Adam Shields
Short Review: I was looking for a short overview of Newman and his thought before I pick up some of Newman's own writing. This fit the bill. It is not a full biography but intended as an introduction. The author has lectured on Newman and converted some of the lectures into the book instead of starting from scratch and that shows. It could be better put together and there is some unnecessary repetition. I am interested in reading the fuller biography from Ian Kerr later.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/john-henry-newman/
Short Review: The best of the three full biographies of Bonhoeffer I have read. If you have not read a Bonhoeffer bio, this is where to start. If you have read a recent Bonhoeffer bio Marsh adds a few things. First is is well written and avoids the chunkiness that some of the translated bios of Bonhoeffer have and the strange allusions that Metaxas uses.
Second, it spends a good bit of time on Bonhoeffer's childhood and places his privilege as both a positive (allowing him freedom to learn and think and travel) and negative (he was clearly spoiled.)
Third, Marsh does a good job showing how the two US trips helped to shape Bonhoeffer's theology. This is not so much about America being great (Bonhoeffer was really not all that impressed with the US as a whole) but allowing Bonhoeffer to see the African American experience and how faith could exist and thrive under oppression. Bonhoeffer was a great theologian prior to that trip, but the original US trip refocused his whole theological structure.
Fourth and related, Marsh does a better job illustrating Bonhoeffer's theology and how it changed over time.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/strange-glory-a-life-of-dietrich-bonhoeffer-by-charles-march/
Short Review - The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield - There are some very insightful thoughts and the basic story is worth reading. But the conversion story is not even half the book. Much of the book is about psalms only worship, homeschooling, adoption and minor issues that detract from otherwise important story.
Eventually I gave up about 75% of the way through because I just didn't feel like listening to more narrow understanding of the church and the role of the church in the world.
My full review is at my blog http://bookwi.se/the-secret-thoughts-of-an-unlikely-convert-by-rosaria-champagne-butterfield/
Short Review: The Lion's World: A Journey into the Heart of Narnia by Rowan Williams - a short and helpful book about Lewis, Narnia and how they both point back to Christianity. While I definitely gained new insight into Lewis and Narnia, what most strikes me about the book is how Rowan Williams reads Lewis generously. It is not that he reads Lewis uncritically, Williams is a scholar and is bringing scholarly tools to the task of reading Lewis. But he always gives Lewis the benefit of the doubt when there are alternative readings. He also uses Lewis's other non-Narnia books to give insight into the Narnia books. I have read over 20 books by or about Lewis in the last three years and this is one that is definitely worth picking up. Not that there are many books about Lewis that I think have been bad (but this is one of the better ones.)
It is especially a great deal if you have kindle where it is on sale for $2.51 right now.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/lions-world/
Book Review - Take and Read: Spiritual Reading – An Annotated List by Eugene Peterson - if you ever wanted to peruse Eugene Peterson's book shelves, this is the a book for you. Peterson has organized just over 100 pages of books divided into subject areas with descriptions of why he thinks the book is worth reading.
This isn't a book for everyone, but I read it on my kindle, highlighted the books that interested in me, logged into my notes and created a wishlist of books to read in the future. Many of the book are older and public domain.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/take-and-read/
Short Review: The Locust Effect: Why The End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence by Gary Haugen - a really important (and well written) book about why international development needs to include violence reduction and improvement of the legal and justice systems in the developing world to continue to see reductions in world wide poverty rates.
The book is at times hard to read because of the details of the suffering going on around the world. Rape, murder, slavery and other violence are real to many. This is a systemic look at how violence both most affects the poor and why violence and lack of legal systems keeps the poor poor.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/locust-effect/
I have been working through the Starbridge series for the second time and picked this up before re-reading Absolute Truths, the last of the original series. Wonder Worker is the first of an off shoot trilogy. This has Nicholas Darrow and Father Hall from the last two books of the Starbridge series, but it is 20 years later.
Nick is a pastor/healer in London. But as with the rest of the Starbridge series, the clergy also have their own spiritual lives and spiritual crises. This book alternates between three narrators, Hall, Darrow and Alice. Alice opens and closes the book, but all three are going through their own issues.
Howatch continues to amaze me for her spiritual depth. It may be that because I am friends or family with so many clergy and I have an Mdiv myself that I relate a lot more to these books than others can. But I think they are broadly applicable. One of the reoccurring themes of the books is that God uses broken people. God does not want us to be broken, but whole. However, wholeness is not required to be used. There are no perfect characters. And if you think there is a perfect character, it is just because they have not had their own spiritual crisis (or book) yet.
These books are not nice tidy Christian fiction. There is a lot of sex, drugs, language and real actual life presented. Howatch is not a ‘Christian fiction' author and these are not published by a Christian publisher. They would never be published by a Christian publisher, but this is what Christian fiction should be.
Short Review: This is probably a 4.5 star book, but I am rounding up because I wish we had more books like this. America's Pastor is not a biography of Billy Graham, but an honest appraisal of his life and ministry and a look at how Graham was a man of his time. I have read Graham's book Just as I Am and decided not to read another biography until a while after he died because I didn't think that Graham could really be talked about honestly right now. But after two good reviews and an offer of a review copy I picked it up and I am glad I did. It starts with a short biographical sketch, but then has 8 chapters of looking at Graham through different lenses, Preacher, Icon, Southerner, Entrepreneur, Architect, Pilgrim, Pastor and Patriarch.
The only negative is that the method necessarily requires a bit of repetition to make different points so it drags just a bit toward the end. But this is the best thing I have read on Graham. It is honest but extremely charitable. I think it hits a near perfect balance.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/americas-pastor/
Short Review: This is a fairly technical book. But it is a fascinating look from inside the judicial system at how globalization and the modern reality of international commerce, travel and relationships have forced the justice system to interact with international law. This book is responding to complaints by judicial critics that US judges should not reference international law in their judgements.
Breyer starts with 9 chapters detailing the current state of how US courts interact with international law and works his way through the legal precedent of how US courts came to this place. It is only then that he really confronts the reason for the book. Then there are two short chapters about how US judges can be helpful to diplomacy and the spread of the rule of law around the world.
It is a worthwhile look for those of us that are not lawyers or judges to see how the court systems work and how the system of understanding legal language and the working through of precedent and history.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-court-and-the-world/
I only read James for now. My small group used it as a discussion book and we plan on returning to it later I do some of the other letters.
It was helpful to have read Wright widely prior to this so that I could explain more fully what wright meant sometimes. He barely hinted at some of his ideas that he developed more fully in other places. Of course this is not one of his full books of theology so he does not have the freedom to fully develop some of the ideas.
But overall it was a good jumping off point for discussion.
Short review: Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David G Benner (expanded edition)
There are five short chapters that take us from Love as starting place, to the proper understanding of Love and Fear in scripture, to one of the better explorations I have read of what it means to surrender to and obey a loving God, to how we are transformed by God's love, to how we become love to others.
The progress is very well structured and natural and not uncomfortably theological. Benner is a counselor and spiritual director. He is used to working with broken people that have a wrong conception of God. And so the obedience and submission chapter is so helpful in moving submission from obligation to surrender. We all want to be loved. As a perfect God, God is the only one that we can ever fully submit to. Fully surrendering to anything or anyone else, will result in frustration and disappointment. We are not surrendering out of duty or obligation but submitting to love that seeks after what is best for us, not trying to use us for their own purposes.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/surrender-to-love/
Short review: A fine stand alone short story about an 8th grade boy who wants to go to space. His mother appears to have abandoned the family and he is working to keep the family together. I won't spoil the story but it is ok. Oriented toward middle grade/YA audience.
It is a free short story on Audible channels (sci-fi channel)
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/space-boy/
Short Review: I am trying to read more old books. So I am working through a bunch of books that Audible.com was giving away as a promotion for their immersive reading/whispersync. Alice in Wonderland is short. Everyone already knows the story line. But I have read enough classics to know that the commonly understood story line is often wrong. But here is it is mostly true. The problem is Alice. She is a brat. And the book really does read like a drug trip. It is a mess as a narrative. It is only 2.5 hours long and I still almost didn't finish it.
My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/alice/
Short review: I love Mr Rogers. And I found this book mostly worth reading. But it was probably longer than necessary and would have been fine as a long article. There were interesting insights that as a child I would not have understood when watching the TV show. But I think the book relied too heavily on TV episode explication and not enough on biography or direct writing of Rogers. This was probably made difficult by the fact that Rogers seemed to want to make his statements in the TV shows instead of publicly, but some of the examples seemed like they could have been understood other ways.
Overall I got a bit bored with the book but pushed through because of my interest in Mr Rogers. What I did do is go back and watch some of those old episodes. I would like to read a good full biography, but there do not appear to be any that are both full bios and well reviewed.
my full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/peaceful-neighbor-discovering-the-countercultural-mister-rogers-by-michael-long/
Short Review: This really was an excellent overview of the history of Christian Theology. I have an MDiv, and I took some graduate classes in the history of Christian Thought so I have some legitimate comparisons with regular graduate level classes. Obviously Professor Cary can't expect the listener of these to read 300-500 pages a week of background material like I did when I was in my classes. So there is a major difference in the style of presentation.
But that being said I think I walked away with a much enhanced understanding of the why of Christian theological changes. My grad level classes focused on what the changes were but rarely talked about why the changes were happening or what cultural shifts influenced those shifts. Cary did a good job placing shifts within context, without spending too much time on general history.
He also did a great job at illustrating why the shifts matter to average Christians of the day.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/history-christian-theology-great-courses/
I am going to pick up more classes by Cary.
This is my second reading of Practice Resurrection. I have generally the same impression as the first time, that this is a great book about what it means to become mature in Christ and why the local church has to be a part of that. I think this is an important book for local church leaders to read about maturity and I think this is a book that counters the idea among some Christians that the focus of Christianity is on the salvation event. Christianity is not about an event, but about practicing to become more like Christ. Just like playing an instrument or doing anything else well, if we want to become better at it, we must practice. If we want to be more like Christ, we have to practice being like Christ.
This is also a long reflection on the book of Ephesians. I appreciate that Peterson grounds pretty much all of his book on a particular piece of scripture. While he moves around it is the book of Ephesians that is the heart.
My first Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/practice_resurrection/
My second reading review is at http://bookwi.se/practice-resurrection/
Short Review: I have been interested in the Jesus Prayer for a long time. It has been one of my regular prayers, not so much in the repetition but in the exasperated I don't know what else to pray right now sort of way.
I also have liked the few John Michael Talbot books I have read, so it was an easy one to pick up when it was on sale a few months ago. Talbot is a Catholic who became a Christian through the Jesus movement and interacts a lot with Protestants (and this is published by an evangelical house) so the ecumenical focus is good.
This is a more theological book than the one by Fredrica Matthews-Green on the Jesus Prayer. And Talbot is writing as a Roman Catholic not Eastern Orthodox so he is aware that he is an outsider to the much of its history. But he handles that well.
The book has an introduction and then relatively short chapters on each word (or phrase) of the prayer. There is an appendix that is more about practical prayer issues.
This wasn't an earth shattering book, but a solid one that I am glad I read.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/jesus-prayer/
Short Review: Noll is pretty much always helpful in understanding the complexity of history. Many people like historians to simplify but history isn't simple. This review of how early colonial Americans (and to a lesser extent Catholic Spanish and Canadian colonialists) understood and used scripture is helpful. Quotes from early american religious or political leaders come up all the time in modern politics, but Noll does a good job placing those types of quotes in context. This is a broad look, not just New England. And Noll hits on many areas, slavery, understanding of the US destiny, relationship to Native Americans, political and religious diversity and leadership and more.
I read this in conversation with God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution by Thomas Kidd. They were attempting different things, so even when there was overlapping discussion on the same sermons or documents, the orientation was different. I do think this should be read by many that are interested in the question of whether the United States was founded as a Christian country or not. (The answer is that, it is complicated.)
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/in-the-beginning/
Short Review: It was a mistake to get this as an audiobook. I should have known better, but I also hate paying twice as much for a kindle book as I do for an audiobook. Robinson is a great writer, but a great writer does not make a great essayist. I agree with her on many political, economics and religious issues. But she has a tone problem in her essays. She advocates Christian charity and grace, but she writes in a way that seems to often forget that in calling for charity and grace, you actually need to speak with charity and grace.
It is not all bad, there really are some good essays here, but the mix of frustrating and brilliant is in the end frustrating.
my full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-givenness-of-things-essays-by-marilynne-robinson/
Short Review: Howatch's books are always significantly about ideas. It is not that the story is unimportant, but that the story is a method for discussing ideas. In many ways this is a book that attempts to confront atheism and to present a response to the new atheist critique. It is sort of a fictional version of the memoir [b:Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense 15929332 Unapologetic Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense Francis Spufford https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1354217748s/15929332.jpg 21680097] Unapologetic. There is a lot of explication via dialogue here and that is what many people will complain about. The main character wants to hear from everyone around her what they think about an issue before she will commit to her own ideas. So she will talk to an Anglican priest, a spiritual director, her friend, a doctor, a psychologist, a novelist, etc. And that happens more than a couple times in the book.The main story is a psychological thriller/mystery. The main story is fine, but I really read Howatch for the ideas. And this is a good book of ideas. Mostly they are theological responses to the problem of Evil, sin and why God created a world that has evil in it.My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/high-flyer/
I bought this for Christmas presents and read it a couple of times with kids. This is a great kids book. Very good art and story line and the hard back is really good quality.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/monkess/
Short Review: On the whole I think this is a useful book and an important call. Essentially Volf is making a Christian case for why religious exclusivists need to embrace political pluralism. He believes that globalization (political and economic) need the moral underpinnings that only religious exclusivists can bring.
Part one of the book mostly felt like Volf was going over well trod ground and introducing globalization, limits of economics and politics in morality, and introducing the need to pay attention to religious issues in politics. But there was some good imagery and synthesis in part one. Particularly his imagery around ‘you shall not live by bread alone' when talking about economics and politics was helpful.
But part two Volf started making unique contributions and the value of the book was really made. For me his grid (and distinctions between) religious pluralism and religious exclusivism and political pluralism and political exclusivism was very helpful.
The major weakness I think is that Volf did not really address what to do with religious anti-pluralists (what I think he would term fundamentalists). There is a significant group of religious exclusivists that are political exclusivists (on his grid). He addresses the problem with this group for globalization, but not really how to help move this group toward political pluralism. And that is part of what I was hoping would be a part of the book.
I listened to this on audiobook both because I knew I would get through it if the book bogged down (it didn't) and because for me the audiobook was much cheaper than the kindle or print book. I would like to re-read this again in print if I can find a cheap copy or my library gets it.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/flourishing/
Short Review: The title is the accurate theme of the book. Move toward the mess to keep your christian life from becoming boring. It is also to keep your life from becoming individualistic and focused on ‘me and Jesus' instead of understanding the Christian life as a corporate reality.
This is a very story filled book. And because John Hambrick is one of the pastors of my church, although not one of the normal teaching pastors, I have heard many of the stories already. That detracts from my reading a bit, but I think the story focus is a good one if you haven't heard the stories before.
My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/move-toward-the-mess/