Young Adults in Post-Apocalyptic America

Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy has hit on something.  People really like reading about teenagers sticking it to the man in a future America that is no longer America.  In a Barnes and Noble the other day a whole booth was dedicated to the Hunger Games.  With the first movie coming out in a few months who can blame them?  One of the items was a journal with "Down with the Capitol!" on the front.  I have to say it was kind of cool, if journals can be cool.

Now it seems Collins has spawned a veritable sub-genre of science fiction dystopian young adult fiction.  I've never coined a term before, so I coin it SFDYAF (pronounced "Sphid-yaf").  I'm almost positive it will catch on.

Anyway, more books are popping up in the SFDYAF category.  As I write my wife is reading Marie Lu's Legend.  I haven't gotten to that one yet, but I did recently finish Veronica Roth's Divergent.  I can't say that I enjoyed it as much as The Hunger Games, nor was it as crisply and economically written.  But I still enjoyed it.

Here's the premise:  It's Chicago, sometime in the future.  There is no United States, and the city (which is largely abandoned and falling apart) is surrounded by a fence, though it is unclear what the fence is actually for.  But this is but one detail that I'm sure will be resolved further in the trilogy.  Yes, it appears that SFDYAF books come in threes.  The city is divided into five factions, each of which are united around a specific virtue they believe is necessary for peace.  These five factions are Amity, Erudite, Candor, Abnegation, and Dauntless.

When Beatrice, our heroine, comes of age and must choose her faction for life she leaves Abnegation, her family's faction, for Dauntless.  But before I give too much away of the plot, I merely note two central points.  First, Beatrice doesn't exactly fit into any faction, which she finds is quite a sticky place to find oneself.  Second, things aren't as peaceful between the factions as they seem.

I hope Chicago doesn't turn into the city of Divergent (though the zip line from the top of the Hancock Tower would be cool), but I am looking forward to the next book in the series.  Unless, that is, SFDYAF prophecies turn true and I have to fight off monsters and totalitarian governments in the mean time.

Top Ten of 2011

Here are my favorite books of 2011.  Two qualifications:  (1) I've not included perennial favorites that I've already read; (2) these are listed in the order that I read them rather than the order that I enjoyed them.

1.  Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy.  Technically three books, but whatever.  Dark, violent, compelling, and relentlessly intense.

2.  D. A. Carson, The God Who is There:  Finding Your Place in God's Story.  Great overview of the Bible's central story line with a view to a biblically illiterate audience.

3.  Richard Russo, Straight Man.  Very funny.  Not my favorite Russo but still enjoyable.

4.  P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Tie That Binds.  Brilliant and hilarious.  The first Wodehouse I've read.  I'll read more.

5.  Eugene Sledge, With the Old Breed:  At Peleliu and Okinawa.  A first-hand account of the American assault on two Japanese-held islands.  While war may be necessary at times, there is no glory in it.

6.  Alan Jacobs, Wayfaring:  Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant.  A collection of essays from a great essayist.

7.  Mike McKinley, Church Planting is for Wimps:  How God Uses Messed-Up People to Plant Ordinary Churches That Do Extraordinary Things.  Very encouraging book on church planting and church revitalization.

8.  David Dickson, The Elder and His Work.  A 19th century book on the elder's pastoral work.  It's brevity is a plus.

9.  Michael Korda, Hero:  The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia.  Great biography of a fascinating man.

10.  Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.  Jacob's second mention on this list.  A book for people who love books.

Honorable mention:  Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Two-thirds through at the moment.  Otherwise probably would have made it on the list.

Reading Update

I've let too many full book reviews pass by, and it's too late to catch up.  You'll have to make do with these short summaries.

Michael Korda, Hero:  The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia.  T. E. Lawrence was the type of renaissance man that I find fascinating.  He was brilliant at everything he put his hand to:  historical research on medieval fortifications, archaeology, writing, diplomacy, and (I know I'm forgetting something . . . Oh, yeah) uniting the Arab tribes and leading them in military revolt against the Turks in World War I.  Korda's well-written biography shows how so much of his life--his discovery that he was illegitimate, his distant relationship with his mother, his perpetual collection of father figures, his almost fanatical asceticism, and his desire to do something great in the world--prepared him to become a hero.  And by "hero" Korda means in the classical sense rather than in the modern, sentimental sense.  I especially enjoyed Korda's take on Lawrence's immensely complicated personality as well as three events in Lawrence's warfare experience that would have surely made many men lose their minds:  personally executing one of his men (to forestall an inner-tribal vendetta), his rape and torture as a prisoner of war by his Turkish captives, and witnessing the immediate aftermath of a hideous massacre of an Arab village by fleeing Turkish troops.  Korda has made produced a literary work worthy of its subject.  If you enjoy biographies you'll enjoy this one.

G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who was Thursday:  A Nightmare.  A very strange book about an undercover cop infiltrating an anarchist group who discovers that all the members of the anarchist group are all undercover cops.  I enjoyed it but I'm not sure if I got it.

Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.  Jacobs is one of my favorite authors, and once again he did not disappoint.  His latest book is all about embracing reading for fun rather than reading for duty or personal betterment (contra the likes of How to Read a Book and other advocates of "must read" books or "great book" lists).  Jacobs has convinced me to abandon my goal to read one "classic" book per quarter (not like I was making much progress anyway).  Book snobs should stay away from this one.

For my next post I'll have my top ten reads of 2011.

The C. S. Lewis Code

C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia are simple, fun, and theologically instructive.  Millions of children and adults adore them.  I'm suspicious of people who don't like them, like people who don't enjoy the Cosby Show.  Who doesn't like the Cosby Show?  People you shouldn't trust, I'm sure.

The allegory (or is it allegory?) is straight-forward and powerful:  Aslan, the allegorical Christ, the great lion who dies for another's sin and is raised from the dead by "a deeper magic from before the dawn of time."  And there is the "conversion" of Eustace, a mean little boy with the personality like a dragon.  When he actually is turned into a dragon he discovers that can't heal himself; he can only by restored by the terrible grace of Aslan's ripping claws.

And, symbolism aside, there is that beautiful, oft-quoted final sentence of the series which never fails to move me:

All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page:  now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has ever read:  which goes on for ever:  in which every chapter is better than the one before.

But what if there was a unifying theme to the entire series that Lewis managed to keep hidden for over fifty years?  Michael Ward's Planet Narnia:  The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis makes this bold claim.  Ward argues (convincingly in my opinion) that each book in the series corresponds to one of the seven heavens or planets in the Medieval cosmology.  Think of Dante's seven heavens in Paradiso.  Here is the breakdown:

1. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe = Jupiter
2. Prince Caspian = Mars
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader = Sun
4. The Silver Chair = Moon
5. The Horse and His Boy = Mercury
6. The Magician's Nephew = Venus
7. The Last Battle = Saturn

Ward makes his case methodically.  He begins by looking at Lewis' own research and views on Medieval cosmology.  Lewis was a professor of Medieval literature, and his scholarly research into the field was quite extensive, as Ward thoroughly quotes and references.  He then moves to Lewis' poetry and fiction prior to Chronicles in which the seven heavens come to prominence.  Anyone who has read his space trilogy should recall that the seven planets (who are angelic personalities rather than balls of rocks and gas) are quite explicit at the end of That Hideous Strength.

Once he has established that Lewis was quite interested in the seven heavens and had already explored them in his own poetry and fiction, Ward then moves to make his case for their hidden presence in The Chronicles of Narnia.  Sometimes this presence is extraordinarily subtle.  In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for instance, the characters frequently say "By Jove."  Over and over again in The Silver Chair we see water and wetness, since water is associated with the Lunar idea.  The Horse and His Boy, the book corresponding to Mercury, is filled with scenes of speed and speech-making, (Mercury was the messenger god after all).  

Other times it's more overt (but not so overt that anyone noticed before now).  Prince Caspian, the "martial" book, is all about war.  When Aslan arrives to redeem Narnia from the White Witch in the first book the unending winter finally ends and spring returns.  It is no coincidence that Jupiter is associated with spring and rebirth.  And so it goes with each book.

After showing the hidden presence of these themes in each of the books Ward then makes some judgments as to what the themes are saying theologically.  This is where Planet Narnia was most difficult for me.  Side note:  it was published by Oxford University Press; this is a serious work of literary criticism.  I can't remember all the theological nuances of each book, but Ward argues nonetheless that they are there, and I think he's pretty much right.

So why did Lewis have this secret unifying theme?  Once again, Ward has done his homework.  He shows that Lewis believed that good writing shouldn't expose all it has to offer at first glance.  In this case he hid it so well that no one noticed for a half century after Lewis' death.  Lewis fans should take Ward's case seriously, and go back with renewed joy to Lewis' seven wonderful books.

The Archer and the Arrow

Phillip Jensen and Paul Grimmond have written a very helpful little book on preaching called The Archer and Arrow:  Preaching the Very Words of God.  Two bits of clarification:

First, as explained in the preface, Paul Grimmond did the actual writing, but all the ideas are basically Jensen's (a seasoned preacher).  Second, the "archer" of the title refers to the preacher, and the "arrow" refers to the sermon.

It would probably be tedious to summarize everything Jensen and Grimmond say.  I'd rather share a few of my favorite quotes and a very helpful illustration.

On the ministry of all believers (which the Sydney evangelicals emphasize a lot):

For all of God's people, everywhere, the challenge is to speak to each other as those who speak the very truths of God and nothing less.  Whether we speak one to another over a meal or one to a thousand from the pulpit on Sunday morning, the aim for all Christians is to speak God's truth in order that we might all be encouraged to live for the glory of Christ as we await his return. (14)

 On the essence of preaching:

What, then, is the essence of preaching?  It is not related to the number of people we speak to, nor is it related to our ability to communicate.  The essence of preaching is passing on the message as we have received it--that is what it means to speak the very oracles of God. (14)

The preacher's mission statement:

My aim is to preach the gospel by faithfully expounding the Bible to the people God has given me to love. (22)

On the preacher's motivations:

If we are preaching for the sake of God's honour, then we will long for our hearers to say, "Jesus is a great saviour" not "He is a great preacher". (92)

I found the arrow illustration very helpful.  An arrow is composed of three sections:  the arrowhead, the shaft, and the feathers.  The arrowhead corresponds to the gospel.  The preacher should preach the gospel in every sermon (though he should not feel obligated to preach every component of the gospel in every sermon), and thus he tries to pierce the heart of his people with the gospel.  The shaft corresponds to the exegesis of the particular text being preached.  The better the exegesis/shaft and deeper the gospel/arrowhead will pierce the heart.  The feathers correspond to the biblical and systematic theology (and other broader disciplines) the keep the arrow/sermon flying straight rather than veering off into heresy or error because of our bad exegesis.  It's a simple illustration, but I found it helpful.

I discovered many other gems in The Archer and the Arrow.  Any preacher or preacher-in-training would be wise to read it.

Augustine on the City

In yesterday's post one of my ideas for writing was on the Reformers' view(s) of the city.  A nice bit of timing today as I came across this from Augustine in The City of God:

If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is never free from the fear, if sometimes the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars? (19.5)

Augustine predated the Reformers by over a millennium, but since they counted him one of their own I wonder if they shared such sentiments.

In the meantime

As I happily wade through about three or four books (depending on how one counts how many books I'm reading at the moment, but [though I love parenthetical asides] explaining what I mean would be irrelevant and distracting [indeed, more irrelevant and distracting than this parenthetical aside]) and await til I can review them, I thought it'd be fun to go a different direction than my usual meanderings on reading.

Writing rather than reading will be the focus of today's entry.  I enjoy writing, and would love to one day actually publish something moderately fun and/or helpful.  Here are a few ideas for writing that I may or may not do anything with:

(1) The Reformers and the City.  There's lots of talk these days about cities:  about how the world is steadily urbanizing, about Global Cities, urban ministry, a theology of the city, and so forth.  I'm really curious to know what the Protestant Reformers thought about the city.  Calvin ministered in Geneva.  Zwingli ministered in  Zurich.  Luther was in Wittenberg.  What did they think about their cities or "The City?"  I don't know but I'm curious.  I wonder if they have any wisdom for us.

(2) In Praise of Chicago.  It'd be fun to write about things I love about Chicago.  No educational or instructive purpose.  Just for fun.

(3) The History of Evangelicalism in Chicago.  Don't know if anyone's ever written about this.  But it would be both fun and instructive (at least I think so).

(4) A children's book about two squirrels.  Don't laugh.  I wrote the first chapter back four or five years ago just for fun.  Now Duncan's getting to the point of understanding it.  I think he'd like it.

(5) A pamphlet on adoption.  This one's already in the works.

Until then, there's plenty of books to keep reading, lattes to keep making, and family to keep loving/protecting/providing for/preventing from eating unknown objects off the ground/etc.

Prioritizing Your Reading

In the middle of several books (City of God [Augustine not Lins], The Archer and the Arrow [on preaching], and Hero [Lawrence of Arabia bio]), so no new reviews.  Instead, it would be a good time to note Tony Reinke's six priorities for reading:

1.  Reading Scripture
2.  Reading to know and delight in Christ
3.  Reading to kindle spiritual reflection
4.  Reading to initiate personal change
5.  Reading to pursue vocational excellence
6.  Reading to enjoy a good story

Reinke is the author of Lit:  A Christian Guide to Reading Books.  See here for an explanation of each point.  It reminds me a bit of Francis Bacon's proverb:

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Happy Birthday

Today, a long time ago, Bilbo Baggins celebrated his eleventy-first birthday ("111, a rather curious number").  Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's younger cousin, turned thirty-three, when Hobbits come of age.  In light of such a joyous occasion I'd like to wish all my readers peace, a bountiful harvest, and the best tobacco for their pipes in whatever corner of the Shire they might reside.

A favorite essayist on a favorite children's book

Alan Jacobs on The Wind in the Willows.

For my part, I've read it twice and plan to read it to my children (and maybe just myself) over and over.  It's charming, very funny, beautiful, and just fun.

HT:  Justin Taylor

The Pleasures of Re-reading

Last week I completed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, thus concluding this year's reading of Harry Potter.  My third reading of the series was every bit as enjoyable as the first two.  It confirmed my conviction that if one truly loves a book he or she will keep reading that book over and over again.

A few thoughts from this reading:

(1) I noticed details I had either forgotten or never noticed to begin with, like Hagrid's pumpkins in The Sorcerer's Stone and the subtle hints of Harry's growing love for Ginny in The Half-Blood Prince.

(2) Something I find particularly satisfying is the way Rowling uses little, almost imperceptible details that become important later on in the series.  For example, the mention of Dumbledore's battle with Grindelwald in the first book that eventually becomes a huge point in the revelation of Dumbledore's full past and true character in the final book; the fact that Neville is raised by his grandmother, which eventually leads to the back story of what happened to his parents; the twin cores of Harry's and Voldemort's wand.

(3) I love Neville's character development from a bumbling, hapless boy to a courageous leader (and true Gryffindor) who cuts off the head of Voldemort's snake with the sword of Gryffindor.

(4) Severus Snape still remains a bit of a mystery to me.  He's so ambiguous:  he's finally proved to be trustworthy to the point of death (and becomes a namesake for one of Harry's son's), and it's really quite touching how he never stopped loving Harry's mother, but he was a jerk to Harry.  Almost sadistically cruel.  Maybe his ambiguity is what makes him so fascinating.

(5) I'm going to keep reading Harry Potter.  The prose isn't brilliant (though it improves remarkably midway through the series), but I care for the characters, the plots are satisfying, and the narrative world is compelling.

Expecto Patronum!

Madison, Wisconsin, is a delightful town.  The center of town sits on a narrow isthmus between two large lakes.  At the highest point is perched the majestic state capitol building.  Roads radiate outwards from this hub, one of which is the pedestrian only State Street, which links the downtown with the University of Wisconsin.  Bars, restaurants, clothing stores--everything a college town needs--line the street in abundance.

Five years ago my wife and I had the pleasure of ambling down State Street.  The greatest discovery (for me at least) was a used book store across from a Starbucks.  I don't know if it's still there today, but I'm glad it was that day.  For just a few bucks we came out with the first two books of the Harry Potter series.  I'd seen all the movies (four had come out at that point) and enjoyed them thoroughly.  But I'd never read the books.  I knew a lot of people who thought they were pagan, or something like that, but this wasn't my own view (I later noticed that all the people who objected to these books didn't read books at all, so I didn't find their objections very credible).  So we took them back to Wheaton where they sat on a bookshelf for several months.

I finally picked them up at the end of that year.  I was studying for finals but needed something to distract me from the academic drudgery.  Once I started I couldn't put them down.  I finished one and went right to the next.  After I finished the first two books I either borrowed or checked out the next four.  By the beginning of the next semester in January I had finished all of them (except of course the final book which had yet to be published).

The final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, came out that summer.  My wife waited in line at midnight to pick up our copy from the now defunct Borders Bookstore.  The next two days we swapped the book back and forth, reading two chapters at a time.  As I finished it I felt a mixture of pleasure and sadness--pleasure because I enjoyed it so much, and sadness that it was over (and because sad things happen of course).

Then it joined its brothers on the bookshelf for a few more years.  Slowly, as time passed from this first reading, I felt the growing desire to return to them once more.  But this was during a time of long term unemployment.  I decided at some point that I'd wait until the job situation was settled to reread the series as a type of reward for my new job.

I had to wait until August of last year for this prize.  Three and a half years had passed since my first reading, and I had forgotten so much of the details.  But I enjoyed it so much (and read at the same pace as the first time) that I said to myself, "Self, you enjoy this so much.  Why not just read it every year?"  Thus the birth of an August tradition.  This August I began my third reading, and, yes, I'm still loving it (though life circumstances inhibit the earlier pace of reading).

I don't want to do review these books.  Two articles in Wayfaring by Alan Jacobs (English prof, author, Harry Potter lover) do it better than I ever could.  However, I do want to state the two biggest reasons why I find the series so satisfying.  First, they're just a lot of fun.  The plots are fun, the mystery elements are fun, and the narrative world of Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world is just a lot of fun.  There's so much charm and humor, which the movies don't always capture.  Second, I can't help but care about the characters.  Maybe it's because they're mostly kids, and maybe it's because so much evil has been perpetuated against them, but I have rarely identified so closely and rooted so hard for fictitious characters.

And, of course, I have to mention all those elements of Christian symbolism, especially in book seven that I personally find so intriguing:  the chosen one who defeats evil by his death and resurrection (of a type--you might have to make your own judgment about that--I disagree with Alan Jacobs on this point), the location where Harry and Dumbledore speak (King's Cross--say those words out loud and listen to what you're saying), and the two biblical quotations in the graveyard scene.  I really have no idea where J. K. Rowling identifies herself religiously.  I just think all this is really cool.

I enjoy reading (obviously), but I really enjoy Harry Potter.  I hope you do too.

Reading Update

Once again the busyness of life has distracted me from blogging.  Here's what I've been reading since my last review:

 Alan Jacobs, Wayfaring:  Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant.  Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College (IL not MA) is one of my favorite writers.  Wayfaring is a collection of essays previously published in various periodicals.  He's a fantastic essayist and writes on a delightfully broad range of subjects:  trees, Harry Potter (which he loves:  "the best penny-dreadful ever written"), Bible translation, friendship, and more.

 Stephen Mansfield, In Search of God and Guinness:  A Biography of the Book that Changed the World.  I love Guinness, but I only liked this book.  It tells the story of Guinness' founding in the 18th century all the way through to today but with particular attention to how much the Guinness family used their wealth for good, including providing wonderful benefits to employees (way before anyone else was doing it) as well as for the poor of Ireland.  The writing was competent but much less enjoyable coming off of Jacobs.

 Mike McKinley, Church Planting is for Wimps:  How God Uses Messed-Up People to Plant Ordinary Churches That Do Extraordinary Things.  Very good read on planting churches, or rather, one man's story of revitalizing an all-but-dead church.  Anyone interested in church planting should read and learn.

 Neil Gaiman, American Gods.  Gaiman is a fantasy writer.  At least I think so.  He's a bit hard to pin down for me, but not as hard as Neal Stephenson.  Anyway, American Gods tells the story about a battle between the old gods who came over to America with their former adherents (like the Scandinavian god Odin) and the new American gods like Media and the Internet.  I didn't find the story as intriguing as Gaiman's Anansi Boys and Neverwhere, and it was also a lot dirtier.  And, to my disappointment, it didn't give any substantial critique of our modern idolatries.  The gods in this book (including Media) are actual gods not false idols.

 J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  This deserves a blog post all of its own.

John Stott

During much of my college years I was convinced that God was calling me to an academic life rather than to pastoral ministry in a local church.  I enjoyed study and was decent at it, and this aspect of my personality seemed so different than the few pastors I knew.  But then a couple of books changed my perspective.  The first was Preaching and Preachers by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  I can't remember where or why I bought this book but I'm so thankful I did.  Here I saw a great preacher--one of the greatest of the 20th century--who was devoted to study.  I don't know how many times I read the section on what books preachers should be reading (just the kind of books I liked to read anyway).  Lloyd-Jones showed me that I could be bookish and intellectual and still be a pastor.

So I decided to audit a class on preaching.  Our main text was Between Two Worlds:  The Challenge of Preaching Today by John R. W. Stott.  Here I saw much of what I had seen in Lloyd-Jones, only more of it.  He irreversibly convinced me that there is only one legitimate way to preach, what is called expository preaching.  Expository preaching is to take a text of Scripture (usually one text, but not always) and simply explain it and apply to the hearts of the congregation.  This means that what the preacher says is what God has already said in his Word, not the preacher's personal thoughts and opinions on (fill in the blank).  Between Two Worlds explained with wonderful clarity and conviction how to preach God's Word (and, happily for me, it meant the pastor had to read widely and voluminously).

John Stott was born in London in 1921.  He was converted while a student at Rugby School and soon felt called to pastoral ministry.  A few years later he became a curate (Anglican-speak for "intern") at All Souls, Langham Place, the central London church where he was raised.  His obvious gifting propelled him to a larger leadership role when the pastor's health declined.  At the pastor's death he became the rector (pastor) of All Souls.  This was in 1950, and he served the congregation until 1975, when he took the title rector emeritus in order to devote himself to his now global ministry.

And he wrote lots of books.  Many people have found encouragement or even conversion in his great work in defense of the credibility of the Christian faith Basic Christianity, oddly one of Stott's books I haven't read.  In grad school I read The Cross of Christ, a fantastic exposition of the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, the idea that Jesus' death on the cross was penal--it paid the penalty for sin against God--and that Jesus died as the substitute for sinners.  I don't know of a better book that explains why Jesus died.

Stott never married.  He wanted to and always assumed he would (doesn't everybody?), but one day he looked around and realized that it just wasn't going to happen.  It was God's way of calling him to celibacy.  The good news about his singleness was that it afforded him so much time to write and travel all over the world for various preaching engagements.  These travels made him increasingly concerned for the Third World (I guess that's not the right term anymore--"Global South," is it?).  He created a foundation to train pastors from these countries in English and American universities and seminaries for ministry and then send them back home.

On one of his many travels he came to speak at a retirement home in Carol Stream, Illinois.  This was in 2007 I think.  I was in school in Wheaton, just a few minutes drive away.  I sat with a hundred or so people much older than me and listened as Stott preached God's Word and encouraged everyone to support international missionary work.  He had to be helped onto the speaking platform, and at one point lost his train of thought (which he turned into a bit of self-effacing humor), but otherwise it was clear and compelling exposition.  I still have the sermon notes.  Afterwards I went up to him and told him how influential he had been to me.  "Are you a pastor?" he asked.  "Not yet, but I hope so one day," I said, or something like that.  Then I asked him to sign my copy of Between the Two Worlds, which he humbly obliged.  I felt like a kid getting a favorite star's baseball card autographed.

A few years later, when trying to decide what to name our first son, my wife and I easily settled on the middle name:  Stott.

John Stott died today.  He was 90 years old.  He wasn't a perfect man, but he was faithful.  He loved the gospel of Jesus Christ, and was the exemplary preacher of God's Word.  I thank God for him.

Colonel Mustard did it

Someone told me once, or maybe I read it somewhere, that Oxford and Cambridge professors dabbled in mystery stories so as to have something to read while in bed with the flu.  My memory of this fact is no doubt highly suspect.  I'm not positive that Oxford and Cambridge were specified.  It might have been a broader term like "English academics."  And I can't remember if these academics were supposed to be writing mystery books or just reading them.  And perhaps the type of illness which would afford reading opportunities wasn't limited to influenza.  My point in recounting this dubious memory is merely to make an observation:  the mystery genre is very English.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.

Some years ago I discovered Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey stories.  This woman impresses me.  She also wrote advertisements for Guinness (ever seen old posters of zoo animals enticing you to pint or two?), and she's most well known for her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.  And she enjoyed a personal friendship with C. S. Lewis.

Agatha Christie audiobooks are a staple of our family road trips.  The venerable Masterpiece Theatre (Sunday evenings on PBS) has produced many excellent TV adaptations.  When the murderer's true identity is finally revealed it's always the last person I suspected, but, after seeing the facts laid bare and interpreted rightly, the only person it possibly could have been.  This is why the stories are so fun.

In the past few weeks I've managed to read two books that have been sitting idly on my shelf for years, both mysteries:  Sir Arthur Conan Doyles' The Hound of the Baskervilles (a Sherlock Holmes story) and G. K. Chesterton's The Scandal of Father Brown, a collection of short stories featuring the crime solving Roman Catholic priest Father Brown.  Both lots of fun.

All these stories share three patterns:  (1) The stories don't just revolve around the plot twists and solutions to the crimes but the eccentricities of the main protagonist as well.  Christie's Hercule Poirot seems to stand out in particular.  (2) The protagonist solves the crime by observing facts which anyone could have seen, if only he had eyes to see.  (3) The protagonist usually figures out the murderer's identity well before he reveals his/her identity, but chooses to keep his discovery secret until the final opportune moment.

Not all mystery books and stories are equally enjoyable, but if you've got the flu they're a great way to spend your convalescence.

Highlighting

Nothing like going under 40' latitude and over 5,000 feet elevation to balance the humors and steady the mind for blogging.

A few book reviews are in line, but until then consider this curiosity:

Evangelicals highlight Kindle books more than any other segment of the population.

HT:  Crossway 

I tried to call but you didn't answer

"Hello blog."

"Hello yourself."

"Don't do that to me.  You know how busy I've been these past two weeks."

"Not too busy to hang out with all your other friends."

"You're really bringing my son's birthday party into this?  That's cold, man.  Cold."

"Whatever.  It just gets lonely out here all by myself.  Nothing to do but smile when a few people stop by to have a look around--which isn't that often by the way."

"Alright, alright.  Well, I've got some blog post ideas, if you want to hear them."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Love the enthusiasm.  For starters, I've got two books to review."

"Ooh, two books.  You're a reading wonder."

"I'll ignore your sarcasm.  I also saw an interesting story about how evangelicals are the biggest highlighters on Kindle."

"And, pray you, where did you hear of this story?"

"On a blog."

"So your blog post will just be a link to another blog post?"

"No, well, um, I'll, you know, put my own comments and stuff."

"Your creativity astonishes me.  A real Picasso.  The Frank Gehry of the blogosphere."

"Who?"

"Look him up."

"I'm getting tired of this.  I tried to say I'm sorry, but you're obviously not having any of it.  Which reminds me of an idea I had for another blog altogether."

"What!?"

"A blog on life in the city.  Urban criticism, or something like that."

"Hold on.  Wait a minute.  I'm sorry for my tone."

"That's ok."

"I just hate the thought of you running off with some new hussy blog."

"I don't think my own idea that came from my own head could really be called a 'new hussy blog.'"

"You know what I mean!  Let's just put this behind us, ok?"

"That's what I've been trying to do the whole time!"

"Well, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

Independence Day

It was unintentional, but I finished E. B. Sledge's War War II memoir With the Old Breed:  At Peleliu and Okinawa July 3 and now post this July 4.  Sledge, aka "Sledgehammer," of Mobile, Alabama, enlisted in the Marines in 1942.  With the Old Breed guides us through his experiences of basic training, traveling to the South Pacific, and his two combat experiences at Peleliu and Okinawa with the 1st Division, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, K Company.  Sledge survived combat and eventually became a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo, just south of Birmingham, Alabama.

Many rank With the Old Breed among the best war memoirs ever written.  It became one of the sources for the HBO miniseries The Pacific as well as Studs Terkel's The Good War.  I suspect this acclaim is due in large part to Sledge's cynicism and his depictions of the horror of war.  The reader will find no glory of war in this account.  At one point as Sledge's company is bogged down on a ridge in Okinawa under unending rain Sledge must endure the terrible view of the body of a Marine, in sitting position whose face seems to gaze directly at Sledge, slowly decomposing out in no man's land.

After his accounts of each battle Sledge sums up his thoughts.  After Peleliu:

None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured.  To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience.  But something in me died at Peleliu.  Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good.  Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war's savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.

But I also learned important things on Peleliu.  A man's ability to depend on his comrades and immediate leadership is absolutely necessary.  I'm convinced that our discipline, esprit de corps, and tough training were the ingredients that equipped me to survive the ordeal physically and mentally--given a lot of good luck, of course.  I learned realism, too.  To defeat an enemy as tough and dedicated as the Japanese, we had to be just as tough.  We had to be just as dedicated to America as they were to their emperor.  I think this was the essence of Marine Corps doctrine in World War II, and that history vindicates this doctrine.

After Okinawa, and the conclusion to his book:

War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste.  Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it.  The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.  Marine Corps training taught us to kill efficiently and to try to survive.  But it also taught us loyalty to each other--and love.  That esprit de corps sustained us.

Until the millenium arrives [this was published in 1981] and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one's responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one's country--as my comrades did.  As the troops used to say, "If the country is good enough to live in, it's good enough to fight for."  With privilege goes responsibility."

Good words for Independence Day.

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs, English prof at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago (where I went to grad school and where, if you're ever giving a graduation commencement address, you need to distinguish from the school of the same name in Massachusetts) is one of my favorite writers.  His newest book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, is on my short list of titles I most want to read.

Jacobs, an immensely wide read and greatly learned man, spurns the idea of must read great books.  As the title of his latest book shows, books should be read not only for personal education or making us "cultured" (a word that surely no one who actually fits the description would actually use) but for the simple pleasure of reading.  Check out this speech.


Alan Jacobs discusses 'The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction' from The New Atlantis on Vimeo.

Man of Letters

"I'm sorry my letters are so short compared with yours, but I'm afraid this is an irremovable difference between the sexes--women love letter writing and men loathe it.  And there is so much other writing in my day's work!" (104)

So says C. S. Lewis.  He may have hated it but he sure did a lot of it.  Such a well known author received heaps of letters from admirers, and Lewis was diligent to answer them.  Letters to an American Lady contains his thirteen year correspondence with one particular American woman (who remained anonymous) whom he never met in this life.  These letters, which Lewis obviously never knew would be published, reveal a personal side of the great Medieval and Renaissance literary scholar, children's author, and popular theologian.

At times we see vintage Lewis:

"Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners" (23).

"But I have long known that the talk about Brotherhood, wherever it occurs, in America or here, is hypocrisy.  Or rather, the man who talks it means 'I have no superiors':  he does not mean 'I have no inferiors'.  How loathsome it all is!" (43).

"My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, 'Oh Lor'!  They bring religion into everything.  Look--they're dragging it even into Christmas now!"  (80).

"But I'm afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us . . ." (95).

"Yes, it is strange that anyone should dislike cats.  But cats themselves are the worst offenders in this respect.  They very seldom seem to like one another" (105). 

And then we see letters like this, written two days after his wife's death.

"I've just got your letter of the 12th.  Joy died on the 13th.  I can't describe the apparent unreality of my life since then.  She received absolution and died at peace with God.  I will try to write again when I have more command of myself.  I'm like a sleep-walker at the moment.  God bless" (91).

I for one am thankful for this woman's decision to preserve and share these private letters.

Ask Jeeves

A name has floated in and out of my gravitational field recently.  Perhaps it's always been there, like a distant planet or black hole that no one's ever been able to find with a telescope but we know it's there because of the gravitational effect it has on the other planets.  I've finally fixed my telescope on him.

P. G. Wodehouse:  1881-1975, English humorist, and, as everyone who reads him says, a master of the English language.  Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, which I found at the Printers Row Lit Fest a few weeks ago, was delightful.  The plot was entertaining but doesn't really matter.  It involved an election, theft, petty revenge, a sleeping cat, unwise engagements, and a stolen book.  The core of the book is in (a) the characters and (b) the language.

(a) The Characters.  This is one of a series of books telling the adventures of Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves.  Bertie is a blundering, silly aristocrat who always manages to get himself in ridiculous predicaments (in this case, engaged to a woman he despises and falsely accused of theft).  The omniscient and omnicompetent Jeeves reads Shakespeare and philosophy for pleasure and always gets his master out of his scrapes.  The play between the two is golden.

So is (b) the language.  Take these lines:

"Hullo, aged relative."  "Hullo to you, you young blot.  Are you sober?" (16)

"I found myself of two minds.  On the one hand I felt a pang of regret for having missed what had all the earmarks of having been a political meeting of the most rewarding kind [because it ended in a food-throwing riot]; on the other, it was like rare and refreshing fruit to hear that Spode had got hit in the eye with a potato.  I was conscious of awed respect for the marksman who had accomplished this feat.  A potato, being so nobbly in shape, can be aimed accurately only by a master hand." (180)

"I sat up and eased the spine into the pillows.  I was conscious of a profound peace.  'Jeeves,' I said, 'I am conscious of a profound peace.'" (202-203).

Quite fun.

Swords, Stones, and Civil-War-Starting Affairs

Some books I like a lot.  Other books I don't like much at all.  Then there are some books which I can't decide if I like them or not.

T. H. White's The Once and Future King falls into this last category.  The most important book of 20th century Arthurian fantasy (a sub-genre of fantasy literature), The Once and Future King tells the story of King Arthur, Merlyn, Lancelot, and Guenever, but with modern revisions of the classic tale.  The book is divided into four sections.  The first, "The Sword in the Stone," was adapted into the Disney movie of the same name (which I haven't seen in a long time).

I'm not familiar with all the details of Arthurian legend, so I can't tell what White has re-envisioned or changed from such "canonical" Arthur texts like Thomas Malory's 15th century work Morte d-Arthur.  Some points I'm pretty confident are White's own creation.  

Merlyn, for example, while still a wizard, garners much of his power and wisdom from the fact that he lives backwards (albeit still with a very long life span).  He grows increasingly younger rather than older.  Thus, the future for Arthur is the past for Merlyn, and he knows what has happened in the historical past yet hasn't experienced it.  Such "back sight" confuses him now and again.

Arthur's desire to create a just and peaceful society under the rule of law is the thread that pulls everything together.  The England of Arthur's childhood is a violent world in which the knights and barons terrorize the lowly serf.  The Round Table is Arthur's attempt to harness their violent impulses for good ends.  War turns from a gentleman's game (in which poor people suffer the most) into real crusades against tyrants.  This aim grows throughout Arthur's reign and culminates in his creation of a coherent law and judicial system which no one, including the king, is above.

Yet it's all nearly undone by the famous love affair between Lancelot and Guenever.  Neither intends to hurt Arthur--Lancelot is Arthur's lifelong best friend--yet their relationship turns into a self-destructive tragedy.  Mordred, the story's biggest antagonist and Arthur's illegitimate son, exploits their affair out of spite to his father.  As the affair is technically treasonous, and the law requires their executions, Arthur's hand is forced to enforce justice against his wife and best friend.  Lancelot rescues his lover from the hangman's noose, yet in the process unintentionally slays some of his best friends and greatest supporters.  

Peace deteriorates as Arthur's objective commitment to justice and bad blood between the English and the Celts (going back hundreds of years) lead England into civil war between Arthur and Lancelot.  Amidst this confusion Mordred (who identifies with his mother's Celtic affiliations) claims that both Arthur and Lancelot have died and declares himself king in England.  The book ends with Arthur waging war against his own son.  Some hope remains--Arthur commands a page to flee the ensuing battle to safety where he can reinvigorate Arthur's vision for a peaceful, just society--yet the story remains a tragedy.

All of what I've just described was compelling and entertaining.  But I'm still not sure if I liked the book.  It could have been 200 pages shorter.  All kinds of side stories muddled the plot, and at several points I looked forward to getting done with the book so I could move on to something else.

Still, some passages were gems.  This one, describing Lancelot's inner guilt from his affair with Guenever right before he performs his long-desired miracle, was my favorite.

Do you think it would be fine to be the best knight in the world?  Think, then, also, how you would have to defend the title.  Think of the tests, such repeated, remorseless, scandal-breathing tests, which day after day would be applied to you--until the last and certain day, when you would fail.  Think also that you know of a good reason for your failure, which you have tried to hide, tried pathetically to hide and overlook, for five and twenty years.  Think that you are now to go out, before the largest and most honourable gallery that can be assembled, to make a public demonstration of your sin.  They are expecting you to succeed, and you are to fail:  you are to publish the deceit which you have practised for a quarter of a century, and they will all immediately know the reason for it--that reason of shame which you have sought to conceal from your own mind, and which, when it has remembered itself in the silence of your empty chamber, has pricked you into a physical motion of your head to throw it off.  Miracles, which you wanted to do so long ago, can only be done by the pure in heart.  The people outside are waiting for you to do this miracle because you have traded on their belief that your heart was pure--and now, with treachery and adultery and murder wringing the heart like a cloth, you are to go out into the sunlight for the test of honour (542).

A Parable

The hero crosses the threshold of the house.  His family greets him with joyful acclaim.  A fresh laurel wreath is placed over his head.  He returns these affections, yet the hero is tired.

As the potentiality of the automobile inexorably moves down the assembly line, as the asteroid half-heartedly resists the black hole's gravitational pull, so his body mindlessly succumbs to the arm chair's call.  The cushions remember his form and welcome him into their kind embraces.  His book and reading glasses lie just within arm's reach.

The bookmark has been faithful to its calling, and the hero finds his place.  He reads:  "The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and. . . ."

"Jump, Daddy?"

"Ok, buddy."  The hero sets his book aside and positions himself to receive, with the least amount of pain, the projectile missile which his son's body.

The scene eventually ends, and he returns to his book.  "The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and. . . ."

"Book?  Peez, Daddy.  Boo Train Green Train?"

The hero hates Blue Train, Green Train.  He's read it aloud seventy times seven.  Pieces of his soul break off with each reading.  Yet he has been gone all day, and his wife could use a little help.  "Ok, buddy."

Three other life-killing board books later, the hero finds his friend, patient as an oak tree, lying at the side.  "The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and. . . ."

"Honey, will you take out the trash?"

"Of course," he says with outer enthusiasm and inner resignation.  The hero does not read much today.  His blog is neglected once again.

Kick-starting your reading

An old friend asked for reading suggestions to get back into reading.  I think the best place to begin is with the authors or types of books you already enjoy.  So if you enjoy C. S. Lewis, read other books by C. S. Lewis.  Here are some suggestions for various genres (in no order whatsoever):

Contemporary Fiction:  Richard Russo, Empire Falls

Science Fiction:  Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Fantasy:  J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (like I was going to suggest anything else)

Young Adult:  J. K. Rowling, the Harry Potter series (though a fair case can be made that these are not actually, or at least exclusively, young adult books)

Classic American Fiction:  Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories


Mystery:  Agatha Christie, The ABC Murders


Biography:  William Manchester, The Last Lion:  Winston Spencer Churchill


Theology:  J. I. Packer, Knowing God


Sports:  Eliot Asinof, Eight Men Out:  The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series


Classic English Fiction:  Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice


Classic English Translation Fiction:  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment


Popular History:  Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City

Inclement weather and confusingly small zeros

The fates conspired against our trip to the Printers Row Lit Fest.  I slept poorly the night before, work was a bit rough, the little guy had to be traded off between us so the other could look for books, and the bottom fell out of the skies.

But it wasn't a total waste, and Edwards' weekend adventures are always hoppin'.  We came out with a few books for Duncan, and I picked up Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P. G. Wodehouse, an author I've been meaning to read.

I couldn't land my first choice, a first edition of Winston Churchill's My African Journey.  I opened the cover, observed the price, and handed the book to the seller for purchase.  Here follows the subsequent conversation.

Bookseller:  "Do you know how much this costs?"
Me:  "Eight dollars, I think it said."
Bookseller:  "It's actually eight hundred."
Me:  "Oh."  Awkward pause.  "That's a bit out of my price range."  

Printers Row Lit Fest

Every book lover in the Chicago area should make plans to attend the Printers Row Lit Fest this Saturday and Sunday.  Dearborn Street between Harrison and Polk will close to traffic as 150 booksellers, 200 authors, and masses of people descend for panel discussions, workshops, lectures, readings, and--most importantly--buying books.  Visit the link below for more info.

Imagine the heavenly scene:  dozens of used book stores congregating on one street.  We attended on two previous occasions when we lived out in Wheaton, and we'll be hitting it up tomorrow with Duncan, a book lover himself, in tow.  See you there my friends.

It Begins

Alan Jacobs' criticisms of official lists of must read books notwithstanding, I've begun my Quarterly Classics series with The Illiad.  My copy is an 1898 edition in William Cullen Bryant's translation.  Picked it up at a library used book rack back in Wheaton I think.  No clue if it's a good translation.  You tell me:

O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus' son,
Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks, and swept
To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave
Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,--
For so had Jove appointed,--from the time
When the two chiefs, Atrides, kings of men,
And great Achilles, parted first as foes.

Total Church

One of my responsibilities at church is to lead a quarterly reading group.  It's a bit self-indulgent, I'm afraid.  It started late last year when I mentioned to a friend or two the desire to read D. A. Carson's The God Who is There with some other folks.  We ended up formalizing the group, and HTC Readers was born.

Last week we held our second meeting to discuss the book Total Church:  A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.  Chester and Timmis are British pastors at a network of house churches called The Crowded House.

This was my second reading of Total Church.  I had first read it a few summers ago under very different life and church circumstances.  Perhaps those differences account for some mixed feelings about the book.

Let me be clear:  this is a great book and deserves wide reading.  There is much that I find very helpful.  Chester and Timmis contend that the local church should be both gospel-centered and community-centered.

The authors love the gospel, and that's the book's greatest strength.  By gospel-centered they mean both word-centered ("because God rules through his gospel word," p. 24) and mission-centered ("because God extends his rule through his gospel word," p. 28).  Everything the church is involved in--evangelism, social involvement, church planting, missions, discipleship, training, pastoral care, spirituality theology, apologetics, and ministering to children and youth--is in some way or another centered upon the good news of Jesus Christ's perfect obedience, substitutionary death, and resurrection from the dead.

I love how this plays out in specific ways.  For example, Chester and Timmis come down strongly on mercy ministry and prioritizing church planting in poor neighborhoods, but they're not in it simply for community development or meeting people's temporal needs.  No, "The most loving thing we can do for the poor is to proclaim the good news of eternal salvation through Christ.  It is by no means the only loving thing we can do for them, but it is the most loving thing we can do" (p. 78, their emphasis).

Their arguments for the centrality of community are also generally compelling.  My favorite was their view of evangelism.  Evangelism is a community task rather than an individual task.  So it's not just that a Christian is obligated to share the gospel with the person sitting next to him on the airplane.  (Excursus:  Why are so many discussions about evangelism fixated on this single scenario?  Do we have to purchase plane tickets to engage in evangelism?  And can't I just read or take a nap while in flight?  Soapus Boxus Finis).  Rather, believers should work to introduce their unbelieving friends and neighbors into the church community.  This exposes them to natural "Jesus talk" and also allows the different members of the community to exercise their different gifts.  Some might be good at bringing people into the community, others might be good at explaining the gospel in a conversation, still others might be good at leading someone through a month long evangelistic Bible study.  We're not all gifted at evangelism in the same way; thinking about evangelism in terms of community rather than as lone rangers takes account of these different gifts.

But the second time around I was not as uncritically enthused as after the first reading.  The authors tend to overstate their case at times, at least in my view.  For example, I'm not sure if I can fully endorse comments like these:  "Too much evangelism [apart from introducing people into your community] is an attempt to answer questions people are not asking" (p. 59).  Didn't Paul just go into the synagogues and public squares and start preaching before there was any community?  "It is not enough to build a relationship between one believer and one unbeliever" (p. 61).  Really, no exceptions?

Similarly, the text is interspersed with personal stories of people who are part of The Crowded House.  Sometimes these gave me the impression that unless you have several people who were not members of your own family living in your house on a permanent basis then you really aren't doing community.  I'm all about hospitality, but I still think I can be hospitable and have real community even if my guest room is unoccupied some nights.

These reservations aside, I affirm the general thrust of this book and hope to work to make my own church family gospel-centered and community-centered.

Wasted energy?

So I've slacked on my posting the past few days.  Work, Cubs game (Go Sox!), sermon preparation, and being the world's greatest dad pushed blogging to the wayside.  I still hope to write a review of Total Church within the next day or two.  Till then, the first paragraph of Trevor Logan's review of Alan Jacobs' new book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, the contents of which might mean that all my hard work creating my list of classics was wasted energy.  

It seems a rare accomplishment that a book on the pleasures of reading could actually pull off being pleasurable itself. But Alan Jacobs’ newest book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, does just that. It is a marvelous manifesto of sanity in an age of jeremiads about the modern predicament of attention loss on one hand, and those proud champions of distraction singing the hallelujah chorus of a world devoid of long-form books on the other. “Read at Whim” is Jacob’s advice and motto for a new generation of readers. Read, Jacobs proclaims, for the sheer pleasure of reading; simply for the hell of it. And by all means, don’t get bogged down by the authoritarians who smugly look down their noses at those who aren’t reading the “right” books on the “list.” 

Read the whole review.  By the way, I've read three other books by Alan Jacobs (The Narnian:  The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, Original Sin:  A Cultural History, Shaming the Devil:  Essays in Truth Telling) and thoroughly enjoyed all of them.  Jacobs is an English prof at Wheaton College (heads up Ann Curry:  the one in IL not MA) and a native Alabamian.  He's practically my cousin or something.

Thursday Three

This week's Thursday Three has a history theme, particularly Nazi Germany.  They all look more interesting than the Dr. Pepper commercial I'm watching now.

Richard D. Phillips and Gabriel N. E. Fluhrer, These Last Days:  A Christian View of History (Phillipsburg, NJ:  P & R Publishing, 2011).

This is a book about an evil age. Specifically, it is about "the present evil age" that we live in right now. For many Christians, the expression "these last days" refers to the time right before the second coming of Christ - but according to the apostles, the last days started with the first coming of Christ and continue even today.

How do we biblically understand our time as the final age of world history? What does this mean for our faith?

Reformed Christians have often avoided the field of eschatology - but it was the doctrine of history that thrilled the first disciples. They realized that with the coming of the "last days" they had entered the time of the kingdom, and this understanding will strengthen our faith too.

Maurice Possley and John Woodbridge, Hitler in the Crosshairs:  A GI's Story of Courage and Faith (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 2011).

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist teams up with a university scholar in this compelling, untold historical tale of a young man's courage at a critical time in United States history, and the saga of a dictator's pistol that continues today. The time is World War II. Young soldier Ira 'Teen' Palm and his men burst into a Munich apartment, hoping to capture Adolph Hitler. Instead, they find an empty apartment ... and a golden gun. As the authors trace the story of the man and the gun, they examine a time and place that shaped men like Palm and transformed them into heroes. They also follow the strange journey of Hitler's pistol. Readers will discover: * An imaginative historical adventure in the tradition of Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers (over one million copies sold). * New, previously untold information about World War II events, including an uprising of German soldiers and citizens against the Nazi regime and a never-before told account of an assassination attempt on Hitler in Munich. * Inspiring, motivating, and entertaining storytelling by award-winning authors that will keep the pages turning!

Eric Larson, In the Garden of Beasts:  Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (New York:  Random House, 2011).

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.

A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.

Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.