Presby-Musings

Evolving In Monkey Town: How A Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask The Questions - Rachel Held Evans, Zondervan (2010) Rachel Held Evans is the latest in a growing line of bloggers-turned-authors of a certain age (25-35ish) who are coming to grips with their former fundamentalist and/or conservative and/or evangelical Christian upbringing in a postmodern, post-Christian, post-Christendom culture.  Like Jonathan Acuff , Matthew Turner & Anne Jackson , Evans has used her blog as a source for material for her book, and to stay connected with her fans and readers.  She is a writer, who has had articles in a variety of publications, has worked for newspapers and lives in Dayton, TN with her husband.  Dayton, TN also happens to be the location of the famous Scopes trial that was held there 80 years ago when Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan argued over evolution being taught in public schools.  The trial essentially made a spectacle of Christi...

Hear No Evil:  My Story of Innocence, Music, and the Holy Ghost by Matthew Paul Turner (Waterbrook Press) Matthew Paul Turner and I lived parallel lives--up to that point where he went off to college and got the degree that I probably should have had, and my dream job in the music business.  Well, it was the Christian music business, which wasn't part of my dream job, but there you go.  Turner is the popular blogger, Christian critic, author, and cultural commentator who writes, comments, critiques and sometimes snarks a bit at www.jesusneedsnewpr.com .  Last year a friend sent me Turner's book "Churched," a compilation of essays on growing up as a fundamentalist Baptist.  I was thrilled when I saw Hear No Evil was in print, but it took me a while to get to it.  It was worth the wait.  Hear No Evil essentially chronicles Turner's life story in essays-- as his life relates to music, that is.  I couldn't put it down, to be honest.  Each ess...