Book Reviews

Summary: Controversial, but idealistic talks and essays.

I am way too young to have known of Angela Davis in her early days. And I was too ignorant of who she was to go to hear her when she spoke at my grad school in the late 1990s. I picked this on sale, and I wanted to get some context for her work since she was one of the people used as a framing device in Stamped From the Beginning. While the audiobook was frequently frustrating, there is an idealism that I appreciate.

I am tired of “˜cultural Marxist’ and “˜socialist’ epitaphs thrown at relatively moderate ideas or movements. It is refreshing to listen to someone that embraces her Marxist background and ran for Vice President on the communist ticket. But even Angela Davis is not 100 percent behind all aspects of marxism and communism. So the complaints about conservative Christians being Marxist for calling for social justice is just an affirmation that the speakers have not heard Angela Davis.

These are mostly talks, read later, with a few essays and interviews. None of the subjects are simple or easily solved problems. Mass incarceration is not going to be shut down by calling for an end to prisons and police. And she knows that. Her thought is not pure idealism, but it is attempting to call for a reimagining of what society could be if we actively worked to end oppression.

Read more

Summary: A young girl, her brother, and mother visit the San Diego border to celebrate Las Posadas and see their Grandmother through the border fence at Christmas. A great book to spark a conversation. 

I read this tonight for the first time with my 5-year-old. I am intentionally filling my kids’ library not just with books, but books that will lead to conversations. Between Us and Abuela is a book that is going to take several readings to get through the conversations that it should bring up.

The short version of Between Us and Abuela is that a girl, her brother, and mother go to the border to see their grandmother and celebrate Las Posadas (the commemoration of Mary and Joseph looking for a room in Jerusalem right before Christmas.) There is an annual commemoration on the US/Mexico border called La Posada Sin Frontera. The tradition is adapted, so family and friends gather along the border wall in San Diego/Tijuana, hear the Christmas story, sing songs and see family across the fence.

The children and their mother have not seen their grandmother in five years. My five year old asked how long that was, I reminded her that she is five years old.

The family is allowed 30 minutes to go inside an outer fence so that there is only an inner fence that separates the family. My daughter, of course, asks why they are separated. I will approach this in several different ways as we re-read the book. But it matters that the story naturally leads to the right types of questions.

Read more

Summary: “Spiritual formation is a process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others.”

I am now halfway through my “˜Intro to Spiritual Direction’ class, the first class in my two-year program to become a spiritual director. I am intentionally participating in a Catholic (Ignatian) program because I want to learn in a different tradition so that I can be pushed to understand a different perspective, different language, and different emphasis. I want my blind spots exposed as I grapple with the translation process. As I read books on Spiritual Direction that are written by Catholic authors, I have to continually evaluate whether what I am understanding is accurate to the intent of the author. Are the words carrying different connotations as I interpret them in my Evangelical lens?

What has been helpful, because I am only taking one class at a time, is to read a couple of books that are thematically similar, but from an Evangelical perspective. That allows me to process related content in different Christian streams at approximately the same time, which creates a conversation.

I have had Invitation to a Journey for a couple of years, but had not read it yet. Mulholland is not directly writing about Spiritual Direction, but spiritual formation, a more general concept. I like both his definition of spiritual formation and how that definition develops throughout the book. For Mulholland, “Spiritual formation is a process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others.”

Mulholland is directly taking on the individualism of much writing on spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is not for our own sake alone, although there is individual value. Spiritual formation is not particular methods or structures, but the developing of a relationship with Christ by becoming like Christ. And in the process of becoming like Christ, we are doing that not for ourselves, but for others.

Read more

Summary: An extensive walk through the history of racism in America. 

Stamped From the Beginning is another one of those books that I have waited too long to write about. I finished it nearly a month ago and almost immediately started How to be an Antiracist. They are such different styles of books that they are hard to compare. But they complement one another well. Stamped from the Beginning is more academic, much longer, and a history book. How to be An Antiracist is shorter, more personal, with Kendi using his personal development as a lens to understand racism and antiracism. The fact that he had already written Stamped from the Beginning I think gave more credibility and meaning to the more personal How to Be an Antiracist.

Stamped from the Beginning is one of those books I purchased years ago on several recommendations. I read enough about it to know the rough focus, and then I did not start reading. It was finally a very negative review that I assumed was largely a misreading of the book, that propelled me to start reading.

Stamped from the Beginning, despite its length and subtitle, as the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, uses five people as a framing technique. Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, WEB DuBois, and Angela Davis are the voices that give focus to different eras of racism.

There are a couple of veins of though on the development of the social construct of racial identity construction in the academy. Some identify racism and White supremacy as a development of colonial expansion starting in the 14th to 16th centuries. And some suggested that racism and White supremacy expanded during that era, but are older (Willie James Jennings is in this group and roots racism in antisemitism that was developed out of Christian supersessionism.). Kendi appears to mostly be in the first group.

Read more

Summary: A broad overview of the church desegregation protests, and then a deep dive into one particular church with extensive interviews and history.

I think that many people do have historically accurate views on how the church has traditionally related to racism, segregation, and the Civil Rights Era. An excellent introductory book for the subject is Jemar Tisby’s Color of Compromise. But no introduction can adequately address every issue in a long history.

The Last Segregated Hour works through the kneel-in campaigns that started in the mid 195s, alongside the lunch counter protests, the freedom rides, and other similar desegregation campaigns. The initial section that details the national perspective of the Kneel-ins feels repetitive because the history was repetitive. Teams of mixed race worshipers would visit a church, usually coordinated with a larger group so that several churches were visited at the same time. Some churches would welcome the groups, or at least not prevent them from being seated. Some churches would allow them in the sanctuaries but segregate them into a particular area. Some churches would ban them from entering, occasionally resulting in violence or police presence.

These Kneel-in campaigns happened over and over throughout the country for years. Churches that banned the mixed-race worshipers usually were visited over and over again, until they were allowed in. Some individual churches had groups of mixed race worshipers attempt to enter the congregation weekly for over a year before they were allowed to be seated.

According to Haynes, there was not a consistent denominational or church tradition that across geography was either more welcoming or more segregated, although in general Baptist churches were a bit more likely to be segregated, and Catholic was the most unlikely. But there were examples of almost every type of church being both segregated and welcoming.

Once the book moves to the particular example of the city of Memphis Kneel-ins starting in 1964 and then the specific campaign at Second Presbyterian Church, the book becomes more engaging. It is not that the national history and context is not essential; it is. But the particular does give a close understanding that I think makes this book worth reading. Part of the importance of the book is the interviews. Four chapters focus on memories of members at Second Presbyterian, the protestors themselves (separate sections looking at the different experiences of both White and Black protestors), and then a chapter on the perception of the member children and youth.

Read more

Summary: The “˜autobiography’ of Ignatius of Loyola with helpful commentary by Joseph Tylenda. 

As mentioned several times lately, I have started a graduate certificate program in Spiritual Direction. The program is an Ignatian focused program, and so we are starting with the autobiography of Ignatius and the spiritual exercises. The Spiritual Exercises is not a book you read straight through, so I am not going to post about it. But the autobiography is compelling. Loyola dictated it. And he used two different people, so the original is in two different languages. The version I read has numbered sections. And then a commentary about that section to give context and background. I have not read a book formatted quite like this before, and I think the formatting in the kindle edition could have been more clear, but the actual content of the commentary was beneficial.

As helpful as the commentary was, I still wanted a full modern biography. If anyone has a suggestion of one, I would appreciate the recommendation. This autobiography has very little after the Society of Jesus was formed. And very little contextually about the era. The colonization of the Western Hemisphere was just getting started. The Reformation was also just getting started. Ignatius was caught up in the Inquisition multiple times. There were still implications from the crusades. The slave trade was getting seriously started. All of those and more are relevant to Ignatius’ story.

Read more

Takeaway: As much as the use of the phrase, ‘it is a relationship, not a religion’ bugs me (because of how it is usually used), Christianity that pursues theology or behavior modification and not Christ, gets distorted.

Reading about spiritual growth prompts me to read more about spiritual growth. As I have started my introduction to Spiritual Direction class, the required texts lead me to want to pick up other books that are related. Which also makes me want to re-read as well. I know I need to re-read many books, but books on spiritual formation are probably the books I most need to re-read because they are often very subtle critiques of our understanding of Christianity.

As part of this renewed interest, I have been listening to the Revovaré podcast, which has been playing some old talks from early conferences. In the episode with Emilie Griffin at the end of a Q and A period, Dallas Willard says that we are not in charge of our own spiritual formation. We simply need to remain present and engaged while God works on us.

Open to the Spirit very much feels like a book that has been inspired by Dallas Willard. Scot McKnight is trying to biblically point the reader to the importance of the Holy Spirit. McKnight is a New Testament scholar and mostly is oriented toward a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit. Open to the Spirit also reminds me of Amos Yong’s Who Is the Holy Spirit: A Walk With the Apostles. In Yong’s commentary on Acts, he is drawing parallels between the work of Jesus in Luke with the work of the Holy Spirit through the early Christians in Acts.

In Open to the Spirit, McKnight is showing how Jesus in his earthly life was guided by the Holy Spirit similarly to how Yong shows the early Christians being guided by the Spirit.

Read more

Takeaway: Commentaries are under-appreciated forms of devotional literature.

In general, I do not read the Bible straight through in a reading plan. I generally read the bible either with the Book of Common Prayer or with a Liturgy of the Hours (this is the one I use right now mostly). I prefer dated versions where I read that day and that day only. If I get behind, I get behind.

But almost two months ago now I went on a silent five-day retreat. And I brought Willie James Jennings’ commentary on Acts, along with the Liturgy of the Hours and Reggie Williams’ Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus as my reading content. I had wanted to read Jennings’ commentary on Acts, and I had just finished (really the first day I finished) Jennings’ Christian Imagination. So I wanted more from Jennings.

Reading his commentary on Acts alongside his constructive theology in The Christian Imagination was exactly what I needed for that retreat. Being able to read slowly, and have lots of time to stop and pray through the commentary was perfect. Jennings is upending many White Evangelical readings of Acts. This was not my first book that approached Acts in a similar way, Amos Yong prepared me to read Jennings.

We often read Acts as a hero tale. We have hero Peter and then hero Paul that follow God and bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the gentiles. And that is undoubtedly part of the story. But Acts was not oriented toward individual hero stories. Acts was primarily about a community, one that was grappling with a God that had upended their concept of what it meant to be a follower of God.

Read more

Summary: A personal, memoir informed, look at the difference between being ‘not racist’ and an antiracist.

I picked up How to Be an Antiracist almost immediately after I finished Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. They are very different in approach. Stamped from the beginning is more academic, much longer, and more historical. How to be an Antiracist is much shorter, more personal and, in a helpful way, not academic.

Despite it being shorter and less academic, I think this is a book I am going to need to read again, while I doubt I will re-read Stamped from the Beginning. How to be an Antiracist is making subtle changes to the recent Critical Race Theory informed definitions of racism. And while I think I mostly agree with Kendi’s critiques, I also think I need to both re-read this book to be sure I understand what he is doing, and read some others responding to him to make sure I am not missing some of the implications of his critiques.

At the most basic, Kendi is rejecting the prejudice plus power definition of racism. At the same time, he is rejecting racist as a descriptor of a person. He wants racist to be the descriptor of the idea or action. “œA racist idea is any idea that suggests one racial group is inferior or superior to another racial group in any way.” Similarly, “œA racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups.”  In another place, “What is racism? Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities”¦Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing.”

Kendi uses the metaphor of racism not as an identity (or tattoo), you either are or are not racist, but a sticky name tag that you put on and take off. He is unequivocal that anyone can express racist ideas or perform racist actions. And he is not at all rejecting the concept of racism as a systemic reality. He does not like the term systemic racism (because it is too vague). He wants to concentrate on “˜racist policies.’

A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people. There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.

Read more

Summary: A short book detailing how and why you should never talk to the police beyond identification and asking to speak with a lawyer.

You Have the Right to Remain Innocent is one of those books whose title jumped out at me. I saw it as one of Amazon’s daily deals, and when I realized that it was free on both audio and kindle as part of Kindle Unlimited, I picked it up.

The book has a simple argument. Each with a chapter, do not talk to the police, do not plead the fifth (right to remain silent), do plead the sixth (right to counsel). That is it. Simple and easy to remember.

The reason to read the book is the detail. The legal system in the US is a mess. I am far from libertarian, but the legal system is an area where there needs to be significant reform and where less is likely much more. US criminal law is scattered, and there are criminal penalties mixed in with other statues, and much of criminal law is vague and unknown to most people. There is an estimate in the book based on another study that the average person commits three felonies a day. Not because of criminal intent, or even sheer ignorance, but because of vague drafting. If you have household cleaners, you have probably committed a felony. The possession of any part of a potential bomb is a felony. You do not have to have all of the pieces, you do not have to have intent, merely having one part is enough. So if you have Drano or fertilizer or many other legal everyday items, you are committing a felony. There are several other examples as well.

You Have the Right to Remain Innocent also details police and prosecutorial misconduct. James Duane affirms that most police and most prosecutors are just attempting to do their job. But their job is to arrest or convict people, not keep the peace or seek justice. Police ability to flat out lie to you and encourage you to violate your rights has been strongly supported by the courts. The police are not there to ensure that you are innocent. Prosecutors are virtually never held accountable for violating the law or your rights.

Read more