Book Reviews

Summary: A mix of “˜read this instead of that’ guide to Great Books, with half of the time devoted to great book outside of the cannon.

I am a fan of the concept of Great Courses, lectures from good lecturers about interesting subjects. These are similar to repackaged college lectures, not TEDTalks. Most of the ones I have liked best are subjects that I have some familiarity with, but not too much. I have been somewhat reluctant to do the literature lectures because I either have read the books and I am not sure I want to read more, or because I haven’t read the books and felt like I would miss too much.

I very much appreciated How to Read Literature Like a Professor, which was more about how to think about reading and how literature works. Skeptics Guide to Great Books was not really like that. I had two literature courses in college, but only two and I always feel like I am missing something in my process of reading, especially when I am reading the great books.

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Great Books was not really what I was looking for, but it was helpful in its own way. It gave me introductions to 7 books that I was unlikely to have picked up on my own. These were all books that were suggested as “˜read this instead of that’. The focus of these was lesser known great books that did much the same thing as other great books, but were shorter and/or more approachable.

The second half of the course was on books that are outside of the cannon of great books because of their genre, but are still worth reading. Of these last five, I have read three was was broadly familiar with the content of the remaining two. In many ways the discussion of the books that I was familiar with was more enjoyable than the discussion of the books I did not know. Part of it might have been the subject matter. Hearing about how Le Carré “˜The Spy Who Came in from the Cold or PD James’ Cover Her Face changed the face of spy and detective novels gave me context outside of those novels for why what was in the novels matters.

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Summary: A father’s lament after his son’s death.

There is no way I can really “˜review’ a book about a father’s lament for his son’s death in a rock climbing accident. This is one of those classic books that people give someone that has just experience a death.

Americans in general and I think Evangelicals in particular do not grieve and lament well. Part of what Wolterstorff talks about how the bad advice or bad theological wisdom that people give to grieving people, like, “˜they are in a better place now’ or “˜God called them back home.’ I very much appreciated Wolterstorff calling BS on that type of false piety. Death is an evil that in part Christ’s coming is here to overcome.

I do not think that we can really prepare for the future tragedies in our life. But I do think that we should read about and listen to grief. Whether it is the lament over the death of a spouse like CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed, or the death of a child like Lament for a Son or the combination of multiple griefs in Still by Lauren Winner, grief is particular but has some elements that are shared.

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Summary: An exercise in what it means to encourage the life of the mind, bounded by the creed, with the example of history and with illustrations of how that can work out in practice.

I deeply respect Mark Noll, not just for his history and the quality of his teaching (I had an undergrad class with him at Wheaton and a graduate class with him at the University of Chicago) but also for his broad encouragement of intellectual life outside of his field of history. His Scandal of the Evangelical Mind continues to have ramifications in the Evangelical world.

Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind is, in many ways, a follow-up to The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. The extended postscript on the edition I read gave a direct update on where Noll has been encouraged since Scandal and areas of continued need. But the rest of the book was a guide to how Noll thinks we should encourage the life of the mind in the Evangelical world.

Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind was published in 2011, and I wonder how it would be different had Noll written it in 2018. Part of the weakness of Noll’s project has been that he has mostly encouraged the life of the minds of academics and theological leaders within the Evangelical church. It is not that he is unaware of the average layperson or that he does not think that the development of the life of the mind of the laity is important. However, the pitch of Noll’s work catches the interest of those who are already intellectually active.

Someone else may have originally said it, but I remember Alan Noble commenting on Twitter about the split in Evangelical leaders in their support of Trump. Noble suggested that broadly, the academic and theological leadership, as well as much of the ministry-focused leadership, has been against Trump from the start. But much of the political leadership and culture war leadership has supported Trump. Others have made a different point about the split in between the clergy that have been more likely not to support Trump than the laity of the Evangelical world.

Noll is encouraged that the life of the mind is trickling down, but he did agree in his postscript that his original charges in Scandal did not acknowledge enough the general anti-intellectualism of American culture more broadly. So as much as I appreciate Noll’s work on the intellectual life of the Evangelical world, his impact has been limited, and while the Trump phenomenon is not a result of that limitation, it likely is an illustration of the phenomena.

As a whole, I alternate between being really appreciative of the concept of this book and the fact that Noll is attempting to work out on paper how we encourage intellectual life within the bounds of Christianity and being frustrated with how he does it.

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Summary: An unlikable maid is found dead and there are too many people that could have killed her.

PD James is one of those authors that I feel like I should have read by now. I picked up a collection of the first six books in the series on kindle for cheap a bit ago and ended up checking out the audiobook from the library last week.

I read some Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes as a teen and was not particularly interested in the “˜who dun it’ aspects of mysteries. But I have been turned on to mysteries over the past several year with the more character based mysteries of Louise Penny, Martin Walker, J Mark Bertrand, Rhys Bowen, Dorothy Sayers and Georges Simenon. The mystery is still present, but the focus is more psychological and about the people around the crime than the particulars of the crime.

I have been listening to a Great Courses lecture on The Great Books for Skeptics and it cites these books and PD James as the start of a shift from the more formulaic pulp mysteries to more literary mysteries that are more common today.

I did not realize until I listened to the lecture after finishing Cover Her Face that it was written in 1962. It does not feel particularly old, but more a historical mystery set a couple of generations ago.

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Summary: A set of books (one for parents and one for kids) to talk about race and racism in light of scripture and Christian faith.

The authors are attempting several difficult things at the same time: 1) to make the process of discussion race and racism simple for parents, 2) to introduce parents and children to a simple, but not simplistic, understanding of race, racism, and the sin of white superiority, 3) to communicate the hope of a Christian understanding of reconciliation in the context of a long history around racial sin. The fact that The Gospel in Color project was completed, and is well done is very encouraging.

There are a couple of aspects of The Gospel in Color that I think were especially very well done. First, the art is very good. It is engaging and there is space in it. The art is not crowded by text and it serves a purpose. It is not surprising that the art is appropriately multi-racial for this project, but I picked up yet another children’s bible a little over a week ago that had entirely White characters. There is no excuse in 2018 for any Christian children’s books to have entirely White characters.

The second aspect of the Gospel in Color that I really appreciate is that with the book was explicit and clear about definition of terms. I do not agree with every definition used, but there is a clarity that is important to this type of project.  Two aspects of the terms I think are very important. First, racism is clearly identified as sin. And second, racism is not reduced to only individual animus, but includes systemic aspects of racism and white superiority. It also addresses the belief of color blindness as a denial of God’s creation.

The Gospel in Color is rooted in the arc of scripture; this is a creation, fall, redemption story. The book opens with the affirmation that skin color was not accidental but part of God’s creation and all are created in God’s image. That may seem like a minor point, but is not. Historically, there have been many Christians that have denied one or both parts of that. There have been teachings about God intentionally creating some racial groups as servants or slaves to Whites. Others taught that non-White people did not actually have souls (and were not made in God’s image). Still others taught that through some sort of evolutionary process (either with God’s direction or not) Whites became the superior race. That history is not delved into deeply here, but it is real and not ancient history. This has been taught within the last generation, it is not difficult to find people my age or younger that have been taught one or more of these.

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Takeaway: Essential theological work not just about historic issues of lynching but the ongoing reality of the impacts of lynching and the modern permutations of lynching. 

When James H Cone passed away earlier this year, yet another of the intellectual leaders of the Civil Rights era was lost to us. Cone has pretty much always been controversial, and not just among White Christians. However, Black Liberation theology has been an important movement within modern theology impacting feminist and womanist theology as well as many areas of more traditional theology. Cone was certainly not the only theologian that pointed out the importance of not just Orthodoxy, but Orthodpraxy, but that is one of the important aspects of his work.

One of the significant themes of the Cross and the Lynching Tree is that Christians within the US context have often had orthodox beliefs, but not found it theologically important to address racism, slavery, Jim Crow, lynching or others aspects of justice.

The Newark and Detroit riots in July 1967 and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968 were the events that shook me out of my theological complacency, forcing me to realize the bankruptcy of any theology in America that did not engage the religious meaning of the African American struggle for justice. What I studied in graduate school ignored white supremacy and black resistance against it, as if they had nothing to do with the Christian gospel and the discipline of theology. (Kindle Location 227)

The chapter on Reinhold Niebuhr as an example of progressive White theology that was focused on justice, but fell short in matters of racial justice was very helpful both in how Cone critiqued Niebuhr but also how Cone still valued Niebuhr in areas. “When Niebuhr wrote against liberalism, pacifism, communism, and the easy conscience of American churches, he expressed outrage; but when it came to black victims of white supremacy, he expressed none.” (Kindle Location 1517). Cone certainly respects the work that Niebuhr did, Niebuhr and Barth were the foundation to his doctoral work and have been important throughout his career. Cone says, “What Niebuhr said about love, power, and justice helped me to understand that moral suasion alone would never convince whites to relinquish their supremacy over blacks.” (Kindle Location 1556) But”¦”What I questioned was his limited perspective, as a white man, on the race crisis in America. His theology and ethics needed to be informed from critical reading and dialogue with radical black perspectives.” (Kindle Location 1574)

There is far more to The Cross and the Lynching Tree than I can easily summarize, but these three long quotes at the end of the book are the best summaries of the intent of the book.

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Summary: A strong woman who was Mrs King, but also Coretta.

There were two main reasons I picked up this memoir. First, I read/heard/saw somewhere an excerpt of My Life, My Love, My Legacy that included a section about Martin Luther King Jr not allowing Coretta to meet JFK after the March on Washington. A march that did not include any women in significant roles other than music during the program. I cannot remember what pointed this out to me, but that was why I picked up the book in the first place.

The second reason that moved the book up on my reading list is because because I was told that My Life, My Love, My Legacy directly addresses the rumors of Martin Luther King, Jr’s womanizing and affairs. Part of how she addresses this is by building the case, that is well documented outside of this book, that J Edgar Hoover was attempting to smear King, that he tapped personal and private phones and attempted to discredit King to both political leaders like JFK and to the public. She says that JFK personally took MLK on a walk outside the White House in the gardens so that he could warn MLK about Hoover. (RFK separately also warned MLK about Hoover.) Coretta believed that warning MLK outside was to prevent Hoover from hearing about the warning from bugs in the White House. Also there were several other sources in press and law enforcement that warned MLK and those around him that he was going to be specifically targeted using affairs as a way to discredit him. Coretta says that these warnings were all before there was any hint of affairs in the press. (Biography of Hoover, primarily focusing on his connections to the development of Christian Nationalism.)

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Summary: King and Bonhoeffer both were killed at 39 after lives known for pushing the church toward greater ethical behavior. Their thinking, lives, and action overlap and diverge, but they continue to impact Christian social ethics over 50 years after their deaths.

Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought is book of essays from 19 different authors. I have read four biographies of Bonhoeffer as well as several other books by or about him. I have also read a number of books about King and his work, but Bonhoeffer and King gave me a number of new ways of looking at their work and lots of new insights into their theology and praxis. Part of what is important about this book is strives to be honest to their weaknesses and limitations. We are all limited, both by our natural created gifts and limitations and by our sin. But for people that are considered saints as many consider Bonhoeffer and King, part of that sainthood is a sanitizing and narrowing of their legacy. Many want to cite King for his work against segregation, but want to ignore his work around poverty, or militarization.

Because there are 18 chapters and a conclusion by Willis Jenkins (the editor) there are a number of different perspectives here, but for the most part there is no real question about social justice as a conceptual (or Christian) good. The authors prod and compare and highlight differences in perspective, life experience, theology, geography and social situation, but the assumption of the authors (which I agree with) is that for any weakness they had, the role of the church is to work toward justice and both Bonhoeffer and King were attempting that.

I made 21 highlights in my book (publicly available on my goodreads review). That it too many to comments about. And a book like this really has too much to comment about anyway. I want to highlight three themes that were touched on by a number of the chapters. First, while not everyone is aware, Bonhoeffer’s work was significantly impacted by his time worshiping and working in the black church while he studied at Union Seminary in NYC. That shared understanding of the church of the oppressed was frequently mentioned by authors here. For King scholars, the black church background is understood, but for Bonhoeffer scholars it is something that is often noted, but not necessarily given the significance that Bonhoeffer gave it to his own theological maturity.

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Summary: On the fourth return to Alitheia, Darcy realizes she has fallen in love with Prince (soon to be King) Tellius. But each of their own desires to protect the other keeps them apart.

The Gateway Chronicles has reminded me of the advantages of waiting until a series is done before starting it. That is not particularly helpful for the authors and publishers who need the sales to keep the series going. But for the reader, not needing to wait a year between books is really nice. The Gateway Chronicles are being re-released this summer by the author independently after the rights reverted back to her. KB Hoyle has lightly edited and rereleased the books about every two weeks this summer.

The Enchanted is the fourth (of six) in the series and my favorite so far. I have commented in a number of other reviews that I read for characters more than action and The Enchanted, while still having action, is much more about character development and relationships than action. The characters are older now and the maturity shows, although they are still teenagers.

In earlier books, characters often thought about themselves first and made bad decisions because of it. In The Enchanted, the bad decisions are primarily about trying to protect others. The reader can see why the bad decisions are made, because we can read international motivations, but the other characters are still hurt by what they view as (and sometimes is) betrayal.

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Takeaway: People are complicated.

Over the past several years since I have started thinking more about how to spiritual formation works, I have been intentionally reading memoirs or biographies of people with the express purpose of mining spiritual wisdom.

Among the most helpful books last year was a quartet of memoirs from Madeleine L’Engle that I was completely unaware of before picking them up. That set of memoirs left me wanting more, but there is not that many options. Her granddaughters have a children biography of L’Engle and there is a 2012 book of reflections by a number of authors about L’Engle, but A Light So Lovely is as close to a biography of L’Engle as I have found.

A Light So Lovely is not a straight biography. It is “˜the spiritual legacy’ of L’Engle. I have read several “˜spiritual biographies’ (CS Lewis, Flannery O’Connor) and it feels like it is more in that genre. A Light So Lovely has a rough sketch of her life, but most of the focus is on her influence on others. The chapters are titled and focus on tensions in L’Engle’s life, a both/and focus instead of an either/or focus. L’Engle wanted to draw the sacred and the secular together, she wanted to see faith and science as different, but both as ways to see God. She wanted religion and art to support one another.

Along the way Arthur complicates the picture that L’Engle draws of herself in her Crosswick Journal memoirs. Her marriage was a fairly close one, but Hugh and their relationship was idealized in the Two Part Invention and one quote suggests that her vision of their marriage was in part ‘an invention’. There is a good exploration of L’Engle’s tendency to fictionalize reality as she says she is doing in places in the Circle of Quiet, but also does in other places without saying so.

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