Category Archives: Non-fiction

Life in Finland, Russian Neighbor

August 10, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Last year, writer Sofi Oksanen opened her talk at the PEN World Voices Festival with “I bring greetings from the bordering countries to Russia.” Her topic was the ever-present threat Russia poses to her country.

Welcome to the nerve-wracking reality of being Finland. To a casual visitor, it seems like yet another Western European country, a placid paradise with its abundance of bicycles, its obsession with its own mid-twentieth-century design, and stores that close punctually at six in the evening. The Finns feel otherwise. When they go to neighboring Sweden, they say they are “going to Europe.” As it happens, neither country is a member of NATO, but only Finland has a long land border with Russia—and a living memory of having been invaded by the Soviet Union.

(via Prufrock)

Non-fiction, Religion

Some Commentaries Read Like This

July 29, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

A parody of biblical exegesis by New Testament scholar Moisés Silva: “The author of this piece, moreover, makes clever use of word associations. For example, the term glamorous is etymologically related to grammar, a concept no doubt reflected in the comment about Marilyn’s ‘verbal skills.'”

Fiction, Non-fiction

Is Everyone Real Nice When You Get to Know Them?

July 23, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Anthony Daniels talks about his concept of Harper Lee and the memories To Kill a Mockingbird provoke for him.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the blacks in the courtroom stand when Atticus, who has just defended Tom Robinson vigorously and decisively but unsuccessfully against a false and malicious charge of rape, goes by, such is their grateful respect for him. The next day Atticus receives a large quantity of such humble presents as very poor people are able to give. And when the children, Scout and Jem, are taken by Calpurnia, the family’s black cook, to the church for blacks, they are treated virtually ex officio as very special. These are similar to experiences I had in South Africa and in other parts of the continent.

He eventually draws it down to questioning the novel’s conclusion, that “most people are real nice when finally you see them.”

Non-fiction

Memory for the Willfully Forgetful

July 22, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Memory is dangerous in a country that was built to function on national amnesia. A single act of public remembrance might expose the frailty of the state’s carefully constructed edifice of accepted history, scaffolded in place over a generation and kept aloft by a brittle structure of strict censorship, blatant falsehood and wilful forgetting. That’s why a five-foot-tall, 76-year-old grandmother poses enough of a threat that an escort of state security agents, at time as many as 40 strong, has trailed her to the vegetable market and the dentist.

Louisa Lim has released a book she didn’t want to write: The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. How did China systematically forget what happened June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square?

Non-fiction, Religion

Joy Beyond Agony by Jane Roach

July 20, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Jane Roach has written a strong, deeply moving study of Christ Jesus and the cross that I hope becomes the talk of many congregations. Joy Beyond Agony: Embracing the Cross of Christ, new this year from P&R Publishing, takes twelve lessons to dig into the immeasurable wealth of Christ Jesus’ character and his work on the cross.

For readers who don’t skip the introduction, Roach encourages us to set goals for our Bible study in order to clarify our intentions and pray that the Lord will help us meet them. “Lurking behind our goals and best efforts are our past failures in keeping up with them,” she explains. Part of that failure may be simply leaving our goals undefined and consequently unfulfilled. “We find ourselves captive to empty pursuits that gobble up precious time,” she says. If we identify those pursuits or the time slots they fill, we will be better able to replace them, and then we’ll see the spiritual growth we’ve been hoping to see.

In the study itself, she leads readers through a full 360 review of the cross and its implications for us. In one lesson: “How can God’s gracious promises come true for guilty people? How can the Holy One of Israel bless sinful people?” In another lesson, she walks through Jesus’ seven “I am” statements, such as “I am the bread of life,” to reveal the character of one who hung on that cross.

With prayers, faith stories, insightful questions, and personal instruction, Roach has written a beautiful study on the joy that was set before our Lord.

In one story, a woman with cancer describes how her church communities poured out their love for her. “The more kindness I was shown, the more frustrated I became, and the more frustrated I grew with myself for being so ungrateful. When I finally put words to my frustration, I realized I was angry that I was utterly undeserving. . . . I must–there is no other way–I must abandon my pride and self-reliance and cling to his cross and his mercy.”

I hope Joy Beyond Agony will be able to drive home that one glorious idea to thousands of American Evangelical families this year and next, so that we will know the joy of Christ far more intimately than anything in this world.

Fiction, Non-fiction

Rediscovering Pluto

July 14, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Clyde Tombaugh had only graduated from Burdett High School in Burdett, Kansas, when we applied for a position at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. His family didn’t have the money to send him to college, so he studied on his own, assembled a portfolio, and presented himself to the observatory director, V. M. Slipher. While working there as a photographic assistant, he discovered two comets and variety of other stellar objects including Pluto.

We haven’t had a good look at the once-and-future-planet until today. NASA’s New Horizons probe is passing by Pluto, carrying Tombaugh’s ashes and sending photos back to us. Will we discover the truth of what many sci-fi authors have written about this place over the last 85 years? Gregory Benford describes some of those details.

In his first novel, World of Ptavvs, Larry Niven depicted an astronaut landing in the Plutonian atmosphere, his vessel’s hot exhaust releasing the frozen methane and oxygen and causing the entire planet to burst into flames. In a later story, Niven imagined an even odder fate. A stranded astronaut freezes, only to find that his nervous system has become superconducting and that he can still think, frozen solid. . . . My own 2006 novel, The Sunborn, has small, smart creatures thriving along the shore of Pluto’s supposed nitrogen sea.

Authors, Non-fiction, Religion

How Dante Saved Dreher from Depression

July 3, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Last year, we wrote about Rod Dreher’s book, How Dante Can Save Your Life,, noting that following your heart will kill you dead and sin is a damaged form of love.

Chris Fabry interviewed Rod about his experience going through depression, attempting to reconcile with his family, and learning more from Dante than his counselor. If you haven’t read his book already, this will give you insight into what you’ll find there.

Authors, Non-fiction, Religion

The Fellowship of the Inklings

July 3, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

“In general, the all-male group shared a longing for that half-imaginary time before man’s alienation from God, nature and self, the time before the chaos and materialism of the post-industrial era had displaced the elegantly organized cosmos of the Middle Ages. In their various ways, each hoped to spearhead a rehabilitation, a re-enchantment of our fallen world.” Michael Dirda reflects on The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski. He says the book focuses largely on the men’s religious lives and thoughts.

The Fellowship looks to be a great, detailed introduction to Barfield and Williams, two men close to Lewis and Tolkien but unfamiliar to most of their fans.

Non-fiction, Religion

Racism Fails to See Human Beings as Human

July 1, 2015 philwade Leave a comment

Margaret Biser, who has led historical tours at a Southern house and plantation for years. She writes about the questions she received, such as whether the slaves appreciated the good treatment they received or whether being a house slave instead of a field hand was a cushy life.

Why did her guests continue to ask questions ignorant or opposed to the history she presented? Inaccurate education for many. Apathy for some.

“In many other cases, however, justifications of slavery seemed primarily like an attempt by white Americans to avoid feelings of guilt for the past. After all, for many people, beliefs about one’s ancestors reflect one’s beliefs about oneself. We don’t want our ancestors to have done bad things because we don’t want to think of ourselves as being bad people. These slavery apologists were less invested in defending slavery per se than in defending slaveowners, and they weren’t defending slaveowners so much as themselves.”

This is how I understand the KKK began. You could call it a failure of believers to reach poor white members in neighboring small towns with the full gospel, but however you want to think about, people who felt rejected by their community turned their bitterness against blacks, an easy target. And some carry on that legacy today, both directly as members of the Klan and indirectly when they argue that #BlackLivesMatter is not as strong as #AllLivesMatter, missing the point that black lives are the ones still longing for respect.

“Addressing racism,” Biser writes, “isn’t just about correcting erroneous beliefs — it’s about making people see the humanity in others.” But with dehumanization active all around us today, we should wake up to the fact that we won’t learn this lesson without the gospel fully applied. Some of us haven’t learned it even with the gospel.

Non-fiction, Religion

Brandywine Books

Category Archives: Non-fiction

Life in Finland, Russian Neighbor

Like this:

Some Commentaries Read Like This

Like this:

Is Everyone Real Nice When You Get to Know Them?

Like this:

Memory for the Willfully Forgetful

Like this:

Joy Beyond Agony by Jane Roach

Like this:

Rediscovering Pluto

Like this:

How Dante Saved Dreher from Depression

Like this:

The Fellowship of the Inklings

Like this:

Racism Fails to See Human Beings as Human

Like this:

Recommended Reading on the Black Church

Like this:

Book Reviews, Creative Culture

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Book Reviews, Creative Culture