Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans

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Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held EvansSummary: Roughly based on the seven sacraments of the Catholic church, Rachel Held Evans explores her history of leaving the church, helping to plant a church and then eventually finding another church.

I tend to think that people that do not like Rachel Held Evans’ writing are people that do not need Rachel Held Evans’ writing. This is circular I know, but Evans has a particular audience and I think that audience needs her or someone like her. But many others do not find encouragement from her and do not identify with her story, I think that people that are frustrated with Evans should consider themselves blessed.

Evans is a skeptic and doubter. She is a Christian and loves the church and even loves the Evangelicalism that shaped her (and scarred her). But she also is frustrated by the church and many in the church that have no place for doubt, investigation or marginalized people.

Anyone that knows of Evans is unsurprised that the book opens with her frustration with the church. Through the book, there is a clear arc. Evans grows up in the church, is “˜on fire for Jesus’, becomes skeptical, starts exploring the skepticism, eventually leaves the church because of her frustration with it, then helps to plant a church that attempts to live out what she believes the church should be, that church plant fails and over the next couple of years she slowly makes her way into the Episcopal church.

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Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts

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I am reposting this 2010 review because the audiobook is the Audible deal of the Day and on sale for $3.95
Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful ActsTakeaway: The human brains ability to justify and rationalize mistakes is enormous, useful and incredibly dangerous. There are huge implications for every facet of life.

This is a wide ranging and enormously interesting book on memory, retention and and self justification. The basic idea is that our brains are designed to minimize Cognitive Dissonance. Our brains will re-write memory and selectively remember details or give us other means to repress or eliminate Cognitive Dissonance.

Early in the book there are a number of examples of government, journalism and scientists that believe that they did nothing wrong while external evidence suggest otherwise.  One of the most egregious, is the first study that showed a link between autism and vaccines.  The lead author of the study was being paid on the side by class action lawyers (over $800,000) as an expert witness and researcher into the connection between autism and vaccines. The link was not disclosed and the research study continues to be influential even after it has been widely disproven by additional studies.

Another interesting example are the gifts given to doctors by drug companies.  Drug companies know that small gifts are very effective in creating obligation to the drug companies, but large gifts, especially early in the relationship will make the doctors feel like they are being bribed. One of the important insights from this section is that often people do small things that are not wrong, but once they are a situation, end up doing many things that they would not have considered if they started with that action. For instance, Watergate did not start as a break in, but by the time all the players were in the game, it was easy to justify something that most of them would have never participated in had the idea of a break-in and cover-up been originally on the table.

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A Dirty Job: A Novel by Christopher Moore

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Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is the Amazon Deal of the Day and on sale for $1.99 today only.
A Dirty Job: A NovelTakeaway: Funny, but very irreverent look at the life of a ‘death dealer’.

This is my second Christopher Moore book. I picked up Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, on the recommendation of a friend. It is a novel about Jesus narrated by his childhood friend Biff.  You can assume it was irreverent. But I enjoyed the humor and all in all, I thought Jesus was treated fairly respectfully in a satirical novel.

In A Dirty Job, Asher, a resale shop owner becomes a “Death Dealer”. Death Dealers are people that take soul containers (the physical objects that hold people’s souls once they die, usually a beloved possession) and then pass them on to a new person.  The theology behind this is an odd bit of Tibetan Buddhism with Karma and reincarnation but unlike any actual religion that I am aware of.

There is some slight overlap between Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse, which also deals with a man that assumes the position of death. But in A Dirty Job, Asher is one of many regular people that become death dealers. Of course the concept of death and life are explored. But Moore seems more interested in the concept of the Beta Male, the guy that is never in charge and never stands out, but is always doing what it takes to get by. Asher is a good example of a Beta Male. He is a good father and would have made a good husband, but his wife dies immediately after childbirth which in some way leads to him originally becoming a Death Dealer.

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Life of Pi by Yann Martel

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screenshot_02Life of Pi is a fiction novel that was written by Yann Martel. One of Martel’s most famous works, Life of Pi, which was published in 2001, is about an Indian boy, Pi, growing up and navigating his way through life first as a boy in India, second as a teenager drifting out to sea for 227 days and third as a survivor. Pi states in the beginning that his is a story that speaks on the existence of God. The novel shows how one might survive on a lifeboat with only himself, his beliefs in God and a Bengal Tiger to depend on.

There was a lot of hype surrounding this book and even more when the movie came out. Because of that, I was hesitant to give it a try. When Forrest Gump came out, my mom, brother and I went to see it and really liked it, so we told my dad that it was a great movie that he would really like. When he finally watched it at home on VHS, he was a bit let down because of all of the anticipation. But, everyone knows that Forrest Gump really is a good movie. When I finally got around to reading this book and then watching the movie, I was surprised to find that I was not all that disappointed. With the exception of one aspect of the novel, there was a lot that I liked about the book. The descriptions in the book were very intense so much so that some parts were difficult to get through. The emotions described by Pi were palpable to the point where I was almost in tears when the tiger walked into the jungle.

UnknownAn interesting part of the story, to me, was that, even though I didn’t know how Pi had survived, I knew that he had indeed survived. It was the same feeling I got from reading Unbroken. I knew that the Olympic runner had survived but kept reading because I couldn’t imagine how it was possible. Whereas the book Unbroken is non-fiction account of what happened to Louis Zamperini, this book is a work of fiction. It is a work of fiction made to seem like a non-fiction account of Pi surviving at sea for 227 days. There were a number of occasions in the book where the narrator assured us that the story was true and that the account given was accurate. This was not at all the case, of course. In college, we watched an Oliver North film about the “œdesparecidos” of El Salvador called Salvador. The movie came across as a non-fiction account of what had happened and even included script at the end of the movie explaining what happened in the country after the story ended. While many atrocities did occur in El Salvador during the period, the movie was actually fiction, which I felt cheated us from learning about really happened, and I felt tricked. I don’t like feeling tricked and that’s why I only really like this book and don’t love it.

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Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture

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I am reposting a lightly edited version of my 2010 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $2.99. This is the first time the book has been on sale since 2013 according to ereaderiq’s price history.

Summary: A look at how the church needs introverts and how introverts can survive the church.

Some books have important ideas but others books are important for a more personal reason. I do think this is an important book, but it is also one that even early on really is causing me to think about my own Christian life.  Hello world, I am an introvert.  I have been identifying more and more introverted tendencies in my life over the past few years.

The author starts by showing examples of how United States (and in general western culture) and particularly Evangelical culture is oriented toward extroverts.  He gives many examples about how participation oriented US churches are extroverted (and why introverts often resist the strong participatory oriented focus.)

One of the strongest points of the book is how much the author relies on his own story and the stories of a large number of people interviewed for the book. The real stories give the book weight that would not be the case with just statistics. On the negative side, I think that for some extroverts and even some mild introverts the stories will occasionally seem like complaining. But that is at least part of the point. Different people have different tolerances for different activities and they are made by God to be that way.

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A Vacation

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  My son turned two months yesterday.  And my daughter will be 19 months at the end of next week.  My wife’s last (paid) day as a teacher for this school year is today. I have had a hard time adjusting to this new reality while keeping up Bookwi.se. So I am going to take … Read more

From the Library to the Megaplex, Five More Books Come to Life Onscreen

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Filmmakers have long turned to novels as a consistent source of inspiration. Over the past few decades, the phenomenon has taken on a life of it’s own with a slew of record-breaking, billion dollar franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games (which continue to find new fans on iTunes and DTV). Recent films such as The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay point to the continued and bankable success of YA novels on the big screen.

But the books-as-movies concept isn’t just for kids: some very adult books have also reached blockbuster status, 50 Shades of Grey and Gone Girl being two prominent examples. Any fears associated with film adaptations of beloved literary tales have faded in favor of mass audience approval and enormous payouts. If you’ve been to the theater recently you’ll know that this trend of big budget book adaptations shows no sign of stopping anytime soon – so lets look at some more books that have been optioned for films and see if we’ve got another blockbuster hit in our midst.

Artimis FowlArtemis Fowl

This purchase of the book rights to the successful Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer by Disney was made back in 2013. They grabbed Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and Robert De Niro to produce the film, which was to be adapted to a screenplay by one of the Harry Potter series’ screenwriters; Michael Goldenberg. They made the same announcement that they were in pre-production earlier this year as well, so it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing the film hit theaters for a year or two yet.

UnknownBefore I Fall

This dark, high school version of Groundhog Day penned by Maria Maggenti was released in 2010, and Fox optioned it for a film almost immediately. It’s a promising page-to-screen adaptation because Maggenti herself is likely to be the screenwriter; given her past employment as one in both film and television we can expect to see her working on this film and ensuring it stays true to the story. The film hasn’t gotten past the development stage yet, but they’ve announced a director, Gina Price-Bythewood, so it appears it’s still moving forward.

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Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness by Eric Metaxas

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Reposting this 2014 review because the Kindle Edition of Seven Men is on sale for $1.99.
Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness by Eric MetaxasSummary: Short Biographies of seven men that Metaxas thinks we should view as role models and heroes.

Seven Men is the third books I have read by Eric Metaxas.  I liked Metaxas Bonhoeffer biography (although even I as a non-Bonhoeffer scholar caught several mistakes.)  But I really was not a fan of his William Wilberforce biography. Mostly that was because it felt more like hagiography.

But after reading Seven Men I realize that the Wilberforce book was his first biography. Bonhoeffer was significantly better than Wilberforce. And Seven Men I think corrected several of the problems of the Bonhoeffer biography.

The men included in this book are George Washington, William Wilberforce, Eric Liddell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jackie Robinson, Pope John Paul II and Charles Colson (presented in historical order). I am pleased that Metaxas included John Paul II. Too many Evangelicals want to ignore Catholics. I definitely view that as a point in Metaxas’ favor.

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Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy With God by Tim Keller

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Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy KellerSummary: It is much easier reading about prayer than actually praying.

I have read a ton of books on prayer. About a year ago, some book that I don’t remember suggested that we as Christians should stop reading about things we are not prepared to put into practice immediately (because it can inoculate us against actual change.) So I have tried, somewhat successfully, to lay off of Christian Living books and focus on Christian history, biography, informational non-fiction and fiction. Roughly 2/3 of the books I have read this year have been either fiction or Christian History/Biography.

But after virtually universal 5 star reviews, when I saw Prayer by Tim Keller as an audiobook on Scribd’s subscription program I picked it up. It would have been a very different read if I had not just read Rowan Williams’ book on CS Lewis and Narnia. Williams was such a good example of generous reading that I really was conflicted about how often I was frustrated by this book.

I want to start positively. Toward the end of the book there is a significant section about prayers of repentance and confession. I do not think I have ever read a general book on prayer that also spent time on confession and repentance, and Keller did it well. I was convicted, but also I think Keller did a great job helping to illustrate what it means to truly repent.

That was followed up by an even better practical section on how to actually pray and put into practice the theological reflections of the majority of the rest of the book. It was practical, still based in theological understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it, and I think what many were probably looking for when they picked up the book. The problem is that many of the people that were looking for the practical prayer suggestions, probably did not make it to the end of the book.

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