Tag Archives: book review

Book review: Deceiving Winds

Bruce Morton graciously sent me a copy of his book Deceiving Winds: Deceiving Winds – Christians Navigating the Storm of Mysticism, Leadership Struggles & Sensational Worship. He did not request a review; he merely sent me the book to share his views with me.

Morton’s book sets out to study the influence of the religion’s of Ephesus on the church in that city. In particular, he studies the worship of Artemis and Bacchus as reflected in the letters of Ephesians, 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. The book is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to gain insight into this facet of these letters; the endnotes and bibliography make up almost one third of the book.

Where Morton loses his way is when he turns to exegesis. He has taken some issues that he feels deeply about and made them the primary concerns of these letters. Primarily, he is discussing feminism and instrumental music; the backdrop of these pagan religions allow him to work these topics into passages throughout these epistles.

In an analysis of some statements from Seeking a Lasting City (Love, Foster, Harris), Morton states, “The apostle is not talking about the whole of apostolic teaching and Christian doctrine. Instead, he is talking about specific Christian doctrine and the false teaching his readers have heard.” (p. 155) This critique of others’ work aptly fits Morton’s study as well. He takes teachings addressed to a specific situation in Ephesus and tries to apply them to all Christians throughout all times. By making such a strong case about the background of these letters, he has weakened the modern application of the passages he’s studying. For example, if the reference to not being drunk in Ephesians 5 only refers to the worship of Bacchus, then it says nothing to those who would drink outside of a religious context or even outside of the context of Bacchus worship.

Basically, what Morton tries to do is relate all of the emerging church movement, as well as the teachings of progressive members of churches of Christ (which are two very different things!), to these ancient religions. This doesn’t work, because shared practices do not mean that two religions are the same. That is, the fact that the Ephesian religions used instruments and modern churches use instruments does not make their worship the same. If that were true, the modern church would have to cease many of its practices; a good study of New Testament backgrounds shows that much of what Christianity does is not unique to Christianity.

Morton also errs in making general statements which reflect his feelings, but have no objective support. For example, when discussing those who have decided that instrumental music should be excluded from Christian worship, Morton declares, “The conclusion represents a commitment to the divine character and authority of apostolic teaching and the New Testament as a whole.” (p. 92) The implication, of course, is that those who disagree share no such commitment.

Another troubling practice in this book was the use of quotations to support things that the original writer did not have in mind. For example, in the section on singing, Morton quotes numerous individuals who praise the value of singing. How many of those people would have limited their comments to a cappella singing? Few, if any. But Morton presents them as if they strengthened his case against the use of instruments in the modern church.

As I said, as a study of the background of Ephesians, 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, this book is an excellent resource. (I’m puzzled as to why so little time was spent in addressing the letters of Revelation 2-3, which went to people facing the same religious influences in the same geographic area). As to application, rather than an exegesis of passages within those books, Morton has basically provided us with a series of rants* about the things he doesn’t like in the modern church.

 

*[Edit: January 12, 2012 — It’s been called to my attention that the word “rant” is misused here. Rant implies a degree of emotion and vehemence which is not present in Morton’s writings. I often misuse the word in my own speech and writing to refer to something that is written with the sole intent of criticizing. The dictionary definition of the word is different from my usage.

Note: I received this book for free, with no obligation to write a positive review. The links in this post are for an associate account with Amazon.

We’ve got a winner!

We’ve got a winner, folks: Travis Flora won yesterday’s book giveaway.

Tyndale gave me the chance to participate in the blog tour for Matt Mikalatos‘ new book Night of the Living Dead Christian. They sent me a free review copy, as well as the chance to give away a copy to one of my readers. Travis was the first to comment, and the random number generator at www.random.org came up with “1” as the winning number.

I appreciate Matt taking the time to stop by and interact a bit. Too bad we didn’t have more people asking him questions. So be it.

Have a great weekend!

[And yes, dear FCC friends, Tyndale did provide me with free books for this review and giveaway,
and the links to Amazon do generate referral fees]

Review: Night of the Living Dead Christian

Tyndale gave me the chance to participate in the blog tour for Matt Mikalatos‘ new book Night of the Living Dead Christian. They sent me a free review copy, as well as the chance to give away a copy to one of my readers. All you need to do to enter the contest is leave a comment. It’s possible too that the author himself may stop by to interact a bit, so if you’ve read this book or Imaginary Jesus, you may be able to ask him some questions about those books.

Now, about the book. Night of the Living Dead Christians is an ordinary story about monsters and monster killers roaming a neighborhood. It’s a light-hearted book that seeks to make some not-so-light-hearted points about transformation and the meaning of discipleship. Along the way, it also seeks to make Christians look at how we deal with those who are struggling with sin in their lives.

I like the concept, love the message and enjoyed reading the book. But I have to confess that all the way along, I had the feeling that I didn’t get the joke. I kept wondering if there was something more than what I was seeing.

In some ways, the story felt like a parable, where you aren’t really supposed to interpret each individual element, merely capture the main points along the way. Yet other parts of the story seemed allegorical, which made me wonder if I was supposed to be seeing something more in some of the descriptions.

For example, the central character in the book (besides the narrator) is a werewolf. Another character is a vampire. These seem to be just unnamed character issues that they are dealing with. Or was I supposed to realize that “werewolf” means ____? I wouldn’t have thought so, but there were two things that made me doubt. First, the werewolf’s wife had left him because he had struck her. OK, so something about being a werewolf made him violent. Does “werewolf” mean uncontrolled temper? Or am I looking for meanings that aren’t supposed to be there? Secondly, there are zombies in the book, and we are led to see exactly what that means. So if we know what it is to be a zombie, are we supposed to know what it is to be a werewolf and what it is to be a vampire?

There were lots of things like that in the book that left me with the nagging feeling that I just wasn’t getting it. Other things didn’t seem clear to me. In the initial scene, a mad scientist uses a device that seems to attract monsters. Or does it reveal them? Or does it do anything at all? The narrator had already seen the werewolf, so his coming seems unrelated to the machine. And does that machine represent something?

Sigh.

As I said, it was a fun book to read, and I loved the message. I’m just not sure if I caught it all.

I’m looking forward to others reading this book and clueing me in. Whoever wins the book today will be obligated to give me their view. To have your chance, just leave a comment of any sort in the comment section. And spread the word… maybe your Christmas gift to someone can be helping them win a free book!

Here’s a video from the author about his book:

[And yes, dear FCC friends, Tyndale did provide me with free books for this review and giveaway,
and the links to Amazon do generate referral fees]

Tour bus is coming!

All right, it’s a virtual bus on a virtual tour… a blog tour. I’m signed up to review books for Tyndale, and they gave me the chance to participate in the blog tour for Matt Mikalatos‘ new book Night of the Living Dead Christian.

So look for the virtual bus on Wednesday Thursday, December 15. I’ll be reviewing the book then. Besides giving me a review copy, Tyndale also gave me one to give away, so you can leave a comment on that day to have a chance to win. It’s possible too that the author himself may stop by to interact a bit, so if you’ve read this book or Imaginary Jesus, you may be able to ask him some questions about those books.

So circle the date and join us in the Kitchen.

[And yes, dear FCC friends, Tyndale did provide me with free books for this review and giveaway,
and the links to Amazon do generate referral fees]

Simply Christian by N.T. Wright

I’m way behind in my reading, so I haven’t done any book reviews in a while. I have been remiss, however, in not mentioning a book that I used this past semester at ACU: Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. It’s an attempt to present some extremely deep theology in simple terms. I was fooled by the easy-to-read style and pushed my students through the book at a fairly quick pace. It’s easy to read, but processing the ideas takes some time.

Wright points to four universal longings, four things present in all of humanity that he refers to as echoes of the divine. These are: longing for justice, longing for spirituality, longing for relationship and longing for beauty. Wright then uses these four themes throughout to tie together the biblical story (as fulfilled in Israel and as fulfilled in Christ) as well as our reaction to it.

Wright also spends time talking about the relationship between heaven and earth. He speaks of three options. The first option is seeing heaven and earth as being identical, as seen in pantheism and panentheism. The second option is to see heaven and earth as completely separate, view reflected in Epicureanism in the ancient world and Deism in the modern world. The third view, in Wright’s words, is that “Heaven and earth are not coterminous, in this option. Nor are they separated by a great gulf. Instead, they overlap and interlock in a number of different ways.” (Location 942 in the Kindle edition)

All of this theology doesn’t remain up in the air; Wright brings it to life in the last section of the book, describing how Christians are to live out the realities of the Kingdom. I can’t do justice to all of the material contained in this book, but I do want to recommend it highly. Just don’t be fooled, as I was. You may be able to read it quickly, but you’ll miss a lot by doing so. This is a book to be read and contemplated at a leisurely pace.