OFF THE SHELF CARING FOR WORDS IN A CULTURE OF LIES
ing us mired in calamity. But Caring for Words is not a mere treatise on impending doom. Instead, By Marilyn Chandler McEntyre McEntyre provides a strategy designed Eerdmans both to confront the crisis in which we find ourselves and to “impart the joy of Reviewed by Silas Montgomery a graceful sentence” to those who come after us, for their good and for the good Although I approached Marilyn Chandler of our humanity. Happily the book does McEntyre’s Caring for Words in a Culture not condescend to those without the of Lies with flashbacks to those tedious academic pedigree that McEntyre enjoys. high school English classes that turned Instead it engages as a good novel does, so many of us away from literature, my meeting readers where they are and fears proved unfounded. The book is a walking with them, all the while shapfeast of well-constructed thought and ing how they see themselves and their developed argument that will appeal to journey. any who delight in considered, informed, However, McEntyre does at times and intelligent discourse. digress from philology, hurting her arguMcEntyre argues that as our civiliza- ment and running the risk of alienating tion becomes more technologically driven, her audience.And she occasionally makes we have chosen to neglect the expression reference to theological and political of well-constructed thought, replacing views in such a way that disregards the nuanced articulation of ideas with absurd views of her more conservative brothers hyperbole, willful ignorance, and noisy and sisters in the faith. But these rabbit sound bites. Morally and practically, she trails are a petty nuisance in an otherwise likens the impact of this cultural disin- finely crafted work with a valuable terest in the beauty of good communi- message: Words have taste, meaning, and cation to the ecological disasters recent force. They have been trampled far too generations have created for our prog- long. Be a steward to words — redeem and eny — the pursuit of convenience leav- restore them for the betterment of yourself, your community, and humanity. n Silas Montgomery is completing his MDiv at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill., and currently seeking a pastoral position in a local church.
Dying to Live By Clive Calver Authentic Reviewed by Christina O’Hara As Christians we are to die to ourselves and completely surrender to God’s plan for our lives, asserts Clive Calver in Dying to Live: The Paradox of the Crucified Life. While not a new message by any means PRISM 2 0 1 0
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(A. W. Tozer is quoted throughout), it is an important one that bears repeating. Calver tells interesting stories of friends and colleagues throughout his many years of church and World Relief ministry, but it’s not until two-thirds into the book, when he gets to his personal story of how he and his wife sacrificed the unity of their family in order to follow the call of God, that I was hooked. When Clive and Ruth sensed God’s call to head up World Relief in the US, they decided they would have to leave their teenage sons behind to complete their education in the UK. But just as strong as their sense of God’s call was their sense that, after departing, their sons would walk away from God. But the call persisted, and despite their protests (“It’s not supposed to cost me my family!”) they left, counting the cost but trusting in God. Their sons did indeed leave the church and the faith of their parents, but in the process and over the years they discovered their own faith and now proclaim,“I never knew what it really meant to love Jesus until my dad left me for him.” Enough to send chills down any God-fearing parent’s spine!
We in the Western church tend to seek first our own comfort — a church that “serves my needs”— rather than God’s kingdom and righteousness. Calver reminds us that we must embrace the Cross, dying to ourselves and our own agenda and surrendering to a God who wants to break us and remake us into Spirit-filled people who bear fruit for the kingdom. Rather than seeking to do something for Christ we must instead allow Christ to live his life in us. If we would be filled with his power, we must be willing to relinquish control of everything. I recommend this book for those disillusioned with a flabby and complacent Christianity and hungry for a deeper walk with Christ. Expect to be challenged to make your life count by dying to yourself and inviting Christ to come alive in you. n Christina O’Hara is a campus minister and spiritual director in Sioux Falls, S.Dak.
TRUTH AND TRANSFORMATION By Vishal Mangalwadi YWAM Publishing Reviewed by Michael T. Snarr As I write, the Samoan government is being censured for misusing its posttsunami aid, and President Karzai of Afghanistan is being firmly criticized for widespread governmental corruption. In Truth and Transformation: A Manifesto for Ailing Nations, Vishal Mangalwadi tells us we should not be surprised by such headlines of graft plaguing the non-Western world. Unlike the West, nations like Samoa and Afghanistan were not shaped by the civilizing influence of universal education, which included, among other things, character formation and intellectual development. In contrast, the United
States and Europe are based on the Ten Commandments, obedience, repentance, and other biblical principals. Mangalwadi explains how for centuries, thanks to Augustine, the church stressed the importance of rationality and human reason. As a result, monasteries emphasized the importance of wedding scholarly knowledge to the Christian life. For Mangalwadi, the West’s embrace of the fields of mathematics, theology, agriculture, medicine, metallurgy, etc., enabled it to distinguish itself from the rest of the world. The first section of the book praises Christianity’s unique approach to rationality, as well as to morality, family, and humility. At the same time, Mangalwadi argues that the Enlightenment steered the West away from the very principles that led to its success. Whereas the Christian tradition had honored the intellectual life, the Enlightenment divorced the two. Whereas Christianity emphasized the equality of all, the Enlightenment undermined this moral assumption. Mangalwadi laments the West’s rejection of the keys to its past success. In the second section the author asks if the nations can be healed. Here he calls the church to reassert itself as a beacon on the hill by reclaiming the radical message of Jesus. In the final section he highlights how evangelism, the Holy Spirit, the church, and hope can transform the world. Mangalwadi’s experience of living among the desperately poor in India speaks to his credibility. His breadth of knowledge, especially of the Bible, is evident as he adeptly weaves Scripture throughout to support his key arguments. What’s more, Mangalwadi tells spellbinding stories, delivers a powerful indictment of moral relativism, and highlights the shortcomings of Hinduism. I found myself rooting for Mangalwadi as he sought to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity and its uniqueness. However, many parts of the book PRISM 2 0 1 0
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troubled me. His broad, sweeping generalizations are rarely supported by scholarly citations, and few are data-driven. His claims that the West has been morally superior to non-Western cultures are supported with a handful of anecdotes that ignore the log in the West’s eye — the Crusades, colonization, and slavery, to name just a few. Equally troubling were the author’s occasional misleading assertions. In particular, the author connects Scripture’s emphasis on taking care of one’s neighbor to foreign aid of nations. Regrettably, he makes a glaring error when he sings the praises of US foreign aid and calls it the most generous country in the world. Strangely, Mangalwadi measures generosity by reporting foreign aid in absolute terms instead of relative terms. If US aid is measured based on its ability to give (think of the widow’s mite), it ranks at the bottom when compared to other wealthy countries. These omissions, generalizations, and misleading assertions unfortunately undermine the book’s credibility. But despite these shortcomings, and given both Mangalwadi’s reputation and his status as a scholar born and educated outside the
West, the book merits our attention, especially if Western readers can receive it with humility and discernment rather than self-congratulation and complacency. For as Mangalwadi says, truth is required for transformation. n Michael T. Snarr is associate professor of social and political studies at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.
Everyday Justice By Julie Clawson InterVarsity Press
Confessions of an Eco-Sinner By Fred Pearce Beacon Press Reviewed by Laura Hartley How does the way I live contribute to injustice in the world? This was a question I was forced to reconsider as I recently read two books. I say reconsider because if you are like me, ideas such as “carbon footprint,”“sweatshop,” and “fair trade” are not new. Issues of both environmental stewardship and fair labor practices have been in my awareness to some extent for years. I try to drink only fair-trade coffee, get my vegetables through a local farmers’ cooperative, and avoid shopping at Walmart. Nonetheless, I was reminded through these books that there’s always something more I can do to live responsibly in the world. In Everyday Justice:The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices, Julie Clawson gently pushes her readers to examine their consumption habits in six areas — coffee, chocolate, oil, food, clothing, and waste —areas she has been working on in her own life. She readily admits ways that she falls short in living up to her own ideals but showcases an impressive array
each issue. She reminds us that even small choices, if made by enough people, can have significant consequences. Because she does not want to leave her readers feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems, Clawson asks them to consider “tweaking” rather than overhauling the way they live. I found this approach helpful and did in fact respond by identifying a few additional areas where I could make different choices. Still, I’m left wondering whether the call to justice might demand more of me than simply tweaking my very comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Fred Pearce’s Confessions of an EcoSinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff is a good complement to Clawson’s book. As the subtitle suggests, Pearce, a British journalist, spent two years travof consumption choices from both her eling the world over to investigate where own life and those of other “everyday the items he regularly consumes come practitioners” that help address issues of from, as well as where the waste he produces ends up. environmental and human justice. Written for a more general audience, What Clawson does particularly well is weave a biblical framework for justice Pearce’s book makes fewer explicit through her discussion of modern issues. demands of his readers. His task is more Using texts from throughout the Old descriptive than exhortative, though he and New Testaments, she reminds her admits in the first chapter that his purreaders that the call to living justly is a pose in writing the book is to bring to central theme throughout the Scriptures. light the invisible people and pollution In the chapter on chocolate, for example, that help sustain a typical Western “pershe provides both stories and statistics to sonal footprint” (which he says is both demonstrate that the issue of slavery is as social and ecological). While covering some of the same relevant today as it was for both Paul in the first century andWilliamWilberforce topics as Clawson (food, clothing, waste), Pearce does so in a more specific and in the 19th. Clawson ends her book with a chap- detailed way. In addition to coffee and ter on Third World debt, connected to chocolate, his section on food also examthe biblical concept of jubilee. While ines seafood, herbs and spices, bananas, debt relief is not the same kind of con- palm oil, sugar, and imported vegetables. sumption issue as the others she exam- He includes chapters on the many prodines, Clawson does point out how ucts manufactured in China and illumiWestern economic policies and consumer nates the ecological and social impact habits have contributed to oppressive of mining metals and producing elecdebt burdens in many developing tricity. His section on waste looks at both countries. garbage and recycling. At the end of each chapter, Clawson Pearce closes his impressive examisuggests some concrete actions that nation of the global marketplace with “everyday” Christians can take to address several chapters that illuminate why his PRISM 2 0 1 0
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journey left him feeling more hopeful than cynical.Though cautiously optimistic, Pearce places his faith in human ingenuity to solve both the human and environmental crises that Western consumption has created. As a Christian, my hope is placed more firmly on the transformative work of the Holy Spirit than human innovation and goodwill. Nonetheless, I found myself both challenged and inspired by Pearce’s work to reexamine my personal footprint and to consider what changes I can make to contribute to global social and environmental change. Taken together, Clawson’s and Pearce’s books provide an excellent roadmap for serious reflection on the impact of both personal and communal lifestyle choices.While I may not be able to do everything, these books reminded me that this is no excuse for doing nothing. n
Secret Faith in the Public Square
Constantine era people would not join the church to improve their social status. Kierkegaard related concealment of By Jonathan Malesic religious identity to the need to prevent Brazos Press Christians from doing good in the hope of getting credit for their actions. He saw Reviewed by Stephen P. Hoffmann reciprocity as a mark of acculturation by bourgeois society. Malesic connects Jonathan Malesic’s Secret Faith in the Public Bonhoeffer’s call for Christians to be Square: An Argument for the Concealment of reticent about their faith to his concept Christian Identity appeared only a short of “cheap grace.” Christians should be time after The Family: The Secret Funda- hesitant to use grace to justify subordimentalism at the Heart of American Power, nating the radical implications of the Jeff Sharlet’s exposé of evangelical net- gospel to the necessities of the world. working in Washington. Interpreting this tradition for Malesic shares Sharlet’s concerns American Christians, Malesic takes issue about the entanglement of religion and with Stanley Hauerwas, for whom the politics. However, while Sharlet’s pur- church must be a model community pose is to warn that covert religious lob- standing as an alternative to the powers bying is a threat to democracy, Malesic’s that be. This presumes a degree of holiis to show that promoting a Christian ness in the church that is inconsistent identity in politics, business, entertain- with its need to rely on God’s grace, ment, or any other area of public life according to Malesic. If even Hauerwas’ Dr. Laura Hartley serves as associate dean of corrupts Christian witness. Confession radically countercultural public theology the Templeton Honors College and instructor of faith has become a means of gaining endangers the autonomy of the church, of communication studies at Eastern University. more votes, sales, or opportunities instead Malesic’s counterweight is a heavy one She tries to live responsibly with her husband of being a basis for sacrificial love of indeed. He looks to a “strong sense of and two children in Upper Darby, Pa. neighbor. He seeks neither to secularize transcendence” and a commitment to public life nor to discourage believers “neighbor love” as protecting the church’s from making faith-based decisions about distinctive identity, but it is not clear voting, spending, or any other interac- how this is sufficient for maintaining that tions with the social systems they inhabit. identity. Malesic’s theory of the “secret But Malesic does desire to restore a faith” is an important contribution to the proper balance between the cultivation discussion of how one should relate faith of the faith and its proclamation.To this to public life. But one need not be a end he commends a Christian tradition “culture warrior” to question his assumpof secrecy as the counterweight needed. tion that a profession of Christianity, Malesic explicates the discipline of especially by American evangelicals, secrecy as a minority tradition with deep usually leads to misunderstanding or roots in Christian theology. He focuses corruption of the faith. n on three key figures: Cyril (bishop of Jerusalem in the mid-fourth century), Stephen P. Hoffmann is chair of the departKierkegaard, and Bonhoeffer. Cyril ment of political science at Taylor University withheld knowledge of the creed and in Upland, Ind. sacraments from prospective Christians (catechumens) until they were deemed Do you find our reviews helpful? ready to accept the demands of disciWhat kind of books would you like pleship. The “discipline of the secret” to see on these pages? Send your was not to protect Christians from perfeedback to kristyn@esa-online.org. secution but to ensure that in the postPRISM 2 0 1 0
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