What I care about is whether the stories people tell about the Bible and God motivate people to make the world a better place. I like Brian’s stories because I believe that’s the effect they have on those who are open to them. Brian’s stories encourage people to make Christlike love the goal of the church, to share with those in need and to be less wasteful with limited global resources. If people do those things, that will wonderfully contribute to improving the world we live in.

Some of Brian’s stories in his latest book line up with the conventional conservative Christian theology I learned. Others differ significantly: for example, Brian rejects the conventional narrative ascribed to the Bible. He depicts it with this diagram

Brian comments

this master narrative starts with one category of things—good and blessed—and then ends up with two categories of things: good and blessed on the top line and evil and tormented on the bottom.

He continues

Can we dare to wonder, given an ending that has more evil and suffering than the beginning, if it would have been better for this story never to have begun?

Indeed. I have dared to wonder that and it’s very refreshing to see that I’m not alone.

Brian rejects this narrative because it is more influenced by Greek Platonic thought than by the collection of writings which comprise the Bible. Reading Brian’s reasoning was an “Aha!” moment since the conventional narrative does not seem very ‘Jewish’ to me based on my knowledge of how Jewish people view the world.

Instead Brian draws a narrative from the Bible about ‘God the creator, liberator and reconciler’. Brian leaves many things more open-ended than the theology I was taught. He writes “history is not pre-recorded”. He doesn’t specific the extent of God’s reconciliation (unless I missed it), but his emphasis on the verse in Romans “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” leaves the door open for universal reconciliation.

Later, Brian provocatively states: the ‘ultimate revelation of God [is] not [seen] in the Bible, but in Jesus’.

Why not the Bible? Because Brian believes the Bible is a collection of writings which reflect an evolving human understanding of God. This gives him the freedom to reject troublesome Bible passages such as those about God being violent. Jesus was not violent, so the authors who wrote that God was must have had a flawed understanding of God.

I particularly enjoyed Brian’s comments on the book of Job. I appreciate reading different thoughts and ideas about Bible stories I’m familiar with.

I expect people happy with conventional conservative Christian beliefs will ignore what Brian has to say (or write critiques detailing where they think he is wrong). But Christians who have become troubled by those beliefs just as Brian became troubled – and I think there are many – will appreciate this book. I expect they will find some of their own questions and journey reflected in his, just as I did. And receive validation, reassurance and hope for the future.

Ben did very well on one of his two individual tests: he placed 2nd out of 180 students in Calculus (scroll down to Calculus Test to see his result). It was neat that instead of the usual trophy or plaque they gave him an abacus with HMMT 2010 on for coming 2nd. He came 30th overall in the individual rankings (you can see that on this page).

Their team, Chicago Omega, came joint first in their chosen category, Team B (scroll down to Team B to see their result). Ben said the best schools competing chose the harder category, Team A, but even so it’s neat they came joint first! Ben was pleased that his Chicago Omega got better scores than another Chicago area school (IMSA) which specializes in maths and science.

I found the book very readable. Gina is a keen observer of details and an excellent writer. I enjoy stories and was glad Gina chose to share her experience that way. Her reflections woven into the chronological narrative helped me understand what was going on inside her without overly interrupting the flow.

A central tension of the book is created by Gina wondering if/when/how she should tell the Evangelicals she’s spending most time with that she’s not actually a believer. This as much as anything kept me reading: I wanted to know if she did eventually come clean and if so, how they reacted.

From the title it sounds like this is a book about what Gina learned about Evangelicals. It is; but equally, it is a book about how spending time with them changed her. And it’s not just her attitudes about Evangelicals which change. Gina adopts some of their ways and finds herself happier as a result.

I found it hard not to be critical of Gina for pretending to be an Evangelical. However, it was clear she was not pretending in order to take advantage of anyone. And when she realizes she’s developing friendships close enough that it’s inevitable her pretense is going to hurt some people, she is genuinely sorry.

If this book gives you a sense of déjà vu, you’ve probably read (or at least heard about) The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose. Kevin spent a semester undercover at Liberty University (Jerry Falwell’s university) for similar reasons to Gina. I can’t compare the two books very well since I’ve only read some reviews and one excerpt from Kevin’s. It does sound like there’s overlap in what Kevin and Gina experienced and learned. They both let go of Evangelical stereotypes and were open to their own lives being challenged and changed . Gina’s experience clearly affected her deeply – perhaps more deeply than Kevin’s, since hers lasted a couple of years rather than just a semester.

If you’re an outsider open to going beyond Evangelical stereotypes or an Evangelical interested in a respectful outsider’s experience, I think you’ll enjoy this book. It’s due out next week – March 2nd.

I’ve been helping with churchrater.com, a website where anyone and everyone can post their rating of any church in the US.

This week ChurchRater was featured on Seattle’s King5 news and written about in the Seattle Times.

This publicity has brought more more feedback, some of it negative. Christians are worried that ChurchRater will damage the church and nothing good can come out of it.

I know you don’t all participate in church anymore, but even so, what do you think? Is ChurchRater likely to hurt or help churches?

I won’t take it personally if you don’t approve of it so fire away.

We drove down to Peoria yesterday to hear Ben play in the IMEA (Illinois Music Educators Association) All State Honors Orchestra concert. In the violin seating auditions Ben placed first and so he was concertmaster – very exciting! He had a couple of solos in Red Cape Tango (based on Superman) by Michael Daugherty – here are the excerpts with his solos:

Download Red Cape Tango (1st excerpt)

Download Red Cape Tango (2nd excerpt)

Here’s a more compressed video of the whole of Red Cape Tango (his solos are from about 2:15-3:15 and 9:45-10:45 minutes into the video):

Download Red Cape Tango

(Click on the photo of the orchestra at the top of this post to see a bigger version of it, then click ‘all sizes’, ‘original size’ to see the full size image)