Kim Gentes

I am reading a lot more lately. And I have found there are a some topic-specific books that really are great! One such book I have just finished reading is called "How To Enjoy Your Christmas (3 Word Lessons)".

The idea of the book is summed up nicely in the sub-title:

"25 Great Ideas To Help Your Family Make The Most Of The Holiday Season" 

 

What I loved about it is the clear, smart and actually usable ideas I got from it. After over 20 years of Christmas's as a parent, I was running out of fresh ways to think about the season, without becoming weary. Author Dan Wilt reflects on how you can not only freshen the experience, but deepen your family and devotional aspects of a worshipful Christmas!

Everything from enjoying the fun, singing the music, devoting your heart, engaging through Advent, surprising those you love- Wilt gives you punch points to do, not just ideas to think about!

I love this little Kindle eBook, and at 99cents, I can't believe anyone else wouldn't either! Really, check this out- you'll love it!

I know you will enjoy "How To Enjoy Your Christmas" - eBook!

Amazon Book Link: http://amzn.to/UfMnGi

Review by Kim Gentes

I don't like motivational junk.  I call it crap.  When people try to sell me their wares as a way of "encouraging" me in some way it just doesn't sit right with me. For that reason, you have to understand that I would never in a million years have purposely went to buy this book. I thought I was buying a book about being a writer and some "tricks of the trade". But about 10 pages into it, I realized I'd been duped. I was kinda upset. (Keep reading! I was missing the point!) But since I had already bought it and simply wanted to put it away, I figured I'd better get through it.

That was the last point at which I didn't like the book. In about 2 more pages (and for the rest of the book), I got my butt kicked. Author Steven Pressfield talks as a creative person to other creatives, and tackles just one topic- resistance. This is the singular name that Pressfield gives to the demon that haunts every person who ever tried to do anything beyond themselves- in art, science, culture, business and life. Pressfield defines, explores, warns and outright swears at the demon of resistance. Pressfield is ticked off, and he wants his reader to join him- not in a soppy emotional healing time, but in an outright strategy of war against the only enemy likely to stop you from creating your unique art: your own internal resistance.

I've heard these concepts before in different ways, but they've never struck home as well as they have here. "The War of Art" is not only sharp and pointed, it is blissful and witty. It examples its content by explaining how the author himself got passed resistance to even write the book. It's not cute, but it is effective, and funny, too!

If you hate motivational speeches and don't want to waste money on feel-good crap, this book is the best thing for creatives since their mom slapped them up the side of the head and said "do your homework".

The book is short (just 190 pages) and it is written directly to authors, painters, musicians, creatives, entrepreneurs, inventors and anyone who is trying to start something (anything) of value that is significantly challenging.  This book is written from an artist/writer's perspective specifically, not of the Christian "self-help" variety, and if you are easily offended by occasional swear words, you may find this book hits you with occasional bursts of Pressfield's verbal punches.

That said, it's a great book and I very highly recommend it. 

Amazon Book Link: http://amzn.to/Simc47

Review by Kim Gentes

“The Spiritual Brain” by Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary is subtitled “A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul”, but it represents as much a philosophical examination of modernity and materialism as it does a thoughtful examination of the brain and its abilities/limits explored by scientific methodological rigor.
 
Before the authors enter deeply into tests, hypothesis and results, they delve deeply into the conundrum of how the current scientific community predisposes itself to the modernist and materialist worldview, even (at times) in the face of scientific evidence that points elsewhere. The authors seek to expose some of these philosophical foundations to allow them to confront some of the underlying worldview issues.
 
But before going deep into reviewing “The Spiritual Brain” and its premise, let me examine the context of thought that is being dealt with here. How can we question and evaluate a framework (IE. modernity and materialism) that has served mankind for the last few hundred years with increasing absolution from critique? In this, post-modernity does us a service in opening the door for questioning long established assumptions. The most essential assumptions to be confronted are modernity and materialism (in the classic philosophical sense).

Modernity and materialism (both scientific and cultural) have played key roles in western thought for the last 300-400 years. The impact of these ideologies has been felt not only in secular life but the Christian community as well. The deep impact of modernity in the church, and even in its pastoral leadership, is echoed well by Thomas Oden, who says:

Modern chauvinism has assumed that all recent modes of knowing the truth are vastly superior to all older ways, a view that has recently presided over the precipitous deterioration of social structures and processes in the third quarter of the twentieth century. My frank goal has been to help free persons from feeling intimidated by modernity, which while it often seems awesome is rapidly losing its moral power, and to grasp the emerging vision of a postmodern classical Christianity.[1]

Oden’s statement scratches the surface of a festering boil within our faith community - we have lost our foundational trust in the classic wisdom of our tradition. We have replaced it with an underlying trust in society’s secular pillars of modernity and materialism, and those have influenced almost every pastoral and leadership discipline in Christianity. We have tried to nuance our statements and practices with faith language, but our underlying assumptions were still founded on the principles within modernity and materialist reductionism.

Challenges to the materialist worldview have not only come from pastoral and theological leaders such as Oden (above), but also from scientific experts themselves, such as Dr. Mario Beauregard. He and Denyse O’Leary are the authors of the recent book “The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul.” Hence, we get to our promised review of this book.

In this work, Beauregard appropriately confronts the philosophical constructs of materialism before getting to the scientific theories, experiments and studies. He does this to explain how the scientific findings are being interpreted through the materialist mindset, and bent to reinforce the same. The following extensive quote gives an example of one such point where Beauregard deconstructs the materialist arrogance that has been injected into the scientific work of neuroscience.

American culture critic Tom Wolfe put the matter succinctly in an elegant little essay he published in 1996, “Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died,” which expounds the “neuroscientific view of life.” He wrote about the new imaging techniques that enable neuroscientists to see what is happening in your brain when you experience a thought or an emotion. The outcome, according to Wolfe, is:

Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system—and since your brain arrived fully imprinted at birth—what makes you think you have free will? Where is it going to come from? What “ghost,” what “mind,” what “self,” what “soul,” what anything that will not be immediately grabbed by those scornful quotation marks, is going to bubble up your brain stem to give it to you? I have heard neuroscientists theorize that, given computers of sufficient power and sophistication, it would be possible to predict the course of any human being’s life moment by moment, including the fact that the poor devil was about to shake his head over the very idea.

Wolfe doubts that any sixteenth-century Calvinist believed so completely in predestination as these hot young scientists. The whole materialist creed that Wolfe outlines hangs off one little word, “Since”—“Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system…” In other words, neuroscientists have not discovered that there is no you in you; they start their work with that assumption. Anything they find is interpreted on the basis of that view. The science does not require that. Rather, it is an obligation that materialists impose on themselves. But what if scientific evidence points in a different direction? As we will see, it does. But before we get to the neuroscience, it may be worthwhile to look at some other reasons for thinking that the twentieth-century materialist consensus isn’t true. Neuroscience is, after all, a rather new discipline, and it would be best to first establish that there are also good reasons for doubting materialism that arise from older disciplines.[2]

We don’t have to be neuroscientists to understand the implications of the materialist reductionism being presented by Wolfe and his contemporaries. Beauregard works with careful tension between scientific and philosophical arguments to bring his thesis to the forefront - that we have built both our worldview and our scientific methodologies on a foundation that has begun to crack. We cannot move forward with true exploration (scientific or otherwise) without resetting those foundations in a system that incorporates the possibility of something non-materialist. Like the labels of modernity and post-modernity, Beauregard has no nomenclature for the new worldview, other than calling it the antithesis of its predecessor- “non-materialist”.

Without giving a essay length review of Beauregard’s excellent book, we can summarize his efforts to

1. articulating the presumptions of materialist reductionism within scientific thought
2. presenting an alternative non-materialist philosophical viewpoint
3. detailing scientific studies and findings that support the non-materialist viewpoint
4. presenting the specific details and summary findings proving the existence of the mind outside of the brain.

This work has some excellent power points made along the way. Each one confronting a remnant of materialist thinking that is answered with thoughtful nuance. One such example is this:

A teleologically oriented (i.e., purposeful rather than random) biological evolution has enabled humans to consciously and voluntarily shape the functioning of our brains. As a result of this powerful capacity, we are not biological robots totally governed by “selfish” genes and neurons.[3]

This is in direct response to scientific claims that genes force not only our structure and biology, but our actions and choices. Beauregard's response here is supported with much detail, but I wanted to highlight just such a conclusion that he comes to so you can understand the scope of the work he is attempting to do- to provide both a scientific and philosophical reset on the materialist/reductionist worldview which he says is wrongly assumed and embedded in the modern scientific community and work.

The book ultimately provides extensive study and data related to Beauregard’s thesis, along with summation of the reasons that he attributes the human soul with existence beyond the brain. But you cannot get to that conclusion without first travelling long (and sometimes hard) through the depths of his philosophical deconstruction and reconstruction.  That said, it is a worthwhile journey and I highly encourage you to make it if you are interested in the topics brought up here.

Amazon Book Link:  http://amzn.to/OCjQhg

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Thomas C. Oden, “Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition” (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), Pg 24
[2]Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary, “The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul”. (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2007), Pg 4
[3] Ibid., Pg 45

It's true. There is a long history of a small segment of Christianity that has held to the belief that God will save all people, even those that reject him on this earth. Rob Bell's recent book "Love Wins" takes a look at another spin of this age-old concept of universalism.  Bell writes and thinks well. There is no denying it. But ultimately he stays well within the context of the best argument for universalism- human reason and human attribution of the qualities of "love" on to the Divine Person.  As long as you use logic that does not look at all the scriptural record, and rely heavily on personal anecdotes to frame the "kind of God" that you are willing to believe in (and that He is a good God), then you can arrive at the doctrine of universalism and feel pretty good about it. And this is primarily what Bell does.

I was surprised at how anecdotal the entire book was. I love much of Bell's writing, but his treatment of this topic relies initially on a logical progression of human reasoning (not based primarily on Scripture) and ignores investigation, explanation and support of key texts that seem to contradict Bell's thesis. I wanted to emotionally agree with Rob Bell. But neither the specific texts of the Bible that might seem to support universalism (but on deeper look, do not), the historical context of Jesus timeframe or a comprehensive review of all Scripture (including texts which clearly contradict universalism, and overtly declare literal judgment in a literal hell) line up to do anything but refute the premise and content of "Love Wins". I am not a Bell basher, and I appreciate and like some of his other works. Throughout, there are a number of concepts based on specific redefinitions of words (such as forever not actually meaning "eternal", hell not meaning a non-earthly place of punishment but instead meaning "Hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story"[1] according to Bell). And you see the conflict here- yes Hell could include our refusal to trust God's retelling, but it is a definition that removes the imagery Jesus used of suffering and eternity.

 Bell begins with exploring some thoughts about what kind of God we might be talking about, who is ultimatley in control, some thoughts about hell as a concept (placing it on earth mostly, and certainly not as a reality in the ethereal world), understanding more about what God's desires are and how they might work and ultimately towards a conclusion that just assumes that a good God would not send a person intentionally to a painful punishment for all eternity. But Bell uses conjecture as his backbone to the book, not scripture. He proof texts some support when possible, but does not draw his primary thoughts from the bible.

I love that Bell asks so many profound questions. For this, his voice is refreshing. But "Love Wins" ultimately answers none of its questions except to give universalism a "pass" because ultimately Bell's anecdotal view of life leads him to that conclusion.

Amazon Product Link: http://amzn.to/sHSMrk

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Bell, Rob. "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived". (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2011) Kindle Edition.  Pg. 170

Pensées is a collection of thoughts, from French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. In many ways Pascal was an early post-modernist thinker, perceiving and challenging (successfully) not only principles in mathematics and physical sciences, but in the philosophical and religious realms as well. The Pensées (which literally means “thoughts”) is not a completed book, but a point-style outline of important thoughts, that read more like proverbs than treatise.  The work was published posthumously and is missing a readable flow from thought to thought.

However, the concepts presented in Pensées are quite clear- they are a philosophical apologetic for the Christian faith. In Section III of the work (titled “the necessity of the wager”) Pascal clarifies his intention to speak directly to a specific group of people:

A letter to incite to the search after God. And then to make people seek Him among the philosophers, sceptics, and dogmatists, who disquiet him who inquires of them.[1]

From this point, Pascal lays out a logical progression of deconstructing arguments against Christianity.  However, Pascal is not saying that logic or reason as the answers to finding God. In fact, his premise is that reason will not be able to lead you through its processes to knowledge of God.  He uses philosophy and reason to counter the notion that reason is a singular tool to concluding God exists- this dichotomoy is not lost on Pascal and he tries to reconcile this by such paradoxical renderings as :

Submission.--We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason.[2]

and

If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious and supernatural element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.[3]

In the midst of his musing about reason and heart (the contrast of the two), Pascal famously pens the phrase “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”[4] But he winds that discussion eventually around to a simple, clear and understandable summation: “Heart, instinct, principles.”[5]

He tackles a number of topics including integrity of searching for God to the seriousness of eternity and the scope of human lifespan. At almost every turn, Pascal uses the insights of a scientific mindset (along with its proofing mechanisms) to first examine a topic and then lead you to a conclusion.  This progression is sprinkled generously with several “proverb-like” sentences in which he levels basic human truths in seeming juxtaposition to the more straightforward point-building scheme of proofing his opinions.  Occasionally, he also uses a dialogical counterplay of asking us to imagine things about one position and then asking questions about himself, all the while inferring an obvious point toward the validation of the Christian position as a logical premise. 

But it is the punctual proverbs that surprise most readers, for example:

Instability- it is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away. 213 Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.[6]

One of the most well known portions of Pensées is an argument that is popularly called “Pascal’s Wager”. This proposal is basically a logical explanation for why it would be unreasonable to not believe in God. Through using his wager, he hopes that intellectual people will consider believing in God to be a proper “wager” to take.

In a summary of proofs on believing in God the author gives yet another dailogical possibility:

Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.[7]

Pascal comes to this point, saying that people may come to God through the mind or the heart, and both are acceptable and not to be shunned.

Amazon Product Link: http://amzn.to/rFEhfy

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Blaise Pascal, “Pascal's Pensées ”, (Public Domain Books, Kindle Edition), Pg. 53

[2]Ibid., Pg. 78

[3]Ibid., Pg. 79

[4]Ibid., Pg. 80

[5]Ibid., Pg. 81

[6]Ibid., Pg. 63

[7]Ibid., Pg. 83