Author: rtrube54

Review: After Dispensationalism

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After Dispensationalism, Brian P. Irwin with Tim Perry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023.

Summary: A study of the history, key beliefs, and teachers of dispensationalism with an assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses along with a treatment discussing reading prophetic and apocalyptic books within their context.

Dispensationalism has been an influential movement within American Christianity, influencing presidents and shaping policy on everything from Israel to the environment. Dispensational readings of scripture for many is understood as Christian orthodoxy, even though much of the theology is of relatively recent origin, and by no means accepted through much of church history or by much of the global church.

Brian P. Irwin, with Tim Perry, provide a text that is at once an orientation to the history, teachers, key beliefs of dispensationalism and a critical assessment, framed against a backdrop of how we ought read prophetic and apocalyptic writing. They argue that our starting place must not be today’s newspaper but rather that context and worldview of the intended recipients of these works–how they would read these works.

The first part offers a study of dispensationalism on its own terms. The authors explain and illustrate with charts the idea of dispensations. They trace history of end-times predictions throughout church history, offering these conclusions:

  • Don’t make a prediction about the end of the world.
  • Remember that the books of the Bible were not given to us first.
  • Read a biblical book as a whole for its meaning.
  • Remember that Jesus himself told us not to bother.

Irwin and Perry then discuss the key teachers of dispensationalism: J. N. Darby, C. I. Schofield, Lewis Sperry Chafer, J. Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, and Tim LaHaye, and their distinctive emphases. They offer an extended summary of the dispensational end-times story including the restoration of Israel to the promised land, the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple, the rapture including the pre-tribulation belief of many, the judgment of the saved, the marriage feast, the great tribulation, the false prophet and dragon, the 144,000 and the two witnesses, Armageddon, and the return of Christ, the millennium and great white throne judgment, the new heaven, earth, and Jerusalem. They show the key passages for these beliefs, which helps make the case for how these are often used in isolation of their context in the books of which they are a part.

The final chapter in this section offers an assessment, both positively and negatively. They focus on the literalism that fails to read literarily, failing to recognize poetic speech and symbol, even while fostering dedication to Bible reading and study. They note the somewhat arbitrary character of “dispensations.” While the Israel/church distinction has protected the movement from anti-Semitism it has led to forms of Christian Zionism and an uncritical support of modern Israel, though it is both secular and often has unjustly treated Palestinians (including Palestinian Christians who seem invisible to much of the American church). On the one hand, this movement has fostered vibrant evangelism because of the belief in a pre-tribulation rapture. On the other hand, it has been suspicious of creation care, development, justice, and peace efforts.

Part Two focuses on how we read prophetic and apocalyptic literature. They show the connection between prophecy and the covenantal blessings and curses in the Pentateuch. Many warn Israel, in its idolatry and injustices, that God is both withdrawing blessing and bringing promised curses. They also offer material on apocalyptic passages, such as those found in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. (It should be noted that the writers accept recent scholarship on Daniel as a second century work, referencing both sixth century and near future events.)

Part Three offers three chapters of more extended studies (not commentaries) on Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. The writers show the structure of each book (including a chiasmic structure for Revelation 4-19). They treat key passages cited by dispensationalists in their larger contexts, refusing to “daisy chain” references. With Revelation, they discuss historicist, preterist, futurist, idealist and their own eclectic approach to the book.

The book concludes with “thirteen theses for encountering the end of the world” encompassing both their critiques of dispensationalists approaches and their own positive approach. This is too lengthy to list here but I would particularly single out numbers 11 and 12:

11. To live in expectation of Christ’s return does not require knowing when Christ will return.

12. Questioning the idea of the rapture or other dispensational teaching is not to question the hope of Christ’s promised return in glory to a creation made fit for eternal life.

This book takes on an ambitious agenda. The writers offer both an overview and critique of dispensationalism and an alternative approach to prophetic and apocalyptic books. Each would warrant its own book. What they offer is a readable and usable resource for pastors and teachers in the church who may not have roots in dispensationalism who are confronted by those immersed in such teaching who want more teaching on “the end times.” This work helps people understand both what may be meant by this and offers approaches to favored texts in their contexts that address both our hope for Christ’s return and how early readers may have read these texts. It’s a book that matches the passion of dispensationalists for Bible study while grounding that study in sound interpretive practices that guard us from reading the newspaper into scripture while helping us read our times in light of scripture.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Mementos

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My Grandfather’s Mantle Clock © Robert C. Trube, 2024.

I bet you have objects around your home that connect you with your Youngstown past. The clock above was inherited from my Grandfather Scott who passed away in the late 1970’s. He lived on the Southside. Not only does it work, but if you get close enough, you can still smell the cigars he smoked. It sat on the mantle behind his favorite recliner. It reminds me of Sunday afternoon visits and the stories with which he regaled us.

This is a commemorative plate from the Tabernacle United Presbyterian Church from its centennial celebration in 1959. That’s the church in which I was baptized. I remember the building as being a great place for hide and seek with a winding stairway up to the belltower. It had organ pipes in the front of the sanctuary that I thought looked like giant pencils. The building was at the corner of Wood and Walnut near downtown and no longer standing (a search on Google Streetview shows it still standing in March 2021, but now a vacant lot). The church moved to Austintown in the late 1960’s and continues to minister under the name Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Stored in a box in my garage is my old baseball glove. I loved baseball even though I played it badly! That glove bears countless hours of pitch and catch with my brother in our backyard, pickup games on the playground behind Washington School and Borts Field. It was the glove I was wearing on our church league team when a runner ran into me and broke my thumb. I thought it was dislocated and played out the game. I last used it in games of catch with my son. It’s stiff, needing a treatment of Neatsfoot, and small by today’s standards.

My old Schwinn Collegiate 5-Speed © Robert C. Trube, 2024.

Hanging in the rafters of my garage is my old Schwinn Collegiate. If you look closely, you can still see the Boardman Cycle Shop sticker, where it was purchased from, as well as the bike license sticker Youngstown used to sell. I bought that bike secondhand from a buddy who had graduated to cars, over 50 years ago. I rode that bike all over Youngstown, all through Mill Creek Park, and even to visit some friends over in New Wilmington (my first experience of getting chased by farm dogs!). It has survived trips on bike carriers to northern Michigan where my son and I went on many rides.

My wife’s childhood watering can. © Robert C. Trube, 2024.

My wife said, “you don’t have any of my mementos from my childhood.” So I threw in this antique watering can that she used to water flowers around her home as a child. We still use it for that purpose and it has held up better than the succession of plastic watering cans we’ve bought over the years!

Why do we keep these objects that our kids may think of as junk for a garage sale? Very simply, they remind us of our childhood in Youngstown–and are sometimes still useful. They are laden with memories, mostly of how good it was to grow up in Youngstown.

I’d love to hear of the mementos you still have in your home from younger days in Youngstown. You can leave comments here, or if you are reading on social media, leave pictures. I’ve probably brought back memories for you. Now it’s your turn!

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

Review: A Non-Anxious Life

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A Non-Anxious Life, Alan Fadling. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2024.

Summary: Proposes, as an alternative to an anxiety-driven life of hurry, restlessness, worry, and performance, a life under the non-anxious presence of Jesus of stillness, rest, peace, and fruitful love.

“For most of my adult life, I’ve been a master of anxiety…” With these words, Alan Fadling begins this book about his own journey toward a non-anxious life. Anxiety had been his basic way of approaching situations and people. But it came at a cost of tunnel-vision, the draining of his energies, and knee-jerk assumptions about life. He discovered that the presence of the Prince of Peace in his life and his ongoing shepherding has led to a less hurried, worried, and restless life. He’s honest about the truth that this doesn’t mean an anxiety-free life but rather learning how to relinquish anxieties to One who cares.

He reminds us of Jesus lesson about the birds, reinforced by watching the birds about his home. Jesus says that as much as he cares for the birds and flowers, even more does he care for his friends. His care for us today means we don’t need to import tomorrow’s worries into today. He’s learned to practice the four movements of Philippians 4:6-7 of prayer, petition, thanksgiving, and requests. Prayer isn’t rehearsing our worries but leaving them with God, exchanging them for peace. He notes the presence of grace and peace at the beginning and end of Paul’s letters, suggesting a rhythm of breathing in and breathing out God’s grace and peace, becoming grace- and peace-filled people.

We enter into peace as we exchange the presence of anxiety for the presence of God. He describes an exercise of experiencing God’s presence in our whole bodies, noticing those places where we are particularly tense. He sees wisdom in the example of Saint Francis, who urged his followers to “live Jesus” in the virtues of humility, patience, simplicity, kindness, and gentleness, virtues that displace worldly ways that engender anxiety. He invites us into the dependence and surrender that says:

  Don't try so hard with God.
  Receive what God is giving.
  Enter into what God is doing.
  Offer a simple expression of your love to God.
  Be as gentle with yourself as God is.
  Don't come to God only to feel better.
  Welcome however God wishes to be present.
  This is the way of peace (pp. 84-85).

He observes the deep and abiding joy of God and the amazing truth that God takes joy in us! Living into that knowledge replaces burdens with buoyancy, joy and hope. He invites us to consider the Goliaths that constrict our lives including the Goliath of our smartphones, filling a page with all the functions they have taken over in our lives (p. 116). He describes being kept awake with worry and the promise of Isaiah 26:3-4 that helped him of God keeping him in perfect peace as he trusts in him.

He offers a chapter on rhythms of peace useful for retreats and practices and precepts to help us to be non-anxious in our work. He concludes with inviting us to exchange being masters of anxieties and to embark on the path of becoming masters of peace. In addition to sharing practices for exchanging anxiety for peace in each chapter, he offers “Non-Anxious Reflection” at the conclusion of each chapter. The book includes a beautiful “non-anxious prayer” in one appendix that we might use regularly and a guide for groups in a second appendix.

Fadling alludes at points to seeing a counselor and to using anti-anxiety prescribed medications. It might have been helpful, without giving medical advice, to discuss when one ought to explore these options in addition to the spiritual practices he has found helpful and why counseling and medication needn’t be opposed to spiritual practice.

That said, Fadling’s example of personal transparency and combination of precept and practice throughout this book invites readers into a life of trust and rest instead of anxiety and hurry. Imagine that the Prince of Peace wants us to share in his peace. Imagine that the God of joy would have us share in that joy and find it our strength. Alan Fadling helps us to not only imagine these things but invites us to join him on the journey toward a non-anxious life.

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

Reviewing Christian Books

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A random selection of books awaiting review. ©Robert C. Trube, 2024.

I imagine one of the questions some have asked on encountering this blog is “why does Bob review so many Christian books?” That’s actually pretty atypical of most book blogs. I suspect some of you just pass these up and read other reviews on books, or my Youngstown posts. That’s just fine, although I hope you will dip in if you see an intriguing title. Don’t worry, this blog is not about proselytizing. Like all reviews, I want to help people get a sense of what the book is about and what I thought about it so they can decide if they want to buy or borrow it.

OK, so why do I review so many Christian books? Besides the fact that I am a follower of Christ, it stems, I think, from a conviction formed early in my Christian journey. A Christian leader I deeply respected once said, “While not all Christians who read are growing Christians, all growing Christians are reading Christians.” That resonated. Deciding to follow Christ was quite simply the best thing to happen in my life and I wanted to grow into all that this meant for my relationship with God and neighbor, my calling in life, my character, and how my faith informed how I saw and lived into every aspect of life. More than fifty years later that is still true.

I believe we grow through our interactions both with God and other Christ-followers. Some are those in my own Christian community with whom I share life. The first book, of course, that we should read and re-read is the Bible. But the wonderful thing about other Christian books is the chance to learn from other Christians I may never meet, especially if they are from before my time. How thankful I am for what I’ve learned from Augustine, Calvin, C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, John R. W. Stott, Theresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others. Likewise, I’ve been enriched by so many contemporary writers from N.T. Wright to Tish Harrison Warren.

I began writing reviews to remember what I read, to record what I wanted to remember. I started posting them on an old Facebook app and then on Goodreads (where they still appear). A few years later, I started Bob on Books with the idea of making my reviews, and other thoughts about reading and life available to those who didn’t want to be tied to Goodreads.

I work with a collegiate ministry serving graduate students and faculty. I also hold a Masters degree from a seminary. That leads to reading works written with a kind of academic rigor and careful thought that characterizes what the students and faculty I work with read. While those kinds of books are not generally so popular today, they offer the heft to meet the spiritual and intellectual challenges the scholars we work with face. And this is not so unusual in a Christian history in which the great universities of both Europe and the United States grew out of the church. Any study of intellectual history will number devout Christians like Aquinas and Pascal among the greatest thinkers.

One of my reasons for my reading and reviewing is to share these resources with colleagues, faculty and students who will find these helpful. In earlier years I carried a trunkful of books to share with students I met on campuses. Books would continue conversations we began, with conversation partners who offered far more than I could. I discovered that in writing about books, I could do something similar with a wider group of people. I get to connect people with everything from devotional resources to the latest in Pauline scholarship to books discussing the relationship of faith and science as well as books discussing pressing societal issues from a Christian perspective.

While some of the books I review are academic in character, I try not to write “academic” reviews such as one would find in an academic journal. Most of my reviews are under a thousand words–a challenge when trying to distill several hundred pages! I work to identify the writer’s main idea and how they unpack it, highlighting what seem original, or sometimes, controversial insights. I try to write for ministry colleagues and for non-specialists in theology or biblical studies, though they are often highly specialized in their own field of study.

I’m a non-specialist myself. While I read widely and have some academic training, I am not a specialist in many of the fields in which authors work I review. I don’t attend the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL) conferences they attend or follow the journals where they hash out ideas with other scholars. That’s a handicap, and I will be the first to admit I miss things, even though I try to fairly and accurately present a writer’s ideas. Mostly, authors are glad for the publicity for their books and often pass along resources to fill in the lacunae in my own knowledge.

But this is the same handicap most of my readers have. They are bright folk but not trained in the fields of the writers I review. Sometimes, I’m saddened because writers actually have important ideas for “people in the pews” but they write only for the AAR/SBL crowd. But many of the writers I review write plainly enough that any fluent reader of English will profit from reading them if they are willing to give them undivided and unhurried attention, something increasingly rare in our age of distraction. I consider it a privilege to help them reach a wider audience than they might otherwise–and I learn along the way.

A book that greatly influenced both my sense of call and my passion for reading and reviewing thoughtful Christian writing was Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Noll’s point about the evangelical mind at the time he wrote was that there wasn’t one. He noted the penchant of evangelicals for action rather than thought and the critical need for both. In seminary, I researched the work of William Wilberforce, who with a circle of reformers called the “Clapham Sect” achieved a number of social reforms including the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery itself in the British colonies forty years before our Civil War. Again, the one critique that might be offered was a tendency to action over thought. In consequence, many of the reformers children carried on the reforms but departed from the faith.

I’m concerned that I sometimes hear a longing for spiritual renewal set against the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). I want it all and think being asked to dispense with one is like being asked which wing of an airplane I would dispense with. I long for living a life of loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength and my neighbor as myself. I do think what we read, what we nourish ourselves on, matters. We rail against junk food but settle for mind candy when there is so much rich fare out there. I hope my reviews point the way to a better diet that enables us to link thought to passionate devotion and action. Instead of banning ideas in the world of higher education, I long for Christian scholars who meet deficient ideas with better ones. This is the renewal I long for. I hope the reviews you find here will help in some small way toward that.

Review: The Yellow Dog

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The Yellow Dog (Inspector Maigret #6), Georges Simenon. New York: Penguin Books, 2014 (Originally published in 1931).

Summary: Maigret is called in when a distinguished wine merchant is shot, followed by a murder, a disappearance and another shooting in which a common element in several instances is a yellow dog.

A well-thought of wine merchant makes a late night of it at the Admiral Hotel in the seaside village of Concarneau. Making his way home, he stops to light a cigar, and is shot, though not fatally. A yellow dog shows up nosing around the wounded man. Maigret, setting up a mobile unit, is nearby and called in by the town mayor. He stays at the Hotel and meets an interesting cast of characters. Shortly after he arrives, the doctor, who never practiced but is involved with real estate, recognizes poison on a drink being served. The next day another associate, Jean Serviere vanishes, leaving behind a car with blood-stained seats. Then the doctor has a drink with the third in this circle, Pommeret, who goes home and drops dead of poison.

Hysteria in the town is rising. The dog has been seen several times around the time of the murders as well as a giant vagabond, who becomes the prime suspect in the eyes of most. He is sought–and captured only to break free and elude re-capture. The mayor wants Maigret to do something. Yet he seems curiously inactive, baffling his assistant, who he tells:

‘You’re lucky my friend! Especially in this case, in which my method has actually been not to have one … I’ll give you some good advice: if you’re interested in getting ahead, don’t take me for a model, or invent any theories from what you see me doing.’

Pressed by the mayor to arrest somebody, he arrests the doctor, who is terrified for his own life after what happens to his two associates. While waiting for events to develop that will reveal the murderer, Maigret observes Emma waitress at the Admiral and sometime mistress to the doctor. He senses she knows more than she tells.

When another assault on a customs official occurs, suspicion centers on the vagabond, who is re-captured. But because Maigret has been watching Emma, he knows better as he reveals in a final scene in the doctor’s prison cell.

I have to admit that I was as perplexed as the mayor and the assistant with Maigret, so this was not at all predictable to me, and made Maigret all the more fascinating, particularly for the generous act on his part at the end. Simenon does all this in a short work that can be read in an evening.

Review: These Precious Days

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These Precious Days, Ann Patchett. New York: Harper Collins, 2022.

Summary: Essays on family, friendships, the life of writing and bookselling, and mortality.

I’ve read most of Ann Patchett’s fiction, loving the writing if not always the ways her stories resolve (or not). I personally consider The Dutch House one of her best, along with Bel Canto. This is my first foray into her non-fiction, and I thought these essays revealed more than the character of Ann Patchett, particularly of her love of friendship and love of both writing and bookselling. It was a collection that reflects on marriage, on our families, on the literary world, and on mortality.

The title essay does all of this. “These Precious Days” is a lengthy account of her unlikely and mutually transforming friendship with Sooki Raphael. Sooki was the personal assistant to Tom Hanks, who Patchett met on an interview with Hanks. Further contacts with Hanks, including asking him to narrate one of her audiobooks led to continued contacts. During one of these, she learned Sooki had undergone surgery and treatments for pancreatic cancer. Staying in touch she learned of the cancer’s recurrence and Sooki’s plans to explore clinical trials. Patchett’s husband, a physician at Vanderbilt, learned of this from Ann, and was aware that Vanderbilt was running a number of clinical trials for pancreatic cancer. This led to Sooki coming to live for several months in Ann and Karl’s basement suite (at the height of Covid-19). The essay beautifully recounts the ways this unexpected friendship transformed both of their lives, as well as the beauty of Ann and Karl accompanying this woman in ways that never diminished her dignity while generously supporting her as she fought this beastly cancer.

In other essays, Patchett describes her three fathers and how each influenced her life. She discusses her decision to not have children, the people who insisted she should, and the intrusive questions she sometimes has faced when she would prefer to talk about her work. She writes about her mother, who often was mistaken as one of Ann’s sisters, due to her youthful beauty. She introduces us to Tavia Cathcart, the bombshell high school friend who moved from acting to becoming a premier nature interpreter, and how their friendship evolved as both she and Ann grew into their adult selves.

There is a healthy dose of gentle humor. She recounts her adventures with her friend Marti in Paris, and the tattoo she never got. She tells the story of a caller who insists on bringing her a letter documenting an award she had received from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, found in a nightstand that had once belonged to her. Then there is an incident where Karl comforts a woman worried about her baby’s development by offering the woman $20,000 to adopt the child! No way, and the woman stopped worrying. She describes her year when she gave up shopping. She recalls the Thanksgiving when she stayed at her college and decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner for her friends–from scratch! She writes about her husband’s love of flying–and of his insistence on finding deals on used planes. She reveals her on again, off again embrace of knitting.

She offers us glimpses of the literary world. Under her hand you find yourself drawn successively into Kate DiCamillo’s works for children and the work of Eudora Welty. In “A Talk to the Association of Graduate School Deans in the Humanities” she chronicles her experience in the MFA program at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop with her friend Lucy, her one interview for a faculty position and how failing to get that position gave her the chance to write. She speaks of the joys of owning a bookstore and the important lesson she didn’t learn in grad school–“if you want to save reading, teach children to read.”

Patchett recounts her own memento mori moment upon being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor reserved to 250 living members. She describes the portrait gallery in the Academy with photos arranged in order of members induction, going back to Samuel Clemens in 1898 up to her own picture in 2017. As she went back in time she realized she was moving increasingly from the company of living members to the deceased. At some point they all were. She realizes this will be true of her. She describes the simple card she receives with the death of another member, forty between her induction and the time of writing, including John Updike, who she had been so thrilled to be seated with at her own induction. She remembers his handing her the certificate of membership, a check, and giving her a fatherly kiss on the cheek.

Patchett brings to these essays the same insightfulness into the complexities and wonders of human beings, their relationships, and their lives as she does to the characters in her novels. One senses we are seeing all of this woven together in another story, that of the author, who writes with increasing appreciation of “these precious days” in her circles of family, friends, and acquaintances. And it nudges us to be mindful of similar “precious days” with the people and in the work we love.

Review: The Covenant of Water

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The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese. New York: The Grove Press, 2023.

Summary: The story of three generations of the family of Big Ammachi of Parambil, the ever present reality of “the Condition” resulting in a drowning in every generation, a story both of love and the hope in advances in medicine.

Twelve year old Mariamma has been engaged in a brokered marriage to a forty year old widow, the owner of a 500 acre estate near the town of Parambil. Her mother tells her, “The saddest day of a girl’s life is the day of her wedding….After that, God willing, it gets better.” I began reading with a sense of foreboding of what would happen to this girl in the house of this man. And I was surprised. At the wedding, he runs away, mortified that she is a mere child. But they wed. And he leaves her to her own room, and lets her learn the management of the household, lets her mature, lets her bond with his son, JoJo, and lets her realize that he has loved her by providing her time to come to love him. And so begins this incredible story spanning three generations within the Mar Thoma Christian community of South India.

When JoJo falls into what is little more than a puddle and drowns, she learns of “The Condition.” It explains the distance of the house from the river, the fact that her husband will not travel on the water. She is shown a genealogy. Every generation has a death from drowning. And JoJo’s name is added. Eventually Mariamma, who has become Big Ammachi, a capable manager of her household, bears another child, a girl with a developmental difficulty leaving her a perpetual child. Baby Mol brings perpetual love and an uncanny prescience about events. Fifteen years pass, and at a point of giving up hope, Big Ammachi has a son, named Philipose.

Philipose has the condition. Sent to college in Madras, he soon quits due to deafness that impedes his ability to follow the lectures. On the carriage home, he meets Elsie Chandy, an artist, and is smitten. They’d had a brief encounter when Philipose risked his life carrying a dying child on a river barge during floods to the nearest hospital, and was given a ride home by Elsie and her father. He strives to educate himself and becomes a writer, producing a column, “The Ordinary Man” widely followed throughout the country. Eventually, through a broker, Elsie’s family agrees to the marriage. It seems like a beautiful love affair, that sadly ends with the tragic death of their child Ninan. They blame each other and Philipose, injured trying to rescue Ninan, falls into opium addiction. Elsie leaves but returns when she learns Baby Mol is pining for her, and in failing health. Philipose and Elsie are intimate once and it is soon evident that Elsie is pregnant. As she approaches delivery, she has a seizure. Big Ammachi assists in a difficult breech birth, nearly costing the mother her life.

The baby is named Mariamma, after her grandmother. Soon after her recovery, Elsie disappears after going to the river to bathe, her body never found. Philipose sorts out his life, becomes an exemplary father, and continues his writing work, turning over his estate to Shamuel, and eventually, Shamuel’s son Joppan, to operate. Big Ammachi has dreamed of both a hospital in Parambil, and that her grand-daughter would become a doctor and find the cause of “The Condition” that plagues her family.

The book also involves a parallel plot line in which a young Scottish doctor, Digby Kilgour, goes to India to acquire surgical experience. Working for an incompetent superior, he has an affair with the superior’s wife, ending in a tragic fire that only he survives, with his right hand badly burned. A couple, grateful for an earlier medical intervention on his part, shelter him and connect him with a doctor working with lepers, who operates on his hand. He is helped by a young girl who helps him recover fine movements in the hand through drawing. Through much of the novel, we wonder what the what the connection of this plotline is with the main plotline of Big Ammachi and her family. Hang in there. There is one.

The story spans the period from 1900 to 1977. India goes through huge transformations through this time that serve as a backdrop for the novel, from a British colony par excellence to an independent country, seeking to modernize amid political ferment, with the electrification of the countryside and advances in medicine and modern technology. We get some sense in the novel of how this presses against traditional caste divisions, particularly in the relations between the family of Big Ammachi and Shamuel and his son Joppan.

I found the writing particularly engaging. It felt to me that Abraham Verghese writes with the same reverence for his characters that he has for his patients (he is a Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford). One senses a deep sympathy for his characters, even as they struggle with tragedy, estrangement, and the vicissitudes of life and death. He portrays a community shaped by faith, love, and purpose. And he conveys the noble possibilities of the medical profession, evident in Rune Orquist, the doctor of a leper mission who operates on Kilgour’s hand, and in Mariamma, and the professors who train her. To read Verghese is to read a consummate story weaver who has thought deeply about the human condition in its frailty and fallibility, in the powerful bonds upon which our lives and loves depend, and in the hopes and holy aspirations that represent the best in human striving.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Great Blondin Walks Above Federal Street

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Photographer unknown, Charles Blondin, Public Domain

Did you watch in 2020 when Nik Wallenda walked 1800 feet on a cable across the mouth of the Masaya volcano, an active volcano in Nicaragua? That was truly scary and unimaginable for this guy with two left feet. Wallenda not only comes from a family of wire walkers but is the latest in a long history of them.

One of the greatest high wire artists was a man known as Charles Blondin or “The Great Blondin” and he filled the newspapers with stories about him during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He was born Jean François Gravelet on February 28, 1824 in Hesdin, Pas-de-Calais, France. He was trained as an acrobat and made his first appearance as “The Boy Wonder” at age 5 or 6. He came to the United States in 1855 and achieved fame in 1859 when he walked an 1100 foot cable stretched across Niagara Falls. He repeated this feat a number of times blindfolded or pushing a wheelbarrow or carrying his manager on his back or on stilts. One time, he stopped midway and cooked and ate an omelet!

In 1869, the same year he rode a bicycle across a highwire in the Crystal Palace in London, to the acclaim of the Prince of Wales, he visited Youngstown. A highwire was strung across West Federal Street from the Excelsior Building (roughly in the same location as the Paramount Theater was located) to the Gerstle Building, just east of Hazel Street. Horse and buggy rigs and spectators gathered in the street below to watch him walk above Federal Street as easily as those below walked on it. This was exciting stuff for the small town of Youngstown. You can see a photograph in this Business Journal article. He can be seen in the middle of the cable in the picture. He stayed in the Tod House during his visit.

He continued to wow the crowds for many years. In 1896, at the age of 72, he crossed a lake in Leeds several times, repeating the feat blindfolded one time, and once again. stopping to cook an omelet on another transit. He died February 22 of the following year, just short of his 73rd birthday.

I would guess that he walked no more than 150 feet or so from one building to the other (John Young laid the street out as 100 feet wide, far less than his other feats. But I suspect few if any in the crowd would or could do what he did, nor any of us reading. This was big news in 1869!

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

Review: Abraham’s Silence

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Abraham’s Silence, J. Richard Middleton. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021.

Summary: Challenges the traditional reading of the binding of Isaac that valorizes Abraham’s silence as unquestioning obedience and faith, contending that God wanted more than silent obedience.

Abraham is held up as an exemplar of faith, who believed God and was reckoned righteous. Perhaps nowhere is this view of Abraham held up more than in the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, known to Jewish readers as the Aqedah, from the Hebrew “to bind.” Abraham’s unquestioning obedience is upheld as a model of faith, that “God would provide the lamb,” that Abraham believed that he and Isaac would return to the servants. and the testimony of Hebrews 11:17-19 that Abraham believed “God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.”

Yet many thoughtful readers find this narrative disturbing. The idea that God would command such a sacrifice, even as a test, disturbs (although it must be noted that God prevents the act, subsequently forbidding all child sacrifice, in contrast to the gods of surrounding peoples.) Yet the images of the bound Isaac, and the raised knife shake us. What also disturbs J. Richard Middleton is the silence of Abraham. The narrative record does not record Abraham saying anything to God. He rises early the next morning (perhaps to avoid Sarah?), packs up the donkey with wood, and leaves with Isaac and two servants. No plea to spare his son for the sake of the promise. No plea to take him rather than the child of the promise. No nothing. Middleton proposes that part of the test is whether Abraham would talk back to God.

Middleton makes the case that there is a strong element running through scripture of “lament with an edge.” This is seen throughout the Psalms where God’s people cry out to God in pain and suffering that it doesn’t seem that God sees or hears, wondering how long he will permit this. Moses challenges God, convincing God to spare Israel despite their idolatry, pleading God’s reputation among the nations. He refuses to settle for less than God’s presence with him. And God accedes to all this and reveals himself as the God of steadfast love and faithfulness.

Much of the book, Part Two, is devoted to the exemplar par excellence of talking back to God–Job. He contends that Job’s vigorous protest is approved by God, in contrast to the counsel of his “comforters.” The fact that God speaks twice indicates he wants Job to speak back

Against this Old Testament backdrop, Middleton contends Abraham stands out in his silence. He acknowledges the scholarship of Walter Moberly and Jon Levenson that rules out criticisms of Abraham because these are external to the text. Middleton credits this precept but contends there are subtle textual cues to suggest that God wanted more than silent obedience. He notes the shift from YHWH to elohim, suggesting the test involved whether Abraham would perceive something different about the God of the covenant from the gods (elohim) of surrounding peoples. He notes the early departure, perhaps to avoid discussion with Sarah, and the three-day silent journey to a location that should have taken a day (Abraham doesn’t want to do this, but says nothing, just drags his feet), And there are the words to Isaac, “God will provide the lamb, my son.” Middleton says we assume the comma but what if this was not in Abraham’s mind? Middleton includes an amusing comic here to make the point.

Perhaps most striking is that afterward, Isaac parts from Abraham, returning only to bury Abraham. Sarah is also recorded as living apart from Abraham. Isaac’ life in many ways is a parenthesis between Abraham and Jacob. Middleton wonders how different this would have been if Abraham advocated for his son. For example in Jacob’s eyes, the God of Abraham is the fear of Isaac. Middleton wonders if the family dysfunctions of this family began at this time.

Middleton proposes that Abraham barely passes the test, maybe a “C”–he obeys–but that God wanted more. He wanted to see if Abraham would actively speak back, to advocate for the son and for the promise. Sadly, he did not, and also failed to see the richness of God’s mercy.

There is much to be said for this proposal. There is a pattern of Abraham’s willingness to put others at jeopardy–Sarah, Ishmael, and Hagar. In each instance God bales them out, as he does with Isaac. The exception seems to be Lot and Sodom, in Genesis 18, where Abraham pleads from fifty to ten righteous to save the city. Middleton notes that even here, he stops, though Lot and his family number less than ten. Fearing to anger God (although God showed no anger with his pleading), he fails discover how far God’s mercy would go. All he sees is the destruction of the cities, not knowing of Lot’s rescue…and he just moves on. Would Abraham go further in pleading for “his only son, the son he loved”? He doesn’t.

There is also the fallout of the binding in the fracturing of the family, and the likely trauma to Isaac. God works redemptively over the generations, but was this what God intended? Middleton raises profound questions that make us look afresh at this narrative.

Yet I find Middleton unconvincing on several counts. There are Abraham’s utterances to Isaac and the servants. Middleton treats these as brave but unbelieving when in fact they prove out. There is the specific approbation of the angel of the Lord and the restatement of the promise of blessing. Middleton notes subtleties in the language that in his mind qualify this approbation. I found them unconvincing.

I also looked for a discussion of Hebrews 11:17-19 in the text. Christians “valorize” (to use Middleton’s term) Abraham at least in part because of this text, taking our cue for how we read the story from the inspired writer of Hebrews. Middleton’s discussion was not to be found in the text but only in a footnote (59) on page 213-214. He writes:

“The New Testament also seems to validate Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac. In Heb. 11:17-19, Abraham is praised for his faith in the resurrection (he believed God could raise Isaac), which is the reason why he went ahead with the sacrifice of his son. Beyond noting that the explicit doctrine of the resurrection did not arise until after the exile. I would point to Heb. 11:32, which list none other than Jephthah as a hero of faith (in contrast to his portrayal as an unsavory character in Judg. 11). This is clearly based on extra-biblical tradition and not on the biblical text itself.“

Middleton’s argument is to find one questionable element (Jephthah) in the Hebrews 11 account to throw shade on the account of Abraham. This, to me is not an adequate argument for why Christians should not heed the testimony of Hebrews 11 concerning Abraham, and placing such an argument in a footnote reflects to me a reluctance to address evidence that contradicts his argument.

What Middleton does for me is make me look afresh at this challenging text. Along with him, I find myself wondering at Abraham’s silence toward God. I’m less certain than Middleton that Abraham barely passed the test but I do find myself wondering “what if?” I find myself wondering about the “cost” of this test to Abraham’s family. Yes, God did provide the sacrifice but Abraham, at least in a relational sense, lost a son (and, it seems, Sarah as well). What Middleton does is offer a challenge to address these costs for traditional views that valorize Abraham. He also offers the examples of vigorous prayers that take God seriously enough to lament and to contend with God. Whatever my questions about his reading of Abraham, this is a contribution I can wholeheartedly affirm.

Review: The Prophets and the Apostolic Witness

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The Prophets and the Apostolic Witness, Edited by Andrew T. Abernethy, William R. Osborne, and Paul D. Wegner. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: An exploration of how Christians should read Old Testament prophets in light of the work of Christ and of how the apostolic witnesses read them.

In my Jesus movement days, we read prophecy in one hand and the newspaper in the other, looking for how prophets were speaking to our day. In seminary, I learned hermeneutic principles and historico-critical methods that sought to understand the prophets in their own historic context and in terms of what the prophets would have meant for their intended readers to understand.

But in reading the gospels, I became aware of another way of reading the prophets. Both Jesus himself, and the apostles whose witness constitute the New Testament, saw the prophets fulfilled in Christ. There is the sense that the prophets spoke of more than they knew, that there was a fuller sense (sensus plenior) to their testimony that the apostles understood in the light of Christ. The question is, is it legitimate for us to read the prophets this way, and if so, what safeguards protect us from idiosyncratic interpretations that depart not only from the Old Testament text but legitimate readings in light of the apostolic witness? It is with this question that this book deals.

The approach the authors take is to focus on the major prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. For each prophet, there are five chapters focused on these topics, each from a different contributor:

  • How the Apostles Read the Major Prophets as Christian Scripture
  • Limits on Reading the Major Prophets as Christian Scripture
  • Reading the Major Prophets in the Footsteps of the Apostles
  • The History of Interpretation of the Major Prophets as Christian Scripture
  • Preaching the Major Prophets as Christian Scripture

Because all these prophets are long books, the contributors focus in on one key text, cited in the New Testament, addressing it in terms of their topic. The passages are the Servant Song of Isaiah 42:1-4, the New Covenant passage in Jeremiah 31: 31-34, and the valley of dry bones passage in Ezekiel 37:1-14.

The authors differ in approach. A number favor following the apostles in reading the prophets in a fuller sense in light of the work of Christ. Some are more cautious, willing to endorse the apostles readings but careful about going further. A basic principle they follow is that while a passage may mean more than the prophet intended, it can never mean less–the prophet’s intent is always the starting point. All, in varying degrees, support interpreting passages Christologically.

One of the most valuable aspects of the book are the chapters on the history of interpretation. Understanding this history and why certain approaches were later rejected is instructive to our own interpretive readings and the differences among us. One of the editors, William R. Osborne, observes, “In fact, if we believe the Word of God has been given to the people of God, communal reading and interpretation is foundational to the humble pursuit of truth” (p. 313). The strength of this work is not only the communal reading among the fifteen contributors but also their inclusion of the history of interpretation of these texts, include in the bibliographic references provided.

I also appreciate that the authors differentiate from a reader-oriented approach that asks “what does this prophet mean for our community?” by taking a redemptive-canonical approach that asks that asks “what does this prophet mean in light of our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus?” (cf. p. 317). The fuller reading of the prophets doesn’t mean anything goes (as could be the case in my Jesus movement days) but a fuller reading guided by the New Testament itself.

This is a valuable reference for those who would teach or preach these prophets (there is even advice on this) as well as those concerned with the apostolic and historic interpretation of these texts. The scholars contributing to this volume are experts in the material on which they write (John N. Oswalt in Isaiah, for example). Since these three major prophets are so often quoted or alluded to throughout the New Testament, working through the issues of interpretation in this book will enhance our reading of the New Testament. Place this alongside your best commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

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