Category: Book review

A Story of Art, Addiction, and Renewal

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is famous for its albatross and for “Water, water, every where,/Nor any drop to drink.” In Mariner, Malcolm Guite gives us so much more in this first-rate biography of Coleridge combined with a masterful analysis of the work’s compelling story, vivid images, and powerful poetry. In doing so Guite unveils the remarkable parallels between the two. Even more remarkable, Coleridge’s life seemed to follow the pattern of the ancient mariner after he had written the poem, not before.

Coleridge is also known for his addiction to opium which took him to his own “Night-mare Life-in-Death.” It began when a doctor prescribed it for his various aliments (something doctors of the day commonly did not knowing its powerful addictive effects). Intertwined with his years-long struggle for physical well-being was one for spiritual renewal. Coleridge never rejected his faith but went through struggles to a deeper more profound personal, intellectual and theological commitment.

We also see his early friendship with Wordsworth which was crucial as the two launched the Romantic movement in reaction to the dry rationality of the Enlightenment. Yet even this relationship went through its stormy patches, much of it due to Coleridge’s own troubles.

Such was the power of Coleridge’s personality and intellect that even in the midst of his deep struggles he reshaped the way the world saw Shakespeare in a series of landmark lectures. Previously the Bard was viewed as a second-tier talent of popular leanings. After Coleridge we know him to be the premier wielder of not only the English language but of art and life.

As a priest, poet and songwriter, Guite is perfectly suited for the task of bringing this life and this work home to us. He does not disappoint.

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

An American Ideal, An American Myth

Books are better sources of information and insight than tweets or headlines. Two years ago I reviewed here The Myth of Equality, a book that gives more help and understanding than anything you will hear or read in the news today.

Ken Wytsma was talking with a young man running his own landscaping firm who was proud of how he’d started from zero and succeeded by virtue of hard work, with no benefit from privilege. So Ken asked where he got most of his business (the suburbs) and where they worked on jobs (in backyards) and when (during the day) and how he got business (putting flyers on doors and knocking at houses).

Then Ken asked, “If you were a young black man proposing to work in the backyards of those suburbanites during the day when they’re not home, is it possible some of your clients might show a degree of suspicion or bias? If you were Hispanic, talked with an accent, or looked like you were from a culture unfamiliar to the suburban communities where people can afford backyard ponds and fountains, do you think it might–even if ever so slightly–affect how successful you are when you knock on doors?” The white friend understood.


While equality is an American ideal, Ken Wytsma tells us, it is also an American myth. State-sponsored racist policies did not end with the abolishment of slavery. They have continued in various forms ever since.

As Wytsma recounts in The Myth of Equality, voting restrictions in the post-Reconstruction era reduced Alabama’s black voter turnout from 180,000 to 3,000. It fell to zero in Virginia and North Carolina. Today efforts continue to hinder voter registration.

Astonishingly, forced labor was widely reinstituted around the turn of the twentieth century with thousands of blacks arrested on minor charges and then leased back by the state to business owners. In fact, in Mississippi, “25 percent of convicts leased out for forced labor were children.”

Regarding housing, redlining in the North during most of the twentieth century reduced the value of minority real estate holdings, with contractual options to take their property away from them for missing one payment–something white buyers did not have to endure. The effects of this systematic impoverishment are with us still.

In the last fifty years, the war on drugs has targeted minority populations creating an incarceration-industrial complex. Things are beginning to change, but Wytsma finds it ironic that in Oregon, where marijuana is now legal, “white corporate businessmen now stand to make millions of dollars by selling a product that millions of men, predominantly of color, are currently incarcerated for possessing in miniscule amounts.”

Does all this have anything to do with the gospel? Wytsma quotes Timothy Keller: “Any neglect shown to the needs of the members of the vulnerable is not called merely a lack of mercy or charity, but a violation of justice.” Biblical justice is not just punishing evil doers but restoring what was bent or broken. The cross doesn’t just allow sins to be forgiven but restores relationships. It reconciles us to God and us to each other.

Compassion for individuals is good and right, but it is only a component of justice which also looks to remedy underlying causes for such needs. Compassion, contends Wytsma, can also feed our hero complex. We encourage a more holistic justice when we use our influence and authority to give our responsibilities, opportunities, and power to those who have not had it equally.

Through a clear retelling of American history, a well-rounded discussion of biblical justice, and concrete ways we can move ahead individually and corporately, Wytsma provides an important book on an important topic.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes

For those like me who are steeped in Western individualism, the honor-shame dynamics of the Bible are hiding in plain sight.

Honor abounds in the Bible as seen in words like glory, name, blessing, praise, clean, renown, glorify, beloved. Shame words are equally plentiful—ashamed, accursed, humiliation, wretched, forgotten, reproach, despised, mocking, crushed, reviled, cursed.

The dynamic of corporate identity comes to the fore in Scripture far more than many of us imagine. Jackson W.’s Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes (a series of essays that move through the letter chapter by chapter rather than a verse-by-verse commentary) does not seek to undo centuries of analysis in the Western tradition that emphasizes sin and guilt. Rather it seeks to place alongside that viewpoint another dimension that deepens our understanding of Paul’s most theological letter.

The author defines honor as “one’s perceived worth according to the agreed standards of a particular social context” (14) As such, honor can be achieved or ascribed. In the West we lay greater emphasis on the first. The East emphasizes the second. But we still see a number of honor/shame-oriented subgroups still thriving in Western culture—the military, street gangs, teenagers, sports teams, and rural communities. The fear of shame can effectively control the behavior of these members.

God’s glory gets particular emphasis in this book. As the author says in his discussion of Romans 4:20-21, “Genuine faith in God magnifies his worth. By faith, we honor him” (48). In this vein Romans often focuses on how God deals with Jews and non-Jews, bringing them both into his family, to glorify him. A Jewish sense of superiority relegates God to a tribal deity. Therefore, “Romans contradicts the idea that ethnic conflict is a second-tier concern for the church” (65).

Just a couple other highlights. The author’s analysis of Romans 7 (famous for Paul’s use of first person—“What I want to do I do not do,” etc.) is of particular interest. He makes a strong case that this seemingly quintessential discussion of the individual instead “refers collectively to Israel during the exodus” (132).

Later the author critiques ancestor worship but also helps us sympathize with it by quoting Chesterton: “Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who happen to be walking around.” Tradition can be good, but it does not eclipse God. He is the “Lord both of the living and the dead” (Rom 14:9).

This book does not dismantle everything we ever thought we knew about Romans. Rather it enriches our understanding of the letter by getting behind the honor-shame culture that infused the Bible’s world.

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photo: Pixabay zgmorris13

Just My Type (2)

For many of my generation, my world of type was proscribed by Courier, the almost universal typeface of the typewriter era. I did notice, though, in the 1960s when the Minneapolis Star and Tribune started using a san serif face for their headlines. Now that was pretty cool. Not as cool, however, as the psychedelic typefaces that started popping up on album covers that same decade.

I learned a little bit about such things when I was editor for our high school newspaper. But my real education came from Kathy Lay Burrows, the first designer I worked with at InterVarsity Press. She loved type. She knew the history of each face, who the designers were and the story behind each one. The elegance of Garamond and Bembo made her swoon.

The only time I doubted her instincts was when a crusty old proofreader nearly swore to this freshman editor under his breath that Souvenir was only suitable as a display type and was never intended by God or anyone as body text!

Simon Garfield’s Just My Type is full of just such opinionated fun while he fills in the backstory of the designs and the designers. Comic Sans, for example, comes in for its share of ridicule. That well-intended typeface is casual, unintimidating, almost flip—and for many, irritating if not revolting.

Helvetica, on the other hand, is practical and suited to mass communication. It is comfortingly neutral, like the Swiss homeland from which it comes. Typefaces, you see, communicate much more than the content of their texts. They are a medium that is part of the message.

Lots of ads, signs, stationary, books, album covers, products, and other type examples are sprinkled throughout the book. These help us keep straight the hundreds and thousands of options that are out there—something that even those well versed have difficulty doing.

And how could I have not known that the ampersand (&) is actually an elegant combination of the letters e and t which comprise the Latin word et, meaning “and”? I do now, & am a better person for it.

If you’ve ever wondered what’s behind this world of type or, like me, had a good grounding and wanted more, here is a fun package to do just that.

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image: Pixabay Tatutati

Heroes and Holes

When widespread coronavirus restrictions first began to take effect last month, I was in an airport.

I suddenly became acutely aware of people around me serving food, cleaning tables, maintaining equipment, and many more. Clearly, I thought, I have not appreciated such people enough or sufficiently expressed my thanks. They (along with other more obvious examples of first responders and medical staff) were putting their health on the line to serve me and others, to keep society functioning, even if it was at a reduced level.

What they were doing was courageous, putting their own well being at risk for the sake of others. I also realized, however, that some of them had no choice. They could not afford to stay at home without pay for weeks or months. They had no savings, no family safety net to fall on. They could not do their jobs virtually via laptop and Zoom.

One grocery store worker feels the label of hero is misplaced for her and others. And she raises good questions. At least hazard pay should be a consideration for such workers.

Heroes, nonetheless, may not always look like what we expect. They do not always arrive with a uniform, a cape, a superpower, magical abilities, or exceptional cleverness.

In Louis Sachar’s novel, Holes, Stanley Yelnats is a wonderful, unexpected hero. He is a bit overweight, awkward, doesn’t seem particularly smart or charming, has little by way of leadership skills, and in fact often gets picked on by other kids. He is almost the definition of ordinary, if not forgettable. Yet the whole tale of injustice, bad luck, and obsession hangs on his steady, unflappable, and forgiving character.

How? Stanley does not take life too personally—the good or the bad. He also makes room to help those in need. Zero, for example, wanted to learn to read. Stanley helped him despite ridicule and potential punishment. Finally, Stanley has grit. He doesn’t give up. He undramatically keeps plodding ahead, moving forward, when others would have stopped.

Years ago I saw the movie based on this book. As I read it recently for the first time, I remembered some of the story. But I found it to be a splendid reminder that even ordinary people can be heroes by virtue of their ordinariness.

image credit: Pixabay Scottslm

Christ’s Victory on Our Behalf

The center of Christianity is the cross. But how are we to understand the crucifixion? How is it that in the death of Christ we find salvation, forgiveness, new creation, justice, victory over the powers, and hope for the future? And why in particular was such a gruesome, publicly humiliating execution required?

This Lent, to assist me with such questions, I have been reading Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion, a book providing what she sees as the first substantive book on the cross for pastors since John Stott’s The Cross of Christ. Overall in her view Christ’s crucifixion is God’s victory over Sin, Death, and the Devil. The Powers are vanquished as the Apostle Paul so often gives testimony. But Christ’s substitutionary work—in our place and on our behalf—is the necessary partner to this cosmic rectification, a theme that arises out of the biblical narrative rather than a theological scheme.

She offers a robust defense of substitution throughout. In particular she thoroughly rehabilitates the eleventh-century archbishop Anslem when today it is popular to denigrate the person credited with bringing substitution to the fore of church teaching. She also finds much to admire in Calvin, though not necessarily in his successors. Rutledge believes both have been misunderstood because scholars fail to see that these two are not working primarily in the realm of academia. Their purpose is pastoral—as is hers.

Rutledge’s sword cuts both ways. She finds much to praise and criticize in both mainline and evangelical circles. For example, she has no patience for evangelicals who see penal substitutionary atonement as the only true way to understand the cross. The Bible offers a wide range of images, metaphors, and teachings on Christ’s death, and we do it much injustice by diminishing or ignoring these. Nonetheless, she also has words of praise for figures like Billy Graham and F. F. Bruce.

At the same time she upends superficial aphorisms such as “God accepts us just as you are” or “Forgive and forget” or declarations of radical inclusiveness. None of us can achieve this no matter how open we are. Our congregation may accept those with Downs but may give up on someone with narcissistic personality disorder. We may welcome a transgender person but find we cannot include an unwashed, unmedicated street person. Then there are times conservative evangelicals are disdained or discriminated against. All fall short, you see.

Another major theme throughout the book is the equivalence of justification and righteousness which derive from the same Greek word. Further, we should not see this as a static condition, says Rutledge, but as God’s activity of setting things right. God rectifies the wrong, the sin, the evil in us and in the cosmos. Rectify better emphasizes what is going on than justification or righteousness which have become encumbered with centuries of debate and misunderstanding.

She is right that the manner of Christ’s death is significant. Dying in his sleep or having the dignity of being beheaded like a Roman citizen would have meant entirely different things. I found her case unconvincing, however, that the crucifixion was the most horrific and humiliating death of all since she would have to survey every other possible form of death to prove her point, clearly an unachievable task.

This and a few others are quibbles however in a stellar work that deserves (as it is getting) a wide readership among pastors, scholars, and those in the pew. She fully achieves the goal of searching the depths of this core of our faith, leading us to praise, worship, and renewed hearts.

The Problem with Writers

One of the main problems writers have is that we keep getting in the way of our own work. We fret if our ideas are any good, if our writing is stale, if anyone will enjoy it or be moved by it. Thinking about ourselves in this way can bring our work to full stop.

How do we overcome this? Instead of treating our writing as an avenue of self-expression or a channel for our unique creative impulse, we treat it like a job. We take the self-focused emotion out of the equation. As Steven Pressman says in The War of Art, we act like professionals. “The professional loves her work. She is invested wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.” (p. 88)

Our focus is not on ourselves but on production, on the words, on the craft. As professionals we commit to producing so many words per day or per week, and then we write them. We schedule deadlines for ourselves and meet them. If what we write is bad, we work at it more. If it is good, we improve it still further.

Yes, art matters. But it doesn’t arise by aiming at it. “The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique,” says Pressman, “not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.” (p. 84) Professionals engage in deliberate practice.

Writing as a form of therapy has its place. Journaling can help us work out a problem or deal with our past. But if our goal is to write something for other people to read, we have to forget about ourselves, be cold blooded and objective. We must listen to criticism as if it were about someone else’s work. Writing can’t be about us. It has to be about the writing.

Want to beat writer’s block? Act like a professional.

12 Rules for Life

“Be an adult. Quit your whining. Grow up.”

Jordan Peterson is the crusty, old coach who does not tolerate excuses, lack of effort, or stupid choices. He expects the best from you and won’t settle for anything less—not because he needs another victory but because he wants the best for you.

Listening to him read his book, 12 Rules for Life, you hear how he’s fed up with parents who coddle and refuse to correct their children, with people who won’t take care of their own health, with those who expect only good things in life and are surprised when bad things happen.

Judging by the sales of his books and views on YouTube, people seem to love his no-nonsense lectures—even when he’s shaking a finger at them. In an age when no one seems to know what’s right or wrong (or doesn’t believe in such things), how reassuring it is to hear from someone who confidently tells us exactly what to do.

Fortunately, Peterson has much wisdom to offer—yes, common sense.

  • If friends are having a bad influence on you, break the relationship. Instead, find people who will help you in life.
  • Tell the truth, even when it is hard, because if you don’t, the prevarication will come back to bite you.
  • Listen, really listen, to other people. You might learn something.

Peterson illustrates his principles with compelling stories from his own life, and backs his thinking with research from psychology, brain science, evolutionary science, and religion. He takes the Bible seriously, viewing it through the lens of his Jungian perspective on myth. That is, he sees the Bible as a valuable source of truth about human nature and how life works, leaving aside whatever spiritual realities it might contain.

I don’t agree with everything the old coach says, but there is so much of value here that it well deserves five stars and the wide reading it is getting.

The Road to Community

It’s not too early to think about that graduation speech you are going to give next May. David Brooks has some ideas about what you should not say.

Early in The Second Mountain, David Brooks delivers a devastating critique of the hyper-individualism one usually hears in commencement speeches: Be yourself. The future is limitless. Look inside for truth. Follow your passion. This, Brooks says, is the counsel of despair for most college students have no idea who they are, what they are passionate about, or how to go about making a future. Such advice rather than energizing them, puts the full responsibility for their lives on their own shoulders which cannot bear the weight.

The image of the second mountain suggests what Brooks has in mind instead. The first mountain is that of personal achievement, of individualism, and personal happiness. But this is often followed by a descent into a valley of moral, career, or financial failure—or just a vague depression. We ascend out of the valley to the second mountain via self-sacrifice, committing ourselves to something bigger than we are alone.

As the book progresses, we learn of Brooks’s own valley—divorce, children leaving the nest, living by himself in a small apartment, and his crushing loneliness. On his way out of the valley Brooks created Weave: The Social Fabric Project of the Aspen Institute. We thus hear a number of stories of people and organizations building community in a variety of ways, large and small, to repair or broken society. We also hear of his journey into a community of faith, and the people who walked this path with him such as John Stott and the woman he eventually married.

After his critique of individualism, the book focuses on major four commitments that are larger than ourselves—vocation, marriage, philosophy and faith, and community. Along with his introductory chapters, the last two sections are the strongest in the book.

In his opening to The Second Mountain, David Brooks says he is correcting his previous book, The Road to Character. I think, however, the two are simply companion volumes. While the earlier book focuses on the valid and important work of character development that each of us is responsible for, Brooks’s newest book highlights the importance of community for who we are.

I also found a kinship between this book and Ben Sasse’s, Them. Our increasing isolation from one another has led us to gravitate toward twisted forms of connection. As Brooks says, tribalism is the evil twin of community. The first is defined by who is our foe. The second by who is our friend. Both Brooks and Sasse emphasize the need to renew community and social networks (to actually get to know people face to face) to break down the hate that unnecessarily divides Americans from Americans.

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Photo credit: Alan Sun

The Grand Landscape of Scripture

When it comes to the Bible, scholars and non-scholars have something in common. We can both get lost in minutia.

Academics can get lost in the details of philology and morphology. The rest of us are prone to proof-texting, ripping verses or phrases out of context as if the Bible were a book of disconnected timeless truths or a mere handbook for living.

When we miss the big picture, Chris Wright and Gary Burge come to our rescue with excellent companion volumes—The Old Testament in Seven Sentences and The New Testament in Seven Sentences.

Each offers seven grand themes sparked by iconic verses in the Bible that help us see the majestic vista of God’s work. Wright’s choices from the Old Testament are creation, Abraham, Exodus, David, prophets, gospel, and wisdom. In the New, Burge walks us through fulfillment, kingdom, cross, grace, covenant, spirit, completion.

The two books link together in another way. Wright appropriately notes how the Old Testament points to and is fulfilled in Christ. Burge regularly points out how the New is based on and rooted in the Old. In plain and engaging language, both authors provide this necessary service because we have little hope of understanding Jesus or the apostles without engaging both testaments.

The result is a complete, brief, and readable overview of the Bible. Each book provides discussion questions for each chapter. Taking one a week, then, any church or small group could in under four months lift their heads from the weeds to see the grand landscape that is God’s story.

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Note: I received complementary copies of both books from the publisher. I also was responsible for signing Chris Wright to do his book for IVP, though I had retired before the book was released and did not participate in its development or final form. My opinions are my own.