16 posts tagged “books”
One of the great things about February is that it is the month when you finish the books that came at Christmas. For me, this has meant coming to the end of Sara Maitland's wonderful 'A Book of Silence'. Maitland is a Catholic, a novelist and short-story writer and a committed feminist. She also went to Oxford with Bill Clinton, which has no relevance to her book but since she manages to mention it, I don't see why I shouldn't.
I'm really enjoying Philip Ball's 'Bright Earth'. The sub-title, the invention of colour, is a little inaccurate as the book is actually a history of pigment and its use in painting - hence 'bright earth'. But it really is fascinating. Ball traces the developments of pigments across the ages, and the ways in which each new breakthrough in chemistry and colour theory has relfected (no pun intended) on the art movements of the day. The relationship of the Impressionist movement to the growing availability of pigments and the growing understanding of light and colour in late 19th Century Europe is enlightening (again, no pun intended.. but why are so many of the words we use about knowledge actually words about light?). I'm reading it because I want to explore the nature of the church and of God's mission in the world in terms of the colours that make up light... a development of the idea of 'prismatic church' - so far the metaphor is holding up well and I am finding the book both enjoyable and stimulating. A rare opportunity, in a life filled by default with books on faith and mission, to stray into an unrelated field and learn from it.
I'm part way through Tim Keller's 'The Reason for God' and finding it excellent. Keller has carved out a niche as the thinking man's pastor for Manhattan, and he brings to this book the fruit of hundreds of deeply engaging conversations with New York's sceptics and cynics. The result is a wonderful summary of all the reasons you might not want to be a Christian: and the fact that none of them really hold up. Keller's trick is to apply to doubt the same questions that doubt applies to faith. He does it with humour and style. This is the best book I have found in a long time to give to those thrown by the writings of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and co - and the closest I have come to reading Francis Schaeffer since reading Frqncis Schaeffer...
Have just finished Naomi Klein's extraordinary book 'The Shock Doctrine'. I remember being very impressed / inspired / challeneged by 'No Logo', but that was a Sunday School Picnic compared to this later work. A brilliant journalist, who researches like a gold prospector and has a quite stunning talent for story-telling, Klein has poured her heart and soul into this work. The result is an ascerbic, sharp, lean, javelin-like assault on contemporary global capitalism. I won't spoil the plot for you by revealing too much, but suffice to say that Klein begins by making a parallel between free market economics and torture, and ends by convicing you that even if you don't see the link as starkly as she does, you cannot deny that it is there. In a narrative that moves with the pace of Jason Bourne and visits as many countries (in fact many of the same countires), Naomi klein has constructed an impressive argument and delivers it with passion and professionalism. Whether you ultimately accept the argument or not neither she nor I can predict: but I don't think you will be unimpressed by the scholariship and clarity.
I found the book resonant and helpful because I have always believed that there is something deeply wrong with the idolatry of the free market. Since reading Bob Goudzwaard's unique 'Idols of Our Tme' back in the 1980's, I have known something is wrong. Without once sharing, or referencing, Goudzwaard's faith or his analysis, Klein has proved that he was right. An idolatrous commitment to the free market will ultimately destroy its adherents and their world. Read it and weep....
There are probably some people in the world (and in our churches) who never ask such questions. But there are millions of us who do, and all the more so if we long to encounter the real Jesus: Jesus not as a religious symbol but as a real event in history. Like Thomas we want to see and touch, not because we doubt but because we so long to fully believe. It is for us that Anne Rice writes, and I for one am grateful.
Listening to the BBC World Service today (as mad dogs and Englishmen do - going out in the midday sun is not currently an option), I was introduced the the concept of the 'Slash Generation'. This is a term used to capture the way the new generation describe their work-life or career in terms of several slashes - "I'm a musician / DJ / game designer". I think the idea orginates with Marci Alboher in the USA, whose website heymarci.com tracks the development of the concept and whose book, below, fleshes it out.
This is a concept well worth exploring in the context of Christian mission. All the team involved in the Bless Network are bi-vocational: we have a policeman-slash-church-planter, an IT specialist-slash-charity-manager and several missionary-slash-local-church-workers. The model has enabled us to grow a missional network without over-burdening it with huge central personnel costs - and it has many other advantages.
At Crossroads, too, we have many 'slash' workers on our team: part-time staff who have other jobs, either running their own businesses or pursuing employment in a more secular field. I can think of at least four who have three or four components to their slash careers. The juggling is not always easy, but there are real gains to be had in terms of motivation and personal development, as well as avoiding the creation of an 'other-worldy' bubble of church employment. The concept of 'tent-maker' missionaries has long been established in societies where open, full-time mission is impossible: but it is now emerging as a significant model for mission in Western culture.
I sometimes describe myself as a pastor / writer or a missiologist / poet. When my youngest son was asked in a school asignment last week to say what his Dad does for a living, he really wanted to avoid the whole pastor or church-leader conversation, so was happy to go for the 'writer' tag. The slash, so to speak, saved him.
The 'slash' concept also points, very importantly, to the blurring of work / leisure distinctions. Where e-bay traders who are over 40 might describe what they do as a hobby, the young tend not to - it's just one of their slashes. In fact the word hobby is disappearing from our language, with its implication of leisure activities pursued with no external purpose. I'm not a teacher whose hobby is stamp collecting, I'm a teacher-slash-stamp-trader.
To the extent that this shift nudges people towards more creative whole-life-planning, and attaches renewed importance to secondary (perhaps vocational) pursuits, it is very good news for Christian mission. How might the Kingdom grow if all young Christians were encouraged to include at least one missional or vocational commitment amongst their slashes?
I blogged about Anne Rice's book on the early years of Jesus this time last year, but since Christmas is coming and a paperback version is now available, I think it bears mentinoing again.
I loved the richness, beauty and delicacy with which this narrative is written, and its genuine attempt to imagine - in earthly, human, flesh-and-blood terms - the life of Jesus. The book is built on the same deep and detailed research that Anne Rice has always applied to her writing, and it brought the likely life of the family of Jesus alive to me as never before.
There have been rumours for some time that Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt would be committed to film, but the latest news is that the project has been scrapped. Better news, though, on the sequel front: Christ the Lord: The road to Cana - will be published in March 2008. It is available for pre-order on Amazon and other sites.
Time Magazine this month has a profile of Rob Bell, Pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church and founder of the 'Nooma' video series. Rob is a great communicator. His two books (so far) are 'Velvet Elvis' - an imaginative, readable and thouroughly refreshing exploration of what it might mean to follow Jesus in the 21st Century and 'Sex God', a surprising and very inspring attempt to find the connection between two of the most important three-letter words in our vocabulary (links below).
This is a preview of the latest 'Nooma', the 18th in the series, called 'Name'.
Thanks to Andrew Rogers for the link to a Guardian online article by Terry Eagleton. The literary critic and theologian considers the political impact of Jesus and asks whether the Messaih can truly be seen as a social revolutionary. His carefully considered conclusion is that Jesus is both less revolutionary and ultimately more revolutionary than the greats - Lenin, Marx etc.
A great artticle to stimulate thinking in this Advent season. Also gives me an irresistable opportunity to cite Eagleton's scathing review of Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, which begins with the immortal line "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology." Read the full review here, and see Eagleton's Wikipedia profile here.
