Adam Shields

2 Short Reviews of Eugene Peterson Books

by

Before I started blogging on Bookwi.se I started tracking my books on Goodreads.com (social network for readers).  I have number of short reviews on Goodreads so as part of cleaning up my blog structure I am going to repost some of the shorts reviews from Goodreads. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson … Read more

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World by Richard Mouw

by

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil WorldTakeaway: Start with your own sinfulness and the other’s humanness

Next week I am going to talk to a small group of college students about how to disagree with others as Christians.  I think this is a particularly important topic.  Luckily I found this book just in time.  Coincidentally, Mouw was on Krista Tippet’s NPR show On Being last week.  The interview has a good overview of the book (although focused more on civility between Christians and non-Christians.)

Mouw quotes Martin Marty’s observation, “One of the real problems in modern life is that people who are good at being civil often lack strong conviction and people who have strong convictions often lack civility.”  This book is his attempt at trying to encourage a “convicted civility”.  Mouw’s civility is not ‘niceness’.  Civility has the root purpose of acknowledging the other person’s Imageo Dei (Image of God).

Read more

The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission by Christopher Wright

by

The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Biblical Theology for Life)Takeaway: The church, God’s people, are on mission, or should be.

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

I picked up this book on a whim.  I did not know anything about the book or author.  I have been reading books on the bible and theology.  I was out of audiobooks and liked the idea of a series on Biblical Theology.  I was very surprised how good this was.  Christopher Wright is a former seminary professor in India and for the last 10 years has headed the foundation that was started by John Stott to facilitate training of international Christian leaders.

After some research I found out that Christopher Wright is best known for his monumental book Mission of God.  Mission of God was the 2007 Christianity Today Missions Book of the Year.  It tracks how the mission of God is developed throughout the bible.  Wright makes significant contrabutions on how the mission of God is developed in the Old Testament.

The Mission of God’s People builds on his earlier book by asking the next question, What is the mission of the church? Or how does God use his people for his mission?  This is a very biblically focused book that seems to build on the earlier book, but is focused on how the people of God are being used by God for his mission.  Again, Wright spends a good amount of time on the Old Testament.

Read more

Bookwi.se is on Facebook

by

Bookwi.se is now has a facebook fan page.  It is time to move it from my personal facebook page, so that people that like pictures of my nieces but not reviews of books (or vice versa) can all be happy. I need a few more people to like the page so I can get a … Read more

3 Short Non-Fiction Reviews: Shane Claiborne, NT Wright, Peter Scazzero

by

Before I started blogging on Bookwi.se I started tracking my books on Goodreads.com (social network for readers).  I have a handful of short reviews on Goodreads before I started blogging.  So as part of cleaning up my Goodread/blog structure I am going to repost some of the shorts reviews from Goodreads. The Irresistible Revolution: Living … Read more

The Meaning of Prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick

by

Takeaway: I read on the basis of a recommendation from Eugene Peterson’s book Pastor. It was good, especially for free.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition, Google Books (free)

I read Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor: A Memoir (my review) twice in the two months after it came out.  It is very good.  I want to pick up Peterson’s Take and Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List.  It sounds like my kind of book, a long list of books with short statements of why they are useful/important/interesting.  I will pick it up eventually, but first I am reading a couple books Peterson’s mentioned in The Pastor.

Fosdick’s The Meaning of Prayer is the first.

Peterson interviewed Fosdick for a project in seminary after reading this book.  Fosdick was thought of not only as a liberal, but a heretic and worse in some circles.  Peterson was struck that no one could have written this book and been a heretic and even more struck once he met Fosdick.  This helped shape Peterson’s understanding of the way that we often characterize those that disagree with us.

It is free on Google Books (I read it on my ipad mostly, with a little on my android phone, there is very good syncing.)

Read more

The Oak and the Calf by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

by

Takeaway: Being a writer is a calling.

One thought that struck me early in the book. Solzhenitsyn was writing in ‘the underground’. He was only sharing his writing with a handful of trusted readers and was not receiving much criticism to help improve the writing. He wrote a play and as he reflected back on that play he said, “…convinced as I was that what matters most for the writer was truthfulness.” But then the play flopped.  He later realized that that form does matter. And to ignore form as an author, especially the fast changing forms of theater, was to ignore the reader.

It is also very interesting how much effort he put into writing.  He went to the Gulag because of his writing in the 1950s.  But still he continued to write in secret.  It was years before anything was published and he almost never shared anything during that time.  But he continued to write.

Read more