kata Drew

By far the most comprehensive review and treatment of The Shack is that of Tim Challies. He’s got it in a professional looking PDF which is designed better than most Christian books for crying out loud. I would almost recommend just reading his little PDF rather than actually reading the book, but I think the book is helpful on several counts. But, in a pinch, read the PDF.

I don’t really wish to combat the theology of The Shack, and believe me this novel is heavily theological, but I would like to encourage one thing: caveat lector. Why should the reader beware?

Caveat Lector

The biggest problem I see with reading The Shack and really divesting oneself in the story is that the theology of The Shack will find its way into your theology surreptitiously. In other words, the danger is that your view of God will become that of The Shack. God is not Sarayu (the name adopted by the Holy Spirit meaning “wind” in Sanskrit). God the Father is not a buxom black lady.

But, you might say, that surely this critique could leveled against any book, that one musn’t allow the view of God presented in that book to become their view of God. The difference, however, is that the God presented in The Shack is not built explicitly and solely from Scripture, but is born out of one man’s experience.

…ordering one of my required textbooks for a seminary class from a popular online retailer, I notice that the first line of the book is the following:

“I did not plan to be a heretic. It just happened.”

Great! Let’s go Fall 2008: The Year Seminarians Become Heretics Unawares.

I’ve finally finished Tim Keller’s The Reason for God and I only say “finally” because I’ve had 10ish pages to read for the past week or so which is not only annoying but embarassing. I found the book very helpful especially the attitude and grace with which Keller approaches the issues many in his New York context find most difficult to deal with when thinking about Christianity (e.g., exclusivist claims).

Keller’s use of endnotes has led me on a quest to follow up some of the referenced material for further reading on topics of interest. Of particular interest was his reference to Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, a book which I have since and currently checked out of the library. It speaks of the formation of identity based on excluding others and the need (read: Christian imperative) for reconciliation. This might be one that I just skim read to catch the gist of and survey for quotables.

On a slightly differerent note, I have categorized this post in the Reasons to Read section simply to point out the trail of further reading which footnotes can provide for the reader. The mention of Volf’s book above is exemplary. In reading The Reason for God I was intriqued by the thoughts of Volf which were being incorporated into Keller’s book and decided to look into them in more depth and ad fontes. The reason for reading here given then is that books are connected and one will lead you to another and seemingly ad infinitum. (OK, I’ve just ended two sentences in a row with Latin phrases. Anyways…) It would go like this: Read Keller’s The Reason for God. Find out about Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace. Read it and find out about blah blah blah, etc (et cetera? I’ve done it again). Maybe this is how you read books already or find what to read after you finish the book you’re currently reading, but the idea just kind of dawned on me while constantly flipping to the back of Keller’s book to take in the endnotes.

I was even thinking that it would be neat to set up a web site where people could see connections between books and get ideas on what to read after what. This could be computer-generated based on footnotes/references or user-submitted. But then again maybe it’s best to leave it up to the reader’s fancy to string books together which help maintain an interest in reading altogether instead of easing a reader into a rut. Rut notwithstanding, I reckon it could be a useful tool. So, let me make the first suggestion(s): check out Exclusion and Embrace after reading The Reason for God; other options include: Mere Christianity (Lewis) or Simply Christian (Wright), both of which are repeatedly referenced by Keller.

How do you figure out what to read after what? Can books be strung together?

I had my ESV opened this morning and sitting to the left of my laptop while finishing up some homework for my summer Old Testament II class. At one point I picked it up to get a better look and then set it back down. Upon setting it down, it began dancing as I happened to capture in the video below. To be honest I was considerably spooked out. I quickly grabbed my cell phone to record the action.

This may be silly but what immediately came to mind were the innumerable accounts of supernatural happenings in the middle ages. I, however, unlike a scribe of yesteryear, had the means and technology to record my preternatural experience. I could go to class this morning and share with a classmate my dancing, pneuma-filled ESV and prove it with a video, whereas a scribe in the 13th century going to class (or wherever a scribe would go to hang out with his buddies) after experiencing something like I did, would have to rely on his integrity as a truth-teller alone to gain an audience. You can imagine a scribe going to Haplography 102 and reporting his morning supernatural experience to his friends, the conversation being overheard by the class historian, and the account of a dancing scroll finding its way into the annals of Christian history as a mighty act of the pneuma of God. You can imagine it, right?

Well, unfortunately, I have to report that my dancing, pneuma-filled ESV has a natural explanation: the side fan from my laptop. Check it out (sorry so small; it’s my phone’s camera):

I hope to get one of these beauties and review it in the very near future. Thanks, Between Two Worlds. Watch this spot, or not and just check back.

Having just finished The Kite Runner, parallels between it and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which I just finished listening to a BBC radio dramatization of, come to mind.

In The Kite Runner (2003) the reader along with the protagonist, Amir, eventually finds out that the household servant boy, Hassan, is not merely a servant of a lower class, but actually a half-brother. It turns out that his father (Baba) has led a somewhat seedy sexual life, climaxing with the impregnation of a disreputable woman, the offspring of which relationship is taken in not by the father himself (for that would be shameful and everyone would know the father had been promiscuous), but taken in by the older, male household servant (Ali) who likewise has a tainted reputation as the village idiot. The father is then able keep his illegitimate son in close proximity while keeping the scorn of having such a child at a distant. Ultimately in the novel who finds his death within the pages is the bastard and the father.

The Brother Karamazov (1880) shows similiar details. The reader finds out that it was indeed a Karamazov who killed their father, Fyodor Pavlovich, though none of the known brothers, but the half-brother who was born of licentiousness relationship between the father and a mute street woman. Smerdyakov of offspring of which relationship, like Hassan, though being a son did not enjoy the benefits thereof because of the disrepute of his birth to an ignoble woman. He was taken in rather as a servant in the household by an older, male household servant. Ultimately in the story who finds his death within the pages is the bastard (suicide) and the father (murdered).

The BBC radio dramatization has been a nice introduction to The Brothers Karamazov, but judging by what I read elsewhere on the Internet of the plot and story they cut quite a bit out. I guess I’ll have to read the book next. Amazing story. Why haven’t they done a modern cinematic version?

Today we received our ninth phone book. (I just counted how many we have stowed in the cupboard.) One month sees a new phone book and accompanying directory from Company X. Company Y then sees the competition and steps it up a notch offering their new phone book and accompanying not-so-desideratum. Every time there’s a new clunky, 1,000 paged tome waiting by our door I shake my inner head, sigh and ask myself, “Who still uses these?” Why would I flip through hundreds of pages in a fluorescent book to not find in minutes what I can find in seconds via Google without requiring the death and binding of trees? That thing is the last place I would go for any info whatsoever. However, those things are the first place I go for kindling for our outdoor fire pit. So, I end with a plea to the phone companies who are passing out massive, useless books, wasting paper and generally peeving the public by perpetuating their “competitive” practice: stop! Pass out copies of Grudem’s Systematic Theology instead. Please.

I just literally minutes ago finished reading Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The book is one of the many reasons why I read: time/space travel. In this novel, you are transported to Afghanistan before and after several coups and government take-overs in the volatile land. It feels so foreign, but yet so enchanting. One could object, like Augustine, that we shouldn’t allow ourselves, our emotions, to be so easily swayed by something we know is only a fictional novel; but knowing the sinful heart of man and the cry for justice and restoration within everyone, the novel rings true; knowing that such events as unfold in the novel are not too far removed, unfortunately, from reality, the novel makes me long for Afghanistan to be safe and stable and without oppression and faction and strife and rape and orphans and injustice. Would that Christ would come and heal the broken land and draw men and women and children to himself. For he himself is our peace. This book will give you a heart for Afghanistan, peoples in need of the gospel.

Can someone recommend a book for children (age 9-12) that seem keen on learning about the reasonableness of faith in God and the firm foundation laid therefor in his excellent word? This is the reason why.

This dude, Bill Donohue (president of the Catholic anti-defamation squad, the Catholic League and possibly brother to Phil? I just made that up)–he seems really fired up over the The Golden Compass which opens in about a week’s time. Peep:

Source: http://catholicleague.org/videos/
HT and further reading: Ben Witherington