in particular, has adopted the terms as metaphors for the movement. Yet for all of the talk about how narrative and conversation are keys to communicating with �postmoderns� (another overused buzzword), few Christian leaders have actually combined them in an effective manner.

In their theological novel Common Grounds, authors Ben Young and Glenn Lucke provide an excellent example of how to move to pluck these buzzwords from the realm of metaphor and put them back into the world of real conversations. Set in a Houston coffee house, their story presents a dialogue between three students--a �back-sliding� Southern Baptist investment banker, a charismatic philosophy student, a lapsed Catholic turned agnostic lawyer�and their interlocutor, a retired seminary professor.