Tag archives for Reviews

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By | Published 07/07/2010

This is one of those films that I end up watching because of its popularity and then after watching, I’m unsure how to proceed having seen it. Do you talk about a Not Rated film with Christian friends and unavoidably stir up their interest in a movie the content of which you want to distance yourself from?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is graphic to be sure. (When I mentioned the title to my wife, she asked if it was a porno! No, it’s not.) The basic story is that of a journalist who in the months before he has to fulfill a prison sentence is hired by a ritzy tycoon to track down his long disappeared neice. The journalist gets help from a mentally-troubled goth computer hacker who plays host to an enormous dragon tattoo on her back, which you wouldn’t see except for a sex scene. Overall, the film even at 2:26 is an absolute thriller of a mystery that will easily end up being the shortest longest film you’ve seen, if you decide to see it.

I read this week that the most important philosophical question to ask when watching a movie, according to the author of a new book called Meaning at the Movies, is

What is the overall view of the nature of man presented by the film as seen by a reasonably perceptive viewer? This can largely be determined by considering plot, characterization, and the tone or mood of the film.

Reasonably perceptive, eh? Well, it doesn’t take much to gather that the view of man in this movie is total depravity. You could even take total depravity in the oft misunderstood sense of “as evil as can be” and still be on target. But this is the view of men in the film. Women are almost exclusively portrayed as the helpless victims of horendous abuses while the girl with the dragon tattoo is the defiant female taking charge. In fact, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is only the name of the novel/film in English. The original Swedish title is Man som hatar kvinnor (“Men Who Hate Women”). The film indeed highlights misogyny at its worst.

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Book Review: Radical by David Platt

By | Published 04/07/2010

You’ve seen books like this before. Shane Claiborne has written about it in The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. More recently Francis Chan wrote about it in Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. These books and now David Platt in Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream all point out that something is amiss in much of the way people who bear the name “Christian” live their lives. Revolution is needed. Crazy love is needed. Radical faith is needed. And I agree.

But Platt’s Radical is more of the same. There is the usual litany of Christian heroes who went all out for God: William Carey, Elisabeth Elliot, George Mueller, John Wesley, David Brainerd, among others. And there are also mini biographies of the author’s own congregants and acquaintances who lived radically. This all shows us what we already knew: that people do manage to live radical lives for Jesus. This we know. The problem, however,  is that we’re complacent, disobedient, and seduction-prone followers of Jesus, and some of us know that this ought not be. Others, don’t mind or care; thus, complacency. But, what Platt would hope to accomplish with his book is a radicalizing of the reader’s faith that would push him past complacency and into active, unwavering, sacrificial obedience to Jesus. And while I don’t think Platt quite gets us there, I think he nudges us in the right direction.

If you actually worked it out, you’d probably find that roughly half the book is made up of personal anecdote and well-known Christian tales of heroic faith. This isn’t all bad as there’s a lot of inspiration to be found in these stories. But if you’ve done much reading or spent much time in Christian circles, I bet you’ll be familiar with many of the tales, which at least for me, this familiarity diminishes their power. Again, the problem isn’t that we don’t already know that people live radically. We’ve heard the stories. The problem is that we have a battle within us to do it ourselves, if we’re at least cognizant of Jesus’ demand on our lives. The problem is we’re just not sure if living radically is for us. For me. Platt is helpful on this point. He shows that if we claim to be Jesus’ followers, radical living is for us. It’s what we signed up for and exactly what Jesus demands. It’s time we read about Jesus in the Scriptures instead of crafting our own that fits well with the American dream. Platt’s convinced that “we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe” (p. 3).

In all the personal stories Platt shares, I’m struck by the sheer number of mission trips this man has taken. It sounds like the man has been to every continent. The back of the book touts this gospel-centered wanderlust to bolster his credentials, but I’m not so awed. I don’t know the details of his trips, but painting them positive with “a passion for the nations” while calling for radical living that eschews extravagance and calls for sacrificial living/giving strikes me as as bit backwards. One need only consult the incredibly enlightening When Helping Hurts to see that short-term mission trips aren’t all they’re packaged to be.

Perhaps the most helpful portion of the book is the concluding chapter in which Platt outlines a plan for radicalizing your faith to leave behind the gospel-opposed cravings of the American dream. There are five parts to the yearlong “radical experiment.” Pray for the entire world. Read your Bible through. Sacrifice money for a specific purpose. Spend time in another context. And commit to a multiplying community. These steps are great and I really think anyone who gives this experiment a go will be blessed. I mean how could you not expect to be a more radical follower of Christ by praying with a global scope, saturating yourself in his word, sacrificing (not just giving), spending time where you normally wouldn’t and planting yourself in a church where disciples are made? You will grow and be blessed. Also, the best part about these steps is that they are exactly what we are commanded to do anyways. Platt isn’t telling us anything new. It may be a new idea to you–an experiment–but Platt recognizes that this is just how we who claim to be Christ’s followers are to live. Radically.

Should you read this book? Well, have you read the two I mentioned above or others like them? If so, I’d say no. Don’t be dazzled by the endorsements. You already know what to do. So, do it. Try out Platt’s radical experiment and do it. But, if this all seems new to you (radical faith in Jesus that is), then you should give this a read. It won’t take long and Platt really makes sure you realize that God and his gospel are central to the Christian life.

Update

I think there is some valuable criticism of the individualism the book propounds in this review.

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Book Review: In the Beginning Was the Word

By | Published 03/04/2010

There are very few books that I look forward to reading. I mean really look forward to, like the way a tweenie looks forward to the next Twilight. Though not so much interested in adolescent vampire fiction there was one book published at the end of last year that I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into: Vern Poythress’ In the Beginning Was the Word: A God-Centered Approach to Language. (You can grab a free PDF of the entire book through Poythress’ site.)

Having come through the undergraduate linguistics program of a state school I can tell you that the last thing you’re going to hear in any linguistics classroom is a God-centered approach to language. The only mention of God you’re likely to hear is a confused reference to Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel. Linguistics is very much a natural science.

This is why I greatly anticipated Poythress’ work. If well-done, this book could be a valuable contribution to the field of linguistics and give voice to an alternative viewpoint that’s all too often not even considered. A God-centered approach to language makes sense given that the universe itself is God-centered, something most Christians will willingly concede over against a strictly naturalistic cosmology. Also, there’s a certain apologetic force to a God-centered approach to language that could really put a pebble in the shoe of the relatively unchallenged notion that language is the happy result of evolutionary processes. Yes, there is something inexplicably preternatural about language that points to the triune God.

Poythress in In the Beginning Was the Word, however, fails to harness the full force of the sleeping beast on which he rides. All in all I was greatly disappointed by In the Beginning Was the Word and would be surprised to find it having a lasting impression on the field of linguistics outside of Christian circles and even within. We need a book like this, but we need it to do more, and to do it more convincingly.

In the Beginning Was the Word

First

First, I was disappointed that in the book Poythress fails to interact with contemporary linguists and linguistic theory, not merely because this is the kind of thing that good scholars do, but more so because I believe there’s much in contemporary linguistics that could be used to bolster support for Poythress’ argument that a divine origin of language has more explanatory power than the strictly naturalistic explanations that prevail today. It should go without saying that a book published today on language should interact with Chomskyian linguistics, especially a work that bears much in common with and could find much support from his nativist approach to language. Chomsky has been called a “closet creationist” for instance. Steven Pinker in his The Language Instinct has to go to some surprising lengths to try to convince his readers that universal grammar is still compatible with the theory of evolution and that people needn’t run hastily to God for answers. This seems like an appropriate place for someone like Poythress to step into the discussion and proffer God. Instead, In the Beginning Was the Word strips itself of much of its potential power by not taking a broader look at what a God-centered approach language entails. Poythress commendably reasons from the Scriptures but in only doing so he fails to employ all available arguments for a God-centered approach to language. So much more could be said that the book’s almost a frustrating read.

Second

Secondly, prior to reading I had in mind to offer the book as a giveaway at a linguistics meeting on campus I was planning and even possibly to send a copy to one of my old college linguistics professors. After reading, I felt uneasy doing so and thereby endorsing the book for the simple reason that the argumentation within is incredibly weak. For example, consider the analogies Poythress attempts to draw between language and the triune God in order to establish the thesis that a biblically-faithful approach to language will start with communication between the persons of the trinity:

Let us now focus on the character of the rules of language. They reveal God in some striking ways.

First, the rules of English hold wherever English is spoken…Spoken English, and human knowledge of English, are not omnipresent. But the rules are.1

In the above language is thought to reveal God on the following logic: God is omnipresent. Rules of language can be thought of as omnipresent. Rules of language therefore reveal God. I don’t find this as striking as the author does. It could be argued on this thinking that whatever is omnipresent “reveals God.” Seems like a stretch to me.

The author continues this way showing rules of language to be omnipresent, eternal, immutable, invisible (“We do not literally see the rule that ‘moved’ is the past tense of ‘move.’ We see and hear only the effects of the rule on our use of language. The rule is essentially immaterial and invisible . . . Likewise, God is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through his acts in the world.”2), truthful (“Real rules, as opposed to linguists’ approximations of them, are also absolutely, infallibly true. Truthfulness is also an attribute of God.”3), powerful, immanent and transcendent, rational, good, and beautiful.

Then watch his conclusion to this chapter:

“Rules for language are a form of the word of God. So they reflect the Trinitarian statement of John 1:1, which identifies the second person of the Trinity as the eternal Word. . . .

Man is made in the image of God, and so his language is in the image of God. And so his language reflects the Trinitarian pattern.”4

I find this argument very unsatisfying for two reasons: (1) again it seems like a stretch and (2) so what? What’s the importance? It seems to me to belabor the thesis to multiple evidences by stretching analogies. The thesis is straightforward enough that in my mind little is gained by the above evidences.

Third

Third, I have a very hard time swallowing many basic statements in the book that attribute to God everything from etymology to grammar to the correspondence between the signified (a dog) and the signifier (“dog”). Are we only able to trust language if we endow words with a logical, God-established connection to the thing for which they stand? I think not. Again, I see little gained when Poythress asserts that God has designed the contemporary English word “dog” to represent perfectly the idea of a dog. I see no need to be this specific in a God-centered approach to language, especially on a matter on which we cannot be certain (regardless of the view of divine providence one subscribes to). I see no damage done to a God-centered approach to language by granting the abstract relationship between words and concepts.

Additionally, denying the abstract relationship between what we call a dog and the English word “dog” flies in the face of every and any linguistics book you’re likely to come across. Fair enough they are not working from a God-centered approach to language, but I’ve yet to come across any linguist finding rational links between signifier and signified (the small number of onomatopoeia excepted of course), something one would expect if indeed God has linked them together on rational grounds. Therein would lie great apologetic force if such a link could be observed. We must, however, look elsewhere for hints of God in language.

Fourth

Seventy-five percent of the book is only tangentially related to language or linguistics. Of the six parts, the book could conceivably be condensed down to the first section (pp. 1-78), the sixth section (pp. 289-297) and the appendices. The rest is largely unnecessary, especially part two.

Conclusion

I hope I have not been too harsh in offering my thoughts on In the Beginning Was the Word. If I am wrong or misinformed or misguided on any of the above, I will gladly and humbly lend my ear to the many whose understanding on the subject surpasses my own. As I have not come across any reviews of the work I hoped to present my thoughts in order to offer some follow up to the hype the book enjoyed in the weeks leading up to its publication. Finally, if I come across as harsh, it’s only because I had high expectations for this work.

Call for Review

In the interest of fairness I want to do something a bit different. If you are a linguist and have not read In the Beginning Was the Word and would like to read it and review it, I will send you my copy for free. You must only agree to read it, review it, and have your review published on my blog. Easy enough, right? But, if you’re a linguist and you’ve already read it, I’m still interested in your thoughts and/or review, although nothing free for you.

Footnotes

  1. Vern Sheridan Poythress, In the Beginning Was the Word: A God-Centered Approach to Language (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), 64-65. ↩
  2. Ibid., 68. ↩
  3. Ibid., 69. ↩
  4. Ibid., 77. ↩
Posted in Language, Theology | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Book Review: Can God Be Trusted?

By | Published 12/01/2009

9780446515009_388X586The publisher of Thomas D. Williams’ Can God Be Trusted? Finding Faith in Troubled Times sent me an early review copy of the book. I finally read through it today and now offer the following thoughts for anyone who might be interested. This review may be slightly peculiar in that I’m going to offer my thoughts on the actual book’s appearance and then simply list pros and cons of the content and appearance. It’ll be fun. Read on.

First Impression

The cover design is very unassuming. The background’s empty. Just white. Title at the top like you’d expect. A splash of red gives the subtitle and then the author’s name at the bottom. There’s nothing about the cover of this book that’s going to grab your attention. It’s all about the (scandalous?) title for this one. Why God in the title is over- and underlined is beyond me, which isn’t to minimize the importance of God by any means. I do find it quite tacky when author’s feel the need to append the title of their degree(s) to their name on the front cover. Nobody cares that you have a ThD. In fact, most readers probably think it’s a knock off a PhD anyways. There’s no reason for an author to include their degree(s) near their name on a book. Make a reputation for yourself by writing something worth reading and then we may check to see where you went to school and what degree you got, if we feel like it.

The book has no index. If you’re going to take the time to write a book worth anyone’s consultation, take the time to prepare or have prepared an index. Please.  The back cover gives no endorsements which to me is only of minimal importance.  I do appreciate a short bio of the author on the back of a book. That, however, is lacking here.

Cons

  • No index
  • Cheesy inset quotes with borders (you know the kind)
  • ThD on cover
  • Uses myriad Bible translations throughout the book (eight in all). Makes me wonder if he simply selected translations that fit the interpretation he wanted the text to have. Makes me uneasy.
  • Borderline semi-pelagian at points (pp. 147-150).
  • Synergistic view of God and man in salvation. E.g., “It is no exaggeration to say that he [God] depends on our cooperation for our own salvation…” (p. 166).

Pros

  • Decent printing/typesetting/typography–what’s the best word?
  • Catching chapter titles. Flicking through the table of contents is interesting enough to continue reading.
  • Asks hard questions. For example, Chapter 9 “What To Do When God Lets You Down.”
  • Addresses practical concerns (pp. 88-92). Can I trust God if he doesn’t bring me a spouse or if my wife and I are unable to have children?
  • Quotes from a wide body of notable Christians including William Carey, Thomas Merton, Mother Theresa, St Augustine, C.S. Lewis and a pope or three among others.
  • Illustrates points well. The story of the teacup on pp. 99-100 is exemplary.
  • Not trite in the least. He lists God’s “nonpromises” to perhaps startle some readers out of a pet-god theology.

Who Should Read This?

Have you really struggled with trusting God and need practical pastoral guidance? If yes, read.

What Should I Read Instead?

John Piper’s Spectacular Sins, if you don’t mind a book that doesn’t pussyfoot (not that Williams does).

Can God Be Trusted?

Yes.

Overall Rating

6/10

Posted in Christianity | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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