“God’s Own Passion
for the Neighborhood “

A Review of
Journey to the Common Good.
by Walter Brueggemann.

Reviewed by Chris Smith.

Journey to the Common Good.
Walter Brueggemann.
Paperback: WJK Books.
Buy now: [ ChristianBook.com ]

One of the things that we have worked really hard to do as Englewood Christian Church over the past two decades is to gather our neighbors for conversation on imagining what the common good for our neighborhood might look like.  So when the city of Indianapolis declared our neighborhood and the surrounding ones as a “redevelopment zone” several years ago, we played a key role in gathering neighbors to craft – over the course of a year – a specific plan for how we wanted to see our neighborhood improved in a way that would minimize gentrification and not drive out the neighbors who presently live here.  We work with our neighbors in this way because we believe that God is at work, redeeming creation, and that this work of redemption unfolds primarily through the faithfulness of church communities who imagine and discern God’s redemptive work in their specific places.  With these convictions and the experiences of our church community at the forefront of my mind, I was very eager to read Walter Brueggemann’s ideas in his newest book Journey to the Common Good.

I have read a number of Brueggemann’s previous works and have resonated with the basic points of his theological vision as expressed in these books.  In particular, I have a deep appreciation for his emphasis on the people of God (as a community) in God’s redemptive work, on the conversational relationships between God and the people of God (see his recent book An Unsettling God), on the importance of imagination in discerning God’s leading (see The Prophetic Imagination), and finally, on the significance that he places on land and place in the mission of God (see The Land).  All of these convictions are ones that are essential to our life together at Englewood Christian Church.

At the beginning of Journey to the Common Good, Brueggemann observes:  “We face a crisis about the common good [today] because there are powerful forces at work among us to resist the common good, to violate community solidarity, and to deny a common destiny.  Mature people, at their best, are people who are committed to the common good that reaches beyond private interest, transcends sectarian commitments, and offers human solidarity” (1).  From these initial convictions onward, I knew that this was going to be an important book.  Brueggemann structures the book around three Old Testament stories that he believes are essential to discerning our way forward as churches today toward the common good of God’s redemption.  These stories are that of the Exodus, of Jeremiah (and of Solomon and the Jerusalem establishment that Jeremiah would prophetically decry) and finally of Isaiah.

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“Leave More Tracks Than Necessary“

A Review of
Practice Resurrection:
A Conversation on
Growing Up in Christ.
by Eugene Peterson.

Reviewed by Ragan Sutterfield.

Practice Resurrection:
A Conversation on
Growing Up in Christ.
Eugene Peterson.
Hardback: Eerdmans, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Looking at the church today we may well wonder what God was thinking.  Our congregations are filled with lax believers, pulled by the world, this way and that.  Looking around at the group of people filling the pews on a Sunday morning we think, surely this isn’t what God had in mind.  If only we could be like the early Church, we say, when Christianity was vibrant and authentic and not nearly so lazy and messy.

Eugene Peterson’s new book, Practice Resurrection, answers exactly these sorts of concerns and he does it by wiping away any of our ideas about some authentic, pure Christianity in the early church.  His task is to show us what it means to grow up in Christ, in the churches we have, and his guide for how we do this is Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.  The question is how Paul could say such grand things about the work of the Holy Spirit in that Ephesus when the church was clearly a mess?  “Obviously, the church is not an ideal community that everyone takes one look at and asks, ‘How do I get in?’” Peterson writes, “Clearly, the church is not making much headway in eliminating what is wrong in the world and making everything right.  So what’s left?”  What, indeed.

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“Possibilities Deeply Seeded Within the World“

A Review of
Bird Watching
by Paula McCartney

and

Urbanisms
by Steven Holl.

Reviewed by Brent Aldrich.

Bird Watching.
Paula McCartney.
Hardback: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Urbanisms: Working With Doubt.
Steven Holl.
Hardback: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

I first saw Paula McCartney’s Bird Watching images as large prints, framed with their identification cards (including the birds’ name, location, date, size, coloring, and remarks) and I was hooked with the Spotted Wren, photographed on the Southern Oregon Coast, “golden crown, spotted back and wings” with “a field of daisies was the perfect backdrop for this little bird.” The image is saturated green, interspersed with the yellow and white daisy heads, and the matching yellow and white of the wren. It is as perfect an image as I might hope for. By the second photograph, something was awry, and looking back again at the wren, it was clear: these are model birds, wires holding them onto their perches, painted feathers, glued-on eyes. And having realized this artifice, the images are all the more enticing. First, there is the simple joy of recognition, which is a result of careful looking, and not afforded to anyone breezing past the surface of the photographs. Furthermore, though, there is a significant conceptual shift that complicates these images, asking questions about photography and looking at nature.

Bird Watching has also existed as an edition of hand-made books by McCartney, and has just been published as a full monograph of these clever and beautiful prints, with identification texts and accompanying essays. Located in several locations in the US, McCartney’s birds exist in immaculate landscapes in which the birds complete the scene, and are often described in language questioning our own expectations of ‘nature,’ or the conventions we might expect nature to offer up to our looking (e.g., the sublime, the picturesque). To that end, two Barn Swallows “elegantly turn their heads toward the camera,” Vermillion Flycatchers are “enjoying the view by the lake,” and an Aqua Tanager “stopped and patiently posed for his portrait.”

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In our continuing effort to fund the publication and free distribution of The Englewood Review, we are going to be collaborating more intentionally with Christian Book Distributors. Primarily, we will be offering you the opportunity to buy bargain books from CBD that we think of are interest. Buying books this way is a win / win / win proposition. You get great books for a great price, CBD gets the sale and we get an excellent referral fee from CBD.

This week’s bargain books (Click to learn more/purchase):

	Why Church Matters: Worship, Ministry, and Mission in Practice By Jonathan R. Wilson / Baker $2.99 (Save 85%!!!)
	The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church By Gregory A. Boyd $1.99 (Save 90%!!! )
	Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth About Christianity? By N.T. Wright $1.99 (Save 90%!!! )

A Brief Review of

Hear No Evil:
My Story of Innocence, Music, and the Holy Ghost.
Matthew Paul Turner.
Paperback: WaterBrook, 2010.
Buy now: [ ChristianBook.com ]

Reviewed by Jonathan Schindler.

Hear No Evil chronicles former CCM editor Matthew Paul Turner’s life following the common thread of music. Raised in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist family, Turner tells stories that are by turns laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and scarier than a Jack Chick tract. Turner’s honest memoir does not offer easy answers or canned take-aways, but his winsome writing, sharp wit, and keen observations provide enough material to laugh and think about for days after the book is closed.

Hear No Evil is comprised of fifteen memoir-essays on faith and music. While they are all variations on the same theme and are in roughly chronological order, each essay serves as a snapshot rather than a continuation. There is little connection between one essay and another. (This is not a David Copperfield kind of memoir. Its closer kin is David Sedaris’s books.) Because of this, “the point” may be hard to find, and at times the essays close without resolution. This lack of closure may be a turn-off for some readers, but I found the open-endedness refreshing. Like Jesus’ parables, we are told what happened up to a point; the rest is left for the reader to decide how he or she will live.

I mentioned that “the point” may be hard to find—but I certainly am not referring to the sharpness of the writing. Turner uses humor to examine his life in music so far. He relates the crush he had on Sandi Patty (which he had to hide from the members of his church), the excitement at hearing George Michael’s “Faith” on the radio and wondering if it was a Christian song, the purchase/guilt cycle he experienced when he bought/threw away Amy Grant’s album Heart in Motion several times, and God’s calling on his life to be the Christian Michael Jackson.

Humor is double-edged, and the line between surgery and stabbing is sometimes hard to discern, but Turner does a surprisingly good job walking the fine line between destructive and constructive uses. Turner’s first essay of the book, “Overture,” is probably the most cynical and made me unsure of the contents of the rest of the book. (In the essay he describes what could be an almost typical occurrence at a Nashville coffee shop: He sees someone come in, ill at ease in his rock-star regalia, and immediately pegs him as a “Christian rocker.”) This essay caused unease at the beginning of the book, but by the end, I could understand much better where Turner was coming from.

Turner’s essays are laced with vivid nostalgia. There were several times while reading this book that I was taken back to my own childhood in the church, and while the names of the congregants are different, I could picture these people in my own life. And Turner treats them like people. They are not stark images or abstract ideas to make a point (“Jim is Greed, Sandy is Fame, Bill is Hypocrisy,” and so on); they are paradoxes wrapped in flesh, as all humans are. His sensitive treatment of his “subjects” is what makes Hear No Evil work. Instead of a rant (which a book like this could have easily become), it is a rehabilitation.

Turner clearly loves the church—spots, wrinkles, blemishes, and all—and while he laughs at its foibles, it’s the kind of laughter that comes from the inside, not the outside—laughing with, not laughing at. Hear No Evil may not resonate with everyone (it seems to be aimed at twenty/thirty-somethings), but I thoroughly enjoyed it for its honesty and wit and reveled through the therapy of all 225 pages.

One of the things we like most about books is the opportunity they create for conversation.  While most of the books we review are brand new and our reviews serve primarily to inform people of these books (which is not particularly conducive to conversation), we thought we would throw a discussion question into the mix every Friday to get people thinking and talking about what they’re reading.

As most long-time readers of The Englewood Review will recognize, we have a deep appreciation for the works of Wendell Berry.  So, our first discussion question is:

What is your favorite Wendell Berry book? And why?  Do you find yourself reading more of his fiction, his essays or his poetry?

Please use the comments below to discuss.  Note: We do get hit with a good deal of spam, so we have to moderate your comments.  We ask your patience, as we try to get your comments moderated as quickly as possible.

A Brief Review of

When You Reach Me.
Rebecca Stead.
2010 Newbery Award Winner.
Hardback: Random House, 2009.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Reviewed by Jeni Newswanger Smith.

In Rebecca Stead’s 2010 Newbery Award winning novel, When You Reach Me, Miranda is a twelve year old navigating sixth grade alone after the confusing and sudden end to her longtime friendship with Sal.  Making new friends comes fairly easily, but Miranda’s new stability is thrown off when mysterious notes begin appearing (“I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own…The trip is a difficult one. I will not be myself when I reach you.”)  They frighten her, of course, but she finds herself unable to share them with her mother after the first, bewildering one.  Thus begins Miranda’s introduction into the confusing world of time-bending adventure.  An adventure she’s not excited to be part of, despite her love of Madeleine L’Engle’s Newbery Award-winning classic A Wrinkle in Time.

Miranda’s voice is smart, well-educated, clear, but she’s not very exciting.  I find her refreshing. The larger story, fantastical though it is, is surpassed by the  heart of the story, which is simple: a young girl making sense of a world that keeps growing bigger and more confusing.  In other words–she grows up. Miranda becomes aware of her mother as a real person with failed dreams, and her own responsibilities in regard to meeting the needs of those around her–including friends, enemies and the crazy man on her street corner.

Jumbling together time travel, the $20,000 Pyramid, and pre-teenhood, Stead could have easily fallen into writing the typical quirky-charactered young adult novel (a formula the Newbery Award committee likes to reward).  But despite unusual, frightening, and, yes, quirky circumstances, Stead’s characters are flawed, sometimes unusual, but completely believable–a trait fans of A Wrinkle in Time might recognize.

Stead makes numerous references to A Wrinkle in Time throughout her book and L’Engle fans have been understandably drawn to it, with mixed responses.  While When you Reach Me is a pleasant, easy read, and even a little thought provoking and mind-bending, it lacks the richness and insight that has kept A Wrinkle in Time on teachers’ must-read lists for nearly 50 years.

“Spring Rivulet”
Liberty Hyde Bailey

(From WIND AND WEATHER: POEMS
Doulos Christou Press, 2008 edition)

When the March suns come
And meadows are free
And the waters start
A-way to the sea,
Far back in the fields
When the keen winds blow
I follow a rill
From a bank of snow.
There the last drift lies
In a fence-row hedge
And an inch-wide thread
Drops out of its edge;
And the, day-old pools
Ice-rimmed on the grass
Seep into the stream
As its waters pass.
Sparkle and sparkle the streamlets roam,
Grasses and twigs are pointing from home.

Oh winter, my winter, you have left me again;
The snow’s gone from the hillsides and meadows are bare,
The orchards are vacant and all stark is the glen,
The highways are drying and the woodlands are spare.

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Excerpt from:

Buyology:
Truth and Lies About Why We Buy.
Martin Lindstrom.
Paperback: Broadway Books, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Newly released in paperback!!!

Buyology by Martin Lindstrom – Excerpt

Sustainablog Review of
Scott Sabin’s new book
Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God’s People.

http://blog.sustainablog.org/creation-care-scott-sabin-tending-to-eden/

…

For the environmentalist who doesn’t ground his/her passion, advocacy, and work in faith, Tending to Eden is replete with stories of eco-effectiveness. Plant with Purpose serves rural communities in the developing world, and much of their work focuses on replenishing depleted resources that keep farmers from producing enough to feed their families and communities.

For Sabin and his organization, that often comes down to a focus on deforestation. Whether trees are cut by large, industrial-scale timber operations or by indigenous farmers clearing land for crops, or turning wood into charcoal, the results are the same: degraded soils and watersheds that make even subsistence farming nearly impossible. Various kinds of reforestation activities serve to provide food, expand economic opportunity, and allow local residents to take a longer view towards their own survival.

Read the full review:
http://blog.sustainablog.org/creation-care-scott-sabin-tending-to-eden/

Tending to Eden:
Environmental Stewardship for God’s People.
Scott Sabin.
Paperback: Judson Press, 2010.
Buy now:  [  Amaz0n ]

http://www.powells.com/review/2010_02_27.html

…
The jobs that Gabriel Thompson writes about in Working in the Shadows: A Year Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do make even the worst jobs I’ve held seem like a month at the country club. Donning workingman’s clothes, Thompson tackles jobs that, frankly, I wouldn’t even consider before reaching a significant level of desperation. In the course of picking lettuce in the fields of Yuma, Arizona, and hauling chicken parts around a processing facility in Russellville, Alabama, (among other occupations) Thompson explores this segment of American labor like a latter-day E. P. Thompson, relating their lives and working conditions with a minimum of editorial intrusion.

Gabriel Thompson’s agenda is neither one of the white man’s burden or migrant worker agitprop. Rather, he simply takes these jobs and reveals to the reader their backbreaking and often mentally stultifying requirements, at times performed in harsh (but not inhuman) environments. After weeks of picking lettuce, Thompson hasn’t gotten that much better at the job nor gotten past the pain that bending over repeatedly in the hot sun creates as much as he has “[forgotten] what it’s like to not be sore.” While working in the frigid poultry plant, he aspires to be promoted to the de-boning department, which, while more toilsome and monotonous, is less physically demanding than hauling around buckets full of chicken remains.
…
Read the full review:
http://www.powells.com/review/2010_02_27.html

Working in the Shadows:
A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do.
Gabriel Thompson.
Hardback: The Nation Books, 2009.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ]

http://booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/marknoll030210.html

Patricia Ward’s meticulously researched history uncovers a surprisingly extensive vein of Protestant (usually, evangelical Protestant) engagement with the mystical piety of late 17th-century French Roman Catholics. An early leader of that engagement was John Wesley, who attended to the French mystics carefully on the question of assurance and who later excerpted works of Madame Jeanne Guyon and François Fénelon for the Christian Library he prepared so his Methodist itinerants could read while they rode. In the 19th century, appreciative readers included the Presbyterian minister William E. Boardman, the moral philosopher Thomas Upham, and the pioneering holiness preacher Phoebe Palmer. In the 20th century, A. W. Tozer included several poems of Madame Guyon in his anthology, The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, and Moody Press was one of several evangelical publishers who kept her works in print.

…
Read the full review:
http://booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/marknoll030210.html

Experimental Theology in America:
Madame Guyon, Fenelon, and Their Readers.
Patricia A. Ward.
Hardback: Baylor University Press, 2009
Buy now: [ Amazon ]