Book: McPhee, John. Assembling California. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1993. 

Point: The world is in motion – hold on.

Path: In his typical road trip fashion, McPhee leads the reader through the California landscape and history. Pausing to consider the gold rush and earthquakes, he demonstrates that plates are shifting, mountains are growing, seas are moving, and the ground is on the move.

Sources: Geologists, rock samples, ghost towns, newspaper clippings, personal interviews, and just walking the trail.

Agreement: I appreciate how McPhee reminds me that we do not live on a sedentary planet. Shifting, stretching, creaking, and bursting, this earth is changing.

Disagreement: I believe in a modified continuation principle. This universe has been assigned specific laws which operate consistently. These laws have always operated, and operate consistently. One would postulate that given these specific laws, we could reconstruct what has happened in the past based on what is happening in the present. However, the past has not always operated in a uniform manner. Disasters happen and change everything.

Personal App: Thank God that he is in control.

Favorite Quote: “Nature is messy. Don’t expect it to be uniform and consistent” (Moores, 24).

“I remarked that geologists are like dermatologists: they study, for the most part, the outermost two percent of the earth. They crawl around like fleas on the world’s tough hide, exploring every wrinkle and crease, and try to figure out what makes the animal move” (36).

“People look upon the natural world as if all motions of the past had set the stage for us and were now frozen” (Moores, 278).

Stars: 3 out of 5

Recommended to me by a geologist, read it if you want to step into that boiling basin.

If this review was helpful, let me know here.

Book: McPhee, John. Basin and Range. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981. 

Point: The earth is moving, changing, growing and shrinking.

Path: In a rolling manner, McPhee takes the reader through the exploration process of discovering the sea that could be between Utah and California. Along the way, strata is identified, samples are taken, interviews are had, theories are proposed.

Sources: Geological theories, articles, and research.

Agreement: Our world is not as static as we would like to believe it to be. There is something unnerving about know that the ground beneath me is rebellious – at any moment eager to break open, sink, or rise.

Disagreement: I am not a geologist. I am a believer in a young earth. I don’t think that time+chance=what I see. I don’t think that “Genesis has been debunked.”

Personal App: Appreciate what is below. Understand that man is not as mighty as we would like to believe ourselves to be. Appreciate the fact that amidst all the theories, the earth still changes.

Favorite Quote: “Now he [Darwin] was voyaging on the Beagle and developing his own sense of the slow and repetitive cycles of the earth and the giddying depths of time, with Lyell’s book in his hand and Hutton’s theory in his head. In six thousand years, you could never grow wings on a reptile. With sixty million, however, you could have feathers, too” (143). (So in other words, if you can’t explain it, throw lots of time at it.)

The reason I read this book is because I wanted to step into a discipline I knew little about. A geologist in our church recommended it to me. So, if you would like to do the same, here you go!

If this review was helpful, let me know here.

Famous Men Of The Middle Ages by John Henry Haaren and Addison B. Poland 

Point: History is full of individuals who stepped out and fought for something.

Path: This book begins with the gods of the Teutons (the race of men descended from the Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons). These gods were Woden, Thor, etc. From there, it traces the famous individuals from this group who sought to be like their gods.

It included characters such as Attila the Hun, Alaric, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, to William Tell, Joan of Ark, the Kings of England, William Wallace, and many more.

Sources: Imagination, myth, and stories.

Agreement: Reading this book (written for a youth/teen audience) was akin to walking past a large chronological chart of history and reading short stories of the brightest stars. The stories were short, easy to understand, and generally placed in order of time.

Disagreement: The first page reveals the bias which is so common, “From them [the Teutons] have come the greatest nations of modern times. All except the Huns belonged the same race and are known as Teutons. They were war-like, savage, and cruel.” It was this mentality that moved men like Theodore Roosevelt to claim that the Teutons were the only race fit to rule.

Stars: 3 out of 5

It would be worth another read and I would recommend it as a quick overview to give someone a taste for history.

If this review was helpful, let me know here.

Coffey, Joe. Smooth Stones: Bringing Down the Giant Questions of Apologetics. Cruciform Press, 2011. 

Paperback: 106 pages 

Point: Scriptures and human reasoning, both gifts of God, testify to the validity of the historic Christian faith.

Path: Coffey offers short answers for six big questions: 1. Is there a God? 2. Does Science disprove God’s existence? 3. Is the Bible true? 4. What about evil and pain? 5. Can there be only one true religion? 6. How do we know that Jesus is who he says he is?

He then ends with two short notes, one to an unbeliever and one to a believer.

Sources: Based on a Lee Strobel method, Coffey’s answers interact with and quote from people like Patrick Glynn, Alvin Plantinga, C.S. Lewis, Stephen Jay Gould, and others.

Agreement: In a tough spot, information from this little book (maybe “booklet” would be appropriate) would come in handy. His succinct answers would answer the questions/objections of the majority of Westerners.

He recognizes that there is both a head and heart issue that need to be faced in presenting the Gospel. Even if you give facts, that won’t change a person.

I thought his five key words for religion were very helpful, and I plan on using those in the future. “How does your religion define “Sin”, “Justice”, “Love”, “Sacrifice”, and “Grace”?

Disagreement: There is a problem with the approach. Not all the answers can be wrapped up in a nice little package. For those who have actually thought about and struggled through these difficulties, many of these answers will seem trite and shallow. If someone tries to run someone over with these proofs (the author doesn’t recommend this), it will harden them even more. The book, in trying to be accessible, is crippled by its length.

With that in mind I would suggest reading “Reasons for God” by Keller and “Tactics” by Koukl as supplemental reading.

Personal App: Have I made the effort to discuss these big questions with anyone?

Favorite Quote: “Christianity in its exclusivity, is the most inclusive religion the world has ever seen” (82).

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

I would recommend it to someone who is looking for some more answers for questions from a friend.

If this review was helpful, let me know here.