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“They call me Alexander the Pretty Good.” - ha! Listening to Wil Wheaton read the audiobook kept me more engaged than I might have been otherwise. I felt like the story had a really strong start but towards the end I was getting bored for some reason. And I don't know if I'm invested enough in the story to read the next book, which is frustrating because nothing is really resolved in this one, which is really frustrating.
It did have some funny parts though, like this one:
“I'll probably get grounded for it. And by grounded, I don't mean I'll have to stay in my room unable to go out the next twenty-five Saturday nights, I mean, grounded. Into dust. And buried under a thousand pounds of rock.”
Fascinating. And a unique story-telling choice.
I read this for the first time in 2019. Re-reading it in 2022 it hits different. It is now tied with Summer Frost as my favorites of this collection.
My original ranking of this Collection of Short Stories from favorite to least favorite:
1) BOOK 2: Summer Frost by Blake Crouch (re-read in 2022 and still loved it)
2) BOOK 4: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles (re-read in 2022 and didn't like it as much)
3) BOOK 3: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
4) BOOK 5: The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
5) BOOK 6: Randomize by Andy Weir
6) BOOK 1: Ark by Veronica Roth
My ranking of this Collection of Short Stories from favorite to least favorite:
1) BOOK 2: Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
2) BOOK 4: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
3) BOOK 3: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
4) BOOK 5: The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
5) BOOK 6: Randomize by Andy Weir
6) BOOK 1: Ark by Veronica Roth
My ranking of this Collection of Short Stories from favorite to least favorite:
1) BOOK 2: Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
2) BOOK 4: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
3) BOOK 3: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
4) BOOK 5: The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
5) BOOK 6: Randomize by Andy Weir
6) BOOK 1: Ark by Veronica Roth
My ranking of this Collection of Short Stories from favorite to least favorite:
1) BOOK 2: Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
2) BOOK 4: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
3) BOOK 3: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
4) BOOK 5: The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
5) BOOK 6: Randomize by Andy Weir
6) BOOK 1: Ark by Veronica Roth
This was really good; the kind of science fiction story that sticks with you and makes you afraid of the future A.I. takeover! It was my favorite from this collection of short stories.
My ranking of this Collection of Short Stories from favorite to least favorite:
1) BOOK 2: Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
2) BOOK 4: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
3) BOOK 3: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
4) BOOK 5: The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
5) BOOK 6: Randomize by Andy Weir
6) BOOK 1: Ark by Veronica Roth
- I think Neil Gaiman is a brilliant writer.
2. I love listening to Neil Gaiman narrate audiobooks.
3. I always WANT to love his fiction, but with the exceptions of Stardust and The Graveyard Book, I usually don't love his fiction. (Probably because it's a bit too dark and sad and twisted for what I prefer.)
4. But I DO love most of his non-fiction. And that holds true here.
This was a book I read around November of 2019. At that time I had only come out to about 7 or 8 people so I did not track this book on GoodReads at that time! Since then I have come out to everyone so now I can add this to my official Goodreads list!
I remember as I was reading this thinking, “crap, I've done that, and I've done that, and I'm already in that place so I'm really going to have to come out to my people...”
Anyway, I do highly recommend this book to those who need it...
My ranking of this Collection of Short Stories from favorite to least favorite:
1) BOOK 2: Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
2) BOOK 4: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
3) BOOK 3: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
4) BOOK 5: The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
5) BOOK 6: Randomize by Andy Weir
6) BOOK 1: Ark by Veronica Roth
This latest book by Sarah Bessey made me cry and filled my heart with hope, as her words usually do. I've already read it twice. The second time I listened to the audiobook and was able to highlight some things in my kindle version. I was still moved to tears over and over again. Chapter 15 and the benediction are my favorite. And the chapter on letting God Mother us. Sarah is such a good storyteller and her writing is beautiful and poetic.
Sarah reminds us at the beginning of her book, “I should probably warn you right up front that I love Jesus with my whole heart. I have zero chill on this topic. I think he's worth following, and that can get me into trouble. I have never evolved past Jesus: I still abide in the shadow of his wing.” – I love that so much! I am right there with her!
I cried all the way through the benediction (final prayer) at the end, no surprise there... I highly recommend you read it for yourself. In fact, go read her first two books first, and then read this one.
I agree with what Shauna Niequist wrote in the forward:
“In friendship, if you want to create the kind of space between you that is strong and durable and deeply valuable, you have to be willing to go first. And part of why books matter and writing matters and storytelling matters is because the best writers go first: the best writers say the unsaid and unspoken, the secret truths we all feel but can't quite speak aloud. And in these pages, Sarah's willingness to go first in all sorts of ways is a sacred gift, a permission slip, a key unlocking doors long closed.”
10/16/19 - I still need to finish writing my longer review, but I just finished reading this for a second time already. This time I listened to the audiobook and was able to highlight some things in my kindle version. I was still moved to tears over and over again. Chapter 15 and the benediction are my favorite. And the chapter on letting God Mother us.
9/16/19 - First read through: Longer review is forthcoming, but I just finished this tonight (thanks to the publisher for the ARC!). I cried through the benediction at the end, no surprise there... I highly recommend you read it for yourself. It hits the shelves on October 8. #ReasonableMiracles
Following Jesus has led many of us out of the conservative Evangelicalism we may have started in. In this book, David Gushee shares the story of how that has happened in his life.
This is a fairly quick read. I finished it in less than 24 hours. It's a short memoir because it stays focused on a very specific topic of Evangelicalism through the lens of Gushee's life. He does give us a brief overview of how exactly Evangelicalism in the US came to be (rebranding “fundamentalism”, coopted by the political Right, etc.).
Gushee also describes how the politically motivated played a big role in taking over the Southern Baptist Convention and THE Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. As I myself am now a member of a progressive Baptist Church in Louisville and have lived in Louisville for most of my life, this was especially interesting to read about. I've heard people at my church talk about being students at SBTS when “the takeover” was going on. Needless to say, they hurt a lot of people in that process, which is what bad theology and power trips tend to do.
It is important to note that while the ultra-conservatives said they were pushing back against “liberal theology”, Gushee writes, “I never met a true theological liberal faculty member the whole time I was at Southern Seminary. In biblical studies, most professors did teach a modest version of historical criticism, but it was hardly outré compared to what I ran across later in my educational pilgrimage. I found that my theology professors hardly strayed to the “left” of Karl Barth, and legends like Dale Moody were very, very Southern Baptist. No, those Southern Seminary faculty were still pious Southern Baptist folks who were simply reasonably open to the broader world of ideas and wanted their students exposed to that world. They also, of course, like most academics, feared witch hunts, purges, and attacks on their academic freedom. Already by 1984, the academic environment was becoming more conservative and less free.” (Location 397)
Gushee earned his M.Div from SBTS in 1987, then his M.Phil (1990) and Ph.D. in Christian ethics from Union Theological Seminary in 1993. But he ended up back at SBTS after that because it was his only job offer. I was surprised to learn that Mohler, who had just been appointed as president of the Seminary, was only 33 at the time. He taught at SBTS from 1993-1996. By the time he left SBTS was forcing everyone out who was not willing to ascribe to their stance that women should not be allowed in ministry. So when Gushee received an offer to teach at Union University, he took it as his way out.
Gushee describes this incident at SBTS from before he left: “...a new policy came down from the administration, one that would change everything at Southern. At an epic, miserable faculty meeting, the president [Mohler] declared that those who believed that women should serve as pastors would no longer be hired, promoted, or tenured at Southern Seminary. While some details of this policy remained to be addressed, the implications were clear enough. A school that had, over the years, worked its way around to a largely egalitarian understanding of gender roles was now, by decree, overnight, a place that required faculty both to believe and to teach that Holy Scripture clearly bars women from the highest office of church leadership. Dissenting tenured faculty members might survive but probably ought to leave, untenured faculty members who held the now-erroneous belief had no future at the school, and no new faculty members would be hired who were egalitarian. This meant the end for pretty much all female faculty members. I vividly remember one of my younger female colleagues getting up from the meeting in which the policy was announced, running from the room, and throwing up in the hall. It's not every day that you are professionally executed by public decree. It just might make you physically ill.” (Location 748)
Still Christian will resonate with anyone who has grown weary of the marriage of Evangelicalism with right-wing politics, and those who are completely over this nonsense about women not being allowed to preach, teach, lead, minister, etc.
Honestly, even if you still consider yourself an Evangelical, you might want to read this to help you understand more about why so many of us that started out that way have been leaving in droves, and for many of us, including Gushee, that does not mean leaving Jesus behind.
Another thing I love about this book is that Gushee kept journals almost every day over the course of his life which I'm sure increases the accuracy of the stories he tells from the past. He even quotes from them throughout the book:
“This reflection from the summer after my freshman year in college foreshadows much about my later journey: Amy Grant sings, “You must put aside the reasoning that's standing in the way.” Well, my convictions may be shaky but this one isn't—I will never sacrifice my intellect on the altar of “being faithful.” If you [God] can't stand up to my measly questions, then you must be an illusion. . . . Must I sacrifice my intellect for the faith? No, I will not suppress my mind, I will not give up my intellect. I will give up the faith first.” (Location 342)
I have felt the exact same way and have written similar things in journals of my own.
I also appreciate Gushee's grace for “the other side”. I think he succeeds in his goal of offering a “fair rendering” of the “flawed people and institutions” he describes in this book.
In the preface, Gushee writes: “We are experiencing a moment in American life in which our cultural divides have hardened into mutual incomprehension and demonization.” Then he says that he first wrote that line long before the election of Donald Trump as president, and of course, it is even truer now. “We don't know each other, we don't understand each other, we don't trust each other, and we don't like each other. All we see are each other's vices, none of each other's virtues. If this memoir from both sides of the barricades helps improve this deplorable situation, that is reason enough to write it” (Location 92)
I think the only time I noticed Gushee taking a harsher tone was in this passage (which I completely agree with) in Chapter 7:
“This is my best chance to say that I believe the resurgence of a doctrinaire Calvinism in contemporary evangelicalism is among the most odious developments of the last generation. I abhor its version of God and most of its version of Christian ethics, and I believe it could only have emerged among relatively privileged, hyper-cognitive, compassion-challenged white men, as it has. But I digress” (Location 995).
At the end of the book, Gushee states:
“I still believe in Jesus. Indeed, I believe in him more than ever. I need him more than ever. Some days the only thing I have left of my Christianity is Jesus. And that's okay.I still believe in the prophetic religion of Jesus and of those before him and those after him who also shared it—a religion of justice, love, and compassion, a powerful source of good in this broken world. But I no longer believe that the church, per se, knows or follows that religion. I no longer believe that the church, per se, is generally a source of good in the world. It depends. Sometimes it is quite the opposite. When it is the opposite, the only way to be a true Christian is to oppose the church. Yet I will never leave the church. That's because I still believe in local communities of Jesus-followers straining every effort to study, hear, and obey him. And I believe in local shepherds humbly serving those communities. I still believe in the power of the preached Word and received sacrament in a community of hungry believers. [...] I still believe that the truest human language is tears, and the best test of human beings is how they respond to tears. I now believe what Union Seminary tried to teach me—that the most important voices for me to hear come from the margins and from those who have been silenced.” (Location 1625)
(I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)
I really love this book.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“Ask anyone what she means when she says ‘God' and chances are that you will learn a lot more about that person than you will learn about God.”
“Love God in the person standing right in front of you, the Jesus of my understanding says, or forget the whole thing, because if you cannot do that, then you are just going to keep making shit up.”
“Religions are treasure chests of stories, songs, rituals, and ways of life that have been handed down for millennia - not covered in dust but evolving all the way- so that each new generation has something to choose from when it is time to ask the big questions in life. Where did we come from? Why do bad things happen to good people? Who is my neighbor? Where do we go from here? No one should have to start from scratch with questions like these. Overhearing the answers of the world's great religions can help anyone improve his or her own answers. Without a religion, these questions often do not get asked.”
“Existential dizziness is one of the side effects of higher education, and it affects teachers too.”
“The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. That self-canceling feature of my religion is one of the things I like best about it. Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.”
“I asked God for religious certainty, and God gave me relationships instead. I asked for solid ground, and God gave me human beings instead—strange, funny, compelling, complicated human beings—who keep puncturing my stereotypes, challenging my ideas, and upsetting my ideas about God, so that they are always under construction.”
“The problem with every sacred text is that it has human readers. Consciously or unconsciously, we interpret it to meet our own needs. There is nothing wrong with this unless we deny that we are doing it, as when someone tells me that he is not ‘interpreting' anything but simply reporting what is right there on the page. This is worrisome, not only because he is reading a translation from the original Hebrew or Greek that has already involved a great deal of interpretation, but also because it is such a short distance between believing you possess an error-free message from God and believing that you are an error-free messenger of God. The literalists I like least are the ones who do not own a Bible. The literalists I like most are the ones who admit that they do not understand every word God has revealed in the Bible, though they still believe God has revealed it. I can respect that.
I can respect almost anyone who admits to being human while reading a divine text. After that, we can talk - about we highlight some teachings and ignore others, about how we decide which ones are historically conditioned and which ones are universally true, about who has influenced our reading of scripture and how our social location affects what we hear. The minute I believe I know the mind of God is the minute someone needs to tell me to sit down and tell me to breathe into a paper bag.”