“Seeking that which Seems Beyond All Language“

A Review of
The Sublime.
Simon Morley, ed.

Reviewed by
Brent Aldrich.

The Sublime.
Documents of Contemporary Art Series.
Simon Morley, ed.
Paperback: MIT Press, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Edmund Burke, writing in the 1700s in his essay ‘On the Sublime and Beautiful’ describes several marks of the Sublime, first among them the sense of Terror, followed by Obscurity, Power, Privation, Vastness, Infinity, Difficulty, and Magnificence. It is a state marked by astonishment, specifically with Burke in the landscape or painting and literature about the same; in other words, a way of making the indescribable describable. Although having read this essay and others like it before, the full effect of the terror Burke stresses in the sublime hadn’t taken shape for me until recently, watching over and over the first 30-second video clip of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. This is a frightful image in its murky greenness. And the scope of what this simple video loop suggests is nearly beyond the capacity to describe. It certainly follows several of Burke’s qualifications of the sublime – the terror of the scope, the obscurity and privation of the bottom of the ocean, the suggestion of infinity – but it also raises even more questions in regard to what a particularly contemporary sublime might encompass. Many of these themes are raised in The Sublime, edited by Simon Morley, and the latest installment of the Documents of Contemporary Art series.

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“Polis and Ekklesia: Friends or Foes?“

A Review of
An Awareness of What is Missing:
Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular Age.
By Jürgen Habermas, et al.

 Reviewed by
Matthew Kaul.

An Awareness of What is Missing:
Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular Age.
By Jürgen Habermas, et al.
Translated – Cieran Cronin.
Hardback: Polity Press, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

For a range of reasons, the question of the relationship between religious faith and liberal democracy has recently risen to the forefront of political and religious discourse. From Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to current President Barack Obama, from the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to Pope Benedict XVI, from evangelical megachurch pastor Greg Boyd to scores of small church pastors across the country, an incredibly wide-ranging set of people have sought to address this question. 

The problem, stated simply, is one that goes back to Augustine, or even to Paul: how does the eternal kingdom of God relate to the temporal, fleeting, present power of the State? For a liberal democracy, the question is even more urgent, because there is no divinely-ordained kingship which we either submit to or disobey. Rather, (theoretically, at least) we ourselves are both subject and legislator. Is it the Christian’s responsibility, then, to legislate “Christian values”? What relationship should the religious citizen have to those fellow citizens who hold different religious beliefs? 

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“The International Struggle over
Reducing Greenhouse Gases“

A Review of
Climate Change Justice.
Eric Posner and David Weisbach.
 

Reviewed by
Marilyn Matevia.

Climate Change Justice.
Eric Posner and David Weisbach.
Hardback: Princeton UP, 2010.
Buy Now: [ Amazon ]

In this somewhat wonky-but-readable discussion of climate change science, policy, and justice, the authors argue that any international treaty aiming to reduce greenhouse gas (hereafter, GHG) emissions must separate the mechanisms and goals of emissions reductions from efforts to serve justice to those states most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.  Failure to make this distinction, they argue, will doom any international agreement and leave nations bickering over degrees of responsibility while greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb.

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Read an excerpt below from Liberty Hyde Bailey’s classic book:

OUTLOOK TO NATURE.

Anyone who is signed up for a free email subscription to the ERB is eligible to receive a free PDF version of this ebook. 

CLICK HERE to request your free ebook copy of OUTLOOK TO NATURE.

(NOTE: You do not have to be a new subscriber, and if you are already subscribed, you can skip step #1 on the above page. )

A Review of

God Hides in Plain Sight: How to See the Sacred in a Chaotic WorldBy Dean Nelson. Paperback:  Brazos Press, 2009. Buy now: [ ChristianBook.com ]

Reviewed by Margaret D’Anieri.

In Julian of Norwich’s Showings, Christ shows Julian a hazelnut. Julian asks what it is, and the response she receives is that “It is all that is made.”  Julian then writes, “I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might fall into nothing because of its littleness”, and she goes on to notice three properties of the hazelnut: that God made it, that God loves it, and that God keeps it.

Julian is venerated as a mystic, perhaps the greatest English mystic, and those of us who do not consider ourselves mystics are often made to feel that we can never be really close to God, never truly experience the thin place that connects heaven and earth, profound and profane, quotidian and extraordinary. In God Hides in Plain Sight, Dean Nelson contributes his own “showings”, in which visions of God and experiences of the holy are available to all of us.

Jesus tells us we can see God at work in the little things, like a mustard plant – the equivalent of a weed. People generally expect to see evidence of God in the big stuff – the Gee Whiz events when in reality, according to Jesus, it’s at knee or ankle level, spreading like a weed. Or like yeast in bread. It’s in the everydayness, using everyday elements. Whether we see it is up to us. Instead of looking up, we should be looking around. Or down.

The book is structured along the lines of the seven traditional sacraments, with an eighth chapter on what he calls the new sacrament of service. In each chapter he interprets the sacraments as recurring themes of our lives, with the liturgical expression of the sacraments as only one manifestation. The chapter on communion talks about the sacredness of all tables, not just the altar; the chapter on confession talks about the sacredness inherent in all conversation, not just that which takes place between priest and parishioner. The book is filled with anecdotes – each chapter is mostly a string of stories from Nelson’s life as father and globe-trotting journalist, interspersed with quotes from observers of the life of faith including Anne Lamott, Eugene Peterson, Frederick Buechner, Henri Nouwen, and Richard Rohr. It’s well written for a general audience, and would work well for a study group.

Nelson’s theme is that as with the hazelnut, God made all of creation, God loves it, and God keeps it – and we need only pay attention. This book helps us to see the holy in our own lives more clearly.

We’re Giving Away Over $250 of
Free books This Summer!!!

Summer is right around the corner, the perfect time to catch up on reading some great books.  And we here at the ERB want to jump start your summer reading by giving you five books (of your choice)!

Invite your friends (or yourself) to a FREE email subscription to The Englewood Review, and you and any friends who activate their subscription will be entered to win five free books from the list at the bottom of this page [You may need to click the "Read the rest of this entry..." link] !

The books we are giving away are titles that we have reviewed over the last few years, or ones that slipped through the cracks and never got reviewed.

On June 15, we will pick 5 winners.  The first name drawn will get to choose 5 books, the 2nd person drawn will get to choose 5 from the remaining books and so on through the 5th place winner, who will get to pick 5 titles from the remaining 11.

[ CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE CONTEST... ]

REGISTER NOW!

Englewood Christian Church – Indianapolis
Friday June 11 and Saturday June 12

For many years now, the individualism of American culture has exerted great influence on the way we approach life, even in matters of faith. However, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, there are some churches that are regaining a sense of our calling to be communities of God’s people, who share life together in meaningful and redemptive ways. However, the forms that these churches take are often quite different. We have invited representatives from a wide variety of such churches to share stories from their life together and to lead us in a conversation about what it means to be communities of God’s people in the twenty-first century.

Read more about this conference and REGISTER here:
http://englewoodcc.com/LifeTogether/

***NOTE***: Our next issue will be released on
Monday June 7, and not Friday June 4.

We  have recently made a slight change to our format and the reviews, excerpts, poems, etc. of our Midweek update will be posted to “pages” on the ERB website, and announced via social media.  If you’re a “first-to-know” sort of person, you can get these updates when they first come out in one of two ways:

• Our Facebook Page.
• Our Twitter Feed.

Otherwise, in our regular issue each Friday, we will recap the content of our midweek update.  For instance, this week’s update included:

• [Multimedia Tuesday] Walter Brueggemann discusses JOURNEY TO THE COMMON GOOD.
• Review: I AM HUTTERITE by Mary-Ann Kirkby.
• Poem: “Fellow Citizens” – Carl Sandburg
• Excerpt: Philip Clayton’s TRANSFORMING CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.

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 on the theme
Theology (Grenz and Barth) (Click to learn more/purchase):

	The Named God & the Question of BeingBy Stanley J. Grenz / Westminster John Knox Press $4.99 – Save 88%!!! In this book, the widely regarded theologian examines the long-standing trajectory of thought that has equated the concept of Being with the God of the Bible–and thus claimed that the ontological category of Being is the guiding concept by which God should be understood. Grenz extends the engagement between Christian theology and the Western philosophical tradition and focuses the discussion on the importance of naming, particularly given that the Christian God is both named and triune. In doing so, he organizes the book into three parts, forming an overarching story of the interplay between the named character of God and the question of Being. First he analyzes the history of the philosophical concept of Being, then he shifts the focus to an exegesis of the “I AM” texts, and finally he moves to a renewed conversation between theology and ontological philosophy by means of the divine name.
	Renewing the Center, 2nd editionBy Stanley J. Grenz / Baker $4.99 – Save 83%!!! Renewing the Center has been an influential catalyst for many in the emerging church. With a new foreword by Brian McLaren and a new afterword from John Franke, the second edition updates the book for the contemporary church scene and shows how Stanley Grenz’s theological insights continue to shape postmodern church movements.
	Mystery Of GodBy William Stacy Johnson / Westminster John Knox Press $4.99 – Save 83%!!! Johnson challenges the static ‘neo-orthodox’ image of Karl Barth, bringing him into conversation with postmodern thought, especially that of Jacques Derrida. He picks up on the Barth’s idea of God as mystery and of Barth’s image of the empty space of the wheel at which the spokes of theology’s questions converge and finds in these a point of contact for dialogue with poststructural thought. Weighed against Barth’s Christocentrism (the center of the wheel) is Barth’s theocentrism (God as mystery); as Barth had said, God is veiled in His revelation and vice versa. Johnson takes a refreshing and promising approach which is a fine contribution to a larger discussion taking place between Barth’s theology and postmodern thought.
	Karl Barth & the Pietists: The Young Karl Barth’s Critique of Pietism & Its ResponseBy Eberhard Busch, translated by Daniel W. Bloesch / Inter-varsity Press $6.99 – Save 74%!!! A significant contribution to Barth scholarship—now translated into English. Busch’s exploration of Barth’s affinity for Pietism and his critique of the movement puts into perspective key themes in Barth’s theology, including the nature of scriptural authority, hell and universalism, the relationship between believers and unbelievers, and more. 336 pages, softcover from InterVarsity.

A Brief Review of

O Me of Little Faith: True Confessions of a Spiritual WeaklingBy Jason Boyett Paperback: Zondervan, 2010. Buy now: [ ChristianBook.com ]

Reviewed by Adam Ellis.

Confession:  I am a faithful doubter…or a doubting believer (if you prefer).  For me, faith and doubt are like eternal dance partners.  It seems to me that “faith” is more closely related to words like “trust”, “confidence”, “hope”, “commitment”, and has less to do with words like “certainty” or “convinced”.  I can’t turn off the questions.  I don’t generally find most books on apologetics all that helpful.  I resonate with the man who cried out to Jesus “Lord, I do believe.  Help my unbelief”.  On the other hand, not everyone is like me.  I’ve found that some people aren’t given to such incessant questioning, and that the things that are issues for me don’t seem to be issues for them.

      So here’s the problem:  Jason Boyett has written a beautiful, hopeful, gut-wrenchingly honest book for people like me.  I can’t even begin to tell you how refreshingly helpful it was, and how much life it breathed back into my faith.  But, at the same time, I realize (as Boyett seems to) that for people who aren’t like me, this book could be devastating.  He doesn’t shy away from hard questions, and he doesn’t answer them.  He doesn’t defend the status-quo.  He doesn’t whitewash problems.  He makes no attempt to win any debates.  He speaks with poignant honesty as one who is deeply committed to hope.  In the tradition of Kierkegaard, Boyett seems to have little use for “proofs” but rather seems to mean for his book to function as a sort of confessional invitation to a journey of hopeful commitment.  It also functions as a safe space for all of us faithful doubters…a ray of hope that says “you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone.” I can’t recommend this book to every Christian I know.  However, I know that  I will, without hesitation direct my fellow doubting believers to this beacon of hope.  It is a well of living water that I will return to again and again.

Summer
by John Clare
[ Found in The Works of John Clare ]

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.
The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover’s breast;
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.

Brief Reviews of

The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion.
Herman Wouk.
Audiobook:  Hachette Audio, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

and

In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street,
One Sleepover at a Time.
Peter Lovenheim.
Hardback: Perigee Books, 2010.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Novelist Herman Wouk is best known for The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, his epic two-volume account of individuals caught up in the terrors of World War II. Wouk, soon to turn ninety-six, has lived an extraordinary life: his father was a Jewish immigrant from Russia; Wouk got his start as a radio dramatist and gag writer for Fred Allen and other comedians; he served as an officer on two destroyer minesweepers in the Pacific during World War II, experience that he turned into his novel The Caine Mutiny, which won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into both a play and a film; and most of his subsequent career has been spent writing well-received novels.

      Less well-known about Wouk is that he has been an observing Orthodox Jew most of his life. In the flush of his early success he led a secular lifestyle, but, inspired by his grandmother, he turned back to his faith in his mid-20s. On board ship during the war he would lay his tefillin for saying his morning prayers. In his 1959 survey of Judaism, This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life, Wouk recounts how religion permeates his life, that observing times for prayer and study and kashrut are not onerous, but just one more, or mere, part of life. As Wouk remarks, many of his secular friends were amazed that he could grill a tasty rare steak.

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