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By now everyone in Lawrence has heard that David Corliss is our new City Manager. We want to join with the well-wishers to offer Dave our hearty congratulations! All indications are the he will do an excellent job. We appreciate the City Council for noting that Dave is a man of integrity. We were glad they noticed and glad that it was important to them. Sarah and the girls can be more than proud.

Everyone knows that David is the new City Manager, but did you know that he is also a history buff? Before becoming Interim City Manager, you could find him on his lunch break perusing the history section at Signs of Life. With his added responsibilities, though, he probably doesn’t get time off for lunch. In honor of Dave’s new appointment and interest in history, we’re offering a special on one of our most popular history titles, River of Doubt. This is the story of another man of integrity, Theodore Roosevelt, and his amazing expedition to chart the Amazon. For a limited time you can pick up a copy of Candice Millard’s bestseller for only $16.90 (normally $26.00 - this price is only available in the store, not on the web).

Ted Dekker has just released another psycho-thriller called Saint. Carl Strople has been kidnapped and forced to murder someone to save his wife and son. Or has he? Does he even really have a wife and son? As with previous Dekker books, nothing is ever quite what it seems. That’s OK. It makes for a great read, plenty of action, good vs evil in the spiritual realm. All good stuff. But when he ressurects from previous novels the old magic blank books in which whatever is written becomes true, you want to holler “enough already”.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a huge Dekker fan and I enjoyed this one immensely. But seriously, Ted: get a new shtick.

Our friend and local pundit/author/lawyer/farmer(?) Caleb Stegall recently took on conservative columnist George Will over the issue of Wal-Mart hegemony. Writing in the Dallas Morning News, Caleb argues against both the liberal position that Wal-Mart is bad because it exploits the marginalized and Will’s conservative fight to keep our laws off of Wal-Mart in the name of “consumer sovereignty”. Caleb believes that a more faithful conservative view is wary of any power enclave (whether in Congress or the marketplace) that attempts to exert managerial force over society.

Views like this have earned Caleb and his cohort the title Crunchy Conservatives - i.e. conservatism for the granola and Birkenstock and faith-motivated crowds. Former National Review writer Rod Dreher has written about Caleb et al in a book we like a lot called Crunchy Cons.

Find out more about Caleb at the webzine he used to edit, the New Pantagruel.

We get a lot of questions at Signs of Life about the emergent church. We can’t presume to even begin to answer them here in a few short paragraphs - we have a whole section of books dedicated to the topic. But perhaps we can give a bit of insight into it and direct readers to a few books that might help shed some light on the subject.

As a starting point the emergent church, or just emergent as it is often known, could be thought of as a movement within evangelicalism that seeks a more authentic Christianity. Many emergent writers seem to be reacting against some Read the rest of this entry �

John Piper, Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, is one of our favorite authors at Signs of Life. Many authors have solid theology. Many authors have a clear and engaging writing style. Many authors write on pertinent and timely topics. But few have the skill to combine all those elements into books that get us jumping-up-and-down excited about following Jesus.

Whether its his classic Desiring God, his book about the supremacy of God in missions Let the Nations Be Glad!, or biographical works on the puritans and their friends, the theme of Christian hedonism shines through all Piper’s writing. Christian hedonism? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Piper explains via a twist on the famous answer to the first question of the Westminster Confession: it is the Christian’s duty to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. This is the dangerous duty of delight, as Piper would phrase it. We are created for God’s pleasure and He is most pleased when we are delighting in him.
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The cover image shows a blond-haired, blue-eyed knight in shining armor and his white-robed damsel in distress. The series title is Legends of the Guardian King. You immediately dismiss it as trite, poorly-written, romatic fantasy. Not so fast.

In The Light of Eidon and its sequels, Karen Hancock has crafted an intelligent, fast-paced allegory with well-developed characters and excellent insight into the life of faith. Middle-aged male readers (like myself) love it. Teenage female readers (like my daughters) are enthralled. Any Christian will be thoroughly entertained while simultaneously encouraged to trust more fully in our sovereign God who holds all things under his control.

This fall, Signs of Life in downtown Lawrence is offering a new series in its free Public House weekly community forum entitled, Culinary Culture: Pursuing Excellence and Sustainability from Farm to Plate. Each Monday night at 7:30 pm starting September 11, the series will feature one of our community’s foremost authorities on issues surrounding our pursuit and appreciation for local culinary culture and agriculture. Below is a description of the series:

“Excellence is a God-given virtue of a mature, sustainable, and fruitful culture, and should be pursued in all areas of life. This especially includes humankind’s relationship to the earth and its fruit. The pursuit of excellence has implications for the way we prepare our food and the way we eat, especially in relation to the intimate connection between sustainable, local agriculture and healthy, quality culinary culture. In order to explore these ideas in the context of our community, this fall, Signs of Life is offering a free, weekly lecture series that showcases some of our community’s foremost authorities on excellence in culinary culture.”

Speakers and topics will include:

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