Christianity Today just published an interview with Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. It’s a concise and interesting interview, well worth the read. It comes on the heels of his latest book: The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism, and Wesleyanism. According to editor Mark Galli, in this book, Witherington “makes a positive argument for how biblical interpretation should be done in an increasingly postmodern setting.”
Here’s the link to the article:
The Problem with Evangelical Theologies
Ben Witherington III thinks there is something fundamentally weak about each branch of the movement.
Interview by Mark Galli | posted 11/09/2005 09:00 a.m.
Here’s an excerpt that is clearly relevant for Pentecostals:
So, what is the problem with evangelical theology?
It has exegetical weaknesses that are not recognized or owned up to by the various evangelical Protestant strains of theology. That’s what it boils down to.
You write that in our distinctives, we are least faithful to the Word. What do you mean?
The issue is not really with Christology, the Trinity, the virginal conception, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, or the Bible as the Word of God. The issues I’m concerned about are the distinctives of Calvinist, Arminian, dispensational, or Pentecostal theology. When they try to go some particular direction that’s specific to their theological system, that’s precisely the point in their argument at which they are exegetically weakest.
The Calvinist system links the ideas of predestination, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. Each of those has its own exegetical weaknesses, especially perseverance of the saints.
But the same can be said about the distinctives of Arminian theology, especially when you start talking about having an experience of perfection in this lifetime. There are problems matching that up with what the New Testament says about perfection.
The same can be said about Pentecostal theology, with its teaching about a second, definitive work of grace, and about dispensationalism, with its teaching on pre-tribulation or mid-tribulation rapture. I show in my book that all of these evangelical theological systems are exegetically vulnerable precisely in their distinctives.
Classical Pentecostals need to think about this. One things we talk about the most in our circle is “the Pentecostal distinctive,” which is typically cited as the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues as the initial, physical evidence.” This is the Pentecostal distinctive above all others.
However, one of the “tags” we’ve long been known by, or called ourselves by at the least, has been “Full Gospel,” as a way of saying, we’re completely dependent on the Bible as God’s revealed will and plan.
In fact, at our movement’s inception, at Parham’s prompting of several adult students, the Baptism of the Spirit was experienced as a result of an intensive study of Scripture. Scripture came first, experience and doctrine came out of that.
Somewhere, we’ve lost our way.
As long as a single doctrine holds sway in our Fellowship as the single Pentecostal distinctive, we cannot be fully reliant on the Scriptures as our guide for faith, doctrine, and practice. We need to maintain our true distinctive, and that is: sola scriptura.
[tags]BlogRodent, Pentecostal, Assembly-of-God, Assemblies-of-God, tongues, glossolalia, Ben-Witherington, theology, narrative-theology, exegesis, interpretation, Bible, Scripture, denominations, Foursquare, Church-of-God, Calvinism, Dispensationalism, Wesleyanism, Christianity-Today[/tags]
The ever-brilliant (and most widely-read man I know) John Wilson over at Books & Culture, reflects on the pre-conversion writing of Anne Rice (especially Interview with the Vampire) and concludes with a comment on her conversion (see: “The Vampire and the Cross”). John’s take on Rice’s writing is succinct and spot-on:
“I finished the novel with the sense of moral contamination that some books leave us with.”
But he doesn’t end there. He concludes his analyses by recounting a review of the 1997 anthology, The Anne Rice Reader: Writers Explore the Universe of Anne Rice, edited by Katharine Ramsland. In his review (never published, unfortunately), Wilson writes, presciently:
In short, there was a profound contradiction at the heart of Rice’s work. And so I concluded that review in 1997 by recalling Simone Weil—”Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating”—and wondering if, having taken imaginary evil to its limits, Rice might be poised to taste the intoxicating waters of grace.
It seems he was right, and the Kingdom of God is better off for it!
See also:
[tags]A-N-Roquelaure, Anne-Rampling, Anne-Rice, Howard-Allen-O’Brien, Christ-the-Lord, Christopher-Rice, Evangelical, Howard-Allen-Frances-O’Brien, Jesus-Christ, Christ-the-Lord:-Out-of-Egypt, Interview-with-the-Vampire, Vampire-Lestat, literature, fiction, novel, Pentecostal, religious-fiction, review, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375412018[/tags]
Okay, I stopped by Border’s on the way home from a medical followup today, and I picked up Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. I’ll soon be diving into it. Already I’m concerned. A phrase from the back of the book jacket caught my eye: the young Jesus Christ is described as a “nature mystic.” Maybe I misread that.
I will follow up with a review as soon as I can make it through the book. Assuming it’s not so laborious that it worsens my illness, that is.
So far, the reviews on Amazon are lightweight and glowing.
See my previous post: “Anne Rice channels the Jesus you never knew…”
[tags]A-N-Roquelaure, Anne-Rampling, Anne-Rice, Howard-Allen-OBrien, Christ-the-Lord, Christopher-Rice, Evangelical, Howard-Allen-Frances-OBrien, jesus, christ, Jesus-Christ, Out-of-Egypt, Vampire-Lestat, literature, fiction, homosexuality, novel, Pentecostal, religious-fiction, review, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375412018[/tags]
So, the word is out: On November 1, 325,000 copies of Anne Rice’s latest literary offering will be hitting the shelves. Big deal, right? Yes. When the main character is no longer a blood-sucking vampire but is, instead, the seven-year old, blood-shedding savior: Jesus Christ. (Listen to an audio excerpt at MSNBC.)
I was clued-in to this only a few hours ago (October 25), but already the blogosphere is heating up over her latest book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, and the print media is not far behind. Sadly, the print outlets are exploring neither Rice’s 1998 conversion (“return”) to Catholic Christianity, nor the depths of her change—if any. If you’re up to the lackluster press, check out Newsweek|MSNBC’s “The Gospel According to Anne,” Canada.com’s review, “Christ the Lord: Anne Rice,” Dallas Morning News’ “Queen of darkness sees the light in new book on Jesus,” and TIME’s “Junior Jesus.”
The Closet?
Many will view this book as Rice’s nicely-timed “coming out” premier because, after all, where’s the evidence of genuine conversion in her work output? I knew when John Grisham converted: his writing dramatically changed. But what about Anne Rice? Is she simply trying to profit from the latest media-circuit bandwagon bearing Jesus’ name, a la The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, his imitative minions, and a soon-to-be-released major blockbuster film?
Though low-key, Rice has been honest and up-front about her conversion for several years at her website: AnneRice.com. Rice has been planning to write this story about Jesus for several years. In a pre-conversion phone message to fans dated March 3, 1997, she hinted, “I’m working on a new novel about Jesus Christ.” That piqued curiosity—fans wanted to know more. She promptly satisfied their queries one week later, on March 10, 1997:
“The book I have planned on Jesus Christ is a very, very serious book. It’s nothing trifling, it’s nothing disrespectful and it’s nothing satirical. There’s nothing meant to be comic, though I think there’s going to be comedy involved. There had to be some comic aspects in Christ’s life that were expunged by early writers.
And I am going to draw very heavily on a great deal of material, both canonical material, that means gospels that are accepted by the churches, and also non-canonical material, gospels that were long ago rejected by one church or another or accepted by one and rejected by another.”
But that was 1997, when still a pagan. Maybe a seeking pagan, but a pagan nonetheless. Then, late in 1998 Rice re-committed to the Catholic faith of her childhood. Her commitment was deep enough that she remarried her husband of nearly 40 years, and—there’s a hint of irony in Rice’s report—within two weeks of her re-commitment and remarriage, she nearly died from a diabetic coma. Within four years, in 2002, her husband, poet Stan Rice, died of a brain tumor. Two years later (2004), Anne again nearly died again due to intestinal blockage. Finally, earlier this year she abandoned her beloved and iconic New Orleans home for California. (And those are only the travails Rice’s been public about.)
Through it all, she has worked on this book (with the majority of her research occupying the last three years), wrote the closing chapters of her Vampire Chronicles, and attended Mass and Communion every Sunday—though often at different churches.
The Metamorphosis
So, for the last six months she’s been dropping hints on her website, and warning her fans: “You may not want what I’m doing next,” because since coming back to faith, her thinking and source of creativity have been tainted. Or purified, if you will. She told her fans on July 4, 2002:
I went back to the church in 1998. I was reconciled with the church and I did a kind of violence to my mind. Maybe a blessed violence, maybe a divine violence, but definitely a violence. I did a violence to my creativity. I have written two books since then, three books actually, Merrick, Blood and Gold and Blackwood Farm. But my mind is still undergoing some sort of Synthesis.
I work all day on my book and then I go out and read the Bible on the deck and I know what many of you are thinking that probably this is the end of me as a sensuous writer and the end of me as a transgressive writer but I don’t think that is true. I do think I will come out of the closet as a Catholic writer. But I think I’ll come out as a radical Catholic writer and I am not sure yet what all that will mean.
A year later, Rice has firmed-up her process of “Synthesis,” and has come to a decision. The Dallas Morning News reports:
“I was sitting in church talking to … [God] about it and I finally realized there was no holding back anymore. … I just said, ‘From now on it’s all going to be for you.’ And the book I felt I had to write was the life of Christ. … When my faith was given back to me by God, redemption became a part of the world in which I lived. And I wasn’t going to write any more books where that wasn’t the case. You do not have to be transgressive in order to achieve great art.”
And this is what she told her fan base on January 13, 2003:
I feel a great change coming in my career. In fact, I know it’s coming. The book I’ve written, the book that will appear in 2003 in the fall. It will be the last of the vampires and the witches. It will be the very end. …
That book at the end of 2003 will be the last one with which I approach the altar of God in convolution. There will be no more after that one … there will be no more. There may be life for Lestat, my vampire hero, there may be life for the Mayfair witches; there may be life for them, but they’ll be on television or in the movies. I have great hopes for television, and what might do. But the books won’t come from me anymore. Something entirely different will come. Something much more direct. But that last book will be published in October.
The Book
So, how have this return to faith and subsequent trials shaped Christ the Lord?
Pro:
The skepticism, so far, has been limited to the blogosphere. But Canada.com assures us, “Rice starts from a position of absolute faith in the divinity of Jesus,” and TIME knowingly remarks, “The orthodoxy shouldn’t be surprising.” (Here, I want to put “queer quotes” around “orthodoxy,” as if secular media would ever recognize such a thing. My snide comments will suffice.)
Naturally, the most fulsome praise is found on Rice’s own website. In a personal note to Rice, the Rev. Joseph Cocucci, Director of Priestly and Religious Vocations in the Diocese of Wilmington, wrote:
As to the potential effect of Christ the Lord on readers: those who already know and love Jesus will find images and scenes to feed and deepen their prayer; those who know little of Jesus may be attracted and enticed to draw closer to him; those who do not know him at all or who up to this point have resisted him may find themselves wanting to learn more about him. No matter where one stands in relationship to Jesus, he or she will not stand in exactly that same space after reading your book.
You’ve actually done some great work for the Kingdom! I find the possibility of your fan-base becoming more acquainted with Jesus Christ a tremendously good thing, and most likely the reason God gave you such prodigious talent in the first place.
Anne Rice agrees: “My life has led to this book.”
Add to that, faint praise from the theologically slippery Emergent church leader, Brian McClaren:
Throughout history—from the DaVinci Code and the work of Walker Percy or Flannery O’Connor, back through Pilgrim’s Progress and the Divine Comedy to the parables of Jesus—fictional narratives have been important ways for authors and readers to explore matters of ultimate concern.
Anne Rice here places herself in this rich tradition. Yes, this portrayal of Jesus will engender controversy—but it will also convey a sense of the political, social, and religious milieu into which Jesus came, which will in turn shed new light on the meaning of his teaching, life, and passion.
Highly recommended!
Also, according to the Dallas Morning News, Rice’s intent is evangelistic: “[H]er greatest hope for people reading Christ the Lord is that they will at least begin to think about Jesus, if not come to believe in him.”
Having spent three years in research, laboring through every book on the life of Christ she could find (yet being strangely stymied by terms like “ontological,” “epistemological,” and “hermeneutical”!) and watching every movie about Jesus ever made, Rice is confident her book will accurately depict the kind of life-experiences the son of a carpenter might have experienced in 1st century Palestine. (See some of the books she read, and later reviewed, in Rice’s Amazon.com reviews.)
Also on the plus side, Rice recognizes that not all the “historical Jesus” crowd acknowledges Jesus’ divinity: “Some of the people in New Testament scholarship don’t hide their bias at all. They’re just out to prove Jesus wasn’t God, but of course that’s impossible to prove.” Rice further notes that historians are kinder to Hitler than to Christ, granting Hitler at least a little mystery, power, and mysticism.
In a bloodless attempt at criticism, the Dallas Morning News includes this nonsensical quote from Adam Becker, assistant professor of classics and religious studies at NYU:
“[Rice] seems to be attacking some kind of liberal, PC bogeyman. … But the majority of historical Jesus scholars are Christian and affiliated with the church in some way. She criticizes fashionable notions, yet she’s basically saying it’s fashionable to be a Christian.”
It’s not useful, here, to criticize the critics, but if this is the best, most authoritative critic the Morning News could find, then there must be a lot of substance to Rice’s book.
To further bolster the positive, Rice’s Jesus is unquestionably divine, and she rejects theories that Christ was married or merely a political revolutionary. Aside from speculating the on unknowable (and inflammable!), Rice’s biggest challenge is not simply portraying “what would Jesus do,” but rather, “what would Jesus think.”
Con:
Unfortunately, Rice is not as restrictive in what she considers content useful for sound speculation as Evangelicals would like. Her goal is laudable, but I think she casts far too wide a net in searching for historical data. While striving to be “accurate according to all the records we possess,” (emphasis added) Rice might have done well to filter out the junk and reject outright fiction. For example, see what is reported about content on page one:
…a bully comes after the 7-year-old Jesus. “I felt the power go out of me as I shouted: ‘You’ll never get where you’re going.’” The bully falls down dead. Later, Jesus resurrects the bully, having made his point.
This is inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, not included in your standard Evangelical canon of divinely inspired literature. And not typically considered an authentic gospel or historical account. This is a work dated around 150 AD, describing how Jesus learned to use his divine powers for good (…and not for evil? What is he, Spider-Man?). Here’s the passage that seemingly inspired Rice:
Next, he was going through the village again and a running child bumped his shoulder. Becoming bitter, Jesus said to him, “You will not complete your journey.” Immediately, he fell down and died.
(From Andrew Bernhard’s translation.)
Now, if you’re truly being faithful to the legitimate Gospel records of the nature of Christ both as the only perfect man and as the fully divine Son of God, this is not the passage you’d want to start your book with. This passage, and Rice’s extrapolation, don’t show a perfect pre-adolescent Christ growing in knowledge, wisdom, grace, and favor with God and man. Rather, this is speculation about a socially inept, rage-addled second-grader who bullies others, has the power to murder, and the power to avoid consequences.
So, despite Rice’s orthodoxy in matters of divinity, I’m not all that confident about her speculation on Christ’s humanity. Though he was a man, Christ was perfect in every way. This scene wins no awards from me.
What Would Anne Rice Think (WWART)?
Rice’s father studied to become a priest, and when she was 13 she wanted to be a priest, too. Since that was impossible, she wanted to be a nun. But by her first year in college in 1960 Rice lost her faith in God, and “…in losing my faith, I lost my whole view of the world. My whole rich and hopeful and really lovely view of the cosmos as a just place, in which nobody’s suffering was ever wasted or lost. In which God knew every tear that was shed.”
After calling herself an atheist for 38 years, and simultaneously exploring the bounds of sexuality, sado-masochism, the occult, Wicca, and various world religions, she came to “Christian” faith in November/December 1998. That kind of event usually presages dramatic and often immediate changes, but in 1999, not long after returning to the Church, Rice admitted, “I obviously have radical sexual views. … I see bisexuality as strength; I see it as deeply honest and powerful.”
Contrary to most conservatives, Rice is “okay” with homosexuality. It’s not hard to empathize, since her son Christopher Rice, a successful author in his own right, is openly gay. However, Anne Rice is not merely tolerant of the gay lifestyle, throughout her fiction she virtually celebrates it, and she has become something of an iconic hero for the gay, lesbian, and transgendered movements. And, significantly, this hasn’t seemed to change much since returning to the Church. Rice admits she has examined the New Testament several times, and she simply doesn’t “see any place where Christ says you can’t be gay. I haven’t found that.” (Of course, Christ doesn’t explicitly address vampirism, either, so “Hurray for Lestat!”) Gay marriage is a “non issue,” and somehow, despite the impossibility of gay procreation, homosexuals have contributed to the evolution of mankind:
Gays have nothing to do with the ills of our society. On the contrary, we find them everywhere playing positive roles in the arts, in education, in the military, in politics, in teaching. And we are coming to understand that they have always been with us, perhaps in the same proportions, in every society on earth—a percentage born apart—playing some significant role in the evolution of the species with regard to their special gifts.
As one reviewer wrote, Anne Rice’s return to Christianity is not simple. Indeed, it is “colored by her emphasis on appreciation of the pleasures of the physical world and on the ultimate importance of human accomplishment.” (From: Literary Encyclopedia: Rice, Anne.) Let’s just hope Rice’s Jesus won’t double as an extra for “Gay Eye for the Straight Jewish Guy.”
The Blogosphere
The Conclusion
When I get a copy of the book, I’ll review it here. But meanwhile, I’d recommend the book for anybody who wants to stay informed about the latest pop-culture Jesus hoopla. Rice’s book will surely raise a lot of questions which the Evangelical world must formulate answers for, but it’s likely this will also be a service to the Church, like Mel Gibson’s recent movie was. As with The Passion of the Christ, there may be much to criticize, but it’s certainly possible (even likely) that the Holy Spirit will use this woman, her career, her grief, her influence, and her books to affect a whole swath of people for Christ who would never have considered him otherwise.
Otherwise: approach the book with caution.
Rice says that from here on out the Vampire Chronicles and Witches and etc. are kaput, and she’s only writing for the Lord. May this be the first of many works of art inspired by Divine grace. May it be so. But, regardless, you’ll likely need to alert to avoid the liberal theology in her works for some time.
10/26 Update: Donald Sensing over at One Hand Clapping has a good analyses of the flaws in Rice’s selection of material for her background material, especially in her treatment of Christ’s miracles and their meaning within a narrative context. Worth the read.
11/02 Update: John Wilson, over at Books & Culture, highlighted a great article from The New York Times by Laura Miller: “The Coffin Was Too Confining.” Worth the read, it gives some more background behind Rice’s life, her relocation, and her personality. One great quote: “Ms. Rice, however, does not suffer casual observations. ‘Only people who don’t know my books,’ she said gravely, would perceive the change as a major shift. A clumsy question about demons provoked an icy response: ‘I never wrote about demons. Have you ever read my books?’ In particular, Ms. Rice bristles at the notion, held by some ill-informed persons, that her vampire books are light amoral entertainment. ‘I think they’re very Christian books,’ she insisted, ‘by somebody outside the church, lost in the darkness, striving to find meaning and sometimes being rebellious.’”
11/04 Update: My colleague (and savior of my cats—but that’s a different story), Stan Guthrie, found a distribution number that conflicted with mine. I said 500K, he said 325K. I figured he was right, but all my sources said 500,000, including the Dallas Morning News, and Publisher’s Weekly. I looked again, and found that PW had both numbers. Stan called Knopf and got the right number. Knopf’s confidence in Rice’s popularity has hereby been downgraded to a first-print run of $325,000. Still, if Knopf manages to squeeze $20 out of each copy, that’s a cool $6.5 million dollars in revenue.
[tags]A.-N.-Roquelaure, Anne-Rampling, Anne-Rice, Howard-Allen-O’Brien, Christ-the-Lord, Christopher-Rice, Evangelical, Howard-Allen-Frances-O’Brien, Jesus-Christ, Out-of-Egypt, Vampire-Lestat, literature, fiction, homosexuality, novel, Pentecostal, religious-fiction, review, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375412018[/tags]
Not that anyone really cares what’s on my bookshelf, but I do. I always keep wishing I’d kept a reading journal starting back when I was a kid, because, mercy, I’ve read a lot of fiction. And a bit of non-fiction. But the fiction? A tsunami of ink has flowed over my gray cerebral folds and left odd bits of flotsam behind. Sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers, international and political intrigue, mysteries, police procedurals, courtroom dramas, and adventure stories have left my head full of strange ideas and weird connections that has my family puzzled at times. Not that I remember the plot lines all that well. Fiction, for me, is a relaxing bubble-bath for the brain—not that I’m a bubble-bath-enjoying sort. But, if I were … well, you’d find me there with a soapy book.
Jennifer and I have tried to catalog just the books I own (forget about the books I read—the library has saved me thousands of dollars!), but it’s too hard to keep up. That’s not brag: I’m a bibliophile. I naively collect more books than I can possibly read. We can’t even finish the project we started four years ago.
:: sigh ::
I asked my public library if they’d print out a list of the books I’d checked out from them. No dice. Or so they say. I’m sure, though, John Ashcroft or his successor have a tidy little list on file somewhere, under my name and a grainy photograph with sticky notes about rodents and my suspicious literary patterns. Or fundamental lack thereof.
If I could only get my hands on that list, I could stop buying the paperbacks I read in hardcover and don’t really need to buy again because they weren’t all that memorable to begin with.
:: Here, Jennifer sighs ::
So, here’s a few of the books I remember reading in the last month or so, with brief comments (because, sadly, I really don’t have time to write more).
Just tonight, I finished an old goodie, David Morrell’s Fraternity of the Stone. I remembered this as a thematic companion to his other classic Brotherhood of the Rose, and I loved both books when I read them years ago.
Brotherhood ofthe Rose, by the way, clued me in to a trivial bit of information about the rose I enjoy: the rose has long been used as a symbol for utmost secrecy. It has been suspended above parliament, to indicate that all the proceedings conducted “under the rose” (sub rosa) were to be held in the strictest confidence. Its history goes back even further, to Roman mythology.
My wife and I used this symbol in our wedding: when we knelt at the prayer bench to pray after our vows—we implied that the deepest part of our own shared intimacy would be witnessed by God alone.
I’ll have to re-read that one.
Fraternity of the Stone, meanwhile, got picked up at the library for 25–cents, and it was as good a read the second time as the first. Morrell is one of the best at writing action/thriller/intrigue stories.
This plot line revolved around a boy who witnessed his parents’ terroristic-style killing, who grew up seeking vengeance, becoming an adept and fearsome terrorist-hunter—until the day he realizes he has become what he hated, has a religious epiphany, and joins the Carthusian order of monks to save his soul. The surface conflict revolves around an attack on the monastery and his life, and his subsequent return to the killing field for answers.
The deeper conflict, however, is between the protagonist and his own soul-searing efforts to excise the cancer of murder that eats at his conscience. The novel is an intriguing blend of action and thoughtfulness that only the best writers can handle without seeming heavy-handed. Morrell does wonderfully. And despite its age, it holds up very well, especially in light of current concerns over terrorism and assassinations. Nonfiction: If you ever want to read a great book on the writing process and the writer’s mind, you should check out Morrell’s book on writing: Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing: A Novelist Looks at His Craft.
Prior to Morrell’s book, I finished Black: A Novel, by Christopher Whitcomb, a true-life 15–year veteran of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, who earlier wrote a memoir titled Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, about his career as an HRT operator, carefully edited by the feebies, I am sure. I had mixed expectations about this book: professionals who truly write what they know don’t always make a successful transition to the fiction realm. Whitcomb did a passable job.
It wasn’t a bad read, but the “jaw-dropping surprise ending” left a lot to be desired. Sure, the anti-terrorism, technology-will-save-us-or-damn-us, adrenaline-pumping vertical-coffin entries where all there, but Whitcomb never rises to the level of thoughtfulness of Morrell, the commentary of Crichton, the savvy of LeCarre, or the wry humor of Childs. But, for a first novel, it was an excellent start. I just wish the ending had been more level-headed.
I felt cheated.
Prior to Whitcomb, I read Joel C. Rosenberg’s latest offering, The Ezekiel Option. This is the third in a stellar series including The Last Days, and The Last Jihad. Couple interesting things about Rosenberg and these books: Rosenberg is a Christian who was raised Jewish, he has worked as a senior advisor for for the White House and for Benjamin Netanyahu, and currently writes political analysis (see his website, especially his weblog). See the interview conducted by his current publishing house: Tyndale House Publishers.
In Rosenberg’s case, writing what you know starts looking eerily like prophecy. In his first book, he featured a hijacked plane used as a terrorist device … before 9/11. (Including a few other items presaging real events happening in the Near East.) It’s amazing stuff. And, get this, these are among the few books written by a Christian featuring truly Christian characters that is actually worth reading. Forget the Left Behind series.
Read these books. They’ll knock your socks off. I guarantee it. If not, send me your socks by mail and I’ll wear ‘em.
Prior to Rosenberg, I read an old Robert Ludlum standby, The Prometheus Deception, another post-cold-war intrigue novel that I am convinced had to be the plot genesis for the TV series: Alias. You have the brilliant polygot college student recruited to covertly fight for the good of the country. You have a deep black intelligence agency, The Directorate, that purports to be a very secret branch of the CIA—but which really isn’t. (Or … is it?) You have the agent who winds up working for the real CIA in order to uncover and destroy the fake agency. You have the double-dealing where you’re never sure who’s really CIA, who’s not, and—gosh—what the heck is our tax money paying for anyway? There are also strong echoes of Ludlum’s three Bourne novels (The Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum … uh … and Lustbader’s send up: The Bourne Legacy).
I was so impressed with Ludlum when I was a teenager. Now, I suppose, I’m jaded. I’ve given him four recent reads lately, and they all seem cut from a template. Boilerplate. I think he did them in his sleep. Save yourself the effort, and watch Alias, instead.
Let’s see … prior to Ludlum this month, there are a few other hazy books in my mind, but only two stand out. The first is Dean Koontz’ co-written second of a series of novels featuring a modern-day Prometheus: Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, Book One: Prodigal Son; and Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, Book Two: City of Night. Despite my utter distaste for the bulk of the “Horror” genre, Koontz (alongside Stephen King) is one of my all-time favorite novelists. He weaves such great themes together, is deeply thoughtful about theological and moral implications in his stories, and has a soft spot for dogs and children with handicaps. Plus, he’s so danged prolific he can keep me busy reading just his oeuvre alone.
I was nervous about picking these books up because anything that requires the author’s name in the title for marketing purposes probably exhausted his involvement right there. Both novels have different contributor bylines (book one: Kevin J. Anderson; book two: Ed Gorman), and I have no idea who the writers are. I’d like to know more about these books and their co-writers because the writing clearly has Koontz’ imprimatur all over it, and the stories don’t seem to suffer for another writer’s involvement.
If you like Koontz and weren’t sure if you’d like these books, don’t worry. Go fetch ‘em. You’ll like.
Finally, the other book that stands out in my foggy plot-saturated brain, is The Traveler, by the enigmatic John Twelve Hawks, about whom the book jacket says nothing except that he lives “off the Grid.” This is probably the best debut novel I’ve read in years. It’s a gritty blend of martial arts, contemporary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, metaphysics, intrigue, dystopianism, and technophobia all rolled into one. I really don’t have the time or space to give a decent review the book deserves, so I suggest you click over and read the Bookreporter review instead. As the reviewer says, you don’t have to be a sci-fi fan to get into this novel. It’s got a little something for everybody. It’s already been optioned for movie rights by Universal (not that this means anything, just that nobody else gets the movie made and earning the big bucks while studio execs get to bicker over the script and multiple successive and parallel rewrites), and is creating quite a buzz (or hype, depending on your point of view).
After you read this, you’ll never think about the panopticon the same again.
Now, it’s time for me to personally get off the Grid. G’night.
[tags]BlogRodent, fiction, non-fiction, david-morrell, fraternity-of-the-stone, brotherhood-of-the-rose, sub-rosa, carthusian, lessons-from-a-lifetime-of-writing, christopher-whitcomb, cold-zero, joel-c.-rosenberg, the-ezekiel-option, the-last-days, the-last-jihad, tyndale-house, left-behind, robert-ludlum, the-prometheus-deception, the-bourne-identity, the-bourne-supremacy, the-bourne-ultimatum, the-bourne-legacy, dean-koontz, prometheus, frankenstein, prodigal-son, city-of-night, stephen-king, the-traveler, john-twelve-hawks, off-the-grid[/tags]
I recently received a copy of The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching: A Comprehensive Resource for Today’s Communicators, and have been browsing through it from time to time. Whether you’re a full- or part-time preacher or even if you spend any time at all speaking in front of others as a Christian attempting to bring others to a better understanding of the Bible, or to bring them to a point of decision, you need this book on your shelf. It is the finest compendium of useful preaching/exhortation articles I have ever seen.
[Full disclaimer: This book was written and produced by my employer, Christianity Today, and edited by my good friend and coworker, Craig Brian Larson. But I’m not writing as a shill here. I get absolutely nothing out of additional sales of this book (unless you buy it via my Amazon Associates link, of course).]
I’ve only just started to browse through this tome, but every article I’ve glanced at or read has excited me, filled me with ideas on how to improve my preaching and prep-time, and given me already useful techniques to make my delivery more effective. Many of the articles were repurposed from timeless Leadership journal journal articles, some were cullled from the PreachingToday.com “Skill Builder” articles (click on the link for free articles), but there are a ton of new articles written fresh just for this project.
About the two editors: Haddon Robinson is considered by many to be one of the finest preachers alive today. I’ve always enjoyed the interviews and teaching I’ve heard from Robinson, and he has a clear, fatherly style of teaching. The blurb from PreachingTodayAudio.com says, about him:
“Dr. Robinson has been named one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world. His text, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, is used in more than 100 seminaries and Bible colleges in North America. He is also host of Discover the Word which airs on 400 radio stations across the world.” (Click the DtW link to listen.)
To get an idea of the kind of content you’ll find within this book, read the interview with Haddon Robinson titled, “Preaching That Opens Ears and Hearts.” (Sorry, that link used to be free, now it requires membership.)
Craig Brian Larson is pastor of Lake Shore Church (Assembly of God) in downtown Chicago, and is the managing editor of PreachingToday.com. He’s well-known in the world of sermon illustrations, having compiled several illustration compendia (see Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, volumes one and two, for example), and coauthored a guide for helping preachers add journalistic impact to their messages (see Preaching That Connects).
Though these two men compiled and edited this book, and contributed to it in a few articles, the contents were provided by the best preachers and preaching teachers in the field, covering a huge spectrum of denominations and traditions. Some of the writers you might recognize include John Ortberg, Rick Warren, Warren Wiersbe, Alice Mathews, John Piper, and Andy Stanley—just to name a few.
If you preach or teach at all, you really owe it to your listeners to pick up this book and refer to it from time to time. It will be a resource you refer to for years, and it will challenge you at every turn. This book is truly a gift to the Church!
Rich.
[tags]BlogRodent, preaching, homiletics, Craig Brian Larson, PreachingToday.com, The Art and Craft of Preaching, Haddon Robinson, Rick Warren, John Ortberg, Warren Wiersbe, John Piper, Andy Stanley, sermons[/tags]
It’s dated, but I just stumbled across this.
Stanford U. 
Chi Alpha pastor Glen Davis guffawed at the news and then blogged about a book put out last year by the Assemblies of God’s Gospel Publishing House (GPH): Pentecostal Gifts and Ministries in a Postmodern Era, compiled and edited by the General Treasurer of the General Council of the A/G James K. Bridges, with some contributions from past CBC president Maurice Lednicky, and former CBC prof. Opal Reddin.
What’s laughable about this, you ask?
Just the irony of a septuagenarian and a few other retirees writing about postmodern ministry.
But, wait, is that really the case? Look at the GPH sell-copy:
For the Pentecostal movement to continue to be an effective instrument in this last day harvest, there must be a renewed emphasis upon the necessity of Spirit baptism for all believers — for out of that dynamic experience issue the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and their resultant ministry gifts. This book proclaims a challenge to return to the headwaters of this great river: Christ himself, the great Spirit baptizer and the dispenser of His gifts! Paper.
Read that carefully and you’ll see that this book could have been written back in 1952 when Brother Bridges got his start in the Texas district. The principle focus, as belied by the title, is not about postmoderns, postmodernism, or even the emergent church. It’s about spiritual gifts, which are rather timeless in their exercise and function, aren’t they? Truly, what the Apostle Paul had to say about spiritual gifts 2,000 years ago in 1 Corinthians 12–14 is just as relevant today as it was at Azusa.
If the book is true to its blurb, it’s probably about as useful a read on the spiritual gifts as any book edited by any respected and well-seasoned Pentecostal minister. We shouldn’t begrudge the authors the credibility and standing they bring to this text before reading it.
However, I suspect the titling of the book has to do as much with marketing as it does with subject matter — if not more so. Publishing houses, even at the A/G, reserve the right to assign whatever title they believe will sell. And make no mistake, GPH is a business, and it’s in the business of selling books.
You think they whiff a trend (a decade too late)? Consider: you’re the head of the division of the A/G publishing arm, and Brother Bridges wants to compile a book. He’s the treasurer, the guy who literally signs your checks. Do you say “No?” Not only should you keep your boss happy, you have a guaranteed readership. People, fellow septuagenarians no doubt, will buy the book. Yes, sir. It’s on the reading list for a course at AGTS: Ministry on the Edge: The Mission to Post-Christian America.
But slapping the “postmodern” stuff in the title? I suspect that’s just marketing. Now, I haven’t read the book, and I likely won’t, but if it doesn’t have a strong postmodern application and focus I wouldn’t be surprised. But I would be ticked off.
Not that my opinion matters.
[tags]assemblies-of-god, assembly-of-god, BlogRodent, central-bible-college, gospel-publishing-house, GPH, james-k-bridges, maurice-lednicky, opal-reddin, postmodernism, spiritual-gifts[/tags]
Donald E. Westlake: The Axe
Read: June 6, 1998
I’m harboring an armed and dangerous man,
a merciless killer, a monster, and he’s inside me.
This is a disturbing book, and it’s haunted me for the days since I first read it. I’m a veteran fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, murder & suspense reader, so there isn’t much that’ll make me put a book down in the middle of a page, take a deep breath, exhale and close my eyes. This book did.
Burke Devore is a desperate, angry man, deeply frightened at the prospect of personal and professional worthlessness now that he’s been handed the pink slip and “chopped” from middle management at the plant he gave twenty-plus years of his life to.
I’ve always imagined life is a series of identity crises punctuated by moments of boredom now and then. Any major change can precipitate a crisis: birthdays, breakups, graduation, accidents, college, marriage, kids, bereavement, new jobs, and the loss of old jobs.
Devore has a major identity crisis on his hands. He lost this job, and decides to manage his crisis rather… aggressively. After a dozen fruitless interviews, rather than take unemployment sitting down, Devore decides to thin the ranks of his competitors by hand.
The scheme and plot Westlake builds out of this angst seemed all-too-real for me. I recognize, in Devore, a portrait of my next door neighbor, my boss, maybe even myself — if I were pushed farther than I could cope.
After 329 pages of forced identification with a protagonist whose actions I found repugnant, author Donald Westlake finally reveals his hand. In three deft paragraphs Westlake outlines the premise for his story that, if true and if accepted, lead to the logical moral outcome the preceding 328 pages painfully described.
Briefly put: if ends justify means, then there is no action so violent, no moral code so abhorrent and no transgression so felonious that it cannot be endured or even embraced. Indeed if ends justify means then self preservation (whatever that means to you) is justification enough for even the most inhumane act you can imagine.
In the end I realized this book is a satire, in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. The book is a joke, a dark, macabre joke, and despite the “billboards” hung out before even page one, I very nearly didn’t “get” it.
Don’t leave this book laying around for your children to read, Avoid it if you take anti-depressants, and don’t read it if your stomach can’t handle a large cup of dark-roasted satire. But if you like to think about stories after you read them, then this book’s for you.
[tags]BlogRodent, fiction, book-review, review, Donald-E-Westlake, the-axe[/tags]
Graziunas, Daina and Starlin, Jim: Predators
Reading: 2/11/98.
Okay, I’ve got to admit up-front that the premise is hokey: What do you get when a telepath suffers the loss of his family to a serial killer’s madness? You get this book—which initially reads like a first-novel, but does pick up somewhere along the way. The plot is adolescent, but the character development isn’t too bad, and by the end of the novel I was really into it. Part of it may be a continuing childhood fantasy that I can read minds. (No, I know that I can’t, but I think my wife can…. And the cats? Don’t get me started.)
This book reminded me that it wouldn’t be such a great trip to have that ability. It would be a curse.
The primary protagonist is a little hard to identify in this story; I guess, really, there are two. The elusive telepath (who hunts down serial killers), David Vandemark, and the FBI agent wasting his career by tracking him down, Ira Levitt. In the first half of the book the antagonist almost appears to be the FBI agent, but later (after discovering a truly evil malignancy in New York—surprise?) they team up against an antagonist of governmental proportions.
Overall, it’s a decent, fast read. There’s a lot of violence (we’re talking about serial killers and a guy who hunts them down) and at least one sex scene that I can remember. In a critical scene, one protagonist believes he’s on mission from God, but the author doesn’t take that anywhere and Judeo/Christian “worldview” never shows up again (despite Ira Levitt’s yiddishims).
[tags]BlogRodent, books, review, fiction, graziunas, starlin[/tags]
Ken Follett: The PIllars of the Earth
Read: 2/20/1998.
This is a phenomenal read! While I wasn’t exactly on the edge of my seat throughout the whole book, it was surprisingly satisfying.
I initially bought this book on the enthusiastic recommendation of a Hasting’s clerk. So, I wound up being leery of it for some reason — and then it languished on my shelf for more than a year. Maybe two. So, when I was finally low on reading material I gave it a try. I was very pleased and am now serious about chasing down other Follet works.
The main protagonists are Tom Builder and his stepson Jack Jackson. (Follet is probably not lecturing on the “interesting names for your novel’s characters” tour.) Tom’s lifelong’s vision is to be appointed master builder of a cathedral church, and everything is set against him living this dream. Losing work, wife, and child he presses on. As tragedy leads to tragedy his stepson helps Tom become master builder: Jack burns a monastery church to the ground.
Several disparate characters’ lives are masterfully woven together while the monastic Catholic church and a war-torn medieval England serve as the story’s backdrop. There are truly malicious characters here, serving their own self-centered ends, blindly following what they believe are Divine mandates. There are truly compassionate characters, blindly conceited characters, politically motivated power-mongers, strong-willed men and women, and families as dysfunctional as any I’ve ever seen. Somehow it all hangs together and near the end of the story I was hating the antagonists and loving the protagonists. Without seeming too conflicted, Follet manages to show redeeming value in some antagonists while simultaneously tarnishing the protagonists.
All in all, this was a deep and beautiful work. I will never look at a church the same again, especially if it has any of those famed “flying buttresses!” Read this book and reflect on how the pursuit of a passion larger than our selves deepens and strengthens us–whether for good or ill.
[tags]BlogRodent, Ken-Follett, Pillars-of-the-Earth, fiction, review, books[/tags]
I finished reading an old Stephen King novel, The Dark Half, last night. Wow, what a read!
(I’m not sure I’ll have much time for this post … the kids are about to wake up from their nap and I need to take them shopping. So, I’ll try to be brief.)
I love books about moral good versus evil, and I especially enjoy books featuring writers as protagonists. One of the first I read along these lines, years ago, was Mr. Murder, by Dean Koontz, also an enjoyable read, as I remember it.
In this tale, the principle character, Thad, began writing as a pre-teen, but the creative act somehow awakened some tissue that remained inside his body that was the leftover from a so-called fetus in fetu. (The rare, but real, circumstance where one twin absorbs another in fetus, but not completely.) Thad begins getting severe headaches, sees sparrows everywhere, and eventually has a severe seizure, leading to a complete neurological work-up. The resulting surgery removes the tissue, and Thad goes on to lead a normal life for several years.
Almost.
For this is also a story about evil twins, another genre favorite, and King gives it a nice twist with Jekyll and Hyde psychological overtones for writers. Thad goes on to be a successful author, but his most commercially rewarding books are those written under a pseudonym, George Stark, giving voice to the darker half of Thad’s personality. The Stark novels feature a dark un-protagonist, who stops at nothing to get his money and exact vengeance.
But even that would’ve been relatively okay (if you don’t mind what it does to the writer’s soul) … until Thad and his wife publicly reveal the deception behind “George Stark,” and they publicize a staged “burial” of crazy George Stark. And that’s when Thad’s private Hell breaks loose and Stark enters the world for real, and brings to life the violence that was, before, only on the page.
I’m not entirely sure why I enjoy books written by the likes of King and Koontz. I normally avoid the “horror” genre because I don’t want to treat as entertainment something that should not be taken lightly (the power and nature of true evil). But I feel that both King and Koontz write redemptive stories, and that raises their work to a much higher level than the usual wallowing in the macabre found in this genre.
Evil, true evil, does exist. And fables like this story by King demonstrate how our own choices make a way for evil to enter the world and propagate, and we must take action to conquer it. What’s disappointing about most good-vs-evil stories (and this includes most of the work even by King and Koontz) is that evil is often defeated by mere mortal efforts.
Better, in my mind, is a writer’s awareness that we are fallen creatures touched by evil ourselves, and that we must rely on a goodness outside ourselves to save us. This is why I think I favor Koontz’ writing over King’s. While King’s best stories are amazingly redemptive (for example, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile), I think he relies on mythology and the strength of the human spirit too much for my taste. In recent years, though, Koontz has appealed to God more and more in his stories.
In the end, this was a fun read with great suspense all the way up to the very end, though not many real surprises. But while the climax resolves the story, it still leaves me wanting more. The characters are all changed, yes, but none of them have come to a greater moral realization that God is in control or that there is even a benign higher power that they must learn to trust. There is, in fact, little light or hope at the end of this story.
Nevertheless, I’m still glad I picked it up. Maybe you will too?
[tags]BlogRodent, fiction, books, stephen-king, the-dark-half, dean-koontz, review[/tags]
