Adam Shields

Short Review: This book is primarily concerned with the gospels as priority in teaching us about who Jesus is (as opposed to primarily learning about Jesus through the creeds). Wright wants us to know that the part between Jesus' birth and death was important to the whole incarnation and mission of Jesus (and concentrating on the creedal presentation, it tends to be skipped over.)

Wright uses a central metaphor of four speakers that have to be tuned and balanced to get the whole message of the gospel. He suggests that currently, there is a distortion of the gospel because two of the speakers are too loud, one is too quiet and one is unplugged and stored away in an attic.

Click through to the full review if you want more detail on the message of the book. But I think he did make the case for me that we need both creed and gospel in our catechesis. The gospels have to be giving priority to help us see Jesus as King. The creeds help give boundaries to help us know that we are not distorting our reading of the gospels.

As always, Wright uses too much hyperbole about how we have ‘completely lost' the message of the gospel and lots of repetition between this and his other books. But the general content is helpful and well worth reading.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/god-became-king/

Fully review posted to my blog http://bookwi.se/stones-to-schools-by-greg-mortenson/

Short review: This is an inspiring book that shows what one person can do with vision and drive. This is the second book (first was Three Cups of Tea that I reviewed at http://bookwi.se/summer-reading-club-update-week-3/ ). This book picks up right where the last one left off and takes us until Oct/Nov 2009. At the end of the book you don't know what really happened, even now because the story is in very rural Afghanistan where the roads are closed by snow six months a year and we don't know what the final result will be until around March or April this year (2010). This is mostly just story of how Central Asian Institute is growing, but some of the most interesting parts are the author, Greg Mortenson, dealing with the fact that he, as the face and author of the schools movement, has to spend his time speaking, writing and traveling in the US instead of in central Asia where he would like to be. He is clearly an introvert and the constant travel and speaking is very wearing on him. But he continues to do it because of the importance of the mission, not necessarily to himself, but to the 10s of thousands if not 100s of thousands that are affected by the schools that he helps to start.


(Note: since I read and wrote this, Mortensen's stories have largely been disproven.)

Book Review – Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis by Abigail Sanataria - a highly readable and interesting biography about CS Lewis little known wife. The movie Shadowlands was roughly based on their romance, but it was highly fictionalized. The real story is much more complicated.

I didn't explore it in my blog but I do find these complicated romances interesting from a Christian perspective. Somewhat similar to the June and Johnny Cash romance, Joy was married when she decided to pursue Lewis. Lewis resisted her advances for a long time and even though he very much enjoyed her company (and probably really did love her prior to their legal marriage, which at the time was only for her legal status in England) different circumstances would probably have meant that the marriage would not have happened.


Click through for a longer review on my blog http://bookwi.se/joy-poet-seeker-and-the-woman-who-captivated-c-s-lewis-by-abigail-santamaria/

Short Review: A highly readable brief book about the central act of Christian worship. Non-controversial and inclusive of a variety of Christian practices around Communion. This is primarily targeted toward the lay person, new Christian or someone that has not explored communion previously. Although NT Wright is best known for his more theological works, he is also quite good at addressing the non-academic and this is a very good example of that.

This is something that could easily be read in a single sitting (I read it in an evening) or discussed over a couple of weeks in a small group setting. The revision has edited the content and added discussion questions.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-meal-jesus-gave-us/

Short Review: a good single volume children's book from Lloyd Alexander. If you liked his Prydain or Westmark series then this will be familiar in style and characterization. This is really about exploring the idea of story telling and would make a good read aloud for elementary children.

The two main male and female leads are very reminiscent in character to Taran/Theo and Miggle/Eloway. The third character is a man that has been turned into a donkey (or jackass). The story uses lots of word play about that. So in some households this will be a reason to not read the book outloud. But there is lots of subtle humor for adults and good overt humor for the kids.

These are also moralistic stories in the best sense of the word. This is a book about teaching morals. And it is actually pretty good art as opposed to a lot of books that merely parrot moral ideas without the engaging stories.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/arkadians/

Short Review: This is a very short devotional. Less than 100 page and if read straight through could easily be read in less than two hours.

I have heard a number of devotionals about music while I was a musician at a Christian college. So many of the ideas of this book were not particularly new.

Talbot talks about the crafting of an instrument and compares that to our spiritual growth as a Christian. He talks about the different styles of music or different ways people gather together as musicians to play are related to the body of Christ. He talks about Jesus as conductor and musician.

These ideas I think are helpful to see another facet of our Christian life.

Overall, this is well written. I like Talbot and his Catholic background and his ability to write to Protestants without a lot of misunderstanding. My main reason for 3 stars and not higher is the fact that I have heard almost all of this in other venues.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/master-musician/

Short Review: I read this on John Wilson's (Books and Culture editor) recommendation. Penguin is doing new translations of the whole (more than 100 volume) series. I like starting at the beginning so I knew that this was not one of his best rated books. It is a solid short mystery.

But there was on line that keeps stilling with me. Maigret says he looks for the person's normal humanity (my paraphrase), while most detectives look for the criminal. Maigret usually finds the criminal while looking for their humanity, but other detectives may miss the criminal because at heart everyone has a human side.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/pietr-the-latvian/

Short Review: A missionary goes to an alien world to find aliens hungry for Christianity.

The alien setting is useful to take out some of the distractions of missionary enterprise to humans, but this is really more about the missionary's (Peter) marriage and internal issues than the evangelism. The author is actually an atheist, but the Christianity internal to the book is far better than a lot of christian fiction that I have read.

It is really hard to talk about the book without a bunch of spoilers. But the story is more about ideas than action. It does drag a bit in the middle, which is why 4 and not 5 stars, but I do think it is a very well written book.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/book-strange-new-things-michel-faber/

Short Review: A good introduction to 13 theologians from the 20th century. These are academic and influential theologians but are often known for fairly theologically dense concepts. It can be a bit dry, but still helpful. The chapters have good context to the theological importance for each character so the chapters can be read independently and/or over time. (I read a chapter here and there for about 6 months.)

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/fortress-introduction-contemporary-theologies/

Short Review: I was looking for fluff and this was free on kindle with a $1.99 audiobook. So I picked it up. It was good fluff. A stay at home mom gets shot in the head by a bank robber and finds that she can read minds. She ends up working for a mob boss who blackmails her. So she is both working for the mob and trying to find a way to take the mob down and protect her family. Good cozy mystery. Lots of humor. (Also some dumb decision making as with all of these types of books).

I will put the series on my list and probably pick up another one. But there are 8 so far and I think it is unlikely I would read them all.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/carrots-shelby-nichols-adventure-colleen-helme/

Short review: I like this series. But the series does seem to follow a standard outline. A short section of biography about the author, the story of the writing and overview of the content, a summary of the response and objections, and the spread of the book. All three that I have read have basically been the same format. But the format works.

The series also seems to hire really good authors, which does matter. There was not a ton that was new to me here. I have read a number of Lewis biographies and a significant portion of Lewis' work. But even without a lot of new material, this was an enjoyable read. This is probably best for people that know a bit about Lewis and Mere Christianity, but have not read a lot of Lewis' biography.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/mere-christianity-bio/

I picked this second book of Father Brown up because a friend was talking about how much she liked the Father Brown tv show. I am not a particular fan of short stories. I like more than what can be revealed in a short story.

And short story mysteries in particular seem to be reduced to too simple stories or slight of hand. I was saying to my friend (who was favorably comparing Father Brown to Grantchester) that I liked Father Brown as an idea, but that he didn't seem fully fleshed out. He was too good, both in the way he solves mysteries and personally. Maybe I am just a creature of this age and want my heroes to be a bit less perfect, but the less than perfect parts of Father Brown are not humanizing, they are characteristics of his age. I know Chesterton is writing against some of the scientific racism and social darwinism in these stories, but the age of the stories shows. There is a lot of cultural stereotyping.

I also am not a fan of the narrator. So that did not help me want to stick these out. I stayed with it for over two hours. But I am moving on.

Short Review: I liked this, especially since it was written about 45 years after the first book in the series and approximately 45 years passed in the time of the story. This is Camilla in her mid to late 60s. Most of the story is either directly telling her granddaughter about her own life or the life of her family or memories that are brought on by the stories.

There is a twist that I didn't expect at the end and that solved the book a little too neatly for my taste. Especially since the book as a whole seemed to focus on the messiness of the actual world.

I have one reservation about the book that is pretty spoiler-y. I have a discussion about it on my longer review on my blog.

The longer review is posted at http://bookwi.se/a-live-coal-in-the-sea/

Short Review - The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life by James Martin - I like James Martin's writing. He bring humor and real life to his writing. As a Protestant, I find his Catholic perspective of Christianity to be just slant enough to my ears that it cuts through cliche' and helps me understand my own faith better by opening up blind spots and giving different perspective. The chapters that I found most helpful were the ones on prayer (the examen), desire, suffering and obedience and vocation.

Like with the his Between Heaven and Mirth, I thought there were parts that could have been edited down a bit. There was some repetition that was part of the way it was written that is unnecessary for someone that is reading the book straight through but was inevitable with the style of writing (encouraging the reader to read where they want, about the topics they want and not necessarily in order.)

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/jesuit-guide/

Short Review: This is a brief argument for full inclusion of LGBT Christians within the church. I think it is well written and better as a whole than Vine's God and the Gay Christians (although there were a few things in that book that Gushee doesn't attempt).

The problem is that I think the argument is unlikely to change anyone's mind. Gushee acknowledges that he is asking for a change in the historic teaching of the church. And while his biblical case is strong in some areas, in some areas you just have to dismiss the verses as cultural construction and that is a hard case to make for people that disagree. (This is a different argument, but similar in idea to suggesting that ‘Women shall not speak in church' is culturally constructed and not enterally bound for people that accept women as pastors.)

The second edition has an appendix that is the text of a speech that Gushee gave. Gushee did his dissertation on the change on Christian attitudes toward Jews as a response to the Holocaust. And he uses that idea as a illustration of how and why Christian can change theologically in response to cultural or historical factors. I think that short section is probably the best short argument in the book, but again, it is unlikely to change many minds.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/changing-our-mind/

Short review: This is a short compilation of twelve church newsletter articles about the 12 lines of the Apostles' Creed. This was written right at the end of von Balthasar's life. It is very readable and helpful, but probably not essential. There is nothing here that is really unique, but that should be true about teaching on the creed. Creedal teaching is supposed to be orthodox, not unique. Glad I read it, but it is a book I would suggest to look for at a used book store or library, not one to go out and buy specifically.

My full review review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/credo/

Short Review: This is a long interview with Pope Francis and an Italian reporter transcribed with the statement declaring the year of Mercy at the end.

I thought the interview was interesting but not really enough here for a book. I am happy I picked it up on sale. I would have been frustrated if I had paid full price for it.


My slightly longer review is at on my blog at http://bookwi.se/mercy/

Short Review: This is part memoir, part history of the Obama presidency, part policy exploration and part political theology. Overall I think it was well balanced, readable and worth paying attention to. Hope, although tinged with realism, is throughout the book and that is not incidental. Wear has real hope that politics is not completely lost. He has hope that Christians can be engaged without being inappropriately partisan or by ignoring our faith. But he is realist enough to see that simply being a person of faith isn't enough. Part of what has happened is that the GOP became the faith party and Democrats abandoned faith as a core component. That has left Christians in GOP less able to make a difference because GOP views Christians as a group that will always be with them (Trump's election confirmed that.) And Democrats have been weakened by not understanding many religious issues because too many of the policy staff are just ignorant of religious issues. Wear makes the argument that we need people of faith on all sides of politics and that all sides of politics needs to be open to hearing, and being changed by, political conscious of faith.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/reclaiming-hope/

Short Review: This is a mix of demographics, polling and recent religious and cultural history. It is well written and engaging even when I don't completely agree with the line of argument or the retelling of a historical argument.

I think that this is a book that particularly White evangelicals need to read, especially political conservative and rural or suburban residents. The shift in culture and demographics has already occurred. It isn't going to change back. But how we react to it matters a lot.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/end-of-white-christian-america/

Short Review: This is Robinson's first novel. The main elements of her writing are here. Atmospheric descriptions, lots of internal dialogue, virtually no plot, lots of insightful character development.

I get way people do not always like Robinson. But even this book, which I didn't love, has lots to recommend about it. But I would not recommend it as the first. Read Gilead or Lila first, if you like those then come back and read this one.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/housekeeping/

Short Review: Early history is often based on a lot of conjecture because we just don't have a lot of details to work with. But this is very good. It doesn't seem to make up details.

There is a good mix of the history of kings that we tend to know a lot about. And sections about living conditions and environment for the rest of the population. And stories. There are lots of stories here. Also some very interesting linguistic sections, especially around place names.

This is the first of a trilogy of histories about England. I will pick the rest up eventually.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/foundation/

Short Review: I think this is a broadly helpful book that is a good reminder that LGBT people are neighbors in the Christian sense and to be loved. Really the basic book is just a charge to be a Christian and be a decent human being.

There is some good discussion about instances that Christians may have issues with, Should you attend a gay wedding? Should your church allow LGBT people to attend, volunteer, participate in bible studies, etc? What should parents do if their child comes out to them. And while I am not sure I agree with all of the results, the discussion is the more important part.

In the end I am not sure the book is really for me. I started with these assumptions. This book is really for people that need permission to love people properly. There is a heartbreaking story about a mother with a gay child that thanked the author at an event for being given permission to love her child. That type of understanding is really incomprehensible to me.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/loving-my-lgbt-neighbor/

Short review: this would make a good introductory text for a MDiv worship class. The main focus is on how a variety of traditions within the various Christian streams work liturgically. It can be a bit dry because it is essentially fleshed out lists. The catholics handle the church year in this method, the orthodox in this method, presbyterians in this method, lutherans, low church baptists, etc.

It is helpful for historical development of many parts of the liturgy and for breaking down parts of the liturgy to understand how those components came to be ordered.

It is not super engaging, but it is helpful. And it well arranged so you can use it as as reference and dip in and out of areas that are of particular interest.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/introduction-christian-liturgy/

My full review: http://bookwi.se/fear-of-physics/

Short Review: The Summer of the Great Grandmother is L'Engle's reflections on her mother as she is dying, and the family that has already passed away. The dementia and loss of capacity is sad. Death is often cruel. But death is part of life and reflecting on it I think is helpful to take a full account of our lives.

There is also a lot of back story on L'Engle's own life and growing up with her parents. Her father died when L'Engle was a late teen from injuries that he received during World War I, but didn't actually kill him until nearly 20 years later. She also has a fascinating set of ancestors. L'Engle is right, most of us won't know anything about people that are two or three generations older than us. And that does matter to how we understand life.

This is another Crosswick Journal that is full of wisdom. I am somewhat glad that I didn't discover these until I am the age I am now. I am not sure that I would have appreciated them as much as I do now.

My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-summer-of-the-great-grandmother/

Also this is on sale for $0.99 when I am posting (May 19, 2017). The fourth in the series Two Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage is also $0.99 today.