I like Hornby’s writing – he has a very Christian sensibility, by which I mean he’s quite happy to reveal the truth about people, in all our worm-eaten glory, but he does so without judgement and with much compassion and humour. He has a gentle spirit. This was good, and absorbing, without being great.
Category Archives: book review
Come Holy Spirit (David Pytches)
I came across this in the church library the other day, and as I am starting to pursue an exploration of charismatic thinking and practice, it seemed remarkably heaven sent. I found it to be a very interesting book, and a reassuring one, although a little dated in some ways (it was written in 1985). David Pytches is one of the founding figures of Charismatic Spirituality in the UK, being particularly involved in New Wine. I’m attending a New Wine conference next April in Harrogate, which should be illuminating.
Things I liked about it: first and foremost, the theological grounding for expecting ‘signs and wonders’ as a normal and routine part of apostolic ministry. I’m persuaded of this, and I suspect this is the most important thing I need to digest. I also liked the way in which the exercise of a healing ministry (for example) was separated off from any sense of controlling the outcome or feeding the ego of the minister (one of the things that had always steered me away from charismatic spirituality).
There were two things I didn’t like. The first was a sense of spiritual confinement, in that prophecy, for example, is a much larger and more dynamic gifting than is expressed in Paul’s letters – but Paul’s letters seemed to set the parameters for the exercise of that gift. This seemed sub-biblical; bizarrely, I would want to enlarge the active role of God beyond what was argued for here. The other element which seemed wrong was the lumping together of other faiths with a general sense of the demonic. I am not persuaded that, for example, the practice of yoga is Satanic; indeed I would argue quite strenuously for the opposite – that this sort of opposition to yoga is Satanic, in that it is embedded in skandalon and the taking of offence.
Yet those criticisms are not central to the book. I’d recommend it as a first step – it has certainly helped me.
Your best life now (Joel Osteen)
I have to confess that I picked up this book with a distinct agenda. I saw Joel Osteen as preaching “the prosperity gospel” – largely influenced by Ben Witherington – and I wanted to have a good example to use in one of my imminent Learning Church sessions. However, I liked the book much more than I was expecting to.
I should say right up front that there isn’t a great deal of explicit Christianity in the book. There’s hardly a mention of Jesus at all, certainly no discussion of the great doctrines of the faith. It’s the sort of book I might give to a seeker right at the very beginning of the journey. For what Osteen is arguing for has a fair bit of merit to it as one component of the faith. It would need to be placed alongside a lot of other material, mostly that to do with sin, and that to do with suffering, but then as that sort of material is probably over-represented in Christian literature – especially in some circles – Osteen is performing a useful corrective service. It is certainly true to say that Scripture teaches some form of “prosperity gospel” – it’s the ‘plain meaning’ of Deuteronomy 28-30 for example, and much better supported in the Scripture as a whole than (to take a random example 😉 the doctrine of penal substitution. As I understand it he wouldn’t describe himself as a theologian, nor would he say he was preaching the whole message of the gospel in this sort of book – it’s just that this is the message he has been given to share. Fair enough.
The problem comes – and this is what one Learning Church session will focus on – when we go through the sort of crisis that is now just beginning. I wonder if the 1930’s style depression that’s about to hit the United States will lead to people becoming angry with him. If they did it would be a little unfair, though I would ask the question – does a pastor have the responsibility to preach the whole gospel? I would say yes, but I don’t know enough about the balance of teaching at Lakewood to comment.
I personally have taken a lot of value from the book. It gave me encouragement when I needed some, in some very specific areas. The story of the traffic warden sharing his enthusiasm with the queuing drivers will stay with me. And there’s a quote from him coming up…
Revolt in 2100 (Heinlein)
Interesting but not great; one long story and two short stories, all in the same ‘world’. Grist to the mill of a long Heinlein post though, especially his ideas about justice.
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Mark Noll)
One of the (few) advantages to being ill and lying in bed all day is the chance to finish off some reading, starting with this book, which I would warmly recommend to anyone interested in evangelical theology. Lots of insights; very well written and – rather obviously if you’re familiar with the author – impeccably researched; and yet, I can’t help but believe that Noll has constructed a cast-iron case for the terminal decline of evangelical thought. He tries to open out some room for hope at the end, but his penultimate conclusion is pretty damning:
“The scandal of the evangelical mind seems to be that no mind arises from evangelicalism. Evangelicals who believe that God desires to be worshiped with thought as well as activity may well remain evangelicals, but they will find intellectual depth – a way of praising God through the mind – in ideas developed by confessional or mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, or perhaps even the Eastern Orthodox. That conclusion may be the only responsible one to reach after considering the history sketched in this book. Even if it leaves evangelical intellectuals trapped in personal dissonance and the evangelical tradition doomed to intellectual superficiality (or worse), the recent past seems to point in no other direction.”
His actual conclusion is that as evangelical thought is Christian thought it may be resurrected. I’m not convinced of that. To my mind evangelicalism is much too heavily implicated in the Modernist project to survive the post-Modern shift, let alone what comes afterward. There are some essential things about evangelical Christianity – but it is in Christianity that they will be preserved, not in evangelicalism.
BTW – saw this today, very interesting.
For us, the living (Robert Heinlein)
More interesting than good as a novel, this was an unpublished ‘first novel’ in which you can see Heinlein starting to explore the main themes he pursued over the coming years. I’m starting to read – or re-read – a set of Heinlein novels. I’ll write something long about him once I’ve got through the set (it’s my bedtime reading at the moment).
The Singing Thing (John Bell)
This was a book I bought and actually read at Greenbelt, and (combined with the Richard Giles books – reviews forthcoming) it has really shifted my thinking about the liturgy. But I’ll write about that elsewhere. Bell splits the book into two parts (and the book itself is the first of two books). In the first part he outlines all the reasons why human beings sing, and why it is so important. As you might imagine, he found a receptive reader in me. He lists ten reasons:
– because we can
– to create identity (especially community identity)
– to express emotion
– to express words (beliefs)
– to revisit the past (remember ourselves)
– to tell stories
– to shape the future
– to enable work
– to exercise our creativity, and
– to give of ourselves.
All of which were very persuasively argued for. He then goes on to ask ‘why do most people – in England in particular – not sing?’ He argues that:
– almost everyone can sing, but most have been told they can’t at a formative age;
– the ‘performance culture’ inhibits joining in (and he is equally critical of robed choirs and worship bands);
– the layout within a church often undermines congregational confidence; and
– there is often appalling leadership, from clergy and choirmasters, organists and musicians and choristers, all of whom seem theologically bankrupt when considering singing in church. (My summary – not his language!)
This was a really good book, which I think needs a much wider circulation. I’ll be reading part two shortly….
One last thing – it really reinforced the truth in the song ‘Roots’ by Show of Hands:
“Now it’s been 25 years or more,
I’ve roamed this land from shore to shore.
From Tyne to Tamar, Severn to Thames,
From Moor to Vale, from Peak to Fen.
I’ve played in cafes, and pubs and bars,
I’ve stood in the street with my own guitar.
But I’d be richer than all the rest
If I had a pound for each request
For “Duelling Banjos”, “American Pie” — it’s enough to make you cry.
“Rule Britannia”, or “Swing Low”,
Are they the only songs we English know?
Seed, bud, flower, fruit,
They’re never gonna grow without their roots.
Branch, stem, shoots.
They need roots!
After the speeches when the cake’s been cut,
the disco’s over and the bar is shut.
At Christening, Birthday, Wedding or Wake,
What can we sing until the morning breaks?
When the Indian-Asians, Afro-Celts — it’s in their blood below the belt.
They’re playing and dancing all night long,
So what’ve they got right that we’ve got wrong?
Seed, bud, flower, fruit,
Never gonna grow without their roots.
Branch, stem, shoots.
We need roots!
And all away boys, let them go,
All in the wind and the rain and snow.
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know,
On the rocky shores of England.
All away boys, let them go,
All in the wind and the rain and snow.
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know,
On the rocky shores of England.
We need roots!
And the minister said his vision of hell is 3 folk singers in a pub near Wells.
Well I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl.
It’s pubs where no one ever sings at all.
And everyone stares at a great big screen,
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens,
Australian soap, American rap, Estuary English, baseball caps.
And we learn to be ashamed before we walk,
Of the way we look and the way we talk.
Without our stories, or our songs,
How will we know where we come from?
I’ve lost St George in the Union Jack,
It’s my flag too and I want it back!
Seed, bud, flower, fruit,
Never gonna grow without their roots.
Branch, stem, shoots.
We need roots!
And all away boys, let them go,
All in the wind and the rain and snow.
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know,
On the rocky shores of England.
The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Ann Pettifor)
Another book purchased at Greenbelt – principally because I couldn’t get to her talk. This was OK but not as powerful as it could have been, mainly because like many left-wingers she doesn’t fully appreciate the nature of capital (not that right-wingers often do much better, but there is more to economics than the inanities of ‘homo economicus’ and rational choice maximisation). In particular she would do well to read Hernando de Soto (see my review here). However, that shouldn’t detract from her overall message which I am in agreement with. We’re at the beginnings of a major financial contraction.
Bono on Bono (Michka Assayas)
This was extremely interesting for me, but then I am a fully paid up U2 fan. Fascinating remarks on faith and fame.
The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
One of the bleakest things I’ve ever read – but remarkably good and worth reading all the same. The first McCarthy I’ve digested. I’m going to get some more.
“They began to come upon from time to time small cairns of rock by the roadside. They were signs in gypsy language, lost patterans. The first he’d seen in some while, common in the north, leading out of the looted and exhausted cities, hopeless messages to loved ones lost and dead. By then all stores of food had given out and murder was everywhere upon the land. The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes and the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell. The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyons with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them silently as eyes. Out on the roads the pilgrims sank down and fell over and died and the bleak and shrouded earth went trundling past the sun and returned again as trackless and as unremarked as the path of any nameless sisterworld in the ancient dark beyond.”