By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
In our global-minded, multicultural society, we’ve been told that all the grand narratives are dead, and good riddance. The meta-narratives that enslaved our imaginations were contrived, localized, xenophobic tales that served the status quo and preserved systematic injustice. Regardless of…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
Unless they add guitar, drums and a melody, or a catchy hip-hop beat, poets don’t usually make a living writing poems. I’ll accept some of the blame for that. For all my enthusiastic lip service to the work of poets,…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
When my friend Lyle stopped by for breakfast recently, he picked up Decoded from my stack of books and asked, “What’s an Alberta farm boy like you doing reading a book about larger-than-life New York hip-hop?” Good question. Truth is,…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
The verb “essay” means “to attempt,” but the noun “essay” might conjure anxious memories of your Grade 10 English final exam and send you running. Too bad. Fighting the Noonday Devil, a book of essays, is an eclectic, engaging book…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
The more time I spend outside the religious looking-glass world of the conservative evangelical subculture, the stranger it starts to appear. Hamilton Cain knows a lot about the abiding strangeness that permeates much of conservative evangelicalism. This Boy’s Faith is…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
Tony Woodlief calls himself “a bewildered father, stumbling husband, reluctant handyman and prodigal son.” His book, Somewhere More Holy, is a collection of stories and reflections from what is immediately around him: his wife, their four sons and the home…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
This heartbreaking, beautiful little book reminds me of Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier’s books about living in L’Arche communities, only this time, the story is told by a mother. David, the title character of the book, was born 14 weeks…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
More than a year after Haiti’s earthquake, Kent Annan’s aching, honest book, After Shock, articulates the ancient and ongoing to make sense of suffering in a world God made and loves. Annan’s first book, Following Jesus Through The Eye of…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
There’s a simplistic version of Christian media criticism that says to shut off the TV at the first sign of sex, violence or profanity. And then there’s actual media criticism: active, engaged, intelligent, non-partisan, the kind described in the excellent…Read More→
By Kurt Armstrong and ChristianWeek on
The word “anarchy” usually makes me think of angst-ridden teens who listen to punk rock, wearing ski masks and spray-painting graffiti on the sides of buildings late at night. Ronald E. Osborn wants to claim “anarchy” as a term for…Read More→