Adam Shields

Summary: Reflections on what Baldwin can teach us. 

I have been leading a zoom book group for about five years now. It started out of a Be the Bridge group at my church. Most of the people have changed, but we still meet about 35-40 Thursday a year doing about 4 books a year with good breaks between books. The group is mostly reading book by Christians about racial issues. The Gospel According to James Baldwin was our most recent book and honestly one of the best discussion books we have had in the last couple of years. People who didn’t often talk much found things to talk about here.

Most of the time, we read books that I have already read. I don’t choose every books, but generally I give about 5 suggestions of books I think are worth reading as a group and the group chooses what they are most interested in. I was a bit surprised when the group chose The Gospel According to James Baldwin because that was outside of our normal history, bible study, sociology types of books. (White Flight, The Anti-Greed Gospel by Malcolm Foley, If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I?: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority, Brown Faces, White Spaces: Confronting Systemic Racism to Bring Healing and Restoration are some recent books we have read.)

I had not read The Gospel According to James Baldwin yet and if I had, I am not sure I would have recommended it. That isn’t because it is a bad book, but I would have thought it was too literary, too dependent on knowing Baldwin and too much of a stretch for the group to see someone who didn’t identify as a Christian have something to teach us as Christians. At the first session I found out that none of the group had previously read James Baldwin and only two or three had seen I am Not Your Negro documentary. (I own the documentary, watched it at least four times and read at least eight of Baldwin’s books as well as David Leeming‘s biography and several others books that draw heavily on Baldwin like Coates, Clint Smith, Eddie Glaude and Dante Stewart.) Again, had I known the lack of familiarity I would have overruled the group and not let the book be chosen.

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Summary: An exploration of what it means to seek racial reconciliation. 

Christ Over Culture is a good book for the right reader. I have gone back and forth about writing about this book. Generally I write about almost all of the books I read for more than 15 years now. But I am always conflicted about writing about books of people that I know. And I both know Dan Crain fairly well and I have read multiple drafts of this book from early stages until just before the final draft to the publisher. So I am not objective or distant from the book. I am going to have two different threads to this post. A more positive one and then a bit more critical. I am not really critical about the book as much as I am wary of a good book in the hands of a bad reader.

First the positive, Christ Over Culture is a sincere and earnest book about what it means to seek after both racial reconciliation as a Christian and to honestly grapple with what it means to be part of a society that has historically embraced racial hierarchy; both parts of that matter. If we could wave a magic wand and be in a society that hasn’t embraced and fostered racial hierarchy, then the honest grappling with racial reconciliation as a Christian would be something very different. But we are in a society that has actively embraced racial hierarchy, and not just any racial hierarchy, but overt white superiority over all others. There are many other books that have explored the history, The Bible Told Them So is a good book about Christians that called for embracing white supremacy, in those terms. I think many have not really understood the extent to which our history has been shaped by distortions of Christianity to justify cultural preferences. Mark Noll’s series about the public use of scripture in the United States, especially America’s Book or Emerson and Bracey’s The Religion of Whiteness tells some of that story from different perspectives.

Dan Crain isn’t ignoring that history or those problems, but no single book can do everything, so he is primarily addressing the white Christian who is seeking to transform culture in light of their understanding of the gospel that calls them to respond to injustice. We have an unjust world in regard to the social construction of race, so what do we do now? His response is to take us on a journey to see how Christ is over all cultures, and how the gospel challenges and encourages us no matter where we are in history or what culture we have been raised in.

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Summary: A thematic look at the prophets, particularly looking at how those prophets can speak to today.

I have mentioned before that I participate in a couple of book groups. The Tears of Things was read with a book group that I participate in through Ignatius House, a Jesuit retreat center near me. That group meets on Tuesday mornings at 10:15 and in part because of the time, it is made up of mostly retired age people. I have participated in it for about 3 years now. I am the youngest, and this book was the only male in the group. There are about 20-25 people in the group with about 15-18 that are there on any given week. Most of the group are Catholic or Episcopal, but there are a few others. The group is a mix of people. Several are spiritual directors, there is a retired pastor, a former Catholic high school religion teacher and a number who are lifelong Christians but have no formal theological education. It is particularly that mix of background that I value, even though on the face of it, women in their mid 60s to early 80s do not seem very diverse.

Richard Rohr is a particular favorite of the group. This is likely the fourth or fifth book of Rohr’s that has been read by the group since it started and the second since I started three years ago. I have a mixed relationship with Rohr. I think he stirs things up in mostly helpful ways. His Center for Contemplation and Action is like my intent on being a spiritual director. He talks about why he founded it in this book and I resonate with trying to tie activism to spiritual depth and contemplation. But on the negative side, I think he can be vague and obtuse and my history is that Rohr’s non-dualistic thinking, in the wrong hands, often ends up being a cover for pietism or inactive moderation. It is unfair of me to get irritated with Rohr for the bad reading of Rohr, but that bad reading I think does have a relationship to his vague writing style.

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Summary: The previous case continues to unfold

I am a long term fan of the series. Most of the books I have read more than once. But starting at about the eighth book there has been a shift from a mystery series to a thriller series. There are some books in the last dozen that have had more mystery elements than thriller elements, but most of those books have shifted from mysteries where Gamache and those around him follow clues and psychologically gain an understanding of the perpetrator, to thriller elements where the point is unfolding tension. Along with that thriller element, a natrual shift has been to make Gamache more and more of a traditional hero.

Part of what I loved is that the early books portrayed Gamache is using his brain, his love of others, the empathy he gained from his own tragic history and his experience with previous cases to solve crimes. But a lot of the recent stories have been focused on action hero tropes, luck, or the willingness of Gamache to bend the rules to stop others who have no regard for the rules. I am glad for series like this to grapple with the moral complexities of any job. And police work has plenty of moral complexities. And this series has grappled with the ways that bending rules because you think you are in the right can lead to bending rules because the rules are getting in your way. One of the things that gets tedious in John le Carré’s books is that there are often no characters that are actually doing the right thing for the right reasons. It is all about power. There may be some realitiy to that, but it doesn’t make for very compelling reading.

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Summary: A young girl grows up as the high priestess of ancient religion when Sparrowhawk comes to find a hidden treasure.

I am writing about this later, but I read Tombs of Atuan back to back with To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth. These are very different books. One is clearly a young adult fantasy novel with a young teen protagonist. And the other is a urban fantasy book that is clearly oriented toward adults. But both have a similar theme of grappling with the protagonist coming to terms with everything that they have been taught suddenly being challenged.

The main character here is Tenar. At a very young age she was taken from her family because she was thought to be the reincarnation of the high priestess of the nameless gods. Her family and name were taken away and she became known as “Arha” or the eaten one. She may be the high priestess, but the politics of the remote monastery are such that she is isolated and other vie for power. As she grows up, she both gains more confidence and understanding of the Tombs of Atuan, where the unnamed gods are honored, but she also is more alone as those few friends she had are isolated from her.

That is until she sees a man in the tombs, a place that has never had either men or light. Sparrowhawk, or Ged, has come to follow up on a thread from the Wizard of Earthsea. A powerful magic bracelet that bound the kingdom together has been hidden in these tombs and he wants to find it to restore the king.

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Summary: Tracing the story of “Freedom School” as one of the backbones of the Civil Rights movement.

When I first heard about Spell Freedom, I thought it was a history of the Highlander Folk School. The Highlander Folk School played an important part in establishing the early freedom schools and eventually moved their teacher training program (and main Freedom school staff person, Septima Clark) to the SCLC. As is made clear in the book, the Highlander Folk School played an important behind the scenes role in the Civil Rights Movement. By the early 1950s, when Septima Clark attended her first training program, Highlander had been around for nearly 30 years. It was consciously integrated from early on, but its work shifted from labor organizing to civil rights organizing in the late 1940s. Clark quickly started leading training sessions and soon after, was forced out of her teaching job in Charleston SC because she was a member of the NAACP and in leadership of the local chapter.

The most likely reason that someone may know about Highlander Folk School is because Rosa Park attended one of Clark’s early training session in the summer of 1954, just before she prompted Montgomery Bus Boycott. Clark and Parks became life long friends. And it was not long after that Septima Clark first met Ella Baker. At the time Ella Baker was an organizer for the SCLC and their voting right program was floundering. The Nashville sit-in movement came to Highlander for training and Ella Baker used Highlander regularly as SNCC was developed. But about this time, the state of Tennessee was able to confiscate the property and shut down the Highlander Folk School, forcing it to move and reincorporate.

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Summary: Faithful graphic novel adaptation of this classic fantasy novel.

My kids are very big graphic novel fans. I read a handful of graphic novels a year, but I am not a consosouir of graphic novels. (Go check out GoodOkBad as a review site that really does know graphic novels.)

A graphic novel adaptation is hard. Seth at GoodOkBad wrote about the graphic novel adaptation of The Road. It was one that I started but never finished because I thought that it seemed to be missing some of the point of the book.

For The Wizard of Earthsea, I think Fred Fordham did a good job with the adaptation. Even with a relatively short novel like this, a graphic novel just can’t do everything that can be communicated in print. I liked the art and as noted in the introduction by LeGuin’s son, her intention of making the main character dark skinned (in 1968) and the only light skinned characters were villains. But in several of the movie/video adaptations that was stripped from the story.

Wizard of Earthsea is a classic coming of age novel. Ged, the main character grows up without much adult supervision after his mother dies when he is young. His father most ignores him or uses him for labor. But after he overhears his aunt use a magic spell and then does it on his own (to bad effect) she takes him under her wing and starts to teach him what little she knows of magic.

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Summary: An introduction to Howard Thurman focusing on the role of radical inclusivity in his work.

This is the fourth book by or about Thurman I have read this year. I am pretty familiar with Thurman at this point, but I find that many of the book written about him are mostly introductory, but often do not overlap significantly. This is an incredible reality for Thurman because his work was often so diverse, that many people can write introductions to his work from various perspectives and yet not overlap with much of their focus.

Howard Thurman was a theological and philosophical forerunner of the civil rights movement and a spiritual director and mentor to its leadership. But he was also an expert in mysticism, interfaith cooperation and learning, the role of non-violence, personal spiritual disciples and other areas. As has often been reported, he was advised by an early white mentor to avoid the academic study of racial issues because it would cause people to pigeonhole him into only being “a race man.” Thurman both understood why that advice was given and resented the advice (and somewhat followed it.)

Thurman’s work simply was influenced by his social location and experience. That is not a controversial statement, but there is no way that he couldn’t have been influenced by being primarily raised by a grandmother who had been enslaved or by having to be a boarding student for high school because there were no local high schools that admitted black students. There is no way that he couldn’t have been influenced by the ways that he broke color barriers throughout his life. As Thurman pointed out in his memoir, the White mentor thought that it was possible for Thurman to not center race in his work, but didn’t really understand how race had been centered in the experience of the whole United States.

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