Gateway book review

interesting books read (or partially read) during Gateway

on poverty and development
****The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits by John McKnight ~ if you haven't noticed, several of my entries are based on an alteration of this title. basically, the book offers a fairly poignant argument for the destruction of community by the emergence of the professional service industry. it has an almost foucault-ian (is that word?) critique of "needs" and "wants" that the service industry produces. definitely a worth-while read! it is written by a Christian but the entire book except for the last chapter, is based on secular research and written for a secular audience.
***Renewing the City: Reflections of Community Development and Urban Renewal by Robert Lupton ~ offers a similar vision of what actually builds community. this book basically proposes a way of renewing the inner, impoverished city: for middle income families to move in (not to gentrify) and become part of the inner city communities. it offers both scriptural and anecdotal support for this vision.

on prayer and spiritual discipline
****With Open Hands by Henri Nouwen ~ at first glance, this book appears a bit like those new age self-help/feelgoodaboutyourself, but if you give it a few more pages, it is full of insightful comments and thoughts about prayer and knowing god. the language is simple, almost child-like, but very thoughtful and profound.
***The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster ~ a lot of people have been reading this book this summer-- divided into sections on various spiritual disciplines (i.e. prayer, service, solitude, fasting). the book explores activities that can be pursued not necessarily to get anything out of God, but to lay ourselves open to what God wants to do with us.

on gender
***Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership by Sarah Sumner ~ i haven't read too much on complementarian/egalitarian perspectives of gender, but this book was a really helpful start for me to think through the issues. it supports neither a complementarian (men and women are created equally, but are designed to take different roles within the church and marriage) nor egalitarian view (men and women are created equally and for the same roles within the church and marriage), but leans more on the egalitarian end. it does some thorough investigation of troublesome and difficult passages in the Bible and also illustrates some of the damaging effects of twisted notions of gender on women and men in the church.