Featured Half Read Book
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Okay, this is not a book that I was even going to buy, except that the title is completely irresistible and Obama did "rock the house" at the Saddleback HIV/AIDS Conference in December 2006. While many people thought his talk at Saddleback was a complete "Obamanation," the senator did attribute much of the spread of AIDS in Africa to sin. He actually said, "sin." So, I bought the book. 
The book is part 6th grade Civics lesson and part political memoir. Obama gets points for writing the book himself, which we all know is rare these days. The personal insights into how he became the junior senator from Illinois as well as his initial work in the U.S. Senate are very interesting. It was good to discover why he voted against protecting children inside (and in some cases outside) of the womb. Given what else was contained in that particular bill, I'll give him that one.
Here's where he lost me: "It's not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or 'ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad" (page 93). He goes on to say that the Constitution is not set in stone like the Bible, but rather is a work in progress. Obviously, the implications for legislation and judicial appointments is huge.
The Audacity of Hope: Half Read Book -- Bookmarked at page 162 of 364.
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Daily Inspiration
Reflections on passages from the Bible delivered Sunday through Thursday each week. These devotionals typically follow the teaching series at Brookwood Church, Simpsonville, South Carolina.
Years ago, my pastor David Larson said in a sermon, "Most people's lives are like half read books."
My wife nudged me and said, "Your life is half read books."
You see, I just get stuck reading some books. I would make a good effort to get started, then I would set the book down for a while. Eventually, I would pick it up and start reading it again, only to set it down once again. These half read books were ultimately re-shelved replete with a bookmark in the last page read.
I carried a certain amount of guilt about these half read books. Why wasn't I more diligent? Why couldn't I just focus? Why did I enjoy American Idol and David Letterman so much more?
Then, one day, it occurred to me: "Some books aren't worth finishing." The problem wasn't with me. The problem was with the book. It bored me. It was poorly written. It wasn't clever or was just downright uninteresting. The book became "half read" because it didn't deserve my time.
A speaker enlightened me to the fact that for every one book I read, I was essentially passing on at least another 100 books that I could read. We all only have so many hours in the day and so many years in our lives. Thus, we can only read so many books in our lifetimes. If we each tried to read one book per month for the next 30 years, that's only 360 more books! That's why we need this site.
Some of these books are half read. I will tell you why they achieved that status. If it's your favorite book or your magnum opus, I apologize. It just didn't grip me.
Many of these books are fully read, so I have elaborated on their merits and their applications particularly to Christian leadership. You will find a variety of writers from a variety of fields. Some will be Christian. Others will not.
Hopefully, I will help you with your next read. Most of all, I hope that I help you avoid a lousy book that has 100 times the impact in "lifetime reading loss." It's an awesome challenge, but I'll do my best to help.
God bless,
Allen White
PS If you have half read books in your life, write 2 or 3 paragraphs and send it to: rawhite2@gmail.com
