Forgotten God

It had been a while since I had read Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Man, I remember when I was going through the pages of that book, how completely challenged I was in my faith. The theme was to take the teachings of Christ literally, and that just blew me away. The cost of truly following the Lord is not cheap.

After finishing Chan’s Forgotten God, I am left with a similar impression. This work has challenged me further in how I perceive the Holy Spirit. Admittedly, I have grieved Him far too much in my life by ignoring Him.

Why is that true for many Christians? Why is the part of God that is closest to us (indeed, the Holy Spirit takes residence in our bodies, see Romans 8:9), why is He the most often ignored entity of God? We remember God the Father, God the Son, and we know of the Holy Spirit, but we don’t consider Him very often, though He is the one guiding our lives as Christians, leading us to the Son, who brings us to the Father.

Chan points out that if we had the option of choosing between having Jesus with us in person or having the Holy Spirit dwell in us, we might be more inclined to pick the former because, c’mon, it’s Jesus. However, Jesus told His disciples “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.” (John 16: 7)

After hearing this, I realized that I had been undervaluing the Holy Spirit. Often culturally we have taken away His gender when we refer to Him as “it”. Chan says that this could be due to the fact that we call Him “The Holy Spirit”. It may add a bit of an objectifying quality.

However, He is not an “it”. He is God, the entity of God who dwells within us and speaks to us, leading us. And Jesus told everybody to wait for His arrival, because it would be a big deal. But does the church value the Holy Spirit as she ought today?

I love the thought provocation in the introduction of this book. Chan paints the scene of something like the movie Cast Away (only without Wilson). If you were stranded on an island for twenty years and all you had in your possession was a the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible, chances are you would become very familiar with its truths. If you ever made it back to civilization, you would likely be very disappointed with what you saw in today’s churches. The lack of the reliance on the Holy Spirit would likely confound you.

It’s true, though. It’s not difficult to pack a building with people when you have clever marketing, cool worship music, and an inspirational speaker/preacher. Perhaps many churches don’t see the need to follow the Spirit in their church planning, because they have good attendance without it. Attendance is one thing, obedience is another. An obedient church, and a church building packed with people who may or may not know the Lord are two different things.

 Chan invites his readers to stop for a moment and think about this. The God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, lives in you. Isn’t that mind-blowing? However if this fact was always in the front of the mind of the Christian, that we are to be sensitive to the Spirit’s calling in our lives, wouldn’t our world look entirely different? And when I say calling, I hesitate. That word implies a more long-term desire, which does occur. God does call us to Him in our salvation. I believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt. He may also call us to certain lifelong ministries. But he also calls us to do simple day-to-day works, that get overlooked. We usually don’t refer to these little things as callings, but He does want us to be faithful in the little things as well as the big things. We quench the Spirit when we ignore these.

Chan says that sometimes we say, “I just want to know what is God’s will for my life”. Yes that is important, and I think most serious Christians want their pastors to have received a calling to be their spiritual leader. However, many times when we focus on God’s long-term calling on our lives, we are putting off what He is calling us to do now. Most of the heroes of the faith did not have the entire timeline of their lives mapped out for them, but rather followed God one step at a time.

Chan also expresses the fact that it’s really easy to attribute some random comfort in our life to the work of the Holy Spirit. You may find yourself in a nice suburban neighborhood with friendly neighbors and say “Yep, the Holy Spirit led us here.” It could be true, or it could be a another excuse for not really listening to what He really wants of you.

But let’s be honest, it can be a bit scary surrendering our lives to the will of God. Why? Because our natural inclination is to want to know what He wants us to do first. We have a fear that he may lead us where we are not ready to go. That’s why we give lame testimonies of God leading us to do silly things, because then we convince ourselves that we don’t need to listen to what he really would have us to do.

Chan also attributes two factors for why it’s so difficult for Christians to hear the Spirit. One is comfort. We like the way our happy cozy lives, and we expect that if we were to try to hear from God, His plans might disrupt our safe, comfortable lives. The second reason why we don’t hear the Holy Spirit often enough is volume. We have way too much media vying for our attention. Our lives are so noisy with television, Internet, texting, social events, work, video games, you name it. We have divided our attention so much, that to hear the still, small voice of the Spirit, would be nothing short of miraculous. But I think sometimes God wants us to quiet everything down to hear from Him. I don’t think He’s interested in trying to compete for our attention. He really shouldn’t have to.

We should be shocked at our lack of the Fruit of the Spirit. If we have the Holy Spirit residing in us we should expect to possess love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to a supernatural degree.

“What disturbs me most is that we’re not really bothered that God living in us has not made much of a noticeable difference in us.” -Francis Chan

Finally, this is one of those books that after I’m done with it, I want to push it on everyone else. I highly recommend it, because I believe it will challenge the way you are responding to God. One thing that I especially appreciated was a short profile at the end of each chapter of a person in whom the author saw the Holy Spirit’s influence. I was inspired to read how others have faithfully followed the Spirit’s leading to the degree that most people would say, “That’s more than what God would expect me to do.”

This book is a call to action to those of the faith to end this apathy towards the Holy Spirit, start listening, obey, and watch Him work through your life.

Choosing to SEE

The Chapman family found themselves in the midst of a horrific tragedy in 2008. The depth of the valley they must have traveled through is likely unimaginable to anyone who has never experienced the loss of their 5-year-old child in an almost surreal accident.

Choosing to SEE is written by Mary Beth Chapman, wife of Steven Curtis Chapman of contemporary Christian music fame. Mary Beth exposes her family’s painful journey through a raw and real reflection of her family’s biography, the tragedy, and the journey through the pain.

The one thing that seems to encompass this read is hope in the goodness of God. The confusion involved with losing a family member will always summon up questions from within directed toward God. Why did this happen? How is this your will? Through the hardship, the Chapmans have endured continuing to place their trust in Him who works all things together for good for those who love God and are called to His purpose.

Before the accident, their daughter had written the word “SEE” on a card. This seemed pretty random to the family because it was not one of the words that she would normally have would have practiced writing. This word, SEE, seems to become a sign of hope for the family. Choosing to SEE is about trusting God when He doesn’t make sense to us. It’s about SEEing the signs of His goodness. One of the Chapman boys, Caleb, said it this way:

“The only analogy I can come up with is this: it’s like God is an abstract artist…and when you’re real close to a painting like this, it’s hard to focus, it’s blurred, and you can’t see what’s going on. You have to walk really far back, and then the whole painting comes into focus and you can see what the artist was doing. That’s what this experience is like for us. We’re just really, really close to this mess… but I think the farther we get away from it in time, the more we’re going to see this picture come into focus. Man, it’s a really big one too, so we’ll have to walk pretty far away.”

I love one of the quotes about pain by Dr. Larry Crabb, which was included in this book:

“Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.” -Dr. Larry Crabb

This book goes through the sequence of events starting with a brief overview of Mary Beth’s early years, meeting her husband, starting a family, supporting her husband’s musical aspirations, adopting kids from China, becoming public advocates for adoption, the tragedy, picking up the pieces, and Mary Beth’s blog posts in in reflecting on her loss.

This is an emotional read. Pain affects everyone, even the family of a respected singer/songwriter. Seeing how they pressed on through a world of hurt, (not without being frustrated with God, but continuing to trust Him regardless) only elevated my respect for this family.

More than a Match

We have a lot to unlearn about relationships in our culture where love seems important but we check our brains at the door before we walk down the aisle. Michael (son of Gary Smalley) and Amy Smalley offer their expertise as marriage counselors and provide transparency from their own experiences in building a connected relationship that honors God.

Dating sites like eHarmony and match.com market their value by providing the service of linking two people together based on their compatability. According to a study from the book conducted by Pew Internet,  26% of American adults have gone on a date with a person they met through an online dating site. Compatability seems to be of some importance to us.

What is compatability anyway? Is it some mystical connection  that nobody else can recognize on the surface? Mostly, the online assessments that these sites require their members to take, focus on their interests, hobbies, activities and their own assessment of their personalities. That’s about the extent of the compatability process.

I have to say, that the idea is pretty appealing. I think most people do want to end up with someone who shares the same interests as them. I suppose I wouldn’t mind having a wife who would enjoy watching Gator football, quoting characters from The Lord of the Rings, and jamming out to some Anberlin. But just sharing those commonalities is not going to promise a solid relationship.

“Sure, compatibility is great.” Michael says.  ”Who would want to spend the rest of his or her life with someone who doesn’t share similar outlooks, desires, and tastes? Where Amy and I part ways with the online dating world is with the notion that all you need to succeed in love is to sprinkle the pixie dust of compatibility on the relationship and you’re a match.”

The key is to learn to love. To love as Christ loved the Church is to give of yourself for the the other person. The whole idea of marriage was to reflect the union between God and his people, so the relationship mimics the way Christ cared for His church. This is so easy for me to say too, because I am not married. But I understand that marriage is hard. If marriage wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be such a great endeavor.

However, there are five areas in which Michael and Amy feel it is necessary to be compatible:

1. Spiritual Beliefs

2. Personality Issues

3. Financial Management

4. Children and Parenting

5. Sexual Expectations

Apparently these are the top five topics to discuss in premarital counseling. Personally, I’m not dating anyone who doesn’t share my own spiritual beliefs, but some people don’t get to that topic until they realize they are having kids and they need to decide what church they want their kids to go to.

There was an instance cited in the book where Michael was talking to a woman that was going through some difficulties with her marriage. Michael asked her what they believed and she told him that she thought that issue may be part of the problem. Her husband was a Southern Baptist and she was a Wiccan. It’s not politically correct or very tolerant to criticize relationships of diversity, but when two people practice complete opposite views of faith, there will be problems in the relationship. If there are not problems in the relationship, they are not taking their faith seriously enough.

The Smalleys point to the fact that one may be okay with their significant other having a different religious background. It’s likely that they might begin to see difficulties when planning the wedding. This happened to Amy when she was engaged to her first fiance. She was raised Southern Baptist and he was a Catholic. This is probably one of the more common faith nuances that may be problematic. The issue being that most Catholics do not consider it legitimate if you have not been married within their church. It’s not difficult to see the practicality of this tradition, but it does make it tough if the other half of the family is grounded in Protestant roots (this is especially awkward if they are financially responsible for the wedding.)

Both sects claim the same Lord, both serve Him in their own capacities, and I believe that great men and women of faith have been nourished and groomed under each body of faith. However, there are some major differences in doctrine. Which leads to the next point.

Which statement of faith will you claim for your household? Which Bible will you use at home to raise your children? Where will you all be attending service Sunday morning? If faith matters to this couple, this is a big consideration. Am I saying it is impossible to pull off? No. I personally know quite a few couples such as these that have done quite well as a family and have stayed together in the faith. However, I know that a relationship such as this will not come without compromise. Michael and Amy Smalley seem to have the same perspective.

And that’s just concerning Protestants and Catholics. Christians and non-Christian couples present an entirely new set of challenges into which I won’t even venture. The quickest way to dismiss this topic to all serious Christians considering this is found in 2 Corinthians 6:14. (They should have already heard of this before).

Moving on from the dating sermon, I will just touch on a few more highlights of this read.

The Smalleys encourage making a top ten list. Some of them should be non-negotiables. These would be things that are important to the writer of the list. Examples of non-negotiables are their faith (and relationship with the Lord), integrity, and then whatever other qualities that are really important. It’s probably good advice to not get too tied up in specifics with the minor things you put on a list, otherwise we will have a world full of sixes (on the shallow ranking system) looking for tens. Does this analogy not make much sense? Read Brother, You’re Like a Six for more clarification.

I also liked that this book strongly recommends getting premarriage counseling, something that the majority of couples in the United States do not take advantage of. It’s important to prepare ahead of time. Do your personalities clash? If so, it’s worth your time to prepare a game plan to deal with it for the rest of your lives.

I think this was a decent read. Obviously not a book for children. It probably would not be a top pick for someone looking for an in-depth Bible study exegesis on marriage. Rather, it is highly anecdotal and light hearted from a Christian perspective while garnishing supporting scriptures to back its claims. I’d say anyone who is in a serious commited Christian relationship would find More than a Match a good addition to several other books they should read before tying the knot.

Through my Eyes

“Thirty minutes for the rest of our lives!”
I still remember watching the NCAA National Championship football game from the 2008 season. It was the University of Florida versus the University of Oklahoma. Both teams were tied by halftime at seven points each. In the locker room Tim Tebow was getting his teammates fired up with a spirited speech about how the rest of the game should be played. “Thirty minutes for the rest of our lives!” he kept repeating.

My brother and I still chuckle about that, not really sure what that meant, other than the fact that Oklahoma was about to be served with all the fixin’s as, what we like to call in the Gator Nation, Gator bait. Of course the Gators went on to win the game 24-14 regaining their title of national champions. One thing that was evident from that speech, and anything else I remember about Tebow, was his determination.

Okay, I must apologize. I am reviewing another book, which I generally am endorsing. (And while we are doing apologies, I’m sorry to the two of you who have read my blog so far, and that it’s been four weeks since the last post.) But who isn’t impressed with this guy’s stance on setting a good example on and off the field? Well, surprisingly there are some folks that turn out to be big critics of men with character simply because they didn’t play ball for their team. That’s my conclusion anyway. But other than those types of people, I think that most others would agree that this Heisman-winning quarterback from UF is a man with uncanny character, and that should be reason enough to read Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow.

This 257-page read is what some people would call an autobiography, although I hesitate to label it as such. The problem is Tebow just turned 24 this month (he was born just ten days before yours truly; there’s some useless trivia for you…) so he hasn’t lived out the majority of his life. A lot of people were complaining about this fact when the book was about to be released. He’s too young to write an autobiography… Perhaps so, but this was something that he addresses in the beginning of the book.

“You read glowing things, and it doesn’t feel deserved. You read things that are critical, and it cuts you to the bone. It’s because of both those extremes of others’ opinions that I felt it the natural thing to do to tell my story, written from my perspective. It also seemed like the right thing to do–perhaps in many instances to simply set the record straight–sharing my story as I see it, as I remember it, including my actual mind-set and motivation…”

The book does start off like any biography, beginning with the early years. With all the hoopla about the Super Bowl commercial that he and his mother did for Focus on the Family, a lot of people know that it started with a complicated pregnancy. The doctors said it would be unwise to go through with the birth, and that abortion would be a viable option. They turned out to be wrong.

The story goes on with this theme. People telling a young Timmy things that that he wouldn’t be good at, until he proved them wrong. Like playing quarterback. When he was in high school, the coaches felt his body type wasn’t right for the quarterback position. He proved them wrong.

And some people still think that their assessment is accurate, that he won’t make it very far in the NFL. I’m not really sure where people get their data from, but judging by the determination of this “kid”, I’d say he’s about ready to prove some more folks wrong. (I just heard that he led the Broncos down the field for the game-winning field goal this weekend in their pre-season match against the Seahawks.)

I was incredibly moved by how driven he was in achieving all of his goals as both a player, and a man of integrity. As a football player, he would train hard by this thought process that motivated him to train harder: Somewhere he is out there, training while I am not. One day, when we meet, he will win.

If his determination to be a better football player is evident, then his drive to be a Godly man is even more obvious, whether by leading by example by not partying through college, his involvement in mission trips, leading people to Christ, maintaining sexual abstinence until marriage, the Bible verses under his eyes, beginning causes on campus for the underprivileged or supporting foundations for orphans. I mean, all Christians should be like this right? I should be like this.

That’s what I really liked about this book, it really challenged me. I know it’s not good to compare our spiritual journey with others, but sometimes when one sees someone else’s output, it begs the question, “What am I doing?” This question can lead one to get serious about examining their own faith.

The famous “Tim Tebow Speech” was also featured, which followed the 2008 loss against Ole Miss. It was a game everyone was expecting the Gators to win, but they came up short, (literally by one yard). But again, I just was pumped by hearing it again, completely inspired by this guy’s determination.

“To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I’m sorry. I’m extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal, something Florida has never done here. I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player play the rest of the season as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless.”

That was Tebow’s promise, and he kept it. The team finished off the season winning the rest of their games including the national championship.

The story continues as it touches on every college game in which Tebow played. I’m pretty sure I either went to as many of the home games as I could, or I watched all of the away games that were televised, being a student at UF while Tebow was there. So it was pretty fun reliving those explosive games. However, I could see how someone who didn’t watch the games may not be as interested in this part of the book, (which is a considerable portion). But if you love football, and especially Gator football, then I’d recommend you check it out. Also, if you are a Christian, or you just admire Tebow’s character, I think you will find something inspirational about this read. I really appreciated how each chapter started off with a Bible verse that was applicable to that point in his life.

The downsides to this publication, in my opinion, are pretty limited. Non-football people may be lost through most of it, but he does a pretty good job explaining a lot of the game’s terminology to those who don’t watch the sport. I did find that the book read pretty slow, even though I enjoyed it. But that’s just how most biographies go for me.

So, another light critique from me, I know. But I was inspired. We can all learn the importance of doing everything with such determination, as we are living for God.

Thirty minutes. For the rest of our lives. Let’s go.

Religion Saves: + Nine Other Misconceptions

In the wake of the Rob Bell media buzz, I was compelled to read the famous (or notorious) Love Wins. I went into it expecting to not be theologically satisfied. I was right in this assumption. Without going into too much explanation (this is after all a review of Mark Driscoll’s book, not Rob Bells’), I’ll say that I felt Bell takes many liberties in his assessment of scripture and even states that Hell is a “surreal” place instead of a real place. His nebulous doctrine is protected by his lack of citation. Rather than backing his statements with footnotes or any sort of explanation, he favors more of a stream of consciousness approach. This makes it difficult to know whether or not he is making things up. He does a good job asking a lot of questions of traditional doctrine without providing too many answers (though I confess I did have to put the book down before finishing it, which is why I am not going to assess his book in its own post). He asserts that the Church (universal) is the one that has taken liberties in its understanding of doctrine.

On the flip side, I’ll give credit where credit is due. I was challenged by the bit that I read, to become more involved. I have personally sensed that I need to help out in the clean water initiative to stop the spread of disease in parts of the world where they do not have access to clean water.

So what does all this Rob Bell discussion have to do with Mark Driscoll’s book, Religion Saves: + Nine Other Misconceptions? A lot.

For starters, the book’s title is a lot like Driscoll. He’s not a typical conservative pastor. He is known often for getting one’s attention in an unorthodox manner, but in my opinion, he often provides a message that is backed up Biblically. The title caused me to do a double take in the book store. (Yes, I still shop at a book store and read actual books, not screens.) Religion Saves? Oh, nine other misconceptions, got it. There is definitely a stigma associated with the word religion. Non-Christians see Christianity as a religion, and sometimes use the word religious to characterize something negative. Christians do not appreciate the word, as we see our faith as something uniquely set apart from all the other beliefs in this world.

This book was written as a response to the top nine questions that Mark Driscoll received on his website. They included hot topics such as birth control, humor, predestination, grace, sexual sin, faith and works, dating, the emerging church, and the regulative principle. Throughout the text his goal was to expose the religious, or legalistic, approach to understanding these issues, and face them with what he believes scripture says along with his own common sense.

The book provides a refreshing feature for me. All of the sources that he relies on are provided. So if any reader wants to know where Driscoll is getting his facts, they will more than likely be able to pinpoint the source of his information.

I enjoyed the chapter on humor. He starts out the chapter saying, “I am on a mission to both put people in heaven and put the ‘fun’ back in ‘fundamentalism.’” We tend to get a little wound up when we talk about faith, and we sometimes just need to see the humor of the situation. Driscoll does a good job cataloging the funny references that appear in scripture. Most of my favorites are from Proverbs, like this one:

“Mocking the guy who is too lazy to even exert energy to get the chips from the bowl to his mouth while sitting on the couch devoting his twenties to watching every episode of Star Trek, Proverbs 19:24 says, ‘The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth.’”

On the topic of predestination, Driscoll leans towards Calvinism rather than Arminianism. He presents the ideas of both sides, but obviously argues for the former. It was fairly educational for me, as I have heard the arguments on both sides, but I have never studied Calvinism in depth. I consider myself to be open minded to the issue, and feel that others who are willing to consider both sides of the argument would do well to check out Driscoll’s discussion on this topic, either in this book or on this youtube link.

Though this book was written in 2009, Driscoll had already sized up Rob Bell’s theology way before Love Wins was published. In his chapter on the Emerging Church, Driscoll dissects this new wave of Christianity into four parts, or roads, as he calls them. In his summary, Driscoll says that three of the four emergent sectors are attempting to reach people with theological orthodoxy. They are missional evangelicals, missional house church evangelicals, and missional Reformed evangelicals. He categorizes pastors like Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and Doug Paggitt to be leaders of the fourth category: Emergent Liberals. The term does not point to any sort of political affiliation, rather, it points to their liberal or generous interpretation of scripture as being open ended.

Rob Bell’s theology is assessed in the chapter. In response to a video talk, in which Bell stated that Peter began to sink in the water not because he doubted Christ, but rather himself, Driscoll says:

“Christianity is about us having faith in Jesus, but in Bell’s gospel, Jesus has faith in us; salvation, or a new way of life, requires not just having faith in Jesus but also having faith in ourselves.”

Also, Driscoll points to a line in Bell’s other book Velvet Elvis, in which Bell endorses Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything, a book on divine creativity, which Driscoll identifies as meaning that we are co-creators with God. Ken Wilber has been described as a leader in New Age practices, receiving influence from Buddhist meditation.

An interesting question that Driscoll was forced to answer was, “Of all the things that you teach, what parts of Christianity do you still wrestle with? What’s hardest for you to believe?”

His answer is grace.

“…my sin is not the hardest aspect of Christian truth to believe. What I sometimes find hard to believe is that God responds to me with pure grace. I receive grace not despite being undeserving–as one who has not merited grace–but actually as one who is ill-deserving because I am a sinful rebel at war with God. God would be gracious in doing good for strangers, but God goes even further and is gracious to his enemies.”

Grace is an amazing thing.

I really don’t have too many negative remarks about this book. I guess the title is both ambiguous and lengthy. Also readers are likely to get offended at some point in this book. Driscoll himself admits to making fun of all types of people. My recommendation is to learn to laugh it off. The only other thing is that, ironically, I was disappointed that the book ended rather anti-climatically. Obviously, stories have rising action, climax, and a falling action. However, as a discourse on the top nine questions, one would expect that it would end on the hottest item, but this ended on the regulative principle, which in comparison with the rest of the book, was not as interesting.

So there it is. Pilot review. I hope to get better at this as it goes. Hopefully I will have more actual criticism than approval for some of the books, otherwise I will have to change this blog to the Book Recommender, and that just doesn’t sound as good.

I did mention in the kickoff post that I would be discussing faith, as I believe my faith in Jesus is first and foremost the foundation of who I am. Deal with it.

It begins

To the reader (if any exist for this page):

First and foremost, thank you for stopping by. I have no idea how you stumbled upon this humble post. As I am beginning this blog I realize that there may not ever be any Book Critic  followers. I have accepted this possibility and am actually fine with it.
As a journalism graduate from the University of Florida several years ago, I thought it would be fitting if I actually wrote about something I enjoy. Reading. This may be an indulgence for me more than for any reader who wishes to find some recommended literature as if this were the Oprah Book Club. (I do not expect such an outcome, but I would be thrilled nonetheless if it ever affected someone to that extent.)

No, my intention for this blog is to stretch my own critical analysis on titles that I have explored, and to invite others to take what they may from my own conclusions. It is my hope that we may explore a profundity or two along the way that may be worth consideration. If not, I at least hope that someone was able to laugh at how misguided my thoughts were on the topic. All are welcome to provide their own input as they see fit through the blog’s comment feature. I understand that these types of publications do well if they feature the latest releases. I will try to do my best to do so, but I will not shy away from the occasional throwback novel. I believe that every reader should read from writers of his or her day as well as from those who have gone before. Relevance can be found in any time.

One more thing: I am not only a reader or a writer. I am a person who is opinionated, and a person with a certain taste in literary genres. I haven’t quite decided upon the method for which a book will be selected for review, but I will likely do so based partially upon books that I actually want to read. I can tell you now that I am interested in faith (I am a protestant Christian), inspirational living, mystery, suspense/thrillers, fantasy (I love J.R.R. Tolkien’s works), sports, sci-fi, and the occasional romance. Non-fiction is a broad area, so I’ll try to cover those as they present themselves.

So keep an eye (or an RSS feed) out for the next installments of The Book Critic!