Mr Shields: I'm a reader not a fighter

I am not a huge fan of apologetics.  So is is a bit odd that I picked this book to read and review.  I am not trying to be disingenuous, but rather I hoped that the focus would be on the subtitle “Living the Faith We Defend“.  But this book still started with some of the assumptions that I dislike about the general field of apologetics.  In the introduction Ravi Zacharais tries to introduce the purpose, but only succeeds in marginalizing an important part the the audience.   He asserts that we are “fashioned by God to be thinking and emotional creatues.  The emotions should follow reason, and not the other way around.”  But it is unclear to me why he would start with that assumption.  Aren’t some drawn to God because of emotional issues?  And some drawn by intellectual issues?  The correct response would seem to be to address those with emotional issues with emotional responce and those with intellettual issues with an intellectual response.  But as Zacharias points out just a few pages later, the intellectual issues may hide a deeper emotional issue or vise versa.  A complete person is made up of both emotion and intellect, it is not possible, or even desirable, to separate the two.  Christianity should encourage a view humans as complete, not broken pieces.

The second issue I have with apologetics is that most of the time it minimizes the actual issues that it brings up or does not actually present the questions fairly.  Just pages into the first chapter, Amy Orr-Ewing tries to dismiss Foucault’s isssues with knowledge and power by just asserting that if Foucault really believed his own ideas then he should have just kept quiet so he would not assert his power over anyone.  This completely misses Foucault’s point.  He was not asserting that we should not have ideas so that we do not assert power, but that the very act of having an idea is a form of power.  We as Christians believe this.  That is the root of apologetics.  We believe that the words and ideas of scripture, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, can change people.  The ability to change someone with an idea is the very definition of power.

It continues on so that by page 10, the author has tried to show that we can find the objective historical truth of long distant events, that we can know the permanent significant idea of words and that she has solved the problems of the cannon and many gnostic gospels.  Of course I am being a bit facetious here.  But thoughtful Christian philosophers have spent entire careers dealing with just parts of one of these ideas.  Of course a book like this cannot adequately deal with all the ramifications of these ideas.  But a book like this that attempts to use “real integrity” (as it says it is doing) should admit that there really are issue to be dealt with and 10 pages is barely enough space to introduced them, let alone adequately address them.

All I have done at this point is finish the first chapter.  Each chapter is written by a different member of Ravi Zaharias International Ministries or people that have taught with them.  According to the back cover, Ravi Zacharias decided that this book needed to be written when he “was…sharing his faith with a Hindu when the man asked: “If the Christian faith is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?” The question hit hard, and this book is an answer.  Its purpose is to equip Christians everywhere to simultaneously defend the faith and be transformed by it into people of compassion.”  I hope that is really what the rest of the book is about.

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Beyond Opinion was provided by the publisher for the purpose of review.  The book will be given away when I have finished the review.

I started Humanitarian Jesus immediately after Jesus Manifesto (my review).  In most ways, Humanitarian Jesus was exactly what Jesus Manifesto should have been.  The first section of the book focused on a theology of Christ and ministry.  This is a practical, theology of how to maintain a focus on Christ and at the same time balance the need for evangelism and ministry.   

One good example of the good theology, and practical working out of issues is the fine line that is maintained on evangelism.

“Evangelism is not just sharing the gospel of salvation.  And evangelism is not just meeting needs…Evangelism is allowing Christ to so live in and through us that who we are, what we do and what we say is the very expression of who he is…Christ did not meet needs and live among the people just so he would have the chance to evangelize.  He met needs and lived among the dying because that was part of the truth of the gospel…We should meet needs because it is part of who Christ was and if we are in Christ it should be part of who we are.”

The authors walk a narrow line.  They define evangelism as both “who we are and what we do” and “a message the requires a response.”  They are pushing back against people that want to only view evangelism as a written or spoken message, or those that want to define evangelism as only action.  Evangelism is both action and word, done in conjunction.

The second section is just as important to the project.  Section two is completely focused on interviews of people that are attempting to balance evangelism and social action (or ministry or social justice.)  Also important is that those being interviewed will not agree on terminology, or the way that things work out or the theology of why they are doing what they are doing.  But that is part of the conversation.

This is not a perfect book.  I would have chosen a few different interviews.  Still too much focused on the White Guy.  But  overall this is a much better book than several others I have read on similar topics lately.

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This book was provided by christianaudio.com for purposes of review.

This is the second of Scott Nicolson’s books I have read (my review of Skull Ring).  The Red Church is a similarly creepy book.

The story centers around a red church that has been abandoned.  The rural community says it is haunted by the ghost of a preacher that was hung by his congregation for heresy.  Because this is static rural community parts of the family of both the preacher and his community are still here about six generations later.  The main character is a 11 year old boy.  The story is told from the view point of a variety of characters, but his family are the main narrators.  His mom, is a member of the cult.  His father has saved her from the cult one time in the past.  There is also a sub-plot with the Sheriff that that has experience with the Ghost of the original pastor.

The heresy is unique (at least to me.)  The preacher said that Jesus was the older of two sons and failed to redeem the world, so God allowed his younger son to come to Earth to redeem what was messed up by Jesus.

Like many cults there is a distortion of Christian faith by the community that continued on the original preacher’s legacy.  The sacrifice of Jesus is seen as insufficient and the body and blood of the Eucharist are taken as a literal need for body and blood.  (Early Christians were often thought to be cannibals because those around the church, but not actually in the church heard the language of the Eucharist, but did not participate in it.)  There is also a central idea of sacrifice (like Abraham sacrificing Issac.)

Like I said with Skull Ring, I have not read a lot of horror genre.  But I enjoyed the writing and the voice of the book.  My internal discussion around the book really centered around the horror genre.  I have read Dracula and a variety of Vampire books.  Those do not seem “dangerous” for lack of a better word to the Christian faith.  But this book was directly discussing heresy.  And like many vampire books, the Christian faith discussed in this book was real and very present.  In many ways, it was more present than in some Christian fiction books.  There is power in the Christian faith and in Jesus that is not of the “self-help” variety. (That is also true of virtually all of the vampire books I have read.)  First, I would not consider this a Christian Fiction book.  The Red Church assumes Christianity is real, but does not really discuss it.  Most Christian Fiction can get preachy and is often overtly “evangelistic” (the main character has to get saved or save someone.)  Red Church is not in that type of Christian Fiction.  Now if you just have to assume that Christianity is real to be classified as Christian Fiction, then this would be Christian fiction, but then so would many other books, like virtually all classic Russian novels or most novels written before 1800.

I need to read some more horror genre books to really explore the ideas that this brings up for me.

This was a good book, with good writing, good characters and a creepy feel (different type of creepy from Skull Ring).  The Skull Ring was a psychological thriller.  The main character in Skull Ring was being treated for paranoia.  Nicholson does a great job showing her fear and still making it so that you are not sure whether it is just paranoia or someone really is trying to get her.

The Red Church you know something is happening, there is a question about whether what is happening is supernatural at the beginning of the book, but after about half you know who the bad guy is.  The creepiness is from the result and what is going to happen, not the psychological questions.

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Disclosure: An electronic copy of this book was provided free for the purposes of review.

Like many Evangelicals I have been a fan of Bonhoeffer’s writing for many years.  I have read Cost of Discipleship, Life Together and the two collections Letters and Papers from Prison and Love Letters from Cell 92.  More than the rest the Love Letters book really made him a real person, and not just writer.  A couple years ago I also saw Bonhoeffer, a great film documentary (streamable on netflix) that did a great job introducing Bonhoeffer, but none of these comes anywhere close to the depth that Eric Metaxas’ new biography has.

This biography was a whole new view of Bonhoeffer.  I knew he was a great theologian.  I knew he served as a pastor and underground seminary leader, I knew he had written some of the most challenging works of the 20th century, I knew he was executed days before the end of World War II.  I did not understand the extent of his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler, or how many attempts there were, or how long the planning went on.

I also did not know much he worked to keep a practical, pastoral focus to his theology, not just an academic focus.  He served as a pastor in Spain, London, and a variety of places in Germany.  This is in spite of the fact that many of his own family did not approve of theology, let alone being a pastor as a viable career choice.  His family was among the top rungs of intellectual society in Germany.  His brother worked with Albert Einstein before Einstein left Germany.  His father was among the most celebrated psychiatrist/neurologists in Germany (primarily as an academic study).

This is not a perfect biography.  There are some editing errors.  (Albert Einstein is referred to as Alfred.)  But more distracting are what I would call the “Dan Rather” style descriptions.  This is one of many, many examples, “The RSHA was led by the waxy lamprey Reinhard Heydrick, who worked directly under Himmler.”  Now I know what Metaxas meant, but I think the folksy descriptions detract from a very well research and otherwise very well written biography.

More than anything I think that Metaxas worked to keep Bonhoeffer out of the boxes that many people want to put him in.  Bonhoeffer was not simply an academic theologian, he was not simply against Hitler, he was much more than just a martyr or saint.  He was a man of God, that strived to do what he believed that God would have for him.  I highly recommend this biography.

Second Opinion from Christianity Today.

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Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher with the understanding that I would review the book here.  I gave the book away to a man on a plane that was very interested in Bonhoeffer.  He had been introduced to Bonhoeffer by a secular Jewish man that really liked the book Cost of Discipleship.

In many ways I am of the mind that this book probably did not need to be written.  It is not that I do not think that we pay enough attention to Christ.  But that I am not sure that another book about Christ and the problem of not paying attention to Christ really will change many minds and hearts.  The authors directly challenge me theologically at the beginning of the book.  And around the middle of the book there is a section on the narcissism of most Christianity.  They cite the top 100 Christian books in 2000, just 6 were about the bible, 4 were about Jesus, and 3 about Evangelism.   By their count, about half were about family and parenting and most of the rest were basically self-help.  They charge that we have made Christianity about “self discovery rather than God discovery.”  I honestly do not disagree with their point, rather I am not sure that thinking about how be be Christian as a parent, or as a spouse, etc., is not what Jesus wants us to do.  (And my guess is that other people could categorize the books differently.)

Sweet and Viola do not like the question, “What would Jesus do (WWJD)?  Because too often when people ask that they are really asking what would the Galilean man that lived 2000 years ago do.  The authors instead suggest that instead we should be asking, what would Jesus have us do, because he has placed us here and now as his personal representative.  The fear of the authors about the WWJD question is that the WWJD Jesus becomes a cause driven Jesus, a single dimension Jesus that neither reflects Jesus’ humanity and all the complexity that is reflected in Jesus’ humanity, or Jesus’ divinity and all the wisdom and holiness that is reflected in Jesus as God.

Another idea, that is probably more controversial, is about the greatness of Christ.  They deal with it in a particular way.  Instead of directly calling it “truth”, they talk about Christ as the “quintessential human”.  Jesus allows us to be more well rounded human beings.  We are not strait-jacketed into one way of being human, but because of Christ’s fullness (completeness) in his humanity we can become more by being the individuals that we were created to be.  And because Christ has an enormous range (or reach) in his humanness, Christ “allows one person to be a Calvinist while allowing another to be an Armenian.”  They sidestep a bit by saying most Armenians ”pray like Calvinists” and most Calvinists “live like Armenians”.

In the end, I appreciate the heart.  There are a lot of good quotes like, “The best we can do is change the world, only Jesus can save the world.”  And (this is a paraphrase) “Illusionary religious says fear not trust in God and he will see that none of the things that you fear will happen to you, but real religion says fear not the things you fear are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of.”

In spite of some really good quotes, the book as a whole felt pedantic.  It was as if the authors were telling us readers we believe wrong and as proof we authors are going to take scripture slightly out of context and take a lot of small social events to show a large theological deficit (a correlation not causation problem.)  For the most part I agree with the authors intent.  I think we need to spend more time focusing on Jesus.  The section on justice and mercy and on social justice was excellent.  But it felt like I was being beaten by the truth, not encouraged and edified by it.

Second Opinion:

Jeff Rhodes has an extremely positive review over at Englewood Review of Books (a great site if you want in depth reviews.)  Here is the first sentence, “Frank Viola and Len Sweet have combined their writing prowess to form one of the most powerful pieces of Christian literature of our generation”  Just goes on from there.

Tom Hypes has a much less positive review.

Disclosure: christianaudio.com provided me with a free audio copy of the book with the understanding that I would review the book on this blog and their site.  A positive review was not required or expected.

The Hole in our Gospel and related search strings are consistently one of the top books that bring people to this blog.

And Monday May, 31, 2010 is the last day that christianaudio.com is giving away the audio version free.

So I thought I would link to two blogs I trust for second opinions.  First here is my original review.

Joanna Muses is a great blog of music, musings and book reviews.  She reviewed the audio version of the book.

I am also linking to an interview with Richard Sterns in Christianity Today and a  review by Scot McKnight on the Jesus Creed Blog.

I posted a book review over at ChurchCrunch. Here is the start of the review:

Twitter is ubiquitous.  Now it is even a format for books ideas.  It seems odd, but as far as I can tell (in my very brief amount of searching) this is the first book made up mostly of a curated twitter stream.

I have read blog books, and journal books and letter based books, so the idea is not completely unique.  And I do not think it is likely to become widely used format.  140 characters is short, perfect for twitter, a bit too short for a book.

Catch the rest of the review at ChurchCrunch

The idea of Follow Me to Freedom is that in order to be a good leader, you first have to be a good follower (of Christ).  This book is an attempt to teach us about “followership” as Shane Claiborne puts it.

I listened to this on audiobook.  It is presented as a conversation format, alternating between Shane Claiborne and John Perkins.  I am a fan of both of these men.  They are not perfect in all that they do or have said, but they have lived out their lives attempting to follow God and doing the actual front line work that they call the rest of us to.  If you read me very often you know I like authors to read their own books, and the first 20 minutes of the book, the introduction, they do narrate, but then it changes to other narrators that just cannot match the personality that Claiborne and Perkins have.  They seem a bit too animated at times, and occationally animated at the wrong things.  Over time they grew on me, but I still wish that Perkins and Claiborne had read it themselves.  That being said I got used to the narrators by the end and thought they did a fine job, they just were Shane and John.

These are both very good teachers, well grounded both in scripture and on the ground work.  What they have to say is important and well thought out.  But if you have read a good selection of the authors’ other works, this may not be much new material.  I do find the combination of a young white radical and an older African American patriarch moving.  They do interact and I can imagine what they must really be like together and I wish I was there too.  Some of the editing of the audiobook is a little forced (especially with some of the jokes.)  But overall it is a great introduction to the theology of these two men.

This book is about learning how to follow Christ before trying to lead.  That is clearly something these two have attempted to do.  You can learn from them, pick up the book.

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Disclosure: This book was provided free for review from chistianaudio.com.  The book is also available in paperback for $10.19 from Amazon or on kindle for $7.99 or from christianaudio for $10.98

There are several books on virtue/character/ethics that have come out in the last couple months. I am currently reading NT Wright’s After You Believe and Tim Keller’s Prodigal God and a new biography on Bonhoeffer but Steve Chalke and Alan Mann’s book Different Eyes: The Art of Living Beautifully may be the best of the current crop. I have not finished the other books yet, so I am not ready to make a definitive statement, but I am far enough into both that I am leaning strongly in the direction of Chalke and Mann.

The point of these books seems to be overlapping: Christians often seem to have missed the point of their Christian-ness. It is not about the instance of our salvation, but about what we do in response to God’s grace that really makes a difference in the world around us and attracts others to God.

Different Eyes starts out discussing ways that Yahweh differenciated himself from other Gods as he presented himself to the Israelites. He was not like other Gods and that is slowly revealed throughout scripture. Chalke and Mann quote Aristotle, “Histroy deals with facts, story deals with truth.” They continue the thought by showing that “in ancient times, just like now, the primary teachers of morals were storytellers.”  So Chalke and Mann try to show God as a story teller more than a rule giver.

Jesus is shown, instead of giving rules and commands to an already rule bound society of Israel, told stories and gave illistrations to show “how to play jazz.”  It really is a good metaphor, jazz musicians understand music and music theory on a very deep level.  Jazz is not about the scales and what is written on the page, but an understanding of why what is on the page is on the page.  Once you know that, then you can start doing interpretation that makes sense and actually fulfills the purpose of the law, not just the letter of the law.

Both NT Wright’s After You Believe and Different Eyes use the example of Captain Sullenberger landing the plane in the Hudson River as an example of virtue.  Both books say that virtue does not appear, but is the result of long practice, so that when something occurs that requires virtue, a person does not make a decision and work through the consequences, but that it becomes more instinct. (Both books have been published within the past couple weeks, so they were not plagiarizing one another.)

There are several attempts at showing different sides of current debates (Just War, Use of Wealth/Capitalism, Homosexuality and Euthanasia.)  I thought these were fairly weak sections of the book because they really did seem to be written by average people.  The arguments (both pro and con) were not all that strong and could have used some more weight to them.

I think that NT Wright’s book will go much deeper into the subject of developing virtue and Bonhoeffer is not about trying to show how to think ethically, but instead is telling the story of a Christian that struggled through terrible ethical difficulties.  Overall, this is a great introduction to the idea of thinking ethically and really grappling with the ideas, not the just the easy “laws”.  It would be a good book for a small group to discuss or for a person that interested in Christian ethics.  It is not an upper level philosophy book and is very understandable and quite well written.

One section in particular on story is very well done and I going to give my copy to some youth workers that are trying to help students overcome some bad past histories.

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Disclosure: This book was provide free for the purposes of review.  I gave away my copy after the review was completed.

Being Green is fashionable. Being Anti-Green is almost as fashionable. Being reasonable about things, definitely not fashionable.
In Green Like God, Jonathan Merritt is attempting, from a fairly conservative theological and social position, to chart out how Christians should be responding to creation.

I think he starts with the right approach.  The first half of the book charts his own progress in becoming a Christian environmentalist.  The conversion seems to be primarily a theological one.  He tracks through the major biblical passages as well as his own life experience.

He has some interesting comments about the Genesis passages that some Christian anti-enviromentalist frequently cite.  For instance, the King James Version translates Genesis 1:28 as “have dominion over the earth.”  But Merritt argues that it should be translated as “rule over the earth”.  A subtle difference, but an important one in light of the Hebrew conception of rule.  A Hebrew king was to be unlike the kings of the other nations.  The Hebrew king was not the ultimate ruler, God was.  The Hebrew king was given limited authority, an authority based on stewardship, not dominion.  Reading Genesis 1:28 in context of the rest of scripture, we have a better understanding of the type of rule that humans should have.

Genesis 2:15 (The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it) is a charge that was not temporary before the fall, but was part of our purpose of creation.  The hebrew word for “put” in this verse means literally “to dedicate something in the presence of God.”  God is dedicating us as humans to the work of caring for creation.

This is not theological or social liberalism, but careful exposition of the text.  Merritt continue with the New Testament. He is careful to not put words into Jesus’ mouth.  Jesus does not explicitly talk a lot about environmentalism.  But the basic point that Merritt makes is important.  He quotes another author, “Because Christ took on flesh, we believe that matter matters.”  I think this is a point that is important.  Too many evangelicals are closet Gnostics.  They want to pretend that Jesus saves us from this world, instead of understanding that Christ came to redeem this world, not condemn it.  To avoid Gnostic thinking we need to remember that matter, the stuff that God created, is good.

Merritt is also clear about going too far.  ”Creation isn’t divine.  Only God is divine.  Creation is sacred and therefore worthy of respect.”  It is sacred because God made it, the same reason that we hold human life as sacred.  And Merritt is also careful of being too prescriptive.  This book is not a “Five Steps to Save the Planet” book.  It is really a book on discipleship.  The long, hard road of making little decisions and choices to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit and place God and others before ourselves.

This was a brief book.  I read it in a couple short hours.  And like many books, if we just read it and do not allow it to affect our life, then it is worthless.  Christian life is about change and this is one book that will change many for the better.

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Amazon link

Author blog

Disclosure:  An advance reader copy of this book was provided free for review.  The copy was given away.

If you want to learn about the variety of Prayer you should read Richad Foster’s Prayer.
If you want to motivation on why to prayer, especially as a pastor read EM Bounds.
If you want stories of how prayer makes a difference read Reese Howell: Intercessor.
If you want to see how prayer fits into spiritual disciplines overall read Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.
If you want a book on how to develop a life of prayer read A Praying Life.

Not all books on prayer are good.  But I have found that I can tell a lot about a book on prayer by just listening to the author talk about prayer.  Often in the first couple chapters I can get a good idea about whether the author is writing out of deep experience in prayer, or out of theory of prayer.  Prayer, more than almost any Christian discipline is learned through doing.  Maybe that is why so few books on prayer are written by anyone under 50.

There is a running illustration throughout A Praying Life (christianaudio link) of Paul Miller’s daughter.  He has several children and most of them seem to make an appearance.  But the main character is his daughter Kim.  She is autistic.  Miller both spends lots of time talking about praying for his daughter and talking about what he has learned from his daughter.  These illustrations provide some real depth, showing us that prayer is not about following steps, but following God.  They also show frustration in prayer, God’s slowness to answer and the need for perseverance.

The author starts with several assumptions that are important to the rest of his A Praying Life (Amazon link).  1) Prayer is about a relationship with God, not about the technique of prayer.  So to better pray, you should focus on God, not prayer.  2) Because relationship with God is the focus of prayer, prayer does not make us less busy people, but gives us a less busy heart.  When we focus on God, what God focuses on becomes our focus.  We may actually become more busy because we start seeing through God’s eyes.

“At root prayer is about dependence on God.  We often think that great Christians pray a lot, so we strive to be a great Christian.  But in reality great Christians are dependent on God, so they pray a lot.” (Paraphrase)  This is a subtle but important distinction.

There is an extended discussion about the problems of modern cynicism and how to overcome it.  I think for many Christians, this section is probably worth the price of the book.  Miller gently pries our fingers away from the ledge and moves us toward a healthier view of the world.  His final recommendation is grace.  We should give the world (and the church) the type of grace that God has given us.  We are fallen, the world and the church are fallen as well.

Ed Stetzer blogged/tweeted that “If we disciple through knowledge without action, we are training people to be puffed-up Gnostics.”  One of my struggles with reading is actually putting what I read into practice.  Not everything I read really needs to be put into practice.  But this book is on the short list of books that really need to be put into practice.  Like a few others, I have already purchased the kindle version and am scheduling a re-read in six months.

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Amazon Link

christianaudio Link

Disclosure: This book was provided free from christianaudio for purposes of review.

When I agreed to review this book I was specifically thinking of a friend that had asked me for a recommendation for a Chronological bible earlier this year.  I knew that such bibles existed but I had not read one.  So I was not really sure what to expect.  I knew this was not a bible, but a background book to be read along with the bible.

Once I received the Chronological Guide to the Bible I had a couple of concerns right off the bat.  First, I am concerned with the idea of a chronological bible.  Not because I do not think that background knowledge of scripture is important, because I do.  And not because I am concerned with changing around the order of scripture, because I am fine with that.  I am concerned because the concept of a Chronological bible tries to place a modern idea of history on scripture, which was not written as a modern history book.  I am pleased that throughout the book the authors repeatedly made the point that the bible was not history.  But the concept of bible as history is repeated even more.  The introduction has a very good background on why different decisions were made about the order.  But the summary on much of the decisions was that we have an educated idea, but then we have to guess.

My second concern is with the way this particular book is put together.  It is a very ADD format.  It is full color and is put together like a fancy magazine.  There are many, many short little articles to give background and history to the scripture that should be read along with the scripture.  I did not read along with scripture and my guess is that most others will not either.  I think much of the time it will be read more like an encyclopedia than a commentary.  The problem is that because of its structure you will probably randomly flip through it rather than move through it in a structured way, which defeats the purpose.

I have a kindle and I wonder why this could not be put together in a cleaner format, with a bible to be read straight through.  If formated for an ebook reader, you would not have to worry about the size of the book (a bible and the commentary in Chronological Guide would be fairly large.)    The benefit of this format is that it can be used with any bible.  As much of an inroad as ebook readers have made in the last couple years, they are still only about 3 to 5% of the book market.

Overall, this is probably a good idea to try once.  One year read through the bible Chronologically, but you can do that with a free online reading guide.  Summary review: go look at it in a book store.  And think about how you are going to use it before you buy it.

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Disclosure: This book was provided free for purposes of review.  It was passed on to a missionary friend that was looking for a Chronological Bible.