Adam Shields

Sort of Off Topic – The John Yoder Problem

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John Howard YoderThis is out of place in my normal book blogging.  But over the past several months I have been thinking about the John Yoder problem (or to a lesser extent the AW Tozer problem that I discussed on my review of Tozer’s biography.)  What prompted me to write this post was a very good article in The Other Journal about Yoder and the problems of his legacy.  (Although I started writing this about a week before Mark Driscoll was removed from Act29, so there are some parallels there as well that I did not intend when I started the post.)  The actual issues, while I think grounding them in some real cases makes them more concrete are not particularly about Yoder, or Tozer or anyone else.

In simple terms, the John Yoder problem is what do we do with Christian leaders, authors and pastors that sin.  Of course all Christians sin.  But there is sin that would seem to disqualify a person for public ministry based on some of the implications of I Timothy 3:2 and the surrounding passage, but also examples from the Old Testament with Eli’s sons and others.

This is not a topic I take at all lightly. But I believe it is a rejection of the teaching of scripture to allow pastors and other Christian leaders to remain in office while flagrantly sinning.  The issue, of course, is what the line from normal sin that is part of the human condition and the sin that is such that should remove a person from office within the church.  Different parts of the church would highlight different sins as disqualifying, which is again part (and benefit) of the problem of a diverse church.

As an example, I think that AW Tozer was probably a bad father and husband, but not someone that I think should have been removed from ministry. It would have been appropriate for a community of people around Tozer to attempt to help him become a better father and husband, but that is not the same thing as removing someone from office.

The example of Yoder is clearly different.  Yoder, from evidence that has been gathered over a long period of time, was sinning in a way that deserved some type of censure and real rebuke.  The accusation is that he sexually harassed women, exposed himself, and abused his power with female students. It is likely that he also coerced women into having sex (which may have crossed the line to rape, although no charges were ever filed with police).

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Time’s Echo by Rysa Walker (Chronos Files #1.5)

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Time's Echo by Rysa WalkerSummary: A short novella (about 100 pages) from an alternate perspective to keep interest in the series until the next book comes out later this fall.

I really do feel for authors.  It used to be that authors could write a book a year, or maybe even a book every couple years.  But these days that does not seem to be enough for many.  Publishers and fans seem to want authors to put out a couple books a year or at least have the first couple books ready to published is quick succession.

Timebound was a KindleFirst book in December, but was officially published in January 2014.  Then Time’s Echo is a novella that was published at the end of April.  And Time’s Edge is the second full length book scheduled to be released Oct 21, 2014.  So two full novels and a novella published in the span of just 10 months.

The Chronos Files is a young adult time traveling series.  Kate is a high school student at the beginning of the series and she finds out that her long lost grandmother is actually a time traveler from the future.  And Kate has to learn how to use the time traveling medallion to stop her grandfather and aunt from changing history and maybe making her family cease to exist.

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Mercury Falls by Robert Kroese

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Summary: Did you read Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett? Well this is basically the same plot.

I am trying to give KindleUnlimited a good shot.  As I am posting this, I have finished nine KindleUnlimited books since it was released a bit over three weeks ago.

What is good about a program like KindleUnlimited is that it have a very low threshold to try something new.  There is no cost for the individual book, just the monthly subscription.

Mercury Falls is one of the better reviewed fantasy books on KindleUnlimited and it has free audiobook narration included.

The bad part of subscription book programs is that there is a lot of junk you need to sort through in order to get to the good stuff.

Mercury Falls is not a bad book. I actually enjoyed it, but if you have read Good Omens, it really is basically the same book.  (My review of Good Omens.)

In both Armageddon is about to happen. In Good Omens, an angel and a demon work together to stop it from happening.  In Mercury Falls, an Angel (Mercury, he also was mistaken for a god by the Greeks and Romans) and a human reporter (Christine) decide to try and stop Armageddon.

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The Magicians by Lev Grossman

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Summary: An adult look at what it would be like to be a magician, and get everything you could possibly want, and still not find meaning or purpose in life. I tend to buy audiobook in groups at Audible.com. They often have sales where you buy two and get one free, or buy four and … Read more

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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Takeaway: An American Classic.

To Kill A Mockingbird deserves all of its praise.  I had not read it since middle school or early high school, so when it came out for the first time as an ebook last month (at a very reasonable price) I picked it up.

It starts a little slow I think. I read the background and first two years of the story and then set it aside and read several other books before returning to  it again.  But once the main story starts with Atticus defending Tom Robinson I finished the rest of the book in two days.

There is no good way to review this book.  The basic story is well known and is one the true classics of American literature.   And Emily Flury is also reading it to review for Bookwi.se, so I will leave the hard work to her 🙂  But I did read the Wikipedia entry just to see what it said and was surprised how autobiographical the novel was.

I knew (but had forgotten) that Harper Lee and Truman Capote were friends.  I did not realize that Truman was the inspiration for the character Dill.  Wikipedia also said that Haper Lee’s father was a lawyer that lost a case defending two African American men on charges of murder.  After losing the case he did not practice law again.  Jem was based on her own brother, also 4 years older.  Haper Lee’s mother did not die until she was 25, but there was an African American maid/cook that worked for the family and her mother was emotionally distant because of some mental health issues.  There was also a real Boo Radley character in her neighborhood, a young man got into legal trouble and the father kept him at home for the 24 years out of shame until he was basically forgotten and eventually died.

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July Most Read Reviews

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Sex, Mom and God by Frank Schaeffer 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 Fangirl by Rainbow Roswell Resolving Everyday Conflict by Ken Sande Evangellyfish by Douglas Wilson Ubik by Philip K Dick

Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley – Favorite of 2012

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Reposting because the Kindle edition is on sale for $2.99. (And the audiobook is only $3.99 with the purchase of kindle book.)

Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to AttendSummary: The Church at its core is about reaching people outside its walls for Christ.

Right off the top, I love my church.  Andy Stanley is my pastor.

If I had to recommend this book for only one reason it would be because this book, more than any other I can think of, casts the vision for why the church has to be focused on those outside the church. If there is one thing that Andy Stanley is passionate about (and writes about well) it is the fact that most churches need to do everything they can to reach people that are not in church.

I should not need to repeat statistics about the fact that most churches baptize very few adults because of conversion.  Or the recent statistic that says that most Christian adults believe that they are instructed to share their faith, but admit that they have not in the last year shared their faith with anyone.

I do not believe that the attractional church model is the only model for church.  In fact, I think that organic church and missional church are two other models that are very important to drawing in people that have almost no background in the church to Christ.

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Ubik by Philip K Dick

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Takeaway: Is anyone better at writing paranoid fiction than Philip K Dick?

Philip K Dick was brilliant and deeply troubled.  Which seems to make for a good science fiction writer.  Ubik, a 1969 novel, is set in 1992, when psychic powers are common.  Joe Chip works for a “˜prudence organization’.  Prudence organizations specialize in helping people or businesses protect themselves from psychics.  So they use anti-telepaths to protect people from having their minds read by telepaths or other anti-psychics to counter the variety of different psychic powers.

The other plot point you have to understand is “˜half-life’.  In this future, when people die, if they can be preserved in time, they can live in “˜half-life’, a sort of preserved life of the mind.  You cannot life forever this way, but your body is preserved and you can communicate with people outside your preservation chamber.  But at some point you sort of fade out and are reincarnated.

There is basically no way to discuss this book without spoilers, so if you don’t want any spoilers for this 45 year old book, you should stop reading because I am going to disclose pretty much the whole book.

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Among the Unseen by Jodi McIsaac (The Thin Veil #3)

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Summary: Cedar, the new Queen of Tír na nÓg, is trying to adjust to her new life and new powers.  But all the Unseen (the magical creatures of Earth) have started dying. 

The Thin Veil trilogy is one of the increasing numbers of books published by 47North or one of Amazon’s other publishing imprints.  And I think it is fairly similar to the others I have read, better than most self published books, but still not quite to the upper levels of quality of all books.

The Thin Veil trilogy follows Cedar, her daughter Eden, and others through discovering that the Celtic gods were actually an immortal race from another world, and that Cedar is the lost daughter of the last king.

Similar to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series or the Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, this is a modern look at ancient mythology.  But the Thin Veil series is adult fiction (although I would have read it as a teen and I don’t really have any content warning other than some sexual innuendo.)

This is a good light beach read fantasy.  Nothing heavy, but not terribly original either.

The main story arc of the third book is about the sickness and death of the magical creatures on earth.  There was an ancient spell that protected the creatures from humans as long as humans believed in them.  But now that humans have stopped believing in them, they have started dying.

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