Barnabas File

When I did denominational work, I frequently traveled by car and got into the habit of listening to audio-books, first on cassette tapes and then DVDs.     Now, of course, these are available as digital downloads on your iPhone or iPad.     Since the beginning of the year, I have had the opportunity to listen to four complete audio books.     As you will note, they cover a variety of topics and all provide interesting insights about people and culture. J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Vance’s writing style is poignant, abrupt, and down-to-earth.  His memoir includes plenty of salty language that clearly expresses both his attitude and that of his family and friends growing up.  Vance is a success story.  Coming out of a declining area of southeast Ohio, he survived a difficult childhood to enter the Marines and eventually graduate from Yale Law School.  A Republican, h...

One of my favorite writers on the church and faith in the 21 st century is Tom Ehrich.   In a recent post in his On the Road series, Ehrich wrote this: "The longer I study Scripture, wrestle with ethical issues, write about God, and pray to God, the more I realize that God is a wild one. Not the least predictable or controllable. Not the steady rock I have wanted God to be, but a wild-flowing stream that carries me along to the life God wants me to live. Sometimes I cling to a passing tree, or make landfall and think I have arrived, or buy a big boat to master the current. But the river flows on, and all of my efforts to make it manageable and pleasant don't deter God from doing what God wants to do." These prophetic words speak to me as an individual as a member of the body of Christ. I discovered several years ago that God will not allow me to become comfortable.   In my late forties and early fifties, I experienced what I refer to as “the decade from H...