Review: Welcome, Holy Spirit

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Welcome, Holy Spirit, Gordon T. Smith. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: Beginning with the metaphors for the Holy Spirit, articulates a theology of the Holy Spirit that spans theological traditions and invites readers to be receptive to a deeper experience of the Spirit’s work.

When we confess “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” we often have little idea of what we are confessing. Gordon T. Smith thinks there are four important questions to ask about the Holy Spirit: the relation of the Spirit and Jesus, the relation between the Spirit and the created order, the relation between the Spirit and the scriptures, and the relation between the Spirit and the church.

In this work, Smith articulates a theology of the Holy Spirit that seeks to span the major traditions of Christianity in answering these questions. He goes further. He invites us to consider our own tradition, experience, and what it might mean to welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives in a deeper and transforming way.

He begins by reviewing our metaphors for the Holy Spirit as wind or breath, oil or anointing, fire, running water, and hovering dove. He notes that all of these are images of movement and life. The images emphasize the dynamic rather than static character of the Spirit, but do not fully capture the personal character of the Spirit’s being.

He turns to two chapters on the Spirit in specific books of the Bible. He looks at the link between the ascension and Pentecost in Luke and Acts. We often focus on one at the expense of the other and make it all about Jesus but fail to live in the power of the Spirit, or all about the Spirit but leaving Jesus “in the rearview mirror.” He then turns to the gospel of John and exploring the person of Holy Spirit and the Triune God and both the wisdom and heresies of the early church.

He then moves back to creation and the interesting idea of materiality infused with the breath of God and the hope that the one who brought creation to life will also be the one by whom creation is renewed. He concludes the chapter beautifully by inviting those of us who walk in the Spirit to tend the garden. From bringing life to creation, Smith turns to the work of the Spirit in bringing us to new life in Christ and how this might be reflected in our rites of initiation. He notes the two views of the coming of the Holy Spirit as either a two stage process, or integral with new life in Christ. Rather than argue for one or the other, he argues for incorporating rites of Spirit initiation along with water baptism. Along with this, our catechesis ought to prepare new believers for the work of the Triune God in their lives, including continuing receptivity to the Spirit’s indwelling fullness. In an interlude chapter, he warns against idolizing experience rather than the transformative work of the Holy Spirit in the ordinary practices of our lives.

Smith traces this process and the importance of casting vision for growth toward maturity, realizing we are both dependent on the grace of the Spirit to grow and that the ultimate fulfillment of this comes when we meet Christ face to face. We learn step by step to walk in the Spirit and pray in the Spirit, attending to the Spirit’s promptings in our life. This takes us into the question of the Spirit and the Word. He invites us into reading the Spirit-inspired text with both careful study and dependence on the Spirit for illumination, being neither wooden biblicists nor sentimentalists.

Finally he considers the Spirit and the church, both local and global. He articulates a Spirit ecclesiology that emphasizes unity, the ordered expression of the Spirit’s gifts in worship that occurs in song, word, and sacrament. He presses home the work of the Spirit in discerning church governance and that we ought be open to the immediacy of the Spirit’s guidance. He suggests some intriguing ideas of what it means for the Spirit to go before the church in mission and the need to be attentive to the Spirit’s presence in the cultures and even other religions that we engage. While in every situation there will be discontinuity between gospel and culture, we are also wise to look for how the way has been prepared. The Spirit can give discernment, pointing toward Christ, expressing the winsome fruit of his presence, and helping us to “remember the poor.”

As Smith summarizes, all this is a call to both intentionality in understanding the person and work of the Holy Spirit and receptive attentiveness to welcome Him into our lives. This book is a wonderful primer that helps accomplish what it advocates. Smith, as always, writes with clarity and precision and warmth, constantly moving from theological truth to implications for the life of the believer and the church. There is ecumenicity at its best, focusing both on common ground truths we may all embrace, and complementary insights from different traditions, including that of Pentecostalism, and his own tradition in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, reacquainting a new generation with some of the works of A. W. Tozer. In all of this, Smith’s intent would be for us to understand how we may experience the work of the Spirit as we grow in holiness, learn to pray, worship and work with God’s people, and engage in God’s mission. I concluded the book with his prayer, “Welcome, Holy Spirit!”

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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: Faithful Antiracism

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Faithful Antiracism, Christina Barland Edmondson and Chad Brennan, foreword by Korie Little Edwards and Michael O. Emerson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: Drawing upon the Race, Religion, and Justice Project, offers biblical and practical recommendations to engage racism personally and with one’s faith community.

The resurgence of white supremacy movements, police-involved shootings or other measures resulting in the deaths of a disproportionate number of Blacks, and efforts to suppress the history of slavery and racism in our country is, to be frank, discouraging. With the election of the first Black president, many of us had hopes that we had turned a corner in our racial history.

This book is one both of realism, rooted in the recent research findings of the Race, Religion, and Justice Project, and hope, rooted in the scriptures and the God in whom we trust. Indeed, the title, Faithful Antiracism, is a ringing challenge both to trust God and keep showing up to work against the forces that sustain racism.

The authors both come from long experiences of working with churches and other organizations in developing policies and practices fostering greater racial equity in their midst and greater effectiveness in addressing racism in society. Chad directed the Race, Religion, and Justice Project that studied the racial dynamics in U.S. Christianity, interviewing 115 leaders and experts, and involving 119 congregations with 3260 congregants. They also use research from Renew Partnerships Campus Climate Survey and Barna Research.

The first chapter of the group shares some of their research findings. It turns out that Christians often have less accurate racial views and are less motivated to address racial injustice. They attribute this to a “cultural toolkit” that emphasizes accountable freewill individualism, relationalism, and antistructuralism that hinder recognizing societal and economic differences, and embedded structures that account for disparities in things such as household wealth by race.

They then turn to scripture showing the structures of racial hostility evident in Ephesians 2 and the significance of the work of Christ in bringing both peace and justice. They survey the concerns of the prophets regarding the unjust structures in Israelite society that oppressed the poor. They note that while Christians attest to being committed to scripture, this is often qualified by the talking points of political culture which takes precedence. They elaborate a variety of principles that apply to racial justice from denunciations of greed, to making things right when we’ve benefited from unjust racial hierarchies. They then turn to biblical and historical figures who stood for justice.

They also emphasize how understanding the past is critical if we are to understand the pain of those who lived through these realities or bear the traumas of parents and grandparents who suffered them. They offer an outline of that history. They turn to the importance of understanding the present as well, pointing out key events from the 1960’s to the present, the forms of opposition, the superficial support that often covers this, and the ways political allegiance have taken precedence over biblical teaching. One of the most trenchant observations was the strategy of “label, mischaracterize, dismiss” to oppose pursuit of racial justice, calling actions of people of goodwill “a movement” (labelling), describing it as Marxist or Socialist when it is motivated by biblical concerns (mischaracterizing), and warning people to avoid such stuff (dismiss).

Often superficial efforts have focused around the “magic” of relationships, helping people become Christians, of “colorblindness, “of being welcoming, or even being “woke.” Often, these obscure deeper issues both in our own lives and in the organizational structures of our churches and other organizations. Rather, we ought take a page from a study of Acts, as the church overcame racial barriers. We also need mentors and solidarity with others beyond our own groups and should seek out coaches as we engage this work. We learn to measure change with substantive rather than superficial measures. And we learn both how to partner with those facing injustice and use our presence and economic and political resources to withdraw support from those acting unjustly.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a hopeful, though grittily realistic book. It grounds our efforts to stand against racial injustice in scripture while refusing superficial window dressing. But it also names practical steps individuals and groups can take. This is a handbook churches can use, with discussion questions and prayer that help bring truths before God for his illumination, leading to actions of substance instead of a world of talk.

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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: Breaking Ground

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Breaking Ground, Anne Snyder and Susannah Black. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing 2021.

Summary: A collection of essays written through four seasons beginning in the summer of 2020 on what it might take to restore common ground for the common good in a society deeply divided by the pandemic, race, economic, and political divisions.

The summer of 2020 came in the depths of the pandemic, punctuated by the police-involved death of George Floyd, painfully caught live on camera, resulting in massive demonstrations and disorder in many cities. Two magazine editors, Anne Snyder of Comment, a Canadian-based magazine, and Susannah Black, at the Bruderhof sponsored publication, Plough Quarterly came together to invite a number of Christian thinkers engaged in public square discourse to write articles that attempted to analyze what was happening in our society, draw upon the past, and think imaginatively about the future, renewal, and the role followers of Christ might play in fostering a hopeful future drawing together a fragmented body of Christ and wider society.

The collection brings together an impressive list of thinkers whose essays were written over the four seasons beginning in the summer of 2020 through the spring of 2021. Some of the better known contributors include Mark Noll, N.T. Wright, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Wear, Jeffrey Bilbro, Doug Sikkema, Amy Julia Becker, Oliver O’Donovan, Peter Wehner, and Jonathan Haidt. All told, there are nearly fifty essays in this collection.

The discussion ranges from Mark Noll’s analysis of epidemics past to essays exploring the breakdown of public trust to an interview between Cherie Harder of The Trinity Forum and Marilynne Robinson ranging from Calvin to the common good. Michael Wear, an adviser in the Obama White House surveys our political landscape and profiles Joseph Lowery, one of the last survivors of the Civil Rights movement, who walked with King under the shadow of death, and our call to walk with Jesus even as we engage all the perils of the political in this time. Oliver O’Donovan explores politics and political service.

The essays talk about the importance of place, the local, and the spiritual practices that sustain us. Amy Julia Becker talks about how congregations like hers may fight racism at the local level. Anthony M Barr contributed some of the clearest thinking on the nature of policing and police reform that could be a starting point for many local conversations. Irena Dragas Jansen offers one of the more interesting essays describing what our country looks like through the eyes of a new citizen. Katherine Boyle, an entrepreneur describes the death of Silicon Valley–the eco-disasters, the hopelessness that claims more lives than COVID, the failure of the tech world to save us, and yet the way of being it has promoted as Silicon Valley becomes everywhere.

Aryana Petrosky Roberts describes coming home to the political conflicts in her own family, the inability to hear one another and the breakthrough of praying together, inviting Jesus into the political mess. Stuart McAlpine takes us deeper into prayer, into the prayers of repentance and lament we desperately need to engage and are so hard for us. Michael Lamb explores the implications of Joe Biden’s call for an Augustinian Concord in his inaugural address.

The book includes interview transcripts, some of the best from interviews with Cherie Harder of The Trinity Forum, one of the organizations that joined the Breaking Ground project. One of the very best of these was with Jonathan Haidt and Peter Wehner on “Arguments of the Sake of Heaven.” They explore our contemporary epistemic crisis and polarization, recall the passion of the Inklings for truth that led to vociferous argument, and what is required to foster good arguments in our public squares. Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson combine to contribute an essay on the call of the American church to own its own responsibility for our nation’s racial history–our love of gain and our failure to make recompense for slavery’s injuries. Charles C. Camosy explores the horror of our nursing homes which the pandemic revealed and the challenge of an ethic of life that includes dignified elder care.

Amid the serious and important conversations, Tara Isabella Burton’s “On Good Parties” comes as a ray of light. Tara loves parties and sees good ones as “a practice for living.” They teach us how to love well and see ourselves as part of a community, they celebrate events in our real lives and the appreciation of one another. She made me look forward to good parties once again.

Even with all that I’ve written here, I’ve but skimmed the surface of all the good and imaginative thinking in this collection. I’m impressed with the wide array of people from police officers to theologians who contribute to this collection. But isn’t this what is needed in our communities across the land–for a coming together of a wide array of people who care about the rents in our social fabric who talk and listen and pray and think and imagine what could be?

I would not only commend this book but at least three of the organizations mentioned here whose publications and initiatives are worth attending to and supporting as we seek to pursue Christ for the glory of God and the common good:

Comment Magazine

Plough Quarterly

The Trinity Forum

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

Review: Having and Being Had

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Having and Being Had, Eula Biss. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021.

Summary: A collection of essays on the occasion of the author and her husband buying their first house, considering the nature of capitalism, consumption, work, and class.

It was 1990. We had just moved to a new city, moving from an older, inner ring, blue collar suburb in one city to a three year old housing development on the very edge of our new city, with twice the square footage of house and lot. Shortly after moving, my wife and I were walking in the neighborhood, and she asked me, “did we sell out?”

It is questions like these that Eula Biss explores in this new collection of essays under similar circumstances. If you are familiar with her earlier writings, she lived something of a hand-to-mouth existence at one time. Now she and her husband hold a teaching positions, she at a major university where she earns $20,000 more than her husband at another school, for doing the same work. She has won various literary words and the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship–a grant affording her the support to write instead of teach. And they have moved out of their apartment and purchased their first house.

In the course of buying furniture, repairing a chimney, purchasing a gravy boat for their first Thanksgiving, and watching her son buy a valuable Pokemon card only to give it away to a lonely child, she asks questions about capitalism, consumption, work, class, and more. She wrestles with discussions she has with her institution’s investment counsellor who pushes her to invest in stocks that will create her a nice nest egg in years to come.

Many of the essays recur to one of these themes. For example, she asks a number of different economists and others about the meaning of capitalism. As you might expect, the answers are all over the map. She explores the questions of the place of art in a culture, even as she describes purchasing a membership at the Art Institute of Chicago. She wrestles with the fact that she now pays people to care for her children and to clean her house. She goes on literary excurses through the lives of Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson and Karl Marx and the people around them who enabled their writing lives.

One of the recurring themes is work. What constitutes good work? What distinguishes work, labor, and toil? How ought she feel about the grant coming from capitalist successes that make it possible for her not to work to pursue the writing she loves, that she admits at one point is her play. She explores the phenomenon of people who reach a certain level of success who feel the need to keep up the appearance of working when they really don’t want to.

The challenge I had reading this work was whether this was commendable self-reflection on the ways we are implicated in the capitalist system, or was rather the condemnable self-indulgence of one privileged enough to have the time and means to ask these questions. Other reviewers of this book have reached both of these conclusions.

At first I was inclined to the latter conclusion, until I remembered the questions we asked back in 1990. It seems to me that the greater danger to our souls would have been not to ask the questions, to simply conclude that we had worked hard and deserved what we (and the bank) owned. But it was hardly that simple. The home represented the help of family in a variety of ways and the support of friends. It was a combination of both unearned privileges and our own efforts. The greater danger, it seems to me would have been unreflective self-satisfaction. To know oneself blessed carries with it the responsibility of using that well for the common good.

I think of the work that brought me to this city, work that, with some differences, I am still engaged in. I think it would have been interesting for Biss to explore the nature of vocation or calling. Under the rubric of work, what she describes is a calling as a writer. She touches on this when she describes the greater satisfaction of janitorial staff in a hospital when they see themselves as caring for patients. Callings go beyond what we earn money doing. How fortunate when we are compensated at whatever amount for pursuing them! Biss, herself, knows both sides–of having to work to pursue an unremunerative calling, and to have achieved success in that pursuit. I sense the struggle with this as a guilty pleasure. I wonder if gratitude is a better response, and avoiding any presumptions that it will last.

And now it is 32 years later in the same house. It’s funny how things change. For many, our neighborhood is “starter” homes as the suburbs have extended further out from the city. I wonder what some of the young couples pushing strollers are thinking? Eula Biss makes me reflect anew on what I ought think. Her honesty about money (she names amounts) invites me to a similar kind of honesty about an area we often don’t like to talk about and how all of us are implicated in the economic system of our country.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Mill Layoffs

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Ohio Works Reunion video with footage of U. S. Steel Ohio Works

Long before Black Monday, a reality steel workers dealt with were periodic layoffs. During economic slowdowns, demand for steel dropped. Sometimes, in preparations for strikes, companies would build stockpiles. Layoffs could follow.

That’s what happened in the summer of 1971. The companies and unions averted a strike. Six days after the new contract had been approved, layoffs occurred all over the country. In Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, 47,000 workers were laid off. In Gary, Indiana, 34,000 workers were idled. And in Youngstown, 2,700 workers at U.S. Steel’s Ohio Works were laid off on July 17.

One big difference between strikes and layoffs is that the latter were eligible for unemployment benefits. In 1971, the average hourly wage was $4.57 an hour (the contract increased that by about $1 an hour) or about $183 for a 40 hour week. Unemployment benefits came to an average of $110 a week plus supplemental benefits. Many workers, at least at the beginning, thought of this as an extended vacation. It was a good time to take on remodeling projects–at least as long as the unemployment benefits lasted.

It was 50 years ago on February 4, 1972 that the announcement was made that workers were being called back to the Ohio Works. It was a good thing. Their unemployment benefits, set to expire in January, were extended by thirteen weeks. Five open hearths were being readied, with production to begin by February 14. One blast furnace would be started up on February 18 and rolling mills would begin on February 16.

The one hitch was that not all 2700 would be called back at once and the article in the Youngstown Vindicator does not indicate the initial number being recalled nor whether all eventually would be. That was the uncertainty that the fathers of many of my friends lived with, as they wondered if they would be back to work before unemployment ran out. What began as a vacation and a chance to work on home projects became a time of belt-tightening, of looking for side jobs, and checking in with the union local (in this case, local 1330) about any news about their jobs.

Working in the mills was hard and dangerous work. But the wages allowed the children of immigrants to own homes and begin to climb the economic ladder. But it was precarious in many ways besides working conditions, in this case a nearly seven month layoff. There really wasn’t anything you or the unions could do. Perhaps, though, it was a warning of what would come later in the decade of the 1970’s.

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

Review: Cradling Abundance

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Cradling Abundance, Monique Misenga Ngoie Mukuna with Elsie Tshimunyi McKee. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: An autobiography of a lay leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, describing her work with women addressing their education, helping them develop usable skills, and addressing the gender violence and health issues they face.

Maman Monique, as the author is spoken of, is an amazing woman. As a student of twenty, she was on a transport home when stopped by an illegal military barricade, with soldiers intent on confiscating their luggage. Instead of complying, she demanded to see their orders, knowing such barricades to have been declared illegal by President Mobutu. They all were permitted to leave with their luggage, and when they arrived home, the others told her father, “She is a man!” Her father told her, “That is good! You must always be like that.”

This is the account of how this Presbyterian lay leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo fulfilled her father’s words, to the betterment of many other women in her country. She narrates her life from childhood, her student days, her marriage to Tatu Mukunu, her work as an educator and entrepreneur. Her big business idea was making clothing, the wraps women wore and other accessories. First she learned to do this herself, and then to train other women. Her work grew as she was asked to lead women’s ministry with her church.

It became ever clearer that the way to empower women in a highly patriarchal society was for women to be educated and equipped to earn their own living through training in practical skill, having access to microloans, and learning how to run a business, all this out of her home in the early years. She expanded her work by launching Woman, Cradle of Abundance/FEBA to both educate and advocate more effectively.

This is hardly a story of going from success to success. Her accounts describe the setbacks of political upheavals, opposition from other church leaders, often protecting the misappropriation of funds. Yet she met these challenges with faith and strengthened others, eventually giving leadership to women’s groups in a network of African countries, and engaging in efforts for the restoration of neighboring Rwanda. We also see the structures of patriarchy at work in stripping women of economic resources, barring their empowerment and inflicting sexual and physical violence against them, not only in the culture, but sadly in the church as well.

Yet she persisted. The hardest blow was the death of her own husband, and being stripped of family belongings by his family, a cultural practice. She is forced out of leadership in her church.

Amid all this Elsie McKee, a Princeton Theological Seminary professor becomes a friend, supporter, and advocate, help Woman, Cradle of Abundance to expand its work. McKee also translated this narrative from Maman Monique’s French into English. Having never heard Maman Monique, I can only speculate, but McKee translates but doesn’t get in the way. One has the sense of sitting in a room as Maman tells her story–there is a distinctive voice to this narrative that carries both the faith and force of this woman who has done so much to empower other women. I’m glad to have been able to listen to her story and grateful for the woman who gave us her story in English without getting in the way of a good storyteller.

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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: The Omnivore’s Dilemma

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The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollen. New York: Penguin, 2007.

Summary: An examination of the American way of eating, considering our industrial food chain and how it has affected our diet by contrast with organic and hunter-gatherer food chains.

Human beings are omnivores. From our teeth to our gut, we are able and designed to extract the nutrition we need from a wide variety of foods. What Michael Pollan observes is that our American industrial food complex has led to an imbalance in our diets. Instead of being based on a wide variety of foods, it is concentrated on corn, particularly with regard both to beef, poultry and even fish nourished on corn-based diets, as well as the corn products added to many of the processed foods on our shelves. An epidemic of obesity points to something out of kilter.

Pollan sets out to examine the food chain from the corn in the farmer’s field to the poultry farms and feedlots to our tables, and the impacts of these processes on us, on the animals, and on farmers and the land. He then contrasts this food chain with organic food chains, both industrial and a small sustainable farm, and finally a hunter gatherer food chain. Each culminates in a meal.

The industrial food chain presupposes large corn farms, monoculturally farmed with the aid of expensive farm machinery, fertilizers with run-off, pesticides, storage, and government subsidized prices. Farmers often carry huge debt loads and barely stay afloat. The land suffers as do rivers, lakes, and oceans from fertilizer runoff. The one thing huge harvests do is get turned into the primary food source for the meats we eat. Industrial methods are applied to them as well. Pollan bought a cow that he tried to trace through the process. He was not allowed to see the butchering. But he learned about the problems cows and chickens have with the diet and crowded conditions, requiring more antibiotics to keep animals alive. The meal at the end is a trip to McDonalds, eaten on the road in a convertible–the ultimate in our fast food lifestyle.

The second food chain is the organic food chain. He divides this into two chains. The first is an organic-industrial chain. Food is grown organically, but often packaged and shipped long distances to fill our produce aisles at Whole Foods. Pollan traces the chain from these farms, some which started out as counter-cultural organic farms but increasingly conformed to the USDA “organic standards.” The biggest problem is the “ocean of petroleum” needed to sustain the supply chain. But often organic is more technical, in which “free range” poultry has access to narrow grassy strips for only a brief period of their lives. The meal at the end of this chain is one purchased at Whole Foods.

Pollan then spends a week with Joel Salatin, a “grass farmer” in Virginia. On his small farm, he grows chickens, turkeys, cows, and hogs, observing cycles where each sustain the others, in a rotation where the pastures grow richer year by year with minimal external inputs, other than the sun and rains. The pastures feed the animals who sustain the pasture with their manures. Salatin sells locally to individuals who can watch their chickens slaughtered, gutted and plucked if they wish, and to local restaurants. Pollan learns to move cattle from space to space in the pastures, with chickens following. The meal is various meats from the farm and other locally grown food, marked by a drastically enhanced quality of taste.

The final food chain is the most unconventional. Pollan joins foragers who shoot wild game, gather mushrooms and morrels, bake sourdough bread from yeast spores in the atmosphere as well as cherries from a neighborhood tree, and abalone from an inlet of the ocean. Pollan, who has not hunted kills a wild pig, helps dress it, and learns about all the different types of meat that can come from it.

Amid all this, he engages Peter Singer’s opposition to the killing of animals. In the end, he concludes that, while factory feedlots are problematic, there is some sense in the natural order of animals best lives including at least a portion becoming the prey of others, including human beings. At the same time, he comes to realize the dangers attendant when the same person slaughters animals day after day.

He also concludes that both our industrial way of food supply and hunting gathering are problematic and unsustainable. Our “cheap food” does not reflect many costs absorbed by farmers, by the land, and by us as taxpayers. He is drawn most to the Salatin’s Polyface Farm, the growing of good food that is good for us and the land. A chicken that has lived the way a chicken is supposed to live tastes better–their eggs as well. The book also captures the joys of slow food–good food that is leisurely enjoyed.

Pollan’s book is perhaps more urgent now as we recognize the costs of our petroleum fueled supply chains. A century ago, we knew where much of our food came from, much of it from within 100 miles of where we live. Might we be approaching a time where this is so again, or at least to a much greater degree? Pollan makes us think about how our food arrives at our table and what has gone into it along the way. He also helped me realize how hard the people who grow and harvest and butcher our food work, the life of the creatures who become our meals, and how grateful one must be to receive such gifts to the nourishment of our bodies.

The New Wave of Book Banning

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Photo by John-Mark Smith on Pexels.com

I’m interrupting my usual posting of book reviews to write about a troubling trend occurring in towns and state legislatures across the country. Book banning. There have long been challenges to books selected for school classes, usually centered around race, gender, and sexuality. In the past, it was a parent or group of parents. Rarely was a book actually banned. Rather, it was challenged. I joked that it was really just a ploy to sell that book. Booksellers featured “banned books,” sometimes bolstering the sales of books that likewise would have not gotten a lot of notice.

It’s not a joking matter any more. States are threatening criminal charges against librarians who place certain books in circulation. Books, such as The 1619 Project, which chronicles the presence of slavery in our country’s earliest history, and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, have been banned by state legislatures on ideological grounds. It extends to novels as well, including Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and even, in Washington State Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, recently voted the best book of the last 125 years by The New York Times Book Review.

It seems to me that the fundamental notion is to protect students from exposure to certain ideas and materials. The problem is actually a version of my joke about bans promoting sales. When Art Spiegelman’s classic graphic fiction work Maus was recently banned in a Tennessee school district, the book immediately topped Amazon’s best-seller lists. One comic bookstore in Tennessee has offered the book free to anyone in the school district.

What is most troubling is the use of state power to dictate what books will and will not be permitted in libraries and classrooms. I am troubled because it seems that the targets are often frank discussion of matters of religion, of race, and sexuality. To limit the ideas that may be explored and discussed seems to me to be a profound abridgement of the First Amendment.

I know. Years ago, I was associated with a group facing loss of its privileges for what I would call view point discrimination. One of our allies was a First Amendment attorney who disagreed with our perspective but believed we needed to be free to hold and advocate it. I believe the same applies with books. We may not agree with the content of books but I believe we need to fight to protect access to those books.

You may have wondered about the picture of the Bible associated with this article. At least some who are seeking to criminalize defying a legislative ban claim to be Christians. I wonder if they understand how vigorously through history many governments have banned ownership and distribution of the Bible, and people have literally died to make the scriptures available or to obtain even a portion of the Bible.

And it can happen here, especially if we cross the bright line of protecting free speech in written as well as spoken form. The Bible, if one actually reads it, is not a tame book. It has unblinking accounts of rape and violence as well as elevated discourses on the nature of love. I know those who believe it is actually a danger to society. And I can easily see that if it becomes acceptable to criminalize the distribution of certain books, the same argument could be applied to the Bible. And any student of our politics knows that the pendulum will swing. We, of all people, should most oppose bans on books.

In the past, at least, the solution for speech that offends is not to ban it, but to allow more speech, where this does not incite violence or slander or deliberately mislead to the harm of another. It is to allow discussion and protect difference. With students, it is to teach them how to think critically–to recognize fundamental premises, to understand various rhetorical devices and when rhetoric substitutes for reason and evidence. The sad thing is our social media echo chambers only allow for more speech that agrees, that echoes the prevailing view. The danger is that we want to turn schools and universities into the same kinds of places, echo chambers of the left or right, rather than examine argument and counter-argument, narrative and counter-narrative. And so we perpetuate and deepen the divides so troubling us.

Working in college ministry, especially in the age of the internet, I’ve learned there is no way to “protect” people from ideas. As a parent, I concluded that we could not protect our son from any idea. Rather, we talked about them. And if I didn’t like the choices of books in every instance (and many times I did like them and discovered he was reading things I was interested in reading), I would share about others I thought were better. The truth is that to this day, we don’t agree on some things, and I’m glad. I oppose cloning human beings, especially our children!

Ultimately, the use of state power to ban books seems both to open the door to tyranny and is a concession of the weakness of the ideas behind such efforts. Instead of the power of an idea, we resort to the use of force and threat. And what we have lost as we do so is our democratic republic. Tyrannies of both the left and the right are tyrannies. The banning of books is the first step in silencing and marginalizing the people we don’t like. It is but a further step to strip them of their rights, and then their humanity or even their lives.

As I conclude, I would speak to my book-loving friends, many of whom cringe at even the destruction of books that cannot be sold. We have varying tastes and varying convictions. At very least, we ought be committed to affording protection to those of others that we would want for our own. None of us wants to see a beloved book banned, whether that be Fifty Shades of Gray, The Invisible Man, Pride and Prejudice or The Bible.

We cannot take comfort with the libraries with which we’ve surrounded ourselves nor the friends with whom we talk books. If this movement grows, we too could become a danger to the state. These efforts need to be resisted, challenged in court, and subverted, as did the comic book salesman, or those who slip banned books into Little Free Libraries or those at great risk who have smuggled Bibles or as those in Fahrenheit 451, who memorized great books. After January 6, 2021, I’ve concluded that the unthinkable can happen. Edmund Burke’s warning does not seem cliche’: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Review: The Doctrine of Scripture

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The Doctrine of Scripture, Brad East (Foreword by Katherine Sonderegger). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021.

Summary: A concise exploration of the doctrine of scripture focusing on the church’s joyful and thankful confession, “this is the word of the Lord.”

Brad East begins this work with a striking statement: “The doctrine of Holy Scripture is a matter of joy.” He notes the practice of many churches following the reading of the scriptures to say, “The word of the Lord.” to which the congregation replies, “Thanks be to God!” East, in this work, seeks to outline the doctrine of scripture in a way that is representative of a broad swath of Christianity, working from the Canon of scripture to the Rule of Faith found in the early creeds, and the ecumenical councils.

East outlines his doctrine of scripture under six one-word chapter titles:

Source: East explores what it is we mean that scripture comes from God. He explores whether we can form our understanding of scripture from scripture, who is this God who speaks, and how do we understand the inspiration of human authors, specifically, “that the words they naturally will to write are one and the same as those which God wills them to write,” yet without human writers being mere automatons.

Nature: Of what are we speaking by the terms “Holy Scripture” or “Bible”? East would answer, “each and every instance, past, present, and future, of any or all parts of any and all versions of the texts included in the canon of the church’s Scripture.” This supports the translatability of scripture, its fecundity, apparent before my eyes in the seven English versions in front of me as I write. He discusses matters of bibliolatry, biblicism, and individualized versions of sola scriptura. He likens scripture to the offices of Christ. When it is read, it speaks prophetically, it mediates salvation to the world, and it heralds the king.

Attributes. In this chapter, East develops the apostolic necessity of scripture, given the delay in the return of Christ, the holy sufficiency of scripture to accomplish God’s purpose, the catholic clarity of scripture, that scripture’s meaning is only clearly understood with the church, particularly in light of its creeds (an argument differing from the Reformers), and the one truth of scripture to which it unerringly witnesses, making known all we need for salvation.

Ends. Ultimately, scripture guides the exiled people of God in mission toward the consummation of all things in Christ. He describes four ends within this larger picture in life of believers: befriending Christ: beatitude and conversion; following Christ: instruction and edification; imaging Christ: sanctification and perseverance; and knowing Christ: communion and contemplative delight.

Interpretation: He begins with a kind of glossary of terms used in hermeneutical discussion. A highlight of this chapter is East’s proposal that the center of interpretation ought be the worshipping church of baptized believers expectant to encounter her living Lord in both word and sacrament. Private reading, for East comes secondary to this. Also, he challenges historical-critical readings that attempt to discern authorial intent, particularly because this, through the early centuries of the church was subject to Christological readings, where the words of Moses and the prophets are understood in their fullest meaning through the life and work of Christ, a principle evident in apostolic reading of these texts. He argues that we read scripture as God’s inspired word, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as a product and gift to the church of Jesus Christ, canonically, reading these writings as a collection, and interpreted through and in consonance with the rule of faith.

Authority. Here, East discusses how the divine authority of God is mediated to us through the authority of scriptures through the offices of the church. He notes ten questions the doctrine of biblical authority raises that must be worked out in the church’s practice.

This was not a book of same old, same old verities but a thoughtful framing of the doctrine of scripture that avoids the de-supernaturalizing tendencies of modern scholarship and the extremes of bibliolatry while at the same time upholding the wondrous reality of hearing the Word of the Lord together as the people of God. He avoids dangers of privatized versions of sola scriptura as well as fleshly scholarship that fails to depend on the illuminating work of the Spirit of God. He affirms the primacy of scripture and yet the importance of testing our readings of scripture against the Rule of Faith and the readings of the church over the centuries.

For me, this was doctrine at its best, doctrine that led to doxology as I rejoiced in the God who has spoken and who has provided a record of this witness (the section on the confection reminded me of the work of God in preserving and bringing together the inspired texts that constitute scripture). It reminded me of the great drama we enact each time we gather as scripture is both read and proclaimed and under the gracious work of God’s Spirit, we are enabled to hear God speak afresh. I was reminded afresh of how we have been given in scripture all we need for life and godliness. Finally, I appreciated a book that sidesteps our contemporary polemics that often divide to formulate a doctrine of scripture faithful to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

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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.

The Month in Reviews: January 2022

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January was a cold month here, but it was warm in my reading chair. I’m not sure how to characterize this list, but in addition to the book of the month, there were several other gems. David Wenham’s Paul: Follower Jesus or Founder of Christianity and Raymond E. Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah are both theological classics as is Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in science fiction. Louis Menand’s The Free World is a tour de force of intellectual and cultural history in the twenty years following World War II. I continue to work my way through Louise Penny and #13 in the Gamache series continued the string of excellent mysteries in this series. Restless Devices and Stability both approach our distracted and restless lives, albeit in different ways. I hope you enjoy reading through this list as much as I enjoyed reading and reviewing the books!

The Great Quest, Os Guinness. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022. An invitation to the examined life in the pursuit of a meaningful existence, a well-lived life. Review

Orient Express, Graham Greene. New York: Open Road Media, 2018 (originally published as Stamboul Train in 1932). Seven people on a train between Ostend and Constantinople intersect in various ways, making choices about the kind of people they will be. Review

Notes from No Man’s Land, Eula Biss. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2009. A collection of American essays connected to four places the author lived, all exploring the realities of race in which we all are implicated. Review

Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity, David Wenham. Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1995 (print on demand). A study of the relationship of Pauline thought to the teachings of Jesus by a comprehensive effort to compare them on a number of major themes. Review

The Free World, Louis Menand. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. An intellectual and cultural history of the forces and figures whose creations contributed to the emergence of the United States as an intellectual and artistic leader in the years between 1945 and 1965. Review

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein. New York: Ace, 2018 (originally published in 1966). In 2076, Luna, a colony of Earth on the Moon, decides to declare independence, to end the one-sided grain export to earth that will deplete lunar ice reservoirs, under the leadership of a sentient computer. Review

Changed Into His Likeness (New Studies in Biblical Theology), J. Gary Miller. Downers Grove: IVP Academic/London: Apollos, 2021. (UK publisher link) A biblical study of how personal transformation takes place in the life of a believer. Review

The Birth of the Messiah, Raymond E. Brown. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1979 (Link is to 2nd edition, published in 1999 by Yale University Press). An academic commentary on the Birth Narratives in Matthew and Luke. Review

Interpreting the God-Breathed Word, Robbie F. Castleman. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. A book for all who want to be students of scripture focusing on how to study and understand the texts employing inductive study, speech-act theory, and canonical interpretation. Review

Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Gamache #13), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2017. A mysterious figure robed in black, the murder of a woman found in those robes, a confession, and a trial, during which Gamache has made choices of conscience that could cost lives and save many. Review

Artists in Crime, (Roderick Alleyn #6), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012 (originally published in 1937). A murder occurs at the studio of artist Agatha Troy, who Alleyn had met on his voyage back to England; the beginning in fits and starts of a romance while Alleyn seeks to solve the crime. Review

Stuck in the Present: How History Frees & Forms Christians, David George Moore (Foreword by Carl R. Trueman). Abilene, TX: Leafwood Publishers, 2021. A discussion of the value of reading history for the Christian, better equipping us not only to understand our past but to engage our present, and how to make the most of what we learn. Review

The Memory of Old Jack, Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 1999 (Originally published 1974). Old Jack Beechum, the oldest of the Port William membership, spends a September day remembering his life. Review

Restless Devices, Felicia Wu Song. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. An exploration of how our digital devices shape us, our relationships, and our economic life, and how we might establish a “counter” lifestyle shaped by our communion with God and each other. Review

A Little Devil in America, Hanif Abdurraqib. New York: Random House, 2021. A celebration of Black performance and its significance for Blacks in America. Review

The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, William A. Simmons. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. A book by book study of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament from a Pentecostal perspective. Review

Stability, Nathan Oates. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2021. An exploration of the Benedictine commitment to stability, and what it can meet to sink our roots deeply, first into Christ, and then into the people and places to which he invites us. Review

Best of the Month: Maybe it is hometown loyalties, but I’ll go with Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America, a wonderful exploration of Black performance, some known to me and some not, and how they are emblematic of the Black experience in America. His account of Merry Clayton was fascinating. She was an amazing singer who never was able to launch a solo career, but sang a spine-chilling back up in the Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter. Give it a listen on YouTube, especially at the 2:46 mark where she sings “Rape, Murder, it’s just a shot away,” especially the third time when her voice cracks on the second syllable of “murder.’ He also tells the story of Janet Baker, who had an amazing career that extends way beyond dancing.

Best Quote of the Month: The Memory of Old Jack is a wonderful book in Wendell Berry’s Port William Membership stories that I had not previously read. “Old Jack” Beechum is at the end of his life, and we spend a lovely September day in the memories of his life. A key passage describes a turning point in his life when he hit rock bottom…and then went on:

“That his life was renewed, that he had been driven down to the bedrock of his own place in the world, and his own truth and had stood again, that a profound peace and trust had come to him out of his suffering and his solitude, and that this peace would abide with him to the end of his days–all this he knew in the quiet of his heart and kept to himself.“

What I’m Reading: I’m in the middle of Eula Biss’s reflections on capitalism evoked by a move to a nicer home and neighborhood in Having and Being Had. I admire her writing, that combines depth and brevity. I’ve finally gotten around to one of my goals for last year to read a book on food, Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I can understand why he is popular as a writer on our suspect American ways of eating and our relationship with food. His week with an off the grid super-organic farmer is worth the price of admission. Plough Publishing has released a wonderful collection of essays, titled Breaking Ground, from the first year of the pandemic that particularly explores how we find our way out of our divided society. Brad East’s The Doctrine of Scripture is one of the most thought provoking books on this topic I’ve read, exploring what it means to call the Bible the Word of God, how we interpret with some striking critique of authorial intention, insights in terms of apostolic interpretation and focus on Christ, and the importance of interpreting with the church and in light of the rule of faith. Finally, I’ve been unexpectedly delighted by a memoir by Monique Misenga Ngoie Mukuna’s account of her expanding ministry of empowering women and fighting systemic poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The book is Cradling Abundance.

The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014!