In the Land of Believers is the story of Gina Welch, a secular Jew who decided to go undercover as a Christian convert to figure out what makes evangelical Christians tick. She certainly picked a…
Posts Published by Ben Kimball
Einstein’s God
In June of 2009, I reviewed Krista Tippett's Speaking of Faith and offered this criticism: “With all of the rapid motion between topics and ideas, I think Tippett herself was drowned out in the written…
A Wretched Man
Admittedly, I am not the biggest Apostle Paul fan in the world, as I tend to hang out biblically in the Gospels more than the rest of the book. Though Paul's epistles are interesting in…
You Are Not a Gadget
Jaron Lanier's?You Are Not a Gadget is what many would call a manifesto on the current state of the Internet. A computer scientist and supposed father of virtual reality, Lanier uses this book to air…
Soul to Soul
Despite my personal beliefs of spiritual openness and freedom, I never forget my native religious language of Christianity. I don't let that limit me spiritually, but I also don't exclude it from my worldview. Since…
The Faith Instinct
Religion evolution seems to be the latest trend in the world of intellectuals, seculars, and atheists trying to model religion into something logical. These new trendsetters, offering a softer, yet still intellectual examination of religion's…
36 Arguments for the Existence of God
For a variety of reasons, I do not usually venture off the nonfiction path. I think the main reason is the ease to which I can find books that interest me. It is much easier…
The Third Jesus
Deepak Chopra's 2008 book The Third Jesus is an attempt to understand three distinct manifestations of this elusive person: the historical Jesus, the theological Jesus created by the church, & the spiritual Jesus available to…
Ben’s Top Ten Books of 2009
This year I read twenty books that earned my coveted 5-star rating. Here, in no particular order, are?the ten I feel were the best of those twenty. 1. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto…
A Father’s Odyssey
In the weeks leading up to the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, Georgia, Terry Hitchcock ran 75 consecutive marathons. Hitchcock ran from Minneapolis to Atlanta to raise awareness to the plight of children in single-parent…
True Cow Tales
As the only person in my family born and bred in Wisconsin, I have had life experiences that were not available to my Minnesota kin. For example, I have been to and enjoyed many cheese…
In the Land of Invented Languages
Languages have been a source of personal fascination and interest since an eighth grade French course I took back in the day. I think it is simply amazing that people can look at an object…