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No Argument for God: Going Beyond Reason in Conversations About Faith by John Wilkinson

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No Argument for God: Going Beyond Reason in Conversations About FaithTakeaway: A faith that can be fully understood by science or logic is no longer faith.  As Christians we need to embrace that Christianity is above human logic.

I am not a fan of apologetics.  In general I do not read it and I think primarily the purpose it serves is to help Christians feel comfortable in their faith.  I know that over simplifies things, but if even I, who am a long term Christian with a very good theology background see all kinds of logical holes in most apologetics books I do not think it is really going to move a large segment of people to faith.  My pastor has said several times, that people rarely have theological issues with God, they have emotional issues with God that they may hide behind theological issues.  But when you push, usually the theological questions fall away and the emotional issues come back.  So I have been hoping someone would write No Argument for God.

Wilkinson starts by asserting that Christianity is nonsense.  By that he means that is really is beyond our ability to understand completely through our senses and therefore literally “nonsense” (above the senses).  Much of the first half of the book is biographical to help the reader understand the limitations of reason and different ways to talk about Christianity.  My favorite part of this section is a discussion about what science and logic can determine.  Wilkinson says science and logic are good at understanding the “What” questions.  If we ask “Why” questions, “Why is that flower there?”, science is limited in its ability to respond.  Science can talk about how it evolved to have those colors or how it fits into the biosphere around it but science and logic cannot really give an answer to Why that does not become circular.

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Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan

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Rating: 4 Stars Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook Economics has always been fascinating to me. I regret never taking an economics class in college. This book broke down a lot of economics principles into an accessible format that left me wanting to learn more. I wouldn’t call it Economics for Dummies. It’s … Read more

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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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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The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement

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The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of EntitlementTakeaway: Narcissism is a serious and real issue in the modern world. May be even more important spiritually.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition

First admission, I got bored with this book.  I started it in January and read about the first third in a day.  But then I started something else as I often do and I just had a hard time reading more than a little bit at a time.

The first section, which talked about the definition, myths and some of the benefits of Narcissism was very interesting.  I sped through that and spent a lot of time talking about it to anyone that would listen.

The next section talks about why there is an epidemic.  The chapter on parenting I thought was incredible.  I was convinced that there really is a big problem with the way that the US thinks about parenting.  Then the book started talking about the rise of celebrity culture, digital natives and web culture and school and I was less impressed.  It is not that I do not think that Narcissism is not a big deal and it is not that I do not think that celebrity, the web and ‘everyone wins’ is not a problem.

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Till We Have Faces…A Myth Retold by CS Lewis

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Till we have faces;: A myth retoldTakeaway: An unusual re-telling of a greek myth.

I have never heard of this book before I stumbled across it on Audible.  I was in the mood for some fiction and wasn’t really interested in any of the books that I had in my wishlist.  After surfing around a little while I found that this book.  It was the last real fiction book he wrote.  It was written and published during his early relationship with Joy Davidman.

Till We Have Faces

According to Wikipedia and the book’s introduction, this was a book Lewis was thinking about from his early days in college.  It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche.  (Although I had no idea what the myth was till after I read the book.)

The basic story is that a princess, Orual, raised her sister after the death of her step mother in childbirth.  The sister, Psyche, was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen while Orual was very ugly.  The sisters were separated and the younger sister was married to a God.  But the Orual was convinced that the God was not real or that if there was a husband, it was actually a man that was wrong for her sister.  She convinces Psyche to violate the conditions of the marriage and the God leaves.  But Orual and Psyche are not reunited.

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The Pastor: A Memoir (The Audiobook Review) by Eugene Peterson

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Takeaway: On Audio, still the best general book on what it means to be a pastor I have ever read.

Purchase Links: Hardback, Kindle Edition, christianaudio.com MP3 audiobook

I read this immediately after it came out just over a month ago.  I wrote a gushing review.  Then I was asked if I wanted to review the audiobook as well.  At first I thought I would just listen to a little bit of the audiobook and rework the original review a bit.  But this is a very good book.  And ‘reading’ it twice in less than six weeks is not too much.

Eugene Peterson reads the introduction and afterward himself.  So you get a sense of his own voice.  But it is narrated by Arthur Morey.  His voice is not the same as Peterson, but his reading understands the nature of the book.  As with many good narrators you forget the narration and hear the voice of the author, as the authors intends you to hear.

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Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr

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falling upward cover imageTakeaway: Maturing is not a straight line and it does not automatically come with growing old.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition (Kindle available now, paperback is a pre-order for April 19, 2011)

Today is my birthday so I thought it appropriate to read and review a book that is primarily about how to age better. I must admit I was a bit put off of this book when I first started. Rohr is a Catholic priest and it took a while for me to sink into his vocabulary and understand how he was using his words.

After I picked it up again a week or so later. I started to see a spirituality that was formed by story in a way somewhat akin to Donald Miller. The 30 page intro is rough going no matter how you look at it. But once you get to the early chapters where Rohr uses the story of Odyssius to explain his point I was hooked.

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