The Swamp, by Eric Bolling

Former Fox News host Eric Bolling has some advice for President Trump.  In The Swamp: Washington's Murky Pool of Corruption and Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It, Bolling runs through a sordid history of Washington politics and offers modest recommendations for the Trump administration.

The bulk of Bolling's book is a historical tour of the continual fount of corruption that is Washington, D.C.  This is not a new phenomenon; it dates back to the country's founding.  As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Throughout American history, the power of government has been on an upward trend, and levels of corruption have kept pace.  Bolling writes, "Washington is a city of no-bid contracts and general cronyism despite the constant pretense of scrupulous ethics rules and press watchfulness."

Moving into the modern era, Bolling will disabuse you of any notion that the supposed corruption of the Trump administration is anything new.  He reminds us of the scandal-ridden Bill Clinton administration (which was not necessarily out of the norm) and points out that "Many Clinton supporters went into the 2016 election so dead set against Trump being president that they were willing to overlook decades of wrongdoing by the Clintons."  By electing Trump, an outsider who had never been elected to public office, Americans chose another option besides "watching control of the Swamp lurch back and forth between two parties that were opposites on things that don't matter and all too similar on things that do."

The temptations for anyone in elected office in Washington are great.  "Once you're in Washington, no matter how many emails you get from constituents, the voices of the public will never be quite as loud as the voices of the lobbyists and fellow politicians sitting right there in the room with you day in and day out--including the ones pleading for more spending and more special favors at endless committee hearings."

Bolling's solution: tune it out!  Ignore the bureaucracy's demands!  He writes, "The haters are going to hate--and scream--whether you make a 1 percent cut in a single program's budget or a 90 percent cut in every program's budget, so you might as well aim for the latter while you're at it."  Sounds good to me.  Time will tell whether Trump will continue to shake things up.  "We have a strange, unexpected chance to break with business as usual" in Washington.  Trump really needs to figure out how to reduce spending while he reduces regulations.  Deficits are way up under him.  Will he live up to the promises that got him elected?  We'll see.

Raising Men, Not Boys, by Mike Fabarez

The danger of reading a book like Raising Men, Not Boys: Shepherding Your Sons to Be Men of God after your sons are pretty much grown is that you might end up thinking, "Ugh, there is so much that I could have and should have done differently."  The good news for me, whose sons are 17 and 19, is that my boys are godly young men, so I must have done something right.  The good news for dads of younger boys is that pastor Mike Fabarez has provided a guide for getting there.

Raising Men, Not Boys gives clear direction without condemnation, lifestyle guidelines without onerous strictness.  You can't talk about raising kids without some nod toward rules, but Fabarez makes it clear that he is not a legalist, especially not in a theological sense.  "Good behavior as a means to gaining or keeping a relationship with God is offensive to God, but good behavior done to please God by those who are in relationship with him is prized by God." 

Besides cultivating a heart that leans toward obedience, Fabarez provides strong, practical tips for parenting boys.  Promote physical activity, instill a solid work ethic, promote wise financial choices, learn balance in entertainment choices.  All told, Fabarez isn't particularly innovative in his guidance and recommendations.  But he provides wisdom and very practical, applicable suggestions that you can immediately implement, all under a broad attitude of living in godliness.  One of his themes is that we must model behaviors we expect our sons to emulate.  Being a dad isn't easy.  Fabarez gives help and hope for shaping godly men.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Restless Faith, by Richard Mouw

It has become popular, especially since the 2016 presidential election, for evangelicals to publicly eschew the label evangelical.  Richard Mouw, who has taught at Fuller Seminary since 1985, and served as president of the seminary from 1993 to 2013, acknowledges that those who distance themselves from the evangelical label have reason for concern.  But, as he writes in Restless Faith: Holding Evangelical Beliefs in a World of Contested Labels, he's not willing to give up the label: "For myself, I can't think of a label that suits me better than 'evangelical.'"

Mouw wants the evangelical tradition, a tradition he loves and that he nurtured him, to be preserved, and calls on "intellectual leaders who have been talking about simply resigning from the evangelical movement" to lend their aid to its preservation.  In Restless Faith, Mouw addresses some of the criticisms while affirming the strengths of the movement.

Mouw himself was active in the evangelical social movement in earlier decades, and rejects much of what the religious right, as it arose in the 1980s, stands for.  He makes it clear that one needn't embrace the religious right if one is to be an evangelical.  At the same time, Mouw's theological statements herein should disabuse anyone's suspicions that he is a universalistic theological liberal.  He absolutely affirms, for example, the need for individual faith in Christ for salvation, but goes on to say that "individual salvation is not enough."

Mouw's work is encouraging and challenging.  He has, in his academic life and public service, exemplified an evangelicalism that holds firm to faith while living with, speaking with, and cooperating with culture and society at large.  The bottom line, as I read him, is that evangelicals should not permit people and cultural forces outside of evangelicalism to define what is meant by the term.  The burden, then, is for evangelicals to model and preserve its meaning.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Money Problems, Marriage Solutions, by Chuck Bentley

I know Chuck Bentley must be a great guy because he's a graduate of Baylor University--sic 'em!  Beyond that, he is CEO of Crown Financial Ministries, where he has helped millions of people with his financial wisdom.  In Money Problems, Marriage Solutions: 7 Keys to Aligning Your Finances and Uniting Your Hearts, he offers couples assistance in keeping their marriages and finances strong.

While Crown offers resources for budgeting and planning, and Bentley does direct readers to those resources, the 7 keys here go much deeper than that.  His practical advice in support of marriage applies to any couple, no matter their financial status.  Bentley's guidance is doable and relatable.  Strengthen your marriage, strengthen your family's finances.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The Ultimate Droodles Compendium, by Roger Price

You may or may not know what a Droodle is, or who Roger Price is, but I can almost guarantee you've seen Droodles, the creation of Roger Price.  In The Ultimate Droodles Compendium, "the absurdly complete collection of al the classic zany creations of Roger Price," Fritz Holznagel has collected Price's Droodles, Price's commentaries, and some additional background and historical material. 

So, first of all, what is a Droodle?  "Droodles are small sill drawings in a square box that 'you don't understand until you ask, and the it's too late to wish you hadn't.'"  They were most popular in the 1950s, in the funny papers but also in commercial ads.  But they lasted long enough in popular culture that I remember seeing them in my childhood a couple decades later. 

Frank Zappa made a lasting contribution to the popularity of Droodles by naming an album after a Droodle and featuring it on the cover: "Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch."  This exemplifies the clever simplicity of Price's Droodles. 

This book brings Droodles back to public attention, and provides context for  Price's career.  Granted, I don't know that a huge Droodles fan base was clamoring for this book, but it makes the point that Price was a key figure in American comedy in the middle of the century, not just for his funny drawings, but for his other contributions as well. 




Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams

I've been a fan of Dilbert since my college days, and I'm pleased that the strip is still going strong.  I didn't know much about Dilbert creator Scott Adams so I decided to check out How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life.  Part testimonial, part biography, part self-help, Adams gives his readers and fans plenty to think about in a no-nonsense, experiential style familiar to Dilbert readers.  Here are some nuggets I liked:

"One should have a system, not a goal."  Adams says goals are for losers.  If someone has a goal, time spent trying to achieve that goal is "a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary."  Once you achieve a goal, "you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction."  One the other hand, people using a system "succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do."  This, to me, is revelatory.

Adams's diet plan holds a lot of appeal for me, too: "I eat as much as I want, of anything I want, whenever I want."  That's a plan I can follow!  The key for him, though, is the catch.  "Once you want to eat the right kinds of food for enjoyment, and you don't crave the wrong kinds of food, everything else comes somewhat easily."  So begins a lengthy discussion about training yourself to crave the right things.  As Adams puts it, "I set out to hack my brain like a computer and rewire the cravings circuitry."  This fits the systems over goals mindset, and makes a lot of sense, but getting there is not easy.

Similarly, Adams's exercise advice is simple: "Be active every day."  Make things you enjoy become a habit.  Don't try to force yourself to do something you don't like or aren't suited for.  That involves willpower and "any system that depends on willpower will fail."  (Same goes for diet.)

Adams has plenty of other thoughts, which may or may not be called advice.  He just talks about what has--and what hasn't--worked for him in business and life.  One of his apparently controversial practices is his spoken affirmations, "the practice of repeating to yourself what you want to achieve while imagining the outcome you want."  He said some people have criticized his affirmations as sounding like magic or something.  It does sound a little goofy, but I could see it working.

Adams approaches this book with a lot of humility, in that he recognizes that what works for him may not work for you and me.  Yet his record speaks for itself; clearly he has met success in his life and work, in large part due to the factors, behaviors, and decisions he describes here.  He leaves the reader with a parting note that perhaps something he said with stick with us and help us make a difference in our own life and work.  Sounds reasonable to me!

What If It's True?, by Charles Martin

Charles Martin, a novelist who has written over a dozen novels, turns his pen (or laptop) to nonfiction in What If It's True? A Storyteller's Journey with Jesus.  The greatest strength of the book is Martin's application of his story-telling skills to the stories of scripture.  Of course, there's no replacement for the original, but even the most ardent lover of the Bible has to admit that sometimes the scriptural accounts lack drama, setting, and the fullness of a good story.  That's where Martin, while honoring the original, fills in the gaps.  Imagine that you love a beautiful black and white line drawing, and then you see it in a richly colored and exquisitely detailed stained-glass window.  Or a story you've read for years faithfully portrayed on the big screen.  That's the effect of the narrative portions of Martin's book.

On a more modest, but still effective, level, Martin challenges the reader with the titular question.  About Jesus, many people "either consciously or unconsciously . . . have reduced Him to a mysterious, walk-about prophet with cool sandals and a posse. . . . This limitation is really dangerous."  But what if what the Bible says about Jesus is true?  What if he really forgives sin?  "What if the blood of Jesus does more than guarantee our salvation?"  What if Jesus is alive today? 

If all of this is true, it should radically change our approach to life.  Unfortunately, many (most?) Christians don't live like they really believe.  Martin brings the stories of scripture to life, and challenges Christians to live like they believe them.  Martin does tend to ramble a bit, but if you follow the threads of his narrative, you can't help but come away convicted.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!