Review of Love Wins, by Rob Bell

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Love Wins

A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived

by Rob Bell

HarperOne (HarperCollins), 2011. 202 pages.
Starred Review

I first read that Love Wins was coming out when I was sitting at the Information Desk at the library, reading a publishing newsletter about upcoming titles. I couldn’t restrain myself: I burst out with a “Yes!” I had to explain to my bemused co-worker how happy I was that a mainstream evangelical writer was writing about Universalism. When I quietly believed myself that all will (eventually) be saved, that love wins in the end, well, those who found out seemed tolerant but a little sorry for me with my silly ideas. I knew that if Rob Bell wrote about it, it would come to the attention of many people whom I respect.

I ordered the book right away. And of course I was coming from a position of whole-heartedly agreeing with him from the start. So I can’t really judge if this book is convincing for people who do believe that unbelievers will burn in hell with unending torment.

Personally, I think this book was written more for people who are looking at Christianity from the outside — to tell them that the Christian faith is not as exclusive and judgmental as they may have thought. And I think it presents that message wonderfully.

Christians who are considering these ideas, but don’t think they are Biblical, might have more of their questions answered reading Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years: With Authorities and Extracts, by John Wesley Hanson, or The Inescapable Love of God, by Thomas Talbott.

However, I was right: my pastor actually mentioned this book in his sermon, when talking about acceptance. He had not read the book, but said a little bit about the controversy and that Rob Bell says that love will eventually win for every person. He said that he does not think Rob Bell is right, but I loved this comment he made: “Shouldn’t we all want him to be right?” Shouldn’t we want Love to win for every person?

I loved that he said that, because one of the things that has come out of this belief for me is indeed a greater acceptance of others. And since, even with the current mainstream view, none of us knows another person’s heart, and who is saved or not or will be saved or not, we should not presume to write off anyone.

But another reason I loved that response:

When I tell other Christians how I came to the belief that God will eventually save everyone, that hell is redemptive not retributive, I start by saying I didn’t think I could believe that, because I didn’t think it’s what the Bible teaches. But it dawned on me that’s what George MacDonald was saying, and he clearly knew the Bible well, including studying the original languages, and he clearly believed that’s what the Bible taught. So I read the whole New Testament with new eyes. It seemed to me that there are many, many verses that, taken at face value, really seem to teach that all will be saved. (Such as “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow,” or “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Look up “all” or “every” in a concordance to find more.) There are definitely some verses that need to be explained away. But those who believe in unending torment also have many verses they need to explain away.

All in all, when I looked at the Biblical writings, I felt that the case for Universalism was just as strong as the case against it. (Now I think it’s stronger, but that was when I was first studying it.) At this point, I thought I should choose the belief that has the higher view of God.

Now, this is the point where my friends tend to object. They say that I shouldn’t base my judgment on my own wishful thinking. Or they get offended that I’m saying it’s a “higher view of God.”

So that’s why I loved my pastor saying “Shouldn’t we all want it to be true?” To me, that question admits that if God could really save everyone in the end, that would be a wonderful thing, to the great glory of God.

So is God not as big as we can imagine?

Okay, all of that is beside the point. What does the book itself say?

Now, the book is written in a conversational style. It’s not at all rigorous like Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years: With Authorities and Extracts, by John Wesley Hanson. But the author makes a strong case that the church should be making a difference in the world.

The author gives his purpose for writing in the Preface:

“First, I believe that Jesus’s story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us. It is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love, and it is for everybody, everywhere….

“There are a growing number of us who have become acutely aware that Jesus’s story has been hijacked by a number of other stories, stories Jesus isn’t interested in telling, because they have nothing to do with what he came to do. The plot has been lost, and it’s time to reclaim it.

“I’ve written this book for all those, everywhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pulse rate to rise, their stomach to churn, and their heart to utter those resolute words, ‘I would never be a part of that.’

“You are not alone.
There are millions of us.

“This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

“And so this book.

“Second, I’ve written this book because the kind of faith Jesus invites us into doesn’t skirt the big questions about topics like God and Jesus and salvation and judgment and heaven and hell, but takes us deep into the heart of them….

“And then, last of all, please understand that nothing in this book hasn’t been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me. I haven’t come up with a radical new teaching that’s any kind of departure from what’s been said an untold number of times. That’s the beauty of the historic, orthodox Christian faith. It’s a deep, wide, diverse stream that’s been flowing for thousands of years, carrying a staggering variety of voices, perspectives, and experiences.

“If this book, then, does nothing more than introduce you to the ancient, ongoing discussion surrounding the resurrected Jesus in all its vibrant, diverse, messy, multivoiced complexity — well, I’d be thrilled.”

There’s lots more, really great stuff in this book. I’m posting lots of quotations on Sonderquotes, and plan to read through the book again, more slowly this time. I’ll write out one more passage here that I like very much:

“So when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will ‘get into heaven,’ that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.

“The good news is better than that.

“This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don’t throw very good parties.

“When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of the God who is an endless giving circle of joy and creativity.

“Life has never been about just ‘getting in.’ It’s about thriving in God’s good world. It’s stillness, peace, and that feeling of your soul being at rest, while at the same time it’s about asking things, learning things, creating things, and sharing it all with others who are finding the same kind of joy in the same good world.

“Jesus calls disciples to keep entering into this shared life of peace and joy as it transforms our hearts, until it’s the most natural way to live that we can imagine. Until it’s second nature. Until we naturally embody and practice the kind of attitudes and actions that will go on in the age to come. A discussion about how to ‘just get into heaven’ has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus, because it’s missing the point of it all.

“An entrance understanding of the gospel rarely creates good art. Or innovation. Or a number of other things. It’s a cheap view of the world, because it’s a cheap view of God. It’s a shriveled imagination….

“Witnessing, evangelizing, sharing your faith — when you realize that God has retold your story, you are free to passionately, urgently, compellingly tell the story because you’ve stepped into a whole new life and you’re moved and inspired to share it. When your God is love, and you have experienced this love in flesh and blood, here and now, then you are free from guilt and fear and the terrifying, haunting ominous voice that whispers over your shoulder, ‘You’re not doing enough.’ The voice that insists God is, in the end, a slave driver.

“Have nothing to do with that God….

“Let’s be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer….

“There is another dimension to the violent, demanding God, the one people need Jesus to rescue them from. We see it in the words of the older brother, when he says he ‘never even disobeyed.’ You can sense the anxiety in his defense, the paranoid awareness that he believed his father was looking over his shoulder the whole time, waiting and watching to catch him in disobedience. The violent God creates profound worry in people. Tension. Stress. This God is supposed to bring peace, that’s how the pitch goes, but in the end this God can easily produce followers who are paralyzed and catatonic, full of fear. Whatever you do, don’t step out of line or give this God any reason to be displeased, because who knows what will be unleashed.

“Jesus frees us from that, because his kind of love simply does away with fear. Once again, the words of the father in the story, the one who joyously, generously declares: ‘You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.’…

“Jesus meets and redeems us in all the ways we have it together and in all the ways we don’t, in all the times we proudly display for the world our goodness, greatness, and rightness, and in all of the ways we fall flat on our faces.”

And here’s the final paragraph, which expresses my wish, too:

“May you experience this vast,
expansive, infinite, indestructible love
that has been yours all along.
May you discover that this love is as wide
as the sky and as small as the cracks in
your heart no one else knows about.
And may you know,
deep in your bones,
that love wins.”

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Source: This review is based on my own book, purchased via Amazon.com.

Review of Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years: With Authorities and Extracts, by John Wesley Hanson

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years: With Authorities and Extracts

by John Wesley Hanson

Universalist Publishing House, Boston and Chicago, 1899. 321 pages.
Starred Review

The title of this book well sums up what it’s about. This is not a book for the general reader. This is a reprint of a book in the public domain, originally published in 1899. The language is dense and old-fashioned.

When it first dawned on me that George MacDonald was teaching that all will (eventually) be saved, I was surprised. He clearly believed this is what the Bible teaches. But how could he think that? Doesn’t the Bible teach that the wicked will perish and burn eternally? Isn’t that what all good Christians think?

So, I reread the Bible and saw how much was open to interpretation. At the time, I thought the case for either view was about equal. (Since then, I think it’s actually stronger for universalism.) I chose to believe the view that I thought had a higher view of God. If it bothers me that God would send people to burn in hell forever and ever, should I believe in that God? It also meant that I can’t write off other people nearly as easily as before.

But I still thought I was bucking tradition believing this. So I was amazed and delighted to read this book, showing with many examples that the early church believed all will be saved. That the “mainstream” view was not at all mainstream until about 500 years after Christ. In fact, when the church was dominated by those who spoke Greek, it was also dominated by Universalism.

Now, this book is dense, as I said. It’s only for people like me, whose biggest obstacle in believing in Universalism is thinking that it’s not Biblical, and is against the mainstream view of the church. This book shows that not only did a deeply spiritual man like George MacDonald think that Universalism is Biblical, so did Christ’s first followers. It’s for people who deeply believe in the authority of Scripture.

I had to laugh when I read this paragraph in the Foreword:

“The first form of his manuscript contained a thousand copious notes, with citations of original Greek and Latin, but such an array was thought by judicious friends too formidable to attract the average reader, as well as too voluminous, and he has therefore retained only a fraction of the notes he had prepared.”

I laughed because the book is still formidable indeed, and not at all for the average reader. But there’s excellent information here, and Christians who wonder about the Biblical basis for Universalism will have their eyes opened.

Also in the Foreword, the author states:

“The purpose of this book is to present some of the evidence of the prevalence in the early centuries of the Christian church, of the doctrine of the final holiness of all mankind. The author has endeavored to give the language of the early Christians, rather than to paraphrase their words, or state their sentiments in his own language. He has also somewhat copiously quoted the statements of modern scholars, historians and critics, of all shades of opinion, instead of condensing them with his own pen.”

This is why the book is formidable, but it’s also why it is most convincing and thorough.

The author’s purpose is not to present the Scriptural evidence for Universalism. “Neither is it the purpose of the author of this book to write a history of the doctrine; but his sole object is to show that those who obtained their religion almost directly from the lips of its author, understood it to teach the doctrine of universal salvation.”

When my pastor talked about Love Wins, by Rob Bell, which teaches Universalism, he said that he did not agree with Rob Bell’s conclusion. But I loved that he said, “Shouldn’t we want to believe it?” In many ways this book gives me permission to believe that all will be saved. After all, if the early church fathers believed it, how can I possibly contend that it’s not Biblical?

The book goes into great, convincing, and, yes, tedious detail. I’ll present a few of the points.

First, he looks at the oldest creeds. There’s simply nothing about everlasting punishment.

“Thus the credal declarations of the Christian church for almost four hundred years are entirely void of the lurid doctrine with which they afterwards blazed for more than a thousand years. The early creeds contain no hint of it, and no whisper of condemnation of the doctrine of universal restoration as taught by Clement, Origen, the Gregories, Basil the Great, and multitudes besides.”

He does look at the teachings of the church fathers listed above in great detail. I’ll list some paragraphs that give some insight into his arguments:

“The talismanic word of the Alexandrian fathers, as of the New Testament, was Father. This word, as now, unlocked all mysteries, solved all problems, and explained all the enigmas of time and eternity. Holding God as Father, punishment was held to be remedial, and therefore restorative, and final recovery from sin universal.”

“The Greek Fathers derived their Universalism directly and soley from the Greek Scriptures. Nothing to suggest the doctrine existed in Greek or Latin literature, mythology, or theology; all current thought on matters of eschatology was utterly opposed to any such view of human destiny. And, furthermore, the unutterable wickedness, degradation and woe that filled the world would have inclined the early Christians to the most pessimistic view of the future consistent with the teachings of the religion they had espoused. To know that, in those dreadful times, they derived the divine optimism of universal deliverance from sin and sorrow from the teachings of Christ and his apostles, should predispose every modern to agree with them.”

I thought this part about the Greek words used was fascinating:

“When our Lord spoke, the doctrine of unending torment was believed by many of those who listened to his words, and they stated it in terms and employed others, entirely different, in describing the duration of punishment, from the terms afterward used by those who taught universal salvation and annihilation, and so gave to the terms in question the sense of unlimited duration.

“For example, the Pharisees, according to Josephus, regarded the penalty of sin as torment without end, and they stated the doctrine in unambiguous terms. The called it eirgmos aidios (eternal imprisonment) and timorion adialeipton (endless torment), while our Lord called the punishment of sin aionion kolasin (age-long chastisement).

“The language of Josephus is used by the profane Greeks, but is never found in the New Testament connected with punishment. Josephus, writing in Greek to Jews, frequently employs the word that our Lord used to define the duration of punishment (aionios), but he applies it to things that had ended or that will end. Can it be doubted that our Lord placed his ban on the doctrine that the Jews had derived from the heathen by never using their terms describing it, and that he taught a limited punishment by employing words to define it that only meant limited duration in contemporaneous literature?”

The author goes on to give many examples of the different terms used in Greek at the time of Christ.

“Had our Lord intended to inculcate the doctrine of the Pharisees, he would have used the terms by which they described it. But his word defining the duration of punishment was aionion, while their words are aidion, adialeipton and athanaton. Instead of saying with Philo and Josephus, thanaton athanaton, deathless or immortal death; eirgmon aidion, eternal imprisonment; aidion timorion, eternal torment; and thanaton ateleuteton, interminable death, he used aionion kolasin, an adjective in universal use for limited duration, and a noun denoting suffering issuing in amendment. The word by which our Lord describes punishment is the word kolasin, which is thus defined: “Chastisement, punishment.” “The trimming of the luxuriant branches of a tree or vine to improve it and make it fruitful.” “The act of clipping or pruning — restriction, restraint, reproof, check, chastisement.” “The kind of punishment which tends to the improvement of the criminal is what the Greek philosophers called kolasis or chastisement.”

This close look at the Greek background makes it all the more interesting that the teaching of Universalism prevailed while the church fathers were primarily Greek-speaking.

Some other interesting points:

“Not a writer among those who describe the heresies of the first three hundred years intimates that Universalism was then a heresy, though it was believed by many, if not by a majority, and certainly by the greatest of the fathers.

“Not a single creed for five hundred years expresses any idea contrary to universal restoration, or in favor of endless punishment.”

“While the councils that assembled in various parts of Christendom, anathematized every kind of doctrine they supposed to be heretical, no ecumenical council, for more than five hundred years, condemned Universalism, though it had been advocated in every century by the principal scholars and most revered saints.”

“The first defense of Christianity against Infidelity (Origen against Celsus) puts the defense on Universalistic grounds. Celsus charged the Christians’ God with cruelty, because he punished with fire. Origen replied that God’s fire is curative; that he is a “Consuming Fire,” because he consumes sin and not the sinner.”

Believe me, the author goes into excruciating detail to back up these, and many other points. He looks at a multitude of ancient writings and commentaries on the writings.

So, reader, you will know if this book would be interesting to you. It was definitely interesting to me, though I had to take it slowly! But I feel much much less out of the mainstream than I did before. To me, it definitely establishes that a Christian can believe the Bible and still believe in Universalism. After all, is there anyone who would say those early church fathers were not Christians? And if those native Greek speakers believed the Bible taught universalism, who are we to say different?

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Source: This review is based on a book I purchased via Amazon.com.

Review of Haiti After the Earthquake, by Paul Farmer

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Haiti

After the Earthquake

by Paul Farmer

PublicAffairs, New York, 2011. 431 pages.
Starred Review

I first heard of Dr. Paul Farmer’s work, bringing health care to poor people all over the world, when I read the books Strength in What Remains and Mountains Beyond Mountains, both by Tracy Kidder.

Paul Farmer has been working in Haiti for decades, doing excellent work there. So when I heard that he had written a book called Haiti After the Quake, I made sure I got my hands on it quickly.

This book tells a sad story of devastation, but ultimately it’s a hopeful book, with a bright outlook for Haiti’s future. It does point out problems with the many non-governmental organizations working in Haiti. For Haiti to thrive, the government needs to be able to provide basic services like water, transportation infrastructure, and healthcare. But he presents good directions to head in the future.

To add to the in-depth analysis, after Dr. Farmer’s section, there are chapters written by eleven distinguished guest writers, many of whom were in Haiti on the day of the quake, and all of whom have a valuable perspective.

This is an important book, and a thoughtful and well-written one.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of A Woman’s Worth, by Marianne Williamson

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

A Woman’s Worth

by Marianne Williamson

Random House, New York, 1993. 143 pages.

I began this book shortly after my divorce was finalized. Honestly, in bad moments, I’m feeling wounded, a failure, and unlovable. My mind knows all that is not true, but my heart needs uplifting messages of truth. And that’s exactly what this book provided for me. I found myself posting resonant quotations from this book over and over on Sonderquotes.

I’ll post some of my favorites here, and that will give you the idea.

“Every woman I know wants to be a glorious queen, but that option was hardly on the multiple-choice questionnaire we were handled when we were little girls. Rarely did anyone tell us we could choose to be magic.”

“We have a job to do reclaiming our glory. So what if we are called grandiose? So what if we are accused of being in dangerous denial of our faults, our neuroses, our weaknesses? It’s an ancient trick this, telling a woman that her glory is her sickness. You bet we’re in denial. We deny the power of weakness to hold us back, be it the weakness of the world or the weakness in our own past. We are on to better things, such as owning our beauty and honoring the courage it has taken us to get here and claiming our natural power to heal and be healed. We’re not grandiose, but we’re tired — tired of pretending we are guilty when we know we’re innocent, that we’re plain when we know we’re beautiful, and that we’re weak when we know we’re strong. For far too long, we have forgotten we are cosmic royals. Our mothers forgot, their mothers forgot, and their mothers before them. We regret their tears; we mourn their sadness. But now, at last, we break the chain.”

“Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Not knowing joy, we do not know ourselves. When we are without joy, we grope in the dark. When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. A joyful woman, by merely being, says it all. The world is terrified of joyful women. Make a stand. Be one anyway.”

“No man can convince a woman she’s wonderful, but if she already believes she is, his agreement can resonate and bring her joy.”

“There’s a lot of talk today about whether a woman can have it all. The problem isn’t having it all but receiving it all, giving ourselves permission to have a full and passionate life when our cultural conditioning has denied us that for centuries. The biggest limit to our having is our small reach, our shy embrace. As long as it’s considered unfeminine to have a full appetite — which it is, because it is recognized that whatever we allow ourselves to truly desire we usually get — then we will not sit down at life’s banquet but only at its diner. This is ridiculous, and it holds back the entire world for women to live at half-measure. It’s also an insult to men to suggest that they can’t dance with goddesses, as though a woman at full power might step on their toes.”

If these uplift you as they did me, I recommend getting the book and reading more of this encouragement for yourself.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of A Fistful of Rice, by Vikram Akula

Biography, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

A Fistful of Rice

My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability

by Vikram Akula

Harvard Business Review Press, 2011. 191 pages.

This is an intriguing and hopeful book. Vikram Akula was working in India with a nonprofit organization that offered microfinance loans to poor people. But they quickly ran out of funds.

“The woman looked me in the eye, and with great dignity, she spoke the words that would change my life, ‘Am I not poor, too?’ she asked me. I stared at her, jarred by the question, and she went on. ‘Do I not deserve a chance to get my family out of poverty?’

“Am I not poor, too? With these words, this driven, determined woman suddenly made me see how unfair — unjust, really — our microfinance program was. Yes, we were helping hundreds of poor Indians take the first steps to pull themselves out of poverty. But my program had just $250,000 to spend in thirty villages — that was all DDS had been given for the project. And once that money was disbursed, there was no money left for other poor Indians who desperately wanted a chance too.

“The woman wasn’t asking for a dole. She wasn’t asking for a handout. She was simply asking for an opportunity. But we couldn’t give it to her.

“This was a defining moment for me. We had to find a way to change microfinance — to make it available to any Indian, or any poor person anywhere in the world for that matter, who wanted to escape poverty. Microfinance was a fantastic tool, but a deeply flawed one. There simply had to be a way to scale it beyond the constraints of how it was currently being practiced.”

His solution ended up being charging higher interest — and making a profit from the work the poor people did.

It sounds atrocious, but Vikram Akula ended up convincing me it was a brilliant idea. Now his company is helping thousands of times more people — and has people wanting to invest more money, rather than them having to ask for money.

The book goes into details of how his program works and how they make it good for the people who get the loans as well as for the company. It’s a fascinating story.

I especially liked these paragraphs toward the end of the book:

“I believe a commercial approach is the best way to give the most poor people access to finance. My early days at DDS taught me a crucial lesson: the poor are really no different from you or me. They’re not stupid or slow, and they aren’t looking for us to rescue them or teach them anything. The relationship between SKS and our members is mutually beneficial. Our members are receiving tools that have long been denied them, and using them to do things they’re naturally skilled at doing. In return, SKS is building an enormous member base, establishing a brand, raising money in investments, and continuing to expand the number of poor members served. It’s a perfect circle, one that benefits everyone.

“The notion that it’s somehow unethical to enter into a profitable business working with the poor is insulting to the poor. They are not children who need our protection. They’re working women and men who are thriving under a system that allows them to take their economic lives into their own hands. Treating them as anything less is unjust.”

This reminded me of Libraries.

Bear with me, as I realize I’m someone obsessed by an idea. But I’ve seen homeless people who go to the library every day absolutely refuse when kind people want to give them hand-outs. When my oldest son was small and my husband was a Senior Airman, we had a low enough income to participate in the WIC program, and it felt very demeaning. The government workers assumed we didn’t know much about nutrition, for a start. In the end, the little bit of financial help they could offer wasn’t worth the “educational” sessions we had to sit through. I had too much pride.

So how does this relate to Libraries? Libraries help the poor tremendously, but they allow them to keep their dignity because they help rich people, too. Bottom line, libraries are a big cooperative to purchase books for an entire community at a lower price. Everyone benefits, so no one has to feel that they are singled out to be “helped.” Libraries help everyone, and people can be proud to use them, without feeling obligated.

It is similar with SKS. The investors are making money because of the hard work of those who take out loans. And they are able to get out of poverty, but don’t have to feel indebted to those who made it possible. Those people benefit, too.

Sometimes, you help people more when you allow them the dignity of helping you. When the investors in SKS make a profit, they allow the “helping” not to be all on one side.

Vikram Akula closes his book telling the story of another woman, a woman whose whole family has been helped by SKS.

“I thought back to the woman in the faded purple sari, all those years ago — the woman who asked the question that changed my life: ‘Am I not poor, too?’ And I couldn’t help but contrast her with smiling Yellamma, proudly telling me about how SKS has helped her family.

“‘Am I not doing well?’ she asked. Yes, she was.”

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Radioactive, by Lauren Redness

Biography, History, Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Radioactive

Marie & Pierre Curie

A Tale of Love and Fallout

by Lauren Redniss

!t Books (HarperCollins), 2011. 205 pages.
Starred Review

This book is amazing, and like no book I’ve ever read before. It’s a biography, a record of love and scientific discovery, but it’s also a work of art.

There are striking images on almost every page. The artist used cyanotype printing, which she explains in a note at the back.

“Using this process to create the images in this book made sense to me for a number of reasons. First, the negative of an image gives an impression of an internal light, a sense of glowing that I felt captured what Marie Curie called radium’s ‘spontaneous luminosity.’ Indeed, the light that radium emits is a cyan-like, faint blue. Second, because photographic imaging was central to the discovery both of X-rays and of radioactivity, it seemed fitting to use a process based on the idea of exposure. Last, I later learned, Prussian blue capsules are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a “safe and effective” treatment for internal contamination by radioactive cesium and radioactive thallium. (After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, cyanotype ingredients were spread on the grass in North Wales to safeguard grazing animals.)”

The story told in the book is also fascinating. She tells how Marie met Pierre Curie and their progress in science together. She tells about Pierre Curie’s tragic death and Marie’s life afterward and continued distinguished work. Throughout the story, she provides images and clips and stories about things that happened with radioactivity later, such as Hiroshima, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

I had no idea how radium was touted and marvelled over when it was first developed. The Curies did not patent their findings, but others were not so scrupulous.

“A fictitious Dr. Alfred Curie was hatched to shill Tho-Radia face cream. Radium-laced toothpaste, condoms, suppositories, chocolates, pillows, bath salts, and cigarettes were marketed as bestowers of longevity, virility, and an all-over salubrious flush.

“Radium was also touted as a replacement for electric lighting. Early electric light was both brilliant and blinding. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, ‘Such a light as this should shine only on murders and public crime, or along the corridors of lunatic asylums, a horror to heighten horror.’ Even after the development of softer, incandescent bulbs, some lamented that electric light would ‘never allow us to dream the dreams that the light of the living oil lamp conjured up.’ The fragile glow of radium, on the other hand, offered a retreat into forgiving shadows and candlelit intimacy. Radium let the wistful romantic pose as champion of scientific advance. A chemist named Sabin von Sochocky concocted a luminous goulash of radium and zinc sulphide, with dashes of lead, copper, uranium, manganese, thallium (a neurotoxin discovered by chemist and Spiritualist William Crookes), and arsenic, and sold it to the public as ‘Undark Paint.’ Undark was marketed for use on flashlights, doorbells, even ‘the buckles of bedroom slippers.’ ‘The time will doubtless come,’ von Sochocky declared, ‘when you will have in your own house a room lighted entirely by radium. The light thrown off by radium paint on walls and ceilings would in color and tone be like soft moonlight.'”

The story is fascinating and surprising. The images are stunning and memorable. This book is definitely not for children, but if it were, I would think this was a sure winner of the Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book providing a visual experience. Spend a little time gazing at the pages of this book, and you will be amazed. Spend a little time reading the pages of this book, and you will be intrigued.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/radioactive.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of I Dreamed of Flying Like a Bird, by Robert B. Haas

Art, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

I Dreamed of Flying Like a Bird

My Adventures Photographing Wild Animals from a Helicopter

by Robert B. Haas

National Geographic, Washington, DC, 2010. 64 pages.
Starred Review

This book is a delight to look at. Robert Haas is an aerial photographer. In this book, he tells the story of getting his stunning images — and he also includes the images.

He tells about his methods; it sounds much more difficult than I ever would have guessed. He usually flies with the door off the helicopter and not one, but two, safety harnesses. It’s very cold up there with the door off, so he wears many layers of clothes.

In this book, he focuses on some images that have a story behind them, like the time he saw a herd of African buffalos being hunted by lions. Another time, he found a bear in Alaska just coming out of its den from a winter’s hibernation. He also does amazing photography of sea creatures, and once the pilot almost lost control right over a large group of sharks.

My favorite image, though, is the one that goes with this description:

“One of the most beautiful sights from the air is a large flock of flamingos moving around in shallow water. The flock forms one shape after another and leaves different patterns as it sweeps across the water. One time off the coast of Mexico, I came across a large flock of flamingos that changed its shape every few seconds, and I kept shooting and shooting for a very long time. And then, when I was just about to leave, I noticed something that was simply unbelievable — the hundreds of flamingos in the flock had actually formed the shape of a flamingo! I was able to capture that shot, and it has become one of my best known photos.”

I’m taking a class on the Caldecott Medal, and we have been discussing whether a photographer will ever win for the most distinguished picture book. I hope last year’s committee gave this book consideration, since the images are truly stunning. This book will be enjoyed and marvelled over by children and adults alike.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/flying_like_a_bird.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Proofiness, by Charles Seife

Current Issues, Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Proofiness

The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception

by Charles Seife

Viking, 2010. 295 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve already admitted that I’m a certified Math Nut. And that I read popular-audience math books for fun. I had to remind myself that I’m not teaching Introduction to Statistics any more, so I didn’t need to mark passages to read to the class. (I couldn’t stop myself, though, from noticing passages that would have been great to read to a Statistics class.)

This book is very much along the lines of How to Lie With Statistics, but it uses up-to-date, recent examples. It demonstrates all too public examples of people who, either through ignorance or malfeasance, use statistics for nefarious purposes.

When I started at the library where I work now, they asked me to participate in a game of “Three Truths and a Lie.” I had just read the introduction to this book and effectively used what I learned: I inserted a number into each statement. Sure enough, only one person guessed which statement was my lie! Here’s how this concept worked in a much more serious scenario:

“As he held aloft a sheaf of papers, a beetle-browed Joe McCarthy assured his place in the history books with his bold claim: ‘I have here in my hand a list of 205 — a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.’

“That number — 205 — was a jolt of electricity that shocked Washington into action against communist infiltrators. Never mind that the number was a fabrication. It went up to 207 and then dropped again the following day, when McCarthy wrote to President Truman claiming that ‘we have been able to compile a list of 57 Communists in the State Department.’ A few days later, the number stabilized at 81 ‘security risks.’ McCarthy gave a lengthy speech in the Senate, giving some details about a large number of cases (fewer than 81, in fact), but without revealing enough information for others to check into his assertions.

“It really didn’t matter whether the list had 205 or 57 or 81 names. The very fact that McCarthy had attached a number to his accusations imbued them with an aura of truth. Would McCarthy make such specific claims if he didn’t have evidence to back them up? Even though White House officials suspected that he was bluffing, the numbers made them doubt themselves. The numbers gave McCarthy’s accusations heft; they were too substantial, too specific to ignore. Congress was forced to hold hearings to attempt to salvage the reputation of the State Department — and the Truman administration.

“McCarthy was, in fact, lying. He had no clue whether the State Department was harboring 205 communists or 57 or none at all; he was making wild guesses based upon information that he knew was worthless. Yet once he made the claim public and the Senate declared that it was going to hold hearings on the matter, he suddenly needed some names.”

Charles Seife sums up the point of this book:

“As McCarthy knew, numbers can be a powerful weapon. In skillful hands, phony data, bogus statistics, and bad mathematics can make the most fanciful idea, the most outrageous falsehood seem true. They can be used to bludgeon enemies, to destroy critics, and to squelch debate. Indeed, some people have become incredibly adept at using fake numbers to prove falsehoods. They have become masters of proofiness: the art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true — even when it’s not.

“Our society is now awash in proofiness. Using a few powerful techniques, thousands of people are crafting mathematical falsehoods to get you to swallow untruths. Advertisers forge numbers to get you to buy their products. Politicians fiddle with data to try to get you to reelect them. Pundits and prophets use phony math to get you to believe predictions that never seem to pan out. Businessmen use bogus numerical arguments to steal your money. Pollsters, pretending to listen to what you have to say, use proofiness to tell you what they want you to believe. . . .

“At the same time, proofiness has extraordinarily serious consequences. It nullifies elections, crowning victors who are undeserving — both Republican and Democratic. Worse yet, it is used to fix the outcome of future elections; politicians and judges use wrongheaded mathematics to manipulate voting districts and undermine the census that dictates which Americans are represented in Congress. Proofiness is largely responsible for the near destruction of our economy — and for the great sucking sound of more than a trillion dollars vanishing from the treasury. Prosecutors and justices use proofiness to acquit the guilty and convict the innocent — and even to put people to death. In short, bad math is undermining our democracy.”

But the good news is that you can fight Proofiness with knowledge:

“The threat is coming from both the left and the right. Indeed, proofiness sometimes seems to be the only thing that Republicans and Democrats have in common. Yet it’s possible to counteract it. Those who have learned to recognize proofiness can find it almost everywhere, ensnaring the public in a web of transparent falsehoods. To the wary, proofiness becomes a daily source of great amusement — and of blackest outrage.

“Once you know the methods people use to turn numbers into falsehoods, they are powerless against you. When you learn to shovel proofiness out of the way, some of the most controversial topics become simple and straightforward. For example, the question of who actually won the 2000 presidential election becomes crystal clear. (The surprising answer is one that almost nobody would have been willing to accept: not Bush, not Gore, and almost none of the people who voted for either candidate.) Understand proofiness and you can uncover many truths that had been obscured by a haze of lies.”

So this book can make the reader proofiness-proof. Besides being fascinating, it will empower you to see through the methods people use to try to cloud the truth. (You also might get some ideas for being a better contestant in a game of Three Truths and a Lie.)

I find myself wanting to cite examples of proofiness in action in the real world, but I’m afraid that once I get started, I won’t be able to stop. Even though I don’t teach Introduction to Statistics classes any more, I hope that professors out there will bring this book into their classrooms. They can use it to utterly silence that oh-so-annoying question students inevitably ask: “But how will we USE this?” The math in this book is woven into the very fabric of our society.

To finish off this review, I’m going to give a spoiler, so don’t read any further if you don’t want to know the “surprising answer” of who should have won the 2000 Presidential election:

Statistically speaking, within any reasonable margin of error, the 2000 presidential election in Florida was a tie. So according to Florida election law, the winner should have been determined by lot — the flip of a coin. I guess you can see why he says almost nobody would have been willing to accept that determination.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/proofiness.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Barefoot in Baghdad, by Manal M. Omar

Cross Cultural, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Barefoot in Baghdad

A Story of Identity – My Own and What It Means to Be a Woman in Chaos

by Manal M. Omar

Sourcebooks, 2010. 244 pages.

Manal Omar knows how to work cross-culturally. She begins her book like this:

“Throughout my childhood I struggled to answer the simplest of questions: where are you from? I was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents who moved to Lubbock, Texas, when I was six months old. During my childhood, my parents would uproot me every few years, from Texas to South Carolina to Virginia. Living in the American South, I was far from the image of a Southern belle, and yet the summers I spent in the Middle East only emphasized my American identity and made it clear to me that I would also never exactly be an Arab poster child.

“By the time I was in high school, I had learned to embrace and love all parts of my joint identity with the fervor only a teenager could feel. I was an Arab and an American. I was a Palestinian and a Southerner. I was a Muslim and a woman. As I grew, I accepted that the emphasis on each facet of my identity would shift with the phases of the moon. Growing up in a world struggling to understand multiculturalism, I saw this ability to move among my many identities as my own secret superpower. . . .

“In Iraq, I was finally able to put my superpower to full use. A wave of my American passport at the checkpoint of the fortified Green Zone allowed me access to the representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. My adherence to Muslim dress and my fluent Arabic made it possible for me to live in an Iraqi neighborhood with no armed security. This unique access allowed me to see an Iraq that was accessible to few others. With each passing season, the country would shed its skin from the past and emerge as a completely new place. Who was better positioned to adapt within a country experiencing a period of tumultuous change than someone who had been raised with an ever-shifting identity? In Iraq, I found a place with as many complicated contradictions as I had in myself. Here, though, my internal complexity was manifested in an entire society. My international colleagues were struggling to force Iraqi culture into convenient boxes, but I simply accepted its unique, fluctuating shape. International journalists marveled over the fact that women who were covered head to toe walked side by side with women with orange-colored hair and wearing tight jeans, but I simply shrugged. It was natural to me. The mosaic of identities inside Iraq was not hypocritical or schizophrenic; it was what made the country powerful.”

Manal went to Iraq to work for Women for Women International.

“Women for Women International focused on the most vulnerable women. This usually meant those who were the primary breadwinners in their house: widows, divorcees, or unmarried women living with elderly parents. In addition to the economic challenges, there was a social stigma attached to these women. This meant that their finding work was even more difficult.”

This book tells about her experiences there, and tells stories of some of the women she met and was able to help or wasn’t able to help. However, over the years she was there, the situation in Iraq deteriorated, and eventually she had to leave and base her actions from Jordan. So in that way, this book tells a sad story. Manal herself describes it this way:

“Barefoot in Baghdad is not a story of the war in Iraq. It is the story of the women in Iraq who are standing at the crossroads every dawn. It is the story of my time working with Iraqis as they struggled to create a new nation and a new identity. It is informed by my years of living and working within communities throughout the country. It recounts my own experiences and the stories of the men and women I encountered, each of them players in one of the most complicated political struggles in our era. It is also a memoir of the discovery of my many identities and the strengths and weaknesses inherent within them. Finally, it is a story of finding love in the most unlikely place. As my life became intertwined with the lives of the Iraqis around me, I lost sight of where my horizons ended and theirs began. Their expectations became my expectations; their disappointments, dreams, pains, and losses became my own.”

This book tells a fascinating story, and will give you insight into the lives of women in Iraq today.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/barefoot_in_baghdad.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Heaven Is For Real, by Todd Burpo

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Heaven Is For Real

A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

by Todd Burpo
with Lynn Vincent

Thomas Nelson, 2010. 163 pages.
Starred Review

I gobbled up this book in one afternoon. It’s not long, and the story it tells is truly amazing.

My first reaction was that this story would be a hard one for an atheist to explain away. However, I was quickly informed that is not the case. This concerns a little boy’s testimony. As for me, I think his way of talking about it totally rings true, but the fact that he was so young does allow skeptics to propose that he may have been swayed without realizing it.

However, if you do believe in Heaven, this book will encourage you tremendously. And anyone who has suffered a miscarriage, or lost a beloved parent will find themselves incredibly touched.

Colton first gave them a clue that something unusual had happened when they drove to the city where he almost died.

“‘Do you remember the hospital, Colton?’ Sonja asked.

“‘Yes, Mommy, I remember,’ he said. ‘That’s where the angels sang to me.'”

A little while later, they asked him more about it.

“Then he grew serious. ‘Dad, Jesus had the angels sing to me because I was so scared. They made me feel better.’

“Jesus?

“I glanced at Sonja again and saw that her mouth had dropped open. I turned back to Colton. ‘You mean Jesus was there?’

“My little boy nodded as though reporting nothing more remarkable than seeing a ladybug in the front yard. ‘Yeah, Jesus was there.’

“‘Well, where was Jesus?’

Colton looked me right in the eye. ‘I was sitting in Jesus’ lap.'”

That’s in the intro, to give you an idea of what’s in store. Then they tell about their crisis, where it looked like their four-year-old son was really going to die. Appendicitis wasn’t diagnosed correctly, and by the time a doctor at a second hospital figured it out, it should have been too late.

Colton’s father, Todd Burpo, is a pastor. But this was the latest of a series of trials, and he found himself yelling at God. “Where are you? Is this how you treat your pastors?! Is it even worth it to serve you?”

But miraculously, Colton recovered. And it was enough of a miracle that they noticed an awful lot of nurses coming to his room and just staring at him in amazement. One of them pulled his Dad aside.

“‘Mr. Burpo, I’ve worked as a nurse here for many years,’ she said. ‘I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we were told not to give your family any encouragement. They didn’t think Colton was going to make it. And when they tell us people aren’t going to make it, they don’t.'”

It wasn’t until four months later that Colton told them about hearing the angels sing.

“It was that conversation in which Colton said that he ‘went up out of’ his body, that he had spoken with angels, and had sat in Jesus’ lap. And the way we knew he wasn’t making it up was that he was able to tell us what we were doing in another part of the hospital: ‘You were in a little room by yourself praying, and Mommy was in a different room and she was praying and talking on the phone.’

“Not even Sonja had seen me in that little room, having my meltdown with God.”

They continue to ask Colton about his experiences, trying not to ask leading questions. They found out things from a child’s perspective that matched what they would expect from the Bible.

Some of the things he said were very striking. I loved this one:

“Suddenly, he piped up again. ‘Daddy, remember when I yelled for you in the hospital when I waked up?’

“How could I forget? It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. ‘Of course I do,’ I said.

“‘Well, the reason I was yelling was that Jesus came to get me. He said I had to go back because he was answering your prayer. That’s how come I was yelling for you.’

“Suddenly, my knees felt weak underneath me. I flashed back to my prayers alone, raging at God, and my prayers in the waiting room, quiet and desperate. I remembered how scared I was, agonizing over whether Colton would hang on through the surgery, whether he’d live long enough for me to see his precious face again. Those were the longest, darkest ninety minutes of my life.

“And Jesus answered my prayer? Personally? After I had yelled at God, chastising him, questioning his wisdom and his faithfulness?”

Later Colton had more bombshells for them. He talked about meeting his sister — the child he’d never known about, who had miscarried. He claimed to have met her in heaven. He also spent time talking with his Dad’s father, Pop, whom he had also never met on earth. He didn’t recognize a picture of Pop as an old man — but then later he spotted a picture of Pop young and newly married — and Colton knew him right away!

I also love the way he tells his Dad the pastor that the Holy Spirit “shoots down power for you when you’re talking in church.” He says the Holy Spirit showed him, that Colton got to watch the Holy Spirit “shooting down power.”

But I think my personal favorite of all the things Colton says is when he’s describing God’s throne:

“‘It was big, Dad . . . really, really big, because God is the biggest one there is. And he really, really loves us, Dad. You can’t belieeeeve how much he loves us!'”

Read this book to be encouraged and inspired. At the end of the book, Colton sums up what he wants to tell people:

“I want them to know that heaven is for real.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/heaven_is_for_real.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.