The Little Friar

A friend was pushing back today on my reflections on how I think a Christian might vote in this upcoming presidential election.  It's no surprise to those who know me best, that I really don't get into American politics all that often.  I stand when folks say the pledge of allegiance, but I won't say it .  (This recently made for lots of looks when Kendra and I attended the local county commission meeting.)  Back when I did vote (the last election I participated in was 2008), I was a true "swing vote" -- I've voted Democrat or Green in every election in which I've participated, save one (1992).  Most of my votes have split along party lines between federal and local/state elections.  As I write, I couldn't tell you which party I'd vote for if I were voting.  And the last thing on my mind is to influence another's vote, so I wouldn't tell you even if I could tell you.  I do, though, think that folks who identify themselves as Christians sho...

The selection, of course, is from Ralph Stanley.  Stanley, one of the bluegrass greats, died a week ago at the age of 89.  Few probably know that Dr Stanley was a " no-heller ".  His music has been a very rich inspiration to me. But this song comes to mind more today because of the death of my friend, Paul. Paul was one of the philosophy and religion profs in my undergraduate program.  Paul is also the one instrument of the Kingdom to which I can point if people want to know who to blame for introducing me to Jesus. Funny thing is, Paul always denied being a "spiritual" person.  All of those who knew Paul, though, knew him quite simply, as a Christian, a man of a simple, (if you like) flat-cap faith, one on whom the only spirit that matters -- the Holy Spirit -- rested:  A person of scrupulous integrity, straight yet not stern (his dry British wit will forever bring a smile to my face), whose Yes was Yes and No was No, who took both his promises ...

Kathe Wunnenberg's Grieving the Loss of a Loved One:  A Devotional of Comfort as You Mourn is a wonderful book, resource, or gift.  Drawing from her own experiences, Wunnenberg empathizes with the anguish others experience as they endure loss. Grieving has 12 parts, each with four or five devotions.  The devotions begin with scripture, then present a devotion, and end with a prayer and space for journaling.  Each is meant to assist the reader in gaining courage to "press on".  Sections include various topics, like:  Denying, Venting, Crying, Praising, Bargaining, and Accepting. Grieving is a well-written devotional guide, easily accessible for those negotiating the troubling waters of grief, and a powerful resource for one who has experienced loss.   __________________ Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers < http://booklookbloggers.com > book review bloggers p...

Michelle Fields' Barons of the Beltway:  Inside the Princely World of Our Washington Elite -- and How to Overthrow Them explores the development of an American "aristocracy" in halls of our political institutions, and how America can reclaim the humbler visions of political office that caught the moral imaginations of the Founding Fathers. Meticulously researched and universally applied across political divides, Barons advances a fundamental thesis:  That these barons are quite chummy with the political and jouralistic elites.  That familiarity only breeds a further elitism that exploits the rest of the nation. This is arguably the most arguable book of 2016 -- particularly in an election year.  But it's important to take it in and digest it -- even if the reader comes away disagreeing with every word. ________________ I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

MP Jo Cox was shot a killed a few days before the Brexit Referendum.  Of course, she was known for her staunch defense of UK remaining within the EU.  I just read that her killer, Thomas Mair, at his arraignment, when asked his name, answered, "My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain". Nationalism, being what it is, I find it hardly surprising that violence would be its result.  So her death, regardless of what others may claim, came as a result of the political positions she held. So here's the thing:  National elitism is still bad.  And dangerous. Those who hold it might want to consider the extent to which we have a moral responsibility for the emotional reverberations of our rhetoric, the extent to which we point to the "other" as the source of our problems. There are rational criticisms to be made of the EU:  The bureaucratic reach, the entrenched global capitalism, and the reliance on the military industrial complex especially....

I've never really understood why citizens of the United States love firearms.  Even in the aftermath of the most-recent mass shooting in Orlando, there seems to be no widespread desire to enforce tighter gun laws or abolish private ownership of firearms.  As a Christian committed to Jesus and his way of nonviolence, I still find it very difficult to believe that Americans generally can't see that fewer guns in the hands of the general public would lead to fewer shootings.  Granted, if a person tips over the edge so much that all s/he wants to do is slaughter, that person is likely to find a way to do so by whatever means available:  Gun, knife, homemade bombs, intentional hit and runs, and so on.  But guns and rifles are quite easily available to the average American, and so mass shootings seem to be more common in the United States than in other Westernized countries -- though there are notable exceptions, as the recent killing sprees in Norway and France prove...

My recent reflections toward a theological account of society have quite a bit to say about the recent Brexit vote. I don't imagine most of my American neighbors understand the gravity of the vote -- why it was not only that Britain voted to leave the EU, but also why that was a Very Bad Idea.  (Though it really shouldn't be surprising to anyone -- which I'll lay out here.) For months, Britain has been in the throes of a debate over whether or not to leave the European Union.  To my mind, this had the potential of being one of the most morally consequent public deliberations my UK friends had seen in many years, precisely because it goes right to the heart of the nature of political identity, the basis of political agency and the extent of transnational obligation.  This referendum shares much in common with the same debates that currently embroil the Republican party in the US.   But that's hardly a surprise to those of us who pay attention to the skirmish...

So apparently we need " a return to the spirit of 9/12 ".  I'm glad Hillary Clinton -- who made that observation in the days following the attack in Orlando -- has given us enough time to pause, pray and reflect .  Because, as I remember 9/11, what Americans were in the days following that tragic Tuesday, was awkwardly confused.  I was standing in an airport, waiting to get on a plane, that morning.  I remember watching the flight boards change from "on time" to "delayed".  I remember hearing someone cry out, "They just bombed the World Trade Center!"  And I immediately flashed back to 1993.  As we all stood there, trying to come to terms with the scenes playing out in horror on screens in front of us, we were all left asking, "Should we actually be watching this?  Should we be doing this?  I guess we already are?"  We like to make fun of President Bush, now, in hindsight, for reading My Pet Goat while the attack was occurring, bu...

Trillia Newbell's Fear and Faith:  Finding the peace your heart craves offers some practical advice for Christians who come face-to-face with fear in our lives, by looking to Jesus as the only way of peace. Newbell begins by exposing fear, as only those who look into its very empty darkness can.  She is beautifully honest about her own daily fears and how she, like so many of us, allows fear to fester in her heart and mind, robbing her of true joy in Christ.  And she does so by rightly pin-pointing the source of fear in human sin.  Sin's preoccupation with self -- its passioned concern with preserving itself at all costs -- leads us down a road that ends in dissatisfaction, disappointment and ultimately disobedience. So what should we do?  Embrace the divine honesty about ourselves and our place in the world -- an honesty that is revealed fully in the cross of Jesus Christ. This is a book that will challenge what we think about ourselves and our world, ...

Gerald W. Peterman and Andrew J. Schmutzer's Between Pain & Grace:  A Biblical Theology of Suffering explores one of the toughest theological problems in the Christian faith:  Suffering.  It's the focus of so much resistance to the Faith, as well as the subject of so many songs and stories that fill our cultural dialogue and identity.  Suffering, it seems, is ubiquitous and personal.  And the biblical writers wrote as often about it as any other theme.  Psalms, in fact, is filled with laments, both individual and corporate.  Lamentations expresses the suffering of a nation under oppression and in exile.  Peter and Paul both express the sufferings of congregations under oppressive thumbs of political and social institutions, as well as address what it means to overcome in those situations.  And the prophet of the Book of Revelation is intimately aware of suffering.  Of course, the narratives about Jesus are littered with what the...

Jonathan Martin's How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here is a unique blend of Pentecostal faith with a yearning for something richer and deeper than the sometimes superficial approach to faith found in charismatic Christianity.  Martin uses the image of a shipwreck -- he himself is an avid sailor -- as a metaphor for what happens in those times when our lives are overwhelmed by forces beyond our control, and we find ourselves cast adrift from all that we have known to be familiar and secure.  However, lest you imagine that this book might offer a detached analysis of such crises and a formulaic recipe for how to overcome them, let me reassure you:  Nothing could be further from the truth. How to Survive a Shipwreck is a deeply faithful, theological reflection on Martin's own experience of shipwreck.  In this case, it's a literal shipwreck of his own making which, while he doesn't recount the gory details, he lets us...

Dogmatics does not require us to say the last word.  What must be said in all circumstances is not the last word by which we stand or fall.  We can and should be allowed to make mistakes.  We must have the courage to make statements that will need to be revised, the courage not to be prejudiced and block any further advance.  This courage frees us from the obligation to get everything right -- that is the best experience in dogmatics. -- Gerhard Sauter, Gateways to Dogmatics:  Reasoning Theologically for the Life of the Church (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2003), p. 274.

Michael Bird's What Christians Ought to Believe:  An Introduction to Christian Doctrine through the Apostles' Creed explores, in dazzling array, the beauty and complexity of the simple doctrine of the Christian faith found in the Apostles' Creed. He combines solid biblical scholarship with good historical, churchly theology to ground the Creed in the Scripture's story.  He gives practical and political suggestions for how the Creed might impact Church and world; for Bird, the Creed is not a doctrinal statement divorced from action but a guide to faith and life.  Also, Bird is theologically deep, connected to God's saving acts in history, and tied to our individual lives and collective Church life through time and space. Bird's What Christians Ought to Believe is a real treasure for me!  For years, I've used Barth's lectures on the Apostles' Creed for my introductory theology class.  And I've discovered rather recently just how dens...

Christa Black Gifford's Heart Made Whole: Turning Your Unhealed Pain into Your Greatest Strength is a beautiful, tender, touching, moving little book.  But more importantly, it's a book full of spiritual depth that helps us move beyond the pain of our lives and into the wholeness and fullness that is life in Christ. It begins where all good theology begins -- with the story of our lives.  In this case, it begins with Gifford's story of a newly-born daughter with half a skull and an underdeveloped brain exposed.  Her little girl lived only 40 minutes.  At the end of that 40 minutes, her daughter not only died; Gifford's heart broke into a million pieces.  A shattering that left only grief and pain, rage and sorrow in its place. But Heart Made Whole is more than a story about that sorrow.  It's a book about a heart made whole -- about her heart made whole -- in Jesus Christ.  She shares how she took abuse, addiction, an eating disorder, and other...

One of the most striking vantage points 19 years in ordained ministry I've seen over the years is just how fragile, foolhardy and even frighteningly beautiful the ordinary faith of ordinary people can be. On more than a one occasion, I've sat through a pointless church meeting or an inane clergy gathering and been struck by this realization: The very testimony to which we respond every Sunday "The Word of God for the People of God/Thanks be to God" was written by believers who, in all likelihood, were every bit as sinful, ignorant, and only partially faithful as the people gathered around me right now. Call the author "Saint Luke" and you give him beautific hues. Realize he's the same as the guy sitting next to you in your pew, singing off-key on Sunday, and he's a completely different guy. Ministry offers me a glimpse into the mysterious side of the "simple" faith. And alongside that bitter dose of reality, there's the miraculous:...

Coping with Change by Parmenides A Rational Account of the Physical World by Plato The Role of Sexual Passion in the Christian Marriage by St Augustine The Wit and Humor of Immanuel Kant Hegel for Dummies:  Everything in Hegel that Can Be Understood by the Average Person What Reason Can Tell Us about God by Søren Kierkegaard What Next for Capitalism? by Karl Marx Ethical Theory by Jean-Paul Sartre Our Duties to Others by Ayn Rand All about Nothing by Martin Heidegger My Favorite Indulgences by Martin Luther The John Calvin Joke Book The Art of Brevity by Karl Barth

Adam Benforado's Unfair:  The New Science of Criminal Injustice explores cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.  Some of it is race-related:  Numerous studies show that those convicted of murdering white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death than when the victim is African-American.  Other research reveals that "subtle reminders" to judges' and jurors' of their own mortality "have been shown to increase the severity of punishment across a wide range of scenarios, from assaults to drunk driving".  All of this supports Benforado's thesis that "we are not the consistent, rational number crunchers that we suppose". Unfair goes on to recommend a number of reforms, some more realistic than others.  For example, it calls for the restoration of voting rights for ex-convicts -- something I...

This Sunday we will celebrate Fathering Day.  I want to say Happy Fathering Day to all those men who care for our children -- who nurture, model, love, provide for them.  Whether they are biological fathers or not, they are also brothers, friends, sons.  And they give us so much. This fathering man may not have been my biological father, but without him I would be less the man I am.  He was, in the best sense, "my grand-dad".  He gave me far more than my Christian name.  He shaped and nurtured in ways he may never have realized.  He "didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it" (Clarence Budington Kelland). He has been dead 19 years now.  But I am eternally grateful to him for his kindness, wisdom, and wholeness.  So to all men who care for our children:  Thank you.

Some time ago , someone asked me what I thought about inerrancy and what those thoughts had to do with the way in which I approach Scripture .  In general, I really don't find the notion of inerrancy all that helpful, precisely because it underwrites an understanding of Christian faith that divides those of us who follow Jesus into a couple of "positions" -- liberal and conservative .  Those kinds of divisions really aren't helpful (I know I don't fit neatly into those boxes).  So I tend to let the whole thing go and aim for more helpful approaches to Scripture. But what are those approaches, and what do I really think about the Bible. Let me begin with confessing:  There really is no way forward for Christians other than taking the Bible seriously.  If we're not going to take Scripture seriously, I don't see how we're going to remain followers of Jesus.  So I read and talk about the Bible.  A lot.  There simply isn't anywhere else to begin a...