Honor: A History, by James Bowman. New York: Encounter Books, 2007. ISBN 1594031983. Pb., 265 pp. $18.95.
Every good playground has its own hierarchy. James Bowman does not dismiss this as mere childishness. He sees human history modeled in the playground hierarchy and writ large. "Dominant nations and their leaders are expected to give demonstrations of their dominance so as to avoid the necessity of having to establish it by fighting. When such demonstrations are ambiguous or unconvincing, fighting and all that implies of heartbreak and misery ensues."
Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade -- And How We Can Fight It, by David Batstone. HarperSanFrancisco, 2007. ISBN 0061206717. Pb., 320 pp. $14.95.*
Reading David Batstone's Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade -- and How We Can Fight It reminds me of the speech that William Wilberforce delivered to Parliament on May 12, 1789. Wilberforce had introduced the first bill abolishing the British slave trade and after a lengthy and impassioned speech before Parliament, he concluded by saying: "The circumstances of this [Slave] Trade are now laid open to us. We can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it [by]. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of the way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it."
Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose by Kirk Byron Jones. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007. ISBN 0787984523. Pb., 188 pp., $21.95.
She had been dead for perhaps two decades when I became their pastor, but the people of the church in rural Southside Virginia where she had taught Sunday school for some forty years still quoted Mrs. Cowie: "A Christian is not supposed to have fun!" Kirk Byron Jones dares to disagree. In Holy Play: the Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose Jones asserts not only that life is to be enjoyed but that having fun is living faithfully and that our passions and joys are means through which we discover divine purpose for our lives. To use Jones's words, "This book will teach you how to stop waiting for God to tell you what to do and start confidently doing what God has been inspiring you to do all along" (xiv).
In a war-whipped, politically polarized, and consumer-confounded world, Walter Brueggemann in his new book shares his conviction that the Church "must recover and re-embrace its own mission" and live in tension with a world that suggests the answers are found in technology, empire politics, militarism, and acquiring more "stuff". He invites the Church to consider that it is listening to a script that is shouting the gospel of fear and anxiety instead of the word of God. There is an alternative script found in God's word, a script that speaks to the discontent and disconnect of those of us who are in the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ.
Brueggemann cites Old Testament prophets who called for restoration and newness, prophets who called for an alternative way of life in covenant with God, and of course, he points to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, the One who feeds the hungry, touches lepers, and welcomes children.
An educator colleague of mine once related her frustration at her congregation's resistance to welcoming children into worship. One Sunday, as the children were leaving after the children's sermon, an usher remarked, only slightly under his breath, "NOW we can worship!" It's enough to make one weep. This compelling book represents Joyce Mercer's search, as she puts it, for a child-affirming theology and for a church that truly welcomes, cares for, and advocates for children.
In our consumerist economy nearly every aspect of life has been commodified. A faith community can find it difficult to resist the "market construction of childhood," one that emphasizes forming children to be responsible consumers of what society has to offer. Mercer suggests that even religious discourse gets caught up in the language of the market. Think of the prevalence of the phrase "target demographics" in our discussion about church transformation and outreach. Our understanding of the needs of childhood, the purpose of the church, the role of a community of faith are all threatened by a market-driven culture that often includes, Mercer argues, an insensitivity to the poor, to those who cannot effectively be consumers.
A brief note to preachers: Read this book. And an accompanying note to elders and other church leaders: Give this book to your preacher(s), and encourage them to read it.
Mike Graves has written a dynamic book about preaching, but not the sort you might expect. This is not an introductory text for beginning students, nor an offering in the latest in homiletical theory.
Instead, it's a text that suggests that lively, faithful preaching is born out of a dynamic encounter between the biblical text and a "fully alive preacher." To renew preaching in the life of the church, Graves proposes that we need to renew the life of the preacher. What he poses is a resource for those pastors whose lives have been full to overflowing for some time with meetings to attend, phone calls to make, bulletins to produce, hospitals to visit, letters to write, unhappy parishioners to counsel -- and who suffer from what some have called the "relentless return of the Sabbath."
by D. Mark Davis. Holy Conversations. The Pilgrim Press, 2007. ISBN 0829817395. Pb., 111 pp. $12.
Mark Davis in his book, Talking about Evangelism, addresses a vital issue in a creative way. As Presbyterians, we have never been very good at evangelism, especially in recent years. Mark uses personal experience and theological insight to offer concrete suggestions that speak well to our day.
Mark and I have followed similar paths in our faith journeys. Both of us came out of very fundamentalistic traditions that carried with them a clear cut way to do evangelism. He used it in talking to his favorite high school teacher: Mark had taken Evangelism 101 at the Christian college he attended and wanted to be sure Sam, his teacher, was saved. Sam responded, "Take your prayers, and your holier-than-thou attitude and get the hell out of my office. And don't bother coming back until you leave that crap at home."
by Christopher J.H. Wright. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006. ISBN 10-8308-2571-1. Hb., 581 pp. with outline, index, Bible index, and bibliography. $38.
All holy books are not alike. One reads various Buddhist Sacred texts in different ways: some are proverbial sayings, others are mythical stories of the former lives of the Buddha. Their coherence is elusive, their history enigmatic. Is the same true of the Bible, or is there a "Grand Narrative" that runs through the Bible?
This book is a fascinating combination of introduction on biblical hermeneutics, biblical theology, and, at the same time, it is a missiology textbook. I spoke to Chris Wright in New York in December 2006 and he told me that his new book was trying to correct what we agreed was the lacuna in Bosch's Transforming Mission -- the Old Testament is missing. So, I expected his book to be a small paperback on Christian mission and the Old Testament. This however is a product of a life of careful biblical scholarship done, as his life has been lived, in a global context. Christopher Wright, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, was principal of All Nations College in Ware, England, and before that he taught in Puna, India. His position now with the Langham Trust involves working with church theologians and other leaders around the world
by Diana Butler Bass. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. ISBN 0-06-083694-6. Hb., 336 pp. $23.95.
When I read Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass I recommended it to all of our clergy, gave a book review, led a session retreat on its contents and bought it for a few good folks whose book budgets were stretched. The Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky then paid for eleven people to hear Diana at Columbia Theological Seminary at the end of January. Both the book and Diana made an impression not only on me but on our good people!
Over a three-year period, Bass studied 50 old Protestant churches that were renewing themselves in mission and identity while exhibiting a new spiritual vibrancy, often coming from dire circumstances of decline and crises. Ten of these congregations became the key to her research. The churches were theologically moderate to liberal and none was the largest in town, but they did range in size from 35 to 2,500. They were Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopalian.
The following reflections will give away some key elements of the plot that the reader may wish to resist reading till completing the book!
The Boy-Who-Lived, and lived, and lived, and lived again, lives! After finishing the incredibly satisfying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I went back and counted. At least nine times in the seven books Harry Potter survived direct personal attempts of Voldemort to capture and kill him. Four of those attempts come in the final volume. What is more, in none of those attempts does Harry ever attempt to do anything more than defend himself. Harry Potter never intentionally kills anyone... though admittedly he is sometimes tempted.
Many readers around the world have been rather stunned by the unmistakably Christian elements in the final showdown between Harry Potter and Voldemort. I must admit that I was not. Thanks to the insights provided though the various books and essays of John Granger -- no relation to Hermione -- I've been expecting this for several years. (See bibliography below.) As usual Joanne Rowling gets at least an "E" (Exceeds Expectations) on her "N.E.W.T." volume -- and I'd say she gets and "O" (Outstanding).
I have been a huge fan of Jimmy Carter for a long time and believe that he has set the gold standard for being a former president. Who else in recent generations can match his stewardship of the prestige that accompanies that position? Rather than retiring into a private world where he could lick the wounds he collected during his administration or going on the lucrative speaking circuit, Carter immediately threw himself into building homes for the poor and serving as an international ambassador for causes of peace and justice. He is widely respected for the moral authority he has earned over the last twenty-five years since leaving office. Like others, I just adore this man.
Over the last fifteen years, I have accompanied numerous church groups on pilgrimages to Palestine to visit the "living stones" of the church who are struggling for their very existence. We have helped to build homes, church facilities, ministries, and most of all, hope. Along the way, the Palestinian Christians found a very tender and abiding place in my heart.
by Katharine Rhodes Henderson. Continuum, 2006. ISBN 0826418678. Hb., 247 pp., $24.95.
In an era when more women are entering seminary and fewer are rising to senior pastor positions, Katharine Rhodes Henderson's new book is both timely and important. It may help break the glass ceiling for women while also re-framing the idea of religious leadership in the 21st century.
Dr. Henderson, executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary (N.Y.), introduces us to non-traditional entrepreneurs who lead not "from above" but from "behind, within and beneath." These brave women of faith have a contagious fervor for doing justice in new and creative ways. Many of them who are more "spiritual" than they are "religious" teach those of us in leadership positions how to analyze conflicted situations and move, as she says, "organically and intuitively" from the center out and the ground up instead of from the top down. They teach us how to broker new partnerships and re-think conventional ways of addressing problems.
by Anne Tyler. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. ISBN: 0-307-26394-0. Hb., 277 pp., $24.95.
In Digging to America, Anne Tyler returns to the themes of longing and healing. The story begins in the Baltimore airport as two families wait for their adopted daughters to arrive from Korea. One family, the Donaldsons, is out in full force with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in attendance. The other family, the Yazdans, is an Iranian-American family composed of three people. The Yazdans are quiet and private, while Bitsy Donaldson habitually turns occasions into celebrations. As both families are leaving the airport, Bitsy invites the Yazdans to join their family party at her home. Thus begins the relationship between the two families, who have little in common besides their adopted daughters.
The Presbyterian Outlook invited pastors and leaders from across the church to share with us their hopes for summer reading. Here are their responses:
Betty Meadows, general presbyter, Mid-Kentucky Presbytery:
Christianity for the Rest of Us, by Diana Butler Bass
Scott Black Johnston, pastor, Trinity Church, Atlanta, Ga.:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling
Portions of Calvin's Institutes (the 500th anniversary of his birth is approaching fast)
A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics by William Stacy Johnson
by Phil Noble. Montgomery: NewSouth, 2003. ISBN 158838120X. Hb., 168 pp. $24.95
Growing up in north Alabama, I vividly remember riding in the back seat of my father's Mercury and hearing him and a friend of his, an insurance salesman from Cullman, talk with some pride about the fact that Cullman, Ala., did not have any African-American residents. My father's friend said he called on one elderly woman regularly in Cullman who had a small arsenal in a bedroom in the back of her house which was ready to be used by several men in that small town to intimidate any African-American who thought to try moving into the city limits. The conversation between my father and this man was filled with the kind of racial epithets that I routinely heard in my childhood. This was 1978.
(fully revised and updated), by the Society of Biblical Literature, Harold W. Attridge, general editor. HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN 006078685X. Hb., 2272 pp. $44.95.
In these days of hitormiss Hollywood sequels, one picks up a "revised and updated" work in fear and trembling. The new edition may fail to rise to the level of the original. Something of the essential character of the original may be removed or replaced in an effort to make the new edition somehow "better."
Such fears are unfounded here.
I was a seminary student when the first edition of The HarperCollins Study Bible came out in 1993, and have found it to be an indispensable tool both in the classroom and in the church. As a student, I realized that it reflected well the insights and interpretive methods of the biblical scholars whose works were among my seminary readings (much as the Oxford Annotated RSV did for previous generations). As a pastor, I have found it to be a useful way to bring the fruit of current biblical scholarship into Bible studies without having to lug around numerous volumes of commentary. The pages of my original edition are underlined, dogeared, torn, worn, and crumpled; alas, one section has even fallen out. I hope my copy of this new edition will be similarly worn in a few years--except for loose section!
For the past few months, I have been conducting a very unscientific survey among PWPAs (Persons With a Presbyterian Affiliation). I think I've talked with around a hundred folks. I asked: "What does it mean to be a Presbyterian today?" The most frequent response is a glazing over of the eyes, a couple of mumbles, followed by, "Gee, I wish I knew." I often have followed this up by asking, "Then why do you stay?" The most frequent response? "I don't know. (Sigh) I just don't know."
Lately, I've been asking a third question of people who seem receptive: "How would you describe being a Christian these days?" Puzzled looks and slow, rueful headshakes are very common. "You got me. I don't know how to describe that. (Pause.) Y'know, I don't think about it all that much."
Admittedly it is an unscientific sample, but thinking back over the years it rings way too true. Folks like this are not simply missing a denominational identity, they are missing a core Christian identity as well. For these folks, "faith" is a series of very blurry, abstract concepts that have nothing to do with "real life." Church is strictly an "if convenient" proposition that has to do with social contacts and "feeling good" more than anything else.
Christian book top sellers for late 2006 and early 2007 from the following publishers:
by Michael Jinkins. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0802827519. Pb., 186 pp. $15.
For almost five years we were privileged to be in a program developed by the Office of Theology and Worship entitled "Excellence from the Start." The design of the program was to put new pastors in groups of seven or eight under the leadership of experienced pastor/mentors. Groups met twice a year for theological reflection on ministry in light of assigned readings.
by Edith M. Humphrey. Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0-8028-3147-8. Pb., 295 pp. $21.
This is an exciting book. It links the doctrine of the Trinity with the spirituality of ordinary Christians. Humphrey, who teaches New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, organized her book around three triads: love, light and life. In keeping with the Trinitarian motif, each triad has three sections.
The heart of Humphrey's work is her understanding of the Triune God and how this God relates to believers. For her, the Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in a perfect community of love and sharing. The Triune God is not self-contained but stands outside the divine self. This is the meaning of ecstasy. The purpose of this ecstasy or standing outside of the divine self is to have an intimate relationship with men and women. This is the "holy tryst" that Humphrey defines as "a holy meeting in which God, through his very own love, brings humanity (spirit, soul, body) to himself" (p. 17). This occurs especially through the action of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, for Humphrey, Christian spirituality is "the study of what happens when the Holy Spirit meets the human spirit" (p. 17).
by William G. McAtee. Martha Gilliss, editor. Louisville: Witherspoon Press, 2006. ISBN 1571530657. Pb, 434 pp. $24.95.
Dreams Where Have You Gone? is several things: a survey of Presbyterian history, a chronicle of the Union Presbytery Movement, an oral history of that movement, a memoir of a Presbyterian pastor, and a probing assessment of where the Presbyterian reunion of 1983 came from with questions about where we are going. It is a wonderful book that can be read at several levels and will provide wisdom and insight for all its readers.
by Fleming Rutledge. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2786-1. Pb. 81 pp. $12.00.
One of the great traditions of the Christian Church is to take time, during Holy Week, to reflect upon the words Jesus spoke from the Cross. Sometimes this happens in a three- hour service on Good Friday, in which the combination of the crucifixion accounts in the four Gospels are read and interpreted in turn. Out of this tradition, Fleming Rutledge has created a series of mediations that are helpful for personal reading, reflection, and devotional use at any time of the year.
by N. T. Wright. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 2006. ISBN 0-8308-3398-6. Hb., 176 pp. $18.
Every pastor and every politician should read N.T. Wright's newest book, Evil and the Justice of God. It serves as both a concise explanation of what the Christian faith has to say about evil and also as a way of understanding all of the terrible things happening in the world around us.
Wright starts by discussing the problem of evil, which is not only a philosophical riddle but a terrible reality in our world today. Wright says that most of us in the West have accepted the Enlightenment myth of progress. Thus we tend to ignore evil in the world for as long as we can, and when it slaps us in the face, we respond to its existence in immature and inappropriate ways.
Theodore J. Wardlaw reviews Barbara Brown Taylor's "Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith."
by Harry S. Stout. New York: Viking, 2006. ISBN 0670034703. Hb., xxii + 552 pp. $29.95.
Wars take on their own mythologies and none more so than the American Civil War. It stands at a center of American consciousness and identity. More than 100,000 titles have been written on the conflict, in its various facets. Now Yale historian Harry S. Stout has given us a "moral history" of the Civil War, providing a unique--and disturbing--view of the years when this nation tore itself apart.
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