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Eternity’s Edge (Echoes from the Edge Book #2) by Bryan Davis

Adam Shields —  September 22, 2010 — Leave a comment

Summary: A decent second book in a Christian science fiction (young adult) series. Falls a bit flat with some characters but overall worth the read.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

Eternitiy’s Edge is the second book in a contemporary Fantasy trilogy.  I think it is officially listed as a Science Fiction, but seems more fantasy to me.  The Echoes from the Edge triology is about Nathan Shepherd, a 16 year old from a talented family.  His parent disappear during his violin performance (apparently killed) and he is thrown into inter-dimensional fight.

Eternity's Edge (Echoes from the Edge)In the first book (my review), the good guys and the bad guys are defined.  The hero’s team is assembled (Kelly, the daughter of Nathan’s dad’s old friend, Daryl, Kelly’s best friend and a variety of support characters.)  We find out that everyone on earth has not, one, but two, counterparts (on the other two dimensions of earth).

The bad guys are trying to merge the dimensions (or destroy them, sometimes it is not completely clear).  It is Nathan’s role to find his parents, save the three dimentions, and heal the damage already done to the three Earths.  These three tasks often seem to lead in different directions, and it is unclear if they can accomplish all three.

There is an underlying theme of whether it is ever appropriate to kill innocents to save the world and in general whether acts are inherently inappropriate or situationally inappropriate.

Nathan is a bit of a goody two shoes and his internal conflicts can be a bit over the top for me.  Maybe it is because I am an adult and these books are aimed at the older end of young adult fiction.  But while I think the discussion is good, I think that it can get a bit silly at times.

Overall, I think this series is very original.  It is occasionally hard to follow the stream of the story, but keep going and it will sort itself out.  The second book took a little while for me to get into it.  I read about a quarter and then put it down for almost a month.  But then I finished the last 75% in two days.  I will probably wait a little bit to finish off the series, but I do recommend it.

There are Christian themes in these books.  Several of the characters are Christian and pray and read scripture.  It is not a strong focus of the books, and at this point I am not sure how much it adds to the story.  But Christian science fiction/fantasy is hard.  So I have to give Davis credit for attempting it.  And even more credit for writing an original series that is not a “Christian version” of another series.

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The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist by Craig Groeschel

Adam Shields —  September 10, 2010 — 3 Comments

Cover of "The Christian Atheist: Believin...

Cover via Amazon

I have added an ending to this review after reconsidering it a bit.  I have not edited the original review, just added at the end.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

The Christian Atheist is a great book title.  I have heard a number of people recommend this book so I picked it up for my Audible.com account.  It is short, just under 6 hours on audio (256 pages in hardback).  In some ways, I was disappointed.  Especially the early chapters were more evangelism than really calling the church to live and follow God.  I guess that is not all bad.  It gets everyone to the same starting place.

There were several chapters toward the end that I thought were very good.  The chapters on Money, Worry, Prayer were essentially what I thought I was getting when I bought the book.  In one way or another Groeschel re-works a similar idea, he tells a story about himself or someone else that shows that while they claim that they are a Christian, they are not actually living like they trust that God is actually their God and capable.  Then he concludes with a similar story but where the person follows God as they should.  Then the next topic.

The Christian Atheist is simply a person that claims that God is their God, but does not trust God to care for them, or answer their prayers, or be able to change them from their sin, etc.  I think this is a book that the church really needs.  But I am also saddened that the church needs this book.  (I am not saying that I was not convicted several times about areas where I am not fully trusting God.)  This is not the meat of Christianity, this is the milk.  There is nothing here that is really beyond what should be fairly basic Christianity.  However, I know that much of Church is not ready to trust God for the basics.  How can we claim to want to change the world or reform our country, etc., if we don’t trust God to actually be God?

So I am recommending this book with some reservations.  If you have recently read, Radical by David Platt, or Crazy Love or Forgotten God by Francis Chan or Primal by Mark Batterson or Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet or Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani or any of the dozen or so other similar themed books that have come out in the last two years, skip this one.  Essentially it is the same book, repackaged for a slightly different reader.  Instead, figure out how to put into practice what you have already read.  If you have not read one other the others and you feel your faith is lacking, then this is one of the better calls to live for God as we have been called to live.

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After a few days I am not sure my review is entirely fair.  Many times what one calls “milk” another calls “meat” not because there is a difference of the content, but because there is a difference in the person the is receiving the content.  It may even be that something that is considered milk will later be considered meat because the reader is at a different place and can appreciate the content differently.  I read a review today of another book and the reviewer said the book was probably most appropriate for the very new Christian or the very mature Christian.  Those in between probably just wouldn’t get much out of it.  Maybe that is my problem with this book.  I honestly did get something out of it, but it wasn’t what I was looking for, so my expectations distorted my reality.

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Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media by Bradley R.E. Wright

Adam Shields —  July 28, 2010 — 2 Comments

Takeaway: Statistics are important.  And if you are a Christian that believes in truth, you need to be even more careful with numbers.

I like numbers.  My day job is being a nanny, but my part time consulting job is evaluating an after school program.  I track grades, school attendance, program attendance, home and school visits, behavior, test scores, and a variety of other statistics.  In a previous life, one of my jobs was demographic research for church plants and I was statistician for a local Baptist association.  I was a sociology major as an undergrad and event went to a sociology paper competition (and came in 3rd) for a sociology paper about the relationship between believe in rape myths and matriculation in a Christian college campus.

If you know me in real life, then you have probably heard me quote a stat (or 50) about something or other.  So I should have jumped at this book.  But I did not.  Frankly, I am a bit negative about a lot of Christian’s use of numbers.  A couple weeks ago two different times in the same Sunday, from the pulpit and in a private meeting I heard a similar statistic about divorce that I knew was wrong.  My church is about 60 percent single adults.  So when people talk about marriage, I want it presented in a fairly positive light, not to be fake, but to not compound the negative feelings that many in my church have toward marriage.  So when I hear the same statistic about divorce rising, I get frustrated.  I did not say anything, but I was frustrated.  You see, divorce is not rising.  In fact it is dropping.  In part because many people are just choosing to not get married, or at least get married much later.  And divorce among highly educated, upper income people (like most everyone in my church) has fallen off a cliff.  So when we talk about divorce as being a major and increasing issue among Christians, we are actually wrong.  We should be providing support for marriages, that is why my wife and lead a small group for newly married couples.  And we should be providing support for those that facing or recently completed a divorce.  But in my church, telling people (most of whom are single) that divorce is increasing, does not really address either reality, or the issue most in the congregation are facing.

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media is a very good remedy to the many poorly presented statistics that are floating around in and outside the Christian world.  Dr Wright, spends a significant amount of time addressing why so many bad statistics are being used.  And really it comes down to two major areas, attention and authority.  We are trying to get people’s attention, so pastors (and many others) troll around for the worst statistics to try to prove their point.  (This is also why we get so many topical sermons that do not seem to fit the broader context of the passage.)  It is not that pastors (or others) are trying to mislead, but rather, they start from the end and find support instead.  The second major issue is that many people are misled because they saw something in print.  If it was printed, it must be true.  Christians, as people of the book, may be more influenced by the authority of something being in print.

Continue Reading…

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Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare Ask God for the Impossible by Steven Furtick

Adam Shields —  July 23, 2010 — 1 Comment

Catalyst sent me an advance copy of Sun Stand Still.  I am already frustrated that it does not come out until Sept 21, 2010.  I want to order and send a couple copies to friends.

This book is about praying the big prayers that show that God is really in control, not us.  The kind of prayers that allow us to worship God because we know that it is only through his power that things are accomplished.

The book is a long meditation on the story of Joshua, when he prays to ask God to hold the sun so that they army of Israel will have time to finish defeating the 5 armies it was coming up against.

In many ways this is similar to a variety of other books coming out lately.  Crazy God, Radical, The Divine Commodity and a number of others are calling us to live a life that is more than just the American Dream and a nice safe Christianity.

I like the focus of Sun Stood Still.  Because even though Radical and Crazy Love continually reminded us that it was only by God’s grace that we could really follow Christ into deeper life that he has for us, Furtick focuses his book on prayer.  This inherently focuses the action, not on what we do, but on what God is doing.  Prayer is about asking God to act.  It is hard, if we are praying to forget that it is him working and not our own power that is saving us.

I really liked Crazy Love and Radical.  I think both books are really good for people to read.  But I am pre-ordering two copies of Sun Stand Still to send to friends.  It is brief, I read it in about 2 1/2 hours.  It has lots of illustrations about what Furtick is talking about.  And most important in my mind, it manages to call us to prayer, big prayers, without laying on a guilt trip.

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I received an advanced copy.  I have given away my copy of the book.  I was not asked to do a review of the book.

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Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans

Adam Shields —  July 21, 2010 — 2 Comments

I picked Evolving in Monkey Town on the recommendation of John Armstrong.  It is a clever title.  Rachel Held Evans grew up and went to college in Dayton, TN, the home of the Scopes Monkey trial.  The book traces Held Evans as she taught the certainty of her faith but eventually begins to question her faith and God.

In many ways this is a simple book, it is the story of faith growing up from learned from others to owned by the author.  In other ways this is a much deeper book.  The fundamental questions that starts Evan’s questioning is the death of a Muslim woman.  Does God really condemn people that have not ever heard the Gospel to Hell.  This is a question that David Platt explicitly answered in Radical (my review).  Platt’s answer was on of my biggest frustrations with his book, although the practical working out of the results of my answer are not that much different than Platt.  Evan’s on the other hand doesn’t really seem to get around the answering the question.  Or rather, by the end she re-frames the question.  Although I agree with her answer more, the practical working out of her answer is less satisfying than Platt’s.  I guess I am frustrated both ways.

Along the way, I find myself amused by her forthrightness.  Her question is different than mine, but as my faith grew and matured it also “evolved”.  I think that everyone’s does eventually.  This is a story that many could have written.  But I am glad that it was Rachel Held Evans.  Her writing and truthful working out of her faith made this a book worth reading.

If you want another opinion, try this review from Kyle Reed.

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Humanitarian Jesus by Christian Buckley and Ryan Dobson

Adam Shields —  July 2, 2010 — Leave a comment

Takeaway: Evangelism and Social Justice are not antithetical.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook (Paperback is a great price)

I started Humanitarian Jesus immediately after Jesus Manifesto (my review).  In most ways, Humanitarian Jesus was exactly what Jesus Manifesto should have been.  The first section of the book focused on a theology of Christ and ministry.  This is a practical, theology of how to maintain a focus on Christ and at the same time balance the need for evangelism and ministry.   

One good example of the good theology, and practical working out of issues is the fine line that is maintained on evangelism.

“Evangelism is not just sharing the gospel of salvation.  And evangelism is not just meeting needs…Evangelism is allowing Christ to so live in and through us that who we are, what we do and what we say is the very expression of who he is…Christ did not meet needs and live among the people just so he would have the chance to evangelize.  He met needs and lived among the dying because that was part of the truth of the gospel…We should meet needs because it is part of who Christ was and if we are in Christ it should be part of who we are.”

The authors walk a narrow line.  They define evangelism as both “who we are and what we do” and “a message the requires a response.”  They are pushing back against people that want to only view evangelism as a written or spoken message, or those that want to define evangelism as only action.  Evangelism is both action and word, done in conjunction.

The second section is just as important to the project.  Section two is completely focused on interviews of people that are attempting to balance evangelism and social action (or ministry or social justice.)  Also important is that those being interviewed will not agree on terminology, or the way that things work out or the theology of why they are doing what they are doing.  But that is part of the conversation.

This is not a perfect book.  I would have chosen a few different interviews.  Still too much focused on the White Guy.  But  overall this is a much better book than several others I have read on similar topics lately.

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This book was provided by christianaudio.com for purposes of review.

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Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional by Jim Belcher

Adam Shields —  June 18, 2010 — 1 Comment

I have followed the debate over the Emerging church for quite a while.  In general I have agreed with many of the criticisms that the Emerging church has had with the traditional church, but I have not always agreed with the resulting prescriptions of where to go after the criticism.

Jim Belcher, it seems, wrote Deep Church particularly for me.  I have witnessed both in books and among my friends the breakdown that occurs when people start talking about Emerging church issues.  It seems that both groups are talking a different language and have a hard time actually understanding and dealing with the legitimate issues that other side brings up.

Belcher does a better job than any other book I have read at really putting onto paper the issues of both sides in a way that is honest and fair to their point.  And even more important, I think both sides would agree he hits their main points without condescension.

The book takes the seven main concerns that are similar across most of the Emerging church and then looks at them from both the Emerging and Traditional side and then attempts to find a third way that is more than just compromise between the two.

I do not agree with all of Belcher’s suggestions for a third way, but that is less important to me than the fact that he puts on paper some real options and gets the discussion going.

If you are frustrated with the traditional church but are not completely thrilled with the Emerging church, or if you really do not get what the issues are between the Emerging and Traditional church, you need this book.  It is a little over 200 pages and well worth the time.

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The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity by Skye Jethani

Adam Shields —  April 28, 2010 — 1 Comment

Divine Commodity is a provocative book.  Probably the most provocative I have read since Flickering Pixels.  (I ended up writing five blog posts about Flickering Pixels because it was so provocative. This is the last post with links to the others.)

In many ways it is hard to argue with the basic idea that the church of modern America has been impacted by the growth of consumerism and the focus on the market economy.  I would think almost no one can disagree with that basic statement.  The question that I kept bumping up against was, “Ok, so we have been affected, but what does that mean?”

Jethani keeps suggesting that our churches have been broken by their interactions with culture.  This is where I kept wanting to argue.  I agree that many church have altered their programing to better serve the congregation (or potential congregation.)  But most of them have done that, not as a rejection of Christianity, but with a real belief that they can either redeem culture, or at least they can help redeem those within culture. Jethani reject the idea that we should be changing culture as a major focus of our job as the church.  He does not reject evangelism, but does suggest that the basic method of mass media evangelism is broken.

There are many radical suggestions, like rejecting web culture because it inherently weakens personal relationships, and rejecting most, if not all marketing within and outside the church.  I think that Jethani is playing with ideas.  He is intentionally being provocative, to make us really think about how we interact with culture and what the role of the church should be.

Like Flickering Pixels, the book is mostly redeemed for me in the last few pages.  I do think this is an important book.  The US church has been impacted by culture more than it has impacted culture.  But I am not sure that is not the way that Christ intends.  Regardless of where you come down, this is a book that will make you think.

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I listened to this book as an audiobook and it was well presented.  It was also offered for free on Kindle two days after I bought the audiobook. So I picked up the Kindle version (it is now $9.99) as well, but I listened anyway.

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Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan

Adam Shields —  April 9, 2010 — 2 Comments

I liked Crazy Love (my review), Francis Chan’s first book.  It was a challenge to live your life as if you actually believed all of that stuff that we as Christians claim.  It was a good book but I did not think that it really broke much new ground.

Forgotten God is much better, much more of a long term important book.  The basic premise is that many Christians are living as if the Holy Spirit did not exist.  Or worse, actually do not think the Holy Spirit exists.  I started this about 3 or 4 days before the Barna Group released a study on Christian’s view of the Holy Spirit.  I had no idea how many people (Christians) have wrong views of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity.  This study was an attempt at understanding how people of different generations view the Holy Spirit so the results are by generations.  Only 56% of Christians (older Christians were 64% ranging down to 38% of young Christians) believe that they “consistently allow their lives to be guided by the Holy Spirit.”

What was most disturbing is that overall 58% of self identified Christians view “the Holy Spirit as a symbol of God’s power or presence, but not a living entity.”  This mean that 58% of self identified Christian reject the orthodox view of the Holy Spirit as a separate person of the Trinity.  The Holy Spirit has always been viewed as a co-equal and full member of the Trinity, with a separate ”personhood”.

So Forgotten God is not over reaching in it title or thesis.  Significant numbers of Christians really have forgotten the Holy Spirit.

Continue Reading…

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Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian Part 2 (Scripture and Truth)

Adam Shields —  April 2, 2010 — 2 Comments

Wednesday Unfashionable was introduced.  Today I am pulling out one particular issue that I think is import. (Part one of review)

Scripture and Truth

Tchividjian has a significant discussion on truth and scripture.  He starts by saying it is not so much the doctrine of scripture that we as Christians do not pay attention to, it is the reality of scripture.  We say we believe in inerrancy and suffiency of scripture, but then do not actually look to scripture for our daily life.  Churches (and pastors) often feed into this by becoming more like advice givers than bible preachers.  I am on-board with all of that.  But then he starts talking about sola scriptura and he looses me.  I just find the concept of sola scriptura as most Evangelicals teach disingenuous.  We do not actually believe in scripture alone.  Instead we believe in tradition and teaching about scripture that we do not write down into formal traditions.  And worse yet, we ignore the writings of Christians for hundreds years.  Scripture is about community and the Holy Spirit.  Anyone that is not reading scripture in the context of a church community and under the guiding of the Holy Spirit is not really reading scripture.  They may be reading the words on the page, but it is not the holy word of God. It is through reading scripture in the context of thousands of years of other Christians that we insure that our understanding remains orthodox.  And no matter how we try, we will always be influenced by our teachers, whether those teachers be the church fathers or our kindergarten Sunday School teachers.  So I do not understand his deviation into sola scriptura.

The next transition confuses me even more as he moves the discussion to truth being the foundation of community.  And while I don’t completely disagree with him he makes a cheap shot that I think illistrates where we would disagree as we worked this out in the real world.  He makes a crack against emergent church by claiming the “those that claim to be most interested community are the same that are most likely to reject truth. You cannot have community that is not based on trust and trust cannot occur unless you have truth.” (This is my paraphrase since I was listening on audiobook.)  I agree you need to have trust, but isn’t that trust based on love and grace?  If you are basing it on the other having truth as you understand it, then you will be disappointed every time.  No one can live up to those requirements.

He tries to illustrate his point by saying that Christians should be the most trustworthy people out there.  I agree with this section.   He talks about a used car salesman that he knows that said when he became a Christian he transitioned from trying to sell the best car, to selling the car that was right for the buyer.  He was trustworthy and people came back.  I fully agree with this idea, but I think we are using different concepts of truth and love.  In my mind, the used car salesperson is being loving and focusing on the needs of the other not on truth.  Yes he knows that God is the final arbiter of truth.  Yes he is being honest with the buyer, but that seems to be based on love and care for other other, not truth.  Most of the time when I hear Christians talking about truth they are talking about why the other is wrong, and doing it in a way that is not all that loving.

When Jesus talks about how we will be known as Christians he does not say, “You will be known by your truth.”  He says, “You will be known by your love for one another.”  Lots of people wield truth as a sword, cutting and hurting those around them.  At the same time some claim to be all about love, but then do not lovingly tell one another the truth.  So I want to reject the dichotomy that is being created between Truth and Love.  Truth has its most power when used in Love.  Love is most loving when Truth is told.   When when it comes down to it, Truth is not the verb, Love is the verb.  We are called to Love and be Love to one another.  We cannot Love without Truth, but the action is Love.

Overall recommendation

Overall this was a great book to stir up my thinking about how the church as an institution and myself as an individual should interact in culture.  I disagreed with a lot, but you often learn more from disagreements than from reading someone that you agree completely with.  What I appriciate is that with very minor exceptions, Tchividjian bent over backward to keep the kingdom as primary.  His writing was with a humble spirit and attempting to build up the church and not tear it down.  Highly recommend.

If you are going to buy it and are an Audible.com member, get it there, it is only $6.39 for members.  If you are not a member and want to try out the service it is only $9.99 for non-members.  If you don’t want to deal with the DRM from Audible you can get it on MP3 file from christianaudio for $12.98.  If you want to read it, it is $12.23 in hardback at Amazon or $9.99 for the Kindle version.

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