Book Reviews

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Written by: Sarah Pomphrey

Created: 01 May 2019

Side by Side:
Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love
Edward T. Welch
Crossway 2015

We love to help people but we’re not so keen on being helped. We want to support people in church but we don’t know what to say. We feel like it’s the job for the experts so we leave it to them. What have we to offer anyway?

Side by Side by Ed Welch is a gentle yet persuasive book about walking alongside others in love and wisdom. It prompts us to face our fears and engage in the relational struggle of others, knowing that ours is the struggle too. It’s a vital commentary about creating authentic, active community, the best kind, by walking humbly alongside others.

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Written by: Michelle Underwood

Created: 01 May 2019

Is God Green?
Lionel Windsor
Matthias Media, 2018

Most Christian commentary on caring for the environment leaves me completely cold. I just can’t seem to muster up the motivation that other people have to ‘live sustainably’. There, I said it out loud.

The topic often makes me feel enormously guilty for my pathetic failures - I keep forgetting my Keep Cup and reusable bags, I haven’t done enough research into what products I buy that have microbeads ruining the oceans, and yes I know I shouldn’t duck to the shops in my petrol guzzling car to pick up dinner (that probably comes in too much plastic packaging) but I excuse myself by claiming that I just don’t have enough time to do better because I’m a busy mum who is just trying to get through the day. Too much mental load, people! Am I the only one who feels like this? I suspect not.

Read more: Book Review: Is God Green?

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Written by: David Seccombe

Created: 01 March 2019

Evolution:
Still a Theory in Crisis
Michael Denton
Discovery Institute Press, 2016

It was 3 am. Unable to sleep, I arose to continue reading Michael Denton’s Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis (2016). To my surprise I turned a page and found it was the last. Some authors have a lot of footnotes!

Sadly, I have never studied biology, so am unable to assess much of the evidence and argumentation, except in a superficial common sense way. I wish someone better equipped than I would help us here. Having said that, the book reinforces my own growing conviction that the Darwinian model of evolution is too simple by far, and fails to bring us to a right understanding of what one of my childhood books on evolution called ‘the miracle of life’.

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Written by: Tim Ravenhall

Created: 01 March 2019

A Failure of Nerve:
Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

Edwin H. Friedman
Seabury Books, 2007

The purpose of this review is to help Christian leaders engage with Edwin Friedman’s genuine insights into leadership in a society that has become increasingly anxious. I will offer up at points, in no great triumph of exegesis, some scriptural observations as to why we might not always wholeheartedly agree with him, yet in general affirm his conclusions on leadership. Edwin H. Friedman was an ordained rabbi who was for twenty years a leader in a synagogue. He was also a practicing family therapist and consultant to leadership in different spheres of life, from the family through to the American defence force. A Failure of Nerve was published sometime after his death and is at points an incomplete manuscript. This book is great, a summary of a secular sage’s life investment in leadership. 
               
Here is Friedman’s own confession of who the book is for and what it is about:

Read more: Book Review: A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix