A Place for Truth

Book: A Place for Truth

Description: Many today pursue knowledge and even wisdom. But what about truth? In an age that disputes whether truth can be universalized beyond one's own personal experience, it seems quaint to speak of finding truth. But whether in the ivory towers of the academy or in the midst of our everyday lives, we continue to seek after the true, the beautiful and the good.

Since its founding at Harvard in 1992, The Veritas Forum has provided a place for the university world to explore the deepest questions of truth and life. What does it mean to be human? Does history have a purpose? Is life meaningful? Can rational people believe in God? Now gathered in one volume are some of The Veritas Forum's most notable presentations, with contributions from Francis Collins, Tim Keller, N. T. Wright, Mary Poplin and more. Volume editor Dallas Willard introduces each presentation, highlighting its significance and putting it in context for us today. Also included are selected question and answer sessions with the speakers from the original forum experiences.

Come eavesdrop on some of today's leading Christian thinkers and their dialogue partners. And consider how truth might find a place in your own life. (from Amazon.com)

My thoughts: This was a fantastic collection of speeches about Christianity. Most of them are designed to be accessible to both Christians and non-Christians, which is great. I enjoyed reading them, and found that they both challenged and encouraged me, but I think they could also be read by a non-Christian. All of the speakers were very open about their own faith and why they believed what they did. I especially enjoyed the wide range of disciplines represented by the speakers, from an astrophysicist to a social scientist to at least one philosopher. Most of the speakers were Biblically arguing for a culturally, socially, scientifically relevant Christianity, which is a wonderful reminder for us Christians of what Christianity should look like and an appeal to seekers and those who are just curious to just think about Christianity and what it claims. (Those that weren't were admitted atheists, brought to speak about the same topic and provide a more balanced debate).

As mentioned in the description, the idea of truth was very important to this book, and the whole first section was dedicated to various lectures about truth and whether it exists. (The sections were Truth, Faith and Science, Atheism, Meaning and Humanity, Christian Worldview, and Social Justice). Obviously I believe that truth does exist, but nonetheless I began reading this book at a time where reading various essays about truth and why people believe in ultimate truth was very helpful for me. The social justice section was also very powerful for me, simply because it expanded much more on how to truly live out your faith and challenged me to think more about what Christianity should truly look like in terms of how it acts towards others.

Highly recommended.

The Courtesan's Jewel Box

Book: The Courtesan's Jewel Box

Country: China



Description: This is a selection of popular Chinese stories from the 10th to 17th centuries. These stories were written in the spoken language that developed as a literary medium after the emergence of an urban commercial economy in the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). Originally the manuscripts of ordinary street story-tellers, this genre of fiction –deriving its material from the life and times of the period, with vivid writing and intricate plots, descriptions that are natural and vivacious– has now attained a lofty place as literature.

The twenty stories in this book were selected from over two hundred in several collections published at the beginning of the 17th century. (from Amazon.com)

This was a good book, I thought. It gave me a much better feel for what it would actually be like to live in China than either of the other two books I've read about China. The stories in this book were purposefully mostly about normal people, so I got a feel for the customs of China. This included the fact that women were only bargaining chips in some of the stories (but not all), the fact that men could have more than one wife, the social structure of China, the mixture of religions, the fact that money is carried around on strings, and lots of other small but interesting facts.

Since it was an anthology, there was a mixture of stories, some better than others. Some of my favorites were "The Courtesan's Jewel Box" (a love story) and "Lazy Dragon" (the story of, essentially, the Chinese version of Robin Hood).

Would recommend to anyone with an interest in traditional Chinese culture.