Four Books, Three Recs, Two Theses, One Poll

What To Read When It's Summer. J/K: Read What You Want.

Four recent book recs. Three Substack pieces to consider. Two theses on presidential assassinations. One book poll.

Summer is a time for free-range reading for me, and so, I have recommendations.

Four Recent Reads

1. When Church Stops Working: Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand

Andrew Root is, for my money, a really acute observer and analyst of dynamics plauging American churches. He does deep dives on contemporary theorists (Charles Taylor, Hartmut Rosa, etc.), and then applies their insights to contemporary church dynamics in really insightful ways. HOWEVER: he’s not the most accessible.

THIS ONE, however, I’ve already recommended to minister friends of all persuasions, because I think he and Bertrand are exactly right. In place of yet another book of quick strategies or tactics for church leaders, their advice is to stop innovating and wait. That’s it. There’s much more than that, but it’s effectively an anti-innovation book, an anti-pivoting and adaptation book, an anti-renovation book, and I’m on board. Many of the problems of the American church are rooted in trying to control the future rather than be (to use Rosa’s term) resonant with the world: to be curious about points of overlap between God’s activity and the church, and to live accordingly. Much more could be said about the habits and virtues which make this possible, but this is already by go-to recommendation for what ministers should be reading¹.

2. Addiction and Virtue—Kent Dunnington

I’ve been reading, slowly, material which helps me to get a handle on how virtues function under stress, in preparation for the next year and a half (?) where I’ll be doing continued work on scarcity and the moral life. Dunnington’s book has been on my pile for a while, and really delivers the goods. At one level, it’s an outstanding book on the nature of addiction and moral change, but at a different level, it’s a multidisciplinary take on how the ancient language of virtue offers such a better understanding of how complicated the moral life can be when put under material stresses.

One of the things I most appreciated was his breakdown, over three very clearly written chapters, of how addictions require us to think about them in multiple frames: as failures of reason, of habit, and of pleasure. All three of these—no surprise!—Christians have reflected on for centuries, and Dunnington pulls these together in a model way which could be used for other sorts of questions. Dunnington’s main point of reference is alcohol, but I found myself asking how we become addicted to safety in ways which are bolstered by our habits, our pleasure centers, and our reason as well.

3. Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis—Tyler Wittman and R.B. Jamieson

Next Spring, I’m offering a seminar in the Grad School of Theology on the doctrine of God, and wanted to read this book—on how to read Scripture if you presuppose a grammar of the Trinity—to see if it might fit. I’ve met Tyler before, as we’re both Baptists with ecumenical leanings, and he’s read all the sources theologically in a deep and probing way which makes me want to be more of a hedgehog type².

The short version is this: what if we read Scripture and presupposed a doctrine of the Trinity, a grammar of God which has served theologians for centuries? What emerges is a lovely and flowing way which doesn’t tie things together with a bow so much as provide helpful guides for reading Scripture in a way which rightly names that God is God—revealed to us—and that Scripture is a vehicle by which we are led into that God.

4. Sun House—David James Duncan

I started this for the first time last Fall, and then put it aside as life happened. But summer is the time for long, meditative novels. I can’t say enough good things about Brothers K, his last novel, and Sun House is following suit thus far. It’s less tightly written than his last one (which was already 400+ pages), and given to long discurses about Vedic poetry and philosophy, but it’s the kind of work which is not plodding nor self-indulgent. Duncan is a prose master, and though I’m only 300 pages into the 700+ pages, it’s the kind of book that deserves a slow pace.

The book follows a disparate cast of characters mostly based in the Western United States, who, at this point, seem to have one thing in common: they are in search of the Ocean, the Source of life which is peeking through mountain ranges, dumpsters in the Cascades, inexplicable tragedies in Mexico. They are looking for the illumination of the world which will not be repressed. Best taken in slow bites over a long period of time. Duncan is at his best when meditating on how Something Rather than Nothing is constantly brimming up through a world which is constantly trying to silence it.

Three Substack Pieces to Consider

1. Richard Beck— “The Sacrament of Affectivity”. Over three pieces, Richard asks what it means that emotional responses are linked to our worship, or taken as a center-piece of our worship. This is a piece I want to argue with, because I think that he’s on the money, but that this can be taken reductively, that a relation to God is different than one’s feelings. One of my growing convictions is that, if God is the one in whom all things hang together, that includes our affections and feelings. There was a time when I was more down on emotionally-inflected church, and still think that there can be church services which link God to emotional response in ways which are deeply wrong. But if God does in fact use memory, and all the complicated resonances of memory, and if God in fact does make use of the complex composition that is being human, then maybe affections are pointing toward their participation in a more complicated matrix of worship, and fit well within that frame, as one part of a puzzle, even if they can’t stand alone.

2. Melissa Florer-Bixler— “Giving Up”. A recent-ish recommendation to me is Adam Phillips, who Melissa interacts with here. In this piece, she sorts through the complicated mechanisms of abandoning works in progress, or leaving our commitments in a way which resonates with me. Virtues are complex: they are comprised of component pieces, which means that virtues are always in motion and pliable even if oriented ultimately toward being the kind of creature that God has for us to be. But part of growing in virtue is being able to trim a good thing back, to know when there has been overgrowth which needs to be reined in.

3. Freddie DeBoer— “Alice Munro is Dead”. Freddie knows one speed, and it’s incisive. In recent literary news, it was revealed to most of the world that the recently deceased Alice Munro—Nobel winning novelist and short story writer—chose her husband over her daughter, even when she knew her husband has sexually abused his step-daughter (Munro’s child). The whole thing is sad, awful, and abusive³. Freddie gets into the tricky question of a reader’s relationship to a writer, feelings of betrayal, and whether or not betrayal is even a way to feel toward a complete stranger.

Two (And a half) Theses on Presidential Assassination Attempts

1. It is never justifiable to murder another human being.

   1. Loving one’s enemy means, among other things, hoping for their redemption, and their murder foreshortens that possibility considerably.

2. Being threatened with death does not make a person more virtuous, less cruel, or less narcissistic.

One Book Poll: Next Book Club!

Our last book club for supporting subscribers was a great time talking about The Rule of Benedict. For September, I want to toss out the following possibilities. Which would you be in for?

1. I generally hate leadership reading, as it tends to confuse strategy (big scale possibilities and rules) with tactics (flexible, prudential judgments). There are some things which should never be done, but leadership material tends to be pragmatic to the degree that there are never non-negotiables. That, and I tend to think leadership programs don’t do much.

2. In listening to Range this week, I’m pulled back from the brink, and more grateful for my range-y leanings, both professionally and personally. The world is just so interesting, and I’m fine with trying to pull a lot of pieces together.

3. Tragic? Doesn’t fit here, because tragedy assumes there are two things which you should do and one has to give. In the event of one’s spouse abusing your child, I think there’s only one thing to do, and that’s protect the child. Munro’s choice is inexplicable to me.