On Books

Review: The Deepest Place

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The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, Curt Thompson, MD. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023.

Summary: Drawing on the experience of Paul, described in Romans 5 and using the insights of neurobiology, a psychiatrist explores how hope may grow out of suffering as one learns one is secure in the presence of God and of a caring community.

Suffering can touch the deepest places in our lives. Often the result of some trauma, suffering rewires our brains to respond in ways to protect ourselves or suppress the ongoing pain. We may not even be aware of why until it threatens our jobs, our relationships, our finances, and our health. Curt Thompson has met many sufferers in his psychiatric practice. Through an understanding of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) and drawing on insights from the Apostle Paul of how we may be transformed through suffering, Thompson offers us a process, illustrated by a number of patient stories, of how people experienced such transformation at the level of rewiring their responses to anxiety-triggering events.

Thompson frames his account around Romans 5:1-5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (NIV)

Crucial, in all human experience, according to Thompson is the forming of a secure human attachment, the lack of which is a source of suffering. When we have such an attachment, we can receive and know that we are loved and flourish, even through suffering. For the Apostle Paul, this secure attachment came through being justified by faith, knowing that he was at peace with and secure in God. This in turn allowed him to face rather than run from suffering, persevering, forming character and deepening hope.

But knowing these things in our heads is not enough. It is practicing different ways of thinking, responding, and bodily reacting. It involves bringing our awareness of what we suffer into a place where we are seen, soothed, safe, and secure (the 4 S’s). Thompson works toward this both in his personal work with patients and in confessional communities where people are able to “confess” the situations in which they suffer and experience the 4 S’s with others. The more they experience this, the more they can relinquish the behaviors that covered up their suffering. Like Paul, who speaks of standing in grace, there is a bodily integration, a standing in the 4 S’s that occurs. As people experience caring acceptance when they reveal what brings them pain and shame, they glimpse the glory of God, even as they most openly face the causes of their suffering.

But this process of facing suffering is hard and painful work. For some it is so hard, they turn back. But knowledge of the glory of being accepted and loved by Jesus can sustain us, especially when memories are reinforced by counselors and a caring community such as the confessional communities Thompson works with, and those memories become more embedded. Over time, as we persevere, character is formed, as we keep practicing Christ-formed and sustained responses to suffering supported in community. In Thompson’s practice, he and counselees “do the work” and “then pause and notice the work” which embeds it more deeply. They assess progress using the acronym FACES which stands for flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable, qualities that express increasing integration of our character.

Progress in being seen, soothed, safe and secure over time in one’s suffering, persevered in over time, not only forms character but contributes to an embodied hope as our responses are rewired and we increasingly taste Christ’s glorious acceptance, building our anticipation of what’s to come, coming full circle around to increasing glory.

Thompson is honest that not all complete the circle or cycle. For some, facing suffering is too hard, and they retreat. some find it too hard to be loved, when all they’ve known are people coming to hurt them. Thompson discusses the rich young ruler who not only shrinks back from giving away his wealth but in finding eternal life through Jesus’s invitation to be in relationship with him, the one who “looked on him and loved him.” We keep loving those not ready to accept the invitation to be loved, even as we enfold those who do in communities where they are seen, soothed, safe, and secure, allowing them to do the hard work with Jesus of seeing their suffering transformed into hope.

I appreciate how Thompson frames this work with the wisdom of Romans 5. His narratives of patient stories elaborates what this looks like. He also helps me understand why it is hard for many to understand the place of grace in which they stand, that they are secure in the love of Christ. They know it in their heads, but haven’t yet had it transform the wiring of their lives, the patterns of their memories. It helps me understand why believing people often inflict pain on others. In the words of Richard Rohr: “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”

What Thompson describes is a process of transforming discipleship at the deepest levels of our lives, making it possible not only to transform suffering but transmit healing to others. I cannot help wonder if this is the healing needed for a church that seems so angry and fearful, one so enamored with control and power, that clings to national glory and demonizes the other because it has never experienced the greater glory of the love of God toward all people in Christ. I wonder….

Review: Wisdom from the Witch of Endor

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Wisdom from the Witch of Endor, Tikva Frymer-Kensky. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2024.

Summary: A modern midrash on the witch of Endor and four lessons or rules we may draw from her story.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky was a biblical scholar from the University of Chicago Divinity School who passed away in 2006. She authored Reading the Women of the Bible and represented a school of scholars who platformed the voices of minor and marginalized figures in scripture. Often these stories are more significant than many, mostly male, dominant culture interpreters have credited (and there were reasons for their inclusion).

This book, drawn from the author’s papers offers us a close reading of the story of the witch of Endor, commending her as an exemplar of four qualities that we do well to follow to live effectively. In the Preface, this is described as a modern midrash on the biblical text.

The first part of this brief book re-tells the biblical story, and explains her work with the ‘ob, an instrument of unknown character used to communicate with the spirits of the dead. The author helpfully differentiates this practice, known as necromancy, from other forms of witchcraft involving incantations, potions, and spells. Nevertheless, she downplays the uniform prohibition of this practice in scripture, emphasizing Saul’s prohibition.

The second part of the book emphasizes “life lessons” we might draw from her. First she knew her power, even though forbidden, and did not give up but exercised determined commitment and self-knowledge. Second, she strove to excel, exercising proficiency in the use of the ‘ob. Third, she chooses the moment, after securing Saul’s promise that no harm will come to her. In her wisdom, she is cautious. Finally, she “won well.” She uncovers the king in his desperate hypocrisy and is an instrument by which the spirit of Samuel foretells Saul’s death. Instead of crowing or taunting, she persuades him to eat and is benevolent.

While in themselves, there may be nothing wrong with these rules or lessons (although, as I will contend, not all powers are good or pleasing to God), this platforming of the witch distorts the story and wrongly valorizes her. Here are my reasons:

  1. The uniform prohibition of necromancy. God speaks through the law, through Urim and Thummim, and through his sent prophets. Turning to necromancy is turning away from God’s ways of disclosing God’s self, and seeking knowledge God, in God’s wisdom, chooses not to disclose.
  2. The story of Saul offers a case study in disobeying God’s disclosures and, when God refuses to speak, he turns to means he himself has forbidden.
  3. The four lessons, good perhaps, are examples of moralizing. They may well be modern midrash but do not represent good biblical interpretation.
  4. Finally, good interpretation centers not on self-help principles but on the character and work of God.

This book reminds me of Bruce Wilkinson’s Prayer of Jabez, which was also questionable hermeneutically, but wildly popular. I suspect the title, the cover design, and the format (similar to The Prayer of Jabez) will be a draw for some. But I cannot commend the book.

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

Review: Doppelganger

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Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

Summary: Naomi Klein, a liberal activist and writer finds herself being confused with another Naomi, once a feminist now become an anti-vax advocate and darling of the extreme right.

Last summer, an anonymous pretender created a fake version of a social media page I curate, stealing a picture of me and posts I had made to the page. An alert follower contacted me and reports from me and followers stopped further posts that day. But the page remained up for several months until it was removed, attracting only about ten followers, thanks to the vigilance of people following my page. Still, I was outraged and felt that a part of me was violated, that my “brand” (my page uses the same name as this blog) was being stolen and perverted. Having an online “doppelganger,” even if an inactive one, and how easily it could happen, was disturbing.

Naomi Klein faced this situation in a subtler and more disturbing fashion, one that could not be eliminated by a report. Naomi Klein is an activist, academic, and writer who has focused on big corporations and their invisible control of our lives as well as writing about climate change. Naomi Wolf, a one-time liberal feminist, pursued a parallel career around a different set of issues. Then in 2019, she published a book filled with factual inaccuracies that was pulped. She was widely excoriated in the liberal establishment, suffering a kind of death. Except that she rose from the ashes during COVID-19, spouting a number of the spurious claims and conspiracy thinking of the alt-Right, becoming a darling of Steve Bannon…and being confused with Naomi Klein. Klein was stuck with trying to figure out how to say “not me.” At one point, Klein became so obsessed with following Wolf’s online antics, and her transformation, that she withdrew into a world of screens until her husband rescued her.

The experience led to her trying to understand both her own reaction to this doppelganger (who even looked something like her). Klein had always been “anti-brand,” she thought, especially of “Self as Brand” until she realized that she had built a “brand” that she wasn’t defending very well. She asks the question, “What aren’t we building when we are building our brands?” and she realizes what a convenient retreat this can be when faced with daunting challenges like our warming climate.

Looking more deeply, she realizes that her doppelganger has confronted her with a mirror world. Where she would be concerned about the corporate stripping away of privacy accelerated by our smartphones, she watches Wolf and anti-vaxxers fixate on “vaccine passports” as opening the door to our private lives. She describes a process termed “diagonalization” that destroys old left-right distinctions by playing on shared fears and concerns–“what are they putting in our food?” to “what are they putting in those vaccines?” The mirror world trades in a shared fear of the Shadow Lands, an underground effort to abuse our children and co-opt our lives. Klein observes trenchantly that these Shadow Lands, such as fears about the vaccines, covers up huge profit margins and a basic neglect of vaccine equity. A Canadian, she chronicles how truckers both caravanned in protest to indigenous child deaths in boarding schools and trucker shutdowns in Toronto over COVID regulations–often the same truckers.

She raises uncomfortable questions. We rail against Nazis and yet if we are living in a former colonial power country, our country presided over similar atrocities. The Mirror World challenges our illusions. Writing pre-October 7, she wrestles with Israel’s settler colonialism and the Shadow World built to sustain it (I wonder what her thoughts are since?). In the end, she raises equally uncomfortable questions about herself, indeed, any self. Can we hold onto a sense of identity or self? Is this not changing for all of us?

In the end, she concludes, “A bigger part of being human, though, and certainly of living a good life, is not about how we make ourselves in these shifting sands of self. It’s about what we make together.” I’m troubled by this conclusion. I could see this being taken any number of ways. I’m sure Hitler’s Germany and the settler colonists were also not just thinking of themselves but what they were making together. Equally, this was the rhetoric of Marxists and Mao.

I find myself thinking that Klein describes the post-Christian society foreseen by William Butler Yeats, in his poem, “The Second Coming.”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

If there is no center that will hold, if all we have are “the shifting sands of self,” then I find myself praying “Lord, help us” and indeed, “Come Lord Jesus.” Klein is courageous enough to ask some very hard questions. I wonder if we all will be courageous enough to wrestle with the implications of what she asks.

Review: The Beatles

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The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.

Summary: A biography of the band from its beginnings, rise, Beatlemania, studio work, and demise, with mini-biographies of each of the Beatles, their manager, Brian Epstein.

One of those “where were you?” moments for those of us of a certain age is “where were you when The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time?” I was a fourth grader, watching them on my grandparents television while the adults tut-tutted about the “long hairs” and their music. Inside, I was fascinated, as were all my classmates, especially the girls, who talked endlessly about “my favorite Beatle.”

The 2005 “biography” of the Fab Four brings back all those memories and so much more–much that was fascinating and some that I’d rather not have known. Spitz traces the history of the band from its beginnings with John Lennon and The Quarrymen, the meeting with Paul McCartney, the Liverpool years and the various combinations of musicians including the fan favorite drummer Pete Best whose home was a favorite hangout until he was unceremoniously ditched and Ringo brought on board on the eve of their fame. Spitz writes abbreviated biographies of each of the Beatles and their manager, Brian Epstein.

We learn how formative their time in Hamburg was and the significant advance they made under Brian Epstein’s management. Spitz takes us through all the things he did to polish their image, how they became “The Beatles,” his efforts to get them recorded and promoted, and the mistakes he made in setting up recording contracts. As their records hit the charts and they toured Great Britain, we see them reach the “toppermost of the poppermost.” Then Ed Sullivan. America. Beatlemania with its surging crowds, shrieking and swooning girls, and ever-increasing danger to the Beatles leading to their end of touring in 1966.

Spitz takes us behind the scenes and we see the genius of the songwriting duo of Lennon-McCartney as well as the eventual strains in their relationship, the guitarwork and growing skill of George and how Ringo not only provided the musical foundation for the band but also a certain emotional glue. We learn what it was like to record at Abbey Road. We observe the self-effacing genius of George Martin, who never profited beyond his modest salary, helping with the innovative work on albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Spitz reminds us of the trip to India to learn meditation as the band sought both to grow spiritually and mend the growing artistic and personal rifts that would ultimately lead to their demise, particularly after Yoko Ono entered the scene, helping further alienate John from the others. We read accounts of the final recording sessions and the release of “Abbey Road” and their last live concert on a London rooftop, where amid all the tensions, they momentarily recaptured the joy of making music together.

Then there is the seamier side. The drug use beginning with amphetamines, marijuana, and eventually LSD, and in John’s case heroin, from which he was often strung out and increasingly erratic. The women. So many “birds” to have sex with, as was the case with many rockers. At one point, all were being treated for gonorrhea. There is the brilliant and sad Brian Epstein and his closeted gay life, including rough sex leaving him beaten and robbed, and his growing despair as he felt he was losing control of the Beatles, leading to his death, whether accidental or suicide, from an overdose of drugs. While they were rich, through Epstein’s mistakes and their own debacle with Apple, they foolishly lost millions.

There is the tragic. Going back to Hamburg days, the death of onetime bandmate Stu Sutcliffe, the firing of Pete Best and the way it was done. The betrayal of Lennon’s wife, Cynthia, and Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher. The end of the band itself, chronicled in agonizing detail. And later deaths: John, George, Linda Eastman McCartney.

This is a huge biography, coming in at 983 pages, including photos and notes. Yet it is a fascinating read that gives one a sense of the hard work it took to become “The Beatles” the genius of Lennon and McCartney, the trauma of Beatlemania, the behind-the-scenes accounts of the making of each album and so much more. At the same time, we see them as all-too-human, flawed and forming young men thrust into the fame and fortune they’d dreamed of but were not prepared to handle. What is astounding is to consider that most of the output of The Beatles took place over just seven fraught years, from 1963 to 1969. Yet they changed rock ‘n roll forever. Spitz gives us the “crowded hours” of that epic journey.

Review: How Ableism Fuels Racism

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How Ableism Fuels Racism, Lamar Hardwick. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2024.

Summary: An argument that ableism is an important lens through which to understand racism, because both create a hierarchy of superior and inferior bodies.

Lamar Hardwick is a pastor who lives at the intersection of racism and ableism as a Black pastor on the autism spectrum. Also, at the time of the writing, he is under treatment for a recurrence of cancer, with the attendant bodily disabilities this brings. As he has reflected on his own experienced, read scripture and researched American history, he is convinced that ableism not only fuels discriminatory treatment of the disabled but also racial discrimination. The connection is the idealizing of certain bodies as fit and superior. In the American experience, this has particularly centered on White bodies, especially male bodies.

Hardwick focuses on Judges 17: 1-6, in which a young man, Micah, steals a large sum of money in gold from his mother, then under threat of curse confesses his sin. Instead of punishment, his mother takes the gold and has it made into an idol for the household. When a Levite comes through, Micah persuades him to become his priest. From this incident, Hardwick discerns three stages of ableism: images, idols, and institutions. Instead of facing sin, we honor what we should grieve, make it an object of central concern, an idol, and then create institutions to support our idolatry.

Hardwick traces how this was done in the early settlement of the U.S., subjugating women and indigenous people, and importing slaves, considering them inferior human beings. Slavery was even defended as a blessing for the inferior slave! He traces ways churches supported this form of ableism, and have continued to do so, pleading for and receiving exemption from the ADA legislation of 1990.

He cites a statement of John Piper’s that equated disability with ugliness and how our idolatry of superior bodies upholds certain White and ableist ideals of beauty. I was reminded of a conversation at a social gathering where someone remarked on the attractiveness of Michelle Obama only to be confronted by a yuck face from one of the other (White) women.

He offers a particularly personal discussion of ableism, racism, and healthcare in terms of access, differences in listening to reported symptoms, and quality of care. He also discusses how ableism fuels racism in the church, and the important role Black churches have been in offering a refuge from ableist and racist treatment and in many ways have led the way in disability inclusion.

One of the most thought-provoking chapters focused on the disabled God. The resurrected Jesus still bears the wounds of the crucifixion, and in this, God is glorified. This contrasts with ableist versions of Jesus, blonde, blue-eyed, ripped and aggressive.

Hardwick also considers the world of work and ableist ideas of productivity, what he calls “grind culture.” The question arises of the worth of bodies that cannot meet the demand of the grind, and the different ways bodies of color and disabled bodies participate in the work of creation. He proposes elevating place-making above profit-making as one way to address this.

I thought the major point the author was making to be compelling–that ableism furnishes the energy for racism in the distinction between superior and inferior bodies. At the same time, I wonder if the connection, if not conflation, of the two may mean overlooking the voices of persons with disabilities. Yet Hardwick offers important insights into the idolization and institutionalization of ableism. Most striking, and a field where I think further work is possible is the idea of the disabled God, the God who does not think the “disabilities” of the cross something to be “fixed.” People need not become White or able to be beautiful before God. The personal insights Hardwick adds from his fight with cancer sharpens his critique of ableism, even as it reminds me that to pray for him that the power of the disabled God would shine through his life.

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

Review: The Kingdom of Children

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The Kingdom of Children, R. L. Stollar, Foreword by Cindy Wang Brandt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023.

Summary: A liberation theology of the child that centers children in our theology and ecclesial life, arguing for their full humanity and their place as participants in the life of the whole church.

What place do children have in your church? Do you send them off to children’s church while adults do real church? Have we ever thought that we might learn from children? How much do children participate in the leadership of the church? Do we seek their input about curriculum and programs? How do we handle passages in scripture where children are featured, particularly where children in some way bring the word of God or act for God (think of Miriam and Samuel as children for example)?

R.L. Stollar raised all these questions for me in The Kingdom of Children. The book is subtitled “A Liberation Theology,” which for some may be off-putting. By this, Stollar centers the child in his theology, particularly the marginalized, suffering child. Like other liberation theologies, Stollar considers them as the image of God, even as marginalized, sometimes because of abuse, and often treated as less than full participants in the life of the Christian community. One of the most fascinating things is his consideration of God as child in the incarnation–the baby Jesus who does cry, pee and poop, who goes through the terrible twos “learning obedience,” who asserts his place to sit with religious teachers at twelve.

Stollar begins by looking at the situation of children both around the world and in the U.S., and how often they are vulnerable to abuse, even more if they are part of another marginalized group, and how they are often stripped of agency. This makes the case that child do need a liberation theology for them. Then he lists thirteen questions he thinks we must ask in developing a child liberation theology.

Several chapters are devoted to how we love children as we read the Bible, beginning with seven elements that need to be present including focusing on how children’s roles are featured, how we exclude children from stories, how stories where children are absent may imply a lot about children, and especially, that we need to read the Bible with children. He discusses how we read both the bad and good stories, the binding of Isaac as an example on one hand, and the stories of Miriam and Samuel on the other..

He turns from hermeneutics to theology, considering first the other gods as children and then Jesus as child. He considers children as God-to-us and particularly how we should not see them, including as vipers(!), subordinates, tools, blessings to collect (think “quiver full”), property, consumers, or as addenda to our lives. This is followed by chapters on children as prophets, priest, and theologians, particularly as theologians of play. One of the important insights here is to recognize that children, while not cognitively mature are capable of asking profound spiritual questions, having a spiritual inner life, and gaining insights that the whole community may benefit from.

To welcome children in this way is not to adultify them but to recognize their gifts to us as children. He argues that we need to see them as children, and understanding child development, at least in a basic way, is important for those who work with children. Stollar also presses us to think about how wide our welcome is: wide enough for the racially diverse? for those with disabilities? the neurodiverse? He contends for robust child protection systems to be in place for all children, but especially these groups, who are more subject to abuse.

Stollar concludes with inviting us to think about what it means for the kingdom to belong to children. One of the delightful features of this book is how Stollar practices this idea throughout, writing the book in accessible and not academic language and by providing an “including children” section in each chapter. I’m intrigued that Stollar even proposes including children in aspects of church leadership, especially in decisions that involve them.

I see the number of youth walking away from the churches they were raised in and can’t help wondering if the subtle ways we treat them as marginal, “junior” members that discounts both their human dignity and the work of God in their lives, contributes to this exodus. This book made me think about my own childhood. I actually think I was fortunate to have teachers and mentors recognized the work of God in me, who empowered me and others of us. It’s also making me think about the children in my own congregation and how we can welcome and learn from and empower them. I think Jesus would smile on this.

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

Review: Season of Beauty

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Season of Beauty, compiled by Editors at Paraclete Press. Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2024.

Summary: A collection of scriptures and reflections of great Christian writers along with reproductions of great works of art for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide.

While we often think of Lent as the season of fasting, of abstaining culminating in Holy Week and the horror of the cross, there is also beauty in contemplating the way of the Savior, the life to which we are called as followers, and the glory of the resurrection.

Paraclete Press has just published a wonderful collection of readings from scripture, from saints of old and contemporary writers and poets accompanied by an extraordinary number of art reproductions printed on quality paper and a sewn in ribbon bookmark. The readings span Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide with over half the book devoted to the latter two.

There are a number of Gerard Manley Hopkins (my favorite poet) and Christina Rosetti poems. reflections from The Cloud of Unknowing, Julian of Norwich, Emilie Griffin’s “He Kept On Walking,” Kathleen Norris’s “Hints of Resurrection Abound” and a long version of “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate.”

An example of text and art (publisher’s website)

All of this is accompanied by gorgeous reproductions of art. I appreciated the inclusion of Briton Riviere’s The Temptation in the Wilderness. an El Greco of Mary Magdalene, Ilya Repin’s Last Supper, Thomas Cole’s The Pilgrim of the Cross at the End of His Journey., and Jan Cossiers, Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene.

I could go on. But the beauty of the design of this book, tastefully laid out with texts and images, is to invite our quiet contemplation, our personal pilgrimage through Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide (including Hopkins “May Magnificat”).

This indeed is a “treasury” I hope to return to year after year, so rich are the works within.

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

Review: Loving Disagreement

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Loving Disagreement, Kathy Khang & Matt Mikliatos. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2023.

Summary: Moving beyond impasses or civil discourse to loving one another in Christian community while honestly engaging our conflicts through the working out of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

I’ve often found things are little different, and sometimes worse, in Christian community, when it comes to conflict. Often we’ll paper over differences with niceties and placations while we inwardly seethe. Or we just walk away. Or we just keep lots of things off the table and relate at very superficial levels. At its worst, we’ll line up everyone in the church on sides and demonize the others until we split the church.

Some propose the ideal of civil discourse, the best we can hope for in “civil” society. This means rules of engagement separating issues we disagree about and people we respect, reflective listening, avoiding ultimatums, looking for common ground. Kathy Khang and Matt Mikliatos believe we can do better than that in the Christian community because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the fruit this results in that give us the capacity to love across our differences.

The authors, who never met each other in person before writing this book together, practice what they preach. They come from very different cultural backgrounds. They alternate chapters on each of the fruit of the Spirit and ask questions of each other that tease out different perspectives that enrich the discussion. We see the two of them practice this at the very beginning of the book. Matt had initially been approached about writing the book, then Kathy had been proposed as a co-author. Matt thought Kathy would never do it and says, “I decided not to mention it to Kathy. I planned to politely decline for both of us.” Only when a mutual friend asked, “why are you saying no for Kathy” did he reconsider. In the introduction, we read how they process this, how Matt realizes the hurtful impact this has even though intent was good, and how Kathy has often had brothers speak for her as a woman and person of color. What Matt didn’t know was that this was a project she did have energy for. They model embarrassing honesty and grace, and something more–they discover a shared vision for something more than mere civility.

Reading the book, while I appreciated the unpacking of the meaning of each of the nine fruit of the Spirit, what I most appreciated was the dialogue between Matt and Kathy at the end of each chapter. Rather than the “Yes, but…,” that characterizes many dialogues, their are appreciative reflections and searching questions: how can I grow in love toward people I find the most challenging? do you have any examples of a conflict being resolved well and resulting in peacemaking? can speaking truth be kind and comfortable? what is the difference between the “niceness” that makes other people comfortable and the kindness that allows for clear action?

Along the way, discussions of fruit expose dysfunctions in many evangelical churches. The chapter on goodness lays bare the difference between goodness and the legalism many of us grew up with. They explore the difference between joy and toxic positivity. The chapter on self-control not only explores control of body, mind, and emotion but how we deal with anger and when we need to be angry.

Perhaps the key idea in this book is that Christ-shaped Christian community is worth fighting for. Instead of mere niceness or civility, there are times we need to get our disagreements out in the open, even while determined to stay in the ring out of love for those who are called into this same community. We will mess up, need to apologize, and forgive. And the world will see something compelling. The world knows how to fight but it doesn’t know how to love while fighting. The world has seen plenty of fights split people up. It hasn’t seen people fighting to stay together. That’s the kind of loving disagreement that Khang and Milkiatos says the Holy Spirit makes possible. They challenge us to ask, might we do better?

Review: Land of My Sojourn

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Land of My Sojourn, Mike Cosper. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2024.

Summary: The narrative of a former church leader who stepped away from a toxic leadership culture, the disillusionment that followed, and how reflections from a sojourn in Israel helped him process and find restoration.

Many who read this review will recognize the name of Mike Cosper as the host of the widely listened-to podcast series The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill, part of the podcasting work Cosper does for Christianity Today. In reading his new book, Landscape of My Sojourn, I couldn’t help wonder if what made Cosper so effective as host of the podcast series was that he had lived inside a church situation with some striking similarities to Mars Hill Church under the leadership of Mark Driscoll. In his new book, Cosper narrates his experience as one of the founding pastors of Sojourn, a “ragamuffin” church in Louisville, Kentucky, eventually connected to the Acts 29 movement Driscoll spearheaded.

He recounts heady early days as a leader of worship, and the development of a toxic leadership culture as the church developed into a multi-site congregation. He describes the feeling of always being “one good conversation away from getting things right and making things healthy.” Except it never happened. And then one day in 2015, in the midst of a “re-org,” he looked at the new proposed organization chart, only to find he was not on it.

That wasn’t quite rock bottom. After leaving the leadership of Sojourn, whose lead pastor eventually stepped down due to charges of leadership abuse, Cosper launched a media-focused non-profit to help Christians in the marketplace. After writing what he thought was a commonsense Christian reflection following the release of the Access Hollywood tapes of Donald Trump, he learned that first his lead investor, then others were pulling their money. Following closely on the departure from Sojourn’s leadership, he found himself in a place where none of the familiar touchstones of his faith made sense anymore.

Shortly after all this, Cosper had the opportunity for a “sojourn” in Israel. Visits to different places, and reflection on people like Peter and Elijah who had encounters with God, allowed Cosper to process both what had happened in his life and encounter God afresh for himself, beginning a process of restoration in his life. Each chapter of the book focuses on a particular place and encounter, interwoven with Cosper’s experience at Sojourn Church.

He begins with Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration and Peter’s desire to just stay there, remembering the halcyon days of Sojourn’s beginnings. He reflects on the heroic encounter of Elijah on Mount Carmel, and the desperate hopes of evangelicals, hoping our heroes are on the side of right and will bring a transformed culture, only to see one after another fail. He visits Mount Hermon, near where Peter confesses Jesus as Messiah and entertains illusions of the Messiah’s conquests and being in the vanguard. He considers Sojourn’s own pretensions to conquest, how they crumbled, and yet how God was quietly at work, as was Jesus, in changing lives.

The Mount of Olives reminds him of Palm Sunday, what seemed a triumphal procession, and how the crowds turned on Jesus. He reflects on the warfare metaphors Mark Driscoll used and how influential these were, and yet how wrong to the kind of king Jesus is. He describes the giant olive trees of Gethsemane, the twisted roots capturing the agony of Jesus, alone while the disciples slept. He considers the dysfunctions of sojourn’s leadership and the times, like the disciples, he was sleeping, and the agony to find himself alone. At Golgotha, he revisits the ways, like Peter that he had lived in denial, and the dissolution of his career and many of his friendships, and the departure of the senior pastor and the last time they spoke. At Sinai, he recalls the whisper of God to Elijah and that, like Elijah, he is not alone. Finally, by Galilee, at Capernaum, he recalls the post-resurrection encounter of Jesus with Peter, the questions that ask of Peter, are you still with me, even after the death of heroic dreams and denials? He’s wary, after all he’s gone through of glib suffering-to-glory narratives, even as he wants to believe.

The end of the book finds him back in Louisville, worshipping at what was once a satellite Sojourn campus, now its own church. He still believes, but with wounds. He describes himself still on the journey, sobered, not taking anything for granted, “still here, making this journey. Through the land of my sojourn.”

I found this book a powerful narrative, both as an inside look at a toxic leadership culture, and an account of coming through painful disillusionment. It’s honest about the losses and betrayals, the denials, and restoration that enables one to go on, not without wounds, but by faith. Because of the vulnerable character of the book, I think it can offer help to others who have faced disillusionment with the church and are tempted to throw in the towel. Cosper’s “I’m still here” makes no false promises but simply walks in the steps of Elijah and Peter, who decide to carry on in faith when dreams and illusions (including self-delusions) have died.

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

Review: Prophet Song

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Prophet Song, Paul Lynch. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023.

Summary: A mother tries to hold her family and life together as Ireland descends into authoritarian rule.

Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, winner of the 2023 Booker Prize is a tough read in two respects. One is seeing the unraveling of a democratic society through the disbelieving eyes of Eilish stack, an educated, middle class mother who works for a biotech company. It is disturbing becausew of how close to home it strikes.

The other respect is the text, written without paragraphs with dialogue without quotation marks. Yet this running text reflects increasingly unsettled and anxious perceptions of Eilish, fusing dialogue, emotions, and interior thought. We sense her movement back and forth from disbelief to concern, from hollow assurances that even her children don’t believe to rising fear, from clinging to the hope that her “disappeared” will come home to the realization that no one taken by the government comes home, from the illusion that she can preserve her home and way of life and that their only hope is flight. It’s the increasingly frantic and instinctive thought of one who loses husband, two sons, her job, her respect as “traiter” is spray-painted on her car and home, as her neighborhood becomes a battleground between the regime and the resistance, and finally her flight with her daughter and infant son, having to pay “fees” at numerous checkpoints as she they try to flee. The running text takes us inside her mind and we live the growing terror with Eilish.

It all begins when the National Alliance Party takes over the Republic of Ireland, declares emergency powers and suspends the constitution including writs of habeas corpus. The reality comes home when her husband Larry, a leader in a teacher’s union, goes out to a protest–and never returns. Her eldest son Mark has to go into hiding to avoid the drafting of 17 year-olds. He joins the resistance. After infrequent communications on burner phones, Eilish hears no more, but persists in hoping he will come home. Then, after a list of draft-dodgers, including her son, is published, she learns her services are no longer required. Meanwhile, her father, across town, is descending into dementia. Yet, in his occasional lucid moments, he tells her she must take the children and leave.

Subsequently, her neighborhood becomes front lines in the battle between the Party and the resistance. Power and water are intermittent and the gone. Buildings around suffer bombardment. Yet she uses all her resources, including money from her sister for her to get out of the country to survive. She can’t let go of hope that her husband and son will come home. Only when another son goes missing does she realize that she must save the two who remain–if she can.

The story takes us into the powerful disbelief that democracy really can’t unravel and how rapidly a society can consume itself when it does. We also see how powerful the urge is to try to hold onto home, onto some shred of normalcy. We glimpse how bad things must get for someone to flee from home and become a refugee. When Eilish’s neighborhood becomes a warzone, her running narrative gives the reader of what lived reality must be like in Gaza and other warzones.

Paul Lynch takes us to a place those of us in the West resist going. We join Eilish in denial that it can happen here–that our institutions, the rule of law, our education, jobs, and suburbs will protect us. He forces us to look into the dark abyss through the eyes of Eilish to recognize the vulnerability of all of this when we embrace unfettered power rather than the less “efficient” processes of the rule of law and democratic legislative processes. His book reminds us that the possibility of effective resistance after the fact is far more perilous than resisting beforehand, as inconvenient as that may be. Is this book a “Prophet Song” for us?