Bookmarks - Christianity Today

In a passionate speech at Sunday night’s American Cinematheque Award Ceremony, Robert Downey Jr. pleaded with Hollywood and the world to extend grace and forgiveness to Mel Gibson, just as Gibson had done for him some years ago when Downey was struggling with addictions and a tainted public image.In the last several years, Gibson’s image has taken a beating as he: was convicted of DUI and then making anti-semitic remarks; divorced his longtime wife and chased after a much younger woman; made heinous threats, taped and publicly released, against that same woman.As Gibson joined him onstage Sunday night, Downey said, “On this special occasion . . . I would ask that you join me, unless you are completely without sin in which case you picked the wrong f–-ing industry, in forgiving my friend his trespasses and offering him the same clean slate you have me, allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame.”When Downey learned that he was going to be given an achievement award at the ceremony, he requested that Gibson be his presenter. In doing so, Gibson called Downey “my friend. When I saw you all those years ago and got all those warnings, I just thought, ‘There’s nothing so much wrong with him.’ You’re a good dude with a good heart.” Gibson had helped Downey make a comeback from his own addictions by paying Downey’s insurance bond so he could star in 2003’s The Singing Detective.Watch Downey’s forgiveness speech here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AAJuynxnTQ?version=3(image from clip on CBS’s Early Show)

The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology Edited by Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Treier

This volume offers a judicious sampling of evangelical voices on matters of theological import, sufficient both to suggest the diversity of evangelicalism in the 21st century and to convey the core convictions that give the term evangelical some meaning, for all its elasticity. In the latter regard, coeditor Larsen’s opening essay, “Defining and Locating Evangelicalism,” is particularly helpful, taking David Bebbington’s standard definition as a point of departure and expanding on it.

Before I Die Jenny Downham

All the buzz is about Richard Dawkins and his swaggering band of “New Atheists.” But what if God is simply passé? Skip The God Delusion and read this heavily promoted young adult novel, another import from the U.K. Tess, a bright teenage girl, learns that she is terminally ill. How does she respond, how do her loved ones cope, in a world from which Christianity has disappeared and no one mourns its absence? Our likable heroine knows this much, at least: She wants a “woodland burial” as arranged by “the Natural Death Centre,” for which she’ll be decked out in her “butterfly dress, … lilac bra and knicker set, and … black zip boots,” nestled in a “biodegradable willow coffin.” For every belligerent atheist, there are thousands of Tesses.

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Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries Gerald L. Sittser

To many Christians, “ecumenism” suggests a flabby relativism. In contrast, Gerald Sittser’s wonderfully capacious book gives us ecumenism at its best. Saint Benedict and Macrina the Younger, Julian of Norwich and Francis of Assisi, Luther and Calvin, Mary Slessor and Dorothy Day: These are some of the figures who illuminate Sittser’s survey. This would be a fine book for a Sunday school class or a small group.