theologiaviatorum's reviews
206 reviews

Woohoo! I am BACK and it feels awesome! Lent is over so I'm back to my regularly scheduled reading program. Sustainable Youth Ministry has been the most helpful book on youth ministry I've read yet. I officially claimed it as my manual. DeVries speaks from long experience in ministry. The three things I loved most about this book are these: 1. It's systems approach. He debunks the myth of the Super Star Youth Minister. Yes, he may appear successful. But it only means the *he* is successful, not the ministry. Once he (or she) goes, so does the success. DeVries emphasizes how we all work on systems of interconnectivity and a healthy ministry builds a healthy system of relationships with teens, adult volunteers, and fellow staff. 2. He avoids quick fixes. There is no such thing. He can help set you on the right direction but real change takes time. He quotes H.L. Mencken. "For every problem, there is a solution which is simple, neat, and wrong" (21) 3. The books intense practicality. If you're interested in youth ministry, or if you are a church trying to get your youth ministry off the ground—this book is actually written for churches, not primarily ministers—I highly recommend this book.

This is Joseph Campbell's best known work.  George Lucas admits to returning to this work over and over again. In this book Campell seeks to identify the Monomyth, the One Story that is told in all of the world's stories and religions. He builds on Carl Jung's psychology and sees myths and dreams as coming from the same psychic source, the human subconscious. In some sense, myths are just public dreams. “It is not difficult for the modern intellectual to concede that the symbolism of mythology has a psychological significance. Particularly after the work of the psychoanalysts, there can be little doubt, either that myths are of the nature of dream, or that dreams are symptomatic of the dynamics of the psyche ... With their discovery that the patterns and logic of fairy tale and myth correspond to those of dream, the long discredited chimeras of archaic man have returned dramatically to the foreground of modern consciousness. According to this view it appears that through the wonder tales—which pretend to describe the lives of legendary heroes, the powers of the divinities of nature, the spirits of the dead, and the totem ancestors of the group—symbolic expression is given to the unconscious desires, fears, and tensions that underlie the conscious patterns of human behavior. Mythology, in other words, is psychology misread as biography, history, and cosmology" (219). So, while he does not believe any of these stories (including Christianity) to be true in any historical sense, he does believe they are "myths to live by" (the title of another work by Campbell). According to him, we are all acting out our own hero's journey. "In the absence of an effective general mythology, each of us has his private, unrecognized, rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dream. The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change" (2). This work is highly recommended to any student of writing, literature, Story, or myth

This book was not at all what I expected, but it was a very enjoyable read. I expected this book to offer techniques akin to Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book." I expected to hear about reading different genres, about reading slowly, about grasping the broad picture, about taking notes, etc. But there was none of that. This book is a sort of truncated encyclopedia of symbolism and allusion. He talks about the symbols employed by authors to communicate things about their characters. He discusses Christ figures, baptism, meals/communion, Greek mythology, Shakespeare, the Bible, blindness/sight, vampires, the quest, intertextuality, and so on. I recognized the influence of Joseph Campbell on more than one occasion. They are both dealing with myth, essentially. Foster writes, "In these last three chapters we've talked about three sorts of myth: Shakespearean, biblical, and folk/fairy tale. The connection of religion and myth sometimes causes trouble in class when someone takes myth to mean 'untrue' and finds it hard to unite that meaning with deeply held religious beliefs. That's not what I mean by 'myth', though. Rather, what I'm suggesting is the shaping and sustaining power of story and symbol" (59). I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to enrich their reading of good literature.

Ah Homer. You stand at the beginning of the Western Tradition. You've granted us names that became common nouns. Odysseus has become Odyssey which means a long journey, like the journey of the titular character. Athena's disguise as the man Mentor guides Telemachus and Odysseus both. Mentioned has now come to mean a teacher or guide. This book has become a template for other stories, other journeys. Ulysses, the Latin form of Odysseus, by James Joyce tells the story of one man's journeying around Dublin in the course of one day. O' Brother Where Art Thou tells about the journey of a man to eat back home to his wife, complete with Cyclops, Sirens, and Blind Prophets. Over and over again we in the West call up the ghost of Homer and name him our muse. This story of Odysseus journey home after the conclusion of the Trojan war (recorded in Homer's first work, The Iliad) is a fantastic journey full of fun and adventure. I've only read the Lattimore translation, but on good authority. It's the one preferred by students at tutors at the famed St. John's College.  So if you want to begin where the Western Tradition begins, pick up The Iliad and The Odyssey. Curl up. And enjoy.

My brother gifted me this short collection for Christmas. Alfred Delp, a Jesuit, is sometimes described as a sort of Catholic Bonhoeffer, and for good reason. They were both arrested on suspicion of conspiracy against Hitler and both wrote from prison. This collection is his prison writings. They contain reflections on Advent and the Lord's Prayer, and all are shot through with hope for Germany. He could be described as a Christian Humanist. Sometimes it appears as if God has faded into the background and he looks for salvation from ourselves, but just as you begin to think that he reaffirms that our only hope and strength is in the God of Jesus Christ. I close with one of the last things he wrote before his martyrdom: "It only remains for me to thank the great many people for their help and loyalty and belief in me, and for the love they have shown me. First and foremost my brethren in the Order who gave me a genuine and beautiful vision of life. And the many sincere people I was privileged to meet. I remember very clearly the times when we were able to meet freely and discuss the tasks in front of us. Do not give up, ever. Never cease to cherish the people in your hearts—the poor forsaken and betrayed people who are so helpless. For in spite of all their outward display and loud self-assurance, deep down they are lonely and frightened. If through one person's life there is a little more love and kindness, a little more light and truth in the world, then he will not have lived in vain" (161)

What a book! It doesn't take long reading patristics to discover that they interpret the Bible entirely differently than we do today. In fact, most people find their interpretations to be wild and uncontrolled. They seem like unrestrained and fanciful proof-texting with little concern for context or historical situation. This work shows that is not the case. The reading of the early church Fathers was incredibly disciplined, but their controls were different than the modern criteria of historical-critical interpretation. "In the ancient rhetorical tradition, the gist of a literary work was called its hypothesis ... For Irenaeus, the key failure of heretical interpretation is that it does not identify the hypothesis of the Bible. It picks up details, exploits local correspondences, manipulates symbols, but in the end such a reading does not show how the beginning, middle, and end hang together ... the greater task is to see the place of all the pieces in a larger picture, to see the hypothesis by which the individual verses or portions of the Bible fit together with all the rest. In short, to read rightly, one needs to know the overall plan. Faced with inconclusive or fragmentary evidence, one needs to know the hypothesis that will give the proper ordering and guide understanding" (34-36). So, even though the Fathers engaged in typological and analogical interpretation, it was not without controls. But how did one learn the proper "gist" or "hypothesis" of the Bible? "No well-developed train of thought can emerge, ex nihilo, out of the minds of individuals, no matter how brilliant they may be" (125). One must listen to the tradition of the Church. "Irenaeus is appealing to a tradition of interpretation, tradition that has a settled body of doctrine just as modern science has a settled body of theory. He takes the tradition to make a rightful claim upon the interpretive imagination of scriptural readers because it is venerable and because it has a proven track record among the leaders of the church.  A reader who does not adopt the rule of truth, Irenaeus argues, 'would always be inquiring but never finding, because he has rejected the very method of discovery.' Adopting the rule of faith sets the reader down the right path; it offers an appropriate method by which to control interpretation" (125).  Hermeneutics, however, is not merely an intellectual endeavor; it is a spiritual one. "Augustine says that proper interpretation must be guided not only by true faith but also by 'good morals.' Indeed, to even divide faith and morals would have been unthinkable for the church fathers. Irenaeus criticizes his Gnostic adversaries for failing to adopt his hypothesis for the interpretation of scripture, and he frequently denounces them as engaged in all sorts of immoral behavior. The rule of faith was a rule for life as well as a rule for reading scripture and teaching its meaning. It was a spiritual rule that guided the whole person toward fellowship with God. Not surprisingly, then, the church fathers argued that a reader must have spiritual discipline to control exegesis" (128). What an amazing book and an amazing way to end the year.

In 2011 I dreamt of writing a book that lead busy lay men and women into traditional #Christian practices. Well, this is that book, only I didn't write it. Earley, a lawyer, tells how his life was broken by busyness. He became physically and mentally ill when he pushed his mind, body, and soul past their limits. When he admitted that he needed a change he gathered with friends and decided upon certain habits that would help restore his health. Those spiritual practices became this book. In this book are daily and weekly habits, like kneeling prayer, eating with others, turning the phone off for an hour, and reading scripture before looking at your phone (daily), as well as one hour of conversation with a friend, curating your media intake, fasting, and Sabbath (weekly). Another impressive thing about this book is the lengths Earley has taken to make this book accessible to anyone and everyone. In the back there are guides for trying the Rule for a week or a month, for trying only one habit or trying it all together with a church. He has modifications for those who are not Christians so that they can practice the Rule too. There are modifications for different vocations and seasons of life. There are modifications for parents, busy businessmen and women, for artists, for entrepreneurs, for addicts, and even for those dealing with mental illness. This is perhaps the best book I've read on spiritual disciplines and habits of faith. Others go deeper or explain more of the spirituality and psychology behind it all. But this book is the best combination of technicality and practicality. From now on this will be the book I recommend. In fact, take this as my official endorsement. If you read only one book next year (outside of the Bible), let it be this one.

This is another of recent attempts to develop a theology of childhood. Jensen's book has a strong social justice element to it. There is much here about the violence and exploitation of children. When he addresses the question of Original Sin he is not content to see children as totally depraved (despite his Reformed roots), but neither is he ready to see them as entirely innocent. Children, he argues, are not so simple as to be reduced to one or the other. They are complex. They are a mystery in very real terms. For him they are born into a state of vulnerability and already begin to bear the wounds of the world. But they are not mere victims—they are actors and acted upon—nor does sin have the final word. Children are also graced. They connect us all and model for us the vulnerability that is fundamental to Christian discipleship. He writes, "The point of Christian language about sin is not to explain away the suffering of the world, but to address it in all its complexity and to point to the hope that sin does not utter the final cosmic word. Only by taking sin seriously, in all its facets and from the faces of its victims, does the word of redemption ring as something other than a comforting sop" (95). Throughout it all Jensen seeks to accept and learn from children as they are, as having something to offer now and not merely in the future. "Children grow into adulthood, but adults also learn from children. Each stage of human life is precious and valuable in its own right, not in terms of what it precedes, but as God elects all stages of human life" (123). Whereas Jensen is more non-traditional than I am in ways which occasionally make me uncomfortable, I read this book with benefit. I especially loved his emphasis on vulnerability as fundamental to Christian practice and the Christian liturgy as being made up of practices of vulnerability.

I started this book back in 2015 but I got distracted and set it aside. I was happy to pick it up again and I found myself trying to remember what pulled me away. This book is fantastic. It's an easy read with many entertaining stories and anecdotes. Duhigg takes us through the science, psychology, and even the "spirituality" of habits. Throughout we see the Habit Loop. Every habit contains these three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue—the thing that triggers or sparks the habit—can be just about anything but can be categorized into five different sorts of cues: location, time, emotional state, other people, and/or an immediately proceeding action. The routine is the habit itself, like drinking a cup of coffee, driving to work, gambling, viewing pornography, yelling at your spouse, or forgiving and turning the other cheek. The reward is just what it sounds like. It's the good thing at the end of the habit loop. It's a burst of energy, it's excitement, it's a feeling of peace or control, a sense of self-worth, etc. Whatever it is, you want more of it. So the next time you're triggered, the next time the cue arises, you remember the actions that gave you the reward. You keeping doing them over and over until they become routine, until they become habits, until you don't even have to think about them any more. In order to change a bad habit you hijack the loop. You keep the cue and reward but you change the routine. This, however, isn't enough. You also need something we can call "faith." It's the belief that change is possible. And this faith is fostered in community. We are more likely to change our habits if we make the efforts with others. They help us to believe that change is possible. Duhigg is a masterful storyteller. He takes us from NFL games to aluminum factories, from Olympic races to night terror murders. Strange stories all built on stranger things: Habits. I recommend this book to anyone looking to make a change.

St. Macarius, whose name means "Blessed", was on of the Desert Fathers and a personal student of Saint Antony. He is called The Spirit Bearer because of the great power of the Holy Spirit that was with him to heal and to know the thoughts of men's hearts. He was famed for his holiness. As a young man he had a dream where he met a man "in a garment that cast forth lightning and was multicolored and striped." The man said to him, "Thus says God: 'This land I will give to you. You shall dwell in it and blossom and your fruits shall increase and your seed shall multiply and you shall bear multitudes of spiritual children" (158-159). And so he did. He made the desert into a city of monks. Towards the end of his life he was visited by Saints Antony and Pachomius, the Fathers of Anchoritic and Cenobitic monasticism respectively. Upon his death he passed the monastic habit to Saint Paphnutius who also helped bury him. This book contains three works, The Sayings of St. Macarius of Egypt, The Virtues of Saint Macarius of Egypt, and The Life of Saint Macarius of Egypt. He is one of our heroes and so is rightly often called St. Macarius the Great.