Stephen Hawkings’ The Grand Design has shot straight to the top of the New York Times list of bestsellers. The book is his atheistic answer to questions like these ones: Why is there a universe—why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why are the laws of nature what they are? Did the universe need a designer and creator? Edgar Andrews was kind enough to allow me to post his review of the book. Andrews is author of Who Made God?: Searching for a Theory of Everything, Emeritus Professor of Materials at the University of London and an international expert on the science of large molecules. Which is to say that he is well-suited to write a review of a book like this one. Here is what he says about The Grand Design:

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking sold over nine million copies of his book A Brief History of Time. Now, 22 years later, he has co-authored The Grand Design which immediately hit the No.1 spot in the New York Times best-seller list. But the sequel is so inferior to the prequel in intellectual quality that a reviewer in The Times Saturday Review (London, 11 September 2010) writes: 'It reads like a stretched magazine article … there is too much padding and too much recycling of long-stale material… I doubt whether The Grand Design would have been published if Hawking's name were not on the cover'.

So why is the new book a runaway best-seller? Because it claims that science makes God redundant. Let's take a closer look at the claims advanced in The Grand Design.

Last week I came to the point (and it happens at least once every year) that I just couldn’t face reading another book. At least I couldn’t face reading another non-fiction book. Usually this means that I take a break from reading for a while—I just find something else to do to bide my time. But this year, to my surprise, I kind of felt like reading a novel. I barely ever read novels—maybe one every two or three years; less, even. And yet here I was, suddenly craving some fiction.

While I keep up with the world of non-fiction, and especially Christian non-fiction, I have not kept up at all with fiction. So I wondered what I should read. I ended up looking up the list of recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and figured I’d read some of those. Though they may not be the most popular novels out there, they will at least be good, right? So I grabbed the winners for 2009, 2007 and 2005. And then I read ‘em. And now I want to offer just a short review of each, though as I write I find that I really do not even know how to review fiction. Nevertheless, let me give it a shot.

Olive Kitteredge

First up was 2009’s winner Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout. This is actually a collection of 13 short stories that read as if they exist in some nebulous space between short stories and a novel. What binds the stories together is the common setting of a small Maine town and the title character, Olive Kitteredge. Olive appears in each of the stories, sometimes as the protagonist and sometimes as a bit player. She is a complex and fascinating character—an elderly woman who is bitter, blunt and flawed. And yet she’s endearing in her own strange way. The stories follow her and her family and her town through the decades.

There is a bit of a soap opera quality to Olive Kitteredge, I suppose, something strangely voyeuristic. And yet Strout has created such complex and fascinating characters in Olive and the people around her that I could hardly look away. Even when the stories slow down, as they sometimes must, the writing is so good, the prose so wonderfully-written, that the book is a joy to read. “They had fun together these days, they really did. It was as if marriage had been a long, complicated meal, and now there was this lovely dessert.” That’s good stuff!

I suppose the morality of it all is just a little suspect at times. Strout’s characters are very human and yet perhaps just a little bit too complex for their own good. She continually explores love and the way it extends, or does not extend, to old age. She is gut-honest in doing so, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. One thing she does not find is a character who truly loves and honors his or her spouse through all of life, from the beginning of marriage to the end. In almost every case, the characters have fallen in love and are now on the edge of falling out, or they are in love but each has a skeleton hidden from the other. So perhaps the book’s primary theme is the disappointment life brings. That sounds a little bit depressing and yet, for too many people, that is the reality—that as life passes, it becomes ever more disappointing.

Here is just a short quote that stood out to me:

During Debussy he fell asleep, his arms folded across his chest. Glancing at her husband, Jane felt her heart swell with the music, and with love for him, this man next to her, this old (!) man, who had been followed through life by his own childhood troubles--a mother always, always mad at him. In his face right now she felt she could see the little boy, furtive, forever scared; even as he slept here at this very moment there was a tautness of anxiety on his face. A gift, she thought again, placing her mittened hand lightly on his leg, a gift to be able to know someone for so many years.

The Road

The second book I read was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This is a novel set in a post-apocalyptic world (and yes, the book was recently made into a movie). As such it is very dark and dreary in its writing and in its setting. In fact, McCarthy does a remarkable job of making the prose match the setting. And I mean that as a good thing. As you read you’ll find that the language wonderfully suits the subject matter. And when something is meant to stand out from the dreariness it does so through the vibrancy of its language (which reminded me of the girl in the read coat in the otherwise black-and-white Schindler’s List). Here is the kind of prose he writes:

He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

We never do find out what happened to the world—just that some great woe befell it; the majority of humans were wiped out and those that remained were reduced to life without technology, without joy; they are battling one another and even eating one another. All the horror of humanity is revealed in this world, and yet one man is traveling with his son, trying desperately to keep him alive, trying to find some kind of peace and safety.

The book is deep and deeply stirring. There are a few swear words along the way and a few kind of gross but largely non-graphic scenes (mostly dealing with cannibalism). Though The Road is not for everyone, those who enjoy fiction that offers more than a light read will be drawn into it. I do not know much about McCarthy, about what he believes and why he believes it, but in this book he proves that he can look deep within humanity and see the ugliness that lurks there.

Gilead

The 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner was Marilynne Robinson for her novel Gilead. This one may be familiar to you since it deals with deeply spiritual themes. The central character in this book is John Ames, a preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. Married late in life and now facing an imminent death, he writes letters to his seven-year-old son. He tells of his life, trying to tell his son all those things that he will not be able to explain before death comes and takes him away.

I'm trying to tell you things I might never have thought to tell you if I had brought you up myself, father and son, in the usual companionable way. When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all.

Once again, the writing is beautifully crafted. It is a book to be savored. I began reading expecting that there would be a plot, a climax, narrative tension—all of those things that tend to advance a story from the first page to the last. But once I realized that Gilead is not that kind of book, I was able to stop looking for it. I was able to slow down and just savor the writing.

To me it seems rather Christlike to be as unadorned as this place is, as little regarded. I can't help imagining that you will leave sooner or later, and it's fine if you have done that, or you mean to do it. This whole town does look like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little, then weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope. I love this town. I think sometimes of going into the ground here as a last wild gesture of love-I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence.

Of the three books here, this is probably the least exciting, but the one with the most to offer. It is a book that you may need to work at a little bit, but one that will reward a close reading.

*****

One quick thought before I close. An interesting benefit of reading books like these—the books that gain recognition—is that they provide a window into our culture, into what people believe, what they enjoy, what they want. But I have a question: I wonder, do we know more about culture from these books, largely written by intellectuals, or from the popular novels of Tom Clancy and Stephen King and the others who sell millions and millions of copies? Which one is the more accurate representation?

Today I’ve got another batch of books that I didn’t review. Life is such that there are lots of great books that I just cannot find the time to read and many other books I’m simply not qualified to review. These books tend to find their way into these round-ups of the ones I received and looked at but for one reason or another just couldn’t review. I list them here in the hopes that at least some of them will be of interest to at least some of you!

Safe: How to Protect Yourself, Your Family, and Your Home by Wayne LaPierre. “This year, hundreds of thousands of American families will face natural and man-made disasters including floods, fires, hurricanes, tornados and more. Millions of adults and children alike will be killed or seriously injured in preventable accidents - family crises that don't have to happen. Millions more will be victimized by criminals, burglars, child predators, identity thieves and scam artists. If you want to take the right steps to prepare and protect the things that are most important to you - your family, your home, your financial future - then you owe to yourself and your family to read this book.” It’s rather an interesting idea, I suppose. This book simply shares ways that you can prepare yourself to be safe from crisis and disaster.

Catholicism: East of Eden by Richard Bennett. “Richard Bennett was born into a devout Roman Catholic home in Dublin Ireland. His early years were spent in Belvedere Jesuit School. Eight years of theological instruction for the priesthood followed under the instruction of the Dominican Order with his formal education culminating in 1964 at the Angelicum University of Rome. As a young priest, Richard (Peter) was assigned to the West Indies. He spent the next twenty-one years in Trinidad, mostly serving as a parish priest applying Roman Catholic teaching to everyday life. After a serious accident in which he nearly lost his life, he began to seriously study the Scriptures. After fourteen years of contrasting the teachings of Rome with biblical truth, he was convicted by the Gospel message through God’s grace alone and in 1986 he formally left the Roman Catholic Church and its priesthood.” This book addresses the 21st century issues of Catholicism and does so with candor, with empathy but, most importantly, with biblical firmness. If you are grappling with Catholicism, this is a good resource to turn to.

Collected Writings on Scripture by D.A. Carson. “God's Word has always had enemies, but in recent years the inspiration and authority of Scripture have been attacked with renewed vigor. Respected scholar D. A. Carson has written widely on the nature of Scripture over the past thirty years, and here presents a timely collection of his work in two parts. In part 1, Carson selects essays written on such themes as how to interpret the Bible, recent developments in the doctrine of Scripture, unity and diversity in the New Testament, and redaction criticism. Presenting a theologically balanced and confessional perspective, Carson defines the terms of a number of debates, critiques interpretive methods and theories, and suggests positive guidelines for future action. Part 2 presents critical reviews of nine books dealing with the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Though substantial in content, Carson's detailed reviews will foster careful thought and perspective in those who are relatively new to the debates surrounding biblical inspiration and authority.”

Let’s start with a trick question. If I were to ask you what connects Lance Armstrong to Arnold Schwarzenegger, how would you respond? If you mumbled something witty about steroids,” I’m afraid you’d be wrong. According to Rhonda Byrne, what connects these two men is that they both harnessed the law of attraction in order to bring about their wildest dreams. They wanted money and fame and success, and wanted it so much that the universe delivered it to them (and not in the shape of a syringe, apparently).

In June of 2007 I wrote a review of Byrne’s The Secret and posted it at this blog. Three years later it remains one of the most-viewed pages, still racking up thousands of page views per month. The book has sold millions of copies and has been translated into 46 languages. It is a worldwide bestseller and one that has spawned many imitators.

The Secret is an introduction to the law of attraction. The law of attraction, which Byrne says is the most powerful law in the universe, states that people experience the logical manifestations of their predominant thoughts, feelings, and words. The law says that your thoughts become things so that your thoughts shape the world around you. You shape your own life and destiny through the power of your mind. The positive things in your life appear through your positive thoughts and feelings and the negative things in your life appear through your negative thoughts and feelings.

The Power is the just-released 2010 follow-up and one that immediately raced to the top of the New York Times list of bestsellers. The problems with the book are too many to catalog in a short review. It is almost mind-boggling how much unsubstantiated and blatantly contradictory nonsense Byrne manages to pack into just 250 pages, many of which contain little more than pictures and out-of-context quotes (from people as diverse as Gandhi and Jesus, Albert Einstein and Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

The book apparently began with a great discovery. Byrne’s great discovery was that in order to receive everything you want, you need to feel love for it. Hence love is the theme of this book. The power behind the law of attraction, it seems, is love. The logic here is a little bit opaque but I think Byrne means to say that the law of attraction is the most powerful law in the universe and love is the most powerful force since it is the force that motivates attraction. When you love something, you draw it to yourself through a kind of universal magnetism. Hence she can say, “Everything you want to be, do, or have comes from love … The positive force of love can create anything good, increase the good things, and change anything negative in your life.”

Did you catch that, young Skywalker? It’s pretty simple—we are all magnets and we draw to ourselves whatever matches our thoughts and feelings. The things we love most are irresistibly drawn to us through a universal law of attraction. It may sound fishy, but it’s been championed by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres before their audiences of millions. And people are lapping this stuff up.

I have received quite a few books about church planting over the past few months. Among the more interesting have been Church Planting Is for Wimps by Mike McKinley and Discovering Church Planting by J.D. Payne. Fresh off the press is Darrin Patrick’s Church Planter: The Man, The Message, The Mission. Patrick is vice president of the Acts29 Church Planting Network and the founding pastor of the Journey Church in St. Louis. From those vantage points he has seen church planting up-close and personal while also assisting and guiding many other pastors as they have sought to plant churches. He is well-qualified to write about this subject. His book comes highly recommended and is endorsed by a long list of notables.

The book’s contents are divided into three sections: The Man, The Message and The Mission (as you may have guessed). In the first part Patrick describes the kind of man God is looking for, saying that he is to be rescued, called, qualified, dependent, skilled, shepherding and determined. This gives a well-rounded understanding of the kind of character that should mark a man who seeks to step out and plant a church. He covers the biblical qualifications as laid out particularly in the pastoral epistles, but he goes further as well, looking to practical considerations along with other spiritual qualifications.

A few weeks ago I received an ESV Bible Atlas, a brand new product from Crossway. I had meant to review it, but for some reason found it difficult to do so. The reason may be that I’ve never spent any significant amount of time reading a Bible atlas before and this means that I’ve got little reference for comparison. Of course I know that such an atlas is a valuable companion to anyone seeking to study the Bible, and especially the Old Testament.

So let me tell you about some of the features of this atlas, all of which are plenty impressive, even if I don’t know how they stack-up against the competition. According to the publisher’s description:

Capitalizing on recent advances in satellite imaging and geographic information systems, the Crossway ESV Bible Atlas offers Bible readers a comprehensive, up-to-date resource that blends technical sophistication with readability, visual appeal, and historical and biblical accuracy.

All the key methods of presenting Bible geography and history are here, including more than 175 full-color maps, 70 photographs, 3-D re-creations of biblical objects and sites, indexes, timelines, and 65,000 words of narrative description. The atlas uniquely features regional maps detailing biblically significant areas such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, Italy, and Greece. It also includes a CD with searchable indexes and digital maps, and a removable, 16.5 x 22-inch map of Palestine.

This carefully crafted reference tool not only sets a new standard in Bible atlases but will help ESV readers more clearly understand the world of the Bible and the meaning of Scripture.

The Atlas contains:

• 175 full-color maps
• 70 full-color photographs
• 3-D re-creations of biblical objects and sites
• Indexes
• Timelines
• 65,000 words of narrative description

Let me say a word about its structure. Part 1 contains an introduction and overview to the biblical world; Part 2 takes a look at the historical geography of the biblical world, which is to say that it looks at the Bible from one historical era to the next; Part 3 turns to the regional geography of the biblical world and looks to the biblical lands region by region; and Part 4 contains appendixes, indexes and timelines. When I think of an atlas I think of book that contains only maps. Simple, right? This atlas contains far more than that. It weighs in at 350 pages and is jam-packed with information.

Already I’ve found the Atlas useful in family devotions. We have been reading 2 Samuel and have found a few occasions to look up maps, buildings or diagrams. It would have been very useful when we were in Exodus, reading about the Ark and Tabernacle. I also anticipate that it will come in handy as I study the Old Testament on my own; it is always difficult to keep separate in my mind all the regions, nations and cities and I know that Atlas will help with all of these things.

Overall, the ESV Bible Atlas seems to be a very valuable reference and one that will benefit any individual or family. But don’t just take my word for it. Here is what Wayne Grudem says (and you know he is far more qualified to pass judgment than I am): “A remarkably beautiful and rich resource for historical, geographical, and archaeological background material that will deepen our understanding of each section of the Bible and increase our appreciation of the Bible’s amazing historical accuracy.”

You can get yourself a copy at Westminster Books or Amazon. If you want to give it a trial run, you can access 45 pages of it at this link.

Yesterday I finished up Nancy Pearcey’s new book Saving Leonardo. Nancy doesn’t write a lot of books, but when she does, they are worth reading. She’s a unique thinker and one who puts into words what for so many of us are just ideas flitting around the edges of our minds. This new book is just like that.

When I finished it up I began to write a review but found that I was having trouble distilling my thoughts. I did something I try not to do, at least until I’ve finished writing my own review—I went looking for what others are saying about it. As I did so, I came across a really good review written by David Steele (who blogs at veritas et lux). David was kind enough to give me permission to simply re-post his review. It nicely captures my own thoughts on Saving Leonardo!

*****

It is time for another of these irregular roundups of books that I didn't review. It's not necessarily that these are bad books or ones I purposely chose not to read and review. It's just that, life being what it is, I cannot read them all. So here are a few that came in this week that I wish I could have read but that I just did not have time for. And here are a couple that I wouldn’t read if you paid me.

The God Who Is There by D.A. Carson. “It can no longer be assumed that most people—or even most Christians—have a basic understanding of the Bible. Many don’t know the difference between the Old and New Testament, and even the more well-known biblical figures are often misunderstood. It is getting harder to talk about Jesus accurately and compellingly because listeners have no proper context with which to understand God’s story of redemption. In this basic introduction to faith, D. A. Carson takes seekers, new Christians, and small groups through the big story of Scripture. He helps readers to know what they believe and why they believe it. The companion leader’s guide helps evangelistic study groups, small groups, and Sunday school classes make the best use of this book in group settings.” It looks like a very useful book. I may well go through it with a small group at some point.

Getting the Reformation Wrong by James R. Payton Jr. “Most students of history know that Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the Wittenberg Church door and that John Calvin penned the Institutes of the Christian Religion. However, the Reformation did not unfold in the straightforward, monolithic fashion some may think. It was, in fact, quite a messy affair.” This one looks quite interesting, though I suspect it’s best left to those who have at least some background in church history in general and Reformation history in particular. So I would not recommend making this book your introduction to this period of history. I believe we’ll have a review of this at Discerning Reader before wrong (but someone else called dibs on it!).

The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family by Martha Peace & Stuart W. Scott. “A compelling read, this book offers practical advice and biblical hope to parents of children of all ages. Most parenting books, outright or indirectly, promise a good outcome if you only follow their suggestions. The Faithful Parent contains a wealth of practical, biblically-based suggestions, but it maintains that the most important relationship in any family is vertical--between parents and God. It is the Christian parent, in being faithful, who glorifies God. Look inside to discover how the faithful parent has the biggest impact on his or her children.” It’s not like we are hurting for more books on parenting, but this one comes from two good authors and comes highly recommended by Ted Tripp, Wayne Mack, Lance Quinn and Al Mohler. I appreciate that this book’s emphasis is particularly on drawing your children into a relationship with the Lord.

The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven by Kevin & Alex Malarkey. Don Piper’s 90 Minutes from Heaven has spawned all kinds of imitators and this is the latest and greatest. It’s another book that seems to clash with Scripture but which we are all supposed to just accept because the authors say it’s true. “In 2004, Kevin Malarkey and his six-year-old son, Alex, suffered an horrific car accident. The impact from the crash paralyzed Alex--and medically speaking, it was unlikely that he could survive. "I think Alex has gone to be with Jesus," a friend told the stricken dad. But two months later, Alex awoke from a coma with an incredible story to share. Of events at the accident scene and in the hospital while he was unconscious. Of the angels that took him through the gates of heaven itself. Of the unearthly music that sounded just terrible to a six-year-old. And, most amazing of all … Of meeting and talking to Jesus. The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven is the true story of an ordinary boy's most extraordinary journey. As you see heaven and earth through Alex's eyes, you'll come away with new insights on miracles, life beyond this world, and the power of a father's love.”

A few quick hits:

• Ministry Shall Not Destroy My Marriage by Bishop Ernest and Apostle Laequinla Hunter. Words fail.
• Better for Life: Turning Financial Hardship into Your Finest Hour by Daniel J. Jones. I haven’t looked over it carefully, but there isn’t a whole lot of book here for $22.
• Afterwards I Knew and The Merciful Eye by Christine Farenhorst. These are two collections of fictional stories targeted at teens and tweens and they look quite good.

The Trellis and the Vine was 2009’s surprise hit (read my review). Written by Collin Marshall and Tony Payne, the book described a ministry mind-shift that the authors assured the reader could change everything—everything related to ministry, that is. The book stood upon its simple metaphor of a trellis, an apparatus used to support something, and of a vine, the object that is supported by that trellis. The trellis referred to the administrative work within a church, those tasks that, though important, are not actually directly related to discipling people. Vine work, on the other hand, is those tasks of working with the vine, drawing people into the kingdom through evangelism and then training them to grow in their knowledge of God and their obedience to him. Though the book may not have been groundbreaking, it somehow managed to pull together a lot of ideas and collect them all within this simple metaphor. It was a powerful and effective combination and it sold very well. Even better, it impacted pastors and those engaged in gospel work, helping them better understand the task the Lord has given them.

The follow-up to The Trellis and the Vine is called The Archer and the Arrow. While it comes from Matthias Media, the same publisher, it is written by different authors: Phillip Jensen and Paul Grimmond. Though the volume is co-authored, its purpose is primarily to make Jensen’s “wisdom about preaching available to a wider audience--wisdom acquired over almost four decades of faithful biblical ministry.” I do not know if the book was conceived as a follow-up to The Trellis and the Vine or not, but regardless, it works as a sequel. Where the first book focused on ministry through a wide lens, the second focuses on the essential heart of ministry—the preaching of the gospel.

The book is framed around what the authors describe as the preacher’s mission statement: “My aim is to preach the gospel by prayerfully expounding the Bible to the people God has given me to love.” They break this statement into its component parts and expound it over the course of several chapters. This takes them from the theoretical to the practical, from the purpose of preaching a sermon to the actual delivery of it.

Let me say a word about the book’s title. The metaphor speaks of the archer (the preacher) and the arrow, which is the sermon. Firing the arrow corresponds to the act of preaching. The arrow itself is formed by three parts—the head, the shaft and the feathers. “At the point of the arrowhead is the gospel, the declaration that Jesus is the Lord and Saviour. The cutting edges of the arrowhead are the implications of that reality. This can include things like ethics, philosophy, apologetics, personal godliness and kategoria.” The shaft corresponds to the exegesis of the passage around which a sermon is formed. And the feathers “correspond to issues like systematic theology, biblical theology, church history, philosophy and the like. The feathers are like the big categories of thought that tie the whole message of the Bible together.”

The Marriage Bed is a helpful little book from Ray Rhodes who has also written several titles dealing with family worship. This book[let], weighing in at just 32 pages, is a biblical guide to sexual intimacy. Responding to the inevitable critique that this topic has been covered enough times, Rhodes offers four defenses for writing about it once more: 1) Misinformation about the topic abounds and there is room for a book that falls in the space between legalism and licentiousness; 2) His experience in pastoral ministry has shown that problems with marital intimacy continue despite all of those other books; 3) He has specifically focused on applying the gospel to marital intimacy; 4) The ministry he serves, Nourished in the Word Ministries, exists in part to strengthen marriages and families through biblical teaching and he has written with that kind of ministry in view.