Phill Sacre

Category: Writings

Stuff which I would class more as an attempt at the art of ‘writing’, as opposed to the general junk I come out with most of the time. Not that this isn’t junk, but… well, yeah.

  • Review: What’s Best Next

    What's Best NextI’ve just finished reading What’s Best Next by Matt Perman. It’s a book about productivity, and unlike many other productivity books it’s written from a specifically Christian perspective.

    I must confess to not really reading productivity books (there are so many of them, it’s difficult to know where to start) – but I’d heard good things about this one, so I decided to give it a go. It’s definitely worth the money.

    Here are a few things about the book I found helpful:

    • I really appreciated the focus the book had on the ‘big picture’. Although I haven’t read much in the way of productivity books, you see a lot of blog posts about this kind of thing around and most of them focus on how to improve your efficiency – how to do things more quickly, or get more done in a certain space of time. This is all good, but this book argues that efficiency is no use if you’re doing the wrong things to start with! So the first part of the book deals with how we assign our priorities and goals.
    • The focus on creating a schedule, rather than simply blocking in a list of things which need to get done. I hadn’t really thought about this aspect of productivity before, but it’s very helpful.
    • Only after discussing pretty much everything else does the book talk about efficiency and creating lists etc! This seems to me to be a workable and effective solution to a lot of problems around time management.
    • Finally, the ‘Christian’ focus of the book I found particularly helpful – i.e. orienting things from God’s perspective rather than just giving us licence to do whatever we want to do better.

    All in all, I think this will be a book I will come back to – there is a lot of wisdom here for organising your time. Don’t worry if you – like me – have never read a book on productivity before!

  • Brief Thoughts on Sherlock series 3

    The latest series of Sherlock aired its last episode on Sunday night. I really enjoyed the first two series (i.e. I think it’s one of the best things the BBC have done in the past few years, perfect cast and tone), so this was something I was eagerly anticipating. However… after a few days I’m still not sure what to make of it. I mean, let’s be clear, the series had some genius moments (loved meeting Sherlock’s parents in the first episode, or the game Mycroft and Sherlock are playing, for example). And it was all tremendously clever. But I feel that something fundamental had changed and just wasn’t there.

    This article on the Huffington Post goes some way to explaining the problems I have with the third series. I don’t agree with all of it, but I think Kate Rose pretty much hits the nail on the head when she talks about some of the fundamental changes which seem to have happened between series two and three.

    • One of the things people noted about S3 was it felt a bit like fan fiction. (Sherlock, if you didn’t know, has a massive fan fiction community). To me, I thought there were just a few too many nods to fan fiction – especially including a group of characters in the first episode who came up with theories about how Sherlock survived (I mean, is that meta or what?)
    • S3 seemed to focus more on Sherlock’s character and its development. In some ways this was a good thing, but in others I felt like they overplayed it to the detriment of Sherlock’s raison d’etre: Sherlock as the aloof, high-functioning sociopath who … detects things. I mean, what did Sherlock really do in this entire series which only he could do? The first episode, he was virtually irrelevant to the bomb plot. The second episode he did deduce more, but I still felt like it wasn’t the same as the previous two (although the episode itself was probably my favourite of the three, despite moving at a snail’s pace sometimes). The third episode… well, again, not much deducing going on.
    • This is the thing: the previous episodes have had some mystery which only Sherlock could solve as the primary driver behind the events in each episode – S3 seemed to go some way away from this. Each episode felt more fragmented and fractured, trying to tie all the pieces together.
    • There was no real overarching plot (well, villain), unless you count the very end of the first episode. That’s what I loved about the first two series – both of them built up to a finale. In S3, the finale seemed to be more of a whimper.

    It was still good TV, and I do appreciate that with the expectations riding on the series it was almost doomed not to live up to expectations. Still, these are just my feelings at the moment. I should probably go watch it again, just to make sure…

  • Review: Is God anti-gay?

    I’ve just finished reading “Is God anti-gay?” by Sam Allberry. It didn’t take very long – it’s less than 100 pages long! In the book, Allberry uses his experience as a pastor who experiences same-sex attraction (SSA for short) to write a sensitive and compelling piece about what the Bible says about sexuality.

    I’d recommend this book to anyone who wanted to understand more about what the Bible says about sexuality (Christian or not) – it may not change your mind but it will hopefully give a different perspective. Not all of the book will be relevant to everyone, I think Allberry tries to write to accommodate a wide range of potential readers, but that’s not to detract from the main message of the book.

    I’d suggest that this would be a good book to put at the back of churches for people to browse; this issue isn’t going to get any smaller in future years and having something to explain things in a concise yet accessible way will be a real plus.

  • Review: The Story of Christianity

    I’ve just finished reading “The Story of Christianity” by David Bentley Hart. He is, as you may recall, the author of “Atheist Delusions” – a book I highly recommend. Anyway, I came across the book recently, and as I’d enjoyed Atheist Delusions – and as the Kindle edition was 56p on Amazon (still is, at the time of writing!) then I decided to give it a go.

    Let me say this: the foundation degree at Oak Hill includes a two-year church history and doctrine course (which is what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years). This book basically goes through all that we’ve done on the “church history” part. In fact, if you wanted to do the course that we’ve been doing in book form, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

    Most of the major events and people are covered (some things in more depth than on our course), and the whole thing is written well and engagingly. To give you an idea – I’ve been able to follow it while at the same time suffering from sleep deprivation from a one month old baby. That speaks well of the book!

    There are a few areas where I’d disagree with Bentley Hart, mainly I think in theological emphasis or interpretation of particular events, but as a historian he does a great job. And although most of the events are covered, this isn’t the book to go to if you want to look at church history in great depth – it’s a popular-level overview.

    I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone who has an interest in Christianity and who – like me until a couple of years ago – is ignorant of much of church history. Let me give  you a few reasons why I think this book is worth reading:

    • You can’t understand the state of the church today without understanding where the church has come from;
    • I thought Bentley Hart’s presentation of the crusades – an area which people often talk about without actually having any historical facts to hand – was very helpful;
    • Similarly, his chapter on science and Christianity was very helpful (this is a topic he covers in more depth in Atheist Delusions);
    • Although the book is not in huge detail (by design), there are some book recommendations at the back and a general overview is often a good starting point for further reading. It will introduce you to many of the key players throughout the church’s history.

    Most importantly, many people have misgivings about the future of the church at the moment. This book will help to put things in perspective: the church has survived a tough 2,000 years. Christians have been persecuted in the past, and indeed today many endure persecution (apparently Christians are the most-persecuted world religion). And yet, Christianity is still growing fast in many places. This book certainly gave me a lot more confidence in the church’s future, which is surely worth it!

  • Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible

    I’ve just finished reading Freedom and Order by Nick Spencer, who is research director at Theos Think Tank. Some of their output recently on secularism has been excellent, and I also went to hear Nick Spencer do a talk about English politics and the Bible at Westminster Abbey a couple of years ago (about when the book was released – strangely enough I don’t think I blogged about it at the time).

    Anyway, I very much enjoyed reading the book. I’d simply never understood before just how big an influence Christianity and the Bible has had on English politics. In short: it’s massive. One story I liked was hearing about one MP who was told by one of his constituents that he wasn’t in parliament to preach – apparently this particular MP had been talking about the Bible too much! Another interesting fact – apparently William Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury 1942-44) came up with the phrase ‘Welfare State’. The number of political groups who have not only been influenced by but explicitly grounded in the Christian message and scripture is staggering.

    As someone who isn’t very ‘political’, if that’s the right word, some of the book went into a bit more detail than I really cared for – it’s not a light bedtime read – although I’m sure if you’re into politics and history you would enjoy it much more. I would recommend the book to anyone who had an interest in English political history and religion, I think Nick Spencer has done an excellent job detailing just how British political life has been affected by it.

    We seem to be living in an age where people want to cast off the religious roots of the UK, and I believe books like this are important to help us understand why that would not be a good idea – or at least, to ensure that we do it with our eyes open. So much of what we take for granted today has been hard won and fought for by people in the past, often using explicitly Christian arguments.

    At the start of the book, Spencer quotes John Locke, which I think sums it up:

    He that travels the roads now, applauds his own strength and legs that have carried him so far in such a scantling of time; and ascribes all to his own vigour; little considering how much he owes to their pains, who cleared the woods, drained the bogs, built the bridges, and made the ways possible.

    – John Locke, “The Reasonableness of Christianity”

  • The Story of the Jews

    One of the things which interests me about modern-day Judaism is how different it is from my understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e. the Jewish Bible or the Christian Old Testament). Given that Christians and Jews have so much shared Scripture (most of the Bible – 75% or thereabouts – is the Hebrew Scriptures) – how have they ended up in such different places? In particular, modern-day Jews do not offer sacrifices and there seems to be no atonement for sin – the focus seems to be rather on the observance of the law. So I was interested to see that Simon Schama has created a new documentary called “The Story of the Jews” recently (Sunday evenings on BBC2 – at the time of writing there are another couple of episodes remaining in the series). Mrs Phil and I have been watching it, and it’s fascinating. What’s particularly interesting to me is how Judaism has changed and adapted over the years.

    It’s fascinating to see how Simon Schama – and others – interpret the parts of the Scriptures which I am familiar with, and yet put a slant on them which I would be quite unfamiliar with. Present-day Jews have much more history to look back on, and have much more to explain. In a particularly poignant moment at the end of the last programme, for example, Simon Schama talked about the building anti-Semitism in Europe at the end of the 19th century before finishing up at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. (more…)

  • The Church is wiser than our secular society

    A BibleOne of the articles that seems to have been doing the rounds on Twitter lately is “Our secular society is wiser than the Church” by Oliver Kamm (most recently I saw it tweeted by my friend @pandammonium). I often read articles online without responding to them, but sometimes one annoys me sufficiently that I feel the need to write something about it here.

    The article itself is pretty short, it won’t take a minute of your time to read, but the argument is basically that the church always lags behind societal attitudes. Frankly I find the thinking in the article so muddled I don’t quite know where to begin, but I’ll quote a few sentences and try to explain:

    Gay marriage will become established and there will come a time when few of its current opponents (including Archbishop Welby) will be exercised by the issue.

    This is unbelievably patronising. Kamm is basically saying, “There, there, dear – your petty and ridiculous objections to same-sex marriage will be forgotten in a few years when you’ve finally caught up with society – and you will.” In other words, “you’ll come round, just give it time”. It doesn’t deal with any of the objections to same-sex marriage (hereafter known as SSM); it just assumes that SSM is correct and that any objectors are purely irrational hatemongers who will come round.

    (more…)

  • Review: The World’s End

    The World's EndI’m just going to come right out and say it up front: I was a bit disappointed by the World’s End.

    Let me explain. I’ve been a fan of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright since Spaced – it’s probably my all-time favourite sitcom. I loved both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz – in particular, Hot Fuzz (mainly because of the genre – I’m not really into zombie films). As a result, I had high hopes for the final installment of the ‘cornetto trilogy’ when we went in to see it last Friday. And, frankly, I came out feeling a bit let down.

    I’ve been thinking about this over the past couple of days, and after having one or two conversations with people I’ll try to narrow down what I think was disappointing about the movie for me. Please note that this review will contain some pretty major spoilers so I would avoid if you haven’t seen the film and want to. If you’re just looking for “should I go see the film or not?”, then – yes, if you liked the previous two, you should go see it. But you probably knew that anyway.

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  • “Lexicon” by Max Barry

    LexiconAs some of you may know, I’m a fan of the author Max Barry. The first book I read of his was “Company” (it’s his third book, so I was a bit out of sequence); then I read Syrup and Jennifer Government. More recently he wrote Machine Man – all are excellent books and I can recommend them (and I’ve written about them elsewhere on this blog). Recently his latest novel “Lexicon” was released, and I bought a copy and finished reading it a couple of days ago.

    At this point, for the impatient among you, I will give you the short version of the review: it’s utterly compelling, and you will be thinking about it for days afterwards… go and buy it now.

    The book itself has a fascinating premise: I don’t want to give too much away, but the book focuses on words used almost as weapons. What if, using the right words, someone could be persuaded to do … anything? The astute among you will notice that this is actually not far from the truth. In the world as it stands, people are persuaded with arguments constructed with words. Using words is a legal way of bringing someone round to your way of thinking (well, unless something like blackmail or some other form of coercion is involved, but let’s leave that aside for now). What Lexicon does is explore the possibility of a world where words can be taken a step further: words don’t have the power to just persuade someone of the truth of an argument; they actually can compel a person to do a particular thing – overriding the will of that person.

    (more…)

  • Game Dev Tycoon

    Game Dev Tycoon

    The past few days, I’ve been busy playing Game Dev Tycoon, which was mainly because of this excellent stunt they pulled to do with piracy (read the post, it’s worth it).

    Anyway, I’ve been pleasantly surprised: I haven’t bought a game in ages, so I thought it was high time I got into something. And Game Dev Tycoon is compelling stuff. It’s harder than it looks to create a game that does well (although browsing the Wiki will help). But I think they’ve managed to create a game where – in my case at least –  I just want to do just one more game before I finish… which is a job well done!

    I think my favourite thing about it is that it takes you back to the 80s, when the Commodore 64 ruled the roost. Although I’m too young to remember the Commodore 64 the first time round (one or two of my friends had them, but they were getting old by then), I did get a NES in the early 90s [although, checking Wikipedia, they were pretty old by then too…]. My best friend had a Mega Drive, and then another friend got a PlayStation, then PlayStation 2… and then after that I discovered Half Life, Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament and pretty much played everything on the PC.

    So, I like playing Game Dev Tycoon for the nostalgia as much as anything. It’s kind of strange to be developing games for a format which you grew up with, even though they’re named something different to avoid copyright infringement!

    Anyway, I’d recommend Game Dev Tycoon if you’re looking for something to get stuck into for a while, especially if you grew up enjoying video games…