C.H. Cobb's Blog, page 7

Book Review: The Virtue of Nationalism

Yoram Hazony has constructed a brilliant defense of nationalism over against the utopian vision of imperialists such as the UN and the EU. He also has an interesting take on why Israel is so hated by Europeans, and why the Palestinians, Muslims, and much of the Third World get by with so little censure by the UN and the EU. Carefully argued, carefully documented, Hazony makes a powerful and scholarly case for his contentions. The logic of his argument is painstakingly constructed and easy to follow--he communicates it well as a writer and a thinker. Hazony puts forward a thesis that is difficult to refute; I find myself agreeing with him in his main points.

Criticism: Hazony appears to write as, at most, a deist. God is an uninvolved bystander if He even exists. Hazony treats the OT as if one of its main purposes is establishing the "right" kind of government for Israel. In other words, Hazony treats reality as if the big story is the unending struggle of politics, philosophies, and peoples--a struggle that has neither beginning nor end. He seems to completely miss the big story of the Old Testament (the promised coming of Messiah). He's unable to deal with (or at least, does not deal with) the fundamental reality of the nature of man: that each person is intrinsically morally corrupt, and that this moral corruption becomes part of the fabric--and the explanation--of our actions, politics and philosophies. Consequently, his unrelenting logic and excellent argument about relations among peoples and nations would only be completely true in a world in which God does not exist or is not involved, and in which all men are not morally corrupt. But that is not the world we live in, with the result that his argument is incomplete and at some levels inadequate when he gets to the reasons for the hatred and violence we see in the world.

Good book, well worth reading. The criticisms above do not vitiate his main point of the virtue of nationalism.

Book Review: David Powlison's Power Encounters: Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare

One of the things that struck me first about this book was the irenic way Powlison handles those he disagrees with. The doctrine of spiritual warfare has a wide variety of self-styled experts vying for the attention of Christians. Many of these “experts” appear to draw their doctrine of demonology and spiritual warfare more from the writings of novelist Frank Peretti than from Scripture.
Practitioners and writers on spiritual warfare typically concentrate on what Powlison terms the Ekballistic Ministry Mode (EMM). The Greek derivation of ekballistic means “to cast out.” The idea of identifying, naming, and then casting out demons is the central feature of EMM. Sin, rather than being sourced from our old nature, is largely seen as the product of demons of lust, greed, etc.
Powlison challenges the entire EMM schema. He does so without using any cheap shots (which would be frankly easy to do, given some of the ideas of EMM practitioners). Rather, he makes his points with careful, contextual, exegetical precision, dismantling the careless interpretations of the scripture texts normally cited in support of an EMM-style ministry. In fact, I would say the skillful exegesis Powlison employs is the defining characteristic of this little book.
Another treasure of Power Encountersis the wise manner in which Powlison distinguishes between moralevil and situational evil. His point is that the distinction between the two different kinds of evil calls for a different response to each, a matter that EMM completely overlooks.
Powlison’s answer to EMM is what he calls “classic mode” ministry: helping Christians deal with troublesome sin in their lives, as well as demonic oppression, by taking them straight to the cross. The gospel is the most powerful weapon. It is the only weapon needed to completely defeat the forces of darkness.
The worst part of Power Encountersis that it has gone out of print. That should never have been allowed to happen to a resource this valuable. Every pastor and biblical counselor should have a copy of this little book. Used bookstores are charging three figures for old copies. I purchased mine from biblicalcounselingbooks@gmail.comand more are available from them. They have secured permission to make reprints. For a slender book weighing in at 160 pages, $30 was a fairly steep price. It was worth every penny. Five stars, highly recommended.

Book Review: MacArthur's Remaining Faithful in Ministry

Often it is the slender books, the brief books, that are most profound. In this class I would include such writings as Andrew Murray’s Humility: the Journey toward Holiness, Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy, and Stott’s Basic Christianity. I can now add MacArthur’s RemainingFaithful in Ministry to this list. At just seventy-seven pages it is a book that punches far above its weight.
MacArthur writes on selected texts from 2 Corinthians 1-4, drawing nine points of faithful ministry out of Paul’s testimony to the Corinthian church. In one sense it is standard MacArthur: solid yet accessible exegesis, comparing Scripture with Scripture, delving into Greek terms when it enhances the meaning of the English text, combined with biblically faithful application. The power of his writing lies wholly within his skillful use of the biblical text.
The subtitle is 9 Essential Convictions for Every Pastor, and the book delivers abundantly on that theme. Every man in pastoral ministry should read this book and come under the weight of its convictions. Five stars, highly recommended.

Review of Dean Inserra’s The Unsaved Christian: Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel

The Unsaved Christian is a great book, and is going to be discomfiting for many people who view themselves as right with God, but whose views on that score are wholly without warrant.
First, a bit of historical perspective: parts of the United States were swept by revivalism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Much good came out those revivals, but there were also some results that were not particularly praiseworthy. One of them was a reductionism of redemption: in many cases it was reduced to a “decision” rather than a whole-life reorientation around repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. Salvation is not less than a decision, but it is much more than that.
Add to that an unbalanced emphasis on eternal security (especially in the mid to late 20th century), virtually separating the doctrine of assurance from the “new life” aspect of regeneration. And add to that a sort of “second-blessing” theology that teaches the decision to yield to Jesus as Lord and Master is separate from the decision to trust Him as Savior, and what you wind up with is a culture that views salvation as little more than checking the right boxes. Salvation becomes a cultural inheritance of white, conservative, flag-waving Americans, something akin to joining the Republican party.
Dean Inserra’s book is a gentle but firm expose of that problem: cultural Christianity is not biblical Christianity, and it is decidedly not a “Christianity” that saves. He deals with a variety of flavors of it: moral theism, watered-down mainline Protestantism, the Bible Belt cultural ambience, the confusion of patriotism with Christianity, and so on. One particularly good chapter explores the Christmas and Easter attendance phenomenon and yields some rather surprising observations.
Inserra is not swinging a club—he’s not browbeating. He’s quite gentle, in fact, and includes questions at the end of each chapter for self-evaluation. But he also pulls no punches. Chapter 3 is entitled “Civic Religion: Generic Faith that Demands and Asks Nothing of Its Followers.” His view of the true gospel, biblical faith, salvation, the effects of regeneration, and so on are fully orthodox.
Buckle your spiritual seatbelt, put on your crash helmet, and read this book. Here at Bible Fellowship, we’re going to go through this book in Sunday School. It’s too important to leave sitting on the shelf. For some, it might make an eternity of difference. Five stars, highly recommended.

Book Review: Carrier, A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier, by Tom Clancy

While Clancy's book SSN  (my review is here) is oversold by its cover, Carrier is undersold--and is much, much better than SSN. Clancy does far more than just giving us a tour of a modern supercarrier (although he does do that, and does it very well). He gives us a much more in-depth look at the Navy itself, and its evolution in ships, aircraft, and technology since the '50s. I was gratified to see that he didn't pull any punches, but exposed various areas of weakness in leadership, vision, willingness to employ new technology, spats and turfism with the other uniformed services, and so forth.

But he doesn't throw the Navy under the bus--he also reports how those longstanding problems are being resolved with a new generation of leadership. Overall, Clancy makes a good cheerleader for the USN, but he does it with eyes wide open. Be aware that the book was written in 1999, so some of the material is dated.

At the end of the book Clancy writes a brief scenario involving Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan. It's short and entertaining, but suffers from a similar problem that the scenarios in SSN suffer from: everything works right for the good guys, and everything goes wrong for the bad guys. The scenario is not designed to be realistic, but rather to display capabilities. Even so, it would have been a little more gripping if the US had not been overwhelmingly successful.

I read this book while researching carrier operations for my own novel, Pacific Threat, a tale that is set in 1988. Clancy's Carrier delivered. Four stars.

Book Review: 50 People every Christian Should Know, by Warren Wiersbe

This book was an enjoyable read—fifty short chapters composed of biographies of post-reformation Christians, starting with Luther’s wife, Katherine von Bora. A parade of well-known and unknown (to me, anyway) preachers and missionaries fill the pages with excellent biographical sketches and reading recommendations if you want to know the individuals better.
On the positive side the book was very encouraging in that it detailed how God used very different people, with an assortment of strengths, weaknesses, and eccentricities. It provides hope that God can use me with my own quirks. It was also humbling to observe the almost super-human discipline these men and women of God displayed in their studies and their ministries. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a lazy one among them. It motivates me to do better.
On the negative side I was surprised to see some of the characters that Wiersbe wrote about, whose theological commitments to the substitutionary atonement of Christ were suspect at best or completely absent at worst. Apparently their greatness as homileticians, combined with the crowds they drew, covered a multitude of sins. Some of these could be identified as unvarnished theological liberals.
That said, I walked away from this book almost more impressed by Wiersbe himself than by the individuals he wrote about, although I don’t believe that was his intention. The breadth and volume of Wiersbe’s reading is nothing short of astounding. To read all the books of sermons and biographies and “Yale Lectures on Preaching” that he recommends would take me multiple lifetimes. Wiersbe must be a speed reader and a man of prodigious memory.
Three-and-a-half stars. Recommended.

Book Review: Tom Clancy's SSN

This is a really bad book. Allow me to rephrase that: if you are looking for an exciting novel centered on  submarine warfare, you need to keep looking. SSN is not the answer to your search. As a novel, it’s really poor. The back cover blurb really, really oversells the book.
On the other hand, if you’re writing your own novel and doing research on late-Cold-War era submarine operations, capabilities, and tactics, it’s a useful book. Tip: buy the Kindle Edition so you can search for words. If there’s anything I expect from Clancy it’s accuracy, and SSN does not disappoint on that score. As a writer, I’m often wondering what would the conversation in the control room sound like when the captain is confronted with various tactical scenarios. I’ve saved multiple hours of research on questions like that with this book. But most readers are simply looking for a good novel. This isn’t it.
In fact, it really isn’t a novel at all. It amounts to the proper way to play out the fifteen scenarios in the video game by the same name. As fiction goes it is frankly boring. The good guys always win, the bad guys always make conveniently stupid decisions, there are almost never any hardware failures. The captain is a cardboard-cutout character and the rest of the crew do not even merit names. The submarine, the Cheyenne(SSN-773), a Los Angeles-class fast attack boat, has more kills than a machine-gunner taking down a feedlot of cows, and receives about the same amount of effective return fire that you would expect from a herd of trigger-happy bovines who don’t happen to possess any weapons.

Clancy is one of my favorite military adventure/action writers. Everything else I have read by him is edge-of-your-seat-miss-your-bedtime-can’t-tear-yourself-away good. But not only is SSN not his best outing, this book sinks at its moorings, never even pulling away from its berth. You want a good novel? Mothball this hulk and keep looking. Two stars.

Darke County Update #6

[Editor’s Note: Some portions of the following might be true, though the author claims plausible deniability.]
So here I was, sitting in my Dakota, waiting for the light at Aldi’s to turn green. That darn light changes with glacial speed. While waiting I was enjoying the latest round of global warming, shivering and watching my breath freeze to the inside of my windshield. Was wearing gloves so my fingers wouldn’t stick to the steering wheel. That stoplight is so slow I began to worry that my truck just might freeze itself solid to the pavement whilst waiting for the green. If that did happen and I wasn’t able to pull forward when the light turned, the people in the two-car rush-hour backup behind me would be pretty unhappy.
On the other hand, if I did get frozen to the pavement I’d only miss one turn of the light. The next time it turned green it would probably be sunny and 70. So I should be okay.
Speaking of the weather, the latest cold snap has got me thinking that global warming must really be true. Apparently the way it works is that all the regions of the world collect their coldest air and send it through some sort of polar vortex right into Darke County, Ohio. Meanwhile, everyone else gets all the warm air. If my understandin’ is correct, then it’s gettin’ warmer everywhere but Darke. So it truly is Global Warming, combined with a mite bit of Darke County Cooling. Aren’t we lucky.
Which reminds me of squirrels, although I’m not sure why it should.
I am engaged in a cold war with the squirrels. I suppose you could say it’s a “cold war” because of the Darke County Cooling we are experiencing. But truth be told, it’s a “cold war” because I haven’t started shootin’. Yet.
But I am seriously contemplating going nuclear. That would be twelve-gauge nuclear. Don’t tell the Sheriff I said that.
In any case, those darn squirrels have gotten into my birdseed again. I’ve got a cake feeder hanging from a pole with one of those allegedly squirrel-proof baffles around the middle of the pole. Supposed to keep the furry rodents from climbing up the pole and getting to the birdseed cake.
Have you ever tried to put one of those allegedly squirrel-proof baffles together? I don’t advise it. The consarned thing comes in two halves (otherwise you couldn’t thread it onto the pole). Each half possesses some sort of system of alternating plastic tabs that interlock just so with the other half. I am quite sure the patent on this impossible device was secured by the same guy who designed the Rubiks Cube. You need four hands all working in perfect coordination, while you are simultaneously eyeballing the contraption from above and below, so you can get all those interlocking tabs to interlock with the interlocking tabs on the other half. It’s just not going to happen. Not without a substantial loss of your sanctification, at any rate.
When you finally get the silly thing together for the second time (it takes twice, because the first time you forget to assemble it with the stupid pole on the inside) and you are lying prostrate on the frozen ground in contented exhaustion, you experience a momentary giddy feeling (probably best characterized as madness). This arises from the misplaced confidence you feel, to wit: if it took you, an intelligent human being, three hours to assemble this thing then the dumb squirrels will never figure out how to disassemble it. Victory at last! The war is won! The seedcakes are safe!
Until you watch those rascally creatures take that doggone thing apart in less than five minutes, grab the seedcake and run up a tree with it, chuckling all the while. That, my friends, is when I headed for the shotgun. Gonna turn this cold war hot.
And that’s the news from Greenville.

Darke County Update #5

[Editor’s Note: Some of the following could maybe be true, though I wouldn’t put any money on it myself.]
There’s an important expression writers use. Whenever you hear someone teaching writing, or talking about the process of writing, someone’s gonna say it: “less is more.”
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Down right contradictory. But it’s true. Less is more. Leastwise, it is if you’re not talking about cash or wearing clothes. I can testify about the cash part. Less is definitely not more.
As regards clothing, I think some of the young folks get confused about that expression. Maybe their English Composition teachers didn’t tell ‘em, “Hey, we’re just talking about writing. Adverbs, adjectives, the passive voice. Words. That sort of thing.” These young people appear to believe it has something to do with how much clothes one wears. Less is more, right? In any case, there’s some young folks givin’ that saying a whirl when they dress for school.
I was talkin’ to Claudette the other day. And it really did threaten to take most of the day. The conversation, I mean. Talking to Claudette mostly involves listening—it’s sort of one-way. Claudette is one of those folks you wish applied the “less is more” principle to her conversation. Was gonna say I wish she applied it to her yackingbut being as how I don’t want to upset my wife, we’ll just stick with conversation.
Claudette always has plenty of conversation. I do believe that lady could talk the hind leg off a mule. When you run into Claudette, you don’t check your watch, you check your calendar.
As I was saying, I was talking to Claudette and she was sharing, well, prayer requests about her neighbors. Leastwise, that’s what she called ‘em. Funny how those prayer requests were givin’ me a lot of information that I had no business knowing and she had no business telling.
So I was trying to distract her onto safer territory. “Say,” I says, “did you know Wilson’s sow had piglets?” Which is true. Wilson’s sow really did have her piglets.
Claudette snorted, “Oh, tosh! Josephine told me that two whole days ago. But you probably haven’t heard that Wilson’s wife was shouting at him in their backyard yesterday. Josephine thinks we should pray for their marriage and I agree.”
“Actually, Claudette, Wilson’s wife was shoutin’ at him because he forgot where he put his hearing aids and that’s the only way she can get his attention when he’s not wearin’ ‘em. Don’t you go tellin’ stories about Wilson and his wife. You want to pray for something, pray that he finds those hearing aids.”
She wasn’t interested in Wilson’s piglets or his hearing aids, so I decided I’d best figure out how to move on before she started telling me about Roy’s son getting kicked out of college for dropping a cherry bomb down the toilet. He’d probably have gotten off with just a warning, except for the dormitory bathroom he bombed was on the fifth floor and by the time they got the water under control the first two floors had flooded. I’d already heard that story from Josephine myself.
Well, she was warmin’ up to another tale and I could see the whole day passin’ right before my eyes if I didn’t do something quick. So I dug my smartphone out of my pocket and pretended to be texting Claudette’s latest prayer requests to my wife. But actually, I confess that I was really dialing my own number. I answered it when it rang and acted like it was my wife calling me home because my son accidentally drove over the neighbor’s mailbox. Which wasn’t true of course—I was just desperate to get away from Claudette. After I disentangled myself from the dear woman and was driving home it hit me that it was not a good idea to lie to Claudette. First because lies don’t please the Lord and they always come back to haunt you anyway. And second, because by the end of the day half of Greenville will be praying for my neighbor’s mailbox.
Less is more. Certainly true in this case. The less time I spend listening to Claudette, the more thankful I am.
And that’s the news from Greenville.

Darke County Update #4

[Editor's note: Some of the following is probably true.]
Love Darke County. Darke has your typical mix of Democrats and Republicans. We love our politics, but at least we fight fair around here. Its not like some places I’ve heard about. Was talking to a fellow who just moved here from California. He said their Board of Elections back in San Fran delivers absentee ballots to the local cemetery. He told me that California people consider places like Darke County to be flyover country. I figure they surely must be right: whenever my wife and I go on a picnic during the summer, there’s always flies over us.
Darke County is the home of a lot of good folks. And a lot of really unusual good folks. I don’t mean that they are unusually good, but just good and unusual. Yes sir, we’ve got a strange bird or two in the area. Or three.
For example, I know one fellow that heats his home with wood. Insulates it with wood, too. On the outside. Must be something like R300 by now. He’s probably got twenty, thirty cord of wood stacked around his house, goin’ from the exterior wall to the very edge of his property. Sorta looks like one of General Anthony Wayne’s palisades.
Then there’s another boy I know that loves snow. A good friend. Has got him one of those self-propelled snow blowers that throws snow maybe sixty feet. Snowed last night, and this morning he’s out, throwin’ snow clear into the next neighborhood, plowing neighbor’s driveways, sidewalks, lawns, the street—anywhere there’s snow. He was enjoyin’ it too. I know it because his face was frozen into a grin.
And then there’s Eli, another friend. When Eli needs his family vehicle repaired, he takes it to John Deere. He’s the only guy I know that brings his groceries home on a twenty-foot flatbed. But if you want honest quality work done, whatever it might be, call Eli.
Sam likes guns. No, actually, Sam lovesguns. I’ve seen his basement, and it’s not a basement, it’s a cotton-pickin’ armory. Sam could outfit every member of the 82ndAirborne with long rifles and handguns, complete with enough ammunition to invade a small country, like maybe Australia. I'm surprised Sam hasn't got an M1A1 Abrams parked in his front yard. Hmm, come to think of it, I've never checked his garage.
And then, of course there’s me. I’m diverse all by my lonesome. For example, I love running. Well, that’s not exactly true: I love to hate running. I love to hate running so much, that when I can’t run, I really miss hating it. Which makes me want to run. Even though I hate it. Like I said, I’m a one-man diversity crew.
I like to call what I do “running,” but in fact it’s just a jog. A slow jog. Okay, a really vigorous waddle. When you see a slow-moving ambulance followed by a couple of buzzards and maybe a lawyer or two, they’re probably following me on one of my runs, hoping for an opportunity. I don't take it personal. In any case, so far I haven’t given ‘em one.
Yeah, Darke County’s got it’s own collection of pretty unusual people. But it’s home and I seem to fit right in.
And that’s the news from Greenville.