Category Archives: Non-fiction

Non-fiction, Publishing

No, the Vikings weren’t gender-neutral

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Had to post about this, before there’s further confusion.

This article from Tor. com has been making the rounds.

Researchers at the University of Western Australia decided to revamp the way they studied Viking remains. Previously, researchers had misidentified skeletons as male simply because they were buried with their swords and shields. (Female remains were identified by their oval brooches, and not much else.) By studying osteological signs of gender within the bones themselves, researchers discovered that approximately half of the remains were actually female warriors, given a proper burial with their weapons

It didn’t take long for a rebuttal to come from what looks like a somewhat more credible source, Stuff You Missed in History.

But, this paper essentially uses the presence of six female migrants and seven male as evidence that women and children most likely accompanied the Norse armies with the intent of settling the land once it was conquered, rather than migrating in a second wave once the fighting was over. It is, sadly, not at all about female Viking warriors, and not some Earth-shattering evidence that Norse armies were evenly split among women and men.

They’ll still have to prove to me that there were any female Viking warriors at all, but the point is made. The Tor article drew unwarranted and exaggerated conclusions from a study that examined a mere 13 graves.

Hey, Tor Books rejected my novel Wolf Time (soon to be re-released in e-book form) with disparaging comments, about 30 years ago. That should tell you all you need to know about them.

Authors, Fiction, Non-fiction

Derrickson Talks Horror, Reality with New Movie

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Scott Derrickson is the writer and director of the new movie, Deliver Us From Evil. He was also the man behind for Sinister , The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. He believes fear strips away the lies we usually tell ourselves and forces us to face reality. He sat down with Steven Greydanus to talk about his style and the new movie.

More here.

Non-fiction, Religion

Barnabas Piper is a Pastor’s Kid

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The Pastor's Kid, by Barnabas Piper

Barnabas Piper’s new book, The Pastor’s Kid, is out today. In his interview with Matt Smethurst, Piper talks about his own feelings and what he learned from other pastors’ kids.

Your book is based on what you learned from hundreds of conversations with pastors’ kids over the years. What surprised you most as you interacted with other pastors’ kids?

Two things surprised me. The first was the consistency of the stories and experiences regardless of context. Even the phrasing of answers and the quotes they shared of what people in their churches had said to them were almost verbatim. While I expected similarities, it was almost like a bunch of people had copied the same answer on a test or something. It gave me real clarity about what needed to be addressed as well as assurance that my own experiences weren’t the outlier.

The second thing that surprised me was how many PKs are now in vocational ministry. The stereotype is of PKs who turn their back on the church, but I connected with dozens who, despite their struggles, love and serve the church.

The tendency for judging pastors’ kids was a dual expectation of perfection and rebellion. People thought these children should be models of the Christian life while also believing they would rebel and reject the church. It’s an impossible standard.

Non-fiction

What is Lost When We Don’t Teach Western Civ?

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Rodney Stark, distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University, talks about his new book, How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity. He said he spoke at a college once and was surprised to get a question from two high-GPA students about when and where was the Roman Empire. “I thought it was some sort of tease, so I told them the Roman Empire ruled Southern California in the 1920s.” They believed him.

One of the most blatant [myths that has gained currency today] is blaming the West for all the problems involving Muslims, specifically terrorist attacks. Reflecting what is being said in the classrooms, academic conferences devote many sessions to “Islamophobia” (hatred of Muslims) but none to terrorism—except for the explanation that it is provoked by the many wicked things the West has done to Islam, now and in the distant past….

King AlfredAnother pernicious myth is that Europe slept in ignorance through many centuries following the fall of Rome—an era known as the Dark Ages. But it never happened. Many professors, even if they know it, are reluctant to admit that the major encyclopedias now acknowledge that the notion of the Dark Ages was invented by Voltaire and his friends to vilify the Church and makes themselves seem important. It always should have been obvious that the centuries denounced as the Dark Ages were an era of remarkable invention and progress, at the end of which Europe had advanced far beyond the rest of the world.

Non-fiction, Poetry

A Great Poet’s Glossary

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A new, engaging resource for poets has come out this year. A Poet’s Glossary by Edward Hirsch is the reference work you would expect from the name and a readable commonplace-type book to boot. The interconnections between words and examples given for each term do not come from a dead literature professor collecting dust on tenure, but a poet who sounds as if he would be routinely in the running for favorite teacher.

The Washington Post says Hirsch “explains each term in clear, direct prose, often moving from a general definition to a layered explanation of how each term has evolved over time. Take, for example, the opening entry, abecedarian, which begins, ‘An alphabetical acrostic in which each line or stanza begins with a successive letter of the alphabet.’ Many readers have seen this ancient form but may not know that it was often employed for sacred texts. Hirsch explains this connection and highlights a psalm in the Bible as well as poems by St. Augustine and Chaucer within just a few lines.”

Hirsch is the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Authors, Non-fiction

Malaria’s Body Count, Thanks to Rachel Carson

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Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, led to the banning of DDT, a pesticide against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. This week, Google celebrated her 107th birthday with this doodle.

Bethany Mandel writes: “Using faulty science, Carson’s book argued that DDT could be deadly for birds and, thus, should be banned. Incredibly and tragically, her recommendations were taken at face value and soon the cheap and effective chemical was discontinued, not only in the United States but also abroad. Environmentalists were able to pressure USAID, foreign governments, and companies into using less effective means for their anti-malaria efforts. And so the world saw a rise in malaria deaths.

Gallingly, environmentalists even claimed that the effectiveness of DDT was leading to a world population explosion. Translation: preventable disease wasn’t killing enough poor children in developing countries.”

She goes on to tell of a horrible experience she had with a dying child in Cambodia, where one million people are infected with malaria each year.

Non-fiction, Religion

The Gospel of Grace for Mormons

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John Wallace knows Latter-day Saints. He held temple recommendation and Elders Quorum presidencies for years. He examined the Bible for what he believed and read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover repeatedly. But a seed of doubt was planted in him during his high school years that eventually grew too large for him to stay a Mormon. He knew he could never be perfect on his own. He could not prove his worthiness to return to live with Heavenly Father. If he had to be made perfect, it would have to be by someone else.

In this book, Starting at the Finish Line: The Gospel of Grace for Mormons, John spends almost all of his time exploring what Christ Jesus did for us on the cross. He shows what the Bible teaches about our sin, God’s unapproachable holiness, Christ’s eternal deity and righteousness, and how his death on the cross cancels the power of sin in our lives without any work from us.

Is Christ Jesus completely righteous? Yes, but he was made sin on our behalf and punished for our sakes. Does He give us His righteous completely? Yes. We cannot earn it. We cannot improve on it. When the Lord Jesus Christ said from the cross, “It is finished,” he paid for everything for us. His perfection became ours in the eyes of God.

John says, “Mormons believe the Bible to be the Word of God ‘as far as it is translated correctly…’ I aim to show my readers that the Bible has been translated correctly and that it points to the cross of Christ Jesus.”

Moreover, the Bible is not compatible with LDS doctrine. Speaking to Mormon readers, John remembers that Latter-day Saints believe that God will look down on us and if He sees that we are trying to obey Him in everything, He will give us eternal life. Moroni 10:32 says almost exactly that, but the Bible says salvation is by grace through faith, not by works so that no one can boast of earning anything.

With painful honesty, John describes his personal walk of faith toward God’s all-sufficient grace. He lovingly explains what the Bible teaches and how it conflicts with LDS teaching by quoting LDS prophets, elders, and sacred writings. His focus, however, is not to criticize the Mormon church. It is to explain how God’s grace is so much better than the “miracle of forgiveness” taught at LDS temples. It’s something to celebrate.

John writes: “If nothing else, I want my LDS reader to come away with these three things:

  1. The Bible is the Word of God. It is trustworthy and reliable, able to teach you and guide you through his life and into eternal life.
  2. Christ on the cross, suffering and dying to pay the penalty for your sins, is the gospel. There is no other gospel, and there is no other name (or combination of names) under heaven by which you can be saved.
  3. Any attempt on your part to add to Christ’s sacrifice with your own efforts nullifies God’s grace and severs you from Christ as Savior. He is the Way—and He’s not asking for help.”
Authors, Non-fiction

Interview with the New York Yankees’ Mariano Rivera

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The greatest relief pitcher of all time, Mariano Rivera, shares his extraordinary story in The Closer. It’s a pleasant, personal tale about a Panamanian son of a fisherman who found he could pitch pretty well. He signed on with the NY Yankees for $2,000 and still didn’t quite understand that he would have to leave for Tampa, Florida.

Q. You’ve given us the remarkable story of your life in baseball with this book, The Closer. Would you mind telling us what you were thinking in those first days of spring training with the Gulf Coast Yankees in 1990?

A. I was surrounded by guys who were stronger than me and threw harder than me, and I was outperforming them. I was thinking, “How on earth am I doing this?” I was getting results that were far beyond my physical abilities. It had to be the Lord’s work.

I have to thank my first catcher and good friend, Claudino Hernandez, for seeing my potential. When I was on the training field with Tim Rumer, Russ Springer, Brian Faw, and others, I wasn’t as fast or as strong as they were, but I could do one thing better than just about anybody else. It was the thing Claudino saw I could do at the try-outs. I could put the ball exactly where I wanted it.

Q. You’ve said several times that you try to keep it simple. Is that how you made it through your career, just keeping it simple?

A. You could say that. Life is hard and humbling. I do all I can to keep it simple and to pray to the Lord for clarity and wisdom, so that His will and His perfect goodness will guide me and keep me safe. The Bible will tell you everything about how I try to live. For me, it is not just the word of God, but a life road map that is packed with wisdom that you cannot beat. It has this kind of simple wisdom: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

You know how many times I’ve gone out to the mound thinking, “This guy has no shot, because I am Mariano Rivera?” Never. The guy with the bat in his hand is a professional. He is trying just as hard to get a hit as I am trying to get him out. I respect that, and I know everything I have is from the Lord.

When I was sent back to the Columbus Clippers after pitching a few games for the Yankees, I had two weeks of rest and then started pitching faster than ever before. My catcher, Jorge Posada, asked me what I was eating, because I jumped from throwing 88 to 96 mph that game. I know of only one answer. It was a gift from the Lord. The cutter I throw, my fastball with a wicked tail on it, wasn’t something I studied and practiced for years. The Lord gave it to me, and it changed my whole career.

Everything is in his hands. I do not take it for granted. It was the way I wanted to pitch, and it is the way I want to live. Put everything we have into living this moment the best way we can live it. Some players obsess over rumors, but for me, they are only distractions. In my worldview as a pitcher, distractions are the enemy. Again, simple is best. Continue reading Interview with the New York Yankees’ Mariano Rivera →

Non-fiction

Understanding WWI as a Holy War

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Pershing’s CrusadersHistorian Thomas Kidd talks to historian Philip Jenkins about his new book The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade. Why is it essential to see this war as a religious conflict?

At the highest levels of the respective regimes, both Germany and Russia were deeply motivated by national visions that were messianic and millenarian, and framed in thoroughly Christian terms. Each nation saw itself as playing a predestined role that was divinely inspired, and those self-concepts contributed mightily to the outbreak of war. Religious visions also helped explain why people remained at war through the hellish conditions. We also have to understand the highly supernatural world in which all participants found themselves, and not just at the level of elite propaganda. The language of crusade and holy war must be taken very seriously – on all sides. When they entered the war in 1917, Americans, interestingly, were among the most passionate in presenting the war in crusading terms.

Also, the sense of having failed in a holy war enterprise goes far to explaining the secularized millenarianism that prevailed throughout the 1920s and 1930s, in the totalitarian movements. As in 1914, Germany and Russia were the storm centers.

They go on to talk about religious imagery and the idea that WWI did not disenchant the world of faith. Rather it re-enchanted it with new forms of old myths.

Non-fiction, The Press

Crowdfund a Movie on Kermit Gosnell

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This is where we are in the world today. We self-publish our own books. We can solicit our own funds for movies. We can circumvent the nightly news, if it still exists.

Here’s a trio, who have made award-winning documentaries in the past, wanting to blow the lid off the media silence on the man they call the most prolific serial killer in America.

There are at least two angles on the media silence on this case. The biggest one is that Gosnell is an abortionist operating within the scope allowed by those who have argued they want abortions in our country to be safe and rare. This man’s clinic was nowhere near safe, so the political agenda doesn’t support exposing him at the risk of undermining the most scared battleground for the political left.

The second angle is not as politically defined as the first. It’s what Ann McElhinney describes in the video below. The women who were murdered were poor, unseemly, and minority–the kind that gets killed everyday in some cities, so what’s the news? You might think those who cry loudly about the rights of woman and minorities would cry out about this too, but perhaps their classism gets in the way. Maybe it just doesn’t trump the first angle. Abortionists are priests in the Church of Ne’re Do Ill. The blood on their hands is only red fruit punch.

If you have the funds to contribute to this, I encourage you to consider it.