Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in Memphis readers and why?

Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in Memphis readers and why?

Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy is proving to be very helpful as I seek dialogue with other branches of faith. He brings out positives about over a dozen denominations. Dr. Phyllis Tickle sees his work as foundational for the Emerging Church movement.

Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in Memphis readers and why?

Along with many others, I read Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. As someone who grew up Anglo in Memphis in the 60’s, it is a good read. We had an African-American maid, as did most people I know. “The Help” helped me to imagine life in our household from our maid’s eyes. The book also helped me to get a different perspective on an unjust system that I lived through, although I had little awareness of it. I’m looking forward to the release of the movie next month.

Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in Memphis readers and why?

Oh me, I’m glad you asked.  I’ll divide them up into categories:

Biblical themes:   The Rise and Fall of the Bible:  The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book, Timothy Beal.  In a day in which terms like “the authority of scripture” and “biblical literalism” are thrown around without any real understand of what they mean, Beal takes a new look, and a readable one at that, at how the Bible came to be.  Did you know that Christianity thrived for centuries without any Bible?  That there is no such thing as an “original” Bible? That the idea of the Bible as the literal Word of God is only about a century old. Written by a former evangelical who is still an active Christian.

The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, Peter Gomes.  This has become a classic, and I put this in partly because it ought to be a “must read” for anyone taking the Bible seriously, but also in memory of Gomes, who died this past year.  As the Chaplain at Harvard, he takes a joyful look at some of the basic questions of the Bible: How did it come to be?  How is it misused? What does it mean today?

History/politics: The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, Peter Beinhart. The author takes us from the eve of World War I through the war in Iraq, and shows how our political leaders conceived a war in arrogance which brought untold tragedy. Would that every presidential candidate and congressperson read this! Will we learn from the lessons of history?

Novels: The Laguna, Barbara Kingsolver.  Kingsolver, one of the very best writers today in my opinion, takes us on a journey from Mexico City with artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, through Washington DC and Asheville, N.C. and with J. Edgar Hoover.  I must warn you:  It was hard to get into, but make your way past the first 50 pages or so, and you won’t be able to put it down. Terribly poignant.  Much like her The Poisonwood Bible, it demonstrates how decisions made in the halls of power effect ordinary people.

Half Broke Horses, Jeanette Walls. I just finished this a few days ago, and found this “true life novel” about Walls’ incredible grandmother every bit as riveting as her memoir The Glass Castle. A testimony to the power of the human spirit.

Spiritual/psychological formation: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are; Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life, Brene Brown. If you haven’t seen Brene Brown in her TED talk, google it and be mesmerized for 30 minutes; then read this book.  She blends her research with her own personal journey and leads us from the question “What will people think?” to “I am enough.”  Our imperfections are gifts, not something to lead us to shame and guilt.

Memoir/spiritual growth: Beyond the Dead End:  Letters to My Father, Mary Ylvisaker Nilsen.  I just finished this this week, and found it helpful in how we deal with grief, even the grief over Mary’s father’s death when she was only six years old.  She tells the story of her life through the letters to her father.  Most poignant were her vulnerable sharings of her own family dynamics.

Next on my list: The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll, Preston Lauterbach.  This has just come out and the author (with a Memphis connection) will be appearing at The Booksellers (formerly Davis-Kidd) on July 18.  This appears to be a book I have been waiting for. It tells the story of the profound role “the chitlin’ circuit” of African-American blues musicians had in the development of rock and roll. Their story has not been told.  Some of the musicians are familiar, others are less well known but just as powerful.

The Art of the Commonplace The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry.  Some of his essays on community, farming and more.  I think he is America’s foremost philosopher/ poet.

Finally, a classic for the summer: I And Thou, Martin Buber. Every summer I try to re-read at least one “classic,” and this will be it for this summer. A groundbreaking work 60 years ago when it first came out in seeing the theological value of relationship.

Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in Memphis readers and why?

Reading is the lifeblood of my work as a pastor, but the reading rarely feels like work because I’ve come to enjoy it so much. I read online blogs and cultural commentary, and periodicals like First Things, Christianity Today, and Books and Culture in addition to books and biblical commentaries—and of course I read The Commercial Appeal every morning. But the following list of authors have nurtured my faith appreciatively: C. S. Lewis, Eugene Peterson, Mark Buchanan, Os Guinness, D. A. Carson, Richard Mouw, Dallas Willard, Timothy Keller, Peter Kreeft, Ravi Zacharias, N. T. Wright, John Piper, William Willimon, Alister McGrath, Philip Yancey, Henri Nouwen, J. I. Packer, John Stott, Christopher J. H. Wright, Ralph Wood, and Cornelius Plantinga. Each of these writers have authored many books; pick anything from their corpus and profit.

I like historical narrative, biographies, and essay/anthologies. For historical narrative I find Nathaniel Philbrick’s books hard to put down, such as his In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, which I just read on vacation. Eric Metaxas has an excellent biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And Joseph Epstein, Alan Jacobs, and Annie Dillard are provocative essayists.

My own mother is a writer, a former editor at Thomas Nelson and current novelist. Check out Vicki Huffman’s A Secret Hope on Amazon. Yes, Mom is my favorite author.

At the moment I am finishing Russell Moore’s Tempted and Tried, a vividly written consideration of what our battles with temptations encompass and how Jesus triumphed over such in his own life. Matthew Lee Anderson’s Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith is also in my satchel. I’m into Gerald McDermott’s The Great Theologians: A Brief Guide, biological sketches on twelve theological stalwarts spanning church history. And Luke Veldt’s Written in Tears is next on my Kindle; the author of this book mourns for the young daughter he lost utilizing Psalm 103.

I would be less than fully evangelical if I didn’t add: READ YOUR BIBLE!

Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at  the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you  reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in  Memphis readers and why?

My wife and I just reread Let Justice Roll Down, the autobiography of Dr. John Perkins. Still active in ministry at 81 years old, Dr. Perkins was a risk-taking and persecution-enduring pastor and civil rights leader in central Mississippi during the 1960s and 70s. It’s a life-changing book, for those who have ears to hear.
I’ve also recently finished When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, professors at Covenant College in Chattanooga. Drawing from research and their own experiences in cross-cultural ministry among the poor, the authors construct a convincing critique of how western churches and Christians inadvertently dis-empower and even harm the needy. Thankfully, they also provide principles for altering our practices. This is a book that should be widely read on college campuses and seminaries, but is also helpful for the general reader.

Given that the Fourth of July has just past and we are now at the height of summer vacation and prime reading season, what are you reading this summer, and what books would you recommend to our Faith in Memphis readers and why?

My reading this summer is focused on a paper I am giving to the Prairie Group, a Unitarian study group for ministers, on progressive apocalyptic thinking and the church. One of the books is The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle. It explores 500-year cycles in the life of the church as it creates revolutionary changes in response to social and cultural trends. A second book is Searching for Utopia: The History of an Idea by Gregory Claeys. This work offers a history of the quest for the ideal society and the influence of that idea on literature, art, and religious and political thought from ancient to modern times.

Another book for summer reading is Virtually You:The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality by Elias Aboujaoude. Dr. Aboujaoude is a psychiatrist at the Stanford University of Medicine. His research explores the influence of the Web on human personality and society, and how it contributes to a diminished ability to read and think critically.

Here are a few books I used this past year for sermons.

An Ethical Compass: Coming of Age in the 21st Century with a preface by Elie Wiesel and the foreword by Thomas L. Friedman. This is a collection of ethics prize essays by college students offering insights into what makes a person moral.

The Rise and Fall of the Bible by Timothy Beal. Beal is the Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case Western Reserve University. He chronicles the history of the Bible and how Americans are biblically illiterate in the 21st century. One of his interesting ideas is “biblical consumerism.”

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell. This is a 600 plus page book filled with research on American religious life. It is full of surprises and insights.

Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman. Ehrman is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the Bible and the life of Jesus. In this work he reveals how the Bible was really written and revised through history. He asks how faith is possible when we come to understand the historical realities of Christianity and the evolution of the Bible.

Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives by Michael Specter. This is a fascinating look at the human propensity to use magical thinking as a way to cope with a complicated and complex world.