Carl Wells Books

Our hearts cry out for justice. This may be part of the appeal of mysteries, in both books and movies. Someone is killed. The murderer seems to be getting away with it. But someone–a detective, or just an intelligent bystander–steps in and discovers the killer, who is captured. He will face the law’s appropriate punishment. Vengeance is God’s (Rom. 12:19), but the detective, or the amateur sleuth, is the agent of God. God deals covenantally with all us: murder must be punished in God’s universe. In mystery fiction, God’s just and covenantal control of world history is celebrated.

We are living in an era in which, in real life, the murderers often seem to get away with it–at least as far as earthly justice is concerned. That makes us all the more hungry for justice. We are powerless to bring murderers such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama, with their preemptive wars and their drone strikes, to justice–they will have to wait on God’s vengeance, which we can only hope is still coming. We put aside our powerlessness temporarily, when we celebrate the exposure of the fictional murderer. Our victory may be very slight, almost pathetic, but we’ll take what we can get.

Sometimes the fictional victory is presented in entertaining and even humorous fashion. That is the case in regard to two fictional TV detectives, Columbo and Monk. Both “Columbo” and “Monk” provide considerable entertainment as the bad guy is discovered.

I have not seen all the episodes of either show. I am gradually working–if you can call that working–through all of them, and enjoying them very much.

“Columbo” was on TV 1968-1977, 1989-2003. Peter Falk was Lt. Columbo, homicide detective of the Los Angeles Police Department. He was rumpled, humble, courteous, persistent, Italian. As the show opens, we see the murderer commit his clever murder. (At times we can be thrown a curve ball, but for the most part we always know who the murderer was.) Columbo, however, has his doubts as to how the death came about. In his mind, the murder does not fit together the way the murderer wants it to fit together in everybody’s mind. Sometimes the murderer underestimates Columbo; most of the time, perhaps even always, the murderer senses that he is not home free yet. Columbo clearly is intelligent, but he wins our hearts by his human qualities. He is afraid of heights, he can be a bit of a tightwad, he drives a battered foreign car, he doesn’t really want to carry a pistol or qualify on the pistol range. This is not your typical macho TV hero. He is a person, and one with whom we can identify, even if we are not as intelligent as he is. When he goes to a homeless shelter to interview a witness, the nun at first thinks he is a homeless man coming for a meal, then, when he explains that he is a policeman, she congratulates him on the excellence of his undercover disguise. Did I mention rumpled?

There are 69 “Columbo” episodes, ranging from 73 to 98 minutes. There is considerable humor. There are well-known guest stars. The quality of the writing varies. Sometimes, trying to be objective, we wonder if the evidence Columbo uncovers at the end is really as condemnatory as we are led to believe. Sometimes the evidence might not really have stood up in court. But Columbo has brought the criminal to capture; the rest is going to be up to a court system which we never see in operation.

“Monk,” a “police procedural, comedy-drama mystery,” aired for eight seasons, 2002-2009. Tony Shalhoub was Adrian Monk. Monk was formerly an officer with the San Francisco Police Department, but he lost his job when his personal idiosyncrasies became impossible to ignore. What had happened is that the murder of his wife Trudy had driven Monk over the edge. Now he is “obsessive, compulsive,” but very brilliant at solving crimes. He makes his living by being hired as a consultant by the police department to which he no longer is able to belong–although he wants his job back desperately. He is afraid of germs, he hates any kind of disorder. This is a man with serious problems, not the least of which was the loss of his wife, whom he deeply loved. He keeps trying to solve her murder. He functions in daily life, partly because he has the help of an assistant–keeper, one might almost say–in the form of Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), and later Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard). But his functioning does not come easily for this haunted and gifted man. Again, most of us will be able to identify to some significant extent with Monk, as we do with Lt. Columbo. Monk may be brilliant, whereas we are not, but he is a man struggling to make it through life, and he has discovered what most of us come to feel: life is hard.

There are 125 “Monk” episodes, 47 minutes each. There is great humor, and at the same time much that is touching. I have seen only a small handful of the episodes so far, but the writing is very clever. I suspect these shows will stand up to repeated viewing. Bonus materials are included in the two seasons which I have in hand so far.

Lt. Columbo often spoke of his wife, whom we never see on the show. Eventually a spin-off was attempted–“Mrs. Columbo.” On her own, Mrs. Columbo solved murders. It lasted only 13 episodes. I have seen only one of them. The episode I saw was not all that good; one can see why the show did not catch on.

There are also a handful of “Little Monk” episodes, detailing Adrian’s adventures as a child. I have not seen any of those yet.

For the readers among us, there are Columbo books. There are fifteen Columbo books, written by about eight people (counting collaborations). So far I have read nine. They are serviceable, if not memorable. Some of them are difficult to find, and expensive when found. I will have to be as persistent as Columbo to complete my set.

There are nineteen Monk books, fifteen written by Lee Goldberg, and the last four by Hy Conrad. These are pretty good books. The reader may have to scrape off some politically correct drivel, but not so much as to make the books unreadable. I suspect the Monk books will bear rereading, which I have not tried yet. They are more available than the Columbo books. For the moment it looks as if no more Monk books are being written. That seems a shame. For my part, I could stand a few more–say sixty or eighty more, for starters. I’ll see how I feel about them after eighty more. This is very light reading, but quite entertaining.

Both “Columbo” and “Monk” are available at reasonable prices as DVDs.

A complete set of “Columbo,” new, was $43.99 at Amazon recently, with no shipping charge. That’s 63.8 cents per episode. I have purchased that set, and it is packaged nicely and is well worth the money, even for a tightwad like me. There are a few bonus features, such as a few “Mrs. Columbo” episodes.

A complete set of “Monk,” new, was $139.81, with no shipping charge. That’s a lot of money. Moreover, several reviews mentioned that this complete set did NOT include an adequate written list of the episodes. I don’t recommend buying the complete set, especially at that price. I have been buying the individual seasons, used, one by one, and have purchased six so far. They are available at reasonable prices at Alibris (not so reasonable at Amazon), and the episodes are labeled very well on the two sets which have arrived so far. There is also bonus material for the first two seasons, and I am hoping there will be bonus material for the four seasons I purchased but which have not arrived yet.

Remind me never to commit a murder when Lt. Columbo or Adrian Monk are around.

Not just anyone can run the Boston Marathon. You have to qualify by running a good time in some other marathon. You have to run a time fast enough, for your age and sex, to earn a place in the Boston Marathon. The standards are reasonable, but challenging for the ordinary person. It is an accomplishment just to be able to qualify and to earn your place in the race.

But the object of qualifying for the Boston Marathon is not just to qualify. The object is actually to run the race as fast as you can, and place as highly as possible. It is wonderful to qualify, but qualifying is just a prelude to actually lining up and racing. I have never qualified for the Boston Marathon, but my talented and diligently trained friend Terry Marcott not only qualified for the Boston Marathon, he raced it well several times. Once he was 143rd overall, men and women combined. This, in a field of many thousands, including national and world class runners, was remarkable. (I used to train with Terry often. We ran together. Well, I had better clarify. We ran together–for five feet–then he was gone. But we started out together. He would always run six miles more quickly than I could run five, and do it easily. Always. Durn it.)

Terry understood that he was at the Boston Marathon in order to race well. He was not just there to show that he had qualified.

I don’t think Christians understand the difference between qualifying and racing. To qualify to become a Christian we have to receive the grace of God through Jesus Christ. We won’t quarrel here over how that happens. Some of us believe it happens solely by the grace of God, others believe that we are able to choose to join God’s people. Fine. Whatever. It’s an important issue, but I want to avoid that issue completely right now. My main point here is that one actually can qualify to become a Christian–if the Bible is true, of course.

My theory is that we Christians, taken as a whole, have confused what qualifying is about. We think because we have qualified to become Christians, our job is basically done. We will go to heaven eventually. All is well. But I think that is to miss the point greatly. God permitted us to qualify, but the main object is not to qualify (as crucial as that is, of course!). The main object is really to live out our lives in a way that pleases God.

We have been handed an official entry to the Boston Marathon of life. We line up with the teeming millions, the gun goes off, and we jog a few feet forward, then we mill around. Or we run pretty well for a couple of miles, then slow and stop. But the race is 26.2 miles, not a couple miles. We qualified, but we did not compete.

The book of Hebrews tells us that we are to “lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

The race that is set before us is to apply a biblical ethic in every moment of our lives. A biblical ethic is the only thing which will permit us to run the race with endurance. If we don’t use a biblical ethic, we are not likely to make much more progress than those who don’t even have a qualified entry ticket. In fact some people who make no claim to have an entry ticket seem to be making better progress in the race than many of us with our official entry form stamped and approved.

The absence of a biblical ethic is why we have transgendered bathrooms and the homosexual agenda and rampant illegitimacy. That is why we have preemptive wars destroying hundreds of thousands of lives. That is why the nation is financially bankrupt.

I may be told, “Carl, it is those nasty religious and political liberals who are pulling us down. Honest to goodness Christian believers are doing much better.” No, that is not true. Half the nation self-identifies as Christian. If even 30% of those people really are Christians, and that 30% thinks and acts in tune with a biblical ethic, Christian ideas would shape the thinking of the entire country. Or, if the non-Christians want to get away from the rest of us, that would work too. We can split up and let all of us go our own way, without force or violence.

We don’t use the biblical ethic which the Bible provides. Apparently we think that it is too hard. How many sermons have you heard telling you that it is the responsibility of Christians to educate their own children at their own expense, and to stop teaching and administering in any branch of public education? Seventeen? Six? Let me make a guess. I’ll say you’ve heard zero. And you will go the rest of your life, even if you live to a ripe old age, and the total at the end will still be zero.

How many sermons have you heard telling you that no nation has a right preemptively to attack another nation, and that many or most Christians need to repent of the murders and cripplings to which we have acquiesced? How many sermons have you heard suggesting that torture is unbiblical and that Christians need to oppose torture with all their hearts? How many sermons have you heard telling you that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme instituted by force and something which is unworthy of a free and honorable Christian people? Shall I guess again? Are you “shocked–shocked” to hear that my guess is once again zero?

You get the point. It’s us. It is not the nasty liberals, religious or political. Liberalism in both cases is horrendously evil. But liberals are incapable of understanding and applying a biblical ethic. They don’t want a biblical ethic–they want to do what they want to do. Fair enough. That is mankind, throughout world history.

But Bible-believing Christians are supposed to be different. We have, through no merit of our own, been handed a qualifying entry to run the race set before us. We were not handed the entry just in order to say that we qualified. We were handed the qualification form with all the lines filled out perfectly, so that we could race. When the gun goes off, we are not to walk a few feet, then turn aside for a seven year rest. We should be heading for the finish line, with as intelligent and as fast a pace as we can manage. We can only race well if we are absolutely determined to apply a truly biblical ethic as we run. Absent that, we aren’t going to get very far.

We are not getting very far. There is a reason. My theory is that we have misunderstood what our qualifying ticket is for. It is not there so we can say we qualified. It is not there so that we can go to heaven one day, although it will certainly be a blessing to go to heaven. It is there so that we can run the race with endurance. We are Christians in order to live more and more as Christians, to think more and more as Christians. We can only do that if we search for and apply a truly biblical ethic.

This is not esoteric stuff. It is not rocket science to understand that Christians need to educate their own at their own expense. It is not rocket science to understand that you shouldn’t attack or torture other people. But instead of understanding these obvious things, we are still drifting around barely beyond the starting line, congratulating ourselves that we received a qualifying ticket, and complaining about those wretched liberals.

‘”And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”‘ (Luke 12:48) We Christians have been handed our qualifying ticket. That is much. Much is required of us. The race is not necessarily to the swift, but it is certainly to those who are determined to compete and to persevere.

It seems clear that the formerly Christian West is determined to commit suicide. One symptom is the willingness to let Muslims enter our western nations in hordes. Europe is farther gone in that regard than the U.S., but the U.S. has not figured it out either. We continue to admit Muslims. But we could list dozens of symptoms. Let’s skip listing those, and simply ask, why suicide? What is so wonderful about suicide?

Well, the desire to die is far from acknowledged. The self-murderers do not understand that they are destroying civilization. They think of themselves as destroying the old, evil, bigoted, sexually repressed Christian civilization, and replacing it with a new, good, vibrant, multi-cultural, tolerant, sexually open civilization. (The self-murderers hate God and Christianity so much that they even support the importation of Muslims to the West. This eventually may cost them any chance of having an open civilization, if Islam continues to grow in power in the West, but then thinking things through logically is not a strength for the self-murderers. As long as they can spit in the face of God, they believe themselves to be on the right track.)

The new open civilization won’t work, of course. The new open civilization is not good, and men and women, boys and girls, will not flourish in it. Like it or not, mankind was created with a certain nature by God, and the intellectually shallow, morally empty open civilization will not meet our needs.

The self-murderers have a point, however. At bottom, the West is committing suicide because we sense–correctly sense–that the West deserves to die. The U.S. for example, has killed 57,000,000 unborn children. A nation willing to kill children deserves to die. We sense that, even if we can’t reason it out, even if we are dramatically pro-abortion.

To simplify greatly, right now there are three major contestants in the war for the minds and hearts of mankind: 1/Islam; 2/the democratic communist/fascist welfare/warfare state; 3/pietist Christianity. Islam and the “democommunazis” (word gratefully borrowed from Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn) are both powerful right now, and both seem to be growing in power.

Pietist Christianity seems to be dying out. Pietist Christianity is compromised intellectually, spiritually, financially, and any other way you can name. We are warmongers, and idolators of the state. We don’t offer ideas that allow us to live in a practical manner with our neighbors. We don’t love our enemies. We don’t discipline our children. We are on the take–we love our public education, affirmative action, Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, rent control. We don’t read or think. We declare bankruptcy. In the battle for civilization, we are a one-armed man taking a rubber band to a gun fight.

And yet, for all our sinfulness and weakness, pietist Christianity is still better than Islam or democommunazism. We have some faint knowledge that the God of the Bible–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–exists and while we don’t really obey Him very well, we are somewhat less horrible than we could be because we have some beginning understanding that we need Jesus Christ and therefore need to adjust our behavior in gratitude to Him. We have some occasional kindness and fairness in how we treat others. In open competition with Islam and democommunazism, pietist Christianity is by far the best choice. We are not violent–hey, we let the warfare state do our fighting for us–and you can walk down a dark alley and meet us and you will almost always be safe.

The violence of Islam and democommunazism gives them a certain advantage. They push people around, and people feel threatened, and surrender emotionally. But neither the Islamic nor the democommunazi vision of morality can sustain life, long-term. Wisdom understood the situation well: ‘”But he who sins against me injures himself;/All those who hate me love death.”‘ (Proverbs 8:36) Islam and democommunazism are sinning against wisdom, and they injure themselves. They love death rather than life. They are suicidal. Pietist Christianity is only semi-suicidal.

Islam and democommunazism will not win, in the long run. However, the short term outlook is very far from being all peaches and cream. Both Islam and democommunazism have the capacity to do enormous harm before God overthrows them completely, sometime in the distant future. Tens of billions of lives can be greatly ruined before these two evil religions cease to exist.

Are we doomed to suffer through the almost total extinction of western civilization, before Christian civilization makes a comeback? Well, maybe. But I hope this is not the case. There is a fourth contender for the hearts and minds of mankind: 4/biblical Christianity.

Biblical Christianity has so many astonishing advantages! In any battle of civilizations, the competition is so unfairly weighted in the favor of biblical Christianity that one can almost pity the opposition–that is, one could, if they were not so evil. Biblical Christianity offers financial integrity, kindness, generosity of spirit, community with like-minded and often admirable people, intellectual solid ground, peace of mind, sexual purity, moral cleanliness of every type, forgiveness, biblical (practical) wisdom for daily living, encouragement to work diligently, increased humility, salvation from spiritual and eternal death, an optimistic outlook, the ability to love other people including even enemies, lots of babies, and no doubt a whole lot more I have failed to list here.

The disadvantage of biblical Christianity is that it is too darn hard. We don’t really want to clean up our lives completely. We want life insurance and fire insurance, but we don’t want to live out a biblical ethic. So the number of those seeking to live out a truly biblical Christianity is a much smaller number than we might expect.

What can be done? The only thing I can come up with is that each person who is somehow wanting to be a Christian, should try to improve the quality of his Christianity. We’re pietists, but we don’t have to stay pietists. We can make our individual brand of Christianity slightly less pietistic, and slightly more biblical. And just keep on doing that, and see what happens.

Maybe western Christian civilization has to die. Maybe we are all just too far gone. At times it certainly seems like it. The church is so compromised, so weak, that the future looks bleak. But we can also discern elements of hope. For just one example, lots of Christians have dumped public education in favor of home schooling or Christian education. That has happened quietly, without fanfare. It has happened one family by one family–exactly the way deep reform has the best chance of doing a lot of good.

We may be closer to winning than we think. Consider the enormous advantages of biblical Christianity, as listed four paragraphs above. You probably could list another dozen off the top of your head, without straining. How can such a religious faith be defeated? Especially if God really does exist and supports the spread of the faith worshiping Him? Christianity can’t be defeated, because God can’t be defeated.

Biblical Christianity is just so darn hard. It is lovely, but hard. The way into it is narrow, but it opens out into spectacular vistas of goodness for anyone willing to enter that narrow way. Happily, we don’t have to convince other people to believe in the practical value of biblical Christianity. We just have to convince ourselves.

I buy a lot of books. I will never read them all. My psychiatrist is working with me on the issue, but it looks as if change is unlikely. I will probably keep on buying too many books. I also buy DVDs. I will never watch them all. So be it. We all have our demons. But since I am also a tightwad, I try to buy my books and DVDs as economically as I can.

So far I have discovered three good places to buy books online. I will list them in alphabetical order, then discuss ebooks (a word which conveniently falls in the right place alphabetically).

1/Abe Books is a great source for books at reasonable prices. I used to order automatically from Amazon. Since discovering Abe Books, I can comparison shop. Abe is frequently less expensive, and the amount saved can add up quickly. I don’t think Abe offers DVDs. In my most recent online book purchase, Abe led the pack in number of items I purchased, and by a pretty wide margin.

2/Alibris offers both books and DVDs (also VHS stuff–be sure you know what you are ordering). In my most recent order, Alibris was best in DVD prices. But you can also get a very good price on many books at Alibris.

3/Amazon offers both books and DVDs. They have a very wide selection. I used to order only from them. However, the discovery of Abe Books and Alibris has been a revelation. You can frequently get a better price at Abe or Alibris. Not always, however. Prices occasionally come down at Amazon, over time. Items which didn’t exist suddenly become available. On my most recent order, a book I despaired of ever finding for a reasonable price suddenly was available for a total cost of $4.99. I still am not quite sure that book really exists for that price, but I’ll find out in a few days if the book actually arrives. [The book subsequently arrived quickly with no problems.] One benefit of Amazon is that sometimes you can financially support a website you want to support. Click on the Amazon icon at the website you like–if the icon is there, that is. That will take you to Amazon. After you place your Amazon order the website from which you clicked on Amazon will get a small cut and there is no extra cost to you. Of course if you use an Amazon credit card, that provides enormous savings in the long run–they convert your points earned into dollars off on your Amazon purchase. You can buy a lot more than books and DVDs at Amazon. If you buy enough stuff, maybe Amazon Prime would save you money in the long run.

What I have started to do, is to comparison shop pretty carefully. I have my written list of potential book/DVD purchases. I go to Abe, and note down the best price available. I go to Alibris and do the same. Then I go to a website I want to support, click on the Amazon icon, and check the prices out at Amazon, buying from Amazon the items on which they offer the best price. Then I go back to Alibris, and purchase from them what offered the best price. Finally, back to Abe, where I order, you guessed it, the items which offered the best price. Don’t delay too long, however. An item which is reasonably priced might be scooped up by somebody else. You might be able to get coupons from any of the three companies, for further savings.

As one of my friends said about his business dealings, “Attention must be paid.” This is also true when ordering books. Mistakes can happen. Overcharges can occur accidentally. Books can fail to arrive. Recently I was overcharged a significant amount. I am convinced it was unintentional, but at first I failed to remember that “Attention must be paid,” and if that had continued I would have lost a bunch of money. I noticed the problem, and the correction was prompt and courteous. Keeping records as complete as possible, and checking the amount charged on each book, are both helpful.

4/Ebooks (electronic books) can be a very economical way to obtain books–after you have made the original investment in buying a reading device such as a Kindle. I don’t own a Kindle or any other kind of reading device. However, I think such a device would be an excellent complementary way to read books you don’t necessarily need to own in paper. And if you enjoy a certain ebook enough, you can always decide to make a paper purchase as well. There are some excellent sources for ebooks. A group called manybooks.net offers free and discounted ebooks. Their selection is enormous. I checked out several authors of potential interest to me, and the number of books available was astonishing. Project Gutenberg offers 54,586 free ebooks. When I checked today, they offered the complete works of Mark Twain, and 131 items by Alexandre Dumas (the father). Those are just two examples.

Some ebooks are not necessarily free, but they are very inexpensive. Amazon offers a lot of ebooks for $.99. Other ebooks are moderately priced. I noticed today that Abe Books was offering an ebook of Life Is Life: And Other Tales and Episodes, by Gwendoline Keats (pen name Zack) for $9.99. Not exactly cheap, but she is a favorite author of mine and I am glad to see that her books are available in a form slightly less expensive than paper. (All five of her books can also be read for free on the Internet! I think her Tales of Dunstable Weir can be downloaded for free.)

The books that I self-publish in paper are also all available in an ebook form. For a long time I wasn’t sure how to price them. As a result about two or three of them are priced too high. The others are all inexpensive, ranging down to $1.99. If someone buys one of my books at any price, I am thrilled. Any writer wants readers, however he can get them.

I hope to purchase an electronic reading device someday, but only after one of my computer guru friends gives me extensive advice face to face, explaining everything in simple words of one or two syllables as one would when dealing with the meanest intelligence. One of my purposes in life is to give other a people a good laugh and a chance to feel good about themselves. My incompetence with the computer and other technology provides a service to my friends and acquaintances.

It seems to me that books are crucial to preserving and, who knows, possibly even extending Christian civilization. We are to love God with our minds. Jesus Christ said the foremost commandment was, ‘”‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'”‘ (Matthew 22:37) If we are unwilling to exercise our minds, we can’t be too shocked if our civilization begins to slip away from us. (Hmm. Maybe that’s part of the reason some really bad things have been happening. It’s just a theory.) Treat a book to lunch today, or at least take a book to lunch today. Buy books as inexpensively as you can today, so that you can buy more books tomorrow.