Book Review – The Bone House, Stephen Lawhead

Summary? A frustrating first half leads to an exceptional second half of the book. Recommended.

The Bone House, part 2 of the Bright Empires series. I had read part one a few months ago, and decided to give part 2 a run. You can read my review of part one, The Skin Map.

Again, a quick part of the blurb from the Stephen Lawhead’s site. -

One piece of the skin map has been found. Now the race to unravel the future of the future turns deadly.

An avenue of Egyptian sphinxes, an Etruscan tufa tomb, a Bohemian coffee shop, and a Stone Age landscape where universes collide …

 The Bone House is a definite continuation from The Skin Map. Without reading part 1, part 2 will not make a whole lot of sense, I don’t think this is the kind of series you can start where you want!

The first half of the book is frankly frustrating. There are at least 5 story lines going on, and some you just have no idea why. And not just 5 story lines all happening around each other (though in many senses they are). One minute you are with someone in London, next with that persons great grandfather but in Ancient Egypt, next with someone else altogether in 18th century Egypt, And next again somewhere in Bohemia. It was interesting, intriguing, but a little messy at the same time.

But somewhere around half way all the story lines start to converge. Once I past this point the book was a page turner – I struggled to put it down, because it utterly caught my imagination. The other thing is that book 2 resolves a lot of the ‘unifinished’ business of book 1, bringing together what was a good story line with lots of lose ends, into something much more coherent.

What to say again without giving much away? Persevere through the first half, take your time to work out who is who and where and when they are, and it will all come together in the end, and it will be rewarding. Stephen Lawhead has already made his intention clear to publish book 3 – The Spirit Well – in September 2012. But unlike book 1, you are not left wondering ‘what??’. There is much to happen and much to be resolved, but this is a much clearer break at the end of the book, which left me feeling good about the story I read, and yet, interested in the next book.

So again, recommended to teenagers and above. For those younger, read and exercise your own discretion! There is nothing untoward in any language or relationships, but there are mature aspects of the book younger readers may or will have difficulty with. An interesting mix of fantasy, science fiction, philosophy and religion.

Book Review – The Skin Map, Stephen Lawhead

Summary? A good read, if not a little confusing at the start. Book 2 even better. Recommended.

I was intrigued by the description of The Skin Map, by Stephen R. Lawhead.

The ultimate quest for ultimate treasure. Kit Livingstone gets caught up in an Omniverse of intersecting realities as he chases the secret of a map tattooed on human skin. It’s time to walk the lines.

I have read books from this author before, and they had been interesting, so it was time to give it a go. I will be honest, there are some reviews out there that portray this book as poor, and I was nearly dissuaded, but glad I did take the time to read.

The book begins with our main characters – Kit and Wilhelmina, living unremarkable if not utterly dreary lives in modern day England. But things change when Kit meets his grandfather and namesake (Cosimo) and finds himself travelling through the multiverse to new places and times.

Unfortunately this makes him late to a date with his girlfriend, and so in an attempt to get himself out of trouble he tries to prove to her that it is real. And so begins the adventure. With settings ranging from modern day London, late middle ages Prague, Ancient Egypt and a few in between, it has an entertaining breadth and interesting story line.

The book travels at a leisurely pace, and to be honest, by the end of it you are not quite sure why some of the chapters were even there (though having read the second book already, it is becoming clearer). The only occasional difficulty is in working out what the chapter represents – who is the focus on, and what place and time period they are in. It is not too bad in the book, but you do need to take a second to think at every turn!

Being a fiction book, I don’t want to say too much and give things away. So what I will say is it was a ‘good’ book – not great, but not bad. An enjoyable read. For those expecting a ‘Christian Epic’, you will be disappointed. To me it certainly appears that Lawhead has a ‘Christian Worldview’, and maybe he will make more of this in the future, and he certainly poses poignant questions at opportune times, but this is not a strictly ‘Christian’ book. I just note as some previous reviewers this was their main complaint…

But having read the second book (which gets in all senses better), it is a great, and required, introduction to what appears will be a series of reasonable length. In short, recommended to teenagers and adults alike. For those with younger children, read it yourself and use your own discernment.

You can also like to read my review of The Bone House (book 2 in Bright Empires).

Great Books?

I love to read. I love to sit down with a great book and become engrossed in the story. For me reading is often restful and entertaining at the same time – I can lose hours and days in a good book, and come out refreshed and ready for anything.

So this year, I would like to read some more great books. Any suggestions?

Biographies and Testimonies.

I love these kind of books. I am almost finished re-reading Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy again. It is without doubt a great book (I reviewed it here).

Some other books like this I have read and remain in my memory are Mover of Men and Mountains – the story of RG Le Tourneau. It was at least 10 years ago but this still remains a powerful memory. Another very long time ago was ‘Vanya‘ – the story of a Soviet Christian in 1970 who was also a Red Army soldier. Lastly, I still remember Shadow of the Almighty being a very powerful book – the story of Jim Elliot. It might be time to find and read that one again!

I know I have read plenty more, but those ones remain even despite years intervening – I am sure It was about 1991 when I read Vanya!

So knowing there is many more out there, any suggestions?

Fiction

I love a good fiction book. Lord of the Rings is without question my favourite series. There is a problem with this though – it sets such an impossibly high standard that sometimes I read books and just shake my head, wishing authors would continue to take 20 years to write 3 books, rather than 3.

But I know there are other good books out there. I also love Perelandra by CS Lewis, not to mention Narnia.

The problem with fiction is finding good, clean fiction! You know what I mean. Books don’t need swearing. They don’t need illicit relationships, and even less, intimate descriptions of them. They don’t need a lot of the things people put in for ‘excitement’. The other problem these days (and now I am just ranting) is the use of an authors name but the book is written by someone else. I used to read Clive Cussler all the time, but now, they all have his name in big, bold letters, but are written by someone else, and the quality has drained away. They were never ‘great’ books, but they were at least a good read (if not unfortunately having undesirable elements), but now they aren’t even that. And he isn’t the only author whose name is being used for profit…

So help me out – rather than read Lord of the Rings 3 times this year, what can you recommend?

Book Review – The Next Story by Tim Challies Part 3

(Todays post is a follow on from yesterday, which are personal reflections on technology and Christianity. Please take a read of that post, as this is a direct continuation)

Yesterday we discussed technology in general and the internet. We  then went over the first two personal risks of idolatry and distraction. Today I want to continue with Reliance and Church, remembering that it is not technology, but our application and use of it that we are concerned with here.

Reliance

Our next issue is reliance on technology, rather than God. We can see that technology does all these amazing things for us – why do we need to rely on God? I heard an argument recently that because of ‘Moore’s Law’ (basically describing how fast technology grows), we will be able to create life in our own right within 100 years (heard at podcasts from the White Horse Inn). This person was relying entirely on technology to substitute for God.

Another issue with reliance is relying on technology to service our Christian needs. We rely on Facebook groups to be our community. We rely on blogs and online teaching to give us solid grounding. We rely on Christian music to give us worship. We rely on our technology to bring us closer to God, which leads into my next point.

Church

I am aware this will be a controversial point, but I think in many contexts, we have ‘church’ wrong. In our modern western society, we believe church is a combination of worship songs and preaching. For some people, it may also include some form of sacrament, such as communion and baptism.

I honestly think this perspective is wrong. Church is a gathering of people. People are the church. It might be argued that ‘meeting’ online is the same, but I disagree (and I think the Bible does also). Online I can easily hide my feelings. Indeed, I can be someone entirely different. I can be who I think I am based on my Facebook profile and what people ‘like’ about me. I could be mortally wounded in my soul, but ‘praise God’ online. I can act happy, when I am not. I can be anyone, anywhere, and no one would know any different.

When people gather together, physically, there is a different level of relationship than online. You can see and know in minutes whether someone has an issue if you are physically with them. You can pray for them, cry with them, counsel them, put an arm around them, or even rebuke them if needed. You might be able to ‘virtually’ do some of these things, but I don’t believe it is the same, because the level of relationship online is simply not able to be the same.

Physically we can also perform things like communion and baptism, which the Bible affirms as important. I also think that the task of making disciples can only truly occur in a physical setting, because the teaching, guiding and even rebuking are so much harder when you cannot really see and know the person, but only their online persona.

Based on our faulty assumption that church is ‘just worship and preaching’, we can then easily say we can substitute physical attendance with a group of believers with an online ‘experience’. There are hundreds of online churches now, or internet churches. These places are as a rule not a bad thing. But I firmly believe they cannot replace the physical gathering of believers. Worship is good, but it is not church. Christian songs are good, but they are not church. Preaching and teaching are both good, even essential, but they are not church. I listen to teaching in my car all the time, and sometimes music, but it is not church.

Church is a physical gathering of believers in one place. (If you are looking for a more focussed study on ‘church’, ‘Ekklesia’ and ‘Logos’, I found Mark Roberts post ‘What is a Church’ and ‘Is Online Church Really Church?‘ very helpful, but there are many other resources as well)

The risk then is to the whole church, or Biblical concept of church. We begin to see our technology as a way to save time, and yet go to church. Or we see it as a way to attend a different church, more exciting church, larger church, etc. So we interact in a chat screen with other Christians, or maybe an online Pastor. We post to our Facebook that we are attending, just so all our friends know (or can click ‘like’ to edify us). But I think we miss that key ingredient – that is, the gathering of believers.

Please don’t misunderstand – I think that the online experiences available are in many cases great things. They reach out to the unchurched. In some cases, they fill a need for people who physically cannot attend church for a time and a reason (for example, someone in a hospital bed). But I don’t believe it should ever replace the physical gathering of believers for any length of time.

Conclusions?

I think there are many things we can take away from these thoughts. The key one for me is that technology brings great benefit to many things – but is also brings great risk. We need to continually evaluate not just the technology, but its use and effect in our lives, by the written Word of God. We need to continually ensure that we are not taking the easy, wide path, but are travelling by the narrow road (Matthew 7:13-14). Technology can make many things easier, but that doesn’t mean they are better.

Take some time to evaluate these things in your life, and what effect they have. If you are concerned, seek out answers. A good starting place is Tim Challies book, which is reviewed here. They key though is your life before God – not technology. Don’t let technology take away from God, or what He has for you.

Lord God, thank you for all of the benefits of technology, that you gave us the gift to find out about and use. Guide us in its use, teach us to be discerning stewards, always searching for your will. Show us where we are at fault, and bring us closer to you. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Book Review – The Next Story by Tim Challies Part 2

As promised in yesterdays post, today I wanted to post some personal reflections on modern technology, and our relationship to it. Because of how long this post ended up, I will be splitting it into 2 parts. Part 2 can be read here.

From a technical perspective, I’ve been a ‘geek’ for many years. I had my first computer in the mid ’80s (a Commodore Vic 20, followed by the amazing Commodore 64, with tape drive!), and had broken and repaired computers before 1990 (at which I was still in high school). I have since worked in technology related roles for many companies, from helpdesk, desktop support, project management and team leadership from 1992. At home we still maintain a ‘technical’ house – laptops, desktops, iPhones, iPad, Kindles and consoles populate every corner of our house, and are all frequently used. We are truly a technologically blessed house.

From a biblical perspective, I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years now, and including 6 month stint at a Bible college in 1993, have always enjoyed studying deeper into theology, part of which is hopefully borne out in my life, and on this blog.

So the question arises, what effect does technology have on Theology, and Christianity?

Tim Challies in his book, The Next Story – Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion, raises some significant points that we need to consider.

The first is that in the current technology explosion- primarily that of on-demand technology and the internet, has changed the way the world works already. Even if I look at my own life, we rely on the internet for much of our communication. I email my wife daily through the day. I use email to communicate with much of my family and extended family.

Even more concerning though, is that the internet drives my work. I currently manage the technology for around 15 retail stores across the country. The only way these stores work together is that they are always connected – through the internet. If the internet were to go ‘down’ centrally, all stores but one would be crippled, as they no longer have the tools locally to function. 2 Weeks of no internet would almost certainly send the business on a rapid road to bankruptcy, and leave 200+ people unemployed.

I am not saying that the internet is about to fail – but my point is that it is an essential foundation to modern business and personal life. Just like cars, or telephones, or electricity, without the internet, life would immediately stop. It has become essential to a majority of people.

The question then arises, what does this mean for us as Christians?

Firstly, in that technology has become essential for life to continue as it is, I think there is no effect. As Christians the backdrop of life on this earth is not very important. We trust in God. We know God has His plans for this world, and we know God knew all about the internet before He created the first living thing. God knows what is going on, and if the internet does fail, he already knew it would and will use it for His glory, while still providing for us.

The real issue though, as discussed in Challies book, is our use of technology. There are some significant risks here.

Idolatry

The first obvious issue, which I mentioned in yesterday’s review, is idolatry. We can become enamoured with technology as a ‘thing’. We can always live and desire the latest, greatest thing. We can start to think that we cannot live without some of this technology in our lives. It can also be brand related – I know many ‘geeks’ who worship at the ‘temple of Apple’. Many people love Apple products, but some people have made them (and in some cases, the CEO Steve Jobs) an idol.

I came across this in my life just this week. My iPhone died. Long story which I will not go into the details of, but I wondered what will I do? Can I get it repaired? Do I go and get another one, or do I go and get an Android phone? I wasted at least an hour reading reviews of the latest and greatest Google Android phones, wondering if I could somehow swing it into the budget, because the iPhone was not working. Idolatry? No, but I am sure it certainly got close. Why do I love this device so much? Because it’s cool, I always have games, or Bible reading with me. I use it for hours each day to listen to teaching. Surely this is a good thing? Yes – but I don’t need an iPhone to do that. I have other devices, maybe not so new, maybe not so cool, maybe not even so simple to use in one device, which will meet all of those needs. I have a phone, I have an iPod, I can do this. So I went from ‘needing’ a new iPhone or replacement, to realizing it really isn’t necessary in my life, no matter what I might feel.

Technology also makes it easier to find more and more idols, and maintain our worship of them. Be it communication (Facebook for example), the need to be loved, sports worship or even celebrity gossip, technology allows us now to engage in any of these things more and more, and for them to become preeminent in our lives – in short, to become an idol.

Distraction

Distraction is one of the greatest issues with technology. We can’t turn our phones off even in Church, or visiting a friend. If it beeps in the middle of a conversation we pull it out to see, without even thinking of the other person we are physically with (this has become almost normal behaviour). We can’t be without our phone beeping every time someone likes our status on Facebook. We need to know if someone emailed us – no matter what the time, no matter how mundane.

The other thing technology does is allows us to fill our lives. We can fill our lives with on demand television or movies – at the click of a button. Apple TV or netflix will deliver us something – now. Or maybe we can play a game on a console or the PC. More often than not, we can sit in front of our TV, stream a netflix movie while looking up something on our iPad and having our iPhone go off next to us every time we get a text or email. We are distracted. We have no room left for our own thought even – let alone room for the creator of the universe! We have no room for quiet contemplation and meditation. We start to believe all the ‘likes’ on Facebook, rather than take time to know ourselves and come before God in repentance.

Come back tomorrow for my thoughts on the next two points, reliance and Church!

Book Review – The Next Story by Tim Challies Part 1

(This is part 1 of a 3 part review – today I will focus on the book, tomorrow more on my personal experience and reflections. Part 2 can be read here.)

Life and Faith after the digital explosion. It is an apt byline! We have undergone a digital explosion over the past 100 years, and it is escalating ever faster. I was considering this growth of technology myself when this book was released, so it seemed a good time to grab a copy.

I will reflect more on my personal experiences tomorrow, but just as a quick background – as a day job, I am the IT Manager in a medium sized business across multiple states here in Australia, and have been working in technology jobs now for at least 18 years in both Australia and the USA – that is half of my life. Outside of work I also enjoy technology – I purchased this book on my new Kindle, and we have more technology than people in our house…

Onto the book!

First, to the conclusion. This was an interesting book reflecting on many aspects of technology – and it is primarily that, a reflection. Apart from one small complaint (which may not be valid for many people), this is a helpful book. It helps provide some Biblical guidance, foundation and perspective on technology, and its affect on our lives. And then provides some basic guidance as to how we might want to relate to technology in our lives.

My only real complaint is that the book is wordy – that is, for me, I found sections had way too much detail. But that is part of the reason I provided my context as a highly technical person – for many people, I think there is a lot of good information and context to help people understand the roles of technology in our lives and society, and how to evaluate that against our lives, especially as Christians.

The two main area’s I enjoyed in the book were addressing technological idolatry, and technology distraction. (Quotes from the book in italics)

There are always spiritual realities linked to our use of technology. We know that there is often a link between our use of technology and idolatry, that our idols are often good things that want to become ultimate things in our lives. Communication with others is just this sort of good thing, a very good thing that can so easily become an ultimate thing—an idol in our hearts. How can we tell if something has become an idol in our lives? One possible sign of idolatry is when we devote an inordinate amount of time and attention to something, when we feel less than complete without it. It may be something that we look at right before we go to sleep and the first thing we give our attention to when we wake up. It may be the kind of thing that keeps us awake, even in the middle of the night.

Some of the statistics in the book I found interesting, like for example in one survey of  1600 young adults, 34% of female respondents said they checked Facebook first thing in the morning, even before they got up to go to the bathroom or do anything else! I guess to me that is crazy, that communication, and the technology to enable it, becomes so important it has to be the first thing that someone does in the morning! There is also the example of a person who simply cannot turn off their mobile phone, even in the movies, or the business person who simply cannot be more than arms reach from their smartphone, lest something happens and they don’t hear it.

The other main area that I think we could all do with a reminder of is distraction (and for a specific example, in the middle of that sentence my mobile phone rang!). Our technology has become so accessable, that we carry it everywhere. We have our iPhones, smartphones, iPad’s, laptops and who knows what else, available to us all the time. The internet is rarely more than 5 minutes from anywhere, and for many people, they become addicted to this availability.

In the midst of all of this distraction, the cure is to refocus our attention on what matters most. If our distracted existence is the fruit of allowing beeps to control our lives and of turning speed and capacity into divine virtues, then we must respond by silencing the beeps and relearning how to focus.

Another interesting observation from the book was how technology has come to shape the way we see the world, and the way we see and understand world events. Challies draws a comparison between Pearl Harbor and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Both were catastrophic events in the history of America. Both were ‘surprise’ attacks which killed many Americans in an act of war. But because of the change in just over 50 years in technology, people alive during Pearl Harbor may not have known about it when it happened – it was at least hours, if not even days before they found out. Yet when people are asked about 9/11, they often can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing – because first the news and then the images were broadcast worldwide within minutes. We almost all got to see the burning towers, the second plane, the final collapse and all the drama in between. I know from my experience – my son had woken that night, and we had a TV in our room we would switch on for ‘light’. It was 3AM for me (In Australia on 9/12), and I flicked on the TV so I could see to go and check what was happening. And instead of some shopping channel, the news was on – which immediately caught my attention. And then I saw the first tower burning. I changed channels and all 4 major channels had news broadcasts – something was definitely going on. Even though it was 3AM, it was by chance I had the TV on to use as a light – I already knew and saw what was happening in America at that time.

Because of all these changes, Challies reminds us that technology not only becomes part of our lives, but changes them completely. If you look at the automobile, it has totally changed society. We have moved from village centric society, where the fastest you could travel for most people was a horse, or maybe a train (and only for maybe 50 years before the auto), to a society where almost everyone can be wherever they need to be in short time. If we took the automobile out of society today – we could simply not fuction. I could not get to work. I couldn’t even got to my church. I could maybe walk to the local shops, but that would be about it. Technology changes society in a way that cannot be undone.

And so this book helps show us those technologies, and give some Biblical guidance on how to interpret those changes in our lives, and in light of the Bible. In our current age as well, it is good to be reminded of the changes that happened before our time (for example, the automobile revolution), and be able to evaluate those changes in light of modern technology.

As Christians we know that God calls us to live with virtue, to live thoughtfully before him, to use our God-given minds to live in a way that honors him. If we are to take our responsibilities seriously, we must learn to ignore the buzzes, the beeps, and the distractions that threaten to drown out serious thought and reflection. We must learn to remain undistracted, to wholeheartedly focus our attention on the things that matter most, and to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Final thoughts? Apart from what I found to be extra words, for most people this will be a helpful book, as it takes technology aside, and takes a good hard look at it’s affect on our lives, from a Christian and Biblical perspective. Recommended.

(Come back tomorrow for some more personal reflections on modern technological changes)

Giants – The Lost Civilization Series

The Lost Civilization Series – by Vaughn Heppner.

Most people I know need some down time. For me, that down time will usually find me reading (my wife calls me ‘readie smurf’). After spending the last 4 days laid up in bed with a shoulder and neck injury, I got to do a whole lot of that recently!

One of the things I am sure many of you will relate to, is the difficulty of finding a good, clean author. I still want to read a good story, but,  I would like to avoid many of the things that many authors like to include these days (I am sure you know what I mean…).

So onto the Lost civilization series. The first book, Giants, came up when I was looking at books from another Christian author (Ben Witherington), as something Amazon would like me to look at. I took a look, and it seemed promising. And at under a dollar, was well worth the risk!

Giants (and the rest of the series) delves into the time before the flood, and bases it’s primary story line around a fictional portrayal of the Nephilim – yes, those ones. The meeting of the ‘sons of god’ and the ‘daughters of men’. The author also draws heavily from the Bible and Biblical themes, though out of place and context (for example, a key character has many of traits of Abraham, though obviously out of place and time). The book has a well weaved story line, though it takes a few chapters to understand what is going on. There are the usual ups and downs, mysteries and puzzles. Heppner also isn’t afraid to deal with issues of good vs evil and right vs wrong, which is very refreshing. Even better, he has an obviously biblical viewpoint of the world.

In a typical fantasy style, the storyline of the first three books follows primarily the character Joash, who is one of Elohim’s seraphim (chosen people – not Angels) to bring about things on the Earth. The fourth book takes up a side story of another character Lod, who we heard but didn’t see in the first three. The books all have little side stories and paths which add to the overall picture, and leave you interested and looking forward for more at the end. While not ground breaking (the first book is a little less polished than the rest especially), they are a good read.

My recomendation? If you like a good bit of fiction, without all the garbage of many modern writers, give it a go. For a dollar, seriously, you can’t lose. It is good to see people with more solid morals addressing a story we would all be interested in hearing. I will be looking forward to reading Heppners other series called ‘The Ark Chronicles’, and hope that he considers adding more to this series as well.

Do you know of any good authors who deal solidly with Christian values, whilst still writing a good book? If so, please share! Leave a comment below and I will check them out (and encourage others to do the same).