Olasky’s Books For August: The Christian Way To Assist A Hurt Brain
(ANALYSIS) One of the many things I learned from Tim Keller is that Jesus does not make a problem go away: He makes it not so important. For Christians who are dying, the anticipation of good things to come can overwhelm the bad thing that’s happening. Sometimes we pray for a physical healing and it miraculously happens, but we might also pray that hope exceeds hurt.
Richard Beck’s “Hunting Magic Eels” (Broadleaf paperback, 2024) has many acute lines: “We used to look forward to heaven; now we look forward to the next Marvel movie.” He has a good eye for key Bible lines, such as when Moses sees a burning bush and says, “I must turn aside to see this strange sight.” Beck aptly quotes Thomas Merton: “You cannot be without God. It’s impossible. It’s simply impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.”
Beck also sums up well what this all means: “Faith isn’t forcing yourself to believe in unbelievable things; faith is overcoming attentional blindness.” Our blindness leads to what Beck calls “the Ache” — the loneliness, meaninglessness, hopelessness, angst and malaise that are inevitable when it feels like God is dead: “The Ache is our disenchantment with disenchantment, the unease and pain we feel without God in our lives.”
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Hans Madueme’s “Defending Sin” (Baker, 2024) is a clever title at first glance and a deep analysis upon closer reading. Some sociobiologists and “theistic evolution” proponents say we’re selfish due to eons of survival of the fittest — with fittest defined as the person who would grab everything edible, then smile as his more polite neighbor starved. The Bible, though, tells us of the original sin in Eden, its ramifications through the generations and God’s patience and grace.
“Defending Sin” takes us through the variety of Bible-based answers to the question of why God gave Adam and Eve the ability to sin when He could have made it impossible for them to do so. Madueme discusses Lutheran emphasis on the bondage of the will; Calvinistic “compatibilism,” in which divine determinism and moral responsibility go hand in hand; and Thomistic “donum superadditum,” the supernatural endowment that takes us beyond natural strength.
One frequent speculation among theologians is that God built immortality into Adam and Eve but removed it from them after the tragic day in the Garden. Madueme suggests that “Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life” and then lost access to it. We have no indication as to what fruit grew on the tree, but we might call it a Lifesaver fruit that when eaten daily kept death away. There’s no need to think that God changed the first couple’s DNA: God barred Adam and Eve (and us) from access to the tree of life, and now we cannot walk in the garden with Him until we die.
Turning to the U.S. present: “Uncommon Unity” by Richard Lints (Lexham, 2022) makes a good attempt to meld American pluralism and Biblical realism. Six of its 10 chapter titles include the words “diverse” and “diversity.” One chapter title is “The Inclusion Narrative of Democracy.” Lints deserves credit for pushing to rescue “diversity” and “inclusion” from seizure and distortion by the political left.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are good things turned bad when DEI committees become witch-hunters. Their extremism has led states including Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee to passed anti-DEI laws: The hunters are now hunted.
“Uncommon Unity” shows how following Christ can keep Christians from fighting each other. Thomas Berg’s “Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age” (Eerdman’s, 2023) also shows us an alternative to polarization: strong religious freedom for all. That means no discriminatory targeting of religion and no devaluing of it by protecting secular interests but not religious ones. Christians should also accept constitutional and legislative protection for LGBTQ+ interests when combined with strong religious exemptions.
On LGBTQ+ questions, Ron Highfield’s “The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living?” (Keledei, 2024) offers an unequivocal and thoughtful “No.” He respectfully faces not an easy target but a well-written LGBTQ+-“affirming” book, Karen Keen’s “Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships,” and shows how to refute the common appeals.
If you have time in August, treat yourself to two long but good works, both published in 2003. “The Beginning of Wisdom” by Leon Kass (Free Press) is 700 pages of thoughtful comments about Genesis, and N.T. Wright’s “The Resurrection of the Son of God” (Fortress Press) is the 800-page definitive explanation (outside the Bible itself) of the reality of Christ’s resurrection.
Marvin Olasky is the author of thirty books, including this year’s Moral Vision and Pivot Points. His foundation awards Zenger Prizes for street-level journalism.