Friday, August 26, 2011

Upstaged


My four-year-old grandson, Drew, is a fine boy. He’s just past that stage where he’s figured out how smart he is and how dumb his parents are. (Grandparents, of course, know this stage reemerges multiple times in a child’s development . . . or else it just continues in one long, uninterrupted stretch from age three until he has children of his own.)

Anyway, a couple of months ago, Drew began telling his mother she was wrong about everything. His mother, my first-born, wisely and patiently endured and ignored him until it became clear that his contradictions weren’t going away without her help. So she very firmly told him to be quiet. Which Drew did. For a few seconds.

And then he had an idea. He said he wanted to sing a song about a train. Not wishing to be unreasonable, Mom agreed. Then Drew began to sing his train song. It went, more or less, like this:

“You think you know, but you don’t!”

Drew's mom has also just passed through a stage, one that began at bewildered and, in a flash of insight at Mach 1, wound up at shrewd.

Stifling a laugh, she sent him to his room.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

No Contest! Creation Wins!

A Review of

It Couldn’t Just Happen, by Lawrence O. Richards

(Tommy Nelson: A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 2011)

In some ways this book is excellent: it is brimming with fantastic facts, gorgeous photography, and sound argumentation against the Theory of Evolution. It is organized and argued clearly so that the advanced ten-year-old or the average teenager would have little difficulty following or understanding. From Part One, which deals with the origins of the universe and Earth as the “Odd Planet,” right through Part Four, which deals with the special creation and status of human beings, the author weaves the Biblical view like a brilliant, red thread. Part Five, The Book That Didn’t Just Happen, deals with the historicity and believability of the Bible and Christian faith. More on that in a moment.

Young Christians and their parents will find affirmation and ammunition aplenty in this book. For instance, in Chapter 11, “The Wonders of Design,” the author points out that no one who examined a modern car would argue that the car had not been designed, that it had “just happened.” Not a chance that the air conditioning, radio, the Global Positioning System had come about by accident. All of its integrated features reveal a carefully planned design and suggest one or more designers. And a car is nowhere near as complicated or integrated as plant and animal life on Earth, let alone the vast, interrelated systems that operate all over the globe and throughout the cosmos.

Another example is the argument from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that any physical system left to itself will decay. Yet (and especially if, as Evolutionists claim, the earth is millions of years old) the earth’s systems, such as the processes in the oceans and the atmosphere, aren’t decaying. On the contrary, says Dr. Richards, they constantly readjust themselves; they reorganize. Evolution can't explain that.

Even though I myself am a believing, professing Christian, I could have done with less of what you might call Biblical polemics, inserted and repeated in every chapter and every major division. Children and teens are smart enough to know when they are being “sold.” They want to discover things, to think things through for themselves, and this book doesn’t allow for much of that.

It Couldn't Just Happen has some faults, most of them minor—like far too many exclamation points!—and I have disagreements with Dr. Richards’s theology in places (recognizing that he has theological credentials and I don’t), but all in all, this book is a wonderful addition to the Christian soldier’s arsenal.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Monday, June 20, 2011

Long Delayed BookSneeze Review

A Review of

Winston Churchill by John Perry

(Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN, 2010)

This biography is an introduction to the life of Winston Churchill, painting it in broad, but not deep, strokes. The book takes us from Churchill’s sad childhood to the apex of his career as England’s Prime Minister during World War II and to his decline and death decades later. It also treats of lesser known episodes when Churchill served as foreign war correspondent in Cuba, India, and the Sudan.

Since the book is part of the “Christian Encounters” series, the author seems to have set out to find Christian influences in Churchill’s life. Finding a dearth of these and little evidence that his subject seriously believed or practiced Christianity, he is forced to conclude that Churchill’s Christian influences were mainly passive and “cultural,” part of the fabric of life in the times in which he lived. I find this the major flaw of the book.

What puzzles, even after reading this biography, is how the mostly neglected child of wealthy, leisured aristocrats became an oratorical genius and the political mouthpiece of England. It is difficult not to believe, as he did, that it was his destiny.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”