In lieu of full-on book blogging, here are capsule reviews of some books I’ve read over the past month or so:

A Moral Climate, Michael Northcott A theological ethicist and priest of the Episcopal Church of Scotland on climate change. Well-informed by the science (as far as I can judge), but also provides a specifically theological perspective. In particular, he suggests ways in which certain Christian practices (pilgrimage, feasting) can provide alternatives to the way of life encouraged by hyper-industrial capitalism that can both help us live more gently on the world and witness to God’s order of things. I wasn’t, however, convinced by his wholesale denunciation of capitalism and industrialism; he appears to think that changing the way we consume things, particularly energy, is insufficient and at times I got the impression that he thinks we should all return to simple pre-industrial village life. A little too much romanticizing of pre-modern communal subsistence for my taste.

The Big Questions in Science and Religion, Keith Ward Characterisitically clear and accessible philosophical theology from ATR favorite Ward. Each chapter deals with a particularly knotty issue raised by the science-religion intersection (e.g. creation, the soul, free will), which Ward seeks to untangle in generally pro-religion ways. In essence, he argues that science may require some revision of the way we think about spiritual matters, but the claims of reductionist materialism are vastly overblown. A particular strength of this book is that Ward considers different religious perspectives on science, not just Christian or Western ones. For instance, he discusses how a Buddhist and a Christian might respond differently to questions about the self and its relation to brain science. In this he’s continuing the method he pioneered in his four-volume comparative theology. I’m hard pressed to think of many other contemporary theologians who’ve given such detailed attention to non-Christian faiths.

Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr There’s not much I could say about this book–a recognized classic–that hasn’t been said elsewhere. I thoroughly enjoyed it though and really appreciated how Niebuhr was able to sympathetically enter into the five perspectives on “Christ and culture.” Personally, I found myself most in sympathy with the “Christ and culture in paradox” and the “Christ above culture” stances, but I can see the reasons for as well as the limitations of all of them. I was reading the 50th anniversary edition, but, with Christians continuing to argue about their witness to the wider culture, this book is still relevant.

Saving Belief, Austin Farrer I mentioned this book in a post the other day. Farrer’s primer on Christian belief is a small gem of classical Anglican lucidity. Both orthodox and liberal, and reformed and catholic, in the best sense. I found his explanation of the Atonement particularly compelling.

Ethics and the Beast, Tzachi Zamir This brief book by philosopher Zamir makes the case for animal liberation from an explicitly “speciesist” perspective. By this he means that radical reform in our treatment of animals doesn’t require an equally radical rearranging of our conceptual furniture. We can maintain that human beings are superior to non-human animals, but still embrace the goals of animal liberation. He does this by showing that common moral beliefs that in no way contradict our speciesist intuitions lead to unexpectedly radical conclusions about our treatment of animals. Noteworthy too are his discussions of vegetarianism vs. veganism (an animal-friendly utopia, he maintains, will stilll allow for egg and dairy production, suitably reformed) and using vs. exploiting animals.

Currently reading:

Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson This is the first book in an award-winning trilogy about human colonists on Mars in the mid-to-late 21st century. It’s what the kids call “hard” SF, I belive. Everything is, at least to me, based on plausible near-future science. Very compelling characters and thematic threads about creating a new society and trying leave some of Earth’s violent baggage behind. As a skeptic about both human nature and space colonization I think it’s doomed to failure, of course. But we’ll see where things go in the second and third books.

The Message and the Kingdom, Richard Horsley and Neil Asher Silberman My pastor recommended this social history of early Christianity. It tries to put Jesus, Paul, and the early Christian movement in the socio-political context of the Roman Empire in the 1st century. I have a feeling that the none-too-subtle left-wing politics (the back cover bears blurbs from John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong) may get kind of annoying, but so far I’m finding this an informative read.

Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind Part music history, part true crime story – this tells the tale of the “black metal” scene centered in Norway in the 1990s. Some of the participants started to take the whole “evil” thing a little too seriously, resulting in church burnings, murder, and various occult activities. Promises to be fascinating.

Finally, our public library had a nice, two-volume paperback edition of Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith, which I checked out. I’m not sure I’ll be equal to the task, but I thought it would be good to stretch my mind by spending some time with a bona fide theological classic. Plus, it’s a period of theology I know very little about and I can’t help but think that all the bad press Schleiermacher has gotten in 20th century theology is a bit one-sided.