Almost Thou Persuadest Me . . .To Be a Universalist, But Not Quite

That All Shall Be Saved:
Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation

Author: David Bentley Hart

Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2019

Full disclosure: this book was sent to me by the publisher for review. As always, “I call them as I read them” and this review is no exception.  Read on.

There are three ways to review this book on Universalism. One is as an English teacher (I used to be one). The other is as a relational human being (some say I have a long way to go here). And the third is as a Christian (I know I am).

Let me cut to the chase, covering all three types of reviews very quickly with respect to David Bentley Hart’s book. I read the book very carefully.  You should see my margin notes.  

As a literary work and as a position paper, Hart deserves an A+. He goes about his work with passion throwing every argument he can possibly come up with at his adversaries (those who disagree with him on the issue of universalism). As you will see from my comments and quotes below, Hart is a master of the English language. For this I would give the book 5 stars.

Viewing this book from a human perspective, I found it fell extremely short on all counts. I am sure I am not alone in finding the author’s style to be very patronizing (and all the synonyms that fit). The author goes so far as to claim his own version (translation) of Scripture. Wonderful if that’s what we’re studying, but not so apropos if one uses this as one of his tools for arriving at his conclusions. Hart admits to writing a book “that is at odds with a body of received opinion so invincibly well-established that I know I cannot reasonably expect to persuade anyone of anything, except perhaps of my sincerity.” He is correct on the former premise, and wrong on the latter. From his introduction and throughout his book, this reader feels that the author does not give two hoots for anyone who picks up his book and disagrees with him. Early on he writes, “Not that I am accusing anyone of consciously or cynically seeking to manipulate the minds of faithful Christians” but he does exactly that and worse still, he, in my humble opinion, is guilty of the same crime.  He has no trouble at all taking some fundamental Christian tenets and commenting on them with a wave of his pen as “Happily, all of that is degrading nonsense.” Elsewhere he tells us that we need to guard against the “…relative rhetorical gifts of the author” when considering traditional thinking, to which I respond, “You’re one to talk, Doctor.” Do you get the idea? For all of the above, as a reader- or people-friendly work, I would only give the book 1 star.

That leaves us with the content perspective as I view it from the point of view of a western hemisphere modern Evangelical Christian – the group that Hart has little use for when it comes to what he believes about salvation and those that will be granted it. One of Hart’s major arguments throughout seems to be found in the phrase (and I paraphrase here) – “how can one believe in a God who creates a reality in which the eternal suffering of any being is possible, and if He can, how could He be the God of love that Christianity says He is.” May I respectfully suggest that the author’s failure to accept that possibility is not a problem with God, but rather the limitations he places on God based on his own limited human understanding. He writes, “God, of course, ought not to be measured by the moral imagination of even as great a poet as Dante – or, for that matter, by anyone else’s.” Yet he seems to be doing exactly that. His view of God is limited by his own imagination, albeit, supported in his mind and perhaps by those that would agree with him, with some creative arguing.  Hart does, throughout his book, present some good arguments and suppositions. [The average review length will not permit me to make reference to them. I am all but tempted to write a lengthy critique of his book, but I’ll save that for a later time. For me the issue at hand is best addressed, not so much by what I have been taught over the years on one end of the spectrum, and what Hart believes on the other – but rather, on two points – a) God, because He is the ‘Unquestionable I AM’ can do whatever He wants with His creations and b) knowing what He will do should not make any difference to the way that one of His children lives their life.]

Allow me to make some final points. Hart provides the reader with ten pages of Scripture verses he believes support Universalism and he goes to the great trouble of quoting those verses not only in English, but also in the original (koine) Greek. Admittedly, I am not a Greek scholar, but I (as a Greek) can understand it enough to boldly suggest that the interpretations the author makes are often not the only ones that someone can make from the original text. Secondly, Hart renders the book of Revelation an almost useless work as far as assisting us in getting a handle on what God may have in mind for the “end times”. Thirdly, Hart seems to rely more on the writings of both believers (early Christians) and non-believers (poets, etc.) than he does on Scripture itself. I believe most of Hart’s readers (especially Christian readers) would find one or all of these positions untenable. For all of the above and much more (with which I could write my own book), I would give the book 3 stars with respect to his contentions.

In conclusion, and using my limited statistical capabilities, the overall rating I would assign to Hart’s book is 3 stars.  It’s a good read.  He may have intended it to support Universalism, but in many cases his readers will use it (primarily due to his attitude and his own arguments limited by his own human intellect) as a means by which their own more traditional beliefs are upheld.

The book is clearly written for those used to hearing post-graduate university lectures. For any sharp individual, however, who is courageous enough to stand up for what he/she thinks or believes, this book will either make your blood boil or you will find comfort for something you thought or felt but were afraid to state publicly.

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n  Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, November 8, 2019, www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Improving Employee Morale and Changing Corporate Culture - A real "how to" book.

If This Book Doesn’t Help, It Might Be You

Lesson Compiler: Douglas W. Brooks, M.Sc., Organizational Development and Leadership.

Publisher: self-published, 2013

Improving Employee Morale and Changing Corporate Culture is not for the faint-hearted. It takes persistence, creativity, compassion, consistency, and above, all role-modelling.  But it can be done. While Douglas W. Brooks shows you how, he tells you it doesn’t happen overnight.

Instead of being divided into chapters, Brooks divides his collection of what he calls ‘morning motivations’ into 52 weeks.  And each week is divided into six sections that can be used by you to increase your own morale or to improve the morale of your employees as well as the corporate culture of your organization.

A typical week in the book consists of a section called, “Words Build Worlds” where you the reader identify the issues or topics you want to discuss or deal with during that particular week. This is intended to focus on addressing the number one most common complaint of staff about their company – that is, inadequate communication and feedback to employees.

Ethical Decisions and Dilemmas are also sections within weeks that show up several times.  Another repeated section (although always from a different perspective) is one Brooks calls “Modes of Mastery” although you would be hard pressed to find any section in any chapter that does not help you to master what is important to you, your team, and the organization. The book combines top motivational topics to provide the reader (and his/her organisation) with the ability to lead a daily motivational session. In addition to those mentioned above, his intention is “to discuss important topics in the workplace, address common workplace issues, inform employees how to develop personally, provide an easy way to motivate and stimulate employees . . . (and) end with a daily quote.”  He succeeds.

The author also makes a lot of customer service. He gives you very practical aids for dealing with it. These hints alone are well worth the price of the book.

The various individual and group exercises in the book are challenging and interesting. I personally can’t wait to use some of them in my own work. Most enjoyable and appreciated (and definitely usable) are the pithy quotations (hundreds of them) from well-known individuals scattered throughout his book. He has great stories (some of them humorous as they stem from his years working in the islands – mainly Jamaica) that get the message across very clearly.

The book is a great manual to follow as he prescribes or use it to address all sorts of topics as you scan the table of contents. You can be sure they’ll come up at work. Alternatively, the quotes and ideas (used with proper credit) will give you lots of material for your own communications– be they written or verbal, formal or informal.

Highly recommended for those that believe low employee morale can be conquered. And few would argue with me when I say, with the author – “it needs to be”.

n  Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 26, 2019, www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Conflict or Growth Island? Choose Your Destination

Bridges Over Ladders:
Secure growth and fortify profit with millennial employees, customers and members

Author: Kent J. Wessinger, PhD.

Publisher: create2elevate, Columbia, S.C., 2019

I have struggled to understand why one of my children (a Millennial) and a number of my grandchildren view the world, politics, religion, and work, the way they do. Two of my children (both Generation X’ers) have management jobs that require them to work with and depend on Millennials, and I have often listened to their struggles related to that.

Thus, I had good reasons to read this book. I needed help in understanding my children and in helping them too. Kent Wessinger did not disappoint at all. This book got me very excited about what could be done in the home, in the workplace, in the world when it comes to Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers co-existing ‘profitably’, both economically and socially, with Millennials.

The book is laid out so clearly, like a good lecture only on paper, that you cannot miss the key points of what is being conveyed. The author believes in data and he has it in spades.

First, he convinces us why we cannot ignore Millennials as they “mature and assimilate into leadership positions in all sectors for the next 20 years”.  He challenges us to think about what data we’re using to form our opinions, reactions, and dealings with Millennials. His data is based on direct input from over 22,000 Millennials and over 6,000 Non-Millennials. Although many try, not even the staunchest cynic, in the end, can deny data so powerful.

Next he establishes (with data) the incredible difference between how Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers see Millennials and how they see themselves. The resulting conflict is obvious, and the author shows us how it gets in the way of both growth and profit. He helps us understand what attributes associated with earlier generations that Millennials are “valuing” and those they are “rejecting”.  Understanding the latter is critical to sustainable growth at least in the next two decades. His analysis of this ‘rejection’ is so on the money that I just had to underline almost every line of this part of the text.

Wessinger shows what Millennials pursue and how and how they differ from earlier generations.  More importantly he shows us how to live and work with them and that doing so makes us all winners. His data on how long Millennials stay in one job and why they leave and what can be done about it is alone worth the price of the book. Yes, many of us have been doing it all wrong and the author has the proof. While we pursue our bucket lists, we fail to realize that Millennials “define growth through empty buckets”.

There’s also some comfort as the author tells us why we are not to fear Millennials – they are not after our jobs. Using most interesting and real-life stories and examples, Wessinger explains how opportunities are missed, how programs fail, and stupidity often reigns in our attempts to solve problems.  Then he goes on to show us what can be different. As you read the book, its title, Bridges Over Ladders, begins to make great sense. The book is also filled with much wise management advice and key thoughts. One example is the need for us to realize that, “change [for change’s sake] is not [necessarily] growth and rarely makes a difference”. 

While Wessinger is clearly interested in helping us to see Millennials differently – a most honorable objective – he also is practical enough to spend some time dealing with the short-comings of Millennials and what we can do about those.  One such key area is Millennials and Customer Service.  His advice there is invaluable. Another area is their inability to deal with task failure. He helps us with that as well.

Throughout the book, the author speaks of “voice” and its importance.

I honestly cannot recommend this book enough to business leaders especially. This is a must read for all your management staff. But it is also a great resource for parents of Millennials and even the Generation Z’ers that came after them. Finally, I would point out that throughout the book, the author speaks of “voice” and its importance. I believe it is critical to achieving our mutual goals with Millennials and those even younger. At least I found that to be the case as I discussed the book at the dinner table last night with my eldest grand-daughter and her university dorm-mate.  The reward was an unsolicited kiss and hearing her say, “I love you.”

Get one copy for yourself, you won’t regret it. Get several for those that make your business decisions.

  

Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 14, 2019, www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Taking Burnout Avenue on your Way to Nowhere

Burnout In Healthcare:
A Guide to Addressing the Epidemic

Author: Rajeev Kurapati, MD, MBA

Publisher: Sajjana Publishing, Middletown, DE, 2019

I read this book because I thoroughly enjoyed Rajeev Kurapati’s 2018 treatise on Physician: How Science Transformed the Art of Medicine. While that one was intended to help us be aware of what was going on these days in the field of medicine, his new book is intended to tell medical workers what is going on with them. And in the process, Kurapati gives every worker, no matter the field (for we are all workers whether we get paid or not), some excellent advice on how to recognize how burnout enters and impacts our lives and what to do about it.

Rajeev, a Hospitalist in Kentucky -- yes, that’s the term applied to doctors whose main responsibility is patients in hospitals -- opens his book with a question for healthcare workers: “You’re devoted to helping your patients. But who’s helping you?”  Unfortunately, the answer is often or almost always, “No one.”  Thus, his book.

Like any illness that patients face, Kurapati says you can’t treat burnout unless you recognize it.  And recognizing burnout is easier said than done.  One reason is the ultra-slow pace with which it emerges. Once recognized, the author suggests that what is needed is resilience – both organizational and individual.  And oftentimes, the latter must reign supreme because of the failure of the former.

If healthcare providers have reached the stage of feeling like the joy of (practicing) medicine is gone, then they’re well on their way to burnout if not already there. Using real-life examples of many of his colleagues (names have been changed for confidentiality), Kurapati describes how burnout starts and creeps up gradually until it’s too late. For example, there is a difference between stress and burnout. Knowing the difference is worth the price of the book. The author deals with each of the ‘masks’ that burnout hides behind including depersonalization (not really caring about your patients as people), exhaustion, apathy, anxiety, dread, irritability, impatience, the lack of will to work, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, craving comfort food, body aches and pains, and still worse, using drugs, alcohol, and other substances as a replacement for energy and health.

He takes special pain to try to get at the causes of burnout and focuses on ‘the system’ as well as the ‘digitization’ of one’s medical practice.  He warns us that the presence of success does not guarantee the absence of burnout – the relationship may in fact be the inverse.

He spends a whole chapter suggesting what hospital and clinic administrators can do to fight off burnout in their healthcare workers starting with the recognition that burnout is a systemic issue.  His last chapter focuses on what you as an individual worker must do even if the institution you work for doesn’t do anything.

The book is a good read for all of us.  And it would be worth your while to get a copy for a healthcare practitioner you love.

The copy I received came with an insert – a quote from the book: “Your goal is to feel more alive and less attached to your worries – to break free from the patterns of your mind.  To be able to do this is the hallmark of resilience.”

Can you do that?  Can you help someone else do that?

Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 12, 2019, www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

When Giving, Consider ‘Future Value’ Not ‘Present Cost’

A Generous Life:
10 Steps To Living A Life Money Can’t Buy

Author: David Green, with Bill High

Publisher: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2019

Generosity is one of those human characteristics that we often attribute to others and seldom speak of it in reference to our own way of life. That may be because few of us are generous; or it may be because we really cannot describe what being generous means or have any way of measuring it. In his book, A Generous Life, David Green as a minimum (and with every right to do so) implies he has and is living such a life, but more importantly, he gives us great insight into how one may describe generosity and perhaps even measure it.

Green says we really need to start off our lives asking the questions we normally save for our deathbeds.  Those are the ones that matter.  Secondly, we need to realize that while we are the keepers or holders of things or assets, they ultimately do not belong to us. If we recognize the proper Owner, generosity becomes much easier. Because Green accepts there is an afterlife, he proposes we put people before profit and the mundane things of life.

Those are the prerequisites. He then proceeds to suggest a process by which we may pursue a generous life. And it starts with counting our blessings – but not the ones that can be lost. (That takes a little more thought than the usual approach.) The next step is to determine what he calls a “destination” in our “generosity journey”. He’s not talking about a geographic destination but rather a goal that we want to achieve with respect to our giving.  Like any trip worth taking, a plan needs to be developed which we will require following to reach our destination.

But Green also wants us to get the message that we’ll not fully enjoy the destination unless we bring our loved ones along – as his parents did with him and his siblings, and as he has endeavored to do with his own children, and even grandchildren.

Legacy creation is a key topic of the book. Green helps us to create one for our own family and he reminds us that a complete legacy is not only about what one leaves behind, but also what one sends ahead.

The author writes most candidly. He humbly realizes that he has been greatly blessed. He knows many readers would discount his advice for that reason. But as I read his book, I believe he attributes that blessing to three things: a parental model of generosity; a realization that God is the owner of everything; and a disciplined following of an intentional plan to be generous.

The book makes a great gift for any of our businessperson contacts.  It is also perfect for our children and grandchildren.  But first you and I need to make sure that we’ve bought into what Green recommends and start applying it ourselves, if we haven’t already.

n  Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 10, 2019, www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.