A Review of William D. Gairdner’s THE WAR AGAINST THE FAMILY
I had read this book a while ago but was revisiting it as I frequently do and realized I had never written a review. If you have read my Science Fiction book about a university that is transported to a parallel world (The Halcyon Dislocation) I think you will see some of the “what if” elements in my book were influenced by Gairdner’s thesis.
The War Against The Family: A Parent Speaks Out by William D. Gairdner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This well-referenced, thought-provoking book caused me to re-evaluate a number of events happening in Canada. Gairdner makes the case that it is in the interest of the more controlling and totalitarian political elements to destroy the family. The well-functioning family is self-contained, self-sufficient, and becomes a source of stability for citizens developing independent ideas.
In contrast, as Gairdner argues, if the family unit is broken down, then individuals are forced to develop a co-dependency with the government. They must look to the government and its agencies for social help, financial help, and all other things a family would ordinarily provide. They will therefore be strongly motivated to not only expand the influence of government, but also, of necessity, expose themselves to whatever new wave of teaching and thinking that they government wants to impress upon them. Gairdner would argue this makes these citizens much easier to control.
Whether you agree with Gairdner’s thesis or not, his book is filled with so much data that it’s worth the read in my view. The book was written in 1992. A great many events have happened since then. It is very interesting to see which of Gairdner’s predictions have come true and which have not.
A Brief Review of Orson Scott Card’s SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A profound book with interesting characters and a plot that keeps one reading. I really enjoy how Card interweaves science, theology, and philosophy. I will read this again and again.
Review of Lee Child’s NOTHING TO LOSE
Nothing to Lose by Lee Child
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Of all the Reacher books I have read so far, I liked this one least. I had a difficult time deciding if I should rate this book three stars or two stars. I finally decided on two stars. I primarily have two reasons for the low rating: the over-used modern literary trope of the evil preacher (or lay preacher in this case) and the implausible ending.
The over-used trope led to a number of contradictions in my view. The story portrayed a lay preacher (Thurman) who believed he had the key to understanding the Book of Revelation and it’s prediction of the future, yet felt he had to help events along by setting off a depleted uranium bomb designed to blame the Iranians for the blast and start a global apocalyptic conflict. To me this is inherently contradictory. He believed the prophecy yet acted as if he did not.
The ending was also implausible. Thurman, the lay preacher and his workers, had assembled this bomb containing twenty tons of TNT surrounded by depleted uranium in a container that had been welded shut. The TNT was triggered by a simple cell phone. As soon as the cell phone number was called, the detonator exploded. No security code, simply a phone call. Who would do such a thing? A wrong number, a telemarketer auto-dialing numbers in a particular area code, even Thurman’s cell phone provider asking how he liked their service, would set off this explosion off prematurely.
To add implausibility on top of implausibility, Reacher told Thurman he was going to dial the detonator number. A steel container completely shields microwaves. If the cell phone is outside the container, all Thurman had to do was disconnect the phone. If the phone was inside the container, Thurman only needed to disconnect the external antenna to deactivate the bomb. He had considerable time to deactivate the trigger but did nothing until he and the whole complex was destroyed by Reacher’s phone call from several miles away. Why assume Reacher won’t call?
Having said that I enjoy novels that, as a side benefit, explore science, theology or philosophy. There was some of that here with Reacher the Preacher attempting to put Thurman in his place with some well-placed theological one liners. That was the best part of the book for me. Reacher’s one liners and statements deserve some thinking about and make up for some of the plot deficiencies.
A Review of April White’s Dark Fantasy MARKING TIME
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A well-written book that is brimming with action and interesting characters. The research on Victorian England is well done and thorough. Overall a book I plan on reading again.
Fearing then Fearing Not
Perhaps it was because I am reading Eric Metaxas’ excellent book Amazing Grace that the words of the hymn Amazing Grace (John Newton, the ex-slaver-Christian-convert likely influenced William Wilberforce to work to eliminate the slave trade) struck me so forcefully at the Good Friday service at my church The Meeting House in Oakville.
It was the lines:
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
It struck me how often this sequence of “ grace teaching my heart to fear” followed by “and grace my fears relieved” is followed.
The fear of the crucifixion … was followed by the joy of the resurrection
John Newton’s fear that his sins were too great to be forgiven … was followed by the joyful revelation that grace is greater than all his sin
The Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus had to endure the fear of blindness … until grace restored his sight and gave him a new mission [Acts 9]
When Peter, James, and John fell on their faces, terrified at the transfiguration … Jesus touched them and said “rise and have no fear.” [Matthew 17:1-13 ESV]
When Isaiah in his vision of the LORD was compelled to cry out “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” … one of the seraphim touching Isaiah on the mouth with a burning coal was able to say: “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” [Isaiah 6]
For me this pattern of “grace teaching my heart to fear” followed by “and grace my fears relieved” is important. The first step teaches how dangerous my current state is and how insufficient I am to rescue myself, while the second proves that my rescue is taken care of by someone who loves me. All I have to do is give my honest permission.
Review of Joshua Grant’s Novel PANDORA
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Pandora by Joshua Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If I were to describe Joshua Grant’s novel PANDORA in one line it would be: the movie ALIENS enacted on a cruise ship.
A cruise ship suddenly goes missing and then reappears one week later. All attempts to contact the ship fail and the ship’s owner dispatches his own security team ostensibly to see what’s happening before governments and the military takeover the investigation.
The investigating security team knows not only that something is seriously wrong with the ship, but also that the investigation is being handled in a completely unorthodox manner. However, the ship’s owner, Carver, knows exactly how to manipulate each member of the team to keep them on mission despite their serious misgivings. He also seems to have enough influence to keep normal modes of disaster investigation at bay.
This book is nonstop action delivered in frightening detail, with surprises at every turn. As readers we explore the devastated ship with the team as they suffer terrible casualties. Having traveled on several cruises, the layout was reminiscent of my own trips (except for the massive destruction of course) and that bizarre warping of a familiar and pleasant scene only added to the impact.
Grant is an excellent storyteller and the plot is well thought out. The fine descriptions put me into the midst of the action and kept me reading.
For my part, I found the coarse language jarring and distracting, but I realize for many readers this would make the tense, life-threatening scenes more realistic.
Joshua Grant
Amazon Link to Pandora
In summary, if you like Science fiction that comes across as Horror, then I think you will like this book.
Review of SPACETUG COPENHAGEN
Spacetug Copenhagen by Richard Penn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ever wondered what could be accomplished in terms of space exploration if a group of interested engineers and space enthusiasts pooled all of their resources, forgot about the risk, and simply tried to do as much as they could with the technology available today? Richard Penn in his novella Spacetug Copenhagen walks the reader through the steps involved. If you are interested in science and like to see it used to perfection in science fiction then I highly recommend this short book.
Now That the Movie THE SHACK is Coming Out in theaters …
I published this post a while ago when I first read The Shack. The original post was lost when my WordPress server had to be decommissioned. Now that the movie version is coming out, this may be of interest.
‘The Shack’ by William P. Young
Warning: If you haven’t read The Shack and are planning to read it, leave this review until later since I do discuss the content.
My overall rating is 4 stars. The Shack is a thought-provoking book well worth reading.
The Shack is a novel that tackles very difficult questions in a way that puts the reader in the very middle of the action and challenges him to tackle the questions in a personal way..
Mackenzie Allen Phillips lost his young daughter to a serial killer. MacKenzie called this trauma, which tormented his life, THE GREAT SADNESS. One day he receives a letter from Papa (his wife’s personal name for God) that invites Mackenzie to meet ‘Papa’ at the shack in the woods where Missy, his daughter, was brutally murdered. The shack is the last place in the world he wants to go, but eventually he decides to go without telling his wife.
God appears as three people (Papa, Jesus and another woman called Sarayu (wind)). Mackenzie is able to watch them interact, watch them serve him, and answer his questions. What Young achieves are scenes that are not simplistic, but rather convey to the readers the complexity of fashioning and then sustaining a world that has free will, independent agents that make moral choices (e.g. human beings) and God. Although God is All Powerful and Good yet He still has to work within His own rules and His own character and honor the free choices made by human beings.
For me, this book caused me to think about who God is and how simplistic my own caricatures of Him are because of the unconscious assumptions I bring to the table when I think about Him. For example, as C. S. Lewis has pointed out somewhere, in God moral character and will must coincide in some fashion. For human beings, morality is something objective that is above us, and we have a duty to obey these moral imperatives. However, if God had moral imperatives in the same sense we have, then He wouldn’t be God, since the moral law would be above Him. On the other hand if moral law were simply an invention by God, it would be arbitrary. As I read the book, I had to grapple with this conundrum. I saw that this fusion of morality and will in God is one of the things that puts Him beyond my understanding.
If you go to amazon.com, and read comments on this book, you will find many that laud it, and some that most emphatically do not. Some of the objections are theological. Respondents argue that the book fails to properly account for some point of theology. I think that claim is fair, but it misses the point. Young has written a novel and wanted to bring us into an interaction with the person of God in a new way. I think it is better to learn what one can from the book, without trying to make it into a theological treatise.
If you’ve read the book or watched the movie, I would like to know what you thought of it.
Review of GOOD FAITH by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
Good Faith: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re Irrelevant and Extreme by David Kinnaman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
David Kinnaman is president of Barna Group, a leading research and communications company that works with churches. Along with his co-author Gabe Lyons, Kinnaman and Lyons use a host of polling data to build the case that Christians are viewed as extreme and irrelevant by American society.
Kinnaman and Lyons then go on to describe, based on their own investigations, the best way for churches to fulfill their historic mission of following the teaching of Christ while benefiting society and relating to a society given that they are painted as extreme and irrelevant. Churches ought to continue to contribute to the betterment of society as a whole through their charitable work.
Every church that I have been a part of over the years has, of course, done this to some degree (my wife and I have had fellowship with many different denominations in Canada), but now a church’s participation in a charitable event either alone or in partnership with others will almost never be recognized as such by the media. The church’s involvement will either be unrecognized altogether or the charitable activity will be treated as if it is unrelated to the church’s main mission (of course it is not). The message for me is to recognize this charitable connection in other church organizations and to point it out, since the media will not.
For me the most helpful discussion was found in Chapter 7 on how to respond to modern secularism which works to banish all religious expression from the public square on the grounds the very presence of religious expression would be offensive to some members of the public. Kinnaman and Lyons advocate on behalf of a view by John D. Inazu which is called Confident Pluralism or Principled Pluralism. A metaphor of a potluck dinner is used to explain this concept. Everyone is able to bring their best and favorite dish to the potluck, but no one is required to try any dish. So everyone, regardless of their World View is allowed to participate and present their best in the public sphere but no one is required to subscribe to that view or participate in whatever activity that view engenders. This has been helpful for me but means we all need to champion access to the public sphere for all views, not just our own.
In summary, I had some points of disagreement with the authors, but I appreciated their data-driven approach to the subject. Their description of Principled Pluralism as a common ground in the public sphere was most helpful. I very much recommend this book to others.
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Bad News – The Audio Version of THE HALCYON DISLOCATION Won’t be Coming Out Anytime Soon
I received some bad news yesterday. I learned from my publisher that the vendor that was producing the audio version of The Halcyon Dislocation has declared bankruptcy (I don’t even know the vendor’s name). This is particularly unfortunate since the editing of the audio edition was 98% complete (as I understand it, even after the audio editing is complete, there was still a good deal of post editing processing to do before it would be ready for download and sale). The only significant piece missing was an audio list of the dormitories at Halcyon University that were all named after famous philosophers. Unfortunately many of the unusual names were mispronounced in the last audio mp3 and needed to be corrected.
In all of this, I must say my partnership publisher Word Alive Press has acted with grace and integrity. I appreciate this very much, since this was their loss as much as it was mine (perhaps more so). Going through this painful experience has underlined for me why I remain a loyal partner of Word Alive Press.
I’m going to go through my various bios and descriptions to look for places where I had promised that the audio version of The Halcyon Dislocation will be coming out soon so that I can delete those expressions of hope and avoid raising unrealistic expectations. I will do my best to be thorough, but if I miss one or two, I hope my readers will be understanding.
