Slavoj Zizek reviews Damming the Flood,
a new book on recent politics in Haiti.

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/08/haiti-aristide-lavalas

“Noam Chomsky once noted that ‘it is only when the threat of popular participation is overcome that democratic forms can be safely contemplated.’ He thereby pointed at the ‘passivising’ core of parliamentary democracy, which makes it incompatible with the direct political self- organisation and self-empowerment of the people. Direct colonial aggression or military assault are not the only ways of pacifying a ‘hostile’ population: so long as they are backed up by sufficient levels of coercive force, international ‘stabilisation’ missions can overcome the threat of popular participation through the apparently less abrasive tactics of ‘democracy promotion’, ‘humanitarian intervention’ and the ‘protection of human rights.’

This is what makes the case of Haiti so exemplary. As Peter Hallward writes in Damming the Flood, a detailed account of the ‘democratic containment’ of Haiti’s radical politics in the past two decades, “never have the well-worn tactics of ‘democracy promotion’ been applied with more devastating effect than in Haiti between 2000 and 2004″. One cannot miss the irony of the fact that the name of the emancipatory political movement which suffered this international pressure is Lavalas, or ‘flood’ in Creole: it is the flood of the expropriated who overflow the gated communities that protect those who exploit them.

…”

Read the full review:
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/08/haiti-aristide-lavalas

Damming the Flood:
Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment.
Peter Hallward.
Paperback. Verso. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $24 ] [ Amazon ]

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/reviews/2008/08/
importance-of-being-honest-how-lying.html

“The beginning of August means I read a book on teaching, and my pick this year has been all and much more than I expected. It is by Ken Bain and is called What the Best College Teachers Do. This book deserves to be in the library of every pastor and church educator; parents would do well to let it shape parenting. There are two basic approaches to education:

Some think it is “information download.” Teacher knows; teacher informs; student doesn’t know; student absorbs. Student answers tests; teacher grades. This is the teacher model.

Others think it is about “motivating students.” The teacher may be the knower, but the student is a learner. The teacher’s task is to design an environment that puts students in learning situations so they can learn, the teacher can give feedback, and then assess or evaluate the student. This is the learner model.

Questions for the teaching dimension of church ministry: Is the role of the pastor a teacher? Is preaching teaching? What happens if churches reshape their “educational” programs according to the “learning model”?

… “

Read the full review:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/reviews/2008/08/
importance-of-being-honest-how-lying.html

The Importance of Being Honest:
How Lying, Secrecy and Hypocrisy
Collide with the Trust in Law
Steven Lubet.
Hardcover. NYUP. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $23] [ Amazon ]

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/booknook/entries/2008/03/17/instant_gratification_country.html

“Gene Logsdon lives at what he describes as a ‘small-scale experimental farm’ in north-central Ohio. He raises sheep, cultivates a variety of crops and writes books — more than two dozen thus far.

He imparts his wisdom in memoirs like “You Can Go Home Again” and “Adventures of a Contrary Life.” A passion for farm ponds led him to write “The Pond Lovers.”

A real Renaissance Man, Logsdon even writes fiction, most recently “The Last of the Husbandmen: A Novel of the Farming Life.” Set in an Ohio farming community, it traces the lives of two young men, Ben and Emmet. In 1940, as the story begins, they are embarking on very different paths.

Ben’s life is the central focus here. He is a husbandman, a follower of the old ways. He loves farming. His character is clearly a mouthpiece for the author’s viewpoints on agriculture. Ben’s family is poor. His father, Nat, a German veteran of World War I, came to this country after the war and scraped together the money to buy a farm by distilling moonshine whiskey.

Emmet, Ben’s best friend, is a spoiled rich kid. His family owns a huge farm and the bank. Their town bears his family name. WWII changes his luck. Emmet goes to war and experiences horrors.

…

“The Last of the Husbandmen” reads like a parable. Emmet is the grasshopper, fiddling with crazy schemes that lead to disaster. Ben is the ant, steady and industrious, storing away the fruit of his labors to keep him happy and warm all winter. Logsdon addresses his readers through Ben.

This uplifting book had a few surprises. A scary episode with the Ku Klux Klan morphs into slapstick. A murder occurs during a land dispute, and Logsdon pulls out all the stops for a drunken funeral that would do Lake Wobegon proud. …”

Read the full review:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/booknook/entries/2008/03/17/instant_gratification_country.html

Gene Logsdon.
The Last of The Husbandmen.
Paperback. Ohio Univ. Press. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $14 ] [ Amazon ]

Register now

for the

Godspeed the Plough! conference

http://englewoodcc.com/plough/

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”

FACEBOOK USERS: There is now a Facebook event announcement.

There will be no issue of the ERB for Friday August 16. Our next issue will be out around Friday August 23.

If you’re interested, however, here are two recent interviews from NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” that would be worth listening to:

1) Richard Sennett talks about The Craftsman (reviewed last week in the ERB):
http://wamu.org/audio/dr/08/03/r2080311-19469.asx

2) Maggie Jackson talks about her book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and The Coming Dark Age (review forthcoming in the ERB) :
http://wamu.org/audio/dr/08/06/r2080610-20324.asx

“Working Well and Being Well”

A Review of The Craftsman,
by Richard Sennett.

By Chris Smith.

The Craftsman.
Richard Sennett.
Hardcover. Yale uP. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $22 ] [ Amazon ]

The monastic tradition of the Church, and particularly the Benedictine stream, has gifted the broader Church with a rich heritage that values working hard and working well. This heritage has also been reflected more recently in the writings of Wendell Berry and other writers associated with the new agrarianism. For those readers who are deeply rooted in this heritage, Richard Sennett’s new book, The Craftsman, is an eloquent gift. Sennett, an esteemed sociologist at NYU, sets out in this book to explore “the intimate connection between hand and head” (9). He notes, however, that in the Western world this connection has become strained. Sennett attributes this divide in large part to our use of technology that “we did not make for ourselves and that we do not understand” (7). In demonstration of this point, Sennett posits the example of CAD software. Despite its mathematical precision, CAD eliminates the intimacy that was had in previous generations between an architect and the space in which he was working. In this previous era, the architect would, through a cyclical process of drawing, walking around and experiencing the site, become intimate with the details of the space in a way that the standard use of CAD does not allow. (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.

Lion Country. (A Novel)
Frederick Buechner. Hardcover. Atheneum. 1971.
First Edition/X-Library Copy. Good Condition. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $8]

Pilgrim to the Russian Church.
Jim Forest.
Harcover. Crossroad. 1988.
X-Library Copy. Good Condition. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $5 ]

The Mustard Seed Conspiracy.
Tom Sine.
Paperback. Word Books. 1981.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $4 ]

VIRTUE

SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skie :
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ;
         For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
          And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My musick shows ye have your closes,
           And all must die.

Onely a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives ;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
          Then chiefly lives.

Books and Culture‘s John Wilson
Reviews Frederick Buechner’s The Yellow Leaves.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/004/14.9.html

“In January of this year, King College in Bristol, Tennessee hosted the inauguration of the Buechner Institute, a faith-and-culture center directed by Dale Brown. Frederick Buechner himself was present, and when he addressed the audience, there was an expectant hush.

The guest of honor, without much preamble, told his listeners that for about ten years he had been unable to complete any substantial writing project. A very quiet auditorium became quieter still. Buechner went on to say that each day he goes out to his “Magic Kingdom,” the separate place—set apart from the house—where for decades he has done his writing. There he is surrounded by his magnificent collection of first editions and assorted objects of significance to him. He writes, yet nothing comes to fruition.

Recently, he said, he had sorted through the accumulated fragments of the last few years and found some bits that seemed to stand up on their own, enough to make up a small volume, a miscellany, to be published under the title The Yellow Leaves. He quoted the relevant lines from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

He then proposed to read a couple of the pieces he had salvaged, and did so, to great applause. And now, six months later, as promised, the book has been published by Westminster John Knox Press. …”

Read the full essay:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/004/14.9.html

The Yellow Leaves.
Frederick Buechner.
Hardcover. WJK Books. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $15 ]  [ Amazon ]

http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=4166

“The beginning of August means I read a book on teaching, and my pick this year has been all and much more than I expected. It is by Ken Bain and is called What the Best College Teachers Do. This book deserves to be in the library of every pastor and church educator; parents would do well to let it shape parenting. There are two basic approaches to education:

Some think it is “information download.” Teacher knows; teacher informs; student doesn’t know; student absorbs. Student answers tests; teacher grades. This is the teacher model.

Others think it is about “motivating students.” The teacher may be the knower, but the student is a learner. The teacher’s task is to design an environment that puts students in learning situations so they can learn, the teacher can give feedback, and then assess or evaluate the student. This is the learner model.

Questions for the teaching dimension of church ministry: Is the role of the pastor a teacher? Is preaching teaching? What happens if churches reshape their “educational” programs according to the “learning model”?

… “

Read the full review:
http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=4166

What the Best College Teachers Do.
Ken Bain.
Hardcover. Harvard UP. 2004.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $18 ] [ Amazon ]

red-letters-living-a-faith-that-bleeds/

“After expressing his apologies to the 50 million individuals in our world infected with HIV/AIDS, Tom Davis goes beyond scolding the Church for its lack of initiative (“Those of us who claim to follow Christ’s teaching should be ashamed…Entire nations are going up in flames while we watch them burn,” p. 13) and challenges those of us who bear the name of Christ to embody a more holistic gospel—a gospel that not only offers the poor life after death, but life well-lived in the now.

With the endorsements of numerous pastors, authors, Hollywood producers, and the CEO of Coca-Cola in his back pocket, Davis holds nothing back in Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds. If you are looking for a hermeneutical take on appropriating the “red letters” (the words of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels), this book will disappoint. Tom Davis is not on a mission to sway the reader with his theological aptitude, but rather to propel the reader into putting down the paperback and doing something with his or her faith. …”

Read the full review:
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2008/08/06/
red-letters-living-a-faith-that-bleeds/

Tom Davis.
Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds.
Paperback. David C. Cook. 2007.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $11 ] [ Amazon ]

The Justice Kitchen Tour
(Jason and Brooke Evans)

will be coming to Englewood Christian Church
THIS WEDNESDAY August 13

Dinner (Local food with vegan option) starts at 5:45PM

Conversation at 7PM

Suggested donation:
$5 Adults / $2 Children (10& under)

Please RSVP via Facebook or phone (317.639.1541)
on or before Sunday Aug. 10
so that we know how much food we should prepare…

A flyer (in PDF format) is now available here:
http://www.englewoodcc.com/JK-Flyer.pdf
Feel free to distribute this flyer in print or electronically.

Registration is now open for the

Godspeed the Plough! conference

http://englewoodcc.com/plough/

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”

FACEBOOK USERS: There is now a Facebook event announcement.