Faith Improvised

I recommend Ijeoma Oluo’s new book, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, and I respond to a question about women in ministry by sort of flipping the script and reflecting on the problem of men in ministry. I also recommend Nijay Gupta's excellent blog series, "Why I Believe in Women in Ministry," an index to which is found here (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/cruxsola/2019/06/why-i-believe-in-women-in-ministry-gupta/).

I recommend a magisterial work by Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, and I reflect a bit on some recent articles on the cultural dynamics of evangelicalism. I refer to these three articles: Timothy Dalrymple, "The Splintering of the Evangelical Soul: Why We're Coming Apart, and How We Might Come Together Again," Christianity Today, April 16, 2021. J. Kameron Carter, "Behind Christianity Today’s Editorial is a Deeper Crisis of America’s Religion of Whiteness," Religion News Service, December 24, 2019. Isaac B. Sharp, "Race, Gender, and the Limits of Evangelical Identity," Berkeley Forum, April 22, 2021. I also refer to these books: Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the Present. George Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. John A. D'Elia, A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America.

I recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates's brilliant book, Between the World and Me, an absolutely powerful memoir that’s a personal letter to his son, and I intended to talk about a few recent articles on the contemporary state of American evangelicalism, but ended up extending some thoughts on the sorts of things I routinely re-think.

I recommend Jared Yates Sexton's compelling new book, American Rule: How A Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People, and I talk about reckoning with the narrative shape of the Gospels, how they theologize about Jesus as a character, and how certain theological conceptions can get in the way of our understanding, especially an assumption about God's "omniscience." I also mention Jeannine Brown's excellent book, The Gospels as Stories: A Narrative Approach to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I talk about Adam Grant's new book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know, and how it sheds light on creative Christian postures of humility and curiosity. I also mention Beth Allison Barr's new release, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. And I make minor note of Daniel Boorstin's classic work, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.

In this short episode I talk about the Cubs' brutal start to the season, the Masters tournament from last week, and I recommend Edward Larson's brilliant book, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion.

I reflect a bit about why this is my favorite week of the year, I talk about Molly Worthen’s book, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism, and I share a personal story about reconnecting with an old friend.

I recommend a powerful new book by Anthea Butler called White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, and I reflect for a bit about the terms “exvangelical” and “deconstruction.” I also mention a few other books: Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know; Crystal M. Fleming, How To Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide; Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America.

I share some random observations from the past week, I recommend Educated: A Memoir, which is a brilliant and quite compelling coming of age narrative, and I talk about Paul’s vision of the church as God’s public justice.

I share some thoughts from the past week, I recommend Heather McGhee's brilliant new book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, in which she elaborates the zero-sum logic that distorts our racial and political imaginations, and I share some ideas from my book, Power in Weakness: Paul's Transformed Vision for Ministry, especially how Paul experienced a conversion of his ministry imagination.