If you've grown up in America--or even if you've just had America imported to you via media and pop culture--the air you breathe with respect to identity and purpose is something along the lines of "be who you want to be," "follow your dreams," "find yourself," "don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams."
My 2011 recaps ends here, with my list of the best books I read in 2011. I read 42 books, of vast variety—some old, some new, some fiction, mostly nonfiction—many of which were in some way research for the book I am currently writing. About half were for no other purpose than pleasure. Here are my picks for the ones that stood out the most.
Though Christianity looks at times to be more fractured than ever these days, with all sorts of big and small things causing great discord in the church, this is only half the story. There are also a good number of things bringing Christians together in the positive direction of unity. Below are 6 things that I see as potential unifiers in the current trajectory of the church.
One of the things that really bothers me about Christians these days is that we are so ill-equipped to answer the increasingly well-articulated arguments from atheists and otherwise anti-religious persons who point out the horrible track record of Christianity and the irrevocable damage that has been done across the world in the name of Christ. Christians today are liable to just sort of shrug and say “that’s not what I’m like,” or find some other way to distance themselves from Christian history (such as calling themselves “followers of Jesus” rather than Christians or a “gathering” instead of “church”).
