Tag Archives: Christianity

The Gargoyle Code

Posted on February 19, 2017 by smellincoffee

The Gargoyle Code: Lenten Dispatches Between a Master Dementor and his Diabolical Trainee © 2009 Dwight Longenecker 103  pages The Gargoyle Code is a modern sequel-in-spirit  of C.S. Lewis’ much-lauded classic, The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior demon mentors … Continue reading →

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Out of the Ashes

Posted on February 9, 2017 by smellincoffee

Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture © 2017 Anthony Esolen 256 pages Some things, like a Roman bridge, can last for millennia through the virtue of their design, the simplicity of their use, and the inherent strength of their … Continue reading →

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The Porch and the Cross

Posted on August 27, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Porch and the Cross: Ancient Stoic Wisdom for Modern Christian Living© 2016 Kevin Vost198 pages Stoicism as a moral philosophy has had admirers through the ages, and especially during the medieval epoch. While modern snobbery tends to dismiss the … Continue reading →

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Inferno

Posted on July 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

Inferno created 14th century Dante Alighieri translated © 2002 Anthony Esolen 528 pages If Dante’s Inferno is to be believed, Hell is mostly populated by Italians.  The first piece in the Divine Comedy, Inferno takes the reader down into the … Continue reading →

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The Orthodox Church

Posted on June 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Orthodox Church© 1963, 1993 Kallistos (Timothy) Ware368 pages Who are the Orthodox? To the extent Americans have heard of them, it is through eastern European immigrant communities. Those who paid marginal attention in western civ might remember something called … Continue reading →

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Frodo’s Journey

Posted on April 8, 2016 by smellincoffee

Frodo’s Journey: The Hidden Meaning of the Lord of the Rings © 2015 Joseph Pearce 158 pages Noting that Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring trilogy is rich with symbolism is rather akin to observing that the Pacific Ocean is big. … Continue reading →

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Pilgrim’s Progress

Posted on March 19, 2016 by smellincoffee

Pilgrim’s Progress in Today’s English © 1678 John Bunyan,   retold 1971 James Thomas 285 pages Years ago I read Pilgrim’s Progress,  the story of one Christian’s spiritual journey made physical. The story begins when a man named Graceless, soon to be … Continue reading →

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This week: the usual suspects

Posted on February 8, 2016 by smellincoffee

Well, dear readers, it’s another month! I have a serious itch for science and science fiction at the moment, so I have no less than five potential science reads stacked up now, and three potential SF books. Among the numbers…Domesticated: Evolution in … Continue reading →

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The Lost History of Christianity

Posted on November 9, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — And How It Died© 2008 Philip Jenkins315 pages For the first millennium of the church’s history, Europe was less … Continue reading →

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The Way

Posted on October 31, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Way: What Every Protestant Needs to Know About Orthodoxy© 2007 Clark Carlton222 pages   If Protestantism is a willful child of the Catholic church, what is it to the Orthodox?  What is the Orthodox faith for that matter, Catholicism … Continue reading →

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