I recommend Lynn Truss's book "Talk To The Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door". Truss is a good writer with a smooth, concise style, which is well punctuated, of course. She is not only humorous, sometimes guffaw provoking, but also perceptive. Sometimes I wish I could emulate her writing style. I think it is excellent.

One word of caution: since Truss deals with the subject of rudeness, of necessity she has to cover the topic of foul language and its prevalence in society. She does manage, delicately, to handle the subject without letting things get too coarse. But I should point out that she does use minced versions of some bad words.

I am back from my vacation in Cannon Beach, Oregon. As far as tourist destinations go, Cannon Beach is a fairly nice spot on the Oregon coast in Clatsop county. It's a clean and tidy looking small town. It actually is comprised of two different municipalities: Cannon Beach and Tolovanna Park, which both share the same city hall. We were staying in Tolovanna park, over on the southern end. So when I say "Cannon Beach" (or "CB"), I am refering to both places. With a few exceptions, most of the tourist shopping places in CB pretty much sell the same collection of tourist stuff. However, the town has plenty of very interesting art galleries, and nice restaurants and coffee shops. CB's most notable attraction is Haystack Rock, a large basaltic monolith jutting up in the middle of the expansive beach. When the tide is out, it is possible to walk out to Haystack Rock and to see the tidal pools at its base. We greatly enjoy visiting CB and walking on the beach, which is why we try to vacation there as often as money and time allows.

Most of the property in CB is owned by people who live elsewhere; that is, people with bulging purses who are rich enough to own a second "summer home". Oftentimes, they would rent out their homes to vacationers, multiple times in a season. This would happen so much within the summer that the traffic literally gridlocked the town, and consequently the city had to vote in an ordinance limiting the number of times homes could be rented out. As for the people who work in CB, most of them live elsewhere because the meagre pay of working in tourism (hotels, restaurants, shops, etc.) cannot possibly pay a mortgage or rent within the city limits. It would be a beautiful place to live, but as for the cost of the property there, well, if you have to ask then you definitely can't afford it.

While on vacation, I finished Michael Kazin's book "A Godly Hero", about the life of William Jennings Bryan. I very highly recommend the book; it is a very well written biography. Kazin did an excellent job bringing to light the importance of Bryan in American politics. And indeed, Kazin shows that Bryan is a greatly neglected figure in American history, who had been very much unjustly smeared by H.L. Mencken. I've already mentioned Mencken earlier. Mencken did write one possibly worthwhile book about the American language, but Kazin's biography of Bryan very much confirmed my earlier suspicion that Mencken's hatred for Bryan was nearly psycho-neurotic in its intensity. He admitted that he hated the man the moment he heard about him. Mencken was simply incapable of being objective about anything regarding Bryan (or with xtians in general), but most unfortunately Bryan is now only remembered as seen through the prism of Mencken's malicious depiction of him.

Besides showing the importance of Bryan in American politics, Kazin's book also illustrated a bygone era in American history that would look almost upside down to us nowadays. His book covers a time back then Evangelical xtians, such as Bryan, were much more in the forefront of old time "Liberal" politics, particularly in the Democratic Party. But I have to qualify things carefully by saying old time "Liberal" in order to make it absolutely clear that it had absolutely nothing to do with anything like today's secularistic, often militantly anti-xtian, moonbatty Leftism that has an unbreakable deathgrip on today's Democratic Party. Although Michael Kazin describes himself as a "secular liberal", he thinks historians have neglected this aspect of American politics to the detriment of a proper understanding of American history, and his biography of Bryan, being well written, balanced, and illuminating, is an attempt to compensate for the long neglect. I especially recommend paying close attention to Kazin's concluding chapter where he discussed Bryan within the larger context of American politics.

Another book I finished was Cecil M. Robeck's "The Azusa Street Mission & Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement". Robeck put in plenty of exhaustive research writing this detailed and balanced history surrounding the pivotal event of April 1906 and its aftermath. He also wrote it very much from a forthright xtian perspective. (Robeck is a professor of church history at Fuller Theological Seminary.) I very highly recommend his book. Here is a quotation from his Afterword:

Like some people within the movement's early years—and some of its self-identified heirs and successors—many of us today have found it difficult to accept the lessons Azusa Street's people went on to teach us. In a nation of Manifest Destiny, soon to wield the "big stick" foreign policy of President Teddy Roosevelt, the Azusa Street faithful tried to show us what it looked like to live according to Zechariah's prophecy, "'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit', saith the Lord of Hosts" (6:4). In a world ruled by graspers, they tried to show us that leadership was about empowering others, not about taking power away or using power to get one's own way. In a world that valued and divided people according to color, they tried to show us that we can attain racial harmony, intimacy, and inclusiveness when we remember that we are all one in the Spirit of God. Neither skin color nor differences in age, gender, class, culture, or level of education should separate anyone within the body of Christ. They tried to show us that genuine, persistent hunger and thirst for God are ultimately rewarded by life-changing, spiritually empowering encounters with the living God. They tried to show us that their sacrifice on behalf of others was worth the price they paid.

Some other points I think are well illustrated by the unfolding of events as laid out in Robeck's book: (1) that God uses fallible people to accomplish His purposes (often inspite of ourselves); (2) there are no "experts" in God's Kingdom, only children; (3) God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble; (4) and when He does so, prepare to be surprised.

There is another lesson I think I can draw from Robeck's book: sometimes, when God does begin doing surprising things among lowly people, it occasionally gets the attention of the news media. And one thing seems pretty clear from reading Robeck's book about April 1906: in most cases the news media will not be friendly to what might be happening. As regards the Azusa Street revival, and its aftermath, in nearly every instance the news media's response was first to misunderstand, and then to laugh at, and finally to malign what it saw. The newspapers of that time simply did not comprehend what was unfolding, and they never anticipated the significant impact it eventually would have through the years. But, after all, how could they? God's workings don't always fit into the sort of nice and tidy, secular materialistic, rationalist categories of Enlightenment thought that has currency with most sophisticated, college-educated newspapermen (or with fancied-up TV anchorpersons in pancake makeup, for that matter).

So, in other words, I guess I would say, "Remember, brethren, the MSM is not our friend."

Also, while I was in Seaside, Oregon, I also picked up "The Charismatic Century" coauthored by Jack W. Hayford and S. David Moore. I read it through on the trip back from Oregon. It is a introductory, "condensed" history covering the global Pentecostal (or charismatic) movement over the last century. While it is a history, it is written with a more didactic purpose in mind. And anyone with some familiarity with Hayford's preaching style will easily tell which sections were written by him and which were written by S. David Moore. I do recommend the book, and in fact it supplied some information about more recent events which I was not aware of.

The book also covered Calvary Chapel in a brief section, which was interesting, particularly for me, considering that I had been involved in a CC church for many years, back in the 1970s through the 1990s, mostly at Harvest xtian fellowship, pastored by Greg Laurie. Here is a quotation from the book:

Calvary Chapel became a recognized center of the Jesus Movement and soon spun off churches [such as Harvest] pastored by many of Smith's spiritual sons [such as Greg Laurie]. It rapidly became a vital church movement. Importantly, while much of the Jesus Movement had a charismatic orientation, Calvary Chapel and its derivative churches did not make room for spiritual gifts in its primary worship service. Rather, if exercised at all, it was in smaller home meetings. And while the Calvary Chapel church movement ostensively acknowledges the Holy Spirit's charismatic work, the churches are best described not as charismatic but as more broadly evangelical.

What is in brackets I've inserted for clarity, and the "Smith" referenced here is pastor Chuck Smith. From my having been at Harvest for many years—it was originally called "Calvary Chapel of Riverside"—I must say that this assessment, quoted above, is largely correct. I could talk much more about this aspect of CC, but I am loath to do so for fear that what I say might be misinterpreted as some sort of strident criticism. But in retrospect I can say that in its early years, the first half of the 1970s, CC was much more open to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and His empowering with charismatic gifts. But since then, steadily over time, this aspect of the ministry has diminished greatly—so much so that nowadays it has been reduced mostly to a "hypothetical" that no longer has any practical impact in the life of the church as a whole. I have my theories as to why this has happened, but as I said I am very reluctant to be seen as criticizing CC churches, especially since I consider my former pastor, Greg Laurie, to be a very powerfully gifted evangelist and communicator. But I must admit that this diminishment is probably the primary reason why I eventually had to move on from there to where we are now.