The Road to Character by David Brooks

by

Summary: We need to be pursuing eulogy virtues, not resume virtues.

I like David Brooks. I don’t always agree with his politics, but he is largely a reasonable pundit, and even when I disagree, I understand his position. I liked his earlier book, Bobos in Paradise, but I have not gotten around to reading his last two books. But after a positive mention on Twitter by James KA Smith and Englewood Review of Books editor Chris Smith (and noticing that the audiobook was on Scribd but going away soon as part of some changes there), I picked it up.

This is a hard book for me to review. There is much to commend here. This is a better version of Eric Metaxes’ 7 Men. Brooks has a clear vision and has no problem telling us the secrets to the greatness of his profiled people. The secret is character.

But at the same time, this felt like a nostalgic look at character. For Brooks, character is about suffering. I do not completely disagree, but it is an overly simplistic understanding. Suffering is where we see character, suffering is like exercise that helps to develop character. But the development of character requires more than just suffering.

Read more

The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction by Eugene Peterson

by

Contemplative Pastor cover imageSummary: How should pastors spend their time and focus.

After re-reading Eugene Peterson’s memoir The Pastor, I looked around for something else of Peterson’s to read. I picked this up primarily because of the subtitle. I am interested in spiritual direction and wanted to get Peterson’s take on it.

There is wisdom here. Primarily, this is a book that is calling on pastors to take charge of the definition of their calling. The role of the pastor is to call people to Christ, not to primarily manage an organization.

Read more

Queen of Hearts (A Royal Spyness Mystery #8 by Rhys Bowen

by

Summary: Georgiana and her mother travel to the US and encounter theft and murder.

Queen of Hearts came out just over a years ago. Many of the initial reviews were negative (although the average has come up since it first came out.) I went ahead and picked it up since the next book in the series has also come out.

This cozy mystery series has stalled a bit and this book while not horrible, did not move the broader story along at all.

Georgiana’s mother decided to try to go to the US to get a quickie divorce so that she can marry her current man. Georgiana tags along. On the ocean liner there is a theft and maybe a murder. But a Hollywood director asks Georgiana’s mother to be in a movie (she is a well known stage actress) and so they head off to Hollywood.

As is normal, Georgiana’s secret fiancée Darcy happens to show up on the trip in pursuit of a jewel thief. Georgiana takes primary lead in solving the eventual murder (Darcy is not around for most of the main action). In several earlier books I was really irritated by Georgiana’s reticence. But she was much more forceful and present in this book.  So that is a move in the right direction.

Read more

The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson

by

Summary: A pastor’s thoughts on being a pastor (and I think an essential book for anyone that relates to pastors.)

This past week I have started walking to the top of Kennesaw Mountain, a nearby park. I am going backpacking with friends at the end of the month and need to start preparing.

After finishing After You Believe, I went back to Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor. This is my third reading of it since it came out four years ago. (First and second reviews.)

I am not a pastor, I have no intention of ever becoming a pastor. But Eugene Peterson exemplifies not only what it means to be a pastor to me, but also what NT Wright is talking about in what character and spiritual maturity are about.

Part of my need for these books are that I think I have absorbed the myth that spiritual growth is somehow different from growth in areas of life. Peterson is a man that has been shaped by scripture. Most of his books loosely revolve around a portion of scripture. One of the complaints about Peterson’s Message Bible is that it has done too much interpretation. First that complaint misunderstands the nature of translation, but more importantly, Peterson believes that the role of the pastor is to proclaim and illustrate through his or her life what scripture is saying to them.

The Pastor is really a record of Peterson finding his way as a pastor, but he is never far from the root of how scripture shapes him and directs him.

The art of pastoring that Peterson is recommending is a direct challenge to the leadership model that many understand pastor to be. For Peterson, the role of the pastor is first to call people to God, second to teach them to pray and third to call them together to love one another. Like most books by Peterson, he is rarely that explicit. Peterson tells stories. He tells stories about how he was convinced that the way he had done things was wrong and how worked to become a better pastor by changing.

Read more

After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters by NT Wright

by

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.

Read more

Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers by Michael Long

by

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.

Read more

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

by

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.’

Read more

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

by

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.)

Read more

The Silver Chair by CS Lewis

by

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.)

Read more

Is Dark Places Another Cinematic Hit for Gillian Flynn?

by

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.

Read more