Jim's #7: The Prodigal God by Tim Keller

Everyone knows the story of "The Prodigal Son" as it is so commonly coined in most every translation of the bible you will find.  It very well may be the best known story in the world outside of the Good Samaritan.  Everyone sees the metaphors of sin, redemption, grace, and the love of the father and,understandably, feel all warm and tingly inside when recounting God's love for us in receiving us as sons in our sinful state.  It's a beautiful picture and a great lesson to be learned.

But that's only half of the story.  Tim Keller reveals the second half of Jesus' story he prefers to call "The Parable of the Lost Sons".  While he does bring up the facts and application of the traditional understanding, most of Keller's focus is on "Act 2", the sin and isolation of older brother.  Keller states that we all have dispositions and temperaments that predispose us to a life of moral conformity or self-discovery.  Sadly, I had to read this book knowing that my propensity is toward morality, judgement, and disdain, characteristics that aim me toward the elder brother -- the one that didn't enter the feast (a metaphor for the Heavenly celebration throughout the Scriptures that Keller also discloses).

The big idea as I gathered it, without giving away the entire book, is that while both elder brothers and younger brothers are in sin and disconnected from the father, the plight of the elder brother is perhaps more dangerous than the separation and rebellion of the younger brother.  Younger brothers know that they are disconnected from their father and willfully disobey.  Elder brothers assume their relationship and inheritance, blind to their own iniquity; this is a very dangerous place to be.  As Keller says, "If you know you are sick you may go to a doctor; if you don't know you're sick you won't--you'll just die."  If that's not sobering, I don't know what is.

By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is making us yearn for a true one.  Keller tells us that this comes in Christ who does not stay and take care of his inheritance but departs the father, searches and finds his younger brother, and then returns him to the family at his own expense.

I will stop there and leave the rest of the book for you're reading.  It's a short and easy read and one that I would highly recommend.  Keller's writing style is quite enjoyable.  He speaks on a user-friendly level and uses a lot of great references to other short stories and movies to drive his points home well.  If you're curious about the title, you should look up the definition of prodigal.  Keller doesn't walk you through it, but it's quite profound, really.

In closing, Keller challenges us all by saying, "If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think."  It's something we should all consider as we fight the default mode of the human heart, religion.

Jim's #6: Stuff Christians Like by Jonathan Acuff

I like to laugh.  Whether it's at myself or at the expense of someone else it doesn't matter.  I just like to laugh.  This book allowed me to do both of those.  Thanks to Mark for reviewing it last year.  That's what got me to buy it.  I grew up in a traditional evangelical home, church, youth group, etc. so I knew first hand about every one of his annecdotes... and laughed accordingly, sometimes only at the sight of the essay title.  Here are some examples:

Being Slightly Less Nice Than Mormons

Saying "I'll Pray For You"... And Then Not

Using "Let Me Pray About It" as a Euphemism for NO

The Metrosexual Worship Leader

Losing the Will to Clap During Songs

Name Dropping God to get out of a Speeding Ticket (been there, done that)

Temporarily Suspending Our Faith when We Get Behind the Wheel

And here's one of his better short essays:

Telling Testimonies that are Exciting Right Up Until the Moment You Became a Christian

"You should have seen me before I became a Chrisian.  I was wild.  I had this really hot girlfriend who was named after a city, and we were living in this cool loft downtown and every night, not just on the weekends, every night, we were going out.  Her uncle owned a bunch of nightclubs and a fleet of yachts, so we would just party and then get on one of the yachts and have craziest time and catch fresh crabs in the Florida Keys and then watche the sun pierce the morning sky with streaks of red and orange and yellow.

"And then I became a Christian.  The end."

No one ever says "the end" when they tell a reverse testimony, one of those rare gems that buckets all the exciting parts of a life story before the moment of salvation, but they should.  Because that's what they're doing.  They're essentially saying, "I used to have a really fun life and then I became a Chrisitan.  The end."

We associate all the fun and excitement and neon coolness of life with the world and leave God all the boring, discipline-flavored moments.  He's like eating broccoli.  We know it's good for us, but it's still broccoli.  But that can't be right.  God is wild.  He's constantly saying, "Let's go find cliffs to jump off of," and, "I know exactly what you need, because, guess what, I put that need there."  He created my heart and the deepest desires I have, and there's no yacht or nightclub on the planet that can access those spots of me like God can.

And besides, he invented sex.  And not just "let's make a baby" sex--he invented "whoa, the world just tilted on its axis; I can't believe we get to do that and go to heaven too" sex.  Sometimes we act like we were the ones that discovered it was fun, like maybe God was in heaven and was surprised to see how enjoyable we were able to make it.  "Whoa, I created that for procreation purposes; I had no idea it would be so awesome."  And so we give the world credit for sex and think that God is only down with the functional version, but the fun version, the wild version, that's probably something Marvin Gaye came up with.

Now since this is one example of hundreds, chances are this is one of the funniest ones in my opinion.  So if this doesn't make you RFLOL, LOL, or at least COL (chuckle out loud), you probably won't like this book.  He does, however, hit on some issues that should be addressed and made me reflect a bit as well on some of my own Christiany tendencies.  All in all, it was a pretty fun book to read and he's definitely a talented author.

I only wish he would have finished up his essays by bringing it full circle with one titled, "Making Fun of Christiany Christians".

Jim's #5: The Great Awakening by Thomas S. Kidd

 

To be honest, when I first received this book in the mail I was a little disappointed because it was pretty darn short and I was supposed to be using it for a research paper.   Short books typically don't give the details you need for a research paper unless you plan on simply plagiarising the entire book (since this is a seminary course, I figured that might fall outside the "spirit" of the degree I'm trying to get). 

The book is broken down into two basic sections, a general overview of the Great Awakening of the 1700s and a collection of primary sources from that time period that covers all of the main views of the time.  The general overview is pretty good but probably doesn't contain anything you couldn't find on Wikipedia.  The documents, however, are what make this book worthwhile.  Thomas Kidd does a great job of sifting through the main focuses of the time and providing selections from periodicals, sermons, letters, etc that cover both sides of the various views.  For instance, for the Old Lights vs. New Lights (Charles Chauncey vs. Jonathan Edwards) he provides writings of Jonathan Edwards and a rebuttal of the anti-revivalist Charles Chancey.  He does the same thing for the preaching of George Whitefield, providing personal accounts of his preaching influence and those that saw him as nothing more than a showman.  Finally, he touches on the radicals like Isaac Backus and some of their responses to all that was happening.

All in all, it was an ok book.  Nothing life changing and if you just want a basic understanding of the Great Awakening, I would probably go with a regular church history book.

Jim's #4: Forgotten God by Francis Chan

Forgotten God is pretty much what I expected from Francis Chan.  I really enjoyed Crazy Love when I read that and expected this to be similar, which it was but with a bit more theology to it than Crazy Love.  When I first saw that Chan was putting out this book I immediately got interested because the Holy Spirit has always been the God I know the least about.  The Celtic Christians called Him the Wild Goose and I thought that was always an interesting analogy.

Francis goes through the topic pretty systematically, beginning with why we need the Holy Spirit, moving into the theology regarding the Holy Spirit, and then discussing our lives and the pragmatic side of the Spirit.  He discusses numerous times the general feeling around the church that a day with Jesus would be better than a day with the indwelling Holy Spirit but goes on to show how the Bible (and Jesus) teaches absolutely contrary to that.  I mean, how is God being with us better than God being in us?

There were other parts of the book I really enjoyed as well, including his discussion on quenching the Spirit and point that we often settle for making life on our own accord rather than submitting to the Spirit and in so doing, achieve far less than we could as a church.  He also does a good job of avoiding ostracizing one extreme or the other as it relates to the fruits or gifts of the Spirit.  The middle ground (or right ground as far as the bible is concerned) between charismatics and conservatives is well laid out.

Finally, at the end of each chapter, Francis lays out a story of particular person that he sees as living a life filled with the Holy Spirit.  I found these stories to be the most powerful parts of the book and will come back to those in the future.  Overall, it was a good, quick read (or listen if you do it on audio), and I would suggest it to those who want to learn a little more practically how the Spirit works and moves in our lives.

Jim's #3: The Surprising Work of God by Garth M. Rosell

There are plenty of books on the work of Billy Graham, but not nearly as many on Harold John Ockenga, the man behind much of what Billy Graham and his ministry achieved by God's grace.   I had not heard of Ockenga before my church history course but after reading the book I have to wonder how that was the case.   Ockenga was God's man behind the 4th Great Awakening and the Rebirth of Evangelicalism.  This book goes into incredible detail of his life and ministry.

Garth Rosell was asked by Ockenga's family to write this biography (as his father, Carl Rosell, was another key member of the Awakening movement) and granted him permissions to all of Ockenga's journals and private works to do so.  He gives great back story to the great Awakening and captured well the impact of Ockenga and Graham's work.  Ockenga was an enormously powerful preacher  and evangelist(though quite awkward with the ladies as you'd find in this book).  He was part of the first graduating class of Westminster Seminary, founded by J. Gresham Machem after the split within the Presbyterians from Princeton and eventually the founder and president of the ever-important National Association of Evangelicals and Fuller Seminary.

I think what may have impressed me the most is the humility and accountability that these men had in the midst of their incredible success in ministry.  They would do speaking engagements and conferences together and draw huge crowds, but as Rosell states, "while any fair-minded observer would judge people like Billy Graham, Percy Crawford, Merv Rosell, Hyman Appleman, and Jack Wyrtzen to be genuinely remarkable individuals, the evangelists themselves were without exception convinced that anything of value they accomplished was because of God's power rather than any human abilities they might possess."  These men were genuinely humble and seeking the Glory of God alone.

In short, I think you could make the assessment that Harold John Ockenga and Billy Graham were to the Fourth Great Awakening what Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were to the First Great Awakening. Rosell does a fine job of showing how these incredible men were used immensely by our incomparable God.

Jim's #1 & #2: The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez and Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley

It's about time I got started on posting to this thing!  I'm already behind and it's only February.

I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to take two Church History Classes while in Okinawa.  I knew in coming here that I was pretty much historically illiterate when it came to my faith's history and that always bothered me a little (Martin Luther/Martin Luther King, Jr.  I now know the difference!!!).  The course, and these books have truly opened my eyes to a few things:

1. There is plenty to be learned today from the great developers and reformers of the church.

2. There are innumerable events in the history of the church we should not be proud of.

3. Man can make a good thing bad quite quickly.

4. I wish my spiritual disciplines could compare with most anyone's in the books that I read.

4. Every Christian stalwart of the past had not yet arrived when it came to sanctification.

5. I still don't know that much about church history.

These two books by Justo Gonzalez and Bruce Shelley come from the second semester of this church history survey, covering from the Reformation to the present.  In the first semester I read a different text book by Kenneth Scott Latourette, so I will review my thoughts on these three authors and my suggestions based on what depth/style of history you are looking for.

Bruce Shelley - Church History in Plain Language was an enjoyable book to read.  It's considered more of a historical timeline than actual textbook because it covers the whole of church History, from Jesus to now in only about 400 pages.  Shelley starts his chapters out with a little story in history based on that section's topic and then backtracks to give the complete picture.  It's engaging and enjoyable to read.

Justo L. Gonzalez - The Story of Christianity is definitely more of a textbook.  It is a two-volume set with each one consisting of about 400 pages.   He covers almost the same material as Shelley but goes further in depth on everything and includes some additional chapters on more overarching issues/theologies.  For example, Shelley and Gonzalez both have a chapter on Zwingli and Calvin, but Gonzalez has an additional chapter on the reformed tradition, covering the differences in theology between Reformed, Lutheran, Anabaptist, and Anglican beliefs.  He did cover more on the Catholic church as well which didn't interest me as much, but I guess that's still part of church history.

Kenneth Scott Latourette - This man is one of the foremost scholars when it comes to church history.  Like Gonzalez, he has a 2-volume (600 pages each) history of the church but he also has an exhaustive, 7-volume series called The History of the Expansion of Christianity.  Read with a dictionary in hand.  He is not user friendly, necessarily, but he definitely has an incredible grasp on every aspect of church history.

Of the three, I would strongly suggest starting with Bruce Shelley as he will be able to provide you with the depth that you need and be able to keep your attention beyond the 3rd century when reading voluntarily.  To be honest, if you want more than that, I would go straight to Latourette.  If Shelley doesn't provide enough depth for you, you might as well go for the top of the historical food chain and skip Gonzalez.  He really didn't add THAT much more information and Latourette will be a resource to be used long down the lines.  His index in the back of the book will guide you to the specific topics you are looking for information on and then present those in much greater detail.

Sadly, for you, there will be quite a few more church history books to come in the next few weeks as I finish the course.  I will get to some more interesting ones eventually I promise.  It will also mean I can steal my kindle back from my wife!