Category Archives: Non-fiction

Non-fiction, Religion

The Agency of the Adversary

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In Job 1–2, we see a couple scenes of a heavenly council. “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them” (Job 1:6). I think a common view of these scenes is to see Satan, the Adversary, barging into heaven to bring his accusations uninvited. I’m told, however, the language does not support this idea. The sentence above could just as easily describe a day when the angels came before the Lord and Michael was among them. The point of the scene is what Satan has to say. In short, the Adversary was one of the heavenly council at this time. (And if he was not, how could he have barged in anyway? No one gains an audience with God on his own terms.)

Why was he there? What purpose could this being serve in the council of God? That’s the most disturbing message in the book of Job. It’s much easier to view God as the conqueror of evil, someone who hates evil will a pure hatred, and he is that, but evil persists like weeds in my yard. (In that sense, my yard is the epitome of evil.) God does hate wickedness and all the rebellion that has brought evil into our world, and he is the Almighty, able to snuff it all out. A new dawn is coming that will overtake the night forever and “take hold of the skirts of the earth” in order to shake the wicked out of it (Job 38:13), but that dawn has yet to come. Today, evil still has a place in creation.

I may be getting ahead of myself here. Continue reading The Agency of the Adversary →

Non-fiction, Religion

The Innocent Suffering of Job

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Since last August, I’ve been leading our Sunday School class in a discussion of Job. I didn’t think we’d take it chapter by chapter, almost verse by verse, but we have. My expectations were set by my casual reading of a difficult book. Reading this ancient poem on my own is almost fruitless and fairly boring. It’s much more rewarding to go through it with a reliable guide. Everything I’ve learned has been through Christopher Ash’s commentary, which is just as readable as I had heard (recommending with two links).

Perhaps the difficulty of reading through this long, dialogic poem is the reason so many of us don’t get its central message. We bog down in the long-winded complaints and accusations, coming away only with the idea that God can run over anyone he wants and make it all right again in the end. But the tension point of Job’s argument is one we still miss when trying to apply God’s Word to our own or other people’s lives—that Job is completely innocent.

The first couple chapters present to us a man who is “blameless and upright, who fear[s] God and turn[s] away from evil.” That’s how his character is summarized for us upfront, and God repeats that description (2:3). Job is brought to the point of death “without reason.”

No matter what other questions we have about that, we have one truth to apply to our lives—innocent suffering exists.

Many people naturally believe that just about all suffering has a cause that can be avoided. The pain in our lives can be avoided by the proper regimen of diet, respectable living, and sound thinking. If you find yourself in pain or hardship, you’ve either caused it yourself or God is judging you for something. Seek the Lord, these people will say, so that you can learn what you need to learn in order to get out of this trial. Because the trial is unnatural. The trial is not how God intends your normal life. Suffering doesn’t just happen.

But Job tells us it does. 

Continue reading The Innocent Suffering of Job →
Non-fiction

A Point of Unity in Essentials

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Many books have been written on the topic of race and “racial reconciliation,” particularly in recent years. One Blood stands out for the unique perspective, integrity, and wisdom supplied by its author—one born into a sharecropping family in Mississippi, who, despite losing his brother to racial violence and nearly losing his own life after a severe beating by racist cops, renounced any “right” to be resentful and angry and instead devoted his life to the twin ministries of justice and reconciliation. John Perkins writes as one whose life, formerly filled with prejudice and hate, is now overflowing with the love of God, “the ultimate reconciler.”

Pastor Duke Kwon reviews Dr. John Perkins’s new book, One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race, undoubtedly an important book, but I don’t know if it’s any more important than Perkins’s other books. Dream with Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win came out just last year. This is a man we should be listening to.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Secret Knowledge,’ by David Mamet

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The Secret Knowledge

David Mamet is, of course, one of America’s foremost dramatists. He was highly respected by critics until he came out as a conservative a few years back. Since then many have discovered that he has no talent at all.

Still, he perseveres, and he has written a book about Politics, The Secret Knowledge, to explain how his mind has changed on a number of issues and to provide a few glimpses into his personal pilgrimage. I don’t agree with all his opinions, but the book was fascinating to read.

The title is paradoxical. There is no secret knowledge, Mamet informs us. The basic truths of life are widely known by all people, even (or especially) the extremely unsophisticated. It is the intellectuals and the avant garde who reject obvious truth and embrace nonsense, to which they cling desperately, because their adherence marks them as among the Enlightened.

Any review is likely to devolve into commentary on Mamet’s actual beliefs, either approving or condemning them. So I’ll content myself with providing a few choice quotes – of which there are many. I think I may have highlighted about a third of the text.

Writers are asked, “how could you know so much about (fill in the profession)?” The answer, if the writing satisfies, is that one makes it up. And the job, my job, as a dramatist, was not to write accurately, but to write persuasively. If and when I do my job well, subsequent cowboys, as it were, will talk like me.

Continue reading ‘The Secret Knowledge,’ by David Mamet →

Non-fiction

Look Again at the Lewis Chessmen

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Scholarly paper warning.

David H. Caldwell, Mark A. Hall, and Caroline M. Wilkinson have written an interdisciplinary paper on the Lewis chessmen, uncovered in Scotland in 1831. They are centuries-old, walrus ivory chess pieces, 78 in all. The authors suggest the story may have become too streamlined to reveal reality.

Whether kings or princes from the Isle of Man or descended from Somerled, local nobles or high-ranking clerics, there were several men in late Norse Lewis who could have aspired to own the Lewis pieces, and who would have valued them as gaming pieces. Rather than accepting the deus ex machina  explanation of a passing merchant losing his stock, it is surely more plausible that the Lewis pieces were found in Lewis because that was where they were intended to end up and be enjoyed.
   . . .
There are two final points to make here. First, no matter how or why the Lewis pieces arrived at Uig, it is only a presumption that they were new when buried. If they belonged to a local nobleman or cleric they may have provided many years of enjoyment before they passed out of use. This is a significant point to which we will return after a more detailed analysis of the individual pieces. Second, the circumstances of the hoard’s discovery are so vague that there can be no confidence as to whether it was lost or deliberately hidden.

This isn’t quite the storyline of The Chessmen by Peter May, but you may find it interesting. Abstract to follow. Continue reading Look Again at the Lewis Chessmen →

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Hell’s Princess,’ by Harold Schechter

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Hell's Princess

How they resisted the temptation to title this book, “Hell’s Belle,” I will never understand.

We Norwegian-Americans are generally reconciled to the fact that we occupy a secondary (at best) tier in American culture. But we take pride in our notabale sons and daughters: Politicians like Hubert Humphrey, scientists like Norman Borlaug, actors like Harry Morgan.

There is one prominent Norwegian American, though, whom most of us had never heard of (I had, but I’m fairly remarkable): Belle Gunness of LaPorte, Indiana, one of America’s first known serial killers and one of her few female serial killers. She also scores pretty high in the body count tallies.

Hell’s Princess, by true crime author Harold Schechter, tells her grisly story in a scholarly and judicious manner. Though the ending (as he admits) is kind of anticlimactic.

Belle Gunness was born in Norway in 1859; she was a large, unlovely woman and the victim of rape. She immigrated to America, worked hard, and had a reputation for kindness to children. But somewhere along the line she determined to be rich, and chose an easy road to wealth. Continue reading ‘Hell’s Princess,’ by Harold Schechter →

Non-fiction

No Little Women, by Aimee Byrd

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[W]omen are created in the image of God as necessary allies to men in carrying out his mission. Because of this, women are to be good theologians with informed convictions. We are to take this call seriously and invest quality time in our theological growth and Bible study within the context of our local church as a foundation to our service and contributions to the church, our families, and society.

Aimee Byrd, author of Theological Fitness: Why We Need a Fighting Faith and other books, took up the topic of women in the church in her thoroughly reasonably and well-written book No Little Women.  The title comes from 2 Timothy 3:6-7, “For among them are those [wicked teachers] who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Do such teachers creep around today and do they find opportunities among church women who know something but not enough of the Bible?

Byrd worries that the ministry leaders of most of our churches give too little attention to their women’s ministry studies, allowing them to more-or-less do their own thing with any Bible-related study they find appealing. As a result, writers and conference speakers are using Christian language to teach unChristian principles to increasing audiences. And women are more open to these principles by the simple fact they read more. If their pastors give implicit approval to whatever bears a Christian label and no other instruction or training in the faith, then they can easily be led astray.

I worry many of our churches lack the theological grounding to know they are going astray until the false doctrines have been laid and momentum gained. I remember a local Southern Baptist pastor telling me what he was teaching to new congregation (catechism and careful exposition), and one woman thanked him for trusting them enough to wrestle with big ideas. That was unusual.

I thought of that while reading Byrd’s recommendations to leaders for gaining the attention and trust of the women in their congregations. Understand, she said, that the body of Christ is both male and female and both male and female should be well-versed in God’s word. Also recognize while women may not be allowed in ordained teaching roles, they do teach–all the time. Mothers, sisters, and wives exercise their faith every day in diverse ways. Some bear witness to the truth, others to the lies of the world.

Men need women as necessary allies in the faith to speak the truth in love, to rebuke deception, guard affection, rally motivation, and rejoice over the work the Lord is doing in his people. Therefore, women need the same attentive training men receive.

Byrd briefly describes how, since the beginning of our country, many women have stepped up as spiritual leaders to take eager congregations away from God’s Word. “There is a common thread in the bad theology: these women have all claimed to have received special revelation from God.” But by equipping women to be the necessary and competent allies the church needs we can hold dear the truths of God for another generation.

(Photo by Bethany Laird on Unsplash)

Non-fiction

The Thing Under the Bed is Depression

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In seasons like this, the straight truth is my best help. One truth my doctor told me early on was that this depression would probably find me after I had been home for a few weeks. And here it is, like a train pulling into the station right on time.

http://russ-ramsey.com/monster-in-the-dark-a-chapter-about-depression/

Non-fiction

A Bedbugger Talks Work on the Road

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This excerpt from The Long Haul, by Finn Murphy reads like a western, and I suppose it is, even though he says, “I do not for a moment think I’m a symbol of some bygone ideal of Wild West American freedom or any other half-mythic, half-menacing nugget of folk nonsense.”

My destination is the ultrarich haven called Aspen, Colorado. This makes perfect sense because I’m a long-haul mover at the pinnacle of the game, a specialist. I can make $250,000 a year doing what is called high-end executive relocation. No U-Hauls for me, thank you very much. I’ll take the movie stars, the ambassadors, the corporate bigwigs. At the office in Connecticut they call me the Great White Mover. This Aspen load, insured for $3 million, belongs to a former investment banker from a former investment bank who apparently escaped the toppled citadel with his personal loot intact.

… How well a truck is loaded is the acid test of a mover. I can look at any driver’s load and tell at a glance if he’s any good at all.

The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy was released last year.

Non-fiction, Reviews

’12 Rules for Life,’ by Jordan B. Peterson

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12 Rules for Life

Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy, that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it. Ideologues are people who pretend that they know how to “make the world a better place” before they’ve taken care of their own chaos within…. Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.

Ever since Jean-Jacques Rousseau, there’s been a war between “science” and tradition. (I put science in quotations because the science involved is often just ideology, and it keeps changing. Nevertheless the ideologues are always convinced that they have finally mastered all important knowledge, and are in a position to lecture the rubes). Intellectuals, basing their arguments on what they called science (often just a theory of science), have explained to their inferiors that all the old traditions and mores are the products of superstition – which we have now happily transcended. From this day on, we will base our actions and policies on “enlightened” ideas. And because science is infallible, utopia will inevitably follow.

What Jordan B. Peterson does in the seismic book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, is to deconstruct such arguments through the application, not of religion, but of Darwinian biology – plus his extensive experience as a psychologist.

He’s an open-minded thinker. He doesn’t rule out the possibility that the “old” rules of society might conceivably have a divine origin. But that’s above his pay grade. The evidence he cites is actual research in such fields as biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and history.

His contention is that the traditional rules – which he considers the fruits of millions of years of evolutionary refinement – exist for a reason. He has distilled his list to twelve, and he explains why he believes in them.

Essentially, Peterson is the little boy who cried, “The emperor has no clothes!”

His book is fascinating, well-reasoned, inspiring, and sometimes moving. (There were some sentences that were badly constructed and confusing, needing an edit; that ought to be done.) Its naturalistic world view will be irritating to many Christians, but this isn’t a Christian book. This is a book about secular virtue. I read it in the light of Jesus’ statement to His disciples that “the one who is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:50).