Review: Think Again by Stanley Fish
Think Again: Contrarian Reflections on Life, Culture, Politics, Religion, Law, and Education by Stanley FishMy rating: 5 of 5 stars I have read multiple Stanley Fish books; I read quite a number of these columns when they were originally published in the New York Times. I go to Fish for precisely the value he describes in his farewell essay: In the columns that provoked frustration, I stopped short of offering the “I believe X” part, leaving readers to wonder where I stood. I tried to stand on...
Review: Why I Preach from the Received Text
Why I Preach from the Received Text is an anthology of personal testimonies more than it is a collection of careful arguments. It is not intended to be academic, and I see nothing necessarily wrong with that. But it does make countless properly academic claims, and these are fit subjects for review. I’ve wondered how I can fairly describe a book that has more than two dozen authors. There is, indeed, a spectrum of views represented here. The contributions do not all perfectly cohere. So I...
The First Thing I Ever Wrote That I Still Have
This is so random, and I don't know who would care—but I just stumbled across the very first document I saved in what ultimately became my Dropbox/Academics folder. It was an exercise I wrote for an English class in high school. I was 16 and 3 mos. What I find fascinating is that I was interested, at this quite early date, in language change. The first time I remember caring about and noticing language change was while reading (in early high school?) the dystopian novel Earth Abides. I...
A Little Help for Your Charitableness from Kevin DeYoung
There are few figures on the national evangelical scene that I like and trust more than Kevin DeYoung. I think he nails the balance between, on the one hand, graciousness and fairness and charity and, on the other (can anything be on the other hand from charity?—yes!), a willingness to stand clearly with Scripture against sin of all kinds. I listen faithfully to his podcast, Life and Books and Everything, and I really appreciate that he has begun reading his WORLD Opinion articles there....
Review: The Power Broker, by Robert Caro
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro My rating: 5 of 5 stars Robert Caro is fascinated by power. He has given his life to exploring how it is gained and kept. And in Robert Moses, the subject of this epic book, power looks like the ugly idol it can be. It delivers at first, but then it enslaves. But let us not think that power is in itself bad. Caro himself has incredible powers. The sheer amount of work—hours and hours of work, years of work, years of at...