Adam Shields

Summary: Two academics with pastoral experience process the potential help that Critical Race Theory can bring to the church.

If you are “very online” and active on social media, you likely have encountered discussions about Critical Race Theory. Similarly, if you are active in local school board meetings, you have likely seen community comments about the dangers of critical race theory in education. If this is true for you, you likely already know Christopher Rufo's work opposing CRT, which seems to have prompted Trump's executive order on CRT. And it is even more likely that you are aware of Rufo's tweets where he is explicit about rebranding CRT. One of those tweets says, “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Rufo was late to the concern about CRT. Christians like Neil Shenvi started raising concerns about the related but different Critical Theory more than two years earlier, which resulted in a resolution from the SBC around Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality in 2019. And all of this was following the backlash to the increasing interest in addressing racism within the Evangelical Christian world. In 2018, The Gospel Coalition and the SBC public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, jointly hosted the MLK50 Conference on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This was closely followed by the Together for the Gospel Conference (T4G) giving significant time on the program to addressing racism, like this talk by Ligon Duncan.

Looking back, it appears that 2018 was the high point of the Evangelical church's willingness to speak publicly about race, and since that time, race has become a more complex topic to address publicly. However, even the 2018 conferences were too late because a month before the MLK50, the New York Times had an influential article about the Black exodus from predominately white Evangelical churches and institutions following the overwhelming support of Donald Trump by White Evangelicals.

This is probably too long of an introduction, but I think the context is essential to how I am reading Christianity and Critical Race Theory. I am no one important, but I have been involved in discussions around racial issues and the evangelical church for a long time. And I was active in those early online discussions about Critical Race Theory. I watched MLK50 and took my (then) three and four-year-old kids to the 50th anniversary of MLK's funeral in Atlanta. I spent years trying to get my predominately white church to more directly address racial issues more and have small groups and training on race. (I have been leading a small group that started as a Be the Bridge Group and continued for several years.) I have read books and articles by Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, Kimberle Crenshaw, and others.

I think many will not come with my background in Christianity and Critical Race Theory, and I can't read the book as if I did not have the background that I do. Christianity and Critical Race Theory's authors are particularly well positioned to write this book. Robert Chao Romero and Jeff Liou are both pastors. Both of them have an academic background that is relevant to the book. Romero has a Law degree and Ph.D. and is a Chicano/a and Central American Studies professor at UCLA. Jeff Liou is the director of theological formation for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and is a professor of Christian Ethics with a background in political theology, race, and justice. These authors are Christian Evangelical insiders with academic backgrounds involved in Critical Race Theory long before the recent interest. Romero has a good history of Latino Theology published by Intervarsity. And Liou's position with Intervarsity also shows his insider status.

The format of the book is a traditional reformed structure. The four main chapters examine how Critical Race Theory looks at Creation, Fall (sin), Redemption, and Consummation (Eschatology). There is a significant introduction and conclusion as well. But this is a brief book. As complicated as Critical Race Theory is, this is a good introduction in only 180 pages of the main text.

Like the authors, I think the real strength of Critical Race Theory, in its relationship to Christianity, is in identifying wrong (sin). Of course, CRT does not identify everything Christianity does as sin and vice versa. But that would be asking more than any one sociological approach could accomplish. But the fact that sin is identified, I think, is one of the most directly Christian things about CRT.

The first chapter (creation) is oriented toward diversity as a created reality of God, which will also be part of an eschatological reality. The main point of this first chapter is that all cultures and ethnicities have honor and, in some (limited) sense, reflect God's glory because they are made up of people who are created in the image of God. What is being pushed back against here is a hierarchy of culture as being part of the created order. CRT suggests that race is not a biological but a sociological reality. The creation of race was partly about creating cultural hierarchy, and the church largely embraced that understanding of culture. CRT can help see why that understanding is harmful and theologically wrong.

Chapter three, Redemption, is mainly about how as Christians, we need to see institutions as part of the created order. The authors do not phrase it this way, but Curtis Chang of the Good Faith Podcast regularly talks about institutions being made in the image of God, not just individuals. And I think CRT, because it is oriented toward institutions and systems, not individuals, fits in with Chang's description. This chapter mainly discusses Christian colleges and other Christian institutions and how they can help and harm. But, again, CRT is primarily a diagnostic tool and can help identify how our Christian institutions harm people of color, women, and other minority groups.

The final main chapter is about escatology and the Beloved Community. This is when the authors think CRT has the least to offer Christianity because they view it as lacking hope. This reminds me of Thabiti Anyabwile and Ta-Nehisi Coates's conversation about the role of hope back in 2015. I came away from that conversation thinking that while I theologically mostly agree with Thabiti, I think Ta-Nehisi Coates won the day because he suggests that he does not think that race relations in the US will fundamentally change in either his or his son's lifetime. However, he still works toward change even though he does not think the change will happen. Working toward change that you think will not happen in a hundred years is a type of hope that I think is undervalued. I believe theoretically in the eschatological end where Christ makes everything right. But similar to how I came away from the linked conversation, this chapter feels like it places too much value on the expectation of a future as being a particularly Christian ideal. In many ways, secular and religious people that are not Christians also have hope, even if it is not expressed in the same eschatological language.

I was on board before I started reading Christianity and Critical Race Theory. This book primarily reflects what I believe. I think the message should be read widely, especially by those who are overtly for a Christian view of social justice but have been influenced by the anti-CRT discussion. I have quibbles, but I think this is a book that does well reflecting orthodox Christian belief and an excellent academic understanding of Critical Race Theory.

The publisher provided me with an advance (PDF) copy of the book for purposes of review.

Summary: A good biography about a woman that many recognize but don't know much about.

For the past several years, I have joined the Renovare Book Club. The current book they are reading is The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. I was broadly aware of Sojourner Truth. I knew she was born enslaved, and at some point, she left slavery and sued for the freedom of a child. She won that case, one of the earliest examples of a formerly enslaved person winning a court case against a white person. I also was aware of her work as an abolitionist and feminist speaker and her most famous speech, “Ain't I a Woman.” But besides the very broad strokes, I was unfamiliar with her story. Because I knew her book was coming up, I picked up this recent addition to the Library of Religious Biography series to get some background.

Nancy Koester is a Christian history professor specializing in the 19th century, especially in how women participated in reform movements as a way of social uplift and ministry. Koester also has another volume in the Library of Religious Biography series on Harriet Beecher Stowe, which I have not read but put on my to-read list.

As I said yesterday in my review of Gateway to Freedom by Eric Foner about the Underground Railroad, several books I have read this year have overlapped in theme and content. Sojourner Truth was a character that was present in many 19th-century events. She was an abolitionist speaker who shared a stage with Garrison and Frederick Douglass. She was a part of early women's suffrage movements like the Akron Ohio Women's Convention in 1851, where she gave the Ain't I a Woman speech. She was involved in various Christian reform and utopian movements, including the Prophet Mathias, the Millerite Adventist camp meetings, the interracial commune-like Northampton Association of Education and Industry, and the later utopian communities around Battle Creek, Michigan.

Part of what struck me about her association with these utopian and perfectionist movements was that only these fringe movements would allow her to speak as a woman. She believed that soon after she originally left slavery with her infant daughter, she had a vision from Jesus that called her to preach. Her initial preaching was more spiritually oriented calls to repentance. But over time, justice and reform became a large part of her message, although she always understood her work as a type of ministry.

She was very interested in self-improvement as a formerly enslaved woman who worked with many former slaves before and after the Civil War. Sojourner Truth was enslaved in New York, where there were many slaves, but slavery there tended to be smaller and less specialized work. She cooked, cleaned, cared for children, and worked in the fields and with animals. In her later work for the Freedman's Beaurea, she realized that southern slavery was more specialized, leaving those former slaves less prepared for independent work because of the specialization and orientation toward field labor and less general labor. After the Civil War, when she was in her mid-60s, she continued to support herself through speaking and sales of her book, but like many others who had given their lives to the work of justice, she had not saved much for her later years, and by that point three of her five children had died, and the remaining two were more likely to need her support than able to support their mother.

The sexism and white superiority within both the abolitionist movement and the women's suffrage movement meant that Sojourner Truth often worked as a housekeeper to support her speaking instead of her speaking being enough to support her own livelihood. Before escaping slavery, she had five children. But as was common, children were sold. Koester has some details, but her children were likely the result of informal marriage and rape.

Her first partner, Robert, lived on a nearby farm. His enslaver objected to the relationship because Sojourner's enslaver would own any children. (At the time, Sojourner went by the name Isabell; it was only later that she chose Sojourner Truth.) Robert's owner and son beat Robert badly when he snuck to see Sojourner and forbid them from meeting again. Her enslaver, John Dumont, intervened to stop them from killing Roberts, but she never saw Robert again. He died a few years later, likely in his late 20s or early 30s. Truth's son, James, was the result of that relationship. Diana was the result of rape not long after but died in childhood. The final three children were with another enslaved man, Thomas, which seems likely to have been an arranged marriage by her enslaver.

John Dumont promised Isabell/Sojourner that if she continued to work well, he would free her a year before he was legally required to free her. After the birth of her youngest child, it became clear that Dumont would not free her as he had promised. One morning, just before dawn, Isabel/Sojourner took her daughter and just started walking. She eventually came to Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen's home, and they took her in. She worked for them until Dumont discovered her. Van Wagener paid Dumont $25 to keep him from taking her and the baby.

Not long after, Sojourner discovered that Dumont had sold her five-year-old son to an enslaver in Alabama, an act prohibited by the law. Sojourner walked to the courthouse and eventually found a lawyer willing to sue Dumont and the new owner to return her son. It took months, but he was returned, although he had been badly mistreated during that time. Soon after, she moved to New York City to earn more money to support herself and her children, although it doesn't appear that she ever had custody of all of her children at once.

Truth's story is far too long to recount fully, but it is extraordinary. I am about halfway through the Narrative of Sojourner Truth now. This autobiography was told in the third person (not unusual), but because Truth never learned to read or write, it was told to Olive Gilbert, who wrote the dictated autobiography. I am glad I am reading it with the additional context of reading a longer biography first. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is widely available since it is in the public domain. It is around 100 pages, although a few different versions are available.

One last note is that at the end of this biography, there are three different editions of Truth's speech Aint' I a Woman, along with a discussion about that context. The most well-known version uses a ‘slave dialect' more commonly associated with southern slave speech. Sojourner Truth was from New York, and her first language was Dutch. She didn't learn English until she was about nine years old, and the accent that she did have was a Dutch accent. Later editions have attempted to recreate the speech as it may have been without that interpretive lens.


My original review was posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/we-will-be-free/

Summary: A posthumously edited collection of sermons on Revelation, most from 1984. 

I am a big fan of Eugene Peterson. By my count, this is the 14th of Peterson's books I have read. And many of those I have read more than once. I will probably continue to pick up his books. This Halleluah Banquet was published in 2021. And four books are being published this year in his name (two devotionals that are edited from his writing and sermons, a sermon collection, and a new edition along with the audiobook of his book on David, Leap Over a Wall.)

I am not opposed to books being posthumously edited and released. I really enjoyed reading the novel Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy Sayers. It was not finished and lost until about 60 years after she died. It was found in some files of her lawyer and finished by Jill Paton Walsh. Similarly, I have picked up several books that the students of Henri Nouwen compiled from a mix of his notes, class lectures, and other materials. But at the same time, these edited works often lack the vitality of books written directly by the author.

Parts of This Hallelujah Banquet are worth reading (or listening to as I did). I largely agree with the interpretation of Revelation that is being taught here. It is far more common to be hearing about Revelation as guidance for living in oppression today than it would have been in 1984. Earlier generations of teaching about Revelation would have been oriented toward dispensationalism and seeking to “break the code” of the future prophecy. I remember attending “Prophecy Conferences” at a friend's church when I was a teen. Those conferences were full-on dispensational teaching with charts and images trying to show listeners how our current events fulfilled a 2000-year-old prophecy.

But at roughly the same time I was in those prophecy conferences, Eugene Peterson was teaching his church about Revelation not as a secret code for hidden spiritual knowledge but as insight on what it means to be human and Christian within an empire that was not oriented toward you. It took me years later to start hearing NT Wright and others reorient my approach to Revelation. If I had heard these sermons in 1984-91 when I was a pre-teen or high school student, they might have been new insights. But as a 50-year-old, these are no longer really particularly new insights.

I have not read Scot McKnight's new book on Revelation, but based on interviews I have read, I think I would probably recommend that book instead of this one. There is nothing wrong here. Even mediocre Eugene Peterson has some value. But it just didn't really carry the voice of Peterson's best works.

Summary: A history of race and politics since the civil rights era.

I am a big fan of Great Courses-styled audiobooks. They often are helpful in summarizing complex issues, but one of the weaknesses, which is present here, is that they can be oriented more toward summary than laying out detailed evidence for those new to a subject. My main complaint about the course/audiobook is that it is too short.

The negative reviews on Audible are overwhelmingly calling this book “woke” or “leftist propaganda.” Only one of the negative reviews had any specifics about what they thought was wrong, which was a misunderstanding of Candis Smith's point. Many negative reviews complained that it was only talking to people who already agreed with her, and I am unsure how to evaluate this point; in some sense, the complaint is valid. If the course were designed primarily to convince people who deny that racism continues to play a role in politics, it would be a very different course. The course focuses on an overview of how race and politics have shifted since the end of the civil rights era, not on convincing white people of the changes.

The course opens with a discussion of the Kerner Commission. I am going to quote from Wikipedia about the report, but these points were in the course:

The report's best-known passage warned: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The report was a strong indictment of white America: “What white Americans have never fully understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.”[11]

Its results suggested that one main cause of urban violence was white racism and suggested that white America bore much of the responsibility for black rioting and rebellion.

Summary: Framed around an oft-repeated but inaccurate quote, McKinzie points out that the theological and political anthropology of the founders changed within a generation and how that change impacts our politics today.

As McKenzie opens the book, he traces how many politicians over the past decades have wrongly quoted Tocqueville to say a variation of, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” The quote has publicly and regularly been pointed out as wrong, but it continues to be used.

After establishing the quote as wrong, McKenzie lays out how he believes the founders understood human nature and how they established the constitution concerning their understanding of human nature. McKenzie believes that the founders believed in Original Sin (Wikipedia link), which in his conception, means that they designed the constitution to prevent populism from overtaking the country. In McKenzie's account, human depravity and sin would mean that populism would lead to demagogues and other corruptions of power.

I want to start by saying that. I am not a historian, a theologian, or a political scientist. I read and respond to books here, and quite often, I think I am likely wrong because of my educational limitations and ideological biases. I have read many of these posts that I would disagree with later as I acquired new information or saw through some of my blind spots. We the Fallen People is a book that I both really do recommend because I think it is overall helpful in thinking through the issues of the partisan divide and how the country should be politically oriented. But I also think that there are two related concepts that I think McKenzie has either gotten wrong or wrongly described.

Much of the evidence that McKenzie is citing is about how President Andrew Jackson's version of populism (and his authoritarian tendencies) was contrary to the founder's intentions and then how the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, who was skeptical of democracy and populism, rightly understood the strengths and weaknesses of the United States more similarly to the founders than his contemporary Jackson. Underneath this historical analysis is a concern about the ways that the recent President Trump, who regularly drew inspiration from Jackson, is accelerating the problems within the United States because the founder's vision was for a country that rejects strong central leadership and populist leaders because they distrusted centralized power because of sinful humanity.

Jackson has lots of evidence for authoritarian styles of leadership, from his rejection of the Supreme Court's attempts to curb his power to the vilification of minorities (the enslaved and Native Americans) to create a point of fear to draw people to him, to rejection of institutions not under his direct control because of their ability to resist his impulse toward power (The Bank of America).

And Tocqueville's skepticism of populism and individualism meant that in his exploration of democracy, he was particularly interested in how democracy could lead to tyranny.

McKinzie, about a third of the way in, uses Cherokee removal to illustrate that it was not a failure of democracy (as is often framed today) but an example of democracy's problems that Tocqueville identifies:

Modern scholars who condemn the removal of Native Americans typically describe it as a “contradiction of democracy” or a “betrayal of democracy.”73 This would have mystified Tocqueville. Remember, as Tocqueville understood it, the “output” of democracy is whatever the majority in a democratic society advocates, condones, or tolerates—good or bad, wise or unwise, just or unjust. By Tocqueville's reasoning, any act of government that commands the support of the majority is by definition “democratic.” To suggest otherwise would be illogical.

Don't misunderstand my point. To concede that we probably would have supported the removal of Native Americans had we been alive two centuries ago doesn't exonerate those who did so at the time. It implicates us. When we wrestle with this rightly, when we not only concede but confess this reality, our prayer shifts to that of the tax collector, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” And when this becomes our heart's cry, Native American removal becomes more than just a regrettable episode in the distant past. It becomes an urgent warning—to us, today. Although the circumstances would surely be different, we are just as capable of condoning injustice and rationalizing it as righteous, of depriving others of their liberty and calling ourselves good. In a democracy, the minority is never truly safe from the majority.

Summary: Picking up after the honeymoon, Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane learn to live together as a married couple while solving a mystery.

Dorothy Sayers published the last full novel of her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series in 1937, Busman's Holiday. Roughly 60 years later, an early draft of this novel was found in a lawyer's safe, and Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to finish the novel. Three additional novels entirely by Walsh continue to tell the story of the now-married couple, and I look forward to reading those eventually.

One of my complaints about Busman's Holiday was that it was too much about Peter and not enough about Harriet. Thrones, Dominations balances the characters better without placing modern sensibilities on a couple from the mid-1930s. Harriet is trying to figure out how to be “Lady Peter”, as she is referred to throughout the novel. She wants to continue to write, and Peter really wants her to continue to write, but she has new duties as an aristocratic lady, and she has less pressure to write because she no longer needs to write to eat.

Peter has to learn to have someone in the house, and I think Walsh gets at his weaknesses (more than just his shell shock) better than Sayers. While the playboy was a bit of an act, there was a reality to his lack of attention to those around him. He has servants, especially Bunter, to care for everything he did not want to bother with. Harriet isn't a servant nor a girlfriend to pine after. She is a real-life woman in his bed who expects to be fully inside his life and not just peering at the same facade everyone else sees.

The murder is one member of a couple that is compared with the Wimseys from the beginning of the book. As I regularly comment, I don't read mysteries to figure out who did it. I read them to understand people. And this is a good book for understanding people.

When I was nearly done with Thrones, Dominations, I picked up the audiobook of Peril in Paris by Rhys Bowen (I read Thrones, Dominations on kindle). Rhys Bowen is a modern cozy mystery novelist that I enjoy. The Her Royal Spyness series is fluffy, and I have occasionally gotten bored with it, but I have continued with it (mostly on audiobook). The first book of Her Royal Spyness seems to pay homage to the first book of Lord Peter Wimsey, Whose Body, when both have bodies in the bathtub as the mystery. And I can't help but feel Perel in Paris also basing some of the characters on Sayer's work.

Both books are set in almost exactly the same time period. (Thrones, Dominations has the death of King George, while King George dies in the previous book for Royal Spyness, but it is within a couple of months of each other.) Both have a recently married couple whose wife doesn't realize she is pregnant and thinks she is just sick. Both have the husbands run off to France to solve diplomatic issues with the new King, and the wives realize that dangerous work for a boyfriend is different than dangerous work for a husband. Harriet is more down-to-earth and aware than Georgie is, but there are some similarities.

What is different is that Sayers/Walsh can't seem to help but have depth, and Bowen can't seem to be more than fluff. There is a section in Thrones, Dominations, where Harriet struggles with whether she should keep writing. This is a condensed part of the dialogue opening with Peter:

“You seem not to appreciate the importance of your special form,” he said. “Detective stories contain a dream of justice. They project a vision of a world in which wrongs are righted, and villains are betrayed by clues that they did not know they were leaving. A world in which murderers are caught and hanged, and innocent victims are avenged, and future murder is deterred...Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course people read them for fun, for diversion, as they do crossword puzzles. But underneath they feed a hunger for justice, and heaven help us if ordinary people cease to feel that.”

“You mean perhaps they work as fairy tales work, to caution stepmothers against being wicked, and to comfort Cinderellas everywhere?”

...

“I suppose very clever people can get their visions of justice from Dostoyevsky,” he said. “But there aren't enough of them to make a climate of opinion. Ordinary people in large numbers read what you write.”

“But not for enlightenment. They are at their slackest. They only want a good story with a few thrills and reversals along the way.”

“You get under their guard,” he said. “If they thought they were being preached at they would stop their ears. If they thought you were bent on improving their minds they would probably never pick up the book. But you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we should all try to be living.”

Summary: Georgie is now out of morning sickness and decides to go to Paris to visit her best friend Belinda while Darcy is there “on business.” Trouble ensues. 

As I said in my post about Thrones, Dominations, I picked up Peril in Paris on audiobook as I was finishing reading Thrones, Dominations on kindle. I have long thought that Rhys Bowen was drawing some inspiration from Dorothy Sayers, and these two books, more than any except the first books in the series, contributed to that suspicion.

I really like the Her Royal Spyness series as fluffy fun. I often read them when I need a change of pace and some humor. I do get tired of some of the lack of confidence that Georgie has in herself. But generally, I like the series. I wouldn't still be reading the 16th book if I didn't.

It took forever for Georgie and Darcy to finally get married. But now that they are, there are still some adjustments that need to take place. Darcy has a job that no one will quite say, but it is a spy/fixer role for the British Foreign Office. Going off for long periods was not a big deal when he was single. Now that he is married, it is a bigger deal. He likes his work, but it is not particularly stable, it doesn't pay well, and it is dangerous. And Georgie is also increasingly aware, especially of the danger. But she knows he loves the work, and she wants him to do it, but she doesn't particularly want to think about the danger.

The book regularly jokes about how Georgie has seen bodies and knows quite a bit about murder investigations and intrigue. But Darcy tends to underestimate her and worries about her, especially because she is now pregnant. I get that Georgie worries about Darcy, and Darcy may not want to stress Georgie out. But when Georgie has helped to solve over a dozen murders and done other work for the Queen, he should probably talk to her more about what is happening.

A couple of books ago, Belinda inherited quite a bit of money. So her money concerns are gone, but she still is interested in being a designer, and so is doing an internship with Coco Chanel. Georgie met Coco in a previous book, and that relationship gets renewed when Georgie visits Belinda.

As has been a regular part of the series for a while, the second world war is getting closer, and issues of Germany keep coming up. Georgie's mother is still living with a German millionaire. But as I said in my post on Thrones, Dominations, the series still feels fluffy even when the subject matter gets more serious. The book has a running theme of how war harms soldiers and families. It is referring to WWI, but wanting to avoid war again. And there is a discussion of concentration camps and fascism, and the horrors in Germany. But that is driven by the era of historical fiction, not because the series handles it particularly well.

I have been enjoying the books more since Georgie and Darcy have gotten married. But there are annoyances that I still have.

Summary: Based on journal entries, Richard Foster explores the concept of humility in the Christian life.

Yesterday I recommended Learning Humility to someone that I meet with for spiritual direction. He was familiar with Richard Foster and his other books, but the first comment to my talking about Learning Humility as a new book was that he didn't know that Richard Foster was still alive. He is still alive, and he and his wife live independently in rural Colorado. But Richard Foster is in his early 80s and has not published a new book in over a decade.

I have read most of Richard Foster's books, and Learning Humility is quite different. Generally, the other books are exploring spiritual formation concepts and are in a teaching mode. Learning Humility was very much an edited journal. Many sections ended with a variation of “I will have to think about that for a while.”

I listened to this as an audiobook, and while I think that Foster narrated it well and that his voice really helped bring out the emotion and thought of the book, this is probably a book that either needs to be read a few times or it would be better to be read in print. Again, that isn't because the narration is bad (a different narrator would be worse) but because the prose is written in a way that invites the reader to sit with his words and go back and reread. Audiobooks just keep going. That is one reason I like them for some types of books. But other books, books that are more poetic in style or that are meant to be meditated on, need print.

Richard Foster discovered, around 20 years ago, that his paternal grandmother, who died before he was born, was Ojibwa. Since that time, he has been exploring Native American history and thought. To continue that exploration, he frames his journal using the Lakota calendar. This gives him 13 moons to explore the Lakota values corresponding to the calendar.

I think Foster handles this well. He is not claiming to be a member of a Native American tribe or that he has special insight into Native American culture. He is describing what he is learning and cites where he is learning it from. There is a fine line between postively honoring a culture that is not your own and humbly using the cross-cultural differences to inform your own culture and negatively appropriating another culture for your own purposes. I think he mostly stays on the right side of that line. Cross-cultural exploration is one of the best methods to help understand our culture. The way we understand the water we are swimming in is to grapple with other cultures and their similarities and differences.

Each chapter title is a rough translation of the Lakota names for the months. And each chapter summarizes his thoughts by the week on what he is learning about himself and the concept of humility. He allows himself to explore various authors and writings about humility in addition to a monthly Lakota cultural value. He pays attention to the seasons and what is happening in the world around him. Many thoughts are just a few lines, and some go on a page or two, but it is intentionally more disjointed than straight narrative teaching.

The point here is that he is not teaching; he is exploring ideas and his own values and ideas regarding his own spiritual formation. He may be in his early 80s and mostly retired. But he still is seeking to grow in his relationship with God.

I regularly listen to the two podcasts that Richard Foster's son Nathan hosts, the Renovaré podcast and the Friends in Formation podcast. Richard used to be on the Renovare podcast pretty regularly but has retired from that. But the slow, easy voice that Nathan has as he discusses books and ideas and spiritual formation with the guests has been learned from his father. It is unhurried. And the book Learning Humility is not racing to get anywhere in particular. It is unhurried as well.

Summary: A memoir of how Tamice Spencer Helms came to faith in Jesus, but then how to disentangle white culture and Jesus. 

On the front end of this, I want to say that I have all kinds of tangential connections to TAmice Spencer-Helms, but I have never met her, and I am not sure that I have previously read anything by her. Faith Unleavened is the first book by the new KFT Press, which grew out of the Emotionally Healthy Activist project by Jonathan Walton at Intervarsity. An acquaintance also used to work with Tamice, so I was aware of the work of Sub:culture, which Tamice founded, and I started following her on Twitter because of her connection with my acquaintance. But I do not know Tamice, and while I am aware or were connected to many of the organizations and events mentioned in the book, again, there are no direct connections. I say this partially because of the fact that reviews and endorsements have been a topic of discussion lately, and I want to disclose my relationship at the front.

I am a big fan of memoirs because while one person's story is never exactly the same as another person's story, one of the advantages of our current world is that we can learn from people's stories and try not to make the exact same mistakes. We will make new mistakes, but when it is possible to learn from others, we should. I have been interested in the role of trauma, and disillusionment plays in spiritual formation because I am a spiritual director and need to grapple with my own disillusionment about Christianity.

I started reading Faith Unleavened immediately after finishing All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore. Both have trauma and disillusionment and working out who Jesus is for them over time. But the connections matter, as well as the differences. Tamice grew up in the Black church within a healthy family. Beth grew up in a White SBC church within a dysfunctional and abusive household. Tamice was convinced by white teenage friends that her faith and family were inadequate and that she had to reject the Black church and, in some sense, her family to find a deeper faith. In contrast, Beth found a church community that supported her and helped her find a way out of her abuse. In both cases, however, there was a limit, and they needed to discover a new faith expression because of the limitations of churches that were unwilling to allow them to be whole Christians in the ways that they felt called.

I wish either of these stories were new to me, but they are not. Abuse and cultish, authoritarian, culturally inappropriate expressions of faith are common. The ongoing discussion about the social realities of sin makes no sense to readers of either of these memoirs. Sin is rarely only harmful to an individual. And sin frequently impacts people even if there were good intentions.

Tamice, as a teen, went to a Hell House gospel presentation where she was confronted with images of hell and sin and manipulated into praying for salvation. The (white) youth pastor literally was dressed up as Jesus to save her at the end of the “play.” And for well over a decade after that night as a teen, she grappled with how white culture was confused with Christianity. She was all in following the White Jesus that she was told was necessary for her to be saved. In a podcast interview with KFT Press she summarized that the Hell House used fear to manipulate her. And then, once she was saved, fear became a driving force in manipulating her to do the next thing: drop out of college to work in a prayer ministry, vote in a particular way, live a particular lifestyle, etc.

I am paraphrasing here, but in the podcast, she said, “I was made to see that Jesus was a white man and that I was a Black woman. I could not be a white man, so there was no way to come to Jesus because I could not live up to the requirements.” This echoes the point of Willie James Jennings' book After Whiteness on theological education. If we theologically shape people to be white men, then we are distorting people into a shape that God did not create them to be. (This, again, is part of the reality of the problems of that article at The Gospel Coalition this week, where the gospel becomes distorted by creating hierarchies where some people are more like Christ than others.) When we create requirements for people first to change before they can come to Christ, we are fundamentally distorting the message of Christianity, which is that all may come to Christ.

I do not want to make this post more about other things and not about Faith Unleavened, but Faith Unleavened was clarifying for me because it so clearly lays out the reality of why it matters that we explore the cultural constraints of our faith. It is a requirement that Christians, especially Christian leaders, expose themselves to cross-cultural Christianity so that they can see at least some of the ways that our cultural expressions of Christianity distort Christianity and how that directly harms them. In the case of Tamice, part of white Jesus was also gender hierarchy, which directly impacted her because she thought that submitting to her husband included submitting to his abuse. It directly impacted her when she turned to alcohol and drugs to dull pain because she could not contort herself to become a white man.

Toward the front of the book, she tells the story of how she would regularly come to a church that left out the communion elements and take communion by herself after the service. She was often still hung over or sometimes took a drink to get up to courage to go to church for communion.

Sitting there alone on that creaky, wooden pew, my heart felt frozen as if I were witnessing a tragedy but I couldn't even tell which way was up, let alone save myself. I went back and forth between missing Jesus and resenting him. I loved him and I doubted his existence. I identified as an atheist at least twice a week and still resorted to certain worship musicians when days were particularly dark. I had no idea where I was when it came to Christianity, but for some reason I never stopped taking communion. It was special to me. It was what I remembered most from my earliest days in church. I was drawn and driven to the mystery and tenderness of it. It felt like home in a way. It held space for me. Every week was the same as I wept and whispered some variation of the phrases: I think I still believe. I don't know how. I don't know what to do. I don't know what happened. I still love you. I can't do this. Please don't make me go back.

Unleavened bread symbolized the delineation between the people of Yahweh and the Empires all around them. Jacob and his family went to Egypt in search of bread and ended up in bondage. It was the same for me. My experience in white evangelicalism started with a spiritual hunger that the yeast of whiteness almost ruined over time. As I began recognizing and extracting the poisonous and putrid ideologies and belief systems that animated the Jesus I met there, I got free. Freedom happened for me the same as it did for the Hebrews: with a call to unleaven the bread of life.

Summary: The history of the Black Power movement is the lesser-known story of the end of the mid-20th-century civil rights movement. 

Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour is the third book I have read by Peniel Joseph, but it was Joseph's first book, published in 2006. And as you would expect from an academic historian, his books tend to concentrate on overlapping characters and eras. He is a historian of the mid-20th century civil rights era, concentrating on the Black Power movement. I recommend his biography of Stokley Carmichael and the joint biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

I purchased the kindle book Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour about four years ago but did not get around to reading it until I picked up the audiobook for free as part of the Audible member Plus catalog. The audiobook was not well edited. The narration was fine, but it felt like the editing was not complete. There were many places with long pauses where it appears that the narrator was intentionally putting in a pause for editing purposes that the editor did not remove. And one where the narrator took seven or eight attempts at a name before saying it correctly and naturally in context, and obviously, the editing should have removed that. There were other places where the audio had short repetitions.

Those editing errors (except for the pauses) were all in the book's first half. So I wonder if the audiobook editing influenced my complaints about the disjointedness of the book's first part. And that may be the case. But the book felt like it took a while to really come together. The earlier portions of the book were more context of the development of the Black Power movement, which was also the part of the story I was most familiar with. So again, I may have been influenced by being more interested in the later sections of the book, where I was mostly hearing history that I was less familiar with.

I had three main takeaways from the book. First, I think the development of the Black Power movement was significantly influenced by white backlash to the civil rights movement. Stokley Carmichael's use of Black Power during the 1966 march in Mississippi in response to the James Meredith shooting was not the term's first use. (Richard Wright had a book in 1954 titled Black Power, and others used the phrase before Carmichael, but it was Carmichael's use that popularized it.) By 1966, Brown v Board of Ed had been decided 12 years earlier, and much of the country was still segregated. The 1964 Civil Rights act (making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in restaurants or hotels, or other public settings) and the 1965 Voting Rights Act had both passed, but the march in Mississippi proved that the federal government was still reluctant to enforce the law. MLK Jr's assassination less than two years later gave further power to the frustrations of how civil rights were increasingly being thwarted through less overt means.

My second takeaway is that the Black Power movement had some level of sexism within the movement. SNCC, as an organization, identified sexism as a problem within traditional civil rights organizations early on. Ella Baker worked to design SNCC as a more egalitarian organization (both in gender and organizational structure) in response to the more authoritarian and leader-driven organizations like NAACP and SCLC. But as SNCC started to struggle internally, it appeared to become more oriented toward male leadership. Later, groups like the Black Panthers were even more hierarchical, and leaders like Huey Newton and Eldrige Cleaver were accused or convicted of rape. That is not to say that women were not involved in the Black Power movement or that it was an inherently sexist structure, but the sexism that did exist within the Black Power movement influenced the rise of Womanist thought as a reaction. Movements arise not just out of pure ideology but in response to events and as a reaction to earlier lines of thought.

Third, the cultural strength of Black Power as a set of ideals likely has had a more lasting impact than the organizations around the Black Power movement. The Black Panthers were not just about rejecting non-violence as the primary means of achieving civil rights but also about self-empowerment. There was an embrace of radical politics but also conservative ideas as well. And the role of the FBI and the federal and local governments actively planting agents to compromise the group's organizational structures and to create distrust among leaders played a role in weakening the sustainability of the organizations over the long term.

As with much of civil rights history, there has been a flattening of the history of the black power movement until it has become more caricature than nuanced history. Peneil Joseph has helpfully contextualized the black power movement, strengths and weaknesses, to help recover that transitional history from the earlier civil rights movement to the more recent history of a racialized United States.

Summary: A touching, funny, and poignant memoir.

Like many, I have known of Beth Moore for a long time. She was a women's bible teacher. She is about 15 years older than I am, so she started leading aerobics classes when I was a pre-teen and moved to be a Christian motivational speaker (her description) by the time I was a teen. Her first bible study was published in 1994 (when I was in college), and from the late 1990s until now, she has published a book roughly once a year.

I have read one of her books and parts of another. I appreciate her writing, but I do think that the growth of the past few years addresses some of the concerns I have had with her early work. She is more aware of structural issues and more aware of cultural issues. And frankly, I am more open to her because I have been following her on social media for nearly a decade now and understand her role and perspective more.

I had known for years that Beth Moore was a victim of sexual abuse, even if, before now, she had not told her whole story. The memoir is loosely chronological, but many early chapters focus on her childhood living in an unsafe home. Her father sexually abused her, and her mother suffered a significant breakdown. And there was emotional, if not physical, abuse within the home. Like Julie Andrews's memoir of her early years, Beth Moore tells the story, an often poignant and tragic story, of growing up with a father as an abuser, but with only enough details to get a sense of the abuse.

This is Beth Moore's story, but she had the cooperation of her four siblings (one of whom passed away only days ago). Still, both her parents and grandmother, who lived with the family from the start of her parent's marriage until Beth Moore was in the middle years of high school, have passed away. Later chapters grapple with her parent's marriage, the emotions around their deaths, and Beth Moore's internal grappling with forgiveness, accountability, and some sense of understanding about human limitations. One of the book's themes is that she used to see the world as less nuanced than it is. People are neither wholly good nor wholly evil. There is good and bad within all of us. That does not mean that she condones her father's sin, but it does mean that she grew to understand that there was more to her father than just his sin against her and against others.

I know more about Beth Moore from Twitter and video clips than her writing. Although I listened to it on audiobook (with her excellent narration), All My Knotted Up Life is very well written. She has a gift of writing with evocative language that draws you in. But you are also drawn in by a lot of humor. Many want to reduce Beth Moore's ministry to a sort of self-help speaker, but those charges make clear to me that people have not seriously engaged in her work. She talks about learning to study the Bible and some about the mentors that helped her to refine her speaking and writing. But to me, her interviews, many of which I have watched or listened to over the years, shows her deep faith, serious thinking, ability not to take herself too seriously, and how seriously she takes God's call on her life.

I felt like the middle years, the 15 or so years from when she started doing aerobics until she became more established as a writer, were not as detailed as I would have liked. Not that she owes us more of her story, but that this part of her life feels less clear. Maybe she has written more about this in other books. Part of this is that these years are handled more topically than her early life or the end of the book. She has chapters on her marriage and parenting and the development of her teaching tours, and the tracing of those threads over time meant that this part of her life was less chronologically narrative.

Beth loves her husband, Keith, very much. In an interview with Kate Bowler about the book Kate comments that the Moore's marriage may be one of the most closely watched marriages in the evangelical world. Part of that is that Keith is not a public figure, so one area that Beth Moore's opponents have used, is to attack Keith for not “leading the household” or being a weak man. Those are unfair characterizations. At the same time, Keith had a PTSD background (being severely injured in a fire as a young child, along with a brother who died). And he had his own mental health struggles. And several years ago, he got a severe infection that literally took years of treatment. That treatment significantly changed his personality and made the meds that helped with this PTSD and mental health issues not work. He has recovered from those health issues at this point, but in her discussion of family issues, what is clear is the extent that she has been protective of her family is in part a result of the ways that her family needed protection and of the reality of her family being a target because of Beth Moore's success within the evangelical world.

There is a paywalled interview between Kaitlyn Schiess on the Holy Post Patreon feed where Kaitlyn talks about the role of the celebrity within the Christian evangelical world. Part of the response that echoes what I have heard from Beth Moore in other places is that she does not really like the large crowds that came with her stadium tours. Covid and the response to Beth Moore's comments about Donald Trump and the resulting backlash that resulted in Moore leaving the SBC world and Lifeway (her publisher and the producers of her stadium tours) may have stopped the large stadium tours. Those may return later, but Moore has talked about how she would prefer smaller conferences and more time with people, closer to her calling.

Of course, the book does deal with Beth Moore's Twitter presence, her comments on Donald Trump, sexual abuse, racism, and other social justice issues. In some ways, I think these things may be too close to the writing. She and her husband joined a local Anglican Church just over a year ago. Beth Moore is now 65 and likely has many more years of ministry left. But as she describes it, however many years of ministry she has left, it is less than the years of ministry that have already happened.

I look forward to hearing from Christians that are toward the end of their lives because there is a sense of the arc of the Christian life that isn't possible in memoirs by Christians in their 20s or 30s. I have read many memoirs or autobiographies of Christians written in their 60s-80s. Part of what I think makes for a good memoir is honest grappling with their life. That doesn't mean that the readers need to read everything. But it does mean that the memoir needs to present more than the good-looking highlight reel or a “look how far I have come” retrospective. An honest grappling with life means that there is enough introspection to see areas where different decisions could have been made. And I want some introspection about both weaknesses and strengths.

All My Knotted-Up Life grapples with her history of abuse and her response to that abuse over time. There are looks at the generational aspects of abuse. There is a lot of discussion of God's grace to her and her family. That walk with God from seeing the church as a safe place (as opposed to her home) and from her early mystical experience of God's calling to following the next step that God seemed to be leading her toward is the story of how one woman related to her God. It is not a story of perfection but of how God works with real people. It is, at times, meandering because we are a meandering people.

And, like all good memoirs, it makes me want more. I want to read more of Beth Moore's writing and see more of her teaching. I look forward to seeing how God continues using her for the rest of her life.

Summary: A series of twelve radio plays that ran on BBC radio from Dec 1941 until Oct 1942. 

Any attempt to portray Jesus artistically has to make artistic and theological choices. Those choices will be debated, but at the same time, if the story of Jesus cannot be shared, then people cannot hear. On the other hand, the natural choices are to make Jesus more understandable to a culture. That is not inherently bad, but those choices to make Jesus understandable will reduce Jesus in ways that make him less of a challenge to the culture. And so there is a catch-22, where to be so concerned about misportraying Jesus means that we keep the story of Jesus hidden, but to not be concerned enough about misportraying Jesus means that we can distort who Jesus is and make him into someone he was not.

I know this point may be a bit controversial. Still, generally, the more culturally and socially dominant an artist is, the more likely the distortions will accommodate Jesus to culture, which will tend to draw Jesus to bless hierarchy and culture. While generally, those that are less culturally or socially dominant will tend to portray Jesus in a way that rebukes culture. This is not a hard and fast rule but a tendency. In reality, no one is whole dominant or oppressed. Sayers was a woman in a sexist society that was very interested in maintaining class structures. It was unknown to most during her life, but after her death, it was revealed that she had a child out of wedlock, who was raised as her nephew. So she also had an acquaintance with social shame. She also was part of a culture and country that was militarily powerful, where racial hierarchy was practiced, and which thought of itself as a powerful world-leading country. There are places where I think that Sayers had blind spots and distorted Jesus and places where I think she did a good job showing a facet of Jesus that people may have missed.

For context to know how I approached the radio dramas, I read every word of this annotated printed edition (I recieved a digital copy of the book from the publisher for review). And I listened to all the radio plays from a copy I purchased from Audible, originally recorded in 1975. The audio and this print edition are not exactly the, but the differences are fairly minor. One of the common annotation points is to note some of the changes from the earlier edition of the play to the original broadcast version, but it does not compare to later versions.

The annotation includes introductions to each play by the editor, the cast of the original 1940s radio play, and the original notes that Sayers wrote to the director and performers. When the plays were first published, Sayers wrote an introduction and a second introduction by the BBC producer. And the annotation itself has an introduction. By the time I had read all three introductions, I was bored with the introductions, and I was impatient to start the play.

Overall I think the plays are worth listening to and/or reading. The distance in culture is enough that annotations are helpful for added context, but most things are fairly clear. But the culture is different enough that, in some ways, it may be better to listen to or read these plays than something closer to our current culture like the TV series The Chosen. About halfway through reading/listening, I realized that the distance between today and the original broadcast is just a bit longer than the distance between the original broadcast and the end of the American Civil War. In one of the notes to the cast and director, Sayers uses the N-word. The annotation discusses it a bit, and this edition doesn't print out the word, but it does point out cultural biases within the plays.

I do not want to do a simple list of positives and negatives, but I think there are two main negatives to the presentation and one main positive that I want to note. The first area of concern is how Jesus is portrayed. Jesus is voiced by an actor that sounds like a standard BBC voice. Sayers says in her comments that she wants a variety of regional accents in the different disciples. Her point that it is easier to distinguish various clear accents or voices is true. And she also says that she wants it clear that the disciples and Jesus were not all upper-class aristocrats. I think that, like many children's bibles that have started using a variety of skin tones, Jesus tends to be lighter-skinned than others on the page. So Jesus here is made a bit “better” than the regional accents of many of the other disciples. Also, Jesus is mentioned as being blond several times in the text. Sayers knows that Jesus was not blond in reality, but she wanted to distinguish him (again, like her voice comments.) But in a society where white racial superiority exists, making Jesus blond doesn't simply make him identifiable to British people. Still, it makes him part of their caste in opposition to people of other ethnicities, races, and castes.

Jesus is portrayed as human in many cases. But there are places where I think the British objections to emotion were used to make Jesus less human. For example, there are no tears when Jesus comes to Mary and Martha after Lazurus' death. This is one of the few places where Sayers deviates from scripture. There are some other examples as well, but at the same time, so many more places, Jesus is portrayed well as a human.

This leads me to where what I liked most about the plays, the background motivations. This is most easily seen in the portrayal of Judas. Sayers' version of Judas is smart, self-assured, and a serious follower of God and Jesus. But in some ways, he thinks that he is more capable than Jesus. There are a few lines where Judas says (my paraphrase) if only Jesus had followed my directions, he would not be in this political mess. There is also good background that makes Caiphas, Pilate, and other characters make sense. For Peter, who cut the ear of one of the guards that were arresting Jesus, it was that guard that first confronts Peter in the courtyard where Peter denies Jesus.

With any artistic work, there are interpretative decisions that have to be made. And I obviously do not agree with all of the ones Sayers made here. But I think work like this should be taken seriously as a theological work, not just an artistic one.

I do want to make a comment about the actual audio. This is a recording from the 1970s and is pretty good. But I would like it to have been remastered to reduce some of the audio range. I tend to listen to audiobooks as I walk my dog. And I was constantly adjusting the volume up or down on this one because the volume range was too wide. There were places where the audio was not as clear as I would have liked, and reading really helped. There were other places where the emotion of the voices really mattered to my understanding, and I am not sure that the text, apart from the narration, would have given me the whole story.

Summary: A series of twelve radio plays that ran on BBC radio from Dec 1941 until Oct 1942. 

Any attempt to portray Jesus artistically has to make artistic and theological choices. Those choices will be debated, but at the same time, if the story of Jesus cannot be shared, then people cannot hear. On the other hand, the natural choices are to make Jesus more understandable to a culture. That is not inherently bad, but those choices to make Jesus understandable will reduce Jesus in ways that make him less of a challenge to the culture. And so there is a catch-22, where to be so concerned about misportraying Jesus means that we keep the story of Jesus hidden, but to not be concerned enough about misportraying Jesus means that we can distort who Jesus is and make him into someone he was not.

I know this point may be a bit controversial. Still, generally, the more culturally and socially dominant an artist is, the more likely the distortions will accommodate Jesus to culture, which will tend to draw Jesus to bless hierarchy and culture. While generally, those that are less culturally or socially dominant will tend to portray Jesus in a way that rebukes culture. This is not a hard and fast rule but a tendency. In reality, no one is whole dominant or oppressed. Sayers was a woman in a sexist society that was very interested in maintaining class structures. It was unknown to most during her life, but after her death, it was revealed that she had a child out of wedlock, who was raised as her nephew. So she also had an acquaintance with social shame. She also was part of a culture and country that was militarily powerful, where racial hierarchy was practiced, and which thought of itself as a powerful world-leading country. There are places where I think that Sayers had blind spots and distorted Jesus and places where I think she did a good job showing a facet of Jesus that people may have missed.

For context to know how I approached the radio dramas, I read every word of this annotated printed edition (I recieved a digital copy of the book from the publisher for review). And I listened to all the radio plays from a copy I purchased from Audible, originally recorded in 1975. The audio and this print edition are not exactly the, but the differences are fairly minor. One of the common annotation points is to note some of the changes from the earlier edition of the play to the original broadcast version, but it does not compare to later versions.

The annotation includes introductions to each play by the editor, the cast of the original 1940s radio play, and the original notes that Sayers wrote to the director and performers. When the plays were first published, Sayers wrote an introduction and a second introduction by the BBC producer. And the annotation itself has an introduction. By the time I had read all three introductions, I was bored with the introductions, and I was impatient to start the play.

Overall I think the plays are worth listening to and/or reading. The distance in culture is enough that annotations are helpful for added context, but most things are fairly clear. But the culture is different enough that, in some ways, it may be better to listen to or read these plays than something closer to our current culture like the TV series The Chosen. About halfway through reading/listening, I realized that the distance between today and the original broadcast is just a bit longer than the distance between the original broadcast and the end of the American Civil War. In one of the notes to the cast and director, Sayers uses the N-word. The annotation discusses it a bit, and this edition doesn't print out the word, but it does point out cultural biases within the plays.

I do not want to do a simple list of positives and negatives, but I think there are two main negatives to the presentation and one main positive that I want to note. The first area of concern is how Jesus is portrayed. Jesus is voiced by an actor that sounds like a standard BBC voice. Sayers says in her comments that she wants a variety of regional accents in the different disciples. Her point that it is easier to distinguish various clear accents or voices is true. And she also says that she wants it clear that the disciples and Jesus were not all upper-class aristocrats. I think that, like many children's bibles that have started using a variety of skin tones, Jesus tends to be lighter-skinned than others on the page. So Jesus here is made a bit “better” than the regional accents of many of the other disciples. Also, Jesus is mentioned as being blond several times in the text. Sayers knows that Jesus was not blond in reality, but she wanted to distinguish him (again, like her voice comments.) But in a society where white racial superiority exists, making Jesus blond doesn't simply make him identifiable to British people. Still, it makes him part of their caste in opposition to people of other ethnicities, races, and castes.

Jesus is portrayed as human in many cases. But there are places where I think the British objections to emotion were used to make Jesus less human. For example, there are no tears when Jesus comes to Mary and Martha after Lazurus' death. This is one of the few places where Sayers deviates from scripture. There are some other examples as well, but at the same time, so many more places, Jesus is portrayed well as a human.

This leads me to where what I liked most about the plays, the background motivations. This is most easily seen in the portrayal of Judas. Sayers' version of Judas is smart, self-assured, and a serious follower of God and Jesus. But in some ways, he thinks that he is more capable than Jesus. There are a few lines where Judas says (my paraphrase) if only Jesus had followed my directions, he would not be in this political mess. There is also good background that makes Caiphas, Pilate, and other characters make sense. For Peter, who cut the ear of one of the guards that were arresting Jesus, it was that guard that first confronts Peter in the courtyard where Peter denies Jesus.

With any artistic work, there are interpretative decisions that have to be made. And I obviously do not agree with all of the ones Sayers made here. But I think work like this should be taken seriously as a theological work, not just an artistic one.

I do want to make a comment about the actual audio. This is a recording from the 1970s and is pretty good. But I would like it to have been remastered to reduce some of the audio range. I tend to listen to audiobooks as I walk my dog. And I was constantly adjusting the volume up or down on this one because the volume range was too wide. There were places where the audio was not as clear as I would have liked, and reading really helped. There were other places where the emotion of the voices really mattered to my understanding, and I am not sure that the text, apart from the narration, would have given me the whole story.

Summary: An exploration of the ways that slavery as practices in the Caribbean and North America was “Christian.”

The rough thesis is that racial hierarchy developed not through an inherently racialized system but through a belief in Christian (and later Protestant) supremacy where Christianity was viewed as a type of ethnic identity, and only later was that Protestant (ethnic) identity slowly shifted over to white racial identity. Chapter four developed this idea most clearly:

“Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Protestant slave owners gradually replaced the term “Christian” with the word “white” in their law books and in their vernacular speech. Scholars have long recognized that whiteness emerged from the protoethnic term “Christian.” Yet the intimate relationship between slave conversion and whiteness has not been fully appreciated. By pairing baptismal records with legal documents, it becomes clear that the development of “whiteness” on Barbados was a direct response to the small but growing population of free black Christians.” (p74)

Summary: Time Traveling “historians” are sent back to block a couple falling in love because it will distort all of history. 

This is the second of Connie Willis' books that I have read. The first in this series, Doomsday Book, is also centered on time travel, but it is a very different book. Doomsday Book is about going to a medieval community near Oxford, and it deals with the programs of a global pandemic (the Black Death) and the problems of observing evil that you cannot change.

In that first book, time travel was relatively new, and the thinking was that it was impossible to change history. However, history may have changed in the second book, and they are trying to figure out how to put it back again. And that involved going to Victorian England, playing matchmaker, and blocking a romance.

Connie Willis has a lot of humor in her writing. It is a good change of pace. But I think, like Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog is a bit long. I think the various threads and the false turns she brings the reader on as a means to get to the end are fun. But it could be cut a bit.

The book opens with a narration that doesn't make sense. As you get into the book a little bit, you discover that the narrator has a “Time Lag.” Time Lag is a condition brought about by too many time travel jumps too quickly together, causing the person to be confused, have a problem hearing, be sentimental, and fall in love (and declare it.)

One of the fun aspects of the book is that it looks at a different era through the eyes of the potential future. To Say Nothing of the Dog was written in 1997 and set in 2057, 2018, 1940, and 1888. As I said in my review of the Doomsday Book, the projections of what may be are always interesting, even if the author made projections only 25 years ago.

According to reviews, the 3rd and 4th books of this series, Blackout and All Clear, are a single book split into two parts, and together they are about 1200 pages. So I am not sure I will get to them soon.

Summary: Attachment style has an impact on the way you approach and interact with God.

I primarily am approaching this book from my role as a Spiritual Director, but as with many books about spiritual practices, there is also personal relevance.

Krispin Mayfield is a counselor adapting his understanding of Attachment Theory from his counseling background to an understanding of spiritual formation. This adaptation of social sciences to bring insight into our understanding of spiritual formation is immensely helpful, even if not every instance of it is perfect. Some examples are Stages of Faith by James Fowler, Trauma in the Pews: The Impact on Faith and Spiritual Practices by Janyne McConnaughey, and Something's Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse–and Freeing Yourself from Its Power by Wade Mullen.

Many within the Christian world are distrustful of the social sciences. And there is a long history of the misuse of social sciences. But Christians should have a commitment to All Truth is God's Truth (a phrase coined by Augustine) and the idea of General Revelation while also understanding the role of discernment in discovering what truth is. The problem with many (but not all) critics of the use of social sciences in Christianity, and especially in understanding Christian formation, is that critics often do not have the background to understand what they oppose. That is where content area specialists like Mayfield can bring social sciences back to Christian practices more easily than theologians, pastors, or spritual directors can go out and learn the social science necessary to work out a similar idea.

The basic idea of Attachment Theory is not too difficult to communicate easily. Infants look to caregivers to understand the world around them. They form affectional bonds with those caregivers for needs like safety and protection. To maintain those bonds children learn responses to maintain those bonds. Mayfield clearly states that we should not draw too straight of a line between our attachment style and parents. Parents often do their best, but there can be reasons why different attachment styles develop other than bad parenting. But the theory also emphasizes why adoption, trauma, abuse, divorce, and other impacts on the parent/child relationship can significantly impact our lives.

One of the helpful threads on the fictional Starbridge series that I have been writing about is that almost all people have some issues with their relationship with their parents. And that often occurs even when parents try to do the best they can, and there is simple miscommunication or differences in temperament that create distance. Sometimes the very act of trying not to make the parents' mistakes can create new problems in a different direction.

There are three basic Attachment patterns,

1. Secure Attachment (which is the largest group of people),


2. Anxious Attachment is where there is a continuous concern about whether the connection is a good one. A more passive variation is where a person tends to shutdown when an anxiety is expressed. Or the second type, the Anxious-Avoidant, is where there is an active avoidance of situations where they can feel like they will be rejected as a means to avoid anxiousness around attachment. This second type is most associated with children whose needs were unmet or where there was neglect as opposed to more traditional abuse in the first time of anxious attachment.


3. Disorganized Attachment is where the attachment seems contradictory. This style was most associated with major loss and unresolved trauma.

Many Christian practices create ecosystems for perfectionism to grow, because on the surface the effort appears to flow from a deep relationship with God. While this spiritual insecurity can feel like a constant knot in your stomach, it may often bring applause from a church community. You always show up to Bible study having completed all the homework and with the best insights. You volunteer for three ministries at your church. You regularly read books about growing closer to God. You appear to be devout—and you are. But this devotion is driven by an underlying feeling that without spiritual activities, the connection will evaporate. Without regular routines, you doubt that God will stick around. (kindle location 983)

There are reasons to change and grow and heal and transform, but getting closer to God is not one of them. If we try to change ourselves because we fear disconnection, it won't lead to healing. If we conclude that we are the problem, then we think the solution is to get rid of ourselves, often through self-destructive ways. (Kindle Location 1626)

Based on the popular teaching that God can't stand sin, we'd expect that God would be disgusted with humans, especially those least holy in society. Surprisingly, when Jesus comes to earth, he doesn't start puking everywhere. He's not disgusted. He delights in people, loves spending time and sitting at tables with those who would never have been welcomed into the temple. Jesus, the perfect picture of God, delights in us. This doesn't mean God's not upset about harmful systems in the world—Jesus culled corruption from the temple by overturning tables. But clearly he delights in people, including those marginalized by oppressive religious structures. (Kindle Location 1691)

Summary: Controversial radical, but an important figure both in political and legislative history, and in the history of emancipation and reconstruction. 

Many important people are less well-known than they should be. Thaddeus Stevens is one of them. I think the way that many people to do know who he is and have heard of him is because Tommy Lee Jones played him in the movie Lincoln.

Hans Trefousse's 2005 biography was the first real reevaluation of Stevens in a couple of generations. (Bruce Levine has a new biography published in 2021 that I have not read.) I picked this up on sale at Audible, which may not have been the best format.

One of the problems with the biography of Stevens is that he is a lawyer and legislator. He was known for being effective with parliamentary rules and procedures. And rules and procedures are not scintillating reading. But they are essential to the work of legislating.

Thaddeus Stevens is best known for leading the House during the Civil War and being the leader of what is commonly known as the Radical Republicans during the Reconstruction Era. He strongly favored public education, emancipation before the Civil War, and civil and voting rights after the Civil War. Radical Republicans were both organized to oppose Johnson and to push for stronger federal actions to protect Black citizens across the country and to more strongly punish former Confederate officials.

Stevens believed former Confederates were not US citizens (and therefore not subject to the bill of rights and other protections) but fell under international rules of war as a conquered territory and should be handled with military law, not civil law. This means that he did not think that the legislature should seat anyone from those territories until there were new votes by the legislature to adopt them as states. (Incidentally, Johnson was a senator from Tennessee that remained with the Union and continued to be seated in the Senate after Tennessee joined the Confederacy until Lincoln appointed him as military governor in 1862 before he was elected Vice president. So under Stevens' understanding, Johnson should have been removed from the Senate when Tennesse withdrew from the Union.) The implication of Stevens' understanding of citizenship means that the legislature would have been a smaller body with only Northern legislators, which would have changed the requirements for approving legislation, passing the constitutional amendments, vetoes, and impeachment.

Stevens was for strong federal power not just after the Civil War but as the head of the Ways and Means Committee, he advocated for increased federal taxation and script currency and more centralized federal control. The Civil War fundamentally changed the balance of state and federal power, and that is in no small part because of Stevens.

But as strong as Stevens was as a legislative leader, he was far more radical than many others he served with. While he moved people in the general egalitarian direction, the failure of Reconstruction was in part because many others were not as radical in opposition to an understanding of white racial superiority as Stevens was. Stevens believed in a strong view of reparations and, tied with that, believed that because the former Confederate territory were not US citizens, the US federal government and military had the right to confiscate property. There were various plans, but at least one of his plans included the confiscation of the land of all former Confederate citizens who owned at least $20,000 of property. That property would then be redistributed to the formerly enslaved (using a type of homestead system that Andrew Johnson used in writing the Homestead Act, which was limited to White Americans). The remaining property would be sold to pay down federal debt from the Civil War. Obviously, this did not pass, and no reparations were ever paid to the formerly enslaved, and property was largely returned to former Confederates.

Stevens was against the death penalty for former Confederate officials, but he was for punishment. But because he died in 1868 and was quite sick the last couple of years of his life, he could not see his plans for Reconstruction carried out. Those plans were unpopular, and even if he had been younger and in better health, it would have been difficult to move the country toward his egalitarian understanding of drawing Black Americans into the country as full and equal citizens.

Stevens was controversial in many ways. He rose to political prominence as an Anti-Masonic crusader. Stevens was born with a club foot, and one of the requirements of Masonic admission was rejecting anyone with a disability. Whether this was part of why Stevens was so strongly anti-Masonic was part of the discussion in the book. But in his anti-Masonic crusade, he briefly partnered with the xenophobic Know Nothing party in violation of his broader support for immigrant rights. Stevens was strongly in favor of high tariffs as a way to both fund the federal government and as a way to protect US business interests.

Stevens was also a strong supporter of US expansionism and supported Native American suppression and the expansion of US territory, including the purchase of Alaska and the attempts to purchase or conquer Caribbean land.

Stevens also was pragmatic, not convictional constitutionalist. He had no problem violating constitutional limits when it served his interests. And the focus on impeaching Johnson throughout the end of his life was questionable, even as Johnson was violating the Congressional will.

There is no question that Lincoln and Stevens had different approaches. Stevens pushed emancipation far earlier and much more racially than Lincoln did. But Lincoln likely would not have been able to write the Emancipation Proclamation without it being more moderate than Steven's plans. Stevens was cantancerous and that did not win him friends. Part of the problem with this book and any biography of Stevens is that there were so many stories about him from his opponents. Many of these stories do not seem to be based on fact but on trying to smear his reputation. The Lincoln movie shows him having a sexual relationship with his Black housekeeper. And that is a possibility, but as with many biographical details, it is very difficult to prove one way or another. Stevens never married, and he left his housekeeper a significant inheritance. But he was quite rich, and left a lot of money to many people because he did not have any biological heirs.

The book was a bit dry, and spent a lot of time exploring the historicity of various stories about Stevens. And so much of what is important about Stevens is in legislative history and speeches, which are not particularly interesting reading. I am glad to know more about Stevens, but it is hard to recommend this as an exciting book.

Merged review:

Summary: Controversial radical, but an important figure both in political and legislative history, and in the history of emancipation and reconstruction. 

Many important people are less well-known than they should be. Thaddeus Stevens is one of them. I think the way that many people to do know who he is and have heard of him is because Tommy Lee Jones played him in the movie Lincoln.

Hans Trefousse's 2005 biography was the first real reevaluation of Stevens in a couple of generations. (Bruce Levine has a new biography published in 2021 that I have not read.) I picked this up on sale at Audible, which may not have been the best format.

One of the problems with the biography of Stevens is that he is a lawyer and legislator. He was known for being effective with parliamentary rules and procedures. And rules and procedures are not scintillating reading. But they are essential to the work of legislating.

Thaddeus Stevens is best known for leading the House during the Civil War and being the leader of what is commonly known as the Radical Republicans during the Reconstruction Era. He strongly favored public education, emancipation before the Civil War, and civil and voting rights after the Civil War. Radical Republicans were both organized to oppose Johnson and to push for stronger federal actions to protect Black citizens across the country and to more strongly punish former Confederate officials.

Stevens believed former Confederates were not US citizens (and therefore not subject to the bill of rights and other protections) but fell under international rules of war as a conquered territory and should be handled with military law, not civil law. This means that he did not think that the legislature should seat anyone from those territories until there were new votes by the legislature to adopt them as states. (Incidentally, Johnson was a senator from Tennessee that remained with the Union and continued to be seated in the Senate after Tennessee joined the Confederacy until Lincoln appointed him as military governor in 1862 before he was elected Vice president. So under Stevens' understanding, Johnson should have been removed from the Senate when Tennesse withdrew from the Union.) The implication of Stevens' understanding of citizenship means that the legislature would have been a smaller body with only Northern legislators, which would have changed the requirements for approving legislation, passing the constitutional amendments, vetoes, and impeachment.

Stevens was for strong federal power not just after the Civil War but as the head of the Ways and Means Committee, he advocated for increased federal taxation and script currency and more centralized federal control. The Civil War fundamentally changed the balance of state and federal power, and that is in no small part because of Stevens.

But as strong as Stevens was as a legislative leader, he was far more radical than many others he served with. While he moved people in the general egalitarian direction, the failure of Reconstruction was in part because many others were not as radical in opposition to an understanding of white racial superiority as Stevens was. Stevens believed in a strong view of reparations and, tied with that, believed that because the former Confederate territory were not US citizens, the US federal government and military had the right to confiscate property. There were various plans, but at least one of his plans included the confiscation of the land of all former Confederate citizens who owned at least $20,000 of property. That property would then be redistributed to the formerly enslaved (using a type of homestead system that Andrew Johnson used in writing the Homestead Act, which was limited to White Americans). The remaining property would be sold to pay down federal debt from the Civil War. Obviously, this did not pass, and no reparations were ever paid to the formerly enslaved, and property was largely returned to former Confederates.

Stevens was against the death penalty for former Confederate officials, but he was for punishment. But because he died in 1868 and was quite sick the last couple of years of his life, he could not see his plans for Reconstruction carried out. Those plans were unpopular, and even if he had been younger and in better health, it would have been difficult to move the country toward his egalitarian understanding of drawing Black Americans into the country as full and equal citizens.

Stevens was controversial in many ways. He rose to political prominence as an Anti-Masonic crusader. Stevens was born with a club foot, and one of the requirements of Masonic admission was rejecting anyone with a disability. Whether this was part of why Stevens was so strongly anti-Masonic was part of the discussion in the book. But in his anti-Masonic crusade, he briefly partnered with the xenophobic Know Nothing party in violation of his broader support for immigrant rights. Stevens was strongly in favor of high tariffs as a way to both fund the federal government and as a way to protect US business interests.

Stevens was also a strong supporter of US expansionism and supported Native American suppression and the expansion of US territory, including the purchase of Alaska and the attempts to purchase or conquer Caribbean land.

Stevens also was pragmatic, not convictional constitutionalist. He had no problem violating constitutional limits when it served his interests. And the focus on impeaching Johnson throughout the end of his life was questionable, even as Johnson was violating the Congressional will.

There is no question that Lincoln and Stevens had different approaches. Stevens pushed emancipation far earlier and much more racially than Lincoln did. But Lincoln likely would not have been able to write the Emancipation Proclamation without it being more moderate than Steven's plans. Stevens was cantancerous and that did not win him friends. Part of the problem with this book and any biography of Stevens is that there were so many stories about him from his opponents. Many of these stories do not seem to be based on fact but on trying to smear his reputation. The Lincoln movie shows him having a sexual relationship with his Black housekeeper. And that is a possibility, but as with many biographical details, it is very difficult to prove one way or another. Stevens never married, and he left his housekeeper a significant inheritance. But he was quite rich, and left a lot of money to many people because he did not have any biological heirs.

The book was a bit dry, and spent a lot of time exploring the historicity of various stories about Stevens. And so much of what is important about Stevens is in legislative history and speeches, which are not particularly interesting reading. I am glad to know more about Stevens, but it is hard to recommend this as an exciting book.

I alternated between reading on kindle and audiobook. I had access to more than one audiobook with my Audible membership and I couldn't get the right kindle book edition that would sync with the audiobook narrator I preferred. I preferred the narration by Thandie Newton. But the narration by Susan Ericksen was not bad. I just preferred the more animated voices from Thandie Newton. I do wish Amazon/Audible would make their system work better. I can always find the match if I go from Kindle to Audiobook, but going from Audiobook to kindle is more difficult, especially for old books where there are so many kindle editions.

I did not expect the ending. I really thought it was going to end with a moralized Christian ending. I was glad that it didn't.

I also was amused that there was a line by a man who was trying to convince Jane that God had told him that she was going to be his wife and that was what God had ordained.

I went back and reread the chapter in Karen Swallow Prior's book about great literature Booked on Jane Eyre after I was done. Prior has an introductory essay on Jane Eyre in her series of classics that I want to pick up at some point.

I do need to keep reading old books.

Summary: The movement for Civil Rights prior to the Civil War is an under-told story and one which is important to the context of both the Reconstruction Era and the later Civil Rights movement of the 20th century. 

Until Justice Be Done provided historical context for an era in which I did not have a lot of background. I have studied the Revolutionary War period and the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. Still, my understanding of the history between the Revolution and the Civil War has primarily been through individual biographies, and Until Justice Be Done was helpful. (It was also on the shortlist for finalists for the Pulitizer as well as several other book awards which both confirms what I thought about the writing and verified the quality of the historical work.)

There were five big takeaways for me from the book.

First, the English poor laws were intended to require the care of the poor but were used both in England and the US as a way to keep the poor out of local communities, which turned the original purpose of those laws on its head. I could not help but think of Jesus' comments about technically following the law but missing the point of the law (Matt 15:4-10, Mark 7: 1-23) when the religious leaders were claiming that they did not have resources help the poor because they had pledged money to God.

“But race was not the only kind of difference that was significant in this society, and many of the racist laws in Ohio and elsewhere were built atop laws designed to address challenges of poverty and dependency. These legal structures dated back to the sixteenth century and the English tradition of managing the poor. Local governments in England had responded to a rising population of mobile poor people and their demands for aid by establishing regulations designed to distinguish between those who belonged in the community and those who did not. The core idea in the English poor-law tradition was that families and communities were obliged to provide for their own dependent poor, but not for transients and strangers.” (p4)

Summary: Georgie and Darcy are “invited” to spend Christmas with the royal family. 

This past fall, I reread the Inspector Gamache book to prepare for the 18th book in the series. I enjoyed reading the series back to back instead of once a year because I saw subtle connections between the books I missed when I read them a year apart. But the other part is that the Inspector Gamache books have a depth to them that allows for rereading and the quality across the series is high enough that I want to reread them all.

I have continued to read the Royal Spyness series (which I originally started about the same time I started reading the Inspector Gamache series) because it is light cotton candy. A bit of fluff is enjoyable now and then. I read this in print in two days. The books are not long, and they read quickly. But I can't imagine rereading the whole series or reading more than two or three in a year because they don't hold my interest well.

I am reading this one more than a year after it was released because I didn't want to pay full price for a book I will not reread and do not care about that much. The $1.99 I paid was worth it, but I wouldn't have paid much more because the series has stalled.

Georgie, after having solved over a dozen murders and protected various members of the royal family many times, still is unsure of herself. And while Darcy is a good loving husband, he still isn't including her in his work even though she is just as skilled at being a detective as he is. The “naive girl that happens to solve a murder” schtick is getting a bit old.

I enjoyed the book as I read it, even if it was a bit frustrating. But it is hard to recommend the books without plenty of caveats about them not really being all that good. I like the characters, even with their weaknesses. And Bowen has decent plots. But they are still fluff, and it has been a while since I thought the series was worth recommending.

Summary: Emotional and spiritual abuse matters. 

I am not new to the concept of emotional and spiritual abuse, but Something's Not Right is a good introductory book on abuse. It is not only about abuse within the church, but many of the examples are within a church or broadly Christian context.

I think Something's Not Right has a dual focus of validating those that have been abused and who are trying to understand their abuse and to seek healing. And at the same time, it is written toward Christian leaders who are seeking to prevent and/or be a healing place for those who have been abused. That dual focus mostly works because in the direct talk toward the abused, leaders can listen in to that discussion so that they can understand abuse better. But there are differences in how that discussion might be better focused to those two groups.

This is intended to be an introductory book. There are other places to go for more depth and nuance. Anne Marie Miller's book on how churches help those that have been sexually abused Healing Together: A Guide to Supporting Sexual Abuse Survivors is one of several books about that paraticular issue. Trauma in the Pews is about how trauma and abuse (especially developmental trauma and abuse) impact spiritual formation. The Body Keeps Score is a classic book on trauma from a secular viewpoint.

Summary: Gamache and Beauvoir's first case together is introduced in flashback as a mystery in Three Pines slowly unfolds.

This fall, I have reread the entire Inspector Gamache series because I was asked to contribute an essay to an online collection of essays inspired by the Gamache series. Yesterday my essay was posted. And next week, there will be a discussion of A World of Curiosities.

I cannot think of another series that has kept my interest after 18 books. Inevitably with a series so long, there has to be an exploration of the characters in ways that will not entirely make sense of the timeline until this point. We previously know that Gamache got Beauvoir from his exile as an officer in charge of evidence lockup because no one wanted to work with him. A World of Curiosities explores that first case together and fills in the back story. Of course, new characters are introduced in ways that do not entirely fit in, but new characters must keep being introduced to the series to keep it fresh.

One of my minor frustrations with the series is that the Three Pines and the surrounding community expand and contract to fit the storyline. Again the community expands, and the history of Three Pines is explored. I appreciate most of this because it brings depth to the series to thicken the characters and setting. I want to say having finished the book about a week ago, I did enjoy the book, and I might go ahead and reread it before the end of the year.

On the positive side, this book explores Gamache's weaknesses and resists making him too much of a perfect hero. I also appreciate how Penny uses real people and events to ground the series and provide ideas for the mysteries. In this case, the mass shooting at the start of Gamache's career was an actual event. Likewise, the Paston Treasure painting, which is a significant part of The World of Curiosities, is also real. There are other real people referenced that I won't detail for fear of giving away part of the story.

On the negative side, this book needs a content warning. Child sexual abuse and a ritualized serial killer are discussed in the book. I do not like reading about either of those two types of crime. It is one of the reasons I'm not too fond of the Robert Galbreath series, even if I like the main characters, because the crimes are stomach-churning.

Secondly and more problematic, I think, for this book and for maybe a sign of weakness in the series, this book, in particular, attempts to use the idea of being able to “see evil” in people as a theme.

Gamache looked deep into Claude Boisfranc's eyes and saw ... nothing. Well, he didn't see a monster, a lunatic. He did see anger, but that was not uncommon for a cop.

Summary: Spiritual formation is about encountering God, not gaining knowledge. 

It has been about 18 months since I finished my spiritual direction training. That training was an Ignatian program, although we were not trained to give the whole exercises as Trevor Hudson has done. Ignatius' exercises have plenty of depth for a wide variety of introductions, and I think Hudson's choice to use Ignatius and Dallas Willard as conversation partners was a good choice.

Good spiritual writing is hard. Not just because it is hard to use human language to describe both mystical realities and an indescribable God but because it is hard to say something “new.” I put new in parenthesis because very little is actually new in spiritual writing. Culture is always changing, and the situations and emphasis are changing. But the rough concepts do not change much. Dallas Willard is helpful but can be a bit dense and hard to understand. Ignatius is distant in time and requires help with translation to a modern context. Trevor Hudson has written a fairly short and readable book about what it means to seek after God and how to do that.

I have not read many spiritual formation books this year because I needed a break after spending a couple of years in my spiritual direction program. But I have no problem saying that this was the best spiritual formation book I read in 2022, even if there was not a lot of competition this year.

I listened to this as an audiobook because that was the cheapest method of purchase, and I was reading this as part of Renovaré's book club. I always appreciate the resources that the book club includes. There are in-person or online discussion groups if you want to participate. There are weekly podcasts, often with the author. And there is a good variety of new and old books. This year the books are Seeking God, GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy, the newest book from Richard Foster, Learning Humility, and The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. The audiobook was fine, but this book is better read slowly. And I think probably better in print. It is a book that would benefit from rereading as well.

Summary: An adopted boy discovers not only is some of his family still alive, but he isn't even human. 

I read this several years ago and then again as a read-aloud with my son. My son is a good reader, but he also tends to only read graphic novels. I am not opposed to graphic novels, but I do want to get him into a wider range of books. He tends to fully invest in a book and finish it quickly. And frequently because he can read a graphic novel so quickly, he will reread it two or three times before we return it to the library. I am also heavily invested in reading on my kindle, and while he has occasionally read on my kindle, he prefers paper. But more than anything, I just love reading out loud. I tend to read when he is sketching or folding clothes or doing some other task that a keeps him present but not intellectually engaged.

Orion is a twelve year old boy at the start of the book. He was adopted by an older Korean woman whom he calls Halmoni (Korean for grandmother). Orion is smart and great at fixing things. He and his best friend compete in a robotics competition and he fixes people's bicycles. But he also constantly needs his inhaler and is clumsy. Walking home one night in suburban Atlanta, someone tries to kill him, and someone else shows up to protect him. And that starts a whole series of events leading Orion to be brought back to his home planet to live an assumed identity. He discovers that there is an empire with three small planets who have powers that people on Earth would consider magic, but are connected to stardust in the nebula near the planets.

As Orion seeks to fit in with his new friends and the family that is hiding him while trying to figure out who is trying to kill him, he is also trying to figure out is real identity. Orion and the Starborn plays with the "chosen one" and "adopted but really someone important" tropes that are common in middle grade fiction. These are common because they are developmentally exactly what middle grade students need as they are trying to discern their identities and separate themselves from their parents and family of origin. One of the most helpful features of sci-fi or fantasy (and Orion and the Starborn blends their elements) is that they allow the reader to see how culture and the rest of existence could be different in ways that are similar to cross cultural travel.

There is just the right amount of tension and suspense to keep a middle grade reader engaged, but also not get too scary or graphic. My son does not like violence or scary things in his books, but he does like puzzles and figuring out what is going on. The mystery of who Orion really is and the tension of knowing that someone is trying to kill him and that there is many things he does not understand because he did not grow up in this new world and culture kept my son engaged.

As always, as an adult, I love that KB Hoyle writes with depth. I have read all of her books, most more than once and while these are books that kids can understand, they invite multiple readings with lots of reference, subtle allusions, and depth that most kids (and adults) will not get on a first reading.

We are now about 1/3 of the way into the second book and we will be impatiently waiting for the rest of the series to be published.

https://bookwi.se/orion-and-the-starborn-2/

_________

Summary: An adopted 12-year-old boy suddenly discovers he is not who he thought he was.Middle-grade books regularly have the concept that the main character is not who they thought they were, especially if they are orphans. This is a classic literary feature because it fits into middle-grade development. Of course, most readers will not be orphans who may secretly be important, but readers can still think about what it would mean to be someone else.Orion Kim is 12 years old. He is handy with tools and can fix many things, but he is not very coordinated or popular. Very early in the book, he finds out that his grandmother is not his grandmother due to someone attempting to kill him and someone else defending him. Not long after, he finds out that he is not from Earth, but he is “starborn,” and he is taken away from the only home he has known (on Earth) and hides from his attacker on an alien world.There are classic literary devices that work because they are classic. For example, middle-grade readers may already be familiar with characters attending a new special school to learn about their new powers. Or a group of characters working together to discover the things the adults around them won't tell them. This is not to say that Orion and the Starborn is cliche; I don't think it is. But as a nearly 50-year-old who has been reading middle-grade books for decades, I can see the literary references beneath the story.I read Orion and the Starborn because I am a fan of KB Hoyle's writing. I have read her Dystopian series (Breeder Cycle) and her fantasy series (Gateway Chronicles) twice and the stand-alone retelling of the fairytale Little Mermaid (Son of the Deep). The books stand up to re-reading. And they have a depth to the story. My kids are a little young for the books, but I think this is probably the series I would start with because it is pitched just slightly younger than the other two series. Depending on how advanced a child is and whether an adult is reading the book with the child or the child is reading independently, I think this is probably a series that I would start around age 10 to 14. My kids are pretty sensitive to scary things, even minor tension they do not like. But I think by the time the next book or two in the series comes out, I will be able to read it to them.

Summary: Using the life and work of GK Chesterton to grapple with North American Indigenous art, history, and Christianity. 

Every review of The Everlasting People is required to say how unique of a project this is. Unfortunately, I am not equipped to evaluate the project because I am not deeply familiar with either Native American history and art or GK Chesterton. I have some familiarity with both, but not enough to know if Milliner is distorting the record, only enough to be able to follow along with the argument of the book. This is one of the weaknesses of truly original conceptions. That isn't to say I think this is distorting, only that I do not have the background to evaluate it.

I like books based on lecture series. They are often short, usually based on 3 or 4 lectures, sometimes with a response. But they are often thoughtful about unique topics and designed for a general readership.

If I had to summarize what The Everlasting People, a book that is hard to categorize, is about, I would say it is attempting to give people, generally categorized as white, tools to grapple with their personal and communal cultural history so that there can be a way to move forward in more than just guilt. White guilt, when it is limited to just guilt, does no one any good. The way forward needs to be centered on some process of restoration of relationships (personally and communally). This isn't “forgive and forget”; this is “remember, process, and work to restore.”

Dr. Matthew Milliner is using his tools as an art historian to tell not just the story of the way that we have forgotten (intentionally) our history in the US around Native American subjugation using art, cultural icons, geography, and local history but also using the theological and cultural thinking of GK Chesterton.

There are two themes that I want to highlight that I think are helpful here. One, while Milliner is clear that the tools of Christianity were used to enslave and subjugate Native Americans, many Native Americans became Christian. They subverted those Christians who were misusing Christianity to persecute. There are multiple examples of this, but as an art historian, Milliner notes how frequently Christian imagery is used in Native American art and how Native American Christians bring native art and practices into their liturgy of Christianity, some of which spread beyond Native American Christian expression. While I am progressive politically and socially, MIlliner is rightly critiquing progressives who want to flatten the story to only tell of the ways Christianity oppresses without allowing the oppressed to tell their own faith stories as stories of empowerment. There is a fine line there because this can also be a tokenism story of only telling the empowerment story and resisting the ways Christianity was oppressive. Both parts of that story need to be told.

Second, Milliner is focused on local history and how we must grapple with our history differently from region to region. In the south, it is known that there is a history of slavery and segregation. But other regions can hide their own regional history by pointing to other regions. Milliner has a long section on Chicago and Native American history as a way to tell that midwestern story of oppression toward Native Americans, with examples of monuments to the oppression that function in ways not unlike the civil war monuments that tend to be more present in the south. As a current southerner who was a midwesterner (primarily in Chicago) until my mid-30s, this was a very helpful section of the book.

The Everlasting People is an example of a book that tries to grapple with what it means to escape from whiteness (in the sense of a belief in the cultural superiority of a white racial hierarchy). I am not sure I would agree with all aspects, partly because I am not sure I have the background to understand some of the nuances, but the importance is an example of Milliner trying to grapple with his area.