Not In It To Win It

It's a rare occasion when I read any book about religion. The title of this one intrigued me and after seeing the author being interviewed on CNN I knew that this was going to be a great book to read.

The publisher's summary:  

Is it possible to disagree politically and love unconditionally? The reaction of evangelicals to political and cultural shifts in recent years revealed what they value most. Lurking beneath our Bible-laced rhetoric, faith claims, books, and sermons is a relentless drive to WIN!

But the church is not here to win. By every human measure, our Savior lost. On purpose. With a purpose. And we are his body. We are not in it to win anything. We are in it for something else entirely. That something else is what this book is about. 

You'll discover:

• How to take a stand the right way. You'll learn how to make your case with a posture of humility and understanding, rather than being fueled by the fear of losing something.
• How to view politics through the lens of faith. Learn curiously, listen intentionally, and love unconditionally.
• How the life of Jesus and his teaching applies to modern-day challenges in a fresh way. The "biblical" stand may not be what we've been taught.

Jesus never asked his followers to agree on everything. But he did call his followers to obey a new command: to love others in the same way he has loved us. Instead of asserting our rights or fighting for power, we need to begin asking ourselves: what does love require of me?

The first thing I noticed about the book is the writing style. Stanley writes casually, in the way he talks. This is not a criticism but an observation. For me, though, there was an adjustment to make. 

The message of the book is powerful. Alot of Christians are not going to like it because Stanley goes after every Christian who puts politics above faith. A few of the quotes that I loved include: 

"When a local church becomes pre-occupied with saving America at the expense of saving Americans, it has forsaken its mission."

"The church or church leader who publicly aligns with a political party has relinquished their ability to make disciples of half their own nation, much less all nations."

"Saving America is not the mission of the church."

"When I die, I won't go the Washington, DC.  Neither will you."

The above quotes give you a bite sized view of the content of the book.  It is thought provoking and required reading in my opinion. However, many Christians will be offended that the way they have conducted their lives is heavily criticized.

5 out of 5 stars.

Introduction to the Greek New Testament

Dirk Jongkind of Tyndale House at Cambridge wrote this small, 124 page book, chronicling how the editors at Tyndale House produced a new version of the Greek New Testament. You do not need to know how to read Greek to read this book. The book is just an explanation of how the new edition was put together. The author introduces the reader to manuscripts, textual criticism theory, and textual variation all in a very readable work.

The author provides background information on how and why decisions were made to use certain words over others.  In addition, the editors rejected the use of the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine Text, also known as the Majority Text, as their source text because those texts were from later time periods. I was quite surprised by this as I thought that most Bible translations used one or the other as their source text. Tyndale House used a Greek New Testament text from Samuel Prideaux Tregelles. Tregelles lived in the 1800s and produced his own Greek New Testament that was based on ancient manuscripts. The author also discussed the differences between a translation, an edition and an original. A section on how to spot an error in a manuscript was interesting as well as another section discussing decisions on what to print.

I do not read Greek. What will I remember most from this book? Probably that the early church scribes used what is now called nomina sacra to abbreviate the words for God, Jesus, Christ and Lord. The scribes would only write the first and last letters of those words and write a line over the top of them to connect the letters. Some of the early manuscripts that were analyzed to produce this new edition of the Greek New Testament had nomina sacra writings on them. These contracted words are still seen in Greek icons today.

This was a great book introducing a new edition of a Bible. I wish all translation committees would publish a book like this one so readers would know how decisions were made on what to include and what to exclude.

5 out of 5 stars.

Can We Trust the Gospels

Can We Trust the Gospels is a short, 140 page, book outlining the reasons why Matthew, Mark, Luke and John can be trusted to be historically accurate. The author's intended audience are non-Christians. However, the arguments presented in the book are also encouraging for Christian believers.

The author uses the writings of non-Christians such as Tacitus,  with his Annals, and Josephus, with his Antiquities, to corroborate the gospels. He also tests the gospel writers' knowledge of geography, culture, names, and Jewish law. For example, all four gospel writers mentioned obscure, small towns and villages in Israel as well bodies of water.  They had to have been familiar with these places in order to write about them. If the gospels were written hundreds of years later or were forgeries, the writers would not have known the names of some of these places. They were not on any maps. Similar arguments are presented for Jewish culture, law and personal names.

Other details that demonstrate the authenticity of the gospels include what the author calls undesigned coincidences. In an undesigned coincidence, the gospels will give incidental details that someone without eyewitness information could not possibly have known about. For example, Luke and John give two different stories about the sisters Mary and Martha. However, the personalities of the two women are the same in both gospels. One is an activist while the other is contemplative. Thus, both Luke and John are describing real characters. There are a few more examples in the book.  In addition, questions concerning whether we have Jesus' actual words, whether the text of the gospels changed over the years, and contradictions are also discussed.

It is pretty amazing how much data is contained in this small book. The information presented is highly detailed, includes charts and tables, but it still easy to understand and is a quick read. The  topic was well-researched. I am interested in reading a few of the books the author referenced in writing his book. While this book is a good one for skeptics or for those new to the faith, it would be nice to delve more deeply into the subject. So, to answer the question that the title poses...can we trust the gospels? My answer is yes.

Seven Days that Divide the World

The author, John C. Lennox, is a professor of mathematics at Oxford University.  I read this book for the Christian Reading Challenge based on a recommendation from a friend.  My friend stated that the author would  be able to prove through science that God created the world in 7 days.  While I disagree with the author's ability to provide proof, he certainly shot holes in the arguments of the New Atheists against creationism as well as coming up with quite a few interesting points about the Genesis Chapter 1 story. This was such a fascinating book that I read its 184 pages in an hour and a half and then reread it a week later and a third time one month later.

The author begins by stating he is a scientist who believes in both science and in the Bible. He says that you can draw scientific implications from the Bible but that does not mean that the Bible is a scientific treatise from which you can deduce Isaac Newton's laws or Einstein's equations.  The Bible was not intended to explain the origins of the universe in a detailed scientific language. It was intended to teach people about God.

A discussion over young earth and ancient earth creationist views is expanded on to point out that the definition of the word "creationist" has changed over the centuries. Originally it referred to someone who believed in a creator with no implication for how the creating was done. Today, a creationist is usually referred to someone who believes in a young earth. Also, these viewpoints are not new. They have been debated since times before Christ by Jewish scholars. Whether the 6 days in which God performed his creation were 24 hour cycles or epochs of unspecified lengths changes the age of the earth. See Psalm 90:4 "For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past..." Then there is the question of what is meant by "earth." Is it a planet, dry ground, or something else? Consider whether you are interpreting the Bible from the era it was written in or the era you are currently living in. That changes everything too. In addition, there is a grammatical point to be made about English versions of the Bible where the creation days are rendered "the first day," "the second day." Genesis was written in Hebrew. While the Hebrew language has a definitive article (ha) it is not used in the original for days one through five.  Thus the beginning of time is "one day" rather than "the first day. "  It makes a difference in how you interpret the chapter.

Another interesting discussion in the book concerned the word "literal." What does it mean to literally interpret the Bible? The definition of this word has also changed over the centuries and the author shows how there are different levels of literality.

All of these discussions were further expanded upon in the book. In addition, there are five appendices that dispute several theories of the New Atheists concerning the Genesis text. The book gets extremely technical here. I won't go into detail about these issues even though the book appears to have been written to debunk the theories of the New Atheists.  That was not the reason that I read the book.

The main thrust of the author's argument is that there is a way to understand Genesis 1 that doesn't compromise the authority of Scripture and at the same time take into account our increased knowledge of the universe.  I thought this was fabulous! Many of his discussions were above my ability to understand. I am not a mathematician or a scientist. I was impressed though with what he had to say.

I cannot remember a time when I was excited to read Genesis but John Lennox has made it seem important to study.  He has highlighted the creation story for me in such a fascinating manner.  I highly recommend this book!

Irresistible

In Irresistible-Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World, the reader in invited to embrace the original form of Christianity, the version that turned the world upside down 2,000 years ago. The author, an Atlanta, Georgia pastor, shows how a shift from faith in the resurrection of Jesus to a Bible-centric faith has left Christians with an anemic version of the faith that is not very interesting to those outside the faith or even inside the faith.

The premise of the book is that the first century Christians, not having any Scriptures other than the Jewish Scriptures spread the faith with their eye witness accounts of the resurrection. Succeeding generations similarly used their zeal over the resurrection event to gain new converts to the faith. It worked. The faith spread like wildfire even though getting caught and having to admit it meant that you would be put to death by the legal authorities. The author wants us to regain that zeal for the resurrection that our predecessors in the faith had. He believes it will transform how outsiders view the church and Jesus himself and bring people to Jesus as well as bring backsliders back into the church.

The author spends a lot of time distinguishing between the old covenant between God and Israel and the new covenant between God and everyone willing to participate in the new covenant. He explains that when the church became organized, rules and customs were set that were a blending of the two covenants. The two covenants were never supposed to be blended as after the resurrection the old covenant was ended because a new one had been created. Forty years later when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD and animal sacrifices could not be made any longer, ancient Judaism ended. Here he produced a considerable amount of Scripture and history as proof of his thesis.

He continues that the church today still blends the old covenant with the new covenant with Bible focused preaching and reading requirements. However, today's preachers are failing to tell their parishioners that the Old Testament was a means to an end. It brought Jesus to the world. The author is critical of those who pull passages and promises from the Old Testament and apply them to themselves when the passages apply to ancient Israel. This is also what he calls blending the two covenants. The final third of the book deals with how Christians should handle themselves with each other and with those outside the church in a new covenant manner, all backed up with Scriptural references.

The topic was well researched.  Stanley presented Scriptures from Genesis through the New Testament as well as historical references from ancient Israel and the early church as proof of his interpretation and conclusions. He knows the material well.

The writing style of the author is poor. He writes in the same way that he speaks. Unless you are a member of his congregation and are accustomed to this approach you will find the writing disconcerting. Consequently, I found it difficult to connect the points as I got bogged down in the writing method.

Irresistible is the first book of Stanley's that I have read.  I was expecting a serious book given the title and the back cover blurb. The writing style subtracted from the strong ideas that Stanley presented. Having said that, the author did do a good job of setting up major points in a dramatic fashion. However, he then fell into his culture-specific speaking style. He should, in the future, realize that his audience reaches far beyond the culture of his own congregation and city and adjust his writing accordingly.

This is an intellectual book written in an unintellectual manner.  Because it has strong arguments that the church should hear, I would like to refer it to it to a few friends.  I believe the book's message is important.  However, I am not sure that they will read a book that does not appear to be serious in the beginning section. They might give up and put it down.

Irresistible counts as a selection for the 2019 Christian Reading Challenge as a book that was a 2018 bestseller.  I would have rated it 5 stars for the thought content but due to the writing problems I can only give it 3 out of 5 stars. 

Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be

Mark Schwehn and Dorothy Bass have put together an anthology of readings from 61 individuals who found a way to lead lives of substance and significance.  They try to answer the questions "must my paid employment define who I am?" and "is a balanced life possible and preferable to a life focused primarily upon work?"  The readings endeavor to help the reader to make better judgments about their own life by exploring three vocabularies: authenticity and individualism; virtue and character; vocation and the divine.

The individuals referenced in the book cover a time period from 300 B.C. to the twentieth century. However, most of the individuals are from the twentieth century. Instead of giving actual advice to the reader, the authors offer a wide range of material from fiction to philosophy to biography to poetry as an example for the reader to figure out for themselves how best to deepen their own life.

One of my favorites was the Martyrdom of Perpetua. Since I am not a Roman Catholic, I was not aware of Perpetua before reading this book.  Vibia Perpetua was a North African Christian who was martyred in the year 203. The story of her imprisonment, torture and death was written shortly after her death by Tertullian.  At the time of her arrest she was 22, newly married with an infant son and a new convert to Christianity.  When led to the prisoner's dock her father pleaded with her to renounce her belief in Jesus for the sake of her family who would be destroyed if she was killed.  However, when asked by the soldiers whether she believed in Jesus she said yes.  She was led back to prison and a few days later she was led to the amphitheater where she was fed to several beasts naked in front of a live audience.  I was in awe of her decision.  I probably would have lied to save myself.   How could someone new to the faith be so sure of herself?  I found this astonishing.

This is a book that you should own and re-read throughout your life.  It can bring clarity to your decision making on play, study, love, sexuality, leisure, family, friendships, and worship.  It is not just about working and surviving.  There is another book titled "Callings" written by the late Rev. William Placher that follows the same format as this book but uses the lives of people who lived in the past twenty centuries.  I am looking forward to reading that book because Leading Lives that Matter has been thought provoking for me.

Definitely 5 out of 5 stars!

Crippled Grace

Crippled Grace is a book in the Studies in Religion, Theology and Disability series by Baylor University Press. The series will include books that discuss disability in all of the faith traditions. The author is a theology professor at Alphacrucis College in Sydney, Australia. Readers note that both the author and this blogger have mobility impairments.

The author, Shane Clifton, had my utmost attention from the first paragraph of the Introduction. I knew that I would be buying this book which I had taken out of my local library. He struck a cord with this statement "We are told by charismatic preachers and motivational speakers that to concede to the constraints of disability is to fail in faith; to give in to doubt rather than be positive... " Boy, have I heard that fail in faith message over and over.

He also brought up a touchy subject that people with disabilities are set up to be used as inspirational, something we in the disability community call inspiration porn.  The purpose of inspiration porn is to make nondisabled people feel better about their life circumstances. The author states his intention in the Introduction to show in his book that disability, happiness and faith are not self-contradictory.  I had never thought of this viewpoint before but can see that he is right.

Clifton was already a theology professor when he became a quadriplegic. The experience caused him to reevaluate his thoughts on Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas' viewpoints toward virtue. For example, Aristotle believed that ill health was not only undesirable but restricted the full exercise of virtue and the good life. He also believed women and slaves were inferior and therefore incapable of virtue.  You can make a similar application of these thoughts toward disabled people and discern that Aristotle would not have considered disabled people capable of living a good life. Likewise, Aquinas felt that happiness could be impeded by illness, ie, disability.

There is much more theology from both of these men and other theologians as well as the Bible on issues such as suffering, pain, happiness, and grace.  This is, after all, a theology book. Where necessary, Clifton shows how the theology has been incorrectly interpreted to the detriment of people with disabilities. When he shows a different, or correct, interpretation I am emotional; gaining new knowledge, but emotional. In addition, there are several chapters discussing the psychology of happiness and friendship and one chapter on sexuality.

I must admit that the theology and philosophical theories did not sink in because the communion of experiences among people of disabilities tugged at my emotions. I will read the book at a later date to pick up what I missed.

The book made me feel better as a person with a disability. For me, it has now been 32 years since I became disabled. There was some camaraderie from hearing similar life stories from other persons with disabilities and their families and also the identification of feelings I had toward God and the local church that I was not always consciously aware of. I wanted to get out a yellow highlighter to mark sections that were important to me but this is a library book so I could not do that!

When I picked up this book from the library I thought I would be giving a review of its theology on disability. However, it touched me personally and that is all I can say. 

A Gospel of Hope

Walter Brueggeman's A Gospel of Hope is one of his messages from the past that he believes needs to be resaid again to a divided America.  I have read several of Dr. Brueggeman's books on the Psalms and have always thought of him as a teacher. In A Gospel of Hope he speaks powerfully as a prophet to politically divided Christians in the United States.

In the Preface, Dr. Brueggeman states that both liberal and conservative American Christians are wrong in their belief systems.  He states that they have "lost their way in a frenzy of alienation and anxiety because old familiar modes of faith are not adequate...for the living of these days."  He uses a quotation from Ephesians 3 concerning asking from God all that we can imagine to show how Christians from both political spectrums have failed.  "Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."  Ephesians 3: 20-21.  Progressives have failed because it is not fashionable for them to imagine that God can do things abundantly. Conservatives have failed because it isn't fashionable for them to imagine for God's goodness beyond a rigid set of rules to obey.  As he states in his book "the human counterpoint to God's effective abundance is to ask or imagine." From this premise he begins to state his message.

Dr. Brueggeman states that baptized people have signed on for the Jesus story of abundance. When we do not trust in guaranteed abundance, we need to supply the deficiencies out of our own resources.  We move from our "sense of scarcity" to an abundance that we can imagine that we ourselves can supply.  However, he believes that in baptism the old story of scarcity is declared false and that we have become the place in the city where abundance is practiced. Thus, politically active conservative and liberal Christians are out of sync with their baptism and all that it means. At this point in time, these Christians as well as the church as a whole have to decide whether they want to belong to the dominant culture or to God. "Faith has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative." When Jesus began his ministry he began an alternative community.  We are at a crossroads today where Christians must decide to either go with the dominant culture or to form an alternative community based on Jesus' teachings and example.

The author continues this theme showing how the sense of scarcity has affected our emotions bringing us anxiety as well as infidelity to God, refusing to provide justice for the orphans, widows and prisoners that Jesus spoke about in his ministry. In today's age, Christians of all political spectrums have been driven to find security in money and power as an antidote to their fears about scarcity.  In doing so they have created hostility and alienation.  As they have moved away from being authentic Christians and began fighting amongst themselves, the world changed and now no longer accepts the Bible message as it once did.

The gospel of hope "requires a community of faith and action that is open to newness that will be given as a gift. " The church must wait for this newness to come from the Holy Spirit but first it must give up its old ideas and choose new ones that are Biblical and not from the dominant culture.  The 2 sides, liberal and conservative, will need to come together as one and wait for the newness to arrive and begin a ministry together.  "The world is waiting for Christians who are not angry or anxious or weary or quarrelsome or cynical or in despair.  The world is waiting for folk who trust enough to move out beyond themselves.  The church exists so that the city can have its own true self.  Jesus-and the church- can show the city through its life and ministry the things that make for peace."  First, we need to make peace among ourselves.

I highly recommend this book.  I was amazed at what Dr. Brueggeman got out of 2 verses from Ephesians and it speaks truthfully about our current situation in the U. S. We are divided.  The author shows how we became divided and also shows a way out.  There is much more in the book concerning our individual infidelities toward God and it is convicting.  Also, he shows that fixing the problem is done by a change in our attitudes and an understanding of what the Bible says and requires of Christians that has been forgotten by us over the years.

A book for our time.