Mark's #48 - The Mighty Weakness of John Knox by Douglas Bond (2011)

As Martin Luther pounded the nail through his Ninety five Thesis on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, three-year-old John Knox toddled around his home 800 miles away in Haddington, Scotland.  Luther's spark turned into a raging inferno that would light much of Christendom ablaze with The Reformation.  By the age of twenty nine, this fire would reach into the heart of the priest John Knox and convert him to true faith in Jesus Christ. Though slight of stature, and often of ill health, Knox saw the glory of God's sovereignty and omnipotence, and found strength and confidence in these things rather than his own frail abilities and personal confidences.  John Knox was a man that understood theology and lived like it.

His life would be one of constant danger and fighting for the cause of truth in Jesus Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, by the authority of the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone.  He wielded a broadsword in the defense of a besieged castle, whilst he also wielded the sword of God (the Bible) to proclaim to those inside the castle the gospel of grace.  After the fall of the castle, he spent the next 19 months as a galley slave for the French Navy.  Upon his release he preached before kings and queens in England, as well as Scottish peasants.   He boldly denounced the church idolatry, political church and state whims of leadership.  He narrowly escaped capture and certain death as he fled for Geneva to study under John Calvin and pastor an english speaking church.   After Mary Tudor's death, Knox returned to Scotland where he reengaged a battle for the hearts and souls of his people against the sins, abuses, and idols of the church and the state.

This book recounts all of these struggles as well as the passion and theology of John Knox.  Knox saw the doctrine of God's predestination as an essential truth for the rescue and the hope of lost sinners.  As such, many throughout history have tried to ignore or vilify Knox in order to write him off... yet the truth he expounded remains true today and forevermore - God is absolutely sovereign over salvation, and that's a very good thing.   I was personally encouraged and edified by spending this time learning about the life, faith, and God of John Knox.

Mark's #47 - The 100 Thing Challenge by Dave Bruno (2010)

The title and subtitle (How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life, and Regained My Soul) of this book caught my attention.  When I saw that the author had a similar background, belief system, educational path, family (three daughters, I have four),  love for reading, and even the same name for his dog (Piper) as I do, I decided I must read this book. Entrepreneur , Christian educator, and blogger, Dave Bruno often railed against the crass materialism and over consumption common in America today.  However, in spite of his railings, one day he realized that he was fully swept up in the materialistic ethos of the culture.  Almost on a whim, he decided to pair down his personal belongs to 100 things, call it The 100 Thing Challenge, blog about it and write a book about the experience.

Three main insights from the book stuck out to me.  First, as Dave began the big purge in preparation for the challenge, he was forced to get rid of things like an electric train set, rock-climbing gear, and other items related to hobbies or other activities that he rarely participated in.  Instead of feeling bad for getting rid of the stuff, he experienced a type of freedom from having those things and those hobbies hanging over his head.  As much as he would love to be a great rock climber, realistically it was never going to happen - thus, his gear taunted him.  I have rock climbing gear... I've used it twice.

Second, not only is having 100 things doable, it's really not all that hard or eccentric.  During his experiment, twice Bruno was interviewed to see if his story would make a good television segment (once for Oprah, and another for some nightly news show)... In each case, halfway through the call, the interviewer realized that this wouldn't make for a compelling story, because Dave's life turned out to be pretty normal.

Third, clearing out the clutter and smashing the idol of stuff frees one up to a deeper, more meaningful life.  As I prepare to move away from Okinawa after nearly ten years, I've realized that the vast majority of my "stuff" isn't going to follow me to America and then on to the Czech Republic.  Before reading this book I was already looking forward to the purge, now I'm even more motivated to do so.

This isn't a great book.  At times I got tired of the authors rabbit trails or tirades. Yet I think I would recommend it to anyone who occasionally feels like their stuff is owning them rather than them owning their stuff .  This book and its message also comes at a timely moment for us as we approach the overindulgence in commercialism known as Black Friday and as we at The Harbor participate in the Advent Conspiracy.

Mark's #46 - The Kingdom by Bryan Litfin (444 pages)

This is the third book in the Chiveis Trilogy (The Sword and The Gift are the other two books).    I really wanted to like this book, since I was a big fan of the first book in the series (it made my top ten list in 2010), but unfortunately, I was disappointed. Teo and Ana finally return to their homeland of Chiveis to bring them the Bible and Christianity.  The author's portrayal of the rebirth of Christianity is cringeworthy.  Do you really think if Christianity disappeared and reappeared 500 years later in a medieval version of earth (civilization has been setback by nuclear winter), that it would take shape and form like the Roman Catholic Church?  Apparently this author, who also happens to be a professor at Moody Bible Institute thinks so... There's even a pope, referred to as "the Papa" - which made me roll my eyes every time I read it.

Beyond the ecclessiolgy, the storyline was often hard to follow... the plot twists were often bizarre (i.e., "Oh no, the two lovers Teo and Ana might actually be brother and sister! ... what!?... they're not, but still, it was dumb).  Then at the culmination of the book the Kingdom of Chiveis (in Switzerland), embraces Christianity and officially sponsors it... because state sponsored churches have worked out so well for the state and the church in history...

I highly recommend the first book... I cannot recommend the last two.

Mark's #44 - How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley

This book is a series of essays about the author's life.  I was looking for a light read, and I've enjoyed reading similar books by the likes of David Sedaris.  In Fact, many reviews compared Crosley's writings to Sedaris, and David himself endorses the book on the inside cover. To be clear, this is not must read literature, though it is, at times mildly entertaining to read about the life of this Jewish girl from the suburbs, moved to Manhattan, and taking trips to places like Alaska, Lisbon, and Paris.  I enjoyed her dry sense of humor and curious analogies.   There's stories about being convinced by her friend to go to the confessional at Notre Dame in Paris, only to get the priest who speaks only Japanese and French.  Another story recounts her love found and lost in NYC by a dude who, as it turns out, had another girlfriend the entire time - all this tied to the time when she had a connection at a very expensive furniture store who would sell her 'used' items at an extreme discount through various shady meetings on NYC street corners... At times I felt sad for her as she lives out a postmodern worldview and worldly values.

Mark's #45 - A Free People's Suicide by Os Guinness

Os Guinness is an astute social critic, historian, Christian apologist, Irishman born in China and educated in England. Os has also long been an admirer of America's founders and their commitment to ensuring American freedom.  A Free People's Suicide serves as a prophetic warning cry to Americans to take heed, learn from their past, or else be buried in the inevitable decline that has overtaken every other world super power.  Or, as he closed each chapter:

Those who aspire to be like Rome in their beginnings must avoid being like Rome at their ending.  Rome and its republic fell and so too will the American republic - unless...

Guinness argues that "the greatest enemy of freedom is freedom"  (19), meaning that our freedom we enjoy turns out to be a sort of assumed freedom that does not press us to persevere in our freedom.   For example, in the name of 'freedom' we will go to great lengths to remove our private freedoms in a scary and dangerous world, thus justifying increased government intrusion in a wide variety of surveillance and 'safety' measures (see the full body scans at the airport these days).

More concerning than these infractions however, Guinness argues that the greatest threat to American freedom is the loss of a culture of virtue, honesty, and integrity that was present and necessary at our nations founding  (with the exception of obvious blind spots such as slavery).  In other words, a nation may have freedom on the constitutional level (which is necessary), and yet not have these ingredients necessary on the individual level... thus there is increasing legislation to protect us from ourselves because there is no longer an ethos of virtue in America... Unless we recover this ethos, we as free people will commit a type of freedom suicide.

What is necessary to persevering in freedom is what Guinness calls the "golden triangle of freedom"

The cultivation and transmission of the conviction that freedom requires virtue, which requires faith, which requires freedom, which in turn requires virtue... and so on, like the recycling triangle, ad infinitum."

Thus secularism and postmodernism threatens freedom because concepts such as virtue, truth, and freedom are ultimately meaningless within these worldviews.

And so Guinness critiques modern Amercians,

You have turned to alternative visions of freedom that are seductive but lazy-minded and empty, and are now proving disastrous.  And all the time you are turning yourselves into caricatures of your original freedom in ways that are alternatively fascinating and repellent to the world (204).

However clear the signs of decline are at this point in history, the final nail in the coffin has not yet been driven down.  As Americans we must go forward (which we love) by reviving the past (which we're not so good at).  We must return to virtue and faith.  In our educational systems we must reclaim the essential role of training in virtue and not just skill sets.

Guinness sets forth the steps necessary for American freedom to persevere in the decades and centuries to come:

1. America must strongly and determinedly restore civic education (192).
2. America must strongly and determinedly rebuild its civil public square (194).
3. America must strongly and determinedly reorder the grand spheres that make up American society and its powerful cultural influence in the world (194)
4. Americans must restore the integrity and credibility of the faiths and ethics of the citizenry (196).

On the night of President Obama's reelection, the big idea of his acceptance speech as captured by most of the news headlines was "The best is yet to come"... this may be true (I hope it is), but let's all hope, pray, and fight that it is more than our dying mantra... Otherwise the dystopian vision of the likes of Orwell (Animal Farm, 1984) or Huxley (Brave New World) may shift from the category of fiction to nonfiction.

Mark's #43 - Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

If you're going to read only one book this year by a world renowned  Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Sciences about the inner workings of the human mind, then you should definitely read this book (granted, I know of no other book that would fall into that category).  This is a book about how we think... or more specifically, how we use two systems of thinking in everyday decisions - System 1 and System 2.   System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is is slower, more deliberate and cautious.  Each system has its strengths, biases, and faults. These two systems work in concert with each other to shape our choices and desires. Ideally all of life's most important decisions should be processed slowly through system 2.  Unfortunately, our System 2 is often lazy, relying on cues and biases offered up by our System 1.  Rather than being consistently rational in our thinking, we are profoundly influenced by emotional (non rational) inputs from System 1 thinking.  This causes individuals, corporations, and governments all sorts of problems regarding beliefs about what will make one happy, overconfidence in corporate strategies, and long term financial stability.

This was a book that I enjoyed, though the breadth and depth of the material covered seemed to go beyond my ability to fully comprehend.   This seems to be Kahneman's life work collected in one book.  Each chapter or point of emphasis was engaging in itself, though I had difficulty trying to see how each point connected to the whole.  If you are a fan of books like Freakonomics, Outliers, Scorecasting, etc... you may like this book, especially if you want to go far deeper than those books went into human psychology and the out workings of our behavior.