Fred Thompson Book Recommendation

Fred Thompson has recently started writing for Townhall Magazine. I disagree with Fred about many things, and wonder if he may not have cost the Republicans the election this year by undercutting Mike Huckabee in South Carolina and setting up the John McCain nomination. Nevertheless, I do appreciate his convictions and his straightforwardness. He has a unique Federalist perspective and I like reading what he has to say even when I don't agree with it.

He recently recommended Andrew McCarthy's book Willful Blindness. He said this about it, "Andrew McCarthy's Willful Blindness book is an important wake-up call to all Americans. The world changed forever on September 11, 2001 yet so many politicians and academics want us to bury our heads in the sand, ignore the enemy [who is] motivated by fanaticism, martyrdom -- and wish ourselves back to September 10th."

Sounds like a book we all need to read. Anyone want to share your thoughts about the book?

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Healing For A Broken World

Steve Monsma, political scientist from Calvin College, has published a new book which should be of interest to readers of Politics & Christianity. We have not read it yet so please do not consider this an endorsement. Nevertheless, in Healing For a Broken World he focuses upon public policy issues rather than partisan politics and on Biblical principles rather than out of the can answers. I am looking forward to reading and interacting with it. I would welcome thoughts from those who are familiar with it.

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John McCain's Five Favorite Books About Soldiers In Wartime

John McCain's five favorite books about soldiers in wartime, as reported by the Wall Street Journal in May 2007.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness

Hell in a Very Small Place

All Quiet on the Western Front

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Heroic Conservatism

For a transcript of the Pew Forum event CLICK HERE.

Or click on the book title for more information on Michael Gerson's book Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't).

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Biblical Illiteracy In Politics And Life

The following is an excerpt from the speech given by Stephen Prothero at the Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Stephen Prothero, chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University, discussed the issue of religious illiteracy in the United States.

Prothero is the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't. Prothero says the United States is one of the most religious countries on earth, but Americans know little about their own religion or the religions of others.

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So instead of seeing religious illiteracy as a religious problem for religious people, I'm looking at it as a civic problem and I'm looking at it from two angles. The first is the domestic angle, where we have politics now where we used to have one religious party and now we have two religious parties, in the sense that Democrats have now joined Republicans in deciding that it's smart to talk about God and it's smart to talk about faith because that's the way you get elected.

And the way that the Republicans, over the last generations, were able to attach to the good words like God and family and values and the Democrats seem to be attaching to less good words or less resonant words like rights and reason, things like that. It didn't seem to be such a good strategy for the Democrats in a country with 96 percent of the citizens believing in God to be the non-God party against the God party. So basically we have a politics where politicians on both sides are being encouraged to talk about religion, about their own faith, but also to connect their public policy initiatives to religious ideas, particularly to biblical ideas and Jewish and Christian ideas.

So Hillary Clinton now, when she talks about immigration, she's quite likely to talk about the Good Samaritan story and to say why don't I think that an immigration bill, where we have to turn in people who come over the border illegally, why do I think that's wrong? Well, because the Good Samaritan story. You know, we're supposed to treat foreigners in a good way. We're supposed to treat them like our neighbors, according to the Bible.

In this kind of politics, it seems to me that it's imperative for citizens to know something about religion. How can you engage a politician who is rightly or wrongly invoking the Bible or invoking religion for political purposes on issues like gay marriage or abortion or the environment or poverty or euthanasia or capital punishment or war?

Click Here to read more. . .

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New Revelations About Bill & Hillary Clinton, and Gerald Ford

Thomas DeFrank's book Write It When I'm Gone includes off-the-record talks with Gerald Ford about Bill and Hillary Clinton.

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Democrats Should Read More

Read the below article to see why Democratic legislators and policy makers need to read Made To Stick and Words That Work.

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Hillary Clinton's favorite books

I previously shared Mitt Romney's list of favorite books, here are some of the favorites of another Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton.

The Return of the Prodigal Son, By Henri J.M. Nouwen

Little Women, By Louisa May Alcott

The Poisonwood Bible, By Barbara Kingsolver

The Color Purple, By Alice Walker

The Clan of the Cave Bear, By Jean M. Auel

Wild Swans, By Jung Chang

West With the Night, By Beryl Markham

The Joy Luck Club, By Amy Tan

(The above list was drawn from O, The Oprah Magazine)

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