Space Station Down, by Ben Bova and Doug Beason

Space Station Down, by Ben Bova and Doug Beason, starts off with a great premise: a cosmonaut and a space tourist arrive at the International Space Station and immediately start killing the crew.  They announce their intent to drop the ISS out of orbit, spew radioactive matter across the entire eastern part of the United States, and crash it into the heart of New York City, the impact of which will be far greater than an atomic bomb.

What they didn't count on was the presence of Kimberly Hasid-Robinson, the ISS chief who evades their initial attack and, as the sole surviving ISS crew member, has to figure out how to use her wits to foil their dastardly plan.  She is a brave, powerful, resourceful, and wily foe, who these criminals did not anticipate.

Besides the suspenseful standoff between Kimberly and the terrorists, which is most of the story, what I enjoyed most about Space Station Down was the realism.  Obviously, I have never been to the ISS.  Neither have Bova or Beason.  But they provide enough detail that I was fully convinced that the details about the ISS were accurate and realistic.  I feel confident that if I pulled up a schematic of ISS, it would reflect the descriptions in the story.

Space Station Down combines the things I enjoy about sci-fi: a near-future setting that utilizes current technology (with perhaps some speculation about next level tech), convincingly realistic depictions of the science, strong story elements of suspense, tension, romance, human relationships, and characters I can relate to and root for or against.  I'm not saying I hate sci-fi with aliens, fanciful technology, or philosophical explorations, but Space Station Down pushed a lot of buttons for me.  I enjoyed it a lot.


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

The Beautiful Community, by Irwyn L. Ince, Jr.

Pastor Irwyn Ince has broken ground in the Presbyterian Church in America, as the first African-American elected as moderator of the General Assembly.  In a mostly white denomination, he's leading the charge for diversity, as he has done in the Grace DC Presbyterian churches where he has served as a pastor.  In his book The Beautiful Community, he further casts the message: the body of Christ is a beautiful community that includes people of all races.  He writes that "the ministry of reconciliation demonstrated in the local church by the gathering of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities is the natural outworking of a rich covenantal theological commitment."

The covenantal relationship we share among ourselves, as reflected in our covenantal relationship with God, should also reflect the "beautiful community" shared among the three persons of the Trinity.  "To refuse to pursue unity in diversity as a redeemed people is to fundamentally neglect what it means for us to be the image of God."

Of course, the point of writing this book is that the church does not reflect that unity in diversity.  To be fair, I think we (meaning the contemporary American church) try harder than Ince gives us credit for.  Ince's anecdotes aside, I think it would be rare for a person of any race to walk into any church in America and be excluded or shunned because of race.  The larger question is the assimilation and blending of culture that should happen.  We, as humans, hang on to our identities.  "Our Blackness, our whiteness, our Asian-ness, our Latino-ness still tends to be at the center of our identity even after faith in Jesus Christ."  And this is reflected in the styles of worship we enjoy.  Ince points out that as welcoming as white Christians may be to other races in our churches, they still worship, teach, and fellowship like white people, expecting other races to assimilate to their ways (which are not biblical but cultural).

While this is true of white Christians, as the majority culture in America, I would argue that it's true of virtually any culture.  My wife and I are white and one of our children is black.  When he was getting old enough to be aware of the world around him, we moved to a new city and hoped to find a diverse church.  What we found were culturally black churches, some with a few white people, and culturally white churches, some with a few minorities.  We chose a mostly white church with a few black families and a couple of families who had also adopted black children.

Can worship ever be separated from culture?  Likely not.  Can we learn to worship together in beautiful communities?  Absolutely.  "He enables us to love, hear, seek, understand, and pursue one another in our diversity."  This is a process of discipleship, and of giving up our preferences.  I don't know how much The Beautiful Community moves us toward that goal, which will likely never be achieved short of heaven, but it's certainly food for thought and a challenge to consider how much of our worship, and even our theology, is tied to our cultural and racial preferences, not to our shared, biblical faith.


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

Offworld, by Robin Parrish

On the way back from Mars, Chris Burke and his crew were looking forward to a hero's welcome and some time to reconnect with their lives on Earth.  Alas, the first people to walk on Mars were greeted by--no one.  Not only were there no people, there were no animals.  It was as if every living thing had instantly disappeared. 

So begins Robin Parrish's sci-fi novel Offworld.  Of course, the intrepid explorers and scientists that they are, they set out on a cross-country trek from Florida to Houston, where satellite images show a bright beam of light that, they figure, must have something to do with the disappearance.  Along the way, it seems as if the world is conspiring against them.  Among other perils, they struggle to survive an unnaturally severe storm, and a building inexplicably collapses on them. 

Ultimately, they discover that the cause of the disappearance is, in fact, human activity, and the humans who caused it are highly motivated to keep the crew from discovering the source.  This is a page turner for sure, but Parrish goes a little over the top with the luck of the crew and falls a bit short in the scientific purpose and means of the disappearance.  I am a little curious how this book fits with the other two in his "Dangerous Times" series, but I'm not sure I like it enough to take time to read those, too.  As a stand-alone title, Offworld leaves some unanswered questions, however, for the most part, wraps it all up nicely in the end.

https://amzn.to/32yKMKm

Small Town, Big Miracle, by Bishop W.C. Martin

Several years ago, I heard Bishop W. C. Martin speak at a conference, where he talked about his little church adopting dozens of children out of foster care.  His story touched me, and I'm so glad to run across his book, Small Town, Big Miracle: How Love Came to the Least of These.  Bishop Martin is pastor of Bennett Chapel in the tiny community of Possum Trot, in southeast Texas.  He and his wife and his wife's sister became convicted that God was calling them to adopt.  Based on their example, as well as on his preaching regularly on adoption, many families in their church followed their lead.  The inspiration caught on and before long a couple dozen families had adopted over seventy children.

If this weren't inspiring enough, you have to get the full picture of this community.  This is a town with no paved road, one of the poorest areas in the country.  But these folks are full of love, with love to spare.  Martin doesn't sugar coat the process, revealing that they did have plenty of problems.  As a community they had decided to focus on hard-to-adopt kids, older kids that had been in multiple foster homes.  They came to Possum Trot with habits, behaviors, and issues.  In many cases they had suffered abuse, neglect, molestation, beatings, starvation, and torture.  Acclimating them into families of love and trust was a process.  But they never had to send kids back into the system.

Martin and his family and friends and congregation are not superheroes, even though they seem to be.  They are Christians who followed the call of Jesus on their lives and families to love orphans in need.  Martin does not hesitate to call out other Christians.  It doesn't matter if you have little money, have other kids already, have kids with special needs, have no kids or are an empty nester, there is no reason why you can't consider adoption for yourself and your family.  If other churches, who have more people and more material resources, would follow Martin's and Bennett Chapel's example, no child would be stuck in foster care.  What an inspiring and challenging and beautiful story.

https://amzn.to/32CwxEg

Compassion (&) Conviction, by Justin Giboney, Michael Wear, and Chris Butler

Justin Giboney, Micheal Wear, and Chris Butler are among the leaders of The AND Campaign, an organization dedicated to bringing together faith (&) politics, biblical values (&) social justice, truth (&) love.  (The ampersand in parentheses is their symbol.)  The three of them have put together some of their ideas about public life in Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement.  The goal of the book, and presumably the organization, is to develop "a gospel-centered framework to help Christians reflect the compassion and conviction of Jesus Christ in the public square." 

As they see it, one role of politics is to "provide[] a forum for advocating for our neighbor's well-being and pursuing justice," and that Christians "should participate in politics primarily to help others and to represent our Lord and Savior in the public square."  They advocate leaning on the teachings of scripture rather than conservative or progressive (or other) political ideology to dictate one's political and social perspective.  If a Christian finds himself always agreeing with one or the other political position, he is "intellectually lazy and easily manipulated" and "not being faithful." 

Christians in the public square should "be a source of moral clarity and biblical illumination in our world."  They might not always agree, but should set an example of civility: "Incivility among Christians in the public square is a genuine threat to the witness of the church."  We can disagree without "expressing contempt for one another."  

As unifying and non-partisan as Compassion (&) Conviction tries to be, the content of the book conveys a position that says, "True Christian faith will lean hard toward socially liberal political positions."  To the authors, public policy that favors minorities, immigrants, and the poor is the obvious and default position.  They never acknowledge that the Christian "preferential option for the poor" and the call to look out for one's neighbor, when enforced through legal structures, has the backing of the force of the state.  

When Christian virtue is enforced by the state, it is no longer virtue.  If I see my neighbor hungry, as a Christian I can and should seek to aid him.  But when I use the structure of the state to feed my hungry neighbor, I force one neighbor, with the threat of violence, to feed my other neighbor.  This fundamental truth about government throws cold water on the warm, fuzzy public ethic of these authors and others.  I agree that I am to love my neighbor, assist widows and orphans, etc., but when I try to enforce those obligations with the force of law rather than the calling of the heart, I am out of bounds and in violation of a free conscience.

https://amzn.to/2WzlNCM

Uranus, by Ben Bova

Uranus is the first in Ben Bova's promised Outer Planets trilogy.  This one starts with a promising and compelling basis.  A preacher and a billionaire have teamed up to create a space habitat orbiting Uranus.  Aptly called Haven, it is a "haven for Earth's poor, disenfranchised, forgotten men and women," a last resort for people who need a second chance.  Residents come from the lower classes and are screened for criminal tendencies, in hopes that, freed from the earth's economic struggles and stratification, they can thrive with a fresh start in space.

After a life on the streets, depending on prostitution and manipulation to survive, Raven Marchesi feels lucky to have a place on Haven.  Trying to start over and escape her past, yet using the street smarts acquired over many years, she quickly gains a spot in the inner circles of Haven's administration.  Kyle Umber, the preacher, has good intentions, but he has allowed Evan Waxman, the billionaire who largely funded Haven, to run the place in unsavory ways.

Uranus is a decently fun, melodramatic story, with a strong female central character, a couple of sleazy male characters, and a few others to feed the story.  For such a prolific writer, I was surprised by the simplicity of the plot and the predictability of the characters.  The subplot of scientific research on the history of Uranus and evidence of extraterrestrial life doesn't get the attention it should.  I would rather have seen this part of the story developed.  This is a decent book, but if you read it expecting a great story from a seasoned sci-fi writer, just prepare yourself for disappointment.

 

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

New Way to Be Human, by Charlie Peacock

I remember Charlie Peacock as one of the most thoughtful and creative Christian musicians in the 1980s and 1990s.  He jumps into practical theology, expanding his song writing to book writing in New Way to Be Human: A Provocative Look at What It Means to Follow Jesus.  

Like the artist he is, Peacock takes Christian discipleship and projects it through a lens that will help you see your faith a bit differently.  As student-followers of Jesus, Christians take part in God's Story.  The Christian life is a story, and should be evident in the life of a Christian.  I don't want people to wonder whether or not I am a Christian.  As Peacock writes, "If people want to know why you head in one direction and not another, tell them who you're following. . . . I want people to ask, 'What's the deal with him?'  Answer: 'Him?  Oh he's with Jesus.'" (93, 95)

One of the more challenging sections addressed the question of work.  As a clock puncher in a secular job, it's hard for me to maintain a focus on my work as Christian service.  Peacock leans hard against working a basic job for a paycheck.  "Neither the need for money nor the need for goods and services defines work for the man or woman following in the new way. . . . Can it really be that our work is to do good and that's all?  Yes. . . . Honestly, this is just too good to be true for most followers, and so in matters of work and money, we think and behave as practical atheists." (171)  I have to say he's right.  As much as I say I rely on God's provision for my life, I'm really relying on my work ethic and skills, not on God (although I can attribute those things to God).  Honestly, I have known very few, if any, Christians who really model what he writes here.  Most of us are practical atheists on this score.

Equally challenging but more attainable was Peacock's perspective on marriage.  Marriage should be a "world-changing art of God."  He calls Christians to view marriage as a joyful, passionate partnership.  There are so many ways we get distracted in our marriages--and the rest of life--that detract from and distract from God's Story.  "When we build lives or marriages of our own design, structure church of our own design, and allow some other story than God's to control life, we accept something short of the agenda of God." (191)  

New Way to Be Human is worth picking up, worth reading again, and worth reading with a group of believers.  New believers can establish lifestyle foundations for living their faith, and with his unique perspective, even seasoned believers will enjoy a new way of looking at established elements of Christian discipleship.

Wake Up America, by Eric Bolling

Eric Bolling published Wake Up America: The Nine Virtues That Made Our Nation Great--and Why We Need Them More Than Ever in June of 2016, when Hilary Clinton's victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election was all but assured.  In the opening pages of the book, he speculates about what Hilary's inauguration would look like.  The cast of characters and their policy positions and records, the speculation of what her cabinet would have looked like, the judges she would have appointed, the type of government that she would have overseen, reminds conservative Americans how grateful we are that Trump won in 2016.  

Writing in the months leading up to that election, Bolling sets his sights beyond a single presidential election, but lays out virtues that are crucial and fundamental for government--and life.  Bolling definitely leans right and Republican, as the virtues (which I've listed below with his descriptions) are sure to indicate.  No matter the party, the office, the politician, these virtues are worthy of emulation and can set a standard to aim for.  Whether the current president holds these virtues or not is open to debate (a debate that will certainly expose partisan rifts!), but there's little question that, all things considered, conservatives exhibit these virtues to a greater degree than liberals.  Politicians, as well as the everyday man on the street, can become better citizens and better people by reflecting on these virtues in their own lives.

Grit: "the power to try, fail, and rebuild in a nation of endless possibilities"

Profit: "a system that rewards people for ingenuity, greed, and competition against others"

Manliness: "the rugged pioneer spirit that allowed men and women with guts and guns to carve a great nation out of the wilderness"

Thrift: "the classic middle American value of living within your means and avoiding debt"

Individuality: "the ability to think and speak and believe whatever you like"

Dominion: "the notion that nature is under the control of humanity and not the other way around"

Merit: "the idea that people should succeed based on their own skills and talents, not due to the entitlements from a nanny state and that effort and good choices should be rewarded"

Pride: "love of country and an abiding belief in America's special place among the nations of the world"

Providence: "the belief in a role for faith in our own lives and in the life of our nation, from a simple ball game to America's destiny, because there are things bigger than self or state"

Make Russia Great Again, by Christopher Buckley

Christopher Buckley established himself as one of our funniest political satirists with his earlier novels like Thank You for Smoking and The White House Mess.  Buckley has been taking a break from contemporary political satire and for some reason decided that today's political climate wasn't absurd enough in reality, so he has written Make Russia Great Again.  

Late in President his first term, Trump appoints his long-time employee Herb Nutterman as White House Chief of Staff.  Herb has been a reliable, loyal employee at Trump's hotels and clubs, and brings his hospitality instincts to politics and international affairs.  Things start to get messy when Herb learns that a US-created rogue AI has interfered with Russia's presidential election, pushing a Communist Party candidate that had been way behind in the polls into a runoff with Putin.  Meanwhile, a Russian oligarch has videos of Trump having sex with all the contestants at the Moscow Miss Universe competition and has certain demands he is asking of Trump.  Herb, needless to say, is in way over his head.

While there are some funny scenes among the absurd scenarios Buckley writes, the whole novel has the feel of laziness.  Buckley takes Trump's worst stereotypes, the administration's most ridiculous characteristics, and the left's most over-the-top accusations, to create this alternative history of the Trump presidency.  It's too dull to be vicious, and too silly to make any meaningful point.  It's like a Hilary Clinton delusion in which the Steele "pee tape" turned out to be real and Trump is actually in Putin's back pocket.  Maybe Trump haters will love it, I don't know.  I have a feeling the author's father would dismiss Make Russia Great Again as a silly waste of time.

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

The Prisoner, by Carlos J. Cortes

In the not-so-distant future, there has been a revolution in prisons.  Rather than warehousing criminals in cages, hibernation facilities warehouse criminals in tanks.  Carlos J. Cortes's novel The Prisoner hits the ground running with a gutsy prison break from one of these facilities.  A team of rescuers gets themselves convicted and checked in, fully immersed in a hibernation tank, then with inside help get themselves and their target out of there.  Russo has been in hibernation for years, falsely imprisoned by a political rival.  

Most of the first half of the book is the escape itself, through the labyrinthine sewers of Washington, D.C.  This is the most memorable part of the book.  Not only do they experience the utterly disgusting reality of human waste--not only organic waste, but all the diapers, tampons, condoms, hair, fat, and other things that go down our drains and we flush down our toilets--they encounter a whole civilization of people who inhabit long-forgotten underground spaces.  It is gross and fascinating.  

Once they manage to get out above the ground, they still have to navigate the disgusting flow of corruption, personal vendettas, political maneuvering, and financial misdeeds that are still the hallmark of Washington.  Their mission: to expose the abuse of the hibernation prison system, which unlawfully detains people like Russo and others for a fee.  The abuse is so deeply engrained in D.C. culture that opposition, official and unofficial, greets them at every turn.

The Prisoner goes from a gripping and fascinating start, to a confusing and convoluted chunk, to a clever and satisfying conclusion.  It did leave me with one thought: I hope hibernation prisons do not become a reality, and if they do, keep me far, far away.

Win Bigly, by Scott Adams

In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, cartoonist Scott Adams experienced a sort of transformation.  With decades of cartoon brilliance, best-selling business books, an active speaking schedule, and other successful business ventures, Adams built a loyal blog following.  When he started making predictions in his blog that Donald Trump was going to win the presidency, his notoriety--and blog traffic--blew up.  When it turned out he was right, his new-found role as political guru was solidified.

In Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, Adams recounts this transformation and the blow-by-blow account of his blog posts and observations.  Adams has suffered professionally as a result of being labeled as a Trump apologist, but his task throughout the campaign and in this book is to observe and explain, not defend and prop up.  On point after point, Adams explains why Trump was successful, why Hilary's campaign floundered, and how Trump overcame the setbacks that should have busted his electability.

As hinted in the subtitle, Trump ultimately is a better persuader.  Viewing the election through the Persuasion Filter--examining his words, actions, and strategies as the use of persuasion--it becomes clear, in retrospect, that Hilary never had a chance.  Adams makes it clear that he's not a partisan, and that he, in fact, holds many views in opposition to Trump's.  So the criticism of Adams as a Trump cultist is completely inaccurate.  But in terms of accuracy, few have nailed Trump's campaign and governance the way Adams has.

White Christian Privilege, by Khyati Y. Joshi

Over this 4th of July weekend, amid the patriotism and what fireworks were allowed to be shot (OK, not many allowed, but plenty illegally shot), the media was sure full of a lot of anti-American, anti-patriotic chatter.  Racism, white privilege, inequality, etc., etc., as if we didn't live in the freest, most prosperous, most religiously diverse nation in the world.  White privilege has become a buzz phrase for the left, and Khyati Y. Joshi, a college professor and writer, is happy to be a part of the merry bandwagon.  In White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America, Joshi joins the mainstream left in decrying white privilege, specifically white Christian privilege.  She "debunks the fallacy of American religious freedom and offers ways to acknowledge the harder truth of White Christian supremacy, in hopes of helping to create a society with institutions and cultural practices in which all can more equitably coexist."

In her mind, the alleged neutrality of the United States government and the courts toward religion is skewed heavily in favor of Christian faith and practice.  She gives examples demonstrating that Christian practices are easily accepted, while non-Christian practices are either banned or are won in hard-fought court struggles.  "The collective message of the Court's free exercise cases is that a burden on Christian practice offense the Constitution, while a burden on non-Christian practice does not." 

My thought throughout the book was that the United States was founded by Christians who created the foundations of the nation so that its people would be free to practice their faith.  As a result, there is more religious variety and freedom of worship and practice in the U.S. than any other nation in history.  It is because of the faith of the founders that Hindus, Muslims, and other world religions can flourish here.  She states that Christianity "permeates all facets of our society and our laws."  Amen.  If another world religion permeated our laws and society, religious freedom would be a dim hope--just look at how Christians are treated in Muslim countries, China, and even India.

On a side note, when a leftist author hates Trump, it's expected.  But please, at least get your facts straight.  She repeats the lie that "the president referred to 'very fine people on both sides,' signal[ing] the president's support of White nationalists."  This lie has been debunked repeatedly.  In the speech to which she refers, President Trump clearly condemned white nationalists.  The "both sides" remark referred to people for and against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.  Do your research and don't swallow the slander of the media.  Further, she is critical of Trump's "Muslim Ban."  Another lie; this was an effort to prevent travel from countries where he thought there was an increased threat of terrorism.  This did not include every majority Muslim country.  Hate Trump all you want, but in an academic work, I would expect a higher level of reflection and fact-checking.

It's undeniable that Christianity is woven inextricably into the foundations and fabric our our nation.  To deny it or reduce it would not only show anti-Christian bias, but would erode the very freedoms and religious diversity that sprang from the Christian faith of the founders.  As a Christian, I was deeply convicted by the message and theme of the book.  The Christian church in American has failed to retain and expand the vibrancy and evangelistic fervor of the Great Awakenings, and has, as a result, seen the practices of the Christian faith decline in recent decades.  For the sake of the gospel, the church needs to wake up; our nation still needs Jesus.  For the sake of the nation, the church needs to wake up; the more the influence of Christianity fades from the scene, the less freedom we all will have.

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