After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters by NT Wright

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Summary: Christianity is not just about the salvation event, it is also (or maybe primarily) about the life we live after the salvation event.

Maybe it is my approaching middle age, but how we live as Christians is increasingly important to me. After reading seven Susan Howatch novels in the last 4 months, all of them concerned more about how Christians grow and live as Christians (none of them really even touch on anyone becoming a Christian), I decided to give Afer You Believe another try.

I have previously picked up After You Believe at least two times. Both times I got about 1/3 of the way before putting it down. This time, like my previous experiences with Wright, I listened instead of read.

The initial illustration is of Captain Sullenberger, the airline pilot who was able to safely land his plane in the Hudson River and get all of the passengers off safely. Wright says that Sullenberger did not become a hero because of random chance. Sullenberger had spent years flying planes. He had made thousands of small decisions that prepared him for his quick decisions that day. He had practiced so that what would be impossible for most of us was possible for him. The landing of the plane was less a miracle than a natural result of a well lived life. (Wright does not dismiss the landing as miraculous, but thinks only thinking about it as miraculous minimizes how God works through us as Christians.)

Wright wants us as Christians to think of the development of our Christian life, our character and virtue, to be something we think about in a similar way. Character comes about by ongoing small decisions and habits that are formed over time. The virtuous Christians does not become virtuous by accident any more than a master violinist become a master by accident.

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Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers by Michael Long

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Summary: A look at how Mr Rogers communicated his countercultural Christianity through his life and tv show.

I am a big fan of Mr Rogers. Part of what made me pick up this book was a desire to re-connect with the peacefulness of Mr Rogers for my children. My daughter is just old enough that she is starting to pay attention to TV and enjoys the cartoon adaptation of Daniel Tiger. It didn’t hurt that I picked up the book while it was on sale.

Peaceful Neighbor explores Mr Rogers pacifism in two parts. The first is the direct understand of pacifism as being against war and violence. This is explored through looking at Mr Roger’s personal history as well as how he dealt with war and violence on the TV show and how in later years of the Gulf War and post 9/11 he was politically active in small ways.

The second section is a look at peace in other ways, including Mr Rogers understanding of racism, hunger, gay rights, environmentalism and his personal vegetarianism.

I found much of the book interesting as an abstract understanding of Mr Rogers as a liberal mainline Christian. That may seem dismissive, but it is not intended to be. Many liberal mainline Christians do not spend their whole lives living out their ideals. In many ways Mr Rogers is one of the best spokespersons for Christianity of the late 20th century. Many, many people know he was an ordained minister. Many people have commented about he real love of the other and how he cared for those around him.

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The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

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Summary: An conversion story that stumbles with long digressions into particular styles of worship and other minor issues of Christian life.

I first heard of the Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert when Seth Simmons (a Bookwi.se contributor) reviewed it here. But it wasn’t long after that that there was a minor controversy at my college alma mater (Wheaton) when she was invited to speak.

Students protested her chapel because they understood her conversion story (as told in this book) as prescriptive of how all gay Christians should respond. And I have to say, after reading the book, I agree, it sounds proscriptive at many points

Reading generously, Butterfield, in a response to the students at the Gospel Coalition blog pointed  out what she believes are three unbiblical (but widely held positions) on homosexuality. The first is the Freudian position (morally neutral but a fixed part of personal make up and identity.) The second is the revisionist heresy (asserting that previous understanding of Christianity against homosexuality is wrong and that the bible does not prohibit monogamous homosexual relationships, i.e. Gay marriage). The third is the reparative therapy heresy (asserting that the primary method of resolving homosexuality is to assert heterosexuality, i.e. pray the Gay away.)

But it did not really define what her understanding of the right understanding was, because essentially this story is the story of how this third option worked for her. In the comments of the TGC article, several suggested that the students were not advocating these three positions either, but ‘clarifying that not all Christians with same-sex attraction expunge them. It was about demonstrating that there are students on campus who will come alongside fellow students struggling to reconcile their attractions with their faith.’

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Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More “Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist” by Karen Swallow Prior

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Takeaway: Not everyone important is known.

I have written before of the importance of good Christian biography as part of spiritual growth. (And by good, I mean actually biography, not hagiography, that looks at an honest portrayal of the real person.)

Karen Swallow Prior has written an excellent, eminently readable biography of Hannah More, a woman from history that I had never heard of before Prior’s work.

Hannah More lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She was a poet, playwright, devotional writer, and activist. Her colleagues, William Wilberforce and John Newton, are much better known. But along with them, More played an active role in bringing attention to slavery and helping to move public opinion toward abolition. Unfortunately, she died just months before England outlawed the slave trade, but she deserves significant credit for her active role in abolishing slavery.

In addition to her work on abolition, she helped start schools for the poor and was behind low-cost reading material that gave the poor reading materials they could afford. She was against animal cruelty and helped start women’s societies (that eventually moved toward women’s voting.)

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The Silver Chair by CS Lewis

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I am reposting my 2013 review of the Silver Chair because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.
Summary: More allegorical than many of the Narnia books, Eustace and Jill, with the help of Puddleglum, must find Prince Rilian.

After finishing the new biography of CS Lewis last week I decided that I wanted to read or re-read many of Lewis’ books.

I started with the Silver Chair because it was the story line that I remembered least of the Narnia books.  I knew it was Eustace and Jill and that they searched for the Prince.  I remembered a Witch, but that was about it.

It has been such a long time since I have read most of the Narnia books that I forget that they really are children’s books. I read this very quickly.

The Silver Chair is more allegorical than several other books. Lewis takes on bullying at school and makes fun of the new school systems. (Having read the biography of Lewis, he hated his boarding school and was likely the target of bullying himself.)

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Is Dark Places Another Cinematic Hit for Gillian Flynn?

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Dark Places movieDark Places author Gillian Flynn is no stranger to exploring the shadowy side of human nature. After the success of Gone Girl in theaters, many people are anticipating this sophomore outing in films for the rising star author. While it is unlikely to match the almost perfect madness of Gone Girl, there is more than enough to indicate that Dark Places will be a wild ride for psychological thriller fans.

The new film starring Charlize Theron as Libby Day, sole survivor of the gruesome murder of her family 25 years prior, is presented with an opportunity to help a group of true crime obsessives, aptly named “œThe Kill Club,” uncover the truth of what really happened that fateful night. This triggers a series of flashbacks and an investigation that leads Libby to believe that her brother, whom she had testified against under pressure from lawyers and the media, was actually innocent and the true murderer walked away that day.

The premise is interesting and in the hands of a director more accustomed to risk than Gilles Paquet-Brenner it could really shine on the screen. Unfortunately while Paquet-Brenner is a fine director, he doesn’t have the willingness to try new things with narrative that Fincher did which helped make Gone Girl so good.

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Summary: An impassioned letter from an African American father to his 15 year old son.

Between the World and Me deserves all of its praise. It will be on virtually every ‘Best of 2015′ book list. I need some space, but I would like to read it again before the end of the year.

This is not an easy book to read. I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Coates. All of the passion and pain of the book carries through. However, this book of passion and pain and not easy to take.

Coates formats the book as a letter to his 15 year old son on the occasion of his disappointment that Darren Wilson would not be indited or face trial for the shooting of Michael Brown. The book recounts Coates’ life and place in the world as an African American man.

Overwhelmingly it is about his concern for how his son will live, how Coates will not be able to protect him from the pain of life that is unfairly biased against him.

The book is roughly divided into three sections. The first is about the “˜plunder’. The systemic loss of safety and autonomy that Coates, and all African Americans, face because of results of racist institutions. This section also tells the story of Coates own growing up years where he learned to navigate his way through his isolating urban streets.

The second section is about his coming of age at Howard University and how he was “˜made for the library and not the classroom’. His eyes were widened as he learned about others and their different backgrounds and world. He met his wife and they married and had their son and moved to New York. But also how he was frustrated with what his learning revealed.

The third section was about the killing of his friend from Howard University, Prince Carmen Jones, by a cop in 2000. Jones was an engineering student, the son of a highly respected doctor. The cop, who was black, was undercover, and pursuing a 5 ft 4, 250 lb suspect. He mistakenly identified Jones, a 6 ft 3, 210 lbs, as the suspect. He and his partner, in separate unmarked cars followed Jones across two state lines for 16 miles without pulling him over.

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The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

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I am reposting this 2013 review because christianaudio.com is giving away this book as an MP3 (or M4B) audiobook for the month of August 2015. Rosaria Champagne was a hard-core liberal activist, a devoted lesbian and a tenured professor of feminism and post-modern thought at Syracuse University. Then she met Jesus over a summer break–an … Read more