Category: Longform
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Finished reading: The Madame Curie Complex by Julie Des Jardins
Picked this one up from the library on a whim. The Madame Curie Complex is a relatively short volume covering the history of a dozen or so women scientists starting with the archetypal Marie Curie and running through the 20th century up to Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.
Des Jardins consistently hits the themes that these brilliant women were underappreciated, underpaid, and had uneven expectations levied on them - circumstances that continue for women across the workforce today. While each chapter provides a nice summary of each woman’s achievements, there’s not a compelling through line or narrative arc to the book to pull it together as a cohesive whole. Nevertheless, this is a good bit of history to read up on.
-- The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science
Stop Trying to be a Man - Start Trying to be a Good Man
Brad Williams with a fantastic piece on Christ and Pop Culture today, saying things that desperately need to be said:
Culture tells us that certain things are “manly” and certain things are “unmanly.” But we must take that with a grain of salt. Most of the time, those around us in the culture have no idea who or what they are — so taking our cues from them doesn’t make any sense. Down deep, many people are quite insecure about themselves, and so they stick to silly things like “pink is for girls” because they have no better way to define what it is to be masculine. As a good man, you must take note of these things. Such markers might be alright for immature boys, but a good man will feel some grief for adults who continue to define themselves so narrowly.
Back in 2001, John Eldredge wrote a book titled Wild at Heart. In it, he argued that every man’s desire is for “a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.” This does sound very romantic perhaps, but that’s all it is. After all, many women have these same desires — and some men may hardly desire such things at all. A good man does not have, in his heart, a grand desire for conquest. A good man’s heart desires only peace. A good man doesn’t desire war with his neighbor in order to take what isn’t his. The prophet Micah, when teaching of the day when God’s Kingdom would finally come to Earth, wrote, “they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4). A good man loves the peace of his own vineyard. He desires a time when there’s nothing out there to make anyone afraid. This doesn’t mean he’ll always live in peace because seeking peace can still lead to conflict, but peace should always be the end goal. Your dream of peace may lead you to a different place of contentment than a vineyard or a fig tree, but Micah’s verse reveals that a man’s proper goal is desiring the opposite of fighting battles.
Maybe the Christian manliness bro culture has dissipated a little bit since Mark Driscoll left the helm of Acts29 and Mars Hill, but it’s still far too prevalent. Williams provides a great corrective here that those bought into the “real manhood” circus.
-- Christ and Pop Culture: Stop Trying to Be a Man and Start Trying to Be a Good Man
Finished reading: Faithful Presence by David Fitch
I’ve kept up with David Fitch for a while now via his blog and twitter. Fitch is a professor of theology at Northern Seminary in suburban Chicago, and has led church plants that reflect his focus on community, mutual leadership and submission, and reconciliation. Faithful Presence seeks to capture those ideas in a short, practical volume for church leaders.
Fitch outlines three areas of presence that Christians should occupy: the “close circle” (presence with other Christians around the Lord’s Supper), the “dotted circle” (still a fellowship of believers, but open to non-believers, typically in the context of a believer’s home), and the “half circle” (extending Christian presence into the neighborhood).
He then spends short chapters on each of seven disciplines he outlines as critical to a faithful presence. They are:
- The Lord’s Table
- Reconciliation
- Proclaiming the Gospel
- Being with the “Least of These”
- Being with Children
- The Fivefold gifting (roles in church leadership)
- Kingdom Prayer
I really like Fitch’s focus on neighborhood and community presence; this is a welcome redirection from the big evangelical church as social hub. I found resonance there with an end note from Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints, where (if memory serves) she says essentially “do you want what we have? Don’t move here and come to my church - instead, start having a weekly dinner in your home with other believers, and let it grow from there.”
There’s a lot here to consider in an easy, small volume. Worth the read.
--
Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission
Jethani: Blessed Are The Disillusioned
Skye Jethani articulates in a piece today a lot of the frustrations I have felt and heard in recent months. Just a sample:
The tribe of the disillusioned is growing and the institutional containers we have inherited are struggling to hold us. The cracks are spreading. The containers are leaking. But we stay, for now, because we don’t know where to go. We don’t know who to follow. We don’t know where we belong. The disillusioned wonder—where are the voices that affirm traditional Christian marriage without condemning our neighbors who do not? The disillusioned wonder—where are the churches that focus more on loving people in the name of God than using people in the name of mission? The disillusioned wonder—where are the humble Christians that can discern the difference between a loss of privilege and real persecution?
I appreciate that he doesn’t just leave us in the wondering but gives us some encouragement for where to go from here. Worth reading.
Finished reading: several books
If I posted these individually when I finished the books, I’d have more frequent posts on the blog here… oh well.
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley An interesting little thriller / mystery about a man who survives a private plane crash. Not as thrilling or involved as it could be, but good basic entertainment. I hear that this guy is writing for the TV show Legion, which leads me to think I should maybe give it a try.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill I saw this one was a fantasy story that had won the Newbery, so I figured I’d give it a shot in hopes of finding something I could give my daughters to read. It’s a nice story, a little bit dark in places but with hopeful messages. It’s not as funny as a Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman story, and there’s a lot going on in it. I think my older two daughters would probably handle it OK, but at the moment I can’t manage to get either of them interested in it. Oh well.
A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians–from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between by Stuart Isacoff Picked this one up on a whim and enjoyed it. Basically it’s a short history not just of the development of the piano as an instrument but also of the composers and musicians who used it. My favorite part of reading books about music like this is that I’m always pointed to some new music. This time the bit of interest is Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, a cycle modeled after Bach’s. Now if only the sheet music wasn’t nearly $100…
We are from the future, embodying that in the here and now
One of my favorites, Brian Zahnd, talked recently on the Makers and Mystics podcast. I love this little bit of what he had to say about the church being “from the future”:
When I say I’m from the future, what I mean is that in baptism I have come to live under the reign and rule of Christ here and now. And I use an illustration: this is what the Church should be like. If you go to a movie, and you’re there to see, well, whatever you’re there to see, everybody knows that before the actual movie starts you have the previews. And what a preview is, is 2, 3, 4 minutes of a coming attraction. This movie is not here yet, but they’re going to show you enough of it that you get an idea of what it will be like. The church is to be a preview of the age to come. We’re not perfect, we don’t claim that. But we should be able - I don’t think we really can, for the most part - but we should be able to say to the wider culture, “look at our communities. This is where this thing is headed. This is what the reign of Christ actually looks like, because we are from the future, we are embodying that here and now.”
So good.
Finished Reading: The Day the Revolution Began by N. T. Wright
When the good Bishop N. T. Wright has a new book out it’s an automatic purchase for me at this point. And Wright does not disappoint with The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. Wright examines the meaning of Jesus’ death in his usual lucid style, with a focus on what understanding the first-century Christians would’ve had of that death.
Wright keys on Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15 that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”. This launches him on a review of the Old Testament idea of salvation and forgiveness of sins, and how for Israel “forgiveness of sins” was closely tied to the covenant promise of restoration from exile.
Wright then takes the reader through the various New Testament discussions of the meaning of the crucifixion to make the case that “salvation” isn’t really primarily about individual salvation (though individuals are saved), but is rather about the restoration and blessing of the whole earth through Israel in fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Abraham.
Wright, as usual, says some things that undoubtedly set some conservative theologians on edge. Notable among these is his contention that Jesus’ death isn’t really about some sort of penal substitution. That, says Wright, is still buying into a system of works righteousness - even if the works aren’t our works - that isn’t borne out in the Bible’s view of God’s love as shown in His covenant promises.
Wright makes the case that salvation is really about much more than we are led to believe. And while he acknowledges that theologians will typically provide a more nuanced view, he believes (and I agree) that at the lay level in evangelicalism, the understanding of salvation is very individual and transactional - people sin, which makes God angry, a price must be paid, Jesus pays that price to step in the way of God’s anger, people are saved to go to heaven. I don’t think that Wright would disagree with any of those statements… from a certain point of view. However, his picture of salvation is much wider and more appealing. It’s really worth a read and consideration.
This volume would be a nice companion piece to go alongside Surprised by Hope - which itself is still the volume I’d encourage people to read if they need an intro to Wright. Good stuff.
NTW on 'a central part of the Christian vocation'
[F]ollowers of Jesus have no choice. A central part of our vocation is, prayerfully and thoughtfully, to remind people with power, both official (government ministers) and unofficial (backstreet bullies), that there is a different way to be human. A true way. The Jesus way. This doesn’t mean “electing into office someone who shares our particular agenda”; that might or might not be appropriate. It means being prepared, whoever the current officials are, to do what Jesus did with Pontius Pilate: confront them with a different vision of kingdom, truth, and power.
-- N. T. Wright, The Day The Revolution Began, p. 401
Finished reading: a quick compendium
Because I’ve been lazy and not keeping up:
The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies - and What They Have Done to Us by David Thomson An extensive trip through the history of filmmaking. I’m interested in movies far more than I get the opportunity to watch them, so this was an interesting read and gives me lots of movie watching gaps to fill in.
City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York by Tyler Anbinder This came on the tail of visiting Manhattan for a week for work. A really fascinating read starting with the first white settlers in New York and carrying on through the late 20th century.
The Believer by Joakim Zander A thriller novel that hits a little too close to home, including a wanna-be jihadist and shady government forces at work.
Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson A time-travel novel in which the present day has a gate into one possible past, but only to a specific time the 1870s. More thoughtful than I anticipated.
Dune by Frank Herbert Caught up with a classic I’d never read. Really enjoyed it. Now I suppose I’ll get sucked into the whole series.
Another view of 'love of neighbor'
I was catching up on my backlog of On Being podcasts and came across a fascinating discussion with writer Alain de Botton. de Botton is an atheist, but provided a description of the idea of love of fellow citizen (in my words, “neighbor”) that was insightful to me.
MR. DE BOTTON: …I think you’re onto something huge and rather counterintuitive because we associate the word “love” with private life. We don’t associate it with life in the republic, with civil society. But I think that a functioning society requires two things that, again, just don’t sound very normal, but they require love and politeness. And by “love” I mean a capacity to enter imaginatively into the minds of people with whom you don’t immediately agree, and to look for the more charitable explanations for behavior which doesn’t appeal to you and which could seem plain wrong, not just to chuck them immediately in prison or to hold them up in front of a law court but to…
MS. TIPPETT: Or just tell them how stupid they are, right?
MR. DE BOTTON: Right. Exactly. We’re permanently — all sides are attempting to show how stupid every other side is. And the other thing, of course, is politeness, which is an attempt not necessarily to say everything, to understand that there is a role for private feelings, which if they were to emerge, would do damage to everyone concerned. But we’ve got this culture of kind of self-disclosure. And as I say, it spills out into politics as well. The same dynamic goes on of, like, “If I’m not telling you exactly what I think, then I may develop a twitch or an illness from not expunging my feelings.” To which I would say, “No, you’re not. You’re preserving the peace and the good nature of the republic, and it’s absolutely what you should be doing.”
I really like this definition of love of neighbor that way - to work to understand them by giving them the benefit of the doubt, to look for the most charitable explanation for their position. We as Christians could take that idea to heart.