On Books

Review: The Minor Prophets

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The Minor Prophets: A Theological Introduction, Craig G. Bartholomew & Heath A. Thomas. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: Combines introductory discussions of the last twelve books of the Old Testament with an exploration of the theological themes of each book as well as the theological significance of the whole corpus.

The Twelve. The Minor Prophets. Those books at the end of the Old Testament some of us never get to read. They are minor after all? Only in size, but not import insist Craig Bartholomew and Heath Thomas. In this volume, they offer a discussion of scholarship, backgrounds, interpretation and theological themes of each book. They also offer a consideration of the theological themes and import both then and now of this collection of books.

They begin the work by considering the history of interpretation of these books from the early fathers up to contemporary scholarship. While discussing the proposal that these books should be considered as a redacted whole, they opt first to read these books individually and only then consider them as a whole, and this structures their treatment. They distinguish prophecy in the ancient world from other forms of communication: oracles, divination, and dreams. We also learn of the terminology used for prophets of Israel, their social location, and distinct from court prophets, their vocation of speaking the word of Yahweh, particularly to people who were straying from Yahweh’s ways.

The following chapters consider each of the twelve minor prophets. Nahum and Zephaniah, and Haggai and Malachi, are considered together. Each chapter on a book treats the book in context, offers an outline of the book, includes an extended section of interpretation following the outline (not verse by verse commentary but overview of each section’s content), and a discussion of key theological ideas in each book. In Hosea, for example, the authors land on themes of God as lover and lion, of the healthy inwardness of faith as focused on mercy and not sacrifice, and the breakdown of the social order, reflected in Hosea’s marriage.

Alongside the chapters of theological introduction are discussions of key passages in the minor prophets, many of New Testament import. These include discussions of the valley of decision in Joel, Jonah’s “canticle” in Jonah 2 and its place in the book, Micah 6:6-8 on what the Lord requires, and Zechariah 9:9-10 on the Davidic king’s entry into Jerusalem. Most illuminating in light of contemporary discussions was the chapter on Habakkuk 2:2-4 on the faith or faithfulness by which the righteous live. They consider both backgrounds and translations of the verses, concluding in the context of Habakkuk that “the faithful will trust Yahweh to the point of death, living in allegiance to him alone, believing that his grace and faithfulness will bring them life.”

Three final chapters summarize major themes of the minor prophets, consider the use of the minor prophets in the accounts of the ministry of Jesus, including times Jesus quotes the prophets, and finally, the theology of the minor prophets for today. In this last section, the authors focus first on the God who speaks and how critically humans need the word of the Lord. They offer trenchant remarks on how religion can function as a tranquilizer, not only in the day of the prophets, but in our own, making us insensible to our inhumanity toward others. They focus on income disparities in the U.S, the commodification of everything, and the globalization of the world economy, relying on unsustainable poverty to enrich others. They reflect on the Maker with whom Israel and we must reckon and the matrix of love, wrath, and justice of God within which we are all accountable. At the same time, we see the hesed of God, the God who longs for intimate relationship with humanity, evoking both our worship and witness, formed by continuing contemplation of God’s glory in the face of Christ.

This work offers both scholarly treatment of the texts of the minor prophets, drawing out their message, along with rich material for personal reflection. Recommended reading, with introductory works indicated, offer the student direction for further study. Bartholomew and Thomas have given us a solid resource that removes the obscurity of these lesser-read books, helping us see just how important their message was then and is now.

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

Review: Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, Joan Didion. New York: Open Road Media, 2017 (Originally published in 1968)

Summary: A collection of essays, most originally published as Saturday Evening Post articles describing Didion’s first years back in California, during the height of the hippie movement.

I never read Joan Didion’s work while she was alive. Only in recent years have I developed a taste for essays, and as I read essayists, Didion’s name comes up repeatedly as a master of the craft. This work is her first non-fiction (she published a novel, Run, River, in 1963). This set of essays, most of which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, were mostly written between 1964-1967. These were her first years back in her home state of California after eight years of working for Vogue in New York City, to which she eventually returned.

The essays capture the ethos of California in the mid-1960s, the mix of sunny optimism, the agricultural belt of the Sacramento Valley, where she grew up, the nervous lassitude of Los Angeles when the Santa Ana winds rise, and the outlaw fighter John Wayne after he “licked the Big C” the outlaw cells that had threatened his life when she was on set covering the making of The Sons of Katie Elder, Wayne’s 165th film. In stark contrast, she profiles Joan Baez and her Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. She describes Baez as “a personality before she was entirely a person, and, like anyone to whom that happens, she is in a sense the hapless victim of what others have seen in her, written about her, wanted her to be and not to be.”

Her title essay, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, recounts her time in 1967 in Haight-Asbury during the “summer of love” where youth from all over the country flocked to San Francisco signaling an unraveling in the social fabric of the country, an inchoate longing. She describes the people she met, the flophouses like The Warehouse they lived, the prodigious use of drugs, and the do-gooders like Arthur Lisch with utopian visions who ended up caring for kids when they crashed, and the Zen alternatives to trips. Already, the demise of Haight was apparent to some.

“Personals,” the second section collects articles with a more interior focus: her notebook keeping, thoughts on morality and self-respect (“Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home”). She reminds us of 1960’s monster movies and what is like to go home when it is no longer home.

The final part, “Seven Places of the Mind” take us from Hawaii to Alcatraz to Newport and to her eight years in New York. The essay on Newport, “The Seacoast of Despair” gave voice to my own experience of the lavish mansions of a bygone age, sterile and sad. In New York, she describes the point at which she stopped believing in “new faces” and felt herself becoming increasingly estranged from the whole scene, rescued by her husband who took a six-month leave that turned into a long-term residence in California.

There is so much of interest here. Didion masterfully crafts sentences and tells non-fiction stories. She is a keen observer of herself, the places where she visits or lives, and the times through which she was living. Whether profiling the famous or the unknown, like Comrade Laski of the Communist Party of the United States of America, she opens our eyes to both their individuality and the ways they serve larger than life roles as types.

Some of us are at a point of reflecting back over our lives, and summing up what they’ve meant. These essays were a lens to consider at least a part of that life. I’m intrigued enough to read more of her insights on the times we have both traversed and how she made sense of them. It strikes me that we had so many dreams of changing the world and indeed, the world has changed, but not as we expected. I wonder if Didion was as surprised and unsettled as I find myself in looking at the the world sixty years later. Or did she indeed foresee the center that cannot hold and the beast slouching toward Bethlehem?

Review: On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species

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On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species. Darrel R. Falk. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023.

Summary: Accepting the evidence for our evolutionary origins, considers God’s providential activity through his hovering Spirit and how that shaped our evolution.

It may be helpful at the outset to say what this book is not, due to the title. It is not a polemic defending some form of young (or old) earth creationism. Darrel R. Falk spent his career as a biology professor and accepts the evidence of our evolutionary rise from some common ancestor we share with the great apes. He also believes this does not conflict with belief in God as Creator who works in and through evolutionary processes. But how specifically does that operate? Is it possible to move beyond vague claims of providence. Falk believes that is possible, based both on findings of how our species evolved, and basic Christian theological convictions about the nature of God and God’s working in creation.

Before proceeding to make his case, Falk clears some ground, distinguishing what science can and cannot know and the difference between science and scientism. This is important to discern when scientists have crossed a line, often in the denial of God, claiming science as a basis. It may have been equally helpful to discuss when Christians cross the line between good and bad science in their attempts to uphold their beliefs or show some concordance.

Chapters 2 and 3 chart the rise of our genus and species, focusing on anatomical changes, especially changes in the brain, arguing that a critical feature that distinguishes our species is our “social” brain, our capacity for cooperation, which better explains our rise than a superior fighting capacity. This is related to another significant development, that of a “theory of mind,” that we understand that others have minds and to understand the thinking and intentions of others.

This, for Falk, represents a key turning point, where it may also be possible for humans to perceive another mind, that of God, and perhaps to perceive the loving intentions of the Triune God who lives in a communally as Three in One. Particularly, Falk believes our ancestors were able to perceive the Spirit’s prompting toward loving, cooperative behavior, which had a selective advantage that may also have selected genetic variants that further enhanced cooperation. He also explores an intriguing idea that our imaginative capacities developed despite awareness of death because we could imagine, through the Spirit’s loving promptings, a reality beyond death.

Falk shows that Darwin himself identified this how cooperation, enhanced further by our language capabilities, was critical in our evolutionary development. What Falk is proposing is an explanation for this cooperative character grounded in and reflective of God’s character. Darwin, while never becoming an atheist, denied providence in creation, both disbelieving in the idea of God as a master designer and struggling with the reality of animal as well as human suffering. Falk raises the question of whether the problem is with providence, or with an inadequate understanding of the interaction of providence and evolution.

Falk’s final chapter considers the biblical story from beginning to end, from the garden-temple, to the fall and sin’s violation of cooperative relationships through the reconciling work of Christ, making one new, global body that images and extends these cooperative capacities on a greater scale than ever, anticipating the consummation of all things.

Falk offers an intriguing integration of theology and evolutionary science. In particular, Falk “makes sense” of our human cooperative character and suggests how the Spirit’s “hovering” may have contributed to the further evolution of this quality, connected to brain capacity and theory of mind, that so enabled us to flourish. Of course, none of this is scientifically provable. What Falk offers is something at once more modest and more provocative, a plausible explanation of God’s involvement in the origin of our species that is consistent both with evolutionary science and Christian belief.

This is not “evidence” that “demands” belief but something just as valuable, an account showing a seamless relationship between the science of human origins and theistic belief. Such proposals are crucial in bringing an end to the “warfare” between science and faith, a conflict that has spilled so much needless ink, and absorbed so much creative energy at the very moment our creation is groaning from the burdens we’ve placed on it, jeopardizing the very existence of so many of God’s beloved creatures.

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

Review: Fire Weather

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Fire Weather, John Vaillant. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.

Summary: An account of the Fort McMurray fire of 2016, when a forest fire consumed a town and became a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier world.

I never wore face masks outdoors during all of the COVID epidemic. I did several days last summer when a smoky haze that had traveled a thousand miles settled over the Midwest and other parts of the eastern United States. For much of the summer, vast tracts of forest were on fire in Canada. News just today indicates there are zombie fires burning underground and dry conditions in western Canada portend another fire summer.

John Vaillant tells the story of what happened when a raging wilderness fire intersected with an oil industry town, Fort McMurray in Alberta. Fort McMurray grew to a city of 90,000 people because of our insatiable thirst for oil. The tar sands nearby are rich in bitumen, which can be converted through energy intensive processes to the petroleum products helping to warm our atmosphere. Fort McMurray also exists in the heart of the boreal forests that stretch across the north of Canada.

Conditions in the spring of 2016 were exceptionally warm and dry. A high pressure system yielded blue skies unseasonably high temperatures and low humidity, further drying out the forest around the town. On May 1, a small fire known as Fire 009, the ninth fire around Fort McMurray, was sited southwest of the town, on the other side of the river. By May 2, officials began to worry, even as they projected calm. But those in the know knew May 3 would be hard. No one knew how hard. Another hot, dry day, with winds coming around to blow out of the southwest and freshening. All the ingredients were present for the fire to explode…and it did. The morning began with brilliant blue skies. Suddenly, at 12:15, everyone discovered that a monster was among them. In rapid order, neighborhoods were consumed. While people got up expecting a normal day, suddenly they needed to evacuate–immediately–90,000 of them.

The amazing story is that none of them died. But much of the town did. Firefighters tore down rows of houses and were able to save others. What they discovered however was that when a fire became this intense, rivers were not a barrier, that fire tornados and other freak meteorological occurrences could cast the fire over firebreaks and natural obstacles. The fire would seek fuel.

That’s one of the interesting things the emerges from Vaillant’s rendering of the many eyewitness accounts–that the fire was a kind of living thing–akin to the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings. He describes the flammability of the boreal forest, particularly the black spruces, dripping with sap, exploding into flame as the wall of heat of the fire approaches. They are like bombs, containing all this stored energy. Vaillant describes another kind of bomb–the residential houses in the fire’s path. Made of vinyl siding, kiln dried wood framing, shingled roofs, polyurethane, polyester in furniture, curtains and clothes, and all sorts of other petroleum based plastics throughout as well as gas cans, propane tanks, and other flammables. Houses went from livable structures to holes in the ground in less than five minutes.

Vaillant describes the stunning awakening from “this is no big deal” to “the apocalypse has come” of the residents. He goes on to describe the slower, more insidious burn as our atmosphere warms. He retells the story of what we know and when we knew it about greenhouse gasses and anthropogenic global warming. The basic physics was demonstrated in 1856. By 1956, scientists were testifying before Congress. Their predictions, even back then are startlingly accurate. There was no partisan debate. But nothing was done. As early as the 1970’s, the oil companies own scientists knew. And there was a window of time when something could be done to avert the dramatic climate changes we are seeing. Now we may be facing a rapidly closing window to avert changes on such a scale that they result in a mass extinction of much of life.

Vaillant is one of many voices describing the future on our doorstep. Year round fire seasons in many parts of the world is the impact on which he focuses. Fuel, dry conditions, wind, and a spark are all that’s needed for another Fort McMurray at the wilderness-urban interfaces where many of us live. The irony is that we keep lighting the fire that fuels the fire everyday. Fort McMurray with its petrochemical industry, is in microcosm the story in which we all are implicated. Vaillant not only tells a riveting story about a monster fire. He tells a sobering story that demands we face the reality of the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren. It could very well be one where they are fighting, and maybe running, for their lives. But to where will they run?

Review: Leadership or Servanthood?

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Leadership or Servanthood?, Hwa Yung. Carlisle: Langham Global Library, 2021.

Summary: Contends that, contrary to our focus on developing or training leaders, Jesus was concerned with the formation of servants.

Almost everywhere you turn in Christian circles, (including the organization in which I work) you come across discussions of the urgency of developing leaders and various efforts to “train” leaders. Years ago I heard a lead pastor of a large megachurch speak of how people love being lead well. This pastor later was forced to step down from his position for moral irregularities. And this is a story we hear with nauseating regularity.

The author of this work challenges this focus on leadership. He notes the sparing use of the term in scripture (often negatively) and how the words used for those in roles of oversight largely were terms that might be translated “servant” or “slave,” often translated as “minister.” It is not that there were not people serving in leadership capacities, but that they understood their work in the light of Christ as servant.

The author contends that this is not “servant leadership,”: as has been popularized, because this still centers leadership. He would contend, rather for “leader servants” He notes the work of Jim Collins in Good to Great describing the Level 5 leader as a good description of the kind of leader servant of which he is speaking. In contrast, Christian leaders are often self-promoting, even while they lack spiritual and theological depth.

Yung discusses the matter of authority, differentiating moral, institutional, and spiritual authority. The latter comes, in the case of Jesus, out of his entire submission to the Father. Yung then develops the biblical case for submission as the basis of spiritual authority for leading servants, and how crucial this is for ministry with true spiritual power. This submission includes submission to scripture, to God’s voice in conscience, prayer, conviction, and prophetic word, as well as submission to those placed over us.

The joy of submission is to be utterly secure in the love of the Father. Yung spends a couple chapters on this. He highlights the protection and provision of those who call God “Abba, Father”: we may pray freely, boldly, and simply, we need not be anxious, we are heirs of the kingdom, and needn’t fear anything. This security also means we may uncover our deepest wounds, and experience over time the healing of our memories.

This security leads to an unself-consciousness that allows the leader to serve with humility: doing the lowly but needful things, appreciating the contributions of others, while being self-effacing. Other qualities that characterize humble leaders are compassion, faithfulness, and sacrifice. All of this arises through a process of transformation as we move from self-sufficiency to submission as God breaks and remakes us.

In the conclusion of the work, Yung asks if all are leaders, as servants. He allows for the distinctiveness of gifts, that some may serve as organizers or administrators. Not all have these gifts but all may aim for serving. Above all, in submission to Christ, all should seek to serve in his authority, enabling us to be effective wherever we are called.

This book comes as a breath of fresh air, challenging Western leadership models that have so often been patterned after worldly values. As a Malaysian, he comes as a voice from outside, raising important questions of how we read fleshy leadership into scripture rather than following the pattern of Jesus the submissive servant who comes with spiritual authority. He challenges us to the harder work of character transformation rather than picking up a few leadership skills.

There has been a great exodus from ministry, indeed from Western churches, in recent years. Perhaps with the need to raise up a new generation of servant-shepherds, it is time to re-think how they are first recognized and then prepared. Do we call those who have proven themselves in humble service to God’s people? Do we look for those whose lives are already marked by the spiritual authority of submission to the Father? Yung’s book comes at an important inflection point, a time where the old paradigms of leadership have failed.

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

Review: The Pilgrim of Hate

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The Pilgrim of Hate (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #10), Ellis Peter. New York: Mysterious Press/Open Road Media, 2014 (Originally published in 1984).

Summary: The Feast of the translation of St. Winifred is the occasion of new found love, a fugitive fleeing from murder, thievery, and a miracle, all of which engage Cadfael’s attention.

Abbot Radulfus has just returned from a legatine council where the support of the religious was urged for Empress Maud, maneuvering to be crowned Queen, seizing the crown from Stephen. The council ended in disorder and murder when Stephen’s wife sends an emissary to plead for his release, and a band attempts his murder only to be foiled by one of Maud’s knights, Rainald Bossard, who is stabbed in the back for his efforts, with the murderer at large. Radulfus is deeply disturbed by the murder and the depths of disorder he sees in the country.

Nevertheless, he returns at a time of celebration, the anniversary of the translation of the remains of Saint Winifred to the Abbey. The celebration finds Cadfael troubled. Only he and Hugh know that her actual remains lay in Wales, something Cadfael deeply believes she would have wanted. But does she look with favor on his subterfuge? Miracles continue to occur in Wales, but not in Shrewsbury. Cadfael hopes for a sign that what he did was right.

The Feast draws a crowd of pilgrims of all sorts. Among them are those who hope for a miracle. Dame Alice Weaver hopes for one for her nephew Rhun, a young man with a withered leg and twisted foot, able to walk only with crutches. Rhun is more concerned for his sister Melangell, who, without a dowry, faces a hard life. Cadfael ministers to Rhun, working the knotted muscles, but Rhun refuses potions to ease his pain, wishing them for others with greater need. There are also four suspicious merchants, actually thieves, causing mischief throughout the story, with Hugh close on their tails. Finally, two other pilgrims traveling together attract Cadfael’s attention. One is Ciaran, under a vow to walk barefoot to Wales, wearing a heavy cross that cuts into his neck that he refuses to remove. He is accompanied by Matthew that has taken a vow to accompany Ciaran. Along the way, he has occasion to render assistance to Melangell, the beginning of a growing bond between them.

Then Olivier de Bretagne shows up, who we first encountered in The Virgin in the Ice, when he works with Cadfael to rescue some refugee children. He is hoping to persuade Hugh to come over to Empress Maud’s side. Having sworn fealty to King Stephen, Hugh will not abandon his word. In a way, Olivier expected nothing less. He asks help on another matter. He is seeking Luc Meverel, son of the murdered Rainald Bossard, who went missing after the murder. Meanwhile Hugh is seeking Bossard’s murderer. Could these two be among the pilgrims, perhaps even guests at the abbey?

All these threads come to a head at the procession of the saints relic’s to the abbey church and the service that followed. Matthew and Melangell are in the procession, transported in both worship and love. Earlier, Ciaran had confided in Melangell that he released Matthew from his vow and was going alone to Wales, slipping away during the festivities. He swears her to silence. Then, as pilgrims approach the reliquary in prayer, it comes Rhun’s turn. He comes with no expectation for himself, praying for Melangell, when suddenly he puts his crutches aside, putting weight on the twisted foot which untwists, his atrophied leg becoming strong before the eyes of all. He climbs the steps, then kneels, and the church bursts out in praise. Cadfael, who has ministered to the young man, knows the extent of the miracle and the sign he has been given

But all is not wonderful. When Matthew learns Ciaran has left, and that Melangell knew of it, in anger, he strikes her on the cheeks, and goes in pursuit. Olivier goes after them on one road, believing one of them is Luc. Cadfael and Hugh learn they had taken a different path and follow, believing one is a murderer. Meanwhile, remember those thieves? They turn up as well, putting Cadfael at great risk. Meanwhile, a grieving Melangell waits in uncertainty back in Shrewsbury.

The procession and miracle, to me were a high point in the writing in this whole series, as if Peters were caught up in the events as well. The miracle comes as a grace, as all such works of God do. Rhun seems surprised as any, going forward in submission to his Aunt and out of love for Melangell. And Cadfael receives another gift, time with Olivier. Hugh notes their connection, and even resemblance, and is entrusted with a confidence from Cadfael, a mark of their ever-deepening friendship. This is all wonderful writing, reminding the reader that amid turmoil, evil, and murder, there is a deeper goodness, a richer beauty, and a wonder to be embraced.

Review: The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory

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The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory, Tim Alberta. New York: HarperCollins, 2023.

Summary: A several years-long study of why much of the evangelical movement turned to hard right, nationalist politics, ignoring character and embracing the pursuit of power to enforce its vision of American greatness.

Tim Alberta, a writer for The Atlantic, who had written articles critical of the former president, was stunned in the summer of 2019 when his father, an evangelical pastor outside Detroit, died suddenly of a heart attack. What stunned him even more was that a number of people at his father’s funeral, instead of offering comfort and condolences, took him to task for what he had written. One, a family friend, left him a letter accusing him of being a traitor. Subsequently, conversations with his father’s successor, Chris Winans, told a tale of controversy during COVID over church closures, mask mandates and more. Winans watched many depart for a church down the road preaching a political gospel people wanted to hear instead of the counter-cultural gospel of Jesus Pastor Winans preached.

All this set Alberta on a cross-country quest to understand what was happening in much of American evangelicalism, from a tent church in the South, to the ministry of Robert Jeffress, to the campus of Liberty University. Alberta remains a faithful Christian and this book is not an exvangelical hatchet job. Much of the book allows leaders in their own words to talk about their embrace of an American greatness gospel, motivated by an idea of reclaiming a white vision of America in the 1950’s, even as boomers from that era began to die off and the actual population of the country became far more culturally diverse. He questions the flip-flop from the excoriation of Bill Clinton for his moral failures to the embrace of a president just as flawed, if not more so. He received no good answers, just the justification that the needs of the hour required such a man. Some interviewees expressed quiet reservations not reflected in their subsequent public rhetoric.

He also chronicles the stories of the wounded. Russell Moore was a former leader of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Church, a man of impeccable religious conservatism who nevertheless opposed the former president and also stood up against sexual abuse in the church against its executive leadership. He was forced out and left the denomination. David French, fought for religious liberty cases on university campuses and at one time wrote for the National Review. When he wrote against the former president, the threats became so bad, both he and his wife began carrying firearms. One of the most courageous was a Liberty University professor, popular with students being fired for not obeying the administration. He refused to resign, accept a severance package and sign a non-disclosure agreement. He offers an account of Rachael Denhollander, fighting for anti-abuse policies in the Southern Baptist Church while forced out of her own congregation.

He portrays his own father’s embrace of the culture wars and efforts to reclaim American greatness, and how the seeds that bore fruit in 2015 were sown many years earlier through Falwell’s Moral Majority and Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition. Combine that with congregations nourished on talk radio and conservative cable news networks and you had a populace discipled, not by the gospel of Jesus but by the gospel of America. Instead of a vision for a global kingdom of God, what mattered was the kingdom of America. Instead of zeal for the greatness of God, it was zeal for the greatness of America. In short, what Alberta portrays is political idolatry in the guise of Christianity.

What’s troubling to see is people from rural pastors to Jerry Falwell, Jr., using this gospel to build their own kingdoms, drawing off people from other congregations with the lure of their false gospel. For some, there is power and glory in their nearness to earthly political power. And while all this is happening, many Gen Z children are heading for the exits, and many others as well.

Alberta concludes where he began, at the church his father once pastored. He’s heartened to find that, despite all the wounds, Chris Winans has persisted, pursuing a strategy of “pull, don’t push” with his people, offering sound teaching to make them question their own beliefs. The church had replaced its losses and was leaning into a vision of faithful presence in the culture rather than “owning the libs.” He entertains the hope, even as he wonders how this all will work out that this “hidden gospel,” hidden in quiet acts of everyday faithfulness will lead to a new revealing of Christ.

Jesus said we cannot believe in both God and Mammon. This is the kind of choice and the kind of divide that runs through the accounts of this book. I’m increasingly struck through recent reading that the draw of Mammon is the belief that it works. That seems the only justification people offer for embracing a political faith so opposite the teaching of scripture. What is not said is that in so doing we are saying that we don’t believe in the way of Jesus, the way of loving enemies, of expanding the reach of his rule to “sinners,” Samaritans, and even Gentiles, and walking the way of the cross. Are we willing to persist in what is foolish and weak, believing it reflects the power and wisdom of God?

Part of the challenge is that our attention, on social and news media, is on the gospel of Mammon. During his remarks at his father’s funeral, and in a recent interview, Alberta repeatedly offers the challenge that if we claim to place Jesus first, that we spend more time in scripture, in reading nourishing Christian books and taking in podcasts and sermons, than listening to the media of Mammon. Perhaps, in this season of Lent, fasting from this media and feasting on the word of God may be a start. Hopefully, it will remind us whose kingdom, power, and glory we are called to seek.

Review: Humility Illuminated

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Humility Illuminated, Dennis R. Edwards. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A study of humility throughout scripture, showing it as the distinctive identifier of those who follow Jesus.

Almost everywhere one looks, one finds evidence of American churches embracing the cause of American greatness, trying to seize control of American institutions, scheming to “win” the culture war. Meanwhile, hardly a week goes by where there isn’t news of pastoral corruption, whether with regard to funds, the abuse of authority, or the abuse of others or covering such abuse. Meanwhile, youth are heading for the doors. For many, it is not lack of belief in Jesus but rather that the church looks nothing like the Jesus who “came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” In a word, they see nothing of the humility of Jesus.

Dennis R. Edwards, a pastor for many years and a seminary professor and dean, believes it is desperately important to understand the nature of biblical humility because such humility is the identity marker that sets Christians apart from the surrounding culture, whether in the first or twenty-first centuries. Both then and now status, control, power were celebrated and humility looked down upon. Yet this was the way of Jesus who followed a path of descent from God’s right hand all the way to the cross to redeem a lost humanity. In this book Edwards shows from an extensive survey of scripture how this is to be the way of life for those who follow after Jesus.

His study begins in the Old Testament with Moses focusing on how Moses was a man who yielded to God, submitting to him. Such submission is closely tied to the fear of the Lord, that all of life is lived before God. He follows with a study of how Jesus embodies humility, riding a donkey into Jerusalem, centering the poor, women, and children in his ministry. He finishes this with Paul’s portrait of the humble Jesus in Philippians 2.

He then reflects for several chapters on the implications of humility for the church. He discusses communing rather than competing for place as a key to the unity of the church. He uses the household codes in Paul to observe their call for those naturally holding power to humble themselves and sees this as a key for multi-ethnic ministry. He speaks of the crucial role of humility in reconciliation, proposing that all of Romans is written around Romans 14-15 and the conflict between Jewish and Gentile parts of the church in Rome. Reconciliation and the humility that leads to it are also key to understanding Philippians. For pastors, humility is expressed in shepherding, not a domineering control as in some “shepherding” movements but in nurturing instruction by example, who live out a mutuality of care and oversight and vulnerable confession.

Suffering of various sorts is an occasion for humility, yielding ourselves to God in it and enduring in the hope that God will, in due time raise us up. Our worship together is an occasion for humility from the yielding of ourselves to God to the yielding of our seats to each other. Everything from how we read scripture to singing and song choices to how we arrange our meals to welcome each other are occasions for humility. Stewarding, whether of our time, talent, or treasure, or our collective stewarding of creation for the common good of all God’s creatures and not just ourselves call out humility in us.

Edward’s chapter on empowering gets to the heart of the choice we face. I think the church in America is where it is because we don’t believe that God will lift up, exalt, and empower the humble. Hence we seek to lift up, grasp for power, and exalt ourselves, ignoring the warnings of God for those who do this. Humility tests and reveals our faith, or lack thereof, in God. In this book, Edwards, with gentleness and an encouraging spirit, lays out the way of Jesus which is the way of the humble servant, submissive to God and considerate of others. He leaves us with the choice of whether we will yield to this countercultural way of living that identifies us with Jesus, or identify with the world.

This is a timely text, when so many signs seem to point to the success of the arrogant, to those who flout humility and integrity of character. Edwards’ book calls me and helps me through his own pastoral writing to “turn my eyes toward Jesus.”

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

Review: Gentilly Terrace

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Gentilly Terrace, Gordon Peter Wilson. Austin: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2023.

Summary: A tale of petty and systemic graft interwoven with a troubled family, an FBI investigation and a budding love affair, all centered around a Vietnamese grocery in East New Orleans.

Gentilly Terrace was developed on high ground overlooking Lake Pontchartrain on the east side of New Orleans, literally on terraced blocks. Once a suburban community of Arts and Crafts bungalows built in the 1920’s, the neighborhood had declined as people moved further out. But this was the home of Jerry Sonthonax, a newly elected tax assessor for that part of New Orleans. Sonthonax lived on the edge of financial ruin, “borrowing” from client settlements and escrow accounts in his legal practice, trying to hit it big at the local racetrack. After a loss that nearly wiped him out, a racetrack buddy offered a different kind of tip. A Vietnamese grocery on the east side of his district was rumored to be running an illegal lottery, and might be a source of payoffs to maintain a low assessment.

Sonthonax goes to his mentor, Burton Clayton, assessor for the central business district, who has lined his pockets well in this way. All this goes through a middleman, Glenn Hornacek, who would present himself as a consultant who could “negotiate” lower assessments for a fee that he and Clayton would share. Sonthonax persuades the two to assist him in setting up a similar arrangement starting with the grocery.

Unbeknownst to them, FBI agent Magot Hoang is surveilling the grocery, using her Vietnamese language sills to translate the wiretaps. In the process, she hears the owner’s daughter trying to complain about an outrageous assessment increase, bringing Sonthonax name across her radar. Meanwhile, she has fallen in love with a local police officer, one who does off-duty security.

Lecky and Hildy Calloway are New Orleans socialites mostly by virtue of Hildy and her family’s wealth, which Lecky lives off of, while handling legal settlements for insurance companies. It’s a troubled family. Daughter Caroline has had substance abuse problems and is sent off to a residential facility, where she becomes involved with her counselor, arriving home pregnant until getting an abortion. Lecky is a hen-pecked husband increasing aware that he is gay and is starting to explore New Orleans gay life, including a one off with a salesclerk name Peterbilt, who keeps turning up, and also happens to be Caroline’s drug dealer, and the plaintiff in an insurance case Lecky is asked to handle for a minor head injury from a fallen sign at–you guessed it–the Vietnamese grocery.

And, if you hadn’t guessed it, the grocery is the scene of the story’s climax, and everyone except Clayton is there. For me, it was the predictability of this novel that made it ho-hum. The descriptions of this area of New Orleans are lush. At the same time, the description of the life of Gentilly Terrace, after the beginning of the story, was non-existent as the action of the story shifts to this store on its edges. Even the Vietnamese enclave might have been treated with greater depth. This work, a second novel, strikes me as the work of someone developing his craft, following a John Grisham-type path after a law career. I found the parts that connected to the cultural life of a part of New Orleans about which I knew nothing to be fascinating and wonder if a more skillful weaving of setting and plot may have made this a more interesting work.

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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: Death of a Ghost

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Death of a Ghost (Albert Campion #6), Margery Allingham. New York: Avarang Books, 2023 (first published in 1934).

Summary: Campion and Stanislaus Oates investigate two murders connected to the house of Belle Lafcadio and the unveiling of famous works of her deceased husband John.

Fairly early on in this book, Campion and Inspector Stanislaus Oates know the identity of the murderer. But they lack evidence for an arrest. The suspenseful buildup in this book involves Campion’s efforts to expose the murderer, obtaining sufficient evidence for an arrest of a murderer clever in covering tracks. It’s a dangerous game, one that nearly costs Campion his life.

The setup is the unveiling of a painting by deceased artist John Lafcadio. Before his death, he painted a series of paintings, packed into twelve containers, one to be opened for display and sale at the home of his widow, Belle Lafcadio. Max Fustian, an art dealer, helps manage the shows and sale of the art. For seven years, all has gone well. Not so this year,

A boyfriend of Belle’s granddaughter Linda, Tommy, shows up at the show, fresh home from a painting trip to Italy, married to a model in order to bring her into the country. When the lights come on after a brief outage, Tommy is found dead of a knife wound to the heart. Suspicion hangs on Linda until Fustian confesses to the murder. His story doesn’t hold up but no one is arrested. There is not enough evidence to arrest anyone, and Campion, an old family friend of the Lafcadios doesn’t think Linda guilty.

Then odd things begin happening. All of Tommy’s work begins disappearing, including a piece in Campion’s possession. Then another murder, of Claire Potter, an artist who, along with her husband, lives at Belle’s and works in a garden studio. The cause is found to be nicotine poisoning. Some clues point clearly to the murderer, but they offer too little basis for an arrest. Drawings made by Tommy could be a key piece of evidence. A trip to the country cottage where the drawings might be found result in an encounter with the murderer and the drawings but ashes in the fireplace.

Fearing that Belle could be next on the murder list, Campion uses a remaining drawing by Tommy, provided by Linda, to lure the killer into a meeting where he puts his own life at risk, hoping to expose the killer before another connected with the Lafcadio household dies. But will it cost him his own life?

What makes this such a good read is the fascinating character of the killer, genius tinged with madness. Knowing the identity of the killer builds the suspense, given the cleverness of the killer, managing to kill Claire from a distance. We fear for Belle, then Campion. And for good reason.