Elliot Ritzema

Tag: Thomas Nelson

  • Donald Miller Gets Close: A Review

    The sportswriter Red Smith once said that the writing process was easy: “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.” Over the last dozen years, Donald Miller has shown through a series of memoirs just how far you can go by sitting down and bleeding for the benefit of your readers. The two of his previous books that I’d read, Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, were characterized by a blunt honesty that sometimes made me wish he’d kept his thoughts to himself, but was usually refreshing in the often too-sanitized world of Christian publishing.

    In his latest book, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy, Miller opens up his veins on the subject of connecting with other people. Like his other books, the chapters largely stand on their own, but the relationship at the center of the book is with his fiancée, Betsy, as the two of them navigate their journey toward marriage. He writes, “These are snapshots of the year I spent learning to perform less, be myself more, and overcome a complicated fear of being known.” Over the course of this year, he goes to a retreat center for therapy, learns three things about relationships while swimming in a pond, comes up with a five-category typology for manipulators, and is generally quite vulnerable in describing his rocky relational history as well as his past and present shortcomings as he journeys from anonymity to intimacy.

    In all, this is an inspiring read for those of us who desire to be connected and known, whether in romantic relationships or friendships. The one element that I thought was missing from Scary Close was the church. This will come as no surprise to those who have followed Donald Miller’s writing; he even mentions in the book how he wrote a blog about not having attended church in five years. I know he has reasons related to his own story why this is the case, and I know that many churches are toxic environments that really should be avoided for the health of everyone involved. But in spite of the many difficulties with individual churches—even ones that are largely healthy—I still believe that the church as a whole is worth fighting for and investing in, since Jesus has promised that “the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

    Toward the end of the book, Miller emphasizes that marriage is hard work, but it’s worth it: “It’s harder for marriages to work out these days than it’s ever been. We all need more of a miracle than we used to.” I would say that being part of the church is also hard work, but worth it. There is something that gathering together as Christ’s body, the church, gives us that we miss out on if our only community is our spouse and friends—people of our own choosing. We are forced to bump up against people we would never encounter otherwise, and this encounter is important for our becoming like Jesus; we learn to love sacrificially those who are different from us. Miller writes, “My faith teaches me that the path to join souls in love must of necessity involve a crucifixion, and I think there’s a metaphor in there for marriage.” And, I would add, the church.

    Note: Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book.

  • The Anger Workbook: A Review

    When I was a kid, I had a bad temper. If things weren’t going the way I wanted them to, I would react by yelling and throwing things. Although I don’t yell and throw things much anymore, anger is still part of my life in more subtle ways when I see people acting unjustly or when I feel I have been personally wronged. I tend to be a rule follower, and it frequently bothers me when I see someone breaking (what I regard to be) “the rules” and not being held accountable.

    In The Anger Workbook, Drs. Les Carter and Frank Minirth have written a helpful guide for people who struggle to manage their anger. It is, as the title indicates, a workbook, which means it invites an active participation from the reader. On nearly every page, the authors ask questions and provide space for readers to write their responses. It comes in four parts: The first part is about identifying anger. In it, Carter and Minirth define anger as an intent to preserve personal worth, essential needs, or basic convictions (10). They make the case that anger has many manifestations. In other words, it isn’t just people who yell and throw things who might have a problem with anger. They argue that there are five ways to handle anger: Suppression, Open Aggression, Passive Aggression, Assertiveness, or Dropping It (26). They encourage their readers to avoid the first three, and choose which of the last two is most appropriate in the circumstances. In the second part, they argue that anger thrives on unmet needs. People tend to respond in anger, for example, when they feel unloved or controlled. In the third part, they explore how other emotions cause anger. The other emotions they look at are pride, fear, loneliness, and feelings of inferiority. They wrap up the book in the fourth part with three chapters: one for parents on dealing with anger in their children, one arguing that anger tends to linger when we rationalize it, and one encouraging readers to be accountable to others in their process of anger management.

    This is a helpful book for those who experience anger in any of its various manifestations, which is really all of us. Some people’s anger causes more problems than others, but I would go so far as to say that none of us is completely healthy in all the ways we express anger. We could all stand to grow in this area. One important thing to point out about this book is that Carter and Minirth write from a Christian perspective. Thus, this book will be most helpful to those readers who are Christians, or who are open to allowing the God Christians worship to help them express their anger appropriately and productively.

    Note: Thanks to Thomas Nelson for a review copy of this book.

    Publisher: Thomas Nelson
    Reading Length: 248 pages
    Rating: 4 stars

  • Neighbors and Wise Men: A Review

    Tony Kriz writes that he was raised in a two-team world. “My two-team world was one of the spiritual haves and have-nots. The ‘haves’ were Christians. The ‘have-nots’ were everybody else” (13). Kriz was working as a missionary in predominantly Muslim Albania when his notion of a two-team world was shattered. He encountered people who did not behave and believe the way he thought they would. Eventually, he came to a place where he felt his soul was dead. This book is the story of that experience, and also his experience of regaining faith, but a faith that was different from the one he grew up with. It takes the reader from Albania, to Kriz’s experience in seminary (and finding community in a pub), to Reed College, and finally to north Portland.

    Neighbors and Wise Men is a lively and interesting read. The broad outline of Kriz’s story is one I have heard many times: a person grows up believing they have all the answers, realizes they don’t know as much as they thought, and emerges older, wiser, and with more humility. Kriz’s particular story also resonated with me, because in some ways my story is similar to his: I also spent time in Eastern Europe in my early twenties (I’ve even been to the Rudas baths in Budapest a few times, and I got a kick out of Kriz’s description of them), I went to seminary, and I now live in the Pacific Northwest.

    I found Kriz to be an engaging storyteller, one I trusted to tell his story faithfully, without hiding the truth or glossing over difficulties. Fans of Donald Miller (who calls Kriz “Tony the Beat Poet” in his book Blue Like Jazz) will especially enjoy this book, but I recommend it to anyone who enjoys hearing a good story.

    Note: Thanks to Thomas Nelson for a review copy of this book.