Back in January, I went to an event at our church titled: “How to Navigate the 2024 Election Year”. The evening involved dinner and a book, as well as a guest speaker. His name is Eric Costanzo, and one of the books to choose between was his, Inalienable: How Marginalized Voices Can Help Save The American Church, coauthored with Daniel Yang and Matthew Soerens. That’s the one I chose. The event was okay, not great. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I went mainly to be supportive of our pastor.

So I read the book, taking over a month to go through it. It was published in 2022, which means it was mostly written in 2020 and 2021. I found the book a little difficult to read. One was the frequent references interspersed—but the authors said in the first chapter they would do that, so it wasn’t a surprise. The other was the frequent use of buzzwords. I have a internal buzzword meter that is kind of fine-tuned. Use a buzzword once and I ignore it. Use it twice and I get a  little irked. Use if four or five times in every chapter and I have to fight the urge to puke. That’s where this book is.

The first chapter takes the place of an introduction, with the title “Why the American Church Needs Saving”.  Very early comes the phrase, “many evangelical Christians in the United States have silently tolerated or openly embraced nationalism, sexism, and racism, ‘compromising our values for power.” That’s pretty clear for the premise they hope to prove.

Since I am part of the evangelical church, I guess he’s talking about me. Seems that whatever I—we—have done in our Christian walk is all wrong. Yet, in the entire 221 page book, they skirt the issue of who is responsible and give no action steps other than listen to the voices of the “global south,” which is defined in the book as those parts of the world lying south of white Europe and white America.

In an attempt to not offend people, they don’t give names of who is to blame. It’s clear that they are opposed to the evangelical church’s embrace of right-wing Republican politics. They condemn that embrace, as I do. But they don’t mention names, and they really don’t get into specific issues. It would have been nice for them to have picked a date, place, and time when the American church started to go bad to the point that it needs saving, because, assuming they are correct, that would give us a point in time to go back to, figure out what we did wrong, and make corrections going forward.

As to racism, the point is well taken. Sunday mornings tend to be the most segregated moment of the week, and that’s sad. Why is that so? The book didn’t really say, but they strongly imply it’s white racism that is the root cause. The authors seem to imply that forced diversity is the answer. I’ve always been a proponent of natural diversity, where, as an individual of reasonable intelligence and loving care, I come to recognize my prejudices, set them aside with God’s help, and embrace all people as equals before God.

To me it seems wrong-headed to say, Hey, our congregation is too white. We need to find some blacks, Asians, and Hispanics to reach out to. But I may not know any. Why? Simply because in my day-to-day roamings—to the grocery store, the doctor, on my walks, or wherever the chores of a given day take me—I may not meet people who are different than me, or the circumstances may not be right for discussing church with someone.

The other, main problem I see in the book is the continuation of the war on the individual. My review is much too long already, but throughout the book the authors work in that the existence of marginalized groups is due to individualism. I reject that, but explaining why will take more than one post.

Two other things about this book that irk me. While it includes many references to and quotes from their primary sources, the notes are endnote rather than footnotes. I hate endnotes. If it’s important enough to make a reference to it, it’s important enough to have it right on the page where I can easily see it without flipping a hundred pages away. And second, it does not include a list of suggested reading. The quote from probably two hundred sources (see the endnotes to find the names), but don’t suggest the 5, 10, or 20 that will help the reader the most in continued study of what’s wrong with American evangelicalism.

As it is, I give the book 3-stars. I almost gave it 2, but I realize the authors are trying to do a good thing here and address a problem they see. I’m not discarding the book. I hope to read it again, in the not too distant future, in hopes of learning something I missed, and to better understand the authors’ opinions.

Due to the current remediation work taking place at our house, we had to take all the books off the built-in bookshelves in the living room. The workmen then took the bookshelves out to get at the damaged areas. As I pulled books off the shelves, I saw some I didn’t realize were there. Most of the books went into boxes temporarily. They currently decorate our dining room floor, with no end in sight.

One such book was Guard Your Heart by Dr. Gary Rosberg. Published in 1994, this book came out in the midst of several men’s ministries, including Promise Keepers. Rosberg wasn’t part of that, but he was the founder of a different movement called CrossTrainers.

The book is excellent. You would think a book now 30 years old might be a little dated. Perhaps it is, but I found it to be excellent. Dr. Rosberg, a practicing counsellor (well, he was at the time; could be retired for all I know, though his website doesn’t indicate that) points out many things that men struggle with: juggling work and home; workplace difficulties; allocating time; maintaining spiritual vitality.

The book looks at what Rosberg calls “frontal attacks” and “sneak attacks that men he surveyed say are what they experience in their Christian life.  Each of several of these attacks are covered in separate chapters. I found the advice given useful to me, even though the book was written for younger men who are still in their careers.

I rate the book 4-stars. It loses one star simply due to its age—there are probably slightly better books written in the last five years dealing with the same issues. But don’t get me wrong: this is very good and well worth the read. Alas, however, it is not a keeper. To the donation pile it will go.

As I’ve said many times on this blog, a time of downsizing from our living circumstances is coming. As part of that, we need to get rid of about half of our 3,000 to 4,000 books. That number is after we have sold or donated many already. I figure well over 1,000 books are already gone. So in choosing books to read, I scan our shelves and try to choose something that looks interesting but is something I most likely won’t want to keep.

A number of our books are what could be called Christian classics. So a couple of months ago, when it was time to start a new book, my eyes fell on The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Written over 1,600 years ago, this meets the definition of Christian classic. I thought, it’s probably something every Christian should read. I started it in early 2023, read it on four days, put it aside, and picked it up again in late November last year.

Why did I lay it down after four days? Because I found it hard to read and understand. The book I read it in was translated by John K. Ryan. The original, of course, is in Latin. I suppose the readability will depend on the translation. Or is it possible that all translations can’t do more with the English construction than the original language gives you? I suppose I would need to read a different translation to find out.

Why didn’t I like it? Perhaps it’s due to passages like this one.

In truth, I should have wished, had I then been Moses—for we all come from the same clay, and what is man, unless because you are mindful of him?—I should have wished, if I had been what he was, and had been enjoined by you to write the book of Genesis, that such power of eloquence had been given to me, and such ways to fashion words that not even they that cannot yet understand how God creates things would reject my words as beyond my powers; while they who can already understand, no matter what true interpretation they have arrived at in their thought, would not find it passed over in your servant’s few words; and if some other man by the light of truth had perceived a further meaning, it should not fail to be understood from those same words.

And that’s just one sentence! The whole book is like that.

I found myself reading and not comprehending at all. The Confessions consists of thirteen books, each book broken down into multiple short chapters. I started each book with renewed determination to understand what I was reading. Alas, by the second chapter I would once again be reading the words but not comprehending.

When I was about halfway through I thought about giving up. But I pressed on. Sometimes the paragraphs put me to sleep; sometimes they were just incomprehensible. The main reading took me from Nov 29 to Jan 18. Rarely could I read as many ten pages at a sitting.

Well, this is quite a downer of a review. As you can tell, this book is not a keeper. But no worries: I have two more copies of it. Maybe, in a few years, I’ll pull out one of the others and see if another translation will be easier. But this mass-market paperback is going in the donation pile.

On to something else.

The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan is a Christian classic novel/allegory that has been around since 1678 in part and 1684 in complete version. For some reason, while I knew about this for years, I never read it.

But a couple of months ago, while browsing my bookshelves for something to read, I found this. I suggested it to Lynda early this month and she agreed we should read this.

Let me tell you, this is a hard read! The subject matter is great; the language is archaic and quite difficult to read, especially aloud. It didn’t help that the book we had was a mass-market paperback from 1968 that fell apart less than halfway through. While we were out and about for a doctor’s appointment, Lynda suggested we buy a new copy rather than power through with the loose pages. So we bought a new one.

The problem was that the book divisions weren’t the same in the 1968 and the newer (2008 or later) book. Bunyan’s book has lots of marginal notes and scripture references. In the 1968 book, the marginal notes are printed as headings between paragraphs. In the new book they are in the margins. Once I was able to orient to the new system, the reading was definitely easier in the new.

For those who don’t know the story, the first part follows a man named Christian, who lives in the City of Destruction. He decides to go on “pilgrimage”—the allegorical word for he became a Christian. He “leaves” his wife and four sons for his journey. Along the way he encounters many problems. He walks with a huge burden on his back. He walks alone, though frequently encounters both those who would deter him from his goal and those who would help him to reach his goal, the Celestial City.

In the second part, Christian’s wife, Christiana, decides she has made a mistake by not going with her husband on pilgrimage. She leaves the City of Destruction with her sons and Mercy, a young woman from the town. Their journey is much different than Christian’s was. They are given a “conductor”—a man named Great-Heart who will help them on their way. Their party of seven (Christiana, Mercy, the four boys, and Great-Heart) heads on the journey. Their guide advises them where to go and protects them from many of the dangers. Their party swell with additional pilgrims.

Eventually they reach the river across-which is the Celestial City. One by one they receive a message via “post”, and are given the time when they must enter the river and cross to meet their king, the allegorical description of death.

As I said, the reading is difficult. Neither of our books had modernized text or punctuation. I did some modernization as I read, but it was difficult.

I’m not going to rate this classic. And, while I suspect I will never read it again, I won’t discard the new book. I’ll find a place for it on the shelf. But the older book is going into the recycling bin.