Faith Alive & Live More Happy

Faith Alive

Faith Alive, Calvin B. Rock, Outskirts Press, Denver, Colorado, 2015, 282 pages. Softcover, US$15.95. Reviewed by Stephen Chavez, Adventist Review.

Calvin Rock’s resume is impressive by any standard: pastor, administrator, university president, General Conference vice president, chair of countless boards and committees. He was also a columnist for Adventist Review from 1990 to 2001; and it is in that role that he may have left one of his most lasting legacies.

A collection of Rock’s columns was recently released in the form of a book, Faith Alive. The book is a treasure trove of answers he provided to questions asked by readers across the spectrum of Adventist faith and practice.

The book is divided into 13 chapters, under broad categories such as family relations, human relations, societal relations, congregational relations, etc. Readers’ questions and Rock’s answers reveal a kind of time capsule containing the issues with which the church grappled at the end of the twentieth century.

Rock’s expertise as a theologian and ethicist made him the perfect spokesperson for examining and commenting on the teachings, customs, and aspirations of the church. If the amount of reader mail received in response to his columns is any indication, this book will give readers something to talk about for years to come.

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Live More Happy

Live More Happy: Scientifically Proven Ways to Lift Your Mood and Your Life, Darren Morton, Signs Publishing, Warburton, New South Wales, Australia, 180 pages. Softcover, US$9.99. Reviewed by Stephen Chavez, Adventist Review.

With physical and emotional health on the radar of practically everyone these days, it’s no surprise that another book about physical and emotional health should find its way into bookstores.

What is surprising is how Live More Happy is so readable. Each of the 11 chapters contains highly technical and thoroughly annotated content. But it is presented in perfectly engaging, everyday language, as if the author is daring readers to stop reading.

As with any book about health, readers are treated to the basics: exercise, rest, nutrition, etc. But the author, a fellow of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine, shows his genius in bridging the gap between theoretical and practical, and from the physical to the emotional and spiritual. The book is not heavy-handed or preachy, yet the message comes through loud and clear: “The more you put in, the more you will get out of it.”

To that end, each chapter ends with activities, that, when put into practice, will put readers on the road to living more happy.