My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, September 26, 2024

Review: Hayden's World: Volume 2

Hayden's World: Volume 2 Hayden's World: Volume 2 by S.D. Falchetti
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Janus 2: ***
Bernard’s Promise: ****

This is the second collection of of hard science shorts in the James Hayden Universe and it looks at First Contact. Over all it was better than Vol 1 with each story having more room to develop and become interesting (both novellas were slow starting up). It is obvious that a lot of thought went into the science for these stories and for the most part the author came across as knowledgable … but that also means that some of the extensive descriptions and explanations slowed down the narrative a bit and I am sure that experts in these science and tech fields could find plenty wrong with the details, but for the casual reader it was an entertaining mind exercise that I enjoyed.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, September 19, 2024

Review: The Shadowmaker

The Shadowmaker The Shadowmaker by T.J. Champitto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ****

A Solid Crime Adventure/Thriller Story

This is the first of a new action/ thriller series. The main character, Henry Sirola, is a master thief working for an eastern European mob organization. He and long time bestie, Darius, are recruited for the score of a lifetime, which naturally seems too good to be true. Henry’s old flame (Isabell) is also along for the ride and gives us the possibility for a little romantic reconciliation. When it all inevitably goes sideways, the team scrambles to fix everything, going up against government corruption and a Brazilian crime syndicate. Along the way, we see secrets/mystery and betrayal that keeps you guessing with a few late reveals, but nothing too surprising. Henry is a very likable, and somewhat flawed, anti-hero that is also and FBI informant (making him sort of a good guy - right?) … which to be honest, I am not clear on how that advances the plot, which for most of the story seems to be a legitimate salvage and sale … the only question is why are crime lords involved at all. At any rate, the action and pacing is good enough to easily pull your through the story without losing interest and keep it entertaining. The ending was a bit ambiguous, although for the most part satisfying.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, September 12, 2024

Review: The Unseen Blade

The Unseen Blade The Unseen Blade by Ambrose Z. Adams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: **

A Derivative YA Fantasy w/ poor narration

This is a YA coming of age story complete with a school of magic and a “chosen one.” Kids are “sorted” into specialities and placed into small “combat” teams that was ridiculously like a magical fight club (and the required bully). There is a parallel story about a conflict between werewolves and vampires that was highly predictable and not very interesting … at least until it intersects with the main plot late in the last half of the book. Of course … getting there requires a few time jumps punctuated by child combat to grievous injury et al. Despite all that, there is some character development (as might be expected with the coming of age genre). Bottomline, it was not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be given the premise from the jacket blurb. This was aggravated by the poor narration performance where the performance came across extremely awkward and wooden. It might help if playback speed is bumped up.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, September 5, 2024

Review: The Bleeding Stone

The Bleeding Stone The Bleeding Stone by Joseph John Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ****

A Slow Fantasy with a Colonizer Trope

The story is told from the perspective of a native tribal culture in retreat from a more technologically advance colonizing civilizations that is an obvious nod how the European powers colonized the Americas. In this case, the “natives” are of course more attuned to nature (Sun Tribe, Wood Tribe, Stone Tribe, et al), with some minor supernatural gifts that are awarded by a special ceremony when they become adults. The invaders primarily use firearms (flintlocks) which apparently are too advance for the natives to figure out a counter So yeah … there despite the very interesting premise, there are parts of the world-building that are overly simplistic and tropey. That makes the main driving force behind the story the characters … with the the bad guy a typical arrogant fool and the FMC an emotional wreck … because she was born under the eclipse and should have been “exposed” as a cursed born child.

The bulk of the story focused on developing the extremely dysfunction relationships between the FMC and various members of her tribe (allies and enemies) while highlighting her self-destructive behavior that made her much less appealing over all. There are slowly revealed mysteries that remained largely unexplored (although there is a hint at the end that is really only there to pull you into the sequel). Still, the bones of a pretty good story are there. It loses points for the time jumping across three (3) separate timelines (not a fan) and the really slow (almost nonexistent) and the unsatisfactory (and rushed) ending. It gets credit for a solid narration though making it a decent piece of entertainment.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, August 29, 2024

Review: Relics of Tomorrow

Relics of Tomorrow Relics of Tomorrow by Brandon Cleland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: **

A Very Simple Trope filled Dystopian Story

It is a basic coming of age story in a dystopian world that is divided into levels according to net worth. A young, orphaned thief, dreams of making it to a level above the smog where he can ditch the O2 mask and see the sun. Of course … there is something special about the young hooligan … who eventually teams up it a shape changing alien who becomes something of a mentor for the “big league” of possession liberation. There is a little force humor between the pair as they have encounter a few mishaps in each caper/heist, but nothing too unbelievable (and or unexpected). The story does come across as something of a “paint-by-the-numbers” piece all the way to the end (which was a tad on the rabbit/hat or comic book style). Overall it was entertaining, but fairly forgettable.

The Narration was pretty basic. The reader struggled to differentiate character voices, especially for women, and there was something off that made the delivery feel awkward and unnatural to me. It was not so bad that I couldn’t tolerate it, but it did highlight the rather formulaic nature of the story to the point of amusement.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, August 22, 2024

Review: Homecoming

Homecoming Homecoming by Jude Austin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: **
Performance: ****

The Cleanup from Book One

We get a little bit more world-building … which is basically just a SciFi veneer over today, with such weirdness as parking-lot asteroids and cryo-sleep for a three (3) day trip. Generally it is more of the same with Kata and Tau now on the run where they encounter more bad guys that want to take advantage of their unique abilities (mostly Kata). There is less violence, but impact of that experience lingers throughout the story here and gets a little long in the tooth towards the end (and less interesting as it devolves into a pseudo courtroom drama). The biggest issue was that it moved sooo slowly that it was hard to stay focused.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Homecoming #Project #FreeAudiobookCodes

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Thursday, August 15, 2024

Review: Project Tau

Project Tau Project Tau by Jude Austin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ****

An Interesting Clone Story

The world building in this story was interesting if a bit simplistic and anachronistic at times. The primary theme revolves around human cloning … called Projects … that are grown and used in place of humans in dangerous environments (mines) and experiments that have apparently greatly benefited humanity in general, but these clones are always property, treated more or less like animals. But they are hugely expensive and the labs that grow them operate on a very slim margin … so when the opportunity to pass off a human as a project lands in front of the lab executives, they just can’t pass that up … and Kalin becomes project Kata … with skills and abilities no Project has ever had before if only they can “break” his independent streak. And that is where the story turns very dark, especially for a YA genre.

When Project Kata is thrown in with Project Tau (an actual, advanced human clone), the interactions provide a backdrop to explore what is means to be human … and what it means for a human to be reduced to mere property (think chattel slavery). There is also a dimension of human psychology with respect to how these projects are trained (aka broken) that provides an opportunity to highlight the effects of abuse and violence, both physical and mental, that was designed to dehumanize the subjects (not human and clone) and how those in authority can justify their inhuman behavior. It all seemed plausible given my understanding of human history and psychology; although to be honest, I found the focus here a little difficult to take at times, but the protagonists were very sympathetic characters and I was pulling for them the entire time while anticipating a better situation at the end …

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, August 8, 2024

Review: The God Protocol: Dragon

The God Protocol: Dragon The God Protocol: Dragon by D.L. Wilburn Jr.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Book: **
Performance: **

A Simple, Tropey Alien Conspiracy Story

It was an interesting premise … a fringe podcaster seeking the truth behind all those alien/government conspiracies only to find out that some of them are actually true. Unfortunately … it was poorly executed. To begin with, there was absolutely no character development (or even differentiation) anywhere. Then the MC podcast dialog seemed to take up way too much of the story … the silliness would have been bearable if it didn’t take itself so seriously (either I didn’t get the humor or there just wasn’t any). Then there was the typical freshman pitfalls such as info-dumps and an incessant focus on trivial details that added absolutely nothing to the story. There is enough tech to call it SciFi … and the author gets most of it right, but it does go off the rails enough that I am pretty sure it is just a bunch of tropes stitched together without much understanding of the actual tech/science behind it. Must of this would have been fixed with a good editor … all of this was exacerbated by a narration that didn’t differential the voices well and delivered the excessive dialog just enough off to seem unnatural … taken all together, it was so boring that I almost DNF.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, August 1, 2024

Review: McCabe's Luck: The Feud Goes On

McCabe's Luck: The Feud Goes On McCabe's Luck: The Feud Goes On by Patrick Lindsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ****
Performance: ****

A Classic Western Well Told

I am a fan of westerns, growing up with the classics from Zane Grey, Max Brand and Louis L’Amour. This story has all the hallmarks of such a classic with a likable MC and the typical power hungry antagonist (although not really a good comparison, it did remind me a little of the Sackett Saga). Throw in a light romance and some gun play with a reasonable plot and you have the basic all American feel good story the genre is famous for, and I enjoyed it a lot. The narration was solid and comfortable for the story and gave it a bit more of an authentic feel with the first person POV. Most of all … it was a clean story, which I appreciated so much given what I have found in more recent western stories. Finally … it is in Kindle Unlimited … so it is definitely work a read in you subscribe to that.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Sunday, July 28, 2024

Review: Leaders, Do Unto Others: Brief Meditations on Leading and Learning and Loving

Leaders, Do Unto Others: Brief Meditations on Leading and Learning and Loving Leaders, Do Unto Others: Brief Meditations on Leading and Learning and Loving by David Harwood
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Book: **
Performance: ***

Highly Repetitive and Jumbled Collection of Scripture Points

It was a good concept/sentiment that just didn’t deliver for me. because it was basically a bunch of scripture quotes with a ton of shallow, fluffy, word salad that knits it all together in a confusing mass that has no practical point outside of telling the reader to just be good. In fact, if you are even remotely a student of christian scripture, this book offers very little beyond that (with almost no exegesis or explaining of how the quoted scripture actually applied to the point being discussed) … and it was even less of a help on how to actually be an effective christian leader (for which it has nearly zero examples or illustrations outside of simply quoting scripture). After each “reflection”, there is a quick prayer that has the potential to explain some of the point the reflection was trying to teach … with some being more effective than others. While the narration was good enough for the genre and material, it wasn’t anything special.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Introduction: How to Lead? The Golden Rule! (6:44)

1: Our Foundation (11:10)
2: The New Command, Part 1 (9:13)
3: Getting Up from Supper (16:08)
4: The New Command, Part 2 (8:19)
5: The New Command, Part 3 (14:04)
6: An Epiphany of His Affection (10:26)
7: Loving the Corporate (8:28)
8: Loving Leadership and Praying For People (5:48)
9. Carte Before Horses (10:09)
10. A Loving Environment and the Fear of the Lord (13:49)
11. Recognizing Love’s Limitations (10:24)
12. Knowing You’re Called: A Confidence Key (9:54)
13. Transferring Ownership: Another Confidence Key (10:37)
14. Determining Your Life Message (6:19)
15. The Hireling Minister (12:58)
16. Empathy (16:02)
17. “Lord Jesus, Shepherd Your People!” (17:50)
18. Something Overlooked: Mercy (954)
19. Sarah Laughed (10:28)
20. Modeling Courage (10:18)
21. Honor? Go First! (12:58)
22. Discerning Order: “With” (5:04)
23. Spiritual Parenting (10:14)
24. Leading United and Effective Prayer (17:03)
25. Restitution (4:23)
26. Be For - Giving (4:21)
27. Criticism (7:12)
28. Generosity (4:07)
29. Slow Down (7:35)
30. Faithfulness (10:21)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, July 25, 2024

Review: Classroom Management for Effective Teachers: How new teachers learn to stop reacting and start delivering smarter lesson plans that captivate and inspire.

Classroom Management for Effective Teachers: How new teachers learn to stop reacting and start delivering smarter lesson plans that captivate and inspire. Classroom Management for Effective Teachers: How new teachers learn to stop reacting and start delivering smarter lesson plans that captivate and inspire. by Catherine L Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book: ****
Performance: ***

A Solid Reference, but more for younger students

It is actually a fairly basic reference that most teachers are probably already aware of; although perhaps a bit of review and reinforcements might help here. In addition, the focus is really on the younger side of the targeted students, with very little that I could see that would provide “effective” for middle school students. The narration was also pretty solid enough for a reference book, so that wasn’t much depth needed in the performance other than a good pace and intonation to keep your attention on the lecture. There are both about a 3.5*, so I am splitting the difference and rounding up, giving the nod to the book as it is also available in kindle unlimited.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Introduction (6:13)
Ch. 1: Utilizing active learning in your classroom (29:15)
Ch. 2: Promoting student agency (32:38)
Ch. 3: Creating a happy and productive classroom (27:41)
Ch. 4: Instilling positive disciple (22:39)
Ch. 5: How to manage a loud or disruptive classroom (16:52)
Ch. 6: Dealing with bullying and teasing (19:26)
Ch. 7: How to get the parents on your side (21:11)
Ch. 8: How can the parents facilitate their child’s education? (20:32)
Conclusion (6:53)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Sunday, July 21, 2024

Review: Seven Challenges That Shaped the New Testament: Understanding the Inherent Tensions of Early Christian Faith

Seven Challenges That Shaped the New Testament: Understanding the Inherent Tensions of Early Christian Faith Seven Challenges That Shaped the New Testament: Understanding the Inherent Tensions of Early Christian Faith by F Scott Spencer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an interesting look at how tensions between the “basic tenets and apparent countervailing realities” help to determine the evolution of Christian doctrine. I was especially interesting in this topic since I have frequently been exposed to the idea that interpreting the Jewish Torah often requires a both/and approach where western thought more frequently sees an either/or interpretation. While related, this work does not use the same framework; rather, it focuses on the struggle to adapt the former to the latter in a way that more or less represents a compromise position rather than a contextual continuum. In that respect, it was a bit of a disappointment while still providing a solid understanding of context when much of the doctrine of the Church was determined … and so is very helpful in approaching and understanding the Christian New Testament.

As indicated by the title, the focus is on seven (7) areas of theological tension: the apparent differences between the “old testament” of the Jews and the “new testament” of a more Gentile community; the differences in determining what was righteous and what was not for each community (eg circumcision requirements and kosher laws) and the apparent dissonance of finding they still had to deal with a fallen world even while anticipating the paradise of God’s Kingdom (changing expectations) … that last being the principle concern of the book (for five of the seven chapters) … dealing with difficult questions such as why do we still die if Christ has “conquered” death … or why has Christ not returned yet … or while does evil and division still exist in the world. Chapter six takes a side trip into the gnostic heresy and its appeal that was interesting from the aspect of how the Church responded to this perennial threat to orthodoxy. Overall it was a solid addition for anyone interested in Christian religious study.

The chapters and sections in this work are …

Prologue: Creative Tension of Mind and Heart

1. Old and New: The Historical Challenge of Innovation and Evolution
2. Right and Wrong: The Moral Challenge of Hypocrisy and Apostasy
3. Weak and Strong: The Political Challenge of Authority and Tyranny
4. Weal and Woe: The Material Challenge of Infirmity and Poverty
5. One and All: The Social Challenge of Particularity and Partisanship
6. Seen and Secret: The Perceptual Challenge of Skepticism and Gnosticism
7. Now and Near: The Temporal Challenge of Delay and Deferment

Epilogue: Streaming the Good News

Some of the other points that really got my attention (regardless of whether or not I agreed with them) are:

Accordingly, I read the New Testament less as a strict evolution and resolution of doctrines than an ongoing negotiation of tensions between basic tenets and apparent countervailing realities.

Jesus’s most famous “sermon” appears in two forms: Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt. 5‒7) and Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6:17‒49). These are not transcripts of synagogue sermons but rather collections of Jesus’s public teachings.

Festinger posits three common ways people try to ease the dissonance of challenged cherish beliefs or practices: (1) change their convictions and actions, opinions and habits; (2) gather new data bolstering their original position and debunking counter-information; (3) push the problem out of mind through denial, delay, diversion, or delusion—whatever it takes to restore equilibrium.

Significantly, anxious dissonance over issues such as persisting poverty and postponed parousia served as productive challenges, as creative tensions for the New Testament writers, spurring them to refine, reformulate, stretch, and strengthen the fabric of faith in Christ and faithfulness to Christ.

The truth is, not all Pharisees agreed among themselves. Distinct rabbinic “schools” or “houses” advanced different interpretations of Torah and routinely cited multiple opinions in their written commentaries, known as the Mishnah and Talmud.

The Old Testament offers select glimpses of afterlife: direct ascensions to heaven of two figures, Enoch (Gen. 5:24; Sir. 44:16; cf. Heb. 11:5) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11‒12; Sir. 48:9); resuscitation of two deceased sons (1 Kings 17:17‒24; 2 Kings 4:32‒37; Sir. 48:4‒5); restoration of Israel, pictured as reassembling and reviving bones from a mass graveyard (Ezek. 37:1‒14); and a general end-time resurrection (Dan. 12:1‒4).

Today “righteous” and “righteousness” are rarely used in everyday conversation. They are mostly limited to religious speech, and not always in a positive way. The biblical scholar Marcus Borg reports, “When I have asked Christian audiences about their associations when they heard the word righteous, some terms they used were holier-than-thou, judgmental, condemnatory, hypocritical, priggish, legalistic, moralistic, full of themselves, pompous, and arrogant.”99 That’s quite an ugly, “unrighteous” list!

But in reality no one follows Christ perfectly, and whatever righteousness emerges owes to continuing immersion in divine grace, love, and power. No room for self-glorification: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31; cf. Jer. 9:24).

The Torah is less concerned with punishing the individual malefactor than with restoring communal and terrestrial wholeness.

Overall, Jesus’s saving mission seeks to realize God’s kingdom on earth as a commonwealth promoting the common good (weal) of God’s creation, especially in therapeutic (wellness) and economic (wealth) dimensions of life. Forgiveness and freedom from sin are integral to this mission.

Ekklēsia designated any group “called together.” It was “the standard term for the political assembly in a Greek city” and applied to various religious groups. Synagōgē (“synagogue” or “gathering/meeting place”) is a close synonym.

The biblical Greek term ethnos, commonly rendered “nation,” more accurately denotes a particular ethnic people sharing social, cultural, and religious histories, values, and practices.

The plural “nations” (ethnē) often designates all non-Israelite/Judean peoples—the Gentiles—distinguished from the covenant ethnos and laos (“people”) of Israel.

Walls segregating Jews and Gentiles evoke Torah and temple boundaries. God’s “law with its commandments and ordinances” (Eph. 2:15) was given to Israel to delineate God’s blessed way of life, set apart from others’ adverse ways. But Jewish law also advocated considerate treatment of aliens/immigrants on a par with neighbors:

The Greek word for “son” (huios) is embedded in the term for “adoption” (huiothesia). This linguistic link fits the Greco-Roman cultural pattern of male family heads adopting adult sons to carry on the family line in the absence or incompetence of natural sons. The paterfamilias adopted his successor to secure his political and economic legacy, not out of charity toward an orphan-adoptee.

Some commentators distinguish between two terms—hypomonē (“endurance”) and makrothymia (“patience”)—James uses for perseverance: the former connotes a more passive resignation by mistreated underlings (hypo [under] + monē [stay]); the latter a more active resistance of harmful people and situations for an extended time (“long [makro]-suffering”).

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, July 18, 2024

Review: Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US-Russia Relations

Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US-Russia Relations Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US-Russia Relations by Stephen P. Friot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ****
Performance: ***

An closer look at the History of the Cold War

An interesting review of the history of American and Russian relationships that can go a long way toward understanding where we find ourselves today. It is most helpful in the “behind the scenes” examination of intent, motivation and pressures that informed each political encounter that gives each side a real and relatable positions, goals and understanding. With the current deteriorating relationship between these two super powers, there is plenty of blame to go around as each side tried to manipulate the other over the years for their own benefit, without truly understanding the mindset of their opponents. Frankly it is truly amazing that we didn’t destroy ourselves many times over given the stupid games we all were playing. Of course, while the book does a good job of helping us understand how we got here … it is very short on advice on how to dig us out (not that I really expected such). Perhaps most important is a clear understanding of our limitations in this political dance and perhaps a reset toward more reasonable goals is in order.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Preface (7:35)
Prologue (15:08)
Chapter 1. It Took Centuries to Get to Yalta (1:01:56)
Chapter 2. The Geopolitics of the Peace 1945-1952 (1:18:08)
Chapter 3. Truman and Kennan (36:40)
Chapter 4. Geopolitical Realignment Becomes a Reality (49:23)
Chapter 5. Two Years That Set the Stage for the Next Four Decades (1:09:49)
Chapter 6. A Reflection on US Leadership in the 1940s and Early 1950s (16:08)
Chapter 7. The Russian Bomb (19:44)
Chapter 8. NSC-68: The Militarization of Containment (18:47)
Chapter 9. Politics and Policy in the First Decade of the Cold War (1:59:58)
Chapter 10. From Korea to Krushcheve and the Thaw (1:03:49)
Chapter 11. Communism and the United States Supreme Court (49:06)
Chapter 12. Avoiding Armageddon (1:40:55)
Chapter 13. From Camelot to Saigon (1:28:39)
Chapter 14. Stalemate and the Birth and Death of Detente (43:51)
Chapter 15. From the Wilderness to the Promised Land (1:42:41)
Conclusion (1:41:16)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Sunday, July 14, 2024

Review: How Did Christianity Begin? Hallucinations? Fabrications? Myths? Resurrection? A Look at the Evidence

How Did Christianity Begin? Hallucinations? Fabrications? Myths? Resurrection? A Look at the Evidence How Did Christianity Begin? Hallucinations? Fabrications? Myths? Resurrection? A Look at the Evidence by Christopher Hearn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book as an interesting premise; however, it is by no means an academic or scholarly work. The entire focus is on proving the Resurrection of Jesus, and while it marshals an impressive amount of circumstantial evidence, there is little to no direct evidence (as might be expected), so it is unlikely to convince skeptics; although it might comfort believers. No where does it cover anything about the origins of Christianity outside of the resurrection narrative, so if that is what you are looking for, this is not the book for you. The book is divided into three (3) parts, with each part organized differently. Part One proposes that the resurrection has been denied with the claim that all witnesses were experiencing some form of mass hallucination … and makes the unsupported point that this is the principle means by which the resurrection story is denied. I count myself as fairly knowledgeable in christian apologetics, and I have never found this to be true, not have I encountered this anecdotally; however, there is still some good information here (such as a convenient table of all the biblical post resurrection sightings of Jesus) as well as provides a few basic reasons for the early resistance to the message of christianity … and then it undermines its own credibility with poor scholarship such as the insistence of inserting a creedal statement into 1 Corinthians that was adopted no more than 9 years after the crucifixion with no supporting citations. That is not to say anything in this part is complete wrong, just that what is there is not really a strong supporting argument if you are trying to convince a non-believer, so the best use here would be as a supplement to private or personal reflections by believers.

Part Two focuses on the Empty Tomb … with the basic claim that resurrection deniers attempt to explain how the early believers could have found the tomb of Jesus empty. There are 10 more specific claims here, each with a response. And while I don’t have the credentials needed to verify how accurate this information is, it seems reasonable in many cases and does have some supporting citations (from people that I have not previously encountered in my own studies). For example, there is an interesting connection on why Joseph of Arimathea was the one who had to claim the body of Jesus that was connected to his belonging to the Sanhedrin that was pretty investing and not something that I had heard before (will still need to do some follow-on research to verify though). Additional there was an interesting discussion about why the tomb had to be new in order not to run afoul of custom and law; however, the discussion of why we are so certain of the tomb’s location doesn’t appear to follow any consensus and fails to mention any of the competing claims, giving the a impression of certainty here. Additionally he talks about the James ossuary as if it has been determined to be authentic, while that is actually still contested. This might be inferred by the fact that Oded Golan was eventually acquitted of personally forging the ossuary, but the courts made no ruling on the items actual authenticity.

Part Three attempts to defend the New Testament as a whole; doing so with a combination of strawman arguments and historical inferences (the later being a list of extra biblical documents that mention Jesus by name). An immediate problem here is the inclusion of Thallus, who, while a favorite of Christian apologists because of its early date (52AD), really only confirms that solar eclipse around the time of the crucifixion and it was Africanus writing nearly 200 years after the fact that made the connection to Jesus. So the best external reference we have is actually Josephus as part of his histories, who mentions Jesus primarily in passing as the founder of a Jewish sect that was [believed to have been] executed on a cross by the sect members. In short, all of these arguments have potential, but they are all circumstantial and fairly weak on their own.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Introduction
Part One - Hallucination Theory (1 claim w/ 8 responses)
Part Two - Empty Tomb (1 main claim w/ 10 subclaims and responses)
Part Three - The New Testament (1 main claim and response with 4 counter arguments and responses)

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

Jesus made thirteen recorded appearances, at different times and locations, over the span of forty days.

When we look at what happened to people who gathered followers in Israel both before and after Jesus' life, we find that all of the movements failed and were finished off. Done. Yet only Christianity survived the death of its leader and did so in a spectacular way.

This brings us to the second hurdle. Jewish custom at the time stated that if a Jewish person was crucified, being a criminal, his or her body could only be retrieved by a member of the Sanhedrin. Family members or friends were not allowed. This explains why Mary, Jesus’ mother, or any of His siblings or even His disciples did not ask for Jesus’ body for burial.

According to the rules and customs of that time, Jesus' body should have been buried in a tomb for criminals. But Joseph asks for Jesus' body and places it in his own, brand-new tomb which had never been used. This works because as a new tomb, it is neither a place of honor or dishonor.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#HowDidChristianityBegin #LibraryThing

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Thursday, July 11, 2024

Review: The Thirteenth Koyote

The Thirteenth Koyote The Thirteenth Koyote by Kristopher Triana
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Book: *
Performance: ***

NSFW-DNF-TW Graphic Torture, Sex and Violence

I don’t know what I was thinking; I was obviously not familiar enough with the splatter sub-genres. First, I should say that if you are even remotely triggered about anything, this book is definitely not for you. Second, the graphic descriptions also make this audible not-safe-for-work (or any place public really). This was an 11 of 10 score for gratuitous, and mostly gross, depictions of torture, sex and violence that I really … Really … REALLY did NOT care for. I am sure there was a stock plot in there somewhere, something to do with outlaw werewolves, but it was hard for me to find amid all the blood and gore. I get it … they are some really bad dudes … I don’t need to be hit over the head with that in virtually every paragraph. I made it about 50% before I quit … and that is saying something for an audiobook (I can count on one hand the number I was not able to gut it out to the end). Now … if you will excuse me … I need a shower.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheThirteenthKoyote #FreeAudiobookCodes

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Sunday, July 7, 2024

Review: Untangling Critical Race Theory: What Christians Need to Know and Why It Matters

Untangling Critical Race Theory: What Christians Need to Know and Why It Matters Untangling Critical Race Theory: What Christians Need to Know and Why It Matters by Ed Uszynski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To start with … I am reasonable sure that I am not the target audience for this book as I am neither an Evangelical nor a fundamental christian conservative; however, I would consider myself somewhat adjacent to the social issues addressed by both CRT and the author's understanding of scripture … although it appears that he considers the foundations of catholic social teaching (which is my own tradition) to be largely heretical. While I am more or less aligned with his conclusions, I find that I frequently diverge with the interpretations used to get there and with the inconsistent expansion and/or restriction of foundational terminology (which speaks more to my desire for language precision than any deficiencies with the arguments) … but not so much as to undermine the ultimate conclusion supporting a christian conversation about race.

As professed by the author, you can’t truly claim scriptural authority without recognizing that some form of caritas to those most neglected and vulnerable within our society is required (and this includes the struggle of minorities against systemic oppression). And while the language was clear and concise, I am unsure as to its ability to convince others … it certainly didn’t change my mind about CRT, which remains divisive and problematic for me, not because of what it is or how it works, but because of they way it has been weaponized on both sides to the point of foreclosing any debate about race (which is desperately needed in America today). If am I wrong (and I would love to be so), all I can say is welcome to the conversation.

The chapters and sections in this work are …

Introduction: Why We Need Another Book on Race

1. A White Guy’s Journey into Racial Controversy
2. What Do We Need to Understand About Marxism?
3. Thinking Critically about Critical Theory
4. Can a Christian Gain Anything from Critical Theory?
5. What Is Critical Race Theory Really?
6. What Are Some Tenets of Critical Race Theory?
7. Why CRT Means Different Things to Different People
8. How Christians Get Race Wrong: What CRT Isn’t the Problem
9. Five Stumbling Blocks to Thinking Christianly About Race
10. Can CRT Be of Use?
11. Responding to Concerns About CRT Part 1
12. Responding to Concerns About CRT Part 2
13. Redeeming “Social Justice” from Injustice
14. Healing from the Persistence of White Supremacy
15. How Should We Then Live?

Epilogue: Seeing the World a Little Differently

Some of the other points that really got my attention (regardless of whether or not I agreed with them) are:

Instead, they exposed how the legal system had embedded enough racially significant policies and patterns that disproportionate outcomes were almost guaranteed without ever appearing racist on the surface. Their work showed how racism could be present without racists, and it shook legal scholarship at its core.

First, for my Christian friends concerned we’re losing the culture war, if progressive ideology “wins,” it won’t be because Christians failed at resisting it. Rather, it will be because God is using the spread of pagan ideology to discipline his church.

Traditional sociological theories focused on understanding or explaining what could be plainly observed, organized, and interpreted about society. But a Critical theory is suspicious. It assumes there’s something more going on than what we plainly see.

The invisible influence of power. Power is a dirty word and can’t be trusted unless you have it. On a micro level, CT is a study in individual, relational power dynamics. Power means advantage, the ability to coerce, to control, to bring change. The relative power scale gets tipped by gender, age, height, health, social class, perceived wealth, education, wisdom, family order, title, and race, but some form of power is always at work, whether consciously or not.

For those already anchored in another tradition, Critical Theories functioned like lenses in a frame you could wear at will. For others, Critical Theories shaped the ceiling of their universe, becoming stars whose light helped them understand their place in the world. The difference mattered.

Theory doesn’t prescribe solutions. Theory analyzes. People motivated by political ideology recommend solutions. Politics tries to fix what theory exposes, and different philosophies will fix what gets revealed in different ways. I learned that most people’s problem isn’t really with theories themselves but with the ways people try to solve the problems they reveal.

This is why we find Christians who say they can use CRT as an analytical tool and others who find that impossible. One is looking at CRT tenets as corrective declarations about the way race and power work together at various points in American history, while the other is looking at CRT tenets as extensions of a Marxist political agenda striving to destroy Western culture by blowing everything up.

In talking about justice, racism, and social responsibility, often using language and assumptions of CRT alongside Bible passages to reinforce their points, these speakers produced a swelling fear that “ideologies currently stylish in the left-leaning secular academy” were now taking over the church, presenting “a more ominous threat to evangelical unity and gospel clarity” than anything else in recent history.

Paranoia surrounding CRT becomes the latest excuse for ignoring biblical themes that don’t align with Republican or white evangelical politics or theology, another way for white Christians to avoid talking points that matter to POC.

I’m struck by the irony that the people claiming to be most concerned about the effect of CRT on the church might be the ones who most need the type of corrective that real CRT provides.

If your current reading of the Bible allows you to see how sin can become systematized and woven into social structures in an unrighteous and unjust way, then you don’t need CRT.

Most white folks I know never get past this point. They reject the idea that racism is a normal, endemic, regular part of social life. They assume it means they are racist and, of course, immediately reject that possibility.

But as a Christian, I am responsible for carrying that pain with him (Galatians 6:2). I am responsible for pursuing the clarity to see what he sees and feel what he feels (Romans 12:15). I am responsible for an ongoing recognition of how the sins of the past continue to have consequences in the present (1 Corinthians 12:25-26). And I am responsible for traces of racial prejudice still alive in me (1 John 1:8-10). As much as it depends on me, I am responsible for living in a racially redemptive way within my sphere of influence (Ephesians 2:14-16).

Human systems and structures driven by power and profit resist equal opportunity. They will always cater to one group at the expense of another. But human free will means people get to make choices, and choices matter in outcomes. Thus, inequality results from both unjust systems and unwise or immoral choices, and both need to be examined carefully.

So mishpat means giving people their due, whether that is punishment for a transgressor or giving those transgressed against what they are owed.

Beyond personal moral righteousness, tsedaqah refers to “day-to-day living in which a person conducts all relationships in family and society with fairness, generosity and equity.”8

Throughout the Bible, social justice isn’t portrayed as a secondary luxury or as outlier acts of benevolence. It’s fundamentally necessary as part of one’s worship before God.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#UntanglingCriticalRaceTheory #NetGalley.

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Thursday, July 4, 2024

Review: DBT Workbook for Depression: The Complete Guide for Treating Depression & Anxiety with Dialectical Behavior Therapy | DBT Skills for Men & Women for Mindfulness, ... Emotional Health

DBT Workbook for Depression: The Complete Guide for Treating Depression & Anxiety with Dialectical Behavior Therapy | DBT Skills for Men & Women for Mindfulness, ... Emotional Health DBT Workbook for Depression: The Complete Guide for Treating Depression & Anxiety with Dialectical Behavior Therapy | DBT Skills for Men & Women for Mindfulness, ... Emotional Health by Barrett Huang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book: ****
Performance: ***

Clear Help with Dialectical Behavior Therapy

This book was a good introduction to the concept of DBT, which is one approach to Cognitive Behavior therapy. As I had not really heard much about DBT, I was interested both in what it was and how it works … with the later amply demonstrated through personal anecdote of examples on how this helped the author. This overview highlights the four (4) main ideas behind DBT as mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness to specifically address some of the author’s mental health struggles. To some extent, this book may come across a little as a personal catharsis for the author, but that would sell short the ability of this story to actually show how these concepts improved the author’s quality of life that comes into play once the author dives into the actual workbook sections of the book (and the accompanying 107 page pdf). Over all, this looks to be an excellent resource with clear, well organized exercises that could support an individuals effort to deal with a variety of mental health issues along WITH a qualified mental health professional.

Introduction (16:31)
Depression 101 (36:55)
Living with Depression (12:34)
What is Dialectic Behavior Therapy? (16:52)
DBT Core Skills (0:31)
Mindfulness (27:38)
Distress Tolerance (37:36)
Emotion Regulation (29:02)
Interpersonal Effectiveness (20:26)
Continuing the Road to Happiness (12:36)
Conclusion (02:57)
Appendix A - PHQ9 Depression Self-Assessment
Appendix B - Journaling for Depression Relief (03:29)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Sunday, June 30, 2024

Review: Discipleship for Every Stage of Life: Understanding Christian Formation in Light of Human Development

Discipleship for Every Stage of Life: Understanding Christian Formation in Light of Human Development Discipleship for Every Stage of Life: Understanding Christian Formation in Light of Human Development by Chris A. Kiesling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fantastic survey of how we develop as a human being … and how that development intersects with our faith formation. Each chapter takes up a particular development stage, first introducing the current secular/psychological characteristics before illustrating how such understanding could be used to influence faith formation at that stage followed by a few very generic recommendations on how to implement that knowledge. Over all I though it was well done; although I found some chapters better done than others … and there is certainly the potential of conflict for those who come to this work with either a “progressive/secular” or “conservative/religious” perspective (especially within the chapter on adolescence and identity that seems to promote nature or nurture). In addition, I found a lot of the practical advice to be too generic to be easily adapted and used, so there is some effort and experimentation needed to find what might work for the reader. All of that said, over all this book worked for me despite any minor disputes with the material so long as you approach it with an open mind and willingness to entertain questions.

The chapters and sections in this work are …

Introduction

1. Womb and Infancy: Origins of Faith and Belief
2. Early Childhood: Parenting as Image Bearing
3. Middle Childhood: New Settings, Skills, and Social Pressure
4. Adolescence: Sharing the Power of Creation
5. Young Adulthood: The Script to Narrate One’s Life
6. Middle Adulthood: Finding Practices Sufficient to Sustain
7. Late Adulthood: Retirement, Relinquishment, and the Spirituality of Losing Life

Conclusion

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

The implications of attachment for faith formation are extensive, as research has linked the quality of one’s attachment bond to (1) the formation of conscience; (2) the capacity one develops to cope with frustration and stress; (3) the response one makes to fear and perceived threats; and (4) how easily one finds self-reliance.

Recognition occurs when an experience is repeated and regarded as having been encountered before (such recognition may be assumed in the pacifier examples above). By contrast, scientists see a more advanced process of retrieval in the concept of recall—namely, the capacity to bring to mind a mental representation that is not repeated but is already stored in one’s memory.

Stories, Garland contends, tell us who we are in relation to one another and tell us what we value and give meaning to in our lives. Families remember what they want to remember. Theologically, by telling a story, a family makes the event happen again.

Mirror neurons have been discovered that fire equally whether an individual observes another person performing an act or they perform the act themselves. Such motor mirroring is activated first in a child’s observance of the parent, and later via others in the faith community, engaging in liturgical acts and the telling of sacred stories.

Children of authoritarian parents are more prone to problems with self-esteem and may be more susceptible to peer pressure because they rely on external standards rather than having a developed internal source of self-control.

Children and youth of permissive parents report feeling sadness, are likely to struggle in school, and exhibit behavioral problems because they don’t appreciate rules or authority.

Boys, for example, often perform near the top in certain math tasks, such as complex problem-solving and using spatially based strategies, especially when the cultural context supports their involvement in the subject.

Furthermore, females outperform boys in other mathematical areas, such as computation.

Girls appear to demonstrate slightly more positive expressive emotions but also on the whole experience more internalizing emotions, such as anxiety and sadness; boys demonstrate more externalizing emotions, such as anger.

Boys tend to use power-assertive or domineering speech in which commands, threats, and restrictions are common, with occasional interruptions or the ignoring of another’s remarks (e.g., “Give me that ball!” “Don’t move that!”). Girls’ discourse strategies are more commonly conflict mitigating, collaborative, and affiliative in nature.

Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore notes the emerging capacity a child has for (1) acquisition of reason, (2) verbal confession, and (3) formation of moral conscience, all of which likely factor into the historic practice, in both Catholic and mainline churches, of confirmation being positioned during these years in the life course.

We build scaffolds around structures that are too unstable to stand on their own, adding necessary reinforcements until they can support themselves. It is not hard to draw an inference to the human domain and imagine the problems that can occur when a child is over-or under-scaffolded.

At about age nine to eleven, Piaget observed a change occurring in most children from unilateral respect to mutual respect.  Instead of rules being handed down arbitrarily from powerful authority figures, the relinquishment of adult constraint allowed a child to begin to see that rules serve to protect and enhance the social bonds in which we live. Rules can be changed if people together determine that there are better ways to play a game or to serve societal interests.

In Western culture, sexual debut (first intercourse) is regarded as early at age fifteen, normal between age fifteen and nineteen, and late after age nineteen.

Rapprochement—learning how to make amends, repair relationships, and promote a harmonious state of affairs—is an important competency to acquire during the adolescent years but one that is likely only caught if it is demonstrated by significant others during one’s adolescent journey.

In studying the influence of peers, scholars sometimes make a distinction between cliques—small, cohesive social groups of three to twelve people who share common interests and know each other well—and crowds, which are larger groups that include those not regarded as friends but who nonetheless give definition to one’s identity via social location.

Developmentally young adults acquire the ability to author their own lives, reconstructing their past and imagining a future. Often this occurs by identifying with characters in social media or seeing something favorable in someone they have met, and trying to emulate characteristics and outcomes associated with their lives.

Love stories seek to explain how we develop a personal sense of what or who we love based on the needs we have (e.g., to care for others or to be cared for, to be strong for another or to let them lead, to be socially engaged or to live quietly) and the stories we encounter in entertainment venues or by observing others.

On the one hand, a person has lived long enough to experience stability. Most crises in life have been encountered in some form and lived through, building confidence and resilience. Yet on the other hand, midlifers often shoulder responsibilities and occupy senior leadership positions of significant consequence in work and family.

Though some might shun the contemplation of their own death, Johnson found evidence that in other eras of the church, the art of dying well (ars moriendi) actually held a prominent place in the life of believers.

Ego integrity indicates the capacity to look across the chapters of one’s life, with all its successes and disappointments, and to conclude that on the whole one has lived life well and it was worthwhile.


I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, June 27, 2024

Review: Spawn

Spawn Spawn by Donald F. Glut
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: **
Performance: ***

Pocahontas in Space … With Dinos

This is the third book in the Don Glut’s Pulp series; I have not read the first two of the series, but this installment does stand well on its own. That said, the story feels like is a nod to the 1960’s pulp sub-genre of SciFi (which should come as no surprise) … most especially with its overtly man’s man hero coming to the rescue of the helpless, and very beautiful, woman. From an art perspective I can appreciate the effort even as I have a hard time truly enjoying the cringe here. The basic idea is that, in a world where nobody ever watched any of the Jurassic Park movies, the people of earth want a Dinosaur park, and rather than just cloning DinoDNA, send a spaceship to a planet that has what they are looking for. While there, they rescue a sexy native woman from the jaws of death on two feet and hitch her to the expedition captain for a little play on the side.

So with a little bit of egg napping, the people get what they want … and more. There is actually a pretty interesting twist woven into he plot line that was fun to think about and probably would have worked better with a different first contact story, but it was still entertaining. At times there was a little too much focus on details (so if you are a dino loving geek add back a star).

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Sunday, June 23, 2024

Review: A Short Guide to Spiritual Formation: Finding Life in Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Community

A Short Guide to Spiritual Formation: Finding Life in Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Community A Short Guide to Spiritual Formation: Finding Life in Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Community by Alex Sosler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a though provoking book, with concepts that I could agree with as well as a few where I could not and not a few that were original for me. It was well organized into four sections (truth, goodness, beauty and community aka transcendentals), that at times seemed a bit overly constrained or forced, but the language was clear and accessible to all audiences, although it obviously targets christians within the protestant tradition. Each part was further divided into three (3) chapters that covered: biblical antecedences with fairly orthodox interpretations; analysis of historical and/or philosophical influences; and a brief bio of an exemplar (saint) that lived out the ideal. The latter also includes a brief breakout of practical advice for how the read may live out that same concept). I found each of the thirds to be the most interesting where the analysis was more hit or miss … although it was mostly solid.

The chapters and sections in this work are

Introduction

Part 1 Truth: The Theological Life
1. The Centrality of Biblical Truth: God Speaks
2. The Story-Shaped Life: From a Devotional Faith to a Deep Faith
3. Saint Augustine: Faith Seeking Understanding

Part 2 Goodness: The Virtuous Life
4. In Pursuit of the Good Life: Righteousness without Self-Righteousness
5. How Do We Become Virtuous? The Power of Habit
6. Dorothy Day: We Must Love One Another or Die

Part 3 Beauty: The Contemplative Life
7. The Beatific Vision: Becoming What You Behold
8. The Road to Transformation and Union: Attention Contemplation, and Detachment
9. Teresa of Avila: Exploring the Interior Castle

Part 4 The United Life: Living in Community
10. Belonging Together: Longing for Community
11. The Web of Existence: Cosmic Connections
12. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Neighbor Love and Life Together

Conclusion

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

Tradition, as it turns out, creates social continuity and personal density. Social continuity comes through the establishment of a language that is common to the past and the present day. This language connects past moments to the present moment in a way that makes actions and thoughts intelligible. Tradition gives us a language to speak and practices to inherit.

All Christian maturity finds its root in being a beloved child of God. When we forget that, when we work for our salvation rather than from our salvation, things go haywire.

Real remembering, deep remembering, is a kind of return: a return to the cross, a return to forgiveness, a return to Eden, a return to God. If we do the hard work of rightly remembering, there we encounter a healing truth.

As gospel truths begin to take residence in our hearts, we move from selfish enjoyment to sacrificial love of one another. We turn from our egotistical pleasures and go out into the world, seeking to bring ultimate joy in God to our neighbors. This shift brings us to the secondary elements of renewal: mission, prayer, community, and theological integration.

Grace seems too simple, too accessible for someone as talented and smart as Augustine. Grace would mean Augustine wasn’t special or more capable than others in regard to salvation. For most of his early life, he couldn’t accept that.

Pelagians said that accountability required choice. God couldn’t hold people accountable if they were sinful by nature. If sin wasn’t a choice but was how humans were born, then God would be unjust to hold them accountable. For this reason they denied original sin, the doctrine that people are born in a state of sin.

The goal for the Christian life is not merely about getting to heaven through believing true things. Salvation is a broader concept. The central question is this: What does it mean to live a life aimed toward God? This question is answered not by assent to some intellectual propositions but by ways of being and by habits.

This American concept of freedom is known as “negative freedom.” It emphasizes freedom from. In Christianity we can say that we’re free from the curse of the law. We’re free from condemnation. We’re free from Mosaic stipulations.

Ascetic practices help us die. Asceticism is a way of curbing the false self and living into the true self. The goal, to borrow a statement from John the Baptist, is for us to decrease and for Jesus to increase (John 3:30). The monastics urge fellow believers to die to self for the sake of life with Christ.

I can’t say I’m spiritually formed by knowing a lot. If I am to grow, practices and habits must accompany what I say. Habits help us “put on” Christ to be slowly trained in becoming like him. In other words, habits are as formative as they are expressive. They are not merely actions we do; they do something to us.

Suffering also allows us to comfort others (2 Cor. 1:3–7) with a sense of deep gratitude. It is not that we are thankful for the suffering we have experienced; this reaction would trivialize suffering. Yet there’s a sense that the suffering shapes us to become deeper people, more whole and holy people.

In the schema of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the sacraments are inherently tied to what they are used for, which, he argues, is making human beings holy.

John McDermott describes the sacramental understanding as the realization that the “material world serves as a communicator of God to man and as a means of enabling him to attain the beautifying possession of God in His kingdom.”

There’s something in Ignatian spirituality called “holy detachment.” We are born with passionate desire, yet to experience God we must put to death selfish passion and self-centered desire. In essence, holy detachment invites us to care only about the things that help us love God and love neighbor.

As Rabbi Abraham Heschel commends, “The purpose of prayer is not the same as the purpose of speech. The purpose of speech is to inform; the purpose of prayer is to partake.”

“To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.” To become divine, like Jesus, we empty ourselves of the passions that wage war within us and become nothing, so that, like Jesus, we can rise to life with God.

We live mediated lives, gifted lives. We all came into being from two other people, and from our earliest beginnings we were dependent on parents who loved us into existence. We depend on others throughout our entire lives and will likely die in dependency on our children or on strangers. There’s no getting around it. We are relational beings.

We each contribute, positively or negatively, to a community of faith. We all make daily deposits, so to speak. Either our commitments and rhythm of life enrich a community, or our presence poisons it. Living in trivial, superficial, or restless ways poisons the stream of communal life. Commitment, by contrast, restores and nourishes a community.

Bonhoeffer also developed a rule of life, which he outlined in Life Together. The community had rhythms and habits of prayer, work, and study. They wanted to be good and Christlike, to care for and love “the least of these.” To be a certain kind of people, they needed the habits that formed virtue. It wasn’t legalistic, but it was formative.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Thursday, June 20, 2024

Review: Nanoverse

Nanoverse Nanoverse by Theophilus Monroe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Story: ***
Performance: ***

Fantasy with a SciFi Facade ...

This is a collection of four(4) quick (3+ hours ea) fantasy stories set in a fantasy world wearing the skin of a cyberpunk genre … because it’s all about uses the new buzzword nano as much as possible without any real knowledge of what they are are how they would actually work. Maybe that is just my inner geek chanting that is not how that works in my head for almost the entire book (IOW I know too much about the tech and had a hard time letting go). Regardless … while the story doesn’t work well within the generally accepted norms of SciFi, it was a fairly typical Fantasy that is build to leverage a virtual (fantasy) world concept along the lines of the matrix, upload or free guy where the bad guy mysteriously works toward the total destruction of the real world. It’s not a bad plot … however, it has been done much better else where.

The story begins with an example of unintended consequences despite good intentions when a vaccine is developed to introduce nanites into the human body that would be tasked with healing wounds and preventing disease. Patient Zero is a badly wounded soldier who would probably have died otherwise, so with that success story behind the program, the government mandates nanovax for everybody … and hidden within those nanites is the ability to network into the public cloud to spy on the host AND take over the human conscious … a la mind control (maybe I am reading the tealeaves wrong here, but this part of the story starts to read like covid antivax conspiracies that didn’t help with the whole suspension of disbelief needed to fully enjoy the story).

That is where the algorithm comes in … which works sorta like minority report in that it predicts aberrant behavior ahead of time and reports it to the authorities who controls the nanites which can then control the host. Of course, in this paranoid fantasy, our hero is a threat to the system because his PTSD has change his mind enough that he can’t be controlled and that makes him a terrorist … only before the government can take him out back and shoot him, he is rescued by the resistance so that he can eventually defeat the algorithm.

Of course that is not the end … in part 2 the nanites can now swarm (in say 500 in each cloud) externally and possess others in the physical world … and apparently host an uploaded consciousness and associated memories all in readable code with individual global network addresses … so the resistance moves from minority report into the matrix here … again with a lot less finesse. We also begin to see the hero’s daughter make her debut as the bad guys cats paw … something that didn’t really work for me. This actually becomes a central theme in Post Human as the action moves almost entirely into the virtual world and a race to avoid an apocalypse in the real world. This part of the story calls to mind elements of the bobiverse with all the consciousness cloning. It all wraps up with a redemption arc in the final installment, which for better or for worse can actually stand on its own with no significant inspiration from other stories, but which does get a little preachy with a hint of Judeo-Christian theology … for me, this was actually the best of the four (4)

Book 1: Algorithm (3:56)
Book 2: Nanoswarm (3:43)
Book 3: Posthuman (3:15)
Book 4: Nanowar (2:32)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Nanoverse #StoryOrigin

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Sunday, June 16, 2024

Review: The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church

The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church by J.R. Woodward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a very thought provoking book for me. The initial draw was an examination of the fall of high-profile [christian] leaders with an eye toward identifying the primary or root cause. It was intriguing because I felt it should be fairly obvious … pride; however, this analysis took a different approach and dove more deeply into the human mechanisms that contribute to the fall. It was not, as I had expected, a screed about personal responsibility, and yet it does not totally let our leaders off the hook. The basic premise where is that our leaders, like all people, are tempted (or influenced) by various communal forces that are generally identified as powers and principalities … so if they imitate worldly values instead of the image of Christ, they will become trapped in the cycle that eventually spirals out of control. It makes a solid point there and would be worth a read just for how it defines what the author calls a memetic cycle which operates on the principle of imitating what we love or desire. Along with that are plenty of anecdotal and/or practical stories on how to recognize when we come under the influence of the memetic desire and scapegoating. Still, there really is no “silver bullet” solution, so the practical applications were less helpful if still good (it mostly boils down to an exhortation to imitate Jesus).

Still … the introduction to several (for me completely new) scholars in a multidisciplinary effort to explain what the mimetic cycle was, as well as what the powers and principalities and powers might be (was well as how they work in a fallen world) was extremely well down and accessible (especially considering this is really based upon an academic dissertation). The idea of Satan as an emergent power (as well as the impact of fallen, human systems) were absolutely thought provoking and deserve careful consideration. To support the foundation of the author’s imitation based framework, he progresses brings in the likes of Wink, Girard and Stringfellow as he fills in a table that maps expression of principalities & powers to fallen and redeemed leadership across the dimensions of identity, praxis and telos which was very helpful in understanding the general concept as a whole.

The chapters and sections in this work are

Section One: The Challenge of Missional Leadership.
1. A Deeper Diagnosis of Why Leaders Fall
2. The Need for Missional Leadership
3. Domineering Leadership in the First-Century Church

Section Two: Missional Leadership and the Powers
4. Comprehending the Powers
5. Interpreting the Powers

Section Three: Missional Leadership and Imitation
6. Mimetic Theory
7. The Power of Imitation

Section Four: Missional Leadership and Subversion
8. The Work of the Powers
9. The Subversion and Resistance of the Powers

Section Five: Missional Leadership Worthy of Imitation
10. Toward a Theological Remedy
11. A New Way of Being and Belonging
12. The Scandal of Imitating Christ

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

We can often be tempted to put guardrails around our leaders, try to keep them in line, or perhaps encourage a set of spiritual disciplines to keep their character in check. But there is no putting a Band-Aid over the problem of domineering leadership in the church.

High-profile “fallen” leaders often share common characteristics: pride, manipulation, seeking status, isolation, a lack of community to hold them accountable, using status to push an agenda, love of the crowds, an abuse of power and role, a push to “succeed,” and a sense of self-importance.

There is a growing resistance to institutions. But the church relies on people being a community, which requires organization, politics, systems, and structures. The answer, therefore, is not to demonize all forms of power and structure—for all living things have structure, power, and the capacity to cultivate a flourishing life.

And although the principalities and powers were designed to bring life, humanity experiences them in their fallen state, where they seek to master us. No longer do the principalities and powers bind us to God; they separate us from God, seeking to be gods themselves. The principalities and powers still fulfill half of their role, preserving society from utter chaos, but “by holding the world together, they hold it away from God.”

Roxburgh demonstrates how easily leaders tend to uncritically mimic the leadership style of the day, seemingly unaware that a leader’s telos and identity not based on Christ will ultimately lead to unfaithful praxis.

Collective Possession. The second manifestation of the demonic that Wink speaks of is collective demonization. He states, “In a highly individualistic society like ours it is rare to encounter single individuals who are possessed. Instead, the demonic has in our time taken the form of mass psychosis—what Rosen called ‘socially shared psychopathology.’”

The first word is thrones, which is more about the symbolic location of power, like the “county seat, the judge’s bench, the chairperson, the oval office,” more than it is about the person inhabiting that place of power.

Another key word is dominions (NKJV; kyiotétes), which refers to the sphere of influence over which the thrones hold sway. This sphere of influence could be “visible (the actual land or area ruled) or invisible (its capacity to influence other Powers by threat or persuasion).”

Principalities (NKJV; arché) specifies not so much the person themselves, but “the person-in-office, the agent-in-role.”92 In other words, it only applies to the person when they are in that office, like when a person is serving in Congress or the Senate.

Finally, there are authorities (exousiai), which Wink says refer to the way in which authority is maintained. “These are the invisible and visible authorizations and enforcements that undergird the chair. Legitimations would include the laws, rules, taboos, mores, codes, and constitutions by which power is licensed, and all the customs, traditions, rituals, manners, etiquette, and ideologies by which is it rationalized, justified, and made habitual.”

Mimetic desire pushes against the romantic notion that we are isolated individuals uninfluenced by others. Instead, it teaches us that we borrow our desires from our models.

When a mimetic crisis broke out in archaic (pre-state, nonlegal) societies, the scapegoat mechanism would be enacted as a way to establish and maintain social order. “When unappeased, violence seeks and always finds a surrogate victim. The creature that excited its fury is abruptly replaced by another, chosen only because it is vulnerable and close at hand.”

Croasmun considers these “superorganisms” social bodies, and he uses the category mythological to describe the social minds that emerge from these social bodies.

Girard deconstructs Satan as the mimetic cycle, while Matthew Croasmun reconstructs Satan as the “body of sin,” giving Satan cosmic personhood. Although Wink follows Jung and identifies Satan more psychologically as the inner spirituality of the domination system, Croasmun’s emergent view locates Satan as a cosmic entity, the mythical that emerges from the social and acts back upon it. In both cases, Satan is an emergent reality.

The relationships we form with others have profound effects on our lives, and because of mimetic desire, we will ultimately become like the people closest to us. This is why Scripture tells us that if we walk with the wise, we will become wise (Prov. 13:20) and that bad company corrupts good character (1 Cor. 15:33).

#TheScandalOfLeadership

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Thursday, June 13, 2024

Review: MAIDEN

MAIDEN MAIDEN by Charles Brass
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: **
Performance: ***

Great Concept, Weak Execution

The premise is good if well worn. A post conflict dystopia where a group of scrappy exiles hold out against the collective/empire (aka The Brethren) where everyone mysteriously fights with archaic close combat melee weapons (aka swords/blades and electroprods) despite being part of an interstellar civilization. Enter the Last Jedi … er … Maiden who was specifically created to battle the evil Sith … er Brethren. So much potential that just didn’t hit home for me. To start, the world building was so extremely loose and haphazard that I still don’t know how it all holds together. Most confusing is how slip rings (star gates) appear to come if two sizes (person transporters and ship transit points). Then is is how the Brethren are actually organized and who (or what) is a Master, a Knight, a Drone, or a Minion. I think I figured it out towards the end, but it was pretty confusing until then. More problematic is the interaction between each estate was full of overly aggressive bluster and all around idiocy that they worn thin long before the end.

The quasi-good guys (aka Exiles) are even worse, with an irritating display of imperial arrogance and pod measuring in virtually every scene (at least among the leadership). I absolutely hated ever part they were in. Fortunately the main characters, Crystal Maiden (The title character), Builder Scrounger (who is somehow related to the Brethren) and the Smart Ship (AI) are refreshingly innocent (read juvenile) and somewhat likable. However, even that didn’t make up for the slow pacing and buildup (all the interesting action is almost at the end of the book). Unfortunately there was way too much incessant dialogue and unnecessary detail that the lack of action made the first half of the story painfully boring (where my difficulty concentrating on what was happening might be the reason I didn’t follow the world building very well). In addition, the narration, while featuring very good accents and character voices, only reinforced the issues that I had with the aggressive interactions of both the Brethren and Exiles (in most cases it felt unnatural and way over the top).

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Maiden #FreeAudiobookCodes #KindleUnlimited

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.