Review: Go Tell It on the Mountain

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Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin. New York: Vintage Books, 2013 (originally published in 1953).

Summary: An account of John Grimes fourteenth birthday, centering on his brother Roy’s stabbing, his estrangement from his father, and the Saturday night “tarrying service” at a pentecostal church, revelatory of the lives of those around John and his own “salvation.”

It is John Grime’s fourteenth birthday. He’s the well-behaved older son who can never please his father Gabriel, who struggles with his awakening sexuality, a deep sense of both sin, and resentment of his father’s religion. After doing his chores, his mother gives him some money to spend on his own birthday gift. He goes to the movies. When he returns, he finds his younger brother Roy has been cut up in a knife fight. His father is so angry he takes it out on his wife Elizabeth and John before he finally whips Roy, until Gabriel’s sister Florence restrains him. John slips out to clean the church with his older friend Elisha for the evening “tarrying service,” a pentecostal prayer service on Saturday night before the Sunday service.

The second part centers around the prayer service, and the three prayers of Florence, Gabriel, and Elizabeth, with flashbacks to their earlier lives. Florence, to get away from the town where three white men raped a girl, Deborah, but even more, from her brother Gabriel, always favored, moves to New York, marries Frank who never settles down, leaves her for another woman, and dies in the war. She’s the worldly wise Aunt who sees through her brother’s spiritual facades. Gabriel starts out living a wanton life, then is “saved” and becomes a great preacher. Deborah, the raped woman prayed for him and supported him at his lowest. He marries her in an act of both gratitude and condescension, as no one else will have her. It is a childless marriage and grows cold. Gabriel’s affair with Esther leads to a child. She goes away to have the child with money stolen from Deborah, dies in childbirth, as does the child in his youth–the first Roy (for Royal), named by Esther remembering what Gabriel said he wanted to name his son. Gabriel lives with deep guilt for what he has done and the deaths that resulted, and his deception of now-deceased Deborah. Elizabeth’s prayer recalls the loveless aunt who rescued her from growing up in a brothel, parting her from her father, her flight and affair with Richard who gets her with child, then commits suicide after being arrested for being Black at the wrong place and time. Through Florence she meets and marries Gabriel, who sees the marriage as a kind of atonement for his sin. But he never loves Elizabeth’s child, John like their own son, also named Roy.

The third part begins with John on the floor experiencing a vision that recalls the hostility of his father toward him, his hatred of his father’s religion and struggle with the weight of his sins, and finally, “going through” to blessed salvation, bringing rejoicing from all the saints, and brotherly comfort from Elisha. But Gabriel is yet harsh and disbelieving. One cannot help if he resents the grace he sees in John’s experience that he has never certainly known for himself, for he could never live with Elizabeth joyfully, but only oppressively. There is a lot of guilt here, that centers around Gabriel, but also may reflect the version of Christianity Baldwin experienced. Much of that guilt is experienced around sexuality, even the awakening desires both Elisha and John experience. The alternatives seem to be ecstatic release in prayer at the altar, rebellion via a flight to the secular city, or a stern and censorious form of religion.

One wonders where all this will end up for John, who seems a younger version of the author, caught between the angry step-father and the caring older “brother” (is he more than that, reflecting Baldwin’s homosexual orientation?). Baldwin never takes us beyond that single day in John Grimes life, yet it appears that the day is the first step into a greater freedom that Gabriel can only resent but never know.

Review: The Herods

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The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession. Bruce Chilton. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021.

Summary: A history of this dynasty, tracing its rise from Antipater, the rule of Herod the Great, and his descendants who struggled to recover control over the territories he ruled amid Roman power and rising Jewish discontent.

Any reader of the New Testament recognizes that one or another of the Herods plays a significant part in the birth of Jesus, the ministry and crucifixion of Jesus, and the beginnings of the Christian movement, and the trial of and appeal by Paul to Rome. What is often not considered is the rise of this family from Idumea amid the power struggles of the Jews to maintain independence amid, first the Seleucids and then the Roman power that came to assert control over the lands that once constituted ancient Israel.

Bruce Chilton traces the history of this family and their shrewdness in maintaining Jewish support and pleasing their Roman masters. It begins with Antipater, who modestly never claimed the title “king” of Idumea but allied with Hyrcanus II as high priest of the Jerusalem temple and leader of Judea and allying himself with Pompey against the Seleucids, securing both Hyrcanus in Jerusalem and securing Roman favor for his own family.

Herod, known as “The Great,” was his son. He married Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, gaining legitimacy with the Maccabees, and works first with Mark Antony and then Octavian, securing kingship over Jerusalem, Samaria, Galilee, and Idumea. Chilton traces his ruthlessness, executing first Mariamne’s brother, then Mariamne, and her sons but leaving his kingship in disarray at his death.

Chilton situates the birth of Jesus and the massacre of the innocents during the brief reign of Herod’s son Archelaus over Judea. while Philip ruled in Gaulanitis and Antipas in Galilee and Samaria. Antipas was the shrewdest, stealing his brother Philip’s wife Herodias and working throughout his reign to regain control of Judea and Jerusalem, only to lose it all to his nephew, Agrippa I, who had cultivated Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, who had favored Antipas. Antipas was the one Jesus called “the fox” and Chilton has some interesting insights into gospel passages alluding to Antipas, who concurred in the execution of Jesus, as well as the beheading of John.

Agrippa I recovered the realm of Herod the great, persecuted restive minorities, including the followers of Jesus, and, as recorded in Acts, died an early and grisly death just days after being proclaimed as a god. He was succeeded by Agrippa II over parts of Agrippa I’s realm under tight control of Rome, aided by his sister Berenike, perhaps the more ambitious of the two. But affairs among the Jews were spiraling into open rebellion that they could not stop, resulting in brutal Roman suppression and the fall of Jerusalem. It was Agrippa II and Berenike who consult with Felix and hear Paul’s defense and appeal to Rome.

Chilton offers a narrative that underscores the shrewdness and ambition and ruthlessness, when necessary, of the Herods. He also shows the significant roles played by women in this dynasty: Mariamne, Herodias, Salome, and Berenike among them. We learn of other competent, but lesser lights, like Philip, who appears to have led well in Gaulanitis, and Phasael, Herod the Great’s more restrained older brother who administered Jerusalem until Herod took control.

While Chilton provides both a timeline and a Dramatis personae of important figures, it would have been helpful to provide a family tree or genealogy to make clear the relations among the various figures, and the offspring of multiple marriages. It is also evident that Chilton credits other sources like Josephus above the New Testament writers at points of conflict.

That said, Chilton’s account of this dynasty enriches our understanding of the figures who intersect with the New Testament narratives and played a vital role in second Temple Israel during the decisive century before the fall of the temple.

____________________

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Underground Railroad

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Strock Stone House, a reputed stop on the underground railroad. Photo courtesy of the Austintown Historical Society.

Last week, I re-posted an article on Jared Potter Kirtland, an early resident of Poland, Ohio. His home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. I mentioned that a post on the Underground Railroad would be a good idea for another time. Re-reading that article and a few requests led me to the conclusion that it is time to write that article.

The Underground Railroad was the clandestine effort of a abolitionists in Northern States to help fugitive slaves escaping the South find refuge and make their way to Canada, where they were not subject to capture by fugitive slave hunters. It was illegal to hide or aid fugitive slaves to escape, and so precautions were taken including keeping no records and partitioning the routes so that no one could reveal the whole network of escape routes. The terminology reflected the Underground Railroad analogy.

  • Fugitive slaves were “passengers.”
  • Those who helped escaping slaves find the railroad were “agents.”
  • Guides along the way were known as “conductors.”
  • Hiding places were “stations” and those who hid slaves were “station masters.”

Because Ohio was separated from the slaveholding South by the Ohio River, many slaves escaped across the Ohio River at various points from Cincinnati to Ripley, to Southpoint, Portsmouth, Gallipolis, and Marietta, and to Steubenville. One of the most famous stations was the home of Reverend John Rankin in Ripley, on a hill above the river. The Rankins were the first stop for 2200 fugitive slaves and the likely source of a story of a slave woman and her infant child who escaped across the ice floes on the Ohio River, captured memorably in Uncle Tom’s Cabin by their friend, Harriet Beecher Stowe. The state is crisscrossed with Underground Railroad routes running from the Ohio River to the Lake Erie port cities of the north where people could get boats to Canada: Toledo, Sandusky, Cleveland, Painesville, and Ashtabula among them. There are several markers on the Ohio State campus tracing the route through the campus. In recognition of this, the southeast corner of the new Ohio Union is configured architecturally in the form of a lantern, a sign of a “station,” recognizing the Underground Railroad history associated with the campus.

Compiled from “The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom” by Wilbur H. Siebert, Public Domain

You will notice that several of the Underground Railroad routes ran from the river up the eastern border of Ohio. One of the most famous of these that ran up through Mahoning County began at Wellsville, following what is present day Route 45 up through Salem, Ellsworth, just west of what is now Meander Reservoir up to Warren, on to North Bloomfield and up to Ashtabula. Another branched further east through Canfield, into Youngstown, up to Brookfield and Hartford and then up to Ashtabula. Some may have connected with this by crossing over from Pennsylvania by Poland (the Kirtland House), and then headed north.

In Salem, The Daniel Howell Hise home was one of the stations along the Route 45 line. The Hises were Quakers (as were many abolitionists and those involved in the Underground Railroad). Salem at that time had a high percentage of Quakers and hosted many national events. In the 1850’s, the Hises bought a Gothic Revival Farmhouse that included many hidden rooms under the house and in a nearby barn. Slaves could stay in hiding, rest, and eat until a conductor would take them to the next station.

That next station may have been in Ellsworth, a center of abolitionist activity, or in Canfield, the home of Chauncey Fowler. Fowler was a physician who provided food, clothing, and no doubt, medical care to slaves on the way to Canada. On the way home from an abolitionist meeting in Ellsworth, Fowler narrowly escaped an attack by a band of pro-slavery men. Being an abolitionist and a station master were dangerous activities.

The Strock Stone House, a bit south of Mahoning Avenue was also not far from Route 45. Francis Henry lived in the house from 1851 to 1863, and this was the likely time it was used as a station. The house was isolated and allowed fugitives and their conductor to approach unseen.

One of the conductors, from Bazetta Township, was Levi Sutliff, who possibly brought slaves to the house of Judge Leicester King whose house was along Route 45 by the Mahoning River in Warren. King was a statewide leader in anti-slavery efforts. From there, they went north to North Bloomfield, the site of slave rescue in 1823, when slaves were hidden by the residents and then protected in a hideout in Rome, about 12 miles away. The slave hunters were put up in the Tavern, where a variety of stalling tactics from “sleeping late” to the horses of the slave hunters some how turning up with a shoe missing, requiring the attentions of a blacksmith, allowing the slaves to make good their escape.

From Rome, slaves found another station in Austinburg, and then made their way to Ashtabula where they were put on boats to Canada and freedom. One interesting connection to the Youngstown area was that three nephews of Nehemiah Hubbard, Jr. (after whom Hubbard is named) settled in Ashtabula: William, Matthew, and Henry. All were heavily involved in abolitionist efforts and William’s house was the final station for many on the Underground Railroad. The house survives and is now Hubbard House Underground Railroad Museum.

The other route, from Poland, conducted slaves on to Youngstown where there was a station managed by John Loughridge, the leader of the abolitionist movement there. Slaves may have been conducted from there to Brookfield and Hartford, where Dudley Tracy was a station master and radical abolitionist.

As I noted, because this was dangerous activity, many of the “stations” were kept quiet, with no records. My hunch is that this is only a representative sample of many who were involved in the Mahoning Valley and other parts of eastern Ohio in rescuing fugitive slaves. If you know of other stations and conductors or can add to the stories here, I’d love for you to do so in the comments. There was a strong abolitionist movement throughout eastern Ohio and the Western Reserve, with many prominent people who took great risks because they believed in human equality and freedom. There is an inspiring story to be told of which this is just a small part.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: Having the Mind of Christ

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Having the Mind of Christ, Ben Sternke and Matt Tebbe. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press/Formatio, 2022.

Summary: Looks at the changed paradigms one must understand to experience deep and lasting change in our lives.

If one is thoughtful at all about one’s Christian life, we grasp that somehow, this means becoming more like Christ in our attitudes, dispositions, and behavior. In short, it means change, even radical transformation in our lives. Catechesis, spiritual disciplines, and faithfulness in the ordinary are all a part of it. The authors of this book contend that along with these good things needs to come a transformed perspective–new paradigms, new ways of thinking grounded in how God engages with us in Christ.

The authors identify eight axioms that reflect this new way of seeing. In fact, they liken them to corrective lenses, that bring reality into focus for us. The eight axioms are:

Axiom 1: God Is Love, So It’s All About Love
Axiom 2: God Is Always Present and at Work
Axiom 3: God Is Just Like Jesus
Axiom 4: God Meets Us in Our Messy Reality
Axiom 5: God Cares About (All of) It More Than We Do
Axiom 6: God Does the Same Work Through Us and in Us
Axiom 7: God’s Love Always Reckons with Power
Axiom 8: God Transforms Us Through Embodied Participation

On the face of it, none of these statements seems earthshaking. Yet there is a certain “bluntness” in these axioms and fresh insight in the chapters that elaborate them that makes this come alive. For example to talk about God being love takes the authors into the idea that our lives are meant to be lived in loving communion with God–all the time, in all the ordinaries. For God to be always present and at work means we don’t have to persuade God to be working but to look for that presence and work. God doesn’t “show up.” He’s already there. I love the symmetry of God doing through us in the world what he is doing in us, but also recognize how we try to separate that work, bottling it up in us or trying to do in the world what we are not allowing God to do in us.

Perhaps the most challenging chapter is the one on God’s love always reckoning with power. The authors make the point that “God’s love is not powerblind.” They point to examples in the ministry of Jesus in which he recognizes power, redistributes power, and redefines power. They write:

“God’s love in Jesus works inside the current system of power to bring equity and justice to the marginalized and oppressed, while at the same time seeking to subvert and upend the current system of power that created the conditions for inequity and injustice to begin with. In other words, God’s love doesn’t simply put new people on the top of old oppressive hierarchies. God’s love seeks to topple the unjust hierarchies and show us how to live together in love, practicing justice and peace with one another to establish communion-in-love with one another and God” (p. 123).

Each chapter includes with an experiment of trust to help integrate the new paradigm into our lives. As the book concludes, the authors invite us into active trust, defining belief as acting as if something is true. They propose a cycle of compassionate awareness toward what is happening in our lives, bringing what we see of ourselves into creative alignment with what we see in the gospel and discern the lies we’ve believed and the truth to which we are called, culminating in cooperative action with God involving our embodied lives and relationships.

This is a helpful book not only for young believers but for those who have been following Jesus for some time. We easily take our eyes off God and make it about what we need, ought, or should do. Did you notice that each of these axioms begins with God as the subject who acts? Having the mind of Christ is having a mind centered on who God is and what God is doing in the world and with us, and in light of that, our only sensible response of loving, trusting, and acting in faith. And in that is the transformation we long for.

____________________

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

Review: The Forgotten Man

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The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes. New York: MJF Books, 2008.

Summary: An account of the Depression years, focusing on why the Depression lasted so long, and the impact it had on so many different kinds of “forgotten men” and women.

Many accounts of the Depression have focused on the magnetic leadership of Franklin Roosevelt, creating work programs, declaring bank holidays, and seeking to give hope to the “forgotten man.” Amity Shlaes also considers various forgotten people, but asks the searching question of why the Depression lasted so long.

We are introduced to an impressive array of characters, many who recur as central figures throughout the account. There is the brain trust around Roosevelt, the “best and brightest” of his generation, who conceived of a variety of social and reform programs, mostly ineffectual: Harold Ickes, Raymond Moley, and Rex Tugwell. We meet the entrepreneurs and business people who find themselves on the wrong side of a government crusade against business, from Andrew Mellon to electrification pioneers Samuel Insull and Wendell Willkie, to the Schechter Brothers, kosher poultry wholesalers prosecuted for violating regulations of the National Recovery Act, and ultimately vindicated in court.

There are a variety of colorful figures, from Father Divine, a cult leader teaching Black self-sufficiency, John Llewellyn Lewis, a strong labor leader, David Lilienthal who headed up the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federalized effort to bring electric power to the South and “Bill” Wilson, the Wall Street alcoholic who founds Alcoholics Anonymous and in the 1930’s writes AA’s Big Book.

The book is basically an argument that the reason the Depression lasted so long was that the financial tinkering, taxation, and New Deal programs and over-reaching attacks on business “forgot” the people who made the country prosper. It recognizes the value of public works efforts like the WPA, the foundations of which were laid in the Hoover administration resulting in important infrastructure development that both put money into and facilitated the economy.

The book raises important questions about the role of government in economic downturns, arguing a classic conservative line that an activist, interventionist approach may prolong an economic downturn. Yet it also reflects the pressure a government faces from those suffering the most to “do something,” to appear to have not forgotten the little guy.

I personally found the work a tough read because it tried to follow so many threads, so many figures in a chronological account that at time the narrative felt like a lot of disparate stories and events strung together rather than the cohesive and compelling accounts the best historians render.

In the end, a global war lifted the country out of the Depression. Shlaes leaves us wondering if it needed take that long.

Hibernating With Books

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This gentleman is not exactly hibernating. Perhaps he is waiting for a ride. For most of us the coming of winter means moving our reading indoors. In many ways it is welcome to me. It means a break from yard and garden chores for a few months and longer evenings to read.

So, how might one think of hibernating with books?

I’m a bit like the squirrels I watch in my yard, gathering acorns from my oak. The last weeks have been a time of “squirreling away” my reads. As a reviewer, that’s meant perusing various publishers for new and upcoming releases to review and requesting them.

I also keep an eye out for current books I’m interested in. I have Celeste Ng’s (an Ohio-born author) new book on my TBR pile and am looking forward to the release of Louise Penny’s newest Gamache later this month.

Long evenings, particularly in our dead of winter in January, are always a good time to lose oneself in a long book. I have a new novel, The Deluge, (actually coming out in early 2023) by Stephen Markley, another Ohio author. I also have a biography of Jonathan Edwards, a theological hero, by George Marsden, that I can’t wait to sink my teeth into.

Of course, libraries are a great source of winter reads. It’s a good place to learn about newly published books and get recommendations. If hauling home a stack of books isn’t your thing, e-book borrowing is simple and free. Find out what app, like Overdrive, they use and load up your e-reader.

Used book sales are another way to squirrel away books. Many libraries do this as a fundraiser. I have friends who make great finds at Goodwill.

Have you run out of shelf space? Winter can be a good time to cull out the books you won’t read again, or even for the first time. You can donate or sell them. I half joke that my local Half Price store is my ATM. Truth is, I haven’t been to an ATM since before the pandemic.

Maybe it’s time for more shelves. Winter’s good for that, whether you buy or build them yourself. Then there is the fun of arranging them. And even if you don’t add shelves, if you are like me you could stand to tidy them. You might even try to catalog your books. Apps like LibraryThing make it easy and even have barcode scanners.

“Hibernating” doesn’t mean being antisocial. Bundle up and go to a reading, join a book group, or even just invite a group over to talk about favorite books. A grad group I was connected with did a books and brownies night. I always came away with one or two reading ideas.

But there is also that simple delight of a comfortable chair, a good light, a warm beverage, and that book you’ve been waiting to read, with a few others nearby. Sometimes simple pleasures are the best. Happy hibernating with books!

Review: Humble Pi

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Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World, Matt Parker. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020

Summary: An exploration of all the ways we use (and misuse) math in the real world, and the ways our calculations can go badly wrong.

Were you among those who wondered how on earth you would ever use that math you learned in high school? The truth is that even if you do not, there are others using that math in just about every aspect of our physical world from our bridges to our medical hardware to our buildings. The amazing thing is how we can describe and predict how things will work through our calculations. And sometimes, if we make a mistake, or a wrong assumption, those calculations can go badly wrong. Some of those mistakes are just amusing or complete nonsense. But some can be deadly…

Matt Parker explores many of the ways math goes wrong in the real world, citing dozens of real world examples for the different classes of math errors he discusses. He starts with how we lose track of time, particularly with our timekeeping rollover features on our computers. Usually, it’s no problem because they start counting each time we turn them on. But leave it running long enough for the time to roll over, and the world can come to a grinding halt, a real problem if it occurs mid-flight.

He discusses engineering problems, like the failure to calculate resonance effects on bridges and engineer to compensate for them. One of the most famous, and tragic, was the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways when the design of how sections of box beams were supported by nuts was changed without recalculating load limits. Then there are the errors that can creep into spreadsheet formulas and calculations that can produce misleading information on which businesses make decisions.

We often make counting mistakes with intervals. Like how many posts do you need to support a five section fence? (Six). We make geometry mistakes, like the example of the diagram of a soccer ball with all the sections, white and black, being hexagonal. This is not possible on a spherical ball which is why the white sections are hexagons and the black ones are pentagons. Shapes are important. Deformations on rocket boosters combined with cold circular O-rings spelled disaster on a space shuttle. Some are the minor difference in precisely engineered parts that are outside tolerances or times when conventions of measurement vary among those on the same project.

Many of the mistakes concern the peculiarities of computer calculations, including rounding errors and supposed randomization programs and errors of even a single line of code in an algorithm. Another math problem is what “average” means and what you do with that where most people aren’t “average.” So often, math and computer code are part of complex systems, that when changed, involve recalculating or reviewing every part. Often the things overlooked create problems.

Parker explains all of this in language even this non-mathematician can understand and includes many images and illustrations, making this an enjoyable read (while reminding us the acts of faith involved in everything from spreadsheets to suspension bridges to airplane flights). We assume talented people have made, checked, and rechecked calculations and code for accuracy. And most of the time, things work…except when they don’t.

He also alerts us to fallacies that we may encounter with statistics or so-called random numbers or even in how we count. What seems common sense is not in every case.

There’s one other interesting quirk in this book, and that is in the pagination, which is in reverse order, from 313 to zero, and then a roll over number, 4,294,967,294. I kind of liked it personally. How many times have you wondered, “how many pages left in this book?” In this case, the page number you are on is the answer! This feature may give you a sense of the light touch this author takes in a book dealing with ostensibly serious matters making it such a good read.

Review: Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.

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Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. Expanded edition. Andrew T. LePeau & Linda Doll, edited by Al Hsu. Foreword by Jeff Crosby and Robert A. Fryling. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: A narrative history of this evangelical publishing house, a division of a campus ministry, upon the publishing house’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

I was a high school junior, eager to grow in and share my faith due to the influence of the local version of the Jesus Movement upon my life. One of our leaders, a former InterVarsity student leader, invited a group of us to his home and showed us a table full of books and invited us to buy (very cheaply) anything that interested us. I chose Know Why You Believe by Paul Little and read it from cover to cover as it spoke to the questions both I and the people I shared Christ with were asking. That was my first exposure to the quality publications of InterVarsity Press, over fifty years ago. In later years, my son started asking the same questions and I took him out for Saturday breakfasts to discuss the book–and lots of other things.

It was an utter delight to read this history of InterVarsity Press. I should mention at the outset that I’m hardly an impartial reviewer. I work for the campus ministry of which InterVarsity Press is a part. I’ve had the privilege to know many of the people in this book, both living and with the Lord, and count some as friends. I’ve lived through a number of the organizational events mentioned in the book. I’ve even been a guest at a couple of the sites that the Press called home. And of course, I’ve read most of the books mentioned here, using many of them in ministry with students as well as being spiritually formed by many of them.

The very beginnings of InterVarsity Press are rooted in collegiate ministry as well as InterVarsity’s connection with InterVarsity Fellowship in the UK. Thoughtful literature was considered an indispensable part of work with students, particularly in the early years where students saw a staff worker maybe once a semester. The UK connection was also important, because the earliest books came from IVF’s publishing and the history notes the continued influence of UK authors from John Stott to J.I. Packer to N.T. Wright on InterVarsity’s publications. These were voices that were evangelical, thoughtful, and articulate–addressing the concerns of students–and as it turned out, a wider audience.

One of the key early moments was the first Bible Study guide published in the US on the Gospel of Mark, written by Jane Hollingsworth. It set an early precedent of women being represented and affirmed, not only in InterVarsity’s field ministry but in its publications. The book tells the story behind many of the publications that established InterVarsity Press as a publisher: the transcription of Paul Little’s lectures on evangelism into How To Give Away Your Faith, the work of editor James Sire with Francis Schaeffer, the connection with John White, a psychologist who wrote The Fight and a lengthy list of other books for IVP, the discovery of Calvin Miller’s The Singer and Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction in the “slush” pile, launching the publishing careers of both authors, and the brief stopover in the UK that led to publication of J. I. Packer’s Knowing God.

The account describes the organizational development of the Press, including the move to its own facilities in Downers Grove–first a house, and later a former auto dealership, and finally the move of the offices to join their warehouse in Westmont, Illinois. We are also introduced to the succession of leaders and editors who gave organizational and editorial leadership: directors Joe Bayley, Jim Nyquist, Linda Doll, Ken DeRuiter, Bob Fryling, Jeff Crosby, and Terumi Nichols, the current president of InterVarsity Press, and editors like Jim Sire, Andy LePeau, Jim Hoover and Dan Reid with academic books, and current editors including Al Hsu, Cindy Bunch, and Jon Boyd. One of the great partnerships at IVP was that of Jim Nyquist and Jim Sire (“the two Jims”). It waa during this time that InterVarsity Press really came into its own and became the resource to thoughtful evangelicals that it continues to be to this day.

The book doesn’t gloss over controversies, perhaps the most significant of which was an early “cancelling” effort by Franky Schaeffer of a book titled Brave New People, which advocated a strongly pro-life stance throughout, but in dealing with the most extreme cases of birth fetal abnormalities (like fetuses without a brain) allowed that these were the only cases where an abortion may even be contemplated. The book was labeled pro-abortion for mooting even this rare possible exception and attacked in various articles, leading to the loss of some InterVarsity donors, picketing at the press, and the withdrawal of the book, causing consternation among other authors, wondering if this could happen if the public didn’t like something in their books. The history explores the particular vulnerability exploited in this instance–the connection between the Press and the donor-supported campus ministry of which it is a part that is not the case with many publishers.

The expanded edition includes coverage of the last twenty-five years of the Press’s work, including a major expansion of its academic publishing, and various new lines like Formatio dealing with spiritual formation and Praxis dealing with issues of practical theology. The history also highlights the huge growth as a publisher of numerous authors who are people of color, of women authors, and the recent launch of a new line of IVP Kids books.

The book has something of the feel of a “family history” and one senses the uproarious fun, the high professional and ethical standards, and sense of mission that have characterized this publishing organization. It gives one a sense of the risks and judgments publishers must assess, and the changes in the marketplace that publishers must nimbly negotiate. For those of us whose lives have been touched by InterVarsity Press books, it is a delight to learn the stories behind the books that have spoken into our lives.

And since I’ve already noted how this is a departure from my usual reviews, I will depart one more time to express to my friends at InterVarsity Press how grateful I am to God for you for the commitment to Christian thought, to publishing authors of color and women, to addressing hard issues and not shrinking from taking positions that not all will embrace. I’ve found J. I. Packer’s assessment, quoted in this book, to be amply true:

“Some publishers tell you what to believe. Other publishers tell you what you already believe. But InterVarsity Press helps you believe.”

Thank you, InterVarsity Press, for helping me know why I believe, and for fifty years of helping me believe more deeply.

____________________

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Paul J. Ricciuti

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Paul J. Ricciuti. Photo courtesy of Paul J. Ricciuti

Good cities are places where the natural and built environment complement each other. In Youngstown, the Wick Avenue corridor running through the university district is one of the showplaces of the city. St. John’s Episcopal Church. the Reuben MacMillan Library. Maag Library. The McDonough Museum of Art. The Butler Museum of Art. The Wick-Pollock Inn. The Arms Museum Carriage House. One man and the architecture firm he headed was involved in the design, preservation, restoration, or enlargement of each of these buildings. Paul J. Ricciuti.

I first became acquainted with Mr. Ricciuti when I wrote an article about my childhood pediatrician, beloved throughout Youngstown, Dr. James B. Birch. If you visit that post and scroll through the comments, you will see one from Mr, Ricciuti:

Good morning,
Thank you for the wonderful story about my wife’s (Katie Birch Ricciuti) father, Dr Birch. After he retired, he lived with us for three years in Liberty where he enjoyed his last years with his faithful dog Chico. He was a remarkable man and it gives Katie great pleasure that he is still thought of by his patients. We still have the famous “black bag”, which will be donated to the Mahoning Valley Historical Society.

We became Facebook friends around that time. As I continued to write about Youngstown, his name kept turning up, whether in connection with the design of Maag Library (where I spent many hours studying my last years of college) or the exterior restoration of the Mahoning County Court House (as a design consultant) or the Tod Cemetery Office and Chapel or the Tyler History Center. This summer, I happened to note on Facebook that Mr. Ricciuti had celebrated his 87th birthday and thought that maybe I ought to write an article about this man that has had such an influence on the built environment of Youngstown. Shortly after, a note from one of his children suggesting an article confirmed my instinct.

Paul Ricciuti is a Youngstown native, a first generation American of parents who immigrated from Italy. He grew up in Brownlee Woods and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1953. His interest in architecture traces back to his drawing teacher at Wilson who “started me drawing house plans and I loved the idea of creating a building on paper.” He went on to Kent State, studying architecture with Joseph Morbitto, who introduced him to Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan, two major American architects. During the summer, he worked with Walter Damon, a Youngstown architect who taught him the value of historic preservation and restoration, which would become a major part of his career.

Maag Library, a contemporary design by Paul Ricciuti built in 1975. Notice how well it fits into the natural landscape. Photo by Robert C. Trube

He finished his work at Kent State in 1959 after taking a year out to work in Washington, DC. It was through a dinner invitation from a friend in the art department at Kent that he met Katherine Birch. After a tour of duty with the Air Force and passing his state boards in 1962, he was married to Katherine in 1963. Three children and eight grandchildren followed. They were married for 59 years until Katherine’s recent passing in October of 2022.

He joined the firm of Smith, Buchanan, & Smith, which later became Buchanan Ricciuti and Partners and later, Ricciuti Balog, and Partners. A major focus of his work has been education and the arts. A number of his projects were at Youngstown State: Maag Library, DeBartolo Hall, Cafaro and Lyden Houses, the McDonough Museum and the Wick Avenue Pedestrian Bridge. Other education-related projects included both the Mahoning County and Trumbull County Career and Technical Centers, a restoration project at McDonald High School, and projects at Geneva Ohio Schools, Kent City Schools, Wooster City Schools, Columbus City Schools, Alliance City Schools, Lake Local, Plain Local, Sebring Local and West Branch Local School Districts.

In his later career and in retirement, Ricciuti focused on historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects. A good example locally is the Tyler Center of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, as well as the Carriage House of the Arms Museum. In Youngstown, he also did restoration and adaptive reuse work on the Strouss’ building, the McCrory Building, the Tod Cemetery Office and Chapel, the Ursuline Motherhouse, the Youngstown YWCA and the McKinley Memorial Library.

Perhaps his favorite project, his pride and joy, was the Lackawanna Station Building in Scranton, Pennsylvania, now the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel. I’m going to let pictures tell the story of this grand structure, restored to its former glory

Highsmith, C. M., photographer. (2019) The massive Lackawanna Station building in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton Pennsylvania Lackawanna County United States, 2019. -06-01. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress.
“The Radisson at Lackawanna Station” by Allen McGregor is licensed under CC BY 2.0

From Maag Library to the Tyler to the Lackawanna Station, and so much in between, Paul Ricciuti has produced an impressive body of work. A measure of this was his investiture in 1996 in the College of Fellows in the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the first architect from Youngstown to receive this honor. He had previously been awarded a Gold Medal in 1994 from the AIA Eastern Ohio and the Charles Marr Award in 1993 from the AIA Ohio Foundation. In addition, he received the Directors Award of Achievement (2007) from the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, the Preservation Merit Award (2008) from the Ohio Historic Preservation Office for his work on the Adaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings, the Woodrow Wilson Hall of Fame (2015) and the Tod Homestead Cemetery Trustee Award (2022).

He remains actively involved not only with his church, St. John’s Episcopal, but also in a number of community causes that reflect his interests. His community involvement includes being the President of the Youngstown Symphony Society, Youngstown Hearing & Speech Center, and the Liberty Rotary Club; a Trustee or Director of the Tod Homestead Cemetery, YSU McDonough Museum of Art, Mahoning Valley Historical Society and Stambaugh Auditorium Association.

I asked Mr. Ricciuti why he stayed in Youngstown when someone with his talents could well have worked in a major city. He wrote back to me:

While still in college, I was offered a position with a national firm in Chicago, but I decided after completing my service with the U.S. Air Force to stay in Youngstown. My roots, family and friends were here and having worked the summers with a local architectural firm, I understood the opportunities here in the early 1960’s. I’m glad I stayed!

Mr. Ricciuti, I’m glad you stayed as well. Thank you for all you have contributed to Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley. Well done, sir!

[A special thanks to Paul J. Ricciuti who provided in writing much of the background information in this article, the photograph of himself, and gave me an informal phone interview.]

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: When in Rome

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

When in Rome (Roderick Alleyn #26), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015.

Summary: Alleyn goes undercover on a Roman holiday tour led by a sketchy tour guide suspected of drug smuggling and other corrupt activities and ends up collaborating in a murder investigation.

This Ngaio Marsh work is different. Alleyn travels alone and incognito to Rome to find convicting evidence on a drug smuggler who is a British subject, and discover the other key figures of a syndicate led by a man named Ziegfeldt.. Fox and Bailey are back at Scotland Yard providing support. The story draws upon Marsh’s own Roman holiday in 1968, reproducing a tour of a basilica, street scenes, and even a student demonstration which she observed in Paris.

The novel begins with author Barnaby Grant enjoying a coffee at an outdoor café when a melee occurs, sending him sprawling with a blow to the shoulder. When he recovers, he discovers that the brief case with the only copy of his latest novel manuscript is missing. Three days later, the manuscript turns up in the form of Sebastian Mailer, who accepts no reward but a dinner with Grant. He mentions he also is a writer, then invites Grant to less reputable entertainment…and then turns around and blackmails him the next day. But what does he have on Grant?

What he does secure is Grant’s presence on an exclusive and expensive tour Mailer organizes, the first of which begins after the launch of Grant’s novel. An elderly Dutch couple associated with a religious publisher, a reputed former military figure, Major Sweet, a dissolute young man, Kenneth Dorne, and his mother Sonia, Lady Braceley are signed up. Rounding out the group are a young girl, Sophie Jason, from Grant’s publishing house, and Alleyn, trying to get close to Mailer.

When the tour reaches the Basilica di San Tommaso several things happen. A card seller verbally attacks Mailer, and is later seen in the shadows on the lower level of the structure. Mailer disappears as does she. Subsequently she is found in a sarcophagus while Mailer remains missing but was never seen leaving the Basilica. Alleyn reveals himself and joins the Roman investigators. It turns out that every man in the entourage is being extorted in some way by Mailer and Sweet and Dorne were absent during the time when the murder may have occurred.

A few days later, Mailer turns up at the bottom of a subterranean well in the Basilica. He was the lead suspect in the death of the woman, but who killed him? Was it one of the men or Mailer’s capable assistant? Eventually, the Roman authorities identify the suspect, who dies in an accident. But Alleyn connects the dots differently, and, in a first as far as I can determine, does not reveal him but lets him go.

This twist makes for an unusual ending, far different from the exciting “revcals” in many of her stories. We also see Alleyn in more of an undercover role, even stealthily surveilling one of the tour members. While he contributes, he really takes a back seat to the Romans in the murder investigation. All this represents something of a departure for Marsh in breaking out of the typically British upper crust settings of he books (although her characters are drawn from this class). She even writes a love story into the plot. When in Rome…