The Weekly Wrap: August 10-16

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The Weekly Wrap: August 10-16

Reading Like Terry Gross

I’m a very different reader than Terry Gross, who has interviewed hundreds of authors on her Fresh Air program. She recently dropped a video on Facebook describing her process. Our biggest difference is that she destroys her books and I don’t. The video shows a shelf of her books with probably a third of the pages dog-eared. She dog-ears a page with quotes or ideas she wants to remember, which she circles. Gross dog-ears the bottom of pages she wants to use in her introduction. She notes key themes of the book on the frontispiece. I sell many books after she reviews them. She obviously doesn’t.

We do have some things in common. We both read the books we are reviewing or discussing in interviews. I don’t have the luxury of a staff to do this for me, but Gross reads the books herself. I read any book I review beginning to end. And I also pay attention to acknowledgements and prologues. They often set out what the author is trying to do. I’m always thinking as I read–“are they succeeding in their aim?”.

Where we differ is that I may bookmark or use a post-it note for quotes. I keep up a mental dialogue with the plot or argument. Because I re-sell many books, I don’t mark them up. And because I do daily blog posts rather than longer interviews, I try to keep my reviews between 500 and 1000 words. I’d be tempted, I think, to go much longer with Gross’s method.

However, Gross is a master at the craft and it never hurts to learn from a master!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Most of us think of MIT as a center of technology. However, this week’s Atlantic includes an article from a professor, Joshua Bennett, on “Why So Many MIT Students Are Writing Poetry.” And it’s not even for a class!

C.S. Lewis was no fan of existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, whose writing he described as  “walking in sawdust.” Nevertheless, James Como argues that there is a congruency between the two of them in “On His Existential Way.” 

Most of us have lived our whole lives under the shadow of the atom bomb. For example, I was born on the somber anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Thus, on the recent eightieth anniversary of that bombing, Peter Hitchens article, “The Empire of the Atom” seems appropriate.

When you think of road trip books, does Jack Kerouac’s On the Road come to mind? I’ll be honest and say I’m not a fan. Thankfully, there are some other road trip books that are better. Here are “18 Great Road Trip Books That Aren’t ‘On the Road’“.

We bibliophiles are lovers of words. The only thing that could be better is a list of words about bibliophiles. And that’s what we have in “22 Perfect Words About Books and Reading.”

Quote of the Week

I loved this “pungent” insight from poet Robert Southey, born August 12, 1774.

“If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”

Miscellaneous Musings

This week, I reviewed a theological memoir by Gerhard Lohfink, a book he completed shortly before his death in 2024. In short, I loved his testimony about his belief in God and how he sought to live his scholarship. As a result, I ordered a couple more of his books, something I reserve for authors I really love.

Terry Gross also mentioned she prefers books under 300 pages, which she thinks is enough for any author to say his or her piece. She notes, interviewers have to sleep too! I laughed, because I had just finished Ron Chernow’s 1000+ page account of Mark Twain. I know he writes really long books, but I think this could have been shorter.

Finally, I’ve been delighting in J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. If you ever wanted a crash course in chivalry, it’s all here. He even resists seduction by his host’s wife three times without turning her into “the woman scorned.”

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man

Tuesday: Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

Wednesday: Regin V. Cates, The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have

Thursday: Ron Chernow, Mark Twain

Friday: Rachel Joy Welcher, Charlie Can’t Sleep!

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 10-16!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: Why I Believe in God

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Cover image of "Why I Believe in God" by Gerhard Lohfink

Why I Believe in God, Gerhard Lohfink, Linda M. Maloney, translator. Liturgical Press (ISBN: 9780814689974) 2025.

Summary: A New Testament professor testifies to the reasons for his own faith in God in the form of a memoir.

Over the years of reading various works of New Testament scholarship, I came across the name of Gerhard Lohfink. Lohfink was a Catholic priest and theologian, teaching New Testament exegesis with the Catholic theological faculty at Tubingen. However, I had not read any of his works, having matured in a different theological tradition. Lohfink passed away in 2024. Why I Believe in God was his last book, a kind of theological autobiography and personal testimony to his faith.

This last is important in understanding the book. Rather than offer a formal theology or apologetic for God’s existence, he treats this as a given and traces how he was both formed in and lived out that faith as a priest and scholar. Because of that, the book has a personal feel, that of a man in his last days reflecting over his life. And, unlike some accounts that reflect disillusionment, this reflects gratitude and joy.

He begins quite simply by acknowledging that he believed because of believing parents, considering this a grace of God and his parents’ quietly resistant faith in the face of Nazism. This extended to an assistant priest who negotiated the razor edge of shrewdness and innocence under Nazi scrutiny while forming Lohfink and other youth in the faith. He also attributes a Catholic youth movement group led by Gertrud Koob for a pivotal experience of Christian community.

Through that movement, he came to understand the crucial decision of whether he would serve himself or follow Jesus. Yet he acknowledges that this also implied a lifetime of decisions:

“Probably, in the hour when we ultimately stand before Christ and have arrived completely in the presence of God, we will be astonished to see that the great decisions of our lives were fed by infinitely many daily choices–even by the help and hope of those who have lovingly and faithfully accompanied us through our lives” (p. 28).

For Lohfink, this decision also included the decision to enter the priesthood. He narrates his studies in philosophy at Frankfurt. Then he moved to Munich for theological studies. He describes the “intermission” of these years, discovering great works of music and art that taught him to see goodness, truth and beauty and to long for the eternal to which art pointed. During theological studies, he highlights his studies on the Trinity and on original sin. These two distinctively Christian doctrines are foundational to understanding God’s perfections and purposes in the world.

Lohfink spent a brief period as a priest before his bishop sent a letter opening the way to doctoral studies. It turns out two of his professors recognized in his graduation thesis a calling to scholarship. He speaks of the formative influence of Rudolph Schnackenburg, who directed his research on Luke’s resurrection accounts.

And then came the opportunity to teach at Tubingen, including his studies on community in the early church that led to his decision to leave in 1987. It is striking that he is silent about his role as a deputy of the theological faculty in the exclusion of Hans Kung. However, in 1987, he decided to leave Tubingen to join the Integrierte Gemeinde along with his parents. He offers a summary of his work on biblical community and how this afforded a chance to live his scholarship.

Then he turns to one of the most profound issues for any who defend God’s existence. He addresses the extent of suffering and evil in the world. In the end, he argues that our resolution of these universal realities is a faith decision. No argument can resolve these questions. We must choose between an absurd, godless world, or one that we believe “rests in the hands of God…who knows more than we do and has called us into freedom.”

With that, he returns to the title question–why I believe in God. His ultimate response is the mystery of the Incarnation. It is through meeting Jesus that he believes in God, seeing the face of God in the face of Jesus. He concludes: “But above all I look at Jesus. To him I hold fast. In him I will die.”

So much in this book spoke to my heart, including his conclusion. Though younger, I found many parallels in our journeys. And reading of his work, particularly that on community, led to picking up a couple of his books. I deeply appreciated a scholar who understood his work as being for Christ and the church, and not just the “publish or perish” rat race. This last work leaves me wanting to explore his other works, and with a profound sense of gratitude for his life.

____________________

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

Review: What Happened at Hazelwood

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Cover image of "What Happened at Hazelwood" by Michael Innes

What Happened at Hazelwood, Michael Innes. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9780140026504) 1968 (first published 1946).

Summary: The master of Hazelwood Hall is murdered shortly after Australian relatives join a manor of people who hate him.

What Happened at Hazelwood is Michael Innes’ version of a country manor murder mystery. One of the unusual features is that the story is narrate by two narrators in three parts. Firstly, Lady Simney, the unhappy actress wife of the murdered Sir George Simney narrates events up to the murder. Then the assistant of Inspector Cadover (no Appleby!) narrates their investigation. Finally, Lady Simney narrates the denouement, an ending that surprises her as well as many readers.

Sir George Simney is the master of Hazelwood Hall, the ancestral country seat of the Simney’s. Sir George is not well-liked and the household an unhappy one. As a young man, he ventured to Australia, surviving an accident killing his brother Denzell, pulling off a swindle of relatives known as the Dismal Swamp affair, and landing back in England as Lord of the manor. His butler Alfred Owden has a son, Timmy, who looks like a Simney. A widowed sister, Lucy, has a son, Mervyn, who could be a twin of Timmy. There is also an unmarried sister Grace, who in cohoots with the local vicar, wants to stamp out sin in the manor. A younger brother, Bevis is also visiting, with his artist son Willoughby.

A fight breaks out among them at dinner, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Australian relatives. Hippias Simney is accompanied by his son Gerard and Gerard’s wife, Joyleen, who subsequently has a flirtation with George. Immediately, a quarrel breaks out about the Dismal Swamp. And later that night, an encounter with the guests results in Albert dropping a tray full of crystal.

Without going into all the doings of the next unhappy day, the household turns in on a snowy night. Then Alfred enters Sir George’s library, bring refreshment as he is accustomed to do when he discovers Sir George dead from a blow to the back of the head. There is a look of surprise and terror on the dead man’s face.

Cadover’s assistant then picks up the narrative. He renders the account of the household’s whereabouts and movements. There are tracks in the snow to explain as well as a pair of boots in Sir George’s safe (and nothing else). The arrival of an old flame of Lady Simney’s in town adds another wrinkle. The problem is, while there are a lot of subjects, the evidence on hand does not clearly point at any of them.

Lady Simney narrates the final part. One more person dies. Timmy reads a letter. Cadover unravels the manner of Simney’s death. All of this is full of surprises for the readers, and for some of the characters.

This book was uncharacteristic for those of Innes I have read. He takes a long time to unfold the plot. I found implausible a number of elements. The change of narrators seemed a bit clumsy. Yet I liked the conclusion. But it just seemed that the plot to get there was not as elegant as other Innes books.

Review: When Work Hurts

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When Work Hurts, Meryl Herr. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514010242) 2025.

Summary: Moving through workplace disappointments and finding healing and hope through Israel’s journey of exile and return.

I’ve reviewed a number of books on vocation and finding work you love. But this is the first book I’ve read to address the uncomfortable reality of when work hurts. Yet for many, their glowing hopes of fulfilling work have ended in disillusionment. You are part of a “reduction in force.” It could be the boss who unpredictably flies off the handle in temper tantrums. Or it can be toxic relations in a work team. Then there are the terrible instances of verbal, physical, or even sexual abuse in the workplace. Finally, in situations stressing productivity over the value of people, relentless hours and stress can result in burnout.

Meryl Herr has experienced many of these in her own work career. In her research as a former director at the Max De Pree Center for Leadership, she has heard many other stories of workplace hurt. In When Work Hurts she names the different wounds people bear from workplace experiences, including the guilt one may feel as a consequence. But she also explores how we might hope again and reclaim a sense of God’s purpose within one’s work. She does this not only through honest discussions of devastating work experiences. She also parallels that devastation with the experience of Israel as Jerusalem is devastated, they are deported to Babylon, make a new life there, and in a later generation return and rebuild. And she follows this story stage by stage throughout the book. and through that, she explores how we can cultivate resilience and hope as we heal.

Herr begins with the devastation of layoffs and firings, when the walls come crumbling down. She explores the experience of displacement, a kind of exile, when one loses a job or is estranged in relationships. Then there is the darkness of disillusionment, the dark nights of the soul when it is unclear what’s next. Herr discusses the everyday faithfulness that seeks peace and the prospering of those around one during such times.

Disillusioned workers often wonder about God’s calling in this “in between” place of displacement. She explores the opportunity this affords to pay attention to God, community, ourselves, and the world around us. Thus, Israel heard God’s call to return when God raised up Cyrus. Then she gets real practical in terms of staying on task in our job search, not unlike the exiles who needed exhorting by Haggai to redouble their efforts in rebuilding God’s house. Part of moving through work hurt is making sense of it all through seeing a bigger picture. This includes job crafting, seeing one’s calling within work, and seeing one’s work within God’s redemptive story.

Yet sometimes, workplaces may still be toxic or exploitative. Herr likens this to the ways Israel was opposed as they rebuilt Jerusalem and how they both prayed and armed themselves. In the workplace, this doesn’t mean physical battle but spiritual armor to stand, act with courage and care, pursuing peace where possible and discerning when one must leave. And sometimes, we cause workplace hurt and must own it.

Through it all, Herr challenges us to remember hope through remembering God’s faithfulness to us and God’s promises in scripture. She also bids us to remember the new Jerusalem, where we will work with unending joy.

Each chapter includes real life stories of both disappointment and how people pressed through to hope. Each chapter also concludes with a “Work Hurt Clinic” helping the reader or groups reflect on their own experiences in light of the chapter. They identify symptoms, causes, pain, and ways to experience care.

This book is a welcome addition to the collection of marketplace books. Where others touch on workplace hurt, Herr looks it in the eye, naming all the forms it can take. Furthermore, Herr shows the way of cultivating resilience, not by pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. Rather, she treats workplace hurt as a call to ground ourselves more deeply in “exile faith” and in the God who “makes a way out of no way.”

____________________

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

Review: Peril at End House

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Cover image of "Peril at End House" by Agatha Christie

Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot, 8), Agatha Christie. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780063376014) 2024 (First published in 1932).

Summary: “Nick” Buckley has several “accidents” which Poirot believes are attempts on her life by someone in her inner circle.

Poirot and his old friend Captain Hastings are united for a stay at a Cornish resort. During an encounter with a young actress, Magdala “Nick” Buckley, something buzzes past them that they take for a wasp–until Poirot spots a hole in Buckley’s hat and a bullet on the ground. Then she confides that this is the latest in a string of “accidents.” Poirot suspects there is more to them than that. And his investigation confirms his fears, though Nick seems determined to defy death. Poirot believes someone in her inner circle is trying to kill her. In typical Poirot fashion, he takes on the mission of defending the lady and finding the murderer.

The inner circle are gathered around End House, the property Nick has inherited and struggles to maintain–a house with a questionable history. Charles Vyse is the lawyer cousin who arranged a mortgage for her to keep the house. She is hosting several friends. Her closest is Freddie Rice, a wife in an abusive marriage and closet cocaine user. Jim Lazarus, an art dealer is in love with Freddie. He also offered to buy a painting from Nick well above market value. Captain Challenger is a military officer with affections for Nick that she has indulged but not returned. Mr. and Mrs. Croft are transplanted Aussies renting a nearby lodge. They encouraged Nick to make a will before surgery six months earlier. They mailed it but Charles claims it was never received. Finally, there is Ellen, the housekeeper, who closely watches all the goings on at End House.

Poirot suggests Nick have the company of a trusted friend. Nick invites her cousin Maggie, a minister’s daughter. Shortly after her arrival, Maggie hosts a garden party. At one point, Maggie borrows a scarlet wrap of Nick’s. Masked by fireworks, gunshots take her life. Meanwhile, Nick had absented herself to take a phone call.

Next morning, Poirot notes the story of the death of a wealthy airman, Michael Seton. He surmises that Nick was his secret fiancée and stood to inherit the flyer’s wealth. So, for her safety, Poirot arranges her seclusion in a sanitarium with no visitors allowed. Yet somehow a box of chocolates laced with cocaine gets to her and she nearly dies from an overdose. The card said they were from Poirot.

Motive, and the contents of the missing will from Nick are on his mind. Freddie seems a prime suspect, having sent chocolates. And she is a cocaine addict. But Poirot is not so sure. So he stages a gathering at End House after Nick’s will turns up. The “official” word is that Nick died from the overdose. There will be a reading of the will. Poirot then suggests a seance, with Hastings as medium. And here, Nick stages her ultimate performance, triggering all sorts of mayhem and the exposure of the murderer.

To sum up, I thought this one of Christie’s near greats. The ingenious plot leaves you guessing and scratching your head and asking at the end, “why didn’t I see that?”. But we’re not the only ones, as you will see.

__________

Thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Religious Freedom

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Cover image of "Religious Freedom" by John D. Wilsey

Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer, John D. Wilsey. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802881908) 2025.

Summary: A conservative case, arguing the spirit of religion and liberty are mutually necessary and best defended by conservatism.

One of the sad spectacles of our current American politics is the weaponization of religious liberty. One political party uses fears over erosion of religious liberty to mobilize the religious, especially Christian, portion of its base. Others, fearful of the hegemony of a particular religious outlook, advance ideas of confining religious liberty to worship and personal devotion, creating a public square devoid of, and in some cases hostile to religious conviction. Sadly, the one thing all this has in common is fear, which has become a powerful driver of political rhetoric at the expense of harmony in our body politic.

John D. Wilsey argues in Religious Freedom that two spirits have shaped our national life from the nation’s beginnings. One is a spirit of religion. The other is a spirit of liberty. He believes both are necessary for our national life. Furthermore he contends that classic, Burkean conservatism offers the best prospect for sustaining the harmony between these two spirits.

He begins his argument by seeking to define what is conservatism. He acknowledges the contention between those who would claim this label. There are those who emphasize the permanent, sometimes inflexibly so, and others, who recognize the inevitability, of and even need for, change. However, Wilsey contends that a Burkean conservatism holds both the permanent and the evolving in a tension that moves with caution that is neither reactionary nor Utopian.

Wilsey then proceeds to unpack this conservatism under the categories of imagination, nation, ordered liberty, history, and religion. Imagination supports human dignity. In addition, it enables the forming of conscience through the embrace of the good, the true and the beautiful. Then, Wilsey considers the idea of nation, and how love of one’s nation, a proper patriotism, differs from an aggressive, ideological nationalism.

But how are order and liberty related? In chapter four, Wilsey proposes that order, particularly our constitutional order, precedes liberty. Specifically, order creates the conditions for our private and public life, including our religious life, to flourish. In turn, our religious life, ideally, points people to the highest goods. Therefore, liberty is guarded from turning into license and order into authoritarianism.

Likewise, history and tradition play a vital role in conserving the twin spirits of religion and liberty from generation to generation. They guard us from a rootlessness, seeing society, as Burke did, as a contract between the dead, the living, and the yet to be born. They offer wisdom, helping us understand when a tradition has outlived its time while guarding us from amnesia.

Finally, religion plays a crucial role in navigating the tension between permanence and change. It does so by defining the permanent things. the morality common to all people, everywhere through time. Religion helps us know where we may compromise and where we must stand.

In concluding, Wilsey asserts his thesis that true conservatism is best positioned to preserve the spirit’s of religion and liberty in our country. He reminds us that this goes deeper than politics:

“The aspirational conservative is prepolitical. The one possessing a conservative disposition aims for a higher moral destiny for persons and societies, guided by the light of permanent things, tradition, and just order. He also understands human fallibility and the real world. He reckons with the human condition marked as it is by limitation, imperfection, and change. the moral profit and ordered liberty of the human person is the primary disposition of the conservative disposition” (pp. 219-220).

Wilsey argues that this kind of conservatism may best build on our foundations of religion and liberty without losing the rich inheritance we have received.

I would love for those who embrace the label of “conservative” to read this “primer.” Likewise, religious leaders may find value both in Wilsey’s apologetic for the importance of religion in our national life, and its proper boundaries. Wilsey sets a high standard for both the religious and the political among us. However, I would like to see more exploration of situations where order conflicts with liberty. Sadly, “order” and “permanent things” have been used to subjugate significant portions of our population. It has upheld, rather than resisted, despotism.

Lastly, I affirm Wilsey’s effort as an evangelical Christian, to articulate a thoughtful and rigorous work of political philosophy. Sadly, as Mark Noll argued in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, evangelicals have been noted far more for activism than for thought. That helps explain some of the instances of our misbegotten activism. It is to be hoped that pastors, politicians, and concerned citizens will read this work. Ideally, they will act more thoughtfully to conserve and extend our traditions of religious freedom and civil liberty.

____________________

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

The Weekly Wrap: August 3-9

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The Weekly Wrap: August 3-9

Readers

What do Italo Calvino and Kevin Vanhoozer have in common? One was an Italian novelist. The other is a theologian who focuses on hermeneutics, the discipline of biblical interpretation. I am reading both right now and one of their shared concerns is readers.

I’m reading Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler, a novel about a reader who reads the first chapter of ten novels while developing a relationship with a woman, Ludmilla. However, the narrator directly addresses the reader between the stories, discussing how we read and the ‘you” he addresses becomes a part of the story.

Vanhoozer’s concern is different. He considers various reading strategies with which we approach reading the Bible. Behind all this, Vanhoozer explores what it means to believe that through scripture, God addresses us, and what this means for reading.

What strikes me is that most of the time, readers, I think, feel like bit players in the scheme of books, authors, publishers, the book trade, and libraries. Yet the reality is that none of this would exist apart from the reader.

We read for many reasons from necessity at school or work to diversion to illumination. But one thing all have in common is attention. Readers are people who fend off distraction to open their minds to another. At our best, we lay aside our preconceptions as best we can to understand what they author is trying to give us in his or her words. Then we ponder that, comparing it to and fitting into our experience and understanding.

If nothing else, it strikes me that we engage in quite a wonderful thing every time we pick up a book and read. We honor the writer, and all those who labored to bring us the book, by giving these words, and the meaning they convey, access to our inner lives. And that is no small thing.

Five Articles Worth Reading

In “The Kafka Challenge,” Paul Reitter considers the challenges of translating Franz Kafka’s works. Indeed, he invokes George Steiner’s idea of untranslatability. Some things cannot be fully conveyed from one language to another.

Yet translating Kafka may be important for understanding our present time in the U.S. So contends Sasha Abramsky in “We’ve Officially Entered Kafka’s America” as he considers the apprehension of a Libyan refugee who legally entered the country fifteen years ago. What is chilling is how difficult, if impossible, it is to gain the release of detainees even when it is shown they were wrongfully detained, due to quotas that must be met.

The year 2012 was the peak year globally for live births, with rates falling in many countries. And in many countries, less than two children for each two adults are being born. “After the Spike: What Slow and Steady Depopulation Means For the World” considers the implication of these population trends.

I’ll admit it. I’m partial to Ohio authors. Zane Grey wrote a series of Western novels, the most famous of which was Riders of the Purple Sage. His real first name was Pearl. In addition to harking back to his home town of Zanesville, Zane just seems a better name for a writer of Westerns. What I didn’t know is that a fishing expedition off the coast of Australia lat in life endeared him to Australians and may have inspired Ernest Hemingway. Read about it in “Why is a cowboy writer from Ohio venerated in a small Aussie beach town? The incredible story of Zane Grey.”

Finally, imagine cleaning out a home library and finding a rare first edition of The Hobbit. “A Rare Copy of ‘The Hobbit’ Is Found on an Unassuming Shelf” recounts how that happened in a home in Bristol, England, and how much this find may end up being worth.

Quote of the Week

Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and I share a birthday, August 6. He made this trenchant observation, so relevant in our “post truth” era:

“A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.”

I wonder if we still believe that.

Miscellaneous Musings

If romance fiction is among your loves, today is Bookstore Romance Day at your nearest independent bookstore. Now you have that excuse to go to the bookstore (as if you needed one).

One of the nicest birthday greetings I received on my Facebook profile came from a publicist at one of the publishers for which I regularly review books. She wrote, “Happy birthday to one of my favorite book lovers! Hope you have a great day!” I did, and I would add, she is one of my favorite publicists.

A former colleague, Tracy Gee, recently published The Magic of Knowing What You Want. She asks a question we rarely ask ourselves “What do you want?” I found that an important question in my own vocational journey and I’m enjoying how she unpacks figuring that out.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: John D. Wilsey, Religious Freedom

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, Peril at End House

Wednesday: Meryl Herr, When Work Hurts

Thursday: Michael Innes, What Happened at Hazelwood

Friday: Gerhard Lohfink, Why I Believe in God

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 3-9!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: Swing Low, Volume 2

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Cover image of "Swing Low, Volume 2), General Editor: Walter R. Strickland II

Swing Low, Volume 2: An Anthology of Black Christianity in the United States, General Editor, Walter R. Strickland II, Associate Editors, Justin D. Clark, Yana Jenay Conner, and Courtlandt K. Perkins. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514004227) 2024.

Summary: An anthology of primary source writings on Black Christianity in America from the 1600’s to the present.

Last month I reviewed a new history of Black Christianity in the United States by Walter R. Strickland II (review at https://bobonbooks.com/2025/07/02/review-swing-low-volume-1/). So, this volume is a companion to that work, providing an anthology of readings to complement the historical narrative of the first volume. In other words, if you’ve studied history, you understand how important primary sources are. Therefore, this collection is a treasure trove, both for what is represented here and the more extensive sources to which they point.

For example, here are some of the readings included:

  • Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
  • Richard Allen “The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the R. Rev. Richard Allen…”
  • Francis Grimke, “Christianity and Race Prejudice”
  • Charles Octavius Boothe “Plain Theology for Plain People”
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., “Our God is Able”
  • Howard Thurman, “Jesus and the Disinherited”
  • Fannie Lou Hamer, “To Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography”
  • Tom Skinner, “Black and Free”
  • William E. Pannell, “My Friend, the Enemy”
  • James Cone, “A Black Theology of Liberation”
  • Samuel Proctor, “Samuel Proctor: My Moral Odyssey”

Like other anthologies, many of the readings are excerpts of key passages of longer works. In addition, each of the selections includes a brief biography of the author and the context in which it was written as well as the original source of the reading.

Moreover, the anthology follows the organization of Volume One, the history, in two ways. Firstly, the anthology annotates the readings with symbols for the five theological anchors Strickland elucidates in the first volume:

  • Anchor 1: Big God
  • Anchor 2: Jesus
  • Anchor 3: Conversion and Walking in the Spirit
  • Anchor 4: The Good Book
  • Anchor 5: Deliverance

Secondly, the sections follow the historical periods of volume one, making it well-suited for use as a companion volume in courses on Black Christianity. These sections are:

  1. Pre-emancipation: 1619-1865
  2. Reconstruction and Its Aftermath: 1865-1896
  3. Civil Rights Era 1896-1968
  4. Black Evangelicalism: 1963 and Beyond
  5. Black Theology: 1969 and Beyond
  6. Into the Twenty-First Century

Finally, the readings in each section are divided into four categories:

  • Sermons and Oratory
  • Theological Treatises
  • Worship and Liturgy
  • Personal Correspondence and Autobiography

I especially appreciated the Worship and Liturgy selections which included early spirituals like “Go Down Moses” and “Oh! Peter Go Ring Dem Bells,” Civil Rights protest songs like “We Shall Overcome.” and contemporary hip hop like Sho Baraka’s “Maybe Both, 1865.”

In conclusion, this volume is the ideal complement to the history of volume one. Not only that, the readings allow us to listen to Black Christians in their own words. In particular, I found both great comfort in the faith of these believers and great challenge as they spoke of the sins of slavery and racism. For example, consider this excerpt from William E. Pannell’s “My Friend, The Enemy”, from 1968:

“No, this man is a friend. He’s against the KKK, abhors violence, supports the Constitution and is for Negro voting rights. We read the same version, believe the same doctrines, probably have the same middle class tastes, but all he knows about me–or cares to know–is what he sees on the 6 o’clock news.… I wear a suit as good as his, yet he sees me looting a clothing store in Watts. He knows something of my temperament as its mirrored in the behavior of my sons, yet he identifies me with the muggings in Washington or Buffalo. To him, the cause of brotherhood, the disintegration of human relations–civil rights!–is my problem. Mine, because I created it and I perpetuate it.”

Certainly, it does not take a great deal of imagination to draw parallels to our own day. For this reason, this anthology is so valuable. Because the writers are believing Christians who speak biblically into their situation, they offer us a chance to shed our blinders. But will we?

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

Review: The Late Monsieur Gallet

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Cover image of "The Late Monsieur Gallet" by Georges Simenon

The Late Monsieur Gallet (Inspector Maigret, 3) Georges Simenon. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9780141393377) 2014 (first published in 1931).

Summary: Gallet’s death seems that of an uninteresting failure until Maigret discovers that nothing about him is as it seems.

A non-descript man checks into a hotel in Tracy-Sancerre. His usual room is unavailable, so he takes a back one, facing out on a courtyard, The next morn, he is found dead with a gunshot wound to the face and a stab wound to the heart.

Maigret is sent to investigate. He finds an ordinary man, Monsieur Gallet, with an old, shiny suit. The man’s widow, who lived in Saint Fargeau, thought he was in Rouen. She even had a postcard from there. Maigret learns he was a traveling salesman. The widow is rather vain, from a family that considered her husband a failure. Her only consolation is that the dead man had taken out a 300,000 franc life insurance policy. Her son seems aloof and ambitious, and not terribly broken up.

When Maigret contacts the man’s company, he finds they have not employed him for eighteen years. He’s not in Rouen. Nor is he working at the job everyone believed he was doing. His attacker or attackers first wounded him from outside his room, then killed him with a knife wound in his room. And how has he purchased a house, paid for a life insurance policy, and maintained their lifestyle when he has no job? Why was he in Tracy-Sancerre?

Suddenly, this non-descript, unattractive man becomes interesting to Maigret. The fascination in this story is how Maigret discovers the nature of the double life this man was living and how he died. Like others in the series, there are just enough twists, interesting characters and red herrings to make this interesting without dragging out the story. Simenon’s genius lies in telling a story with nothing extraneous and lots that is puzzling.

Review: Learning to Be Fair

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Cover image of "Learning to Be Fair" by Charles McNamara.

Learning to Be Fair, Charles McNamara. Fortress Press (ISBN: 9781506495095) 2024.

Summary: The ancient origins of the idea of equity in western moral philosophy and the historical development of the concept.

The word “equity” has become part of the contentious triad of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” As such, the concern for equity is deemed modern and “woke.” Hopefully one error the reader will not make after reading this book is to consider equity a newfangled notion. In Learning to Be Fair, Charles McNamara demonstrates that the concept of “equity” goes back at least two millennia to the Greeks. He also shows the contested character of the concept goes back to its origins.

He begins with the Greeks and how Aristotle differed from Socrates on the matter of what constitutes justice. Whereas Socrates treated it as an immutable absolute, Aristotle introduced the idea of epieikeia, from which our word equity comes via the Latin aequitas. Aristotle believed in adapting law to actual events and concrete situations.

He then turns to the Romans, and the relationship of equity to equality, reflected in tensions between democracy and aristocracy and ambiguity around questions of merit. The questions we struggle with in our own day are not new.

From here, McNamara turns to the idea of equity in English legal tradition. Not only were there courts of law but also courts of equity, or chancery courts. For example, he traces Thomas Hobbes’ concept of distributive justice, implemented through courts of equity. The term even makes it into Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

But this hardly settles its meaning. McNamara observes that two species of equity persist and are in conflict in our culture. One is “equity of the exception.” Here law is applied, taking into consideration concrete and specific circumstances. Then there is the “equity of the norm,” which seeks to treat all alike. Yet we often fail to do this for particular groups, hence the tension between the two species.

McNamara concludes the book noting the tension and vagueness around the term equity throughout history. Instead of the binary defined by the positions of Socrates and Aristotle, he commends the approach of Isocrates who treats equity as a poietikon pragma, a creative activity. Rather than equity being something “known,” he treats it as something “made,” in which equity is defined by us in our political processes.

That seems to me to be vague as well and capable of abuse. It requires the robust guardrails of democratic institutions with a balance of power. My own sense is that Isocrates holds together the “both-and” of the inherent tensions in equity. Rather than absolutism or utter relativism, good politics is creative in fashioning proximal, common good approximations of equity that meet the situation yet adhere to the rule of law. What this presumes is recognizing that political opponents need each other, which sadly does not seem to be the modus operandi at present.

However, what McNamara does offer is a challenge to the idea that equity reflects a contemporary “woke” progressivism. Rather, from the Greeks onward, equity, with all its challenges, is part of just governing, crucial to the functioning of a civil society. At the same time, he helps us understand why equity has been so contentious. And he gestures toward a politics that creatively negotiates that tension.

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

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