As my blog grows, I find that I come across a lot of excellent resources that I’d like to share with others. Thus, it seems only natural to begin a weekly reading list. Each week I will feature resources from a variety of media that I have found thought provoking in the last week.
I have categorized them as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (and a few books). While Good and Ugly are fairly self explanatory, to be clear by “Bad” I mean that the article relates news that is important but in some way troubling.
The Good
1. Fellow blogger Amy R. Buckley wrote a humorous post on Jory Micah’sblog reflecting on a very strange conversation she had regarding women in Church leadership.
2. Carolyn Custis James, author of books like Malestrom and The Gospel of Ruth, wrote a reflection of the movie Spotlight from a Protestant perspective.
3. Dan Brennan has written a very important review of Jamal Jivanjee’s book Free to Love.
4. I thought this quote from Boz Tchividjian of GRACE regarding the dangerous precedent of protecting pastors tied to sex abuse scandals was excellent. If you’re not following Boz or Grace, you should be.
The Bad
5. This week, The Washingtonian released the digital version of their expose on sex abuse and cover ups within CJ Mahaney’s Sovereign Grace Ministries. This article is a must read.
6. I was made aware of this post this week. It is from Denny Burk’s blog. Here he reproduces a section of Al Mohler, Mark Dever, and Ligon Duncan’s letter in defense of CJ Mahaney. Burk insists he be considered a cosigner. This is interesting because the letter in question states that the abuse allegations against Sovereign Grace are not credible. These words have not been retracted despite Nate Morales conviction and the pending class action suit on Virginia.
7. Religious News Services released an update on the civil suit against Bill Gothard in which he is being sued for various forms of sexual assault and misconduct.
The Ugly
8. After the success of my open letter to TGC, I’ve been apprised of some disturbing tweets from John Piper. I struggle to find any context in which these tweets aren’t deeply troubling.
Books
In addition to the links above, here is a list of books I have been reading recently. I highly recommend each of them.
9. Leviticus by Jacob Milgrom is an interesting take on the subject. Milgrom approaches the proverbial law book by looking beyond the laws themselves to try to reassemle the societal mindset that produced them.
10. Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruegemann is a seminal work. Bruegemann provides a scathinf critique of the Church and it’s function as an agent of control and abuse. I recently finished this bookand it is a must read.
11. Grounded by Diana Butler Bass is a clarion call to Christians to move beyond the traditional three-tiered universe and embrace a deep mysticism rooted in the notion of “God with us.”
12. Gospel Women by Richard Bauckham is a dense but rewarding text. I recently revisited this book and was reminded of its instrumental role in causing me, for the first time, to begin considering the ways in which so much of Church history has been rewritten to exclude women from their own stories.
**Cover image from http://www.friarhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/good-bad-and-ugly.jpg**
Sparking Conversation 
Nate this is an excellent post. Thank you for compiling!
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