New Books

I've made a couple of trips to the bookstore in the past couple of days. George Tenet's new book (At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA) was released today and I just had to get it. I read the first two chapters this evening. As usual, I find that those who rise to high office are intelligent and articulate. I'm really looking forward to getting into this one.

I also picked up the new J.R.R. Tolkien book, The Children of Hurin. A new Tolkien book, some forty plus years after his death. Amazing. I haven't started this one yet.

Finally, I picked up Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. I got started on this one yesterday and it is pretty good so far. Rather than reading a book that positions itself as a "how to" and rationale for thinking, I just decided to read a book about a great thinker.

Quick Update

Thinking for a Change by John Maxwell is off the reading list.

I finished Failing America's Faithful by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and it was very good. It is an excellent challenge to the catholic church.

I also started a new book, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It promises to be very good.

Starting to Pull the Threads Together

I've started on a couple of new books, Thinking for a Change by John Maxwell and Failing America's Faithful by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Also, much to my dismay, I found the Running with Scissors book. It was under the driver's side seat in my car. Crap. Now, I probably ought to go ahead and finish reading the stupid thing.

The Thinking book is okay. Most of the real meat of the book is pretty good. I just don't like the style and some of the illustrations and various statements are worse than uninspiring for me. The general ideas are okay.

Townsend's book is really good in my opinion. It speaks so clearly about the church's past and in her (and my ) opinion best strengths as agents for social justice. So far, the book is dominated by her own experiences as she grew up in the Catholic Church. I strongly recommend this book for anyone that believes that religion and values ought to be at the heart of who we are and what we do as a people and a nation, but also have the sense that despite all the rhetoric and effort, our current national approach to integrating faith into the public sphere is not quite right. Townsend also writes about a need for action through the collective body of the church and a sense of shared responsibility with and for those both inside and outside the church as opposed to a kind of capitalistic rugged individual approach that permeates much of American thinking today.

Borg's books seem to be saying that faith is more about doing than believing. Aktinson seems to be saying that how we live out our faith and spirituality are more important than getting all the believing just right. Townsend is a clarion call for the church and religious people as agents for social justice. It seems to me that there is an emerging mode or paradigm for those that see themselves as spiritually, ethically, and religiously driven or connected to live and lead in a way that informs a "liberal" or "progressive" mindset rather than a narrow doctrinaire, hierarchical, right wing conservative mindset that has become such a strong force in our country today.

Religion

When you look up the word grace in a dictionary there are a lot of definitions, but the one that has stuck with me over time is:

• freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

Most in the Baptist tradition would say that if you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, believing that he is the son of God, died as atonement for your sin, and some would add a genuine confession of your sins and repentance to that equation, then you will be "saved" - living in a state of grace and destined for heaven.

Well, I have a couple of thoughts:

1. If you have to make all these mental decisions or confessions, then it seems to me that salvation is not quite so much "grace" as it is a special state achievable by meeting a bunch of conditions;
2. Requires a lot of mental gymnastics. This equation requires a lot of "believing." Personally, I have all kinds of periods of doubt and questions.
3. I get confused by simple direct statements about God. Sometimes you will hear that God loves everyone and everything. Then you will hear that God's salvation or grace is God's unmerited love and that not everyone is receiving this unmerited love. Maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that we create a logical disconnect in our descriptions of God; and
4. Finally, it seems that we confuse just what is the Kingdom of God... Is it some afterlife in heaven or is it a time in the future after Jesus returns or is it right now? Personally, I can't do much about if/when Jesus returns and heaven is a pretty vague concept with vague description. It seems to me that concentrating on the concept of Kingdom of God as a part of the here and now is a better use of my mental and spiritual energies. I'll let the other stuff take care of itself.

I did finish reading the book by Atkinson, RealLivePreacher.com. It was very good. Good writing.

Facebook Photos

Facebook has a way to post a link to albums so I am adding a new section over on the right with links to photo albums. The first link is to an album with pictures from our recent visit to the zoo.

Still Processing.... Please Wait

I finished up Borg's The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith . I was also reading Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs.

Running with Scissors was terrible. I didn't finish it, but it was getting really bad. Now I can''t find it. I don't know how I lost it, but I have done so. If you find it, feel free to keep it. It might be good as kindling for a fire.

Borg's book on the other hand really has me thinking. The book was loaned to me by a friend and it was just what I needed. I am so intrigued by Borg's ideas that I've gone out and bought another book by Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. My friend that loaned me the first book asked me for my impressions. I'm not ready to put all of those impressions out in a medium like this, but some of the main points are:

1. I'm not going to check my brain at the door any longer when it comes to matters of religion, faith, etc. If science, reason, knowledge, etc. tell us one thing, I am not going to just ignore that information when reading the Bible, listening to a sermon, or working to understand the world of spirit/religion/faith.
2. Borg emphasizes understanding The Bible as metaphor, as a language of poetry, and as works written for audiences of thousands of years ago. I think that makes sense.
3. Borg is not 100% compelling in all of his statements.
4. Borg discusses faith and belief as two different things and this is an area in which I have struggled somewhat myself. You can read some of my now obsolete thoughts in this area in two of my earlier posts - Faith & Belief and Meanderings on Faith, Reason, and Loneliness. Borg's comments in this area are particularly helpful for me.

The same person that loaned me the first Borg book has now loaned me Reallivepreacher.com by Gordon Atkinson. The book is an edited compendium of articles that Atkinson wrote for his Blog web site of the same name - RealLivePreacher.com. Early in the book, Atkinson makes the claim that among his initial goals was an intention to write well. I must say that in my opinion he does just that. If I were to meet him today, I think that might be the only thing I would have to say to him. He does write well. And, for me, his view of Christianity, faith, religion, the world of the spirit seems to integrate well with much of what Borg is saying. I don't know that those two would be good friends or like each others work, but for me, reading the two at the same time works very well.

Beyond these thoughts there is a lot more spinning around in my head. However, those thoughts are not very well formed. So, for the moment I'm going to withhold further comment until I can more fully process.