My Review of "Divine Applause"

I know God is there, all the time. But might there be ways I can catch his attention?

Jeff Anderson's Divine Applause: Secrets and Rewards of Walking and the Invisible God says yes.

And he writes with the goal of helping us to see our lives as God sees our lives.

His book begins largely with his own experience, in an effort to illustrate what he understands God to see about our lives. Then he goes on to encourage us to see God in every day moments, and live in a way that is pleasing to God. The third section of the book focuses exclusively on living "blamelessly".

I can understand why this book appeals to certain readers. But it's largely filled with so much personal experience, and very little biblical reflection. In that way, it's more religious psychology than genuine Christian faith. While I agree that our goal is to live in such a way so as to please God, I think what it means to "please God" can be less described from my life -- or from Anderson's life -- than from the life of Jesus himself.

If you're looking for a grounded, biblical reflection, try the more classic Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God or Jean-Pierre de Crussade's Sacrament of the Present Moment. Not Divine Applause.

__________________
I received this book free, from the Blogging for Books program, in exchange for my honest review.

Comments

My Review of "Home on the Range"

Ruther Logan Herne's Home on the Range is a novel about the Double S Ranch and Nick, who is raising his two daughters by himself. I found the characters to be very realistic. The setting is wonderful and I loved to read all the struggles of each person. It makes it more realistic and easier to read and believe. Elsa is a wonderful character. I love that her past is a secret until the end of the book -- which, itself, is very well written. I was very pleased with this contemporary cowboy read. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "The Tea Planter's Wife"

Dinah Jefferies' The Tea Planter's Wife is a fun novel that vividly depicts the 1920s. Gwendolyn Hooper, her 19-year-old heroine, speaks for an empire-branded breed of gutsy young British women who left the security of England to embark on extraordinary adventures abroad. Not the back-packing, "lonely planet" travels of today, gap-year kids constantly connected with the folks back home via internet and smartphones, and usually safely and predictably back home for good inside a year. Girls like Gwen married men who made their living and fortunes out in the colonies -- or what until very recently had been colonies -- and went out to join them, standing shoulder-to shoulder with their husbands to face down hardship, danger, disease, monsoon, drought, and not least the simmering and sometimes murderous resentment of locals. That makes The Tea Planter's Wife so much more than a love story -- it's a recognition that girls like Gwen had guts, and c...

My Review of "Misfit Faith"

Jason Stellman's Misfit Faith: Confessions of a Drunk Ex-Pastor was not quite the book I had expected it to be. It was so much better! Jason Stellman was a Presbyterian pastor, but he became a Roman Catholic. I expected Misfit Faith to be, therefore, a semi-autobiographical work of Catholic apologetics. I read of Scott Hahn's mentorship of Stellman, and expected Misfit Faith to be a new, milder version of Hahn's scholarship. But I did not see any defense of Peter being the first pope in Misfit Faith , or any criticism of Sola Scriptura, or an explanation and defense of the Catholic understanding of justification. Instead, I read the story of Stellman's own spiritual journey. From the opening confession that Stellman had flirted with Christian universalism, I knew this wasn't going to be a Catholic apologetic. I wouldn't even characterize Misfit Faith as an apologetic at all. Because if there's one thing Stellman isn't sure on...

The Mrs. & the Minister

Search This Blog