This book written between 398-400 AD by probably the most influential early Church father, Augustine of Hippo, is widely recognized as the first Western autobiography.

Part journal, part autobiography and all parts worship, Confessions lets the reader peer into the window of Augustine’s prayer closet as he recounts back to God the spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional journeys that they have walked together.

His writing is deeply theological, philosophical, honest and passionate…and at times hard to follow.  Seeing this work not as a traditional, chronological history or autobiography but as a series of fervent prayers ignited by Augustine’s memory and discernment of God’s loving hand in his personal history helps to keep pace with and more fully appreciate Augustine’s writing style.

Although I have read about Augustine and interacted with excerpts of his writings before, this was my first time reading a complete work of his.  I understand why he has been so influential.  While many things flew over my head I constantly found myself being challenged and encouraged.  Many sections of this book were filled with pages of emotional sentences ending with question marks.  Questions like, “By what tricks and suggestions does the enemy lure me to desire some sign from You, O Lord my God, to whom I owe humble and single-hearted service?” or “But what do I love, when I love You?”  I found myself identifying with his way of thinking and struggling through questions with God, as many of my journals are filled with similar questions, although they are not nearly asked with the same theological depth or eloquence.  Particularly Augustine’s lust filled life as an unbeliever, his mother’s faithful and agonizing prayers for his salvation, and his struggles with purity as a believer were aspects that I identified with.

As far as quotations go, Augustine is the 4th cent. C.S. Lewis.  Here is just a small taste:

“You initiate conversation with all, whatever the varied ways they ask to gain Your counsel.  You make Your answers clear.  The problem is that not all clearly hear.  All in some way consult You, according to what they are willing to ask.  Not all are able to hear beyond what they desire to hear.”

“Give us what You command us to have, and You can command anything You want to.”

“He alone moved free among the dead.

He only had power to lay down His life.

He only had power to take it again.

Victor and Victim, and so Victor because Victim.

Priest and Sacrifice, and so Priest because Sacrifice.”

Read Augustine.

Share on Facebook

I have my bachelor’s degree in Economics, which means I know enough about economics to know that I know very very little about economics.  Nonetheless, this refreshing look at economics and quantifiable human behavior was a fun read for me, as well as a reminder as to why I enjoyed studying economics in college.

While the subtitle of this book certainly overstates it’s aim (is it really possible to explore the hidden side of everything?),  the authors did do a great job of showing how ‘conventional wisdom’ is often just plain wrong.

Levitt is a highly sought after economist and professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.   In his relatively young career, his trademark has been to ask different questions and apply economic theory to life situations that are not normally considered in the scope of economics.  So for example, in this book, the authors ask provocative questions such as, “Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?” And, “How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents?”

Chapter one asks the question, “What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?”  Answer: Given the right conditions and incentives, we’re all tempted to cheat. Whether you’re talking about school teachers cheating on their kids standardized tests, sumo wrestlers trying to make it to the top, or professional athletes who take steroids.  We all analyze the risks and rewards in many of the decisions we face every day and act accordingly.

Why do drug dealers live at home?  This was a great chapter… worth the entire book.  Here the authors were able to obtain and analyze the financial books of an upper level crack gang drug dealer in Chicago.  In so doing, the pay scales tend to mirror that of any major U.S. corporation, where the very top may the lions share of the money, while the lowest level ‘employees’ can barely get by. For example, in the 1990 at the height of the crack boom, the average dealer on the street made an average of $3 per hour! Yet, those same dealers risked a 1 in 4 chance of violent death, not to mention incarceration.   So why would someone agree to take that job?  For the same reason the young woman from Indiana heads to Hollywood… for a shot at making it to the top of the pyramid, no matter how long the shot is, the money, power, and fame is a sufficient incentive.

There are many more great little insights into the human condition in this book.  It was a fun quick read… highly recommended.

I should note, one of the more controversial chapters is the one entitled, “Where have all the criminals gone?”  In the mid 1990′s, many sociologist were predicting an oncoming wave of crime amongst America’s youth.  When that crime wave did not come, but rather the crime rate dropped, the experts were left scratching their heads, asking, “why the significant drop?”  The answer, according to the analysis of these authors, was not better police methods, education, or the economy (though they did help to a small degree).  Rather, the authors believe the legalization of abortion to be the primary reason for the crime drop 20 years after Roe v. Wade.   I want to be clear, and even the authors of this book are clear, this does not mean that the ends justify the means.  As the authors point out, if you consider abortion to be murder of a person (as I do), then whatever unintended benefits may result, they certainly do not justify the morality and legality of abortion.

Share on Facebook

This book marks the third legal thriller I’ve read this year, and the first Michael Connelly book I’ve ever read. Though I enjoyed the first two legal thrillers, by Randy Singer and John Grisham, I have to say that this is the best,  most believable, well-written, most suspenseful of the three.

Since it is a thriller/mystery, I don’t like to go into too much plot detail. Briefly put, the story is a first person account of  defense laywer Mickey Haller, aka- The Lincoln Lawyers.  Traveling in his Lincoln through Los Angeles’ rougher neighborhoods to meet with various clients who are criminals and convicts, Mickey is a shrewd lawyer and businessman.  Like most defense lawyers, Mickey spends most of his time either working out suitable plea deals, or trying to expose the cracks and flaws of the prosecutions case against his clients.

Connelly does well to lead the reader to have uncomfortable feelings about, what many would consider, a sleazy defense lawyer, while still drawing the reader into wanting him to succeed.

As a defense lawyer for some of the worst criminals in southern California, Mickey realizes the vast majority of his clients are guilty as charged – but he’s not concerned with that.

What scares Mickey the most, and where the plot thickens, is the possibility of representing an innocent client and losing the case.

There were a few weak spots in the plot such as Mickey’s amicable relationship with his two ex-wives, who work as prosecutors.

What made me pull the trigger and buy this book was the high reviews on amazon, many of them claiming, “Connelly’s book puts Grisham to shame when it comes to writing legal thrillers.”

I think I agree with that sentiment, and if you read this book you may as well.

Share on Facebook

Radical is a powerful and convicting book that I recommend to all Christians lving in a wealthy nation.  Growing up in the church and attending Bible college, the teachings never shied away from the dangers of loving money.  Upon reflection, however, this was always done in the context of the wealth of our country.  What David Platt aims to do in Radical is shift the paradigm of our thinking to view our prosperity in light of the world’s plight and — most importantly — in light of our earthly purpose for eternity.  Guilt is not the intended response.  Instead, it is a call to love Christ with reckless abandon.  To follow the model of Jesus by loving the world at our own expense.  The greatest dangers to Christianity are never external: persecution, want, suffering, and the like are shown to galvanize Christ followers, separate out the chaff, and provide a platform on which God’s amazing grace and mercy can be lavished on his children.  Instead, Western Christianity celebrates our ease of life and thereby grows complacent with mediocrity.  Radical calls us to trust God and his promises, even when they seem dangerous or foolish by worldly standards.

The title of the book is not accurate from a Christian point of view.  The ideas that Platt brings to the table are merely the teachings of Scripture.  What is radical is the relief between the Biblical truths and the American Dream that has infiltrated Christian thinking.  The two cannot co-mingle just as the love of God and the love of mammon cannot.  The book is sometimes uncomfortable; Platt asks some tough questions.  However, it is apparent that he too has struggled or is struggling with answering the same questions.  Coming from a pastor who reached the religious apex — pastor of a mega-church at a young age — the power of this book is amplified.   Platt challenges –not without, but from within– the extra-biblical presuppositions that the American church holds as “self-evident”.  His book is ultimately the result and the reporting of a narrative: the story of how his church has changed due to this “radical” thinking.

Many might recoil at the book and claim that it is going too far or bordering on legalism.  I find such charges unfounded.  Granted, there were some difficult rhetorical questions, but they must be seen as just that: rehtoric.  They are a literary tool used to jostle our thinking free from its entrenchments and view the familiar Biblical truths in a fresh light.  He does not prescribe a rubric of specific actions to be taken in order to achieve holiness — that would be legalistic.  The closest he gets to such things is sharing stories of how some of his congregation have applied the Biblical call to being “radical”.  These are not measures we must strive for; rather, they are encouraging examples of what can be expected when we let go of the false security of comfort and wealth and embrace the promises of God in His mission for us on earth.

Ultimately, Platt is positing a simple truth: the greatest measure of what we truly cherish and believe is not found in what we say or think, but what we do.

Share on Facebook

Cormac McCarthy is among my favorite contemporary authors.  He has an uncanny ability to explore the depths of human frailty and depravity while still crafting a true piece of art that is to be awed and admired for its beauty.  Not many authors can paint such vivid portraits of humanity with so bleak a palette.  In this short yet powerful work, McCarthy paints with his bleakest palette. 

“Child of God defies, perhaps more forbiddingly than any other work in McCarthy’s magisterial corpus, the fashionable impertinence which not infrequently inspires the facile elicitation of ideological structure from his text. Besides having, among living writers of the English language, the strongest claim to deferred mortality, McCarthy’s most unassailable works — Blood Meridian, Outer Dark, and Child of God — are, for their predestined readers, a stringent and edifying disinfectant against the sterile prevailing trends of literary criticism.” (From an Amazon.com review).

Such an effusively pedantic review is inappropriate for a book that is amazingly spartan in both words and plot.  Yet, I understand where the reviewer is coming from in trying to capture the essence of the story.  I started this review in January.  This story is difficult to explain; a mere description of the events would elicit wonder as to why one would read such a book and why such dark and pointless novel was even written.   However, such a description would fail to show how it deftly probes the darkness of the human soul while simultaneously providing a pointed critique of what happens when a society ignores its fringes.

It is the story of Lester Ballard; a man moving from the margins of society into outright abandon of all of the restraints that societal pressures and government create to hold back the horrors of mankind.  It is an utterly bleak and shocking book that brought me to the brink of not finishing it on multiple occasions.  However, McCarthy’s skill managed to keep me unconfortably on this precipice for the entire length of the novel.  Mercifully, it was short. 

In telling the tale, McCarthy often employed a disjointed structure in which a chapter would drop you in the aftermath of one of Ballard’s heinous acts, providing no context to understand what happened.   It would then be followed by a chapter that flashed back to provide the setup to the act and the act itself.  In a way, it is a perverse take on the serial killer novel.  By utilizing the disjointed structure and showing the acts from the perspective of the serial killer, McCarthy eschews manipulating the build up of tension and sucks any entertainment value  from the story; by approaching it this way he implicitly scolds the reader for the pulpy enjoyment that may have been experienced had the story been told in the traditional thriller fashion.

I cannot recommend this book.  It is extremely dark and downright revolting in the subjects that it covers.  However, I must make it clear that this book is not to be categorized among the modern movement that revel in shock and depravity as a gimmick – McCarthy is not Chuck Palahniuk.  Rather, it is a deft exploration into the depravity that the human being is capable of apart from regeneration through Christ, just a bit to accurate to warrant reading.

Share on Facebook

Imaginary Jesus, by Matt Mikalatos

The book I recently found on my kindle (no idea how, or why it got there, it just did) was a quirky little title called Imaginary Jesus.  Expecting rich theological insight I decided to give it a go.  While there are some elements of theology, the book, as described through dialogue within the book itself as a “semi-autobiographical novel comedy”, is actually quite an entertaining read.  The book follows a fictitious account of how the writer confronts what he has created in his mind as he struggles through the emotions associated with a recent traumatic event.  Mikilatos’ wit and creative humorous descriptions kept me laughing and the plot kept me eager for the next chapter.

The opening chapter has Matt grabbing lunch and hanging out with Jesus at a vegan cafe in Portland, OR.  He’s having a typical conversation with the creator of the universe when a gruff dockworker named Pete comes in and after a few words promptly punches Jesus in the face.   It’s later revealed that ***spoiler*** this Pete character is the Apostle Peter and the Jesus in the cafe is not the real Jesus.  The rest of the book is a journey Matt and Pete take to try and confront this imaginary Jesus (among others) and find the true Jesus Christ.

Matt Mikalatos (in real life) works for Campus Crusade for Christ in Portland, OR. The writing seems to be appropriate for college students or young adults, but actually does venture a bit deeper with doctrinal questions and some fairly poignant topics of pain and loss.  The overall theme seems to be exposing how many Christians these days have actually created their own version of Jesus without ever realizing it.

So while this post-modern soul-searching journey includes things such as car-chases, time-travel, a talking donkey and epic brawls in Powell’s Books, it also tackles questions of devotion, spiritual needs and the way humans interact with and express love for the all-powerful King of Kings.  It’s certainly not fiction on the caliber of “The Screwtape Letters” but still well worth the read.  And it did make me want to visit Portland.

Some good quotes to get a taste for the book:

“If you never confront the imaginary Jesus, he’ll keep popping up, perverting what you know about the real Jesus.  You need to look him in the face, recognize that he’s fake, and renounce him.”

“That’s the danger of following an imaginary Jesus.  The more committed you get to him and his plan, the further afield from the real Jesus you get.  Your earnest attempts to be committed to your imaginary Jesus actually move you away from Christ.”

“There are enormous numbers of people who approach their gods on their stomachs, begging for a moment’s attention.  We, on the other hand, walk up to him like we’re walking to the guy at the counter of 7-Eleven.”

Share on Facebook

Here are a few reasons to love this book:

1. It’s a war book that’s not really about war. It’s about 19-year-olds so far out of their element that it is scary.

2. It reminds me of all the reasons why I do not want to be in a ground war like Vietnam or either of the World Wars.

3. It’s about World War I. How much do you really know about that war? Quick, who were we fighting?

4. The book is written in plain, simple prose to comment on the plain, simple boys fighting this war.

5. There are a few funny scenes when the men try to gain the attention of French women. Don’t try this at home…please.

6. It displays the inner conflict of being patriotic for one’s country and being scared as hell to fight.

7. It is a much better anti-war book than Slaughterhouse-Five, and I liked Slaughterhouse-Five.

8. It has a self-imposed subtitle: “The Greatest War Novel of all Time.” You gotta love that bravado.

9. It is told through the point-of-view of Paul Baumer, a German. How many books have you read with a sympathetic narrator of the enemy?

Share on Facebook

The Associate is a fast-paced lawyer/spy novel in classic Grisham style.  After reading East of Eden by Steinbeck, the difference between good literature and ‘mind candy’ could not be more striking.  This book certainly isn’t going to make you think deeply about life… but it was fun, intriguing, and fast-paced nonetheless.

In this novel, Grisham paints quite a picture of what it would look like to begin work as an associate in one of the largest law firms in New York City… In a word – miserable.  The fast-paced, overworked greed machine that is corporate law firms devour their new associates with 100 hour work weeks, constant pressure to “bill more hours”, and bilk the Fortune 500 clients.

Kyle McAvoy, the main character, has no desire to live such a life, but he’s forced to through blackmail from an incident in his early college days.  The person blackmailing Kyle is seeking military secrets from a company the firm Kyle is forced to work for and spy on against his will.

The story line is intriguing throughout the book and it keeps one’s attention… I kind of felt like I was reading a mix between a David Baldacci spy thriller and a typical Grisham lawyer novel… ***spoiler alert*** my only complaint  was the ending… I felt like it had potential to end with a bang, but instead seemed to fizzle out…

Share on Facebook

When I first came across John MacArthur’s latest book Slave my initial reaction was to recoil inwardly. I thought, “Here MacArthur goes again, taking another hardline stance… lots of truth, little grace.” I decided to give the book a try though, since I was preparing to preach on Philippians 1:1 where the Apostle Paul refers to himself and Timothy as ‘doulos‘ – servants in almost all english translations, yet MacArthur argues is really to be translated as ‘slave‘.  After reading the first chapter for free on my Kindle, I purchased the rest of the book, and I’m glad I did.

MacArthur demonstrates that the predominate title given to followers of Christ in the Bible is not ‘Christian’ (this word only occurs 3 times), but rather it is ‘doulos‘ – which occurs 142 times in the New Testament.  In secular greek, doulos is never translated ‘servant’ as most english translations have it, but rather it is always ‘slave’.  Furthermore, there are at least six other greek words that could be used for the word ‘servant’, but doulos is not one of them.

MacArthur shows that the distinctions between servants and slaves are tremendously significant for the life and identity of the follower of Christ.

• Servants are hired; slaves are owned – servants are defined by what they do, slaves are defined by who they are… and Christians are Christ’s possessions.  He bought us with the price of his own blood.  The primary purpose of a slave is to honor, obey, and please his or her master.

MacArthur goes on to show that everybody is either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ.  Sin is a cruel master… the wages of sin are death (Rom. 6:23). Christ the Lord (kurios – master) is a kind and great master.  it is an honor, joy, and true freedom to be redeemed from the slave master of sin and purchased by Christ.  Or as MacArthur puts it;

“To be a slave of Jesus Christ is the greatest benediction imaginable.  Not only is He a kind and gracious Lord, but He is also the God of the universe. His character is perfect; His love is infinite; His power, matchless; His wisdom, unsearchable; and His goodness, beyond compare. It is no wonder, then, that our relationship to Him as our Master brings us great benefit and honor.”

Next time you read the Bible and you see the word ‘servant’, replace it with the word slave and you’ll notice the important implications it has for your faith and joy in Christ.

Share on Facebook

George Whitfield is perhaps the greatest itinerant preacher in history.  He traveled all over England and American during the First Great Awakening, mastering open-air preaching and speaking to thousands at a time, bringing many to repentance.  He was arguably the most important personality during the Great Awakening, not in lasting impact (Jonathan Edwards has that claim indisputably), but based on the enormous number of people he preached to.  Estimates are that by his death in 1770, 80% of America had witnessed George Whitefield preach in person.  What an incredible statistic.

This book focuses on the man in a snapshot view covering three main sections.  The first is a general account of his life by J.C. Ryle, written on the 100 year anniversary of his death in 1870.  It is a great look at the lasting impact of Whitefield over the next century and chronicles his life’s work quite admirably, from his time with the Wesley brothers at Oxford to his trips back and forth over the Atlantic through countless illnesses and many more miles.

The second part of the book is a chapter on Whitefield’s doctrine.  This is the part that surprised me the most.  Given that the man preached more than he slept at the zenith of his career and rarely preached in the same place for any length of time, I thought his preaching would be somewhat lacking in theology since he wouldn’t have the time to properly study for his sermons.  The account of his doctrine, however, given at his funeral in 1770, was surprisingly accurate and profound and proved that theory wrong.

This carried over into his sermons–the second half of the book. The book offers 6 of his greatest sermons and, as I read them, I wanted very badly to hear Whitefield preach it himself.  His eloquence of speech is part of what drew so many people to his gatherings; the combination of passion, grace, and force with which he would exegete the scriptures lead countless listeners to their knees in awe, surrender, and submission before their God.  Ryle paints an incredible picture of Whitefield’s preaching, describing it as “a holy violence that took your attention by storm.”  These sermons were quite good… and certainly anything but seeker sensitive.  His mastery of the scriptures and delivery of those thoughts is something to be admired.

If you are looking for a relatively quick read on Whitefield without getting into too many details, this might be a good book for you.  It’s short, but wastes no space in telling the most pertinent and intriguing details of Whitefield’s life.

Share on Facebook