December 2023 MBR The Christian Studies Shelf

The Christian Studies Shelf

Facing the Last Enemy: Death and the Christian
Guy Prentiss Waters
Ligonier Ministries
www.ligonier.org
9781642894349, $18.00, HC, 157pp

https://www.amazon.com/Facing-Last-Enemy-Death-Christian/dp/1642894346

Synopsis: When we're standing at the gravesite, death gives little closure and leaves many questions unanswered. Despite the common claim that "dying is just a natural part of life", people seem to avoid this unsettling subject more than ever. Yet the Bible doesn't shy away from the reality of death. God's Word has the answers we need to face the grave with confidence in our risen Redeemer.

With the publication of "Facing the Last Enemy: Death and the Christian" by Ligonier Ministries, Dr. Guy Waters provides the Bible's answers to essential questions about death, dying, and what comes after this life. Here is balm for the grieving, counsel for caretakers, and guidance to help God's people rest in Christ's victory as we come to life's final battle.

Critique: Inspired and inspiring, "Facing the Last Enemy: Death and the Christian" is especially and unreservedly recommended reading for any member of the Christian community, regardless of their denominational affiliation, who is affected by and having to deal with the death of a loved one or of anyone else. While also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $8.99), "Facing the Last Enemy: Death and the Christian" is appropriate for church, seminary, community, and college/university library Christian Theology and Death/Dying collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Dr. Guy Prentiss Waters (https://rts.edu/people/dr-guy-waters) is the James M. Baird Jr. Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Jackson, Miss. Dr. Waters studied at the University of Pennsylvania (B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (M.Div.), and Duke University (Ph.D.). His research and writing particularly focus on the letters and theology of Paul, the use of Scripture in the New Testament, and the Synoptic Gospels. Before accepting the call to RTS, he taught at Duke Divinity School and Belhaven College.

A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent
Christine Valters Paintner, author
Kreg Yingst, illustrator
Broadleaf Books
www.broadleafbooks.com
9781506492117, $19.99, PB, 237pp

https://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind-Fast-Feeding-Hungers/dp/1506492118

Synopsis: Fasting is not just the physical practice of giving up food. Fasting can also be a way to combat our culture of endless distractions and busyness. Fasting is an act of letting go, of making more internal space to listen to the sacred whispers of our lives.

With the publication of "A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent", the reader can join Christine Valters Paintner (online abbess of Abbey of the Arts), on a spiritual journey through seven different kinds of fasts, including fasting from control, from our attachments, from our grasping, and more. When we practice these fasts, we can discover unexpected spiritual gifts, as well as answers to deeper questions, leading us to ask: "What is my true hunger?"

Perfect for Lent, or any period when a deeper intention to clarify your true hunger is needed, "A Different Kind of Fast" helps us enter our hearts, stripping away old patterns and habits. Featuring striking woodcuts from artist Kreg Yingst, "A Different Kind of Fast" draws on the wisdom of the desert elders, while Christine Paintner offers practical contemplative practices like lectio divina, breath prayer, visio divina, meditation with desert wisdom, contemplative walks, and creative rituals.

As we fast from rushing, planning, being strong, holding it all together, seeking certainty, and control, we can softly reorient ourselves toward that which nourishes and fulfills us, for the reflective Lenten season and beyond.

Critique: Inherently interesting, inspired and inspiring, "A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent" is an extraordinary contribution to the Christian community and an unreservedly recommended pick for church and seminary library collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of clergy, seminary students, and lay members of the Christian community that "A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99).

Editorial Note #1: Christine Valters Paintner (https://abbeyofthearts.com) is the online abbess at Abbey of the Arts, a virtual global monastery without walls, offering retreats, classes, books, and resources to nurture contemplative practice and creative expression. A writer, artist, spiritual director, retreat facilitator, and teacher, she earned her PhD in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley and is a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant and Educator (REACE). Paintner is the author of many books, including The Artist's Rule and Breath Prayer. She and her husband, John, live on the west coast of Ireland.

Editorial Note #2: Kreg Yingst (http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/143) is an illustrator with a focus on block printing, with original works created from carved blocks of wood, linoleum, or other materials, and printed onto paper or other media. He received his BA from Trinity University in San Antonio and his MA in painting from Eastern Illinois University. His work can be found in numerous international public and private collections, including Purdue University, Indiana and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, South Carolina. He lives in Pensacola, Florida.

The Father's House: Discovering Our Home in the Trinity
James Dominic OP
Pauline Books & Media
www.pauline.org
9780819827593, $21.95, PB, 176pp

https://www.amazon.com/Fathers-House-Discovering-Home-Trinity/dp/0819827592

Synopsis: What is the purpose of life? Who am I? How do I find love?

With the publication of "The Father's House: Discovering Our Home in the Trinity", Father James Brent, O.P., shows how friendship with Jesus Christ answers these burning questions. This approachable guide to the spiritual life explains how to live a transformative friendship with Christ that leads us to the fullness of life "in the Father's house"

Readers of "The Father's House" will learn how to effectively navigate the conflicting thoughts and desires that afflict the human heart and discover their true selves in God.

Critique: Of particular and special interest to young adults struggling to deal with the most fundamental questions of identity, purpose, and their relationship to Jesus Christ and the Church, "The Father's House: Discovering Our Home in the Trinity" is as informative as it is inspiring. While highly recommended for church and seminary collections, it should be noted for the personal reading lists of clergy, seminary students, and all members of the Christian community that "The Father's House" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).

Editorial Note: Father James Dominic Brent, O.P., teaches at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He regularly lectures for the Thomistic Institute and Aquinas 101, contributes to SpiritualDirection.com, and preaches retreats to college students and young adults.

A Pack of Cigarettes for the Mind
C.J.S. Hayward
C.J.S. Hayward Publications
https://cjshayward.com
9798394683954, $20.00 Hardcover/$20.24 Paper/$5.00 ebook

https://cjshayward.com/pcm

A Pack of Cigarettes for the Mind: Selections from the Hidden Price Tags: An Eastern Orthodox Look at the Dark Side of Technology and Its Best Use series differs from most other writings condemning technology because it's more than a critique of technology's alienating forces, but a package of solutions. Within the allegories, cautions, and remarks about technology's allure and dangers lies a series of strategies everyday readers can employ to counter and thwart many of the soul-diminishing threats technology poses (especially to current generations).

These specifics are wound into discourses that examine routines and roles for making important changes: "What is the advantage of having a phone then? Wouldn't it be simpler to not own one? I personally think there is much to commend about not owning a smartphone, but it is a socially mandated technology. You should be able to get along well enough to have a paper planner and pad and a standalone GPS to navigate by, but this is how to skim the cream off of technology and not hurt yourself with its murkier depths." Followed by eleven specific moves to achieve this goal of reducing reliance on devices and the lure of the screen, this example pinpoints the heart of this intention ("...how to skim the cream off of technology and not hurt yourself with its murkier depths.")

Admonitions and advice to "Trample technologies underfoot as much as it takes to have a life" are thus cemented by the heart of this book - how to get there - issuing a clarion call for change that also holds the promise of spiritual and social transformation. Hayward poses no simple task or singular solution. A mindset change over values and perceptions of engagement is required of readers. This may prove challenging to some, but is of utmost importance in any drive to reconnect with the world beyond the facades of modern technological devices. This book is a powerful introduction to Hayward's thoughts on the topic and should be consulted first, before Luddite's Guide to Technology or his other writings about technological impact and its mitigation.

While adults will likely be the pursuers of this discourse on how to put technology in its proper place, ideally (and, perhaps, especially) A Pack of Cigarettes for the Mind should be given to young audiences already mired in technological attraction, debated in their classrooms, and considered by book clubs and libraries devoted to discourses that challenge the concept of proper use of technology in everyday life. To bypass that life in favor of a screenshot is to also set aside too many spiritual and social connections. A Pack of Cigarettes for the Mind returns these facets to life through a series of insights that are concrete in their action plans and wider-ranging than most technology examinations in their opportunities for reflection.

Hidden Price Tags: Volume 4, Nitty, Gritty Ascesis
C.J.S. Hayward
C.J.S. Hayward Publications
https://cjshayward.com
9798376519646, $10.00 Paper/$20.00 Hardcover/$5.00 ebook

https://cjshayward.com/hpt4

Hidden Price Tags: Volume 4, Nitty, Gritty Ascesis is the fourth volume in a seven-book series about technology's promises and costs. It builds on its predecessors, providing cautionary notes about how to eliminate unnecessary screen time and providing both thought-provoking and controversial condemnations of branding, socially accepted technological habits, and more. Controversial, because the discussions embrace alternative ideas of technology's appropriateness and applications which will go beyond many avid users' perceptions of what those benefits and possibilities could be. Hayward's cosmological and spiritual approach to better understanding technology and its impact on the soul is particularly well-developed and inviting, providing fodder for discussions and discourses among all kinds of spiritual thinkers about broader topics such as addiction, pain and pleasure, and bigger-picture insights.

Hayward's passion for his subject translates to discussions which may be identified as some by "run-on sentences" because they are laden with facts and emotional attraction: "I had earlier hoped to wind this down with the classic monastic advice given when one is tempted to escape: "Persevere in alternating prayer and work, and one can eventually emerge a victor," and with an anecdote that one of the times I repented of another layer of this vice I desired, instead of God putting me somewhere else as I sought escape, that a loving God had put me in quite an awesome place without escape, and that in the here and now where God has placed me I am in a very real sense in communion with the stars in the sky and the salt in the sea."

As personal experience and insight dovetail with historical precedent, God's intention, and spiritual reflection, Nitty, Gritty Ascesis becomes both an invitation and a demand, requiring of its readers an attention to deconstructing and revealing not only God's intention, but the foundations of the English language and human desire. The subject broadens to quite politically incorrect passages in Scriptures and the special challenges of interpreting the history of yesterday with the language and mindset of modern times. General-interest readers and religious scholars alike receive a series of in-depth, demanding, and enlightening works on Christian Orthodoxy's connections to efforts to glorify God outside of the murky confusion of human affairs and focuses.

What evolves here isn't just a treatise about technology or Orthodoxy, but a well-reasoned and passionate reflection on the processes and meaning of life itself: "This life is an apprenticeship, and even now, when we may be in situations we do not like, God is asking us to be apprentices, learning to be knights riding the warhorse he gives us even in the situations we might not like. The life of Heaven begins on earth, even in an economic depression."

Followers of Hayward's extensive writings who look for more depth and complexity in his works will find it in Nitty, Gritty Ascesis, which is recommended reading for Christian Orthodoxy members and, especially, for groups interested in wide-ranging material offering a thought-provoking blend of philosophical, spiritual, and social reflection.

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