Finding Holy in the Suburbs, by Ashley Hales

Ashley Hales's Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land of Too Much reminds me of those niche devotional books, like The New Testament for Outdoorsmen or Devotionals for Quilters.  The content is, by definition, just about the same for those books, but it's dressed up for particular people groups or interests.  In Hales's case, I felt like I was reading something like Spiritual Disciplines for Middle-Class Suburban Moms.

Hales takes some decent material on spiritual disciplines and Christian life, and forces it onto a template of stereotypes about "the suburbs."  Much of it felt artificial, contrived, and insulting.  She weakens her position early on when she writes that "more than 50 percent of Americans live in the suburbs."  Then she proceeds to develop the worn-out supposed distinctives of suburban life: consumerism, busyness, obsession with safety, superficiality, isolation, etc.  First of all, these qualities exist everywhere, not just in the suburbs.  Second of all, she keeps up this suburban picture of wealth, privilege, and segregation, while American suburbs become more diverse, racially and economically, all the time (as you might expect since more than half of us live there).

For example, she writes, "Buying is our suburban form of worship."  Oh, only suburbanites succumb to this?  "In the suburbs we like the sheen of community, but real community is messy and unkempt."  Because inner-city neighborhoods are always so naturally community oriented?  "The suburbs keep us busy because we think the more we move, the more we work, the more valuable we will be."  Is this in contrast to city dwellers, who are know to be so much less career-, work-, and task-oriented?  "Although we are materially wealthy in the suburbs, we are spiritually poor."  Again, suburbs are diverse, not only full of wealthy people.  And materially poor people are just as likely to be spiritually needy as materially rich people.  "In the suburbs the default setting is to fill our soul hungers with fast-food versions" of commerce, relationships, and love.  Why would she insist this is any more true for someone in a suburb than for someone in the city?

I want to emphasize that there is plenty of good food for thought in Finding Holy in the Suburbs.  It just drove me crazy, the whole time I was reading, that she maintains this attitude of denigrating suburban life, seeming to say that one must struggle to overcome the natural pull of suburban life to grow spiritually.  The implication is that in the city or in a rural area, spiritual growth is more natural and part of one's surroundings.  I find that to be completely bogus.  Everything she says about the suburbs can be applied to anywhere you live.

Toward the end she writes, "The man from Galilee is the one who bears our suburban sins in his body and takes them to death."  Well, that's true, but you might as well take the word "suburban" out of that sentence, and it is no less true.  To me, it just seems a little silly to force the gospel and Christian spirituality into a particular demographic.  Maybe we can edit this a little bit: Finding Holy: Living Faithfully Wherever You Are.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!