Books

Eating as a Holy Act

November 22, 2011 By Daniel Im

Did you know that over the past three decades, there has been a 45 percent decrease in entertaining friends and a 33 percent decrease in families eating together? And more than half of those families watch television as they eat together – I know it…that’s what my family did growing up (research from Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone).

What did you eat today? Whom did you eat it with? When’s the last time you had a meaningful time of relationship and community with another person? Was it around food? Most of us not only organize our day around our meals, but is is the social glue that connects families and friends together. Isn’t that why the big holidays, like Christmas and Thanksgiving are celebrated with family, friends, and a big meal?

However, we oftentimes eat without knowing and understanding the significance of it, other than satisfying that hunger or satiating that palette.

So what would it look like if we began seeing food and our meal times through the eyes of Jesus? How did he view the table?

Well, in the New Testament, here are three of the ways that the sentence “The Son of Man came…” is completed:

…not to serve, but to serve (Mark 10:45);
…to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10);
…eating and drinking (Luke 7:34).

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Book Review: The Next Christendom – Philip Jenkins

August 22, 2011 By Daniel Im

The following is an analytical book review of Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom.

Philip Jenkins, the author of 24 books, and 120 book chapters and refereed articles, has been on the faculty of Pennsylvania State University since 1980, and in 2007, he was appointed as the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Religious Studies. He completed his undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral work all at the University of Cambridge, but it is not his work in global Christianity that got him on the faculty of Penn State. He began as an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in 1980. In fact, his early work consists of history, criminology, and pedophilia. It was not until his publication of The Next Christendom that his reputation as an expert on global Christianity came to the forefront. Since then, he has spoken widely around this topic of global Christianity (http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/p/jpj1/vita.htm).

The thesis of this book is that the center of Christianity has shifted southward to Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Location 36). As a result, in spite of the seeming decline of Christianity in the western world, Christianity is actually growing and flourishing in most areas around the world (Location 992).

Book Review: The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission – Lesslie Newbigin

August 14, 2011 By Daniel Im

The following is an analytical review on Lesslie Newbigin’s The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission Revised Edition.

Leslie Newbigin (1909-1998) was a theological missiologist/missionary and a missiological theologian. There are over six decades worth of his writings on mission theology and practice. Thus, he is considered to have had one of the greatest influences on the theology of mission in the twentieth century. Furthermore, Newbigin was a scholar practitioner since his works were always rooted in his living relationship with Jesus Christ; after all, he modeled what he wrote. He was also a Western missionary to India from 1936-1974, and upon returning to Great Britain, his missionary focus turned to the West (Shenk 1998).

The thesis of this book is that Christian mission is an open secret. It is open in the sense that the gospel is proclaimed to all without any boundaries, but it is a secret in that “it is manifest only to the eyes of faith” (Location 2556). As a result, mission cannot be relegated as a side task of the church, but it is the central calling and purpose of the church, yet the church does not own the mission, the mission is God’s (Location 256). Newbigin’s prophetic call to the church is for it to reemphasize its missionary character “to bring all things to their true end in the glory of the triune God” (Location 2556).

Book Review: The Mission of God – Christopher Wright

August 8, 2011 By Daniel Im

This is an analytical book review of Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative.

Rev. Dr. Christopher Wright’s passion is bringing life to the “relevance of the Old Testament to Christian mission and ethics.” In addition to his current role as the Director over Langham Partnership International after John Stott’s death, he has experience as a High School teacher, theological professor, and as an ordained minister with the Anglican Church of England.

The Mission of God is a magnum opus describing the mission of God. In other words, the thesis of this book is not only that Christian mission is firmly grounded in Scripture, but also that Scripture is most accurately read through a hermeneutical framework that is centered on the mission of God (26). In other words, “God’s mission is what fills the gap between the scattering of the nations in Genesis 11 and the healing of the nations in Revelation 22” (455).

Wright navigates readers through his comprehensive study of the mission of God by dividing his book into four parts: The Bible and Mission, The God of Mission, The People of Mission, and The Arena of Mission. In the first part, Wright describes what a missiological hermeneutic of the Bible entails. He argues that individuals need to understand the Bible’s grand metanarrative, and also that the proper way to read the Bible is messianically and missionally (31). In the second part, Wright unpacks the identity, uniqueness, and universality of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ and the ensuing implications for mission (27). He finishes the section by paying attention to the opposition of the mission of God – idols and gods. In the third part, one discovers that the primary agent of the mission of God is the people of God. This is noticeable by examining the biblical covenants and the narrative of Scripture. Wright finishes his magnum opus by concentrating on the Arena of Mission – the earth, humans, and all culture and nations.

There have only been a few books that I have read and come away with a sense of awe, humility, and a passion to reread it and act on what I have read – The Mission of God is the most recent.

What kind of me does God wants for his mission?

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Book Review: A Community of Character – Stanley Hauerwas

July 9, 2011 By Daniel Im

This is an analytical book review of Stanley Hauerwas’ A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic.

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School and he holds a joint appointment with Duke Law School. Hauerwas’ Methodist roots and diverse education and work experience contributes to an ecumenical theological stance that is not liberal (12). In addition to his ecumenicism, he is cross-disciplinary, as “he is in conversation with systematic theology, philosophical theology and ethics, political theory, as well as the philosophy of social science and medical ethics.”

The thesis of this book is that Christian morality and ethics can only make sense and be applied to one’s life when one is living within the continuing narrative of the Christian story. As a result, Hauerwas frames everything he writes about in this book around the concept of narrative because without narratives, there is a loss of community (18).

This book is essentially divided up into three parts. The first part addresses how every community needs to be rooted in a narrative. For Christians, Jesus and the Kingdom of God is the narrative that forms the church (50). Furthermore, it is the Christian’s belief in the authority of Scripture and God that enables the church to be the contrast model/community to a society that does not value authority.
The second part of the book continues to emphasize the importance of narrative in understanding the church since Christians are a “storied people” worshipping a “storied God” (91). Hauerwas claims that Christians need to cultivate hope and patience in their life in order to be a contrast narrative to this world (128). For the Christian to grow in character, it is crucial that he/she learn to participate in the story of the people of God, rather than just hear about it (152).
Consequently, the first two parts set up the theoretical basis for the third part, where he applies the concepts addressed in the first two parts to discuss what kind of ethic the church should have toward the family, sex, and abortion. His discussion is framed around the fact that one cannot separate one’s views on the family, sex, and abortion from the greater narrative of the church.

I love the way Hauerwas decides to address the family, sex, and abortion in the last section, since these are the pressing ethical issues that the church needs to be firm on, in order to be a contrast society.

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