Blogger Review Books – Page 14

Tyndale: The Man Who Gave God an English Voice by David Teems

July 17, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A speculative biography about an important figure in English Christianity. But one that we know very little about. It is hard to write a biography on someone that history knows very little about. And we really do not know a lot about Tyndale. If this book were simply a list of things that are … Read more

The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler

May 10, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The Gospel needs to be understood and Explicit.

I want to affirm Chandler’s desire that people really understand the Gospel. (Although we have a different definition of what is actually the meaning of the word gospel.) He was struck one day by the number of people that his church was baptizing that said the equivalent of “I grew up in a Christian home and going to church but I never heard the gospel until…” I heard and have thought the same thing. Was it that the gospel was not preached or was it that you did not understand?

But like many, his path toward defining and pushing the importance of the gospel takes a pretty standard line. God is great, God owes you nothing, we are saved by God’s grace alone, our desire for this world is really a mis-placed desire intended for God. So we must emphasize our sin, the reality of hell, and our lost-ness without Christ.

Fields of Gold (Generous Giving) by Andy Stanley

May 8, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: In spite of the fact that some Christians misuse scripture about giving, those portions of scripture are still there and we need to focus on the right meaning, not avoid them.

As I have said before, my wife and I lead a small group of newly married couples. Our next topic is finances. So when I was offered this book to review I read it with that in mind.

This book was written by my pastor. So I am not completely unbiased and I have heard much of this content before in sermons or other teaching.

But the thing that most struck me here is that in spite of the fact that Health and Wealth gospel preachers misuse scripture on giving, God still is interested in how we think about and use our money.

Andy Stanley starts with the fact that we often think about giving wrong. It is not ‘God gets this amount and everything else is ours’. It is God have given all of it to you and you are merely a steward of it all. So God wants us to invest it. That investment should be in God’s kingdom. This does not mean that we can’t use money on things we need, but that if we have the right attitude toward the money, those things that we really need are far less.

A Spirituality of Living by Henri Nouwen

April 5, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: We are created to need solitude, community and to do service.

I don’t remember when I first became acquainted with Henri Nouwen. Probably some time in college. I had read a handful of his books.

This is the one I have read most and I think is most helpful. His book Out of Solitude covers some similar material from a different perspective, so it is a good supplement to this one. Because they are both so short, someone should get rights to both and print them together.

This book is a simple explanation about the movement from solitude with God, to community with others to service for God and back to solitude again is apart of God’s created order.

Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Anglicanism

February 28, 2012 by Adam Shields

Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism Summary: Stories of conversion from Evangelicalism to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism and from Catholicism to Evangelical

I am a big proponent of story. I think that personal stories are often more valuable than discussion based purely on rationalism. I believe this because we are not purely rational creatures. There is something else that is important to us and story often communicates in a more well-rounded way than pure rational discussion.

The structure of this book is that an author discusses their move from one branch of Christianity to another. Then there is a response by a third party and then a response to the response by the original author.

In general, this allows for the story to be the main subject of the first section. Then the response can bring up rational/theological issues and then the original author can deal with theological objections.

Historical Theology by Gregg Allison – The Trinity

January 27, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Theology requires history and church tradition.

I already wrote a summary review on Historical Theology. But I am still using it as background. I am getting ready to start working on a series of books on the Trinity. I started reading one book with some friends and was very disappointed with the opening chapter. So I decided to go back and read the chapter on the Trinity from Historical Theology to give myself some additional historical context. That is really what this book is for, more than to read straight through from cover to cover.

The Trinity is an interesting doctrine. Essentially the vast majority of what the church believes was determined by 600 AD. The first three major creeds of the church spent a lot of time talking about the trinity and only a little has really been added over the years. The trinity is one area where there is very little difference of opinion between Protestants and Roman Catholics.

The Resignation of Eve: What if Adam’s Rib is No Longer Willing to Be the Church’s Backbone? by Jim Henderson

January 24, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The stories of women and their views on women in church leaders, backed by statistical research can be powerful.

Women in church leadership is a touchy subject with me. As I have related in other reviews, I went to the University of Chicago Divinity School for my MDiv. My small class was more than half women, most of whom had grown up in relatively conservative church backgrounds, felt the call to be a pastor and were often quite harmed by the church on their way to seminary. Many had left the denominations that they grew up in and sought safer places to pastor.

Unfortunately, even in denominations that officially ordain and recognize women as pastors, the road is often difficult.

Jim Henderson started this project because he was seeing women leaving the church because they were being restricted by the church.

The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun by Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway

January 11, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The Christian world outside the US is much more important than what we usually acknowledge

Christian biography and autobiography is an important part of any spiritual growth. Whether you are a reader or not, you need to hear about what others have lived before you. This does not need to be in book form; movies, radio interviews, podcasts, conversations all can be part of the way that we hear from other Christians about their own spiritual lives.

Christian autobiography from non-western Christians is desperately needed to round out a vision of the church that is concerned with more than small bits of theological difference or differences in cultural engagement. Christians around the world right now are being imprisoned for their faith.

I first heard about Brother Yun (as I have about so many good books) from John Armstrong’s blog and I went back and read them as I finished up this book. It has been nearly 4 years since I first heard about the book, but I just recently got round to reading it. I should have read it much earlier.

This is a biography unlike I have read. It is reminiscent of the autobiography of Brother Andrew (the bible smuggler) I first read as a comic book as pre-teen. Brother Yun, starting when he first became a Christian at 16, was fervent in prayer. He prayed and fasted for 100 days to receive a bible (illegal and very rare in the early 1970s in China) and after 100 days a man brought him a bible. He did not just read it, he memorized large passages of scripture. Within months of receiving the bible he was asked to come preach to a nearby village. He went, but did not know what to say, so he just recited the whole book of Matthew and then the parts of Acts that he had started memorizing.

His story proceeds to tell of how he became a preacher in the underground church movement of China and how he was repeatedly imprisoned, tortured and eventually escaped out of China. Brother Yun now lives in Germany with his family and works to support the church in China.

I Am A Follower: The Way, Truth and Life of Following Jesus by Leonard Sweet

January 3, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: “We have been told our entire lives that we should be leaders…but the truth is that the greatest way to create a movement is to be a follower and to show others how to follow. Following is the most underrated form of leadership in existence.”

I am completely convinced of the basic thesis of this book. The evangelical church in particular, is too focused on leadership, organization and numbers. What we should be focused on is following, discipleship and modeling faith.

Len Sweet gives a good defense of why our focus on leadership actually counters the gospel (that Jesus Christ is King and Lord of all). Sweet does not suggest we should have anarchy, but that we need to focus on Christ (and not any other human) as our one true leader. All others are just ‘first followers’.

One of the metaphors (about how a duck imprints on the first moving thing they see, not necessarily their mother or father) that Sweet uses at the end I think really focuses on the problem of why we need to make sure we are following Christ and not others.

Read more

Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber – 2011 Books of the Year

December 30, 2011 by Adam Shields

I read a number of good memoirs this year (Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, Ian Cron, etc.) but Surprised by Oxford was my favorite. A beautifully written book about a student finding God while studying literature in Oxford. If you like books about books and memoirs that are as much about ideas as timeline, than you will like this. I also highly recommend Ian Cron’s Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me. I had a hard time deciding which I liked better. Cron’s book was very good and I really recommend it as well.

Summary: Girl finds God at Oxford in one of the most beautifully written memoirs written in recent years.

Memoirs are an increasingly popular form. Especially since Donald Miller, the memoir seems to have found a new life by showing how a person found God. In many ways, this is just an updating of the traditional testimony that has been, and in some churches still is, a common part of the church liturgy. I have read a lot of memoirs over the past few years. Many of them quite good. But none were as well written and literary as Surprised by Oxford.

Carolyn Weber grew up in London, Ontario. Child of divorced Hungarian immigrants, she had to work hard to make it through high school and college while working to support herself and family and making excelling grades. Caro, as she was known, won a full scholarship to study literature at Oxford. She eventually received her masters and doctorate from Oxford and now is a professor of literature.