Top Reads: December 2018

The final monthly round up of 2018 is here… Here are the books, articles and other things that I found particularly interesting this month.

1. First up is a poignant reflection on pain from my friend Haydon Spenceley.
2. Similar but related, Jennifer Bute has written an accessible and beautiful book on Dementia. TLDR? Read this book.
3. Over at Christianity Today, Andrew Wilson has a great piece on prophecy, particularly discerning between a prophet and a crank. TLDR? Read this if you believe in prophecy and discernment.
4. For the Guardian, Kenan Malik writes carefully about ‘Debate ends when we label views we simply disagree with as ‘hatred’‘. TLDR? Read this if you care about reason.
5. Helen Ingram, an academic, has a provocative blog post about feminism. Published back in February, I only read it this month, but found it fascinating. TLDR? “By the time you finish reading this you will either a) despise me with such seething contempt that you will draft a death threat on the nearest piece of paper to hand or b) your faith in humanity will be restored. If social media is a credible yardstick of popular middle-class outrage then I suspect that you will feel the former, but either way I hope you read to the end…“
6. Melvin Tinker, a Church of England Vicar, has written a provocative and important little book on culture. TLDR? Read this if you are involved in church leadership in the UK and similar cultures.
7. A music writer called Pete Paphides wrote a fascinating article about music, shopping and culture, in light of recent news about HMV. TLDR? This is a nice piece about how we find the things we love.
8. The Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, has a blog with four warnings about temptations for politicians (And the rest of us) around Brexit.
9. A challenging article in the Church Times about whether prioritising ‘leadership’ over theology in training has been problematic. TLDR? If you are involved in or care about Christian leadership, read this.
10. In interesting post over at The Good Men Project on the sexualisation of men’s bodies in film. TLDR? Talks about what it says on the tin.