Adam Shields

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/

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: 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: This is a very moving books about ministry to prostitues in Chicago. The overall theme of the book is Micah 6:8 “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”. John Green does not think we all need to minister to male prostitues, but we all do need to think about what we are called to do to act justly and walk humbly with God.

Most of the book is made up of stories of the guys that John and his staff have worked with over the years. The most moving stories are those that you see the redemption that comes from simple acts that give people humanity. John and his family open their home to have a family style meal several times a week. On guy came up to him the first time he came and said that he “had never done this before.” John thought he was being propositioned and said, “what do you mean?”. The guy responded that he had never had a sit down around a table and eat a meal with people. He was 28 and had never had a family meal.

Many of these guys had had horrible lives, but they still are capable of being loved and redeemed.

My full review is at http://bookwi.se/streetwalking-green/

Short review: There is something special about the writing on prayer that was from this generation. People as widely divergent as RA Torrey and Harry Emerson Fosdick, on opposite ends of the theological spectrum were all writing on prayer and writing very good books on prayer. Most of them were fairly short (around 100 pages) but packed full of wisdom that really feels like it is gained through prayer experience. There are many very good modern books on prayer, but in general there is just something more focused on the real power of God and the real work of prayer that comes from these older books on prayer.

My full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/how-to-pray-torrey/

Short review: He gets the grace right, but then has such a amorphous (and undefined) view of what truth is that it is quite unhelpful. Overall, the idea is communicated, but I would not really recommend it. Mostly focused on evangelism, but I would like a lot more about grace and truth within the church as well.

My full review is at http://bookwi.se/grace-truth-alcorn/

Short review: This is a very good book on what it means to parent a prodigal child. It is heartrending, but hopeful. The author is a father that is watching his adult son struggle through bad decisions, alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (after serving in Iraq), homelessness, etc. I think it is very good both for parents and those outside the family to understand the real struggle. It also frequently reflects back to his own relationship with God and how he is a prodigal from God. This is not a complete story. The struggle continues.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/butterfly-stone-mayhew/

Website for the book http://stonebutterfly.net/

Short review: This is the best theology book I have read this year. What I appreciate about Wright is that he is not just an academic, he is a pastor. You can tell from his writing that his real interest is in serving the church. This is a re-working of his 2005 book “The Last Word”. The main text is not supposed to be much different from The Last Word, but Wright added two chapters at the end to help illustrate how we should work our in real life a scriptural issue. The two chapters are about the Sabbath and Monogamy vs Polygamy in marriage. These are not pressing controversial issues for most people so I think he does a good job of helping people really think through how to read scripture and how to understand the whole of scripture.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/scripture-authority-wright/

Short review: There is some great stuff in this book. But it is very repetative and some of the analysis I think is just wrong. So I have a hard time recommending. If you do read, I would read the first section, the chapter on parenting, chapter on consumption and the end section. I think the web chapter is very poorly analyzed and much of the rest of the middle is repetitive. But the concept basic content really is facinating.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/narcissism-epidemic/

Short review: This would be a useful guide to someone that is trying to understand why they should get more into theology. It is very readable and brief with a good bit of humor. If you are looking for a short systematic theology, this is not it. It is more an overview of the study of theology and Christian thought than systematic theology. It is wide ranging in its quotes and references and a good summary of different streams of theology.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/theology-mckim/

This is a good book. The author is funny, thoughtful and has a point. The basic point of this book is that we need to work to the best of our ability and for God. The central biblical story is the building of the temple and the 200 pomegranates that were put on the top of the columns where no one could see them but God. The builder could have just not done anything up there but instead choose to put some of the best work there, for his audience of one (God).

Strangely I think it is a good complement to NT Wright's book on heaven (Surprised By Hope). Wood is talking about what we do we should do for God, whether others know we do it or not. And Wright was talking about how being too focused on heaven prevents us from living in the now. We should view the current life as preparatory for the work that we will have in the next life.

The reason I gave it a four star review instead of five is that I read it on kindle. (Amazon gave it away last week!) The formating on kindle is not the greatest. It is a topaz formated book (which as I understand it is at base and Optical Character Recognition instead of formated directly from the text). There are also a couple places where there are some discussion questions at the end of chapters and those are not at all readable. They are images and just too small. A bit more work formating and this would have been a much better read.

A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/200-pomegranates-and-an-audience-of-one-creating-a-life-of-meaning-and-influence/