Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Readings in Baptist History: Four Centuries of Selected Documents by Joseph Early Jr.   is a very different (at least for me)way of learning about Baptist history, or any history.   Instead of reading about events, one reads documents from those events in generally the order they were written.   This book is, as it says on the back cover, "An Entire Library in One Book", though it should be noted that several of the documents given in this book are abridged.   It is more of an overview of Baptist history rather than a deep dive into it, but it is an interesting overview.   It contains evidence of good and bad theology(including the bizarre) down through the centuries, and interesting perspectives on various theological controversies amongst the Baptists   themselves and between them and other denominations.      The concern of many Baptists in regards to making sure they keep holding to the Bible and not man's opinions, the fight against...

The Printer and the Preacher: Ben Franklin, George Whitefield, and the Surprising Friendship that Invented America by Randy Peterson   is a book that attempts to explore the friendship of George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin and how that relationship affected the coming united American states.   I have read some biographies on Whitefield (Dallimore's) and knew of Franklin's correspondence with Whitefield, and thought that the topic of this book looked interesting.   Sadly, this book did not satisfy my hopes.   First, though the author's writing style is not boring it is too unorganized for my taste.   I have read books before where the narrative goes back and forth through time and I know that this can be done in an interesting, yet still unconfusing way, but this book does not do it well.   On any given page, especially towards the first half of the book, one can be in Franklin's early life, then his later, or in Whitefield's early life, or his lat...