books

Feb 26, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: a compendium

I’ve been finishing books faster than I’ve been able to blog about them… so here’s a catch-up post.

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser

Schlosser’s book alternates chapters between telling the story of an accident at a nuclear missile site in Damascus, Arkansas, and telling the history of the development of nuclear weapons, with a focus on the accidents and risks involved. Though it’s not his point, one can quickly conclude that it’s only by the grace of God we haven’t had a major nuclear incident in the past 70 years. A fairly thick volume, but quite readable.

*Deadly Assets (Badge of Honor, #12) by W.E.B. Griffin

Ah, W.E.B. Griffin, falling into the ‘hey, they keep giving me money when the books have my name on them’ trap. A decade ago his books were still involved and engaging; today the plot lines are thin and the margins are wide. Remind me not to bother the next time I see one of his volumes on the library shelf.

The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity by Pedro G. Ferreira

A fun, popular-level overview of the study of General Relativity from Einstein to the present. I finished this on an airplane earlier this week and any sense of nerdiness I might’ve had from the topic quickly slipped away as the guy in the seat next to me was reading some treatise on string theory. Nevertheless, a good survey of the topic.

A reminder that current events can make even recent books seem a bit out of date: the chapter on gravity waves talked about LIGO but was still in the “maybe someday” stage about actual detection of gravity waves… which LIGO announced earlier this month.

Water to Wine: Some of My Story by Brian Zahnd

Brian Zahnd is a beautiful conundrum of a pastor and writer. Got fired up for Jesus as a kid in the 70s, planted and led a Pentecostal church. In this book he tells, as he says, some of his story as he hit a mid-life crisis of sorts, asked himself “is this all there is to Christianity?” and then had his eyes opened to a broader, deeper, richer view of the faith.

This is a guy who on one hand sounds like a mystic - he tells here of God speaking to him through dreams where he met with and got messages from Abraham, Mother Teresa, and Karl Barth - but in the next breath is championing formal liturgy, weekly Eucharist, and use of the Book of Common Prayer. He loves the land of Israel and can speak of it in great detail, but doesn’t hold to the dispensational eschatology that traditionally accompanies that love.

Regardless, his sermons have been a great encouragement to me over the past couple years. This book rehearses familiar themes from his messages, but that’s not a bad thing.

Feb 17, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

I picked this one off the New Books shelf at the library and was intrigued enough to borrow it. The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord is a gentle sci-fi story focused on culture exploration in the same vein of the later books of Orson Scott Card’s Ender series or some of the works of Ursula K. LeGuin. The cover blurb is a little bit misleading:

A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression…

Well, yeah… that happens on the first page. The remainder of the story is a more subtle story about relationships being built between different cultures. It was an enjoyable read.

Feb 10, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: Sisters In Law by Linda Hirshman

I’ve been interested in the Supreme Court ever since high school, so when I saw this one on the library shelf, I didn’t hesitate in picking it up. Last year I read a book about Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice on the Supreme Court; this year I learn about the first two women to serve on that bench.

Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World is giving away a bit of its bias even in the title. It’s a very nice history of these two groundbreaking women. It fascinated me to learn more about their backstories to add color to the faces you usually only see in stern portraits staring out from above black judicial robes.

It was interesting to learn about Ginsburg’s path to the court and how it paralleled Thurgood Marshall’s in many ways. Marshall was a tireless advocate for the African American cause as a lawyer before the Court before becoming a member; Ginsburg similarly championed the cause of equal rights for women. These backstories help remind us that even though the news stories about Court justices usually focus only on very recent legal opinions, appointment to the highest bench comes as the culmination of a long, brilliant legal career. These are impressive women with wonderful stories.

Author Hirshman is hardly a neutral observer here; she cheerleads for O’Connor and Ginsburg all through the volume. It’s tolerable until the last few chapters, at which point she speaks so critically and dismissively of conservative justice Samuel Alito that I nearly decided to put the book down. The opening bulk of the book, though, made it worthwhile.

Feb 8, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald

I’ll be honest here: I’ve never been a big Bob Dylan fan. I like a few of his songs, but have somehow never managed to get into him as an artist. (I’ll keep trying.) Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald is a short history of the American folk music scene in the early 1960s, leading up to that night in 1964 when Dylan brought an electric guitar on stage at the Newport Folk Festival and shook up the folk music scene for good.

Dylan Goes Electric is very readable, and does a nice job of filling in the musical history of the era for people like me who have heard the names Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and the like, but know very little about most of them.

Nothing too deep or too profound, but a nice snapshot of a particular short era in American folk and popular music.

Feb 8, 2016 ∞

Brian Zahnd on Silence and avoiding angry noise

Brian Zahnd, from a January 29, 2016 message titled “Silence”:

The church is not a special interest group that has to make its demands known. We don’t have to fight for our rights. That is the exact opposite of the Jesus way. The church is the new temple that is sustained by the Spirit and by lives of faith, and the church can afford to be quiet and trust because it is not dependent on anything other than the Holy Spirit. The church doesn’t have to make things happen. It can simply be that part of the world living under the peaceable reign of Christ. In fact I would highly advocate we reduce the hyperbole when we talk about ‘changing the world’. That just wears me out. ‘Change the world’? Wow, who do you think I am? I think I am far more content just to say ‘let us be that part of the world that has been changed by Christ.’ Instead of changing the world, let’s just be the part of the world that is changed. And think that maybe people might notice a difference and say ‘I like that world of Christ better!’ For if there is no marked distinction between the world and us then what would be the point anyway? That’s when ‘changing the world’ becomes a euphemism for ‘getting my way’. Christ doesn’t call His church to go into the world and get its way; Christ calls His church to simply be His people in the midst of the world and living presently under the peaceable reign of Christ. So in a world that must surely be growing weary of the endless noise of ideological anger, the church is to be a haven of quietness and trust, a quiet refuge of peace, even at times an oasis of silence. The sound of the church is the sound of mustard seeds growing, and of bread rising, of lost children coming home, and what noise there is a joyful noise, not an angry noise.

I love it. Really looking forward to attending Brian’s prayer conference in April.

Feb 4, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber

This one was kinda hidden in those photos I posted yesterday. But after wading through Heim I was ready for a shorter, easy read, and Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber was just the ticket.

It’s more of Nadia at her best, telling stories about her little parish in Denver and how she has experienced God at work in her life.

Nadia is a polarizing figure. Sure, you may have concerns about her attitude, language, and bits of her theology. Regardless, every time I hear or read her, I come away wishing that my faith, embrace of the Gospel, and walk with Jesus looked a little more like hers. That’s enough for me.

Feb 3, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: Saved From Sacrifice by S. Mark Heim

I don’t remember when this book came onto my radar, but it was already on my Amazon wishlist when my friend Daniel’s recommendation pushed it to the top of that list.

Saved From Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross by S. Mark Heim is a long-ish volume that rather thoroughly summarizes the arguments for the ‘scapegoat’ theory of the atonement as proposed by René Girard. My knowledge of atonement theories has been relatively limited up to this point; aside from knowing “penal substitionary atonement” (PSA) (and remembering a Desiring God pastor’s conference where Mark Driscoll declared it one of the fundamental truths of the faith that was a hill to die on), I’ve not dug into any. So Saved by Sacrifice was an eye-opening entry into a differing view of Christ’s death.

As an aside, here’s my summary of the condensed Wikipedia summary of Girard’s position:

it is humankind, not God, who has need for various forms of atoning violence. Humans are driven by desire for that which another has or wants. This desire increases to a point where society is at risk; it is at this point that the scapegoat mechanism is triggered. This is the point where one person is singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the group. This person is the scapegoat. Social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual, and the cycle begins again. The keyword here is “content”. Scapegoating serves as a psychological relief for a group of people. Girard contends that this is what happened in the narrative of Jesus. The difference between the scapegoating of Jesus and others, Girard believes, is that in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, he is shown to be an innocent victim; humanity is thus made aware of its violent tendencies and the cycle is broken.

I also quoted a paragraph from Heim’s book in a previous blog post that was a key bit of explanation in helping me get my head around the idea.

Heim spends a good chunk at the beginning of the book explaining the theory and how representations of Jesus' death from the very early church might support this scapegoat perspective. He then overviews how the scapegoat theory fits into readings of other books - including a really interesting perspective on Job - and then ties things up by addressing the key PSA texts (think Romans 3 - 5 and most of Hebrews) and how they might be read from a scapegoating perspective.

I’d definitely recommend this one as worthwhile reading if the topic is of interest. It was thick, but not dense - a very helpful read.

Jan 31, 2016 ∞

By resurrection Jesus is cleared of the scapegoat charges against him...

By resurrection Jesus is cleared of the scapegoat charges against him. But the resurrection also acquits those who scapegoated him. While they certainly committed the crime and are certainly guilty, it is also incontestable that the one they are charged with killing is alive. They can be declared not guilty of Jesus' death by the fact that Jesus is not dead. The prosecution cannot proceed in this capital case without a dead body, and the tomb is empty. What the resurrection presents in court is a living person, what [Markus] Barth calls “the evidence of the raised victim.” It is thus righteous of God to account the accused not guilty, or justified by resurrection. Of course, the risen Christ could justly press for retribution against those who had wronged him, even if they did not succeed in silencing him permanently. But this, which is his right, is also his right to decline. And Christ does so, becoming instead an advocate for sinners.

-- S. Mark Heim, Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross, Kindle location 1980

I got this book for Christmas and am finally getting the chance to dig into it. This is my first trip into the Girardian scapegoating theory of the atonement, and it’s quite a ride.

Jan 14, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: The Type B Manager by Victor Lipman

Being a recently new manager at work, and having a definite Type B personality, I saw The Type B Manager on the shelf and thought, hey, why not?

Now, books on management, in general, are a tough sell for me. After a lifetime of reading thick engineering, physics, history, and theology, management books seem relatively thin books and mostly a collection of platitudes and “well, duh” principles. But in an attempt to become a good manager, I keep giving them a try.

The Type B Manager was an exemplary specimen of this sort of thin platitude. Even in trying to address Type B personalities, the book tends to describe the management challenge, what a Type A manager would do, and then how a Type B manager might handle it differently - a strategy that made the Type B personality seem like the poorer option.

Maybe I just need to give up management books in general and spend more time reading Rands instead.

Jan 14, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I didn’t get as much read on this business trip as I’d thought I might - French schedules have you eating dinner late with little time left for recreational reading before bed - but I did manage to finish All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This novel, set in WWII, tells the parallel stories of a blind French girl and a German boy with a precocious engineering streak.

It’s a beautifully told story, capturing a smaller slice of life than you often get from a World War II novel. The intersections between the two main characters become clear by about half-way through the book, and I spent the rest of the time hoping against hope that the ending would be satisfactory. It was.

All the Light We Cannot See won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and while I haven’t read that much 2014/2015 fiction yet, I can understand why this one took the prize. Highly recommended.

Jan 8, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: How to Watch a Movie by David Thomson

I picked up David Thomson’s How to Watch a Movie on a whim from my local library shelf knowing nothing about it or Thomson. You can’t really call me a movie buff - I just don’t have time to watch many movies - but I really enjoy watching them when I get the chance, and I love listening to smart people talk about movies. (The Filmspotting podcast has been at the top of my must-listen list for at least the past 5 years.)

So for my interest in movies, I haven’t (to my recollection) read any books about them.

And, (spoiler alert?) if you’re in my shoes, I wouldn’t recommend this one.

Maybe it’s brilliant and I just need to read 10 other books to get ready for it, but I don’t think so. In 200 pages Thomson talks about different aspects of film-making and film-watching and manages to come across as a pompous snob. I pushed on through because it was short and I wasn’t ready to start my “nope” list on Goodreads quite yet.

So, I need to find some better books on film. Which jogs my memory - the Filmspotting guys did an episode recently where they listed their top 5 film books. Guess I should’ve paid more attention. Maybe I’ll give it another listen.

Jan 6, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: Hackers by Steven Levy

I hadn’t heard of this one prior to listening to an Incomparable podcast episode last year - for the life of me I can’t figure out which one - but it stocked my Amazon wish list with several tech history books, which my mother-in-law then generously gave me for Christmas.

In Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Levy tells the story of software hackers who for the most part aren’t household names. Sure, there are quick mentions of Jobs, Wozniak, and Gates, but there are a dozen others you’ve never heard of who are similarly fascinating.

Levy talks quite a bit about the hacker ethos and principles that were pervasive from the early 1960s until, well, business and money got significantly involved in the late 1970s. It was a fun read for me since I recognize my own potential to become one of these heads-down, computer-obsessed hackers who barely notices when the sun rises or sets. (A course I have thankfully avoided thus far… for which my wife is both thankful and probably largely responsible.)

Yes, I’m shamelessly picking up John Halton’s habit of blogging reading progress this year, if for no other reason than it gives me 60+ additional posts a year… and maybe give a reader a good recommendation for a book to read. (Or to stay away from!)

Jan 2, 2016 ∞

My 2015 Reading Year in Review

2015 was another enjoyable year of reading for me, and with books tracked as usual on Goodreads, here’s a short summary:

Total books read: 62. That’s less than last year, but more than each of the three years before that. Fairly average for me.

Fiction/non-fiction: 36 / 26.

Fiction:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter #6) (Rowling, J.K.) re-read w/ the kids
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter #7) (Rowling, J.K.) re-read w/ the kids
Kristin Lavransdatter (Kristin Lavransdatter, #1-3) (Undset, Sigrid) Epic. Long. Mostly worth it.
Station Eleven (Mandel, Emily St. John) excellent
Spark (Hawks, John Twelve)
Empire (The Chronicles of the Invaders, #2) (Connolly, John)
Satin Island (McCarthy, Tom)
City of Savages (Kelly, Lee)
The Great Zoo of China (Reilly, Matthew)
Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1) (Follett, Ken)
Winter of the World (The Century Trilogy #2) (Follett, Ken)
Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy, #3) (Follett, Ken)
No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7) (Taylor, Brad)
Mightier Than the Sword (The Clifton Chronicles, #5) (Archer, Jeffrey)
Seveneves (Stephenson, Neal)
The Goblin Emperor (Addison, Katherine) an unanticipated favorite
Tin Men (Golden, Christopher)
Iron Wolf (Brown, Dale)
Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (Singer, P.W.)
The Three-Body Problem (Three-Body, #1) (Cixin, Liu)
The Dark Forest (Three-Body, #2) (Cixin, Liu) dense but really enjoyable sci-fi
The Martian (Weir, Andy) fine but don’t buy all the hype
The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) (Rothfuss, Patrick)
Invasion of Privacy (Reich, Christopher)
The Water Knife (Bacigalupi, Paolo)
The Library at Mount Char (Hawkins, Scott)
The Governor’s Wife: A novel (Harvey, Michael)
My Struggle: Book 1 (Knausgård, Karl Ove) strangely fascinating
Without Remorse (John Clark, #1) (Clancy, Tom) re-read for the first time in 20 years
Neverwhere (Gaiman, Neil)
Zero World (Hough, Jason M.)
Tenacity: A Thriller (Law, J.S.)
Dark Corners (Rendell, Ruth)
Werewolf Cop (Klavan, Andrew)
Saturn Run (Sandford, John)

Non-Fiction:

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (Fukuyama, Francis)
Alan Turing: The Enigma (Hodges, Andrew)
Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (Armstrong, Karen)
Words Without Music: A Memoir (Glass, Philip)
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Lewis, Michael)
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Mann, Charles C.)
Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics (Halpern, Paul)
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Weiner, Tim)
Between the World and Me (Coates, Ta-Nehisi) deserves every accolade it gets
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir (Bryson, Bill)
Leaders Ought to Know: 11 Ground Rules for Common Sense Leadership (Hooser, Phillip Van)
Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America (Haygood, Will)
The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams (Zaleski, Philip) a good warts-and-all history of the Inklings.
The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities (Breyer, Stephen G.)
Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers (Winchester, Simon)
The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics (Swaim, Barton)
Alexander Hamilton (Chernow, Ron) Because Hamilton, obviously.
Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Volf, Miroslav)
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Palmer, Parker J.)
The Lion’s World: A journey into the heart of Narnia (Williams, Rowan)
Secondhand Jesus: Trading Rumors of God for a Firsthand Faith (Packiam, Glenn)
Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Smith, James K.A.)
Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (Rohr, Richard)
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Rohr, Richard)
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (Rohr, Richard)
Malestrom: Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing World (James, Carolyn Custis)
Spiritual Friendship (Hill, Wesley) Worth reading, and then reading again.

Worked on, but didn’t finish yet:

Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Wright, N.T.) I’m about half-way through volume one. Slow going.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Won the “buy it for Dad for Christmas” award: Desiring the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith.
I’m honestly surprised by how little theology I read this year. Seems like a lot less than previous years. Guess maybe I was ready for a break.
Size of my unread book pile at the moment: embarrassingly large. Got 4 new books for Christmas. Added them to the pile. It’s possible that by spring I’ll need to go on another “no books from the library until the pile goes down” pledge. We’ll see.

Do you have any recommendations for 2016 reading?

Jan 1, 2016 ∞

Finished reading: Saturn Run

So here’s an idea: a sci-fi novel written by somebody who can actually write, with the physics and science worked out by a real nerd sidekick. That’s what you get from [Saturn Run](Saturn Run https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399176950/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_DzGHwbJ7YSH4D) by novelist John Sanford with help from sci-if nerd Ctein. Saturn Run is the book The Martian wishes it could be if Andy Weir had a talent for prose. Great way to wind up my year of reading.

May 18, 2015 ∞

Formation of the Heart

I’m working my way through Jamie Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, and he is driving home the point that it’s not just our minds that need formed, but our hearts. He argues that humans are not, at a base level, thinkers, but lovers. As such, Christians need to be concerned not just with education, but with formation of our practices and desires. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later, but this quote stuck out today:

Unfortunately, the church often adopts a … misguided strategy: while the mall, Victoria’s Secret, and Jerry Bruckheimer are grabbing hold of our gut (kardia) by means of our body and its senses - in stories and images, sights and sound, and commercial versions of “smells and bells” - the church’s response is oddly rationalist.

It plunks us down in a “worship” service, the culmination of which is a forty-five-minute didactic sermon, a sort of holy lecture, trying to convince us of the dangers by implanting doctrines and beliefs in our minds.

While the mall paradoxically appreciates that we are liturgical, desiring animals, the (Protestant) church still tends to see us as Cartesian minds. While secular liturgies are after our hearts through our bodies, the church thinks it only has to get into our heads. While Victoria’s Secret is fanning a flame in our kardia, the church is trucking water to our minds. While secular liturgies are enticing us with affective images of a good life, the church is trying to convince us otherwise by depositing ideas.

Hmmmmm…

Jan 1, 2015 ∞

My 2014 reading in review

Well, with 2014 in the books it’s time for my annual little review of my reading. This was a busy reading year for me - 74 books equals the most I’ve read in a year since I started logging my reading back in 2007.

My fiction/non-fiction split was pretty heavily weighted in the non-fiction direction - 45 non to 29 fiction. That non-fiction was pretty well distributed, too, still a lot of theology, but a good bit of history, biography, and economics. (And economics was more than just Piketty. Go me!)

The full list is on Goodreads but here are some of the highlights:

The Best

The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson

This is a beautifully-written memoir by a much beloved pastor and author. Peterson tells stories from his years of ministry, emphasizing the call to a simple, faithful pastoral ministry. (Such a breath of fresh air in the days of celebrity megachurch pastors!) This was the volume I gave away as Christmas gifts this year. Really good.

From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism by Darren Dochuk

A detailed history of the roots of American Evangelicalism, from the Oklahoma radio evangelists of the 1930s, through the migration to Southern California, through the rise of Billy Graham, and all the way to the Moral Majority of Jerry Fallwell. Dochuk’s history is quite readable and fascinating for a guy like me who grew up in evangelicalism but didn’t really know its roots.

The Anglican Way: A Guidebook by Fr. Thomas Mackenzie

I chipped in on the Kickstarter campaign for this book back in 2013, and boy was it ever worth it. Thomas, pastor at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, wrote an introduction to Anglicanism for those Christians who may not be familiar with the tradition. Fr. Thomas: almost thou persuadest me to become an Anglican.

The Rook: A Novel by Daniel O’Malley

This was my last book of the year, so hopefully I’m not just biased because it’s fresh in my memory. This was a great read, though, if you’re into the sort of supernatural spy mystery/thriller sort of thing. Funny, moves quick, keeps things interesting. Looking forward to the second book in the series sometime next year.

That’s Not All

In addition to those titles I also gave five star ratings to some classics that I re-read (several of the Harry Potter novels, read out loud with the family) or read for the first time (To Kill A Mockingbird was a notable gap in my experience.)

A vast majority of the books I read this year garnered either four or five stars. I hope this is because I did a better job of not wasting my time on books that never captured my interest. The (100 pages - your age) formula has been effective this year. If, 60-ish pages in I’m not engaged and enjoying the read, I’m not going to feel compelled to keep reading it.

Up Next

I still have a pile (though not as sizable as it once was) next to my bed that will keep my reading well into 2015. Most likely I will be reading:

Prayer by Tim Keller. (It’s Keller. Duh.)
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Unset. (A historical novel written in the early 1920s by a Norwegian author who won the Nobel Prize for literature. Obscure but highly recommended by those in the know.)
Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris. The next volume of his Theodore Roosevelt biography. The last one was excellent.
Paul and the Faithfulness of God by N. T. Wright. I got this one for Christmas last year and didn’t get very far. I think I’m ready to give it a go here sometime soon.
Lila by Marilynne Robinson. Her follow-up to the excellent Gilead.

Happy 2015, everybody!

Oct 29, 2014 ∞

Yeah, I only gave Augustine''s "Confessions" 4 stars

I went on a quick business trip this week which gave me several hours of airplane time to do some reading. I finished up both Confessions by St. Augustine (a foundational bit of Christian theology from a millenium ago) and The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence by John Sanders (a rather dense defense of open theism from not too many years ago).

I read a lot, and being the nerd that I am, I keep a log of my reading over on Goodreads. And when you add a book to your shelves on Goodreads, it prompts you to rate the book, using a 1 - 5 star rating system. Being the nerd that I am, I can’t not rate them. And so as I add the books to my “read” shelf and to the shelf for the current year, I also give them a star rating, and those star ratings are automatically tweeted on my Twitter account.

So, back to this week. Not only did I finish both Confessions and The God Who Risks, but I gave them both 4 stars. Having the temerity to even assign a star rating to St. Augustine got me a bit of good-natured flack on Twitter. So I figured it was time (for my own sake, at least) to explain how I assign star ratings. (To the 3 of you who want to continue reading past this point: seek professional help.)

Whether I’m rating fiction or non-fiction, I tend to value similar traits in a book: well-written prose; an engaging topic; a coherent plot or argument; an appropriate length. I’ve gotten choosier over the years and more willing to give up on lame books. (It’s getting harder and harder to find fiction that’s worth my time.) When I’m reading non-fiction, and particularly theology, my rating isn’t based at all on the relative importance of the work in history (I’m actually not well-qualified to judge that) or whether I agree with the position being argued. I will base my rating, though, on how even-handed the author was in argument, how well I felt like the case was made, and how well the book kept my interest. I also like to reserve 5-star ratings for books that are really top-notch, can’t-beat-em volumes. The ones that make a significant impact on me, that I want to read again or buy copies for other people.

So, Augustine got 4 stars for Confessions. The translation I read (downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg) was a little big of a slog, but significant chunks of it were (in my untrained opinion) quite brilliant, and kept me thinking. Definitely glad I read it. Quite certain I don’t have the seminary education I’d need to understand how it molds the next thousand years of Christian thought.

But Sanders also gets 4 stars for The God Who Risks. It’s also a bit of a slog. (At one point in the text he refers back to an earlier section in the book by its section number, something like 3.4.6.2-5. That’s some serious outlining going on.) Still, Sanders makes a reasonable argument for openness and I felt like he dealt fairly with the topic and opposing viewpoints. I don’t know that I completely agree with him, but I’m glad I read the book and gained a better understanding of that perspective of the topic.

Mid-way through writing this post I went and counted up the number of 5-star reviews I’ve given on Goodreads. Of 530-ish books I’ve read, I’ve given 5 stars to about 70. (That’s more than I would’ve thought if you’d asked me.) I’ve given 5 stars to more non-fiction than fiction; some history and biography, a lot of theology, and a bunch of classic fiction. Upon reflection, does Augustine deserve 5 stars for Confessions? Yeah, probably. Maybe I should go do a re-read and see if I have a better appreciation for it after another go-round. On the other hand, maybe if I’m allowing myself the cheekiness of assigning reviews at all I shouldn’t be ashamed of just assigning scores as I see them.

In the end, I’m glad to have that list of books and the associated ratings, if only to look back and remember some favorites, help me recommend books to others, and to find some re-reads. And, I suppose, because I’m a nerd. Somethings never change.

Sep 25, 2014 ∞

Assorted recommended reading

I haven’t had a lot of original thoughts to share in long-form here on the blog lately, but I can pass along some links that are good recommended reading:

Scandal and Madam Secretary: A Tale of Two Political Dramas - In days when it’s hard to not be cynical about anything remotely political, I really appreciated Alissa Wilkinson’s attitude toward the new show Madam Secretary. It reminded me what it means to “hope all things”.
Disorderly (mis)Conduct: The Problem with ‘Contempt of Cop’ Arrests (PDF) by Christy E. Lopez. Ms. Lopez apparently now works for the DOJ and is part of the federal Ferguson investigation. A good piece documenting issues with the ‘contempt of cop’ arrests and making recommendations for making improvements.
Justice then Reconciliation - Austin Channing Brown bringing the truth. “Reconciliation is what we practice after we have chosen justice.” Powerful.
College Girls: Education, Imago Dei, and the Gospel - Hannah Anderson bringing truth on why we educate both boys and girls: “We educate girls and women for the same reason we educate boys and men. We educate our daughters because they are made in God’s image. Full. Stop.” Bravo.
How does the iOS 8 Time-lapse feature work? - Just so I’m not linking to all political and theological heaviness, here’s some nerdiness to go along with it. Apple came up with a fiendishly clever and simple way to do the time-lapse video thing. Really neat.

So yeah, there’s some recommended reading. Enough for now, I’m going to bed.

Sep 18, 2014 ∞

I'm still reading...

So, what have I been up to reading-wise? I don’t know that any of you were actually asking yourselves that, but I’m going to answer anyway.

I really enjoyed Richard Beck’s Unclean.
I read the first chapter of Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy and found it slow-going stylistically. I’ve heard so many folks say so much good about it I’ll keep at it and see if it gets better, though.
I started O’Donavan’s Resurrection and Moral Order and wow, it’s dense. That’s not necessarily bad, but wow. Of course, maybe I should’ve taken the hint when Alistair Roberts told me that you had best read it slowly.
I read a quick WEB Griffin novel and a short popular history.

Business trip again next week so maybe I’ll get some more substantive reading done.

As an aside: I mentioned a discussion this week with a couple of co-workers that I’ve logged and rated every book I’ve read over the past 8 years. They looked at me like I was nuts. I trust you, dear reader, won’t judge me near so harshly.

The book pile:

Surprised by Scripture, NT Wright
Merton: A Biography, Monica Furlong
Meditative Prayer, Thomas Merton
Resurrection and Moral Order, Oliver O’Donavan
Paul and the Faithfulness of God, NT Wright
A Severe Mercy, Shelden Vanauken
From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, Darren Dochuk
Parables of Judgment, Robert Capon
Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris
Evangelical Theology, Karl Barth
Confessions of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton
The Wounded Healer, Henri J. M. Nouwen
The Monster in the Hollows, Andrew Peterson

Books I’ve started but not yet finished:

The Kingdom of Christ, Russell Moore
Jesus Manifesto, Frank Viola & Leonard Sweet
The Fiddler’s Green, A. S. Peterson

Books I wanna re-read:

The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, David Dark
When I Was a Child I Read Books, Marilynne Robinson
Between Noon and Three, Robert Capon

Unread on my Kindle:

Barefoot Church: Serving the Least in a Consumer Culture, Brandon Hatmaker
Center Church, Tim Keller
The Pastor: A Memoir, Eugene Peterson
Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity, Frank Viola
Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis, Robert Edsel
Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality, Richard Beck
Why Holiness Matters: We’ve Lost Our Way–But We Can Find it Again, Tyler Braun

Sep 8, 2014 ∞

Argument is offered to justify the felt judgment...

I’ve finally been catching up with Richard Beck’s Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality and I’m finding it fascinating. Beck is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University and his work usually sits at the intersection of faith topics and psychological study.

In Unclean he looks at the psychology of purity and disgust and how Christianity interacts with those built-in reactions (such as disgust) and how they shape our attitude toward sin and toward others. I’m only about 20% of the way in so far, but this paragraph caught my eye:

These dynamics [feelings leading to reasons, rather than vice versa] make conversations about God inherently difficult because our experience of the divine is being regulated by emotion rather than logic, affect rather than theology. I think people in churches have always known this, and felt that people in conflict within the church were generally talking past each other. One reason for this is now clear. Very often, arguments and the warrants found within them are secondary to the felt experience. Argument is offered to justify the felt judgment of the sacred or profane. And as self-justifications these arguments often fail as acts of persuasion or forms of consensus-building.

I’m looking forward to reading more.