Category Archives: Book Reviews

Eternal Peace…

Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , , , ,

Several years ago I came across a small book entitled Quaker Spirituality – Selected Writings. I’m still not sure what made me pause on the title but I am glad I did. Inside that book was an essay by Thomas R. Kelly (1893-1941) talked about the “Eternal Presence”. I didn’t know it then but this essay put me on the path to learning much more about Quakers. It gave me the most complete understanding of who God was that I have ever had in my life up to that point.

Here are some of the words from that essay. I am just going to give you bits an pieces but enough to get its message across:

More…

And Its All Small Stuff….. 1

Book Reviews, Inspiring, Things Spiritual • Tags: , , , ,
This is a post that I have carried over from my other blog at RedLetterLiving. It is about an epiphany I had several years ago about my spiritual beliefs. I wanted to share it with my readers here.

Posted on October 22, 2012 at RedLetterLiving.net

In 1997 Richard Carlson wrote a very popular book entitled Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff…. and it’s all small stuff. In that book he listed one hundred things to make our lives more peaceful. Some of those topics that I took to heart included: More…

If God Is Love… (Part1) 3

Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , , , , ,

I am going to start a series of posts around quotes from some of the many books I have read. One of the favorites is the book “If God is Love” by Philip Gulley. Here is the quote for today:

When Jesus redefined kinship, he was challenging their exclusive circle by declaring that anyone in any place who did the will of God regardless of social standing or religious affiliation, was his brother or sister.  Kinship is not a matter of racial, religious, or cultural conformity. It was the by-product of a commitment of the will of God — to love and care for all. More…

What Makes Me Significant?…. 2

About Life, Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , , ,

We may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to find when we get to the top that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. – Thomas Merton, the American monk

I just finished reading a book called Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life  by Richard Rohr. This quote was found in that book. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan monk who believes that we have two distinct parts of our lives.  After this quote he goes on to say:

The task of the first half of life is to create a proper container for one’s life and answer the first essential questions: “What makes me significant?” “How can I support myself?” and “Who will go with me?” The task of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was meant to hold and deliver. As Mary Oliver puts it, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” In other words, the container is not an end in itself, but exists for the sake of your deeper and fullest life, which you largely do not know about yourself!  Far too many people just keep doing repair work on the container itself and never “throw their nets into the deep” (John 21:6) to bring in the huge catch that awaits them.  

I have probably asked myself most of the questions above at least a couple of times in my life. The first half questions, it turns out, are rather simple compared to the second half ones.  I spent the first half my life as an engineer and information technology scientist. I can proudly look back on several accomplishments during those years where I helped make people’s lives a little easier. The occupation I chose, but in reality it was really chosen for me as I didn’t have a clue on what I wanted to be at that time, paid well so I had no problems supporting myself.

The “Who will go with me” question was a harder one. I did not marry until almost my fortieth birthday. By then I had almost given up on the idea of this question. I am happy to say that I have been married now for twenty-seven years so I did have someone to accompany me during much of my later first half years.

The first half of life does in no way insinuate taking half of your chronological years. For some they develop their container early in life. For others they may spend their entire time on earth and not finish the first half.  I may be somewhat typical of many in that, in looking back, I did not really complete my container until almost my retirement from the corporate world. Up till that time I was just too consumed by the day-to-day stuff.

The second half of life answers did not come until I gave myself time to get out of the proverbial rat race. I indeed do find that my life is deeper and fuller than it has ever been.  I really like the final words of the quote that advises not to spend your life on container repair but to take a chance by throwing your net into deep waters. When I did that I found quite a catch….

The Faith of our Founding Fathers… continued

Book Reviews, Inspiring, Jefferson Quotes • Tags: ,

This is a continuation of a post I did in March 2009 on my blog at RedLetterLiving.net

This is a continuation of the last post where I covered George Washington’s religious beliefs. I will conclude this topic by talking about Thomas Jefferson.

 Thomas Jefferson — Jefferson was undoubtedly the strongest advocate for religious freedom of the Founding Fathers. This was quite evident when he composed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1777. Jefferson was definitely raised in a Christian household. He seemed to have also been brought up in the rituals and customs of the Anglican Church as it existed in colonial Virginia which was much less a high church institution than its England counterpart. He later took up the Deist mantle as was the dominant theology among intellectuals in the English speaking world at the time. Jefferson’s revolving attitudes toward religion was one of the driving forces behind his staunch beliefs in freedom of religion.

In his later years, that is after his presidency, he spent quite some time thinking about his faith. During that time he went back to his Christian roots but rejected the Trinitarian concept of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost saying it was Platonic mysticism. From his many letters to John Adams it is evident that he took to heart the “doctrine that flowed from the lips of Jesus himself” and wrote extensively about the “Morals of Jesus”. He wrote two books during this period about his faith. The Philosophy of Jesus and The Life and Morals of Jesus. Many Christians today don’t know that he even wrote his own version of the New Testament. In that work he systematically eliminated all references to miracles and the supernatural saying they were unnecessarily added to the actual accounts. He believed that these and other distortions, took the simple message of Jesus and unnecessarily complicated it. He believed this fault was not due to the simple fisherman who were for the most part his apostles. He instead blamed the sophisticated, well educated including and most obviously Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul). He obviously did not include any of St. Paul’s writings in his version of the New Testament.

So it is true to say that the person who wrote our Declaration of Independence began and ended his life as a Christian. But, he was very much unlike any Christians we run across today.
Another very interesting person also covered in the book was Benjamin Franklin. He also had a very interesting concept of religion. I will leave it to those more curious to get the book and read about him. I will conclude here by paraphrasing what President Obama has been saying lately. We in the United States are not unique because we are a Christian nation but instead we are unique because of our diversity of religious views and tolerance. The diversity of our founding fathers beliefs were pretty much as we are as a country today.

The Faiths of Our Fathers…..

Book Reviews, Inspiring, Jefferson Quotes, Quotes • Tags: ,

This is a post I did in March 2009 on my blog RedLetterLiving.net related to whether we are founded as a Christian nation as so many conservatives seem to say. I will finish it up next Sunday.

There are a lot of different views of what the Founding Fathers of the United States believed when it came to God. Many evangelicals like to say that we were founded on Christian principles and that is what makes us so unique, some would say superior, but I definitely don’t buy into that. I found the book entitled The Faiths of Our Fathers, by Alf J. Mapp Jr. to be very helpful in discerning truth from myth about this topic. The book goes into quite some detail about 10 of the most prominent Founders and just what they believed. To sum up the overall conclusions of the book I will cite the following quote from it:

“There is no monolithic national faith acknowledged by all the Founding Fathers. Their religious attitudes were as varied as their political opinions….. One famous political leader generally regarded as a red-hot radical became essentially a fundamentalist. Another famed for common sense and hard-headed realism viewed creation as composed of many solar systems, each with its own God. Once celebrated for conventional piety created a mystery by refusing to take communion. One of the most prominent Founders, a man popularly regarded as materialist and dissolute, attempted to found an organization of Christian conservatives to promote the elections to political office of “like minded men”.

For those who are truly interested in this I suggest you read the book. I won’t go into detail about each person covered. I will leave that up to you. But, I will comment on a couple of the most famous Founders.

George Washington — Most of us know that George Washington was a deist, not a Christian but in his early life he worshiped with an Anglican congregation. So much like many today he rejected basic doctrine but occasionally attended anyway.The Anglicans, at that time, believed in a strong link between church and state. Of course that is the opposite of our United States’ principle of separation between the two. Historical researchers have, to date, found no evidence that Washington ever received communion. Mapp makes the point that over the years many authors have tried to paint Washington with a large variety of religious brushes. The general consensus is that Washington was a deist. That is a person who believes in God as an omnipotent being who generally guides humanity but does not interfere with it. His frequent references to “Divine Providence” in his correspondence seems to tip to that belief. Therefore contrary to what modern day evangelicals want us to believe George Washington was definitely not one of them.

Next time we will investigate what Thomas Jefferson’s beliefs were and whether he was a Christian.

If God is Love… Part 3

Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , , ,

This is the third of five posts I made on the book If God is Love by Philip Gulley. I have slightly modified it from when it was written over at RedLetterLiving last July.

This is a continuation of my expose of the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God Is Love. In this post he talks about Dualistic Theologies.

Dualistic theologies reduce the questions of life to one: Are you saved? Nothing else matters. The purpose of life it to answer that single question. Of course, simply saying “yes” is not enough. You confirm your salvation by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, getting baptized, and receiving the Holy Spirit. Until you have done these things, your life has no meaning.

When salvation is defined so narrowly, it too easily becomes a status rather than a process. It becomes a contractual agreement between an individual and God….  Too often, God’s desire to transform us into mature, responsible, and gracious people was obscured. When religion factored in the fragility of life and the threat of eternal damnation, the product (a spot in heaven) rather than the process (becoming an authentic person) became the priority.

Growing up, I was asked repeatedly, “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?” I was never asked, “If you live tomorrow, what kind of life will it be?”

Some call this supposed contract between you and God fire insurance. We sign the papers and then put it on the shelf until it is needed. That is NOT what being a follower of Jesus Christ means to me nor should it to anyone else. This is another instance where I believe men have fashioned a god who pleases them; not the other way around. Yes it is nice to I know where I will be spending eternity but equally important, if not more so for our times,  is how I will live my life tomorrow and all the tomorrows I have left. If they do not reflect God’s love then is the fire insurance policy still valid? I have deep reservations about the answer to that one.

Book Review – If God Is Love (Part 2)

Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , ,

This is the second post of five about the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God is Love. Like the first installment last Sunday this one was also pulled from one of my other blogs at RedLetterLiving.net  I made a few minor modifications to the original post.

Post from RedLetterLiving March 2009

This is a continuation of my collection of snippets from the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God is Love.

The Psalmists boats, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hate. I count them my enemies” (Psalm 139:21-22). Hatred, when directed at those we have judged wicked, becomes a sign of religious devotion rather than a grievous sin. The enemy is not loved, but destroyed, not prayed for, but preyed upon.

We can protest religious hatred and violence are sins of the past, but to do so we must ignore current Christian visions of the future. How do we explain the tremendous popularity of the “Left Behind” series of books? These books, which have sold millions of copies have spawned two movies, portray a future in which Evangelical Christians are saved while everyone else is destroyed. They proclaim a Jesus with a sword in hand atop a charging steed, initiating a violent end.

Our violent religious past and expectations of a wrathful future impinge on Christian behavior today. David Beneke, a leader in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, discovered this reality shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. He was suspended for eighteen months from his duties and required to defend himself before a variety of denominational panels. His sin was not something as radical as believing in the salvation of all people. His crime was joining with Muslim, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, and Sikh religious leaders in a prayer service at Yankee Stadium. He was accused of praying with “heathens”. He said “This ordeal reveals the hard side of Christianity”.

In fairness, similar stories abound in other religious traditions. This arrogant exclusivity plagues all the great religions. Adherents of each faith hate the “other” — Christians hate heathens; Muslims hate infidels; Jews hate Gentiles. For many, religion is how we decide who to love and who to hate.

As I have said many times Jesus melted down the Old Testament laws into just two: Love God and Love your fellow man. Hate was not in this mix. Why do so many current day religious institutions base so much of their practices on hate? Maybe hate is too strong a word for the practices of current Christian denomination but then again maybe it is not. One thing I love about reading Philip Gulley is that he doesn’t pull any punches. Mr. Gulley certainly didn’t pull any punches in this example. :)

Book Review – If God Is Love… 2

Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , , ,

The book review post I want to bring over from my other blog at RedLetterLiving.net  is one that had a profound effect on me during my three year search into current Christian organizations. In fact this book review spanned over five posts. (I haven’t decided yet whether to bring all five here or not). Phillip Gulley was one of my first encounters with the Society of Friends, otherwise know as Quakers. It would definitely spur much more reading about this group of Christians.

Here is a slightly edited version of the March 2009 post

Today I am going to talk a little about a book entitled “If God is Love – Rediscovering Grace in an Ungracious World” by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland. I must admit up front that I am somewhat fascinated by the Quaker religion of which both of the authors are ministers. Although one of them came through Baptist and Methodists to get there. I greatly respect the position the Quakers have taken on non-violence going all the way back to the Revolutionary war. This is a very readable book on a very important topic.

There has been an ongoing debate throughout Christianity’s history on the correct balance between the all powerful and sometime vengeful God and the God of agape Love. Just what the correct balance of this is somewhat attuned to the corresponding debate between law and gospel. Both are needed but how much of each is appropriate for a well rounded Christian? I must admit that this book is full of God’s love and has little of God’s power in it. I must also admit that I lean in that direction also but not to the extent of the authors.

The following is, in my opinion, one of the most striking quotes from the book:

The theology of love begins with the assumption that all people are God’s cherished children and deserving of love. “We love because he first loved us. Those who say ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” 1 John 4:19-20. Jesus demonstrated his love for the outcasts, those many considered unloveable. Regrettably, many Christians have been unwilling to adopt the ethic of Jesus — a theology of inclusion, acceptance, and love. We’ve been unwilling to love and accept our enemies. We haven’t even been excited about loving our neighbor.


This quote I believe sums up the Quaker stand on non-violence. They have taken quite a bit of abuse during all our wars because of this stand. Another memorable quote is as below:

God has no grandchildren. My children cannot inherit my faith. I can’t save them. Each of us is on a journey. My role as a parent is not to convert my children, but to live a life consistent with my experience of God’s radical love and trust that such a life will attract them.

I don’t know that I have ever seen such a powerful pronouncement of Christian parenting before. The old saying that parents have been spouting for eons is “don’t do what I do, do what I say”. I know I got my dose of that as a child. It didn’t work on me and probably didn’t work for most of you. Our parents, like all Christians must show the love of the Lord in their actions as well as their words. One does not work without the other.  Finally the last quote I want to present is:

Share everything with your brother. Do not say, ‘It is private property.’” This isn’t the rhetoric of the Communist Manifesto or the Mother Earth Catalog. This is a line from the Didache, an early Christian document used to prepare novices for baptism. The Didache was such a respected teaching that it was nearly included in the biblical canon. This line may have been its undoing. Religion has long resisted the command to be universally concerned, especially when this concern comes with a price tag.

I understand this tendency. Whenever someone asks me to respond to a need, I have to overcome a long litany of mental excuses. I don’t know enough about the persons’ situation to give wisely. He or she might not use the money appropriately. I’m already giving to other causes. These may all be legitimate considerations, but I sense my deeper motivation — I want a rationale for keeping my money. I don’t’ like Jesus’ command to “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you (Matthew 5:42)

I was struck by so many of these types of dialogs in the book. They definitely made me think about how I am living out my life.  According to what I have read elsewhere the main reason that the Didache document as quoted above was not included was that the emperor Constantine, who oversaw the compilation of our first Bible, did not consider it supportive enough of the State so he vetoed its inclusion in the final version.

I highly recommend this book to any who is willing to struggle with these types of issues. No one ever said (or should have said) living your life by the words of Jesus Christ is easy! Indeed, it should be and is quite difficult.