BookPastor >> "God Among Sages" (Kenneth Richard Samples)

This review was published at Panorama of a Book Saint on July 5th, 2017.

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TITLE: God among Sages: Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader
AUTHOR: Kenneth Richard Samples
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2017, (288 pages).

Who is Jesus? Is he simply another religious leader like those of the other major religions of the world? Who does he claim he is? Is he God? This book sets out the facts and compares the various philosophies, religions, worldviews in this world of pluralistic thinking and beliefs. Author Kenneth Richard Samples asserts that Jesus is matchless throughout history in terms of his self-understanding; his identity; his way of life and consistency in teaching. Part One essentially deals with what Jesus talks about himself. Part Two deals with the lives and accomplishments of four major religions and then each is compared with Jesus. The four major religious leaders are Krishna (Hinduism); Buddha (Buddhism); Confucius (Confucionism); and Muhammad (Islam). Part Three goes beyond these four religions to cover a bigger sphere of the world's perspective on Jesus. This includes the different types of pluralistic beliefs; tolerance/intolerance; inclusivism/exclusivism; and many more. Simply put, this book is about understanding who the Person if Jesus is both to Christians, other religions, and the world at large. Though not all perspectives are covered, the selected ones represent a large proportion of the world.

BookPastor >> "Rebuilding the Foundations" (John Brueggemann and Walter Brueggemann)

This review was first published at Panorama of a Book Saint on May 3rd, 2017.

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TITLE: Rebuilding the Foundations: Social Relationships in Ancient Scripture and Contemporary Culture
AUTHOR: John Brueggemann and Walter Brueggemann
PUBLISHER: Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017, (202 pages).

What do we do when the society we live in seems to be crumbling? It does not take much effort to find out about the growing rich-poor divide; the racial discrimination; the ethnic tensions; the financial scandals; the cry for justice in the midst of injustice; and so on. Many governments are corrupt or incompetent. People insist on their free choice without being equipped with how to choose. How did we ever get to this point? In the midst of choices and multiple options, what are the primary matters we should be focused on? What does it take to address the moral decays happening all around us? As the social structures of the world appear to go from bad to worse, people are in need of a return to the foundations that once make societies great. Instead of looking at the external solutions, the authors probe their own assumptions and human complacencies. Specifically, they use Jonathan Haidt's moral foundation theory that uncovers six moral foundations:

• Care vs Harm;
• Fairness vs Cheating;
• Liberty vs Oppression;
• Loyalty vs Betrayal;
• Authority vs Subversion;
• Sanctity vs Degradation.

BookPastor >> "Jesus Among Secular Gods" (Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale)

This review was first published at Panorama of a Book Saint on March 15th, 2017.

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TITLE: Jesus Among Secular Gods: The Countercultural Claims of Christ
AUTHOR: Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Faithwords, 2017, (256 pages).

What comes to mind when we think about idols? In the Old Testament, it was about graven images or some physical artefact. In the New Testament, we read about false teachings and deceptive ideologies. One common theme among these idols and false teachings is the way it tries to unravel God's intended purposes, to suggest other ways instead of God's way. This trend continues today under the guise of secular gods. Modern society in the West has become more secular than ever.  The altars are everywhere and comprise both religious as well as non-religious idols. The claims of Christ are not only opposed by the traditional mainstream religions and cults, they are also aggressively pushed back by the secular forces of today. Famous apologist Ravi Zacharias knows it full well, having received a hostile reception on the basis of his stand for Jesus. He shares: "I was a nominal Christian but never gave that much thought, either. Most of my friends were either Hindu or Muslim or Sikh, with a few others of different faiths. I never recall feeling any anger or hostility toward those who believed differently than me, no matter how ludicrous their beliefs may have seemed to me. Nor do I remember ever being on the receiving end of such anger and hostility because I did not have the same belief."

"Making Sense of God 6d" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Who am I? Who are you? Often, the answer depends on our upbringing, our links to certain institutions, or our roles and titles. In non-Western cultures, people are identified through their connections with their communities. In Western cultures, this is reversed via "expressed individualism." While it may be overly simplistic, this offers us a glimpse into the differences in mindset that contrasts "self-sacrifice" from "self-assertion"; Keller even points out the hit movie Frozen's song that affirms the latter in Western culture. With secularism, the image of the modern man has become incoherent, illusory, crushing, and fracturing.

Question 6d: "The Problem with the Self: Question of Identity"
On Fracturing:
"In the last chapter we talked about how the secular view of freedom as the absence of restrictions undermines community. Taylor argues (and Bellah demonstrates) that the secular view of identity and self does the same thing. This view, argues Taylor, reduces relationships and community to things 'purely instrumental in their significance.' In traditional cultures our most crucial relationships are more important than our individual self-interest, because our identity depends on honoring the relationships. Therefore they are inviolate and we are solidly embedded in them. A traditional human community according to Bellah, was 'an inclusive whole, celebrating the interdependence of public and private life.'

But when, as in the modern approach, you bestow significance on yourself, then your individual interests are more important than any social tie. If a relationship is satisfying to you, you keep it only so long as it pleases you. 'It fosters a view of relationships in which these ought to subserve personal fulfillment. The relationship is secondary to the self-realization of the partners. On this view, unconditional ties, meant to last for life, make little sense. Human communities become thinned out into 'lifestyle enclaves' or 'social networks' in which people connect, flexibly and transiently, only to people like themselves. They relate to one another around similar tastes in music or food or common wealth status (such as in a gated housing development), but their private and public lives are no one else's business. It is well documented that under the conditions of the modern, individualistic self, social ties and institutions are eroding, marriage and family are weakening, society is fragmenting into warring factions, and economic inequality is growing." (131-132)


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"Making Sense of God 6c" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Who am I? Who are you? Often, the answer depends on our upbringing, our links to certain institutions, or our roles and titles. In non-Western cultures, people are identified through their connections with their communities. In Western cultures, this is reversed via "expressed individualism." While it may be overly simplistic, this offers us a glimpse into the differences in mindset that contrasts "self-sacrifice" from "self-assertion"; Keller even points out the hit movie Frozen's song that affirms the latter in Western culture. With secularism, the image of the modern man has become incoherent, illusory, crushing, and fracturing.

Question 6c: "The Problem with the Self: Question of Identity"
On Crushing:
The problem with the modern self is:

"Ironically, the apparent freedom of secular identity brings crushing burdens with it. In former times, when our self-regard was more rooted in social roles, there was much less value placed on competitive achievement. Rising from rags to riches was nice but rare and optional. It was quite sufficient to be a good father or mother, son or daughter, and to be conscientious and diligent in all your work and duties. Today, as Alain de Botton has written, we believe in the meritocracy, that anyone who is of humble means is so only because of a lack of ambition and savvy. It is an embarrassment now to be merely faithful and not successful. This is a new weight on the soul, put there by modernity. Success or failure is now seen as the individual's responsibility alone. Our culture tells us that we have the power to create ourselves, and that puts the emphasis on independence and self-reliance. But it also means that society adulates winners and despises losers, showing contempt for weakness.

All this produces a pressure and anxiety beyond what our ancestors knew. We have to decide our look and style, our stance and ethos. We then have to promote ourselves and be accepted in the new space - professional, social, aesthetic - in which we have chosen to create our selves. As a result, 'new modes of conformity arise' as people turn themselves into 'brands' through the consumer goods they buy.
....

The self-made identity, based on our own performance and achievement in ways that older identities were not, makes our self-worth far more fragile in the face of failure and difficulty.

....

In the New York Times, Benjamin Nugent writes about the struggles he had when he was a full-time novelist. He says:

"When good writing was my only goal in life, I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth. For this reason, I wasn't able to read my own writing well. I couldn't tell whether something I had just written was good or bad, because I needed it to be good in order to feel sane. I lost the ability to cheerfully interrogate how much I liked what I had written, to see what was actually on the page rather than what I wanted to see or what I feared to see."

When his identity was based on being a good writer, it made him a worse writer. He announces at the end of the article that he doesn't base his self on writing anymore because he 'fell in love, an overpowering diversion.' But is the love of someone else a better basis for an identity?

....

If we base our identity on love we come to the same cul-de-sac that we saw with the novelist who got his identity from work. Just as he could not beat poor work, so we will not be able to handle the problems in our love relationships. The writer had to believe he is a great writer in order to be sane. We will have to believe our love relationship is okay - if it goes off the rails, we lose our sanity. Why? If our identity is wrapped up in something and we lose it, we lose our very sense of self. If you are getting your identity from the love of a person - you won't be able to give them criticism because their anger will devastate you. Nor will you be able to bear their personal sorrows and difficulties. If they have a problem and start to get self-absorbed and are not giving you the affirmation you want, you won't be able to take it. It will become a destructive relationship. The Western understanding of identity formation is a crushing burden, both for individuals and society as a whole." (128-130)


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"Making Sense of God 6b" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Who am I? Who are you? Often, the answer depends on our upbringing, our links to certain institutions, or our roles and titles. In non-Western cultures, people are identified through their connections with their communities. In Western cultures, this is reversed via "expressed individualism." While it may be overly simplistic, this offers us a glimpse into the differences in mindset that contrasts "self-sacrifice" from "self-assertion"; Keller even points out the hit movie Frozen's song that affirms the latter in Western culture. With secularism, the image of the modern man has become incoherent, illusory, crushing, and fracturing.

Question 6b: "The Problem with the Self: Question of Identity"
On Illusory:
The problem with the modern self is:

"In short, do not look to anyone else to validate you. Use no standards from the outside. You bestow the verdict of significance on yourself. But this is an impossibility. You cannot get an identity through self-recognition; it must come in a great measure from others. Theologian Philip Ryken qyotes fmor a contemporary novel about a young single woman. She writes a New Year's resolution: 'Develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as a woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.' However, she sees a problem. 'My sense of self comes not from other people but from . . . myself? That can't be right.' Yes, it isn't right. In fact, it can't be done.

....

Robert Bellah says strikingly, 'The irony is that here, too, just where we [modern people] think we are most free, we are most coerced by the dominant beliefs of our own culture. For it is a powerful cultural fiction that we not only can, but must, make up our deepest beliefs in the isolation of our private selves.' He goes on to say that modern people simply cannot see how their identities owe to others. 'Insofar as they are limited to a language of radical autonomy' and 'cannot think about themselves or others except as arbitrary centers of volition,' it means 'they cannot express the fullness of being that is actually theirs.'

Our identity then, is not, after all, something we can bestow on ourselves. We cannot discover or create an identity in isolation, merely through some kind of internal monologue. Rather, it is negotiated through dialogue with the moral values and beliefs of some community. We find ourselves in and through others. 'We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love, and learning.' In the end the contemporary identity - simply expressing your inner feelings, with a valuation bestowed on yourself independently - is impossible.



" (125-6)


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"Making Sense of God 6a" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Who am I? Who are you? Often, the answer depends on our upbringing, our links to certain institutions, or our roles and titles. In non-Western cultures, people are identified through their connections with their communities. In Western cultures, this is reversed via "expressed individualism." While it may be overly simplistic, this offers us a glimpse into the differences in mindset that contrasts "self-sacrifice" from "self-assertion"; Keller even points out the hit movie Frozen's song that affirms the latter in Western culture. With secularism, the image of the modern man has become incoherent, illusory, crushing, and fracturing.

Question 6a: "The Problem with the Self: Question of Identity"
On Incoherent:
"First of all, our contemporary approach is incoherent. If you look into your heart to find your deep desires, you certainly will discover many of them. And you will discover something else - that they contradict one another. You may very much want a certain career, but then you fall in love with someone whom you also want very much. Because of the particular nature of both the career and the relationship, you realize you won't be able to have both. What you you going to do? You might insist that one of these desires - for career or love - must be deeper and more 'you,' but that's naive. Why assume that your internal desires are arranged in such an orderly way? Francis Spufford writes that you are 'a being whose wants make no sense, don't harmonise: whose desires, deep down, are discordantly arranged, so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to, at the same time. You're equipped. . . for farce or even tragedy more than you are for happy endings.

.....

Not only do your desires contradict, but they also are elusive. 'What are the wants of the self?' Bellah asks. 'For all its unmistakable presence and intensity on occasion, the experience of feeling good, like being in love, is so highly subjective that its distinguishing characteristics remain ineffable.'

And besides being contradictory and elusive, our desires constantly change. As I have said, part of having an identity is having a stable, core sense of who you are, day in and day out, in different settings and times. That is why the traditional way of forging an identity through connection with something solid outside the individual self made sense. But if your identity is just your desires, they are going to be changing all the time. If in every situation you seek your own self-interest responding in ways that get the approval and control you want at the moment, then identity essentially disappears. 'In the work of Erving Goffman. . . [comes the view that] there is no self at all. What seems to be a self is merely a series of emphasis on 'being yourself' apart from fixed social roles results in there being no sustained 'you' left, which is common to all situations." (123-4)


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Midweek Meditation: "Making Sense of God 5" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Freedom is a much cherished right in the West. The progress of a society is intricately linked to the freedom to what whatever one pleases. Anything that infringes on such a freedom would be blasted as evil. If one elevates freedom to the highest importance, all others will have to play second fiddle to this sacred right. Truth is, is this workable? What if the exercise of one's freedom infringes on another person's expression of freedom? Is there a limit to free-will?

Question 5: "Why Can't I Be Free to Live as I See Fit, as Long as I Don't Harm Anyone?"
"If you see a large sailboat out on the water moving swiftly, it is because the sailor is honoring the boat's design. If she tries to take it into water too shallow for it, the boat will be ruined. The sailor experiences the freedom of speed sailing only when she limits her boat to the proper depth of water and faces the wind at the proper angle. In the same way, human beings thrive in certain environments and break down in others. Unless you honour the givens and limits of your physical nature, you will never know the freedom of health. Unless you honor the givens and limits of human relationships, you will never know the freedom of love and social peace. If you actually lived any way you wanted - never aligning your choices with these physical and social realities - you would quickly die, and die alone.

You are, then, not free to do whatever you choose. That is an impossible idea and not the way freedom actually works. You get the best freedoms only if you are willing to submit your choices to various realities, if you honor your own design." (103)

"In their book Bellah and his colleagues show that much of the health of a society depends on voluntarily unselfish behavior. Being honest, generous, and public spirited - being faithful to your spouse and children - regularly infringes on your personal happiness and freedom. If people stop doing these things and (as Haidt says) put personal fulfillment above commitment and relationship, the only alternative is a more powerful and coercive government. Bellah and his colleagues made this case in their original 1985 study. Their case was that the culture's emphasis on personal freedom over commitment to community could undermine democractic institutions. In 1996 and 2008 the book was reissued with a new preface written by Bellah, and each time he pointed out that our situation was worsening.

Let's bring this down to a practical level. Just as a sailboat is not free to sail unless it confines itself in significant ways, so you will never know the freedom of love unless you limit your choices in significant ways. There is no greater feeling of liberation than to feel and be loved well. The affirmation that comes from love liberates you from fears and self-doubts. It frees you from having to face the world alone, with only your own ingenuity and resources. Your friend or mate will be crucial to helping you achieve many of your goals in life. In all these ways love is liberating - perhaps the most liberating thing. But the minute you get into a love relationship, and the deeper and the more intimate and the more wonderful it gets, the more you also have to give up your independence." (107)

One of the most powerful links between God, love, and freedom is written by John Newton as follows:

"Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before;
Since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more...
To see the law of Christ fulfilled, and hear his pardoning voice
Changes a slave into a child, and duty into choice."


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Midweek Meditation: "Making Sense of God 4" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Keller continues to invitation to a discussion with the next chapter about happiness and true contentment. He skillfully dissects the four key strategies secular people use to smother their underlying levels of discontent. He critiques firstly the strategies of youth where one thinks that by getting the right job, the right love partner, the right qualifications and so on, one would be happy. Truth is, these are basic distractions from the true pursuit of meaning. Secondly, we complain about the barriers preventing us from getting at our perceived goals of happiness. Thus we resent and believe that our path to happiness is to eliminate these barriers. This too is temporary. Thirdly, we become driven people to accumulate all kinds of possessions and accomplishments. Unfortunately, this is like that running on a treadmill where we have a lot of activity but does not progress in terms of physical distance. Like the physical treadmill, once we tire, we stop. Fourthly, we may adopt the strategy of despairing in which we no longer blame others but ourselves.

Other religions try to resolve such discontent through altruism (just keep doing good no matter how empty we feel); or cynicism (hardening one's heart about the non-existence of good meaning and purpose); or detachment (to escape). Keller then produces a powerful argument for God and love.

Question 4: "How Can We Be Happy?"
"There is another powerful dimension to this reordering of loves. Paul Bloom, in his book How Pleasure Works, argues that what matters most for pleasure is not the simple impact on our senses but what it means in relationship to other persons who matter to us. A painting that we think is an original by an admired artist gives less pleasure when we find out it is not. A chair may be comfortable, but if it is our mother's favorite chair from her sitting room, it will give us even more pleasure. To use theological language, 'we enjoy things most when we experience them as a sacrament - as carriers of the presence of another.' " (93)

"Here, then, is the message. Don't love anything less; instead learn to love God more, and you will love other things with far more satisfaction. You won't overprotect them, you won't overexpect things from them. You won't be constantly furious with them for not being what you hoped. Don't stifle passionate love for anything; rather, redirect your greatest love toward God by loving him with your whole heart and love him for himself, not just for what he can give you. Then, and only then, does the contentment start to come. That is the Christian view of satisfaction. It avoids the pitfalls of both the ancient strategy of tranquillity through detachment and the modern strategy of happiness through acquisition. It both explains and resolves the deep conundrum of our seemingly irremediable discontent." (94)

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Midweek Meditation: "Making Sense of God 3" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Continuing the excerpts from Keller's very wise take on secularism and religion,

Question 3: "Is Meaning in Life Without God Practically Possible?"
A growing number of skeptics are insisting on the freedom to think and believe in anything they choose. With such a heavy reliance on humanistic thinking, the question Keller poses the question of meaning and God, beginning with a possible yes before concluding with a larger no. Note how Keller inserts the word 'practically' into the question.

"So is meaning in life without God practically possible? Public discourse is filled with loud religious voices insisting that life without God is inevitably pointless, bleak, and unworkable. On the other side there are plenty of secular people who insist that they not only have satisfying meaning in life but also have a kind of freedom that religious people do not. Who is right? Can we have meaning in life without any belief in God at all? To be fair to all, I would argue that the answer is both yes and no.

I say yes because both by our definition and by lived experience secular people can certainly know meaning in life. We defined 'meaning' as having both a purpose and the assurance that you are serving some good beyond yourself. If you decide that the meaning of your life is to be a good parent, or to serve a crucial political cause, or to tutor underprivileged youth, or to enjoy and promote great literature - then you have, by definition, a meaning in life. Plenty of secular people live like this without being tortured or gloomy in the manner of a Camus. It is quite possible to find great purpose in the ordinary tasks of life, apart from knowing answers to the Big Questions About Existence.

But I also say no. Secular people are often unwilling to recognize the significant difference between what have been called 'inherent' and 'assigned' meanings. Traditional belief in God was the basis for discovering, objective meaning - meaning that is there, apart from your inner feelings or interpretations. If we were made by God for certain purposes, then there are inherent meanings that we must accept.

The meanings that secular people have are not discovered but rather created. They are not objectively 'there.' They are subjective and wholly dependent on our feelings. You may determine to live for political change or the establishment of a happy family, and these can definitely serve as energizing goals. However, I want to argue that such created meanings are much more fragile and thin than discovered meanings. Specifically, discovered meaning is more rational, communal, and durable than created meaning." (64-65)

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Midweek Meditation: "Making Sense of God 2" (Tim Keller)

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

Continuing the excerpts from Keller's very wise take on secularism and religion,

Question 2: "Isn't Religion Based on Faith and Secularism on Evidence?"
Keller puts his finger on this common misconception and argues that it is not an absolute truth that secularism is a search for truth and empirical evidence. In fact, secularism has a profound level of dependence on faith that is often not highlighted. He argues that Christianity is both faith and reason. It is highly arrogant of secularists to insist that only their way of thinking is rational.

"Twentieth century thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Ludwig Wittgenstein have argued that all reasoning is based on prior faith commitments to which one did not reason. . . .

For example, American philosopher C. Stephen Evans writes, 'Science by its very nature is not fit to investigate whether there is more to reality than the natural world.' Because science's baseline methodology is to always assume a natural cause for every phenomenon, there is no experiment that could prove or disprove that there is something beyond this material world. For example, there would be no way to empirically prove that a miracle has occurred since a scientist would have to assume, no matter what, that no natural cause had been discovered yet. If there actually had truly been a supernatural miracle, modern science could not possibly discern it." (Keller, 34-35)

"The Christian believer is using reason and faith to get to her beliefs just as her secular neighbor is using reason and faith to get to hers. They are both looking at the same realities in nature and human life, and both are seeking a way to make the best sense of them through a process that is rational, personal, intuitive, and social. Reason does not and cannot operate alone. Contemporary secularity, then, is not the absence of faith, but is instead based on a whole set of beliefs, including a number of highly contestable assumptions about the nature of proof and rationality itself." (41)

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Midweek Meditation: "Making Sense of God 1" (Tim Keller)

Starting this week, I will be sharing a few excerpts from Tim Keller's recent book, "Making Sense of God."

TITLE: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
AUTHOR: Tim Keller
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Viking Books, 2016, (330 pages).

In New York, almost everybody seem to be talking about Tim Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. One reason for his success with many people, both believers and non-believers is his ability to connect with people living in a secular and skeptical age, yet maintaining his commitment about faith, hope, and God. Recently retired, he continues his ministry largely through writing.

Question 1: "Isn't Religion Going Away?"
Absolutely not. In a striking counter-observation of the presumed rise of secularism, Keller notes two reasons why secularism itself is shrinking.

"Why? There are two basic reasons. One has to do with the trends of retention and conversion. Many point to the rising percentage of younger adult 'nones' in the United States as evidence for the inevitable shrinkage of religion. However, Kaufmann shows that almost all of the new religiously unaffiliated come not from conservative religious groups but from more liberal ones. Secularization, he writes, 'mainly erodes . . . the taken-for-granted, moderate faiths that trade on being mainstream and established.' Therefore, the very 'liberal, moderate' forms of religion that most secular people think are the most likely to survive will not. Conservative religious bodies, by contrast, have a very high retention rate of their children, and they convert more than they lose.

The second main reason that the world will become more religious is that religious people have significantly more children, whereas the more irreligious and secular a population, the less often marriage happens and the smaller the families. This is true across the world and holds within every national group, within every educational level, and within every economic class. So, for example, it is not the case that always 'the more children, the better.' Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs has argued well that overpopulation and exorbitant birthrates are major contributing factors to world poverty. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think there is no opposite problem. Cultures that do not have a replacement-level birthrate die out as they are displaced by other populations and cultures. As Kaufmann and others show, the most secular societies are maintained through the immigration of more religious peoples.
...

It turns out, then, that the individualism of modern culture does not necessarily lead to a decline in religion. Rather, it leads to a decline of inherited religion, the sort one is born into." (Keller, 24-27)

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BookPastor >> "Calling in Today's World" (Kathleen A. Cahalan & Douglas J. Schuurman)

Ever thought about what calling means from other worldviews? Perhaps, this book can give you a better idea. This review was first published at Panorama of a Book Saint on Oct 18th, 2016.

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TITLE: Calling in Today's World: Voices from Eight Faith Perspectives
EDITORS:  Kathleen A. Cahalan & Douglas J. Schuurman
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016, (238 pages).

What do people in generally think about calling? Is it only something that Christians ask? Surely, the Buddhists, the Muslims, and the secularists in society would have their own perspectives too. In fact, according to the editors of this book, many students and colleagues have been asking the same question: "What do other people think about calling?" or "Is there an equivalent concept in your religion or belief?" So they went forth to ask various individuals whether they can contribute to the overall understanding of what calling means according their faith perspective. They found eight! According to Cahalan and Schuurman, their purpose for this book is to help "build a better, more humane world" by establishing bridges of understanding of one another's beliefs. Apart from that, Christians reading this book would be able to revisit their own understanding of what calling means in their own tradition. They can dispel any notion that calling is merely for the ministry or church related endeavors. They can avoid limiting calling to only supernatural matters, but to be inclusive of all matters. They can look at calling more in terms of freedom of choice rather than some strict "blueprint" we have to adhere to. In a conversational approach, each of the eight contributors are given an opportunity to talk about what calling means.

BookPastor >> "Understanding the Times" (Jeff Myers and David A. Noebel)

This review was first published at Panorama of a Book Saint on Dec 10th, 2015.

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TITLE: Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews
AUTHOR: Jeff Myers and David A. Noebel
PUBLISHER: Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook Publishers, 2015, (640 pages).

How do we understand the cultures of today? How can we speak the truth intelligibly to a pluralistic, materialistic, individualistic, and multi-cultural population? With all the different competing worldviews out there, how are Christians going to speak truth in a marketplace of ideas? According to authors Jeff Myers and David Noebel, in order to understand the times, one needs to know "how tennis champs return opponents' blazing fast serves and how chess masters memorize the position of every piece on the board." Learn the rules. Recognize the patterns. One would then be able to engage effectively and intelligently. A worldview is described as "pattern of ideas, beliefs, convictions, and habits that help us make sense of God, the world, and our relationship to God and the world."

The Christian worldview is one that is centered on the Person of Jesus Christ. The Islam worldview is based on the Quran, and the Prophet Mohammad. New Spirituality is so fluid that it is hard to define. It is defined as a "free-flowing combination of Eastern religions, paganism, and pseudo-science that pops up in odd places." Secularism has humanity at the center of reality. Marxism believes that life is a struggle between the haves and the have-nots. Postmodernism questions set paradigms and deconstructs conventional ideas. By questioning everything, it eventually has to question itself.

BookPastor >> "The Road Trip That Changed the World"

This week, I recommend this book for cultural engagement and awareness of the deep-rooted secularism in the present world. There is hope. This review was published earlier at "Panorama of a Book Saint" here on May 18th, 2012.


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TITLE: The Road Trip that Changed the World: The Unlikely Theory that will Change How You View Culture, the Church, and, Most Importantly, Yourself
AUTHOR: Mark Sayers
PUBLISHER: Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2012, (288 pages).

This is a book that has an inviting title with surprising insights into how to read our modern culture. It does this by looking back to our historical past to make sense of the present. It reads our current environment of secularism and the reasons for the downward spiral of morality and the upward rise of relativism. It tells of two road trips rather than one, of the road and the home. If the sixth century marks the beginning of the home pilgrimage, the enlightenment in the 17th Century marks the beginning of the road journey. The former produces virtues such as "obedience, eternity, foundation, and devotion." The latter adopts "journey, feeling, and experience" over and above the attributes of loyalty, faithfulness, and commitments. In other words, how our modern culture has come to be is mainly because of this road trip which has resulted in our modern society becoming secular and increasingly meaningless. We are modern refugees of this road trip looking aimlessly for a home. Sayers makes a distinction between pilgrimage and secular journey. The latter relates to secularism making a trip to nowhere. The former talks about a trip that has a destiny.

Part One talks about the road narrative, Sayers points out three stages. The first stage is one of happiness, fun, and pleasure. The second stage is about the barriers that impede any progress to happiness, pleasure, and fun. The third stage is true happiness once all the obstacles are removed. In doing so, these stages reflect the traveler on a journey that progresses on the outside but remain adolescent on the inside. One's sense of lostness becomes the journey itself. The secular world is a spiritual wasteland where morality has been de-emphasized in favour of subjectivity. The transcendence has been surrendered in favour of the immanence, of immediate gratification. Such a culture has been condemned by Sayyid Qutb, an influential Islamic thinker, whose teachings have influenced Muslim terrorists, the most notorious being Osama bin Laden. As one journeys along the path of nothingness, aimlessness, and meaninglessness, people soon believe that nothing matters. Since the 60s, the Church has been declining. The spiritual climate of America has been "Californianized" into a culture of individualism, narcissism, materialism, and entertainment. In a secular environment without morality, it is easy to objectivize women, rank feelings above faith, prefer the therapeutic above transcendent beings, nonconformity over authority, and where absolute freedom becomes an intense form of slavery. Jesus becomes not a deliver of sin but one who grants wishes and delivers wants. There is also a lot of cultural observations on social media why we reveal so much of ourselves in public, on why we continue to watch in glee the humiliations of people on TV, and how we remain connected online but disconnected from everyday life. We prefer the sensational 'wow' instead of the firm Word.

Thankfully, Sayers does not end by giving secularism the prize. The end of the road narrative is the cross. There is hope. There is truth coming amid our gloomy journey of doom. Part Two is about the home narrative. One of the first things we need to go up against is our tendency toward pleasure, comfort and a negativity-adverse mindset. Instead, the essence of life is to be willing to embrace our "fragility and mortality" and be open to be led back to God. Instead of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" metaphor, Sayers proposes we learn with Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" which begins with a deserted and desolate world. Without the distractions of attractive options, we are forced to seek out the fundamentals of life, to do what is deeply necessary, and ultimately most meaningful. It reflects a life of sacrifice, of putting others above self. It reflects a life of dependence on the transcendent. It is a call back to the "old kind of Christian" that is concerned about belonging to God and a real community. It is that kind that is mindful of one's true identity and destiny. The journey is no longer an aimless one of wandering in the wilderness, but a purposeful one of traveling the path toward God. Page after page, Sayers pulls in biblical images, personalities, and Scriptural references to paint a picture of hope of the future kingdom. In contrast to the secular image of building a home on the road, Sayers gives us an image of moving homeward while traveling on the road. The key to this homeward narrative is in getting God right first. We need to rid our idols and to accept God's sovereignty over us. For our sake. For our children's sake. For our community's sake. For our society's sake.

Further Thoughts

I must say that this is one of the most insightful books that intelligently analyzes the modern secular environment, and points us to reasons why it is secular. It blasts the Western model of Church that has substituted personal self-discovery instead of discipleship, self-actualization under the guise of worship. It cleverly adopts the secular terms and models that we are all accustomed to, makes a measured interpretations of it all in the light of both Christian and non-Christian literature, and explains the predicament of the Church so that the Church can do something about it. I admit that the first part of the book seems to be more depressing and painful to read. While the insights look so spot on and distressing, it leaves me gasping for Part Two. After all, it cannot be all that bad, I thought. I am grateful that from the point of the Cross, things change for the better. The road trip can be redeemed. The pilgrimage can be set right. The world has hope in God.

Well-researched and eloquently argued, this book is a must for anyone interested in Christianity and culture, evangelism and mission in the urban Western environment. I have not read Mark Sayers before, but after this book, I am looking forward to the next.


Rating: 5 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me free by Moody Publishers and NetGalley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.