Against Nothingness

You don't have to be on this blog long to know that I have two children: Hannah (2) and Ethan (9 months). Cue excuse for cute photos...  You also don't have to be here long to see that I enjoy reading. If you were to put two and two together you might assume, and rightly so, that I read to my children. In so doing I have been exposed to more children's books in the last year than I can remember from my entire life before that time (Despite being a an ESL Kindergarten teacher for two years!).  For the most part, this is great fun. But, if I could, there is one thing I would change: endings.  I find the end of many children's books to be unrealistic. They are toned down in the same way that Disney offers toned down versions of Grimm Brothers fairy tales. So, without further ado, let me present a few children's books as I would end them (and I am only half joking :)  "The Little Engine that Could" This story is famous. 'I think I can, I think I can...

Bruce Sanguin. If Darwin Prayed: Prayers for Evolutionary Mystics . Evans and Sanguin Publishing, 2010. 250 pgs.  This is a prayer book. It follows the Christian calendar, including prayers for each season (i.e. Christmas, Lent, Easter, etc.) and for special occasions (i.e. baptisms, funerals, etc.). Each section begins with a brief introduction and continues with one or more prayers on the subject. However, this is no ordinary prayer book, as the title ought to let you know. It is a prayer book based on what Sanguin calls "evolutionary Christian spirituality." According to the promotional copy these prayers "awaken in us a sacred impulse to evolve in and toward the heart of the divine."  According to Sanguin, in his introduction, he is attempting to "incorporate the evolutionary nature of reality into our theology and liturgy." To integrate science into our spirituality would be a daunting task all on its own. To do so with a specific scientific model...

Walter Brueggemann, An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible . Fortress Press, 2009. 192 Pages.  Here, then, is the third book I mentioned when I reviewed Eric Siebert's book last week.  "It is an exciting time to be studying the Old Testament... In some ways the Old Testament strikes us as ancient, odd, and remote from us. But in other ways it is clear that the Old Testament offers categories of interpretation and guidelines for life that are rich and contemporary in their force. The present volume is an attempt to articulate some of the categories of interpretation and guidelines for life that could make a difference in our present social context." Thus begins An Unsettling God. This book is largely drawn from Brueggemann's previous volume, Theology of the Old Testament  (available here , among other places). The focus of this book is on the relational, or dialogical, nature of God. This is the subject of the first chapter. From there, we see YHWH in c...

As I have shared before , we are a family that prays together. While we do pray randomly with our children, we also pray regularly: every meal time, every nap time, and every bed time.  The other day, while I was putting Hannah to bed, she followed my prayer with a prayer of her own (blah blah represents nonsense sounds she was making; other than that, what follows is a fairly word for word transcript of Hannah's prayer): Dear Jesus, Blah blah, Daddy, blah blah Hannah, blah blah Mommy, blah blah blah blah, Baby, blah, Uncle, Auntie, blah blah,  Jesus, Amen.  First, I recognized the form. I thought to myself, my daughter is so observant. She has picked up on all the parts of our praying that are common to most of our prayers. We always start out with "Dear Jesus" or "Dear Lord", pray for Hannah and the rest of our family, and end by saying "In the name of Jesus, Amen." (which Hannah has, naturally, shortened).   Then, I noticed that she had made th...

Always.  This has been a response to more  bad rhetoric  from the coalition. This chart might be helpful. (Just in case anyone asks, of course we need passion. However, we also need to answer with gentleness and respect. Given the recent goings on, how is it we really think we need to encourage passion more than respect, love, and gentleness? And, even if a doctrine is false, and trampling on the cross or.. human hearts... whatever that means... how does it help to respond with more trampling and hurt feelings?)

I got an email today from Regent College, the school from which I graduated. They are asking all alumni bloggers to 'lend them their blogs' and advertise Regent Summer School. Many of you may know my general opinions about advertising, especially from classic posts such as "I Strongly Dislike Advertising" . However, in this case I will definitely make an exception. Regent Summer school was great when I attended. Some of the most interesting courses, and Profs, come out for the summer. So, I am happy to pass on the word here.   You can check out the summer school offerings on their website, here.   I just did and I have to say that it has made me really want to take several of the courses being offered this summer...  Did you know that, as well as all the regular faculty who are quite good, Christopher Wright is coming out? He is here for the first week of Spring Classes, teaching a course entitled "God's Word, God's World, and God's Mission: Read...

Paul Copan,  Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God . Baker Books, 2011. 252 Pgs.  As I said in my last review of a book on this topic , wading through certain Old Testament passages can be quite troubling and difficult. For Seibert, this seems to have been made especially so by the struggles of his students (or so one gathers from the stories he shares in his introduction). Copan, on the other hand, is mainly responding to the accusations of the 'New Atheists.' People such as Dawkins, Dennet, and Hitchens who delight in caricaturing God as He is presented in the Old Testament so that He more easily falls to their ridicule and condescension.  In response to these arguments, Copan offers a careful and detailed reading of several parts of the Old Testament, paying particular attention to cultural context and genre, as well as the language and details of scripture itself. His book is divided into four sections. Section one introduces the ...

Despite not blogging all the links to everything flying around the web about Rob Bell (though I suppose I have done enough ) I have been reading plenty of reviews and comments, and watching videos and interviews.  Over and over again, I read the reviews and thoughts of people I respect who are being very positive about Rob Bell. People like Eugene Peterson . Over and over again there is a common thread behind the positivity: Rob Bell is asking good questions and discussing important issues.  I completely agree, Rob Bell is asking good questions and discussing important issues (I say as much in my own review ). However, I also stand behind my 1.5 rating of Love Wins.  There is a simple reason for this. I believe there is a difference between asking good questions and asking good questions well, never mind there being a difference between asking good questions and writing a good book! Let me give you some examples of differences in questions: Good Question, asked bad...

Eric A. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God . Fortress Press, 2009. 260 Pages.  (Thanks to a good friend for requesting this review, and even offering to buy me the book!) The bible has long proved both boon and bane alike for its readers, Christians especially. How do we reconcile contradictions in the gospel accounts? What about scientific errors? And who can trust a God as harsh as that which we find in the Old Testament? In the words of Robert Carroll, "if reading the bible does not raise profound problems for you as a modern reader, then check with your doctor and inquire about the symptoms of brain-death."  Responses to these problems have varied, with some more extreme examples coming from Marcion and Bultmann (to choose a modern and ancient example). Marcion is (in)famous for excising the entire Old Testament from the Christian canon, as he did not believe the God represented therein was in any way compatible with the God ...

Constantine R. Campbell, Keep Your Greek: Strategies for Busy People . Zondervan, 2010, 96 pages.  Thanks to Koinonia for providing this book on the blog tour. This handy little volume is a book full of tips on how to keep up your skills in the Greek language after you leave college/seminary for a busy life of (insert any job/life description here). It includes 10 short chapters, 9 of which contain tips (or a set of tips) on how to maintain you abilities in Greek (or any other language that you only care about reading and not speaking). These tips range from the simple ("Read Every Day") to the unique ("Burn your Interlinear") to the interesting ("Use Your Sense"). The motive behind this book is the belief that being able to read and understand the Greek of the New Testament will aid you in understanding, teaching, and preaching it.  Short book, short review. This was a great little book. Well written, to the point, funny, and practical. Speaking as ...

Rob Bell,  Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived . 2011, Harperone. 224 pages.  Love Wins is, shockingly, a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived. Imagine a "Nooma" video, but longer. Much, much longer. You now have a good picture of the style of this book. Typical Bell.  In terms of content, the book is divided into 8 chapters. If I were to re-title them so that the title clearly conveyed the content/issue of the chapter, the table of contents would look like this: Introduction: Millions of people will want to read this book, and enjoy it, because it will fix all the negative images you have of Jesus and Christianity.  1. How are we saved? 2. What/when/where is heaven? 3. What/when/where is hell? 4. Does God get what God wants? or Does Love win?  5. What happened on the cross and in the resurrection? 6. Jesus lives and works outside of the church too and you...

At the end of February Christian social networks exploded. Rob Bell a heretic? Could it be?  I posted several times myself; talking about evangelical controversialists  and disagreeing with Kevin DeYoung that Rob Bell had already outed himself as a heretic.  The book isn't out yet, but the posts continue. In a comment, Roger alerted me to the fact that the issue hit mainline news shortly after it all got started. Now it is there again: in USA Today's article:  Pastor/author's 'Love Wins' bedevils traditionalists  (concluding with a very insightful comment by Richard Mouw) Further, several bloggers have received advanced copies of the book, and so reviews are starting to come out as well. Some are more positive; like this one.  Others, such as that from Kevin DeYoung , less so. Here's my question. Should I buy, read, and review "Love Wins" by Rob Bell? Do you care, and would you find it helpful/interesting? 

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.  So Jesus said to the Twelve,  "Do you want to go away as well? - John 6:66-67 Today I asked a classroom of high school students this same question, though phrased differently.  How do I follow Jesus? Is that still a question you want an answer to? Is it still a journey you want to take? I am hardly capable of giving answer myself, let alone expecting an answer of them, but I try.   Of course I want to follow Jesus! Of course this is a question I want an answer to! Of course this is a journey I want to take! And Peter replied "Even if all fall away, I never will... Even if I have to die with you I will never disown you."  Yes! All that insistence did not help Peter in Gethsemane.  Are such answers, such confidences, out of reach? Can I not say with my whole heart that I WILL FOLLOW!?!? The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand ...

Thomas Jay Oord, The Nature of Love: A Theology . Chalice Press, 2010. 208 pages.  #SpeakEasyLove Book Review Summary Whenever you pick up a systematic theology textbook you will find that the author has been forced to make a decision about what he considers central, and what he considers peripheral, in talking about God. There is not space nor intellect enough in this world to say everything, so where do you begin? And, just as important, where do you end?  According to Oord there is only one answer to these questions: Love. Love ought to be at the center of our conception of God, our theology, our reading of the bible, and more. Of course, this begs another question: What is love? It certainly doesn't do any good to say 'God is love.' A more circular argument would be hard to find. Instead, Oord works out his own definition of love which, he claims, is consistent with the biblical witness though not found in this precise form therein. That definition? "To lov...

Last month I performed my first wedding. Afterwards, I included that fact in the post  "Many Joys" , along with other things I have been blessed with.  Last week I performed my first funeral. Being inexperienced, I spent several hours over several days reading Psalms and scripture passages which are common at funerals, reading minister's manuals which include the sermons, thoughts, and prayers that have been used throughout the ages at funerals, and trying to pull together my own thoughts and put them down on paper. Weddings are much easier. Then comes this week, which really began with Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Once again I am faced with death, for Lent is, after all, a season to remember the death we deserve. From dust to dust. Psalm 39 seems an appropriate place to begin this Lenten season.   "Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days;  let me know how fleeting  is my life.   You have made my days  a mere han...

I am in the middle of Practicing Resurrection  by Peterson, and I came across this passage which I couldn't resist typing out in full and posting for your enjoyment:       "I soon found that the imagery I had grown up with to form by turns either a romantic or a crusader church had changed. Sermons from the Song of Songs or Ephesians were no longer preached to eroticize or militarize the church. Bible texts were no longer sufficient for these things. new and fresh imagery was now provided by American business. While I was growing up in my out-of-the-way small town, a new generation of pastors had re imagined the church. Tirzah and terrible-as-an-army-with-banners had been scrapped and replaced with the imagery of an ecclesiastical business with a mission to market spirituality to consumers to make them happy. Simultaneously, campaigns targeted outsiders to get them to buy whatever it was that was making us happy.      For me,...

James Davison Hunter,  To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World . Oxford University Press, 2010. 368 pgs.  Get ready for a long summary.  Summary To Change the World is organized into three 'essays' consisting of multiple chapters. Hunter calls them essays because in them he is painting with broad brushstrokes and exploring big ideas while not exhaustively perusing and sourcing the literature behind all of his issues. While some may find issue with this, I think Hunter has found an appropriate balance given the issues he is exploring. What issues, you ask? Let me tell you.  The first essay is an extended critique of the assumed definition of culture and method of changing it which is predominant in Christian circles. The problem, says Hunter, is that Christian projects for 'transforming culture' and 'changing the world' assume an 'idealistic' worldview. In other words, t...