Book Reviews – Page 159

SUSP Chapter 3 – Second Opinion

April 26, 2011 by All Old Users

Note: Due to a mis-communication, there were two posts for chapter 3. Here is the second version.

So I am going to start out by stating my own personal opinion and go from there. I truly do believe it is possible for a friendship to happen between males and females. We start out as kids and maybe your best friend growing up is the boy next door. Then somewhere in junior high and high school, you start thinking about cute boys and he is thinking about hot girls. It goes to show that as kids we have a certain maturity we tend to lose as we get older and trends get sexualized.

In chapter 3, it starts out comparing our segregation of sexes to the segregation of blacks and whites. History shows us that cross-gendered and cross-raced friendships have not been popular. But in a day were sex is everywhere you turn, can you really assume a man and woman eating lunch together really are just eating lunch? There is nothing else more?

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World by C.J. Mahaney

April 26, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: We should pay attention to sin and spend time thinking about whether we are focusing more on loving the world or loving God.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, christianaudio.com MP3 Audiobook

It is hard to review a book on worldliness. Not nearly as hard as writing one, but still hard. The tension is viewing worldliness as not anti-world, viewing holiness as a worthy goal, a desire to avoid legalism, the need to focus on the grace of Christ and the tendency to focus on a fairly narrow set of outward sins makes for a book on worldliness easy to take shots at.

I did not realized when I started this book that it was a series of essays by different authors rather than a complete work by Mahaney. And that makes a difference. What I liked so much about Mahaney’s book Humility (my review) was that it was so tightly pastoral. And that seems to be a bit missing in some of the essays. It also seems like it might be oriented toward young Christians. After all the chapters are about media, music, consumerism and how to dress right. (The chapter, my Mahaney, on dress really was inappropriate, it should not have been in the book and the focus seemed to be blaming women for being attractive. Guys can lust if a woman is in a Burka. The sin is the lust. The women are the victim of the sin, not the perpetrators. Yes, women can be immodest. Yes, that is a sin, but having a chapter about modesty without talking about the sin of lust means that you are picking on women without dealing with the root issue. After all if Adam and Eve were naked, without either shame or lust, then lack of clothing is not the issue. Unfortunately, the long section on immodest wedding dresses really crossed the line for me.)

Eastertide: Prayers for Lent Through Easter from The Divine Hours

April 25, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: One of the few books where I am more disappointed by the publisher than the book

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

I like fixed hour prayer. I think more Christians should participate in it. But I am far from a regular user of it. I am a nanny for my two nieces and having a 3 and 2 year old running around the house 8 to 12 hours a day makes fixed hour prayer difficult.

So I viewed Lent as a time to try to get back on track again. It did not really happen during Lent either. I was definitely an occasional rather than regular user of this book.

But I do love the prayers and choices that Tickle uses. No prayer book is perfect and there are always some things that I would not choose. But I think the variety and choices of prayers and scriptures I would not choose is on of the benefits.

Sacred Unions Sacred Passions Chap 4

April 25, 2011 by All Old Users

In October 1939, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a speech in which he famously likened Russia to a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, and then pondered over the likely key to understanding that country’s motivations. In Chapter 4 of Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions, Dan Brennan’s argument changes gear. It is as if he is approaching open country after having had to negotiate the civic roadblocks and pot-holes that Freud, Hollywood and an overly cautious evangelical approach have put in the way of a frank discussion of relations between the sexes. Or to follow Churchill, Brennan at last feels comfortable enough to suggest a key which might unlock the mysterious compulsion that exists within human beings to encounter or know (in all its rich shades of meaning) the opposite sex. That key, in Brennan’s own words, “˜a rich relational and theological concept’, is union. By union or oneness, he appears to mean a spiritual progression for humans in their relationships towards embodying the unity experienced by the Triune God.

Knowing that he is opening up a huge field for discussion, Brennan focuses on theology and scriptural interpretation to ground his arguments. He comes up with twelve reasons (if this seems dry, the reality is different) why the concept of sacred union should impact upon our understanding of gender relations. The Genesis story describes man and woman as made in the image of God, and their human spirituality and sexuality as “˜very good’. The new order in Christ ushers in new social possibilities in all relationships, and the brother-sister metaphor used by Paul sanctions healthy intimacy. Furthermore, the metaphors employed by Paul in his letters for the close solidarity of the Church are not segregated by sex, nor are the “˜one anothers’ of welcome, prayer, holy greeting and confession. Marriage is a human, rather than heavenly sacrament and points to a transcendental union. And attachment in friendship can be stronger than some familial bonds. The “˜breathtaking beauty’ of triune love celebrates the difference of persons, and if the role of women has historically been undervalued, it is still possible to uncover examples of female spiritual leadership in the Old and New Testaments, and most importantly there are feminine metaphors, as well as masculine, for God in Scripture. Lastly, there is the example of Jesus, whose close friendships with women prefigure the possibility of intimate but non-sexual association.

Sacred Unions Sacred Passions Chapter 3

April 23, 2011 by Adam Shields

Chapter 3 has three basic points as there is a shift in the book to a more positive description from a reactive teaching model.

I think the first point is the weakest and least helpful. The chapter opens with a description of the changes in social understanding of inter-racial marriage. This is interesting and I have just finished reading about the same thing in the book Committed. Committed, I think actually makes the argument of the changes better. When the Supreme Court decided Loving vs Virgina, overturning the Virginia ruling and allowed inter-racial marriage, 70% of the US disagreed with the ruling. But just a generation later, you will be hard pressed to find anyone that would say that inter-racial marriage should be prevented by law.

But the argument by really does not make a difference because friendship is not marriage and race is not gender. Yes, social conventions change. But the church, nor sin, is bound by societal convention.

What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?: A Guide to What Matters Most

April 22, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Theology has to be built on the basics. Everything else, by definition is non-essential.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

I really like the idea of this book. Martin Theilen is a pastor. A man he knows was an outspoken atheist. They continued their relationship and eventually the man said he had upgraded to agnostic. A while later the man ask “What is the least I can believe and still be a Christian?” It was not because he was trying to minimize having faith, but instead was frustrated by variety of things that people add to their faith.

The first ten chapters are very quick looks at beliefs that are non-essential to the faith. None of these choices are surprising or dealt with in depth. Thielen in general looks at a view that holds the belief as essential, and a view that dismisses them and then either dismisses them or shows why we cannot really know the final answer. I wish he was a bit more inclusive in this area. In some cases, he is a bit harder on some of the more conservative views than I would like. It is not because I really disagree with him on most things, but because I want to respect my Brothers and Sisters in Christ that believe differently than I do and honor them as we disagree. He is not mean, just dismisses a bit too easily. The topics of this section are Problems of Evil, Doubt, Evolution/Creation, Women (in marriage, authority in church and society), Environmentalism, End Times, Salvation of other religions, Scripture, Homosexuality, Judgmental Christians.

The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement

April 21, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Narcissism is a serious and real issue in the modern world. May be even more important spiritually.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition

First admission, I got bored with this book. I started it in January and read about the first third in a day. But then I started something else as I often do and I just had a hard time reading more than a little bit at a time.

The first section, which talked about the definition, myths and some of the benefits of Narcissism was very interesting. I sped through that and spent a lot of time talking about it to anyone that would listen.

The next section talks about why there is an epidemic. The chapter on parenting I thought was incredible. I was convinced that there really is a big problem with the way that the US thinks about parenting. Then the book started talking about the rise of celebrity culture, digital natives and web culture and school and I was less impressed. It is not that I do not think that Narcissism is not a big deal and it is not that I do not think that celebrity, the web and ‘everyone wins’ is not a problem.

Till We Have Faces…A Myth Retold by CS Lewis

April 20, 2011 by Adam Shields

Till we have faces;: A myth retold Takeaway: An unusual re-telling of a greek myth.

I have never heard of this book before I stumbled across it on Audible. I was in the mood for some fiction and wasn’t really interested in any of the books that I had in my wishlist. After surfing around a little while I found that this book. It was the last real fiction book he wrote. It was written and published during his early relationship with Joy Davidman.

Till We Have Faces

According to Wikipedia and the book’s introduction, this was a book Lewis was thinking about from his early days in college. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. (Although I had no idea what the myth was till after I read the book.)

The basic story is that a princess, Orual, raised her sister after the death of her step mother in childbirth. The sister, Psyche, was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen while Orual was very ugly. The sisters were separated and the younger sister was married to a God. But the Orual was convinced that the God was not real or that if there was a husband, it was actually a man that was wrong for her sister. She convinces Psyche to violate the conditions of the marriage and the God leaves. But Orual and Psyche are not reunited.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions Book Discussion: Chapter 2

April 20, 2011 by All Old Users

Guest Post by Joanna, she blogs at http://joannamuses.com/ The first post in the series is here.

Our culture loves romance. Pop music is full of it, it has a book genre named after it, whole movie genres centre around it and many magazines devote themselves to the romances of the famous. Romance even has a special day dedicated to it- Valentine’s day.

Christian culture also likes romance. We may seek to present a more wholesome version of it, but nonetheless, romance is given a valued place in Christian culture. We talk about true love waiting or finding our soul mate. We preach sermons on the goodness of marriage. Christian bookstores are filled with books about getting or staying married.

On the surface these all seem like wonderful things. Some of them are good, biblical things. However, in chapter 2 of Sacred Unions, Sacred passions, Dan Brennan contends that there is an dark side to our elevation of romantic relationships.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions Books Discussion: Chapter 1

April 18, 2011 by Adam Shields

Cover of "When Harry Met Sally" — Cover of When Harry Met Sally

Over the next couple weeks a group of people will be reading and responding to the book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions by Dan Brennan (my earlier review). A chapter will be discussed each Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we are done. Please come back and interact with us. You do not have to have read the book, but it will likely help in the discussion.

____

Brennan understands that he is working against the grain to suggest that not only is it possible, but it is important to have friendships between men and women that are ‘non-sexual’, but still intimate and deep. The classic movie When Harry Met Sally has the line “…Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” And most of us believe, and are taught, that Harry is right.