kinnon.tv

Push Back from the Keyboard, Put Down the Pen

UPDATE: Jordon Cooper jumps off from this post and adds greatly to the conversation.

This post is a little like thinking out loud via pushed pixels on the screen. I apologize in advance for it's disjointedness.

Two blog-posts south of this one, I reviewed a book. It generated more response than usual for this nanonode on the interwebs, both hot and cold. The Tall Skinny Kiwi Missionary in a Truck, Andrew Jones said this,

Bill Kinnon restores the art of writing a review on a book that you dont like. This has been a big issue for me. I am often sent rubbish books and I would rather not say anything at all than put up yet another negative review and have everyone mad at me. But maybe if some of us were more honest with their first book, rather than trying to be nice and encouraging, then perhaps the situation that Bill describes could have been avoided.

My point is not to highlight the praise (though I do appreciate it, TSKMiaT) but rather the "I am often sent rubbish books" aspect of Andrew's comment. It would seem that everyone has a book in them. And perhaps that's where most of them should stay. Instead, publishers, hoping to capitalize on whatever the latest trend is, rush rubbish to market - or at least to bloggers, in the hope of creating a market.

In the comments on two south, Frank Turk challenges the iMonk to a survey "on the top 50 books in the category of church critique." (Frankly, Turk and Spencer have better things to do with their time.) What scares me is that there probably are at least 50 recent books on church critique. Along with a myriad of other "hot topics." (As a cranky aside; if you're going to write a book on "Christian parenting", please wait 'til your kids are grown so we can assess the results.)

Who is reading these books? Other than bloggers, of course. (And not for much longer, I add.) Not a whole heck of a lot of people. In fact, as Adam Witty notes, the average Christian book sells 4,000 copies in it's lifetime, with the average secular book only selling half that amount. Witty also quotes this sobering reality from a 2006 New Yorker article (on Chris Anderson's The Long Tail),

In 2004, Nielsen BookScan tracked the sales of 1.2 million books and found that nine hundred and fifty thousand of them sold fewer than ninety-nine copies.

99 copies. And that number isn't any higher because your Mom can't afford to buy any more of your books. Are you still convinced you have a book in you?

Now let me free the beagle to chase a rabbit.

Daniel Pink, in his book, A Whole New Mind, unpacks how we are moving from the information age to the conceptual age - the age of creativity,

Today, the defining skills of the previous era - the "left brain" capabilities that powered the Information Age - are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous - the "right-brain" qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning - increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. (emphasis added)

He states that wise businesses are hiring more MFA's and fewer MBA's. (MFA = Master of Fine Arts) Pattern recognition and storytelling are becoming more important than number crunching and the latest management theory.

Now let me jump back to the church. From a recent Christianity Today edtiorial, Mega Mirror,

...the megachurch is like a megaphone. It is not so much an aberrant form of church as a large, flashing icon of the American church. It's no secret that too many evangelical leaders are captivated more by business culture than biblical culture, spending more time absorbed in strategies and effectiveness and relatively little time in prayer. No, it doesn't have to be an either-or situation, but let's face it, it often is.

Western Church culture has been dominated by left-brain thinkers for a rather long time. Some would suggest from the time of the Geneva Reformers. Systematic theology, a rationalistic approach to the mysteries of the faith, (grab your ukelele and sing with me as we Tiptoe Through the TULIPs, arguing over who gets to sing which Sola), with newer innovations of pastorpreneurs in the previous century (Bill Hybels used to have a sign outside his door that said, “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?”), where the pragmatic focus became on how best to get butts in chairs, elect or otherwise. (Yes I realize that this is my 80,000ft view of 600 years of Protestant church history.)

The 99 - 4000 selling Christian books reflect this left brain dominance. We are given a plethora of books with titles like, Five Ways to..., Understanding X in Light of Y, How the Church Should...

Too often these books suggest that if we only follow the map laid out by the author then everything will change for the better. But it just never seems to, now does it. (And quite frankly, most of us forget what the writers have written scant hours after putting the book down.)

If you are an aspiring writer who longs to be published (and sell a few more than 99 copies of your book to your Mom), let me remind you that we are a people captivated by stories. Read the Gospels; Jesus draws us into God's meta-narrative through the stories he tells. (I'm always shocked at the dissonance between the view of an angry narcissistic God on the part of so many of my brethren and the Father describe by Jesus in the story of the Prodigal Son.) And we tend to remember stories - they are sticky. (Think of how many sermons you've heard where you can't recall the central point - but you can recall the illustrative stories.)

Brian McLaren, bête noire for the writers of the book I reviewed two south, established himself as a voice to be reckoned with, with his book, A New Kind of Christian. His "diabolical" thesis presented in a captivating fictional story.

The dangerous theological treatise, The Shack, was cleverly constructed as an engaging tale fooling millions of people into purchasing it - many of whom hadn't thought about a loving God in years, if ever.

C.S. Lewis, best known in popular culture for his Narnia series but whose primary focus in his professional life was as an expert on medieval English literature, used fiction to challenge, engage and entertain people whilst providing them with theological insight - The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces.

Randy Alcorn, a contemporary writer, has written fiction that is full of theological truth but is also engaging and entertaining. The Kinnon family have enjoyed Randy's books, Deadline, Dominion and Safely Home.

All of these books sold well. People who might never pick up a true theological treatise were engaged with stories that told them about God - whether they realized it at a left-brain level or not.

And story-telling does not need to be fictional. Years ago I read Chuck Colson's Loving God, in a single sitting. The power of his writing had me in tears numerous times - as he told story after story of the lives of Christians who love God, often at great cost to themselves.

At Sundance this year, I sat with a friend who is well known Christian writer. He's a great story-teller. His deadline for his next book loomed in the not too distant future as we talked. I challenged him to consider writing it as fiction - using a few of the examples above. I wasn't successful for this book, but perhaps the next.

One of that writer's favourite films @ Sundance was The Cove, a documentary on the outrageously cruel slaughtering of dolphins. This documentary is told with the pacing and storytelling of a blockbuster - the message delivered as an edge-of-the-seat thriller. People will remember this story.

Let me end my disjointed ramblings by suggesting that here at this lonely node pumping pixels at the edge of the interwebs, I'd really rather you told me a great story. Please quit attempting to force feed me your opinions, prognostications, facts and figures - or "rubbish" as Andrew succinctly stated.

I will have hopefully more coherent thoughts on this in the not too distant future - with some choice words for publishers. (And yes, I'm busy writing a novel, in case you were wondering.)

book sales, writing fiction

Review: Why We Love the Church

UPDATE 2: Threaded comments are now properly turned on in TypePad's new, rather buggy, comment system here @ kinnon.tv. I apologize for any confusion caused by some comments being threaded and others not.

UPDATED: Worth reading in light of this post (or not in light of this post), Brian Auten @ the BHT, the iMonk's post that is partially a response to this one and Frank Turk's series on not leaving church. (And I've removed a few "approvingly" adverbs, from the original post.)

I was contacted by Moody Publishers a while back to see if I was interested in reviewing Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck's Why We Love the Church. I said yes. (More on that later.) Before I begin the review, let me quote a little advice on book reviewing.

Over the years, I have come to find writing book reviews even more distasteful than reading them. Part of this is my own fault, for being one of those old-fashioned holdouts who still believes that you should actually read the book before reviewing it.

Sometimes I am only into the first 20 pages of a 500-page book when it becomes painfully clear that this one is a real dog. The rest of the ordeal is like crossing the Sahara Desert—except that often there are no oases. True, the reviewer gets to slaughter the author in print at the end of it all, but this merely appeases the desire for revenge, which only real blood would satisfy.

I think the writer might be a little over the top in his 2nd graf, though he does make a point.

Reading DeYoung and Kluck's book to the very end (Page 234), I was reminded of a scene in the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg shot a large portion of the movie in Tunisia. Most of the crew & cast came down with dysentery. On the day Harrison Ford was to shoot a fight scene - Indy's whip against a giant's sword, Ford suggested a rewrite - as he was rather ill. After shooting only a few segments of the scene, Ford suggested, "What don't I just shoot the bastard?" (Apparently Ford was aware the sword-wielding giant had been born out of wedlock.)

After forcing my way through all 234 pages of this book, I'm sorely tempted to follow Ford's suggestion. But I won't. Instead, I'll follow DeYoung's advice - at least the advice he quotes from Thomas Sowell - found in this post's first quote on book reviewing, above.

Challies nails the book when he says this,

...much of the book is a response to Leonard Sweet and William Young and George Barna and the other naysayers.

If you're Young, Restless, Truly Reformed and in need of cheap cuts of red meat, then this book is for you. On page 208, DeYoung states, "This book has been an attempt to develop, in a pastorally sensitive and culturally savvy way (edit) a more thoughtful, biblically robust, and historically rooted ecclesiology." To which I would respond in the language of my 20-something sons, "epic fail."

Rather than a thoughtful and engaging book on Christ and His Church, this book's title could just as easily have been "Why We Love Hebrews 13:17 - Obey your leaders and submit to them." Kluck and DeYoung (who write separate chapters in the book) both quote this verse and approvingly quote other writers who say things like, "Without church membership there's no place for the important role of church discipline (page 162)." My note scrawled in the margin screams "versus discipleship?"

DeYoung/Kluck have read lots of books on the disaffection of many Christians with the Institutional Church (see page 222) but rather than actually speaking to one or two, they instead create the straw man, Disgruntled Johnny (Page 23). It's so much easier to create a character you can make fun of - rather than listening to flesh and blood folk from a wide cross section of the church who have left the IC. (DeYoung/Kluck might have attempted communication with a number of the voices in the People Formerly Known As the Congregation meme from 2007. But that would have required listening to people who didn't fit their stereotype.)

DeYoung/Kluck's notoriety came from their first book, Why We're Not Emergent. I haven't read it. Nor do I now have any plans to do so. But this new book, apparently, continues in the same vein. DeYoung appears to be making a second career out of being anti-emerging. His first career is as Reverend Kevin of the Bible Rust Belt's East Lansing University Reformed Church.

Challies recently quoted DeYoung appealing to his Truly Reformed base with a rather tortured "how you will know if you're emerging" statement. The iMonk makes this comment about it,

When I first read this, it tipped my already leaning inclination to be highly annoyed at needless stereotyping and dividing of the Christian family by things that are neither significant nor truly divisive, but simply are the perceptions and caricatures of one team over another. We’ve come to the point where portraying emergent Christians as “useless idiots” is an approved form of bigotry...

In keeping with his anti-emerging second career, earlier this year RevKev had a bit of a set-to with Tony Jones over comments RevKev made about Shane Claiborne (and Doug Pagitt - who according to the reports of statements made by RevKev, "is in no recognizable way a Christian.". For the record, I'm not a particular fan of Jones or Pagitt - but as a wise South African friend once said to me, "there's only room for one person on the Judgment seat of God - and that person ain't you.") Regarding Clairborne, DeYoung opined,

...my beef with Shane Claiborne (is) that it gets to be sort of pseudo-Marxist, liberation theology lite without a robust doctrine of gospel reconciliation.

Unfortunately, RevKev had never read Claiborne nor spoke with him. His opinions were probably based on memes from within his TR tribe - opinions somewhat moderated when he was shamed into speaking with Claiborne directly. According to Jones, RevKev neither confirms nor denies the Pagitt comment.

Following the natural path of unrestrained hubris, RevKev recently decided to take on the theology of the Bishop of Durham, NT Wright, and Wright's book on Justification. Kevin's rapier-edged wit sees him title his final post of three on Wright, Flying Monkeys and the New Perspective. A note to RevKev; if you're going to attempt to hunt Theological Big Game, you need to pack more than the rhetorical equivalent of an Airsoft Pistol. I'm just saying.

Now RevKev wants to protect you from thinking that might upset your theological apple cart. He wouldn't want you confused by theological opinions that differ from his own. As he suggests when he says this about Wright's book,

Too many dangerous spots to recommend except to those already well-grounded in the doctrines of justification, imputation, and faith alone.

That's right kids, RevKev will tell you what you should and should not read. No reason to think for yourselves. Which leads me back to the book. It feels like DeYoung/Kluck have stepped out of the 50's where Father Knows Best. (A quote from page 169, "Mom and Dad make the rules, with Dad leading the way.") Pastors are shepherds, pew-fodder are sheep. And we all know what happens if sheep aren't properly led and disciplined. They leave to gather together at Starbucks - which can in no way represent the "visible church", of course.

And, since you are probably confused on this, the church really is a building. Because the building houses the "visible church." Which leads me to ask the question, if the church people are inside the church building, how are they visible exactly?

On page 121, DeYoung seems to think he's making an argument-winning statement about church buildings and the complaints of many of the dechurched about said buildings,

Here's the bottom line: The whole conversation about church buildings is much ado about nothing. (It is interesting that DeYoung uses a Shakespearean quote from a play that deals with love and deception - deception mainly on the part of the male sex - Shakespeare taking a shot at the patriarchal society in which he lived. But I won't bother chasing that rabbit right now.)

Really Kevin?! Is it really, "Much Ado About Nothing"?! In 2006, the American church owed 28 billion dollars in mortgages, loans and church bonds; this figure only a small part of the what's been spent on churches in the U.S. It is commonly acknowledged that the average church in America spends 85% of its budget on it's building and staff. Is this really "much ado about nothing." Hardly! And contrary to Kevin's assertions, most churches are only used to partially-full capacity a few hours a week. (Although most church staff I know are over-utilized.)

Kevin's opinion on church buildings, is just that, opinion. It fits his world view. He doesn't engage the arguments of church-leavers - he simply attempts to make their arguments appear irrelevant. And no doubt his TR base eats it up.

But let's get back to the underlying theme of DeYoung/Kluck's book, the overarching stupidity of Emergents, church-leavers and missional folk. With his vast knowledge, DeYoung categorically states that "Emergents, church-leavers and the missional folks have a vision for a planet without mourning, crying or pain (Rev 21:4)."(He means they think they can do this in their lifetime.) How does he know this? Did he hire Barna to do a poll? Or is this just RevKev's assertion that Disgruntled Johnny et al are biblically illiterate. I know more than a few missional folk who are abundantly aware of the brokenness of creation and who look forward to the new heaven and the new earth. This doesn't stop them from having both a hope and an expectation that Christians can and should be impacting the planet for good. What a bunch of ninnies, eh!

You may have noted by now that I really haven't said anything about Kluck, the Laurel to DeYoung's Hardy. Kluck is particularly taken with their new found notoriety - mentioning it many times. He loves sports metaphors. His comments on his wife's inability to conceive and their not homeschooling their two children reveal more than I'm sure he intends to about their church culture. (Though I do appreciate Ted's positive comments about Tim Horton's.) Kluck even manages to upset Challies by interviewing Chuck Colson, "who, through his efforts with Evangelicals and Catholics Together, seeks to undermine much of what the church is." Challies statement perfectly encapsulates the DeYoung/Kluck world of the TRs.

Kluck is the cheerleader for DeYoung. He loves that RevKev spends 20 hours a week preparing his sermons. And like Kevin, he seems to enjoy taking shots at McLaren, Bell, Sweet et al. (Guys, after a while, isn't this like shooting fish in a barrel.) And Kluck is not afraid of using timeworn clichés like his 'letter to his five year old son' which really is a letter to you, dear reader. It just makes it easy to excuse Kluck's patronizing tone.

Not surprisingly, I guess, I find Jesus strangely absent from much of this book. Oh sure, He appears occasionally here and there - whatever proof-texting references necessary to support DeYoung/Kluck's thesis that Jesus was all about the Institutional Church. But, since DeYoung/Kluck resist the Kingdom of God arguments of their emergent targets, it's best to ignore the fact that (according to my friend, Jonathan Brink) the word church only appears twice in the Gospels, whilst the word kingdom appears 116 times. We wouldn't want Jesus' words to screw up our carefully crafted arguments, now would we.

And just when I think DeYoung is going to say that the cure for the church's ills is a return to its first love, Jesus, he says instead that the hope for the church is a return to the doctrine of original sin - which, in his TULIP way, he conflates with Total Depravity (Page 208).

(I should note that I do believe in original sin, I believe that the world is broken because we broke it and I believe that our sinful natures are the primary cause for the problems in this world. I believe our free will has caused us to make choices that infect and affect our family, friends, neighbours and the planet. I do not believe in a God who foreordains every action, but in a God who is not surprised by anything. As an example, the collapse of the I35 bridge in Minneapolis/St. Paul was not part of God's sovereign plan - no matter what Piper told his young daughter.)

DeYoung/Kluck are the young celebrities of the Truly Reformed book audience. They are content to splash and scream in their end of the theological swimming pool. The rest of us are idiots for swimming where we choose to swim. (Of course, DeYoung/Kluck were predestined to be in the correct end of the pool where the water is perfectly clear.)

There is much more that I could write, but I've already written more than I intended. In a future post, I will make the connections to Clay Shirky, Bruce Medina, Umair Haque et al that I intended for this post. (As I mentioned previously.)

We live in a liminal space in the church. Whether or not everything must change, everything is changing.

To quote John Armstrong,

The way we gain real access to people's minds and hearts is being altered so quickly that only those who are doing evangelism in the trenches seem to recognize the real significance and power of this hyper-change.

John quotes former Navigator's President Alan Andrews,

In my opinion the time has come to do church differently. I am convinced that we must shift our focus from highly programmed ministry to developing Missional / Transformational Communities that are formed as a seamless organic whole. These types of communities are rare and difficult to visualize because we have moved so forcefully to programmatic ministry in the last half of the previous century. . . . Now the climate in America has begun to shift. Much of the culture is beginning to look for integrity and wholeness. Many people are coming from broken backgrounds with deep wounds in their souls. They long for something that provides real relationships, something that provides integration for their lives, and something that fills the longings of their soul. In short, though they are not aware of it, they seek the whole Gospel for their whole lives.

Roger Thoman reviews a book that I've ordered and am excited about, Steve Addison's Movements That Change the World - which I believe stands in stark contrast to DeYoung/Kluck.

Jesus did not come to found a religious organization. He came to found a missionary movement that would spread to the ends of the earth.

And

Christianity conquered the Roman world without an organizational structure, without access to significant resources, without academic institutions, and without a professionalized clergy. Ordinary people, on fire with the love of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, told their families, friends, and casual acquaintances what God had done for them.

For a movement to grow rapidly it has to spread both within social networks and between social networks.

Jesus turned individual encounters into opportunities to touch whole social networks. The Gerasene demoniac begged Jesus to be allowed to join his band of disciples. Instead, Jesus told him to go home and tell his family what God had done.

My friend, Ed Stetzer, says this about the book

Steve casts a compelling future vision by tracing God¹s discernible lessons demonstrated in movements. He taps into the heart hunger of the growing number of us that want to see God do something great.

I look forward to reviewing the book myself - which leads back to the opening comment that I said I'd get to later. I won't be reviewing anymore books that I haven't chosen myself. If publishers wish to send me a book, that will be their choice. I will no longer agree to review what's has been sent - unless I feel it's worthwhile. Had I not agreed to review Why We Love the Church, I would not have. DeYoung/Kluck will not easily be ever again on my reading list - which was predestined by my reading this book of theirs.

And if you're looking for reformed writers that are a little more irenic in their writing while not afraid of being strong, please read my friends, Darryl Dash, the aforementioned Ed Stetzer and John Armstrong, Dan MacDonald (who has just begun blogging, at last) and, of course, Jared Wilson. (Whose book I managed to leave in the city - and which I genuinely look forward to reading. As noted in an earlier post, the iMonk raved about Jared's book.)

Please also make a point of reading this post from Michael Spencer, Checking the Pulse of the Post-Evangelical Conversation in Three Manifestos, which I believe to be an important comment on where we find ourselves now.

And, as Michael recommends, read this from the DeYoung/Kluck-despised Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola. I'm not normally a fan of Frank's writing, but this from Sweet Viola brought tears to my eyes.

epic fail, Kevin DeYoung

iMonk on Gospel-Driven Jared Wilson's Book

My copy of Jared Wilson's book, Your Jesus is Too Safe arrived in the post late last week. It's near the top of my list of books to read. Being a fan of Jared's blog (he was #3 in my Top 13.5 list of 2008 bloggers), I expect it to be a good book. Michael Spencer's review confirms that expectation;

What millions of evangelicals need is a solid, Biblical, interesting, well-written, compelling, intense and thoroughly balanced revisioning of the Christian faith with Jesus at the center. I thoroughly recommend Jared Wilson’s Your Jesus is Too Safe as the popular level, highly readable re-introduction to Jesus you’ve been looking for, or should have been looking for, all along.

What Jared has produced is a mini-Biblical theology, shaped around the major assertions about Jesus, and using an outstanding mastery of contemporary prose/preaching to take us thematically into the Bible in a quest to discover and appreciate every aspect of Jesus. There is much more to learn in this book than the cover and title would suggest. This isn’t a scholarly book, but it reflects deep, intensive, challenging sermons and teaching. This is real meat, but served up with all the right kinds of seasoning to make you remember this meal long after you’ve forgotten others.

A perfect book for a study of Jesus in any church or small group. A really amazing intro to Jesus that draws from scholarly sources like Wright and Ladd, but makes them accessible and fresh to anyone with an interest in Jesus. Not a wasted page, I assure you. Great preaching. Compelling retelling of the Biblical stories. Forceful application that applies to the sad state of evangelicalism today. [emphasis added]

Buy Jared's book. In fact, buy a few copies and give them to your friends. That will help compensate Jared for my free copy. And Michael's, too. :-) But I would buy it... if I had to. And I probably will, as my books tend to go walkabout.

Gospel-driven, InternetMonk, Jared Wilson, Michael Spencer

Summer Hours - Little Blogging

There was a time I blogged a minimum of once a day. I miss that time.

I've got lots on my mind that I'd like to blog about. Things like Katherine Schori (TEC's Presiding Litigator) and her new definition of the word heresy. (Apparently evangelicals are heretics, in case you were wondering. At least as far as THE Episcopal Church is concerned.) Katherine might want to spend a moment or two in the New Testament. She'd be shocked at what she might learn. Her theological degree is from where, again? UPDATE: Fuller's Rich Mouw responds to Schori... in a more gracious manner, of course.

And can someone help me understand all these posts from Brian McLaren where he declares certain people 'getting it right.' (Of late, I would think Brian would want people to get things "left" - but perhaps that's just me.) He's got the Pope, Tony Blair, the G8 (not the one from Pontiac, unfortunately) Frances Collins, Derek Webb, Jim Wallis and Jon Stewart all 'getting it right.'

Did I miss the memo where Brian became the arbiter of who does and doesn't get things right? Do these people get an award when Brian says they "get it right"? Like the Templeton Prize or something. Is there money involved? I'm just wondering. Maybe I could get something right for a change. (Or something left as everything changes.) Brian's going to be speaking at TEC's General Convention where Schori declared evangelicals heretics. I wonder what he'll say. Especially as Tom Wright says TEC is "leaving the family" of the Anglican Communion. [NTW quote via iMonk & Scot McKnight]

I'm almost finished reading Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck's newest book, Why We Love the Church - which was sent to me by their publisher after I agreed to review it. I'll have a fair amount to say about it in my review. And I'll be quoting Umair Haque, John Medina and Clay Shirky in my comments. And referring to the People Formerly Known as meme from 2007. Stay tuned for that later this week. (I hope.)

I've been around a body of water known as Lake Simcoe most of the time since the end of June. I can't remember a day when the wind hasn't been blowing and the lake hasn't had white caps. What's up with that!? I understand why the MSM and certain Gore-following scientists changed their tune from Global Warming to Climate Change. It's been years since a July in Ontario has been this cool. (Trust me, I'm not missing the humidity.)

There are so many other notes in my Blog This file, but I've got to run. I'll be back later in the week.

Brian McLaren, contrarius, the contrarian, Kevin DeYoung, news, random links

La Grou reviews Hipps

I almost called it the John La Grou Smackdown of Shane Hipps' new book, but John is much to gracious to ever do a smackdown.

John's review of Hipps' Flickering Pixels is the cover story @ Next Wave and it's a must read. John goes in search of a cogent argument against technology from Shane, but instead finds

...weakly supported intellectual shortcuts that deliver generalities in place of thorough analysis. Many of the book’s most important points read far more like subjective bias than objective inquiry. Shane’s criticism of technology too often reduces to grand conclusions with little or no qualification – lacking even obligatory auxiliary verbs (such as “may, might, could,” etc.)

Read John's entire review, please.

John La Grou, Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels

I Love Books - A Comment on Book Stealing

There was a time in my life that if I was sitting, I was reading a book. I love books.

When I was eight, my parents rather rudely stopped me from watching television. There method was a little expensive. We moved from the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia to an apartment complex just outside Saint-Avold in North Eastern France. Fortunately the Canadian government paid for the forced resettlement. (We moved 11 months later to another apartment complex, outside the town of Longuyon, France.)

TVs were a little too expensive for my family, so radio became my primary provider of mass media - I used to listen to the Ed Sullivan Show every Sunday night on a one week tape delay. Friday nights were spent at the base cinema (I'm an Air Force brat, if you haven't figured that out) watching whatever was playing - flicks provided by the J. Arthur Rank Organization.

My primary source of entertainment, however, became books. The base library was my home away from home. Books purchased for special occasions were treasured by me. When we returned to Canada in 1968, I was almost thirteen. In Montreal, my Auntie Pearl, discovering that her nephew had become a bibliophile, gave me a number of Ayn Rand's books to read. By the time I was 14, I could elucidate all the virtues of selfishness - having read all of Ms. Rand's scribbling, including a rather awful play. (I confess that I skimmed over the 90+ page monologue of John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. I'd already been sufficiently indoctrinated.)

Even after being reintroduced to TV in '68, I rarely watched it without a book in hand.

Today I am still an avid reader. But most of that reading takes place via pushed pixels illuminating my computer screen. Though I do admit that Amazon well knows my name.

But this post is about book theft - or what at least might be considered such.

Many years ago, I wandered into a friend's home office. He was not noted for being a particularly deep reader. I scanned the small collection of books on his shelf. Pulling a number of them off, one at a time, I asked his opinion of each. He mumbled a non-committal response - I doubt he'd read any of them. With 8 or 10 books in hand, I asked if might "borrow them." Surprised, he asked, "Why?" "Because they are mine," I rather strongly responded.

About seventy feet from the kitchen window in our loft (across a small parking area and two narrow buildings) and down a story, is a window into the office of the senior leader of a church we once attended. There's a wall of books in that office. (This leader is as avid a reader as I am.) At least twenty of those books are mine. I recently was heard to whine that fact in a room full of friends. My dear wife rather tartly responded, "Let it go, Bill. I doubt you still buy into the theology of those books, anyway." Point taken. I haven't been in that building since 1996 - and my theology has changed rather dramatically since then. (As have my political viewpoints since the late '60's - just not enough for some folk.)

Liam, a bibliophile of a higher magnitude than his dear old Dad, is occasionally known to comment about some of the theology found on the overflowing bookshelves in our home. Another cull is shortly in order. (I should once again note, that Liam, Rylan and Kaili suffered horribly from Imbi's and my parenting when we cut off their access to TV when Liam, the oldest was seven. All three of them were forced to become avid readers. Tragic, I know.)

This meandering post was prompted by my pushed pixel reading of Ben Myers this Sunday morn. Ben's post, On Stealing Books, is worth the read.

(Written at the island summer place on my first overnight of the season. Much later than normal. Though, as Bruce Cockburn puts it, The Trouble with Normal is it Always Gets Worse.)

bibliophile, book theft, give me back my books, libraries

BWIII takes the book, Pagan Christianity apart

UPDATE: Kingdom Grace provides an important forum to add to this discussion in her post, I Am Not as Smart as Ben.

Ben Witherington III has begun a series taking apart Viola and Barna's Pagan Christianity. Whether you are a lover or hater of PC, it's well worth the read. (I would suggest that BWIII is not a neutral party in this discussion - but his scholarship cannot be argued easily.)

Frank Viola is a sharp person, but neither he nor George Barna really interact in this book with the scholarly literature that would call into question their strident claims and theses. They are arguing a particular case, and so they largely cite sources that support their case, for example Robert Banks’ work on Pauline house churches comes in for heavy usage. Their claim to present us with bare historical fact and to stand always on the Biblical high ground needs to be seen for what it is from the outset--- good and powerful rhetoric meant to warm the cockles of the hearts of all who affirm Sola Scriptura, but when one actually examines some of the major claims closely, they will not stand close and critical scrutiny.

Read Part Two here.

Pagan Christianity

"A Screen that Ships Without A Mouse is Broken"

Jay Rosen is the father of the meme, The People formerly known as the Audience - from which I jumped off with The People Formerly Known as the Congregation over a year ago. (The most popular post ever from this small corner of the interwebs.) Jay teaches Journalism at NYU. His blog, PressThink, in my not humble but accurate opinion, is one of the most important feeds to read regularly in your RSS Feed Reader. Jay gets the profound horizontal changes happening in media creation and distribution and he freely shares that wisdom. (BTW - if you don't use a feed reader, why not?)

Earlier this month, Jay pointed to Clay Shirky's important presention at O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Conference.

Shirky, who teaches at NYU but in a different program, has a new book out: Here Comes Everybody (“The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.”)* This speech stands alone. You can read it here, but you should really watch him here— after absorbing this post. The clip is less than 15 minutes. It lets you think along with Shirky as he explains “the cognitive surplus” we developed during the age of TV.

This is a huge deposit of waking hours lived in front of the tube, a vast expanse of free time occupied for 40 years by commercial television. We’re at least starting to find the architecture of participation (Tim O’Reilly’s phrase) that would turn some of those couch-born hours into sentient activity, followed naturally by inter-activity, as in massively multiplayer games, which can lead (for some) to public works and social goods, as with “the online encyclopedia anyone can edit.”
 
The imagery is geological: the release of trapped deposits. He thinks we can reverse the time sink for people once marooned on the receiving end of a one-way system that didn’t care what you thought or brought to it, since it couldn’t afford the costs of interacting with you.

If you watch nothing else, watch the last five minutes of Shirky's presentation - from which I've taken the title. It's the story of a four year old's interactive expectations. And it's critically important in understanding the profound change that has occurred amongst The People formerly known as The Audience.

I shared it with the seminar I gave at Wycliffe's Refresh conference yesterday. It was the highlight. You can check out some of the notes from that seminar at my rarely used blog, A Networked Conspiracy. You can even download a copy of my short book of the same name as a free pdf, if you'd like.

*I've ordered a copy of Shirky's book and will blog on it when I receive it.

UPDATE: I love Amazon! I'm reading Shirky's book (which I ordered with free delivery less than 36 hours ago) right now...and he writes as well as he presents - which is very well, indeed. (I, on the other hand and based on the previous sentence, require a remedial writing class.)

Good Grief, Charlie Brown

Some of my friends are blogging on what, at best, is charismania and at worst is abject heresy. This would be my response to it.

Read Robbymac's Post-Charismatic, please.
The shot was taken by Imbi whilst I was reading in one of the rooms of our friends' house in Surrey, UK. I devoured Rob's book in a day.

UPDATE: Please read Cynthia's post here.

UPDATE 2: Scott nails it here. Really nails it!

UPDATE 3: Read this too, please.

UPDATE 4: Please read Grace's post and Dave Faulkner's.

Inerrant Discussion

I've gotten myself into a discussion of biblical inerrancy at Triple D's blog. Anyone else care to join in over there?

Imbi and I were both up around 4am this morning and we are off shortly to Wycliffe College for most of the day. Doing a video shoot with Old Testament Professor, Dr. Marion Taylor. I'll attempt to get her perspective on this discussion.