Truth Tribe with Douglas Groothuis
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Last week I went through ten authors and a number of books that have shaped my life and thinking. I include the full list below. This quote from Neil Postman highlights the significance of reading.
One must begin, I think, by pointing to the obvious fact that the written word, and an oratory based upon it, has a content: a semantic, paraphrasable, propositional content. This may sound odd, but since I shall be arguing soon enough that much of our discourse today has only a marginal propositional content, I must stress the point here. Whenever language is the principal medium of communication—especially language controlled by the rigors of print—an idea, a fact, a claim is the inevitable result. The idea may be banal, the fact irrelevant, the claim false, but there is no escape from meaning when language is the instrument guiding one’s thought. Though one may accomplish it from time to time, it is very hard to say nothing when employing a written English sentence. What else is exposition good for? Words have very little to recommend them except as carriers of meaning. The shapes of written words are not especially interesting to look at. Even the sounds of sentences of spoken words are rarely engaging except when composed by those with extraordinary poetic gifts. If a sentence refuses to issue forth a fact, a request, a question, an assertion, an explanation, it is nonsense, a mere grammatical shell. As a consequence a language-centered discourse such as was characteristic of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America tends to be both content-laden and serious, all the more so when it takes its form from print. [Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (pp. 49-50). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.]
Books and Authors
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Witnessing to the Truth: The Role of the Holy Spirit
4 Questions Students Must Ask to Avoid Writing Fluff
The Atonement of Christ: 5 Essential Elements Every Believer Should Understand
30 Simple Steps You Can Take Today to Be a Better Public Speaker
Blaise Pascal’s Critique of Culture and Politics
3 Principles for Pastoring Animals
A Royal Ruin: Pascal's Argument from Humanity to Christianity
The Existential Intimacies of Jazz
How Jazz Can Shape Our Apologetics
Easter Life and the Facts of History
The Four Virtues of Jazz and What They Teach Us about Working Well With Others
3 Lessons My Love of Jazz Has Taught Me about Being a Philosophy Professor
What Does "Test the Spirits" Mean in the Bible and How Do We Do It?
3 Ways to Show Pastoral Care for God's Creatures Great and Small
Freud’s Last Session: His Debate with C.S. Lewis & What Each Believed about Religion and Evil
A Critique of Educational Technologies in the Classroom
Lessons from Churches in My Christian Life
How the Holy Spirit Grounds the Knowledge of God Through Liturgy
Liturgy for the Low Church: Introducing Liturgical Elements in Non-Liturgical Churches
Advice to a Christian Apologist: How to Be Wise as Serpents and Innocent as Doves
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