How I review books.....

And I do have a method. The first thing I do is go to page one and start to read, until I get to the end! Ok, here's the first thing I wrote for this blog and want to share with you. Go ahead, feel free to respond.

Since many of you may be Christian, I will jump ahead and focus on how to get a feel for religious book.
1. Amazon!
If you are like me, you spend time on Amazon.com just browsing to see what's around, what's coming up, and what people generally think of books you either just bought, or are about to buy or read. Read the reviews. Does it have one, two, five stars? Do the reviews seem fair? Are there any recurring problems mentioned? Many theology books are notorious for having bad binding. Are you better off buying it used? I might add Tim Keller has a great book coming out called The Reason for God: Faith in an age of Skepticism. It looks good. John Piper has a book dealing on the New Perspective on Paul that has a lot of buzz too.

2. Personal endorsements
Who blurbs the back of the book? Blurbs are the endorsements given to an author by other recognized authors, personalities etc.. this one can say a lot or a little. I once thumbed through a book that was endorsed by
Donald Miller. He is the author of "Blue Like Jazz" which many of you know is a bit controversial. I may read it at some point to see what the hoopla is about, but suffice it to say he makes many bold statements about the church that raise a few red flags. I almost put the book away, but it turned out to be a great book on how to do church discipline today. If I could remember the title of said book I'd recommend it! Of course, seeing well known, respected leaders recommend a book helps. But you must go deeper still. Does anyone who's opinion you trust like the book you are about to read?

3.Table of Contents
Yes, at some point you have to pop open the book and read what the author intends to communicate (you knew you were going to at some point) Is there a structure? What are the headings? Is there an apppendix? If it has a scripture index, does it have a lot of scripture mentioned? How long is the book? Who gets mentioned a lot in their bibliography or endnotes? I'm reading a book that has a lot of end notes referencing Carl Jung-it's still a somewhat decent book, but now I read it with caution.

4. Publisher
Who published it? I'm not too happy with Zondervan now that they are cashing in on the Emergent movement with an Emergent line of books. This doesn't mean that all Zondervan books are bad. And yes, to be fair some Emergent books are decent (sometimes). If anything Inter-Varsity Press is guilty of publishing many questionable books (the Openness of God anyone?) Where a company like Crossway is known to publish Reformed authors. Ditto for Christian Scholars Press and P&R Publishing.

5. Time
What year was this published? If this is older than a decade, their info maybe outdated. But, there are those few books that stand the test of time, so don't hold onto that too hard and fast.

6. Author Info
Who is this person that you are about to let into your thoughts? Thanks to today's world, you can find a ministry website for almost all Christian authors. Just be careful that their book isn't just an endorsement for even more (and more expensive!) material from them. What school did they go to? What is their testimony? What school do they teach at? Have they made controversial statements in previous books? Is their church a good place? Do they have a blog? Are there incriminating pics of them with Lindsey Lohan?

7. Your own interest
Why do you want to read this? What is it that you need to know? Some books need only a quick glance and a read through a chapter or two to get what you need. Others demand a lot of time, and are worth every hour of reading. Pray, reflect, but for goodness sake tell people. We need to have more open discussions about books.

Later on I will write about how to read a book. Suffice it to say, my uncle once told me that you don't let books affect you. The only one that should affect you is the Bible. You must take a wait and see approach to books. That can be very hard if the book is really good. More on this later. Oh yes I expect you to tell what you think of my somewhat sage advice. Go ahead, I dare you.

** Update
A few more things to consider as you read a book;

8. Does your enemy hate or like it?
You either see this one or you don't.

9. What are the bloggers saying?
Tim Challie's page Challies.com is now THE place to get a good Christian book review. He truly is the Christian Uber-blogger/book reviewer. I trust him.

10. Author's intent?
Why was this book written? To inform? Persuade? Make a point? Share an experience? These are things you want to keep in mind. It will help you decide if you want to read the whole thing and if they are making substantial arguments or if they are being honest.

11. Would I want to own this?
Or would I be happy borrowing it from the library? There are a few books I wouldn't want to be caught dead with. Seriously.

Ok there you go, READ. But think as well. I might also add, that I will talk about how to read a Christian book in the future.

Interview with the author of "Young, Restless, Reformed"

Timmy Brister of Provocations and Pantings has an interview with the author of "Young, Resltess, Reformed". On another note, did you notice my new subtitle?

THE BIBLE! It's Popular......

According to Yahoo News The Bible is popular with all sorts of groups. Well, it may be popular, but I wonder how many people actually read it? It's sad to say, but a lot of people may like the Bible, but many of them probably don't read it. I do hope if you do like the Bible, read it. Read it intelligently, think about it and memorize it. As is says:

Psalm 1:1-2
Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers,
But his delight is in the law (instruction) of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

What do we call ourselves?

In the blurbs for 'Why We Aren't Emergent" is a phrase by Ligon Duncan. He talks about there being a new "Young Reformed Awakening". That stood out to me in a HUGE way. There is a new young reformed awakening. And I'm a part of it. Hope to be a part of it. Want to be a part of it. Indeed, about 9 years ago, something in me was being awakened. I felt it when I led worship with hymns and contemporary songs last night, and I felt it when I was talking to a friend of mine today about Reformed theology, and as I read about people like me (see previous post) doing great things in this strange new world, I have hope. I have hope about the future, and hope for me.

So I saw this book was coming out this year and I knew I would want to read it. Of course, I also thought,"Dang, they stole my idea!". I didn't know I would laugh so much. I'll be writing as I read through the book. It's ideas are pretty much what a lot of us have felt about the Emerging Church movement/conversation. It begins with a little bit of a bio for both authors. One is a pastor from Michigan and the other a sports journalist. They begin by acknowledging that not everyone will agree with their assesment, but are open to correction and strive to be respectful.
I appreciate the approach, because if we are going to disagree with our brothers and sisters in Christ, it should be done in a Christ honoring way. And yes, it is possible. They continue with what it is they find hard to swallow in the church. The fact that there is no statement of faith, leaders and so forth however can be dealt with. If you have a group of people who agree with each other, endorse each other and have similar rants against the church (that are being podcasted, printed and preached) you generally have similar ideas that can be critiqued. It isn't scholars doing the critiquing, but ordinary guys who love the Lord and his church.

The first thing dealt with is the idea of journey in the Christian life. Indeed, in our culture, it's all about the journey. Not the destination! Of course we don't live that way. i don't get out of bed and meander around with no particular place to go. Likewise in classic thinking and in the Bible, a journey has a definite end. In the emergent church, we see an affinity for the contemporary idea that it's all about the search. It's paraded around as a mark of humility.
I remember recently reading about Paul Washer dealing with a man in Spain who quoted a famous philosopher of theirs who taught that truth must be sought but never found. Indeed Washer replied that he knew why. If he ever found it, it would mean that it would have a demand on their life. In the book, one of the author's meets with a church guitarist who tells him that in music circles, it's cool to search for God, but not to find him. It is this idea that pervade a lot of modern Christianity.

The other idea that underlies this notion that truth can't be found is that we humans are in a sense speculating about God. To be certain is to not have God at all. But this assumes that God can't tell us about himself. If it isn't possible, how can we know who we are really loving? How can we know if they love us back? In the popular tale of the blind men and the elephant, all they can do is guess as to what they are touching. But the author's suggest, what if the elephant started to talk and tell them what he was?

As I finish , I wanted to leave you with a few quotes lines and ideas I gleamed from the first few chapters:

We're plodding visionaries trying to learn the Bible, love one another, share the gospel and worship God in spirit and in truth.

Heaven is the recreation of the entire cosmos.

It's cool to search for God, but not to find him.

My idea: God is there, but he's not just there, he's everywhere! (one of the criticisms in the book is that transcendence is places against immanenced and thus God is so far away you can't see him-which is an idea that John Frame points out in his fine books)

You "know" those you love.

Paul didn't say,"I see you worship an unknown God. Great! So do I."

I'll have a the next few chapters in soon.

Prayer Request.....

Hello, this is Frank. Yes, THE Frankfusion who writes these posts for you as often as I can. I am in need of your prayers. I have to pay off school in order to walk next month. So, if you could please keep me in prayer as I look for something (It seems everywhere I go they aren't hiring) or if you know somewhere that's hiring. It's a bit frustrating and trying, but I shall endeavor to trust the Lord. Thanks everyone.
Frank!

So, what DO we call ourselves?

I think it began with Maclaren's New Kind of Christian. I've read some of Tony Jones' book "The New Christians" (and was totally depressed by its bad ideas) and as I wrote the "you might be new reformed" piece, I had to ask myself: what do we call ourselves? Mark Driscoll (get the feeling that I'm a fan?) has the label "resurgent". I like it, but it feels like a necessary response to "emergent". "New Reformed" is out there. "Reformed Progressive" is one by my friend Stephen Macasil of biblicalthought. So which is it? Give me some ideas. I've also thought of "Reformed Baptist" (It is a growing movement that I plan to be a part of) "Missional Reformed" and "Confessing Evangelical". Those are a few. Come on geniuses, give me something good.

My 100th Post!!!!!

Here it is. My 100th post. This was the second time I started a blog. This time I
actually kept it up. I've kept it up so that I could inform, think, and present my ideas to you and hopefully get feedback. I hope to have more book reviews up soon, as well as more articles on the philosophical theological bent. Thanks to all of you who read my blog and comment (how I crave those!) and have been very supporting. A few of those include:

THE ORDER

The college group at Faith Community Church. I started this to give you my book and movie reviews. Thanks for your support. I hope to give you more of what I have to offer. I do it with joy in the hopes that I can be a helpful part of your body. I consider you all my friends and peers and great companions of the journey. Special thanks to Meaghan for reading (and for listening, thanks mademoiselle!) and Beck's for commenting. Ok, Glenn too.

Mig Martinez

My oldest friend at the Order. Since childhood, you've proven again and again to be a man of great humor and wisdom. I am a better thinker because of you. It's been a very long road, and I'm glad you've been on it.


Jonathan Chan

For always talking about the great ideas with me. I hope i can preach like you some day. And for being the only other reformed guy (that I know of) at school. And for reminding me that God cares about the less fortunate.





Biblicalthought.com
Many thanks to you guys for your great blog, and Stephen Macasil for being an encouraging fellow blogger, and for never being too busy to talk shop or give encouragement. And for making me a better thinker as well.





Dr. Bob

Very Special thanks to Dr. Bob of Faith Community for all he has taught us. I have learned more from him than 4 years at Bible College. The most important things anyway. A truly great man who will leave a lasting legacy.






Josh England

My personal cultural savior. Yes, I'm more culturally savvy because of you. Thanks for being the very first person to get me to blog. If it ever leads to a book, I will have you to thank. I will continue to question, ponder and write because of you. You are the best pal.

I leave you with something I found. It's from Max Maclane's reading of the Valley of Vision.