Anabaptist Perspective on Jesus and John Wayne

Yesterday, on March 14, Kristin Kobes Du Mez spoke at Miami University, and I sat on a three-person panel to give a short response to her talk.

Here is a video of the event.

Du Mez wrote the book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

(Interestingly, the Gaither Vocal Band had a song with the same name; in retrospect, not their best work, but on the other hand, not nearly as bad as some of the stuff in the book!)

Here is an edited and paraphrased version of my response to her lecture.

Thank you Dr. Du Mez for sharing with us this evening. Historical insight is invaluable to Christians as they seek to be faithful to Christ. As someone in the Anabaptist tradition, who believes that Christians should step out of the political process altogether, I am heartened that at least some evangelicals are reckoning with their connection to political power.

During the Protestant Reformation, the Anabaptists were the radicals who refused to use violence, and refused to meld political power with the church.  This is a major critique of evangelicals that I would have, and where I largely agree with Dr. Du Mez. A worldview that conceives of using the worldly, coercive power structures of politics to enact a “Christian” way of life – I see this as incompatible with the way of Jesus, the suffering servant who instructed his followers to love their enemies rather than exert power over them. But, the other side of the “conservative politics” coin is “progressive politics,” which in my view is just as much of a dead end. I would be saddened if evangelicals realized that their conservative politics were misguided, and thus turned to progressive politics. Such an approach misses the point – which is that Jesus came establishing a kingdom, a new sort of society, one that is built upon invitation instead of forcing. Such a society is incompatible with worldly politics.

Another prominent theme of your lecture is masculinity, and gender more broadly. Here again I draw on an Anabaptist perspective which, on its best days, views all issues of power Christocentrically. Without ignoring the apostolic passages regarding the structure and dynamics within the home and church, we frame them within the context of Jesus’ teaching on authority. Greatness in the kingdom comes not through exerting power but through service; leadership is not lording it over but coming under to serve. Following Christ will transform the power dynamics within both the home and church. It appears that the evangelical conception of power in the home and church has often been informed more by worldly politics than by Jesus. (To be fair, my own conservative Anabaptist tradition, though mostly political non-participants, has sometimes also struggled to implement these Jesus-shaped ideals.)

Again, thank you, Dr. Du Mez, for putting together this historical analysis.

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2023 Book List: It’s Out of Control

For those of you who read dozens of books in a year—without breaking a sweat—laugh if you want. But for me, the nineteen books in this list are probably not realistically readable in a year. Yet, I will try, because for one reason or another I feel like each should be included. Here’s the list.

A couple on theology:

1. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by NT Wright. 
2. Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William Webb. 

A biography:

3. Charles Grandison Finney 1792-1875: Revivalist and Reformer by Keith Hardman. 

A cluster on discipleship:

4. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. 
5. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 
6. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster
7. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith. 

Two novels:

8. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. 
9. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh. 

Some history:

10. Eusebius, The Church History.
11. Golden Apples in Silver Bowls: The Rediscovery of Redeeming Love, edited by Leonard Gross and translated by Elizabeth Bender. 
12. Hamilton, Ohio: Its Architecture and History by James Schwartz

A number related to racial issues:

13. My Brother’s Keeper: Race Relations in Mennonite Perspective by Nathan Zook
14. Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
15. The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
16. Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell
17. The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby
18. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
19. Preaching Deliverance to the Captives: Particular Baptist Sermons on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, compiled and edited by Matthew Roe

But wait, there are even more! Every year I deviate from my main list, so here are some other books that I hope to read sooner rather than later. Maybe 2023 will be a crazy reading year for me.

1. The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming
2. The Romanov Empress: A Novel of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna by CW Gortner
3. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
5. The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church by Greg Boyd
6. Letter to the Corinthians by Clement and Against Praxeas by Tertullian
7. Doubt, Faith, & Certainty by Anthony Thiselton
8. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? By Alisdair MacIntyre
9. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard
10. Island of the World: A Novel by Michael O’Brien
11. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
12. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

The Books I Read in 2022

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
2. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling 
4. Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money by Justo L. González
5. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
6. Through the Eye of a Needle: The Doctrine of Nonaccumulation by Roger Hertzler
7. North! Or be Eaten: Wingfeather Saga Book 2 by Andrew Peterson
8. The Last Detective (A Peter Diamond Mystery) by Peter Lovesey
9. Cathedrals, Castles, and Caves: The Origins of the Anabaptist Faith by Marcus Yoder
10. Two booklets about the history of Hamilton and/or the Ohio frontier
11. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter
12. In God We Don’t Trust by David Bercot
13. Eyes at the Window by Evie Yoder Miller
14. Statistical Inference as Severe Testing (How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars) by Deborah Mayo
15. Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions by Craig Blomberg

I’m cheating here just a little bit because I haven’t quite finished the last book.

Overall, of the sixteen books I had on my main 2022 reading list I read twelve, along with three others. Here is a visual representation of my 2022 books, in terms of how page-turning and life-changing they were (higher ratings are more page-turning/life-changing).

The best book, in my opinion, was Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. It is a book about the process by which we become more like Jesus. It is not an easy read, but it is packed with wisdom from the Scriptures and in particular the Sermon on the Mount. The only downside is that he downplayed the need to actually obey the particular commands of Jesus. Another life-changing book was To Change the World. It helped me understand the power institutions have in changing a culture, and how this should be considered by Christians as they pursue their goal of expanding God’s kingdom by, as Willard would say, extending the range of God’s effective will in the world.

I read three books about Christianity and wealth (again, technically Blomberg’s Neither Poverty nor Riches isn’t quite finished yet). I appreciated the radical call of Through the Eye of a Needle, and fully track with his exhortation to use our material possessions to seek first the kingdom of God. However, based on the full witness of Scripture I simply can’t follow him to his major conclusion that all Christians should divest themselves of their possessions, including long-term savings. On the other hand, Blomberg’s book plays the issue too down-the-middle. The scholarship harnessed in the book is impressive, but I think it fails to fully account for the radical teachings of Jesus. Gonzalez’s Faith and Wealth was the other money book, surveying the early church’s understanding of money. Despite their stylistic and substantive differences, all three agree that material possessions should be used for God’s glory rather than personal aggrandizement, and that excess money should be shared with those who are less fortunate, particularly those who are in the church.

From the graph above you can easily see that the fiction I read was more interesting but less impactful than the nonfiction. The Harry Potter books are a great example. They were interesting though not quite as page-turning as I expected, and the pagan themes were more off-putting to me than I thought they would be. Eyes at the Window was an exception to this general fiction/non-fiction trend. It is a historical novel about the Amish set in the 1800s and though I’m not an expert on the Amish, as I read it I felt I had an authentic window into their thinking and way of life.

Below is one more plot, showing the books I’ve read since 2018, along with some notable reads over the years. My 2022 books fall comfortably within the range of earlier years, though it looks like I read more lightweight fiction this year.

A New Fracturing of Conservative Anabaptism

Oh I wish that Christians would not combine their faith with worldly politics. It’s happening all around us in America, including within Mennonite churches.

Here’s my assessment of the situation, published at the Kingdom Outpost:

Political Faultlines: A New Fracturing of Conservative Anabaptism

Books I’m Hoping to Read in 2022

What a blessing it is to have access to all of these wonderful books.

1. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard. I’ve begun this book already and so far it hasn’t disappointed.
2. In God We Don’t Trust by David Bercot. Looking at the history of America, questioning the “In God We Trust” narrative. 
3. Statistical Inference as Severe Testing (How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars) by Deborah Mayo. A book on the philosophy of statistical testing by someone who seems to be firmly in favor of null hypothesis significance testing. 
4. The Autobiography of Charles G. Finney: The Life Story of America’s Greatest Evangelist–In His Own Words by Charles Finney. Evidently this dude was something else in his spiritual fervor and insight.
5. The road to Fort Hamilton and Fort Hamilton Diary: The St. Clair Campaign both by Jim Blount. A couple of short accounts regarding Hamilton history.
6. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. A devotional classic from the 15th century.
7. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by NT Wright. I need to read more of NT Wright, and this one seems like a good place to start. 
8. Cathedrals, Castles, and Caves: The Origins of the Anabaptist Faith by Marcus Yoder. I look forward to reading this treatment of Anabaptist history written by someone I know personally.
9. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. A recommendation from my brother-in-law, in the team-building/leadership category.
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling
11. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
12. Shroud for the Archbishop (A Sister Fidelma Mystery) by Peter Tremayne
13. The Last Detective (A Peter Diamond Mystery) by Peter Lovesey

Several books about finances and Jesus:

14. Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money by Justo L. González
15. Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions by Craig Blomberg
16. Through the Eye of a Needle: The Doctrine of Nonaccumulation by Roger Hertzler

And here are a number of additional books I considered including in my list above:

1. Doubt, Faith, & Certainty by Anthony Thiselton
2. Golden Apples in Silver Bowls: The Rediscovery of Redeeming Love by Leonard Gross
3. The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby
4. The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
5. Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell
6. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James Smith
7. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster
8. The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church by Greg Boyd
9. The Gospel Comes with a Housekey: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World by Rosario Butterfield
10. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This seems to be one of those “how do humans do cognition” books, perhaps in the same ballpark as Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. Reading a little about it quickly surfaced some concerns regarding the unreplicability of some of the studies it cites, so I’m going in cautiously. 
11. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? By Alisdair MacIntyre
12. Eusebius, The Church History
13. Hamilton, Ohio: Its Architecture and History by James Schwartz
14. Silent Rise: A City, the Arts, and a Blue-Collar Kid by Rick Jones

The Books I read in 2021

I read eighteen books in 2021, including nine of the ten that I listed at the beginning of the year. As usual, I read a number of great books. Some of the books I read were part of a missions program we participated in during the summer, so they were nowhere to be found in my original list. Among these 2021 books, there were no major clunkers. I’ll categorize the books into three categories: Strongly recommend; recommend; and meh.

Strongly Recommend

1. The Frontiersman: A Narrative by Allan Eckert. Fantastic book if you’re interested in the history of the Ohio frontier. Sad, as you realize the great amount of violence perpetrated by both the white settlers and native Americans. But the Moravians make an appearance and shine brightly as representatives of the way of Jesus. The question I have: What if the settlers, many of whom professed to follow Jesus, had refused to commit any violence against the native Americans?
2. Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King by Matthew Bates. Has changed how I think about what “faith” in Jesus is. Bates argues that the word for faith is better translated as “allegiance”, and that this allegiance naturally includes not only intellectual assent but also the acts inherent in following Jesus as king. This book connects strongly to Anabaptist understandings of discipleship.
3. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. Provides insights regarding how to effectively work together as a team. The insight regarding the importance of trust in a team environment was particularly helpful to me.
4. Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The number of profound ideas and quotes in this thin volume is staggering. A book on Christian community that deserves its status as a classic. 
5. Diamond Dust: A Peter Diamond Mystery, by Peter Lovesey. Just an amazing page-turner; a great pleasure to read.
6. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt. A straightforward call to follow Jesus completely, instead of adding him to your pursuit of ease and comfort via the American Dream. I didn’t love the writing style, but its content is well worth considering. Next year, I’m going to read about finances and Christianity – this was a great book to start things off.
7. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman. The cultural analysis of this book was useful to help explain what we observe in western society, particularly regarding sexuality and gender.

Recommend

1. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (Wingfeather Saga Book 1) by Andrew Peterson. Too silly for me, but a fun read that my boys love.
2. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. I read much – though not quite all – of this collection of essays regarding mission work. A lot of really valuable mission history, philosophy and strategy.
3. Bonding and the Missionary Task and Language Learning is Communication – is Ministry, both by Brewster and Brewster. A couple of short pieces with wisdom about how to start out in a new culture as a missionary.
4. The Highway and Me and My Earl Gray Tea, by Emily Smucker. Though I may be biased since this book was written by my cousin, I thought it was an engrossing read.
5. The Anabaptist View of the Church by Franklin Littell. 
6. The Didache; Justin Martyr’s First Apology; Tertullian’s Apology on Behalf of the Christians. Much in these early church writings were references that were completely foreign to me. Yet, the insight they give to the thinking and practice of the early church is worth the time.
7. Absolution by Murder (A Sister Fidelma Mystery) by Peter Ellis. A fine book, with all the trappings of a classic Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. But not as good as Agatha Christie.

Meh

1. Anyone, Anywhere, Any Time: Lead Muslims to Christ Now! by Mike Shipman. A book about a particular method of evangelism.
2. Spiritual Warfare, by Timothy Warner
3. Have We No Rights? by Mabel Williamson 
4. The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, by Laura Imai Messina. I feel like I should have liked this book, and it wasn’t like it was bad. I just didn’t really get it.

2021 Reading List

As usual, so excited about my reading list for the upcoming year.

1. The Frontiersman: A Narrative by Allan Eckert. Recommended independently by a couple of people who live in this area. A narrative frontier history centered on the Ohio River in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In the edition that I’m reading, Fort Hamilton (now Hamilton, OH, where I live) even gets its own illustration. 
2. Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King by Matthew Bates. Maybe “allegiance” is a better sola than “faith”. Perhaps it is also a better translation of pistis than “faith”. I hope I can better understand “faith, works, and the gospel” and how they work together.
3. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman. What is the underlying cultural or worldview change that has facilitated a radical shift in how western society views everything from careers to gender and sexuality? 
4. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. Though not told from a Christian perspective, I expect there to be wisdom in this book that is relevant to the church and to teams of those in ministry. 
5. The Highway and Me and My Earl Gray Tea by Emily Smucker. Gotta read my cousin’s book. 
6. Absolution by Murder by Peter Tremayne. The first of a series of murder mysteries set in seventh century Ireland. 
7. The Didache (1st century); Justin Martyr’s First Apology (2nd century); Tertullian’s Apology On Behalf of the Christians (late 2nd century). A few early church writings.
8. Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A classic on Christian community. 
9. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard. A book about discipleship. 
10. The Anabaptist View of the Church by Franklin Littell. Is an Anabaptist view of the church fundamentally different from the views of other Christian groups? 

I hope I can read more than the above 10, and if I do here are some strong contenders (this list keeps on growing):

• Statistical Inference as Severe Testing (How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars) by Deborah Mayo. A book on the philosophy of statistical testing by someone who seems to be firmly in favor of null hypothesis significance testing. 
• Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream by David Platt. 
• In God We Don’t Trust by David Bercot. Looking at the history of America, questioning the “In God We Trust” narrative. 
• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. 
• The Gospel Comes with a Housekey: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World by Rosario Butterfield
• The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby
• Doubt, Faith, & Certainty by Anthony Thiselton

Many Great Books: my 2020 reading

In 2020, I read 12 books. Ain’t much, but it’s honest work. I derive an inordinate amount of pleasure from making and curating my book lists, so please indulge me here.

For my 2020 list, I originally listed nine, and of those I read eight. The one I didn’t was Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Instead, I read The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi. Besides those nine, I also read The Hour That Changes the World by Dick Eastman and two youth novels: Holes by Louis Sachar and The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. Overall I read one biography (To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson), three books on various aspects of church history (The Rise of Christianity, The Anatomy of a Hybrid, and The Secret of the Strength), two books on how to live and work well/efficiently (Deep Work and The Lazy Genius), two books on Christian living (When Helping Hurts and The Hour that Changes the World), three novels (Song of Solomon, Holes, and The City of Ember), and one book about moral psychology (The Righteous Mind).

I read some fantastic books in 2020, books that have spiritually inspired me or changed/deepened how I think or both. Here are some of the most impactful:

• When Helping Hurts talks about poverty and, from a Christian perspective, how to alleviate it. They define poverty as any deficit of shalom in our lives, leading to the realization that we all experience poverty, whether materially or spiritually or in how we view ourselves or in how we relate to others. That idea alone is worth the time and expense of reading the book, but it contains much more that is worthwhile. 
• The Secret of the Strength provides an account of the early Anabaptists and how they determined to simply follow Jesus, no matter the cost. Many of them died for their faith. 
• To the Golden Shore was similarly inspiring. A biography of Adoniram Judson, it tells the story of a man who felt God’s call to Asia and left everything he knew in New England, expecting that he would never return. He endured tremendous physical hardship and lost wives and children due at least in part to the conditions of his mission work. But through him the Lord established a Christian church in Burma whose legacy persists to this day. 
• The Rise of Christianity is a sociologist’s attempt to understand how it was that Christianity went from just a few adherents to millions in 300 years. It is packed full of insights and inferences regarding early Christianity. For instance: estimates are that Christianity grew by about 3-4% per year over its first three centuries; it probably grew primarily by believers sharing their faith with the people they knew; Christians were better equipped than their pagan neighbors to respond to the major pandemic of 165 A.D. (possibly smallpox, and it was estimated to have killed between ⅓ and ¼ of the population); Christianity provided new moral ideas to the culture within which it grew – the concept of mercy as well as love not only for God but for each other and even for people outside of the Christian community. 
• Anatomy of a Hybrid traces the monster that was the integration of the church and the state in the fourth century. It led to terrible things, like the church sanctioning violent suppression of anyone who was at odds with the church. 
• An analogy from The Righteous Mind has made its way into the language my wife and I use to talk about ideas. The analogy is of an elephant with a rider, representing how people make moral judgments. The rider is our conscious mind; the elephant is our intuitions. We tend to think that our judgments are made primarily by our conscious mind, but the book presents a convincing case that the elephant does almost all of the work. Most of the time, our moral judgments are rationalizations of our already-existing intuitions. Our rider can lean in one direction or another, but that’s most likely an indication of our underlying intuition.
• The Hour That Changes the World has added to my understanding that meaningful prayer need not be drudgery and can last much more than a few minutes.

The Lazy Genius Way and Deep Work are both about getting stuff done in a healthy, efficient way. The one idea from Deep Work that I’m determined to use: carve out substantial time to do concentrated deep work. Finding a morning to work on something is doable, but I’ve found it very difficult to find multiple days to completely dedicate to a project, even during time that school is not in session. But I’m going to keep trying.

2020 Book List

As always, the list looks shiny and new and exciting. Last year I planned for nine and read eleven. We’ll try the same thing this time, and maybe I’ll get it to twelve.

1. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. One of the most famous books of one of the most acclaimed American novelists.
2. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. I keep hearing this book referred to, and always in glowing terms.
3. When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor … and Yourself by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. I’m pretty sure I agree with the premise and conclusion of this book. Jesus and the Imago Dei motivate me to care about the impoverished, and I hope this book can help me better understand the problem and spur me to more action on the behalf of those in poverty.
4. To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson by Courtney Anderson. Classic biography of the famous missionary.
5. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. I do things to try to be reasonably efficient in how I use my time at work, but I hope to learn more.
6. The Anatomy of a Hybrid: A Study in Church-State Relationships by Leonard Verduin. How does God’s use of force via the state align with the evident teaching of Jesus that Christians should refrain from violence? This is a common question, and I hope that this book will help me develop my thinking on the issue.
7. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Art of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat. Amy’s choice for me to read. The first part is about how to cook; the last part is mostly recipes. I reserve the right to skip over the recipes.
8. The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries by Rodney Stark. How did it happen that Christianity became such an important and successful movement? 
9. The Secret of the Strength: What Would the Anabaptists Tell This Generation? by Peter Hoover

Here are some other books that I’d love to read, but will probably have to wait until 2021:

1. Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King by Matthew Bates
2. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
3. One-Anothering by Simon Schrock
4. Small teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by Lang
5. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James Smith
6. Effective Intercultural Communication: A Christian Perspective (Encountering Mission) by A. Scott Moreau, Evvy Hay Campbell, and Susan Greener

Many Good Books, and One Clunker: Recapping my 2019 Reading List

I had nine books on my list last year, and ended up reading 11 (though the 11th is not quite finished). There were a lot of excellent books, and one dud.

First, the good.

I read a book about how to apply cognitive behavioral therapy to one’s eating habits, for weight control. It works and it’s sustainable, but of course it’s not easy. I recommend it, The Beck Diet Solution.

I read four stories, three nonfiction and one novel. The novel was a Grisham tale (The Broker) set in Italy, read when Amy and I went to that country for a statistics conference. The other three included a memoir of a remarkable Christian conversion (The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith), an unbelievable true story that also featured a moving Christian conversion (Unbroken), and a story about a group of college rowers who won Olympic gold (Boys in the Boat).

Three books were about various Christian issues. One was a historical consideration of the Lord’s supper in the early church (Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries), from which I learned a lot about how messy the early church was and how zealously they guarded the Lord’s table. Another (The Benedict Option) was a call from a politically conservative, capital-O Orthodox Christian for the church to withdraw from the public square in order to strengthen itself against what he sees as a culture that is becoming more hostile toward the faith. Also, an excellent book from Tim Keller about justice (Generous Justice) – his reformed theology comes through, but I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand a Christian perspective on justice, especially for Christians who tend to align with either the political right or left. God has a way of scrambling categories.

Two books were philosophical. Mind and Cosmos is a short book by Thomas Nagel that confronts the insuperable problem of naturalism, namely that it fails to explain evident non-physical aspects of our existence such as mind and meaning. Unfortunately, he dismisses theism (but at least he considers it), and thus is left without a reasonable solution. I’m also reading (as of this writing, I haven’t quite finished it) a book (Christian and Humanist Foundations for Statistical Inference) about how various paradigms of statistical inference are connected to religious and/or humanist worldviews. For stat nerds, the argument is that strict null hypothesis significance testing, as well as objective Bayesianism, rely on a type of reductive mathematicism that unjustifiably privileges the quantitative over other aspects of reality. Indirect frequentist inference, which uses measures like p-values to informally guide decision-making, is subjective, relatively unprincipled, and is thus argued to reflect a postmodern worldview. This leaves subjective Bayesianism, which is argued to be consistent with a Christian view of reality.

This leaves the dud. I was hoping James Dobson’s well-known book about parenting boys (Bringing Up Boys) would provide me with sage advice based on the Scriptures and his experience. There was a bit of that, but also a lot of culture war propaganda. No thanks.