Book Reviews

Summary: A history of Dispensationalism from Darby to pop culture. 

I did not grow up in a strongly dispensationalist church. But as I reflected throughout the book, I was surprised to learn how many institutions, communities, and preachers who were important to me were influenced by dispensationalism. The strength of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is that it does not fall into caricature but is carefully nuanced about the various streams of Christianity influenced by dispensationalism.

As someone who was a child and teen in the late 70s and early ’80s, I was aware of movies like The Thief in the Night, even if I was too young to be strongly influenced by them. I know several people who were freaked out by the scare tactics of that era of dispensationalism, but I tended toward questions or avoidance rather than direct fear. I was more attracted to “Scholastic Dispensationalism” than pop culture dispensationalism. A friend of mine’s was a pastor’s kid at a local Evangelical Free Church. I went to a lot of their youth group activities, and I can remember going to their annual “prophecy conferences” and can remember the charts and explanations of the details of the end times as a teen and preteen. That nearly gnostic idea of the secrets that you can learn if you only follow the right teachers were more of a temptation to me.

I am hesitant to simplify because the complex story is so interesting, but the overly simplified story is that from Darby to Moody to fundamentalism to the rise of the scholastic Dispensationalists to the pop culture dispensationalists, there was an almost continual simplification of the ideas of dispensationalism from a complex system of anti-institutionalist thought toward simpler and simpler premillennialism. That simplified story is too simple, but there is a thread there that as people found parts of the theological ideas to accept and parts to discard, the beloved parts by the earlier generation were usually discarded in favor of an easier-to-explain system.

A simple chart or image is more attractive than a complex multi-page chart. But the thicker theological thinking went in the opposite direction. Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind, but that does seem to be what is shown here. While movements tried to take the more theological seriously, the dominant streams of dispensationalism were the imagery of an imminent return of Christ, which contributed to a passion to evangelize and reach the world for Christ.

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Summary: Tracking the history of how Lewis was received in the United States.

Not using these words, it seems that Noll is making the case that while Evangelicals may be defined as those who love Billy Graham, ecumenicals may be defined as those who love CS Lewis. Noll traces the response in the United States over three chapters. US Catholics first promoted (and published) Lewis in the US. The secular media and academy also responded to Lewis. And then mainline Protestants and finally, the Fundamentalists and Neo-Orthodox. Noll didn’t explicitly say that ecumenical Christians are the ones who like Lewis, but that does seem to be his point. Within Catholics, Mainline Protestants, and fundamentalists, some are less interested in moving outside of their own circle of Christians. But in some ways, the Neo-Evangelicals that were breaking away from Fundamentalists were, as a movement, more ecumenical, and while they found Lewis later, their embrace was in some ways because of Lewis’ ecumenical approach that sought to use common reasoning and logic and public intellectual resources to make the case for Christianity.

Again, this was not a part of Noll’s book, but I do think that it is relevant to talk about the recent movements within SBC, PCA, and ANCA to adopt more theologically conservative positions on women in ministry as an example of a movement toward fundamentalist positions. I had Noll for three classes between college and seminary. When I was in seminary, working for a local SBC association and going to a mainline seminary, there was a discussion about whether SBC should be considered Evangelical or Fundamentalist. Even in the mid-90s, some people in SBC embraced the term fundamentalist. Many of the sociologists of religion who were commenting on the question at the time (as I remember it) were noting the tensions between those SBC Evangelicals who were more ecumenical in orientation and those SBC fundamentalists who were not sure of the Christianity of those outside of SBC.

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Summary: A very pregnant Georgie hosts her first dinner party with her new chef and that leads to a new mystery. 

I enjoy reading long series as long as I do not get too bored with the characters. The Royal Spyness series is in the 17th book, similar to the Inspector Gamache series. They are very different types of mysteries. The Royal Spyness series is very much a light cozy mystery series. There is almost always a murder, but Bowen leans into cozy feel of the series. The series took a long time to get from Georgie having a romantic interest to marriage and now her first baby. I am enjoying a more confident Georgie.

Rhys Bowen has referenced classic mysteries before, there are several references to Dorothy Sayers books. And this one both references Agatha Christie’s books and has Agatha Christie as a dinner party guest who helps to solve the mystery. That could feel gimmicky, but it is handled well here, and I thought it helped move Georgie to a more healthy, maturing adult. She is not in her early 20s anymore. She is married and will have a baby by the end of this book (that is really not a spoiler).

I appriciate that Darcy (her husband who works as an off the books spy for the British Foreign Office) does not try to protect her and keep her away from murder here, but instead encourages her to solve the crime. There is a balance between realism of a woman in the 1930s and the reality of a modern reader who expects women to be able to act without supervision at all times.

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Summary: An introduction to hermeneutics through the lens of Womanist Biblical methods.

Generally, when I read a book, I try to write about it within a few days. This has become a spiritual practice of mine, not just because I like to encourage reading but also because I want to incorporate what I am learning. Part of that incorporation is writing about the book so that I can put on paper what was important to me. But sometimes, I get busy with my paying work or other aspects of life, and at some point, I am just too far away from a book to do it justice. In the case of If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I? I read it in February 2022 and then again in December 2022. It was certainly one of my favorite books of 2022, but because I hadn’t written about it, it was hard to talk about why succinctly.

I have had a running book club since 2020 or 2021, depending on whether you count the Be the Bridge groups that it grew out of or the later discussion of Color of Compromise that started an actual book club. Since then, I am told we have discussed 12 books. I have wanted to get a group to talk about If God Still Breathes for a while, and this spring seemed like a good time.

If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I? is a fairly short book, only 128 pages and about 3 hours. But there is some weight to it. It was the most challenging book we have tackled so far. Most of the group was new to Womanist thought, so there was that aspect of difficulty. Only a couple of other group members had taken formal college-level Bible classes either. Mixing womanist thinking and biblical hermeneutics introduced many in the group to a lot of new vocabulary. One of the members expressed how happy he was to be reading on Kindle because there is a built-in dictionary.

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Summary: A mix of history, memoir, and theology to discuss the problem of God being portrayed as White and how this has communicated Whiteness (an ideology of racial hierarchy).

I have been looking forward to reading When God Became White since I heard it announced. I have only read her Intersectional Theology, but I own three of her books and I hope to read at least two of them this year. (Invisible, The Homebrew Christianity Guide to the Holy Spirit, Healing Our Broken Humanity). There are several reasons why I was looking forward to When God Became White. First, I wanted to explore the concept of Whiteness from a more theological perspective. Emerson and Bracey’s Religion of Whiteness explores it from a Sociology of Religion perspective, and I am familiar with its historical development from authors like Ibrahm Kendi and philosophical development of whiteness from authors like George Yancy. There are others working on theological development of the concept of Whiteness, but I expected (and found) that Grace Ji-Sun Kim broke out of the Black/White paradigm of discussing Whiteness and I knew from listening to a number of interviews and her writing that she would bring a gender critique as well.

The strength of When God Became White is its exploration of her own story and the way the Asian experience more broadly. The discussion of Whiteness is often limited to the White/Black binary. Throughout the book she discusses Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ thats her mother kept in an honored place in their home above the couch (Color of Christ by Harvey and Blum has a lengthy discussion of the history and impact of Sallman’s painting.)

“The white Jesus on our wall was a depiction to me of how God looked as well. I pictured God as an old white man, just as everyone else did. There was no reason to question that notion. It was everywhere: in paintings, stained-glass windows, and storybooks. I never questioned it. I didn’t even think twice about whether Jesus was white or not. It was not in my consciousness to question anything that was taught by my mother or the church. Both pushed a white Jesus, and I just took it as the truth.”

“What I didn’t know then that I know now is how influential that picture was on my own theology and faith development. That image of a white Jesus was imprinted on my brain and body so that I could not even question whether Jesus actually looked like that. It was a given, as it was the most famous picture of Jesus. I went to visit family in Korea twice during my youth, and even my family members there had the same picture of the white Jesus in their homes. The Korean churches also had the same picture of white Jesus. Furthermore, when I traveled to India during my seminary years, all the churches that I visited had this same white Jesus picture. This confirmed to me that this must be the real Jesus, as it is universally understood to be the image of Christ. I just took it for granted that Sallman’s Head of Christ must be the real thing.” (P8)

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Summary: A biography of a radical Christian who took seriously the call to help the marginalized.

Dorothy Day is someone that I have known about for a long time, but someone who I have not known much about. I have read one of DL Mayfield’s previous books and I know that she takes seriously the call for Christians to serve and live with the marginalized so I thought she would be a good author to read about Dorothy Day. (I have also read a book by her husband, a counselor.)

Unruly Saint is not a lengthy biography, about 250 pages. And most of its focus is on the founding of the Catholic Worker and its early years. Mayfield’s personal reflections on Day and her use of the research on Day as a way to grapple with her own Christian faith I think is one of the strengths of the books, but also one that may not appeal to everyone. I particularly read a lot of biography and memoir because I want to know how others have thought about what it means to live a good life or discern how to they can live in a complicated world. Reflective biographies like this give me insight not only into the subject of the biography but the author.

I was aware of the basic shape of Day. I knew she was a writer and that she founded the Catholic Worker Newspaper and various others activities to serve the poor during the Great Depression. I knew she was a radical and had been a communist prior to becoming Catholic. I knew that she had a child and was a pacifist. But I think that was really the extent of what I knew walking into this biography.

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Summary: A survey of systems that perpetuate disparity, inequity, or racism in various areas of society.

One of the aspects that is most frustrating to me within the church is the controversy that is liberation. Some people and parts of the church do not believe that liberation is a significant theme of what the church should be doing. There are various reasons for that. Some believe that liberation will only occur at the second coming of Christ, and some of those believe that working toward liberation will actually prolong Christ’s return. Some do not believe that the church’s work should involve physical realities and that the only liberation that should occur is spiritual liberation. So, it is not surprising that Latasha Morrison opens with a chapter on liberation, grounding the book in her survey of the themes of liberation found throughout the Bible. But honestly, the chapter just made me mad. I was angry not at what she said, but that she has to actually argue that liberation is something that the church should be involved in. This is such a central theme to both scripture and historic Christian theology that no book should need to make the case that liberation is something that we need to do.

The rest of the book is framed around nine areas of society where liberation needs to occur. She sets up a simple framework of Preparation, Dedication, and Liberation. Preparation is learning about and understanding society’s problems so we can correctly address them. Dedication is the steps that we take to address those issues while girding ourselves for long-term efforts. And that is done with the goal of liberation for all people. Morrison is addressing these areas because they are areas that have been traditionally seen as “White Spaces” and they have a legacy of systemic inequality or discrimination.

This framing reminds me of Kevin Kruse’s book White Flight, which is about the history of White Flight in Atlanta. One of the main points that Kruse makes in the book is that White people saw segregated spaces (parks, schools, transportation, etc.) as white spaces before desegregation. However, after integration, due to their cultural belief in white racial hierarchy, the spaces did not become shared spaces where all people had equal access, but as Black spaces where White people were no longer given priority. Kruse’s thesis is that this view of public space is a significant impetus for the rise of political libertarianism and decreased investment in public goods. If public spaces no longer privileged White use, and White people did not “feel comfortable” in shared spaces, and White people began to use private spaces that were economically or geographically segregated as a proxy for racial segregation, then White people would stop supporting the use of tax funds on shared public goods that they had previously supported. Michelle McGhee has a similar approach in her book Sum of Us, where she tries to get White people to see that racial equity is not a zero-sum game.

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