Intuition by Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman has a talent for describing her characters. In Intuition, her fifth novel, Goodman introduces the reader to character after character, eventually building a network of people so real and familiar that you feel like a distant cousin to half of them.

This is, indeed, quite a gift. Perhaps taking her cues from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, or perhaps from the more recent Harry Potter works of J.K. Rowling, Goodman has learned that today's reading culture loves character development. And she delivers.

Along the way, the tale of a Harvard Square research lab and the quest within for discovery, even greatness, unfolds in a mostly satisfying read. Her story is well-researched and utterly believable, at times invoking textbook-like language that begs clarification (which she usually, and cleverly, provides).

Cliff Bannaker is a post-doctoral researcher in the lab run by Sandy Glass and Marion Mendelssohn. At first aloof and increasingly disinterested in his work, Cliff's project suddenly hits a breakthrough that opens doors for he and the rest of the lab's scientists.

Everyone in the lab is excited and drawn into the fervor of Cliff's research-- everyone, that is, except Robin. While Cliff and Robin are romantically involved at the beginning of the story, their relationship becomes strained as Robin starts to suspect that Cliff's research results are not completely above-board.

[Those of you who believe I have tainted the pleasure of the story will find, as I did, that the summary I provided above is little different from the teaser on the dust-jacket.]

While Goodman's story-telling is more than adequate, her characters are the real delight of this book, as I mentioned before. Consider this description of Sandy Glass from early in the novel:

"He was debating some point with Marion, and his blue eyes sparkled as his hands sliced the air. Ann's husband was not a handsome man. His features were coarse, his mouth wide, his forehead the more prominent because he had so little hair left. His nose began well, but drooped at the end. His cheeks were red with rosacea. With Sandy, however, the rules of attraction did not apply. He had a quality that wen much farther than youth or beauty-- an irresistible liveliness that seemed to override cynicism and doubt, a self-confidence occasionally unbearable, but in many cases deeply reassuring. Had he not enjoyed the benefit of a medical education, it's doubtless Sandy would have been an extraordinary salesman like his father, Irving. Shoes, hardware, large appliances, and Israel bonds would have flown like doves from his hands. As it happened, Sandy's sparkling savoir faire made him a stellar oncologist. He radiated hope to every patient. Instead of death, he dwelt on baseball games and the Boston Marathon. He asked terminally ill investment bankers about the stock market; joked that they should give him tips. He focused on the day-to-day, never on the eternal, and his patients loved him for it. He wasn't going to give up on them and turn spiritual. He was an old-fashioned doctor, fighting tooth and nail against disease. Patients came to him from all over the world. Tycoons and Saudi princes, even other doctors. His overworked residents called him a VIP-ologist, and there was some truth to this. Still, no one could deny his gifts. No one played the end game against cancer as Sandy did. He set himself squarely against every cancerous cell, and so inspired his patients into battle that, magically, even the most sophisticated believed that he could never fail them. Their worry was that in dying the might fail him."

Indeed, the most glaring shortcoming of Goodman's novel is that at times there are too many characters whose details and lives we are introduced to. Besides Cliff, Robin, Sandy, and Marion, we come to know a host of others-- family members, fellow post-docs, lab techs, and several more loosely-connected souls. Eventually, I tired of the constant introduction to new characters-- particularly since it was unclear to what extent they would ever fit into the story.

(In Goodman's defense here, though her character development reminded me of Rowling's Harry Potter characters, Goodman does connect every character to the story in a meaningful way, unlike Rowling, who could cut a third of her cast without damage.)

Also, for a story centered on the questionable ethics of a research lab, the ethical conclusions were at times quite disappointing. I'm not sure that the end-- ethical justice-- was clearly in view throughout the writing of this novel, given the occasional softness of ethical standards.

However, the ethical weaknesses, and the breadth of the supporting cast, were the only substantial critiques I could find. Intuition is a fun and engaging novel that will intrigue most readers.

To Shield the Queen by Fiona Buckley

Ursula Blanchard thought that maybe her life would start settling down. Recently widowed and without a way to provide for her daughter Meg, she jumps at the chance to be a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth. But after arriving at court, Ursula is faced with the problem of living up to the necessary court standards—a standard her modest stipend falls far short of.
She’s not the only one at court with a problem. With Elizabeth newly crowned, the country (and England’s enemies) are jockeying to discover, and influence, who will be the new king. And the queen isn’t helping matters by appearing infatuated with Robin Dudley, her master of horse. Not only is he completely ineligible—he’s also married. In the maelstrom of court gossip and political turmoil that results from this, rumors circulate that Robin’s wife, who is sick and dying, is being poisoned so that he can be free to marry Elizabeth.
The Queen may love Dudley, but she is no fool. So when Dudley suggests that an impartial observer be sent to stay with his wife and quell these rumors, Ursula is recommended for the job. Given the chance to help the queen, and improve her finances, Ursula realizes she can’t refuse. But is this a simple job as nursemaid, or is something more sinister afoot?
After traveling to the out-of-the-way manor house and meeting Amy, Ursula can see that Robin’s wife is a very sick woman. But she also begins to suspect that they’re may be more truth to the rumors than she—or the queen—would like to think. What if she wasn’t sent to make Amy’s last months peaceful? What if, instead of protecting the queen, she is really helping Robin with a dastardly plot?
As Ursula begins to question where her duty lies, she also struggles with loosing her heart to the charming frenchman Matthew de la Roche. But is she willing to leave her country, and her queen, for love? Ursula’s problems escalate as she tries to keep a precarious balance between all these forces tugging at her. Who can she trust? For this is not just a matter of protecting herself, or even Amy; her real job is To Shield the Queen. This mystery/historical fiction offering by Fiona Buckley will leave you enthralled, and hungry for the rest of the series.

Defending the Faith, by D. G. Hart

A book on the origins of the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church, founded 1936) may seem like a strange enough pick for Spring Break reading (and I know this review is a little delayed), but especially for someone who has just passed her first year in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) the appeal of such a history book may be hard to see. Yet Defending the Faith's front cover, with an imposing black-and-white portrait of a pensive man in suit and tie at least invited a flip to the back cover of the book, which proclaims itself "a readable and compelling narrative about a fascinating individual."

That individual, J. Gresham Machen, was at the forefront of the crisis for conservative Protestantism in America around the time of World War I. After returning from the front as a YMCA volunteer in France, the Southern gentleman and quirky-but-loved Princeton Seminary professor faced quite a different battle within his denomination, the Presbyterian Church in the USA. Machen was joined by the most unlikely allies--e.g., secular journalist H. L. Mencken, known at least for a certain smart remark about the Puritans--in declaring alien the religion of liberals, who denied the necessity of affirming miracles like the virgin birth, resurrection, and other historical facts central to the message of the gospel. Moderate churches that tolerated ministers who espoused such views or did not actively oppose the modernist influences on historical doctrine also came under Machen and his Princeton allies' criticism.

The controversy itself is not the only focus of Hart's book. Among the topics for which I created an index inside the cover of my copy are Princeton scholarship and higher criticism, anti-intellectualism (causes; the rise of; and church unity), the Church's social responsibility, and the exclusivity of the Church and religious diversity. Hart handles these and other issues, all more or less crucial to the dire state in which the Church found itself, with the restrained congeniality of someone sympathetic to his biographical subject as well as with the multi-faceted perceptiveness of an honest historian. I heartily recommend Defending the Faith as a clear, interesting, and highly relevant study of the interaction of the Church with the world, her own people, and the doctrine according to which she deals with both.

Further reading:
Christianity and Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen
Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, D.G. Hart and John Muether
Lest We Forget: A Personal Reflection on the Formation of the OPC, Robert Churchill

A Godly Hero by Michael Kazin

[Note: I'm cross-posting these reviews on my own blog.]

Why write a biography about a three-time loser who is most well-known in American memory as the prosecuting attorney in the Scopes trial? That question of warrant must challenge any one who would take on the task of writing a book on William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), three-time Democratic presidential nominee known as "the Great Commoner." Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, took up the task with great verve and suggested that in Bryan, progressives might find a way to meld a deep faith in the American people (a la Thomas Jefferson) with a profound faith in Jesus. The result--A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan--is a thoughtful book that charted not only the life of one man, but the times of one of the least studied and understood periods in American history.

Kazin followed Bryan from his small town roots in Salem, Illinois, to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he established a law practice as a precusor to his entrance into politics. And throughout the book, Kazin struggled to explain how Bryan was able to shape the Democratic party for nearly twenty years. Bryan's coming out party was the 1896 Democratic National Convention, where he was swept to the nomination on the strength of his famous "Cross of Gold" speech. And yet, the issues that motivated politics in that year seem strange to moderns--"free silver" and cutting the tariff raised passions that rival modern battles over Iraq, abortion, and tax cuts. Bryan's strength was not the originality of his positions; rather, Kazin suggests that it was Bryan's oratory that propeled him to national prominence, as he gave a voice to Middle America's fears, hopes, and aspiriations.

But it was not simply Bryan's oratory. Rather, Bryan was able to create a soft blend of Social Gospel uplift and progressive political nostrums that won the hearts of a number of people. Able to win the support of theological progressives such as Washington Gladden and Charles Sheldon while holding the respect of Bible-thumpers such as Billy Sunday, Bryan was able to centered his quasi-religious/political message around three key beliefs: belief in the Bible, belief in Jesus, and belief in the people. This led him to propose all sorts of progressive ideals that were co-opted by early 1900s presidents, Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson: progressive income tax; the federal reserve banks; federal insurance for bank deposits; the 8-hour day; child labor laws; and anti-trust regulations.

And so, through Bryan, Kazin is able to describe a great deal of the story of the 1880s to 1920s, the great period of progressivism and populism that transformed American politics and continues to affect modern day conversations. It is hard for moderns to remember a time when economic redistrubution through the progressive income tax was not the law of the land. And it is even more difficult to remember that this policy was seen as a fundamentally Christian one, proposed by Social Gospel follow-travellers such as Will Bryan.

Hence, one of the great ironies of American history is that Bryan has been remembered as a "conservative." Surely that was the result of his two final crusades--prohibition and evolution. And yet, both of these moral arguments were undertaken because Bryan wanted to preserve the purity of the people so that they might be free to do what Jesus would have them do: namely, loving their brothers under the fatherhood of God. Against the various "trusts" that held people down (the money trust; the liquor trust; the "academic" trust), Bryan waged a vigorous battle to make sure that the "people" would be free to pursue virtue. As a result, these two moral battles fit nicely with his political and religious ideology.

One of the interesting questions that struck me was who might be good historical comparison points for understanding Bryan. Two that came to my mind were Abraham Kuyper and Ronald Reagan. Kuyper, the Dutch newspaper man, Reformed intellectual, and Prime Minister, was Bryan's contemporary and shared a great deal of commonalities with the "Great Commoner." One interesting side project would be to compare Kuyper's 1891 speech, "The Problem of Poverty," with Bryan's own progressive diagnosis. Reagan shared Bryan's Illinois roots and his "sunny side of life" perspective, especially their deep and abiding faith in the American people. Perhaps it wouldn't be too much to think that if Bryan could come back to the political scene, as a result of the Reagan Revolution, he might have joined the GOP, rather than the Democracy.

By the end of the book, though, I was still unsure how Kazin would answer that opening question: why write this book? What is the moral of the story? Or to put it differently, does "Christian liberalism" really have a future? Even Kazin appeared unsure. If this book was meant to provide a roadmap for the presumptive 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, then no one should read this book--for in the end, Christian liberalism never got Bryan elected nor did it manage to keep the Democrats in power for long.

Perhaps the real value of the book is to raise the question--which Kazin does quite thoughtfully--whether liberals can be Christians (and conversely, whether Christians can be liberals) at all. If Bryan is any example, then the questions should be answered with a strong affirmative. And if that is the case, then perhaps the modern-day Democracy would do well to invite people of faith into their ranks to care for others with the compassion of Jesus. If they did, their former standard bearer, Will Bryan, would be proud.

Reforming Marriage by Douglas Wilson

Douglas Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, ID, and editor of Credenda Agenda magazine has written a concise, yet thorough treatise on marriage. At first, I was hesitant to read it, not because I was afraid it would make me feel guilty about my own marriage, but because somewhere I had the notion that Wilson (as have so many authors on this subject), would place emphasis on specific application rather than teach principled truth. I was pleasantly surprised.

Wilson's very strong tone at the start makes his book a little difficult to read (I have been around many in the ministry who, while they have a heart to teach people, don't necessarily seem to have a heart to help people). However, after getting through the first couple of chapters, I was finally able to put the tone behind me and read the words for what they were.

Some of the chapters Wilson includes are "A Practical Theology of Marriage," "Headship and Authority," "Duties of Husbands and Wives," and "Multiplying Fruitfully". It is important not to just read the chapter headings and assume you know what he is going to say, as I did; this book was not about keeping women barefoot and pregnant, silent, subservient; rather Wilson simply took biblical teachings and explained them in a very sound way.

Reforming Marriage reminded me of many things, one of which was to keep short accounts. Wilson says, "Keeping short accounts means that an individual does not postpone confession of sin if confession is necessary...Sin should be confessed as soon as it is understood to be sin." He goes on to say, "Nothing good was ever accomplished through postponement of confession...Sin disrupts relationships. Sin never 'blows over.' If the mere passage of time could deal with the problem of sin, the Son of God died for no reason."

After reading this book, I walked away with a renewed understanding of both the purpose of my marriage, as well as my role within that purpose. If I could find more books which treat the topic of marriage the way Wilson does (albeit, maybe with a bit of gentler tone) I would probably read one every few months for the very objective of remaining steadfast in my responsibilities.

http://www.canonpress.org

Open Secrets by Richard Lischer

When I was a junior in college, I spent the summer as a youth minister at a small, country, independent church in New Castle, Indiana. For a kid who had grown up in upper-middle class suburbia, living in an old farm house, making $125 a week, and relating to retired farmers and factory workers was akin to cross-cultural ministry. It took effort to spend time listening and valuing those believers, who surely looked at me as a pampered 20-year old who never worked hard a day in his life.

What I discovered was that there was a real strength and wisdom that came from these men and women. They had real knowledge, though it was different from the book learning that I had absorbed. And over time, both in Indiana and Kentucky and through my wife who was a country girl (at least, she was more country than I was), I recognized how valuable, how wise, farm people were.

It was this journey of discovery that Richard Lischer described in his memior, Open Secrets. Lischer, the James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor of Preaching at Duke Divinity School, took little Cana Lutheran Church, at an unmarked crossroads outside of Alton, Illionis, as his first pastoral ministry. A St. Louis native, fresh off doctoral studies at University of London, where he wrote his dissertation on Marx and Telihard (hard to imagine something more irrelevant for rural pastoral ministry than that), he learned the joys and trials of caring for a people and place so different from what he knew previously.

In Open Secrets, we discovered faithful laypeople like Leonard Semanns, who confronted his pastor when Lischer agreed to teach for the renegade and progressive Seminex, the "Concordia Seminary in exile" during the 1970s battle for the Bible in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; the sometimes abusive and despairing family life of people like Buster and Beulah; the unwanted pregancies, the dying and yet faithful members, the loneliness of older men who lose their wives and the tenancity of older women who lose their husbands. We felt the undercurrents of battle between leaders who remain in rural communities and pastors who leave after a time, the challenge of authority and leadership in those situations, and the hurt that can simmer under the surface.

Above all, Lischer opened up both the romance and mundanity of pastoral ministry--to know the struggle of trying to make Christianity relevant to the lives of parishioners and feel the tinge of failure. Until that moment when crisis strikes--and then God allows his pastors to be sacraments of grace to God's own people, confirming and assuring them of God's continuing promise of presence, forgiveness, and mercy. Not only this, but Lischer described a vision of pastoral ministry that also meant straining to see the smallest of signs that God's grace, like a small planting of corn or beans or lettuce, is growing in people's lives. You need eyes to see it, for it shows up in unexpected places and ways--but God's work in his people can serve as God's sacrament of grace to his ministers as well (cf. Romans 1:12).

In doing this and sharing God's open secret in and through ministry to his body, God used Lischer to renew my own sense of pastoral calling once again: to serve as God's agent of Gospel reconcilation to hurting people whom God loves passionately and unreservedly. For every pastor who sometimes struggles with why he is in ministry, this book can't be read soon enough.

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by mark haddon

Ok, I’ll admit it: not until my fourteenth of fifteenth time hearing about the curious incident of the dog in the night-time did I finally decide to read it. But now, at last, I can jump on the bandwagon, proudly proclaiming that I’ve read and enjoyed it.

I think, primarily, I enjoyed the book because it was different. Main character and narrator Christopher John Francis Boone is an autistic boy living in England who embarks on detective work to discover the murderer of his neighbor’s dog Wellington. Christopher dazzles the reader throughout the pages: he decides to make the chapter titles of his “detective novel” ascending prime numbers; he thinks completely and totally logically; he doesn’t understand most human facial expressions. These details create a brilliantly unique character that becomes believably autistic and incredibly likeable. (And a quick teaser: his detective work leads Christopher to seperate but deeper discoveries.)

Author Mark Haddon masterfully creates this narrative voice, writing in long sentences and with mathematical-like reasoning. Also, he takes his depictions from real life, having worked with autistic children for years in England.

-Shanna

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

In fast-paced and crackling prose, Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower narrates the first 50 years of the Plymouth plantation. Stripping away the mythology of righteous Pilgrims and noble Indians, Philbrick's book focuses on the challenges of interracial exchange and the difficulties of living together in harmony. And yet, in his focus on this larger theme, Philbrick never strays too far away from telling a good story--indeed, it is the story-telling that is the book's great strength.

Opening with the first Mayflower migrants and focusing especially on William Bradford, Philbrick skillfully relates the challenges of the first year at Plymouth Plantation. Indeed, if it were not for the relationship developed with Massasoit and the Pokanokets, the first settlers would have been destroyed, either by the elements, lack of food, or the natives themselves. This interracial cooperation allowed English and Natives to coexist in a relatively peaceful manner until the 1637 Pequot war outside of Boston.

As the first generation of English and Natives pass off the scene, the next generation struggles to find each other. Especially as Plymouth is ruled by Josiah Winslow (founding generation Edward Winslow's son) and as the Ponkankets are led by Alexander and then Philip, old alliances are forsaken, distrust is the rule, and war breaks out. "King Philip's War," as it was called, destroyed the previous interracial balance and, in the two years of 1675-6, changed the power structure of New England.

One of the most noteworthy points that the book raises is how the alliances were never English versus Natives, but were far more complex. Key in this complexity were the "Praying Indians," those Natives who aligned themselves with Christianity as taught by John Eliot and who dwelt in the "Praying towns" set aside for Indian Missions. During King Philip's War, they were important allies for the English and belied their commitment to Christ's commands for peace in their brutal defeat of their Native enemies.Also important were the various informal agreements made, most importantly between Benjamin Church (an English military leader) and Awashonks (the female sachem of the Sakonnets). By bringing the Sakonnets in on the side of the English and learning the Native ways of fighting, the Plymouth leaders were finally able to break the Pan-Indian alliance seemingly bent for their destruction.

While there was a great deal of scholarship that undergird this breezy telling, one of the great disappointments was Philbrick's clumsy handling of religious themes. Indeed, aside from a few pages at the beginning, one gets little sense of the Pilgrim's religious views. And so, Philbrick's presentation of their theological understanding is fairly wooden--every defeat of the Natives was attributed to the blessing of God; any working together with other Protestants was anathema; and at the end of the day, in Philbrick's telling, the Pilgrims were borderline fanatics, premodern fundamentalists, if you will. One gets the sense that the Pilgrim's religious views were a frustrating impediment to a rousing story; the sooner they could be shunted to the side, the better.

Likewise, while the great moral of the story--the need for interracial cooperation and negotiation, rather than fear and war--seemed particularly appropriate in a post-9/11 world, Philbrick could have done more to bubble that theme to the surface. Perhaps a weakness of the book is that one could have read this book six years ago and not picked up on that theme at all.

Still, for those who know very little about the first 50 years of life in New England, this book is a worthwhile addition to the "popular history" genre, developed so well by Stephen Ambrose. One cannot help but be impressed by the synthetic nature of the book and the fast-paced story. In the end, Mayflower was enjoyable read, even when it failed to ask or answer the big questions about God, providence, and life in this world.

Thoughts on Religious Experience

When another pulpit-less pastor walking in and out of a month of Sundays, in blue jeans and a well-pressed tee, just doesn’t answer the longings of the suburban youth, how does the Church respond? The abandoned children of Evangelical and Reformed traditions have cried out: Where is the worship that informs the emotional intelligence of human existence? The Emerging Church has answered; nor ought we to be surprised that such a movement—often marked by being centered on the Spirit and the spiritual and the spirit, with its propensity toward anti-intellectualism—is finding such prominence.

Yet, despite offers of emotional openness, many Christians remain spiritually ignorant on matters of conversion: What is spiritual rebirth and wherein lies the perpetual struggle with habitual sin? What—if anything—is "spiritually normative"? Can I understand spiritual depression? Moreover, can I be spiritually depressed and still be a believer? What does it mean to confess my sins openly, to be accepted, absent from the kindly discipline of Word, prayer, and brotherly accountability? These questions aren’t rhetorical, as we each—by the Spirit of God—are led through both veils of greater understanding and valleys of the shadow of Death.

Such a wide berth of spiritual practicalities lies at the heart of Archibald Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience. “Faith," Alexander states, "is simply a belief of the truth, when viewed as distinct, and discriminated from all other mental acts” (83), and that though “[b]efore conversion, the soul is sordidly selfish...no sooner does this change take place, than the heart begins to be enlarged with a an expansive benevolence. The whole world is embraced in its charity…” (100). Unfolding by example and principle the primary faces of spiritual renewal, Alexander offers sweet encouragement to the believer and tender propositions for reflection for those uncertain people.

The dangers of the Evangelical and Reformed tradition is to become a deep well—unsearchable to its deepest mark—from which only one barrel of water is drawn at a time. The dangers of the Emerging Church are to become the wide, fast-flowing river whose depth is less than a foot. Searching both depth and breadth—ill embracing the particulars of form, style, or structure (worship or architecture)—Alexander reminds that “no phenomena now taking place in our world is half so important and worthy of consideration, as the repentance of a habitual sinner; so that he utterly forsakes his wicked courses, and takes delight in the worship of God and obedience to his will. Let it be remembered, that these are effects observed only where the gospel is preached… No series of miracles”—nor, might we add, any amount of emotional sincerity or theological knowledge—“could give stronger evidence of the divine origin and power of the gospel, than the actual and permanent reformation of wicked men” (74-75).

Alexander addresses youth and the elderly. He addresses the uncertain searcher of truths, the young believer, and the Christian in his final days. He warns of worldly dangers—“lawful pursuits are more frequently a snare than those which are manifestly sinful...the love of the world gradually gains ground. The possession of wealth is viewed as important. Worldly entanglements and embarrassments are experienced; the spiritual life is weakened. A sickly state commences, and a sad declension ensues” (159)—and he warns of theological pride—“[p]ersons may advance rapidly in other kinds of knowledge, and yet make no advance in piety; but the contrary. They may even have their minds filled with correct theoretical knowledge of divine truth; and yet its effect may not be to humble, but to ‘puff up’” (192).

And yet, springing from his sincerest warnings are a wealth-spring of constant assurance to the believer, reminding us that “[s]o far are right views of free grace from leading those who entertain them to indulge in indolence, or be careless about holy living, that they impart the only true cause of activity and diligence in the work of the Lord” (133). And, as if anticipating such as ourselves, he even ventures to state, “As one of God’s methods of comforting and strengthening his mourning children is by good books, I will embrace this opportunity to recommend to those engaged in spiritual warfare” (188), which he does.

Even as I now recommend Thoughts on Religious Experience. For pursuant upon the deep wells of Gospel truth, flowing in great rivers of grace and comfort to a broken world—where often a church may offer one or the other—Alexander drives believers back to principles from spiritual rebirth to coming resurrection, in a journey of emotional intelligence and theological import.