I listened to this as an audiobook. I put it on in my car and listened when I had short drives by myself. It wasn’t a “one chapter a day listening”, but it was roughly about a month of occasional listening.

My initial impression is that this is a book about discernment more than anything else. There are definitely chapters that are explicitly about discernment, but most chapters have some aspect of understanding the world how it is.

Hanna Reichel is a German academic and theologian with a history of studying the theological response to WWII. There is one other book she has in english about theological method, but otherwise her books and articles are in German. She most recently is a systematic theology professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. That matters to the context of this book because she is writing particularly to United States Christians from her background. She is widely familiar with Bonhoeffer and Barth and other Christians within Germany who responded to Hitler. I know that the comparisons between pre-WWII Germany and current US can be over played, but there are a number of academics who study Germany who think that the parallels are worth drawing, as this Bonhoeffer scholar does.

I saw that one reviewer on Goodreads suggested that this was a Christian version of On Tyranny and I thought the same as I was reading it. I thought On Tyranny was worth reading and I think this is worth reading. So that is not a complaint, but I think you need to know that going in, it is not a devotional in the traditional sense. Although the chapters are very short and devotional in length, each was about 5 to 7 minutes in audio.

Stylistically, I think Reichel is trying to warn the reader of the what is potentially coming so that we can be prepared. And like much wisdom literature, biblical or otherwise, there are points where she seems to give diametrically opposed advice. In one place she talks about how to work inside the system to slow it down and oppose oppressors from the inside. And in another place she talks about how we should never give in or participate in the least bit. There are places where she is explicit in saying that we have different callings and we need to have grace for those who are called to a different task than what we are. But I also think that this is part of what discernment and wisdom are, if we have different backgrounds and skills and histories, then we will have different roles and understandings going in.

Much of the underground movement that Bonhoeffer was connected to was made up of the German elite, often with military connections. Some of them objected to the human rights abuses against Jews and others, but many of them had political objections, not theological and human rights objections. Those in the Confessing Church may have had theological or ecclesiastical objections (they didn’t want the state running the church) but may have agreed with the antisemitism. Demographics plays a role in what we see and how we see it. And a large part of discernment is being self aware enough to know when the tide around us seems to be moving us.

I have seen some objections from Black Christians about how white Christians seem to be more inspired by Bonhoeffer, than by the Black church’s historic response to oppression within the US. And I think it is a very valid critique. But I also think that in this case, Reichel is writing what she knows and that isn’t the Black church. Black Church historians and theologians should be writing what they know and white Christians should be reading both (or all because there are other examples like Native American theology, or the critique of Catholic imperialism and colonialism in Central and South American which are also valid and necessary.)

As someone who read On Tyranny and who has read more than about two dozen books by or about Bonhoeffer there was not much here that I thought was particularly new. But I thought this was a good introduction to thinking theologically about how systems of government can be used to oppress. And how we should respond when we see it.

For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional by Hanna Reichel Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I continue to have mixed feelings about Kazuo Ishiguro. I really like Remains of the Day and re-reading again recently made me want to pick up another of Ishiguro’s books. I have previously finished When We Were Orphans and I gave up on The Buried Giant.

Part of the issue I think is that Ishiguro very much uses unreliable narrators and understatement in his writing. While unreliable narrators works in Remains of the Day, it tends to make the reader not like the unreliable narrator. And I think that the understatement, at least today, tends to go over the head of people who are not fairly sophisticated readers.

I have not previously read this book or watched the movie. (I didn’t know there was a movie until after I finished the book.) But I was had figured out what was going on pretty early on in the narrative. The understatement of the horror of the concept and the orientation of the narrative to focus on the daily struggles of teens in a boarding school and transitioning to adulthood means that I am pretty sure many readers missed the horror. That stylistic choice, which I appreciate from an artistic perspective, clearly went over people’s heads, at least if I take the Goodreads reviews as exemplary of the general reading public.

I didn’t struggle to read Never Let Me Go like I did When We Were Orphans. I was engaged and kept reading it straight through. Ishiguro left me enough bread crumbs to know what was going on. But I also didn’t think the book rose to the level of Remains of the Day.

The story is told by Kath. She is an adult looking back at her growing up years and trying to understand her role. She is trying to justify her own choices and understand the choices of others. It is this self justification that really brings in the unreliable narrator. And because Kath is not sure of her own narrative recollection, the reader can’t be sure.

I think Tommy, Kath’s friend and a boy early in their lives who was bullied at the boarding school, was the hero of the story. But it is clear from very early on that Kath had a crush on him and even though she was frustrated with him for not being more popular and getting along with everyone, that seems to be more about Kath wanting the boy she liked to be popular, not that he was deficient. The narrative clearly suggests that he “knows” more than others and that is part of the reason that he was unpopular. He was unwilling to just go with the flow.

This is a book primarily about teens, but it is not a young adult novel. It can be read by young adults, but the perspective is a reflection on being young by someone who is no longer young. There is discussion of sex and the confusion about sex and desire, but there isn’t anythings particularly graphic. The “adultness” of the novel is the theme.

Never Let Me Go: A Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I have heard Thomas Jay Oord interviewed on several podcasts, including Gravity Commons and Homebrewed Christianity, which is why I picked up A Systematic Theology of Love in the first place. I had not realized it came out in February until I saw that a friend was reading it. It took me the whole month of April to read it.

I have a mixed relationship to systematic theology. I both appreciate that it is trying to be comprehensive because it is clear that theology is interrelated and choices in one area do impact choices in another areas. But I also am wary of systematic theology because of its attempt to categorize everything and I am just not sure that we can know it all. Many of my complaints here are about the fact that this is only volume one, and I have questions that are not answered yet (because they are going to be in the next two volumes, which Oord is going to try to get out in the next couple of years).

I am pretty persuaded by A Systematic Theology of Love. I think the orientation toward God as love and a God who is loving in a way that we traditionally think of love, is easy to get on board with. John Armstrong’s The Transforming Fire of Divine Love: My Long, Slow Journey into the Love of God I think is a good introduction to God’s love and has a number of overlaps with the early chapters of Oord’s book.

In particular I think it is easy to see that the influence of greek philosophy on the early church makes it hard for the early church to conceive of a God that loves in a way that we think of as loving.

“Although biblical writers mostly use “love” to describe actions that promote abundant life, blessedness, or well-being, Augustine defines love as desire. Countless theologians adopt his mistaken approach. In Teaching Christianity, Augustine poses a question: “How does [God] love us?” Because Augustine defines love as desire, he thinks God desires by either enjoying or using us. If God “enjoys us,” says Augustine, “it means he is in need of some good of ours, which nobody in his right mind could possibly say.” We have nothing of value, according to Augustine, because God already has all values eternally. So, God can’t love/desire us in the sense of needing us. Because he defines love as desire, Augustine says God loves by desiring what’s valuable. Being wise, God desires only the most valuable. This means, says Augustine, God only desires/loves Godself…In short, God only loves Godself. By defining love as desire, therefore, Augustine is forced to conclude God doesn’t love the world.” (p12)

The mix of thinking about love as desire and thinking of immutability as necessary for perfection, means that it is hard for the early church to think of God as loving in the ways that we see scripture talking about love. (This is an example of the problems of systematic theology when commitments to internal consistency trump the larger scriptural evidence.) I find Oord persuasive as he walks through why love matters and points to both scripture and other traditions within the church that require love as the fundamental preconception of God. I already have this as my primary orientation theologically so I am easily persuaded here.

Oord does spend time on how he understands love.

“To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.” (p27)

and then later

“In sum, I propose a definition of love as acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being. This definition applies to divine and creaturely love, although I’ll argue that God’s love differs in scope, duration, mode, etc. This systematic theology aims to provide a coherent theological framework with love at the center. It addresses key issues of existence, while seeking to maintain rational consistency and fit with widespread experience, including the experience of diverse others.” (p30)

I know that for many, the reasons for, or against, belief in God are significant issues. While I am most drawn toward the constructive orientation toward Love, part of what has drawn Oord toward process theology as a method and love as an orientation, is the problem of evil, the hiddenness of God, and other sovereignty problems. As Oord points out, “Whether explicitly or not, most theologians have prioritized omnipotence.” (p78) and that orientation toward omnipotence shapes the whole rest of their theology. Oord is committed to love as the primary driver of his theology.

Because of Oord’s orientation toward love, Oord is committed to love as seeking “overall well-being”.  When we say “God is Love,” then we say that:

“Deity is the source, instigator, or inspiration for our loving. As John puts it, “we love, because [God] first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). “Whoever doesn’t love doesn’t know God,” John also says, indicating this necessary connection (4:8). This shows us what it means for God to “abide” in those who love.” (p83)

This is one place where I follow the logical jump. If God is loving, then loving that seeks well-being can’t also mean love that is coercive or overpowering. Oord does not talk about sexual consent here, but I see that concept in the background that one who forces themself on others by definition cannot be expressing love if love is a relational response that seeks to promote the well being of the other. So Oord says, “God’s prevenient love empowers rather than overpowers others.” (p84)

This leads to discussions of justice and mercy which I think I follow and largely agree with. And then a very lengthy discussion of how God is spirit. I am not going to detail it here, but these chapters are important and at the same time while I feel like I follow, I am pretty sure there is more going on that I realize because of my lack of background in process theology and Whitehead. I will note that as I have read The Systematic Theology of Love, I have been finding youtube videos, either lectures or discussions for background. There was one with Oord and Tripp Fuller talking about questions of process theology that included a discussion of the Trinity. I am pretty oriented toward the social trinity, and in the video Oord talked about different ways process theology tends to understand the trinity, he included the social trinity as one of the potential views, but the discussion of God as spirit in the book does not have a discussion of the trinity. This is one of those areas where I don’t want to preemptively disagree because there are two more books left, but it is an area where what I know lends me to think I may disagree eventually.

I am not fully persuaded by the book a a whole, in part because this is just a part. I also do not have enough philosophical background in Whitehead and other process theology to fully follow long with all of the arguments. There are places where I just do not follow the logical leap. I think his discussion of Creation ex nihilo as being problematic for love does not really make sense to me. I follow his point that Creation ex nihilo is a theological position more than a biblical one and I do not have an issue with his suggestion of creatio ex creatione sempiternalis en amore (The Spirit always creates out of or alongside creation in love). I understand how it relates to his larger argument with the problem of evil, but I am not fully persuaded yet on that point. And I wonder if there are other ways to get to the same result.

My current plan is to read an introduction to Whitehead and then reread The Systematic Theology of Love to see if I understand more. I think Oord is clear and the writing is good, but there are still concepts here that I just don’t fully understand the implications of and I think a second reading and more background on Whitehead will help at least some. I am going to a small conference in June and a friend that I will see there finished reading this last week. We have exchanged a couple of emails about it, but I would like to talk in person about it, so I want to finish a second reading before then.

I went back and forth about including some of my other theological presuppositions here. I have already mentioned that an orientation toward love matters deeply to me. I mentioned in my last post that I am a soft universalist and that matters to me. I also think that fundamentally, Christ was here to liberate us and so that is a significant role of the church, which means we should oppose ontological hierarchy wherever we find it. This is why social trinity is part of my theology and why egalitarian ideals matter. And ironically, why I have moved more toward episcopal ecclesiology because I think the church leadership should believe in the ideals of church leaders being those who serve. You may think I would tend toward Baptist theology here, but I think that Baptist theology tends to uphold “the rights of all” in the theory of the priesthood of all believers. But I think in reality that it tends to harden church leadership as a “calling” that makes it harder for church leaders to embrace a type of servanthood that is appropriate. (I think most episcopal ecclesiologies suck at carrying out their ideals, but they often still at least verbalize them.)

There are many areas where I think the presumptions, lend themselves to the type of theology that Oord is laying out here. And I am intrigued enough that I am taking it very seriously. But I still have questions that are not answered and I need more time and information and prayer and meditation and community before I am ready to say much more than that. I think my main areas where I want more are on the trinity, the person of Christ and the incarnation and prayer. I did find an article about prayer that was adapted from another book, but that was just not enough of what I was interested in.

Just one note on the format. I read this on Kindle. I picked up the audiobook so that I could listen to the last two chapters as I did some yard work and because I am going to reread it and on the second reading I am going to mix in audio with the print. But the Audible version of the audiobook is only the first 10 chapters (parts 1 and 2) and there is supposed to be a second audiobook that has part 3 of the print version. But that does not seem to be available, so I just finished the rest in print and I will listen on the second reading.

A Systematic Theology of Love: Volume 1 by Thomas Jay Oord Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I was talking to someone recently and they asked for a recommendation of a book about Christian universalism. I did not have a good suggestion for them. I am a soft universalist. By that, I mean that I think that Christian universalism is real, that by Christ death and resurrection all will be saved, whether in this life or in the next. But I describe it as soft universalism because I think that this is a hope based on my understanding of the character of God more than “definitive” biblical or theological evidence. And I reject an “all paths are a way to heaven” type of universalism. So going into the book, I thought that what I know of Jersak, this would be a book that I largely agree with, but was looking for good theological and biblical thinking on the matter.

What I appreciate most about Jersak’s style is that he is very clear about the limits of what we can know. There is obviously speculation in a book about hell and the afterlife. But as Jersak walks through the bible and what we know about Jewish tradition that contributed to the Old Testament and the first century culture of the New Testament, he is careful about talkings about the limits of our understanding. This is a book that is filled with intellectual humility.

I am not completely new to the topic. There is overlap with NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope. And many books or articles I have read have talked about the differences between the concepts of Sheol, Gahanna and hell. Jersak has good intellectual humility in his presentation, but what he is doing is trying to present the development of the ideas of the afterlife as it comes, instead of reading all of scripture through the lens of modern ideas about hell. He wants to show that when we read the NT, or especially the OT, through later theological developments, then we misread scripture.

Of course, part of what he has to present is the concept of genre in scripture. Much of the passages that mention Sheol, Gahanna or hell are either parables of Jesus, or apocalyptic writing. I am not going to get into his arguments, but I am just mentioning that to say that there really is not much here that is unique, Jersak is in the mainstream with most of his biblical interpretation and his understanding of genre and his understanding of the early church.

Roughly half of the book is biblical exploration and roughly half of the book is discussion of the church theology and history. Oversimplifying his argument a bit, there is largely two streams within the church, infernalist (who believe in some type of hell as end judgement) or purgatorialists (who believe in some type of hell or purgatory as either punishment or cleansing, but that leads toward redemption.) You cannot discuss the early church without discussing the ways that early Jewish and Greek thought impacts the theological and philosophical categories of punishment, sin, justice and love. While Jersak largely presents the church thinking over time, it is also discussed thematically because developments of philosophical thought always impact the ways that different cultures understand justice and goodness of God.

Again, as I mentioned before, I am reading Thomas Oord’s Systematic Theology of Love and I have read John Armstrong’s The Transforming Fire of Divine Love, both of which have long discussions about the way that a Greek concepts about perfection and immutability have impacted the ways that the church developed its theology. Later, Calvin and others started thinking about God in judicial ways and that also impacted the way that we think of hell and salvation. And the even more modern concepts of dispensationalism, which are not specifically mentioned, but are in the background of the discussion of Evangelical thinking, have to be discussed.

I remember a couple years ago a pretty well known Christian writer, who by background and training primarily studies literature, was talking on twitter about discovering how recently premillennialism became the default understanding of much of the American Evangelical church. So a large part of what Jersak is doing in these discussions of the church’s theology over time is presenting different options that are theologically orthodox, but not rooted in only modern conceptions of theology precisely so that we can see that what is common theology now isn’t the only options.

I think I largely agree with virtually all of Her Gates Will Never Be Shut. I think his biblical exegesis is good. His theological history is good. Again, I remember on twitter a Black church leader expressing opposition to anything other than Eternal Conscious Torment understanding of hell because he thought universalism or even a more limited annihilation position was a position of privilege. He has a degree in historical theology and so I know he is not simply ignorant of historical positions and on this point I don’t think we are going to agree on this point even though there are a number of other areas were I do agree with him. Our theological positions are more than simple intellectual assent, we have other presuppositions that matter to our theology. I know I started discussing my orientation toward a soft universalism in early high school, so I also have presuppositions that are involved in my position.

Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I really liked The Martian and Project Hail Mary. And I have heard a lot of negative things about Artemis. So even thought I bought it on audiobook at some point in time when it was on sale, I had not previously started it.

Artemis is different for Andy Weir and I am glad he tried something new. I didn’t like it as much as his other two books, but I also didn’t think it was as bad as its reputation. The protagonist is a 26 year old woman. Her father immigrated to the moon when she was six and she has grown up there. Her father is a devote muslim man, a welder, and for a variety of reasons, Jazz Bashara did not want to follow in the steps of her father.

I think Weir does have some problems writing a female protagonist. And he is writing a crook with a strong moral streak which is hard to do well. And the setting of the Artemis city on the moon, a small town with about 2000 permanent residents, but a lot of tourists, is also a hard setting to write well. Any small town has a problem being known as the local smuggler and I think Jazz is both smart and doesn’t seem to worry about that.

I think the main problem most reviews I have read have is that Jazz and most of the other characters are not particularly likable. She is fine. But she feels an obligation to her honor, while making a lot of bad decisions. She knows she has made a lot of bad decisions in her past, especially as a teen girl rebelling against her fairly strict father. But her actual father seems kind and caring and forgiving, which doesn’t seem to be what Jazz perceives him to be. Jazz has a lot of friends who care for her and would like to help her, but mostly she wants to make it on her own. And that seems to be trying to do everything with additional levels of difficulty turned up.

The Martian and Project Hail Mary are mostly books with a single guy trying to solve problems. And that isn’t this book. I broadly enjoyed Artemis and Jazz and her friends. But I also thought that the book needed more work to clean up plot holes and setting problems.

Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I read The Queen of Ebenezer about three years ago when it first came out. If you want a review without spoilers, I would read that original one. I have been trying to read more fiction this year, I wanted to revisit this one to see if I thought my daughter was ready for it and the publisher, Owl’s Nest, has been expanding their audiobooks. So I picked this up on sale a couple weeks ago and listened to it in two sittings.

The audiobook is well done. A clear narration with good production values that communicated the feel of the book exactly as it should be narrated.

And now to the spoilers.

This is a story about memory and regret. I will be honest that I had forgotten the ending. The book is about how Beatrice awakes in a swamp. She knows it is a magical swamp and that Tom, the king of the swamp, isn’t quite right. Her knowledge that she is in a magical world, but can’t remember before, is made more salient because she knows something isn’t right.

A young adult/middle grade reader may not pick up on all the clues, but as someone that had previously read it and knew the rough shape of the story, there are a lot of clues as to what is going on. But it also draws heavily on the magical. Again, this is a significant spoiler, but Beatrice and Tom were in a car accident. Death is searching for Tom. Beatrice was unconscious, but not near death as Tom is.

Part of what is revealed is the role that Beatrice played, not just as the girlfriend, but as the cause of the harm. So there is guilt and grief. I do think that some of the teenage rebellion that led to accident is a bit cardboard, but the point isn’t the rebellion, but the discovery of love and the desire to protect. Young adults have big feelings. And there needs to be places to explore those big feelings. And this is a great fictional exploration of the ways that big feelings matter, and that there can be consequences of rash decisions.

The Queen of Ebenezer by K.B. Hoyle Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I like novels that are about something. But I also don’t like novels “about something.” It is easy to joke about books that are doing the classic after school special, “on a very special episode of…”

The Unhiding of Elijah Campbell is a fiction book, but one that is largely about spiritual formation and counseling. I don’t object to fiction books dealing with harder things like a marriage falling apart or a man coming to deal with the ways he had repressed his emotions. I do object to the speed of the healing.

I don’t think it is suprising that Intervarsity Press, which also has a series of fiction books on spirituial formation with a group of women has another book that is similar, but written from a male perspective. The Unhiding of Elijah Campbell is different, but I have a similar objection to both, in that a fictional book often wants a cleaner ending and faster resolution than what happens in real life.

But I also was solidly engaged with the book. I thought it was well written. I thought the unfolding of the story worked well, even if too fast. And that there is real value in helping to illustrate what counseling and internal work can look like for Christians who take their faith seriously. There is always a problem with Christian men’s books that want to show what “real men” are like and just growl and “take charge”.

Elijah Campbell isn’t in touch with his emotions or his family history. He has been encouraged to repress things and his family of origin is a significant factor in that unhealthy patterns. I also think that it is a not insignificant that Elijah is a “successful” professional Christian who has done what he can to look good to others without dealing with the internal. But the main point here is that he should be involved with his emotion and that this is the path forward to becoming healthy enough to be a good husband and father.

I am a bit ambivalent about this The Unhiding of Elijah Campbell. On the one hand, I was engaged and devoured the book. I alternated between audio and kindle (both of which I picked up on sale, kindle is still on sale as I am writing). I finished in three days. But I also think that the story can be a bit heavy handed at times and is too neat and tidy.

The Unhiding of Elijah Campbell: A Novel by Kelly Flanagan Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I very much appreciated the biography of James Baldwin that Nicholas Boggs recently wrote. Part of how Boggs came to write the biography was coming across the out of print Little Man, Little Man and discovering eventually that the illustrator was not dead as he had been told, but very much alive.

Over a couple years Boggs was able to get a new edition of the book into print and interview Yoran Cazac and those around him several times. It was original research on an aspect of Baldwin’s life which had largely not been explored.

Once I finished the biography, I picked up a copy of Little Man, Little Man. It was Baldwin’s only children’s book. And it was written in large part because his young nephew asked James Baldwin to write a book about him. This was a book about a young boy and his community in Harlem in the mid 1970s.

Primarily I find it interesting as a historical artifact and an example of an alternate side of Baldwin. The art is interesting, but Cazac had never been to New York, and the characters based on Baldwin’s nieces and nephews were only a handful of snapshots from Baldwin to Cazac, so it is a somewhat dreamscape of Harlem.

The story is simple and involves introducing the reader to the characters and neighborhood and the task of going to the store. This is James Baldwin. Issues of poverty and grief and police brutality are present, but they are in the setting not central features of the story. The central feature is the characters and the way they are cared for by the community.

Little Man, Little Man is not a book I would recommend that every one go out and get. But it is a book that I would try to check out from your library and read. There are a couple of introductory essays, but the main book is a children’s book that can be read in an hour or less. I am glad that I could see another aspect of Baldwin’s writing and I am glad that Boggs was able to get a new edition into the world.

Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood by James Baldwin, Yoran Cazac illustrator Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition 

I read the Book of Hope as part of a book group that I am have been a part of for the past several years. This group is based at the Ignatius House, a Jesuit retreat house near me. I did my spiritual direction training here and I have been on three retreats here in addition to this book group since 2022. I rarely love the books that we discuss. But I love the people. The group is made up of mostly women in their late 60s to early 80s. There are a few outside of that, but it is most of the group. A bit over half the group is Catholic, most of the rest are Episcopal. The group is pretty solidly on the political left with a mix of theological perspectives. Generally these are people who appreciate contemplative spirituality and justice.

The Book of Hope is formatted mostly as an interview. Douglas Adams’ previous book was framed as a conversation between the Dali Lama and Bishop Tutu and it was called The Book of Joy. I am mixed on the format. Adams is a character in the book. He discusses his place in the conversation but mostly is setting up Jane Goodall to talk about her own thoughts on hope. Contextually, the hope is mostly about hope in the face of environmental catastrophe, but that isn’t the only issue in the book.

As the group discussed the book at our last meeting, most people thought the book got better the longer it went. The start was too much introduction and “chit chat”. The stronger sections on what hope was and how to work to build hope was good. When I started reading this I had just finished reading Racial Justice for the Long Haul, which was mostly also about the hope required to continue working on social issues in the face of discouragement. I am in process right now of reading A Systematic Theology of Love by Thomas Jay Oord, which is not about hope directly, but it is largely about the role of the problem of evil in our understanding of who God is and how God works in the world. Which is in part about these overlapping discussions.

The group I read this with is an overtly Christian group. It almost always opens and closes in prayer. We always discuss matters of faith. But this book was not particularly religious. It was vaguely spiritual, but whatever Goodall’s spiritual faith is rooted in, she was not talking about it. It is not that I think you need to have faith to have hope, but I do think that it is hard to talk about why you as an individual or as a group have faith and not discuss what that hope is rooted in. Goodall has hope because of youth, because she thinks that we are designed to have hope and that it is a survival skill. She thinks that hope can be encouraged and developed. And she is opposed to a faith surface level hope that denies hard things. But again, that felt too amorphous.

I was skeptical of the book going in because I suspected it may be too vaguely progressive for my preferences. And I think that is exactly what happened. But there was there in it that I thought were helpful. I learned more about Goodall’s life and family, but not much more. I learned more about her work of advocacy in the past few decades and I admire her for that. But I also wonder about what wasn’t said.

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I have a lot of theological disagreements with Tim Keller even as I respect him and think the evangelical world would be much better off if there were more people like him. That is not to start with outlining of my disagreements, but to frame my thoughts here as largely those of an admirer who strongly disagrees.

I think my main issue, both with the book and with Keller is summed up in this quote.

“By his 1975 graduation from Gordon-Conwell, most of Keller’s enduring theological commitments had been settled. He subscribed to the Westminster Standards and Presbyterian-Reformed theology. He advocated for penal substitution, classic covenant theology, amillennialism, and what would later come to be known as a “complementarian” view of gender roles in the home and church. He believed in a historic, specially created Adam and Eve, in an old earth, and in the reality of biological evolution. He aligned with the neo-Calvinist approach to culture that combined evangelism and social justice. He resisted tying the church to one political agenda. He wanted the church to approach homosexuality with pastoral care without compromising the biblical sexual ethic. He prayed for the kind of revival Edwards saw in his day. The popularity of these beliefs might wax and wane, both inside and outside the church. But Keller didn’t do anything more than tweak some of these views after 1975.” (p103)

For every aspect that I really appriciate about Keller, his focus on ecumenical activity and evangelism and his advocacy of justice and a robust understanding of culture, there are others that are not just sometime I find problematic, but heralded here. For example, just after a long exploration of Keller’s understanding of the relationship to preaching about grace and not turning the Old Testament into moralism, Hansen talks about Keller promoting Jay Adams and biblical counseling, which expressly is about moralism. Or in the sections about how Kathy Keller became convinced that women should not be in church leadership, it was largely because of the teaching of Elizabeth Elliot that Kathy changed her position from being in favor of the ordination of women to being opposed to the ordination of women. But it was because of the seminary teaching and missionary experience of Elliot that Kathy and then Timothy Keller changed their minds. (Experience they would not have had if they were at a school that was more complementarian.)

Again, I can’t help but be influenced by my experience of Keller and those Keller was influenced by. Hansen emphasizes how Keller emphasized grace and revival and opposed the moralizing of the gospel, but then cites people who I have experience with as being those who emphasize external morality. My experience of Elliot seems to be the exact opposite of what Keller took from her.

Especially in the quotes from Keller about contextualization and justice, I find almost nothing that I disagree with about the relationship of the gospel to culture and the importance of justice to the reality of the gospel. I know that people like Brandon O’Brien who worked for Keller and whom I very much respect. But then I also wonder at how TGC seems to be so strongly wrong at most every cultural take on movies or music or art if it was so strongly influenced by Keller’s understanding of culture and contextualization. Keller strongly spoke to the sin of racism, but TGC seems to be more attracted to Doug Wilson’s orientation toward ethnic nationalism than Keller’s pluralism.

I appriciate that Hansen is not trying to write a traditional biography. He says the point of the book is to explore the people and thinkers who influenced Keller. And largely I think that focus makes sense. But this does verge on haigiography. And often it is comments that are show an insular perspective where this shows most strongly. In a discussion of the movie Babbette’s Feast, he says, that if you have seen the movie or read the book it is probably because of a recommendation from Tim Keller. And then says that Keller first mentioned the movie in 1997 in a sermon. But there was wide support of the movie by Christian from its earliest days. I saw it in the theater because my church went.

I also really wish there was more evaluation and exploration of Keller. I have the expanded version that was expanded after Keller’s death. But the concluding thoughts are thin. There is very little about how Keller has become someone to push back against by Aaron Renn and James Wood and others who seem to have this reverse nostalgia that thinks that starting a church in NYC in the late 80s and early 90s when NYC was less than 1% evangelical was some how “easy”.

I don’t think Hansen is probably the right person to do that deeper evaluation and it probably is too early to do that. But I think that is what this book needs. I am all for this type of exploration of his intellectual formation, but when the framing is that Keller really didn’t change any significant positions after 1975, then it is hard to really explore what those intellectual formation was all about.

I thought this was worth reading. I have respected him, even as I have disagreed with many things because he was someone that seems to have the ability to disagree and still relate. I learned things and I found people that I want to learn more about. But I also thought that this was too fluffy and could have been just as respectful and affirming of the man and dig a bit deeper.

Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook