Irenaeus by Simonettta Carr

Like all of the books in the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series, this one is a great introduction to its subject. In this book, one is introduced to Irenaeus of Lyon, a Christian who lived during the early days of the church, his mentor was Polycarp who had known the Apostle John. Irenaeus helped keep Christians of his day anchored to God's Word by speaking and writing against many heresies that were spreading at the time.

I really like that Carr doesn't just tell the factual details of the lives she writes about but also delves into some theological concepts and even doctrinal controversies.  It's good for young people to learn details about the defense of the right interpretation of God's word.  In this volume, she does a good job of explaining some of the heresies that Irenaeus fought against, including providing some details of his critique of the bad hermeneutic of people who took the Scriptures out of context, twisting them to say other things: "He gave the example of a poem made up of separate lines from different books by the Greek poet Homer.  The lines had nothing to do with each other, but together they made up a poem Homer had never intended to write.  A casual reader would think the poem was really Homer's."  I found it amusing to find that, when Irenaeus had critiqued some ridiculous and confusing Gnostic teachings, he ended his written explanation of their views with an exclamation akin to our "Eek!" expressing his view of the absurdity of what they believed. Apparently Irenaeus had a sense of humor.

As usual, Carr's book has many illustrations imagining what events in Irenaeus' life may have looked like, and also many photographs of places and things, including historical artifacts from that day, as well as some pictures of more recent statues of what others imagined how Irenaeus and Polycarp appeared. There is not a lot of information about Irenaeus' life but Carr does a good job of explaining the things that we do know about him and also inferring things that might have been the case based on what we know of that period in time.  All in all I think this is a good summarizing biography.

I think it's perfectly fine for kids to read and hear works of fiction, but I think it's also good to let them learn about real Christians who lived in the past.  Real people who lived and died fighting the good fight of faith.  What better way to put one's imagination to work than contemplating real events, real Christian people and the teachings of God's Word?  This book is one of a series of books that are a good way to have young people (and older people) practice doing that.

Many thanks to the folks at Cross Focused Reviews for sending me a free review copy of this book!  My review did not have to be favorable.

My rating:  Five out of Five Stars

*****

This may be purchased at (among other places) Amazon.com

When a Nation Forgets God - By Erwin Lutzer

When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany by Erwin Lutzer, compares the things that started Germany on the path to becoming Nazi Germany to things that are happening in America.  The path that Germany took  turns  out to be eerily similar to the one America is taking. 

The Germans wanted a political savior.  Along came Hitler to fix the economy, take care of their children, and protect them from  dangerous things and people(which in their view included Jews). They wanted someone who would make them feel patriotic again and proud of their country rather than humiliated as they felt after World War one.  Hitler came along and did just that. 

Many Christian went right along with it, and patriotism began to be substituted for Christianity, especially as Hitler couched patriotism in a Christian light.  There was "positive Christianity" and a movement called, "God believers" where people could find that the state could be a good substitute for the church in many (or all) aspects of life.

I think that the parallels between the Germany of the 1930s-40s and America today are fascinating and instructive, and that we truly can learn lessons from the past.  I just have a bit of a problem with Lutzer saying that, "We need to develop a 'theology of civil disobedience' ; that is, we need to think through this question:  When do we tolerate the curtailment of our freedoms and at what point should we speak and act? "  To me that statement seems along the lines of saying that wives need to develop a "theology of disobedience to husbands", or saying that children need to develop a "theology of disobedience to parents".  I wish that Lutzer had worded that differently.  Though I agree, of course, that there is a place for disobeying government if that government tells us to deny Christ, worship other gods, or have abortions to control the numbers of the population…etc.  these things go against God's Word.   

Also, Lutzer seems to view Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a martyr for the cause of Christianity. Though I do believe he was a Christian, I do not see historical evidence that he was killed because he was a Christian.  Lutzer himself says that Bonhoeffer would, "eventually become a martyr for his part in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler."  I do not know if one can make a legitimate biblical case for assassinating a leader whom God has put over you.  We need to remember that Nero (who was a pretty horrible and murderous man) was in charge when Paul wrote, "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." (Romans 13:1).  We know that this does not mean that we obey them when they go against God's law, but I do not see that we can gain a biblical validation for making the murder of any political governor whom God has placed over us into a Christian act- no matter how bad the man is.  This is probably not the idea that Lutzer meant to convey, I just felt as though I needed to address it. 

Anyway, I do think that this is an interesting book overall, and I especially like how Lutzer points out that we do not need to "win" the ideological battles with our culture (thought we certainly do try), our homeland isn't here anyway. God's ultimate rule and victory is sure, though we need not see it now.  We need to stand firm and obey God rather than man if man tells us to disobey God. 

To me this book seemed like an abridgment of Lutzer's other book, "Hitler's Cross", which I liked quite well.  I would recommend reading that book if you would like a fuller look into the Nazi Germany and modern America comparison, especially in its dealing in more detail with how corrupt churches became in Nazi Germany and how politicized, eventually losing any of the true Christianity they ever exhibited.

Many thanks to the folks at Moody Publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable).

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars 

****

A couple of the websites (there are more of course) where you may purchase this book are christianbook.com and Amazon.com

The Murderous History of Bible Translations - by Harry Freedman

I often sense a tendency in myself to take having an English translation of the Old and New Testaments for granted.  But, as Harry Freedman demonstrates in his book, The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict, and the Quest for Meaning, I shouldn't take it for granted and should appreciate all the more the effort and sacrifice that went in to getting the written Word of God into a book that ordinary people could read. 

In this book Freedman does an excellent job at writing, he grasps and keeps one's attention, and it flows nicely.  He takes you through history, beginning with the translation of the Old Testament and then including the New in the focus as well.   Translating God's Word into the common vernacular of any people was often very tumultuous and controversial, and we see this down the passage of time that the author examines, and through many different translators who often took many risks to make the translation. 

Though I really like the book, I feel the need to mention that there were several things that I did not like, for instance, statements like:  ""…even to this day, radical fundamentalism hasn't gone away.  And religious extremism relies upon a revealed, unmediated, literal reading of Scripture, one which rejects the prism of human interpretation."(pg.139)  Perhaps I am misunderstanding what the author is saying, but I think that' religious extremism' is that which focuses upon the "prism of human interpretation" without interpreting the Word of God with a literal/grammatical-historical hermeneutic. To be extreme is to not take the Bible for what it says, to not interpret it literally.  Interpreting the Bible "literally" in my view is to interpret it correctly in context: taking allegory as allegory, historical narrative as narrative, prophecy as prophecy, …etc. But again, perhaps I  misunderstand what he meant by that statement.

This book seemed more or less secular look at the history of Bible translation, but Freedman did a very good job at giving the perspective of the translators (whether Christian or Jewish) whose lives he recounts.  All in all, despite statements that I disagreed with, I really liked the history given, it is very, very interesting and an informative read.  Knowing this history should drive Christians more to reading this Holy Book that people in the past translated and read in secret, suffered and died for, many considered the Words it contains as much more valuable than their lives or comfort in this earth.  Shouldn't we do the same and do God the honor of reading it?

Many thanks to the folks at Bloomsbury Press for sending me a free advance review copy of this book! (My review did not have to be favorable)

This book is slated for release on November 15, 2016

You may preorder it at Amazon and on the Bloomsbury website  (and probably from other sites as well)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars *****

Basic Church History Timeline Pamphlet - Rose Publishing

I have seen a couple of timelines before, one showing Jewish history/significant persons and the other world history/significant persons, but I don't recall ever seeing a church history timeline.  This is a basic church history timeline with markers telling of key events, Bible development, key persons and church councils.  Included are some markers of certain heretical groups coming into being (like Catholicism, Jehovah's Witnesses…etc.). 

I didn't love the timeline overall, mainly because the arrangement is a bit confusing to me, it is arranged by chunks of centuries (AD 1500, 1600…1900..etc.) and the events are underneath each 'age' but the problem for me is that since the lists of events and people are descending at an angle some of them end up 'in' the section for the next era  when they really aren't' in that era(though they do have a year next to each).  Also, I would have preferred a format like Adam's World history chart one of the features which I really liked about that was that it had colored lines indicating about how long each person lived and showed if their lives overlapped each other (for instance, who of Adam's descendants were probably alive when Adam was still alive), the events of the times were underneath the timeline of the people and it just made it really neat and easier to understand for me.  But I need to keep in mind that this is  just a basic church history timeline, and it probably just isn't my 'style', others would probably have a fine time understanding it.  Oh, and this church history timeline also colors the various markers/symbols to help differentiate between persons, events, councils…etc.  So that's handy. 

 One of the other things I didn't particularly like about this is that it listed some things that didn't seem relevant to me, especially if one is doing a basic timeline,  for instance in the late 1900s the timeline has a marker for when  Pope John Paul II apologized for the Roman Catholic Church's lack of moral leadership during the Holocaust and there is also  a marker for 'Mother' Teresa's death.   I don't understand how those things are relevant to Church History (unless you think that Roman Catholicism is biblical). 

Overall I just thought it could have been better, but some people may really like it. 

Thanks you to the folks at Rose Publishing for sending me a free pdf review copy of this timeline to review! (My review did not have to be favorable)