Wisdom For Your Weekend: your weekly installment of things we’ve been reading around the web.
Book Review of the Week
The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage, Rob and Kristen Bell. Reviewed by Dave Harvey. Here is an incisive and masterfully written book review of Rob Bell’s latest offering—and of Rob Bell’s ministry in general. An illustrative excerpt:
“In Love Wins Bell introduced us to his ‘new’ way of understanding heaven and hell. At least he used the Bible. In The Zimzum of Love, the Bells reference the Bible a total of three times, one of them being a reference to John 3:16 signs at football games (25). But then, why ground ideas in the Bible when ‘zimzum’ offers so much uncharted territory for authorial exploration? And this is where Rob and Kristen blast off from planet Christianity for galaxies unknown.”
“The result? A ‘spiritual’ book that commends the ethics of Christianity but appears ashamed of their source (Luke 9:26). Biblical ideas without scriptural grounding—water with no spring, heat with no sun, liberty with no law (James 1:25). Never mind ‘rightly handling the word of truth’ (2 Tim. 2:15); Bell makes little effort to handle it at all.”
“I’m not exaggerating. If Christianity were outlawed and a mob amassed to burn Christian books, The Zimzum of Love would not be at risk.”
Articles of the Week
The Case for Idolatry: Why Evangelical Christians Can Worship Idols, Andrew Wilson. Yes, you read that right. But no, Wilson isn’t serious. This is a piece of satire, and an insightful one at that. You should be able to recognize some common arguments here dressed up in different clothes. Parodies can be edifying (though not all are), and I think this offers us a helpful perspective on a hotly debated topic today.
Seven Factors That Lead People to Become Atheists, David Murray. American cultural commentator Larry Taunton wanted to know what led people to leave their religious backgrounds for atheism. So he conducted an extensive nationwide survey based on the question, “What led you to become an atheist?” Murray looks at the top seven factors, some of which made sense to me, but others of which were definitely surprising.
What’s So Bad About “Authenticity,” Anyway? Trevin Wax. “Another good word for ‘authenticity’ is non-conformity. The point of non-conformity is being true to yourself as opposed to whatever self others may want you to be true to. That’s why much of the drama in our culture of authenticity comes from the casting off of societal constraints. . . . The Age of Authenticity isn’t likely to empty churches; it’s likely instead to fill them with people who believe the primary purpose of religious observance is to facilitate ‘finding yourself’ and ‘chasing your dreams.’ . . . The church’s response must be to pick up the pieces left in the wake of Authenticity’s tidal wave of sadness. When ‘being true to yourself’ tramples everything else, broken hearts litter the path. The church must present a gospel for the broken and disillusioned.”
The Most Popular Passages in the Most Popular Books, Robinson Meyer. Among the many wonders of the internet, we now have access to a world heretofore shrouded in mystery—the favorite literature passages of everyday readers. We’ve all circled, underlined, or placed some other indistinct mark next to a quote as we journey through a favorite novel. But with e-book technology, those highlights are public. So we’ve got some terribly-unscientific-but-nevertheless-quantifiable way to identify what people connect with most. “The rules of the Hunger Games are simple…”
On The Lighter Side
“I Won’t Let You Down,” OK Go. This quirky pop group has been wowing us (or at least me) since their iconic treadmill music video. They then upped their game with a one-take Rube Goldberg machine music video, which left my jaw gaping (still my favorite music video of all time). I’m not entirely sure how they pulled off their most recent one-take vid, but I’m impressed.
