I’ve always appreciated Philip Yancey’s books because he writes as a pilgrim, not a pastor. Not that I don’t appreciate pastoral perspectives, but often they seem to skip over the doubts, questions, and laments that I have.

True confessions. I write this more as an evangelist than a reviewer. Or perhaps like a lover who’s still crazy after all these years.

Just a reminder that this month's book club selection is Prayer by Philip Yancey.

Bart D. Ehrman's latest book is basically an account of two engaging parallel studies. One involves a methodical discussion of the various biblical solutions offered for the perennial question of how an all powerful God can allow evil and suffering to continue

Yea, though the 23rd Psalm walks through the valley of a new translation, it shall fear no evil...but it might get carried away in a flash flood of commentary.

Biblical scholar, professor, and author Robert Alter, well known for such works as his translation of the Five Books of Moses and books on the Bible as literature, has delivered another work as both scholar and poet: The Book of Psalms.

Don’t pick up I Forgive You, But . . . if all you want is a theological discussion of the concept of forgiveness. Don’t pick I Forgive You, But . . . if you’re just looking for an intellectual treatise with definitions of forgiveness and what the latest theorists say on the topic. Don’t pick up I Forgive You, But . . . if you’re wanting to remain at a distance from the challenges of forgiveness Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson presents in her slim 162-page book.

On October 2, 2006, at 10:30 am, Charles Carl Roberts entered a small one-room Amish school house in rural Pennsylvania, intending to rape the ten young girls in attendance. He dismissed the boys and the adults present and began tying up the girls. Alerted by a 911 call, the state police arrived on the scene within minutes. Roberts, realizing the he would be unable to complete his initial plan, lined up the girls on the floor and gunned them down in rapid succession. Hearing shots the state troopers broke through the windows and witnessed Roberts turning the gun on himself.

A.J. Jacob’s The Year of Living Biblically is one of the books I was “saving” for Lent, knowing that I’d enjoy it. In case you haven’t heard of it (and you probably have, because it’s getting a lot of hype), it’s Jacobs’ story of the year he spent trying to follow every precept and rule in the Bible as literally as he possibly could.

With the title People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks' latest novel was a must read for me. When it turned out to be one detective story after another involving the Sarajevo Haggadah, I was hooked.

What do you do when you’ve walked away from one form of religion only to discover you miss, at least some aspects, of it? Seven years after converting from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity, Lauren Winner admits that, while she is in love with Jesus and his teachings, she misses the practices and rituals of Judaism.