Prevailing Winds "For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom . . ." 2 Cor. 3:17, TNIV

There is a common thread running through of all of these, dear reader — theology and politics, with two out of my three adventures in fiction, “The Shack” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” reflecting theological and historical themes. Only John Grisham’s “The Appeal” qualifies as mind candy, and I think this explains why I don’t get invited to all of the cool kids’ parties . . . my repertoire of cocktail chatter is a bit, ummmmm, lacking. But if you have any comments about these, or any books to recommend, please let me know.

My midway-through-August literary conquests:

Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Black and Tan (the revision of “Southern Slavery As It Was”)
The War on Terror: How Should Christians Respond
When Women Were Priests
Every Knee Shall Bow: The Religious Right in America
Women in Southern Religions
I Suffer Not A Woman . . . 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and First-Century Gnosticism
A Pack of Lies
Women and Authority
Backward, Christian Soldiers?
Federal Vision: The Auburn Avenue Theology
The Shack
The Appeal
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
Stolen Innocence: How I Left the FLDS . . .
Christian Culture in a Multi-Cultural Age
Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators
The Trinity and Subordinationism

Now that I’ve established the breathtaking diversity in my choice of reading materials, I’d like to ask what some of your most significant reads of 2008 have been. “The Shack” is the new hot thing in Christian fiction — a genre I’m grateful to know little about — and for all its faults as a work of literature, the theological view of the Trinity was refreshing and thought-provoking. “Christian Culture” was written by Steve Schlissel, a colleague of Doug Wilson’s. I found it full of tired calls for strong male headship, “family values,” and confrontation with culture; on the other hand, I also found “Every Knee Shall Bow,” a scathing indictment of the Religious Right, heavy-handed and unfair in its portrayal of much of evangelicalism. “Productive Christians” is a response from the Reconstructionist David Chilton to Ron Sider’s seminal book on social justice, “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.” Sider is a hero to me; I met him in Ontario last month at the Biblical feminism conference I attended, and he’s a warm, wise, and truly wonderful man. Chilton, on the other hand, was one of the first “Christians” to diagnose the problem of poverty as the ungodly envy poor people have for the wealthy, and his lack of compassion weaves through the book like a cobra in the brush. It’s a sterling example of how not to do Biblical hermeneutics, and I’ll likely not read anything that ugly for a very long time.

On the other hand, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” changed my life, and “The Appeal” seemed depressingly like Grisham’s previous 4,527 books.

Anyway, I’d appreciate any recommendations for some lively, provocative fiction. My family and friends are ready to do an intervention to break me away from yet another take on religion and politics . . .