GlocalNet

My body aches - about to go have coffee downstairs and then off to Hanoi from Tokyo.  Brought my latest Philip Jenkins book and wow is it good.  You know a book is good when you keep telling your wife things the author said.  I’m looking forward to my time in Vietnam. 

Everyone who works in the Near East or Middle-East or Far East must read Philip Jenkins!

For anyone who wants to understand the world forwards and backwards Philip Jenkins in his latest Jesus Wars is just awesome.  His first, The Next Christendom is good, the Lost History of the Christian Church is phenomenal and the one I read on the plane from DFW to Hanoi is just riveting.  Why do I like his books so much?

First, he gives solid evidence as to where the future is going.  A lot of people do that - but as a scholar and historian he provides more than just a poll.

Second, he shows what has happened in the past.  I read The Lost Christian History just out of curiosity - it was powerful in leaning about the Church in the East - how it grew, how it divided and how it planted seeds of descent. 

Finally, when in Jesus Wars, I’m reading it to better understand more of the history of the Church Councils and the Trinity.  I never put together when the church debated all of that is when the schisms happened and Islam rose.  These debates are not new.