A few books you should read

I think I read more books from October thru December of 2011 than I'd read in quite some time. Here are the ones I liked:

Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager by Buzz Bissinger.
Bissinger, the author of Friday Night Lights, spent much of the 2003 baseball season in the clubhouse of the St. Louis Cardinals, where he got to know the atmosphere of the team, its players, and its coaches. Three Nights in August chronicles a 3-game series from that season against the Cardinals' arch rival Chicago Cubs. The games are viewed through the eyes of Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa. It's a detail-packed book that gives new insight into baseball strategy. I'm a life-long baseball fan and still I learned things I never knew about how far ahead of the game a mind like LaRussa's is constantly working during a game. You don't have to be a Cardinals fan to enjoy this book, but you do need to enjoy baseball. (I was particularly engrossed in this book because I began reading it the day before the 2011 World Series, which the Cardinals would win a few days after I finished.)

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton & Rose Friedman.
I discovered Milton Friedman (by accident) when I came across some youtube videos of some of his lectures from the 70s & 80s. The Friedmans (Friedman & Friedwoman?) are economists who have championed free-market capitalism more influentially (perhaps) than anyone else in the last 50 years. Having never read anything on economics before, I found Free to Choose to be quite accessible. It basically makes the case for a small-government free enterprise system. If you're not already an economic conservative, these two might make you one!

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard.
No matter what you think of Bill O'Reilly's politics, you won't find them in this book. It's worth reading for anyone remotely interested in the events of April, 1865. Even though I was pretty sure I knew the climax of the story (Lincoln gets assassinated -- sorry for the spoiler), I felt suspense all along, like I was reading a thriller or a murder mystery. I also learned a lot. Maybe I was just completely ignorant before picking it up, but all I really knew was that Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth. This book will take you behind the scenes of the conspiracy that unfolded in the week prior to the assassination, including the last few days of the Civil War itself. When I finished, I picked up another book on Lincoln, because it got me interested!

Bathroom material

As some of you may know, I've been trying to start a collection of the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books for some time now. For my past couple of birthdays I've received Uncle John's Bathroom Reader puzzle books as gifts, which are fabulous. This past Christmas I received my very first conventional (if you can call them that) Bathroom Reader from my wife. I read it straight through (I'm not much for reading on the pot, to be honest). It was fabulous. Still, I feel like my "collection" is rather dismal, considering I have just one book and two puzzle books from the series (they've got dozens of them).

Anyway, all that to say this: The Bathroom Reader website is giving away one of their books (winner's choice) HERE. There are 7 different ways to enter to win, if you're so inclined... but if you enter this contest and win a Bathroom Reader all because you read about it here on MY blog, I hope you would consider donating your winnings to my library after you've read it yourself.

McLaren and me (not quite as catchy as McGee & Me)

I'm nearing the end of reading A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren. I've never really written a book review before, and you're kidding yourself if that's what you think this is... but I thought I'd share some first impressions and thoughts about what I've read so far.

I chose to read this particular book on the emergent church because a) I already own it & it's just been sitting on my shelf for more than a year now, and 2) from what I've heard and read it's been touted as the definitive manifesto for today's emergent church (can "definitive" and "emergent church" be together in one sentence and not be an oxymoron?), and so I figured that if I'm going to graduate from an evangelical seminary there might be some people I come across in whatever ministry God points me to who assume I know something about the emergent church and I'd like not to disappoint them. So here we go.

First of all let me say that McLaren is an engaging writer, and it's not at all hard for me to see how he's published a dozen+ books, most of which sell quite well. He has a clear passion to move Christianity beyond liberal vs. conservative bickering, and his viewpoint largely seems to have grown out of a reaction to ultra-right wing conservative fundamentalist Christians who you're likely to see on television a lot (not often being painted in a positive light at all).

As is made clear in McLaren's subtitle (visible in the above picture), his desire is to essentially take the best from all of the pockets of Christianity and mold them into a kind of open-minded, tolerant community of believers who follow the teachings of Jesus. In multiple places throughout the book McLaren tells his audience that it's important to stick to the fundamentals of the faith, which he clearly defines as loving God, and loving your neighbor (with everyone on the planet falling to the "neighbor" category). One of the big problems he has with many Christians today is that they've expanded the fundamentals to include things like the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture, and penal substitutionary atonement. McLaren, however, seems to believe that if we simply love God and love other people then Christianity is much more likely to connect to our postmodern culture, and we will be able to take the world for Christ.

If I were to summarize McLaren's position as I understand it (I'm about 80% of the way through the book) I would say that he believes that following the teachings of Jesus is what's most important (and primarily the love God & others command), and therefore we need to love everyone, be in community with everyone, let the Holy Spirit guide our direction through experience, and be pacifists (or at least pacifist sympathizers with the hope and goal of bringing the world to a place where everyone is a pacifist). On the flip side he would argue that we need to grow out of our in/out theology where there are some who are "in" or "born again" who are going to heaven and everyone else is "out" and therefore going to hell. McLaren relates a story in which his college-age son admits that he's struggling spiritually. He goes on, "Dad, if Christianity is true then nearly everyone I love is going to be tortured in the fires of hell forever. And if it's not true, then life has no meaning. I just wish there were a better option." McLaren tells us that when he heard his son say those things his heart broke as he realized that that is the picture of Christianity his son, and probably most Christians, have. It seems that the goal of this book is largely to correct such thinking.

From what I've learned about the emergent church before and outside of reading this book, McLaren's theology and teachings in A Generous Orthodoxy are very much represtentative of them.

And it's too bad.

Completely lacking from McLaren's theology is anything about the harder parts of the Bible. The only time I have come across the word "atonement" in the whole book is when, as I mentioned above, he is pointing out how conservative evangelicals have broadened the definition of "fundamentals" to include it. I do think McLaren's right about a lot of things: The Christianity that most people see on television which says you must vote republican, fight against gun control laws, homosexuality, and abortion, support wars, and tell all your non-Christian friends that they're going to hell is probably not what Jesus meant when he sent his disciples out as witnesses, but McLaren's theology, I believe, could accurately be described as dangerous, bordering on devastating. The Gospel message is NOT, as McLaren would apparently have you believe, that we can all get along in a God-loving community if we stick to the teachings of Jesus. It's that Jesus was crucified in your place on the cross as a sacrifice for sin and that he rose again the third day, conquering death forever. Why doesn't the emergent church ever want to get into the hard stuff? I'm guessing that in all his books, you'll never hear McLaren talk about the reality of sin and its impact on the human race (unless it's the "sin" of intolerance, which creates an unappealing "in vs. out" mentality).

In fact, it seems to me that if Jesus never was crucified or resurrected or if he never ascended to heaven... McLaren's theology would not be threatened at all. Without the atonement Jesus was still a good teacher who gave us good standards to live by, so let's all focus on those and try to get along.

(When I bring my book to work with me, my coworker will ask, "Is McLaren annoying you yet?" For the first almost half of the book my answer was, "Not really." As it's become clearer and clearer that his bottom line is essentially, "Let's all be nice to each other," my answer has changed. There is real truth, Mr. McLaren.)

Free audiobooks

Christianaudio.com offers a free audiobook download every month. Previous free books have included John Calvin: Of prayer -- on the Christian Life, Abandoned to God by Oswald Chambers, and Not For Sale by David Batstone. This month's free audiobook download is Foxe's Book of Martyrs. If you like audiobooks, and you like free things, then go to their website and sign up to get their free monthly e-mails that tell you about the free download each month.

Win an ESV study bible!

David Porter is giving away a free calfskin version of the new ESV Study Bible (about $240 value)! Isn't that exciting? Well, if you like, you can enter to win it. I obviously won't encourage you to enter (as it diminishes my chances), but I will commend his blog to you for your perusal. Click here to find out how you can win (or just to read his blog).

It's about time I had a class with this guy

Today I had my first class ever with the esteemed Dr. Craig Blomberg. I've known Dr. Blomberg since my first week as a seminary student, but I've never had him in a class. I could write forever about Dr. Blomberg's amazing brain capacity, and his New Testament expertise, but instead I'll just list the books of his that I can think of right off the top of my head. That way you can be impressed that I have such a famous friend/professor. He's written Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions, 1 Corinthians (NIV Application Commentary), Matthew (New American Commentary), The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel, Jesus and the Gospels, From Pentecost to Patmos, and, among other things I just can't think of, James (the first in the new Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series). He has co-authored/contributed to An Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, Four Views on Women in Ministry, and the just-came-out-yesterday A Case for Historic Premillenialism. In addition, he contributes regularly to scholarly journals, and is a "main character" if you will in the first chapter or two of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ.

And that's just the stuff I can think of.

Book giveaway!

Trevin Wax, who has a blog called Kingdom People, is giving away ten awesome books including The Reason for God by Tim Keller, Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright, and Why We're Not Emergent by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. In addition, he's giving away an ESV Study Bible! If you check out this post, you can find out how you could be entered to win these books.

Summer

This summer has somehow become as busy as the school year for me.  I didn't know that could happen.

I also wanted to say that I miss my friends.

And if you want to read an entertaining and funny book with what's left of your summer, try The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.

Book list

I'm not that bad.

In the 103 days since I started this blog, I've written 23 posts.  That averages out to one post every 4.5 days, or about 22% of the time.

There are some books coming out soon that would be good for you to at least know about, if not read.  Next month Mark Driscoll is publishing a series of short books called "A Book You'll Actually Read."  They include On the Old Testament, On the New Testament, On Who is God?, and On Church Leadership.  Then in September Driscoll is publishing Death by Love.  These are all published by Crossway.

The ESV Study Bible, also produced by Crossway, will be available this fall as well.  There are 8 formats to choose from including hardcover, and a number of different genuine and bonded leathers of various colors.

Denver Seminary New Testament professor, Dr. William Klein, has a new book out from Navpress called Handbook for Personal Bible Study that looks really great.  

Also, if you haven't heard of Christians at the Border yet, you need to read it.  It's written by Denver Seminary's M. Daniel Carroll R. and it's published by Baker.  Dr. Carroll is Guatemalan-American, and he has a unique perspective on the immigration issue that's both timely and biblical.

Finally, I'll mention Timothy Keller's new book, The Prodigal God, published by Dutton, which will be available in Octobor (Keller's recent book, The Reason for God, was fantastic).