Book of the week

Someone asked what Bible I'd recommend he buy his son and I thought I'd post it since postings have been few these days and maybe others would be interested.

In the second half of life eyes need larger print than this, but for those in the first half of life the Pitt Minion of Cambridge Press would be my Bible. For versions of Scripture I still recommend the NASB95 since it's readable and the modern translation that is most faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek text.

Too I think it's a bad idea to print men's comments about God's words on the same page with God's words themselves so I don't use or recommend study Bibles. Study helps, yes--they're indispensable starting with the New Bible Dictionary and Calvin's commentaries. Maybe third you could keep a paraphrase or a study Bible on the table next to you as you read the Bible itself. But in yourself and your children, cultivate a radical distinction between any words of man and the very words of God.

After the question of which version or translation of Scripture, we're down to questions of...

(Tim, w/thanks to Bob and Brian) At church the other day, I was talking with Bob Sands, a young father of ten or twenty (I've lost track), and he mentioned another man in our congregation, Brian Bailey, had sent him a link to a book on Google Book that he'd found very helpful titled The Dread of Responsibility by Emile Faguet.

"The dread of responsibility," I thought, "that's the perfect summary of leaders today--teachers, principals, professors, judges, senators, presidents, and of course, pastors, elders, deacons, fathers, and husbands. All of us have a dread of responsibility."

Bob told me the book emphasized the courage fatherhood required and I was reminded of a quote I've used at times that says something like, "The father of a family is the world's first and greatest adventurer."

So today, I went and read the part of the book Brian had recommended...

(Tim) Before we get too far removed from the attack upon God's Word carried out by Micah serving as an advocate for self-affirming sodomites while claiming Scripture was the foundation of his advocacy, I'd like to direct our readers' attention to the work of Robert Gagnon as a resource against such men.

Prof. Gagnon's a mainliner and would not share the doctrinal commitments of most of us concerning Scripture, but no one has come close to doing the careful historical and exegetical work he's done exposing these men's lies. You might start with his web site, but if you're a pastor or church officer who believes in standing in the gap and sounding a clear note, sooner or later you'll want to buy and keep close at hand for reading and loan his definitive, The Bible and Homosexual Practice.

Professor Gagnon is a friend of David's and my cousin, John DeWalt. They both attend Pittsburgh's Bellefield Presbyterian Church.

(Tim) Last week, Nat Hentoff was laid off at the (Greenwich) Village Voice. This brings an abrupt end to Hentoff's fifty year run there, appropriately and affectionately titled "Fifty Years of Pissing People Off" by fellow Voice columnist Allen Barra in his recent tribute to Hentoff.

Hentoff started as a staff writer for the Voice back in 1958. His dismissal fifty years later coincides, almost to the day, with Louis Menand's short history of the Voice that ran in the current New Yorker. Beyond the Voice, Hentoff has also published in the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, JazzTimes (his best-known work may be as a jazz critic and historian), and Atlantic Monthly.

I note the dismissal of Hentoff, as well as the profile of the Voice in the current New Yorker, because this past week I've been enjoying a Christmas gift received from a friend in New York City who knows me well. A former member of Church of the Good Shepherd while studying at IU's School of Music, Regina Scow sent me an autographed copy of The Nat Hentoff Reader which I've been relishing this past week.

So far, I've read a short piece on jazz clarinetist, George Lewis; a longish one on my longtime favorite, Merle Haggard; some superb essays on racism in America including a good profile of Ken Clark titled, "The Integrationist;" and a rare glimpse of the racial suffering of Louis Armstrong in "Louis Armstrong and Reconstruction." The book also reprints Hentoff's classic essay exposing the practice of infanticide in America today titled, "The Awful Privacy of Baby Doe." I'll never forget reading it when it first appeared back in 1985. When I finished the piece, I remember feeling deep gratitude for Hentoff's leadership and courage.

I've been a fan of Hentoff for years now, largely (but not exclusively) because of his heroic defense of the First Amendment, the newborn, and the unborn. Interesting trio, aren't they? Imagine someone who tenaciously defends the First Amendment against the depredations of p.c. nannies also tenaciously defending the unborn and newborn against oppression and murder. He'd have to be a Christian, wouldn't he?

Well, in this case not...

(Tim) I have tender childhood memories of sitting in front of the fireplace roasting my back, my two younger brothers lying on the floor falling asleep, while Mud (affectionate diminutive of Mother) read to us. Dad was on the road speaking at conferences much of the time those years, and when he was gone our evenings had a certain leisure. Not that we lived under joyless discipline when Dad was home, but like most men, Dad was sort of daddish.

So the Life without Father routine was that, following dinner and devotions, a fire was built, and as it crackled, Mud read to us by the hour.

Books were the main course in our home, just as they were in the homes of three other families whose children were all growing up at the same time within the same congregation, College Church in Wheaton: the Ken Taylors (Mary Lee's family), the Ken Hansens (ServiceMASTER's founder), and the Hudson Armerdings (Wheaton's prez). All the children of these homes loved to read.

Why?

Because none of our parents were willing...