jakebelder.com -
Filed under

books

 

New Old Books

The pastor of our church is retiring in April, and after going through his collection and taking home the books he wanted to keep, he graciously allowed three of us who are seminary students to pillage the rest of his library. We went to the office a few nights ago and began to mark out our territory. About half of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' series on Romans was there as well as Philip Schaff's 8-volume History of the Christian Church, which were the two sets I wanted most from all the books on the shelf. The other two guys did not mind, so I happily put them in my box. While I know Schaff's work is available online, I wanted it on my shelf, especially since my area of interest is church history and historical theology and Schaff's history is still an important one in the field. I was able to grab a few more worthwhile items as well, which you see in the photo to the left.

Collecting new books never gets old, but it does fill up our bookshelves very quickly—once I get these put into their proper places, we will almost be out of shelf space again.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   books   Church history   Martyn Lloyd-Jones  

Comments [1]

New Book: Raised With Christ

While I was working yesterday a tweet popped up from Adrian Warnock saying that he was starting a live chat session on his blog about his new book, Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything. I tuned in for a little while (though I was limited to text interaction since I had neither webcam or microphone with me), and enjoyed the discussion there. I was quite intrigued when I first heard about the book a short while ago. Here is Amazon's product description:

What impact should Jesus' resurrection have on individuals and churches? Popular Christian blogger and teacher Adrian Warnock urges Christians not to neglect the implications of the resurrection.

Jesus truly is alive today. But compared to his atoning death, Jesus' resurrection sparks relatively little discussion in the church. Inadvertently,we can become so focused on the good news that Christ died for our sins, that we almost forget he was "raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25).

In Raised with Christ, author Adrian Warnock exhorts Christians not to neglect the resurrection in their teaching and experience. Warnock takes his cue from Acts, where every recorded sermon focuses on Jesus' resurrection. He stresses that Christians who faithfully proclaim both the death and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and live out the implications of that message in vibrant, grace-filled churches, will be enabled to reach a world that lives in death's dark shadow.

The power of the risen Christ is active in every true Christian, transforming our lives. Raised with Christ will help you discover afresh the massive implications of the empty tomb. Jesus' resurrection really has changed everything.

When I was in college, one of my professors, Jim Payton, was always very intentional about stressing the resurrection for similar reasons. Part of his interest in Eastern Orthodoxy (about which he has written a great introductory book) was owing to the fact that they place far more stress on the resurrection than Protestants do.

I think Warnock's concern is a legitimate one, and I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the book. There are a myriad of theological implications in the resurrection, and it is good to recognize that the work of Christ, and the gospel itself, is incomplete without it. Find out more about the book by visiting raisedwithchrist.net.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   books   theology  

Comments [0]

Again, On Education

As I was browsing some recent books the other day, I noticed one called Education for Human Flourishing, a recent book by Paul D. Spears and Steven R. Loomis. It attempts to lay out a thoroughly Christian philosophy of education in response to the pervasive pragmatism of modern education. In the preface, they discuss the urgent need for us to rethink how we do education. We are thrown into the educational system at a very early age, the authors write, and because of the structure of that system,

we quickly become enmeshed in the life of academic expectation. We develop the ability to navigate academic standards without putting forth too much effort ('Is this going to be on the test?') and learn the value of pleasing our teacher and parents with good grades. What is not clear to most of us is why we are going to school in the first place. We realize that every day our parents take us to this institution which regiments our day and promises us that our diligent work will be rewarded with a prosperous vocation years down the road. Mostly, we enjoy recess, try to avoid bullies, look forward to vacation times and do our best to comport ourselves with the expectations of the social institution in which we are immersed. A few of us find that we can excel at this form of instruction and find our identity in success.

As we progress through the educational system, you would think it would become increasingly clearer to us what exactly education is for, but this is not often the case. Instead, we become increasingly adept at navigating the system without learning the fundamental knowledge and skills that enable us to flourish. This becomes apparent when as adults we find we are not well equipped to wrestle with some of the more difficult questions of parenting, life, death and our own fragile existence. A driving belief of this book is that the formal activity of education can better equip us to deal with such questions when grounded in a theological and philosophical foundation that is integrated with the Christian faith. Only then can we better understand (for ourselves and to teach others) who we are within God's created universe (29-30).

This fits nicely with the bit I quoted from Jamie Smith last week. And here, the same basic thought comes to the fore—the crucial need to understand that education must be about the formation of the whole person, not just about one's ability to download and compartmentalize information or data.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   books   Christianity   education   faith   worldview  

Comments [0]

Some More Reading Tips

You might recall a post a few months ago with some tips and advice on reading from Gideon Strauss. I'm revisiting the reading tips again today, and these present tips concern those sorts of books which you may choose to mark up, those which you may have to read for school or just think are worth the time and effort to really delve into. Today's advice comes from the late Mortimer J. Adler (via Steve Bishop).

There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here’s the way I do it:
  • Underlining (or highlighting): of major points, of important or forceful statements.
  • Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.
  • Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book. (You may want to fold the bottom comer of each page on which you use such marks. It won’t hurt the sturdy paper on which most modern books are printed, and you will be able take the book off the shelf at any time and, by opening it at the folded-corner page, refresh your recollection of the book.)
  • Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.
  • Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong together.
  • Circling or highlighting of key words or phrases.
  • Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through the books. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author’s points in the order of their appearance.
The front end-papers are to me the most important. Some people reserve them for a fancy bookplate. I reserve them for fancy thinking. After I have finished reading the book and making my personal index on the back end-papers, I turn to the front and try to outline the book, not page by page or point by point (I’ve already done that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity and an order of parts. This outline is, to me, the measure of my understanding of the work.

Given that I'm a seminary student and have to work my way through a lot of different books, I found these tips especially helpful. It is always good to have your own system for marking up a book, something that works for you. I employ a lot of the same techniques Adler does, my weapons of choice being a 0.7mm mechanical pencil and a small ruler for underlining. I know some people are averse to marking up books, but I'm not. When I open the book and right away see certain things underlined or the various notes in the margins, I begin to quickly recollect the information I thought important on the pages.

Also, earlier today James K. A. Smith was asked some questions about reading which he posted on his blog. Be sure to check those out as well because he offers some good advice derived from his own reading habits.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   books   education  

Comments [0]

Christian Scholars as Public Intellectuals

James K. A. Smith's new book, The Devil Reads Derrida, grabs you immediately—not only is it shod in a can't-turn-your-eyes-away red, but it bears a provocative title that compels you to drop whatever you're doing, pick it up, and scan the table of contents.

That is just how I reacted when I walked into the RTS Bookstore some time ago and saw it on the shelf of new featured items. At this point, I've only read the introduction and the first chapter, but it looks as if there will be lots of great material in this little volume; certainly some good material on which to blog.

Smith makes his overarching theme known within the first few pages of the introduction. Christian scholarship, he contends, is something done in public—that is, it is ultimately done in service to the Church, for the purposes of discipleship. When academics withdraw into the scholarly world, and the roads they travel never intersect with the laity, the latter will begin to look for wisdom and guidance wherever they can find it.

His intention, following the lead of Richard Mouw, is to work out of a hermeneutic of charity. He admittedly finds himself frustrated from time to time with "his people," the evangelical world, yet realizes that this is precisely the reason he can't withdraw from those circles even when he wants to. In his own words:

No matter how much I might disagree and be frustrated by their positions and interpretations, I know that above all my brothers and sisters want to be faithful disciples of Jesus. Even if I think they've bought into all sorts of questionable assumptions and causes; even if I think they've been co-opted by cynical political machines; even though I might think they've assimilated the worst sorts of cultural prejudices; even if I think God wants to invite them to 'higher' cultural passions—there is a sense in which I think they're just trying to make their way in the world the best they can. And if they've bought the paradigms sold to them by the voices on Christian radio that I think are problematic, then the burden is on me to show them otherwise. My responsibility is not to condescendingly look down upon them from my cushy ivory tower, but to take time to get out of the tower and speak to them—and, please note, learn from them. Christian scholars would do well to be slow to speak and quick to listen.

This hermeneutic of charity is not just romantic or utopian; in my experience, the wisdom of this stance has been confirmed. When I take the time to teach an adult Sunday School class, I find Christians who are hungry for wisdom. And though ultimately I might be trying to induce a paradigm shift in their thinking, hoping to basically de-program the way Christian radio has got them thinking about gender or justice, I find that so long as I begin from the assumption that we want to bring all of our thinking and doing under the Lordship of Christ and the light of the biblical narrative, my brothers and sisters are quite happy to hear a different take on their settled convictions—as long as it is offered in charity and humility, not with scolding and condescension (xv-xvi).

Reading this last night was refreshing; it was as if Smith was taking my own thoughts and neatly putting them in paragraph form. Next to glorifying God, the deepest desire I have is to take my abilities as an academic (well, that's rather audacious—perhaps an aspiring academic, or maybe a pseudo-academic) and use them in service to His people in order that they might come to know and serve Him better, and to love Him more. That is one of the reasons I love teaching the adult Sunday School at our local church, and why I see myself being involved in the educational ministry of the church for years to come.

Smith rightly points out that in the family of faith, there is no "us" and "them." It's only "us," bound together by the name of Jesus Christ. If those whom God has gifted with intellectual and academic abilities make primary use of their gifts outside of the Church, we can only expect churches full of people who lack wisdom and discernment.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   books   Church   discipleship   education   James K. A. Smith   theology  

Comments [0]