William Petruzzo

I watched The Basketball Diaries tonight; a drug culture drama from early on in Leonardo DiCaprio’s career. Also, a film adaptation of a series of journal entries from the true story of well known and respected Jim Carroll. Since the movie came in 1995, you might not even remember it. It wasn’t exactly a blockbuster smash hit then either, but to date, it’s still one of my favorites.

For those who haven’t seen the movie, the story follows Jim (Leo) as he transforms from reckless, but fun loving middle-lower class kid, quickly gaining the attention of basketball recruiters, to a full fledged homeless junkie willing to do absolutely anything for a fix. There’s very little about this movie that doesn’t scream “mid-90’s!”. The acting. The lighting. The setting. The lingo. But what is unusual is a really stunning performance from Leo. By today’s standards, a lot falls as far as dramas go. But Leo’s acting, even today, is still rarely matched.

While the movie is good as it is, it’s not especially entertaining. But that’s alright. Entertainment here doesn’t seem to be chiefly the point. It’s one of those few films that you watch and don’t enjoy and on some level never want to watch again, but at the same time you can’t turn it off and you won’t bad mouth it when it’s over. At some points, the gruesome sobriety on screen will make even a person sitting alone feel awkward or queasy inside.

I’ve never been a rock bottom drug addict in New York City before, so it’s hard for me to say just how realistic the culture portrayed is. But it seems to me that regardless of that, the point is clear and the culture has little to do with it. Jim gave himself, foolishly, to a dangerous bride. Like so many of us here and now, he was bewitched and intoxicated by what he’d surrendered himself to and he couldn’t walk away. Of course, we might hide it better than a junkie.

If you haven’t seen The Basketball Diaries, go grab it. And if you haven’t seen it in a while, maybe you’d like a refresher. Just remember, it’s not exactly a popcorn flick.

Today, I finished reading what I think might be one of the most important extra-biblical books ever written. The book is Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers by John Owen, as found in the collected works book, Overcoming Sin and Temptation. This book has taken me fifteen weeks (to the day) to read and challenged me more than probably any other book I’ve ever read (again, with the exception of the bible).

Mortification deals with the topic of sin with a startling sobriety. At times it’s like a splash of cold water in the face, other times like a warming blanket on a cold night. There were times while reading this book that I felt so unbelievably encouraged and inspired that I was immediately re-energized to move toward holiness—then of course there were other times where Owen’s words cut to the heart and reading it just made me angry; conviction is a funny thing.

I began reading this book originally along with Challies.com; one chapter a week, followed by an online discussion. I found after not too many chapters that the discussion that followed was beginning to commandeer my reading and so some of what should have profoundly affected me simply became intellectual junk food. So, I stopped participating with the group at Challies .com and started reading the book on my own.

We live in a theologically shallow time in the church. Comparatively few people really understand what they mean when they talk about their freedom in Christ, the call to holiness, or the command to go and preach the Gospel. Quite naturally, even fewer people know what to make of the mortification of the flesh. To most the idea sounds like an antiquated, useless, concept in light of Christ’s sacrifice—ironically, they are thoroughly and necessarily in close tandem.

I don’t want to go completely off into left field here (I’ll save left field for some other day), but I would like to touch on something. The trend today would be to minimize theology. To say that there needs to be less theology and more love, or less theology and more service, or less theology and more experiencing the Holy Spirit. The problem is, theology isn’t a bunch of useless intellectual hoo-ha (although some may use it that way). Theology is the study of God, learning about God, learning who he is and what he feels. I’d say that theology is pretty damn important (that’s right, I’m so passionate I used as wear word).

Okay, back on track. In a church environment where theology is minimized and self-expression, individuality and prosperity are emphasized people are bound eventually to end up as humanists, forgetting that people aren’t “essentially good,” they’re essentially bad and as a fallen men and women redeemed by the blood of Christ, it is our responsibility to no longer live “according to the flesh” and so to always “put to death the deeds of the body”. That is precisely what Owen’s text is concerned with.

The first twelve or thirteen chapters deal with preparatory matters of mortification and general thoughts surrounding the action. Then, in the final chapters he moves onto the work itself. Interestingly enough, everything leading up to the actual work of mortification is very practical, but once he moves onto the work itself, he has little practical words for it, because it is in itself a work of the Spirit that is done by faith.

Owen’s literature is not easy to read. The chapters are short (sometimes just two or three pages), but even a good reader can easily take twenty to thirty minutes to really grasp what’s said. For the average reader I would recommend a version published by Banner of Truth that has been abridged and edited for easy reading. This book should be read, and the ideas and concepts should be carefully thought about and prayed about and in most instances, I believe, applied.

There is a punch that’s packed in these puritan’s words that you likely won’t find in modern Christian literature, so I do recommend this book to everyone; particularly the abridged version. I would also highly recommend this reading to groups looking to go through a book together; accountability partners, couples, friends, churches, nations—whatever. Just do it.

I have just completed my reading of reading R.C. Sproul’s Chosen By God. Before I get into specifics, I would like to say up front that I absolutely loved this book.

From the front cover, it’s not difficult to decipher what this book is about. It’s about predestination. Although the tagline may be a bit cheesy, “Know God’s perfect plan for His glory and His children”; I think it might carry with it some slightly arrogant connotations, however, you won’t find any of those inside.

From the first chapter, Sproul documents, in brief, his own struggle with the biblical doctrine of predestination. In the beginning of the book, Sproul speaks mostly experientially. His own intellectual battle with previously learned doctrines that he was discovering didn’t have nearly as much foundation as he thought. I was concerned in the beginning, he was speaking so much out of his own experiences, there was very little specific reference to scripture. He mostly just talked about ideas and his struggles with them, but didn’t really qualify any of those ideas. I feared the worst. However, from the first chapter filled mostly with experiences, he beautifully builds eight more chapters saturated with scripture.

In another book from Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology (recently reviewed), I had major issues with Sproul’s omission of specific scriptural references for the sake of easy reading. This is in no way the case here.

I’m generally a critical thinker. It’s hard for me to ignore logic (that’s probably a weakness some times). For me, this book fit like a perfect puzzle piece into how I generally receive and interpret information. Sproul builds, very clearly from scripture, a series of powerful and logical arguments. He argues extremely effectively for the reformed view of predestination, but at the same time speaks with a humble attitude that isn’t likely to immediately turn subscribers of other theologies off.

The book is written to be very easily read; just over 200 short pages. It is clearly not written explicitly for the seminary student. While I’m certain most Christians would benefit from reading this literature, Sproul almost certainly had the average reader in mind. He does an excellent job of making the point that predestination is not a theology only for the theologically elite (not a term I’m crazy about) but something that any serious bible believing Christian has to deal with, and how we deal with it bears heavily on how we interact with God and others.

This book makes me want to make up a rating system for my book reviews so that I can give it really high marks. I am recommending this book to anyone who feels they’d like to try some solid food. I give this book 150 points. Also available in store at places like Borders and Barnes & Noble.