Recently, Rey (my brother from another mother) presented a few thoughts in a post entitled Much Ado About Nothing (and Book Reviews). In this post, he performs some of the finest woolgathering I have ever witnessed and then goes on to discuss book reviews, most notably the reviews found at the Diet of Bookworms. Please don’t take this post as an opening salvo at Rey. I honestly do love him like a brother and fully intend to stand with him in glory as we marvel at the Lord as He unveils His eternal plan for the removal of sin from the world. You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you Rey?
I’ll share some clippings from his post within this response.
I’ve been looking around for a trustworthy source for book reviews… I want to be able to get honest commentary on a book without being an advertisement for some reviewer’s bias…
I was hoping Diet of Bookworms would be fill the void, and maybe someday it will, but right now it seems openly Reformed in leaning and that is completely useless to me for recommendations….
Don’t get me wrong, there’s some good reviewers on there but most of the time all you have to do is ask “is the writer Reformed? Yes…okay, everyone loves it” or “does the writer have problems with Reformed theology? Prepare to see many not-recommended”.
Don’t forget that “Hedges” by Jerry Jenkins got good reviews with only one exception… from a Dispensationalist pastor no less. One other note regarding our book selection: to get people on board, I imagine Tim Challies started out with books that any reform reader would want to read. How much response could he have expected if he started us off with a reading of “Wild at Heart” and how many more books do you think the publishers would send out to the Reform reviewers? Would a pro-emergent church book be sent by the publisher to Reform bloggers in the hopes that this would generate positive reviews and translate into sales?
The way I see it, the goals of DoB is to:
- Highlight books that may not get as much notice. “Father Son and Holy Spirit” is one such example.
- Give people a directory of a limited amount of book reviews from people they have come to trust on one level or another rather than amazon’s way of not knowing the source.
- Build a community of readers with a theology born of the Protestant Reformation. Like it or not, this includes you.
- Remind publishers that there are avid readers who care about what they read. Without feedback, how would the publishers know what they should produce if they want the approval of this corner of the market?
We make no plea of being impartial or completely separated from the marketing aspect of books. At the same time, we want to be a resource that others can go to and see what the consensus of our reviewers is.
Some reviewer, pushing the reformed view said something about reviewing a book to make sure that the author presented his points and got the message across. I wish they all reviewed books like this because so far, I haven’t seen much evidence of it…
link added by myself
The major fallacy of Christian publishers is that they cater to the same ideals as the marketplace. If the customer is always right, the only way the marketplace can be altered is by defining the ideals of those who actually care about the books. I don’t mean to sound puffed up, but this program is allowing several people the opportunity to applaud books that we feel should be written and if need be, give reasons why we object to other books. Will Tim ask us to review a book by any number of authors that are on shaky ground theologically? I don’t think so.
This is because the publishers have an idea of what our tendencies are and will seek to generate positive reviews for their product. In a sense, we are giving them an avenue for taking books that we feel should be more in the limelight than the Purpose Driven Life and they can (hopefully) see the value of producing more books along these lines.
A star of “Good Theology” is useless if what you mean is “Good with My Theology”.
The Internet gives anybody a chance to self-publish their thoughts. Your thoughts are heavily sprinkled with your Biblical world view and for that you are to be commended. I have no doubt that the books you review and the reviews themselves will reflect this. Should you get some like-minded people to reproduce this program, I have no doubt that the publishers could see another rich vein for how they can get the word out on some books that need to be given some of the spotlight. It won’t be Sproul, Piper or Horton that I’ll expect from you, and we will be glad to see some authors that you feel need to be presented to the public more than they have been.
And it will be biased. To say that it wouldn’t be is to say that you have no theological preference one way or another. Brother Rey, if there’s anything I know about you, it’s that you do have strong preferences toward your theology. And you should! If you didn’t, all you could say in a review is how many typographical errors you found and whether or not you found the book to be amusing.
I guess what I’m getting at is that it would be more appropriate for you to not point any fingers at those of a different theological persuasion unless you see something going on that we are trying to cover up. There are no secrets in the Diet of Bookworms, as the supplied links can attest.
So that is all an intro for me saying that I plan to start reviewing books with this in mind. Normally I just jot a quick note in the back flap so I can remember author’s key points but now I will devote a day per week to a, God willing, honest book review. That means you may notice that I think Sproul does a horrid job of presenting his case whereas some others may do a better job. This will be posted by a non-intellectual (I guess the anti-anti-intellectuals will say) heretic (everyone who is super-orthodox would say?) so be warned. Rey’s Reviews coming to a post near you.
I can’t wait to see your reviews, but don’t you deny that you will likely lean in a slant which will skew your review, just as the reviews at the Diet are slanted by those performing the reviews. Reformed people can look at a book for what it is, but if our theology and our review don’t mesh our review is invalidated and so is our reputation which we build daily against the hypers who undermine what we are. And you can stop before you say that you don’t have a slant. Every Christian (fortunately or unfortunately) has one slant or another. Your words and your reviews will be “salted” by your theology, as it should be.
July 19th, 2005 at 9:35 am
I’ve never looked for book reviews to be unbiased. First of all, as you point out, no one is unbiased. Second, The reason I read reviews is that I can’t read every book that’s published (only Challies does that). I’m not going to take a recommendation from someone who is theologically unsound. Knowing the reviewer’s theological perspective tells me how seriously I should take their review. If Sproul recommended a book on eschatology, I’d pass on it. If John Piper recommended a book on the miraculous sign gifts, I’d pass on it. I know what these men are confused on those issues. However, if either recommended a book on soteriology, I might be interested. The point is, knowing the reviewers bias tells me how valuable their opinion is.
What does annoy me is when a recommendation only means, “I agree with the author.” I want to know if the author treated the subject thoroughly and made his case in a lucid, logical manner. I’ve read plenty of books that I agreed with, but were poorly written, and did not successfully make their case. When a reviewer recommends such a book, that is a useless review.
July 19th, 2005 at 9:42 am
You know I didn’t even consider the practical implications of Diet of Bookworms’ review process consisting of getting the material from the publishers. I’m spoiled by being part of a publishing company and surrounded by books so when it came to the site I was completely blind to that obvious and viable point.
Good stuff, bro. Words taken to heart.
God bless you.
July 19th, 2005 at 10:00 am
Thank you Rey for not taking this as a personal attack. Had a similar post come from Tim Challies, complaining about the bias of anyone else, I would have merely changed whose post I was referencing.
July 19th, 2005 at 10:25 am
I think too many people read from one perspective only. If you read ten books of a perspective you already subscribe to, all with the same errors, you’ll always arrive at the same mistakes.
Maybe it’s time for Christians to read books that make them uncomfortable and hold up closer to Scripture?
How well will a Reformer write on Jewish culture and idioms? Which does more than permiate the setting of all Scripture, it is the setting. Many Christians, when they hear “Jewish”, automatically associate it with Legalistic Pharisees. Seems an odd mentality for a religion with a Jewish Messiah.
Would one read a Harry Potter book to understand European culture? No, one would read a book about the culture, language, customs rather than one that uses it as simply a backdrop on a stage. One would probably pefer it be written by someone of that culture or as close as possible. (Of course, the real questions would be, why would a Christian read Harry Potter?)
Maybe we could come up with an “Embracement Theology” rather than “Replacement”?
To support my assertions, I offer my same, tired, old, argument: Passover, Passover, Passover.
Grab hold of a great Jewish book… “The Bible”.
Shalom.
July 19th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
I think this is a very astute post. I know that I don’t like cessationist authors in the least. And even though I might say that their book is okay, it will never be great simply for the fact that I disagree with a core part of their theology. It is a rare book that transcends all this.
July 19th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
DLE, that’s the problem though. Christians are barring themselves out of whole spheres of Christian thought just because they’ve heard they shouldn’t agree with what the author says…or even if they do read what he says they don’t agree with the author because their is something theologically dissonant within the reader. I don’t agree with Calvinism but I have no problem reading Calvinist titles and saying “woah, that’s a good argument right there.” or “man, that’s the best presentation of Calvinism ever.” I don’t have to agree with it theologically, but should be able to say if the author pulled off a good job, what he did outright badly and the stuff that was sheerly sloppy.
Who knows, maybe there’s a Calvinist waiting to blossom based on some good presentation of the position.