Now, I don’t know him personally, but I’d guess Edward Gilbreath is an all around nice guy. Some how he managed to write a book, Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity, about race, racism and the church, and, from what I can tell probably didn’t really upset anyone.
Gilbreath some how manages to talk about the topic of race, pointing out difficult points, injustices, and disagreements, but in such a kind way, that I think any reader would go away willing to consider the points he made. And this is not to say that he loses anything in his critiques in an effort to please everyone, he just doesn’t go off to any extreme (which I am often guilty of), and when he talks about his own experience, he does so with an authenticity and honest that leaves you with a feeling of genuine connection and understanding.

I was very impressed by this book and I felt Gilbreath wrote in such a way that this is a book I could pass on to others that might not willingly listen to some of the more extreme (though I believe often factually accurate) information regarding race and structural racism. If you have a friend or family member who you’ve been looking for something to share with them to address the topic of race, I’d highly recommend Reconciliation Blues.

Sorry for keeping my comments brief. For an interesting discussion, and maybe one you should jump into, regarding some of what the book covers, check out this other book review on Reconciliation Blues.

I just finished reading the book, Letters to a Young Teacher, by Jonathan Kozol. I’ve read a couple of Kozol’s other books, but this one came a from a slightly different perspective. If you haven’t ever read anything Kozol has written, you need to pick up a book today (Savage Inequalities). He writes about the dismal public education system, and has for many years, giving factual statistics, heart-wrenching personal stories, and honest realities about the disparities in the public education system. One of his recent works, The Shame of the Nation, gives some political insight into the situation as well.

In this book, Letters to a Young Teacher, Kozol uses a personal format of letters he wrote to a first year teacher in the Boston public schools. He addresses a wide range of topics, from veteran teachers to vouchers, in a friendly, concise and personal style. I think it’s an easy read and a great primer on the education system if your looking to be educated (which every US citizen should be).

Here are a few of the quotes I enjoyed from the book.

(this one is a little long, but it’s for context, which you can read the whole excerpt here)

These suddenly fashionable phrases seem to travel the rounds of education workshops with unusual rapidity. (It’s also possible, I guess, that once we hear a term like this, we simply start to notice its recurrent use in other situations.) Only two weeks after you told me this, I was in Sacramento and the same term popped up once again during a luncheon I attended with a group of people who were working as curriculum advisers for the state. In answer to a question I had asked concerning classroom dialogue, a woman with a commanding presence who was sitting across the table from me gave me this reply: “We’re speaking of a meta-moment taking place in interactional time.”

The other people at the table seemed to be as baffled by these words as I was. They tried to change the subject to some other issue of importance they were dealing with. But she was insistent in her wish to keep on telling me about the value of these “metamoments” and, try as they did, they could not shut her down.

This kind of jargon, which relies upon the pumping up of any simple notion by tacking on a fancy-sounding prefix or a needless extra syllable, infests the dialogue of public education nowadays like a strange syntactic illness that induces many educators to believe they have to imitate this language if they want to have a place in the discussion.

One of the most annoying consequences of this trend, as you’ve observed, is a peculiar tendency to use a polysyllabic synonym for almost any plain and ordinary word: “implement” for do, “initiate” for start, “utilize” for use, “identify” for name, “articulate” for state, “replicate” for copy, “evaluate” for judge, “quantify” for count, “strategize” for plan, “facilitate” for help, “restructure” or “reconstitute” for change. The toss-in use of adjectives like “positive” and “meaningful” (instead of, simply, “good” or “real”) in front of nouns like “outcome” or “collaboration” is another common way of trying to pump extra air into a wilted and deflated intellectual balloon.

And…

“Down with concerns about the global marketplace…. Childhood does not exist to serve the national economy. In a healthy nation, it should be the other way around.”

Finally…

“Blaming the victim” is, of course, anathema to those who view themselves as liberals or moderates politically and socially. But “flattering the victim” is a favorite practice nowadays, especially in white-owned media that constantly attempt to spare their segregated cities from the odium that they deserve, and their most valued readers from the guilt they otherwise might feel, by pointing to the slightest signs of cultural or economic self-rejuvenation in the neighborhoods to which their racial outcasts are consigned.

That’s a pretty scathing thought on the last quote. Thoughts?

I should have read Traveling Mercies a while ago, it’s been on my reading list, I just never got around to it. Anyways, my wife has been a reading machine, and I had recently recommended Lamott, which she devoured in less then a week. She enjoyed it so I figured I should read it next.
Lamott is a great author. I want to write like her. Some things I noticed that she does is she gives very specific allusions. She’ll randomly reference specific characters in movies or she’ll give vivid word pictures. For example:

I’m unclear about the fine line between good parenting and being overly protective. I get stumped by the easy test questions – like whether I should let Sam ride his two-wheeler for several blocks without me when I secretly want to run alongside him like a golden retriever. He wants to walk to a friend’s house; I want him to stay inside and draw while I sit on the front porch with a shotgun across my lap like Granny Clampett.

Unfortunately, we have no front porch
-p.81

Or this priceless gem…

“…such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”

I tried to write a little using her style, but I don’t think my mind is at the creatively imaginative stage Lamott’s is at. She’s also very raw in her honest. I think that might disturb people at times, but it’s only disturbing in that she’s willing to share her secrets in a way others of us are not.
Traveling Mercies is more or less a random collection of essays, I don’t think there is any terribly defined theme running through, but each one is unique and adorable in its own right. Definitely recommend you pick it up.

Here are a few more quotes I enjoyed:

Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, “Well isn’t that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I’ll figure out what we’re going to do about your stuff.”

..Grace thought it had been just fine. “It was what it was,” she shrugged. But I knew it hadn’t gone well – even her husband said it had been a disaster. And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do – and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea – and you do poorly, what then? It’s over; you’re wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud. -p.142

This will be a brief review. I read a novel, The Church Ladies, by Lisa Samson. I wanted to read a known fiction Christian author and Lisa was the only one I could think of (besides Peretti and the left behind books). Anyways this was the shortest one available at the library and so I picked it up.

It’s a pretty decent book, a quick and easy read. I definitely felt like it was geared toward a female audience because there was some references to things, haircuts and such, without explanation, that I had know idea what they were referring to. The story was well put together as well, and though I did find some of the references and scenes a bit cheesy, I got teary eyed at others.

I sort of wanted to know if my recent fiction project, Giving Up, came even close to being able to have a chance in the ‘Christian’ fiction genre. It might, I’m not sure, but I do know Lisa Samson is a veteran in the field and has written and been awarded for her great work. I just hope I learned a thing or two from reading some of her work.

Instead of reviewing a book today I wanted to review one of my favorite magazines. Geez Magazine is one of the best magazines I’ve read in recent times and I’d highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of faith background. I recently got a hold of issues #7 about Monsters and #8 about food.
Monsters, you say? Yeah, it was about monsters. At first when I saw that was the upcoming issue I was a bit skeptical. What in the world would they write about ‘monsters’? Isn’t that a little, oh, elementary? But when I started reading the issue I was enthralled. The opening article gives a glimpse:

When we pull back the covers, we find monsters in our heads and in our hearts, monsters we hide from, and monsters we hide behind, monsters we blame for atrocities we can’t otherwise explain, and monsters we may never fully glimpse. To Frankenstein and Leviathan, Grendel and the Wicked Witch, we’ve added monsters our grandparents couldn’t have imagined, plastic, polluting, disposable, heavily-armed, heavily-armored, highly-scheduled, commodified, mercenary, bio-tech-ed, and hairsprayed monsters of the heart, soul, earth, mind and sky. And, whew, do they scare us.

The Food issue is phenomenal. It’s gotten me thinking about my food in a whole new way. And they don’t just jump on the ‘organic’ bandwagon either. They have great interviews with conventional local farms. As well as an awareness raising article and info on farm subsidies, corporate farming and the chemical and seed industry. Here’s a great image on the topic:

One other reason I really like Geez is they have a lot of female writers. I find it encouraging to hear new and unique voices on topics I’ve probably considered, but not from the new perspectives many of the writers bring.

Anyways, this is my review for the week. I read some books, but I really wanted to post about Geez Magazine. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Conveniently for my weekly book reading, I got hooked up with the Ooze blogger program, and now I get books shipped to my door every once in a while to read, enjoy and review. The first, My Beautiful Idol, by Pete Gall, I received last week and finished in a few days.
The book was basically a memoir, sort of like Blue Like Jazz in style. It sort of seemed like I was reading a series of blog post from a really good writer. Gall is brutally honest about his mindset and his experience, something I know must have been difficult to do. I appreciated it though, because I think it lent insight, and in a small way, opened the door to honesty for those in the ‘Church’ who are living with the facade that they have it all together.

There where two sections I really liked. The first is his analogy for Evangelicalism as a high school track meet. Its a long quote which I don’t have time to reproduce here, but I think it’s brilliant.

The second section was about a friend of his mother’s dying from cancer. Also a heart wrenching piece, that you’ll have to read the book to hear.

I really appreciate Pete and Zondervan for giving me the opportunity to review the book.

They finally got copies of Jesus For President at the public library, and I was one of the first on the hold list. Surprisingly, in all of Minneapolis, there where only three holds on the book. I wonder if that is at all telling of the type of people that are interested in the book (like, they don’t use the library? or something). Anyways, having been keeping up on Shane, The Simple Way and the sort of movement of interest, I definitely wanted to check out the book, and I was not disappointed.

A large portion of the book is a biblical and theological look from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) through the new, and keeping in mind and at the forefront a “political” mindset. I had previously read Walter Wink’s book, The Powers That Be (which I highly recommend and own a copy so you can borrow it), and had since read through the Bible keeping in mind this power structure idea (Which Greg Boyd describes as Power Over vs. Power Under), but I’d never really learned about and read through with a “political” perspective. I’ve read The Politics of Jesus too (also a great book, and also referenced a lot in Jesus for President), but I think I missed a lot because of the Academic language. Anyways, back to the book at hand. If you’ve never read your Bible with politics in mind I’d highly recommend the first sections as they lend at the very least great insight into thinking about what and how the Biblical narrative might speak to the politics of today.

I should also mention that the book is not laid out in plain traditional format, but is in color and creatively designed by SharpSeven, Ryan Sharp (who I had the pleasure of chatting with at a campfire at PapaFest 2006) and his wife. It is really neat, and the artistic design and layout definitely adds something to the reading experience.

And the books final sections give ideas and being politically creative in our times. It’s great to hear the stories and begin stirring our political imaginations. It was also encouraging to me to find that I had already heard or been aware of a number of the stories, makes me feel like maybe I’m not alone in my interest after all.

Anyways, that’s it for my summary, there are other bloggers who’ve written far more in depth and thought provoking summaries, but this is just my attempt to stay on my goal of a book a week.

Today I have the opportunity to see and hear from Desmond Tutu. If you don’t know who Archbishop Desmond Tutu is you should pick up his book, No Future Without Forgiveness. Prior to reading the book, which I borrowed from a friend when I new Tutu would be visiting, I hadn’t know much about him either, only that he had been involved in ending the apartheid in South Africa and working on reconciliation afterwards. This book gives a phenomenal insight into the way South Africa worked through the healing process after years of terrible racial atrocities.

The first few chapters are a little difficult to get through. Tutu is a brilliant academic and tends to use large words that makes it difficult to read quickly. However, those beginning chapters carefully lay the groundwork of how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed and what it set out to accomplish. It was an amazing task that they undertook. The goal being to bring truth and reconciliation to a broken country. The shift, when apartheid ended and Nelson Mendela became president in 1994, was monumental. You might compare it to when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed in the USA, ending Jim Crow segregation. In both of those situations there is still an ominous history that can not simply be swept away. I believe the racial tension experienced in the USA today has a lot to do with the fact that we never did anything to honestly address the injustice of racism and segregation.
In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to try and address that very dilemma. However, it was unique in that it was not a law-enforcing body, setting out to punish the wrong-doers, a task that would have been nearly impossible to really implement (How many here have been arrested or imprisoned for the lynchings, discrimination and harassments enacted before the Civil Rights Movement?). Instead, the TRC set about providing a forum for people to share their stories. Radio and Television gave special attention to the Commission, helping provide a national platform for sobering truth to be shared. Victims where provided opportunity to tell of the atrocities they or their family experienced, and there was healing in the sharing. Those who had committed crimes could apply for amnesty, provided they shared and gave full disclosure to all that they had done. The amnesty process was a controversial one, but I came to agree with Tutu’s perspective that it was the right thing to do. Many police, military and government officials came forward, sharing information that could have otherwise been kept secret for years to come. The sharing of truth provided closure for some many families who simply had know idea what had happened to their loved ones. The stories in the book are heartbreaking and yet the willingness of the victims to forgive and reconcile is profoundly moving.

If you haven’t read anything about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, you should pick up this book. I think it’s such a shining example of doing things differently than the retribution system we currently have in place. I’m not saying it’s necessarily going to be effective all the time, but it points to the human imagination, created by God to love one another far deeper and more creatively then racism, injustice and vengeance ever could.

This will be a short review. I heard about The Manga Bible on a friend’s blog(also, also), and since my sister is into the manga and anime comic stuff I figured I’d check it out. I’m also a fan of contextualize versions of Biblical stories, as it always lends insight to the authors perspective and often gives you a new one.

I was never into comic books growing up (maybe a short stint in Batman or something, but I don’t recall), but I found reading this enjoyable. It was a very quick read, but I felt Siku (the author) summarized the stories throughout the Hebrew Bible quite succinctly. I also did feel like the New Testament stories gave proper space and awareness to the radical nature of Christ and the Early Church. It didn’t avoid stories about caring for the poor and sharing with those in need as it easily could have.

If you’ve never read any Manga style books before, but know someone who does, this might be worth recommending to them.

As a new parent, I recently read the book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp at the request of a friend. The following thoughts are a review of the book itself, and should not be seen as a reflection on the parenting techniques espoused or those parents who choose those techniques. I’ll cut right to the chase, the books main premise is that communication and “the rod” (which in this book is translated to mean spanking specifically) are the biblical form of parenting. While I currently don’t plan on using spanking as a form of discipline for my children, I’m not completely set on it one way or the other. However, I felt Tripp’s book, while containing some valuable parenting tips, was overall a poor argument for the use of spanking as the only biblical method of discipline.

First of all, I will say that there are a number of things I did appreciate about Tripp’s book. His emphasis on communication is paramount. Any parent who misses the importance of communication will struggle to really connect with their children, I think that’s obvious. But Tripp goes out and says that we’ve begun to emphasis “quality time over quantity time” and he says that this misses the importance of being around and available to our children as much as possible. I think that’s huge.
I also like one of the examples he gave as he talked about the goal being to get to the heart issue of every discipline concern. He gave the example of two kids fighting over a toy. The typical response is to figure out who had it first, or set a timer to force the kids to share, or something like that. But he points out that all of these things miss the importance of kids learning to put others before themselves and being selfless, that’s the root of the issue you could be working on. He also talks about Jesus telling us to “Love our enemies” as something we should instill in our kids and help them address things like the bully on the bus with those sorts of radical values rather then fight or flight.

My main beef with Shepherding a Child’s Heart is that Tripp sets of “straw man” arguments for every other discipline method he disagrees with. What I mean by that is that when he discusses his ‘opponent’ viewpoints (those discipline methods he does not agree with) he does not give solid valid examples, but rather sets up terrible examples (straw men) that even those who espouse those discipline methods would say were bad examples, and thus he makes it easy for the reader to join his side. Let me show you one example, one where I even agree with his point.
Tripp encourages parents to talk with their kids not at their kids. Using dialog to draw out the child’s feelings rather than simply giving your monologue about the situation. I complete agree with him. However, here’s the example of a monologue that he gave (this is a straw man):

(concerning a pair of sneakers you bought for your child)
“Look, I know you don’t like the sneakers, but that’s all I could afford. Don’t be such a baby. What would Jared say if I told him you were crying over something like this? They’re just going to get messed up anyway. In a couple days no one will know what they look like. What do you care about what those kids think about your sneakers? Who made them the experts anyhow? You should be thankful you even have them. Those sneakers you don’t like cost more than my first car. Look, I have to go to work; I have more important things to worry about than sneakers…”

Now, any parent in their right mind would say this is a horrible way to parent, but for Tripp to choose this as an example of the opposing view is unfair. It is possible to give a very sympathetic, heartfelt monologue to your child about their sneakers, even though it’s still better to dialog and let them share their feelings.
Tripp continues to use this technique as he points out all the “Unbiblical Methods” to parenting: I didn’t Turn Out So Bad, Pop Psychology, Behavior Modification, Emotionalism, Punitive Correction, and Erratic Eclecticism. Each time he gives horrible examples of that method which leaves any decent parent completely agreeing that that is not a good way to raise a child. That was my biggest problem with Tripp. By the time I got to the section where he wanted to talk about the “Biblical” way to parent, I wasn’t interested in listening anymore, he’d been so unfair in his critique.

The second thing I had a serious issue with is his use of Scripture. He does very little to give any depth, context, background, or otherwise to the scriptures he references. Your supposed to take them at face value, which would be okay, if he also took them at face value. He uses multiple random Scriptures to critique the “unbiblical” parenting methods, and then multiple other random verses to espouse his “biblical” methods. He leaves himself and his book as the only valid interpretation and doesn’t give any reason or basis to believe it. Here’s what I mean.
Tripp believes the biblical method for parenting is communication and “the rod.” By “the rod” he means:

“The rod is a parent, in faith toward God and faithfulness toward his or her children, undertaking the responsibility of careful, timely, measured and controlled use of physical punishment to underscore the importance of obeying God, thus rescuing the child from continuing in his foolishness until death.” (p. 108)

How in the world he’s able and allowed to draw all of that from a handful of verses that say “the rod”, but others aren’t allowed to follow a similar strategy in choosing their parenting method, I’m not sure. But it gets even more specific than that. He literally spends pages and pages talking about what “the rod” is and is not, as well as the best way to administer “the rod.” What’s unfair again is that he’s taken his specific interpretation and tagged it as “biblical” without allowing others to take a similar look at Scripture and come to a different conclusion. He doesn’t give any reason why the rod doesn’t literally mean a metal or wooden rod of some kind. Here is the “How” of Spanking from the book, with only one scripture reference as any support:

1. Take your child to a private place where he can be spoken with in privacy
2. Tell him specifically what he has done or failed to do.
3. Secure an acknowledgment from the child of what he has done.
4. Remind him that the function of spanking is not venting your frustration or because you are angry, but to restore him to the place in which God has promised blessing.
5. Tell the child how many swats he will receive.
6. Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.
7. After you have spanked take the child up on your lap and hug him, telling him how much you love him.
8. Pray with him. (p. 150)

Again, even though there are some good tips on how to discipline here, his stating that this is what is meant by “the rod” and what is the only “Biblical” method for parenting is completely unfounded.

As you can see, overall I didn’t like the book. The two main reasons are above: He sets up straw man arguments of the opposing view and he extrapolates a lot to give his basis for biblical discipline without allowing the same freedom for other parenting methods. But, there’s a few other things that nagged me and I’ll just list them below.

• He mentions twice, sort of underhandedly, that the freedom movements of the 60’s and 70’s where a bad thing in that they taught a generation to rebel against authority. I think it’s these were vaguely concealed sexist and racist remarks…
  “The racial and anti-war protests of the 1960s powerfully shaped [Today’s parents] ideas. The protest movement took on the establishment. It changed the way we think about authority and the rights of the individual. As a result, it is no longer culturally acceptable for Dad to be the “boss” at home. Mom doesn’t obediently do what Dad says, or at least pretend she does.” (p. xvi) (he goes on to imply throughout that our rebellion against authority is wrong and even sinful)
• In addressing an FAQ about when I child is old enough he mentions his 8 month old trying to get to a bookshelf his mother had told him not to touch. “Not seeing her, he headed back toward the forbidden bookshelf…Obviously, he was old enough to be disciplined.”(p. 155)
• He also contradicts himself in his parenting advice. Things he critiqued in other parenting methods, like children not connecting the punishment to the disobedience because it’s not enforced immediately gets disregarded when your unable to implement the spanking method because your out in public.
• He uses the Scripture “Honor your father and mother” as something that parents are in charge of enforcing over their children. Basically saying, and I quote, “God has made me your mother and has said that you must treat me with honor.” (p. 137)
• The parenting method of spanking (physical discipline) is a “power over” structure that I think is clearly unbiblical. Tripp even spends a chapter addressing this, and how as your ‘authority’ dwindles your ‘influence’ needs to increase so that you still have control over your child. Discussing the transition from younger to older he says: “The parents’ word is law because they have the physical capacity to enforce it. As a child grows, the ability to control him that way diminishes. The more Junior grows and develops physically and mentally, what you may accomplish through raw authority diminishes.” (p. 97)
• He also uses the male pronoun “he” for nearly all of his examples. Unless he’s talking about a specific situation involving a girl, he always says “he.” I just noticed it and found it bothered me (maybe because I have a girl).
• This passage also bothered me:
  

  “I recall many conversations that went like this:
  FATHER: You didn’t obey Daddy, did you?
  CHILD: No.
  FATHER: Do you remember what God says Daddy must do if you disobey?
  CHILD: Spank Me?
  FATHER: That’s right. I must spank you. If I don’t, then I would be disobeying God. You and I would both be wrong. That would not be good for you or for me, would it?
  CHILD: No. [a reluctant reply]
  (p. 31)

Let me conclude by just saying, in no way is this meant to be a critique of spanking as a discipline method (I’ll try and bring up my concerns about it in later blog posts, but that’s not my intent here), nor a condemnation of any parent who chooses to follow that method. I really think there are a lot of godly people who’ve looked at scripture and chosen what they felt is the best way to raise their child, and I commend them for that. I simply feel this book was a poor support of spanking as a biblical discipline and a poor critique of other discipline methods.