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adamrshields's reviews
1926 reviews
The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie
3.5
Summary: A joint biography of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor.
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.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-life-you-save-m...
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.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-life-you-save-m...
The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance by Jemar Tisby
4.5
Summary: Stories of resistance.
This 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.
This post was originally on my blog at https://bookwi.se/spirit-of-justice/
This 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.
This post was originally on my blog at https://bookwi.se/spirit-of-justice/
A Presumption of Death by Dorothy L. Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh
4.0
Summary: In the early days of World War 2, Harriet is managing children while Peter and others are in the war effort.
A normal for me, I keep getting caught up in information and forget about fiction. And then I return to it to remember again why fiction is a necessary part of a healthy reading diet. I have been reading a long joint biography of Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, and Walker Percy. As much as the book has been worth reading, I remember why reading about fiction is not the same as reading fiction.
I read the Thrones, Dominations, the first book of the series where Jill Paton Walsh continues Dorothy Sayers' mystery series last year. I saw A Presumption of Death on Kindle Unlimited and needed a fiction series to work on. It has been several years since the events of the first book. Peter and Harriet have several children, and she and her staff are watching several more children because of concerns about the bombing of London and so that their parents can work in the war effort.
There are many discussions about the refugees from London or other countries in this book. Harriet and the children are living at Tallboys, their country home. The limitations of the war, from the lack of food to the danger, are constantly constantly present. Peter is gone and there is also the worry for his safety.
I understand the point, Harriet needs to not be overconfident as a character or that overconfidence would be off-putting, but I do think that the continues to be a problem with Harriet being too unsure of herself at this point in the series. That has been a problem for many books. Harriet is doing war work by caring for the extra children and supporting the community projects, but she doesn't think that her efforts are as helpful as her sister-in-law's or Peter's. But then a young woman is murdered and the head of the local police asks her to look into the murder because he is understaffed and has no leads.
I am not going to give away more of the plot. There are twists as any good mystery should have. I think Walsh did capture the characters well, and did a good job with the feelings of impending danger at this point in the war effort. My only complaint is one with Harriet's lack of confidence and that isn't Walsh's fault as much as it was the character that Sayers presented in Busmans' Holiday and the other books at the end of the series that Walsh needed to stay true to.
There is a subtle change in writing that you can tell it is Walsh not Sayers doing the writing. But I did enjoy the book and I quickly went to the next book in the series.
This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-presumption-of-death/
<link rel="canonical" href="https://bookwi.se/a-presumption-of-death/" />
A normal for me, I keep getting caught up in information and forget about fiction. And then I return to it to remember again why fiction is a necessary part of a healthy reading diet. I have been reading a long joint biography of Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, and Walker Percy. As much as the book has been worth reading, I remember why reading about fiction is not the same as reading fiction.
I read the Thrones, Dominations, the first book of the series where Jill Paton Walsh continues Dorothy Sayers' mystery series last year. I saw A Presumption of Death on Kindle Unlimited and needed a fiction series to work on. It has been several years since the events of the first book. Peter and Harriet have several children, and she and her staff are watching several more children because of concerns about the bombing of London and so that their parents can work in the war effort.
There are many discussions about the refugees from London or other countries in this book. Harriet and the children are living at Tallboys, their country home. The limitations of the war, from the lack of food to the danger, are constantly constantly present. Peter is gone and there is also the worry for his safety.
I understand the point, Harriet needs to not be overconfident as a character or that overconfidence would be off-putting, but I do think that the continues to be a problem with Harriet being too unsure of herself at this point in the series. That has been a problem for many books. Harriet is doing war work by caring for the extra children and supporting the community projects, but she doesn't think that her efforts are as helpful as her sister-in-law's or Peter's. But then a young woman is murdered and the head of the local police asks her to look into the murder because he is understaffed and has no leads.
I am not going to give away more of the plot. There are twists as any good mystery should have. I think Walsh did capture the characters well, and did a good job with the feelings of impending danger at this point in the war effort. My only complaint is one with Harriet's lack of confidence and that isn't Walsh's fault as much as it was the character that Sayers presented in Busmans' Holiday and the other books at the end of the series that Walsh needed to stay true to.
There is a subtle change in writing that you can tell it is Walsh not Sayers doing the writing. But I did enjoy the book and I quickly went to the next book in the series.
This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-presumption-of-death/
<link rel="canonical" href="https://bookwi.se/a-presumption-of-death/" />
Engaging Thomas Merton: Spirituality, Justice, and Racism by Daniel P. Horan Ofm
Engaging Thomas Merton is a book you can dip in and out of because while the book is thematically about Thomas Merton, you can easily skip around chapters based on your interest or read it slowly over time. I spent about six or so weeks slowly working through the book.
Because of my interests, I think the most engaging chapters were chapter 6 (using Merton’s work on the true and the false self to engage ideas of how we are embodied and digital selves) and then the three chapters about Merton’s engagement with the civil rights movement.
Overall, I think the digital self chapter is probably both the best chapter of the book and worth the price of the book for me. Horan makes the case that Merton would have seen that one of the realities of the digital age is that identity is “almost infinitely negotiable.” As a means of engaging with Merton in a situation that Merton didn’t experience, Horton takes Merton’s understanding of the false self and engages those insights. The clearest summary of Horton’s thesis here is, “The true self only appears elusive because we are too concerned with our false self (selves) to turn toward God.” (p93)
But that simple statement doesn’t get us to a point where we can do something about working toward our true selves. Knowing the truth doesn’t help us move toward the truth, especially when we are tempted to believe that methods of instant gratification might work. Jacque Ellul argued against “techniques” that solve our spiritual problems. Similarly to how Ellul argued against technique, Merton approached the true and false self not as a problem to be solved, but as an “entire lifestyle shift.” As Horton summarizes, “Precisely because this focus on the need for instant gratification is so deeply ingrained in the false self, Merton explains that real and substantial changes in the way one relates to others and sees the work must become priority. And this takes time.” (p99)
I think one of the most helpful turns of the Digital Self essay is an exploration of vocation as a solution to the false self.
The other chapters that I was particularly interested in were the chapters on race. I think the juxtaposition of the chapters is helpful. Two of the chapters explore some of the ways that Merton’s thinking about race prefigured the later developments of thinking about race, especially critical race theory. Horan suggests that Merton’s understanding of racism is ultimately a white problem, and that change would not happen until white people choose to allow changes in a similar way to how Derek Bell understood interest convergence. And that Merton understood race as a social construct, not a biological reality as Bell and other critical race theorists have posited were interesting suppositions of how Merton may have developed his thought had he lived past 1968. (It was enough that I picked up but have not read Merton’s Faith And Violence, the last book he had ready for publication before his death.) And Merton thought of racism as a type of violence, which again is language that was developed more fully in the decades since Merton's death.
But the last chapter on race primarily looks at areas of weakness for Merton on racial issues. Merton did approach racial issues in a more helpful direction than many of his white Catholic contemporaries. However, he was still shaped by his culture and had areas of sin, and where change was necessary.
There are other areas of the books that I think were helpful, longer discussions of vocation, of environmentalism, of engaging other religions. But I also think that most people will not be interested in a whole book on the modern use of Merton. Some of these essays are available in digital formats outside of the book. But if you can find the book in the library or for cheap, I think many people will find at least a couple of the essays engaging and helpful.
4.25
Summary: A variety of essays or talks about Merton and how his life and work can impact people today.
Engaging Thomas Merton is a book you can dip in and out of because while the book is thematically about Thomas Merton, you can easily skip around chapters based on your interest or read it slowly over time. I spent about six or so weeks slowly working through the book.
Because of my interests, I think the most engaging chapters were chapter 6 (using Merton’s work on the true and the false self to engage ideas of how we are embodied and digital selves) and then the three chapters about Merton’s engagement with the civil rights movement.
Overall, I think the digital self chapter is probably both the best chapter of the book and worth the price of the book for me. Horan makes the case that Merton would have seen that one of the realities of the digital age is that identity is “almost infinitely negotiable.” As a means of engaging with Merton in a situation that Merton didn’t experience, Horton takes Merton’s understanding of the false self and engages those insights. The clearest summary of Horton’s thesis here is, “The true self only appears elusive because we are too concerned with our false self (selves) to turn toward God.” (p93)
But that simple statement doesn’t get us to a point where we can do something about working toward our true selves. Knowing the truth doesn’t help us move toward the truth, especially when we are tempted to believe that methods of instant gratification might work. Jacque Ellul argued against “techniques” that solve our spiritual problems. Similarly to how Ellul argued against technique, Merton approached the true and false self not as a problem to be solved, but as an “entire lifestyle shift.” As Horton summarizes, “Precisely because this focus on the need for instant gratification is so deeply ingrained in the false self, Merton explains that real and substantial changes in the way one relates to others and sees the work must become priority. And this takes time.” (p99)
I think one of the most helpful turns of the Digital Self essay is an exploration of vocation as a solution to the false self.
“Merton explains what a vocation means: Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be.63 In other words, what Merton is saying to us is that we are not created simply to fabricate a future shaped by our fantasies or to go forward in life unaided by the Creator. He intends quite the opposite. Through prayer and discernment one comes to recognize that God has given each person certain gifts, including skills, talents, dispositions, interpersonal abilities, intellect, personality, emotional and other forms of intelligence, and the like. Merton asserts that we are most happy when we deploy those God-given gifts within the state of life we find ourselves and come to live our true self in community. This is certainly a challenge for digital natives, who have been reared in a context in which identity is so unstable. Today’s young adults look around and see a context that encourages ways of going about the world that are far from the image of self-understanding and spirituality present in Merton’s explanation of what it means for everyone to have a vocation given by God.” (p 101)
The other chapters that I was particularly interested in were the chapters on race. I think the juxtaposition of the chapters is helpful. Two of the chapters explore some of the ways that Merton’s thinking about race prefigured the later developments of thinking about race, especially critical race theory. Horan suggests that Merton’s understanding of racism is ultimately a white problem, and that change would not happen until white people choose to allow changes in a similar way to how Derek Bell understood interest convergence. And that Merton understood race as a social construct, not a biological reality as Bell and other critical race theorists have posited were interesting suppositions of how Merton may have developed his thought had he lived past 1968. (It was enough that I picked up but have not read Merton’s Faith And Violence, the last book he had ready for publication before his death.) And Merton thought of racism as a type of violence, which again is language that was developed more fully in the decades since Merton's death.
But the last chapter on race primarily looks at areas of weakness for Merton on racial issues. Merton did approach racial issues in a more helpful direction than many of his white Catholic contemporaries. However, he was still shaped by his culture and had areas of sin, and where change was necessary.
There are other areas of the books that I think were helpful, longer discussions of vocation, of environmentalism, of engaging other religions. But I also think that most people will not be interested in a whole book on the modern use of Merton. Some of these essays are available in digital formats outside of the book. But if you can find the book in the library or for cheap, I think many people will find at least a couple of the essays engaging and helpful.
An End to Inequality: Breaking Down the Walls of Apartheid Education in America by Jonathan Kozol
slow-paced
3.25
Summary: A brief book about the problems of education reform.
I picked this up because it was by Jonathan Kozol. I read several of his books in the 1990s and was a bit surprised that he had a new book out. Kozol turns 88 in Sept 2024 and his work on social justice and education should be celebrated. I am glad I read this because it was by Jonathan Kozol, but at the same time, if you are interested in the problems of education reform and especially how it negatively impacts Black or other racial minorities or poor students of all races, I would recommend Bettina Love's recent book Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. I read it last year but did not write up my thoughts at the time because I was in a busy season. But it is a very helpful book that I think should be more widely read, not just among educators, but also among politically active people of all types of backgrounds.
An End to Inequality covers a number of different problems with public education from the physical environment (lead in water or paint, poor air circulation, heating, air, etc.) to curriculum to problematic reforms. I think one of the main themes of Bettina Love's book is handled well here. Generally, testing of educational reform programs is done at poor or minority schools. Any testing of educational reform at predominately white and higher income public schools are reforms that give students more options or freedom. While the reforms at lower-income and minority schools are reforms that are focused on more highly structured teaching models, narrower academic ranges of subjects, or economic efficiencies. Said another way, reforms at predominantly white and upper-income schools are designed to help students have more enjoyment at learning and reforms at lower-income and predominately minority schools tend to reduce educational enjoyment.
The main problem with this first third of the book is that the examples are presented anecdotally, not systemically. I completely believe that everything that he reports happened, but there isn't a structure to tell the reader how widespread these problems are or if they really are disproportionately impacting low-income and minority students. I think they are, I think there is plenty of evidence available in other sources to show that they are, but Kozol's standard format is to tell stories of particular students or teachers and that story-oriented structure tends to lack statistical underpinnings.
As he moves toward the policy prescriptions I think he blames administration (which deserves a lot of blame) too much. Toward the end of chapter five (Models of the Possible), he suggests that it isn't parents who oppose integration but administrators. This chapter largely recounts his time teaching in an optional school integration program in the 1970s. He had a supportive administrator who gave him flexibility with the curriculum and encouraged him to develop a love of learning. He describes what today would be called problem-based learning.
But I do think he is wrong about parents. While there are administrators who retrograde racial attitudes, I think the evidence is that parents play a significant role in maintaining segregation. School choice widens segregation. Parents' perception of school quality impacts housing values, and those perceptions are significantly impacted by how many minority students are in the school. Kozol notes that diverse schools are known to have better overall learning outcomes than segregated education, but that isn't the perception of parents. I think educators are likely to know that more than parents. However, like homework for elementary students, parents push for having elementary homework even as educators know it isn't helpful and can be harmful.
I agree with Kozol that the movement toward educational integration has largely stalled and that continuing school segregation, regardless of the cause, does harm to students. I think his comments about reparations are under-supported but still important. I am a regular listener to Advisory Opinions, a legal podcast that primarily focuses on Supreme Court and higher-level judicial opinions. Over the past few years that I have been listening, there have been a number of cases that impact school integration or affirmative action cases. And the two (pretty conservative) podcasters agree that racial issues are real within education and other segments of society. But that affirmative action and desegregation systems were designed mostly around fairness in access, not reparations. And current movements to reduce affirmative action or desegregation system are based on raw fairness now, not on historic reparations due to harm. The legal system understands repair, but that is not how affirmative action was largely framed as it came into being. I think Kozol is right that we need to reframe education reform around reparations and repair rather than fairness, but that is an underdeveloped topic in the book that I wish he had addressed more fully.
I listened to the audiobook and it was just over three hours with a Q & A at the end. If it were longer I probably would not have finished it. Again, if you are interested in school reform and willing to read about the problems of school reform, especially in how the reform movement can negatively impact students, read Punished for Dreaming instead.
This was originally posted to my blog at https://bookwi.se/an-end-to-inequality/
I picked this up because it was by Jonathan Kozol. I read several of his books in the 1990s and was a bit surprised that he had a new book out. Kozol turns 88 in Sept 2024 and his work on social justice and education should be celebrated. I am glad I read this because it was by Jonathan Kozol, but at the same time, if you are interested in the problems of education reform and especially how it negatively impacts Black or other racial minorities or poor students of all races, I would recommend Bettina Love's recent book Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. I read it last year but did not write up my thoughts at the time because I was in a busy season. But it is a very helpful book that I think should be more widely read, not just among educators, but also among politically active people of all types of backgrounds.
An End to Inequality covers a number of different problems with public education from the physical environment (lead in water or paint, poor air circulation, heating, air, etc.) to curriculum to problematic reforms. I think one of the main themes of Bettina Love's book is handled well here. Generally, testing of educational reform programs is done at poor or minority schools. Any testing of educational reform at predominately white and higher income public schools are reforms that give students more options or freedom. While the reforms at lower-income and minority schools are reforms that are focused on more highly structured teaching models, narrower academic ranges of subjects, or economic efficiencies. Said another way, reforms at predominantly white and upper-income schools are designed to help students have more enjoyment at learning and reforms at lower-income and predominately minority schools tend to reduce educational enjoyment.
The main problem with this first third of the book is that the examples are presented anecdotally, not systemically. I completely believe that everything that he reports happened, but there isn't a structure to tell the reader how widespread these problems are or if they really are disproportionately impacting low-income and minority students. I think they are, I think there is plenty of evidence available in other sources to show that they are, but Kozol's standard format is to tell stories of particular students or teachers and that story-oriented structure tends to lack statistical underpinnings.
As he moves toward the policy prescriptions I think he blames administration (which deserves a lot of blame) too much. Toward the end of chapter five (Models of the Possible), he suggests that it isn't parents who oppose integration but administrators. This chapter largely recounts his time teaching in an optional school integration program in the 1970s. He had a supportive administrator who gave him flexibility with the curriculum and encouraged him to develop a love of learning. He describes what today would be called problem-based learning.
But I do think he is wrong about parents. While there are administrators who retrograde racial attitudes, I think the evidence is that parents play a significant role in maintaining segregation. School choice widens segregation. Parents' perception of school quality impacts housing values, and those perceptions are significantly impacted by how many minority students are in the school. Kozol notes that diverse schools are known to have better overall learning outcomes than segregated education, but that isn't the perception of parents. I think educators are likely to know that more than parents. However, like homework for elementary students, parents push for having elementary homework even as educators know it isn't helpful and can be harmful.
I agree with Kozol that the movement toward educational integration has largely stalled and that continuing school segregation, regardless of the cause, does harm to students. I think his comments about reparations are under-supported but still important. I am a regular listener to Advisory Opinions, a legal podcast that primarily focuses on Supreme Court and higher-level judicial opinions. Over the past few years that I have been listening, there have been a number of cases that impact school integration or affirmative action cases. And the two (pretty conservative) podcasters agree that racial issues are real within education and other segments of society. But that affirmative action and desegregation systems were designed mostly around fairness in access, not reparations. And current movements to reduce affirmative action or desegregation system are based on raw fairness now, not on historic reparations due to harm. The legal system understands repair, but that is not how affirmative action was largely framed as it came into being. I think Kozol is right that we need to reframe education reform around reparations and repair rather than fairness, but that is an underdeveloped topic in the book that I wish he had addressed more fully.
I listened to the audiobook and it was just over three hours with a Q & A at the end. If it were longer I probably would not have finished it. Again, if you are interested in school reform and willing to read about the problems of school reform, especially in how the reform movement can negatively impact students, read Punished for Dreaming instead.
This was originally posted to my blog at https://bookwi.se/an-end-to-inequality/
Turning Points in American Church History: How Pivotal Events Shaped a Nation and a Faith by Elesha J. Coffman
4.25
Summary: An introduction to American Church history.
Mark Noll originally released his book Turning Points in Church History in 2001. (It is now in its 14th edition.) Elesha Coffman is writing a United States-focused version with the consent (and introduction) of Mark Noll. Noll is approaching 80 and still has the third in his history of the use of scripture series and several other books he is working on, and he says in the introduction that he didn't have the time or interest to do an American-focused turning points book.
As with any type of book like this, the choices of what are the turning points matter and will be debated. I think that this choices were good. She started with the Spanish Armada, which she framed as a starting point for English colonialism and a shift in global power. I might have started with the rise of Puritanism or the English Reformation, but all three of those starting points are related and led toward the English colonies in North America.
Coffman did a very good job contextualizing the different turning points. In this type of book, the turning points are a frame for looking at an era of history not just the thing itself. So Azusa Street Revival was not just about that event, but about the rise of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in the US and how they rippled through not just those denominations but also impacted Catholic and Episcopal charismatic reform movements as well.
She pays appropriate attention to women and minority Christian communities not just in discussion of the Black Church in chapter five (the founding of the first African American church at Silver Bluff) or the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the civil rights movement in chapter 12, but in all of the chapters. One of my complaints would be that I would have liked a chapter on the women’s rights movement. I probably would have chosen Sojourner Truth’s Aint' I a Woman speech as the framing device, but there are several appropriate alternatives.
I am also glad that she includes a chapter on Catholicism. Again, there always could be more. The problem with introductory survey books is limiting. I had a working knowledge of all of the areas, but I still learned something in every chapter. I think the “Muscular Missions” chapter on the student volunteer movement was well done and appropriately critical of the sexism and bias of the movement while speaking well of the positive intent of evangelism. I would have liked more discussion of how dispensationalism influenced much of that movement, but again, I know not everything can be included.
One last regret, again, I don’t think there was anything that should not have been included that was, but a discussion of the apocalyptic predictions of the end of the world with the Millerites I think was important. It was similarly placed with many new religious movements like the Mormons and the Christian Scientists and the Seventh Day Adventists and Shakers would have also been a helpful addition, but there already were 13 chapters those editorial decisions are hard.
I listened to this as an audiobook. It was something that I could dip in and out of so I spent a couple of months listening to a chapter here and there. I think mostly it was designed as a textbook, but this is very readable and especially if you do not have a lot of American church history, this is a very good place to start.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/turning-points-in-a...
Mark Noll originally released his book Turning Points in Church History in 2001. (It is now in its 14th edition.) Elesha Coffman is writing a United States-focused version with the consent (and introduction) of Mark Noll. Noll is approaching 80 and still has the third in his history of the use of scripture series and several other books he is working on, and he says in the introduction that he didn't have the time or interest to do an American-focused turning points book.
As with any type of book like this, the choices of what are the turning points matter and will be debated. I think that this choices were good. She started with the Spanish Armada, which she framed as a starting point for English colonialism and a shift in global power. I might have started with the rise of Puritanism or the English Reformation, but all three of those starting points are related and led toward the English colonies in North America.
Coffman did a very good job contextualizing the different turning points. In this type of book, the turning points are a frame for looking at an era of history not just the thing itself. So Azusa Street Revival was not just about that event, but about the rise of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in the US and how they rippled through not just those denominations but also impacted Catholic and Episcopal charismatic reform movements as well.
She pays appropriate attention to women and minority Christian communities not just in discussion of the Black Church in chapter five (the founding of the first African American church at Silver Bluff) or the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the civil rights movement in chapter 12, but in all of the chapters. One of my complaints would be that I would have liked a chapter on the women’s rights movement. I probably would have chosen Sojourner Truth’s Aint' I a Woman speech as the framing device, but there are several appropriate alternatives.
I am also glad that she includes a chapter on Catholicism. Again, there always could be more. The problem with introductory survey books is limiting. I had a working knowledge of all of the areas, but I still learned something in every chapter. I think the “Muscular Missions” chapter on the student volunteer movement was well done and appropriately critical of the sexism and bias of the movement while speaking well of the positive intent of evangelism. I would have liked more discussion of how dispensationalism influenced much of that movement, but again, I know not everything can be included.
One last regret, again, I don’t think there was anything that should not have been included that was, but a discussion of the apocalyptic predictions of the end of the world with the Millerites I think was important. It was similarly placed with many new religious movements like the Mormons and the Christian Scientists and the Seventh Day Adventists and Shakers would have also been a helpful addition, but there already were 13 chapters those editorial decisions are hard.
I listened to this as an audiobook. It was something that I could dip in and out of so I spent a couple of months listening to a chapter here and there. I think mostly it was designed as a textbook, but this is very readable and especially if you do not have a lot of American church history, this is a very good place to start.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/turning-points-in-a...
The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation by Michel Hendricks, Jim Wilder
4.0
Summary: A look at whole-brained discipleship which uses insights from recent neuroscience to help develop Christian maturity.
A good friend recommended The Other Half of the Church to me about a year ago, and I have only recently gotten around to reading it. Many insights were not new to me because of work that either my wife or I have done regarding parenting, trauma, and attachment, or child development. I want to start with the fact that overall, I am glad that this book was written, and I commend it, even if I am going to spend most of my time discussing areas where I have concerns. The insights here into character development, group identity and its role in correction, and deep relationships are all important. Because of my training as a spiritual director and a couple of professional associations of spiritual directors which I am a member of, I know that more academic books in similar areas are being written. No book can address all of the nuance and potential areas of misunderstanding, so I am looking forward to reading more books to address different aspects.
This is a book that is co-written by Jim Wilder and Michael Hendricks. Much of the book is written in Hendrick's voice, and he relates insights about spiritual formation and brain science from Jim Wilder. Part of what I appreciate about the framing of this book is that it is intentionally oriented toward a reader unfamiliar with the science. It is very accessible, and the authors know that stories are necessary to communicate not just the information but the meaning behind it.
Many will come to The Other Half of the Church with some background from gentle parenting (Whole Brained Child, Brain-Body Parenting, etc.) or insights from trauma, attachment, or adult emotional development. In many ways, I think discipleship is a bit late to the game with these insights. I also think that from my experience (which is obviously limited), many of my Gen X cohort or the Baby Boomers are less likely to have exposure to this type of whole-brained approach than the Millennial parents who have been at the forefront of the Gentle Parenting movement. Millennials are much more aware of trauma, abuse, and the science around those realities, which, again, have some overlap with the science discussed here.
The main content of the book is only about 200 pages. The first chapter describes the problem of how Christianity has shifted toward a right-brained, information-heavy orientation over the past several hundred years. Like many other chapters, I think this could have been much more developed. But again, I know this is designed as an introduction, and that whole books have been written in this area. However, one aspect that I think is not discussed and matters is that conscious theological and ecclesiastical decisions were made that oriented Christianity toward evangelism and away from a more holistic discipleship. Particularly because this was published by Moody Press (a historically dispensationalist publisher), I would have preferred at least some mention of how dispensationalism, especially an orientation toward the immanent return of Christ, fed into some of these discussions. (See Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism for more.)
Chapter two lays out the initial discussion about how people grow and introduces the metaphor of soil and plants that will carry through the whole book. I think this is a helpful metaphor. Plants grow not just because of light, water, and seed but the soil quality. The book suggests that many churches do not have healthy soil, so when people become Christians, it is not their fault for lack of growth because the soil they are in (the church community, theology, and people around them) is depleted of nutrients. This leads into the next three chapters of the different aspects of a healthy soil, joy, Hesed, and group identity. Again, all three could have more development, but they do have decent introductions. The Group Identity chapter (chapter 5) is my main complaint about the three.
As noted later in the book, group identity can be positive or negative. However, despite the later expansion of how group identity can be unhealthy, I do not think adequate attention has been paid to a more robust understanding of community and culture concerning group identity. In particular, Christians often have a very hierarchical understanding of Christianity (not what is presented in the book) that I think needs to be taken into account as part of what it means to have a safe Hesed community. Hierarchical thinking about race, culture, or gender is very common in Christian communities, and without addressing those directly, the later Healthy Correction chapter can’t work.
Again, I am not saying that the authors of The Other Half of the Church don’t know this, but that they are writing an introduction, and this is an area that I think needs to be developed more fully to implement the ideas in the book. NT Wright’s biography of Paul talks about how Paul encouraged boundary crossing, and the early church intentionally called Christians to view the boundaries between gender, economics or social status, and ethnicity as permeable within the Christian community. Paul was able to do this because he reframed their identity as being one in Christ. Today, some also try to do a similar thing, but they do it in a way that denies the existence of social divisions. Some go as far as claiming that to identify harm from social divisions is to deny Christ. Because of this reality, I think that a lack of grappling with those social realities does a disservice to women, racial or sexual minorities, people of different immigration or class backgrounds, etc.
Without a more robust understanding of how gender, economics, class, disability, race, and other issues work in the modern world, there can’t be a healthy community that can call people to a better group identity. One of my other concerns about group identity is that the history of the Homogenous Unit Principle within the church growth movement has a very sketchy history. It was very much used to perpetuate segregation, to enable white normative churches and culturally homogenous churches, not just as a method but as the only God-ordained way for churches to operate. The very nature of Hesed as it is being used here, I think, means that a church that is unwelcoming to a particular demographic would make me question whether it could be practicing Hesed as intended. But at the same time, many churches that have been discipling people for generations discipled them into belief in segregation. So there is a lot of history that has to be unpacked there.
One of the other red flags for me in The Other Half of The Church is the repeated and regular call to think of the church as a family. The family metaphor is common in scripture, and I don’t want to dismiss what the authors are trying to do by using the family metaphor, but it is hard not to see family as a red flag. Many unhealthy churches or Christian non-profits consciously use family language as a type of hierarchical dominance. That violates the principle of Hesed presented earlier in the book, but it has to be named.
Many unhealthy Christian communities use biblical language in unhealthy ways, which then impacts the ability to use that language in healthy ways. It is similar to the discussions of “evangelical.” Many who like the term evangelical point to the theological meaning, the root of the word, which means to share the gospel. But those who resist the term note that it is often understood now as a racially coded political marker or a consumer identity group. Again, the book does mention that group identities can be negative, but I think part of the nature of introductions to topics is that they can’t get into as much detail as is necessary if you were going to fully develop a concept. In this case, I suspect that many people who may be interested in the concepts of the book have not grappled enough with their understanding of race, gender, culture, or class and will attempt to incorporate cultural preferences within their group identity in ways that can harm other Christians.
The book's most important chapter is chapter six, which discusses how people develop character through health correction. I do not like the chapter's subtitle (stop being so nice), but I appreciate the main point. In summary, people need some “healthy or appropriate” shame to be motivated to change emotionally. When we focus on behavior management, it uses conscious thought as a means of behavior change. There can be some value to that, but the deeper, preconscious thought change that is possible has to be done at a deeper level than simply conscious behavior change. This requires engaging that deeper emotion, and that can only be done well if the “soil” (Hesed, joy, and group identity) allows a person to be safe in a relationship to know that the change they are being called to will draw them into the community not be shunned or alienated from the community.
I have many personal antidotes where I think this happened to me. I remember someone talking to me about not using the idea of all women being treated well because they were all someone’s “wife, sister, mother or daughter.” There was a sense of shame when he explained that it only gave them humanity through their relationship with other men. I had emotional resistance to correction, and at the moment, I do not think I responded well (although I don’t remember my response. What I remember was: 1) a sense of shame that I hadn’t already understood that. 2) clear knowledge that even if I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it, I knew he was right. 3) a conviction that I needed to change. I can remember corrections from a seminary professor and friends and a number of corrections from people on social media, where I also had similar reactions. While I do think that a close community is the best place for correction, I do think that when people are open to it, and it is framed as a call to identify (something like, “as Christians, we talk about people in this way”), it can still work without in-person relationship. (But I also know these things can go quite badly.)
The final two chapters—a good discussion of the problem of narcissism within the Christian community and a concluding chapter that pulls together all of the previous chapters—round out the book.
Again, I think this is a very helpful book. My complaints largely concern what is not here or not developed enough. But this is intended as an introduction, so I don’t want to complain about what is not here and that this was written to the audience that it was. I have some comments on several of my highlights that you can see here in places where I have concerns beyond what I have raised here. (I mostly listened to this as an audiobook, and I did not realize it wasn’t synced with the Kindle when I got it. So, all of the highlights and comments I made, I had to find in the Kindle.)
I also want to link to my post on Brain-Body Parenting because I am concerned about how whole-body parenting or discipleship can become a technique in the Ellul sense of the term. I think my concern there applies here as well.
Update: I wanted to add a quick update. On of the areas where I think there is a need for a follow up book or a book by someone else is to work through spiritual practices in light of neuroscience. I think this is part of what is going on with Trauma in the Pews where Janyne McConnaughey riffs off of Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and talks about how traditional spiritual disciplines are impacted by developmental trauma. But I think there is a need for a more general book. The Other Half of the Church talks briefly about how spiritual practices are part of developing character but does not go into any details. One of the problems is that this book is written for Evangelicals, and many Evangelicals do not have a connection to the history of spiritual disciplines outside of those that may have been connected to Richard Foster or Renovaré. Part of what I think should be avoided in a book on spiritual disciplines and neuroscience is to think that we are rediscovering ancient practices as if the church hadn’t been doing them all along, or that it evaluates them solely on modern science. For instance, I think that The Prayer of Examen is a personal exercise that fits in with the understanding of corporate character development presented in The Other Half of the Church. When done in the traditional we invite God to help us, we reflect on our actions. This will include time to “metabolize shame,” as discussed here, and then we pray for grace to move forward as a new person. My experience is that Catholic presentations of the Prayer of Examen are much more oriented toward grace and less oriented toward “do better” framings than Evangelical presentations of the Prayer of Examen that I have seen. Mindfulness and contemplative prayer, as presented in The Cloud of Unknowing, are also examples of Christian spiritual disciplines which long predate modern understandings of neuroscience but which are doing things that neuroscience confirms as being helpful to maturity in Christ.
This was originally posted on my blog at: https://bookwi.se/the-other-half-of-the-church/
A good friend recommended The Other Half of the Church to me about a year ago, and I have only recently gotten around to reading it. Many insights were not new to me because of work that either my wife or I have done regarding parenting, trauma, and attachment, or child development. I want to start with the fact that overall, I am glad that this book was written, and I commend it, even if I am going to spend most of my time discussing areas where I have concerns. The insights here into character development, group identity and its role in correction, and deep relationships are all important. Because of my training as a spiritual director and a couple of professional associations of spiritual directors which I am a member of, I know that more academic books in similar areas are being written. No book can address all of the nuance and potential areas of misunderstanding, so I am looking forward to reading more books to address different aspects.
This is a book that is co-written by Jim Wilder and Michael Hendricks. Much of the book is written in Hendrick's voice, and he relates insights about spiritual formation and brain science from Jim Wilder. Part of what I appreciate about the framing of this book is that it is intentionally oriented toward a reader unfamiliar with the science. It is very accessible, and the authors know that stories are necessary to communicate not just the information but the meaning behind it.
Many will come to The Other Half of the Church with some background from gentle parenting (Whole Brained Child, Brain-Body Parenting, etc.) or insights from trauma, attachment, or adult emotional development. In many ways, I think discipleship is a bit late to the game with these insights. I also think that from my experience (which is obviously limited), many of my Gen X cohort or the Baby Boomers are less likely to have exposure to this type of whole-brained approach than the Millennial parents who have been at the forefront of the Gentle Parenting movement. Millennials are much more aware of trauma, abuse, and the science around those realities, which, again, have some overlap with the science discussed here.
The main content of the book is only about 200 pages. The first chapter describes the problem of how Christianity has shifted toward a right-brained, information-heavy orientation over the past several hundred years. Like many other chapters, I think this could have been much more developed. But again, I know this is designed as an introduction, and that whole books have been written in this area. However, one aspect that I think is not discussed and matters is that conscious theological and ecclesiastical decisions were made that oriented Christianity toward evangelism and away from a more holistic discipleship. Particularly because this was published by Moody Press (a historically dispensationalist publisher), I would have preferred at least some mention of how dispensationalism, especially an orientation toward the immanent return of Christ, fed into some of these discussions. (See Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism for more.)
Chapter two lays out the initial discussion about how people grow and introduces the metaphor of soil and plants that will carry through the whole book. I think this is a helpful metaphor. Plants grow not just because of light, water, and seed but the soil quality. The book suggests that many churches do not have healthy soil, so when people become Christians, it is not their fault for lack of growth because the soil they are in (the church community, theology, and people around them) is depleted of nutrients. This leads into the next three chapters of the different aspects of a healthy soil, joy, Hesed, and group identity. Again, all three could have more development, but they do have decent introductions. The Group Identity chapter (chapter 5) is my main complaint about the three.
As noted later in the book, group identity can be positive or negative. However, despite the later expansion of how group identity can be unhealthy, I do not think adequate attention has been paid to a more robust understanding of community and culture concerning group identity. In particular, Christians often have a very hierarchical understanding of Christianity (not what is presented in the book) that I think needs to be taken into account as part of what it means to have a safe Hesed community. Hierarchical thinking about race, culture, or gender is very common in Christian communities, and without addressing those directly, the later Healthy Correction chapter can’t work.
Again, I am not saying that the authors of The Other Half of the Church don’t know this, but that they are writing an introduction, and this is an area that I think needs to be developed more fully to implement the ideas in the book. NT Wright’s biography of Paul talks about how Paul encouraged boundary crossing, and the early church intentionally called Christians to view the boundaries between gender, economics or social status, and ethnicity as permeable within the Christian community. Paul was able to do this because he reframed their identity as being one in Christ. Today, some also try to do a similar thing, but they do it in a way that denies the existence of social divisions. Some go as far as claiming that to identify harm from social divisions is to deny Christ. Because of this reality, I think that a lack of grappling with those social realities does a disservice to women, racial or sexual minorities, people of different immigration or class backgrounds, etc.
Without a more robust understanding of how gender, economics, class, disability, race, and other issues work in the modern world, there can’t be a healthy community that can call people to a better group identity. One of my other concerns about group identity is that the history of the Homogenous Unit Principle within the church growth movement has a very sketchy history. It was very much used to perpetuate segregation, to enable white normative churches and culturally homogenous churches, not just as a method but as the only God-ordained way for churches to operate. The very nature of Hesed as it is being used here, I think, means that a church that is unwelcoming to a particular demographic would make me question whether it could be practicing Hesed as intended. But at the same time, many churches that have been discipling people for generations discipled them into belief in segregation. So there is a lot of history that has to be unpacked there.
One of the other red flags for me in The Other Half of The Church is the repeated and regular call to think of the church as a family. The family metaphor is common in scripture, and I don’t want to dismiss what the authors are trying to do by using the family metaphor, but it is hard not to see family as a red flag. Many unhealthy churches or Christian non-profits consciously use family language as a type of hierarchical dominance. That violates the principle of Hesed presented earlier in the book, but it has to be named.
Many unhealthy Christian communities use biblical language in unhealthy ways, which then impacts the ability to use that language in healthy ways. It is similar to the discussions of “evangelical.” Many who like the term evangelical point to the theological meaning, the root of the word, which means to share the gospel. But those who resist the term note that it is often understood now as a racially coded political marker or a consumer identity group. Again, the book does mention that group identities can be negative, but I think part of the nature of introductions to topics is that they can’t get into as much detail as is necessary if you were going to fully develop a concept. In this case, I suspect that many people who may be interested in the concepts of the book have not grappled enough with their understanding of race, gender, culture, or class and will attempt to incorporate cultural preferences within their group identity in ways that can harm other Christians.
The book's most important chapter is chapter six, which discusses how people develop character through health correction. I do not like the chapter's subtitle (stop being so nice), but I appreciate the main point. In summary, people need some “healthy or appropriate” shame to be motivated to change emotionally. When we focus on behavior management, it uses conscious thought as a means of behavior change. There can be some value to that, but the deeper, preconscious thought change that is possible has to be done at a deeper level than simply conscious behavior change. This requires engaging that deeper emotion, and that can only be done well if the “soil” (Hesed, joy, and group identity) allows a person to be safe in a relationship to know that the change they are being called to will draw them into the community not be shunned or alienated from the community.
I have many personal antidotes where I think this happened to me. I remember someone talking to me about not using the idea of all women being treated well because they were all someone’s “wife, sister, mother or daughter.” There was a sense of shame when he explained that it only gave them humanity through their relationship with other men. I had emotional resistance to correction, and at the moment, I do not think I responded well (although I don’t remember my response. What I remember was: 1) a sense of shame that I hadn’t already understood that. 2) clear knowledge that even if I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it, I knew he was right. 3) a conviction that I needed to change. I can remember corrections from a seminary professor and friends and a number of corrections from people on social media, where I also had similar reactions. While I do think that a close community is the best place for correction, I do think that when people are open to it, and it is framed as a call to identify (something like, “as Christians, we talk about people in this way”), it can still work without in-person relationship. (But I also know these things can go quite badly.)
The final two chapters—a good discussion of the problem of narcissism within the Christian community and a concluding chapter that pulls together all of the previous chapters—round out the book.
Again, I think this is a very helpful book. My complaints largely concern what is not here or not developed enough. But this is intended as an introduction, so I don’t want to complain about what is not here and that this was written to the audience that it was. I have some comments on several of my highlights that you can see here in places where I have concerns beyond what I have raised here. (I mostly listened to this as an audiobook, and I did not realize it wasn’t synced with the Kindle when I got it. So, all of the highlights and comments I made, I had to find in the Kindle.)
I also want to link to my post on Brain-Body Parenting because I am concerned about how whole-body parenting or discipleship can become a technique in the Ellul sense of the term. I think my concern there applies here as well.
Update: I wanted to add a quick update. On of the areas where I think there is a need for a follow up book or a book by someone else is to work through spiritual practices in light of neuroscience. I think this is part of what is going on with Trauma in the Pews where Janyne McConnaughey riffs off of Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and talks about how traditional spiritual disciplines are impacted by developmental trauma. But I think there is a need for a more general book. The Other Half of the Church talks briefly about how spiritual practices are part of developing character but does not go into any details. One of the problems is that this book is written for Evangelicals, and many Evangelicals do not have a connection to the history of spiritual disciplines outside of those that may have been connected to Richard Foster or Renovaré. Part of what I think should be avoided in a book on spiritual disciplines and neuroscience is to think that we are rediscovering ancient practices as if the church hadn’t been doing them all along, or that it evaluates them solely on modern science. For instance, I think that The Prayer of Examen is a personal exercise that fits in with the understanding of corporate character development presented in The Other Half of the Church. When done in the traditional we invite God to help us, we reflect on our actions. This will include time to “metabolize shame,” as discussed here, and then we pray for grace to move forward as a new person. My experience is that Catholic presentations of the Prayer of Examen are much more oriented toward grace and less oriented toward “do better” framings than Evangelical presentations of the Prayer of Examen that I have seen. Mindfulness and contemplative prayer, as presented in The Cloud of Unknowing, are also examples of Christian spiritual disciplines which long predate modern understandings of neuroscience but which are doing things that neuroscience confirms as being helpful to maturity in Christ.
This was originally posted on my blog at: https://bookwi.se/the-other-half-of-the-church/
Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation by Cindy S. Lee
4.5
Summary: Exploring how our spiritual formation needs to be decoupled from western culture.
I am not sure I can describe Our Unforming better than an edited quote from the introduction.
“For all my life, I’ve read books on spiritual formation written by white authors and internalized their experiences of God as the norm and even as the authority. In recent centuries, our spiritual formation resources and teachings have primarily come from Western spiritual traditions. In that process, Western voices have generalized what spiritual formation is for all of us. The way we teach formation in the church is heavily influenced by Western values—such as individuality, dualism, and linear thinking—and Western history like colonialism, the Enlightenment, and industrialization. Even the African roots of early church fathers and mothers have often been ignored when interpreted through a white male lens…I want to untangle and de-westernize the ways my soul has been distorted by the disproportionate influence of Western authority in the church. This does not mean disregarding our long and rich history of Christian spiritual traditions. Rather, we need to recognize that our current understanding of spiritual formation is limited because it was developed under a dominant Western cultural tradition.
Our Unforming is largely written to racial minority Christians who are grappling with the ways that they have distorted themselves to fit into western or white molds. But Cindy Lee is also writing for people like me (a middle-aged, middle-class, white, male, heterosexual, seminary-trained spiritual director). She is pointing out areas where our language and practice of spiritual formation may be more culturally constrained than we understand. It complements books like Karen Swallow Prior’s Evangelical Imagination (about how many of our Evangelical norms are rooted in Victorian culture) or Barbara Holmes’Joy Unspeakable about the particular contemplative practices of the Black church. And if pastors or spiritual directors are going to work in diverse communities, they need to be aware of where their biases toward white or western normative ideas or practices are constraining their ability to serve the people they serve.
I believe we need a more robust spirituality for our times. Our spiritual practices need to be reimagined as our communities become increasingly diverse. We need a spirituality not detached from reality but one that takes seriously the injustices and disparities of our societies. We also need to be re-formed in order to discover the sacred in one another. Sadly, voices are missing from this conversation. We need to hear from one another and make space for one another so we can evolve and mature into a more dynamic spiritual community.
Books like this make explicit the ways that we constrain people by not exploring our biases. The quick vignette below reveals one way our culture denies our human limitations.
I still remember the words that began my unforming. An Asian American pastor and mentor, Dan, once said to me, “One day you’ll make a big mistake, but the people around you will love you anyway. On that day, you’ll be free, and you’ll be able to more fully receive God’s love for you.” These words continue to resonate in my soul. They reveal to me how easily I can get caught up in the drive for flawless performance, even in spiritual things. The push for perfection in performance is not just a Western trait, but it has become the standard for modern culture, no matter where we are in the world. The strength of a linear cultural orientation in spirituality is that it is optimistic, hopeful, and focused on growth. Even in suffering and grief, we can soothe our pain with the belief that God can use our sufferings for good. We expect positivity and growth even in the deepest of sufferings. The drawback of a linear orientation is when things don’t go as planned, when life turns messy and complicated, we lack the spiritual vocabulary and depth needed to navigate.
One of the main refrains that I keep at the front of my thoughts when I think about my spiritual direction practice is that grace has to be the center. As Cindy Lee says, “A “just work harder” society creates a “just work harder” religion.” We need to help people see that while spiritual practices have value, western default thinking about spiritual practices tends to think of them as work to be completed so we can achieve self-mastery. A grace-centered orientation doesn’t try to get people to work harder to find God, but that is explicitly what many western Christians say.
A well-known Christian leader that everyone would know directly said in his book on prayer that people who know more pray better. Cindy Lee rightly counters by pointing out this weakness:
…the Western church has tried to limit spirituality to the mind by suppressing or neglecting the body. Western Christianity starts with the premise that forming right beliefs will lead to right practices, right morals, and a right society.
It is not just the explicit orientation toward knowledge that is a problem. Even relatively aware Christians who have studied missiology and culture often default to hierarchical thinking that biases western thought by assuming “contextualization” is a type of translation that makes western ideals local instead.
The work ahead to unform our spirituality, however, requires that we break free from these Western parameters. Sometimes this task is referred to as “contextualization.” Contextualizing, however, still assumes that the Western way is the standard way, and all other ways are creative deviations. The work of unforming and re-forming our souls is not contextualization. We are not taking Western norms and adding ethnic expressions. We are going back to what the missionaries should have done in the first place, to allow our experiences of God to be fundamentally changed by sitting and learning from one another. Carvalhaes writes that historically colonized communities still find subversive and creative ways to reimagine worship and liturgy, and we need to learn from these expressions. He writes, “While empires and colonization processes tried to fix rituals as a way of controlling senses, understandings, and bodies, colonized people have always intervened in these processes, creating, rebelling, challenging, undoing, and redoing.” These practices are ways in which colonized people have tried to break free from Western-controlled spaces. Carvalhaes states that we can reclaim our spiritual practices through other forms of knowing, such as attending to our bodily movements, senses, and emotions as expressions of our spirituality.
I could easily continue this as a long quote review, but I will only share one more. Over the past year, I have been researching Christian discernment in particular. There is a good chapter that is largely about discernment that I very much commend. But central to that chapter is this important reminder. “The practice of listening to ourselves is a reminder that we are worthy of being listened to.” Lee rightly notes that one of the largest problems of western default thinking is that it creates hierarchical assumptions where non-white or non-western people are taught to mistrust their own thoughts because they are not white or western. It is central to discernment to learn to trust our own thoughts and feelings and rightly name them so that we can begin to discern where God is speaking to us.
This is a brief book but I intentionally did not read more than a chapter at a time because it is a book that I needed to think about and not just quickly move on to the next idea.
One additional note: This is not a “deconstruction book,” but I do think that it would be helpful for many people who are consciously in a deconstruction mode to think through how their assumptions may be culturally constrained and while they may be aware of how politics or relational abuse or other issues have impacted them, that deconstruction work should also look at areas of faith and spirituality where they may be less conscious of work that needs to be done. Books like this I think can help make the deconstruction process easier in the long term because it gets at underlying issues, not just those issues which are most visible.
The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation by Daniel G. Hummel
The early teachers of what became dispensationalism were dissenters, and that is a deep irony about what became a populist movement.
It was not multiple generations from original teaching to a more populist movement but an almost immediate shift.
What stuck was the premillennialism, the literal hermeneutic of bible reading, the idea of dispensations (especially the part that we were living in the most important dispensation before Christ’s return), and an adaptation of covenantal thinking that viewed American exceptionalism as a type of covenant with God. Tied with this in many cases was a supersessionism that viewed Christianity or even American Christians as a new Israel, all the while seeking for Israel to gain its own country again to make the second coming of Christ happen. Again, there is a lot of nuance here that I can’t detail, but it does make the book well worth reading.
The rise of what became dispensationalism in the US was very much tied to the context of the post-Civil War conflict. White sectional reconciliation fits well with dispensationalist teaching.
The reality of race and gender, as I have mentioned, was important to the way that dispensationalism developed, but also so were technological innovations like the development of bible concordances, radio evangelism, and the money from extractive industries which helped to fund dispensationalist institutions.
The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is already a fairly long book, but I still wanted more at points. I think that the explanatory power of the sectional reconciliation efforts after the Civil War is important, but having read David Blight’s Race and Reunion, I was somewhat surprised about how much the two books complemented one another with so very little overlap. Race and Reunion had very little on religion, and The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism could have used more political and social history to give details on the social reasons for dispensationalism's spread.
I always want more people to know about the problematic parts of Evangelical history. I am connected with Moody Church. I have worked consulting with a non-profit started out of Moody Church for over 20 years. One of the pastors of Moody Church (A. Clarence Dixon) was Thomas Dixon's brother. Thomas Dixon was also a pastor, but he is better known as the author of The Clansman, the book on which the movie The Birth of a Nation was based. That deeply racist book and movie gave rise to the rebirth of the second generation of the KKK.
I can't easily summarize the history shared in a more than 500-page history, but I do want to skip to the end for a few small points. First, there is a difference between the "Scholastic Dispensationalism," which is taught as a system and attempts to be theologically consistent, and the pop culture dispensationalism of the Left Behind books or movies. Hummel argues (and it is hard to dispute) that the last gasp of the more theologically sophisticated dispensationalism was in the 1990s. Dallas Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School are no longer strongly dispensational. The Evangelical Free Church denomination removed requirements for dispensational premillennialism from its statement of faith. At the same time that the more theologically sophisticated dispensationalism was dying off, the more pop-culture-oriented vague premillennialism, which did not have a coherent theological system, spread but also had less theological impact.
There are many lessons to be learned here. Similar to my thoughts on Hot Protestants, we are not in as unique of a time as many think. When we attempt to change culture through media and expressions of power, we often are more changed by culture than we realize. And backlash is real. I am slowly working through a history of Prohibition, and dispensational theology that influenced that movement. There were a variety of groups that worked together for prohibition, and many had good motives. But they did not work to build wide consensus as much as use tricks to get bills passed that alienated opponents. That comes up here inside the church as well as in secular politics. Race, gender, class and other power issues need to be paid attention to. Those categories (and others) are often blind spots to the church but still impact how theology and church structures develop.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/dispensationalism/
4.5
Summary: A history of Dispensationalism from Darby to pop culture.
I did not grow up in a strongly dispensationalist church. But as I reflected throughout the book, I was surprised to learn how many institutions, communities, and preachers who were important to me were influenced by dispensationalism. The strength of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is that it does not fall into caricature but is carefully nuanced about the various streams of Christianity influenced by dispensationalism.
As someone who was a child and teen in the late 70s and early '80s, I was aware of movies like The Thief in the Night, even if I was too young to be strongly influenced by them. I know several people who were freaked out by the scare tactics of that era of dispensationalism, but I tended toward questions or avoidance rather than direct fear. I was more attracted to “Scholastic Dispensationalism” than pop culture dispensationalism. A friend of mine’s was a pastor’s kid at a local Evangelical Free Church. I went to a lot of their youth group activities, and I can remember going to their annual “prophecy conferences” and can remember the charts and explanations of the details of the end times as a teen and preteen. That nearly gnostic idea of the secrets that you can learn if you only follow the right teachers were more of a temptation to me.
I am hesitant to simplify because the complex story is so interesting, but the overly simplified story is that from Darby to Moody to fundamentalism to the rise of the scholastic Dispensationalists to the pop culture dispensationalists, there was an almost continual simplification of the ideas of dispensationalism from a complex system of anti-institutionalist thought toward simpler and simpler premillennialism. That simplified story is too simple, but there is a thread there that as people found parts of the theological ideas to accept and parts to discard, the beloved parts by the earlier generation were usually discarded in favor of an easier-to-explain system.
A simple chart or image is more attractive than a complex multi-page chart. But the thicker theological thinking went in the opposite direction. Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind, but that does seem to be what is shown here. While movements tried to take the more theological seriously, the dominant streams of dispensationalism were the imagery of an imminent return of Christ, which contributed to a passion to evangelize and reach the world for Christ.
The complex picture here takes seriously the problems of race, gender, and class while not distorting the more positive intent of evangelism. I had so many highlights, including very long highlights, because the nuanced story is complex. This long quote I think, gives a good sense of the story that this book attempts to tell:
I did not grow up in a strongly dispensationalist church. But as I reflected throughout the book, I was surprised to learn how many institutions, communities, and preachers who were important to me were influenced by dispensationalism. The strength of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is that it does not fall into caricature but is carefully nuanced about the various streams of Christianity influenced by dispensationalism.
As someone who was a child and teen in the late 70s and early '80s, I was aware of movies like The Thief in the Night, even if I was too young to be strongly influenced by them. I know several people who were freaked out by the scare tactics of that era of dispensationalism, but I tended toward questions or avoidance rather than direct fear. I was more attracted to “Scholastic Dispensationalism” than pop culture dispensationalism. A friend of mine’s was a pastor’s kid at a local Evangelical Free Church. I went to a lot of their youth group activities, and I can remember going to their annual “prophecy conferences” and can remember the charts and explanations of the details of the end times as a teen and preteen. That nearly gnostic idea of the secrets that you can learn if you only follow the right teachers were more of a temptation to me.
I am hesitant to simplify because the complex story is so interesting, but the overly simplified story is that from Darby to Moody to fundamentalism to the rise of the scholastic Dispensationalists to the pop culture dispensationalists, there was an almost continual simplification of the ideas of dispensationalism from a complex system of anti-institutionalist thought toward simpler and simpler premillennialism. That simplified story is too simple, but there is a thread there that as people found parts of the theological ideas to accept and parts to discard, the beloved parts by the earlier generation were usually discarded in favor of an easier-to-explain system.
A simple chart or image is more attractive than a complex multi-page chart. But the thicker theological thinking went in the opposite direction. Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind, but that does seem to be what is shown here. While movements tried to take the more theological seriously, the dominant streams of dispensationalism were the imagery of an imminent return of Christ, which contributed to a passion to evangelize and reach the world for Christ.
The complex picture here takes seriously the problems of race, gender, and class while not distorting the more positive intent of evangelism. I had so many highlights, including very long highlights, because the nuanced story is complex. This long quote I think, gives a good sense of the story that this book attempts to tell:
A notoriously difficult group to define, evangelicals in America have been categorized as much by the tensions they manage between “head” and “heart” religion, and between populist and establishment aspirations, as by the theological commitments they profess or the sociological profile they share. And yet a history of dispensationalism, which has played a decisive role as a system of theology and a subculture, recasts our understanding of evangelicalism in at least two important ways. First, dispensationalism brings to the fore the interdependent relationship between theology and culture that has shaped American evangelicalism…Second, a focus on dispensationalism illuminates contemporary trends toward polarization that have plagued evangelicalism in recent decades. These trends, I contend, are deeply intertwined with the “rise and fall” narrative of dispensationalism. While it was never the only theological tradition among fundamentalists or evangelicals, dispensationalism supplied at least four generations of white conservative Protestants, stretching from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, with a theological framework to read the Bible and understand the world. Insiders and outsiders differed over how accurate or helpful dispensationalism was, but its teachings supplied a reference point to millions of Christians all the same. With the fall of dispensationalism as a formal theological system in the 1990s, the white conservative Protestant community has deepened an ongoing crisis in theological identity, with many outside observers now questioning whether theology has much to do with evangelicalism at all. Rather than treat the current state of affairs as normative, a study of dispensationalism reveals the historical development of a theologically thin, while politically robust, popular evangelical culture. Conservative white Protestantism has always had other theological contenders, but the inherited theological tradition of dispensationalism, which now has fewer living theological proponents, played a significant role in shaping the “evangelical mind” until very recently. (p22-23)
The early teachers of what became dispensationalism were dissenters, and that is a deep irony about what became a populist movement.
The original dissenters were unique for teaching that all of history was divided into a series of dispensations that inevitably ended with the failure of humans to fulfill their obligations to God. They taught that the current dispensation was nearly complete, revealing the failure of organized Christianity, and that soon the state churches and the societies they enabled in Europe and North America, which they called Christendom, would be destroyed. These dissenters originally congregated in cities like Dublin and London, with one of their largest assemblies in the southwestern English port city of Plymouth. As a group they refused to be called anything but “Christian,” so they became known as “the brethren from Plymouth.” The name stuck, and they became known as the Plymouth Brethren. (p23)
It was not multiple generations from original teaching to a more populist movement but an almost immediate shift.
The story of dispensationalism invariably begins with Darby and his teachings, but it would be a mistake to think that dispensationalism was a simple transmission of Darby’s teachings. True, key parts of what would become dispensationalism originated in Brethren thinking, but other aspects of Brethren teachings (such as radical separation from all denominations) found almost no resonance with dispensationalists. Americans used Brethren ideas to meet their own needs. To mention some examples, Americans held their own interests in religion and revivalism, in certain conceptions of geography, economics, race, class, gender, and American power, that supplied their interpretations of “dispensational time” with unique significance.
What stuck was the premillennialism, the literal hermeneutic of bible reading, the idea of dispensations (especially the part that we were living in the most important dispensation before Christ’s return), and an adaptation of covenantal thinking that viewed American exceptionalism as a type of covenant with God. Tied with this in many cases was a supersessionism that viewed Christianity or even American Christians as a new Israel, all the while seeking for Israel to gain its own country again to make the second coming of Christ happen. Again, there is a lot of nuance here that I can’t detail, but it does make the book well worth reading.
The rise of what became dispensationalism in the US was very much tied to the context of the post-Civil War conflict. White sectional reconciliation fits well with dispensationalist teaching.
The institutional and theological structures of dispensationalism in the nineteenth century were forged by white evangelicals who privileged the goal of white reconciliation after the Civil War over the aims of Reconstruction. While the project of reconciliation achieved astounding success in creating a broad coalition of white evangelicals, it also killed a potential (if unlikely) future of a racially diverse dispensational tradition. Later generations exacerbated earlier decisions, and with few exceptions dispensationalists have never led in advocating for social or political equality. In many cases they actively supported such discriminatory measures as racial segregation. They often did so for expediency and for reasons unrelated to the specific theological commitments of dispensationalism. But sometimes they did connect social attitudes to their theology. It is in these examples, which span from responses to Reconstruction to Cold War anticommunism, that dispensationalism’s social and political location is most visible. The geographical spread of dispensationalism is tied to its demographics, too. A remarkable subplot in the story of dispensationalism is how its teachings originally gathered a regional following in the Great Lakes basin and then, over time, spread to the South and the West Coast while retreating from New England. By and large, the South slowly and only haltingly adopted dispensationalism, and then in ways that accommodated other southern-specific factors. For the most part, dispensationalists were eager to gain new adherents in the South, even if that meant accommodating white southern attitudes on race and segregation. The demographic and geographic dimensions of dispensationalism are also connected to its economic story. Who funded the expansion of dispensationalism? It is difficult to give one answer. In the nineteenth century, and stretching to the fundamentalism of the 1920s, the broader institutional complex that housed dispensational teachings was funded by industrial profits. For example, the oil money of Milton and Lyman Stewart funded the founding of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and the publication and distribution of The Fundamentals. (p35-36)
The reality of race and gender, as I have mentioned, was important to the way that dispensationalism developed, but also so were technological innovations like the development of bible concordances, radio evangelism, and the money from extractive industries which helped to fund dispensationalist institutions.
The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is already a fairly long book, but I still wanted more at points. I think that the explanatory power of the sectional reconciliation efforts after the Civil War is important, but having read David Blight’s Race and Reunion, I was somewhat surprised about how much the two books complemented one another with so very little overlap. Race and Reunion had very little on religion, and The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism could have used more political and social history to give details on the social reasons for dispensationalism's spread.
I always want more people to know about the problematic parts of Evangelical history. I am connected with Moody Church. I have worked consulting with a non-profit started out of Moody Church for over 20 years. One of the pastors of Moody Church (A. Clarence Dixon) was Thomas Dixon's brother. Thomas Dixon was also a pastor, but he is better known as the author of The Clansman, the book on which the movie The Birth of a Nation was based. That deeply racist book and movie gave rise to the rebirth of the second generation of the KKK.
The distinction between individual and social agency, and between spiritual and corporeal brotherhood, allowed Dixon to wax about spiritual equality while ignoring social racism in his midst. Northerners as well as Southerners inhabited cities stratified by race and material inequality, yet Dixon was muted on why such a situation existed. The “solidarity of the race” was God’s intention, Dixon preached, but sin broke it. “Now God is making a new solidarity which begins at Calvary and is based upon the new creation,” and yet the plane of transformation was narrowly spiritual. “Only the cross can make the confusion of Babel give way to the fusion of Pentecost,” he taught, referencing God’s act of dispersing humanity into separate tribes and language groups, and the latter coming of the Holy Spirit to diverse early followers. “Only in this fire of God’s love can races be molded into one family with the spirit of true brotherhood.” Clarence was no Thomas, yet the distinctions he made fueled new premillennialist views of racial difference. (p184)
I can't easily summarize the history shared in a more than 500-page history, but I do want to skip to the end for a few small points. First, there is a difference between the "Scholastic Dispensationalism," which is taught as a system and attempts to be theologically consistent, and the pop culture dispensationalism of the Left Behind books or movies. Hummel argues (and it is hard to dispute) that the last gasp of the more theologically sophisticated dispensationalism was in the 1990s. Dallas Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School are no longer strongly dispensational. The Evangelical Free Church denomination removed requirements for dispensational premillennialism from its statement of faith. At the same time that the more theologically sophisticated dispensationalism was dying off, the more pop-culture-oriented vague premillennialism, which did not have a coherent theological system, spread but also had less theological impact.
There are many lessons to be learned here. Similar to my thoughts on Hot Protestants, we are not in as unique of a time as many think. When we attempt to change culture through media and expressions of power, we often are more changed by culture than we realize. And backlash is real. I am slowly working through a history of Prohibition, and dispensational theology that influenced that movement. There were a variety of groups that worked together for prohibition, and many had good motives. But they did not work to build wide consensus as much as use tricks to get bills passed that alienated opponents. That comes up here inside the church as well as in secular politics. Race, gender, class and other power issues need to be paid attention to. Those categories (and others) are often blind spots to the church but still impact how theology and church structures develop.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/dispensationalism/
The Enneagram of Discernment: The Way of Vocation, Wisdom, and Practice by Drew Moser
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/enneagram-of-discernment/
3.75
Summary: Helpful thinking about the ways that enneagram impacts discernment.
In my ongoing reading about discernment, this was a book that I found on Kindle Unlimited. I have a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, but mostly it is used by my parents or kids, who share my Kindle account. But there are cases like this where I find a book in my reading area and it is always nice to borrow it instead of purchasing.
I am mixed on the enneagram. I think that to the extent that someone thinks that it is helpful and accurate in describing them, then it can be helpful to give language around personality types. On the other hand, I also think there is not a lot underlying enneagram and any system of categories has limitations because no system like this will perfectly describe someone. It is about tendencies and rough categories.
What I like about the enneagram is that it intentionally is focuses on health, moving toward healthy interactions, not simply description. It also recognizes that those aspects of personality that are strengths are also weaknesses when pushed or taken too far. There are healthy expressions of personality and our internal tendencies and unhealthy expressions.
The format of this book is unique and helpful. You can get a general book that has everything for all types. Or you can get a type-specific book that has the main content of the book but also has an end section focusing on just that type. In my case, I got the type 5 book and it has about 160 pages of main content and then a chapter that summarizes and focuses on just type five (or your specific type.) I think type five describes me pretty well, and so I read the whole book, but for those who are just interested in your type, especially if you are borrowing it from Kindle Unlimited, the focused chapter on your type is about 30 pages of summary that I think you can get most of the understanding from in a short time. You will get more detail if you read the whole book and you will see how your type fits into the larger system of the enneagram. If you are aware of spouses, friends or coworkers’ enneagram types, then the larger book can also help you see how your type and their types interact.
Broadly, I think the Enneagram of Discernment is thinking about discernment and vocation in similar ways to how I have been thinking about it. Moser uses this definition:
“working definition of discernment: Discernment is the gift and practice of living our lives from a deep sense of vocation, with wisdom, in the fullness of time.” (p33)
Discernment in this book is a process of understanding the world around us in cooperation with vocation.
Palmer [Parker] perhaps says it best when he describes vocation “not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess.” (p72)
If you skip to the end, I think you will miss the helpful framing. Chapter One is about general barriers to discernment. Some of those will apply to all of us. But there are also specific notes about how some types are more susceptible to different barriers than others. We live in a digital age and one of the main barriers to discernment today is mistaking knowledge for discernment or resisting the time it takes to reflect and do the discernment. Or spending the time practicing discernment to move toward wisdom. The digital world trains us to “skim and scan” (p43) and not reflect and contemplate.
Chapter Two is about how different enneagram types think of vocation as identity, purpose, and direction. Chapter Three talks about how different enneagram types understand wisdom, through doing, feeling and thinking. And chapter Four encouraging us to understand how our enneagram type relates to time (past, present and future.)
I am not going to share here, but I highlighted a lot of the chapter on my type. While it took me a while to get through those early chapters, once I did, the end chapter on type five made a lot of sense, and I read it quickly because was essentially a summary of the previous 150 pages focusing on just my type. This summary quote from the end I think is right.
“Way of Discernment is no express lane. While it can provide momentary help in times of decision, it’s a longsuffering journey. So, when the next decision comes, journey through The Way of Discernment. Hear the call to go back and get it, and discern your life with flourishing abundance.”
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/enneagram-of-discernment/