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Chris​Hubbs​.com

Avionics engineer by day, tech and theology nerd by night.

reading

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    A couple recommended reads: Trusting your Heart, and Christianity as an MLM

    A couple posts came through my inbox while I was traveling the last few days which I want to pass on and feel like they have some parallels:

    Katelyn Beaty asks “What if you can trust your heart?"

    I have written before about evangelicals' love for playing the Jeremiah 17:9 card. This tactic is regularly used to push people into submission to their leaders' arguments even when their internal compass says something isn’t right. Beaty calls out this unease with feelings so prevalent in Reformed evangelicalism, and says we need to pay attention to our whole selves, our gut instinct as well as our rational thought.

    …I’ve only grown in the belief that our gut is always speaking and deserves to be listened to. “Gut intuition” is distinct from emotions more broadly. But both are pre-rational, something we feel in our bodies before we have the words to articulate them. And I wonder if that’s why a lot of the evangelical world has trouble honoring them: we’ve inherited a mind-body dualism that says that mind is good and the body is bad. And, of course, that the body is the realm of women: messy, “irrational,” “crazy,” prone to quick changes and fluctuations, etc. This is all Plato, not Jesus, folks…

    I can’t tell you the number of stories I’ve heard that someone’s “off” feeling about a person, place, or institution proved to be disastrously true, that they should have spoken up sooner but stuffed their feelings in the name of loyalty to a leader or cause. And I wonder if we’d have fewer church scandals if Christians honored intuition as a worthy source of truth — even as a place where the Holy Spirit is speaking to or through us, if only we would listen.

    I think she’s onto something there.

    Second is Katharine Strange’s post on ‘Christianity vs. Therapy’. In reviewing Anna Gazmarian’s Devout: A Memoir of Doubt, Strange discusses evangelicalism’s long-standing beef with psychology and therapists. Many evangelical churches are strong on Biblical Counseling, a movement which trains laypeople to exclusively use Scripture to counsel people, a movement which is strongly antagonistic to professional psychotherapy. (Oh, do I have thoughts on this. But I’ll save them for another post.)

    Strange pulls at another thread in suggesting why evangelicalism is so opposed to therapy, and it resonates with my own experience:

    But I think a large part of the problem boils down to the way that Christianity is “sold” in this country. As I’ve written about before, there’s so much pressure to convert our friends and neighbors that what we often end up presenting to the world is a kind of “prosperity gospel lite”—Jesus as cure-all. Being both Christian AND a person with problems is bad for the brand.

    This “multi-level marketing” version of Christianity leads to a religion that values a mask of perfection over authenticity. Belonging, in this case, means cutting off parts of ourselves, whether that’s our sexuality/gender expression, our personal struggles, or even the fact that we experience basic feelings like sadness, irritation, envy, etc. It’s toxic positivity as a ticket to sainthood. Churches that buy into this methodology create lonely people even in the midst of community (for what is belonging without authenticity?) They also have a tendency to thrust narcissistic and authoritarian types into leadership because these are precisely the kind of people who are best at never letting the mask slip. Such environments can easily erupt into abuse, religious trauma, perfectionism, and scrupulosity.

    While I knew MLMs were largely fueled and run by religious people, I hadn’t ever really thought about the idea that evangelicalism is essentially selling Christianity as a sort of MLM, by MLM principles. Now I can’t unsee it.

    ∞

    2024 Reads: A Window to the Divine by Zachary Hayes, OFM

    I just finished up a slow read of a wonderful little book. A Window to the Divine: Creation Theology by Franciscan theologian Zachary Hayes draws from Teilhard and Whitehead to suggest that we need to recognize that our approach to synthesizing modern science and creation theology needs some updating. As he notes,

    …the worldview mediated to both believer and unbeliever alike by our modern culture is radically different from that which provided some key structural elements for our familiar theological vision and language.

    After all, he asks,

    If scientific or prescientific views of the world inter into the structure of a theology in some way, and if believers forget where a style of theology has come from and what elements have entered into its structure, what would one expect to happen when the scientific vision of the world begins to change?

    In the first chapter, Hayes examines the relationship between theology and science, noting that they exist to answer very different sorts of questions. They need not exist in opposition to each other, he says.

    …we will not expect science to prove faith claims, nor will we expect theology to prove the claims of science. But we will attempt to allow religious faith to express itself in terms relevant to its cultural context, which, at least in the Western world of the present, is strongly conditioned by scientific insights.

    Hayes goes on to briefly examine the creation texts, suggesting a theological interpretation of the beginning of Genesis that is focused far more on God as the source and origin of creation rather than on a scientific explanation of how things came into being. He takes a chapter to discuss the origin of humans (all from Adam? or from multiple parents?) and how that view interacts with Romans 5. (As in Adam all sinned, so in Christ all will be saved…) Hayes suggests that these texts, too, should be read etiologically, that is, as discussing the cause or origin of sin and salvation, not of some literal genetic propagation of sinfulness. He bogs down a bit in a very Roman Catholic discussion of Original Sin, trying to briefly address both Augustine and the Council of Trent.

    The last chapter, though, is worth the whole read, as he pulls the threads together. I will quote more liberally here, it’s just too good.

    First, about sin:

    Human history is a history of response, both negative and positive, to the lure of God’s love… Sin is not a mere infringement of a law extrinsic to our nature. It is a failure to realize the potential of our nature itself. If our nature is fundamentally a potential to expand, sin is a contraction… Sin is the resistance to expansion through union with others. It is the attempt to create human history in alienation from the only end that we ultimately have… Sin is a failure in the collaborative effort to move toward full personalization in human community.

    And then regarding grace:

    The history of God’s grace and human response finds a distinctive form of self-consciousness in the history of the Bible, and an unsurpassed level of realization in the person and destiny of Jesus Christ… God, who is love community, calls forth love community in creation through free response of human persons to the offer of divine grace.

    And then, finally, about the relation of theology and science, and why it matters:

    Theology need not fear science nor tremble before the power of reason. Rather both theology and science need to stand in awe in the face of the mystery that is our world and in the even greater mystery of God to which the world points…

    We have no reason to assume that the mere fact of human life is the goal of the universe. What is important above all is a quality of life, not the mere fact of life. With this in mind, we can see that it is a more significant question to ask whether this sort of world is apt for the accomplishment of God’s purpose. It is, indeed, a cosmos that challenges humanity in mind and in will, and that is capable of eliciting both awe and wonder. It is a cosmos that draws humanity out of the narrow point from which it begins to expand to the mystery of the world and thus to move towards the Ground of the world. It is a world apt to stretch the finite spirit to the limits of its possibility to bring forth not only the fact of life, but a Godlike quality of life that is a created sharing in the loving thought of God from which the whole of creation emerges.

    Beautiful stuff.

    ∞

    Finished reading: Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson

    I wasn’t sure what to expect from Robinson writing on Genesis, but I enjoy her writing enough it was definitely something I was going to read. Structured as a narrative commentary, Robinson doesn’t employ chapter breaks or other touchpoints within the text itself. It’s fascinating to read a commentary by a Christian writer who takes the text seriously but not necessarily literally. If there is a broad “point” to her book, it is to feature the uniqueness of Genesis among the Ancient Near Eastern texts, and to highlight the theme of unmerited grace that runs through it. From God’s forgiveness of Cain to Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, Robinson tells us that Genesis is set apart from the other ANE texts this way.

    I appreciated her book, but didn’t enjoy it as much as reading her essays. I need to pick them up for a re-read.

    ∞

    Recommended Reading: The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory by Tim Alberta

    My first completed book of the year is one I can wholeheartedly recommend: The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory by Tim Alberta. Subtitled “American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism”, journalist Alberta’s book details his many interviews with American Evangelical leaders since the rise of Trump in 2016. He interrogates their motivations, how their words align with their actions, and how those words and actions comport with the teachings of Jesus.

    Alberta is uniquely positioned to write a book like this. A professional journalist currently with The Atlantic, he has also written for, among others, Politico and The Wall Street Journal. But, as he reveals in the book’s initial chapters, he is also a pastor’s kid. His father, up until his untimely death, was the pastor of a large Evangelical Presbyterian church in Michigan. Alberta grew up a devoted Christian within that church, and continues today as a professing Christian. The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory at places verges on memoir. But Alberta’s fluency with evangelical language, teaching, and culture give him an insight and authority that other journalists would lack.

    If you have been following along in the Evangelical culture wars post-2016, most of the folks Alberta discusses will be familiar. He introduces them chapter by chapter: The Falwells and Liberty University, Robert Jeffress, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Firebrands like Greg Locke. Unabashed politicos like Ralph Reed. Fradulent historian David Barton. SBC stalwart-turned-outcast Russell Moore. Journalist Julie Roys. Pastor Brian Zahnd as a Midwestern prosperity preacher turned lonely prophet.

    Whether it’s on purpose or just so close to home (for both the author and me) that Alberta couldn’t avoid it, the theme of children of Evangelicals turning and becoming their parents' reproof played over and over through the book. Nick Olson, the son of an early Liberty student who came back to teach, only to be driven away when his politics didn’t align. Rachael Denhollender, the conservative homeschooled gymnast who, after bravely testifying against her abuser, became an advocate for sexual abuse victims within her own denomination. Cameron Strang, CEO of Relevant magazine, the son of a religious huckster. Jonathan Falwell, at a crossroads after taking over leadership of the “family business”, Liberty University. Alberta finally questions his own actions and motivations. Would he have been willing to ask these questions, to write this book, were his father still alive and in the pastorate? That question remains forever unknown. I understand, at least a little bit, Alberta’s quandary.

    Over the past decade a pattern has emerged for me. When I encounter someone from my generation, usually online, who speaks with a resonant voice of sanity about America’s religion and politics, it turns out they, like me, grew up evangelical, usually homeschooled, and have spent their adult lives forging a path out. I’m thinking of people like author Lyz Lenz, new NYT film critic Alissa Wilkinson, writer and editor (and Alissa’s former podcast-hosting sidekick) Sam Thielman, NPR journalist Sarah McCammon, and famous lawyer spouse Jacob Denhollander, kindred spirits all. I’m now going to add Tim Alberta to that list.

    At the end of the book, Alberta expresses an uncertain hope that this younger generation is successfully turning the evangelical world away from the worst of its political debauchery. To my mind, that jury is still out. Leader after leader throughout the book express their befuddlement and confusion as to why so much of the Evangelical church has been willing to follow political prophets away from the call of Jesus. Like them, Alberta doesn’t have the answer. But with this book, he has done what he can: incontrovertably documenting the political corruption of the American Evangelical church for anyone willing to read it.

    ∞

    My 2023 Reading in Review

    Another year full of books! (Previous summaries: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007…

    I read 72 books for the year, which feels like a nice even number. There’s still a lot of theology and science fiction in the list, but I read more science this year, along with several memoirs.

    Here’s the full list of reading, with particular standouts noted in bold:

    Theology

    • Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction by Bradley Jersak
    • On the Soul and the Resurrection by St. Gregory of Nyssa
    • Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair by Duke L. Kwon
    • Sanctifying Interpretation: Vocation, Holiness, and Scripture by Chris E. W. Green
    • The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics by Stanley Hauerwas
    • Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura
    • Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost by Traci Rhodes
    • A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker J. Palmer
    • Trauma-Informed Evangelism: Cultivating Communities of Wounded Healers by Charles Kiser
    • Christ in Evolution by Ilia Delio
    • Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr
    • The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    • The New Being by Paul Tillich

    Green is wonderful here. I posted a few excerpts while reading it that would be a good introduction.

    Science and History

    • The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene by Jurgen Renn
    • Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price
    • Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach by Mark Richards
    • Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel J. Siegel
    • The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation by Carl Benedikt Frey
    • Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in the Age of Crisis by George Monbiot
    • The Book of Genesis: A Biography by Ronald Hendel
    • Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon by Eric H. Cline
    • Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics by Mark Alan Smith
    • Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe by Brian Greene
    • The Book of Job: A Biography by Mark Larrimore
    • On the Origina of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory by Thomas Hertog
    • Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert
    • The Talmud: A Biography by Barry Scott Wimpfheimer
    • The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman

    Memoir and Biography

    • Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons by Jeremy Denk
    • Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir by Wil Wheaton
    • Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis
    • Heretic: A Memoir by Jeanna Kadlec
    • Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky
    • God on the Rocks: Distilling Religion, Savoring Faith by Phil Madeira
    • All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore
    • Mystics and Zen Masters by Thomas Merton
    • Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian by Ilia Delio
    • How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
    • Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann
    • Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart

    I posted some appreciation for Stewart before I got my hands on his memoir. The memoir did not disappoint. He’s an imperfect, lovely man. The book was a pleasure to read. Also, he’s a great example of why we need funding for arts and arts education. But I digress.

    Other Miscellaneous Non-Fiction

    • My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman
    • Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears by Michael Schulman
    • The Ultimate Quest: A Geek’s Gude to (The Episcopal) Church by Jordan Haynie Ware
    • Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges

    Fiction

    • The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (re-read)
    • A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (re-read)
    • Dead Lions by Mick Herron
    • Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black
    • The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
    • The Bayern Agenda by Dan Moren
    • Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
    • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
    • Hunting Time by Jeffrey Deaver
    • Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro
    • The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
    • The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgard
    • Babel by R. F. Kuang
    • Translation State by Ann Leckie
    • Average Jones by Samuel Hopkins Adams
    • The Odyssey by Homer, trans. Emily Wilson
    • Red Queen by Juan Gomez-Jurado
    • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
    • The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
    • Blackouts by Justin Torres
    • Starter Villain by John Scalzi
    • The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
    • Girl One by Sara Flannery Murphy
    • Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway
    • My Old Home: A Novel of Exile by Orville Schell
    • The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak
    • Time’s Mouth by Edan Lepucki
    • The Collector by Daniel Silva

    Schell’s epic story following a young man’s life growing up in 20th century China is beautiful and tragic and very worth the read.

    Summary

    One of my goals from previous years was to read fewer books written by white guys. By my count, 24 of this year’s books meet that goal… which isn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be. That science section didn’t help in that regard. I made a stronger shift this year, though, away from theology and to science. That wasn’t super-intentional, but just where my interest was at the time.

    On to 2024! I’m nearly halfway through my first book of the year.

    ∞

    My 2022 Reading in Review

    Another year full of books! (Previous summaries: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007… argh, how did I miss some of those years?)

    I got through 61 books this year, which feels like a bit of a down year. My “one book at a time” practice got me bogged down in some slow theology books, and then I got sucked into a cross-stitch project and a couple web projects at the end of the year which stole some of my reading time. (I finally came to grips with breaking up the long theology slogs with some fiction, and that helps a lot.)

    Here’s the full list of reading, with particular standouts noted in bold:

    Theology

    • Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church - Bridget Eileen Rivera
    • Happiness and Contemplation - Josef Pieper
    • The Aryan Jesus - Susannah Heschel
    • The Joy of Being Wrong - James Alison
    • Attached to God: A Practical Guide to Deeper Spiritual Experience - Krispin Mayfield
    • The Emergent Christ - Ilia Delio
    • The Beatitudes Through the Ages - Rebekah Ann Eklund
    • Let the Light In: Healing from Distorted Images of God - Colin McCartney
    • In: Incarnation and Inclusion, Abba and Lamb - Brad Jersak
    • Having the Mind of Christ - Matt Tebbe and Ben Sternke
    • The Dark Interval - John Dominic Crossan
    • Love Over Fear - Dan White, Jr.
    • Faith Victorious - Lennart Pinomaa
    • History and Eschatology - N. T. Wright
    • Destined for Joy - Alvin F. Kimel
    • A Thicker Jesus - Glen Harold Stassen
    • Changing Our Mind - David P. Gushee

    Dr. Ilia Delio’s The Emergent Christ is the one that had me thinking the most this year, and that will stick with me longer than any of the others. Her approach to thinking about God, evolution, and universal progress within a Christian framework blew my mind, and consistently challenges me to think about God and the universe differently.

    Other Non-Fiction

    • Maximum City - Suketu Mehta
    • Music is History - Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
    • The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson
    • How the Word Is Passed - Clint Smith
    • The New Abolition - Gary Dorrien
    • Reading Evangelicals - Daniel Silliman
    • Fearful Symmetry - A. Zee
    • The Joshua Generation - Rachel Havrelock
    • Belabored - Lyz Lenz
    • The Method - Isaac Butler
    • The Dead Sea Scrolls - John J. Collins
    • Strange Rites - Tara Isabella Burton
    • A Different Kind of Animal - Robert Boyd
    • The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber and David Wengrow
    • Bible Nation - Candida R. Moss and Joel S. Baden
    • Protestants Abroad - David A. Hollinger
    • Do I Make Myself Clear? - Harold Evans
    • White Flight - Kevin M. Kruse
    • How God Becomes Real - T. M. Luhrmann
    • Salty - Alissa Wilkinson
    • Blood In The Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks - Chris Herring
    • Searching for the Oldest Stars - Anna Frebel
    • This Here Flesh - Cole Arthur Riley
    • The Invention of Religion - Jan Assmann
    • The Phoenix Project - Gene Kim, George Spafford, and Kevin Behr
    • The Late Medieval English Church - G. W. Bernard
    • The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila - Carlos Eire
    • Strangers in Their Own Land - Arlie Russell Hochschild

    Three women’s books stand out here: Tara Isabella Burton’s Strange Rites, looking at how the current generation of young people are looking for religious experiences in places other than traditional religion; Cole Arthur Riley’s spiritual memoir This Here Flesh, and Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land, describing a sociologist’s quest to understand Louisianans who have been devastatingly impacted by environmental destruction and yet persistently support the businesses and political causes behind that destruction.

    Fiction

    • Unthinkable - Brad Parks
    • Lent - Jo Walton
    • The Last Commandment - Scott Shepherd
    • When We Cease To Understand the World - Benjamin Labatut
    • Everything Sad Is Untrue - Daniel Nayeri
    • Once A Thief - Christopher Reich
    • A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik
    • The Blue Diamond - Leonard Goldberg
    • A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers
    • The Coffin Dancer - Jeffery Deaver
    • Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel
    • Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
    • A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - Becky Chambers
    • A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers (re-read)
    • Slow Horses - Mick Herron
    • The Last Agent - Robert Dugoni

    Here the standout was author Becky Chambers. Her little Monk & Robot novellas sucked me in and made me happy. That prompted me to purchase her Small Angry Planet series and start in on a re-read. Chambers works in the best tradition of science fiction pushing for inclusion and acceptance of The Other and in using the exploration of a very different universe to make you think about how our own could be improved.

    Coming Up…

    I’ve continued to log on Goodreads this past year but I get the feeling it’s spooling down as it gets absorbed by Amazon. I’m working on a self-hosted book logging site - it’s actually live online right now if you know where to look but I’m going to do some cleanup on it before I publicize it. I’ll post here about it when I do!

    ∞

    2019 Reading, Compendium #4

    Goodness, I’ve let this go a while without providing a list. Here we go…

    Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America by Darren Dochuk
    A fascinating look at how the oil industry worked hand in hand with evangelical Christianity to shape America in the 20th century. Read Heath W. Carter’s 5-star review over at Christianity Today.

    The Rule of Law by John Lescroart
    Meh. This series has gone on far too long at this point.

    My Antonia by Willa Cather
    Easily my favorite of Cather’s Prairie Trilogy.

    The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: The History of a Civilization from 3000 BC to Cleopatra by Toby Wilkinson
    The book wasn’t quite as long as the empire. Still trying to get my head around a legitimate empire that spanned millennia. Astounding.

    Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
    I remember almost nothing about this book.

    On The Neurobiology of Sin by Lazar Puhalo
    A short treatise by an Orthodox bishop addressing, among other things, homosexuality and transgenderism. Reads like an undergraduate-level paper on genetics combined with a couple weak blog posts on theology. I was disappointed.

    The Inner Kingdom by Kallistos Ware
    A collection of essays from an Eastern Orthodox bishop.

    God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America by Lyz Lenz
    I have a complicated relationship with this book, but I think it has some good insights about the church in the Midwest.

    Last Day by Domenica Ruta
    An interesting concept for a novel that never really came together.

    Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
    Now this one was well worth reading. A beautiful novel about a medieval Russian “holy fool”. Rod Dreher has a nice piece about it if you want to read more.

    Normal People by Sally Rooney
    Maybe normal people are boring. Or at least this book was.

    Reading Romans Backwards: A Gospel of Peace in the Midst of Empire by Scot McKnight
    Start at the end of Romans, Dr. McKnight says, understand the context and audience, and then work your way back to get a better perspective on what the doctrinal passages mean. Interesting.

    The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
    Picked up at random off the library shelf. A fantasy novel from a Middle Eastern Muslim perspective. Enjoyed it, though didn’t feel like the last third held up to the promise of the first two-thirds.

    The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by Willie James Jennings
    Oh man, this one was thick. A hard read but some good insight.

    Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
    The other book I read by Wilson the past couple months. Sort of a cyberpunk fantasy novel set in the Arab Spring in Egypt. Dug it.

    The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity by Kallistos Ware
    A historical and doctrinal primer by one of the esteemed bishops of the Orthodox Church.

    Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseph
    A biography of Stokely Carmichael, the founder of the Black Panther Party. Knew nothing about him before reading the book. Quite a charismatic guy.

    What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics by Rachael Denhollander
    I knew this woman was a hero for publicly coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Nasser. What I didn’t realize before reading the memoir was how integral she was in every part of building and executing the case against him. So much to love about this book and its heroes, Rachael and her faithful husband Jacob.

    Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade
    This one really merits its own post. Arnade traveled the country exploring “back row America” and its people. Gripping personal narratives and photography.

    ∞

    2019 Reading, Compendium #3

    A few added to my list…

    Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
    Somehow I’d not read this before, and with all the buzz on the Amazon TV series, figured it was worth giving it a try. I find Pratchett an acquired taste… one which I’m not totally on board with yet. Still, a fun read.

    Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ by Cynthia Long Westfall
    Dr. Westfall brings her incredible expertise in Greek to bear on the Pauline texts about gender and gender roles within the church. Thorough and scholarly yet readable, she makes a strong case for an egalitarian position. Worth a read if you’re interested in this area of debate.

    The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
    Continuing my read of Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy… a nice change of pace.

    God in the Rainforest: A Tale of Martyrdom and Redemption in Amazonian Ecuador by Kathryn T. Long

    Say the names Jim and Elisabeth Elliot to anybody who grew up in the evangelical church and you’ll almost certainly get quick recognition of the story of missionaries trying to reach a remote Ecuadorian tribe, and of the five men who were killed by that tribe after initiating contact. Elisabeth Elliot’s account of their efforts in Through Gates of Splendor became a bestseller the year after their deaths.

    In God in the Rainforest, Dr. Long (Professor Emerita of History at Wheaton College) gives a historian’s critical eye to the long story of missionary contact and involvement with the Huaorani people in Ecuador. She manages to be incredibly evenhanded, avoiding the hagiography of Through Gates of Splendor and its follow-ups and examining the effects (both positive and negative) of the introduction of Western culture and Christianity to a previously unreached people group.

    This one got particularly interesting for me because my wife’s parents served for decades with one of the missions organizations involved there and know those people, to the point that at least one of the people named in the book attended our wedding.

    Separating missions work from our Western impulse to colonialize is an ongoing struggle. God in the Rainforest gives a fair view of how that struggle played out in the jungles of Ecuador in the second half of the 20th century.

    How to Forget: A Daughter’s Memoir by Kate Mulgrew
    I don’t remember who recommended this one. Turns out it was a short but not easy read. Mulgrew (probably best known as an actress for playing Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager) didn’t have a very happy childhood or very good relationship with her parents. Mulgrew uses uses the story of her parents' final years to frame her reflections on her childhood and younger life, and grapples with how to deal with the realities of her youth as she looks back.

    ∞

    2019 Reading, Compendium #2

    Trying to not get my book lists get so backed up this time. Here’s what I’ve been reading recently:

    Golden State by Ben H. Winters
    This one underwhelmed me a bit - interesting concept of a society where everything is logged and speaking falsehood is against the law, but execution wasn’t so interesting.

    Mission Critical by Mark Greaney
    Sometimes you just need a spy thriller. But maybe not this spy thriller.

    O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
    I’ve never read Cather’s novels before, and felt some midwestern hankering for Nebraska-based writing. Now I need to get through the other two in the trilogy.

    Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien
    Richards and O’Brien are trying to help us understand that some of the texts that we so easily read and interpret through a 21st century American framework can have some significantly different meanings when seen through the cultural framework of the original audience. Worth a read, though not quite as earth-shattering as some of the reviews had led me to believe.

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
    Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman whose cells were taken as a medical sample when she was in the hospital for cancer treatment. Those cells proved remarkably resilient and have become the base cell samples for medical experiments around the world to this day. Henrietta’s story itself is a rather slim part of the book; it revolves far more around race and poverty and its impact on the family she left behind.

    Talent by Juliet Lapidos
    This was a random selection from the library shelf that didn’t live up to its blurbs. Claimed to be a “deliciously funny” novel grappling with the source of creative inspiration and talent. Meh.

    This Life or the Next by Demian Vitanza
    A novel written as a first-person account of a Pakistani Muslim immigrant to Norway who went to fight with ISIS in Syria. Fiction, but based on accounts given to the author by a man currently serving time in a Norwegian prison for terrorism. Challenging to see an “enemy” through his own eyes.

    A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb by Paul Glynn
    Biography, faith story, and harrowing account of surviving the Nagasaki atomic bombing all rolled into one. Really enjoyed this book. Planning to pass it along to my high school daughter to read.

    The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
    An account of an early workplace safety issue and court case where young women worked painting radium onto watches to make the faces luminescent. It’s an unsurprising story in most ways: a workplace hazard that, once understood by the corporation, was denied and covered up in order to maintain profits. The continual and vivid descriptions of the horrible effects of radium poisoning on these women’s bodies may have felt necessary to the author to raise the stakes of the story, but they were so vivid and plentiful that I just about put the book down because I could take any more talk of rotting jawbones and gushing pus.

    And just so the last words in my blog post aren’t “gushing pus”, let me note that I’m still working on Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It’s just gonna take me a while.

    ∞

    Finished reading, an early 2019 compendium

    Maybe I’ll start posting these every time again… but for now I’ve got a long-ish list of books I’ve finished already this year. Particular standouts are in bold. Here goes nothin':

    All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment by Hannah Anderson
    Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
    Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler
    Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

    The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar TisbyTisby carefully and methodically lays out the complicity and often encouragement that the American church gave to personal and institutional racism. A painful but needed reminder that we have a long way to go and a lot to make right.

    The Killer Collective by Barry Eisler
    Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission by Michael J. Gorman
    Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch
    The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem

    We Need Each Other: Responding to God’s Call to Live Together by Jean VanierVanier is a Catholic humanitarian who founded a federation of communities dedicated to caring for people with developmental disabilities. I’ve heard and watched a couple interviews with Vanier and his holiness and humility are immediately evident in a way that’s incredibly rare. (His On Being interview with Krista Tippett is a great one.)His book is similarly humble and holy.

    Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield

    My Traitor’s Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience by Rian MalanWritten prior to the end of apartheid in South Africa, Malan, a white South African journalist, tries to come to grips with the system of white supremacy that to him seems both wicked and unchangeable.

    Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
    The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblical Hebraica by Ernst Wurthwein
    Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

    Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty by Gregory A. BoydBoyd makes the case that doubt can enhance faith, and that at times the need for certainty can be more damaging than helpful. I’m right there with him on that one.

    Paul: A Biography by N. T. Wright
    A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

    Hyperion by Dan SimmonsAward-winning science fiction. Imaginative in a way that only the best sci-fi is.

    Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream by Carson Vaughan

    Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Alan ThornburyA well-written and -researched biography of one of the truly fascinating characters of early contemporary Christian music.

    All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

    Flee, Be Silent, Pray: An Anxious Evangelical Finds Peace with God through Contemplative Prayer by Ed Cyzewski
    Cyzewski makes the case for contemplative prayer being not just helpful but necessary, and makes it sound easy enough that even this long-time evangelical feels like I should take up the practice.

    At the moment I’ve got another long one going: Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. (1200 pages!)

    ∞

    My 2018 Reading in Review

    Time for a quick recap of my 2018 reading. I’ve done several reading posts through the year so this can just be a summary.

    Thanks to Goodreads I can report I read 71 books in 2018. 33 of those were fiction, the remaining 38 were mostly history and theology, with a few biographies thrown in. Though I have a large virtual stack of unread books in my Kindle app, most of my reading this year was still dead tree books. (Maybe this year I can start plowing through the electronic ones…)

    A few notable favorites for the year:

    Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak
    Meeting Brad Jersak and hearing him teach this past summer at the Water to Wine Gathering was a highlight of my year. In this book Brad sketches a truly hopeful view of final things, of an eternal city whose gates are always open and inviting. I need to go re-read this one.

    The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
    I’m sure I wasn’t ready to read this one when it was published back in 2011. But to pick it up in late 2018 and read Dr. Cone’s insightful parallels between the cross on which Jesus suffered and the trees on which so many black people were lynched throughout American history was a powerful thing. I was struct by how the Bible is adaptable and interpretable (a more palatable word to some might be “relevant”) to such diverse swaths of the human experience.

    The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
    This one is a sort of alt-history crossed with Hidden Figures written from a strongly feminist viewpoint. Loved it. Next to pass it on to my daughters.

    They weren’t all awesome.

    Generally if I start in and after 40-50 pages I’m significantly unimpressed, I just put the book back on the return-to-library pile and pick up another one. Life’s too short to stick it out through bad books. There were a few clunkers, though, that I did manage to get all the way through and wouldn’t recommend. Two that stick out are Street Freaks by Terry Brooks (sci-fi writer trying cyber-punk and abusing every cliche in the genre) and The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey, which I wrote about earlier.

    On to 2019!

    I started the year thinking that I needed to burn through my Kindle and purchased book backlog. Then a week later I went to the library and borrwed four more books. Maybe I have a problem… but I guess it’s a good sort of problem to have.

    ∞

    Finished reading: 2018, part five

    My reading has apparently slowed down a bit this summer. Still, there’s been some good stuff recently:

    Well, first an intro to the first two books. I heard Brad Jersak speak at the Water to Wine Gathering back in June - what a treat. Brad is a Canadian pastor and author, more recent convert to Orthodoxy, and spent many years in pastoral ministry working with the mentally challenged and the poor. He’s funny, wise, and kind… and I’ll pick up whatever book he writes next.

    A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel by Bradley Jersak If Christ is the truest expression of what God is like, what does that really mean? How should we then think about God? Jersak is no fan of the “loving Son protects us from the wrath of the angry Father” picture, and instead works through what it looks like to think that Jesus is what God the Father is like.

    Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak Here Jersak takes a careful look at the Biblical texts about heaven and hell and judgment. While it seems he can’t quite bring himself to become a universalist, he makes a strong case for the potential that heaven will be much fuller, and hell much emptier, than my traditional evangelical upbringing taught me to expect. And I like the hopeful view. If there’s a reasonable case for being hopeful, why not be hopeful?

    Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee Hugo-winning sci-fi to change things up. A decent story, nothing amazing but entertaining enough.

    Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk I picked this one off the library shelf on a whim and ended up not really liking it that much. Brutal, pessimistic, dark… No time for that nonsense.

    Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky Kurlansky tracks the usage of salt through history. The book is more interesting when it focuses on ancient times, and progressively less interesting as it reaches the modern day. Also there were far more recipes for salting foods included than I will really ever need.

    The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin A classic from Baldwin, and the first I’ve read of him. What a writer! Beautifully written with a powerful message.

    The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber Picked this one up after @johnthelutheran raved about it. I’d previously read Faber’s Book of Strange New Things and enjoyed it. The Crimson Petal and the White was something completely different - a Victorian novel that reminded me a good bit of Dickens - but it kept me interested all the way through.

    ∞

    Finished reading: 2018, part four

    What I’ve read the past month or so:

    Head On by John Scalzi A sequel in Scalzi’s series from the near future where some humans are afflicted by a disease that causes “lock in”, where their bodies are vegetative but their minds are able to interact with the outside world via a neural interface and proxy robot-like bodies. An entertaining read.

    The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott Interesting to read a biography of Merton written by someone other than himself. (While The Seven Storey Mountain is well worth a read, it’s clearly pretty one-sided.) Merton remains a fascinating character to me.

    Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth Miller I found Miller’s name when looking at biology textbooks - he’s the author of a very popular one used by our public high school. Turns out he’s a professing Christian who has spent a bunch of time thinking and writing about how he makes sense of his faith in light of his life-long study of evolution. I found the book thoughtful and very reasonable. Worth a read.

    On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior This one isn’t out yet, but I snagged a review copy and will write a full post later. Prior uses each chapter in this book to highlight a virtue and a great book that illustrates the virtue. I now have a bunch more books on my list that I’ve somehow failed to read thus far.

    How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Light-hearted fluff… perfect for reading on vacation next to a swimming pool… which was exactly what I did.

    Warning Light by David Ricciardi Highly forgettable spy thriller. Something about a guy who may or may not have been spying on an Iranian nuclear site and then is trying to escape. Yawn.

    The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire by Alan Kreider Now this was a good one. Kreider was a Professor of Church History at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. He spends most of this volume examining primary sources from the first few centuries A.D. (basically 1st century up through Constantine) and looking at what those Christians viewed as important. Notably important: patience and longsuffering. It becomes clear reading Kreider how much the tenor of the early church changed when Constantine brought them out of the

    Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage by Robert Farrar Capon This one was in urban legend status for a while - an old, out-of-print title from a beloved (if somewhat niche) author that supposedly was very good. And hey, it got reprinted, and it’s not even that expensive! Capon is his familiar crusty self, and honestly the chapters on marriage fell a little short in my mind. But the chapter on Things and our approach to them was golden. Completely worth the price of the book. Merits a blog post later.

    Eisenhower vs. Warren: The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties by James F. Simon A nice overview of Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and President Dwight Eisenhower and how they interacted specifically around civil rights issues in the 1950s. Most striking to me was how different a time it was politically - Warren and Eisenhower were centrist and courted as presidential candidates by both political parties. We could use some more of that today. Warren particularly was an interesting story to me. Second-generation European immigrant, son of blue-collar parents just scraping by, had fairness as an overriding political objective, and championed both social programs and fiscal responsibility, and somehow made it all work as governor of California.

    ∞

    Finished reading: 2018, part three

    Books I’ve read the past couple months:

    Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen

    A fun little sci-fi story I discovered on the library shelf. A sort of space-based adventure / mystery story where the main character has a special ability that comes in quite handy at times.

    Traitor by Jonathan de Shalit

    A not-so-memorable spy novel.

    Immeasurable: Reflections on the Soul of Ministry in the Age of Church, Inc. by Skye Jethani

    A hit-and-miss collection of essays. When Jethani is on, his insight into the issues in evangelicalism are really good.

    Kangaroo Too by Curtis C. Chen

    Hey, I liked the first book in the series… The second one was pretty good, too.

    The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt

    An overview of the various historical perspectives on Adam and Eve. Easy to read, fairly interesting.

    City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston

    I have always enjoyed the Agent Pendergast series from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This one was no exception.

    What Are We Doing Here? by Marilynne Robinson

    I typically love Robinson’s essays, but this book left me a bit cold. Its themes are more repetitive than her previous books of essays - perhaps because they’re condensed from various talks she’s given?

    Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

    A fascinating account of growing up as an unschooled Mormon survivalist in Idaho and the journey out to the real world. And it has some really great cover art.

    Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith by Richard J. Foster

    Foster reviews key contributions to the Christian faith from various Christian traditions. Encouraging precisely because it recognizes first that these truly are all strands of the Christian faith (an angle that too many in my current flavor of evangelicalism would dispute) and second, that they provide rich value to believers.

    The Night Trade by Barry Eisler

    Eisler knows how to write a thriller.

    The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey

    I picked this one up from the library against my better judgment, but thought the topic was interesting and that I’d go into it with an open mind. The author admits in the preface that she is telling a one-sided story, and then she grinds that axe for the entire book. Sure, Christianity has a checkered history, but to hear Nixey tell it the world would be a rich nirvana of love and learning were it not for centuries of hateful narrow-minded Christians.

    The Deceivers by Alex Berenson

    I’d never read Berenson before. This one’s a passable spy thriller adopting a ripped-from-the-headlines plot of Russian interference in a US presidential election. They just don’t make spy novels anymore like Tom Clancy used to.

    The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

    Following my sad pattern of being prompted to read famous authors after hearing of their deaths, I picked this one up after Tom Wolfe passed away last week. Now I’m gonna have to go find some of his other books. While the story of the test pilots who became the first round of US astronauts in the late 1950s is interesting enough on its own, what’s truly memorable is Wolfe’s voice and style.

    ∞

    Finished reading: 2018, part two

    Books I’ve read over the past month or so:

    A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles An utterly charming novel about a Russian nobleman confined to hotel “house arrest” after the 1917 revolution. His adventures interacting with hotel staff (which he soon becomes) and guests are full of wit and grace and humor. I don’t recall who recommended this one to me but I owe them my thanks.

    The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage by Jared Yates Sexton A memoir from a liberal writer who covered the 2016 US presidential election. Heartfelt, but not as interesting or memorable as I had hoped it might be.

    House of Spies by Daniel Silva OK, the Gabriel Allon series is getting old. I probably should’ve figured that out seeing as this is book #17 in the series.

    1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I first became acquainted with Murakami through his Absolutely on Music book that I read a couple months ago. Having discovered he was a novelist I figured it was worth reading one. 1Q84 was just interesting enough to keep me going through its 900 pages. I guess it’s a love story at heart, albeit one with some odd and unexplained sci-fi twists.

    An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon A YA sci-fi novel with strong race / slavery / gender themes. Interesting in that it tried hard to represent a lot of racial and gender diversity. Managed to do it while only a little bit heavy-handed with the message.

    We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights by Adam Winkler Heard about this one on an episode of NPR’s Fresh Air. Fascinating (to me, a bit of a con law nerd) history of how American law has treated corporations with regard to rights and freedoms. Some cases, it seems, have had unintended consequences as the years went by; Ralph Nader’s efforts to win corporate speech rights back in the 1970’s seemed meant to benefit ordinary people by freeing up information that the government had restricted. Those same rights were used as the basis 30 years later for deciding in Citizens United that corporations could dump unlimited money into political campaigns.

    Crimes of the Father by Thomas Keneally The author of the novel Schindler’s List takes on the Catholic church abuse scandal. Pleasant yet forgettable prose.

    Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable Realized I didn’t know much about Malcolm X, and this particular biography was recommended by Ta-Nehisi Coates somewhere. A very readable picture of a fascinating man.

    ∞

    Finished reading: where has 2018 gone already?

    I start each year with the intent of writing up Finished Reading posts on a book-by-book basis. Then I find myself in the first week of February and realize I’m nine books behind already. So it’s compendium time. Here’s what I’ve ready in 2018 so far:

    ∞

    My 2017 reading in review

    Just a quick post to summarize my reading and a few favorites this year. I read a total of 71 books in 2017, which I’ll split up into fiction, non-fiction, and theology. I’ll highlight no more than two in each category as particular favorites.

    Fiction

    • Broken Trust - W.E.B. Griffin
    • Bounty - Michael Byrnes
    • The Whistler - John Grisham
    • The Believer - Joakim Zander
    • Last Year - Robert Charles Wilson
    • Dune - Frank Herbert
    • Before the Fall - Noah Hawley
    • The Girl Who Drank the Moon - Kelly Barnhill
    • The Shadow Land - Elizabeth Kostova
    • Walkaway - Cory Doctorow
    • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
    • A Closed and Common Orbit - Becky Chambers
    • Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
    • Till We Have Faces - C. S. Lewis (re-read)
    • The Switch - Joseph Finder
    • Price of Duty - Dale Brown
    • Point of Contact - Mike Maden
    • The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson
    • City of Stairs - Robert Jackson Bennett
    • Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
    • Autonomous - Annalee Newitz
    • The Berlin Project - Gregory Benford
    • Over Sea, Under Stone - Susan Cooper
    • The Force - Don Winslow
    • The Quantum Spy - David Ignatius
    • The Dark Net - Benjamin Percy
    • The Punch Escrow - Tal M. Klein

    The Force is a well-written crime story featuring a flawed detective. A really engaging page-turner where I didn’t know where the story was going when I was half-way through.

    The Punch Escrow is a sci-fi thriller that takes one reasonable conceit and runs with it to great effect. A really fun novel to close out the year.

    Non-Fiction

    • Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi
    • A People’s History of the United States - Howard Zinn
    • Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America - Michael Wear
    • The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt
    • Instrumental: A memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music - James Rhodes
    • A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier - David Welky
    • Now - The Physics of Time - Richard A. Muller
    • The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies - and What They Have Done to Us - David Thomson
    • City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York - Tyler Anbinder
    • A Natural History of the Piano - Stuart Isacoff
    • The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science - Julie Des Jardins
    • The Silk Roads: A New History of the World - Peter Frankopan
    • Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
    • The World Will Be Saved by Beauty: An Intimate Portrait of Dorothy Day - Kate Hennessy
    • Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business - John Newhouse
    • Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich - Norman Ohler
    • The Givenness of Things - Marilynne Robinson
    • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption - Bryan Stevenson
    • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America - Richard Rothstein
    • Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic - Sam Quinones
    • The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris - David McCullough
    • Movies are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings - Josh Larsen
    • The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II - Svetlana Alexievich
    • A Colony in a Nation - Chris Hayes
    • Getting Religion: Faith, Culture & Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama - Kenneth L. Woodward
    • Khrushchev: The Man and His Era - William Taubman
    • Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness - Edward K. Kaplan
    • A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples - Ilan Pappe
    • Spiritial Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972 - Edward K. Kaplan
    • How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds - Alan Jacobs
    • The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency - Chris Whipple
    • Nevertheless: A Memoir - Alec Baldwin

    I started off the year with a bang reading Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. Stunning writing about the history of racism in America. So much that we as middle-class white Americans aren’t familiar with. But the one that will likely stick with me even more and provoke some re-reads came late in the year: Alan Jacobs' How to Think. In this time of “fake news” and incessant online argument, Jacobs provides some much-needed sanity and advice.

    Theology

    • How to Survive a Shipwreck - Jonathan Martin
    • Introduction to the Old Testament - J. Alberto Soggin
    • The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion - N.T. Wright
    • Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines that Shape the Church for Mission - David E. Fitch
    • Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life - Tish Harrison Warren
    • The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together - Jared C. Wilson
    • People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue - Preston Sprinkle
    • The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? - David Bentley Hart
    • Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony - Richard Bauckham
    • A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story - Diana Butler Bass
    • The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader - Mark Pierson
    • Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News - Brian Zahnd

    Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham will permanently change how I read the Gospels. His case that most people named by name in the Gospels were specifically named because they were known eyewitnesses puts the accounts in a new light.

    And I had heard good stuff about D.B. Hart’s little volume The Doors of the Sea for a long time but just never gotten to it. In it he uses the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 to frame his response to the age-old question of how a good, omnipotent God can allow such evil and suffering. My theological upbringing has been pretty Calvinist, but Hart’s very non-Calvinist approach (he’s Orthodox) provided a more compelling and beautiful explanation than anything I’ve previously read.

    Summary

    On the whole, I feel like I got a lot of variety this year and read a lot of interesting books. I do have a handful that I started and for some reason bogged down in and need to come back to - Greg Boyd’s Crucifixion of the Warrior God is on that list… to be picked up sometime soon.

    ∞

    Finished reading: 2017 year-end edition

    I’ve gotten seriously slack at listing all the books I’ve been reading. Consider this my year-end catch-up post. (Not to be confused with my year-in-review post which will come next week sometime.)

    Here’s what I’ve finished reading since last time I posted:

    Fiction

    • City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
    • Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
    • Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
    • The Berlin Project by Gregory Benford
    • Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
    • The Force by Don Winslow
    • The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius

    Non-Fiction

    • A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples by Ilan Pappe
    • Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972 by Edward K. Kaplan
    • Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd
    • The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple
    • How to Think by Alan Jacobs

    I’m currently reading The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein, which if it stays on track will climb pretty high up my favorites list for the year. Stay tuned!

    ∞

    Finished reading: fiction!

    Two weeks, two business trips, it was time for light reading. Trolling the fiction shelves found me these:

    Price of Duty by Dale Brown

    Dale Brown has managed to crank out 21 books in the Patrick McLanahan series over the past 30 years. I’ve read far too many of them. They crossed the line into ridiculousness several books back… and this one is no different. This one reads more like the script for a direct-to-video action movie (a genre, I fear, that has been killed off by Netflix!) than a proper novel.

    Tom Clancy - Point of Contact by Mike Maden

    Tom Clancy is long dead and buried but his name and book series lives on. According to Amazon, this book is “Jack Ryan Universe book #23”, which is roughly the same output as Dale Brown’s series in roughly the same timeframe. This one was thin enough that, writing this post a couple weeks after finishing the book, I have exactly zero recollection of what this one was about.

    The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland

    Now this one was worth my time. While it starts out seeming to be about ‘the return of magic’, it’s much more an adventure in time travel combined with some humorous observations about how bureaucracy can take over and ruin even the best ideas. I had a lot of fun here.

    ∞

    Finished reading, part the next

    A rundown of recent book completions:

    A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story by Diana Butler Bass

    Bass is clearly giving a nod to Zinn’s People’s History of the United States with her title and approach. It’s not a bad effort, but nothing really earth-shattering, either.

    The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader by Mark Pierson

    Pierson is an Australian who was writing from a very strong emergent perspective. While the worship experiences he describes are a long way from what would work in my midwestern US church, his perspective on the intent of and attitude toward leading worship was right on and gave me a lot to think about.

    Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman

    A very readable biography of the Soviet leader. Still hard to get a grasp on how someone can be so human and yet so depraved.

    Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

    This was the first I’ve read of Butler. Won’t be the last. A wonderful voice in dystopian fiction.

    Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness by Edward Kaplan

    The first of two volumes of biography of a fascinating Jewish thinker from the early 20th century. Now I’ve gotta get volume two.

    The Switch by Joseph Finder

    I was wanting mindless entertainment, and this book overachieved at that. By which I mean it was even more mindless and boring than I was hoping for. Meh.

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