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What Spackman offers instead is a wonderfully fresh, honest wrestling with photos and figurines and T-shirts and all manner of stuff, in the process illuminating our apprehension of the invisible God. Of a clumsy painting, she writes, "A golden crown and what looks like a pair of shorts on the child in the stable make no literal sense. We accept them as symbols for the sake of maintaining the myth, of remembering the whole story. They are ridiculous. They are necessary." Amen.

The book is superbly produced. You could say it doesn't look like a Christian book. But it is, and what a hopeful sign.
—J.W.

Cindy Crosby is a book author and editor. Mark Noll is McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College. John Wilson is editor of Books & Culture.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success is available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

More information is available from Random House.

Stark's earlier book For the Glory of God was the subject of an Editor's Bookshelf. An excerpt and an interview with the author are available on our site.

More about Rodney Stark and his work is available from his page at Baylor University.

Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion is available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

More about the book is available from Yale Press.

Christianity Today interviewed John Polkinghorne after he won the 2002 Templeton Prize for progress in religion.

Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic is available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

Wrestlin' Jacob : A Portrait of Religion in Antebellum Georgia and the Carolina Low Country is also available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

More about the book is available from Yale Press.

Cure for the Common Life: Living in Your Sweet Spot is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

Cindy Crosby profiled Max Lucado for Christianity Today.

More about the book, including a video clip, is available from W Publishing.

More about Max Lucado is available from his website.

Born Again and Again: Surprising Gifts of a Fundamentalist Childhood is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

Books & Culture also reviewed the book.

More information is available from Paraclete Press.

A Profound Weakness: Christians and Kitsch is available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

More information is available from Piquant Editions.

An interview with the author is available from The Verge Art Series.

For book lovers, our 2005 CT book awards are available online, along with our book awards for 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, and 1997, as well as our Books of the Twentieth Century. For other coverage or reviews, see our Books archive and the weekly Books & Culture Corner.

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January 2006, Vol. 50, No. 1