I felt an immediate kinship with Mathenia and his main character because of the similarities of our religious upbringing. Both of us lay claim to what I describe as “intense” Christianianity. But while my childhood and early adulthood provides mostly wholesome memories, Paradise Earth delves into the stomach-wrenching side of overbearing religion: church correction, disfellowshipping, door-to-door evangelizing, and more. We must pardon the sensationalism, because Mathenia writes from experience, having been himself ritually shunned by family and friends as an apostate for questioning his faith. Of course, the jaded dark side makes for good storytelling, even as it’s downplayed into “normal” Bible-ordained church practice. That’s the gut-wrenching part.

★★★★

In general, I enjoyed this one. I hardly agreed with everything Russell wrote—probably no Christian will—but it introduced several thought-provoking topics. The subtitle is A Guide to Answering 145 Lies and Legends, and that’s what it is. 145 short discussions, under the following headings:

Christianity is Dying Out

Christianity is Destructive

Christianity is Stupid

Jesus and the Bible Have Been Shown to Be False

Christian Beliefs Have Been Shown to Be Wrong

Miracles Are Impossible

Worldviews Cant Be Evaluated

What’s New Is True

I may as well get this out of the way first: Russell comes down hard on liberal Christians, who he says dilute the message of the Bible. Guys like me are allowed to call themselves followers of Jesus, but never Christians. Oddly, the book then closes with a passionate plea to recognize and embrace truth. Eh? Mr. Russell, it was my search for Truth—my deep, hard-nosed research into the Bible, with all its warts and human touches—that turned me into a liberal. Anyway …

The word “myth” may not be quite what Russell means. His “myths” seem to fall mostly into two categories: (1) inappropriate stereotypes about Christians, and (2) misinterpretations of scripture. For example, one of the myths is that Christians hate Jews, but guess what? Some do, and they find their justification in scripture to do so. Russell’s point is that such feelings and scriptural interpretation aren’t “Christian.”

I noticed that Russell has some strange ideas about atheism, and may need help dispelling some of the “myths” he himself believes about atheists. For example, in discussing the myth that Christians need a crutch, Russell turns the tables, explaining that atheism can also be a crutch; indeed, “The most persuasive argument for atheism is its permission to do whatever we feel like doing.” Huh?

Russell loves to talk about cosmology and science. He feels the findings of science now indicate that the existence of God is more likely than not, so such topics get quite a bit of press time.

The book is bold and serves as an apologetic for Russell’s particular brand of Christianity, which makes it interesting reading. You’ll learn who really burned down the great library at Alexandria (not the Christians), what the Word of God is (not the Bible), how quickly Christians began to worship Jesus as God (immediately), and where to find heaven and hell (in a spiritual state, not in a place). 145 topics was probably too many for 350 pages, as many of the discussions left me hungering for more.

★★★★★

How does one survive the loss of a daughter after outgrowing the Church? Where does one find comfort once belief in heaven has eroded?

Fiction: Martin Halsey grew up a Catholic, and retains an appreciation for ritual and church atmosphere, but can no longer believe. As an actor, Martin loves participating in the annual Christmas pageant, because he enjoys the inspiring story of Jesus. Yet he can no longer read the Bible as if it were meant to be understood literally. The book’s title, The Holy Family, refers not to Martin’s family but to Joseph, Mary and Jesus, in their “thoroughly human, earthy, and earthly presence” … the only way Martin can appreciate the holy trio.

Married now to an atheist and having raised two wonderful daughters, life is good … until tragedy strikes. Martin’s best friend is baffled at how to lend comfort, and often reminds Martin of the help that a belief in God can provide, but wisely refrains from pushing. As the Christmas pageant approaches, Martin must come to terms with his loss in his own way, with his own spiritual understanding, and without succumbing to what he considers merely a comforting fantasy.

This book is a respectful and thought-provoking peek into atheist thinking, without sacrificing an appreciation for the Bible. It’s gripping and deeply personal, one of those tales that will touch each reader in a different way. Definitely recommended.

★★★★★

Very good book, though it wasn’t quite what I expected. Its subtitle of The Reconciliation of Christianity and Biological Evolution led me to think that Glass intended to work his way through Genesis’s creation story and explain how each verse relates to what we understand about our evolutionary history. Not so at all; nearly the entire book is an explanation of what we know about evolution and how we know it to be true. You might say its intent is to give us permission as Christians to accept scientific findings. There really should be no doubt in our minds; says Glass:

“There is certainly a great deal more to learn about how evolution works and about how it has shaped the living world throughout history, but any doubts about whether biological evolution and speciation actually occur have long been dispelled.”

God, Glass suggests, exists outside of time. Each and every moment of time in human history and indeed all the history of our physical universe—past, present, and future—occurs simultaneously from the perspective of God. So, we do ourselves no favor by trying to understand the timeline of creation from God’s perspective. We know the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, the earth itself nearly 5 billion years old, and that life began three and a half billion years ago from a common ancestor and gradually diversified into the world we share today. Humans are a relatively late emergence on the earth, but this should not disturb us at all. From God’s outside-of-time perspective, the creation simply was and is (in a sense) instantaneous.

Free to embrace the truth of our origins, Glass leads us on a short journey of what really happened over the last four billion years, drawing from the fossil record and genetics, and from the many clues we have around us in the fields of medicine, horticulture, biogeography, and more. He addresses the objections that Creationists have to the scarcity of the fossil record, first pointing out that we can’t be too demanding of the record since only about one bone in a billion becomes fossilized, and then discussing the many transitory fossil examples we do have. As it turned out, I enjoyed the real focus of the book much more than the topic I anticipated. Glass writes plainly, explaining the facts in simple terms, so that a non-biologist can understand. His awe for God’s creation shines, even as he points out that Creationism and Intelligent Design are flawed attempts to hold to a literal reading of Genesis.

Inspiring and current, highly recommended.

★★★★

This story is a quest for purpose, by a middle-aged woman who seems to have lost ties with everything and everyone that once gave life meaning. She toys with religion, on a sort of intellectual level, trying to break through the intellectual shell to the experiential. She and her new friends find themselves “seeking something that is one breath, one heartbeat, one step away,” but with different approaches.

As it turns out, the spiritual side braids with the mundaneness of life, and the two cannot be torn apart. There is sadness in the story. It soon becomes apparent that even the most imaginative author would destroy the book’s theme by trying to tidy up all its confusion by book’s end … so we are left with a sort of melancholy realism. The draw of the characters, and the bizarre connection I felt to them, leaves me shaking my head. I can’t figure out if I’m happy to have read the story or not. I suspect I’ve fallen prey to precisely the emotions Hume wanted to evoke.

Lest my late-night meandering thoughts leave the wrong impression, I want to be clear that Hume writes with intelligence and feeling. A well-written, intriguing read.

★★★★★

O daughter of Babylon … blessed shall he be that taketh thy children and throweth them against the stones. –Psalm 137

In my book about Revelation, I suggest that this psalm may be both the most heartrending and the most disturbing passage in the Bible. Interesting that Vincent should choose it to highlight the question of how to read the Bible. What are we supposed to do with verses like this?

Vincent reminds us that much of the Bible is a cry of pain: “This psalm is in fact a very moving piece of dramatic poetry. If we were in the theater and heard someone cursing their enemy and calling on God for revenge in this kind of language, we would not ‘tut-tut’ or walk out in disgust! We would be caught up in the power of the drama, and go away saying what a good play it was. It is only the fact that the Bible has been set up as a theological and moral authority that makes this psalm a problem.”

Let the Bible be itself, Vincent suggests, and I really enjoyed his discussion. He describes briefly what to expect in the Bible, how it came to be, and the hazards of reading it as a divine instruction book. While it’s been a long time since I read the Bible as a fundamentalist, I do remember the awkwardness of trying to justify its errors, outdated morals, and claims of divinely sanctioned killing. Vincent has a knack for simple, understandable writing, bringing the Bible alive with both its warts and its beauty. Here’s an interesting observation: “If we believe God speaks through the bible, this must surely imply that God too is playful, experimental, changing and developing, even in some mysterious way self-contradictory and self-correcting—in other words, alive.”

Short book, but highly recommended.

★★★★★

Oh, man, do I relate. Here is an atheist who wants to lift atheism above the polarized wars that have developed from writings of the New Atheists. While I’ve never considered myself an atheist (I’m happy with the phrase “agnostic Christian”), even if I were, I would hesitate to take the title. I don’t want to be known as someone who tears down rather than builds up. I have more in common with nonbelievers than fundamentalists, but I have never been able to swim in the waters of an online atheist forum without feeling queasy … like I just plain don’t belong. I’m not alone: so uncomfortable are many people with atheists that polls show them to be the least electable group in America.

Why? Why are atheists so distrusted? Enter Chris Stedman, a believer-turned-atheist who misses the goodness of Christianity, and feels happiest when he is joining the Church in the soup kitchen.

Yet, the “regular Joe” atheist is as misunderstood as anyone of any contrary belief system, insists Stedman. The problem is, when there is little familiarity, extremists become the face of a religious movement, and this is just as true of non-religion (atheism). The New Atheists have managed to monopolize the public discourse on atheism. They have succeeded in making atheism more publicly known, but at what cost?

The goal of the New Atheist movement is the total eradication of religion. Confront the religious, expose the idiocy of believing, and sneer it under the table. The antireligious rhetoric spewed by aggressive atheists is not a critique of theology, says Stedman. That, he could deal with on an intellectual level. Rather, such attacks are “based in a willful ignorance of what it actually means to be religious and of the way religious lives are lived, and turn religious people into a cheaply mocked caricature.” Chris tells of trying to fit in at an American Atheists gathering in New Jersey, which was “packed full of blasphemy sessions and speeches comparing religion to sexually transmitted diseases.” He recalls how “Witnessing the sheer vitriol some expressed toward the religious, I actually cried—hot, angry tears. I called friends of mine back home—atheists, no less—and recalled what I’d seen … One friend said to me: ‘You see, this is why I don’t want to call myself an atheist.’”

Today, says Stedman, he cannot recount the number of fellow atheists and agnostics who do not want to be associated with the movement. What has gone wrong? How did atheism sink to the level of polarized fundamentalism it claims to despise, and can the image be fixed?

An atheist chaplain! Hee, hee! I doubt the New Atheists are amused, but I am in awe. This is a captivating, inspiring, must-read book, whether you are a believer or an atheist. Get it now.