People in Glass Houses (shouldn’t throw stones)

Some people attribute the above quotation to Chaucer and its an appropriate title for this book  . We should be skeptical of those who claim to be righteous or have a special religious hotline to God .This pithy little saying could also apply to the author of this book, Tanya Levin as this memoir traces her life in the Australian religious congregation that later became Hillsong .  Its a story that is both funny and sad as we trace Tanya’s journey from a wide eyed naive teenager to disallusioned skeptic . I especially like Tanya’s teenage diary entries which give the reader a flavour of what it was like growing up in the Assemblies of God .

Sunday 4th January 1987

“This is the day I was freed from the Spirit of Rock and Roll . I started up a conversation with John who DJ’s and he told me he despises the music . He told me the worst person Satan had annointed was Bruce Springsteen . I told him he was telling the wrong person . He disagreed . We talked . Rock and Roll is all about fornication , especially Dancing in the Dark  It hit me so hard . He told me to pray when I got home . He released me from the spirit of R n R and seduction and I cried. He told me that God loves me and has so much for me . I came home and for one and a half hours I sat in the dark crying , taking down posters , breaking records and destroying tapes. I’m giving rock music up”.

One of the things that interested me about the book is that it is a story about growing up in the Assemblies of God in Australia – but its also a wider story about growing up in a belief system where there are no other frames of reference – where the world of black and white Christianity is the only world you know .  And the author vividly portrays how difficult it is for those who want to start asking questions .

In one section of the book Tanya writes about how she found it difficult to plan her life – she had been brought up to believe that “the rapture could come at any moment “and  it was “sort of like having a terminal illness for Jesus” . Nothing else mattered .

The book does have some flaws .  Tanya claims that Hillsong has a large back door – this may be true but it would have been helpful to have some comparative figures for other congregations .  She claims that Hillsong is a cult and it may have a authoritarian culture but I felt that this part of the book was not convincing . 

However  this book  is both an indictment and a challenge to churches on how they treat young people especially those who become estranged from their faith .  I noticed that Tanya had quotations from James Baldwin – the original Pentecostal boy preacher and author . I guess this only reminds us that the questions she has raised are nothing new . Hopefully somebody will listen this time .

TBA

The Gospel according to Luke/Emily McGuire

The bookclub has this on on our list a couple of months ago and its a great read . The novel is set in contemporary Australia and its about the developing relationship between Aggie Grey – a sexual health counsellor and Luke – an idealistic youth minister who just happens to work next door at the Northwestern Christian Youth Centre . The first meeting sets the scene when Aggie marches into the NCYC and admonishes Luke for the literature he is distributing about the Sexual Advisory Centre .

I loved the relationship between Aggie and Luke – two characters who you think would have nothing in common . But the other more minor characters are funny as well . Particularly Belinda Luke’s over zealous Christian youth worker who conducts talks on Christian Dating? – there’s no such thing and Honey – a vulnerable young pregnant teenager who gets caught in the crossfire .

This is Emily McGuire’s second novel .

Come dear reader fall under a spell – or do books still matter

The world is warming up like a microwave, Iraq is mired in chaos, a college student shot 32 people dead in Virginia. Who gives a damn about books any more?

And who could possibly have time to read one? The web entices us with endless newsfeeds, podcasts, blogs and chat rooms; with YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Wikipedia. Even people who visit Amazon.com don’t actually read the books. They snack on a buffet of user reviews and recommendations – then buy a memory foam pillow at a 35 per cent discount..

Bitter, bloody face-offs between reality and fantasy have traditionally been the special domain of books. Books tell us how life really is, but they also show us how to escape it, and create magical worlds to escape into. The fact that they can do both things at once has always given them a special claim on our hearts and minds. But now, it seems, the internet is usurping them. So, how can books fight back…

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/come-dear-reader-fall-under-a-spell/2007/04/20/1176697087488.html

Sophie Gee’s first novel The Scandal of the Season will be published by Random House in May

The Road to Dictionopolis

” There was once a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself – not just sometimes , but always . When he was in school he longed to be out , and when he was out he longed to be in …” Nothing really interested him – least of all the things that should have. It seemed a great wonder that the world which was so large , could sometimes feel so small and empty ” .

Whenever I read the first page of the Phantom Tollbooth it transports me back to a time when one of the greatest joys of life was to pick up any book or material I could lay my hands on – and the more escapist the better .

I read both adult and children’s books from a young age and had strange tastes. Interpersed with the standard Enid Blyton books were some interesting finds including what I would now describe as Christian cold war books . A sadly forgotten genre . The typical plot usually involved a Christian being persecuted for their faith ( usually by Communists) in prison complete with some fantastic story of their escape . Some of these books were surprisingly well written .

But I read usually read anything I could get my hands on . Magic roundabout comics . Small bites of the World Book Encyclopedia with copious sections on the American presidents . Biggles and Jane Eyre . Nature books …Williard Price .