Very good companion to, and update of, his previous ‘Hope for the Church’. This one is much more about the wider church, and what, eg, dioceses can do to support church growth, rather than what individual churches can do. Excellent, and encouraging, and affirming. If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him.
Category Archives: book review
Problems with Atonement (Stephen Finlan)
This was principally an excellent discussion of the metaphors used in Paul’s writings which the doctrines of atonement depend upon, and as such it was very enlightening. Much more radically, Finlan ends by arguing that Christianity would be better off doing without any doctrine of the atonement at all, and concentrating on theosis instead (sanctification). I find myself in great sympathy with that idea.
I was prompted to get this book (and a couple of others by him) after reading this review, which is worth reading itself if you’re interested.
The Fall of Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
So good I stayed up until 1.15am to finish it. Fulfilled lots of the promise in the first book, leaving enough threads hanging for me to want to pursue the next two. Some astonishing setpieces. If the series continues to build on this foundation it may end up being one of my favourites ever.
Oh yes, lots of good theology in it as well….
Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
I wouldn’t say that this was stupendously good – but it’s not far off. Perhaps not as good as Foundation or the first Dune – probably my favourite sf books – but as good as Donaldson’s Gap series. Very interesting thoughts woven through the story; I’m now eager to read the next one. I love the idea of earth being destroyed by a big mistake…
The Life and Work of a Priest (John Pritchard)
I thought this book was very good, and I would recommend it – in fact, wearing my ‘Warden of Ordinands’ hat I’m probably going to require people to read it! Very sane, thorough, hopeful.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Very satisfying. When there’s no danger of spoilers I’ll write something longer about the whole series.
Stardust (Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess)
A marvellous fairy tale for adults. I’ve said it before, I know I’ll say it again, the man is a genius. I like Charles Vess’ art aswell.
Velvet Elvis (Rob Bell)
This was a very enjoyable overview of that sane, sensible, life-transforming and liberating faith that I recognise as Christianity. Lots of good bits in it – including an enlightening discussion of first century rabbinical practice that I’m going to borrow for my sermon tomorrow – thought I suspect that if push came to shove he’d be a bit too much of a fan of Marcus Borg for my taste. Excellent all the same. For obvious reasons this bit spoke to me:
“Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.” (He’s quoting someone else there)
He goes on:
“Superpastor is always available to everyone and accomplishes great things but always has time to stop and talk and never misses anyone’s birthday and if you are sick he’s at the hospital and you can call him at home whenever you need advice and he loves meetings and spends hours studying and praying and yet you can interrupt him if you need something – did I mention he always puts his family first?
…I had this false sense of guilt and subsequent shame because I believed deep down that I wasn’t working hard enough. And I believed the not-working-hard-enough lie because I didn’t function like superpastor, who isn’t real anyway.
So I had one choice – I had to kill superpastor.
I had to take him out back and end his pathetic existence.”
I also liked: Christian is a good noun but a lousy adjective. That whole discussion made a lot of sense. And ‘Brickianity’ – marvellous image. I’ll have to investigate these NOOMA things.
Strongly recommended, especially to people on the fringes – or even outside the fringes. Christianity is not about curating a museum but creating heaven on earth here and now. Yeah!
Torture and Eucharist (William Cavanaugh)
This was superb – a provocative and challenging exploration of both the failures of church to resist oppression and the way in which the church can reinvent itself by rediscovering its own history. Centring on the story of Chile under Pinochet, Cavanaugh redescribes torture as the liturgy of the state, to which the liturgy of the eucharist is the essential response. There’s quite a bit about this book on-line, and Cavanaugh is clearly one of the leading lights of present day theology.
Also, as I mentioned before, the one thing that reading this book has done is change my mind about excommunication for unrepentant sinners. The Body cannot BE the Body without it – in a very concrete sense.
PS one very minor caveat – Cavanaugh sees pain as essentially private, something with which a Wittgensteinian would disagree…
A High View of Scripture? (Craig Allert)
This was an extremely lucid, engaging and stimulating survey of how the New Testament canon was formed. Although I had the ‘big picture’ already, I learned a tremendous amount of new detail through the book. It’ll form a key resource in my autumn series of talks. Here’s a juicy quote:
“Before there was even Scripture, there was the faith; the early church did not set the limits of the scriptural canon as the paramount task of nascent Christianity. Its first goal was to settle the content of the faith, and it did this using means other than the Bible… the early church would never have restricted the term ‘canon’ to the Bible alone… Each element in the canonical tradition of the church has a part to play in the whole, and the canonization of Scripture took place within this whole.”
What was most intriguing was the central role given to the apostolic tradition as the source of primary authority, including for the words of Jesus. “Scripture” was not the centre of gravity for the community, and there was no such thing as “the Bible” for hundreds of years. Fascinating.