It is understandable to want to run screaming from a “spiritual memoir”—especially when you discover it’s been written by a 27-year-old. Memoirs are bad enough, with their cringe-making confessions, their sordid tale-telling, and their self-important self-examination. Why, the reader too often wonders, should we care about you? Spiritual memoirs frequently inhabit the lowest tier of […]
Rick Warren’s ‘The Purpose-Driven Life’
When George W. Bush became president in 2000, he brought with him a kind of “hey, guy” Christianity that had been quietly booming in megachurches throughout the land. It was neither the formal Episcopal worship of his youth nor the groovy pan-spirituality of lefty dabblers. Bush’s faith was rooted in a Christian-conversion experience—and in the […]