Christian Archives

Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies

Are The Deadlies Really Vices? Author: Rebecca DeYoung The seven deadly sins have been marketed as something decadent – the Devil’s Food Cake of “treat yourself” temptations; they’re deadly only in that, secretly, they offer an unbounded, unfathomable amount of pleasure. The “spa day” equivalent of luxury living that you dream about as you go about the hum-drum task of doing your duty, living in moderation, and secretly despairing of living under-the-radar and being satisfied with the meat-and-potatoes approach of just getting by. At least, that’s how the western cultural perception of sin has developed over time, and even as Christians, [...]

Frances Carden2025-02-08T15:34:37-07:00February 8th, 2025|Tags: apologetics, book review, Christian, read, reading, seven deadly sins, vice, virtue|

Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin

The Nature of Sin Author: Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. In modern society, our tendency is to concentrate on the positive and brush the negative under the rug. We’ve been taught that to “see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil” is the way to banish such evil, but is this rose-tinted view realistic? Cornelius Plantinga argues that our self-deception is a path towards destruction, and that to understand and receive grace, we must first acknowledge sin and the devastation it brings. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be is a surprisingly refreshing book in that it acknowledges what we all [...]

Frances Carden2024-12-27T09:58:16-07:00December 27th, 2024|Tags: book review, Christian, read, reading, seven deadlies, seven deadly sins, sin|

Jesus I Never Knew, The

An Intimate Look at a Subversive Savior Author: Philip Yancey In The Jesus I Never Knew author Philip Yancey invites his readers to step away from our presumptions, from the images on our Hallmark cards and the half-remembered stories of Sunday school, and see Jesus as He was to his followers: revolutionary (but not in the militaristic way they wanted or expected,) offensive, original, confusing, and dangerous. It’s far from the saccharine assumptions we often claim. It’s a refreshing although not unexpected approach. Yancey doesn’t bring anything new to the table that serious Christian’s didn’t already know, but he paints a [...]

Frances Carden2024-11-24T12:17:58-07:00November 24th, 2024|Tags: apologetics, book review, Christian, Jesus, read, reading|