Author: rtrube54

The Weekly Wrap: March 9-15

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The Dangerous Power of Books

I’ve been thinking a good deal about an article published in Aeon this week, “Dark Books.” Tara Isabella Burton argues that books can unmake or make us. They can disturb or uplift, oppress or liberate.

But how do they do this? It comes down to what happens in the act of reading. When we read, we open our minds, our psyches, ourselves to another. We “drop our guard” to some degree to enter the world of another, and permit them to enter ours.

By and large, we bibliophiles argue for the good of books. The article observes this was not always so. There was a time when commentators warned against novel reading. And sometimes books are freighted with messages oppressive to women, minorities, or others.

I do make choices of what I will and won’t read because of the power of books. It’s not that I cannot think critically about books. It’s just that I realize that, sometimes, the mental images formed by a book can persist. I left off reading one science fiction series because of the graphic descriptions of gruesome violence. I do not read highly sexualized or pornographic material because I want to honor my marriage.

I am not one to say what others should or should not read. I think adults should make their own decisions in this regard and parents with their own children (but not for others). But I believe we may be naive at times about the books (and other media) we let into our lives and how these influence us. Words are powerful things, for good or ill.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Here’s the article I’ve been discussing, “Dark Books.” I was challenged by Burton’s concluding words: “Only by respecting the potential of books to destroy us – terrifying as it might be – can we have an authentic faith in their ability to put us back together again.”

Marilynne Robinson believes Max Weber mischaracterized John Calvin. She has written about Calvin in essays and he comes up in her novels. “The Sum of Our Wisdom” reflects her efforts to recover Calvin for our age.

Some of us are trying to forget the pandemic and others of us are trying to make sense of how it changed us, and our lives. Lily Myers, an Atlantic contributing writer, reviews a number of pandemic novels in “The Novel I’m Searching For.” She previews the article with this statement: “Five years after the pandemic, I’m holding out for a story that doesn’t just describe our experience, but transforms it.”

The New York Times released its non-fiction and fiction spring previews this week. I thought the “21 Nonfiction Books to Read This Spring” had some interesting books, including Ron Chernow’s new biography of Mark Twain!

Finally, “Who is better, Dickens or Shakespeare?” The Guardian asked nine writers. To me it seems an apple and oranges comparison.

Quote of the Week

I post many quotes. This one gave me pause:

“People will assign irrational importance to almost anything in quotes on top of a pleasant image”

This comes from Colin Fletcher, a backpacker and travel writer born March 14, 1922.

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m debating whether to buy a copy of Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Meta exec. She has been enjoined by a court to not promote the book due to her severance agreement with Meta. So far, they have not stopped sales of the book. Although I’m not sure what the book could tell me to cause me to have a lower opinion of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta.

In the grand scheme of things this is a blip, but I’m a Louise Penny fan and was deeply saddened to hear the Canadian author has cancelled her US book tour, including an appearance at the Kennedy Center. She discusses her decision in this CBC story.

Simone Weil in Waiting for God has a wonderful essay on “attention” which she believes is central to the life of prayer. She argues in the essay that practice of all forms of attention, including geometry proofs (!) train us in spiritual attention. Her choice of geometry is interesting, given her inferiority about her geometry skills in comparison to her mathematician brother Andre!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Wallace Stegner, Remembering Laughter

Tuesday: Quentin J. Schultze, Communicating for Life

Wednesday: Frances M. Young, Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute

Thursday: J.R.R. Tolkien, Beren and Luthien

Friday: Kevin J. Mitchell, Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 9-15, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: The Thursday Murder Club

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Cover image of "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman

The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, 1), Richard Osman. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9781984880987) 2021.

Summary: Four seniors meet on Thursdays to solve cold cases until a present day murder leads to something more.

Police Constable Donna De Freitas finds the residents of Coopers Chase unusually sharp and interested in far more than keeping their doors locked. They are interested in murder, at least four of them. First there is Elizabeth Best, who possibly worked in intelligence and seems to have a lot of contacts. Joyce Meadowcroft is a retired nurse and diarist for the group. Ibrahim Arif is a psychiatrist who still reviews his patient files and occasionally sees an old patient. Rounding out the group is Ron Ritchie, a former political firebrand who has mellowed only just slightly.

They call themselves the Thursday Murder Club because they meet on Thursdays in the Jigsaw Room at Coopers Chase to try to solve unsolved murders. The cases come from founding member Penny Gray, a former police officer, now in a coma. PC De Freitas hits it off with the group, although they wonder why such a capable woman left the force in London for the rural setting of Cooper’s Chase.

Ian Ventham, a shrewd and ambitious developer owns Coopers Chase. Tony Curran handles construction and maintenance and has a quarter stake in Cooper’s Chase. Ventham has his eyes on expansion, the next phase of which involves the graveyard of the convent which occupied the grounds of what is now Coopers Chase. But he wants to cut Tony out and replace him with Bogdan Jankowski, who, let’s say, is “resourceful.” Ventham and Curran have a meeting at Coopers Chase, where some residents witness a heated conversation between the two. The next day, the Thursday Murder Club learn Curran was murdered by bludgeoning in his home. The murderer left one clue, a picture of three men with a pile of money in front of them. One is Curran. One of the others is Ron’s son Jason, a famous ex-boxer, involved in a few shady dealings.

DCI Chris Hudson leads the investigation. But PC De Freitas, due to her lack of seniority is not on the team. However, Elizabeth finds a way to remedy that in exchange for information. Now, the Thursday Murder Club has their ‘in” with the police. But before anything happens, Ventham has a confrontation with residents, preventing him from starting his next phase. Except that Jankowski quietly does start exhuming bodies. At the first grave, he encounters a skeleton buried on top of a casket containing another. That can’t be good.

And then Ventham, resigned to fight again another day, collapses and dies by his car. An investigation determines that someone murdered him by a drug overdose. There are a lot of suspects. A crowd had surrounded him, including some Thursday Murder Club members and a “pretend” priest. There is a lot of murder to investigate! And it turns out that the Thursday Murder Club is very resourceful, often getting information the police lack, and sometimes even sharing it!

I won’t say more so that you can join the investigation. What I particularly like is that Osman’s characters don’t play a role. He develops each one, including De Freitas and Hudson. We like these people and enjoy their interactions. Each has hidden depths, some exposed here, and some left for the future. While we delight in the characters and their interactions, Osman captures another characteristic of senior communities. Dementia, decline, and death are ever present. Perhaps the joie de vivre of the four central characters is that they still have their wits and health and life experience. And they intend to use them!

Review: Shock Values

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Cover image of "Shock Values" by Carola Binder

Shock Values, Carola Binder. University of Chicago Press (ISBN: 9780226833095) 2024

Summary: An economic history of the United States, considering the various means used to stabilize prices and control inflation.

Price fluctuations not only upset an economy. They drastically affect many lives. Rampant inflation hurts consumers and savers alike, as they find their money is worth less. It is good news to debtors paying off loans in inflated currency but terrible for creditors. Less discussed is deflation, but those with underwater mortgages due to falling housing prices recognize how deadly falling prices can be. Ultimately, the best situation is price stability with low inflation.

In Shock Values, Haverford College economics professor traces the history of efforts in the United States to control prices and the interplay of politics and monetary policy. She takes each period from the Revolutionary War to the present, discusses the price stabilization challenges and the means used to bring price fluctuations under control. We go from discussions of paper currency versus specie and a central bank versus many banks to debates about the gold standard and the creation of the Federal Reserve system.

Two big themes in the book are price controls and monetary policy by the Fed that contracts the money supply and raises interest rates in inflationary periods and expands the money supply and lowers interest rates during economic contractions. Apart from wartime situations, price controls haven’t seemed to work well, as those of us who lived through the Seventies remember. Whip Inflation Now buttons, which Binder discusses, just didn’t cut it.

That leads to the other theme, the use of monetary policies and the appointment of Fed chairs whose terms are not concurrent with presidential terms. The Volcker years marked a decisive shift. Instead of a Fed that compromised fiscal policy to maintain high employment but with high inflation, Volcker focused on inflation. Consequently, for a period, interest rates were sky high. So, for a period was unemployment. But inflation came down, slowly jobs came back. Monetary policy could work, if it was not compromised by politics.

Subsequent Fed Chairs developed inflation targets, with an implicit and later explicit goal of keeping inflation under 2 percent. And this worked pretty well until the pandemic and the years that followed, when oil prices, and world food prices spiked, due in part to global disruptions. At this writing, the Fed has responded with tightening the money supply.

Binder doesn’t spend a lot of time on tariffs but her comments don’t offer hope. Tariffs tend to pit sectors of the economy, particularly agriculture and industry, against each other. They usually result in retaliatory tariffs. And they impose a hidden (and inflationary) tax on consumers.

Binder offers an informative history of monetary policy. She helped me realize no system is impervious to external shocks. One example is the shaky lending practices leading to the 2008 recession. The Fed actually played a crucial role in stabilizing lenders, preventing a worse debacle. The intrusion of short-term political expedients will always be a challenge to monetary discipline, often with inflationary consequences.

All of this underscored the radically new chapter being written by political interventions in the present. I suspect this will write a new chapter rather than just a continuation of the last. What is clear from Binder’s book is that if price stability is not a theme, it will be an economically tumultuous chapter.

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

Review: Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

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Cover image of "Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson" edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Gramercy Books (ISBN: 0517362422) 1982 (originally published 1890, 1891, 1896).

Summary: A republication of Dickinson’s poems as first published in three series shortly after her death.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a literary scholar, received four poems from a women in Amherst in 1862. He returned them but kept in touch with Emily Dickinson. She continued to correspond and write poetry but never published during her lifetime. After her death in 1886, Dickinson’s sister found a box containing hundreds of her poems and thought them worthy of publication. She sought out Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of a local professor who sought the help of Higginson. He edited her work, dealing with issues of rhyme, metre, line arrangements, and dialect. The two published a first series in 1890 and a second in 1891. Mabel Loomis Todd published a third series on her own in 1896.

This collection is based on those works but is not exhaustive. It follows four categories from the original editions: Life, Love, Nature, and Time and Eternity. It includes prefaces from each of the three series and a facsimile of “Renunciation” in Dickinson’s script from the first series. And it also includes artwork from the original publications. However it does not give indications of which poems were included in each series.

I don’t feel adept enough in poetry to offer a critical review of someone of Dickinson’s stature. So I will highlight poems from each section I particularly noticed. Under “Life,” the poems are focused on Dickinson’s observations of life, which are broad despite her secluded existence. Poem VI could be a motto with its lines “If I can stop one heart from breaking,/I shall not live in vain;.” “Hope, 1” has the memorable image of “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Finally, in an age where faith was highly prized, her “Lost Faith” observes that “To lose one’s faith surpasses/The loss of an estate.”

The poems on “Love” cover the various forms of love. “Proof” speaks of the love of God proven on Calvary. “The Lovers” captures her observations of “rosey” cheeks of two young people and staggering speech as they notice each other. Meanwhile, “The Wife” reflects the gendered expectations of the day of dropping life’s “playthings” for the “honorable work/of woman and of wife. There are poems of longing and contentment, and those attesting the loyalty of a loving friend.

“Nature” reveals her keen attention to the world about her. She writes of summer showers, sunsets, bees and bobolinks, butterflies and purple clover. Dickenson captures the deception of “Indian Summer”: “These are the days when skies put on/The old, old sophistries of June–/A blue and gold mistake.” She notices bats, rats, spiders, and their webs.

Finally, “Time and Eternity” deals with ultimate issues of death and the life ever after. Dickinson writes extensively about death, yet rarely is this morbid or maudlin. Much is informed by her own faith, that in the opening words of the first poem in this section believes “This world is not conclusion…” She observes the signs of the death of someone across the street–of neighbors in and out, of ministers and milliners and mattresses thrown out. The poet describes observing “the dying eye” “In search of something.”

She speaks of the remembrances of the dead when alive, so real, yet irrevocably confined to the sepulchre. Dickinson faces death honestly. She recourses to her heavenly hope. And in her final poem, “Farewell,” she accepts her own death. It begins, “tie the strings to my life, my Lord,/Then I’m ready to go.” A few verses later, she concludes: “Good-by to the life I used to live,/And the world I used to know;/And kiss the hills for me, just once;/now I am ready to go!”

I think part of the fascination of Dickinson’s poetry is how deeply she sees into all that really matters in life, while rarely leaving her home. She pays attention to both her human and creaturely neighbors. The poet names both the movements of her heart and the contours of her faith. and often she does all this in just a few lines. I’ll leave you with this example, number “VIII” in the section on “Time and Eternity.”

Each that we lose takes part of us ;
   A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
   Is summoned by the tides.

Review: Leading Well in Times of Disruption

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Cover image of "Leading Well in Times of Disruption: by Joseph W. Handley, Jr. Gideon Para-Mallam, and Asia Williamson, eds.

Leading Well in Times of Disruption, Joseph W. Handley, Jr., Gideon Para-Mallam, and Asia Williamson, editors. Langham Global Library (ISBN: 9781839739859) 2024.

Summary: Amid global disruptions, focuses on the qualities needed in those who lead the church’s global mission.

In the summer of 1974, I had finished my second year of college. I was a leader of my InterVarsity group. I had a growing vision of the reach of the gospel. Six months earlier I had attended Urbana ’73, InterVarsity’s triennial missions conference. That summer, I was at a month long leadership training camp. During that time, we heard exciting reports from Lausanne ’74, focused on bringing the message of Christ to every people on earth. We all had a part to play, whether through prayer, giving, or going.

Fast forward fifty years. In 1974, the focus was primarily “from the west to the rest.” Now it is “from every nation to every nation.” Formerly unreached peoples are sending people to reach others–some even to the west. In the early fall of 2024 the Fourth Lausanne Congress was held in Seoul-Incheon, South Korea. The organizers framed the following as a purpose statement for the gathering:

“The Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization aims to be catalytic in advancing the Movement’s fourfold vision—the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom impact in every sphere of society.“

Leading Well in Times of Disruption was written in preparation for this gathering. Critical to advancing this global mission are leaders of vision, character, and skill. But how are leaders to be developed for such an expansive vision. That is the focus of the contributions from a global array of mission leaders.

After the first section focusing on the history of Lausanne, including the critical “quiet years,” the remaining four sections focus on the four “everys” of the vision statement. “The Gospel for Every Person” includes a couple essays on leadership development and two important essays on learning from new believers and the use of digital technology. Then “Disciple-Making Churches for Every People and Place” discusses multiplication over growth, elevating women, breaking out of silos to partner, and mentoring next generation leaders.

Thirdly, “Christlike Leaders for Every Church and Sector” begins with theological training and concludes with Christlikeness in suffering, a reality of mission. Finally, Kingdom Impact in Every Sphere of Society” looks outwardly to peacebuilding and inwardly to the reality of leadership burnout. They emphasize incarnational leadership as well as the skills of expanding organizational capacity.

I observed several themes running through the sections. First, godly character is uppermost. Empowering mentorship is critical. Then, platforming important but lesser heard voices–women, Gen Z leaders, and those in “unknown movements”–follows as a matter of course.

I expected more about leading in times of disruption. For example, we are facing political, economic, and environmental disruptions with missional implications and leadership challenges. Other than addressing persecution and some general comments about public leadership, I missed discussion of the disruptive challenges leaders must meet.

Nevertheless, this collection is full of both vision and practicalities for leading mission in our time. Not only that, seeing the growth of the Lausanne Movement over the past fifty years offered a refreshing contrast to the politically captive, compromised, and xenophobic church of my country. While we have “checked out” to our great loss, God has not left himself without a witness. This book offers ample evidence of that truth.

_____________

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

Review: Triune Relationality

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Cover image of "Triune Relationality" by Sherene Nicholas Khouri

Triune Relationality (New Explorations in Theology), Sherene Nicholas Khouri, foreword by Gary R. Habermas. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514008843) 2024.

Summary: Argues that relationality is among the perfections of God that only a Triune God meets.

Any substantive Christian-Muslim dialogue inevitably confronts the question of the nature of God. Is God absolutely One or is God one being (or substance) subsisting in the relations of three persons? The author of this book, an Arabic scholar who has ministered in Syria proposes the following argument:

P1: One aspect of divine perfection is relationality–the greatest conceived being should be relational in order to be perfect (the greatest).

P2: The Trinity shows God as a relational divine being (intrarelational and interrelational).

C: The Trinity is noncontradictory. (p. 20)

However, Khouri believes our discussions, as well as her argument, need to be grounded in the history of the conversation. And so she begins with the early history of Islam in the eighth to tenth centuries as Christian apologists were confronted by many Christians converting to Islam. She explores how the Qur’anic objections first arose. Contrary to the traditional answer of aberrant beliefs of a weak church, she contends that Muslim ideas of the Trinity are traceable to the theotokos icons. This led to thinking of the Trinity as the Father, the mother Mary, and their offspring, Jesus.

Khouri also introduces us to three Christian apologists from this period. John of Damascus argues from the eternality of word and spirit for the Trinity. Theodore Abu Qurrah. He argues from the nature of Adam for one God in three persons: one who begets, another who is begotten, and one who proceeds. Yahya Ibn Adi takes a more philosophical approach showing that Allah may be one in one sense while multiple in another. Throughout, Khouri shows how they engaged with Muslim scholars of their time.

Then Khouri turns to our contemporary setting. First, she surveys contemporary theologies of the Trinity, considering Social Trinitarian, Latin Trinitarian, and relative identity theories. Finally, she elaborates her own argument, summarized above. She shows how explanations for God as absolutely One yet relational introduce an imperfection, dependence upon the creation, whereas the Trinity is relational within the oneness of God’s being, self sufficient and not dependent on creation.

This work is valuable on several levels. First, Khouri sets the conversation in a historical context. We equally disavow the Trinity of the Qur’an. Second, she introduces us to Arabic Christian theologians who met this challenge in the early centuries, whose arguments still have value. Third, she helps us consider why the Trinity can help us make sense of the relational character of human life. And finally, she offers a logic built on wahid, God as the greatest conceivable being. She argues that God cannot be perfect without being relational. Only the Trinity of Christianity meets that criteria.

_____________

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

The Weekly Wrap: March 2-8

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woman in white crew neck t shirt in a bookstore wrapping books
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American Writers

American jingoism has never been well received around the world, and certainly not in this particular moment. Thus it might be a foolhardy exercise to write about American authors in this time. But I will out of the belief that every nation produces writers of quality who are voices in their time for their country. I love reading authors from around the world as well as the U.S. But I am grateful for the writers from my own country, from Mark Twain to Percival Everett, from Emily Dickinson to Dana Gioia, and Harriet Beecher Stowe to James Baldwin. One of my all-time favorite novels is John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

I’m thinking of this because I’ve just begun reading Wallace Stegner’s Remembering Laughter. It reminds me in a way of a Willa Cather story. It was his first published work, from 1937, one I had not been previously aware of. I think Stegner is under-appreciated, although he won the Pulitzer in 1972 for Angle of Repose and the National Book Award in 1977 for The Painted Bird. Crossing to Safety is a personal favorite for its exploration of friendship over decades, ended only in death.

Stegner also wrote non-fiction about the American West, ranging from John Wesley Powell to the Mormons. His book on Powell made me think about the arid climate of the American West, and what it means to live in those conditions.

Finally, after teaching stints at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard, he went to Stanford to found the creative writing program. Among his students were Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Ken Kesey, Ernest Gaines, and Larry McMurtry. Sandra Day O’Connor also studied for a time under him. That’s quite a literary progeny!

For me, he is one of many American writers who has explored the human condition, and how this place we call home has shaped us.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton is the latest in “animal encounter” books. In this one, Dalton comes across a brown hare or leveret she found one cold morning during the pandemic. She cares for it without turning it into a pet. “The Tiny Brown Hare Who Taught One Woman to Slow Down” convinced me to give this one a look.

I’ve been seeing all sorts of articles about Chimamanda Adichie’s new novel. “Chimamanda Adichie’s Fiction Has Shed Its Optimism” offers an extended review, exploring its theme of the fraught relations between men and women.

Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel by Edwin Frank discusses what Frank sees as the decline of the literary novel during the twentieth century. Joseph Epstein reviews the book in “Done in by Time.”

I had not been aware of the work of Jeffrey Kripal, a religion scholar whose most recent book is How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. “Has Jeffrey Kripal Gone Mad, or Normal?” explores his ideas, which seem to me to reflect the epistemic crisis of our time.

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter elaborates the idea of the eclipse of adulthood in our culture in a Hedgehog Review article from 2009 titled “Wither Adulthood?“

Quote of the Week

I’ve written quite a bit about goodness, truth, and beauty on this blog. Novelist Frank Norris, born March 5, 1870, made a statement I loved:

“Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve just begun reading Simone Weil’s Waiting for God. Weil went through a powerful conversion to faith but was never baptized. She saw herself speaking as a Christian but outside the church. As I read about this, I wonder if we may see some in our own time who write and speak from a similar position.

I’ve had the privilege to personally be acquainted with both Dr. Francis Collins, the recently retired Director of the National Institutes of Health, and David French, an op-ed columnist with The New York Times. Both are people of deep Christian faith and great personal integrity. They have been the objects of vitriol and slander in our highly politicized moment. I’ve watched both invest their lives in pursuit of the common good. I believe someday they will be vindicated. But I grieve a culture that attacks good men and celebrates felons.

I found an old copy of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It was one of her books I haven’t read. I love her writing and look forward to this one!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Sherene Nicholas Khouri, Triune Relationality

Tuesday: Joseph W. Handley, Jr. et al, Leading Well in Times of Disruption

Wednesday: Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

Thursday: Carola Binder, Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy

Friday: Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 2-8, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: Heaven’s Keep

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Cover image of :Heaven's Keep" by William Kent Krueger

Heaven’;s Keep, (Cork O’Connor, 9), William Kent Krueger. Atria Books (ISBN: 9781416556770) 2010.

Summary: The charter plane Jo is in in goes down in a snowstorm in Wyoming and is not found. Subsequent evidence offers hope.

Cork O’Connor is in a legal fight to keep Sam’s Place. A developer, Hugh Parmer, has visions of a luxury lakeside development and needs Cork’s land, leading to a tense confrontation and mounting legal bills. Cork even turns to applying for a deputy position in his former department to supplement his income. Jo is not happy. She is headed out the door to a conference out west of tribal elders developing gambling policies. They don’t kiss goodbye, something they’ve never failed to do.

The final leg of the flight is on a charter over rugged territory in Wyoming. A winter storm is closing in. But the pilot boasts of being able to get through. Less than an hour in, there is a jolt, then another, and the plane begins to rapidly descend. The pilot sends a mayday message. The plane goes off radar, missing without a trace in the middle of a blizzard. It is days before they can begin a search in the bitter cold…

Cork gathers the family and they live the pendulum swing between despair and hope that somehow, Jo and the others, including George LeDuc survived. Then Hugh Parmer shows up, but not to continue the property dispute. He sets all that aside and offers Cork any help he needs out of his considerable resources. When the weather in Wyoming lifts, Cork asks if he will fly him out to join the search. Or rather him and Stephen, who has had a vision. Cork recognizes that Stephen also needs to know they’ve done everything to find Jo.

And they do, including a very risky search on a hard to reach frozen lake, suggested by another vision of a local Arapaho. But they find no trace of the plane. Given the conditions, they have to conclude Jo and the others are dead. Back in Aurora, they hold a memorial for her at a gravesite without remains. They grieve and try to put life together without Jo. Eventually, Cork and Hugh Parmer get together without lawyers and work out a very different plan for the development. They protect the waterfront, and Sam’s. They join together in a grand opening and are about to celebrate together when two women ask to speak to Cork.

One is the wife of the pilot, who is being sued. The other is her lawyer, He was accused of drinking heavily the night before the flight. It’s all on a videotape they want Cork to see. There are small things, but they all add up. The man is not her husband. When Cork studies the video, he notices something else–the man fakes drinking, pouring it down his shirt. They want Cork to investigate. But one of the problems is they’d already hired an investigator, who has gone missing.

Cork realizes that Jo’s disappearance may not be due to a simple plane crash in a storm. Hugh realizes how important this is and offers his help. They visit the pilot’s hangar and find evidence that he was dead before the plane took off. They realize the answers are in Wyoming. But before they get there, they have a near fatal “accident,” clearly very carefully planned. Someone doesn’t want them to learn the truth, and heading to Wyoming is heading into greater danger. But what they’ve found also raises the possibility that the plane may not have crashed. Jo may still be alive.

While Stephen stays with Henry Meloux to undergo a vision quest, key to transitioning to Ojibwe manhood, Cork and Hugh fly to Wyoming. Surprisingly, Hugh quickly proves his worth. But will it be enough against the opposition they face? Will they find the answers they seek? Will the answers relate in any way to the visions?

The introduction of Hugh Parmer feels like he might become an ongoing character. I hope so (if they survive this book!). Cork and Hugh are good together. I also love how Stephen (no longer Stevie) is developed. He has always been courageous, but there are depths emerging. I look forward to how this young man will grow up. But running through it all are two people whose last words before they parted were conflict…and silence.

Review: Crowned with Glory and Honor

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Cover image of "Crowned with Glory and Honor" by Michael A Wilkinson.

Crowned with Glory and Honor (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Michael A. Wilkinson. Lexham Academic (ISBN: 9781683597308) 2024.

Summary: Argues for a Christian anthropology based on Chalcedon’s understanding of Christ’s person-nature constitution.

There is what seems to be a stalemate in contemporary Christian circles when it comes to anthropology. Basically it is a debate between dualism in various forms versus physicalism. In Crowned with Glory and Honor, Michael A. Wilkinson argues for beginning in a different place from discussions that are largely around philosophic categories. He believes the place to begin is Jesus Christ, who as the Incarnate Son is the human, man extraordinaire. Jesus is the ultimate expression of what it means to be human. Wilkinson believes the clearest and definitive expression of the church’s understanding of who God the Incarnate Son is may be found in the definition that resulted from the Council at Chalcedon.

To begin with, Wilkinson establishes both the biblical and epistemological warrant for defining what it means to be human in light of Christ. He then traces the antecedents to the Chalcedonian ontology of Christ. Briefly, this arose from the debates over the Trinity, how God may be both one substance (ousia) subsisting in three persons (hypostases). In a sense, Chalcedon both used and flipped this language in saying the person (hypostasis) of the Son subsisted in two natures, one divine and one human. In the incarnation, the divine person of the Son acted through a human nature with a human will.

Wilkinson offers one of the clearest summaries and explanations of the councils that led to the church’s understanding of the Trinity and of Christology I have read. However, the challenge for me was in moving from Christology to anthropology. Based on his understanding of Christology, he would argue for a similar person-nature understanding of human beings. He argues that the human person is created and exists by God’s power subsisting in and acting through a body-soul human nature. At first glance, this is an interesting alternative to the stalemate between dualism and physicalism. But I found myself considering several difficulties as I weighed the proposal:

  1. Wilkinson rightly states Christ is one divine person (hypostasis) subsisting in two natures, divine and human. Yet to argue that he is man extraordinaire, but not a human person, but a divine person subsisting in a human nature, seems problematic given the analogy Wilkinson pursues. Man ordinaire seems more human than Jesus as both human in person and nature. Wilkinson acknowledges the analogy needs to be modified but his explanations did not resolve this difficulty for me.
  2. It was unclear to me how the created human person acts through the body-soul nature.
  3. Wilkinson comes down on the side of body-soul dualism but does not explain his reasons for doing so.
  4. How is the human person different from the soul? Why is a soul necessary in this anthropology?

These difficulties noted, I am nevertheless intrigued by this proposal. It has always seemed intuitively obvious that we look to Christ for what it means to be fully human. Wilkinson adds to that intuition a biblical and theological warrant and the rich formulation of Chalcedon. Wilkinson’s mentor, Stephen J. Wellum, describes this proposal as “not the final word on the subject, but it is the place to begin.” I would agree and hope Wilkinson will continue to refine this proposal as God gives more light.

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

Review: Yellowface

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Cover image of "Yellowface" by R. F. Kuang.

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780063250833) 2023.

Summary: What happens when a famous author dies immediately after sharing an unpublished draft of her latest work with her writer friend.

Athena Liu and June Hayward met at Yale. Both were aspiring writers. Athena rocketed to literary stardom. June’s book received lackluster reviews and didn’t sell. Both are living in DC and meet up. They migrate to Athena’s apartment, get drunk, and share a lot of girl talk. Athena shows June the draft of her latest, yet to be submitted book. No one else has seen it. It’s on Chinese laborers in World War I and June sees its potential. Next thing, Athena is choking, June’s efforts to save her fail, and Athena dies before help arrives. When June finally leaves, it is with Athena’s manuscript.

Reading through the manuscript, she recognizes both the brilliance and the unfinished state of what Athena had produced. At first, she edits the work as a writing exercise, for Athena. But the more she works on it, including her own extensive research, the more she considers it hers. She sends it off to her agent, representing it as her work, and not only does he think it brilliant, but so does her publisher, who offers her a huge advance. June publishes under the name Juniper Song (June’s full first name and middle name, but also ethnically ambiguous) with an equally ambiguous author photo.

The book enjoys critical acclaim…and booming sales. Then the controversy hits. At first, she has to defend herself against charge of cultural appropriation as a white girl writing on an Asian subject. Then the first allegations of plagiarism arise, which she manages to fend off, but at a steep internal psychic cost. In this sense, the novel is a kind of “crime and punishment” study of the deepening fear of being exposed coupled with the allure, yet the impossibility of coming clean. In the writing community, plagiarism may be worse than murder. But she also discovers that in stealing Athena’s work, she has become a captive to Athena’s voice, losing her own.

Kuang also exposes the capricious world of publishing, and the vicious world of social media. In particular, Kuang portrays how quickly adulation can turn to death threats and other forms of cancellation. There are even the complicated relationships between authors. June claims Athena stole from her, taking her secrets and turning them into stories. June, of course, uses this to justify her own theft.

This is not a pleasant book to read. Kuang makes us look at our rationalizations, the ways we re-narrate our stories. Simultaneously she explores the dark sides of the publishing, literary, and social media worlds. And she weaves all this together in a compelling story.