“When it comes to cultural creativity, innocence is not a virtue. The more each of us knows about our cultural domain, the more likely we are to create something new and worthwhile.”
-From Culture Making, by Any Crouch
As I have been reading Culture Making, this thought has popped up a few times. The idea that we should root ourselves in the various traditions and skills of the culture around us is an idea that I am somewhat sympathetic to since it encourages us to be excellent in our given fields. As I read, however, I have trouble thinking up biblical support for this point. If anything, arguments to the contrary are ready at hand: what of Paul’s condemnation of the excellencies of this world in 1 Cor 1 and 2? What of God’s demand that the people of Israel absolutely destroy all aspects of Canaanite culture? And yet, what of Augustine’s point that it was not that scriptures that taught him the language by which he can read the scriptures? Where do we draw the line between continuity and discontinuity with the world around us?
I picked up the Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, yesterday after a few months break. It is a rather inspiring book and I recommend it to anyone. I like it because it is short and can be finished in an afternoon. I also like it because it takes a very practical approach (as the title implies) to something that is often handled mystically. I don’t like it when a book gives you a bunch of theory but then does not tell you how to actually live it out. This book is quite the opposite. Brother Lawrence’s suggestions are very encouraging, because he shares how he was personally able to grow closer to God. Brother Lawrence died in 1691 and this book was compiled from his own writings and accounts of his friends shortly after. It has remained a Christian classic for the last 300 years and has been quite helpful to me. (more…)
This is a review of Fathers and Sons
by Ivan Turgenev.
I read this book this past semester for my Russian literature class, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it would be useful to review here, because one of the central characters is a nihilist. In the novel Turgenev paints a very intriguing picture of the nihilistic life lived out by the character Bazarov. As I learned in class, when the book first came out it was rejected by the liberals because the portrayal of Bazarov was too extreme, and they did not want to be associated with his ideas. However, it was also rejected by the conservatives, because they claimed that the portrayal of nihilist attitudes was too attractive. We see this in our society today where we are oddly attracted to people who live out the implications of their philosophy, but we are scared to be extreme. (more…)
Are we content to remain as infant Christians? It appears that many in the body of Christ today suffer from spiritual retardation. In his book, “For God’s Sake Grow Up”, David Ravenhill calls the Church to a greater degree of spiritual maturity. He opens the book with a story of a couple who give birth to their first child only to discover to their horror that he suffers from a medical condition that does not allow him to grow or physically mature at all. You can imagine the parents’ dismay and grief, and I am sure we can imagine God’s dismay and grief when he looks down at his children who are content to flounder in the infant stages of Christianity. Grow up! (more…)
A review of Every Man’s Battle.
Yesterday, I was looking for a relaxing afternoon spent reading. I saw Every Man’s Battle sitting on the shelf and I thought I might at least read the introduction. It has been popular for a few years, and with the multitude of spin-offs and all the marketing and hype surrounding the book, I was expecting a wishy-washy, pop-Christianity piece of fluff. I ended up reading the whole thing in less than 24 hours. To be honest, the writing wasn’t spectacular, and most of the content was stuff I had heard before. However, the thing I appreciated about the book was the fact that it took a pretty hard-line stance on holiness and left no room for sin to survive. I was pretty surprised to find, in our ‘nobody is perfect’ generation, a book that stressed Ephesians 5:3-5, which tells us to not even have a hint of sexual immorality. (more…)
