Against Nothingness

Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was. Liturgical Press, 2012.  "There are innumerable books about Jesus. The reason is obvious: We can never finish with him, and every age must encounter him anew." (xi) Indeed. Here, then, is another such book. Lohfink seeks to give a comprehensive overview of Jesus, examining his actions, message, and life in a combination of historical critical research and theological thinking.  Lohfink does many things well. A friend, the one who requested that I review this book, commented of this book that it made Jesus more real to him than any other book he has read about Jesus. I can see that. Lohfink does an excellent job of bringing what we know about 1st century Palestine to bear on Jesus' life and teachings. Not only that, Lohfink is unquestionably a talented writer (and, I presume, Linda Maloney must also be a talented translator). I often found myself admiring Lohfink's details surrounding Jesus p...

Calvin Miller, The Vanishing Evangelical: Saving the Church from its Own Success by Restoring What Really Matters . Baker Books, 2013.  Herein lies an examination of the current state of that somewhat nebulous entity known as "Evangelicalism.' An analysis which hops from worship to mission to the information age to the attack of secularism and preaching in the church. An analysis and, nearly, an obituary.  In his first chapter Miller notes "Generally I have noticed that the events of any movement that has been moving in one direction continue to move in that direction until they reach a conclusion. Great movements like American evangelicalism rarely come to a complete and final stop. They end in a reduced state of trickled down vitality. There will always be evangelicals, of course; the question is how many and for how long?" Yes, indeed. Wait... what? I'm afraid the confusion here is basically carried through the whole book. If there will alway...

Cole, Arnie. Ross, Michael. Tempted, Tested, True: A Proven Path to Overcoming Soul-Robbing Choices. Bethany House Publishing, 2013.    Tempted, Tested, True is a book about overcoming temptations. Combining biblical insight with testimonies and stories from multiple sources Cole and Ross explore temptation from a number of different angles. There is a chapter on the life-cycle of temptation, a chapter on men and on women, and topics such as addiction, worry, and confession. Following each chapter is a "nudge." The "nudge" is a set of activities and reading divided into 'tempted' (questions to help you see your own situation), 'tested' (methods of overcoming these temptations), and 'true' (help to "customize a realistic 'change plan' you can apply to your life" [22]). The goal of this book is good. And there is some good content, especially in the 'nudge' sections. Encouraging people to m...

Leonard Sweet, Viral . Waterbrook Press, 2012. 240 pgs.  "The Gospel is nothing without relationship. And no one gets it like the google generation." So begins the copy for Viral by Leonard Sweet. What follows, once you get into the book, is 4 chapters distinguishing the "Google generation" from the "Gutenberg generation." Once Sweet has set up this division, he proceeds to examine Twitter, Google, iPhones, and Facebook and how each of these lends itself to relationship and, thus, the gospel. Sweet concludes by saying that we need to be able to deal with both cultures with love and hospitality.  I have enjoyed some of Sweet's books in the past. I did not enjoy this. The problems with this book are numerous. Sweet acknowledges, in the final pages of his book, that he has "grievously simplified the two cultures" of 'googler' and 'gutenberger.' He is almost right. I would go so far as to say that he has invented the...

Rick Richards. Simply God. Westbow Press, 2011. 192 pgs.  The description of this book promises to discuss the difference between convincing people and equipping people. It is supposed to be about seeing and knowing God, making these things our priorities. That is, what we need is simply God. These are, in themselves, excellent points. We do need God more than anything, and we ought to be equipped, not just convinced, to live well. You will not find that here. Unfortunately, Simply God is actually a long, unedited, unorganized, mostly unhelpful, self published book that needed, but clearly did not get, a lot of help.  Something in the very preface of this book made me uncomfortable. As I finished reading it I had to stop and consider what it might be. I wasn't sure, so I reread it more carefully. There it was, clear as day, in the first lines. Richards claims that this book "was inspired by our Father so that all his children would know how much he loves them an...

  Mark Batterson.  I n A Pit With A L ion On A Snowy Day: How To Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars . Multnomah Books, 2006. 192 pgs. What do you do when opportunity roars? Batterson urges us to give chase, lock eyes with our lion, and charge directly at it. Through nine chapters Batterson makes this point again and again. That opportunity often comes in threatening forms, and if we wish to seize that opportunity we must overcome our fear. He urges us to forget about playing it safe, embrace uncertainty, and stop worrying about looking foolish, and then we will see the blessing of the Lord. In one way there is nothing wrong here. Opportunity does often come from overcoming threats and fears. We must, in fact, overcome our fears and follow the path God leads us on. And yet this book exemplifies much of what I find disturbing in contemporary Christian literature. Let me explain. Here we have a book which takes as its basis barely a scrap of a verse and, with t...

John I. Snyder,  Your 100 Day Prayer: The Transforming Power of Actively Waiting on God . Thomas Nelson, 2011. 240 pgs. This books is supposed to be a 100 day journey which guides one through intentional prayer and biblical truths which will "transform their spiritual lives and reveal God's provision for their needs." It takes much the form you would expect: A prayer, a guide, an introduction and then straight into 100 days of devotionals each of which end with a prayer and a space journal about 'today's progress.' In reality, the only way this book will transform your prayer life is if it pushes you to pray regularly for 100 days in a row. If you haven't done that, you should. If, as you do so, you seek the Lord, you will be transformed. As for this book... well, there is nothing wrong with it. It is a fairly well written, fairly standard devotional. But it is not a book about actively waiting on God. If anything, the focus is really on freedom in...

Compiled by Linda Washington.  Everything the Bible Says About Heaven . Bethany House Publishers, 2011. 105 pgs.  This is a book which claims, in the title, to be a collection of everything the bible says about heaven. In terms of format, it is divided 6 chapters exploring Old Testament visions of heaven, New Testament visions of heaven, heaven in Revelation, the time between death and resurrection, hearing from heaven, and who will go to heaven. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction and is then entirely made of bible verses (quoted from whatever translation the 'compiler' chose) and sometimes a brief explanatory word after the verse.  To be frank, there are so many things wrong with this book I don't even know where to start. First of all, it is plainly not "everything the bible says about heaven." This collection of verses has been sifted and selected to avoid some more difficult issues. An obvious example is how the compiler seems utterly ...

Scotty Smith.  Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith . Baker Books, 2011. 380 pgs.  On the surface, this is a devotional prayer book which has one prayer for each day of the year. However, you do not have to read very far to find out that Scotty Smith intends to communicate far more than this. Through these prayers, Smith desired to find Jesus in every part of the bible, bring the gospel to bear on every part of his life, and help the reader to do these same things. He seeks to engage Jesus as prophet, priest, and king (a popular reformed rubric these days, and certainly not a bad one), as well as to continually return to basics of the gospel within the grand metanarrative of scripture.  As you read these prayers you will find that they truly are everyday prayers. They range from poetic to personal in style, grand to minute in scope, and topically they are all over the place. This is, in my opinion, a good reflection of everyday life....

Darlene Zschech.  Art of Mentoring, The: Embracing the Great Generational Transition . Bethany House, 2011. 187 pgs.  If you read the title and description of this book, even if you read the introduction, you will get the impression that what this book is about is mentoring across the generation gap. Helping those who have more experience in ministry and life to mentor those with less. You would be wrong. Somewhere between the introduction and the first chapter, there is a shift. Instead of being about the art of mentoring, this book is about the fourteen values that Darlene Zschech wants to encourage leaders to model. These fourteen values range from what you would expect (humility, excellence, and people) to some less so (energy, genius, and the squeeze).  They all make sense as stand alone values, though how they were chosen is beyond me, but they do not fit together well as a book.  Therein lies my problem. There are may great things in this book; g...

Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson,  On the Verge: A Journey Into the Apostolic Future of the Church (Exponential Series)  Zondervan, 2011. 352 pgs.  The church is 'on the verge' of massive changes. It must be, or so these authors argue. The old ways of 'being church' in the west are failing and so we must strive for something new. Hirsch and Ferguson call this new thing a 'verge church'. That is, the church as 'apostolic movement', reproducible and missional, focused on the 'mDNA' of 'apostolic genius' (a concept from another one of Hirsch's books). In this book Hirsch and Ferguson bring forth a host of best practices, ideas, programs, and so on (one could insert descriptive words in here for quite some time) with the goal of helping church leaders become part of this new apostolic movement.  In terms of structure, On The Verge is divided into four parts: Imagine (which explores the vision of the apostolic movement), Shift (...

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch .  Faith of Leap, The: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage (Shapevine) . Baker Books, 2011. 224 pgs.  In The Faith of Leap Frost and Hirsch encourage the reader to leave the idols of security and safety behind and live out our adventure with God. They remind us that faith always involves risk, that God calls us to make a leap for him and, in that leap, to have the "faith of leap". In order to develop these themes, Frost and Hirsch explore the difference between community and communitas, as well as liminality and how these things affect our churches and are lived out in our mission. Their final chapter then points us to our own communities as the places in which we live out this adventure through the "risk of neighborliness."  There is much to be praised in this book.  Chapter five is clearly the highlight, as Hirsch and Frost directly assault our idol of security in an argument and encouragement to get ov...

Frank Viola . Revise Us Again: Living From a Renewed Christian Spirit . David C. Cook, 2011. 176 pgs.  In this book Viola takes a look at revising the script of our life to be in line with the script of Jesus Christ. Through ten chapters Viola examines various issues in the Christian life, how we think about things, how we talk about things, and how our life needs to be revised in light of Jesus and His word. These topics range from our misuse of phrases such as "Let me pray about that" (which really means 'no, but I am too uncomfortable to say it to your face, so I would rather take a spiritual out and hope you forget you asked me') and "God told me..." to our misunderstanding of the gospel and our God.  Unfortunately, caricature reigns in this promising, but ultimately disappointing, book by Frank Viola. He almost brings up some good issues, but then approaches them in such a shallow manner as to negate even the good brought about in raising the topics...

Robert White. Chasing the Wind . Word Alive Press, 2011. 120 pgs.  Chasing the Wind  explores, through the lens of Ecclesiastes, three key aspects of human life: meaninglessness, futility, and frustration. More specifically, the meaninglessness of wisdom, work, and wishes; the futility of desires and deeds; the frustration of toils, treasures, and terminations (gotta like the alliteration going on there). I know, it sounds strange to say that we are going to focus on the key areas of meaninglessness, futility, and frustration. But what did you expect from a book focused on Ecclesiastes? Furthermore, these are, in fact, key areas of human experience. That we do our best to ignore and pass over them, from Monday at work to Sunday at church, does not change the fact that make up a large part of our common human experience.  White begins each section with a verse from Ecclesiastes and a short story. He then moves on to share personal stories and details from his life to i...

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 ...

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...

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...