Bandits No More

This has been a finishing week, book-wise.

First up was Douglas Farrow‘s little A Nation of Bastards. Not being Canadian, many of the references were foreign to my experience. I do see plenty of rejection of marriage as a stable institution. Much better, like everything else in our society, to just make up as we go along. His Ascension and Theology also looks interesting.

Second, was Peter Scazzero‘s The Emotionally Healthy Church. Sure sounds like a good idea to pay attention to the emotional elements in the work of making (and being) a disciple. Being more of a thinking type, I know I’ve neglected it too much.

Third, tonight’s finish, was Kenda Creasy Dean‘s Almost Christian, a stydy of ways the church is implicated in and might go beyond the Moralistic Therapeautic Deism described in Christian Smith’s Soul Searching. I know I want nothing to do with MTD, but as a (nearly) life-long inhabitant of consumeristic, individualistic culture, it’s tough to completely evade its tentacles.

There are some I’m still working on. First is Pierre Manent’s, An Intellectual History of Liberalism, tracing the tradition from the medieval era through Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and so on. I’ve read as far as the chapter on Rousseau. He brings in much more of the political theory of these folks than I’ve read before, so it’s helpful. And no, what he means by “liberalism” is not what most folks in America mean by liberalism these days. The liberalism here in view is the radical individualism and emphasis on rights that lies beneath both what we call liberals and conservatives, though they play different variations on the theme.

For something completely different, I’m also reading Dee Hock’s One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization. He’s one of those fellows I kept hearing Len Sweet talk about, so I thought I should get around to reading him.

Slower reads that I’m still working on include D. Stephen Long’s Speaking of God and Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality. And I’ll also be starting Daniel Bell’s Just War as Christian Discipleship.

And then I read some easy fiction for my down time.

Anyone out there reading something I might like?

Having a short attention span, I tend to read several books at once. The ones I’m engaging in right now include these:

1. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World. I’ve just started it, so I don’t have much to say yet. It is a topic I’ve been thinking about for thirty years.

2. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality. Nietzsche is on a helpful track in his historical approach to morality. He seems to Hegelian, however, in looking for monolithic cultural forces to instigate change.

3. Richard Posner, A Failure of Capitalism. A book that is not directly related to any of my research projects, yet, hopefully, useful to my understanding of our times. Only through the first chapter – so far Posner is not optimistic about our situation.

4. Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative (v.1). A book (ok, the first volume of a series) that I should have read long ago. His discussion of Augustine’s understanding of time, particularly the relationship between past, present and future, is especially stimulating.

5. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time. Another slow read. I prefer Heidegger’s Being-in-the-world to the usual subject-object dichotomy of modernity – a big improvement. Wish he hadn’t gone Nazi.

6. Bible reading this week is focusing on Joshua, the book I’m reading with the guys, and Philippians, my primary text for next Sunday.

Joining in the train that has been following Tyler Cowen, here are ten books that have shaped me to make me what I am today.

1. The Bible - While I first encountered the Bible as a young child, only in high school did I start reading it on my own. As a follower of Jesus, I find it very valuable as I seek to know him, his purposes and his ways of acting in the world. I like John Wesley’s idea of being homo unius libri.
2. The Lord of the Rings – This is another set I first read in high school. Though I was an extensive reader beforehand, somehow I didn’t even learn of Tolkein until my sophomore year. But then I read them again and again, to myself and to my little brother.
3. The Journal of John Wesley - By the time I arrived at college, I knew I had a call to ministry in the United Methodist Church. Though I’d been a member of the church for years, I thought it would be a good idea to go to the source. I read Wesley’s Journal from beginning to end in my free time, finding a man seeking to know God and passionate to see others learn of Jesus and take up his way of life.
4. Father Brown - The first Chesterton I read was Everlasting Man, but the works I keep going back to are the Father Brown Mysteries. The root of Father Brown’s insight that allows him to solve mysteries stems from his deep insight into sinners, knowing himself to be one of their number.
5. After Virtue – I first saw Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue at the Asbury Seminary bookstore, shortly before I graduated. Since I was about to return to Texas, I was trying to hold off on book buying, so I wasn’t able to read it until I started pastoring. By that time I was far from any sources other than Inter Library Loan. MacIntyre’s picture of the fragmented status of ethics in modernity struck me as eerily similar to the status of doctrine in my own denomination. Reading After Virtue wasn’t enough, so I went on to read most of his other works, the most important of which was likely Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
6. Genesis of Doctrine – I remember struggling to justify paying the price Blackwell wanted for this book. The subject was already under my skin, so I had to get this book. It helped put some skin on the bones of my thinking begun by reading MacIntyre.
7. Theology in an Age of Scientific Reasoning – I encountered Nancey Murphy’s book during my second semester of doctoral work, not surprisingly, when I was taking a course she taught on postmodernity. Nancey became the lead professor for the rest of my work and introduced me to the relevance of the philosophy of science.
8. How to Do Things with Words – J.L.Austin’s little book has always struck me as a book many have picked up and few have finished. His notion of “performative utterance,” introduced in the first chapters has so captured people that they often fail to notice what he does with it by the end of the book. But in an age where so many are inclined toward anti-realism, it sounded like an easy way out.
9. New Testament and the People of God – Though my main area of study was philosophical theology, I didn’t limit myself to that field. I think it as Colin Brown who suggested I read NTPG. I’ve read just about every book Wright has put out since then (I think I missed his Y2K volume, but not much more). His take on Jesus and the First Century world has deeply shaped my preaching and teaching. Along with others, I’m eagerly awaiting his next Big Book.
10. Sources of the Self - Charles Taylor was another philosopher I discovered while in graduate school. Where MacIntyre writes as an insightful critic of modernity, Taylor writes as an insightful acquaintance, neither friend nor foe. Beyond Sources of the Self, many of Taylor’s papers and other books have shaped my thinking also.

I read a fair number of books in the course of a year.  Here are a couple I’ve just finished.

Bill Hybels, Just Walk Across the Room: Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith.

You’ll have to look a long time to find someone with greater evangelistic passion than Bill Hybels. Beyond modeling this value (and practice) for his congregation the past few decades, he’s written books and developed video courses to help others join the adventure. This book focuses on simple things ordinary Christians can do to help people connect with Jesus. At the heart of evangelism, Hybels suggests, is a love for people that compels us to build relationships. In some of these relationships we might have the privilege of seeing someone come to faith. In others – probably the majority – we’ll simply have the role of introducing some questions or providing resources. We can be certain there will be no harvest without sowing, watering and cultivating.

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Far from the religious safety of the bible belt, Keller has planted this church in the largest city in America and seen it grow to several thousand (while assisting in the planting of numerous other churches in the region). His primary audience is composed of young, educated people, many with little or no Christian background. This book addresses many of the questions he’s heard people asking over the years. Having read the book, I can attest that I hear the same questions here in Pittsburg. Some of the challenges he addresses include, “There Can’t Be Just One True Religion,” “How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?” and “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?” Keller handles these and other issues with a well-reasoned, biblical and gracious approach. Though he is a Presbyterian of a strong Calvinist bent, he succeeds in his aim of writing in the context of what C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity,” the faith shared by mainstream Christians throughout the ages and around the world.