Author: rtrube54

Review: Make Work Matter

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Make Work Matter, Michaela O’Donnell, PhD. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2021.

Summary: A book on finding meaningful work, focusing on the adaptive skills and sense of calling one needs, the character one develops, and a four-part entrepreneurial cycle for the journey.

This is a book for the person who wants to find meaningful work that has impact on our world. In the first part of the book, the author, an entrepreneur who has started businesses and directs a leadership center, talks about the places where we may feel stuck and the changing landscape of work, which she likens to white water rafting, requiring us to grab a paddle, prepare to be unprepared, navigate our own way, and even re-route the river! But it all begins with understanding calling: belonging to Christ, working toward redemption, creating, as well as our particular calling.

She then focuses on the kind of people we need to become in the new world of work. She contends we all need to embrace an entrepreneurial stance that seizes opportunity, creates value, and faces risk. The entrepreneur is rooted in relationship and O’Donnell encourages us to identify our brain trust, the people who will support us, speak truth, and share their expertise to help us along. Entrepreneurs trust their creativity, participating with God to make the world new, anticipating God’s redeemed world, and recognizing that creativity is often collaborative. And entrepreneurs are resilient, living between Good Friday and the Resurrection, which means being able to grieve our failures with hope.

Finally, O’Donnell discusses what she calls as the entrepreneurial way, really a cycle involving four actions: practicing empathy along the way, converting empathy into imagination, letting imagination fuel risk-taking, and after taking risks, reflecting. She uses the story of the Good Samaritan to show what practicing empathy along the way looks like and recounts the story of the co-founder of Kiva, Jessica Jackley, who empathized with entrepreneurial women doing amazing things with very little, and recognized the potential of small personal loans to help them do even more. The paralytic’s friends in Luke 5 practiced imagination in coming up with the idea of lowering him through to roof to get him to Jesus. Risk then says, “let’s try.” She concludes with discussing how important reflecting on where you’ve been to keep going.

O’Donnell illustrates throughout the book both from her own life (including failures, like having to re-write her dissertation) and the stories of other entrepreneurs. Each chapter concludes with an exercise. The book is designed to help those trying to discern what it means to find and pursue meaningful work in today’s marketplace. It explores both what it means to lean into our faith and calling, and the practical things we need to work on as workers, the mindset and habits that will sustain us on the rapids.

This strikes me as a valuable book at those junctures where one is taking stock, whether as a student entering the marketplace, or when one has lost a job and needs to figure out what is next, or is embarking on a career change or new venture. The book is less about job skills and more about working on who we are and the life God is inviting us into through our work. To me, this is where the real work is, where people truly flourish in work…or not.

Review: A World of Curiosities

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A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2022.

Summary: The arrival in Three Pines of a sister and brother involved in a murder case that brought Armand and Jean Guy and the opening of a sealed room and the strange painting found within confront Gamache with two of his greatest fears.

Bricks. They are all over this story. The instrument of murder in a case that brought Armand and Jean Guy together. The means used 160 years ago to seal up a room filled with strange objects and a copy of a famous painting altered in sinister ways signifying to Gamache that an old nemesis is on the loose.

The murder case and the room summon two fears in the mind of Gamache. The murder was of a drug-addicted prostitute who prostituted her children. Jean Guy, languishing in the basement of the district detachment under a corrupt boss, is called on to assist Gamache. As the mother had deteriorated, the children took over, and then murdered the mother. With a brick. The older girl, Fiona Arsenault, confessed, but Gamache was never certain. There was a chilling something about her brother Sam, something deeply broken and disturbing. And while Sam bonded with Jean Guy, he hated Gamache for ending what he and his sister had.

Fiona, against Gamache’s wishes, went to prison. While there, he sponsored her when she discovered an aptitude for engineering. He and Reine Marie became mentors to her. Sam survived, first in a foster home, then in a variety of jobs, traveling about, becoming a strikingly handsome young man.

In the present, Myrna’s niece Harriet is graduating, as is Fiona and they are all present. Fiona, now out of prison is staying with the Gamaches. Only Sam shows up as well, staying at the B & B. The contempt for Gamache is still there, and all his fears and instincts are aroused, even as Sam wins Harriet’s heart. Myrna, in her previous life as a Montreal psychologist, had interviewed Sam. She shared Gamache’s concerns that he could be a sociopath, or worse. Jean Guy disagrees.

Converging with all this, a 160 year old letter to Billy Williams reveals the existence of a hidden room bricked up by Billy’s ancestor, a stone mason. It is connected to Myrna’s loft and could make a great extra room for Harriet. Yet the reasons for bricking up the room and why this came to Billy at this time raise suspicions. And indeed, what they find in the room is “a world of curiosities.” There is an old grimoire, a book of potions, of herbal remedies, and more, that could get a woman killed for witchcraft. There is a statue that had gone missing after a strange guest stayed at the B & B, covered with strange markings. And there is a painting, a copy of The Paston Treasure with menacing additions from the present. It is the additions that increasingly disturb Gamache, as he figures out they are meant for him.

They signal that a nemesis thought to be locked away is afoot. How did these contemporary objects get into a sealed room? Only a meticulous mind could do this, a master of disguise. But he is locked away in a high security prison. Or is he?

Two who hated Gamache. Two with access to Three Pines. Even the home of the Gamaches, endangering all he loved. They both seem to know everything about Gamache. Can he get into their heads as they have his? And can he go deeper, and walk into his fears? And will it be enough?

So much has turned on the kindness of Gamache, especially to Fiona. Early on, a mentor had cautioned him with the words of Matthew 10:36, “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” Yet the Gamaches make themselves vulnerable in their care for Fiona, their tendency to take in the needy. They’ve also done this for Amelia Chocquet, even as years ago, they did so with Jean Guy, who has tried to show kindness to Sam. So much turns in this story on whether this is weakness, foolishness, or strength.

We also see two ways and their fruit: the way of a deep bitterness and how this consumes, and the way of facing one’s brokenness, the admission of wrongs and the power of forgiveness. Armand is forced by the evil that threatens to look in and wrestle with these two ways in his own life.

All I will say about the ending of this book is that if you have a heart condition, you may want to seek your physician’s advice before reading it. This is Louise Penny at the top of her game.

Review: Christian Parenting

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Christian Parenting: Wisdom and Perspectives from American History, David P. Setran. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2022.

Summary: A historical study of Christian parenting beliefs in two eras of American history, the Colonial and Victorian periods.

All conscientious and loving parents have wrestled with the question of how to raise their children. For Christians, there is the added concern of imparting their faith, seeing their children follow Christ, growing up as people characterized by faith, hope, and love.

What David P. Setran offers here is not a handbook but a history of parenting practices among Christians in what became the United States during the first three centuries of our history. Setran divides this history into two periods, the Colonial (1620-1770) and the Victorian (1830-1890), with the intervening years reflecting a transition. And what he finds is a distinctive shift from the former to the latter periods in the parental tasks, the nature of the home, the respective roles and strength of influence of fathers and mothers, and the assumptions about the spiritual nature of children and how, then, they ought to be formed in the faith.

While fathers and mothers both play an important role in both periods, the father’s role stands out in the Colonial period and the home was considered central in the spiritual lives of children. In this period sons often inherited property from fathers, heightening this tie, and much of life, economic and otherwise was centered in the home. Children were understood as unregenerate sinners who needed to be awakened to their own sinfulness and in need of the saving grace of God to impart new life in Christ to them. Thus one of the roles of fathers was evangelist. The home was also a center of worship, with the father as “priest” leading the family in worship. Part of their work was that of intercession for God’s saving work in the lives of their children. The home was also considered the school of faith, with parents instructing their children in both the catechism and the commands of scripture. Literacy was important to catechism and the reading of scripture. The aim of all of this was to provide children with the vocabulary of faith and parents were “prophets,” instructing children in the word of the Lord. Finally, every home was a little kingdom with parents as “kings,” exercising authority over their children, teaching children to honor parents, and exercising discipline in the form of admonition, restraint, and corporal punishment (“the rod”). Yet much of the literature emphasized moderation and not severity in discipline or instruction.

Setran traces a shift occurring from about 1830 on. Mothers play a much more important role as fathers work increasingly takes them out of the home except for Sundays. The home is increasingly seen as a loving and nurturing environment in which children’s faith and character is shaped less by instruction and ritual and more by the loving care and model of parents. There is also a shift from Calvinist belief in depravity to seeing children as malleable, or even as innocents. Instead of stressing the need of conversion, parents influenced the faith and character of children through the environment they created and the model of their own lives, especially early in the child’s life. Reflecting the shift to mothers, much of the literature focused on the mother’s role in Christian nurture. Motherly love was considered an irresistible force while fathers became playmates rather than pedagogues with their children. A critical function of the home was the creation of warm memories. Family worship, “the family altar,” continued to be stressed, less as father-led, and more dialogical. Discipline focused more around the love of parents, with the disobedient child removed from the parental circle through early versions of “time out. The focus on human love ran the danger of elevating it above the love of God and the ideal of home as heaven on earth ran the danger of de-emphasizing the priority of the church, although the church became increasingly the center of catechesis, rather than the home, even as education was being shifted to the schools.

This study offers perspective on how we have gotten to where we are in our Christian parenting practices, particularly the contemporary situation in which so many institutions outside the home are having a more profound influence. While not offering detailed parenting advice, he proposes that there are things that may be drawn from both of the periods, particularly the idea of catechesis and family worship woven into the daily life of families in a warm home environment. Drawing on James K.A. Smith, these “liturgies of the ordinary,” to borrow a phrase from Tish Harrison Warren, can be powerful in forming our children. He argues against an approach that polarizes the two models into either-or in conflict but draws on the best of both.

One question that is noted but not resolved has to do with our assumptions about the spiritual nature of children. Are they unregenerate sinners in need of conversion or malleable creatures or even spiritual innocents? How people answer this has shaped parenting advice and practices. The former view is often portrayed as unloving, harsh, or severe in terms of parenting practices as opposed to the loving home environment associated with the latter. But need it be, and is this even accurate? Setran’s account of the Colonial period refers to warnings about harshness in discipline, or overly taxing approaches to catechesis.

I’m reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s observation that original sin is the one doctrine of the Christian faith empirically verifiable. I’m also reminded that one of the first words children learn is “no.” This inclines me to the Colonial period’s assumptions and suggests that there are some valuable lessons we may learn from them in this work. The shift in assumptions in the Victorian period seems to me linked to Christian Smith’s “moral therapeutic deism” in which Christian faith is reduced to being nice, with God as the friend who is there when I need him and otherwise stays out of the way. While I do not disagree with the author’s conclusion that we draw from the values both periods, I do think the assumptions we make shape how we prioritize those values, and the character of the faith that results.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — St. John’s Episcopal Church

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St. John’s Episcopal Church as rendered on a 1912 postcard

I discovered St. John’s Episcopal Church, at 323 Wick Avenue as a student at Youngstown State University. The church sits diagonally across the street from Jones Hall and overlooks Smoky Hollow. Mostly, I admired the English-looking architecture from across the street. That changed when the girl I was dating (now my wife) learned of a Lenten series being held at the church on the works of C. S. Lewis, facilitated by Dr. James Houck, who we had both had for a course in English literature in the Romantic era. We really liked Dr. Houck and were fans of the works of C.S. Lewis, and the discussions would occur in the parlor of this majestic building–entirely appropriate to discuss the works of this Oxford (later Cambridge) professor.

In my later college years, I discovered the regular luncheons hosted by the church for college students, an effort of the campus ministry at Youngstown State. Eating under the Gothic arches of the Parish House dining hall, often accompanied by musical entertainment than the dining facilities on campus, with piped in music.

I was reminded of this grand structure, one of a number on Wick Avenue when I wrote recently about Paul J. Ricciuti, a parishioner of this congregation, who helps with matters of upkeep and architectural preservation of this more than century old building. I was gratified to learn that there is still an active congregation inhabiting this building, providing free community meals every Sunday through its Red Door Cafe, operating a food pantry, and hosting a Montessori school. It is most widely known in the community for its annual Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival, being held next on January 8, 2023, the Sunday after Epipany. The festival goes back to medieval times with sprites, a Boar’s Head company, carolers and King Wenceslas, woodsman with the Yule Log, shepherds and Three Wise Men. It celebrates the manifesting of the baby Jesus as the long-awaited king, worshiped by the three kings. It begins in darkness with a candle born by a sprite bringing light, symbolizing the light come into the world. I’ve never witnessed this but reading about it makes me wish I could–who knows!

This active congregation traces its history back to the 1850’s. The first Episcopal church in the Youngstown area (and the Western Reserve) was St. James Episcopal Church in Boardman, consecrated in 1829 by Ohio’s first Episcopal bishop, Philander Chase. In the 1850’s, an Episcopal parishioner, Mrs. Jesse Thornton started a Sunday school for children in her home on West Federal Street. The work grew, and moved to an old high school at the corner of Wood and Champion. Rev. A.T. McMurphy, from St. James, started holding services and on December 8, 1859. the St. John’s congregation was organized, electing officers (the vestry) to lead the church and construct a church building. Subsequently, they acquired the site of the old high school where the Sunday school met, laid the cornerstone on Easter of 1861, finished construction in 1862, and consecrated the building on October 21, 1863.

Image is of the first St. John’s Episcopal Church at Wood and Champion, from History of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

They met and grew here until a fire on December 21 of 1895 destroyed the building. That Christmas, they worshiped at Tabernacle United Presbyterian Church (the church I was baptized in growing up, when it was still located downtown). Plans had already been under way and a property acquired on Wick Avenue because the church had grown so much that it had created two mission chapels. They met at one, St. Mary’s, on Mahoning Avenue until their new building was complete.

The church hired William Halsey Wood as architect for the new building in 1896. Wood had been the architect for the first Carnegie Library and had just completed architectural work for Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh (a beautiful church building I have also visited). Unfortunately, he died as construction was beginning in 1897, with Mr. E. L. Ford, head of the building committee taking on oversight of the project. He worked out details left unspecified by Wood, and essentially became the architect of the project, which was sufficiently complete that services began in March of 1898 and the building was formally consecrated in 1900.

The rough stone interior of the building reflects the Arts and Crafts Movement that began in England in the 1870’s. This style is also evident in other Youngstown structures from some of the stone bridges in Mill Creek Park to Slippery Rock Pavilion, Ford Nature Center, the Arms Museum, and the chapel and office of Tod Homestead Cemetery. The stone interior is complimented by magnificent stained glass, including the front Te Deum window and the window in the north transept, The Resurrection Angel. In the 1950’s a series of clerestory stained glass windows were added, portraying steel mill labor.

Over the years, other additions and enhancements have been made including the St. John’s Parish House, which includes a dining hall and kitchen, the parlor where we had our C.S. Lewis group, and church offices. In 1954, new pews were installed in the church and the basement was excavated, creating six Sunday school classrooms and the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.

The year 2000, the hundredth anniversary of the building’s consecration, was celebrated with a $500,000 capital campaign for improvements in mechanicals, building repairs, and the antiphonal component for the Schlicker organ, installed in 1966. This campaign also endowed the community dinners held each Sunday. [The church’s website offers an extensive history of the architecture, from which I have drawn for this section.]

St. John’s Episcopal overlooks Smoky Hollow, once a working class neighborhood on one side and the university district on the other. It has ministered to the physical, aesthetic, intellectual and spiritual needs of a wide community, including many who are not parishioners. The COVID pandemic has led curtailed some programs, as it has for many organizations, but the church continues to be a vibrant and engaging presence on the Wick Avenue corridor. The Reverend Gayle Catinella summarizes what makes St. John’s such an inviting place:

“People come to St. John’s because it is beautiful. They stay because they feel welcome, and there are many meaningful ways to reach out in love to our broken world. We are making a difference in our community, and with your help we could do even more!”

This, to my mind, captures the character of St. John’s.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Books I’m Looking Forward to Reading This Winter

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I’m between reviews right now and so I thought it might be fun to share a few of the books on my TBR (To Be Read) pile that I’m really looking forward to reading on those cold winter mornings or evenings. I have others, but these have especially caught my eye.

James Patterson by James Patterson. Do you know that I have never read a James Patterson book? But I like autobiographies, and I’d love to know how he cranks out so many books and why he thinks he’s been so successful. And I love that he has done so much to support bookstores.

One of Ours by Willa Cather. A friend suggested one of her books and she’s been my “author find” of the year. How did I go so long without discovering the fine writing of this American writer?

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. OK, I saw this on the buy one, get one 50% off at Barnes & Noble. I keep seeing Murakami turn up and thought I’d take a chance on this one. Maybe he will be my “author find” for 2023.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This was the partner to Murakami on the buy one, get one 50% off table. Zafon is another of those authors I keep hearing about and a plot that occurs in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books has to be interesting. Right?

The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Cells are one of the basic constituents of all living organism other than viruses. There is so much that have been discovered about them since my high school biology courses. Time for a refresher and this book keeps turning up on Best Science Book lists. I love good science writing!

Untrustworthy by Bonnie Kristian. Amid the conflicting claims and the climate of distrust, how do we know what is true. I think we really are in the midst of an epistemic crisis and I’m concerned that at some point charisma will win out over truth. I’m intrigued to see how the author will address this…and will I trust her recommendations?

Cultivating Mentors edited by Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers. There is a lot of talk about mentoring in the higher ed circles in which I work but many people struggle to find good mentors. I hope this book sheds some light on the gap between ideals and reality.

Hardness of Heart in Biblical Literature by Charles B. Puskas. The topic intrigues me. The image has always been a chilling one–a hard heart does not seem much different than a dead heart. How does one become hard and is there hope for such a person? The book holds special interest because it is written by a scholar who was something of a mentor to me back in the Jesus movement days before going on to a career in biblical scholarship, teaching, publishing, and pastoring.

The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford. I liked his Shop Class as Soul Craft, which I read this year. This appears to be a book on attention, something I am convinced is important to everything from repairing a car to singing in a choral group to effective research to encountering God. I want to see what he will say about all this.

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff. I think we hear more about John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, but it can be argued that it was Samuel Adams who lit the match that started the whole conflagration of the American Revolution. I know little about him other than he is related to John.

These won’t be the only books you see on this blog in the months ahead. I suspect there are some other “sleepers” that I’ll really like. But these are some that I’m looking forward to curling up with when the winds of winter are blowing outside my door–at least until I have to get out and clear the snow!

Let me know what you are looking forward to reading. Some of these ended up on the pile because of the recommendations of friends.

Review: Swing, Brother, Swing

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Swing, Brother, Jones (Inspector Alleyn #15), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1949).

Summary: An eccentric British Lord joins a swing band for a number that involves a gun, and the person at whom he shoots is actually killed with an unusual projectile–a knitting needle–right in front of Alleyn!

Lord Pastern and Baggott fits the stereotype of an eccentric English Lord. His latest craze is swing and he sponsors Breezy Bellair and His Boys as they rehearse in his ballroom for gigs at the Metronome, a swanky club. He’s so into it he even writes a piece in which he stands in for the veteran drummer, Syd Skelton. At the climax of the piece, he plans to fake the shooting of the rest of the band beginning with Carlos da Rivera, who is nearly engaged to his daughter, Félicité. He even makes an elaborate show before his wife’s niece Carlisle Wayne, of showing how he has extracted each bullet to make the blanks in the pistol.

No one likes Rivera, with the possible exception of Lord Pastern. Cecile, his wife, detests him. The band leader, Breezy Bellair, is upset with him because he is not going to continue getting him his drugs. Félicité has been dragging her feet and at a dinner before the show, broke off the relationship. Rivera didn’t help things with making a pass at Carlisle. Ned Manx, a drama critic who writes for Harmony, a tabloid-type paper had words after dinner and socked him one on the ear.

We all see it coming, don’t we? I feel like crying out, don’t go through with the gag! Breezy is nervous about it and has Syd Skelton check out the gun before the act. He see’s nothing amiss. The gun is placed under a sombrero located near the table of Lord Pastern and Baggott’s party. Conveniently, Alleyn and Troy, who is expecting (!) are at the next table. Lord Pastern and Baggott goes through with the gag, and Rivera, unlike the other band members really falls down, and Breezy places a wreath over him, only to find that Rivera has really been seriously wounded with a needle-like projectile in his chest. Bellair has him taken out to an office and a doctor called, but it is too late. Rivera is dead. Lord Pastern and Baggott turns over the gun to Bellair who gives it to Alleyn. Scratches are found in the barrel consistent with the projectile, held in place by an umbrella release.

And Alleyn has a host of suspects–nearly everyone in Lord Pastern and Baggott’s party as well as several band members. Meanwhile he has to calm down the drug strung out Bellair and deal with the eccentric Lord who all but incriminates himself. Meanwhile, he has to figure out how the projectile, a knitting needle from Lady Cecile’s workbox found its way into Rivera’s chest..

I didn’t see the resolution of this one coming. Marsh’s red herrings drew me off. The plot where a pretended murder becomes an actual one is one Marsh will use again in Light Thickens, once again with Alleyn in the front row, a witness to the murder. Alleyn and Fox work patiently, refusing to be deflected by neither an annoying family nor the red herrings the killer used to throw Alleyn (and us) off track. An altogether satisfying ending, although it leaves us feeling that wealth is wasted on the rich.

Review: Participating in Abundant Life

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Participating in Abundant Life, Mark R. Teasdale. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: A holistic vision of salvation that includes material standards of living, quality of life, and eternal life under the rubric of abundant life.

Mark Teasdale is a professor of evangelism who works with churches reluctant to engage in evangelism to help them demonstrate and proclaim God’s saving work. For many of us, when we think of salvation, it means being restored to right relationship with God through the cross of Christ and having the hope of eternal life through his resurrection. Teasdale would affirm all of that but in this book, proposes that salvation is a far more holistic idea in scripture that has to do with human life and well-being both materially and spiritually.

The opening chapters of this book ground this claim in scripture. He proposes that there are three measures of the abundant life of salvation: standard of living, quality of life, and experiencing eternal abundant life in Christ. He both believes that this holistic vision allows the church to pursue the abundant life with people not ready for entering into a relationship with God in Christ. He contends they are experiencing salvation when we address everything from poverty to health care. This allows us to make common cause with those who do not share a Christian worldview but care about improving the standard of life of people and their quality of life.

Teasdale recognizes the danger that without the gospel of eternal abundant life, this can simply become humanitarian aid and social work. These are good but not all the good God intends for people. What differentiates Christian salvation are Christians working in community that demonstrates its spiritual hope as they invite people not only to receive goods and services but to receive these in the context of a spiritually robust and caring community, ready to speak of their hope.

The use of standards of living and quality of life allows both individuals and churches to have measurable goals and metrics as they share abundant life. The appendix of the book includes examples of both personal and corporate metrics churches can adopt and adapt.

Biblical scholars have long known that the language of salvation encompasses far more than just our eternal destiny. What this book does is work out what this might look like in the church’s life, both in the believer’s enjoyment of abundant life and the sharing of that life with those who do not yet believe. Instead of a program, Teasdale offers a paradigm shift while encouraging congregations to set their own measurable goals to address standards of living, quality of life, and the embrace of eternal life in Christ that together encompass the abundant life.

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

Review: The Road to Serfdom

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The Road to Serfdom (Fiftieth Anniversary edition), F. A. Hayek. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995 (originally published in 1944, link is to the 2007 Definitive Edition).

Summary: An argument that collectivist, planned economies lead to the erosion of individual liberties, the rule of law, and result in the rise of totalitarian governments.

It is probably not insignificant that F. A. Hayek, an economist who grew up and was educated in Austria, emigrated to England in 1938 and wrote this work during World War Two. He later moved to the United States. This book, less a work on economics than political philosophy, is an argument for the classic (not contemporary) liberal ideal that emphasized the rights and initiative of the individual, a limited role for government, a relatively unrestrained marketplace, and the rule of law. His basic argument is that the shift he was seeing from this liberal ideal to socialist, planned economies in England reflected the same course that he witnessed in the rise of National Socialism in Nazi Germany and Communism in the Stalinist Russia.

He argues that planned economies can never plan for all the variables of the marketplace, that those who buy and sell goods and services can more nimbly respond to. Planning undercuts the initiative of the individual and leads to increasingly authoritarian forms of government, required to enforce the efforts needed toward economic plans. Instead of seeking equality in liberty, the collectivist system achieves equality through restraint and servitude. These increasing coercive efforts result in the arbitrary use of authority rather than the rule of law. Paradoxically, even the poor are less free under such a system.

The question is who ultimately occupies the role of planners. Hayek offers a telling critique of the idea of the “common good,” which often remains undefined. And often, this happens to be the worst among us, those who are not constrained by moral restraints or concerns about truth. Perhaps the most chilling chapter in this work is the one titled, “The End of Truth,” reminding one of the “Post-truth era” in which we live. Authoritarian rulers develop their own myths to justify their rise to power and rule. Instead, all the channels used to spread knowledge are pressed into service to “strengthen the belief in the rightness of the decisions taken by the authority” (p. 175).

Hayek does allow a role for government in a capitalist economy, not in restricting trade but in regulating methods of legal production, sanitary and safe practices, the protection of environmental resources, and preventing fraud. He also allows a basic level of economic and health security as a concern of government.

It strikes me that Hayek’s fears of planned economies have not been realized in the socialist countries of Europe. My own sense is that what has occurred instead is an enlarged role of government to protect us from recessions, economic cycles, the consequences of shifts in the marketplace, and even personal misfortunes. This diminishment of the individual and dependency does leave us vulnerable to Hayek’s feared authoritarianism and the eclipse of the rule of law.

What troubles me in Hayek’s liberal ideal of individual liberty is that such systems are often blind to the inequities baked into the system, protecting individual liberty for only some who are citizens. Furthermore, these systemic inequities leave capitalist economies vulnerable to being supplanted by more planned economies that offer a vision of equality for the disadvantaged.

Nevertheless, Hayek’s critique of “planning,” of the rise of coercion, of the justification of means to achieve ends, the rise of authority and the suspension of rule of law, and the jettisoning of truth are all important to consider in our day. Hayek’s concern in looking at Nazi Germany was the recognition that it could happen in socialist England. While I suspect that there are more variant roads to totalitarian, Hayek’s recognition of the important elements of liberal democracy are worth attending to, as is the recognition that should we neglect these elements, it can happen here as well.

Review: How to Be a Patriotic Christian

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How to Be a Patriotic Christian, Richard J. Mouw. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: Navigating the space between Christian nationalism and national cynicism, explores how Christians might properly love country within their primary allegiance to Christ, focused around civic kinship and responsibility.

At least in the U.S. setting in which Richard Mouw writes, there often seems to be no middle ground between some form of Christian nationalism and a deep cynicism about any national loyalty. Mouw has navigated this ground over the course of his life, from his days as an “angry young man” protesting Vietnam and racial injustice up to the present, including experiences of tears while touring the American cemetery in Normandy and being present at a Holiday Bowl concert a few days after 9/11. He has wrestled with what the Christian’s primary allegiance to the global kingdom of Jesus means in the context of being a citizen, He invites us to wrestle with him as we consider the possibility and character of being a patriotic Christian.

He describes the basic character of this patriotism early in the book when he writes:

“But patriotism is not just about our relationship to specific government policies and practices. It is about belonging to a community of citizens with whom we share our political allegiances–and even more important, our common humanness. Patriotism is in an important sense more about our participation in a nation than it is about loving a state” (p. 14).

What Mouw argues for is our “civic kinship,” our sense of peoplehood with those who constitute our nation. He proposes that the Boy Scouts are an example of a program in civic kinship, cultivating the kind of character required in our public life with a concern for the place and the people with whom we live. He notes the evidence of the decline in the societal bonds among us and our increasing isolation from each other, and the necessity, in our season of tribalism, to cultivate room in our hearts for those with whom we differ. He appropriates John Calvin’s language of contemplating our fellow human beings in God, not in themselves.

Mouw’s focus on peoplehood and civic kinship calls into question what Mouw considers to be the role of the state. He contends that the preamble of our Constitution actually offers a good delineation of the primary tasks of government: 1) to establish justice, 2) to ensure domestic tranquility, 3) to provide for the common defense, and 4) to promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. He notes the parallel with Psalm 72 in these four tasks. He cites the Catholic idea of subsidiarity, that higher authorities should not undertake what lower authorities, or even private associations or individual citizens can accomplish, which requires civic responsibility rather than dependence on government authority.

Against some who either implicitly or explicitly believe Christians ought to pursue a theocracy, Mouw supports the idea of our democratic republic, with its protections of differing beliefs rather than compelling uniformity. He believes this creates the space for people to change beliefs of their own, respecting the image of God in human beings. How then do we disagree in a plural society? Mouw encourages active patience (as God has acted toward us), genuine engagement with those with whom we disagree, and an openness that believes all truth is God’s truth, to receive that truth from wherever it appears.

How then should we think of expressions of patriotism within the confines of our church buildings, everything from the presence of flags to the recognition of national holidays? Some would see this as a form of idolatry, or perhaps offensive to those visiting from other countries. Mouw recounts such a conversation where he pushes back, contending that symbols like the flag can remind believers of their Christian calling as citizens, and that Christians in other countries may understand this because of their love for their own countries. Remember, he invited us to wrestle together–there is wrestling going on here! Likewise, there is the need to do careful pastoral teaching–what does it mean to seek the peace and prosperity of the people among whom we live (Jeremiah 29:7) while recognizing our primary allegiance to Christ and that we are part of a global people?

This leads him to consider our patriotic songs, many which invoke the blessing of God, and other civic observances with religious overtones, such as our various pledges and oaths. Is this just an invidious form of civil religion or something the Christian can embrace. Mouw notes the good of an acknowledgment of the transcendent, to which the nation is both accountable and on which it depends.

He concludes this work with four guidelines: 1) to do the work of contemplation to see people in the light of God, 2) to cultivate compassion, 3) to go deep in our quest for rootedness, in Christ, in our place, with our people, and 4) to trust Jesus, in whom are met “the hopes and fears of all the years.”

This is not a massive treatise on Christian political philosophy but a concise work of pastoral theology on what it means to love Jesus and love one’s country, particularly the United States. I affirm his restrained view of the role of the state, an absence of any language of getting the “right” people in office, and his focus on our own civic kinship and responsibility as citizens to pursue the shalom and prosperity of the place where we make our earthly home. His own unashamed expressions of his love of country and solidarity with its people reminded me of similar experiences. Most of all, I appreciate Mouw’s articulation of this rich third way of being patriotic Christians that offers an alternative to the unsatisfying and miserly binary on offer in so much of our national discourse.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Isaac Powers

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Unknown artist, The Isaac Powers Farm (circa 1830), The Butler Institute of American Art

If you live in the south side, you are familiar with Powers Way, rising from Poland Avenue and running to Midlothian Boulevard. The Powers family name traces its roots back to the beginnings of Youngstown. Actually, Isaac’s father, Abraham Powers, living in Pennsylvania’s Ligonier Valley chased a band of Native Americans who had killed a settler. Their pursuit took them all the way to Mahoning County where they exchanged fire at an encampment alongside the Mahoning River, then continued pursuit all the way to the Salt Springs, turning back when they learned that a number of tribes had gathered in a council. The story is significant because that encampment where they had exchanged fire became the site of the Powers farm on the south side of the Mahoning River, above what became Poland Avenue, southeast of the town center of Youngstown, and across the river from where Daniel Shehy settled.

Isaac Powers was born on April 12, 1777 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania to Irish-American parents, Abraham and Phoebe Powers. When John Young purchased the land from the Connecticut Land Company, Isaac Powers and Daniel Shehy undertook the survey of the area. Later on, Isaac Powers was working with Phineas Hill to explore and survey Mill Creek when they came upon the falls where Lanterman’s Mill was eventually located. They immediately recognized the potential of the site. Hill purchased 300 acres of land around the site and contracted with Powers to build the first mill, which was completed within the 18 months John Young had stipulated in selling the land.

Like many early founders, he fought in the War of 1812. He also served terms as a Township Trustee and as a Representative in the Ohio State Assembly

Grain mills were not the only millwork Isaac Powers was involved in. In 1846, Powers was one of the proprietors in the Youngstown Rolling Mill Company, the first finishing mill in the Mahoning Valley making products other than iron bars. It operated until 1855 when it sold to Brown, Bonnell, and Company, making it one of the leading iron works in the country.

Powers was a religious man and, along with his wife Leah, was part of the founding class of six in 1803 under the ministry of Dr. Shadrack Bostwick, that formed the nucleus of Trinity United Methodist Church, still a presence in downtown Youngstown. He was “noted as a faithful and earnest worker in the church until his death.” He also played a role in the formation of the Methodist society in Coitsville, donating the land on which the church was built.

The Powers farm, which Powers and his father sited on the location of the old encampment occupied much of the land east of Pine Hollow and between there and what became Powers Way, running south most of the way to the township border, what is now Midlothian Boulevard. In the early days of Youngstown as a township, the farm was one of four locations to have a school house. He was one of the first to heat his home with coal. The painting above, by an unknown artist, hangs in the Americana and Folk wing of the Butler Institute of American Art. It shows a brick home, an office building, a carriage house, and a home owned by one of his sons.

“Powers Estate Cemetery” photographed by Dave Smith for Find-a-Grave

Isaac Powers died May 9, 1861 at the age of 84. He and his wife are buried in the Powers Estate Cemetery, which may be found at the end of Pine Hollow Drive and Lennox Avenue, overlooking Interstate I-680. It had been neglected and overgrown but through the efforts of Dr. John White, an anthropology professor at Youngstown State, and a volunteer team, the cemetery was restored.

I could not find nearly the material on Powers that exists for John Young, James Hillman, Daniel Shehy or other Youngstown founders. Yet he played an important role in Youngstown’s beginnings, surveying the township, helping establish the site of Lanterman’s Mill, contributing to the beginnings of Youngstown’s iron and steel industry, creating a flourishing farm, and devoting himself to civic and religious concerns. He was part of that first generation that came together to build a city.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!