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God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Adam Shields —  May 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

God's Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth GospelTakeaway: Taking Jesus seriously on economic issues is hard.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook (Paperback is on sale for $6 right now)

Christians often make very bad economists, or at least bad economics writers. They may have good theology, but good theology does not necessarily make good economic sense.  And Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is OK with that.  He wants to focus on ways that we can re-define our understanding of economics.  This is a common theme of both Christian and non-Christian books I have been reading lately.  Economics is increasingly moving toward mathematical/rational determinism and away from ethical theory.

Wilson-Hartgrove is writing directly to move Christians back toward an ethical understanding of economics.  As a student he wanted to change the world through politics and the religious right.  Then he was deeply affected by a homeless man and began a long journey toward redefining what it means to be a Christian.

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The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr

Adam Shields —  November 22, 2010 — 1 Comment

Cover of "The Irony of American History"

Cover of The Irony of American History

Takeaway: I wish more people read Reinhold Niebuhr.  He has much to say both about politics and international relations, and also about the limits of security and state power.

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

The Irony of American History is oddly relevant.  It was written in 1952 and based on two lectures given earlier than that.  The introduction calls it the most important book on American foreign policy ever written.  That is a bit too strong, but still Niebuhr understands in a way that very few do, the weaknesses of all human forms of government, while still being hopeful that government can serve the people.

Niebuhr, with proper use of irony speaks of the issues of the 1950s, in similar terms to many in talking about the global reach of US power.  It is almost funny that Niebuhr quotes US policy makers that think that the Asians should be more grateful to the US (at the time it was Korea, soon to be Vietnam) for our intervention to their affairs.  But it is very similar to the way that some in the Bush administration thought we would be received in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The narrator on the audiobook is a bit pretentious sounding and I think that detracts from what Niebuhr is trying to say.  But in general Niebuhr traces the thought patterns of a Jeffersonian (roughly secular) and a Puritan (certainly Christian) that both view the United States as a fundamentally separate place.  The language of the Puritans is a City on a Hill and called out by God for a specific purpose.  But the Jeffersonian ideals are not much different.  Jefferson was secular in his reasoning, but thought that the separateness of the geography and the rightness of our political will and life also left us with a specific calling and purpose that in the end was not much different from the calling and ideals of the Puritans.

Niebuhr does spend a good bit of time talking about the weaknesses of communism throughout the book.  This may tire some readers because it so strongly dates the book.  But I found it interesting that at the height of the cold war, Niebuhr correctly points to virtually all of the major weaknesses of communism and suggests several of the methods that communism began to fall.

The use of the word irony (briefly described in the introduction but not fully fleshed out until the end of the book) is rooted in the fact that Niebuhr thinks that the very strengths of the US are also the root of its weaknesses.  So the feeling that we are called out gives us a passion and sense of duty, but also a pride and hubris that leads to our downfall.

Throughout all of the books that I have read by Niebuhr is a strong sense of the concept of original sin.  In this case, it is used to describe the weaknesses of the communist perspective of the world, because without the concept of the original sin, communists were unable to foresee the corruption of power that would cripple the leadership of communist countries.  But in the United State, that same concept of original sin is used by Niebuhr to show that any attempts at moving beyond our limited boundaries and capabilities will inevitably lead to a future downfall.  By this, he did not mean that the US should not be involved outside of the US borders, he was an early advocate of entry into World War II.  But that the purposes of any activity outside of the US borders should be humble and limited in scope.  The idea that the US can lead the world (or any small part of it) toward a future Utopian or perfected governmental state was absurd to Niebuhr.  That absurdity is the root of what he means by irony.  His rough definition of irony in this book is the strengths that lead to weaknesses that end up being humorous because of the way that strengths and weaknesses are intertwined.

Niebuhr can be a bit dense at times.  And obviously we cannot re-write this book or any of his others directly onto our 21st century world.  There are limits to how much of Niebuhr can be used today.  But I think that Niebuhr’s realistic view of humanity and his strong grounding in an orthodox (small o) Christianity should place him on many more book shelves of Christians in the US and around the world.

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Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts

Adam Shields —  November 18, 2010 — 1 Comment

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful ActsTakeaway: The human brains ability to justify and rationalize mistakes is enormous, useful and increadibly dangerous. There are huge implications for every facet of life.

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

This is a wide ranging and enormously interesting book on memory, retention and and self justification.  The basic idea is that our brains are designed to minimize Cognitive Dissonance.  Our brains will re-write memory and selectively remember details or give us other means to repress or eliminate Cognitive Dissonance.

Early in the book there are a number of examples of government, journalism and scientists that believe that they did nothing wrong while external evidence suggest otherwise.  One of the most egregious, is the first study that showed a link between autism and vaccines.  The lead author of the study was being paid on the side by class action lawyers (over $800,000) as an expert witness and researcher into the connection between autism and vaccines.  The link was not disclosed and the research study continues to be influential even after it has been widely disproven by additional studies.

Another interesting example are the gifts given to doctors by drug companies.  Drug companies know that small gifts are very effective in creating obligation to the drug companies, but large gifts, especially early in the relationship will make the doctors feel like they are being bribed.  One of the important insights from this section is that often people do small things that are not wrong, but once they are a situation, end up doing many things that they would not have considered if they started with that action.  For instance, Watergate did not start as a break in, but by the time all the players were in the game, it was easy to justify something that most of them would have never participated in had the idea of a break-in and cover-up been originally on the table.

There is an extended section on child abuse and recovered memories.  You may remember the string of abuse cases in the 1980s, especially in day care settings, where children started remembering ritualistic and sexual abuse.  These cases helped start the wide spread fear of child abuse (especially stranger abuse) in the United States.  The authors use these cases to show the weakness of memory and the dangers of psychology and social work that is not backed up by strong clinical evaluation and research.  Virtually all of the cases in the 1980s were later disproved but there are still some people in jail with only recovered memory statements as evidence.  These recovered memory episodes were contrasted with studies of Holocaust victims that were able to recall in vivid detail their abuse 40 and 50 years after it occurred.  One of the unintended consequences of these recovered memory episodes is a huge distortion in the perception of how prevalent sexual abuse of children is.  The US Department of Human Services reports that 1.3 to 1.7 (boys and girls) per 1000 children are sexually abused each year and that over their childhood it is likely about 10 percent of children are sexually abused.  While this is far too many children being abused, many people believe that 1 in 3 or even more children are actually abused.  This difference between documented and assumed cases leads to many protective behaviors that are really not warranted by the actual danger. (Similar to fears of terrorism and the TSA.)

The authors use the cases of social workers and psychologists continuing to push their cases of abuse in the face of mounting evidence as an example of Cognitive Dissonance.  We do what it takes to eliminate Cognitive Dissonance.  So a social worker removes a child from a family solely on the basis that the mother had been abused as a child.  The social worker has experience with multi-generational cases of abuse, but has not submitted her practice to broader research which would show that more than 70 percent of children abused by parents do not repeat abuse to their children.  Subsequent to the 1980s cases, many studies have looked at how to properly interview children without inserting memories or giving leading questions.  (Using the transcripts of the actual interviews with one of the day care abuse cases a study showed 70 percent of children ages 4-6 would implicate an adult man that visited a day care for just 10 minutes one time a week before the interview of abuse and torture within 10 minutes of first being interviewed.)  Several states now have research based guidelines for gathering evidence from children.  But not all states have adopted these guidelines and people continue to be jailed as a result of questionable interview techniques and little or no additional evidence.

There are more chapters with great examples of self justification, Self Justification in Marriage, another on disagreement and feuds, one on law enforcement, one on prejudice.  But the last chapter is about what to do with all of this information.

There are a wide range of thoughts that I have about this book.  One is that it inspires me to really try to admit to my mistakes and take responsibility.  But also I see all kinds of implications for the Christian life.  Not discussed, but I think it is interesting, is how Catholics might be different in regard to self justification.  Confession is part of the regular Catholic liturgy, but not a part of most Protestants’ regular activities.  Based on the research that has been done, it would seem that anyone that participates in regular confession, should be better at not self justifying.  There are also some real implications for evangelism.  Much traditional evangelism has been based around making people feel remorse for their sins.  That makes sense if their is a cultural understanding of everyone being sinful creatures.  But I think that culture has moved away from the traditional understanding of sin.  I am not sure what that means, but I think it does mean we need a better theology and practice around evangelism and the concept of sin in light of research like what is presented in this book.

This review is already too long, but I very interested in reading more around this subject.  If you have any book suggestions let me know.

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I saw an article on Wednesday about a Doctor that profiled his mistake in the New England Journal of medicine in order to help doctors understand mistakes and how to properly take responsibility for them.  It is a great real world example of the suggestions at the end of the book.  Boston Globe article.

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Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela

Adam Shields —  November 17, 2010 — 2 Comments

Conversations with MyselfTakeaway: DO NOT get this on audiobook. It may be a great book for paper (friends I know have loved it) but it is completely unintelligible in audio format.

Purchase Links: Hardback, Kindle Edition (not linking to an audio edition)

There are not many books that I do not finish reading.  Only about 7  in the last 175 or so if my count is right.  But this was among the worst.  And I am afraid it is about the format, not about the content.

The book is structured as snippets of biography from Mandela’s other writings, an unpublished biography and his letters.  The structure of this seems like it would be interesting reading.  But in audio format it is unintelligible.  I listed to about 1.5 hours and I have no idea what is going on other than some random short sections.

The other problem was the narrator.  He is a South African actor, but the accent combined with the structure were too much.

I may try again with a print version of the book, but do not get the audio.

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The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons

Adam Shields —  October 13, 2010 — 3 Comments

The Next Christians by Gabe Lyon

Takeaway: Creating culture and solving problems are often much more effective than protest.

Purchase Links: Christianaudio.com audiobook, Amazon Hardback, Amazon Kindle

At the end of my block is a church.  I don’t often drive past it because most of the time I use the other entrance to our neighborhood.  But about once a week I come that way.  And each time for the past couple months I see a vinyl sign that says, “The United States is a Christian Nation”.  I always wonder what exactly they are trying to communicate with that sign.  It certainly is not an evangelistic statement.  It is not there to welcome non-Christian or generate dialog.  To me it seems intended to make a political statement.  (By the way it is my local polling place.)

In The Next Christians, Gabe Lyons starts with the assumption that we are not living in a Christian nation.  After leading the reader through some thoughts about the state of the church in America, Gabe Lyons presents the various streams of how Christians relate to culture.  Richard Niebuhr‘s Christ and Culture models are never explicitly mentioned, but no one can really present the models of how Christians actually interact with culture without some nods to Niebuhr.  Lyons originally presented this research to some movie executives attempting to understand how to market films to Christians and it seems it helped him crystallize in his head what is going on in the church.

After presenting six classic ways of interacting with culture, Lyons presents a seventh option that he calls the Restorers.  He does not claim this is a new method of interacting with culture or being Christian, but that it has gained new footing because of generational and cultural shifts both inside and outside the church.

After about the first 1/3 of the book defining and categorizing the different streams and the state of the church, Lyons starts to illustrate.  The remaining 2/3rds of the book profiles a number of these “Next Christians” and uses their stories to illustrate the range of ideas descriptors that make up Lyons’ understanding of The Next Christians.  These descriptors (one per chapter) are: Provoked (not offended), Creators (not critics), Called (not employed), Grounded (not distracted), In Community (not alone) and Counter-cultural (not relevant).

I believe I am one of these Restorers as Lyons wants to call them.  I prize cultural creation and I think that the restoration of the earth, the people and the culture are part of the gospel (yes a missing part of some Christians’ gospel.)  This blog and the reviews, while being personal, are at least in part an attempt to create and give back to culture and create a common good that can be used by others.

However, I feel that quite often Lyons seems to ideal type these Christians.  No movement is perfect.  There are a number of weaknesses that need to be paid attention to for Next Christians.  Lyons mentions some of these.  He repeatedly brings up the need to keep the focus on the gospel.  But other issues I think need some more work.  One is the problem of calling.  When everything can be, and is, a calling, then the sense of calling can be reduced to “what I like to do is the way I serve God.”  The counter-cultural chapter is very good, but without a theology of church discipline (which probably would be located in his chapter on community) it is easy for counter-cultural to end up being Kooky.  But I was encouraged by his focus on spiritual disciplines.  A community that is really focused on spiritual disciplines is going to be much less likely to forget the gospel or be counter-cultural in inappropriate or unhealthy ways.

Overall, I thought this was a very useful addition to the current discussion about the renewal possibilities of the church.  I am not quite as positive as Lyons is about the status of the renewal of the church or the long term strength

audiobook: 4.5 hours

hardback: 240 pages

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christianaudio.com provided a free copy of the audiobook for review.

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Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman

Adam Shields —  September 8, 2010 — 5 Comments

Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty.

Takeaway: Africa is not poor and hungry all by itself.  There are many reasons, but Africa (and other areas of poverty) do not need to remain hungry.

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

Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty is an important book.  It is not an exciting book, but global poverty and hunger really are not exciting.  The subtitle probably should be something like: Everything has an unintended consequence.

Millions, if not billions of lives have been saved by the green revolution that started in the middle of the last century.  Science and innovation (economic, agriculture, political, etc.) have made huge changes.  The book opens with the story of the green revolution.  The green revolution started in Mexico moved to South American and Asia.  It took almost two decades for the green revolution to start moving to Africa.  Unfortunately, many of the political and social forces that helped move the science and technology of the green revolution changed from the 1960s to the 1980s.

There were significant economic theory changes in the 1980s.  The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund started tying grants and loans to economic reform.  Some of that economic reform was very much needed.  But the countries with the highest levels of poverty were forced to pay the highest price.  The unintended consequence was that government subsidies for agriculture was drastically cut, the World Bank and IMF started supporting urban infrastructure projects that did not line up with the natural economic strengths or growth areas of Africa.

Politically, the west was still playing favorites with the end of the cold war.  This meant supporting pretty bad dictatorships and non-representative governments.  But just as bad, was that poverty reduction was not among the top focuses for International Development Aid.

The 1990s were not much better.  War continued to ravage through Africa, in part because of western support of repressive governments from the previous generation.  Certainly not all blame can be placed on the West.  Africa needs to claim plenty of their own blame as well.  But the global power often made bad decisions, not so much because of bad faith, but because the west was still working out economic and political theory.  Africa became the test bed of nation building.  And again, the poorest paid the highest price.

The biggest reason, that comes up over and over again about why Africa is continually hungry is the agriculture policy of the West, especially the US.  The US spends more on agriculture aid than international development aid.  In fact, the US spends more on agriculture aid than the entire world spends on international aid.  In some years agriculture aid in the US doubles or triples world wide international aid to Africa.  At the same time, the US and the EU often force African countries into harsh economic cuts, with African support of agriculture often being a prime target.  So subsistence African farmers are prevented from receiving agriculture subsidies that have a track record in Asia and South American of encouraging agriculture growth because western governments are concerned about “unfair” trade practices.  At the same time the US, has a requirement that 100 percent of food aid be US products.  So during the 1984 and 2003 Ethiopian famines, there was grain in Ethiopia that could have been purchased and fed to the starving.  But the US flooded the market with grain aid, which destroyed the local grain economy.  Farmers were not able to sell their grain, either to local consumers or to government or non-governmental agencies and those farmers were then not able to continue farming, which made the famine worse.  As recently as this past year, pushes to get the US to purchase local grain in disaster relief settings first (up to 25% of total food aid) were defeated in congress.  The US Congressional Budget Office has estimated that purchasing up to 25% of food aid locally would save 50,000 lives a year because local food is cheaper and can be made available months earlier than US grown food.

Enough is not an entirely negative story.  Told in a very narrative format, organizations like Opportunity International (a charity I have been supporting for years), political advocacy from Bread for the World and student groups like Wheaton College (my alma mater) are portrayed very positively.  I am also encouraged that there is a very positive portrayal of Christian organizations in the book.  It is certainly not a Christian book, but it frequently points to Christian organizations and the ones that are making very good decisions to help the poor.  (But there are several examples where the opposite is true as well.)

I am not going to lie.  This is not a fun book to read.  I listened to it on audiobook (about 12 hours) and it took me about a month to get through.  But I think it is worth the effort.  If we are working in the world, no matter what your political leanings, you will find evidence in Enough that support your political background and challenge your previously held beliefs about why the problems in Africa exist.  I think one of the strengths of the book is that it clearly is trying to show poverty and hunger as reality, but it is not trying to push simplistic solutions.  Simplistic solutions are part of the problem of why Africa is in the mess that it is in now.

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Florence of Arabia: A Novel by Christopher Buckley

Adam Shields —  August 2, 2010 — Leave a comment

Every once in a while I need something to clense the pallet.  Wait, that is how I started my review of No Way to Treat a First Lady.  Well I am a big fan of Christopher Buckley’s humor.  Darn it.  That is how I started the review of Boomsday.  At least I read Supreme Courtship before I started this blog.

On Friday, I saw a forum post on Kindleboards asking for some comedy book recommendations.  I recommended Christopher Buckley’s book, which are not exactly comedy, but more satire.  That recommendation made me want to listen to another Christopher Buckley book.  I picked up Florence of Arabia from audible.com and by Sunday afternoon I had finished listening to the just over 8 hour book.  There are very few books that I listen to start to finish.

I enjoyed this one, but not as much as the other three.  I am not sure why.  This book was cleaner, a lot less swearing (although there still was some).  The sex was mostly just hinted at, although there were discussions of harems, so it isn’t a child’s book.

It may be that I am less close to the target of the satire in this book.  The basic story line is about Florence, a State Department employee that is tasked with starting a women’s focused Arabic TV station in order to prompt women to rebel against the strictures of their society.  It spends a lot of time showing how western governments are wrapped up in oil and the problems of the middle east.  But most of the time is really spent talking about issues of the middle east and Arab culture.  Christopher Buckley may be a conservative, but he has no problems showing the weaknesses of all sides of the political spectrum.

I still obviously enjoyed the story.  And the last 2 minutes was a welcome addendum.  But if you are starting from scratch, I would pick one of the other three that I have read so far.

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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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The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer

Adam Shields —  June 7, 2010 — 1 Comment

The Nearest Exit is the follow up book after The Tourist.  I read The Tourist early in 2009 soon after it came out but before I started reviewing books here.  I rated it as one of my top fiction books last year.  These are both spy books.  They are post 9/11 spy books, so they are not wrapped up in cold war like the original Borne books.  They are as good, or better, than Robert Ludlum’s version of Borne.  In many ways I would compare them to the movie version of Borne.  They are consciously post-cold war.  Like the movie version of Borne, the bad guys are both inside and outside the US government and the controllers of “the tourists” (the black-ops arm of the CIA) may be as bad as the bad guys they are trying to defeat.

The Nearest Exit follows right on the heals of The Tourist, but you do not realize it at first.  I listened to this on audiobook and so I may have missed some of the written clues about the changing timelines.  I was about half way through before I finally put all the clues together and remembered enough of the first book (it has been over a year) to finally figure out what was going on.  From that point, it was much clearer and much more enjoyable book.

I often read several books at a time.  But this one I listened straight through, more than 12 hours in just 3 days.  I do not read many spy books, but these are good.  I am a fan of tainted heroes.  Milo Weaver, the hero of these books, is definitely not perfect, but he also is not one of those tainted heroes that you just do not want to like.  He has a struggling marriage and devotion to his daughter.  He is less of a super-hero than Borne.  I am not a fan of heroes that walk out of serious car accidents like nothing happened.  Weaver gets hurt, gets blindsided by other spies, etc.  There is a clear ending in this book, but an opening for another sequel.  I hope it is being written.

The audiobook narration was good, but was a different narrator than the first book. (Book Three in the Series is now out)

The Nearest Exit Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

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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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