Book Reviews

Summary: Unity is important for Christians, but there are times when unity can mask issues of justice and legitimate disagreement.

I probably would not have picked this up if it has not been included in Audible Plus Catalog (which means it is free to listen to for audible members.) Generally, I am strongly in favor of ecumenical work and of the church as a whole recognizing itself. I am part of a group called The Initiative, designed to facilitate understanding and cooperation between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians.

I am a part of several groups trying to build a similar understanding and cooperation among Christians of different racial groups. But you cannot seriously participate in groups like this without thinking about lines you will not cross. One of the significant and accurate charges in White Evangelical Racism by Anthea Butler is that White Evangelicals often claim to be against racism but rarely are willing to make racism a line which they will break fellowship over. One example in that book is MLK Jr directly asking Billy Graham not to appear on the platform with a noted segregationist in 1957, a request that Graham refused.

Not all unity is a positive unity. Unity can be achieved through various means, and sometimes the means to unity actually subverts the cause of Christianity. If visible unity requires suppression of people or their personhood, then that unity is a false unity. But even that is not nearly nuanced enough. There are times when it seems appropriate for a person to choose to voluntarily not exert their own rights for the sake of unity. It becomes more difficult when a larger group, especially a group of historically marginalized people, is required to not exert their rights as a Christian for the sake of unity.

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Summary: An exploration of theological education as spiritual formation emphasizing its need to create belonging and explore how it has historically promoted white male normativity and individualism.

I have read several articles and a couple of Dr. Willie James Jennings’ books, but I was not sure this book was for me. On its face, it is a book about theological education. I am not in theological education and do not anticipate ever being a professor or teacher. I finally picked it up after someone on Twitter talked about it as a discussion of spiritual formation, whether in or outside the academy. I am interested in spiritual formation. I commend listening to Dr. Jennings’ interview with Tyler Burns on Pass the Mic podcast or Wabash Center’s Dialogue on Teaching Podcast, which has very different interviews but is helpful to get at what the book is doing.

Jennings posits that Western education, in general, but theological education in particular, has a model that emphasizes three virtues: possession, control, and mastery. These three virtues are generally assumed to be ‘masculine’ virtues, and as Jennings discussed in his previous book, Christian Imagination, these virtues are also identified with the colonization project. Because we are an individualized culture, these values are about asserting the individual as the one who is master and self-sufficient. To counter this image of the self-sufficient master of educational knowledge, Jennings takes the image of Jesus, who gathers together many who would not choose to be together if it were not for the desire of all of them to be near Jesus. Jennings’ corrected imagination rooted in Jesus’ ability to gather people together suggests that the point of theological education in particular, but Western education in general, should be rooted in belonging, not exclusion, hence his subtitle, An Education in Belonging.

Part of what Jennings addresses here is that the soul is not formed primarily through information. We are not, as James KA Smith suggests, ‘Brains on a stick.’ Theological education, while it does include information, must have spiritual formation as a primary focus. And that spiritual formation, because it is a significant aspect of theological educators’ work, must be concerned not only with the theological education of its students but also with the faculty and staff and the institutional aspects of its community.

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Summary: The faith-filled memoir of a woman who rose to fame as one of the Little Rock 9, but who continued throughout her life to work through the ways race has continued to play a role through systems and culture whether or not it was legally mandated. 

I have been a bit in a reading slump. There are many ‘important books’ that I want to read, but I don’t have a lot of motivation to actually read them. I don’t want to blame the global pandemic overly, but over the past three months, my kids have been at home more than they have been at school, both because of school vacations, school closures, and quarantining because of covid exposure. My traditional method of resolving reading slumps is to change genres. Fiction or story-based history or biography often is the cure I need to re-invigorate my desire to read again.

I Will Not Fear is a book I picked up years ago when it was on sale but never read. Last fall, I noticed that it was part of Audible Plus (their program of including back catalog books for free as part of membership). But it wasn’t until January that I actually picked the book as a follow-up to the John Lewis biography. Melba Beals is not a household name. But many of us have a rough understanding of the Little Rock Nine, the nine high schoolers that integrated Little Rock Central High School. Initially, the state national guard was deployed by the Governor to block the Black students from the school entrance on the first day. A mob gathered to protest the integration harassed the students. The description of the threatened rape and lynching of the students and Melba and her mother being literally chased through the streets is harrowing.

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Summary: A exploration of John Lewis’ life, focusing primarily on his time in SNCC and before. 

I know Jon Meacham is a well-known biographer, but as someone that really likes biography, I have not read any of Meacham’s other books. This made me a bit reluctant to pick up this book on John Lewis. Because I was interested in John Lewis, and because the only books I have read are the excellent March graphic novel biographies and because my library had this on audiobook, I picked it up anyway. Because His Truth is Marching On is primarily about John Lewis’ early years, I still want to find a more full-length biography and read some of Lewis’ own books.

The biography feature that I most appreciate is the focus on Lewis’ Christian faith as a factor in his civil rights work. Obviously, it is not the only factor, but I think it is an under-appreciated factor in many civil rights leaders. It is also striking to realize how young John Lewis and Stokley Carmichael, and many other civil rights leaders were. John Lewis was 26 when he was voted out as the chair of SNCC. He obviously had a long career after that point, but he was so young to have accomplished as much as he did by that time.

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Summary: A fictionalized story of Jesus and his family and then escape to Egypt and Jesus’ early life.

I am not sure I really appreciate the difficulty of Christian fiction. Or maybe I do and that is part of why I tend to read so little of it. Fiction regardless of genre or background needs to tell a compelling story. It has to provide the reader with something, escape, adventure, excitement, insight, longing, a glimpse of wonder. But Christian fiction has to do that and also portray faith and God not just according to the author’s perspective but also in a way that others will accept.

Books about Jesus are even more difficult. Jesus is both God and fully human. He was someone that was physically real, experienced actual bodily reality, and was still sinless. How can that be portrayed? As an infant, he had to eat and cry and poop and get sick and have foods that he liked and ones he probably liked less. He had to learn to walk, which means he would have had to fall down and make mistakes. The line between mistakes and sin complicated one. Some mistakes are clearly sin. Some are legitimate accidents, but some of those accidents are also sins of communion because of a lack of case or attention or awareness. I do not want to police the difference but as I read The Carpenter’s Son I did think about the difference. A child that throws a block out of- frustration, but not understanding the consequences of that action has made a mistake in judgment and emotional control, but can there be growth and maturity without experience? Regardless of intention or theology, a story of Jesus will offend. If nothing else some will object because they believe it is a violation of the second commandment to portray God.

The Carpenter’s Son is mostly, but not entirely, focused on Joseph. He has visions and tries to follow and trust God but he does not always understand or trust his own perceptions. There are meetings with older men asking for advice. (Joseph is portrayed as a young man, not much older than Mary. As opposed to a much older, likely widower, that some assumed.) Joseph loves Mary and seeks to protect and care for and listen to her as well, but it is Joseph that has the deeper internal dialogue.

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Summary: An exploration of why Christians need to expose the evil of white superiority, not just attempt to increase diversity. 

As with Rediscipling the White Church I have a somewhat ambivalent approach to reading Daniel Hill. He is an excellent writer, and I really do appreciate what he writes. But I am also reminded that part of why he is needed to voice racial justice is part of his subject matter. In his first book, White Awake, his voice is needed because so many White Christians are resistant to hearing about issues around racism and White racial identity from non-White voices. And the book White Lies is needed because simple exposure to diversity does not actually root out white superiority problems (a euphemism for white supremacy as a cultural system) within the church without it directly being addressed. I am ambivalent, not because his voice is not useful (and certainly not because he isn’t a skilled writer or thinker), but because White voices like his are necessary because of the very nature of White belief in the superiority of White culture, which requires White voices to condemn White superiority for White people to be able to hear the problem.

I think it is important to use clear language and say that no one within the United States culture is not impacted by racism. I, as an individual, have feelings of White superiority. While I want to work against those feelings and to work to make sure those are never translated into actions, it is why I regularly point back to George Yancy’s language, “the best that I can be is an anti-racist racist”, and as a male, “an anti-sexist sexist.” And as a Christian, an anti-sin sinner. Because we are not solely individuals, but within a culture and community, regardless of my own attitudes, biases, thoughts, and actions, I cannot control how others respond to me. When I, as a stay-at-home Dad, take my kids to the grocery store (in pre-covid times), the response to me as a parent is different than the average response to a stay-at-home mother who is doing the same thing. I am routinely praised for being a good Dad for doing simple tasks that every mother also does without praise. When I walk around a store, the lack of undue attention because I am a middle-aged White male is not a result of anything I have done, but because of cultural assumptions and realities. But my lack of desire to be racist or sexist has nothing to do with the reality that I still receive benefits whether I want them or not.

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Summary: A five-hour course introducing the Jesuits.

Part of what I keep returning to with my study of Ignatian Spiritual Direction is my need to fill in the holes in my understanding of some of the basics. For instance, “who are the Jesuits, and what is their history ?” I have had John O’Malley’s longer The First Jesuits and his shorter Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present recommended to me. But neither of those was available on audiobook and I needed something to listen to as I was doing some busy work, so I picked up this audiobook lecture course.

At five hours it gives an overview, but it is just an overview. O’Malley is a historian and professor at Georgetown, but he is also a Jesuit. It is not that I don’t trust his opinion, but that I need to get some history from non-Jesuits as well. I have some introduction to the spiritual perspectives of Jesuits from James Martin, but I really want more history to place them in context and to see why they seem to be so loved and hated depending on who you ask.

I have read Ignatius’ autobiography and am familiar with his spiritual exercises, but this still filled in a lot of holes (and opened up plenty of awareness of holes I was previously unaware of and still need to fill.) The movement toward audiobook lectures as a whole is good. But like everything, the quality depends on who is doing the lecturing. This was neither the best nor the worst I have heard. At five hours, I think it was probably too short. But I was glad to pick it up based on the price and I will also pick up one or both of O’Malley’s books on the Jesuits relatively soon.

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Takeaway: Amazingly, there has not been a good biography of Thurman in so long.

This is the third book by or about Howard Thurman I have read this year, and I have started re-reading the fourth. Howard Thurman is not as well known as I would like. But he was an influential mentor, teacher, and pastor throughout the 20th century. Thurman was born and spent his childhood in Daytona Beach. (He was less than two weeks older than CS Lewis but lived nearly 20 years longer.) Because there was no high school in Daytona Beach that permitted Black students, he was forced to move away from Daytona to go to high school. (There were only three high schools for Black students in the whole state of Flordia.) He then went to college at Morehouse and Crozer Divinity School (the latter two of which Martin Luther King, Jr also went to a generation later.) He graduated as valedictorian at both.

He served several years as a pastor in Oberlin, Ohio, before returning to teach at Morehouse (and Spellman) and work as its chaplain. Four years later, he became Dean of the Chapel at Howard University, where he served for 12 years. In 1944, he became pastor of one of the first intentionally interracial churches in the US, Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, in San Francisco. He served as pastor there for nine years before becoming the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, where he served until his retirement in 1965. He moved back to San Francisco, working as a writer, speaker, and mentor until he passed away in 1981.

As much as his work was groundbreaking and important on its own, Paul Harvey shows how Thurman was continually frustrated with his inability to pastor and lead churches and the university system’s religious education as he wished. He was a mystic and thought deeply about what I would consider the sociology of religion.

Howard Thurman is best known for three things. In 1935, he, his wife, and another couple went on a tour of India. The tour brought four Black Americans to India to interact with and learn about the caste system and non-violent resistance. The group were the first African Americans to meet Gandhi. Thurman’s reports about non-violent resistance inspired the Civil Rights movement and led to several others visiting Gandhi.

The second related thing that Thurman is well known for is his relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. Thurman was at Morehouse at the same time as Martin Luther King Sr., and Sue Bailey Thurman, Thurman’s second wife, was a college roommate of Alberta Williams King, MLK Jr’s mother. Despite that family relationship and the fact that there was a year overlap when MLK Jr and Thurman were both at Boston University, it appears that they only spent two extended days together. One day was at Thurman’s house watching baseball while King was a student. And a second day was about a decade later when King was in the hospital recovering after being stabbed. Despite a fairly regular correspondence, they never did spend extended time together beyond that. Thurman gave one of the eulogies at MLK Jr’s funeral.

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