Elliot Ritzema

Tag: Books

  • Book Review: Decision Points

    Instead of proceeding chronologically, George W. Bush structures this memoir of his presidency around the various “decision points” from his time as president and before: his decision to quit drinking, to run for governor and then president, to put the United States on war footing after 9/11, to invade Iraq, how to deal with the financial crisis in 2008, etc.

    While he does express regret at times (e.g., that there was a “Mission Accomplished” banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003, that he flew over New Orleans after Katrina rather than landing), he is confident that the major decisions he made were the best ones to make under the circumstances. In other words, if a decision is big enough to warrant its own chapter, then it was the right decision. This confidence can sometimes be maddening, but I believe that it flows inevitably from Bush’s understanding of leadership as primarily concerned with decision-making. Since Bush believes that decision-making is what makes a good or bad leader, he is heavily invested in his major decisions being the right ones. Through much of the book, he comes across as a genuinely likable person: thoughtful, caring, empathetic, desiring to put the needs of others before his own. But when it comes to evaluating the consequences of his major decisions, it’s like he puts blinders on. He believes that major decisions are what make or break a leader, and he wants to think of himself as a good leader. Therefore, his major decisions were the right ones.

    I recommend this book, but not because I agree with every decision Bush made. In fact, I agreed with some and not others. This book is unique in that it provides a view of historic events from 2000 to 2008 that is available nowhere else, and for that reason it is valuable. Like him or not, Bush was the most powerful political figure in the world for eight years. Learning about his decisions, and the rationale behind those decisions, is important for anyone seeking to gain an understanding of what happened in the first decade of the 21st century, and why.

    Note: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

  • Book Review: The Documents in the Case

    This is the fifth Dorothy Sayers mystery I’ve read, and it was different from the rest. In the first place, as the title indicates, it is not a straightforward third-person narrative. It is a series of documents (some letters, some written statements) regarding a man’s mysterious death. In the second place, it is the only book which Sayers co-wrote. And in the third place, it does not involve Sayers’s famous detective, Peter Wimsey.

    For all the unusualness, it was an interesting read. The earliest of the documents begins well before the man’s death, so the death itself does not take place until nearly halfway through the book. There are a few places where the narrative lags, but I’ve come to appreciate these places in Sayers’s books. They are where she (in the words of her characters) tends to make her most thought-provoking statements about the nature of human existence. For example, this conversation took place near the end of the book between Perry, a priest and Matthews, a biologist:

    “So here we all are. I never thought you’d stick to it, Perry. Which has made your job hardest–the War or people like us?”

    “The War,” said Perry, immediately. “It has taken the heart out of people.”

    “Yes. It showed things up a bit,” said Matthews. “Made it hard to believe in anything.”

    “No,” replied the priest. “Made it easy to believe and difficult not to believe–in anything. Just anything. They believe in everything in a languid sort of way–in you, in me, in Waters [a chemist], in Hoskyns [a physicist], in mascots, in spiritualism, in education, in the daily papers–why not? It’s easier, and the various things cancel out, and so make it unnecessary to take any definite steps in any direction.” (200-201)

    If you are a fan of Sayers, you’ll enjoy this book. But for those who are just starting with Sayers, I’d recommend beginning with a book that has Peter Wimsey in it.

  • Book Review: Basic Christian

    John Stott had gradually slipped off the world stage over the last few years. But when he died at the age of 90 this past July, suddenly he became an object of conversation. He was without peer as an evangelical Christian leader in Britain and the world. It is a testament to his talents as a bridge-builder that tributes to him came from all over the world and all over the spectrum of political and religious belief. There was even a tribute from Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. Reading it, I was reminded that David Brooks had said in the same newspaper in 2004 that “if evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose.”

    This biography by Roger Steer was written in 2009, and was based in part on conversations with Stott and several of his friends. It traces Stott’s life from his early days as the son of a prominent physician, to his days at Cambridge and his decision to become a pastor, to his time as curate and rector of All Souls in London and his rise to international prominence. It gives details about his many travels, his contributions to the evangelical Christian movement and his friendships with other well-known people.

    In it, Stott comes across as a man with a gift for friendship, a sharp mind, a sense of humor and a deep commitment to Jesus as Lord of all of life. The book is not afraid to present Stott “warts and all,” but there really aren’t many warts. Despite his gift for friendship, Stott could be reserved. With his great intelligence and disciplined lifestyle, he could sometimes be impatient with those who were more sloppy in their thinking or less disciplined in their living than he was. However, he was a man who was conscious of his faults and humble enough to admit them.

    Stott has long been a hero of mine, and this book did nothing to change that. If anything, it made me miss Stott even more. He was able to remain biblically faithful and speak charitably with those whom he disagreed. The latter characteristic is in especially short supply these days, both in the church and the world. I’d recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Stott’s life, especially those who might be intimidated by Timothy Dudley-Smith’s larger two-volume biography.

  • Book Review: Between Heaven and Mirth

    Martin, a Jesuit priest who has been called “The Official Chaplain of Colbert Nation,” is convinced that joy, humor and laughter are central to spirituality. He calls readers’ attention to humor in the Bible and in the lives of spiritual leaders throughout the centuries.

    Most of the jokes that he tells and examples that he gives are from his own Catholic tradition – all the cartoons on the cover seem to be of Catholics, save Martin Luther, who had a well-known spat with the Catholic Church. However, he does give space to humor in Protestantism and even other religions. When writing about humor, there is always the danger of being unfunny. Thankfully, Martin escapes this danger. This was a fun read, and it was fun in large part because Martin is able to poke fun at himself. I had no idea there were so many jokes about Jesuits.

    Here is a link to an interview with Martin at Duke Divinity School’s Faith & Leadership blog. This is a great quote from that interview:

    We feel drawn to religious leaders with a sense of humor. It shows us that they understand their essential poverty of spirit and their own reliance on God. It shows humility, which is also essential in the spiritual life. You take God seriously, Jesus seriously and the gospel seriously, but you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously.

    To which I can only say: Amen.

  • Book Review: Going Deep

    We all know people who could best be described as “deep.” They know who they are; they live their lives with wisdom; they give good advice; they respond to life’s difficult situations in a way that most of us could only dream of.

    How do you become a deep person? If you’re a pastor, how do you cultivate deep people in your church? Gordon MacDonald sets out to answer these questions in the book Going Deep: Becoming a Person of Influence. He does not answer the questions directly, but instead explores them in a fictionalized format. He tells the story of himself and his wife Gail (the only real-life characters in the book) as they attempt to grow deep people in their church. Over the course of the book, they explore what it means to be deep, look at models of how to cultivate deep people, come up with a plan to cultivate depth in a small group in their church over the course of a year, and execute that plan, dealing with bumps and challenges along the way.

    I enjoyed the fictionalized format of the book (which MacDonald tried earlier in his book Who Stole My Church?), and I appreciate that MacDonald decided to explore the concept of cultivating depth this way. It made the book easy to read, and I think it gives readers a tangible idea of what cultivating depth might look like and how long it might take that would be harder to pull off in a non-fiction format. My only criticism is that the story started off slowly. I was not really hooked until probably a third of the way through, which, in a 383-page book, is a long time. Early in the book, there was no conflict that I wanted to see resolved, and no mystery that I wanted to see solved. I think that MacDonald could have done a better job of hooking readers early by cutting down on introductory matters and getting into the action more quickly.

    In spite of the slow start, I’d recommend this book, especially to those pastors who are interested in growing deep people in their churches.

    Thanks to Thomas Nelson for a review copy of this book. I was not asked to give a positive review.

  • Book Review: Integrity

    Popular psychology books get a bad rap. So do business books. That means Henry Cloud’s Integrity: the Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, which fits in both categories, is not supposed to be a good book. But it is.

    Early in the book, Cloud tells the story of a company he consulted for. The CEO didn’t know what to do about one of his employees. This employee was very profitable for the company, but he was very difficult to work with. He caused other good employees to leave, his presence was bad for company morale, and the CEO had to spend a lot of time dealing with the effects this employee had on others. Cloud then informed the CEO that every person has two aspects of the “wake” they leave behind them: the tasks and the relationships. If you only look at the tasks, you don’t see the whole picture. If you ignore someone’s character and only look at the “bottom line,” you’re blinding yourself to a huge chunk of reality. This eventually leads to failure, because character affects the bottom line in unforeseen ways.

    Cloud then spends the rest of the book looking at six aspects of integrity. A person with integrated character:

    1. Creates and maintains trust.
    2. Is able to see and face reality.
    3. Works in a way that brings results.
    4. Embraces negative realities and solves them.
    5. Causes growth and increase.
    6. Achieves transcendence and meaning in life.

    One unfortunate part of the book (which came out in 2006) is that Cloud uses Tiger Woods as a positive example of someone with character. Woods, he says, was able to focus on growth in his golf game despite overwhelming success. He wasn’t satisfied with how he was playing, even when he was winning. Of course, the revelations about Woods’s private life only came out later.

    But using Woods as an example doesn’t weaken what Cloud is saying. He says that someone with an un-integrated character can be successful in many areas of life. A person can leave a very positive task wake and a negative relationship wake. I wonder if this characterization could also be applied to Steve Jobs. I have read several articles about him in the past week, and the consensus seems to be that, while he was brilliant and a visionary, he was a very difficult person to work with. Here is an extended quote from Cloud:

    [S]ometimes people think that it is the lack of development that got someone to the place where he is. I hear this all the time when people talk about leadership character. They say, “Well, it is his drivenness and dictator personality that made him so successful. It is a problem in that it makes him difficult to work with, but without it he wouldn’t be where he is.” Wrong! What they are calling “drivenness” means an unbalanced achiever who is aggressive about getting the goals accomplished, but absolutely immature or terrible in working with people, or so narcissistic that he is unconfrontable and has a “God complex.”

    That is not what made him successful. It is what created the collateral damage along his path toward success. His initiative, assertiveness, good use of being aggressive, brains, charm, strategic thinking, and other things made him successful, in spite of the imbalance and narcissism, not because of it. If he integrated those aspects of his character as well, the good ones that made him successful would not disappear! They would be augmented by other skills and make him even more powerful, not less. There often seems to be a fear against becoming a balanced person, as if accomplishment only belongs to the truly dysfunctional. (266-7)

    This book isn’t groundbreaking; it’s filled with a lot of common sense, but sometimes common sense isn’t all that common. I came away from it with a greater understanding of integrity and how it plays out in a work environment. It confirmed my suspicion that only caring about the bottom line can actually be harmful to the bottom line. Not only that, but it was a good challenge for me to grow in my own character.

  • Book Review: Storycraft

    How do you tell a true story? It seems like an easy question to answer: the events are all laid out for you, because they all really happened. It can’t be that hard, can it?

    It turns out that some people are better at telling true stories than others. One of the best is Jack Hart, who was for many years a managing editor and writing coach at The Oregonian. In Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction, he has written a how-to guide for anyone who wonders how to tell a true story, from journalists looking to put together a news feature to writers who aspire to be the next Erik Larson (of The Devil in the White City fame).

    Hart devotes chapters to various aspects of nonfiction storytelling: how to structure a story, how to choose points of view, how to write dialogue, how to settle on a theme, and more. He sprinkles each chapter liberally with examples, mostly from stories written during his tenure at The Oregonian. As one would expect from someone who has written a book about how to tell interesting stories, he keeps the reader’s attention throughout. And he teaches by example: his chapter on explanatory narratives, for instance, is structured in the form of an explanatory narrative.

    On one level, this book isn’t intended for everyone. The primary audience is journalists who are looking for more depth than they find in typical news stories, and other writers who are wondering how to tell a true tale in an engaging way. On a deeper level, though, narrative nonfiction is all about making sense of the world as we experience it, and sharing the lessons with others. In that sense, this book really is for all people who want to understand the depth and breadth of human experience and tell others what they’ve learned.

  • Book Review: The Floor of Heaven

    Most people who know me know that I spent three summers in Skagway, AK, driving tour buses. During that time, I gained a lot of knowledge about the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, during which Skagway became a boomtown. Even now, many signs in Skagway contain the word “Klondike,” even though the actual Klondike is another 400 miles north (a fact which some tourists in Skagway are quite disappointed to learn).

    So when I saw Howard Blum’s The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush this spring, I decided I had to read it. It tells the stories of three men before, during, and after the gold rush: George Carmack, the man who (along with Skookum Jim and Tagish Charley) discovered gold in the Klondike; Soapy Smith, the con man who was the most powerful man in Skagway during the gold rush; and Charlie Siringo, a cowboy who became a Pinkerton detective. Before reading this book, I knew a lot about the first two, but had never heard of the third.

    The story starts well before the gold rush, with each chapter focusing on one of the three men. There are chapters on Carmack’s journey from an AWOL marine to a member of the Tagish Nation, Soapy’s growth from a grifter to the head of an organized crime syndicate in several Colorado towns, and Siringo’s various cases as a “cowboy detective.” As the book progresses, the three men’s lives overlap more and more, as when Siringo meets Carmack in Juneau and Smith tries to steal Carmack’s gold.

    Blum has clearly done his research, and has invested a lot of effort in telling a tale that sustains interest, even for someone who has heard part of the story before. There was only one point, late in the book, where it seemed Blum made a mistake. He writes that when Carmack brought his gold out of the Klondike, he and Siringo “crossed the Chilkoot summit and began their descent into American territory.” Two sentences later, he writes that they had left Bonanza Creek (in the Klondike) “earlier on that June morning.” There is no way they could have traveled 400 miles in less than a day. Also, Blum writes that they took a string of packhorses over the Chilkoot. But in all that I have read about the gold rush, the Chilkoot was too steep for pack animals. Something about how Blum tells this part of the story doesn’t make sense.

    Aside from that, I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to read an engaging book about an exciting period in US and Canadian history.

  • Book Review: Cross and Crescent

    This is the first book about Islam from a Christian perspective that I have read, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. Colin Chapman is (or was, at the time this book was published) a lecturer in Lebanon. He begins the book by talking about how to understand Islam. Then he moves on to how Christians might interact with Muslims, and closes with a section on how Christians might share their faith with Muslims.

    I appreciated Chapman’s irenic tone above all. I found it a genuinely Christian alternative to some of the “West vs. East” culture war rhetoric that I have witnessed in the United States, especially within the last 10 years. He is measured in his recommendations, and takes pains to allow Muslims to describe what they believe in their own words. That said, he doesn’t gloss over the differences between Christianity and Islam. I especially enjoyed his conclusion on walking the way of the cross in relation to Muslims:

    Walking the way of the cross in relating to Muslims will mean following the example of One who was willing to cross barriers of race, class, sex and religion in order to meet people in the midst of their joy, pain and need. For some of us this may mean surrendering any power and privilege that are part of our history and culture, and ‘taking the very nature of a servant’ (Philippians 2:7). The cross will constantly call us to leave the safety of our own circle and to reach out to that other community or that other individual in love and hope.

    Walking the way of the cross in understanding Islam will mean trying to get inside the mind and heart of Islam, not to judge or condemn but to sit where they sit. Words such as identification and empathy can be more than easy slogans. Sooner or later, however, we will have to understand why, from the Muslim point of view, the cross is a symbol of weakness, shame and defeat. In their way of thinking it is both a stumbling block and foolishness, and can never be the final clue to the working of an all-powerful God. (345-6)

    Negatively, I thought some of his quotes from other writers were longer than necessary, and he repeated himself more often than necessary. Apart from those quibbles, I’d recommend this book to a Christian seeking to respond to Islam in a distinctively Christian way.

  • Book Review: Evolving in Monkey Town

    One difficulty with evangelical American Christianity is that many of us don’t, or can’t, make a distinction between what is essential to the faith and what is peripheral. When the brightest young people in our churches start to question the peripherals, like the union between Christianity and political conservatism for example, we feel threatened. We think they have lost the faith.

    This is what happened to Rachel Held Evans. She grew up in Dayton, TN, the site of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, the daughter of a theologian and a school teacher. By her own admission, she “knew all the answers.” She won the Best Christian Attitude Award at her elementary school four years in a row. When she heard her grandfather had voted for Bill Clinton, she thought he was going to hell.

    But while she was studying at Bryan College in Dayton, cracks began to appear in her armor. She began to wonder about what happened to people who had never heard the gospel. It seemed unfair to her that she should be a Christian merely because she was born where she was. Her friends became concerned about her.

    Unlike some who begin to doubt Christianity as they grow up, however, she didn’t decide that it was all nonsense. The reason why she remained a Christian is that she turned to Jesus. She spent a summer reading through the Gospels, and ended up more strongly committed to the “God in Sandals” than she had ever been. This did not take away her doubts. She writes, “I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one’s beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubts (questioning God)” (219-220). It allowed her to remain a committed follower of Jesus without having to know all the answers anymore.

    This book resonated with me, and it will resonate with a lot of people who grew up in the world of evangelical American Christianity but are no longer entirely comfortable within it. When, as a teenager, I began to doubt what I had been told in church and at my Christian school about the way the world was, I turned to Jesus. In the end, the only reason I stayed a Christian then, and why I am still a Christian today, is that I could not give up on him.

    I’d recommend this book to any Christian high school or college student who is experiencing doubts, or anyone who knows such a person. Through telling her story, Evans shows us a way to deal with doubts. Doubts can be the means to a more mature faith. Treat them as a way to refine faith and focus more radically on Jesus, and let the peripherals fall away.