[Pardon the typos and grammatical errors, I pounded these off, and haven’t yet had time to proof-read.]
1. The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire by Neil Elliott.
Ever since reading Liberating Paul, I’ve been wondering when Elliott would get around to following the trajectory he laid out in that book (way back in 1994). Of course, I was willing to be patient given that Elliott doesn’t publish as often as some because he is so involved in community-building and justice work. Personally, I think that any New Testament scholar should be doing this sort of thing (otherwise how much have they really understood Paul or Jesus?) but, then again, maybe that’s just my own bias. Or maybe not…
Anyway, when this book was published as the lead volume in the new “Paul in Critical Contexts” Series from Fortress Press (which, by the way, looks like an excellent series), I jumped on it… and I wasn’t disappointed. I mean, really, read this book. Elliott does such a good job of reading Romans in light of empires (both past and present) that I almost gave up on my own research (he makes a lot of connections I was working on, but makes them better than I did).
What Elliott does is engage in a thematic reading of Romans with constant reference to Roman ideology and, in particular, the ways in which the themes in Romans are themes in Roman ideology. Hence, Elliott demonstrates how Paul takes those themes — themes of justice, mercy, piety, and virtue — and radically reworks them in light of Christ.
As he engages in this reading, Elliott builds on the work of James C. Scott (famous in biblical studies for his work on ‘hidden transcripts’) and develops a very useful method for discerning hidden transcripts (lest we simply find ‘hidden transcripts’ everywhere and use this as a way of avoiding what any given text appears to say). Thus, he explores public transcripts, as well as hidden transcripts of both the powerful and the subordinate, so that we can learn to recognise any elements of these within Paul’s letters.
What emerges from all of this is a Paul who is an active and prophetic voice, helping us to discern our way, as Christ-followers, in the shadow of empires dominated by Sin and Death.
2. Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission by Davina C. Lopez.
I found this, the second Paul in the “Paul in Critical Contexts” Series, to be a captivating read. Building on the insights of both empire-critical readings, and the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul, and noting the ways in which proponents of these groups have shed new light on our (increasingly political) understanding of Paul’s use of words like ‘Saviour’, ‘Lord’, ‘gospel’, and ‘parousia’, Lopez argues for a new understanding of Paul’s talk of ‘the Gentiles’ and ‘the nations’ (ta ethnes). In particular, Lopez argues that, rather than seeing Paul as Apostle to the Gentiles (understood primarily in terms of racial divisions), we must see Paul as Apostle to the conquered nations (understood primarily in subversive political terms).
In order to arrive at this conclusion, Lopez surveys the way in which imperial Roman propaganda — in literature, sculptures, coins, architecture, and inscriptions — represented the nations. In this regard, Lopez finds a gender-critial reading of the evidence to be most useful. For the most part, I agree with what she does here, although I sometimes think she overstates her case. However, I don’t think that these overstatements invalidate the force of her argument, I simply think that they might cause her to lose her audience in other, more Conservative, circles (but, then again, perhaps Lopez never had any interest in retaining that audience anyway).
After this survey, Lopez then explores how Paul talks about his mission amongst the nations, using similar imagery and language, but in a counter-imperial manner. Hence, Paul wants to unite members of all the conquered nations — Jews, Greeks, barbarians, Galatians, Spaniards, etc. (i.e. Jews and Gentiles) — within a subversive solidarity movement, intent upon restoring justice, which refuses to accept the hierarchies and divisions encouraged by imperial Roman ideology (I told you this was captivating!).
3. Paul Between Synagogue and State: Christians, Jews, and Civic Authorities in 1 Thessalonians, Romans, and Philippians by Mikael Tellbe.
I have been reading a lot of material on the socio-political context in which Paul lived and worked, but this book really surprised me and stood out more than a good many in this field. For those who are familiar with some of these things, I would compare it, and it’s significance, to Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity by David A. deSilva.
Unsuprisingly, given the title, Tellbe explores the tripartite relationship between Christians, Jews, and civic authorites, paying special attention to the Pauline communities in Thessalonica, Rome, and Philippi. Tellbe’s hypothesis is that attaining “socio-political legitimacy” was a pressing need for Christians in Paul’s day. That is to say, if early Christianity could fall under the umbrella of Second Temple Judaism(s), as a religio licita (a legal religion), official condemnation and persecution could be avoided. However, when Jewish communities felt as though Paul — a known troublemaker — was too subversive, they would have seen this as a threat to their (precarious) legal and peaceful status. Consequently, they often sought to distance themselves from Paul and the early Christians, and wanted to demonstrate that this movement was not, in fact, a part of Judaism. Hence, Tellbe argues that Paul’s conflict with ‘the Judaizers’ wasn’t necesarily a conflict between ‘Christians’ and ‘Jews’ but rather a conflict between Paul’s call to subversive and coslty political living, and those Christians who wanted to take on Jewish badges in order to avoid persecution. Thus, on the one hand, Tellbe presents a Paul who is offering an alternative narrative and political vision to that on offer by Rome and, on the other hand, Tellbe presents us with Christian congregations that are (naturally) scared to follow through on Paul’s radical demands, and who, therefore, would rather slide under the radar.
What can I say? I am convinced. This is a damn good book, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it referenced more often.
4. The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis by Petronius and Seneca.
I found this Penguin Classics two-for-one deal at a used book shop near my work, and find both pieces to be amusing and useful. Actually, the fact that I found them to be so amusing concerned me a little — either I’ve become a total nerd, laughing at classical satires, or these authors were genuinely funny… it’s just that I never realised how funny they could be, before spending so much time reading about the Graeco-Roman milieu, during the first century.
Perhaps a rapid summary would be useful. The Satyricon is a fragmentary text notorious for its sexual cotent, and was written by Nero’s “Arbiter of Elegance” and close friend (whom Nero later forced to commit suicide) Gaius Petronius. However, there is a lot more to this text than what might find within the story pages of a dirty magazine. It is a Menippean satire (which were known for mixing prose and verse, humour and philosophy. Hence, it is a commentary on Roman life and morals, but it stands out because it refuses to take any moral stance of its own, and aesthetics, or ‘taste’, constantly undercuts all moral discourse — even as this ‘taste’ itself, is undercut by irony.
However, it is interesting to note that, while Petronius mocks almost all the characters who pass through the pages of his story, he especially targets ‘social climbers’ or those who would be experiencing ‘status dissonance’ — for example, slaves who had been freed and gained a great deal of wealth are especially attacked. Hence, undergirding this text is support of Roman order, piety, and values, for what Petronius regularly mocks is the influence of ‘new money’ over previously established laws and systems of justice and religion (we see this even more in Juvenal, but that will have to wait until my post on August books). Furthermore, there is also an ongoing affirmation of the Roman ideology of (merciful!) conquest running through this text. Hence, we see that even seemingly ‘subversive’ texts, when written by members of the elite, often end up being superficial criticisms the end up affirming the powers-that-be.
Finally, I found two other major points of interest: (1) the extent to which alternative religious gatherings were associated with sexual debauchery (and this prevalent attitude must be significant for Paul’s comments on matters related to sex); and (2) the ongoing significance given to members of the imperial cult (and, just as importantly, the way in which the imperial cult is especially useful to those who are interested in climbing the social ladder — again, this is significant for our understanding of the challenges faced by the early Pauline communities).
Like The Satyricon, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis is a satire — indeed, it is a satire mocking the recently deceased Claudius, Caesar (‘Apocolocyntosis’ is a play on the word ‘Apotheosis’ and refers to the ‘Pumpkin-ification’ of Claudius, rather than the ‘Deification’ thereof; meaning that Claudius didn’t turn into a god, he turned into a ‘Pumpkin-head’) — but it is written in such a way that it both affirms the glory of Rome, and even of the imperial cult (the deification of Augustus is never questioned). Furthermore, this work would have helped Seneca gain favour with Nero, the new Caesar, as it praises the new regime, while mocking the one that just passed. Hence, we see again that seemingly ‘subversive’ texts, when written by the elite, actually affirm more than they criticise.
5. Six Prayers God Always Answers by Mark Herringshaw and Jennifer Schuchmann (already reviewed).
6. No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays by Jon Sobrino.
Of the Latin American liberation theologians, whom I try to engage regularly, Jon Sobrino is rapidly becoming my favourite. This is an outstanding collection of essays and, were I ever to teach a course on liberation theology, I would probably make this required reading (for the basics, I would suggest Introducing Liberation Theology by Boff & Boff, but for sheer excitement, inspiration, and challenge, I would suggest this book).
Within this collection of essays, Sobrino engages in a critical reflection upon the fractured and divided state of our world of late capitalism — a world divided between the rich and poor, between those who live opulently and those who are denied the basic elements of human life, between victimizers and victims — in order to explore how salvation and humanization can be accomplished today. Sobrino’s fundamental assertion — which is reinforced by the voices of his constant dialogue partners, Ignacio Ellacuría and Oscar Romero, dear friends whom Sobrino outlived when he narrowly escaped being assassinated a couple of decades ago — is that salvation, humanization, and our hopes for truth, justice, and new creation, are inexorably connected to the poor and the marginalised. As such, Sobrino’s voice rises like the cry of the wounded, full of hurt and urgency, but — because it is the voice of one who has found salvation amongst the poor — it also resounds with faith, hope, and love for all.
This explains the title of this book, which is an English rendering of Sobrino’s Latin phrase: extra pauperes nulla salus. Of course, this phrase is a play on the classic Christian saying: extra ecclesiam nulla salus (‘no salvation outside the church’). However, far more than being a simple and provocative play on words, Sobrino’s phrase functions as an absolutely crucial corrective and exposition of what we mean when we say that there is ‘no salvation outside the church’. That is to say, the poor, as the crucified members of Christ’s body today, are the people of God today, just as much as the confessing members of Christ’s body (who have traditionally claimed a monopoly regarding the ‘Church’ and ‘the body of Christ’). This point, one that is commonly made by liberation theologians, is one that I now whole-heartedly affirm. However, it took me a couple of years to get to this place, so I’m willing to be patient with others!
For, ultimately, there is know way of knowing the profound truth of Sobrino’s phrase, unless one has decided to journey intimately with the poor, and has opened one’s self to being saved in that process. Thus, Sobrino’s essays function as a challenge to those of us who are comfortably situated amongst the well-off, the powerful, the comfortable, and the victimizers. However, more than being a challenge, Sobrino’s essays function as an invitation. An invitation to salvation, to life lived honestly and passionately, and to communion with our Lord. ‘Come, join us,’ Sobrino might well say, ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’
7. The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord.
You know, when everybody you read (in certain circles) ends up referring to a certain text, it’s probably a good idea to read that text… which is why I sat down to read Society of the Spectacle (it is mentioned pretty much across the board by the ‘continental’ or ‘post-Marxist’ philosophers, and has been called the Das Kapital of the 20th century). I wasn’t disappointed.
It seems to me that Debord traces the social development of capitalism, and notes how our focus has shifted from being, to having, to appearing (the spectacular). The results of this transition are many, and mostly negative. Caught in the realm of the spectacular, we lose our hold upon the historical, leading to a society that is missing historical agents who are capable of engaging in genuine action (i.e. a society totally dominated by the Powers-that-be). However, we frequently are not even aware of this fact because we are so absorded in the Spectacle and in fulfilling the pseudo-desires it plants within us, which drive us to meet the pseudo-needs that are constantly created by the agents of capitalism (for the spectacular, as Debord reminds us, is firmly rooted in the economic). The result of this is that need itself has been turned against life (where life is understood both as the directly lived experience, and as that which is creative, good, just and true).
Consequently, in order to find our way out of this realm of representation, Debord argues that we must combine the theorist with the activist within the class that is capable of dissolving all other classes — the proletariat. That is to say, our hope is found when we combine our thinking with our doing, within a community of those on the margins of society (of course, this then sets the stage for one of the major crises of post-Marxist philosophy: who are the proletariat today? If this class has vanished, what social location, and what social group, hold the keys to our salvation?).
Now, I don’t know how much sense this makes to those who might be unfamiliar with Debord or this stream of philosophy, but I hope it whets the reader’s appetite for more. This book isn’t an easy read, but it is certainly rewarding.
8. What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World. Interviews with David Barsamian by Noam Chomsky.
It had been awhile since I read any Chomsky, and this book caught my eye in the airport last month so I picked it up and thought I would update myself on some of what is going on around the world (after all, Chomsky’s more recognised works — Manufacturing Consent [with Hermann] and Necssary Illusions — tend to focus on global events that were occuring in the ’70s and ’80s). Not surprisingly, everything is still pretty messed up. That’s the problem with reading authors like Chomsky. It’s like opening up Pandora’s box — once you let this information out, there’s no going back, and the world will never be the same again. So it goes.
Anyway, this book is a collection of interviews conducted in 2006 and 2007, and covering issues related to Latin America, the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ways and means of effectively protesting current practices of power. I found his comments on the Mercosur trade area to be especially interesting, given the significance Naomi Klein gives to this development in The Shock Doctrine. This, I think, is something I will try to follow in more detail. However, the chapter I found most interesting was the one entitled, “The United States Versus the Gospels”. This chapter talks about British and American imperialism in Latin America, and talks about American opposition to liberation theology. Allow me to quote at length:
The crime of liberation theology was that it takes the Gospels seriously. That’s unacceptable. The Gospels are radical pacifist material, if you take a look at them. When the Roman emperor Constantine adopted Christianity, he shifted it froma radical pacifist religion to the religion of the Roman Empire. So the cross, which was the symbol of the suffering of the poor, was put on the shild of the Roman soldiers. Since that time, the Church has been pretty much the church of the rich and powerful–the opposite of the message of the Gospels. Liberation theology, in Brazil particularly, brought the actual Gospels to peasants. They said, let’s read what the Gospels say, and try to act on the principles they describe. That was the major crime that set of the Reagan wars of terror and Vatican oppression. The United States was virtually at war with the Catholic Church in the 1980s. It was a clash of civilizations, if you like: the United States versus the Gospels.
9. White Noise by Don DeLillo.
I don’t know if my tastes are changing or if DeLillo is better in smaller doses, but I really enjoyed this book (which surprised me because I didn’t enjoy Underworld nearly as much — although I think the mean difference between the two books is that White Noise has a more traditional narrative structure and voice, whereas Underworld is more stream-of-consciousness, and ‘postmodern’). This tells the story of a fairly average American family — Jack, a chair in ‘Hitler Studies’ at a small college, and Babette, his fourth wife, as well as the television and the radio, and various combinations of kids — in a fairly average American small town that, by random chance, happens to undergo an ‘airborne toxic event.’
Now, what I liked about this novel is hard to put into words, precisely because so much of what I liked was in DeLillo’s tone, and in that which lingered unexpressed behind his recitation of lists, or descriptions of events. It seems to me that this book captures our fundamental bewilderment regarding the world in which we find ourselves. Yet this bewilderment is mixed, both with a numbness that covers it, and a sorrow that lies beneath it. Somehow DeLillo manages to capture all of this (and now I understand why one of my English Lit friends kept telling me to read this book!).
10. Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by Brad Cran and Gillian Jerome.
This booklet is a wonderful collection of photographs taken by, and stories told by, residents of the downtown eastside (DTES). It also contains a brief history of the DTES, written by a local member of parliament, and a history of the PIVOT legal society — which is the society that created this book. Every year, PIVOT gives out cameras to people who live in the DTES and they hold a photography contest. The photos are displayed in an art gallery, and the winning pictures are made into a calendar. It’s a pretty rad idea, and this is a pretty rad book.

[Okay, I know this review is far, far too long, but I guess this book struck a few chords with me. Besides nobody said that anybody had to read all of this. Gosh!]
Introduction
To my delight, I was recently approached by Mike Morell from http://theOoze.com. Mike offered to send me a few free books every month, so long as I would be open to (honestly) commenting on those books on my blog. I agreed to this arrangement for three reasons:
(1) Given that ‘the Ooze’ is known as an ’emergent’ website, I thought that this would give me some further insight into the so-called ’emergent conversation’. That is to say, I am suspicious of much that goes by the name ’emergent’ but I have read little that has been written (or supported) by those who belong to that conversation, and I saw this as an opportunity to change all that.
(2) Similarly, I thought that this would provide me with the opportunity to see what sort of books are being read and written at the popular Christian level. Until recently, I had no interest in reading any popular Christian writing. However, I was challenged in this regard by the ways in which Žižek and Lacan handle Freud. Freud, as we all know, was pretty much completely wrong about everything (if you think otherwise, spend some time reading his books and essays). However, Žižek and Lacan read Freud and come to some brilliant and stimulating conclusions. Perhaps, I said to myself, what we do or do not take from a book is more limited by our own intelligence, rather than the intelligence of the author. So, with this thought in mind, I felt ready to attempt some readings in popular Christianity. Besides, it is always a grounding experience to recall what it is that so many Christians think and believe in America today (although quite frequently that grounding feels more like Icarus falling into the ocean, than it feels like an airplane coming in for a smooth landing!)
(3) Who can say ‘no’ to free books?
Therefore, the first book, from Mike, that I have chosen to review, is Six Prayers God Always Answers by Mark Herringshaw & Jennifer Schuchmann (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008). I will begin by summarising the book and will then conclude with some points of critical reflection.
Summary
It seems to me that Mark Herringshaw and Jennifer Schuchmann have three primary hortatory reasons for writing this book. First, they want to encourage their readers to approach prayer as a conversation that occurs within a genuine relationship with God (rather than approaching prayer as a technique or formula). Second, they want to reassure their readers that God always answers prayers. Third, the authors want to remind the reader that, although God always answers our prayers, God doesn’t always answer them in the ways we might expect (the book jacket tips the reader off to this point; Six Prayers God Always Answers is followed by an asterisk, and a smaller font, below the title, reads as follows: *Results may vary).
Therefore, after an initial chapter which emphasises that prayer is (1) authentic conversation with God; (2) instinctual and something that all people engage in at some point; and (3) effective, the authors move into their discussion of the six prayers God always answers: bargaining prayers (Chpt 2), questions prayers (Chpt 3), prayers for justice (Chpt 5), desperate prayers (Chpt 6), audacious prayers (Chpt 8), and prayers for beauty and happiness (Chpt 9). Interspersed throughout these chapters, are three further prayers: “why” prayers, or prayers ‘God rarely answers’ (Chpt 4), inauthentic prayers, or prayers that ‘God doesn’t want to hear’ (Chpt 10), and prayers for independence from God, or prayers ‘God hates to answer–but will’ (Chpt 10). In the concluding chapter, the authors return to their point about the significance of prayer being a relationship, for it is through this relationship that prayers are answered (for it is God, not prayer, that ‘works’), and through this relationship that we come to see how prayers are answered.
So, let’s explore these in a little more detail. The first type of prayer that God always answers is ‘bargaining’ or ‘haggling’ prayers. All of us, the authors argue, have tried to bargain with God at some time or another, and God, out of his grace, puts up with our haggling and answers these prayers. Yet God desires that we come to a place where we simply ask and receive from him. So why does God tolerate our bagaining? Well, the authors suggest, perhaps it is through this bargaining process that we will be led to the place where we are willing to trade ‘our all for God’s all’.
That said, the authors also suggest that there are some ‘rules of bartering in God’s kingdom’: sometimes we get more than we ask for, sometimes others get more than we ask for, and sometimes God doesn’t hold us to our end of the bargain. All of this demonstrates that God’s generosity is greater than our ability to ask, and it should, lead us to the place where we simply ask and receive (rather than leaving us jaded by the observation that God seems to have made better deals with other people).
The second type of prayer that God always answers is ‘questioning’ prayers. Questions, the authors assert, function like a ‘spiritual sonar’ in our search for belonging, love, and meaning. Thus, in addition to understanding our own motives in asking questioning prayers, it is important to make sure that we are asking the right questions and understanding the answers that we (always) receive. For example, that authors assert that asking the question, ‘Is there a God?’ is asking the wrong kind of question, because, in order to answer that question, we would require a proof of existence that always eludes us. Instead, they suggest that we are better served by asking, ‘Are you there, God?’ because this requires a proof of presence, which can be found in our experiences. Furthermore, this second question ‘raises the stakes’ because how it is answered could significantly impact our daily living, rather than simply being a topic in an abstract philosophical discussion.
However, the authors then note that we frequently don’t seem to experience God, or find God’s presence as much as we would like. This, they suggest, is because God is ‘flirting’ with us. God is ‘courting’ us and trying to draw us into deeper intimacy, because he is a ‘master romantic’. ‘After all,’ the authors suggest, ‘if we were not separate from God, how could we come to love him, and how could he come to love us?’ They then go on to suggest that ‘maybe God’s elusive nature and our unquenchable yearning for him are themselves the biggest proof of his presence.’
The third type of prayer that God always answers is justice-oriented prayers. Noting that an awareness of in/justice is ingrained in all of us, the authors suggest that our prayers for justice are a sign of our moral health and of our movement towards God. The problem is that our prayers for justice are often ‘shortsighted’, ‘mean-spirited’, and blind to our own guilt. This is why God does not answer our prayers for justice in the ways in which we desire. Consequently, we must ‘leave room for the wrath of God’ and wait in faith to see justice enacted, even if we have to wait ‘all the way to eternity.’
However, there is more to this. Because God also suffers and mourns the injustices of the world, when we cry out for justice we come closer to God, and this ‘partnership in pain’ is itself ‘a form of answer to our prayer.’ Therefore, the authors conclude, God’s answer is his ‘intimate tear-laden friendship’.
The fourth type of prayer that God always answers is desperate prayers, which arise from our location in a broken world, full of danger and unintended harmful consequences. In this regard, the authors suggest that God seems to work by allowing things to get desperate, so that we will call out to him. Thus, God uses evil (although he doesn’t cause it) in a pragmatic way, in order to lead us to ‘the end of ourselves and the beginning of him’. Here, again, the role of faith is important for it is faith that allows us to believe that God answers our desperate prayers, if not now then in the hereafter. Thus, the authors conclude:
God always answers desperate prayers.
We have to believe that. Not just to get the answers, but to believe that God has answered—that he has responded in some way… faith helps us to see answers that are beyond an immediate yes…
If not here and now, then in a not-so distant Tomorrowland.
The fifth type of prayer that God always answers is audacious or selfish prayers. This may seem confusing to the reader, but the authors say that is is natural for us to desire something more, or something better, than what we have now. That is to say, ‘[m]aybe being selfish isn’t a part of our sinful nature, but rather comes embedded as original hardware’. Indeed, if we track characters from the biblical stories, we notice that those who go to God the most, and who demand results from God, tend to get what they want more than others. So, why does God reward this sort of ‘persistance’? Because, once again, it lays the foundation for a deeper relationship. Thus, the authors argue, the fact that we bring these desires to God is a sign of our dependence upon him. This, then, leads to the conclusion that ‘[o]ur most selfish prayers are our truest form of humility.’ Using their own aspirations as an example, the authors show how praying to be best-selling authors would bring benefits to many others — the charities they support would gain more recognition, they could increase the fortunes of those around them, they would aid in the employment of those in the book industry and so on and so forth — and so they ask: ‘When looked at from this perspective, could it be that asking for riches and fame is a noble prayer after all?’
Additionally, the fact that the act of prayer is, itself, beneficial to the pray-er should make us feel less discomfort with selfish prayers. Highlighting the (utilitarian) perspective of J. S. Mill, the authors argue that even our most altruistic prayers can be described as selfish — Mother Teresa found pleasure in seeing prayers answered for the sick people with whom she worked and so, yes, even those prayers could be termed as selfish. Ultimately, the authors conclude, this should lead us to demand nothing less than what God made us for (and so we also shouldn’t be surprised if God gives us something even greater than that for which we asked).
Finally, the sixth type of prayer that God always answers is beauty and happiness-oriented prayers. These are the prayers which arise from our encounters with breath-taking, wonderful moments. Generally, the authors argue, our instinctive reaction is to say something like, ‘Thank you!’ quickly followed by a prayer for ‘more!’ It is this prayer for more that God always answers — not by repeating the wondrous event (for that would pervert the event, and end up taking away from its beauty) and not be completely satisfying our demands (for that might lead to idolatry) but by continuing to provide us with hints and glimpses of beauty and wonder throughout the world. Ultimately, the authors argue, God works through these hints in order to ‘ruin us from ever being content with life here on earth’ so that we will only be satisfied in our future life with God.
So, what then of the other three prayers: the prayer God rarely answers, the prayer God doesn’t want to hear, and the prayer God hates to answer–but will?
Accoring to the authors, asking God ‘why?’ is a prayer that is rarely answered. The reason for this is that ‘why’ is a ‘bottomless pit’ and would require an answer too long, and too complex for our human comprehension. Besides, the authors say, asking why is frequently not a question at all; rather, it is our passive-aggressive way of scolding God. More significantly, they assert that knowing why doesn’t really change anything. Instead, the authors suggest, it is better to ask: ‘How?’ That is to say, rather than asking why there is evil and trouble in the world, it is better to ask how we can act to change those things (indeed, the authors suggest that this is the approach Jesus takes — in Luke 4, Jesus doesn’t ask why people are sick, imprisoned, poor, and oppressed, instead he changes those circumstances). However, despite all that, the authors say that we can continue to ask why (although earlier in the chapter they had ‘Don’t Ask Why!’ as a subheading) because this process of asking can bring us closer to God (even if God doesn’t answer).
According to the authors, posed prayer, prayer performed with ulterior motives, prayer that is inauthentic, is the sort of prayer that God doesn’t want to hear. This is so because such artificial prayer ‘isn’t prayer at all’. True prayer, and the prayer God wants to hear, is that which is earnest, authentic and genuine. However, the authors also remind us that only God can be the judge of what constitutes authentic prayer (while also reminding us that authentic prayer is usually accompanied by authentic action).
Finally, the prayer God ‘hates to answer–but will’ is our own prayer for independence (from God). Because, as the authors argue, free will is the greatest gift God has given us, and because God answers all of our genuine prayers, God also grants prayers that lead us away from him. God seeks genuine love relationships with us, and choice must be a part of that. Therefore, the authors conclude, God leave that choice in our hands and will allow us to be separated from him (even for eternity) should we so choose. Thus: ‘God hates our prayers for independence, but he loves us enough to answer them.’
Critical Reflection
What, then, are we to make of all this? Positively, I believe that the authors should be commended for highlighting the importance of pursuing a relationship with God through prayer. Although they neglect some of the positive aspects of more formulaic and ritualistic approaches to prayer (which understand prayer as a discipline that develops virtue within the character of the praying community), they are correct (although not particularly original) to highlight some of the risks involved with formulaic approaches to prayer. Secondly, without wanting to read too much into the authors intentions, I believe that they are trying to do a good thing — they are trying to encourage and affirm the faith of everyday Christians who struggle to communicate with God, and who are trying to understand the importance or relevance of prayer. This, too, is commendable. Thirdly, in engaging in this process, they do raise some tough questions — questions concerning justice, desperation, (apparently) unanswered prayer, and so on. This is important for it is these tough questions which we must confront if we are to have a living faith in Jesus — or an intimate relationship with God — in today’s world.
Unfortunately, I think that the authors, after posing these tough issues, take the easy way out and refuse to fully confront them. Rather than pursuing their confrontation with reality through to its end (wherever that may be) they retreat from the crises reality poses, and flee into mystifications, and spiritual explanations based upon ‘faith’, which is understood as that which affirms things that cannot be affirmed by any of our other senses. This is most evident in the ways in which the authors continually assert that God can, does, will, and must answer all of these prayers.
The problem is that I am not convinced that God does answer all of our prayers, be they bargaining, questioning, justice-oriented, desperate, audacious, or beauty-oriented. In fact, I am quite certain that God frequently does not answer these prayers, but before I get into that, let me demonstrate how the authors pose non-answers to prayer, as though they were genuine answers (and thereby avoid fully confronting the issues raised).
First, the authors note in passing that ‘no’ can constitute a real answer to prayer. This is an handy way to get around the issue, but leaves the fundamental problem unsolved. A ‘no’ results in exactly the same situation as an unanswered prayer so, from the perspective of material events and their outcomes, positing a ‘no’ simply avoids the issue (and it reminds me of an article from ‘The Onion’ which shows how absurd this sort of reasoning can be; cf. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28812). Besides, how do we know when God says ‘no’ to our prayers? Is it when they appear unanswered? Or is that God just flirting with us? Or has God answered the prayer already in some other way we do not yet recognise? However, the authors don’t spend much time on this type of answer (it is mentioned briefly once) so we will press on.
Secondly, the authors posit that ‘partial’ answers constitute real answers to prayer. Unfortunately this is also only briefly mentioned, and so I’m not exactly sure how this works. So, let’s try to ground this in reality and walk it out. When he was very young, my oldest brother was diagnosed with a chronic and painful illness. Throughout his teens and early twenties, my brother’s illness got progressively worse until he was emaciated and, despite his prescription painkillers, unable to eat or sleep due to the pain. At that time, a good many of us were praying for my brother to be healed. Instead, my brother had an emergency surgery that momentarily reduced the severity of his illness and saved him from imminent death. However, my brother is still ill, and it appears as though the pain has been returning with more frequency recently. Is this the ‘partial’ answer to prayer that the authors or talking about? Is this the ‘answer’ to our prayers for my brother’s healing? Am I supposed to be satisfied with this? Unfortunately, the authors don’t tell me.
Thirdly, the authors emphasise that God frequently answers our prayers by giving us something greater than that for which we asked. Now this is easy to accept in some scenarios — say we pray for a Nissan but end up with a Porsche, or something like that. But it is more difficult to understand when it comes to other scenarios. Take Job’s experiences as an example. Job, as a faithful and religious sort of fellow, likely prayed for the well-being of his children. But his children all died. Of course, at the end of the story, Job seems to receive new and improved children… does that mean he got something better than what he originally asked for? I don’t think so.
You see, I believe that there are situations wherein there is nothing better than that for which we are praying. The best thing for my brother would have been for him to be healed. Granted, he didn’t die, but can his added years of life, and his ongoing battle with his illness, be termed something better than a complete healing from his illness? Not in my books. So maybe we get ‘something better’ when it comes to inconsequential prayers related to ‘stuff’ but the idea doesn’t seem to carry much relevance when it comes to life or death issues. Of course, the authors tend to focus a lot on the idea of praying for (more) stuff, so that may be part of the reason why they miss this point. (Actually, related to this point, I found myself frequently thinking that the book reflected a great deal of the middle-class, bourgeois environment of the authors.) Not all of us are just praying for more and nicer things, you know? Some of us are praying for freedom from addictions, healing from illnesses, liberation from bondage to the powers of Sin and Death, and the new creation of all things. I can’t think of anything better than that, so when those prayers go unanswered, I’m not saying it’s because God gave us ‘something better.’ Tell me God has given me something better than the new life that I wish for my friends, and I’ll tell you that you are blindly propogating religious ideology (or, if I know you a little better, I’d just call bullshit).
Fourthly, and most frequently, the authors emphasise that God does answer prayer, but that God’s answer usually looks a lot different than we imagined it would. Hence that following string of quotations:
If God always answers our prayers for justice, it must be that he answers them differently than we expect or desire…
A prayer that appears to be so obviously ignored is granted in some way that we can’t see here and now…
If we feel like our prayers aren’t being answered, perhaps it is because we don’t see the answers. We don’t recognize God’s responses. The way to correct that is not learn better techniques, but to learn more about God…
[F]aith helps us to see answers that are beyond an immediate yes… If not here and now, then in a not-so distant Tomorrowland.
The problem for these authors arises from the fact that the assertion that God always answers these prayers is not a conclusion, but an a priori assumption that they then must go on and affirm in every given situation. Hence the quotation I provided in my summary above:
God always answers desperate prayers.
We have to believe that.
Actually, we don’t have to believe that. But, the authors seem to be unable to believe in a God who does not answer desperate (or many other) prayers, and that is why they take the easy way out and argue that God always answers all these prayers (regardless of what the evidence tells us). Look, then, at the lengths to which they go, in order to try and cling to this idea. In their exposition of the ways in which God always answers questioning prayers, specifically, the question “Are you there, God?” they argue that God’s elusiveness is the proof of his presence. Essentially they are saying that, if we pray “Are you there, God?” and don’t experience God’s nearness to us, precisely this is the sign of God’s presence! Thus, the feeling of separation from God is converted into a sign of intimacy, and that we don’t feel closer to God shows that our prayer has been answered!
The authors refer to this as ‘flirting’, ‘courting’, and signs of God as a ‘master romantic’, but this needs to be challenged. Again, let’s bring it down to earth. Some tease, some distance, something of the unknown, all of these things can be exciting in a relationship. But there is a time and place for these things. For example, if I was married to a lover who didn’t answer me, who chose not to come (tangibly) closer to me, when I was going through a terribly rough moment in life, I wouldn’t call her a ‘master romantic’, I would call her an asshole! Similarly, if God tells me he stayed away from me, and those I know, when we were going through our hardest times, because he was ‘flirting’ with us, I’ll probably call him an asshole as well. Because that, my friends, is not a a part of an healthy love relationship; in the real world, we call that abusive (if it’s deliberate), or sick (if it stems from a mental health problem). Further, although there is some romantic truth in the idea that absence ‘makes the heart grow fonder’ ( or, as the authors ask,’if we were not separate from God, how could we come to love him, and how could he come to love us?’), the truth is that if all one has in a relationship is seperation and absence, the result isn’t deeper love, the result is a nonexistent or fictional relationship.
Therefore, pace Herringshaw and Schuchmann, I believe that the true challenge for believers, and the place where faith is truly born, is in the recognition that God does not always answer these prayers. Faith is not that which we cling to for answers that we cannot see in the material here-and-now of life; rather faith truly comes into its own as faithfulness when we choose to continue to follow Jesus Christ, even when our prayers go unanswered, and even when we are abandoned by God.
Thus, my most fundamental objection to the authors is to their assertion that God always answers the prayers listed above. Maybe Harringshaw, as a well-situated pastor of a 7000 member church, and Schuchmann, as a well-established writer, simply haven’t seen enough of the real world. Maybe their places of privilege and comfort have blinded them to what goes on in the lives of so many. Because I can tell story after story of men, women, boys, and girls who have had these sort of prayers — desperate, questioning, prayers for justice — go unanswered.
Let me provide just one real life example. Surely the nineteen year old girl crying for help while she is being sexually assaulted is praying a desperate prayer for justice.
It goes unanswered.
Or did God just say ‘no’?
Or did he ‘partially’ answer her prayer by keeping her alive?
Or did God have something ‘better’ planned, and that’s why he didn’t intervene? Not after the first guy. Not after the second. Not even after the third. Boy, God sure must have something real good planned.
Or, wait, maybe God did answer the prayer but not in a way that is obvious? Like… um… you know… um… how exactly?
Get my point? Offer any of these ‘answers’ to this girl and all you will do is alienate her, and, more often than not, drive her away from Christianity. Indeed, if anybody even considered offering these answers to this girl, that would simply demonstrate how incapable they are of moving from suburbia to the inner-city — from places where people pray for more ‘stuff’ to places where people pray for life to conquer death.
Which leads me to my second major objection to this book — the way in which ‘prayers for justice’ are treated by the authors. You see, the authors continually assume that our prayers for justice are punitive prayers for vengeance. They align prayers for justice with punitive prayers oriented around the fate of the one who has caused harm (i.e. ‘God punish this evil-doer’, that sort of thing). What they altogether fail to consider are prayers for justice, on behalf of victims and survivors. Praying for a traumatised person to stop having nightmares has nothing to do with ‘spewing vengeance’; praying for an abused child to develop a sense of self-worth has nothing ‘shortsighted’ or ‘mean-spirited’ about it; praying for a person dominated by the powers of Death to break free into new life in Christ isn’t at all punitive. Therefore, when one prays for justice in this way, and those prayers go unanswered, we cannot simply say, ‘well, our understanding of justice is perverse’ so we’ve got to ‘leave room for God’s wrath’ or whatever. That sort of thinking doesn’t apply here. Unfortunately, the authors appear incapable of, or unwilling to, imagine a person praying for justice in the ways I have described and so the fact that so many of these prayers (appear to?) go unanswered is unaddressed.
My third major objection to this book is related to the comments the authors make about God answering audacious and selfish prayers. Here, especially, the middle-class — dare I say ‘health-and-wealth’? — sentiments of the authors come through. After all, selfish prayers are said to be the ‘truest form of humility’ and considering the good we can do with money, ‘asking for riches and fame is a noble prayer’. Further, an utilitarian perspective is adopted, wherein all our good actions are seen as expressions of selfishness, and selfishness itself is posited as part of our original good human status.
On this point, it is important to distinguish ‘desire’ from ‘selfishness’ (something the authors never do). Certainly God has created us with desires, and in such a way that we only find our sustenance and fulfillment in things and beings outside ourselves. However, affirming the goodness of desire, is a far different thing than affirming selfishness or Mill’s utilitarian perspective. For example, here are the first two entries found under ‘selfish’ in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
(1) concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others;
(2) arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others.
If anything, Christianity teaches us the opposite of this way of behaving. Granted, we are aware that our own well-being is caught up in the well-being of others, but this leads us to concentrate ‘excessively’ on others, not ourselves. It even leads us to disregard ourselves out of concern for the ‘welfare and advantage’ of others. I know that this is a hard thing for suburban Christians to hear, but it is an unavoidable point made, time and again, within the bibles read by those Christians.
However, we also need to recognise that even our desires have been perverted — some would say by original sin, others would say by socio-cultural influences, but I don’t think we need to distinguish between the two — and so we cannot adopt an utilitarian perspective. Our desires need to be disciplined, so that we learn to want to do that which we should be doing. Consequently, there are times when we do what we would rather not do because, rather than seeking our own happiness, we are seeking to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. This, after all, is the fundamental tension of the Christian life. God offer us new life, and life in abundance, in his world, through his Church, in the power of the holy Spirit… but that new life in abundance is only encountered by taking up our crosses and traveling the via dolorosa. The authors of this book seem to want to affirm the first part of that sentence, while ignoring the second half. But, hey, don’t we all? That’s why we need pastors and writers who, unlike Herringshaw and Schuchmann, continue to challenge and remind us of the cost of disciple.
These then are my three major objections to this book: (1) God does not answer all these prayers; (2) the authors never address prayers for justice that focus on new creation and redemption; and (3) the authors are mistaken to affirm selfishness in life and in prayer.
Apart from these, I have six other objections to this book. First, I challenge the extent to which God really does answer ‘questioning prayers’ according to the authors — they essentially narrow all questioning prayers down to the question ‘Are you there, God?’ Further, given that most of our (or at least my) questioning prayers are ‘why’ questions — ‘Why didn’t you stop Steve from overdosing?’ ‘Why didn’t you stop Nancy from jumping in front of that train?’ ‘Why didn’t you stop Jackie from being assaulted?’ ‘Why don’t you come for your shattered, broken, children, children who are longing for you, and make them new?’ — it is rather convenient for the authors to bracket out these questions. Really, in saying that God answers ‘questioning prayers’ they only asserted that God answers the question ‘Are you there, God?’ and, as mentioned above, sometimes God even ‘answers’ that prayer by not showing up!
Thus, implicitly, there are a whole load of other questioning prayers that God doesn’t answer — although the authors simply seem to suggest that God doesn’t answer these because we’re asking the wrong questions. This seems to start pushing prayer back into the ‘technique’ approach the authors seem to dislike so much — God only answers questioning prayers, if we ask the right questions? That sounds rather formulaic. Oh, and it also sounds like ideology.
Second, while I find myself in agreement with the authors when they assert that God rarely answers ‘why’ prayers, I find myself in disagreement with them regarding why this is the case. The authors assert that answers to ‘why’ prayers don’t really change anything, and they argue that it is better for us to focus on ‘how’ issues. Simply put, rather than asking why something went wrong, it is better for us to figure out how to fix the problem. Indeed, the authors quote Luke 4 in order to argue that this was precisely the approach that Jesus took.
Unfortunately, what the authors miss is that the ‘why’ of an issue can be crucial to the ‘how’ of our response. Take another real world example. I meet a lot of homeless young men with missing teeth. Now, granted, I can refer those men to dentists who will fix their mouths for free, or for a reduced rate… but what if I want to try and stop homeless young men from losing their teeth? Then I need to ask why those young men are missing their teeth. To know how to solve the problem, I need to know why the problem keeps showing up. Consequently, when I discover that the police who work in downtown Vancouver (and Toronto) like to zip-tie young homeless men, take them to a secluded area, and beat them up (thereby knocking their teeth out), I also learn that, to address this problem, I need to address the systemic and consistent abuse of power exercised by police officers. Thus, the ‘how’ that I end up practicing — speaking out against police corruption and sending the young men to caring dentists — becomes far more useful and significant than simply approaching a problem from the more superficial perspective taken by the authors of this book.
Indeed, I would suggest that the approach Jesus takes is much more in line with the example which I have provided. Jesus didn’t ignore ‘why’ questions after his Luke 4 manifesto, when he went about engaging in acts of healing, liberation, and solidarity. Rather, Jesus spoke out against the corrupt socio-political and religious structures that perpetuated abusive cycles of illness, bondage, and marginalisation. This, after all, is why Jesus was put to death. The people who killed Jesus, didn’t do so to save the world from sin (although that may have been an unintended consequence). They killed Jesus because his ‘how’ of liberating communal activity, was intimately connected to a ‘why’ which highlighted the corruption and violence of the powers-that-be.
Of course, when authors are comfortably situated in proximity to the powers-that-be, rather than in proximity to those who suffer under those powers, it is easy to forget, or overlook, this point. Asking ‘why’ questions lead to searching for systemic sources of problems, and might end up challenging the very position in which they find themselves, so it is only natural that they would rather focus on other things.
Third, I would also like to register my disagreement with the point that the authors make about free will being the greatest gift God has given us. The authors write the following:
Christians might argue that the greatest gift we received from God was the gift of his Son, who died on a cross to save us from our sins. But perhaps that wasn’t the greatest gift.
To accept the Cross as the greatest gift, to be the recipient of salvation, one has to choose to believe in the saving power of Jesus at the Cross. Without making the choice, it is an unopened gift.
Perhaps the greatest gift God has given us isn’t the Cross. It could be that the greatest gift is free will.
If, as the authors assert, our salvation really does come down to the decision that we choose to make, then perhaps free will is the greatest gift (and greatest curse!) of all. However, I continue to think that those who would base our salvation upon our decisions have fallen into a popular and persistent form of Pelagianism. If we wish to affirm a God of grace, and a God who has overcome all the powers of Sin and Death, then that which is revealed upon the cross truly is the greatest gift given to us — for is shows us a God who refuses to allow us to damn ourselves to hell. The cross shows us a God who descends into hell, and in his solidarity with the damned and the godforsaken, bursts the gates of hell and sets the catives free. Of course, this then leads us into discussion regarding ‘universalism’ so I’ll simply refer the authors to the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jürgen Moltmann and Gregorgy MacDonald.
Fourth, I was also disconcerted by the naïveté the authors exhibited in relationship to themes of American and British patriotism and military conquests. I counted ten different examples of this — from speaking of the role prayer played in the formation of the American constitution, to speaking of prayer in American after Sept 11, 2001, to speaking of the prayers of American marines in Iraq (a particularly interesting passage: ‘Paul [the marine] gave up wussy prayer, and when he prayed selfishly, he bound out God was strong enough to hold his own’), to speaking of how patriotic music makes the authors ‘weep for God and country’, to speaking of how God heard the prayers of Protestant England, and destroyed the Catholic Spanish Armada, to speaking of how God heard the prayers of Columbus and allowed him to fulfill his destiny and take ‘the gospel of Christendom to heathen ports around the world’ — all of these show a shocking degree of historical and political naïveté — or just plain, good old ideological blindness (after all, one can only assume that God answers the prayers of Protestant England in the 16th century, if one also assumes that God did not answer the prayers of Catholic Spain… because, you know, Catholics are bad or something). If one is even a little critical of America and Europe’s, military conquests, if one has even a little familiarity with post-colonial studies, then one would likely speak differently about these subjects. Of course, that comfortable, middle-class American authors fail to see the importance of these things is not surprising, but it is unfortunate.
Fifth, although I am glad to see the authors pressing the point that prayer should take place within the context of a genuine relationship, I sometimes think that the authors overstate, or misrepresent, this point. In particular, I was bothered by their assertion that relationship with God ‘ensures special consideration’ of our prayers. I was equally bothered by the way in which they illustrated this point: ‘Prayer is the equivalent of having a few drinks with the boss after work. It doesn’t ensure favor, but it ensures face time.’
What exactly is it that they are saying here? On the one hand, they appear to be saying that God does privilege the prayers of those who have a relationship with God (a point I must disagree with — it smacks too much of elitism, and neglects the fact that God is Lord over all creation and all people), but on the other hand they seem to suggest that relationship doesn’t ensure favour… so what’s going on? It seems to me that what they are really saying is this: God doesn’t show special favour to those who believe in God the way that we do, but those who believe in God the way that we do will be better equipped to see how God answers prayer (this, I think, is what they mean by ‘face time’). This, then, leads us full circle to my first major objection.
Oh, and prayer is much, much more than face time with the boss over a few drinks. Prayer is also a process of individual and communal discipline and formation. And the communal emphasis is important. Prayer is something Christians are to do together. Unfortunately, when the authors talk about prayer, they only seem to talk about an individual talking with God.
Sixth, and finally, the authors display an odd reliance upon popular psychology — and child psychology in particular. Hence, when speaking of the six prayers God always answers, they always try to argue that these prayers — like prayer itself — are somehow instinctual and grounded in our psychological make-up as humans. Of course, this leads to some interesting problems for them. For example, when speaking of ‘why’ prayers, they suggest that although asking ‘why’ appears to be instinctual, in actuality it is a learned behaviour (besides, they go on to say, child psychology teaches us that kids who ask ‘why’ are just looking for attention, and not for an answer — so, of course, this lets God off the hook for not answering our ‘why’ prayers!). Essentially, I am at a loss as to why the authors display such a dependence upon popular psychology. Personally, I would hope that Christian pastors and writers were a little more informed by theology, biblical studies, or social theory… but maybe that’s just me.
By way of conclusion, let me say that I am happy to have read this book. This is not because I find myself agreeing with much of what the authors say. Rather, it is because it has given me a glimpse into popular Christianity and allowed me to formulate my own responses to some of the issues being presented there.

1. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N. T. Wright.
Well, it was helpful to have Wright summarise and simplify what he has said in more detail elsewhere but, apart from a few points where Wright extends his thinking, this book is basically a combination of The Resurrection of the Son of God and Simply Christian. So, if you’ve read these other books, you may want to take a pass on this one. To be honest, I wish Wright would stop putting out these short books (that mostly restate what he has said elsewhere) and get on with publishing his next installment — the installment on Paul — in the Christian Origins and the Question of God series.
2. Christians at the Cross: Finding Hope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus by N. T. Wright.
After reading Surprised by Hope, I thought “okay, this is Wright’s ‘theology of hope’, now he needs to develop his ‘theology of the cross'” (just as Moltmann — whom Wright engages in Surprised by Hope — moved from Theology of Hope to The Crucified God). Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when Wright mentioned that he had simultaneously published a short book — Christians at the Cross — to address some of the issues and questions of the cross and cruciformity.
However, upon reading Christians at the Cross, I must say that I was rather disappointed. Given that this book was a series of sermons given over Holy Week, at a former mining town now experiencing a great deal of poverty and violence, I had fairly high expectations. Sadly, Wright’s book reads like the sort of book that a well-intentioned, but rather clueless, academic would present to those on the margins — the sort of book that the miners I have known would probably read and, after yawning, say “that was… um… nice.”
To be honest, I think that Wright’s earlier writing — parts of The Climax of the Covenant and Following Jesus, for example — exhibit a better introduction into a theology of the cross. In those works, Wright talks about following the Spirit, and the crucified Lord, into the “groaning places of the world” in order to be agents of God’s new creation. I wish Wright would develop that sort of thinking more (but, then again, leading the affluent lifestyle of a Bishop doesn’t contribute well to developing this sort of thinking). Instead, in these sermons were have a classical music motif that dominates — talking about how the Old Testament is the bass part, the New Testament is the treble part, and our lives are the alto part. Granted, this is a clever analogy, but if miners in England are anything like the miners (or iron-workers, or labourers, or loggers) that I have known, then I suspect the resounding response from Wright’s audience was, “Bo-o-o-oring!”
3. A Theology of History by Hans Urs von Balthasar.
I find von Balthasar to be unique amongst authors because, far more than anybody else, I find myself needing to put his books down — often in the middle of a paragraph — in order to pray. No other author consistently moves me to prayer in this way and this alone is reason enough to read his books.
Balthasar’s central thesis is that Christ is the “norm” and “living centre” of history, through whom we then interpret the rest of history. Now this is a fairly standard Christian approach to history (or, should I say, eschatology, which I believe is the proper term for a Christian theology of history). However, Balthasar, as always, puts a fairly exciting and unique spin on how this works out. He argues that Christ’s mode of time is surrendering all sovereignty to the Father, and thereby receiving everything from the Father, to such a degree that “receptivity is the very constitution of his being.” This then leads Balthasar to conclude that all sin is found in our efforts to break out of this mode of time either by attempted to flee from time into timeless constructs and philosophies, or by attempting to anticipate the will of the Father, rather than simply receiving what the Father gives through the Spirit. Consequently, just as Christ gives meaning to time, Christians can participate meaningfully in time, because they are in Christ. Thus the Church takes on Christ’s mission and becomes “the ultimate gift of God to human history.”
Damn good stuff, what?
4. A Broad Place: An Autobiography by Jürgen Moltmann.
Well, this was a fun read, and I’m hoping to use some of my free time (when I have free time, that is) to read more auto/biographies this year. As a fan of Moltmann, it was interesting to get a glimpse into events that Moltmann had only hinted at, or spoken of in a truncated manner, in his earlier works (usually in his introductions to his various works, but especially in Experiences in Theology). I did, however, find myself a little puzzled by the way in which Moltmann connects his theology to his lifestyle as a renowned academic, and thus I hope to have my questions answered once he receives the letter that I have written him (see my post below). I’ll keep y’all posted.
5. The Making of the Counter Culture: Reflections on the tecnoratic society and its youthful opposition by Theodore Roszak.
I saw this book in the “free books” bin at my school, picked up it, and then ended up really getting into it. It’s interesting to read a book on the counter-culture that was published in 1969 — just before the counter-culture of the ’60s really began to die.
Simply put, Roszak is a fan of the counter-culture — indeed, he believes that the counter-culture is the only move,ment that contains that which is capable of freeing bourgeois society from itself — but he is also aware of its weaknesses. Indeed, his warnings to the counter-culture remain as appropriate today as they were then (see my post below). Of course, I believe that Roszak is operating with a faulty soteriology (the flipside of the faulty State-based soteriology), but his book was still quite a bit of fun to read, in part because he was commenting on authors — like Ginsberg, Watts, Goodman and Marcuse — whom I have not read in detail.
6. Street Stories: 100 Years of Homelessness in Vancouver by Michael Barnholden & Nancy Newman, with photographs by Lindsay Mearns.
This book provides a nice, clean-cut, overview of how homelessness developed in Vancouver, and how the downtown eastside became what it is today. This overview takes the first forty or so pages. The remaining eighty pages are very brief glimpses into the lives of thirty-eight different street-involved people (who allowed their pictures to be taken, and who give advice to youth who are considering homelessness).
Finally, I should note that this book starts with a fantastic quotation from Herman Melville that reads as follows:
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed and well-fed.
Amen, brotha!

Well, as expected, my cover-to-cover book reading has been rather limited this month given both my focus on my thesis research and my desire to read some longer books this year (hence, I’ve been very slowly working my way through Marx’s Grundrisse and Green’s NICNT commentary on The Gospel of Luke over the last few months). However, these are the books I managed to finish last month:
1. Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History (revised edition) by Oscar Cullmann.
This was a book that I began to read for my research and ending up reading all the way through. In it Cullmann lays out his now famous (and now widely accepted) thesis that the Christian understanding of time is one that views history as divided between two ages which, due to the Christ-event, now overlap. Hence, over against Schweitzer’s ‘consistent’ (or futurist) eschatology, Dodd’s ‘realised’ (present) eschatology, and Bultmann’s existential (ahistorical) eschatology, Cullmann posits an inaugurated but not-yet consummated eschatology, wherein Christians negotiate the tensions between the ‘now’ and the ‘not-yet’ (it is in this work that he first utilises he famous example of the time between D-Day, and V-Day — the decisive battle has been won, but the final victory is yet to be accomplished).
I found this to be an excellent book for several reasons. First of all, I fully agree with Cullmann’s understanding of time and history shaped around the Christ-event. Secondly, Cullmann emphasises the fact that the new creation is a cosmic event, encompassing all of creation, and he thereby affirms both embodied human existence (for more on Cullmann’s emphasis on the bodily nature of the resurrection cf. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament). Third, Cullmann stresses the missional aspect of this understanding of time, wherein the Church, in the power of the Holy Spirit, now takes part in the ongoing inauguration of God’s new creation in the present moment. Fourth, I think Cullmann’s reflections on the imminence of Christ’s parousia are quite useful — over against many scholars who argue that Paul was expecting Christ to return in his lifetime, and who thus go on to argue that the early Church then had to contend with the embarrassement of ‘the delay of the parousia‘, Cullmann argues that Paul was certain that Christ would return, was longing for Christ to return in his lifetime, but had no certainty, or ‘calendar reckoning’ for when this return would be. Hence, he argues that Paul was indeed teaching an ‘interim ethic’, but precisely the sort of interim ethic that continues to apply today (and not an interim ethic that we can then discard, as many scholars argue) because we continue to live in that interim period. Fifth, Cullmann’s understanding of the Powers is very useful. He emphasises that the Powers must be understood as both the civil authorities (the secular Greek meaning of the term exousiai) and as angelic powers that stand behind, and operate through, the civil authorities (the understanding of the powers often demonstrated in Jewish apocalyptic literature). I think that this both-and is vitally important for how we interpret Paul’s understanding of the relationship that Christians are to have with the State (Cullmann develops this view more in The State in the New Testament).
To be honest, much of what Cullmann said reminded me of N. T. Wright, both in what Wright has to say about eschatology (in The New Testament and the People of God and in Jesus and the Victory of God) and in what Wright has to say about resurrection, new creation, and the mission of the Church (in The Resurrection of the Son of God, Surprised by Hope, and Simply Christian). It seems to me that much of the core of what has made Wright (in)famous (regarding these topics) was already stated by Cullmann fifty years ago. I was, therefore, a little surprised, when I went back to Wright’s books, to discover that Wright harldly engages Cullmann at all and only passingly (and negatively) mentions Cullmann’s The Christology of the New Testament. I’m not sure why this is. Anybody care to ask the good bishop for me?
2. Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Louis Metzger.
I may have come to this book with higher expectations than I should have, but I was a little disappointed after reading it. Essentially, if you have read John Perkins and William Cavanaugh, you will have already read what Metzger lays out in this book — a vision of the Church as a theopolitical community capable of overcoming race and class division through the presence of practical love (found in reconciliation, relocation, and redistribution) and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. However, Metzger, as an Evangelical, does add to Perkins and Cavanaugh by mapping some of the ways in which the American Evangelical movement has lost its way, and by offering some suggestions as to how that community can get back on track (here he largely follow the analysis provided by Noll and Marsden).
Of course, it should be noted that Metzger is essentially restating what scholars like Perkins, Cavanaugh, Noll, and Marsden, have said, but restating it in a way that makes these scholars accessible (and hopefully exciting) to a general Christian audience. Hence, my disappointment in the book mostly stems from my own misunderstanding of what Metzger was trying to accomplish!
I do, however, have one deeper point of (potential?) disagreement with Metzger. It seems to me that Metzger still falls into an unhelpful sort of stewardship model (the sort criticised by Kelly S. Johnson in her fantastic book, The Fear of Beggars) when he deals with the issue of material distribution. This also points to what I see as a deeper problem in Metzger’s book — the way in which he focuses on consumerism rather than on capitalism. By focusing on consumerism, I think that Metzger fails to account for how truly insidious capitalism is — he seems to be saying that the problem is not capitalism, but what we do with it, and I think that this fails to get to the core of the problem. That said, let me return to the issue of stewardship ethics, by providing a lengthy quote. Metzger writes:
Free-market capitalism is very good at making money, but is not very good at distributing it. Christians, on the other hand, have been called to redistribute our wealth, talents, and goods. While Jesus never said that we should embrace poverty, he did tell the rich young ruler to sell his possessions and give all the proceeds to the poor (Luke 18.18-30). But it is important to point out to young Christians who are passionate about helping the poor that we cannot give to the poor if we have no resources to redistribute. We should embrace redistribution, not poverty. Following John Wesley, we should make all that we can, so that we can save all that we can, so that we can give away all that we can.
IMO, there are a couple problems with this way of thinking. To begin with, this ‘Wesleyan’ way of thinking is precisely the sort of thinking that was, in a signicant way, responsible for the rise of capitalism. Secondly, the type of charity that results from this way of thinking is often a top-down form of condescension. Thirdly, one’s focus becomes on making money in order to be able to give some to the poor, when there are many other ways in which one can give to, and be among, the poor that do not involve much money at all. That is to say, the notion that we, must go about making money in order to help the poor is one that is entirely false, and is itself a part of the mythic perpetuation of capitalism (as Peter Maurin once said, and as those like George Muller demonstrated, ‘In the history of the saints, capital was raised by prayer’). Finally, what Metzger fails to work through in regards to journeying with the poor, is the issue of solidarity. Yes, Metzger does mention solidarity a few pages earlier, when he argues that the Christian community must engage in “solidarity with society at large” because “Christ himself was all about solidarity”. However, IMO, he fails to see how his model of redistribution is one that is unable to succeed in attaining solidarity because, if one is spending all of one’s time working and saving in order to be able to give to the poor, then chances are that one is actually spending very much time in community with the poor. Hence, the issue is not one of romanticising poverty, but of recognising that true solidarity eventually leads us to the point of embracing poverty ourselves.
3. Les Justes by Albert Camus.
It has been a long time since I did any reading in French. However, after our friend Dany visited last month (cf. donotfreeze.blogspot.com), I received the gift of a few French novels and so I decided to begin with this short play (translated into english as “The Just Assassins” but a more literal, and better, translation would be “The Just Ones”). I’ve always love Camus (La Peste remains one of my favourite novels), and this play did not disappoint. Herein, we see a group of revolutionaries struggling with issues of justice, violence, sacrifice, love and hope(lessness). A great play, and probably the first play that I have truly really enjoyed reading (whereas when I read Shakespeare, Beckett, Williams, and Miller, I always found myself thinking ‘I’d probably like this a whole lot more if I was watching this as a performance’).
I don’t know what it is about the French literary philosophers (Camus, Sartre, Voltaire) but they have a way of expressing things with a profundity, brevity, and poignancy that I have yet to find elsewhere. And Camus has such a way with words. Here are a few notable quotes:
C’est cela l’amour — tout donner, tout sacrificier, sans espoir de retour.
La liberté est un bagne aussi longtemps qu’un seul homme est asservi sur la terre.
Annenkov — Il dit que la poésie est révolutionnaire.
Stepan — La bombe seule est révolutionnaire.
Damn, why do quotes always sound so much better when they’re in French?

1. Spirit and the Politics of Disablement by Sharon V. Betcher.
Having happily stumbled into this nexus between liberation theology and disability theory at some point last year (when I read The Disabled God by Nancy Eiesland), I was eager to read what somebody else had to say on this subject. Thus, when I stumbled across Betcher’s book (who, like Eiesland, also writes on this topic as one who has been classified as ‘disabled’) I quickly worked my way through it.
What I think I have learned from those like Betcher and Eiesland is that disability is almost entirely due to social barriers and the biopolitics of capitalism which pushes various standards of normalcy and employability upon us. Thus, Betcher argues that, rather than seeing disability as a loss, or something to be overcome, disability can then become a place that provides us with a powerful alternative to, and critique of, empire and its “ideologies of normalcy”.
Now, all that is well and good, and Betcher does an excellent job of thinking through these things alongside of folks like Foucault, Deleuze, Hardt, and Negri. However, there was much about this book that I found to be frustrating. Particularly, I found her all-out rejection of the healing narratives, as well as Jesus’ resurrection, to be especially troubling — not only because of my own convictions, but because I think she is cutting her own legs out from under herself by arguing in this way. Betcher is opposed to these things because she thinks healing stories, including the story of the resurrection, have been used to support empire’s biopolitics — and there is certainly a great deal of truth in this. However, such stories can be used in other ways. For example, unlike Betcher, who wishes to discard the notions of healing and resurrection altogether, I would argue that all of us are awaiting the transformation of our bodies and, in this regard, both those who are temporarily disabled and those who are temporarily able bodied, are united in awaiting the new creation of all things — including themselves.
Additionally, Betcher appears to focus her argument solely upon those who have physical disabilities. However, when one factors in those with mental disabilities, perhaps we should not be so quick to discard all stories that point to transformation or, dare I say, healing. Granted, whether a person has one leg or two may be entirely irrelevant, but when a person regularly hears voices that tells him to kill himself (I know more than one person who has lived with these voices) then I think we shouldn’t be so hasty to say that all talk of transformation or healing is supporting the biopolitics of empire.
Finally, it is worth noting that Betcher is writing out of a rather ‘liberal’ theological tradition. As such, she appears to exhibit some religious syncretism, some discomfort with ‘orthodox’ Christianity, and I really can’t tell what the difference might be between her religious position and the dominant spirituality of Vancouver more broadly (she teaches at a theology school in Vancouver, but not at the one I attend).
2. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism by Fredric Jameson.
I’m not entirely sure how to summarise this book as Jameson covers a lot of ground, a lot of sources, and a lot of topics in its 400 pages. Essentially, I think that Jameson is continuing to demonstrate the truth found in the Marxist thesis that it is the mode of production (the base) which is responsible for the shape a culture takes (the superstructure). Hence, he demonstrates how postmodernism — in various media and disciplines, from architecture, to alternative film, to theory, to economics — is an outworking of late capitalism — capitalism in its present form, which if focused upon commodification and the (recycling of) image. One of the major consequences of this is the loss of the historical, and it is the recovery of history (again, an important element of Marxism) that Jameson seems to especially desire.
Of course, there is much more that should be said about this book, it really is an exceptional study of modernism, postmodernism, and the thread that capitalism draws between the two as it develops out of one and into the other. My only complaint would be that I wished Jameson would be a little less anecdotal and cut to the chase more often — but, then again, given that Jameson is attempting to demonstrate cultural shifts, perhaps examples are necessary… it’s just that I don’t get too excited reading about alternative films being produced in the ’70s.
3. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre.
This was my first time reading Sartre, and I enjoyed it a great deal. It seems to me that Sartre, like Wittgenstein, must be one of the central precursors to postmodernism (again, a sense of history helps remind us that there are very few ‘clean breaks’ between eras). In this novel, Sartre explores questions about history, epistemology, meaning and subjectivity. I don’t know what it is about the French but they are damn good at writing philosophy in a narrative form. I wish more people would do that.
4. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
Well, I finally got around to reading this little play last month. I’ve never been a fan of reading plays — they are, after all, made for performing and viewing (which, by the way, was part of the reason why I have always thought that it was totally nuts that highschool students are made to read Shakespeare, year after year). To be honest, I’m still sitting on the fence with this one. I think I would like to go to see it before I make up my mind. Initially, I was rather unimpressed but, as I have continued to reflect on it, it has grown on me more and more. Not bad for a play wherein nothing happens!
5. Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma
This is a book about child soldiers, written by a celebrated French African author. It’s damn good, but terribly depressing. Faforo! Gnamokode!
Sometimes I wonder why I keep reading about all these terribly depressing things. To put it simply, the world is fucked, and the more I learn about it, the more I learn about the depth of this brokenness, the more I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s box and don’t know how to respond to everything that came flying out. On the one hand, I think we must educate ourselves about how fucked everything is but, on the other hand, I’m not sure what to do with that knowledge. Faforo! Gnamokode!
6. Introduction to Bhagavad-Gita by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
This little book (really a fifty-page tract) was some fun reading. It was a nice refresher for me, as it has been awhile since I’ve read anything in relation to Hinduism, and it was fun to observe similarities with postmodern thought (take, for example, the ‘death of the subject’) and with Christianity (take, for example, Prbhupada’s argument that true knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita comes only to those who are devotees in direct relationship with the Lord — I think Tom Wright says almost exactly the same thing about an epistemology of love in Surprised by Hope. Or, as another example, take Prbhupada’s emphasis upon tracing truth through discipilic succession, a point that should have our Roman Catholic friends nodding their heads!). Of course, at the end of the day, Hinduism, postmodern philosophy, and Christianity are often miles apart from each other, but that doesn’t mean there is no room for fruitful dialogue.

I’ve been hoping to write about a few things, but life has been rather hectic as my wife and I were looking for another place to live, and are now packing. Anyway, this is my book list of 2007. This year I fell short of my 100 book objective and only finished up 79 complete books. That means I’ve read about 280 books, cover-to-cover, over the last three years. In 2008, I suspect the number will continue to drop (damn you, thesis!), but I intend to read more 500+ page books, and worry less about the total number of books consumed. We’ll see how that goes.
Best Book(s): The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, & Faith and Wealth: A History of the Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money by Justo Gonzalez.
It’s hard to pick a ‘best book’ out of last year’s books, but I think Klein’s book is is probably the most relevant to our day and age. If you want to learn about our own context (which is usually the most neglected aspect of hermeneutics) then read this book. Actually, just read it anyway. I paired it with the Gonzalez book, in part because I read the two books together and found that to be a very fruitful exercise, but also because Gonzalez shows us the standard set for us by the early Church and demonstrates the trajectory that the early Church was following (and, by implication, how far we have deviated from that trajectory). Reading these two books together changed me probably more than anything else I read this year.
Worst Book: Fragments: Cool Memories III, 1990-1995 by Jean Baudrillard.
It was hard to pick one book that stood out as much worse than the others. I was tempted to go with Ratzinger’s book on Jesus, or Hay’s book on economics (or even the last Harry Potter book), but I ended up with Baudrillard (even though the other books I read by him were exceptional) because Fragments hardly qualifies as a book. It’s more like a collection of aphorisms that Baudrillard puts together in order to try and deconstruct the form of the book itself. Yippee. Damn, I wish he had of continued along the vein of his earlier works.
Here’s the list, broken into various categories:
Theology/Spirituality/Christian Living (19 Books)
Best in Category: With the Grain of the Universe by Stanley Hauerwas (next to Gonzalez).
Worst in Category: A Cry of Absence by Martin Marty.
-Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War Writings, 1946-52 by Karl Barth.
-Church Dogmatics I.2: The Doctrine of the Word of God by Karl Barth.
-The Long Loneliness: An Autobiography by Dorothy Day.
-The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy L. Eiesland.
-Francis of Assisi: Early Documents Vol. 1, The Saint edited by Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., J. A. Wayne Hellman, O.F.M. Conv., and William J. SHort, O.F.M.
-Faith & Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money by Justo L. Gonzalez.
-With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology by Stanley Hauerwas.
-A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity by Stanley Hauerwas.
-Joyful Exiles: Life in Christ on the Dangerous Edge of Things by James M. Houston.
-The Fear of Beggars: Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics by Kelly S. Johnson.
-A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart by Martin E. Marty.
-Easy Essays by Peter Maurin.
-The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation by Jurgen Moltmann.
-In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen.
-The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry by Henri Nouwen.
-God in the Slums: A Book of Miracles by Hugh Redwood.
-Conscience and Obedience: The Politics of Romans 13 and Revelations 13 in Light of the Second Coming by William Stringfellow.
-New Tasks for a Renewed Church by Tom Wright.
-Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff.
Biblical Studies/Commentaries (16 Books)
Best in Category: A Biblical Theology of Exile by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher.
Worst in Category: A Long Way from Tipperary by John Dominic Crossan.
-Mandate to Difference: An Invitation to the Contemporary Church by Walter Brueggemann.
-In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed.
-God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now by John Dominic Crossan.
-A Long Way From Tipperary: A Memoir by John Dominic Crossan.
-Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle by Neil Elliott.
-Matthew by Stanley Hauerwas (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible).
-Religion and Empire: People, Power, and the Life of the Spirit by Richard A. Horsley.
-The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context by Richard A. Horsley.
-The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity by James S. Jeffers.
-The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul by Wayne A. Meeks.
-Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus by Ched Myers.
-Rome in the Bible and the Early Church edited by Peter Oakes.
-Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement by Brant Pitre.
-Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration by Joseph Ratzinger.
-Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture by David A. deSilva.
-A Biblical Theology of Exile by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher.
Philosophy/Economics/Socio-Political Commentary (32 Books)
Best in Category: The Consumer Society by Jean Baudrillard (next to Klein).
Worst in Category: From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman (next to Fragments).
-Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World by Benjamin R. Barber.
-Mythologies by Roland Barthes.
-Forget Foucault by Jean Baudrillard.
-Fragments: Cool Memories III, 1990-1995 by Jean Baudrillard.
-The System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard.
-The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures by Jean Baudrillard.
-Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion by Ernst Bloch.
-Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Vol 1), by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
-Specters of Marx: The State of Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International by Jacques Derrida.
-After Theory by Terry Eagleton.
-Marxism and Literary Criticism by Terry Eagleton.
-Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault (edited by Colin Gordon).
-Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
-From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman.
-Economics Today: A Christian Critique by Donald A. Hay.
-An Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger.
-The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times & Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner.
-The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.
-A user’s guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guatarri by Brian Massumi.
-The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.
-Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill.
-Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins.
-In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver edited by Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane
-Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments edited by Yvonne Sherwood & Kevin Hart.
-Fascism: what it is and how to fight it by Leon Trotsky.
-Candide: Or, Optimism by Voltaire.
-The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber.
-Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking and Resistance by Louisa Waugh.
-Culture and Value by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
-How to Read Lacan by Slavoj Zizek.
-On Belief by Slavoj Zizek.
-The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity by Slavoj Zizek.
Fiction/Poetry/Graphic Novels (12 Books)
Best in Category And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat.
Worst in Category Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski.
-Love is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977 by Charles Bukowski.
-Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez
-Watchmen by Alan Moore (illustrated by Dave Gibbons).
-Batman: Year One written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli.
-5 People who Died During Sex: And 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists by Karl Shaw.
-Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller (with Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley).
-And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat.
-The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowlings.
-The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
-Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.
-The Secret Lives of Men and Women compiled by Frank Warren.

Well, I have been away for a little while visiting family and friends and checking out a few job options in Toronto; thus, my December books are a little late. Here they are:
1. The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context by Richard A. Horsley.
This here book was my Advent reading. One of my plans, as I try to begin to follow the Church calendar more closely, is to structure some of my reading around that calendar. I figured this would be a good place to start, and I wasn’t mistaken. Horsley provides a great socio-political read of Lk 1-2, and Mt 1-2 (a reading, it should be noted, that the texts themselves legitimise and prioritise). Now, although I don’t agree with everything Horsley has to say (for example, I think he is too quick to relinquish the category of ‘eschatology’ to his opponents), I actually ended up concluding that this is some of his best material (which rather surprised me given that nobody seems to have heard of this book, and that it is now only printed on demand). I highly recommend it to any for the Advent season, and for pastors in particular as they lead their churches through Advent and into Christmas.
2. A Biblical Theology of Exile by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher.
This book is a fantastic blend of biblical theology, hermeneutics, postcolonial and refugee studies, as well as disaster theory and continental philosophy. I loved it and think that it was one of the best that I’ve read this year — not least because it provided me with a great lens through which to view all of the Old Testament (that lens, of course, is the lens of exile). There were many things that I found to be thought-provoking and exciting. For example, the author argues that the exilic redactors rewrite the narrative histories of Israel’s monarchy and prior military prowess in a deliberately negative manner and thereby espouse a narrative theology that is premised upon an embrace of exile and a refusal of national (and other worldly forms) of power. Damn good stuff.
3. Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War Writings, 1946-52 by Karl Barth.
As the title suggests, this book is a compilation of material from Barth written after WWII. It mainly deals with issues involving the Church and the State. Certainly there is a great deal of material here that lays the foundation for a postliberal theology (indeed, I forget who said it, but Barth might well be classified the first postliberal theologian) but there are also significant points of difference. Barth, for example, ends up being much more positive about the State, and seems to offer a position between the Niebuhrians and the Hauerwasians (even though I suspect he is closer to the Hauerwasians on Church/State issues). Thus, I found this book to be both encouraging and challenging — which makes it just right.
4. In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen.
I don’t usually have much time to completely reread books that I have already read, but when I do so I usually find myself rereading Nouwen (both because his books are so poignant and so short). My wife and I worked through this book in our devotions in December. I always find Nouwen to be a wonderful reminder of some of the core issues of faith and living.
5. A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart by Martin E. Marty.
After reading Wolterstorff’s Lament last month, I figured I would read Marty’s lament (this book was written after he had lost his first wife to cancer) as one of my professor’s tends to mention these books in tandem (and as this book was on sale for 25 cents in my school library). I can’t say that I enjoyed it all that much. I had some trouble enjoying Marty’s voice, which I found to be rather journalistic, as well as his content — he essentially made the same main point over and over (i.e. not all Christians have to be happy and feel good all the time — thanks!). I don’t know… it seems like a lot of people have really been touched by this book, so maybe it’s just me (maybe I lose track of the fact that the freedom to be unhappy can be a big deal in certain Christian circles). I guess part of my problem was Marty’s use of the Psalms, which I have always had trouble getting into and enjoying, so I guess that probably suggests the problem was more mine than Marty’s. Oh well.
6. In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver edited by Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane.
This book presents the stories of seven women from the neighbourhood in which I live, as they told those stories to the editors of this book. It is always a challenge to tell such stories because one desires to be honest, yet one fears romanticisation, exploitation, and so on and so forth. However, these are the stories that these seven women want to tell, and they seem to negotiate the tensions of story-telling quite well. If you’re interested in learning more about my ‘hood, and the people there, this is probably a good place to start.

Here are last month’s books:
1. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents Vol. 1, The Saint edited by Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., J. A. Wayne Hellman, O.F.M. Conv., and William J. SHort, O.F.M.
This book contains all of the documents written by Saint Francis and the early writings that deal with Francis (early biographies, liturgical texts, etc.), and the Franciscans (early Franciscan documents, Papal documents, and references in other writings and chronicles). It spans the years 1205-1239 CE.
I found it intriguing to read Francis himself, as well as other ancient texts and I have found myself regularly reflecting back on what I read in this collection. It seems to me that Francis, and the early Franciscans, are perhaps the model for how we should live Christianly in our contemporary context. This is so for a few reasons: (1) Francis and the Franciscans were the first united ‘popular’ Christian response to the monetary economy that had recently come to dominate Western Europe. As such, I think they continue to show us the way in which we should respond to a monetary economy that has achieved global dominance. The challenge is for us to embrace greater expressions of sharing, giving, and poverty-in-community; (2) Francis realised that the proclamation of the gospel was something that was embodied — that encapsulated word, deed, and lifestyle — and it is this intimate union of word, deed, and lifestyle that we must continue to pursue today; (3) Francis engaged in harsh physical forms of penance, not because he despised the material and longed to escape into the spiritual, but because he realised that we had physically been disciplined by the powers around us, and our liberation from those powers required a redisciplined body. The same applies to us today to an even greater degree; (4) Francis’ central proclamation of the gospel as “peace with penance” is crucial for our recovery of a gospel proclamation that is both liberating and costly.
So, all that to say, I enjoyed this book quite a lot.
2. The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation by Jurgen Moltmann.
Moltmann was the first ‘real’ theologian I read in my undergrad and, in many ways, he continues to be my first love. Certainly, my own thinking, writing, and living has been deeply influenced by what he has written. However, when I was working my way through the 8(?) volumes that he considers “contributions” to systematic theology, I skipped this volume, so I finally got back to read it this month.
As always, he is provocative, affirming, and inspiring. Although the Spirit was the particular focus of this book, Moltmann always writes from a Trinitarian perspective, with a mind to the early creeds, the various forms of Christian communion (Anabaptist, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox), and the contemporary situation. Chapter Six on “The Justification of Life” was especially good. Moltmann is always recommended reading.
3. Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, one of the Christian philosophers responsible for what has become known as a ‘reformed epistemology’ came to my school to give a series of lectures on the topic of ‘love and justice.’ Having only read one of his books previously (Reason Within the Bounds of Religion), I thought I would read this much more personal work, taken from the journal that he kept during the year after one of his sons died in a climbing accident.
I imagine that any who have struggled with a great hurt, or a great loss, or the death of a loved one, would find this book helpful, as I think Wolterstorff gives a voice to many things that others find difficult to articulate.
As I was reading the book I couldn’t help thinking that true wisdom, for as long as we live in a broken world, comes from experiencing both overwhelming joy, and overwhelming sorrow.
4. God in the Slums: A Book of Miracles by Hugh Redwood.
I stumbled onto this little gem in a used book store. It was published in 1930, and documents the conditions of some of England’s worst slums, as well as the work that a special corps of the Salvation Army was doing in those neighbourhoods. This Salvation Army group — all women, by the way — was known as “The Slums” and committed to both working and living in the slums, for they believed that effective change did not come from without but from within (here the example of yeast is used, for yeast must operate from within the dough if it is to act). Increasingly I am discovering that there have always been movements within the Church — little remarked by others, or even by the rest of the Church — that have taken to living in this sort of communal solidarity with the poor. Such movements are proof to me of an unbroken Church that spans back to Acts (despite the ongoing corruption and compromise of much of the mainstream, better known, Church). This book was a real delight to read, and is actually available to read on line (cf. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6595280).
5. On Belief by Slavoj Zizek.
I always find it next to impossible to provide a brief synopsis of Zizek’s books because his thoughts fly so swiftly from topic to topic and often only hold together by the smallest thread (if at all). However, n this work, I especially appreciated the distinction Zizek makes between ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ while demonstrating that all of us exhibit a lived faith in capitalism, regardless of whether or not we believe in it (a point I mention in the paper posted previously) and on the gnostic proclivities of cybernetics and computer technology (also mentioned in that paper). I’m still on the fence with Zizek. When he nails something, he really nails it, but often I think he is lazy in his thinking, researching, and writing (however, because he can be so brilliant, he gets away with this more than others).
6. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
This is a classic novel that documents the plight of the workers, immigrants, and criminals in Chicago’s stockyards at the start of the twentieth century CE. Sinclair had first hand experiences of these people, places, and things, and he builds a damning case against unchecked capitalism, and concludes by having his protagonist (after moving from being an immigrant worker supporting his family, to being a hobo, to being a petty criminal, to being a part of the corrupt mainstream political structure) embrace socialism. It is a good story, and it is worth remembering that workers around the world are still not that far removed from the sort of experiences described by Sinclair. We haven’t really increased the lot of the proletariat, we have simply outsourced and now abuse a proletariat that it out of sight and, therefore, out of mind.