All posts by Phil

Authors, Publishing, Religion

Boy Denies He Returned from Heaven

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The subject of the book The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven has released a letter denying his claims in the book (link defunct), something his mother has been doing for a few years.

“I did not die,” Alex says. “I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”

Publisher Tyndale has responded by pulling the book and related materials.

If you read the accounts from Alex’s mother, Beth, you may ask how a publisher of Christian books for the body of Christ could railroad her and her son (apparently with the father’s permission) to publish a book with such terrible theology. In a post from September 2013 which offers a timeline of details following the accident, Beth tells us some of her interaction with people wanting to turn her family’s story into books and a movie.

I neither verbally nor in writing gave approval for any quotes. In fact I instead verbally gave my desire to not have any quotes by me put in any book. There was a time that I was sitting in PICU and told over the phone that some words from a webpage that no longer exists (prayforalex.com) that were written by me were going to be placed in the book. I was sitting in PICU with Alex! I told the person that they could not do that, to which they said they could and that that site was public. GRRR….the best I could do was to tell the person that they had better get every word correct. I have documentation of what is written in the book and that post from the webpage. The two do not match up 🙁 It saddened me more to learn that that interaction that was twisted is part of a Bible study…what? I certainly have witnessed some shocking things!

Money, she says, was the driving factor for these people, and they promised money to her for Alex, but she has not seen any of it.

Fiction

The Green Ember Is Great Fun

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I get why Loren hesitates to review Sam Smith’s The Green Ember, and I share his desire to see it succeed. Here’s a bit of his review:

“Here’s the best way I can sum up The Green Ember for you: It reads as if Brian Jacques had Sam Gamgee’s famous quote from The Return of the King (“Is everything sad going to come untrue?”) nailed above his desk while writing a version of Redwall that wasn’t awful. Far from being merely “not awful,” though, Smith’s first novel shows that he truly understands the essentials of storytelling.”

Uncategorized

Gawking Through Life’s Window

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Elodie Quetant urges us to serve those around us. “We cheapen life by playing a peeping Tom to its events. Our gadgets have trained us for constant voyeurism, but we’re missing the bigger picture by not engaging friends, coworkers, and our children about monumental shifts in society. Avoiding the uncomfortable conversations is the perfect way for society to remain ignorant and biased.”

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Paintings Unlike the Others

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David Herman writes about seeing the more personal work of his father, the Polish painter Josef Herman. “He belonged to a great tradition of European artists who from the mid-19th century depicted the dignity of labour: from Courbet, Millet and Van Gogh to the Flemish Expressionists and the German artist, Käthe Kollwitz in the early 20th century,” he states, describing the way critics and admirers have known him.

But then sketches and paintings of a different nature were discovered.

“Everyone in these newly discovered drawings and paintings was recognizably Jewish. The palette was completely different: dark blue skies, a white crescent moon, pale faces with dark, haunted eyes.”

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Third Wave Coffee, New Orleans’ Style

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The coffee of New Orleans is gaining popularity. This article by Sarah Baird may provoke you to seek it out. She mingles among aromas at a Zephyr Green Coffee Importers cupping.

“Crouching like a swimmer poised on the high dive, I position my nostrils over the edge of the miniature cup, close my eyes and take a firm whiff.

“It doesn’t work quite right. I proceed to inhale a small latte’s worth of grounds and fall back into a sniffling, sneezing mess. Clearly, I am a first-timer.”

New Orleans has a history in coffee, and it’s changing as new consumer sophistication rises. She explains, “Zephyr’s foray into the specialty green coffee trade marks the latest wave in a long stream of coffee importers who have made their homes in New Orleans, which has had the premier coffee port in the U.S. for almost two centuries. The Port of New Orleans and coffee are inextricably linked, with 15 warehouses devoted solely to java, and the world’s largest coffee silo — Silocaf — located inside Orleans Parish lines.”

Now specialty coffee crafters are building their business by guiding drinkers into the wonderful realm of flavorful coffee without cream and sugar.

Authors

Emerson wrote Chicken Soup, Gobbledegook

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Micah Mattix (@prufrocknews) explains the confusing prose of the man who has been called the Bard of Concord. In short, he says we should reduce Emerson’s contributions in our anthologies to make room for clearer thinkers of his time.

His central idea, of course, is “Trust thyself.” In his earlier essays, he encourages his readers to disregard the past, institutions, and dogma, and to obey “the eternal law” within. “I will not hide my tastes or aversions,” he writes. “I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints.” But in a later essay on Napoleon, who seems to have embodied the “deep” self-trust Emerson lauds, he states confusingly (after praising Napoleon) that what made Napoleon’s egoism wrong was that it “narrowed, impoverished and absorbed the power and existence of those who served him.” And whose fault is this? “It was not Bonaparte’s fault. He did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the world which baulked and ruined him.”

So the law of man and the world ruined the man who wanted to rule the world. Did he not trust himself enough?

Uncategorized

Let’s Not Get Cynical Here

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“Satire can be dangerous and harmful. It can breed a dehumanizing cynicism which becomes an end in itself,” writes Carl Truman, but it is also “vital to healthy democracy. Where it exists, it is a sign that power is being resisted. Where it is permitted, it is a sign of freedom and a gauge of the ability of those in charge to allow criticism.”

And from our political desk, we’re hearing reports that the administration who said the world doesn’t respect the United States enough to stand with us did not respect the world enough to stand with them during yesterday’s solidarity march in Paris. The secretary of state said, essentially, “Just because I couldn’t attend your ball games or birthday parties doesn’t mean I don’t love you, son. Why does this always have to be about you?”

Authors, Religion

A Glimpse Into the Mind of a Sceptic

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Bart Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God and Misquoting Jesus, talks with World’s Warren Cole Smith about his new book arguing Jesus did not claim to be God. He says, “It has long been recognized by scholars that if Jesus actually had called himself God, and it was known that he called Himself God, that it’s virtually beyond belief that the early Gospel writers didn’t mention this.”

The publisher of Ehrman’s book thought it would sell books to publish a companion book arguing that Jesus is God, so they approached five authors to write it. Ehrman says in the interview that he doesn’t believe those authors believe Jesus taught the doctrine of the Trinity during his lifetime. “Scholars,” he says, believe John’s Gospel put words in Jesus’ mouth, so he did not actually say, “I and the Father are one,” or other claims to divinity. I suppose any evidence to support this belief is in his book.

Apparently the demonstrations of divine authority in Matthew 8-9 do not argue for Jesus’ deity, but merely his agency of divine power. He was a prophet, nothing more:

  • “When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.'”
  • “And the men marveled, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?'”
  • “‘But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic—’Rise, pick up your bed and go home.'”
  • “And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, ‘Never was anything like this seen in Israel.'”

Apparenly Jesus claiming the title “Son of Man” for himself is no clue that he is the one in Daniel 7 who “all peoples, nations, and languages” would serve forever:

And to him was given dominion

and glory and a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed.

Ehrman gets hung up on the doctrine of the Trinity in the interview, pressing Smith on whether the five evangelical authors actually believe Jesus taught the Trinity. Continue reading A Glimpse Into the Mind of a Sceptic →

Writing

Doubt: Your Unwelcomed Companion

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Nicci Cloke writes about beginning the year as a new novelist.

This time of year is one of the worst for The Doubts, with social media churning out list upon list of books to look out for in 2015. Author Claire King rightly explains here how unnecessarily stressful it can be — especially for a debut novelist — to scan those and not find your book listed. And, let’s be honest — there’s always some handy stick-shaped internet fodder you can find to beat your poor old ego with.

In the post to which Ms. Cloke links, Ms. King observes, “MOST of us are not the most anticipated. But if your pool of debut authors is limited to you and the ones everyone is shouting about on twitter and in the newspapers it’s very easy to feel like the poor relation.”