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

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins

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Summary: A data heavy look at the state of Christianity around the world.

Earlier this year I read Philip Jenkins’ Lost History of Christianity. Jenkins was writing about the strength of the early church in Asia and Africa. That early church was stronger than in Europe and while it is only a remnant now, it survived under significant persecution for generations.

The Lost History of Christianity is actually a follow up to the original Next Christendom. Originally written in 2002 and then updated in 2006 and again in 2011, Jenkins is trying to help the western church understand the vast shift in Christianity to the Global South.

Jenkins is a helpful reminder to a US Evangelical Christianity that often is ignorant of the global church. But Jenkins is also a researcher that primarily uses demographic statistics, so that number heavy research can be a bit dull. There is also a bit of overlap in content, especially early in this book, with the Lost History of Christianity, as Jenkins is trying to set the stage for presenting the church in Asia and Africa as not new, but revitalized.

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Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch

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Summary: Spiritual leaders are human, full of sin as all of us, but willing to have their sin redeemed by God for greater glory.

Over the last couple months I have re-read all of the Starbridge (or Church of England) series by Susan Howatch and the first of the off-shoot trilogy. This second reading of each of the main series has confirmed to me that this is one of the greatest series of “˜Christian Fiction’ written in the 20th century.

I use scare quotes because no US Evangelical Christian publishing house would actually publish this. It is full of sin. But also full of grace and redemption and more theologically rich than any other fiction series that I am aware of.

Absolute Truths is the last, and I think best, of the series. It returns to Charles Ashworth, the main character of the first book of the series (Glittering Images.) Instead of a young priest and professor, Ashworth is now a Bishop. And in the course of the book his third life crisis comes to pass.

What was so transformative for me with this series is that all of the conflict and story is based on clergy in the Church of England. All are real and devout Christians. All take their faith seriously (although in different streams of the Anglican way).

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