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2011 Best of the Trimester: Music Edition

I think I’m still in recovery from what an ace music year 2010 was. It featured killer debuts from new favorites like Allo’ Darlin, the School, Gigi, and Northern Portrait. Long-running favorites like Beach House and the Radio Dept. go and make the best albums of their careers. Since I keep meticulous records about these things, I'd reckon its the best music year since 2006 or even 2003.

After such a high, there is bound to be an inevitable hangover. Nothing has (yet) grabbed me like anything from 2010 did. Still, by the end of the third trimester there’s been some great stuff that deserves highlighting.

I’ll avoid talking about major players like the Decemberists, Low, and Radiohead who keep putting out great records year after year and keep getting justifiable praise from all corners. (Although, special kudos to the Decemberists who I had been ready to write off and they go and put out what might be the best album of their sparkling career, with the exception of the insufferable Hazards of Love. (And yes, I know some people really like it, including Colin Meloy. I don't like prog rock operas about shape-shifting rakes. So sue me.))

So, here’s some highlight’s of 2011. In no particular order:

Tennis :: Cape Dory

Hype can be a fickle friend. It seems just last year Tennis was blowing up the blogosphere with their Phil Spector-worshipping nuggets of pop bliss. A year later the blogosphere turns their back on Tennis when their full-length sounds too much like their previously praised singles. I don’t know why this surprised people, they were the same songs. And nowtTheir once precious back story now came across as cloying. (Tennis is a husband and wife duo. They sold their stuff and lived on a boat named Cape Dory. The album was in honor of said trip.)

This blogger says it’s the blogosphere’s loss. Tennis shouldn’t be blamed for making such charming and simple slices of bouncy love songs so delicate and light they could float away. There are endless bands that would kill to make a two minute pop song sound as effortless as Tennis. And why the cynicism in a couple that actual wants to sing about the fact they like each other a lot? Based off the misery that permeates most love songs, I’d chalk it up to jealousy. At any rate this is an effortless sounding album that brings great joy. And for the record easy listening doesn’t mean it’s an easy album. To compare it their namesakes sport, bashing Tennis feels a lot like bashing Pete Sampras or Roger Federer. Who cares if they aren't as flashy as you'd like. They get it done.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart :: Belong

After reading the reviews for Belong I’m surprised more people didn’t see this album coming. Yeah, POBPH made their name with a literate, charming, lo-fi debut full of puns, double entendre, and a cheeky charm. POBPH firmly planted themselves as heirs of the 80’s British anorak scene. It was somewhat sloppy yet totally hook-filled indie-pop twee that wore its heart its sleeve and captured yours with a wink or a smile.

That started to change between albums. The ep Higher than the Stars and 7” single “Say No to Love” both saw POBPH experimenting with a glossier higher voltage sound. No longer did they sound so much the Sarah Records subscribers with the Shop Assistants badge as fans of My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and the Mary Chain, as well as Smashing Pumpkins and even U2.

Belong splits the difference and as such sound exactly like their forging their own sound. Sure, sonically it tilts the direction their between full-length works were heading but it still maintains the youthful joy that made their debut such a delight.

Champagne Riot :: Moonstruck

Sometime around February or March I kept getting asked if I’ve heard Cut Copy’s new album. Frankly this surprised me. Outside of virtual friends, I didn’t know anyone who had heard their old albums let alone be looking forward to their new one. If these interactions are any indications perhaps the Joy Division fetish that plagued (or informed) so much of the 00’s is giving way (just as Joy Division did) to New Order.

The four-song debut EP from the Danish group Champagne Riot is as about as 80’s as you can get. The guitar, bass, and drums that drive your typical rock song worship at the altar of the almighty synthesizer. It’s time to dance! And unlike the poor production/recording that plagued so much of the 80’s New Wave, recording technology has finally caught up and this thing pops. Super fun and full of sing-along goodness, Champagne Riot will be one to watch. At the very last they’ll provide the soundtrack to the 80’s trending that has been slipping its way into the fashion world.

Afternoon Naps “Summer Gang/Short Sleeves”

I’ve really started getting into singles which is something I haven’t done since the good ‘ol Cassingle days of the early 90’s. Sure, I had a 7” record phase in the early 2000’s but that was mostly to fulfill discography holes of my favorite bands and thus fulfill my completist itch. This is a new type of singles fetish. This is a fetish of bands that I don’t otherwise know. I don’t have their full-lengths. These are simply great digital 7”s. And more often than not, they’re bands that can write one or two ace tunes that wouldn’t sound so ace if they were modified ten times over in order to fulfill the song requirements of a full-length album. The net result is that my library is filling up with these awesome songs that I might not have noticed before.

Enter Afternoon Naps. I’d heard a bit of their LP released last year, but it didn’t do a whole lot for me. This year I had the distinct pleasure of hearing the A-side “Summer Gang” which led me directly to this 7”. For me, this is the sound of summer. There is a sloppy excitement in the playing yet so sugary sweet you don’t notice. It’s the aural equivalent of a water melon stain on your face. Stretching the metaphor even further, this 7” isn’t exactly filling (it’s two two-minute songs about … well … hanging out with friends and … um … short sleeve shirts) but it sure tastes good.

Donald Miller and Church Leadership: Who Leads Anyway?

I like Donald Miller. I really do.

His spiritual memoir Blue Like Jazz, deserves its astounding popularity. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s a powerfully told true story of what a life of faithfully knowing, loving, and serving Jesus can look like. I’d recommend it to anyone.

For most of the 2000’s I was a youth pastor. For reasons that I still don’t understand, most of the kids that came were those on the fringes of society. You could probably label them “at-risk”. Most were guys. Most were without fathers. For those who cared, I pointed them to Miller’s own memoir about growing up without a Dad, To Own a Dragon. I found it to be a painfully helpful and hopeful guide in growing up without a Dad.

I’m not a Donald Miller-hater. Like I said, I really like the guy. That’s why I’m so disappointed by a recent blog of his that has been making its rounds in the blogosphere, Facebook newsfeeds, and clearing-houses like Relevant magazine. (As of this morning, it’s been shared 3667 times on Facebook.) Reaction seems to be mostly positive, but I’m not buying it.

Essentially Miller is saying this: sometime around the invention of the printing press (huh?) scholars hijacked the church and made it into their image. Since then the church has been run by a school and has splintered into thousands of factions who spend their time fighting over points of doctrine rather than being and doing the work of the Church (which is what exactly?). Miller’s anecdote: let the scholars go into their corner and fight amongst themselves while the average, ordinary folks take the lead.

The good: In a way, he’s on to something. The Church of God is comprised of all people full of different gifts and talents that bring something to the table. A Church that diminishes the service of one type of person to the glorification of another is a Church in defect. He wants to you (and me I suppose) to realize that you have what it takes to be a leader in the Church. I’m not fighting with him on that point.

That being said, Miller is severely mis-guided and is full of so many half-truths and misunderstandings it is difficult to know where to begin. But I have to begin somewhere.

The Church is Led by Scholars?

Miller writes: “The church in America is led by scholars. Essentially, the church is a robust school system created around a framework of lectures and discussions and study. We assume this is the way its supposed to be because this is all we have ever known. I think the scholars have done a good job, but they’ve also recreated the church in their own image. Churches are essentially schools. They look like schools with lecture halls, classrooms, cafeterias and each new church program is basically a teaching program.”

First, I think he seems to be referring to what happens on Sunday mornings. And I think he’s talking about sermons. I’m not sure though. He’s not really clear what he means. Because, if I’m right in my interpretation, that’s a severely deficient understanding of the Church. It’s a severely deficient understanding of the nature and task of preaching. It’s a severely deficient understanding of the purpose of Christian education.

Second, I wasn’t aware Miller was such an expert in church governance. In my own denomination, the church is “led” by the trifecta of a Minister of Word and Sacrament (the preacher and pastor), Elders, and Deacons. In a narrow way the pastor is responsible for the teaching (and equipping) ministry of the church. The Deacons are responsible for the works of service that mark the church. But it’s the Elders that lead the church. These are the ordinary folk that Miller seems to be talking about. These are teachers, doctors, interior decorators, stay-at-home moms and dads, lawyers, and whatever job fills your day. Elders themselves are ruled by Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and informed by our Book of Confessions. Beyond that they exercise prayer, conscience, knowledge and wisdom in their ruling and leading. They certainly don’t set up bully pulpits or lecture podiums.

We Presbyterians aren’t exceptional here. By and large congregations in the United States are democratically led. There are no evil scholars hi-jacking the purpose and work of the church. There is remarkable freedom in the forms that the life, work, and proclamation of the Church might take place.

Third, if you believe people like Mark Noll (but he’s a scholar, so perhaps he shouldn’t be trusted), the church in the United States hasn’t had too much education and intellectual fervor, but too little. But what does Noll know, he’s only done, you know, research? If Noll is correct, the academic community should be criticized not for having too much power and influence but for not doing a good enough job at the task they do have. And the Church as a whole shouldn’t be criticized for giving the teachers too much credit, but too little.

What’s an Educator Worth Anyway?

Miller writes: “Educators make speeches and do little else, except study for their next lecture. I wonder what the first disciples would think if they could see our system of schools, our million lectures, our billion sub lectures, our curriculums and our lesson plans. I think they’d be impressed, to be honest, but I also think they’d recognize a downside.”

To all my teachers (seminary and otherwise) and all other teachers out there: I’m sorry there are people out there who write drivel like this.

Thank you for challenging me to a deeper place of faith, equipping me for works of service. Thank you for challenging me to know God more deeply. Thank you for bringing me to a place of greater depth. In short, thank you for your service to the Kingdom of God. I know how much you care. I know the prayer you bring to the table. I know the time you’ve spent meeting with students (who aren’t necessarily seeking to lead the church but to grow in their life and service as part of the church) listening to them and supporting them in their ministry.

The Task of Theology

Miller seems to believe that the task of theology (i.e. educators and scholars) is to sow discord and division: “Church divisions are almost exclusively academic divisions. The reason I don’t understand my Lutheran neighbor is because a couple academics got into a fight hundreds of years ago. And the rest of the church followed them because, well, they were our leaders. So now we are divided under divisions caused by arguments a laboring leadership might never have noticed of cared about.”

Umm … ask any female pastor if questions about women in ministry are an academic division that laboring leadership that no one really cares about. I’m a member of the PC(USA) denomination. Our division with the PCA was largely on questions of ordaining women. I’m sorry Donald, but that matters.

Or let’s go back a bit further shall we. Way before the invention of the printing press (which is when academics hijacked the church, as we all know) there was a controversy that plagued the church. Sides were drawn, people were excommunicated. Debates were made about one letter (I kid you not). So some academics got together to figure it out and Creeds were written. Purely intellectual hogwash that the "laboring leadership" cares little about right? Maybe not. The issue: the divinity of Jesus Christ. In the 4^th century there were serious questions about how we could consider Jesus “God”. There were huge fights. At the end of the matter, one group of academics decided that whatever you say makes God God, you have to say it about Jesus. Leaders (academics) such as Athanasius wisely recognized that God alone saves and what we think about Jesus matters for questions of life and salvation. I'd like to believe these questions matter and are of importance to "laboring leadership" who are called to proclaim the whole counsel of God to all people. I'd like to believe that includes questions such as "who is Jesus Christ really?"

*Oh, and I’m not even going to get into the myriad of factors that have caused the major historic breaches in the major branches of Christianity. To say they are “almost exclusively academic division” is grossly reductionist and doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to the geographical, sociological, and political issues that were also at stake.*

The Church of God must always be hearing the Word of God afresh. It is the task of the theologians and scholars to move the Church into a place of hearing that Word of God. It is the task of the theologians and scholars to look farther, gaze deeper, and reflect more fully than the average Joe.

Just as you probably don’t want me opening you up and performing heart surgery on you, it’s possible that there are those in the Church who are better equipped to handle the deep questions of faith. Rather than treating them with scorn, perhaps we should celebrate their task and listen!

They are to do this for the benefit of the Church and the glory of God. And perhaps, perhaps! these divisions, these squabbles (which he never really identifies by the way) serve a function. Perhaps by listening to Catholic voices, Reformed voices, Eastern Orthodox voices, Baptist voices, Pentecostal voices I’m able understand that my whole self is in need of redemption—including my feeble mind. By contrasting voices we deeply recognize our deep inadequacies in thinking and speaking rightly about God. Listening (and respectfully arguing) with dissenting voices has the net affect of pushing the Church into a deeper place of recognizing our need of total forgiveness and restoration as well pushing us into a place of hearing what the Word of God is saying so that we might be a teaching and proclaiming Church to the Word where we bear witness to the God that has rescued us in Jesus Christ.

Book Review: William Placher's The Triune God

Don’t expect this short volume by the late William C. Placher to be your go to volume for a systematic exposition on the Trinity. Instead, Placher offers a hermeneutic of the Trinity. And what a hermeneutic it is.

Placher expertly weaves insights on divine transcendence from Continental philosophy, the polarity in Trinitarian thinking reflected by Karl Barth (an Augustinian, psychological model of the Trinity) and Jürgen Moltmann (a social view of the trinity), the priority of the historical Jesus from Wolfhart Pannenburg, and Hans Frei’s history-like realistic reading of the Gospel narratives. The end result is an engaging and highly compelling entrance to both Trinitarian scholarship and a method of thinking about God that offers great possibilities for both the scholar and those reflecting devotionally on God’s nature.

In that sense, you might consider it theology for the rest of us. As much as I would like everyone to pick up Jürgen Moltmann’s Trinity and the Kingdom or Thomas F. Torrance’s The Christian Doctrine of God, I can’t do it. It’s asking too much. How can one read Moltmann without knowing the relevant issues of divine simplicity verses complexity, unity verses trinity, present verses future kingdom, or monotheism verses pan(en)theism? How can one read Torrance without at least a passing familiarity with Patristic literature and its relevant Trinitarian terminology (ousia, hypostases, personae, perichoresis) and heresies (subordination, monarchism, modalism, etc., etc., etc.)?

Enter William C. Placher’s The Triune God: An Essay in Postliberal Theology. It’s been a long since I’ve found a work of theology such an aesthetic delight to read. Placher writes with both humor and accessibility without sacrificing depth and penetrating insight. Due to its technical nature much of theological writing’s obscurity leads to a huddle where one expert talks to another. The end result is that the theologian in practice divorces himself from the Church she is called to serve.

I do not know anyone who sat in Placher’s classroom. I’d like to believe that he was the best sort of professor: the type who uses his considerable intellect and passion to guide, provoke, stir, and stimulate his students into thinking theologically in the most constructive of manners possible.

Chapter One: The Unknowable God

The Triune God is not a typical systematic treatise in the Trinity. Traditional systematic texts traditionally follow the three articles of the Apostles/Nicene Creed and unpack the nature of the person and work of the three persons. Thus, chapter one, one would expect, would cover such topics as creation, divine perfections, etc.

Placher doesn’t do this. Instead he treats God in abstract. The God he calls unknowable.

For any doctrine or talk of God to be truthful, it must stem from God’s own self-revelation. As such, faithful theological discourse stands between secularism and idolatry. In secularity, God-talk is denied all together. In idolatry, our projections of God (Descartes and Locke) replace the self-revelation of God with a “god” constructed in our image. As such, there is constant danger of saying too little (secularization) or too much (idolatry).

Between the poles of secularism and idolatry there have been voices that affirm both the possibility of speaking positively of God’s self-revelation as well as respecting the mystery that is God. God would not be God is we could label and define. God’s ultimate reality always remains just beyond our elusive grasp. And it is this last point that derives the bulk of the chapter. In the apophatic tradition represented by unorthodox selections such as Aquinas and Anselm and Kierkegaard, Levinas, and Wittgenstein, Placher sees a strong corrective and limit to the over-confidence in modern theological discourse—Christian or otherwise.

Be that as it may, one can get to God because God has come to us in Jesus Christ.

Chapter Two: The Word Made Flesh

After opening with the God in abstract (my term) or the unknowable God (his term), Placher moves to the person of Jesus Christ. He affirms unequivocally that “we do not need to try to find our way to God, for in Jesus Christ God has come to us.” Here Placher makes a surprising turn. One might expect him to begin with the deity of the Son and then moving to his humanity. Placher does no such thing. Instead, following the likes of Pannenberg, he moves from the humanity of the Son to His deity. Placher implies two reasons for this 1) it follows the experience of the Early Church and 2) it better reflects the history-like nature of the Gospel narratives.

If this move was curious, his next move is more so: Placher spends most of the chapter expounding a Biblical hermeneutic. Placher unabashedly follows Karl Barth through Hans Frei in this regard. The gospels (and although he doesn’t mention it specifically, he means any narrative portion of the Bible) are “history-like witnesses to truths both historical and transcendent.”

The term “history-like” is totally dependent on the work of Hans Frei. By “history-like” he means the gospels are not works of fiction. They are not myths. They are not works of modern history. The gospels are truthful and purposefully reconstructed narratives that covey the person Jesus was. As a literary genre, the gospel writers demand out world to enter into theirs. It is a faulty hermeneutic to ask how there world is like ours? Instead, we find our story in the world of Biblical narrative.

The term “witness” is one near and dear to Barth’s heart. They are testimonies to events that transformed their lives. These events are both historical (i.e. the “history-like” character of the gospels) and transcendent (e.g. the incarnation, Jesus Christ’s redemptive death.)

By reading in the gospels in this manner Placher is able to briefly sketch a positive picture of the person and work of Jesus that stands in continuity with historical understandings of him and do so in a manner that is consistent with the literary quality of the text itself.

Here one might ask, “If Placher’s preliminary findings are consistent with historical presentations why is a new kind of hermeneutic needed?” While familiarity with Frei is helpful here (especially his Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative) modern readings of the Bible have been split between an a-historical ostensive reading where the God who appears in flesh, is crucified, and was raised is mytho-poetic garb for deeper transcendent truths and a propositional flat reading the severs Biblical meaning from it’s literary form and is both subject to and dependent on the historical verification and reconstructions of our historians. In the last two hundred years, both positions have consistently eroded as compelling positions to hold.

Chapter Three: The Epistemology of the Spirit

The chapter on the Holy Spirit is probably the most straightforward of the book. If the Biblical hermeneutic offered in chapter two was full of fresh vitality, the chapter on the Holy Spirit is ripe with pleasant familiarity. Placher begins with Spirit and scripture before moving onto the Holy Spirit in the three representative and constructive theologians: John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and Karl Barth. While this is certainly a responsible structure, it felt a bit stale after the first two chapters. That being said, Placher should be commended for his attempt to mediate an Augustinian view of the Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son and the Eastern view which speaks of the Spirit proceeding from the Father.

Chapter Four: The Three are One

Far and away the most complex of the book, here Placher tackles the great questions of Trinitarian discourse that have dominated discussion for the better part of 1800 years. These are the questions of God’s threeness verses oneness. Questions of being, essence, substance, and personhood. It is questions of mutual indwelling, space, forms, and appearances.

I’ve yet to encounter a writer who takes these complexities and makes them simple to understand. But, and I think Placher would make this same point, if it’s simple and something we can grasp on our own perhaps it isn’t God but a projection of God. Still, Placher lays out the issues admirably and lays mediating positions that both affirm the reality of God as the Three who are One.

Criticism

First, Placher forgoes traditional topics (creation, soteriology, etc.) of systematic reckonings of the Trinity. This isn’t as big as a problem as it first seems. For starters, the subtitle of the book is instructive. This isn’t so much Placher’s Summa as it is An Essay in Postliberal Theology. As such it addresses methodological concerns than more than their results. For some this is a major problem. One of the chief criticisms of the nebulous school of Postliberal theology is that it is all hermeneutic and nothing else. It is a plastic Easter egg with no prize in the belly. From my perspective this misses the point of Postliberal theology. If anything Placher and his contemporaries respect their students enough to believe they will pick up their work and carry it into new places. As such Placher doesn’t so much bludgeon the reader with a Placherian Summa as invite the reader into a new world and a new hermeneutic. The reader is invited to question seriously what a history-like narrative reading of the Gospels mean for questions of Kingdom theology, personal and social salvation, or even pastoral theology. In this regard Placher is an impetus for moving back to the world of the Bible and is a catalyst for a new (old) type of theology.

A second and more significant criticism is that Placher gives short shrift to the Old Testament. After reading his chapter on Jesus Christ you would be forgiven for being unaware that there is a First Testament that informs the world of the Second Testament. Considering this is a chapter that addresses hermeneutics and Biblical Interpretation at length this is a bit puzzling and more than a bit unforgiveable. Placher invites us to consider the New Testament as a “history-like witness to truths both historical and transcendent”. As such, the New Testament and especially the four gospels (and I’d imagine he considers Acts to fall within the scope of Luke) should be read neither as myth, modern history, or fiction but as narratives narrating something that actually happened. But the world of the Gospels presumes the world of the First Testament. One would have liked Placher to have at least mentioned recent work on areas of scholarship on literary theories such as intertexuality which would have drawn out the history-like Jewishness of the Jesus narratives. One might consider the work of Thomas F. Torrance here. While Torrance believes that it is the New Testament witness that must take priority as the center of our witness to the Triune God, to do so presumes that Jesus of Nazareth emerged from the womb of Israel. As such the First Testament saturates the New and must be understood as a central witness to Christ and the nature of covenant relationship of God to humanity.

Has it been Three Months Already?

Has it been three months since my last post? It hasn't been from laziness, that's for sure. In fact, it's been quite a busy stretch. In addition to the usual 40-hour work week, trying to be a good husband and father, I've been working on a few exciting projects.

• This quarter The INN University Ministries is looking at the letter to the Colossians and they asked me to kick it off by giving an overview of the entire book: no small task for 20 minutes but it seemed to go well. I'd like to believe I'm the first person to connect this letter to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• The great folks at Acme Presbyterian Church invited me to fill the pulpit for a few weeks in February and March. If you're ever in Whatcom County on Sunday morning and you need a small country church to visit, you couldn't do much better.
• I've been busy facilitating a Barth Pub Theology group. Due to its popularity I ended up leading two groups. This meant I got to spend 10 Thursday's centered on my two favorite "B" words: Barth and beer. I'm a bit bummed this one is done. However in the weeks to come, I'll gladly accept any of your offers to combine beer and theology.
• Finally, I wrote a couple of articles for the forthcoming Lexham Bible Dictionary. For the curious, one was on the genealogy of Jesus Christ and the other was on the sacraments. For the record they're short, I wished I could have written more. But they turned out well (I think). I'm especially proud of the article on the genealogy and believe it will be helpful for pastors, teachers, small group leaders, and anyone interested in those sort of things.

 Now that those projects are through I'm hoping to get back to updating this blog regularly. I've read some great books, listened to some great music, and have been kicking around some ideas that I'd love to share.

Thanks for reading.

Best Books of 2010

Anyone who considers himself a reader will probably tell you that they still don’t read as much they would like. I count myself a member of this not-so-rarified air. I’d like to read a book a week. It seems a tangible, realistic, and obtainable goal. Unfortunately, I usually fall short of this goal. Now, mind you, partially this isn’t entirely my fault. When your regiment of reading includes multiple novels hovering around 500 pages and you’re carefully picking your way through Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics—whose individual volumes average around 700 small-printed pages of ridiculously thick meaning, you’re bound to fall short in the book-a-week front.

Still, I think I read a fair amount.

While I don’t have a list to back it up, I’d estimate I read about 40 books last year. Of these, they were split fairly evenly between fiction and non-fiction. Most of my non-fiction selections were of the theological or philosophical variety, but not totally. I did enjoy books by Barbara Kingsolver on growing her own food and Sara Marcus on the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90’s. (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Girls to the Front respectively)

Of the 20 or so novels I read in 2010 only a handful were published this year. So, I’m hardly an expert on the best of the bunch from twenty-ten. Still, I do consider myself a reader. And, I’d like to believe I have discriminating taste. So, with that caveat, here are some newish books that I enjoyed in 2010:

David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

To say I recommend this book isn't saying nearly enough. Truthfully, this is one of the most enjoyable and memorable work of recent fiction that I have had read in some time.

Jacob de Zoet arrives in 1799 to Nagasaki Harbor on a five-year stint as a clerk with the Dutch East Indies Company hoping to earn enough money to return home and marry Anna. Instead he meets a mysterious Japanese mid-wife with a disfigured face, duplicitous translators, rogue colleagues, warring shoguns, and a changing Europe.

At it's core, this is book of collisions--cultures, religions, values, classes, genders, economic systems, etc.. But it’s more than that. It's a character study of one idealist full of scrupulous morals, values, and ideals facing a life in a world where those values are not shared and are in fact spit upon. Mitchell is able to create a multi-dimensional world that moves beyond the black and white and creates dilemmas and conflicts that are brutally honest in their reality. Good is never strictly good and bad is never strictly bad. Just like today's philosophical marketplace there is a spectrum of options and mores that we all must navigate. De Zoet is certainly a fine guide in this regard.

Thousand Autumns also deserves mention because it introduced me to the wonderful David Mitchell who has quickly become my favorite living author. I finished the dazzling and mind-bending Cloud Atlas over the holiday and now I’m enjoying his life of a 13-year old boy in 1982 England Black Swan Green.

Jonathan Franzen

Freedom

You’ve probably heard of this book. It made the cover of Time magazine before its print. When’s the last time a book that didn’t feature vampires or a teenage wizard did that?

If you haven’t heard it Freedom, you might be familiar with his tour de force The Corrections. Freedom has many similarities with that work. Both cover an enormous amount of time. Both deal with families in crisis, existential and otherwise. Both deal with the disconnect between a Midwestern locale and an east coast worldview. Both are full of characters pre-disposed to destroying the people closest to them.

But the similarities end there. Putting it bluntly, there wasn’t a single character in the Corrections that liked. I found them petty, mean-spirited, sad and spiteful people. In Freedom, the Berglands often embodied many of those same qualities but came off as much more likeable. I found myself rooting for them, which made their pain, follies, and failures all the more difficult to watch unfold. One never wants to see a friend self-destruct and be destroyed.

Further, I found the writing to be even better. Like the Corrections, Freedom is an equal opportunity critique on American culture where no one is left standing. The left, the right, the Christians, the atheists, the punks, and the suburbanites all look equally bad. Anyway you slice it we’re all consumers waiting to devour our next kill. But this time, Franzen writes with a warmth and humor that makes the pill easier to swallow. I’m a Christian, NPR-listening, leftist-leaning, indie rock kid. Let’s just say none of those identities look good here. But rather than being mean-spirited Franzen simply props up a mirror and allows us to see all our idiosyncrasies in unflinching details.

Pre-hyped extensively, it would be hard for Freedom to live up to its early buzz. But it exceeded and more.

Gary Shteyngart

Super Sad True Love Story

There is more than the slightest bit of irony posting a blog review of this super, sad, and hopefully not true love story on Facebook. Still, onward I go.

Set in a near dystopian future eerily similar to a Brave New World, the United States is crumbling. Swallowed by foreign debt and an obsessive addiction to fame, fashion, and sex, the populace is mostly a functionally illiterate mass of libido. Rather than communicate, “friends” troll together with their faces pressed to their i-pad like devices, updating statuses, tweeting, and rating people in personality and “desirability” (or a much more profane term).

The book follows the affable Lenny, keeper of perhaps the world’s last diary, and his romance with the anorexic Eunice. What happens isn’t quite as important as the world Gary Shteyngart describes. For this bibliophile, the future Shteygard describes is terrifying. Harnessing the ghosts of Douglas Adams, he writes with a satirical humor and an absurdist wit that keeps the book from collapsing into doomsday prophecies or morose navel-gazing. Instead it’s a chipper, if not perverse, delight that hopefully is no more than a fanciful romp into a future that is in no way coming.

This book is worth it just for his description of “onion skin” jeans alone.

Rafael Yglesias

A Happy Marriage

I’ve already written about this book before, so I’ll keep it short: this book destroyed me.

Like many of the best plots, it’s deceptively simple: it’s the mostly autobiographical love story of Enrique and Margaret. It alternates between their fast and furious meeting and courtship and the last few weeks of Maragret’s life as she wastes away from cancer.

I’ve never experienced the horrors and sadness Yglesias faced. I’d like to believe he put into words the universal feeling of emptiness and loss and the total inadequacy of expressing to the person you’ve shared your life with, just who they are to you. This is a tear jerker in the most real of worlds—the one we live and walk.

Michael Chabon

Manhood for Amateurs

This isn’t fiction, but it’s my list so you’ll have to deal with it.

Chabon wrote the memoir Manhood for Amateurs based off one undisputable hypothesis: the standard being a good father is set abysmally low.

Manhood is written for people like me. It’s a book for Dads who are finding their way in a new landscape of parenthood. It’s a book for Dads who want to be involved. Who like their kids. Who don’t believe that parenting is the responsibility of the mother.

Manhood isn’t a how-to. It isn’t a tome. It isn’t a revolutionary siren call. It’s one man’s reflection on what it means to be an involved, active, and responsible parent. Chabon does this with humor, heartbreak, insight and poise. I’m thankful there are books like this being written.

Words or Images, Words and Images?

Do we think and interpret mostly in words or images?

From my couch, I can see a piece of cardstock. It’s hanging from a piece of string that is strung across the mantle of our fireplace.

But it’s not just any piece of paper.

It is red rectangle with a solid white boarder and measures about 2 ½ inches in width and 3 ½ inches in height. In the bottom right quadrant, a white triangle stands on its tip. Resting on top of the triangle are three green-hued half circle like spheres, stacked on top of one another.

It’s a birthday card. On its front is a drawing of an ice cream cone.

Sitting from the vantage point of my couch I’m able to look at the card, analyze its components and recognize it as “ice cream cone”. With virtually no effort my brain translates the image (red rectangle, triangle, spheres) into words (ice cream cone) and concepts (birthday card).

Certainly there is a strong correlation between images and words, pictures and concepts? But does one drive the other? This question came to a head when I read 17^th century theologian Polanus’ fine definition of Bible interpretation:

The interpretation of sacred Scripture is the exposition of the true sense and use of it, organized in clear words for the glory of God and for the edification of His Church.

While there is much to reflect upon here (e.g. “true sense” of scripture? I wonder how this term might play out in debates concerning the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture? Is there a supra-historical meaning of the text that lays beyond its historical form?), the words italicized above captured my fancy: interpretation of Scripture is “organized in clear words”. Reformation iconoclast tendency aside, Polanus suggests that the results of a detailed investigation into the true sense and use of Biblical words, stories, and texts are to be conveyed in “clear words”. Not images or pictures, but clear words.

Clarity in interpretation seems straightforward in theory and harder in practice. Anyone who has been given the task of conveying the Word of God knows clarity in interpretation is ¾ of the battle.

For me the issue is the use of words. Does Biblical interpretation preclude the use of images? And if not, do words take priority and precedent over images?

Bear in mind I ask this as someone who is much more verbal than visual. About the worst thing you could ask of me would be to give me a blank piece of paper and some paint and tell me to make something.

But the scenario with the card got me thinking, can images convey meaning beyond words? Do we need words to make sense of an image? In the case of Biblical interpretation (which following Polanius is not a historical-critical exercise drawn independent of a Biblical theology or ethic, but combination of the exposition of true words and events that give meaning to our world today), should the use of images be used concurrently with words?

Anybody have any thoughts on this?