MysteriousFaith

October 2004 Bookshelf

A not so hot review of what it means for America to return to its “glory days”, a powerful book by today’s leading New Testament theologian, several important books about how the West is perceived by the rest of the world, and a wonderful biography of Alexander Hamilton all sandwiched into October’s reading schedule.

October 2004 Bookshelf

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren

I have two good friends that are two of the three reasons I have held on to my Christian faith during some of the questions and struggles I have gone through recently. The third reason is Brian McLaren. Brian’s writing is piercing in its insight, specifically his ideas about what is really essential within Christianity, what the role of Christians is in the world, how to be a Christian and not be a rabid conservative right-winger, and how to be real in a sea of hypocrisy. This book deserves a wide audience; as McLaren’s reputation grows, I think this book will become a work more and more people will reflect upon as being the formulation of his core ideas and teachings.

Is God to Blame? by Gregory A. Boyd

As much as I would like to, I can not entirely recommend this book. It deals with the problem of evil in the world more honestly and candidly than most Christian authors do. Even Philip Yancey’s various books on evil and suffering struggle to be as honest in their dealing with evil and suffering as Gregory Boyd is within this book. Yancey functions still within the Augustinian framework that Boyd seeks to set aside, specifically the belief that God is in control of every minutia of our lives, including those bad things that happen to us. Augustinian thinking says that all of the details of this world’s existence fold into God’s greater plan. Boyd does not so much directly disagree with this as he suggests much more is out of control in this world than Augustinian thinking allows for. Perhaps a simple way of looking at Boyd’s thesis is that God’s overarching plan for history is His to control and is only known to Him; however, the details of our life, while God cares for these things, are wrapped up in the outworking of man’s free will. The book’s honesty appeals to me, although upon further reflection I have been unclear about the role he sees prayer having within our lives or exactly what I am appealing to God for in my moments of need. Perhaps Boyd would suggest I should be looking less to God to rescue me from the situation and more to give me the right spirit with which to handle the difficulties I find myself in. Our need to know God is in control is perhaps rightly seen by cynics as little more than the similar need to believe in an afterlife; the beliefs are reinforced more to placate our deeper fears than because of the deeper truths they can rightly illuminate. I think in time I will come to see that Boyd’s approach appeals more to me as it stresses my personal responsibility to assist in making the goals of the kingdom advance.

Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit

The authors make an effort in this book to present the reasons for why other countries and cultures dislike the West. They define Occidentalism as “the dehumanizing picture of the West painted by its enemies.” (page 4) Among other points, the authors illustrate how de Tocqueville’s initial observation that American’s fixation on commerce at the expense of noble ideas has become a broader problem than even he assumed. To Occidentalists, the lack of nobility has created a shallow, one-dimensional existence for Westerners: “To be equipped with the mind of the West is like being an idiot savant, mentally defective but with a special gift for making arithmetic calculations. It is a mind without a soul, efficient, like a calculator, but hopeless at doing what is humanly important. The mind of the West is capable of great economic success, to be sure, and of developing and promoting advanced technology, but cannot grasp the higher things in life, for it lacks spirituality and understanding of human suffering.” (page 75) Occidentalists are guilty of the same broad generalizations concerning Americans that many Americans are in their view of foreign cultures. Is America a soulless place? Are we infatuated with economic success at the expense of meaningful life? Perhaps we will find out when these things are gone if we held them as central to our cultural identity.

Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard Rubenstein

Rubenstein’s treatment of the development of the Western church’s philosophical development is superb. I particularly enjoyed his presentation of Peter Abelard’s work. Abelard was not labeled by the church as a heretic, but he did deeply challenge the church - perhaps in a way thinkers like Campolo and McLaren are doing now. Abelard wrote his most famous book Sic et Non. In this work, Abelard took 158 conflicting statements made by the church fathers and presented them in a format designed to stimulate his students’ critical thinking skills. I look forward to reading Sic et Non and learning more about Abelard’s approaches. I also look forward to the next book by Rubenstein; Aristotle’s Children was highly rewarding.

Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians by Baruch Kimmerling

Kimmerling’s treatment of Sharon’s history of violence against the Palestinians and his history of policies of politicide against them is a reasonably balanced perspective on current Israeli policies. Kimmerling defines politicide as “a process that has, as its ultimate goal, the dissolution of the Palestinians’ existence as a legitimate social, political, and economic entity.” (pages 3-4) Kimmerling’s treatment of Sharon is harsh, and perhaps rightfully so. I hope that Sharon’s recent moves to withdraw Israeli forces and settlers from Gaza is indicative of political pressure being brought to bear against Sharon within Israel.

Hard America Soft America by Michael Barone

As sweeping generalities go, this book ranks high in its attempt to use ambiguities as a replacement for specifics. In essence the book argues for the pre-eminence and necessity of being “hard” in order for America to be great. Michael Barone, former editor of U.S. News and World Report bounces around from topic to topic, settling on various issues long enough to throw out simple analyses that justifies the importance of being hard in the face of being “soft.” The reader may interject the terms “conservative” for “hard” and “liberal” for “soft.” I disagree with his generalities: the issue is two-fold when determining the best policy. The first issue is to find balance between the opposition. Few ideologies taken to an extreme are valuable. The Confucian ideal of finding the value in the middle of two ideas at odds with one another is valuable in an increasingly polarized world. The second issue is to actually go out on a limb and suggest that a specific ideological approach has value in certain situations; as these fluid situations change so must our ideologies. Nothing that exists in stasis, even religion, will survive without adaptation and change.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Greene’s Quiet American served as my fiction of the month. I was challenged in reading this book to think about how America’s best of intentions are often times poorly received in the parts of the world we intend to help. Greene’s book is echoed in part by Niall Ferguson’s Collosus, a book that argues that the idea of American empire is slightly unrealistic given the fact that Americans are unwilling to relocate and get dirty in the same way Englishmen were. The act of colonialism is not compatible with American culture, a fact Greene explores in this wonderful fictional work.

Chain of Command: From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib by Seymour Hersh

At the moment, the books available on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq are overwhelming. Out of the long list of books I have read about these topics, Hersh’s book is one I would highly recommend. Hersh’s book was assigned significance because of its treatment of Abu Ghraib; however, I found his treatment of the two-faced nature of the Bush administration’s handling of serious problems in the Pakistani intelligence service and the relationship these problems have had to ongoing nuclear proliferation the most damning portion of the book. Hersh’s insight into the mind of the President haunts me: “There are many who believe George Bush is a liar, a President who knowingly and deliberately twists facts for political gain. But lying would indicate an understanding of what is desired, what is possible, and how best to get there. A more plausible explanation is that words have no meaning for this President beyond the immediate moment, and so he believes that his mere utterance of the phrases makes them real. It is a terrifying possibility.” (page 367)

The New Testament and the People of God: Volume 1 by N.T. Wright

This was my first exposure to N.T. Wright’s work. The master New Testament theologian of our age, his three volume series on the New Testament are already being hailed as historical advances in our understanding of the Gospels and the broader parts of the New Testament gospel. How ironic that a NT scholar would be named NT! This first book serves as a baseline by which his future volumes build upon. In this first volume he develops the idea of story being the framework within which we should view the New Testament. He does this in no way to argue that it is mythology, but rather to understand what we hold as Holy Scripture was the story of the people of that age, set in their culture, bound to their limited understanding of the world. I will be quite curious to see where his teaching takes him in dealing with the development of the Church, the historicity and divinity of Christ, and the development of Christian creeds.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

I will cherish this book for the rest of my life. While America is wrapped up in a rarely insightful discussion about the role of Islam in our fight against terrorism, Azar Nafisi’s book is the ultimate human insight into the life of an average person in the Ayatollah’s Iran. Nafisi’s love of literature binds her together with other Iranian women who are similarly seeking the smallest way of expressing themselves, of being fully human. For many readers literature serves to create an auxiliary world where we can disappear into. These women found the best literature, and it brought out the best in them; not political dissent but simply in how it allowed them to be fully themselves.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

This is a wonderful if not very lengthy (700+ pages) on the life of Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps more than any other member of the Founding Fathers, Hamilton is responsible for our central banking system, and our strong system of federal powers. Hamilton fought for the ideal of a federal power that brought the good of centralized power to the benefit of states and municipalities. I deeply appreciated Hamilton’s tendency to be a life-long autodidact - a characteristic I have as well.

The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity by Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Too many Christians fall into the trap of believing their own press when it comes to other religions. Having a dialogue with other faiths is much harder, particularly on your own beliefs, when you set aside your own “experts” and entertain the beliefs of others from within their own community. I think this is the heart of real dialogue. For American Christians, Nasr’s book is a must-read if you wish to have the slightest insight into what Islam is really about. I found much to build on with Muslims and look forward to learning more about this faith.

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• November 2, 2004

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