Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

In The Divine Conspiracy, philosopher Dallas Willard paints a compelling picture of the Christian Life by investigating what God is doing in the world, and how humans can experience it.

Willard begins by laying out some of the problems he sees in our world, and in Christianity, today. These include the erosion of "truth" and abosolutes in our culture, and the loss of the depth of the meaning of the gospel message. He then sets out to reconstruct a clear picture of what it means to be a Christian, and what that type of Christ-life should look like. To do this, he gives us a prolonged reflection on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' in-depth discussion of what life in his Kingdom is like. Instead of letting the Sermon be a pie-in-the-sky ideal, Willard fleshes out the deep logic behind it, and makes it something that we live. The insight of these reflections alone, and the recovery of the power of Jesus' teaching make this book worth reading. But Willard doesn't stop there.

One of the basic insights that undergird Willard's discussion is that if Jesus was who he said he was, and who we say we believe he is, then he was and is brilliant. We should listen closely to what he says, and learn to follow it. This insight takes him through a careful reading of the Sermon on the Mount, and also leads him into an investigation of Christian discipleship. More than just being a Christian who "grows," discipleship is acknowledging Jesus as brilliant, and then resolving to really become his students. We seek to learn from Jesus about the true nature of reality and of our own existence, and then resolve to actually obey, to actually live as if these things were true. Disciples delve into the deep reality of God, and constantly strive to keep him before their minds. This results in a true knowledge of God that effects our entire lives. And it brings us deeper into the eternal life that we have been given, kingdom-life. And all throughout the book, Willard stresses that "eternal life" isn't merely a life that never ends, "fire insurance" against future judgment, but is instead true, abundant life in God's kingdom that starts here and now.

He concludes the book by discussing the "Restoration of All Things," the final coming of the kingdom in its fullness. Truly appreciating the end means acknowledging the present in its truest reality and purpose. And Willard helps us to see that as we understand God's plans and intentions, we appreciate him more and understand our own lives more fully within God's plan.

The Divine Conspiracy is one of the best books I've ever read, and one I highly recommend. When I finished reading it, I just put my bookmark back in the front and started over. There are so many deep and profound insights into what it means to live a life devoted to God. Eternal life is here already, and Willard has helped me to see and appreciate it, and helped me to pull so many threads of Christian thought together into a coherent and compelling vision of life in God, kingdom-life, a life as a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ.

C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

In this second (or fourth) book in the Chronicles of Narnia, the four kids (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) fid themselves tumbling back into Narnia. One second they are sitting on the platform of a train station waiting to go back to school, the next second they find themselves in the woods of Narnia.

As they explore, they discover the ruins of Cair Paravel, their castle from the previous visit to Narnia: this visit is unknown years later in Narnia, even though they're only a bit older by Earthly standards. After reclaiming their armor and gifts from Aslan from the buried treasure chamber of the castle, they set out. Soon after leaving, they come across a Dwarf who is being left for dead by some soldiers in the water. So they rescue him and hear his story, the story of Prince Caspian.

Prince Caspian is a Telamarine (the race of humans now inhabiting Narnia), the son of the dead king. His uncle is currently ruling the kingdom. He has been learning about the "old" Narnians from his nurse, and then from his tutor, Doctor Cornelius. Then one day, he needs to flee: his uncle has had a son, and is no longer content to let his nephew reign, even if he is the proper heir. So Caspian flees west from Telmar. And while he was riding, he hit a tree and was knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he found himself in the care of a badger and two dwarfs: he had stumbled onto old Narnia. Word sprea that the rightful king had come, but the celebration is muted when Doctor Cornelius shows up to tell everyone that King Miraz, Caspians wicked uncle, has gotten wind of Caspian's destination and that old Narnia is awakened, and he is setting out with his armies to destroy it. So as the Telamarines approached, he sounded Queen Susan's horn, which promised to bring help. And he dispatched messengers to the old centers of the kingdom to look for whatever help might come. And that is why the dwarf, Trumpkin, was in the neighborhood of Cair Paravel.

After relating these events to the kids/kings and queens, they all set out toward Aslan's How, to see what could be done about the battle. At one point, Lucy thought she had seen Aslan leading down one path, but the group chose another, which proved to be the wrong way. But once back on the right track, Aslan becomes visible to all of them, as they head off toward battle. When they arrive at the battle, they find chaos and dissention among the Narnian camps, in the face of an overwhelming force of Telamarines. Kings Peter and Edmund, along with Trumpkin, go into the camp, and meet up with Prince Caspian, while Aslan and the girls head off in other pursuits. And after careful discussion of the possibilities, it is decided that Peter will challenge Miraz to combat. During the duel, the Telamarines cry foul and charge the Narnian lines, but Aslan shows up, and awakens the Dryads and Nyads (the tree people), and they, along with the rest of the Narnians, overcome the Telamarine foes.

Caspian is crowned King by Aslan, and many other creaures are knighted and restored to their rightful places in Narnia. The Telamarines are told by Aslan that they all may either submit to King Caspian's rule, or they may return from whence they came (an island on Earth from which they had stumbled through a now-closed door between worlds). Many left, led by Peter and the kids, who returned through the door to England. And for Peter and Susan, it was especially difficult because Aslan told them it would be their last visit to Narnia. But for Edmund and Lucy, there is still hope of return.

Prince Caspian is another great chapter in teh Narnia saga. Lewis's Christian imagination weaves stories of redemption, faith, and hope so well with these interesting and likable characters. It's no wonder these are classics.

C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

The Horse and His Boy is the fifth book in the Narnia Chronicles (the third book by the newer, chronological reckoning, coming after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). It takes place while Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are reigning as kings and queens over Narnia. In a land to the south of Narnia, Calormen, a young boy, Shasta, finds himself about to be sold into slavery to a Calormene warrior by his "father," and makes a break for safety on the warrior's horse. But as he prepares to escape, he discovers that the horse, Bree, can talk. Bree is a Narnian talking horse, who was captured many years ago, and has been blending in until a time when he coud make his escape. And this is that time. So the two of them set off North through Calormen in the directin of Archenland and Narnia. While they make their way through the countryside, they are chased by lions, and in their flight meet up with another horse, Hwin, and another rider, Aravis. Aravis, like Shasta, is trying to get away from Calormen, and Hwin, like Bree, is a talking horse from Narnia. So they decide to travel together, and continue to make their way North. But they must first go through the Calormene city of Tashbaan, before they can escae the land. While they try to make their way through, they get separated, when Shasta is mistaken for one of a party of Narnians that happens to be in the city, and is brought with them to the palace where they are visiting. It turns out that Shasta looks just like Prince Corin, who had been traveling with King Edmund and Queen Susan to Tashbaan.

The Narnians were in Tashbaan because the Calormene Prince, Rabadash, was courting Susan for marriage. But the Narnians quickly realized that he wasn't the sort that Susan would wish to marry. So they planned a secret escape by boat at night. But after making their plans, Corin, the boy for whom Shasta had been mistaken, returns, so Shasta takes off. Meanwhile, Aravis has also encountered some trouble, as she is recognized on the street by one of her friends. So she hides in her curtained litter and goes back with her to the palace, along with the horses. She sends the horses, with a groom, out to the tombs outside of town, the arranged meeting place for the group, and schemes to go out herself through a gate in the palace gardens and cross the river. But as she sneaks down to escape, she sees the king coming, and hides behind a couch in one of the rooms. While there, she overhears that Prince Rabadash has discovered that the Narnians have made an escape, and that he plans to make a surpirse attack on Archenland, and then move on to attack Narnia. She then escapes, and carries this news to Shasta when they all meet back up at the tombs. They immediately set out across the desert toward Archenland. It is a tough trek, but they make it to a canyon that Shasta heard about from the Narnians. And following that canyon, they made it to the river, and the edge of Archenland. They could see Rabadash and his armies making their way across the desert, and searching for a ford of the river. So they hurried toward Anvard, the capitol of Archenland. But while they made their way through the mountains, they found a lion at their heels, and they rushed forward, taking refuge in the home of a magician. He urged Shasta to take the news to Anvard, so Shasta set out. He encountered the king, and passed along the news of the impending attack. They all set out for Anvard, to sound the alarm, but Shasta got separated in the fog, and found himself alone on the road. While wandering in the fog, he met Aslan, who told him that he had been the lion they had seen the two times before, guiding and hurrying them along so they could save Archenland. He also told Shasta that he had guided the boat to the shore when he was a kid, saving his life and puttin his life on its present course.

Shasta met up with some talking creatures from Narnia, as he found himself across the pass from Archenland in Narnia after his walk in the fog, and told them of the impending attack. They quickly got word to Queen Lucy, and Narnia gathered forces to help Archenland. Shasta met up with them as they headed back toward Anvard, and joined with them. When they arrived in Anvard, they stopped Rabadash's attack, and defeated his warriors. Shasta was met with a warm recetion by King Lune of Archenland, who told him that he was his long lost son, Cor. Corin was in fact his twin brother. And Cor was the elder, and thus the heir to the throne. They invited Aravis to come live in the palace as well, and some day she would marry Cor. The two horses made their way back to Narnia, to live happily as talking horses again.

This is another great story from Lewis. He builds great characters and an interesting story line. And again, he does it with some great depth. In The Horse and His Boy, he explores the theme of God's guidance, by looking at how Aslan guides the story, from helping the boat Shasta was afloat on to shore, to scaring Shasta and Bree into meeting up with Hwin and Aravis, to scaring and urging them on to hurry toward Archenland, to meeting up with Shasta and saving him from a treacherous fall as he walked over the pass in the dark. In various and unlikely ways, Aslan had been guiding the story the whole way. He never made up anyone's mind for them, nor did he overcome their wills to do it, but he still guided and directed events to their best outcome, though even in unexpected and sometimes painful ways. It is a great exploration of God's sovereignty and guidance.

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is a tragicomedy about human existence. In the play, two tramps wait by a tree for a Mister Godot. While there, they go through a series of comedic episodes involving boots that are too tight, carrots, and other unimportant objects. While they are waiting, another pair of characters, Lucky and Pozzo, come along. Lucky is essentially a human animal, walking on all fours, whom Pozzo has on a leash and makes carry all of his things. Pozzo is an almost unfeeling taskmaster who takes pride and pleasure in torturing and abusing his slave. The two tramps don't quite know what to make of this pair, as they come along and provide some "entertainment," as Pozzo makes lucky dance, and then "think" for them. The scenes bring an unmistakeable sense of nonsense and futility. The day ends as Lucky and Pozzo head off, and no Mister Godot appears.

Day two starts rather like the first, with the two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting under the same tree. They're not sure they were there the day before, but Vladimir at least has a sense that yesterday was much the same. The only change he notices is a few leaves on the tree. As they wait, the repeat many of the same comedic routines as they day before. Then Lucky and Pozzo happen by again. Though this time Pozzo claims to be blind. Again, no one is quite sure if they've met before, though Vladimir is rather certain that they had come by the day before. After more confused exchanges, Posso and Lucky finally head off stage again. And the two tramps are left to contemplate their future. They know they are waiting for Godot, but aren't quite sure why. Then a boy arrives to inform them that Mr. Godot would not be coming, but would surely come tomorrow. Despairing of the news, the two contemplate hanging them selves from the tree, but realize they don't have any rope that would work. So the play closes with them resolving to return to the tree tomorrow, and to bring along some good rope.

Beckett's play is really a fascinating and poignant statement of the seeming futitilly of life. The characters are set in an almost featureless world, and they are seemingly with out purpose, waiting, but they're not sure quite what they are waiting for. Pozzo and Lucky demonstrate exploitation and victimization, a sad state of affairs. And Vladimir and Estragon don't come across much better, lost and senseless, aimlessly making their way through life. Their conclusion is that life is really just the moment between birth and death, and paint a picture of a woman squatting over a grave to give birth. It is a picture of hopelessness and purposeless ness.

The play seems to leave a bit of room for hope, that this Mister Godot (God?) would come and put the pieces together for them. But we are far from certain, when the curtain falls, whether Godot will arrive or whether they will hang themselves, or whether the next days will continue like the last.

Beckett has captured well the tragic and comedic elements of modern life, with the searching after purpose, the waiting without a clear sense of what for, the futility of seeing life as merely a flash in the pan before death.

J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind

J. P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, has written an absolute must-read in his book, Love Your God with All Your Mind Moreland's basic argument is a simple but profound one: modern evangelicalism in the West has become largely anti-intellectual, and has lost much of its cultural power. The church needs to revive Christian intellectualism in order to engage the world and fulfill its vocation.

Moreland starts out by making the argument that since the Enlightenment and the Awakenings, evangelicalism has become largely anti-intellectual. In response to intellectual and cultural assaults from without (philosophical critiques, higher-critical critiques on the Bible, evolution), the church largely withdrew from the arena of ideas. Instead of engaging at an intellectual level, Christians grew suspicious of the whole idea of science or philosophy, and withdrew from the conversation. This has had a number of implications for the church: the misunderstanding of how faith and reason are related, the separation of secular and sacred, a weakening of missions, a largely irrelevant gospel of felt needs, and a lack of blodness in confronting hostile or wrong ideas.

This is the state of the christian mind into which Moreland comes. And his book is basicaly an argument for and proposal toward the deepening and reawakening of the Christian mind. He starts by making a case that Scripture basically mandates the development of the Christian mind. As his title indicates, we love God with our whole beings, and that especially includes the mind. For God is a God with reason (omniscient, wise, etc.), and God created reason. Truth is highly valued in Christianity, for we believe in a God of Truth. So study should be a natural result.
He closes the first part of the book by arguing that transforming the mind (as Romans 12:2 says) is absolutely fundamental to spiritual transformation. For our understanding of God and the world is directly related to our relationship with God and our attitudes toward God, ourselves, and the world around us. He further argues that the mind is an integraded and fundamental part of the soul, and thus its transformation is necessary to any deepening of the soul-life.

In the second part of the book (chs 4 and 5), Moreland starts to point the way forward toward the transformation of the Christian mind. He first begins by describing what he terms the "empty self," a set of values, thoughts, and behaviors that typifies much of the modern American mind. This empty self is inordinately individualistic, infantile (seeking to avoid boredom with amusement), narcissistic, passive, sensate, without interior life, and hurried and busy. This type of self is common in Western society, and in the church as well. So much of what he asserts as the solution to the problem of the Christian mind could be said to be a solution to precisely this problem of empty selves. He then goes on to begin outlining a solution, involving developing skills, abilities, habits, and attitudes that build the mind and push out the emptiness. This includes things as simple as knowing and using proper grammar and as life-long as developing and excercising philosophical powers of reasoning.

Part three of the book is a developing picture of what this new Christian mind can look like. He focuses on the theme of apologetics, asserting that rational defense for the faith is essential to Christian witness. He also demonstrates how the Christian mind should be intimately tied to our vocations. This includes painting a picture of how our faith and knowledge of God can and should permeate all areas of our lives, not just he "sacred" space on Sunday morning.

The final part of Moreland's book is a straight-forward proposal for how church could look different if it truly tried to foster the Christian intellectual life. This includes things as simple as uplifting and comissioning our Christian university and graduate students and professors, and things as straight-forward as broadening and deepening the church library. He also proposes the need for the church to be an education center. Sunday school is one possible point where this could occur, but churches can be creative in how they offer courses, and serious in their content (including readings, discussions, papers, etc.). The sermon is also another important piece. Sermons should be applicable, but they should also be educational, challenging the congregation to think and learn more as the basis for this new attitude or action. And occasionally, sermons should shoot for the upper third of the audience, instead of weekly dumbing down the message so that everyone can follow all of the points. Sermons could also be accompanied by weekly studies, questions to ponder, detailed outlines or additional reading, and bibliographies for further study. Last, he advocates a change in the way the church thinks about "senior pastors." Moreland asserts that this role has become a detriment to the church, as many people see the pastor as the "minister" (that is, the one doing ministry) in the congregation. Instead, he proposes that no one person should preach more than half of the Sundays in a year, and that a group of elders should be the functional and spiritual leaders of the congregation, jointly going before God and leading the congregation. This models to the church an attitude of discipleship, openness to God, and enabling of others to praticipate in ministry.

Moreland has presented a strong, integrated, and absolutely necessary call for a reinvigoration of the evangelical mind. As a rather intellectual person myself, I continually found myself agreeing with him, but I also found strong encouragement to grow much further in a number of areas. Apologetics will especially be an area of study I renew with fresh vigor. All churches and believers need to take the message of this book seriously. Because if we don't foster the evangelical mind, we are giving over "reality" to those who don't believe in God, instead of claiming all truth as God's truth.

Thomas Oden, Systematic Theology, vol. 3

Thomas Oden, a professor of Theology, as written a great three-volume systematic theology. It is very consciously an orthodox and historical look at the broad consensus of the Christian faith. Oden's strength is that he draws extensively on the Church fathers and major theologians from the past, as well as the biblical material, to cite the important developments and aspects of theology. He divides the doctrines up in a useful way that helps to illumine the important facets and discussions. This book is a great textbook that provides important background and helps to teach the basics in a thorough yet straightforward way.
I've not yet read all three volumes cover to cover, though I've been through a good bit of this third volume and his discussion on salvation. He starts off with a great discussion of repentance and its character and importance in salvation, and then moves to a thorough discussion of justification by grace through faith, outining the major developments of the doctrine. He espouses a carefully-reasoned Arminian-leaning position, and defends it very well both biblically and historically. His work is in no way a polemic against Calvinism, but it does show the importance of many aspects of Arminianism to the historic faith.
I have enjoyed delving into Oden's exploration and exposition of the faith, and look forward to going deeper and further into this work. I highly recommend it, and have found it usefull for teaching as well as reading and edification.

Robin Cook, Marker

With his latest novel, Cook continues his string of stories about Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery, medical examiners in New York City. In Marker, the mystery begins when Laurie posts two bodies on consecutive days that have no obvious pathology. Both were young and seemingly healthy, the only strange circumstance being they were recovering from routine surgeries at Manhattan General Hospital. Laurie puts these two cases together with a couple other cases that had come in the week before, and this gets here interest up. When two more cases come in, she is totally convinced that there is homicide at the root of these mysterious deaths.
Meanwhile, Laurie and Jack's personal relationship has come to a standstill. Jack is unable to commit, and Laurie breaks things off. Into the void left by Jack, she puts a relationship with Roger Rousseau, the chief of medicine at Manhattan General. They met while Laurie was filling him in on the series of suspicious deaths, in hopes that Manhattan General may be able to do something to identify the problem, or at least take some action to prevent future deaths. But things don't get too far before she discovers that she is pregnant with Jack's baby.
The case heats up when another group of suspicious cases comes in to the medical examiner's office. Laure has been able to connect the deaths to a group of six cases from the previous fall at another AmeriCare (managed care) hospital across town. None of the deaths had any obvious cause, and none had any sign of foul play on the toxicology screens. Laurie talks Roger into checking into personell reports from Manhattan General and the other AmeriCare hospital to see about personell that overlap with the two time frames, and who worked the night shift, when all of the deaths occurred. Roger is able to work up a list of possible suspects, but after leaving Laurie a message about some of his findings, he meets a sudden death at the hand of the killer.
Laurie is working hard to put all of the pieces together to come up with a cause of death and also a common thread that may establish motive. And though she continues to have no luck on cause, she notices that all of the patients had a genetics screening test along with their admit labs, and though the results had been removed from the paper records, all had some type of positive result in their electronic files. But just as she is putting some of the key ideas together, she begins suffering from serious obdominal pain, and a quick phone call to her doctor confirms that her pregnancy is in serious trouble, and suspecting a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, she is rushed to the emergency room at Manhattan General. But Laurie is now concerned that she may be the next victim in her own series, as she fits the profile: a young, healthy, post-operative patient, who is positive for a marker, a gene mutation that marks a predisposition to serious health issues (she has found out she has the BRCA1 marker, for the mutated gene that increases risk of breast cancer). Jack rushes over to be with her, and her surgery to repair the ruptured ectopic pregnancy goes routinely. And her recovery starts off routinely, but a rush of patients means she is moved from the recovery floor to a regular floor, where many of the deaths occur. Jack meanwhile has left to run down some leads, and figures out the mode behind the killings, the administration of a lethal does of potassium, a naturally occuring ion in the body. Potassium causes an imbalance of chemicals in the muscles and causes immediate cardiac arrest, but it is difficult to detect on autopsy because it naturally occurs in the body and is naturally released from the muscles upon death, meaning the level is usually elevated after death, therefore masking the lethal injection.
Jack returns to the hospital and rushes to Laurie's room, to discover a nurse (named Jazz) standing over her, and her vital signs rapidly declining. He calls a code, and informs the attending cardiologist that she has high potassium level, allowing them to administer a counteragent and bring her back from cardiac arrest. Jack follows Jazz out after her shift to confront her, since she is one of the suspects already and her presence in the room just confirms his suspicion. But when he gets to her car, she is shot by someone lurking in her back seat.
Detective Lou Soldano, a police detective and friend of Jack and Laurie, helps to piece the details together. Jazz was one of a number of operatives across the country for a group that was working in conjunction with AmeriCare (a managed care company) to eliminate patients who tested positive for gene mutations linked to expensive diseases, such as cancer. The company had realized that Jazz was in danger of being discovered, and wanted to tie up their loose ends, but Jack and Laurie got there first.
As he often does, Cook has woven a good story together with some thoughtful issues that deserve attention. What does the mapping of the human genome mean for the future of medical care. Obviously it holds great promise for identifying causes and possible solutions for many genetically influenced dieseases, but there is also great danger, reminiscent of the movie Gattica, in misusing this knowledge. These are issues we must face in the coming years as we come to terms with new technologies and their ethical implications.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

In my quest of thoughtful fiction, my most recent read has been Achebe's Things Fall Apart. It is an intriguing tragedy of cultural ignorance, set within a penetrating look at the colonization of Africa.

The book focuses on Okonkwo, a well-regarded warrior and leader in Unuofia, a village in the lower Niger valley. Okonkwo is a hard man who has made his way in the clan and the world through hard work. He leads his house with a heavy and unyielding hand, and is driven by the desire to be recognized and titled in his clan. He especially values the traditions of his fathers and their gods.

The people of Umuofia believe in a god above the gods who made the world, and who also made gods to interact with the people of the world. These gods are the gods of the land and sky. Umuofia has an oracle who is said to interact with one of these gods, and her word is highly valued. As part of their belief, twins are always discarded in the woods when they are born, and an entire class of people are considered outcasts because they are "set apart" to the gods.

The book opens with the murder of a woman of Umuofia by some men from a neighboring village. The men of Umuoafia gather for war and send an emisary to the neighboring village, and to avoid war, the village agrees to send a virgin and a young man as the price for the lost life. The girl is given to the man whose wife had been murdered. The boy was given to Okonkwo to keep in his house until his fate was decided. After three years, the clan decided to have the boy killed, even though he had become like a son to Okonkwo. And despite advice to the contrary, Okonkwo had a hand in his death.

Then one day, while celebrating a burial feast in the town square, Okonkwo inadvertantly killed a man when his gun exploded. As punishment for this offense against the clan and the gods, Okonkwo was banished from the clan for seven years, and he went off to the home of his mother. While there, he began to hear news of white men who were appearing the area. In one town, a white man was killed and then many white men came in and wiped out the village. And now white men had come to his mothers home and also to Umuofia.

When Okonkwo returned to Umuofia, he found that the missionaries had started a church and a school, and had also set up a District Comissioner's office and a trading post. They were bringing not only religion but also the sovereignty of the queen of England to this part of Africa. The church was growing, especially among the outcasts, but it began to gain more and more adherants. But clashes were inevitable. Some of the converts felt the need to not only accept a new faith but also to denounce and mock their old beliefs, a position that some of the missionaries shared. And when a new pastor came that believed there was no room for any accomodation or compromise, things quickly unravelled. When one man comitted what was viewed as a high abomination by unmasking a sacred dancer during a feast, the clan was deeply offended, and burned down the church building. The district comissioner responded by capturing six leaders of the clan, humiliating them, and holding them for ransom to punish the clan for their violence. After the paying of the ransom and the release of the men, the clan gathered to discuss open war with the white men. But when a messenger and guards came to break up the meeting, Okonkwo, who was set on war, murdered the messenger. But he quickly sensed that the village was not set on war, so he went out and hanged himself.

Achebe has written a vivid account of African life, and a penetrating critique of a colonial attitude toward cultures. The influence of the Western culture truly causes the fabric of Umuofia to begin to fall apart. In part, that can of course be viewed as a necessary influence of the grace and truth of the gospel, a putting off of the old wineskins for new wine. But Achebe also calls into question the enculturation that often comes with the message. Too often we attach our own cultural norms to the gospel message, when the relationship should be much more nuanced. And Achebe's book artfully brings this idea to the fore. I highly recommed it. It is a penetrating book that helps those of us in the dominant Western culture to see things from a different perspective.