The Best Christian Writing 2006 (Best Christian Writings) (Paperback)

by John Wilson (Series Editor), Mark Noll (Introduction) "This very day is the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ!..." (more)
Key Phrases: perceptual contemplation, best christian writing, skellig michael, Grand Narrative, United States, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Editor of the evangelical Christian review Books & Culture, Wilson draws from his own pages, no surprise there, but also finds plenty of good stuff elsewhere. His choices tend toward the academic-"when art is liberated from subservience to extraneous purposes" writes theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff, and ethicist Amy Laura Hall speaks of "a thoroughly soteriological event" in an essay that was originally a university lecture. But Wilson also includes reflections on popular culture (a bright essay on the allegory within the Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day) and poignant personal writing. "I went slightly crazy" is all Gideon Strauss ("My Africa Problem ... and Ours") writes as he describes the aftermath of his experience as an interpreter for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Calvinism doesn't invite a light touch, yet readers can appreciate Richard Mouw's plain-language teaching of cardinal points of Calvinist theology. Other updatings of Christian tradition are less successful; would Augustine really have wanted sinners to be called "perps"? The anthology can get earnest at times. Ex-Lutheran Richard John Neuhaus ponders with a convert's strictness "whether Catholicism will be Catholic." But Mark Noll's introduction sets the stage by suggesting criteria for good writing. The book is refreshing in its illustrations of how capacious a term "Christian" is.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The 2003 Best Christian Writing was dated 2004, and now this one (none was published in 2004) is labeled 2006. But dates, shmates! It's a good edition, maybe the series' best. Andy Crouch on a conference for wannabe Christian fiction writers, Michael P. Foley on the movie Groundhog Day, and Mark Galli's well-pointed interview with Eugene Peterson (whose contemporary American English New Testament, The Message, is an enduring best-seller) all probe aspects of Christian living and working with compassion and discernment. The two pieces on Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ explore the Passion's different significances in different eras. Gideon Strauss on the fate of his fatherland, South Africa; Lauren F. Winner on learning Christian marriage while planning the wedding; and Virginia Stem Owens on her chastening experiences of visiting "old folks' homes" are all gripping and moving. The major think piece, "Is Art Salvific?" is philosophy at its most lucid. Oh, there is a clinker of a sermon and a turgid lecture here, too, but the rest validates the series title. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; Revised edition (October 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787974757
• ISBN-13: 978-0787974756
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #803,558 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine selection with some real gems, July 10, 2006

By	K. M. "literary devotee" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"The Best Christian Writing 2006" contains twenty selections varying from theology to movie review to travelogue to observation of aged and infirm care to art criticism. My favorites are:

- "Phil's Shadow: The Lessons of Groundhog Day" which casts a discerning eye on the Bill Murray film. Author Michael P. Foley convincingly examines the movie beyond the obvious conclusion that it portrays Eastern religious themes such as karma and rebirth to find it is rife with Christian allusions and foundations. This essay is fascinating and fun.

- "The Meaning of Christ's Suffering," by Eastern Orthodox convert Frederica Mathewes-Green is a prior-to-seeing-it reflection on Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." More accurately, it is a finely reasoned argument that lingering on Christ's pain on the cross (as Gibson's movie does) arose seriously only in later medieval times and that before that Christians (even back to the writers of the Gospels) concentrated more on the salvific intention of the crucifixion: Christ as Savior rather than as Victim. Mathewes-Green distinguishes between ideas of Christ as freely offering his death to the Father vs. Christ as payment demanded by the Father. I found this the most important discussion in the book.

- "Brother John" which takes us briefly into a Trappist Monastery and shares a glimpse of a man who "loves God so much he doesn't know what to do with himself...so he stands outside on a cold Christmas night with an umbrella waiting...to offer us some protection and human comfort...." Brother John is a vivid reminder of loving, selfless devotion to God and he is not soon set aside.

- "Is Art Salvific?" falls more into the category of art criticism than Christian writing, but it manages to consider whether art ought to be completed in the one observing it or in and of itself, as an expression of the numinous or the mundane, and as "the object of engrossed contemplation" or of participation. At one point the author, Nicholas Wolterstorff, writes that a chair in a museum can't "come into its own" because it isn't being used as a chair behind its glass case. But, is it a chair because it is used as one or because we see it as one? And does a hymn "come into its own" because it is sung or because it is heard or only both? Is something "art" when it records the detritus of our lives or when it "puts us in the presence of the Transcendent?" These are questions worth pursuing.

To those who pick up a book for ideas, "The Best Christian Writing 2006" doesn't disappoint. But the anthology is wide-ranging enough that readers interested in sociological, ministerial and emotional aspects of Christianity will also be satisfied. Recommended.

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reading, April 11, 2007

By	Myron L. Barbour, Jr. "bookoholic" (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have not read the entire book. However an interview with Eugene Peterson alone is worth the price of the book.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Set of Essays, August 31, 2006

By	Carol Luther "The priest who reads" (San Anselmo, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A wonderful and personable collection of travel writings from the spiritual journey. I would have given it 5 stars, but I find Richard John Neuhaus a most rigid read and I don't like the patronizing judgments Paul Marshall passed upon Islam. But the rest are fine in every way, especially: Amy Laura Hall on Bioethics, Frederica Mathewes-Green on Crucifixion theology, Bill McKibbon on Church, Lauren Winner on weddings and Daniel Taylor on a most unusual pilgrimage.