There is Nothingness.

A Review of:

The Sickness: A Novel

Alberto Barrera Tyszka

Paperback: TinHouse, 2012.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]

Reviewed by Jessica A. Kent

“Why do we find it so hard to accept that life is pure chance?”  So states the overarching philosophy of Alberto Barrera Tyszka’s short novel The Sickness.  The Venezuelan poet and novelist slices a portion out of the lives of his characters to present to the reader, centering upon the doctor Andrés Miranda and his father’s terminal cancer diagnosis.  The diagnosis is known to Dr. Miranda from the novel’s opening, yet the communication of that diagnosis to an otherwise robust and healthy father becomes a weight upon him.  How do you tell a loved one they are dying?  Dr. Miranda, known for his philosophy of full physician-patient transparency, is now faced with the necessity of being honest.  And he hesitates with it.

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Just received this book in the mail today, and despite the apparent plot similarities to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I’m looking forward to it.

Facing the Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Enchanted Attic Series)

L.L. Samson

Paperback: Zonderkids, 2012.
Buy now: [ Amazon ] [  Kindle ]

Watch for our review in the near future…

A Catalyst to Reevaluate our Traditional Interpretations of Scripture

A Feature Review of

Reading the Bible After Christendom

Lloyd Pietersen

Paperback: Herald Press, 2012.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ]  [ Kindle ]

Reviewed by Andy Johnson.

A seismic shift has shaken the Western world in recent decades, pushing Christianity and the church out of the center of society and into the margins. The era often referred to as Christendom featured the religious arm of the church and the secular arm of the state cooperating to build a Christian civilization. The collapse of this long-standing arrangement raises profound implications for the life and ministry of the church.

After Christendom is a series of books that aims to explore these implications. Lloyd Pietersen carries this discussion into the realm of how we read the Bible. He proposes that “…the alliance between church and state from the second half of the fourth century onwards has resulted in ways of reading the Bible fundamentally alien to that of the earliest church.”

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A poem for Gary Snyder’s birthday

from his classic collection

Turtle Island: Poems.

Gary Snyder

Paperback: New Directions, 1974.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ]

An excerpt from the recent book

The Faith of Leap: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure and Courage.

Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost.

Paperback: Baker Books, 2011.
Buy now: [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]

*** The Kindle ebook of this book is only $3.79 through May 31, 2012!!!

When Technologies Take on a Life of Their Own.

A Featured Review of

Power over Peoples:  Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present

Daniel Hedrick.

Paperback: Princeton UP, 2011.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ]

Reviewed by Myles Werntz.

In an age of iPads, digital uploads, drone surveillance, and debates over the limits of the Internet, the question of whether or not “technology” is an unlimited good remains an open question. Proponents of the most recent iteration of the technology revolution will decry the naysayers as “Luddites”, while the inheritors of  Wendell Berry and Jacques Ellul will continue to remain suspicious of technology’s pervasive effects within society, and (more perniciously) over against society. As Wendell Berry has argued, technology may be an aid to communal life, or it can destroy it; the latter use of technological advances–the use of arrows in Genghis Kahn’s conquest of Asia, or the use of gunpowder to colonize Africa–remains the dark side of technological advances.

This last point–the relationship between technology and the subjugation of people is the subject of Daniel Headrick’s Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present, in which we are presented with an account of western imperialism, and its relationship to technology. Headrick notes that the common assumption is that imperialist cultures flourish because they are able to make use of superior technology. Such a narrative is too facile, Headrick argues, for it assumes that superior manipulation of natural elements (technology) always results in a successful conquest.

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Putting Meat in the Middle
of the Plate of our Public Discourse.

A Review of

Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer.

Paperback: Back Bay Books, 2010.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ]

Reviewed by Melody Harrison Hanson.

[Editor's Note: Although this book is older than most we review, I decided to run this review given the combination of the author's heralded appearance at the recent Festival of Faith and Writing and the vast interest of our readers in food issues. ]

“99% of the meat sold in the United States today comes from a factory farm.”

In the 1970s, my missionary parents uprooted us from the barefoot paradise of Papua New Guinea and planted us in Southern California.  My mother, suffering a bizarre set of health issues, began looking for answers in healthy eating practices.  While other kids ate Twinkies and Ding Dongs, Mother read Adelle Davis books on nutrition and force-fed us cod liver oil.

Perhaps because of this, my need to fit in urged me to become a steak-loving “normal “person. Food, for me, was always more than mere sustenance; it was a visceral, beautiful, even creative thing. But as far being a political statement or a critical health issue, well that was strictly for the weirdoes.

Reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals was the first time that I seriously considered that the Chicken Parmesan in front of me or the meat neatly stacked in my refrigerator was once a living thing.  And confronted by the horrors of modern animal farming, as recounted in shocking detail by Foer, I had to face certain facts: factory farms are disgusting and dangerous for our health.

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May

Hilaire Belloc [ Bio ]

This is the laughing-eyed amongst them all:
My lady’s month. A season of young things.
She rules the light with harmony, and brings
The year’s first green upon the beeches tall.
How often, where long creepers wind and fall
Through the deep woods in noonday wanderings,
I’ve heard the month, when she to echo sings,
I’ve heard the month make merry madrigal.

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A Promise Even Greater than that of Lady Liberty

A Featured Review of

Our God is Undocumented: Biblical Faith and Immigrant Justice.

Ched Myers and Matthew Colwell.

Paperback: Orbis Books, 2012.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]

Reviewed by Jonathan Felton.

A Church without Borders

One could be forgiven for expecting this book to be a rehash of liberal arguments about immigration policy, anchored by a smattering of bible verses. It isn’t. Ched Myers and Matthew Colwell have something else in mind, and their short book contributes some big ideas to discussions of “biblical faith and immigrant justice “

The authors acknowledge that the reflections in their book are “unapologetically theological and ecclesial.”  This is a book about God and the church. They are more concerned with conveying “a faith-rooted ethic regarding the sojourner in our midst than with the current debates over U.S. immigration and naturalization policies.” Acceptance of their thesis does have implications for our attitude toward those policies. The authors hope we will approach them with a revised sense of loyalty, and therefore with a renewed set of priorities.

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A Brief Review of

Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation Through the Centuries.

edited by Kim Nataraja,

including contributions by Lawrence Freeman OSB, Esther de Waal, Kallistos Ware, Shirley du Boulay, Andrew Louth, and others
Paperback: Orbis Books, 2011.
Buy now:  [ Amazon ]

Reviewed by Greg Richardson.

Journey to the Heart is a solid, substantial book that presents a comprehensive and varied story. The chapters grow out of talks given over four years for a course that traced both the diversity and common thread of contemplative Christianity. It provides a context and perspective for understanding the story of Christian contemplation.

This new book describes the community of Christian contemplatives that stretched from Jesus, John, and Paul through our times. Each chapter fits its subject into the context of this tradition and explains how it contributes to the growth and development of the tradition.

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