Anything having to do with books, book reviews, current reading suggestions and so forth. This is a catchall for those elements that don’t fit precisely into other categories, but do have to do with books.
Shauna Hyde is one of the authors at Energion Publications, so I admit to bias, but I really did like this write-up in the Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail. Her book, Victim No More! is mentioned in the article.
I’m often critical of newspaper articles, not so much for being negative, but for being shallow. I think this one is pretty good.
Copies of her own book Grief: Finding the Candle of Light, that is. She’s written an excellent post on dealing with grief in the holidays, and she’s offering a free copy of her book to the first three commenters. So head on over there and be one of those first three and get your free copy of this little book. My (totally unbiased) opinion, as both her husband and publisher is that it’s well worth the effort!
Well, not exactly a Calvinist book, but a book about a Calvinist, in this case John Piper. This is another of my posts giving my thoughts on publishing a new title. It’s a couple of months late, but I think it’s still quite relevant. Be aware, of course, that I may be advocating buying this book, so if you object, you can wait for the next non-commercial post. In connection with this post, God’s Desire for the Nations will be on sale at Energion Direct for $13.99.
The book in question is God’s Desire for the Nations: The Missionary Theology of John Piper, by Philip O. Hopkins. The reason I say it’s not a Calvinist book, but rather a book about a Calvinist, is that it examines John Piper’s doctrinal teaching and whether that teaching is consistent with his missiology. It does not seek to defend or advocate the particular doctrinal positions. As Hopkins notes in the 5th and final chapter:
This work also did not examine whether Piper’s thought is correct; it sought to determine if it is consistent. Determining the “correctness” of Piper’s theology was not the goal. The goal was to see if Piper’s understanding of the glory of God, seen through his understanding of the Two Wills of God Thesis, motivated his missiology. Arguing whether Piper is correct is not relevant to the focus of this book. Instead, the purpose was to connect his theology with his missiology and must come first before defending or arguing for or against it … (176).
Indeed, it would be quite a daunting task to both examine these doctrinal positions carefully and to advocate them at the same time.
Now my regular readers and those who know me will realize that I’m not a Calvinist, and that I’m likely to disagree with John Piper on many, many issues. Let me just say here in passing that the range of ideas that fall within the publishing mission of my company, Energion Publications, does indeed include both Calvinism and Arminianism. One of the problems I see in the church is that we tend to look largely at ideas we find agreeable, and to the extent that we look at other ideas, we look to variations within our own tradition streams.
There is value in listening to those who agree with us on many things, and disagree on minor points, but there is greater value, I believe, in taking a close look at ideas that are more radically opposed. I can find many variations in soteriology amongst people who claim the label “Arminian,” yet they do not challenge me to the extent that reading Reformed theology does.
Even when I continue to disagree I can disagree with the actual position. Let me illustrate. One of the most frequent questions I hear from Methodists regarding Calvinists is why Calvinists would do missions. Since they believe that people are predestined to either salvation or damnation, what difference does evangelism make? Some assume that Calvinists won’t be interested in missions or evangelism.
But observation of actual Calvinists proves this isn’t the case. The Calvinists in my head aren’t necessarily the same as the Calvinists in the real world. One finds Calvinists involved in missions every bit as much as (and possibly more than) their Arminian brethren. I recall hearing John Blanchard, a Presbyterian evangelist, speak at a conference here in Pensacola. One of the questions he was asked was: “If you believe in predestination why would you be an evangelist? How can you accept both?”
His answer? “Predestination is a doctrine, and I believe it. Evangelism is a command, and I obey it.” I can appreciate that simple and straightforward answer.
But what attracted me to the current volume in particular was a much more detailed look at how these doctrines interact in John Piper’s Reformed theology.
Now don’t get me wrong. This book is some serious reading. It’s not a simple primer to get you through the basics, though it does cover the basics. It’s a comprehensive look first at the foundational positions taught by Piper, and then at the missiology that results from that. Piper makes an excellent subject here because of his very firm commitment to missions in the church.
The text occupies only about 112 pages with about 80 pages of notes, presented as chapter endnotes, and about 31 pages of bibliography. You can read just the text and follow the argument. The notes provide extensive documentation for any point you want to follow further, and include references to a great deal of information available on the web. Thus this book could provide you with a guide to an extended study of John Piper’s theology.
In structure, the book has five chapters. The first introduces us to John Piper and the roots of his theology, including his family background and major theologians who influenced his thinking. The second chapter discusses Piper’s theology in general, and gives us an outline of the five points of Calvinism as understood by Piper, and several other elements of his theology. I was especially interested in the succinct definition of Christian Hedonism.
In chapter 3 we get to the meat of the book, as Hopkins discusses Piper’s missiology and then clarifies his picture by comparing it to that of Bosch and McGavran. I was actually not acquainted with the latter two theologians before reading this book, but the comparison does help clarify key points of Piper’s missiology. For those interested, it is also in chapter 3 that we have an extensive discussion of Piper’s view of hell, compared to that of others, including Pinnock (73ff).
The fourth chapter focuses in on the “two wills of God” thesis and specifically how this relates to the connection between God’s glory and missions. It is in this chapter, I think, that missiologists of the Arminian persuasion will get the most benefit, as well as find the most to disagree with (in Piper’s theology, not the presentation).
The fifth chapter summarizes and presents questions and ideas for further discussion. Should the reader choose to pursue those questions, both the notes (841 of them), and the 31 page bibliography will point the way.
I was discussing this book with my wife and partner in this business while I was thinking of writing this post. I mentioned that this was a hard book to hype. It’s solid. It does what it’s supposed to do, but what single paragraph can I present that has zing? She commented that for the person who has an interest in the topic, the very things I have just mentioned will be the real selling point, and she’s probably right.
So the bottom line selling point on this book is that it is a thorough treatment of the topic at hand. I think there are a few other reasons to take a look, but if you’re interested in John Piper and also interested in missions, you’ll find this book very useful.
I do have an additional hope, that Arminians, and particularly United Methodists will take the opportunity to look at this material and use it to hone their own missiology. The problem I see is that while I believe we have a very sound basis for missions, it has not been communicated to those in the pews as well as it might have been. We often wonder why Calvinists would pursue missions, but at the same time we often aren’t doing much to pursue them ourselves. What is it about our theology that we aren’t communicating? What is keeping us from acting on the very good reasons we have for missions?
That the notion that Calvinists don’t do missions is contradicted by some statistics cited in the book:
… Since then, Piper’s passion for God’s glory and missions have been inseparable. This can be seen in some statistics concerning missions emphasis and Bethlehem Baptist Church. For example, from 1987 to 2000 Bethlehem gave over $6.6 million towards missions. As well, in 1981, the missions budget was $62,270, 22% of the total budget, or $2.50 each week per Sunday morning attendee. In 1996, the missions budget increased to $439,661, 32% of the total budget, or $8.90 each week per Sunday morning attendee; a 356% increase in fifteen years. By 2005, Bethlehem’s missions budget was still about the same percentage of the total church budget, which had grown to approximately $2 million.
Yet I have been told that a United Methodist congregation that place 5% of its budget on missions is regarded as “missions oriented.” Typically the number is smaller. I served as missions chairperson for a church that had no budget for missions, and was also concerned with fundraising for separate mission money because the church itself needed to meet budgetary requirements. So perhaps a theological basis doesn’t necessarily result in action.
There are several things I’d like to see this book accomplish:
Dave Black discusses RSS feeds, of which he has none:
12:18 PM Yes, yes, yes, let’s hear it for RSS feeds!
You may have bookmarked this blog, and/or other blogs and webpages. But you have no idea when new content is posted. So every now and then you click your bookmarks to see what is new. Sometimes nothing is new, and you’ve wasted a click.
Impeccably good logic. Unless, of course, when you click on a bookmark and the site you visit is always publishing something new!
But you can get an RSS feed of Dave Black’s blog. Really you can! Here’s how you do it:
For example, my reader currently shows the selection I quoted above as the latest update.
I do update the Energion Publications (my company) book pages for the three of Dave’s books that I publish (with Dave’s permission), Why Four Gospels?, Christian Archy, and The Jesus Paradigm with relevant material from Dave’s blog, but that only gets a limited selection.
I’ve tried to make a habit of writing some personal reflections on the books my company, Energion Publications, publishes. That doesn’t usually involve that many posts, but I got behind earlier in the year, and I’m catching up. This one is going to be longer than usual because these are personal reflections, and this book gets rather personal for me.
Finding My Way in Christianity leads me to some very personal reflections, so you can expect me to talk about myself a great deal here. While all the books I publish will connect in some way with my own spiritual life and experience, this one connected very directly with my personal experiences. The author, Herold Weiss, taught at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, and while he left about 10 years before I arrived as a student, a number of names he mentions are very familiar. I knew some of his colleagues, and he also had some of those who would later be my professors in his classes.
In particular I noticed the name Sakae Kubo, who became the dean of the School of Theology at Walla Walla College while I was a student there. I studied epistles in Greek with Dr. Kubo for two years, and he was the one who encouraged me to apply for a fellowship to study at Andrews University, where I subsequently received my MA. Amongst other people mentioned are Earle Hilgert, whose name I heard repeatedly, Siegfried Horn (though I studied under his successor, Dr. Larry Geraty), and many others.
By the time I was at Andrews, the controversy had moved on to different names, but the same issues were involved. There was a great deal of controversy around Dr. Desmond Ford’s teachings at the time I was there, and there were still many people demanding that one accept the interpretation provided by Ellen White as definitive regarding any particular scripture.
Let me start with a couple of stories from my time at Andrews University that seemed small at the time but have turned out to be pivotal for me in my own journey of “finding my way in Christianity.” The first was when I was invited to watch an Assyriologist at work in the Horn Museum at Andrews. I had no idea where anyone got the idea that I wanted to be an Assyriologist. I was taking Akkadian, but only as one of the languages, not my major language. (I took a concentrated quarter of study in that language.) Nonetheless I went to observe this man at work. Now it was fascinating to watch him. He was transcribing tablets and his skill and speed at drawing the signs was impressive. He asked me why I wanted to be an Assyriologist, at which point I told him I didn’t. He had apparently been told I was interested in doing my doctoral work in that area.
What that session actually accomplished was to crystallize for me the work I really wanted to do, which was to be able to talk about the issues of history, language, and background to non-specialists–to be a popularizer. Now I suspect that I was sent to watch this man and encouraged to think about a specialized career partially because of the dangers inherent in being an SDA scholar interpreting biblical scholarship to the people in the pews.
I had come from Walla Walla College where I found the attitudes of the professors universally helpful. At least in private, people were willing to discuss just about anything with me. In classes, they were more careful, though I thought they were generally quite honest. There was a view I learned first from my uncle, Don F. Neufeld, who was an associate editor of the Review and Herald at that time, which suggested you didn’t need to tell people everything you knew. The phrase my uncle used was “pastoral concern.”
So out of pastoral concern you wouldn’t discuss the problems with a literal interpretation of Genesis with people whose faith might be shaken by such ideas. I had many personal conversations in which he acknowledged that the earth really couldn’t be 6,000 years old, and that the Geoscience Research Institute’s tours were really exercises in futility. He wasn’t sure that even the folks who led them really believed what they were teaching.
I was reminded of those conversations when I read Dr. Weiss’s comment that these presentations sounded to him like “special pleading,” and that he “got the distinct impression that the presentations were efforts at treading water in order not to sink.” That is indeed the feeling one gets in such presentations. I remember seeing GRI ads offering grants to do scientific study to prove the young age of the earth, surely a case of putting one’s conclusion ahead of the evidence.
I noticed a change when I went from Walla Walla College to Andrews University. None of my professors in either place challenged major SDA doctrines in their teaching. But questions were heard and discussed at Walla Walla, even if not all of them were answered. (One can hardly expect answers to all questions.) At Andrews, I found it easy to discuss languages and history, but questions on broader issues were much less welcome. The atmosphere was different.
But a second experience reinforced this view. One of my professors recommended that I submit a paper I had presented in his class to Andrews University Seminary Studies for publication. I naively did so, not really thinking about the result. One of the reviewers for the paper was another professor, one with whom I was not nearly so much in tune theologically. According to the editor, who discussed the result with me, this reviewer said I was “trying to be a second Wellhausen.”
That was, of course, both very flattering for a mere MA student, and also very dangerous in Adventist circles. The professor himself, who started avoiding me on campus, never commented on this to me until after I had graduated, at which point he stopped me to warn me of the dangers of the course I was following. I had benefited greatly from his linguistic knowledge, but had found that he would always choose the interpretation that supported traditional Adventist theology, whether or not the text supported that.
The article was not published, and I didn’t bother submitting it elsewhere. By that time I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to manage to make a career as a Bible teacher in the Seventh-day Adventist Church even though I did try for another couple of years.
Now let me turn to the book. No, I haven’t forgotten the book on which I’m supposed to be reflecting. Receiving manuscripts is an interesting experience. I started Energion Publications, and for some time it was a part time job for me. We’ve moved beyond that point in the last couple of years. The first several things I published were solicited. It’s not that I didn’t receive manuscripts; it’s just that I didn’t receive publishable manuscripts in the early days without going out and asking for them.
Over the last couple of years I’ve had to put together a good process for selecting manuscripts because I’ve been receiving many that require more than five minutes to reject, and a few that I can accept. One part of that process is that I have specific people to read manuscripts so that I don’t just publish what interests me.
Now getting a manuscript from a Seventh-day Adventist writer brings out mixed emotions. The first question is whether it is a manuscript that addresses specifically SDA issues. The second is whether it maintains an attitude of Christian charity towards the SDA church. Those are two hurdles that must be overcome in my mind. The third question is whether it is of interest to a more general audience.
This manuscript met the first two tests. Dr. Weiss speaks directly and forcefully on occasion, but no more so than his subject demands. I think some people will be unhappy with the stories that are told, but even though I was not at Andrews at the time in question, the stories ring true and mesh with what I learned of these things when I was in school. Dr. Weiss is calling for dialog; for an attitude that allows questions to be asked and the evidence to be examined.
I would contrast this to the idea of “pastoral concern.” As much as I learned from my uncle, this is an area where I disagree with him profoundly. I think that the unexamined question is an accident waiting to happen. I know people who have studied these questions and come to conservative conclusions. I know others who have come to more liberal conclusions. I respect both those groups and the many between. But I have a problem with those who won’t face the questions in the first place, or who don’t allow others to do so.
I have encountered many, many young people who say that their pastors and Sunday School (or Sabbath School) teachers have deceived them. It’s not that these people gave them the wrong answers. It’s that these people didn’t admit the questions even existed.
Such theological journeys do not occur in a vacuum, however, and I think that is the great strength of this book. Dr. Weiss recounts a cross-cultural journey that merges with the theological journey. This part of the book was another very attractive point for me. I grew up partly in Mexico and in South America myself, though I was the son of missionary parents, and I lived in the one English speaking country on the mainland of South America – Guyana. But friends and associates came from or served in many of the places mentioned in the book. The story, with each chapter titled after a geographical location, put theology in the context of a person and a community, as it should be.
There remains my third question regarding a book about the Seventh-day Adventist church, whether it is of interest to a broader audience. For this I had to get the opinions of others. Those opinions were favorable. On the one hand, this is because the experience of a spiritual journey in the Seventh-day Adventist church is not so different from such an experience in any other denomination as one might imagine.
On the other hand, this is because, contrary to my initial expectations, this is not a story about the SDA church. It is the story about a believer encountering his faith, and the challenges to it that we must face. Those challenges come both from the information and views that we encounter that might not fit, and also from those in our faith community who find the very idea of a spiritual journey threatening. I find this latter group most dangerous. Those who believe they have arrived will quit trying to travel.
I was thinking about the desire of some in the SDA church to avoid literature written by people from other denominations and to halt the inquiries of young minds who might look outside of traditional channels for information, answers, and new questions. This couldn’t happen in, say, the United Methodist Church, could it? (For anyone who missed it, I’m now a member of a United Methodist congregation.)
A church with which I’m acquainted was having trouble, as many churches do, keeping its college age young people. They started a young adult class. The teacher, not herself college age, went out of her way to discover what the two or three young people wanted to study. They ended up reading books of theology and philosophy from a variety of perspectives and discussing them in class. The class grew, even attracting a number of adults in the church to join. Young people were coming back to the church.
Then the complaints began. Some were not happy that some of these young people didn’t attend the church services. But the big complaint was that they were not using “approved curriculum.” They started an “official” college age class to replace it, using approved young adult curriculum. That new class lasted about a month and then it was over. Those young people who had attended just Sunday School but not church continued not to attend church. They just didn’t attend Sunday School either.
The problems described in this book can happen anywhere. It’s not just about SDAs. It’s about Christians–people–gathered into the groups we call denominations.
When I was struggling with my own faith following completion of my degree at Andrews, I was frequently told to “just have faith.” Others would ask me how I could question the faith of the pioneers, meaning, of course, the Adventist pioneers. But I find an appeal to numbers or an appeal to history pretty weak, especially if the numbers are small and the history short. To remain a part of Adventism, one has to have a personal conviction, and such conviction is not fostered by telling the questioner to believe and shut up.
I would address four groups of potential readers.
First, there are those who are in the Seventh-day Adventist church, whether you are a conservative Adventist or liberal. This book will give you some insights into the joys and difficulties of those who work within Adventism, yet want to be open, examining all things, keeping what is good, and rejecting what they find to be wrong. I wish I had been able to read something like it when I was going through Andrews. I doubt it would have kept me in Adventism–I lack the patience. But it might have spared me some of my detour away from Christianity.
Second, there are ex-SDAs. If you are angry at your former church, you will find that others have walked this road, and that there are many there who are, in fact, sincere seekers for truth. This book is encouraging to me, because I know that in my former denomination there are folks like Herold Weiss.
Third, there are those in the broader Christian world who face similar situations. Some of the particular doctrinal issues (the investigative judgment, the role of Ellen White) will be different, but others (verbal inspiration, creationism) will be very familiar. Some of you may be walking that kind of a road right now. How do you respond to the challenges to your faith? How do you respond to new knowledge that might make you reassess some of what you have believed?
Fourth, there are the heresy hunters. There are many divides amongst those who grew up in the SDA church but later left. One of those is between those who turn to a very conservative evangelical Christianity and those who take a more moderate or liberal route. Many who leave to join conservative evangelical communities become harshly critical. Many of these treat the entire SDA church as a cult. I think this book is a good read for these folks as well.
I’m glad I chose to publish this book, both from the personal perspective and as a publisher. I think it will be of value to the body of Christ.
Note: There are still advance copies available to reviewers, including those in our blogger review program. E-mail pubs@energion.com for information, or request your copy via our convenient request form.
I’d like to invite readers to join the discussion of the book Preserving Democracy, published by my company Energion Publications, over at Joel Watts’ blog.
Why would I push a review that might be negative? First, I try to publicize all reviews to encourage discussion and encourage people to review our books, whether the review is positive or not. But second, and more importantly, I’m interested in discussion of these issues.
So head on over and comment!
Back when my company, Energion Publications, was preparing to release Preserving Democracy in hardcover, I wrote a post, On Publishing a Conservative Book. Those who read this blog, for example, the tag line in the header, will realize that I do not call myself conservative.
Which leads me to a digression about labels. In Preserving Demcracy, page 188 (of the new, expanded, paperback edition), beginning a section titled “Political Labels” Elgin says, “Before moving on, let me say a few words in defense of labels….” I could say something similar. Language would be impossible without the use of labels; one might say language is labels.
The problem comes in when we are using labels in debate. In one discussion in an online forum I recall being labeled a fundamentalist Christian and an atheist, both with regard to the very same post, a post which was not more than half a dozen paragraphs long. One of the great ways we have of making debate useless is the shifting of labels. “Liberal” has changed meaning, and so has “conservative.” I don’t have a problem with words changing meaning. There’s no point. They will change. But we need to watch out both for the normal drifts in meaning and the intentional manipulation of labels.
I don’t wish to repeat myself regarding publishing books with which I may not agree. It’s also a bit unfair to Preserving Democracy. It’s just that questions regarding what I have said and written come up much more frequently with regard to this book than of any other I have published. I suppose, as I’ve said before, that this results from my company being owned by one person, so that people think it’s my personal propaganda arm.
And of course I do get to decide what I will publish, but I chose from the start to seek out a range of views and publish them. I want books that express a strong point of view, provide support for that view, and invite further discussion. I’m not interested either in publishing only books that take a particular view, and I’m not interested in publishing books that appear ashamed to show their true colors.
Go back and read my previous post. Take a look through this blog. Most of what I’ve written on politics is right here. I’ve never written a political book, but I am pretty free with my opinions. Then consider taking a look at Preserving Democracy.
I enjoyed editing it; I hope you’ll enjoy reading it, whether you nod your head all the way through, or get ready to write annoyed blog posts or letters to the author.
It’s always great to receive cases of new books, and yesterday was no exception as our first copies of Megabelt arrived.
I wrote earlier (Beware Friends Bearing Manuscripts) about receiving the manuscript for this little book. Since then we have done considerable work with it, produced what I think is a truly unique and creative cover (by Robert J. Hill of InnerLight Productions), and added illustrations.
In this case it was especially enjoyable to receive the books, because within an hour of their arrival, I had author Nick May visiting to get his hands on copies, even if it required special mental powers to do so. He has done an extraordinary job of publicizing his own material. (Note to aspiring authors: You are your own best salesperson!) I really enjoy having authors come to me and say, “I think we need to do such and such, will you pay for it?” rather than waiting for me to come up with the ideas.
Of course for a first time author, such as Nick, getting your hands on that first copy of your book is a special occasion. So we got to talking about reactions to the book.
I summarized my reaction thus: There are many things in Megabelt that I have done myself. Many of them, I’m not going to do again. A few of them, I’m going to do anyhow, but I’m going to laugh while I do them. I got a chance to laugh a bit while pulling out my church bulletin and claiming the 10% discount at a restaurant, even though I fully empathize with the fun that Megabelt has with this and some other practices that happen in the Bible belt.
Nick’s response was simply that this was precisely what he hoped. He wanted to hold up a mirror and get people to think about church culture. I like that idea.
I sometimes sound like a broken record when I talk about books offending people. But I have to remember the time when a young man spent half an hour berating me at a show because my book What’s in a Version? doesn’t tell people that the KJV is the one and only true Bible. I had another person inform me that he had discarded one of the books I publish because he wouldn’t have it contaminating his book shelf. I have been criticized because I would not declare that I would publish only books that contained only the truth. The problem there, amongst other things, would be the notion of setting myself up as the final arbiter of truth. I could publish only books that I believe to be the truth, but that might result in a narrow list.
What I hope I’m doing is publishing books that will send readers forward on the search for truth. I can say it about Megabelt, because it was intentionally written as a sort of mirror. But I hope the same thing happens elsewhere. Let the things I publish drive you to the source. A Bible study guide should just be a way station on the way to studying the Bible for yourself. One on prayer of the gifts of the Spirit should be a way station on the way to your own process of listening to God and being led by the Holy Spirit.
But I digress into excessively serious reflection. Megabelt is fun. Have fun, but don’t be surprised if you feel impelled to change some of your churchy behavior after you read.
My company is sponsoring a Christianity related blogging/essay contest, with prizes to include gift cards from Barnes & Noble. Detail are on the Energion Publications blog.
… on the Energion.com eZine, which is currently in development. But I’m trying to bring a few people over there, so a copy of Preserving Democracy will be given to a randomly selected commenter who writes a relevant comment.
In mid-October I will be changing the topic to science education, and offering a $10 B&N gift card. The Energion.com eZine will go into full production in January 2010, but even now I am paying for a few articles and offering a few prizes.
I now return you to the normal, more personal, content of this blog.
