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492. The Book of Longings

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Sue Monk Kidd

Genre:    Fiction, Historical Fiction, Theology, Christian

416 pages, published April 21, 2020

Reading Format:   Book

Summary

The Book of Longings is a new take on the story of Jesus Christ.  It is told from the perspective of Ana who was raised in a wealthy family in Sepphoris with ties to the ruler of Galilee.  Ana longs to be a writer and rebels against the stifling expectations and oppression of her family and culture.  Author Sue Monk Kidd engages in poetic license and has Ana marrying Jesus and then making her home with his brothers, James and Simon, and their mother, Mary. Ana and Jesus are separated for several years and are reunited just before the crucifixion.  Ana then carries on, chronicling Jesus’ story and reaching her potential in a small artists’ colony.

Quotes 

“When I tell you all shall be well, I don’t mean that life won’t bring you tragedy. Life will be life. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. All shall be well, no matter what.”

 

“Anger is effortless. Kindness is hard. Try to exert yourself.”

 

“Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my reed pens and my inks. Bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.”

 

“Each of us must find a way to love the world. You have found yours.”

― Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings

 

“Why should we contain God any longer in our poor and narrow conceptions, which are so often no more than grandiose reflections of ourselves? Let us set him free.”

 

“Your moment will come because you’ll make it come.”

 

“It does the world no good to return evil for evil. I try now to return good to them instead.”

 

“Your moment will come, and when it does, you must seize it with all the bravery you can find.”

 

“Life will be life and death will be death.”

 

“Her mind was an immense feral country that spilled its borders.”

 

“Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it.”

 

“You think with your head. You know with your heart.”

 

“I went to stand beside him and looked in the same direction as he, and it seemed for an instant I saw the world as he did, orphaned and broken and staggeringly beautiful, a thing to be held and put back right.”

 

“It’s always a marvel when one’s pain doesn’t settle into bitterness, but brings forth kindness instead.”

 

“When I was finally able to read the Scriptures for myself, I discovered (behold!) there were women.”

 

My Take

I had previously read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings and enjoyed both books, so I was interested in her latest effort.  It’s a good book, not a great one.  Kidd offers a unique perspective on Christianity by imagining Jesus with a wife, but does seem to be accurate with a lot of the other historical details in her story.  Her main character Ana provides an compelling portal to view the life, death and resurrection Jesus.

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433. The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Resurrection

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Karen Reader

Author:   Lee Strobel

Genre:   Non Fiction, Theology, Christian

90 pages, published March 26, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Case for Easter is a very short book that focuses on empirical arguments for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Author Lee Strobel interviews experts from a number of disciplines to methodically make his case.  In journalistic fashion, he looks at the medical evidence of Christ’s death on the cross, the evidence of the missing body from the tomb and the evidence of Christ’s appearances after death.

Quotes 

 

My Take

While The Case for Easter is a quick read at just 90 pages, author Lee Strobel (who also wrote The Case for Christ), makes compelling and evidenced based arguments for the resurrection of Christ.  Highly recommended during the Easter season.

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429 . Under the Banner of Heaven

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Jon Krakauer

Genre:   Nonfiction, Theology, Crime, History

399 pages, published July 10, 2003

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer explores the story behind two horrific murders of a young woman and her baby daughter by brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty.  The Lafferty’s were caught up in an offshoot Mormon fundamentalist sect and claimed that they were instructed by God to carry out their gruesome crime.  Additionally, Krakauer examines the Mormon religion in detail, from its origins in the early 1800’s with Joseph Smith, to its settlement in Utah led by Brigham Young to its embrace of polygamy to its modern day incarnation as a mainstream American religion.

Quotes 

“There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans.”

 

“Common sense is no match for the voice of God.”

 

“But some things are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”

 

“Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits. Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off.”

 

“Neither Emma’s tears nor her rage were enough to make Joseph monogamous, however; nor were the prevailing mores of the day. He kept falling rapturously in love with women not his wife. And because that rapture was so wholly consuming, and felt so good, it struck him as impossible that God might possibly frown on such a thing.”

 

“But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.”

 

“Balanced atop the highest spire of the Salt Lake Temple, gleaming in the Utah sun, a statue of the angel Moroni stands watch over downtown Salt Lake City with his golden trumpet raised. This massive granite edifice is the spiritual and temporal nexus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which presents itself as the world’s only true religion. Temple Square is to Mormons what the Vatican is to Catholics, or the Kaaba in Mecca is to Muslims. At last count there were more than eleven million Saints the world over, and Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the Western Hemisphere. At present in the United States there are more Mormons than Presbyterians or Episcopalians. On the planet as a whole, there are now more Mormons than Jews. Mormonism is considered in some sober academic circles to be well on its way to becoming a major world religion–the first such faith to emerge since Islam.”

 

My Take

I had previously read Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, two terrific page turners also written by the writer Jon Krakauer.  I therefore had high hopes for Under the Banner of Heaven.  While not of the same caliber as Into Thin Air, it was still quite compelling and informative.  I learned a lot about Mormonism (a very weird religion with some very good people who follow it) and how dangerous any type of religious fundamentalism can be.  It certainly got me thinking.

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415. Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   John Ortberg

Genre:   Nonfiction, Christian, Theology

208 pages, published April 22, 2014

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Soul Keeping is an in depth exploration of the state of your soul and has prescriptions for how to improve it.  By trying to buy your way to happiness and focus on the material concerns of the world, your soul will pay the price.  In this practical and spiritual book, author John Ortberg helps you to discover your soul, which is the most important connection to God.

Quotes 

“You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God.”

“Many Christians expend so much energy and worry trying not to sin. The goal is not to try to sin less.  In all your efforts to keep from sinning, what are you focusing on? Sin. God wants you to focus on him.  To be with him. “Abide in me.” Just relax and learn to enjoy his presence.  Every day is a collection of moments, 86,400 seconds in a day.  How many of them can you live with God? Start where you are and grow from there. God wants to be with you every moment.”

 

“Being right is actually a very hard burden to be able to carry gracefully and humbly. That’s why nobody likes to sit next to the kid in class who’s right all the time. One of the hardest things in the world is to be right and not hurt other people with it.”

 

“If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life.”

 

“Your soul is what integrates your will (your intentions), your mind (your thoughts and feelings, your values and conscience), and your body (your face, body language, and actions) into a single life. A soul is healthy — well-ordered — when there is harmony between these three entities and God’s intent for all creation. When you are connected with God and other people in life, you have a healthy soul.”

 

“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

 

“If you ask people who don’t believe in God why they don’t, the number one reason will be suffering. If you ask people who believe in God when they grew most spiritually, the number one answer will be suffering.”

 

“In the Bible, God never gives anyone an easy job. God never comes to Abraham, or Moses, or Esther and says, “I’d like you to do me a favor, but it really shouldn’t take much time. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.” God does not recruit like someone from the PTA. He is always intrusive, demanding, exhausting. He says we should expect that the world will be hard, and that our assignments will be hard.”

 

“The soul integrates the will and mind and body. Sin disintegrates them. In sin, my appetite for lust or anger or superiority dominates my will. My will, which was made to rule my body, becomes enslaved to what my body wants. When I flatter other people, I learn to use my mouth and my face to conceal my true thoughts and intentions. This always requires energy: I am disintegrating my body from my mind. I hate, but I can’t admit it even to myself, so I must distort my perception of reality to rationalize my hatred: I disintegrate my thoughts from the reality. Sin ultimately makes long-term gratitude or friendship or meaning impossible. Sin eventually destroys my capacity even for enjoyment, let alone meaning. It distorts my perceptions, alienates my relationships, inflames my desires, and enslaves my will. This is what it means to lose your soul.”

 

“For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God.”

 

“A very simple way to guard your soul is to ask yourself, “Will this situation block my soul’s connection to God?” As I begin living this question I find how little power the world has over my soul. What if I don’t get a promotion, or my boss doesn’t like me, or I have financial problems, or I have a bad hair day? Yes, these may cause disappointment, but do they have any power over my soul? Can they nudge my soul from its center, which is the very heart of God? When you think about it that way, you realize that external circumstances cannot keep you from being with God. If anything, they draw you closer to him.”

 

“A paradox of the soul is that it is incapable of satisfying itself, but it is also incapable of living without satisfaction. You were made for soul-satisfaction, but you will only ever find it in God. The soul craves to be secure. The soul craves to be loved. The soul craves to be significant, and we find these only in God in a form that can satisfy us. That’s why the psalmist says to God, “Because your love is better than life . . . my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods.” Soul and appetite and satisfaction are dominant themes in the Bible — the soul craves because it is meant for God. “My soul, find rest in God.”

 

“I was operating on the unspoken assumption that my inner world would be filled with life, peace, and joy once my external world was perfect.”

 

“A soul without a center feels constantly vulnerable to people or circumstances.”

 

“The best place to start doing life with God is in small moments.”

 

“The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.”

 

“We will always take the most care of that which we value most deeply.”

 

“The soul was not made to run on empty. But the soul doesn’t come with a gauge. The indicators of soul-fatigue are more subtle: • Things seem to bother you more than they should. Your spouse’s gum-chewing suddenly reveals to you a massive character flaw. • It’s hard to make up your mind about even a simple decision. • Impulses to eat or drink or spend or crave are harder to resist than they otherwise would be. • You are more likely to favor short-term gains in ways that leave you with high long-term costs. Israel ended up worshiping a golden calf simply because they grew tired of having to wait on Moses and God. • Your judgment is suffering. • You have less courage. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” is a quote so ubiquitious that it has been attributed to General Patton and Vince Lombardi and Shakespeare. The same disciples who fled in fear when Jesus was crucified eventually sacrificed their lives for him. What changed was not their bodies, but their souls.”

 

“Here’s the deal: The more you think you’re entitled to, the less you will be grateful for. The bigger the sense of entitlement, the smaller the sense of gratitude. We wonder why in our world we keep getting more and more and more and keep being less and less and less grateful.”

 

“The “with God” life is not a life of more religious activities or devotions or trying to be good. It is a life of inner peace and contentment for your soul with the maker and manager of the universe. The “without God” life is the opposite. It is death. It will kill your soul.”

 

“Our problem is that this world does not teach us to pay attention to what matters. We circulate résumés that chronicle what we have accomplished, not who we have become. The advertisements we watch, the conversations we hold, the criteria by which we are judged, and the entertainment we consume all inflame our desire to change our situation, while God waits to redeem our souls.”

 

“Despite the rise of the mental health profession, people are becoming increasingly vulnerable to depression. Why? Martin Seligman, a brilliant psychologist with no religious ax to grind, has a theory that it’s because we have replaced church, faith, and community with a tiny little unit that cannot bear the weight of meaning. That’s the self. We’re all about the self. We revolve our lives around ourselves.”

 

“We’re generally quite good at doing something, but we’re really bad at doing nothing.”

 

“Good habits are enormously freeing — we accomplish good things almost on autopilot. One study from Duke University found that more than 40 percent of the actions people take every day aren’t decisions, but habits. Good habits free us, but when sin becomes a habit, our souls lose their freedom.”

 

“The alternative to soul-acceptance is soul-fatigue. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. When we stay up too late and rise too early; when we try to fuel ourselves for the day with coffee and a donut in the morning and Red Bull in the afternoon; when we refuse to take the time to exercise and we eat foods that clog our brains and arteries; when we constantly try to guess which line at the grocery store will move faster and which car in which lane at the stoplight will move faster and which parking space is closest to the mall, our bodies grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the mind. When we are bombarded by information all day at work . . . When multiple screens are always clamoring for our attention . . . When we carry around mental lists of errands not yet done and bills not yet paid and emails not yet replied to . . . When we try to push unpleasant emotions under the surface like holding beach balls under the water at a swimming pool . . . our minds grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the will. We have so many decisions to make. When we are trying to decide what clothes will create the best possible impression, which foods will bring us the most pleasure, which tasks at work will bring us the most success, which entertainment options will make us the most happy, which people we dare to disappoint, which events we must attend, even what vacation destination will be most enjoyable, the need to make decisions overwhelms us. The sheer length of the menu at Cheesecake Factory oppresses us. Sometimes college students choose double majors, not because they want to study two fields, but simply because they cannot make the decision to say “no” to either one. Our wills grow weary with so many choices.”

 

“I am so wrapped up in the hurt I have received that I do not notice the hurt I inflict.”

 

“When evangelist Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, died in 2007, she chose to have engraved on her gravestone words that had nothing to do with her remarkable achievements. It had to do with the fact that as long as we are alive, God will be working on us, and then we will be free. She had been driving one day along a highway through a construction site, and there were miles of detours and cautionary signs and machinery and equipment. She finally came to the last one, and this final sign read, “End of construction. Thank you for your patience.” That’s what is written over Ruth Graham’s grave: “End of construction. Thank you for your patience.” Construction today. Freedom tomorrow.”

 

My Take

I read Soul Keeping as part of my women’s bible study and found it to be one of the best bible study books that I have read in the past 10 years.  Ortberg is a gifted writer and makes a lot of good, thought provoking points.  I also appreciated that he shared a number of personal details, vulnerably opening himself up to the reader.  I came away from reading this book with some valuable takeaways.

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391. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Jonathan Haidt

Genre:    Nonfiction, Psychology, Politics, Theology, Philosophy

419 pages, published March 13, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our cultural polarization and explores way to bridge the chasms that divide us.  Haidt mixes his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain. He examines the origins of morality, rejecting the view that evolution has made us selfish.  Rather, we are tribal creatures which accounts for most of our religious divisions and our political affiliations.

Quotes 

“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”

 

“Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous mind.”

 

“The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.”

 

“If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you.”

 

“Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”

 

“Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.”

 

“People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.”

 

“We should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play. But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it’s so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board).”

 

“Groups create supernatural beings not to explain the universe but to order their societies.”

 

“The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship.”

 

“Societies that exclude the exoskeleton of religion should reflect carefully to what will happen to them over several generations. We don’t really know, because the first atheistic societies have only emerged in Europe in the last few decades. They are the least efficient societies ever known at turning resources (of which they have a lot) into offspring (of which they have few).”

 

“Creating gods who can see everything, and who hate cheaters and oath breakers, turns out to be a good way to reduce cheating and oath breaking.”

 

“Our moral thinking is much more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth.”

 

“Everyone cares about fairness, but there are two major kinds. On the left, fairness often implies equality, but on the right it means proportionality —people should be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute, even if that guarantees unequal outcomes.”

 

“The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: because moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. A dog’s tail wags to communicate. You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments.”

 

“If you really want to change someone’s mind on a moral or political matter, you’ll need to see things from that person’s angle as well as your own. And if you do truly see it the other person’s way—deeply and intuitively—you might even find your own mind opening in response. Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it’s very difficult to empathize across a moral divide.”

 

“The “omnivore’s dilemma” (a term coined by Paul Rozin) is that omnivores must seek out and explore new potential foods while remaining wary of them until they are proven safe. Omnivores therefore go through life with two competing motives: neophilia (an attraction to new things) and neophobia (a fear of new things). People vary in terms of which motive is stronger, and this variation will come back to help us in later chapters: Liberals score higher on measures of neophilia (also known as “openness to experience”), not just for new foods but also for new people, music, and ideas. Conservatives are higher on neophobia; they prefer to stick with what’s tried and true, and they care a lot more about guarding borders, boundaries, and traditions.”

 

My Take

The Righteous Mind fulfills one of my basic criteria for a worthwhile read; I learned something new or gained some interesting insight.  With this book, I came to a better understanding of how we make moral judgments and why it is nearly impossible to persuade someone to change their mind on a moral issue with logic and rational arguments.  I also learned why we are so tribal and how banding together has advanced the course of human civilization.  I appreciated that Jonathan Haidt backs up his conclusions with lots of research and anecdotes.  A thought provoking read.

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356. Coffee with Jesus

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   David Wilkie

Genre:  Fiction, Graphic Novel, Theology

118 pages, published November 1, 2013

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The graphic novel Coffee with Jesus is taken from a daily online comic strip born out of artist David Wilkie’s frustration with the polarized political climate in America.  The strip is organized around six themes:  getting to know Jesus, spiritual disciplines, relationships, culture, church, and the challenges of life.

Quotes 

 

My Take

I was first made aware of Coffee with Jesus when my church used it for several weeks as a launch pad for sermons.  There is a lot of insight and relevant commentary in this short book told in a new and creative format.  Many of the strips really got me thinking.

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347. The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Nick Reader

Author:   Ben Shapiro

Genre:  Non Fiction, History, Philosophy, Theology

288 pages, published March 19, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Right Side of History is Ben Shapiro’s take on the history of religion and philosophy in Western Civilization and how those two things were integral to America becoming a great and unique country.  However, he argues that we are in the midst of a crisis of purpose and ideas.  Our freedoms are built upon the two ideas that every human being is made in God’s image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God’s world.  These precepts led to the birth of science, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty.  They also built America, ended slavery, defeated the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty and gave billions spiritual purpose. Civilizations that rejected these ideas have collapsed into ignominy.  The USSR, Maoist China, Nazi Germany and modern day Venezuela rejected Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, substituting a new utopian vision of “social justice.”  The result was mass starvation and slaughter of tens of millions of human beings.  Shapiro warns that the United States is in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, favoring instead moral subjectivism and the rule of passion.  The result if civilization collapse into tribalism, individualistic hedonism, and moral subjectivism.  The solution is to regain the moral purpose that drives us to be better individuals and assume the duty of working together for the greater good.

Quotes 

“We don’t live in a perfect world, but we do live in the best world that has ever existed.”

 

“What does this mean for human beings? What makes a man virtuous is his capacity to engage in the activities that make him a man, not an animal—man has a telos, too. What is our telos? Our end, according to both Plato and Aristotle, is to reason, judge, and deliberate.”

 

“The best countries—and the best societies—are those where citizens are virtuous enough to sacrifice for the common good but unwilling to be forced to sacrifice for the “greater” good. Flourishing societies require a functional social fabric, created by citizens working together—and yes, separately—toward a meaningful life.”

 

“Lasting happiness can only be achieved through cultivation of soul and mind. And cultivating our souls and minds requires us to live with moral purpose.”

 

“The creation story itself is designed to demonstrate how the first man, Adam, used his innate power of choice wrongly—and we are all Adam’s descendants.”

 

“What does this mean for human beings? What makes a man virtuous is his capacity to engage in the activities that make him a man, not an animal—man has a telos, too. What is our telos? Our end, according to both Plato and Aristotle, is to reason, judge, and deliberate.”

 

”a society of essential oils and self-esteem has replaced a society of logic.”

 

“That virtue took the form of courage—willingness to sacrifice life, fortune, and sacred honor in pursuit of defending the rights necessary to pursue virtue itself. That virtue took the form of temperance—no better founding document has ever been penned than the Constitution of the United States, the product of compromise. That virtue took the form of prudence—the practical wisdom of The Federalist Papers has not yet been surpassed in political thought. And that virtue took the form of justice—the rule of law, not of men, and the creation of a system where each receives his due.”

 

“Nazism didn’t arise from consumerism. It arose from communal purpose overriding individual purpose, and individual capacity abandoned in favor of worship of the communal capacity of the state. Nazism, in other words, lay a lot closer to Marxism than capitalism did.”

 

“Politics is about working to build the framework for the pursuit of happiness, not the achievement of it; politics helps us establish the preconditions necessary for happiness, but can’t provide happiness in and of itself.”

 

“Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

 

“Christianity’s focus on grace rather than works makes it a far more accessible religion than Judaism in a practical sense. The commandments of Judaism are intricate and difficult. Christianity dispensed with the need for them. Faith is paramount.”

 

“We receive our notions of Divine meaning from a three-millennia-old lineage stretching back to the ancient Jews; we receive our notions of reason from a twenty-five-hundred-year-old lineage stretching back to the ancient Greeks. In rejecting those lineages—in seeking to graft ourselves to rootless philosophical movements of the moment, cutting ourselves off from our own roots—we have damned ourselves to an existential wandering.”

 

“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society,” Rousseau wrote. 

My Take

The Right Side of History was a Mother’s Day gift from my son Nick, a devotee of Ben Shapiro.  Nick and I share a conservative/libertarian philosophy and I was looking forward to reading Shapiro’s take on Western Civilization.  While the book is a bit dense at times with its lengthy history of philosophy, I wholeheartedly agreed with Shapiro’s conclusions and prescriptions for keeping America from plunging into the historical abyss and towards a free society that recognizes and values the individual while still expecting that individual to work within his or her community to improve the lives of others.  An interesting and worthwhile read.

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336. On Calvary’s Hill: 40 Readings for the Easter Season

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Karen Reader

Author:   Max Lucado

Genre:  Non Fiction, Theology, Christian

144 pages, published October 24, 1999

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

On Calvary’s Hill is a 40 day Devotional leading up to Easter chronicling the passion of Christ and exploring his final days.

Quotes 

“Why is the cross the symbol of our faith? To find the answer, look no further than the cross itself. Its design couldn’t be simpler. One beam horizontal—the other vertical. One reaches out—like God’s love. The other reaches up—as does God’s holiness. One represents the width of his love; the other reflects the height of his holiness. The cross is the intersection. The cross is where God forgave his children without lowering his standards.”

 

“The next time you think that no one understands or cares, reread the fourteenth chapter of Mark and pay a visit to Gethsemane. And the next time you wonder if God really perceives the pain that prevails on this dusty planet, listen to him pleading among the twisted trees. The next time you are called to suffer, pay attention. It may be the closest you’ll ever get to God. Watch closely. It could very well be that the hand that extends itself to lead you out of the fog is a pierced one. No Wonder They Call Him the Savior.” 

My Take

I found On Calvary’s Hill to be an inspiring read, especially during the Easter season.  It really made me think about the sacrifice of Jesus and what that means to my life.

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323. Romans For You 8-16

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Timothy Keller

Genre:  Non Fiction, Christian, Theology

224 pages, published February 3, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Romans For You 8-16 is the second half of Romans study by noted theologian and Christian writer Timothy Keller.

Quotes 

“The same sun that melts wax hardens clay.” In other words, what makes a life “good” is not a particular set of circumstances, but how the heart interacts with them.”

 

“Sin can only grow in the soil of self-pity and a feeling of “owed-ness.” I’m not getting a fair shake! I’m not getting my needs met! I’ve had a hard life! God owes me; people owe me; I owe me! That’s the heart attitude of “owed-ness” or entitlement.”

 

“Notice that in 16:25 Paul does not say “is able to save you”; rather, he says God is powerful to “establish” us through the gospel. This reminds us that the gospel is not only the entry point into the Christian life; it is also the way we continue in, grow in and enjoy life with Christ. Paul has shown in Romans how the gospel not only saves us (chapters 1 – 5), but also how it then changes us (chapters 6 – 8; 12 – 15). If we believe the gospel, God is working powerfully through it, in us. We need never move away from it.”

 

“Look what God’s done for me! Is this how I respond to him?”

 

“This shows us that “the good” God always is working for us is character change. He is making us as loving, noble, true, wise, strong, good, joyful and kind as Jesus is.”

 

“Christians who don’t understand “no condemnation” only obey out of fear and duty. That is not nearly as powerful a motivation as love and gratitude.”

 

“Paul is saying that sin can only be cut off at the root if we expose ourselves constantly to the unimaginable love of Christ for us. That exposure stimulates a wave of gratitude and a feeling of indebtedness.”

 

“children of God” only for those who have received Christ as Savior and Lord: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children [tekna] of God” (John 1:12). Sonship is given to those who receive him. No one has it naturally except Jesus Christ.”

 

“The “Spirit of sonship” that Paul speaks of is, therefore, an ability that the Holy Spirit gives us to approach God as a Father instead of as a boss or slavemaster.”

 

“Not Christians. We don’t expect things in life to “work for good” of their own accord. When we find things working out beneficially for us, it is all of God, all of grace, all of him. When things work out, Christians never say: Of course—that’s as it should be! Rather, they praise God for it.”

 

“But second, this truth removes general fear and anxiety when life “goes wrong.” We know it hasn’t gone wrong at all! If God “works” in “all things,” it means his plan includes what we would call “little” or “senseless” things. Ultimately, there are no accidents.” 

My Take

After reading Galatians for You and especially The Reason for God, I am a fan of Timothy Keller.  A thoughtful and intelligent religious thinker and writer, Keller challenges his readers to dig deep and really think about what it means to be a Christian.  Romans for You 8-16 does this well and Keller has some interesting discussions of some challenging texts in the Bible.

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312. Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Lisa Stock

Author:   Nadia Bolz-Weber

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Theology, Christian

204 pages, published September 10, 2013

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint is a memoir by Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran Pastor who started the Church of All Sinners and Saints in Denver and who took a very unlikely path to the clergy.  Bolz-Weber is a former standup comic, a recovering alcoholic, is heavily tattooed and regularly uses foul language.  In this book, she shares her theological insights and a personal narrative of a flawed, beautiful, and unlikely life of faith.

Quotes 

“God’s grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word … it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn’t about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace – like saying, “Oh, it’s OK, I’ll be the good guy and forgive you.” It’s God saying, “I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”

 

“Matthew once said to me, after one of my more finely worded rants about stupid people who have the wrong opinions, “Nadia, the thing that sucks is that every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of it.” Damn.”

 

“The image of God I was raised with was this: God is an angry bastard with a killer surveillance system who had to send his little boy (and he only had one) to suffer and die because I was bad. But the good news was that if I believed this story and then tried really hard to be good, when I died I would go to heaven, where I would live in a golden gated community with God and all the other people who believed and did the same things as I did…..this type of thinking portrays God as just as mean and selfish as we are, which feels like it has a lot more to do with our own greed and spite than it has to do with God.”

 

“I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.”

 

“It would seem that when we are sinned against, when someone else does us harm, we are in some way linked to that sin, connected to that mistreatment like a chain. And our anger, fear, or resentment doesn’t free us at all. It just keeps us chained.”

 

“God was never about making me spiffy; God was about making me new.

New doesn’t always look perfect. Like the Easter story itself, new is often messy. New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I’m right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness and every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and then somehow living without it anyway. New is the thing we never saw coming- never even hoped for- but ends up being what we needed all along.”

 

“Maybe the Good Friday story is about how God would rather die than be in our sin-accounting business anymore.”

 

“This is our God. Not a distant judge nor a sadist, but a God who weeps. A God who suffers, not only for us, but with us. Nowhere is the presence of God amidst suffering more salient than on the cross. Therefore what can I do but confess that this is not a God who causes suffering. This is a God who bears suffering. I need to believe that God does not initiate suffering; God transforms it.”

 

“Every human community will disappoint us, regardless of how well-intentioned or inclusive.”

 

“Forgiveness is a big deal to Jesus, and like that guy in high school with a garage band, he talks about it, like, all the time.”

 

“God’s grace is a gift that is freely given to us. We don’t earn a thing when it comes to God’s love, and we only try to live in response to the gift. No one is climbing the spiritual ladder. We don’t continually improve until we are so spiritual we no longer need God. We die and are made new, but that’s different from spiritual self-improvement. We are simultaneously sinner and saint, 100 percent of both, all the time. The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ. Anything in the Bible that does not hold up to the Gospel of Jesus Christ simply does not have the same authority. The movement in our relationship to God is always from God to us. Always. We can’t, through our piety or goodness, move closer to God. God is always coming near to us. Most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.”

 

“It happens to all of us,” I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. “God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.”

 

“We want to go to God for answers, but sometimes what we get is God’s presence.”

 

“Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples. Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary, are bearers of resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, and like my friend Don did at Dylan Klebold’s funeral, that death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, we still make our song alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.”

 

“The life changing seems always bracketed by the mundane. The quotidian wrapped around the profound, like plain brown paper concealing the emotional version of an improvised explosive device. Then, in a single interminable moment, when we discover the bomb, absolutely everything changes. But when we recall it from our now forever-changed lives, when we start with the plain brown wrapping, it looks like every other package, every other morning, every other walk.”

 

“Getting sober never felt like I had pulled myself up by my own spiritual bootstraps. It felt instead like I was on one path toward destruction and God pulled me off of it by the scruff of my collar, me hopelessly kicking and flailing and saying, ‘Screw you. I’ll take the destruction please.’ God looked at tiny, little red-faced me and said, ‘that’s adorable,’ and then plunked me down on an entirely different path.”

 

“God’s grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word. My selfishness is not the end-all… instead, it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn’t about God creating humans as flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace—like saying “Oh, it’s OK, I’ll be a good guy and forgive you.” It’s God saying, “I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”

 

“This is exactly, when it comes down to it, why most people do not believe in grace. It is fucking offensive.”

 

“When these kinds of things happen in my life, things that are so clearly filled with more beauty or redemption or reconciliation than my cranky personality and stony heart could ever manufacture on their own, I just have no other explanation than this: God.”

 

“This desire to learn what the faith is from those who have lived it in the face of being told they are not welcome or worthy is far more than “inclusion.” Actually, inclusion isn’t the right word at all, because it sounds like in our niceness and virtue we are allowing “them” to join “us”—like we are judging another group of people to be worthy of inclusion in a tent that we don’t own.”

 

“Maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are. And maybe, just moments after Jesus’ baptism, when the devil says to him, “If you are the Son of God…” he does so because he knows that Jesus is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that he is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God. So if God’s first move is to give us our identity, then the devil’s first move is to throw that identity into question.”

 

“When what seems to be depression or compulsive eating or narcissism or despair or discouragement or resentment or isolation takes over, try picturing it as a vulnerable and desperate force seeking to defy God’s grace and mercy in your life. And then tell it to piss off and say defiantly to it, “I am baptized” or “I am God’s,” because nothing else gets to tell you who you are.”

 

“It was in those first couple months that I fell in love with liturgy, the ancient pattern of worship shared mainly in the Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, and Episcopal churches. It felt like a gift that had been caretaken by generations of the faithful and handed to us to live out and caretake and hand off. Like a stream that has flowed long before us and will continue long after us. A stream that we get to swim in, so that we, like those who came before us, can be immersed in language of truth and promise and grace. Something about the liturgy was simultaneously destabilizing and centering; my individualism subverted by being joined to other people through God to find who I was. Somehow it happened through God. One specific, divine force.” 

My Take

Pastrix is a compelling, well written memoir.  Author Nadia Bolz-Weber is a strong writer has a lot of new and powerful things to say.  I also appreciated her explanations of how things work in a church.  For example, her explanation on the liturgy was very interesting and informative.  As a recovering alcoholic, heavily tattooed former standup comedian, she comes at religion for a different angle than books that I have previously read.  While I didn’t agree with everything she wrote, she certainly gave me a lot to think about and broadened my perspective on several theological issues.  Recommended.

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