Isaac Newton by James Gleick

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Isaac NewtonTakeaway: Sometimes it is ok to give up.

Purchase Links: Hardback, Paperback, Kindle Edition Audible.com Audiobook

I am intrigued by science.  But I really do not know much about science.  My science education was either quite poor, or I am just a poor science student (or both.)  My high school biology class was taught by a teacher that had two sections, one was for people that had already failed biology once and the second was taught with the same outline.  I never received less than a 90 on any test or quiz, but I am not sure I learned anything either.  My chemistry class I remember distinctly people cheating off of me, but I have no memory of the class other than the oddity that was my teacher.  I took AP physics but remember it even less than the other two.  In college I had one science class which I hated.  It was filled almost entirely by music majors because of off scheduling and a professor that did not like students.

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How to Pray by R. A. Torrey

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Takeaway: There is something unique about the authors on Prayer in the late 19th and early 20th century. Purchase Links: Google Books (free ebook), christianaudio.com Audiobook, Kindle Edition, Paperback I found this as a free audiobook somewhere (I think it was christianaudio.com but I cannot find a free copy right now.)  So when I was looking … Read more

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Chap 7

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When Harry Met Sally...
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It’s been said that females and males can’t be friends because of the big S word involved…..that friendship without sex equals questionable intentions (blame When Harry met Sally!). I’ve always found that to be a very simplistic and stereotypical view of men and women relationships. I personally, have been able to have two very close platonic male friends (they were “bridesmen” in my wedding). As a woman in the book quotes, we have never nor will we ever engage in any sexual intimacy. Instead, we laugh, we talk, and we share stories. I often find myself getting offended that people, especially church people (not all but some!) have relayed to me that having male friends somehow conflicts with God’s view of marriage and intimacy. Luckily, in this book, it seems Mr. Dan Brennan is on my side!

This author presents a different perspective from existing church culture. “Christ came not to just reduce the old disorder of lust, violence, and possession between men and women ,but to usher us into a new world of embodied communication with each other.” He submits that it is possible to live together in Christ without lust or sexual innuendos interfering with the friendship. In focusing on the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, our focus shifts onto our common bond of Christianity rather than our own temptations and desires.

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Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions Chapter 6

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Billy Graham Most admired man 4% (statistical tie)
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For as long as I have been a Christian, I remember being taught, repeatedly, the story of Billy Graham and his attempt to always be above reproach.  I have no idea if the stories of the Reverend Graham are true or not but they went something along the lines of:  Reverend Graham would not get on an elevator if he’d be on board with a woman alone, that he wouldn’t counsel a woman unless a third party was present, etc.

I never questioned these stories or Reverend Graham’s intent until recently.  A dear friend of mine, we’ll call her Molly, came home from college and told me the story of how she couldn’t visit a male friend of hers because his wife wasn’t available to “œtag along”.  Molly understood her friend’s feelings but yet she wound up feeling “œicky”; which was quite vexing to her because she did nothing wrong.

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Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions – Chapter 5

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Mary Magdalene had a difficult couple of days after her best friend Jesus was crucified. She was numb all over. When she couldn’t stand it any longer she decided she would go to the place her friend was buried and mourn for him there.

She gathered up the spices of her religious custom to ensure that he was properly buried. She arrived at the tomb and found that Jesus’ body was gone. Immediately, Mary loses it. She goes to find a couple of Jesus’ guy friends to help her figure out what happened.

The guys showed up and sure enough Jesus’ body is no longer in the tomb. The guys totally forgot that Jesus’ was going to rise from the dead and they get angry. They looked at each other and said, “OK, it’s on. Let’s get everyone else and find the punk that took Jesus’ body and teach him a lesson.” They totally forgot that Mary was there and just leave her behind as they go to “save the day.”

Mary was not in a good place emotionally. Her good friend Jesus was crucified and when she came back to the tomb to care for him his body was gone. Her friends didn’t really ask how she was doing; they just came up with a plan to right the wrong and left her in the garden alone. After all of the emotion of the last few days she broke down in front of the tomb weeping for the friend she lost…not once, but twice.

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Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 5)Takeaway: This is one of the classics that everyone should read.

Over the past few years there has been renewed interest in Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  There is a very good documentary (available for streaming on Netflix).  Then two biographies of Bonhoeffer have been published in the last two years (I reviewed Eric Metaxas’s  and have now read but have not read the Ferdinand Schlingensiepen biography, which has been much better received in the academic world and I think is a better biography.)

Much of the interest and resources for Bonhoeffer study is a result of a new 16 volume series of Bonhoeffer’s works.  Previous, to this series that is published in English by Fortress Press, there were only limited editions of Bonhoeffer’s books that had significant translation issues.

I have purchased three of these volumes (they are not cheap, so many people are still purchasing older editions.)  The volume that includes Life Together (Bonhoeffer’s most read book) also includes his book on the Psalms (Prayerbook of the Bible).  I am not reviewing Prayerbook of the Bible here, but will later.  There is a significant amount of extra material in these books to give context and understanding to these two short books.  Life Together is only a bit over 100 pages, but page for page I think is one of the most useful books I have ever read about spiritual growth and the role of community within the church.

The book has only six chapters (Preface, Community, Day Together, Day Alone, Service, and Confession/Communion.)

One of the most useful things that I heard on this reading (I have read this at least twice previously, but not in the last 10 years) was Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the limits and strengths of community. These are two long quotes, but I think shows that Bonhoeffer is not being idealistic about his view of Christian community:

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SUSP Chapter 3 – Second Opinion

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Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal, ...
Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal, Image via Wikipedia

Note: Due to a mis-communication, there were two posts for chapter 3.  Here is the second version.

So I am going to start out by stating my own personal opinion and go from there. I truly do believe it is possible for a friendship to happen between males and females. We start out as kids and maybe your best friend growing up is the boy next door. Then somewhere in junior high and high school, you start thinking about cute boys and he is thinking about hot girls. It goes to show that as kids we have a certain maturity we tend to lose as we get older and trends get sexualized.

In chapter 3, it starts out comparing our segregation of sexes to the segregation of blacks and whites. History shows us that cross-gendered and cross-raced friendships have not been popular. But in a day were sex is everywhere you turn, can you really assume a man and woman eating lunch together really are just eating lunch? There is nothing else more?

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Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World by C.J. Mahaney

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Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen WorldTakeaway: 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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