Links Roundup – Mid-May 2014 edition

If your church, college, or local theatre group is looking for an event that will be meaningful, cathartic, funny, and deeply moving on many levels, you should consider hosting Ted Schwartz’s new play, Learning to Play. You can read about it here, and watch a promo video here:

If you are a theist who sometimes wonders if you’d rather be an atheist, or vice versa, I recommend Frank Schaeffer’s excellent new book, Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God.

I love what Phyllis Tickle says about it: “…one leaves the final pages of WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD aware yet once again that sometimes and in some circumstances, an artist is still the best theologian.”
And finally – Michael Toy has written a beautiful collection of readable, sometimes funny, often touching, always insightful poems called Blame It on the Huehuetenango.

If you’ve had some struggles with organized religion, especially of the Evangelical variety – but of any variety really, this book will do your soul and brain more good than a stiff carafe of coffee or the best bottle of wine … And if it doesn’t, the fake endorsements at the end will at least give you some laughs. I’ve kept going back to this beautiful little collection … and I think you will too.