Daily Archives: March 28, 2008

A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon

Posted by on March 28, 2008 25 comments

It’s common practice, especially in the theo-blogosphere to link to books at Amazon.  In fact, my whole desire to blog started after reviewing books on Amazon for a few years.  However, as Wipf & Stock co-conspirator and fellow theo-blogger, Chris Spinks has recently admonished us, theology bloggers who wish to support and theological study and promote new theological books and monographs really should be directing customers, not to Amazon, but to the publishers themselves.  Generally you will get as good, or better pricing through direct orders to the publisher and you’ll be supporting the industry that actually publishes the books we all love.  If you need to order used book, I strongly recommend that you use AbeBooks.  It’s an excellent service which lists books for nearly all the major used book dealers that list online.

I’ve tried to avoid just hating Amazon for the sake of hating Amazon, but I’ve finally been pushed over the edge and will not be supporting them in any way anymore.  As of yesterday, Amazon has announced that all publishers who use print on demand services other than their own company (BookSurge) must either switch, or have the “buy” buttons disabled on their products on Amazon.  In other words, Amazon is saying to publishers that all their print on demand books must either be published by them, or they will not be able to sell through Amazon.  This kind of attempt to strong-arm publishers in to lining the purses of Amazon just that much more is pretty despicable in my view, and bloggers who love theology and theological publishing should not support such a distrbutor.  I hope that my readers who blog will join me in no longer linking to Amazon, but linking directly to publishers and taking the few minutes of extra time to order direct from them, rather than fattening up the Amazon fat cats just because it’s a little bit faster.  Support theology.  Support the publishers.

The Theology of Changing

Posted by on March 28, 2008 6 comments

One of the seemingly essential elements of the theology of the Christian life is the claim that, in Christ people are able to be transformed in their existential existence in the world.  While most Christians would deny any sort of crude notion of perfectionism, most Christians, even the most strongly reformed ones, would surely maintain that in the Christian life growth and change is in fact a possibility that can be realized.

Now, on one level it is easy to observe certain kinds of changes that do take place in the Christian life.  The now-converted promiscuous college student will probably not have insurmountable problems cutting frivolous sexual exploits out of his life and the now-converted lawyer can certainly find a morally acceptable occupation without much existential crisis.  However, examples like this are simply examples of behavior modification, not of a true existential experience of personal change.  What I’ve noticed is that, for the most part, the things people struggle with in life are pretty much the same things they struggled with all of their lives.  So and so may not sleep around anymore, but she still finds a way to idolize romance. 

The question that I have then, is simply this:  How do people really change?  What sorts of events, relationships, practices, encounters, and decisions actually contribute to an existential transformation of people’s mode of existence in the world?  What kind of change is actually possible in the Christian life?  In short, what kind of transformation of life should we expect over the course of a well-lived Christian life, and where and how do seek after that?

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