Catholics: A Novel | by Brian Moore

Catholics: A Novel by Brian Moore
(Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972, 107 pages)

Which is better, the traditional or the modern; the old paths or the new? When stated in this broad way, such a question might appear to be a simple matter of preference. When it comes to issues of religious belief and the ritual forms that those beliefs take, however, the question often moves from the realm of preference to the realm of right and wrong.

In Catholics Brian Moore depicts a future in which Vatican IV has reshaped the Catholic Church, dispensing with private confessions, traditional clerical garb, and the celebration of the Latin Mass. The Church’s ecumenical ambitions have resulted in a World Ecumen Council and now extended to a proposed union with Buddhist leaders. Father James Kinsella has been sent by the Father General of the Council to deal with a monastery on a small island off the Irish coast led by Abbot Tomas O’Malley. The Order has attracted international attention for its continuation of the Latin Mass.

Now this story would be simpler (and far less interesting) if it were, as it appears at first glance, simply a story about traditionalists versus progressives. However, Tomas himself harbors the misgivings of his namesake, the doubting Thomas of the Gospels. The faith he had as a young priest no longer serves him. A story that was ostensibly about who would win out in a clash between traditionalists and progressives becomes about the very possibility of belief itself. Many people continue in observing traditional faith practices, even when the plausibility of the belief that sustains that faith seems to be discredited. It is possible to live with this tension for an interminable period of time unless, as with Abbot Tomas, the choice is forcibly presented. In the end, the question of old or new is not the decisive one. When faced with a crisis of disbelief, the final issue is as Tomas put it: “Prayer is the only miracle… We pray. If our words become prayer, God will come” (107).

This is a beautifully written novel. There are no wasted words as Moore evokes the loneliness and severity of life on the island. The tension of building storms foreshadows the tensions of the plot. I discovered this book when I heard someone refer to it as a favorite of the deceased novelist David Foster Wallace. I can see why he loved it.

In the Ruins of the Church | by R. R. Reno

In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity
by R. R. Reno
(Brazos Press, 2002, 208 pages)

The cultures of modernity and postmodernity have not only changed attitudes towards the church in the West, but they have drastically transformed the shape of the church itself. This transformation has been one from a common basis of unity to ever increasing fragmentation. In the Ruins of the Church is a diagnosis of the “ruined” state of Western Christianity and an offer of some practices by which those living in the “ruins” can live more faithfully. R. R. Reno focuses on issues within the Episcopal Church (he was active in the leadership of the Episcopal Church at the time this book was published) including the role of Scripture in ecclesiastical decision making, controversy over the church’s views on sexuality, and the nature and focus of pastoral ministry. In this way, Reno’s method follows his theory – if the church is characterized by separation, distance, and fragmentation, then what better way to suggest helpful paths forward than by a close examination and commitment to a rather beleaguered denomination that exemplifies these characteristics.

If Reno’s commitment to living faithfully as an Anglican helps him to clarify his diagnosis of the problems besetting the wider church, then he looks to his Anglican heritage for resourcement as well. His chapter on the Daily Office of common prayer is very helpful, showing how a sustained commitment to particular spiritual practices can give us a better perspective on the contemporary challenges we face. Reno also encourages and models an approach to Scripture which draws on the patristic heritage of typographical reading and the sensus plenior, revealing the biblical texts to be full of potent symbolic meaning that can transcend some of the debates surrounding higher criticism of the texts. Through these and other methods, Reno is drawing on the liturgical and patristic traditions of Anglicanism that are so often felt to be at odds with the contemporary challenges that the church faces.

I greatly appreciate Reno’s diagnoses and his recommendations. In particular, his call for a closer reading of Scripture that employs premodern and nuanced literary methods is extremely helpful. His reading of 1 John in the final chapter demonstrates the particular advantages of this approach. I am, however, slightly wary of some of the consequences of this approach. No doubt, looking to premodern readings of Scripture and devotional/liturgical practices can provide a way for us to grasp the original intentions of the biblical texts, as well as grant perspective on contemporary issues. That being said, Reno’s approach runs the risk of neglecting positive developments in the modern church. Historical-critical methodology has done more than simply fuel controversy in the church. Certainly, this may be a matter of emphasis, but there are some that will take an emphasis on the premodern as permission to ignore contemporary issues rather than gain a helpful perspective on them. Also, Reno engages postmodern thinkers like Derrida and Foucault primarily for the purpose of establishing the inherent cynicism of our culture. In the decade since this book has been published, there have been several scholars who have contributed to the discussion of premodern approaches to Scripture or the “theological interpretation of Scripture,” by marshaling the literary insights of these same postmodern figures. All told though, this is a very helpful book for those thinking through issues of ecclesiology.

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament | by Peter Enns

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament
by Peter Enns
(Baker Academic, 2005, 208 pages)

Old Testament scholar Peter Enns deals with three aspects of Old Testament studies in this book: (1) the relevance of ancient Near Eastern literature for understanding the Old Testament, (2) the diversity of theological views within the Old Testament itself, and (3) the way that the Old Testament is interpreted by the authors of the New Testament. Enns is concerned to ensure that the text of the OT is allowed to speak for itself and that OT scholarship is allowed to shape and impact doctrinal formulation. In order to do this we must have some understanding of the parallels between the OT and other ancient Near Eastern texts, grasping the particular aims and methods of ancient historiography as important context for understanding the aims and methods of the OT authors. We must wrestle with the diversity of theological perspectives amongst OT authors, avoiding a simplistic synthesizing and allowing this diversity to cultivate patience and humility in our attempts to arrive at interpretive conclusions. Finally, we must allow the seemingly odd methods of the New Testament authors in interpreting the OT to shape our understanding of how the OT should be used.

For Enns, the best way to begin approaching the OT text on its own terms is by taking the doctrine of the Incarnation as a starting point, relating the nature of Scripture to the nature of Christ: “as Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible. In other words, we are to think of the Bible in the same way that Christians think about Jesus” (17). This allows us to take seriously the humanity and the contextualized nature of the OT without fear of dispensing with the OT’s status as an “inspired” text. I think that Enns does an excellent job of providing Bible readers with good conceptual tools with which to read well. As an experienced scholar writing for a more popular audience, he conveys the importance of engaging with the original contexts of ancient literature while still acknowledging that the modern reader’s own context does and should play its own part in the interpretive task. Enns is a scholar whose learning has cultivated a genuine sense of humility and generosity – essential characteristics for anyone seeking to read well, especially when significant cultural distance separates the reader from the text. Readers who follow Enns will find themselves better prepared to deal with the complexities of Scripture in a generous and patient way.

Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works | by James K. A. Smith

Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works by James K. A. Smith
(Baker Academic, 2013, 224 pages)

Imagining the Kingdom is the second of three proposed volumes in Jamie Smith’s Cultural Liturgies project. In the first installment, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Smith dealt with the role of human desires and affections in the shaping of a person’s worldview. He explored the way that liturgies – both the explicit liturgies of Christian worship, and what he terms “secular liturgies,” or ritual aspects of consumer and capitalist culture – shape our desires and our basic assumptions about the constitution of the world.

In Imagining the Kingdom Smith continues this project by looking more closely at how we holistically, not simply rationally, construe and make meaning of the world in which we live. He enlists the help of French phenomenologists Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Pierre Bourdieu, offering expositions from their work to show how bodily perceptions and social/institutional habits shape our imaginations and provide the background against which we reason and interpret the world. These insights are then marshaled to give an in depth picture of how narrative and ritual inform our imaginations through both secular and religious liturgies.

While Smith is working in the area of philosophical theology, he also includes sidebars and asides that explore his themes through film and literature. This not only helpfully illustrates his points, but it also serves to reinforce the idea that narrative and other forms of non-propositional knowledge play an integral role in how we perceive of and act in the world. Smith’s ideas are in line with, and acknowledge a debt to, neuroscience’s recognition of the subconscious ways that we appropriate knowledge and interact with the world. This interdisciplinary approach is fascinating, and Smith succeeds in revealing the depth and complexity of our interaction with the world. More than this, he convincingly shows that traditional Christian worship as well as secular practices fundamentally shape and condition that interaction.

The Diviners | by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray
(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012, 592 pages)

I had wanted to read this book for a while and while I certainly enjoyed it, it was different from what I expected. The year is 1926 and Evie has come to New York to live with her Uncle Will after getting herself in a bit of trouble back home in Ohio. Evie has a “talent” that enables her to read objects and discern information about their owners… She tries to keep this secret, but sometimes she can’t help wanting to feel like the center of attention. It is shortly after she comes to New York that strange murders start taking place. They are performed by the same person and follow a certain ritual/set of guidelines. Uncle Will owns a museum that focuses on religion and the supernatural and he is called in to help look at the murders and see if he can provide the police with any insight. Evie insists on helping as well and she finds herself drawn into a dark world she wishes she could escape from.

There is a large cast of characters in this book, all of whom play a unique role. The book has an interesting mix of the historical and the magical and you can tell Bray did a considerable amount of research to make this book into a reality. That being said this book had a darker tone than I expected, but it kept me turning pages as I rushed to find out what would happen next. Now I just have to wait for the second book in the series to be published…

You can also check out Theresa’s review of The Diviners.

Heaven is for Real | by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent

Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
(Thomas Nelson, 2010, 163 pages)

Heaven is for Real is a pastoral family’s account of their 3-year old son’s visit to heaven. Colton, the center of the story, became very ill while the pastor and his family were on vacation in Colorado. After several days of violent sickness, and bouncing from hospital to hospital getting no answers, Colton was finally operated on for a burst appendix. After a long recovery Colton was fine, but something remained with him from the sickness…he said he had visited heaven during his operation.The family believes his story is credible because he was able to give the details about people in their lives who had died long before he was born. He was also able to tell his parents what they were doing while he was in surgery. He gives incredible details creating a visual of heaven for the reader.

Overall the book was a good account that will help burgeon people’s personal Christian faith. The issue I had with the story, was the absolutely horrifyingly long time it took for the family to take the boy in for medical treatment. The lack of the parents’ reaction to their son’s grave illness, somewhat left a shadow over their whole account for me. I would like to treat these parents to a course in first-aid if I could. However, I would still recommend the book to anyone who wants to hear some convincing details about the existence of heaven.

The World According to God | by Greg Johnson

The World According to God: A Biblical View of Culture, Work, Science, Sex and Everything Else
by Greg Johnson
(InterVarsity Press, 2002, 208 pages)

The World According to God is a popular introduction to Christian worldview thinking. Greg Johnson looks at the broad biblical narrative and fleshes out how this narrative informs and shapes human endeavors like government, science, art, work and a host of other everyday activities. He covers a lot of ground in two hundred pages, and his discussion of each cultural sphere is necessarily broad. However, Johnson does a solid job of applying scriptural and doctrinal insights to both high culture and to the workaday world.

Johnson is a Presbyterian minister, and his concerns are clearly formed by the commonplace issues and questions of the people among whom he has ministered. This book is written for laypersons, but it is informed by academic concerns as well. One interesting aspect of the book is the “choose your own introduction” feature. The first introduction is academically oriented and addresses scholarly trends in scriptural interpretation, while the second speaks to Johnson’s targeted audience of laypeople looking to apply scriptural insights to everyday life.

Johnson treats his subject with humor as well insight. I you are interested in the relationship between religion and culture, this is an enjoyable and informative example of an evangelical approach.

The New Worship Awakening: What’s Old is New Again | by Robert E. Webber

The New Worship Awakening: What’s Old is New Again by Robert E. Webber
(Hendrickson Publishers, 2007, 180 pages)

Robert Webber was a kind of guru for evangelicals who were looking to appropriate ancient expressions of the Christian faith in a twenty-first century context. Until his death in 2007, he worked to help churches achieve this goal of what he referred to as an “ancient-future” synthesis. The primary way that he advanced this agenda was through introducing evangelicals to liturgical forms from the early church and showing how various modern worship traditions could helpfully blend contemporary worship with these more traditional forms. The New Worship Awakening argues for this approach and offers advice as to how such a blending can be achieved.

Webber’s hope was to sell evangelicals on the kind of liturgical renewal that took place in mainline Protestant churches during the twentieth century, and he met with a large degree of success. The worship of many tradition-oriented evangelicals is looking more and more like traditional liturgies that have been preserved in other parts of Protestantism and even Catholicism. This book does an excellent job of showing how the evangelical priorities of conversion, personal piety, and gospel-centered preaching are embodied in ancient liturgies. Anyone interested in the history and contemporary practices of Christian worship would find much here to stimulate their thinking.

Habibi | by Craig Thompson

Habibi by Craig Thompson
(Pantheon Books, 2011, 655 pages)

When I tried to read Craig Thompson’s Blankets a few years ago, I couldn’t really get into it.  I was curious to try Habibi because it received such acclaim and was getting so much attention.  This graphic novel didn’t disappoint.  Thompson’s skills as an artist and as a storyteller are very much on display here.  There was a depth to the book I hadn’t anticipated and that I’m still trying to wrap my head around.  The religious connections and the underlying messages would definitely encourage me to pick this up again.

The story revolves around two main characters: Dodola and Zam.  They are brought together as children, both having been captured to be sold as slaves.  They were 9 years apart but Dodola raised Zam as her child on a boat in the middle of the desert.  The story alternates from both their perspectives and doesn’t necessarily follow a linear path.  Tied in with their personal stories, religion is carefully interwoven and connections are made between religious figures and our two protagonists.  They are tragically torn apart early in the book and the reader is left wondering if they’ll ever be reconnected.

Like I mentioned earlier, there is a lot going on in Habibi so it was hard trying to think of what I would write for my review.  The idea of a true “summary” isn’t really feasible because there is so much to consider.  I’d definitely recommend this title and I’m curious to try picking up Blankets again.  Great read.

The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift in Honor of James B. Jordan | edited by Peter J. Leithart and John Barach

The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift in Honor of James B. Jordan
edited by Peter J. Leithart and John Barach
(Pickwick Publications, 2011, 336 pages)

This volume recognizes the work of a little-known American Reformed theologian, James B. Jordan. Though his immediate influence is limited, Jordan has written prolifically in the areas of biblical, liturgical, and cultural studies. In some ways his work is a kind of re-appropriation of patristic methods of reading Scripture which traffic largely in typology and symbolism. However, Jordan’s work is highly creative and never a simple reversion to older forms of scriptural interpretation.

The essays that make up this collection are offered by a circle of theologians and ministers who have been influenced by Jordan. They are categorized under the headings of biblical studies, liturgical theology, theology, and culture. As with many collections of this kind, the quality of the essays is a bit uneven. The strongest sections are those which deal with biblical studies (delivering insightful readings of various Old Testament texts, as well as offering interesting reflections on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments) and culture (dealing with cultural revolutions, aesthetics, and sports). Each essay is followed by a rejoinder from Jordan himself, which is a unique feature of the book. In addition, the introduction, preface, and afterword all offer helpful evaluations of Jordan’s work and significance.

I enjoy the diversity and creativity of Jordan’s work, and this volume is a good reflection on and development of his interests and themes. This book might appeal to those who have an interest in scriptural interpretation and the influence of the Bible on Western culture.