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.

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.

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

A couple more knocked off the list

I had a business trip last week which gave me extra reading time, so… two more knocked off the list.

First, Merton: A Biography by Monica Furlong. This one underwhelmed me. The first part of the story (up to the point where Merton joins the Trappists) is told in a much more interesting fashion by Merton himself in The Seven Storey Mountain (which I read a couple years back). The second half of the story mostly exists to make you repeatedly ask why anyone in their right mind would join the Trappists.

Second (and much more highly recommended): The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson. Peterson is a hero among pastors to me - a man planted a church and stayed there for 30 years, who focused not on numeric growth but on spiritual growth, who made it his goal to simply consistently pastor (an active verb) the flock that God brought him… Peterson recounts his childhood, his call to ministry, and the lessons learned from decades of pastoring in his usual winsome way. Well worth the read.

I’m now cheating a bit - I found a novel that looked interesting at the library and I’m reading it this week. Then I’ll be back to something off my pile.

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

The pile keeps shrinking...

I’m slowly whittling down my bedside book pile, completing Darren Dochuk’s From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism last week. This was a fantastic book. Dochuk traces the history of evangelicalism from the early days of the Depression, as evangelicals migrated west from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and the like, to California. As a child of evangelicalism in the 80s and 90s, it was very enlightening to read about J. Vernon McGee, Billy Graham, E. V. Hill, Bill Bright, Tim LaHaye, and others. It was a bit slow going through the 1920s and 30s, but from the 1940s onward it was a wonderful, interesting read. I owe Brian Auten bigtime for recommending it.

I’m now a few chapters in to a biography of Thomas Merton which I’m not real excited about yet, but I’ll give it some time.

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

One down, 25 to go

I finished up NT Wright’s Surprised by Scripture the other night. A nice short form of several of his arguments, some will be very familiar to those who have read his other popular works. There were a couple chapters, though, on politics and on women leading in the church that were new to me and quite good.

For review, here’s the list of books piled next to my bed that I’ve yet to read but want to before I buy any more. I think the next one I’ll be reading is From the Bible Belt to the Sun Belt by Darren Dochuk.

The ones I’ve not read yet:

  • 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 the Bible Belt to the 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

No More Buying Until I Do Some Reading

…that’s the promise I’m making myself. The book pile next to my bed is just too high, and I keep accumulating without making much progress. So, it’s time to whittle down the pile.

In no particular order, here’s what I’ve got piled up.

First, the ones I’ve not read yet:

  • 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 the Bible Belt to the 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

By my count, that’s 26 books. At my current rate, I might finish them by the end of the year.

Unless I hit the Half Price Books or the library again and find another pile of reading material. But I’m gonna try not to.

The Lost World of Genesis One

Last week I finally got the chance to read The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John H. Walton. Dr. Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. His PhD is from the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, which is, curiously enough (per Wikipedia), the primary seminary for training rabbis in Reform Judaism. All that to say the guy has a better-than-average understanding of the Old Testament, Jewish culture, and the Hebrew language.

Walton’s premise is one that, while previously unfamiliar to me, makes the most sense of how Genesis 1 - 2 should be understood as anything else I’ve read on the topic. The Lost World of Genesis One is structured around 20 premise statements, and in summary where he lands is this: we need to read and understand Genesis 1 in the same way the original audience read it. This turns out to be significantly different than we often hear it understood. As a very high-level summary, here’s what he says:

Ancient Cosmology is Functional

What does it mean for the universe to exist?, Walton asks. He proposes that people in the ancient world “believed that something existed not by virtue of its material properties, but by virtue of its having a function in an ordered system.” In such a view, he says, something could be manufactured physically but still not “exist” if it has not become functional.

Walton compares the creation stories of several different ancient cultures and notes that in each case, the creation story suggests not the creation of physical elements, but in the god ordering and purposing those elements into a functioning world. Certainly it’s not a stretch to think that the Israelites would’ve understood their creation story similarly.

Divine Rest is in a Temple

What’s up with God resting? Day seven, says Walton, is the climax of the story. Key, he says is

the piece of information that everyone knew in the ancient world and to which most modern readers are totally oblivious: Deity rests in a temple, and only in a temple. This is what temples were built for. We might even say that this is what a temple is— a place for divine rest. Perhaps even more significant, in some texts the construction of a temple is associated with cosmic creation…

…in the ancient world rest is what results when a crisis has been resolved or when stability has been achieved , when things have “settled down.” Consequently normal routines can be established and enjoyed. For deity this means that the normal operations of the cosmos can be undertaken. This is more a matter of engagement without obstacles rather than disengagement without responsibilities.

The Seven days of Genesis 1 Do Not Concern Material Origins

Says Walton:

If the seven days refer to the seven days of cosmic temple inauguration, days that concern origins of functions not material, then the seven days and Genesis 1 as a whole have nothing to contribute to the discussion of the age of the earth. This is not a conclusion designed to accommodate science —it was drawn from an analysis and interpretation of the biblical text of Genesis in its ancient environment. The point is not that the biblical text therefore supports an old earth, but simply that there is no biblical position on the age of the earth. If it were to turn out that the earth is young, so be it. But most people who seek to defend a young -earth view do so because they believe that the Bible obligates them to such a defense. I admire the fact that believers are willing to take unpopular positions and investigate all sorts of alternatives in an attempt to defend the reputation of the biblical text. But if the biblical text does not demand a young earth there would be little impetus or evidence to offer such a suggestion.

Empirical Science Cannot Speak to Purpose

“If public education is committed to the idea that science courses should reflect only empirical science, neither design nor metaphysical naturalism is acceptable because they both import conclusions about purpose into the discussion,” says Walton.

For those concerned with the purity of science, the focus on descriptive mechanisms in an empirical discipline will be welcomed, and considering legitimate weaknesses in the reigning paradigm should pose no problem since science always accepts critiques— that is how it develops and improves. For those concerned about the Bible and the integrity of their theology, the descriptive mechanisms that compose the evolutionary model need not be any more problematic for theology than the descriptive disciplines of meteorology or embryology. [This hearkens back to a point he made earlier in the book.] … If all parties were willing to agree to similar teleological neutrality in the classrooms dedicated to instruction in empirical science, the present conflict could move more easily toward resolution.

This is a conclusion that I find very liberating. It suggests that we can simultaneously affirm that God is the creator and origin of everything, and at the same time not be afraid of following science wherever it’s currently leading. Science can’t prove or disprove purpose or fundamental origins, and theology (in this view) need not lead us to dispute the current scientific understanding of origins.

The Lost World of Genesis One is a straightforward read, and I highly recommend it for any casual student of theology who wants a different perspective on understanding the creation account. The Kindle edition is currently less than six bucks, which is a pretty good deal.

Books I read in 2013

Here’s my one year-end post: a little summary of what I read this year. I’m not gonna list ’em all - you can go check out the list on Goodreads if you’re really interested - but I’ll include some highlights.

I finished 57 books this year - about average for me over the past several years - and 27 of them were non-fiction, which is as close to fiction/non-fiction parity as I’ve ever gotten before. My non-fiction was mostly theology this year, which reminds me I need to pick up some more history, biographies, and the like in 2014.

Top Non-Fiction

I really need to write a full review post on Playing God. It was probably my favorite of the year, and the one that I then bought two copies of to give as Christmas gifts. I’m feeling a little bit better about my theological variety, too - it isn’t just all Anglicans on my list this year!

Top Fiction

It feels like a cheat to list Robinson’s book here, since she uses the fictional narrative to drive home a bunch of theological and philosophical points, but hey, it’s good stuff.

The worst I’ve gotten better at just putting books down if they seem like clunkers, so I have just a single one-star reviewed book on my list this year: The Panther by Nelson DeMille. Here’s what I wrote on Goodreads:

Plot is thinner than thin. Hundreds of pages and nothing happens except we get a tour of Yemen and page after page of insufferable narrative. It’s as if Mr DeMille had a quota of smart-ass internal dialog per page that he had to fill. If you cut out half of it, the book would shorten by 20% and still be just as boring.

I’m ashamed I wasted as much time on this one as I did. Avoid.

Plans for 2014 I’m likely to always be a theology, politics, and sci-fi geek, but I really would like to read some more history, some classic literature, and maybe even a little poetry. Hit me up if you have recommendations!

Jim Belcher, "In Search of Deep Faith"

I first became acquainted with author Jim Belcher back in 2009 when I read Deep Church. It appears I didn’t review it here on the blog, but my Goodreads review gave it four stars: solid but not revolutionary. Now Belcher is back, with In Search of Deep Faith.

I feel like I’ve seen bits and pieces of this book already, having followed Belcher on Twitter for the past few years. In Search of Deep Faith reads like a travel journal crossed with Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, as Belcher recounts his family’s adventures through several months of “pilgrimage” in Europe. Belcher, his wife and four pre-teen children spent several months in Oxford, England, where he was a visiting scholar at the university there. They then spent time exploring European sites that were notable because of the saints who had lived there.

Belcher’s chapters bounce back and forth as he shares his family’s adventures in finding and exploring the locations - from Corrie Ten Boom’s house in Holland, to C. S. Lewis’ home in Oxford, to a fruitless search for the location of Bonhoeffer’s hidden seminary - and then interspersing the stories of these saints, with an emphasis on how their deep faith led them to be devoted even during times of crisis and under threat of death.

Belcher’s concern in this memoir seems not primarily for his own spiritual health, but for that of his young children. He reminds us (several times) of studies telling us that children with shallow faith roots will abandon their faith in adulthood. How, Belcher wonders, can he inspire the faith and spiritual understanding that will allow his children to remain firm in their faith throughout their lives?

In Search of Deep Faith is an entertaining read. Most readers will find at least one of the historical faith stories to be new to them - the full story of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was particularly interesting to me - and Belcher drives the reader to reflection on the health of one’s own faith.

[caption width=“640” align=“aligncenter”] Cranmer burned at the stake[/caption]

My one big gripe with the book is Belcher’s style of driving his argument via what I’m assuming must be invented dialogue. Sure, some of the conversations on his trip probably happened as they are written, but even though page after page of his book is filled with quoted dialog ("‘why do you think he did that?’, my wife asked."), either he provided a script for his family to read their questions from, or he’s putting words in their mouths later as a device to move his arguments along. And while literature has been using the forced question-and-answer format at least since Plato did it in The Republic, after too many chapters of it from Belcher it just feels contrived.

In spite of that gripe I’d still recommend reading this one if you think you’re at all interested. Style aside, it’s an encouraging and educational read.

Disclosure: InterVarsity Press provided me a free ebook copy of In Search of Deep Faith in return for posting a review here and at Amazon.com. The contents of the review are mine alone.