Exercising the Mind

It's felt like a long time since I've done any academic reading or study but that's changed in the past few weeks. It's kind of nice to exercise that part of my brain again.

These are just a few things I've been getting my self into:

1. Defending Constantine by Peter J. Leithart:  Began reading this last weekend and was hooked after the first chapter. While the book is a history book, Leithart is a fairly engaging author.  In other words, this isn't like many of the history books I suffered through in college.  (Although when you talk about Christian martyrdom with all its gory details, it's hard for the book not to be interesting.)  So far it's been an interesting look at politics and the early church.  
2. The Cape Town 2010 Lausanne Congress: I think it's been about 20 years or so since the last one was held and basically it's a Congress for the evangelical Christian world. There's already been some interesting pre-papers and conversation happening around the topics being discussed this week.  About 14 or so InterVarsity representatives are attending and I'll be curious to hear what they come away with. Our housemate from Panama is currently there, so it'll be fun to hear her take on the Congress too.
3. Understanding Poverty:  Ran across this slide show presentation in some of the Lausanne papers.  It's kind of long and it'd be interesting to hear how they got some of this data, but it's engaging none the less.