Archive for April, 2010
Book Review: Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
I just finished the audiobook version of Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. The audiobook was read by Brian Emerson, who is one of my favorite readers. (I believe even a bad book could sound interesting if Emerson was reading it.)
I can safely say that this book will change the way that you view politics and the economic situation in the world, if you choose to read it. Confessions of an Economic Hitman is Perkin’s autobiography, his confession, about his involvement as an economic forecaster for a now-defunct company called Chas T. Main. Chas T. Main was a large, U. S. engineering firm which specialized in designing infrastructure plans for utility industries around the world. It was bought, and the name changed, in the late 80′s due to mismanagement.
Perkins explains that while his official job title may have been “chief economist for Main,” his real job was to act as an economic hitman. An economic hitman, or EHM (as Perkin’s calls it), is an economist whose purpose is to produce inflated infrastructure predictions for third world countries. These inflated forecasts are produced in order to justify the millions of dollars that foreign countries will have to borrow in order to hire American construction companies to build modern utility infrastructures within these third world countries. Based on these predictions, the world bank grants loans that these countries will never be able to repay. The country becomes mired in debt, and only a few, privileged people benefit. In this way, the American “corporatocracy” continues to grow rich, and economic pressure due to debt keeps the governments of third world countries in-check politically. At the end of the day, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, thousands of indigenous peoples are exploited, and America continues to build its global empire. Economic hitmen, and the CEO’s of large corporations, work unofficially in conjunction with the NSA to control foreign nations.
Whether you buy all this or not (see the wikipedia entry about Perkins for the controversy surrounding the book), it’s great, thought-provoking, conscious-altering reading. Much of what Perkins describes about the way in which the U. S. government uses the private sector, free-trade agreements, and economic pressure, seems (in my mind at least) to match real life. Perkins’ insights into the administrations of several of our past presidents is eye-opening for sure, and he confirms a lot of my own suspicions about the reasons for the Iraq War and the Bush/Cheney regime. I will say however, that any critique of the Clinton presidency is completely absent from this book, which may point towards some of Mr. Perkins’ political leanings (although I would be remiss to say that I find him a complete leftist).
Perkins ends the book with an epilogue of suggestions about how we, as Americans, can fight the global empire and leave a better world for our children. As a Christian, I’m inclined to see “the way forward” a little differently than Perkins. In my opinion, the main reason the global empire of America exists is greed. Many of the ideals at the heart of democracy, capitalism, and a global economy are sound (not perfect, but sound), except that people are greedy. The problem with capitalism is that companies nearly always act based on the bottom line. They hardly ever consider the best interests of others. They are greedy. They run over the poor, especially the poor of other countries. The rich get richer, and the poor are exploited. Unregulatized capitalism would work perfectly if everyone had a changed heart, but we don’t, so it doesn’t. Neither will the alternative to capitalism work (i.e. – socialism). They are both faulted systems because of faulted people.
We need Jesus to do the masterful work of heart transformation. On its own, this world will always tend towards depravity, and the American government and its capitalistic, self-serving policies, are most definitely included. I’m not saying that we should do nothing. We should try to fix the government. We should try to put men into office that don’t simply support the wishes of a few rich men that help fund their campaign. We should work hard, promote justice, and involve ourselves in charity. But more than any of that, we should embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only true, transformational hope that our world has.
My advice: Read this book. Involve yourself in politics as a concerned citizen. Think beyond party lines. Act like a Christian. Trust Jesus and the life change that He brings most of all. And, spend the majority of your time focused on the Gospel because it is the real change-agent in the world.
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No commentsBook Review: Jonathan Edwards On Heaven and Hell by Strachan and Sweeney
The Essential Edwards Collection is a five volume set of extremely, concise books that introduce readers to the basics of Edward’s thought. The volumes cover a variety of subjects including: Edwards himself (a lover of God), beauty, heaven and hell, the good life, and true Christianity. On Heaven and Hell rolls in at only 147 pages including the bibliography. As I said, it’s extremely concise.
In my opinion, this book’s greatest strength is also probably its greatest weakness. And that strength (or weakness depending on your opinion) is its brevity. Strachan and Sweeney do a superb job of making Edwards, who lived some 250 years ago and spoke in an English dialect different from our own, extremely digestible for nearly anyone. So, that’s a strength. However, while reading, I often found myself longing for more of Edwards’ words and less of Strachan and Sweeney’s words about Edwards. This is not to say that Strachan and Sweeney are not superb writers themselves, but rather that a person reads a book entitled Jonathan Edwards On Heaven and Hell to hear Edwards speak, not Strachan and Sweeney speak. And that’s a weakness. So too much brevity is my one complaint, and perhaps it’s not a legitimate complaint because I’m willing to bet that Strachan and Sweeney wrote with the very brevity that I am denigrating on purpose.
So at the end of the day, I liked this book, but I wanted more. And that was my complete opinion until I discovered this sweet endnote at the end of book:
“For the premier collection of Edwards’s own writing, see The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1-26, Yale University Press. Access these works in their entirety free of charge at http://edwards.yale.edu” (145).
Since all of Edward’s writings are available for free online, I guess I’ll loosen up on my complaint about the brevity of The Essential Edwards Collection.
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No commentsThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & 40 other books I want to read
I feel a little cheated by my Colorado / Mississippi education. It was pretty good overall, but especially in the area of literature, I missed out. This is at least partially my own fault because during high school my focus was on math, and as such, I refused the opportunity to take advanced or AP level English classes. Now in retrospect, I’m kicking myself for missing an opportunity to read and write better.
One of my goals this year is to average reading a book a week. So far I’ve read mostly theological writings, but I just finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which I had never previously read) to change up my pace. I also made a list of 40 other classic novels that I want to read over the next few years, which you can see below. I highly commend Huck Finn to anyone who has never read the book. Twain’s use of Southern dialect is probably the best I’ve ever read, and he masterfully draws readers to a familiar, yet unfamiliar Southern landscape that is a mixture of laughable, laudable, and distasteful elements all rolled into one. I can’t wait to dive into Tom Sawyer, and many of the other novels on my list below.
If you see a good, classic novel that I’m missing and want to recommend something, that would be great!
books I want to read
1. Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
2. Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
3. The Lord of the Flies – William Golding
4. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
5. As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
6. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
7. Light in August – William Faulkner
8. Robinson Crusoe – Bob Blaisdell
9. The Three Musketeers – Alexander Dumas
10. 1984 – George Orwell
11. Animal Farm – George Orwell
12. The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
13. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
14. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
15. The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, The Paradiso – Dante Alighieri
16. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
17. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
18. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
19. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
20. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
21. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
22. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
23. Ulysses – James Joyce
24. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
25. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
26. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
27. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
28. Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare
29. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
31. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
32. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austin
33. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
34. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
35. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
36. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
37. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
38. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
39. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
40. Dracula – Bram Stoker
41. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
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3 commentsMaybe the best sermon I’ve ever heard…
Maybe. I’m not entirely sure, but maybe, John Piper’s sermon at the Together For the Gospel Conference 2010, is my favorite sermon ever. I love the ministry of John Piper. I’m not worshipping the man, but I thoroughly appreciate how God uses John Piper to bless my life and point me towards Jesus. This sermon from T4G2010 is simply amazing. In this sermon, Piper asks the question, “Did Jesus preach the message of imputation that Paul clearly preached?” In other words, “Did Paul alter the message of Jesus?” or “Are Jesus’ and Paul’s theology the same?” Piper’s answer is a resounding yes. Jesus and the Apostle Paul are in complete agreement, and his exegesis to prove this point is remarkable. This sermon is eye-opening and highly applicable to many of the errant teachings of emergent teachers (although Piper never makes that direct application himself in the sermon). I highly commend it for your consideration.
Manuscript http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2352_did_jesus_preach_pauls_gospel/
Audio http://www.t4g.org/resources/
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1 commentDoctrine: What Christians Should Believe & TGC Reviews
Hey everyone, I’m here at the Together For the Gospel Conference in Louisville, KY – and typing on a Dell, ugh Windows – but anyway, I ran across something I wanted to share. I was already aware of Mark Driscoll’s and Gerry Breshears new book, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, and I plan on reading it soon. However, I ran across an audio interview of Mark Driscoll talking about the book. I think the interview is interesting, so I’m posting a link here. http://tgcreviews.com/interviews/doctrine-what-christians-should-believe/ Also, the interview is listed on The Gospel Coalition’s new Book Review Site http://tgcreviews.com, which seems like a great tool to discover good books.
Check out these links. Hope you enjoy!
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No commentsBook Review: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’ “sort of” autobiography. In the book, he traces his early childhood through his conversion to Christianity while teaching at Oxford.
This year has been a year of C.S. Lewis for me personally. He’s an author that I’ve admired for years, but only because of the admiration that other authors (whom I enjoy) have for him. Admittedly, I had never finished any C. S. Lewis book (with the exception of the first two Narnia books when I was a kid) until this year. Now I’ve finished five. Because of my current interest in Lewis, I read with great interest this autobiography of his early life and conversion.
Surprised by Joy is by far the most rapturous of Lewis’ writing that I’ve encountered so far. His description of the English and Irish countryside is superb, his story is so far removed from my own that his story is other-worldly, and the depth of his understanding of literature and philosophy is inspiring. Lewis is at the same time both wonderful for his imagination, and wonderful for his understanding of complex ideas. He was a man who felt deeply and thought deeply. A pattern I would like to mimic in my own life.
The conversion of C. S. Lewis is beautiful. It is a story that unfolds slowly through the book. God first began to capture his heart through small glimpses of “Joy” in both literature, music, and nature. As Lewis sought to recapture this “Joy” it fled from him, proving unattainable time and again. Joy would reappear, unexpected, throughout his life, and eventually became a clue that helped point him towards the God he most desired to believe did not exist. His conversion, unlike many, was gradual and slow. God pursued and broke through the barriers in Lewis’ mind until he could no longer deny His existence.
My favorite sentence in the book is, “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation” (219). In this quote, Lewis betrays the miracle that the Spirit performed on his heart in bringing him to Christ. He did not want God to be real, and God’s pursuit of him seemed at times “hard,” but it was in fact “kindness.” Jesus’ pursuit of Lewis’ seemed to be compulsive, but it proved to be liberating. This description is beautiful, and reminds me of what I felt at seven years old, when God drew me to Himself.
I love this book. It inspires me to read classic literature, enjoy the beauty all around me, think hard about God, and feel emotion fully. Surprised by Joy is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Lewis, and it is by far my favorite Lewis book so far.
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No commentsListening for the Day: I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA
Hey everyone,
I’ve been in a blogging mood the last few days, so the content and the thoughts may appear a bit more often on here, at least until this mood wears off.
If haven’t yet heard of Come and Live, you should definitely check it out. In there own words, Come and Live is a non-profit devoted to: “proclaiming the good news of Jesus. By joining hands with artists {musicianaries}, we provide them with guidance, direction and accountability to model a life of genuine faith. Our focus is in promoting the only true enduring treasure – loving others and living like JESUS. We choose to share music and profit as a humble example of radical generosity. We live simply to give generously, encouraging others to do the same. Our prayer is that God would use us to Give. Love. Share. and Revive (http://comeandlive.com/aboutus).”
The long and the short of it is, there is some pretty amazing music on Comeandlive.com for free, and these artists really care about promoting the Gospel. Pretty rad!!!
My current favorite from their site is a band called I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA. If you’re into Underoath or The Devil Wears Prada, this is right up your alley. I love it, perfect music for doing design work.
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