Therfield, Near Royston, Herts, United Kingdom

TC Book Reviews - April 2009

THE VICAR OF BAGHDAD - Fighting for Peace in the Middle East - by Andrew White £8.99

A peacemaker extraordinair, who, despite personal ill health and threats to his life, has spent a number of years working for peace in the Middle East. Speaking as a man of faith to men of faith he has achieved much. His first-hand connections and profound insights make this a fascinating book.
It gives a real insight into the struggles of those who seek to bring together opposing factions, particularly in Iraq, through talking, negotiation and perseverance in the face of seeming disaster.

SERVOLUTION by Dino Rizzo - Zondervan £11.49

Cover says:
Be encouraged by the testimony of how God’s Spirit can empower and bless your ministry through a simple passion to serve others.
Healing Place Church passionately follows Jesus’ example of serving others.
From this relentless pursuit of ways to bless those who are in need in Jesus’ name, come some amazing stories that demonstrate practical strategies for living a mission of loving and embracing all members of society.

The vision of a young couple was to start a church for helping people. This church first became newsworthy through giving things away - a garage sale turned into a garage give-away (chapter 2).
One of their largest operations was to help the people made homeless by hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (chapter 5). This turned out to be much greater than the ‘feeding of the 5,000’!
As an example for the church he founded the author points to the picture of servolution in the Gospels - “and Jesus took a towel...” (page 81 ff)

PLANET NARNIA - The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis - by Michael Ward £16.99

There are people who try to fathom out a code embedded in the Bible text or a painting, but here is someone who did this for CS Lewis’s Narnia series!
If anyone saw the BBC program presented by Michael Ward on this subject , then you have a head start.
In ‘Planet Narnia’ Michael Ward demonstrates that mediaeval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven mediaeval planets - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus and Saturn - planets which Lewis described as ‘spiritual symbols of permanent value’ and ‘especially worthwhile in our own generation’.

Michael Ward is a priest of the Church of England. He is the co-editor of ‘Heresies and How to Avoid Them’, and of the forthcoming ‘Cambridge Companion to C S Lewis’.

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