Book Reviews

Book Reviews provides thoughtful, biblically informed reviews of books that serve churches, leaders, and disciples. Explore summaries of key ideas, theological and practical evaluation, and clear recommendations on who each book is best suited for—pastors, elders, small group leaders, students, or everyday believers. You’ll find reviews across theology, ministry, discipleship, Christian living, and church history, helping you choose resources that are faithful, helpful, and worth your time. Whether you’re building a library or selecting a study for your church, this hub offers trusted guidance for discerning readers.

October 4, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Money–Ascendance and Dependence

By LeRoy Lawson Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (New York: Penguin Group, 2008). Thomas Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution””And How It Can Renew America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008). My individual retirement account had plummeted by 40 percent when I read Niall Ferguson”s brilliantly timed The Ascent of Money. If there was any comfort to be culled from the Harvard history professor”s lectures to a nation of newly or nearly bankrupt investors, it was in the old adage “misery loves company.” This reader wasn”t the

September 20, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: What to Do About Poverty?

By LeRoy Lawson Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2005). William Easterly, The White Man”s Burden: Why the West”s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford University Press, 2007). Ruby K. Payne, Philip Devol, Terie Dreussi Smith, Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities (Aha! Process, 2001). What can one 21st century middle-class American””or even one nation””do

September 6, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us

By LeRoy Lawson Barry Hankins, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). Frank Schaeffer, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2007). If it hadn”t been for Francis and Frank Schaeffer, the car wouldn”t have hit me and I wouldn”t have gone to the hospital. If the elder Schaeffer hadn”t been such a prominent Christian leader in the 1970s, I wouldn”t have been crossing the street in front of the Indianapolis

July 12, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us

By LeRoy Lawson A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man”s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007). Robert Jewett, in collaboration with Ole Wangerin, Mission and Menace: Four Centuries of American Religious Zeal (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008). “O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!” So wrote the Scottish poet Robert Burns in his little poem, “To a Louse.” Who hasn”t at one time or another wished the same””for other pesky people in our lives whose reformation we most dearly desire?

June 14, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Learning to Communicate, Examining History

By LeRoy Lawson Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (Orlando: Harvest, 2005). Temple Grandin is autistic and a shatterer of stereotypes. She”s not retarded; she holds a PhD in animal science. She”s not dependent on others to take care of her. She lives alone, is one of the country”s leading consultants in animal behavior, and she”s an amazingly productive author of hundreds of articles, many books, and dozens of lectures a year. So much for stereotypes. AHA! MOMENTS I wish I could have read her Animals in Translation years

May 31, 2009

Christian Standard

Simple Church: Returning to God”s Process for Making Disciples

An Overview of “Simple Church” by David Ray “Tis the gift to be simple,  “tis the gift to be free,  “tis the gift to come down where you ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right,  It will be in the valley of love and delight.1    If today”s church leaders were to tell the truth, many would admit they arenot “in the place just right,” because most churches have become anything but “simple,” and the stress in leading them is nothing like finding yourself in any “valley of love and delight.” Why? Because churches have

April 19, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Personal Faith and Church Function

By LeRoy Lawson David J. Wolpe, Why Faith Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2008). Kevin G. Ford, Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to the Great (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 2007). While armies duke it out in the Middle East and intellectuals debate it out on college campuses and ordinary blokes like you and me duck for cover and wonder whom to believe, the calm, understated reassurance Rabbi David Wolpe offers is like the balm in Gilead we used to sing about in church. The noted leader of the conservative Sinai Temple in Los Angeles has earned a respectful

April 15, 2009

Christian Standard

Preview/Order “What Kind of Church Is This?”

                What Kind of Church Is This? This 8-page brochure for visitors and new members has sold hundreds of thousands of copies! Updated now with current information and a fresh, new look, it is the perfect addition to welcome packets, new member folders, or other outreach products. Explains history and philosophy of Restoration Movement churches in a winsome, colorful way. CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRINTED COPIES (sold in lots of 100; $30 per 100) CLICK HERE TO ORDER A DOWNLOADABLE PDF (post on your Web site; print unlimited copies for $9.99) READ LEROY

March 15, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: For Presiders, Preachers, Prayers, and Other Leaders

By LeRoy Lawson Clinton J. Holloway, Lest We Forget: Meditations at the Meal of Remembrance (Cold Tree Press, 2008). August 2008 featured selections in Christian Standard from this collection by Clinton Holloway of meditations on the Lord”s Supper. This helpful book responds to a need many a presider feels when trying to offer a fresh thought before the worshipers partake. Some of Holloway”s offerings are refreshingly original, others more predictable, and yet others will spark your own imagination. Each focuses our attention on the reason for our worship. And, to one who has sat through””and even been guilty of presenting””sometimes

February 15, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Wisdom from a Hayseed”s Hayseed

By LeRoy Lawson Wendell Berry, The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays (Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005). Sometimes when life gets too complicated you just need to sit a spell with somebody who doesn”t need to keep up, who looks askance at modern society”s frenetic pace and, drawing a grateful breath of unpolluted air, simply can”t be bothered trying to be cool. That someone is Wendell Berry. This Kentucky gentleman farmer/poet/philosopher and author of more than 30 books is a hayseed”s hayseed. His fictional Port William, Kentucky, like William Faulkner”s fictional Yoknapatawpha County and Garrison Keillor”s fictional Lake Wobegon, reminds me

January 14, 2009

Christian Standard

Interview with LeRoy Lawson

By Brad Dupray As the author of 29 published books, Roy Lawson knows a thing or two about what should go on the printed page. His monthly column “From My Bookshelf” in Christian Standard chronicles some of his latest reading material and serves as a guide to church leaders for tools they can use to sharpen their edge. Roy”s storied biography ranges from Christian college professor and president, to board member of several ministries within the Christian church, to president of the North American Christian Convention (1982), to church planter, to senior pastor of fast-growing churches, to his current role

January 11, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Economic Dangers and Dirty Hands

By LeRoy Lawson David M. Smick, The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy (New York: Portfolio/Penguin Group, 2008). Timing is everything, says the old saw, and David Smick has proof of it. Urged on by his prescient agent, Smick had his book on the stands by September 2008, just in time to explain the impending financial disaster to noneconomists like me. His ruling metaphor is simplicity itself: Thomas Friedman (The World Is Flat) may think the globalized economy has flattened the world (and it has), but we forget at our own peril that it is also curved.

December 7, 2008

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: In God”s Defense

By LeRoy Lawson “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” the very obviously alive Mark Twain loved to quip. Reporting on God”s death has also been exaggerated. In1966, for example, Time blackened its April 8 cover to feature the death of God. Theologians like William Hamilton and Thomas J. J. Altizer had gravely delivered the eulogy in learned disquisitions. God would be missed, but we could manage without him, they assured us. Now in the 21st century along come Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Daniel Dennett (A Natural Phenomenon), and Christopher Hitchens

November 9, 2008

Christian Standard

Books We Recommend

    We asked CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s Contributing Editors to “tell our readers about a book that”s made a difference in your life this year.” Here are their recommendations:     William Glasser, Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry (Harper, 1975).   I was not prepared for the impact reading William Glasser”s Reality Therapy would have on me. It was an easy, fascinating read, but more than that, I found myself having so many “aha” moments I had to go back and take notes. I read it because of our work with single mothers recovering from substance abuse. It was

November 9, 2008

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Returning from the Dark Side

By LeRoy Lawson Both of these books are written by pastors who have been to the dark side””and came back to tell their stories. Gordon MacDonald, The Life God Blesses (Thomas Nelson, 1994). Gordon MacDonald is one of evangelicalism”s most respected leaders. Chairman of this and editor of that, he frequently speaks for conferences around the globe and, when he has nothing else to do, keeps on cranking out his helpful columns and books. The Life God Blesses is not his latest and may not be rated as his best (Ordering Your Private World usually is), but when Ben Cachiaras

October 12, 2008

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: China: Refreshing, Intriguing, Confusing, Unsettling

By LeRoy Lawson Rob Gifford, China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power (New York: Random House, 2007). Rob Gifford, National Public Radio”s China correspondent, closed out his six-year tour of duty there by sending his family off to London ahead of him, stuffing his backpack, and setting out to explore Route 312 (the old Silk Road, treasured today like America”s Route 66) from Shanghai in the east to Korgaz at the Kazakhstan border in the west, a trek of more than 3,000 miles. Along the way he took in the contrasts and conundrums that define contemporary

September 14, 2008

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Five by Oliver Sacks, MD

By LeRoy Lawson Awakenings (New York: Vintage Books, 1990 [originally published in 1973]). The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (New York: Touchstone, 1998). Seeing Voices (New York: Vintage Books, 2000). An Anthropologist on Mars (New York: Vintage Books, 1996). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). I first met Dr. Oliver Sacks in his book of essays, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Who could resist such a title? Especially a lover of Dr. Seuss”s The Cat in the Hat. You don”t turn to Dr. Sacks to learn

September 3, 2008

Christian Standard

Our Online Review of a Best-seller

By Mark A. Taylor I”ve said more than once that some of the best writing sponsored by CHRISTIAN STANDARD doesn”t appear in the magazine! Our two bloggers, Arron Chambers and Jennifer Taylor, post thought-provoking commentary every week at our Web site. The following, posted by Jennifer July 26, is a good example.     I”m a literary snob. It can”t be blamed entirely on my private school English lit degree; even as a child I eschewed Nancy Drew for Agatha Christie (thus learning words like eschew), and the passing years have only made me more selective. Life is too short

August 10, 2008

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Defending Our Faith, Holding Our Attention

By LeRoy Lawson C. S. Lewis left some big shoes to fill. When I was a young man struggling to define my faith, Lewis”s rational, commonsensical explanations of Christian doctrine gave me tools I have used ever since. Like so many others, I am his debtor. To this day Surprised by Joy, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, The Abolition of Man, A Grief Observed, Miracles, The Four Loves, and of course Mere Christianity (to say nothing of his classic children”s works) resonate with thinking Christians everywhere. As a child of the Christian church, I especially appreciated and benefited

July 13, 2008

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Insights Into the Middle East

By LeRoy Lawson In 2007 I made my first journey to post-monarchy, post-Russian occupation, post-mujahadeen civil war, post-Taliban atrocities, post-American-occupied Afghanistan. I haven”t fully recovered yet. It reminded me of an earlier visit to civil-war-torn Eastern Congo. My traveling group was told then that seven identifiable groups in Congo were shooting at each other. Whether they were hitting their ostensible targets was questionable; what was beyond question was their devastating success in wiping out any effective government, any viable economy, any visible hope for the people. I usually return from a developing country discouraged; from Congo I came away angry.

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