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Review: Remarriage in Early Christianity

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Cover image of "Remarriage in Early Christianity" by A. Andrew Das

Remarriage in Early Christianity, A. Andrew Das. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883742) 2024.

Summary: A study of both NT texts and early church fathers offers no basis for remarriage after divorce.

Not unlike the contemporary West, where divorce is often followed by remarriage, both Jewish and Greco-Roman culture permitted writs of divorce, after which both parties were free to remarry. The only exception was in the early imperial period, that upheld the ideal of the univira, the woman who never remarried, even after the death of her husband. This, however did not bar divorce or remarriage.

A. Andrew Das asserts that the early Christians stood in marked contrast to these cultural norms, permitting divorce only in the case of unchaste behavior, or a divorce initiated by an unbelieving spouse, and remarriage in no case. Das begins with the relevant gospel texts. He notes the categorical ban of divorce and remarriage in Mark and Luke, affirming God’s intention for marriage until death parts husband and wife. Das then does a more detailed study of the Matthean passages, which seem to allow for some form of exception. He considered the various possible interpretations. On the basis of the textual grammar, he concludes that Jesus, in Matthew permits divorce in the case of sexual sin, but this permission does not extend to remarriage, even for the innocent party. Such remarriage, while the spouse lived, would constitute adultery

Turning to the relevant material in 1 Corinthians 7, he maintains that Paul affirmed marriage and marital relations, limiting abstinence. He addresses widows and widowers, encouraging singleness but permitting marriage. He then turns to divorce, affirming the Lord’s command for believers, urging Christian spouses in mixed marriages to remain, unless the unbelieving spouse initiates divorce. No remarriage is permitted. Paul urges the advantages of singleness, but affirms the propriety of betrothed coupes to marry. Again, Das finds no basis for the remarriage of the divorced.

But was this how the early Christians read these passages? Surveying the Ante-Nicene fathers, he shows them to be unanimous. The only matter on which they differed was whether widows and widowers may remarry. Some prohibited even this. All this argues strongly that they would not even countenance the remarriage of the divorced. And there is no evidence that they went beyond Matthew and Paul regarding the circumstances in which divorce was permitted, nor that the “innocent” party could remarry.

I’ve summarized in a few paragraphs Das’s careful textual work, with ample documentation. Understandably, this is work may evoke strong emotions, which the author acknowledges. His approach is one that focuses on the evidence of the biblical texts and first centuries of Christian interpretation. He acknowledges interpreters as diverse as Craig Keener and David Instone-Brewer who adopt more expansive interpretations of the exceptions. He addresses those who have remarried as being in actual marriages and that adultery is not the unforgiveable sin. Das recognizes that scholars may try to mitigate the understanding he has argued. He simply hopes that when they do so, they will reckon with the early Christian witness.

Admittedly, Das promotes an unpopular position in this book. Perhaps it was beyond his remit, but I would have liked him to address the “hardness of heart” behind the OT permission to divorce. He does not address the issue of violence in marriages. Nor does he address why it is better for the widowed to marry rather than burn but why burning is preferable to the adultery of remarriage for the divorced.

That said, he underscores the high call of marriage for Christians. In turn, this emphasizes the high need for God’s empowering grace in the lives of couples. The evidence from of the early church calls into question the ease with which we accept divorce and remarriage. I hope that this study results not only in scholarly discussions but also in discussions among pastor-theologians. They are the ones who must consider the implications of this evidence for the church’s life and witness.

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

Review: A Quilted Life

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Cover image of "A Quilted Life" by Catherine Meeks

A Quilted Life, Catherine Meeks (foreword by Michelle Miller). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882899) 2024.

Summary: The story of a sharecropper’s daughter who overcame racism and health issues to teach and to lead racial healing efforts.

Catherine Meeks has led an amazing life by all accounts. Born the daughter of a hardworking sharecropper, raised in substandard educational conditions, raising two sons on her own, facing racism, and struggling with rheumatoid arthritis, life wasn’t easy. Yet eventually she completed a doctorate, held a number of academic positions, traveled in West Africa, preached in the National Cathedral, and led a ministry of racial healing.

She likens her life to the rag quilts her mother made from seemingly useless scraps of fabric. But nothing in her life, even her poverty, marginalization, and denigration, proved useless. Love and faith were the threads that wove the pieces together, beginning with the love in her home, the determination of her mother, and the faith she discovered as a teenager through a Church of Christ. She was able to attend Pepperdine, where she was mentored in racial healing by Ruby Holland.

Returning to the South, she briefly worked in a difficult mental health position before taking a job as assistant dean of women at Mercer College in Macon. Eventually, she pursued an MSW while directing Mercer’s African-American studies program, in addition to her student life work. Realizing her lack of a doctorate meant other faculty looked down on her, despite her efforts. As a result, she pursued a doctorate. This came with an opportunity to take a group of students to West Africa, where she met her future husband. Children followed, then rheumatoid arthritis, an affliction she continues to deal with. Then her husband divorced her, leaving her to raise her two boys on her own.

Despite all this, she continued to pursue her academic work. She crafted an innovative program, Standing on Their Shoulders. It recognized outstanding Black women in the Macon community, eventually numbering one hundred. Then the mayor, a Mercer law professor, recruited her to work out of his office to address gang violence. One of her first acts was to raise her voice to be assigned a real office, not a broom closet. But this was followed by community murals, gun buybacks, marches, a quilt of remembrance, working with religious leaders and meeting Colin Powell.

Instead of returning to Mercer, she accepted appointment to a chair at Wesleyan College. Subsequently, she launched the Lane Center for Community Service, for which she raised millions of dollars. During all this time, she learned to use her voice to advocate not only for herself but for the marginalized. In one of the book’s chapters she describes three practices that sustained her and helped her know when to use her voice: silence, journaling, and dream work. In retirement, she became involved in anti-racism work with her Episcopal Diocese. This led to creation of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing. This last brought her to the attention of David Brooks, who interviewed her, a speaking invitation at the National Cathedral, and to receiving the Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement Award for Service, all in 2022.

Along the way, we witness the transformation of a woman who once lived under the fear of God. She describes the deep work of the Creator in her to affirm her as beloved. This plainspoken, honest memoir offers a stirring account of a life well-lived. Quilt pieces of suffering and denigration intermix with gritty achievements. This quilted life portrays a “long obedience” in the pursuit of racial healing sustained by a tenacious faith in a good and beautiful Creator.

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

Review: The Integration Journey

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Cover image of "The Integration Journey" by William B. Whitney and Carissa Dwiwardani

The Integration Journey: A Student’s Guide to Faith, Culture, and Psychology. William B. Whitney and Carissa Dwiwardani. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514000564) 2024.

Summary: An approach to integrating faith and psychology focused on lived experience, one’s culture, and pursuing justice.

I’ve had a fifty-year interest in the integration of faith and psychology, from the days of my undergraduate studies in psychology. At that time, integration for me meant assessing the premises of the psychological theories and counseling approaches I was learning in light of a growing Christian understanding of what it means to be human and to flourish in Christ. I was not aware at the time of the culture in which I was embedded. Both in theology and psychology, my influences were all white males, as am I. I was dimly aware, at best, of how my own story shaped who I was as a student peer counselor.

The authors of this book approach integration in quite a different fashion from my student days. They approach integration as the unfolding story of our lives that includes our faith journey, our understanding of scripture, and our church tradition. Also, it includes our psychology studies, and the theories and research in our chosen subfield. Finally it incorporates the culture in which we are embedded including our community and family and our various intersecting identities (gender, race, age, ability status, social class, and more).

In addition, the authors contend that for Christians, an integrated story is one that features working toward love and justice in one’s context. Pursuing restorative justice ought frame our ethics, research, and practice. Contrary to the very individualistic and culture-specific approach I learned, a commitment to loving justice involves communal, societal, and global, as well as personal levels and embraces diverse cultures.

For these authors, integration isn’t merely about information but about personal change. They offer a seven step model of a cycle of transformation. It begins with a precipitating event, This shatters or challenges our preconceived notions of God, self, others, and the world. Consequently, we turn to scripture, our church, academic, and cultural community with new questions. Eventually, new ways of understanding modify and reshape our stories. In turn, we believe and behave in new ways. This leads to greater integration in our work toward justice within the church, our community, and in professional practice. A part of this is also an increased capacity to honor the cultural and communal wisdom of diverse cultures.

Pursuing love and justice in the field of psychology brings us up against human suffering. For the Christian, biblical lament enables us to voice our grief and suffering and create space for others to do so. It brings to the surface untold stories. It recognizes the liminal space in which we live.

Finally, the authors stress the importance of turning theories into lived experience. Our own journeys of transformation are a key part of understanding our vocation. They reemphasize that if love of God and neighbor are paramount, our integrative work will lead to pursuing loving justice.

The authors move away from the critical and intellectualized approaches of my day. I still wonder if there is a role for critical discernment, perhaps something the authors envision occurring during transformative cycles. However, I appreciate the shift from integrated thinking to forming integrated people. Likewise, the cultural awareness they encourage, both of the culture in which our story is embedded, and of others, is valuable. And critically, they demonstrate how loving justice is integral to the integration journey. This book is framed as a “student’s guide.” The authors offer an insightful “travelers guide” for the integration journey.

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

Review: Challenger

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Cover image of "Challenger" by Adam Higginbotham

Challenger, Adam Higginbotham. Avid Reader Press (ISBN: 9781982176617) 2024.

Summary: The heroism of the seven Challenger crew members and why a critical design flaw was ignored, resulting in their deaths.

I wanted to engage in some “magical thinking” in reading this book. The images of the Challenger explosion played over and over on our TV screens on January 28, 1986. We realized we were watching seven human beings come to a sudden end to their high aspirations. Or as it turned out, tumbling in an intact cockpit to an ocean impact and watery grave.

Adam Higginbotham didn’t allow me to engage that magical thinking. In the Prologue, through the eyes and words of public affairs announcer Steve Nesbitt, the disaster replays, underscored by his understatement, “Obviously a major malfunction.” Still, I wanted it to be different.

First, Higginbotham takes us back to the Apollo program, begun disastrously in the capsule fire that killed three astronauts. He traces the response and the subsequent successes of the program. And then the questioning of what NASA should do next. It was a time when government wanted to scale back the massive spending of the Apollo program rather than embark on further grandiose adventures.

And so the idea of a reusable space plane won approval, sold as a way to make space flight routine. But budget constraints resulted in the design decision to deploy reusable Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) to launch the shuttle into orbit. No manned space flight had used solid boosters. But the Titan missiles used them successfully, manufactured by Morton Thiokol, who won the contract for the shuttle boosters. However, these were much larger, and needed to be assembled in sections with the joints sealed by an asbestos putty and two concentric O-rings.

In testing, engineers found that on ignition, the joints flexed in a way where a gap in the seal occurred momentarily, allowing hot gasses to escape, to burn through. These charred some of the inner O-rings but did not get past the outer O-ring, and the joint sealed. There were other problems. Valves and turbine blades in the liquid fuel main booster. And hear resistant tiles that would fall off, exposing shuttle surfaces to potential “burn through” on re-entry. Engineers found fixes, including storage and assembly procedures for the SRBs. And the shuttles were approved for flight.

Higginbotham profiles each of the people who made up the crew of Challenger. Along the way, we learn the name of George Abbey, the NASA administrator who made the final call in astronaut selection and personally contacted each person. He introduces each individual: Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who had prepared to teach lessons from space. He traces the career trajectory that led to each being assigned to the Challenger launch.

As the astronauts are training, Higginbotham takes us behind the scenes as concerns mount about the SRB joints. The engineering team at Morton Thiokol, working under Allan McDonald, Director of the program, and Roger Boisjoly, the senior scientist on the project, find more evidence of failures of the joints to fully seal. After a cold weather launch of Discovery in 1985, a significant breach of the inner ring and major charring of the outer ring were found. The joint had held, but barely. Management delayed a redesign of the joint. Boisjoly started studying the cold weather properties of the O-rings, finding they ceased to work at cold temperatures.

In some ways, the tragic climax of the book is the night before what would be a launch in record cold temperatures. The Morton Thiokol engineers unanimously recommended “do not launch.” I kept hoping they would listen and postpone the launch. But senior executives at Morton Thiokol, under pressure by administrators at NASA overrode that recommendation. The saddest moment for me was when Boisjoly, persuaded by colleagues to watch, saw the explosion. He was never the same, despite courageous testimony before the Rogers Commission.

Finally, Higginbotham takes us through the aftermath. This includes the Rogers Commission and the effort to cover up the engineers “do not launch” recommendation. But thanks to the courage of McDonald and Boisjoly, the truth came out. Also, Higginbotham documents the recovery efforts, including the recovery of the burnt through joint of the right booster. And the recovery of the cabin, flight recorder, and remains, confirming that the cabin was intact until it hit the ocean. And at least Mike Smith was conscious to the end.

What Higginbotham traces through his book is what can happen when a corporate culture turns toxic and dysfunctional. Specifically, we see what happens when the best interests of astronauts are over-ridden by political and profit pressures. But we also see the courage coupled with hard work of the seven who flew that fatal mission. We only wish the administrators had matched their courage and integrity.. Because ultimately, it wasn’t merely a powerful rocket that failed, but rather a group of powerful people.

Review: The Year of Magical Thinking

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Cover image of "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion. Vintage (ISBN: 9781400078431) 2007.

Summary: A memoir of grief and remembrance for Joan Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne.

They had just arrived home after visiting their daughter Quintana, in intensive care fighting pneumonia and septic shock. Joan Didion and her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, were talking while he was enjoying a drink and she was preparing dinner. And then he wasn’t talking. She turned to find him slumped over the table, victim to a massive coronary called “the widow maker.” It was December 30, 2003.

In this memoir, begun in October of 2004, Didion recounts her grief journey over that first year beginning with the efforts of the paramedics, the trip to the hospital, the pronouncement of death, and receiving his effects, and returning to an empty apartment. Didion turns her gifts to describing one of the most difficult of human experiences:

“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”

She titles the memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, reflecting a belief that somehow he could come back. She refrains from giving away his shoes because he will need them when he comes back. Obituaries disturb her because she fears she buried him alive. She replays the events of the night as if something different might have saved his life, yet he was likely gone from the moment he slumped over, as she eventually learns.

Drawing upon grief research, she chronicles her own descent into the kind of temporary insanity of grief. She struggles to finish a piece of writing because the two of them had always discussed each other’s writing and she’s waiting for that conversation that will not come. Later, when her daughter suffers a stroke in Los Angeles, she describes returning to the city in which she and John had once lived. and avoiding all the places that would awaken memories (“the vortex effect”) of him. She describes the look of “extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness” in the eyes of the bereaved and the memories that visit unannounced and her response:

“I wanted more than a night of memories and sighs.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted him back.”

Quintana’s serious condition offers a kind of diversion as she immerses herself in clinical materials and becomes her daughter’s advocate. Was this just a desperate effort to stave off further grief? To keep at bay the grief at the door? A mother’s love? Probably all three.

Yet she cannot help remembering. The birthday gift twenty-five days before he died. The trip to Paris John thought he must take or never go. Did he have a presentiment of his death? That is another theme, unresolved in the memoir.

Then there is the unending character of grief. It is not for a few days or weeks. Yet as the year ebbs to an end, she comes to some resolution to her “magical thinking.”

“I know why we try to keep the dead alive; we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.

“I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.”

Most of all, Didion explores the special kind of grief of that comes of two people sharing many years together. Is this the price exacted for many years of shared love, shared memories, of lives intertwined? I’ve known the widower beside himself with grief, losing the partner of over sixty years. It’s most likely that one of us will bear this grief in my own marriage. Reading Didion’s unvarnished and quietly eloquent account alerts us to that. But it doesn’t prepare us. What can?

But for those who grieve, and who go through all the changes Didion experiences, she helps us understand that this is just what it is like. Sometimes it helps to know we are not alone when we find ourselves alone.

Review: Turning Points in American Church History

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Cover image of "Turning Points in American Church History" by Elesha J. Coffman

Turning Points in American Church History, Elesha J. Coffman, foreword by Mark A. Noll. Baker Academic (ISBN: 9780801097492) 2024.

Summary: Shows ways the church contributed to American history through 13 key events over four centuries.

If we have taken a history course in college, we may have read a text that tried to cover every significant event and date within its scope. While comprehensive, at least in a superficial sense, it was usually a bore. Elesha J. Coffman, following an example of Mark Noll (who contributes the foreword) takes a different approach to the subject of American church history. Specifically, she chooses thirteen key events that may be considered turning points in American church history. By doing so, she can both zoom in on the real human history, while setting the turning points in a broader context and showing subsequent developments and impacts in American history.

From the table of contents, here are the thirteen events covered:

1. The Old World Order Upended
The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588
2. The Limits of Religious Freedom
Roger Williams Banished from Massachusetts, 1635
3. A Collision of Cultures
King Philip’s War, 1675-76
4. Evangelicalism Sweeps America
George Whitefield Sparks the First Great Awakening, 1740
5. A Faith for Enslaved and Free
First African American Church Founded at Silver Bluff, South Carolina, 1773
6. Far from Rome
John Carroll Elected First Roman Catholic Bishop in the United States, 1789
7. The Benevolent Empire
American Bible Society Founded, 1816
8. Houses Divided
Methodist Church Splits over Slavery, 1844
9. Muscular Missions
Student Volunteer Movement Launched, 1886
10. Los Angeles Fire
Azusa Street Revival Catalyzes Pentecostalism, 1906
11. Science versus Religion?
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial, 1925
12. Civil Rights and Uncivil Religion
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, 1963
13. Religion Moves Right
Ronald Reagan Elected President, 1980

To illustrate her approach, I will take the chapter on the first African American church. Each chapter opens with a representative piece of hymn or song lyrics. This chapter opens with “There is a Balm in Gilead.” She traces the first church to Silver Bluff, North Carolina, the preaching of white revivalist, Wait Palmer on George Galphin’s estate, although George Liele, from a slave background, had previously preached to the slaves. Liele served as presiding elder after the initial sacraments, administered by Palmer.

Coffman then backs out, discussing the early history of slavery, Richard Allen and the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal churches as well as the informal revivalist experiences, including the unique form of the “ring shout.” She discusses the fears of uprising and how much Christian activity was covert. And she includes a sidebar from Frederick Douglass on false and true Christianity. Each chapter concludes with a prayer, in this case, from a message of the Rev. Absalom Jones. Finally, each chapter also includes a bibliography for further reading.

I personally found several chapters particularly interesting. I had not thought about the significance of the defeat of the Spanish Armada for the English settlement of the colonies. And I appreciated the history of Bishop John Carroll, having lived near the university that bore his name. Growing up in a heavily Catholic neighborhood, I did not always appreciate what it was like for Catholics as a minority in a heavily protestant country. Working in collegiate ministry, I appreciated the inclusion of the chapter on the Student Volunteer Movement, a predecessor to the organization I worked with. And I reflected as I read the final chapter on the rise and decline of evangelicalism, of how I had lived in that history from the “year of the evangelical” as a college student down to the present. Sobering.

The author admits that one weakness is that some important developments get overlooked. In the American context, one element that I wish had been included was the importance of ethnic church communities, including Asian ethnicities, Latino ethnicities, and African churches in our contemporary context. On the other hand, I was impressed with how these thirteen key events covered so much ground. And they were interesting!

This book could serve as a good text, or supplemental text, in American church history. It will also work well for an adult Christian education course. And the breadth of stories helps us realize the amazing mosaic that is the American church.

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

Review: The Good News of Church Politics

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Cover image of "The Good News of Church Politics" by Ross Kane

The Good News of Church Politics, Ross Kane. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (ISBN: 9780802883834) 2024.

Summary: Proposes politics as a spiritual practice by which we love each other within and beyond the church walls.

When we hear the term “politics,” our minds often go to national politics. We center a lot of our focus on a single day every four years. But what about the rest of life? And particularly for Christians, what about our life together within local congregations.

Now I realize that for many of us the idea of church politics is hardly good news. We’ve been through power struggles, often over what seem small things like music in worship, or even carpet colors. However, Ross Kane believes that the church is a place where we can learn a redemptive form of politics. Specifically, we may learn politics as a spiritual practice of interdependence in our common life. And how we engage with each other can shape our engagement with the wider world. As Kane puts it, “organizing the church’s yard sale should be a model for how we engage politics in our cities and nations.”

Kane invites us to see our ordinary activities as political. Running our weekly food pantry is not mere service but an example of ordering our lives to love God and neighbor in the warp and woof of life. How we address competing interests can be exercises of ruthless power or gospel-centered service and a yielding to one another. How we welcome those who come through the door can communicate hierarchy or radical inclusiveness and worth. Loving God and neighbor in this way calls us into interdependence both within and between churches.

But is this idea rooted in the scriptures? Kane takes us through the terminology of scripture, observing how words for salvation and faithfulness have political overtones. Then there is language like kingdom, reign, people of God, community. Political imagery infuses our sacraments and hymns. All this reflects God’s good news for the politics of the church. Throughout, we witness a vision of interdependent, serving and sacrificial love. For God, politics is how we live in love with Him and each other.

Then Kane turns to politics as spiritual practice. Prayer is the starting place. He proposes that what prayer and politics have in common is “persistence, listening, and a commitment to mundane experience.” The realities of prayer open us up and sustain us in the realities of ordinary politics. The good news calls us to love our enemies. Learning to pray for and love those with whom we conflict moves us to a place of recognizing our interdependence even with those with whom we disagree. It also takes us into the place of forgiveness. Kane discusses forgiveness both as real reconciliation, rather than a forced papering over of wrongs, and as an act of self care, when reconciliation isn’t possible. He strongly emphasizes that truth-telling must precede reconciliation.

Kane believes the good news of church politics renews leadership. This includes the practices in our meetings that ensure that all are heard and that what they contribute is valued and weighed in the church’s deliberations. He explores how leaders exercise love as political power, considering the principles of Dr. King in non-violent action. He discusses how the church faces corporate sin with recognition, repentance, and restitution. In concluding this section, he elaborates the unusual authority of Christian leaders as that of serving and empowering others.

Finally, Kane shows how this “good politics” bears fruit beyond the congregation. He argues for an approach that is both locally focused and non-partisan. He uses the example of investigating and advocating the need for affordable housing (a challenge in my community). Kane also addresses the limits of hyperlocal politics. In particular, problems (and sins) in my neighborhood are often connected to wider problems and sins. Also, focus on one’s own community may deprive others. This leads him into consideration of seeking the welfare of our cities and of our national citizenship.

Ross Kane offer a convincing case for the good news of church politics. The church can indeed be the training ground for wider Christian political engagement. On the other hand, if we cannot practice the good news in and through our local congregations, we are not ready to do so more widely. This pithy little book is a great place for church leaders to begin. Each section offers questions for discussion and further resources. Kane roots his principles in congregational and community examples that will resonate with most readers. And he makes an argument that for most of us, our most important political work is the daily life of interdependent service with our own congregation and in our own community. This offers an attractive alternative to the often toxic character of our national politics. And this may be where the healing begins.

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

Review: The Holy Thief

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Cover image of "The Holy Thief" by Ellis Peters

The Holy Thief (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael number 19), Ellis Peters. Open Road Media (ISBN: 9781497671614) 2014 (first published in 1992).

Summary: During a flood in Shrewsbury, the relics of St. Winifrid are stolen; a dispute over their disposition and a murder follow.

On a hot summer afternoon, Geoffrey de Mandeville, who set up his control of the Fens at the Abbey of Ramsey goes out to survey his lines without helmet or mail. An arrow grazes him, infection sets in, and he dies. Consequently, his leaderless forces disperse and the monks can return to Ramsey. Alas, it has been ransacked and requires major restoration. The Abbot sends for help to other abbeys. So Sub-Prior Herluin and young Brother Tutilo arrive at Shrewsbury seeking to collect aid. Meanwhile, a traveling musician, a woman enslaved to him, Renata, and a servant, Benezet also arrive. Renata and Tutilo know each other.

Sent to Longner Manor, Tutilo plays and sings for the dying Lady Donata. She gives him jewelry and Longner donates lumber. The town and abbey also contribute generously. But to the zealous young Tutilo, this isn’t enough. If only Ramsey had relics like those of Saint Winifrid. As Herluin and Tutilo prepare to leave, a flooding Severn endangers the Abbey. Everything movable is moved to higher quarters, including the relics. Meanwhile a wagon is loaded with the lumber and a secured box with the money and jewels to be sent back to Ramsey while Herluin and Tutilo visit other abbeys. As they finish, a brother comes out and asks Aldhelm, a shepherd, to help move one more item to go at Ramsey, a long, wrapped box.

After the flood recedes, the brothers discover St. Winifrid’s relics are missing. The only ones to leave were the wagon to Ramsey. But before they can follow the wagon, two of the wagon drivers return, badly beaten. They were ambushed, and the wagon and horses taken. The hope is that the thieves dumped the wagon’s contents. A party from the Abbey, Hugh Beringar, the sheriff, along with Herluin and Tutilo return to the spot. The lumber is there. The box with the jewels and money is empty, and the relics are intact. The Earl of Leicester, on whose land they are, also shows up. When Herluin argues to claim Winifrid for Ramsey because she prompted the “mistake” in loading the relics, the Earl plays along, and lays claim as well, saying she stopped on his lands. The party returns to Shrewsbury to resolve the dispute.

A key is to figure out whether the relics were taken by mistake or deliberately stolen. They seek out Aldhelm. Through overheard whispered conversation between Prior Robert and Brother Jerome, the word gets out to Benezet, who tips off Renata, having noticed her interest in Tutilo. She gets him off the Abbey premises so Aldhelm can’t identify him. But Aldhelm never comes. When Tutilo returns, it is to report that he has stumbled on a dead man. When morning light comes, they see that the man is Aldhelm, killed with a blow to his head.

The question is who murdered him and why? Tutilo, the leading suspect, is held. While Cadfael and Hugh search for evidence to convict or absolve Tutilo, Abbot Radulfus proposes an unusual test to resolve the question of the relics disposition. Meanwhile, Renata is not done.

One of the fun things in this story is the contrast between the rigid Herluin and the Earl, who forges a friendship with Hugh that may come into play later. As always, Cadfael plays a role of both devotion to his rule and discerning the spirit versus the letter of the law.

Review: The Way of Belonging

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Cover image of "The Way of Belonging" by Sarah E.] Westfall

The Way of Belonging, Sarah E. Westfall (foreword Lore Ferguson Wilbert). InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514008539) 2024.

Summary: How our longing to belong is an invitation to embrace and extend the deep love of God.

Have you ever been in a group and felt you had done all the right things to be a good member of the group and still felt you didn’t belong? Sarah Westfall was leading a conference with women at her church and Jolene asked her this question. She really didn’t have a good answer. She knew belonging cannot be manufactured. But what do we make of our longing for belonging? It was something with which she struggled.

Then she experienced a shift while reading Henri Nouwen. Instead of asking “what does it look like to belong?” Nouwen reframed the question. It became “How can I be a place of welcome?”, even as the Father welcomed his two lost sons in the parable of the prodigal. From struggling with acceptance, she learned she was of infinite and unique worth to God. Amid grieving the death of a newborn, she discovered a God who sees and finds us. God welcomes us and we belong. Period. And out of this, we can become a place of welcome for others.

The second part of the book explores how we live out of that shift in perspective. It is a shift from lack, of not being “enough” to the opening up of ourselves to God and others of longing. I thought this one of the most important insights in the book. When we are able to discern out of which stance, lack or longing, we are operating, and make the shift to the openness of longing, we take a crucial step. Then, the next step is to name our longing to God and others. Likewise, we move toward belonging when we shift from seeing others as “them” to recognizing them as “us.” And stories help that process as we move from judgment to empathy toward each other.

We may find ourselves removed from another when we maintain the illusion that we must be the “sage on the stage.” We welcome others to share our humanity when we can say “I don’t know” and share our questions. By this, we move from certainty to settled. When we allow others to share their uncertainties without judgment and with empathy, we move into deeper relationship. Depth also develops gradually and it is important to recognize the “circles of belonging” and how deep it is appropriate to go in each.

Finally, when we know we are welcome and live this truth with others, we are released from consuming to creating. We find ways to make and give rather than grasping. And we celebrate those in our lives and enjoy celebrations with them.

Westfall walks us through the way of belonging step by step, with brief “moving closer” exercises at the end of each chapter in the second part. She speaks as a thoughtful introvert who has been on this journey herself and is still living with the questions. Yet she also invites us into the wonder beyond us of a God who sees, who seeks us, who values us and welcomes us. And in the language found on the back cover, that welcome “changes everything.”

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

Review: The Grey Wolf

/ rtrube54 / 7 Comments
Cover image of "The Grey Wolf" by Louise Penny

The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Number 19), Louise Penny. Minotaur Books (ISBN: 9781250328144) 2024.

Summary: Gamache, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle seek to avert a plotted catastrophe, trusting no one but each other.

It was worth the wait. It’s been two years since the last in the Gamache series, Penny taking a year off. The result was a riveting, edge-of-the seat work involving a scary plot in which tens of thousands could die.

It all begins on a quiet August Sunday, interrupted by a series of phone calls to Gamache’s private line. Finally, he picks it up, listens, says “Go to hell,” and hangs up. Not a wrong number but a wrong person, Jeanne Caron, responsible for adding to the suffering of Gamache’s son Daniel as a payback for Gamache’s refusing to bend the law for a political favor. She wanted to meet and called on a number known only to family and friends.

Then more strange things occur. While at the bistro, the alarm goes off to a flat they owned in Montreal. It appeared to be a faulty sensor. Leaving the bistro, Gamache sees a man who is vaguely familiar. At the Montreal flat, nothing was amiss. Except for a jacket, mailed back to Gamache with a cryptic list of herbs in the pocket and a request to meet at a cafe.

A man shows up for the meeting, a freelance biologist with a drug-abusing past. He hints at a terrible plot but leaves it to Gamache to figure out. As they leave the cafe, a driver heads toward them. Gamache leaps to save a grandfather and grandchild. The biologist is killed.

All this sets Gamache and his team in pursuit of the killers, one of whom they find executed, and what Langlois, the biologist, was trying to tell him. But it quickly becomes apparent that Gamache can only trust Jean-Guy and Isabelle. Thus, who is friend and who is enemy is not clear. For example, even his superior, the woman Gamache recommended when he stepped down from the position, is suspect. And Jeanne Caron? Why did she call?

And that familiar man at the bistro? It was none other than the abbot of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, Dom Phillippe (see book eight). But this was no random visit. He leaves a message for Gamache at the village church, a piece of paper connected to the paper in his jacket pocket. And a bottle of Chartreuse at the bistro.

This leads a hair-raising flight to the remote location of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. No Dom Phillippe but they find a map from Langlois. Meanwhile Isabelle travels to DC, the Vatican and an abbey in France. And Gamache continues to search for notebooks Langlois left behind, increasingly convinced that what Langlois died trying to warn him about was a plot to poison Montreal’s water supply.

Not able to trust insiders in the Surete, Gamache goes outside. For example, he offers dirt on himself to a blogger hostile to him for her investigative efforts. He gains the trust of the crusty Mission director, where Langlois sought refuge for a time. The pattern of reaching out to those on the margins, those discounted by others, continues.

But will their fevered efforts be in time and enough? And who is behind this plot? And why? Penny keeps us turning the pages to find out.

The residents of Three Pines play a supporting role to Gamache’s family, sheltering in Three Pines, but little more. Given the focus of the plot, there is little room for development of these characters. That said, Ruth acts totally in character. There are indications of a deepening rapprochement between Daniel and Armand.

And the title? Wolves turn up at several places but key is a story Armand tell Jean-Guy about Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, which means Saint Gilbert Between the Wolves. It comes from a story a Cree chief told the first abbot about two wolves inside us, a grey and black one, the first strong, compassionate, and wise. the second, cruel and cunning. The question is, which wolf will win? The answer: the one we feed. In this book, we learn of a grey wolf. And in the after matter, we learn that Penny’s next book, in 2025, is titled The Black Wolf. So, strap in folks, for more good reading ahead!

For Gamache readers, if you want to refresh your memory of the preceding books (and especially book 8, The Beautiful Mystery), you might find my blog post, The Reviews: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series, helpful.