Here is a simple rule to keep in mind:  When D. A. Carson writes a book, buy it.  This is certainly the case with Carson’s recent book, Christ & Culture Revisited [Eerdmans].  Readers will immediately recognize the reference to the classic 1951 work by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture.  Those who desire a deeper understanding of this difficult question will welcome Carson’s very thoughtful look at the claims of Christ and culture.

America is a nation transformed by demographics.  Flash back just over a century and a majority of Americans live on farms and in rural settings.  Today, a clear majority of Americans live in metropolitan settings.  Cities are now surrounded by vast rings of settlements and clusters known as suburbs — and Hollywood doesn’t like it.

“Real heroes are in short supply in our day,” says Daniel L. Akin.  In a world fascinated with celebrities and disenchanted with greatness, true heroism is hard to define, much less to find.  But Dr. Akin is certain that true heroes do appear in this generation as missionaries, pastors, and church planters.  In Five Who Changed the World, he looks back to the lives of five Christian missionaries as guides to true greatness and heroism today.

Regularly, The Los Angeles Times makes for interesting reading.  In terms of political slant, the paper has moved to the left of The New York Times, and it now occupies a major position among the nation’s most influential newspapers.  Even as paid circulation has dropped significantly since the 1990s, the editorial slant to the left is a constant.

Should Christians practice meditation?  An increasing number of Christians are trying or using Eastern meditation techniques in an effort to direct their spiritual lives.  It is no longer shocking to see churches offering yoga and meditation classes, nor to hear some Christians talking about their walks in a labyrinth, time spent in meditation, or experiments with the latest borrowing from the East.

My friend C. J. Mahaney and a few of his friends have written a powerhouse of a book in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World (Crossway).  In its essence, worldliness is “a love for the fallen world,” C. J. explains.  “It’s loving the values and pursuits of the world that stand opposed to God.”  More emphatically, it is “to gratify and exalt oneself to the exclusion of God.”

Bad news must be especially hard to bear when you build your world on positive thinking, but the news out of Garden Grove this past Sunday was not happy.  Robert H. Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral and the “Hour of Power” television ministry, announced that he had removed his son, Robert A. Schuller, as host of the television ministry.