Questing Parson

Book Review

BACK TO WORK
Why We Need Smart Government For A Strong Economy
Bill Clinton
Copyright © 2011 by William Jefferson Clinton
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
192 pages

One would expect the 42nd President of the United States to write a book that is politically partisan. But that is not the case here. There is no Republican vs. Democrat agenda put forth here. A few would take exception with that contention, however. That few would be the segment of the United States that is caught up in what Bill Clinton calls the anti-government obsession.

It is against that anti-government contention that President Clinton builds his case for getting America “Back to Work.” The thesis of the book is that, rather than limiting government, we should build government to operate more fully but in more sensible and effective ways.

The case is built by not arguing ideology but presenting irrefutable facts from instances where government does work. Examples are taken from countries around the globe as well as individual states in the U.S. His premise is supported by fact after fact after fact, and in many cases with charts and graphs depicting how various approaches have proven to work or not work

The single thread upon which President Clinton's emphasis hangs is that, as he says in his introduction, “... we've got to get America back in the future business.” And each chapter and paragraph of the text marches toward establishing avenues to reach that future.

While advocating a strong government, Clinton also insists on the government's need to insure an equally strong private sector. He states that government should smooth the way for the private sector and not be an obstacle. This is demonstrated in his many suggestions of where government and the private sector can together forge ahead to make America the leader in the green technology markets.

I bought this book out of a sense of needing to be informed. I, surprisingly, found I'd purchased a book that I couldn't put down. This book. should be required reading for everyone in public office today. It should be a primer for every voter, Democrat or Republican. It is a non-partisan road map showing the route to a new America. It is a call to serve, a call to civility and clarity.

After reading this book I found myself more informed, more energized about my country, and completely in agreement with Clinton's last sentence in the book: “Let's get the show on the road.”

Book Review: The Battle For God ...

 The Battle for God,
   A History of Fundamentalism
Karen Armstrong

Copyright © 2000 by Karen Armstrong
New York: Random House
ISBN: 0-345-39169-1

442 pages, including Glossary
Footnotes, Bibliography, and Index

I sat down to again read – strike that! One doesn’t “sit down to read” a book by Karen Armstrong. Rather one engages in an exhaustive study of the subject matter directed by a consummate scholar, meticulous researcher, and passionate communicator of the evolution of religion.

This second reading of The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism, was, for me, much more rewarding than was the first. No doubt, having the foundation of the first reading, I was able to navigate the study more easily, but, more importantly, the events of the last decade since the work was first published are greatly enlightened by Ms. Armstrong’s meticulous work.

To say this book is well-researched is a definite understatement. There are just under one thousand footnotes for the 371 pages of text. The depth of this examination and its communication in such an explicable way is a tribute to the remarkable mind of the author. Granted, for this reader, the book has occasions where the scholarliness interrupts the steady flow of the telling, but these, when occurring, are brief and their detraction negated by the flow of the narrative.

Karen Armstrong begins with the historically momentous year 1492, a year that saw the pushing of the Muslims from Spain by the armies of Isabella and Ferdinand, the Edict of Expulsion, issued by those same monarchs, expelling all Jews not willing to convert to Christianity from Spain, and the voyage of Christopher Columbus. From this point the author follows the history of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths and the fundamentalist reactions within these faiths resulting from the dynamic changes that come about in the ensuing centuries. It is the history of reaction to events that bring impetus to the withdrawal into a more fundamental interpretation that informs the reader experiencing religion in the twenty-first century.

Ms. Armstrong is not hesitant to point out the perversions of scriptural interpretation of religion in pursuit of goals, particularly by, but not limited to, the fundamentalist of all the monotheistic faiths. The work I found, however, to be worthwhile. It brings into clearer focus the tensions now existing in the standard-brand Protestant churches today and provides deeper understanding into the dynamics that propel the fundamentalist interpretations of our modern world.

This is a book I should, for sure, plan to read a third time a decade from now.

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by: Rebecca Sklott

Crown Publishers
Copyright ©2010 by Rebecca Sklott
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2

To say this is a compelling book is an understatement. And from the first page to the last the reader is drawn into the fascination the author finds in this improbable tale.

Henrietta Lacks, an impoverished black woman went to John Hopkins Hospital in January, 1951, with a complaint of a knot on her womb. In the course of her treatment for cancer scientists at John Hopkins took some of her cells and placed them in a culture. They did not die as normal cells eventually do.
They multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. Henrietta Lacks’ cells were immortal. They became the most happening in medicine in a hundred years.

The immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks went up on the first space mission; they contributed to the development of the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and other important research. And there begins the tale.

As fascinating as the contributions of Henrietta Lacks’ cells to the advancement of medicine are, Sklott weaves this tale with the life story of the husband and children of Henrietta Lacks. The family to date has received no compensation for the cells being taken and used without permission. And while her cells were bringing about medical advances her descendants could not afford health insurance.

This book highlights the latent racism that permeated our society in the mid last century and the vestiges of it that remains today without preaching. In addition it presents the complicated ethical and moral issues that surround medical research today.

This improbable story of Henrietta Lacks’ cells, her children, and today’s scientific research, as told by Rebecca Skloot, grabs the reader from the first page to the last, raising issues, confronting societal deficiencies, and challenging our sense of ethics.

Having written this, I’m now going to read it again.

Book Review: The Nearness of God

The Nearness of God,
Parish Ministry as Spiritual Practice

Julia Gatta

Copyright © 2010 by Julia Gatta
New York: Morehouse Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-8192-2318-0
141 pages

Julia Gatta, a professor of spiritual theology at the School of Theology, University of the South, has written a compelling book that uplifts the spiritual aspects of the day-to-day life of the Christian minister. Her book is a call to allow Christ to reach his people through his servants of ordination.

This country United Methodist parson did find some challenges with the book, however. This book is published by Morehouse Publishing, an imprint of Church Publishing, Inc., the print organ of The Episcopal Church. The book is intended primarily for Episcopal priests. As such, sometimes the terminology and the emphasis on the liturgical aspects can slow down the reading of us country preachers. At the same time, the needed concentration in such sections enhanced the respect for and the reverence of the liturgy.

Looking back on my reading, literally, I cannot help but be taken by the multiplicity of notes I wrote in the margins of the book. Gatta has a knack for boiling the world of the priest down to the essentials and making those essentials sacred. Here language, sometimes pithy, is a treasure trove of one-liner lessons. Examples are:

Because of our pastoral office we are granted access to our people’s hearts and that weighs heavily on them.

The ministry of small talk ….

Christian community is lived in face-to-face relationships over the long haul.

The necessity of living deliberately …

There is a monastic quality about Julia Gatta and it comes out in her writing. One gets the impression of an author deeply rooted in the contemplative life but at the same time aware of the nitty-gritty of the everyday living of the priest.

This is an enlightening book for clergy, perhaps a bit less easily read for those unaccustomed to the Anglican worship but a book of practical help for ministry while at the same time one that uplifts the spirit.

Book Review: Same Kind of Different As Me

Same Kind of Different As Me
A Modern-day Slave, An International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
Ron Hall & Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent

Copyright © 2006 by Ron Hall
Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 978-0-8499-1910-7

My brother gave me this improbable book for Christmas. Had I realized the treasure it is I’d have read it sooner.

Same Kind of Different As Me is an unusual autobiography, blending the lives of two disparate persons, Ron Hall, an international art dealer, and Denver Moore, a homeless, illiterate black man from the rural, segregated Louisiana. Hall, a truly secular and self-centered person, is caught in an affair. His wife’s unexpected response to it leads him to follow her into a life of service among the homeless. It is there Hall encounters the bigger-than-life Denver Moore. The intertwining of these two lives and the juxtaposition of their lives with the saintly Deborah Hall provides the storyline for the book.

Truth, it is said, is stranger than fiction. I was well into the pages of this book before I realized it was autobiographical. That realization compounded the fascination with the story of Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

There was also the compelling attraction that at the heart of this story this is a religious book. There is good theology here nestled among the humor, the pathos, the tragedy and the triumph that is found in the story of two completely different men brought together through the spirituality of a deeply believing woman.

You won’t regret reading this compelling story.