Book Reviews – Page 169

Heaven is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story by Todd Burpos and Lynn Vincent

June 17, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: I am not sure all of the interest in heaven is completely positive.

I want to say up front, I am very skeptical about this book. I am very skeptical about anything that is based heavily on the account of a young child. There was an extended section in Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me about how easy it is to get children to give detailed accounts of things that never happened. Things that you think children could not know about, horrible things, children can talk about with candor and sincerity. The children are not ‘lying’ they are telling you want what you want to hear and you are hearing what you want. This can be true with adults as well. We do many things in an attempt to justify our own actions and make ourselves feel better. Todd Burpo says repeatedly throughout the book that he tried hard not ask leading questions or suggest things that would influence Colton (the son that goes to Heaven). But it is impossible to independently verify anything about Colton’s trip to heaven or the family’s influence on Colton. So we have to take their word for it.

The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges

June 15, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: God wants us to be holy.

I, and I think many modern Christians, have an difficulty getting my mind around holiness. While I know that there are several passages that encourage us to “Be Holy as God is Holy”, I have been tainted in my understanding of holiness by the legalism that some Christians of the past 150 years. I believe that a mix of social progressivism, post-millennial understanding of Christ return, and the pietist denominations means that there was a greater focus on external issues of holiness, to the detriment of internal holiness. It is always easier to create rules and follow them than it is to truly focus on heart issues of holiness. After all, what is harder, not playing cards, not drinking alcohol, not dancing or not being jealous of someone else, not desiring what someone else has, and not calling someone a fool in your heart.

Satan Loves You: A novel by Grady Hendrix

June 13, 2011 by Adam Shields

Satan Loves You Takeaway: No matter how serious the topic, sometimes it is good to just laugh.

Purchase Links: Kindle Edition

One of the chapters that I really enjoyed with David Dark’s Sacredness of Questioning Everything was about Questioning our Offendedness. It is easy to be offended when people do not believe as you do or seem to make fun of what you consider essential. David Dark has a useful understanding of being able to laugh at yourself and your beliefs. Whenever you are offended instead of seeking after the understanding, hurt or incredulity that is often root of humor I think it can help to build a bridge toward relationship instead of pushing people away.

I heard of Satan Loves You when a friend on Goodreads.com (a social network for readers) wrote a quick review of it. It sounded like a fun bit of satire. And I like satire and humor. Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff and Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series are two very different takes on how different authors have attempted to make fun of religion through fiction. (Norman Mailer’s The Gospel According to the Son is a negative example.)

The Warlock (Book 5) by Michael Scott

June 8, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Quite a recovery for the series. Probably best book so far. Very interesting cliff hanger.

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

As I get older, I have less and less interest in long series. Maybe it is impatience. Maybe it is justs that there are so many good books. But I do still read series fiction. In part it is because a long series can develop characters in ways that traditional single novels cannot. But series are often very uneven. After book four, I was almost read to drop this series. I felt like book four was just treading water.

Book 5 was much better. It really developed the story, gave lots of depth to the characters (I really like that the good and bad characters are not just two dimensional characters.) The twins at the center of the story also were characterized better this book. The last book I complained about the lack of motivation for the actions, but this book was much better about that.

ReChurch: Healing Your Way Back To The People of God by Stephen Mansfield

June 7, 2011 by Adam Shields

ReChurch: Healing Your Way Back to the People of God Takeaway: As with many other areas of life, holding grudges against the church hurts you more than the church.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition

Stephen Mansfield has become well known for writing about the faith of politicians. His books on Bush, Obama, Delay, Palin and Churchhill have sold well and helped Mansfield become a regular on the talk show and speaker circuit. I have not read any of those books, so I cannot speak to them. I did read God and Guinness and thought it was decent. ReChurch is a very different book from all of those.

Stephen Mansfield before he became a writer, speaker and consultant, was a pastor. For ten years he was the pastor of a growing church until a disagreement with church elders left him without a church, job and bitter. He does not give details about the incident, but does talk frankly about the hurt.

For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs by Robert Heinlein

June 6, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: There is a reason that ‘lost novels’ were lost in the first place. Only attempt if you are a very big fan of Heinlein.

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

I found this on the Overdrive library system. So I checked it out for free and I would advise that if you are going to attempt it, you find it for free as well.

It is not a good novel. It was Heinlein’s first novel and it was never published while he was alive. It has an amazing amount of material that he was able to later use in other books.

As one of the best 20th century Science Fiction writers, he made a huge impact on generations of writers and readers. But in the 350 or so pages of text, there is only about 50 pages of story. The rest is fairly pedantic explication of the world that we end up seeing in later works.

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert

June 1, 2011 by Adam Shields

Committed: A Love Story Takeaway: Marriage can be scary, and that is not necessarily bad if it makes you think before getting married.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audiobook CD

I have not read or watched Eat, Pray, Love.* Honestly, I just have not had much interest in it. But I was interested in this book. While I DO NOT think that everyone should get married, I do like to read about marriage and how to strengthen those marriages that do happen.

Gilbert starts with a very unsentimental take on marriage. She is broken and devastated over her divorce. She meets a guy equally negative on marriage after his divorce. And they live together with the stated commitment to never marry.

Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by William Cavanaugh

May 30, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: I like the interesting take on the Eucharist and consumerism. But the book as a whole was disappointing.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

This is my second book on a Christian view of economics in a week. I am not sure why I read in themes. The two books have very different methods. In God’s Economy, Jonathan Hargrove-Wilson writes about his own experiences of conversion to ‘God’s Economy’ and how he has tried to live out that conversion. In Being Consumed, William Cavanaugh writes as an academic theologian (although one that is most known as the author of Torture and Eucharist).

Both authors reject, simple free market/socialist dichotomies. The first chapter of Being Consumed discusses what makes and does not make a free market. This is my favorite chapter because he directly takes on the understanding of the free market economy right off the bat. His second chapter is about our relationship to goods. The biggest weakness of this chapter is that Cavanaugh wants to talk about goods as only tangible things. So when he discusses the movement away from making things, he means physical things. Like many others, he mistakenly believes that ideas, intellectual property, creative acts are somehow different than cars, plows or clothes. While it is a common understanding, it completely misses the economic reality of the digital world. In general, I strongly agree with the theological reflections on work that are in this chapter. But the dependence on the material-ness of work, makes it difficult to discuss in the real world. It is not only new economic jobs that are not material, but jobs of teacher, pastor, musician, counselor that work outside the traditional creation of objects.

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

May 27, 2011 by Adam Shields

God's Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel Takeaway: 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.

Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear

May 25, 2011 by Adam Shields

Quick Review: Good biological near-term science fiction book. The next phase of evolution is coming, quickly.

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

Trying to save money, sometimes actually costs us more than we intended. I found the audiobook of Darwin’s Radio on Overdrive library system and checked it out for free. I obviously was not paying enough attention because it was an abridged version. I hate abridged versions. I want to read the whole story, not the highlights. That being said, several of the comments on the unabridged books said it was too long, and many of the unabridged comments complained about the narrator. The abridged version was narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, one of my absolute favorite narrators, so I am not completely disappointed.

The set up for the book is that there is a ‘virus’ that is identified that seems to only affect pregnant women, but only be carried by males. What is odder is that only monogamous couples seem to ‘catch’ the virus. The sickness causes miscarriage, followed by an immediate second pregnancy (without male involvement). Over the first half of the book you discover that this is likely a evolutionary mutation to a new species of humans. The ‘virus’ is identified in ancient neanderthals and may be responsible for evolution to modern humans.