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Derek VanRoekel

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Derek’s Bookshelves

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politics-history-biography‎ (153)
fiction‎ (110)

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Derek is Currently Reading

Derek VanRoekel is currently reading

Artemis

by Andy Weir (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: fiction, currently-reading

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Oct 04, 2025 08:12PM

Derek VanRoekel is currently reading

Devotional Classics: Revised Edition: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups

by Anonymous

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Sep 17, 2025 04:27PM

Derek VanRoekel is currently reading

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932

by William Manchester

bookshelves: politics-history-biography, currently-reading

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progress:

(page 330 of 992)
"Pausing on this one for a while so I can read some more books on Israel that I’m interested in.

So far: 330 pages into a 3 volume work (over 3,000 total pages). It’ll still be here when I get back…" — Nov 05, 2023 07:09PM

Sep 25, 2023 04:00PM

Derek’s Notes & Highlights

Book cover for Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America by Russell D. Moore

1 note & 9 highlights

The antidote to authoritarianism is authority itself, rightly defined. The sociologist Robert Nisbet correctly differentiated between authority and power. He defined power as “something external and based upon force,” while authority is ...more

Society is teaching us authority is bad and we should rid ourselves of the authorities in our lives in the name of freedom and individualism. What we actually need, on the contrary, is more authority in our lives. But it must be true and good authority.

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure

by Jonathan Haidt

1 highlight

Derek’s Quotes

“We see now young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”
― Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

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“Advances fed on one another, occurring almost simultaneously and spontaneously, at Harvard and MIT and Princeton and Bell Labs and an apartment in Berlin and even, most improbably but interestingly, in a basement in Ames, Iowa.”
― Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

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“The antidote to authoritarianism is authority itself, rightly defined. The sociologist Robert Nisbet correctly differentiated between authority and power. He defined power as “something external and based upon force,” while authority is rooted in persuasion and allegiance. Authority does not bully or intimidate with raw force but is rooted in vital social relationships and to truths more transcendent than the will-to-power or the force of a personality. “Power arises only when authority breaks down,” Nisbet argued.”
― Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

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