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Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

Hope Deferred: Heart-Healing Reflections On Reproductive Loss by Nadine Pence Frantz and Mary T. Stimming is a moving piece on the problem of the suffering of infertility. It, however, is as unsatisfactory as any treatise on suffering that has been written.

I admit that I may be too deep in the trenches of the hurt and pain of infertility – sterility, even – to appreciate the reflective nature of the book. My feeling that the book was not all it could be was confirmed when I learned one of the editors was suffering from secondary infertility. Fairly or unfairly, in my mind, I kept hearing the phrase, “she got hers.”

I do not believe I can give a fair review of this book. I will say that until the section on science – way out of date – I found the theology sound and not overbearing. Much of what has been written for the popular Christian press tends to press the author’s interpretations rather than the need for reflection and prayer for the individual involved. Very little in this life is black and white.

I wanted to like this book. I did like the book until the misinformation on science – too often seen in all writings – came up in the final chapter.

Since there are so few books written from a liberal Christian perspective on the problem of infertility in the age of reproductive technology, I will give a cautious thumbs up on this book.

Read by Dick Hill, Philip Jenkins’ book, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died I got to revisit one of my favorite historical periods – the growth and decline (and preservation) of the various Apostolic Churches.

First, I have one minor annoyance – Jenkins keeps claiming that this is a “lost” or “unknown” history. I don’t think you can spend any time studying the history of Central Asia, Turkey, China, or Russia without having had at least a passing familiarity with the topics he covers. There are even some historians who have argued that China would have been Christian save for the various competing creeds literally fighting in the streets outside the Forbidden Palace. The Chinese Emperor looked askance at a group preaching peace as they were engaged in mortal combat with their supposed brethren.

I forgot that most people are not used to dealing with large populations of Arab Christians as we do in the Detroit Area. Syrian and Marionite Churches exist here. Didn’t everyone know that Chaldeans are Iraqi Christians? Or that Armenians can trace their Church to Apostolic origins?

Sadly, I then remembered that the vast majority of people have little more than a passing familiarity with their own history – let alone the history of people’s who have all but disappeared from the planet. (And, in looking at some of the reviews on Amazon, it is apparent that many cannot differentiate between theology and history.)

The book, however, is an excellent survey of the history of the established Apostolic Churches and how they managed to survive – or not – in the Eastern theater. Though Jenkins emphasizes the decline into crypto-Christianity or complete disappearance, even he has to recognize the remarkable resilience of the surviving Christian communities when competing with the evangelizing of both Islam and Buddhism. Both Islam and Buddhism have a much stronger tie to nationalism than Christianity did in that area. (European Christianity – and by extension, US Christianity – have a much more nationalistic identity.)

Jenkins theses is that religions die. And that the study of how they die is vital to understanding how to safeguard against that happening again. He takes us through the ups and downs of the various Christian sects that did not necessarily report back to Rome. Many of these self-same sects held great political power under a variety of non-Christian governments only to find themselves later persecuted by subsequent administrations or sultanates. These Churches seemed to have been built on shifting sands.

He takes us through the many ethnic cleansings that occurred against Christians throughout the Eastern world. These were the blueprints used to carry out modern genocides. (Genocide is not new, only the word.) The Christians who lived and survived in these areas were truly living the warning Christ gave that we, as Christians, would be hated as much, if not more, than He was.

Jenkins takes us up into the 21st Century and the destruction of Iraq and its powerful Chaldean community. He touches on the integral part Arab and Central Asian Christians have played in the history of Islam and how it has come to exist in our world today. And shows once again how the ignorance of Western Christians has actively damaged their Eastern brethren.

Ultimately, Jenkins falls into the theory that it is geography that makes the difference in whether a population survives or does not. Isolated communities continued – mountain peoples, always a stubborn lot, held on to Christianity longer than others, save the Copts in Egypt. The Copts having their own unique geographic and geopolitical insulation that protected them from some of the worst horrors visited upon their brethren to the East.

For those unfamiliar with Central Asian, Asian, and African Apostolic Church history The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died is well worth reading or listening to.

Inner Christianity : A Guide to Esoteric Tradition (Audio Edition) written and read by Richard Smoley is a meandering journey from the earliest unsanctioned spiritual teachings of Christianity to the late 20th century. His meanderings include the controversies surrounding the nature of Christ, the spiritual questions behind the debate of the Apostle’s Creed, and even touches on the symbolism versus reality of the transubstantiation that is at the heart of the divide between many Christian sects.

The one weakness of the book is that it sometimes assumes that you know the basic tenets of traditional “churched” Christianity, and this has become less true for the modern reader. These tenets are easily looked up, but may, without a guide, lead the neophyte seeker down the paths of various catechisms that only serve to hide the inner workings that a seeker seeks.

This book is aimed at the neophyte with some knowledge of Christianity. With that audience in mind, it does an admirable job of taking us through, not the chronological order, but the spiritual order of the history behind the various Gnostic thoughts and how they have manifested for either the good or the bad. (Sometimes, Gnostics seemed to be there to reflect the reality of those in authority being quite apart from the reality of the catechism.)

Gnostic Christians are equally at home with Sufi, Buddhist, Hindu, or any other seeker because they see that the tool used to reach spiritual enlightenment is just that, a tool. Christianity differs from some of its brethren in the emphasis on the personal salvation and connectedness to an overall sentient power.

Smoley touches on such controversies as the fall of SOPHIA and the DEMIURGE. Showing how these radical ideas challenged the early church. Many of the great thinkers of early Christianity were, in reality, Gnostics. The Gnostic schools spread throughout the Eastern part of the world – reaching as far as China. There are still wild monks in India who are Christian Gnostics of the Thomasine descendan.

This is a very good introduction to gnosticism. Smoley does not say, “trust this teacher or school of thought.” Rather, he implores the listener to seek enlightenment through study, prayer, and supplicance. He does point out that the Eastern Orthodox Churches – perhaps because of their lack of political power – preserved gnosticism much better than their Western counterparts. Much of Western Gnosticism is derived from the Reformation, but not all.

This is definitely worth a listen if you wish to challenge the depths of your beliefs.