Adam Shields
Summary: A book for spiritual those training to be spiritual directors focusing on developing discernment and using a number of case studies to guide spiritual direction training.
The Discerning Heart is a book that was hard to track down. It is out of print and when I finally found a copy for my classes, I was sent (and charged) for two. I am ambivalent about the book. I would probably rate it about 3.5 stars if I were rating it. There were sections that were very helpful. But the case studies got very repetitive and they didn't feel like real conversations.
Where she was helpful was a good discussion on consolation and desolation (Ignatian technical terms) and their relationship to discernment. Conroy on page 13 says that “The experience of consolation and desolation is the foundation of discernment”, but that base level assumption is simply outside the realm of understanding for most Evangelicals that I know. One of the central areas that Evangelicals will need to be convinced to participate in Ignatian Spiritual Direction is that emotions are not contrary to spiritual reality. There are those working in this area like Pete Scazzero's work in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Jonathan Walton's derivative work in Emotionally Healthy Activism and Richard Foster and the late Dallas Willard's work in discipleship through the organization Renovaré. But those are not mainstream movements at this point.
I started reading this as I was reading Jesus and John Wayne, a history of the past 75 years of how Evangelicals conceived of the implications of leadership, gender roles, authority, and discipleship. The book's final chapter pulls out many of the players that were discussed earlier in the book. Those leaders had consensual affairs, raped employees or church members, covered up rape or child abuse of others, abused their organizational power or authority, misused funds, destroyed their or other's families, demeaned the name of other Christians (or non-Christians) falsely, or other sins. Cases where pastors called out a particular sin, but then engaged in it, or allowed it when convenient were common. Not every person mentioned in the book advocating ‘militant masculine Christianity' engaged in the above list, but a very high percentage did.
What struck me about Jesus and John Wayne is that virtually everyone advocating theology and Christian practice that I would now characterize as problematic was attempting these movements either as a form of Christian renewal or evangelism. But this matters to Conroy's recounting of Ignatius's story because no set of Christian renewal or Christian practice is without risk. Lauren Winner's book The Dangers of Christian Practice concentrates on how Christian practices can be misused. She works out these ideas with distortions in prayer, eucharist, and baptism. Her fundamental insight into the theoretical distorting effects of innovation, renewal, or even tradition has been beneficial for me because I want to use spiritual direction as a form of renewal of evangelical Christian practice.
The leaders detailed in Jesus and John Wayne did not have a framework for discernment that was similar to what Ignatius specifies in his rules. Evangelical discernment centers on utilitarian efficiency. Does it seem to work? Can I/we do it? Does it result in numerical growth? Evangelicals have biased entrepreneurial growth, innovation, use of media, and personalized ‘felt needs' as a means of evangelism and church growth. They have not focused on deep discipleship, systems and long-term thinking, and corporate discernment.
Conroy has a quote on page 51, “The process is slow, it happens over time, and it is not immediately obvious. The progression is such that the original thoughts are in tune with God's ways, but they end up leading the person away from God”. That quote felt like it could have been a summary of Jesus and John Wayne. Little movements that feel like they are the right thing, but when added together show a movement that is widely divergent from where it originally started.
No movement is perfect. Winner's insight is that there will be weaknesses in any system; we should plan for and pay attention to how those develop. But part of the way we can offset those inevitable weaknesses is to keep the conversation between different streams of Christianity open precisely because the blind spots in each will be different.
Summary: An exploration of why Christians need to expose the evil of white superiority, not just attempt to increase diversity.
As with Rediscipling the White Church I have a somewhat ambivalent approach to reading Daniel Hill. He is an excellent writer, and I really do appreciate what he writes. But I am also reminded that part of why he is needed to voice racial justice is part of his subject matter. In his first book, White Awake, his voice is needed because so many White Christians are resistant to hearing about issues around racism and White racial identity from non-White voices. And the book White Lies is needed because simple exposure to diversity does not actually root out white superiority problems (a euphemism for white supremacy as a cultural system) within the church without it directly being addressed. I am ambivalent, not because his voice is not useful (and certainly not because he isn't a skilled writer or thinker), but because White voices like his are necessary because of the very nature of White belief in the superiority of White culture, which requires White voices to condemn White superiority for White people to be able to hear the problem.
I think it is important to use clear language and say that no one within the United States culture is not impacted by racism. I, as an individual, have feelings of White superiority. While I want to work against those feelings and to work to make sure those are never translated into actions, it is why I regularly point back to George Yancy's language, “the best that I can be is an anti-racist racist”, and as a male, “an anti-sexist sexist.” And as a Christian, an anti-sin sinner. Because we are not solely individuals, but within a culture and community, regardless of my own attitudes, biases, thoughts, and actions, I cannot control how others respond to me. When I, as a stay-at-home Dad, take my kids to the grocery store (in pre-covid times), the response to me as a parent is different than the average response to a stay-at-home mother who is doing the same thing. I am routinely praised for being a good Dad for doing simple tasks that every mother also does without praise. When I walk around a store, the lack of undue attention because I am a middle-aged White male is not a result of anything I have done, but because of cultural assumptions and realities. But my lack of desire to be racist or sexist has nothing to do with the reality that I still receive benefits whether I want them or not.
I have sat around not writing this review for about two weeks now. I have recommended the book to several. But I have not been sure how to write about it. White Lies is excellent. Daniel Hill's writing is clear, helpful, direct, gentle, and deeply Christian. I mostly listened to the audiobook. After a bad storm, I had several days of cleaning up brush and cutting up fallen trees at my mother in law's cabin. I have both the kindle and audiobook synced together so that I could highlight and sometimes make notes. But this is still a book I should probably read again.
White Lies is pitched toward the White Christian that is racially aware, those that “read the right articles, study the right history books, listen to the right podcasts.” It is a follow up to White Awake, which was pitched to those in the initial stages of understanding of White racial identity. It is pitched toward those who already have Black friends, maybe go to a multi-ethnic church, or live in a not all-White neighborhood. It is pitched toward people that think they are fairly safe or are good White people. And as I keep hearing and seeing repercussions, these people are most dangerous and harmful to the Black, Brown, and Indigenous people of color (BBIPOC) around them (to use the current en vogue phrase). It is a Christian version of the same group that Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and George Yancy's Backlash were written for. And frankly, it is this group that both embraces Critical Race Theory and is why it was needed to be developed. Because proximity, and continued ignorance, allows for the ability to commit the most harm.
When Daniel Hill talks about white lies, he is talking about ‘being woke' but believing in a fantasy version of ‘wokeness' that is prideful in what they have accomplished and views their status as ‘having arrived.' They think they were invited to the Barbeque based on their own merit and not based on their friends' grace. The ‘she' in the following quote is a veteran White leader in racial issues that Daniel Hill knows.
She explained that a lot of White folks begin their journey with a clear admission that the system of race is something they typically haven't thought about and still don't understand well. But she notices something that happens along the way, specifically for White leaders who are actively searching for ways to participate in solutions to race-based problems. Whereas they used to center voices of people of color in their initial process, they start to shift toward a centering of their own thoughts and ideas. And whereas they used to demonstrate a healthy dependence on people of color to tutor them from lived experience, they start to long for an independence that no longer requires this ongoing mentorship. She sees this desire as a direct symptom of wokeness. The more woke that White leaders deem themselves to be, the more likely they are to see themselves as fit to lead efforts directed toward race in an independent fashion, disconnected from critical feedback on their approaches or theories of change. (page 26)
“The typical African American outside of the multiracial congregation is fairly aware that there are structural issues in place that continue to perpetuate inequality . . . But African Americans within multiracial churches don't report that same level of structural awareness.” Dougherty then summarized the findings of the study in a single, haunting sentence: “Instead of the predominantly white majority changing its views, it appears that African Americans start to think more like whites about the origins of inequality.” (p 73)
And this is precisely where I see an undeniable connection between the supernatural reality of evil and the social problem of White supremacy. As we explored in both chapters 3 and 4, White supremacy is built on a set of lies about human value. The narrative of racial hierarchy, which is the operating system of White supremacy, is really not much more than one ongoing lie. It is a lie that attempts to deceive and harm people of every background, telling them their value is directly tied to their racial background and not to their divine birthright. The narrative lies to White people, and says they are inherently superior because they have been placed at the top of the hierarchy. It lies to Black people and says they are inherently inferior because they have been placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. It lies to Native people and says they no longer matter and are forever irrelevant within race conversations. It lies to Latino and Latina people, Asian American people, and Middle Eastern people and tells them they can only hope to achieve worthiness by getting proximate to Whiteness. When an individual agrees with the lie of the narrative, this is already a matter of obvious danger. But what happens when it is no longer just an individual who agrees with that lie? How much more powerful does the lie become when it is agreed with by an entire family? Do you see how quickly the power increases when it begins to become a cluster of lies? And then what happens when it is not just a family that agrees with the lie of the narrative, but a whole community agrees with it? What happens when a whole city agrees with it? What happens when a whole nation agrees with it? Do you see how and why the lies that sustain White supremacy become the devil's breeding ground? Do you see why the father of lies would be so keenly interested in the narrative of racial hierarchy? Can you see how and why White supremacy has become a well-guarded, well-sustained principality of darkness? This is what we're getting at when we talk about White lies. This swarm of lies around human value has infected the very air we breathe. We cannot live or move in this atmosphere without inhaling these lies. We must, therefore, contend with these White lies. (p 120)
I may come back to this and write some more later. I have a class on the Lord's Prayer in two weeks and I had been wanting to read this book so I picked it up for some pre-class reading.
I have read this and NT Wright's short book on the Lord's Prayer and I am currently Leonardo Boff's book as well (later two were assigned). I think that I like Hill's is a good straight forward explication and I think better on the whole than Wright's, although they are doing different things. Both would make good small group discussions.
I have a bunch of short quotes saved here https://www.goodreads.com/notes/50374875-the-lord-s-prayer/1844266-adam-shields?ref=bsop
Short Review: I have read just about everything that Perkins has written. This is a good addition to what he has previously written, although he also hits a number of themes he is known for as well.
This should be thought of as near end of life thoughts from an elder, similar to John Stott's Radical Disciple or Jimmy Carter's A Full Life: Reflections at 90. There isn't a lot of autobiography here, if you don't know his story already, I would read either his memoir Let Justice Roll Down or his biography (now out of print) by Stephen Beck.
The best sections are about Spencer and how his loss impacted both John Perkins and his family personally and how that impacted their ministry corporately. There is an openness and rawness in these sections that I think is important to see.
I also really like the fact that he questions his own tactics openly. He knows he had good goals, empowering people, teaching about Christ, reconciliation, etc. And he knows he serves a good God. But how he approached things (like encouraging his children to be the first to integrate schools) he is open about the fact that he is not sure he made the right decisions all the time. That openness is very helpful.
Perkins is also a good bible teachers. So I like to hear him preach.
Because he has the history he has, his words are convicting because they are not abstract. Perkins has done the work that he is encouraging the reader to do, and more.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/dream-with-me/
Summary: A brief history of the movement toward Vatican I and the council itself.
I seriously considered not blogging about this book. Vatican I is an area that I have almost no background knowledge, so I cannot comment on the quality of the book. I had a friend recommend to me another book by John O'Malley, and as I was saving the book to my future reading list, I saw that Vatican I was free to listen to in Audible because of their new member benefit.
I know I have extensive holes in my knowledge of history. And in this case, that includes not knowing hardly anything about European history after roughly Elizabeth I and hardly anything about Catholic history between Trent and Vatican II.
Luckily, nearly half of the book was about the history and cultural influences that led to the start of Vatican I. So the book seemed to place the context of the subject well so that even someone like myself can benefit. Vatican I did not end, the Franco-Prussian war moved to Rome, and the council was evacuated. Officially Vatican I did not end until the start of Vatican II. Several of the decisions of the council may not have happened if the schedule had been different. There is quite a bit of criticism of Pope Pius IX, but that criticism also seems tempered from how strong it feels like it could have been.
As a Protestant who wants to have a good relationship with the Catholic church and who is unlikely to become Catholic for several reasons, Vatican I, and that general era it is part of, is what concerns me. I am not a fan of Papal Infallibility, although more in theory than practice. From what I know, it has not been ‘abused' much, and I generally, I object to how it could be misused more than anything else. And I am not a fan of the concept of the Immaculate Conception, although I know that wasn't part of Vatican I, but an earlier statement by Pope Pius IX, because it seems unnecessary or not a complete solution.
(At some point, it is God's work that brings about sinlessness. So if Mary must be conceived in sinlessness, then why not her parents as well and further and further back. A more straightforward solution it seems to me, as a non-Catholic without a good understanding of the logic of the immaculate conception, is that if sinlessness is essential, that the nature of Christ bringing about forgiveness of sin, brings about Mary's forgiveness of sin. In other words, Jesus had the power to forgive sin before his death and resurrection, so why could not the simple forgiveness of sin happened without a miraculous conception.)
Because the council ended early, the more extensive work on the nature of the church, of which the concept of Papal Infallibility was just a small part, was never approved. There were several other ramifications of Vatican I. Still, O'Malley emphasizes that you cannot really understand Vatican I without understanding Vatican II, and I need to do some more work to understand Vatican II. Overall I thought this was helpful, and most of the time, it was clear enough that there were not too many concepts that I was unclear on, but for me, this was almost totally new material.
Summary: A biography of a young civil rights icon who called for ‘Black Power'.
After reading Peniel Joseph's excellent joint biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, I picked up his biography of Stokely Carmichael, mostly because it was on sale (as of posting, it is still $3.49). I had heard of the name of Stokely Carmichael, but little else. Like many, his is an incredible story.
Short Review: this is a project that is trying to facilitate discussions of race and racism within a Christian context for parents and children. There are many parts of this that I really love. The art is great. It clearly lays out the definitions that are used and uses the narrative arc of scripture, creation, fall, redemption as the basis of the structure. I appreciate that it roots reconciliation in God's reconciliation toward without dismissing the real needs for repairing relationships.
My two minor complaints are about two of the definitions. In trying to get across the idea that race is a social construct and not rooted in genetics or God's teleological plan, the authors use the phrases ‘imaginary concept' or ‘fictional construct' and I think those two phrase communicate something different.
I also think that while the definition of unity isn't bad, it is incomplete in emphasis. We have unity in Christ because we all follow Christ as Lord, not because we are organizationally or culturally similar.
Even with a few minor complaints, I really do appreciate the project and I hope it spreads widely.
My full review as well as some links to videos and a podcast interview about the project is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/gospel-in-color/
Summary: National interests may not be the primary driver of undercover and black-ops spying, but information will always have value.
As a reader, I like to read a series together, or at least not too far apart. I started reading the Game of Thrones novels around 2002 or 2003. The first in the series came out in 1996. The next three books came out in 1998, 2000, and 2005. Six years later when the fifth book of the still not completed series came out, I decided I would not read any further until the whole series was released. When there are five, ten or even more years between books in a closely related series, you really need to re-read the books in order to have a close enough memory of the details to understand subtle plot points. Especially in a spy novel like the ones that le Carré or Steinhauer write, those details matter.
I first read The Tourist, the first of this series in 2009 right after it came out. My memory is that it was a recommendation of John Wilson, editor of the then-active Books and Culture magazine. The next two books came out in 2010 and 2012. It is likely that I should have reread at least the third novel before reading the fourth. But I hoped that I would remember details as I read, and I think I mostly did.
Spy novels are in some ways an affirmation of the Christian theological concept of total depravity. It is not that there is no good in them, or no sense of virtue or loyalty or character. But that virtually all good spy novels know that even if a character is virtuous or loyal, there are temptations and a good spy has to assume that not everyone will maintain their virtue or character. It is a genre that lends itself to cynicism. It is why even though I really like le Carré's writing, the cynicism means I limit my reading of his books.
This is a bit of a spoiler, but a fairly minor one. The early books grapple with how the US is no longer always the good guys. If anything, the US is largely the bad guys in this series. Being the primary superpower means that the access to power tempts the US to overreach and assume that their self-perceived ends will justify their means.
I thought of some of the writing of the classic sci-fi author Robert Heinlein as I read this fourth book. Heinlein was a techno-libertarian. He thought the concept of the democratic nation-state would give way to city-states, religious authoritarianism, and class-based superstructures that allowed those with wealth to live as they pleased with the vast majority living as types of serfs. Steinhauer is not there yet, but there is an exploration of how our digital world and the network of huge tech companies that suck up all of our data with little regard for national boundaries or legal boundaries will impact the concept of national spy systems. In some ways the limitation of spy novels is that the genre requires good people, even if cynical or self-interested, to oppose those that are selfish and without moral or ethical boundries. The system breaks down at some point. Internally there is no one that is wholly good. And in some ways, the genre inserts its convention to make people that are wholly evil as a foil. But Christian theology also asserts that there is no one that is wholly evil either. All are created in the image of God and therefore of inestimable value even if they are on the wrong path.
I think The Last Tourist is a worthy follow-up book even if it was nearly a decade after the third. I think Steinhauer keeps writing books I find interesting in this series, even if I am less interested in his stand-alone novels or his other series.
The Last Tourist by Olen Steinhauer (Milo Weaver #4) Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook
Summary: An overview of the first 14 ‘rules' of discernment.
Regular readers will know of my posts know that I am working on a training program to become a spiritual director. I intentionally choose a Catholic program because while the Evangelical and broader Protestant world has been rediscovering Spiritual Direction over the past 10 to 20 years, the Catholic stream of Christianity has never lost access to this tool of discipleship. Ignatius (late 15th and early 16th century) wrote the Spiritual Exercises as a guide for spiritual directors to give a 30-day retreat.
One part of that guide was two sets of ‘rules' for discernment. These rules (guides) to help people in their discernment are split into ‘first' and ‘second' week rules, or the types of rules that were most helpful for people early in their retreat or people later in their retreat. You can roughly think of these as a type of spiritual maturity. However, Ignatius would not have assumed straight-line growth (in other words, once you are in the second week, you will not always be in the second week.)
Gallagher is only talking about the first set of 14 rules in this book. It took a while for me to start to make sense of the rules of discernment. I started by listening to the book, which gave me an overview. I then read the book a second time, mostly in print, but a little bit of listening. But just as important is that toward the end of my second reading. I downloaded a PDF of the rules and made it a part of my morning reading. And for a week, I read them every morning and highlighted or made notes about how they related to one another or rewrote some of them in my own language. I am far from an expert, and I do not think of them as the ‘be all, end all' of discernment. But the process of getting them deeper into my brain by reading them regularly (I think I still need to probably read the about once a week for the next couple of months) and think about how they related to one another and try to use them in my own life does matter.
I am even more convinced that Spiritual Direction is an important component to revitalizing discipleship in the American Evangelical Church. But there are clearly other discipleship methods that can do similar things as what Spiritual Direction is trying to accomplish. But regardless of the method of discipleship, one component of discipleship is the teaching of discernment. I am not sure that Ignatius' rules are the right way to start teaching this to an Evangelical world because the rules' traditional language is a barrier. One of my classmates did a presentation introducing the rules as if she were presenting them to her AME church using her own language, but communicating the broad concepts of the first two rules, and that type of presentation I think would be very helpful.
We have to look no further than the broad impact of conspiracy theories and the distrust of expertise to understand how a lack of focus on discernment has become harmful. Ignatius is not talking about media literacy or understanding science, but about discerning whether a message is from God or a spirit/satan. By this, Ignatius did not mean only literal demonic attack, although he did include that. More broadly, for our purposes, when he talks about discernment of the spirits, he would include temptation, our psychological inclinations and sin, and the more rudimentary character issues that come up regularly in our daily interactions, as well as direct guidance from the Holy Spirit and temptations from Satan.
There are some books and teaching in the Evangelical world that talks about discernment. Hannah Anderson's All That Is Good is one of the better ones I have read, and I would probably start there if you want a good introduction to Evangelical discernment. But two of the weaknesses of most Evangelical discernment teaching has is that it tends to rely on utilitarian decision-making too strongly (if it works, it is probably of God or at least a good idea) and that it is too focused on individual discernment. Thomas Green's book Weeds Among the Wheat presents discernment as something that never should be undertaken alone. Green teaches spiritual directors how to teach discernment, but that assumption, that discernment should be undertaken in the context of a relationship, is an assumption that I think we need to cultivate intentionally. Too often, we do not talk to others about our decision-making because we do not want to hear others' input. That reluctance is the first sign of a potential problem.
Recently I was talking to a friend that had made a major life decision. It was a big deal, both professionally and personally. He and his wife gathered together a group of about 10 people. Including their bosses, several that would be impacted by the decision, several outside of the impact of the decision, and hired someone who had convened groups like this before as a facilitator. They meet a couple of times, were very open about the process and issues to everyone in the group, and took the group's comments and advice seriously. It wasn't that the group made the decision, but there was an openness to the group that the decision needed to be made and a clear openness to seeking God's will. At the end of the process, there was a clear direction that the group sensed. And there was significant buy-in by not just my friends but the whole group that participated in the process. Because my friends are in the senior leadership of a Christian ministry, they will try to encourage this type of collaborative discernment in many other situations as well. Because it went so well in this case, it does not mean that it will go equally as well in all cases. But in a culture that is so oriented toward individual decision making, I think this type of intentional cooperative work can help push back against some of the negative individualistic aspects of our culture and communicate our trust in both God and the church community around us.
As I hope I have communicated, I am not sure that Ignatius' rules are the best path forward in teaching Evangelical discernment, but they are one path. Because they are one of the most well-known teachings around discernment in the Christian world, I think it is worth gaining some familiarity with them if you try to teach or learn about discernment.
I will come back and review this later. It is very helpful at looking at how we tell the story impacts the way that we respond to the story. And it shows that there is both an impact from the west on World Christianity and an impact on the west from World Christianity.
It also as a bit of an aside shows the shift in missiology and mythology of missions over the past 100-150 years. Which I think is also part of the story that needs to be told. I again had a conversation on twitter over the past couple days with someone that is a ‘just preach the gospel' person. And this book would respond well to their assertions if they were willing to read the book in good faith.
Summary: Trauma is real; some of that trauma is based on racism or white supremacy; the hard work of healing is essential, not just for individuals but also for communities and future generations.
I have recently joined a Be The Bridge group. Part of the method of the group is to acknowledge history and lament that history. I was asked to do a short presentation on lament. Because I had meant to anyway, I started re-reading Soong-Chan Rah's Prophetic Lament. The opening of Prophetic Lament was helpful, but I was seeking out other resources and saw the chapter on Lament in Healing Racial Trauma. After I finished that chapter, a friend commented about how helpful she found the book as a whole and how she was leading a small group through the book. So I decided to move the book up on my list.
The chapters are similar in approach, there are several stories which carry through each section, and the topic is illustrated through actual people. The chapters are Wounds, Fatigue, Silence, Rage, Fear, Lament, Shame, Addiction, Freedom, and Resilience.
When my friend recommended the book, she said that she did not think that many White people understood that minority communities often have more pressures than what is perceived from outside. That is best illustrated by this paragraph from the book:
The research of Dr. Sherman James into health disparities among African Americans identified a coping mechanism used to combat ongoing psychosocial and environmental stress, stigma, and racism. Dr. James reported that when people are “‘really trying to make ends meet going up against very powerful forces of dislocation—their biological systems are going to pay a price,' he said. ‘That's the situation African Americans have been in since the beginning,' he added. ‘Now we're seeing other groups begin to be exposed to these same forces.'”10 Dr. James named the John Henryism Hypotheses after his patient John Henry Martin, who rose from being a sharecropper to become a wealthy farmer with seventy-five acres of land. Like the mythical John Henry of folklore who died of exhaustion after beating a mechanical steam drill, Dr. James's patient also paid a hefty price for overworking. His patient was afflicted with hypertension, arthritis, and a severe peptic ulcer, and his physical health continued to decline. Dr. James developed the John Henry scale to identify those who have physically suffered as a result of their constant striving.
Part of the importance of lament is rightly recognizing reality. If we do not acknowledge rightly, we cannot lament, and that lack of lament perpetuates the problems through our silence. As the book says, “Elie Wiesel says, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
The adage, ‘hurt people, hurt people' is true. Children and youth that are exposed to violence or are direct victims of violence are more likely to have ‘increased depression, substance abuse, risky sexual behavior, homelessness, and poor school performance.” But estimates are that only 2-15% of any age receive victim assistance, and that percentage tends to be lower among Black victims. I don't want to talk too strongly about trauma only around violence, but that is an area where I think it is possible to see injury without as much controversy.
Personally, the big takeaway for me is that lament and acknowledgment is not just important to recognize that problems or disparities exist, but that they are a step toward action and healing, or as Sheila Rowe says, “Activism is often a byproduct of lament.”
Summary: History of the visual and descriptions of Jesus throughout the history of the United States.
I have been interested in The Color of Christ for a while, but I had not picked it up until Audible.com included it as part of the Audible Plus Catalogue. This new benefit allows members to listen to a couple thousand (mostly older) audiobooks for free.
The Color of Christ is a history of how Jesus has been portrayed and discussed throughout the history of the United States. My main takeaway is that while many have thought of Jesus as white, the actual images of Jesus as white, are relatively recent. Puritans had a strong iconoclast orientation as well as an understanding of the second commandment as including all representations of Jesus. While other Christian communities in the US were more likely to allow for pictures of Jesus, those groups were less culturally influential. It was not until around the 1820s that increased Catholic immigration and other forces started to weaken the cultural prohibitions to representing Christ.
Similar to what was illustrated in Jesus and John Wayne, the way that many argued against the Puritan opposition to representing Jesus Christ was as a means of Christian education. About that time, changes in printing technology allowed for low-cost pamphlets and books to include images. There is an interesting tidbit about the development of Mormon theology. Initially, Joseph Smith spoke about Jesus speaking to him through a bright light. But in later revisions of the story (in the 1820s), it was the tangible physical Jesus, who he described as White with blue eyes. That White Jesus became essential to the development of Mormon theology.
There are so many historical details that were new to me in this book. Part of what was new was Native American pastors that spoke out against white supremacy, slavery, and the lack of Christian ethics. Samson Occom wrote one of the first hymnals in the US and helped found, and fundraise for a school that was originally supposed to be for Native Americans but became Dartmouth. William Apess was a Native American pastor in the early 19th century. He passed away at only 41 but had written several books, including an autobiography and spoke out against the mistreatment of Native Americans and Black slaves and for the importance of being both a Christian and a Pequot.
Another detail I had never heard about was the (fake) Letter of Lentulus. This letter (probably from the 15th century) claimed to be from a Roman official contemporary with Jesus. It was first translated into English in 1680. The portion describing Jesus includes this passage:
He is a man of medium size (statura procerus, mediocris et spectabilis); he has a venerable aspect, and his beholders can both fear and love him. His hair is of the colour of the ripe hazel-nut, straight down to the ears, but below the ears wavy and curled, with a bluish and bright reflection, flowing over his shoulders. It is parted in two on the top of the head, after the pattern of the Nazarenes. His brow is smooth and very cheerful with a face without wrinkle or spot, embellished by a slightly reddish complexion. His nose and mouth are faultless. His beard is abundant, of the colour of his hair, not long, but divided at the chin.
This description widely impacted how Jesus was portrayed even though it was known to be a fake relatively early. Even early cinema portrayals of Jesus referenced the letter for ‘historical accuracy'.
There is a good discussion about Sallman's Head of Christ, the most well known and commercially reproduce an image of Christ. Again, much of the push to reproduce the image was evangelistic and related, part of an opposition to the spread of communism. It is estimated that more than a billion copies of the image have been printed.
The strength of the book is that it talks about not just the art, but the culture around the art. There is a very good discussion about liberation theology and the development of Black and other representational images of Christ as well as the earlier backlashes against an overtly White Jesus. The book ends with recent tv and movies like The Passion, Dogma and South Park.
Summary: Discipleship focused on five values: Contemplative rhythms, racial reconciliation, interior examination, sexual wholeness, and missional presence.
About ten years ago, I remember being struck as I read John Stott's last book (also on discipleship) how much culture impacts how we understand discipleship. Stott had chapters on environmentalism and international ecumenical cooperation (focusing on nuanced and negotiated written agreements and statements of faith). Some books on environmentalism talk about discipleship issues and some books on ecumenical cooperation also talk about the need to disciple people into church unity. Still, in general, those are unusual topics for a general book on discipleship. Stott was writing in a context where those were not unusual topics of discipleship. Stott's UK background and the US background are different, so books on discipleship have different emphases.
Rich Villodas is a pastor in NYC. Three of the list of his discipleship values will be found in many books. Two of his discipleship values are less common. According to Barna, White Evangelicals have become more interested in racial issues and are more opposed to discussing racial issues. There is an increasing divide within the White Evangelical world regarding justice issues more broadly, but racial justice in particular. Pew shows a 15-20% drop in the percent of the population that self identifies as Evangelical over the past decade. (And I antidotally suspect that it may be an undercount, but it may also just be my cohort.)
The reality is that it is becoming increasingly clear that the demographic dominance of White Evangelicals of the cultural conversation is waning. If for nothing other than pragmatic reasons, there is increasing awareness among some about the need for ethnic diversity within the church. As part of an aside in an online lecture from Esau McCaulley on theology and race, he noted that seminaries and colleges that primarily have catered to White theological training will have to change, or some of them will die, solely because of demographic trends.
The Deeply Formed Life is not taking a pragmatic/utilitarian approach to the need for racial reconciliation among Christians. He is rooting it as a central value, particularly because of our racially and culturally divided age. John 13 quotes Jesus as saying, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” But evidence of that love is often lacking.
Sexual Wholeness is more common in discipleship conversation among teens and young 20 somethings, but that is most about avoidance and purity. Many have been grappling with the repercussions of the past 20-25 years' purity movement, and there will be more grappling in the future. The key, which I think Villodas balances well, is to discuss why sexual wholeness is important and then offer grace for those who have either been sexual abused or more actively participated in sexual misconduct in their past. If polls around sexual activity are relatively accurate, teen sexual activity is down, but adult sexual activity outside of marriage (because of lower or later marriage rates) may be up. Porn use is pervasive, which seems to be correlated with reduced sexual activity. So this chapter is important, and what it means to be a Christian in a sexualized society should be part of an understanding of discipleship.
The three other topics are more traditional and tied to the historic church and traditional spiritual disciplines. The reality is that across cultures, some practices seem to be nearly universal around spiritual practices. Being quiet, seeking to hear God, working to live in a way that represents God well, and showing what it means to have good character and be impacted by Christ is no less true in NYC than in 11th century Rome or 4th century Ethiopia.
No book of discipleship is perfect for everyone. As much as we are to be oriented toward Christ's Kingdom first, the reality is that we are always Christians within a local space and culture. And how we work out what it means to be Christian must necessarily be tied to that culture, geography, and time. This is a discipleship book worth reading.
Summary: A novel describing the thoughts and life of a young country priest in France. Set in the post WWI era, it feels connected to the modern world and distant from our modern world.
I do not know when I first heard about the very famous novel Diary of a Country Priest. But it has been years. I do not think that I started looking for the book until it was listed in Eugene Peterson's book about books he recommends to read. Until recently, the 1936 novel has not been available for a price I was willing to pay. But it looks like there has been a copyright change, and now there is a $0.99 Kindle version. There is also a free PDF that just scanned and not a very high-quality version.
Part of what I enjoyed was the look at the strain of being a country priest in an era before the widespread use of phones or cars. There is one scene where the priest is given a ride on a motorcycle. But as unusual as it is to read about this earlier era, and while cars and phones matter to pastoring today, the reality of how people act does not feel too distant. With the culture of the earlier era, a rural French setting is different, but not so different that it is unimaginable.
Summary: A look at how five Christians have used rhetoric to impact the church.
One of my goals over the next couple of years is to think more clearly about how people's minds are changed. I purposely say that in the passive voice, because while you can influence the changing of minds, you cannot as an outsider change someone else's mind. What can be done is to build a relationship, listen, and speak. The how of all three of those does matter.
Seasoned Speech is mainly about the concept of rhetoric, something that I am not sure I have particularly looked into previously. I have had public speaking and preaching classes, but those have been about structure and form more generally than rhetoric.
James Beitler in Seasoned Speech took CS Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Desmond Tutu, and Marilynne Robinson and looked at how they rhetorically communicate their faith. I have read something of all of these authors, although never a full-length book by Tutu and only Sayers' fiction. Beitler's chapters on each of these authors focused relatively narrowly. Lewis' chapter was mostly on speaking in vernacular and knowing the audience and the speaker's limits. Sayers' was mostly about using fiction and getting into the story. Bonhoeffer's chapter was mostly on being prophetic in a way that readers may not want to hear, especially in thining about communicating through sermons. Tutu was using positions and life to communicate (with the illustration of his anti-apartheid work and then later his leadership of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission). This is true of several of the authors being discussed, but especially in the Tutu chapter, the ‘being with' someone is essential to communicating to them. Robinson challenges the concept of using an argument to compel belief. (It is somewhat ironic that Robinson does use argument in her non-fiction works, but those non-fiction works are far less compelling than her fiction.)
There were places where I disagreed with the advice. And there were places where Beitler noted that the authors had explicitly opposite advice. Seasoned Speech ended with a discussion of ‘speaking in tongues' in the book of Acts as a metaphor for how we communicate the gospel. His challenge at the end, quoted below, is not that we do not think about rhetoric, but that we are gifted and charged in different ways, so we will use different rhetorical styles and mediums and languages and locations to reach different people. We still need to think about how and why we use rhetoric as we do, but that the using of the different methods and styles is part of what we are designed to do as a body of Christ.
I simply want to affirm the notion that, if the gospel of Jesus Christ is truly to reach the whole world, the church's witness must go forth in multiple languages, through a variety of mediums, by way of different genres and voices, using a host of rhetorics. It must, in other words, understand the reality of Pentecost not simply in terms of the specific practice of glossolalia but as a rhetorical paradigm for the collective ēthos of the whole body of Christ.
View my highlights from the book on Goodreads.
Short review: (Only Life together, I haven't read Prayerbook of the Bible yet). I have read this a couple times in the past. This time his comments on the expectations of community and living in the community that God has placed you in were the sections that most struck me. This is a short book and if you have not read it yet, you really need to.
Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/life-together-bonhoeffer/
Second Reading Review: Book Review: The God of the Mundane by Matthew Redmond - a short book that I read again as part of a small group discussion. Focused on how God is the God of all of us, not just the professional Christians. It is a good length for focus for small group discussion. Each of the chapters is essentially one point. I noticed a lot of repetition on the second reading and I think now that it is probably a more important book for clergy than laity, but still well worth reading.
The full second review is http://bookwi.se/the-god-of-the-mundane/
First Reading Review: This is a book I wish I had written. God is the God of the mundane activities as much or more than the spectacular. It is through our regular work that God uses us combat the work of sin in the world. This short book is very encouraging and quotable. I think it would make a good small group discussion book.
The full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/god-of-the-mundane/
Summary: A practical, focused guide to opposing racism through the ARC model (awareness, relationships, commitment).
Jemar Tisby has long been fighting against racism. He has an NYT bestselling history survey, The Color of Compromise. He is the co-founder of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective. He is in the final stages of his Ph.D. in history, focusing on 20th-century racial history. And he co-hosts the Pass The Mic podcast.
This is a very different book from Color of Compromise. Color of Compromise is a survey of the American church's racial history, especially its compromise concerning accepting racism in exchange for cultural power. Tisby says clearly in the introduction that How to Fight Racism responds to the standard question that he frequently gets, especially from White Christians, after presenting the problems of racism. How to Fight Racism is a book-length response to ‘what can I do.'
The broad structure of the book is ARC (see link for a graphic detailing the concept). ARC is not linear, but a broad strategy that will look different from person to person and community to community. But generally, healthy response to racism will include some mix of ongoing awareness, relationship building, and a long-term commitment to systemic change. This may sound theoretical, but it is very practically focused. There are many stories to illustrate the suggestions. And while you certainly do not need to be a Christian to get value out of the book, it is a Christian book that is rooting the reasoning and methods of fighting racism in a Christian background.
How to Fight racism will be the most helpful read in a group. Because many aspects of racism are cultural, organizational, or legal, there are limits to individual actions. There are study guides for group discussion available. And I think that if you can read this in a group, especially a group within a church or organization, it can be a good jumping-off point toward organizational change that is systemic. Many other similar pieces (often article length) are oriented toward individuals.
I did see one review that said there was not much new or unique here. In some ways, I agree. Similar to how there is not much about prayer or bible reading or discipleship that is really new or unique, but we still need new books to teach and communicate to new contexts. We do still need books to talk about how to oppose racism and take different approaches.
How to Fight Racism is not also not trying to prove that racism exists. That is a different book. This book centered around practical, constructive opposition to racism, especially the type of work that Christians should do. And I hope it is a book that will be widely read and widely put into practice.
Summary: A fictionalized story of Jesus and his family and then escape to Egypt and Jesus' early life.
I am not sure I really appreciate the difficulty of Christian fiction. Or maybe I do and that is part of why I tend to read so little of it. Fiction regardless of genre or background needs to tell a compelling story. It has to provide the reader with something, escape, adventure, excitement, insight, longing, a glimpse of wonder. But Christian fiction has to do that and also portray faith and God not just according to the author's perspective but also in a way that others will accept.
Books about Jesus are even more difficult. Jesus is both God and fully human. He was someone that was physically real, experienced actual bodily reality, and was still sinless. How can that be portrayed? As an infant, he had to eat and cry and poop and get sick and have foods that he liked and ones he probably liked less. He had to learn to walk, which means he would have had to fall down and make mistakes. The line between mistakes and sin complicated one. Some mistakes are clearly sin. Some are legitimate accidents, but some of those accidents are also sins of communion because of a lack of case or attention or awareness. I do not want to police the difference but as I read The Carpenter's Son I did think about the difference. A child that throws a block out of- frustration, but not understanding the consequences of that action has made a mistake in judgment and emotional control, but can there be growth and maturity without experience? Regardless of intention or theology, a story of Jesus will offend. If nothing else some will object because they believe it is a violation of the second commandment to portray God.
The Carpenter's Son is mostly, but not entirely, focused on Joseph. He has visions and tries to follow and trust God but he does not always understand or trust his own perceptions. There are meetings with older men asking for advice. (Joseph is portrayed as a young man, not much older than Mary. As opposed to a much older, likely widower, that some assumed.) Joseph loves Mary and seeks to protect and care for and listen to her as well, but it is Joseph that has the deeper internal dialogue.
It is hard to do historical fiction. Do you use modern words to connect with the reader or ancient ones that may be more historically accurate? I was distracted by some of the anarchisms. All are minor, some are more minor than others. How do you describe a piece of further that you sit on with others? ‘Couch' was used at one point. English translators often used the word couch, for instance in Job 7:13 “my bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint.” But neither the author of Job nor the author of The Carpenter's son means a six-piece microfiber sectional centered around a TV. But that is likely what at least some readers will see in their mind when they read the word.
This is part of the value of historical fiction (and the peril.) We want and need to see the historical people as people like us while seeing them in their contexts, and therefore alien to us.
One of the books I most enjoyed last year was Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes. The point of it and the earlier Misreading with Western Eyes is to remind us of how distant the biblical culture is from ours. We too often draw Jesus and other biblical characters into our own time and culture instead of the opposite. I also read the Color of Christ last year (about how Jesus has been portrayed in art, literature, film, and pop culture throughout US history). So I was primed by those to think about how Jesus was portrayed in Carpenter's son. I don't think Jesus and his family were ancient enough or Jewish enough, or from a communal culture to the extent I think would be historically accurate. But I am also not an expert and there are probably places where I am expecting a more alien experience than I should.
I did enjoy The Carpenters Son. 4- did make me think about the biblical characters and my faith and how extraordinary the Steny of Jesus is, especially in how it is not what we would expect. There are no spoilers here. The Carpenters Seen is the start of a trilogy. It starts with the escape out of Bethlehem and finishes with the return to Israel. All of this is speculative fiction. But there is value in the speculation. And the story was engaging and worth reading.
Summary: Good intro to prayer using the acronym PRAY: Pause, Rejoice, Ask, Yield.
Pete Greig is the founder of the 24/7 prayer movement. As a movement that has been around for over 20 years and replicated all around the world. In an interview with the Renovaré Book Club, Greig said that he finally feels capable of writing this type of book after writing several previous books on disappointment with God, unanswered prayer, and facing his wife's cancer.
I have had both positive and negative interactions with forms of the 24/7 prayer movement. Aspects take God's power seriously, and devotion and parts seem to focus on thinking about prayer in ways that seem more akin to magic. There also elements of the 24/17 movement that dabble in Dominanist theology and are more like Christian Nationalists than I am comfortable with.
That being said, I did not see the negative aspects of 24/7 prayer in this book, although I would not have phrased some parts of prayer as he did. I am a real believer in the importance and power of prayer, even if I am reluctant around many abuses of prayer. The point of prayer for me is a relationship with God. To focus on power of prayer places the result of a relationship before the relationship. It is not the same, but it feels related to sex outside of marriage. Sex is designed for marriage as a bonding agent and procreation. But sex outside of marriage changes the purpose and instrumentalizes sex to distort the relationship over the long term.
In a not dissimilar way, focus on prayer and the use of prayer outside of the relationship with God orients prayer toward what we can get from God. Many talk about the lack of miracles as primarily about a lack of faith or a result of secularism and disbelief of the possibility of miracles. While I don't want to dismiss that concern, I think the more significant problem may be a culture of viewing relationships more through the lens of utility and instrumentality than through the idea of the good of the relationship in and of itself.
All of that to say, the primary purpose presented here is prayer as relationship building. The rest of prayer is an outgrowth of that. Pete Greig tells good stories and creates a sense of possibility with prayer. And for me, the biggest test of the quality of a book about prayer is whether it encourages me actually to pray. This book did.
As part of prayer exploration, he covers nine types of prayer: Centering, Adoration, Petition, Intercession, Listening, Confession, and Spiritual Warfare. I am for exploring prayer and thinking about it well, but prayer will always be more about learning by doing more than learning through theory and academics. How to Pray is practically focused and helpful in ways that I think that prayer books should be. It is easy to read about prayer and not pray. Still, there are many useful suggestions here and many online tools referenced if you want to go into more depth on particular interest topics.
Summary: Jack, the prodigal child of Gilead, is in St Louis. This novel is set before the events in the earlier novel Home.
Marilynne Robinson is one of the more famous modern novelists of our age. And considering this is only her fifth novel, she has had a remarkable career. The Gilead books are intertwined. They can be read alone or out of order. But they all have some relationship to John Ames. The elderly pastor of a small church in Gilead Iowa, the main subject of the first book of the series.
The second book, Home, is mostly about Robert Boughton's family, John Ames' best friend and fellow pastor in the same town. It is told from the perspective of Glory, the daughter who has returned home to care for her ailing father. But nothing in the Boughton family is not about Jack, named for John Ames, but a prodigal who finally returns for a visit.
I need to go back and reread Home. Of the three previous, it was my least favorite. Not because any of Robinson's books are not well written, but because I love the story of grace that is more central to Lila and Gilead. The character of Jack is part of a story of grace, but one I have always been less interested in. Rev Boughton grieves and prays for his son. The town can see how Jack's hurts and harms, not just himself, but everyone around him. It is not always that Jack intends to harm. Quite often, the harm comes through bad luck. But it is easy to blame Jack for his bad luck.
The book opens in the middle of the story. Jack and Della are walking around inside of a cemetery that has been locked up for the night. He is trying to be very careful with her because, already, he loves her. And Jack is always aware of the harm that comes to those that love him. It is only later that we hear more about Jack's story and find out how he and Della met. Jack is an alcoholic and thief and bum. When he meets Della he was recently out of prison, ironically for a crime he didn't commit. She is a respectable high school teacher, and also the child of a pastor.
The main problem with their relationship is that they are living in the mid-1950s, St Louis. Della is Black and Jack is White and their romance is not just culturally inappropriate, but illegal. There is never really a question of their love (although honestly, I find Della a more interesting character than Jack.) As much as their love is never really a question, so is the reality that there is not really a way for them to be together. It isn't just the racial divide. It is also that Jack is older, inappropriate as a romantic partner because of his alcoholism, criminal record, and lack of prospects. And Della is the opposite, young, idealistic, a great teacher, and a faithful Christian.
Robinson's books are very internal. The first book was set up as a journal recounting his life to his young son, who he knew he would not be able to see grow up. The next three books in the series are all primarily told from inside the main narrator. Much of the content is thinking about the world around them. These are not fast-moving books. But the slow pace I think is part of what I love about them. They are counter-cultural not just because of the speed of the story, but also because of the serious grappling with issues of faith, especially predestination.
I would not start the series with Jack. Generally, I would read them either Gilead or Lila first. Those two tell opposite sides of the romance and lives of John Ames and his wife Lila. Then read the opposite side of the romance. Then read Home and Jack. I think you could read these in either order. The printed order is the reverse of the chronological order. But either way, there will be some spoilers to the other. I really do love Robinson's prose and I will read any fiction she chooses to write.
I only read the first half of this for a class I had on the Lord's prayer. I probably should come back to it. There are some really good things in here, but also some oddities that I just did not connect with.
Summary: Centering Black women's experience as a model for racial reconciliation.
Over the nearly 2 years since I Bring the Voice of My People, it has been consistently recommended by a range of people as one of the most important books in the field of Christian racial reconciliation. It has taken me too long to read it, but now that I have, I join my voice and agree, this is not only a book that should be read widely, I think it becomes one of the primary books that I will recommend early in White people's grappling with issues of race in the church.
Part of the book's strength is clear definitions and lots of examples and stories, like the definition of racial reconciliation and womanism early in the book.
A working definition that can guide readers in the first half of the book is this: Racial reconciliation is part of God's ongoing and eschatological mission to restore wholeness and peace to a world broken by systemic injustice. Racial reconciliation focuses its efforts upon dismantling White supremacy, the systemic evil that denies and distorts the image of God inherent in all humans based upon the heretical belief that White aesthetics, values, and cultural norms bear the fullest representation of the imago Dei. White supremacy thus maintains that White people are superior to all other peoples, and it orders creation, identities, relationships, and social structures in ways that support this distortion and denial. p32
and
Taking its name from the word coined by Alice Walker, womanist theology can be defined as . . . the systematic, faith-based exploration of the many facets of African American women's religiosity. Womanist theology is based on the complex realities of [B]lack women's lives. Womanist scholars recognize and name the imagination and initiative that African American women have utilized in developing sophisticated religious responses to their lives. p32
The two main purposes of this being a Womanist view of racial reconciliation, according to Walker-Barnes, is a focus on Intersectionality and a focus on the wholistic view of healing and liberation. One of the best books I have read to introduce the reader to the concept of intersectionality is So You Want to Talk About Race. Still, I Bring the Voice of My People, not only does as good of a job introducing the concept of intersectionality, but it also brings many practical examples of why intersectionality is essential to racial reconciliation in the church and any discussion about race in the US. Again, many people have a poor understanding of what Intersectionality is. And Walker-Barnes, I think, frames it well.
Identity is not just additive; it is multiplicative. If I were writing it as an algebraic equation, I would write it like this: RacialGenderIdentity = Race + Gender + (Race*Gender) In other words, African American women will share some experiences with African American men by virtue of their race, and they will share some experiences with all women by virtue of their femaleness. But their location at the intersection of race and gender predisposes them to experiences of gendered racism that are qualitatively and quantitatively different from those of African American men (and certainly from White men), White women, and sometimes even other women of color. p33
So much of the book is framed in ways that many that oppose CRT would agree with. But Critical Race Theory is important in looking at structures of how the reality of Race came to be so powerful in the US. Much of the book's first half is either laying out the history and reality of race or the history and weaknesses of the Christian (especially Evangelical) racial reconciliation movement. That background cannot really be skipped because the shared understanding is essential to the constructive theological model of racial reconciliation at the end of the book. The framing of the modern conception of race requires a discussion of color-blind racism. This matters both for social understanding outside the church but also for a theological understanding inside the church, as this passage lays out:
Symmetrical treatment is the dominant Christian approach to racial reconciliation. The argument follows along these lines: Race is socially constructed, that is, a human rather than divine creation. Race obscures God's intentions for humanity; therefore, it is sinful. All racial categories are equally sinful, that is, blackness is as problematic as whiteness. The solution is for Black people to stop seeing themselves as Black, for White people to stop seeing themselves as White, and for all of us to see ourselves as Christians. p62
Again, intersectionality is essential to the discussion because Womanist vision is to resist single-axis thinking:
Multiplicity recognizes that we are always raced and gendered, but also acknowledges that, in varying contexts, different aspects of our identity will be more salient. For example, in a predominantly White environment, my blackness may stand out and be the primary lens through which I interpret my experience. If I am in France, my Americanness may be the most salient factor. This approach to multiplicity is similar to the tendency in antiracist and antisexist organizing to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive domains that can be engaged separately from one another. When women of color are engaged in antiracist work with our male colleagues, we are often expected to assume a “race first, gender second” mentality, that is, to effectually relegate the non-raced layers of our identity to the background. When we are engaged in antisexist work with our White female peers, we are expected to do the same thing with respect to gender, focusing upon the universal experience of womanhood (as if such a thing exists). Both represent single-axis frameworks. And both are highly problematic for women of color. p91
I have appreciated Womanist perspectives as I have been reading through Dr. Wil Gafney's biblical work and Walker-Barnes on racial reconciliation because different people ask different questions, which matters to how issues are framed. No other book I have read on Christian racial reconciliation has had extended sections on colorism, beauty, and patriarchy. It is exactly this point that Brenda Salter McNeil points to when she discusses resistance to church involvement among the more recent racial justice movements. Because the church often has been patriarchal and/or primarily approaching justice with single-axis thinking, newer justice movements that Black women in decentralized power structures heavily organize are reluctant for church involvement because of the historic prioritization of male hierarchical leadership.
I could easily make this into an even more quote-focused post. I primarily listened to the audiobook but kept going back to the kindle edition to make highlights. (The kindle and audio are not synced, and there are several places where the audio has minor word errors or differences). If you want to look at my Goodreads pages, I have nearly 40 highlights and notes.
The second half of the book is an extended discussion of the book Color Purple by Alice Walker to give shared language and imagery from which Walker-Barnes builds a model of racial reconciliation. I have passed on my recommendation of the book to several, and I hope to have some good discussions with friends about the constructive model. I plan on rereading the book in a couple of months and think about some of the implications of her model. I am not going to try to describe the model in full, but present this long quote from the end of the book as a summary:
In this chapter, I have offered a model of racial reconciliation consistent with what Thurman calls “the discipline of reconciliation . . . [which] applies not only to ruptured human relations but also to disharmony within oneself created by inner conflict. The quality of reconciliation is that of wholeness; it seems to effect and further harmonious relations in a totally comprehensive climate.”78 Alice Walker's The Color Purple exemplifies the wholistic nature of reconciliation that Thurman describes. It demonstrates how the lives and the narratives of women of color contain tremendous power to reveal the intersectional nature of oppression, the complicated legacy that it leaves, and the incredibly complex work that is required for liberation, healing, and transformation. It reveals that, more often than not, genuine racial reconciliation does not begin with an invitation to bridge building; neither does it require forgiveness of behaviors, attitudes, and social systems whose evil is of such a magnitude that they could be forgiven only by God. Instead, true racial reconciliation often begins with a curse. “Until you do right by me” is the cry that must be uttered by the oppressed, and it is the challenge that must be met by the oppressor. To revisit and expand the definition that I offered in the introduction to this volume, racial reconciliation is part of God's ongoing and eschatological mission to restore wholeness and peace to a world broken by systemic injustice. Racial reconciliation is a social justice movement that focuses upon dismantling White supremacy, the systemic evil that denies and distorts the image of God inherent in all humans based upon the heretical belief that White aesthetics, values, and cultural norms bear the fullest representation of the Imago Dei. p229
Walker-Barnes is modeling a deep reconciliation, not just visual diversity or casual friendship. The depth of her vision exceeds what an older model of racial reconciliation has as its image. At the same time, the depth of reconciliation modeled answers the critique of many anti-CRT Christians that suggest that CRT or anti-racism is incapable of being part of a Christian vision of wholeness.
I need to reread this to absorb the nuance and think through some of the implications for areas with different choices than what I have considered before. Still, I think this is among the most important books I have read on Christian racial reconciliation. Right now, the kindle edition is on sale for $3.99, so I highly recommend picking it up. The audiobook is not connected, so there is not a discount.
I read this for class. It is okay. There are things I really like about her. But she is repetitive. And part of what I am not fond of is that the orientation is so strongly toward a clinical training method for spiritual direction I think it encourages an orientation turning spiritual direction into a form of counseling.
On the other hand, we are in a post-Freud world. So there are things that I think do just have to be covered. We do need to pay attention to inappropriate attractions or jealousy, etc.
I also think it could have been reorganized or split so that those that are receiving spiritual direction supervision are not reading the supervision sections. It just seems oddly designed.
I read this for class. Most of it I read twice. I am not going to do a full post on it. I am mixed. There are some good things here. Contextually, these were sermons given at the end of WWII in Germany before the real relief effort at the end of the war started and so the discussion of prayer in that context adds to the interest of the book.
That being said, this is mystical, and frankly, mystical books that are trying to speak of divine things with human language. And that is often difficult to process. Many individual phrases or sections are helpful. Many other things that are difficult to understand what he is getting at.
Part of the reality of prayer is that we can spend a lot of time talking about it and not much time doing it. And he ends the books with this line, “In the final analysis, talking about prayer doesn't matter, rather, only the worlds that we ourselves say to God.”
I am glad I read it. I need to write a short paper about it. I am mixed about whether I recommend it or not. In some ways, I might recommend this paper by Egan about Rahner instead https://www.theway.org.uk/back/522egan.pdf