Thousand Acre Church

Angela and I have this ritual that has developed out of an enjoyment of Italian fast-food and used books.  Every so often, on date night, we will go to Olive Garden and stuff ourselves.  That gluttony is followed up with a trip to our oh-so-impressive used Christian book store, Baker Book House.  They are located so near one another that it is hardly worth visiting one place without visiting the other.  It is the ultimate in date night indulgence.

Last night we enjoyed the never-ending pasta bowl (which, by the way, does eventually “end” in spite of my taste buds and common public usage of the English word “never”).  Then we jumped the puddle over to Baker.  While enjoying the aroma of stacks of used books, I searched for a book that seemed consumable.  Every time I go into Baker I look for particular “artists” in the used stacks, N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Marcus Borg, Miraslov Volf, etc.  Sometimes I find a book that I am looking for, but most of the time I don’t.  Last night I found no books, but it felt like a book found me.

While looking through the “W”’s in the “New Arrival” section, a book peeked from behind the steel frame on the very edge of the bookshelf. The title The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence begged me to pursue further examination. I pulled the book off of the shelf and flashed through the pages, index, and table of contents. “Yeah,” I thought, “this would be cool to read, but I gots lots of books already. I’ll carry it around the store while I continue browsing. But, I promise I won’t buy it.” What followed that internal conversation was the head game that only other bibliophiles can appreciate. I will boast that I usually overcome the desire to be defined by the acquisition of books, and I tend to leave Baker (and other bookstores) empty handed. On this evening, however, my will could not resist the reemergence of my wife from the stacks with a book in her own hands. Her eagerness to do the “if you get that, then I get this” thing overwhelmed any intention of mine to pass up a book which I knew might be “out of bounds” for an Evangelical Christian, even for one recovering from hard-lined traditionalism.

We went to the counter for check out, and in a last chance effort to satisfy my conscience, I asked the woman behind the counter to re-shelve my selection. Triumph was short lived when a “$5 off your next purchase” coupon was handed to me with the receipt for my wife’s purchase. “Well. Why don’t we go ahead and ring up that $8 used book I just asked you to re-shelve? That comes to three dollars, right?” You can’t beat that! It ended up that my math was not quite accurate in the Baker universe where used-books were already on sale for 30%. They wouldn’t apply the coupon to my purchase, but by that time my will had been so beat-down that no effort to resist buying the book was possible.

I don’t know why I got this book. I’m intrigued by the book’s content, but my evangelical heritage (which is committed to certain forms of divine violence and sacrifice) seems at-risk when faced with the author’s exposition of biblical stories. I can’t comment on what I’ve read so far except to say that the book is appropriately provocative. In the end I can’t point the finger at Angela for gleefully dealing her book for mine or at the bookstore for appealing to my recently renewed zeal for the Dave Ramsey envelope system and bargain hunting. I’d prefer deferring the blame to God and his providence. It’s his fault I’m reading this book, even though I tried soooo hard not to purchase it in the first place.

The naughtiness began last night. By now, I am fully engaged in its pages. Boy meets book.