Randall Balmer
201 pages
Balmer, an editor-at-large for Christianity Today, has certainly stepped into a pool of dookie with his latest book, Thy Kingdom Come which takes an intense and insightful look at the Religious Right and their intricate tie to politics—specifically the Republican Party. Balmer tackled several issues with brilliant clarity and an very balanced persepective. The issued ranged from school vouchers, to Creationism, Abortion and Homosexuality to Environmentalism and the First Amendment. Now many who will read this book—or the title for that matter—will immediately write Balmer off as a liberal and want nothing to do with him, however his message is one that the church needs to hear—badly!
The issues that he raises, particularly with school vouchers, were things that I had never really looked to as being a “problem” that needs to be addressed not only by the government but by the church—considering the church is the problem with the public education system (read the book, it’ll make perfect sense—i don’t have the space to get into the intricacies of it here.)
I would highly recommend this book, I didn’t agree with everything that he said—but that’s never the point anyways—but he certainly got me thinking about some things that I hadn’t considered before. I am currently reading Gregory Boyd’s book The Myth of a Christian Nation, and honestly I wish that I would have read this book first before picking up Balmer’s because it’s a great companion book, and sets up a lot of Balmer’s arguments and gives a tremendous meta-narrative for Balmer’s point-of-view. So, pick it up, and check out Balmer’s book as well. It’ll certainly make you more conservative readers a bit uneasy, but if you read it with an open-mind and not as an open-attack, then it could offer a tremendous amount of insight!*
——
*i don’t say this with any sort of judgmental tone… just an fyi.
Related posts:
- Faith of My Fathers (a review)
- a political dichotomy.
- the art of mentoring: letters to a young evangelical (a review)
- free book anyone?
- Why is it?
thanks again for the recommendation. i enjoy your book reviews! Thanks for filtering out stuff for the rest of us!
sweet… glad i can be of service!
[...] Overall, this is a very good book with a lot of good insight that can help shape and/or shift your paradigm more towards the Kingdom of God. There were times that this book got awfully repetitive, seemingly saying the same thing 5 times in 3 different ways. But it’s a good add-on read to reading Balmer’s book and helps give some perspective on were I think Balmer is coming from. This certainly provides some good “food for thought.” [...]