So when I stumbled upon Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination by Brian J. Walsh I was immediately intrigued.  It turned out to be a thoughtful, insightful and engaging work.  It is not light reading by any means and have a post-modern bent, but longtime fans of Cockburn will want to dive into this book.

More after the jump.

Here is the publishers blurb:

For forty years, singer and songwriter Bruce Cockburn has been writing beautifully evocative music. Bestselling author and respected theologian Brian Walsh has followed Cockburn’s work for years and has written and spoken often on his art. In this creative theological and cultural engagement, Walsh reveals the imaginative depth and uncompromising honesty of the artist’s Christian spirituality. Cockburn offers hope in the midst of doubt, struggle, failure, and anger; indeed, the sentiment of “kicking at the darkness” is at the heart of his spirituality. This book engages the rich imagery of Cockburn’s lyrics as a catalyst for shaping and igniting a renewed Christian imagination.

As noted above, if you are a fan of Bruce Cockburn this is a must read book. Walsh explores Cockburn’s lyrics with depth and insight. Despite the fact that I have some rather serious disagreements with Walsh’s politics (he fails to wrestle with the contributions and failings of free markets and accepts some caricatures of President Bush, etc.), I really enjoyed the way he provocatively explored Cockburn’s work through the eyes of scripture and faith. He examines Cockburn as a prophetic voice and psalmist offering laments and praise in equal measure.

If you are not a fan of Cockburn, or familiar with his work, I am not sure you would enjoy the book quite as much or be able to make the connections. But if you are interested in the intersection music, faith and art Walsh still offers some interesting conceptions of how we view the world and how music and art engage and inform that worldview.

My only complaint is that the book can get rather dense and seems maybe a tad too long. Some familiarity with philosophy, particularly with a post-modern perspective, is probably needed to appreciate Walsh’s style and arguments.

It is not necessarily a quick or easy read but there is a lot to appreciate and think about in this volume of critical engagement and imagination.

Evangelical Christians are too “Modern.”

They fail to see the intellectual baggage modernity brings with it and they falsely assume that pre and post-modern thought somehow rejects the concept of truth or absolutes.

Post-modern thinking is more than just relativism and Christians should not fear it but wrestle with it and use it to think more clearly about their world and their faith.

And I think reading and interacting with different points of view is important.  And one of the authors who has stretched my views and offered a different perspective is Peter Rollins.  His book How (Not) To Speak of God was an interesting and though provoking work that was probably dismissed by too many because of its style and perspective.

Rollins has a new book out (Insurrection: To Believe Is Human To Doubt, Divine) which prompted me to read an older book The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales.  Here is the publisher’s blurb:

‘This book should be banned! It’s DANGEROUS!’

So might any Christian say for whom faith functions like a comfortable chair and a lot of good will. If you are comfy and satisfied, then what you have might not be faith after all, explains Peter Rollins.

Christian faith only has meaning if it affects the ways that people live their lives. For many who are not Christians, critiquing Christianity from the outside, this sort of ‘faith’ appears all-too common and is an easy target. Perhaps Christians are simply those possessed of an ideology that keeps them passive, childlike, and ineffectual, they seem to think.
Rollins has crafted a series of parables that shatter these realities and popular perceptions. Parables that demonstrate how genuine faith is radical—and has never been concerned with escaping the world we inhabit, but rather, with engaging in it more fully. That genuine Christian faith has never capitulated to injustice but rather fought against it at every turn. In opposition to those who would claim that Christian faith embraces God at the expense of the suffering world, Peter shows how the true believer embraces God only inasmuch as he fully embraces a needy world.

Let me repeat a cliché I use often here: your reaction to this book will depend a great deal on what you bring to it (in terms of attitude, your spiritual and philosophical perspective, etc.). I come from a very different background and worldview than Rollins but I find it worthwhile to read him nonetheless. Others mileage may vary.

As the author says in the introduction, these stories are best read one at a time in a quite moment when you have some time to think. If used in the right way and with the right attitude they can help the reader to think differently about faith and belief; to focus more on living out their faith in the here and now rather than dreaming of heavenly rewards or being obsessed with correct doctrine.

Rollins goal in writing these stories is not to offer simple answers or construct a systematic theology. Instead, he seeks to break up the belief that systematic theology is faith; that simple answers are the key. Allow me a long quote that I think gets to the heart of Rollins way of thinking:

Our religious world today is awash with a vast sea of writing and talks designed to make the truth of faith clear, concise, and palatable. For example, one might encounter a talk comprised of three points, all beginning with the letter “p,” and all so clear that by the time you leave the room, you will know exactly what to think.

Parables subvert this desire to make faith simple and understandable. They do not offer the reader clarity, for they refuse to be captured in the net of a single interpretation and instead demand our eternal return to their words, our wrestling with them, and our puzzling over them.

This does not mean that the words contain no message, or that they mock us as some insoluble puzzle (and thus not really a puzzle at all).  Parables do not substitute sense of nonsense, or order for disorder. Rather, they point beyond these distinctions, inviting us to engage in a mode of reflection that has less to do with fixed meaning than rendering meaning fluid and effective.

I think this is an insightful understanding of parables and a lot of fiction in fact.  And many of the stories in this volume will challenge the reader in that way.

But I wonder if those most in need of a shake-up to their worldview and a challenge to their comfortable faith will read a book like this. Rollins would find a melancholy irony in the fact that his book might make those comfortable with his style and approach self-satisfied and be ignored by the audience most in need of the message.

Another drawback is that the message is almost always the same: love of God and our fellow-man is the foundation of Christian faith and too often other things and attitudes dominate; we live in an age of incredible affluence and yet incredible poverty and suffering exists right alongside and the church seems unwilling to choose sides as it were. I also think there is a bit too much commentary in places – rather than letting the reader work harder at the message of the parables.

That said, I believe these stories would be a great tool for a Sunday School class, book club or small group. Reading a story each week would generate discussion and allow readers to further explore the ideas. Some of the stories seem provocative for the sake of it and others might find Rollins ideas a little too heavy on the post-modern philosophy and language (he doesn’t use academic terms and language per se but his perspective is infused with the mindset and viewpoint). But again, I think there is value in getting outside your comfort zone and exploring the ideas presented.

Of course, those more in tune with the emerging and post-modern aspects of Rollins writing and thinking will likely enjoy this “storified” version.

Bottom line, I enjoyed the book but recognize it is definitely not for everyone.

Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects–from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative–yet always balanced and complete–discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society.

But alas, I am not, so I must simply read as many books as I am able to fit into my schedule.  I started with The History of Protestantism by Mark A. Noll:

Mark A. Noll, named one of America’s most influential evangelicals by Time Magazine, provides a fresh and accessible history of Protestantism from the era of Martin Luther to the present day. Noll begins with the founding of Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Anabaptist churches in the sixteenth-century Reformation, and considers the rise of other important Christian movements like Methodism and Pentecostalism.

But rather than focusing on just the familiar European and American histories, he discusses the recent expansion of Protestant movements in Africa, China, India, and Latin America, emphasizing the on-going and rapidly expanding story of Protestants worldwide. The book highlights the contributions of well-known figures ranging from Martin Luther and John Calvin to Karl Barth, Dora Yu, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and Pandita Ramabai, and it sheds light on why Protestant energies have flagged recently in the Western world while expanding dramatically elsewhere. Detailing the key points of Protestant commonality–including the message of Christian salvation, reliance on the Bible, and organization through personal initiative–he illuminates the reasons for Protestantism’s extraordinary diversity.

And it was exactly what I was hoping for from this series: a short and succinct yet informative and insightful overview of a topic.  Noll gives you a great overview of the history of Protestantism from the Reformation to the global church of today and he sprinkles in enough details and interesting conclusions that it is more thought provoking than you might expect for a survey of this type.

As an example, here is Noll summing up the era of Protestant Christendom:

The era that stretched from the first Reformation generation to the renewal movements of the late 17th century was the Protestants the best of times and the worst of times. It was the best of times because the release of Protestant energies allowed Lutherans, the Reformed, and Anglicans to create local Christian civilizations that produced brilliant achievements with world-historic significance. It was the worst of times because these Protestant civilizations were continually embroiled in warfare, which opened the door to a godless secularism that was damaging for Christian convictions of all varieties.

What a great summary; informative but also a bit provocative and thought provoking. The book is full of this sort of breakdown. It gives you the big picture – points you to important people, ideas, and events – but also offers turning points and key takeaways for further thought and study. In short, this is how introductions should be done.

Highly recommended for those interested in Christian or religious history.

Here is the publisher’s description:

Billy Allman is a hillbilly genius. People in Dogwood, West Virginia, say he was born with a second helping of brains and a gift for playing the mandolin but was cut short on social skills. Though he’d gladly give you the shirt off his back, they were right. Billy longs to use his life as an ode to God, a lyrical, beautiful bluegrass song played with a finely tuned heart. So with spare parts from a lifetime of collecting, he builds a radio station in his own home. People in town laugh. But Billy carries a brutal secret that keeps him from significance and purpose. Things always seem to go wrong for him.

However small his life seems, from a different perspective Billy’s song reaches far beyond the hills and hollers he calls home. Malachi is an angel sent to observe Billy. Though it is not his dream assignment, Malachi follows the man and begins to see the bigger picture of how each painful step Billy takes is a note added to a beautiful symphony that will forever change the lives of those who hear it.

A great deal of the Christian fiction I come across is just plain bad (although to be fair maybe I haven’t sampled widely enough) and let’s be honest some of the books that are free on Amazon are free for a reason.  So the first thing to say here is that Almost Heaven is not one of those books that you simply don’t want to finish. In fact, I was so interested in the opening chapter that I just kept on reading it (something I rarely do when I download a free Kindle book).

There are parts, however, that drag and the plot just seems stuck at times. The opening sequence really drew me in, and the later part of the book has some exciting and well done action scenes, but the middle part struggles as Billy Allman wrestles with the tragedy in his life and the angel Malachi seeks to find answers.

In fact, I am not sure the plot device of Malachi really adds much to the story at all. Sure, it provides some spiritual and outside descriptive narrative but it mostly slows the plot down. And to be quite honest, I didn’t find the apologetics aspect of Malachi all that convincing.

But again, Fabry does a nice job of weaving in Christian ideas and characters into a novel in such a way that they seem natural and an integral part of the story rather than forced or awkward. This is to be applauded.

Overall Almost Heaven is a touching and well drawn portrait of faithfulness through suffering and the value of commitment despite the odds.

I stumbled upon Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family’s Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith by my old Taylor University prof Jim Spiegel while looking for something else (it might have been his recently released The Making of an Atheist) and it became one of the many impulse buys I have made for my Kindle.

Plus, it seemed like a good fit. I have young kids and enjoy conversations about faith and philosophy; and my kids like to play stump the parent too.

It turned out to be a very enjoyable read.

Here is Publishers Weekly:

Spiegel, philosophy professor at Indiana’s Taylor University, takes deep issues of the Christian faith and dumps them smack into real life with a little help from his children. Their questions—Dad, where does God live? Dad, does God speak English? and What does God know?—open the door to discussions about God that solicit satisfying answers from Dad. Spiegel’s responses and ensuing comments will satisfy adults as well, especially those looking for beginning and intermediate study on topics such as God’s omniscience, the Golden Rule, God’s presence and human origin and destiny. Spiegel ponders the great issues of the faith with a light touch, thanks to the innate comedy of kids, but also to his own brand of humor. No doubt some readers will wish for more depth when it comes to doctrinal fundamentals, but rather than exhaustive study, the point is that God touches human hearts through geckos, hide-and-seek tag and the occasional possum. Spiegel shares his own wonder as he fields FAQs from the fertile, imaginative, earthy minds of his children.

What I really enjoyed was the way Siegel modeled how to talk with your children about serious subjects while at the same time discussing – admitedly in basic terms – some of the more fundamental questions of the Christian faith.

Siegel’s experience as a teacher pays off as he patiently offers insightful ways to think about these often difficult questions and offers a holistic way to think about faith and family.

The chapters really stand on their own so you don’t necessarily have to read the book chronologically. The chapters are also relativly short so it is easy to read them in one sitting. I read the book over the course of a few weeks reading a chapter at night before bed.

If you are your children wrestle with these types of questions, or if you are simply interested in exploring them in this unique way, I heartily recommend this enjoyable and insightful book.

So when I heard about Purple Jesus I was intrigued by the promise from the publishers blurb:

As funny as it is sad, as beautiful as it is ugly, as authentic as it is shocking, and as powerful as anything you ll ever read, Ron Cooper s Purple Jesus is a murder mystery, a love story, a religious allegory and, most importantly, a dark and comic descent into the lives and world views of three unbelievable and unforgettable characters.

So did it deliver? Sort of.  I will confess that any religious allegory or philosophical insight went right over my head (I admit I am not one to catch symbolism and the like). And it wasn’t really much of a love story.

What really sets the book apart is the “a dark and comic descent into the lives and world views” aspect. The capture of a time, place and culture rescues the book in my opinion.

The plot turns on three characters:

• “Purvis Driggers is a South Carolina Low Country loser. With little judgment and even less chance for a decent life beyond his parents house, home town, and whatever part-time work he can scrounge up …”

• Martha Umphlett: “Married and just as quickly divorced, Martha’s been condemned to return to the home she’d once escaped. Made to take care of her obese mother, and forced to participate in a baptism she has no interest in whatsoever …”

• Brother Andrew, a monk at a nearby monastery whose call more and more is not to God, but to nature, and more importantly, to somewhere else. He wanders the swamp to watch birds, practice archery, and meditate …”

Purvis thinks he has a way to finally escape but Martha does as well and it involves Purvis – and not in the way he hopes.

The week point in this threesome is Brother Andrews and the bird watching. I will confess that I saw absolutely no point in this character or in the book that goes with Brother Andrew – the bird watching diary from Father Philip. Maybe that is why I missed the allegory.

But the tale of Martha and Purvis is highly entertaining. Purvis is one of those lovable losers who just can’t rise about his situation or intelligence to break free from the low level tragedy of his life. When he decides to “go big” he simply escalates the tragedy to higher levels.

Martha realizes that taking advantage of this is cruel and wrong but she sees no other choice. Martha is not the beautiful victim – or she is not just the beautiful victim – she seems to be; instead she is cold hearted and focused on revenge and escape and she doesn’t care who she has to use to get what she wants.

But as I noted above, what really makes Purple Jesus worth a read is the colorful dialog and characterizations. Cooper captures a time/place/culture in his depiction of South Carolina Low Country small town life. The language, the relationships, the habits and vices, the world view – they all come to tragi-comic life under Copper’s hand.

The reader feels that this place really exists – or used to – and that Cooper is more an anthropologist than writer at times. There is clearly some philosophical underpinnings involved – and despite what I said above I was not blind to them all – pantheism and platonism, etc.

I would recommend Purple Jesus to anyone who enjoys lush and poetic descriptions along with the illuminating of unique worlds and cultures.  It is a unique work with a unique perspective.

Publishers Weekly

An entertaining narrative voice, personal reflections from the author’s life and insightful interpretations combine to produce this accessible and lively new addition to Genesis scholarship. Coats, a former parish priest and management consultant, cogently applies source theory—the hypothesis that four separate documents went into the first five books of the Bible—to familiar stories whose ethical and spiritual DNA seeps through Western culture. Through his approach, the author makes complex biblical scholarship comprehensible, while challenging the reader to examine the actual text. Asserting that biblical characters are rather relentless in their mirroring, Coats uses second-person hooks (Imagine yourself as the first human being) to invite readers to use their own perspective to interpret the text. Cheeky chapter headings entice and inform; First, about the ark, which is most definitely not a boat begins his analysis of Noah and the flood. While cultural references from Maimonides to Mae West spice up the narrative, Coats’s exploration of how his own history and self-understanding inform his interpretations makes the most compelling reading. His reflections on his own aging and his analysis of the stories of Noah and Abraham prove compelling and thought provoking.

An entertaining narrative voice, personal reflections from the author’s life and insightful interpretations combine to produce this accessible and lively new addition to Genesis scholarship. Coats, a former parish priest and management consultant, cogently applies source theory—the hypothesis that four separate documents went into the first five books of the Bible—to familiar stories whose ethical and spiritual DNA seeps through Western culture. Through his approach, the author makes complex biblical scholarship comprehensible, while challenging the reader to examine the actual text. Asserting that biblical characters are rather relentless in their mirroring, Coats uses second-person hooks (Imagine yourself as the first human being) to invite readers to use their own perspective to interpret the text. Cheeky chapter headings entice and inform; First, about the ark, which is most definitely not a boat begins his analysis of Noah and the flood. While cultural references from Maimonides to Mae West spice up the narrative, Coats’s exploration of how his own history and self-understanding inform his interpretations makes the most compelling reading. His reflections on his own aging and his analysis of the stories of Noah and Abraham prove compelling and thought provoking.

This is not usually the sort of book I read.  But having read the introduction I was interested enough to push on. And in the end I found it an interesting read despite disagreeing with his fundamental assumptions in many ways.

If you are not familiar with source theory and Biblical criticism a lot of this book will surprise you. If you are threatened or uncomfortable by a sort of revisionist history of scripture some of it might upset you.  As I find Biblical scholarship fascinating I was intrigued and interested.

The weakest part of the this aspect of the book, however, is when Coates lays on the psychology a little too hard. But in an interesting twist, Coates own history becomes a big plus.

I am usually not a fan of books that mix genres to a large degree – and this one is part scholarship, part argument, part memoir and part cultural commentary. But Coates uses his own experience to both break up the close reading of scripture and to strengthen his theme that stories are a part of what it means to be human (as well as a tool to understand that humanity).  Somehow this tactics, mostly because of his voice and personality, adds to rather than subtracts from narrative.

This is one of the books that I found interesting and enjoyable even as I disagreed with the author and often found his points questionable.  In the end, Coates is a good story teller and than makes him worth reading.

During the summer our church has a Sunday school class that consists of various members presenting book reviews.  It is a good way to deal with vacations and yet still present good material and engender discussion.

One of the books covered was The Barbarian Way: Unleash the Untamed Faith Within by Erwin Raphael McManus. Knowing this was the case when I saw it at Half-Price Books I grabbed a copy.

It was a quick read and an interesting perspective. But despite some good insights and a lively style the book never really delivers the punch I expected.

Here is the publisher’s blurb:

Erwin McManus wasn’t raised in a Christian home, so when he came to Christ as a college student, he didn’t know the rules of the “religious club.” He didn’t do well in Shakespeare courses, so he didn’t really understand the KJV Bible he was given either. But he did understand that prayer was a conversation, and he learned to talk to God and wait for answers. Erwin’s way was passionate and rough around the edges-a sincere, barbaric journey to Christ.

Barbaric Christians see Jesus differently than civilized Christians. They see disciples differently, and they see Christ’s mission differently. The Barbarian Way is a call to escape “civilized” Christianity and become original, powerful, untamed Christians-just as Christ intended.

The problem I had was that reading that second paragraph basically covers the book. I never felt like McManus took it deeper. He made a good case that human nature always steers toward safety, complacency, and rationalization – and that this is the opposite of what it means to be a Christian.

But what he doesn’t do very well to my mind, is flush out more deeply how this plays itself day to day in your life. The attitude and perspective is there but the insight into what that means below the surface isn’t. Granted it is a 150 page book but I was still looking for a little more.

Still, Christians and churches would do well to think about whether their faith calls them to comfort and safety or whether it calls them to a life of radical commitment that eschews comfort for sacrifice and rejects safety for dependence on God.