An Announcement from the Spencer Family

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For those of you who haven’t already found out by one means or another, I recently accepted a position as Director of Assessment and Institutional Research at Oklahoma Baptist University. I have resigned my position as Coordinator for Institutional Research and Faculty Support at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and we are moving to Shawnee, Oklahoma in the near future.

I am very grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It boasts the best campus of the six SBC seminaries and has the most thoroughly embedded fervor for carrying out the Great Commission. Even little things, like hangers on our lamp posts are a reminder that we should be people on the move, taking the gospel to all corners of the earth.

Additionally, there are a number of friends we will leave behind. Of course, since this is a community of transients, many of our friends have already left us behind or were leaving in the near future. That is one of the struggles in living and working in a community like this: we are all on the go.

Of course, leaving First Baptist Church of Durham is heartbreaking. If you ever make it to Durham, NC on a Sunday, you should visit. The preaching is phenomenal, the discipleship model strong, and the concern for reaching the nations is topnotch. We’ve only been there for two years, but I know at least one sermon podcast I’ll be listening to every week in Oklahoma.

This was a difficult decision to make. The opportunity at OBU is great, but we’ve invested the past seven years of our lives in Wake Forest. I will have to finish my dissertation remotely, without the comfort of the Duke, UNC, and NC State libraries nearby for emergency access to resources in environmental ethics. I enjoy working with the faculty and many of my friends at SEBTS. It would have been great to stay on.

However, positions at high quality institutions like OBU open rarely. This was an opportunity that we needed to take. There is a chance for me to use many of my administrative skills to assist OBU through their accreditation reaffirmation. When that is done, I should have the opportunity to teach some. So, off we go.

Because of this rapid transition, I hope that you’ll bear with the Spencer family as we pack up our accumulated possessions and trek off to a new city. Communication may be slow, but we haven’t forgotten.

We will appreciate prayer for endurance as we get through the marathon of moving. Also, for the house to sell quickly and for a good price. In addition, the kids are watching a whirlwind of packing, sorting, throwing out, and home repairs. It’s turbulent enough to move as a child, but we’re doing it in short order, which doesn’t make it any easier. We also want to find a church in Shawnee quickly where we can get involved in ministry, make new friends, and get into a groove as seamlessly as possible. Prayer for wisdom and opportunity there would also be appreciated.

Regarding the blog. Well, it will be intermittent. Something has to give, and the simplest thing to give up right now is blogging and posting links. I hope to pick it up once I get settled.

Thanks for reading and for your prayer.

You Must Read - A Review

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Banner of Truth Trust is a blessing to the body of Christ in many ways. They work to keep some good, old texts in print that would otherwise be found only in used book stores or consigned to the deep, dark dungeon of online libraries. Not only this, but have they often published high quality new books that touch on topics in ways that are fresh and helpful for contemporary readers.

A recent book by a whole host of evangelical thinkers highlights thirty-two books or sets published by Banner of Truth that have been particularly formative.

Summary

As Al Mohler outreads the rest of the world, it is helpful to know that he sees Iain Murray’s book Forgotten Spurgeon as one of the most significant in Banner of Truth’s backlist. Likewise, when Alistair Begg picks What is an Evangelical by Martyn Lloyd-Jones it provides a bump toward reading the volume.

Mark Dever, of course, highlights Richard Sibbes. Anyone who knows Dever would have expected it. Still, the essay Dever writes explains just why Sibbes is so helpful to the contemporary pastor.

You Must Read is a book full of book reviews and essays. They don’t follow the stodgy formula for reviews that those of us who write for academic journals have mastered. Instead, they are lively essays about the book, the author of the book, and why the book is so special in the life of the reviewer.

Analysis

This recent release is interesting on a number of levels. First, it provides insight into some solid books that Banner of Truth has put into print. Second, it can serve as a reading list as it points to some books that a pretty impressive list of thinkers finds important. Third, the reviews are helpful in pointing the reader toward which volumes would be best to target next.

Reading is an art and a science. It is also a great deal of work. Books like this can be enjoyable reading material in and of themselves. This one is. They can also provide a service by bringing to light old books that need to be read. This one does.

C.S. Lewis famously recommended reading a book from a previous century for every book one reads from his own century. Of course, reading C.S. Lewis now counts as reading an old book. However, it is always difficult to know which old books to read. There are staple classics in Christianity, like Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress and Athanasius On the Incarnation. However, there are many good texts that would otherwise go unnoticed because they fall into obscurity because of their dialect or out of fashion because their theology is considered dated.

Over the past decades, Banner of Truth Trust has resurrected many such mathoms, which are worthy of consideration, but somewhat off the beaten path.

A major force in the work of Banner of Truth has been Iain Murray who has four biographies listed in the pages of this present volume. One eighth of the books are by Murray, but all of the books owe their continued life, in part, to Murray’s efforts to get good books in print. This is a volume that honors the legacy of Murray.

There is little chance You Must Read will become a best seller. In fact, it may not get a second printing. However, this is one of those books that will find a place on my shelf in preparation for a student or young pastor I will someday mentor. As a book about books, there is a certain sort of person that will appreciate it, find it useful, and be changed by it. Our goal should be to help that sort of person find this sort of book.

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

A Review of the Mythology of Work: How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself

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Peter Fleming writes a bitter screed against a version of capitalism and the concept of work in his recent book, The Mythology of Work: How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself. His basic purpose is to prove that, “We work, pay taxes, take care of the bills and commuting costs for one single reason: not to ‘survive’ but so that the governing elite gains its priveleges for nothing. Our labour is designed to provide freedom to the rich. Our work exists in order to subsidize the costs of their existence.”

The book, then, is largely a critique of what Fleming sees as an oppressive class system, where the middle and lower classes are firmly squashed by managers and owners of capital. This is a book that demonizes work and profit. It is essentially a moral complaint, although Fleming denies that in his conclusion. It is not a cheerful book, or one that provides real hope of change. In fact, in the conclusion, Fleming seems to abandon hope that even his critique can change anything. He labels his work inoperative, because he is both benefiting from and participating in the very system that he intends to critique.

Analysis

There are deep layers of irony in this book. Fleming is careful to note some of them in his own conclusion. As noted above, he recognizes that he, as a middle class university worker, benefits from the so-called oppression of others who are in a class below him in the economic food chain.

There are other clear ironies, though. In some ways, Fleming has an exceptionally high view of human nature. He believes that the economic system would continue and human flourishing would exist if only the managers and owners of capital would be replaced by a democratic body of workers. Thus the workers, executing the daily job, could replace the vision and ordering function that managers and corporate bureaucratic methodology provides.

At one level I am sympathetic with him. In previous jobs, I have often felt that I had a better view of the problem and a better hope of devising a solution than the administrators above me. However, sometimes my best solution was the best only for a limited population. The broader corporate perspective required a different approach or there was another solution that worked best for the company as a whole, though it was less than optimal in my small sphere. There were times I think I was right, but others that I was certainly wrong because I did not have the whole picture.

Fleming’s assumption is that everything would work out alright because the workers would make good long term decisions if they were only given the power. He fails to note that in many situations this is not the case. Although corporations sometimes make frustrating choices for short term benefit, the same is true for workers. Union strikes are nearly always couched as striving for worker’s rights or some absolutely necessary good. And sometimes this is valid. Sometimes, however, strikes and discordant negotiations are designed merely to extract the most near term gain for the workers. In other words, greed is sometimes still the motivation, and sometimes the fault is on the side of the workers.

Another basic assumption in Fleming’s calculus is the inherent goodness of humans. Yet, at the same time, he sees humans as pathetically weak. He describes debt as a form of slavery and faults banks for people’s consumer debt. There certainly are (and have been) cases of predatory lending, but the kind of consumer debt that Fleming describes as slavery is largely the result of excessive spending due to a lack of self-control. Fleming seems to argue that there is a deterministic force that is driving people to make bad choices. He ignores the fact that in many cases, these are bad choices that were made voluntarily for short term gain in recognition there would be a later price to pay.

A major problem with Fleming’s view of human nature is that he wants to have it both ways. Workers would make good choices if they had the opportunity despite the reality they have made poor choices when they have had the opportunity. This seems a bit sketchy.

Another problem with The Mythology of Work is that Fleming seems to be jousting a strawman. He has constructed a caricature of neo-liberalism (a term for a free market economic perspective) which closely represents crony capitalism in his portrayal. He assumes that the socialistic U.K. context that he is operating in is somehow an ideal situation according to a neo-liberal.

As someone who resonates with neo-liberal economics, I was not offended by Fleming’s critique because he was obviously not talking about me. It isn’t clear, however, whether he recognizes there is another option out there.

I was thankful that at the end Fleming proposes some solutions that would help resolve his critique. These solutions include: 1. A guaranteed minimum income with a max 1:3 ratio to top earners; 2. More mediating institutions; 3. Government ownership of utilities and other similar monopolies; 4. A three-day work week; 5. Eating less meat; 6. Providing non-monetary incentives.

Some of these suggestions are more helpful than others. Perhaps in another post I will engage with some of them. Some of them seem doomed to fail and unrealistic. For example, the guaranteed minimum income with a max income limit assumes that diminished returns (and unearned baselines) wouldn’t significantly undermine economic flourishing in society. In other words, there are some jobs people won't do for only a little more than the lowest skilled workers make. He anticipates this criticism, and dismisses it, but he never deals with it. Simplistic solutions like this rely on assumptions about human nature that seem invalid given human history.

Conclusion

Overall this is not a cheerful book. Fleming’s view of work is so negative that it seems he doesn’t recognize any redeeming benefits to work. What if our purpose is to serve one another through faithful work? What if the real problem is not work itself, or the system, but our idolization of money and our improper valuation of work? Fleming tries to resolve the problem created when workers identify themselves by their job by eliminating work instead of correcting the attitude. In the end, while some of his critiques are helpful, this volume left me looking for a more realistic solution.

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

Marie Durand - The Story of Faithfulness in Persecution

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If you haven’t heard of Reformation Heritage Books before today, you’ve been missing out. They produce a number of fine volumes on theology, particularly on Puritan theology.

One of the most significant contributions they are making to the life of the church is the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series. These are fully illustrated, hardbound books that are suitable early elementary through middle school. The books include drawings and paintings of historic scenes as well as contemporary photos of historical sites.

Summary

The latest edition in this series highlights the life of Marie Durand. Durand was a French Protestant who was born in the early eighteenth century. As a Protestant in Catholic France, her family was at times tolerated, but later on most of the family was arrested for meeting together and worshipping according to their conscience.

As a result of her faith, which led her to disobedience to the crown, Durand spent thirty-eight years in prison. She lived the first 19 years of her life free, though with threat of persecution through many of those years. Nearly her entire adult life was lived in the small confines of the Tower of Constance, where she and a number of other Protestant women and children were imprisoned. Snow and rain fell through the grating in the roof and through the slitted windows. Their meager provisions had to be augmented by their families and friends on the outside.

Inside, Durand served as a teacher to the children, letter writer for many of the other prisoners, and also spiritual leader because of her ability to read and write better than others. Her role was significant, and yet the reality is that she spent nearly four decades in a small one-room prison with only occasional opportunities to go outside into the fresh air.

While the women, including Marie Durand, were imprisoned, their husbands were made to be galley slaves. Or, like Marie’s brother Pierre, were executed outright if they persisted in preaching the Protestant faith.

And yet they persisted.

Analysis and Conclusion

This is what makes this biography so powerful and timely. Durand’s story reminds us of what real persecution looks like. This is not merely social marginalization but absolute, unfettered, and unreasoning punishment. Many men and women lost their lives in exchange for an unsullied conscience.

This book is written as a third person historical biography. In other words, it is not a story book, but a work of non-fiction directed to the young. This is the sort of story that can provide the sort of vicarious memory that a young Christian may need when attempting to sort through the social consequences of a vibrant Christian faith in the coming years. This volume shows that others have paid a greater price, and that it was worth it.

The author, Simonetta Carr, is a native of Italy with a multicultural background. She has been an elementary school teacher, a home-school teacher of eight, and a writer for newspapers and magazines. The book is illustrated by Matt Abraxas who is an artist by trade who lives on Colorado.

These books are not inexpensive, but they are well constructed. The illustrations draw the reader in and help to make the story come alive. This would be a suitable volume to incorporate into a homeschool unit, or as part of church library. The entire series would make an exceptional Christmas or birthday gift for a young reader. This is the sort of reading that will stick to a child’s ribs and provide encouragement in a time of need.

This is the ninth book in the series. Previous titles include John Calvin; Augustine of Hippo; John Owen, Athanasius; Lady Jane Grey; Anselm of Canterbury; John Knox; and Jonathan Edwards. Hopefully there are more planned in the near future. If the future volumes are as good as this one, the church will be blessed.

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

The Printer and the Preacher - A Review

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The recently released book, The Printer and the Preacher, promises to explain how the friendship between Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield helped to “invent America.” The author, Randy Petersen, has an extensive list of publications including a number of co-authored volumes. He has written on sports, psychology, history, various Christian topics, and more. Petersen appears to have an eclectic appetite for writing projects and the ability to finish them.

The book is readable and there are some interesting anecdotes, but I found it to be a disappointment overall. There are pointers along the way that indicate that both Franklin and Whitefield influenced the founding of the United States, but Petersen never really explains why their friendship was pivotal. I walked away with a better understanding of the long-term correspondence that existed between these two men, but without seeing how it really matters in the grand scope of history.

Analysis and Critique

Petersen’s writing style is light. The book uses endnotes, so it is not encumbered by the distractions (welcomed by many) that footnotes often provide. He tells the story well. There are points, however, where Petersen is excessively informal, in ways that may be deemed disrespectful by those who engage in academic pursuits. He consistently refers to people by their first names (George and Ben), which is atypical for serious historical work.

There is a connection between the two men. Franklin and Whitefield corresponded for decades and met several times, particularly while Whitefield was preaching through America. Franklin printed news about Whitefield and many of his sermons. Whitefield attempted to convert Franklin from his self-created Deism to a Calvinistic Christianity. He was unsuccessful. There is a story worth hearing here.

However, after reading The Printer and the Preacher, it isn’t clear that there is enough of a story to make a book length treatment. At times Petersen lapses into conjecture, trying to describe conversations they were likely to have or occasions they might have met while both were in London. This has the dangerous potential to present as surmise as fact, if the reader is not careful. The concept of a surprising friendship that is essential to the formation of America is intriguing, but in my mind at least, there needs to be a better case made.

This is a popular level historical book, but at times the history gets jumbled because Petersen tries to organize the parallels by topic instead of by chronology. He also jumps back and forth between accounts of the lives of two men born eight years apart on different continents. There are certainly some parallels between the two, but at times the presentation seems strained.

 The greatest benefit of the book is Petersen’s demonstration that two men with vastly different foundational beliefs could get along, work together, and have meaningful dialog for a number of years. Whatever other weaknesses the book may present, this is a good thing to understand and I appreciate Petersen’s efforts to tell the story well.

Conclusion

The Printer and the Preacher is a quick read. It would be worth taking to the beach or on an airplane. It is has weaknesses, but it is an entertaining book that some history buffs may enjoy.

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