Category Archives: Book Review

THINK AGAIN: THE POWER OF KNOWING WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

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There are several things I appreciated about Adam Grant’s terrific book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Here are few of them:

*Grant employs a wonderful selection of illustrations, graphs, and personal anecdotes. Teaser: the opening about what caused some firefighters to lose their lives while a few lived, is a strong hook to the rest of the book.

*There is a helpful discussion of why computers/AI will never replace humans. The description of the debate between Harish Natarajan and an IBM computer is entertaining as it is illumining.

*Though Grant seems more sanguine than me about the willingness of people to “think again,” I am grateful that he admitted some are not interested in “dancing.” For more on the dance metaphor, you will need to buy the book!

*I found the encouragement to see our emotions as a “rough draft” to be most helpful. At my better moments, I am more in tune with how a lack of sleep will make me more vulnerable to errant comments. At my worst moments, well…

A personal note: I have interviewed over two hundred scholars, writers, and leaders. Grant is in a small group who makes himself accessible to his readers. Kudos to him for this example!

Some questions/possible disagreements/what I would bring up if I were in Grant’s “challenge network”:

I reached out to Adam with my first question:

*Wonderful book, Adam! Truly. One question nags: How should wise decisions be made where a data-oriented/scientific approach does not illumine?

Adam’s response:

Thanks, David—honored.

I think Bob Sutton captured it well when he defined wisdom as acting on the best information you have, while doubting what you know.

Cheers,

Adam

*Adam talked about the speed of information. I wish there had also been some interaction with both the amount of information coming at us, and even more so, how information gets democratized by most media outlets. In other words, the latest gossip surrounding Britney Spears gets equal play with an update on the war in Ukraine. We are constantly being told that everything is equally urgent.

*I think it would have added to the book to address how to go about motivating the “think again” process when so many grow up in homes where robust conversation and debate are not encouraged. In my own teaching about how to address controversial matters, I have had several tell me that they grew up in such homes. Serious and substantial conversations, let alone debate, was avoided at all costs. And the cost later in life is indeed great.

*Adam recommends that we think more like scientists. I think there is much wisdom in his prescription. I would have liked to have seen some interaction with the reality that scientists are hardly dispassionate creatures…though some of us may be tempted to think so! Like all of us, scientists operate wittingly or unwittingly with a philosophy of science. The work of Michael Polanyi is seminal here.

I am glad to have read this book. It got me to think again about my own thinking!

4.5 stars/5 on Amazon which in my grading is always adjusted upwards, so 5 stars!

 

CHRIST AND THE KINGDOMS OF MEN

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This is a lucid and thoughtful engagement with how the so-called political is to be understood by Christians. Those from a Reformed tradition will resonant most closely with it, but it offers a small c catholicity so all Christians can benefit.

One small bugaboo: I wish the author had not quoted Metaxas on Bonhoeffer without a caveat lector. It surprises me that the author, clearly a very literate scholar, would not be aware of the problems with Metaxas’s work.

AGING AND LANGUAGE

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In my early fifties (I am now 64), I started to keep a designated journal on aging. It has random reflections of mine and books I’ve read.

American pastors talk very little about aging, even though the Bible has much to say about it. And aging is an important subject not only for us older folks, but those much younger are wise to think about the body’s decline (see Ecc. 12).

I picked up Changing Minds at the Harvard bookstore, one of my happy places. It was in a stack of copies at a significant discount.

Changing Minds is not long (166 pages), but that does not limit its brilliance. It is a careful work, but the writing is lucid along with many fascinating studies that hold the reader’s attention.

These fascinating studies and insights demonstrate as the subtitle says, “how aging language and language affects aging.”

Highly recommended!

THE WHOLE CHRIST

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Ferguson write with great skill about why an older debate is worth our careful attention. Some background will be helpful in this semi-technical book, but the author writes lucidly and offers many pastoral nuggets along the way.

If you are looking to clarify what legalism and antinomianism are all about, this is a study worth considering.

 

THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN COMPASSION

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This is the third Olasky book I’ve read. Though they are very different books, all three have been terrific reads. 

The Tragedy of American Compassion is the book that Olasky is best known for. Even though it was published thirty years ago, it stands up very well.

A compelling case is made that the prior ways of understanding compassion and therefore dispensing aid are superior to our modern policies and programs. By “prior ways,” we are talking about the nineteenth century.

Books like this can so easily fall prey to trotting out an endless stream of statistics. Numbers matter to be sure, but they don’t tell a story. W.E.B. DuBois learned that lesson in a graphic way when he realized that his fascination with numbers could not adequately convey seeing “the barbecued parts of a lynched man.”

Olasky peppers his seminal book with loads of stories that help us better understand what true compassion entails. In other words, Olasky appropriately moves both our minds and affections to consider a wiser approach.

Highly recommended!

MOTHER OF MODERN EVANGELICALISM

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I already knew a fair bit about Henrietta Mears prior to reading this book. My familiarity was due to the stories Dr. Bill Bright used to share about Mears. Bright along with Billy Graham and a coterie of other notables, fell under the spell of Mears.

Dr. Bright highlighted various things about Mears but sadly failed to emphasize her desire to offer rigorous education to Christians. Mears believed it was scandalous that schools offered detailed instruction while the Christian education in many churches was haphazard and superficial.

J.I. Packer used to regularly say that the glaring need of the church was for catechesis or Christian education. I very much agree with Packer here and Mears modelled what this would look like.

Not only were thousands involved in the various Sunday school ministries of First Presbyterian, Hollywood, but Mears provided depth, ministry to the whole person, and engagement in all sorts of ministries.

This is a well-written and compelling account of Henrietta Mears’s approach to Christian education in the local church. We desperately need to listen to her today!

BULLIES AND SAINTS

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I have read many books on history and the history of the church. Church history was also my minor or cognate field of study in seminary.

There is much to like about John Dickson’s Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History. Sometimes instead of a regular review, I like to offer five things I appreciated about a book. Here goes with Bullies and Saints:

*Dickson is balanced in laying out the good, bad, and downright ugly or evil. He does not fall prey to either the cynic on one hand or the hagiographer on the other hand.

*There is a responsible engagement with the best scholarship, yet the book remains accessible.

*Dickson is a lucid writer who knows how to find the telling anecdote or illustration.

*Unlike some Christians, Dickson does not go back to the past to find talking points he already agrees with. He allows the strangeness of the past to speak to him and by way of extension, us.

*It is the kind of book that a Christian could comfortably give to a thoughtful non-Christian. I think many non-Christians would be pleasantly surprised by Dickson’s fair-mindedness.

AGGRESSIVELY HAPPY

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I almost did not read this book. The cover made me think it was going to be another one of those fluffy, feel-good books. You know, the kind in the end that leave you more convinced that Christians just can’t write honestly about the human condition.

Well, I am here to say that Joy’s splendid book is hardly spiritual pablum. Joy just finished her PhD at St. Andrews, she knows suffering firsthand, and yet she maintains a gritty confidence in Jesus Christ.

When you are my age (sixty-four, by the way), have a strong theological education, and constitutionally have a honed radar for drivel, you are ready to be disappointed by “popular” Christian books.

I was not disappointed!

The writing is beautiful, the insights are fresh, and the storytelling, even about the author’s own life is wonderful. Talking or writing about yourself is fraught with all kinds of potential hazards, but Joy avoids them. She is the winsome, fellow-traveler you would like to have as a guide and friend.

I usually read (meaning careful highlighting and note-taking) 50-60 books a year. I peruse hundreds of others. Aggressively Happy will definitely make my favorite book list for 2022, but now I feel another category needs to be added: Books that pleasantly surprised me.

I would love to open a bookstore someday. Well, not quite. Since my own teaching and writing makes that impossible, I would love to be the person who picks what gets stocked. If and when that happens, you can be sure to find this book on the shelves.