Adam Shields

Summary: Good intro to prayer using the acronym PRAY: Pause, Rejoice, Ask, Yield.

Pete Greig is the founder of the 24/7 prayer movement. As a movement that has been around for over 20 years and replicated all around the world. In an interview with the Renovare Book Club, Greig said that he finally feels capable of writing this type of book after writing several previous books on disappointment with God, unanswered prayer, and facing his wife’s cancer.

I have had both positive and negative interactions with forms of the 24/7 prayer movement. Aspects take God’s power seriously, and devotion and parts seem to focus on thinking about prayer in ways that seem more akin to magic. There also elements of the 24/17 movement that dabble in Dominanist theology and are more like Christian Nationalists than I am comfortable with.

That being said, I did not see the negative aspects of 24/7 prayer in this book, although I would not have phrased some parts of prayer as he did. I am a real believer in the importance and power of prayer, even if I am reluctant around many abuses of prayer. The point of prayer for me is a relationship with God. To focus on power of prayer places the result of a relationship before the relationship. It is not the same, but it feels related to sex outside of marriage. Sex is designed for marriage as a bonding agent and procreation. But sex outside of marriage changes the purpose and instrumentalizes sex to distort the relationship over the long term.

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Summary: An exploration of contemplation in the Black church.

Part of the importance of reading widely is opening our perspectives to correction. Joy Unspeakable discusses the contemplative practices of the Black church but also redefines contemplation for those who are in and outside the Black church.

I did not read Joy Unspeakable quickly. I slowly read the book over a couple of months. I probably read it a bit too slowly, but I finished it as I was halfway through Armchair Mystic, a book assigned for my Spiritual Direction program. Armchair Mystic attempts to teach the basics of contemplative prayer. On the whole, it is a helpful book, but it is rooted in a white Western concept of contemplation.

“Black people for far too long have been forced to refine our message according to what is comfortable for the mainstream. We have made a distinctive choice not to do it…Our goal is to be free and authentic, not to pacify others.” Joy Unspeakable redefines or explores aspects of contemplation that have been underappreciated. There are more traditional ideas like music, traditional liturgy, prayer, and historical legacy. But more important to me is the non-traditional: activism, the leadership of Obama, BLM, and the subversion of older activist models, modern music, hip hop, blues, jazz, etc.

When the word contemplation comes to my mind, I think of Thomas Merton and his lengthy and illuminating discourses about the practices that include complete dependence on God. But I also want to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. and his combination of interiority and activism, Howard and Sue Bailey Thurman and their inward journeys. I want to present Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Barbara Jordan, and the unknown black congregations that sustained whole communities without fanfare or notice.

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Summary: A novel describing the thoughts and life of a young country priest in France. Set in the post WWI era, it feels connected to the modern world and distant from our modern world. 

I do not know when I first heard about the very famous novel Diary of a Country Priest. But it has been years. I do not think that I started looking for the book until it was listed in Eugene Peterson’s book about books he recommends to read. Until recently, the 1936 novel has not been available for a price I was willing to pay. But it looks like there has been a copyright change, and now there is a $0.99 Kindle version. There is also a free PDF that just scanned and not a very high-quality version.

Part of what I enjoyed was the look at the strain of being a country priest in an era before the widespread use of phones or cars. There is one scene where the priest is given a ride on a motorcycle. But as unusual as it is to read about this earlier era, and while cars and phones matter to pastoring today, the reality of how people act does not feel too distant. With the culture of the earlier era, a rural French setting is different, but not so different that it is unimaginable.

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Summary: Jack, the prodigal child of Gilead, is in St Louis. This novel is set before the events in the earlier novel Home.

Marilynne Robinson is one of the more famous modern novelists of our age. And considering this is only her fifth novel, she has had a remarkable career. The Gilead books are intertwined. They can be read alone or out of order. But they all have some relationship to John Ames. The elderly pastor of a small church in Gilead Iowa, the main subject of the first book of the series.

The second book, Home, is mostly about Robert Boughton’s family, John Ames’ best friend and fellow pastor in the same town. It is told from the perspective of Glory, the daughter who has returned home to care for her ailing father. But nothing in the Boughton family is not about Jack, named for John Ames, but a prodigal who finally returns for a visit.

I need to go back and reread Home. Of the three previous, it was my least favorite. Not because any of Robinson’s books are not well written, but because I love the story of grace that is more central to Lila and Gilead. The character of Jack is part of a story of grace, but one I have always been less interested in. Rev Boughton grieves and prays for his son. The town can see how Jack’s hurts and harms, not just himself, but everyone around him. It is not always that Jack intends to harm. Quite often, the harm comes through bad luck. But it is easy to blame Jack for his bad luck.

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Summary: Memoir and social criticism, mostly focusing on 1963 to 1969, but with excursions to his childhood. Lots of reflection on the deaths of MLK, Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and others. 

I picked up No Name in the Street because it was so heavily referenced in Eddie Glaude’s recent book Begin Again. No Name in the Street is mostly social commentary and memoir. Like The Fire Next Time, it is two long essays, with no real breaks. I plan to pick up a Baldwin biography next to get some distance and a clearer life picture.

I am continually mesmerized by Baldwin’s writing. I do not think that it too strong of a description. Baldwin draws in the reader and writes with such passion and clarity. Reading Baldwin can set my mind spinning. So much of his writing feels so very current. But at the same time, he was just a bit older than MLK and Malcolm X and about 10-15 years older than younger Civil Right Era leaders like Stokley Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and John Lewis. Baldwin writes in a way that seems very current, but about history that he lived through. Especially in No Name in the Street, when he was writing about his (still recent) reactions to the large number of Civil Rights Era leaders’ deaths, it gives a weight to this book that I found hard. I put it down several times because as important as the words are, Baldwin is a weighty writer.

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Summary: Discipleship focused on five values: Contemplative rhythms, racial reconciliation, interior examination, sexual wholeness, and missional presence. 

About ten years ago, I remember being struck as I read John Stott’s last book (also on discipleship) how much culture impacts how we understand discipleship. Stott had chapters on environmentalism and international ecumenical cooperation (focusing on nuanced and negotiated written agreements and statements of faith). Some books on environmentalism talk about discipleship issues and some books on ecumenical cooperation also talk about the need to disciple people into church unity. Still, in general, those are unusual topics for a general book on discipleship. Stott was writing in a context where those were not unusual topics of discipleship. Stott’s UK background and the US background are different, so books on discipleship have different emphases.

Rich Villodas is a pastor in NYC. Three of the list of his discipleship values will be found in many books. Two of his discipleship values are less common. According to Barna, White Evangelicals have become more interested in racial issues and are more opposed to discussing racial issues. There is an increasing divide within the White Evangelical world regarding justice issues more broadly, but racial justice in particular. Pew shows a 15-20% drop in the percent of the population that self identifies as Evangelical over the past decade. (And I antidotally suspect that it may be an undercount, but it may also just be my cohort.)

The reality is that it is becoming increasingly clear that the demographic dominance of White Evangelicals of the cultural conversation is waning. If for nothing other than pragmatic reasons, there is increasing awareness among some about the need for ethnic diversity within the church. As part of an aside in an online lecture from Esau McCaulley on theology and race, he noted that seminaries and colleges that primarily have catered to White theological training will have to change, or some of them will die, solely because of demographic trends.

The Deeply Formed Life is not taking a pragmatic/utilitarian approach to the need for racial reconciliation among Christians. He is rooting it as a central value, particularly because of our racially and culturally divided age. John 13 quotes Jesus as saying, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” But evidence of that love is often lacking.

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Summary: Journaling based exploration of racism. 

When discussing racism, a lot of pushback is focused on titles and approaches. And while I think there are some problems with this, it is important to get something that people will hear in the early stages. If a person cannot hear a voice or book or movie, it is unlikely to help them.

Many object to Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility because of the title and approach. Several people have recommended Me and White Supremacy as an alternative. So I read it with an eye toward the book to recommend to people that are early into the understanding of racial issues. For the most part, I agree that this is likely a better book for most people, but not everyone. First, the title still has ‘white supremacy’ in it. Generally, I tend to use ‘white superiority’ instead of ‘white supremacy,’ but the underlying meaning I agree with.

Me and White Supremacy is a 28 study, largely based around journaling questions. Layla Saad first tried the material out on her Instagram followers. And my recommendation is all about whether you are the type of person who will seriously take the questions. If you will not write out answers, or at the very least, think about them, then you will not find any value in the book. But if you engage with the questions and really think about your answers, then I think this is a beneficial book in laying out terms and ideas for anti-racism.

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Summary: Time travel gone wrong.

I have not been reading nearly enough fiction lately. Doomsday Book was recommended by a friend a year or two ago. It came out nearly 30 years ago while I was in college and in an era where I was not reading a lot of science fiction.

Kivrin is a young ‘historian’ at Oxford. Historians go back in time to study a particular historical period. Most historians go back a couple of centuries because the further back, the more unpredictable the exact time you are being sent becomes. There is a problem with ‘drift,’ and you can be hours or days or weeks off your predicted location, impacting your retrieval. Part of the science of time travel is that the system prevents you from impacting future history and creating paradoxes.

Kivrin is interested in the Midevil era. Her mentor, Mr. Dunworthy, does not like the idea of sending her to the Midevil era, not because she is unprepared or just because she is a woman in an era that was not kind to women, but because the department that oversees Midevil historians is incompetent. Problems happen.

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Summary: A brief history of the movement toward Vatican I and the council itself. 

I seriously considered not blogging about this book. Vatican I is an area that I have almost no background knowledge, so I cannot comment on the quality of the book. I had a friend recommend to me another book by John O’Malley, and as I was saving the book to my future reading list, I saw that Vatican I was free to listen to in Audible because of their new member benefit.

I know I have extensive holes in my knowledge of history. And in this case, that includes not knowing hardly anything about European history after roughly Elizabeth I and hardly anything about Catholic history between Trent and Vatican II.

Luckily, nearly half of the book was about the history and cultural influences that led to the start of Vatican I. So the book seemed to place the context of the subject well so that even someone like myself can benefit. Vatican I did not end, the Franco-Prussian war moved to Rome, and the council was evacuated. Officially Vatican I did not end until the start of Vatican II. Several of the decisions of the council may not have happened if the schedule had been different. There is quite a bit of criticism of Pope Pius IX, but that criticism also seems tempered from how strong it feels like it could have been.

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