Tag: DEmons

Two Types of Book Reviews

Writing a book review is a little bit like brushing my teeth at this point; I do it without thinking. Ever since I discovered the wonder that is goodreads.com and got a bit more serious about tracking my reading and setting reading goals, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing at least something about every book I read. And so whenever I read something particularly interesting or engaging, I tend to write a lengthier and more detailed review.

My approach to writing reviews is definitely more whimsical than a typical academic book review. I like to focus in on a few salient points that struck me particularly and then to engage the book via reflection, sometimes bringing in another conversation partner as well. The classic “summary plus evaluation” equation for book reviews has always been rather unsatisfying to me because I enjoy a writer who involves himself or herself more directly in the review. Context matters here. For some publications, such as academic journals or professional association publications, it makes sense for the reviewer to fade into the background. But frankly, the kind of depersonalized prose this approach produces is so stripped of human vitality that no one would ever be able to tell if it was written by ChatGPT or not.

In contrast to this, I prefer to read (and write) reviews that emphasize the reviewer’s encounter with the book. One label for this is the review essay: a piece of writing where the reviewer uses his or her encounter with the book as a launching point. This means the resulting piece has a lot more personality in it; more of the writer and slightly less of the book. Sometimes such an essay can actually take two books and put them in conversation with each other. When done well, this approach makes for a compelling piece of writing.

Lately I’ve had a couple of book reviews published. First, at Faith Today, I have a review of Harold Ristau’s book, Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance: How to Minister to the Demonically Oppressed and Possessed. Faith Today has a very limited word count for their reviews, so I wouldn’t say this piece manages to feel like the kind of review essay I prefer. Nevertheless, I’m always grateful for the chance to be published in a print magazine, and the book was very interesting. Second, at TGC Canada, I have a review of Brad Littlejohn’s book Called to Liberty: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License. My editor at TGC, Wyatt Graham, prefers the review essay, so I appreciate the freedom to do those.

In an earlier piece, I reflected on the contents of the opening chapter of Samuel G. Parkison’s book To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice. I have since finished that book, and I gave it 4.667 stars over at goodreads. Here is the brief review I left there:

This book is a great achievement. It succeeds in its mission, which is to retrieve the doctrine of the beatific vision for evangelicals, and in so doing, reintroducing new generations of Protestants to the riches of their own tradition. The introduction and opening chapters do a great job situating the modern reader in terms of where we are in late modernity and how that relates to the metaphysical foundations that undergirded earlier eras of Christian thought. The book self-consciously situates itself within the ‘Great Tradition’ and calls evangelicals back to classical Trinitarian theism from the barren wilds of modernist biblicism.

Having been thus oriented, Parkison takes the reader through a number of major figures from the early church, the middle ages, and the Reformation, and explores how the church’s view of the beatific vision has evolved over the centuries. The author then attempts to synthesize the best of these views into a coherent whole that is digestible for modern readers. His distinctive contribution seems to be a more thoroughly trinitarian formulation of the beatific vision, drawing on and continuing the work of Protestant giants such as John Owen and Jonathan Edwards.

One of the book’s strengths is the affective tone, the marriage of academic and spiritual concerns. In other words, the book is edifying and, when rightly read, is sure to bring the reader to worship. That being said, it is still quite dense, and some of the middle chapters felt like a bit of a slog at times. Perseverance, however, is richly rewarded. I recommend it most heartily.

A Review of Dr. Heiser’s ‘Demons’

For some reason I was expecting this to be a popular-level book on the topic. Instead, like Unseen Realm, it was a substantive work of scholarship that delved deeply into the academic literature. That’s fine with me, but it is good to know when considering recommending it to others. That being said, the audiobook version I listened to was very well done, with substantive footnotes being included while footnote citations were excluded. This approach came as close as it is possible to get to the experience of reading a physical copy.

I enjoyed the book, much as I enjoyed Unseen Realm. Indeed, there is a lot of overlap between the two books. He chronicles in detail his contention that there were three (instead of one) supernatural rebellions (Gen 3, Gen 6, and Gen 11), each of them by different sorts of beings and for different reasons, with different consequences that play out across the rest of Scripture’s narrative.

Heiser’s strength is also a cause for caution; he pays little heed to interpretive tradition after the NT era. Rather, he privileges Ancient Near Eastern and Second Temple Jewish understandings of these topics since he argues these were the formative influences guiding the thinking of the OT and NT writers. And he undoubtedly has a strong case. It’s undeniable that the NT writers were familiar with this material, like 1 Enoch (referenced in Jude and 2 Peter).

In Heiser’s telling, this 2nd Temple material synthesized the scattered and partial OT teaching on the powers of darkness into a more cohesive narrative. There is explanatory power in this since it’s obvious that when we turn from the OT to the first pages of the NT, a significant shift has occurred in the way these spiritual forces are described. And his framework makes sense of the fragmentary evidence in a way that the typical default framework of Christians does not.

But the concern this work raises is also worth considering. Heiser is perhaps too comfortable departing from the near-consensus of Christian thought throughout the centuries. His reliance on textual variants and extra-biblical sources to frame his narrative mean that we ought to be cautious about thinking we’re on very solid ground. The fact is, despite my desire to understand all this, the topic is shrouded in much mystery. The evidence is scattered and ambiguous–seemingly deliberately.

One strength of the book is what so many have found so helpful about Heiser’s work–he is not beholden to modernist anti-supernaturalism. Instead, he is refreshingly open to a thoroughly supernatural worldview all while being a careful scholar.

He has done much to chart a path forward for Christians to be unembarrassed in our affirmation of the supernatural while being intellectually rigorous. In other words, staying out of the ditch of kooky theories built on the flimsiest conjectures, a ditch with too many denizens already. For that, and for much else, I am thankful for Dr. Heiser’s work.