Ah, Douglas Wilson, how do I love thee?

Douglas Wilson, for those of you unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with him, is a great man. Not just as in a "great guy" but as in a Great Man. With capitals. Listing all of his many accomplishments here would be too much for my lazy brain and those of my lazy (and sparse) readership, undoubtedly. Highlights, in my opinion, are his work promoting classical education, his annihilation of oft-fawned-over atheist Chris Hitchens in a series of debates in Christianity Today, and now, his increasingly sharp and merciless satirical novel, Evangellyfish, the tagline of which ought to be, "Hahaha... Ouch."

Here's a brief excerpt from Chapter 1. Read the rest, as they say, at your own risk.

[Pastor Mitchell] surprised, and was in turn surprised by, Chad Lester, who was there with Cherie trying to . . . well, it was not at all clear now what he had been trying to do. But Mitchell had thought at the time he knew what Lester was trying to do. Words had been exchanged, including some bits of high volume exegesis and penetrating theological insight. Chad had stumbled on his way to the door, lurching into Mitchell, and Mitchell had taken that opportunity to unload a punch which connected with a less than perfect tenderness. But as punches go, analyzed merely in the interests of dispassionate science and apart from any ethical considerations, it had been exquisite.

Now. Boys and girls, that is what we call vivid writing -- vivid to the point of being actually painful.

Yes, But the Real Question is, Can She Survive The First Day?

7:30 - Doors open
8:00 - Recitation
8:20 - Planning time
9:00 - Bible
9:30 - History
10:00 - Recess
10:15 - Literature (third grade)
11:00 - Literature (fourth grade)
11:45 - Mid-Day Prayer
12:00 - Lunch
12:45 - Omnibus (eighth grade literature, theology, history)
1:45 - Latin I
2:30 - P.E. (Monday and Friday), Chorus (Tuesday and Thursday) or Study Hall (Wednesday)
3:00 - End of Day

"...of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh."

Michael Jensen has written a pretty hilarious post on the "writing of many books" over on his blog... I feel his frustration. Check it out:

Further, this tendency [to write and publish capacious, encyclopedic commentaries] heightens the impression (long fostered by those in the field of biblical studies) that expert knowledge is utterly indispensible for any comprehension at all. It is just impossible for a non-specialist to get accross it all - you could give a life time just to reading commentaries on the book of Romans written since 1980! In addition, the experts are under pressure to come up with some new way of reading in order to make their name professionally and so get a nice job and some recognition.

[snip]

And to preachers: stop purchasing the things! They aren't helping your sermon preparation - and they certainly aren't helping your sermons. They are high-cost high redundancy items. Find the absolute classics in each book and stick with those. Buy some theology instead, or read a novel or two, or a biography, or philosophy. Make your Greek better and read the text for yourself! Spend more time in prayer even...

Go on over and read the entire article, why dontcha?

Another Book

A couple years ago I picked up The Devil in the White City in an airport bookshop, and loved it -- it's the true (if ever so slightly sensationalized) story of Chicago during the World's Fair, focusing on the men who designed the Fair's buildings and a serial killer who preyed on the young women who came to work at the Fair. It basically combines my two favorite kinds of literature: historical nonfiction and murder mystery.

The same author has recently released another cracking book called Thunderstruck. It tells of how Marconi invented the telegraph (fascinating, really; I had no idea what a big deal it was) and how it helped lead to the capture of a murderer fleeing the police on a transatlantic cruise.

Some reviewers have given the author, Erik Larson, a hard time about the two books, accusing him of taking two random events and mashing them together into one incoherent storyline. But at the outset Larson claims to be giving a perspective on a certain period of history from the viewpoints of the two main groups of characters. He does sometimes try to make too-tenuous connections between, in this case, Marconi and the murderer, but I chalk that up to his slightly tabloid, eyebrows-raised, ominous-violins-in-background style of writing. Which is a compliment.

Anyway, it's a ripper. I plowed through 150 pages of it on the plane last night and it was good enough to distract me both from the fact that I was 35,000 feet in the air and from the incredibly annoying teenage Jehovah's Witness who sat behind me and talked, I'm not even remotely kidding, non-stop from takeoff to landing. Mostly about how excited she was to see heaven, no, really, so excited! At which point I had to pause and pray that the Lord would wait at least until we were safely on the ground to address that issue. Tangent over. Read the book.

What is Total Truth?

(From a conversation recorded in Nancy Pearcey's book, Total Truth.)

"Your earlier book says Christians are called to redeem entire cultures, not just individuals," a schoolteacher commented, joining me for lunch at a conference where I had just spoken. Then he added thoughtfully, "I'd never heard that before."

The teacher was talking about How Now Shall We Live? and at his words I looked up from my plate in surprise. Was he really saying he'd never even heard the idea of being a redemptive force in every area of culture? He shook his head: "No, I've always thought of salvation strictly in terms of individual souls."

God has given me the grace of attending a church that views its task as transforming culture with the Gospel, so this concept was not foreign to me. But several years ago, it certainly would have been. And even had someone suggested to me that the job of the Church was to transform and redeem culture with the Gospel, I, like many (or dare I say most!) evangelicals today would likely have located that transformative power in political activism. How do we transform American culture? Well, by going to Washington and getting a bill passed, of course!

But have we gotten it backwards? A member of congress once told Pearcey, "I got involved in politics... because I thought that was the fastest way to moral reform. Well, we've won some legislative victories, but we've lost the culture."

If I haven't lost all of you by my long absence, discuss!

Summer Reading List

I've got loads of books on my shelf, and not just school books, but fiction and anthologies from my college days as well as ones I've picked up since. I love books. I love everything about them. I love the smell of new books, and how the spines crackle when they're opened for the first time, and the rustle of thin pages. I've got a friend who will actually have time to read this summer, and I've made her a list of books to borrow, read, and enjoy. So, for the curious, and in honor of Cultivate Beauty month as it draws to a close, I will, Oprah-like, give you my recommended summer reading list, in no particular order:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Beloved by Toni Morrison
How the Irish Saved Civilization (nonfiction) by Thomas Cahill
Proof (a play) by David Auburn
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Professor and the Madman (historical fiction, based on real events) by Simon Winchester
The Devil in the White City (another historical fiction) by Erik Larson
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Wit (a play) by Margaret Edson
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Had anybody read any of these? What are your favorite books, or some that you've lately read that you loved?

Why I'm Such a Cry-Baby

Many of my friends, and anyone in my family, can attest to the fact that I am a cry-baby. I prefer to say that my heart is easily touched, because it sounds better, but the truth is, it's not hard to make me cry. In fact, all you really have to do to make me cry is talk about "the Nations," and I'm a goner. So the reading I've been doing for school has been pretty rough on me the last week or so. First, I've been reading a book for Missiology called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. It sounds pretty dry, and some of the readings are, but others are so full of passion and tenderness for the lost people of the world that I can't help being moved. Second, I just finished a Faithful Witness: the Life and Mission of William Carey. Carey is the father of Baptist Missions, and the story of his struggle and success in India should be known to every believer. Third, I'm in the middle of reading Let the Nations Be Glad! by John Piper, which every believer really must read. The section on suffering... it was crushing. Let me give you an example of one true story that broke my heart.

An African man named Joseph heard the Gospel on a dusty road one day, and was so filled with joy and excitement that he couldn't wait to share his newfound Savior with his own village. When he did, he was shocked to discover that they did not share his excitement; in fact, the men of the village held him down while the women beat him with barbed wire, then dragged him out into the bush to die. Somehow he survived, and days later came back to the village and pleaded with his kinsmen to come to the crucified and risen Christ. Again they beat him, and left him for dead. By a miracle of God, he survived this beating too, and after lying unconscious for several days, came again to the village to share this message of Christ's forgiveness. The women beat him a third time, but, as he was losing consciousness, he saw the women beginning to weep. The next time he awoke, the same women were around his own bed, tending his terrible wounds and nursing him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ.

This is just one story in a series from the chapter on suffering. How small my own faith is! How little is my own trust in the sovereignty of God! How unwillingly I give up even the smallest convenience for the sake of the Gospel! How fearfully I approach evangelism, even when I know that my life and health are safe no matter how bold I might be!

I spent a lot of time crying as I read through that chapter, as I cried out to God for a faith so bold that pain would be a joy when compared to silence. And if that means I'm a cry-baby, I guess I'll take the title!