Blogger Review Books

Through the Eye of a Needle by Peter Brown

April 3, 2026May 8, 2013 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The variety of ways that the Christian church understands wealth and economics has a long history.

One of the reasons that we should read Christian history is because it can give us context for our own modern issues.

Because there are limited sources for late Roman history, Brown uses a variety of historical methods. Most interesting for me was the personal narrative of Christians, Augustine, Ambrose, and a number of people that I had no knowledge of prior to this book.

Culture has always influenced Christianity. So late Roman culture expected those of great wealth to give gifts to the city either through the games and circuses or through community building projects.

Enemies of the Heart: Breaking Free from the Four Emotions that Control You by Andy Stanley

July 15, 2026April 29, 2013 by Adam Shields

April 30th is the last day to get Enemies of the Heart free as an MP3 Audiobook from Christianaudio.com

Takeaway: Emotions can harm us. Spiritual Disciplines can help us overcome harmful emotions.

I did not realize this when I started, but Enemies of the Heart is a revision of It Came From Within. I have not read It Came From Within, so it is a new book to me, but I know many people have.

This book covers four emotions that damage us: guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy. In each case he has a method of how to combat the unhealthy emotion. With guilt, we need to seek forgiveness, not just from God, but from the actual person we wronged. With anger, we need to forgive the people that wronged us, not just generally, but specifically and explicitly. With greed we need to get over the fear that makes us be greedy by being generous. With jealousy we need celebrate those things we might be jealous of in those around us.

The Quest for the Trinity by Stephen R Holmes

March 21, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: An important look at the historical development of the Doctrine of the Trinity and how modern language drift has changed the historical definitions.

I have been looking forward to reading the Quest for the Trinity ever since I first heard about it in the middle of last year. Consistently it has been well reviewed and it certainly deserves the accolades. Holmes know his historical theology, he is very well read and no other book on the trinity I have read so far has been as well documented.

But I intentionally was holding off on reading this because just by reading the description and I knew he was reacting against the modern theological work around the trinity. And it was the more recent (primarily social focused) theology of the Trinity that drew me toward investigating the trinity more.

The basic thesis is that the modern focus is fundamentally different from the Patristic understanding of the Trinity. This is not actually all that hard to capture. One of the things I most liked about Dunzl’s Doctrine of the Trinity is that he clearly showed that doctrinal development is at least partially dependent on language and culture of the time. You cannot move beyond the current ability to describe the theology you are trying to document into a doctrine.

The Catholic Church: What Everyone Needs to Know by John Allen Jr

July 15, 2026March 11, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: A well written succinct account of the Catholic church. Primarily concerned with the workings and practice of the church. Written in a question and answer format, which is wearing after awhile.

Over the past year or so I have been reading to understand more about the Catholic church. I have read several accounts of conversion from Protestant to Catholic. I have read Robert Barron’s Introduction to Catholicism and Scott Hahn’s 40 Catholic Customs and their Biblical Roots and Richard Rohr’s Why Be Catholic. I have read Mark Noll’s evaluation of the state of the Catholic church and Evangelical/Catholic Relations. I even have read (but not yet reviewed) the first of the Pope’s books on Jesus.

But all of these books have been either primarily theological or primarily personal accounts of the Catholic church. John Allen is the senior Vatican correspondant for the National Catholic Reporter and Vatican analyst for CNN. This new introduction to the Catholic church (very conveniently released just as the conclave gets under way to elect a new Pope), is clearly the work of a journalist.

The writing is clear and punchy. It gets straight to the point and it covers a wide swath of material.

Operation Screwtape: The Art of Spiritual War by Andrew Farley

July 27, 2026March 5, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: A modern take on CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.

I remember reading CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters when I was pretty young. I am not sure, but I think I was probably 12 or 13.

It was just enough humor and story for me to be able to read, while at the same time absorbing some good theology. I think that is what Matt Mikalatos is doing with Imaginary Jesus and Night of the Living Dead Christian (Bookwi.se Reviews), but there are not many other books that are trying to mix a light story wrapper on good theology.

Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture

February 26, 2013 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The hard work of building community and developing others has to start with a commitment to stability. If we are serious about changing the world, making a commitment to a specific geography may be the best way to do it.

When I was in college I had a respected mentor of mine pray Jeremiah 29: 4-6 over me (Jeremiah tells the exiles to go ahead and settle down, stay awhile and make Babylon’s concerns and needs their own concerns and needs.) I took that seriously. I expected to stay in Chicago for the rest of my life. I did for 15 years, but then moved to Georgia in order to be closer to my wife’s family. While in Chicago for the last 10 years, my wife and I were members of church near the University of Chicago. In a five year period, there were 27 different people that were a part of our small group. At the end of the five years none of the people still attended the church and only one couple still lived in Chicago. We live in a mobile society (especially those that live in urban areas), even if mobility is down a bit over the past few years.

One of the first things I noticed in this book is that Jonathan Hargrove-Wilson speaks of stability and community in similar ways that Rhett Smith, Shane Hipps and others do. All of these authors fear that people get just enough community, stability, intimacy from their online or short term relationships to keep them from going deeper and getting what they are really looking for. There is an anecdote about a parishioner complaining to the pastor that they were not finding community the church they had been attending for almost a year. The pastor responds that they had only had one year worth of community. The type of community that the couple was looking for requires 30 years of investment. In many ways, this is similar advice and focus as Eugene Peterson‘s Practice Resurrection and A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke

July 15, 2026February 25, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Advice for the reluctant reader.

Lit opens with an explanation that its purpose is to convince people that do not like to read, why they should read. So obviously I am not the intended audience. But I did find some to like in this book. (Although I am not sure I can really recommend the book.) The parts I liked most were the casual reading advice sections. I did not agree with a number of the pieces of advice. Tony Reinke is consciously attempting to write a Christian version of the classic Mortimer Adler’s How To Read a Book (wikipedia link). There were many places where I thought, “Why would you encourage people to do that?”. For instance he encouraged people to spend about a hour going over a book before you start reading it, looking through the table of contents, writing up questions that you want answered in the book, reading the last couple pages, looking over reviews before you start. I think some of these ideas are good, but is this the way to encourage people to read? These are maybe things you should be doing before you pick (and buy) a book. But this seems to be squeezing the enjoyment out of reading.

My larger concern is with the structure of the book. Reinke starts with almost a full quarter of the book discussing scripture and how we need to keep scripture as our prime reading material, how scripture is different than other books and a discussion of truth and how we can only understand truth in other books once we understand the truth of scripture. I understand why he has this long discussion in another type of book. It is important to his theology of reading, which is the basis for why the entire book is written. But if the intended audience really are reluctant readers, they are never going to get through that section to the advice sections on how and why they should be reading.

137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading

January 23, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Practical steps on how to read more, and fall in love with reading, because you enjoy it, not because it is good for you.

One of those books I have not read, but I have been influenced by is How to Read by Mortimer Adler. Adler is one of those people that approaches books scientifically.

While I have not read Adler, I have read Lit! by Tony Reinke which is intentionally a Christianized version of Adler. I read and reviewed it last year. Lit! had a very good theology of reading and some good ideas about how to read better.

But on the whole I think that it lost the focus on reading for pleasure and concentrated too much on reading for good. It was focused on efficiency and ‘getting the most’ out of the books that you are reading. That is not all bad, but it is a good way to suck joy out of reading. It is like talking about how to get the most out of being a parent or a spouse without actually talking about enjoying your actual children or spouse.

137 Books in One Year does not have that problem. This is a book to read if you want to find the joy of reading again. This is a short book (93 page). I read it in about an hour. It is in three parts. Just over half the book is Kevin Hendrick’s 10 steps to read more and enjoy what you are reading more. These are practical (always carry a book) and focused on pleasure (read what you like).

The Search For God And Guinness by Stephen Mansfield

July 15, 2026December 6, 2012 by All Old Users

Summary: A fascinating history, but the writing was sophomoric.

Searching for God and Guinness is a “biography” of beer’s role in history and culture through the lens of one of the most famous brands and the family behind it. In simple and readable prose, Stephen Mansfield traces the arc of beer–specifically its origins as a moral and healthy alternative to the hard liquors that destroyed men and marriages, the economic and social development of the Guinness family, and especially the latter’s incredible impact on the justice issues of the day.

The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation

November 27, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: Fascinating look at creative areas of the economy where copyright and patent law do not apply.

According to the common line of thinking, without copyright and/or patent law there would be no incentive to create. The authors of this books are not completely dismissing this claim.

Instead they are following creative industries where copyright and patent law legally are not applicable. The areas explored are fashion (you cannot copyright a ‘useful object’), food (you cannot copyright a series of instructions), football (theoretically you can copyright choreography but no one has tried to do this in football), open-source software, magic and comedy.

All of the areas are very creative, and all are thriving. The authors look at the way that alternative means are used to reward creativity and limit inappropriate copying.