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Review: Beyond Racial Division

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Beyond Racial Division, George Yancey. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: Proposes as an alternative to colorblind or antiracist approaches, one of collaborative conversation and mutual accountability to overcome racial divisions.

I witnessed it in our Ohio senatorial primary. One candidate stood at the Edmund Pettus Bridge invoking Dr. King in support of race blind policies. Another candidate spoke against the ire raised by being called “racist” for concern about people entering the country illegally. I do not wish to debate these claims but to cite them as an example of the divergent approaches being used to address the racial fault lines in this country: one being colorblindness, arguing that it is the emphasis on race that exacerbates our divisions, particular the invidious label of “racist.” The other is the “antiracist” strategy, one that is used widely in various forms in diversity training. It argues that a majority group inherently seeks to preserve its power and to subordinate others. Antiracism challenges all the systems and structures that maintain this power, demands activism (“you are either an antiracist or a racist”), and that whites must support antiracist efforts of blacks by persuading other whites and pressing for financial restitution for historic abuses.

George Yancey, a black sociologist at Baylor University believes neither of these strategies are working, and are actually contributing to deepening divisions. Colorblindness fails to acknowledge the present effects of historic abuses and the systems and structures that sustain discrimination against racial groups. Antiracist approaches often antagonize and alienate the very parties needed to make progress in addressing racial ills, shaming and stigmatizing those they consider the problem. They may gain grudging compliance or achieve political victories while fostering ongoing resentments and resistance.

What he proposes instead is a mutual accountability model. He describes this model as follows:

This model stipulates that we work to have healthy interracial communications so that we can solve racial problems. In those communications we strive to listen to those in other racial groups and attempt to account for their interests. In this way we fashion solutions to racialized problems that address the needs of individuals across racial groups instead of promoting solutions that are accepted only by certain racial groups. By allowing those we disagree with to hold us “accountable” to their interests, we are forced to confront the ways we have fashioned solutions that conform to our own interests and desires.

Yancey, p. 35.

Active listening is an essential skill necessary to these collaborative conversations–the listening that seeks to understand rather than to fashion an argumentative response. It is an approach that take problem-solving rather than venting seriously, following this process:

  1. Define the racial problem.
  2. Identify what we have in common.
  3. Recognize our cultural or racial differences.
  4. Create solutions that answer the concerns of the racial outgroup.
  5. Find a compromise solution that works best for all. (p. 46)

Before going on to contend for this model, he addresses the failure of colorblindness to address the reality of institutional discrimination and the failure of antiracism due to its reliance on power and compulsion rather than the moral suasion where former adversaries become convinced allies.

Yancey offers empirical support for his model with a qualification. He cites research showing the effectiveness of mutual accountability in fostering agreement and collaboration between parties. The big “but” is that no significant research has yet been done on the effectiveness of this model in reducing racial bias, although some research from diversity programs suggest that “intergroup contact and cooperative interventions within diversity training efforts have promising potential to reduce prejudice.” He then turns to theological support for his model, noting the examples of resolution of intergroup conflict such as Acts 6. In a world under the illusion of human perfectibility, the Bible reminds us of our depravity and the folly of relying on our own intelligence and moral sense. Finally, he considers how mutual accountability might work in our lives.

He concludes with a call for a mutual accountability movement in addressing racial issues. He offers the example of Sean Sheppard, founder and CEO of Game Changer, a California-based organization working with communities and police departments using collaborative conversation and mutual accountability methods. While not seeing himself as a movement organizer, he hopes to mobilize social media influencers and to promote the work of the Baylor Program for Collaborative Conversation and Race, a research and training center to fill the gap in empirical research in apply mutual accountability models to racial issues.

I have to acknowledge that my response to this work is that of a white boomer male. I admit to having felt shamed and stigmatized and silenced precisely because of that status, which I cannot change no matter how much I do in the cause of antiracism. I also have seen how inadequate colorblind solutions are, which I believe are attempts to “heal lightly our nation’s racial wounds.” Yancey gives word to the lack of ease I’ve had with both of these approaches. What he advocates seems to me to be rooted in the way of peace and reconciliation I’ve learned as a Christian.

Still, I find myself wondering whether this alone is adequate. I can’t imagine there being those willing to sit down in conversations of mutual accountability to desegregate schools, public accommodations, or grant voting rights. Strategies of court cases, disciplined protest marches and boycotts, non-violent resistance, and the return of love for hate were necessary because no one was at the table with them.

I also wonder how words like “mutual” and “collaborative” work when through history Blacks have born far more than their share of the burden of reconciling our race relations. I think there is a point to be heard in the insistence of antiracist trainers that Whites “need to do the work.” I suspect that language can alienate, but I’m afraid that Yancey’s language could allow those in the majority culture to offload their own responsibility in an unhelpful way.

Still, while there have been real advances in civil rights, I see us more deeply racially polarized and tribalized than almost any time in my adult life, despite extensive DEI efforts in many companies and institutions. Might it be time to try approaches that get people together as collaborators in shared solutions to which they are mutually accountable? That’s the question Yancey is asking, and one that I think is not unreasonable, based on both research and the failings of other approaches.

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

Review: That Distant Land

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That Distant Land, Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2004.

Summary: A collection of short stories about the Port William membership not part of the longer novels.

If you’ve read a number of the fictional short stories of Wendell Berry, it is likely that you have encountered some of the stories in this collection. Stories from three earlier publications are represented here, although some differ slightly in the telling: The Wild Birds, Fidelity, and Watch with Me. I didn’t mind, though. It was delightful to revisit the courtship of Ptolemy Proudfoot and Minnie Quinch, to chuckle when the temperate Minnie determines to “dispose” of the half-pint of Old Darling Ptolemy had bought for lambing, or feel a sense of vindication when Ptolemy reveals he is far from the country bumpkin and gets the last laugh in “The Lost Bet.”

Two of the stories from Fidelity were a particular joy, both involving the lawyer Wheeler Catlett, who worked as hard to preserve the membership as any in Port William. The title work, “That Distant Land” conveys the bittersweet reflections also found in “The Wild Birds” at the losses to modernity Port William has suffered but also his dawning realization that the illegitimate son of Burley Coulter, who Burley wants to inherit his land is also part of that membership, not only by birth but through his care of the land in the company of Burley and others of the membership. “Fidelity,” I think is simply one of the greatest pieces of short story fiction. Danny “rescues” (or kidnaps, in the eyes of the law) Burley from the hospital where he is being kept alive on life support which is merely prolonging his dying at great expense. This was before the hospice movement, and the recognition of how providing a dignified dying in a familiar place is indeed fidelity to the dying. The beauty of what Danny does (not euthanasia but simply allowing Burley a natural death) and the way the membership stands together to protect him from the legal ramifications is both consummate storytelling and thought provoking.

There were several stories I hadn’t read before that I savored. “Making It Home” tells the story of Art Rowanberry’s military service, his recovery from the physical wounds and the mental ones that remain, as he walks home through countryside once again familiar, making it in time for dinner. “The Discovery of Kentucky” is one of those wisdom tales that shows how pompous pretensions can go sideways at the inaugural parade when a float to commemorate Kentucky is manned by Burley and his friends, when best-laid plans go awry and when the float sponsor totally fails to realize how the sign he has posted will be read in light of everything else. “The Inheritors,” which closes out the collection describes one of the final encounters between Wheeler Catlett and Danny Branch. Wheeler, who is slowly failing of body and mind, persuades Danny to drive him to a stock sale and then subjects Danny to a hair-raising drive home on the wrong side of the Interstate. Through it all, one senses an intimacy between the two, a passing of the baton and a blessing as Wheeler comes to the point of relinquishing his membership as Danny fully takes it up.

This is a fantastic collection of 23 of Berry’s Port William short stories, the best thing to read if you haven’t read any of the other works represented here. The arrangement of the stories is chronological and tells the story of a community over nearly a hundred year period. The book also includes a detailed map of Port William and a family tree of the Beechum, Feltner, and Coulter family lines. This is a great accompaniment to the Port William novels, which are indicated chronologically in the table of contents. All told, this work is one more reminder of the great contribution Mr. Berry has made to American literature.

Review: Playing Favorites

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Playing Favorites, Rodger Woodworth. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021.

Summary: All of us prefer the company of those like us while the gospel bids us to engage across cultures, with those unlike us, challenging us to stop “playing favorites.”

We like to think of ourselves as tolerant and unprejudiced. But the fact is that all of us prefer the company of those like us and unconsciously are biased against those different from us. Yet as Christians, we worship a God who shows no partiality and calls us to live that way. Even if we agree with this idea, how do we experience change in our propensity to prefer those who are like us? Rodger Woodworth explores that question in this book.

It begins with humility, recognizing that all we have comes of the grace of God. We are not the great stuff we think we are and we might do well to recognize as more significant. Instead Woodworth observes we often cling to the life-preservers of our abilities, our race, our political party, our social status, and our culture. When we do so, we lose sight of the impartial God of grace and become partial toward others. We build walls for which Christ died to create peace between “us” and “them” making a new people that are just “us.” Why then do we resurrect barriers?

Woodworth explores all the people with whom Jesus broke down barriers: lepers, gentiles, and women. God’s grace makes us all even as we see in the parable of the workers: all were hired at his initiative, all were paid a full day’s wage, and God made them all equal (which bothers the heck out of many of us!). He traces Peter’s journey to overcome partiality–from declaring that God shows no favoritism in the house of Cornelius to retreating when Jewish brothers saw him hanging out with Gentiles and being rebuked for his hypocrisy by Paul.

Will we be those who tear down the fences and cross the street to love the neighbor who is different as the Samaritan did? Drawing on Miroslav Volf, he suggests that this may begin with examining our assumptions about the other and listening to how the other thinks of us and then taking the risk to invite the other into our lives. Drawing on his church-planting experience in an urban context he describes his own efforts to bridge cultural divides. He urges, “focus on the marginalized over the multitudes.” He paints a picture of becoming a third culture people, opening and embracing, but not crushing, and who can both remain close to and critique our home culture.

Woodworth concludes with practical advice: to make prayer, particularly for one’s own transformation, a priority, to learn from the perspectives of those who are different, to find a person from whom one can learn, to submit to service providers of different races, and be willing to enter situations where you are the minority.

This is a pithy little book (82 pages plus discussion guide) with a laser-focus on one thing–moving from playing favorites to bridging cultural divides and embracing those different than us. Woodworth has “walked the talk,” and the feel of the book is an invitation to “come with me and do as I have done.”

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

Review: Work Pray Code

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Work Pray Code, Carolyn Chen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022.

Summary: A sociologist studies how Silicon Valley tech firms bring religion into the workplace, replacing traditional religious institutions, blurring the line of work and religion.

I’ll just say it up front. Anyone who cares about the future of work needs to read this book. Carolyn Chen, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, spent 2013 to 2017 immersing herself in the tech world of Silicon Valley as a participant observer of the trend of incorporating religious practices into the work life of Silicon Valley companies. She did over 100 in-depth interviews and attended retreats, mindfulness sessions, and various “wellness” programs offered by companies.

What she observed was the expansion of work in these companies to fill the whole of workers lives. Many ate two to three meals a day at work, often catered by the companies, along with healthy snacks. They worked out in company gyms and walked on pathways, placed children in company daycare facilities, and learned meditation practices at company-sponsored retreats and used company-provided meditation spaces. For many of these workers, their place of work has become the source of personal, social, and spiritual fulfillment. At the same time, the involvement of many of these workers in traditional religious institutions and other community and civic institutions has waned.

What Chen chronicles at one level is corporate concern for the whole person. Yet underneath this, Chen discerns that so much of this concern for the “whole person” is driven by productivity concerns, to get the “whole person’s” devotion to the corporate mission. Workers spoke of “drinking the kool aid” in terms eerily reminiscent of cult-like groups, leading Chen to conclude that in many of these workers’ lives, their work is their religion.

The “religious” element draws from the meditative practices of Buddhism, shorn of the metaphysical and ethical content. A number of scientific and pseudo-scientific rationalizations are offered by the coaches and teachers who make up a “mindfulness” industry that offers services to these companies. Many are Zen teachers in temples who find this a way to support themselves, particularly as interest in the traditional religious institution wanes. The focus is on focus, helping people become fully attentive, self-aware, and present to their work. But Chen chillingly observes that an amoral “focus” can be turned both to life-enhancing work and to murder. For the teachers, it is a Faustian bargain, profitable contracts that vitiate the real religious content of their Buddhism–“replacing it with a universalized, Whitened, scientized, profitable, and efficient Buddhism.” Furthermore it is a thin religion that fails to challenge the unjust caste system in tech firms that offers these benefits to the elite tech workers, but not to the support staff.

Her concluding chapter addresses the dangers of what she calls “techtopia.” She describes the monopolization of human energy pulling people away from the communities where they live, from civic and religious involvements. She expresses her concern for what happen to communities when religious and civic institutions suffer. She also expresses concern for workers, who give themselves to this religion until they are used up, and really can’t leave this world, reinventing themselves as coaches when they can no longer bear the totalizing pull of the corporations. Individual “resistance” to this pull is not enough, in her view. She believes the answer is to invest in non-work communities–faith communities, neighborhoods, families, and civic associations.

Reading this work makes me think about whether what she describes in Silicon Valley is a picture of the future of work on a wider basis or whether this is a local phenomenon. I cannot help but think this is going to grow, although I also wonder how the trend to remote work resulting from the pandemic will affect this. Chen briefly touches on this, observing that remote work can actually contribute to work demanding even more of one’s life, as commute times are eliminated and one never “clocks out.” I also wonder if other industries that demand heavy investments of their workers might pursue similar strategies–for example, the health care industry.

The fusion of religion and work Chen describes occurs at a time when trust in religious institutions is at a low point and there is a “great resignation” going on among pastors and other religious leaders. Chen describes a spiritual hunger that suggests a great opportunity for religious institutions able to pivot. They can’t simply promote “butts in seats.” They have to address the big questions of meaningful life, humble and authentic communal life extending welcome and inclusion, and spiritual practices connecting the transcendent and every day life.

This work also implies an important discussion to be had about the renewal of our communities in an age of anomie, of the weakening of critical local institutions. The answer isn’t to be found in workplace or political cults. Many of our local communities are becoming combat zones that neither workplace or political cults can truly address. Only strong local institutions can do so–and this only if work is limited to its appropriate place in our lives, allowing the time to invest in the places where we live.

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

Review: Heinrich Heine (Everyman’s Poetry #28)

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Heinrich Heine (Everyman’s Poetry #28), Heinrich Heine (Translated and edited by T. J. Reed and David Cram: London: Everyman/J. M. Dent, 1997.

Summary: A collection of translated poems of Heinrich Heine.

Heinrich Heine composed poetry during the height of the romantic period. Some of his early lyric poetry was set to music by Schubert and Schumann. His later poetry reflects a certain cynicism toward romanticism. For example, the opening poem in this collection, Prologue, begins with him “walking into a fairy wood” and concludes with a statue of The Sphinx coming ravenously to life: “her kisses drove me wild/Her claws dug in again.”

A favored theme is one of beautiful, romantic beginnings with sad or grievous endings, typified in the poem “Sweet-bitter,” beginning with loving embraces under the lindens (lindens are everywhere in Heine) only to end with “the coldest curtsey” and frosty goodbyes. There are poems that draw on mythology, such as The Lorelei, of a beautiful blonde siren atop a rocky outcropping, who distracts shipman who crash upon the rocks. He also has a poem on the Tannhauser legend.

Some of his poetry is political. Heine supported revolutionary movements and fled Germany to Paris in 1831, resenting the censorship of his works. By 1835, his work was banned in Germany. His Germany: A Winter’s Tale is a barbed commentary on its pretensions. In No Need to Worry he observes:

We call them 'fathers', it's 'fatherland'.
Which makes it easy to understand
Why it all belongs to them, and we
Have sausage and sauerkraut for tea.

In October 1849 marks the failed revolutions of 1848. He laments:

This time the Austrian Ox has made
An ally even of the Bear.
Take comfort, Magyar, though you fall --
We have a far worse badge of shame to wear.

During the last eight years of his life, Heine was paralyzed and confined to bed. His poems are increasingly dominated by reflections on his own mortality. Double Vision is an encounter with an doppelganger, one healthy, one sickly that ends with the healthy one pummeling the sick one only to find he was pummeling himself. You may recognize Morphine and its concluding, Job-like lines:

To sleep is good, and death is better, but
Far better still never to have been born.

Heine captures the reality of life as bittersweet. Our loftiest aims will often end disappointed. Life is a tragicomedy for Heine and many of his poems are satires on the romantics with a grotesque or bitter twist. This translation seems to capture the almost “tongue-in-cheek” ironic character of Heine’s poetry. It is accessible, easy to read, even as one ponders the ironic twists. This work, if you can find it, is a wonderful introduction to this unusual poet.

Review: Enjoying the Old Testament

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Enjoying the Old Testament, Eric A. Seibert. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: Seibert deals with the confusing, troubling, or uninteresting experience of many, suggesting the value of reading the Old Testament, and reading strategies for engagement with the text bring life and interest to the Old Testament scriptures.

Have you ever tried reading through the Old Testament and gotten lost in Leviticus or numbed by Numbers and given up the whole project? Sure, at times you read selected texts, maybe from Psalms and Proverbs, or some narratives like Ruth or Jonah (a kids favorite but with important relevance to the rest of us!). Mostly, you confine yourself to the New Testament, which you consider the most relevant portion of the Bible for Christians. But sadly, when we lose the Old Testament, we lose three-quarters of the Bible.

Until a course with an inspiring professor who helped him enjoy reading the Old Testament, Eric Seibert was in much the same place. And that is the object of this book, to pass along ways of reading the Old Testament that are enjoyable, as well as good for us. Most of what he proposes don’t involve more than a Bible, a comfortable chair, paper and pencil.

He begins by laying the groundwork for reading the Old Testament. He acknowledges that there are parts that are boring, or baffling, or even theologically troubling, and then, given that, why we should bother. He actually discounts the standard answer of needing to read the Old Testament to understand the New. He explores the relevance of the Old Testament on its own terms: fascinating stories, models of gutsy faith, resources for worship and prayer, a revelation of a God of lavish love, and God’s concern for justice. He deals with expectations, both unrealistic ones such as the Old Testament all being readily understandable and more realistic ones like a variety of genres, theological perspectives, a worldview different than our own, passages written for many reasons, and the presence of violence and other troubling texts. He invites us to adopt a mindset of carefully observing, of expectancy, of humility and respect, and honest engagement.

He then turns to our enjoyment of Old Testament texts. He starts by inviting us to read favorite stories all the way through, offering tips to understand their significance. He particularly calls attention to repetition, using the tabernacle instructions as an example. He invites us to be curious and ask lots of questions of the text. He sets aside a chapter to focus on reading the prophets, understanding their roles as God’s messengers, and their use of various persuasive techniques. He draws the distinction between judgement and salvation oracles.

He discusses approaches to the boring parts using Leviticus 1-7 as a case study. He encourages slowing down and looking at laws to see if there is a principle that may apply (e.g. the negligent owner of the ox known to gore). Then he returns to the matter of troubling texts, which he encourages us to be honest about and to hang in with them and bring them into conversation with other texts on the same topic that are not troublesome, observing that skeptics only focus on the former. Seibert also recognizes that one might need to take a break from troubling texts in difficult seasons of life.

The final section of the book focuses on a number of different activities that can help one read through books or even the whole Old Testament. He encourages drawing maps, creating simple charts that outline a book or portion, memorizing passages, listening audibly, or reading from a different perspective–for example as a Canaanite the passages about the Israelite invasion. He commends topical, artistic, and reflective approaches. He discusses surveying a book and breaking it into major thought blocks. As he concludes, he invites us to be balanced, use variety and flexibility, to preserve what we learn, and to join with others.

What is delightful about this book is that the author resists the temptation to write an Old Testament introduction but rather gives the reader tools to make his or her own discoveries. Without minimizing the challenges of the Old Testament, Seibert offers lots of hope that we can read through the Old Testament, read whole books of the Old Testament and find substantial enjoyment and spiritual benefit. On the troubling passages, he doesn’t offer easy answers or answers at all, but rather approaches that imply we may live with troubling passages in some cases but this does not need to distract us from other other more enjoyable texts. This is a great resource for an adult class in a church or a college class in a Christian college context.

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

Review: All the Devils Are Here

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All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2020.

Summary: A family visit of the Gamaches to children in Paris suddenly becomes an investigation into the attempted murder of Stephen Horowitz, Armand’s godfather, and the murder of a close associate, and will put the Gamaches in great peril.

” ‘Hell is empty, Armand,’ said Stephen Horowitz.

‘You’ve mentioned that. And all the devils are here?” asked Armand Gamache.”

All the Devils Are Here. p. 1.

This opening conversation seems strange in the garden of the Musee Rodin as Armand and his godfather Stephen Horowitz, an aging but active venture capitalist, who raised Armand from age nine, talk in the safety of each other’s company, sitting in front of Rodin’s statue, The Gates of Hell. Armand had always felt safe with this man. They are in Paris on a joyous occasion, the imminent birth of a child to Annie and Jean-Guy, and a chance to visit Daniel and Roslyn. They agree to meet that night for dinner with the whole family.

After dinner as they walk, tragedy strikes. Stephen Horowitz is run down by a van. To Gamache it is no accident, but intentional, and as Stephen lays clinging to life, Gamache works with Claude Dussault, the Prefect of Police in Paris to uncover who is behind all this. But not before the Armand and Reine-Marie find a second man gunned down in Stephen’s apartment, which has been ransacked in what appears an unsuccessful search, the Gamaches interrupting the gunman.

The whole family soon becomes involved. It becomes apparent that the engineering firm with which Jean-Guy is working, a position secretly arranged by Stephen, has been the target of Stephen’s efforts, that were to culminate with Stephen’s attendance at an upcoming board meeting. Jean-Guy searches for what could have been so important to cover up in the firm, GHS, drawing the attention of a security guard who turns out to be more than that. Daniel digs into financial transactions Stephen had with his bank, imperiling his safety. Reine-Marie works with a famous French archivist to discover both the secrets hidden in some cryptic dates Stephen had written on a piece of paper, and to learn the truth about disturbing allegations about Stephen’s past.

The investigations put the whole family at risk, and they move into a lavish suite Stephen mysteriously rented for his stay rather than using his own apartment, where they could be better protected. But the secret whose threads they are unraveling is apparently so dire that those concealing it have left a trail of bodies in their wake, including a journalist investigating a GHS mine and a mysterious train derailment. And the trail of corruption appears to include even Gamache’s old friend Dussault. What protection do they have if the Paris police are corrupted?

Along the way, we discover more about Gamache’s childhood with Stephen, and about the cause of the estrangement between Gamache and his son Daniel, going back to Daniel’s childhood. And Gamache and Jean-Guy are teamed up once more, for those of us who feared we’d seen the end of their teamwork.

The two things that make this a riveting read are the effort to uncover GHS’s buried secret and the question of whether Gamache and the family team (plus a few others) will be able to outsmart and outmaneuver those willing to stop at nothing to protect that secret. They are not even sure of who the “devils” may be and whether they are in their very midst. All this leads to a heart-stopping climax at Stephen’s apartment.

Once again, resolute love runs through this book–the love between Armand and Stephen, expressed with great tenderness at Stephen’s bedside, the love Armand has for his family, even, and especially the estranged Daniel, who at the same time realizes that Jean-Guy has become something to Armand that Daniel is not able to share.

Which brings me back to what captures my appreciation for this series. It is not just the consummate storytelling, but above all the character of Gamache and those around him, people of resolve, integrity, and grace who at least this reader wants to emulate.

Review: Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles?

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Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? Ian Hutchinson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press/Veritas Books, 2018.

Summary: A collection of responses to questions about God and science asked by students at Veritas Forums on university campuses throughout the country.

There is a popular conception that science and religion are at war and that anyone who is engaged in scientific research rejects the idea of a God. If that is the case, Ian Hutchinson apparently didn’t get the memo. That’s all the more extraordinary because Hutchison is a plasma physicist doing research and teaching at MIT. He has published over two hundred peer-reviewed articles and at least two books in his field. And he didn’t grow up Christian, as he shares in this book. He came to faith in college after a careful search.

Hutchinson has been willing to go public with his faith, speaking at a number of university campuses through the Veritas Forum. One of the features of these speaking engagements are audience questions from students in attendance. Over the years, he has collected these questions, many of which concern how scientists can possibly embrace the Christian faith. In this work, after sharing his own journey to faith and subsequent life, he organizes these into thirteen chapters. In this case, listing the table of contents may be the best way to summarize the issues he covers:

Preface
1. A Spiritual Journey
2. Are There Realities Science Cannot Explain?
3. What Is Faith?
4. Do Scientists Have Faith?
5. Does Reason Support Christian Belief?
6. What Is Scientism?
7. Is There Really Spiritual Knowledge?
8. Creation and Cosmology
9. Do Miracles Happen?
10. The Bible and Science
11. Of All the World’s Religions, Why Christianity?
12. Why Does God Seem Hidden?
13. Is There Good and Evil?
14. Personal Consequences: So What?

As you can see, the title of the work is just one of these chapters. How he approaches this is a good reflection of the approach of the whole book. He starts with a definition of a miracle: a miracle is an extraordinary act of God. He observes that because of its extraordinary character, the existence of miracles cannot be proven or disproven because science requires reproducibility. This is actually modest because he admits that miracles involve interpretation. All science can do is speak to the likelihood of such an event. He also argues that the inviolability of nature’s laws is not a doctrine of science. Natural explanations of events needn’t be the only explanations. Quantum reality actually suggests a universe that is not a closed system of natural laws. He discounts many miracle legends and focuses on the miracles of the incarnation and resurrection as central to Christianity. Along the way, he addresses natural explanations as well as the possibility of miracles in other religions, arguing that these are most worth considering when consistent with the whole worldview of that religion.

Several things are striking: there is respect for the questions, the responses both explore the logic, as well as possible misconceptions, of the question and then offers reasoned responses with significant documentation. Throughout, there is high regard for the work of scientists and the results of science and the conviction that there is nothing in science that calls into question the existence of God or the truth of the central claims of Christianity. Actually, the question that is the most challenging for Hutchinson is not a scientific one but rather the existence of evil and the questions it raises of the goodness of God. He does offer thoughtful responses to this as well, and observes that evil is also a problem for the atheist.

Because of the question-based format, this does feel a bit like a question and answer session. That may be useful as a reference for someone who has similar questions or friends who do. It also reflects the tone I’ve witnessed when I’ve heard Hutchinson speak: articulate, forthright but not arrogant, gracious and yet well-reasoned. One interlocutor told me that he had checked out Hutchinson ahead of time and agreed to engage with him, convinced that they would have a real conversation, not a set up. And that’s what one finds here.

Review: The Abuse of Conscience

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The Abuse of Conscience, Matthew Levering. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2021.

Summary: An analysis of the moral theology of twenty-six recent theologians tracing the rise of conscience-centered moral life, considered problematic by the author.

Matthew Levering, a theologian teaching at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago, believes Catholic moral theology has come to place far too great an emphasis on conscience in the moral life of the Christian. This work traces both the theological developments that led to this over-emphasis or “abuse” as well as the critiques of biblical and Thomistic theologians. He does this by analyzing the moral theology of twenty-six twentieth century theologians divided into four parts.

First, he considers eight theologians under the heading of conscience and the Bible: George Tyrrell, Hastings Rashdall, Rudolf Bultmann, C. A. Pierce, Yves Congar, OP, Johannes Stelzenberger, Philippe Delhaye, and Richard B. Hays. Tyrell and Rashdall see the church and Christ forming a collective conscience. Pierce, by contrast, limits the role of conscience on New Testament grounds. Bultmann argues that conscience constitutes the real self in obedience to God. Congar, Stelzenberger, and Delhaye represent a spectrum of responses from strong critique to strong support of conscience centered approaches. Hayes, by contrast, doesn’t mention conscience, but focuses on how the cross, community, and the new creation shape moral theology.

Then Levering looks at a group of theologians who are grouped under conscience and the moral manuals: Austin Fagothey, SJ, Thomas J. Higgins, SJ, Michael Cronin, Antony Koch, and Dominic M. Prümmer, OP. This approach seeks to address all the moral issues Catholics may confront in life, seeking to form the conscience to respond morally, and represents for Levering a step toward conscience-centered moral theology, away from the virtues, including prudence, communion with Christ, and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Third, Thomist theologians on conscience are considered: Benoît-Henri Merkelbach, OP, Michel Labourdette, OP, Eric D’Arcy, Reginald G. Doherty, OP, and Servais Pinckaers, OP. Labourdette and Pinckaers both offer critiques from a Thomist perspective. D’Arcy offers a distinctive defense of religious freedom based on an exposition of Aquinas on conscience. Doherty offers an argument why prudence is actually more central than conscience.

Finally, Levering explores the development of existentialist, self-actualizing accounts of conscience in the pre- and post conciliar theology of the German theologians: Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, SJ, Josef Fuchs, SJ, Bernard Häring, CSsR, and Joseph Ratzinger. He particularly traces the post-conciliar development of the thought of Rahner, Haring, and Fuchs.

Levering, in charting the way forward introduces two more theologians: James F. Keenan, SJ who represents the conscience-centered approach and Reinhard Hütter represents a return to Thomistic theology. One thing that is apparent in this survey and the concluding chapter is that Levering believes moral theologians have erred in placing the weight of moral life on the conscience. He argues for the centering of moral life “with God and beatitude at the center, and thus with Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit at the center, healing and elevating the powers of human nature in accord with God’s law” (p. 207). Conscience is subject to these rather than the center, intended to serve prudent action.

I was struck that Levering traces how people can say, “I’m at peace with my conscience” in acting in ways contrary to the teaching of scripture and the Christian community. He puts his finger on how, because of this, moral reasoning became detached from any foundation of universal norms. He does a work of retrieval in recalling us to scripture, the commands of God, the virtues of the Christian life, and the living of a Christ-formed, Christ-centered life, and the aim to strive for a clear conscience, not in reference to self, but to these things.

This was meaty reading on a subject of vital concern to the training of the church’s pastors, which is the work in which Levering is engaged. Will the life of God’s people be shaped by following Christ, revealed in scripture, through the church’s teachers, and communed with in the Eucharist, or will they be shaped by a radically individualistic and autonomous conscience, through which all else is evaluated? According to Levering, we are far down the latter road, abusing what the conscience was made for. His work here is a call to repair, retrieve, and restore.

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

Review: Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict, Marilyn McEntyre. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2020.

Summary: Engaging with the works of contemporary writers, discusses how our care for words that are clear, gracious, and truthful is vital to the pursuit of peace in a contentious world.

After the last two election cycles in the United States, there are very few who would not attest to the power of words to incite verbal and sometimes physical conflict. It raises the question of whether or not words may also have a similar power to lessen tensions and forge concords between people. This is the question that Marilyn McEntyre, who is known for her books on words and their power, explores in this work. As she proposes in her introduction, this is not a book about nice neutrality, but rather how we might speak with truth and clarity and grace even when we must say hard things or stand against an injustice.

She begins by warning against reliance on codified meanings of words because words are malleable and important ones must be defined when we use them–words like war, peace, health, freedom, and love. She observes that euphemisms nearly always conceal ugly realities, such as “collateral damage” and must be interrogated. Language also has the power to remind us of who we are, what story we inhabit, what the values and ways of our place are.

She reminds us of the enriching power of allusions while suggesting that we “mind our metaphors”–for example the combative metaphors used in treating cancer. Alluding to Emily Dickinson, she discusses the value of telling it “slant,” approaching truth obliquely rather than bluntly, with story and art rather than confrontation. We ought promote poetry, because it is a unique form of telling truth “slant.”

McEntyre believes there are times it is necessary to articulate our outrage, when silence betrays the suffering. Civility is concerned with the common good, and when this is in jeopardy, one may need to call out the ways peace and justice are being outraged. She offers seven questions well worth consider that I want to record to remember:

  1. What am I hoping to protect?
  2. What principle is at stake?
  3. Am I the most appropriate person to step into this ring?
  4. What am I risking?
  5. What makes it worth the risk?
  6. Is this the moment?
  7. What would be the consequences of holding my peace?

One chapter I’ve found vital amid this is her chapter on checking facts. More than once, I’ve shared a compelling meme or statement, only to find it was false or taken out of context. Sources and attributions matter, and when the facts really do add up, one has strong impetus for moral action. Along with establishing facts, we need to resist the temptation for simplistic explanations. We need to recognize our discomfort with ambiguity and over-simplistic readings of texts.

Her concluding chapters are on the value of laughter and the folly of our insistence upon winning. Laughter doesn’t slight hard realities, but sets them in place–that there is a goodness and delight to life that remains reflecting the joy of the Creator as well as our own ridiculousness. Instead of “winning” McEntyre suggests “inviting, exploring, musing, modeling, reframing, reflecting, challenging.”

One of the delights of this work is that McEntyre commends examples of writers who do such things: Wendell Berry and Arundhati Roy remind us of what we know, Mary Oliver and Toni Morrison tell it “slant,” W. H. Auden and Marian Edelman articulate outrage, and Brian Doyle and Anne Lamott help us laugh.

I reflect on McEntyre’s words as I am in the midst of Ohio’s senatorial primary vote today. Candidates have stressed how they will “fight,” a couple have boasted of being Marines, and how negotiation, compromise, and working across the aisle are “weak.” We are far more practiced and accustomed to conflict, and yet I am struck that we are often fighting our own people. “A house divided cannot stand.”

I have often mused that there are times when children do not understand that playing with matches can burn the house down…until they burn the house down. Whether we are speaking of the house of our democratic republic or the collective house of our planet, we stand near a precipice where our words can propel us over or pull us back from the edge. McEntyre’s book is a kind of primer for the robust speech of freedom and peace that is not “nice” but forthright, has both clarity and imaginative richness, and both names wrongs and offers a path to set wrongs aright. What has the speech of discord gotten us but an angry, divided land? Might it be time and past time to lay aside the speech of discord and practice the speech of concord. Might it be time to seek and speak peace and pursue it?