October 23 2020

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in

American Christianity (2020)

By Robert P Jones

Jones, religious scholar and founder of the Public Religious Research Institute (PRRO) opens his argument with examples from the late 19th century that seem more like accounts from before the Civil War.  Rev Dr Basil Manly Sr, who helped wrest the new Southern Baptist denomination for the regular Baptists in 1845 over the issue of slavery, was found of the Southern Baptist Seminary and became a prominent voice justifying slavery.  Even into the 1960s, southern governors and local media defended segregation.  Many churches refused to admit blacks.  (Martin Luther King Jr's son, MLK3, was denied admission to Atlanta's Lovett School, affiliated with the Episcopal Church, in 1963.)

Disturbingly, Frederick Douglass wrote that, "...being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me... Religious slaveholders are the worst... the meanest, the basest, the most cruel and cowardly." (p 88)

After losing the Civil war, many confederate Christians compared their lot to biblical figures who were wrongly imprisoned (e.g., Paul) or even to the crucifixion...assuming their cause would triumph in the end.  Yet, I was surprised to read that most monuments to white supremacy (e.g., statues of Lee, Davis, Jackson) were erected not after the Civil War but in the mid 20th century - as a reaction to black civil rights.

Jones especially cites the Scofield Reference Bible for a massage shift in interpretation.  Scofield, a confederate veteran, asserts that the world is evil [true!] and beyond redemption.  Social justice is therefore futile, and the only focus should be on saving souls and discipleship.  Scofield believes Jesus thus died not for a cause or for humankind, but for each individual.  The key ministry is "letting Jesus come into your heart" and not worry and about institutions (e.g., slavery, racism, segregation) as they are beyond redemption.  This perspective thus frees me from working to establish justice and equality.  [I don't see a black and white - no pun intended - dichotomy as Jones asserts.  I believe the two aims can work in tandem.  The more we grow to be like Jesus, the greater should be our concern for others in need.]

According to the PRRI's research, the probability of Christian affiliation with racist attitudes is strongest where those groups are most culturally dominant.  Thus, although racism is thought to be strongest in the south, Catholics and mainline Protestants are not off the hood for racist attitudes.  Jones ends his book with stories of a few churches that are trying to reconcile their past with justice today, but clearly much work remains.

October 10 2020

 Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown (2020)

By Anne Glenconner

Anne Coke (pronounced "Cook"), daughter of the Earl of Leicester, grew up on Holkham, an estate adjacent to Sandringham, and counted the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret among her friends.  She had a happy childhood, even during the 3 years when her parents were off doing war duty and she and her sister Carrie were sent to live with a relative in Scotland.  In her early 20s, Anne travelled to America to market Holkham pottery, manufactured on her family's estate, but was unexpectedly called home to serve as a maid of honor in Elizabeth's II's coronation.

Not long after the coronation, Anne married Colin Tenant, Baron Glenconner.  Though subject to temper tantrums and very impulsive, Anne learned to cope with Colin and their family grew to include 3 sons, followed by twin girls.  On a trip to the Caribbean, Colin learned of Mustique, an island in the Grenadines for sale for £45,000 and bought it sight unseen.  He would go on to develop the island, which became a retreat for Princess Margaret and other royals and notable Brits.

Following the birth of her twins, Anne was asked by Princess Margaret to be one of her 5 ladies-in-waiting.  While not a full-time position, it was nevertheless a considerable responsibility requiring a lot of travel, assessing and addressing Margaret's needs.  Anne writes of some funny adventures while on official royal business, such as where to pin a medal on an African leader who wore only a loin cloth.

The Tenants' oldest son Charlie suffered from drug abuse, including heroin, for many years.  Unlike his brother, second son Henry was a high achiever who married and fathered a son - only to realize he was gay, and developed AIDS in the 1980s when it was very stigmatizing and little was known about the disease.  Third son Christopher nearly died as a result of a motorbike crash, but recovered after long years of therapy, mostly administered by Anne.

I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Anne herself, making the story personal and affecting. She truly has lived an extraordinary life - not only because of her royal connections.  Somehow she has weathered a storm of sadness - thanks to faith and friends.  Currently 88, she writes of so many events that I only saw on the news, and it was fascinating to hear an insider's perspective.

October 6, 2020

The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir (2019)

By Samantha Power 

Samantha Power, Obama's ambassador to the UN in his 2nd term, brought crucial skills and relevant experience to her position. Born in Ireland, Sam was brought to the US by her mother at age 8, settling initially in Pittsburgh, then Atlanta for her high school years, along with Sam's brother and stepfather Eddie.  Both parents are physicians and both supportive of Sam throughout her education and career.  A basketball player and star student, Sam attended Yale, then took a few years to work as a journalist, especially in the war torn Balkans, an experience that would shape her career.  She went on to Harvard Law School and accepted a teaching position at Harvard's Kennedy School, taking a year off to write a book on genocide in the 20th century, a thick tome that won a Pulitzer prize.

Power is never afraid to be honest, exposing her faults as well as her successes, whether her grief and disappointment over her beloved alcoholic father, her unintentional disparaging of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign, or a painful car accident by her motorcade driver that killed an African child during her campaign to fight Ebola.  Working moms will be inspired by Sam's efforts to raise two young children while holding demanding positions, and while her husband was commuting to his teaching post at Harvard Law School - where Ani was among Dr Sunstein's students!  There were big challenges at the UN, with consequences on the home front: the killings of an American ambassador and his staff in Bengazi, the Iran nuclear agreement, the Paris climate accord, the eradication of Ebola (thanks to a US led effort to bring funding and personnel to the most affected areas).  Power notes that, while several Americans contracted Ebola while volunteering in Africa, there were only 2 transmissions within the US, and all persons recovered, despite dozens of tweets by citizen Trump to scare Americans to the contrary.

On one occasion, Power was invited to an embassy of a small African nation and learned she was the first ever American guest to set foot inside the 2-room mission.  She then set out to invite every ambassador to her NY resident over the course of her term, becoming an especially close colleague of the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, with whom she frequently conferred on behalf of their two nations.  She especially worked with her female ambassador colleagues to improve women's rights.  How helpful to have an American ambassador who was selected not because she gave $2M to an election fund but because she had the skills and experience.

I listened to this story as an audiobook read by the author - she is dynamic and engaging in her narration.

October 2 2020

Parable of the Sower (1993)

By Octavia Butler 

This story opens in southern California in 2024, in other words, just a few years from now.  Lauren Olamina, who narrates her story in diary passages, is the 15-year-old daughter of her town's pastor.  Her state is suffering from a heat wave and 6-year drought, and there is an epidemic.  Jobs are scarce, education is uneven and police are unreliable, even if they are bribed.  People are forced to take the law into their own hands - nearly everyone owns a gun - as burglary and theft have become a way to survive.

Lauren enjoys some measure of security as her family lives in a walled community.  But she sees the desperation around her, and decides to escape at some point.  She studies farming, takes target practice, and prepares a bag of supplies.  A few years later, her brother escapes beyond the wall - but he is killed by drug dealers.  Then her father disappears.  Eventually the wall is breached, the community is attacked and people are shot, buildings are burned, and Lauren is the only survivor in her family.  She grabs her survival bag and gun and heads north with two other survivors, walking along a main highway.  The small party grows to ten, as more desperate survivors seek safety in numbers.  One of them, Bankole, owns property north of San Francisco, and the group members all commit to head north together and try to make a new community on Bankole's property.  Lauren (now 18) is the natural leader and she has been working out a new religion which she calls "Earthseed"; she hopes it will be a way for her to understand God and a way to unite the community.  The band suffers many calamities en route, and after arrival at Bankole's land, but the story ends on a note of hope.

2024 California is too eerily like 2020 California.