Recently picked up some more random books at the local Half Price Books store.
I snagged William Boyd’s The Blue Afternoon for one dollar! It looks like an interesting read:
A woman architect in Los Angeles in the 1930s is approached by an elderly man who claims to be her father. Although skeptical, she allows him to convince her to accompany him to Lisbon to search for the lost love of his life. On the trans-Atlantic voyage, he tells her a strange tale of love, murder, honor, and aspiration in the midst of the Philippine insurrection against the U.S. The man, a talented young surgeon, is caught up in a web of treachery and passion, and tragedy seemed preordained….
I also picked up Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era by Stanley J. Grenz. This too seemed interesting – if it isn’t too academic or dry:
A leading voice among American theologians, Grenz (theology and ethics, Carey/Regent Coll., British Columbia) builds upon and advances the discussion begun in his Revisioning Evangelical Theology. The first four chapters explain the “three concentric circles of evangelical theological history”: the Reformation, the Evangelical revival of the 18th century, and modern conservative evangelicalism. The second half of the book is devoted to the author’s call for a critical appropriation of postmodern insights for evangelical theological tasks. Grenz rejects the present “two-party system” of an orthodox commitment to an “external definable, and transcendent authority” and the “progressive” commitment to “resymbolize historic faiths according to the prevailing assumptions of contemporary life.” He calls for a “generous orthodoxy, read through the lenses of conservative piety” that is left without too detailed a definition but is doctrinal in orientation and focuses on the gospel of salvation by faith.
I will let you know what I think after I have read them.
Speaking of ISI, they have an interesting series called the 