Today’s episode of Coffee & Markets features Darryl Hart discussing his book From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American. PejamanYousefzadeh and I spoke with Hart about how conservatism was being undermined by the evangelical movement, how a post-evangelical community may not necessarily be identified with the Republican party and more.
When World War II enthusiasts hear the word Peleliu, they think of the pointless battle in the Pacific that was a meat grinder for the 1st Marine Division. Dick Camp details the battle for Peleliu from the perspective of the 1st Division’s 1st Marine Regiment – the Marines known as “The Old Breed” – in Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu, September 15-21, 1944.
Here is a description of the book from the publisher (Zenith Press):
One of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history, Operation Stalemate, as Peleliu was called, was overshadowed by the Normandy landings. It was also, in time, judged by most historians to have been unnecessary; though it had been conceived to protect MacArthur’s flank in the Philippines, the U.S. fleet’s carrier raids had eliminated Japanese airpower, rendering Peleliu irrelevant. Nevertheless, the horrifying number of casualties sustained there (71% in one battalion) foreshadowed for the rest of the war: rather than fight to the death on the beach, the Japanese would now defend in depth and bleed the Americans white.
The book provides a good description of the 1st Marine Regiment’s actions on Peleliu. The book is mainly narrative with many excerpts from Marines who fought in the battle. For example, Camp describes the initial landings and how the Japanese guns knocked out many of the landing craft. He sprinkles in amongst this text the first-hand accounts of how the men got off the landing craft as quickly as possible because many the landing craft were blown to pieces with bodies and equipment thrown high into the air. Camp gives a good balance of the narrative and the first-hand accounts.
I am always a little nervous when I read a book by someone I know. Well, if by “know” you mean have interacted with online. I have been reading Jared C. Wilson for some time online and have enjoyed his perspective on fiction, faith, and sports on Twitter as well. So it was with some trepidation that I approached his book Gospel Wakefulness.
The concerns were thankfully unwarranted, as Jared has written a wonderfully engaging and challenging book on the gospel and its place in our lives. With wisdom, compassion and humor he outlines what it means to be alive to the gospel in your life and have it infiltrate every area of that life.
Do you ever feel like your desire for God is waning? Are you numb to the routine of church? What does it mean to be truly awakened to the wonder of the gospel?
Jared Wilson contends that we must be regularly engaged and engaging others with the good news of the sacrificing, dying, rising, exalted person of Jesus Christ. Wilson reminds us of the death-proof, fail-proof King of kings who is before all things and in all things and holding all things together, and of the Spirit’s power to quicken our hearts and captivate our imaginations. The message of Gospel Wakefulness will make numbness the exception (rather than the norm) and reawaken us to the multifaceted brilliance of the gospel.
But it is another one of those deep and meaty spiritual books that I am simply not going to have the time or focus to review properly. But if you are seeking a deeper and sustained faith and looking for a book that will both inspire and challenge you, then I recommend you read this book.
Image via Wikipedia
Yesterday’s edition of Coffee & Markets featured Jordan Ballor discussing Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art a collection of the writings of the theologian Abraham Kuyper. Pejman Yousefzadeh and I spoke with Jordan about Kuyper’s unique life, his ideas and the challenges of cultural and political engagement for people of faith today.
N.D. Wilson in the introduction to Twilight Land by Howard Pyle:
Fairy tales and fantasies are as old as the world. This is an easy thing to forget. It is easy to see only the stories we tell today – fresh and shiny – and then assume that they came from nowhere, that they have no ancestors, and no narrative parents whatsoever. But today’s fantasies are built on a rich imaginative heritage, a global heritage. As long as there has been language, there have been stories. And as far back as we can trace, those stories have been about dragons and magic and sacrifices, fools and wise men and wizards, fate and luck and love. What we call realism in storytelling is a relatively new concept. It is the sapling in the wood surrounded by towering moss-covered giants as old as history, giants grown up out of myths and legends. Fantasy.
