book review

Book Openers: The Emerging, Emergent Church — What’s Up Next for Christianity?

March 13, 2009 By Barbara Leave a Comment

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why, by Phyllis Tickle, Baker Books, 172 pages, $17.99

“About every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale,” Phyllis Tickle writes in her new book, The Great Emergence. In the two thousand years since its founding, Christianity has reinvented itself several times, casting off the old encumbrances. This time, Tickle says, the rummage sale is making room for a new, post-modern, “networked Christianity.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: book review, emergent church, emerging church, Phyllis Tickle

Book Openers: An American Attorney Looks at Islamic Law

March 6, 2009 By Barbara 3 Comments

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing, Sumbul Ali-Karamali, White Cloud Press, 287 pages, $16.95

Two days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, a friend emailed Sumbul Ali-Karamali to ask if she would be displaying an American flag the next day. People all over the country would be putting out their flags, the friend said, and she was worried for Ali-Karamali. “Because if you don’t display a flag, someone might think it’s because you’re Muslim that you’re not doing it.”

In her new book, The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing, Ali-Karamali reports that on September 11, she was as frightened as every other American. She grieved for the victims and feared further attacks on her country. But she had another fear – that there would be a backlash of hatred and even violence against Muslim Americans, including herself, her husband and her small children. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: 9/11, book review, hijab, Islamic law, jihad, muslim american, Sumbul Ali-Karamali, terrorist

Writing Room: Composer John Adams — There Are Lots of Ways to Be Creative, What’s Yours?

February 26, 2009 By Barbara Leave a Comment

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Musically sophisticated readers will appreciate composer John Adams ‘ memoir, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life, for its technical discussions of twentieth and twenty-first century Western music, but I’m liking Hallelujah Junction for its fine writing and its insights into the creative life and the creative process. [Read more...]