“Approaching Life Creatively.”

A Review of

The Creative Family,

by Amanda Blake Soule.

By Jeni Newswanger-Smith.

 

 

The Creative Family:
How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections.
Amanda Blake Soule.
Paperback. Trumpeter. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $12 ] [ Amazon ]

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve picked up a child’s craft book only to find things that none of my children would actually be able to create. The given crafts require cutting skills far beyond their ability (their ages are 5, 4 and 3). The crafts are usually fairly uncreative, as well. In order to finish many of these crafts, I find myself doing most of the “work.” The Creative Family is not a typical parent-child craft book. Amanda Blake Soule believes that all children are creative and all parents have the ability to nurture that creativity. She fills her book with creative ideas that will appeal both to parents who have been teaching their children art skills from the cradle and to those who don’t own crayons or scissors.

Soule knows well what she’s writing. She’s the mother of three creative children, aged 7, 5 and 2 and the author of a popular crafting blog: http://www.soulemama.com

As a crafting book, this one is unusual. I would say it is more of a family living/crafting hybrid. The book contains mostly open-ended ideas, allowing for creative expression. Being a creative family is not about output. Rather, Blake Soule asserts that a creative family functions in a way that’s self-perpetuating. A child is naturally creative, which inspires the parent to be more creative. In being creative herself, the parent then encourages her child’s creativity by example and so it goes. (more…)

The bread-n-butter of our bookstore business is the sale of used books, and we do a fair amount of scouting around for used books each week. In this section we feature some of the interesting books that we have found in the past week. Generally, we will only have a single copy of these books, so if you want one (or more) of them, you’ll need to respond quickly.

 

Faithful and Fair: Transcending Sexist Language in Worship.
Keith Watkins. Paperback. Abingdon. 1981.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $6]

 

What is a Family?
Edith Schaeffer.
Hardcover. Revell. 1975.
Good Condition. Mostly clean pages. Heavy wear to dustjacket.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7 ]

 

The Audubon Society
Field Guide to North American Weather.
Softcover/Plastic Cover. Knopf. 1992 printing.
Good Condition. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $4 ]

Profits Trumping Health
A Brief Review of Melody Petersen’s
Our Daily Meds.

by Chris Smith

In Our Daily Meds, Melody Petersen – a journalist who has long covered the pharmaceutical industry for the NY Times – presents a thorough case against the greed of pharmaceutical companies, and the manifold atrocities that it has caused. In the introduction, she writes: “The tragedy lies not with the medicines but with the marketing and the unprecedented power that these companies now have over the practice of medicine. … In too many cases, whether a medicine helps or harms a patient has become secondary to how much it will bring shareholders in profits. That is the story of this book” (11). As a former employee of a pharmaceutical company, with many ethical questions about the business, this is the book for which I had long been waiting.

 

If you have read Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemesis, or if you are otherwise skeptical of the modern medical system, don’t waste your time reading this book; yes, the greed of pharma companies is great and yes, it has done much evil in the world – probably even more than you imagine. However, if you think pharmaceutical companies are mostly benign, just doing what any company might do in a capitalist economy, you should read this book. Laws were bent and broken, science whored out to corporate agendas, and all with little regard for human life or health.

 

And to those who say that I (or Ms. Petersen) are being too harsh, let me add that I would love to see a clear and direct response from the Pharma industry to all of the charges raised in this book. Even such a response would itself be a sign of hope, for the pattern of pharmaceutical companies that Petersen traces here is one of obscuring, evading and covering up.

 

Melody Petersen.
Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies
Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines
and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.
Hardcover. FSG. 2008.
Buy Now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

Walter Brueggemann poignantly reviews
two recent books on faith and violence
for The Christian Century.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=481

“ Either the world is growing more violent or, because of more intense media coverage, we are increasingly aware of the violence that is all around us. Either way, violence—global and local, irrational and that committed as “rational” policy—presses upon us. Violence is also deeply rooted in biblical tradition, a fact that has been largely covered over by the niceties of high-minded theology and well-intentioned morality and piety. In our present circumstances, however, attention must be paid. Among the noteworthy books on biblically rooted violence, these two statements are relatively accessible and will evoke the critical conversation that is required. …”

Read the full review:
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=4815

Bruce Chilton.
Abraham’s Curse.
Hardcover. Doubleday. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

Jeremy Young.
The Violence of God and the War on Terror.
Paperback. Seabury. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $19] [ Amazon ]

---

The Toronto Star Reviews
Jeffrey Symynkywicz’s
The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/447061

 

“To millions, he’s ‘the Boss,’ the American heartland’s blue-jeaned troubadour who finds nobility in the grind of daily life.

In dozens of rock anthems, including Born to Run, Glory Days and Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen has for 35 years chronicled lost souls, haunted war vets, gritty workers, and highways jammed with broken heroes. But he has also advanced themes of redemption, hope and keeping the faith.

It’s been a rich vein of spiritual motifs, leavened by, as Publisher’s Weekly has noted, a lover’s quarrel with an America Springsteen loves and fumes against. To be sure, the politically progressive 58-year-old singer/songwriter, once heralded as a kind of messianic saviour of rock `n’ roll, has given voice to society’s dispossessed. But his work of late has been bleak, brooding and introspective, even grieving.

But the Boss as spiritual guidepost? …”

Read the full review:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/447061

Jeffrey Symynkywicz.
The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen.
Paperback. WJK Press. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $14 ] [ Amazon ]

---

The NY Times Reviews
Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale
and Why We Bought It.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/books/review/Margonelli-t.html

“To paraphrase an old axiom: You don’t buy water, you only rent it. So why did Americans spend nearly $11 billion on bottled water in 2006, when we could have guzzled tap water at up to about one ten-thousandth the cost? The facile answer is marketing, marketing and more marketing, but Elizabeth Royte goes much deeper into the drink in “Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It,” streaming trends cultural, economic, political and hydrological into an engaging investigation of an unexpectedly murky substance. Partway through her undoctrinaire book, Royte, a lifelong fan of tap water, refills her old plastic water bottle, reflecting that “what once seemed so simple and natural, a drink of water, is neither. All my preconceptions about this most basic of beverages have been queered.” And by the end of the book she will have discarded the old plastic bottle too, but not the tap.

“Bottlemania” is an easy-to-swallow survey of the subject from verdant springs in the Maine woods to tap water treatment plants in Kansas City; from the grand specter of worldwide water wars, to the microscopic crustaceans called copepods, whose presence in New York’s tap water inspired a debate by Talmudic scholars about whether the critters violated dietary laws, and whether filtering water on the Sabbath constituted work. (Verdict: no and no.) …”

Read the full review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/books/review/Margonelli-t.html

Elizabeth Royte. Bottlemania:
How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It.
Hardcover. Bloomsbury. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Registration is now open

for the

Godspeed the Plough! conference

Nov 7-8

Indianapolis

Keynote speaker:

Ragan Sutterfield (Blog here)

 

BONUS: The 1st 100 paid registrations will receive

a free copy of Ragan’s booklet “God’s Grandeur”

“An Election Year Conversation

on Politics in the Church.”

A Review of

Discipleship as Political Responsibility,

by John Howard Yoder.

By Chris Smith.

 

Discipleship as Political Responsibility.
John Howard Yoder.
Paperback. Herald Press. 2003.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $8 ] [ Amazon ]

“And we do take our part in public affairs, when along with righteous prayers we practice self-denying disciplines and meditations, which teach us to despise pleasures, and not to be led astray by them. And none fight better for the king [and his role of preserving justice] than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he demands it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army of piety by offering our prayers to God.” – Origen

In the United States, a presidential election year provides a superb opportunity for the Church to reflect on the political nature of her calling, and how that calling is embodied in the present age. Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw’s book Jesus for President (reviewed in ERB 1.12) and upcoming tour, are no doubt stirring up this conversation. As is David Fitch, who raises some important questions about the significance of voting. In this election year, I want to recommend the reading and discussion of one little book as my contribution to the larger conversation about politics and our faithfulness to the way of Jesus. The one book that I have in mind is one of the shortest, most recent and least known of John Howard Yoder’s works, entitled Discipleship as Political Responsibility. Although published for the first time in English in 2003, the two essays in this volume were originally written in German by Yoder in 1957, making them some of the earliest of his works in print. Although the ideas that Yoder presents here would later be developed more fully in The Christian Witness to the State, and then even later in The Politics of Jesus, this book identifies some foundational questions that would be explored more fully in the later volumes – and it does so in a clear and straight-forward fashion. (more…)

The bread-n-butter of our bookstore business is the sale of used books, and we do a fair amount of scouting around for used books each week. In this section we feature some of the interesting books that we have found in the past week. Generally, we will only have a single copy of these books, so if you want one (or more) of them, you’ll need to respond quickly.

 

Other Lands Have Dreams:
From Baghdad to Pekin Prison.
Kathy Kelly. Paperback. Counterpunch/ AK Press. 2005.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7]

 

Living Together in a World Falling Apart:
A Handbook on Christian Community.
Dave and Neta Jackson.
Massmarket. Creation House. 1974.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages. Minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $4 ]

 

St. Francis of Assisi.
G.K. Chesterton. Massmarket. Image Books. 1957 printing.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $3 ]

“Scripture as Participation”
First Things reviews
Matthew Levering’s latest book, Participatory Biblical Exegesis

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1096

“Participatory” does a lot of work in Matthew Levering’s latest book, Participatory Biblical Exegesis, a contribution to the burgeoning contemporary interest in theological interpretation of Scripture. It refers, above all, to a conception of history that, Levering argues, should serve as foundation for biblical exegesis. In proposing a participatory vision of history, Levering, who teaches at Ave Maria University, challenges ideas that shaped the development of historical-critical biblical scholarship.

From the rise of nominalism in the Late Middle Ages through the modern period, history has been conceived in an atomistic and “linear” fashion. History consists of discrete events, and the forces of historical causation are all immanent within history. It’s not surprising that secularists would gravitate to a linear notion of history, but theologians and biblical scholars have eagerly accepted the same theory. The result for biblical studies, Levering shows, is a gradual but unmistakable drift from theological interpretation of Scripture toward a purely immanent understanding of the history recorded in the Bible and of the goals of exegesis. …”

Read the full review:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1096

Matthew Levering.
Participatory Biblical Exegesis.
Paperback. Univ. of ND Press. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

---

Michael Cline Reviews
Brian McLaren’s Finding Our Way Again. http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2008/06/
16/finding-our-way-again-brian-mclaren/

 

“The creative mind that birthed a “new kind of Christian” is looking rather ancient these days. In Finding Our Way Again, Brian McLaren kicks off the eight volume Ancient Practices Series being released by Thomas Nelson through the year 2010 (other authors in the series will include Scot McKnight and Diana Butler Bass). McLaren’s book acts as an introduction and a guide through the ancient practices that will be covered by the other volumes: prayer, Sabbath, fasting, the sacred meal, pilgrimage, the liturgical year, and tithing.

Starting at chapter one and carrying throughout the book, McLaren stresses the idea of an “everyday sacredness” that is the via media between secularist fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism (”the former offering the world weapons of mass destruction and the latter stirring emotions to put the suicidal machinery into motion” [p. 5]). This everyday sacredness rediscovers the Christian faith more as a way of life than a system of belief. For those weary that McLaren is falling into some “new age” mushiness, the author actually draws on the adoption of ancient practices as an alternative to such vague spirituality.

So what exactly are practices? …”

Read the full review:
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2008/06/
16/finding-our-way-again-brian-mclaren/

Brian McLaren.
Finding Our Way Again:
The Return of the Ancient Practices.
Paperback. Wipf and Stock. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $15 ]

---

The Toronto Star Reviews
Rob Walker’s Buying In:
The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy
and Who We Are.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Books/article/443565 “I recently attended a think tank session that began with a modified version of show-and-tell: Participants talked about something old they owned, along with a more recent acquisition.As it turned out, the most interesting stories and richest narratives were attached to the older items, be they family heirlooms, childhood mementos or other placeholders of memory or nostalgia.

New York Times Magazine columnist Rob Walker, author of the new book Buying In, would not be surprised by this. His book cites research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton to demonstrate that “the most meaningful objects (are) rarely chosen on the basis of some intrinsic, rational property, like marketplace value, cutting quality, simple aesthetic pleasure, or anything that an economist might describe as `utility.’”

Part of Walker’s goal is asking us to reconsider the stories we tell about ourselves – especially how the things we buy become integrated into our ongoing narratives of self. For Walker, understanding our consumer decisions involves unlocking the desire code, a place where rational wants (thirst, say) get distorted through rationales and justifications, so that a $3 tin of Red Bull seems like a great deal. Instead of letting sophisticated marketing and branding campaigns create meaning where none exists, consumers should take the lead in generating stories about the stuff that surrounds us. …”

Read the full review:
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Books/article/443565

Rob Walker. Buying In:
The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy
and Who We Are.
Hardcover. Random House. June 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

This coming Tuesday, June 24

Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw and friends

will be bringing

THE JESUS FOR PRESIDENT TOUR

to

Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church

@ 7PM

 

[ The word on the street is that there will be a big turnout,
so be advised to arrive early! ]

“Reflecting on our Wealth.”

A Review of

Missions and Money (2nd Edition),

by Jonathan Bonk.

By Chris Smith.

 

Missions and Money.
Jonathan Bonk.
Paperback. Orbis Books. 2007.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $22 ] [ Amazon ]

Since its original release in 1991, Jonathan Bonk’s Missions and Money has proven itself to be a classic study in missions. However, even if you have read (and possibly even re-read) the book’s first edition, it will still be well worth your while to get your hands on the recent second edition, which refers to itself as the “revised and expanded” edition, quite an understatement since the book is now almost twice as thick as the first edition. The content of the book has indeed been revised and updated throughout, but perhaps the most significant additions are reflective essays by Christopher J.H. Wright and Justo Gonzalez, on “Faith and Wealth in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Early Church,” and Bonk’s own reworking of the book’s final chapter in which he proposes an ethics for missionaries that steers clear of the problems of affluence that he describes in the first six chapters of the book.

Just as this new edition is a valuable asset even to those who have read Bonk’s first edition, it likewise is just as valuable to those church members who view “missions work” from afar as it is to missionaries – or missionaries in training. This review will eventually get around to elaborating on this claim that this is a book for the Church at large, but first it will be useful for us to overview the book’s contents. (more…)