Faith and questions: A lesson from Kate DiCamillo’s work
One of my recent projects is that of “deep-reading” (i.e., reading all of) Kate DiCamillo’s work. It has been a helpful and enjoyable practice, particularly as I think through my own writing projects. I like the way her mind works and the themes that make it into her writing. Authors are not always immediately aware of the themes that appear in their work, though readers are often quick to point them out. It appears that even for DiCamillo, this is an ongoing discovery (watch a video of DiCamillo discussing themes in her work).
She is not afraid of engaging real-life issues—tragedies of loss, death, abuse, denial, or even childlessness. For example, The Tiger Rising engages (more…)
Book Review: Speaking of Faith
[NOTE: This review was originally posted on another blog of mine. As I find it this book to be continually informing my worldview, I decided to include it here as well, but with a little editing.]
Speaking of Faith
by Krista Tippett
Viking (2007)
238 pages (paperback/hardcover)
Available
Amazon
“All truth is God’s truth,” or so goes the saying attributed to Augustine. Former diplomat, Yale Divinity School graduate, and public radio host Krista Tippett built this principle into Speaking of Faith, the original name of her her broadcast (now called “Krista Tippett on Being”) and her book. My interest in Tippett’s broadcast began a few months ago and has become a regular podcast download. I’ve enjoyed the string of important topics and impressive personalities that have passed before her microphone. From discussions on science, Islam, and gay marriage, to guests or “conversation partners” like Jaroslav Pelikan, Freeman Dyson, Karen Armstrong, and Paul Davies, her search for truth shows no fear. (more…)
Book Review: Why Evolution is True
Why Evolution is True
by Jerry A. Coyne
Penguin, 2009
282 pages (paperback)
Available
Amazon.com
Science and religion have had a love-hate relationship. Like your average sitcom, the “will they?/won’t they? get together for good” question remains unresolved, and so we keep tuning in hoping that this week it will finally happen. (more…)
Book Review: World Religions in America (4th Edition)
World Religions in America (4th Edition)
by Jacob Neusner
Westminster John Knox, 2009
449 pages (paperback)
Available
Amazon
Not long ago, as I was designing a course on American cultures and religious traditions, I included the newest edition of World Religions in America as a primary text. This text, edited by the well-known Jacob Neusner, is perfect for the classroom. Unlike many world religions texts—in which one or two people write the entire book—each chapter comes from an author who holds some sort of commitment, academically and/or personally, to the tradition they represent. Instead of getting a polemical perspective (more…)
Book Review: A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
by Janna Levin
Anchor Books, 2006
230 pages (paperback)
Available
Amazon.com
Indie Bound
Warning: Some Spoilers
Some things cannot be proven and will forever remain uncertain. To accept that dangerous idea, one may need to be mad or be willing to risk it. Janna Levin’s novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines looks at the real lives of “two mad treasures,” the most important mathematicians of the last century, Kurt Gödel (1906-78) and Alan Turing (1912-54).
Einstein’s General and Special Theories of Relativity were not the only challenges to early twentieth-century Enlightenment certainty. (more…)
Book Review: The Lost World of Genesis One
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
by John H. Walton
InterVarsity Press, 2009
192 pages (paperback)
Thales of Miletus, a mid-6th century pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, said the world was created from water. Fast-forwarding several centuries, the writer of the New Testament’s Second Epistle of Peter reminded his readers that God formed the Earth “out of water” (2 Pet. 3:5). Undoubtedly, Second Peter is referencing cosmic waters of Genesis 1, rather than Thales, but many scholars have wondered about the ancient cosmology that starts with water. John H. Walton’s thin, but important book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate helps bring questions like these into focus. (more…)
Micro-Review: Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach
Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach
by W. Randolph Tate
Hendrickson Publishers, (3rd Edition) 2008
380 pages (hardcover)
Finding a decent hermeneutics text for introductory courses in biblical interpretation is difficult. Some texts can be either too thorough for the first year student, too narrow on methodology to give them a good overview, or too polemical. As for the last one, hermeneutical texts which begin with an inerrantists’ theology tend to resist helpful tools, like source criticism or postmodern considerations, like reader-response criticism. W. Randolph Tate’s Biblical Interpretation argues for a balanced, integrated approach to reading the text. His textbook, divided into units and complete with questions for the reader/student to ask, looks at the world behind the text, the world within the text, and the world in front of the text, and then argues for an integrated approach that is a modified communication theory of interpretation. “If the interpreter takes any of these interpretative thrusts in isolation (i.e. author-centered, text-centered, or reader-centered), consciously or unconsciously excluding the other two,” writes Tate, “hermeneutics becomes an unbalanced discipline.” (267) Tate’s communication model rests on the idea of a dialogue between the text and the reader. I’ve found this text, with its overviews of various methods—such as form criticism, postcolonial criticism, narrative criticism—and their relative offerings to the process of interpretation to be extremely helpful for the first-year student, but not overwhelming. It also allows the professor, who may use a communication approach, but emphasize a certain method more than others, to write it into his or her course with some ease. Having integrated this text into my yearly hermeneutics course, I highly recommend it.
