Review: The Ghost Brigades

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Ghost BrigadesJohn Scalzi’s first science fiction novel Old Man’s War was widely acclaimed. He created an interesting world where 75 year olds volunteer to fight for the Colonial Defense Force (CDF), defending colonists on other planets. They go thinking their bodies will be rejuvenated, only to find that what actually will happen is the transfer of consciousness into a robotically and genetically enhanced clone of themselves. We also learn of this shadowy group of Special Forces known as the “Ghost Brigades” because they are clones of volunteers who never made it to 75, trained from birth to fight. One of these was a clone of the wife of John Perry, the central character in Old Man’s War, named Jane Sagan. She plays a key role in this second novel, where The Ghost Brigades play a central role.

Sagan appear in the opening scene, capturing a Rraey by the name of Cainen working on an Eneshan base and through him the CDF learns of a triple alliance of Eneshan, Rraey, and Obin against the CDF. The news gets worse. Charles Moutin, thought to be killed, in fact has escaped to the enemies, with all his knowledge about consciousness transfer. It is urgent to discover what he knew, why he defected and how he is helping the enemy.

A copy of his consciousness exists in his lab. So in desperation, they decided to grow a clone into which they attempt to transfer the consciousness pattern. The clone has all the enhancements of a Special Forces soldier. But the consciousness doesn’t appear to “take”. He is like any other new born Special Forces clone with only a BrainPal to instruct him as his own consciousness develops. He is given the name Jared Dirac and turned over for training as part of the Ghost Brigades.

But there are some who are not so sure that he is just another Special Forces clone. So he is put under Sagan’s command and watch until the fateful day when on a desperate mission to kidnap the heir to the Eneshan throne, he loses a comrade he loves and witnesses a gruesome killing, and Moutin’s memories begin to emerge.

Meanwhile Special Forces crews have vanished with their ships on seven occasions in Obin space. It is suspected that Moutin has something to do with this as a prelude to war. So Jared/Moutin becomes an increasingly important part of the equation. But who, in the end, will he help? Will he have a choice, and if so, how will he choose?

Once again, Scalzi explores the brave new world of cloning, robotic and nanobotic enhancement, and consciousness transfer. The most interesting question to arise surrounds Jared and his fellow special forces: what are the ethics of breeding a race of soldiers trained from the moment they were conscious to be soldiers, and never given a choice?  There are also larger issues of the justification of war on an interplanetary scale that parallels the wars of colonial expansion in our own history.

My one criticism of the plot was that I thought I saw from the get go what the nature of Boutin’s treachery would be, and I was right–but everyone in the story was clueless. Too many bread crumbs and not enough mis-direction it seemed.

That aside, Scalzi combines a riveting plot, the potential of a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character in Jared Dirac that actually turns out quite differently, and an exploration of the implications of science going on in research labs around the world. Scalzi helps us explore a world that may not be the best of possible worlds.

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Pierogies

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By Silar (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Silar (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

I was eating dinner with some grad students last night at Sloopy’s Diner in the Ohio Union at Ohio State when one of the dishes ordered brought back memories. Pierogies. Considering that it is Lent and there are so many students from Youngstown and northeast Ohio at Ohio State, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

It’s actually a funny thing about pierogies with my wife and me. I didn’t grow up in an eastern European or Catholic home and so we never had pierogies. I would hear about all the churches in the area who had pierogie sales but it wasn’t a dish we had in our house. (I wonder if my mom didn’t like them.) On the other hand, my wife grew up with pierogies as a regular dish on Fridays, especially during Lent. She described to me how she and her mother would spend a good part of a day making pierogies. Her mom also helped on occasion making pierogies when her church had sales.

Pierogies are a kind of dumpling that originated in eastern Europe made with an unleavened dough that is rolled out. My wife tells me that they used a water glass to cut out the pierogi dough. Theirs was usually a relatively simple recipe, with boiled and mashed potatoes for filling. The dough was folded over and the edges wetted and pressed together. Then the pierogies were first boiled and then fried in butter or oil. While some recipes use other ingredients for fillings including cheeses, meat (not during Lent), sauerkraut, or fruit and could be topped with fried onions or other toppings, they kept it simple. In her family at least, this was a form of fasting and usually a meal was simply of pierogies and boiled cabbage. It was hearty and filling without being extravagant.

The other oddity of our story is, having discovered pierogies only as an adult, I like them. On the other hand, my wife would say that at best, she tolerates them. Needless to say, if I get pierogies, it is not at home! But, as they say, opposites attract, and it must work since we are going on 37 years of marriage.

Recipes of Youngstown 2Here is a recipe from Wikipedia for pierogies that covers the basics. There are a couple of recipes for pierogies in Recipes of Youngstown found on pages 63 and 170. I’ve also learned that there is a second Recipes of Youngstown coming out soon, the proceeds from which will benefit the Mahoning Valley Historical Society. I’ve pre-ordered mine and you can order yours through the Mahoning Valley Historical Society website, which also has instructions for ordering by mail or phone. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if there are additional pierogi recipes along with lots of other great Youngstown dishes!

Pierogies are a hearty and sustaining food made from simple and readily available ingredients. Working class families on a budget could make them for a meal and freeze them for another time. They are work intensive as are many good foods and assumed there was someone in the home who could devote the time to that work. I suspect there is probably a special reward in heaven for all those women who made pierogies for those countless church sales! And maybe they finally get someone else to make dinner.

Read all the posts in the Growing Up in Youngstown Series by clicking the “On Youngstown” category link either at the top of this page or in the left column of my home page.

Review: Essential Eschatology: Our Present and Future Hope

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Essential EschatologyDiscussions of eschatology (the study of end things) often get wrapped up in debates about interpretive themes for the book of Revelation, attempts to equate different symbols with different contemporary events, and predictions of the date of Christ’s return (several of which I’ve seen come and go in my lifetime!). What I loved about this book by John Phelan is that he focused on how the future hope we embrace can practically shape our lives as individuals and church communities in the present.

Hope is a theme that runs through the book, and even through the chapter titles. Phelan begins by exploring the hope of Israel and the promises to Israel fulfilled in the breaking in of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus. That fulfillment is both present and future and in fact the church in mission  brings the future into the present through its hopeful life. At the same time this is not a hope that should be diverted into accommodations with political powers. Phelan traces the sad history of this from Constantine to the present and our call to be a counter-cultural people of hope in the Lord who will make all things new. Because of this hope of creation renewed and the resurrection of Jesus, we believe that this renewal will extend to the resurrection of our bodies. Our hope is not to be disembodied souls floating around heaven but saints with new creation bodies in the new creation on earth.

Phelan then turns to the strange hope of judgment that actually is good news, that God will set things right. While he argues that descriptions of heaven and hell are metaphorical, he does believe in a reality behind these metaphors and the possibility that God will honor the choices of those who refuse heaven while arguing that we may depend upon “the judge of the world will do right.” While arguing against purgatory as an intermediate state or process, he allows for the possibility of healing and growth to fully realize God’s image in us.

He goes on to explore in more depth the idea of the coming of the kingdom, which was not “the end of the world as we know it” but the coming of God’s rule into the world. He argues that the community of those who are under the rule of Jesus are a reflection but not the coming of this kingdom in its fullness. It is a community whose life should anticipate mending the rifts in the world as a people of peace and reconciliation. The church at the same time is not to consider either personal renewal or societal renewal to replace the ultimate personal return of Jesus. This expectation also provides hope in the midst of empire, whether that be the power of Rome or western capitalism. Against both amillenialism and premillenialism, he argues for the personal reign of Jesus on earth, leaning toward a type of post-millenialism. With regard to Israel, he argues against supercessionism (i.e. that the church has superceded Israel) to propose the salvation of the Jews alongside Gentiles. He argues that perhaps the most powerful witness to the Jews is to manifest Christ’s transforming power in living lives of shalom in the world, bringing peace rather than conflict. He recounts a conversation where a Jewish rabbi, in response to sharing along these lines says, “Well, we Jews have not seen it.”

And so he concludes with what it means for the church to bring its hope for the future into the present. It is the living of shalom, this mending of the world lived out in service, in mission, in play, and celebration. It is to do so without corrupting alliances with political powers or structures of ecclesial power. It is proclaiming the God who both respects human freedom while entering into the suffering caused by the misshapen exercise of that freedom.

Some may take exception to the author’s ideas about the millenium and about judgment. What is incontestable is the challenge to live into the new creation hope of the risen Lord which means living toward the peaceable kingdom to come. This challenges our false hopes in technology and political structures while calling us to lives of great joy, humble service and abiding hope. What Phelan has given us is a book about the future enabling us to live with hope in the present.

Review: Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture

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RevelationI have more than one friend who grew up in an evangelical or mainline Protestant background who has converted to Roman Catholicism. For many, this has been a thoughtful decision carefully taken. One of the reasons some take this step is the focus of Protestants on personal interpretation of the scripture, the belief that each believer is capable of understanding the scriptures unmediated by the church, pastors, church doctrine and tradition, among other things. They see diverse interpretations in many cases and Christians justifying almost anything on the basis of their reading of scripture and unchallengeable because they claim “the Bible tells us so.”

Others in the stream of the churches of the Reformation appeal to Sola Scriptura, the authority of the Bible alone, and the distortions or even contradictions they observe in the traditions of the church. They join Martin Luther in appealing to the scriptures alone, saying “Here I stand.”

Matthew Levering, who currently teaches theology at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois was educated in a Protestant seminary (Duke) yet embraces and articulates a Catholic theology of the relation of scripture and church in how God has revealed the Christian message. What I found most helpful was his thoughtful engagement with a range of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox theologians in an exploration that argues both the inspiration and authority of the biblical text and while also contending for the crucial role of the church in clarifying and mediating our understanding of the Word of God we find in the scriptures. We encounter N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, and Alexander Schememann, as well as von Balthasar and Ratzinger in the pages of this book.

BC_MatthewLevering_rt

Matthew Levering

Levering begins by discussing the nature of the Church as a missional community founded by the Son and the Spirit, countering the individualism of the post-Reformation church. He moves on to explore the importance of the Church’s liturgy as the context in which the Gospel message of scripture is proclaimed. The hierarchy of the priesthood has been an important in maintaining a unity in our understanding of revealed truth. The Church’s councils and creeds are especially illustrative of this importance. Church councils such as Nicaea clarified the shared understanding of scripture on such important issues as the Trinity and the nature of Christ as fully God and fully human, resolving the contested interpretations of scripture around these issues.

Levering takes on the role of tradition in the transmission of Gospel revelation through the generations and argues against those who see these traditions sometimes in conflict with themselves, believing in the continued work of the Spirit to guide the Church. He contends, along with John Henry Newman, for the development of doctrinal understanding through the history of the church and, against many post-modern approaches, for the possibility of propositional truth, that God reveals God’s self in cognitively understandable terms.

His last chapters articulate a high view of scripture’s overall trustworthiness, arguing against those who would differentiate between errant and inerrant portions. He concludes with a surprising chapter supporting the contribution of Greek philosophy to the Christian understanding of God.

There was much here I appreciated. I too find troubling personal biblical interpretation gone amuck. I think it is undeniable that the Church has played a crucial role in articulating our gospel faith, drawing on the scriptures. Similarly, there is a recognition of the work of the Spirit of God at work in continuing to develop our understand of the testimony of the scriptures.

At the same time, I think there is much more to be engaged in a discussion of tradition and the magisterium.  What is to be done when traditions are distorted and the hierarchy is not filled with the Spirit and is advancing what can only be construed as the traditions of humans, particularly at the expense of the Word of God? Is the Church to simply wait for however many centuries it takes for the Lord of the church to right things?

I also wish Levering would have talked more about the appropriate use of the scriptures by individuals. Certainly since Vatican II the study of the Bible by the laity has been encouraged. And countless generations of Christians have advanced in their spiritual lives through personal reading and study of the Bible. It seems to me that a place for mutual engagement between Protestants and Catholics would be to explore the relation between our individual and communal reading of scripture and to what degree should we subject our personal readings to the understanding of scripture in the wider community.

Levering’s book is a thoughtful contribution to this basic question of how the Church hears and understands God’s word revealed to us in the scriptures. It is Catholic without being anti-Protestant. It is both a book of clarity and conviction and yet an irenic engagement with those who don’t identify as Roman Catholics.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free in e-book format from the publisher through Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

A God, A Rulebook, or Trustworthy Testimony

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Bible open to John 5. (c)2015, Robert C Trube

Bible open to John 5. (c)2015, Robert C Trube

What am I talking about? The Bible, the Christian scriptures.

Some people treat the Bible as if it was the fourth member of the Godhead. Sometimes, it seems we are more zealous to defend a notion of what the Bible is than we are for God’s glory, God’s reputation in the world.

I think many view the Bible as a book of rules. Do these things and you will go to heaven. Don’t do these things and God will get you. Let the people into our community who keep the rules. Exclude the ones who don’t. Study hard so you know the rules. If you are creative, figure out ways to extend the rules to every situation, even ones never envisioned by the rules. Exclude those who don’t agree with your creative interpretations. Congratulate yourself on your diligence in study and rule-keeping. You are one of God’s star pupils.

Of course, that is only good if you are good at study and rule-keeping and many of us are honest enough to admit that we are not. So, should we just pack it in since we are in a mess with God anyway? I think that is how a number of people feel.

This Sunday, our church looked at John 5:19-46 together. Verses 39 and 40 suggest a very different reason for the scriptures:

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,  yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Jesus is proposing that the Bible is neither God nor a rule book but rather testimony about himself that can be trusted. The central idea of the Bible is to help people find life through trusting and following Jesus. The Pharisees, who were great at battling for the Bible and devising ingenious rule-keeping strategies were missing the point. In fact they were so caught up in these things that they were refusing something better, real life, being connected to the God who made them through his Son who had come to them.

But, you say, there really are a lot of rules in the Bible. It sure looks like a rule book in places. What’s that all about? There are two ways to answer this. One is that the rules really reflect what God is like and what we need to be like to live with Him. They tell us we need God to do something both to wipe the slate clean from all the ways we break the rules, and to deal with our propensity to do the opposite of what God wants for us. That something is Jesus and the life he gives means both forgiveness for what we’ve done and the power to increasingly live differently.

The second answer is that the instructions and commands we find, especially those given by Jesus and in the New Testament are not rules but tell us how we might most faithfully and joyfully enter into the life Jesus has for us. They teach us how to love God and each other and to experience wholeness in our own selves.

There’s a good deal more that can be said about all this so if you have questions, leave them in the comments and let’s talk!

The real deal that I want to come back to is that the most important thing to look for when reading the Bible is how it points us toward Jesus. Earlier in the passage we see this is the Jesus who claims equality with the Father and to have been entrusted with the Father’s authority both to give life and to judge (verses 19-27). If that’s true, then there is no one more important to know!

So, if you are spiritually seeking, then it seems one of the most important questions you can ask as you read the Bible is, how does this testify to Jesus and what is this telling me about him? In some sense, all of the Bible does this, but I would suggest for newbie Bible readers that the gospels do this most clearly.

And for those who are Christ-followers, how are we viewing the Bible? Have we gotten caught up in some form of Bible wars? Are we congratulating ourselves on how well we keep the rules, or how much we know about the Bible? Or are we not paying much attention at all to what it says, depending on sermons to do that for us? What John says is that this book tells us who Jesus is and how we can find abundant life as we get to know and follow him better and better.

Going Deeper Question: How do you think about the Bible, and how are you interacting with it?

Bugs and Bookstores

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Kleenex-small-boxJust read a ShelfTalker piece from Publishers Weekly about the challenges of staying healthy if you are a bookseller. Let’s just say that it is not easy when one works with the public all day to stay healthy during cold and flu season. The writer talks about parents who stop at the store with obviously sick kids to pick up books, on the way to the pediatrician. Handling cash and credit cards of those who may not have coughed into their elbows is a recipe for time off.

I suppose there is no way we are ever going to have perfectly germ-free environments no matter how many “safe sneezing and coughing” videos we watch and how many hand sanitizers and sprays we use. What you would hope for instead is some common sense and courtesy. The truth is that booksellers aren’t the only ones affected. Cafe workers have to handle germy cups and plates. Other customers may handle books or other articles a sick person has touched including door handles. In our go-go culture we’ve been trained to do just that until we are laid out, sick as a dog, sick.

Instead of passing along sickness to the fellow bibliophiles, here are a few thoughts:

  • This is a great time to catch up on reading the books you have. Take that cold or flu medicine, get into your jammies, get a cup of hot tea, and snuggle up with a good book.
  • Need books? Here is where an e-reader is really helpful. You can borrow them from the library or buy them online without putting a single person at risk.
  • There are also many sources of free books such as Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and a number of free Kindle books on Amazon, and other online sources that you can read on a tablet or computer.
  • That’s not possible? You can reserve books online at your library and pick them up with minimal contact, particularly if you have self-checkout. Can the books carry microbes? It’s possible but most die within hours or days in a dry environment. Maybe if your kids are sick, you can make sure they use hand sanitizers and wait three days before returning the books.
  • You can put a call out on Facebook to your friends that you are desperate for books. Let them know your favorite types. And maybe they can bring some chicken soup as well. If not, the books are a good substitute!

Many of us develop good relationships with our booksellers. They are our friends. If they work at an indie store, it is not always easy for them to take time off if they get sick.

Love thy bookseller as thyself!

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s the Bookternet!

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Seriously.

Recently, Publishers Weekly convened a panel at Penguin Random House offices in Manhattan to talk about the phenomenon that this blog is a part of–the internet of books, or bookternet. I am not usually a big fan of neologisms but this one was interesting, as is the phenomenon that it represents.

What publishers are talking about is the realization that there is an online book culture that exists in a number of places around the ‘net where people are talking about books. One of the most interesting statements in this article is this one by Rebecca Schinsky of Book Riot:

“Online book fans aren’t looking for reviews or longform essays about books. ‘No one is interested in reviews on Book Riot,’ Schinsky said. ‘They want conversation. People want to talk about what they’re reading and what book they’ll read next.’ ”

That’s an interesting statement for reviewers as well as publishers. Publishers can learn a good deal, it was suggested, by listening in on these conversations and offering content that connects with the interests in these book communities. It also means that the “buzz” about a book is not something that can simply be generated by Madison Avenue. To some degree, it is in the hands of people who are talking about books, and there is a serendipitous element about that. Here’s a book publicist who has figured how this works, and coined the word, bookternet:

What about us reviewers and book bloggers? I think what this suggests is the idea that for a review to really become a conversation, it needs to be something other than a seemingly definitive description and opinion of the book. A conversation that is not a conversation stopper is open-ended–with questions, provocations, and laughter. And maybe sometimes, it is just sharing what we are wondering about as we read a book and whether this meshes with the experience of others who are reading it. It’s cool sometimes just to find out what the Book Riot folk are reading and why.

One of the most interesting challenges in this online world is finding those interested in talking about the books you are reading. Some groups where I’ve posted are mostly just self-published authors promoting books. Hardly anyone engages what others post. Sometimes the interested people find you if you’ve tagged your post well and it comes up on searches–still learning about that one.

I have found that if you can point to a body of work, some level of viewership, and turn around reviews and other material on books, publishers will work with you, at least some of the time. Actually you are exchanging your work of reading and writing for a free copy of their book. The trick I’m learning is to do that for books I’m really interested in reading.

If you are a book blogger or otherwise involved in online conversations about books, what are you learning about the bookternet?

Bob on Books is Now on Tumblr

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Just a quick news update. Bob on Books is now on Tumblr. If you use Tumblr as a blog aggregator, you can now add Bob on Books to your feed. And if you are just discovering this blog on Tumblr, head over to bobonbooks.com to see all the good stuff that’s been posted here!

Of course those used to finding me here on WordPress will still find me here. I’ll just be sharing posts to the Tumblr “Bob On Books” page I’ve set up.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Valentine’s Day

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Valentines Candy Hearts (c)2015, Robert C Trube

Valentines Candy Hearts (c)2015, Robert C Trube

Remember these?

I’m writing on Valentine’s Day and so I thought I would reflect on Valentine’s Day growing up.

Remember Valentine card exchanges and parties in elementary school?

I do. It was a day I approached with lots of fear and trepidation. I was a “Charlie Brown” kind of kid. Not the most popular, athletic, or good looking, and more than a bit nerdy. (Some would say nothing has changed!) My great fear was that when the cards were handed out, I wouldn’t get any–or only a very few. While all the other kids would be showing off all the cards they got, maybe counting them, I’d just shuffle off with my few.

It never really turned out that way. The combination of teacher and parental pressure made it a rule (can’t remember if it was spoken or not) that you gave a Valentine to every kid in your class. And we did. And even though I realized that and that my card count didn’t mean anything, I was still relieved. At least I had a box full of cards that I could take home and show mom. That made the cupcakes and Valentine candies that we had at our class parties so much tastier.

I don’t recall that these parties and exchanges went much beyond third grade. I suspect it would was increasingly hard to get boys to go along with all this. Apart from the food, this was all kind of “yucky” at that stage.

Neither my wife nor I recall this being a big deal for our parents. Maybe a card, maybe an extra kiss and a hug, but not the “big event” deal that it seems to have become these days with reservations at expensive restaurants and all the other trappings. In many cases, they couldn’t afford that many “big events” and the complex of card shops, florists, and restaurants hadn’t convinced them that all this was necessary.

By Jacopo Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Valentine Baptizing St. Lucilla. By Jacopo Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s kind of odd that this day is named after St. Valentine. For one thing, it appears there might be several figures with that name, all of whom were faithful priests and martyrs. A common element in all their stories was that they died rather than renouncing their faith. The most common account is that Valentine was the Bishop at Terni. Once, while being held prisoner, he was put to the test and healed a blind girl, resulting in his and other Christians being released. He was eventually reimprisoned under Claudius II who liked him until Valentine sought to convince Claudius to become a Christian. He was martyred February 14, 269.

The earliest reference to Valentine’s Day in connection with romantic love seems to be by Geoffrey Chaucer in Parlement of Foules in 1382 and there are early descriptions of the day as a celebration of romantic love in the French court of Charles VI in the early 1400s. So this connection has been around for a long time, but is still puzzling to me–except if you consider Valentine as a model of sacrificial love.

Actually I wonder if our parents understood more about the real St Valentine (whoever he was) than many on our contemporary scene. Real love for them went beyond the romantic gush that surrounds this day. It was showing up for your family, and showing up at church or mass. That was love, and something they celebrated in quiet but practical ways every day.

What are your memories of Valentine’s Day growing up?

Review: 30 Events that Shaped the Church

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30 eventsWriting an accessible church history for a general adult audience is no small task, particularly writing one that people will read. Alton Gansky’s book succeeds in providing a readable, fast-moving survey of the history of the church through 30 succinct vignettes of important events in this two thousand year history.

One of the strengths of this book is Gansky’s ability to narrate events and give us concise profiles of key individuals and concluding summaries that underscore the significance of each event for the church. Many will find his accounts of early church history especially helpful, including the fall of Jerusalem, the burning of Rome, the Edict of Milan, the Nicaean Council, and so forth. It was particularly illuminating for me to realize the fine scholarship involved in Jerome’s Vulgate translation, as well as to understand the expansion of the power of the papacy. I also appreciated his even-handed narrative of the evolution controversies in this country.

Of course, one of the difficulties of Gansky’s approach is the selection of events. For the most part, this is a narrative of Western, and in the last third, American Christianity. While this is probably what is of greatest interest to those who would be the target audience of this book it fails to account for the rise of the modern missions movement and the explosive and game-changing growth of Christianity in China, other east and southeast Asian countries, and in much of the southern hemisphere. And in its narrative of American Christianity he seems to have little to say about slavery, the abolitionist movement, and the black church and civil rights.

I found his decision to include the Jesus Movement as both personally of interest (because of the impact of this movement in my life) and yet questionable as a major church-shaping event–particularly because of the focus on contemporary Christian music, which certainly has changed American church worship. I would not have given separate chapters to Darwin and the Scopes trials.

I also found one inaccuracy (probably a proof-reading error). On page 242 he notes the death of Pope Pius XII, who preceded Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. On page 244 he indicates that Pius XII succeeded Pope John XXIII, which would have been a far more momentous event than Vatican II. In actuality it was Pope Paul VI.

In summary, I found this a highly readable and informative account of Western and white American church history. It is regrettable, considering the readability of this volume, that it is not more truly representative of the whole Church.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”