“Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism” by Luke H. Davis

Luke H. Davis began his published writing career with a series of three mysteries, featuring Cameron Ballack, a county police detective who investigates and solve crimes from his wheelchair. He then published a fantasy book entitled Joël , which was followed by a book on Christian ethics, Tough Issues, True Hope. 

His most recent project has been a series on church history aimed at younger readers (roughly 10-14). In 2022, he published two in the series, Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times and Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages. And now come the next two entries in the series: Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism and Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward.

 

You don’t have to be the targeted age group to enjoy Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism. Each primary chapter focuses on a person, telling a fictionalized account of a specific event in the person’s life. A summary paragraph at the end of the chapter provides a brief biographical overview. And then periodic “fact files” provide a deeper look into a specific topic associated with the overall subject of the book.

 

You can see what Davis is doing here: tell an interesting story about people, provide some factual and biographical information, and inspire the reader to pursue their interest in the subject or person. It works. I thought I knew a lot about the Reformation period. And I was familiar with the major players, like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Cranmer (I’ve seen the monument to Cranmer’s and others’ martyrdom in Oxford several times). I didn’t know the Reformation roles played by Marguerite of Navarre, Catherine Parr (Henry VIII’s last wife), and Lady Jane Grey. And I’d never heard of Martin Bucer and Patrick Hamilton.

 

Luke H. Davis

What I learned is that, yes, there were major movers in the Reformation, but many people played significant roles. And Davis keeps his accounts interesting by making the historical figures come to life as real and recognizable people. 

 

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017). He blogs at For Grace and Kingdom.

 

If your children are familiar with church history and the Reformation, Reform is a good place to start. And if you think you know all about the period and the people, Reform might well help you realize that you don’t know as much as you think. 

 

Next Week: Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward.

 

Related:

 

My review of Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times.

 

My review of Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages.

 

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

 

My review of Litany of Secrets.

 

My review of The Broken Cross.

 

My review of A Shattered Peace.

 

My review of Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

When the time is full

After Galatians 4:1-7 

When the time is full

comes a child.

When the time is full,

comes a man.

When the time is full,

comes a death.

When the time is full,

comes redemption.

With redemption

comes adoption.

With adoption

comes inheritance.

With inheritance

come the indwelling

of the spirit

into our hearts.

 

Photograph by Jose Ortiz via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads - May 13, 2023

Like tens of millions of others, my wife and I watched the coronation service for King Charles III. Well, we watched the taped version; we both decided that getting up at 3:30 or 4 a.m. to watch it live was a bit much, even for the new king. I was surprised at how close to the traditional ceremony Charles adhered, and I was surprised at how religious a ceremony it was. Christopher Hatton at The Critic Magazine agrees apparently; he found the service deeply religious.  

It’s a 100-year-old book that is still in print. In 1923, a Princeton Seminary professor named J. Gresham Machen published Christianity and Liberalism. The book had, and continues to have, an enormous effect on Protestantism in the United States. Some of the major debates of the 20^th century – fundamentalism, decline of the mainline churches, and millennial theology – were shaped by Machen’s book. D.G. Hart at Ad Fontes Journal discusses what Machen talked about, and what he didn’t. 

 

Louise Penny has done it in one of her Inspector Gamache novels. Ayn Rand did it. Margaret Atwood has done it. Writers across numerous genres have done it. And that is to write manifesto fiction, perhaps loosely described as building a novel or story around your political beliefs. Nathan Bransford warns against it.

 

More Good Reads

 

News Media

 

‘Manufactured’ Media Lies Can End Democracy: Tucker Carlson Makes First In-Person Speech After Departing from Fox – Gary Bai at The Epoch Times.

 

Ukraine

 

The Ukraine Offensives Are Coming: What Might Success and Failure Look Like? – Mick Ryan at Futura Doctrina.

 

The quiet resistance of ordinary Russians against Putin – Mark Galeotti at The Spectator.

 

Kherson — the city that never sleeps: The daily Ukrainian struggle to survive – Rosemary Jenkinson at The Critic Magazine.

 

British Stuff

 

The Signs of Old London – Spitalfields Life. 

 

The fairytale of British republicanism – Fred Skulthorp at The Critic Magazine.

 

Inventive Vents (Part One) – Andrew Everlin at Photos, photographers, and photobooks.

 

Poetry

 

Bare Branches in Spring – Kathryn Butler at Story Warren.

 

Poet, What Dreamer Thou Art – Cheryl Corey at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Charles Reznikoff: The Finest Noir Poet You’ve Never Heard Of – Nick Kolakowski at CrimeReads.

 

Sole unquiet thing – Ernest Hilbert at New Criterion.

 

Faith

 

How to Read Wisdom Literature – Max Rogland at Ligonier.

 

Jesus stands for Stephen: a sermon on a reading from Acts 7 – Dan King at Bibledude.

 

Where Does Mark End? Handling Snakes and Ancient Manuscripts – Peter Orr at Desiring God.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Susie Luo: On Dreaming About Our Characters – Robert Lee Brewer at Writers Digest.

 

The Power of the Unsaid: John N. Maclean on Ernest Hemingway’s 'Big Two-Hearted River’ – at Literary Hub.

 

Life and Culture

 

The New House, The New Life – Anthony Esolen at Front Porch Republic.

 

'Cultural Christianity' is fading and that reality is linked to some other newsy trends – Ryan Burge at Get Religion.

 

American Stuff

 

Don’t Let Me Come Home a Stranger – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

On That Day – City Alight

 Painting: Annunciation of Mary, oil on canvas by Lorenzo Costa (1460-1535).

The heir

After Galatians 4:1-7 

The heir will inherit

the family estate, but

consider that one word: will.

The heir is wealthy,

but not yet.

The heir controls much,

But not yet.

Inheritance is a future

thing. In the meantime,

the heir is managed 

by parents, guardians, 

overseers, until the time

is full.

 

But (another critical word),

when the time is full,

when the time has come,

the heir is set free,

receives the inheritance,

assumes the power

promised.

 

Photograph by Guilherme Stecanella via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Murder by Fire" by Faith Martin

We know that the murderer is a woman with blond hair. We know that the crime was committed in anger and rage. We know the dead man was religious to a fault; he seemed to model his faith on that of the Biblical Pharisees. And we know the crime extended to gathering up many of his books and papers and setting them afire in a large pile in the neatly kept garden. 

What we don’t know is why the victim’s body was added to the fire. And almost all of the potential suspects have blond hair. 

 

That’s the investigating dilemma that DI Hillary Greene and her team face in Murder by Fire, the tenth mystery in the Hillary Greene series by British writer Faith Martin. Each of the team members are also dealing with their own personal dilemmas – a lover moving to Australia, a demand for inside police information or one’s parents will suffer, and a partner who’s becoming a baron because of the death of a relative – which will make Greene’s sergeant an official Lady. And Greene herself has a departing superintendent who is determined he’s going to find something to bring Greene down.

 

Faith Martin

But the team plugs away, doing the grunt work of talking to neighbors, business associates, lawyers, and family, talking to each other, bouncing ideas around, and slowly a picture begins to emerge. And then something will click.

 

In addition to the DI Hillary Greene novels, Martin (a pen name for Jacquie Walton) has also published the Ryder and Loveday novels as well as the Jenny Sterling mysteries. Under the name Joyce Cato, she has published several non-series detective stories. Both Cato and Martin are also pen names for Walton. (Walton has another pen name as well – Maxine Barry, under which she wrote 14 romance novels.) A native of Oxford, she lives in a village in Oxfordshire. 

 

Murder by Fire is another fine entry in the Hillary Greene series. Martin has a gift for making her characters real and flawed, and it’s often a combination of strengths and flaws that solve the crimes.

 

Related:

 

Murder on the Oxford Canal by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at the University by Faith Martin. 

 

Murder of the Bride by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Village by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Family by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Home by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Meadow by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Mansion by Faith Martin.

 

"No One Wants to Be the Last to Die" by Chris Calkins

In April 1865, the confederate capital of Richmond fell after Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia first south to Petersburg, and then westward to the Appomattox area in southwestern Virginia. His first goal was to reach supply trains, waiting with food and munitions. The Army of the Potomac, under Ulysses S. Grant, was moving even faster to capture the trains and cut off Lee’s escape. 

If he couldn’t reach the trains, Lee hoped to join up with the army of General William Johnston, now in North Carolina and pursued by Union forces under William Tecumseh Sherman. A series of battles and skirmishes occurred. In No One Wants to Be the Last to Die: The Battles of Appomattox, April 8-9, 1865, historian Chris Calkins details those final days of Lee’s army, often hour by hour. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Yes, Edith Wharton Was Also a Poet

One of my favorite novels is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I first read it when I was 16, for my high school English class my junior year. It wasn’t required reading; my final class term paper was on three novelists of the Realist period – Wharton, Willa Cather, and Jack London. I found myself walloped by Wharton’s novel; I went on to read The House of Mirth and Age of Innocence and discovered that Ethan Frome was the major exception to what she usually wrote. 

Wharton (1862-1937) came from New York upper class families on both sides. And it was the upper class that she usually wrote about. Ethan Frome is the story of a New England villager who experienced an accident, as his fellow residents of Starkfield, Massachusetts, will tell you. The story begins more than two decades after the “smashup;” only gradually do we learn what actually happened. A man whose life was filled with misery made a single dash for freedom and happiness, only to compound his misery with tragedy. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.