Articles -- Reviews

Take This Bread
This is a marvelous book to explain what "belief" means

The Family of Jesus
James Tabor's book The Jesus Dynasty is a breath of fresh air in historical Jesus scholarship

The Brother of Jesus
Jeffrey Bütz's book on James is the best single book on James, the brother of Jesus

The Da Vinci Code: A Modern Religious Romance
This significance of this book (now a movie) is that it addresses the contemporary yearning for religious experience outside of traditional boundaries, not its half-baked historical ideas 

Are the "Chronicles of Narnia" Christian?
C. S. Lewis' fantasy for children has some Christian elements, but on the question of violence, it doesn't seem to have very much to do with Jesus

Is "Peak Oil" Here?
A review of Kenneth Deffeyes' Beyond Oil and Matthew Simmons' Twilight in the Desert.  Now, anyone with a solid command of eighth-grade algebra can understand the intricacies of H. King Hubbert's methodology -- and Saudi Arabia may not have quite as much oil as we thought, either

Peak Oil and "The Long Emergency"
A review of James Kunstler's excellent book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century

Would We Be "Better Off" Without Technology?
A review of Eric Brende's book Better Off. 

Collapse
Will civilization collapse?  A review of three books on the collapse of societies, by Jared Diamond, J. R. McNeill, and Joseph Tainter

Five More Good Books on the Collapse of Civilization!
The Empty Tank, The Collapsing Bubble, A Short History of Progress, The End of Fossil Energy, and High Noon for Natural Gas all provide more grist for the mill

Is The Lord of the Rings Christian?
The important question is how The Lord of the Rings trilogy treats the question of violence

Review of "Generations," "The Fourth Turning," and "Millennials Rising"
Could a period of major social change be at hand?

Review of "The High Cost of Materialism"
More evidence that consumerism does not help consumers

Review of "Dominion"
An animal rights perspective from a conservative who's rethinking conservatism

Review of "Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West"
Grazing is not the answer

Review of "God’s Last Offer"
God to planet earth: wake up, please, or else

Review of "The Lives of Animals"
Meat-eaters and vegetarians have a communications problem

Review of "Eternal Treblinka"
The slaughterhouses and the death camps were related 

Review of "Food for the Gods"
Good introduction to the problem of vegetarianism in religion

Review of "Mad Cowboy"
Howard Lyman’s story, a cattle rancher turned vegetarian

Review of three books on "traditional Christianity" and vegetarianism
Reviews of Good News for All Creation, Is God a Vegetarian?, and God's Covenant With Animals

Review of The Origin of Christianity
Charles Vaclavik's book challenges Christianity to come to terms with its pacifist, communalist, and vegetarian origins