Book Reviews

Summary: Karen Swallow Prior writes a helpful introduction and footnotes throughout the book to assist the modern reader. 

One of the things that I have learned in reading old books is that culture and styles change, and modern readers often need assistance to understand the nuances of old art. It is not that we can’t get something out of old art on our own, but having a guide helps increase art appreciation. I read Frankenstein first about 10 years ago. I was completely unprepared for the actual story because of how far the movie adaptations have come from the original. One of the podcasts that I enjoy, Persuasion, did a book club reading of Frankenstein using the edition of the book that has the introduction from Karen Swallow Prior. I have enjoyed Prior’s writing and have followed her on Twitter for years, so I decided to go ahead and pick up the new edition and read it along with them. (The podcast ends with an episode with Karen Swallow Prior.)

Karen Swallow Prior has a series of classics, including Jane Eyre, Heart of Darkness, Sense and Sensibility, and several more books that will be released next year. I read this on kindle as I tend to do, and I picked it up when it was on sale. But I have heard that the print editions are nice cloth-bound editions that are well designed. The introduction was helpful. I had no idea that Shelley was so young, 17, when she wrote the book. Nor that she had already been pregnant and lost a child or traveled all over Europe with her scoundrel of an (eventual) husband Percy Shelley already.

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Summary: Historical questions are often much more complicated than we would like to present.

I have listened to John Fea’s podcast for years now. And I have read his book on the issues that lead to Evangelicals voting for Trump. But I have not read Was American Founded as a Christian Nation or his more traditional history books. Part of what moved me to pick this up and read it after having owned the book for a couple of years was a desire to understand the rhetoric that has come to be known as Christian Nationalism. Fea uses the language of Christian Nationalism, although he uses it slightly differently than the sociologists like Perry and Whitehead use it. Fea is using Christian Nationalism as a descriptor of people who sought to make the country into an explicitly Christian nation. These two subtly different meanings are compatible but they reflect the different fields of study. Fea is a historian who is grounding his work on the historical events, people, and writing or speeches, while Whitehead and Perry are working with survey data. Both are trying to get at the mythology (in the sense of origin story) of America.  (Although Fea wrote this originally in 2011 and revised the book in 2015, so his use of the language of Christian Nationalism is prior to the Trump-influenced investigation of it.)

John Fea is trying to complicate the historical story and counter all of the different myths of the origin of the US in regard to its relationship to Christianity. He traces the ways that there have been many that have sought to make the US into a Christian nation and how the type of rhetorical Christian Nationalism that we see today is very old. He also traces the ways that there has never been a solely Christian Nationalistic movement. The founders were not all pietistic Christians seeking after God, nor were they all Deists that tried to remove a more fundamentalist Christianity from the public role.

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Summary: A dated but well-written biography of Martin Luther King Jr. 

I don’t remember who suggested it, but someone, about four years ago, recommended Let the Trumpet Sounds as the best biography of Martin Luther King Jr. I picked up the Kindle edition back in early 2018 and just got around to listening to the audiobook, in part because it is free if you are an Audible member. Oates initially published this in 1982, roughly 15 years after MLK’s death. Three years ago was the 50th anniversary of King’s death.

Let the Trumpet Sound is my first full-length biography of King. It is not that I have not read about King. I have read two joint biographies of King and Malcolm X, including this one. I have read the autobiography of Coretta Scott King. I have read a narrow biography of just his seminary years. I have read his book Where do We Go From Here and collections of his writing and speeches. I have read a book about his social thought compared to Bonhoeffer and a book about Letter From a Birmingham Jail. And I read a book about the social impact his death had on the United States. And none of that includes books about general civil rights history or autobiographies, memoirs, or biographies of other civil rights figures.

But a single-volume biography of King still helps to orient the reader to the timeline and broad impact that his short 39 years had on the world. Oates is not writing a hagiography. King, while a great man, is not a perfect man here. He was able to inspire many, not the least of whom, his loyal staff. But he was not a perfect leader. There is a good discussion on several strategic missteps and areas where King pushed against the wishes of his staff and advisors. Some of those disagreements were likely good decisions, some bad. But no cultural-wide protest is going to be tactically or strategically perfect. Mistakes will be made.

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Summary: To have our faith impact our politics and not the other way around, we have to be intentional about our spiritual formation concerning our politics. 

My favorite definition of spiritual formation is from M. Robert Mulholland Jr., “Spiritual formation is a process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others.” Kaitlyn Scheiss’ subtitle orients this book to think about spiritual formation in politics similarly. One of the most common complaints about “Evangelical” is that it has become a political descriptor instead of a theological one. Scheiss is also concerned about how Evangelical as a term has become oriented around politics, but her approach in this book is contrary to some who are also concerned about the overtaking of the church with politics. She believes that our problem is not overthinking about politics in the church but too little about politics.

Cornel West’s well-known quote, “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public,” is related to how Scheiss is connecting politics to Christianity,

“In one way or another, almost any political or moral issue is about the honor and protection of human beings.  In reality, every piece of legislation is trying to legislate morality.  Every policy issue is based on moral principles and has moral implications.”

There is much in The Liturgy of Politics that references other books I have read on spiritual formation. James KA Smith’s work on cultural liturgies is hinted at in the title. Alexander Schmemann’s “For the Life of the World,” a phrase that has also been used widely by Miroslav Volf and others, is a chapter title. NT Wright’s thinking on eschatology is also crucial in Liturgy of Politics in orienting the reader away from inappropriate rejection of the importance of our work in this world. There is much here that I recognized from previous reading. Still, Kaitlyn Scheiss is rooting her work in political thought for the church in theological and spiritual formation thinking, not altering her theology based on her politics.

The two aspects of the book that I most appreciate are its orientation toward thinking about how spiritual practices, which we may do for other reasons, can, when we think of them regarding politics, also help form us to love others well politically. And I appreciate how she has worked through our theological and historical blindspots within evangelicalism that have made us susceptible to the abuse of power and politics.

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Summary: Privilege of all sorts is to be used to expand Jesus’ kingdom and for the good of others. 

Privilege has become a controversial word. Not so much for the rough meaning but because of the political implications and the tribalism that has arisen. In many ways, the main message of the book is what has commonly been understood as the Spiderman principle, ‘Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.’ (Which is a variation of Jesus’ statement in Luke 12:48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (NIV) Popular culture may attribute this concept to Spiderman instead of Jesus, but it is a deeply Christian concept.

Privilege also has, in many settings, come only to be thought of in racial terms. While Gilliard is not excluding racial privilege here, he is reducing all privilege to racial. The book’s focus is seeking out biblical stories of the right use of privilege and drawing principles for modern use. Along the way, there is social teaching, but primarily this is a book of bible study and implications to that study. I can’t help but be reminded of Andy Crouch’s book on power, Playing God. When it is common to deny that we have privilege (or power) or the limit the concept of privilege (or power) to particular narrow types, Gilliard reminds us that we all are privileged in some ways and that all of us should strive to use what God has given us for the sake of others.

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Summary: Cormoran and Robin are hired to look into a 40-year old cold case.

Cormoran Strike is a standard grumpy private eye, ex-military, ex-cop. He has had a number of high-profile cases, and his absent father is a famous rock star trying to get Cormoran to show up to an album release party for the 50th anniversary of the band’s first release. Robin, his younger partner, is still trying to process through her husband’s infidelity and divorce proceedings and her concern that Cormoran will see her as a real partner.

Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) has another book that has ballooned to an enormous size. Like the later Harry Potter books, Troubled blood has nearly doubled in size compared to earlier books and weighs in at over 900 pages. Considering the size, I read it quickly. I have listened to most of the previous books in the series, but I did not want to listen to 32 hours of audio. Also, this series pushes my boundaries with violence and sex. Troubled Blood is a thriller, and the series has always had violence and sex, but I read the series because I like the characters of Robin and Cormoran, not because I want to read about serial killers. In some ways, I am not sure I would start the series if I had known where the content would go. But I have started it, and I do like the leading characters.

Rowling writes engaging storylines, but there are a lot of traditional thriller/mystery tropes here. For example, the main characters are in love but won’t admit it to themselves or each other. They both have a history with previous relationships that makes them wary of entering new relationships. The tough guy Cormoran wants to protect Robin from danger, but that makes Robin more prone to risk-taking to prove herself, which is another reason besides their fear of intimacy with each other that keeps them from openly talking. So many things are hidden from each other that, if they would talk, would work out. I know that real people do this, but it is such an old trope in books that it can be annoying.

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Summary: A memoir of coming out of a fundamentalist, racist, and abusive upbringing. One reviewer described this as a prequel to his other books on grace and suffering. 

There are few names in Christian publishing that are more recognizable than Philip Yancey. He started his career writing for Campus Life and Christianity Today but became widely known for his books, most reflections on suffering and/or grace. Yancey has written about 30 books, depending on how you count books he contributed to or edited. And he has sold roughly 15 million copies of those books. He has been widely influential.

Philip Yancey is part of my parent’s generation, turning 72 next month, and I think it is natural for authors to think about memoirs and influences at that point. It is not that younger authors can’t also write memoirs; Danté Stewart’s Shoutin’ in the Fire is an excellent reflection of an author in his 30s. But memoirs that are written toward the end of life have a different type of reflective ability.

Where the Light Fell primarily deals with Yancey’s childhood and early adulthood before he became a writer. This is a book about what influenced him with a final chapter that grapples with that history, one that I read twice. The book is unflinching but charitable. There is a lot of pain here. And a clear view of the impact of generational trauma. Yancey is not a Christian author that tends to tie everything up in neat bows. At the end, there is still pain and disfunction.

Philip Yancey was the youngest of two children, born in 1949, three years after his older brother. His parents had what appears to be a storybook romance. His father was in the military at the end of WWII. He was invited to the home of a church member after attending church soon after becoming a Christians. His mother was living with that family while supporting herself through college to become a teacher. They met and soon married. He soon became wrapped up with her dream of becoming a missionary to Africa. They finished bible school, and he taught at a black bible college in Atlanta as they raised support. But soon after Philip was born, his father contracted polio and died before Philip had a conscious memory of him.

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Summary: A beautiful, poetic memoir of being Black in America. 

Without question, this is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. I know part of my love of it is because Danté Stewart read the audiobook with his beautiful voice. Shoutin’ in the Fire is a book of lyrical, poetic writing, and I can’t imagine another narrator could have captured it as well. The prose reminds me in the very best way of James Baldwin. I know that will be a standard comparison, not just because of how prominent Baldwin is but also because of how frequently Stewart references him. Baldwin is an author for this age, as Eddie Glaude has written. I don’t want to overplay that comparison, their life experiences are so very different, but also they are both Black in America, with a view of both history and the future and with an eye to the church that this country loves to pay lip service to, but not carry through as it should.

I remember thinking to myself, and maybe saying out loud, at some point years ago, early in my awakening to the racial realities of this world, that as much as they are accurate, I wished there were more books by Black authors that were happier, less wrapped up in pain. The pain is hard to process as a middle-aged white man because it creates an obligation. Observing pain and not responding is a type of pathology that some are commending these days, as some call for resistance to empathy. It took me time to learn and process not just that pain and trauma need recounting, but that the history of race in America means no story can be told by Black authors that does not have pain somewhere in the lens, even if not in the direct words. It took me much longer to see that the very act of writing was an act of hope. I didn’t understand the complaints of Ta’Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me being hopeless. Coates is not hopeless, as I think this video with Thabiti Anyabwile shows. But the hope does not always have to be centered if the presenting problem denies reality.

The other comparison I feel when I read Shoutin’ in the Fire is with Esau McCaulley’s Reading While Black. Both books have a chapter on rage, and in both cases, I think the chapter is likely the most powerful in the book. That rage is not a denial of hope; both explicitly point to hope in other places and even in their rage. Both reference James Baldwin’s famous quote about rage that often is shortened to only the first sentence. But the more extended quote is essential:

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Summary: The subtitle “How Corporate America Invented Christian America” does not work, but the history is still fascinating. 

One Nation Under God is the third book of Kevin Kruse’s that I have read. I follow him on Twitter, and I appreciate his work. However, at this point, I wonder if Kruse’s niche is the history of the development of libertarianism in the US. The first book I read by Kevin Kruise, White Flight, was about Atlanta’s racial history and white flight and how white flight helped to encourage libertarian thought. The second book I read by Kruse was Fault Lines, a history of the US since 1974. Fault Lines was co-authored with Julian Zelizer, and while it is a comprehensive political history, its attention to the rise of political media was where it shined. It was not primarily about libertarianism, but you cannot tell the story of modern political history without the story of libertarian thought becoming mainstream within the GOP.

One Nation Under God is about how modern politics has become rhetorically religious in a different way from previous history. The primary history of the book is about how “One Nation Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” was added to our currency just a couple of years before the Supreme Court eliminated compulsory prayer and bible reading from schools. That story is commonly presented as a Cold War story. The US culturally understood itself as Christian in opposition to the USSR as an atheist country. So, it needed to demonstrate its religious nature publicly and self-identify as a country founded on religious principles. Kruse seeks to complicate that story by moving back to the 1920s and 1930s and showing how a conscious and planned work of corporate institutions and wealthy individuals used religious motivations and institutions to make a theological case for Christianity as an individualistic, pro-capitalist, and anti-government religion. Christian Libertarians were a category in the 1920s-30s, not just in the Tea Party movement. The epilogue of the book makes the case that these are connected movements.

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Summary: National interests may not be the primary driver of undercover and black-ops spying, but information will always have value. 

As a reader, I like to read a series together, or at least not too far apart. I started reading the Game of Thrones novels around 2002 or 2003. The first in the series came out in 1996. The next three books came out in 1998, 2000, and 2005.  Six years later when the fifth book of the still not completed series came out, I decided I would not read any further until the whole series was released. When there are five, ten or even more years between books in a closely related series, you really need to re-read the books in order to have a close enough memory of the details to understand subtle plot points. Especially in a spy novel like the ones that le Carré or Steinhauer write, those details matter.

I first read The Tourist, the first of this series in 2009 right after it came out. My memory is that it was a recommendation of John Wilson, editor of the then-active Books and Culture magazine. The next two books came out in 2010 and 2012. It is likely that I should have reread at least the third novel before reading the fourth. But I hoped that I would remember details as I read, and I think I mostly did.

Spy novels are in some ways an affirmation of the Christian theological concept of total depravity. It is not that there is no good in them, or no sense of virtue or loyalty or character. But that virtually all good spy novels know that even if a character is virtuous or loyal, there are temptations and a good spy has to assume that not everyone will maintain their virtue or character. It is a genre that lends itself to cynicism. It is why even though I really like le Carré’s writing, the cynicism means I limit my reading of his books.

This is a bit of a spoiler, but a fairly minor one. The early books grapple with how the US is no longer always the good guys. If anything, the US is largely the bad guys in this series. Being the primary superpower means that the access to power tempts the US to overreach and assume that their self-perceived ends will justify their means.

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