OFF THE SHELF CARING FOR WORDS IN A CULTURE OF LIES
ing us mired in calamity. But Caring for Words is not a mere treatise on impending doom. Instead, By Marilyn Chandler McEntyre McEntyre provides a strategy designed Eerdmans both to confront the crisis in which we find ourselves and to “impart the joy of Reviewed by Silas Montgomery a graceful sentence” to those who come after us, for their good and for the good Although I approached Marilyn Chandler of our humanity. Happily the book does McEntyre’s Caring for Words in a Culture not condescend to those without the of Lies with flashbacks to those tedious academic pedigree that McEntyre enjoys. high school English classes that turned Instead it engages as a good novel does, so many of us away from literature, my meeting readers where they are and fears proved unfounded. The book is a walking with them, all the while shapfeast of well-constructed thought and ing how they see themselves and their developed argument that will appeal to journey. any who delight in considered, informed, However, McEntyre does at times and intelligent discourse. digress from philology, hurting her arguMcEntyre argues that as our civiliza- ment and running the risk of alienating tion becomes more technologically driven, her audience.And she occasionally makes we have chosen to neglect the expression reference to theological and political of well-constructed thought, replacing views in such a way that disregards the nuanced articulation of ideas with absurd views of her more conservative brothers hyperbole, willful ignorance, and noisy and sisters in the faith. But these rabbit sound bites. Morally and practically, she trails are a petty nuisance in an otherwise likens the impact of this cultural disin- finely crafted work with a valuable terest in the beauty of good communi- message: Words have taste, meaning, and cation to the ecological disasters recent force. They have been trampled far too generations have created for our prog- long. Be a steward to words — redeem and eny — the pursuit of convenience leav- restore them for the betterment of yourself, your community, and humanity. n Silas Montgomery is completing his MDiv at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill., and currently seeking a pastoral position in a local church.
Dying to Live By Clive Calver Authentic Reviewed by Christina O’Hara As Christians we are to die to ourselves and completely surrender to God’s plan for our lives, asserts Clive Calver in Dying to Live: The Paradox of the Crucified Life. While not a new message by any means PRISM 2 0 1 0
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(A. W. Tozer is quoted throughout), it is an important one that bears repeating. Calver tells interesting stories of friends and colleagues throughout his many years of church and World Relief ministry, but it’s not until two-thirds into the book, when he gets to his personal story of how he and his wife sacrificed the unity of their family in order to follow the call of God, that I was hooked. When Clive and Ruth sensed God’s call to head up World Relief in the US, they decided they would have to leave their teenage sons behind to complete their education in the UK. But just as strong as their sense of God’s call was their sense that, after departing, their sons would walk away from God. But the call persisted, and despite their protests (“It’s not supposed to cost me my family!”) they left, counting the cost but trusting in God. Their sons did indeed leave the church and the faith of their parents, but in the process and over the years they discovered their own faith and now proclaim,“I never knew what it really meant to love Jesus until my dad left me for him.” Enough to send chills down any God-fearing parent’s spine!