On Books

Review: They Called Us Enemy

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott. Illustrator: Harmony Becker. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions, 2019.

Summary: A graphic non-fiction account of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War 2, through the experience of George Takei and his family.

They were American citizens and legal resident aliens. Many of the children had been born in the United States. They lived on the West Coast of the United States when Pearl Harbor was attacked by surprise on December 7, 1941. In the following year over one hundred thousand were removed from their homes to internment camps. They lost their businesses, homes, and any possessions they could not carry. They had not committed any crime, nor been subject to any trial. None of this mattered. They were people of Japanese descent and considered a threat.

One of the children who lived through this experience was George Takei, one of the original Star Trek stars, with a distinguished list of credits on stage and screen and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His parents met and were married in Los Angeles and owned a profitable dry-cleaning business that allowed them to buy a home. Three children followed, the oldest of whom was George. Months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a knock came at the door ordering them to pack and prepare to be transported to a camp. Their first stop was a farm, their home a former cattle stall, still smelling of cow manure. Then they were transported by train to Camp Rowher in Arkansas that would become their home for the next several years. Surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, it became home and George’s father became block representative while his mother used the sewing machine she smuggled to make clothes for the children. It almost seemed fun at times.

Then a crisis arose. The American government, needing troops, went through the camps questioning the adults whether they would be willing to serve and to pledge their allegiance to the US alone and renounce all foreign allegiances. Takei describes the different choices Japanese made from military service to active resistance. George’s parents answered “no” to both, not being able to say “yes” to a country that had imprisoned them. Consequently, they were moved to the strictest camp at Thule Lake in Utah, and George’s mother faced deportation. Only the efforts of a persistent ACLU lawyer saved her and others in her situation. When the war ended, the question arose of whether they could safely return to Los Angeles. They did. It wasn’t easy and George encountered anti-Japanese discrimination.

The story is narrated by George, speaking at an event at Hyde Park on the 75th anniversary of Order 9066. He describes both the irony and wonder of telling the story of his internment in the home of the president who signed the order. That reflects a thread running through this narrative–the flawed but still great character of American democracy. George learned this from his father in his angry younger days. This was a country under President Ronald Reagan that formally acknowledged its wrong, and subsequently paid each interned person $20,000 in reparations. War heroes were honored It was a country where Takei could be portrayed as a strong figure on a television and movie series and have a distinguished career on stage and screen. A moving moment is when George, acting in the play Allegiance is reunited with the elderly woman who had served as his father’s secretary in the camps.

There is both truth and grace in this story and something more. Takei notes the juxtaposed Supreme Court decisions in 2018 striking down its World War 2 ruling against Fred Korematsu who had resisted relocation orders, and upholding travel restrictions banning immigration from certain countries. He portrays a country that continues to fear the “other” and discriminate against them. Will we learn from the experience of the Takei family or will we repeat it with a different group of people? This only occupies a few panels on a couple pages. Takei focuses more on narrative than polemics, leaving the reader to draw the connections.

They Called Us Enemy is a great resource for teaching this history. It is neither anti-American nor a whitewash, threading the needle between these contended spaces in our national discourse. In the words of Takei’s father: “Roosevelt pulled us out of the Depression and he did great things but he was also a fallible human being and he made a disastrous mistake that affected us calamitously. But despite all that we’ve experienced, our democracy is still the best in the world…” (p. 196). Would that more of us could speak in terms of “both-and” as George’s father does.

Review: Power Women

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Power Women, Edited by Nancy Wang Yuen and Deshonna Collier-Goubil, Foreword by Shirley Hoogstra. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: Fourteen women who are both mothers and academics write about how they navigate these callings as women of faith.

Women in the academic world face a unique challenge. The biological clock and the tenure clock are synchronized. The critical years for child-bearing and for career advancement coincide. One’s faith community and cultural background further complicates this challenge with sometimes conflicting values around parenting and career advancement. Many women choose one over the other. Others, like the women in this volume, believe both callings to be important for them, and write about the ways they have cared for their families and continued to pursue their academic callings. Through all of this runs an underlying theme of continue to nourish their own souls and to practice good self-care.

The contributions are organized into four parts: navigating academia, navigating motherhood, navigating multiple callings, and navigating support. In the first part Maria Su Wang describes how she carves out time for research with young children, sharing some of the scriptural reflections that have shaped her choices. Stephanie Chan offered a unique perspective on the synergy of parenting and work (lullaby and syllabi) and how each may enrich the other. Teri Clemons talks about the misperceptions that exist about maternity leave and its importance, including how much time bonding with a child and recovery can take. She urges women (and men) to avail themselves of all the leave institutional and state policies allow. Yiesha L. Thompson closes out the section discussing the unique situation of adjunct professor moms. the special pressures and choices they must make, and ways administrators may offer appropriate support. .

The second section on navigating motherhood begins by asking just what is meant by being a “good” mother. Christine Lee Kim discusses the mixed messages mothers must negotiate and identifies good questions to identify those messages and describes her own process of working through these. Ji Y. Son identifies the double whammy working moms face of being disadvantaged both at work and home and suggests a recategorization that gives women grace by considering herself a “female dad.” Jean Neely describes her struggle with the imposter syndrome and how thinking of God as loving mother as well as father has transformed her spiritual life and how being a mother has deepened those insights.

Part three could be intimidating in its discussion of navigating multiple callings. Jenny Pak describes the juggling acts of the multiple callings of pastor’s wife, mother, and professor. Jennifer McNutt takes it a step further. She is a pastor, professor and mom of three. Yvana Uranga-Hernandez describes taking on homeschooling as a professor mom. For all, these are only possible as they reflect the singular pursuit of Christ and have the support of spouses, extended family, and the wider community.

That sets up the discussions in part four, navigating support. Deshonna Collier-Goubil speaks of her experience as a young widow of assembling a support network. Joy Qualls describes the choice she and her husband made for her to be the primary breadwinner while he managed the household as a stay-at-home dad. Doretha O’Quinn draws on her mentoring expertise to discuss how professor moms may mentor each other and also gets very practical about her own practices of self-care.

The chapters mix personal narrative and academic research. They are honest and practical. Their experiences demonstrate a variety of ways women have approached navigating the callings of mom and professor. While they are amazing in how much they accomplish, worthy of the “power women” label, their stories also reflect the importance of good institutional policies, including leave and tenure policies that do not disadvantage women, and the value of support from spouses, extended family, and a wider community, and lots of grace! This is a valuable work for men to read, to understand how they may be appropriate allies.

The women in this volume represented significant diversity of ethnicity, academic discipline, and life experience. What is missing are women in STEM fields and more women from secular universities (only one contributor is). That said, there is so much wisdom that may be extrapolated into these situations. I’ve worked with many graduate women who wonder whether it is possible to honor God as they pursue both motherhood and academic callings. These narratives offer a resounding “yes” as well as honest and practical models of how that is possible.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

____________________________

The ministry with which I serve recently hosted a conversation with four of the contributors to this work that may be viewed on YouTube.

Review: T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian (New Explorations in Theology), Joseph H. Sherrard, Foreword by Alan Torrance. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: An examination of the contribution Thomas Torrance’s theological work makes to the church’s understanding of missiology, particularly centered around his understanding of the Godhead, the person of Christ, and Christ’s threefold offices and the church’s participation in them.

Thomas Torrance lived in the shadow of his mentor Karl Barth as well as collaborators like Leslie Newbigin. Much of his theological work addressed the nature of the Triune God and the person of Christ, as well as the relationship between science and theology. Joseph H. Sherrard asserts, contrary to first appearances, Torrance’s work offers a distinctive basis for the missiology of the church.

He begins with Torrance’s doctrine of God. Torrance’s doctrine of the homoousion leads to the idea that who the Triune God is in essence is who God is to us. There is no room for dualism, sealing God off from the material world God created. He highlights the lack of separation between God and the logos in Athanasius, the Reformation doctrine that saw the gift of grace and the Giver of grace as one, and the way Barth united these two insights in his thought. God’s mission that reconciles the world and creates the world reflects what God is in essence rather than something added or set apart.

Sherrard then turns to Christology, focusing on Torrance’s understanding of the threefold office of Christ as king, priest and prophet, and how the latter two often come together in Torrance’s work. I thought Sherrard’s treatment here was rich in material for theological reflection, including a discussion of three terms for redemption that form Torrance’s thought and how these map onto Christ’s threefold office:

  • paddah, referring to a powerful, gracious work redeeming from sin’s power.
  • kipper, the wiping out of sin, effecting propitiation between God and man.
  • goel, the kinsman redeemer

In his chapter on Christology, Sherrard also elaborates the importance of the ascension as creating the space for the church as Christ’s body to participate in his ministry.

He then turns to this idea of the church as the body of Christ. Torrance saw the church as shaped by “the analogy of Christ” in four ways:

  1. As a sent church as the Son was sent
  2. As a body constrained by suffering as was Christ as the Suffering Servant
  3. In its identity with fallen humanity as Christ so identified himself
  4. In its movement toward teleological fullness as Christ is the one who fills all in all.

In the chapter, Sherrard also contrasts Torrance and Newbigin, particularly with regard to the latter’s more robust pneumatology.

Chapters four and five focus on the three offices and how the church in its mission participates in these. Chapter four focuses on the royal office. The church reflects the new creation, the new order under, and exercising royal authority, in the world. Sherrard notes that in the realm of political theology, Torrance left us with some ambiguity of how this authority is to be worked out vis a vis the state, a critical lacuna in our current moment. Chapter five then turns to the prophetic ministry and its relation to preaching and the priestly ministry and the place of sacraments in enacting that ministry. One of the criticisms Sherrard notes is that the prophetic ministry takes a back seat to the priestly in Torrance’s writing and is “underdetermined.”

,He concludes with a summary and assessment of Torrance’s contribution to missiology. First is the grounding of missiology in the Triune God rather than sociology. Second, and occupying much of this work is how mission ought be shaped by Christ’s threefold office. Third, and not something I’ve discussed thus far, is the contribution of the idea of the “deposit of faith” to mission, that is that the gospel has been entrusted to the church, to be kept by its continued propagation. Finally is the idea of how the church participates in Christ’s threefold ministry, patterning its life on his.

As noted in this conclusion, it may be that Torrance’s most distinctive contribution is to ground mission in our theology of the Triune God and this God’s seamless relation with and redemptive movement toward the world. Only our ever-deepening worship of the Triune God can sustain our missional efforts. Only his Son provides the definitive pattern for our mission. Only the gospel of a gracious God is sufficiently worthy to proclaim. Sherrard rightly notes our tendency to turn from theology to sociology, or worse pragmatic methodology. We do well to attend to the caution, and the rich contribution Torrance makes to a robust missiology.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Nature of the Beast (second reading)

/ rtrube54 / 4 Comments

The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Gamache #11), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.

Summary: A young boy from Three Pines, prone to fantastic tales, reports seeing a big gun with a strange symbol, and then is found dead, setting off a search for a murderer, and an effort to thwart a global threat.

Usually I will only review a book once. I initially reviewed The Nature of the Beast in February of 2020, sharing my realization that I had started my reading of the Chief Inspector Gamache series out of order. A number of Louise Penny fans suggested that while I could do that, there was so much I was missing out on by not reading them in order. This review is to say that they were right on both counts. The plot of this book stands by itself as an exciting effort to find the murderer of a boy, missing parts and plans to the big gun he found, and the killer of a director of a play written by a sociopath. If you want to know more of the plot, you may read my first review.

There is so much I did not understand about the character and setting of this book that all make sense having gone back and read the series in order (with several more books still to look forward to). Among these are:

  • Just how batty and brilliant Ruth Zardo really is, her hidden depths of insight and moral compass, and why she lives with a duck named Rosa and the unusual relation she has with Jean Guy Beauvoir a.k.a. “numbnuts.”
  • Why Armand and Reine-Marie have moved to this quaint village in eastern Quebec that doesn’t even show up on any maps or GPS systems, and why Armand’s forehead is creased with a scar and why he retired early from the Surete.
  • The long and complicated road Armand and Jean Guy Beauvoir have navigated to reaching their affectionate relationship as father and son-in-law. Little had I realized that it almost didn’t happen.
  • I wouldn’t understand the loss it may be if Clara could never paint again, and why she was trying to paint a portrait of Peter.
  • The development of both Beauvoir and Lacoste, who replaced him, and even lesser characters like Yvette Nichol and Adam Cohen, and the insightful mentorship Gamache offered each of them, recognizing the hidden talents and essence of good Surete officers others missed.
  • The importance Myrna Landers plays to the psychological welfare of Three Pines, including that of Gamache–far beyond the new and used books she sells (or Ruth takes) in her store.
  • What the nature of the corruption of the Surete was that affected the young officers Gamache encounters early in this story, and why the accusation of cowardice made by John Fleming stung so deeply and was in fact so untrue.
  • The element of good food savored during leisurely meals of stimulating conversations, often supplied by Olivier and Gabri, the gay bistro and B & B owners.

I suspect if you are a lover of this series, you could easily add to my list. It is plain to me that one’s experience of these books is far richer when you read them in the order written. Part of the richness for me is a growing appreciation for the world Louise Penny fashions. One wants to visit any place she describes. She sees them with an eye for the cultural and historical richness. And the one place that she creates out of whole cloth seems like such a wonderful place that we would all move there or at least visit if we could.

Deeper than the settings of her novels, I revel in the quiet beauty of the web of relationships in these books. With some exceptions, Penny’s characters are strong individuals with well-formed identities who meet each other with respect and mutual affection, without the neediness and co-dependence we encounter in so many books. None are without flaws, yet even these are accepted with humor and grace in most instances. What a delight to see so many people comfortable in their own skins!

Penny offers us a vision of lives well lived. They are lives lived in community, filled with conversations over good food, lives with time to cultivate the inner life, and out of that, great creativity. One of the things that marks Gamache, that he transmits to others is taking time for a good “think.” In our hurried existence focused on productivity, on doing, Gamache, like many great detectives in literature does his best work by thinking. Three Pines affords space for stillness in which thought as well as creative work may occur.

I only vaguely intuited some of these things and just plain didn’t understand most of them on my first reading. Beyond the value of reading these books is order is what we encounter when we do. Amid riveting stories, Penny explores larger issues of the life well-lived. I think the draw of these books in part is they paint an alternative to our technologized, frantic, and often relationally-isolated lives. While we cannot visit Three Pines, one senses in these books the invitation to bring the best of Three Pines (not the murders!) into our own lives.

Review: The End of College

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The End of College, Robert Wilson-Black. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021.

Summary: A history of the creation and development of religion departments between 1930 and 1960 as a shift occurred from church affiliated colleges to research universities on the German model, with different aims serving a wider constituency.

Others, including George Marsden and Julie A. Reuben have chronicled the history of the modern university, including the shift from religiously based colleges to the modern secularized, research-oriented university. What makes this work by Robert Wilson-Black distinct is its account of how institutions that had their roots in the college model handled this shift with its decentering of religion, and in particular, Christianity from its role in university life. In particular, a solution resorted to was the creation of religion or religious studies departments. And yet these lived in a tension between encouraging the religious life and offering an academically rigorous program of study.

This shift represented an effort to preserve something of the college model in a much-changed environment. The college model existed to form mostly Protestants of an upper- or upper-middle class origin in the outlooks and moral character that would prepare them for useful participation in both the church and civil society. Both in terms of chapels and curricular content, religious ideas permeated the curriculum. The shift in higher education from colleges to universities represented a broadening of the constituency served to a much more diverse body in terms of class, gender, race, and religious background–a shift from college for the elite to university for the masses, especially after World War 2. Also the shift was from subjective belief and moral formation to scientific “objectivity.”

Wilson-Black’s treatment focuses on the Ivy League schools like Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, and the U of Pennsylvania as well as other nationally recognized education leaders from Oberlin to University of Chicago to Stanford dealt with these changes. Each chapter focuses in on a particular school and key figure during a particular period in the thirty years or so covered by this work.

He explores the variety of challenges that were faced. These included the relation between departments and any kind of chaplaincy that remained. A tension that arose in this relationship was advocacy versus instruction. While religion departments certainly affirmed the importance of religious faith in life, they steadily moved away from advocacy, even where their curriculum was still heavily shaped by Christian subjects and themes. There was also the pressure to develop religious studies into an intellectually respectable discipline, “objectively” dealing with the phenomena and role of religion in life. The formation of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) reflected this trend.

The question arose of whether one must be religious, or alternatively not religious to teach this subject well. With the increasing diversity of religious backgrounds of students as well as students who would self describe as humanist or atheist, religious studies began to morph into comparative religion. Some places, like University of Chicago affirmed the exploration of ultimate questions, but did not wish to confine this to a single department. Also, many of these schools offered divinity school programs at the graduate level, and questions arose about how religion departments, that may also develop graduate programs but served undergraduate educational aims would relate to the divinity schools.

The approach of focusing on particular developments at a particular school which reflected broader issues and trends helped make this book very concrete and up close in its history, while also reflected the ways the teaching of religion were differentiated in various contexts and time periods. The work also helps me understand my encounters with religious studies as a fervent young Christian at a state university in the 1970’s. In retrospect, I see it reflected instruction in mainstream scholarship, whether it be the histories of major religious bodies in the U.S. or the critical theories about authorship and composition of the New Testament of the time (I don’t recall that we ever actually were assigned to read the New Testament). At the time I found it disappointing and found far more encouragement to my faith from my campus Christian community and publications of college-oriented Christian publishers like InterVarsity Press and Christianity Today, which had intellectual heft to many of its articles.

Now I understand it better, recognizing both the remnants of the idea that religious understanding is important in one’s education and the effort to be academically rigorous rather than advocating for a faith. There is a critical value of both understanding one’s own faith well (a matter often sadly neglected by our churches in the catechesis of younger members) and understanding and respecting other faiths. Sadly, in many places religious studies seemed to be taken over by the skeptics or even cynics, where advocacy for a belief system or even the encouragement of the formation of one’s own beliefs was replaced by deconstruction of belief systems. I suspect many programs consequently dug their own graves with this approach.

These reflections suggest to me that a good follow up project for this work is what has happened with regard to the teaching of religion as an academic subject in universities in the time since the 1960’s. I note that one of those who endorses this work is Eboo Patel whose work in fostering interfaith understanding and collaboration through the Interfaith Youth Core reflects a continuing interest in religious belief, both the clarifying of one’s own beliefs and the building of mutual understanding and respect with those of others. I like how this author has approached the telling of this story and would love to see it carried forward.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Making of Biblical Womanhood

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth Allison Barr. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2021.

Summary: A study of women in church history and the construction of the idea of “biblical womanhood which underwent a series of developments from the Reformation to the present.

This is a work of histories–one personal and one of the history both of women who defied the stereotypes of the submissive woman, and the construction of the idea of “biblical womanhood” used by patriarchal religion to keep women subjugated. What makes this book compelling is the collision of these histories, as Barr, the wife of a pastor in a conservative church collides with Barr, the Baylor medieval historian who studies women and the sermons about them in medieval and early modern England. It is a collision that eventually resulted in her husband’s loss of his position and their departure from that church. It is a collision that brought to the surface abuses Barr had experienced as a younger woman that were emblematic of the ways women were oppressed as a patriarchal church used “biblical womanhood” to limit women’s contribution to the church’s life, define their role in marriage, and sometimes expose them to dangerous abuses.

Barr begins with a definition of and discussion of patriarchy. She focuses her attention on patriarchy as “a society that promotes male authority and female submission” (p. 13). She traces an arc between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the contemporary construction of biblical womanhood rooted on select passages of scripture expecting women to submit to husbands and not teach men in the church, ignoring both Jesus own relationships with women and numerous examples of women who teach and lead in the New Testament, and egalitarian readings of marriage passages. She goes on to make the argument that “biblical womanhood” cannot be based on Paul and those who do misconstrue his teaching. She then turns to medieval history and women like Margery Kempe, Brigid of Kildare, Julian of Norwich, Joan of Arc, Hilda of Whitby and Hildegard of Bingen.

She argues that these possibilities for women changed with the Reformation where the focus shifted to the ideal of the woman as wife under a husband’s headship. It limited the field of women’s aspirations to the household, and it was at this time that teaching began to focus on the Pauline verses that appeared to limit women’s roles. This was further followed by the translating of women out of the English Bible, removing gender inclusive renderings of medieval clergy and using male terms for humanity. She traces the arguments about the weakness of women and how these were used in the Industrial Revolution to foster domesticity in which piety, purity, submission, and domesticity are upheld. Yet even with this growing cult, there were a host of women in the eighteenth and nineteenth century who defied this ideal of womanhood, at least 123 that were documented preachers between 1740 and 1845.

Her survey concludes with more contemporary developments and figures from James Dobson to John Piper. One of her most trenchant criticisms is of the move to affirm the eternal subordination of the Son as the basis of a hierarchy that subordinates women to men. She unflinchingly calls this a resurrection of the Arian heresy. She also concludes her argument that biblical womanhood isn’t rooted in scripture at all but in a culture of patriarchy attempting to control and limit the freedom of women. Her concluding chapter asks, “Isn’t it time to set women free?”

I find the broad contours of her account persuasive but I also fear that what makes the account compelling, the mix of personal narrative and historical discussion, also makes it subject to criticism. A more extensively and carefully argued historical case would have been less interesting but perhaps more persuasive. At very least, it would not appear as a case of a historian with a personal ax to grind. As I write this, I realize this perhaps sounds harsher than I mean it. Patriarchy and the abuse of women is a universal condition across cultures and, I believe, both a consequence of the fall, and not the way God meant it to be. Nor do I believe this is how gospel people ought live. Perhaps those on the receiving end of patriarchy do well to be angry!

While Barr has sketched both compelling portrayals of women of God and the various historical turns patriarchy has taken in Protestantism and evangelicalism, this work needs to be developed further (and some of it is in Barr’s scholarship). We need a narrative that goes beyond patriarchy to partnership in marriage and ministry. We need models of men and women in flourishing marriages without the hierarchical roles of “biblical manhood and womanhood” and models of men and women leading together with integrity and grace in the church that reflect the better way of a Galatians 3:28 gospel.

Review: Good Works

/ rtrube54 / 4 Comments

Good Works: Hospitality and Faithful Discipleship, Keith Wasserman, Christine D. Pohl. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2021.

Summary: A profile of the key themes that have shaped the hospitable community of Good Works, Inc., a ministry providing shelter and support to people in rural southeastern Ohio.

Athens, Ohio, befitting its name is the home of the oldest college in Ohio. Ohio University was founded in 1787, sixteen years before Ohio became a state. Beyond the rolling contours of the scenic campus lie the foothills of Appalachia in southeast Ohio. In contrast to the gorgeous countryside, southeast Ohio is the face of rural poverty in Ohio. Forty years ago, a young convert to Christianity and his wife set out to provide shelter for the homeless and offer support for those in need, inviting them to experience the love of Christ and see the gospel incarnated in the community that became known as Good Works.

Through friends and a brief encounter with the founder, I’ve heard of the year in, year out faithful work of this community. So it was with great interest that I read this account by the founder, Keith Wasserman, and Christine D. Pohl, a professor at Asbury Seminary whose scholarship has focused around hospitality. The two met when Keith did coursework at Asbury, where she became intrigued with the work and Keith enriched in his vision of hospitality through their interaction.

The book is less a history of Good Works, Inc. than a description of key themes that have shaped its development. Yes, you do get the outlines of the growth of the ministry from the Wasserman’s basement to Timothy House on Central Avenue that serves as a 24 hour homeless shelter (the only one in southeast Ohio) to the complex of building on Luhrig Road out of which the rest of the community ministries take place. But the themes are of overriding importance and each chapter includes prayers and questions that challenge us to consider what shape these themes ought take in our own situations.

The most important theme shaping the life of Good Works is worship. Worship is not a few songs, prayers, rituals and readings on a Sunday but must overflow in the service of and love for others out of love for God. They write:

“Although worship takes different forms, loving God and loving our neighbors are always at the heart of it. The recipients of our love–God and neighbors–are connected, but loving God is our starting place, and the ordering of our loves should not be reversed. If we think that our task is to love our neighbors with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love God as ourselves, we’ve wandered into bad theology–and troublesome psychological terrain” (pp. 18-19).

The second theme is integrity. Good Works likes to say “our program is integrity.” By this they mean engendering a high level of trust with the people they serve and among the staff who serve them. It involves both truthfulness and faithfulness. One of the cardinal practices among leadership is that of “Clear.” “Clear” means talking with each other without delay about grievances and disagreements. “Are we ‘Clear’?” is asked in every leadership meeting.

The third theme was on keeping perspective and one of the striking parts of this chapter was Keith’s description of spending a few days every few years in a different city, experiencing what it was like to be homeless there and to see homelessness from the perspective of the homeless. The chapter also talks about how they help each other keep perspectives amid hard interpersonal encounters.

A fourth theme of Good Works is relationships in community. Good Works does not see itself as a social agency but as a Christian community into which they are inviting those who seek their help. The shared meals and fellowship of Friday Night Life epitomizes this theme. They describe a continuum of relationships from associating to serving to loving to knowing and the movement that occurs from coming for help to become a leader serving others while continuing to remain in an accountable community with relational “guardrails.”

Leadership in community is the fifth theme and this is one of the best descriptions of leadership shaped by the way of the cross that I have read. Leaders live within a number of tensions:

  • assessing individual situations and institutional needs
  • dealing with failure
  • humility and teachableness
  • being above reproach and approachable
  • truthfulness in love
  • character and adversity
  • sacrifice

Wasserman also discusses longevity and confesses that at least sixty percent of the work needs to be joyful to be sustainable for him.

The sixth chapter, written by Pohl explores how hospitality is what makes Good Works good. A key in all of this is mutuality, a fellowship of giving and receiving that acknowledges that all people are gifts to one another. An appendix follows detailing the various settings in which Good Works mission and ministry of hospitality takes place.

I appreciate the approach taken in this book. I can see the temptation to try to copy the outward ministry of Good Works in other settings without first being shaped by the inner character of this work The mantra, “if we don’t have integrity, we don’t have a program” is one I wish every Christian ministry would take to heart. I am struck that I don’t hear a theme of scripture but rather the themes toward which scripture points us, even as scripture is often used throughout as basis–themes of worship, of truth and fidelity, of community and mutuality, of servant leadership, of hospitality. Good Works has touched thousands of lives in southeastern Ohio. Beyond that, it offers a vibrant alternative to our comfortable but uninspiring churches infatuated in politics because they’ve lost the joy of being in mission. Good Works simply is an object lesson in what it is to be the church.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: After the Apocalypse

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

After the Apocalypse, Andrew Bacevich. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2021.

Summary: An argument that 2020 represented the final unraveling of the United States’ post-Cold War superpower status and that U.S. policy must change, reflecting its changed status in the world and changing priorities at home.

If ever a year might be considered apocalyptic, 2020 is one for the books. We have witnessed a global pandemic that has taken millions of lives globally and over 700,000 U.S. lives and counting. Extreme weather events resulted in drought, flooding, extended fire seasons, extreme storms, and coastal inundations. Police involved shootings inflamed racial tensions. A bitterly fought election resulted in a denial of certified results and a nearly successful effort to prevent the constitutional certification of those results by those who denied them. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to project power in Iraq and Afghanistan, born of 9/11 failed while China’s power is in the ascendant.

Andrew Bacevich, witnessing these events, and having witnessed the new, post-Cold War order America tried to sustain as the world’s only superpower fail, argues that the U.S. must awaken to its changed place in the world and must change its policies accordingly. He contends that, while paying respect to Reinhold Niebuhr, the U.S. has in fact followed a policy of arrogant hubris instead of the one of “self-awareness, humility, and prudence…of realism combined with moral responsibility” (p. 29). The Cold War alliances of the West, particularly NATO exist mostly in name only. America, apart from token presences, has fought its wars alone.

Bacevich takes the bold step of touching the “third rail” of American policy and argues for no “special relationships”–not with Great Britain and not with Israel. He argues not for cutting ties, but for normalizing them, treating them as we do other countries with whom we do business. He argues that if anything, our relationships with our immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico, ought to take precedence. He also argues that our changing climate poses threats to our security, and possibly our health, as diseases may find new vectors for global spread. COVID may just be our wake up call.

He also argues, as others have in different contexts, for the importance of addressing our racial history. He implicates racism in the ways we have fought our wars, depending heavily on black soldiers, and in our ventures in Iraq, on the good soldier, Colin Powell, to make the case for war. It was sobering to read this as news came of Powell’s passing, and how this one episode tarnished an otherwise distinguished career culminating in our first Black serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State.

Bacevich argues for a policy of sustainable self-sufficiency in global affairs. He believes this means to withdraw from NATO, allowing the European Community to determine its own future. He likewise advocates withdrawal from the Greater Middle East and that terrorism should revert to be treated as a criminal matter. The once exception he makes is in East Asia. He argues that the rise in China’s power, reflected in military power argues for a continued presence. In fact, it may argue for the concentration of our diffused forces, while doing all to pursue peaceful co-existence. He also argues for an enhanced focus on a new North American Security Zone (NASZ) focusing on addressing the challenges and security of our own continent.

Years ago, Paul Kennedy, in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, argued that the fall of the great powers came from the projection of their power in the world that bankrupted them and inevitably involved overreach. Bacevich seems to make a similar argument here, contending that the U.S. already has seen the collapse of its efforts to project itself as a global superpower and must refocus on what it is still capable of in addressing the challenges, international, domestic, and natural, on its own doorstep. In 2020, we at least glimpsed the apocalypse. It could get worse! His call for sustainable self-sufficiency in our own policies and in our relations with the world reflects Niebuhr’s humility and realism. It acknowledges that U.S. cannot do what other nations must do for themselves. It is not isolationist, because it recognizes shared interests with other countries in matters like trade, climate, and world health and that we may need a more tightly focused exercise of our military forces.

Where I have questions is in his proposal to withdraw from the Greater Middle East. Given its strategic location at the nexus of Europe, Asia, and Africa and its energy resources, is it reasonable to assume we may withdraw our presence and the nations of this area will be able to be sustainably self-sufficient? Instead, will there be a vacuum filled by others? While we must not repeat the folly of nation building, may our presence help preserve national sovereignty as does our presence in East Asia? Even if the U.S. and its North American neighbors maintain energy self-sufficiency (a priority I think), this region is vital in the global energy equation, and a disruption could destabilize global relations.

It seems that the policies chosen with regard to our near neighbors, our own racially diverse nation, and our natural environment could either meet or fail the test of moral responsibility. Given our history and current dispositions in all three areas, it seems to me that what Bacevich is proposing is a corporate revival of moral responsibility amid a history of declension. It will require courageous and resolute leadership that refuses the traditional nostrums about American greatness. I hope Bacevich is a praying man. What he prescribes is a tall order that it seems we have little inclination to pursue. I agree that needs to change. I’ll be praying with him.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Women Rising

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Women Rising, Meghan Tschanz, Foreword by Carolyn Custis James. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021.

Summary: A global mission trip awakens the author both to the injustices women face throughout the world and the patterns of subjection she learned in childhood that held her back and which she learned to name and use her voice to speak against.

Meghan Tschanz grew up in a good conservative church and participated in a good Christian ministry in college. But she also absorbed teaching that caused her a lot of harm. It all had to do with being a woman and not a man. She was taught about purity, something to be protected, like a lollipop kept in its wrapper. She was taught about modesty, and how she didn’t want to be the cause of men sinning, with the subliminal message that her body, or at least some parts of it were bad and to be ashamed of. She was taught that women lived for men’s needs and wants. Then there were the passes men made, the remarks bosses and customers made that reduced her to an object, eye candy for their pleasure.

All of that was in her history, but below the surface until a year spent on a mission trip around the world. She confronted the male dominance of the mission. She is traumatized when a man pleasures himself while looking at her while she plays tennis. And she entered into the heartbreaking ways women were abused around the world. Beaten and raped by husbands. Subject to female genital mutilation. Deceived and trafficked. One of the women she reached out to was murdered by a client.

Meanwhile, she became involved in a relationship with a young man also associated with the mission. She’s attracted but also increasingly uneasy with the ways she feels controlled and has to “stuff” parts of herself. Those around her see the difference, how she stifles her voice to be with him. All this culminates as she reflects on her experiences, both with the women, and with the people and structures that have shaped her life. After trying so hard to cope and help women cope, she realized that things would not change without men being held accountable. Women endured all sorts of abuse, while men rarely were held to account, or not at all. She recognized the structures of patriarchy both in society and in the church that sought to control and use women, but not to permit them to be equal partners in society or ministry. It was believed that if women stepped up, then men would step back. She exposes the structures and strategy used to keep women “in their place” and the deep pain women experienced, that she experienced.

This is an honest book–about everything from sexuality and bodies to the times she fell apart under the weight of what she saw, and how prayer and friends helped. It’s a book meant to encourage women to raise their voice, to speak into the injustice of patriarchal church structures and societal structures that constrain women but never expect men to change or be held responsible. This is also a book men need to read. We need to understand the pain we as men have inflicted. We need to understand how our own irresponsible lack of control of our desires have caused women to be ashamed of their bodies when we are the ones who should be ashamed. We need to face why power and control are so important to us. What do we fear? There is mystery in the relations between genders and many of us would rather control the mystery than extend the respect that we want by listening, learning, and understanding. Fear is the prelude to wonder in the knowledge of God. The sad tragedy of patriarchy is not only are we robbed of half the gifts of the church, but we settle for the illusion of power and control when we could have wonder.

All this is to say, men, read this book. Some of it will (or should) break your heart. And it will help us support our sisters who are rising, reclaiming their voices, and bringing their whole selves into the lives of our communities.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Killer Dolphin

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Killer Dolphin (Inspector Alleyn #24), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (originally published in 1966).

Summary: Through an accident, a playwright realizes his dream of a renovated Dolphin Theatre, with packed houses for one of his plays, until a murder occurs and a boy actor is badly injured in a botched theft.

Peregrine Jay is a playwright and director with a dream–to restore the old Dolphin Theatre to the glory it enjoyed under Adolphus Ruby. The building suffered wartime damage with a bomb that left a hole in the stage, and it is in otherwise solid, but decayed shape. Jay arranges to tour the building, and despite being warned, falls through the hole in the stage into a well beneath where water has collected. He’s in danger of drowning when a rescuer comes, pulls him out and takes him to his estate where he is clothed and refreshed. This unlikely savior is the owner of the property who feels responsible for the accident.

Vassily Conducis is a rich magnate with a mysterious manner. In the course of their conversation, he shows Jay a glove that has been authenticated as that of young Hamnet Shakespeare, who predeceased his more illustrious father. It inspires Jay to write a play. Also, under the influence of too much to drink, Peregrine Jay shares his dreams for the Dolphin Theatre. Amazingly, Conducis agrees to bankroll this, working through his business agent, Greenslade.

Months later, the Dolphin gleams in its former glory, Jay has written his play, which will debut at the theatre with its twin dolphins in the lobby. The cast is brilliant if wrought with turmoil–dislikes, broken romances and jealousies, and one difficult to work with actor, W. Hartly Grove, a rival to Marcus Knight on and off stage. Conducis, otherwise removed from the day to day operations, insisted on his inclusion. The other thing insisted upon is a display of the glove, in a glass window, part of a protective safe, very secure, but with an easily guessable combination created by the business manager of the theatre. Superintendent Alleyn has overseen the security arrangements, expressing concerns about that combination.

The play is a wild success on its own merits as well as the draw of the rare glove. On the night before the glove is to be removed to be sold to an American buyer (an offense to Jeremy Jones, Jay’s roommate, who designed costumes for the play and believed in keeping Britain’s treasures in Britain) a terrible thing happens. The overnight watchman finds Jobbins, who watched the theatre in the evening, dead, killed by a blow to the head from one of the dolphins. And the annoying boy actor, Trevor Vere has fallen out of the balcony into the stalls and is in a coma with serious injuries. The glove and some documents, missing from the safe, were found nearby.

Alleyn concludes on the basis of evidence that it must be someone in the cast. Who stole the glove? And why? If Trevor comes around, will he be the guilty one, or know who is? What about Jeremy? And other cast members have motives, as well as connections with the mysterious Mr. Conducis. And what will become of Peregrine Jay’s dream and budding romance with Emily Dunne.

One of the things striking about this work is Marsh’s descriptions of the theatre. One could almost draw sketches of the interior, or at least envision the theatre in one’s mind. She paints not only a picture of this grand old building rising from the river, but evokes an atmosphere of wharves and watercraft, workers and the theatre crowd, all in the mix of this space. What may have been less satisfying was the stereotypic theatre cast, the vain star, the ditzy actress, the rogue, the lover snubbed, the spoiled child actor. There is a fascinating observation about how actors thrive on the drama and emotion within the caste, using it in their acting. I wonder. At any rate, it all worked to advance the story but they all just seemed to be types, with only Peregrine Jay evoking any interest, as well as Conducis, when he appears, definitely one of Marsh’s more interesting character.

Alleyn, of course is drawn into it all, handling the security surrounding the glove. As always, one of the most satisfying aspects of these stories is his patient piecing together of evidence, stories, and histories bringing the case to a successful, and surprising conclusion. This is an engaging book for those who like their mysteries with a bit of “head” on them.