David’s Bucket

I read this book today. You should pick up a copy right now.

I’m reading an interesting book right now from Dan Kimball entitled, “They Like Jesus, but not the Church.” After I was laid up in bed for a few days after surgery, my wife made the comment to me that I had not been reading as much this summer as I had done in the past. I am certainly behind on the summer reading list I published at the end of April. [I've currently read three of the thirteen books listed.] 

Dan’s book wasn’t on the list I published because I have been so familiar with Dan’s work and even attended a seminar he did on the subject several years ago as he was preparing to write the book. But the subject grabbed my attention and since it was a gift from my former pastor for graduation, I thought I would pick that up. 

The book is a really interesting collection that Dan has put together of his interaction with non-Christians. The idea for the book was born out hundreds of conversations that Dan had with non-Christians in which they consistently expressed a deep respect and admiration for Jesus, but a very strong negative reaction to the church and other forms of institutional Christianity.

I should wrap up my reading this week, and I plan on dedicating all my posts this week to some reflections from this book. 

If you’d like to get a copy of the book, here is the Amazon link. 

For more info, the publisher has setup this website with some other resources available for teaching the book.

First, let me say thanks to all of you who dropped me a comment to enter your name into the Book Giveaway drawing. It was fun. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner. This contest’s prize goes to Goat a.k.a. Brian Atkinson. I chuckled when his name was drawn because Goat was the first to comment on the post and shared this.

I recognize this as a blatant attempt for comments.
Sign me up.

The Goat

 So, yes, Goat was correct. It was a blatant attempt for comments, and he was rewarded for giving into the pressure. Thanks again to everyone who participated and be looking for the Book Giveaway Part. II soon.

Goat, Let me know which of the three books you’d like to receive a copy of and I’ll get it to you. 

While looking at some other blogs in my Google Reader, I came across a pretty cool idea for connecting with blog readers. My blog averages between 35 and 50 RSS subscribers. I’m not really sure why it fluctuates so much but it does [according to feedburner] and I am often curious as to who exactly makes up this subscriber list. So, in the spirit of connection, I thought I would do a little book giveaway contest. The process is simple. 

1. Leave me a comment on this post letting me know you are a subscriber [or if you just check this blog sporadically] 
2.  I’ll collect all those names and put them into a drawing. 
3.  Winner will receive their choice of a brand new copy of one of my three favorite books. If you’re local, I’ll hand deliver. Those outside of DFW, I’ll drop a copy in the mail. 

Yesterday I completed my last final, and just like that, my seminary work is done. In the coming weeks [if it continues to sound interesting to me] I’m going to share a series of posts, “What I’ve learned in seminary. For any readers considering seminary, I thought this might be an interesting collection of thoughts.

It was really a strange feeling leaving campus yesterday. School has been an integral part of my life for so long. I even caught myself talking to two different people yesterday about DMin programs. While I don’t think that is in my near future, I never would have guessed that after finishing my masters I would even want to think about that. But I have discovered that I love learning. With that thought in mind, I thought I’d share where I am going to be satisfying my craving for learning next by sharing my summer reading list.

I usually try to set out a certain number of books for a season as a challenge to myself to stay faithful to the discipline of study. I would like to average 30-40 books per year, and so I’ve made a stack of 13 books for the summer. Here they are.

Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development – This was a book I heard referenced by Adam Hamilton in one of his sermons that I thought was interesting.

The Faces of Forgiveness – This book has been on my shelf for several years. I heard Leron Shults speak at the Emergent Convention back in ‘05 and bought this book at that time. I’m really excited about this one.

The Challenge of Jesus – I’ve already read this book, but I’ve stuck this in the pile to read again. It is my absolute favorite N.T. Wright book.

Life Beneath the Surface – This is a book out of the Relevant box a while back. I heard Pilavachi speak a few years back at the National Youth Workers Convention.

The Gift of the Jews – Another one of Cahill’s books on History. I read his Desire of the Everlasting Hills last summer. That’s a great book if you’re interested in some history surrounding the time of Jesus.

The Gospel According to Starbucks – I got to hear Leonard Sweet speak this spring and that inspired me to add one of his latest to the summer stack.

Flirting with Monasticism – The subtitle looked intriguing… “Finding God in Ancient Paths.”

A Different Drum – I’m not sure where the recommendation came for this one, but it looks like an interesting read of community.

The Prophetic Imagination – An old book, but I love Walter Brueggemann.

Traveling Mercies – I keep hearing people rave about Anne Lamott. This will be my first read of one of her books.

Personality Types and Religious Leadership – A book that looks at different Myers-Briggs types in church work. This should be interesting.

God & Empire – Another book I purchased probably six months ago that I am really looking forward to. I was first introduced to Crossan through the book Excavating Jesus which is a phenomenal book about the archeology and history from the time of Jesus. It’s a must read that was recommended to me by Rob Bell. [Obviously, his book list, not him personally.]

Pastoral Theology in a Intercultural World – This book was given to me by my Short Term Pastoral Counseling professor. At Brite, each professor gives a book to a student as an award for outstanding work in their class. It took me seven years to win a book award, and I was even more surprised to get one from a counseling class. Nonetheless, this book is in my summer stack.

That’s my list for the summer. If any of these titles look interesting, pick one up and let me know what you think.

The feedback that I receive most frequently from my sermons is something to the effect of, “I really like your attention to the history of the bible.” It’s a really affirming comment for me because I often worry that I’m going to put someone to sleep with the “historical stuff.” During the course of that conversation, I am often asked what resources/books I have used in my study of the historical context. I want to mention two today.

The first is Thomas Cahill’s, Desire of the Everlasting Hills. Some of you have probably already read Cahill’s work, How the Irish saved Civilization. It’s a classic that is used in many High School and college level history classes. Cahill’s subtitle, “The world before and after Jesus,” gives hint to the direction and content of the book. Cahill gives a good introduction to the Greek and Roman world that preceded Jesus before looking at the different ways the Gospel writers share his story.

The second book is a more substantial work by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed entitled, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. Excavating Jesus is more substantial in that it deals with the broader picture of the Roman world at the time of Jesus and more specifically addresses the archeological history of the world where Jesus lived. This is a great book to start your study with because it does deal with such a broad picture.

Those are two of the best resources I’ve found and a great place to start for someone who wants to know more about the historical context of the Bible. As always, if you have a question/comment, please feel free to leave me a comment here.

Over the Holidays, I did read a couple of books in preparation for our upcoming messages series, “Biblical Perspectives on Love & Marriage.” One of those resources was Gary Thomas’ book, Sacred Marriage, which I really enjoyed. Rather than your normal “here’s how to have a great marriage” books, Gary looks at marriage from the perspective of, “how can the marriage relationship help us to grow in our relationship with God.”

On the cover, the question is posed, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”

Here’s a brief excerpt that lifts up one of the fundamental ideas raised in this book; that marriage forces us to deal with our own brokenness, weaknesses, and sin.

Kathleen & Thomas Hart write, “Sometimes what is hard to take in the first years of marriage is not what we find out about our partners, but what we find out about ourselves. As one young woman who had been married for a year said, ‘I always thought of myself as a patient and forgiving person. Then I began to wonder if that was just because I had never before gotten close to anyone. In marriage, when John and I began… dealing with differences, I saw how small and unforgiving I could be. I discovered a hardness in me I had never experienced before’.”

Pick up your copy today from the Bucket bookstore: Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

I’m reading a book right now that is hurting my brain. The book is Beyond Liberalism & Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy set the Theological Agenda by Nancey Murphy. I’m reading it in conjunction with an independent study for seminary on Emerging Church theologies. I know it’s full of tons of great information. It’s just hard to digest so much “head” knowledge at once. The first section of the book is all about the development of modern theology and paritcularly addresses the ways in which the church has developed two polar opposite responses to modern philosophy; liberalism and fundamentalism. The second part is all about postmodernity. As you can imagine, I’m enjoying the second half much more. Here’s the opening of that section.

Contemporary theology, like an empty pile in solitaire, is waiting for a new king to come along and get things started again.” So says, Jeffrey Stout. Stout is pessimistic about the appearance of such a kind, and I am too. but what STout fails to consider – and what will be the focus of the second part of this book – is the possibility that the rules of the game might be changed instead. If all the possible move have been tried within the limits set by modernity, this should be a cause for dismay only if we believe modern thinkiers have had the final word on the topics of knowledge, language, and the ultimate nature of reality. It is becoming more and more widely accepted that modern thinkers have not had the last word.

He goes on to this quote from Karl Popper who is writing in 1935.

The empirical basis of objective science has thus nothing “absolute” about it. Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or “given” base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simple stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.

W.V.O. Quine who wrote, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” which Nancey Murphy uses the publication date to mark the end of modernity writes this.

The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mahtematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundaries are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions re-adujustment in the interior of the field.

Finally, Murphy writes…

…beliefs that are useful for justifying other claims will always turn out to be indubitable, and in fact will be found to be dependent upon the structure they are intended to justify… What finally brought empiricist foundationalism to an end was the recognition that scientific facts are “theory laden.”

All quotes taken from Murphy, pp. 85-91.