Stuff
Just a random assortment this morning, I think. It's too early to be entirely coherent.
Bible study read and finished the controversial Love Wins by Rob Bell. Overall, most of us seem to have come to the conclusion that it's not as horribly heretical as many are claiming it is. But he's got some strikes against him: 1) his writing style is schizophrenic and all over the place. Instead of prose, he has blocks or sometimes lines of text that are almost poetical. It took a lot of parsing and flipping back and forth to determine what he really thought versus what he was saying for the sake of making the reader think. And that is what I came away with the most: he wants people to think and question beliefs you've had but really had no basis for. I likened reading parts of this book to finding out in college that there weren't Three Wise Men at the Nativity (the number is never mentioned, just the three items that were given to Jesus): You think you know what the Bible says about heaven and hell, but in reality, your view is shaped by untold number of movies, books, and cultural tradition that have nothing to do with the real thing. 2) He didn't quote the Bible enough. In a book like his, making claims like he did, you need to back up your thoughts with Scripture, that's all there is to it when writing a book in this faith tradition. It's like trying to write a research paper on Shakespeare but you've never read Shakespeare and don't intend to quote him in the paper. It's just not done.
But yes, overall, I think I came away not really in Rob Bell's camp, but with a new thoughtful look at what I held as iron-clad truth about what happens "after."
What else, what else... Oh yes, finished Incarceron by Catherine Fisher; a book that I had bought ages ago and didn't read until now for some reason. Good book - YA steampunk fantasy with a fascinating premise. I've read something of Fisher's awhile back that I don't even remember very well, but her writing style has definitely improved since then. A couple of my friends have squeed over Jared, but I'm still kind of waiting for what makes him special - I mean, sure, I like him: he's the only true friend Claudia has, but I don't really care for him as anything out of the ordinary. So far, the only "ship" I'm cheering for, oddly enough, is Claudia's relationship with her father: it has so much dysfunction, yet you sense on both sides that they desperately want affection and love but there's too much distrust and reservation. I'm looking forward to the second book, sitting on my end table right now, Sapphique.
Next on the reading landscape, The Redemption of Sarah Cain (Amish romance picked by someone in my book club D:), Erasing Hell by Francis Chan (a response to Love Wins), and I kind of want to reread The Lies of Locke Lamora again, because it's fantastic.
Um, I'm starting to get hungry, so some quick hits from earlier in my week:
• Read this article about a 25 year old virgin musing on whether it's worth the wait. (Hah! Got you beat at 28, kid.) Which also made me think of the less-religious, but extremely awesome essay on adult virginity by lydaclunas.
• Comments in the first article lead me to a four part sermon series titled The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating (which is a bad title, since he doesn't really list rules at all...), but found it extremely interesting and sound advice I thought for both Christians and non (and this seems to be a message geared more toward non-Christians; doesn't use a lot of church speak and so on). Anyway, lots of food for thought. Mmm food....
I think there was something else, but I'm starving, so off I go!
Bible study read and finished the controversial Love Wins by Rob Bell. Overall, most of us seem to have come to the conclusion that it's not as horribly heretical as many are claiming it is. But he's got some strikes against him: 1) his writing style is schizophrenic and all over the place. Instead of prose, he has blocks or sometimes lines of text that are almost poetical. It took a lot of parsing and flipping back and forth to determine what he really thought versus what he was saying for the sake of making the reader think. And that is what I came away with the most: he wants people to think and question beliefs you've had but really had no basis for. I likened reading parts of this book to finding out in college that there weren't Three Wise Men at the Nativity (the number is never mentioned, just the three items that were given to Jesus): You think you know what the Bible says about heaven and hell, but in reality, your view is shaped by untold number of movies, books, and cultural tradition that have nothing to do with the real thing. 2) He didn't quote the Bible enough. In a book like his, making claims like he did, you need to back up your thoughts with Scripture, that's all there is to it when writing a book in this faith tradition. It's like trying to write a research paper on Shakespeare but you've never read Shakespeare and don't intend to quote him in the paper. It's just not done.
But yes, overall, I think I came away not really in Rob Bell's camp, but with a new thoughtful look at what I held as iron-clad truth about what happens "after."
What else, what else... Oh yes, finished Incarceron by Catherine Fisher; a book that I had bought ages ago and didn't read until now for some reason. Good book - YA steampunk fantasy with a fascinating premise. I've read something of Fisher's awhile back that I don't even remember very well, but her writing style has definitely improved since then. A couple of my friends have squeed over Jared, but I'm still kind of waiting for what makes him special - I mean, sure, I like him: he's the only true friend Claudia has, but I don't really care for him as anything out of the ordinary. So far, the only "ship" I'm cheering for, oddly enough, is Claudia's relationship with her father: it has so much dysfunction, yet you sense on both sides that they desperately want affection and love but there's too much distrust and reservation. I'm looking forward to the second book, sitting on my end table right now, Sapphique.
Next on the reading landscape, The Redemption of Sarah Cain (Amish romance picked by someone in my book club D:), Erasing Hell by Francis Chan (a response to Love Wins), and I kind of want to reread The Lies of Locke Lamora again, because it's fantastic.
Um, I'm starting to get hungry, so some quick hits from earlier in my week:
• Read this article about a 25 year old virgin musing on whether it's worth the wait. (Hah! Got you beat at 28, kid.) Which also made me think of the less-religious, but extremely awesome essay on adult virginity by lydaclunas.
• Comments in the first article lead me to a four part sermon series titled The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating (which is a bad title, since he doesn't really list rules at all...), but found it extremely interesting and sound advice I thought for both Christians and non (and this seems to be a message geared more toward non-Christians; doesn't use a lot of church speak and so on). Anyway, lots of food for thought. Mmm food....
I think there was something else, but I'm starving, so off I go!