OFF THE SHELF Beyond the Suffering By Robert Kellemen and Karole Edwards Baker Books Reviewed by Harold Dean Trulear Critics of the contemporary church bemoan its captivity to overly individualistic categories of thought. A self-centered gospel asks,“What can God/ Jesus/church/ Christianity do for me?” Sermons are reduced to self-help formulae, and worship truncates to consumer tastes as people “go to be fed” on Sunday mornings, as opposed to coming to church to worship God. Yet, the fragile and sinful condition of the human heart does require care. Would that such care were centered in community and theology rather than formula and therapy. Into the fray enter authors Robert Kelleman and Karole Edwards with Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Kelleman and Edwards address the tension by using cultural resources from African American Christian history. The genius of their approach lies not only in gleaning ideas and concepts from that tradition but also in their assertion of the communal and relational nature of that tradition and its implications for the care of human frailty. Simply put, their book not only calls for thinking differently about pastoral and church care but also thrusts the emphasis back to the community of faith itself, urging us to take soul care and spiritual direction out of individualistic/self-centered categories and into the realm of relationships/ friendships. Kelleman is a Christian counselor and seminary professor who has given sig-
nificant attention to relational development and its role in soul care. Edwards has done exceptional work in small group leadership and discipleship.Together, they find extraordinary resources for healing in the ways in which African Americans, particularly in the 19th century, coped with the hardships of racism, slavery, and discrimination.Their proposal for the use of these resources resonates well with those of Cheryl Townsend Gilkes,Archie Smith, Lee Butler, Edward Wimberly, Henry Mitchell, and Nicholas CooperLewter, all of whom have offered similar proposals for mining the rich tradition of African American Christianity and culture for sources of spiritual health and well-being. Kelleman and Edwards take the journey a step further in their book, offering both detailed descriptions of how certain principles operated in African American caregiving and practical suggestions for their implementation in a postmodern world. The authors carefully distinguish between soul care (the sustaining and healing functions of faith) and spiritual direction (the art of reconciling and guiding within the Christian tradition). In so doing, they push a model that requires the building and strengthening of relationships within the community of faith in all four specific areas. Spiritual wellbeing is not truncated into an individual “getting better.” Rather, individuals are supported in community by community and for community.They not only experience healing and sustenance but also participate in reconciliation and guidance. Not only do we heal, but we also help heal others. Church can no longer be a feeding station in the narrow sense that its members are mere consumers. Rather, the community, clergy, and lay people should participate together in a series of relationships and friendships that point to wholeness. For the reader unfamiliar with African American Christianity and its history, this book offers the bonus of PRISM 2008
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bringing to life unsung persons of faith whose testimonies and influence on Christian life in America equal those of more well-known figures. Some will trail the footnotes to additional sources of faith and inspiration and history.You will not read this through in a sitting. The stories are too rich, the arguments too substantive, and the applications too thoughtful. But it is worth the time, investment, and potential for ministry to read carefully through this important offering. n Harold Dean Trulear is associate professor of applied theology at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, DC, and a contributing editor to PRISM.
Beyond Left and Right By Amy E. Black Baker Books
We the Purple By Marcia Ford Tyndale House Publishers Reviewed by Bret Kincaid
Among the spate of faith-and-politics books published in time for the 2008 elections, at least two written by women are worthwhile reads. In Beyond Left and Right: Helping Christians Make Sense of American Politics, Amy E. Black, a political science professor at Wheaton College, writes a dispassionate, popularized primer for Christians looking for help
understanding, thinking about, and engaging US politics. In contrast, Marcia Ford, a religion journalist, book editor, and author of several books, writes a passionate though subtle argument for “reasonable” politics—a politics that is achievable if only the two political parties would recognize the power and seriously consider the vision of independent voters. Black’s book is the closest thing to a Christian American politics textbook I’ve seen. In accessible prose, she discusses a range of issues related to faith and domestic politics. Her thesis is that Christians should engage politics knowledgeably and humbly, recognizing that politics is an instrument for loving God and neighbor. She begins by exploring the morality of political compromise and American political culture—including a very good chapter on religious identity and voting behavior. Additionally, she devotes several chapters to helping the reader grasp the basics of American political institutions, such as the two-party system, the three branches of government, and the constitutional limits of religious institutions. Virtually the entire second half of the book examines the relationship between Christian faith and American politics. Black first distills the political traditions of Catholics, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and the Reformed. This may be the least satisfying chapter for those who know well their rich traditions or who have found better ways of “cutting” the pie of American religious political traditions, but her brief descriptions may help beginners.This section would have been more useful, however, had she shown the reader how people who embrace any of these different traditions think about policy issues. Nonetheless, she beneficially touches on several political activities, such as political discourse and voting, while giving the reader normative ways of thinking through the challenges. Voting—or rather, independent voters—is Marcia Ford’s primary focus in
We the Purple. She would likely disagree with Black’s exhortation that if, after accounting for several factors and educating oneself, one still can’t make a decision among competing candidates, the best line of action is to “vote with your party.” Ford is fed up with partisan politics. The bulk of her book describes the alternative—unaffiliated or “purple” citizens—who, according to Ford, make up at least a third of the electorate, including many evangelicals. Surveys indicate, however, that a large portion of selfidentified independent voters often vote for a particular party. Still, the proportion of independents has increased substantially recently, making them a critical factor in many election campaigns. Independent voters, according to Ford, cannot be ideologically pegged, but they are generally interested in political reform. They tend to want to replace the electoral college and are inclined toward term limits, campaign finance reform, redistricting reform, open primaries, and fewer barriers to voting—anything to break the sovereignty of the two major parties. Ford also rightly faults partisan conflict for obscuring the common ground in hotbutton issues like abortion and for leading to the repugnant partisanship of the church. But there is no insight here into how to see politics through the eyes of faith. Though Ford asserts, “If your faith does not in some way influence your political perspective and voting choices, that doesn’t say much for your faith,” she doesn’t help the reader see specifically how Christian faith should influence one’s politics. Even her argument favoring “reasonable” politics has no obvious faith-based grounds. Why be “reasonable”? Why should American politics change? Why is she a “freedom freak”? Surely, the publicly relevant aspects of faith have answers, but Ford keeps her journalistic distance from them. Though Black connects faith to politics more than Ford does, more fundaPRISM 2008
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mental questions are begged because Black’s thesis turns on this connection. For instance, Black doesn’t explain why faith supports politics per se rather than, say, armed force. Instead, she claims “politics should never be an end in itself ” and then seems to contradict that claim later when she sagely argues that politics is about humbly seeking common ground. Also, she understates the importance of biblical justice as a policymaking compass. Still, agreeing that American politics are more complex than red and blue, both works have much to offer Christians preparing to vote well in November. n Bret Kincaid is associate professor of political science at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa.
Resounding Truth By Jeremy S. Begbie Baker Books Reviewed by Andy Crouch For several years Baker Books has been releasing titles in its “Engaging Culture” series.These in-depth explorations of particular aspects of culture —film, popular music, business, environmentalism, and more—are almost always worth reading. But the latest volume in the series, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music by the masterful English musician and theologian Jeremy Begbie, is a tour de force. Begbie is not as well known in the United States as he should be—though that may be about to change, now that he has joined the faculty of Duke Divinity School to inaugurate a program in theology in the arts. His 2000 book Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge University Press), which juxtaposes music theory
with some of the knottiest problems in Christian philosophy, established him as an unusually creative theological voice. Ultimately, though, Begbie is best experienced as a performer. His lectures, to use an unsuitably boring word, are unlike anything you’d expect from a Cambridge theologian: filled with visual art, accompanied by sound clips from many different musical cultures (jazz to Prokofiev to South African township songs), and punctuated by impromptu performances at the piano, all woven together with concise and memorable explorations of Christian Scripture and theology. No book can do justice to Begbie’s stage presence, but Resounding Truth is a good introduction to the ways he is rethinking Christian ideas about music. Begbie takes us on a whirlwind tour of “the Great Tradition,” the grand synthesis of theology and musical theory that animatedWestern thought from Augustine through the Middle Ages. For centuries, European Christians saw music as participating directly in a “cosmic order,” the mathematical and moral structure of the universe. This consensus was dismantled during the Reformation—with Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli embodying very different postures toward music in worship—and roundly rejected after the Enlightenment, when music came to be seen as merely a human form of expression rather than participation in cosmic harmony. Begbie aims to revive some aspects of this Great Tradition, while recognizing that it was too ambitious in its original form. He draws our attention to three “musical theologians”—Schleiermacher, Barth, and Bonhoeffer—and two modern “theological musicians”—Olivier Messian and James MacMillan.At the center of the book is an examination of the incomparable Johann Sebastian Bach. And after all this historical work is done, Begbie still has a third of a book left to draw some remarkable connections between music and fundamental themes of
Christian faith, like time and eternity, freedom and constraint, and the Trinity. For better and for worse, this book sits squarely within the Western tradition of “serious” music. So, while Begbie frequently cites female scholars, female composers and performers are no better represented here than they have been in that tradition. The exploration of nonWestern music and Western popular music is similarly thin.These omissions probably say less about Begbie’s knowledge and interests, which are close to encyclopedic, than his desire to prevent this already sprawling book from bursting its seams. But whatever its limits, this book is indispensable—not just for musicians or theologians but for anyone who wants to participate seriously in “engaging culture.” More vividly than almost any other aspect of culture, music responds to and shapes the natural world, emerges from a long history of both performance and theory, and requires the investment of heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so Begbie reminds us that culture is a human response to God’s creation, is always steeped in history, and is ultimately rooted in our beautiful and broken human bodies and in our hope for their redemption and recreation.There is much more to be said about nearly every page of Begbie’s book—some of which he will no doubt say himself in future work. But the real measure of Resounding Truth’s value is how much it makes you want to listen, to play, to sing—and to pray. n
The Future of Faith in American Politics By David Gushee Baylor University Press Reviewed by Amy E. Black
“I promise I will fight to discourage and diminish your school in any way that I can since it now plays for team Satan. Period. There can be no discussion.” So concluded an e-mail message protesting the appearance of a prominent evangelical speaker on my campus this spring. The writer did not attend the talk before registering his disdain; indeed, he sent this vitriolic message before the speaker even arrived on campus. For far too many evangelicals in the United States, such conduct seems all too common. Lobbing verbal grenades at those with whom you disagree has supplanted meaningful conversation and productive discussion. David Gushee’s new book, The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center, enters the potential minefield of addressing evangelicalism and politics with the laudable goal of setting a different tone. Calling for “a biblically grounded rethinking of Christianity’s entire engagement with American culture,” Gushee suggests Andy Crouch directs Christianity Today’s that he will present “at least a rethinkChristian Vision Project, which asks “big ques- ing of our engagement with American tions” about culture, mission, and the gospel. public policy.”The first part of his book His book Culture Making: Recovering is the strongest and offers a significant our Creative Calling has just been published contribution to discussions of faith and by InterVarsity Press. He is also an accom- politics, particularly his discussion of plished pianist. some of the key players, organizations, and ideas that comprise the emerging evangelical center. Indeed, many political Do you find our reviews helpful? What kind of books would you like to see indicators suggest that the evangelical on these pages? Send your feedback political landscape is in the midst of to kristyn@esa-online.org. change, and Gushee is likely correct that PRISM 2008
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this centrist movement is growing in strength and significance. In his effort to show that most American evangelicals have broadened their political concerns beyond a singular focus on abortion and homosexuality, Gushee lists nine areas of “essentially consensus politics across every point on the evangelical political spectrum.” He mainly gets it right but stretches a bit too far when listing immigration and “access to universal healthcare” as areas of general agreement. Unlike most discussions of evangelical politics that for all practical purposes speak only of white evangelicals in politics, Gushee tries to broaden his analysis to include African Americans and Hispanics as well. This is a commendable exercise and one too rarely
attempted. Gushee’s analysis of non-white evangelicals is not exhaustive, but then again, one should not expect it to be, given the scope of this particular book. The second part of the book presents four political issues—torture, marriage, climate change, and war—that Christian believers need to consider and address. Overall, these chapters provide solid discussions of the debate surrounding important political issues. Gushee generally refuses to prescribe specific policy for evangelicals to promote, a restraint that may frustrate some readers, but, given the larger purposes of his book and the complexities of the American political system, this approach seems prudent. At times, however, his attempt at careful analysis and evenhanded portrayal of multiple perspec-
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tives falls short, as in the chapter on creation care when what he likely intends as a lighthearted description of “the major ingredients that make up the climate change skeptic recipe” is too strong a caricature. Although Gushee may not quite achieve the gargantuan task of outlining “the future of faith in American politics,” this book is a must-read for evangelical believers who genuinely seek to be a public witness as they apply their faith to politics. n Amy E. Black is associate professor of political science at Wheaton College,Wheaton, Ill., and the author of Beyond Left and Right: Helping Christians Make Sense of American Politics (Baker Books), also reviewed in this issue.