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The question I’ve been asked most was nothing about academia or the social sciences at all; it was whether I was related to the Guinness brewery. And most people who ask me are actually surprised when the answer was yes. They were kidding. I often get into sort of trouble over that in various places. And so have my ancestors. One of my ancestors was a very generous philanthropist in the last century, in Dublin, and he did lots for the homeless and various things, in Ireland, but he also rebuilt St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When the city fathers invited him to the unveiling of the new cathedral, they said they were going to say a little something to him on one of the windows. And he was a Christian believer too. But to his horror, when they unveiled the window, they put at the bottom of it a text from the Bible: “I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink.”

Os Guinness, from the opening remarks to A Thinker’s Guide to an Intelligent Faith, delivered at the Veritas Forum at the University of Michigan, 1994

I have a thinking problem.

Maybe you’re like me, or you just know someone who is.

Sound familiar? It starts out innocently enough: you try a little light rumination to ease the inanity of a long day in a vapid world… but it never stops there. The next thing you know, you’re sneaking a shot of strong thought and hiding copies of Augustine in your nightstand.

Your family members learn to pretend they’re asleep and pray you don’t burst into their rooms with a volume of “Jack.” They hide, they ignore you, they pretend they don’t hear…

One day, you find yourself staggering out of a library, holding a copy of the Pensees, babbling in incomprehensible polysyllabic utterances like “omnitemporality” and “infralapsarian.” You finally come to the end of yourself and admit it: normal people don’t talk like this. You have a problem.

Does this describe you, or someone you care about?

Brett Kunkle offers hope.

Tim Challies has a witty piece on books you won’t see published anytime soon. Here’s some I thought I’d add to the list:

• Never Read a Bible Verse, by Bruce Wilkinson
• The Purpose-Driven Emergent Church, by Brian McLaren
• I Made It All Up, by Dan Brown
• The Power of a Praying Christian Book Publisher, (anonymous)
• A Novel Approach to Christianity, by J.I. Packer
• Omnitemporality for Dummies, by William Lane Craig
• This Old Earth, by Jonathan Sarfati
• Whatever, by J.P. Moreland
• Chicken Soup for the Postmodern Soul, by Nancy Pearcey
• Mere Banality, by C.S. Lewis
• How to Keep Spiritual Things in Their Proper Place, by Francis A. Schaeffer

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