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Archive | December, 2009

The Gospel According to Lost | Chris Seay

By on December 28, 2009 in Book Reviews, Culture 0

The Gospel according to lost is what happens when a pastor enjoys a television series.

This book is not a book of theories and speculation about Lost. (With one season to go, that would be a foolish endeavour!) It’s a reflection on the religious and philosophical themes that permeate the award winning television show. Seay (with a few exceptions) has written a chapter on each of the main characters, reflecting on what they bring to questions of faith.

As a pastor, I often found myself making the same connections that Seay did:

  • Eko with his bible-stick of scripture
  • Locke with his insistence on faith
  • Shephard’s stubborn anti-supernatural stance
  • Sawyer’s bad-boy-seeking-redemption story
  • The list goes on . . .

On the negative side, Seay often took the easy road when reflecting on the characters—there are a lot of deeper connections that could have been plumbed. Also, the structure of the book was quite scattered. There was no unifying arc to the book as a whole. Maybe a second edition released following the final season could clear things up!

If you love the show Lost, and are curious to see how a believer puts the pieces together, give this book a try.

Disclaimer: I received this book as a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program.

Merry Christ-Mass | Walter Wangerin, Jr.

By on December 25, 2009 in Weekend Wisdom 0

What irony: we invoke the death of our lord even as we celebrate his birth. “Merry Christmas” is a celebration of the incarnation, while the Mass signifies his death. Such is the mystery of faith. Wangerin says it well in Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom:

“Your Savior is born. Your savior is here and very near. Nevermore shall you be ignorant of God and God’s deep love for you, because I will give you signs for finding that love. Look, he is a baby, wrapped in plain baby clothing, lying in the humblest of homes, a manger.

“Look: the beams of his stable will become the beams of a cross, and as he is born human, so shall he a human die. True death: a death like yours.

“But as he is also born the Son of God, so shall his death also kill the sin and everything that separates you from the throne of God. True death, the truest death: the death of death itself.”

Under the Dome | Stephen King

By on December 21, 2009 in Book Reviews, Horror 0

Stephen King’s at his best when he lets the page-count roll freely and the cast of characters climb. That’s why I decided to give this book a try. It’s the first new King book I’ve read since Volume VII of The Dark Tower.

This book answers a question: what would happen if your small community was completely cut off from the outside world. In a sense, it’s akin to Lord of the Flies. In both books you watch society degenerate in isolation. In particular, I loved King’s grasp of religious fundamentalism and the blind hypocrisy it generates. His command of the subculture right down to it’s clichés was masterful (“Wanna get kneebound with me?”).

While the plot wasn’t too involved, it did move along briskly. I would have liked to see more about the dome’s origin (sorry about the cryptic sentence—I’m trying not to let any spoilers slip). However, the ending was well foreshadowed and this story was about the townsfolk.

This was a solid effort from one of the masters.

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Overcoming Unholiness | Kenneth E. Bailey

By on December 18, 2009 in Weekend Wisdom 0

Today’s quote is from Bailey’s meditation on the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. (The Karl G. Kuhen quote within the quote is from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.)

God is holy love, and he faces unholy nature. Yet, in his holiness, God is able to reach out to love that unholy nature. Again Kuhen writes, “therefore the antithesis between God and man consists in the very love which overcomes it.”

The Year of the Flood | Margaret Atwood

By on December 14, 2009 in Book Reviews, Literature 0

In Oryx and Crake, Atwood painted a future where advances in genetic engineering created a plague that eradicated most of humanity. I loved the novel for its realism—many of the engineered creatures Atwood envisioned had already been created. It was a great work of dystopian fiction.

The Year of the Flood brings us right back to that world from the perspective of a religious cult that prophesied the plague—the waterless flood—that eventually took place. We were introduced to the world in the first book—we experienced it in the second.

Atwood was brilliant in her creation of the “God’s Gardeners” cult that this book focuses on. Her description of theological hair-splitting and mixed motivations among the group faithfully echo the religious world of today. I’ve grown up in the church and pastored for the past 12 years: her understanding of religion is unnerving.

This story is a brilliant mix of popular fiction and literature. The story’s compelling, but there’s much more than mere plot. We can only hope this turns into a trilogy.

You Lived to Die | Hans Urs von Balthasar

By on December 11, 2009 in Weekend Wisdom 0

My church celebrates the Lord’s Supper on the first Sunday of every month. Last Sunday we celebrated communion during the season of Advent. Birth and death in one act.

I know this is the third quote I’ve posted from von Balthasar’s Love Alone Is Credible, but it’s simply that good. This quote clarifies the relationship between Jesus’ birth and his death:

The radiant absoluteness of the teaching [of Jesus], which shines forth in what it says, promises, and demands, becomes intelligible only in terms of the fact that his life points as a whole toward the Cross. All the acts of self-disclosure in word and deed receive their validity through a Passion that explains everything and makes it all possible.

The Liturgical Year | Joan Chittister

By on December 4, 2009 in Book Reviews, Spiritual Formation 0

The Liturgical Year is a collection of devotional thoughts centered around the annual liturgy followed by the church throughout millennia. It is an attempt to draw believers back to the year that begins at Advent rather than the first of January.

While I found some of the historical work on the origin of the various festivals interesting, this book was just too aimless to engage me. On the small scale, I found myself rereading paragraphs and pages because I couldn’t remember or figure out just what she was trying to say. On a larger scale, even the table of contents lacked structure! I expected more internal logic from a book based around dates on a calendar.

That said, Chittister’s style of writing is beautiful at times. She brings a poetic flair to her prose that makes for great call-out boxes in the text. In the end, though, lack of substance overwhelmed the beauty of her style.

Of all the Thomas Nelson books I’ve reviewed, this was the one I anticipated the most and appreciated the least.

Disclaimer: I received this book as a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program.

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