Culture

Simon and Schuster RRP $29.95 The title of this book captures the author’s message well. Victoria Osteen is a mother of two and co-pastor of Lakewood Church (USA) with her husband Joel Osteen, himself a best-selling author. Through her personal experiences, she outlines ways to encourage us all to reach our full potential and enjoy life as a bonus. She ...

Monarch Books RRP: $29.95 A Furture and a Hope provides great insight into how Tearfund came into being, the work it has done and how and the vision and mission. It provides real insight to how we can put the Gospel message into action, looking at the Gospel not just as a historical message but what it means for now. ...

Hidden Spring RRP: $24.95 The Narnia books provide spiritual lessons simple enough for a child to understand yet engaging enough for adults living a life through Christ in a fallen world. A former atheist-turned-Christian, Lewis imbued his tales with biblical allusions that only the most hardened sceptic would miss. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book ...

Skylight Paths Publishing RRP: $26.95 In an age when people claim to be more spiritual yet less involved in church, expressions of faith development are found in other activities. It is no surprise then, to find that many people express their spiritual development in alternative ways. Warren Kay’s book claims that running, as a natural expression of ourselves, can open ...

Finch Publishing RRP$24.95 Satish Kumar was born in Rajasthan, India into a Jain family. After living as a Jain monk for a number of years, he became convinced that Mahatma Gandhi’s integration of religious beliefs with social, political and economic practice provided a more realistic and practical world-view than the strict Jainism in which he was raised. At the same ...

Scribe Would you be outraged if you were told about a country that imprisoned people indefinitely without trial and without charge? I hope so? What if that country was Australia? Our high court ruled that a stateless man could be held in mandatory detention indefinitely because the only legal ways out were be granted a visa or be deported. He ...

Published by St Anthony Messenger Press RRP $28.95 Drawing on the life of Francis of Assisi and centuries of Franciscan theology, tradition and practice, Care for Creation engages with the subject of creation care from a deeply Catholic perspective of reflective action; the marrying together of prayer, spiritual reflection, and practical action in the context of the ecological crisis. The ...

Doubleday RRP: $39.95 Every now and then you come across a real gem of a book – this book is one of those for me; although I am not sure that it is everyone’s ‘cup-of-tea’. John O’Donohue is an Irish teacher and poet who draws on Celtic spiritual traditions for his writing and prayers. To Bless the Space Between Us ...

Doubleday (New York) 2008 RRP $24.95 This small book is an outstanding even-handed look at and evaluation of the many forms and stories of resurrection in the Bible. The Resurrection: history and myth does not seek to prove or disprove the resurrection, just present the facts. Geza Vermes gives us a scholarly, yet readable and easily understood work in which ...

Templeton Foundation Press. In recent years there have been a number of introductions to the ongoing dialogue between theology and science which open up the spiritual dimensions of contemporary science. Middleton takes a unique tack re-imagining an old Science fiction classic. Isaac Asimov once described Edwin Abbott’s 19th century Novella Flatland as the best introduction to thinking about dimensions. It ...