John's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:42:38 -0700 60 John's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Cover-Up in the Kingdom: Phone Sex, Lies, And God's Great Apologist, Ravi Zacharias]]> 43250808 184 Steve Baughman 1543952569 John 4 3.88 Cover-Up in the Kingdom: Phone Sex, Lies, And God's Great Apologist, Ravi Zacharias
author: Steve Baughman
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Other Evangelicals: A Story of Liberal, Black, Progressive, Feminist, and Gay Christians―and the Movement That Pushed Them Out]]> 61769142 384 Isaac B. Sharp 0802881750 John 2
Indeed, this is another volume in the trendy "grievance as history" genre, of the sub-genre "evangelical studies," populated by books like those of Anthea Butler, Matthew Sutton, and Daniel Silliman. There are some good forays into archives and some helpful narratives offered along the way. But, like these others, Sharp's book doesn't hang together and it certainly doesn't come close to proving its thesis.

(I deal with Sutton and Silliman's historiography on my blog here: )

I frankly don't understand how it passed muster as a doctoral dissertation, let alone as a published book. But it certainly blows with the Zeitgeist, and in some quarters, that's all that matters.]]> 4.08 The Other Evangelicals: A Story of Liberal, Black, Progressive, Feminist, and Gay Christians―and the Movement That Pushed Them Out
author: Isaac B. Sharp
name: John
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
This is a terrible non-book. By "non-book" I mean that it isn't a single discussion of a single subject, but instead pulls together a wide range of people who don't meet any sensible and consistent definition of "evangelical." By "terrible" I mean it doesn't prove anything except the obvious: that a certain group of white American evangelicals didn't like or otherwise associate with a variety of other people—which is news to precisely no one.

Indeed, this is another volume in the trendy "grievance as history" genre, of the sub-genre "evangelical studies," populated by books like those of Anthea Butler, Matthew Sutton, and Daniel Silliman. There are some good forays into archives and some helpful narratives offered along the way. But, like these others, Sharp's book doesn't hang together and it certainly doesn't come close to proving its thesis.

(I deal with Sutton and Silliman's historiography on my blog here: )

I frankly don't understand how it passed muster as a doctoral dissertation, let alone as a published book. But it certainly blows with the Zeitgeist, and in some quarters, that's all that matters.
]]> <![CDATA[Signals: New and Selected Stories]]> 30090088
After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Tim Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with twelve new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many hard by or on the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart, matters of faith, and the pros and cons of tight-knit communities--a remarkable cast of characters, primarily of the working class, proud and knowledgeable about the natural or mechanical world, their lives marked by a prized stereo or a magical sewing machine retrieved from a locked safe, boats and card games and casinos, grandparents and grandchildren and those in between, their experiences leading them to the ridiculous or the scarifying or the sublime; most of them striving for what's right and good, others tearing off in the opposite direction.]]> 384 Tim Gautreaux 0451493044 John 5 4.33 2017 Signals: New and Selected Stories
author: Tim Gautreaux
name: John
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
Gautreaux's stories shine with grace, whether the grace of old white folk giving a young miscreant a second chance, albeit at the business end of a shotgun, or of their black sheriff who cooperates with them in their errand of mercy. Gautreaux's touch is precise, and the severe problems his protagonists face are rendered with hard edges. Sometimes, grace isn't enough. Sometimes it is. But grace remains, and these grace-full, gracefully rendered stories touch the heart, even as their humour often provokes snorts of delighted surprise.
]]> <![CDATA[Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected]]> 496443 In this provocative collection, rich with expression and dense with meaning, Scott Cairns expresses an immediate, incarnate theology of God’s power and presence in the world. ĚýSpanning thirty years and including selections from four of his previous collections, Compass of Affection illuminates the poet’s longstanding engagement with language as revelation, and with poetry as way of discovery.

Ěý

For those who already admire the poetry of Scott Cairns and for those who have yet to be introduced, this essential volume presents the best of his work � the holy made tangible, love made flesh, and theology performed rather than discussed.




Praise for Scott Cairns� work

“Scott Cairns [is] perhaps the most important and promising religious poet of his generation.”�Prairie Schooner

Ěý“The voice of Cairns is conversational and coaxing—confiding in us secrets that seem to be our own.â€�
�Publishers Weekly]]> 161 Scott Cairns 1557255032 John 5
Many of his poems dwell on spiritual themes, Christian themes, themes especially of piety and prayer. He also muses upon sex and death, however, and the quotidian pleasures to be appreciated along life's way.

As with all especially good poets, one savours his work a page or so at a time (no poem stretches over more than two pages), and then thinks—and ponders, and perhaps prays. Time well spent with someone who pays attention to what matters and helps us to do so also.]]> 4.28 2006 Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected
author: Scott Cairns
name: John
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/23
date added: 2022/05/23
shelves:
review:
I encountered Scott Cairns years ago when he gave some summer lectures at Regent College, Vancouver. (How wide Regent's reach was back then!) He has become one of my favourite living poets, and this collection from almost twenty years ago remains startlingly resonant with the times, even when his poems describe...the times. Presciently, in fact, he anticipates the dire nonsense of our days, especially in his native USA but also beyond, as he sees our culture deeply and whole.

Many of his poems dwell on spiritual themes, Christian themes, themes especially of piety and prayer. He also muses upon sex and death, however, and the quotidian pleasures to be appreciated along life's way.

As with all especially good poets, one savours his work a page or so at a time (no poem stretches over more than two pages), and then thinks—and ponders, and perhaps prays. Time well spent with someone who pays attention to what matters and helps us to do so also.
]]> <![CDATA[Spiritual Emotions: A Psychology of Christian Virtues]]> 1728061
ThoughĚý Spiritual Emotions Ěýis rigorous in its focus on the inner structure of Christian character, it is nonetheless readable and is laced with many narrative examples. The book will be immensely useful for Christian ethicists, psychologists, pastors, and counselors.]]> Robert Campbell Roberts 0802827403 John 4
I'm not sure I yet quite buy Roberts's attempts to define emotions as construals. I think that emotions are feelings prompted by construals—such that (as our friends in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy tell us) if we change our construals, our understandings and valuings, of things, we will change our emotions about them. Emotions, I aver, depend on both our cognitions and our affections—our values—so that in a certain situation we see that A is the case and we value B, so we experience the emotion C.

But never mind this terminological quibble, because I don't think much depends on it in benefiting from this wise and gracious book. Roberts tells enough stories to let the reader know that he is not overly impressed with his own emotional and spiritual maturity, even as he has enough to spot, at least eventually, what's going on in his life and to share it with us to good purpose. At times one might wish Roberts to have quoted a little less (he has read impressively widely, but sometimes the erudition slows the exposition) and to deliver his own thoughts a little more. At his best, he offers a striking phrase that presses home his most important insights, such as the following I offer as a taster for what I found to be a truly edifying read:

"The emotional person...is weak nor because he has emotions, but because he has such poor ones, or such a limited repertoire" (16).

"We act from duty only because we are not yet spiritually moral. The perfected saint feels few duties, but many joys and sorrows" (71).

"Don't give up. Indeed, you'd better not give up. For God, who is in control of things, is going to make complete justice and perfect love the very structure of the world. In trimming down your moral vision, you're setting yourself at odds with the Creator of heaven and earth" (72).

"Perhaps the most powerful solvent of the self-encased self is another's relentless love for it" (74).

Christian hope is no mere wishful thinking, but "a deeply etched hopefulness, a character trait that [one] carries into the most diverse and unconducive situations of [one's] life.... Hopefulness becomes a toughness, an independence from one's environment, a way in which [one] transcends [one's] immediate situation" (156-57).]]> 3.95 2007 Spiritual Emotions: A Psychology of Christian Virtues
author: Robert Campbell Roberts
name: John
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/16
date added: 2022/05/16
shelves:
review:
Robert C. Roberts, who has taught at Western Kentucky University, Wheaton College (where I met him), and Baylor University, is now affiliated with several institutions in the USA and abroad. That diversity of background fits with his diversity as a thinker, ranging as he does over philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. In this book, as in several others (such as the pithy "Strengths of a Christian" of several decades ago), he offers hard-won wisdom for the Christian life rendered from careful reflection on everyday life and rendered to us in everyday language.

I'm not sure I yet quite buy Roberts's attempts to define emotions as construals. I think that emotions are feelings prompted by construals—such that (as our friends in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy tell us) if we change our construals, our understandings and valuings, of things, we will change our emotions about them. Emotions, I aver, depend on both our cognitions and our affections—our values—so that in a certain situation we see that A is the case and we value B, so we experience the emotion C.

But never mind this terminological quibble, because I don't think much depends on it in benefiting from this wise and gracious book. Roberts tells enough stories to let the reader know that he is not overly impressed with his own emotional and spiritual maturity, even as he has enough to spot, at least eventually, what's going on in his life and to share it with us to good purpose. At times one might wish Roberts to have quoted a little less (he has read impressively widely, but sometimes the erudition slows the exposition) and to deliver his own thoughts a little more. At his best, he offers a striking phrase that presses home his most important insights, such as the following I offer as a taster for what I found to be a truly edifying read:

"The emotional person...is weak nor because he has emotions, but because he has such poor ones, or such a limited repertoire" (16).

"We act from duty only because we are not yet spiritually moral. The perfected saint feels few duties, but many joys and sorrows" (71).

"Don't give up. Indeed, you'd better not give up. For God, who is in control of things, is going to make complete justice and perfect love the very structure of the world. In trimming down your moral vision, you're setting yourself at odds with the Creator of heaven and earth" (72).

"Perhaps the most powerful solvent of the self-encased self is another's relentless love for it" (74).

Christian hope is no mere wishful thinking, but "a deeply etched hopefulness, a character trait that [one] carries into the most diverse and unconducive situations of [one's] life.... Hopefulness becomes a toughness, an independence from one's environment, a way in which [one] transcends [one's] immediate situation" (156-57).
]]> <![CDATA[Bach (Composers Across Cultures)]]> 591794 bibliography, and a complete catalogue of Bach's works) were thoroughly revised in this edition to take account of more recent research undertaken by Bach scholars, including the gold mine of new information uncovered in the former USSR.]]> 312 Malcolm Boyd 0195307712 John 4
It's a good thing in several respects. Boyd provides lots of well-informed discussion of Bach's career as a composer with numerous musical examples. I found that my eight years of piano lessons and three years of music theory barely equipped me, however, to follow some of what he said and demonstrated. I had to look up a number of terms along the way—to my benefit, to be sure, but also at the cost of ready reading. Well-trained musicians and particularly keyboard players and conductors will not, however, find anything but delight in what Boyd says about Bach's music.

It's a good thing also in that Boyd deals with Bach's life as a teacher, director, and performer. Bach's career difficulties—often getting passed over for jobs for which he clearly was the best candidate (he was, after all, JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH)—will give more than a few readers some solace even as his crankiness with unappreciative and uncooperative students, peers, and superiors will be met with sympathy by many.

This biography, with its useful map, also demonstrates the catholicity and receptivity of Bach's musical mind even as he rarely left a rather restricted German region. His life was literally provincial even as his mind ranged over many influences, including quite recent ones.

Finally, Boyd's remarks on Bach's personal and musical qualities seem judicious, given the sources available, and appreciative, while avoiding hagiography. The last chapter is worth the price of the book.

Alas, however, this musician's biography gives us very little "times"—as in "life and times." The reader is gifted with a "Personalia" appendix, but one is still on one's own to know and understand the German political and social world of the day, on which Bach's career depended. Nothing is taught about Lutheranism in general or the Lutheran liturgy in particular, to which so much of Bach's career was devoted. And both musical terms and German and Latin phrases and titles are not defined for the reader, so keep a dictionary and Google Translate nearby.

Most frustrating, alas, is a problem facing every Bach biographer: a truly paltry supply of correspondence. We simply have too little to go on in trying to understand Bach's mind and heart—and where the sources leave lacunae, too many imaginative interpreters have rushed in. Boyd remains commendably circumspect. But as one stares at the single solidly attested portrait of Bach, reproduced on the book's cover, one still wonders about the man himself.

And then this one, at least, puts on the soothing "Sheep May Safely Graze," or the energetic third Brandenburg Concerto, or the sweet "Bist Du Bei Mir," or the stirring Praeludium in E major, or even the whole Passion according to St Matthew and St John, and one truly hears what the man most wanted to say.]]> 3.62 1967 Bach (Composers Across Cultures)
author: Malcolm Boyd
name: John
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/16
date added: 2022/05/16
shelves:
review:
This is a musician's biography of Bach. And that's a good thing and a bad thing.

It's a good thing in several respects. Boyd provides lots of well-informed discussion of Bach's career as a composer with numerous musical examples. I found that my eight years of piano lessons and three years of music theory barely equipped me, however, to follow some of what he said and demonstrated. I had to look up a number of terms along the way—to my benefit, to be sure, but also at the cost of ready reading. Well-trained musicians and particularly keyboard players and conductors will not, however, find anything but delight in what Boyd says about Bach's music.

It's a good thing also in that Boyd deals with Bach's life as a teacher, director, and performer. Bach's career difficulties—often getting passed over for jobs for which he clearly was the best candidate (he was, after all, JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH)—will give more than a few readers some solace even as his crankiness with unappreciative and uncooperative students, peers, and superiors will be met with sympathy by many.

This biography, with its useful map, also demonstrates the catholicity and receptivity of Bach's musical mind even as he rarely left a rather restricted German region. His life was literally provincial even as his mind ranged over many influences, including quite recent ones.

Finally, Boyd's remarks on Bach's personal and musical qualities seem judicious, given the sources available, and appreciative, while avoiding hagiography. The last chapter is worth the price of the book.

Alas, however, this musician's biography gives us very little "times"—as in "life and times." The reader is gifted with a "Personalia" appendix, but one is still on one's own to know and understand the German political and social world of the day, on which Bach's career depended. Nothing is taught about Lutheranism in general or the Lutheran liturgy in particular, to which so much of Bach's career was devoted. And both musical terms and German and Latin phrases and titles are not defined for the reader, so keep a dictionary and Google Translate nearby.

Most frustrating, alas, is a problem facing every Bach biographer: a truly paltry supply of correspondence. We simply have too little to go on in trying to understand Bach's mind and heart—and where the sources leave lacunae, too many imaginative interpreters have rushed in. Boyd remains commendably circumspect. But as one stares at the single solidly attested portrait of Bach, reproduced on the book's cover, one still wonders about the man himself.

And then this one, at least, puts on the soothing "Sheep May Safely Graze," or the energetic third Brandenburg Concerto, or the sweet "Bist Du Bei Mir," or the stirring Praeludium in E major, or even the whole Passion according to St Matthew and St John, and one truly hears what the man most wanted to say.
]]> <![CDATA[Can I Believe?: Christianity for the Hesitant]]> 51456289
First, there are so many other options. How could one possibly make one's way through them to anything like a rational and confident conclusion? Second, why do so many people choose to be Christian in the face of so many reasons not to be Christian? Yes, many people grow up in Christian homes and in societies, but many more do not. Yet Christianity has become the most popular religion in the world. Why?

This book begins by taking on the initial challenge as it outlines a process: how to think about religion in a responsible way, rather than settling for such soft vagaries as faith and feeling. It then clears away a number of misunderstandings from the basic story of the Christian religion, misunderstandings that combine to domesticate this startling narrative and thus to repel reasonable people who might otherwise be intrigued.

The second half of the book then looks at Christian commitment positively and negatively. Why do two billion find this religion to be persuasive, thus making it the most popular explanation of everything in human history? At the same time, how does Christianity respond to the fact that so many people find it utterly implausible, especially because so many Christians insist that theirs is the only way to God and because of the problem of evil that seems to undercut everything Christianity asserts?

Grounded in scholarship but never ponderous, Can I Believe? refuses to dodge the hard questions as it welcomes the intelligent inquirer to give Christianity at least one good look.
]]> 224 John G. Stackhouse Jr. 0190922850 John 0 3.88 Can I Believe?: Christianity for the Hesitant
author: John G. Stackhouse Jr.
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/03
date added: 2021/08/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment]]> 89573 504 Edward Fudge 0595143423 John 4
Fudge's book has been out for 30 years and remains the main textbook of exegesis on the matter. John Wenham's earlier book, "The Goodness of God" (IVP, 1974) first brought this idea to me, and I was convinced immediately. Since then, I've read the likes of John R. W. Stott, Michael Green, I. Howard Marshall, Richard Bauckham, Richard Swinburne, and other worthies line up behind it. But the doctrine remains curiously under-represented over here in North America, and many evangelical and Reformed individuals and institutions insist on what they call "eternal conscious torment" (which I find an odd term, since torment entails consciousness) as a nonnegotiable tenet of the faith. Yet despite the authority of such towering figures as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin, and the imprimatur of the Westminster divines, Fudge makes what to me is a simply conclusive case that the Bible doesn't teach the immortality of the soul nor does it teach the everlasting agony of the lost. The case for those ideas has to be made either by reference to presupposition (as in "of course the soul is immortal!") or deduction from certain theological principles. What Fudge shows, again, to my mind conclusively, is that the Old and New Testaments speak uniformly of a general resurrection, with those not found to be in Christ destined to appropriate suffering and then extinction.

I hold back on the fifth star simply because I wish the book was both smaller and bigger. Smaller: it repeats a lot, and occasionally strays into areas that don't matter to the main argument (such as election). Bigger: I'd like to see a stronger case against universalism and a larger theological framework in which this all fits with the goodness of God (as Wenham did). And I have my quibbles about the style here and there.

Nonetheless, this remains the definitive work on behalf of what is called "conditional immortality" (and unhelpfully and incorrectly referred to as "annihilationism")--or what I prefer to call the "just punishment" conception of hell. I'll be using it extensively to write my chapter defending this view in the "Four Views of Hell" book forthcoming from Zondervan next year.]]> 4.11 1982 The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment
author: Edward Fudge
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/06/29
shelves:
review:
This book is about as convincing a theological case as one could hope to see made about a controversial subject. Edward Fudge--trained in both biblical languages and law--painstakingly works through virtually every relevant passage of the Bible, plus texts in the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha as well, to show that the Bible's testimony to the destiny of the lost is suffering their just deserts and then disappearing from the cosmos. There is not, despite the testimony of the majority of Christian teachers since the early church, a hell of everlasting torment of the damned.

Fudge's book has been out for 30 years and remains the main textbook of exegesis on the matter. John Wenham's earlier book, "The Goodness of God" (IVP, 1974) first brought this idea to me, and I was convinced immediately. Since then, I've read the likes of John R. W. Stott, Michael Green, I. Howard Marshall, Richard Bauckham, Richard Swinburne, and other worthies line up behind it. But the doctrine remains curiously under-represented over here in North America, and many evangelical and Reformed individuals and institutions insist on what they call "eternal conscious torment" (which I find an odd term, since torment entails consciousness) as a nonnegotiable tenet of the faith. Yet despite the authority of such towering figures as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin, and the imprimatur of the Westminster divines, Fudge makes what to me is a simply conclusive case that the Bible doesn't teach the immortality of the soul nor does it teach the everlasting agony of the lost. The case for those ideas has to be made either by reference to presupposition (as in "of course the soul is immortal!") or deduction from certain theological principles. What Fudge shows, again, to my mind conclusively, is that the Old and New Testaments speak uniformly of a general resurrection, with those not found to be in Christ destined to appropriate suffering and then extinction.

I hold back on the fifth star simply because I wish the book was both smaller and bigger. Smaller: it repeats a lot, and occasionally strays into areas that don't matter to the main argument (such as election). Bigger: I'd like to see a stronger case against universalism and a larger theological framework in which this all fits with the goodness of God (as Wenham did). And I have my quibbles about the style here and there.

Nonetheless, this remains the definitive work on behalf of what is called "conditional immortality" (and unhelpfully and incorrectly referred to as "annihilationism")--or what I prefer to call the "just punishment" conception of hell. I'll be using it extensively to write my chapter defending this view in the "Four Views of Hell" book forthcoming from Zondervan next year.
]]> <![CDATA[Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People]]> 418704 This book is for those who are considering Christianity for the first time, as well as Christians who are struggling with issues related to truth, certainty, and doubt. As such, it is a wonderful resource for evangelists, pastors, and counselors. This unique look at the questions of knowing is both entertaining and approachable. Questions for reflection make it ideal for students of philosophy and all those wrestling with the questions of knowledge.]]> 208 Esther Lightcap Meek 1587430606 John 2
I'm glad Professor Meek is calling her readers, as she has her students, away from silly, extreme versions of epistemology. She doesn't identify the "bad" epistemology (really, several different epistemologies) she opposes—could be Logical Positivism, could be a naïve empiricism, could be classical foundationalism more broadly—but, yes, it's still important to warn people away from the imperative and lure of certainty, of rationalism, and of dogmatism.

What she offers instead, however, is a curious attempt to relay Michael Polanyi's epistemology to beginners. (Meek wrote on Polanyi in her Temple University dissertation and has since written bigger books about it.) The exposition is at once too much (so many stories!) and too little (strikingly frequent opacities in expression). I imagine readers are encouraged, as I say, by her pounding away at too rigid and too harsh an epistemology, but it's difficult to see how serious scholarship can advance the way she describes knowing, or even a responsible layperson figuring out when she's right and when she's wrong about things that matter.

Strangest of all in a book by a Christian professor is a lack of any mention of the epistemological roles of Scripture as a peculiar and authoritative resource for the Christian (a role assumed, but nowhere detailed, in her book), or of the Holy Spirit, or of the Church. For that matter, the so-called noetic effects of sin surface occasionally, as do the effects of a less-than-optimal social location, but nowhere are they directly named or remedied.

As one who has taught epistemology and ethical reasoning for years, I was hoping this book would be much better than it is, possibly of use in a course. But I would need to be explaining and supplementing and correcting so much of it that I can't use it, and I can't recommend it—despite the glowing reviews others have given it.]]> 3.90 2003 Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People
author: Esther Lightcap Meek
name: John
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/06/16
shelves:
review:
I expected to like this book a lot more than I did.

I'm glad Professor Meek is calling her readers, as she has her students, away from silly, extreme versions of epistemology. She doesn't identify the "bad" epistemology (really, several different epistemologies) she opposes—could be Logical Positivism, could be a naïve empiricism, could be classical foundationalism more broadly—but, yes, it's still important to warn people away from the imperative and lure of certainty, of rationalism, and of dogmatism.

What she offers instead, however, is a curious attempt to relay Michael Polanyi's epistemology to beginners. (Meek wrote on Polanyi in her Temple University dissertation and has since written bigger books about it.) The exposition is at once too much (so many stories!) and too little (strikingly frequent opacities in expression). I imagine readers are encouraged, as I say, by her pounding away at too rigid and too harsh an epistemology, but it's difficult to see how serious scholarship can advance the way she describes knowing, or even a responsible layperson figuring out when she's right and when she's wrong about things that matter.

Strangest of all in a book by a Christian professor is a lack of any mention of the epistemological roles of Scripture as a peculiar and authoritative resource for the Christian (a role assumed, but nowhere detailed, in her book), or of the Holy Spirit, or of the Church. For that matter, the so-called noetic effects of sin surface occasionally, as do the effects of a less-than-optimal social location, but nowhere are they directly named or remedied.

As one who has taught epistemology and ethical reasoning for years, I was hoping this book would be much better than it is, possibly of use in a course. But I would need to be explaining and supplementing and correcting so much of it that I can't use it, and I can't recommend it—despite the glowing reviews others have given it.
]]> <![CDATA[Seeking What Is Right: The Old Testament and the Good Life]]> 53235800 500 Iain W. Provan 148131288X John 5
The book opens with three brief chapters setting out fundamental principles of reading the Bible well toward responding to contemporary challenges—including a ringing exhortation to pay proper attention to the 3/4 of the Bible that precedes the New Testament; a refreshing dash of cold water on the well-intentioned but hermeneutically fatal practice of seeing Old Testament figures as heroes, rather than as candidly portrayed examples; and a reminder to consider all matters in the light of the whole Story of the Bible, from Creation forward.

The most unusual part of the book is its largest, the middle, in which Provan—trained as a historian of European history as well as of the Old Testament—takes us through more than a dozen episodes of both good and bad Bible reading in church history: from ancient pacifists contending with Christian glorifications of empire to modern abolitionists preaching against pastoral defenses of slavery. (One thinks of David Hackett Fischer's classic indictment of "Historians' Fallacies" by illustrating them with actual works of history.)

The final part of this large volume treats a number of contemporary matters in the light of this carefully laid foundation of Bible reading. Provan intrepidly, charitably, and clearly deals with issues ranging from global climate change to nationalism to the modern state of Israel to the most recent challenges in bioethics and gender politics.

Provan is not a theologian or philosopher, and those of us inclined to those discourses will want more extensive reflection on matters epistemological and hermeneutical, and we properly will look elsewhere for such. Not everyone, furthermore, will agree with where Provan comes out on this or that issue. (I myself, friend and former colleague of his that I am, do not see eye-to-eye with him on a handful of issues.)

What the book does brilliantly, however, is at least these things: (1) demonstrate how valuable a properly framed interpretation of the Old Testament is in Christian thought and life, despite perennial Christian insistence that we focus on the NT or even merely on the Gospels; (2) demonstrate the necessity of doing one's homework in history and social science before one dares to opine about controversies past or present (for an OT specialist Provan has done an astonishing amount of reading in this respect); and (3) demonstrate how a well informed Biblical mind considers difficult matters patiently, humbly, methodically, flexibly, courageously, candidly, and, ultimately, obediently.

Indeed, the crucial question Provan poses to his readers is this: "Does our way of reading Scripture allow it to deliver truth that people do not currently wish to hear—and that we ourselves may not initially desire to hear?" (288). I, less gentle than Provan, would amplify his question thus: What, if anything, do you hear the Bible telling you to do that you wouldn't otherwise do, or to abstain from doing what you wouldn't just ordinarily avoid? Or has the Bible turned out to be a convenient confirmation of your own intuitions, values, and preferences, a mere echo rather than Another's voice?

Taking the time to read this good, long book will offer the reader an extensive course in the history of Christian Bible-reading, yes, but so much more than that: the opportunity to spend hours in the company of a first-rank Bible teacher and committed Christian who models what he teaches—serious discipleship to Jesus as he attends to the Scripture Jesus revered and prompted. One cannot help but come away not only much better informed, but instructed and inspired to pursue The Good Life the only way it can be found: in the light of God's Word—both incarnate and written.]]> 4.31 Seeking What Is Right: The Old Testament and the Good Life
author: Iain W. Provan
name: John
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/06/13
shelves:
review:
In this, the third of three large works on good Christian Scripture reading, Prof. Iain Provan provides a remarkable resource for serious Christians intent on thinking Christianly about the most difficult and important matters: the form and substance of the good life.

The book opens with three brief chapters setting out fundamental principles of reading the Bible well toward responding to contemporary challenges—including a ringing exhortation to pay proper attention to the 3/4 of the Bible that precedes the New Testament; a refreshing dash of cold water on the well-intentioned but hermeneutically fatal practice of seeing Old Testament figures as heroes, rather than as candidly portrayed examples; and a reminder to consider all matters in the light of the whole Story of the Bible, from Creation forward.

The most unusual part of the book is its largest, the middle, in which Provan—trained as a historian of European history as well as of the Old Testament—takes us through more than a dozen episodes of both good and bad Bible reading in church history: from ancient pacifists contending with Christian glorifications of empire to modern abolitionists preaching against pastoral defenses of slavery. (One thinks of David Hackett Fischer's classic indictment of "Historians' Fallacies" by illustrating them with actual works of history.)

The final part of this large volume treats a number of contemporary matters in the light of this carefully laid foundation of Bible reading. Provan intrepidly, charitably, and clearly deals with issues ranging from global climate change to nationalism to the modern state of Israel to the most recent challenges in bioethics and gender politics.

Provan is not a theologian or philosopher, and those of us inclined to those discourses will want more extensive reflection on matters epistemological and hermeneutical, and we properly will look elsewhere for such. Not everyone, furthermore, will agree with where Provan comes out on this or that issue. (I myself, friend and former colleague of his that I am, do not see eye-to-eye with him on a handful of issues.)

What the book does brilliantly, however, is at least these things: (1) demonstrate how valuable a properly framed interpretation of the Old Testament is in Christian thought and life, despite perennial Christian insistence that we focus on the NT or even merely on the Gospels; (2) demonstrate the necessity of doing one's homework in history and social science before one dares to opine about controversies past or present (for an OT specialist Provan has done an astonishing amount of reading in this respect); and (3) demonstrate how a well informed Biblical mind considers difficult matters patiently, humbly, methodically, flexibly, courageously, candidly, and, ultimately, obediently.

Indeed, the crucial question Provan poses to his readers is this: "Does our way of reading Scripture allow it to deliver truth that people do not currently wish to hear—and that we ourselves may not initially desire to hear?" (288). I, less gentle than Provan, would amplify his question thus: What, if anything, do you hear the Bible telling you to do that you wouldn't otherwise do, or to abstain from doing what you wouldn't just ordinarily avoid? Or has the Bible turned out to be a convenient confirmation of your own intuitions, values, and preferences, a mere echo rather than Another's voice?

Taking the time to read this good, long book will offer the reader an extensive course in the history of Christian Bible-reading, yes, but so much more than that: the opportunity to spend hours in the company of a first-rank Bible teacher and committed Christian who models what he teaches—serious discipleship to Jesus as he attends to the Scripture Jesus revered and prompted. One cannot help but come away not only much better informed, but instructed and inspired to pursue The Good Life the only way it can be found: in the light of God's Word—both incarnate and written.
]]> <![CDATA[Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism]]> 17948892 256 Christopher M. Hays 0801049385 John 2 3.50 2013 Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism
author: Christopher M. Hays
name: John
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/06/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why You're Here: Ethics for the Real World]]> 32569928 Christians are often told either to take over the world in God's name or to withdraw into faithful sanctuaries of counter-cultural witness. John Stackhouse offers a concise, vivid, and practical alternative based on the teachings of Scripture about the meaning of human life in this world and the next.
Why You're Here provides an accessible, concrete program for the faithful Christian living in today's world, fraught as it is with ambiguity, irony, and frequent choices among unpalatable options. Stackhouse speaks directly to everyday Christians who are searching for straightforward advice on some of their most complex quandaries about the challenges inherent in staying true to the Bible's teachings.
Politicians, medical professionals, businesspeople, professors, lawyers, pastors, students, and anyone else concerned to think realistically and hopefully about Christian engagement in society today will find here a framework to both guide and inspire them in everyday life.
]]> 328 John G. Stackhouse Jr. 0190636742 John 0 3.88 Why You're Here: Ethics for the Real World
author: John G. Stackhouse Jr.
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/09
date added: 2021/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Calvinism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)]]> 29952674
In this Very Short Introduction Jon Balserak explores Calvin's life and considers the major ideas and issues associated with the Calvinist system of thought. He looks at how Calvinist ideas and practices spread and took root, helping shape societies today. Much of contemporary thought - especially western thought - on everything from civil government to money, suicide, and divorce has been influenced by Calvinism. Balserak also combats common misconceptions about Calvinism, and explores the relationship between Calvinism and the modern world.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.]]> 176 Jon Balserak 0198753713 John 1
Topics are raised without (in my view) sufficient explanation (e.g., Jonathan Edwards's identification of God's pursuing his own glory as God's purpose in creating the world) and critiques of Calvinism are acknowledged without sufficient rebuttal (e.g., Jerry Walls's assertion that a consistent Calvinist position on predestination results in universalism, which most Calvinists nonetheless eschew).

The author evidently has a wide knowledge to draw upon, so my guess is that he simply wasn't given sufficient editorial direction to pull off this difficult feat. Calvinists might find this little volume of interest, but I fear non-Calvinists will come away scratching their heads.]]> 3.71 Calvinism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
author: Jon Balserak
name: John
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2020/07/18
shelves:
review:
Dr Balserak is an accomplished scholar on various aspects of Calvinist history, so he is a natural to write such a book. And it is very difficult to write on such a complex and contested subject even at length, let alone within such a tight space. Still, I found this book disappointing and often puzzling.

Topics are raised without (in my view) sufficient explanation (e.g., Jonathan Edwards's identification of God's pursuing his own glory as God's purpose in creating the world) and critiques of Calvinism are acknowledged without sufficient rebuttal (e.g., Jerry Walls's assertion that a consistent Calvinist position on predestination results in universalism, which most Calvinists nonetheless eschew).

The author evidently has a wide knowledge to draw upon, so my guess is that he simply wasn't given sufficient editorial direction to pull off this difficult feat. Calvinists might find this little volume of interest, but I fear non-Calvinists will come away scratching their heads.
]]> <![CDATA[The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World]]> 35738767
Bruce Hindmarsh provides a fresh perspective, and presents new research, on the thought of leading figures such as John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards. He also traces the significance of evangelical spirituality for elites and non-elites across multiple genres. This book traces the meaning of evangelical devotion in a rich variety of contexts, from the scribbled marginalia of lay Methodists and the poetry of an African-American laywoman to the visual culture of grand manner portraits and satirical prints. Viewing devotion, culture, and ideas together, it is possible to see the advent of evangelicalism as a significant new episode in the history of Christian spirituality.]]> 376 D. Bruce Hindmarsh 0190616695 John 5 4.50 The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World
author: D. Bruce Hindmarsh
name: John
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2019/02/21
date added: 2019/02/21
shelves:
review:
Bruce Hindmarsh here focuses on the bright, burning heart of evangelicalism in the eighteenth century, its spirituality. With an amazing ability to telescope up and down from private letters to international trends, and to connect with great expository power central evangelical concerns with the general cultural trends in science, law, and art, Hindmarsh illuminates everything from Wesleyan hymnody to the Calvinist-Arminian doctrinal controversy. It is the most erudite and eloquent historical book I've read in years.
]]> <![CDATA[How "God" Works: A Skeptic Questions Belief]]> 17675495 280 Marshall Brain 1454910615 John 1 3.91 2013 How "God" Works: A Skeptic Questions Belief
author: Marshall Brain
name: John
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2018/10/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[So Much More: An Invitation To Christian Spirituality]]> 1911985 272 Debra Rienstra 0787968870 John 4
This lovely book, artfully written without any apparent striving or archness, sets out the basic mysteries of the Christian faith in a Reformed register. As such, it is not so much about "spirituality" (a slippery term) but about what Calvin called "piety": "that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces." Rienstra sets out the basic truths of the gospel and life in response to those truths in a clear, frank, and winsome style that invites the inquirer as much as the seasoned believer to reverence: awe, gratitude, trust, deference, obedience, enjoyment, and love.

The Christian Story provides the framework for her exposition of the gospel and the Christian Life is outlined in terms of prayer, Scripture, worship, community, and service. So far, so good--and so conventional. But Rienstra quietly and deftly draws us into each theme with an extraordinary balance of unusual expression within a conversational vernacular, and theological freshness nicely steered within orthodox parameters. I have tweeted numerous gems from this book over my reading of it, but the overall effect is even more salubrious (and Rienstra is wise never to use a word like "salubrious"): a friendly welcome into a deeper life with God through Christ in the Spirit.

The book thus works remarkably well as an apologetic for inquirers, a primer for beginners, and a refresher (in every sense of the word) for veterans. Don't be put off by the boring cover and rather dull title. This book sparkles, soothes, and stimulates by turns and richly repays slow reading.

]]> 4.08 2003 So Much More: An Invitation To Christian Spirituality
author: Debra Rienstra
name: John
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2018/05/01
date added: 2018/05/30
shelves:
review:
At the conclusion of "So Much More," Calvin College professor of literature Debra Rienstra cautions and invites us: "We cannot master the mysteries; we can only place ourselves continually in their presence.... It's not so much that we understand the mysteries more clearly but that the mysteries have their effect on us, slowly molding us over time."

This lovely book, artfully written without any apparent striving or archness, sets out the basic mysteries of the Christian faith in a Reformed register. As such, it is not so much about "spirituality" (a slippery term) but about what Calvin called "piety": "that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces." Rienstra sets out the basic truths of the gospel and life in response to those truths in a clear, frank, and winsome style that invites the inquirer as much as the seasoned believer to reverence: awe, gratitude, trust, deference, obedience, enjoyment, and love.

The Christian Story provides the framework for her exposition of the gospel and the Christian Life is outlined in terms of prayer, Scripture, worship, community, and service. So far, so good--and so conventional. But Rienstra quietly and deftly draws us into each theme with an extraordinary balance of unusual expression within a conversational vernacular, and theological freshness nicely steered within orthodox parameters. I have tweeted numerous gems from this book over my reading of it, but the overall effect is even more salubrious (and Rienstra is wise never to use a word like "salubrious"): a friendly welcome into a deeper life with God through Christ in the Spirit.

The book thus works remarkably well as an apologetic for inquirers, a primer for beginners, and a refresher (in every sense of the word) for veterans. Don't be put off by the boring cover and rather dull title. This book sparkles, soothes, and stimulates by turns and richly repays slow reading.


]]> <![CDATA[The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology (Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology (KLRT))]]> 23648831
Across the liturgies of the Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Reformed churches, Wolterstorff highlights theologically neglected elements of God, such as an implicit liturgical understanding of God as listener. A dissection of liturgy is not only interesting, Wolterstorff argues, but crucial for reconciling differences between the God studied by theologians and the God worshiped by churchgoers on Sunday.]]> 192 Nicholas Wolterstorff 0802872492 John 4
Wolterstorff focuses on the good stuff, so to speak: what theology is encoded and embodied in great, centuries-old traditional liturgies. Alongside the exegesis of Scripture and reflection upon the great creedal symbols of the Church, that is, our liturgies also articulate and remind us of the great truths of the gospel--some of which, in fact, are not equally highlighted in those other sources. Thus "liturgical theology" is complementary and supplementary to these forms of theology.

Implicitly, of course, the book suggests that any liturgical practice can and should be scrutinized for its theological implications. Thus we may find that certain elements of contemporary or traditional worship (not to pre-judge the matter) may in fact be heretical, may in fact "work" only because those employing and enjoying them have deviant understandings of God and the gospel. (Take, for instance, the liturgical practices of flamboyant prosperity-gospel faith healers. But then move closer to home and see what emerges.)

Because Wolterstorff sticks to the great, time-tested liturgies, he can derive from them theology he is pretty confident is orthodox. And that seems sensible enough. I'm sure he would recognize, however, that insisting that only males preside in worship--and only single males, in the most popular liturgy in the world, that of Roman Catholicism--is problematic for many of us. And he feels free to state his preference for Calvin's understanding of what is happening in the Eucharist over against Trent's or Zwingli's.

Unlike the exegesis of Scripture, then, we're not dealing with revelation from God when we examine liturgies for theology. Still, like the creeds, the great liturgies have been used by many and thus ought to be given prima facie authority at least. Thus liturgical theology deserves a good look as an enrichment of the theological enterprise.]]> 3.90 2015 The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology (Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology (KLRT))
author: Nicholas Wolterstorff
name: John
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/03/12
shelves:
review:
NW opens up a new field for theological reflection: What are we saying and doing when we worship, and what does all this imply theologically about God and ourselves?

Wolterstorff focuses on the good stuff, so to speak: what theology is encoded and embodied in great, centuries-old traditional liturgies. Alongside the exegesis of Scripture and reflection upon the great creedal symbols of the Church, that is, our liturgies also articulate and remind us of the great truths of the gospel--some of which, in fact, are not equally highlighted in those other sources. Thus "liturgical theology" is complementary and supplementary to these forms of theology.

Implicitly, of course, the book suggests that any liturgical practice can and should be scrutinized for its theological implications. Thus we may find that certain elements of contemporary or traditional worship (not to pre-judge the matter) may in fact be heretical, may in fact "work" only because those employing and enjoying them have deviant understandings of God and the gospel. (Take, for instance, the liturgical practices of flamboyant prosperity-gospel faith healers. But then move closer to home and see what emerges.)

Because Wolterstorff sticks to the great, time-tested liturgies, he can derive from them theology he is pretty confident is orthodox. And that seems sensible enough. I'm sure he would recognize, however, that insisting that only males preside in worship--and only single males, in the most popular liturgy in the world, that of Roman Catholicism--is problematic for many of us. And he feels free to state his preference for Calvin's understanding of what is happening in the Eucharist over against Trent's or Zwingli's.

Unlike the exegesis of Scripture, then, we're not dealing with revelation from God when we examine liturgies for theology. Still, like the creeds, the great liturgies have been used by many and thus ought to be given prima facie authority at least. Thus liturgical theology deserves a good look as an enrichment of the theological enterprise.
]]> <![CDATA[The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse]]> 7775545


Thus, Rawlsian "public reason" filters appeals to religion or other "comprehensive doctrines" out of public deliberation. But these restrictions have the effect of excluding our deepest normative commitments, virtually assuring that the discourse will be shallow. Furthermore, because we cannot defend our normative positions without resorting to convictions that secular discourse deems inadmissible, we are frequently forced to smuggle in those convictions under the guise of benign notions such as freedom or equality.

Smith suggests that this sort of smuggling is pervasive in modern secular discourse. He shows this by considering a series of controversial, contemporary issues, including the Supreme Court's assisted-suicide decisions, the "harm principle," separation of church and state, and freedom of conscience. He concludes by suggesting that it is possible and desirable to free public discourse of the constraints associated with secularism and "public reason."]]> 285 Steven D. Smith 0674050878 John 5
Smith looks searchingly within his own domains of expertise at the so-called separation of church and state as well as the definition and grounds for religious freedom. He shows how neither idea is all that clear and coherent, but especially that neither can be justified, ironically enough, on non-religious (= secularist) grounds.

He also quite satisfyingly blows up Martha Nussbaum's glamorous-but-empty philosophical project of providing grounds for moral judgments outside of religious commitments. (Has anyone in our time been able to work dazzle without depth as successfully as she?) And he concludes with a look at the off-beat musings of legal scholar Joseph Vining who pounds believers in the cult of scientism with atrocity stories--not unlike the way Ivan pounds Alyosha in "The Brothers Karamazov"--to show that naturalism/materialism/scientism has nothing helpful to say against enormity. Nothing.

Alas, in this book, at least, Smith proves more adept at demolition than suggestion. He can offer only a slight, if sincere, recommendation of "openness" to the other, a willingness to let people be who they are and say what they want to say, and then see how the conversation goes. He says it briefly, but powerfully. (Martin Marty, among many others, has said similar things about welcoming such dangerous but also promising conversations at greater length.) And that's okay: the book is well worthwhile for its welcome work of critique, and others can pick up the constructive task.
]]> 4.11 2010 The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse
author: Steven D. Smith
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2017/12/01
date added: 2017/12/10
shelves:
review:
This book, by a prolific professor of law, adds his voice to the exposure of one of the great intellectual frauds of our time: the proposal that we can somehow work up morality out of sheer reason and/or science.

Smith looks searchingly within his own domains of expertise at the so-called separation of church and state as well as the definition and grounds for religious freedom. He shows how neither idea is all that clear and coherent, but especially that neither can be justified, ironically enough, on non-religious (= secularist) grounds.

He also quite satisfyingly blows up Martha Nussbaum's glamorous-but-empty philosophical project of providing grounds for moral judgments outside of religious commitments. (Has anyone in our time been able to work dazzle without depth as successfully as she?) And he concludes with a look at the off-beat musings of legal scholar Joseph Vining who pounds believers in the cult of scientism with atrocity stories--not unlike the way Ivan pounds Alyosha in "The Brothers Karamazov"--to show that naturalism/materialism/scientism has nothing helpful to say against enormity. Nothing.

Alas, in this book, at least, Smith proves more adept at demolition than suggestion. He can offer only a slight, if sincere, recommendation of "openness" to the other, a willingness to let people be who they are and say what they want to say, and then see how the conversation goes. He says it briefly, but powerfully. (Martin Marty, among many others, has said similar things about welcoming such dangerous but also promising conversations at greater length.) And that's okay: the book is well worthwhile for its welcome work of critique, and others can pick up the constructive task.

]]> The Dry (Aaron Falk) 28935749 A small town hides big secrets in this atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.

In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.
Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.
But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke's death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds in bleed into new ones.

]]> 342 Jane Harper 1743548052 John 5 4.17 2016 The Dry (Aaron Falk)
author: Jane Harper
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2017/11/17
date added: 2017/11/17
shelves:
review:
This debut novel is as good as the blurbs (including one by David Baldacci) say it is. A clear window into rural Australia during the terrible drought they've been having and a fine mystery.
]]> <![CDATA[Famous Stutterers: Twelve Inspiring People Who Achieved Great Things while Struggling with an Impediment]]> 32758130 158 Gerald R. McDermott 1498282296 John 4
Telling the stories of famous stutterers in a light, brief fashion, McDermott shows how courage, sympathy, self-awareness, discipline, and humour have helped people in many different walks of life survive and thrive despite their stutters.]]> 4.00 Famous Stutterers: Twelve Inspiring People Who Achieved Great Things while Struggling with an Impediment
author: Gerald R. McDermott
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/17
date added: 2017/05/17
shelves:
review:
This book would make a fine gift for anyone wrestling with stuttering. Professor McDermott, an extraordinarily prolific author of several dozen books over multiple academic subjects, nonetheless has wrestled with stuttering throughout his career, and here brings the fruit of his (successful) struggle to a wide audience.

Telling the stories of famous stutterers in a light, brief fashion, McDermott shows how courage, sympathy, self-awareness, discipline, and humour have helped people in many different walks of life survive and thrive despite their stutters.
]]> <![CDATA[Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis]]> 1800794
Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets - - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - - planets which Lewis described as "spiritual symbols of permanent value" and "especially worthwhile in our own generation." Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality. The cosmological theme of each Chronicle is what Lewis called 'the kappa element in romance', the atmospheric essence of a story, everywhere present but nowhere explicit. The reader inhabits this atmosphere and thus imaginatively gains connaitre knowledge of the spiritual character which the tale was created to embody.

Planet Narnia is a ground-breaking study that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the Chronicles, but of Lewis's whole literary and theological outlook. Ward uncovers a much subtler writer and thinker than has previously been recognized, whose central interests were hiddenness, immanence, and knowledge by acquaintance."]]> 347 Michael Ward 0195313879 John 5
Be prepared for strangeness. Lewis was open to combinations that are not typically seen together, and Ward seems fearless in descrying them. Ward's own prose is generally lucid but peppered with a flair for extraordinary vocabulary that had me regularly looking up words: at my age, not a common experience.

Still, most readers of Lewis's nonfiction will find this book eminently accessible. (I put it this way since readers of his fiction are a much, much wider class, and younger people and those without much formal education will find the book too difficult or arch.) And I emphasize this biographical quality because some readers will, like me, find that once the key is described, one is not terribly interested in the author proving it at length...but the insights into Lewis along the way made the journey eminently worthwhile. ]]> 4.33 2008 Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis
author: Michael Ward
name: John
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2017/04/16
date added: 2017/04/16
shelves:
review:
There is more than one way to write biography, and Michael Ward's now-well-known depiction of the astrological field in which The Narniad was written is extraordinarily revealing of the mind of C. S. Lewis. In fact, I learned more about how Lewis saw the God, the world, and everything through Ward's astonishingly informed tracing of Lewis's governing metaphors through "The Planets," the Ransom Triology, and The Narniad than any other single book I've read, excluding those by CSL himself.

Be prepared for strangeness. Lewis was open to combinations that are not typically seen together, and Ward seems fearless in descrying them. Ward's own prose is generally lucid but peppered with a flair for extraordinary vocabulary that had me regularly looking up words: at my age, not a common experience.

Still, most readers of Lewis's nonfiction will find this book eminently accessible. (I put it this way since readers of his fiction are a much, much wider class, and younger people and those without much formal education will find the book too difficult or arch.) And I emphasize this biographical quality because some readers will, like me, find that once the key is described, one is not terribly interested in the author proving it at length...but the insights into Lewis along the way made the journey eminently worthwhile.
]]> <![CDATA[An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus]]> 28699220 of the Book of Exodus is a close-reading of Exodus 1-2 that analyzes the story as a reasonably self-contained unit, but suggesting that major plot movements in the book of Exodus are foreshadowed and anticipated here. Applying a number of insights from literary theory, Keith Bodner offers an illustration of further integration of biblical studies with cross-disciplinary narrative interpretation.]]> 216 Keith Bodner 0198784074 John 5
Instead, Bodner (PhD, Aberdeen, Old Testament; PhD, Manchester, Literature) shows how carefully the text is constructed to both echo Genesis, and particularly the Noah and Joseph stories, and introduce the rest of Exodus. (Indeed, the intertextuality extends to parallels with Esther.) Bodner shows on page after page the literary genius at work in Exodus, an amazing combination of literary richness and economy. And one comes away with fresh appreciation for Moses, truly a stranger in a succession of strange lands, the Levite who mediates between several pairs of worlds while belonging fully and finally to none of them.

Yes, the book is pricey, alas. But the value of such reading surely isn't "cents per page," but insights per page...by which standard this book, like Bodner's others, is a true bargain.]]> 4.80 An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus
author: Keith Bodner
name: John
average rating: 4.80
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/04
date added: 2017/01/04
shelves:
review:
Keith Bodner continues his series of highly focused studies of Old Testament passages in this brilliant, erudite and, frankly, charming study of Exodus 1-2. Once again demonstrating an extraordinary grasp of the secondary literature as well as of the Hebrew text, Bodner offers us a sensitive reading of these chapters that too often are merely skimmed as Sunday School stories setting up the big conflict between Moses and Pharaoh.

Instead, Bodner (PhD, Aberdeen, Old Testament; PhD, Manchester, Literature) shows how carefully the text is constructed to both echo Genesis, and particularly the Noah and Joseph stories, and introduce the rest of Exodus. (Indeed, the intertextuality extends to parallels with Esther.) Bodner shows on page after page the literary genius at work in Exodus, an amazing combination of literary richness and economy. And one comes away with fresh appreciation for Moses, truly a stranger in a succession of strange lands, the Levite who mediates between several pairs of worlds while belonging fully and finally to none of them.

Yes, the book is pricey, alas. But the value of such reading surely isn't "cents per page," but insights per page...by which standard this book, like Bodner's others, is a true bargain.
]]> <![CDATA[Elisha's Profile in the Book of Kings: The Double Agent]]> 18650876 191 Keith Bodner 1299735282 John 5
Bodner takes us through Elisha's career with both painstaking focus upon particular Hebrew words (noting connections and word play obscured by even the best translations) and large-scale rumination upon the historical and prophetic meaning of Elisha's prophetic ministry.

Some will enjoy Bodner's penchant (I would say, "appalling weakness") for puns, but it is this very delight in words that directs his slow, close reading, a reading that turns up many riches for both scholarly study and lectio divina. ]]> 4.00 2013 Elisha's Profile in the Book of Kings: The Double Agent
author: Keith Bodner
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/10/28
shelves:
review:
Dr. Dr. Keith Bodner (PhD, Aberdeen, Old Testament; PhD, Manchester, English Literature) gives us another attentive reading of a stream of the Old Testament most of us know, if at all, in only bits and pieces: a fiery chariot (or maybe lots of them), a floating axe head, some angry bears...and wasn't there a dead son raised to life? Or was that Elijah?

Bodner takes us through Elisha's career with both painstaking focus upon particular Hebrew words (noting connections and word play obscured by even the best translations) and large-scale rumination upon the historical and prophetic meaning of Elisha's prophetic ministry.

Some will enjoy Bodner's penchant (I would say, "appalling weakness") for puns, but it is this very delight in words that directs his slow, close reading, a reading that turns up many riches for both scholarly study and lectio divina.
]]> <![CDATA[Jeroboam's Royal Drama (Biblical Refigurations)]]> 14828138 Bodner's study locates the arrival of Jeroboam's kingship as a direct response to scandalous activity within the Solomonic empire.]]> 178 Keith Bodner 0199601887 John 5
This is not to say that such work cannot serve to benefit individual piety or preaching. Indeed, I found it a superb companion and provocation for a month of personal reading, and by following Bodner's lead one cannot help but prepare sermons with more sensitivity to each element of the text and to the text as a whole.

By all means, therefore, supplement such work with historical criticism, theological and ethical reflection, and more...but Bodner does excellent work on its own terms, work that connects the hist-crit stuff, which always threatens to analyze a text to dull bits, and broader reflection and application, which typically arises too quickly and superficially from inadequate immersion in the actual words on the sacred page.]]> 3.60 2012 Jeroboam's Royal Drama (Biblical Refigurations)
author: Keith Bodner
name: John
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/10/20
shelves:
review:
Taken properly as what it is--a narrative-critical study of an obscure and rewarding text--this is a superb book. It is not typical commentary: thus some other reviewers have mistakenly chided it for not undertaking tasks (such as historical criticism or theologico-ethical reflection) such scholarly studies are not supposed to undertake. What it does do is what it is supposed to do: slowly, painstakingly pore over each detail of the account and its function amid its companions, taking intentionality seriously in both what is present and what is absent, so that the text as a literary construction comes into both sharp focus and rich depth.

This is not to say that such work cannot serve to benefit individual piety or preaching. Indeed, I found it a superb companion and provocation for a month of personal reading, and by following Bodner's lead one cannot help but prepare sermons with more sensitivity to each element of the text and to the text as a whole.

By all means, therefore, supplement such work with historical criticism, theological and ethical reflection, and more...but Bodner does excellent work on its own terms, work that connects the hist-crit stuff, which always threatens to analyze a text to dull bits, and broader reflection and application, which typically arises too quickly and superficially from inadequate immersion in the actual words on the sacred page.
]]> <![CDATA[After the Invasion: A Reading of Jeremiah 40-44]]> 26261975
After the Invasion shares the often overlooked, but compelling story that emerges from the five later chapters of Jeremiah. Keith Bodner expertly reveals the assortment of personalities, geographic locations, shifts in point of view, temporal compression, and layers of irony. Primary focused on the narrative design of this text, Professor Bodner proves that these chapters form a creative and sophisticated narrative that make a rich, though perhaps underestimated, contribution to the book of Jeremiah as a whole.]]> 188 Keith Bodner 0198743009 John 5
Various approaches have arisen to remedy this situation, emphasizing the narrative integrity of the Bible as a composition, as an intentional work rather than a congeries of bits. So-called narrative, or narrative-critical, or literary approaches help Bible students appreciate afresh what the Bible's various books are saying on their own terms. As one particularly well-known exponent of such an approach, Walter Brueggemann, puts it:

"The newer 'literary criticism' is no longer preoccupied with the history of hypothetical sources and documents, but seeks to focus on the internal, rhetorical workings of the text, assuming that the text itself 'enacts a world' in which the reader may participate. Focus is not on external references, but on what is happening in the transactions of the text itself. This approach devotes great attention to the details, dramatic tensions, and rhetorical claims of the text itself. Such an approach requires great discipline to stay inside the world of [the] text, and great patience in noticing the subtle nuances of the text. From a theological perspective, it operates with a 'high view' of the text, suggesting that the world inside the text may be more real, more compelling, and more authoritative than other worlds construed behind or beyond the text."

This quotation occurs in the reflective (and, to some extent, apologetical) conclusion of Keith Bodner's brilliant study of Jeremiah 40-44, a story I confess was almost completely unknown to me. As in Bodner's work on Jeroboam's reign ("Jeroboam's Royal Drama"), a strange, small story is taken seriously as a literary unit. Each detail is studied carefully (one might say, lovingly) in terms of its grammatical, semantical, and broader literary meanings (e.g., its typological or otherwise allusive resonances) while noting its contribution to the text as a whole.

The result is high-grade Bible study marvellously combining reverence with scholarship (the bibliography for this slender volume runs to a dozen pages), literary sensitivity with moral insight, and microscopic attention with whole-canon awareness. Walking this slowly, and rewardingly, with Bodner trains one to take proper time in all of one's Biblical study. The book also demonstrates just why knowledge of the Biblical languages helps even the workaday pastor, as numerous plays on words are right there on the surface in Hebrew while utterly submerged by even the best translations.

Books, and their prices, need to be weighed, not just counted--as my friend, Old Testament scholar V. Philips Long, likes to say. This is a small book and it isn't cheap. But it led me for a month--that's how slowly I read it, and the Biblical text it serves--into a rich encounter with God's Word. And that's worth a lot.]]> 4.50 2015 After the Invasion: A Reading of Jeremiah 40-44
author: Keith Bodner
name: John
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/04/23
shelves:
review:
After several centuries of sophisticated forms of Biblical criticism and interpretation, students of the Bible today are equipped as never before to understand its multiple aspects. The danger, alas, of so much, and so many forms of, analysis is that "we murder to dissect," and the text of the Bible lies atomized, reordered, compared with "the text behind the text" and "the text in front of the text" and multiple other texts (e.g., ANE parallels)...so that the actual text as a literary whole has vanished.

Various approaches have arisen to remedy this situation, emphasizing the narrative integrity of the Bible as a composition, as an intentional work rather than a congeries of bits. So-called narrative, or narrative-critical, or literary approaches help Bible students appreciate afresh what the Bible's various books are saying on their own terms. As one particularly well-known exponent of such an approach, Walter Brueggemann, puts it:

"The newer 'literary criticism' is no longer preoccupied with the history of hypothetical sources and documents, but seeks to focus on the internal, rhetorical workings of the text, assuming that the text itself 'enacts a world' in which the reader may participate. Focus is not on external references, but on what is happening in the transactions of the text itself. This approach devotes great attention to the details, dramatic tensions, and rhetorical claims of the text itself. Such an approach requires great discipline to stay inside the world of [the] text, and great patience in noticing the subtle nuances of the text. From a theological perspective, it operates with a 'high view' of the text, suggesting that the world inside the text may be more real, more compelling, and more authoritative than other worlds construed behind or beyond the text."

This quotation occurs in the reflective (and, to some extent, apologetical) conclusion of Keith Bodner's brilliant study of Jeremiah 40-44, a story I confess was almost completely unknown to me. As in Bodner's work on Jeroboam's reign ("Jeroboam's Royal Drama"), a strange, small story is taken seriously as a literary unit. Each detail is studied carefully (one might say, lovingly) in terms of its grammatical, semantical, and broader literary meanings (e.g., its typological or otherwise allusive resonances) while noting its contribution to the text as a whole.

The result is high-grade Bible study marvellously combining reverence with scholarship (the bibliography for this slender volume runs to a dozen pages), literary sensitivity with moral insight, and microscopic attention with whole-canon awareness. Walking this slowly, and rewardingly, with Bodner trains one to take proper time in all of one's Biblical study. The book also demonstrates just why knowledge of the Biblical languages helps even the workaday pastor, as numerous plays on words are right there on the surface in Hebrew while utterly submerged by even the best translations.

Books, and their prices, need to be weighed, not just counted--as my friend, Old Testament scholar V. Philips Long, likes to say. This is a small book and it isn't cheap. But it led me for a month--that's how slowly I read it, and the Biblical text it serves--into a rich encounter with God's Word. And that's worth a lot.
]]> <![CDATA[Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture]]> 24043179 Understanding Gender Dysphoria, Yarhouse offers a Christian perspective on transgender issues that eschews simplistic answers and appreciates the psychological and theological complexity. The result is a book that engages the latest research while remaining pastorally sensitive to the experiences of each person. In the midst of a tense political climate, Yarhouse calls Christians to come alongside those on the margins and stand with them as they resolve their questions and concerns about gender identity. Understanding Gender Dysphoria is the book we need to navigate these stormy cultural waters.]]> 186 Mark A. Yarhouse 0830828591 John 4
I found helpful the book's steady tone: calmly expository, warmly concerned for everyone involved, only gently critical, and conspicuously humble. Would that more of our Christian teachers and leaders could maintain such poise in such areas!

The book's frameworks for analysis, and particularly the three-fold schema of integrity/disability/diversity paradigms, were sustained in an illuminating way. Less clear to me, alas, was the author's preference for an "integrated" approach: It never came into focus for me as a clear, coherent, and well-grounded paradigm, but rather seemed mostly to consist of drawing on the other three paradigms ad hoc...and without clear guidance as to how to do so best.

As a way in to the complex world of trans*, therefore, I recommend it. By reducing my confusion and improving my understanding of the landscape, I feel able to care more gently and more respectfully for my students and others who are wrestling with one or another of these issues.]]> 3.91 2015 Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture
author: Mark A. Yarhouse
name: John
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/24
shelves:
review:
I am not at all expert on most of the issues involved in this book, so I review it as one with some experience in sexual ethics and otherwise no research or clinical experience in psychology--the main discourse of the book and the expertise of the author.

I found helpful the book's steady tone: calmly expository, warmly concerned for everyone involved, only gently critical, and conspicuously humble. Would that more of our Christian teachers and leaders could maintain such poise in such areas!

The book's frameworks for analysis, and particularly the three-fold schema of integrity/disability/diversity paradigms, were sustained in an illuminating way. Less clear to me, alas, was the author's preference for an "integrated" approach: It never came into focus for me as a clear, coherent, and well-grounded paradigm, but rather seemed mostly to consist of drawing on the other three paradigms ad hoc...and without clear guidance as to how to do so best.

As a way in to the complex world of trans*, therefore, I recommend it. By reducing my confusion and improving my understanding of the landscape, I feel able to care more gently and more respectfully for my students and others who are wrestling with one or another of these issues.
]]> <![CDATA[Absolute Music Construction Meaning (New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism, Series Number 4)]]> 1857485 328 Daniel K. L. Chua 0521027519 John 5
This is not only musicology, however, but genuine cultural history as he shows that the very idea of absolute music, and especially the ideology of it, belongs to the Enlightenment itself. Absolute music thus is both artefact and sign of modernity's hubris.

Chua plays a dangerous game, leaping among heuristics from Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, and Theodor Adorno while juggling most of modern Continental intellectual history and modern instrumental music (with appropriate references to opera as well). He does so with both boldness (smashing away at the late Beethoven as "drivel") and brio (positively dancing from Descartes to Nietzsche).

Only at the very end does he teeter on the edge of bombast, perhaps giddy with what he has pulled off, but he keeps his balance and ends with one of the most incisive judgments upon modernity ("and its post-modern side-kick" [p. 290]) I have encountered...and also an extraordinarily delicate, and challenging, invitation to consider redemption as the only way out of modernity's vicious cycles.

I have just enough musical training to follow most of Chua's examples (I've studied a bit at the university level), so I can't say more than that he seems to make powerful sense of what he describes. I have considerably more expertise in European intellectual history, and Chua seems simply dazzling in his deft negotiation of so many difficult thinkers.

I come away from this book confirmed in my sense that too many books, including some Very Big Ones, have bitten off 'way more than they can chew when it comes to analyzing the modern mind. Chua doesn't pretend to have "covered" such a subject, but he illuminates it time and again in this unlikely way, and if you like this sort of thing, you'll love this book.]]> 4.62 1999 Absolute Music Construction Meaning (New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism, Series Number 4)
author: Daniel K. L. Chua
name: John
average rating: 4.62
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/02/22
shelves:
review:
Daniel K. L. Chua has written one of the most astonishing books I have ever read. A tour de force of cultural history, Chua writes an intricately linked daisy chain of 35 chapters (!) to sketch the successive rises and falls of absolute music in modernity.

This is not only musicology, however, but genuine cultural history as he shows that the very idea of absolute music, and especially the ideology of it, belongs to the Enlightenment itself. Absolute music thus is both artefact and sign of modernity's hubris.

Chua plays a dangerous game, leaping among heuristics from Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, and Theodor Adorno while juggling most of modern Continental intellectual history and modern instrumental music (with appropriate references to opera as well). He does so with both boldness (smashing away at the late Beethoven as "drivel") and brio (positively dancing from Descartes to Nietzsche).

Only at the very end does he teeter on the edge of bombast, perhaps giddy with what he has pulled off, but he keeps his balance and ends with one of the most incisive judgments upon modernity ("and its post-modern side-kick" [p. 290]) I have encountered...and also an extraordinarily delicate, and challenging, invitation to consider redemption as the only way out of modernity's vicious cycles.

I have just enough musical training to follow most of Chua's examples (I've studied a bit at the university level), so I can't say more than that he seems to make powerful sense of what he describes. I have considerably more expertise in European intellectual history, and Chua seems simply dazzling in his deft negotiation of so many difficult thinkers.

I come away from this book confirmed in my sense that too many books, including some Very Big Ones, have bitten off 'way more than they can chew when it comes to analyzing the modern mind. Chua doesn't pretend to have "covered" such a subject, but he illuminates it time and again in this unlikely way, and if you like this sort of thing, you'll love this book.
]]> Assholes: A Theory 13517138 On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James has done just that, providing us all** (in Aristotelian terms) with some much-needed catharsis.

*Unless you happen to be Donald Trump or Kanye West or Dick Cheney, in which case you may take it personally.

**Unless you are a real asshole yourself.]]> 208 Aaron James 0385535651 John 2
The book also shows why dealing with such people is so difficult: remonstrating with them is almost always ineffective because they seem genuinely to think that they are morally right, but merely letting them have their way is both unjust and irritating. Their preference for the moral grey zones, rather than out-and-out abuse, makes them harder still to counter.

So where do such people come from? What can we do about them? You'd think that in an entire book some good answers would be given, but for all his learning (and James, who holds a Harvard PhD in philosophy and teaches at UC-Irvine, quotes many of the usual suspects of western ethics with facility), the book delivers precious little. Indeed, one wonders if a philosopher really is the right sort of person to tackle such questions, instead of a psychologist or sociologist.

Most interesting to me is James's explicit recognition that if one holds to a Christian view of divine sovereignty over the world, one can reconcile oneself much more easily to such apparently intractable evils knowing that (a) God will eventually deal with them justly; (b) they currently are allowed by God to continue in order to serve his mysterious but benevolent purposes; and therefore (c) we ought simply do the best we can to deal with them from time to time without feeling obliged to "solve" them.

James's secularism, alas, keeps him from allowing that this sort of Christian view is a "real" way of construing the world. Instead, his explicitly Rawlsian ethics leaves him doomed to merely hope that somehow decency eventually will out--and even to hope, rather touchingly, but against almost everything he has previously argued, that the occasional asshole might actually attend to the sort of argument he puts rather well (if also wordily) in his concluding "Letter to an Asshole."

If one wants an extended glimpse, therefore, into the fatal shortcomings of contemporary secularist liberal ethics, this book serves as an unintentional but admirably lucid example. If one wants help dealing with this particular brand of nasty person, however, one must look elsewhere: as James himself comes close to intimating, perhaps to the quite different ethical tradition sourced in the Bible.]]> 3.11 2012 Assholes: A Theory
author: Aaron James
name: John
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2015/12/06
shelves:
review:
This seems to be an interesting article that swelled unhelpfully into a book. "Assholes" does a good job of defining a particular kind of social misbehaviour: the arrogating of undeserved privilege to oneself, while expecting others to behave morally, due to an unjustifiable sense of specialness that, in one's view, warrants such extraordinary behaviour. The asshole is thus usefully distinguished from the sociopath.

The book also shows why dealing with such people is so difficult: remonstrating with them is almost always ineffective because they seem genuinely to think that they are morally right, but merely letting them have their way is both unjust and irritating. Their preference for the moral grey zones, rather than out-and-out abuse, makes them harder still to counter.

So where do such people come from? What can we do about them? You'd think that in an entire book some good answers would be given, but for all his learning (and James, who holds a Harvard PhD in philosophy and teaches at UC-Irvine, quotes many of the usual suspects of western ethics with facility), the book delivers precious little. Indeed, one wonders if a philosopher really is the right sort of person to tackle such questions, instead of a psychologist or sociologist.

Most interesting to me is James's explicit recognition that if one holds to a Christian view of divine sovereignty over the world, one can reconcile oneself much more easily to such apparently intractable evils knowing that (a) God will eventually deal with them justly; (b) they currently are allowed by God to continue in order to serve his mysterious but benevolent purposes; and therefore (c) we ought simply do the best we can to deal with them from time to time without feeling obliged to "solve" them.

James's secularism, alas, keeps him from allowing that this sort of Christian view is a "real" way of construing the world. Instead, his explicitly Rawlsian ethics leaves him doomed to merely hope that somehow decency eventually will out--and even to hope, rather touchingly, but against almost everything he has previously argued, that the occasional asshole might actually attend to the sort of argument he puts rather well (if also wordily) in his concluding "Letter to an Asshole."

If one wants an extended glimpse, therefore, into the fatal shortcomings of contemporary secularist liberal ethics, this book serves as an unintentional but admirably lucid example. If one wants help dealing with this particular brand of nasty person, however, one must look elsewhere: as James himself comes close to intimating, perhaps to the quite different ethical tradition sourced in the Bible.
]]> <![CDATA[Save the World on Your Own Time]]> 2249998
In Save the World On Your Own Time, Stanley Fish argues that, however laudable these goals might be, there is but one proper role for the academe in society: to advance bodies of knowledge and to equip students for doing the same. When teachers offer themselves as moralists, political activists, or agents of social change rather than as credentialed experts in a particular subject and the methods used to analyze it, they abdicate their true purpose. And yet professors now routinely bring their political views into the classroom and seek to influence the political views of their students. Those who do this will often invoke academic freedom, but Fish argues that academic freedom, correctly understood, is the freedom to do the academic job, not the freedom to do any job that comes into the professor's mind. He insists that a professor's only obligation is "to present the material in the syllabus and introduce students to state-of-the-art methods of analysis. Not to practice politics, but to study it; not to proselytize for or against religious doctrines, but to describe them; not to affirm or condemn Intelligent Design, but to explain what it is and analyze its appeal."

Given that hot-button issues such as Holocaust denial, free speech, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are regularly debated in classrooms across the nation, Save the World On Your Own Time is certain to spark fresh debate—and to incense both liberals and conservatives—about the true purpose of higher education in America.]]> 208 Stanley Fish 0195369025 John 3
Fish has One Point to make: Universities are for the generation and dissemination of knowledge and academic skills by experts in particular fields. The End. Universities betray their special purpose as soon as they present higher learning in terms of other things: business (career preparation), civics (citizen formation), ethics (production of sympathetic, respectful neighbours), and so on.

He allows (refreshingly) that religious schools have their distinctive additional concerns to indoctrinate (one might prefer to say "educate") students in a particular tradition and to more broadly develop properly observant practitioners of that religion. But he says so merely in passing.

Fish is right, in my view, to warn professors away from trying to do things we're not trained to do. (Oddly, he never notes that among the things we're not well trained to do is teach, but I expect he hopes we'll pick that up quickly.)

I found this a salutary observation particularly in my current world of undergraduate Christian education that is currently all a-twitter about "liturgies of learning" and "formation" and "co-curricula" and the like. I'm absolutely in favour of all those things, even as I note that as far back as the 1960s Christian educators already were calling us away from too narrow a focus on mere ideas, world views, and the like. (For example, the young Nicholas Wolterstorff headed a curriculum committee at Calvin College that called for exactly this broadening of concern a full 50 years before Jamie Smith called for it...in the very same school.) As I say, I'm all for us Christian educators being aware of the semiotics of *all* that we do that communicates values and information to students, from the architecture (and lighting) of buildings to how professors dress to when we hold office hours to how we greet students and expect to be addressed. All that is important and deserves attention.

What I got from reading Fish, however, was a shot in the arm to focus on what I know best and can do best: teach my actual subject. And, by extension, to teach it Christianly. For if there is one thing that I can give my students that no one else can, or will, it is an expert introduction to my subject and, if I've done my proper homework, some guidance to critically and creatively engaging in my subject from a Christian point of view. No one in Student Life can do that. No one in the athletic department or musical ensembles or drama societies can do that. We all have to work together to produce a coherent and salubrious learning environment for our students, yes, and I'm on record as stoutly supporting all that Christian colleges and universities do beyond the classroom. But within the classroom, I had jolly well be able to teach my subject skillfully and to help students participate in it well...and particularly as Christians. That is my special work, and I must not be distracted from it by political or economic or even spiritual concerns.

What I did *not* get from Fish, alas, was a clear rationale for just why it is important, on academic terms alone, that we study what we do and why the public should help pay for it. He is clear about how we should not allow categories and concerns from elsewhere (e.g., the business world of donors or the political world of legislators) to dominate the academic agenda. But why should we do what we do on academic terms, beyond sheer "love of the game," and why should anyone else help pay for it, as we want donors and legislatures to do?

Still, the critique he offers of alternatives is trenchant, and often downright amusing as he skewers many of his most distinguished colleagues in American university administration. He shows how destructive are versions of "political correctness" (whether of the left or the right); how "diversity" is often not only beside the point, but militates against the very point of the university (although he omits discussion of good epistemological reasons for diversity, which I expect he both knows and appreciates); and how the usual approach taken by administrators of dignified, moderate, and flexible rhetoric in the face of attack is actually counter-productive. Fish clearly is of the "a good offence is the best defence" school, and I find that refreshing. (Those who know me will not be surprised.)

So Fish doesn't do everything I wish he would have. He doesn't even do everything I genuinely think he should have. But what he did do in the book was eminently worth my while, and perhaps it will be worth yours, too.]]> 3.38 2008 Save the World on Your Own Time
author: Stanley Fish
name: John
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/12/04
shelves:
review:
Stanley Fish is usually fun to read: he's smart and a smart-aleck. He's also--and quite unusually--an experienced administrator (at the University of Illinois) as well as a leading scholar. So when he writes about what universities are for, and how they ought to understand and represent themselves, he deserves a hearing.

Fish has One Point to make: Universities are for the generation and dissemination of knowledge and academic skills by experts in particular fields. The End. Universities betray their special purpose as soon as they present higher learning in terms of other things: business (career preparation), civics (citizen formation), ethics (production of sympathetic, respectful neighbours), and so on.

He allows (refreshingly) that religious schools have their distinctive additional concerns to indoctrinate (one might prefer to say "educate") students in a particular tradition and to more broadly develop properly observant practitioners of that religion. But he says so merely in passing.

Fish is right, in my view, to warn professors away from trying to do things we're not trained to do. (Oddly, he never notes that among the things we're not well trained to do is teach, but I expect he hopes we'll pick that up quickly.)

I found this a salutary observation particularly in my current world of undergraduate Christian education that is currently all a-twitter about "liturgies of learning" and "formation" and "co-curricula" and the like. I'm absolutely in favour of all those things, even as I note that as far back as the 1960s Christian educators already were calling us away from too narrow a focus on mere ideas, world views, and the like. (For example, the young Nicholas Wolterstorff headed a curriculum committee at Calvin College that called for exactly this broadening of concern a full 50 years before Jamie Smith called for it...in the very same school.) As I say, I'm all for us Christian educators being aware of the semiotics of *all* that we do that communicates values and information to students, from the architecture (and lighting) of buildings to how professors dress to when we hold office hours to how we greet students and expect to be addressed. All that is important and deserves attention.

What I got from reading Fish, however, was a shot in the arm to focus on what I know best and can do best: teach my actual subject. And, by extension, to teach it Christianly. For if there is one thing that I can give my students that no one else can, or will, it is an expert introduction to my subject and, if I've done my proper homework, some guidance to critically and creatively engaging in my subject from a Christian point of view. No one in Student Life can do that. No one in the athletic department or musical ensembles or drama societies can do that. We all have to work together to produce a coherent and salubrious learning environment for our students, yes, and I'm on record as stoutly supporting all that Christian colleges and universities do beyond the classroom. But within the classroom, I had jolly well be able to teach my subject skillfully and to help students participate in it well...and particularly as Christians. That is my special work, and I must not be distracted from it by political or economic or even spiritual concerns.

What I did *not* get from Fish, alas, was a clear rationale for just why it is important, on academic terms alone, that we study what we do and why the public should help pay for it. He is clear about how we should not allow categories and concerns from elsewhere (e.g., the business world of donors or the political world of legislators) to dominate the academic agenda. But why should we do what we do on academic terms, beyond sheer "love of the game," and why should anyone else help pay for it, as we want donors and legislatures to do?

Still, the critique he offers of alternatives is trenchant, and often downright amusing as he skewers many of his most distinguished colleagues in American university administration. He shows how destructive are versions of "political correctness" (whether of the left or the right); how "diversity" is often not only beside the point, but militates against the very point of the university (although he omits discussion of good epistemological reasons for diversity, which I expect he both knows and appreciates); and how the usual approach taken by administrators of dignified, moderate, and flexible rhetoric in the face of attack is actually counter-productive. Fish clearly is of the "a good offence is the best defence" school, and I find that refreshing. (Those who know me will not be surprised.)

So Fish doesn't do everything I wish he would have. He doesn't even do everything I genuinely think he should have. But what he did do in the book was eminently worth my while, and perhaps it will be worth yours, too.
]]> <![CDATA[Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation]]> 658477
Beginning with the joy, terror, and wonder of the annunciation, Shaw leads the reader on a poetic journey through the birth, life, and death of Jesus the Christ, culminating in the joyous and unexpected wonder of his resurrection. Her subjects run from the mundane to the sublime, from birds in flight and waiting old men to fiery angels and storm-ravaged ridges.]]> 110 Luci Shaw 0802829872 John 5
I have loved her poetry since my late father introduced me to it in the 1970s, and have found it ever fresh: it prickles and soothes, startles and reminds, commands and comforts.

This collection is good especially for Advent and Lent, but I've been musing through it, a poem a day, for some months now. Each work invariably sends me off on a jet of thought, whether confined within the poem's limits or utterly tangential...and always edifying.]]> 4.53 2006 Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation
author: Luci Shaw
name: John
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/24
shelves:
review:
Luci Shaw takes a Gerard Manley Hopkins love of the sonority of English (her poems are especially powerful when read aloud)--without Hopkins's sometimes perplexing, even cumbersome, density--and articulates a less eccentrically monastic and much more accessibly familiar, and feminine, sensibility.

I have loved her poetry since my late father introduced me to it in the 1970s, and have found it ever fresh: it prickles and soothes, startles and reminds, commands and comforts.

This collection is good especially for Advent and Lent, but I've been musing through it, a poem a day, for some months now. Each work invariably sends me off on a jet of thought, whether confined within the poem's limits or utterly tangential...and always edifying.
]]> The Goodness of God 3413066 The Goodness of God 223 John William Wenham 0877847649 John 4
Strangely, this basic idea of simplicity in God seems to elude Wenham at times. Even at the end of the book he sees God's wrath against sin and God's love of the sinner as an antinomy simply to be believed on the basis of Biblical revelation, while I (and many others, of course) see them as coherent within God's character. God is all good, so of course God opposes what is wrong and advances what is right. And God does more than merely make the world just: God adds the blessing of love, self-giving love, to increase the goodness of the cosmos. So God is utterly good in both respects: holy & loving.

Wenham works through a number of important topics in his exposition of God's goodness as encountered especially in Scripture, such as cursings (particularly, but not exclusively, the imprecatory psalms), imperfect saints, and the genocide of the Canaanites. He also offers some useful, if debatable, reflections on animal suffering before and after the Fall--a topic that is currently front and centre for many Christians.

Alas, he includes as an "additional study" a rather ragged chapter that attempts to catalogue and then refute a wide range of major ideological opponents to Christianity apparent to him in Britain in the early 1970s. Os Guinness's "The Dust of Death" would do a much better job of that, and the chapter provides a lesson to authors that one ought to be careful not to sacrifice one's rhetorical authority by attempting too much. For the rest of the book is pretty good, even 40 years after its publication, and this chapter merely dampens its effectiveness.

So three stars (from my stingy hand) plus another for its pioneering role in contemporary evangelical thought. We could use a new book that covers this ground as well, but in the meantime, this will serve admirably. ]]> 4.00 The Goodness of God
author: John William Wenham
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/12/31
shelves:
review:
This--the first book published by a mainstream evangelical press (IVP) to defend "conditional immortality" (sometimes called, unhelpfully, "annihilationism" or, better, "terminal punishment")--remains one of the best books on the more general subject of the goodness of God: the combination in God of relentless resistance to evil and steadfast promotion of the good, holiness and love together in a single, simple benevolence.

Strangely, this basic idea of simplicity in God seems to elude Wenham at times. Even at the end of the book he sees God's wrath against sin and God's love of the sinner as an antinomy simply to be believed on the basis of Biblical revelation, while I (and many others, of course) see them as coherent within God's character. God is all good, so of course God opposes what is wrong and advances what is right. And God does more than merely make the world just: God adds the blessing of love, self-giving love, to increase the goodness of the cosmos. So God is utterly good in both respects: holy & loving.

Wenham works through a number of important topics in his exposition of God's goodness as encountered especially in Scripture, such as cursings (particularly, but not exclusively, the imprecatory psalms), imperfect saints, and the genocide of the Canaanites. He also offers some useful, if debatable, reflections on animal suffering before and after the Fall--a topic that is currently front and centre for many Christians.

Alas, he includes as an "additional study" a rather ragged chapter that attempts to catalogue and then refute a wide range of major ideological opponents to Christianity apparent to him in Britain in the early 1970s. Os Guinness's "The Dust of Death" would do a much better job of that, and the chapter provides a lesson to authors that one ought to be careful not to sacrifice one's rhetorical authority by attempting too much. For the rest of the book is pretty good, even 40 years after its publication, and this chapter merely dampens its effectiveness.

So three stars (from my stingy hand) plus another for its pioneering role in contemporary evangelical thought. We could use a new book that covers this ground as well, but in the meantime, this will serve admirably.
]]> <![CDATA[Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion]]> 18667965 What do fact-checkers, anesthesiologists, U.N. interpreters, and structural engineers have in common? When they do their jobs poorly, the consequences can be catastrophic for their organizations. But when they do their jobs perfectly . . . they're invisible.Ěý
For most of us, the better we perform the moreĚýattention we receive. Yet for many “Invisibles”—skilled professionals whose role is critical toĚýwhatever enterprise they’re a part of—it’s theĚýopposite: the better they do their jobs the moreĚýthey disappear. In fact, often it’s only whenĚýsomething goes wrong that they are noticedĚýat all.
Millions of these Invisibles are hidden in everyĚýindustry. You may be one yourself. And despiteĚýour culture’s increasing celebration of fame inĚýour era of superstar CEOs and assorted varietiesĚýof “genius”—they’re fine with remainingĚýanonymous.
David Zweig takes us into the behind-the-scenesĚýworlds that Invisibles inhabit. He interviews topĚýexperts in unusual fields to reveal the quiet workersĚýbehind public successes. Combining in-depthĚýprofiles with insights from psychology, sociology,Ěýand business, Zweig uncovers how these hiddenĚýprofessionals reap deep fulfillment by relishingĚýthe challenges their work presents.
Zweig bypasses diplomats and joins an eliteĚýinterpreter in a closed-door meeting at the U.N.,Ěýwhere the media and public are never allowed.ĚýHe ascends China’s tallest skyscraper while it’sĚýstill under construction, without the architect,Ěýguided instead by the project’s lead structuralĚýengineer. He even brings us on stage during aĚýRadiohead concert, escorted not by a memberĚýof the band, but by their chief guitar technician.
Along the way, Zweig reveals that Invisibles haveĚýa lot to teach the rest of society about satisfactionĚýand achievement. What has been lost amidĚýthe noise of self-promotion today is that notĚýeveryone can, or should, or even wants to beĚýin the spotlight. This inspiring and illuminatingĚýbook shows that recognition isn’t all it’s crackedĚýup to be, and invisibility can be viewed as a markĚýof honor and a source of a truly rich life.]]> 256 David Zweig 159184634X John 3 The Atlantic, this book reads like...well, a really long article for The Atlantic. The author seems aware that he doesn't have more than a few things to say, namely, that we'll all be happier if we cease striving so much for fame (even at the "microcelebrity" level) and instead focus on the intrinsic rewards of our work. People who have succeeded at their craft and become highly respected by those on the inside of their fields (= successful "Invisibles") share three traits: (1) ambivalence (or, better, limited interest) toward broad recognition; (2) meticulousness (= craftsmanship, savoir faire); and (3) savouring of responsibility. They don't care if they are famous; they don't care if most people involved in a project recognize their part in it. They care about The Thing Itself, and when they contribute masterfully toward it, they are fulfilled.

Zweig then proceeds to tell lots and lots of stories of undeniably interesting people in undeniably interesting jobs who exemplify these traits, and the book makes for a pleasant read on a long flight or as the last thing before sleep.

The testimonies of these "autotelics" (a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, my favourite author on creativity and life satisfaction) do inspire us...so long as you have, indeed, an inspiring job. Zweig profiles a wide range of people--from the guy who sets up guitars for Radiohead to the piano tuner for the Pittsburgh Symphony to the structural engineer for some of the world's foremost "supertall" buildings--but these technicians (and they are all, it seems, a kind of technician) invariably have jobs that require both artistic and scientific skill, insight, and initiative. It would seem that Zweig forgets what Marx knew pretty well, namely, that many of us experience a considerable amount of alienation in our work: It does not demand or provide much in respect of personal initiative and thus contains very little scope for creativity and intrinsic satisfaction.

This severe restriction in the relevance of the work, plus the author's limited writing talents (and for a former fact-checker, the book contains a startling number of errors of fact and usage that I noticed without trying), keeps the book down to three stars for me. But for those of us who are blessed with jobs that do feature a tug-of-war between seeking recognition and enjoying the job and its fruits for their own sake, it is at once an encouraging and soothing read.

Still, those of us who are Christians, whatever our jobs, will find Colossians 3:22-24 and the like to be at once more relevant and more helpful in approaching our work in the right spirit (or, as Gordon Fee would remind us, Spirit).]]> 3.64 2014 Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion
author: David Zweig
name: John
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/12/26
shelves:
review:
Originally an article for The Atlantic, this book reads like...well, a really long article for The Atlantic. The author seems aware that he doesn't have more than a few things to say, namely, that we'll all be happier if we cease striving so much for fame (even at the "microcelebrity" level) and instead focus on the intrinsic rewards of our work. People who have succeeded at their craft and become highly respected by those on the inside of their fields (= successful "Invisibles") share three traits: (1) ambivalence (or, better, limited interest) toward broad recognition; (2) meticulousness (= craftsmanship, savoir faire); and (3) savouring of responsibility. They don't care if they are famous; they don't care if most people involved in a project recognize their part in it. They care about The Thing Itself, and when they contribute masterfully toward it, they are fulfilled.

Zweig then proceeds to tell lots and lots of stories of undeniably interesting people in undeniably interesting jobs who exemplify these traits, and the book makes for a pleasant read on a long flight or as the last thing before sleep.

The testimonies of these "autotelics" (a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, my favourite author on creativity and life satisfaction) do inspire us...so long as you have, indeed, an inspiring job. Zweig profiles a wide range of people--from the guy who sets up guitars for Radiohead to the piano tuner for the Pittsburgh Symphony to the structural engineer for some of the world's foremost "supertall" buildings--but these technicians (and they are all, it seems, a kind of technician) invariably have jobs that require both artistic and scientific skill, insight, and initiative. It would seem that Zweig forgets what Marx knew pretty well, namely, that many of us experience a considerable amount of alienation in our work: It does not demand or provide much in respect of personal initiative and thus contains very little scope for creativity and intrinsic satisfaction.

This severe restriction in the relevance of the work, plus the author's limited writing talents (and for a former fact-checker, the book contains a startling number of errors of fact and usage that I noticed without trying), keeps the book down to three stars for me. But for those of us who are blessed with jobs that do feature a tug-of-war between seeking recognition and enjoying the job and its fruits for their own sake, it is at once an encouraging and soothing read.

Still, those of us who are Christians, whatever our jobs, will find Colossians 3:22-24 and the like to be at once more relevant and more helpful in approaching our work in the right spirit (or, as Gordon Fee would remind us, Spirit).
]]> The Expats (Kate Moore, #1) 12617758
She begins to reinvent herself as an expat, finding her way in a language she doesn’t speak, doing the housewifely things she’s never before done—play-dates and coffee mornings, daily cooking and unending laundry. Meanwhile, her husband works incessantly, doing a job Kate has never understood, for a banking client she’s not allowed to know. He’s becoming distant and evasive; she’s getting lonely and bored.

Then another American couple arrives. Kate soon becomes suspicious that these people are not who they claim to be, and terrified that her own past is catching up to her. So Kate begins to dig, to peel back the layers of deception that surround her. She discovers fake offices and shell corporations and a hidden gun; a mysterious farmhouse and numbered accounts with bewildering sums of money; a complex web of intrigue where no one is who they claim to be, and the most profound deceptions lurk beneath the most normal-looking of relationships; and a mind-boggling long-play con threatens her family, her marriage, and her life.]]> 326 Chris Pavone 0307956350 John 4
Disappointingly, even though Pavone has lived in the main locale of the book, Luxembourg, the land never comes into focus for me. Bits and pieces are thoughtfully, even affectionately, described, but no "Gestalt" emerges, but rather a kind of pastiche of French, German, and Low Country detail--which is, I suppose, kind of what Lux is, but readers of this genre like to truly visit other places, and the welcome travelogue parts of the book failed to coalesce into a whole.

Even though the novel is full-length, furthermore, we want to know more about, and spend richer time with, the main characters--a sign, I would like to say, of how well and attractively they are drawn (not least the two little boys). So I left the novel a little dissatisfied: "It's over already?" But I also looked forward to reading something else by Pavone, and I recommend this novel warmly.]]> 3.48 2012 The Expats (Kate Moore, #1)
author: Chris Pavone
name: John
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/11/07
shelves:
review:
Reading short story collections edited by Lee Child (of whose Jack Reacher series I was an early and avid fan) and others in the new guild of thriller writers he helped found shows how difficult it is to write such apparently "easy" prose. Chris Pavone does an impressive job of it in this first novel. There are more than a few twists and turns, with lots of intriguing signals along the way that make sense only in the reveal at the end.

Disappointingly, even though Pavone has lived in the main locale of the book, Luxembourg, the land never comes into focus for me. Bits and pieces are thoughtfully, even affectionately, described, but no "Gestalt" emerges, but rather a kind of pastiche of French, German, and Low Country detail--which is, I suppose, kind of what Lux is, but readers of this genre like to truly visit other places, and the welcome travelogue parts of the book failed to coalesce into a whole.

Even though the novel is full-length, furthermore, we want to know more about, and spend richer time with, the main characters--a sign, I would like to say, of how well and attractively they are drawn (not least the two little boys). So I left the novel a little dissatisfied: "It's over already?" But I also looked forward to reading something else by Pavone, and I recommend this novel warmly.
]]> <![CDATA[Proverbs & Ecclesiastes (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)]]> 10446162 288 Daniel J. Treier 1587431483 John 3
A professor of theology at Wheaton College, Illinois--and a friendly professional acquaintance--Dan writes within the series known as the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Strangely--to me, at least--Dan doesn't wax all that theological. What he offers theologically strikes me as both sound and insightful: there just isn't as much of it as I expected--and wanted, by the end of the book! In particular, he makes use, as the contributors in this series are supposed to, of classical commentators, and especially of the church fathers, but here, too, he is very economical in his draw upon them. In fact, especially in the latter commentary, he draws on contemporary novelists as much as he draws on patristic theologians.

Dan Treier knows Hebrew and relies on some reliable exegetes as well (such as Bartholomew, Longman, and Waltke), thus bringing wordplay to light that is disguised by whatever translation one might use. He also knows the human heart, and nicely balances exhortation with identification, admonition with admission of solidarity with the reader in the vagaries and failures of life. He is thus a humble, solid, trustworthy guide to some of the most difficult literature in the Bible, and while some readers will be disappointed not to be able to look up some particular odd Proverbs for definitive interpretation (!), we all will be better off for the perspective Dan brings to reading wisdom: which is not to be pursued "as predictive control...[but as] placing ourselves in the hands of God and nothing else" (235).]]> 4.06 2011 Proverbs & Ecclesiastes (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)
author: Daniel J. Treier
name: John
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/11/07
shelves:
review:
Dan Treier takes on the daunting task of commenting on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, two books that very differently defy commentary: the former because of its piecemeal nature, the latter because, well, it doesn't seem like it belongs in the Bible.

A professor of theology at Wheaton College, Illinois--and a friendly professional acquaintance--Dan writes within the series known as the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Strangely--to me, at least--Dan doesn't wax all that theological. What he offers theologically strikes me as both sound and insightful: there just isn't as much of it as I expected--and wanted, by the end of the book! In particular, he makes use, as the contributors in this series are supposed to, of classical commentators, and especially of the church fathers, but here, too, he is very economical in his draw upon them. In fact, especially in the latter commentary, he draws on contemporary novelists as much as he draws on patristic theologians.

Dan Treier knows Hebrew and relies on some reliable exegetes as well (such as Bartholomew, Longman, and Waltke), thus bringing wordplay to light that is disguised by whatever translation one might use. He also knows the human heart, and nicely balances exhortation with identification, admonition with admission of solidarity with the reader in the vagaries and failures of life. He is thus a humble, solid, trustworthy guide to some of the most difficult literature in the Bible, and while some readers will be disappointed not to be able to look up some particular odd Proverbs for definitive interpretation (!), we all will be better off for the perspective Dan brings to reading wisdom: which is not to be pursued "as predictive control...[but as] placing ourselves in the hands of God and nothing else" (235).
]]> <![CDATA[The Conflict of the Faculties (Der Streit Der Fakultaten)]]> 976652 217 Immanuel Kant 080327775X John 3
The edition itself is one of the most badly edited books I have encountered in scholarly publishing. Even with an entire page of errata (!), it makes other hilarious mistakes (such as the title page for the section on the theology faculty being confused for the title page for the section on the medical faculty: my German is lousy, but even I caught that one pretty quickly).

Still, the translator's introduction helpfully sets out some of the main themes and this little book is a good guide to how Kant thought about the relationship between philosophy (as he understood it) and theology (ditto).

It would be a good exercise, I think, to have a class work through this little treatise (don't bother with the stuff on the legal and medical faculties, since they are not closely associated with the heart of the work) and note how wildly Kant veers away from orthodox Christianity, let alone the particular orthodoxy of his culture (with which I am not entirely in sympathy either, to be sure!).

Kant is in many ways the father of liberal theology. Since that is a title usually given to Schleiermacher, maybe we'll call him the grandfather of liberal theology: reason and morality are everything; revelation is simply unscientific and frankly not a serious category; history--including Biblical history--cannot be studied for any lasting moral or spiritual instruction (cf. Lessing); Jesus certainly isn't divine, or he couldn't be a good example for us; and so on, and so on.

Still, I agree that the public, secular university must be a place of maximum intellectual freedom and maximum intellectual rigour, so I agree with Kant's main point: no orthodoxy should be imposed on the university. But that goes for all orthodoxies: secular humanism, sociobiology, political liberalism, or whatever.

So only one cheer for Kant on this book, but it's an important point to be justly celebrated.]]> 4.12 1798 The Conflict of the Faculties (Der Streit Der Fakultaten)
author: Immanuel Kant
name: John
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1798
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/11/05
shelves:
review:
I recently addressed the question, "Does Theology Belong in the University?" in a lecture at the University of Calgary, and to prepare for it I read this edition of Kant's classic.

The edition itself is one of the most badly edited books I have encountered in scholarly publishing. Even with an entire page of errata (!), it makes other hilarious mistakes (such as the title page for the section on the theology faculty being confused for the title page for the section on the medical faculty: my German is lousy, but even I caught that one pretty quickly).

Still, the translator's introduction helpfully sets out some of the main themes and this little book is a good guide to how Kant thought about the relationship between philosophy (as he understood it) and theology (ditto).

It would be a good exercise, I think, to have a class work through this little treatise (don't bother with the stuff on the legal and medical faculties, since they are not closely associated with the heart of the work) and note how wildly Kant veers away from orthodox Christianity, let alone the particular orthodoxy of his culture (with which I am not entirely in sympathy either, to be sure!).

Kant is in many ways the father of liberal theology. Since that is a title usually given to Schleiermacher, maybe we'll call him the grandfather of liberal theology: reason and morality are everything; revelation is simply unscientific and frankly not a serious category; history--including Biblical history--cannot be studied for any lasting moral or spiritual instruction (cf. Lessing); Jesus certainly isn't divine, or he couldn't be a good example for us; and so on, and so on.

Still, I agree that the public, secular university must be a place of maximum intellectual freedom and maximum intellectual rigour, so I agree with Kant's main point: no orthodoxy should be imposed on the university. But that goes for all orthodoxies: secular humanism, sociobiology, political liberalism, or whatever.

So only one cheer for Kant on this book, but it's an important point to be justly celebrated.
]]> <![CDATA[An Inner Step Toward God: Writings and Teachings on Prayer by Father Alexander Men]]> 18492426
“His simple but profound teaching on the absolute necessity of a prayer life could change the world.� –Scott Cairns, Poet]]> 192 Alexander Men 1612612385 John 4
The book displays in a brief space the expansiveness of Father Men's mind--reaching East and West for spiritual insight, up to the heavenlies for inspiration and down to the most basic elements of day-to-day life for application. Indeed, I have never encountered someone who combines practicality with erudition, spirituality with common sense, and "book learning" with attention to bodily care and discipline as does Alexander Men.

I even found some of it disorienting at times: "Really? You want to take time to talk about such basic and generic items as relaxation exercises that contain no Christian content at all?" But this attention to the care of his flock amid the stresses of modern Russian life reminded me of John Wesley's concern for folk medicine applied to his impoverished rural audiences as part of his recognition that "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." A proper theological anthropology, giving onto a holistic pastoral concern, takes into account our nervous systems as much as it does our spirits.

Indeed, Men's lofty spirituality coupled with a reassuringly earthy realism reminded me somewhat of Richard Foster's "coachly" tension as he, too, calls dull Christians such as I upward...not too quickly, not stressfully, but kindly, patiently, wisely.

I recommend this to any reader of serious spiritual literature.]]> 4.50 2014 An Inner Step Toward God: Writings and Teachings on Prayer by Father Alexander Men
author: Alexander Men
name: John
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/10/06
shelves:
review:
I have thoroughly enjoyed being discipled by Alexander Men through this book lovingly edited and translated by April French and Christa Belyaeva.

The book displays in a brief space the expansiveness of Father Men's mind--reaching East and West for spiritual insight, up to the heavenlies for inspiration and down to the most basic elements of day-to-day life for application. Indeed, I have never encountered someone who combines practicality with erudition, spirituality with common sense, and "book learning" with attention to bodily care and discipline as does Alexander Men.

I even found some of it disorienting at times: "Really? You want to take time to talk about such basic and generic items as relaxation exercises that contain no Christian content at all?" But this attention to the care of his flock amid the stresses of modern Russian life reminded me of John Wesley's concern for folk medicine applied to his impoverished rural audiences as part of his recognition that "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." A proper theological anthropology, giving onto a holistic pastoral concern, takes into account our nervous systems as much as it does our spirits.

Indeed, Men's lofty spirituality coupled with a reassuringly earthy realism reminded me somewhat of Richard Foster's "coachly" tension as he, too, calls dull Christians such as I upward...not too quickly, not stressfully, but kindly, patiently, wisely.

I recommend this to any reader of serious spiritual literature.
]]> <![CDATA[Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer]]> 18248389 515 Charles Marsh 0307269817 John 3 Comment:


]]> 4.25 2014 Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
author: Charles Marsh
name: John
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/04/19
shelves:
review:
Here's the review I published for Cardus in their magazine Comment:



]]> <![CDATA[And Then There Were Nuns: Adventures in a Cloistered Life]]> 16073099 304 Jane Christmas 1553657993 John 3
Christmas is an excellent mediator between the worlds of smart-talking urban sophisticates and spiritually focused rural religious. She has a commendably low tolerance for hypocrisy, cant, pretension, self-righteousness, obfuscation, and other common qualities of church life, especially among clergy (and, I might add, professors in divinity schools). But she also impresses the reader with her seriousness of purpose, her adamantine willingness to see things through, and her humble openness to God however God chooses to speak or act.

The theological professor in me is exasperated by her judgments on complex matters (such as the ordination of women as bishops and married homosexuals as priests) as such an intelligent woman seems led entirely by her intuition as to what is, to her, just obviously true. It is not clear to me at all how the Bible can function for her in any theologically normative way, but instead must serve only as a vehicle (through, say, the lectio divina she enjoys practicing) for spiritual insight. I honestly don't understand why such a self-aware person seems unaware of what theological rigour could, and must, bring to Christian life.

At the same time, to be sure, I envy her visions of God--each of which strike me as genuine and salubrious--and her buoyant joie de vivre, in church and out of it. So maybe I'll try to be open to feeling/intuiting a little more if she will consent to do her theological homework...and we'll see where we come out. (We already agree on female bishops.)

The book has a number of particularly arresting passages. Here are a couple:

"The visceral opposition to female clergy in the UK from both men and women is as mystifying as it is scandalous. It made my blood boil, roused the Warrior Nun in me. What's the fear? That women will do a fantastic job? That they will cause far fewer sexual abuse scandals? Bring some humanity back to the church?"

"The convent taught me the virtue of discipline--not the whip-twitching type, but the kind that blooms from serenity."

"Faith is not for sissies," she concludes, and "it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we all tried to be nuns of the world." To live with their focus, realism, patience, obedience, forbearance, depth, and love--and especially to pray like they do. No, that wouldn't be a bad thing at all.]]> 3.55 2013 And Then There Were Nuns: Adventures in a Cloistered Life
author: Jane Christmas
name: John
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/04/19
shelves:
review:
This charming book details the mid-life, post-divorce, pre-marriage (!) peregrinations of Jane Christmas, formerly of Toronto and now of the UK, who tries to decide, before she marries again, whether she ought to become a nun instead. Of catholic Anglican identity and sensibilities, this memoir takes her (and us) through several communities in Canada and Britain as she struggles with the concept of vocation, the realities of convent life, the shadows of her past, the prospects of her future, and the unpredictable ministrations of God.

Christmas is an excellent mediator between the worlds of smart-talking urban sophisticates and spiritually focused rural religious. She has a commendably low tolerance for hypocrisy, cant, pretension, self-righteousness, obfuscation, and other common qualities of church life, especially among clergy (and, I might add, professors in divinity schools). But she also impresses the reader with her seriousness of purpose, her adamantine willingness to see things through, and her humble openness to God however God chooses to speak or act.

The theological professor in me is exasperated by her judgments on complex matters (such as the ordination of women as bishops and married homosexuals as priests) as such an intelligent woman seems led entirely by her intuition as to what is, to her, just obviously true. It is not clear to me at all how the Bible can function for her in any theologically normative way, but instead must serve only as a vehicle (through, say, the lectio divina she enjoys practicing) for spiritual insight. I honestly don't understand why such a self-aware person seems unaware of what theological rigour could, and must, bring to Christian life.

At the same time, to be sure, I envy her visions of God--each of which strike me as genuine and salubrious--and her buoyant joie de vivre, in church and out of it. So maybe I'll try to be open to feeling/intuiting a little more if she will consent to do her theological homework...and we'll see where we come out. (We already agree on female bishops.)

The book has a number of particularly arresting passages. Here are a couple:

"The visceral opposition to female clergy in the UK from both men and women is as mystifying as it is scandalous. It made my blood boil, roused the Warrior Nun in me. What's the fear? That women will do a fantastic job? That they will cause far fewer sexual abuse scandals? Bring some humanity back to the church?"

"The convent taught me the virtue of discipline--not the whip-twitching type, but the kind that blooms from serenity."

"Faith is not for sissies," she concludes, and "it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we all tried to be nuns of the world." To live with their focus, realism, patience, obedience, forbearance, depth, and love--and especially to pray like they do. No, that wouldn't be a bad thing at all.
]]> New Seeds of Contemplation 727578 297 Thomas Merton 081120099X John 4
Merton leaves me confused and, I confess, rather cold when he leads us to think in terms of "emptiness" and mystical union with God that he insists does not involve actual merging with God but otherwise seems pretty much the loss of one's identity leaving only God remaining. I have to wonder: Where is the Church, in this ideal? Where is the new heavens and new earth? Where am I?

Where, furthermore, is the Biblical warrant for these assertions? Or any other warrant, besides (a) Merton's own authority, which is presumably based on (b) the authority of his experiences as he interprets them? For someone who (otherwise) seems as sensible as Merton, he seems troublingly uncritical of what must to him be self-authenticating experiences.

There, now. I need to state those worries and reservations up front because they're significant and because I now can celebrate the book as I'd like to do!

Merton's book (along with, of all things, Susan Howatch's novel "Glittering Images") was deeply helpful to me twenty years ago in coming to grips with the "public self" I had spent years constructing as an armour around, and what I hoped would be an impressive commendation of, the small, inferior self within. Whatever growth in the integration of myself before God and other people I have enjoyed since then is in large part due to this basic, but crucial, insight that I received through these two books.

This past year, though, I especially appreciated Merton's counsel to develop a deep place within where one can meet Christ and receive the living water of the Holy Spirit surging upward in renewing strength and reorienting purpose. I have been reading the last few years a variety of spiritual authorities on what Brother Lawrence calls "practicing the presence of God" (including re-reading Lawrence himself), and Merton's imagery and advice have been both vivid and timely at this stage of my life.

Merton is much richer than these few ideas, of course, and my weblog has quoted him fairly often. (Please feel welcome to search it for these references: ) This book, then, is a book I frequently recommend--with the caveats mentioned up front!--and I hope you'll be blessed by it in due course as well.
]]> 4.30 1962 New Seeds of Contemplation
author: Thomas Merton
name: John
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/12/30
shelves:
review:
I've slowly re-read Thomas Merton's classic this past year. I was introduced to it by a friend who gave me both psychological counseling and spiritual direction during my 30's, and it was good to return to it almost two decades later for a "tune-up" of sorts!

Merton leaves me confused and, I confess, rather cold when he leads us to think in terms of "emptiness" and mystical union with God that he insists does not involve actual merging with God but otherwise seems pretty much the loss of one's identity leaving only God remaining. I have to wonder: Where is the Church, in this ideal? Where is the new heavens and new earth? Where am I?

Where, furthermore, is the Biblical warrant for these assertions? Or any other warrant, besides (a) Merton's own authority, which is presumably based on (b) the authority of his experiences as he interprets them? For someone who (otherwise) seems as sensible as Merton, he seems troublingly uncritical of what must to him be self-authenticating experiences.

There, now. I need to state those worries and reservations up front because they're significant and because I now can celebrate the book as I'd like to do!

Merton's book (along with, of all things, Susan Howatch's novel "Glittering Images") was deeply helpful to me twenty years ago in coming to grips with the "public self" I had spent years constructing as an armour around, and what I hoped would be an impressive commendation of, the small, inferior self within. Whatever growth in the integration of myself before God and other people I have enjoyed since then is in large part due to this basic, but crucial, insight that I received through these two books.

This past year, though, I especially appreciated Merton's counsel to develop a deep place within where one can meet Christ and receive the living water of the Holy Spirit surging upward in renewing strength and reorienting purpose. I have been reading the last few years a variety of spiritual authorities on what Brother Lawrence calls "practicing the presence of God" (including re-reading Lawrence himself), and Merton's imagery and advice have been both vivid and timely at this stage of my life.

Merton is much richer than these few ideas, of course, and my weblog has quoted him fairly often. (Please feel welcome to search it for these references: ) This book, then, is a book I frequently recommend--with the caveats mentioned up front!--and I hope you'll be blessed by it in due course as well.

]]> <![CDATA[Daily Rituals: How Artists Work]]> 15799151
Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.�
Ěý
Kafka is one of 161 minds who describe their daily rituals to get their work done, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations�.... Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day ... Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.�

Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books ... Karl Marx ... Woody Allen ... Agatha Christie ... George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing ... Leo Tolstoy ... Charles Dickens ... Pablo Picasso ... George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers....

Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain�).]]> 278 Mason Currey 0307273601 John 3
Those surveyed come from novel-writing (perhaps the group best represented), poets, painters, playwrights, and musical composers, with a smattering of dancers, sculptors, scientists, film-makers, and scholars thrown in. Most are contemporary or almost so--few lived before the twentieth century--which is fine, since learning how someone was able to structure his days while enjoying an independent fortune and having a house full of servants is only mildly instructive for most of us.

Indeed, one is struck by how many of these subjects do, or did, enjoy enough wealth not to work at anything else. Few, it can be imagined, earned their living entirely from their art, so they had support some other way. But it is striking how few of these people managed to combine the art that made them notable with a "real job" of some kind. For every Kafka or Melville or Stevens who held full-time jobs unrelated to their art, there are twenty people who create every morning, take a late lunch and a nap, walk or answer mail in the afternoon, and then enjoy a leisurely evening. Hmmm...

It's also impressive how few of them attempt to create more than four or five hours per day. Almost all work in the first hours of the day--nighthawks are few, as are those capable of producing truly creative work all day (and those generally work in bursts of a few manic weeks before recovering for weeks afterward). Most of the successful people in this book start writing or composing or painting at around nine a.m. and knock off about 1 p.m. Creating is harder work than it looks.

Finally, I note how ruthless so many of them are with their concentration ("Do Not Disturb" really means it with most of these people) and their energies: only a minority seem to have what ordinary people would call normal social lives and engagement in civic affairs.

Much more instructive for me in this regard has been Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's surveying of creative people from a broader range of contemporary occupations in "Creativity"--one of the most provocative and instructive books I've ever read. But this collection is, as I say, a good way to start the day, not least as it gives someone in my job, which demands much creativity and does not provide much daily structure, permission and suggestions regarding how to live most productively...and, if only by negative examples (!), sanely.]]> 3.67 2013 Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
author: Mason Currey
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/12/27
shelves:
review:
I've warmed up my mornings for a while now reading a few entries in Mason Currey's blog-made-book. It's an impressively long collection of one- or two-page accounts, often first-person, of how creative people structure their days in order to produce their art.

Those surveyed come from novel-writing (perhaps the group best represented), poets, painters, playwrights, and musical composers, with a smattering of dancers, sculptors, scientists, film-makers, and scholars thrown in. Most are contemporary or almost so--few lived before the twentieth century--which is fine, since learning how someone was able to structure his days while enjoying an independent fortune and having a house full of servants is only mildly instructive for most of us.

Indeed, one is struck by how many of these subjects do, or did, enjoy enough wealth not to work at anything else. Few, it can be imagined, earned their living entirely from their art, so they had support some other way. But it is striking how few of these people managed to combine the art that made them notable with a "real job" of some kind. For every Kafka or Melville or Stevens who held full-time jobs unrelated to their art, there are twenty people who create every morning, take a late lunch and a nap, walk or answer mail in the afternoon, and then enjoy a leisurely evening. Hmmm...

It's also impressive how few of them attempt to create more than four or five hours per day. Almost all work in the first hours of the day--nighthawks are few, as are those capable of producing truly creative work all day (and those generally work in bursts of a few manic weeks before recovering for weeks afterward). Most of the successful people in this book start writing or composing or painting at around nine a.m. and knock off about 1 p.m. Creating is harder work than it looks.

Finally, I note how ruthless so many of them are with their concentration ("Do Not Disturb" really means it with most of these people) and their energies: only a minority seem to have what ordinary people would call normal social lives and engagement in civic affairs.

Much more instructive for me in this regard has been Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's surveying of creative people from a broader range of contemporary occupations in "Creativity"--one of the most provocative and instructive books I've ever read. But this collection is, as I say, a good way to start the day, not least as it gives someone in my job, which demands much creativity and does not provide much daily structure, permission and suggestions regarding how to live most productively...and, if only by negative examples (!), sanely.
]]> <![CDATA[The Gospel in a Pluralist Society]]> 851927
These kinds of questions are addressed in this noteworthy book by Lesslie Newbigin. A highly respected Christian leader and ecumenical figure, Newbigin provides a brilliant analysis of contemporary (secular, humanist, pluralist) culture and suggests how Christians can more confidently affirm their faith in such a context.

While drawing from scholars such as Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre, Hendrikus Berkhof, Walter Wink, and Robert Wuthnow, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society is suited not only to an academic readership. This heartfelt work by a missionary pastor and preacher also offers to Christian leaders and laypeople some thoughtful, helpful, and provocative reflections.]]> 264 Lesslie Newbigin 0802804268 John 3
Since I have no widespread popularity to put at risk, here's my guess: This book presents a wide range of good ideas that many people encounter in this book for the first time. The good ideas are generally not Newbigin's. They are not always well phrased. In my view, they are frequently oversimplified and not infrequently juxtaposed with other ideas to render Newbigin's discussion incoherent. But because these ideas have not been encountered before (Newbigin is typically encountered by people moving up from pop Christian books to serious Christian books), Newbigin gets credited for unusual wisdom and knowledge.

Well, I don't agree. C. S. Lewis? Yep, he's genuinely a genius, and anyone who claims to have "outgrown" Lewis (as I, to my shame, did as a graduate student) is a pretentious ass (as I, to my shame, was as a graduate student). But Newbigin? His books are much more like Francis Schaeffer's: Conduits of other people's ideas that are expressed more carefully and coherently in the originals, but for the transmission of which we can be grateful as the (limited) service they are.

Fans of Newbigin who have read this far and have not punched their computer screens in rage at my sacrilegious demurral will be demanding proof. And rightly so.

Since this is GoodReads, though, and not a formal review, I can just spout off as I like, can't I?

Still, duty calls.

1. Newbigin indulges in the excitement of reducing options to antinomies, instead of considering more moderate relationships. For example, he writes, "One does not defend this new perspective by trying to demonstrate its compatibility with the old. One challenges the old with the demand and the offer of a death and new birth" (12). This assertion strikes me as the effusion of someone who has taken a heady draught of Barth at his antithetical worst, rather than the seasoned reflections of a successful missionary. (See Lamin Sanneh's "Translating the Message" for a book-length implicit refutation of this proposal.)

2. "What we see as facts depends on the theory we bring to the observation" (21). Well, sort of, sure. But, as I have described elsewhere as "The 99 Bus Refutation," whatever your theory happens to be about anything and everything, even if it is the starkest solipsism or skepticism, if you step off the curb into the path of the 99 Bus, you will encounter A Fact. Newbigin ought to have said, "depends IN SOME RESPECTS on the theory we bring."

3. "A theory is abandoned only when it has been shown that there is another theory which is more intellectually and aesthetically satisfying and which can account for more of the facts." Uh, well no, that's not true. This seems to be a badly bowdlerized version of Kuhn, and Kuhn's focus is on scientific revolutions (when one theory does, in fact, supplant another), not a history of "when scientists abandon disproven hypotheses." Again, oversimplification that amounts to nonsense.

4. Newbigin follows Peter Berger into suggesting that "the heretical imperative" is a condition of modernity: we all have to choose (choice = "heresy") in a culture in which there is no "automatic" choice because of the hegemony of this or that religion (40). But to say that in the Middle Ages "for the vast majority faith is not a matter of personal decision: it is simply the acceptance of what everybody accepts because it is obviously the case" is to badly caricature an extremely complex situation in which people are choosing all sorts of things all the time--from their stock of native religious doctrines and practices as well as from what is being offered them by the village priest, the nearby monastery, travelling friars and other holy men, the wise woman down the road, and so on.

I restrict myself to drawing examples from the first 50 pages to suggest I could offer more.

Newbigin is a popularizer, but there's no shame in that. I've done more than a bit of it myself.

What is worth warning against, however, is questionable popularizing that gets much more credit than it deserves. That's my beef with the fanbase of Brother Newbigin: This book just isn't that good, and I wish better books were more widely read by these good people--not least the books by Polanyi (okay, he's hard to read: but Nicholas Wolterstorff isn't as hard, and he makes many of the same points), Kuhn (not hard to read), and Berger (ditto).

Newbigin, like Schaeffer, has served many people usefully, and for that I do not want to appear ungrateful or disrespectful. I'm just trying to put the book in its place--about 2 1/2 stars, I'd say.]]> 4.15 1989 The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
author: Lesslie Newbigin
name: John
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1989
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/12/24
shelves:
review:
This is one of the most overrated books I have encountered among thoughtful Christians in the last couple of decades. I still scratch my head trying to account for its widespread popularity.

Since I have no widespread popularity to put at risk, here's my guess: This book presents a wide range of good ideas that many people encounter in this book for the first time. The good ideas are generally not Newbigin's. They are not always well phrased. In my view, they are frequently oversimplified and not infrequently juxtaposed with other ideas to render Newbigin's discussion incoherent. But because these ideas have not been encountered before (Newbigin is typically encountered by people moving up from pop Christian books to serious Christian books), Newbigin gets credited for unusual wisdom and knowledge.

Well, I don't agree. C. S. Lewis? Yep, he's genuinely a genius, and anyone who claims to have "outgrown" Lewis (as I, to my shame, did as a graduate student) is a pretentious ass (as I, to my shame, was as a graduate student). But Newbigin? His books are much more like Francis Schaeffer's: Conduits of other people's ideas that are expressed more carefully and coherently in the originals, but for the transmission of which we can be grateful as the (limited) service they are.

Fans of Newbigin who have read this far and have not punched their computer screens in rage at my sacrilegious demurral will be demanding proof. And rightly so.

Since this is GoodReads, though, and not a formal review, I can just spout off as I like, can't I?

Still, duty calls.

1. Newbigin indulges in the excitement of reducing options to antinomies, instead of considering more moderate relationships. For example, he writes, "One does not defend this new perspective by trying to demonstrate its compatibility with the old. One challenges the old with the demand and the offer of a death and new birth" (12). This assertion strikes me as the effusion of someone who has taken a heady draught of Barth at his antithetical worst, rather than the seasoned reflections of a successful missionary. (See Lamin Sanneh's "Translating the Message" for a book-length implicit refutation of this proposal.)

2. "What we see as facts depends on the theory we bring to the observation" (21). Well, sort of, sure. But, as I have described elsewhere as "The 99 Bus Refutation," whatever your theory happens to be about anything and everything, even if it is the starkest solipsism or skepticism, if you step off the curb into the path of the 99 Bus, you will encounter A Fact. Newbigin ought to have said, "depends IN SOME RESPECTS on the theory we bring."

3. "A theory is abandoned only when it has been shown that there is another theory which is more intellectually and aesthetically satisfying and which can account for more of the facts." Uh, well no, that's not true. This seems to be a badly bowdlerized version of Kuhn, and Kuhn's focus is on scientific revolutions (when one theory does, in fact, supplant another), not a history of "when scientists abandon disproven hypotheses." Again, oversimplification that amounts to nonsense.

4. Newbigin follows Peter Berger into suggesting that "the heretical imperative" is a condition of modernity: we all have to choose (choice = "heresy") in a culture in which there is no "automatic" choice because of the hegemony of this or that religion (40). But to say that in the Middle Ages "for the vast majority faith is not a matter of personal decision: it is simply the acceptance of what everybody accepts because it is obviously the case" is to badly caricature an extremely complex situation in which people are choosing all sorts of things all the time--from their stock of native religious doctrines and practices as well as from what is being offered them by the village priest, the nearby monastery, travelling friars and other holy men, the wise woman down the road, and so on.

I restrict myself to drawing examples from the first 50 pages to suggest I could offer more.

Newbigin is a popularizer, but there's no shame in that. I've done more than a bit of it myself.

What is worth warning against, however, is questionable popularizing that gets much more credit than it deserves. That's my beef with the fanbase of Brother Newbigin: This book just isn't that good, and I wish better books were more widely read by these good people--not least the books by Polanyi (okay, he's hard to read: but Nicholas Wolterstorff isn't as hard, and he makes many of the same points), Kuhn (not hard to read), and Berger (ditto).

Newbigin, like Schaeffer, has served many people usefully, and for that I do not want to appear ungrateful or disrespectful. I'm just trying to put the book in its place--about 2 1/2 stars, I'd say.
]]> F.F. Bruce: A Life 13063116 304 Tim Grass 0802867235 John 3
Still, there are charming anecdotes, testimonials, and enough sense of context to get a sense of Bruce's impact. As a first approximation of his life and work, so to speak, Grass's biography fits the bill. And while he focuses rather overmuch on Bruce's rather modest (if also commendable) gender egalitarianism relative to, say, his findings in Acts or Hebrews, there is a good sense of Bruce's life: not sensational, but solidly, faithfully offered to God, his family, his church, and his guild.

Questions remain, to be sure, about Bruce's understanding of the relationship between Biblical studies and theology, and the relationships among those disciplines and church life and ethics in general. In this regard, one wants to know more about just why Bruce felt that classical training was so helpful for Biblical studies, and what deficits in Bruce's Biblical scholarship were indeed evidently a result of his classical training. Glass indicates, but never fully explores, how Bruce exemplifies evangelicalism's ambivalence about systematic theology and formal ethical reflection. But perhaps others can take that up in subsequent considerations prompted by this biography.]]> 4.12 2011 F.F. Bruce: A Life
author: Tim Grass
name: John
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/12/05
shelves:
review:
F. F. Bruce was a hero to many Brethren (such as your servant) seeking to be faithful and scholarly. Tim Grass's biography introduces us to him competently enough, but doesn't fully succeed in demonstrating why and how Bruce inspired so many. There is too little quotation of him, so we don't hear his voice as often as one might wish for in a biography. And we get too few examples of Bruce's insights into Paul, or any other Biblical material, such that we see Bruce's scholarship and wisdom at work.

Still, there are charming anecdotes, testimonials, and enough sense of context to get a sense of Bruce's impact. As a first approximation of his life and work, so to speak, Grass's biography fits the bill. And while he focuses rather overmuch on Bruce's rather modest (if also commendable) gender egalitarianism relative to, say, his findings in Acts or Hebrews, there is a good sense of Bruce's life: not sensational, but solidly, faithfully offered to God, his family, his church, and his guild.

Questions remain, to be sure, about Bruce's understanding of the relationship between Biblical studies and theology, and the relationships among those disciplines and church life and ethics in general. In this regard, one wants to know more about just why Bruce felt that classical training was so helpful for Biblical studies, and what deficits in Bruce's Biblical scholarship were indeed evidently a result of his classical training. Glass indicates, but never fully explores, how Bruce exemplifies evangelicalism's ambivalence about systematic theology and formal ethical reflection. But perhaps others can take that up in subsequent considerations prompted by this biography.
]]> <![CDATA[A Primer for Christian Doctrine]]> 1648119
After a brief introduction defending the continued need for doctrine, Jonathan Wilson clearly and concisely maps out each of the main topics of Christian belief in separate chapters. He also traces the differing emphases of theologians while suggesting reasons for their differences.

Whether as a first taste of theology or as a readable summary of its present state, Wilson's Primer for Christian Doctrine will be an invaluable resource for students and small groups pursuing a deeper knowledge of what Christians believe.]]> 127 Jonathan R. Wilson 0802846564 John 3
It's a bit of an odd book, though, as Jonathan himself suggests in the front matter. It's sort of a small book of theology, but it's not a handbook or a catechism per se. Instead, it's intended to "prime" students for the study of systematic theology, helping them to understand something of what's going on in this discipline.

Jonathan's voice is one of the main blessings of the book. He combines concern for conceptual clarity with warm-hearted piety, ecumenical charity with a commitment to orthodoxy, respect for tradition with openness to innovation, and a wide-angle lens on the whole earth as loved by God without ignoring the gospel's application to you or me as individuals.

The following concerns keep me from ranking it even higher:

1. I don't agree with Jonathan's decision to include quite liberal, even obviously heretical, views among the options presented here, just because some "other theologians" have thought them. Jonathan's touch is too light here, in my opinion, to the point where the line between orthodoxy and heresy frequently disappears from view. I don't think that serves my pedagogical purposes best, and I'm surprised Jonathan thinks it would serve his.

2. His prolegomena in each chapter seem to be often rather woolly. For instance, while he properly wants to remind readers that doctrines connect with each other, he makes this point too generally and loquaciously when a couple of well-chosen examples would do the trick quicker and better.

3. I would like more from Jonathan as to why the study of theology matters. For someone who has pastored churches, taught ethics, and inspired the "New Monasticism," he is surprisingly and disappointingly terse about why passionate and active Christians would want to bother with theology much at all. I know he could say much more here, and I wish his editor had asked him to do so.

Still, it's a very useful little volume and I look forward to discussing it with my students. As serious teaching seems to continue to dwindle in our churches, along with Bible study and substantial Christian reading in our homes, we need more books to initiate spiritual education at an appropriate level. Jonathan Wilson's book is a good model for that.]]> 3.75 2005 A Primer for Christian Doctrine
author: Jonathan R. Wilson
name: John
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/11/29
shelves:
review:
My friend Jonathan Wilson has written a book so useful that I'll be assigning it to beginning theology students this year.

It's a bit of an odd book, though, as Jonathan himself suggests in the front matter. It's sort of a small book of theology, but it's not a handbook or a catechism per se. Instead, it's intended to "prime" students for the study of systematic theology, helping them to understand something of what's going on in this discipline.

Jonathan's voice is one of the main blessings of the book. He combines concern for conceptual clarity with warm-hearted piety, ecumenical charity with a commitment to orthodoxy, respect for tradition with openness to innovation, and a wide-angle lens on the whole earth as loved by God without ignoring the gospel's application to you or me as individuals.

The following concerns keep me from ranking it even higher:

1. I don't agree with Jonathan's decision to include quite liberal, even obviously heretical, views among the options presented here, just because some "other theologians" have thought them. Jonathan's touch is too light here, in my opinion, to the point where the line between orthodoxy and heresy frequently disappears from view. I don't think that serves my pedagogical purposes best, and I'm surprised Jonathan thinks it would serve his.

2. His prolegomena in each chapter seem to be often rather woolly. For instance, while he properly wants to remind readers that doctrines connect with each other, he makes this point too generally and loquaciously when a couple of well-chosen examples would do the trick quicker and better.

3. I would like more from Jonathan as to why the study of theology matters. For someone who has pastored churches, taught ethics, and inspired the "New Monasticism," he is surprisingly and disappointingly terse about why passionate and active Christians would want to bother with theology much at all. I know he could say much more here, and I wish his editor had asked him to do so.

Still, it's a very useful little volume and I look forward to discussing it with my students. As serious teaching seems to continue to dwindle in our churches, along with Bible study and substantial Christian reading in our homes, we need more books to initiate spiritual education at an appropriate level. Jonathan Wilson's book is a good model for that.
]]> A Perfect Spy 19001
Immersing readers in two parallel dramas -- one about the making of a spy, the other chronicling his seemingly imminent demise -- le Carre offers one of his richest and most morally resonant novels.Magnus Pym -- son of Rick, father of Tom, and a successful career officer of British Intelligence -- has vanished, to the dismay of his friends, enemies, and wife. Who is he? Who was he? Who owns him? Who trained him? Secrets of state are at risk. As the truth about Pym gradually emerges, the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought the wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy.]]> 608 John Le Carré 0743457927 John 3
John le Carré, arguably the best espionage writer ever (although I confess I often have more fun reading less cerebral types, and some might give the palm to Alan Furst anyhow), provides us with a very long sketch of the making of a career spy.

I don't want to read a lot of these (although I'd love to read Alan Furst's version of such a book, and maybe those of a few others), but one by le Carré seems worthwhile. Yet while this book is rich in certain details, it curiously remains rather fuzzy about the central question: For what is its protagonist, Magnus Pym (yes, it seems an interestingly Dickensian, even Pythonesque, name, rather like "The Great Bob"), really questing? Is he just looking for love and finding it in the wrong place? Is that All There Is to Say?

Meanwhile, we do wonder about the motivations of the other main characters, except for the utterly overbearing narcissism of Pym's father. Are the other spies also so very wobbly at their cores? It seems like they are in certain ways: le Carré indicates several times that "attachment/affirmation" issues loom large, with various characters wanting almost simultaneously to slap and sleep with each other. But nothing about their backstories emerges to indicate whether le Carré is making a global point about spies, or just a single character sketch in a world of psychological misfits, or what.

I thought I'd write about this book a bit because it has been touted as le Carré's best. But I don't think it is--not by a long shot. Indeed, it is an obviously eccentric book for both le Carré and for the genre, low on thrills and mysteries, that only those interested in historical and psychological explanations (as I am) would find interesting. I wonder if the critics who praised it highly praised it partly because it is, in fact, not particularly a "genre" novel at all, but a departure from the norm.

Still, as a kind of "the making of ___" exercise, it's worthwhile. Just be clear what you've got before you invest in what is, after all, rather a large book.]]> 4.01 1986 A Perfect Spy
author: John Le Carré
name: John
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/11/09
shelves:
review:
Every once in a while, an author suggests the psychologically relevant backstory of a secret agent. What--we are asked to pause to consider amid the mystery and excitement and danger and glamour--would attract someone to such a world of deception, manipulation, and, at least eventually, cynicism?

John le Carré, arguably the best espionage writer ever (although I confess I often have more fun reading less cerebral types, and some might give the palm to Alan Furst anyhow), provides us with a very long sketch of the making of a career spy.

I don't want to read a lot of these (although I'd love to read Alan Furst's version of such a book, and maybe those of a few others), but one by le Carré seems worthwhile. Yet while this book is rich in certain details, it curiously remains rather fuzzy about the central question: For what is its protagonist, Magnus Pym (yes, it seems an interestingly Dickensian, even Pythonesque, name, rather like "The Great Bob"), really questing? Is he just looking for love and finding it in the wrong place? Is that All There Is to Say?

Meanwhile, we do wonder about the motivations of the other main characters, except for the utterly overbearing narcissism of Pym's father. Are the other spies also so very wobbly at their cores? It seems like they are in certain ways: le Carré indicates several times that "attachment/affirmation" issues loom large, with various characters wanting almost simultaneously to slap and sleep with each other. But nothing about their backstories emerges to indicate whether le Carré is making a global point about spies, or just a single character sketch in a world of psychological misfits, or what.

I thought I'd write about this book a bit because it has been touted as le Carré's best. But I don't think it is--not by a long shot. Indeed, it is an obviously eccentric book for both le Carré and for the genre, low on thrills and mysteries, that only those interested in historical and psychological explanations (as I am) would find interesting. I wonder if the critics who praised it highly praised it partly because it is, in fact, not particularly a "genre" novel at all, but a departure from the norm.

Still, as a kind of "the making of ___" exercise, it's worthwhile. Just be clear what you've got before you invest in what is, after all, rather a large book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics]]> 108231
"...the most sophisticated and convincing examination of the biblical data for our time." —Jurgen Becker, Professor of New Testament, Christian-Albrechts University]]> 522 Robert A.J. Gagnon 0687022797 John 4
The book seems less successful for readers today regarding the evidence about psychological and social pathologies attendant on homosexual behaviour both because more than a decade or more has gone by since those studies were reported (no fault of the book or author, of course) and because some, at least, of the sources of these studies seem open to question, at least prima facie (e.g., the Family Research Council).

Still, other research I have seen since then, and not from such sources, bears out some of these findings, so I simply observe that this section is not as useful as the others--that I find almost entirely rock solid.

(By the way, I don't agree with Gagnon's approach to the authorship of some of the books of the Bible, holding as I do more conservative views than his, but such a difference only strengthens the case.)

The huge remaining question--and in a recent e-mail exchange with me, Gagnon agreed--is that of the nature of gender essentialism. The Bible's relentless insistence that only a man and a woman can form a marriage implies an important complementarity that is not specified in the Bible and is difficult for many of us to talk about today, fearful as we are of falling back into stereotypes that demean women (or men, for that matter). But such an important complementarity is the only way to make sense of the Bible's teaching--particularly of Genesis 2 and of Romans 1--and the next stage of theological work on this issue must grapple with this question as effectively and explicitly as possible.

Jim Brownson's recent book, to his credit, does recognize this question, and then answers it in the negative: there is no such crucial gender complementarity. But I'm quite sure Brownson's wrong about that, as he is wrong about his exegesis of Romans 1 etc. The parallelism of Romans 1 of idolatry (doing all the right religious things but toward the wrong target: the correctly "answering" God isn't there) and homosexuality (doing all the right sexual things but toward the wrong target: the correctly "answering" sex isn't there) seems to me quite clear.

The task remains to be done on the side of those maintaining traditional views. I look forward to someone else doing that soon!]]> 4.07 2001 The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics
author: Robert A.J. Gagnon
name: John
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/10/20
shelves:
review:
Robert Gagnon's book remains the authoritative source for arguments regarding the Bible's treatment of homosexuality. It is a work of astonishing erudition that will tire many readers but provides the thorough scholarship necessary to refute the many, many, MANY kinds of attempts to evade what he and I believe is the univocal and inescapable testimony of the Bible on this issue.

The book seems less successful for readers today regarding the evidence about psychological and social pathologies attendant on homosexual behaviour both because more than a decade or more has gone by since those studies were reported (no fault of the book or author, of course) and because some, at least, of the sources of these studies seem open to question, at least prima facie (e.g., the Family Research Council).

Still, other research I have seen since then, and not from such sources, bears out some of these findings, so I simply observe that this section is not as useful as the others--that I find almost entirely rock solid.

(By the way, I don't agree with Gagnon's approach to the authorship of some of the books of the Bible, holding as I do more conservative views than his, but such a difference only strengthens the case.)

The huge remaining question--and in a recent e-mail exchange with me, Gagnon agreed--is that of the nature of gender essentialism. The Bible's relentless insistence that only a man and a woman can form a marriage implies an important complementarity that is not specified in the Bible and is difficult for many of us to talk about today, fearful as we are of falling back into stereotypes that demean women (or men, for that matter). But such an important complementarity is the only way to make sense of the Bible's teaching--particularly of Genesis 2 and of Romans 1--and the next stage of theological work on this issue must grapple with this question as effectively and explicitly as possible.

Jim Brownson's recent book, to his credit, does recognize this question, and then answers it in the negative: there is no such crucial gender complementarity. But I'm quite sure Brownson's wrong about that, as he is wrong about his exegesis of Romans 1 etc. The parallelism of Romans 1 of idolatry (doing all the right religious things but toward the wrong target: the correctly "answering" God isn't there) and homosexuality (doing all the right sexual things but toward the wrong target: the correctly "answering" sex isn't there) seems to me quite clear.

The task remains to be done on the side of those maintaining traditional views. I look forward to someone else doing that soon!
]]> <![CDATA[Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships]]> 15937028
This thought-provoking book by James Brownson develops a broad, cross-cultural sexual ethic from Scripture, locates current debates over homosexuality in that wider context, and explores why the Bible speaks the way it does about same-sex relationships.

Fairly presenting both sides in this polarized debate � "traditional" and "revisionist" � Brownson conscientiously analyzes all of the pertinent biblical texts and helpfully identifies "stuck points" in the ongoing debate. In the process, he explores key concepts that inform our understanding of the biblical texts, including patriarchy, complementarity, purity and impurity, honor and shame. Central to his argument is the need to uncover the moral logic behind the text.

Written in order to serve and inform the ongoing debate in many denominations over the questions of homosexuality, Brownson's in-depth study will prove a useful resource for Christians who want to form a considered opinion on this important issue.]]> 312 James V. Brownson 0802868630 John 2
The single element to praise, in my view, is Brother Brownson's insistence that Christian resistance to the churchly legitimation of same-sex marriage (the book has nothing explicit to say about the larger social issue of the legalization of same-sex marriage, although its implicit message is clear) rests on gender complementarity and therefore on some important form of gender essentialism. Brownson argues, quite rightly, that merely arguing that "the Bible says so" without attempting to demonstrate an ethical logic to God saying so in the Bible is deficient theological method. And the only compelling logic that would entail a transcultural proscription of homosexual marriage would be that women and men are intrinsically both different and complementary such that no two women and no two men could form a true marriage bond, despite any appearances (love, faithfulness, chastity, etc.) to the contrary.

Brownson boldly asserts, but rather feebly argues, that there is no such gender complementarity taught in the Bible; that the Bible does not in fact forbid the marriage of two well-matched homosexuals; and that indeed all that matters in marriage is what two well-matched people of the same sex can bring to it. I think his case is terribly weak, exegesis by exegesis and theological principle by theological principle. Full credit, though, for understanding where the main question lies: in gender complementarity of a crucial sort.

Alas, full credit for this identification of the main issue still means a failing grade. He argues frequently from silence (an extremely dubious and dangerous practice that, on this issue, Gagnon's scholarship in particular exposes as specious), follows Robin Scroggs and other unreliable scholars when he shouldn't, and weirdly narrows gender complementarity to a matter of biology rather than of the whole person (as if body and soul have nothing to do with each other, and as if the putative psychological difference between men and women isn't precisely the issue at question).

I'm afraid that he generally gives the impression of a bright, conscientious father coming to the foreordained conclusion that his gay son (whom he introduces in the introduction as the main impetus in his life for re-examining this issue) is just fine after all. As the father of three adult sons myself, I am sympathetic to his position. In fact, were that to be my situation, I should want to have others "check my work" all the more carefully since my inclination would be so strong to come to Brownson's conclusions. Alas, he seems not to have had his work checked very rigorously, and I can conclude only that his charity overpowers his theological scholarship since the book is just that dubious, over and over again.

I leave the book feeling sad. I even feel lousy about writing this review, since I so wish everyone could just be happy and affirm each other about these matters. But I do think the book misleads readers on a subject on which clarity is crucial, and it's part of my job to say so, so I do. Not with any joy, though, that's for sure. Not with joy.]]> 4.18 2013 Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships
author: James V. Brownson
name: John
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2013/10/07
shelves:
review:
Talk about overpromising and underdelivering: from Wesley Granberg-Michaelsen's foreword that manages to condescend to almost everyone involved in this debate and promises a dramatic new take on the issues (spoiler alert: there isn't one), to the book itself that raises, so far as I can see, precisely no arguments not already dealt with, and dealt with pretty thoroughly, by Robert Gagnon's work.

The single element to praise, in my view, is Brother Brownson's insistence that Christian resistance to the churchly legitimation of same-sex marriage (the book has nothing explicit to say about the larger social issue of the legalization of same-sex marriage, although its implicit message is clear) rests on gender complementarity and therefore on some important form of gender essentialism. Brownson argues, quite rightly, that merely arguing that "the Bible says so" without attempting to demonstrate an ethical logic to God saying so in the Bible is deficient theological method. And the only compelling logic that would entail a transcultural proscription of homosexual marriage would be that women and men are intrinsically both different and complementary such that no two women and no two men could form a true marriage bond, despite any appearances (love, faithfulness, chastity, etc.) to the contrary.

Brownson boldly asserts, but rather feebly argues, that there is no such gender complementarity taught in the Bible; that the Bible does not in fact forbid the marriage of two well-matched homosexuals; and that indeed all that matters in marriage is what two well-matched people of the same sex can bring to it. I think his case is terribly weak, exegesis by exegesis and theological principle by theological principle. Full credit, though, for understanding where the main question lies: in gender complementarity of a crucial sort.

Alas, full credit for this identification of the main issue still means a failing grade. He argues frequently from silence (an extremely dubious and dangerous practice that, on this issue, Gagnon's scholarship in particular exposes as specious), follows Robin Scroggs and other unreliable scholars when he shouldn't, and weirdly narrows gender complementarity to a matter of biology rather than of the whole person (as if body and soul have nothing to do with each other, and as if the putative psychological difference between men and women isn't precisely the issue at question).

I'm afraid that he generally gives the impression of a bright, conscientious father coming to the foreordained conclusion that his gay son (whom he introduces in the introduction as the main impetus in his life for re-examining this issue) is just fine after all. As the father of three adult sons myself, I am sympathetic to his position. In fact, were that to be my situation, I should want to have others "check my work" all the more carefully since my inclination would be so strong to come to Brownson's conclusions. Alas, he seems not to have had his work checked very rigorously, and I can conclude only that his charity overpowers his theological scholarship since the book is just that dubious, over and over again.

I leave the book feeling sad. I even feel lousy about writing this review, since I so wish everyone could just be happy and affirm each other about these matters. But I do think the book misleads readers on a subject on which clarity is crucial, and it's part of my job to say so, so I do. Not with any joy, though, that's for sure. Not with joy.
]]> <![CDATA[Never Go Back (Jack Reacher, #18)]]> 17262159 Why? He wants to meet the new commanding officer, Major Susan Turner. He liked her voice on the phone. But the officer sitting behind Reacher’s old desk isn't a woman. Why is Susan Turner not there?

What Reacher doesn’t expect is what comes next. He himself is in big trouble, accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide. And he certainly doesn't expect to hear these words: â€You’re back in the army, Major. And your ass is mine.â€�

Will he be sorry he went back? Or � will someone else?

]]> 400 Lee Child 0385344341 John 4
I confess I was intrigued by the familial possibilities raised in this book (no, I won't spoil it) and would have liked to see Child take either or both in different directions than he chose. But he's got his thing, it's a good thing, and I guess that's that.

Ironically, "Never Go Back" is Child going back and back and back to his formula, but I like the formula, and fans will not be disappointed.]]> 4.01 2013 Never Go Back (Jack Reacher, #18)
author: Lee Child
name: John
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/10/07
shelves:
review:
Lee Child has found a reliable groove--reliable for him in sales, reliable for readers in experience--and he settles in nicely for "Never Go Back." It's not Child's most inventive book in the series, nor the most exciting--not by far, in fact. But it is what the whole series is: fun, cinematic airplane reading. And if you doubt Child's talents, just read collections of thriller short stories he and others have edited: hoo, boy, he's a much better writer, and this kind of genre writing is evidently harder than it looks, since so few can do it at this level.

I confess I was intrigued by the familial possibilities raised in this book (no, I won't spoil it) and would have liked to see Child take either or both in different directions than he chose. But he's got his thing, it's a good thing, and I guess that's that.

Ironically, "Never Go Back" is Child going back and back and back to his formula, but I like the formula, and fans will not be disappointed.
]]> <![CDATA[Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation]]> 12512386 death and resurrection. Different theories of personal identity are examined and assessed in light of these assumptions. Walls also shows that the traditional doctrine of purgatory is not understood as a second chance for salvation, but goes on to argue that it should be modified to allow for postmortem repentance. He concludes with an examination of C.S. Lewis's writings on purgatory, and suggests that Lewis can be a model for evangelicals and other Protestants to engage the doctrine of purgatory in a way that is true to their theology.]]> 232 Jerry L. Walls 0199732299 John 4
Jerry Walls, a Methodist now teaching at Houston Baptist University, wrote previous books on heaven and hell that are well worth reading also. He is indeed a philosopher (Notre Dame PhD), not a theologian, and the lack of sustained interaction with Scripture (he spends far more time with Dante than with the Bible) marks a severe limitation of the book. What IS strong, however, is what you'd like to think you could expect from an analytical philosopher: a temperate examination of the issues, a clear analysis of the options, a calm critique of each, and a sober and restrained set of recommendations.

I think there is a lot to say on behalf of a certain view of purgatory in a Protestant register, and Jerry Walls says much of it in this good book. If you want your theological paradigm shaken and stretched at least a bit, this will do the job.

]]> 4.17 2011 Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation
author: Jerry L. Walls
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/09/02
shelves:
review:
I'm likely going to reflect on this book at length in print somewhere ere long, as it raises with uncommon clarity a number of key issues that surface in my theology classes: the element of sanctification in salvation, the nature of the intermediate state, inclusivism, universalism, body-soul dualism, and more. So I'll keep things brief here.

Jerry Walls, a Methodist now teaching at Houston Baptist University, wrote previous books on heaven and hell that are well worth reading also. He is indeed a philosopher (Notre Dame PhD), not a theologian, and the lack of sustained interaction with Scripture (he spends far more time with Dante than with the Bible) marks a severe limitation of the book. What IS strong, however, is what you'd like to think you could expect from an analytical philosopher: a temperate examination of the issues, a clear analysis of the options, a calm critique of each, and a sober and restrained set of recommendations.

I think there is a lot to say on behalf of a certain view of purgatory in a Protestant register, and Jerry Walls says much of it in this good book. If you want your theological paradigm shaken and stretched at least a bit, this will do the job.


]]> Beautiful Ruins 11447921
A #1 New York Times bestseller, this “absolute masterpiece� (Richard Russo) is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in Hollywood. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, this is a dazzling, yet deeply human roller coaster of a novel.

The acclaimed author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet. Hailed by critics and loved by readers of literary and historical fiction, Beautiful Ruins is gloriously inventive and constantly surprising—a story of flawed yet fascinating people navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.]]> 337 Jess Walter 0061928127 John 4 3.67 2012 Beautiful Ruins
author: Jess Walter
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/09/02
shelves:
review:
This charming diversion brings back memories of Cinqueterre (visited a couple of summers ago), but it mainly is a novel of entertaining characters, not least Richard Burton (yes, THAT Richard Burton). No heavy lifting here, to be sure, but a pleasant and sometimes touching excursion.
]]> A Testament of Devotion 267213 144 Thomas R. Kelly 0060643617 John 3
It's a book that says good things in the rhetorical style of mid-twentieth-century university-educated divines (I think Elton Trueblood especially), a style not everyone enjoys but I generally do.

What makes this book particularly powerful, because poignant, to me is to read it in the light of Kelly's own career. It is sketched at the end, but it makes a huge difference to how I hear his voice when I know about the crushing disappointment and humiliation he suffered professionally.

So perhaps you'll want to read it once as "just" a spiritual book. But then consider re-reading it in the light of the biography, and sentences will now jump out at you and touch your heart in new ways.

I rate the book at only 3 stars, though, because in my view it gets decidedly less interesting and less helpful in the second half. But even that part has good stuff.

A quote or two: "Religion as a dull habit is not that for which Christ lived and died."

"Self-renunciation means God-possession."

"The high and noble adventures of faith can in our truest moments be seen as no adventures at all, but certainties."]]> 4.26 1941 A Testament of Devotion
author: Thomas R. Kelly
name: John
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1941
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/05/20
shelves:
review:
This little book came to my attention via the author's fellow Quaker and spiritual teacher, Richard Foster--for me, a longtime guide to the spiritual life.

It's a book that says good things in the rhetorical style of mid-twentieth-century university-educated divines (I think Elton Trueblood especially), a style not everyone enjoys but I generally do.

What makes this book particularly powerful, because poignant, to me is to read it in the light of Kelly's own career. It is sketched at the end, but it makes a huge difference to how I hear his voice when I know about the crushing disappointment and humiliation he suffered professionally.

So perhaps you'll want to read it once as "just" a spiritual book. But then consider re-reading it in the light of the biography, and sentences will now jump out at you and touch your heart in new ways.

I rate the book at only 3 stars, though, because in my view it gets decidedly less interesting and less helpful in the second half. But even that part has good stuff.

A quote or two: "Religion as a dull habit is not that for which Christ lived and died."

"Self-renunciation means God-possession."

"The high and noble adventures of faith can in our truest moments be seen as no adventures at all, but certainties."
]]> <![CDATA[Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self : On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise]]> 691323 anthony-c-thiselton 0567293025 John 3
What's not good is really disappointing: the wrestling does not always produce a decisive pin. Brother Thiselton sometimes seems overmatched, in fact, leaving the reader to wonder just what's going on and why.

Sometimes it's the exposition, sometimes it's the critical reflection, but the overall impression is of a commendably intrepid scholar just not quite able to match up with his interlocutors.

]]> 3.00 1995 Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self : On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise
author: anthony-c-thiselton
name: John
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/05/18
shelves:
review:
What's good about this book is excellent: honest, searching, humble, and intelligent wrestling by an evangelical scholar with some of the great minds in hermeneutics.

What's not good is really disappointing: the wrestling does not always produce a decisive pin. Brother Thiselton sometimes seems overmatched, in fact, leaving the reader to wonder just what's going on and why.

Sometimes it's the exposition, sometimes it's the critical reflection, but the overall impression is of a commendably intrepid scholar just not quite able to match up with his interlocutors.


]]> <![CDATA[God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason (Oxford Paperbacks)]]> 51862 God and the Philosophers offers a series of highly personal, thoughtful essays by traditionally religious philosophers, revealing the power of belief in their intellectually rigorous lives and work. Figures such as William P. Alston, William J. Wainwright, Marilyn McCord Adams, Peter van Inwagen, and Morris himself, to name a few, speak of their own spiritual journeys, sharing their experiences as philosophically reflective individuals seeking to center themselves on God. We read of conversions from unbelief, struggles with doubts raised by the presence of evil in the world, and changing convictions shaped by constant questioning and communing with God. For example, Brian Leftow describes his acceptance of Christianity, after being raised in a secular Jewish home, and Laura Garcia writes about her conversion to Catholicism from her earlier Protestant stance. Along the way, the writers reveal religious philosophy at work--demonstrating, as Arthur F. Holmes writes, "the motivation to
intellectual inquiry that Christian faith brings." Here we see how individuals with extraordinary intellectual training, discipline, and knowledge grapple with personal and existential problems, drawing on their faith as well as their finely honed reason to achieve new understanding.
Profoundly honest and deeply thoughtful, these essays reveal how highly educated philosophers--working in the halls of dispassionate analysis--come to grips with their faith in a skeptical world. Together, they make a profound statement on contemporary spirituality, and the quandaries facing today's religious individual.]]> 304 Thomas V. Morris 0195101197 John 4
Kelly Clark's similar book, Philosophers Who Believe, should be read as a companion volume. These two books came out within a year of each other and we've never seen anything like them since. Get 'em both, and you'll find much both to bolster and refine your own faith and to encourage faith in your friends and family members. Don't be intimidated: These people write well--this is not a technical volume--and you'll be both educated and encouraged.]]> 3.76 1994 God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason (Oxford Paperbacks)
author: Thomas V. Morris
name: John
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/05/18
shelves:
review:
The best essays in this collection (my favourite is by Peter Van Inwagen) are five-star quality. Some others are really good, and there are a couple make me think editor Tom Morris requested contributions from friends and then couldn't think of a way not to include them. In general, though, this book is brimming with honesty, humour, and the kind of crystallized wisdom that comes as very smart people who reflect on big questions for a living reflect on some of the biggest questions in their own lives and careers.

Kelly Clark's similar book, Philosophers Who Believe, should be read as a companion volume. These two books came out within a year of each other and we've never seen anything like them since. Get 'em both, and you'll find much both to bolster and refine your own faith and to encourage faith in your friends and family members. Don't be intimidated: These people write well--this is not a technical volume--and you'll be both educated and encouraged.
]]> <![CDATA[Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life]]> 51874 224 Thomas V. Morris 080280652X John 5
Yes, there's C. S. Lewis. And then there's...well, not many.

The book now seems a little dated in a few of its references to popular culture. But the wit and wisdom have generally worn well, and there is plenty of them both on every page.

Tom Morris was a brilliant philosopher at the University of Notre Dame who left a tenured professorship to bring philosophy to business--and beyond (he is the author of Philosophy for Dummies, among other popular books). His quite extraordinary ability to render powerful ideas in a popular way shows up nowhere better than here.

If you're a Christian, you'll be the better for reading this book. And then you'll want to buy copies to give to your smart friends. And, as I say, there aren't many books like that.]]> 3.88 1992 Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life
author: Thomas V. Morris
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/05/18
shelves:
review:
This book is one of a very, very few books I put in a crucial category indeed: Christian books, written by well-qualified Christian intellectuals, that you could give to a non-Christian-and-non-academic-but-intelligent reader.

Yes, there's C. S. Lewis. And then there's...well, not many.

The book now seems a little dated in a few of its references to popular culture. But the wit and wisdom have generally worn well, and there is plenty of them both on every page.

Tom Morris was a brilliant philosopher at the University of Notre Dame who left a tenured professorship to bring philosophy to business--and beyond (he is the author of Philosophy for Dummies, among other popular books). His quite extraordinary ability to render powerful ideas in a popular way shows up nowhere better than here.

If you're a Christian, you'll be the better for reading this book. And then you'll want to buy copies to give to your smart friends. And, as I say, there aren't many books like that.
]]> A Realist Conception of Truth 1669359 288 William P. Alston 0801484103 John 4
William Alston powerfully defends truth in the commonsense version that goes back to Aristotle: to say of a thing that is that it is, and to say of what is not that it is not, is to tell the truth (Metaphysics). It is a sign of our epistemologically troubled time that a distinguished philosopher would have to write a whole book to defend a basic understanding of truth as "telling it like it is," so to speak, but he did and he did.

The book does take pains to deal with major philosophical opponents along the way, and that is necessary for guild-disputes and wearisome for the rest of us. But it is first-rate argumentation, and I don't really see how anyone can disagree with Alston who doesn't, indeed, insist that "man is the measure of all things" in a pretty radical sense.]]> 3.90 1996 A Realist Conception of Truth
author: William P. Alston
name: John
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/04/06
shelves:
review:
Those who contend that (a) propositions don't matter, but experiences/convictions/actions do; or (b) propositions matter, but only as they help us shape our environment according to our preferences; or (c) "truth" is inescapably and only a matter of communal or individual outlooks and interests need to wrestle with this book.

William Alston powerfully defends truth in the commonsense version that goes back to Aristotle: to say of a thing that is that it is, and to say of what is not that it is not, is to tell the truth (Metaphysics). It is a sign of our epistemologically troubled time that a distinguished philosopher would have to write a whole book to defend a basic understanding of truth as "telling it like it is," so to speak, but he did and he did.

The book does take pains to deal with major philosophical opponents along the way, and that is necessary for guild-disputes and wearisome for the rest of us. But it is first-rate argumentation, and I don't really see how anyone can disagree with Alston who doesn't, indeed, insist that "man is the measure of all things" in a pretty radical sense.
]]> Metaphors We Live By 34459 The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by", metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.

In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.]]> 276 George Lakoff 0226468011 John 3
I expect the book is more important than I can appreciate. (The authors certainly seem to think so!) It seems to me that they in fact are rather vague about their mediating position between naive objectivist realism and what they refer to as postmodern subjectivist skepticism, sometimes leaning pretty hard away from the former while insisting that they don't succumb to the latter. I'm sympathetic with that positioning (since I adopt it myself), but I don't see (yet) a clearly established position that amounts to anything more than a generic and implicit critical realism, despite their insistence that their views are not realist....

Anyhow, the opening chapters are the most crucial--and you'll never look at argument the same way, once they point out that "AN ARGUMENT IS A WAR" could be revised to "AN ARGUMENT IS A DANCE." I plan to apply that idea to my next faculty meeting.]]> 4.10 1980 Metaphors We Live By
author: George Lakoff
name: John
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1980
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/04/06
shelves:
review:
This book makes a crucial basic point: We can't help but think in metaphors and we live by the metaphors by which we think, and that's okay. It engages in a tremendous amount of definition, categorization, and exemplification that struck me, as a non-linguist, as overkill. Indeed, in the Afterword, the authors retract some of their earlier categorizations as excessive. And, frankly, the take-away for me was limited.

I expect the book is more important than I can appreciate. (The authors certainly seem to think so!) It seems to me that they in fact are rather vague about their mediating position between naive objectivist realism and what they refer to as postmodern subjectivist skepticism, sometimes leaning pretty hard away from the former while insisting that they don't succumb to the latter. I'm sympathetic with that positioning (since I adopt it myself), but I don't see (yet) a clearly established position that amounts to anything more than a generic and implicit critical realism, despite their insistence that their views are not realist....

Anyhow, the opening chapters are the most crucial--and you'll never look at argument the same way, once they point out that "AN ARGUMENT IS A WAR" could be revised to "AN ARGUMENT IS A DANCE." I plan to apply that idea to my next faculty meeting.
]]> <![CDATA[Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience]]> 338309 336 William P. Alston 0801481554 John 5
The late William Alston is one of the greatest Christian philosophers of the twentieth century and was recognized in the forefront of his guild (he was president of the American Philosophical Association in 1979) although he has been undeservedly neglected outside philosophy seminars.

This is his masterwork, a book he says he had been thinking about for fifty years (!) before writing it. Clearly written, not too technical for non-specialists in all but a few places, carefully argued, and boldly asserted, this book is a landmark in modern Christian thought.

Apologists and pastors definitely should try to read it, as should psychologists and other counselors as well as spiritual directors--anyone who is dealing seriously with claims of mystical experience.]]> 3.81 1991 Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience
author: William P. Alston
name: John
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/04/06
shelves:
review:
This is simply the best book ever written on a hugely important question: Can the claim that "I have perceived God" have any epistemological justification, or must others receive such a claim as simply a report of the testifier's state of mind? (As in, "How nice/awful for you.") To put this another way, do reports of mystical encounters, and particularly encounters with God, have any truth content to convey--again, beyond indicating something about the psychic excitement the reporters have experienced? Do mystical encounters, in short, give us knowledge and can we defend claims to such knowledge philosophically?

The late William Alston is one of the greatest Christian philosophers of the twentieth century and was recognized in the forefront of his guild (he was president of the American Philosophical Association in 1979) although he has been undeservedly neglected outside philosophy seminars.

This is his masterwork, a book he says he had been thinking about for fifty years (!) before writing it. Clearly written, not too technical for non-specialists in all but a few places, carefully argued, and boldly asserted, this book is a landmark in modern Christian thought.

Apologists and pastors definitely should try to read it, as should psychologists and other counselors as well as spiritual directors--anyone who is dealing seriously with claims of mystical experience.
]]> Sin: A History 6996909 272 Gary A. Anderson 0300149891 John 3
In concentrating on debt, Anderson helps us understand forgiveness and particularly the atonement (per Col. 2:14 especially). As a kind of appendix, Anderson shows that Anselm of Canterbury's explanation of Cur Deus Homo ("why God became human") is, contra Gustav Aulén and many others, rooted in the Bible, not just in early, Latin fathers and can therefore claim to be at least as "classical" as "Christus Victor"--which motif also gets additional context in this book.

Anderson does seem to give too much authority to Satan, even identifying him with death itself at times. He makes other little slips at times (or quotes others doing so without noticing), such as calling "Do not eat" the first commandment (cf. the cultural mandate in Genesis 1).

More importantly, he seems never to question the logic of supererogation, as if one can ever do more than God actually requires one to do. As a good Catholic (he holds a Notre Dame chair in Catholic theology), I can understand him defending it, but a critical scholar who is aware enough of the Protestant Reformation to take a couple of whacks at it along the way might have paused for at least a little consideration of the Protestant sense of vocation, a sense that disputes the very idea of "minimum requirements" of faithfulness that one can exceed by works of charity.

Still, there is much good scholarship and even some edification here, as one contemplates forgiveness as God forgoing his right to exact punishment from us but instead suffering in our stead. One can also ponder the many sayings not only of the rabbis but of the Bible as well that giving to the poor is like loaning to the Lord: one cannot possibly lose by such an investment, but instead will receive back from God a fabulous ROI.]]> 3.67 2009 Sin: A History
author: Gary A. Anderson
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/03/25
shelves:
review:
Professor Anderson here connects the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures with both rabbinical and early Christian writing--including, unusually, Syriac writing--to exposit some of the Bible's understandings of sin. While he several times avers that the Old Testament's main metaphor for sin is a weight, he concentrates on what becomes in the NT and rabbinical writing the dominant metaphor, that of debt. (One wonders where are the frequent OT depictions of sin as "missing the mark" or "twisting out of shape," words and metaphors that never show up in this treatment.)

In concentrating on debt, Anderson helps us understand forgiveness and particularly the atonement (per Col. 2:14 especially). As a kind of appendix, Anderson shows that Anselm of Canterbury's explanation of Cur Deus Homo ("why God became human") is, contra Gustav Aulén and many others, rooted in the Bible, not just in early, Latin fathers and can therefore claim to be at least as "classical" as "Christus Victor"--which motif also gets additional context in this book.

Anderson does seem to give too much authority to Satan, even identifying him with death itself at times. He makes other little slips at times (or quotes others doing so without noticing), such as calling "Do not eat" the first commandment (cf. the cultural mandate in Genesis 1).

More importantly, he seems never to question the logic of supererogation, as if one can ever do more than God actually requires one to do. As a good Catholic (he holds a Notre Dame chair in Catholic theology), I can understand him defending it, but a critical scholar who is aware enough of the Protestant Reformation to take a couple of whacks at it along the way might have paused for at least a little consideration of the Protestant sense of vocation, a sense that disputes the very idea of "minimum requirements" of faithfulness that one can exceed by works of charity.

Still, there is much good scholarship and even some edification here, as one contemplates forgiveness as God forgoing his right to exact punishment from us but instead suffering in our stead. One can also ponder the many sayings not only of the rabbis but of the Bible as well that giving to the poor is like loaning to the Lord: one cannot possibly lose by such an investment, but instead will receive back from God a fabulous ROI.
]]> <![CDATA[Reason within the Bounds of Religion]]> 798629 163 Nicholas Wolterstorff 0802816045 John 5
Occasionally, the book is not as clear as it might be. I even think there is a key terminological problem (note 32 speaks of "data beliefs," but I think Nick meant "data-background beliefs" there). The second edition includes a Part Two that I think is well intentioned but both conceptually and practically muddled: How in the world is the Christian scholar supposed to decide between pure research and praxis-oriented research on the basis of this discussion--the provision of guidance for which is its purpose?

Nonetheless, this is one of my "Top 10 Lifetime Books" and one of the few I have re-read several times. It is packed with wisdom and insight, and serves also as a useful introduction to the Wolterstorff oeuvre, of which I am a lifelong fan.]]> 3.85 1976 Reason within the Bounds of Religion
author: Nicholas Wolterstorff
name: John
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1976
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/03/21
shelves:
review:
This little book came at a crucial time for me. Recommended by my thesis advisor, Mark Noll, 'way back in the early 1980s (in its first, smaller edition), it rearranged my epistemological architecture like no other book has. A pretty naive realist before, I became a critical realist instantly upon reading this persuasive, dense essay in "anti-foundationalism" (although I'm pretty sure Wolterstorff doesn't use the term "critical realism" anywhere in the book). Indeed, I became a postmodernist in that respect (ditto for "pomo" terms).

Occasionally, the book is not as clear as it might be. I even think there is a key terminological problem (note 32 speaks of "data beliefs," but I think Nick meant "data-background beliefs" there). The second edition includes a Part Two that I think is well intentioned but both conceptually and practically muddled: How in the world is the Christian scholar supposed to decide between pure research and praxis-oriented research on the basis of this discussion--the provision of guidance for which is its purpose?

Nonetheless, this is one of my "Top 10 Lifetime Books" and one of the few I have re-read several times. It is packed with wisdom and insight, and serves also as a useful introduction to the Wolterstorff oeuvre, of which I am a lifelong fan.
]]> <![CDATA[God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?]]> 1648212 192 John C. Lennox 0745953034 John 4
1. He has read widely, and offers an impressive range of quotations from people on various sides of the question, including some of the most eminent scientists of our time. The book is worth reading and owning merely for this wealth of citations.

2. He generally argues well: carefully, clearly, modestly. Once in a while, yes, he allows himself a quip, and not always does he make his point thereby (e.g., referring to Dawkins as having "blind faith" on p. 17).

3. He introduces a much wider range of argumentation than is typically found in "science and religion" books, especially at this middle level.

From time to time, to be sure, his argumentation fails, particularly when he ventures into philosophical territory (e.g., he strays into "possible worlds" theory without the benefit of understanding clearly "essences" and "identity," calling absurd what actually can't obtain; p. 76). My margins include a couple of dozen annotations, in fact, in which I correct or clarify what I think are shortcomings of argumentation or expression.

Nonetheless, the book generally is extraordinarily erudite, powerful, and helpful to anyone seriously engaged in this controversy. Only die-hard, fingers-in-their-ears Dawkinsians can fail to see its merits, so it's a book you can recommend to almost anyone to read--with the proviso that they are reasonably well read, as Lennox does write to a university-educated audience.]]> 4.23 2002 God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?
author: John C. Lennox
name: John
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/03/21
shelves:
review:
Lennox here offers a variety of resources for those interested in the current debates over science and religion.

1. He has read widely, and offers an impressive range of quotations from people on various sides of the question, including some of the most eminent scientists of our time. The book is worth reading and owning merely for this wealth of citations.

2. He generally argues well: carefully, clearly, modestly. Once in a while, yes, he allows himself a quip, and not always does he make his point thereby (e.g., referring to Dawkins as having "blind faith" on p. 17).

3. He introduces a much wider range of argumentation than is typically found in "science and religion" books, especially at this middle level.

From time to time, to be sure, his argumentation fails, particularly when he ventures into philosophical territory (e.g., he strays into "possible worlds" theory without the benefit of understanding clearly "essences" and "identity," calling absurd what actually can't obtain; p. 76). My margins include a couple of dozen annotations, in fact, in which I correct or clarify what I think are shortcomings of argumentation or expression.

Nonetheless, the book generally is extraordinarily erudite, powerful, and helpful to anyone seriously engaged in this controversy. Only die-hard, fingers-in-their-ears Dawkinsians can fail to see its merits, so it's a book you can recommend to almost anyone to read--with the proviso that they are reasonably well read, as Lennox does write to a university-educated audience.
]]> <![CDATA[Seven Days that Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis & Science]]> 11156400 192 John C. Lennox 0310494605 John 4
This book runs into trouble chiefly on the problem of (natural) evil, particularly on the problem of animal pain, both before the Fall and afterward. Whence animal pain? If Satan is somehow to be blamed (and Lennox is open to an explanation involving the devil), then we now have a second conundrum, namely, Satan's position in the cosmos under God's Providence. Is Satan "the prince of this world" by exile or by us handing the world of which we are to be lords over to him? If he is already lord, then what is our role vis-Ă -vis his? And how could God call such a world, ruled by Satan and full of animal pain, "very good" at the end of the Genesis 1 creation account? The theologico-chronological problems here are serious.

They are serious, however, for everyone tackling these questions these days. The state of the art on this question is, frankly, that orthodox theologians generally have not agreed on a reconciliation of what we think we know about paleontology (including a long record of apparent animal suffering and death before the emergence of human beings) with what we think we know about the Fall and its consequences for the rest of creation.

Lennox also gets into some theological difficulties elsewhere--on the Trinity, on an anthropocentric construal of "the ends for which God created the world," and one or two other spots--but, again, he has good company there in the history of Christian reflection.

These caveats notwithstanding, however, Lennox sets an admirable standard indeed for apologetics. His writing brims with interesting information and argumentation, and his tone is just right: confident, but also humble; assertive, but also receptive; adversarial at times, but collegial throughout. This book, along with others of his on similar themes (such as "God's Undertaker") are exactly what Christians need to respond to Dawkins and Hawking and the other not-so-New Atheists, but also, and more importantly, to the honest questions every thoughtful and informed person--including Christian persons--asks about God and the natural world.]]> 4.10 2011 Seven Days that Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis & Science
author: John C. Lennox
name: John
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/24
shelves:
review:
John Lennox is among the world's leading apologists, in my view, because he combines several admirable qualities: he is a bona fide expert on a relevant discipline (although mathematics is about as far away from most of the things he talks about as an apologist as one would want to be, since math at his level is as much art form as it is a science of discovery); he communicates clearly and at the right level for his audience; he has read widely in sources that matter (including a remarkable number of sources in the history of Christian thought); he generally exercises good sense about what does and doesn't count as a good argument, whether on his side or on his opponents'; and he seems to play fair, without special pleading or other manipulative rhetoric.

This book runs into trouble chiefly on the problem of (natural) evil, particularly on the problem of animal pain, both before the Fall and afterward. Whence animal pain? If Satan is somehow to be blamed (and Lennox is open to an explanation involving the devil), then we now have a second conundrum, namely, Satan's position in the cosmos under God's Providence. Is Satan "the prince of this world" by exile or by us handing the world of which we are to be lords over to him? If he is already lord, then what is our role vis-Ă -vis his? And how could God call such a world, ruled by Satan and full of animal pain, "very good" at the end of the Genesis 1 creation account? The theologico-chronological problems here are serious.

They are serious, however, for everyone tackling these questions these days. The state of the art on this question is, frankly, that orthodox theologians generally have not agreed on a reconciliation of what we think we know about paleontology (including a long record of apparent animal suffering and death before the emergence of human beings) with what we think we know about the Fall and its consequences for the rest of creation.

Lennox also gets into some theological difficulties elsewhere--on the Trinity, on an anthropocentric construal of "the ends for which God created the world," and one or two other spots--but, again, he has good company there in the history of Christian reflection.

These caveats notwithstanding, however, Lennox sets an admirable standard indeed for apologetics. His writing brims with interesting information and argumentation, and his tone is just right: confident, but also humble; assertive, but also receptive; adversarial at times, but collegial throughout. This book, along with others of his on similar themes (such as "God's Undertaker") are exactly what Christians need to respond to Dawkins and Hawking and the other not-so-New Atheists, but also, and more importantly, to the honest questions every thoughtful and informed person--including Christian persons--asks about God and the natural world.
]]> <![CDATA[Interactive Excellence: Defining and Developing New Standards for the 21st Century (Library of Contemporary Thought)]]> 1029884 "The audience for everything has grown in size, and the number of experiences to watch has grown even more rapidly. These two factors mean that the nature of the audience must change. When that occurs, our current standards of excellence need to be rethought and redefined. New standards our grandparents could not have imagined need to be developed. . . ."
--from Interactive ExcellenceĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý

INTERACTIVE EXCELLENCE
Defining and Developing New Standards for the Twenty-first Century

"Gertrude Stein said that 'great art is irritation.' Mosquitoes irritate us, as do certain sounds and images. But does that make fingernails dragging across a blackboard art? Hardly. If something awakens us, moves us, transforms us, makes us feel and think in a new way, makes itself a part of us, that is a measure of greatness. Great art is what challenges us to see ourselves and each other more clearly. Great art makes us understand our relationship to the world we are in. Sometimes to change how we think we must look from a new perspective. Irritation makes us move away from our comfortable way of looking--and our comfortable way of creating art. A movie like The Graduate or a book like The Grapes of Wrath stimulates us--irritates us, in a way--to become part of a conversation, with others and within ourselves, about who, how, why, where, and when we are. . . ."]]> 112 Edwin Schlossberg 0345423712 John 2
It reads like a not-very-good TED talk: lots of breezy generalizations, intriguing factoids, inspiring exhortations, and a few actual instances from the author's experience as a museum planner (the best parts, not incidentally).

A book, however, about excellence ought to define "excellence," and this one doesn't. Schlossberg seems unable to choose between excellence as "really good, whatever it is" or as "going beyond the norm, the average."

There have been cultural moments, yes, when appeal up and down the classes could coincide with artistic excellence. Schlossberg himself adduces Shakespeare. The jazz greats of the 1940s and 1950s also had wide popular appeal while performing works of enduring artistic merit. Some argue that television drama and comedy today is the best it has ever been. But why have these situations obtained? Are they instructive, or just wondrous? Ought we to emulate them, or just hope that pop culture can be a good version of itself while high culture goes its own, innovative, and challenging way? Schlossberg can't seem to get this question into focus, and so never faces it squarely but rather equivocates whenever "excellence" is mentioned.

One has to decide what "excellence" means in order to promote it, and, alas, Schlossberg's little book seems like nothing so much as an extended infomercial for interactive museums--which, yes, is his primary business. And a subtitle that promises help in "defining and development new standards" ought to actually begin to . . . define and develop standards, rather than just hope they will somehow emerge as more people try to educate more other people and in that interaction new standards of excellence will emerge. (I know this sounds like I'm maliciously oversimplifying, but I honestly don't think the book's message gets much beyond this level of vapidity.)]]> 3.33 1998 Interactive Excellence: Defining and Developing New Standards for the 21st Century (Library of Contemporary Thought)
author: Edwin Schlossberg
name: John
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1998
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2013/02/17
shelves:
review:
This is a pretty disappointing book, even taking into account that I'm reading a book wrestling with cutting-edge issues of the time published in 1998.

It reads like a not-very-good TED talk: lots of breezy generalizations, intriguing factoids, inspiring exhortations, and a few actual instances from the author's experience as a museum planner (the best parts, not incidentally).

A book, however, about excellence ought to define "excellence," and this one doesn't. Schlossberg seems unable to choose between excellence as "really good, whatever it is" or as "going beyond the norm, the average."

There have been cultural moments, yes, when appeal up and down the classes could coincide with artistic excellence. Schlossberg himself adduces Shakespeare. The jazz greats of the 1940s and 1950s also had wide popular appeal while performing works of enduring artistic merit. Some argue that television drama and comedy today is the best it has ever been. But why have these situations obtained? Are they instructive, or just wondrous? Ought we to emulate them, or just hope that pop culture can be a good version of itself while high culture goes its own, innovative, and challenging way? Schlossberg can't seem to get this question into focus, and so never faces it squarely but rather equivocates whenever "excellence" is mentioned.

One has to decide what "excellence" means in order to promote it, and, alas, Schlossberg's little book seems like nothing so much as an extended infomercial for interactive museums--which, yes, is his primary business. And a subtitle that promises help in "defining and development new standards" ought to actually begin to . . . define and develop standards, rather than just hope they will somehow emerge as more people try to educate more other people and in that interaction new standards of excellence will emerge. (I know this sounds like I'm maliciously oversimplifying, but I honestly don't think the book's message gets much beyond this level of vapidity.)
]]> <![CDATA[Feminist Epistemologies (Thinking Gender)]]> 477960 Feminist Epistemologies brings together original essays exploring the intersections of gender and knowledge. The contributors probe the difference gender makes by reframing old questions and looking through a feminist lens at such new questions as: Who is the subject of knowledge? How does the social position of the knower affect the production of knowledge? And what is the connection between knowledge and politics? Until now, the term "feminist epistemology" has typically been used to denote women's ways of knowing, women's experiences, and the critique of specific theories about women. This book inaugurates a field of study at the intersection of feminist philosophy and epistemology "proper."

Contributors:
Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Linda Alcoff, Susan Babbitt, Lorraine Code, Vrinda Dalmiya, Elizabeth Grosz, Sandra Harding, Helen Longino, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Bat Ami Bar On, Elizabeth Potter.]]> 312 Linda MartĂ­n Alcoff 041590451X John 4
If you're new to the idea, let alone the discourse, of feminist epistemology, this is an excellent place to start.]]> 4.09 1992 Feminist Epistemologies (Thinking Gender)
author: Linda MartĂ­n Alcoff
name: John
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/16
shelves:
review:
I have found this an immensely suggestive book, collecting as it does essays from both prominent and rising figures in feminist philosophy of knowledge--albeit from about two decades ago. I am struck by how little impact feminist thought, even of this high and generally temperate quality, has had on evangelical theology, to the shame of my guild.

If you're new to the idea, let alone the discourse, of feminist epistemology, this is an excellent place to start.
]]> <![CDATA[Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home]]> 180731
Coming to prayer is like coming home, Foster says. "Nothing feels more right, more like what we are created to be and to do. Yet at the same time we are confronted with great mysteries. Who hasn't struggled with the puzzle of unanswered prayer? Who hasn't wondered how a finite person can commune with the infinite Creator of the universe? Who hasn't questioned whether prayer isn't merely psychological manipulation after all? We do our best, of course, to answer these knotty questions but when all is said and done, there is a sense in which these mysteries remain unanswered and unanswerable . . . At such times we must learn to become comfortable with the mystery."

Foster shows how prayer can move us inward into personal transformation, upward toward intimacy with God, and outward to minister to others. He leads us beyond questions to a deeper understanding and practice of prayer, bringing us closer to God, to ourselves, and to our community.]]> 275 Richard J. Foster 0060628464 John 5
Foster is a reliable guide, not least because he has the knack of saying, just when he's drawing me out of my comfort zone, "Now, you might be feeling uncomfortable about this, so...." He speaks as a contemporary North American to a contemporary North American and draws me into prayer, including modes of prayer that are neither natural nor even initially attractive to me. I can trust him to take me to places I want to go--in a way that I frankly don't trust some of the odder guides to prayer I have encountered (yes, I mean you, Catherine of Siena, bless your extravagant heart).

Prayer is much more than what any single book can offer, of course, and I can appreciate why some will bounce off this book as too technique-oriented, too plain-spoken, too much the contemporary North American handbook.

But if, like me from time to time, you need a good contemporary North American handbook, this one gets my top vote.]]> 4.14 1992 Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home
author: Richard J. Foster
name: John
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/02/16
shelves:
review:
Because of my training in the history of Christianity, I have been privileged to be introduced to many of the mystical or devotional classics, from Julian to Tozer, from Bonaventure to Hilton, from the Jesus Prayer monk to Brother Lawrence. My knowledge is hardly encyclopedic, but I say this in order to offer a context for what will strike some as a startling judgment: The single most helpful book for me to actually pray is this one, and it's one of the very few books I have worked through more than once.

Foster is a reliable guide, not least because he has the knack of saying, just when he's drawing me out of my comfort zone, "Now, you might be feeling uncomfortable about this, so...." He speaks as a contemporary North American to a contemporary North American and draws me into prayer, including modes of prayer that are neither natural nor even initially attractive to me. I can trust him to take me to places I want to go--in a way that I frankly don't trust some of the odder guides to prayer I have encountered (yes, I mean you, Catherine of Siena, bless your extravagant heart).

Prayer is much more than what any single book can offer, of course, and I can appreciate why some will bounce off this book as too technique-oriented, too plain-spoken, too much the contemporary North American handbook.

But if, like me from time to time, you need a good contemporary North American handbook, this one gets my top vote.
]]> Errata: An Examined Life 477925 Ěý]]> 214 George Steiner 0300080956 John 4
In particular, I would like much more information about how he decided on the work he did, how he chose to do this instead of that, and how he sees his career vis-Ă -vis the world of the academy and the world of middle-/highbrow journalism he has desultorily inhabited along the way. Has he succeeded? At what? And how does he define and measure success?

Lots of provocative, quotable stuff here: a terrific bedside, Sunday-afternoon book.]]> 4.12 1997 Errata: An Examined Life
author: George Steiner
name: John
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/15
shelves:
review:
I've read Steiner mostly via his books, not so much the New Yorker stuff (although I look forward to reading the collection of his essays from that magazine). Steiner is more accessible here in some ways than he is in his more theoretical work, but also occasionally tantalizing here more than elucidating or convincing--and when he has a whole book in which to stretch out, I wish he hadn't left quite so much hanging in the air.

In particular, I would like much more information about how he decided on the work he did, how he chose to do this instead of that, and how he sees his career vis-Ă -vis the world of the academy and the world of middle-/highbrow journalism he has desultorily inhabited along the way. Has he succeeded? At what? And how does he define and measure success?

Lots of provocative, quotable stuff here: a terrific bedside, Sunday-afternoon book.
]]> The Future of Christianity 15063418 240 David Martin 1409406695 John 5
I've reviewed the book for The Christian Century (May 2012) and have reproduced that review today on my own weblog:

For now, I'll simply say that this is a book that not only enlightens, it dazzles; it not only informs, it reforms. One of the best books I've read since...the last book of David's I read.]]> 4.17 2011 The Future of Christianity
author: David Martin
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/02/15
shelves:
review:
This is another collection of essays by the incomparable David Martin, the world's leading sociologist of religion. (Sorry, Peter Berger; sorry, Robert Wuthnow; sorry, Christian Smith--I admire you guys immensely, but DM is tops in my book!)

I've reviewed the book for The Christian Century (May 2012) and have reproduced that review today on my own weblog:

For now, I'll simply say that this is a book that not only enlightens, it dazzles; it not only informs, it reforms. One of the best books I've read since...the last book of David's I read.
]]> <![CDATA[Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change]]> 2795713 368 Paul G. Hiebert 0801027055 John 4
Best read fast and slow, since the quality of research, writing, and reflection varies more than in most books, it's well worthwhile for those considering questions of apologetics, evangelism, missionary training, epistemology, preaching, Christian education, and any other Christian occupation in which communication is key.]]> 4.03 2008 Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change
author: Paul G. Hiebert
name: John
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves:
review:
Showing the occasional signs of its provenance as a posthumous work edited by several others, taken from lecture notes as well as publication-quality work, this book nonetheless offers a wealth of heuristics for conceiving how people of different outlooks can understand and communicate with each other. Aimed at his fellow evangelical Christians, it is a book that cannot fail to sophisticate (further) anyone who reads it, short of another anthropologically inclined missiologist such as Hiebert himself.

Best read fast and slow, since the quality of research, writing, and reflection varies more than in most books, it's well worthwhile for those considering questions of apologetics, evangelism, missionary training, epistemology, preaching, Christian education, and any other Christian occupation in which communication is key.
]]> <![CDATA[The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith]]> 769972 288 Andrew F. Walls 1570750599 John 4
There is the usual overlapping of content and phrasing endemic to books of this sort, but not to worry: Walls never lingers long over anything and instead tends to hurry onward to the next interesting thing he has to offer. If you haven't encountered him before, this is an excellent introduction to both his main messages and to his bracing, provocative style.]]> 3.97 1996 The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith
author: Andrew F. Walls
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves:
review:
This is what happens when a first-rate mind and passionate heart submit to the discipline of secular university strictures and sensibilities: superb scholarship, penetrating insight, startling revisions, and even the occasional practical and devotional insight (albeit judiciously rendered). He clearly feels no pressure to please any ecclesiastical or ideological masters: that's what tenure in a fine university is for, and Walls uses it gloriously.

There is the usual overlapping of content and phrasing endemic to books of this sort, but not to worry: Walls never lingers long over anything and instead tends to hurry onward to the next interesting thing he has to offer. If you haven't encountered him before, this is an excellent introduction to both his main messages and to his bracing, provocative style.
]]> Thinking, Fast and Slow 11468377 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.]]> 499 Daniel Kahneman 0374275637 John 4 4.17 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves:
review:
Occasionally concepts, phrases, even whole ideas surface briefly but then submerge again without adequate explanation and integration with the whole. Otherwise, though, this is a fascinating, sobering, empowering book chock-full of both counter-intuitive information and applicable insight.
]]> <![CDATA[God and the Crisis of Freedom: Biblical and Contemporary Perspectives]]> 271809 224 Richard Bauckham 0664224792 John 4 4.33 2002 God and the Crisis of Freedom: Biblical and Contemporary Perspectives
author: Richard Bauckham
name: John
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves:
review:
Collection of excellent essays--the one on authority and tradition is especially helpful as a survey + reflections. Bauckham is a superb scholar, widely versed in a range of theological disciplines, connected with contemporary issues, always worth reading and heeding.
]]>