Know the Heretics by Justin Holcomb

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Takeaway: Knowing theology is more than just knowing the positive (creeds and beliefs) it is also understanding the negative (the Heresies).

We are all acquainted with the mantra, “˜Christians should be known more for what they are for than what they are against.’  It is simplistic, but I generally agree with the concept.

However, that does not mean that we should ignore the concept of Heresy.  Justin Holcomb has a very helpful, easy to read, good for small group discussion, book on the basic heresies of the church.

Marc Cortez, a theology professor at Wheaton College had a recent helpful post on the positives of “˜Becoming a Heretic’.  Cortez talks about how when he was teaching a class on the church fathers he temporarily became an Arianist, using the best arguments and historical documents to prove his case.  (Arianism is an ancient heresy that suggests that Jesus is eternally subordinate to the Father and was not eternal but created later.)

Cortez made his case to his students that because they didn’t really understand the reasoning behind the heresies, they did not really understand how to defend against them.

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The Anxious Christian: Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good?

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The Anxious Christian: Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good?

Takeaway: Anxiety is real emotion. Allow God to use it to help you and do not allow it to control you.

I have followed Rhett Smith on twitter for several years as moved to Texas and started a counseling practice.  I have read his blog as he thoughtfully talked about issues of technology, theology, marriage and faith.

I was not surprised when Moody approached him about writing a book.  I knew it would be good and well worth reading.

But when I heard it would be about anxiety, I thought it would be a good book for me to pass on to friends and family.  Because I have a particular understanding of anxiety.  Anxiety is rooted in fear, fear is something that as Christians we should not have.  Therefore the best thing to do with anxiety is to reject it as sin.

Thankfully, that is not the thesis of this book. Autobiographically, Rhett Smith works through how he dealt with fear and anxiety through the early loss of his mother (and much of his extended family to cancer), his problems with stuttering, school and the normal anxiety of growing up, finding a career, and relationships.

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How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity by Rodney Stark

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Takeaway: Sometimes in the attempt to tell a fuller story, part of the story gets lost. But the correction usually has the same problem.

I really appreciate Rodney Stark’s desire to fight back against biased history. This is my third book by Stark. God’s Battalions told the story of Crusades and the Triumph of Christianity used sociology and history to explore how Christianity grew.

In How The West Won, Stark is fighting against a pendulum that has swung too far and now can be anti-western. Earlier, pride in Western achievements was easy to see, but also easy to see was how that Western bias lead to racism and blind spots about the negatives of some of the West’s bad points.

Stark, fairly briefly attempts to re-balance the academy’s view of Western triumph. The components of how the West Won are fairly simple. Christianity had a rational worldview and a God that created and ordered the world. That orderly world gave rise to science and innovation. Christianity valued education in order to better understand the world. In addition, Capitalism and European political disunity (which kept countries vying for power and innovating in technology), while maintaining Latin for communication across Europe further developed Western strengths. (This is, of course, over simplifying Stark, his argument is rich in detail and very readable.)

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Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media by Bradley R.E. Wright

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Takeaway: Statistics are important. And if you are a Christian that believes in truth, you need to be even more careful with numbers.

I like numbers. My day job is being a nanny stay at home Dad, but my part time consulting job is evaluating an after school program. I track grades, school attendance, program attendance, home and school visits, behavior, test scores, and a variety of other statistics. In a previous life, one of my jobs was demographic research for church plants and I was statistician for a local Baptist association. I was a sociology major as an undergrad and even went to a sociology paper competition (and came in 3rd) for a sociology paper about the relationship between believe in rape myths and matriculation in a Christian college campus.

If you know me in real life, then you have probably heard me quote a stat (or 50) about something or other. So I should have jumped at this book. But I did not. Frankly, I am a bit negative about a lot of Christian’s use of numbers. A couple weeks ago two different times in the same Sunday, from the pulpit and in a private meeting I heard a similar statistic about divorce that I knew was wrong. My church is about 60 percent single adults. So when people talk about marriage, I want it presented in a fairly positive light, not to be fake, but to not compound the negative feelings that many in my church have toward marriage. So when I hear the same statistic about divorce rising, I get frustrated. I did not say anything, but I was frustrated.

You see, divorce is not rising. In fact it is dropping. In part because many people are just choosing to not get married, or at least get married much later. And divorce among highly educated, upper income people (like most everyone in my church) has fallen off a cliff. So when we talk about divorce as being a major and increasing issue among Christians, we are actually wrong. We should be providing support for marriages, that is why my wife and lead a small group for newly married couples. And we should be providing support for those that facing or recently completed a divorce. But in my church, telling people (most of whom are single) that divorce is increasing, does not really address either reality, or the issue most in the congregation are facing.

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media is a very good remedy to the many poorly presented statistics that are floating around in and outside the Christian world. Dr Wright, spends a significant amount of time addressing why so many bad statistics are being used. And really it comes down to two major areas, attention and authority. We are trying to get people’s attention, so pastors (and many others) troll around for the worst statistics to try to prove their point. (This is also why we get so many topical sermons that do not seem to fit the broader context of the passage.) It is not that pastors (or others) are trying to mislead, but rather, they start from the end and find support for their position. The second major issue is that many people are misled because they saw something in print. If it was printed, it must be true. Christians, as people of the book, may be more influenced by the authority of something being in print.

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Glamorous Powers by Susan Howatch

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Summary: An Abbot feels he receives a call from God to leave his order and return to the world.

I am working my way back through Susan Howatch’s Church of England series. This six book series is about four different Church of England clergy told from five different main characters (one is told from the perspective of a mistress) over 30 year period.

Glamorous Powers was probably my least or second least favorite of the series on the first reading. But I discovered a lot more depth on a second reading. The first time I read this on kindle, this time I switched to audiobook.

As with all of Howatch’s writing, I think there is too much melodrama. But the melodrama makes a lot of sense to the story here. Jon Darrow is an Anglian monk. He is Abbot of one of the houses of the Fordite order (the order is fictional, but according to Wikipedia there are about 2400 Anglican Monks or Nuns around today.)

Darrow is the spiritual director from Glittering Images, the first book in the series. In the first book, Darrow was a near perfect figure, always knowing what to do, in near perfect communion with God and using his psychic abilities for spiritual direction. But several years after the first book he receives a vision that he interprets is a sign from God to leave the order and re-enter the world.

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America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation by Grant Wacker

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Summary: An evaluation of Billy Graham’s place in history.

I have been reluctant to read biographies of living people recently. Sometimes it just feels like we need more distance to be really able to understand  a person’s contributions, and when that person is beloved, their weaknesses as well.

So I was not planning on reading America’s Pastor. I have read Billy Graham’s own, way too long and detailed without being all that interesting autobiography(-ish), Just As I Am. And I figured that was probably enough for the next decade or so. But after two pretty positive reviews by Mark Noll and Ted Olsen and then the same day being offered a review copy, I decided to pick it up.

And I am glad I did. America’s Pastor is not a biography. There is a fairly short overview of Graham’s life at the beginning, but the rest of the book is chapters focused on different aspects of Graham’s work, image or legacy. The eight chapters are: Preacher, Icon, Southerner, Entrepreneur, Architect, Pilgrim, Pastor and Patriarch.

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Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ by Eugene Peterson

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Summary: The church is where we we can learn to grow up as Christ intends.

A bit over 4 years ago I first read Practice Resurrection. It affected me then and affects me now. I picked it up again and intentionally re-read it with Glittering Images.

The two books, at different times, are two of the books that have most impacted me since I started Bookwi.se.

Practice Resurrection, the final of a five book series on practical theology by Peterson, is a long exploration of Ephesians as an illustration of why the Christian life is at root a means of allowing us to practice being like Christ (and central to that practice, why that  must be done in context of church.)

Peterson uses the illustration of practicing to remind us that no one is suddenly saved and holy. Yes from conversion we are saved and viewed as righteous in God’s eyes. But the rest of our life is practice on how we can become more like Christ.

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Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio

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Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood pulled off the most audacious rescue in History by Tony Mendez is his first-hand account of the rescue of six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis.  As the lead operative on the project, Tony recounts how he hatched the plan, carried out preparation and executed the plan so that everyone would be brought home safely.  This spy story is set apart from others because this rescue was successful in part because Hollywood was used to make the mission a success.

In this recounting, Mendez tells how he got involved in the CIA, how he climbed the ranks, and how he thought of and was able to execute his plan. In Iran, the people were angry at the United States because they had allowed their former leader to be extradited into their country.  A group of people decided to storm the U.S. Embassy and take everyone hostage.  Six people were able to sneak away from the embassy and therefore escape becoming hostages.  This mission is also known as the “œCanadian Caper” because not only were the six Americans passed off as Canadians, but also they were kept hidden at the houses of the Canadian ambassador and a Canadian Immigration Officer in Iran and they escaped from Iran to Canada.  Because all of the other ideas to get the Americans out wouldn’t work, Mendez had to be creative in coming up with a way to get the Americans out.  He decided to form a fake production company out in Hollywood, find a real script, a real cast, publish real advertisements and then use the movie as an excuse to visit and then leave Iran.

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Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer by Rowan Williams

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Being Christian cover imageSummary: Quick look at four universal Christian practices. 

Many people have a lot of respect for Rowan Williams. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury for ten years before retiring three years ago. He is still fairly young (64), and he is still publishing a ton. So, I keep meaning to read some of his books—this one I picked up free with some promotional credit from Audible.

Being Christian was originally a series of Holy Week lectures adapted into a short book. The focus is on four universal practices among Christians, regardless of theological stream or denomination.

Considering the short length and the ubiquitousness of the practices, it would have been easy to be filled with clichés. But Williams both stayed true to the essence of the practices and brought a unique presentation to them so the book did not feel stale.

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