The Good God

This book, by Michael Reeves, was another from the UCCF bookstall but which had sat neglected for some months. I took to reading it over the past week because of revision - it's exam season so I've not had much time to read and this book is quite short - but the genuine timeliness of its content to my week deepened its considerable impact, for reasons I'll explain further shortly.

   It's about God, basically; who he is in his unified tri-personal character of Father, Son and Spirit, and why this is a good thing for a great many reasons. The book points us to look at our own conceptions of "God", which generally fall far short of what we would consider perfect. We think all too often of a lonely omnipotent puppeteer who created a populated universe to serve him, imposing laws and judgments upon it when its denizens fail to meet his arbitrary standards - one God in one person, a sort of Omnibeing. If you have been put off faith because your conception of God was sort of like this I would encourage you to read this book and reconsider who you think he is, and then reread the Bible to meet the God described here in context and see how much more sense it makes. I'd also recommend this book enormously to Christians - it's a delightful reminder of who our God is and how good he is in the Father, Son and Spirit, and how we can approach him in those persons and delight in them. The book is quite short and in quite simple prose but very theologically dense - it's remarkable how so much complexity and meaning is packed into accessible sentences, and because of this it's very easy to read and a deeply encouraging and warming little book.

   The God described in The Good God is so much more agreeable, beautiful, and frankly plausible than the Omnibeing; the God of biblical theology as one Lord in three persons. It is the Trinity that forms the centre of his essential character, defining who he is and how he can relate to things; because he is in eternal loving community (of Father, Spirit and Son) it is intrinsic to his nature to be overflowing with self-giving love. This speaks immense volumes into almost every avenue of doctrine (of which I will have to skip several and the rest glaze over somewhat, the book is so tightly written that it's really hard to summarise chapters effectively), such as:

• Creation - an Omnibeing would have spent eternity alone and so have no need for a created world other than pure self-indulgence. God in Trinity however has spent eternity loving one another in such abundance that it seems natural that such a god would seek to create a world populated by beings made "in our own image", that the creatures (i.e. humans) could enjoy similar states of self-giving love in community in a world that had been created by the Father to be good in every conceivable way.
• Free Will - even if an Omnibeing had created people, their purpose would be more to the fulfilment of any whims of their maker, leaving them little more than automata. Creatures of the Trinitarian God are granted their own part of real existence with which to think and act independently, otherwise the "love" they are being shown in meaningless and they cannot respond meaningfully to it. To join their loving creator in genuine fellowship they need to be able to choose, though why one would choose to direct life by one's own terms rather than the perfect terms of the perfect Father who created them is another question.
• Sin, Judgment, Grace & Salvation - even if an Omnibeing had created people with genuine freedom of choice and they had rejected its rulership and moral decrees (which frankly is reasonable, such a God would be effectively just a grumpy dictator with substantive metaphysical DIY know-how) then it would have little reason to show mercy or forgiveness to its subjects and may as well start again from scratch. God in Trinity though takes the exact opposite tack; sin is the type of actions that occur when not God but ourselves are the object of our primary love, and this is not the way we were made to be. We were made in God's image of outpouring selfless love, and this is shown in Jesus' summary of the law as loving God and loving others wholeheartedly. Even if we fail to retain this character of perfect altruism however, it is intrinsic to God's nature, and so he will go to any lengths to keep his loved created ones near to him even when they have turned away - even if his willingness to forgive them requires someone else to take the blame and the only person spotless enough to do so being his Son himself in human form as Jesus. Only a God with eternal experience of loving relationships could have the potential for mercy and grace, and by this through the substitution of the Son we are saved and welcomed back into the eternal perfect community with the Trinity for which we were made.

So yeh, the fact that God is the Father, Son and Spirit in one is a fundamental and gloriously good truth. It was refreshing to me especially this week, as I said earlier, because I've been fairly snowed under by revision for philosophy exams. The latter (and harder) of the two exams concerns the Rationalist school (particularly Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant - they're all extremely clever and their ideas sound both scarily possibleish and utterly mental) and their ideas regarding epistemology and metaphysics, of which the philosophical concept "God" plays a huge role in determining truth, necessary existence and such. I don't want to go into details; this is my recreational book-blog, not excess revision - anyway, it's thoroughly interesting but quite dry, especially when one is used to considering God as the character expressed in this book rather than the abstract concept wangled about by various odd systems of armchair-reasoning. To leave behind ontological arguments and possible worlds and trademarks for a spell and reengage with a God whom I know not as concept but as loving personal Trinity was like a hot bath for the soul. He is more than just a necessary being or an infinite substance, he is a good Father who made me and knows me, has saved and adopted me through his Son and continually blesses me through his Spirit: he is my Lord and my God.

   Quite aside from how much I needed and enjoyed this book though, I would suggest anyone read it; even if you've never fondled a religious belief in your life it will provoke some interesting ideas about the kind of God you do or don't believe in, and if you are a Christian then it's a pretty sweet (uplifting? nice? any broad positive adjective) read.

Three Men in a Boat

This book, a shortish comedic novel of 1889 by Jerome K. Jerome, is just funny. I picked it up just after Freshers' Week as bag-book to read in libraries when bored of reading course material. Anyway - in the book, narrator J. and his friends George and Harris are all comfortably-middle-class young men (of strangely almost indistinguishable personality) who find themselves with little excitement with which to fill their days, and so they do what comfortably-middle-class young men of Victorian England did for diversion - and go boating. The three of them and J.'s incorrigible fox-terrier Montmorency (what a fantastic name for a dog) thus pack, with much slapstick difficulty, arrange a boat, with much slapstick difficulty, and proceed to row up the Thames from Kingston to Oxford, with slapstick difficulties ensuing all over the place. Beleaguered by rain, steamboats, struggles with locks and tents and towropes, George's appalling banjo-habits, Harris's propensity for mangling comic songs, mendacious fishermen, Montmorency's urges to generally destroy things, and above all their own amusingly-sketched ineptitude, their brief travel proves infuriating but refreshing, and a hilarious delight to read.

   Generously interspersed through their haphazardly-described boat trip are dozens of rambling anecdotes, tied to the main plot with very little effort or need as they are in themselves so buoyant with potential mirth. Irrelevant as they are it is these that give the book its flavour - a levity, a wit, that doesn't read like planned comedy scenes but more like you are in the boat with the three men, bored of watching the river and so talking endlessly, and running on into odd little "that reminds me of that time when" stories and "always seems to happen that" reflections. And needless to say, they are extremely funny (do not make my mistake of reading this book on the bus, or in a silent study area, or anywhere else where unexpected snorts of laughter might earn a disapproving glance). The 19th century language deepens the humour; verbose and civilised, the dry wit of the passages is very conversational indeed, and so the text reads as easily as it provokes a chuckle (i.e. very).

   Perhaps my favourite thing about the book though was the fact that it wasn't originally meant to be a funny novel. In the introduction I learned that Jerome set out to write more of a historical guidebook up the Thames - something that does clearly show through in the longish passages describing a local area's geographical features or what the Romans or some monks or Oliver Cromwell might have done in a particular passing town. To lighten the prose of this readable tour, the author added in several anecdotes about his past boating ventures through the places described, and eventually found that the supplementary funny material elbowed aside the non-fiction musings. So the book turned into a story about J. and Harris and George and Montmorency travelling this historically-and-geographically-interesting landscape, but having inconsequential squabbles and failures and remembrances along their way.
   The very fact that this happened to his story along the way surely speaks something vaguely grand about the purpose of fiction, non-fiction, and books - I'm not sure what. It it good though that however interesting a real topic, it will be enjoyed better if elucidated firsthand by someone who seems to only do so as an afterthought to describing the hilarious muddle they have otherwise made of their efforts to access the topic, not to say reflect endlessly on a host of other disconnected and uninformative but worth-hearing things. If the 125ish-year-old linguistic styles don't put you off (they make it better honestly, it's like discussing Oscar Wilde's disastrous holiday with him) then this is definitely one to read; who doesn't enjoy a funny book after all?

Understanding Scripture

This book was another from the budget bookstall at UCCF Forum. It's a collection of short essays, edited by Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins and Thomas R. Schreiner, about approaches to considering and studying the Bible. The topics broadly cover:

• How the range of texts included in the Bible originated and were collected together to form the book's canon.
• How the languages these texts were written in work translated into contemporary English.
• Archaeological evidence supporting for the historical claims of these texts.
• The coherence and variation of the thousands of pre-printing copies made of these texts.
• How older (Old Testament) texts share huge amounts of depth and meaning with newer (New Testament) ones. 
• How these texts collectively (i.e. the Bible) have been interpreted throughout history.
• How we as modern individuals can return to the Bible and read it to glean literary, theological and personally applicable insights, and how this can enable us to better proclaim textual messages to others and grow in prayerful communion with its main character (God).

If this doesn't sound rivetingly exciting it's because it isn't (this probably won't be a long post because most of the book is dry fact that fills mental gaps for dry facts instead of provoking further thought). Read something else if you want something juicy or stimulating. I'm not being irreverent in saying this - the book fulfils its purpose excellently, and that purpose is to inform one about the Bible's origin and reliability, and give a few vague pointers as to how one might adopt an appropriate mindset to go about reading it. It's sort of like the Bible's unwritten instruction-manual-cum-background-info compendium. I didn't read it for amusement or even interest, but to help shed some light on some questions that had been prickling my beliefs, and for that it did somewhat alleviate my doubts* and so while barely enjoying it I'm very glad indeed that I read it.

   If you are keen to know about how ancient Greek pronouns can be tricky, or be surprised at the inerrant transcribing skills of 1st century C.E. Mediterranean Christians (the statistics for meaningful variations in the texts are almost negligible, and there are literally thousands of surviving transcripts, which in ancient-document terms is a goldmine of historical surety), or how various councils decided against including the apocrypha in the final canon, or many other facets of the Bible's journey from being written to being read, then there are probably far better books out there covering the topic of your interest in more detail. This is still a fairly decent place to get a broad introduction though.

   The best section is the second one, with five approaches to reading the Bible; as theology, as literature, for personal application, for prayer and communion with God, and for public preaching and worship. As with the more factual sections, this is worth skipping if you'd rather read a whole book about the particular section of interest, but I still found this section an encouragement as it is the section of the book most imbued with a sense of the Bible's purpose, which is overwhelmingly positive; and when read properly engenders love, thoughtfulness, generosity, wisdom, gentleness, faithfulness, humility and such.

   This book then does what it says on the tin; it won't change your life, but scripture ostensibly does and this book helps you understand and approach it to bring you toward better facilitating that.

*asterisks are a great way of avoiding too-long parenthetical statements. Anyway; I mentioned in the last post about the challenge of being a christian and a philosophy student, you have to think very hard and run to a great many helpful books to retain a firmish belief in your beliefs. This most recent surge of doubt was brought about by the Philip Pullman novel discussed last post - not a great story but an interesting provocative point about how stories become stories, including histories, including Jesus' life as the centre of christian theological truth. I realised I didn't have enough of an understanding of the Bible's origins to ensure my confidence about its legitimacy, and this was the book I turned to to alleviate those doubts. Somewhat effectively. This footnote has way too many hyperlinks in it, I'm sorry.

five books that nearly made it

There were several books that I finished in late December of 2013 which were interesting reads, but the rules clearly state I should only write posts for ones finished from this year. To compensate I'll briefly cover my thoughts and reactions to the several that I unfortunately finished reading too early to warrant an individual post. Hopefully one day henceforth (i.e. after January 1st 2014) I'll reread some of these, or any of the other postworthy books that I read before commencing this project, and will be able to give them a deservedly standalone chunk of reflection.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce

One of last year's bestselling novels, I was fairly sceptical about this from the blurb (but it was cheap in Oxfam and I wanted an easy read for the post-deadline weekend), because it just sounded twee and nice. I was wrong, it's a fantastic emotional seesaw of a novel. Harold Fry is a retired brewery inspector, and if his quiet suburban life wasn't dull and lonely enough already, his relationships with his wife and son have fallen apart almost irreparably, and he's not heard from his only friend, Queenie Hennessy, for years. However, when Queenie writes to him to tell of her terminal illness and a fond farewell, he sort of breaks - as he walks to the postbox to send off a reply, he decides to embark on a mad journey, and so walks from his home in south Devon to her hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He is both wholeheartedly devoted to this quest, and completely unprepared for it. Along the way he meets dozens of colourful little characters who express admiration and support and confide in him their own losses, regrets and pains - he is able to talk freely as a pilgrim, just passing through on his way North. What he gains throughout the novel is the same as what I felt I gained through reading it; a sense of perspective and wonder at the sheer number of people on the relatively small island he's walking across, and at the dawning realisation that each of them has their own complex histories with fears and sadnesses in their past, and that given the same mad urge, everyone probably has a situation in which they could feel compelled to his same pilgrimage, desperate to atone for past things done or neglected and that if one can just keep walking determinedly then things will be okay, and upon arrival we will be forgiven the guilty deed that kept us walking. It's a very bittersweet story, with some deeply sad events contained and remembered, but with some beautifully positive images that give weight to Harold's poignant hope of redemption. All the characters seem a tad caricatured, but I think they well deserve to, because the story they're part of is more contemporary legend than novel. Quaint, encouraging, and mythic.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, by Philip Pullman

I bought this in a second-hand bookshop years ago and read it in two sittings on Boxing Day because of the lack of other unread material at home (most of my unread stuff got brought to uni). The basic premise is the life of Jesus, apart from (dun dun dah) he has an identical twin brother nicknamed Christ. Jesus grows up to be a morally-upstanding devout man, beloved of all but the establishment; Christ grows up to be a deceitful imitator with grand amibition for the Jewish religious authorities. Aided by a mysterious stranger, Christ realises the possible trajectory of his brother's recklessly godly mission, and records every miracle, parable and sermon of Jesus, and once a particularly well-known chapter involving a cross takes place, Christ is coerced into using his identical looks to fake Jesus' resurrection. The hope is that following Jesus' life and teachings (which the stranger and Christ manipulate to place it all in a more coherent context) this "being raised from the dead" business would help establish a durable body of committed transcendent moralist Jewish believers. It was a very strange and dissatisfying read, full of inconsistencies (if the whole thing is fake why can they do miracles? if Christ is also a devout Jew, why is he so willing to accept the stranger's heretical suggestion of doctoring scripture and framing his brother?) and questionable intent (still not sure whether it's meant to be a playful re-imagining or a genuine suggestion as to Christianity's falsehood, but one can almost hear Pullman's fellow militant-atheist friends high-fiving him for getting such drivel published). Yes, I shall stand by the word drivel, but it still counts as thought-provoking because it forces one to reassess the origins of historical texts - especially scripture. What criteria do we have for properly assessing whether something is the word of a deity, the legend of a cult, the ravings of a lunatic, or the carefully assembled craft of an ambitious writer? In light of this question, after Jesus has been crucified to death and Christ has finished editing together a broad range of records of his life and teaching, doctored to imply theological truths, Christ takes up a quiet job as a netmaker. The whole book's worth reading for that brilliant underhand metaphor.

Watching the English, by Kate Fox

Came across this book years ago on the shelf of some American friends who told me it had been recommended to them as a guide to Englishness; a cultural, social and anthropological guidebook to understanding the bizarre quirks of those cursed with English heritage. This sounded fascinating so I got myself a copy and read it (very slowly, alongside a dozen other books, as is the wont of my reading habits). If you're interested in understanding why people act in certain ways, especially English people, do absolutely read this. It's uncanny. You find yourself reading an explanation of a particular set of behaviours and thinking "this sounds insane, people who behave like this are surely insane to be part of such collectively irrational inconvenient innavigable etiquette"; and simultaneously thinking "this is hilarious, myself and people I know and strangers and cultural archetypes are like this all the time". It exposes the roots of the English psyche, and while somewhat upsettingly it provides no psychological diagnosis as to how we as a nation became so mad or how we can be cured, this is brilliant to read and comprehend. I find myself now recognising behavioural patterns more accurately and being far better able to interact with other Englishpersons (habitual pub-going, acute class-awareness and perpetual self-deprecation are good places to start). Definitely one to read if you're: A) a non-Englishperson seeking to lubricate social interactions with Englishpeople; B) a sociopathic or otherwise interpersonally stilted Englishperson (i.e. most of us) seeking to lubricate social interactions; or C) an Englishperson who might enjoy an amusing tome dissecting their population's behaviour.

No Logo, by Naomi Klein

Picked this up after finishing A-levels and, like the above, read it very slowly. It's widely-reputed as a holy book for the global anti-corporate movement, and I think rightly so. Covering an immense range of intricately researched topics, from sweatshop labour to targeted advertising to brand encroachment to job outsourcing to gagging orders and many other things. In discussion with others of a less left-wing persuasion than myself I often find they're dubious about books like it, suspecting them to be quixotic populist fabrications and distortions of fact with an "agenda". Admittedly, this book does at points seem opinionated and slightly too belligerently anti-corporate, but the sheer breadth and depth and validity of the evidence and arguments brought up against modern corporate activity more than allows it that. It's not needlessly aimlessly angry; it is a direct, calm, thorough exposition of certain things that are happening and why they are bad and what is, or could be, done to stop them. It's the kind of book that you finish filled with motivation to spread; the message is bleak but the implications are hopeful, because there is so little justification outside elite circles for their activity, and if more people were properly exposed to the truth of corporate schemes then they would almost certainly feel similarly inclined to take a stance. Much of the book is outdated, having been researched and written toward the end of the 1990's, but the motives of the corporate world haven't changed, yet their reach and power only continue to grow (as an economics student I would have liked a bit more analysis of these ongoing processes, but other books provide a plethora so no matter), as does the movement against them. So what if a book has an agenda? If that agenda is a more ethically-justified society, why does that matter? Read it and allow its insidiously positive intent to influence you.

Think, by John Piper

Got this at UCCF Forum, a campsite training week training week for students with participatory roles in UK university Christian Unions. They had an enormous budget bookstall. Never can resist those. It's a great book; the core motivation is to reconnect christians with rigorous thought that has an understanding of the gospel at its centre. This cuts strongly against both anti-intellectual sermon-swallowing fundamentalism and overly-postmodern liberal-interpretation potential heresies. A good middle line to steer, I think. As a philosophy student I am often pushed toward applying logic and scepticism to my own beliefs, which is a scary prospect for someone who never has before (most moral, social and theological truths come crashing straight down); but by practicing this we're spurred to find legitimate reasons to hold the views we do. The book holds that this helps us deeper engage with ideas so that we know God's truths better, and can better defend and explain them to others. It's not simply an exhortation to learn apologetics however; it also shows the strong bonds between "mind" and "heart" (I use the terms loosely as the book did) that the focus of mentally-upheld beliefs will also grow into the focus of our emotional passions. Thus by engaging with scripture and theology, thinking more about God, we come to realise more about him and apply it more to our lives, growing in genuine emotional love for him and gospel-centred behaviour generally. This seemed psychologically dubious but still a helpful notion; since finishing the book I've been more frequently engaging with the Bible and thinking about its truths, and do continue to grow as a christian. This is a given though, and while it was a good book, I wouldn't recommend it massively. Instead I would just encourage you (as the book does) to be better able to justify your beliefs, and reflect upon them enough to grow in application and understanding. While it was nice to have a full book of biblically-supported reasoning to hold these exhortations, I think they're basic enough to not need it. Basically, think more and think better.

why & so

By means of beginning, I want to explain why I've started this blog and what I hope will come of it. But first a rough introduction: I am Isaac John Stovell, twenty years old, living and studying in Sheffield [England], and I expect that many more details will be shared and explained in future posts. I don't want to write a blog about my life because (aside from marginally higher degrees of pretentiousness and eloquence) it would be almost indistinguishable from most other humdrum lives. However, other than random events occurring in my everyday life (which I already tweet and facebookpost about if they're interesting enough) or my reactions to current events (which likewise), the only consistent reliable source of interesting things for me to say is my reactions to my reading material.

   So this blog is going to be about books that I've read; which hopefully will be enough to supply a regular stream of posts. I've read a lot since early childhood, but don't give myself enough opportunity to properly digest and derive meaning from books - which is a shame, because books contain a lot of digestible derivable meaning. So I'm forcing myself to (the date of publication is no coincidence - this is part of my New Year's Resolutions and it's easily the most fun part, give me a bibliophile's blog over jogging and sleeping patterns any day) think about the books I've read, by writing a reflective post about each one as soon as I've had a chance to think over it once I've completed it. These aren't intended as mere reviews of whether or not I liked the book and why; I want to properly get my nails into themes, concepts, meanings, characters, genres, dramas, philosophical implications. I'll try to be as reasonably opinionated as possible, for I am a man of strong opinions and strong reasons for holding them. I'll also commit to posting links for obtainment or discovery of each book that I discuss in case I somehow sway your interest.

   Hopefully through writing this blog I will become more in tune with my thoughts and the thoughts that I imbibe through my bookshelf. Hopefully also through reading this blog (if there are any readers; I'm not bothered if there aren't as this is more of a therapeutic personal thought-process, but if people want to read what I've written about what I read, fair enough) you will become provoked into reading a particular book and thinking about something that may enchant, enrage, enamour or otherwise enlighten you.

   So, rules to keep me blogging nicely:

1. Every book I finish from January 2014 onwards, I will write a post about it, as soon as possible after finishing it.
   1.1 Every book, that is, which I read recreationally. Therefore discounting the large array of books I have to read for wider course research and understanding (I'm currently partway through a degree in economics and philosophy); also excluding my regular Bible readings (if one day I should decide to sit down and read through the whole of it, I'll do a post, sure, but habitual devotional readings aren't quite the same as recreational reading).

2. Posts should ideally be somewhat interesting and try to critically engage with the book at least more than a bit. My responses may be excuse-laden but I'll try.

3. Posts should contain as few non-book pop-culture references as possible.

4. Posts should contain full author/title information and links to Goodreads or Amazon or wherever in case readers want to read the books I've read.

5. No spoilers, if posting about fiction. This will be the most difficult rule, but I'll limit myself to books' introductory and thematic elements instead of ruining the endings.

6. Should these standards fail to be kept, any reader who cares enough is encouraged to contact and rebuke me.

   Hope you enjoy reading any of my posts and any of the books they're about.

      Cheers for now,

         Isaac Stovell