this is the part where i judge a book entirely by its cover

My boyfriend and I went to Chapters the other day to find a book to read together, cause it’s a thing we do sometimes. Anyways, we wanted to find a Christian book but the dominating authors in the Christian section were Brian McLaren, Joel Osteen, and Joyce Meyer.

I’m pretty sure many authors write books simply to fill pages and pay the bills.

Let me say something about Brian McLaren – and this is completely an opinion, just a feeling I have. He’s an asshole.

“The Secret Message of Jesus.” With this very title he claims that Jesus has a secret and he, Brian McLaren, knows what it is. Which is sort of a jerk thing to do for Christians who do have a personal relationship with Jesus, have read the Bible extensively, and accomplish amazing things without ever hearing of  McLaren.

Using the word “secret” insinuates exclusivity. The readers of McLaren’s book have thus been let in on this secret that so many have apparently missed.

Back cover: “What if many have carried on a religion that somewhere along the way missed the rich and radical treasures hidden in the essential message of Jesus?”

You can’t simply read the Bible like so many Christians have done; you have to read McLaren’s book to find the “hidden” “secret” we’ve been missing all along. It’s not about Jesus’ message – it’s about McLaren’s.

This is the part where you tell me I can’t judge a book by its cover, even though I already stated that was what I was going to do. Okay, if anyone wants to review this book in its entirety I will host it on my blog. The ‘asshole’ wordcount must be at least 7.

I’m kidding.

sled island’s free song downloads

Seriously? Excellent. Check it out here. There’s apparently over 175 free songs to download.

Woodhands did a cover of I Kissed a Girl and I liked it. I basically love anything they do. They just yell and stuff and it’s great. (I know, my way with words is unrivaled.)

In other news I finally ordered An Army of Davids by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. I’ve been meaning to get it for like…3 years now, haha. I should get it next week, I hope. It’s basically about the blurred line between amateur and professional media as a result of the intarwebs. I am working on a documentary about blogging in Canada and I would love to interview him. He’s not from Canada, but he’s pretty much a god in the blogosphere. I loved their podcasts…but now they stopped doing that and are doing more video with Pajamas TV. Eh.

Also, I ordered The Bible of Unspeakable Truths by Greg Gutfeld. He’s a hero as well. He is the host of the insanity fest known as Red Eye.

Yay books! I have been reading the God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer for over a month now…I’ve been really busy, I guess. It’s really good so far though. I like Francis Schaeffer – he just dishes it out. I like my theology with a side of hotsauce, not sugar coated. That’s a quotable quote right there. Savor it.

The Four Loves by C.S Lewis

So, I have been reading lots the past month, I’ve just been too lazy/busy to write about it. But here we go, hopefully I’ll have some good fall features for ya.

Anyways, I read The Four Loves a few years ago, but decided to re-read it because, well, I’ve always been interested in the many different facets of “love” and figured brushing up with some of C.S Lewis’ thoughts might do some good. It did, as it always does.

Lewis starts by differentiating between Need-loves and Gift-loves. That is, a Need-love would be the love a child would have for his mother because he is in dire straits without her. Gift-love is the love of the mother for her child, as she gives her time and commitment to taking care of him. Regarding God, man’s love for god must be nearly entirely need-love, “for our whole being by its very nature is one vast need.”

He then discusses two interesting concepts of nearness to God: nearness by likeness and nearness by approach. Being made in the image of God, we are already nearer to him than, let’s say, animals are. But this is merely an image. Nearness by approach is “taking the long way around,” the hard road that seems to least resemble heavenly glory. I thought it was fascinating when he said, “Man approaches God more nearly when he is in a sense least like God.” “I must decrease, and He must increase” as Paul said. The less of ourselves we have in sight, the more God can fill our vision.

So the four loves are these: affection, friendship, charity and eros. He points out that while God is love, love is not God. “A faithful and genuinely self-sacrificing passion will speak to us with what seems the voice of God. Merely animal or frivolous lust will not…We may give our human loves unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God – Then they become gods, then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves.”

The idolatry of erotic love was the great error of 19th century literature, where falling in love equaled sanctification.

He then talked about pleasure: Need-pleasure (drinking a glass of water is pleasurable when you are thirsty) and pleasures of appreciation (walking through a garden). “The need love, like the need-pleasure, will last no longer than the need.” Our need of God can never end, but our awareness of it can.

Those who temporarily turn to God in need or tribulation are not insincere – they are aware of their need- who wouldn’t?

“Nature gives us images – terror, gloom, jocundity, cruelty, lust, innocence, purity…In them each man can clothe his belief, but we must learn our theology and philosophy elsewhere….A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature, and experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy.”

On affection:

“As gin is not only a drink in itself, but also a base for many other drinks, so Affection, besides being a love itself, can enter into the other loves and color them all through and become the very medium in which from day to day they operate.”

On friendship:

“Friendship has least commerce with our nerves.” It is biologically unnecessary. Eros provides conception, and affection, upbringing. Companionship, a biological need for a social species, is the matrix of friendship, but not friendship itself. “Friendship was exalted in ancient and medieval times because it was most independent or even defiant of mere nature…The deepest and most permanent thought of those ages was ascetic and world-renouncing.”

Paradise Lost by John Milton: Book 1

Paradise Lost was written by John Milton and published as 12 books in 1667. Here are some notes from Book 1, with the lines numbered for reference.

It starts off with Milton calling on the Holy Spirit to help him tell the story:

14. What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert eternal providence,
And justify the ways of God to man.

Milton then begins his epic. The setting is in hell after Satan and his angels have been thrown out of Heaven.

62. Yet from the flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.

Satan addresses his angels. Even still he is prideful and even more hardened against God. He believes that he and his legions are still capable of overcoming God and claiming Heaven for themselves.

Bears

YES I am still reading. Slowly.

 

Man, I suck. I need to pick up the pace, stat.

 

Here are some notes, I’m in…2 Kings.

 

1 Kings 11:32 – First mention of God specifically choosing Jerusalem as his city, “…the city which I have chosen…”

 

13: 14 – Jeroboam’s hand dried up – freaky deaky!

 

16:27 – Elijah mocked prophets of Baal. The best sarcasm is the Lord’s sarcasm!

 

19:12 – “still, small voice”

 

2 Kings 2: 21 – Elisha healed waters with salt

 

2: 24: Respect your elders -bears ate kids that mocked Elisha. Favorite verse of parents everywhere.

 

6:6 Elisha causes axe to float

 

6: 16 – “They that are with us are more than are with them.” Army of angels – SA-WEET!

 

7:2 origin of “windows in heaven” term

 

13:21 – Dead man touches Elisha’s bones and is revived.

 

16: 3, 17:17, 17:31 – Israelites practiced child sacrifice

 

17:20 – Israelites (10 tribes) cast out of the land.

Man, so intense

SO. I’ve lost track of when I’ll finish the Bible, so I decided to go ahead and add another book so I’ll be reading two. Currently in the Bible I’m at 2 Samuel 24, otherwise page 317 out of 1081, which is 29% done. I’ll just kinda read it and when I finish, I finish. It’s too hard to schedule cause some parts I want to spend more time reading and other parts I don’t. Anyways, here are some notes:

So, Judges is full of a bunch of unsung heroes, cause Israel kept being retarded and worshipping other gods over and OVER again, so they always got carried away and captured by the other nations that they didn’t drive out of the land like God told them to over and over again, and thus they repented and got delivered over and over again. So here’s a few names of the men God used to deliver Israel that you don’t often hear about: Othniel (3:9), Ehud (3:15), Shamgar (3:31), and Ephriam (12:1). Of course Samson, Gideon, Barak and Deborah are in there as well. Oh! And Jael, the woman who drove a stake through the head of Sisera (4:21). How intense is that? Pretty intense.

Torah = DONE

So, my schedule for reading the Bible is great…unless you miss a day or two - then it’s ridiculous to catch up. That said, it will probably take me a bit longer than two months, but I WILL FINISH IT!

Anyways, I just finished Deuteronomy and am now into Joshua. Ten points for finishing the Torah!

So, contrary to popular belief, the torah is actually pretty straight. Yeah, it’s kinda excruciating when talking about all the different kinds of sacrifices and atonements and rules, but among all that is still some really awesome stuff. *understatement of century*

So here are some very brief notes:

Deut 4:2 – do not add or take away from the book of the law

Deut 6:9 – origin of mezuzah

Deut 9:4 – God basically said to the Israelites, “Hey, so here’s this awesome land. Go in and conquer it, but don’t think I’m giving you victory because you in any way deserve it. It is because of these nation’s wickedness that they are being destroyed, not your own righteousness.”

9: 24 – Moses says, “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.”

10:19 – love the stranger, for ye were strangers in Egypt

30:6 – God speaks of circumcising the heart

32: 4, 15, 18, 30 21: God is referred to as the Rock and Rock of salvation.

Also, why can’t I be in Israel right now?

omgosh I made it past Exodus!!

I have never done that! I’m now in Leviticus.

So here are some random notes.

Gen 28:22: Jacob vows to give a tenth of his estate to the Lord. First record of tithing.

Gen 47: 9 – Jacob’s humility: “And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been…”

“Esau is Edom” is apparently an important enough fact to be stated several times.

During the famine in Egypt when the people had no more money to buy food, they sold their herds and land to Joseph for food. What stood out to me was that he never gave out the stored up grain for free. So he bought all their land, then when the famine was over, he gave them seed and demanded 1/5th of the portion.

Oh that Jacob, sneaky right up to the end. I still have no idea why he put his right hand on Ephriam, the younger, and his left hand on Manassah the older.

Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah are all buried in Hebron.

Ex 2: 22: Moses is “stranger in a strange land.”

So I thought it was amusing when God turns Moses’ staff into a snake on Mt. Sinai and “Moses fled from before it.” Nice.

Exodus 30: 15 – “The rich shall not give more; the poor shall not give less than half a shekel.”

Since Israel was like a theocracy, I guess you could view this as their “taxes.” The rich shall not give more, the poor shall not give less! Good concept.

So, I really want to watch the Ten Commandments after reading through all this. Charlton Heston = epic. THOSE WHO WILL NOT LIVE BY THE LAW SHALL DIE BY THE LAW!

So intense.

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

I got a book in the mail today! My friend recommended I read My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers so strongly that he even offered to buy it for me! So I couldn’t refuse, really – it was a free book! and I’d heard nothing but good about it.

So I was expecting it to be a regular book, but turns out it’s actually a devotional, which is uber neat. I don’t know whether to read a bunch and catch up to Jan 30th and then go from there, or just start now and read into next year. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

 Either way, I’m stoked!

(And if anyone else wants to send me free books, I’m totally down with that. As long as they’re good, of course.)

You know…

I think once I finish Anna Karenina I just might read through the Bible – just to get it over with. I mean, not “over with,” but just to be able to say I have. I don’t think I’ve ever read Haggai. Or Malachi. Or any of those small inconspicuous ones.

 I figure it’d be kinda dumb to exert so much energy into all these other books when I haven’t even read the number one best seller of all time straight through.

I figure I could read it in about two months…Anna Karenina is 817 pages at about size 10 font, and I’ll probably finish it this weekend. My Bible is 1081 pages at about size 8 font, so it’ll take me a bit longer.

I mean, I’ve tried to read through the Bible before, but I think I can actually do it this time. I’m actually rather stoked about it.

Fern-Seed and Elephants: and other essays on Christianity by C.S Lewis

I have been slowly pecking away at this book for a few a months now, picking it up, reading some, putting it down, forgetting about it for a few months…finding it again and reading the rest. So now I’m finally done and it was pretty fantastic, with the exception of the essay Historicism, which I could not understand to save my life.

The book contains a total of eight compositions; here are some quotes to give you an idea about the content of each: