Elliot Ritzema

Category: Book Reviews

  • The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in Coaching

    Normally I write short reviews of every book I read grouped together by month. Since I’ve been busy lately, though, I haven’t done one of those monthly roundups since March. Now the prospect of writing several monthly roundups is becoming daunting, so I will try to post short reviews of each book as I have time to write them.

    When I was growing up in North Carolina, it was hard to not be aware of college basketball. There are a lot of great teams in the area, and people can be quite emotionally invested in their favorite teams. Though I did not have a personal connection to the University of North Carolina, I did root for their basketball team. A big part of the reason for that was my admiration for their long-time coach, Dean Smith.

    This book, which Smith wrote a few years after he retired in 1997, is his attempt to reflect on what he learned about leadership during his 36 years of coaching at UNC. Each chapter consists of Smith’s reflections on a particular topic (for example, “Why Unselfishness Works”), followed by reflections from some of Smith’s former players on that same topic. The players are usually ones who have spent time in the business world, and they talk about the influence Smith has had on the way they live and work. The chapter then closes with a reflection on that topic geared toward the realm of business written by Gerald Bell, a consultant and professor at UNC’s business school.

    What Smith taught his basketball teams boiled down to three main principles: play smart, play together, and play hard. He rarely talked about winning, he writes, because winning was out of his team’s control. He wanted his players to focus on execution, and the outcome would take care of itself.

    In reading this book, I learned a lot about Smith and what made him so successful. He has strong opinions, and they are part of what made the book entertaining. For example, he called tardiness “the height of arrogance,” because you are saying that your time is more important than someone else’s. I’d recommend this book to anyone with an interest in leadership, teaching or college basketball.

  • Book Review: Story Engineering

    I’m not a person who has read a lot of how-to books on fiction writing, so I’m a newbie when it comes to this genre. The only book about fiction writing that I can remember reading was Stephen King’s On Writing several years ago. What I remember most about that book were the autobiographical passages rather than the nuts and bolts of writing.

    Brooks’s philosophy of writing is consciously different from King’s. Asserting that is a bold move, considering King’s success. Unlike King, whom Brooks calls an “organic” writer, Brooks believes that there are six core competencies when it comes to writing fiction: Concept, Character, Theme, Story Structure, Scene Execution and Writing Voice. Though that may sound formulaic at first glance, Brooks insists that using the core competencies in a story is no more formulaic than an architect obeying the laws of physics when constructing a building. Brooks says that those who intuitively grasp good story structure (like King) are able to just sit down and start writing without a plan, and what they end up with will be good. The rest of us need to go through the steps of deliberately using story structure. You can’t teach genius, but you can teach skill, and that is what the six core competencies are all about.

    I enjoyed this book. Brooks argues what screenwriters have known for a long time (and what I’ve believed for a long time): creativity is best utilized, and recognized, within carefully defined boundaries. Otherwise, it becomes a mess that the audience can’t relate to.

    One criticism of this book is that it was longer than it had to be. Brooks has such an evident fascination about and knowledge of his subject that he can get long-winded and go into great detail when, at least for this reader, not as much detail is needed. In fiction writing, excessive elaboration may not be as big a deal, but Brooks could use some trimming in this non-fiction book.

  • Review of Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

    Radical by David Platt (who is pastor of a large church in Birmingham, AL and has a doctorate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) is a book which, unfortunately, is needed. I say “unfortunately” because Radical is a call to American Christians to follow Jesus with their whole lives, and not to confuse pursuit of the American Dream of wealth, comfort and self-sufficiency with Christian discipleship. If American Christians were radical disciples of Jesus, this book would not be necessary. But there is a widespread collusion among Christians in this country that being a follower of Christ need not be radical. As Platt puts it, “[W]e look around, and everyone else has nice cars, nice homes, and lifestyles characterized by luxuries, so we accept that this must be the norm for Christians. We may get convicted about our way of living when we look at the Bible, but then when we look at one another, we assume it must be okay because everyone else lives this way” (205-6).

    There has been such a need for books like this for such a long time that you could almost say there is a genre of “costly discipleship” books: books that insist that following Christ is more of a life-changing commitment than is commonly thought. Platt makes reference to one of the most famous books in this genre, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, in the opening pages of this book.

    These books are valuable, but there is a danger in reading them. The danger is that in reading them we are convicted by how far away from a truly sacrificial life of discipleship we are, and we become paralyzed either by guilt or by not knowing where to begin. Platt is not interested in paralyzing people, and the last chapter of this book is where he really shows a pastoral heart. He urges readers to begin their journey toward radical discipleship by undertaking a one-year experiment involving five components: pray for the entire world; read through the entire Word; sacrifice your money for a specific purpose; spend your time in another context; commit your life to a multiplying community. Honestly, these steps, by themselves, are not all that radical. The point, I think, is to get people to start somewhere. He even says that beginning by spending 2 percent of our time in a different context could lead to giving 98 percent of our time in a different context (203). Platt wants to get Christians on the road to understanding the radical demands – and radical rewards – of following Jesus. I am thankful for this book, and will seek to follow through on some of the commitments that Platt suggests.

  • March 2011: Books Read

    1. Gods that Fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission by Vinoth Ramachandra. I first encountered Ramachandra when I went to InterVarsity’s Urbana missions conference in 2000 and attended a talk that he gave. I can’t remember now what exactly he spoke on, but I do remember being impressed by him as someone who was very intelligent and articulate, who was knowledgeable about culture, both eastern and western, and who cared deeply about the church’s mission.

    Several years later, I picked up his book Gods that Fail at a used book sale, and read it recently as I prepared to give a sermon that touched on modern idolatry. I found in his writing that he was everything I remembered him to be from Urbana, and more. In any book about modern idolatry, the author has to have the courage to call a spade a spade, and Ramachandra has that ability in – yes, I’ll say it – spades. This is evident as early as page 6, where Ramachandra writes, “[Francis] Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ sloganeering disguises the massive hypocrisy, political betrayals, economic blackmail and proxy violence that have so often attended western talk of defending democracy and exporting ‘free world’ values.” Though this book was published in 1996, it struck me as being quite contemporary in its assessment of the state of the world. That is, I think, because Ramachandra is right in his belief that “the displacement of the God of the biblical revelation, which is the most distinctive feature of modernity, has paved the way for the rise of new gods which, like their ancient counterparts, eventually devour their devotees” (19). These gods, Ramachandra writes, saturate the modern world as well as the church, paralyzing the latter from faithfully carrying out its mission.

    Just as Tim Keller wrote in the book on idolatry that I read just before this one (Counterfeit Gods), Ramachandra writes that the way to defeat idols is to replace them with the Crucified God. If Christians worship the God who died on a cross, they are able to see the silliness of the obsession with technique and desire for power that is rampant within the church and without. This means embracing vulnerability, rejecting individualism and nationalism, and affirming “clearly and boldly the truth of the gospel, the fact of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ as sole Savior and Judge of every human enterprise, and to do this in the public domain whether people hear or refuse to hear” (222-3). This was an inspiring read, and a challenging one.

    2. Changed by Faith by Luis Palau with Jay Fordice. Reviewed earlier here.

    3. Doing Virtuous Business: The Remarkable Success of Spiritual Enterprise by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch. Reviewed earlier here.

  • February 2011: Books Read

    1. Dune by Frank Herbert. This is a classic work of science fiction that, before I read it, I knew next to nothing about. I knew they had made a movie from it (which I had never seen), and that the movie had Sting in it. That’s all. It was a fun read, though I kept wishing that the action would move a bit faster. To me, the reading experience felt like this: foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow SOMETHING HAPPENS foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow foreshadow, etc. It got a bit tiring, after a while.

    Also, I had a conversation with a co-worker while I was reading it. This co-worker said that he had read the book when he was young, and was quite taken with Frank Herbert’s world-building ability until he got a bit older and found that he stole a bunch of what he wrote from the Arabs. This, I found, was quite true. It’s impossible, I think, to build a complete fantasy world from scratch with no reference to the real world. But it’s a lot more entertaining when you can cover your tracks a bit. An interesting read, but I don’t understand what the fuss is about.

    2. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God by Christopher J.H. Wright. From the early church on, the issue of how to interpret the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible, if you prefer) has been a live one. Are its laws still binding on Jewish Christians? Do Gentile Christians have to start living by its laws? Some answers regarding how to interpret it are found in the New Testament, but we modern types have still more questions: What about the destruction of the Canaanites? How did the Israelites view the environment? Do the laws God gave to the Israelites reflect the ideal way to govern a society, or was it a condescension to the Israelites’ culture? If the Old Testament law is an ideal, what about its regulations concerning slavery? And on and on.

    Wright’s book is a fantastic one for answering such questions. He writes in dialogue with other scholars, but on a level that is intelligible to the average person who has never studied Hebrew or the Ancient Near East. It is neither a quick read nor a light read, however, so I would only recommend it to those who are seriously seeking to investigate how Christians should view the Old Testament.

    3. Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn. This is an inspirational tale about the friendship between a young man (I believe he is around 19) and a young girl in London. Fynn, the narrator, finds Anna as he is wandering around the city at night. She has run away from home, and he takes her into the home where he lives with his mother and a steady string of other tenants. Soon he discovers that Anna is spiritually sensitive beyond her years, and much of the book consists of conversations between the two of them in which Anna confidently discourses on life and Fynn laps up her wisdom.

    There was a lot that I enjoyed about this book, but at the end I thought it was too sentimental. In particular, it came across as an idealization of childhood, and of Anna in particular. She seems almost otherworldly, and this depiction of Anna as otherworldly even extends to the picture on the cover of the book. It depicts Fynn and Anna walking together. Fynn is drawn as a regular human being and Anna is drawn as a ghost. Fynn tells us that it is a true story, but Anna seems a little bit too much like an oracle.

    4. Someday You’ll Be a Good Preacher: A Homiletical Memoir by Stan Mast. This book was given to me by my grandparents, and the author is the preaching pastor at the church they attend in Grand Rapids, MI. It is, as the subtitle says, a homiletical memoir, and Mast walks his readers through his development as a preacher, paying particular attention to his critics (those who paid him the backhanded compliment of saying he would be a good preacher someday) and how their criticism (constructive and otherwise) spurred his growth. This is a quick read, and I enjoyed it. I’d recommend it to those who preach, and especially to those who can relate to Mast’s experience as a minister in the Christian Reformed Church.

    5. Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters by Timothy Keller. This is a book about idolatry. All too often when we think of idolatry, we imagine ancient people literally bowing down before a statue. That is not all idolatry is, says Tim Keller, and idols are alive and well in the modern world. “A counterfeit god,” Keller says, “is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would hardly feel worth living” (xviii). The only way to get rid of them is to replace them; not with other idols but with Jesus, the only God worthy of our worship. Fascinating and convicting.

  • Book Review: Doing Virtuous Business

    This book is Theodore Roosevelt Malloch’s argument that capitalism is most successful when it is conducted in a virtuous way. Virtuous enterprise, according to Malloch, both makes the world a better place and makes businesses more successful (7). In fact, companies that pursue profit to the detriment of all else are unhealthy. He states, “I strongly believe that profit-only companies are, in fact, parasitic, and that they damage the economy at large with their limited and self-focused view of their role in the marketplace” (2). In addition to the well-known concept of social capital, Malloch says there is something called “spiritual capital” which those who conduct business from a faith-based perspective possess. Like any other kind of capital, it can be renewed or drawn down over time. Spiritual capital is renewed through the exercise of virtue, and he expounds on several such virtues: leadership, courage, patience, perseverance, discipline, justice, forgiveness, compassion, humility and gratitude. Practicing these virtues renews spiritual capital, and the growth of spiritual capital leads to greater success than would otherwise be achieved.

    I must admit that I was wary when I first began to read this book. I have read too many uncritical dismissals of capitalism as well as too many uncritical endorsements of it, and I had my suspicions that this book might fall into the latter category. As I read, however, I was glad that Malloch’s emphasis was on a classical list of virtues, rather than what has been called “the virtue of selfishness.” If anything, I wish that Malloch had spent even more time unpacking what it would mean for businesses to operate while pursuing virtue. He calls attention to several individuals and companies as exemplars of particular virtues, but I am still skeptical about whether these companies (especially Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods, which are both mentioned in the book) are actually operating under a broad list of virtues rather than just one or two.

    Early in my reading, I wondered whether Malloch had a purely instrumental view of virtue. That is, his emphasis on the success that doing virtuous business brings made me wonder whether he saw virtue as simply a tool to achieve the greater goal of success. He does address this objection, and I will quote him: “The examples I have given concern sincerely religious people whose faith has helped them in their business and who have been rewarded for their virtues. This is no the justification for their faith, nor has it been their motive. On the contrary, it is precisely because faith motivates them to other and higher goals, turning their minds away from the thought of profit, that they have been able to unleash, in themselves and others, the store of spiritual capital that has brought profit as one of its first effects” (118). In other words, Malloch is saying that in his examples, companies pursue virtue and experience profit as a byproduct. This is wonderful for the companies Malloch uses as examples, but I’m not sure whether Malloch’s emphasis on the close link between virtue and success is the best way to encourage companies to act more virtuously. It was good to see Malloch say, in telling the story of Malcolm Pearson (141-144), that doing business virtuously can lead to a lack of success, at least in the short term. I wish that he had taken more account of situations such as Pearson’s in his argument throughout the book, as there were times when it seemed he was saying the virtuous company could always have its cake and eat it too.

    This book is valuable insofar as it explores the role of virtue in doing business. Unfortunately, I think that it only scratched the surface.

  • Book Review: Changed by Faith by Luis Palau

    Luis Palau is an evangelist, and this is an evangelistic book. The thrust of it is that faith in Jesus is not just something that can be added on to a life, but is something that fundamentally changes it. He directs his writing at various kinds of people who have not made a life-changing commitment to Jesus: skeptics, people who feel that going to church periodically and calling themselves Christians is enough, people who are outwardly successful but inwardly unfulfilled, the addicted, the unloved, the burned-out, the hopeless. To each of those people (and more), he says that the good news of Jesus transforms lives by bringing about personal and social change and bringing beauty from ashes.

    Palau (and his co-author, Jay Fordice) tells the stories of many people whom he has met in his years as an evangelist, and this makes the book easy and interesting to read. I have read several books over the years that lay out the good news of Jesus, and aside from the stories of how faith in Jesus has changed people, this book had nothing new to say. As far as I’m concerned, that is a point in the book’s favor. After all, the gospel message is not new. The way in which it impacts each life makes for wonderful stories, though, and I appreciated Palau’s emphasis on telling personal stories. If I had a criticism of this book, it is that the stories could gloss over the struggles of living the Christian life. I realize that Palau wanted to emphasize the change that faith in Jesus brings, but if that is the only thing people hear, they may feel that their struggles in growth are unnatural and become discouraged.

    I received a review copy of this book from Tyndale House. I was not asked to give a positive review.

  • January 2011: Books Read

    1. Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life and Impact of G.K. Chesterton by Kevin Belmonte. Reviewed earlier here.

    2. Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era by Stanley J. Grenz. Grenz, a professor at Carey Theological College in Vancouver, wrote this book in 2000, five years before his untimely death. The edition I read was the second edition, which came out in 2006 and includes a preface by Brian McLaren.

    The book is an attempt to show how evangelicalism has gotten to where it is now, and to show a way forward. In the first half of the book, Grenz gives his history of the movement, calling attention to the evangelical emphasis on convertive piety and tracing the development of the evangelical doctrine of scripture. He recounts the history of evangelicalism in the 20th century by showing how it developed into a “two-party” system. He looks at three pairs of scholars from each of the last three generations: Bernard Ramm and Carl F.H. Henry, Clark Pinnock and Millard Erickson, and John Sanders and Wayne Grudem.

    In the second half of the book, Grenz points the way forward, urging a critical appropriation of postmodern sensitivities in the service of the church’s mission. He calls for a “generous orthodoxy” (a phrase which later became the title of a book by McLaren) that focuses on “the gospel of convertive piety, oriented toward the doctrinal consensus of the church, and motivated by a vision that is truly catholic, that is, a vision encompassing the whole church — and, beyond the church, all creation” (29).

    I enjoyed this book, particularly the first half. Any book that can explore in an entertaining way the historical roots of contemporary discussions and disagreements will keep me reading. I also appreciated Grenz’s call for the church to exhibit a “unity in diversity centered in the gospel” (368) which was “not to be found in full agreement concerning all of the various teachings and practices of the church, but rather in the living presence of Christ” (369). Unfortunately for Grenz, this did not happen. In fact, there appeared in 2004 a book with the title Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times. While I am not willing to go to bat for everything Grenz argues for in this book, I can’t help but lament the fact that his call for a more irenic, less “us-against-them” mentality went unheeded.

    3. Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers. This was the first murder mystery that Dorothy Sayers wrote, and the first to feature Lord Peter Wimsey as the detective.

    Since I don’t want to reveal anything about the plot, here are just a few general comments. This isn’t the first Sayers detective novel that I have read, and it was interesting for me to note the similarities and differences with what she wrote later. This is quite a short novel, without extraneous descriptions or events. As her career continued, and maybe as she became more comfortable as a novelist, her writing style became more expansive.

    In reading this novel I was struck again with how similar Wimsey, in particular, seemed to characters created by P.G. Wodehouse. Of course, no one would ever be murdered in a Wodehouse novel, so it is interesting to see the incongruity that comes about when a flippant, lighthearted person like Wimsey journeys into the world of crime. Anyone who likes Wodehouse, and especially anyone who likes the so-called “golden age of detective fiction,” will enjoy this book.

  • Book Review: Defiant Joy

    I have been a fan of G.K. Chesterton ever since I picked up a copy of Orthodoxy while I was in college. Since then, I’ve read several books by or about him, including The Man Who Was Thursday, The Everlasting Man, St. Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Joseph Pearce’s biography Wisdom and Innocence, Garry Wills’s literary study, and several of the Father Brown stories.

    It was with excitement and a little trepidation, then, that I picked up Kevin Belmonte’s book Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life & Impact of G.K. Chesterton. “After all,” I thought, “What can be said about Chesterton that hasn’t already been said?

    The answer I got from this book was: not much. But that isn’t a criticism of the book. The book is intended as an invitation to Chesterton, not an exhaustive biography. If the reader keeps that aim in mind, this book will not disappoint. Belmonte devotes chapters to several of Chesterton’s most famous works (the ones mentioned above, plus several others), quoting extensively from the works themselves as well as reviews. Belmonte seems particularly interested to show how Chesterton was received in the United States, as he quotes from several reviews run by the New York Times.

    Belmonte does a good, if unspectacular, job in this overview of and invitation to Chesterton. He makes the case that Chesterton has something to say to our own age of confusion and incivility, not just his own. If this book encourages more people to read Chesterton, Belmonte will have accomplished his task. Personally, I hope that he succeeds beyond his wildest imagination.

    Note: Thanks to Thomas Nelson for a review copy. I was not asked to give a positive review.

  • December 2010: Books Read

    1. Julie Clawson – Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices. This book, which I found in my church library, is a wonderful look at justice issues for a popular Christian audience. Clawson looks at how biblical ideas about justice can affect behavior in seven areas: Coffee, Chocolate, Cars, Food, Clothes, Waste and Debt. She gives many good recommendations, both in terms of what to do and where to get more information. One of the best things about this book is that it seeks to move wealthy Christians (and when I compare myself to the rest of the world population, I fit in that category) toward more just decisions, and at the same time it is not overwhelming or judgmental.

    2. Earl Palmer – The Humor of Jesus: Sources of Laughter in the Bible. This book, by the former pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, is a brief look at humor in the Bible. It is not a bad introduction, and includes several examples of humor in the Bible, but there are other books out there that are more comprehensive. The main benefit of reading this book is just spending time with Palmer, who clearly enjoys his subject.

    On a separate note, while I was reading this book Mary and I got to attend a lecture given by Palmer on C.S. Lewis here in Bellingham.

    3. Conrad Hyers – And God Created Laughter: The Bible as Divine Comedy. This is the second book that I read to get some background for a Bible dictionary article I was preparing to write on “humor.” This one was better than Palmer’s, but to be honest neither were really satisfying. Both seemed to have as their main message: “The Bible really is funny, you know.” Since I was already convinced that there is humor in the Bible, I was looking for more detailed information on the various techniques of humor in the Bible and where they could be found. There was a little of this, but not as much as I was hoping for.

    4. Francis Schaeffer – The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer (5 vols). I began reading this back in July, and wrapped it up just before Christmas. It contains all 22 of Schaeffer’s books combined into five volumes. I’m not able to do it justice in a short review, so I’ll share a negative and a positive. What I didn’t like about this set was that Schaeffer repeated himself so much over the course of his oeuvre. I am also more sympathetic with the earlier Schaeffer (in which his primary goal was to relate the gospel to the young people who came to visit him at L’Abri) than the later Schaeffer (in which he turned his attention more toward emphasizing an antagonistic view of the world and defining the boundaries of evangelicalism). I’ve already alluded to the positive. Schaeffer was passionate about relating the gospel to the world of the late-20th century, and he is at his best when his books are rooted most directly in the deep concern and love he had for the world as it came to him in the person of the young people he met at L’Abri.

    5. Scot McKnight – Fasting (The Ancient Practices). Reviewed earlier here.