Adam Shields

Short review: this is a relatively short, dense and interesting series of lectures of what is means to be a theologian from one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. I am sure I missed more than I got because it very dense (and I listened to it). I plan on reading it again in print form later.

I do think it is important to actually read theologians, not just read what other people say about them. Many people will have heard of Karl Barth but very few will have actually read him.

My full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/evangelical-theology-an-introduction-by-karl-barth/

You should know that the paperback and the hardcover are two very different editions. They are about 20 pages different in content and very different format.

More thoughts on my blog http://bookwi.se/intimacy-with-the-almighty-by-charles-swindoll/

Short review: This is a fairly standard theme science fiction book. Aliens make contact, world goes into some chaos. Bad aliens try to take over. Brilliant underdog human ends up doing really well, but has to race against time to defeat the bad aliens. That sounds more trite than it really is. But the basic theme really isn't all that original. But it is good writing and I really enjoyed it.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/live-free-or-die-book-1-of-troy-rising-by-john-ringo/

This was a great book about how to change prayer in your church from what is usually is (small attendance and prayer request based) to what it can be (worship based, focused on the Lord and hearing from him. I have met the author and think this book is better than his presentations in person. I really think that the church needs to take this seriously. The main issue is that the US church often acts as if they don't need God. The focus on prayer really submits the church to the Lord's will.

A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/two-books-on-prayer-by-daniel-henderson/

Short review: This is traditionally Christopher Buckley. Great satire, good writing. This time the set up is a group of wine making monks. They realize they are broke and start getting desprerate. The abbot reads Deepak Chopra and decides that the monks need to start following the lead of the self help gurus.

This is a great skewering of self help books, Wall Street, and a bit of the Catholic Church. The best scene is when the monks take up sides with all the different self help gurus and the Chopraites, the Coveyites, the Robbinites, etc. all debate the best ways to find wealth and solve their problems.

It looks like the book is out of print and I listened to an abridge audiobook (only one that was available). But if you find it, it is well worth reading.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/god-is-my-broker-a-monk-tycoon-reveals-the-7-12-laws-of-spiritual-and-financial-growth-by-christopher-buckley-and-john-tierney/

Short review: This was on sale on Amazon over the weekend ($0.44). It is a short book. Fred Roger's wife edited it together from his articles and speeches. Each page has a couple sentances or a paragraph about parenting or children or something.

He really does have a lot of good advice. But the price is back up to $10 and it is not worth that.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/many-ways-to-say-i-love-you-wisdom-for-parents-and-children-from-mr-rogers/

Short review: I think this is a great book that really takes on the need for deep friendships in a modern world and set aside as a special need cross gender friendships. It is so good that I am going to host a blog discussion on it starting April 18, 2011.

I have a couple more books that I will send you free if you participate.

I will update this when the blog discussion is over.

My post about the blog discussion http://bookwi.se/sacred-union-sacred-passions-book-discussion/
My fuller review on my blog http://bookwi.se/sacred-unions-brennan/

Short review: This is my second attempt through this book. So I have to knock it down a bit for being a bit unstructured and meandering. But I did “get it” this time. Overall I think the last (of 3) sections was the best. It is focused on the alternative ways Jesus could have lead using the other political, social and religious movements of Jesus' day.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/jesus-way-peterson/

Short review: I think the most important idea from this book is that we need to be open to questioning our ideas because we desire to be in relationships. If we are unable to question then we are unable to relate to those that are unlike us. Another very good section was on how we need to be able to laugh at ourselves and our beliefs. If we cannot laugh then we cannot really get to a point where we can look at what those beliefs really mean. It has 10 chapters, each about how to question a different area (government, future, history, interpretation, God, religion, offendedness, passion, media and language). Some chapters were better than others, but on the whole this was very good.

Longer review on my blog at http://www.mrshields.com/the-sacredness-of-questioning-everything-by-david-dark/

Many people really love this book but I did not. It was a mix of Alice and Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels and Pilgrim's Progress. But as a fantasy books that felt like the author was on acid. I just couldn't get into it.

Short review: I cannot really recommend this. It is a first person fictional account of Jesus. That isn't the problem. I am not opposed to fictional accounts of Jesus. But Mailer's version of God is a weak deist god that is equal with Satan. And a Jesus that learns more from Judas and Satan than from God the father. I just didn't find it all that interesting.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/the-gospel-according-to-the-son-by-norman-mailer/

Another review after a year: I have been reading or re-reading books on sex because I am helping to lead a small group of newly married couples and we have been discussing sex. I appreciated this book even more now that I have read a few more recently. On a second reading I understood more of the underlying theology, especially the references to Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. I have picked up a book to read that is directly about that and look forward to reading more. Honestly, with the weaknesses of this book, it is still the best book on a real understanding of Christian sexuality that I have found.

My full thoughts on a second reading at http://bookwi.se/sex-lies-and-religion-by-randy-elrod-read-again/
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Full review at http://bookwi.se/sex-lies-and-religion-by-randy-elrod/

Short review: This is a good addition to the theology of sexuality. The only other book to really compare it to is Rob Bell's Sex God. And that was more about sensuality than sexuality. This book is about sexuality. It is not a perfect book. I wanted more history of christian thought on sexuality. But I would still recommend it. It is a brief read.

Short review: I have been reading a lot on sex in marriage because my wife and I are leading a small group for newly married couples and we have been going through an 8 week discussion on sex. This book was the center of our discussion. It is not a perfect book but has a very good section on the different stages of sex which is better than most other books. When it is focused on either clinical aspects of sex or some aspects of couples working through sexual disfunction, it is a good book. It weakness was the overview of the role of sex in marriage at the beginning and the questions that men and women ask at the end.

Long review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/two-become-one-mccluskey/

Short review: Among the most inaccurate titles ever. This doesn't have anything to do with prayer. It is a series of letters to orders of people working in the world on evangelism and social action. There is a lot that is good about it, but it should be considered instructional and devotional, but not biographical or about prayer.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/pope-inspiration/

I started this book because it was recommended as funny. I also knew it was a bit raunchy. But within the first 10 minutes of reading it was clear this was way past a bit raunchy. It may be funny. I haven't gotten to that part yet. But it is past my level raunchiness.

Short review: Good overview of TULIP. If you want to know what are the basics of Calvinism, this short book does a good job. But it also mischaracterizes a lot of what those that do not agree with Calvinism actually believe. If the author could either just say what he believes without comment about others or do a better job honestly and humbly understanding disagreements it would be a better book. Many of the complaints he has with Arminianist (about how they read scripture or do theology) he does, just at different points.

Full review at http://www.mrshields.com/what-is-so-great-about-the-doctrine-of-grace-by-richard-d-phillips/

Short review: I probably should have put more effort into this. But I read half and then then it was due back at the library. I was not into the book enough to try and wait in line to check it out again.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/newton-gleick/

Short review: This is a very good introduction to the concept of community as a movement of God. Perkins is well known to me. I have read almost everything written by him or about him and seen him speak on a number of occasions over the last 20 years. This is a much stronger focus on the role and need for community that much of Perkin's other writing. Also the co-author, Charles Marsh, does a good job to give theological and cultural context to Perkin's chapters.

The Full review (along with some suggestions of what to read if you are interested in Perkins) is at http://bookwi.se/perkins-marsh/

Short review: This is a sort of follow up book to Eat, Pray, Love. I did not read Eat, Pray, Love so I am saying this based on what I have heard, this is a very different type of book. Committed is an exploration of marriage. Gilbert is perfectly happy in a long term, committed, but not married relationship. When her ‘boyfriend' is prevented from entering the US after a number of months of them living together in and out of the US, they realize that their only option to be together is for them to get married. The majority of the book is about her research into marriage, in large part to talk herself into marriage.

It is less memoir than a non-fiction book on marriage (with lots of sociology, psychology, ethnographic research, etc.) that is framed using her own story. I really enjoyed it, but did not have much interest in Eat, Pray, Love. I did watch the movie after I read Committed, and liked the movie more than I thought I would. I may read it later.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/committed-gilbert/

Short reviews: Bad ebook formatting marred an otherwise good prayerbook. The days were not marked/separated, the table of contents was too brief, etc. The biggest problem is that this (and Christmastide) are excerpts of longer prayer books that are not available for ebook. If there was ever a book that screamed for ebook availability it is a 700 page prayer book. But it needs to be formatted correctly.

My longer review (which also has ideas about how to properly format a prayer ebook) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/eastertide-prayers-for-lent-through-easter-from-the-divine-hours/

Short review: The idea of the book is good, boil Christianity down to the essentials. First half of the book are the beliefs that you do not have to have to be a Christian. This section was ok. It is a brief book, so the explanations may not be detailed enough for many, but it gives a brief range of opinions before moving on. I wish it was more gracious with the opinions that he does not agree with, but he was not mean, just a bit dismissive.

The second section, what you do need to believe was better. It was more focused and positive. Some will not like that there is not a ton of scripture in the book (some, just not a lot). But I think it is designed as an introduction so it is level is appropriate. I think it would be a good book for a group discussion. It is not deep theology, it is surface level, but that is by design to introduce someone to basic theology. We need basic theology so that people will be ready for deeper theology.

My full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/believe-christian-thielen

Short review:: I really do like several of Mahaney's books, but I think this one really missed the mark. There were some very good parts of it. But taken as a whole, the editorial decisions to focus on external sins (like music, media and how to dress) instead of internal issues of worldliness. Worldliness is both internal and external and focusing on the external creates a false sense of what inappropriate love of the world really is. The chapter on modesty was very inappropriate for the books. It was consciously focused on young women without any real understanding that lust (which they say they are trying to prevent) is a sin of those that are lusting, not a sin of the people being lusted after. This is a blame the victim issue. Then he went on a tangent about wedding dresses often being the most inappropriate thing that women wear and that all fathers should go shopping for wedding dresses to insure they are properly modest.

My full review on my blog is at http://bookwi.se/worldliness-mahaney/

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I was provided a copy of the audiobook from christianaudio.com for purposes of review.

Short comments: This is a long book that attempts to take the whole of Christian history and its religious pre-history and document it all. I think it was a great attempt to use the tools of a historian to look at a religious history. I think most people will learn a lot and be much better for it. There will be a few that are put off by the author's secular (but respectful) take on the Christianity. The parts when people will likely be most offended are the first chapters and the last couple modern chapters. On the whole this is an impressive book.

Final take on my blog post http://bookwi.se/christianity-macculloch/

The rest of the posts I did earlier.

My first blog post is at http://www.mrshields.com/christianity-the-first-three-thousand-years-by-diarmaid-macculloch/ This takes me basically up to the end of the apostles and the beginning of the generation of Christians after Christ. So far this is a fascinating book.

Part two takes me through the early centuries of the Christian church up until soon after the time of Constantine. You can get this post at http://wp.me/pE5zo-Mf

Part three is about the early Eastern church from Ethiopia to China. http://www.mrshields.com/christianity-the-first-three-thousand-years-by-diarmaid-macculloch-part-3/

Part four is about Augustine the the rise of Western thought. http://www.mrshields.com/christianity-the-first-three-thousand-years-by-diarmaid-macculloch-part-4/

Part five is about the influence of the monasteries in the West and the crusades. http://www.mrshields.com/christianity-the-first-three-thousand-years-by-diarmaid-macculloch-part-5-crusades-and-monasteries/

Part six is about the differences in how the Eastern and Western churches approached theology and how one can talk about God. http://www.mrshields.com/christianity-the-first-three-thousand-years-by-diarmaid-macculloch-part-6-theology-and-understanding-of-god/

Part seven is about the rise of the Orthodox church until 1800 http://www.mrshields.com/christianity-the-first-three-thousand-years-by-diarmaid-macculloch-part-7-eastern-orthodox-to-1800/

Short review: This is a bible study of the book of Luke. I think overall it is ok. It has the complete book of Luke and some comparison passages to other passages outside of Luke. The weakness is that there are some very clear theological biases in the text. MacArthur wants to synchronize Luke to the other gospels in a way that I do not believe is consistent with the text and also minimize the physicalness of Luke's gospel.


Full review is at http://bookwi.se/luke-by-john-macarthur/

Short review: I didn't think this was anywhere near as good as the first book. Seems like it is trying too hard. I have up about half way through.

Longer (not much) review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/milrose-munce-fungus-cooper/