“Foucault’s Pendulum” (1988) by Umberto Eco

Undoubtedly the best written piece of utter nonsense I’ve read in a long time.   Short version: three friends decide to create their own conspiracy theory loosely based around events pertaining to the Knights Templar (“The Plan”), and become increasingly obsessed by it.  Their “Plan” eventually catches up with them with tragic consequences.  

If you decide to waste your time reading this parody of the arcane be sure to have the Oxford English Dictionary (not the compact version) close at hand.  And please don’t ask to borrow my copy.  Due to an unwillingness to devote shelf-space to Rosicrucians, gnostics, Masons, Illuminati, Cabalists, etc, etc, etc, I tossed it into the garbage.

“Freakonomics”

My daugther Rita had me read “Freakonomics”, a sometimes fun, sometimes sobering collection of ecclectic facts drawn from off-beat questions (as in “why do drug dealers live with their mothers”?).  The dots it connects are, at times, not just unconventional, they are eye opening: this is the book that tied the  drop in the crime wave to the legalization of abortion.   I was particularly entertained by its critique of such “experts” (hucksters?) as real estate agents (what do they have in common with the Ku Klux Klan?), criminologists, political scientists and other pundits.  Although the book’s advice on parenting has come a bit late for my wife and I the authors would, no doubt, agree with me that that doesn’t matter–though for different reasons.

“The King of Torts” by John Grisham

OK novel, easy read; just the right thing for a long-haul flight.  Plot gets a bit repetitive, enabling you snooze mid-Atlantic.   Message: Fame comes at a price, money is a root of all kinds of evil and Jesus Christ can bring positive change to the worst human wreckage. 

Bloesch’s “Essentials of Evangelical Theology”

I’ve been reading Donald G. Bloesch’s Essentials of Evangelical Theology to help me fall asleep at night.  First published in 1979, it is a good introduction/overview of Chistian scholarship up to that time.

Bloesch’s strength and weakness is that he seeks to create a scholarly synthesis around his broadly (neo-?)Reformed presentation of the Christian faith.  That is not easy.  Sometimes he succeeds admirably, as in this synopsis of various views of atonement: “For Calvin it might be said that all is of grace, but grace is not for all.  Wesley and Luther on the other hand held that all is of grace and grace is for all, but not all are for grace.  Karl Barth, who unites Calvinist emphasis on the universality of the atonment, maintains that grace encompasses all but that every person is set against grace; at the same time every one is caught up in the movement of grace even where there is continued oposition to it”.  

Sometimes his attempt to include multiple strands makes no sense, as when trying NOT to have to embrace particular redemtion: ”Only those who believe have been effectively redeemed by Christ, and only those who are effectivley redeemed come to believe.  This is not necessarily a commitment to limited atonement, however, since the ultimate number of those who believe is hidden with God. It must also be affirmed that even those who do not believe are benefited by the cross and resurrection of Christ since the devil and his hosts were objectively overthrown and defeated irrepective of man’s response to the cross.”   The latter point, as he admits himself, is a “rationally insurmountable mystery”.  Also, those who believe in limited atonement don’t deny that the ultimate number of those saved is hidden with God.    Surely the uniquivocal embrace of particular redemtion would cut through this mish-mash. 

Even if nuanced in places, Bloesch is very partial to Barth.  For those who find the wordy German tough sledding, Bloesh might be a good stepping stone.  In any case, if you are looking for a good read to help you fall asleep, try Bloesch.

“The Gospels for all Christians” (ed. Bauckman)

I’ve just finished reading “The Gospel for All Christians” (ed. Richard Bauckman).  First published in 1998, I wished I’d read it 10 years ago. 

This easily readable 217 page volume argues convincingly against the common notion that the gospels were written for specific Matthean, Markan, Lukan and Johannine communities.  Marshalling a whole host of reasons it makes the case that the gospels unlike, say, the Pauline letters, were deliberately written for all Christians, as opposed to specific churches.  

Fascinating chapters include those on communication between churches of the early period, ancient book production and the ancient concept of biography.  The chapter “John for Readers of Mark” argues very convincingly that such parenthetical explanations as John 3:24 and 11:2 are specifically intended for readers of John who were already familiar with Mark’s gospel.   

If a theology prof tries to tell you that each gospel is the specific product of the unique ”sits im leben” of a particular (semi) isolated early Christian community (a la Davies & Allison, T. Weeden, J.A. Fitzmyer, H. Kee, W.A. Meeks, J. L. Martyn, et. al.), then read this book…

“Chronicle in Stone” by Ismail Kadare

 The best way to begin understanding another culture is to read its novels; a good novelist can humanize that which seems incomprehensible, even demonic, to the outsider. 

While in Albania recently I picked up the novel “Chronicle in Stone” by the country’s Communist-era writer Ismail Kadare.    It is a beautifully written tale about social transition in a former pariah state as seen through the eyes of a young boy.   Two thumbs up!

Walter Brueggemann’s “In Man We Trust”: A Fool’s Guide to Wisdom Literature

 

Someone suggested I read Brueggemann’s “In Man We Trust”.  Bad advice.  I have rarely read a slimmer volume containing more rank nonsense. 

 

Brueggeman tenuous connections between “contemporary culture” and that of the united monarchy border on the ridiculous in terms of meaningless generalities:  “David’s times are not unlike ours: the breakup of the old conventional patterns of security; the end of the old theological assumptions and ecclesiastical institutions as viable forms of life; a new sense of the muscle of man and the potential of human ingenuity and self-assertion; a sense of exhilaration and a corresponding sense of confusion.” 

His pseudo-psychological analysis of David and Solomon is equally imaginative: “The freedom of David and the loss of divinity in man’s world were necessary counterparts.  They belong together.  As the royal man came to understand his own royal responsibility he came to have a new freedom with and toward things, a freedom which is not detachment, but in which man’s own wellbeing is very intimately linked to the wellbeing of all entrusted to him… The importance of David for this new notion of man in and over creation cannot be overestimated”.   

Of particular concern is Brueggemann’s insistence that David made a radical break with Israel’s previous religious history.  He evidently moved away from tabernacle centered worship, and “drove Israel to radical pluralism”.  Unlike his predecessors, he “views life as an essentially human enterprise” and “does not ask about the gods and the drama of heaven”.  As far as David was concerned, “man is not under law” and is trusted by God to “live as he wills to live”. God’s covenant with David was unilateral—God gave David a “blank check” for, no matter what David would do “Yahweh has thrown in his lot with this moment and man in history and he has left himself no way out”.  God was moved to trust people, rather than the other way around.

No mention is made of David’s love for the Mosaic law as expressed in the Psalms.  And wasn’t David’s concern to build the temple but an exalted version of the tabernacle centered worship?  In what way was God’s covenant with David any more of a “blank check” promise than the promise to Adam and Eve of one who would crush the serpent’s head, or of the Abrahamic covenant?

Breuggemann’s affirmation of man leads him to diminish the need for the incarnation and atonement of Christ, of which he speaks with embarrassment:  “To speak in terms of Jesus in terms of atonement of course stacks the cards in terms of man’s helplessness and need.”  Instead, he posits a Nietzschian Jesus: “But insofar as Jesus does make a difference in the lives of persons, it is to invite them to join in his style of manhood, which is life-affirming and life creating.  He does not ponder long the failure of man but invited him to change and act as a whole healthy person.  He embodies what the wise men said was possible”

Interestingly, Brueggemann is uneasy with is own theology: “My uneasiness is also linked to the suggestion that this theology is not really informed by the biblical tradition, but is an accommodation to current fads in the behavioural sciences…  I can only express my uneasiness and give no answer beyond those already suggested…”  Brueggemann’s own notions leave him speechless.  They leave me that way too…

The Moral Vision of the New Testament

 

I’ve just completed Richard Hays’ remarkable work, The Moral Vision of the New Testament.  The claim on the back cover is true: this book isn’t just a breath of fresh air, it’s a hurricane blowing away the fog of half-understood pseudo-morality and fashionable compromise to reveal instead the early Christian vision of true humanness and genuine holiness.

Hays reveals a unified, very challenging, solidly New Testament-based ethic for modern man focused on the themes of “cross”, “community” and “new creation”.  One of the book’s strengths is the way Hays outlines his hermeneutical approach.  Although one may not agree with all the particulars, his handling of such issues as divorce, homosexuality, abortion, and violence merit careful reflection.  I found his undermining of the “just war” theory particularly convicting and convincing.

As might be expected from someone on the faculty of Duke Divinity School, he makes statements regarding the inerrancy of Scripture that more conservative Christians (including myself) would quibble with.  Oddly, the actual authority he grants a priori to the New Testament text in terms of letting it shape his ethics is something many a more ideologically-driven American Evangelical would do well to emulate.

“A Fine Balance”

Although I have not been there, I feel as if I have just returned from 1970s India.

Set against the backdrop of the so-called emergency measures of Indira Ghandi’s government, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance follows the lives of four unlikely individuals.  The book takes you to a level of involvement and emotion in another culture of which you may not perceive yourself of being capable.  Yes, there are some crude descriptive passages in this book; they are less crude, I dare say, than the world it seeks to describe.  The book just might move you to be a little kinder, a little more compassionate…

Mistry shows once again that no anthropology course is able to humanize the way a good novelist from the culture under investigation can.

Some Turkish Novelists other than Pamuk

Novels by local authors are one of the best ways to get a feel of another culture—reading the right novel beats taking an anthropology course hands down!  National novelists can humanize their worlds in ways no anthropologist, social scientist or missionary can.

To date two Middle Easterners, the late Najuib Mahfouz and the Turk Orhan Pamuk have won the Nobel prize for literature.  Mahfouz’s Children of the Gabalawy, or his Sugar Street trilogy give real insight into the passion that is Egypt.  Pamuk’s Snow is a great introduction to the conundrum that is modern Turkey.  Yaşar Kemal’s İnce Mehmet celebrates its 50th birthday this week.  If you haven’t read the first of the İnce Mehmet series (“Mehmet my Hawk”, in English) don’t presume to talk about Turkish literature with anyone.

For those of you who know sufficient Turkish and are interested in deepening your understand of modern Turkey, there are a number of other “must read” contemporary authors you should be aware of:

 Ahmet Altan started writing in the 1980s.  His first book, Sudaki İz, got him in trouble with the censors.  His fourth novel, Tehlikeli Masallar, broke sales records.  His latest book, İçimizde bir Yer, was a publishing phenomena in Turkey, selling over a million copies.  He writes rather introspective, soul-searching stuff. 

Tuna Kiremitçi is a young writer who also focuses on such peoples’ inner worlds.

 Elif Şafak’s latest book, Baba ve Piç (“The Bastard of Istanbul”) landed her in court.  The infamous “Rule 301” of the Turkish Penal Code makes “insulting Turkishness” a criminal offence; her treatment of the Armenian massacres of 1915, even when presented as fiction, is an ultra-senstive subject in Turkey.   In short, she doesn’t shrink from sensitives subjects, creates a good plot, and has some nice descriptive passages which are, unfortunately, tarnished by English cliches translated into Turkish.   Her overall writing style is reminiscent of Maive Binchy. 

Ahmet Ümit is probably Turkey’s premier contemporary writer of detective novels.  Try Sis ve Gece, Şeytan Ayrıntıda Gizlidir, or Beyoğlu Rapsodisi.  

Ayşe Kulin writes historical biographies about famous Turks.  Her book Adı: Aylin, the story of a Turkish society woman who eventually becomes a Colonel in the American army was a great success.  She has since written Sevdalinka, Köprü, Nefes Nefese, Gece Sesleri and Bir Gün.  

Soner Yalçın investigates little know facts about Turkish society and turns them into page-turners.  His book Bay Pipo, for intance, investiges the murder of former secred service agent Hiram Abas.  The book has been reprinted 50 times since 1999.  His latest work, Efendi: Beyaz Türklerin Büyük Sırrı has been reprinted 64 times since 2004! 

Kürşat Başar has published successful novels since the 1980s.  His most recent works, İğreti Yaşamlar and Başucumda Müzik are love stories.   

Burak Turna and Orkun Açar are two young writers whose book Metal Fırtına describes an American invasion of Turkey.  Lousy literature, but the book sold over 400,000 copies.  The two writers have since gone their separate ways and are published more political fiction. 

Vedat Türkalı is an modern anachronism: he still believes in Communism.  His 2001 novel Komünist was a success.  His 2004 book Kayıp Romanlar was on the Turkish bestseller list for 10 weeks.