Books I Wish I Had Read Sooner

April 9, 2015April 8, 2015 / rtrube54 / 8 Comments

Recently I wrote a post titled “Books I Read Too Soon“. Today I was wondering whether there were some books that I wish I had read sooner. So I perused through the books that I’ve reviewed over the past few years and came up with a list of some I wish I had come across or read earlier in life. It is not that I did not benefit from these books when I did read them. Rather, I just wish I had enjoyed the benefit of discovering their riches sooner. In some cases, this would just not have been possible because they were written in the last few years. What I would say is, if you agree with my reasoning about each book and you are younger than I am, don’t wait until your fifties or sixties to read them!

The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald. I even wrote in my review of the former of these two that I wondered why I hadn’t read this sooner. Both are stories that work on multiple levels that only get richer with each reading. Of The Princess and the Goblin, G.K. Chesterton said it “made a difference to my whole existence.”

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. I think both my wife and I wish this book had been written years sooner. Introverts often feel they should try to be extroverts, which it seems society prefers. Susan Cain’s book, without being whiny, suggests that introverts bring a unique gift to the world. Wish I’d read this one in high school!

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr. This was a sci-fi book I passed up reading as a kid because I thought “Canticle” seemed too highbrow. Read it a few years ago for the first time and was struck with both the memory of living under a nuclear cloud in the sixties, and the fascinating project of this book of preserving learning in a post-nuclear holocaust world.

The Critical Journey, Stages in the Life of Faith, by Janet O Hagberg and Robert A. Guelich. I wish I had understood in my thirties that faith was a journey rather than a static reality. It took hitting the wall that Hagberg and Guelich talk about in this book during mid-life to wonder if there are greater depths to the life of faith than what I was taught as a young adult.

Daring Greatly by Brene’ Brown. This is a book I wish I had read as a young leader. Brene’ Brown talks about the strength to be found in vulnerability, not something most men do well, including me. Her explorations of the way we avoid vulnerability through perfectionism and through numbing and through thinking we cannot allow ourselves joy described the strategies I’ve too often used to “maintain control” and not risk.

Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf. I think we (and I include myself here) spend too much time dividing the world into “us” and “them” and I spent too many years thinking in these terms. Yet the real question is how do we embrace the “other” who really is different in important ways from us. Volf’s “drama of embrace” and the practice of “double vision” gave me new ways of thinking about how we love across our differences and have genuine and deep encounters with the “other”.

To Change the World by James Davison Hunter. I’ve used “world-changing” rhetoric in my work during most of my life but my ideas of what real culture change looked like were naive and simplistic. Hunter challenges both our superficial engagements with the culture and the naive hopes we often have put in politics to change the world and calls for the “long obedience” of “faithful presence” in society.

I think I could have profited by reading each of these books earlier in life. Nevertheless, I’m glad I read them when I did because each of these were works of worth that have served me well since. I was also struck when I perused my reviews of how many books I did not necessarily wish I had read sooner. They seemed fine for this time and this group of books was in the vast majority. I’m really not overly troubled by this. But if the books I’ve mentioned encourage someone twenty or thirty or more years younger than I to read them and that person profits from the reading–then that will be a good thing.

Are there books you wish you had read sooner?

The Month in Reviews: August 2014

September 2, 2014January 11, 2015 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

During this month I traveled the spectrum of reading from the preaching of hell and damnation in pre-Civil War America to America’s gods. I read a fictional account exploring the dynamics of adultery and a couple of books on calling. I explored how capital is changing the economic landscape of the world, and what religious communities often think of when they use rhetoric about changing the world. I read about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the challenge of being both-and people in an either-or world. It felt like a bit of a “both-and” kind of month! So here’s the list:

1. Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction, Kathryn Gin Lum. The book explores the varying approaches to the subject of hell and judgment during this period as well as the appropriation of damnation language to the problem of slavery.

2. Both-And: Living the Christ-Centered Life in an Either-Or World, Rich Nathan with Insoo Kim. Pastors Nathan and Kim describe and narrate the vision of Vineyard Columbus to live as a both-and church that is both evangelical and charismatic, both united and racially diverse, both showing mercy and pursuing justice, and more.

3. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Tough Questions, Direct Answers, Dale Hanson Bourke. This book doesn’t take sides but seeks to provide background information about the conflict, the history, the context of daily life, and other players in the conflict. Well illustrated and concise.

4. Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty. This lengthy best-seller explores the growth of capital in relation to income and the growing inequities of wealth and poverty that may result in the US and Europe and other parts of the world.

5. To Change the World, James Davison Hunter. Many organizations and movements in Christian circles have used the language of changing the world but have not been cognizant to the deeper dynamics of culture change nor its double-edged character.

6. A Shooting Star, Wallace Stegner. This novel not only traces the unraveling of a marriage following an incident of adultery but raises questions about the illusions and follies of the American dream for both people and places.

7. Visions of Vocation, Steven Garber. The main thesis of this book is that to live as a called person is to be implicated in what one knows, to have a sense of responsibility that flows out of understanding the world and our place and work in it. Garber does a wonderful job of unpacking this idea through narratives of his work in helping many young leaders discern vocation.

8. American Gods, Neil Gaiman. Shadow, a released prisoner gets caught up in a war between the old and new gods with which Gaiman populates the American landscape, and discovers his own identity in the process.

9. Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity, Gordon T. Smith. Smith articulates a vision of becoming a saint as union with Christ that results in holy character that is wise, works good, loves, and is joyful.

I thought there were some great books in this month’s collection, three of which I gave 5 star ratings and a few others were near misses.

What’s next? Well, I’m in the middle of a biography of Abraham Kuyper, theologian and prime minister of the Netherlands at the beginning of the 20th century, an autobiography of Chai Ling, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square Demonstrations in 1989, a collection of critical essays by George Steiner and a book on why study church history. After these, I will probably pick up a book on working class in Youngstown that I’ve been wanting to read for some time and an Ann Patchett novel.

Did you miss any of these reviews the first time? Follow the blog and never miss another review (you can even get it emailed to you!). I’d also love to hear what you’ve read in the last month!

Review: To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014 / rtrube54 / 5 Comments

To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an important book! James Davison Hunter challenges the rhetoric (and hubris) that often comes with the idea of “changing the world” that is embraced by many Christian ministries and movements. He argues first that we often work from inadequate assumptions about the nature of culture change. Secondly, he argues that either in our embrace or rejection of political power, we wrongly attribute too much to this kind of power. Third, he would argue that the proper stance for the church is one of “faithful presence.” These three points are more or less the theses of the three “essays” that comprise this book.

In his first essay, he begins by challenging what he sees as the shared assumption of many movements that “world-change” happens as you change the hearts and minds of individuals through evangelism, political, and social efforts. Related to this is often a version of a “great person” theory of culture change. Hunter argues that this view, based on getting individuals to think better and do better, is mistaken because of an inadequate understanding of culture and culture change, which he articulates in the form of eleven propositions. He would argue that culture is embedded in overlapping institutions of cultural power as much as in ideas and that culture changes as elites within overlapping networks work toward shared ends. Hunter observes that part of the failure of Christians despite some political heft and media presence to effect the changes they hope for in American culture is their absence from these elites. He also looks at the history of Christianity and notes how their influence extended into the culture when they represented the elites of education, the arts, social institutions, as well as politics. William Wilberforce, for example, was not simply an individual reformer but part of a network of politicians, educators, landowners, and industrialists who, together, helped form a social consensus against slavery. He concludes the essay with warnings about hubris as well–change often has unintended consequences.

The second essay explores what Hunter sees as a Christian embrace of the postmodern politicization of power and its reduction of all of public life to politics. One of the things he also notes in this analysis is the phenomenon of ressentiment, the narrative of injury that often drives the postmodern striving for power–whether it is the anger of the decline of values, the inequalities of society, or the disdain of politics. What he then does is apply these insights to a description of efforts of Christians on the political right, left, and the neo-Anabaptists and their apparent disdain for political engagement. Hunter would see all three as participating in the conflation of all public life into political life either by their embrace or disdain of that life. All miss the “something more” that he believes is part of the calling of Christians in the world.

That “something more” which he calls “faithful presence” is what he elaborates in the third essay. He argues on the basis of the incarnation and servant ministry of Jesus that our faithful presence is not one of grasping for power but rather of seeking the shalom of our human society through a full participation in all the dimensions of human life. He contends that Christians often lack an adequate sense of calling to living out their faith in every day life in the world, and that this is what constitutes Christian faithfulness. He also notes the struggle of this, that we participate, and share in imperfect institutions that we might make a bit better through our presence in the way that heralds the coming kingdom.

I call this an important book because it challenges thoughtfully our inadequate assumptions about culture change, it diagnoses our absence in many of the powerful centers of culture, it names what has been wrong with so many of our political engagements, and it proposes an alternative deeply rooted in the person and work and mission of Christ. Some will no doubt contend with his characterization of the Christian Right, Left, or neo-Anabaptism. What I am concerned with is the question of whether “faithful presence” and a de-constructing of the rhetoric of world-change might lead to a vision of making the world just a little better, but discourage the more drastic but sometimes needed efforts like those of a Wilberforce, or a modern day Gary Haugen in fighting human trafficking. Would those committed to “faithful presence” see an outrageous wrong and move beyond what I would call mere presence to active belligerency that engages the overlapping networks to address something that prevents human flourishing? I think that Hunter’s idea of “faithful presence” is probably robust enough to include this, but I wonder how the language would translate into everyday church circles. I suspect it could easily turn into a response that says, “we should not resist evils like this but simply be faithful to the Lord.” Will “faithful presence” be understood in the terms Andre’ Trocme and Le Chambon understood it in hiding Jews escaping Nazi Germany? Or could this simply support the thin, privatized faith that goes along with tyranny?

That said, I think this one of the most important works written about Christian engagement in public life and one that deserves more attention and discussion by all who care about public life and how Christians engage the wider culture.

View all my reviews

I would also call your attention to an earlier post on this book and two review essays I learned of through comments on the post:

To Change the World

Revisiting “To Change the World” by James Davison Hunter, Andy Catsimanes

How (Not) to Change the World, James K.A. Smith

To Change the World

August 13, 2014August 13, 2014 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

This is the title of a book I am reading by James Davison Hunter (written in 2010) that I will post a full review on in the next week. But the title and some of his introductory material caught me up short. “Changing the world” is rhetoric I’ve lived with one way or another since my high school days. Hunter talks about this language and how many causes use this language in their rhetoric. I really cringed then waiting for him to cite the organization I work with which has in its vision statement “world-changers developed”. Thankfully, he didn’t, but he definitely caught my attention.

What Hunter is exploring in this book is how culture changes and he says some challenging things that I am chewing on as I read the book and await the conclusion of his argument. He believes that the approaches taken by many groups are misguided because they focus on individual change–either in ideas or practices–change the individual and you can change the world sort of stuff.

He makes a series of assertions (eleven in all) at the beginning of the book about culture change that challenge this idea. I won’t list all of them but here are several that caught my attention:

Proposition Five: Cultural production and symbolic capital are stratified in a fairly rigid structure of “center’ and “periphery”. For example, a publication from Oxford University Press, even if it sells 1000 copies has far more “capital” than a publication from Zondervan that sells 100,000.

Proposition Six: Culture is generated within networks. He argues against the “great man” theory of culture change and suggests that relationally dense networks, especially interlocking networks among elites bring about culture change. Wilberforce is an example, working within a network of politicians, industrialists, ministers, and social activists at the top of British social hierarchy to abolish slavery.

Proposition Ten: World-changing is most concentrated when the networks of elites and the institutions they lead overlap. One of the implications of this is such overlapping networks take time to form. We often want change and we want it now, or in the next three to five years. Yet it may take thirty years of patient work of a network of people to effect such change.

Hunter, speaking of, and implicitly to, contemporary Christian efforts of various stripes believes that most of these have occurred outside the cultural centers of influence, and have been oblivious to how elite networks actually shape culture. This reminded me of a discussion of the question of who were the public intellectuals who represented Christian faith in the world of higher education and in the wider culture. We discussed what qualities we might look for in such people. Here were my thoughts:

A fundamental belief in and commitment to faith in the public square and Spirit-given passion and courage for this work.
Credentials that give credibility.
This has to be supplemented with quality work in their field of endeavor whether it be science, technology, the arts or public policy.
A broad fluency in the wider world of knowledge in areas of science, economics, sociology, technology, and more. I don’t think someone can be a public intellectual without being a voracious and omnivorous reader!
Articulateness in the idioms of the culture evident in written, oral, (and in many settings) social media settings. They must be able to speak to without speaking down to thoughtful non-academics.
Theological acuity that can translate the great truths of redemptive history and the kingdom of God into the political, cultural, social realities.
Cross-cultural competence that consists both in a growing cultural self-awareness, and a growing engagement with the cultural diversity in one’s own country and the wider world community. (I think this last is vital in transcending the political punditry that passes for much “public intellectual” work in my own country.
For someone who exercises this role at a national level, it involves those whose presence is regularly welcomed in our national media, both more popular and more serious. In the US this can range from Times op-eds and magazine articles in The Atlantic to visual media such as The Charlie Rose Show for serious conversation and Colbert for more popular influence (I think of N.T. Wright’s interviews on this last outlet).

What is striking as I look at the list is that the one example of a person who I think might qualify is from Great Britain. It is troubling that for most thoughtful American Christians, their only other candidate might be C.S. Lewis, and he has been dead fifty years and is also British!

A word at this point might be in order about the “Christian” framing of this discussion, particularly for those who don’t identify as such. Any thoughtful and moral person wants the world to be a better place and cares about human flourishing. In a pluralistic context such as ours, what this looks like will certainly be contested and negotiated and all of us will pursue the flourishing of people and society according to our own lights. Often Christian efforts have been pre-emptive on the political fringe rather than participative with others in the culture-shaping centers of our society. As Mark Noll argued a number of years back in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, we simply haven’t done the intellectual and professional work necessary to enter the public discourse. In other words, I am not proposing some effort to “Christianize” society but simply that we not settle for short cuts to avoid the hard work of joining others in seeking social and cultural goods.

As I reflect on Hunter’s book and my list, it seems at least two conclusions are apparent. One is the need for scientists, artists and those who work in business, law, and public policy and other disciplines who will give themselves to faithful excellence in their work and who skillfully use whatever platforms they have to exercise influence toward “the good society” (whatever that is, which is a challenging question for “world-changers”). As I noted earlier, this is not something that happens overnight but over a lifetime. Faithful excellence often leads to greater and greater spheres of influence.

The second conclusion for me was the vital importance of cultivating cross-professional networks of like minded people who engage with each other and and develop their influence in the wider culture. We often think individually when we need to think “network”. I think an effort promoted by my own organization called the Emerging Scholars Network a good beginning for those who work in academia. Equally, I think it important to develop skill and facility in sharing one’s work and ideas in appropriate networks outside the faith community, not in an adversarial sense but in the sense of “what am I missing and how could this be better” which is good intellectual discourse at its best.

In that spirit, I would love to interact more with others who think about this “world-changing” stuff to know what you think of these ideas, what’s missing, and what could be better. And if you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading a longer-than-usual post from me.