Thursday, January 31, 2013

goodreads- Book Review Site

Here is the text from the goodread site.  It has a pretty good depth of books and their reviews.

Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia: Deciding what to read next?
You’re in the right place. Tell us what titles or genres you’ve enjoyed in the past, and we’ll give you surprisingly insightful recommendations.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

God Without Religion: We really met last night.

We met last night to discuss God without Religion: Can it Really be that Simple? by Andrew Farley.

The discussion ranged from simplicity to dispensationalism to predestination, to free choice, to sanctification, to love, and to the Holy Spirit.  Overall as a group we reacted positively to the book, but there were some points that we brought up that were concerns and one of them was the dispensational viewpoint that is similar to Farley's split of Old Testament versus New Testament application.  We spoke of different preachers who hold to certain views and we learned a bit more about dispensation theology.  You can find out about that here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalist_theology  Not being an expert, I am not certain it would deal with the issue adequately but this should be a start.

The book was good in content but did not strike us well written to draw the reader in or light a fire under them.  At points it did seem disjointed, but seemed to stay with the theme.  It did not give much in the way of prescription for how to live and stuck mostly with a different way of looking at things.  The old is gone and behold the new and it is completely compatible with Christ and He does His work through the believer.

If you didn't get a chance to come to the club, feel free to post comments here on the blog.

We decided on a new book.  Our host for next time will be Mr. Al Duncan and he has picked the book Rediscoving God in America by Newt Gingrich, you can find it here.  
We also thought it would be good to plan a walk through DC since the book is about walks through DC and seeing where references God show up.  The meeting for the book will be scheduled for March 18 and our host has challenged us to research a character in the book and share something about that character when we meet.

I want to push the blog again and let you know that I would love to see more comments posted and if you have difficulty posting directly I would be glad to post for you if you email me what you want to post.

God Bless.
Bill

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Next Book- GOD without Religion by Andrew Farley

So we have picked a new book, GOD without Religion by Andrew Farley you can find it here on Amazon. Andrew Farley has been compared to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and proposes that his reading of Relationship versus rules is a much more straightforward reading of the text. In addition he takes on some other controversial topics such as predestination. I hope everyone can get the book and join us for the discussion in January.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Information about Nigeria and Immigration

Chris Cleave put this together to inform about what is going on in Nigeria related to the Oil Wars. In addition she has posted information about refugees and asylum seekers and how someone might help. Explore the Issues- Chris Cleave There is some information on the conflict in the Niger Delta here Conflict in the Niger Delta on Wikipedia as well. And here is an article from Vanity Fair about how the fighting in Nigeria could cause repercussions around the world. Vanity Fair-Blood Oil

Monday, September 17, 2012

Great Night of Discussion

We had regulars there and even added a new member, welcome Carol. We went over parallels and differences in the campaign of 1828 and campaigns now. We talked about bias and the book along with bias in the media and peoples perception in general and decided that it is almost impossible to relay information while being devoid of bias. We noted that while there was only one party for the 1828 election the mud slinging was still robust. We noticed that neither were willing to change the constitution but accused the other of desiring too. Federalism was shown to be to powerful to go away even though the party disappeared shortly before this election and that even Jackson who stuck by State's Rights expanded both the reach of government with projects and the role of the president. We talked about the precursors seen in the campaign and election to the civil war and even discussed what might have been different if Adams had won instead. I really enjoyed the discussions on the qualities of the men involved and how their strongly held opinions during the campaign may not be feasible in practice and may even be counter actual beliefs. There were many issues that we see now, like electoral vs. popular vote to determine the president. We spoke about why it was designed the way it was, why it won't likely change for representation purposes and how some states are looking to force their electoral votes to match the overall popular vote rather than sticking with the actual states result. There was much more than that though. If you have any thoughts about the discussion I missed feel free to comment, or even if you couldn't make it tonight please feel free to include your take on the book. The next book will be: Little Bee by Chris Cleave We will meet next November 19 at 7PM. God Bless You and Thanks again for letting me do this with you.