So back in October I had written up a 6 month reading plan including Peter Pan, Bonhoeffer, The Civil War, and The Chronicles of Narnia.. Since 6 months has gone by I figured I'd update on what I've been reading.
The Great Divorce by CS Lewis: Lewis brings us to a world where people are given a chance to surrender to God after they've died. While this isn't a Biblical viewpoint, I believe he's just using this scenario as a medium to explore different types of people. Along the way we meet several individuals that have put up blinders to God. One guy has chosen to twist scriptures to create his own theology, much like Rob Bell. A woman claims to love her family, and wants access to Heaven to meet up with them. In reality she is twisting this love to gratify her selfish desires. Some people choose to give up their earthly sins to accept the true freedom God offers. I'd say the main point is that we don't go to Heaven because we want to see people there or get something out of it, but because we give up ourselves and then God will give us all we need and more.
Crazy Love by Francis Chan: This book uses a lot of scripture to encourage believers to give up the worldly things we are chasing after in order to follow God's purpose in our lives. Crazy Love focuses on giving up monetary things, and choosing to go against the flow of the world. Where the world is going is not where Christians should be going, and going against the flow will seem crazy, but I can personally attest to the fact that God provides if we depend on Him.
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxes: I had heard that this book was great, but was a little disappointed in some things. The writer takes on a worshipful attitude towards Bonhoeffer. In fact you can't find anything negative about the guy at any point in the book. More disappointing to me was that it reveals how little Bonhoeffer did in the effort to assassinate Adolf Hitler. I was under the impression that he was pivotal and very involved. Instead it appears more like he was born into a position where he could be involved in these high circles and his Theological education made him the "moral compass" of the assassination group. The positive was that this book gives a good perspective of the state of the German Church and government on the eve of World War II. Just compare that to the state of our government and church and it's fairly alarming.
Peter Barrie by JM Berrie: Great book that I'd read before. I love the spirit of the "forever child" that Berrie captures. I feel a kinship to Peter Pan in a lot of ways and I also see him in many of the little boys around camp. When Wendy helps Peter attach his shadow he says "How clever am I!", clearly upsetting Wendy. I've actually helped little kids that will then turn and say "look what I did". That's just one example of how the mind of a child works, and how Berrie nails it in this book.
Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis: This is a mixup of the old myth about Cupid and Psyche. CS Lewis uses it as a picture of a girl who loves her sister so much it's unhealthy for everyone involved. It's not quite the normal Greek tragedy, but it does have some elements of it in there. I enjoyed the retelling of this myth, although it's probably low on my list of CS Lewis favorites.
Ender's Game and the Ender's Shadow Series by Orson Scott Card: I won't say too much about these 5 books. They're set in a future where aliens are attacking Earth and the world bands together to defeat the threat. Afterwards the world reverts back to fighting and conquering each other. It focuses in on a genetically altered kid who becomes a great general and helps to unite the world. I love these books, although the first couple are in a different class of awesome. They all explore leadership, especially among children. I find that Card reveals things about how children think that are practical in training them to excellence.
Forgotten God by Francis Chan: My first thought here was I couldn't remember what it was about. So that kind of shows it wasn't a highlight on my book tour. I remember after thinking about it that it's about the Holy Spirit and it's role in our lives. Chan suggests we strip the Holy Spirit out of the trinity by mostly ignoring it. I know I generally agreed with this book while disagreeing with several points.
Way of Wisdom by MacDonald: This was a frustrating book to me. I agree with most of MacDonald's views on God. I didn't like how he seemed to be writing to a different audience than me. He focused on people that think once they mess up and choose a different path they are messed up forever and can't get back on that path. I'm not really one of those people so his redundant mention of getting on "the dot" that is God's will was annoying. I agree with his conclusions that there are different types of God's will and we need to do what we can to place ourselves under God's authority in the decisions we make.
American Creation by Ellis: A nice breakdown of several key moments in early American history. He includes the Declaration of Independence, Valley Forge, and our treatment of Indians and slaves. Ellis refuses to acknowledge that ANY of the founding fathers had a Christian perspective. I agree that we've exaggerated their relationships with God, especially because most of it we can't know from our perspective, but there are a lot of disagreements I noted in the margins of this book. He blames the founding fathers for not addressing slavery and Indians properly, then goes back and claims they couldn't really do much about it. One chapter is about the breakdown of our democracy into a two party system. This frustrates me to watch Thomas Jefferson turn on George Washington and John Adams, but that is history and I guess I should accept it.
Radical by David Platt: I'm not finished with this yet. So far he's focusing on world missions. I don't like how he attaches salvation to global outreach, but he still has a lot of book to bring it together. We'll see how I like it eventually.
So you see I didn't get to The Civil War or The Chronicles of Narnia, but I did get a lot done. 13 books in 6 months. If you consider Bonhoeffer took 2 months then it's 12 boks in 4 months. The shortest book was "Shadow Puppets" that I tore through in about 3 days. In fact I really read the whole "Shadow Series" by Orson Scott Card really quickly. I'll be reading a lot over the next months, although it'll probably slow up as the summer progresses.
Hopefully that wasn't too boring, let me know if you have any questions or comments about these books, I enjoy talking about them.
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