Reviews
Book and Film Reviews
Christianity, Democracy, and the European Constitution
Tue 21 Oct 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Paul Vanderbroeck
Le Christ philosophe, by Frédéric Lenoir. Paris: Plon, 2007, 306pp., € 19.
The publication of a book on the link between our modern values and Christianity is most welcome during a time and age, when in Europe we seem to have lost the ideological basis of our society. The French philosopher, scholar of the History of Religions, and Director of the prestigious Le Monde des Religions Frédéric Lenoir joins nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in putting forward the thesis that the churches have obscured the real message of the Gospels in their communication with their congregations. Lenoir believes that the modern appearance of separation of church and state, human rights, freedom of conscience—everything that has been done during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries against the will of the clerics—happened only by implicitly or explicitly resorting to the original message of the Gospels.1
Strategic Cultural Thinking
Fri 10 Oct 2008 • Responses: 1 • by John Seel
On Culture Making, Artifacts, Discernment—and Elites
John Seel takes a critical look at Andy Crouch’s important new book, Culture Making, affirming his call for getting busy making more culture, but suggesting that his view of culture is too narrow—and oddly materialist.
Facing Up to Differences
Mon 14 Jul 2008 by Fred Harburg
The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It, by Os Guinness (HarperOne, 2008), cloth, 224 pages, $23.95.
Os Guinness opens his richly packed book, The Case for Civility, with the bleak assessment that “It would be a safe but sad bet that someone, somewhere in the world, is killing someone else at this very moment in the name of religion or ideology.”
In 1949, as the 7-year-old son of an Irish missionary in Nanking, China, Os received his first, and life-changing, lesson on the politics of “civility”—or the lack thereof—when his family was caught up in the Maoist Revolution. (Although Os was spirited out of the country by fellow missionaries, his parents were not allowed to flee until three years later.) In this experience he learned what it means to be “different” in a very personal way. Building on this experience, he writes, “How we live with our deepest differences is a question that lives at the heart of American freedom, and soon it may be a matter of survival for the planet” (19).
Failure is Not a Sin
Thu 10 Jul 2008 by T. M. Moore
Flesh-and-Blood Jesus: Learning to be Fully Human from the Son of Man, by Dan Russ (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 192 pages, $14.99.
Reading Dan Russ’s excellent and provocative new book about Jesus I was reminded of an incident in which I was involved during my preparation for ministry.
I went to seminary a complete theological novice. I’d been a Christian for only a few years and had never read any theology nor had any introduction to the theological traditions of the Christian heritage. On the advice of trusted pastors, I enrolled in a seminary in the reformed tradition, where it immediately became apparent to me that how one articulates what one believes is just as important as what one actually believes.
The Benefits of Conflict
Fri 06 Jun 2008 by Jo Kadlecek
Learning to Listen, Ready to Talk: A Pilgrimage Toward Peacemaking
by Harold Heie
(iUniverse, 2007), $19.95
A Cultural Manifesto and Showcase
Thu 15 May 2008 by William Edgar
T. M. Moore, Culture Matters: A Call for Consensus on Christian Cultural Engagement, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007. 172 pp.
Christians have not been silent on the issue of faith and culture. Among the major initiatives of recent times we can mention at least four, though there are many more.1
The first is the Neo-Thomist movement of the twentieth century. Etienne Gilson (1884–1978) and especially Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) brought a fresh approach to culture into a struggling and fatigued Europe. Though raised in Protestant circles, Maritain converted to Roman Catholicism in 1906 under the influence of Charles Péguy, Henri Bergson, and especially Léon Bloy. A defender of metaphysics and natural law ethics, he was out of step with the prevailing critical schools and language philosophies. Maritain advocated an “integral humanism,” which was based on a high view of human nature, which in turn is derived by analogy from God the Creator. He was a principal architect of Christian Democracy, believing that a new Christendom could be achieved on condition it fully recognized diversity. He also thought deeply about the arts. Many belong to this family, including David Burrell, Bernard Lonergan, Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus, and even some Protestants.
A Life Worth Emulating
Fri 07 Mar 2008 by Luder G. Whitlock, Jr.
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Aitken (Crossway, 2007), 400pp., $22.
Jonathan Aitken, a skilled biographer and author of the award-winning Nixon: A Life and, more recently, Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed, has produced a valuable biography of John Newton illumined by important, unpublished letters and diary entries. He embellishes a compelling narrative by inserting thoughtful assessments of Newton’s life and ministry at appropriate points.
A flurry of books, articles, and films about William Wilberforce have been published recently in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Appropriately so, for in addition to his pivotal role in Parliament leading to decisive action against the slave trade, Wilberforce was an extraordinary figure of great influence in England.
A Respectful Approach to Leadership Development
Thu 21 Feb 2008 by Fred Harburg
Designed for Life by Arthur F. Miller. Life (n) Media, LLC, 2007, 328pp., $25.
With the precision of a surgeon and the tenacity of a trial lawyer, befitting his origins, Arthur Miller builds the case for a unifying theory of persons in his provocative book, Designed for Life. This book provides a wake-up call to all who are involved in any human resource job and, more importantly, to leaders who make daily decisions regarding the hiring, placement, and career moves of people. Miller’s reverence for the dignity of each human life and for the Creator of the miraculous panoply of gifts and talents resident in humankind provides a stirring call to arms for leveraging diversity in the most profound sense of the word.
The prevailing wisdom with respect to selection in most organizations is the fundamentally flawed idea that people can be molded and “developed” by an organization to be whatever the organization needs them to be. This position represents extreme organizational hubris, defies practical observation of the nature of human beings, and is enormously disrespectful of the uniquely valuable people who make up an organization’s workforce.
What Do Evangelicals Do with Power?
Fri 01 Feb 2008 • Responses: 3 • by David W. Miller
Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, by D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press (2007).
Some books have the good fortune of being well timed and well written. Faith in the Halls of Power is one of those books. For those familiar with or maybe even a part of the American evangelical world, little in this book will surprise you, though its depth and breadth will impress you. For those who are not familiar with or a part of the American evangelical world, you might find the contents both jarring and comforting.
It is jarring, because Lindsay documents well the deep and successful engagement by evangelicals in the elite leadership ranks of virtually all strategically important spheres of modern society, including politics, the academy, the corporate world, and the arts. It is comforting, because most of the evangelicals Lindsay describes belie the negative stereotypical image of evangelicals held by many progressives, liberals, mainliners, and secularists. Lindsay’s evangelicals are not the narrow-minded, judgmental, backward, bellicose voices sometimes caricatured by today’s cultural elites. Rather, they are smart, savvy, and worldly, participating in and quietly trying to change the system from within, not withdrawing from the world or merely casting stones from the sidelines.
The World of Total Work
Thu 06 Sep 2007 by Dan Russ
Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper, Translated by Gerard Malsbary with an introduction by Roger Scruton (St. Augustine’s Press [1948] 1998), $12.
Work is consuming our lives and—Josef Pieper would say—our humanity. I have recently observed cases of two disturbing instances of what Pieper calls the “world of total work.” The first is among friends and colleagues who are wired for vacations. By this I mean that they either choose or are expected to take their cell phones and laptops with them on vacations. They do so either because they are concerned about what their superiors or colleagues would think if they ignored the demands of the office, or because they fear missing something or someone that might be crucial to their professional lives. Indeed, a friend recently observed that as she and her husband take their annual pilgrimage to the shore, each year the beaches and coffee shops are increasingly filled with people on cell phones and laptops, doing business.
