Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

If you're like me, you get tired of hearing about new churches, or sometimes old churches trying to make themselves new, who say things like, "We're the church for people who don't like church," "We're a different kind of church," "This is not your grandmother's church," and such things, the implication being that churches are somehow bad, full of failed traditions and dead faith.  Even worse are those who "love Jesus but not the church," who are "spiritual but not religious," who "worship by enjoying nature" and consider fellowship at Starbucks to be a legitimate substitute for corporate worship.  Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck have heard some of those same things.  DeYoung, a pastor in Michigan, and Kluck, a writer who attends DeYoung's church, take on some of these attitudes in a refreshing affirmation of church for people who like church, of church like your grandmother's church.

DeYoung and Kluck survey some of the recent literature that dimishes the role of church in the Christian life, discuss the demographic characteristics of "leavers," and provide some encouragement and inspiration in defense of churchgoing.  I have seen some of these books, many of which are written by leaders of the "emergent church."  (DeYoung and Kluck have also written a book called Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys who Should Be).)  Some titles are pretty self-explanatory, like They Like Jesus but Not the Church or When Christians Get it Wrong.  There are plenty of these, often written as a memoir of a 20-something or 30-something who has gone through some sort of crisis of faith. 

But I was surprised, as DeYoung was, by the anti-church writings of George Gallup and Leonard Sweet.  Both of these writers have been influential with their cultural, sociological analyses of church life and the role of religion in society.  But both have in recent years taken a turn for the worse.  According to DeYoung and Kluck, Gallup and Sweet are purveyors of the "Jesus on the golf course" and "Jesus at Starbucks" movement.  In their view, a good time enjoying creation and companionship on the golf course, or enjoying conversation and coffee at Starbucks, are legitimate expressions of church.  It's not that I, or DeYoung and Kluck, are against those things.  Of course relationships are crucial to the Christian life, and of course we can experience God in the beauty of nature (even the thoroughly manicured beauty of a golf course), but those experiences are not church.

One of the criticisms that church leavers hold against the contemporary American church is a disengagement from culture and the needs of the world.  Many churches have embraced social action in a positive way, but DeYoung and Kluck warn that churches often champion interests that are non-controversial rather than those with a biblical, evangelical mandate.  When churches oppose sex trafficking, work against world hunger, or build houses for the homeless, who would object to it?  "Let's make sure as Christians that our mission concerns go farther than those shared by Brangelina and the United Way."  The church isn't a social service agency, but the body of Christ on earth, with a very specific and unique gospel to proclaim.  Some miss the gospel; they want social action without atonement.

The younger generation, DeYoung and Kluck argue, is "prone to radicalism without follow through."  They see Bono and his ilk, setting that kind of activism up as the model.  The authors ask, "What's harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the praise team every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?  Even if one is not harder than the other, certainly one is more common.  And sadly, that is the one that is more despised."  It may be that the latter is more boring.  Punching a clock and paying a mortgage may not be too glamorous, even dull.  But boredom can also be an expression of and side effect of faithfulness, a "long obedience in the same direction."

DeYoung and Kluck are to be commended for defending the oft maligned institutional church.  The bottom line, for those who want the church to "do more" is to remember this truth: "The gospel is not about what we do for God.  It's a message about what God has done for us."

The Common Lawyer, by Mark Gimenez

The Common Lawyer is another great legal thriller from D/FW's own Mark Gimenez.  I reviewed his The Perk back in June.  (I noted then that his books aren't too easy to find here; you can order from The Book Depository in the U.K., which ships to the U.S. for FREE!)  Gimenez scores another page turner with The Common Lawyer. 

Gimenez has been compared to John Grisham by reviewers.  The Common Lawyer, perhaps the most Grisham-like Gimenez offering yet, features a young, struggling lawyer getting an offer he can't refuse.  (Grisham lovers would say that sounds familiar.)  Andy Prescott is pretty content with his career.  Sure, he has a cramped office over a tattoo parlor, doesn't own a car, and makes barely enough money defending traffic tickets to support his mountain biking habit.  When a local billionaire drops by seeking Andy's services, his life takes a crazy turn.

Andy's first job for the billionaire, acting as his representative for some real estate development on Austin's south side, where Andy lives, sets up one of the interesting subplots of the novel.  A trendy neighborhood with easy access to downtown, south Austin has seen dramatic increases in property values, so that some of the long-time, low-income residents are priced out of the neighborhood.  Andy's client wants to build affordable housing in the neighborhood, to the chagrin of some residents.  Andy uses his contacts and good reputation in the community to attempt to convince the neighborhood to embrace the housing development. 

This part of the story highlights a feature of Gimenez's novels: an intimate knowledge of not only the geography but the culture and ethos of his settings.  I have little doubt that he spent a great deal of time in this neighborhood, getting to know the people and places and creating a believable, realisitic setting.  I'm not from Austin, but have been there a few times.  I could picture Andy riding around downtown, on the University of Texas campus, and the trails of the greenbelt on his mountain bike.  (I also got a kick out of Andy's shopping.  When looking for a gift for his mother, he browses the cool shops in his neighborhood.  He runs across a purse made from an armadillo, which he deems "weird, but cool."  When I was in college I had the audacity to buy one of those for my girlfriend, and, even better, she had the audacity to carry it!)  He then addresses social and cultural issues relevant to the people there, weaving an interesting social message through the story (without distracting from the plot).  I wouldn't be a bit surprised to visit Austin and see the very housing development Gimenez describes, or reading about a controversy over such a project in the Austin papers.

The overall plot also has a message, posing a difficult medical ethics question.  However, Gimenez brilliantly keeps the reader guessing as to the nature of the issue.  I hesitate to reveal too much, but Gimenez forces us to wonder, if I had a child with a terminal disease, and I were a billionaire, would I not do everything I could to cure him?  Would I do the unethical or illegal to treat him?  Again, without beating up an issue or forcing a position down the readers' throats, Gimenez uses the issue to drive a great story, while giving us a context to consider the ethical questions.

The Common Lawyer displays Gimenez's great pacing, multiple plots levels, and engaging characters.  Even with some dark elements, Gimenez keeps it light, with bumbling bad guys who could have stepped out of a Carl Hiaasen book, and Andy's free-wheeling approach to life and law that makes you want to hang out with him in his hip south Austin neighborhood.  I think you'll want to, too.  The Common Lawyer is a terrific read, keeping you guessing and accelerating like one of Andy's mountain bike rides toward an unexpetedly wild, thoroughly satisfying ending.  Highly recommended!

Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson

Several years ago, my sister was reading Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, and said I must read it.  Well, I finally got around to it, and she couldn't have been more right on her recommendation!  Mortenson's story inspires and challenges me, yet frustrates me at the same time.  He has become well-known for his work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, even earning a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Three Cups of Tea tells the story of his start and the obstacles he had to overcome.

Mortenson was a self-proclaimed climbing bum.  He worked as a nurse, but mostly worked to climb.  A friend asked him to come along as the medic on an expedition to K2, the worlds second tallest peak.  Due to a rescue of another climber, he did not get to summit, and then got lost on the way down the mountain.  He ended up in the village of Korphe, where he recovered, enjoyed the hospitality of the northern Pakistani villagers, and changed the course of his life.  As he got to know the people of Korphe, he observed the children sitting in a make-shift, open-air classroom, working on their lessons with no books, no paper, and no teacher.  He promised to return to the village to build a school for the kids.

For the next year, Mortenson lived in his car, worked extra hours at his nursing job, and saved everything he could for the school in Korphe.  He typed letters (Yes, typed!  He didn't know anything about computers at this point.) to every wealthy person he could think of.  He ended up returning to Korphe a year later in a truck loaded with materials to build the school.  They built a bridge, instead, which is a cool story in itself, but by doing so he gained credibility and momentum to come back and build the school and many more in the area.  To date, Mortenson has built dozens of schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, educating thousands of children, focusing especially on girls, who previously couldn't go to school at all.

Much of Three Cups of Tea reads like an adventure story, and what adventures he had!  Besides the sheer audacity of his mission, Mortenson was kidnapped and held captive by Taliban, caught in the crossfire between rival warlords, and was the subject of at least one fatwah.  But his reputation grew with every school.  The Taliban captured him, but only wanted him to build schools for their people!  Warlords rode for days to meet him and invite him to their villages.  He was loved and respected virtually everywhere he went (except by the CIA, who wanted him to reveal Osama bin Laden's hiding place.  He didn't know. . . .)

I said Three Cups of Tea inspired and frustrated me.  You can't help but be inspired by someone who does so much with so little.  Mortenson is not independently wealthy, was not well-connected, and did not have rich parents to get money from.  He had nothing when he committed to build a school for Korphe.  His single-minded, relentless commitment to education for these poor, rural people is impressive, especially when you realize he started not only with no money, but with no organizational or political support.  My frustration lies in the realization of how little I've done with my life, and how little passion and commitment I've brought to my endeavors.  Oftentimes when we read about people who do great things, their greatness springs from privilege or circumstance, and we can think, "Oh, of course he was great, or did great things!  Look what he had to start with."  But Mortenson (no slight to him is meant here) was an average guy with no resources, yet has accomplished much.  What a challenge to the rest of us regular folks!

The school at Korphe

One thing I would like to have seen explored in Three Cups of Tea is Mortenson's faith.  The child of missionaries, he was raised as a devout Christian.  Although he never states that he has rejected Christianity, he gives no indication that, as an adult, he is a follower of Jesus.  He does talk about taking on some religious affectations of the Muslims, such as joining them in daily prayer, but he seems to distance himself from the Muslim faith.  In a way, this works in his favor: there is no ulterior motive for his work.  He does not found schools as a means to gain a foothold in the culture from which he can proselytize.  His mission is to promote education solely for the sake of education.  I would just be interested to hear more about how his personal faith has shaped that mission through the years.

As a non-sectarian worker with the mission of educating children, he has been a force for peace in the region.  He started his work before 9/11, and, in the face of virulent anti-Americanism, has continued to be the face of America for Muslims in areas where he works.  How can they be anti-American?  They know and love "Dr. Greg," a fine American!  His presence there has done more for peace than treaties or troops or aid could ever do.

What a great story!  And it goes on.  He is actually promoting his new book, Stones into Schools, and will be in Dallas this weekend at an event for a fundraising dinner.  (details)  If you haven't heard his story before, pick up Three Cups of Tea.  You won't be disappointed.

The Real Stars: In Today's America, Who are the True Heroes?, by Ben Stein

Who doesn't love Ben Stein.  He is, of course best known for his acting roles, like the unforgettable teacher in Ferris Beuler's Day off, Visine commercials, or his game show, "Win Ben Stein's Money."  Many don't know that he also holds a Yale law degree, worked as an economist in the department of commerce, and worked as a speech writer for Presidents Nixon and Ford.  For years I subscribed to The American Spectator, in which his regular column, "Ben Stein's Diary," was always the highlight. 

The Real Stars: In Today's America, Who are the True Heroes?, a collection of essays which remind me of the tone of his TAS columns, capture his optimism, his humor, his good nature, and his political and economic insights.  The title essay comes from a column he wrote for E! Online, in which he says our heroes should not be the "stars" who make 8 figure incomes reciting lines on film, but those men and women of the armed forces who leave the comforts of home, sacrifice families and careers, and lay down their lives in service to our country.  (Ironic, of course, that he writes this for a web site presumable dedicated to the rich and shallow of Hollywood.)

Many of these essays will make you laugh.  All will make you smile.  Some will make you cry.  I especially liked "My Father's Estate," in which he chronicles the legacy his father has left behind, very little of which can be stolen, I mean taxed, by the IRS.  His conversations with and anecdotes about famous and not-so-famous people are quite enjoyable to read.  One quibble I have with him, though, is his frequent harping about not being rich.  Granted, he's frequently hobnobbing with Hollywood moguls and other mega-rich folks, so maybe compared to them, he is a pauper.  But I would imagine that compared with most of America, he is quite wealthy.  That's a minor point, though.  He's so good-natured that he sees the very best in everyone.  Even though he says a $100,000,000 Hollywood starlet is not his hero, he doesn't take the step, which would be tempting to me, of pointing out her many character flaws.

This collection is a fun read.  If you've never read Stein's columns, you're in for a treat.  In fact, most of these are available, in one form or another, at his web site.  (But since he's broke, you should buy the book from him!)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

If you're under the age of, say, 40 or 50, you have no first-hand memory of Jim Crow.  I know I don't.  Most of my life has been in what Michelle Alexander calls "the age of colorblindness."  There's plenty of racism in the world; I guess there always will be.  But our society is now officially colorblind.  We have seen black corporate leaders, sports and entertainment figures, professionals, teachers, police and fire personnel, elected officials, and, now, a U.S. president. Who can say our society has elements of racial control likened to Jim Crow?  Alexander makes a convincing case.

The bottom line is that the absurdly high percentage of African-American males who are in jail or have been convicted of felonies is not a result of that group's propensity for criminal activity but is a result of racist policies.  Just as slavery and Jim Crow excluded blacks from mainstream life, now mass incarceration, primarily as a result of the War on Drugs, has excluded them.  Even after they leave prison, ex-convicts try to reenter mainstream culture but are faced with restrictions on voting and running for office, exclusion by many trade associations and professional licensing, exclusion from public housing and other government benefits, rejection from many employers, and, of course, life-long social stigma.

The biggest culprit here is the War on Drugs.  Starting in the Reagan administration, law enforcement has vastly increased its focus on the enforcement of drug laws.  Ironically, at the time Reagan initiated the WoD, drug use was actually on the decline.  But, hey, we had to learn how to "Just say no."  The WoD introduced more and more incentives for law enforcement to arrest and prosecute drug users.  Besides federal monetary grants, local police were given access to military weaponry and tactics to use against their citizens.  SWAT raids against grandmas?  Check.  In addition, seizure rules gave police the ability to seize money, cars, houses, land, and anything else they deemed connected in any way to a drug crime.  Here's an idea: lets tie police department budgets and officers' salary bonuses to seized assets to give them an incentive to seize even more.  Done!

What does the WoD have to do with race?  Tons.  Where is it easier to find drug activity?  In a neighborhood where people live in crowded apartments and spend a lot of time outside, or in a neighborhood where people have large homes and fenced yards?  Who is more likely to have connections and money to get out of drug convictions, teenage children of suburban white professionals, or black high school kids in the inner city?  The fact is, white people use drugs at higher rates than black people, but arrests and convictions of black for drug crimes far outweigh those for whites.

Well, the drug laws themselves aren't racist--they're colorblind, like our enlightened society!  Wrong.  First, the easy one: sentencing for crack cocaine is 100 times harsher than for powder cocaine.  Even though whites use crack too, thanks to the Reagan-era anti-drug hysteria, crack is associated with blacks.  And laws are enforced and prosecuted with the discretion of police and prosecutors.  Alexander looks at data on traffic stops, pedestrian stops, and other "pretense" stops; blacks are stopped much more frequently for things like a burned out taillight as a pretense for a search, thus are found with drugs on random searches more frequently.  And to top it off, the courts have excluded the overwhelming evidence of racism from consideration.  So what if the vast majority of drug arrests are of black men; unless you have an officer on video screaming "I'm going to through your nigga a-- in jail" or some other blatantly racist rant, you have no case for racism.

Alexander presents a convincing case demonstrating the racism of our law enforcement system which has put the black man in a subservient position in society.  As a white man, it makes me furious to see the way society, which I tend to think of as pretty fair, treats blacks.  As the father of a black son, it makes me fear for his future.  There are times when Alexander seems to oversell the case, but she presents so much data that even her occasional emotional foray does not seem off the mark.  I will say that if I had heard Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton give a speech making these points, I would have written them off.  I can't stand those guys, con men and manipulators that they are.  But I can no longer ignore what they say as easily.

So what about those successful African-Americans?  Alexander says that's great to have these examples, but we should not forget the mass of black men, the millions stigmatized and excluded by the criminal justice system.  She acknowledges the difficulty in defending the civil rights of the criminal class, but we have to face the racism of the system.  She chastises the civil rights establishment for basically ignoring this issue.

I am with Alexander on the hypocrisy of the WoD.  Our past 3 presidents have acknowledged their experimentation with drugs.  If they had been held to the same standard as an inner-city black teenager, they each could probably have been convicted at some point, making them ineligible for public office.  But do any of them speak out in favor of easing drug criminalization?  Of course not.  (There's a time machine fantasy for you: I wish I could travel back in time to Obama's youth, arrest him during one of his drug trips, make sure he is convicted, maybe have him serve a little time, then our nation would never have to be afflicted with his poisonous policies!)

The New Jim Crow is a difficult book to read.  My blood was boiling at points.  If I were a younger man, I would be sending off applications to law school and applying for internships at some advocacy groups. If you've ever been skeptical of claims regarding racism in the criminal justice system, I challenge you to read this book.  If you ever thought the WoD was a good idea, read this book.  If you think it's a great idea to lock up such a large percentage of our population, read this book.  Alexander's right, a civil rights campaign calling for the defense of convicted drug users may not play as well as defending the rights of poor kids to have an equal education, but it is no less important.

Star Island, by Carl Hiaasen

There are a few authors whose new books I look forward to with great anticipation; Carl Hiaasen is one of them.  If you have never read his novels, you are missing a real treat.  A Miami Herald columnist, Hiassen revels in stories of the crazy side of life in South Florida.  Star Island is one of the crazier stories he's crafted, bringing in some of the characters we know and love, like Chemo, the bodyguard with the weed whacker attachment on his prosthetic arm, and Skink, the ex-governor with the missing eye, who lives off the land among the mangroves, and introduces us to the culture of celebrity surrounding the stars of Star Island.  (Star Island is a man-made island in Miami where the likes of P Diddy, Shaq, A-Rod, Gloria Estefan, and other stars live or have lived.)

Cherry Pye, a spoiled, talentless, yet wildly successful pop star, has taken a walk on the wild side.  Picture Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, club hopping, bed hopping, drinking and drugging, and loving the attention from the paparazzi and the tabloids.  Cherry's life is like that; her parents and handlers struggle to keep her happy while keeping her alive and hoping to keep her on her feet for her upcoming tour.  Without Cherry's knowledge, they've hired an actress as a body double for Cherry.  If Cherry's in rehab, passed out, or sick, they bring out Ann to fill in for quick appearances.  When Ann disappears, Team Cherry goes into a frenzy and madness ensues.

Ann, rescued after a car accident by Skink, the crazy hermit and ex-governor, wants out of this crazy life, but on her terms.  After she's kidnapped by a tabloid photographer, she's wondering if Skink will come to her rescue.  Cherry's agent hires Chemo as body guard.  For a while, he replaces his weed whacker prosthesis with a cattle prod, which he uses on Cherry when she uses the word "like" as other than a verb.  He wonders if Cherry is worth protecting.

Hiaasen crafts his usual improbable, twisted plot with crazily interconnecting story lines, while developing characters who caricature real life.  The situational humor is laugh out loud funny, the characters are hilarious and unforgettable, and the cultural commentary will make you smile.  I don't know that I would say Star Island is as terrific as Skinny Dip or Sick Puppy, two of my favorites, but it's a good one.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, by Alain de Botton

At first, I loved this book.  The first couple of chapters brought to mind Leonard Read's classic essay, "I, Pencil."  If you haven't read this before, click here and read it now!  That great little story tells of the incredible complexity of the common pencil, created by the efforts of millions of people all over the world, not one of whom knows how to make a pencil.  In a similar way, Alain de Botton looks at some of the ordinary, everyday transactions of our daily economic lives and reveals the complex mechanisms behind them.

De Botton, a Swiss-born, London-based writer, starts at the port of London, where he catalogues some of the activity there.  Raw materials come from all over the world to be made into finished products.  Finished products come from all over the world to be distributed to consumers.  The ships arrive from exotic ports of call, but to the shipping agents, "their vessels' journeys have all the mundanity of a ride between stations on a Underground line."  The consumer is typically indifferent to the origins and travels of the goods he buys, but "a slight dampness at the bottom of a carton, or an obscure code printed along a computer cable, may hint at processes of manufacture and transport noble and more mysterious, more worthy of wonder and study, than the goods themselves."

De Botton describes the intricate workings at a logistics park, where much of the work takes place at night. "We lie in bed, . . . our mouths defencelessly agape, while a fleet of lorries is loaded up with the lion's share of the morning's semi-skimmed milk for northern England."  Other warehouses are full of produce, where "at any given moment, half the contents of the warehouse are seventy-two hours away from being inedible, a prospect which prompts continuous struggles against the challenges of mould and geography."  So tomatoes from Palermo end up on a table in northern Scotland in mere days, and strawberries from California are flown across the Arctic Circle to European grocery stores.  Because of the short lives of strawberries, "An improbable number of grown-ups have been forced to subordinate their sloth, to move pallets across sheds and wait in rumbling diesel lorries in traffic to bow to the exacting demands of soft plump fruit."

For me, a favorite feature is the photo essay which follows some tuna from the Maldives to a dinner table.  The author goes along with a commercial fishing crew, watches as they bring in their catch, to the processing plant, rides the plane with it to London, stalks the shoppers in the store, and follows the purchaser home to dinner.  (The photo essay is available at the photographer's web site, richardbaker.photoshelter.com.) In another chapter, he visits a biscuit (cookie) factory, examining the marketing research and recipe experimentation that goes into producing a package of cookies.  The massive research and production effort for one little cookie is astounding.  Next time you have dinner, eat an Oreo, or buy some random product at the store, these chapters will make you stop and think about all that went into getting those items into your shopping cart.

Those chapters, which constitute about 1/3 of the book, fell into the "I love this book!" category.  De Botton's style makes what may seem mundane into fascinating reading.  The rest of the book is not bad, but didn't grab me the way the first part did.  While looking into various trades and professions, he brings them alive and provides some interesting insights for the outsider.  The Japanese team who travels to French Guiana to launch a satellite for their TV network, the painter who paints the same tree over and over again, the entrepreneurs who go to a conference to learn "How to Turn That Gem of an Idea Into Shed-Loads of Money," all point to the many ways people contribute to the life of work.  The sorrows?  Every now and then I sensed from de Bottom a bit of futility and meaninglessness in the working life, but overall, at least in my interpretation, he dwells more on the satisfaction and joy of a job done well.

Uneven though the latter part of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work may be, I thoroughly enjoyed de Botton's style.  He has helped shine a light on the world of consumer goods and of production and labor as a whole.  As I look around the room now, and as I think about the variety, complexity, and technology of the goods and services to available to me, our world seems smaller and more interconnected.