Here we are again, near the end of another year. I wanted to share some of the books that I’ve enjoyed the most this year. All but one fall into the Christian category.
- After Doubt: How To Question Your Faith without Losing It by AJ Swoboda–This is was one of the best Christian books I have read in a while. AJ has a good word for the moment, and I'd put this book in the hands of anyone, particularly millennials and Gen Z Christians, who are going through a season of doubt and deconstruction in their faith. It has become fairly widespread among some raised in the church to deconstruct their faith, and this doesn't have to be a bad thing, though it unfortunately has led many to abandon the faith altogether. Swoboda offers wise counsel as someone who's gone through evolution himself and pastored many people who've gone through deconstruction. Construction–>Deconstruction–>Reconstruction is part of a healthy Christian journey for everyone. Some deconstruction is inevitable, because no Christian family, church community, pastor, seminary, or Christian author is perfect, not to mention we all individually have wrong ideas about God. Deconstruction can reveal illusions, poor teaching, and unfounded assumptions and draw us closer to the real Jesus, not who we'd like him to be. Some have experienced trauma and unfaithfulness in the church and are rightly questioning it. Yet deconstruction also can be dangerous, leading us into unhealthy extremes or to abandon Christianity altogether if we don't find wise guides and some anchor points in the midst of the process. Swoboda serves as a wise guide for walking through deconstruction and reconstruction concerning faith in Jesus.
- Ecclesiastes: Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms by Craig Bartholomew–While this probably isn’t super accessible to a wide audience, this was a wonderful commentary. We did a Bible study and sermon series on Ecclesiastes early in 2021. I had not studied Ecclesiastes before, and it had been a fairly enigmatic book in the past. This commentary was highly recommended by someone I respect, so I picked it up. Bartholomew makes the case that Ecclesiastes is a journey of a sage trying to make sense of life through two different conceptions of wisdom, and that parts of Ecclesiastes are meant to be interpreted ironically by the reader and raise the question: “What sort of wisdom is the teacher following here, worldly wisdom or godly wisdom?” This helps make sense of some parts of Ecclesiastes that directly contradict the teachings of Jesus and teachings present in Proverbs, like in 2:1-11 when the teacher goes into a hedonistic free-for-all while his “mind still guided [him] with wisdom." Shouldn’t wisdom already let you know that these pursuits aren’t satisfying, unless he is relying on something other than godly wisdom? Look at the total despair and denial of any afterlife in 9:1-10–that deeply cuts against several places in the OT and NT. Or take 7:16-18 where he says we shouldn’t be overrighteous or overwicked, but keep in the middle. I have a hard time seeing Moses or the author of Proverbs saying that, much less Jesus, unless the sage’s wisdom is actually worldly wisdom that overly depends on personal experience and rational observation. Bartholomew makes the case that the teacher’s journey in Ecclesiastes is primarily an epistemological one, or one concerning what we can know and how we can come to know things. While excelling in worldly wisdom, the sage keeps coming to dead ends and frustrations. He showcases that worldly wisdom is not strong enough to overcome or make sense of death and often falls prey to greed, hedonism, injustice, and a profound sense of dissatisfaction. The contradictions in Ecclesiastes are meant to showcase how this worldly approach to wisdom can’t cohere, can’t integrate all that is important in knowing God and following him in life. Bartholomew prefers the translation of “enigma” for the Hebrew word hebel, a key word in the book, and doesn’t like the NIV’s “meaningless.” I tend to prefer the word “unsatisfying” for hebel after getting through the book, since Bartholomew makes the case that hebel refers to both an intellectual inability to make sense of life and also an existential dissatisfaction that doesn’t sufficiently make life seem worthwhile or enjoyable. He also gave some surprising interpretations, several of which I found compelling. In what seems to be a hopelessly misogynistic passage in 7:23-29 (particularly verse 28), Bartholomew makes the case that the woman of folly and the virtuous woman who can’t be found are Lady Folly and Lady Wisdom of Proverbs 1-9. The teacher in a metaphorical way is describing how he finds himself in the arms of Lady Folly (foolishness) with the route he’s taken to pursue wisdom, and while he can find the occasional exceptional person, the virtuous Lady Wisdom is nowhere to be found in his current outlook. What many interpreters take to be an allegory on aging in 12:1-8, Bartholomew takes to be referring to the coming day of the Lord in catastrophic judgment, and this is what helps ground the teacher toward the end of the book. Bartholomew makes the case that rather than an editor slapping an orthodox ending on Ecclesiastes after the teacher had spiraled into oblivion, the teacher himself comes back around to the wisdom of Proverbs, finding that the fear of the Lord is indeed the path to understanding in 12:1, 6. Like with any commentary, I’d have some small divergences, but I can’t recommend this one enough to those who would teach and preach Ecclesiastes. It has profoundly shaped how I understand this work of Scripture.
- Effective Intercultural Evangelism: Good News in a Diverse World by W. Jay Moon & W. Bud Simon–This was a relatively quick and easy read and proved to be quite practical for seeing how different people will resonate with different parts of God’s work in the gospel. If we love people well and listen well, we can usually discern where God is already having a conversation with someone and how following Jesus connects with people’s deepest needs. Moon and Simon talk about guilt, shame, power needs, and belonging with purpose as four different felt needs people have and how the work of Jesus, the Spirit, and the church intersects with those needs. There is more than one way to share the gospel with people, and more than one way to point people to Jesus. Jesus used different approaches in the Gospels when he shared his message about the kingdom with different people. The Bible describes God’s saving activity and grace in multiple ways. If we get locked into only one “way” (which has historically been more focused on guilt with an increasing touch of shame in Western Christianity), we won’t share the fullness of what the Scriptures describe concerning God’s love and grace, and we might miss the most pertinent connection points and needs of our friends who aren’t Christians. For instance, talking about forgiveness to someone who has their back against the wall because of an evil person, group, system, or spiritual force in their lives, while certainly not wrong, might not be the most pertinent need that person is wrestling with, and might not be the most compelling witness to Jesus. I enjoyed this so much that I preached a sermon series on the ideas present in the book. However, a couple of the biblical expositions in the belonging with purpose chapter seemed a bit forced and unconvincing. Minor quibbles aside, I’d highly recommend this book if you’re looking for something to help you grow in evangelism.
- Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has To Say by Preston Sprinkle–I really enjoy Sprinkle’s writing and approach to charged topics. He is someone who reads throughly, is relationally engaged, and has a gracious, loving tone that really seeks to connect people to Jesus. One of his previous books, People To Be Loved, is probably the one book I’d recommend to people who are interested in the well-being, experiences, and what God’s best looks like concerning people who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual, along with the many different nuances that can be present among these people and communities. He also isn’t afraid to challenge people from different sides of the aisle in the church. Embodied continues in a similar vein, and helped me see that while we love to lump sexual minorities into the LGBTQ acronym, the T of that acronym really deserves its own conversation. While much of the conversation for people who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual has focused on who different sectors of the church say you can or can’t sleep with/marry, the transgender conversation wrestles with a different set of questions. What is more definitive to a person’s identity, their biological sex/genitalia, or their psychological sense of self, which can also be shaped by biological and social factors? What’s it like to experience gender dysphoria? What does God think about different stages of transitioning, whether it is social (dressing and presenting as the opposite sex), hormonal (taking puberty blockers and hormone therapies), or surgical? What are the results of these decisions? There is a good bit of diversity of perspectives in the trans community, and sometimes conflict within and conflict without with other marginalized perspectives (feminists, ethnic minorities, people who are lesbian or gay, etc.). Sprinkle does a good job of presenting a variety of perspectives and engaging with them graciously and thoughtfully. He covers a ton of topics: pronouns, bathrooms, sleeping arrangements on youth group retreats, rapid-onset gender dysphoria and its particularly high occurrence in teenage girls, people who are intersex, people who have de-transitioned, suicidality in trans people and the occasional weaponization of suicidality language, and how the church can be a place of love, friendship, hope and discipleship for people wrestling with their sexual identity. I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to explore this topic from a gracious, biblically serious, scientifically conversant, and relationally engaged Christian perspective. While Sprinkle isn’t trans, he knows trans people and has been in conversation with many of them. I’d particularly recommend this book to anyone who is in youth ministry right now.
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes–I made myself read a classic novel because I tend to read so much theology/churchy stuff, and I want to catch up a bit for not reading as many classics earlier in life. This book is a satire of many earlier medieval novels about traveling knights, chivalry, and daring exploits. It posits a middle-aged man, Don Quixote, who becomes convinced of the reality of these works of fiction, and is compelled to take this way of life up for himself. Eventually, Don Quixote gains the aid of his squire, Sancho Panza, a rotund, chatty peasant who foolishly believes that Don Quixote can help him achieve wealth and glory. Cervantes uses these two characters to parody novels concerning knights errant, some of Spanish society of the time, and even himself. Some parts in particularly had me laughing out loud, particularly when the duo was staying in an inn and think a wizard is attacking them in the dark, while it’s really them getting in a fight with the inn prostitute and her patron. Or when Don Quixote attacks a pack of monks because he thinks they are holding a woman captive, when really they are funeral escorts for a grieving woman. There are several of Sancho’s cunning schemes to delay or rescue his master and himself that are quite humorous too. Other parts of the novel dragged a bit. It was different from the expectation I brought to it, an expectation that was probably too serious and desired it to move me deeply emotionally and play with powerful themes in life. This is not a Brothers Karamazov or Les Miserables. But if you want to see someone set up pretty hilarious scenarios and poke fun at the society of his day and himself, while surprising you with clever wit, this is a good book.
- Deep Peace: Finding Calm in a World of Conflict and Anxiety by Todd Hunter–I heard Bishop Todd Hunter speak at an online conference where he talked through some of the material in this book. He piqued my curiosity, so I made the purchase. Several aspects of the book stood out to me, and the topic of living out the peace of Christ in our increasingly anxious society seems very pertinent. I thought he was particularly perceptive concerning the strength of Christian peace against how we can tend to think of aggression as true power, as well as how people can re-litigate past failures in a way that maximizes shame and robs people of peace. Hunter starts the book with ten “peace killers” and how we might give them less focus, and moves on to talking about peace with God and peace with others. There is an interplay between inner peace via spiritual formation and outer peace via pursuing a better world. Hunter writes, “The message here is that some elements of spiritual formation can only be learned in the pursuit of justice–and also that works of justice are demonstrated best by a transformed heart” (p. 105). The inner and outer aspects of Christian life play into each other and always go together. They should not be separated or pitted against each other. If you struggle with anxiety and want more of the peace of Jesus in your life so that you can better seek God’s peace in the lives of others, this is a good book for you.
There you have it! What books were your favorites this year?
