Posts

Showing posts with the label religion

ON GETTING OUT of BED: THE BURDEN and GIFT of LIVING (audiobook) by Alan Noble

Image
  Published in April of 2003 by  Christianaudio.com Alan Noble is a college professor and a Christian writer who writes for Christian and non-Christian publications.  He also struggles with a mental illness that he does not identify in this short book. This book is all about dealing with the depression and struggles that come with mental illness, thus the title. Noble's powerful description of overwhelming depression demonstrates that he understands the issue and how it effects people well. This is important because it shows that he is coming from a place of understanding and that is vitally important. His advice is not easy advice, but it is realistic advice. One of my relatives was advised by well-meaning church members that the best way to deal with depression and suicidal ideation was prayer for God to help with these thoughts. I cannot stress enough that this was sincerely intended to be helpful advice, it was taken as, "If you only had enough faith, God would lift this

THE GREAT DECHURCHING: WHO'S LEAVING, WHY ARE THEY GOING, and WHAT WILL IT TAKE to BRING THEM BACK? (audiobook) by Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan P. Burge.

Image
Published by Zondervan in August of 2013. Read by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge. Duration: 7 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. America's church members are dropping out of church at a record pace - millions upon millions over the last 2 decades and, according to the stats, the only thing that will slow the pace is the fact that Christianity in America will be so much smaller that it will statistically impossible to lose so many people without completely emptying the pews. The authors started out to identify a number of things such as: a) Who is leaving - is it the old, the young, the middle-aged? b) Who is staying? c) Why are they leaving? Is it toxic politics? Sex scandals? Abuse? Lost interest? No connection? d) Will they be willing to come back? What would it take? This book draws heavily from a religious attitude survey administered by Baylor University from time to time. I recently r ead another book on Christian Nationalism that used the same surveys and these boo

TAKING AMERICA BACK for GOD: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM in the UNITED STATES (audiobook) by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry

Image
Published by Tantor Audio in 2020. Read by Tom Parks. Duration: 6 hours, 44 minutes. Unabridged. Whitehead and Perry are the first sociologists who set out to do an in-depth study of Christian Nationalism and Christian Nationalists. Whitehead (Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis) and Perry (University of Oklahoma) both hail from states where Christian Nationalism plays a strong role in the political and cultural realms. First, you need a working definition of Christian Nationalism. Whitehead describes it as:    "a cultural framework that is all about trying to advocate for a fusion between Christianity — as they define it — and American civic life." I also like this description by a completely unrelated person,  Rev. Skye Jethani :  "Christians participating in politics or influencing society with their values is NOT Christian Nationalism.  Christians believing they have a God-given right to dominate the government & society by excluding & dimin

TEN CAESARS: ROMAN EMPERORS from AUGUSTUS to CONSTANTINE (audiobook) by Barry Strauss

Image
  Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2019. Read by Arthur Morey. Duration: 12 hours, 52 minutes. Unabridged. Barry Strauss is a professor of the history of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. As the title clearly says, Strauss tells his reader/listeners about what he judges to be the ten most important Roman emperors and ends up telling a decent political history of the Roman Empire along the way. Bronze statue erected c.175 AD of  Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), one of the Roman Emperors featured in  this book. When I say he chose the ten most important emperors, that doesn't mean he chose the ten best emperors. He has more than one emperor that demonstrates how a bad leader can abuse the political consensus, damage the political system, and leave a lot of confusion in his/her wake. But, change is not necessarily a bad thing - especially when handled by talented leaders like Augustus and Constantine.  This was an interesting listen and well-read by Arthur Morey. I did enjoy how

STRENGTH for the FIGHT: THE LIFE and FAITH of JACKIE ROBINSON (Library of Religious Biography) (audiobook) by Gary Scott Smith

Image
  Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in October of 2022. Read by Shamaan Casey. Duration: 10 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. Jackie Robinson.  He is an icon of sports. And politics. And American history. All fans of baseball know at least the broad strokes of the story of Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) and how he integrated baseball. This book offers a detailed re-telling of that story with a twist - a look at how Jackie Robinson's faith led him to this path and helped sustain him. Robinson's early life, his time in service during World War II and his college sports career and his relationship with his wife are all covered. The biggest single part of the book is, appropriately, the story of how he and Branch Rickey (the head of the Brooklyn Dodgers) worked together to integrate Major League Baseball in 1947. The book also looks at how Rickey's faith led him to act to make the world a more just place by acting in such a symbolic manner. Jackie Robinson stealing hom

POSTCARDS from BABYLON: THE CHURCH in AMERICAN EXILE by BrIan Zahnd

Image
  Published by Spello Press in 2019. Brian Zahnd is a pastor in Missouri and he is concerned with American Christianity. American Christianity is in trouble because it has stopped doing what it is supposed to do. For so many Christians, Christianity has stopped being a counter-cultural force preaching love and grace. Instead, it has become, at best indifferent to the flaws in American culture. At worst, it is a cheerleader for American culture, as though Jesus was born in America, drank Coca-Cola and ate Chick-fil-A at least twice a week. Zahnd points out on page 34 that this is not a new thing - it has happened over and over again in history. "Rome. Byzantium, Russia, Spain, France, England and Germany have all done it. Seventeen centuries ago the Roman church got tangled up in imperial purple. In the 1930s, the German evangelical church got tangled up in Nazi red and black." A Christian flag at the January 6 riot. Is the place for a symbol of Christ on the side of rioters w

NOT in IT to WIN IT: WHY CHOOSING SIDES SIDELINE the CHURCH (audiobook) by Andy Stanley

Image
  Published in 2022 by Zondervan. Read by the author, Andy Stanley. Duration: 5 hours, 11 minutes. Unabridged. Andy Stanley brings a warning to churches across the United States: Do not become involved in partisan politics. Jesus is not a Republican and he is not a Democrat. He did not come to rule this world and he did not make his church a government for this world. Nevertheless, Stanley has been criticized by church members he has known for years for not taking splashy political stands. . Stanley goes on to detail very practical reasons not to get involved in partisan politics, such as ticking off 40% of your potential mission field by endorsing a certain candidate and being known as a Democrat or Republican church.  The answer? Neither.  By identifying with a political candidate or a party, you are rejecting your fellow Christians who disagree with you by identifying with a party more than identifying with the body of Christ. This is literally a heresy. The body of Christ has work

MARY BAKER EDDY: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Biographies of Christians series)(kindle) by Hourly History

Image
  Published in 2019 by Hourly History Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) is the founder of the controversial Christian sect knows as  Christian Science or The Church of Christ, Scientist in the late 1800s. I picked this short biography because I know something of the teachings of Christian Science, I knew next to nothing about its founder. Mary Baker Eddy in the 1850s Mary Baker Eddy grew up in small town New Hampshire and was often sickly as a child and young adult. It is unclear whether her illnesses were due to physical or nervous problems. As was typical for the time, life was hard and there were many tragic deaths in the early part of her life, including an older brother who served as a mentor, her husband while she was pregnant, a fiance and her mother. Her family took over raising her son and did not let her see him for years. Her son's caretakers moved away and let him believe that Mary Baker Eddy was dead. They did not speak to one another again until he was 34 years old. None of

IF GOD IS LOVE, DON'T BE a JERK: FINDING a FAITH THAT MAKES US BETTER (audiobook) by John Pavlovitz

Image
  Published by eChristian in November of 2021. Read by the author, John Pavlovitz Duration: 6 hours, 19 minutes Unabridged. John Pavlovitz is a minister who has done a lot of thinking about how Jesus told us to act and how formal "name brand" Christianity often acts to those that it deems as "less". We all know that thinking of people as "less" is not really a thing Christ endorses, but it is still an all too often sad reality. Who are the less that have been in the news lately? Immigrants, LGTBQ people, Muslims...and more.  Pavlovitz asks: "If God is love and if you're emulating that God, then you should be loving. If you claim a religious worldview or have spiritual aspirations, those should yield more compassion, not less; more decency, not less; more generosity, not less. If not, what's the point of having them?" Great question. What's the point? I've had these thoughts more than once in the last 6 years, coinciding with the c

UNOFFENDABLE: HOW JUST ONE CHANGE CAN MAKE ALL of LIFE BETTER (audiobook) by Brant Hansen

Image
Published in August of 2015 by Tantor Audio. Read by the author, Brant Hansen. Duration: 4 hours, 21 minutes. Unabridged. Brant Hansen came to a realization that righteous anger, an emotion that a lot of my fellow Christians seem to adore should not actually be a tool in the Christian toolbox. It's on display all over social media and at public events like the current spate of contentious school board meetings. For example, recently a former member of 2 Contemporary Christian bands was seen at the forefront of a mob that was menacing people in the parking lot after a school board meeting. He yelling, "You can live freely, but we will find you!" at medical personnel who testified in favor of masks. He became the story and all Christians got a black eye as Taliban-type extremists.  The author, Brant Hansen Instead, Hansen is trying his best to take the words of God seriously when he says  to avoid anger. Here are 20 verses that give that counsel. He describes the change

THE DESIRE of the EVERLASTING HILLS: THE WORLD BEFORE and AFTER JESUS (Hinges of History #3) by Thomas Cahill

Image
Published in 1999 by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday. The Desire of the Everlasting Hills  is the third book in  The Hinges of History Series  by  Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  Nearly 20 years ago I read the is book and the second book in this series,  The Gifts of the Jews   and then parked them on a bookshelf. I never read more books in the series and simply forgot all about them. With the pandemic quarantine came a purging of the bookshelves and these books returned to the to-be-read pile.  Overall, I enjoyed The Gifts of the Jews , despite some slow spots. I had high hopes for this book because I thought it would fit in well with the strongest parts of its predecessor. But, I found this book to be a mostly plodding history with an absolutely excellent and inspiring last chapter attached to it.  And, I have solved the mystery of why I never pursued the rest of the b

THE GIFTS of the JEWS: HOW a TRIBE of DESERT NOMADS CHANGED the WAY EVERYONE THINKS and FEELS (The Hinges of History Series #2) by Thomas Cahill

Image
  Originally published in 1998 by Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books in 1998. The Gifts of the Jews is the second book in The Hinges of History Series by Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  I read this book when it was first published and I placed it on my shelf and did not touch it for more than 20 years. Over time, I remembered it as  remembered it as a dense tome and continued to keep it on my shelf  as more of a trophy to my ability to read through difficult books than for any desire to go back and consult it or even re-read it. That changed when we stuck at home during the pandemic quarantine and we came to realize that our extensive bookshelves were overwhelmed and a purge was in order. This book was "purged" from the shelves, but went in to my to-be-read pile after I leafed though it. I don't know why I remembered this book as hard to read. Cahill has a real gift for wr

DEAR CHURCH: A LOVE LETTER from a BLACK PREACHER to the WHITEST DENOMINATION in the U.S. by Lenny Duncan

Image
  Published in 2019. Lenny Duncan, as noted in the title, is a black pastor in a very white church body - the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). I belong to a different Lutheran denomination, but I recognize the congregations and the issues he is talking about. I found out about this book from an interview on the morning news on NPR. Duncan took a unique route to becoming a pastor. He was a homeless teen, he was a prostitute, he served time in jail and he was seeking something spiritual when he attended an ELCA church and heard the Lutheran teachings on God's grace and his life was changed. Now, he is a pastor telling this church that he loves that it must do better. To be fair to the ELCA, this letter is not just applicable to that denomination, it is applicable to most of the mostly white mainline protestant denominations. But, comments like this one are more than fair for all Lutheran churches: " People are deciding not to come to our churches because we have al

AFTER JESUS: THE TRIUMPH of CHRISTIANITY by Reader's Digest

Image
Roman Emperor Constantine (272-337 AD) Published in 1992 by Reader's Digest. Back in the day, Reader's Digest was famous for taking a popular novel and editing it down without losing the essence of the story. They were so good at it that the phrase "the Reader's Digest version" was a common way of saying getting the short version of a story. In this case, Reader's Digest has provided a short, easy-to-read and easy-to-follow history of Christianity from the death of Christ to the rise of Islam in 321 pages. It is also a passable history of the Roman Empire for the same time period. Technically, this is a re-read for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly more than 20 years ago and to my surprise, i enjoyed it just as much the second time around. Look through 3 or 4 pages and you will see several full color photos of ancient art, artifacts or locations and, most importantly, get a solid rundown of the people, ideas and controversies of the era. The only weakness is

GOD IS NOT ONE: THE EIGHT RIVAL RELIGIONS THAT RUN the WORLD - and WHY THEIR DIFFERENCES MATTER (audiobook) by Stephen Prothero

Image
Published in 2010 by HarperAudio. Read by Paul Boehmer. Duration: 14 hours, 37 minutes. Unabridged. Stephen Prothero is a professor of religion at Boston University. The purpose of the book is to inform the reader of the eight greatest world religions, their philosophies and their way of looking at the world. Prothero is very aware that choosing just eight religions is fraught with problems. How do you choose? Is it based on influence? Number of adherents? Importance of the countries it is in? He went through all of those questions again once again when he chose the order he would present the religions he picked. The religions he profiled are: Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Judaism, Yoruba religion, and Daoism. He spends about 90 minutes discussing each religion and includes nearly an hour on Atheism at the end, on the theory that militant Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens) behaves much like a religion, complete with evangelistic movements an

"I LOVE PAUL REVERE, WHETHER HE RODE or NOT" by Richard Shenkman

Image
Originally published by HarperPerennial in 1991. Richard Shenkman has written several books that show that many of the commonly-held beliefs about history are not quite true and some are absolutely false. The title comes from a quote from President Warren G. Harding when he was asked about a popular newspaper article that asserted that Paul Revere did not actually make his famous ride. Ironically, Paul Revere only gets two mentions: once on page 10 and the other on page 192. The mention on page 192 is simply the complete quote from Harding that inspired the title of the book. So, if you were thinking this was going to be a book about Paul Revere, you will be disappointed.  Instead, Shenkman's book is a reminder that there are always multiple views on history. Anybody that tells you that a certain group all believed a certain thing or they all did something for one reason is simplifying things and losing some of the nuance of how it really happened.  The Boston Tea Party

THE HESSIAN by Howard Fast

Image
Hessian soldiers. Originally published in 1972. Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific author with a particular love of historical fiction. He is most famous for the novel Spartacus , the book that the famous movie is based on. This book is set in rural Connecticut late in the Revolutionary War. The war has moved on south of Connecticut. The main character is Dr. Feversham, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and wars in Europe who is sick to death of war. He is not a particularly pleasant man. He is a lapsed Catholic while most of his neighbors are Protestants. There is also a scattering of Quakers in the area. A British ship dropped off a squad of 16 Hessians who cause a panic. Hessians are German soldiers hired by the British to help supplement their soldiers during the Revolutionary War. They were particularly hated and feared because they were mercenaries (and they fought very well). The Americans could understand why the British fought, but what was the motivation of soldiers

A PILGRIMAGE to ETERNITY: FROM CANTERBURY to ROME in SEARCH of a FAITH (audiobook) by Timothy Egan

Image
Published by Penguin Audio in 2019. Read by the author, Timothy Egan. Duration: 12 hours, 42 minutes. Unabridged. At the beginning of this pilgrimage, author Timothy Egan describes himself as a lapsed Catholic, perhaps even an agnostic. He was raised Catholic in Washington State and decided to go on a long-established pilgrimage route called the Via Francigena to contemplate his faith and how the church has betrayed its own faithful with the ongoing sexual abuse scandal. The Via Francigena runs from the cathedral at Canterbury in England, through France and Switzerland into Italy and ends in Rome at the Vatican. It is one of the most established pilgrimage routes in Europe, but not as well known as the Pilgrimage of Compostela in Spain.  Egan gives the listener little history lessons as he tells the story of his own pilgrimage through Europe. Those are usually interesting and informative. He tells his thoughts about faith and Christianity as he travels as well. When possible, he

NEVER ALONE: A PERSONAL WAY to GOD by the AUTHOR of JOSHUA by Joseph F. Girzone

Image
Originally published in 1994. Joseph F. Girzone (1930-2015) discusses faith, prayer and God in this short book. Girzone is best known for his book Joshua , a powerful and effective re-telling of the Jesus story in the modern world. This book is a pleasant read, but it doesn't deliver the emotional impact of Joshua . For me, the strongest part of the book was his discussion of how the modern church is great on staking out positions on social issues, but they miss "...the fundamental purpose of religion, to foster and mold spirituality among its members..." and "...to teach their people the ways of prayer and how to develop a deeper intimacy with God." (p. 8) He continues, "We are brought up to follow unquestioningly the practices of our religion, whatever our denomination." This has value, but too often we "...are not familiar with the message as Jesus delivered it." Following the practices of a religion are a "way of life" but

LEVI COFFIN, QUAKER: BREAKING the BONDS of SLAVERY in OHIO and INDIANA by Mary Ann Yannessa

Image
Originally printed in 2001. One of my favorite people in history is Levi Coffin. I have visited the Levi Coffin House (an official Historic Site maintained by the state of Indiana) so many times that it feels like I am making a semi-annual pilgrimage when I go.  The thing is, I find myself inspired every time I visit - both as a history lover, a champion of individual rights and as a Christian. Levi Coffin was an instrumental figure in the Underground Railroad and the abolition movement. He was not simply  a theoretical supporter of the movement that wrote letters and collected donations. He helped more than a thousand slaves escape, many of them spending time in his own home. His home in Indiana was even modified so that he could hide ten or more people at a time, if necessary. Here is a picture that I took of a great quote from Levi Coffin that is on the wall of the visitors center at his house in Fountain City:  This short book tells an interesting story of his life fr