new books

time for a pair of new books already. bobby got me the silmarillion by j.r.r. tolkien for christmas, so i'm gonna put ender's game back on the shelf for now. i also decided to read eats, shoots, and leaves by lynne truss to fix up my punctuation habits a bit.

does god have a future? was a pretty interesting read. i thought john sanders was well able to defend his position while chris hall was left appealing to incoherant mysteries and such to defend the idea of a timeless god who has absolute knowledge of the future. hall seemed to keep avoiding sanders' questions and actually claimed that a literal reading of certain scriptures could not be used to defend open theology because a literal reading of those scriptures lead to open theology!

another very interesting aspect of the book was the occasional bits sanders wrote about his experiences as some in the evangelical community were trying to get him fired from his teaching position at huntington college (which they succeeded in last month). i would reallu like sanders to write a book specifically about all this.

i also found much sympathy and understanding for sanders and his encounter with his evangelical community. it's how i have seen much of it in regards to the mormon-evangelical divide. i loved sanders quote where he says, "It appears to be much better in evangelicalism to be guilty of adultery than to be guilty of an errant belief, because evangelicals place much more emphasis on correct doctrinal beliefs than on correct living."

this is a great primer for anyone who disagrees with me that god does not know the future, but not ready for (the very mormony) process theology.