by Allen C. Guelzo, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans. Paperback edition, 2003. ISBN 0-8028-3872-3. 528 pp. $24
Lincoln has been the subject of an unending stream of biographies. Among the many good treatments of Lincoln's life and times, Guelzo's excellent biography deserves special attention because he examines Lincoln as a man of ideas. Lincoln famously wrapped his political ideas in religious themes, a trait that led many to lionize him as the "Christian president." Often forgotten, however, is that Lincoln entered politics as an enlightened skeptic (friends burned a scandalous, irreligious pamphlet "Infidelity" so it would not ruin his political career). The story of the development of Lincoln's philosophical and religious thought makes a fascinating story and Guelzo tells it well.
Reviews of 'Dreamgirls' and 'Home of the Brave'
Jeff Lipsky, director of the film, "Flannel Pajamas" is interviewed by Ron Salfen, OUTLOOK film reviewer.
Good News for a Fractured Society: Matthew Speaks to Divisions of Power, Wealth, Gender, and Religious Pluralism, by Stephen McCutchan. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2006. ISBN 1425956785. Pb., 196 pp. $15.95.
'You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.'' (Matthew 5:27-8)
Maurice (Peter O'Toole) and his best friend Ian (Leslie Phillips) are two old English stage actors who meet for breakfast regularly at their favorite café, sometimes with other friends. They accompany each other to the theater. They look after each other, and frequently enjoy cocktails together in the early evening. Though Maurice is married, he doesn't seem to spend much time with Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave). Oh, he wanders over to visit occasionally, and they talk like old friends. Sometimes he gives her money, when he's had a little acting gig, maybe playing a dying man on a television hospital drama.
In the darkness of Christmas morn
by James E. Atwood. Victoria, B.C., Canada: Trafford. ISBN 1-4251-0004-X. Pb., 120 pp., $13.95.
Last summer, my brother gave me a book of church humor filled with lame stories every pastor has heard before: the children's sermon that involves describing a small animal ("It sounds like a squirrel, but I know you're going to tell us it's Jesus."); the man stranded on his roof during a flood who waved away the life boat and the helicopter believing "God would save him" only to be chastised at heaven's gate for refusing God's practical assistance.
You know the kinds of stories I'm talking about. Corny, schmaltzy stories with shaky theology and dated metaphors. This is not that book.
'Déjà Vu': The problem with time-travel movies is that the logic always breaks down somewhere. So it is here. We want to root for Denzel Washington, the likable detective, and his impossible romance with Paula Patton, the once-and-future victim, but the time-warp theory gets, well, warped.
'The Pursuit Of Happyness': We've also seen the Dad-struggles-to-raise-his-son-by-himself movie. Because this one is based on a true story, and because Will Smith is playing the primary character with his real-life son, Jaden, this one has a very authentic feel to it. But the screenplay is a slow spiral downward for two hours, followed by a few moments of triumphalism at the end. Yes, we get to walk out relieved, but most of the experience is, well, not one of 'happyness.'
One is set in modern-day England, the other among the ancient Mayans, just prior to the time the Spaniards arrived. Both are about 'nice' people who encounter outlaws. In both, the characters' ordeal is such that nothing will be the same for them afterwards. In both, a startling revelation alters the whole paradigm. In both, at the end, the main characters are desperately clinging to a love fiercely tested.
What was it like in Berlin, in the summer of 1945? In "The Good German," we get a surreal glimpse, and the picture isn't pretty.
There's rubble everywhere. Bombed-out buildings are part of the landscape, as are the gaunt faces, the food lines, and the palpable smell of despair. The Allies have already partitioned the defeated city, and the rifts between them are already swelling to the surface, even as the Potsdam Conference decides how the victors will divide the spoils.
Another sign of the holidays--the Outlook book editor compiles a sampling of books that make both good gifts for Christmas and good books to get and read for yourself. Here is the 2006 list:
Resources for Year C
Luke for Everyone, by Tom Wright. WJKP, 2004. ISBN 0-664-22784-8. Pb., 320 pp. $14.95.
Wright's popular for Everyone series combines the diligence of his New Testament scholarship with his passion for preaching and teaching in the life of the church. Here Wright offers constructive expositions and useful illustrations for each section of Luke's Gospel, along with his own translation of each text.
New Proclamation Commentary on the Gospels, by Andrew Gregory, David Bartlett, Morna Hooker, and Henry Wansbrough. Fortress, 2006. ISBN 0-8006-3752-6. b., 320 pp. $35.
A one-volume commentary on the four Gospels as they are represented in the Revised Common Lectionary. The authors represent Anglican, American Baptist, Methodist, and Roman Catholic traditions.
Editor's Note: On November 26, the film, "The Nativity Story", will become the first feature film ever to premiere at the Vatican, in Vatican City (Rome), Italy, reports Religion News Service. It is scheduled for a December 1 release in the United States. The premiere will be held at the Vatican's Aulo Paolo VI (Pope Paul VI Hall) with 7,000 invited guests. The event is a benefit, with contributions going toward construction of a school in the village of Mughar, Israel, located approximately 40 kilometers from Nazareth, which has a diverse population of Christians, Muslims, and Druze.
Ron Salfen, Texas pastor and OUTLOOK film reviewer, had a chance to attend an advance showing of the film and interview the film's director, Catherine Hardwicke. His review is posted along with this report. Here is the interview:
Outlook: First, let me be a non-typical critic, and tell you that I really liked your movie. I thought it was fantastic.
CH: Thanks very much. You know, I grew up Presbyterian. ... I grew up in First Church in McAllen, Texas. Now my parents have moved to Bend, Ore., but they go to the First Presbyterian Church there, and my Dad still sings in the choir.
Outlook: You've chosen to combine the accounts of Matthew and Luke, and at the end, the manger scene looked like a lot of Nativity sets, with all the characters huddled around the cradle.
CH: Yes, that was our nod to popular imagination, and what we knew people would expect.
It's not easy to make a movie about the birth of Christ. If you're too literal, it feels like an awkward bathrobe play, and even the Gospels themselves contain commentary. Besides, what to do about the different ways the Bible itself presents the story, and how about the prophecies leading up to the birth of the Messiah? Which to utilize? And how about the background music? Is it going to be "authentic indigenous," or Gregorian chant, or traditional hymnody, or contemporary "soft rock"? And how about the biblical characters? Are they going to be stentorian; stiff and awkward, and perhaps somewhat filled with a sense of self-importance? Or are they just going to be "ordinary people," and how do you manage that with a Hollywood cast?
How important are the stories we carry in our hearts! They guide our lives and nurture our growth. Evelyn Fulton, a lifelong advocate for women and the first woman to graduate from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary in 1949, recalled: "My mother, and my father, too, always said 'You can do anything you want in this world.'"
For the past two years--2005 and 2006--we women have been telling our stories. We have laughed, cried, and been amazed again at what God has called us to do. In our stories is the history of the Presbyterian Church opening its ministries to women.
On the DVD, "Women's Ordination: Past, Present & Future," thirteen of these wonderful women tell their stories. They all eventually became successful as pastors, executives, community leaders, moderators, and theologians, but it was not easy. The DVD was produced by the Women's Ordination Mission Team of Chicago Presbytery to be sure these women's stories can be an inspiration to a new generation of women and men.
It may seem unlikely that Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson and Rolling Stone Magazine would have much of anything in common. Sure, both are seeking to make an impact upon American culture by communicating particular messages and beliefs. But that is like saying that Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush are similar because they both desire to motivate and persuade a particular group of people.
Granted, it has been for very different reasons, but James Dobson and Rolling Stone have found at least a bit of common ground in that both recently have been at odds with the relatively new and somewhat controversial TNIV. "The TNI...what?" was the response I received most when attempting to gather thoughts and opinions from Presbyterian friends. I have to admit, upon first hearing of it, I thought the T stood for "Teen." It doesn't.
The Bible: Today's New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).
Since the appearance of the English Revised Version in 1870, considered by many the beginning of modern English translations of the Bible, more than 150 translations (often of only the New Testament) have appeared. Many of these are forgotten private translations, although some of the "giants" are still remembered (e.g., James Moffat, E. J. Goodspeed, J. B. Phillips).
The major advance in translation by a committee was made with the appearance of the Revised Standard Version (New Testament 1946; complete Bible, 1952). The next two major moments were the publication of the New English Bible (1961; 2d ed., 1970), a British production with a very interpretive flair, and the New International Version (1973), done in part to have a "conservative" alternative to the RSV.i
After a year with the TNIV ... I have found it illuminating to do my daily readings in new Bible translations. Often I see familiar passages in fresh light because of new turns of phrase or word choices. Not long after its initial publication, I found the NIV a wonderful new rendering of our beloved Book. But over the years it has come to feel dated on several accounts -- something unavoidable when the goal is to translate into language as current as possible.
©2004 by John R. Erickson. Used by permission.
I was surprised the first time an elementary school librarian invited me to read my Hank the Cowdog stories to her children.
I knew nothing about children's literature and never dreamed that children could understand the subtle humor in a story whose main character might be summed up in a paraphrase of St. Paul: "That which I do, I should not, and that which I should not, I do--all the time." Hank, who narrates the stories, exaggerates, often tells little lies to cover his mistakes, has no self-knowledge, and ... well, isn't very smart. That's pretty subtle, and I wrote the first Hank book for adults, not children.
Six million books later--most of them purchased by or for children--it is clear that I was not a marketing genius.
by Frederick Buechner. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. ISBN: 0-06-084248-2. Hb., 320 pp., $24.95.
Here is a noteworthy collection of sermons by one of our most celebrated Christian apologists, Frederick Buechner. Ranging from sermons delivered in the 1950s to the late 1990s, this anthology lives up to its subtitle, presenting a half-century's worth of thinking aloud about the Christian way. Buechner, who has described himself as a part-time Christian and a part-time novelist, offers the reader many windows into the oftentimes hidden world of Christian truth.
The collection begins with a sermon called "The Magnificent Defeat," concentrating upon the all-night wrestling match between Jacob and God at the ford of the Jabbok. The encounter leaves Jacob crippled and helpless but, as Buechner describes it, in the end Jacob sees "something more terrible than the face of death--the face of love." (p. 7). Thanks to Buechner's vantage point, one can share a sense of authentic surprise the original Phillips Exeter Academy student-congregation must have felt at hearing the news that out of defeat can come blessing.
by Randall Balmer. New York: Basic Books, 2006. ISBN 0465005195. Hb., 242 pp., $24.95.
This book will anger, frighten and give hope.
Balmer is professor of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University, and visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. He is also a Baptist whose evangelical credentials are impeccable. He calls his book "An Evangelical's Lament," lament because the religious right has hijacked traditional evangelicalism, and, in its lust for political clout and legitimacy, has sold its soul to the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party. To be perfectly fair, religious liberals in the sixties and seventies did likewise, often identifying Democratic Party platforms with the promise of the kingdom of God. But that was then; this is now. Have we learned nothing?
by Jacqueline Lapsley. Louisville: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22435-0. Pb., 154 pp. $19.95.
This exploration of four Old Testament narratives about women begins by recounting two different experiences that reflect well the difficult relationship between feminist scholarship and the church.
The first story is of Lapsley's conversation with a clergyperson who bemoans yet another book on women in the Bible! This experience speaks of a certain tiredness with respect to the topic, its redundancy given the many treatments that already exist. But it also might hint at impatience with the task of feminist scholarship and its hermeneutics of suspicion, an interpretive position that often denies the Bible's ability to speak a word of God for women's lives.
The second experience is a story about a student who admitted to throwing her Bible across the room in disgust and outrage over the sexist worldview that inhabits the Scriptures. This story reveals the importance of the feminist task but asks how God's word can be heard when the dominant voices in Scripture undermine and often harm the well being of women
What Christian books are believers reading and discussing? Publishers list their top sellers for fall 2006, both new books and continuing bestsellers.
by William Stacy Johnson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0-8028-2966-X. Hb., 320 pp. $25.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. ... William Stacy Johnson believes that it is time: to address the issue of same-gender unions as a society and church and to lend his reasoned voice to the discussion. In A Time to Embrace he offers a well-documented, cogent argument in support of a welcoming and affirming posture toward persons in exclusively committed same-gender relationships. In so doing he traverses the terrain of religion, law, and politics, carefully reviewing where we have been, analyzing where we are, and setting forth a path for where we might go faithfully into the future. He limits his affirmation to those in committed, monogamous, egalitarian, same-gender relationships, for it is in these unions that he finds not only the possibility for compassionate support, but also the responsibility for faithful action.
Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action by David Ray Griffin. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. ISBN 0-664-23117-9. Pb., 246 pp. $17.95.
reviewed by Christian T. Iosso
What does a rationalist do when so many irrational things are happening?
As David Ray Griffin summarizes them, we have a global warming crisis, continued nuclear proliferation, massive death by preventable poverty and growing social inequality in the United States, still the world's most militarily powerful nation and hence the most responsible for these trends. But why does the US government focus about 58% of our federal budget--inclusively calculated--on a unilateral militarism that alienates most of the world and blocks social progress? The reason given is the "war on terror," and the defining moment of that continues to be 9/11.
by Fred Lehr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8006-3763-1. Pb., 147 pp. $18.
On a recent day, three committees of the presbytery I serve met at the same time. As meetings broke up, the young woman on the Committee on Representation and I headed down to my office to get information about college scholarships for her. On the way we were stopped at least five times by people who just wanted to say a word to the presbytery executive. Finally, when we were alone, as I apologized for the delay, she, a preacher's daughter like me, said, "Oh, Paige, it's fine, really. It was just like being with my dad after church. I know how it is. We have learned to wait 'til we get home if we need his attention for something."
It was an instant bond between us, two women forty years apart in age who realized instantly that we had grown up to love the Presbyterian Church and our fathers, patiently waiting our turn while they served the flock.
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