CBMW, A Coalition for Biblical Sexuality, released their Nashville Statement today, and it is exactly as anti-LGBTQ+ as you might expect. I’m not sure why they felt the need to articulate in a formal statement what they have been saying for years: that LGBTQ+ people are outside the fold, so to speak. According to Article 7 anyone who adopts a “homosexual or trangender self-conception is [in]consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.” All of the signers have put it on record now if they hadn’t before.
But I was surprised (though maybe I shouldn’t be) by Article 10:
WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.
WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.
Apparently I am also outside of the fold for affirming LGBTQ+ relationships. I haven’t identified as an evangelical for more than a decade, but I considered myself as still part of the Christian faith. I’ve found a home in the Episcopal church, a much different tradition than I was taught. But the signers say that we can’t merely agree to disagree on this issue. In fact, my approval of LGBTQ+ individuals “constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.” To them, I am out.
The list of signers consists of many familiar names. These are the leaders I have been told to follow, and read, and listen to for years from my evangelical friends and family. They include John Piper, D.A. Carson, Wayne Grudem, John MacArthur, Russell Moore, R. Albert Mohler Jr., Francis Chan, R.C. Sproul, J.I. Packer, James Dobson, Alistair Begg, Randy Alcorn, Karen Swallow Prior, and many other big names in the evangelical world. It makes me wonder if my friends and family agree with the signers of this statement and think I have departed Christian faithfulness. It makes me sad to think so.
It already makes me sad that many evangelicals consider Julie Rodgers or Matthew Vines or my friend David and countless others as outside the fold. Now I realize that they may see me that way, too.
The more I think about it, though, and I can see that it isn’t about me. It’s a re-affirmation of the same anti-LGBTQ+ stance they have consistently held, and those are the individuals hurt by this statement. And even Article 10 isn’t really about me. It’s an attempt to keep the evangelical flock in line.
According to Pew Research, white evangelical Protestant support for same sex marriage is growing, from 27% in 2016 to 35% this year. And the younger generation is much more likely to support same sex marriage than older generations, though support is growing in every age cohort.
This doubling down on a culture war issue is likely to backfire. The CBMW met last Friday, the same day President Trump was pardoning a racist sheriff in Arizona who tortured prisoners and a hurricane was starting to flood the 4th largest city in America. This focus on who is in and who is out of the Christian community instead of living the good news to the sick, downtrodden, hungry and thirsty, and those in prison has led many to leave the church for good.
The loving God that I believe in made me just the way I am. He filled me with desires for love and connection, some of which can come from friendship, and some of which can come only from a romantic relationship with a person to whom I’m wildly attracted, and who wants to be with me the way I want to be with him. If I believe that God is truly loving, I have to believe that he did make me exactly as I am, and I need to continue pursuing patience, kindness, humility, and the many other virtues of love in the way that best leads me towards these things. That way is love. So I will pursue love until I no longer can.
Two years ago I wrote about how I changed my mind about same sex relationships, and it was thinking about my friend David that began the change in my heart. In that post I wrote that I would be following it up with some posts about the Bible passages that are usually used to condemn homosexuality. I finally have one of those posts nearly finished so that should be up in the near future. But before I get into abstract theological debates, I wanted to highlight the very real human element.
Next is a piece about a Christian alternative rock band named The Violet Burning. Michial Farmer, a fellow alum from the same Bible college I attended (though we didn’t actually overlap), has been writing a series of primers on bands and artists in the 90s Christian alternative rock scene. I was in high school and college during the 90s and these were some of the bands that meant the most to me in those years. Farmer has been doing a meticulous job in listing, ranking, and commenting on the important albums from these bands; all of the entries are well worth a read if you know these bands or if by some chance would like to know them now.
I want to highlight this entry on The Violet Burning because their music intersects with some of my personal history with how I met my wife. I met her on an online message board that discussed Christian alternative music, and my very first post on that message board involved TVB’s song “Ilaria.” Farmer says about the song that “Despite the hermeneutic gymnastics of some of Pritzl’s more pious fans, it’s hard to hear “Ilaria” as about anything other than sex,” and sure enough, that’s what my first post on the message board argued as well: “I myself have had Plastic and Elastic since it came out in late 98 and, to be honest, I’ve always thought the song was about sex.” She noticed my post.
We got married a little over three years after that initial post, and we ended up including one of The Violet Burning’s more worship-y songs in our wedding ceremony. My wife’s older brothers played and sang a deeply meaningful version of “I Remember” during communion. (While I’m mentioning our wedding music, I would be remiss not to share David’s version of The Magnetic Fields’s “It’s Only Time”—it’s so beautiful.)
The last piece I want to share is about home health care workers by Sarah Jaffe. I’ve written a number of short snapshots I’ve called “Hospital Stories” about the year I worked taking care of difficult patients in a hospital as a constant observer. This particular piece of journalism follows the career of June Barrett who has worked in Florida as a home care worker since 2003, not long after she immigrated to the United States from Jamaica. It’s a hard, demanding job, but it doesn’t pay very well. I remember well that I didn’t make a whole lot more than minimum wage for my hospital job either. It’s especially relevant now with the current health care bills in Congress and the potential for Medicaid cuts. As the article points out, under the Affordable Care Act,
The expansion of Medicaid, which took effect in 2014, meant more funding for home care and more jobs for care workers. The bill also expanded healthcare for the workers themselves – Barrett had never had chicken pox as a child, and when she contracted it as an adult from a client with shingles, it aggravated her asthma.
The whole piece is worth reading to think about the value we put on the hard and sometimes menial work of taking care of sick people in their homes.
I might try this link format again if there is remotely any interest in it.
Yet again I’ve written a short piece over at the Rock & Sling blog about sleep patterns and adapting as a parent. Each kid is different and unique, and the circumstances change and development occurs so rapidly: I have to be ready for anything. I can never think I have it all figured out as a parent.
As I say in the essay, my wife reminds me again and again that “this too shall pass.” The evergreen saying comes from Abraham Lincoln, who was passing along ancient wisdom.
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! — how consoling in the depths of affliction! “And this, too, shall pass away.”
Last July I went to a local Black Lives Matter vigil. It had been a hard week. A really hard and depressing week. Videos on successive days showed two different black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, dying at the hands of police officers. Then, when tensions were already high, almost to the breaking point, a peaceful protest in Dallas was interrupted by gunfire as a disgruntled man targeted the police officers who facilitated the protest. He killed five officers and injured more. All of these deaths were awful.
The vigil I attended was a way for the community here in Sioux Falls to stand in solidarity with other affected communities. Sioux Falls is a predominantly white city. In 2010 our population was nearly 87% white (compared to the U.S. as a whole, which in 2010 was 72% white), but it’s becoming less white, just as the rest of the U.S. is becoming less white.
I had decided that I wanted to participate in the vigil because I wanted to mourn with those who mourn, and because I wanted to affirm the worth and value of black lives in my community and in my country.
The plan was to march to the County Administration building. We met several blocks away on an empty lot next to what passes for a major artery through town. I saw a few friends milling around, and I was relieved to see the familiar faces. There was a local TV news crew and a reporter or two, interviewing the organizers of the march. I had forgotten to bring a sign.
The organizer gathered everyone around and then she read the last words of black people killed by police plus their names and age at death. (You can find these and others using #lastwords).
“I can’t breathe. Eric Garner, 43”
“I don’t have a gun. Stop shooting. Michael Brown, 18.”
“Mom, I’m going to college. Amadou Diallo, 23.”
And on and on. So many names. So many last words.
[The original version of this post included Trayvon Martin in the list of last words. Martin was not shot by police, of course, but by George Zimmerman, a civilian who felt empowered by the Stand Your Ground law in Florida. I included Martin because his case was so prominent, and because his death was so tragic. I didn’t mean to imply that he had been killed by police. I regret the error.]
Then we started to march.
We chanted “Black lives matter!” as we walked to the county building. Yelling in public is not really my thing. In fact, public demonstrations of emotion of any kind aren’t really my thing. I’m more of a homebody. I like to stay at home and read a book or watch Netflix.
But I was there to march. And I was there to chant. So I yelled along with everyone else. I wanted my voice to join with the chorus. I wanted everybody there to hear me voicing my solidarity. I wanted to be a part of the vigil. And I wanted the other marchers, especially the living, breathing, black lives there to know that I was standing with them.
Near the county building, police officers stopped traffic so that the marchers could cross a busy street to get to the parking lot. I noticed one officer was smiling and shaking hands with everyone who passed him. I gladly shook his hand. The officer next to him wasn’t smiling, but he had been persuaded to shake the hand of someone in front of me. I stuck out my hand, and though he didn’t notice it immediately, he then shook my hand. I’m not against police. They have an extremely difficult job. If I can help build bridges, that’s what I would like to do.
At the county building, the space was given for anyone to share grief, pain, anger, sadness, or whatever. Many people came to the front to talk, sharing impromptu thoughts and feelings. I knew I wouldn’t go up to say anything. I was there to listen and just be.
There were lots of black and white people there, and at least one Native American guy. Some pastors from several different churches and denominations got up and prayed. One memorable guy spoke about Martin Luther King and why we can’t wait for justice. Someone read, “First they came for the socialists, then they came for…” to illustrate how glad she was that people were there who aren’t black, that they would stand with their black brothers and sisters. I was glad to think that my presence might be an encouragement to her.
A few white people went up and said unfortunate things about how all lives matter and we shouldn’t focus on race. I could tell that they meant well, truly, and I felt pretty awkward for them. They wanted to say something positive, but didn’t know how to put it.
What does black lives matter even mean, and why is it insufficient to say all lives matter? Many others have explained it better, but for me, when I say black lives matter, it boils down to expressing concern and support for those who don’t feel like society values them as much as everyone else. When they see that black people are more likely to be killed by police, when they see that black people are more likely to be arrested and incarcerated, when they see discrimination against black people in housing or employment or in the classroom, when they see black people’s voting rights attacked, and when they see large portions of the country question whether the first black president was even born in America or if he is patriotic and loves his country, they can be forgiven for thinking that their lives don’t matter as much as others do. It’s not that other lives don’t matter because it’s not a zero sum game. If I affirm that black lives matter, it doesn’t mean that other lives matter less. No, what it means is that black lives matter, too. Black lives matter just like other lives matter. Even if they are oppressed and killed, their lives still matter.
So what’s wrong with saying that all lives matter then? The reason it’s an unhelpful response to someone who says black lives matter is that it is beside the point. It’s not addressing the problems that lead one to feel the need to say that black lives matter, too. In fact it treats those problems as if they don’t really exist. Think of it like this, if I broke my arm and went to the emergency room, I’d want them to splint my forearm and come up with a plan to fix it. But if the doctor listened to my tale of woe about my broken arm and responded, “All bones matter,” and then sent me on my way without even looking at my arm, I’d feel like the doctor wasn’t listening to me and my pain. In fact, I’d think the doctor didn’t actually want to help me get better because he couldn’t even acknowledge the problem by looking at my arm. That’s what “All lives matters,” sounds like.
A while back I wrote a post about a time a few years ago when I got pulled over. I wasn’t worried about the situation escalating, and I wasn’t fearful for my life. A few months after that post I got pulled over again on the way to pick up my son from kindergarten. Again it was for having an expired registration. I had mailed in my money for new stickers to put on my license plate, but they hadn’t arrived yet. The officer told me that I should have used the kiosk to get my stickers instantly (note to Sioux Falls residents, use the kiosks!). He was very nice about it, but he still gave me a provisional ticket. When my registration arrived a few days later, I drove downtown to the station and provided proof and my ticket was nullified. A dozen years ago when I was in graduate school I was pulled over for speeding, but the state trooper let me go with a warning. Those are the only times I’ve been pulled over by law enforcement that I can remember. Three times in over twenty years of driving.
Now think about Philando Castile, the black man who was shot during a traffic stop that July week, a man who worked for years for the St. Paul school district in the lunch rooms. According to NPR, Castile was pulled over at least 46 times in a 14 year period between July 2002 and July 2016. I can’t imagine facing that kind of scrutiny as a driver. I would be worried whenever I got in the car to drive anywhere.
Now think about the situations in Ferguson and Baltimore. There were riots in Ferguson after the death of Michael Brown and in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray. But the riots weren’t really about those deaths. Or I should say they weren’t merely about those deaths. Their deaths were a catalyst. The killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray were the lit fuse, but the powder kegs were already there. In the case of Ferguson, which is one of the municipalities in St. Louis County, there was a large measure of distrust of the police force. And for very good reason.
After Michael Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson, the Justice Department looked into the matter of his death and at the Ferguson Police Department as a whole. The result of the first investigation was that they “determined that the evidence does not establish that Darren Wilson violated the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute” beyond a reasonable doubt. The results of the other investigation were much more troubling. The DOJ found that the Ferguson Police were racially biased against African Americans, made illegal stops and arrests, and focused on generating revenue over public safety. Read that last part again: the police and courts in Ferguson were focused on giving out tickets and fines so they could raise revenue for the local government at the expense of keeping the public safe, which is their whole reason for being. As others have put it, they treated the citizens of their municipality like an ATM. Check out the summary by the Justice Department for yourself:
“The department found that the FPD has a pattern or practice of:
Conducting stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment;
Interfering with the right to free expression in violation of the First Amendment; and
Using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The department found that Ferguson Municipal Court has a pattern or practice of:
Focusing on revenue over public safety, leading to court practices that violate the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection requirements.
Court practices exacerbating the harm of Ferguson’s unconstitutional police practices and imposing particular hardship upon Ferguson’s most vulnerable residents, especially upon those living in or near poverty. Minor offenses can generate crippling debts, result in jail time because of an inability to pay and result in the loss of a driver’s license, employment, or housing.
The department found a pattern or practice of racial bias in both the FPD and municipal court:
The harms of Ferguson’s police and court practices are borne disproportionately by African Americans and that this disproportionate impact is avoidable.
Ferguson’s harmful court and police practices are due, at least in part, to intentional discrimination, as demonstrated by direct evidence of racial bias and stereotyping about African Americans by certain Ferguson police and municipal court officials.”
The problem wasn’t limited to Ferguson, but occurred in many of the other municipalities of St. Louis County. St. Louis County has 90 small municipalities, most of which have their own police force, city government, and municipal court. Those police, government, and court officers need to be funded. Many of those towns use tickets and fines as a source of funding. The police departments and the courts are often staffed with people from other, wealthier towns, so they do not understand the people they are supposed to be protecting and judging.
The situation in Baltimore before the death of Freddie Gray was also bleak. For years the Baltimore police also had a pattern of violating the Constitution and discriminating against black people. The report put it this way:
“BPD makes stops, searches and arrests without the required justification; uses enforcement strategies that unlawfully subject African Americans to disproportionate rates of stops, searches and arrests; uses excessive force; and retaliates against individuals for their constitutionally-protected expression. The pattern or practice results from systemic deficiencies that have persisted within BPD for many years and has exacerbated community distrust of the police, particularly in the African-American community.”
If you have doubts about the situations in these communities, please, please read the links I have provided to the Justice Department report summaries about Ferguson and Baltimore. Read the whole reports. It’s impossible to understand the situation in these places without that knowledge of how police had mistreated the black people in their community. That doesn’t condone violence by the protesters. I’m not asking you to say that violence is okay. But it does help us understand what they are protesting; it helps us understand why they feel like they have no voice and no power. Then maybe we can think about how we would feel and what we would do in similar circumstances.
Imagine that you’ve received a parking ticket, or gotten pulled over for an expired registration like I have been, and then because you live paycheck to paycheck (as so many people do) that led to a downward spiral of court dates, late fees, and arrest warrants. The original ticket was too much to pay, but you couldn’t get off work to fight it in court either. The outrageously high late fees add to the amount that you can’t afford. Finally the court issues a warrant for all the money you now owe, all because you forgot to get your new registration on time. How would you feel towards cops? How would you feel towards the courts?
Imagine that a friend of yours was arrested, and then on the ride back to the station he mysteriously died from a broken spinal cord like Freddie Gray did. How much would you trust the police after that?
In the fall during the presidential campaign, after the high profile shooting deaths of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, then Indiana Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence (and current Vice President) said, “we ought to set aside this talk about institutional racism and institutional bias.” There is clear evidence of institutional racism and institutional bias in the police departments of Ferguson and Baltimore, but Pence would prefer we not talk about it. He thinks we should sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist. In effect, he is saying that black lives don’t matter as much as other lives.
Earlier today, recently confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, head of the Justice Department, admitted that he hadn’t read the full Justice Department reports on Ferguson and Chicago (and presumably Baltimore, too). He found the summaries “too anecdotal” so he dismissed them. Contrary to Sessions’s blithe description, the Ferguson report was based on interviews with city officials and half the police department; data analysis of stops, citations, and arrests; review of police records and emails; observations of the municipal court; etc. It is not merely a few anecdotes of bad behavior. The problems in Ferguson were system wide. But the new Attorney General would rather not read the whole report. He’s not going to bother. He’s also effectively saying that black lives don’t matter as much as other lives.
So here’s what I mean when I say Black Lives Matter. I mean that it’s a travesty that black people are killed by police at a higher rate than white people. I mean that it’s unjust that black people are over-represented in arrests for drug crimes when they use drugs at similar rates as whites. I mean that it’s sick that municipal governments could act like shake down artists to their residents. I mean that black lives matter as much as my own life or anyone else’s life.
So I will join with others who say it because it needs to be said until it becomes a reality.
It’s hard to narrow down a year’s worth of reading to a manageable list of the cream of the crop, but I’ll try. From the books I read in 2016, here are the fifteen books I would most recommend. First are the top three essential books that I would most enthusiastically recommend to anyone. The other twelve were also great, and I recommend them heartily, too. If you want to check out last year’s list, click here. Like last year, I’m putting them in the order that I read them. Unlike last year, I’m including longer excerpts from my reviews to give a fuller recommendation. But if you’d like even more, click on the title of the book for the complete review. Now to the books!
“an essential book. Please, please, read it. Desmond makes the convincing case that there is a serious lack of affordable housing that exacerbates, and is a root cause of, the hardships the poor face. The book follows the lives of a small number of tenants in Milwaukee and their landlords through their evictions and searches for shelter. […] If you have any interest in understanding poverty, please read this book. It is uniformly excellent. I can hardly recommend it enough.”
“a visceral novel about slavery in America. It’s 1976, and the narrator Dana, an African American, is somehow transported back to antebellum Maryland where she is confronted with a drowning white child. She travels back and forth, seemingly at whim, until she realizes that she is connected to the child. […] The story takes the jumps in time as a given. One of the strengths of this device is that it puts our modern sensibilities back into the past so that we can better imagine what life was like for slaves and their owners. It’s so easy for me as a white person today to think that I would have of course been an abolitionist if I had lived back then. But what if I had lived in the south where slavery was an institution interwoven into the fabric of everyday life? What if my own family had owned slaves? Would I have really held beliefs that would be to the detriment of my own welfare? It’s a tough question. The book makes us consider that it was the times that made the person. In describing the slave owner, Dana says this, “He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper” (134). And she describes many monstrous things that he does. It’s enough to make us weep.”
“an essential work of history. Wilkerson tells the story of the internal migration of millions of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North and West during the 20th century. Actually, she focuses her attention on three individuals as representatives of those millions. […] Throughout these three stories, Wilkerson weaves in all the appropriate context so that we as readers can see the big picture, too. It’s really a marvelous narrative history that illuminates so much of the 20th century and today. I can hardly say enough good about it. Everyone should read it.”
“It starts with one of the famous lines of literature: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” From there, we follow Clarissa Dalloway (and other characters) through all the preparations for a party that evening at her residence. […] The narration floats and glides from character to character, in and out of minds, seamlessly transitioning from one to the next, like a butterfly flitting here and there. It can be disorienting, but it is also so fluid. We get to experience life through so many eyes and minds. It’s exquisite.”
“a collection of poetry full of longing and insight and barbecues. One thing I noticed is that this collection works as a cohesive book and not merely a random selection of poems by one author. Characters and objects and themes recur throughout the book, filling out the neighborhood feel to the proceedings.”
“a really great novel. It tells the story of two friends, Sula and Nel, who grow up in a small, segregated Ohio town. In brief chapters the story flows as the two girls share life together and then separate when Sula leaves town to live freely. Nel stays and settles down until the day Sula comes back and shakes things up again. […] I began the book worried that it would be too “literary,” which by itself is not a fault and which I often love about books. I love many difficult literary books. But I’ve found that it’s harder for me to give those kinds of books the attention and concentration required these last few years now that I have kids. I’m more easily distracted. So I loved that I could follow the story in Sula, and it was still a deep and rich book even if not as difficult as I expected. An impressive achievement.”
“There have been five major extinction events in Earth’s history, and we are currently living during the sixth. Previous extinction events have been caused by catastrophes like asteroid impacts. Not so for the sixth extinction, which we are currently witnessing. Human behavior, whether greedy or careless, has caused the extinction of untold numbers of species.”
“a touching graphic novel about growing up. It’s the story of Rose, a girl on the cusp of becoming a teenager. Every summer she and her parents travel to a cabin on a lake for vacation. The routines are established: swimming in the lake, bonfires on the beach, reading in her room, and playing with Windy, another girl a year or two younger whose family also comes to the lake every summer. […] The art is a real strength, too. At times cartoony, and other times more detailed and realistic, it’s in total harmony with the story.”
“I feel like it is a book that was written for me, a book that helps me make sense of the Bible and modern scholarship at a time when I’m full of questions and doubts. The main thesis of the book is that there is an incarnational analogy between the Bible and Jesus where both are fully divine and fully human. […] I would highly recommend this book to any Christian, especially anyone with an evangelical background who finds themselves asking how modern scholarship on the Old Testament can be reconciled with believing that the Bible is still God’s word.”
“a thoroughly engrossing literary thriller. Playing with the historical Vlad the Impaler and Bram Stoker’s character Dracula, the novel follows the investigations of an unnamed narrator, her father, his mentor, and other historians as they try to unravel the mystery of what exactly happened to Dracula and where he is buried. It all starts when the narrator finds a letter in her father’s library, tucked away in a strange book. The letter starts, “My dear and unfortunate successor…” and the book is an ancient volume with totally blank pages except for a woodcut image of a dragon at the very center of the book.”
“a fascinating series of snapshots of the American church and how it is currently dealing with LGBTQ issues. Chu spends a year talking to Christians–some gay, some not–all over the country to find out about their experiences. When I first heard about this book, I thought it was going to be mostly a memoir about Chu’s own life. While he does give some autobiography, almost the whole book is given over to other people’s stories. He talks to people with views and experiences all across the spectrum. What I really appreciated is that Chu allows people to talk and give their opinions, really seeing them as individuals, even when he disagrees with them. […] I think any Christian, no matter where they stand on the issue, would profit from hearing the stories of these individuals.”
“an extraordinary art book about the science and stories of weather. Melding her skills as an artist with her ability to present research in an interesting way, Redniss has created a unique and fascinating book. Chapters range from the history of lighthouses and fog off Cape Spear in Newfoundland to the shipping of ice from New England to warmer climes all over the world to forest fires in Australia and the American West to the science of weather prognostication especially as practiced by the Old Farmer’s Almanac.”
“a beautiful novel spanning several generations of two families on and off the reservation in North Dakota. Through a series of interconnected stories that span at least 50 years, Erdrich introduces the reader to marvelous characters who remain alive long after closing the book.”
“a terrifically fun history lesson on Puritan New England. While not a historian, Vowell has done the research in primary documents to get the story right. […] She loves America and its history, but she’s also willing to looks at its faults and how it has failed to live up to its ideals. I would highly recommend this take on the Puritans. It’s made me want to read more on them in a way no other previous encounter in a history textbook has.”
“a fascinating look at one man’s life and the life of a century in a graphic novel that is exactly 100 pages long. Julio himself lives to be 100, born in 1900 and dying in 2000. The story of the century is also there, but the focus is on Julio and his family and friends.”
I mentioned in my last set of reviews for 2016 that I don’t plan on doing my monthly roundup of mini book reviews anymore. However, I’ll still do a best books of the year feature of the books I liked and would most recommend. I’m already working on that list. I hope I find as many good ones as this year.
This batch of book reviews round out last year’s reading. I got behind in writing them for reasons that I can’t even recall, but it nagged at me that I hadn’t finished them. These will probably be the last set of book reviews I do in this format. In the future, I may do a deep dive into a particularly insightful or powerful book. Or I may do a roundup of a few books on one topic. I’m not entirely sure yet. But I’m not planning on doing monthly reviews anymore. However, I think I’ll still make a list of the best books I read in a given year to recommend. Speaking of which, I’ll put up a year in review of the best books I read in 2016 shortly.
Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics by Jonathan Dudley is a careful critique of evangelicalism by someone who grew up in that world. It reads as a succinct summary of some of my own changes in thinking on these topics. Dudley’s book can be summarized well with two quotes. First, his thesis: “Evangelicalism has defined itself by weakly supported boundary markers, which are justified by a flawed understanding of biblical interpretation and maintained by suppressing those who disagree” (24). The four boundary markers dealt with in the book are abortion, homosexuality, environmentalism, and evolution. Basically the hot button topics in the culture wars. If one takes the wrong view on any of these issues, one cannot be in the evangelical club anymore. The second quote concerns the justification from the Bible part of the thesis: “Biases and prior beliefs are not something that get in the way of interpretation, something that must be brushed aside; rather, biases and prior beliefs are behind every interpretation” (108-9). Everyone approaches the Bible with prior beliefs and biases. Even the straightforward plain interpretation that we think is objective is certainly a matter of the lens we use when we read. An easy example from the book is that Christians were not all that concerned when Darwin first published his theory of evolution in 1859. It wasn’t until decades later that fundamentalists and evangelicals felt that they had to reject evolution and believe in a young earth. Christians approached the same text with different prior beliefs at different points in time and came to vastly different conclusions. Besides this major point about interpretation, Dudley also wants to make a point about the Christian use of science. He notes how Christian pro-lifers claim that science shows that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception (an argument Dudley doesn’t accept). But when it comes to other matters of science, such as the widespread scientific evidence for evolution or global warming, evangelical Christians often find themselves dismissing science. Evangelicals only like science when it seemingly agrees with their political beliefs. Dudley grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, home to several evangelical colleges and publishing houses. He attended Calvin College, then studied religion at seminary, and then began medical school, while finishing this book. I don’t have the same educational path, but I can relate to his intellectual and faith journey and some of his conclusions. I would definitely recommend this book.
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power by Ryan North and Erica Henderson is an incredibly fun comic book. It’s light-hearted and funny. I find it hard to decide which I like more, the writing or the artwork. North has fun with Doreen Green and her supporting cast of friends and squirrels, as well as the villains, but he gives them all a lot of heart and personality. Henderson does a great job balancing cartoony action and characters, but never exploits or sexualizes the characters, a problem all too rampant in comics. Doreen looks like the college student she is, not an unrealistic supermodel in a swimsuit trying to fight crime. She’s someone I’d want to be friends with if I had a friend who could talk to squirrels. She eats nuts and kicks butts. Even if you think you don’t like superhero comics, you might like this one. I’m really looking forward to reading more of this series.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson is an essential work of history. Wilkerson tells the story of the internal migration of millions of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North and West during the 20th century. Actually, she focuses her attention on three individuals as representatives of those millions. Through the story of Ida Mae we learn how tenuous was the position of sharecroppers in Mississippi, how hard the work was picking cotton and how little they got paid, if at all. So much depended on the whims of the white landowners. After Ida Mae’s husband’s cousin Joe Lee, who lived a few shacks down from them, was falsely accused of stealing turkeys and subsequently half beaten to death, Ida Mae and her family packed up and left for Milwaukee, ending up on the South Side of Chicago before long. There they face housing discrimination; all the black families moving in are forced into strict geographical boundaries, and any time they try to move into a new neighborhood, the white neighbors first try to fight their arrival, and if that failed then they all moved out. If you want to know why cities are like they are, this book is illuminating. Even the world famous gospel singer Mahalia Jackson faced housing discrimination when she bought a house in a nice neighborhood. She received death threats in the middle of the night before she moved in, and after she did, bullets shattered some of her windows. Police had to keep guard around her house for nearly a year to prevent violence. No one was immune from discrimination. Despite the hardships in the North, Ida Mae experienced some measure of true freedom. She was able to vote for the first time. The family was eventually able to buy a house, but soon after they did, the whites in the neighborhood took flight. The two other individuals the book focuses on, Dr. Robert Foster and George Starling, provide more glimpses into life in the Jim Crow South and how they tried to make a better life in L.A. and New York, respectively. Dr. Foster left a life in rural Louisiana where the highest he could have risen was to a country doctor making house calls to black families with no admitting privileges at the local hospital. He wanted fame and fortune and a good life. George Starling picked fruit in the groves of Florida, chafing at the unfair labor practices, before he headed North. He worked for the railroad on a line that traveled up and down the east coast, so he got to see the changes from North to South for decades. Throughout these three stories, Wilkerson weaves in all the appropriate context so that we as readers can see the big picture, too. It’s really a marvelous narrative history that illuminates so much of the 20th century and today. I can hardly say enough good about it. Everyone should read it.
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert is a short and excellent primer on climate change (I read it in a day). The book is based on a series of articles Kolbert wrote for The New Yorker magazine, where she is a staff writer, in order “to convey, as vividly as possible, the reality of global warming” (2). By traveling to locations across the globe, Kolbert tells how things are changing: glaciers are shrinking, permafrost is melting, oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, animal migrations are shifting towards the warming poles, and plants are earlier than usual. A small island community in Alaska has to move because of the rising ocean level. While telling the stories of various changes worldwide, Kolbert also explains the science to a lay audience without getting too technical. The only downside to this well written little book is that it is already a bit out of date. It was published in 2006, but since then we have had still warmer years, and the trend continues upward. Despite that one drawback, I would highly recommend it. [Note: there is a newer revised and expanded edition, so forget what I said. Read that one instead.]
The Everyday Parenting Toolkit by Alan E. Kazdin with Carlo Rotella is a very helpful book for parents. Kazdin draws on the available social science on children’s behavior and his experience working at the Yale Parenting Center to give useful guidelines for how to change problematic behavior in kids. The key is the focus on behavior. Parents, me included, want our kids to be kind and generous, resilient and motivated, and not selfish jerks. But how do these qualities get cultivated? It starts with behavior. Kazdin explains his ABC method, which is backed up by research and with examples of how it works. He describes his techniques as tools in the toolbox. They are adaptable depending on the situation; some will be used more than others. The first thing to think about when considering children’s behavior is the Antecedent of the behavior. How can parents set up the situation for the behavior they wish to see? The goal is to make the choice for the child as likely as possible. Asking in a calm voice one time helps. Giving a choice also helps. Children like to have at least a small measure of autonomy. The next consideration is the Behavior itself. Sometimes this is clear like when I want my kids to clear their places by putting their dishes into the sink after a meal or brush their teeth before bed. But often I want them to stop an irritating or dangerous behavior. It’s not very effective to merely say don’t do that. What kids need is positive reinforcement for the behavior I do want to see. In order to make that happen, I have to think of the positive opposite of undesirable behavior. This isn’t always easy to do, but it’s crucial. So for example, my 3 year old throws screaming tantrums sometimes. I can’t change the fact that he gets upset by things, but I do want him to deal with his upset feelings with a different strategy than by screaming. So I will praise him for any approximation that gets us closer to the desired behavior. This is called shaping the behavior. If he never has done the desired behavior, then we can practice a simulation so he can try to do it when he does actually get upset. The third part is the area of Consequences, which is where a lot of people want to start. For Kazdin, consequences are positive reinforcement for the desired behavior. Mostly this means praise from parents that is immediate, effusive, and specific, with some sort of affection added. Sometimes other methods can help, too, like a point chart, but praise from parents is the best reinforcer. Kazdin has a lot more to explain and tons of examples (as well as another book for the tough cases of especially defiant children), but this is the outline. Some of it is definitely counter-intuitive. But I can see that barking at my children to stop doing something rarely works and it often escalates. When I’ve been able to implement the Kazdin ABCs I’ve had much more success in changing unwanted behavior. I’d really recommend this to any and all parents.
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor is a revealing and instructive memoir from one of our Supreme Court Justices. She details her life with precision and insight up until her appointment as a District Court judge in 1992; the rest of her life and career will presumably have to wait until her retirement. I was especially interested in finding out more about her life because my kids attend a Spanish immersion elementary school named after her. There are many interesting details to her early life growing up poor in a housing project in the Bronx. Her alcoholic father died when she was young, so she and her brother had to assume a lot of responsibility in their household with only their mother to raise them. Especially humanizing is her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at age seven that she has had to manage for the rest of her life. That diagnosis led her to give up dreams of growing up and becoming a detective and instead focus on training to be a lawyer. She knew from an early age what she wanted to do in life. One of the overriding themes of her memoir is that of empathy. In a pivotal passage, Sotomayor explains how she understood the importance of empathy through two events and by reading Lord of the Flies. In the classic book, a group of boys have to fend for themselves on an island by themselves. Their survival is precarious, and they must work together in order to make it through. Sotomayor notices the same precariousness in her own life. She notices a police officer extorting a street fruit vendor for two bags of fruit. She also witnesses her own aunt making prank calls to random women, pretending that she was having affairs with their husbands. Putting it all together, she declares, “I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view” (123). Her story continues as she details how hard she worked to make it through Princeton and Yale Law School, despite “limits of class and cultural background” (171). It’s an inspiring book, and she doesn’t refrain from talking about mistakes she has made such as her brief marriage to her high school sweetheart. This is a memoir I’d recommend reading.
No matter who you support in this 2016 election, there’s one thing everyone can agree on: Hillary Clinton is not very authentic. Her every move is focus-group-tested and she’ll say just about anything to get the power she’s always craved. We all know it.
Back in the 1990’s while I was in high school and college, I hardly followed politics at all. I was a Republican, of course. Everyone I knew was a Republican. I remember in 1992, when Bill Clinton won the first time, my changing voice cracking as I told my high school friends the results of the electoral college. One of my friends listened to Rush Limbaugh, and I remember how he would refer to Clinton as Slick Willy. Although I didn’t really follow the issues, I knew that Clinton was doing things I disagreed with and that the Democrats were despicable. My first vote for president was for a doomed Bob Dole in 1996 when I sent in my absentee ballot back home from my dorm room. Looking down the ticket, I didn’t know about any of the other candidates on the ballot, so I voted for all the Republicans.
As little as I knew of politics at the time, I did know this: I didn’t trust those Clintons, either of them.
So a few years later when Hillary decided to run for the open Senate seat in New York for the 2000 election, I agreed with those who thought it was rank opportunism. She and Bill bought a house in Chappaqua, and she engaged on her famous listening tour. But one detail of her pandering stood out to me: in June 1999, a month before she formally announced her candidacy, she put on a Yankees cap.
The problem with putting on a Yankees cap is that everyone knew that she, a native of Illinois, was a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan. Switching allegiance for the sole purpose of trying to win an election was clear evidence she was a faker. Rooting for a sports team, especially the local team from childhood, is a part one’s identity. To suddenly cheer for another team showed how inauthentic she really was. Oh sure, she tried to tell Katie Couric in an interview that she could be both: “I am a Cubs fan,” Clinton said. “But I needed an American League team…so as a young girl, I became very interested and enamored of the Yankees.” The front page of the Style section of the Washington Postnoted that “a sleepy-eyed nation collectively hurled,” at the obvious lie. No one bought it. And neither did I.
I knew Hillary Clinton was a fraud. She didn’t have any core beliefs. She would say whatever it took to win the election in New York. Her newfound love of the Yankees was one more piece of evidence that confirmed my thinking.
But what if I was wrong? I didn’t consider the possibility at the time. I didn’t consider it eight years later during the 2008 Democratic primary when I supported Barack Obama. Even though I had become a Democrat in the intervening years, I still didn’t trust Clinton. (The story of my switch from Republican to Democrat will have to wait for another day.)
I found out recently that I have been wrong all these years. Hillary Clinton genuinely did like the Cubs and the Yankees growing up. Clinton’s love for baseball and her lifelong Yankee fandom were documented in two Washington Post articles, in the same Style section, years before she even thought of running for the New York Senate seat, left open by a retiring Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
The first article, published right before she became First Lady in January of 1993, showed how she practiced with her dad and learned to hit a curveball as well as this key detail from a childhood friend: “‘We used to sit on the front porch and solve the world’s problems,’ said Rick Ricketts, her neighbor and friend since they were 8. ‘She also knew all the players and stats, batting averages—Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle—everything about baseball.’” Maris and Mantle, known as the M&M boys, were Hall of Famers who played for the Yankees during the years of Clinton’s childhood. In the ’61 season, when Clinton would have been 13, they both chased the single season home run record held by Babe Ruth with Maris eventually breaking the record on the last day of the season.
The second article was published the following year when the Ken Burns documentary about baseball came out. Burns admired Clinton’s swing of the bat when he asked,
“‘That was a great swing,’ Burns told her. ‘Did you get some batting practice before the screening, just to warm up?’ Mrs. Clinton, who as a kid was a ‘big-time’ fan of the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees and ‘understudied’ Ernie Banks and Mickey Mantle, smiled.”
Banks played for the Cubs, and Mantle, of course, played for the Yankees. Both started their major league careers for their respective teams in the early 50s, when Clinton was a young child.
So all this time Hillary Clinton had been telling the truth about the Cubs and Yankees. The issue could have been easily cleared up in 1999, but it wasn’t. Instead, a narrative about her cravenness took hold and persisted in my mind until a few months ago. I’m sure I’m not alone.
This whole incident is a perfect example of my own confirmation bias. One psychologist defines it like this: “Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand.” I already knew Hillary Clinton was untrustworthy, so when this piece of evidence about her posing as a Yankees fan in 1999 came to light, it confirmed what I already knew.
Even if it had been true, claiming to like the local sports team is obviously a venial sin. But in my mind it represented a core truth about her. My entire conception of her was informed by this anecdote; it stood for something much larger. Believing such a falsehood tainted how I perceived Clinton for years. It was impossible not to see her as a calculating panderer who would do anything to get elected.
During the primaries of the 2016 presidential campaign, I tried to take an open-minded look at all of the candidates, including Hillary Clinton. But it was still hard to trust her. As I learned more about her, my perspective on her slowly shifted, until I now find myself nearly 180 degrees from my college self. My former self would have been shocked and incredulous to learn that factcheckers rated her one of the most truthful candidates.
So if I could be wrong for so many years on such a little matter that affected how I saw a prominent politician, what else could I be wrong about?
In the end, putting on a Yankees cap was a problem for Clinton, but not only because it falsely confirmed the narrative that she was a fraud. It was a problem because the Yankees aren’t the only baseball team in New York. Fans of the Mets had reason to be mad at her.
(I learned the truth about Clinton and the Yankees from Kevin Drum and Bob Somerby.)
Their main target of criticism is Jim Wallis of Sojourners because he has accepted money from George Soros, a liberal philanthropist. Multiple paragraphs denounce the nefarious Soro, all of them filled with links about the many ways he is undermining their conception of America. Wallis is presented as a stooge of the supposedly anti-Christian Soros, as are any other progressives who might agree with their political ideas about immigration reform or other social justice issues.
So who is the American Association of Evangelicals? They describe themselves this way: “Speaking truth to power, more than 100 evangelical and Catholic leaders urge Progressive “faith” groups to turn away from the liberal political funding and agenda that demoralizes and weakens the poor, the family, the Church and the nation.” I like the way they put “faith” in scare quotes in order to delegitimize progressive Christians. That’s what true friends do. I can tell that they’re really sincere when they say that “most believers mean well,” except they can’t accept that the faith of progressive Christians might lead towards a more liberal political agenda. So they can’t call it faith. It has to be placed in scare quotes.
I suspect, for a few reasons, that the author of the letter is Kelly Monroe Kullberg, founder of The Veritas Forum at Harvard. She is first on the list of signees. She is listed as the contact person for interviews. Because of those first two clues, I searched for more information about her and came across a guest blog post she had written against immigration reform in 2013. The writing style of that blog post has some similarities to the Open Letter¹. Also, just as the Open Letter does, her blog post from 2013 takes aim against Jim Wallis and George Soros for their involvement in organizing evangelicals for immigration reform. The same two targets for the Open Letter and the blog post from three years ago seems more than coincidental. She has it in for these two.
Of the signatories to the Open Letter, I recognized a few names: Eric Metaxas (author of a popular biography of Deitrich Bonhoeffer), Wayne Grudem (an evangelical theologian who has written a widely used Systematic Theology textbook, one that I used in some of my Bible classes in college), David Barton (a pseudo–historian), and John Morris (president emeritus of the Institute of Creation Research, a young earth creationist organization). Metaxas and Grudem have published articles urging their fellow Christians to vote for Donald Trump in November, claiming that it is the Christian thing to do. (Many other Christians, in turn, have writtenstronglywordedrebuttalsto Grudem.) [edited to add: In light of further revelations of ugly things Trump has said about women, Grudem has retracted his earlier statement of support. In his new statement, he condemns Trump and Clinton. He states that he refuses to vote for Clinton, but leaves open the possibility of still voting for Trump. His earlier article called “Why Voting for Donald Trump is a Morally Good Choice” is still available in archived form.][Another edit: Grudem is back to arguing that voting for Trump is necessary because of his policies.]
The letter has attracted an interesting cross section of evangelicalism. Of the remaining names I didn’t know on sight, I did recognize some of the organizations they were affiliated with: the executive director of Precept Ministries, the president of the American Family Association, the founder and president of Charisma Media, etc. There are also pastors, educators, elected officials, and other ministry leaders on the extensive list of 100. As of this writing, more than 800 people have added their signatures to the letter.
The letter claims that “We are not here endorsing or denouncing a political candidate but reminding you of basic Christian morality,” but it’s a little hard to believe (though I understand that they have to say that for legal purposes). For one thing, this letter was published on September 27, 2016, which is 43 days before the presidential election. Two prominent signers are vocal Trump supporters. Soon after this statement about not endorsing or denouncing candidates, the letter has a list of ten “consequences of Progressive political activism over the past eight years.” Hmm, I wonder who has been in office for the past eight years? Right after the list of consequences, most of them distortions or falsehoods, they ask “why would any religious leader ask Christians to embrace a Progressive political agenda that is clearly anti-Christian?” Immediately following this incendiary question, the letter impugns Hillary Clinton, who happens to be a political candidate at the moment. Here’s what the letter says about Hillary Clinton in its entirety.
“When Hillary Clinton stated during a 2015 speech at the Women in the World Summit that religious beliefs “have to be changed,” she was openly declaring war on Christian believers and the Church. And now Progressives claim that supporting such a view is the Christian thing to do? This is spiritual abuse of the family, the Church and the nation.”
There is a link to her speech, or rather a link to a short clip from the speech. I recognized this. I came across this same edited clip of her speech on Facebook a while back from a linked article that was even more wild-eyed and conspiratorial. It was written by Theodore Shoebat, who calls himself a “proud fascist,” and supports having the government execute gay people, and says that women who have abortions should be put before a firing squad. In his article, Shoebat claimed that “Hilary [sic] Clinton just said that Christians must deny their Faith through the enforcement of laws.” Then he misquotes her: “Notice that she says that the change of Christian beliefs is the ‘unfinished business of the 21st century,’ which means she wants to persecute Christians.” He caps it all off by calling her a “witch.”
Although the American Association of Evangelicals version is slightly more timid than Shoebat’s, they are both saying essentially the same thing. And they are completely distorting Hillary Clinton’s words and their meaning in order to make it falsely look like she is against Christian belief. They are bearing false witness. Let me show why.
Here is the clip of the speech.
And here’s the transcript provided on the YouTube video:
“Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”
The clip was uploaded by a conservative talk radio program called The Joe Walsh Show. Joe Walsh was a one term U.S. Representative from Illinois who was elected in the 2010 midterm Tea Party wave. He lost in 2012 to Tammy Duckworth, and soon afterwards started his radio program.
So is Hillary Clinton “openly declaring war on Christian believers and the Church” with these words as the Open Letter and Theodore Shoebat would have you believe? The answer is no.
The reason I know this is because the clip has been taken out of context. Anyone who has learned the fundamentals of biblical exegesis knows the importance of considering context rather than trying to interpret a statement in isolation. (Wayne Grudem, the systematic theologian who signed the Open Letter, points out that “the place of the statement in context” is one of four sources for interpreting biblical passages in a chapter he has written on Bible Interpretation.)
Clinton is not speaking about America or American laws. In this quote, she is actually talking about the worldwide maternal mortality rate, not that you would know that because the edited clip begins partway through a sentence and omits the first words. And the edited clip has had a much greater impact, having been viewed more than 600,000 times compared to the full speech, which has only been viewed slightly more than 150,000 times. (The edited clip, or a brief summary with the key words “religious beliefs have to be changed,” has made the rounds of Christian websites and conservative media sites. A partial list of Christian sites: LifeNews, CharismaNews, ChristianDaily, and Now the End Begins. A partial list of conservative media sites: The Blaze, National Review, The Daily Caller, and Fox Nation. Interestingly, the last two include the video of the entire speech, but only highlight the same portion about “religious beliefs have to be changed” as those who include the edited version.)
Here is the same quote with the fuller context. I’m going to provide more than the beginning of the sentence that was cut, going back even farther so that there can be no mistake what she is talking about. (Begin the video at 7:40)
“But the data leads to a second conclusion that despite all this progress, we’re just not there yet.
Yes, we’ve nearly closed the global gender gap in primary school, but secondary school remains out of reach for so many girls around the world.
Yes, we’ve increased the number of countries prohibiting domestic violence, but still more than half the nations in the world have no such laws on the books and an estimated one in three women still experience violence.
Yes, we’ve cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. All the laws we’ve passed don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed.”
I’ve provided the larger context so it is clear that when Clinton says, “far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth,” she is talking about the maternal mortality rate in the developing world. We can know this because of context and because of the facts about maternal mortality. First, she is giving the keynote address at the Women in the World conference. Of course her remarks are going to be global in nature. Second, the context of the first two examples in this list of three areas where more progress needs to be made—the gender gap in education and domestic violence—makes clear that she is referring to areas other than America (“global gender gap,” “girls around the world,” “number of countries,” and “half the nations in the world.”). And third, according to the World Health Organization, “99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries.” (All quotes from the World Health Organization come from their fact sheet on maternal mortality published in November 2015.)
So when Clinton says that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed,” in order to further cut the maternal mortality rate, she means in other countries, specifically in the developing world. So what are the challenges with cutting the maternal mortality rate in these countries? Though the maternal mortality rate has been nearly cut in half in the past 25 years, as Clinton said, still around 300,000 women die each year for preventable reasons associated with pregnancy or childbirth. According to the WHO, greater than 50% of the deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and nearly a third in South Asia.
Here are the reasons given by the World Health Organization:
“The major complications that account for nearly 75% of all maternal deaths are:
severe bleeding (mostly bleeding after childbirth)
infections (usually after childbirth)
high blood pressure during pregnancy (pre-eclampsia and eclampsia)
complications from delivery
unsafe abortion.
The remainder are caused by or associated with diseases such as malaria, and AIDS during pregnancy.”
The first four reasons the WHO lists require what Clinton said in the first part of her statement: “access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth.” So that leaves the issues of unsafe abortion and the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS.
According to WHO, “To avoid maternal deaths, it is also vital to prevent unwanted and too-early pregnancies. All women, including adolescents, need access to contraception, safe abortion services to the full extent of the law, and quality post-abortion care.”
There are two components here. First, there needs to be access to contraception. One reason is to “prevent unwanted and too-early pregnancies.” The other reason is to prevent the spread of AIDS. Consistent and proper condom use helps reduce the spread of STDs, and HIV/AIDS specifically. So widespread access to contraception would help reduce the maternal mortality rate by decreasing unsafe abortions and by helping curb the spread of AIDS.
One of the barriers to widespread access to contraception, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, is the belief that contraception is immoral. I think it is most likely that Clinton’s comment that “cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed” has to do with the use of contraception. If people changed their minds about contraceptives, then the maternal mortality rate would go down. Here is the only place where Clinton could be urging Christians to change their beliefs. The Catholic church still forbids the use of any contraceptives with the exception of natural family planning. However, while that is the official position of the church hierarchy, the vast majority of Catholics worldwide (78%) do not find contraceptives morally wrong. But Catholics in sub-Saharan Africa do agree with their church’s position on contraceptives at a higher percentage. I find the idea that this is Clinton waging war against Christians and their beliefs hard to take seriously when American Catholics also overwhelmingly do not think that contraceptive use is immoral.
The second component is “safe abortion services to the full extent of the law, and quality post-abortion care.” To a pro-life audience, which the AAE Open Letter clearly addresses, this is anathema, but please hear out my reasoning. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa restrict abortion much more than in the United States. Only two countries, South Africa and Mozambique, allow abortion for any reason with gestational limits, the same as the U.S. All of the other countries restrict abortion to save the life of the mother or they ban it outright. The story is similar in the countries of South Asia. So between the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, most of them restrict abortion heavily or completely ban it. The WHO and Hillary Clinton are calling for the laws in these countries that do allow some abortions in some cases to be enforced and for those abortions to be safe. How could it be the pro-life position to allow a woman who has a legal abortion to die from inadequate medical care during and after the abortion? These women need good and safe reproductive care—whether they choose an abortion or not—during pregnancy and afterwards.
So while pro-life Christians can certainly disagree with Hillary Clinton’s positions on abortion, Clinton’s comments in this speech are about following existing laws in other countries and saving the lives of women. She is not calling on Christians to change their beliefs on abortion or any other article of faith, aside from accepting the use of contraception.
So not only did the letter writers take Clinton’s words out of context to distort their meaning, they also charged that she is “openly declaring war on Christian believers and the Church.” This accusation seems to presume that Clinton herself is not a Christian. That is not true. Clinton is a Christian, and though she is fairly private about her faith, it has never been a secret. They are again bearing false witness.
So here’s my answer to the Open Letter calling me to repent:
I do have reason to repent. I need to repent of my selfishness and idleness. For harsh words spoken. My indifference to suffering. And my envy of others.
But I will not repent supporting liberal political policies that feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison.
And I will not repent supporting a politician who works towards closing the global gender gap in education, prohibiting domestic violence, and cutting the maternal mortality rate.
Footnote
¹In her blog post, she also used a phrase that stood out to me when she called an evangelical group in favor of immigration reform “an ad hoc group.” The Open Letter also calls themselves “an ad hoc fellowship of evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox believers.” In 2013, in response to the evangelicals in favor of immigration reform, Kullberg formed “Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration (EBI) [which] is an ad hoc movement,” and more recently The America Conservancy, whose motto is “For America’s renewal. Because of love.” The line “because of love” can also be found on the Open Letter just after the author describes them as an ad hoc group, “We stand — because of love.”
My September book reviews offer three different vantage points of America, from the rich and powerful and their political interests to the recently repatriated reconnecting with the American landscape on the fabled Appalachian Trail to the rural poor Latino figuring out his place in the world.
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer is a good book about an important subject—money in politics—but I couldn’t help feeling depressed as I read it. Mayer has done the research and followed the money trail. She meticulously shows how rich men (especially Charles and David Koch, but also many others such as Richard Mellon Scaife) have used their fortunes to fund and influence the political conversation towards their preferred policies. A lot it comes down to tax avoidance. Scaife, for instance, and his sister received their large inheritances from their father in the form of two trusts of $50 million apiece. The money sat in the trusts for 20 years accruing interest. The interest had to be spent on charitable nonprofits, but after the 20 years were up, the children would get the entire $50 million tax free. The Koch brothers received a similar arrangement from their parents. Scaife and the Kochs used the interest from the trusts to fund nonprofits that aligned with their political views. One way they did this was to give to new, more ideological think tanks in the 1970s. Before this, research think tanks had been driven by social science research for the general public interest. The new think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute had a much more ideological bent. It didn’t stop at think tanks. Then the Kochs and like minded rich philanthropists started funding programs in higher education in order to compete with the liberal agenda they saw in academia. Most of these billionaires were in the energy sector, whether oil, coal, or natural gas. They were most determined to fight any research that conflicted with their bottom line. Mayer details the political fights of the Obama presidency, showing how the influence of the money and operations of the Kochs and other billionaires has stymied progress. The total opposition to Obama began as soon as he took office, not in reaction to anything he did, but the very fact that he had won the election. The Koch brothers’ group Americans for Prosperity and another group FreedomWorks, funded by other billionaires and companies like Philip Morris, helped organize and promote the Tea Party. It wasn’t a grassroots uprising. The sea change in thought on climate change was especially profound and evidence of the power of monied interests. John McCain in 2008 actually ran on a platform of acknowledging climate change and advocating for a cap and trade bill, a relatively conservative solution to curbing green house gases based on free markets. A year later when Obama supported a cap and trade bill that passed the House, the opposition in the Senate became intense. It was never even brought up for a vote because it wouldn’t have passed. By 2012, Mitt Romney had to reverse his previous position of acknowledging human caused climate change in order to be acceptable to the conservative side of the Republican party. It was no longer acceptable to the big donors who funded the party. The Koch brothers believe that they are fighting for their libertarian free market principles when they fund attacks on regulations of the fossil fuel industry. It just so happens that all of the issues that they fight the hardest for and put their money towards would also help them avoid taxes or responsibility when accidents happen. The amount of money involved is truly astounding, made more so by the recent Supreme Court decision Citizens United which breaks down barriers to pour even more money into politics. It’s depressing that those with the most money have so much power and influence on our political system and even political opinion. Mayer focuses her attention on what she calls the “radical right,” but the problem of money in the system goes both ways. It is especially evident on the right at the moment. She does point out at various times some of the liberal billionaires who have attempted to use their money in a similar fashion, but it is mostly a reaction to the efforts of the Kochs and their like minded billionaires, and not nearly as well coordinated or funded. The book is solid research, but I would only recommend it to someone who can stomach it.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson is a fun travel memoir about friendship and nature. After spending roughly half his life in Britain, Bryson embarks on a hiking trip with an old friend from his hometown who he hadn’t really kept up with. Neither of them has much experience with hiking and the wilderness, though Bryson has done a lot of research for the endeavor. Bryson’s narrative is very funny and compelling as he relates how they eat the same meals over and over, encounter a bear one night, and face the difficulty of carrying everything on their backs mile after mile in spite of being out of shape and overweight when they begin. I especially liked the parts where Bryson gave the history of the AT and the challenges of nature conservation. It’s true that Bryson didn’t complete the whole trail. I don’t hold that against him, though he could have been more up front about his plans. Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college, I joined an experienced friend to hike the John Muir Trail in California (itself a part of the Pacific Crest Trail). Unfortunately, we had to quit the trail before we had even exited Yosemite National Park because my friend was experiencing knee pain. Those three days on the trail were one of the hardest things I’ve ever done physically. It took real effort to continue putting one foot in front of the other. We probably would have hit our stride in a few days, and it would have become easier. I often wish I had gone back to do the JMT in full. I would like to read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, her account of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail as a comparison and contrast to Bryson’s tale. Some of the crudity of Bryson’s friend Stephen Katz is presented as “boys will be boys,” which was distracting in parts. It’s another reason I’d like to read Strayed to get a different hiking experience. But overall I enjoyed Bryson’s travelogue.
Julio’s Day by Gilbert Hernandez is a fascinating look at one man’s life and the life of a century in a graphic novel that is exactly 100 pages long. Julio himself lives to be 100, born in 1900 and dying in 2000. The story of the century is also there, but the focus is on Julio and his family and friends. It begins in blackness, and then we see Julio’s open crying mouth; it ends in the same open mouth and blackness when he dies. The artwork, done in black and white, is somewhat cartoony, but it’s never simplistic. The approach is spare and clean. Julio grows up in a poor rural area of the country that is never specified (my guess is California). He is closeted and complex, not really acknowledging the love of his life, his childhood friend Tommy. He never marries and lives with his mother. But the story continues along various paths, tracing the history of his family and community: his evil uncle, his friend Araceli who goes off to nurse soldiers in multiple wars, his sister’s family, including her grandson Julio Juan. Julio Juan is an interesting contrast to Julio, as he is also gay, but since he came of age in a different era, he can live freely. There are multiple stories and characters, so sometimes Julio drifts to the background of his own story, but he and his life ground it all. It’s a rewarding read that I would definitely recommend. [Read an excerpt here at NPR.]
I wrote another short piece for the Rock & Sling blog for their Remembered Sounds series. It’s about the first cassette tape I ever purchased: Michael W. Smith’s Go West Young Man. The name Remembered Sounds comes from a line in a Wallace Stevens poem: “The self is a cloister full of remembered sounds.” I like that, and I like it as a unifying theme for significant music in my life. A lot of my memories are bound up with music in a sort of soundtrack to my life.
At the end of the essay, itself a meditation on music and faith in my life, I listed five spiritual songs I listen to now. Whereas I used to expect explicit answers and easy messages, now I live with questions and doubt. I plan to write about these songs in the future, but I’ll put them down here so they can provide a soundtrack to the essay.
strangerextant 