Blogger Review Books

Takeaway: Not all of us are called to minister to male prostitues, but all of us are called to work out Micah 6:8 “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” for ourselves.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition (until July 27, the kindle edition is on sale for $3.99)

I have been aware of John Green and his ministry almost as long as it has been around.  Green was finishing up a Master’s degree at Wheaton College as I was starting my undergrad.  We did not know one another, but I knew of him and what he was doing.  There were Wheaton students from very early on volunteering.  Until 5 years ago when I moved from Chicago to outside of Atlanta, I would see John regularly at Wheaton events, especially those alumni events that were trying to get alumni in urban ministry together.

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Takeaway: Technology is shaped by its human creators, but also in turn shapes its human users. (This is the book I have been searching for on Technology and Christianity.)

I am a geek wannabe. I fix a lot of friends computers and my less techie friends often ask for advice. But my skills pale in comparison to John Dyer, John Saddington, and a bunch of other twitter friends. In spite of the fact that I am a nanny and not a full time tech worker, I have been thinking a lot about technology and how we as Christians should be reacting. Over the past couple months I have read two decent books on Technology and Christianity, Tim Challies’ The Next Story and Adam Thomas’ Digital Disciple. Both have real value, but the book I have been looking for is John Dyer’s From The Garden to the City.

The main theme of the book is that while we as humans create technology (and that is part of our God given role), the resulting technology shapes us in ways that we often ignore. A personal example happened yesterday. My wife and I are heavy users of our phones for social media and texting, but we do not actually use them to make a lot of phone calls. Our smart phones are not neutral devices as many Christians want to say, neither good nor evil. Yes, we can choose to do good things or evil things with the phones, but the very fact we have the phones affects the way we interact in the world.  Technology is not deterministic; we can overcome natural tendencies. But without reflection and insight we, often are just unaware of how the technology affects us.

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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.)

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