J's Pages

by John A. Farrell

Richard Nixon is the first president I remember from my childhood. Not well, mind you. I knew his name and, later, that he was involved in the Watergate scandal and resigned before he could be impeached. That was enough to establish him in my childish mind as a bad president.

This book didn't change my mind, even though my concept of a "bad president" has grown to be slightly more nuanced. Mr. Farrell presents a man who was willing to play dirty and sacrifice others to accomplish his goals. But also a man who wanted to do good for the American people and was willing to work hard for it. The tragedy is that Nixon's personal ambitions and prejudices would win out over his ideals. The story of Nixon's life, as presented here, is one that is very political. Once past World War II, the tale gives a inside picture of the political world, first in California and then in Washington D.C. Like many of the presidential biographies I've read recently, this book has been showing me how the world I grew up in--the world I assumed back then "just was"--came to be. Check it out. 

LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut, PresidentialBioReadingList

// posted by John @ 5:05 PM 0 Comments

Last read in April of 2012.
First read in November of 2007.

Check it out.
LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut, HarryPotter, JKRowling

// posted by John @ 4:55 PM 0 Comments

by Esau McCaulley 

Over the years, in listening to anecdotes from missionaries and Bible translators, I realized that people from other cultures had insights into the Bible that I didn't have in my own culture. That was cool. Or at least the fact that listening to people from other cultures could give me new insights into the Bible was cool. So when I heard about this book, I had to check it out. Dr. McCaulley shares a brief overview of African American interpretation of scripture, touching on significant issues such as policing, protesting, racial identity, and, of course, slavery. Christians have argued and fought over these things over the years, and any Christian who really wants to live as a member of the body of Christ needs to confront those issues. Some theologians have found the answer in disregarding the difficult passages of scripture. Dr. McCaulley explains how the African American church has not disregarded them, but has actively wrestled with the text. 

As a theologically conservative Anglo American Christian, I appreciated the insights Dr. McCaulley shared. There was one or two times, I thought, where he stretched the scripture passages a bit, but all in all I don't think he strayed from orthodoxy. What I read reinforced and increased my respect for my African American brothers and sisters in Christ, who have endured centuries of hardship with grace and, well, the only word that comes to mind is beauty.

Labels: CheckItOut

// posted by John @ 12:14 PM 0 Comments