The Sacred Journey

A Memoir of Early Days
Frederick Buechner

I don't read many autobiographies; this is the first one I've read in years. A friend of mine recommended Buechner's memoirs to me, and this is the first in a series of books in which Buechner reflects on the meaning of his life. He's convinced that God speaks in our lives, and the task before us is to learn to hear His words in and to us. In reading of his life, Buechner hopes that we to will catch glimpses of God's words to us and in us. The Sacred Journey describes in vivid detail the first 27 years or so of his life, focusing mostly from about the time of his father's suicide to his conversion experience. In hearing his story, we have the opportunity see the wonder of how God works in us, beautifully narrated in elegent prose. I highly recommend this book.

Far as the Curse Is Found

The Covenant Story of Redemption
Michael D. Williams

This book is a fine introduction to reading the Bible as redemptive history, and it rightly focuses on God's plan of redemption for the entire cosmos, not just for human souls. It is good to see a book written for your average student of the Word that looks at redemptive history in that way. It is well written, relatively concise (for the breadth of what he's seeking to cover) and filled with good theology. I wrote of another book earlier, entitled The Drama of Scripture, that covers basically the same ground, but in far more detail. That book also gives a you a good history of the Bible, and is therefore a better book to book in that regard. Yet for a brief overview of the Bible's redemptive history, this may be the best place to turn.

The Faces of Jesus

A Life Story
Frederick Buechner

This is one of the more intriguing books I've read recently. As you might imagine from the cover, it's a book about Jesus, and throughout the book, he's giving us a portrait of his "face"--his presence among us. Buechner is a wonderful writer, and his prose is simply filled with beautiful descriptions of certain aspects of his life and ministry for us. For instance, referring to Jesus' statement, "as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me," he writes, "Just as Jesus appeared at his birth as a helpless child that the world was free to care for or destroy, so now he appears in his resurrection as the pauper, the prisoner, the stranger: [he] appears in every form of human need that world is free to serve or ignore" (p. 92). It is pure joy at times just to read his prose and fall in love with the Christ who saved our souls.

Yet at other times, he seems to toss that faith to the winds. He qualifies his statements of faith: "it would take no less than God, if there were a God, to enable men to see God's glory in that shambles of a face" (p. x). A wonderful insight, but why would he have that insight and also question if there is a God? At other times, he leads us needlessly into critical discussions about the reliability of the Gospels, and at times will even pit them against each other. One senses a Barthian sensibility to his trust in the Gospels, and for me, I find it annoying that it is included in such beautiful prose like olives on a pepperoni pizza.

I hate olives. I pick them out of my pizza when someone foolishly thinks they might add to the flavor of the pepperoni. I eat the pizza and enjoy it, but there's always that slight tinge of olive flavor that reminds me of what I had to remove to enjoy it. So it is with this book. I truly enjoyed it, and will likely quote from it from time to time, but there was nothing I could do to fully remove the flavor of his critical allegences from the beauty of his prose.

Kingdom Come

How Jesus Wants to Change the World
Allen Mitsuo Wkabayashi

There are lots of books on the Kingdom of God out there to read. Most of them are either highly academic and difficult to read or they simply have poor view of the kingdom of God. This book is probably the first book with great kingdom theology that is accessible to just about any reader who would be interested in reading about the kingdom of God.

The basic premise of the book is that the gospel is bigger than what we give it credit for. We tend to think of it as what we need to believe to get to heaven, but such thinking (as true as it is) alone does not compel us to live a life of mission. Allen is seeking to give us a fuller picture of the kingdom (or, better, reign) of God--that God "has broken into history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The blessings, power and justice of the future kingdom of God have reached back into the present and taken root in our world" (p. 145). God's reign in this world is intent on reclaiming all that was lost in the fall, not just human souls (as important as that aspect of the gospel is). When we understand the nature of the kingdom and the message of the gospel, we are then compelled to live life with a sense of mission--seeking not only to care for the poor, but to get involved in redeeming the societal structures that cause people to end up in poverty to begin with.

Yet this is not bare theology. Woven throughout the book are helpful illustrations and life examples from even his own marriage, as he and his wife have needed to graple the reality of abuse and rape and the tension those realities create for what we believe about Jesus and His kingdom.

I have one issue with chapter 11 on "Conversion." There he seems to draw too hard a dichotomy (my guess is that it's not intended) between what Dallas Willard calls "gospels of sin management" and a kingdom-oriented gospel. To be sure, he and Dallas Willard are correct to point out that the problems we face in discipliship can be traced directly to the way we present the gospel--we tend to focus exclusively on having all our past, present, and future sins forgiven in Christ so that we can get to heaven when we die. If that's the sum total of the gospel, then there's precious little reason to live a holy life afterwards. New converts can easily balk at the cost of discipliship with the objection, "I didn't sign up for this. I just wanted to be forgiven so I could go to heaven and still live how I want."

He even gives an example of a girl who accepted his gospel presentation but later said she didn't want to stop sleeping with her boyfriend. He suggests that a kingdom oriented gospel would prevent the misunderstandings that she had--fair enough. But the solution is not to add to a gospel of forgiveness. I fear sometimes we forget the life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit (not our gospel presentations) that works through forgiveness. As Paul so aptly said, it was the kindness of God that led him to repentance. If we truly understood our own rebellion against God's kingdom (regardless of whether or not we engage in premarital sex), and if we truly understood the magnitude of our forgiveness in Christ (his righteousness has been imputed to us), then by God's Spirit our lives would change, and we would see his Kingship over us as the gracious loving reign that it really is. That's what causes change in us.

Nevertheless, I find it to be a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it for all interested in an accessible treatment of Christian living in the kingdom of God.

The Drama of Scripture

Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story
Craig G. Bartholomew
Michael W. Goheen

There are lots of ways to talk about the teachings of the Bible. Most often the teachings are summarized in terms of systems of doctrine. This books is an attempt to organize the Bible in terms of acts of a Biblical drama. The Bible is a grand story, a drama of redemption in which the world was created good to reflect his glory, but mankind sinned and caused the fall both of our human nature and the world we live in. The Scriptures are the drama of God's redemption not only of us, but of the world we live in. Every single one of us has a story--our lives are in the process of telling a story. Yet we also view ourselves as being situated within a larger story--a story from which we derive meaning for our lives and interpret what happens in the world. "Basic stories are in principle normative--they define starting points, ways of seeing what is true--and they are comprehensive, since they give an account of the whole" (p. 20). The purpose of this book is to give us an understanding of the Biblical story of redemption so that we can understand our own stories in light of the that larger story, so that we can live for His glory in His world.

This book is written by both a biblical scholar and a missiologist, and so the book has a real sense of mission. The Biblical story is told in terms of six acts:

Act 1--God establishes his Kingdom in Creation
Act 2--Rebellion in the Kingdom at the Fall
Act 3--The King Chooses Israel: Redemtion Initiated
Act 4--The Coming of the King: Jesus, Redemption Accomplished
Act 5--Spreading the News of the King: The Mission of the Church
Act 6--The Return of the King: Redemption Completed

We, of course, are situated Act 5, and we ought to derive meaning in purpose for our lives by our place in the larger story of Redemption. The book helps us get a find of mission for our lives as we live in God's world for His glory, understanding that the whole story of redemption is about God reclaiming His world and His people for Himself.

This book, I believe, is an excellent treatment of the teachings of the Bible, though it is most useful for those who already have some knowledge of it. I may well use it for for training elders in the future, though there's another book, Far as the Curse is Found, that is shorter and covers the same kidn of material. I'll post on that when I finish reading it.

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be

A Breviary of Sin
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Finally a book about sin that refuses to limit itself to abstract formulations of theological terms. Finally a book about sin that surfaces then inner recesses of the heart to demonstrate in concrete terms the reality of the sinfulness behind all our thoughts, words and deeds. The most helpful aspect of this book, I believe, is the way he fleshes out his definition of sin as a disruption of shalom. When a boy steals a radio for instance, there is a sense in which the boy has broken God's law, and there's a sense in which that act reveals his pride and selfishness. Plantinga's work shows that his act as well demonstrates the fact that the boy considered his desire for that radio as more imporant than the shalom of his classroom. Sin is what vandalizes the shalom of the world. It seeks to disrupt and introduce chaos into the created order. From the initial sin of Adam and Eve to the ways we continue to sin individually, corporately, even culturally and nationally, sin upsets the created order. Plantinga's work is insightful, articulately written, well researched, biblically informed, and simply a joy to read, even if you find yourself wonderfully convicted as you read it.

This book is a must read, I believe, for the missional church. If the missional church desires that the gospel sink into all the cracks and crevices of society, being an agent of transformation in all facets of life in this world, we need to be aware of what we are seeking to transform. This book is a wonderful exposition of the fallenness of creation as well as the human heart. We must be transformed by the gospel, and then be God's agents in this world to bring the shalom of Christ to the cracks and crevices of a lost and broken world.