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A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves

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Jason DeParle Penguin Books, 400 pages Reviewed by Cathy Chang     “A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves” follows three generations of a Filipino family from their home in the Philippines to the Middle East or United States.  Tita, the matriarch, has already experienced how her husband Emet, with their children and extended family members, have left home to work abroad. More than three decades ago, author Jason DeParle befriended Tita while working as a journalist in Manila.  The story of their family history includes a well-researched analysis of migration with political, historical and economic contexts. This book spotlights the family members who work abroad as well as the numerous family members who stay behind and benefit from their remittances.  Although this book was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, the observant reader will perceive the impact of upended lives and livelihoods on those who were working abroad — and on the family members who … [Read more...]

Tagged With: immigration

Caregiving — September 13, 2021

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The caregiver’s role is necessary, but fraught with complex emotions. No matter whether we are a pastor caring for parishioners, a parent caring for a child or a daughter caring for an aging parent, caregiving can lead us to grief, guilt and defeat — as well as strengthened bonds of love and a deepened sense of purpose. This issue highlights caregiving as a way to offer help and hope to those called to this necessary ministry. Click here to read the issue in the Uberflip reader The caregiver’s role As a hospice chaplain, G. Todd Williams has learned much as he cares for others and himself. Caregiving’s transforming power Caregiving can transform suffering from an adversary to an ally, Melissa Earley writes. Navigating neurodiversity Shannon Bevins shares her experience of parenting during the pandemic. Finding our place in the care of creation The Bible helps human beings understand  their place in caring for creation, says Jessica Hawkinson Dorow. Restorative action … [Read more...]

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Safety pins and seminary: Two weeks in residency

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Guest commentary by Amy Cerniglia  “Does anybody have safety pins?” While driving to campus, a classmate noticed an unraveling thread on my dress and encouraged me to reach out to the rest of our class. With the help of a group message application, my cohort of middle-year seminary classmates could easily communicate from anywhere. In fact, we had messaged one another for a year before ever meeting in person. There was just one problem with my classmate’s suggestion: if I sent a call for help, then everybody would know that I needed it. On the one morning when I wanted to have everything together, my own clothes wouldn’t behave. In my efforts to pack lightly, I had other outfits that would have worked for an ordinary day of class, but not for leading a worship service. In the end, I swallowed my pride, and classmates immediately answered with the supplies. An hour before I provided liturgy and music in the chapel service at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, … [Read more...]

Tagged With: seminary

The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time against the Speed of Modern Life

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Andrew Root Baker Press, 288 pages Reviewed by Anthony Robinson As a work of practical theology, this is unusual in its breadth and depth. Church leaders will find it getting at conundrums with which they contend. For example, many affirm a church they perceive as “active” or “engaged.” But these same people, when encouraged to take part in a new initiative, are apt to say they are too exhausted to add one more thing. Andrew Root can help you understand this paradox. Root’s trilogy, “Ministry in a Secular Age,” is written in conversation with the philosopher Charles Taylor and his book, “A Secular Age.” Root is concerned not only with a culture where church membership is no longer the norm, but with an even more challenging expression of secularity — a world where not believing in God comes easier than faith. In this third volume, “The Congregation in a Secular Age,” Root engages an additional interlocutor, the German social theorist Harmut Rosa. Drawing particularly from Rosa, … [Read more...]

When the Center Does Not Hold: Leading in an Age of Polarization

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David R. Brubaker (with additional contributors) Fortress Press, 175 pages Reviewed by Charlotte H. Lohrenz David Brubaker encourages religious communities to participate with compassion, love and serious intention in rebuilding civil society. “When the Center Does Not Hold: Leading in an Age of Polarization” begins with Brubaker normalizing polarization, illustrating a recurring phenomenon in American history and other countries. Brubaker distills the causes down to an equation: income inequality + identity threat + articulated grievance = polarization. The most effective prevention and intervention would be significant structural and cultural changes in the broader society or political system. Acknowledging that this is unlikely, Brubaker looks to local leadership to provide effective solutions to our current polarization. Brubaker then discusses the challenges to leadership and the frequent personal costs of leading in polarized times. Providing effective leadership in … [Read more...]

Howard Thurman and the Disinherited: A Religious Biography

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Paul Harvey Eerdmans, 256 pages Reviewed by Rachel VanKirk Mathews Over the last year, I have heard Howard Thurman’s name many times. The senior pastor at the church I serve studied his book “Jesus and the Disinherited” with one of our adult education groups. Then, the PC(USA) featured Thurman in its 2020 Advent devotional. I confess that I did not know much about Thurman before this last year. I might not be alone in this. There is much to confess as individuals and a denomination in having homogeneous theological learning sources, undercrediting Black professionals of all kinds and having too little curiosity about the Black experience in America for too long. In the introduction to “Howard Thurman and the Disinherited,” author Paul Harvey hints at the same. Though Thurman founded and contributed to the movement of progressive Christian denominations away from dualisms and toward mystery, away from hierarchy and toward mutuality, his life and work have been explored little … [Read more...]

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