Audra Jennings

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Jason T. Berggren and the book: 10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working through the Frustrations of Faith X-Media (March 1, 2009) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jason T. Berggren grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and was a part of the band Strongarm. After leaving the band, he earned an AA in Mass Communications and a BA in Theology. In 2000, he helped to start the Calvary Fellowship church in Miami, FL, fulfilling the role of Assistant Pastor ov...

Can Anything Good Come From Hate? A recent article in Britain’s Telegraph brought international attention to a decision by Oxford University Press to remove certain terms associated with Christianity (i.e. disciple, abbey) from a popular children’s dictionary, replacing them with modern words like “MP3 player” and “blog.” In short order, this story has become fodder for the blogosphere, and it’s not hard to see why. After all, our understanding of the world and of ourselves is formed, in the most foundational sense, by our vocabulary. Words are powerful. Words are important. Author Jason T. Berggren is among the many who have spoken out against the attempt to expunge Christian words from the new lexicon. And so it comes as a surprise to many that his first book release is entitled 10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working Through the Frustrations of Faith , with his website similarly dubbed http://www.10thingsihate.com/ . How could a Christian author—and former pastor, no less—use s...

When Faith Fails to Deliver Discovering the cause of Christian disillusionment For both church insiders and those who are only now beginning a conscious pursuit of Christ, the journey of faith is sometimes marked by moments of disillusionment and anger. This comes as a surprise to many of us who have either been taught or have sought a very different version of faith—one that brings the happy ending, the resolution of conflict, the warm fuzzies. According to author Jason T. Berggren, the emotional valleys of faith are often completely unrelated to anything God has or has not done; instead, they are a direct result of our own wrong expectations. In 10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working Through the Frustrations of Faith, Berggren explores many of the wrong expectations that have caused absolute frustration in his life and his own journey of faith and shares some good news: this sense of overwhelming dissatisfaction can actually serve as a catalyst for personal growth. Berggren fir...