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Adam Shields

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The Way of St Benedict Audiolibro Por Rowan Williams arte de portada

A collection of essays more than structured book

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-17-25

Summary: A series of loosely connected essays about the influence of the rule of Benedict and Benedictine spirituality on the church.

I have read a number of Rowan Williams' short books. Most of those books were based on lectures and compiled into books later. This seems to be different in that it appears to be a series of essays that was compiled into a book and just doesn't have the same level of coherence as I tend to expect from Williams' books. That isn't to say they are bad essays, I learned a lot about the history and influence of the Benedictine order. But I think as long as you go into the book with an expectation of essays that are loosely connected and not as a more intentionally shaped book, you will be rightly primed for what the book is.

One of the reviews I skimmed through complained about the last essay, which is less about Benedictines broadly and more about a particular Benedictine author's book. I agree with the comment, but I also found that essay the most engaging of the book because it was about a book trying to grapple with mysticism in the early 20th century (about the same time that Evelyn Underhill was writing her book on mysticism.) Williams was helpful in pointing out that we tend to think of mysticism phenomenologically or sometimes epistemologically, but that isn't how all people at all times have thought about mysticism. Those are both useful ways to explore mysticism, but they do limit the concept of mysticism if those are the only methods of exploration.

The Rule of St Benedict is probably the thing most people are aware of, even if they haven't actually read it. There is a good discussion of the rule, but you probably do want to have a little familiarity with the rule before you start. I have read it all, but it has been a while ago and I probably should have stopped and read it all again before reading the book.

Most of the first section reflects on the rule and the ways that the rule shaped Benedictines to stability and obedience and virtue. These sections are all helpful but because I am not brand new to Benedictine spirituality, that was less new than the last two chapters. I have already mentioned the last chapter on mysticism as my favorite chapter. But the chapter of the history of reforms within Benedictine order was helpful because much of that was new to me. As someone that is always interested in reforming system, understanding the influence of both successful and failed reforms is helpful.

Overall, this wasn't my favorite book of Williams, and I am glad I picked it up while it was on sale. But there was value for me reading it even if I think it will be too narrow for many readers.

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Stop Fixing Yourself Audiolibro Por Anthony De Mello arte de portada

Maybe I am the wrong audience.

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-07-25

Longer Summary: A book that is hard to recommend, because it needs a lot of caveating. The right person will find it helpful, most will not.

I have a ambivalent attitude toward reading the mystics. I value mystical thinking and practice, but I tend to find reading them an exercise in frustration. Mystics are often vague and contradictory. They often use language in unusual ways. But there is often still real help there.

Part of my ongoing reading about discernment is about how we apply what we learn even when there is not definitive directions. I was listening to a talk by Sean Rowe, the new presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and he said (my paraphrase) that we like to talk about discernment, and discernment is good, but the point of discernment is to eventually chose a path and follow it. That is a helpful point and one that I think DeMello needs to hear (or say).

What DeMello is doing here is not saying, "give up and stay where you are," but "acknowledge where you are and pay attention." His rough summary is that we don't change by trying to force ourselves to do hard things, but by paying attention and allowing the Holy Spirit to bring awareness to us.

A lot of the emphasis early in the book is not on changing to "get something" but to become content in all things. Again, this is both true and problematic. It is true to the extent that we should be content in all things, but not true to the extent that we simply accept injustice without complaint. I feel like this is similar to Dallas Willard's advice/comment that a mature person should be very hard to offend. And to the extent that you should not personally be offended, I agree. But to the extend that we are not offended about the things that offend God, I disagree.

The shift to part two raises a lot of concerns. In part one, his language is about beliving in yourself. He doesn't use the language of manifesting, but I think he is using some of the ideas that overlap with manifesting. I get concerned about that type of rhetoric because while there is some truth to needing to believe in yourself and be confident that something is possible, there are limits. Simply beliving that good things will happen will not make them true. But the rhetoric at the start of section two is even more problematic.

"What causes unhappiness...there is only one cause of unhappiness. The false beliefs in your head." I understand in context what he is trying to say. He isn’t explicitly denying that wrong things in the world exist. But he is framing unhappiness as how we respond. Stephen Covey’s point about our response is the space between the stimuli and our action is similar to what DeMello is trying to say. There is a need to help people see that the space between stimuli and response exists, but I don't think it is helpful to put everything on that space.

In particular now with the current administration's explicit plan to overwhelm the news media and the bureaucracy with a barrage of orders and news so that it is impossible to have an adequate response, we do need to emphasize that space between stimuli and action. But it feels like he is playing games with semantics, not unlike the “Sin of Empathy” discussion. Empathy has a common definition. But the “Sin of Empathy” crowd is redefining empathy to be sinful by defining it as a type of codependent enmeshment or abusive manipulation. It is entirely possible to have a discussion about codependent enmeshment or abusive manipulation without denigrating the virtue of empathy.

In that similar way, DeMello seems to be redefining Happiness not as an emotion or a type of joy or pleasure at the world, but solely as a divine gift of contentment. There is a God given gift of contentment that the mystics have told us about for a long time, but that isn’t usually described as “happiness” and to define it that way using that word seems to intentionally create confusion.

Much of the rest of the book has similar problems of either using words oddly, or asking us to withdraw from our emotional response to adopt a type of Buddhist-like detachment. I understand that some people may find that helpful. But I think many Chrsitians have already been taught to mistrust emotions and those Christians who already mistrust emotions do not need additional instruction about the problems of emotion. Emotion is part of how we were created. Emotions can be distorted because of sin and experience. But the solution to that is healing, not continued distrust of emotion.

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Discerning God's Will the Jesuit Way Audiolibro Por Joseph A. Tetlow arte de portada

Introduction to discenrment.

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-08-25

I picked up two audio courses by Joseph Tetlow on discenment during a recent audible sale. Tetlow is now 95 years old. He mentions in this audio course, that he was 79 when it was recorded, so this course it about 16 years old. (Audible release date is 2017, so that isn’t accurate.) I read one book on discerment and spiritual direction by Tetlow in my spiritual direction training and it was Tetlow’s edition of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises that was used in our program.

One of the useful parts of this course is that Tetlow distiguishes between conscious and discernment. He thinks we should work to develop a consious and that a conscious shaped by the Holy Spirit is part of discernment. But he also thinks that without reflection on our actions and our conscious, in conversation with the Holy Spirit, we are not doing discernment. For him, all three parts are required. I think that is helpful corrective to what I have been thinking of as two seperate parts.

In my conception of discernment up until this point, I have thought about the preconscious discernment that is shaped by becoming more Christlike. And then the conscious discerment which is ore shaped by a process of reflection and practices of decision making and prayer. When I starting paying attntion to the preconscious aspects, I was reacting against the movement that thought of discenrment simply as a set of decision making tools. I didn’t want to remove all aspects of decision making and seeking after God’s will from discerment, but I wanted reemphasize the ascpets of character that I think are essential to good discernment. I think post-Tetlow, I am going to be more balanced and I think his three parts is one good method of discussing that balance.

This audio course is attempting to introduce Jesuit thinking on discenrment but I am not sure it really was a good introduction. There were lots of examples and stories, but few practical tools. Most of the tools were introduced in the final session. The prayer of examen was not clearly introduced and Ignatius’ Rules of Discernment were mentioned but not clearly taught. I think this was not a bad introduction, but it did not live up to the title. It was about discenrment, but the Jesuit part was largely in the background.

As much as there was value here, I think there was signficant weakness. The weaknesses were in three areas. First, in trying to avoid some of the more technical aspects (Rules of Discenrment, Examen, etc) that may put off some lay people, I think he didn’t do enough to equip people for discenmernment. Second, I think that Tetlow’s approach is spiritual and pastoral, which is important, but it did not have enough attention to cultural influences. That isn’t to say there was no discussion. At one point he discusses growing up in a racist society and using the N word (he says it) without reflection because it was part of culture.

Part of the problem with his cultural approach is that I think he needed to be more clear about how we engage culture to understand how culture influences our view of what choices are viable. Charles Taylor and others decribe this as the Social Imaginary. Our social imaginary influences what we think are choices that can be made. There is always a limit by culture and we cannot fully remove ourselves from all cultural influences.

In another place, he talks favorably about how Bernard of Clarvoux discerned about whether he should preach to encourage people to support the third crusade. The main tools of discernment that Tetlow cited was the number of people who joined to support the crusade and the political support of the crusade. What he did not present as part of the evaluation is the antisemitism that was riled up by Bernard’s sermons encouraging the crusades or the problems and abuses of the crusades.

In part this is related to Tetlow making a very Catholic presentation. As someone trained in a catholic spiritual direction program, I became comfortable translating in my head some thing that seemed wrong theologically but was more about langauge than about content. But there are other areas where there are differences.

One of those differences is the realtionship of the state to faith. In the last section, Tetlow raises a lot of concerns about the secularization of culture and how that influences our choices and discenrment. I think he is right to raise that question, but I was very uncomfortable with his answer. This must have been recorded around 2008-9 and he was concerned more about the new Athiests and the anti-religious bias of culture than he was reforming how Christians interact with the state. He proceeds to call for making culture Christian again in a way that today sounds very Christian Nationalist. Three seperate times he quote Thomas Jefferson (and he only cites Thomas Jefferson on this point) saying that the american experiment is rooted in Christianity. Jefferson wasn’t a Christian by any orthodox standard. And if we want to consider Jefferson part of the Christian heritage, then that definition of Christian is so broad as to make me wonder about what it really means.

He conflates American and Christian in an unhelpful way. There are other places where he talks about obesity and laziness and what I would call trauma in ways that I also think are problematic because he seems to reject trauma as a category and equaites productivity and thinness with holiness in a way that I don’t think he really believes.

This is a good example of yet another book on discenrment that I find somewhat helpful, but I am also concenred bout how the evidence of discenrment seems to be lacking in how it is lived out in practice. The steps here are largely helpful. The illustrations are mostly helpful. The final advice section I think is pretty much awful.

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An Introduction to Christian Mysticism Audiolibro Por Jason M. Baxter arte de portada

Good intro

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-22-24

Summary: A historical look at how Christian mystics understood mysticism and how that has changed.

Anyone reading along with my reviews is probably aware that I am about 18 months into a reading project on the idea of Christian discernment. And while I have not ended that exploration of discernment, I am at the point of a deep dive where I need to explore the connected ideas to discernment so that I can better understand how to proceed.

A number of years ago I was exploring the trinity and I realized that in exploring the trinity I needed to better understand the concept of hermeneutics and I think I ended up reading more books about hermeneutics than I did about the trinity. That exploration of the trinity comes up because one of the most helpful books for me in exploring the trinity was The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church by Franz Dunzl. What made it so helpful was that it traced the early doctrine of the trinity but in doing so, Dunzl showed that part of the development of the language around the trinity was linguistic (there was a shift from Greek to Latin as the lingua franca) and part of the development of the langauge around the trinity was about shifts in philosophy and the language of philosophy.

If you have traced Christian doctrine over time, the way that cultural issues shift the way that we think of theology is common. Part of what mattered in the reformation was that thee was a shift in how we think of the state and how we think of legal realities and this corresponded to the increasing use of legal language in regard to the doctrines of salvation. In a more modern example, the shifts in understanding about gender and gender roles have shifted the language that some are using in regard to trinitarian theology with regard to the rise of supporters of the The Eternal Subordination of the Son or the The Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son and in a different area some of the changes in language and meaning of the economic trinity or social trinitarian theology.

I bring all of this up because Baxter’s Introduction to Christian Mysticism has played a bit of a similar role as Dunzl for me. Mysticism is a notoriously difficult subject to discuss because the very nature of mysticism is discussion about what is “super natural” or what is above or outside of the natural realm. Because language is often referential, referring to something that is outside of nature makes it difficult to draw metaphors or analogy. Part of the differences in the way that we think of mysticism over time are differences of what is culturally being responded to as well as differences in philosophy and language. (The Mystery of God was a very helpful book on the right and wrong use of mystery within theological exploration.)

I picked up An Introduction to Christian Mysticism because I have recently read Baxter’s book on CS Lewis and how his writing and thinking were influenced by medieval thinking. And as I think is appropriate, much of An Introduction to Christian Mysticism is concerned with the same broad time period. A short introduction like this cannot grapple with everything, but this is a good illustration as to how mysticism relates to knowledge, negative theology (or Apophatic theology), the role of action and contemplation with regard to mysticism. I think most importantly to my project, Baxter traces some of the ways that the changing understanding of the interiority of the human being (the inner self, personality, pyschology, etc.) influence the ways that we speak of mysticism. It is too strong to say that to know yourself is to know God, but that is how some mystics have come to see contemplation.

An Introduction to Christian Mysticism opens with a discussion of the rediscovery of mysticism in the 20th and 21st century. I have been reading The Celebration of Discipline and a book biography of Celebration of Disciple, Worth Celebrating by Miriam Dixon with the Renovare book club and they both also discuss this rediscovery. It has come in several waves, the Azuza revival brought a wave of interest in Pentecostal and charismatic worship and the Holy Spirit. Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, and AW Tozer, among others prompted a revival of evangelical and protestant awareness of the history of the mystics. And Celebration of Discipline and other books in the spiritual formation movement has brought about increased attention to the practices of mysticism. Baxter is almost entirely focused on the intellectual history of mysticism. It is not that he is unaware of the role of the practices, but that while he acknowledges the practices and discussed the role of a type of muscular Christianity in his discussion of the desert fathers and of St Francis, that isn’t his main focus.

After the introduction to the topic of mysticism and its revival, Baxter traces both thematically and temporally from Plato and other pagans of antiquity to Augustine, the mystics interested in negative theology (Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa, and Meister Echhart), before returning to the desert fathers. And then returns to the later medieval world with lectio divina and the ways that Christian contemplation relates to God through contemplation of his word.

I listened to this as an audiobook and while the narrator was fine, this is a book that probably is not well suited to audio. Much of the book is oriented around ideas and Baxter is, as much as possible, oriented toward allowing earlier Christians to speak for themselves about mysticism. The sheer number of quotes and the way that Baxter mixes the quotes with his interpretive gloss means that it is very hard at times to know where the quote ends and where Baxter’s commentary starts. And many of these quotes are either dense or coming from a very different cultural perspective and it would be helpful to read this in print so that you can go back and reread sections.

My plan is to watch the book price and pick it up the next time it goes on sale. But in the meantime, I am going to pick up some Evelyn Underhill and some of the older mystical books to read directly. I am still convinced that there is a very important role for understanding discernment in modern Christian discipleship. But I also think that without an understanding of mysticism and how we connect to a spiritual God, there is a limit to what we can say about discernment. Discernment involves understanding emotion, but it is not simply emotion. Discernment very much is interested in hearing from God and relating to God, but one of the important aspects of that is enough self awareness to grapple with what is ourselves and what is God. And then there is the ever-present question about what to do in the face of a God who appears distant or is not there when we feel like we want him to be there. All three of those questions and more have an aspect of mysticism in them.

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The Life You Save May Be Your Own Audiolibro Por Paul Elie arte de portada

A joint biography

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-19-24

I have been wanting to get around to The Life You Save May Be Your Own since it came out in the early 2000s. After having read a brief biography of Dorothy Day and a book of essays about Thomas Merton earlier this summer, I decided it was time. I have also read three books about O’Connor, a more academic look at her work, a short biography, and a collection of her early journals I felt like I had a pretty good handle on O’Connor. But I knew nothing about Walker Percy outside of his novels.

Elie mostly tells the story chronologically. Dorothy Day is almost 20 years older than Merton and Percy and nearly 30 years older than O’Connor. But she also lived longer than both Merton and O’Connor. And while Percy lived until 1990, and Day passed away in 1980, Day was 83 when she passed away, and Percy was only 73.

All four are well-known Catholic writers who were consciously Catholic in different ways. O’Connor was the only cradle Catholic, the other three were all adult converts to Catholicism. O’Connor and Percy were both also very much Southern Writers while Day was most identified with NYC and her non-fiction writing. Merton was the most clearly a “spiritual” writer and the only clergy member of the group.

As a biography or a group of biographies, this was well written and included good detail on their lives as well as context on their writing. But as a stand-alone, I think it was too long. It was too long to feel like a brief biography and it was too short to be a definitive biography of any of them. It was interesting to see how much the four of them interacted and wrote one another, although there were very few personal interactions. Merton considered joining the Catholic Worker movement but decided instead to become a monk. They all had mutual friends, and drafts of different books were passed around.

The value of the book was in the exploration of the different ways to think of themselves as writers and “Catholic” writers and how they related to the church more broadly. I don’t regret reading The Life You Save May Be Your Own, but I did pick it up over the summer when I tend to hit a reading slump. And the length of the book did not help the reading slump.

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The Spirit of Justice Audiolibro Por Jemar Tisby arte de portada

Stories of resistance.

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-19-24

his is a natural next book for Jemar Tisby. His first book was a survey of the ways that the church in the US has been complicit with racism. The second book was a response to the question, “What should we do now” that he kept getting from people who read the first book. And this third book is designed as inspiration for continuing to work for justice.

I am fairly well-read in civil rights history and there were both well-known figures and people I did not know here. The balance between the known and the unknown (or lesser known) was good. You can’t ignore major figures like Martin Luther King Jr, but in some ways, those figures are less inspiring because they have become “saints” of the movement. The lesser-known figures I think are more inspiring because they worked toward justice without becoming well-known.

That isn’t to say those lesser-known people are less important. Part of what Tisby is doing is bringing balance to the story. There is a whole chapter on women of the civil rights movement, not because they were completely unknown but because the sexism of the time impacted how we tell stories today. And many behind-the-scenes figures were essential to the organizational and movement-building work that allowed the well-known people to become well-known.

Immediately after finishing The Spirit of Justice, I picked up a new biography of John Lewis. Lewis was well known by his death, but part of what the biography illustrated was the long arc of that fame. Lewis spoke at the 1963 March on Washington, but that was after having led the Nashville student movement and then SNCC. But when he left SNCC leadership, he was only 26. He had several completely separate careers after that. He headed the Voter Education Project for 7 years, and under his leadership VEP registered an estimated 4 million people. He also spent several years working for the federal government in the Carter administration, six years on the Atlanta city council, and 34 years in Congress.

I bring up John Lewis because as well known as he is today, had he done any one of the many things (Freedom Rider, Nashville sit-in movement, SNCC leadership, SCLS board member, voting rights advocate, Selma Marcher, and a main mover of the remembrance of the Selma March, he may not be well-known. But whether he was well-known or not, his contributions mattered.

And that is why The Spirit of Justice matters. This is a book of inspiration to know those who have done the work to bring about the progress toward justice that has been accomplished thus far. While not every person is primarily known as a Christian, the reality is that justice, especially around racial issues in the US has been historically rooted in the Black Church. Most of the figures in The Spirit of Justice were themselves shaped by and a member of the Black Church. There were a lot of complaints about the Color of Compromise not telling the stories of how the church worked toward justice. Those complaints missed the point of the book in highlighting how the church was compromised. The Spirit of Justice now highlights the stories of those who worked for justice. And I think contextually important, it records how often those stories of justice were opposed by other members of the church in the United States.

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Falling Upward Audiolibro Por Richard Rohr, Brené Brown - foreword arte de portada

the process of change as we age and mature

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-19-24

I am in a Tuesday morning book group at my local Jesuit retreat house. The group meets for about 8 to 10 weeks twice a year. There are about 20 people who are involved, usually about 15-16 people a week are present. Because the group meets at 10:15 AM on a Tuesday, it is mostly people who are retirement age. The group is primarily Catholic and female, although not entirely. I very much value the group and I will continue to read whatever the group picks. But I was not looking forward to reading Falling Upward. I have previously read it twice in 2011 and in 2016. I liked it less each time I read it. But there is something helpful about reading a book in a group because you gain the perspective of others as you read it. I tend to like books less if I previously liked them when rereading them in a group. But I also tend to like books more when rereading with a group if I didn’t like them previously. In both cases, it is because different perspectives give me insight into aspects of the book that I did not have when reading alone.

Part of what I found interesting is that about a third of the group was new to the book. But most of the group had read it two or three times previously. Almost everyone who found the book valuable had read it multiple times. I continue to think that Rohr is less clear than he should be. And I continue to think he is trying to read too large of an audience. I both found the book more helpful and more limited with this reading.

On the negative side, I think that his use of the archetype narrative (The Oddesy and other similar stories) has the problem of orienting the discussion of the second half of life in a male-oriented way. I know Rohr is a Catholic priest and a man, but over and over again, I found his illustrations and framing to be overly limited. One of the main themes of the book is how part of maturity is rejecting false dualism and embracing the Both/And. But then he would create evaluative dualism between the first and second half of life. I probably can’t be Rohr, but I would like to see someone else write about archetypal narrative in a similar way, but add in many more illustrations that are rooted in female archetypes.

On the positive side, I do think that reading this nearly 15 years after the first reading I have more life experience and maturity and I can see areas where I can make sense of his point in ways that I couldn’t before. But I also think that there are many areas where he will continue to be misunderstood either because he was not clear or because the audience that is reading isn’t who he was addressing. Over and over again, I ran into comments or advice or illustrations where it made sense, but there was a level of health that is assumed that may not be present. This is similar to my complaints about A Loving Life by Paul Miller. Miller calls on people to tolerate suffering and abuse to lead others toward repentance but does not spend nearly enough time talking about the reality of abuse and the harm that comes about because of abuse. There were many places where the advice or illustration works in one setting, but not in another. That discernment of how to apply wisdom like this requires a level of maturity that I am not sure applies to everyone reading the book.

I am glad I read it again, at least I was glad that I read it with the group. I do not think it is an essential book.

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How to Walk into a Room Audiolibro Por Emily P. Freeman arte de portada

A books about discernment

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-19-24

I have been on a long-term reading project about discernment. I listened to an interview with Emily Freeman on the Gravity Commons podcast, and then a couple of days later, Audible had a sale on How to Walk Into a Room, and I picked it up.

One of my convictions about discernment is that while discernment includes decision-making, I am more interested in formational discernment, how we are formed toward Christ so that we both intuitively follow Christ’s lead as well as how we consciously make decisions. I think both parts are important, but How to Walk Into a Room is mostly about the consciously deciding aspect of discernment.

Over the past decade there has been a near constant discussion about the rise of the ‘Nones”, those who no longer identify as part of a specific religious community. Those nones are not necessarily leaving Christian faith, but they are leaving a religious community for one reason or another. One of the findings of the research study that was detailed in The Great Dechurching, is that most people stop going to church when they move. It is less an intentional withdrawal from church than a lack of motivation to find a new church. Another large group of people stopped going to church during Covid and never found their way back. But Freeman is talking about a third group of people, those who are intentionally trying to discern whether to continue in a church or leave because of specific reasons. Those reasons can be different, spiritual harm or abuse, differences in theology or practices, personality conflicts, etc., but there is conscious intention to ask God if they should continue or leave. In many cases, these people are not leaving faith, they are leaving a specific community and intend to go to a new faith community.

Freeman walks through a four-part process of discernment that would apply to a number of different decision making steps. She includes other examples like work/vocation or continuing education, but her main example is her own process of deciding to leave her congregation.

The four parts are the acronym PRAY: Point & call; Remember your path; Acknowledge presence; and Yield to arrows. Point and call is easily remembered because it is probably the most tangible. Started by Japanese rail workers, point and call is a safety practices of naming out loud the simple steps of a process so that both the person naming and those around them know and can see the steps of the process. This is one of the main benefits of spiritual direction, specifically naming areas where you see God at work or where you have questions so that you can have a second person walk with you in seeking God.

Remember your path is somewhat like a calling/vocation/rule of life. I have been in a group with Jonathan Walton who has completed a book on building a rule of life (it will be published 2025) and he is leading us through the content of the book in a shortened form. While Freeman doesn’t exactly mean a rule of life in her “remember your path” there is a significant overlap because the remember your path is partially about calling/vocation and partially about the guardrails we have.

Acknowledge presence is about acknowledging the presence of God in the process. This is part of the Prayer of Examen and is what is meant when there is a call to worship or invocation in a worship service. God is always with us, but there is reason to specifically remember God’s presence.

The fourth part is what we most commonly think of as discernment, identifying the arrows (red, green, yellow) that we see around us with the help of the Holy Spirit. Where does God seem to be leading? Is that an open door? The value of a book like this is in the illustrations and the illumination of wisdom about how we can get the process of discernment wrong. Not every seemingly closed door is closed. Not every seemingly open door is open. Our history, emotional and relational make up, our personality and intellect all matter to this process. Having a community around us can help us to discern whether we are seeing rightly. But especially when the question is about whether we should be leaving the community of faith we are in can be difficult because we do not always trust the advice and wisdom of people who might be making a different decision.

I read this alongside Jenai Auman’s Othered: Finding Belonging with the God Who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed, and Marginalized. Othered is particularly about ways that the church can traumatize or further injure those who are traumatized. How to Walk Into a Room has good discussion about the role of trauma on discernment and that is helpful, but there are many ways that discernment is impacted beyond trauma. Our culture, and theology, our experience, and personality all impact our discernment in various ways.

As I skimmed through reviews on Goodreads before writing this, I found two main complaints that were common among the negative reviews. The first was complaining that this was “not biblical’ or that it was simply a self-help book. I think much of this type of complaint is from a stream of Christianity that distrusts that individuals are led by God. At the end of the book Freeman talks about how she and her husband have found a place in a local Friends (Quaker) congregation. The original heresy that Quakers were charge with was believing that the Holy Spirit directly guided them. But it wasn’t only Quakers that have had this charge. Ignatius, the founder of the Catholic Jesuit order, also in his Rules of Discernment, assumes specific individual direction by the Holy Spirit in his Spiritual Exercises. How To Walk Into a Room was not specifically making the case for individual and corporate direction by the Holy Spirit, it mostly assumes that the reader already believes this. But much of the negative reviews specifically name this as why they rated the book poorly.

Most of the rest of the review that are negative are about the specific reason why Freeman and her family eventually decide to leave their church. The reason is somewhat obscured because Freeman is careful not to directly share the story of her child. But something about that child’s sexuality causes Freeman and her husband to reevaluate their understanding of the theology of sexuality. It isn’t only her child, but also other relationships. But the most proximate cause for leaving the church is her changing ideas that come about because of her child.

There are obviously many Christians who believe strongly one way or another about LGBTQ+ issues. But several reviews I read about How to Walk Into a Room specifically condemned Freeman for changing her mind because of experience or proximity. And I do think this is an area where there is a lot of misunderstanding. Experience and proximity is one way that God can use us to change our mind. The apostle Thomas changes his mind about the possibility of Christ’s resurrection because he sees and touches Jesus. Peter changes his mind about whether Gentiles should be part of the church because of his experience of a vision of God. Paul changes his mind about whether Jesus was the messiah because of his experience of being blinded and healed. Post-biblical era, there are many other similar examples. Many abolitionists became abolitionists after experience with slavery. John Wesley and Richard Allen both resisted the ordination or licensing of women to preach until they directly experienced women who they identified as called by God. And many changed their mind about the sin of usury because of their experience with the rise of capitalism. That doesn’t mean we always accept something as a result of experience. How to Walk Into a Room explores the role of experience on discernment. But experience and proximity are influences on our understanding of discernment.

The broader “room” metaphor I thought was less helpful than the PRAY acronym. But there is truth to the metaphor that we are called into and out of spaces and that God is with us regardless.

Part of the difficulty of discernment is that we will not come to a single universal conclusion that applies to all people at all times. To think we will is to misunderstand what discernment is. And that is really the problem with the way that many people understand Christianity. It is not that we can do anything and ignore the bible and the creeds, but that everything about Christianity is in part an interpretive process of discernment. All interpretation of scripture is an interpretation. All application of scripture is an exercise in discernment based on that interpretation. All of the discernment and interpretation is fallibly guided by our understanding of the direction of the holy spirit as part of the universal body of Christ. If you have not picked up How to Walk Into a Room and do not believe in the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people into the body of Christ, I want you to know that the subject is here. But I also would encourage you to still be willing to listen to the process that Freeman walks through here because that process is not just her conclusion, it is a process that can have more than one conclusion.

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Undivided Audiolibro Por Hahrie Han arte de portada

Very good ethnography study

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-14-24

Undivided in an ethnographic study of an antiracist training program in an evangelical megachurch. Hahrie Han became aware of it because of its involvement in passing a ballot initiative to provide free preK to Cincinnati students. She was told that the ballot initative was heavily influenced by a local megachurch. As she investigated she became intrigued because most DEI programs are not particularly effective at changing long term behavior. Han embedded herself in the church for nearly seven years to understand how the church and the program, which was eventually spun off to its organization, worked and what made it effective. Eventually the book discusses how it responded to the backlash to the program and the larger cultural backlash to antiracism programs within the US culture.

Undivided by Hahrie Han predominately traces four people while exploring the Undivided antiracism training program at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati. Han’s skill as a writer and researcher is evident throughout the book. Her four central characters are a Black male pastor (Chuck Mingo) who was the public face of the program. A white male participate in the initial program (Grant) who at the time worked for the Ohio Department of Corrections, eventually leading their social media team. Grant came to understand how much he didn’t understand about race, despite working in a racially diverse setting and having an adopted brother who was black. The third and fourth character are a Black woman (Sandra, a pseudonym) and a white woman (Jess). Undivided tells the story of these four characters of time and how they were changed by the program and by their relationships with one another. It is in large part the stickiness of the relationships with brought about the change within the characters.

I am a big fan of good ethnographic studies. Good ethnographic studies follow a group of individuals over a fairly long period of time to understand a context deeply. One of the best ethnographies I have read was Gang Leader for a Day, where a sociologist embedded himself in a Chicago housing project and local gang for years to understand how the culture and pressures of living in public housing and being within a gang worked. I was turned onto the model of ethnographic study after reading Slim’s Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity by Mitchell Duneier. I think I picked it up in the late 90s (it was published in ‘92) in part because I lived about two blocks from the restaurant at the center of that ethnography. Ethnography is inherently controversial because the act of embedding yourself into a community well enough to be able to report on the community impacts not just the community being studied (the observer effect) but also the researchers themselves are often changed because of the long term impact of the relationships. (At the end of the book, Hahrie Han say that her work with Undivided program and the people profiled and Crossroads church where the program was set drew her back to faith.)

The real draw to the book Undivided is how much the writing is centered on the characters. The reader learns about the program and about the issues of race within the evangelical world as the characters come to understand themselves and one another through the program and their relationships with others. These are not simply stories. As I hinted above in introducing the characters, each of them had significant changes in their life as a result of their connection to the program and one another. In many ways those changes were positive, but not all of them were. Undivided is in part about the cost that it takes to address race in a system that discourages the directness.

One of the difficulties of discussing race or economics or other topics that are “just in the water” is that language is difficult. For instance, Han occasionally uses the word “Whiteness” to describe the cultural belief in a system of racialization and hierarchy. Some readers view “whiteness” as meaning “all white people,” but the sociological definition does not mean all white people. Jonathan Walton likes to use the phrase “White American Folk Religion” instead of Christian Nationalism even if they have overlapping meanings because he wants to use language that is less fraught. The two different approaches of using whiteness to specifically name a problem with a name that can be misunderstood, or using a name like “White American Folk Religion” which needs to be defined but has less initial baggage is a topic that repeatedly comes up in Undivided. Studying the culture, something that people don’t directly talk about because it is assumed to be understood, is necessary in a pluralistic world where people do not necessarily mean the same thing when using the same language.

The idea of ethnography centers the experience of the focus characters both as particular people, but also models who stand in for larger groups. The pastor, Chuck, grew up in the Black church and intially left Crossroads because of frustration over racial issues. But he came back and was hired and the social capital he earned through long term relationship with the church leadership allowed him some leeway to press in on difficult issues. But the tension on maintaining those relationships means that he was always wondering if he was not pushing enough or was pushing too much and if he was self censoring so that he could maintain relationship. Grant was a young white man who thought he knew it all because he had a black friend and a black brother. As he explored racial issues and the way that race played a role within his work at the Department of Corrections he became an activist. He started a prison ministry group at the church. And he work in his role as a social media manager to profile inmates through podcast interview and written profiles. But eventually he left the Department of Corrections because of backlash against his activism. Becoming a church staff members who continued his activism around racial issues there.

Sandra was a Black woman who was married to a white man. She grew up being taught by her father to not trust white people. After an early divorce and a young child, she was brought back to faith through Crossroads church. She eventually remarried a white man and had three additional children. Again, the book skillfully tells the story of how racial identity matters not just to white racism, but also the racial identity of those who are not black. It takes years and many small steps, but he comes to find her voice and understand how gender and race both play a role in her marriage struggles.

Jess is the youngest character in the book. She grew up in a family that was overt white supremacist, her father (who died when she was 11) had “White Power” and other similar tattoos and her uncle had a swastika tattooed on his chest while in prison. Jess also spent time in prison after a felony conviction and a serious drug addiction. While in prison she became a Christian and upon release she found Crossroads, regained custody of her son, and was just getting settled when she started participating in Undivided. She eventually completed college and becomes a social worker and presses back against the racism of her family and the systems she works and lives in.

It is very clear in Undivided that struggle is central to growth. The point is growth, not a particular destination. Even as the book is very clear about the struggle I think it may be too positively framed. The backlash, which is clearly the focus of the second half of the book I think is stronger than what just what is talked about. The book was published in September, 2024, which means it was largely finished in 2023 and written about events that were mostly 2022 or before. The reelection of Trump, the continuing overt Christian nationalism within the christian community and the backlash against DEI, immigration, and other topics I do not think have reached their zenith yet.

I think Undivided made the very good point that to help people changes over time requires relationship. And that withdrawing from relationship precludes the ability to speak into people’s lives. Undivided talks about how Jess’ continued involvement with her uncle led to him having his swastika tattoo removed. And that she was able to discuss the problems of race within policing with officers who she regularly worked with in her role as a social worker. But the book also talks about how eventually Sandra and her husband divorced in part because of issues of race and his attraction to Christian Nationalism and how that impacted their relationship. There just are not simple solutions and what works in one case will not work in another.

The key to where Undivided was effective was building relationships. For those relationship to withstand pressure, there has to be ongoing commitment so that people do not walk away from them. One of the very common complaints about racial reconciliation in the evangelical world is that white people in particular tend to walk away when there is tension. Many racial reconciliation or DEI programs are rooted in information sharing. Information is important because a shared history and shared narrative of how race works is important to ongoing relationship. But the information informs the relationship, it does not create the relationship. The second part of what made Undivided effective is those relationships were committed to understanding race as a systemic reality not just an individual reality. Race impacted the prison system, and the education system, and economics and more, and understanding that meant that people impacted by Undivided was taught to address race in both the interpersonal and institutional realms. After the initial six week program, there were ongoing groups and programs that allowed the Undivided participants to find expression for what they learned. Those participants were involved in community organizing or prison ministry, not just bible study and church meetings.

What is helpful about Undivided, the book, is that is shows how slow on-going change through relationship matters. It also show why the context of a program matters as much as the program. It was not the six weeks as much as the context of putting people in settings where they can both build relationship and workout the ideas and context of what they were learning in settings where that matters. But the systems of white evangelicals and megachurches are not long term conducive toward addressing either race or broader justice issues. Isaac Sharp’s The Other Evangelicals is in part about how choices have been made and are hard to unmake.

I do have some issues with some of the framing and there are some things that are mistakes more than framing problems. But I do think this is a very helpful book that I want to recommend to be read widely.

Particularly about the audiobook, I think the narration is largely fine. But similar to the way that Han is writing as an outsider, the narrator also mispronounces a few things, ironically saying "two corinthians" just like Donald Trump did when speaking at Liberty University.

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Swing Low, Volume 1 Audiolibro Por Walter R. Strickland II arte de portada

Very readable history of US Black Christianity

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-11-24

Summary: A broad overview of the history of Black Christianity, with a second volume that is a collection of writing from Black Christianity.

Black Christianity in the United States is unquestionably tied to the (racial) history of the United States. That is a very basic statement but I think it is a good place to start when thinking about Walter Strickland’s new history of Black Christianity, Swing Low. Certainly good histories are contextually aware of the broader history while telling a narrower story. But it is not really possible to tell the story of Black Christianity without grappling with the racial history of the US because Black Christians in the US have always been subjected to that history.

I grappled with how to write that last line, because “subjected to” is a passive framing, and the Black Church has been anything but passive. At the same time, another incorrect framing would be to suggest that anti-Black racism in the US is a “Black problem”. James Baldwin was asked by Dick Cavett a variety of questions about that the “Black problem” in the United States. Baldwin answered Cavett’s questions about hope and frustration, but Baldwin also reframed the question to center racism as not a Black problem but a White problem. The problem of racism is not about the subject of the discrimination but the ones doing the discrimination. Part of what Strickland is doing in Swing Low is to show how Black Christians responded to racism by forming their own institutions and communities and theological beliefs and practices, but also that not everything in the Black church is a response to racism.

I have read several histories of the Black Church, most recently Anthony Pinn’s Black Church History, Henry Louis Gates’ companion book to his documentary This is Our Story, This is Our Song, Isaiah Robinson’s Black Church Empowered and Raphael Warnock’s The Divided Mind of the Black Church. These are four different approaches to telling the story of the black church. Of those four books Swing Low is most similar to Isaiah Robinson’s Black Church Empowered. Strickland is an academics historian and theologian, while Isaiah Robinson is a local church pastor. But they are telling the story as Black churchmen.

Esau McCaulley in Reading While Black talks about (and expands in a number of interviews later) the difficulty of who gets to tell the story of the Black church. Generally, the academy has prioritized Black Liberation theologians in the more liberal academic world. And those few Black professors in the predominately White Evangelical seminaries are similarly narrow. McCaulley suggests that the third group, the Black church pastors and preacher (like Isaiah Robinson) are rarely invited to the academy. Swing Low I think oriented toward that third group. Strickland is a professor at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, one of only a handful of Black professors at SBC seminaries. But the story here is framed to center the middle of the Black church and prioritizes theological orthodoxy in his five pillars of the Black church. Claude Acho details those five pillars in his review, so I won’t detail them here.

The last pillar is deliverance or liberation. And it is exactly in that last pillar that much of the controversy rests. Warnock suggests that Black theology must center liberation and the parts of the Black church which do not prioritize all forms of liberation are rejecting Black theology. Strickland is less polemical and more descriptive in his approach. The final five chapters of the book are split between telling the story of Black Evangelicals and Black Liberation Theology since the 1950-60s. As McCaulley talks about in Reading While Black, there has been a choice on whether to pursue higher education in more liberal schools where liberal and liberation theology is centered, which is often contrary to Black church orthodoxy or going to predominately white conservative seminaries that tend to be more conservative and orthodox, but are often more overtly opposed to the black church. That racism within the white evangelical world, one which has tended to spiritualize and individualize liberation has created significant frustration as well as organizations like the National Black Evangelical Association and The Witness.

The liberation theology side of the story starts with James Cone and J Deotis Roberts among others in the first generation and then continues with the following generations of womanist theologians and the second and third generation of liberation theologians. It is clear that Strickland places himself and most Black Christians in the Black Evangelical camp, but I do think he is pretty fair in his presentation of the liberation theology side. There are weaknesses every approach to theology and I think that Strickland is trying to present those weaknesses while maintaining his evangelical convictions. Strickland was called to be fired just for talking about Cone in his seminary classes when it was mentioned in a NYT article in 2019. The calls for his firing are a good example of the problems of staying in predominately white seminaries as a Black Evangelicals that he details in the three chapters on Black evangelicalism. But Strickland is also pointing out that there are many areas where liberation theology strays from his conception of orthodoxy, not just in the embrace of sexual minorities as Warnock details, but in what Christ did on the cross and the role of suffering among other areas.

Part of what I appreciate about this project is the second volume which I have not picked up yet. That second volume is a collection of writings from the whole history and tradition of Black Christianity in the US. I have previously read significant parts of Plain Theology for Plain People by Charles Octavius Boothe, which Strickland wrote a new introduction to and republished. Reclaiming older works by Black Christians in the US is part of the work of reclaiming the black church’s role in US Christianity. Swing Low is a project not just about telling the history of the black church, but also about recovering the voices of the Black church for a new audience so that they can tell their own story.

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