DECEMBER 2010 BOOK REPORT, PART II

This is the rest of the report started several days ago of my recent reading. I guess I should do this review more often, since I have thought of a dozen other books I've read between the last report and writing up this one. Keeping an annual list or journal would work, except I am still trying to divest myself of little, compulsive, minor, personal obligations like that. I should confess that I'm finding the seventh decade has a lot of "lazy" in it. OK, Here goes:

No Place for Truth; or What Ever Happened to Evangelical Theology. David F. Wells (1993). The author is a recognized Professor of Historical and Systemic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Seminary inn Boston, Massachusetts. Thus he is a resident scholar in a multi-denominational setting much like Multnomah University in Portland, OR. It is an academic community which espouses “thinking theologically, engaging globally, and living Biblically,” which appear to be reasonable goals. Because of my own interest in recent years in the many aspects of God, I have gradually drifted toward readings in practical and applied systematic theology, a field I find which has an enormous quantity of unreadable and questionable materials. However, I wish I had discovered Dr. Well’s book long ago. I’m not done yet, but in it he has more clearly explained to me the radical shifts which have occurred in western thinking and religious practice, and helped me understand why general Christian practices – across the board – have become so shallow and meaningless that in effect “God in the churches” has been reinvented in the images of man’s multiple desires. Accountability, holiness, and reverence have been replaced with superficial Bible knowledge, liberal/traditional ritual, and entertainment. He had drawn a stark contrast between “itching ear preaching” and a close and careful obedience to the meanings of the Bible text. He shows how “feel-good religion” has replaced the former substance and depth of Bible knowledge and how emotion and postmodern trends have replaced any intellectual component of searching after God. I think he is saying that modern (or post modern?) social goals have taken the place of spiritual purpose in the lives of many congregants. To put it in plain words, Dr. Wells has documenting the “dumbing down” of today’s churches. He speaks, of course, in a denominational context, but I have found his premise true in non-denominational congregations with which I am more familiar. Indeed, a great deal of what is currently espoused seems to have little connection to fundamental or traditional values. I am beginning to sense the scope and nature of the changes in contemporary Christian practices by reading in Dr. Well’s book No Place for Truth. This is a slow, serious, and thought provoking text, but worth finding (on-line?) and studying carefully.

Life’s Little Handbook of Wisdom. (Graduate’s Edition) by Bruce & Cheryl Bickel and Stan & Karin Jantz (1992, and since). OK, You are not going to find this little paperback unless it lies moldering in a dusty corner of a remote bookstore which has not rotated its stock for many years. During one of my “wisdom” classes, probably on Proverbs, I was digging around for just such material – you know, those little, pithy bits of truth like Ben Franklin used to publish and which my grandmother seemed to have in abundance, - and found this gem. It is worth a rereading every few years. Examples: Heed the advice you give to others. Identify your mentors; emulate their lives; tell them “Thank You”. When you say you will pray for someone, do it! What happens in you is more important than what happens to you. Character is made by what you stand for; reputation is made by what you fall for. See? This collection of good thoughts will benefit you every time they are reviewed. If this little volume escapes you, get a similar book like it!

The Country Ahead of Us; The Country Behind. David Guterson (1989). Ever since Snow Falling on Cedars I have had a thing about Guterson’s way of wording a character’s thoughts. Having enjoyed a couple of his other novels, I was a bit hesitant to tackle a small book of short stories, fearing, I guess, a letdown. Not to worry. These little gems reveal moral truths in the same way a pungent essay can strike to the heart of a matter. Ten brief viewpoints about personal decisions and dilemmas help us realize that acting rightly is sometimes a matter of accepting one’s own heart on important matters. Don’t rush through this collection.

Deadliest Sea. Kalee Thompson; 2010. Although there have been a score of book relating the heroic accomplishments and nearly impossible rescues of the U.S. Coast Guard in the hostile storms and turbulent waters of Alaska’s oceans (Think The Deadliest Catch), none until now have reached the caliber of Spike Walker’s Coming Back Alive until Thompson’s account of the most historic mission of all, an attempt to save the crew of The Alaska Ranger as the fishing boat foundered in the raging Bering Sea. Amid screaming winds in the middle of an unending blizzard and hovering again and again barely above the 20 foot seas, the tag-team effort involved multiple individual hoists from the freezing waters of the many fishermen already drifting apart in the furious, inky waters. Air-support overhead, and the stand-by assistance of other vessels was encouraging, but it was the incredible efforts of the dedicated and highly trained coastguardsmen - some of them repeatedly leaping into the icy ocean - which saved the forty-two survivors. A harrowing read, because we experience every exhausting moment of the ordeal page after page. Ever heard of that book you can’t put down (even at 2:00 AM)? THIS is it!!!

All I Asking for is My Body. Milton Muramaya (1975). Basically this is a novelized biography of growing up Japanese-American in the plantation sugar cane fields of Hawaii prior to WWII. In part the coming of age of a boy who is expected by family culture to help pay off the parents debts, in part a documentation of the oppressed life style of immigrant labor, it is very much a story of breaking free from cultural and economic bondage and striving to claim a portion of the American Dream. The books flavor is quickly established in the pidgin dialect which reveals current events, intergenerational dynamics, and the passions of youth seeking a way to achieve independence without abandoning deeply held feelings of familial responsibility. Muramaya’s subsequent book, Five Years on a Rock, is the earlier story of the mother of this same family, an early version of the mail order bride from Japan imported to Hawaii to marry a field worker. Indeed, the rock was Oahu and the only things which increased were the number of children and the depth of their grinding poverty. Still, there is remarkable goodness and dignity of character in the flexible solutions of the mother who somehow holds all things together. Both books are published by the University of Hawaii and are interesting background reading to the conundrum of the Japanese-American experience both in the Islands and on the mainland.

Memories of Summer. Roger Kahn (2004). I like Kahn’s writings about major league baseball because he concentrates on the decades when I listened to baseball games on a small three-tube radio and had to clip an antenna wire to my window screen to obtain adequate reception. I was a Dodger fan even then, and this book with the previous Boys of Summer gives me a look into the lives and achievements of those great baseball players of the 1950s and 60s. It’s raw nostalgia, well recall and retold.

So there it is, just ahead of the New Year. I'm always watching for something good to read, and for those of you who share your recent favorites, Thanks. I'm making my list, and checking it twice, and your book reviews are closely examined for candidates, and I find as many there as in the best seller lists in the newspaper.