On Books

Review: How to Know A Person

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Cover image of "How to Know a Person" by David Brooks

How to Know a Person, David Brooks. Random House (ISBN: 9780593230060), 2023.

Summary: An exploration of how we might see people deeply and help them know that they are seen.

Most of us would want to be known as people who help people feel seen and to be deeply seen ourselves. But in our most honest moments, we have to admit we are not very good at this. We don’t listen well. We are far more capable of trying to impress others with our stories, our wit, our accomplishments. One of the most winsome aspects of this book is David Brooks candid admission that this characterizes his relationships far too often, even during his journey to explore this subject.

With his trademark clarity mixing research and personal narrative, Brooks describes the nature of good relationships, where people are seen by each other. He organizes this inquiry into three parts. The first of these is “I See You.” He speaks of how important and how lacking this is. He writes about the ways we often size up and diminish others. By contrast, he describes the qualities of an Illuminator, a model he will hold up and develop throughout the book: tender, receptive, actively curious, affectionate, generous, and holistic, seeing the whole person. Such people also are skilled in the practice of accompaniment, a relaxed awareness of the other as we share life with them. He discusses the marks of good conversations, where we loop back, actively listening, and avoid being the “topper.” He distinguishes between unhelpful questions where we stay superficial and the questions that take us deeper, that invite people to share something more of themselves.

The second part of the book goes deeper in seeing others in their struggles. One of the most powerful chapters in this section concerns how you serve someone in despair, and Brooks narrates his efforts to do this with a friend who eventually ended his life. He writes about what it means to empathize, describing it as mirroring, mentalizing, and caring. He speaks of how Illuminators are both aware of how they’ve been shaped by suffering and allow others who are suffering to process this question.

The final part of the book explores what it means to see people in their strengths. He summarizes personality with “the Big Five” ((he’s not much of a Myers-Briggs fan): extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness. He has a chapter on life tasks, reminding us that people are in a lifelong process of growth and that knowing someone involves discerning where in that process they are. He explores how we listen to and understand life stories and watch for how ancestors show up. He concludes with asking about the nature of wisdom and how it is acquired over a life, and how that changes our relationships.

In a time where we are so divided, where depression and anxiety are skyrocketing and our Surgeon General has named loneliness as a public health crisis, David Brooks has written a book that represents both a way to address many of these concerns and that appeals to “the better angels of our nature.” He writes as a fellow-learner on the journey, not as an authority. He speaks to one of the basics of life that often is overshadowed by the glitzy and the glamourous. He reminds us of the qualities of a good friend. He encourages me to want to be one.

Review: Ethics@Work

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Cover image of "Ethics @ Work" edited by Kris Østergaard.

Ethics@Work, Kris Østergaard, ed. Re:humanize Publishing (ISBN: 9788797284100), 2022.

Summary: An anthology of essays on workplace ethics in the context of near future challenges, focusing on the systemic context, the inner life of an organization, and the humans at the core of every enterprise.

We are operating in a rapidly changing world with environmental challenges, the digital integration of all of our lives, and the digital extension of human capabilities. What this means for companies as they operate in this changing environment, how this affects the internal life of a company, and how technological advance will shape our understanding of what it means to be human, and even how this impinges on human agency and selfhood are vital questions. They are ethical questions. As Google once framed it, “don’t be evil.” But what does that look like?

This anthology by business and technology leaders connected with Denmark’s Re:humanize Institute believe ethical business behavior will not simply be advantageous but essential. The authors explore a range of topics from the environment to peacemaking to data transparency. They consider the uses of AI, and human-machine convergence, including neural rights. I can’t touch on every essay but I will highlight some I found thought-provoking.

The anthology is organized into three parts. The first is systemic, where workplace ethics are set in the context of the global marketplace. Adam Pantanowitz opens with an essay dividing our lives into natural, conceptual, and digital layers. He outlines the challenges as our neural/conceptual context may merge with digital technologies in way that directly impinge on other minds as well as the natural world. David Bray addresses the explosion of data and our capabilities to use it and advances an OARS framework (Obligations, Acknowledged biases, Responses to Obligations, and Safeguards related to potential biases) to address ethical use of our databases. Nell Watson argues that organizations must stop deferring environmental costs to future generations. Brian David Johnson argues that the need is not to develop ethical AI but to make AI compliant with the ethical culture of an organization (I think it may be argued that AIs, for better or worse will, through the implicit biases built into algorithms, reflect the actual ethics of an organization).

Part Two goes inside the organization, into the machine room as it were. Tiffany Vora draws three principles from biomedical ethics and considers their bearing on business: Justice, Doing Good, and Respect. Again, the management of data-driven solutions arises and governance, accountability, transparency, and explainability are discussed with a valuable list of questions to consider. Guendalina Donde’ outlines a similar set of human values to drive technology application and Ray Eitel-Porter offers a list of seven principles with AI: soundness, fairness, accountability, transparency, explainability, privacy, and sustainability. A fascinating essay explores the tension between “backdoor” access to encryption and the inevitable weakening of privacy with any such move., and the looming danger of quantum computing to all encryption. Arash Aazami describes his effort to build a company that profited by selling less energy. A couple essays featured activist companies like Patagonia and Ben and Jerry’s.

Finally, part three looks at the humans at the center of the emerging business environment. Divvya Chander’s opening essay on neural sovereignty and human rights raised questions I never thought about because, until now the capability didn’t exist. Emerging technologies allow us to read one’s brain activity and to write to the brain. What happens when the ability to read my mind, or to change my mind exists? If brainprints are used as IDs, could this be used, perhaps along with genetic data, to create a truly scary deepfake of any of us? What happens when my thinking can be surveilled? Roger Courage Matthisen offers practical principles for embodying anti-racist leadership. I thought the top suggestion was “showcase your mistakes,” creating a learning environment that allowed space for mistakes. Nathaniel Calhoun acknowledges that “business ethics” is often an oxymoron and describes the practices he coached Silicon Valley startups to use to make ethics endemic to those companies, where individuals were celebrated for raising ethical concerns.

This is a fascinating collection, exploring questions most of us are just starting to think about. At the same time, it seems to assume that we know what is ethical and why one ought live ethically rather than expediently. The authors seem to assume that we bring an ethical conscience to work that needs to be honed by consideration of particular ethical challenges. This betrays the humanist assumptions at the core of this work. Yet the scary reality, touched on in the essays on encryption and on neural imaging is that there are bad actors–those whose ethics are impaired. How does the ethical workplace create robust safeguards that reflect their existence? How do we distinguish good and evil?

It also seems worth exploring the question with all the data scraped about us and the capacities to even surveil thought, what should remain private? Do we have a conception of the self irreducible to bits and bytes? How do we recognize the blind spots in the algorithms that shape the lives of millions?

You see what this book has done? It’s made me question and think. And that seems something needed in our brave new world.

Review: Hope Ain’t a Hustle

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Cover image of "Hope Ain't a Hustle" by Irwyn Ince

Hope Ain’t a Hustle, Irwyn Ince (Foreword by Christina Edmonson). InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514005743), 2024.

Summary: A series of messages from the book of Hebrews making the case for the confidence we may have in Christ, our great high priest who endured the storm, who sustains our hope, and calls us to enduring faithfulness.

There are a lot of hustles out there–on the streets, in business, and even in our email. Sometimes even Christianity has appeared to be a hustle, promising a good life, as long as one enriches the congregation’s coffer. Irwyn Ince contends that this is not true of God when he writes:

“But God is not a hustler. And the hope he calls us to cannot be built on naive expectations that people will start seeing the things the way we do. Our longing cannot be built on the arrogant assumption that we are completely right in the positions we take. It cannot even be built on an expectation of steady improvement. If the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice, that arc will never be smooth and straight from a human perspective. It will have twists and turns, ups and downs, starts and stops. Our hope, if it is to be enduring, must be rooted in the glory of Jesus Christ.” (p. 9).

In this book, Pastor Ince works from the book of Hebrews to show that hope grounded in the person and work of Jesus will never disappointment and will sustain us through the greatest of life’s challenges.

The book is organized in three parts. The first, “The Storm Before the Calm” addresses the storm the readers of Hebrews may be facing and the supreme authority of Jesus as Son amid the storms. Not only that, Jesus was made like us and entered the danger zone where we live. He came to liberate, to intercede, and to help as high priest and son over God’s house, superior to Moses. Through our hope in Jesus. we may rest in the danger zone, like John Lewis and Diane Nash as leaders of the Nashville sit-ins. As we rest in Jesus who went before us, we may rest while we suffer, knowing we will share in the rest of his glory.

Part Two, “Keep Hope Alive” begins with those words from Jesse Jackson at the 1988 Democratic Convention. Ince explores the unreasonable hope of Abraham and the arc between Melchizedek and the greater high priest Jesus, reflecting on unreasonable hope in the face of prison and plundering that the Hebrews faced, and the assurance they have in a great high priest who offered himself. He was the high priest who became perfect for us through his obedience, who is able to perfect us. His ministry, covenant, and promise are better than all who came before him. There is no better place to go, no better person in whom to find hope, than Jesus. To him we need to return, and he will keep our hope alive.

Part Three, “In Need of Endurance” speaks of the dogged persistence our hope in Jesus sustains. Endurance is built on upward confidence, inward confession of hope, and outward commitment. Ince points to the teaching of Hebrews to endure by faith, in need, and in joy. He uses the example of Superman’s X-ray vision to describe the kind of faith that sees Jesus through the challenges we face. Those who endure by faith live for the heavenly city, the better country, like Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg who suffered a terrible beating while praying to remain nonviolent and to forgive his attackers. Those who endure run through exhaustion by staying with the crowd, by dropping the weight of sin, by keeping our heads up, and fixing our eyes on the future with gratitude, lighting up the darkness.

Pastor Ince writes a book on hope that doesn’t see the world with rose-colored glasses. He writes how the hope that doesn’t hustle that we have in Jesus helps us face dark times without retreating into either fantasy or despair. For those dismayed by the slow progress toward justice in so many aspects of life, he bids us to keep hope alive through Jesus who went there before us and is both the son who reigns and the great high priest who intercedes. He challenges us that hope endures. It never gives up, so certain is it in the promise of God. Through the text of Hebrews, tales of courage from the Civil Rights movement, and personal life, Pastor Ince offers the gritty instruction we need to live into our hope in a “wearying world.”

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

Review: Fundamentalists in the Public Square

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Cover image of "Fundamentalists in the Public Square" by Madison Trammel

Fundamentalists in the Public Square (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Madison Trammel. Lexham Academic. (ISBN: 9781683597186) 2023.

Summary: A counter-argument to the contention that fundamentalists retreated from activism in the public square after the Scopes trial, based on a study of newspaper reports.

Much of the history that has been written about fundamentalism contends that following the Scopes trial, there was a fundamentalist retreat from activist concerns. Madison Trammel, on the basis of a study of newspaper reporting in four states, proposes that at very least, this is an incomplete picture. his methodology was to focus on newspaper coverage of the two major social issues fundamentalists were engaged with during the period of 1920 to 1933, Evolution and Prohibition, to see if there was a drop off in coverage after the 1925 Scopes trial.

Trammel begins by reviewing the historiography of this period and the two streams, one of retreat and one of continuing activism, indicating his own research’s support of the second stream. Then chapters 2 and 3 take each issue, Evolution and Prohibition, and offer an analysis of the reporting. In general, activism in promoting opposition to the teaching of evolution and upholding Prohibition once it was enacted into law remained high during the period after Scopes.

In these chapters, I found quite striking the public role both William Jennings Bryan and pastor John Roach Straton played as public spokesmen for fundamentalist positions on both Evolution and Prohibition and that their deaths (Bryan in 1925 and Straton in 1930) may have played a greater role in stalling activism than the trial itself. More disturbing were the alignments between fundamentalists like Aimee Semple McPherson and the rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan in appealing to the same constituencies.

Chapter Four explores the influence of Dispensationalism on activism. Biblicist concerns and concerns about sin drove fundamentalist opposition to Darwin and drink. On the other hand, eschatological concerns de-emphasized social action for efforts in personal evangelism. It was striking to me that fundamentalism didn’t seem to have the resources to address the grinding poverty of the Depression, or the changing fabric of America shaped by immigration from both without and within as Blacks moved from the South to northern cities and to the west.

I wondered about the research methodology. Being from Ohio, I noted the heavy weighting of newspapers toward rural outlets. Many of the major papers in Ohio’s larger cities were not a part of the database used. I wondered if this might skew the accuracy of the analysis. I also wonder if New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, all northern states, offer an accurate national profile.

This book raises larger questions as well about the narrowness of activism in the public square and the paucity of intellectual resources to meet modernist challenges, which require more than oratorical and political suasion skills. At the same time, Trammel helpfully challenges the over-simplifications of fundamentalist history in this crucial period. This is worthwhile in understanding matters as diverse as the continuing anti-science, and particularly evolution, stances in conservative churches, the focus on hot-button issues, and the approaches to societal influence in the public square.

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

Review: Down the Valley

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Cover image of "Down the Valley" by Edith M. Humphrey

Down the Valley, Edith M. Humphrey. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9781666772067), 2024.

Summary: Further adventures beyond the gate of the white fence where the children at “Gramgon’s” house and an older friend meet the saints after whom they are named.

In Beyond the White Fence, we are introduced to “Gramgon” and the extended family who come to visit her capacious Pittsburgh home. In that story, the children explored beyond the white fence, bordering Gramgon’s property, encountering fauns, who led them on adventures to other times where they met the saints after whom they were named, and then were escorted back by a peacock, a kind of guide and protector. On one adventure, they pick up a peacock feather, which they conceal under a rock by the gate, and take on future adventures, considering it a connection that will ensure them getting home.

Well, in this story, there are more children who have not yet encountered their saints (and lots more saints to be encountered). And there is an older neighbor boy who has been drawn to this family, but who wonders whether he is too old to meet a saint, even were he to believe. His name, fittingly is Thomas (nicknamed TJ), and he feels himself always late to the party.

Three of the boys, James, Kevin, and Isaiah are especially close, and try to keep their secrets from the girls. They call themselves “the Three Musketeers” and in the course of the book, each has an encounter with the saint for whom he is named. James, interestingly meets the Apostle James as he was finishing his letter and enlists James to carry a copy to the Apostle Paul–an interesting idea. Both James and Paul were in Jerusalem and the boys witness Paul’s close run escape from those seeking his life. Later, on his own, Isaiah encounters Isaiah the prophet just after his temple vision of God. Later Kevin meets the Irish saint, who dwells in caves and has a special bond with the animals.

Perhaps the centerpiece story belongs to young Allie, one of the younger cousins. She had been recently adopted and didn’t quite fit with the older girls, and wondered what was so interesting to her boy cousins down in the valley beyond the gate. Then she sees the bucks in the meadow and follows, but fails to take the feather. She awakens in a temple of Apollo, just when a servant, George is brought from prison and challenged to recant his faith in Christ and worship Apollo. George stands firm before Diocletian and even rebukes the demon inhabiting the statue of Apollo. Then the Empress Alexandra asks George’s God to save her and publicly repudiates her husband Diocletian’s gods. declaring “the true God is Christ.” Allie witnesses the courageous faith of George and Alexandra not only here but in the dungeon where they await execution. Allie was swept up with those arrested. Meanwhile, Naomi, Rachie, and Kevin realize Allie is missing and hadn’t taken the feather. The bucks are waiting, and we wonder how they will rescue Allie and get back.

The last adventure belongs to TJ, who with the Three Musketeers ends up in Kerala with the Apostle Thomas who he discovers has also been late to a few parties and also has struggled to believe.. The encounter, along with the embodied faith of Gramgon’s family is working on his heart and mind.

Interludes between adventures offer time not only for food and the family circle, awaiting the news of a birth. It affords time with Gramgon’s books, who like Edith Humphrey, is a seminary professor. They research the saints, and this along with the encounters, serves to tell the stories of each saint.

There was, at least for me, no discernible plot, unless it be TJ’s journey to faith. Gramgon’s valley provides the framing device for this series of encounters between the children and their saints. What we have is a great collection of adventure stories by which the children and readers learn both about the saints, and the God and Savior they trusted. And for grade school children (and maybe the parents reading aloud) this is perfect.

I’m left wondering if there are more adventures at Gramgon’s in the offing. There are more cousins, and certainly more saints. I for one will be on the lookout, even if I lack a peacock feather!

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

My review of Beyond the White Fence may be accessed at: https://bobonbooks.com/2021/12/03/review-beyond-the-white-fence/

Review: Beyond Ethnic Loneliness

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Cover image of "Beyond Ethnic Loneliness" by Prasanta Verma

Beyond Ethnic Loneliness, Prasanta Verma. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514007419), 2024.

Summary: An Indian American immigrant describes the distinctive experience of ethnic loneliness and steps those experiencing that loneliness and those who care for them can take toward healing.

” ‘Go back to Indiana, or wherever it is you came from!’ she hissed.

Imagine you are the little girl whose only memories are growing up in Alabama, whose family immigrated from India. It was a devastating message that the author of this work has never forgotten, even with the mistaken notion that Indian Americans must be from Indiana! She spoke English like an American but looked “different” from others. She found herself asking the question “What am I?” And in living in this place on the margins, it led to a peculiar kind of loneliness–ethnic loneliness. It is the loneliness that Blacks, Indigenous people, Latinos, Africans, Middle East and North Africans and Asian American and Pacific Islanders who live in a White majority country struggle with.

In Part One of the book, Prasanta Verma takes this question of “what are you” and delineates the particular nature of ethnic loneliness. In defining ethnic loneliness, one of the striking aspects to me was its chronic, rather than episodic nature that may be experienced as cultural isolation, lack of connection, identity conflicts, loss of cultural identity, social exclusion, marginalization, language barriers, and integration and assimilation. Verma discusses the experience of disbelonging, being uprooted from a place where one belongs to and with others. She poignantly describes her own struggle where her particular beauty clashed with the dominant white culture–she with dark skin without tanning and dark curly hair. She wrestles with identity theft, being the perpetual foreigner in America and a tourist with an American passport in India.

She shares what it is like to be isolated and othered in a racialized society–the racial stereotypes (in her case, the model Asian) and the microaggressions (“where are you from?” which is asked because of one’s different appearance). There is even the struggle of names–does one choose an American name to fit in, making one a traitor to one’s own ethnicity. She chronicles how ethnic minorities are marginalized in institutions: lack of diversity and representation, cultural insensitivity, discriminatory policies, microaggressions, lack of access, language barriers, and more. She concludes this part with summarizing the experience as one of exile. Throughout, Verma draws on how scripture addresses such loneliness, and here points out how God was with exiled Israel, the despised Samaritans and others on the margins.

Part Two of the book explores what may be done. Her focus is on the ethnically lonely person and a key is moving from disbelonging to belonging.. She begins with the healing of different forms of racial trauma, which she names, as a kind of belonging to oneself. She also encourages finding people to be safe with while also setting healthy boundaries in one’s life. She emphasizes the importance of stories, including reading the stories of others, offering a great bibliography. A good rule in such situations (and especially for majority culture people) is: “Don’t deflect racism/Don’t defend racism/Don’t deny racism.” She discusses the ways individualism and fear create barriers to moving from disbelonging to belonging and offers an extremely helpful list of what churches and community organizations can do. Her concluding chapter describes living in the already/not yet of longing for “the better country” of Hebrews 11:13-16–the loneliness that opens us up to the beauty of community, the glimpses and the long haul to see the changes we dream of.

At the end of each chapter (along with questions and a writing prompt) is an answer in verse to the question “So, What are you?” which are wonderful meditations allowing the chapter’s truth to sink deeply into one’s life. Here is the one from the final chapter:

SO, WHAT ARE YOU?

You are beloved
You are not invisible
You are whole
You are wanted
You are seen
You are loved
Just the way you are
You belong to yourself
You belong to others
You belong to God
So, what are you?
You are a gift of joy
You eat at the table
Of belonging
You are a Home
Of belonging
To others
And yourself

Prasanta Verma addresses hard realities of loneliness and trauma with stories of her own life and those of others. She offers biblical re-framing and practical suggestions wrapped in beautiful rhythmic prose and verse. This is an important book not only for those who struggle with ethnic loneliness but for any who care enough to want to understand and accompany those who struggle. And I can’t help but wonder if the insights and practices in this book, if applied, might also begin to address the larger loneliness pervading our society.

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

Review: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

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Cover image of James McBride's "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store."

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride. Riverhead Books (ISBN: 9780593422946), 2023.

Summary: A story centered around a grocery store in the midst of Pottstown’s Chicken Hill district, inhabited by immigrant Jews and the local Black community.

In 1972, a body is found at the bottom of a well, but swept away by Hurricane Agnes. In one sense the rest of this novel answers the question of how that body got there (and so I won’t). But this is a rich story about so much more, that all centers around a Jewish grocery, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Jewish immigrants with a daughter Chona owned the store. She married a struggling theatre owner, Moshe Ludlow. Eventually Moshe figured out that the money was in Black acts, that the Black residents of Chicken Hill as well as surrounding areas would attend.

Chicken Hill was where those living on the margins, trying to get a toehold, lived–Blacks, immigrant Jews, and later, Latinos. Moshe and Chona lived above the store. While his theatres profited, the store lost money, mostly because Chona was generous with extending credit and slow to ask repayment. As more Jews moved away, Moshe wanted to join them but Chona refused. Today, we would call her a community activist. She was greatly loved, whether by the Jewish immigrants or Black residents, many of whom McBride introduces us.

Nate Timblin worked for Moshe, doing repairs. He had a dark past, according to rumors, but Moshe knows nothing of this. So when he asks Moshe and Chona to help a bright child deafened by a stove explosion to hide from white authorities who want to institutionalize him at Pennhurst, they agree. Dodo quickly becomes beloved by Chona, and a great help as she was weakened by periods of illness. This was not a child who needed institutionalization. They succeed until the town’s white doctor visits the store. Dodo defends her against an assault by the doctor, who flees only to return with the police, who take Dodo to Pennhurst, which is as horrible as all the rumors.

Nate and Addie, the woman he has been seeing, figure out what happened to Chona. And an amazing thing happens. Two communities touched by this evil act come together to rescue Dodo, honor Chona, and to get back at the city councilman, Gus Plitzka, who controls their water supply. And this underscores the larger context of this story. Pottstown is controlled by its white establishment. In these incidents, two ethnic communities, each in many ways self-contained, except by the generosity of Chona, come together to shrewdly resist the white establishment in plots with many moving parts. As kind of a dark counterpart to Chona, Nate chooses to risk all to deliver Dodo from the horrors of Pennhurst.

It’s not hard to see why this book has won numerous recognitions. McBride paints a rich portrait of these two communities that stand against white power and venality. We see two communities galvanized by attacks on an innocent boy and a generous and righteous woman. But all this was sown through years of care and generosity where heaven and earth met at a grocery store.

Review: Into the Heart of Romans

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Cover image of "Into the Heart of Romans" by N.T. Wright

Into the Heart of Romans, N.T. Wright. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310157748), 2023.

Summary: A close reading of Romans 8, focusing on the purpose, presence, and profound love in Christ for all who believe meant to assure them of not only their ultimate destiny but of God’s favor even as they share in the sufferings of Christ amid a groaning creation.

N.T. Wright has been studying the book of Romans for fifty years, publishing both scholarly and popular commentaries on Paul’s masterpiece, as well as drawing extensively on Romans in his Pauline scholarship. This book reflects both the culmination of this scholarship as well as changes in his thought through discussions with his students.

The focus of the book is on the majestic culmination in Romans 8 to Paul’s arguments in Romans 1-7. Romans 8 is indeed the heart of Romans as central in the text of the letter and key as a transition from the argument of the first seven chapters to the discussions on the calling of Israel in 9-11 and the applicatory material of chapters 12-16. But what is Paul’s conclusion and how did Wright’s thinking about it change.

We have traditionally read this chapter is one of assurance of our salvation in Christ, as those not under condemnation, as those for whom God works good in all things, and for whom nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. Wright would not disagree with these things, but has come to see something equally rich–the presence, power, and profound approval of God in Christ for us in the present moment. For many of Paul’s readers, even as is the case for many in the present day, the present is a time of suffering. Paul’s message is that this, in fact is their vocation, and it is one of sharing in the sufferings of Christ, that the spirit (Wright uses the lower case throughout) groans, intercedes, and empowers, and that Christians can be assured of God’s approval (and not condemnation) and God’s protection in life and death.

After introductory material setting Romans 8 in its context, Wright breaks the book into eight sections. For each section, Wright asks what the opening and closing reveals about the theme. He then looks at Paul’s connecting words to unpack the logic of his argument. He then looks at the contexts in Paul’s wider world, both Jewish and Greco-Roman, that provides resonances for what Paul is saying. A few insights I appreciated out of the wealth of material here:

  • Romans 8:1-4. There is no condemnation because God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus, fulfilling what Torah could only anticipate.
  • Romans 8:5-11. The spirit of the risen Christ enables God’s people in the present time to please God in our bodies.
  • Romans 8:12-17. Wright challenges the moralizing anthropology of our Platonic notions of heaven with the idea of our vocation in the new creation, already begun in which we are God’s spirit-empowered agents. That vocation is as fellow heirs with Christ, crying “Abba” even as we share in suffering, with the hope of resurrection.
  • Romans 8:17-21. “The primary meanings of ‘glory’ in this passage are, simultaneously, the glorious presence of God himself dwelling within us by the spirit, and the wise, healing, reconciling rule of God’s people over the whole creation. These two — God’s presence and human rule — are made for each other. They fit together” (p. 110).
  • Romans 8:22-27. We enter, perhaps most deeply into our vocation, as we enter into the world’s suffering, the groaning creation, enabled by God’s spirit to pray with lament and longing.
  • Romans 8:28-30. Wright challenges the traditional “all things work for good” translating it rather “God works all things together for good with those who love him,” particularly in calling, justifying, and glorifying us.
  • Romans 8:31-34. An interesting side note in this chapter is Wright’s questioning of the Feast of Christ the King, contending that it takes away from the idea of the Ascension as Christ’s installation as King.
  • Romans 8:34-39. The theme of our vocation makes sense of all the “bad” things of vv. 35-36 with the assurance that none of these will separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Wright’s situating of the assurance of God’s love, approval, and protection within the vocation of Christians as sharing in Christ’s sufferings in a groaning creation profoundly deepens our reading of this powerful chapter. This is not “happy-clappy” Christianity insensitive to the world’s struggles. It is not prosperous and privileged Christianity by the standards of the world. This is a profound word for Christians who have entered into the groanings of our world and for those whose faithfulness has led to suffering, that this is not their fault, that God is with them, and even praying with them in their laments. This is a profound word that there is nothing that the world or the powers can throw in their face or their lives to part them from God. Even as God said to Israel, “I will be your God” so God says to the larger human family in Christ.

Wright is not an easy read. It was a gift to read this with a local book group, particularly one with a member deeply familiar with Wright’s work (not me) who supplemented our discussions with background material from Wright. Thanks, Dan, and all my friends, who labored to dig out the wealth of insight in this book!

Review: The Spirituality of Dreaming

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Cover image of "The Spirituality of Dreaming"

The Spirituality of Dreaming, Kelly Bulkeley. Broadleaf Books (ISBN: 9781506483146), 2023.

Summary: A dream researcher explores both the science and spirituality of dreaming.

Kelly Bulkeley is a dream and philosophy of religion researcher who believes dreaming and attention to our dreams can be a spiritual practice. I should mention at the outset that the “spiritual” here is not necessarily connected with a particular religious tradition but rather to the “spiritual” aspect of our lives. That said, the author does reference dream accounts from the Bible (Joseph, Jacob, and Samuel) as well as other religious texts as well as numerous patients and other contemporary persons. He contends that attention to our dreams connects our conscious and subconscious lives, allowing us to live with greater self and social awareness.

He explores how we sleep. Surprisingly, in many societies, it is together with others rather than alone. He also notes our society’s aversion to sleep and proposes the idea of sleep as a form of resistance to our “always on” society. He discusses the neurophysiology of dreaming and the four categories into which many dreams fall: aggressive, sexual, gravitational and mystic and the metaphorical character of dreams that helps in our understanding. He explores dream sharing including the dream-sharing groups he facilitates. He also offers some cautions about sharing dreams and an alternative to imposed interpretations. He suggests if we do nothing more than to begin to attend to and reflect upon our dreams, we will find our dreams, our sleep, and ourselves changing.

The second part of the book describes some of the work Bulkeley and others are engaged in in developing analytic tools to study dream accounts collected in the Sleep and Dreams Database (SDDb), an open access digital archive. In successive chapters, he considers dream content relating to animals and nature, gods and other spiritual beings, and dreams of the dying and those visited in dreams by the recently deceased. He notes how many dreams of the dying have journey themes and the comfort this affords those who are dying.

The third part explores some cutting edge developments in the field of lucid dreaming. This is a state in which one becomes aware that one is dreaming, and some would introduce training to achieve this ability use brain monitoring to further enhance this experience or even control the dream experience and content. It’s obvious that the author has ethical and mental health concerns of anything beyond self-awareness of lucid dreaming as interrupting healthy sleep cycles or even being potentially manipulative. Instead he urges the idea of dreaming as creative play, using the example of Mary Shelley’s dreams and the creative social commentary that emerged in her Frankenstein. In the end Bulkeley eschews technology for the dream journal and the approach of collecting and subjecting to content analysis the accounts of dreams. He offers an example of one dream contributor, unknown to him, whose dream content over time offered an accurate and insightful account of her life. One can see how tools like the SDDb could enhance dream journaling.

The book’s subtitle may be overstated: “Unlocking the Wisdom of Our Sleeping Selves.” My sense is that we often look for sources of “hidden knowledge.” I wonder if self-awareness or attunement might be a better descriptor–understanding the fears, longings, life-experiences and more that are expressed in our dreams. There may be a kind of “wisdom” in that, to be sure. And this is the value I found in Bulkeley’s book. I fear we are often disconnected from ourselves, and dreams help us find our way to ourselves. His descriptions were helpful of dream sharing groups and the playful approach to our dreams, as well as some warnings of rabbit holes one might fall into (similar to unsupported use of psychoactive drugs by unstable individuals).

Like many, I know I dream, but forget most of these. This book makes me wonder about keeping pen and paper by the bedside. As a Christian, we are told that “old men will dream dreams” (I qualify). I am prompted to wonder if I miss things from God, or even my own subconscious. Bulkeley’s book has at least made me curious.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

Review: The Case of the Late Pig

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments
Cover image of Margery Allingham's "The Case of the Late Pig."

The Case of the Late Pig (Albert Campion #8), Margery Allingham. Open Road Media (ISBN: 9781504087308), 2023 (Originally published in 1937).

Summary: When Campion is invited to the second funeral in six months for an old school acquaintance, he finds him drawn into a murder investigation where the murders keep coming.

When Albert Campion finds himself staring at the corpse of a man he thought buried six months ago, he knows something strange is afoot. Only he doesn’t reckon how strange it is and that his involvement has placed him and Lugg in danger. Supposedly this man is Harris, the brother and heir of the man buried six months ago, R. I. “Pig” Peters. But one look is enough to persuade Campion that this is Pig, an old school nemesis. He died from a blow to the head from an urn that fell from a balustrade above the patio where he was sleeping off a hangover on a lounge chair.

Six months ago, he was surprised to be invited to the funeral by means of a strange verse. Another attendee, Whippet had a similar invite. Campion also notices the fiancée of Pig. All these turn up again at the second death (including the notes in which moles feature prominently), occurring at the estate of old friend Leo Pursuivant. After Campion mentions the need for further examination of the body, it goes missing, only to turn up in the river. Then another grisly murder is found, of a man called Hayhoe, stabbed in the neck and hung on a gibbet like a scarecrow. Clearly, a clever and ruthless killer is abroad in the village of Kepesake. An investigator cannot be too careful, as Campion discovers to his regret.

A unique feature is that this is written as a first-person account by Campion, unlike earlier numbers in the series. I thought it a refreshing change of pace. We also gain sympathy for Campion, who struggles to win the affections of Leo’s daughter Janet, and keeps getting on her wrong side. This is a short, briskly-paced story that works up to an edge-of-the-seat conclusion.