Satan's "Nothing" Strategy by Tony Reinke

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

In order to keep my earlier review of 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You from being too long, I opted to put this lengthy quote in a separate post. In this passage, Reinke recounts scrolling through his newsfeed after a tiring day of work. 

On and on I flicked down a list of disconnected and fragmented items, most of them only barely important or interesting. I was not edified or served, only further fatigued because of missing a nap I should have had or a walk I could have taken.... What I am coming to understand is that this impulse to pull a lever of a random slot machine of viral content is the age-old tactic of Satan. C.S. Lewis called it his "nothing strategy" in Screwtape Letters. This nothing strategy is very strong, strong enough to steal away a man's best years - not in sweet sins, but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why in the gratifications of curiosity so feeble that the man is only half aware of them. A hamster wheel of what will never satisfy our souls. Lewis' warning was prophetic to our digital age. We are always busy, always distracted, diabolically lured away from what is truly essential and truly gratifying. In our digital idleness, we fail to enjoy God and we fail to love our neighbor. We give our time to not what is explicitly sinful, but also to what cannot give us joy or prepare us for self-sacrifice. Satan's nothing strategy aims at feeding us endlessly scrolling words, images and videos that dull our affections instead of invigoration our joy and preparing us to give ourselves in love. 

(This is the exact same thing that Francis de Sales addressed in my previous post on his advice to Philothea: It is a pity to sow the seed of vain and foolish tastes in the soil of your heart, taking up the place of better things, and hindering the soul from cultivating good habits.) 

Lots to think about!

Blessings,

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke

"Owning a smart phone is similar to dating a high

 maintenance attention starved partner."

Every few years I read a book on how technology affects the brain so I can remember why to limit screen time. This year it was Tony Reinke's 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You. Frankly, I was surprised at how pro-technology the book is. 

Reinke contends that technology is morally neutral and that it began in the garden of Eden. Technology is the reordering of raw materials for human purposes.... Musicians re-order notes and sounds into music. Novelists re-order the raw material of human experience into stories. Technology pushes back the results of the Fall (less pain in childbirth, easier ways to plant and harvest, etc.) He admits that technology unhitched from fear and obedience to God quickly becomes a pawn in human power plays and uses the tower of Babel as an example, but, says Reinke, it is the human heart and not technology that is at fault. (If you've read anything by Paul Kingsnorth or Jacques Ellul, you will not agree that our constant upgrading in mechanization is "neutral" or, even, indeed, a sign of human progress. But I digress.)

In each chapter Reinke highlights one way in which our phones are changing our habits. In Chapter 1, he shows how we have become addicted to distraction; in Chapter 2, he writes about how our super-connectedness has robbed us of real relationships. Chapter 8 deals with easy access to porn. You get the idea. 

Although I didn't agree with everything he wrote, I always appreciate someone who makes me think through my habits with more clarity (and less self-delusion!)  

In the chapter on how our phones are making us illiterate, Reinke writes, If you want to internalize a piece of knowledge, you've got to linger over it. But we have been trained not to linger over digital texts. Our lack of self control with digital "marshmallows" malnourishes our sustained linear concentration. Deep reading is harder than ever. What we have today is not illiteracy, but aliteracy: a digital skimming that is simply an attempt to keep up with the deluge of information coming through our phones rather than slowing down and soaking in what is most important. He contends that this way of imbibing the written word leaks over into our Bible reading. The more time I spend reading 10-second tweets, the more it affects my attention span, weakening the muscles I need to read Scripture for long distances.

My favorite emphasis of the book was on how online distractions rob us of our ability to experience deeper pleasures: [As] we feed on digital junk food, our palates are re-programmed and our affections atrophy.... The more we take refuge in distraction, the more habituated we become to mere stimulation and the more desensitized to delight. We lose our capacity to stop and ponder something deeply, to admire something beautiful for its own sake. By seeking trivial pleasures in our phones, we train ourselves to want more of those trivial pleasures. These become the only pleasures we know. Our capacity for deep enjoyment is thus destroyed.

One of the biggest ways my phone has changed me (even though I limit my time on it quite a bit) is that I now have the attention span of a gerbil. The irony is not lost on me that I listened to this book on my phone at 1.25 speed so that I could get through it quickly and move on to other things.

I'd be interested to hear any thoughts you have on this book or on your own digital habits.

Blessings, 

You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble

Weeks after finishing You are Not Your Own, its ideas continue to resonate with me. Noble sets out to explain how we Americans have come to the place where hyper individualism is killing us rather than fulfilling us.

He writes, If I am my own and belong to myself, then I must define who I am…. And the terrifying thing is that everyone else in society is doing the exact same thing. Everyone is on their own private journey of self-discovery and self-expression, so that at times, modern life feels like billions of people in the same room shouting their own name so that everyone else knows they exist and who they are – which is a fairly accurate description of social media.

The irony of a culture that promises that you “can be all you can be” without reference to any higher good or higher power is that no plateau is high enough. There’s always some level of perfection or self-actualization just out of reach. The freedom of sovereign individualism comes at a great price. Once I am liberated from all social, moral, natural, and religious values, I become responsible for the meaning of my own life. Hence the lie: If I am completely responsible for my life, then the greatest moral failure would be for me to fail to pursue what I desire most. I owe it to myself to be happy. The only problem with this is that unlimited desire and consumption always leave us exhausted and empty.

But there is good news, says Noble. Christ frees us from the unbearable burden of self-belonging.

An anthropology defined by our belonging to God is diametrically opposed to the contemporary belief that we are autonomous, free, atomistic individuals who find our greatest fulfillment in breaking free from all external norms. Our selves belong to God, and we are joyfully limited and restrained by the obligations, virtues, and love that naturally come from this belonging. This living before God is not easy. It requires sacrifice and humility, perpetual repentance and dependence upon Christ. In a secular age such as our own, it requires an intentional effort to remember that we belong to Christ, and that belonging is not merely a doctrine, but a reality that touches every aspect of our lives.

This is a tremendous book if you are feeling overwhelmed by breath-takingly rapid changes in our society and want to step back and see how it all happened. It is also a wonderful reminder to vigilantly resist the false promises the world offers for self-fulfillment.

Interestingly, I was primed for this book by, first, experiencing ministry burnout and, second, by reading A Gentleman in Moscow. Both experiences caused me to question the frenzy of always doing more, and to ponder ways to live more humanly within our God-given limits. 

Blessings,

Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher

Live Not by Lies, by Rod Dreher, contains some of the same themes spelled out in The Benedict Option (loss of support for Christianity within the culture and the necessity of strong religious communities to sustain it), but LNBL is more hopeful. Yes, the situation in our culture is even worse than when Benedict Option was published five years ago, but in this book Dreher recounts stories of families who survived totalitarian governments (chiefly communist countries in Europe), which show the fruit of faithful perseverance. 

I marked so many passages that it would be impossible to touch on everything. My biggest take-away was understanding how American government has increasingly become totalitarian (what Dreher calls "soft totalitarianism") in the way that it rewards/condones certain behaviors and punishes/cancels "unacceptable" ones. (Cake bakers and florists are just two examples.) 

Today's totalitarianism demands allegiance to a set of progressive beliefs, many of which are incompatible with logic - and certainly with Christianity. Compliance is forced less by the state than by elites who form public opinion, and by private corporations that, thanks to technology, control our lives far more than we would like to admit. (p. 8)

In our therapeutic culture, [no belief in a Higher power and with personal comfort as the primary goal] the great sin is to stand in the way of the freedom of others to find happiness as they wish. (p. 13)

Without Christianity and its belief in the fallibility of human nature, secular progressives tend to rearrange their bigotries and call it righteousness. Christianity teaches that all men and women - not just the wealthy, the powerful, the straight, the white, and all other so-called oppressors - are sinners in need of the Redeemer. All men and women are called to confession and repentance. "Social justice" that projects unrighteousness solely onto particular groups is a perversion of Christian teaching. Reducing the individual to her economic status or her racial, sexual, or gender identity is an anthropological error. It is untrue, and therefore unjust. (p. 64, 65) 

When so much of what is being taught (in schools, on the news, on social media) is untrue, how does one stay grounded in reality? In the chapter called "Families are Resistance Cells", Dreher writes of  a Catholic couple, Václav and Kamila Benda, who were part of the Czech dissident movement in the 1970s. On a personal level they prepared their children to resist the lies of communism by filling their moral imaginations with the good. Kamila read to her children for two to three hours a day. She read them fairy tales, myths, adventure stories.... More than any other novel, though, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the cornerstone of her family's collective imagination. (138)

Finally, Dreher addresses the problem of suffering. He worries that this generation of Americans (including Christians) has become so attached to their comforts that we would submit to government overreach to keep them. A time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming. Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact. Christians today must dig deep into the Bible and church tradition and teach themselves how and why today's post-Christian world with its self-centeredness, its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity. (162)

Even if you don't agree with everything in the book, there are a lot of important ideas to wrestle with in light of ever-decreasing religious freedoms in our present world.

Blessings,

"Reading as Fortress Building" - Quotes from Philip Yancey

In a recent Washington Post article, Philip Yancey laments the death of his reading life. Here are a few excerpts:

Here’s the simple truth behind reading a lot of books. It’s not that hard. We have all the time we need. The scary part—the part we all ignore—is that we are too addicted, too weak, and too distracted to do what we all know is important.

We’re engaged in a war, and technology wields the heavy weapons. Willpower alone is not enough, he says. We need to construct what he calls “a fortress of habits."

I’ve concluded that a commitment to reading is an ongoing battle, somewhat like the battle against the seduction of Internet pornography. We have to build a fortress with walls strong enough to withstand the temptations of that powerful dopamine rush while also providing shelter for an environment that allows deep reading to flourish. Christians especially need that sheltering space, for quiet meditation is one of the most important spiritual disciplines.

Amen!

(pic is a photo sketch of my brother reading to his first grandson. We start fortress building VERY early in our family!)

Blessings,

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The nicest thing about re-reading a favorite book is that you are not in a hurry to find out what happens and can savor the beautiful passages. It was a great pleasure, therefore, to read Fahrenheit 451 after a 15 year break. I loved it the first time because, as a bibliophile, I could identify with the horrors of a world without books where everyone is numbed by mindless entertainment. 

This time around my satisfaction was doubled as I thought more deeply about each of the characters and their (often painful) journeys toward self-awareness. Guy Montag, an official book burner, is the central figure and the novel recounts his awakening from his cultural stupor and his road to redemption. 

Listening to the comments on the Literary Life podcast enhanced my reading even more as the hosts pointed out themes I would never have noticed such as the fairy tale motifs and Bradbury's nods to Dante. I'm glad I had them as "reading buddies" this second time through.

Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid to forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. (p. 79)

Blessings,

Eating Together as a Basis for Culture - quote from Sean Fitzpatrick

Breaking bread together is a deep sign of cultural togetherness, for it bestows both natural and supernatural nourishment. What’s more, a meal is a ritual. It’s a manifestation of living together in harmony and health—an enactment of human civility and civilization. Food provides a happy occasion for gathering and collective enjoyment, which is one of the pillars of friendship and a healthy culture. As an essentially life-giving activity, the meal is a sacrament of family and friends; it is a sign and a strengthening of the life that flows from those labors of love that bind people together....

Today the idea and ethics of dining are deteriorating into a hurried, harried, pre-packaged affair punctuated by interruptions. The very expression “fast food” is inimical to the most essential reason for meals, which arises not out of speed but out of care, consideration, and conversation. Just as Mass and prayer are not for hastening through, neither are meals. The current tendency, however, is not only to eat in a rush, which prevents the enjoyment of a meal and demeans the dignity of food, but also to eat alone, which diminishes the sense of community. When meals are sacred, the labor and leisure of communities will be sacred—and that sanctity is the basis of culture.

Food for Thought by Sean Fitzpatrick (from Crisis Magazine)

Blessings,

The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch

The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch is not a "how to" as much as a "why to" book on limiting technology. This book is about much more than just social media, or even screens. It's about how to live as full, flourishing human beings. Maybe it will even turn out that in that quest for flourishing, technology in its proper place can actually help. Crouch's definition of a family, and what it takes to make a family healthy, made this a strong four-star read for me. Technology must serve the needs of the family, and not be its master. Technology is in its proper place when it helps us acquire skill and mastery of domains that are the glory of human culture (sports, music, the arts, cooking, writing, etc.) When we let technology replace the development of skill with passive consumption, something has gone wrong.

I appreciated his many insights into the false promises of technology to make life easier. Easier and flashier platforms, games, and programs often encourage us to opt out of activities that take more mental and emotional energy. These harder activities are the ones that enrich us and help us grow. The last thing you need when you are learning, at any age but especially in childhood, is to have things made too easy. Difficulty and resistance, as long as they are age appropriate and not too discouraging, are actually what press our brains and bodies to adapt and learn.

I was completely taken aback by the last chapter on how Christians must live in incarnational community, including the dignity of "low-tech" dying. This probably wouldn't have hit me so hard if it hadn't been for the families I know who suffered the loss of a loved one due to COVID and could not be with them at the moment of their passing. Crouch writes, We are meant not just for thin, virtual connections but for visceral, real connections to one another in this fleeting, temporary, and infinitely beautiful and worthwhile life. We are meant to die in one another's arms, surrounded by prayer and song, knowing beyond a doubt that we are loved.

Crouch wrote so winsomely of his daily, weekly, and yearly fasts from his devices, that I decided to get on board by making Sunday a no-screen day. I had no idea how hard that would be. Ignoring my TV and computer was a cinch, but because I use my cell phone as a kitchen timer and podcast source, and my Kindle's white noise app for taking naps, the temptation was always there to  mindlessly scroll through social media when I picked up these tools. This is a fast that I'm still determined to learn how to do.

I never dreamed that a little book on the dangers of technology overload would be so inspiring. Definitely another of my favorite books of 2021.

Blessings,

The Grace of Enough by Haley Stewart

Who knew there was a book on minimalism from a Catholic point of view? And why was I surprised when it was much more meaningful than the Protestant books I’ve read on the subject?

Haley Stewart and her husband have an evangelical background (Baptist, I think), but gravitated toward Catholicism for various reasons. In this book she cites the Bible, several saints, and papal encyclicals. (And Wendell Berry and C.S. Lewis!) I found her arguments to be clearly reasoned and compelling.

How do you extricate yourself from throwaway culture and live out the Gospel values in your own home and family? I believe that the key to shifting our worldview, to pursuing less and living more, is to develop virtue by taking on practices that, little by little, transform us. This kind of growth won’t occur if we passively sit and wish for virtue to spring up spontaneously and effortlessly in our hearts. We can and must actively pursue virtue by taking up practices and habits that cultivate it.  (from intro)

Mere minimalism is an incomplete solution to our consumerism. If we ignore a deep generosity to share what we have with others, and if we are unwilling to accept help in return, we have not adopted a Gospel mind-set. The early Church viewed all its possessions as “ours.” (p. 29)

My journey toward generous love – the self-sacrificing love that accompanies motherhood – began with a 180-degree turn from a throwaway culture, which in the arena of sexuality elevates pleasure and convenience above every other consideration….The contraceptive mind-set (that removes fertility from its connection to sexuality) and its tragic sister, abortion, are facets of throwaway culture intended to eliminate the need to embrace this call to sacrificial love. Yet this is a journey we need to take, no matter what our vocation. Whether we’re called to married life or religious life, and whether or not there are children in our future, we are all called to lives of generous outpouring for others. (p. 125,127)

This is a wonderful book that gives a solid theological basis for its opposition to consumerism. Not for everybody, but I appreciated Stewart for stretching my thinking on several, important cultural issues.

Blessings,

The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield

There are, of course, other ways you can use your days, your time, your 

money, and your home. But opening your front door and greeting neighbors

 with soup, bread, and the words of Jesus are the most important. 

Not since Open Heart, Open Home (Karen Burton Mains 1973), has there been a better "anti-hospitality" book than Butterfield's latest title, The Gospel Comes with a House Key. It is "anti" in the sense that it eschews modern ideas of perfect homes and perfect menus as the requirement for receiving guests. Hospitality is a dying art since few have perfect homes and those who have them would rather protect them than welcome in folks who might "ruin" them. The household that loves things too much and loves people too little cannot honor God through the practice of radically ordinary hospitality... Sometimes Christians tell me that they don't practice hospitality because they don't have enough space, dishes, or food. They fear that they do not have enough to give. This is a false fear that no one should heed. Hospitality shares what there is; that's all.It's not entertainment. It's not supposed to be.

Butterfield contends that authentic hospitality is the strongest witness we Christians can have. Let's face it: we have become unwelcome guests in this post-Christian world. Conservative Christianity is dismissed as irrelevant, irrational, discriminatory, and dangerous. To a world that mistrusts us, we must be transparently hospitable.

The ultimate purpose of opening our homes is so that others may come to know Christ. She warns against the two extremes of building protective walls (condemning those outside) or accepting everyone while ignoring sinful behavior, reinventing Christianity that fits nicely on the "coexist" bumper sticker, avoiding the cross and bowing to the idols of our day: consumerism and sexual autonomy.... We are not extending grace to people when we encourage them to sin against God. Grace always leads to Christ's atoning blood. Grace leads to repentance and obedience. Grace fulfills the law of God, in both heart and conduct. When we try to be more merciful than God, we put a millstone around the neck of the person we wish to help.

I appreciated her reminder that when Christians open their home to non-Christians, they lose the right to protect their reputations. Her own example of befriending a neighbor who turned out to be a drug dealer highlights some of the dilemmas they willingly faced to extend the love of Christ to him. I also appreciated her sharing about how she, an introvert, manages to have a house constantly full of people.  Knowing your personality and your sensitivity does not excuse you from ministry. It means that you need to prepare for it differently than others might.

Lots of things in this book will make you uncomfortable. Because it's convicting. Because real hospitality is messy. And because sometimes it feels like Butterfield is tooting her own horn. (I honestly don't think she intends to, but I know from experience that it's hard to describe your ministry successes without sounding prideful).

I was greatly encouraged to worry less about impressing guests, and to simply share what we have with others.

Blessings,

The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy and Kathy Keller

Of the more than 20 books I've read on marriage, Tim Keller's The Meaning of Marriage is the best.

The popular idea of marriage as the source of happiness and fulfilment has helped to erode the institution that was created for higher purposes. The Kellers clearly and skillfully address many aspects of Christian marriage, and help their readers to look beyond a consumeristic view (I'll stay married as long as all my needs are being met) toward a God-centered view (I choose to stay committed to a person when it isn't easy because God through Christ shows that kind of grace toward me.)

Tim and Kathy address many important issues: What is love? What is marriage for? How can you reflect these purposes if you are single? What about gender differences? How are Christians supposed to view their sexuality? What about the submission/headship passages?

First of all they affirm the goodness of marriage and sex. But they quickly assert that this goodness is not just personally "good for me" (i.e. meets all my needs) but good because it builds families and societies and because it brings glory to God.

Sin and self-centeredness is what makes marriage hard. (Your own sin as much as your spouse's.) What if you began your marriage understanding its purpose as spiritual friendship for the journey to the new creation? What if you expected marriage to be about helping each other grow out of your sins and flaws into the new self God is creating? Then when you come to the [difficult] seasons, you will roll up your sleeves and get to work. (p. 149)

Romance, sex, laughter, and plain fun are the by-products of this process of sanctification, refinement, glorification. Those things are important, but they can't keep the marriage going through years and years of ordinary life. What keeps the marriage going is your commitment to your spouse's holiness. . . . Jesus died not because we were lovely, but to make us lovely. (p. 134)

It's interesting to note that the book is based on a series of sermons that Keller originally preached to his congregation of mostly singles when Keller realized that many of them were not marrying because they had wrong expectations for marriage.

This is a great book with many helpful insights. Definitely in the top ten best books I've read this year.

Blessings,

The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher

When I finally got around to listening to The Benedict Option, I was prepared to disagree with quite a bit of it. But I discovered that Dreher and I have more similarities than differences.

He gets off to a slow start with an overview of the history of Western Thought, but this is an extremely important base from which to begin. He clearly shows how our culture has come to the place where we believe that reality is whatever is in our heads. Although the book is aimed at getting Christians to think about creative ways to be counter culture, my biggest takeaway was this philosophical discussion. "To be fully human is to be in touch with reality (i.e., the One-Who-Is)."

These discussions of humanness, God-imaged-ness, and reality are definitely worth the price of the book. (In fact, I can't wait to get my hands on a hard copy so that I can re-read and underline.) His final chapters on marriage and human sexuality are wonderfully clarifying at a time when these topics are becoming blurred. Even if you disagree with Dreher on some things (as I did ), his clarity of reasoning will cause you to think hard about your values and beliefs.

I've failed to mention the main premise of the book. The Benedict Option refers to small Christian communities that live out their faith away from the pressures and sinfulness of the general populace. Dreher rightly notes that religious freedom is the key to retaining rights to form such communities. My doubt is whether or not our increasingly totalitarian government will countenance such groups.

A very compelling read! Have you read it? What did you think?

Here is the link to an article strongly opposed to The Benedict Option.

Blessings,

Why Beauty Matters by Roger Scruton

This may be the first and last time that I review a YouTube video, but I couldn't let this one go by without comment.

Honest folks will admit that much that passes for modern art is an assault on the senses, but what has worried me more in recent years is the way that the world is teaching our children to embrace ugliness through their play. Many cartoon characters are distorted human figures. Hideous monster dolls are sold alongside the Barbie dolls. School backpacks are covered in skulls. The princess turns into an ogre in the Shrek films because that's more politically correct.

Where is the beauty? Who will show it to future generations?

Enter Roger Scruton, a British writer and philosopher who has been writing about this subject for forty years. His one hour lecture (6 ten-minute videos) on "Why Beauty Matters" touched on some of my questions and worries.

Although not a Christian, Scruton readily admits that beauty brings us into the presence of the sacred and that our need for beauty is something deep in our nature. He argues that proponents of modern art mock the pursuit of beauty because in a godless world there is no longer a valid definition for it. "Their willful desecration is a denial of love, an attempt to remake the world as though love were no longer a part of it." (He is not talking of sexual or romantic love, but of a purer, higher love. To those of us who are believers, this would be God.) "The chief characteristic of the post-modern world," he says, "is this lack of love. Artists are determined to portray the human world as unlovable."

He makes an articulate appeal for us to return to real art. "The sacred and the beautiful are not rivals. They stand side by side, two doors that open into a single space. And in that space we find our home."

If you have an hour, I highly recommend this lecture. Two related links are Budgeting for Beauty, (at Coffee, Tea, Books and Me) which has nothing to do with physical beauty, but instead recognizes that humans have needs beyond mere survival.  And Matt Capps at Gospel Coalition writes about how the Church has neglected this important topic.

Two books that helped me to think about this subject are: Art for God's Sake by Ryken, and Wisdom and Wonder by Kuyper. Do you have any other books to recommend on the subject?

Technopoly by Neil Postman

This is one of the hardest book reviews I've ever written. I had pages and pages of relevant quotes that I had to keep culling out. They were so helpful and so good that it hurt to cut them away.

Though not as readily accessible as Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman's Technopoly has a lot to add to the discussion of the surrender of culture to technology (the book's subtitle). I expected it to be dry, but found many nuggets of truth that kept me eagerly reading. I skimmed the chapters that were outdated, but those were very few because this book is more about the philosophy rather than the mechanics of technology.

Postman is not a Luddite who disdains all technological advances. But he wants us to be very careful to realize the difference they will make in our lives. "Their gifts are bountiful, but not without cost." He describes America as a Technopoly (the submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology) because of our unquestioning acceptance of all technological advances.

We are currently surrounded with zealous prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo. (p. 5)

How did Technopoly find fertile ground on American soil? Postman gives four interrelated reasons. The American distrust of restraints (our "Anything is possible," can-do mentality), the exploitative genius of technological pioneers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Morse, Rockefeller Alexander Graham bell, Edison, Ford, etc.), the successes of technology in providing Americans with convenience, comfort, speed, hygiene, and abundance. (Why question it?), and the devaluation of traditional beliefs brought on by a growing faith in science to solve problems. (p. 53-55)

We scoff at Luddites, but fail to see that they are calling us to re-evaluate how various technologies dehumanize us. Postman prefers to call those who abstain from adopting every new technology as "resistance fighters" and points out that their resistance is a thoughtful and careful rebellion in order to preserve that which really matters.

I've been quoting this book non-stop since finishing it three weeks ago. A very worthwhile read.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The only thing I knew going into this book was that it was about a white lawyer defending a black man in the South. I expected it to be gritty and so held my breath for the first half of the book; If I'd known that the trial would not be as tawdry as expected, I would have enjoyed the book that much more.

Atticus Finch is a small-time lawyer in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. He is a gentle, book-loving widower who never sets out to promote himself. But because of his firm conviction that all people are created equal, he takes on the "lost cause" case of Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white woman. Finch is the hero of the novel, but there are many others who are equally as heroic in their quiet ways. In fact, I don't think Atticus is the main character as much as a mirror from which we see reflected all the other characters.

Scout and Jem's mother has passed away and their absent-minded (but loving) father spends little time on developing their manners and social graces, much to the horror of his sister Alexandra. I tried my hardest to hate the small profanities coming out of Scout's mouth, but the more I read, the more I saw how pitch perfect Lee's writing was in giving voice to a young motherless girl growing up without much parental intervention.

Scout may not have had a lot of input from her daddy on how to speak like a lady, but the book makes it very clear that he had a powerful influence of another kind. Because of his strong stance on helping the weak, both of his children learn hard lessons about human nature. When Jem  (the older brother) is "forced" to read to a cranky elderly lady as a punishment for ruining her flowers, he begins to learn compassion. Jem's coming-of-age through various difficult events was one of my favorite parts of this book.

Through Atticus the children learn that:

(1) People aren't always as bad (or good) as they seem.

(2) Life isn't Fair - though Atticus had used every legal tool available to save Tom Robinson, he could not influence the secret courts of men hearts. (p. 241)

(3) Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand - It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. (p. 112)

Harper Lee introduces us to many brave people who will work their way into your heart. No wonder this book is considered a classic. I'm still astonished that Lee could write such a sad story with so much humor, wisdom, pathos and beauty. Remarkable. 

Keep in mind this novel was banned for its use of the N word, but much like Huck Finn, the word was used to reflect the times, but not the author's view which is clearly against racial inequality.

Be Satisfied by Warren Wiersbe

Whenever the book of Ecclesiastes comes up in my Bible reading cycle, I take a deep breath and prepare myself for a dismal few days at the hands of an embittered king. Now, thanks to Warren Wiersbe's commentary, Be Satisfied, I love Ecclesiastes.

Baptist Pastor Wiersbe has been pastoring, speaking and writing for sixty-five years and is best known for his "BE" series on every book of the Bible; he has the gift of being literate and theologically sound while at the same time being clear and accessible.

I appreciated how he treated the book in the context of the whole Bible. He combines Solomon's perspective from the book of Proverbs with his "changed" perspective in Ecclesiastes, along with a rich dose of New Testament passages to help readers grapple with how to find satisfaction in a world of troubles and discontentment.

The famous phrase, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" is nowhere in Ecclesiastes unless you interpret the book (as I used to) as a diatribe against life. Wiersbe points out that the "Eat, drink, and be merry" phrase is actually, "Eat, drink and be merry, for every good thing comes from God's hand." (Some form of that phrase appears six times in the book.) He asserts that Solomon found no lasting pleasure in his power, riches and wives, but learned that true enjoyment came from accepting life's simple joys as gifts of a loving Father. Wiersbe concludes, We will be satisfied to the extent that we see everything we have as a gift from God.

It is not enough to possess things; we must also possess the kind of character that enables us to use things wisely and to enjoy them properly. (p 46)

In addition to biblical insights, I loved all the literary allusions and the explanations of certain Hebrew words (including puns that are not evident in the English.) Sometimes I felt that he forced an applications onto the text, but I have been guilty of that myself on occasion.

With world news the way it's been lately, it was interesting to read these Bible passages about a man who found that life "under the sun" didn't seem worth living. It's too easy for me to become discouraged with disastrous events, the loss of freedoms that American Christians are facing, etc. How can we find hope and joy in the midst of it all? Not only was I encouraged by the book of Ecclesiastes, but I also appreciated this post by Joy Clarkson called "Sensible and Human Things."

Whenever Wiersbe's books are free, I post a link on my Worthwhile Books Facebook page, so be sure to check there for upcoming deals.

Brave New Family by G.K. Chesterton - Part 2

G.K. Chesterton is better understood in bite-sized chunks so I greatly appreciated the editor of Brave New Family compiling G.K’s wisdom on the subject into digestible paragraphs and chapters.

In my last post I quoted a few of his thoughts on marriage and this week I want to highlight his insights into motherhood, especially the idea that mothers should work and let someone else raise their children. (Although written 100 years ago, his words are quite contemporary.)

The State thinks think they can do a better job and leave the mother to do something more meaningful. The actual effect of this theory is that one harassed person has to look after a hundred children, instead of one normal person looking after a normal number of them. Normally that normal person is urged by a natural force, which costs nothing and does not require a salary, the force of natural affection for his young... If you cut off that natural force, and substitute a paid bureaucracy, you are like a lunatic who should carefully water his garden with a watering can, while holding an umbrella to keep off the rain. (p. 56)

A woman's function is laborious, because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the bigness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness. (p. 113)

And my favorite: Progressive people are perpetually telling us that the hope of the world is in education. Education is everything. Nothing is so important as training the rising generation. They tell us this over and over again, with slight variations of the same formula, and never seem to see what it involves. For if there be any word of truth in all this talk about the education of the child, then there is certainly nothing but nonsense in nine-tenths of the talk about the emancipation of women. If education is the highest function of the State, why should anybody want to be emancipated from the highest function of the State? If education is the largest thing in the world, what is the sense of talking about a woman being liberated from the largest thing in the world? (154)

E-Books vs. Physical Books - Part 4

I hope this is the last post I write on this subject since I'm starting to sound like a broken record. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

The bottom line is that our brains function differently when we read physical books than when we are reading on a screen. We concentrate better and remember more of what we read when using physical books.

The source of many of the articles I've read on this subject has been Canadian pastor Tim Challies. So you can imagine my surprise when he recently declared he was going "all in" with digital books.

I agree with many of his reasons for preferring digital books (convenience, less clutter, etc.), but can't believe he's ignoring the negatives that he himself has pointed out to his readers. I say, let's keep a balance.

I'm glad Edie at Life In Grace wrote this post about the importance of physical books. I had heard the argument about having books around so that your children will be able to see what influences you (see Our Bare Shelves, Our Selves). But Edie's argument about book time being the perfect antidote to screen overdose is excellent.

What do you think? Am I a lone voice crying in the wilderness?

The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts

The subtitle of The Gutenberg Elegies is "The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age." Birkert's main premise is that ditching physical books for modern gadgets causes a reduced attention span and a general impatience with sustained inquiry. (p. 27) This loss of contemplative and cognitive power is a threat to all that makes us truly human.

My 1994 version was out-of-date in the sense that the internet was just beginning and Birkerts was still referring to cassette tapes and VHS recordings. But it was not out-of-date in its call to consider how much we are losing by giving ourselves completely over to digital media. In fact, in light of how much was not even on the scene when he wrote this book, his prophecies are surprisingly accurate.

The technologies of entertainment have arrived with great fanfare, diminishing audiences for the book, allowing watching and playing to supplant reading as a dominant home activity. . . . They not only take up time that might have once belonged to the book, but they make it harder, once we do turn from the screen. (p. 200) Amen to that!

While circuit and screen are ideal conduits for certain kinds of data - figures, images, cross-referenced information of all sorts - they are entirely inhospitable to the more subjective materials that have always been the stuff of art. That is to say, they are antithetical to inwardness. (193)

My favorite quote: I speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. (p. 6) Before texting was even born, Birkerts sensed that the need to provide information more speedily would erode our language.

This book reinforced my desire to read physical books as much as possible. But, alas, did not convince me to give up my e-reader. I am a slave to convenience after all. At times Birkerts is verbose and whiny, but I managed to slog through. More accessible titles on this subject are The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains and Postmans' Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Words for Wednesday - On the Bravery of Faithfulness

Dustin Messer over at Kuyperian.com has an interesting article on Kent Dobson, the pastor who followed Rob Bell at Mars Hill. Dobson resigned from the church saying that he is taking a brave journey from the center of faith out to its edges. But Messer's suggests that this is not as courageous as staying centered on sound doctrine. In a culture of shifting sands, those who stay in the church are actually doing the less easy thing.

These days, the real adventurers are those who set sail for the risky land of Christian orthodoxy. The real brave men and women are those who consistently go to church, observe the sacraments, hear the word, and submit themselves to the discipline of the church. In an age of autonomy, it's those who subject their thoughts, behaviors, and passions to an exclusive Sovereign who are the brave few. Those may not be the memoirs we're interested in today, but they'll be the ones that last tomorrow.

Something to think about.