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Archive for September, 2007

Just add persistence and stir until ready: Pimsleur Language Programs, German III

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on September 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Pimsleur Language Programs products are among the best-selling audio language courses available. `Organic learning’ seeks to approximate the conditions in which ordinary language-learning takes place. The process is almost entirely aural, supplemented only minimally-or at the student’s discretion, not at all-by reference to reading lessons after each half-hour lesson. (more…)

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That’ll preach: Arthur T. Jones, Four words for tough times. Have faith in God (Sermons and study guides)

Posted in missio dei, reseña, tagged , , on September 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Good African-American preaching is a deeply satisfying art form. Just don’t go telling Rev. Dr. Art Jones that. For him it’s a deadly serious enterprise. (more…)

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grief on ice: Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Penguin Classics)

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on September 8, 2007| 1 Comment »

Forget everything you’ve heard about its obscene girth (1444 pages in my edition). Throw away the popular notion that it’s an impenetrable Russian monster where every character has four different names. You may have other issues that separate you from the epic tale Tolstoy set during Napoleon’s early nineteenth-century invasion of Russia. Whatever they are, get over them already and read this great story, considered by some to be the finest novel ever written. (more…)

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mixed emotions: Proverbs 13

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Atria and ventricles notwithstanding, the heart is otherwise not a well compartmentalized organ. The biblical proverbialist knows this:

The heart may ache even in laughter,
And joy may end in grief.

We are complex little creatures, walking about in fragile skin with the twin burdens of glory and tragedy just beneath. We feel more than we can say, know more than we can shape into words that can flow gracefully from trembling lips. Our joy knows the bounds only of our inability to express it. Our sadness runs deeper than words can say. All of this is mixed up together in one potent brew of human experience. (more…)

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Better safe than sorry: Daniel L. Kurtz, Managing conflicts of interest. Practical guidelines for nonprofit boards

Posted in clarity, reseña, tagged , , , , , on September 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

BoardSource (formerly The National Central for Nonprofit Boards) sets the gold standard for non-profit organizations with its diverse, expensive, and high-quality publications. BoardSource has figured out how to create a teaching and reference work simultaneously and then impress this model across the range of its printed material. The present book(let) comes with a CD that provides serviceable boilerplate that organizations can use to produce their own conflict of interest policies and disclosure documents. (more…)

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a master craftsman plies his trade in an open storefront: Walther Zimmerli, I Am Yahweh

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on September 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Alongside Gerhard von Rad, Walther Zimmerli is one of the giants of 20th-century biblical theology. In his customarily lively prose, Brueggemann introduces this collection of four essays by showing how Zimmerli is a model of theologically-acute biblical criticism who `stays close to the text’ and therefore does not pay too high a price for the rebuttal of larger concepts like those put forth by von Rad, G.E. Wright and others of the time. Brueggemann paid his dues in the scholarly salt mines by editing and interpreting Zimmerli and H.W. Wolff relatively early in his career, labor that certainly enriched his own tradition criticism later on. The essay that introduces this volume contains some delicious irony, such as the observation that recent (in 1982) continental scholarship is `inclined to return to a critical, pretheological perspective’. This slightly acid turnabout on the terms `theological’ and `precritical’ anticipates criticism of the mature Brueggemann and sometime soul-mates like B. Childs for being `too theological’ and even `precritical’. (more…)

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tradition criticism with panache: Hans Walter Wolff and Walter Brueggemann, The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Some books introduce their topic more clearly by analyzing its various components parts than by taking a standard survey approach. This is the case with Brueggemann and Wolff’s excellent analysis of the Pentateuchal sources. Readers will discover in this slim volume a clear introduction to the standard ‘sources’ of Pentateuchal criticism, but also a compelling presentation of form/tradition criticism in the tradition of G. von Rad. (more…)

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illuminating thoughts on a noble task: Craig R. Dykstra, Christian education and the moral life. An evaluation of and alternative to Kohlberg

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on September 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

In this thoroughly revised Princeton University doctoral dissertation, Craig Dykstra contrasts L. Kohlberg’s `juridical (decision-making) ethics’ with his own proposal for `visional ethics’. As the author notes in his introduction (pp. 1-4), the same landscape looks rather differently when viewed from these two divergent angles. Dykstra has adapted the fruit of his doctoral labors to a form likely to prove more helpful to religious educators, a group whose affinity to Kohlbergian ethics Dykstra finds surprising. (more…)

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A pause to reflect: Brevard S. Childs, The Struggle To Understand Isaiah As Christian Scripture

Posted in clarity, reseña, tagged , , , on September 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Brevard Childs is a patient man. Few individuals could link such evident learning to a deep sympathy with the historical interpreters of the biblical book called Isaiah. The author’s empathy with the weighty labor of scholars who pour over an ancient work of such complexity is not only endearing. More importantly, it demonstrates that few of the book’s exegetes finished their work without achieving some mentionable merit, even when this is exceedingly modest by even Childs’ generous measure. (more…)

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Don’t try to run a nonprofit without guidance like this: Richard L. Moyers, The Nonprofit Chief Executive’s Ten Basic Responsibilities

Posted in clarity, reseña, tagged , , , , , on September 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

You won’t find 48 pages’ worth of distilled wisdom like this for nonprofit executives and the board members the accompany them anywhere else. The only thing wrong with this gold-standard booklet is that its price will mean execs of some non-profits will not be able to afford a copy for every board member. This is so good it may be worth paying out of pocket to get into the hands of the board who you so badly need to think and act wisely.

Though directed mainly at chief executives, there is as much orientation for the board. I’ll make mine available to our leadership team as well, for the organizational theory and practical hints doesn’t get packaged any better than this.

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