the Reason for God

This book by Tim Keller is a reasonably accessibly-written but thoroughly intellectually-robust apologetic for the Christian faith. I recently read Francis Spufford's marvellous effort at proposing an entirely irrational apologetic, so I thought I'd balance it out with something that appeals more to the head than the gut - and this did not disappoint. I have read this book before, the summer before I started this blog, so retained a sense of its general gist, but it was truly a pleasure to revisit the concrete arguments.

   Keller splits the book into two sections of seven chapters each.* After a brief introduction exploring the helpfulness and limits of doubt in our contemporary skeptical culture, the first half digs into some of the biggest obstacles in the way of people coming into meaningful contact with the Christian faith, and for each shows how all of these hurdles are actually based on unprovable "faith" assumptions in themselves. These issues are:

1. the problem of Christianity's exclusivity when there are so many other competing religions
2. the problem of suffering, which exists despite God being supposedly purely good & all-powerful
3. the restrictive limitations following Christianity places upon a human life
4. the historical injustices & present hypocrisies of the Church
5. the thorny issue of Hell - surely a good God wouldn't be so extreme as to condemn people to an eternity of suffering?
6. the challenge supposedly posed by science, which many consider to have disproved religion for good
7. the logical and ethical snafus entailed in taking the Bible literally
   
   Having dealt with some of the strongest and commonest arguments against Christianity, we then have a short intermission chapter which considers the subjective nature of rationality itself. Then we head into the second set of seven chapters, which pose some of the strongest reasons for Christian belief.
   
   
8. the orderliness (and indeed existence) of the universe & meaningfulness
9. the innate sense of moral standards that seems essentially universal to humankind
10. the existential hole that sin leaves in the human heart, which we try to fill with idols but can only be satisfied by God
11. the radically distinctive nature of the Christian gospel as compared to other religions
12. the rationally revolting but emotionally intuitive core of Christianity - the incarnate God crucified for our sake
13. the resurrection of Jesus & the explosive emergence of the early Church being the simplest & best historical explanations for each other
14. God's Trinitarian nature providing a cogent & appealing explanation for the natures of creation & humankind

   Having dismantled some of the strongest arguments against and illumined some of the clearest arguments for Christianity, the concluding chapter is a gentle but confident prod for the reader of what to do if they feel themselves approaching a faith that they can truly call their own. After the philosophical and theological weight of the chief portion of the book this provides a comforting pastoral cool-down, though for non-Christian readers this may well be the most challenging part of the whole text.

   Overall I think this is a great book for making the case for Christianity in as best reasoned a way as possible. Keller never lands on absolute proof, but his earlier chapters show that nor do critiques of faith; and his points throughout cohere to short-circuit "absolute rationality" into a more pragmatic reasonability to which I think Christian belief is well-suited. A highly recommended book for Christians who want to supplement their own skillset in arguing for the Kingdom, and moreso a must-read for those whose curiosity about Christian faith is drowned out by overwhelming presumption that the case against it is too strong.

* Summarising the arguments Keller makes in each of these chapters is beyond the scope of this post, so you'll just have to take my word for it that his treatment of all matters discussed is intellectually humble but compellingly-put. And hey, I am a completely fallible blogger so if you don't want to take my word for it, you'll have to read the book and decide for yourself.

Unapologetic

This book by Francis Spufford is, despite his claims that it isn't an apologetic as it makes zero effort to engage with classic philosophical arguments for or against any particular theological claims, by far and away the best Christian apologetic I've ever read. I've literally just read the whole book in a single sitting* it's that good. The subtitle proclaims it as an exploration of "why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense" - and to say it achieves the goal of making a case for this with aplomb would be a grand disservice to the word aplomb. It runs its course over eight perfectly-structured chapters:

1. a general introduction; statement of intent for the book
2. the existential experience of sin, or as he translates it the Human Propensity to Fuck Things Up
3. the frustrating ineffability of God in light of people's recurrent sense of needing, if not Him, then something to fill that gap
4. the confounding problem of suffering
5. the personality, teachings, mission and passion of one Yeshua from Nazareth
6. the historically improbable paradoxes surrounding the emergence of Christianity as a coherent religion
7. the complicated legacy and situational state of the Church
8. the subjective feeling entailed in having faith that one is forgiven, and the challenges and opportunity implied herein

   It's deeply insightfully clever without being scholarly**, bewilderingly matter-of-fact in what it says and completely down-to-earth in how it says it, balancing common-sense public presumption with personal but universally recognisable experiences and dazzlingly original points that lead him into compelling conclusions without ever making anything that so much as looks like a rational argument. Spufford not only doesn't avoid the prickly areas of conversation around Christianity in its contemporary context but actively leans into them and tries to give them as much benefit of the doubt as possible, and somehow still manages to wrangle cogent and meaningful ways of sidestepping or outright neutering them. He writes with a disarming simplicity and a refreshing honesty that if such style was wider emulated by Christian authors (and indeed everyday evangelising believers) I hazard to expect that we would see a great many more folks showing interest in the faith.

   Overall, this is a more-or-less perfect example of communicating Christianity effectively in a postmodern culture. If we are presumed by the world around us to be irrational, then give up on trying to convince people by reason - and talk about what it feels like to have one's messy spiritual life wrapped up in what never has been and never will be scientifically verifiable but is indisputably salient in its psychological cohesion to those who try to believe it. If you're a Christian, read this and be inspired to draw on your own emotional experience to communicate your own faith more fluidly, with less intellectual trumps and more confounding expressivity. If you're not a Christian - this book won't convince you to become one, but it may very well provoke you to give it a bloody good consideration.

* With minor breaks only to piss, smoke, and make more coffee.

** Spufford humbly boasts in a note at the end of the book that aside from checking to ensure the accuracy of certain factual claims and quotations used, he conducted exactly no research whatsoever throughout his writing process.

George Herbert - the Complete Works

This book is, as you probably inferred from the title, a complete collection of the works of the 17th-century poet George Herbert. I've been reading this very slowly for the past four years, having been gifted it by my second-eldest brother when he was very concerned about me (as I was having a psychotic episode at the time) and thought some archaic Christian poetry would break through to me, which it *kind of* did - I heavily annotated the first thirty or so pages of it in purple biro, emerged from the psychotic episode (after about a week) and then finished reading it bit by gratitude-debt bit in the time since then. It's a hard book to binge, being 17th-century poetry and so rather archaic and (sorry Josiah) stuffy in tone while also being deeply overtly deliberatively Christian in content, theme and message, which makes every poem, no matter how artful (and they are artful - the majority of the poems in this book are as technically well-constructed as their theology is orthodox-Anglican), feel somewhat like you're being sermonised at.

   The poetry is all lumped together in one big collection called The Church, with poems (mostly rather short, and often sonnets, which seem to be a particular specialty of Herbert's) unsurprisingly centring thematically around classic weighty Christian concepts, such as consciousness of one's own sin, prayer, confession, hope, grace, forgiveness, love, joy, peace, etc. This bulk of the book is prologued by a longer poem called The Church Porch which is much meatier in terms of a challenging mental/spiritual engagement as it explores the inner dynamics of a person weighing themselves up before entering a church (in both a day-to-day instance and in the lifelong sense), and epilogued by another longer poem called The Church Militant which is a triumphal hearty toot on the eschatological trumpet of what God's people look like from an eternal perspective.

   Alongside the poetry which forms the core backbone of the collected works, there is a 37 chapter prose piece called The Country Parson which is half essay, half sermon, half manual on how to be an effective parish priest (I will freely admit I somewhat skimmed this - it has a good deal of wisdom in it but nothing particularly groundbreaking), and a compiled list of 1,024 "Outlandish Proverbs", which initially I was rather excited by as I assumed George had come up with them all himself - however it seems more that he simply collected folksy wisdom from all over the place and put it all together in one big wodge (some of which is retained in proverb and idiom to this day, some of which is mere tautology or common-sensical to the point of banality, and some of which is downright impenetrable). Finally there is a small array of letters, lectures, translations, and his will, none of which I bothered to read at all.

   Christian readers who enjoy neatly-constructed if somewhat repetitive and decidedly unadventurous poetry will find a lot of edifying stuff in this book. Non-Christian poetry enjoyers will probably find it coming on far too strong a moralising and proselytising voice to read past. And non-Christian non-poetry enjoyers probably have no reason whatsoever to engage with the works of George Herbert unless it's part of your current academic syllabus to whatever extent. All that said, receiving this book four years ago was a significant moment in helping me claw me way back to sanity, so I will forever owe it that at least.

What Would Jesus Post?

This book by David Robertson takes that classic wristband acronym WWJD* and transplants it into the chaotic modern context of social media - hence the title. It's a good question. Were history's most famous Nazarene to have accounts on one of those half-dozen websites that constitute today's internet, what kind of content would he be putting out? Would he be a TikTok influencer? Instagram inspirer? YouTube video essayist? Twitter rage-debater? Reddit helper-outer of strangers lost in Google searches? Verbose blogger? Tumblr sharer of unprompted unhinged angles on stuff? Facebook shitposter? Some combination of any or all of the above? We simply don't know.**

   That doesn't mean we can't take the lessons learned from him and try our best to apply them to the communications landscape in which we find ourselves today, and I think Robertson has done a pretty solid job in this book of applying 2000ish-year-old meta-ethical precepts to Very New Paradigms of Possibility. It's far from a comprehensive*** manual, but as a starting point offers some healthy and biblical broad principles we can bear in mind as we engage with online communities as Christians. I think this is a very helpful and well thought-out book, and I would highly recommend it as a resource - most especially for older generations who have immigrated to the internet after an analogue life, and so aren't as adept as The Youth at navigating the psychosocial turbulence that all online society entails.

   Before concluding this post, I will give a special mention to the format of the chapters in this book, as they're all broken down into the same sections that help lend flow and intentionality to the reading process. We open with an introductory overview of "the way it is", before digging deeper into some relevant theological concepts, then having a "pause for thought" in which what's just been discussed is thrown over to us to particularly consider, after which in a "joining the dots" section we consider contextual or social elements that apply what we've just read to the realities of contemporary internet use, then "a way forward" points us toward particular behaviours or attitudes that help us maintain Christian consistency on these issues, a Bible verse or two with an explanation of how it helps us navigate this, "wisdom from the Psalms" as far as I can tell being simply a nice balm to the soul to concentrate on the spiritual side of life rather than being prompted to relate everything back to the online, and finally a few questions to prompt further thought. The length and order of these sections varies chapter to chapter but overall they are consistent throughout the book and make it a much more engaging discipleship experience as a reader.

* "What Would Jesus Do?" for you heathens unfamiliar.

** My money's split between Facebook shitposting and completely out-of-left-field Tumblr dumps, both of which would be essentially parables converted to fit the format. If ministry responsibilities left him with enough free time he'd probably have a YouTube channel with over 10,000,000 views but only 372 subscribers, on which the Tumblr parables are delivered vocally (as you'd expect, the comments sections are full of confusion, people who only watched the first ten seconds, and a minority of people saying "this changed my life"). He'd probably have Twitter, but unless he had something that absolutely HAD to be said there and then, he'd only use it for ironically retweeting Pharisees and Roman officials. If anyone in Jesus's orbit has a blog it's probably Matthew, and Peter and John would have competing Instagram and TikTok accounts documenting the day-to-day doings of the disciples.

*** There are chapters on: the internet as a public arena, prayer, porn, confession, sowing seeds, our digital tongue, dwelling in God's presence, wisdom and discernment, humility, hospitality and generosity, the Sabbath, spiritual gifts, spiritual fruit, gossip, persecution, the footprints we leave, and community. For a pretty short book it covers a lot of ground, but with Christianity and the internet both being as diversely complexly themselves as they are, one can easily imagine entire books being written about any of these chapters. Which is what I mean when I say this is more of an introductory provocation text.

Just Living

This book by Ruth Valerio is a brilliant resource for furnishing a Christianity-shaped thought train about social, economic and environmental justice. Its ideas are presented with ample but not suffocating explanation, and plenty of pragmatic but not exhaustive pointers for further consideration or praxis.

   The first third of the book explores the fields of the issues at hand; the nature and complexities of both globalisation and consumerism, and then the specific economic-cultural context the modern Church finds itself in when relating to these - hegemonic as they are.

   The middle third is the meaty theory section, where we really dig into theological and philosophical groundings for the origin and trajectory of applicable ethics: Valerio first looks at how simply neglecting the Church's relationship to socioeconomic justice leads to a Christianity that is merely therapeutic and basically capitulates to consumer capitalism; next we consider how the Church should relate to money and property, with a look at the ascetic monastic traditions (with St Benedict and St Francis especially focused on); then finally how Aristotle conceived and Thomas Aquinas developed notions of the interrelation of justice and temperance as virtues, and how these uphold human flourishing when rightly understood and practiced.

   The final third of the book is given over to practical exhortation - prompting the reader to think of what they can do to put these ideas into practice, and making the case for doing so. This includes: reorienting our perspectives to be more cognizant of socioeconomic and environmental injustice; aligning our attitudes toward money and material goods to Biblical ethics, and following on from that seeking to consume as ethically as we plausibly can; engaging fruitfully with our local communities; stepping into activism to provoke change in unsustainable & unjust structures; and lastly making prayerful & fruitful use of the time that is given to us.

   I have to say, as someone who has already put a great deal of thought into the nature & necessity of Christian work for ethical, justice-oriented living, I didn't personally learn a lot from this book. However I did find it edifying & encouraging, and it helped strengthen & deepen my understanding of the shared space my faith & my social/political inclinations occupy. Valerio's credentials as a theologian are just as valid as her credentials as an activist and from reading this book you will be left with an indelible sense of engaging with the wisdom & insight of someone who really does their best to walk the walk they talk. It is also highly readable, and though dealing with some relatively complex topics (especially in chapter six) it skilfully explains everything with minimal jargon, of both the theological & the socio-political kinds. I'd highly recommend this as a book to give to Christians who take following Jesus seriously but don't seem all that fussed about justice; it might serve to tip them over the fence.

the Corpus Hermeticum

This book is one I've read before and thus blogged about before, see prior post - although this text is very easily available for free online, I've not included links either there or here as maintaining an air of mystery seems key for me in these kinds of cryptic ancient documents. I can't really say I got much new out of it on a second reading - it still feels like wisdom farting in your face for fun. To discern anything meaningful from these writings would either take a lifetime of arcane study or an unthought-out kneejerk series of seemingly-brilliant hunches, neither of which I really have time for. As lurid and enjoyable as the Corpus Hermeticum is, I really don't think it has, or arguably has ever had, really that much to offer philosophy, science, or faith. So, yeh. Don't take my word for it - give it a google and read the .pdf of the thing. It will confuse you and illuminate you in equal measure, ultimately leading nowhere special.

Stories of God

This book by Rainer M. Rilke is a collection of thirteen inter-related short stories, framed through the device of an unnamed narrator telling these stories to various elderly or disabled friends. It was written in 1899 after Rilke visited rural Russia where he met many spiritually inspiring peasants - the text has probably been translated into English a few times, but I used the Shambhala 2003 version.

   Anyway. Whatever God these are stories of, it is not the Abrahamic one. Rilke's God is vaguely easy to like as a character but very hard to imagine one seriously worshipping as a deity. 'God' comes across as benevolent, yes - but also impotent, neurotic, infantile at times; the stories may have poignant poetic overtones but they are rather devoid of any meaningful insight into God's character as understood by orthodox tradition, or even mystics - it reads like the excited scribblings of someone who has found themselves suddenly entranced by mysticism & wants to dabble in it despite having minimal understanding of spiritual or theological frameworks underlying all said authentic mysticisms. Which, knowing Rilke's biography, is probably a fairly astute judgement.

   The human characters in these stories too are quite boringly sketched; they seem to have one personality between them and that largely a mere mechanism for delivering authorial ponderings (except in the last chapter, where they behave more like actual characters) . This collection of stories may be titillating to the heart & provocative to the mind but they have virtually nothing to offer the soul. Which I for one found disappointing for a book of such a title. Sharpish prose & dullish ideas; interesting & entertaining, but not particularly helpful for any real, deep explorations in faith. A few of them are fairly edifying, but chapter eleven, about the artists' association, is in my opinion the closest any of them come to making an original potent point.

   I would maybe recommend this if you'd be interested in well-written curious little folk fairy-tales with 'God' as the core character - but if you're looking for profound, challenging, spiritually-insightful fiction, this probably isn't it.

Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh!

This book is a Warhammer 40,000 novel by Nate Crowley, following the mysterious and epic biography of that most supreme of all orkish warlords, Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka - whose story is finally able to be told to humanity in something like its fulness for the first time since their banner-bearer, a gretchen called Makari, is captured and questioned by the Inquisition.

   As you'd expect of a novel with orks at the heart (cf. Brutal Kunnin), this is a hilarious and thoroughly violent read; but as a window in the subjectivities of an orkish life, their culture, their worship of Gork and Mork, their secret shames and highest hopes, this is a true gem of a book that gives real tangible complex personality to the funniest faction in the fictional universe. Ghazghkull, from their brain trauma* to their triumphs in battle,** is as complexly sketched as the best human characters from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series - only as an ork. With ork shames and ork hopes, ork wiles, ork vices and virtues. I would be genuinely shocked if the Black Library ever managed to release another book that does as much for the exploration of orkish psychology as this one does. And yet it is more than a character study, for Ghazghkull's life has ramifications that reverberate across the galaxy in the mighty WAAAGH of which they is prophet and leader - all of which is to say, this story isn't over.

   For fans of 40k, this is highly recommended; especially for ork players, this is a must-read. Enjoyers of tongue-in-cheek science fiction more generally will find a lot to love here too.

* As a young ork they was horribly injured, losing most of their upper skull, but they managed to hold their own brains in while for several days trekking across hostile wilderness until they found a doctor who could staple them back together and put a plate over the gap to keep the grey matter inside. However injurious though, this near-braining is credited with what gives Thraka such an intimate and demonstrable understanding of the will and ways of Gork and Mork - it is their pain that made them the prophet.

** Except against their "favourite enemy", Commissar Yarrick, who they never quite managed to defeat and so came to respect deeply - insofar as an ork can respect a human.

Easy Esperanto Reader

This book by Myrtis Smith and Thomas Alexander is a collection of five* short stories with Esperanto and Spanish translations included alongside. The stories themselves are of a shockingly diverse range in genre and tone, and were mildly entertaining, though I can't say I would have ever been prone to read them had they not been offering the opportunities to deepen my grasp on a pair of languages I'm trying to learn. Their uses of vocabulary and grammar are simple enough that a halfway competent student of Spanish or Esperanto can dig up a fair amount of new intuitions as to words and rules through reading these closely with regular comparison to the English translation, for which purpose I did find this a useful little book. And it's very cheap on Kindle, which is what prompted my buying of it. I do think though that I'm going to try to finish the Duolingo Esperanto course before I try to read any more actual fiction written in the language as then my confidence and comprehension will be greater. But as a halfway testing point for learners this was pretty solid.

* There is a sixth story included though this lacks translation, and was thus of much lesser utility in learning any new vocabulary.

the Trinity and the Kingdom of God

This book by Jürgen Moltmann is one I've read pretty recently, hence that link leading to my last post about it. The reason I'm doing another post is that I've been reading through it with my dad, to help prompt us to challenge each other into thinking deeply about theology. I can only say it's been a pleasurable and edifying experience, and on a second read a lot of his arguments hit home far more clearly.

Renewal as a Way of Life

This book by Richard Lovelace is a guidebook for Christian spiritual growth. It is a condensed version of Lovelace's prior book Dynamics of Spiritual Life, but also entails an extra seven years-worth of reflections and learning around individual and corporate renewal, so it goes beyond the original in many regards.

   The book is split into three main chunks. Firstly, in exploring the normal Christian life, we consider how our lives are to be centred on God and His Kingdom; here we are given the "preconditions for renewal", those being an awareness of God's holiness, expressed in His love and His justice, and a complementary awareness of the depth of sin both in oneself and in the world. Orienting one's heart and mind in these ways is the root of sustainable and renewable spiritual life.

   Secondly, we look at the unholy trifecta of phenomena which constitute the "dynamics of spiritual death": those being the flesh, the world, and the devil. This middle section of the book is chock-full of practical insights into discerning when & where these are at play, and then navigating around or through them as we continue living under & for God.

   The third and final section explores the dynamics of spiritual life. The first chapter in this part dives into the Messianic victory of Christ and its explosively potent implications for followers of Jesus; the next two chapters dig deeper into how living out these implications manifests in firstly individual and secondly corporate (church) renewal. In these chapters we are introduced to the primary and secondary elements of renewal. Primarily, through faith in Christ as individuals we can be assured that we are accepted by God (justification), free from bondage to sin (sanctification), not alone thanks to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and granted authority over the spiritual powers of evil. Secondarily as we live in the light of these assurances we can follow Jesus into the world, presenting his gospel in proclamation & social demonstration (mission); we can depend on the power of the risen Christ in solitary & corporate prayer; we can enjoy community in the united body of Christ on micro- & macro- levels; and we can ever-more-progressively have the mind of Christ toward both revealed truth & our own cultural contexts by integrating theological learning & practice.

   I got a lot out of this book. It's accessibly written & consistently focused, leaning on the orthodox essentials without getting bogged down in theological corners; it's thoroughly Biblical throughout (with a Scripture quote or two on almost every page) & never tries to do more than it claims to be aiming to. Each chapter is closed off with a half-dozen or so discussion questions, as Lovelace does mention in the introduction that this would be an ideal book to work through with a small group of fellow disciples, and I imagine that doing so would be an incredibly fruitful experience, but so is just reading it to yourself. This is a book that does not make light of how difficult the Christian path can be at times, but it steadfastly instils confidence that if we have our eyes, hearts & minds attuned to God-in-Christ we will continue down the path of renewal until we are called home.

the Coming of God

This book is the fifth and final of Jürgen Moltmann's contributions to systematic theology, and as the title may suggest to the astute reader this one deals in-depth* with eschatology. As with the posts about the previous four I will give a rough overview of the book's contents before giving a bit of commentary, and as this is the last book in this series as is my wont I will then dive into some broader thoughts and reflections on the five book series as a whole. The contents of this book are split into five broad chunks:

1. Eschatology today - the transpositions of eschatology into time and eternity respectively; then the notion of God's comingness; then a tour through some key thinkers in Judaism who have contributed to a rebirth of messianic thinking.
2. Personal eschatology (i.e. eternal life) - conceptions of death as the end of life; contrasting ideas across the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body; a consideration of whether death is a natural ending or the consequence of sin; the prickly question of exactly "where" the dead are; and finally the psychospiritual experience of grief and mourning.
3. Historical eschatology (i.e. God's Kingdom) - political and apocalyptic versions of "the end" of history; the messianic picture; three wildly differing conceptions of millenarianism followed by a sharply nuanced consideration of whether millenarianism is even necessary; a look at exterminism (the idea that through military, ecological, or economic factors humankind may simply commit itself to an apocalyptic physical end - that is, death); a further consideration of whether apocalypticism is a necessary component of eschatology at all; and lastly an optimistic but grounded view of God's promises about the restoration of creation, in which he meticulously walks us through the theological and biblical cases for and against the idea of universal salvation (and I'll be honest - this was a big red flag initially given the particular flavour of Protestant orthodoxy I grew up in, where Hell is a necessary given, but I'm far more agnostic about the whole tangle since reading this chapter).
4. Cosmic eschatology (i.e. the New Creation) - firstly using Sabbath and Shekinah as springboard concepts into the future of creation; then the question of whether when the end comes creation will be annihilated, transformed, or deified; the ends of time and space in the eternal presence of God; and finally the scriptural metaphor of the heavenly Jerusalem as God's conclusive cosmic temple.
5. Divine eschatology (i.e. God's glory) - how all eschatological issues ultimately lead to the total and perfect self-realisation and self-glorification of God, in which a redeemed humankind is included as participant to the eternal experience, as God and His creation experience a total and perfect endless fulness, a feast of pure unending joy.

   So that's what's in here. Much of it was initially surprising to me, especially the universalism, but as I read and considered I realised more and more that the gravitational centre and methodological nature of Moltmann's theological system is so finely tuned to the core concepts of who we know God to be and logically extrapolating (with an almost outrageously generously ecumenical list of inspirational sources for these arguments) how, God being as God is and the world being as we understand it, the biblical worldview tends to lean further one way than another, and it all points not to fear and exclusivity but to redemptive renewal and inclusion and hope and joy.

   I trust it is abundantly clear that I am coming at this not as a professional academic with anywhere near enough experience or learning to start poking series critiques into Moltmann's system; I have approached these books as an enthusiastic amateur thirsting for a solid and coherent basic framework to hang my comprehension of Christian theology upon, and old Jürgen simply happened to be the first theologian who had composed such a framework that I happened to decide to pick up and work through. But I am deeply glad for that fact. These books have been an intellectual challenge, to be sure, but the more of them I read the more all the rest of what had come before made sense, and the richer my grasp of many of the fundamental tenets of Christian faith became. Obviously there are the big three caveats, which I have mentioned in posts about previous books in this series - firstly, that these books have been translated from German, so sentence structure is often quite difficult to follow; secondly, that Moltmann, being an academic theologian primarily writing to contribute to ongoing discourse within academic theology, while far from being recklessly obfuscatory or obtuse, is not writing for an entry-level audience, and so much of what he's talking about is quite difficult to get one's head around on first reading (or even second or fourth); and thirdly that Moltmann, being an academic in general, has a nasty habit of dumping in a random phrase in Greek or Latin (or even French or German sometimes) without offering a translation for it, even in the footnotes.** These pre-warnings aside, I think most moderately-educated-in-theological-terminology folks would find this series of books largely agreeable in style and especially in substance; Moltmann throughout this systematic theology has drawn widely and humbly on everything from Eastern Orthodox mysticism to strictly Reformed doctrinal positions and Catholic catechisms to Latin American liberation theology, and managed to work all of it into a cogently and compellingly structured model of what we must be talking about when we talk about the Trinity, or creation, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or the apocalypse, or many other enormous and intimidating themes in the thought that has grown up around Christian faith - a model that while intellectually satisfying still leaves one with a sense of immense mystery and wonder at God's ways and being; a model that is not dry and stultifying but openly celebratory of the goodness of God and the life-giving truths that He has left us to work out and live in.

   As I said, this is the first systematic theology I've read, and I hope I won't be mentally lazy enough in the rest of my reading journey that it's my last - but it's been a thoroughly engaging and liberating one, and I would heartily recommend this whole series to any Christian who like I was finds themself in search of a holistic roadmap to thinking about their faith. Heck, I'd even recommend it to non-Christians who simply find Christian theology to be full of inconsistencies and contradictions, as they may well realise through Moltmann's rigour and breadth that there is far more internal logic at play than an external observer would easily guess.

* I say in-depth because all five of Moltmann's books in this series dig pretty deeply through eschatology, but only in this concluding volume is it front and centre in consideration.

** Which is frankly absurd, I mean, it's not like the footnotes couldn't spare the time. There's a lot of them (and honestly many of them add an excellent clarificatory point to the main text) in all five volumes.

the Spirit of Life

This book is the fourth of Jürgen Moltmann's series of contributions to systematic theology, this one dealing with the Holy Spirit's nature, character, and activity. The book is subtitled "a universal affirmation" and it delivers on this promise, as I will expand on later. For now, let's go through a rough outline of its contents - after a brief introduction discussing contemporary approaches to pneumatology, the book is split into three main parts:

1. Experiences of the Spirit - starting with a consideration of how God, being immanently transcendent, is experienced through experiences of life itself; then how the Spirit has been experienced historically, as divine energy, through God's people, the Shekinah, and messianic expectation; and finally Trinitarian experiences reflected in Christ's own spirituality, the spirit of Christ, and the mutuality between these two members of the Trinity.
2. Life in the Spirit - here we deal with the spiritual vitality of life; the liberation aspect as the Spirit bestows freedom upon its subjects; the justification aspect as the Spirit brings justice to victims, perpetrators, and structures; the regeneration and rebirth themes; the holiness which the Spirit helps people grow into through sanctification; the specific charismatic powers that the Spirit bestows upon select individuals and the purposes of these; and lastly how all this fits into thinking about mystical experience.
3. The fellowship and person of the Spirit - we first look at experience of fellowship and how this is interpenetrated with experience of the Spirit, how this is expressed in Christianity, and how loving relationships embody a social experience of God's being; then move onto ways of describing the personality of the Spirit through a range of utterly inadequate but humanly helpful metaphors (grouped into personal, formative, movement, and mystical), the streaming divinity of the Spirit's personhood, and how this fits together with various conceptions of the Trinitarian schema [the final section of this last bit takes a bit of a left turn to consider whether the filioque is a superfluous addition to the Nicene Creed or not, which is a bit detached from the rest of the book but in such an ecumenical sequence of ideas it's good to have it in there].

   So clearly this book covers a lot of ground - and the same caveats as I've given in previous posts about Moltmann's books apply here. But that subtitle, "a universal affirmation", truly does describe the overall bent of this book: while it is densely academic in style, to grasp the thrust of the arguments being made is to genuinely be held close in the encouraging embrace of the Holy Spirit as that which loves and affirms life in itself - I've labelled the post for this one "spirituality" not because it offers anything new or innovative to the Christian experience of spiritual life but because it so deeply and roundly affirms the goodness and the dependability of the basic facts of the Christian life insofar as it is spiritually experienced. The world these days is all too often dark and confusing, and much of the time I find it hard even with my faith to look to the future as the site of many tangible promises for human flourishing; but this book has done more to restore my trust in God's ineffable brilliance and unpredictability and love for that which is recognisable yet new, fresh, surprising, than almost anything else I've ever read. If you're only going to read one book out of Moltmann's contributions to systematic theology, I'd make it this one, as it will give you an identity statement and modus operandi for arguably the most mysterious member of the Trinity, that will deepen your cognizance of God's work in the world and your life, and broaden the intake valves of your heart for abundant security of hope and joy.

Fire with Fire

This book by Naomi Wolf is a powerfully optimistic perspective on the rising tide of female power toward the end of the 20th-century, envisioning how this trend can be held onto & grown into the 21st.*

   The text is split into five parts: firstly, an examination of what she calls the "genderquake" and the declining hegemony of masculine power, with a concomitant shift in female consciousness; secondly, considerations of where feminism may be falling short of its potential in recent years as it becomes co-opted by middle-class consumer models alien to its radical roots; fourthly, a dissection of the feminine fear of power & the need for a new psychology to emerge to overcome this; fifthly & finally recommendations for where to go from where the book concludes.

   I neglected to mention the third part above as that forms the longest chunk of the book, and is most central to Wolf's whole gist with it. Here she outlines two competing traditions within feminism as she sees it: "power feminism", which is all about maximally fighting for & holding onto equality without shame or doubt; and "victim feminism", which is more about emphasising the difference between men & women then highlighting the ways in which the former harm & suppress the latter all in an impotent hand-wringing sort of way. Wolf makes it very clear that she vehemently feels victim feminism has run up against number of cultural & socio-political impasses, and is now largely holding the wider movement back. There are implications in these chapters to be found of relevance to modern marginalised communities - those protesting their rights on the streets versus those who would rather simply retreat into a demarked safe space. In my opinion Wolf goes a little too harshly in her critique, and though her principles are in the right place she can't expect everybody to have the circumstances or disposition necessary to join her at the same exact spice level of her own activism. Another critique I would make is that her discussion of feminism in general is far from satisfyingly intersectional, though given the age of this book I suppose that's to be expected.

   While outdated in many places, I still found this a compelling and interesting perspective on the promise & potential of feminism, and though the basic points are almost certainly better said more relevantly to the 2020's by more recent authors, I guess this would be worth a read if you're interested in the evolution of contemporary feminist thought.

* So much & yet so little has changed since this was published over thirty years ago - one has to wonder how much of this book's core theses would still be held by Wolf today, as well as how many extra chapters she would need to add to discuss the tectonic shifts in feminism generally in those intervening decades.

Legion

This book by Dan Abnett is the seventh Horus Heresy novel, and the strangest yet by a mile. The Adeptus Astartes are barely in it! For the majority of the narrative we're following regular human soldiers through a largely uneventful* conflict where despite the overall lack of significant threat there is a significant aura of uncertainty due to the secrecy and shadiness of the Alpha Legion, the Astartes supporting them in this arena - secrecy and shadiness only compounded by the Alpha Legion's primarch Alpharius never quite seeming to be exactly the same person twice, though nobody can ever quite exactly tell as all of the Alpha Legion look so similar. The chief secondary plotline follows a mysterious immortal human called John Grammaticus, who is on a mission all his own to manipulate the Alpha Legion into contacting and collaborating with The Cabal, an inter-species collective of concerned parties working for the future cohesion of galactic order. Without giving away too much about what Alpharius and company make of the Cabal, or Grammaticus's role in things, there is a serious bombshell in here about how an Astartes Legion may choose to throw their weight behind the forces of heresy not out of disloyalty to the Imperium but out of sheer, cold, calculated pragmatism for the greater good. This is a disarmingly gripping instalment in the series - no major epic battles, but a deeper, sharper war over trust and truth.

* So much so that there is a solid six-page passage devoted to describing a weird little game that the troops play amongst themselves wherein they have to find a rock head only just smaller than the next biggest rock head someone else has. I found this bit thoroughly entertaining.

Descent of Angels

This book by Mitchel Scanlon is the sixth instalment of the Horus Heresy mega-series. In this one we open into a time before the Great Crusade had even properly taken off yet - those days when the Emperor (who we do get a snapshot glimpse of partway through for the first time in the series) was still collecting the primarchs from across the galaxy - in this case, Lion el'Jonson* of the planet Caliban, which is home to knightly orders sworn to protect the citizenry of their world from the great and terrible beasts which pretty much control the deep, dark forests covering most of the planet. Throughout the book we follow cousins Zahariel and Nemiel on their journey from supplicants to the Lion's knightly Order, to their establishment within the ranks as fully-grown knights, then the utterly unexpected arrival of Imperial forces turning Caliban's forests into factories and its culture into a mere expansion of the Emperor's divine mission to unite humanity - the shock of this transition is tempered significantly by the acceptance of both into the ranks of el'Jonson's new Astartes Legion, the Dark Angels, and these brave children of Caliban join the Crusade rolling through the galaxy to whatever end. So ultimately this book is less epic in scope than most of the previous instalments, but it provides a vitally interesting window into what worlds (and primarchs) may have been like before the Emperor came along to bestow upon them their Imperial destiny, and explores the potential sources of friction from this grand inclusion.

* Easily my favourite primarch so far - he just oozes chivalry and charisma.

Zen in the Art of Writing

This book is a collection of essays by Ray Bradbury on the art of writing. He was an exceptionally prolific and deeply skilled writer so it goes without saying that this is a very readable text. Moreover the nature of the thoughts and insights he has on the writing process, from the quandaries of inspiration to the mechanics of typing, are incredibly useful - I read this as I am suffering from somewhat of a creative slump in my own writing activities, but I have to say I found Ray's words here to be immensely liberating, empowering, and so forth. If you're already a fan of Bradbury's work you might find this an interesting insight into his process, but really the main bulk of potential audience I would recommend this to is creative writers themselves. Take good advice from an expert.