December 2003 Bookshelf
How the Irish Saved Civilization, Gulag, Raised in Captivity, This Way to the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen, UnGodly, In Cold Blood, Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, Counterfeit Revival and others in the December 2003 Bookshelf.
How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill
Cahill presents an interesting argument about the role Irish religion played in ensuring that key manuscripts were preserved during the fall of the Roman Empire. As the Germanic hordes invaded and sacked Rome, the natural migration of academia to new Roman satellites, Ireland being one of them, became increasingly important because these satellites many times became the only remaining repositories of knowledge. The Roman libraries, schools and universities were destroyed as the barbarians began to expunge the Roman society of those accoutrements they associated with the Roman way of life.
Cahill also talks about the pragmatic ways in which the Irish adopted Christianity - in ways that are entirely Irish and wonderfully unique. The Irish people took on the mantel of Christianity, but did so in a way that was earthy, practical and culturally unique. The chapter when Cahill discusses St. Patrick made the book for me. Being Irish I naturally loved this book!
Since a trip to Moldova in August of 2003, I have been reading quite a bit of Russian history. As a part of this study, I have introduced myself to the work of a number of people who lived through their own experience within the Soviet gulag, as well as academics who have studied the Soviet gulag system. Anne Applebaum’s book is an easy to read analysis of the gulag system in its entirety. The book is an excellent resource for a student attempting to understand the structure to the gulag camps, the intra-camp political systems, the types of punishment, and the camp cultures that developed. At times the book weaves into the more academic survey of the gulag system sets of stories that remind us of the pain and suffering of the prisoners. While a thorough academic review, this book also is personal, intimate and descriptive, as any meaningful reflection on the Soviet system of imprisonment should be.
Raised in Captivity by C. McNair Wilson
I was recommended this book by a Christian author I had the good fortune of meeting on a flight from Indianapolis to Chicago. The book is autobiographical in scope and is written from a whimsical perspective. I enjoyed portions of the book, but found it slightly difficult to fully appreciate how he could describe his adolescence as being raised in captivity. He knew a type of freedom within the various churches his family gathered at and the parochial schools he attended. For most of us who were raised in fundamentalist parochial school, this story comes well short of our experiences! Most of us would find his upbringing as having a lot of personal liberty we never enjoyed. What I did not understand in reading the book was how his parents. He describes them as being quite nurturing and open minded. They come across as being free-thinkers who encouraged he and his siblings to think outside the typical fundamentalist box; and yet for all this free thinking, they “raised [him] in captivity.” I can’t say I understand this - it seems unnecessarily paradoxical.
This Way to the Gas, Ladies & Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski
This short book, a collection of short stories from a survivor of Auschwitz is haunting. The author seems to have lost his ability to paint a world in color with his words, but still artfully paints with the only colors he has been left with. The world he knows now, even liberated from his captivity by the Nazis, is still gray. While freedom is sweet, he can not reconcile why he lived and so many others had to die. Was it simply to tell this story? Such a statement seems to trivialize the loss of life, the agony, the brutal murder that occurred with such repetitious machine-like efficiency as to make even survival seem like death. And Tadeusz Borowski would see his survival, that which they all longed for, become the one thing he could not live with. In the singular aloneness of his mind, he could never understand why such atrocities had to happen, why he had to witness them, and what his survival must mean. These questions led him to end his own life before his 30th birthday - a sad survivor who knew that surviving did not mean you had not tasted death.
Ungodly: The Women Who Ended School Prayer in America by Ted Dracos
I picked this book up after Christmas. It chronicles the rise and death of one of the more vocal proponents of atheism - Madalyn Murray O’Hair.Written by a reporter, this book at times seemed to go to far in its discussion of the motives of O’Hair. Where a description of a situation would have sufficed, Dracos seems to go too far. He is willing to label her a bad person very early on in the book, and then continue supporting his arguments. Where her lifestyle of reckless financial excesses would speak for itself, he seems to cross a journalistic line in describing what such excesses say about her motives. The story is sad, in particular the ending as she and her family are brutally murdered. But throughout the story I was saddened at reading how supposed Christians reinforced her negative view of spirituality by doing such things as soiling a piece of paper upon which a nasty letter had been written, then sending it to her. I do not agree with much of what she said and much of how she lived her life; however, I also know from my own time as a wandering atheist that much of what motivates unbelief are responses to hypocrisy.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
This book seemed almost quaint to a mind of the early 21st century. Capote’s language skills coupled with his ability to weave a story together simply and beautifully will always be appreciated. What is missing in this book is the shock his original audience must have felt in reading of the brutal murder in Holcomb, Kansas he writes about. Our world is comfortable with such tales, hearing them and seeing them regularly on our nightly news (if it bleeds it leads). While his craft at telling a story has not diminished, he seems to write with the knowledge that his readers will end each chapter stupefied that such actions could be committed. Today’s reader has no such illusion. As such, the book loses some of its original impact.
Such a profound topic - the view of today’s church in relation to apostolic tradition (the early church) - can not be dealt with seriously in 167 pages. Out of 19 chapters, 8 of them deal with specific points of discussion related to relevant topics specific to the issue of comparison and contrast. The balance of the book is used to support why the church was corrupted, how it was corrupted, and what we must do to return to the original teachings of the church. Not all of what Bercot argues is wrong; rather, what is right needs to be more fully developed and supported. Interested in knowing how the apostolic fathers would judge today’s church? Read them for yourself - you will be able to draw your own mortal conclusions.
Counterfeit Revival by Hank Hanegraaff
This book was a Christmas gift. I looked forward to it, hoping it would shed new light on the word of faith movement. It seemed at best allegorical and at worst anecdotal. I enjoyed Hanegraaff’s Christianity In Crisis but found Counterfeit Revival to be lacking in additional insight. It has many stories and much to shake your head over, but is not to the standard of his other works on the word of faith movement. Buy Christianity In Crisis and add that to your library, skip this book.
Before Jerusalem Fell by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
In working through my own views on eschatology, it has become obvious that dating the book of Revelation is a crucial part of the debate between dispensationalists and partial preterists. The partial preterist claims are incredibly strengthened by an ability to prove that the book of Revelation was written prior to A.D. 70 - the date that Jerusalem was laid siege to by the Romans and the Jewish temple was destroyed. Frankly, to take a strong position on the date of Revelation would require me to be a scholar - and I am not one. Much of Gentry’s claim is based on being able to prove that Iraneaus’ statements do not require a post-A.D. 70 dating of Revelation. I can not assess the validity of the argument. I will be comfortable recognizing that within the real of Christian belief, this is an area where charity would be well used by those of dissenting positions. Believe in the eschaton, but give up your need to be right.
A well written book about a Korean family who was sent to the Korean gulag system. This family had emigrated to Japan prior to World War II and had enjoyed quite a bit of commercial success, building several successful businesses in Japan. When the communists took power in North Korea, they began pushing to have their expatriates move back into North Korea. Chol-Hwan’s family fell for this ruse - agreeing to move back to the North Korean peninsula. The family, especially the mother - a connected member of the ruling party and a part of the intelligentsia, felt that moving back was a step towards fulfilling the social ideals and equality socialism promised. She was proven sadly and terribly wrong. What a lesson to those of us who can intellectualize too many things. The need to govern and to reasonably discern what may come of a new way of thinking needs to be brought into academic prognosticating. Chol-Hwan would ultimately escape the gulag in North Korea, and make his way to freedom. He now lives in Seoul, South Korea as a writer and activist.
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
This book was everything and more I could have hoped for. It is a well written story of the odyssey of a man attempting to reconcile his world with his faith. The more humorous parts of this book are of a young man, certainly a gifted teacher and writer, attempting to reconcile his faith with certain practitioners of Christianity - what I have heard one person describe as the “fightin’ fundies.” The willingness to live his faith and to entertain mystery in his beliefs drew me to this book and will no doubt draw me to his others as well.
I needed some mind candy during vacation time over Christmas - this book was right on. It is typical modern-day fictional story in terms of the story line, character development, pace and content. What is unique, and what is creating the controversy over Dan Brown’s writing The Da Vinci Code, is that his stories are set within the Catholic Church. Some of the dialogue from the camerlengo (the priest who holds the responsibilities of the deceased Pope until the Cardinals elect a new Pope) about the role of the church in post-modernity is extremely insightful and very well written. I enjoyed this book as I did his more recent and explosive Da Vinci Code. Angels & Demons stops short of the questions as to the canon of Scripture or the historicity of Christ, and so perhaps is a better place for certain readers to begin.
Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich
This book bothered me, and rightfully so. Ehrenreich gives up all of the financial freedom and resources she has built during her successful journalism career to live on minimum wage in an attempt to understand what such a pay scale means. What she finds is not pretty: today’s minimum wage is not a living wage. If you, like myself, have a well paying white collar job, we can not appreciate the struggle for existence that minimum wage earners must go through daily. The challenge is in not putting this book on a shelf and letting shock turn to knowledge, but rather to action. How will this book impact me? I hope in what I ask for from my job, and from where I see others winning financially before I do.
previous post: Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative
next post: January 2004 Bookshelf
Leave a Reply
About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
Themes
Now Reading
Search
Favorites
Personal Writing
Theology
Categories
Meta Data