Category Archives: Love

PARIS IN RUINS: LOVE, WAR, AND THE BIRTH OF IMPRESSIONISM

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First, I must say that this is a beautifully designed book. Reading a physical copy of a book of such beauty does not compare to reading on a Kindle, though this book is available on Kindle.

Both my wife and I love Impressionism. I well remember a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We have been there on many occasions. We went in different directions for a bit. When we reconnected, I found my wife enthralled before a Pissarro painting. Impressionism has many strange, but wonderful qualities that draw you in.

At the outset Smee clearly lays out his goals with the book: “The story focuses on the events of 1870-71 (famously dubbed ‘The Terrible Year’ by Victor Hugo). It’s premised on the conviction that we cannot see Impressionism clearly without grasping the impact of the tumultuous time on the movement’s leading artists.”

Smee has done yeomen’s work in giving a detailed and fascinating account of worn-torn France and the emergence of Impressionism. 

For both history and art lovers, this is a terrific read!

 

HUMILITY AFTER HUMILIATION

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Pat Nemmers is a pastor of a thriving church in Des Moines, Iowa. That church has planted several other churches that are also doing well. Pat is the father of ten children and thirty-eight grandchildren. No typo there.

Lest you think Pat’s life is one of blessing upon blessing, his wonderfully conceived Retractions: Cultivating Humility after Humiliation will quickly disabuse you of that assumption.

Pat’s book is an honest yet hope-filled book on the life of a pastor, husband, father, and friend. Honest books on the pastoral life are somewhat rare, but I am happy to say that Pat’s book makes a healthy triumvirate alongside Zack Eswine’s The Imperfect Pastor and Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor: A Memoir.

Pat knows joy and he knows deep grief. His first wife died in his arms while still in her thirties. He knows what it is like to have wayward children. More importantly, he knows the importance of submitting his own life all over again to the Lordship of Jesus.

This is an honest, searching, life-giving, and Christ-honoring book that you just might want to give to your pastor.

 

JONATHAN EDWARDS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

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George Marsden is widely considered one of the best living historians of American Christianity, if not the best. 

This is Marsden’s third book on Jonathan Edwards. His big biography won the prestigious Bancroft Prize.

In this book, Marsden gives us an Edwards for our own time. We perhaps find an unlikely partner in Edwards for helping to navigate our present time, but Marsden makes a compelling case that the 18th century clergyman has much to offer us.

Among other things, Edwards’s love of beauty and the natural world are simply stunning. They are chalked full of implications for how we see the world today.

Whether you know much or little about Edwards, An Infinite Fountain of Light is a terrific read.

CHRISTIANS HATING ONE ANOTHER

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We live in turbulent and divisive times.  

We may be tempted to focus only on the ungodliness of the “culture” in general, but ungodliness is hardly limited to those outside the church. 

Inside the church there is suspicion among Christians, even hatred. Christians have told me that they can’t talk about their differences on important issues…with their best friends!  How much hope is there then to discuss controversial matters with those we don’t know?  Growing numbers seem pessimistic about the prospect.

The gadfly sensation, Jordan Peterson, likes to tell young people that they have no credibility to protest in public unless they first keep their own bedrooms neat and tidy.  It is good counsel and one we Christians ought to take more seriously, even if others don’t.  To change the imagery a bit, I like to say that we Christians regularly want to start a landscape company when the weeds in our own backyard need serious attention.

Consider the following not so hypothetical conversation:

Pro-Life Christian: I can’t believe that people think partial-birth abortion is okay.

Pro-Choice Friend: How come?

Pro-Life Christian: Because it is the killing of a human being!

Pro-Choice Friend: Why do you believe anyone two and younger is human?

Pro-Life Christian: Because the Bible says so!

Pro-Choice Friend: Would you show me a few of those Bible verses?

Pro-Life Christian: Uh, let me see…I know they are in there somewhere…

Whether it is engaging in conversation with those inside or outside the church, we ought first to consider whether we are adequately literate to speak with such confidence and conviction.

The final chapter of Stuck in the Present offers a way forward…

 

SOMETHING TO MULL OVER

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“Perfect love casts out fear, but the opposite is also true: perfect fear casts out love.”

Pastor/scholar David Gibson mentioned that a pastor friend shared the quote with him.

Interviewed by theologian J Todd Billings

The End of the Christian Life Podcast

COMPLEMENTARIANISM

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From Carl Trueman:

I rarely read complementarian literature these days. I felt it lost its way when it became an all-embracing view of the world and not simply a matter for church and household. I am a firm believer in a male-only ordained ministry in the church but I find increasingly bizarre the broader cultural crusade which complementarianism has become. It seems now to be more a kind of reaction against feminism than a balanced exposition of the Bible’s teaching on the relationships of men and women. Thus, for example, marriage is all about submission of wife to husband (Eph. 5) and rarely about the delight of friendship and the kind of playful but subtly expressed eroticism we find in the Song of Songs. Too often cultural complementarianism ironically offers a rather disenchanted and mundane account of the mystery and beauty of male-female relations. And too often it slides into sheer silliness.