The Disabled God, by Nancy Eiesland

In order to shape a theology of disability, one need not necessarily be disabled, but it's hard to imagine that anyone without a disability would be able to have the insight that Nancy Eiesland had. Through her book The Disabled God as well as many other writings, Eiesland, who suffered from a congenital bone defect, became a preeminent spokes-theologian for people with disabilities.  She died in 2009 (see this obituary in the New York Times).

In The Disabled God Eiesland draws on the disability rights movement as part of the larger civil rights movement, on liberation theology, and on the experiences of people with disabilities, including herself, to suggest a view of God who not only loves but identifies with people with disabilities.  Unfortunately, the church has not always been a place of welcome for them.  Part of the problem, Eiesland points out, lies in biblical and theological views of disability.  In the Old Testament, is someone was "blind or lame . . . a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes," he was prohibited from offering sacrifices in the Temple.  Eiesland offers modern examples of churches preventing people from entering the clergy because of their disabilities.  In the New Testament, the message is mixed: disabilities are variously seen as signs of sin or judgment, an opportunity for God to show his power, a matter of "virtuous suffering," or an object of charity.  These attitudes have led to "marginalization and discrimination" in the church.

Eiesland offers a concrete example of institutionalized discrimination in the church.  The American Lutheran Church adopted a document which "wholeheartedly embraced the concerns of persons with disabilities and encouraged systemic change."  Yet, a short time later, the same denomination barred "people with 'significant' physical or mental handicaps" from ministry.  The more powerful stories are the personal experiences, such as those of Diane DeVries, who was born "without lower limbs, and with above-elbow upper extremity stumps."  When she sought to sing in the choir at church, the pastor refused, primarily for aesthetic reasons.  When Eiesland went to one church, she was told that she "need not go forward for the Eucharist."  Rather, she "would be offered the sacrament at [her] seat when everyone else had been served."  So for her receiving the Eucharist "was transformed . . . from a corporate to a solitary experience; from a sacralization of Christ's broken body to a stigmatization of my disabled body."

The important point here is the response of church leadership:

Rather than focusing on the congregation's practices that excluded my body and asking, "How do we alter the bodily practice of the Eucharist in order that this individual and others with disabilities would have full access to the ordinary practices of the church?" the decision makers would center the (unstated) problem on my disabled body, asking, "How should we accommodate this person with a disability in our practice of Eucharist?"

The difference here is subtle, but crucial.

The central argument of the book, that God showed himself as disabled, is not as strong, in my opinion, as Eiesland would have wanted.  She points out that when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, he still bore the holes in his hands, feet, and side.  His body was broken, incomplete, not whole; he was disabled.  By appearing this way, Eiesland argues that Jesus "repudiates the conception of disability as a consequence of individual sin."  He "alters the taboo of physical avoidance of disability."  This is liberating for people with disabilities, giving them hope and reminding them "than even our nonconventional bodies . . . are worth the living."

Eiesland's book serves as a thoughtful reminder to church leaders who don't give a second thought to giving a place to people with disabilities in their congregation.  Most churches are reactive; if someone with a disability shows up, they will try to accommodate him or her.  But how much better and more reflective of God's intent if we fostered a spirit of worship in which people of all abilities would feel welcome?

She also challenges me, as an able-bodied reader, to reconsider my view of what human perfection and completion is.  I have always imagined that in heaven, our bodily ills would disappear: the blind will see, the lame will walk, etc.  But Eiesland would call on us to "reject the image of the 'perfect body' as an oppressive myth."  Eiesland is who she is because of her disability; in the N.Y. Times piece cited above, she states that without her disability, she would "be absolutely unknown to my self and perhaps to God."  The psalmist reminds me that God "formed my inmost parts, [he] knit me together in my mother's womb. . . . I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . . My frame was not hidden from [him]."  That holds true for all of us, whether "temporarily able-bodied" or disabled.  Jesus, as the disabled God, affirms and connects to all people, disabled or not.

Kill Shot, by Vince Flynn

If I had lost a loved one on 9/11 or some other terrorist attack, I would love Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp character.  After losing his girlfriend in the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing, Rapp's life takes a turn toward revenge.  In last year's American Assassin, Rapp goes through his training in an elite, off-the-books hit squad, and takes part in his first mission.  In Flynn's latest, Kill Shot, Rapp continues to knock off the terrorists on his list, exacting revenge with every kill.

Mitch Rapp is a figment of Vince Flynn's imagination.

Rapp's victim is the Libyan oil minister, a key player in terrorist circles.  He enters the minister's hotel suite, gets a clean kill, but then is ambushed by a hit squad.  Realizing he's walked into a trap, he takes out four of the gunmen and escapes; the gunmen's leader survives.  Knowing that somehow he's been betrayed by someone in his inner circle, he strikes out on his own, refusing to follow protocol and check in with his handlers.  His enemies in the unit decide he's gone rogue and that Rapp needs to be taken out, leading to a confrontation which not everyone will survive.

True to form, Flynn has written a tight, fast-paced thriller, using an economy of words and just enough suspense to make you want to keep reading to the end.  In my case, listening to the book on CD, I frequently had to force myself to turn off the car, putting of the story until my next car trip.

It's easy to cheer for Rapp.  He's driven by a pure desire for revenge, and gets his revenge through cold-blooded, calculated killing.  I was reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger's line in True Lies, when his wife, finding out for the first time that he's a secret agent, asks if he's ever killed anyone. "Yeah, but they were all bad."  Rapp only kills the bad guys.  In fact, he's torn up with guilt when he is indirectly responsible for the death of an innocent man.  But for all the ostensibly justified killing, I'm forced to think about the kind of worldview in which targeted assassination is the norm.  In Flynn's world, Rapp is a one-man Seal Team 6, taking out the terrorists before they can plot any more attacks on innocent targets.  In the real world, I'm not comfortable with a code of revenge.

Moral quandaries aside, Flynn's books make for an exciting read.  Movies are in the works, too; I'll line up for a ticket.

Accused, by Mark Gimenez

I recently re-read Mark Gimenez's terrific debut novel, The Color of Law, quickly followed by the sequel,  Accused.  I don't know if sequel really is the right word; it's a completely new story with the same main characters in a new setting.  In between these two, he published 3 other great novels, then returns to the characters of The Color of Law.  Clearly his writing continues to improve, in style and substance.

In The Color of Law, one of Scott Finney's many troubles is that his pretty young wife ran off with the golf pro from their country club.  Accused opens with Mrs. Finney waking up with her golf pro boyfriend, now a millionaire PGA star, stabbed to death in their bed.  She calls the best lawyer she knows, Scott, to defend her.

Everything points to her guilt, but Finney refuses to believe that, despite her many faults, she is not a murderer.  He finds plenty of other suspects and plenty of reasons to draw suspicion away from his wife.  In doing so, he peels back layers of pro sports, the community of Galveston, judicial politics, and other realms, showing the dirtier undersides that some would love to keep covered.

As with all of his books, Gimenez conveys a genuine sense of place.  With Accused, he returns to his hometown of Galveston.  After reading this I felt like I could find my way around town and recognize the landmarks.  While he does present many of Galveston's charms, I suspect he made some of his former neighbors a bit uncomfortable with some of his unflattering descriptions.

Gimenez builds the plot well, following Finney's path as he grows the list of suspects, hoping that he can find the one who committed the murder so his daughter won't have to grow up visiting Mom in jail.  There are plenty of twits and turns as suspects come and go.  The final, brilliant twist made me laugh out loud! (But I dare not reveal it here. . . .)  Accused is a great mystery story with a great ending.  Highly recommended!

The Color of Law, by Mark Gimenez

Long time followers of the Reading Glutton will recall that in 2010 I reviewed a couple of novels by Mark Gimenez, a lawyer-turned-author who lives right here in the Fort Worth area.  I recently re-read his first book, The Color of Law, which I first saw reviewed in Texas Monthly when it was released in 2005.

As I noted in my other reviews (here and here), Gimenez falls solidly in the same legal fiction genre as John Grisham, but he tells a much better story than Grisham.  I like Grisham (see my recent review of Grisham's latest here).  I read all his books and will likely continue to do so as he churns them out.  But they are not as satisfying and substantial as Gimenez's.

The Color of Law, Gimenez's debut novel, set the standard for his later works.  Here we meet A. Scott Finney, a lawyer in high-powered Dallas law firm, making big bucks representing Dallas's big bucks clients.  He grew up poor, but was a football star at exclusive Highland Park High School and posh S.M.U.  Remembered for his on-the-field heroics, he has managed to become a part of the establishment he always looked up to: he has the Highland Park mansion, trophy wife, expensive sports car, club memberships, the whole bit.

All of this perfection begins to fall apart when he is appointed to defend--I know this sounds a little over the top--a black prostitute accused of murdering the son of a Highland Park denizen.  Of course, the prostitute turns out to be a great mom in spite of her circumstances, and the victim is a spoiled, good-for-nothing playboy whose powerful father, a U.S. senator, is a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, and Finney goes through a rapid conversion from a rich lawyer driven by money to a lawyer with integrity, driven by justice.

Maybe there is some stereotyping here, and maybe the morality is a little bit too black and white, but none of that stops Gimenez from telling a richly satisfying story.  Highly recommended!

The Necessity of an Enemy, by Ron Carpenter, Jr.

You gotta love a title like this: The Necessity of an Enemy.  Ron Carpenter, Jr., pastor of Redemption World Outreach Center in South Carolina, says to welcome the enemies in your life.  He takes this seemingly contradictory idea and runs with it, stretching it out to book length.  I really do like the idea of the book, but it seemed like he was trying to extend a sermon to be long enough to justify a book.

Here's the central theme: "enemies are indicators, announcements, clues, that there's something great inside you yet to be born."  David faced his enemy, Goliath, and went on to greater glory.  Moses faced Pharaoh, leading to his leading the Israelites out of Egypt.  Jesus faced Satan in the desert, subsequently launching his ministry.  The appearance of the enemy in these cases indicated a new, greater stage of ministry than they had before.  The enemy could be internal, or it could be opposition or oppression from outside.  The greater the opposition, the greater the opportunity to grow, learn, and be more powerfully used by God.

Hello, my name is Ron.

Throughout the book Carpenter weaves an account of his own experience, in which he and his church got bilked by a scam artist who ran off with over a million dollars of his church members' money.  He was excoriated by the press, shunned in the community, and rejected by many in his own church.  He writes that the whole ugly, painful situation gave him a great opportunity to learn, to correct his own priorities, and to expand his ministry.

All things to work together for the good of those who trust God, and in our trials and tribulations we are refined and perfected.  While the message is on target, Carpenter manages to dilute it with his disjointed exposition and his Joel Osteen-like self-help tone.  While Carpenter is, apparently, seen around the world on TBN, I have never seen his show or heard of him; I would be interested to know whether his teachings tend toward the prosperity Gospel, or are more theologically and biblically sound.  Based on this book, I suspect the former.

Thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah for this complimentary review copy.

Was this review helpful to you? Tell Amazon.com. Click here.

The Long Walk, by Brian Castner

Some soldiers come home from the war with injuries you can see.  Far too many have lost hands, feet, limbs, or their very lives to the IEDs of the current, prolonged wars in the Middle East.  Others, like Brian Castner, come home with injuries no less life changing than those that require prosthetic limbs or wheelchairs, yet that remain invisible.  In The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows, Castner writes of his experiences on the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team in Iraq.  His tours in Iraq forever changed his mind, with the images seared onto it of the bloody mess in an explosion's aftermath, of a foot in a box ("Because why not?  Where else would you put it?"), of his Brothers lost or injured in duty.  His mind was also forever changed by blast-induced traumatic brain disorder; each explosion he was near, and he was blowing things up on a daily basis sometimes, jarred his brain and disrupted its connections.

Jumping between various time frames (sometimes with little warning!), Castner tells his story.  He describes his job and his love for it, while detailing the ways his life is still affected by BITBD.  His detailed and deeply personal account is the best description I've read of what the heck U.S. soldiers are doing in Iraq.  However, it raises the question for me: What the heck are U.S. soldiers still doing in Iraq?  When Castner and his crews headed out to investigate a car bomb or IED, it was likely either targeted at U.S. troops, or it was the result of some internal conflict between Iraqi ethnic groups.  In the latter case, I see no justification for putting American lives at risk.  Why the U.S. even maintains a presence there is beyond me.

I do thank God for men like Castner who are willing to risk their lives to serve their country in the armed forces.  But I would have to question the policies that put our men and women into potentially deadly situations in dozens of countries around the world.  Is what we're accomplishing there worth the price paid by Castner and others like him?

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday for the complimentary electronic copy for review.
Read more about Brian at his personal blog.

Living Rich for Less, by Ellie Kay

The first thing to say about Ellie Kay is that she grew up in Fort Worth!  So of course I'm going to love a book by a Fort Worth girl!  In her book, Living Rich for Less, Kay provides practical insights for people living on a budget, that is, just about everyone.  If you're a fan of Dave Ramsey, Ron Blue, and their ilk, you'll enjoy Kay.  True to her experience as a columnist for Family Circle, Women's World, and USA Today, she's a bit more feminine and more casual and breezy in style than her male counterparts, but no less valuable to read.

Kay starts off with her priorities in the right place: the first chapters of the book are dedicated to giving.  She encourages a 10-10-80 plan, in which you give away 10%, save 10%, then plan and spend wisely the remaining 80%.  It's significant that it's not the 80-10-10 plan or the 10-80-10 plan.  Giving comes first, no matter what.  Even families with low incomes can give.  Kay lays out some principles of wise giving.

Click on the picture to go to her web site.

Then of course there's saving.  Hopefully if you're picking up a book like Living Rich for Less, you don't need a lot of convincing that saving is important.  The last portion covers the 80%, which is of greatest concern to most families.  She encourages getting out of debt, but doesn't hammer on it the way Ramsey does (but maybe she should).  There are plenty of practical ideas here for saving, which can add up to a significant difference in the family budget.  She spends a seemingly disproportionate amount of space on couponing (good advice) and saving money on cruises (OK advice if you're going on a cruise, but a whole chapter?  Seemed like a bit much).

Kay gives a lot to think about here, which is her goal: think about where your money goes and make it work for you.  The end result is a little superficial, but the book lays down some principles to get you pointed in the right direction.




Thanks to the Fort Worth Library and the good people of Fort Worth for the free use of this book.