Two Giveaway Winners!

My apologies to all for the delay in having the drawings for Exercising Your Soul and The Church Awakening. I do like to wait about a week before doing a drawing to give ample opportunity for folks to enter but I got a bit behind.

Congratulations to Robin who will receive a copy of The Church Awakening from the publisher. (Robin, I have your address so you don't need to send it to me.)

Congratulations to Michelle who won a copy of Exercising Your Soul. Michelle, please email your address to me (jody dot harrington at gmail dot com) so I can get that information to the publisher.

Please let me know when you receive the books! I hope you enjoy them.

Guest Book Review: Exercising Your Soul by Gary Jansen

Note from QG: When I skimmed through this book after receiving it from the publisher, I realized that I did not have much background in Catholic and Ignatian spirituality. Fortunately my friend Robin Craig has much experience with this and agreed to be a guest reviewer for me. Many thanks, Robin! I know my readers will really appreciate your fine review of this book.

Gary Jansen's Exercising Your Soul is a humorous and helpful read for anyone who wants to explore a life of prayer.  

Sympathetic to the struggles we all face in developing an honest and disciplined prayer life, Jansen offers candid and wry anecdotes detailing some of his own challenges.  And, recognizing how difficult it is for many of us to figure out how to make a start, he provides numerous illustrations drawn from popular culture -- movies, television, and everyday encounters -- to demonstrate how easily we can make use of the ordinary events of our lives in order to discover the God who is present in all things.

Although Jansen writes from a Roman Catholic perspective, with many of his insights based upon the 16th century Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, most of what he  suggests offers prayer potential to anyone of Christian faith.  Many of his very short chapters give helpful introductions to various prayer forms -- historical background, explanations of the how and why, and brief but easy-to-follow instructions.  If you've been curious about lectio divina, or contemplative prayer, or imaginative prayer, he offers lots of practical ideas for for developing a new practice or for revitalizing one that's stalled.

Protestants who are accustomed to focusing primarily on Scripture in their devotional life may find the chapters on praying the parables particularly helpful.  Interestingly, Jansen uses (perhaps unwittingly) a famous metaphor of John Calvin's.  Calvin urges us to understand Scripture as the "spectacles" which God gives us to see and understand God's creation in a way that out brokenness precludes; Jansen offers us prayer as another lens through which we may see God's activity in our lives .

The final section of the book addresses the Stations of the Cross, a Catholic form of devotion. Jansen presents two versions: the traditional one, developed in the Middle Ages, which incorporates moments of Jesus' journey toward the cross as depicted in legend as well as Scripture, and a newer version promulgated in 1991 by Pope John Paul II, based solely upon events related in the Gospels. The latter may be more acceptable to those Protestants who are distracted or troubled by stories and customs that have emerged from tradition rather than from the Bible itself.  As always, Jansen provides detailed but not overwhelming instructions for those wading into new waters with respect to this form of meditation.

As Jansen says in his Introduction, we often think of prayer as :"asking for what I want" rather than as an experience of God's grace.  This book would, I think, be helpful as a guide to either an individual or a small group desiring to explore forms of prayer or seeking to deepen the experience of prayer as grace received as well as desire pursued.

 

--Robin Craig

 

GIVEAWAY: The publisher has offered a copy of Exercising Your Soul to one of my readers. Please leave a comment if you would like to enter the drawing. 

The Spice Necklace by Ann Vanderhoof

Books that combine travel and cooking are great to take with you on vacation. Or to pick up and read when you need a vacation but aren't going anywhere.

Ann Vanderhoof's The Spice Necklace is an excellent example of how to combine these two genres into an entertaining and educational read.

I'm not a big aficianado of Caribbean cooking, despite the fact that I do like hot and spicy food. Vanderhoof's book didn't change my mind and send me out to Whole Foods looking for jerk spice, mangoes, fresh coconuts or plantains so that I could try out some of the recipes she includes in the book. So I can't comment on how the recipes come out. 

However, her memoir of a recent trip around several Caribbean islands included great descriptions of each as well as insight into what is distinctive about each one. She and her husband made friends with islanders on each of their stops and took the time to learn about their lives and participate in their traditions.

The title is meant to remind the reader of the old term for this area of the world: The Spice Islands. Vanderhoof shares the education she gained through her experience about the history and cultivation of their traditional spices such as vanilla, wild oregano, nutmeg and mace, and congo peppers as well as their use in the native cuisine.

All in all, The Spice Necklace is a fun, escapist read that informs as well as entertains. If you try any of the recipes, let me know how you liked them!

The Church Awakening by Charles R. Swindoll

Right after I read The Great Emergence, I read The Church Awakening: An Urgent Call For Renewal by Charles R. Swindoll. The Church Awakening is written in answer to Phyllis Tickle (she is quoted once in the book) and other advocates of the "emergent" church by this prominent evangelical pastor and author.

Swindoll's book is aimed at both church members and pastors, and its purpose is to persuade them to stand against the tide of postmodernism and to engage the culture for Jesus Christ.

Readers like me, who are of a conservative, evangelical, reformed theological viewpoint will appreciate this book. Those who identify with progressive, postmodern, or emergent theological beliefs will either dismiss it or find it challenging.

Swindoll calls for a return to expository preaching from the Bible as the centerpiece of Christian worship and challenges the drift away from it. In other words, Swindoll believes sola scriptura is a fundamental truth.

In response to those who fear the Bible has become an idol, he replies " we do not worship the print on the page, the paper and ink lead us to a knowledge of the One whom we do worship--Jesus our Master and Savior." I loved this quote, too:

If you need direction in life, you don't need to look for Jesus' face in a burrito, or try to interpret the clouds in the sky for a sign from God, or rely on the advice of a professor with three Phd's. When you are not sure which direction to go, read your Bible. Seek the scriptures and pray to your God.

Swindoll's criticism of the emerging church movement is that it engages the culture in "conversation" instead of preaching transformation of the culture. He is also critical of creeping professionalism: " the people pay the pastors to do the work of ministry, while they sit and watch and offer critiques". As for the marketing of the church, "Jesus is not a brand", Swindoll declares, " Churches don't need to try so hard to be creative and cute that folks miss the truth."

Swindoll is not a hide-bound traditionalist. In the chapter Worship: A Commitment...Not a War, he encourages those who seek to dispense with self-serving traditions and defends good contemporary hymns and praise songs.

In the end, it comes down to the question of authority, as Tickle and Swindoll would both agree. Is authority found in the culture or scripture? Their answers are very different.

One of the oldest symbols of the early church was a sailboat. The sailboat represented the church of believers sailing upon the sea of this world under the guidance of the breath of the Holy Spirit that directed its path. As Swindoll observes, the danger to the ship is not sailing on the waters of the culture, but taking too much of that water on board.

GIVEAWAY!! A review copy of this book was sent to me by the publisher, FaithWords. I am also able to offer a copy to one of my readers. So if you are interested, please leave a comment to this post. The winner will be chosen by a random drawing one week from today! Include your email address (spell it all out so you don't get spammers) and I will contact the winner to make arrangements.

And the Winner Is...

Roberta won the drawing for a copy of What Good Is God? by Philip Yancey. Thanks to those of you who commented on that review and entered the drawing.

Roberta, I hope you enjoy the book.

The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle

Phyllis Tickle spoke at an event during the General Assembly of the PCUSA on the subject of her book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Subsequently I engaged in a discussion on my blog (Quotidian Grace)  and in a podcast with Rev. Landon Whitsitt, the Vice Moderator of the PCUSA, about her statement in the book and during her speech that "sola scriptura" is dead.

I was not at GA to hear her speak but I have now read her book. A copy was given to me by a friend at presbytery who was very enthusiastic about it, so I took it as as sign that I needed to read it.

I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about The Great Emergence as my friend.

This is a short book packed full of sweeping generalizations, which the author readily admits can be nit-picked, so I will spare you my lengthy list of nits. Tickle begins with a quick overview of the history of the church since the time of the apostles until today. She deduces that the church goes through a big upheaval ("emergence") roughly every 500 years in which it "cleans out its attic" of non-essentials and disposes of the non-essentials which have cluttered up and impeded its mission and purpose.

That's a reasonable general metaphor. However she totally loses me when she says "we begin to refer to Luther's principle of 'sola scriptura, scriptura sola' as having been little more than the creation of a paper pope in place of a flesh and blood one." Tickle throws out fundamental principles of faith along with the barnacles of human history and tradition.

Tickle is an Episcopalian and that denomination views Scripture, Reason and Tradition as having equal authority for the Christian believer (the "three-legged stool" of Episcopalian theology). As a Presbyterian, I do not believe that human reason and tradition have the same authority as scripture. This is where she and I part ways.

Tickle, like many progressive Christians,  makes the mistake of conflating those who hold to the five solas (sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus and soli Deo gloria) with those who adhere to inerrancy and literal interpretation of the Bible. They are not the same groups although there is some overlap between them.

My fundamental disagreement with Tickle's theological point of view, aside, I also question her emphasis on the influence of the PBS series "The Power of Myth", the success of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Timothy Leary as major contributors to the emergence she describes. She does do a good job of analyzing the influence of the automobile, the birth control pill and the move of women into the workforce in large numbers at the end of the twentieth century on the life of the traditional churches in America. However those points have been made before.

I stumbled around page 35 with Tickle's diagram and description of the cable of religion. I found it unintelligible and put the book aside for a few days. There are several more diagrams at the end of the book which were likewise abstruse. Readers with an affinity for that sort of thing  may find them helpful.

 One of the reasons I read the book was to learn what the "emergent church" is. Alas, this is the closest Tickle came to enlightening me on the subject:

"...when pinned down and forced to answer the question, 'What is the Emergent or Emerging Church?' most who are will answer 'a conversation' which is not only true but which will always be true. The Great Emergence can not "be", and be otherwise.

Excuse me?? Say that again?? I'm afraid that for me parts of this book are an exercise in imprecise thinking lurking beneath  a pretentiously intellectual presentation.

Tickle is correct when she observes that many within the church today are questioning or rejecting the authority of scripture as the guide for faith and life as well as what she terms the "exclusivist" claims that Christ alone is the way to salvation. That should be decried, not encouraged.

I've attended my share of conferences that focus on reviving/awakening/reforming the church over the years and seen many trends come and go. I'll be surprised if the "emergent church" isn't just another one.

America's Prophet by Bruce Feiler

I'm a fan of Bruce Feiler, the prolific journalist and author whose recent books Walking The Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born reveal his increasing knowledge and commitment to writing about the roots of his Jewish faith and culture. So I happily accepted the invitation to read and review his newest book for the TLC virtual book tour.

His latest work, America's Prophet is a meticulously researched and well written survey of the adoption by America of the story of Moses from the early days of the first Pilgrim settlers to the Revolution, to the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, the eastern European migrations of the end of the nineteenth century, and on to the civil rights movement of the mid to late twentieth century. America's Prophet is written in a more academic style than Feiler's other popular books.

Feiler reveals how this Moses metaphor was invoked by the early Pilgrims and explicitly used to describe the most revered figures of American history such as Washington, Harriet Tubman, Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Feiler reminds me of Lee Strobel (author of The Case For Christ among other books). Both writers use the journalistic tool of interviewing experts on the subjects they are writing about as well as engaging in personal explorations of their own. For example, Feiler records his observations and emotions while re-enacting the escape of slaves across the Ohio river along the Underground Railroad to safety in Ridley. Then he interviews the curator of the home of an abolitionist who was a conductor of the Underground Railroad and assisted many slaves to freedom.

Feiler covers not only history, but also cultural icons that were influenced by the story of Moses. These include the inscription on the Liberty Bell, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Superman, and the 10 commandment monuments in statehouses across the country (which have become the subject of lawsuits) were placed as a marketing tool by the producer of the movie The Ten Commandments.

 One of the sub-texts of the book is Feiler's attempt to  compare the influence of Jesus and the influence of Moses on this country's development. He takes this issue to Professor Allen Guelzo, who teaches Civil War history at Gettysburg College: " I would have thought Jesus was a much more influential figure in America. But I'm starting to believe the themes of Moses may echo more."

Guelzo's response is that the question is not why Christ is so attractive, but "how did Moses get on the stage and why is he still here?" His conclusion is that it is because Moses represents deliverance and Jesus represents redemption. In other words, Moses is a political figure while Jesus is a spiritual one.

As Feiler concludes his book, he says that although he expected to find the themes of Moses' life in America's history, he did not expect to find the extent to which the Exodus story permeates the American experience as Moses has been invoked from the earliest days of the colonies to the present by American political leaders.

Who will be our next Moses? Feiler asks towards the end of the book. I don't know the answer to that, but the next Moses can expect to lead his people into something new and better, to persevere despite complaining from them, and to pave the way forward into the Promised Land but not entering it himself or herself.

America's Prophet is a challenging but worthwhile and thought-provoking. It gave me a whole new perspective on American history and the development of American culture.  I could see it becoming required reading in college courses on American civilization. The book would also make be a good choice for a book club or church adult study group that is interested in tracing the influence of Biblical themes on American history and modern culture.