Jonathan Edwards

Review: Jonathan Edwards: A Life

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Cover image of "Jonathan Edwards: A Life" by George M. Marsden

Jonathan Edwards: A Life

Jonathan Edwards: A Life, George M. Marsden. Yale University Press (ISBN: 9780300105964) 2004.

Summary: A biography that features the thought, cultural and religious context, revivals, and ministry among Native Americans.

Many who hear the name of Jonathan Edwards never get beyond one lurid passage in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” one of the thousands of sermons Edwards preached. Sadly, because they haven’t even read the whole of that sermon, they fail to grasp that the theme is actually the saving mercy of God. Even less, they fail to grasp what a profound thinker Edwards was, perhaps one of the greatest the United States has produced. However, this Bancroft Award-winning biography more than amply redresses the balance for anyone who wishes to understand Edwards’ contribution to the cultural and religious history of New England and the what would eventually become the United States.

Rather than discuss the outline of Edwards’ life, with which this biography deals in careful detail, I want to discuss some of the distinctive insights I found in its pages. Whereas we might think of Edwards as a severe person, one of the things I realized was his absolute delight in God and his world. As he wrote in one of his journals, he believed the Creator made all things for “the communication of happiness” to his creatures. This insight was reflected in his own devotional life and contemplative walks. Likewise, it makes sense both of his love of natural science and his passion that his people would be on fire with the love of God.

I was also struck by the importance to Edwards’ career of powerful families who were for many years his patrons and then adversaries. Two families were especially important: the Stoddard and Williams families. Solomon Stoddard preceded Edwards as pastor of the Northampton church and was Edwards grandfather. The invitation to join Stoddard late in his life and succeed him established Edwards among the religious elite. The ongoing support of Colonel John Stoddard and the Williams family helped make his ministry secure both ministerially and financially. That is, until changed his standards concerning who might be a communicant member of the church.

Marsden traces the tension throughout Edwards ministry between his father’s ideas and those of Solomon Stoddard on communicant membership. His father believed it necessary for candidates for church membership to show evidences of spiritual conversion beyond mere profession of faith. Stoddard took a more relaxed stance, allowing those who professed faith to become members. He thought membership, the hearing of preaching, and communion could draw people into a deeper relationship with Christ. And when Edwards came to Northampton, this was the position he adopted, opposing his father. Marsden traces how Edwards eventually adopted his father’s stance, and how the Stoddard and Williams clans turned on him, spelling the end of his Northampton ministry.

Before that, however, came the revivals. Marsden traces the history of the local awakenings of the 1730’s, culminating in the Great Awakening of 1740-42, both locally in Northampton and on both sides of the Atlantic. He discusses the strategic partnership of Edwards and George Whitefield. And he covers Edwards role in defending the revivals against Old Light critics while addressing excesses. We learn of his efforts to extend and deepen those revivals into ongoing holiness, including the failed “solemn covenant.”

As significant as his pastorate was, perhaps Edwards’ writing was his major contribution. Not only did he write several accounts of revivals but he also addressed genuine versus counterfeit spirituality in Religious Affections. Coming out of a Reformed tradition, he was active in countering the rise of Arminianism. Particularly, this was so in The Freedom of the Will. Toward the end of his life, he worked on more extensive theological works. This included, A History of the Work of Redemption including a View of Church History. A feature of this biography is the in-depth summaries of Edwards’ works as well as the context in which they were written.

One of the other influential works of Edwards was his The Life of David Brainerd. The Edwards family supported Brainerd’s efforts in mission work among indigenous peoples. And when he succumbed to tuberculosis, Edwards’ daughter Jerusha nursed him, and was a companion on good days. She followed him in death four months later. Brainerd left journals describing his spiritual life, calling, and ministry. Edwards edited and published these, which became a classic mission work which I read in early adulthood.

Jonathan Edwards was a slave owner. Marsden documents this as well as Edwards’ defense of slavery. This does not occupy a major part of the book. However, it shows Edwards as a man of his time. The biography also discusses Edwards ministry among indigenous people in Stockbridge after leaving Northampton, his efforts to launch a school for their children, as well as the challenges of the war with France and opposition from powerful local elements. Marsden discusses the growing awareness of Edwards and others of how indigenous missions could be manipulated for colonial control.

Marsden’s biography provides a highly readable narrative while describing Edwards’ intellectual life. We also glimpse a pastor deeply concerned for the spiritual life and growth in holiness of his people. He understood human nature, although at times dealt clumsily with situations like the youth who were reading sexual material. He had a strong marriage, an able partner in Sarah, as well as godly children. Marsden weaves accounts of the family life into the narrative throughout. I would recommend this as the “go-to” work on Edwards.

Review: An Infinite Fountain of Light

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An Infinite Fountain of Light, George Marsden. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A brief introduction to the life and thought of Jonathan Edwards, setting him alongside two of his contemporaries, Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield.

George Marsden is one of the outstanding scholars we have in the area of American religious history, His biography of Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, won the Bancroft Prize in 2004, a prize recognizing outstanding works of American history and diplomacy. This work, much briefer, introduces us to some key ideas of Edwards, setting him alongside two contemporaries, Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield. The chapters began as the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2008 and have been developed in subsequent presentations.

What Marsden hopes to do here, as he explains in his first lecture, is to translate Edwards, who spoke and wrote for his time, for us, at least a few of his profound ideas about the beauty of God who is light and love, and about how we might recognize rightly ordered love of God in the life of one who claims to be in Christ. He then offers a short biography of Edwards focusing on his pastoral ministry and oversight of revivals, his role as an apologist for the “New Light” movement and his publication of the Religious Affections.. He briefly covers his alienation from his congregation in Northampton over who may participate in communion, his ministry with Native peoples in Stockbridge, and his presidency at Princeton and connections to the Burr family.

The second lecture considers Benjamin Franklin and how his ideas cleared the way for the modern/post-modern immanent framing of life, focused on a material universe, human initiative and activity, the autonomous individual. While Franklin and Edwards were acquainted they were worlds apart. Franklin held to vaguely theistic beliefs and believed religion played an important role in motivating the moral life necessary for the democratic ordering of society. Yet his vision of the self made person anticipated Charles Taylor’s “buffered self.”

I thought the third chapter was worth the price of admission in elucidating Edwards ideas of the “new light” of God’s beauty Edwards apprehended in his conversion. In contrast to Franklin’s materialist outlook, Edwards saw “that the universe is most essentially an ongoing expression of a loving God [that] offered a dramatically radical alternative to the emerging perspective on the universe shared by Franklin and others in the era following the work of Isaac Newton” (p. 48). Far from a distant deity, Edwards saw all of this as a personal expression of the Triune God. Edwards was enthralled with the beauty of this love both in creation and the sacrificial work of Christ. He further saw the beauty of God’s love and joy in creation and salvation as a “fountain of light” illumining and transforming the life of one who believes, leading to a life of love ordered by the One whose loving light has shown into the believer’s life.

In Chapter Four, Marsden considers Edwards’ other contemporary, George Whitefield. Edwards welcomed and defended Whitefield’s preaching in New England, hoping that he would stir the revival fires that had died down. While Edwards defended New Light ideas within an establishment shaped by the Reformers, Whitefield innovated both in message and methods of promotion that anticipated modern evangelicalism, anticipating the Wesleyan movement and those which followed. His conversionist message would be recognizable to evangelicals today, and its core paved the way for movements with far less stress on education than that which Edwards and Whitefield shared. It also paved the way for the diversity of churches dotting the American landscape.

The concluding chapter considers the Religious Affections or as Marsden translates the term, the rightly order loves that distinguish those who are truly regenerate from the falsity of those who are not. Such love begins with the indwelling Holy Spirit who makes real God’s love in the believer. This results in love centered on the loving God rather than the self. Such love is drawn to the moral beauty of God. This is more than rational knowledge of the love and beauty of God; it is a heart enthralled by that love and beauty. Yet rightly ordered love also involves right understanding shaped by the scriptures. Such love is humble. It is lamb-like, not proud, arrogant, or self-asserting. It is tender of spirit. The true believer’s life will be one of symmetry and proportion, reflecting an eigthteenth century idea of beauty. Rather than fading, the appetite for the beloved grows, and finally eventuates in a life of actively growing in grace. Against the shallow spirituality and cults of personality in the present day church, Marsden sees the vision of the “infinite fountain of light and love” and the “rightly ordered loves” of Edwards offering profound insight for the growth of believers in Christ.

Marsden appends to this material an edited version of Edwards’ sermon “A Divine and Supernatural Light” from 1733, in which we can see how Edwards develops the ideas Marsden has discussed. If only this were the preferred sermon rather than “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” as representative of Edwards.

This is a delightful little book that both introduces the reader to some important strands of Edwards’ thought, worthy of translation into our contemporary context, and considers the shaping influence of his contemporaries Franklin and Whitefield on both secular belief and evangelical practice. This left me reflecting why the latter have had far greater influence, it seems, than Edwards, when he is often deemed America’s foremost theologian. Perhaps it is this matter of translation. We seem to be better at translating Edwards flaws, whether they be the “Sinners” sermon or his slave holding, than his striking insights into the nature of God and how this bears on true spirituality. Perhaps this book and the renaissance of Edwards studies will help redress this balance, if we keep the necessity of translating well, as Marsden has done, in mind.

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

Review: The Federal Theology of Jonathan Edwards

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The Federal Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Gilsun Ryu, Foreword by Douglas A. Sweeney. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021.

Summary: A study of Jonathan Edwards federal theology, forming the basis of a theology of the history of redemption in three covenants, with a focus on Edward’s exegetical approach to this theology.

You may have noticed from several reviews of books on Jonathan Edwards that I am something of an Edwards fan. Some of this is just national pride. Jonathan Edwards is the first significant and perhaps foremost American theologian. I admire that much of his theological work was done in a pastoral context. And one thing I’ve seen run through different studies of Edwards, including this present work is his ability to both keep faith with the faith once delivered and yet to tease out subtleties missed by other interpreters.

This work focuses on his federal theology. The idea can be traced back to Augustine and was developed in Reformed thought. It is that of the headship of the first and second Adams, acting, as it were, on the behalf of humanity, the first in sin, the second in his obedience to the law and sacrificial death satisfying the laws demands against sinners, reconciling them to God. For Jonathan Edwards, this served as the basis for an unfinished theological project, A History of the Work of Redemption, but one developed in a series of sermons and in many other writings.

Gilsun Ryu begins with four theologians antecedent to Edwards: Cocceius, Witsius, Mastricht, and Turretin. While Edwards draws upon all of these, he bases his theology on the biblical history of redemption, an approach that emphasizes the harmony of scripture as seen in his covenants of redemption, works, and grace. He begins with the covenant of redemption, the purposes and working out of those purposes in the Trinity within the history of redemption. The covenant of works emphasizes the sin of Adam, the impact upon his posterity, the impossibility of returning to a pre-fall state and the Christological focus seen under Moses, pointing toward redemption, Finally, the covenant of grace is traced progressively by Edwards through biblical history, prophecy, and secular history.

Having considered these three covenants within the history of redemption, Ryu then turns to the exegetical basis for each of the three covenants. While there is evidence of various methods of interpretation including typology and Christological interpretation, Ryu shows through Edwards’ exegesis of scripture that a redemptive historical framework informed that exegesis and the resulting doctrinal understanding, emphasizing the unity and harmony of scripture.

The last chapter shows how Edwards applied his federal theology of redemption in the church setting, showing how Edwards sought to encourage faith and piety through showing Christians how to engage with redemptive history. In this, he resists Arminian tendencies in emphasizing both the precedence of God’s design and human responsibility in justification.

Ryu’s unique contribution is his focus on Edward’s exegetical work, which he argues is what distinguishes Edwards’ federal theology from his predecessors. He draws on both books and Edwards sermons, and this latter is significant. This is not only systematic theology. It is pastoral theology grounding the spiritual state of his people in the sweep of redemptive history. I appreciated this work not only for it careful scholarly work but for recognizing this pastoral element in Edwards work–a model for modern-day pastor theologians!

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

Review: Jonathan Edwards and Deification

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Jonathan Edwards and Deification (New Explorations in Theology), James R. Salladin. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: In response to the growing interest in the idea of theosis or deification in Eastern Orthodoxy, this work examines the idea of “special grace” and participation in divine fullness in the thought of Jonathan Edwards as a Reformed counterpart that preserves the Creator-creature distinction while recognizing the saving relational communion between God and humans.

Contemporary theology has focused increasingly on Eastern Orthodox idea of theosis or deification or divinization of human beings. For some, this relates to our participation in the divine in salvation but others go further and explore ontological participation in God, how by creation, we participate in the divine being of God. The appeal of this is that it overcomes the sense of distance often felt in Protestant theology in which one experiences God’s saving work yet, even though not estranged, God is other and seems distant. At the same time, this raises questions about the obliteration of the Creator-creature distinction.

James R. Salladin, through a close reading of Edwards’s work, points us to the thought of Jonathan Edwards as offering a theology of relational participation in the fulness of God through grace mediated by the Holy Spirit. It is a communication of God’s fullness, though not God’s essence making possible soteriological participation in communion with the Triune God, rather than ontological participation, preserving the essential distinction between Creator and creatures.

Salladin unpacks these ideas in a careful argument drawing on Edward’s works. Chapter 1 focuses on the koinonia participation by which, through the Holy Spirit, given us in special grace, we participate in divine fullness. Chapter 2 then shows how the special grace of divine fullness is infinitely above created nature, not ignoring common grace or common participation, but also noting that this is not special, saving grace, nor communicates God’s essence to us. Chapter 3 then focuses on the other side of the distinction of divine fullness from divine essence. Salladin shows how Edwards carries this distinction through his doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, his doctrine of the Holy Spirit and doctrine of salvation.

Chapter 4 turns to the relation of created nature to divine grace. While creation does not participate in the divine essence, we were created for the end of participating in divine fullness. Finally, Chapter 5 develops Edwards’s vision of fulfilled humanity, patterned closely on the fulfillment of humanity evident in the hypostatic union of Christ’s divine and human natures in the union of faculties, expansion of capacities, and display of divine excellencies.

What is important is that Edwards offers a distinctly Reformed understanding of participation, one that is both imaginative, consistent with the doctrine of Christ and the Trinity, and that preserves distinctions of creature and creator and salvation by grace alone. I came away from this reading with a deepened appreciation of Edwards greatness as a theologian. Also, in the accounts of participation in fullness experienced in David Brainerd and one of Edwards’s own slaves (noted with lament by the author), we become aware of a blessedness of intimate relationship with the Triune God well worth believing and desiring. All this comes through Salladin’s clear, careful, step by step, well-documented exposition.

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

Review: The Great Awakening

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The Great Awakening: A History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitfield, Joseph Tracy. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2019 (first published 1842).

Summary: A reprint of the first comprehensive history of the English and colonial revivals of the late 1730’s and early 1740’s, focusing in New England and upon the work of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.

In New England in the 1730’s, if one had been baptized in infancy into the church, had given assent to its doctrines and led a life without scandalous behavior, this was sufficient to receive communion, even if one could not give an account of God’s saving work, or “regeneration” in one’s life. Regeneration is the idea of passing from being dead in one’s sins to spiritually alive in Christ through a gracious work of God’s Spirit. One passes from deep concern and dread concerning one’s state to great consolation as one knows one’s sins forgiven through Christ and that one is now alive in Christ and able under God’s grace of living a life pleasing to God.

Due to this state of affairs, men even entered the ministry without such an experience of the grace of God. It was sometimes the case that in an affluent household of several sons, one of these took a church position, in part to relieve stretched family finances. As Jonathan Edwards, and others began to address this issue of the “unconverted” within the church, a great revival broke out. It began with many being greatly troubled about the state of their souls. Edwards urged people to trust not in their good acts but to resign themselves to God, hoping in the work of Christ to be accepted by God. There were no “anxious benches” or altar calls of the later revivals. The belief was that God would come in God’s time to whom God would, to save, and God did. Many reported experiencing great comfort and consolation in God’s grace, and there was a new liveliness of holy living and service in the lives of many of these.

Joseph Tracy was a Congregational minister who lived from 1798 to 1874. This work by Tracy represents the first comprehensive history of the Great Awakening, particularly focusing on the events of 1740-42, when this awakening was at its peak. What he does is feature the two major figures of the revival, Edwards and Whitefield, and reports of revivals in various parts of the American colonies (with one chapter on Whitefield in England). This is a valuable historical document because Tracy cites many primary source reports written at, or shortly after the time of the Revival. many of these accounts repeat occurrences along the pattern of great concern, an experience of consoling grace, and transformation of behavior following.

The reports also recount the controversies that arise which include the following:

  • Excesses of emotion, faintings, other bodily manifestations. Quickly, wise leaders like Edwards grasped that these are not definitive signs of awakening grace, which is most evident in the amended life of converts. They are neither necessary nor conclusive of conversion, and may be either genuine adjuncts or spurious in nature.
  • Declarations that ministers were “unconverted.” While there were unconverted ministers, and a legitimate concern for the state of their souls, some revivalists made sweeping, summary and public statements about the unconverted character of particular ministers which often did not go down well.
  • Itineracy. A number followed the example of Whitefield in going from town to town preaching rather than confining their ministry to a particular place. This was not a problem when a minister longing for the benefit of his people invited a guest to preach, but this courtesy was not always observed, and open-air preaching circumvented the need for such invitations, but amount to “sheep stealing” in the eyes of local ministers.
  • Exhorters. These were unordained enthusiasts who arose particularly out of the concern that existing ministers were unconverted.
  • Excesses or errors on the part of revivalists. This was most noteworthy in the case of Rev. James Davenport, who made wholesale judgments against ministers, acted more by “impulses” of the Spirit that scriptural warrant, and gathered numerous informal assemblies in homes and public places.

Tracy recounts all of this through reports, public statements of individuals and church bodies, and other documents of the time. Some of this can be heavy going if one is reading straight through but it is a trove of insight second only to Jonathan Edwards Religious Affections on the nature of spiritual awakenings, and the controversies, excesses and errors that may arise amid a genuine work of God.

He also shows the efforts of some, no doubt looking at the excesses and errors, and perhaps stinging from questions about their own spiritual state, to thwart the efforts of the preachers of the Awakening. We see the maturation of a Whitefield, who is able to acknowledge errors while not relenting in what he sees to be a God-given ministry, or Edwards, whose careful reflection and pastoral leadership addresses problems, and then offers a record of abiding value.

If you bog down amid the various accounts, don’t turn from this book without reading the final chapter on “The Results.” Tracy believed that as many as 50,000 were converted, and that the transformation of so many substantively affected the character of the colonies at the time of the War for Independence. It led to a renewed concern for the spiritual qualifications of the minister, fostered mission efforts, laid a basis for religious liberties, and led to the establishment of Dartmouth, Brown, Rutgers, and Princeton.

I hear a renewed hunger for revival and awakening in many circles. The value of a book like this is to give theological substance, as well as practical warnings, that may prove useful should God be so gracious as to grant this work in his churches in our day. This history also warns us of the temptations of pride and censoriousness for preachers in the center of such movements, most evident in the ministry of Davenport. Banner of Truth Trust is to be applauded in bringing this classic work of history of the Awakening of 1740 to a new generation, who hopefully will benefit from the experience of those who have gone before.

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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.

 

The Month in Reviews: April 2016

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The Warmth of Other Sons

My reading this month ranged from rain to a runaway girl by the name of Rifqa (how is that for alliteration!). I reviewed Isabel Wilkerson’s account of the unheralded immigration of Blacks from the south to the north and west in the twentieth century, and a pair of novels by management guru Peter Drucker. There was the usual collection of more “theological” works, including one on the theology of Jonathan Edwards, future directions in biblical interpretation, a biblical theology of that unusual book in scripture, Daniel. I began the month with several shorter but thoughtful books on the paradoxical relationship of strength and weakness, different ways of fasting over forty days, and a book on the psychological motivations of religious striving. Finally, I revisited one of my old favorites by C. S. Lewis. So here are my review summaries with links in the title to the publisher’s website, and at the end to my full review.

strong and weakStrong and Weak, Andy Crouch. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016. Explores two qualities that we often think opposed to one another and argues that strength and weakness are paradoxically related and that human beings flourish to the extent that they can appropriately exercise strength (authority) and weakness (vulnerability) together. Review.

40 Days of Decrease40 Days of Decrease, Alicia Britt Chole. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2016. A collection of 40 readings, reflections, and different kinds of fasts that encourage us to “thin our lives to thicken our communion with God.” Review.

16 Strivings for God16 Strivings for God, Steven Reiss. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2015. A new psychology of religious experience that argues that religions enjoy such a wide embrace because they offer repeated opportunities to satisfy sixteen basic motivations or “strivings” common to all human beings. Review.

future of biblical interpretationThe Future of Biblical Interpretation, Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm, eds. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. A festschrift for Anthony Thiselton exploring from different perspectives the tension between plurality of interpretations of the Bible, and responsible hermeneutics. Review.

The Warmth of Other SonsThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson. New York: Vintage, 2011. The story of the great migration of blacks from the South to the North and West between 1915 and 1970, told through the lives of three of those migrants and their families. Review.

With the Clouds of HeavenWith the Clouds of Heaven (New Studies in Biblical Theology), James M. Hamilton, Jr. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014. A study of the biblical theology of Daniel, including its structure, key themes, how the book influences both early Jewish literature and the New Testament, and how it connects to key themes throughout scripture. Review.

DruckerThe Last of All Possible Worlds and The Temptation to Do Good, Peter F. Drucker. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2016 (forthcoming, expected publication date June 14, 2016). The two novels of management guru Peter Drucker, the first of which is an interlocking tale of the lives of bankers and aristocracy in pre-World War I Europe as they face an impending meeting, the second a tale of an act of kindness by a Catholic college president that goes horribly wrong. Review.

screwtape lettersThe Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis.  New York: Macmillan, 1962 (Link is to current edition). The classic collection of letters between a senior demon and junior tempter charged with undermining the new found faith of his “patient.” Review.

Jonathan Edwards Among the TheologiansJonathan Edwards among the Theologians, Oliver D. Crisp. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2015. By comparing Edwards writing on various theological themes, Crisp underscores Edwards work as an original thinker and constructive theologian, building on a Reformed base, but even pressing the limits of orthodoxy in some of his work. Review.

RainRain: A Natural and Cultural History, Cynthia Barnett. New York: Broadway Books, 2015. An exploration of this elemental reality on which our lives depend, how we have tried to control it, produce it, predict it, protect ourselves from it and how it has shaped our lives and how we are shaping future rainfall. Review.

Hiding in the LightHiding in the Light, Rifqa Bary. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2015. A memoir of Bary’s turning from Islam to Christianity during her teens, her flight from her family when she feared for her life, and her subsequent struggles to prevent the courts from forcibly returning her to her family. Review.

Best of the Month: I’ll give the nod to The Warmth of Other Suns for this eloquent chronicle of the largely untold story of the migration of Blacks from south to north and west in response to Jim Crow racism and how it changed both the migrants and their destination cities. It helped me understand in new light the dynamics of race that became a growing issue in my and many northern cities during the years I was growing up.

Quote of the Month: I can’t resist some C.S. Lewis here from The Screwtape Letters:

“He is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or onlylike foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at his right hand are ‘pleasures for evermore.’ Ugh! I don’t think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least–sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side” (pp. 101-102).

Reviewing Soon: One of the classics I’ve never read and am currently enjoying is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, another migration tale of farmers escaping the 1930’s dust bowl for dreams of a better life in California. I’m reading an intriguing book on how our physiology enables us to connect with God and serve others titled What Your Body Knows About God. In this political season there are a couple political books: Randall Balmer’s Faith in the White House on faith and politics from the Kennedy through Bush II presidencies, and Ask the Questions on why religious clarity is important to ask of our political candidates. And along the lines of recent reading, I will be reading Jose’ Orduna’s The Weight of Shadows on immigration and displacement, and Benjamin Watson’s Under Our Skin on addressing our racial divides.

The Month in Reviews is a great way to see all the books reviewed at Bob on Books. Just click on “The Month in Reviews” on the menu to access review summaries going back to February 2014.