Fiction, Reviews

Rough Country, by John Sandford

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Minnesota mystery author John Sandford (John Camp) has not given up his hugely popular series of “Prey” novels featuring millionaire cop Lucas Davenport, but Davenport’s getting a little domestic and long in the tooth these days. In order to continue writing books with sex appeal, Sandford has launched a new series featuring Davenport’s associate Virgil Flowers. While Davenport fulfills male fantasies by having powerful, expensive cars that he drives very fast, Flowers’ fantasy appeal is more organic. Aside from his remarkable clearance rate as a detective, Flowers is apparently walking candy to women (although the author derives a lot of comedy out of frustrating his desires in this particular story).

Readers tired of sex in novels are advised to stay away from Rough Country, the latest Virgil Flowers. Its very setting—a women-only fishing resort in northern Minnesota, frequented by a number of lesbians—guarantees a large degree of sexual tension, and a certain amount of discomfort when a male detective—even a fashionably broad-minded one like Flowers—starts investigating its affairs. Continue reading Rough Country, by John Sandford →

Music, Religion

Sufjan Stevens and the Popularity of God's Mystery

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Musician Sufjan Stevens has draw much fanfare for a couple new album releases and his return to the concert circuit. I learned of this interview via Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog, and I was encouraged to see Stevens labeled as a Christian. Then I came to this:

Q. Do you believe that God can be reached through other faiths? John 14:6 categorically states Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life” and nobody can get to the Father expect through him. A lot of people take that very literally and don’t believe you can find spirituality through Buddhism or Islam or whatever…

Stevens: Yeah, I mean who can know the mind of God and who can be his counselor? It’s not man’s decision, you know. If God is infinite and he’s in all of us and he created the world then I feel there is truth in every corner. There’s a kind of imprint of his life and his breath and his word and everything. You know, I’m no religious expert, and I don’t make any claims about the faith. All I can account for is myself and my own belief and that’s a pretty tall order just to take account of myself. I can’t make any claims about other religions. There’s no condemnation in Christ, that’s one of the fundamentals of Christianity.
Do you mind if I make a few observations? Continue reading Sufjan Stevens and the Popularity of God's Mystery →

Religion

American Views on God

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Nine out of ten Americans claim to believe in God, but who that person is varies a good bit. This report in USA Today spells it out. What we believe about God determines how we stand on social and political issues.

Asked about the Baylor findings, Philip Yancey, author of What Good Is God?, says he moved from the Authoritative God of his youth — “a scowling, super-policeman in the sky, waiting to smash someone having a good time” — to a “God like a doctor who has my best interest at heart, even if sometimes I don’t like his diagnosis or prescriptions.”

Uncategorized

Drowning Isaiah

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Today someone came by my office in the library and informed me that he’d seen some of our books floating in a drainage pond behind the boys’ dorm.

I sent my assistant out to retrieve them, and he brought back about five soggy, ruined volumes from our Isaiah shelf. Someone, apparently, had swept the books off in a bunch, carried them out without checking them out, and deposited them in the water. There’s no way to tell how long ago this happened.

So our innocence quotient goes down a couple points.

We’re a family sort of operation. We have do-it-yourself checkout, and essentially no security, because our students have always been the sort of young people whose worst infractions are born of absent-mindedness or high-spiritedess, not malice.

I don’t suppose we’ll upgrade security over this one incident.

But the day is coming, no doubt. Security will cost money, and everybody will have to chip in to pay for it.

That’s the way of the world, even at a Bible school.



Today’s Virtual Book Tour stop is here, at The American Chronicle. Oddly, the article isn’t on their home page. I can make a guess as to why, but I’ll say nothing. Probably wrong anyway.

Uncategorized

Alas, a political post

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I’ve been trying to keep away from political posts, but I’ll just do a short one tonight. Then never again, because I can quit anytime I want.

Am I the only one who thinks you’ve got to be really, really desperate if you’re doing ads warning the American public of dangerous foreign influences in The U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

I can see the senatorial hearing now. The chairman leans over his table and asks, “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?”

Those capitalists. They’re under people’s beds.

For my second topic, I’d like to offer a brief explanation of one aspect of Minnesota politics, for people who live in more rational parts of the country. For the record, I don’t expect great Republican advances here this year. The rules are different in this state.

Here’s a couple of the rules:

1) If the polls indicate a neck-and-neck race in Minnesota, the Republican is probably actually ahead, because all the polls are run by Democrats.

2) However, that doesn’t mean the Republican will win. Because, in general, the Democrats also get to count the votes.

Authors, Religion

The Grace of Living

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Andrew Peterson is writing about imagination and George MacDonald at The Rabbit Room.

Buechner said, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

It isn’t saving grace, as some would have it, but it is divine grace for all who breathe. God is so good to us, which may be why god and good are so close in English.

Peterson has two more parts to his posts on imagination.

  1. The Inner Vision
  2. The Inner Spirit
Religion

Tweeting the Gospel

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Tullian Tchividjian is on Twitter and has been writing sentences about the gospel for a while now. Here’s a list of those statements:

  1. The gospel doesn’t simply ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going and growing every day.
  2. When you understand that your significance and identity is anchored in Christ, you don’t have to win—you’re free to lose.
  3. Christian growth doesn’t happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. It happens by working hard to live in light of what you do have

There are many more. Read on

Non-fiction, Reviews

A Voyage Long and Strange

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I didn’t dislike Tony Horwitz’ rambling book, A Voyage Long and Strange. He’s a likeable writer. One assumes his political preferences are liberal, but he works very hard to give everybody a fair hearing, not just the contemporaries he meets on his journeys across America, but the historical figures whose footsteps he attempts to follow.

The germ of the book was conceived when he made an accidental stopover in Plymouth, Massachusetts, was unimpressed with the sight of Plymouth Rock, and began to wonder why, out of all the pre-colonial and colonial American settlements, we’ve chosen Plymouth Plantation as the birthplace of the American idea. He decided to follow the trail of the chief European explorers and settlers who predated Plymouth, to try to evaluate their relative contributions.

In this goal, I believe, he fails utterly. Still, the story is amusing and informative. Horwitz is good company, and has a charmingly self-deprecating voice. Continue reading A Voyage Long and Strange →

Book Reviews, Creative Culture