Monday, July 30, 2012

The Power of Parable by John Dominic Crossan

With the tagline, "How fiction by Jesus became fiction about Jesus" you know this is going to be another wild ride from Crossan.




Crossan is a big name in the Historical Jesus circle. His scholarly work explores what was actually going on in the First Century Israel and what was embellished in our Bible.

This book does not shy away from Crossan's belief that many of the stories found in the four Gospels are not  factual. Crossan uses this book to explain that the Gospels are in fact parables about Jesus' ministry.

The first part of this book lays out the argument concerning the parables Jesus told. Crossan gives us examples of Riddle Parables (so that the listener may not understand), Example Parables (go and do likewise), and Challenge Parables. Crossan points to most, if not all of Jesus' parables circled the challenge definition.

The exciting part of this book comes at the latter half. This is where Crossan dives into the, seeminly controversial, claim that the gospels were written as parable and not historical biography.

Crossan states that Mark wrote a Challenge Parable using Jesus' life to confront sects within Judaism.

Matthew was written as an attack parable with Jesus preaching against hatred and violent rhetoric but then going back on his own word and attacking the religious elite. Crossan explores examples of Matthew repeating a story found in Mark's gospel yet adding harsher language coming from Jesus.

The gospel of Luke-Acts is reported to be an attack on Judaism while also a challenge to Rome. A challenge to allow Christianity to have the same religious loopholes that Judaism held under Roman law.

John's gospel is also a hybrid of attack and challenge within Christianity itself.

In the end, you get the idea that Crossan believes the gospel writers had a hand in furthering anti-Semite sentiment with them having all this anger against the Jews and using Jesus as the example.

Like many of Crossan's books that I read, I really enjoy the detailed work and ease with which I can understand his points. I find myself nodding my head in agreement with his ideas and then, all of a sudden, he takes a sharp left turn. I'm stuck with a moment's whiplash and wonder where he can skew so far away.

No matter what you believe about Scripture, you will be impressed with Crossan's conclusions.




This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Harper One Publishing.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Candidate by Samuel Popkin

Another political winner that is objective and not partisan.




I can't get enough of these books that explain politics without pandering, name-calling or are extremely biased.

Samuel Popkin takes us through the definitions of U.S. President candidates and how the winners win while the supposed winner loses. You won't get the party-line or the typical, "here's how that scumbag tricked us" lines you expect in political books.

The first part is abstract in just the terms while sporadically bringing in real-life examples of past candidates. He explains the different types of campaigns a candidate can run. There are only so many to choose: Challenger, Incumbant. Experience/Stability, Outsider/Reformer It's the latter part of the book that is truly excellent.

Popkin explores President George H.W. Bush's messed up re-election candidacy, Hillary Clinton's micromanaged "inevitable" campaign, and Al Gore's complete meltdown.

You'll read how George W. Bush was able to beat the successor during a time of peace and wealth; how Rudy Giuliani was the winner in all the polls until he actually started running and how a number of other candidates just could not connect, or hold on to their mojo. You'll even get to see how President Obama used the new media and bottom-up mentality to throw off Hillary Clinton's dreamteam.

In the end, Popkin points to Ronald Reagan in order to teach future candidates how to handle miscues, mistakes and misfires.

A fantastic read during this Presidential cycle.



God on the Streets of Gotham by Paul Asay

Remember when everyone was writing about how you could find God in The Matrix movies? Remember all of those "The Philosophy/Spirituality/Meaning of The Matrix" books? It seemed that everyone was trying to mooch off of the movie's success.




Paul Asay has tried to do that with the new Batman movie.

He's taken the celebrity of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and attempted to teach us a little something about God, Jesus and the Bible.

This isn't a bad book by any definition. Asay takes aspects of the Batman character and storylines throughout his comicbook, television, and movie life and explains how you can find some biblical parallels.

Most Batman fans will find themselves skipping past all the Bible exposition and looking for key Batman words like, "Joker, Alfred, Robin, Nolan, Catwoman, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Christian Bale". Nevermind about the Bible stories; the real reason to read this book would be some insight to the Batman.

The parallels are accurate and it would provide some added treat to the beginning Batman fan but I just could not enjoy this book as it was intended. All I saw was the money to be made off the Batman/Gotham tie-in.




This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Tyndale House Publishing.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The End by Mark Hitchcock

It's been a while since we've had some LaHaye biblical prophecy spin.




Enter Mark Hitchcock and his book, The End.

For anyone alive during the pinnacle of the Left Behind series this book will be nothing new. Hitchcock uses plenty of space (this is a large book) to explain the Left Behind theology. He uses fourteen parts to explain all the major points of interest when it comes to The Rapture, the Tribulation, Anti-Christ, the Wedding of the Lamb, The Millennium reign of Christ, the Mark of the Best and all the other "goodies" found inside the Prophecy Gurus.

Hitchcock does play out the other views of the end of the world but only on a surface level. He explains other views points using a sentence or two and then unleashes why they are incorrect and his view is the "God-breathed" interpretation.

There really isn't anything new to this theory so it's a wonder why Hitchcock decided to write this book. We have so many other books by LaHaye, Walvoord and Pentecost that all say the same thing. Why write another one?

I did read some interesting tidbits concerning the Anti-Christ in that Hitchcock believes the devil shapes a possible candidate to be the Anti-Christ for each generation because he doesn't know when God will set the End Times schedule in motion.

After reading that I thought it would make an interesting movie about a secret society of people who all believe they were destined to be Anti-Christ.

Fans of Left Behind and Tim LaHaye will gobble up this book as they do every other book on mapping out the book of Revelation, Ezekiel, Daniel and others they believe will show them when the world will end.

Otherwise, there's nothing new to read here.




This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Tyndale Publishing.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Forgive my ignorance but isn't this just a re-telling of Hunger Games?




Book 2 of The Hunger Games Trilogy finds Katniss at the raw end of the President's stick. The Capital wants to end whatever goodwill Katniss and her partner, Peeta have created in the districts.

In order to stop a possible uprising, The Capital decides to return all winners of the hunger games back for a rematch. Katniss and Peeta are back at it only this time they are fighting the heroes.

While reading this and particularly the ending I kept thinking this book was primarily written as a place holder until the third book when it all hits the fan.

The arena in which the games are played is different but the characters return to rehash the same places and scenarios as the previous book.

So maybe you die hard fans can right my sails. What was I missing in this rehash of a sequel?





Quiet by Susan Cain

I love this book. Cain has written a substantial tome on how we introverts have power in this world of gabbers.




Broken down into four parts:

The Extrovert Ideal explores the rise of the Cult of Personality and how that has seeped into the Evangelical sphere. You have to be loud and extremely outgoing in order to have a successful church or personality.

Your Biology, Your Self? takes a look at nature/nurture and what role free will plays in all of this.

Do All Cultures Have an Extrovert Ideal? Looks at other cultures - primarily the Asians and how they value listening instead of speaking.

How to Love, How to Work discusses how to engage in this extroverted world; when introverts should try to be extroverted and how to hold conversations with "those people" who love the sound of their own voice.

I enjoyed the very beginning of this book best as Cain described her time at a Tony Robbins self-help event and all the hoopla that goes along with this beast-of-a-man's personality. Then she segues to Rick Warren's church and provides insight into how the Evangelical world is banking on extroverts and how that actually harms the more introverted of people.

In this age where personality seems to be more important than character, this is a terrific book that provides some insight and solutions for the quieter of the masses.




This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Crown Publishing.

The Brave by Hayley and Michael DiMarco

A book written for teens on how to conquer fears that hold you back. Are there fears that don't hold you back?




The DiMarco's are very up front with the struggles they both have gone through. This is refreshing in a society of fake perfection people.

Inside you will read five chapters that describe characteristics of someone who's brave. These chapters touch on:

Having faith
Fearing the right thing
Knowing the truth
Knowing pain
Conquering your fear

They dish out the prerequisite amount of biblical examples and verses but, in the end, I felt like most of the arguments stemmed from the idea of, "just tough it out kiddo and you'll see that everything is a-ok"

While this is accurate for many fears (such as fear of flying or public speaking) there are some fears that no amount of "toughing out" will conquer. This mentality from the DiMarco's was disappointing.

I don't want to get into an argument about this post-modern, "victim" mentality but there are some honest-to-goodness fears where it would only make things worse to tell the person to knuckle down and grin and bear it.




This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Baker Publishing Group

Friday, July 6, 2012

Mortal by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

When I watched Star Wars Episode 3, I had to remind myself to watch it as an old-time serial; as Lucas intended. When I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I had to remind myself that it was made in the style of those retro alien drive-in flicks. This made watching the movies a little more bearable.



So when I began reading Mortal and I saw the many similarities to Dekker's previous fantasy series, The Circle, I had to remind myself to read this latest story as if it were my first Dekker book.

Having said that, this new trilogy is not completely like The Circle Series. While there are many similarities between Mortal and Red (begins in the desert on horseback, there's the allegory toward Christianity and the Church) there are many themes in this new set that are worth the exploration. And those themes are well worth the read. If you can get through it, you'll be thinking about the ideas well after the story ends with, "to be continued..."

This is the sequel to Forbidden. Rom has found a boy named Jonathan whose blood will awaken humanity. If you haven't read Forbidden, our genes have been altered by a virus so we don't have emotions except fear.

Jonathan's blood returns the emotions. Rom and his gang have begun calling themselves Mortals and the plan is to get Jonathan to awaken humanity.

There is a lot of hack-n-slash fighting in this sequel/stand-alone novel. There isn't much character development as most of the characters stay the same throughout the entire story. The exception to this would be Feyn and her brother Saric. Considered the villains, (or are they?) their arcs are full of twists and betrayals and self-interest you'd think you're watching the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie.



This book was provided for review, at no cost by FaithWords Publishing.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Globequake by Wallace Henley

You know how annoying it is when a word is repeated over and over? That is how you'll feel toward the word, globequake. Author Wallace Henley uses it so often you'd think he gets a quarter every time it's typed.

Even though this book is promoted as a book to calm fears, when you have the title Globequake (see even I'm falling into the trap), what else are you supposed to think of?

Henley spells out six spheres of influence in which Christians are to live their faith while the planet is failing. In part one, he defines the globequake and how it relates with time and all other sorts of well-reasoned arguments.

This book does tend to get a little highbrow for lay readers.

Part two contains the spheres:
Person which lays out how to be stable in this unstable environment.
Church which defines a rock-solid church and how it can be of influence in this world.
Family and how to create indestructible families.
Education which calls for sanity in a world where everything is blown out of proportion.
Government and how things could possibly be returned to normal in that arena.
Business-Marketplace which explains how you can create a business that is impervious to the globequake (gah! Can't help myself now)

Henley has played a role in most of these spheres throughout his life so he instills some of his real-life experience along with statistics to prove his point.

It's not too bad of a book. He does proclaim throughout that the point is trusting in Jesus Christ. If you have the time to wade through some of the deeper ideas found inside, you might enjoy reading this book.



This book was provided to review, at no cost by Thomas Nelson Publishing.