Review: The Code Breaker

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The Code Breaker, Walter Isaacson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Summary: The story of the 2020 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Jennifer Doudna, and the discovery of ways to use CRISPR enzymes to edit genomes, and her subsequent efforts to establish ethical standards for the use of this breakthrough discovery.

Benjamin Franklin. Henry Kissinger, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci. And Jennifer Doudna? Why has Walter Isaacson chosen to include her among the seminal figures who have been the objects of his books. It just may be that her work as a biochemist is as game-changing for humanity as any of the efforts of these others. James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA rated her discovery the most significant after his own. Apparently the Nobel Prize committee agreed. In October 2020, she was awarded, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a landmark paper in 2012 that described how to use an enzyme found in bacteria, nicknamed CRISPR, in this case CAS9, to edit genomes, removing and inserting genetic material. In 2018, twins, and another child were born in China with the gene for the receptor that makes one susceptible to HIV edited out, an important protection for a child that has an HIV positive parent. CRISPR has been used for a therapy to cure sickle cell anemia, and in the fight against COVID-19. It’s possible that someday a gene could be edited into our genome at conception to make us immune to COVID-19 and other diseases.

Walter Isaacson does several things simultaneously in this book. One is that he profiles Doudna, the lanky blonde growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, and thus a bit of an outcast, who compensated with books. Her father, a professor, left a copy of The Double Helix by James Watson on her bed. She thought it a mystery, and in a way it was as she raced through the book to understand how Watson and Crick unraveled the mystery of the genetic code. That set her on the path to become a scientist, despite the high school counselor who told her girls didn’t become scientists. Isaacson traces her academic journey, including the crucial mentoring of her doctoral advisor at Harvard, Jack W. Szostak, who turned her research interests toward the study of RNA. She researched the structural biology of RNA, first at Yale, and then at UC Berkeley, where much of the book is focused. A 2011 meeting with Emmanuelle Charpentier, who had been studying the CRISPR enzyme, and needed the help of a structural biologist to understand how it worked, brought the two of them together to understand how CRISPR worked in editing genes in bacteria. Their collaboration led to the discoveries described in their 2012 paper.

This set off a frenzied competition of patent applications, the creation of companies, much with a researcher at MIT’s Broad Institute Feng Zhang. This reveals another side of science, the heated competition to capitalize entrepreneurially on such breakthrough research. Isaacson, though focused on Doudna, offers an even-handed profile of Zhang and those who worked with him and the sometime collaboration and sometime cut-throat competition to create applications of the CRISPR technology.

Yet what seems to drive all these scientists is the love of the science. Isaacson takes us to the lab bench in his own attempts to use CRISPR to do gene edits, and to profile Doudna at the bench as well as her leadership of her research group. This aspect of Isaacson’s work is a great account of what the daily life of research scientists looks like, and many of the photos in this book are taken in labs.

The love of science also emerged in the rallying of rival lab groups to collaborate in the fight against COVID-!9. Isaacson shares how they overcame barriers of traditional science research publishing in the new world of online pre-print publishing to share research findings in an open-source, real-time fashion in an effort for the public good in developing new testing and treatment approaches. Although not directly tied to Doudna’s efforts, Isaacson talks about the use of messenger RNA molecules in the vaccines that have been most effective against COVID.

The most interesting and perhaps most important part of the book is the emerging discussion around the use of CRISPR technology in germline gene editing. This involves pre-implantation genetic testing and editing of embryos, which may remove lethal or problematic genes (think Huntington’s disease and especially other single-gene defects) or to enhance the embryo (think height, eye color, etc.). It appears that Doudna only gradually comprehended the ethical questions her research would raise, but then took the lead to draw up ethical frameworks to govern the use of the technology–frameworks which didn’t prevent the Chinese scientist from using the technology in human embryos that were implanted resulting in live births. At publication, this is very much a live question. Most consider this may be acceptable in some circumstances but where is the line to be drawn? Then there are more chilling possibilities. Could CRISPR be used to breed super-soldiers for example? And what of equity, when one considers the cost of these therapies?

The choice of Doudna as Isaacson’s focus is interesting. He shows us the rise of women in science. He also shows us the arc of a career from a junior researcher to one who is shaping the conversation in her discipline and considering how science serves the common good. One can imagine young women reading this story and becoming convinced that this could be their story. And why not? lt happened that way for a lanky sixth grader finding a copy of The Double Helix on her bed.

Review: The Black Coast

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The Black Coast (The God-King Chronicles #1), Mike Brooks. New York: Solaris, 2021.

Summary: Former enemies seek refuge with the people of Black Keep against a backdrop of political infighting, intrigue around the succession of the God-King, and the rise of a sinister power.

The sight of the ships stirred alarm among the Naridans living in Black Keep. Decimated by plague and remember the last visit of the Tjakorsha raiders, they prepare for a desperate fight. Then leaders of the Tjakorsha come ahead under a flag of parley. Lord Asrel and his sons Darel and Daimon come to meet them. Saana Sattistutar, the woman warrior leading the clan doesn’t propose surrender, but rather peaceful co-existence of their two peoples. Asrel breaks the truce of the parley in striking out against the Tjalkorsha. Slaughter and a war resulting in the likely defeat of the Naridans is averted by Daimon, Asrel’s adopted son, who takes charge, imprisoning his brother and father.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this book, the first in The God-King Chronicles, are the encounter of these two peoples, two cultures with two differing religions, two differing moral codes. The Tjakorsha have men and women who only mate with each other. The Naridans have six shades of gender between any two of which sex is acceptable. Yet Narida is patriarchal while Tjakorsha’s women lead and fight alongside men. Are their differences too great for co-existence to be possible.

Daimon and Saana try to work out their differences, against a backdrop of other events that could change their world. Conspirators from Black Creek send an emissary to report on the blasphemous alliance of the two peoples, with the objects of bringing a force of Naridans who could end up wiping out both peoples, except for the conspirators. Then their are the concerns of the family of the God-King. Natan, the current God-King loves men, and has no successor. His sister is far more Machiavellian than he, recognizing the threat of the Splinter King, and acts to remove it while a rich young man becomes romantically involved with the thief who had picked his pocket. The most sinister of all is the demonic tyrant, The Golden, who subjected all the Tjakorsha except for Saana’s clan, who fled. His lieutenant, Rikkut is sent with a large force after her, another threat to Saana’s people and those of the Black Keep.

This book caught me by surprise. It started out with Natan and Tila which was kind of ho-hum until the scene shifts to the confrontation of those of the Black Keep and the Tjakorsha. For a while it was hard to keep all the different characters and plotlines straight, and then it started making sense and I found myself getting more and more drawn into the world Brooks was building. Then there are the war dragons and the kraiks, sea monsters that threaten every voyage! The cultures, the creatures, the characters, and the plot all come together to make this a page-turner. Even secondary characters like Darel or Saana’s daughter Zhanna are interesting and play crucial roles.

Dang, another series to follow! But this looks to be a good one.

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

Review: Waiting for the Rest That Still Remains

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Waiting for the Rest That Still Remains, Arie C. Leder. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2021.

Summary: A consideration of the theology of the former prophets, including the Book of Ruth, considered through the lens of rest.

The books known as the former prophets, including the Book of Ruth, constitute both a significant amount of material in the Old Testament, and cover the history from Joshua preparing to cross Jordan to the heights of the reigns of David and Solomon, the divided kingdom, apostasy, and conquest of first Israel and then Judah, with the people in exile in Babylon–seven centuries.

Is there a theological thread that ties it all together? Arie C. Leder proposes that the thread is one of rest. The center point is Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8:56 in which Solomon praises God “who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised.” This book explores this theological theme, connecting this back to Genesis through Deuteronomy, considering the echoes of this theme in the New Testament as well as implications for the church today.

After four chapters laying the groundwork, Leder devotes a chapter each to Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel and Kings. In Joshua we witness the Lord giving the land of Canaan into their hands but at the end, not completely at rest from their enemies. Rest would hinge on their faithfulness to their covenant vows at Shechem. Sadly, Judges reveals a nation that chooses to do what is right in its own eyes rather than keep covenant. They rob themselves of rest as God abandons them to their enemies, and their own internal conflicts. Amid the chaos, we focus in on Naomi, Boaz, and Ruth. Naomi returns to the land of promise bereft, except for Ruth who has abandoned her family, home, and gods to embrace those of Naomi. But most of all, Boaz shows the covenant faithfulness in extending his wings of protection over Ruth, and Naomi, establishing the line of kings. They find rest, and so much more.

The land who lacked a king finally receives one in the books of Samuel–first Saul, who fails to obey the word of God wholeheartedly, and then David, the man after God’s own heart. This doesn’t mean sinlessness, and results in unrest in his own house, but his humbling himself in repentance means not only pardon but rest from his enemies all about, a gift to his son Solomon, who builds the temple where the ark of the covenant rests. Leder unpacks the prayer, noting six petitions in the promised land, and a seventh that prays toward the land, recognizing the possibility of exile. Then, beginning with his own reign and the gods of his foreign wives, Solomon sets the precedent interrupted only by Hezekiah and Josiah of following foreign gods and leading Israel astray both in worship and covenant obedience. And they no longer find rest in the land but must pray from Babylon.

While a remnant returns, there is a sense in which exile has not ended and rest still remains to be found. Yet, there is a kind of rest even in exile, whether for Israel or for the church, found in remaining in the promise, the covenant of God. Leder draws upon this covenant framework as a guide to what may be appropriated from these ancient texts. Often, the former prophets are neglected, apart from a few selective texts often subjected to moralizing sermons. Leder helps us connect these books to the rest lost in Eden to the sabbath rest for the people of God in Hebrews and the new garden city of Revelation. This is good biblical theology that invites us to look at these books with new eyes and recognize afresh the wonder of a collection of so many works that weave together into one story.

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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.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Youngstown Area Jewish Federation

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Recent violence in Israel has reminded me of the vibrant Jewish community of Youngstown, for whom these events must be of deep concern. That community can trace its beginnings at least back to 1833 when Jacob Spiegle, who came from Alsace, settled in Ohltown and opened a store. By 1867, the first congregation, Rodef Sholom, was established. It exists to this day. In future years the names Strouss, Hirshberg, Hartzell, Lustig, Haber, and many more would be associated with downtown retail establishments. In later years Fred Friedman would serve as an editor at the Vindicator and his wife Vera headed up advertising at McKelvey’s and gave significant leadership to efforts at the Youngstown Playhouse. We still buy Schwebel’s bread even in Columbus. I’m only scratching the surface of the many physicians, attorneys, educators, and many others who gave civic leadership not only in the Jewish community but wider city.

One of the most important civic organizations formed by leaders of the Jewish community was the Jewish Federation of Youngstown, which later became the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation. It was organized on November 7, 1935 under the leadership of Clarence J. Strouss, Sr. Remember that this was the time when the rise of Nazism under Hitler threatened the existence of the Jewish people throughout Europe. Howard C. Aley highlights the Federation’s commitment to “the social, cultural, educational and recreational needs of the Youngstown Jewish community” (Aley, p. 348).

Over the years, the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation has served as a center uniting the Jewish community in greater Youngstown, provided vital education in Jewish history and heritage and advocated for the rights of Jewish people. It has also created an umbrella of agencies serving not only the Jewish but the wider community. Jewish Family Services provides every thing from home delivered meals, services to the aging and various forms of individual and family therapy. The banner on their webpage says “everyone is welcome.” That is also the case for the Jewish Community Center, which, while committed to Jewish values, welcomes all into membership. They have two locations on Gypsy Lane and the Logan Center offering fitness facilities, pools, wellness classes, arts and culture, a summer camp and much more. Levy Gardens offers assisted living services and Heritage Manor is a rehabilitation and retirement facility. Akiva Academy is a K-8 school open to all with a project based curriculum.

In addition to these extensive community services, the Federation also supports various regional and national efforts. Key to all of this is the Youngstown Area Jewish Foundation, a vehicle for charitable giving within the Jewish community. They handle everything from annual pledge giving to donor advised funds and retirement asset giving to bequests. They manage a number of endowments for everything from emergency needs to college scholarships. One of the impressive things is that on Charity Navigator, one of the best places to go to check out the integrity of non-profits, they score 100 out of 100 on finance and accountability. Their program expense ratio is 92.51% which means over 92 cents of every dollar given goes to actual programs, which means they are a very efficient organization in use of funds with little “overhead.” They are independently audited and 26 of 29 board members are “independent,” that is, not employees of the organization.

I only had one contact with the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation. In college, I minored in social work. One of our assignments was to learn about various social agencies in the city by making site visits. That was a long time ago but the things that come to mind were spotless facilities, a compassionate concern for all the members of their community, and gracious courtesy to me, who was an interruption, and probably somewhat reticent on this unfamiliar ground. I was impressed, and as I read about its history, and its present day efforts, I continue to be glad for this organization with a long heritage and deep roots in Youngstown and for the work they are doing. Their website says, “We are guided by the values of Tzedakah (righteousness), Klal Yisrael (the responsibility of each Jew for another), Dor l’dor (the continuity of the Jewish people), and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).” Everything I see about them exemplifies those values.

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

Review: A Big Life (in advertising)

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A Big Life (in advertising), Mary Wells Lawrence. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Summary: A memoir of the first woman to head up a Madison Avenue advertising firm, producing some of the most memorable advertising campaigns of the 1960’s through the 1980’s.

From childhood on, she loved drama and story and envisioned her own life as one. At the end of this memoir she writes:

“I believe that whether you are a woman or a man you are supposed to stretch everything that you are, you are supposed to love with all your might, you are supposed to have a big life, so that when all is said and done you can say to yourself, with feeling, ‘I loved my life so much.’ “

Mary Wells Lawrence, p. 290.

This memoir tells the story of how she rose from a copywriter for advertising in the bargain basement of McKelvey’s department store in Youngstown, Ohio to become the first woman to lead a Madison Avenue advertising firm, and eventually the highest paid CEO in the business. Within a couple years of McKelvey’s, she was the fashion advertising manager at Macy’s. During this time she divorced and remarried her first husband, Bert Wells, only to divorce him again in 1965. What was apparent in the memoir is that he did not want the big life Mary did.

She moved over to working with advertising agencies, eventually going to Doyle Dane Bernbach, a major formative influence in her career. After a brief stint with Jack Tinker, during which she developed a campaign for Braniff Airlines featuring brightly pastel painted planes (“the end of the plain plane”), she left to form her own agency. Tinker reneged on a promotion he’d promised, and with two people on her team, Richard Rich and Stewart Greene she formed Wells Rich Greene.

The memoir tells the behind the scenes stories of ad campaigns from Benson & Hedges “cigarette breaks,” American Motors Javelin vs. Mustang comparisons, Alka Seltzer’s “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” and “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” and the “I love New York” campaign. Her agency taught us to “trust the Midas touch,” that at Ford “Quality is Job One,” and to “Flick your Bic.” She describes the lengths she went to to understand the interests of the mostly male clients she dealt with. She kept marginal products like Gleem toothpaste and Pringles alive for P & G.

Harding Lawrence, the CEO of Braniff was really the husband she should have married all along. He understood her world because he lived in one like it. One senses in reading the memoir that while she was a genius at understanding the needs of clients and creating television ads that told a story that engaged consumers, while he understood the ins and outs of business and organizational life. They made a great team.

Lawrence recounts numerous stretches of night and day creative efforts to meet deadlines and create these iconic ads. She describes the lengths she went to to understand the interests of the mostly male clients she dealt with, how difficult clients could be, and the day she resigned the lucrative account her firm had with TWA. As we read on, we sense the increasing exhaustion over years of chasing, catering to, and having clients drop her. Then came two cancer surgeries and the realization of neglected dimensions, including the spiritual in her life. In 1990, she sold her interest as the agency merged with a French firm BDDP. Sadly, by 1998, the combined agency was out of business. She accepts it philosophically with a sense that creative endeavors have their season.

One thing about the organization of the book is that it begins with her time in New York and the early efforts to build the agency. Then it reverts to her childhood in Poland, Ohio, her introduction to drama at the Youngstown Playhouse, and her initial entry into the advertising world working for Vera Friedman at McKelvey’s, learning to tell stories about clothing with a few words for the working people who purchased in the bargain basement. Then she returns to Wells Rich Green and the challenges of leading the big agency she built.

This is a fast-paced read, as fast-paced as one can imagine her life (she is still living at this writing). It does leave me wondering what the idea of a big life has come to mean in the intervening years. On May 25, Mary Wells Lawrence will be 92 years old. She has lived both a big and long life. Not bad for a woman who grew up in Poland, Ohio.

Review: Candles in the Dark

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Candles in the Dark, Rowan Williams. London: SPCK, 2020.

Summary: Weekly meditations by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, written for his parish church from March to September 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We all remember when life as we knew it ended as lockdowns and stay at home orders were issued to curb rising COVID infections. For many of us it was around mid-March 2020. On March 26, the day of the Feast of the Annunciation (remembering the appearance of Gabriel to Mary announcing she would bear the Christ child), former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams wrote the first of a series of meditations addressing what it means to live in faith, hope, and love during the pandemic. On that day, he wrote:

“And as we contemplate the coming months, not knowing when we can breathe again, it’s worth thinking about how already the foundations have been laid for whatever new opportunities God has for us on the far side of this crisis. The small actions we take to protect one another, to keep open the channels of love and gift, volunteering, if we’re able, to support someone less mobile or less safe, finding new ways of communicating, even simply meditating on how our society might become more just and secure–all this can be the hidden beginning of something fuller and more honest for us all in the future.”

Rowan Williams, pp. 2-3.

Over the coming months, ending September 17, 2020, Williams wrote weekly meditations for his parish church, collected in this compact book. Each are two to four pages in length. He reflects on our anxiety when our usual outlets for productive activity are gone, of treasuring relationships because of the experience of aloneness, the giving of the Holy Spirit that reminds us we are not God, and of seeking justice for those disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

One of my favorites, on the Feast of St. Matthias (May 14) celebrates this apostle whose greatest accomplishment lies in taking the place of Judas Iscariot. Williams emphasizes the hidden heroism he represents of those who faithfully show up. Another, written on August 6 was especially meaningful. Williams notes that this is both the day the first atom bomb was detonated with deadly results over Hiroshima, and the day of the church’s celebration of the transfiguration. In the first we see the dark face of humanity. In the second we see the radiant face of “infinite love of beauty,” the face of God in human flesh and know there is yet hope for us. I was born on August 6 and I feel this contrast, so beautifully articulated by Williams, has framed my life.

His posts do not all address pandemic-specific realities. Many, like the examples noted above, are connected to the church calendar. Others simply address contemporary realities like the reduction of our individuality and dignity before God to algorithms. Another is simply on meditative walking–something some of us have had time for. He writes with a measure of caution about the current trend of tearing down statues, which merely reflect what is true of all of us–people who got much wrong and a few things right. It may be right to remove a statue, but there is no room for smug superiority in doing so.

This is a sparkling collection of writing that reflects not only the pandemic but many of our contemporary concerns. I found myself wondering what Williams would have written during the horrendous wave of infection that came after the close of the book. What would his reflection have been about stubborn variants and vaccines? I hope he has continued writing. The book ends only part way through the journey, offering helpful direction for how we might live as people of faith both in this and more ordinary times. He recognizes this in his epilogue and recalls his opening reflection. He asks if we have grown through the solidarity forced by our common plight.

It is a question worth considering if we believe that the call to trust and follow Christ is to grow in Christ-likeness until the day we see him. We may feel with vaccines and the rescinding of health orders (at least for a time) that this is “over” and we can move on. If we simply want to forget, does it reveal something about the kind of people we have been through this time, with which we are uncomfortable? It is not too late to reflect on how the pandemic has shaped our life of faith, hope, and love, and make course corrections where needed. If we do not consider William’s question, we may find ourselves on a course that takes us away from Christ, and from solidarity with the human community. Williams’ book reminds us there are candles in the dark for those looking for light.

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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: Posting Peace

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Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It, Douglas S. Bursch. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021.

Summary: A discussion of the nature of online media, why it divides us, and how Christians can have a reconciling and redemptive presence.

I’m not sure if social media platforms were ever idyllic places, although my son tells me that it was a lot better before my generation got on Facebook and Twitter. In recent years I’ve seen both the delightful and disturbing parts of this media. On the delightful side, I host a book page with over 10,000 followers with fascinating discussions around books and the bookish life of bibliophiles. Then there are mean-spirited and outright false postings, sometimes in repeated comments that, in one instance, led to blocking someone I considered a good friend. I felt I was being used rather than engaged and that what I did was right but I am still disturbed about it, five months later.

Douglas S. Bursch saw plenty of angry in talk radio, where he worked as a host, trying to elevate the show to thoughtful discussion. He explores the peculiar nature of online media, its “always on” nature and how easy it is to post half-formed, often emotional responses to those we don’t even know. We may have thousands of connections and yet feel strangely anonymous, even as are those on our friends list. He calls this “networked individualism” where we are loosely connected to many people but deeply tied to few. Many really exist to meet some need of ours, and when they don’t, they are dispensable. We become numb to relationships. Part of what encourages this is that the media fosters “disincarnate communication.” We show what we want others to see as do they in curated versions of who we really are. Furthermore, social media facilitates a tribal mentality both through our willed choices of who to like and follow and the algorithms that track our behavior and show us who and what we want to see and read. Often, our own tribe has no motive to resolve conflict–we so affirm each other, and those on the outside, in the security of their tribe, are so odious that why bother. Unlike a real world situation where we do have to live with different people, we don’t on social media, and sadly learn ways of relating that translate into the real world as well.

Bursch, a middle child (like me) describes the theme of peacemaking and reconciliation in his life that came to fullest fruit in coming to faith in Christ who reconciled him to God and others. He presses out the implications of this for the online behavior of those who count themselves Christ-followers. He argues that bringing people closer to God and one another ought be a way of life online (and in real life). He proposes five questions that ought to be part of our peacemaking plan:

  1. Is reconciliation my motivation?
  2. Are people my priority?
  3. Am I communicating truth with love?
  4. Where is the grace?
  5. What is the Spirit saying?

He even presses this out into the unpleasant encounters we have with internet trolls, who he reminds us are actually people (unless they are bots).

He also addresses something I’ve always wrestled with as a peacemaking middle child. There are some things we cannot make peace with. Deliberate falsehoods. Racism. Sexual predation. Unjust systems. One of the constructive things he commends is the platforming of the marginalized, particularly by those of us who are socially dominant. It may be that instead of spouting our own ideas, we invite the ideas of those pushed to the margins.

Bursch believes in the power of posting peace. He describes a woman by the name of Freedalyn who, when COVID broke out, went silent, until some discovered she used libraries for internet access. Many had been concerned because they had experienced her quiet, caring presence online. He concludes the book with ways we might make room for the Lord in our online engagement.

At the end of each chapter, Bursch provides questions for reflection and exercises that include the assignment to post online with the hashtag #PostingPeace. The combination of a theology of reconciliation with concrete practices that runs through this book offers the chance of helping us more intentionally and charitably engage online. It has been of growing concern to me that there are no winners in the divisive discourse we see and sometimes join online. Furthermore, when Christians join in such discourse, we turn many against Christ. The warning of Matthew 18:16 haunts me and I don’t want to go swimming with a millstone around my neck! Douglas Bursch not only helps us understand the challenges of online media but offers hope that we can pursue a better way that makes a difference.

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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: #ChurchToo

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#ChurchToo: How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing, Emily Joy Allison. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021.

Summary: An argument connecting sexual abuse and other sexually dysfunctional teaching to the purity teaching upholding an ideal of abstinence until marriage between a man and a woman.

Emily Joy Allison went to a non-denominational evangelical church. Her father gave he a purity ring and was told she shouldn’t even kiss a boy until marriage. She eventually went to Moody Bible Institute. But before that, she was a survivor of sexual abuse from a youth leader in her church who “groomed” her and then came on to her. She’d never been taught about her body or about consent or what constituted abuse. Her father figured out what was going on, the leader was removed from the youth group, and the church swept the incident under the carpet. Emily’s last contact was a forced call him to apologize for her role. He never apologized. In her parents’ eyes, she was just as much to blame as he was. The day would come years later when she was no longer welcome home. At this writing, she still is not.

She buried this incident for many years. Only when the #MeToo movement arose did she summon the courage to create a new hashtag, #ChurchToo, and told her story and outed her abuser. Her story serves both as prologue and example of her thesis: that purity culture emphasizing abstinence, or else, creates the environment for abuse to thrive in church contexts. Women bear a disproportionate responsibility to dress and live “modestly” so as not to cause men to be aroused. It creates a rape culture, where the assumption is that the abused bears as much responsibility as the abuser. Sexual shame is used to create social control at the cost of both women and men hating their bodies and their sexuality–even while many are sexually active, up to 80 percent in a statistic cited in the book. Allison uses her stories, those of others, and research to deconstruct purity culture and its underlying theology.

Allison, a self-professed lesbian, goes further. She argues that the abstinence ideal underlying purity culture is homophobic, doing violence to LGBTQ persons. She advocates for a fully affirming position as the only alternative to abusive purity culture, with no middle ground.

In response, first of all, I’m convinced that her account of purity culture and its use of shame and social control to try to enforce an ideal of abstinence until marriage between a man and a woman is both credible and chilling. Her own story of her church’s inadequate and manipulative instruction about sexuality and coverup of her abuse is heartbreaking. I believe her. Her account, sometimes laced with profanity and justifiably angry is one I’m sure many churches will shun, likely the very churches that need to hear her.

What I miss in her attack on abstinence and advocacy for a fully affirming stance is a theology of human sexuality, particularly of the meaning of our sexuality. She rejects the “clobber verses” of scripture without addressing either the underlying theology that is part of the fabric in which these verses have been understood nor the theological premises, if such exist, for her own alternative of “ethical nonmonogamy.”

Likewise, while exposing the scandalous character of abuse in the church, which needs to be brought to the light of day, she offers no discussion of the rape culture I’ve witnessed as a collegiate minister in public universities where student have no lack of sexual education and instruction on consent. Donna Freitas, in Consent on Campus, notes what a complicated idea “consent” is and the reality that at least one in four report sexual abuse. Students nod knowingly when they hear the phrase, “the walk of shame.” This is not a purity culture context.

So, while I disagree with her broad brush indictment of abstinence and am committed to a different sexual ethic, her challenge to the patriarchal structures of the church, and her analysis of the purity culture a generation of youth were raised on, is deserving of attention. The dysfunctional sexuality of these churches is matched by the dysfunctional sexuality of the wider culture. There is a trail of abuse arising from both. Allison challenges us to something better than #MeToo and #ChurchToo.

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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: Prayer in the Night

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Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2021.

Summary: Both an introduction to Compline and a phrase by phrase reflection using one of the loveliest of Compline prayers.

Keep watch, dear Lord,
with those who work,
or watch,
or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ,
give rest to the weary,
bless the dying,
soothe the suffering,
pity the afflicted,
shield the joyous,
and all for your love's sake.
Amen

Over the last year of the pandemic, I’ve posted on Facebook prayers, morning and evening, (“Collects”) from The Book of Common Prayer. The prayer above, from of the office of Compline, is one of my favorites, and often I think of particular people as I pray each phrase. During the pandemic this has included the working and weary medical personnel, the people keeping vigil for those in ICUs, the sick and sometimes the dying, those afflicted with long-COVID, and others who struggle with chronic pain and illness. Amid this all I think of the joyous including new parents, graduates, and all of us who have received vaccines. I think of angels watching over and guarding us in the vulnerable moments of our nightly rest. I rest in the care of the Lord who watches for love’s sake.

Thus it was with great delight that I discovered on opening Prayer in the Night that it is organized around this loved prayer. Tish Harrison Warren takes us through her own journey of praying compline, most notably one night with her husband in an emergency room as she hemorrhaged severely during a miscarriage. She introduces us to Compline, the last of the prayers of the hours or offices, to be prayed at night before retiring. She writes of how Compline helped her at a time of loss of a baby and of her father:

“Compline speaks to God in the dark. And that’s what I had to learn to do–to pray in the darkness of anxiety and vulnerability, in doubt and disillusionment. It was Compline that gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news.”

Tish Harrison Warren, p. 19.

In succeeding chapters, Warren offers reflections on each phrase of this prayer that come out of her lived experience with praying it. She begins by discussing the God to whom we pray in the dark, and how the prayers operate as cairns, rock structures, that help us keep on the path when we can only feel our way along in fog or the dark. She then turns to the way of the vulnerable–those who weep or watch or work, taking the phrases in reverse order. She concludes:

“Taken together, working and watching and weeping are a way to endure the mystery of theodicy. They are a faithful response to our shared human tragedy–but only when we hold all three together, giving space and energy to each, both as individuals and as the church.”

Tish Harrison Warren, p. 75.

From this she turns to what she calls “a taxonomy of vulnerability.” She describes her renewed understanding of the care of the angels in our sleep as she prayed for her first child each night. Her reflection on sickness includes insights into the wonders of our bodies that we often take for granted until illness. In weariness we are offered rest, one to learn from, and one who intercedes for us. Prayer for the dying reminds us of our own death and how we are taught to live in light of it and our resurrection hope. Suffering and affliction take us into new places of dependence upon God in our weakness, and call the church into depths we are reluctant to go. Then there is the risk of disappointment in joy and our need to be shielded here as well.

Finally, Warren concludes by exploring how God invites us into a deeper encounter with his love. In the night. When we doubt. In our illness and vulnerability. In suffering and affliction. The love of God, revealed in Christ, is the last word of this prayer.

The writing about goodness, truth, and beauty one finds in Warren’s prose is humbling. All I can say is what is found in this book is so much better and richer than my summary. Warren helps me pray a prayer I’ve loved with deeper meaning and consciousness of my vulnerability and the depths of God’s care. She offers good direction for all of us facing “night” in our lives.

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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.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Mother’s Day 1971

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My inbox is full of ads for Mother’s Day. We’re excited to get together with our son and daughter-in-law to celebrate. Instead of roses, we typically buy perennials for our yard that keep flowering year after year. We were at the garden center on Friday.

I miss celebrating mother’s day with my mom, who passed in 2010. One year, dad and I went to the garden center and bought a maple tree that we planted in front of the house to shade the porch where she liked to sit on summer evenings. The tree is still there. The house is not. Often there would be a trip to Fellows Gardens. But her favorite thing was to go out for a good steak. We often went to the Brown Derby, a popular place for Mother’s Day until it closed and later to Steak and Ale on South Avenue in Boardman. But I also remember going to Palazzo’s on Midlothian. Great Italian, veal parmigiana, and steaks. Or Lucianno’s in Austintown. When things were tighter, it was a bucket of Golden Drumstick Chicken, which she loved.

I thought for this post I would look at some of the places we took our moms fifty years ago in the Youngstown area. I found a number of restaurants including those above in The Vindicator from May 8, 1971. Get ready for a walk down memory lane! Sure enough, there was an ad for Palazzo’s. Steaks, traditional dinners, spaghetti, and homemade lasagna. All of the restaurants offered children’s menus at special prices. At the Golden Steer Smorgasbord by the turnpike, it was all you could eat for the princely sum of $2.95 with children under 10 at half price! Even The Mansion, one of the more elegant restaurants, had a special menu for Mother’s Day, with children’s servings.

Of course you wanted to take Mom to the nicest place you could afford. Here’s two restaurants that listed prices that were a bit more expensive. At the Town & Country on the Strip on Route 422, my mom could have gotten a petite filet mignon for $4.50, with mushrooms! At the Avalon, you could get prime rib for $5.25. I wonder what it would cost at one of their restaurants today. You would dress up to go to these places–nice dresses and jackets and ties. But mom was worth it.

Families couldn’t always afford the really nice places. There were options all around town for an inexpensive dinner out. Gays in the McGuffey Plaza had a number of dinners ranging from $1.45 for a three piece chicken dinner to $1.95 for home-made ravioli. Tambellini’s on the north side offered a lasagna dinner for mom for $.89! Others paid regular price. Then there was the Harvest House at Southern Park Mall with a $1.29 roast turkey dinner. There were even free gifts for the youngest mother, the oldest mother and the mother with the most children (she definitely deserved a prize!)

Then there was Burger Chef. Remember Burger Chef? They had a deal for a family of four for $1.89 (or more food for fewer people). They did this every Sunday. Other fast food chains also had special offers. Morgan’s Family Restaurants offered of relishes, salad or cole slaw, all you can eat chicken, ham, or top sirloin, two sides, a desert and beverage for $3.50. That’s a lot of food! Remember Red Barn? They offered a barnfull of chicken (nine pieces, a pint of coleslaw, and rolls for $2.99. Like fish? Mom could get FREE fish and chips at Arthurs Treacher’s–“the healthiest sea food in the world.” They must have something on the ball though. They are still in business on Mahoning Avenue in Austintown. [Correction: I learned after posting that the restaurant formerly known as Arthur Treacher’s is now doing business as Captain Arthur’s, with a similar menu. The change occured about a year ago.]

I’ve touched on just a fraction of the good places. Many didn’t need to advertise. Where did you like to take your mother?

Looking at all that food is making me hungry and bringing back memories. The best, though, was letting mom know how special she was.

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