Four (best reads of 2011) for Monday

I know this is suppose to be a Friday thing. I wanted to get it done on Friday, but it just wasn’t meant to be. A number of the books I read in 2011 were honestly pretty forgettable. However, there were a few that stirred the heart or mind (sometimes both) enough for me to recommend them to others. They are all of the “religious” variety. I’m not apologizing for that, but I just want to be clear about what you can expect.

Transforming Conversion: Rethinking the Language and Contours of Christian Initiation
by Gordon T. Smith
(sample chapter)

If there is one book that I’ll be re-reading in 2012, it will be this one. Smith’s work on conversion is thought-provoking to say the least. If you are one cares about what the journey of faith (particularly what we call “conversion”) looks like, then I can’t more highly recommend this book. Like a good physician, Smith adeptly diagnoses what ails modern day evangelicalism. His ideas on how we might restore health don’t feel quite as thought through, but his insights are difficult to dismiss lightly. If nothing else, read the sample chapter and see if he doesn’t pique your interest. Plus I would really love to have someone to talk to about what he has to say.

Without doubt, the greatest problem with the assumption that conversion is punctiliar is that it rarely ever is. Many people do not have a language with which to speak meaningfully about their own spiritual experience for the simple reason that they have not experienced conversion as a punctiliar event in their lives. Whether they are second-generation Christians (more on this below) or whether their journey to faith and of faith does not fit the mold, they do not know how to tell their story, how to give expression to their encounter with God’s grace.

Movements of Grace: The Dynamic Christo-Realism of Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Torrances
by Jeff McSwain
(sample chapter)

Movements of Grace came my way from my father-in-law who got it from my brother-in-law who is friends with the author. So that pretty much makes me and the author best friends. As is often the case, titles can be misleading which is why we need subtitles. In fact, subtitles all the way through the book could be helpful given its dense theology – which can at times sound like a foreign language. In some ways, this book is similar to the previous one in that they are both concerned with how God’s work happens in person’s life. Both suggest that modern-day American evangelicalism places too much emphasis on human volition as the precursor for God’s saving activity. When I finished, I had a greater appreciation for and understanding of trinitarian theology. It also caused me to go back and re-read Barth, and that’s probably a good thing. From what I understand McSwain was embroiled in some controversy with Young Life a few years ago, and reading this book certainly helps one understand why that might have developed.

For my years of Christian ministry before January 2000, I habitually proclaimed the gospel in a way that undervalued the union of Jesus Christ with both God and humanity. On the one hand, while I pad lip service to the fact of Christ being God, my articulated theory of the atonement defied it. I portrayed a God who sent Christ to assume the world’s sin so that God could stay pure in himself.

Love Wins
by Rob Bell
(sample chapter)

Speaking of controversial books, you might find the inclusion of Bell’s Love Wins on the list surprising. Honestly, there were several other books that I found more interesting than this one, but there is no denying that it created quite a splash – even before it was released. There is also no denying that the conversation concerning universalism is still alive and well. Let’s be clear, Rob Bell didn’t invent universalism (he isn’t even a true universalist). He simply moved the discussion from people’s living rooms into the church, and I think the discussion has by and large been a healthy one. Bell is particularly gifted at asking questions, and in a way he is only asking the same question (albeit in a different way) that the previous two books are asking – Who does “salvation” depend on? Me? Or Christ?

Really?

Ghandi’s in Hell?

He is?

We have confirmation of this?

Somebody knows this?

Without a doubt?

And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir… of Sorts
by Ian Morgan Cron
(sample chapter)

What is there for me to say about this book that I haven’t already said? I would simply like to add that this book in some ways falls in line with the other three. I quoted at length from his recollection of his first communion, and it is noteworthy that the ‘saving’ work was something that came from without, not within. I would love to quote more from this wonderful memoir, but I’m pretty sure that the author/publisher would hunt me down and demand some royalties. Of all the books on the list, this is easily the one that my vast readership would most appreciate.

So as you can see, a recurring theme in my reading this year has been on the way in which God works in people’s lives. In American church culture, we unsurprisingly place a great deal of emphasis on the choice of the individual for the efficaciousness of grace. Sure grace is a good gift of God, but it is something I can either choose to accept or reject. I’m coming to terms with (but far from having resolved) the notion that grace only becomes operative when I make a choice for it to be. Like I said, a very American sentiment. I’m just not sure how biblical it is. If grace only becomes saving grace through some choice of my own was it ever really grace to begin with?

Ok, enough heresy for one day. I really do love hearing what other people enjoy reading. Last time I did a book post, several people chimed in on things they appreciated. I’m especially indebted to the women who helped to broaden my appreciation for female authors. As you can see here, that is something of a deficiency in my reading diet, and I really would love to hear what sort of things you guys have found helpful recently.

Stay tuned for an honorable mention list sometime soon.

a rope around my waist

Last Sunday, I had the privilege of leading the church in Communion. We don’t observe this ritual very often on Sunday mornings. Generally, it is something we do at our New Community service which happens once a month on a Wednesday evening.  However, this past Sunday was special in that we were finishing our summer-long teaching through the Gospel of Luke. In the final chapter, the eyes of the disciples are opened as Jesus re-enacts the Eucharistic meal, and so it seemed appropriate to end our with Luke in the same way he ends his account of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the nature of the Lord’s Supper lately, and I am beginning to think that there is something of a deficiency in the way we “low-church” evangelicals view the sacred meal. Somewhere along the line (shortly after the Reformation), what Christians  believed about the elements started to change. There was a shift away from seeing the bread and cup as the actual body and blood of Jesus (as I believe it should have) to a belief that they are merely symbols to remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice. While I certainly think it is helpful for the elements to serve as reminders of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, I am convinced they are more than mere symbols. As the church increasing embraced the empirical methods of the Enlightenment, and perhaps felt the pressure to explain everything from a “scientific” point of view, we may have forfeited something significant in the way in which we engage the Lord’s Supper. It feels like some of the mystery and wonder of Christ manifesting his presence with us through the bread and cup is lost when we think of them as simply reminders.

Ok, I know you are getting bored. Naturally, lots could be (and has been) said about this particular topic, but I mainly want to go on record as saying that I think the Memorialist (symbolic) view doesn’t do justice to what is actually happening in this observance. Instead of keeping on with my half-baked ideas, I’ll leave you with some more of Ian Cron’s wonderful words from his memoir, Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me. I hope Mr. Cron doesn’t mind my reproducing at length one of his stories. May it prod you to obtain a copy of your own.

It wasn’t until I was within four or five kids of the bishop that I could really see his face. He was corpulent, his cheeks and jowls glazed with  perspiration, and he was slightly wheezing like Kip Merriweather, a kid in our class who had asthma. The bishop looked like he would have paid a hundred bucks to get out of the clericals, go home, put his tired feet up, pop open a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and watch a Notre Dame basketball game. As I stepped forward and stood before him, he saw the tears running down my face. For an instant, his pasty white face softened, his eyes sparkled just like the Virgin Mary’s, and the corners of his mouth turned upward in a smile of deep knowing. I suspect he knew that I was one of those strange kids who “got it” – who was hungry and thirsty for God, who longed to be full. Maybe he’d been one of those weird kids too. He placed the Host on my tongue and put his hand on the side of my face, his fat thumb briefly massaging my temple, a gesture of blessing I did not see him offer to any of my other classmates. And I fell into God.

I have spent forty years living the result of that moment.

I am told that, in years past, when a blizzard hit the Great Plains, farmers would sometimes tie one end of a rope to the back door of their farmhouse and the other around their waists as a precaution before going out to the barn to tend to the animals. They knew the stories of farmers who, on the way back to the house from the barn in a whiteout, had become disoriented and couldn’t find their way back home. They would wander off, and their half-frozen bodies wouldn’t be found until spring, when the snow melted.

That day, Bishop Dalrymple, sweat dripping from the end of his bulbous nose, tied a rope around my waist that was long and enduring. How did he know the number of times that I would drift onto the plains in a whiteout and need a way to find my way back home?

And all God’s people said…

Jesus, My Father, The Zen-Do, and Me

I don’t often read memoirs. Or really ever. I still haven’t read Blue Like Jazz, which in my circles is apparently akin to not reading The Bible.

I like my reading the way I like my coffee… robust. And frankly, I tend to view autobiographies as hopelessly thin on substance and more often than not an exercise in self-absorbtion. The stereotype that I have with regard to memoirs is that they are more or less people (typically, of substantial means) whining about their lives. So sorry to anyone who has written a memoir or aspires to do so. I fully understand that this gross over-generalization says way more about me than it does peoples’ desires to write autobiographically. A certain response could be leveled that what I do on this blog, or in the pulpit, or every other arena of my life is equally thin and self-absorbed. Ok, duly noted.

At any rate, Alison is not unfamiliar with my jerk-wad opinions about books. So when she insisted that I begin to read one with the peculiar title, Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir… of Sorts, it instantly rose to the top of the reading stack.

Like most self-fulfilling prophecies, it was living up to my low expectations and I was having a hard time getting into it. First off, I wasn’t wild about the title. It sounded sort of weird. I know titles are meant to be intriguing, but I couldn’t fathom what any of those things had to do with one another. And I wasn’t all that committed to finding out. I think the real problem though was that being unaccustomed to reading anecdotes about other people’s lives, I just couldn’t seem to grab hold of it. A couple days ago and several chapters in, Cron’s story grabbed hold of me.

Sixth grade was about as painful a period in my life as any.

Up until this opening line of chapter 7, I could appreciate the cleverness with which he told stories, but I just wasn’t connecting. And then in these few short words, he states clearly and succinctly the way I am certain every human being feels about the junior high years. And from then on, I was in… all the way in.

Not all the popular kids at my junior high were model students; some were miscreants. I learned from this period in my life that if you put a hundred people in the same room, in less than two minutes the sociopaths will find each other and begin terrorizing the rest. The same thing happens on playgrounds and in prison yards. It also happens at the United Nations, but that’s a different conversation. 

When I got to this chapter, I knew this guy was on my wavelength. I’m going to go out on a limb here and venture a guess that a tell-tale sign of a really good memoir is its universal appeal. But for crying out loud, Mr. Cron and I could be twins who were separated at birth. Except that he is probably a decade older than me, of Irish descent, and far more intelligent. But other than those minor details, he and I are the same.

Similar family dynamics, similar flailing (or as he describes it, “falling”) through high school/college, similar stumbling into faith (even through the influence of the same para-church ministry), and a similar difficulty in knowing how to deal with emotions across the spectrum.

It is this last commonality that is the most intriguing. While he confesses that he struggles with being able to get in touch with his emotions, one certainly doesn’t get that impression from his writing. Cron is one of those gifted human beings who is able to express a thought or feeling with words that leave one (or maybe just me) saying, “That is exactly what I think and feel.”

I will spare you the reproduction of entire pages from the book, and instead just leave you with a few quotes that convey both his wit and depth. And if you “get” them, then you get me. How’s that for self-absorbed? Hopefully, ripping a few sentences out of context doesn’t do too much violence to the richness of his storytelling.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have dimmers and those who have on-off switches.

People who have dimmers can regulate how much they drink, smoke, exercise, have sex, eat, work, or play BrickBreaker on their BlackBerrys. They can “dial it back.” They can “take it or leave it.” Their motto is “Moderation in all things.” We need these people. They become actuaries and veterinarians. Our pets would die without them.

Our parents are mysteries to us. No matter how close we think we think we are to them, we cannot know the content of their hearts. We don’t know the disappointments, or the scars and regrets that wake them in the night, or the moments for which they wish they could get a do-over. I’m not persuaded we should know them better than that. In our therapeutic age, it’s commonly said that we’re only as sick as our secrets. But there are secrets that we should keep only between God and ourselves. I don’t trust people who tell you everything. They’re usually hiding something.

Drinking is fun until it isn’t.

There are acts of love so subtle and delicate that the sweep of their beauty goes unseen. I know of none more miraculous and brave than that of a seventeen-year-old boy coming to his friend’s side to take his tear-soaked face to his breast.

I believed that if Bowdoin [College] took me, I would magically stop feeling out of true. It would be like God saying the lien on my happiness had been removed. It would mean no more going through the day asking, “How do I compensate for who I am?” I thought this mysterious voice could make me believe what I couldn’t make myself believe: I belonged on earth.

As we pulled out of our driveway and drove down our street, I grabbed my mother’s headrest and pulled myself toward the front seat. We didn’t wear seat belts in those days. Parents smoked with the car windows closed too. Humans should be extinct.

Ok, if I share anymore I will probably be in violation of some copyright laws. I am happy to say that I was entirely wrong about Ian Cron’s wonderful memoir. Odds are that I’m wrong about memoirs in general. Regardless, getting your own copy will be well worth the time and money.