Writing Theology Well - A Review

I’m deep in the throes of dissertation writing. This means that a volume like Lucretia Yaghjian’s Writing Theology Well: A Rhetoric for Theological and Biblical Writers is of great interest. I want to have a done dissertation most, but I want to have a good dissertation at the same time. Therefore, a book on theological writing that made it to a second edition seemed an excellent one to review.

Summary

The book consists of four parts. Yaghjian begins by discussing theological rhetoric. This includes considering the context of the writing, focusing on inquiry, reflection, and persuasion, and using tools of identification, correlation, suspicion and construction. Part Two deals with the task of research, documenting that research well, and some chapters on exegesis and hermeneutics. The third part emphasizes writing style, with a focus on discovering one’s voice and the use of analogy, metaphor, etc. This section also deals with some basics of sentence and paragraph construction and delves into the vital art of revision. The fourth section focuses on writing in “new contexts,” which goes from the writing of international students, to various forms of online writing.

Writing Theology Well is a volume that contains many of the basic elements of a writing guide. There are helpful guidelines and checklists for the revision process, some ideas about structuring arguments, and a healthy emphasis on writing techniques that aid clear communication. As a guide to writing, this volume has the necessary framework to be helpful.

The promise in a book like this is that it tailored specifically for a particular type of writing, namely, theological writing. As I transitioned from my undergrad in English to writing for a technical audience in nuclear power to taking seminary courses, there were often points of frustration where a tool that I had used in a previous life was no longer acceptable. For this reason Writing Theology Well held out the promise of a helpful tool that I could benefit from and that I’d recommend to others.

Analysis and Conclusion

My praise for Writing Theology Well will be somewhat limited. This volume will be most helpful in particular theological contexts. It would not have been very helpful at the conservative seminary that I attended for several reasons.

First, the book begins with an emphasis on writing a theological reflection paper well. That is certainly a noble pursuit, but in my decade of seminary (to date) I may have written three reflection papers. These were also not simply essays on my perspective on a doctrine or theological topic, but usually reflections on a book. For good or ill, assuming some continuity among conservative seminaries, there is little call for the sort of introspective reflection paper outlined here.

Second, the emphasis on embracing one’s context and not attempting to rise above it would not be helpful in a conservative seminary. The goal in most conservative seminaries is to get the students to experience theology outside of their own context, which is why there is a high value on research papers over reflection essays. This sometimes results in the prohibition of first person pronouns, which is at times a tedious requirement. However, forcing the student to write from outside of themselves is often helpful in breaking them out of the rut of their own experiences. None of my professors actually expected the students to attain objectivity, but we were all supposed to try. The focus on embracing context has positives, and perhaps a place later in theological education, but the emphasis on writing subjectively would not transfer well in conservative academia.

Third, most of the examples of writing for consideration were from feminist or other post-modern sources. This means that the reader has to try to get past the content of the theology (largely segregated from its supporting arguments), and the logical presuppositions of the excerpts, to try to get to the point of evaluating the style. Of course, I’m sure if the shoe were on the other foot, someone with another bias might have as much difficulty evaluating conservative sources. The trouble is that many of the passages that were supposed to show off the beauty of the prose were so skeptical toward traditional forms of Christianity that it would never matter how wonderful the writing was from. In that sense, this book misses the mark by failing to emphasize that the content is more important than the style, though style is certainly significant. At the same time, I thought some of the author’s comments on being faithful to the text in her discussion of hermeneutics was beneficial.

In the end, this is probably a very fine book for a particular context. Yaghjian puts the fundamentals of writing on display in a way that is consistent with the best “how-to” manuals. Her emphasis on planning, revising, and structure are right on the mark. This is a volume that many will probably find helpful for writing, but most likely not in more conservative contexts.

Writing Theology Well 2nd Edition: A Rhetoric for Theological and Biblical Writers

$29.95

By Lucretia B. Yaghjian

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume directly from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

How to Read the Bible - A Review

I often read books that I disagree with. It is necessary to read the intellectually challenging disagreement with scholars who oppose my view. This drives me to question whether my answer, their answer, or another might be right.

Recognizing that Harvey Cox is, at least from my conservative Evangelical position, a liberal scholar, I picked up his recent volume, How to Read the Bible with some interest and hope for a fruitful conversation.

This is a popular level book, written with few footnotes and more as a summary of Cox’s religious experience than as a means of engaging in serious debate. 

As such, Cox’s audience appears to be Christians who have not engaged with Scripture seriously and wonder what method the wise sage who has spent a long career proclaiming a version of progressive Christian theology from the respected halls of Harvard Divinity School might encourage them to use. It is, in reality, an apologetic for a liberal approach to Scripture from a post-modern liberal Christian. This statement is not meant in the pejorative (as the label liberal often is) but to clarify my understanding of the author’s actual intent, which is distinct from what he may have actually accomplished; according to his own hermeneutic, his accomplishment will be evaluated as something distinctly different based on the one who actually reads the volume.

Summary

How to Read the Bible is a layman’s book on hermeneutics. It has assumptions (often exposed, but seldom stated) and shows how to apply them to the text of the Bible.

After a personal introduction, which places the book in the context of Cox’s faith journey, there are ten chapters in the text. In them Cox walks through his method of reading of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Job, the prophets, two chapters on the Gospels (though one ignores John entirely), the Pauline Epistles, and Revelation. The tenth chapter is a summary of Cox’s hermeneutic, which is focused on a contemporary reading of the text. The book has a conclusion in which Cox answers the logical question that arises from his deconstruction of Scripture, namely, “Why should we read the Bible at all?”

Qualification

For Cox, this book is no doubt a very personal book; in fact, the first person pronoun and his own anecdotes prevent reading it any other way. He is explaining how he reads the Bible and gains some spiritual value from it. As such, it would be easy to turn these critiques into accusations against Cox’s faithfulness. That is not my goal. Cox no doubt holds the faith commitments that he has, which have some ties to historic Christianity, sincerely. This book helps to reveal what shape they have and why, but the book does not lead me to question the fact that he believes something about God that approximates a form of historic Christianity and is very personal to him.

Despite this personal nature of the book, he did publish it publicly, which means that it is fair game for analysis and critique. This is not a private expression of faith that, like a discovered diary, should be left alone until the author is deceased.

Assumptions

The logical question that arises from this text on how to read the Bible is why it should be read at all. This is a serious accusation that Cox seems to recognize at the end of the volume and begin to address, but, to my mind he fails.

Cox begins with the assumption that the Bible is solely a human book. In fact, given the option, it seems fairly clear that Cox recommends discarding the notion that any biblical data is factual. He allows that Jesus and Paul did exist, but nearly every other apparent factual claim in Scripture is best rejected at first blush. If some things in the Bible actually happen to correspond to historical truth, this is coincidental to the spiritual truth of Scripture and largely irrelevant.

Additionally, biblical scholarship that rejects traditional understandings of the text or modifies what the text seems to say about history are to be preferred over other scholarships. Throughout the volume, Cox consistently refers to his preferred group of scholars as “the best scholars” or “most scholars.”

In fact, one of the prevailing assumptions that seems to drive Cox’s hermeneutic and general approach to biblical studies is that anyone who accepts the prima facie reading of the Bible is intellectually deficient or ignorant.

For example, the hypothesis that has recently been published that presents a late domestication of camels is valuable explicitly because it undermines the historicity of Scripture and because “it require[s] one to move beyond a literalistic view of the Bible to a more mature comprehension.” (pg. 44) In other words, if only those that believe the Bible to be factually accurate would read the New York Times, which popularized the recent archaeological theory, they wouldn’t be so immature as to believe that Scripture was true. The problem is that the archaeologists conclusions were drawn from a limited data sample and appears to have been interpreted by the New York Times to maximize circulation with a controversial headline rather than critically interact with the study.

Similarly, just a few pages later, Cox discards the notion of the miracle of manna in Exodus by arguing, “The meaning of the ‘miracles’ of Exodus is that these people [i.e., the Israelites of the 7th century B.C.E who he believes wrote the Pentateuch] believe that it was through God’s grace and justice that they were escaping from slavery, and they told their story in their own idiom. Mature and imaginative students of the Bible try to get inside that worldview. They do not simply reject it as superstitious or recast it in terms of modern, if often improbable, scientific rationalizations.” (pg.47)

In other words, speaking from the enlightened cultural perspective of the 21st century, we can know with certainty that these miracles did not happen. This solves two problems simultaneously: (1) It eliminates the weird pseudo-scientific theories about how pre-scientific people may have misinterpreted natural phenomena; (2) It eliminates the need for believing in a God who can do miracles.

While I am thankful for the first result, the second result seems unnecessary unless one has accepted the reigning paradigm of naturalism, which allows for only regularity in the natural world. In other words, it requires that God, whatever that being is, does not interfere in history.

From the Pen of Skeptic

At times, Cox seems to be reading the text as a scoffer. He describes the account of the spies of Israel and Rahab as a “dinner-theater fluff piece” (pg. 69) Thus we should read the accounts of the conquest of Canaan much like school boys read Virgil’s Aeneid (pg 76); they're interesting and have some literary value, but certainly aren't true because, after all, a recent book argues that the entire Israelite history may be incorrect, since the Israelites were likely just Canaanites who banded together against their neighbors and created an elaborate nation-myth to justify their actions (pg 76). Since the Pentateuch is just political propaganda, Cox writes, “I do not believe it is necessary for current readers of the Bible to slog through all these grisly verses [about the reasons given by God for destroying the Canaanites.]” (pg. 74)

This brings back that pertinent question that came to my mind while I was reading this volume, why would you read it anyway? I’ll get back to that in a moment.

Cox continues his way through various representative genre’s of Scripture. Job is “explicitly ‘fictional’" (pg. 79); the prophets have meaning according to how modern revolutionaries decide to use them (though not in an absolutely unconditional sense) (pg. 105); the canonical gospels are merely a result of the winning political faction; the synoptic Gospels are a composite of factually erroneous interpretations of history written too far after the events they depict to be remotely accurate; Paul likely didn’t write most of the letters attributed to him and things we find ethically objectionable are either his misunderstandings or later textual additions; and Revelation can be nothing more than an inspiring poem by a political revolutionary.

It is fair to note that few of these assertions are supported in the text; but it is also important to realize that this is not a scholarly volume. Cox merely assumes the validity of scholarship built on the so-called Higher Critical methods and ignores conservative scholarship as immature or poor. This is an evidence of his bias, but should not be counted as a criticism against his method in this volume.

Again, I wonder, why bother reading it if nearly everything that it reports is questionable?

Spiritual Benefit

Cox believes that there is spiritual benefit in reading Scripture. He intimates this throughout. It can inspire the contemporary reader to pursue justice. This he makes clear in the Introduction, where he recounts the inspiration that African American civil rights activists found in the Exodus stories. While he sat bored in his cell (having been arrested during the same demonstration), the segregated African American detainees preached to each other from the account of Moses.

This reading and contemporary application, he notes, is in accordance with the “full-orbed holistic way I have termed ‘spiritual.’” (pg. 8) But it isn’t clear that such a reading is possible once the reader has rejected the factual content of Scripture as mere political fiction.

In other words, if the Bible is just a human book, with a great percentage of it written for political purposes, then why should it be trustworthy for spiritual readings? Why would one trust Scripture more than a contemporary novel for spiritual information?

Cox wrestles with this in part toward the end of the volume, “Why should I spend any time writing yet another book about this strange old collection? One answer is that the Bible helps us to know who God is, and for many people, perhaps most, that is enough. But there is another reason. The Bible also helps us heed the counsel of Socrates to ‘know thyself,’ and the wisdom of all the religious traditions teaches that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are inseparable.” (pg. 230)

Of these two reasons that Cox offers, it isn’t clear how the shreds of Scripture are helpful any longer in knowing God. He has taken pains to debunk the supernaturalness of God throughout the volume. Gone is the miracle-working God. Gone is the redemptive God that chose a people. Gone is the God that is holy and worthy of judging sin.

The second reason Cox presents is more true to what the tattered text of the Bible can do once it has been explained away by Cox’s “mature” hermeneutic. Once all of the parts of Scripture that conflict with the contemporary reader’s worldview are eliminate, what is left is a reflection of the individual from the ancient text. It isn’t clear why it would take over two hundred pages to explain this fact.

Conclusion

Cox’s book is an excellent example of the reader-response hermeneutic at work. He combines this post-modern approach that rejects a desire for objectivity with an acceptance of the validity of modernistic biblical scholarship to work his way through many genre’s of Scripture.

This is a helpful book because Cox explains what many Christians do on a regular basis. What is masked in the liberal pulpit is made clear in this volume.

In the end, the deconstruction of Scripture and rejection of the supernatural reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ description of creating “men without chests.” They are bidden to be moral, but the means for their morality has been removed. Though this is not Cox’s purpose in writing the book, his demonstration of the failure of the liberal theological method has explanatory power for the slow death of many liberal churches.

How to Read the Bible

$18.71

By Harvey Cox

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NOTE: A complimentary copy of this volume was provided by the publisher for review with no expectation of a positive outcome.

The Story of God's Love for You - A Review

The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones is my favorite Bible storybook available. The illustrations by Jago are interesting and faithful to the text. The audio version, narrated by David Suchet, is well produced and engaging. It is a product that the whole family has enjoyed greatly since it was released several years ago.

When Zondervan announced the forthcoming release of a grown-up version of the book, The Story of God’s Love for You, I was intrigued. I wasn’t sure how well the story would convey without the pictures.

As it happens, this little volume does stand well on its own without the illustrations. While I still prefer the full version of the book, the big kid’s version is almost as good.

BEGINNING AS THE JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE

For those that haven’t encountered The Jesus Storybook Bible, the approach is worth considering. Most Bible storybooks focus on particular scenes in Scripture that seem most likely to be interesting to a young audience. Thus, while still well-told, a regular refrain tales make their appearance in most Bible storybooks: David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark, Moses and Pharoah, Jesus calms the storm, etc. These are the same stories that I was raised on in Sunday School and seemed to come up with a regular frequency.

Often missing from the traditional approach to children’s Bible storybooks is any sense of the big picture. How does the crossing of the Red Sea fit into the bigger picture of the Bible? Is the Bible just a loose collection of hero tales and miracles? The metanarrative of Scripture has been tragically lacking in many books intended to bring Scripture down to the cognitive level of children.

As a result, many children grow up in the church with no sense of what God is doing through the Bible. This has allowed young Christians to fall prey to skeptics who assault the apparent inconsistencies between the miracle-less present and the supernatural accounts of the past. It has created a broader culture may know that David and Goliath is a story about little beating big, but is unaware that this has the additional significance of being God’s anointed one defeating the seemingly unconquerable evil. In other words, David and Goliath tells a piece of the bigger story of Christ defeating evil in the world.

Sally Lloyd-Jones takes those stories, which have been made to trite and simple over the years of Sunday School tradition, and reinvigorates them with a theological approach. She tells us,

“The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne—everything—to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life.

You see, the best thing about this Story is—it’s true.

There are lost of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. To Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.”

This approach unites the stories in Scripture into a tapestry of wonder, which is woven (often untidily) through with the golden thread: Jesus saves because God loves his creation. Lloyd-Jones communicates that truth so simply a child can comprehend it, but without dissolving the polychromatic hues of Scripture into a monochrome mass of christocentric allegory.

STANDING ON ITS OWN

Even having lost most of Jago’s lovely illustrations, the text Lloyd-Jones wrote is edifying. It takes a reader willing to put up with a bit of child-like simplicity and sometimes silliness to enjoy the volume. Her prose is playful, which could make the adult concerned with being grown-up disdain this volume.

However, taken on its own merits and enjoyed for what it is (an entertaining retelling of an amazingly complex story), The Story of God’s Love for You gets along quite well. For the seasoned saint who needs encouragement, there are reminders of God’s always surprising affection for us on nearly every page. At times the capricious retelling highlights an aspect of a story that would have otherwise remained obscure to the accustomed eye, which always tends to read what the mind already knows.

This volume may also have use in introducing new believers to the big picture of Scripture. Again, the attitude of the reader makes a great deal of difference. However, Lloyd-Jones hits the high points and provides a basic hermeneutic that can help the novice to see the purpose in many of the stories of the Old Testament. They aren’t just weird fables of an outdated God; they are pieces of the bigger story, which is the most exciting story of all.

The Story of God's Love for You

By Sally Lloyd-Jones

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Note: A gratis copy of this volume was provided by the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Gospel According to Heretics - A Review

Have you ever wondered if Apollinaris was actually Apollinarian? Or how about Ebion? Was he really an Ebionite?

If you’ve ever dabbled in Christology or Church History, you’ve probably encountered these questions. If you haven’t been exposed to those intellectual concerns, then you may not have heard of such oddly named villains of the early church. However, these are perennial debated figures with often excoriated views.

In The Gospel According to Heretics, David Wilhite explores the panoply of historic heretics in one accessible volume. For the MDiv student in Church History I or whichever theology course covers Christology this is a goldmine of summary, analysis, and further footnotes.

SUMMARY

Wilhite covers ten different heresies in the ten chapters of his volume. There is a simple formula to each chapter, which is helpful for progressing through the text simple. He begins with a summary of what the accusers of the heretics said, then he breaks down what the available primary sources say the heretic taught. Next he outlines the orthodox response to the alleged teaching of the heretic.

The book progresses chronologically through the major heresies of the early church. It begins with Marcion, who is said to have argued that Jesus is a new and different God than the one of the Old Testament. The second chapter covers the Ebionite heresy, also called adoptionism, which denies the deity of Christ. In Chapter Three, Wilhite tackles the Gnostics, who denied the humanity of Jesus because of their stark dualism. The subject of the fourth chapter is the modalism of Sabellius, who allegedly argued that God exists as either the Father, Son, or Spirit at separate times. In Chapter Five the most famous heretic of all, Arius, is analyzed; the subordinationism attributed to Arius, which argues that Jesus was divine, but not quite equal with God forms the subject matter.

Wilhite comes down the backstretch of the volume with Apollinaris to whom is attributed the argument that Christ has a human body but a divine mind, which challenges his full humanity. Nestorius is the topic of Chapter Seven, especially his argument that the Son of God is a divine person that inhabits the human Jesus. In the eighth chapter the monophysitism of Eutyches is the subject matter; he is alleged to have taught that Jesus is half man and half divine and thus a sort of super-human hybrid. Chapter Nine takes on the iconoclasts who argued that Jesus must not be depicted, which seems to challenge the notion of an incarnate Christ. Then in the tenth chapter, Wilhite outlines the heretical Christology of Muslims, which portrays Christ as merely a human prophet and not divine. Finally, Wilhite concludes the book with a call for gracious interaction by both the orthodox and the heretical, though he recognizes that both exist.

ANALYSIS

The debate about whether the heretics discussed in Church History courses were really heretical is the subject of many seminary papers and late night debates over coffee. Wilhite does not definitively end any of those debates, but The Gospel According to Heretics does present a helpful tool for those discussions and papers (for any seminary students reading this).

Wilhite approaches his topic with the mind to revise the received traditional accounts. However, unlike other revisionist church histories, Wilhite is not out to argue that there is no orthodoxy. Rather, his argument is that there is an orthodoxy that Christianity should be centered around and the the early Christological debates helped in its formulation and documentation. It is simply that the historically accepted accounts of the heretics themselves may have been overblown. The doctrines the heretics represent are and were bad, but their locus is, perhaps, historically unrecoverable. This approach makes Wilhite’s book both edifying and informative.

The chief weakness of this volume is one that others may see as a strength. In some ways, Wilhite’s call to an irenic attitude toward contemporary heretics, in light of the perhaps wrong treatment of historical heretics, is a positive. However, there are situations in which a refusal of those in teaching positions to recant non-orthodox positions warrants vocal and vehement refutation. Wilhite is right to call for this to be handled as generously as possible, but in the face of a proud heretic, that individual may indeed need to be removed from positions of power, which in the case of a pastor or professor may cost him or her a livelihood. If legitimate heresy actually distorts the gospel, then it is a big deal and should be resisted accordingly, which seems to be downplayed in The Gospel According to Heretics. At the same time, Wilhite’s call for patience and humility is an important one to create the balance of speaking truth in love.

This is one of those books that has the potential to become a favorite textbook for years to come, if it remains in print. Wilhite’s careful research, vibrant writing, and simple outlines make this accessible volume a useful tool for years to come.

The Gospel according to Heretics: Discovering Orthodoxy through Early Christological Conflicts

By David E. Wilhite

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Note: A gratis copy of this volume was provided by the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Inventing American Religion - A Review

In our interminable run-up to the next U.S. Presidential election, we are regularly bombarded with information from a variety of sources about how each of the candidates from both parties are doing in the polls. Often these poll results, whether from Pew Research, Gallup, or another organization, include information about how a particular candidate is faring in a particular religious demographic.

There are some who question how those religious profiles are constructed and whether they are, indeed, accurate.

In the newly released book, Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation’s Faith, Robert Wuthnow outlines the rise of scientific polling, the increasing influence of the religious questions in them, and the more recent decline in support for the published poll results.

Summary

Wuthnow’s thesis is “that the polling industry has influenced—and at times distorted—how religion is understood and portrayed, particularly in the media but also to some extent by religious leaders, practitioners, and scholars.” He argues this thesis is eight chapters.

The introduction outlines the early history of public polling and surveys the breadth of the history that Wuthnow goes on to unpack and interpret in the remaining seven chapters. Chapter Two covers the early attempts to do comprehensive surveys to assess public opinion. Such surveys were accurate for local issues, but they were time consuming, expensive, and unable to establish broader public opinion. Still, they were a common tool used by social organizers like Du Bois. In the third chapter, Wuthnow outlines the rise of George Gallup, who pioneered the use of the scientific poll to assay public opinion on a broader scale; since Gallup was a self-professed Christian, he asked religious questions in his polls, which began the process of examining the impact of religion on social and political positions.

Chapter Four highlights the differences between scientific studies, which are usually carried out by scholars, and public opinion polls. Wuthnow explains that polls are designed as quick hit diagnostics, based on an attempt to gain a rough idea of a person's opinion with as few questions as possible. In contrast, scientific studies ask more probing questions. As a result, scientific studies tend to be more narrowly focused, but they also tend to have more precise explanations for the results. Scientific studies go after the “why” not merely the “what.” In the fifth chapter, the evolution of the pollster as pundit is discussed. In 1976, the so-called year of the evangelical, the religion question become more important. Suddenly Gallup’s years of asking about religion began to pay off. Additionally, the people doing the polls began to interpret them for the media audiences. It’s easy to see how possible misinterpretations can result. This trend to question the polls has grown since that point; for some, the promise of punditry undermines the possibility of objectivity in the polls.

In the sixth chapter, Wuthnow describes the falling confidence in polls. This was due to the conflation of pundits and pollsters. It also has to do with the changing demographic of respondents. Initially people would answer the phone and respond to polls, but that began to change. Response rate became an issue and the questions about the demographics of those actually responding to polls arose. Additionally, external observers (though not the pollsters themselves) began to question some of the ways conclusions were drawn. These observers began to notice fluctuations in some of the responses, such that the percentage of church goers varied widely across a six-month span in some cases. Chapter Seven discusses the breaking down of the fourth wall, when pollsters began to take polls about polls. The answers began to show a growing distrust in the accuracy and usefulness of polling. However, Wuthnow argues that the influence of polling is far from gone. He notes, “Polling studies demonstrate that polling rarely has discernible effects on election outcomes, but it offers background information that draws attention to how candidates are doing and reinforces implicit perceptions that some issues are more important than others.”

Wuthnow concludes the book by surveying the state of polling in Chapter Eight. Polls are still important, but they aren’t the trusted sources of information they once were. They are now more likely to be used as sermon illustrations or points for beginning a more in depth process of investigation. Polls continue to suffer due to lowering response rates. People's lives have become saturated with polls, opinion questions, and other calls for feedback. In a world of big data, politicians and corporations are turning away from using polls as ultimate grounds for decisions; better information is available in usage statistics from Facebook, Twitter, and other sources. Additionally, the history of polls continues to show that the categories being used to define religion are no longer adequate (if they ever were). The future of polling, particularly related to religion, is indeterminate. It is unlikely that polls will disappear, but criticisms of polls may continue to reduce their importance. Time will tell.

Analysis and Conclusion

Wuthnow’s book is timely. Polls are regularly published; their results are lauded as sure truths by the 24-hour media cycle by pollsters and the talking heads. Real people, on the other hand, are asking more and more whether the results are trustworthy. After all, we think, when is the last time I was asked to respond to a poll? Most of us don’t even answer the phone when we don’t know the number. Our experience drives us to question the validity of polls, whether that is just or not.

Inventing American Religion is part history and part critique. His history shows what has happened and, it seems to me, explains is very clearly. His critique is a telling warning about how polls have been abused and how to avoid being mislead by them. At least it provides grounds for asking further questions, something that is nearly always a worthwhile endeavor.

The weakness of this volume is that it highlights a problem--the potential unreliability of polls--but it fails to provide a solution. This, of course, was not part of his thesis. However, if Wuthnow had any suggestions about how to improve the use of polls or interpret them better, it would have been good to include them.

In the balance, this is an important book for academics and pastors who want to use polls in their papers, books, and sermons. Wuthnow's point is well made: polls may not be trustworthy and misreading the data may well lead the consumer astray.

Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith

$24.37

By Robert Wuthnow

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Note: Oxford University Press provided a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel - A Review

If you are a Christian struggling with how to find a way to positively engage the world around you while remaining orthodox, then Russell Moore’s book, Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel, is for you.

Moore has been on various news outlets over the past few years as a spokesman for conservative evangelicals, particular for the Southern Baptist Convention. If this has caused you to wonder what he is doing and why he says the things he says, then this book will be helpful for you, too.

Avoiding Twin Dangers

Moore is outlining the twin dangers of Christian engagement in the public square. On the one hand, it is easy for Christians to become like grumpy old people telling kids to get off their lawn. On the other hand, it also easy for Christians to leave unexamined many of the ills of society as long as it doesn't directly impact them. We can’t afford to fall into either one of the errors if we are going to reach the world with the good news of the gospel.

The thing that keeps us from falling into either of these errors is a proper understanding of the gospel. Moore begins by discussing the culture shift that has pushed Christians from the center of the cultural conversation to the prophetic edges. He is careful to note this reality reflects the fact that the values coalitions of previous decades sounded very Christian without actually being converted by the gospel. As the conversation shifted away from something that resembled a Christian ethic, the Christians that remained faithful to the gospel seemed to have two options: either compromise or get left out of the conversation. This is a false dichotomy.

Gospel Foundation, Contemporary Issues

Early on in the volume, Moore digs into the meaning of the gospel. He makes it clear that the gospel isn’t about either personal salvation or social justice; it’s about both. If the Christian church loses its understanding of personal conversion and individual redemption, she loses one of the cornerstones of the gospel message. Salvation is not based on redemption of the whole, but on Christ’s atonement for the individual. At the same time, if Christian individuals miss the central redemptive themes of historic Christianity, which offers a strong dose of the pursuit of justice in society, then they miss out on some of the key implications of their own gospel conversion; redeemed individuals seek to redeem society.

With both these aspects of redemption in mind, Moore addresses a number of major issues that are central to the contemporary cultural discussion: immigration, religious liberty, and family stability. These are social issues that tend to divide Americans from each other and are the topics that commonly lead to calls for compromise and accusations of a lack of compassion.

Convictional Kindness

This is where Moore’s call for convictional kindness comes in. Convictional kindness is standing firm on ethical norms without shame, while confronting the angry accusations of the surrounding world with a gentle spirit. The conviction is birthed from confidence in the objective moral order in creation that is witnessed to by the special revelation found in Scripture. It requires rational, well-thought through positions that are both coherent and correspond to the truth in God’s creation. Kindness is built on the understanding of our own personal need for redemption. We, too, are growing, learning people who have pasts that we may have forgotten. Those that we disagree with, even those waving fingers and shouting in our faces, are people made in the image of God who deserve to hear the message of redemption. That’s a message they won’t be able to hear if we are shouting back. In fact, joining in the shouting will keep our “conversation partners” from hearing both our arguments on the issue and the message of the gospel.

Moore’s overall argument is hugely important as Christians seek to be salt and light in a world that (still) desperately needs the gospel. He also makes subtler points that are even more significant for Christians to hear. For example, in discussing the issue of gun control or gun rights he explains that there is no single Christian position. He has a position, which he does not articulate, but he notes more significantly that no one can speak for an official Christian position. There are certainly moral elements to the question, but at the same time the bulk of the argument is prudential and legal. It would be unethical to leave loaded guns within the reach of toddlers, but the capacity of a magazine and the process for background checks for weapons are prudential questions. This doesn’t mean that the question is not significant, but that we should be careful about promoting our preferred position as a gospel truth when it isn’t. Doing so encourages wrangling within the body of Christ and it largely discredits the message of the gospel because the faulty logic is apparent to any who care to see it. In this example, the Second Amendment is a benefit of being American, not a right imbued by the gospel.

Conclusion

Onward has been published at a time that conservative Christians in America feel like they are under assault because anything resembling a Christianesque ethic is being pushed farther toward the margins. Moore helps by explaining that Christianity has always been strange and that we should continue to cling to our strangeness. We have to articulate the gospel in our homes, in our churches, and in our culture if we are to have an impact. Moore’s book is an encouragement to continue to live faithfully in private and in public, but with a confidence founded on the truth of the gospel not fueled by a majority in the polls. 

Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel

$14.49

By Russell D. Moore

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Part of Our Lives - A Review

What does your public library mean to you?

For many people, having a library card is an essential part of being a citizen. Being able to check out books independently as a child is a rite of passage that marks the coming of age.

Wayne Wiegand, sometimes referred to as the “Dean of library historians,” addresses both the political and social significance of public libraries in his recent book, Part of our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library.

While the subtitle indicates this is a people’s history, this is a volume more suitable for the scholar than the average reader. Wiegand’s prose is clear but dense. At times the pace bogs down in details and dates. This is a history of the people’s use of the public library rather than a history written primarily for the people that use it.

Summary

The book moves through the history of public libraries in the United States in ten chapters. Wiegand begins with the various forms of libraries, most of which were not free and available to citizens, during the colonial through early American era. He then transitions through consecutive periods in library history. In 1854 the first public library opened in Boston, then in 1876 the country celebrated its centennial. Wiegand marks the 1893 Chicago World Fair as a significant event, then he identifies the US entry into World War I. These divisions form reasonable points of demarcation for Wiegand’s history, though they are not necessarily intuitive.

Wiegand uses a mixed methods approach to present the history of public libraries. He combines an amazing depth of anecdotal research with seemingly comprehensive statistical data to put forward a detailed picture of who has used the library and for what reason. Wiegand’s purpose in writing the book was to show how the library and social change have been related. The book is thorough and informative; it paints a clear picture of how public libraries have changed with American society throughout history.

Analysis

Throughout the volume Wiegand is critical of historical librarians for their handling of socially radical issues. It seems that he thinks that public libraries should be leading cultural change instead of responding to it. (Something government entities rarely, if ever, do.) However, at the same time, he critiques librarians for attempting to be cultural leaders through selecting some literature over others. Attempts to encourage higher rates non-fiction reading are frowned on, though Wiegand approves of attempts to liberalize sexual mores. The reluctance to accept the role of a public institution as reactive instead of cutting edge institution is consistent throughout. Wiegand addresses it toward the end of the volume, but his analysis of the reality of a publicly funded institution as lagging culture comes too late and does not reflect a fully-considered analysis of the history he is recounting.

A major theme in this work is the balance between selection and censorship by librarians. Wiegand documents the tension between attempts to meet the demands for decency and the free exploration of ideas. While there were certainly abuses, Wiegand seems to come down to heavily on those that were responding to the (at the time) reasonable demands from library patrons for some items to be kept out of reach of children. Still, his point about the lengths some librarians went to keep the wrong books out of certain hands is well-taken. There is a difference between taking measures to ensure age appropriate materials are available and blocking access to challenging ideas. At the same time, Wiegand seems to accept the restriction of Little Sambo while criticizing the censoring of sexually explicit books; it seems like the definition of censoring depends on whether the content meets contemporary societal standards.

Wiegand’s ideological musings could have been better developed and his perspective reflects a progressive bias. His development, exploration, and explanation of the history itself, however, is phenomenal. This is an outstanding piece of historical writing. Wiegand demonstrates an understanding of the subject matter that is the result of a lifetime of study. From that perspective this is a masterpiece that deserves to be read and should be a landmark work on this subject for years to come. I certainly have a greater appreciation of the public library system as a result of reading the volume.

Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library

$32.86

By Wayne A. Wiegand

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Come Rain or Come Shine - A Review

I know I’m not the only male that likes Jan Karon's books. However, I anticipate that the gender balance is a bit skewed toward the female demographic for her work. In this case, I am glad to be included, even if I’m in the minority.

Jan Karon’s Mitford series continues in her latest book Come Rain or Come Shine with the same sort of winsome storytelling and positive outcomes that have made her a frequent best seller. This latest book, released in September 2015, focuses on the few weeks before Dooley and Lace finally get married.

The storyline has jumped ahead several years since last year’s volume, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good. This is probably good, since  the slow progress of years of veterinary training and long distance relationship may have been a bit tedious. The engagement has lasted, Dooley is just graduating from Vet school, and the star-crossed lovers are about to get married.

In many ways, Come Rain or Come Shine parallels the storyline of A Common Life, which tells the story of the wedding of Father Tim and Cynthia. Like that story, Come Rain or Come Shine focuses on the lunacy that is native to a wedding season. Karon conveys the stress of arranging the myriad details mixed with the pressure of making a permanent, life altering decision.

The majority of the story is centered at Meadowgate Farm, which is near Mitford, but far enough away to avoid recounting the history of every one of the Mitford town folk. Unlike many of the other stories, this one is told through many voices and not primarily through Father Tim’s. This appears to be the passing of the torch from Father Tim to his adopted son, Dooley.

The Big Knot, as the wedding is called, is supposed to be a simple matter with just family and friends--a simple affair that is intimate, inexpensive, and memorable. As you might suspect, the storyline is filled with the never ending stream of decisions and details that seem to complicate even the best laid plans of brides and men. Anyone who has tried to execute a wedding, simple or otherwise, will predict many of the wrinkles that arise. However, Karon is able to tell the story well enough that predictability does not detract from the pleasure of reading. In fact, although the reader can anticipate the problems, Karon reveals solutions that are sometimes unexpected and enjoyable.

There are plenty of laughs along the way. A runaway bull threatens the wedding; Harley loses his teeth repeatedly; and some of the usual contrast between the sophisticated transplants to Mitford and the mountain born natives creates tension and highlights the foibles of each. Karon seems to be able to poke at all parties without creating a caricature or demeaning either culture.

This is largely a lighthearted story, though at its edges there is the drama that anyone who knows Mitford would expect. Pauline Leeper, mother to Dooley and others, still hasn’t been fully reconciled to her kids, though there is foreshadowing that it might happen in a future volume. However, this story doesn’t take on some of the major issues that many of Karon’s stories do. We see happy resolution to many of the problems from previous stories. Lace and Dooley are getting married. Sammy Barlowe is playing championship pool on cable television and keeping his nose clean. Father Tim is showing restraint and controlling his diabetes well.

This is an escapist romance. There is enough tension and a few twists and turns throughout that make it an enjoyable read. However, like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon stories, this tale keeps the largest issues of life at bay.

Is this high literature? No. But Karon does well in developing her characters and keeping the storyline moving. A gospel metanarrative is woven through the narrative as Karon gives readers what they long for: a happy ending despite all of the turmoil and trouble.

Come rain or come shine the wedding goes off, though certainly not without the number of hiccups that make such events memorable. The promise Karon leaves us with is that the relationship between Lace and Dooley will also continue, come rain or come shine. Hopefully Karon doesn’t make us wait too long to find out how it goes.

Come Rain or Come Shine (A Mitford Novel)

$16.77

By Jan Karon

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Note: A gratis copy of this volume was provided by the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

From Nature to Creation - A Review

In his recent book, From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving our World, Norman Wirzba makes a case that much of the ecological degradation that has occurred and continues to occur due to a shift in the human relationship with the world around. His argument is that the shift from seeing the world as God’s creation to seeing it as mechanistic nature has allowed disregard for and utilitarian abuses of the environment to perpetuate.

Wirzba is Professor of Theology, Ecology and Agrarian Studies at Duke Divinity school. He is highly regarded among religious environmental ethicists for his expertise on this topic and his creative approach. This, no doubt, led to his inclusion in ongoing series from Baker Academic, “The Church and Postmodern Culture,” which seeks to engage timely topics in an incisive manner.

Summary

After an introduction, the book includes five chapters. Chapter One outlines the disassociation that many contemporary individuals feel from the world around. When Nietzsche declared God to be dead it reflected the attitude of many in the world, not simply the intelligentsia. However, when the concept of God faded from the forefront of society, so did the notion of an ordered creation. This allowed the value of nature to be reduced to its utility, whether aesthetic or functional. It also tended to accelerate the sense of separation that human had developed from the created order. The Enlightenment, as diverse as it was philosophically, had tended to treat the world mechanistically and humans as superior mechanism within it. This was accelerated by the so-called death of God, and this only increased the loss of a sense of place and order.

One response to the the rise of the idea of nature was a disassociation from it. A second was the idolization of nature, which Wirzba considers in his second chapter. In some interpretations, nature was viewed as a good in and itself and the preservation of it untrammeled by human hands an act of absolute necessity. On the hand, some idolized nature for the benefits they could extract from it. Modernity, according to Wirzba, resulted in the process of humans bestowing meaning to the world  instead of discovering meaning already in the world. This led to the ultimate idolatry, which is really worship of ourselves. Viewing the world as God’s creation prevents such a perversion.

In Chapter Three, the point is that creation must be perceived as it is and that the process of rightly interpreting the world around is a necessary part of the human experience. Disassociation from the world around, which has been encouraged by many forms of technology, clouds people’s perceptions. It is thus necessary for Christians in particular to seek to gain, as much as possible, God’s perception of the world and its value. By seeing the world as it is and as it is meant to be, the idolatrous turn can be reversed.

The fourth chapter details the importance of regaining a sense of our status as creatures. Perception helps to prevent the negative development of idolatrous attitudes, but humans are only situated in the world properly when they understand themselves as creatures made by God. In this chapter, Wirzba pushes for an agrarian understanding of the world, claiming that a greater connection with the soil is both biblical and vital to rightly understanding the world. He also ties the understanding of creatureliness into good eating habits, which are contemplative of the food eaten and the time, space, and community of the eating event. This sort of romantic solution to the environmental problems will resonate with hipsters and others who are pushing through the postmodern milieu. Whether it will truly help stem environmental degradation is another issue.

Finally, Chapter Five focuses on thankfulness as “the most fundamental and honest expression of what it means to be a human being, because it is here, in the thanksgiving act, that people appreciate and attempt to live into the knowledge that life is a gift.” (131) Wirzba blames a lack of gratitude on the use of money instead of trading. Currency increases the exactness of transactions, which thus leads to a sense of completion rather than open ended thankfulness. The reduction of the environment to its monetary value, as it sometimes is in cost benefit analyses, also reduces the notion that creation is a gift from God. Wirzba comes back again to the notion that gardening helps restore a sense of thankfulness for creation since, after all, the gardener can do nothing to actually grow the plants. An attitude of thankfulness is at the heart of a right understanding of the created order according to Wirzba.

Analysis and Conclusion

Although this volume is short on practical application, it is a fine text and conveys many ideas that are worth mulling. Wirzba’s diagnosis of the problem is especially astute. Environmental degradation occurs when there is a sense of disassociation from the creation. It’s just dirt. Or, it’s only a bird. That sort of mechanistic understanding undermines compassion for other living creatures and a theocentric vision for seeing God’s handiwork in all of creation. As such, this is a worthy contribution to the series and an important book to read.

However, there are points in the volume where Wirzba—who is an good scholar—gets sloppy. For example, he makes a bold assertion: “Many theologians believe bodies to be something that must be finally overcome and left behind.” (21) The trouble is that he cites none of them. In fact, I’ve been looking for someone to make that argument so that I can include it in my dissertation. The sad fact is the no orthodox theologian actually believes that.  I have been unable to uncover a single one, though I am hoping that I find someone. It may be a sentiment in the pews of some churches, but it is certainly not a belief that is widely believed by theologians.

In another place, Wirzba appears to misrepresent the atonement, which is no small criticism for a Christian volume.  He writes, “The reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth that the Christ-hymn in Colossians describes happens through the blood of Christ’s cross, which means it happens through the self-offering life that Jesus demonstrated in his ministries of healing, feeding, exorcising, attending to, and touching others.” (24) He is exactly correct that the reconciliation of all things happens through Christ’s blood on the cross. He would have been correct to argue that the nature of that reconciliation was demonstrated or illustrated by the way Christ lived on earth. The context is talking about living on earth and not waiting to get plucked out of physical existence, but this passage makes it seem that Wirzba is moving the atonement from Christ's substitutionary death to his obedient life; both are  important, but the penalty for sin was paid in blood, not servitude. It may be that this is simply worded poorly, but the atonement is one area that clarity is worth every moment spent.

These problems are significant. However, they do not undermine the overall value of the volume. This is an important entry in an ongoing conversation and Wirzba’s argument of the importance of understanding the essence of creation as a gift from God carries significant weight. Thus this volume has a place in the library of those seeking a deeper understanding of the contemporary issues in Christian environmental ethics.

From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

$15.31

By Norman Wirzba

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Note: A gratis copy of this volume was provided by the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Review of Evangelical Ethics: A Reader

The recent anthology, Evangelical Ethics, from Westminster John Knox Press seemed promising. There has been no such collection focusing on scholarship from Evangelical Christian sources in wide circulation in recent decades. This is not due to a lack of ethical writing, but no one has previously taken up the mantle of chronicler to produce a volume. This lays a groundwork of expectation for the recent release from David Gushee and Isaac B. Sharp.

What Kind of Evangelical?

Unfortunately, this book suffers from excessive editorial interference. In the introduction, the editors acknowledge there are different understandings of Evangelicalism.

This dates back to the sociological versus doctrinal understandings that have formed a fissure between so-called progressive Evangelicals and conservative Evangelicals. The main qualification for the sociological understanding of Evangelical is claiming the title and being from a historically Evangelical tradition.

Often there is a residual discussion of the centrality of the gospel, but the many times the personal impact of the gospel is obscured by an emphasis on social activity. For conservative Evangelicals, the qualifications for the title are primarily doctrinal.

Doctrinally centered Evangelicals ask question like: Is Scripture understood to be the supreme norm? Is the gospel, including its impact on individual salvation, central to the life of the Christian? These are the primary concerns.

Gushee and Sharp acknowledge the division and then largely dismiss those who hold to a doctrinal understanding of Evangelicalism.

As a result, the most clearly identifiable Evangelicals in the list of included authors are Carl F. H. Henry and Francis Schaeffer. The selection from Henry is from The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, which was chosen to illustrate how Henry had an interest in social ethics. A valid selection and a good one. Schaeffer’s selection is from How Should We Then Live. This, too is a worthy selection, though the introduction notes that his tone is “declinist” and that it seems to center on the issue of abortion, as if that was unwarranted in 1976 with Roe V. Wade a distant memory of three years previous .

Emphasis on Social Ethics

The volume is structured to minimize the significance of personal ethics. In fact, the only social issues considered in any depth in this text are economics and race. These are two worthy issues, but by avoiding personal ethics including abortion and sexual ethics, a false portrait is painted.

The image represented is also one of support for only one position on the issues discussed, as if there had been no ongoing conversation with differing views. Additionally, the issue of environmentalism is largely ignored, which is not representative of the last several decades of Evangelical thought, whether progressive or doctrinally centered.

Missing Voices

Instead of selecting texts that represent Evangelicalism as it is, the editors have selected texts that represent Evangelicalism as it is in their idealized world.

As such, minorities are significantly over-represented. This is not to discount the voice of those minorities, but if the major voices of a movement are mainly white men, then a reader that purports to describe that movement should represent the reality not the rosy vision of the chroniclers. The selections in this volume amount to historical revisionism.

The book is only about 160 pages. Most readers are at least twice that length. There was no lack of source material, so it is unclear why the volume turned out so unbalanced.

Missing from the relatively slim volume are John Stott, Oliver O’Donovan, Daniel Heimbach, the Feinberg brothers, John Jefferson Davis, John Frame, Cornelius Van Til, Wayne Grudem, Arthur Holmes, Stanley Grenz and others. Instead, a crowd of individuals who have largely rejected the inerrancy or infallibility of Scripture, which has typically been a hallmark of Evangelical theology.

In other words, this is a misrepresentation of the actual history and content of Evangelical ethics. If, as the title implies, the intent was to provide representative samples of the field, then it has largely failed.

Mixed Voices

That being said, some of the essays included are powerful. John Perkins’ testimony of being beaten and through that experience seeing the need for white men to hear the gospel is powerful. Nicholas Wolterstorff’s essay on the holistic power of the gospel for changing and redeeming the world is helpful.

Both the essay by Henry and the one by Schaeffer fairly represent a significant segment of doctrinally faithful Evangelicalism. There is some quality, but it is such a corpus permixtum that the volume has lost its center in Evangelical identity.

Certainly this highly massaged image will please those hoping to pull the Evangelical movement away from their traditional reliance on Scripture and interest in orthodoxy. That is exactly why the volume drew praise on the back cover from Lisa Sowle Cahill, who is theologically liberal. If the goal is to try to “redeem” the perception of Evangelical ethics from an emphasis traditional concern for doctrinal orthodoxy, then this book is a masterpiece.

Tragedy of homogeneity

One of the most beneficial aspects of my seminary education, both at the graduate and postgraduate level, have been the opportunities to read opposing viewpoints and figure out what makes those thinkers believe what they do. In other words, it is good to read people you don’t agree with.

This is why I read what David Gushee writes, as a general rule. He is generally sound in his reasoning even when I find his premises or conclusions unacceptable. Here I think he, along with Strong, have deprived future progressives of the benefit of an accessible, curated volume of primary sources that reflect historical reality.

The editors have thus increased the likelihood that some progressive Evangelicals and more liberal thinkers that read this volume will remain in the echo chamber of their own tradition and remain unexposed to conservative theologians. This minimizes the potential benefit of what could have been a significant volume for the long term.

Evangelical Ethics: A Reader (Library of Theological Ethics)

$29.38

By David P. Gushee, Isaac B. Sharp

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Note: A gratis copy of this volume was received from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.