BOOK NOTES

 

Now that we will soon cease publication there is an increased interest in our back issues. Selected at random by us, we will, send you 15 of them for $5.00 postpaid, or if you select them they are 40 cents each post-paid, however many you order. Some go back 20 or more years. We also have bound volumes, seven in all, dating back to 1977, except for 1979-80, covering 12 years of the paper. $70 postpaid for all seven volumes. Or you can purchase them singly, such as 1989-90 bound volume, entitled The Hope of the Believer, for $15.00 postpaid.

The ACU Press in Abilene, Texas is to be commended for publishing some highly readable and resourceful stuff. A new title, Sparks That Leap, edited by Matt Morrison, professor of rhetoric and speech at Abilene Christian U., is the work of 13 writers, all professors at ACU. The editor explains the essays are intended to reflect “some of the ways Christ helps us in the search for wisdom and knowledge.” Leonard Allen writes about Alexander Solzhenitsyn as an “Apprentice of Heaven” and James Nichols has a chapter on “Some Perspectives on Practical Biology.” I like the way Nichols tells the reader he may disagree with some of the things he says but that is OK with him. This is a fine “think you” book, the kind we have had too few of in Churches of Christ. We will send you a copy for $12.00 postpaid.

Another new ACU title with a positive tone is Common Sense Recovery, by Terry Bell and Steve Joiner, ministers in Churches of Christ in Lubbock and Abilene. The book is about recovering from divorce and deals with such problems as rejection, anger, guilt, sexual intimacy, loneliness. While it does not deal with the old issue of divorce and remarriage as such, it does offer solace to the divorced and claims that God will accept one’s “second best.” One strength of the book is its message to the divorced on how to help their children recover. $9.95 postpaid.

We have called your attention to other ACU Press titles and again recommend them with enthusiasm. The Cruciform Church by Leonard Allen is now in its second edition and is available in paperback for only $12.95 postpaid. Discovering Our Roots by Allen and Hughes is also now in paperback and only $11.95 postpaid. The Worldly Church, a call for renewal of Churches of Christ, by Allen, Hughes, and Weed, is in its second edition and is $9.95 postpaid.

If you are interested in some of the more sensitive issues in the life of Alexander Campbell, such as his thoughts on home, children, women, slaves, even money—all very interesting—we recommend Edwin Groover’s The Well Ordered Home: Alexander Campbell and the Family at $13.95 postpaid.

Steve Sandifer’s Deacons: Male and Female? A Study for Churches of Christ is what it claims to be, a study for our churches on a neglected subject. After a resourceful and reasonable presentation he concludes that a congregation may have male deacons only, deacons male and female, or no deacons at all, depending on circumstances. You’ll give him high marks. $12.50 post-paid.

There is continuous interest in the divorce and remarriage issue, an area in which our people have suffered much pain. Homer Hailey’s The Divorced and Remarried Who Would Come to God is a liberating book in that he contends such ones can come to God on the same basis as anyone else. The book has special interest since the author is associated with those Churches of Christ that have taken an unyielding position on the question, and has consequently suffered their wrath. $5.50 postpaid.

For some reading beyond our own Movement we recommend a new title by Lesslie Newbigen, longtime ecumenical leader. Truth To Tell with the subtitle “The Gospel as Public Truth” contends that the gospel is objective, historical truth that calls for radical conversion. He rejects the subjectivism and skepticism of our society, insisting that there is ultimate truth revealed by God, that it can be believed and obeyed, and that its end is to change society. $7.95 postpaid.