After You Believe by N.T. Wright

by austin pfeiffer

N.T. Wright is a quirky case of controversy amongst the blogosphere and Christian world. In a world of extremes Wright tows the line of orthodoxy and moderation in progress, which in many other contexts would make him a figure of bridging. Sadly, for many, he is not decisive (or divisive) enough. Wright's thoughts and words are approachable, plain, engaging, and refreshing for many, but he is also bold enough to be a critical thinker of new ideas and gripping of historical foundations often lost today. To the reader able to see the forest for the trees, Wright is great because he is paradoxically playful and deep.

His new book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters is soothing in its plain talk, gliding a relative society back into the lost comforts of now archaic (even taboo) words like virtue and character. These words have been hijacked by the religioso as terms of condemnation and Wright reclaims them with unpretentious anecdotes. He does a fantastic job of appealing the reader towards a principled life through anecdote and exploration of the New Testament's "moral vision...peace, justice, freedom, love" liberating the reader to their true existence in the moral vision of God. He argues, "We urgently need to recapture the New Testament's vision of a genuinely "good" human life with that future-shaped character lived within the ongoing story of God's people, and, with that, a freshly worked notion of virtue."

Cookbook Review: "more-with-less"

by kristin friedery




More-with-Less: Recipes and suggestions by Mennonites on how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources by Doris Janzen Longacre

When the Mennonite Central Committee issued a request for families of North America to examine their lifestyles and commit to eating and spending 10 percent less, Doris Janzen Longacre got to work on this book. She researched eating habits, spending habits, and nutrition. She collected recipes, tested them, and made slight adjustments. The result is a cookbook that not only gives recipes, but speaks to the reasons for changing one's habits.

My sister gave me this book for my birthday about a month ago and I was thrilled to get it. I would describe myself as a person who is concerned about how I eat and what I eat, but that concern has always stopped short of acting. This book is a manageable intro to reducing consumption. The first third of the book is dedicated to information about the eating habits of North America. We consume and consume, and not in an efficient manor. Longacre also addresses the question that I always get hung up on "How can what I do in my kitchen make a difference?" Her answer to this question is that changing your eating habits alone is not going to solve the global food crisis. But it is a way to be faithful and it is a beginning step for concerned Christians to take.

In terms of steps to take, Longacre also goes into depth about how we can combine food to get the most bang for our buck..."more with less" if you will. She talks a lot about complementing protein, which I am still trying to understand. But she gives practical examples, such as milk products should always be served with grains and legumes should always be served with grains.

After reading all of this information, I decided to jump into the recipes. I was limited in how many recipes I could try for a few reasons, the not the least being that I am a single woman living by myself. It is not practical for me to make a full meal every night of the week. But I did take the time to read through the recipes and try a few different things. (note: I am not going to take up space by writing out these recipes, they are all in the book and please let me know if you want more details kofriedery@gmail.com)

The Baked Lentils with Cheese is a dish made of lentils, onions, tomatoes, carrots, and celery. It is super flavorful and easy to make, although it does require about an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish. I also made my own granola from a recipe in this book. I had never done that before and had a hard time finding wheat germ in the grocery stores down here, but the end product was very good. The recipe for basic granola in More-with-Less calls for rolled oats, whole wheat flour, wheat germ, honey, coconut, vanilla, water, and salt. I had never made granola before so I was pleased with how easy it was and also, how great the yield was. I halved the recipe and it was plenty for me to have a bowl every morning for a little over a week.

The two other recipes I'll mention here before I close are the Crusty Mexican Bean Bake and Spaghetti with Zucchini Sauce. The bean dish was very tasty once it was all finished, but I never knew how involved cooking dry beans was! You have to soak them overnight, then boil them, and then let them simmer for several hours, depending on the bean. I, of course, handled the soaking part pretty well, but that was after delaying my recipe for a day because I hadn't realized how much time the beans entail. The next afternoon, I proceeded to burn the beans to the bottom of my pan, which then required a different kind of soaking. I was able to salvage enough to make the recipe, which was very tasty, but next time I am going to buy a can of kidney beans to save some time and my pots! The spaghetti dish was simple and delicious. The sauce is made of zucchini, onion, tomato, salt, a bay leaf, pepper, basil, and oregano. This, by far, was the simplest of the main dishes I made. Put the ingredients together, simmer, and serve over cooked spaghetti.

All four of these recipes definitely proved the "more with less" theme. They were flavorful and filling, and the ingredients were simple and inexpensive. I think this is book is a great addition to anyone's kitchen library, but I would especially recommend it to those who are on the brink of changing habits. Longacre does a great job of making these types of changes accessible and also puts a great deal of time explaining why we should reduce our consumption. I'm looking forward to continuing to use this book as a guide in my daily cooking.

BOOK REVIEW:

If you are a fan of USA Today and/or Ross Perot, the massive amount of charts in this book will at minimum titillate your graphic senses. In a sentence, the book is a must read for Pastors and anyone curious of the direction of the church, but not because of its captivating arguments or fascinating theses. The book makes attempts at narrative, which is a little patronizing to the reader who actually desires hours of analysis on the mathematical state of the American church, and the converse would most likely be true for the narrative seekers disappointment in the monotony of the data.

There is a paradoxical comfort and distress with the books pigeon holing of the church at large and its millions of entities. David T. Olson takes even the most prestigious and prosperous of churches and denominations and objectively analyze them, which to the institutional skpetic is a warm blanket reminder that even the most dominant of forces is not above analysis and accountability. But it is also alarming to realize the church is so structured we are able to take the largest living, breathing thing God created, and pin it down with thumb tacks, numbers, charts, graphs, and trends.

Olson accomplishes with great success objectifying all churches and movements. He takes a tone, for the first half of the book at least, which is able to speak scientifically on denominations and trends, from emerging to evanglical to missional. He also does a great job of factually back dropping his thoughts with church history and global perspectives to make an argument which transcends time and culture. Unfortunately, he never really addresses the question of whether institutional church is something worthy of perpetuating. He simply assumes throughout the book all readers are interested in the church's future.

After the information is set before the reader, Olson begins to hit his stride as a writer during the evaluation section. He finally gives many Christian theorists verbage and facts, to oft proposed theories on mainlines and evangelicals. Many of his claims are not original, but few who have made them have done so much first hand research to support their claims. During the evaluation section, he establishes his thesis: birth rates, not death rates, cause extinction. Olson believes the decline of the church in the U.S. is a result of the same survival requisites necessary in the wild, namely new births with genetic variation to rid imperfections. He argues vitality in churches is growth based, which is true to the evangelical, but does not satisfy the questions of whether the church was ever designed to be a globally dominant force, or just a globally dangerous force.

The closing of the book accomplishes two very confident and well thought proposals, and his own supposition of an active solution. 1. Olson makes a sound argument, educated by his previous research of September 11th's seeming, but later disproven effect on church attendence, that even with the future yet to be seen, the church will continue to mathematically die regardless of culture, because of current blindspots. 2. He envelopes these claims with the soberiety to recognize the role of historians and analysts is to comment on the current history and information. He sees predictions of the future are impossible, even projections are dangerous. Olson avoids the tired argument and theoretical research done in churches and seminaries of the past ten years claiming the church needs simply to recognize post-modernism or change its communication style to survive, when in fact it is not the colors of the leopard that are causing its species' decline, not its habitat, but its own lifestyle. Olson sets up his arguments for action by making one of the most insightful claims of the book, "We arrived at this state of affairs because Christendom made it possible for the church to thrive while about Jesus in that secondhand manner." The truth resulting is the church is beyond the trivial attempts at analyzing culture, church models, or the sustaining of one's own denomination, but remember Jesus, the apostles, and Paul, whose evangelical success came as a result of what N.T. Wright describes and Olson quotes, "When you annouce Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord of the world, something happens: the new world which was born when Jesue died and rose again comes to fresh life in the hearts, minds, and lifestyles of the listeners."