Category: Book review

Persuasion is a lost art. Persuasion means we respect the dignity and value of people we disagree with. Persuasion, if it is honest, means we ourselves are open to new ideas, new information, and are willing to adjust our previous conclusions. Persuasion is a win-win for us and society. And, sadly, we see too little of it in a world that favors screaming at and insulting opponents.

For that reason, I was looking forward to Anand Giridharadas’s The Persuaders. And I got a little of that, but not as much as I hoped. If you are looking for a balanced book that considers what we could learn positively from both right and left—you won’t find it here.

Instead The Persuaders reports on some of the different approaches left-leaning strategists, activists, and legislators have been using recently to shift the thinking of voters. Each chapter focuses on one or two key people, such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others. And we find some interesting approaches described which depart from less than successful practices of the past.

The book is strong on reporting but is weak on analysis. As a journalist, Giridharadas largely chronicles the work, words, and methods of public figures he admires. He doesn’t offer much insight. I appreciate books that tell stories to illustrate their content. Narratives help drive home in concrete ways what can be abstract principles. But this book does the reverse—it illustrates stories with a smattering of principles. And that is usually much less effective because the point can get lost in the midst of a long tale.

Often I am annoyed by reviews that say, I don’t like this book because the author didn’t write it the way I would have. And there may be some of that in my critique. But the book could have been so much better (more persuasive?) if the author had taken longer to write it, thought more deeply about the nature of persuasion, and guided us more concretely on how the character of our national discussions needs to change to preserve and enhance civility and democracy.

I am sympathetic to many of the viewpoints he highlights. I know the author wants us to be better, wants the American dream to be accessible to more and more Americans rather than fewer and fewer. But he might have included more thoughtful synthesis and a wider range of voices who all want us all to move forward together.

Having said all that, two chapters are particularly worthwhile, and I’ll talk about those more in my next Andy Unedited.

I have a friend who says he’s not a patriot. You can’t love a country like the United States, he says, that has done so many horrendous things in the past (slavery and its treatment of Native Americans, to name two) and which continues its racism and bigotry in the present.

I have a second friend who acknowledges all that but who thinks that if our current form of government disintegrates, the results would be even worse. Indeed, she believes government still has an important role to play in helping America live up to its own dreams and aspirations.

Yet a third friend believes America has been called by God as a nation like Israel was. He is a nationalist who believes in the greatness of our Anglo-Protestant origins and touts America First.

Paul D. Miller is none of these. He is a self-described conservative who stresses “the paramount value of human liberty within a framework of limited government” (p. 1). In The Religion of American Greatness Miller who served in the second Bush White House and is a professor at Georgetown, has written a profound critique of nationalism on political, historical, and biblical grounds. (He plans to write two more volumes—a critique of progressivism and a positive case for conservatism.)

In dealing with nationalism, Miller does not set up a straw man. In chapter 3 he gives ample space for the most thoughtful and articulate nationalists to have their say, including Samuel Huntington, Nigel Biggar, R.R. Reno, Rich Lowry, and Yarom Hazony. In summary, they believe that “preserving the United States’ Anglo-Protestant culture should be a major focus of public policy, even if and when it conflicts with the tenets of classical liberalism,* civic republicanism, and the American Constitution” (p. 58). Christian nationalists follow suit.

Miller then engages their arguments, focusing on “cultural nationalism, . . . not racial or theocratic nationalism, because it is a stronger argument and a more popular kind of nationalism and deserves a more careful and sensitive treatment.” Miller argues that humanity is not divisible into cultural units, as these nationalists contend. Therefore, the belief that political and cultural boundaries should overlap is essentially impossible. He contends “that the belief that government should have jurisdiction over culture is mistaken and dangerous” (p. 61).

In practice it would be folly to seek to enforce such a culture. “It is unlikely that the US government is competent to sustain, create, or orchestrate a common national cultural template for a nation of 320 million people when it can barely deliver the mail” (p. 102).

Neither does democracy depend on an Anglo-Protestant foundation. There are two dozen democratic countries in the world with no Christian heritage. Japan, India and South Korea are examples of the most stable and prosperous of these.

Miller argues that nationalism does not create national unity, as its proponents contend. Rather Christian nationalism still has anti-democratic, illiberal tendencies, especially in how it treats ethnic and religious minorities. “Nationalism is the identity politics of the majority tribe. . . . It perpetuates the cycle of political warfare between nationalist majorities and identity-group minorities, each side . . . trying to seize state power and milk it for perks for their tribe” (p. 108).

Miller further unpacks how the Bible does not say what nationalists claim it says. “The civil religion that equates America with Israel is a prolonged exercise in missing the point. America is not Israel: the church is” (p. 130).

Ultimately, nationalism is idolatrous, supplanting loyalty to Jesus with loyalty to the nation. Evidence for this is seen in how many Christians disregard Jesus’ commands to “love your neighbor” and “love your enemies” if it serves their political goals.

Miller’s is an important and substantive book that will require substantive engagement by readers. But the reward will be equally substantive.

—

*By classical liberalism Miller does not mean left-leaning politics. Instead he uses it in its 18th-century sense of embodying the principles of liberty and equality on which the U.S. was founded, something both Republicans and Democrats say they support.

Goodness, truth, and beauty—pursuing these three famous ideals are core to our health as individuals and as communities. I confess, however, that I probably pay least conscious attention to beauty. It seems to matter less than the others, to make less of a difference.

Enter Russ Ramsey and perhaps the finest book I’ve read this year—Rembrandt Is in the Wind. He offers a wonderful presentation on the worth and importance of beauty in our lives. But he does much more than that.

Ramsey is a consummate storyteller. In nine chapters he highlights nine artists from the last five hundred years of the Western world. In each he tells the story of the artist, or of a particular artwork, or of the subject of the art. The tales and their backstories are fascinating and engrossing. Ramsey weaves together mysteries, human drama and more into compelling tapestries.

We learn the hidden flaw in one of the most famous masterpieces in the world, as well as discovering the long-held secret of Vermeer’s paintings. We see how the revered work of one artist contrasts so thoroughly with his disreputable life, while also unearthing how an African American artist subverted the standard genres and expectations of his day. Finally, we are confronted with a woman who, inexplicably for some, abandoned the path leading to the pinnacle of her art.

Still I am not doing justice to this marvelous book. Ramsey infuses each chapter with remarkable insights into the artworks themselves and the people he portrays. And more than that, with understated artistry, Ramsey weaves in moving reflections on what it all means for our humanity and our lives before God.

Here is a book of wisdom, of grace, and of beauty.