The Benefits of Books
Here is another article that spruiks the benefits of real books on real shelves. A couple of grabs:

“Digital media encourages us to be high-bandwith consumers rather than meditative thinkers.”

“The implications are clear: owning books in the home is one of the best things you can do for your children academically.”

The Top Ten
I nicked the graphic from this site for an article a few weeks ago, but also thought the content was somewhat amusing. Included in their Top 10 Theologians of All Time are Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin, as well as CI Scofield and (my friend David will love this…) Matthew Henry.

Who are my top ten? By what criteria would I choose? Off the top of my head I would certainly include Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin. Barth would make the list, as would Luther and Athanasius. As I get toward the end of the list disputes arise: Is a Tertullian or Irenaeus more deserving than, say, a Wesley or an Edwards? How does one choose such a list?

Who are your top ten?

Colloquium and Theological Education
The new issue of Colloquium, the journal of the Australian-New Zealand Association of Theological Schools (ANZATS) arrived yesterday (Vol. 47.2 (November 2015)). It has an interesting mini-theme of theological education with essays by Stephen Plant on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Mark Lindsay on Thomas Cranmer, Geoff Thompson on the functions of theology, John McDowell on God as the telos of higher education, and Monica Melanchthon on theological education for transformation. Looks like good reading. The Colloquium website is not updated yet, but should be in due course.

And Finally…
My go-to web-based dictionary has just announced a very prosaic Word of the Year 2015. If nothing else, it indicates how a very ordinary word has become freighted with angst and new shades of meaning in the present cultural milieu.