On the 450th anniversary of his death, Joe Carter gives us 9 things we should know about the great reformer, John Calvin.
‘Sniper’s Honor,’ by Stephen Hunter
And here we have another Bob Lee Swagger book from Stephen Hunter. I might be tempted to say it was another improbable Bob Lee Swagger book, except that a) I loved it, and b) it still fails to reach the heights of improbability achieved by The 47th Samurai, which I also loved.
So it’s like this. At the beginning of Sniper’s Honor, old Bob Lee is mooning around his Idaho ranch, at loose ends, bored. Then he gets a call from a woman reporter friend in Europe, who wants some technical advice on a story she’s researching – the mysterious disappearance of a female Russian sniper in World War II. This sniper, “Mili” Petrova, was renowned as much for her beauty as for her deadly efficiency with a rifle. Sent on a mission to assassinate an important German general, she disappeared from history.
Suddenly Bob Lee is energized with curiosity. He flies to Ukraine to help the reporter investigate, an action which causes them to run afoul of mysterious, powerful personages who want the dead past to stay dead. Soon Bob and his friend are running through the Carpathian Mountains, hunted, with no resources to rely on but Bob’s instincts and experience. And some remarkably good luck stage-managed by the author.
I’ll admit there’s a lot of manipulation in the plot. Author Hunter works pretty hard to arrange things in such a way as to believably manipulate the satisfying outcome we expect and get. Plausibility is pretty low.
But it’s a Bob Lee Swagger book and it’s fun. Educational too. Good enough for me.
Sir John Coleville’s Daring Fight Against the Fairies
Loren Eaton and I have collaborated on a fun story using the Legendary Author Battles format given to us by Simon Canton. You can listen to the tale above and get a written version on Simon’s site [link defunk].
I hope you enjoy it. I had fun writing it in response to the terrific tone Loren set in his parts. Do tell us what you think about it.
You can listen to the other shared storytelling I did in this vein here.
J.M. Bertrand on Writing
Thus spake Mark Bertrand:
“Things that don’t matter don’t keep getting done. Things that do become second nature. The key to any discipline, I suppose, is figuring how to make it matter.”
So if we want to be writers, we must decide writing is what we actually want to do. And whatever work that must go around the writing too must matter–the research, the market opportunities, and the spiritual nurturing that keeps us closer the Lover of our souls.
“Writers already lead uncomfortably quantified lives, measuring our worth in the number of words written today, in the number of books in print and how well they’ve sold. All of these metrics speak to one kind of quality –– my quality of life –– without addressing another, the quality of my work. The best written books aren’t always the bestselling…”
Far more than any philosophical writing, Bertrand says reading novels exposes and explores him in unexpected ways. “In novels I face up to things I never seem to in other kinds of writing.”
God-blogging Is Replacing Deep Thinking
Bart Gingerich writes that young people are being led by untrained writers who claim to understand the deep wisdom of God better than anyone who came before them:
[W]e are starting to observe firsthand that the radical democratization of knowledge has led to what John Luckacs calls “an inflation of ideas.” Everyone has been given just enough knowledge and literacy to get them into trouble and yet none of the patience or discipline to get them out of it. Everyone with a blog or Twitter account can shoot out lots of small ideas that lack depth, grounding, and merit. Thus, American Christians are confronted with more and more theological ideas that have less and less worth.
Seminaries are both suffering from this and contributing to this problem. (via Anthony Bradley)
The Gospel of Grace for Mormons
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.”
The 1859 Outrage over Chess
And now for something completely different. 
Clive Thompson shares his discovery of the moral outrage over playing chess that cropped up in the 1800s. He quotes from an interview with the authors of Bad for You: Exposing the War on Fun!
Cunningham: Just wait. Each new wave of fear over the latest technology that interests kids is just that: a wave. The wave comes, it crests, and then it crashes against the shore and fades away. That’s partly why we chose to create the timelines in the book, like Youth-a-Phobia or Fear of the New, to give a historical view of these hysterical reactions. But with the distance of time, all these panics start to look foolish and quaint..
Pyle: Especially that “pernicious excitement” of chess embraced by children “of very inferior character.”
Part of that outrage is recorded in Scientific American: “Persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises for recreation — not the sort of mental gladiatorship. Those who are engaged in mental pursuits should avoid a chess-board as they would an adder’s nest, because chess misdirects and exhausts their intellectual energies. Rather let them dance, sing, play ball, perform gymnastics, roam in the woods or by the seashore, than play chess.”
Thompson points out that these complaints are not completely fruit-looped, even if they are overstated. Would that young people were taking up live steel combat instead of this or other games for so-called good, clean fun.
Rage Against the Darkness: The Dark Harvest Trilogy
The first book of Jeremiah W. Montgomery
I asked Mr. Montgomery, who is pastor of Resurrection Presbyterian Church (OPC) in State College, Pennsylvania, a few questions about his series and himself.
1. Tell us about your Dark Harvest trilogy. Would you give something of your main character’s story arc?
The Dark Harvest trilogy follows several young men – and one young lady – through the currents of interlocking conspiracies in a world much like early medieval Europe. There is no single main character, but the first volume focuses on a monk with a talent for languages. Placed on academic assignment in a foreign monastery, he soon finds himself inextricably tangled in a web of ecclesiastical and political intrigue – a web walked by dark spiders from his past.
2. You have published two of three books so far, right? Is the third book on track to being published?
The Dark Faith
3. How have these books been received? Are you pleased with how you’ve been able to get the word out and find readers?
There is a grittiness to the stories that has attracted some criticism. Nevertheless, I have been pleased with the books’ overall reception. I cannot say how widely they are read, but from what I’ve seen most readers seem to enjoy them.
4. These are epic fantasy, right? Or are they historic fantasy?
The Jonathan Quinn novels by Brett Battles
Occasionally you run into a writer who approaches an old genre from a fresh angle. And occasionally you run into a writer who, though perhaps not a perfect stylist, knows how to create interesting, appealing characters and exciting stories that draw you in. It’s delightful when both those writers are the same person.
So it is with Brett Battles and his Jonathan Quinn novels, beginning with The Cleaner.
Jonathan Quinn (not, we are told, his real name) is not a spy. He’s not an assassin. He’s a Cleaner. Once the spies and assassins have done their jobs, Jonathan comes in and cleans up the mess. Blood gets washed off the walls, bullet holes get spackled, and bodies are disposed of. Jonathan is the best at his work. It pays very well, and he doesn’t have to risk his life… much.
But all that changes at the start of The Cleaner, when he goes to Colorado to examine the site of a fire where a man died. He finds a mysterious bracelet in the ashes, and when he goes back home to Los Angeles somebody tries to kill him. Attempting to find out why, he’s drawn into a confrontation with a world-wide conspiracy, and sets out on a journey that leads him to Ho Chi Minh City and Berlin, to a reunion with a woman from his past, and into a desperate attempt to save a kidnapped child.
This is the first in a series of Jonathan Quinn novels, all extremely readable as far as I’ve gotten. Credibility is a little weak – it’s hard to imagine a man of Jonathan’s humane character getting involved in a job like the one he holds (we’re told he was born in Warroad, Minnesota, and like all native Minnesotans he’s a prince among men). But the characters and relationships are vivid and interesting, and the dramatic tension never lets up.
Recommended. Cautions for language and mature themes, but fairly mild by contemporary standards.
Mahaney, Harris leave The Gospel Coalition
World magazine reports on the civil suit against a former member of a church once led by C. J. Mahaney and now by Joshua Harris. Last week a jury found the man guilty of molesting three boys in the 1980s, and questions have come up about whether church leaders, not just these two men but many more, knew about the problem and did not report it or handle it properly. Harris believes he should take full responsibility for part of the mishandling and has asked for a leave of absence along with four other church leaders. He steps down from The Gospel Coalition, he says, “because I don’t want the present challenges at my church to distract from this terrific ministry.”
Harris comes at the end of this case and appears to be taking the high ground. He has even talked about suffering abuse as a child himself. I’m less sure about what high ground Mahaney can take at this point. Here’s a report from last year about his part in the lawsuit. At the time, evangelical leaders were rallying to his support, saying they stood by him and “his personal integrity.”
I can make no judgment call here. It’s difficult for anyone at this distance to sort the facts and accuse these men, and we don’t have to. Let’s pray for them and their congregations. Let’s do what we can in our own churches and cities to protect each other and call people to account for their sins in godly ways.
The Gospel Coalition (newly redesigned) has a couple links on this subject: