The Weekly Wrap: June 9-15

person wrapping a book
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to read the first Weekly Wrap and were so encouraging in your comments. I think we’ll try this for another week!

I have been absorbed this week in Kristin Hannah’s The Women, an account of the experience of combat nurses in Vietnam. I have a former colleague who did this. She never spoke about her experience. Reading Hannah’s book helps me understand as she describes the horrific things that happened to soldiers, the terrible reception anyone who served in Vietnam received when they came home, the lack of recognition combat nurses received until many years later, of their services and of the skills they acquired. Like other of Hannah’s books, I carry this one around in my head even when I’m not reading it.

Don’t you just love writers who write with such skill and power?

Five Articles Worth Reading

If you follow this blog, you know I review a number of books. I don’t get paid, other than in free books, for doing it. I do it for the sheer love of reading and the fun of connecting books and people who want to read them. There was so much I resonated with in Christine Smallwood’s A Reviewer’s Life, and I’m glad I have a day job, as her comments on the pay freelance reviewers receive portrays a challenging way to make a living.

For those who enjoy audiobooks, Audible has published its list of Top Audiobooks of 2024 So Far, which Bookriot picked up. I’m not an audiobook listener, but this list tempts me…. The Bookriot article also offers links to other “Best of” lists and recent articles.

I went through a season of reading a number of the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most creative science fiction/fantasy writers of her time. She passed away in 2018. This week, her family announced (AP News Story) that her Portland home, built on plans from a Sears catalog with a view of Mt. St. Helen’s, will become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. Aspiring writers will have the opportunity to write where she wrote some of her most famous books.

I would love to see this in every city. Publisher’s Weekly ran a story this week, “Free Children’s Bookstore Opens in Pittsburgh.” Children may select up to three books they may take home and read.

I’ve been struck that we are witnessing the emergence of an incredible array of talented women writers. One of these, Rachel Cusk, has just published a new novel, Parade. I found this Guardian article, “Where to Start With: Rachel Cusk” a good introduction to her work.

Quote of the Week

Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery writer, playwright, essayist, and translator of Dante was born June 13, 1893. I like this quote from her, apropos of our time.

“The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve been reading a book that explores the reading and writing practices in ancient times, which spurred me to think of all the ways we “read” in our day. I wrote about it on Friday at the blog, “The Ways We Read.”

I’ve loved the stories of George MacDonald since I was a college student. But I’ve never come across someone who wrote in ways reminiscent of him until a young Australian writer, Peter Kostoglou, reached out to me asking me to review a little collection of seven short stories, Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles. I found them exquisite, and wrote about them on Thursday.

I thought with Peter Jackson’s productions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, we had seen the definitive film works. I learned that Jackson is at it again with “The Hunt for Gollum” and that an animated production of “The War of the Rohirrim” is also in production. Of course, Christopher Tolkien has carried on his father’s legacy, mining his notes for other stories. I’m reading Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth which delves (a dwarfish word!) into the background of things alluded to in Tolkien’s most familiar work. What amazes me is how J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t just write a long story, but conceived a whole history behind it, as well as numerous languages. No wonder Tolkien has been a source for so much creative rendering of his work. There is actually far more to tell than we’ve seen thus far. The only thing I would ask for is a few less Orc battles!

Well, that’s a wrap!

The Ways We Read

Picture of a young girl sitting cross-legged on a table reading a book.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I’ve been thinking lately about the ways we read. Ways? Most of us think reading is sitting in your favorite spot, a physical book in hand, our favorite drink at our side, and under good light.

But readers are far more versatile than that. The book could be an e-reader or tablet. Or an app on our phone, used on a bus, or train, or tram, or sitting at an airplane gate.

Or we may be “reading” by listening to someone read a book. While we drive. Or walk. Or exercise. Or cook.

Of course we don’t just read books. There are magazines, newspapers, instruction books, employee and student handbooks. even cereal boxes!

But we don’t just read silently. or alone. Even when it appears we are, we really are in conversation with the author, a communion of minds and thoughts.

We read aloud. As children called on in class. When we want to hear the sound, the rhythm of words in a poem. I read aloud when I edit an article. Sometimes I read dense writing aloud, phrase by phrase, aurally unpacking closely written ideas.

We read aloud to others. In church or synagogue, reading lectionaries or sacred texts. Sometimes one reader. Sometimes responsively or antiphonally. Sometimes in unison, joining our voices together. Some of us gather in small groups to study the Bible, and often before discussing a text, it will be read aloud.

Authors give readings of their works. We sometimes read favorite passages to each other. Lovers read poetry to each other…or at least once did.

Before audiobooks, my wife and I read to each other on long car trips. And we cherished family read aloud times at our son’s bedtime, sometimes all snuggled up on a sofa, as when we read through the Little House books.

We read to those unable to read. I taped textbook readings for a sight-impaired student. I shudder to think of the hours he spent listening to my voice! I wish I had thought to throw in a few jokes!

We read to the infirm who cannot read. We read to those seriously ill, even nearing death, words of comfort from Psalms, poetry, perhaps an author favored by us both.

We read aloud on holidays, texts appropriate to the day. “I Have A Dream” on Martin Luther King Day, the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, “The Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve, the Seven Last Words on Good Friday.

All this is amazing for a learned skill, acquired with varying degrees of difficulty. As I look at all the ways we read, I’m struck with how much reading is part of the warp and woof of our lives. It’s a cultural good worth preserving, a way of preserving richness and imagination against the forces of banality and entropy that would wear away at us.

All the ways we read.

Review: Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles

Cover image of "Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles by Peter Kostoglou

Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles, Peter Kostoglou. Resource Publications (ISBN: 9798385207695), 2024.

Summary: A collection of seven short stories, all with an element of the fantastic, inviting us into the mystery of beauty, the deep joy in the world, and the power of love.

I likely would never have heard of this book were it not for the initiative of a first-time Australian author who reached half way around the world and politely inquired if I would review his book. I am so glad he did, because I was introduced to seven short stories that reminded me of a wonderful collection of George MacDonald short stories published in two volumes by Eerdmans, The Gifts of the Child Christ. I’ve read nothing like it since, until this collection.

“Onawish” opens the collection and begins with the scene of a boy’s birthday party, a boy so eager to eat the cake that he is befuddled with “onawish” or “honorwish” until he finds himself transported to find himself plopped headfirst into a giant cake. Through a series of adventures, he discovers the deep pain his father bears, and a deepened love.

“The Conference of the Trees” follows the courses of two trees from before the “Days of Man,” Shema and Iver who, in seeking to discover what “treeness” is, take very different paths.

“The Boy and His Rod” traces the story of Daniel, given a rod formed of a serpent of great power by a voice in a burning bush, that he might act in the name of the voice to make a great nation. It’s a story of how power may tempt, even the power to do something that seems good.

In “Hanz,” Antigone, skipping through her garden, stumbles, falls, and finds herself in a strange conversation with a gnome in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Phoebe, in “The Antiquated Mirror” loves being “Queen” over her younger sister until their fights get her sent to her room where she glimpses herself, approaches an antique mirror, and finds herself trapped in it while an evil “twin” escapes into her household.

“The Man Who Lived in Darkness” was a personal favorite. A father and daughter are estranged as her father chooses a dark, anti-social and depressing life until her daughter wants to meet her grandfather.

In “Lilies of the Vale” a man tries to “Draw Love,” plucks a lily for a girl he loves, and learns a lesson from lilies of what it means to love.

This last makes explicit what runs through these stories, the lessons of what it means to love in our flawed yet beautiful world and how that fits into a larger way of love, an idea explained in a final word. Peter Kostoglou’s stories carry the echoes of this love, inviting to tune our ears, to quiet ourselves to listen, to look with greater attentiveness at the everyday ordinaries in which extraordinary love is hidden.

I hope this is the first of many such collections from this author. These silly, fanciful, and trifling tales are only so in appearance while carrying profound ideas that capture the imagination and delve the recesses of our hearts.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Awakening to Justice

Cover image of "Awakening to Justice" by Jemar Tisby et al.

Awakening to Justice, The Dialogue on Race and Faith Project, Jemar Tisby, Christopher P. Momany, Sègbégnon Mathieu Gnonhossou, David D. Daniels III, R. Matthew Sigler, Douglas M. Strong, Diane Leclerc, Esther Chung-Kim, Albert G. Miller, and Estrelda Y. Alexander. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514009185), 2024.

Summary: How a long-forgotten journal led a team to recover the stories of three abolitionists and their times.

Imagine working as an archivist when a large box arrives of miscellaneous memorabilia, that sat forgotten for many years in a college supply closet. Most of it looked like it came from the 1950’s except for an old notebook with a marble cover that was filled with handwriting with dates going back to the late 1830’s. This is what happened in 2015 when an archivist at Adrian College called Chris Momany, chaplain and religious historian.

As he read, he was stunned to find a drawing of a ship, Ulysses, impounded in Jamaica holding 556 slaves in incredibly cramped and sordid conditions. He was able to figure out that he was holding the diary of David Ingraham, an abolitionist missionary to Jamaica. He had been part of a group known as the “Lane Rebels” who left Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati to enroll at Oberlin College, where Charles Finney was on faculty of an abolitionist school that admitted Blacks. The college president was Asa Mahan, who became a mentor, and later left Oberlin to become Adrian College’s president, which may be how the notebook ended there.

But what to do? Consulting fellow historian Doug Strong, the two wondered if the journal might be the basis of a project studying the people around Ingraham, who died of tuberculosis in 1841 for what may be learned from these abolitionists for our day. Thus was formed The Dialogue on Race and Faith Project, convening a multiracial group of fourteen scholars who met together, traveled to Cincinnati and Oberlin, and produced the collection of papers that make up this work, amply fulfilling the vision of Momany and Strong. In particular, they focused on two others associated with Ingraham, James Bradley, a former slave and Lane Rebel, and Nancy Prince, an African American from Boston, who taught with Ingraham in Jamaica. Both wrote memoirs that served as compelling primary sources of their experiences in abolitionist and mission work.

After an introduction that sets the three in the revivalist/holiness context around Lane and Oberlin and the ministry of Finney, Christopher Momany offers a composite biography of Ingraham, Bradley, and Prince. In chapter two, Sègbégnon Mathieu Gnonhossou, describes what Ingraham found onboard the impounded Ulysses, and offers a detailed account of slaving in West Africa. David D. Daniels III, in chapter three recounts the experiences of both racism and inclusion encountered by Bradley and Prince in the North. Prince spent some years in Russia, which at the time was more racially enlightened than New England.

How were the abolitionists sustained in this arduous struggle, both at home and in Jamaica? R. Matthew Sigler explores in chapter four the important role of worship and personal devotional in the lives of the three. Chapter five examines the theological underpinnings of these “ordinary abolitionists.” showing how a sense of the all-embracing love of God and devotion to Christ spurred them both to evangelism and advocacy for justice for the slaves.

Diane Leclerc, in chapter six considers the hardships faced by both black and white women in this era. She details the exploitation of Black women’s bodies, and also the hardships faced by women like Sarah Ingraham Penfield, who followed her parents to Jamaica, also following them in death by tuberculosis while facing isolation due to her insistence on equality, the Oberlin Principles, convictions not shared by other missionaries. Philanthropy, such as that of the Tappans, played a vital role in the efforts of the abolitionist, as Esther Chung-Kim shows in chapter seven. Albert G. Miller shows the struggle Oberlin, both the town and the college, faced in maintaining racial equality in enrollments, campus housing, and restrictive title deeds for properties in Oberlin.

Read the appendices! They provide a helpful timeline of the persons and events and crucial writings of Bradley, Prince, and Ingraham, including a facsimile of his journal page with a diagram of the layout and confining dimensions of Ulysses. Hearing their own words about their faith and passion to fight slavery is stirring, including Ingraham’s plaintive question:

“O where are the sympathies of christians for the slave + where are their exersians (sic) for their liberation. O it seems as if the church were asleep + Satan has the world following him.”

I love this example of how a community of Christian scholars collaborate, using the discovery of a journal, to tell both the stories of Ingraham, Prince, and Bradley as well as the larger stories of slavery, racism, and abolitionist activism in their time and the inspiration it gives for our own day. As an Ohioan, I’ve been inspired by our Underground Railroad history, tracing its routes through the campus of Ohio State and through the areas around my home town of Youngstown. I’ve known some of the history of Lane and Oberlin, including seeing the historic buildings shown in archival photos in the book. Reading this work makes me both proud of this spiritual and abolitionist history and determined to carry it forward in our day.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes

Cover image of "Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes" by David B Capes

Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes, David B. Capes. Kregel Academic (ISBN: 9780825444784), 2024.

Summary: A commentary on the Gospel of Matthew showing both obvious and subtle references to the Old Testament of how the life and ministry of Jesus fulfilled the plan of God articulated in these passages.

The Gospel of Matthew would seem the ideal book to look at “through Old Testament eyes.” Matthew wrote for a primarily Jewish audience and cites numerous OT passages and alludes to others. This commentary draws all that out, including a very helpful chart on the twelve fulfillment quotations (yes, the number is significant) (pp. 136-137). Through inline verse by verse commentary, sections on the structure, passage overviews “through Old Testament Eyes” and “Going Deeper” discussions on particular passages, David Capes helps the reader of Matthew understand how Jesus, in his life and ministry, fulfilled the redemptive purposes of God, glimpsed by the writers of the former Testament.

In my review, I want to highlight some of the fresh insights I gained from this study:

  • Capes notes the chiastic structure of the genealogy that highlights Jesus as Messiah, son of David and Son of Abraham.
  • He ties Herod into the bad shepherds of Micah.
  • He notes the connection of the servant song (Isaiah 42) to the Father’s “with him I am well pleased” at the baptism of Jesus.
  • The beatitude form is one found throughout the Old Testament.
  • The idea of the Two Ways restates themes found in Deuteronomy and elsewhere.
  • The three clusters of three miracles in Mt. 8-9 each end with teaching on some aspect of discipleship
  • The promise of rest in Matthew 11:28-30 sounds much like that in Jeremiah 6:16.
  • Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is intentional, even premeditated, and not accidental.
  • Capes sees parallels between King Ahasuerus and his oaths to Esther and Herod’s oath to his daughter at the banquet. A fascinating comparison!
  • Only Matthew uses the term “church” in the “on this rock” promise to Peter.
  • The elevation of children as models of discipleship is highlighted.
  • Jesus arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey harks to Zechariah 9:9 and signifies the kind of king he is.
  • Jesus is clear about his identity as the cornerstone, his rejection, and its consequences.
  • Capes offers a helpful outline of the apocalyptic discourse of Matthew 24-25.
  • It was not blasphemy for Jesus to claim he was Messiah, but rather to sit at God’s right hand and come on the clouds.
  • Psalm 22 underlies the account of the torture, humiliation, and crucifixion, and Jesus cry of dereliction.
  • Jesus Great Commission recapitulates his whole ministry–he exemplified what he commands.

This is only a selection. Capes helps us see the large structure of the five sermons and the bookends of Matthew as well as smaller details, such as parable or miracle groupings and their significance. Most of all, he helps us recognize in the story of Jesus the realization of the story of God’s history with Israel. Capes also helps us see how this gospel is a manual of discipleship, both for the first followers of Jesus and those of us coming along centuries later.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Anxious Generation

Cover image for "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt.

The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt. Penguin Press (ISBN: 9780593655030), 2024.

Summary: Explores the connections between the decline in independent play in childhood, the advent of smartphones, and the sharp rise in anxiety and depression, among adolescents and young adults.

Everyone in higher education is talking about the mental health crisis, particularly the incidence of anxiety and depression among adolescents and young adults. Counseling centers on every campus are slammed with the demand. But why is this? Some trace it to COVID and the experience of isolation these youth went through. But in fact, COVID only accelerated a trend mental health professionals were seeing for the past decade.

Jonathan Haidt believes this may be traced to a shift from a play-based to a phone-based childhood, a transition that coincides with the rise in incidence in anxiety and depression. He contends that children have been over-protected in the world of embodied, independent play and under-protected in the disembodied, virtual world that they are connected to by the devices in their pockets.

In the first part of the book, Haidt offers a number of of graphs, all showing sharp increases during the 2010’s in the incidence of various mental health issues. What is most striking is that this is true for all Western nations and not just the United States–it’s not just American cultural factors. It is striking that girls have been hit the hardest, but boys have also shown increases in all of these indicators.

Part Two explorers the decline of the play-based childhood going back to the 1990’s, reflecting parental fearfulness and overprotection. Free play, not controlled by adults, is crucial for the development of social skills and attunement to others. Children become more resilient and antifragile with play in which there is an element of risk and where parents don’t immediately swoop in and rescue (unless there are actual injuries requiring attention). This makes children more inclined to operate in “discover” rather than “defend” mode and for children learning to care for themselves and assess risks. We’ve also eliminated rites of passage that build a ladder from childhood through puberty to adulthood. Haidt offers guidelines for age appropriate steps, including when (not until high school) children have smartphones. The advent of smartphones accelerated this decline, replacing embodied play with the unprotected virtual world online.

In Part Three, Haidt outlines the harms phone-based childhoods cause. He notes four foundational harms to both boys and girls: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. He then discusses the harms to girls, which are greater, as well as the harms to boys, Haidt shows the experimental evidence for how social media harms girls: visual media results in invidious physical comparisons, promotes aggression against other girls, promotes sharing of emotions resulting in “sociogenic” illness, and exposes girls to male predators urging sexting and other dangerous activities. Boys engage differently, engaging more with online porn and multi-player online games. While there are some positive aspects of the latter, Haidt traces the “failure to launch,” including problems of forming healthy relationships with real-life partners. Finally, Haidt explores how phones pull us downward in the spiritual or “elevation” aspect of our life, and suggests six practices, secular spiritual disciples as it were, to recover what we’ve lost.

The last part of the book explores what government and industry, what schools, and what parents can do. He advocates for four foundational reforms:

  1. No smartphones before high school, giving children only basic flip phones before then (up to about age 14).
  2. No social media before age 16, including more stringent age verification standards on social media platforms.
  3. Phone-free schools, where phones, smartwatches, and other devices are stored in phone lockers, to free up students attention.
  4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.

Haidt draws on the work of Lenore Skenazy, who wrote Free Range Kids for his guidance to parents about unsupervised play and independence. He commends the work of Let Grow, an organization Skenazy has served as president. He notes how working with other parents and needing to be aware of state laws (and in some cases, working to change them), around child supervision is important. A child exercising responsible independence can look like a neglected child in some eyes. I would have liked to see Haidt address more the real-world dangers that did not exist or were very rare in our childhoods and how parents address these while not lapsing into over-protection, as well as addressing the particular risks girls and women face.

I know smartphones have rewired my brain and have snared me with their addictive power. I’ve had to make decisions regarding my own use of them. What Haidt proposes seems both scientifically demonstrable and just plain common sense. Talking with mental health professionals, it is just not feasible from workforce or insurance factors, to significantly expand their services. Haidt proposes that we tackle the problem at its roots in our shift from play-based to phone-based childhoods. This will take concerted action on the part of parents, schools, and governments acting together, but actually seem relatively low cost by comparison. It just takes shared recognition of the problem and concerted action (and maybe resistance to the social media lobby claiming the safety of its products). In the end, we will all be the better for it.

The Weekly Wrap: June 2-8, 2024

person wrapping a book
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Welcome to the first edition of The Weekly Wrap, a new feature at the Bob on Books blog. As I follow book news, review books, post articles at my Facebook page, it struck me that it might be fun for me and useful to you to share some of my personal gleanings from the past week. Hopefully, what I share here will enrich your own reading life without needing to go hunting all over the internet.

I expect this feature to evolve in the coming weeks. I’d like to hear what you think and what you’d enjoy seeing in a weekly digest like this. To begin:

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of the foremost theologians of the last century, Jürgen Moltmann died this past week at the age of 98. Coming to faith while housed in a British prisoner of war camp during World War II, his The Crucified God and Theology of Hope were landmark works. Died: Jürgen Moltmann, Theologian of Hope is Christianity Today’s obituary, offering a summary of the life and work of the man who taught that “God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him.”

I was studying at our local library in 1986, a part-time graduate student. I came home for lunch when my wife greeted me with the news of the Challenger disaster. It left me wordless to watch the footage of the explosion, realizing I was watching the death of seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher. The Atlantic ran an review (“What the Challenger Disaster Proved“) this week of Adam Higgenbotham’s Challenger–A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space.

Fans of The Hunger Games will be excited to learn that Suzanne Collins will be publishing a new installment in 2025. Bookriot announced the new book this week in the article “Surprise! A New HUNGER GAMES Book Is Coming.”

“Kafkaesque” has become part of our vocabulary to describe anything “extremely unpleasant, frightening, and confusing” (Cambridge Dictionary). Claire Armitstead explore why Kafka has such a hold over our culture a century after he died in “Can’t get you out of my head: why pop culture is still under Kafka’s spell

Have you kept a book for many years that had a profound influence in your life. Often, we see more than we did the first time, find depths we hadn’t discovered. But not always. Margaret Renkl explores the experience of re-reading and how the changes in our lives change our readings in “I Reread a Book That Changed My Life, but I’d Changed, Too.”

Quote of the Week

Children’s author Cynthia Rylant turned 70 on June 6. I loved this quote by her:

“It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a gripping and provocative read. He lays the blame squarely on the combination of the arrival of smartphone and the social media apps tailored to it and the decline of opportunities to engage in embodied play.

Over at my Facebook page, I’ve been running a series of images each evening until Father’s Day. Images of women reading probably outnumber those of men at least ten to one. This seemed a great practical application of my recent article “Real Men Read.” I care about this not only because I believe reading can enrich men’s lives but also that they can have a powerful influence with children, especially young boys.

I haven’t read many books in bed that keep me awake. William Kent Krueger’s Boundary Waters did. Krueger proves you can both write well and get people to turn the page. This is the fourth of Krueger’s works that I have read and none have disappointed, and I’m excited that there are so many more Cork O’Connors to read!

I’m going to leave it there. I’d love to know what you think. That’s a wrap.

Review: The Father of Modern India: William Carey

Cover image of "The Father of Modern India" by Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi.

The Father of Modern India: William Carey, Vishal & Ruth Mangalwadi. Sought After Media (ISBN: 9798988783107), 2023

Summary: Proposes that missionary William Carey, and not Mahatma Gandhi, is rightly to be considered the father of modern India.

Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi make a bold proposal that is no doubt controversial in some quarters. This is that the English cobbler missionary to India, and not Mahatma Gandhi, should be reckoned the father of modern India. Their opening chapter makes the case for what a sweeping impact Carey had on India. Not only was he a missionary who brought the message of Jesus, he was a botanist after whom a variety of eucalyptus is named and he brought the English daisy to India. He introduced the steam engine, the savings bank to fight usury, humane treatment of leprosy patients, printing technology, agricultural societies that laid the groundwork for the Green Revolution of the 1960’s. He translated important works and taught indigenous languages, liberating lower castes from high caste dominance that functioned by keeping them in ignorance. This also worked against the interest of British colonizers. He introduced the science of astronomy, countering superstition. He established lending libraries, pioneered forest conservation and crusaded for women’s rights including the ending of the practice of sati. He was the catalyst of a cultural transformation.

All of this was rooted in the conviction that India was a country to be loved rather than exploited. This led him to fight for practices like those above that contributed to cultural flourishing while opposing evil, exploitive, and unjust practices. He believed in the power of a gospel that proclaimed the dignity of all classes, of women as well as men as those loved by God and redeemed by Christ. This led to opposing practices of female infanticide, of language barriers that kept the poor in ignorance, and fostered female education, giving women increased economic power.

This work, while arguing for Carey’s influence on modern India, avoids hagiography. It can be argued that he used emotional manipulation to force his first wife against her will to come to India, threatening to leave her behind. She endured poor conditions and the loss of a child drove her into insanity, leading to a twelve year confinement until her death. It seems he was wiser in his second marriage to a Danish countess, who was much more in support of his efforts and a partner in them.

The book goes on to share how Carey’s faith provided the bedrock ideas of reform, contrasted with the humanists of his day. Carey saw this as a work of God accomplished through conversion. He also saw God as the source of all rationality, hence his focus on various disciplines of science education. As previously noted, he recognized how important was the language of the people, and not just that of the elite. His literacy efforts raised the status of Bengali, in which Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel winning work was written. His worldview offered the premises for a modern society. His belief in a creator led to the emphasis on science. His belief in human beings in God’s image led to treating all human life as precious. His comprehensive efforts reflected a comprehensive view of the world shaped by his faith.

The tendency today is to lump Carey into Western cultural imperialism. The Mangalwadis challenge this narrative by showing Carey’s love for the country that often put him at odds with both indigenous and British overlords as he sought the flourishing of the nation’s people. At the same time they argue that Carey’s theologically shaped convictions led him to seek to supplant practices, whether harmful superstitions or the oppression of women or practices of health and hygiene, that increased human suffering and damaged the land and its economy.

This gets at the heart of the challenge of cultural relativism. The Mangalwadis argue that Carey’s work did transform India’s culture. Dare we say there are things in every culture that are evil and ought be rooted out? Is it not love to do so if it helps a society to flourish? How, for example, can we say that female genital mutilation is wrong and should be stopped, even though such practice has long been part of some indigenous cultures? The Mangalwadis argue that the change Carey brought both addressed evil and the country’s flourishing and that efforts to repudiate his influence (and his worldview) can lead to the dissolution of democracy, of egalitarian advances, religious liberty, and economic development.

I found the book an illuminating treatment of a cobbler who eventually taught several languages and had a transformative influence in so many areas. It makes a compelling case for how Carey’s Christian beliefs and deep love for the people of India was the source of his impact. In our post-colonial mood, I hope scholars and other readers will have the discernment not to uncritically tar all western mission efforts with the same brush. At very least, the Mangalwadis make a case for a closer look at Carey.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Humility

Cover image of "Humility" by Michael W. Austin

Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ, Michael W. Austin. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882103), 2024.

Summary: A study of the Christian virtue of humility understood as following Jesus, being formed in his character of humility and love through his people and through spiritually transformative practices.

Humility. We often associate this with weakness. The person who is a doormat. We might do better to think of humility as the person who is so taken with serving others that it’s apparent they are not thinking of themselves. They are people who look a bit like Jesus, probably because they have been walking in the way of Jesus. In his book, Humility, Michael W. Austin writes:

“What is the person like who follows Christ in his humility? The humble person fights to descend the social ladder, rather than climb it. The humble person makes the interests of others their priority, rather than their own. Instead of always grasping for what they want, the humble person serves others, for their good, often in sacrificial ways. The humble person focuses on God and others, rather than themselves. The humble person is steeped in the love of God, and that love flows from God through them to others” (p. 35).

Austin writes to explore the question of how humility may be formed in our lives. Keeping company with Jesus and the close association of humility with overflowing yet practical love runs through his book.

He goes on to explore some of the qualities associated with humility and love in the lives of people on the way of Jesus: faith, relinquishing control, wisdom, compassion, justice. One of his most telling challenges, particularly as a remedy to sloth, is to live locally–for our town, church, and those we love–except in abusive situations. Leaving is often the easy way instead of going deeper in a place. He also considers the practices that form humility in us: community, scripture, prayer, solitude, service, just peace-making, and listening to the marginalized. He challenges us to commit ourselves to rhetorical nonviolence. What’s attractive about the humility Austin advocates is that he joins personal piety with seeking the just and peaceable society of the kingdom of Jesus.

Those who walk in the way of Jesus are also called to be preparers of the way, removing obstacles for others to join us in the way. For Austin, this means quitting the culture war, renouncing polarization, and being consistently pro-life.

Finally, humility means persevering in the way. Austin finds that memento mori, remembering we will die, helps us, because it leads us to embrace the daily joys along the way as well as living more deeply into our hope.

This seems fitting in a time where it seems many of us have been distracted from the way of Jesus to fight culture wars and pursue polarizing conversations. Austin helps us see both the path from which we have strayed and the ways we may walk in that path, as well as how good the way of Jesus is, and how central to any of us who identify ourselves with Christ. It’s not so much that Austin says anything strikingly new. It is rather that he reminds us of the ways we may have forgotten. He retrieves a conversation and language that has gone missing in many of our churches. There are times when we need again to hear “the old, old story, of Jesus and his love.”

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Rose Rent

Cover image of "The Rose Rent" by Ellis Peters

The Rose Rent (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael ), Ellis Peters. Mysterious Press/Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9780446405331), 2014 (originally published in 1986).

Summary: Two deaths and the abduction of a widow seem tied to a white rose bush from which the annual rent of a Foregate property is paid in the form of one white rose.

It is coming up on the anniversary of the celebration of the placing of St. Winifred’s reliquary on the abbey altar. The same day also marks the payment of an unusual rent. Judith Perle, heir of a prosperous weaving establishment lost both her husband and unborn child within three weeks. In her grief, she deeded their home in the Foregate to the abbey with the provision of a rent of one white rose from a bush on the property, paid on St. Winifred’s day. It involved about half her estate. The business, however, prospers under her cousin Miles’ management, so much so that she thinks of entering the convent, unhappy with the suitors who have sought her hand (and fortune).

Brother Eluric, a monk given over to the abbey as a child, is designated to deliver the rent. But in doing so in previous years, he found himself attracted to her and he pleads to be released from the obligation to keep his soul pure, and he is. Niall, the householder, a widower with a young daughter, is designated to take his place, a task he is delighted to accept, as he is also attracted to the widow. He is a bronzesmith and his feelings are further fostered when Judith brings him a girdle to be repaired–a buckle had torn away.

Niall’s daughter lived with his sister but he visited regularly. One night, shortly before the rose rent is due, he finds the bush has been mangled but not destroyed. There is a body at its base, Brother Eluric, dead of a knife wound. A bootprint is found nearby, that Cadfael takes a mold of. Later, as he discusses the death with Judith. Cadfael discloses Eluric’s attraction. Judith determines the next day to end the whole rose rent thing, giving the house fully to the abbey. She speaks of this to a servant, who share it in the kitchen, where this is overheard by a number.

The next morning she sets out for the abbey and is seen crossing the bridge but never arrrives at the abbey or returns home. It is concluded that she has been abducted, particularly after a boat is recovered and a buckle from the girdle Niall repaired is found. The town is turned out to search for her, including Bertred, on of her workers. He goes out that night on a secret errand and finds where Judith is being held. A mishap is heard by a neighboring watchman who sets the dogs on him. He escapes by jumping into the river, stunned when he hits his head. Then, as he comes to, a dark figure strikes another blow, and shoves him into deeper water, where Cadfael finds his body the next day. And he discover that the boots match the bootprint he found by Brother Eluric.

Was Bertred Eluric’s killer? And who killed Bertred? And is Judith’s abduction connected, and how will it all come right? Cadfael is not alone in the resolution of it all. Our old friend Sister Magdalen will play a role as does Niall, and Judith herself, with Cadfael himself uncovering the key clue pointing to the murderer. What’s most interesting in this story is we find ourselves pressed to keep in focus the murders as the story of Judith’s abduction unfolds, with all the possible implications this has.