Category: book
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“Crowds are a worse danger, far worse, than drink or sex.”
I’m finishing up Eugene Peterson’s wonderful memoir, The Pastor, a book I’ve anticipated eagerly since I first learned of it last year. About halfway into the book, in a chapter titled “Company of Pastors,” Peterson includes a letter he wrote to a colleague who was leaving his church for one “three times the size of…
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The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor
This book surprised me. The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor sat on my shelf for a few months before I finally picked it up early this year. I’ll explain the two reasons I was (pleasantly) surprised, but first a word about the author. Mark Labberton served as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of…
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On the Night Stand
Have you read any recommendation-worthy books in this first month of 2011? Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell was the first book I finished this month and the first I’ve read by the author. A friend jokes that most of what Gladwell will say in any of his books can be surmised in their titles. There’s some…
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5 books that changed me in 2010
Like past years’ lists (2007, 2008, 2009), I’ll keep this short and sweet with no attempt to rank my short list. Of the books I read in 2010, these are the five I’d most quickly recommend. ——————– The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today Here’s one of…
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Hospitality for Selfish People
Last night I finished a fantastic book, Hospitious Adoption, that was given to me my our son’s birth-grandparents. I strongly commend this book to anyone considering adoption or, like ourselves, living as adoptive families. There is theological depth, practical wisdom, and a paradigm-shifting approach to adoption contained in these pages. Hospitality is the lens through…
David W. Swanson 