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Some books are inspirational; others are fun, yet others provide valuable information. Few books have the capacity to impact our very perception of reality. Scott’s Seeing Like a State is just such a book. I especially appreciated the opening and closing sections of the book. In the former, the author offers a rather protracted “parable” concerning the stark differences between seeing a forest from above, as the locus of commercial possibilities, and seeing a forest from its very midst, as the locus of an irreducibly complex web. In the closing section, Scott leads us through an epistemological reflection on the Greek concept of metis (μῆτις) (cunningness or wisdom, craft, skill) as a form of knowledge that is not replaceable by scientific knowledge. I found this reflection in particular to be eye-opening in areas as diverse as language instruction, politics, education, even parenting!

“The problem… is that certain practical choices cannot, ‘even in principle, be adequately captured in a system of universal rules’.” (p. 322). Anyone who has been a teacher or reared a child knows this all too well!

—Pedro Sandin, Brevard, NC

I read Walter J. Miller’s first book, A Canticle for Liebowitz, when I was about 12 years old. It’s the pilgrimage adventures of 17-year-old novice, Brother Frances Gerard, who is on silent retreat in the radiated desert of the American southwest in the middle of the 26th century. This summer I found a hardback of Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman for $1.50. Apparently, Miller had written two books in his life: The Canticle, published in 1959, and Saint Leibowitz, published nearly 40 years later.

Both are one epic science fiction story about the church of Rome (or New Rome), a community of Benedictine monks, and the ruling Empire after the catastrophic event of the Flame Deluge (nuclear holocaust). In the second, Brother Blacktooth St. George at Leibowitz Abbey is having a crisis of vocation:

“Blacktooth remembered clearly the first time he had asked to be released from his final vows as a monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz. … It was the third year of Blacktooth’s work (assigned to him by Dom Jarad himself) of translating all seven volumes of the Venerable Boedullus’ Liber Originum, that scholarly but highly speculative attempt to reconstruct from the evidence of later events a plausible history of the darkest of all centuries, the twenty-first—of translating it from the old monastic author’s quaint Neo-Latin into the most improbable of languages, Brother Blacktooth’s own native tongue, the Grasshopper dialect of Plains Nomadic, for which not even a suitable phonetic alphabet existed prior to the conquests (3174 and 3175 A.D.) of Hannegan II in what had once been called Texas.”

When an influential cardinal takes Blacktooth under his wing to make use of his facility with native languages in tricky ecclesial-political negotiations, the story breaks out into questions of ethics, power, spiritual calling, nonviolence, hegemony, and love—where should our priorities lay? What is the moral responsibility of the Texark Empire to care for genetically deformed humans, whom the church has taken to calling “the Pope’s children”?

Walter Miller was a tail gunner in World War II. Among his 55 combat sorties was the one that destroyed the Abbey at Monte Cassino in Italy, established in 529 AD by St. Benedict himself. When Miller returned from war, he converted to Catholicism and wrote these two books as his way of working “out his salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

—Rose Marie Berger, senior associate editor at Sojourners, is a Catholic activist and poet (www.rosemarieberger.com).

In the past ten or so years the concept of “empire” has emerged as a hermeneutical key to biblical texts. Our scriptural texts were written, edited and shaped by a people living in and under the great empires of history: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. Vocabulary that was political has by out time become domesticated and lost the shock value that the Hebrew and early Christian communities experienced. For example, the titles we use for Jesus (Saviour, Lord) were the official titles of the Roman Caesar. “Empire” refers to the massive concentration of power which “permeates all aspects of life . . .. Empire seeks to extend control as far as possible; not only geographically, politically and economically . . . but also intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, culturally and religiously . . . with top down control. . . to domesticate Christ and anything else that poses a challenge to its power.” Being the Church seeks to identify the concepts of “empire” as embedded in current history and values, and what this entails for daily faithful living. Essays by contributors examine these ramifications, e.g., a theology of the cross rather than prosperity theology, the need for the church to concentrate on community rather than on power. The essays reflect the basic orientation of the contributors who are Lutheran, and whose theology of the cross articulates and focuses well the message of the biblical text.

—Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

My most recent fad in biblical reading is on the perspective of empire as key to understanding the biblical text. ‘Issues of imperial rule and response to it run deep and wide through most books of the Bible’ (p 7). There is the double need: to see the theme of empire in order to understand the biblical text, and to see the nature of our response to that theme in our own culture and story. ‘The principal biblically based celebrations of both Christian churches and Jewish synagogues all focus on imperial oppression and G-d’s deliverance of the people. Passover commemorates the exodus from hard bondage under the pharaoh in Egypt. Hanukkah celebrates G-d’s deliverance of the Judeans struggling to resist the first attempts by a Western empire to suppress the Israelite-Judean traditional covenantal way of life.

Christmas celebrates the birth of a peasant child as the true ‘Saviour’ of a people who had been conquered and laid under tribute by Caesar, whom the whole world had already acclaimed as the ‘Saviour’ who had brought ‘peace and security’ to the world. It also commemorates the Roman client king’s dispatch of counterinsurgency forces to massacre the innocents in order to check the deliverance movement before it got started. Good Friday and Easter remember Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion by the Roman imperial rulers followed by his vindication by G-d as the true Lord and Saviour, as opposed to the imperial ‘lord’ and ‘saviour’. In the Shadow of Empire traces this theme closely in the stories of Jesus, in the writings of Paul, and in the books of Matthew, Acts and Revelation.

—Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

This summer I had a chance to go to Berlin, so I decided to brush up on some Bonhoeffer reading. I decided to go back to Discipleship, a book to which my seminary students often respond with enthusiasm.

The excellent editorial introduction to the new edition places this book in the broad scope of Bonhoeffer's work, defending the view that it represents his mature theology.

I first read The Cost of Discipleship as a much younger man, not trained to read Euro-American texts as embedded in a culture of white supremacy.  Even learning that Bonhoeffer criticized the National Socialist agenda and the German Christians, I little awareness that his work addressed race issues.

What a difference the decades have made, not only for my reading, but also for Bonhoeffer scholarship.  This time, working through Bonhoeffer's arguments revealed his theological agenda challenging the dominant structures of theologians and churches of his day which had accommodated the doctrines of Aryan racial superiority.

Participating in the Confessing Church used to seem to me the natural outgrowth of the kind of Baptist ecclesiology that I had grown up with.  But his was not separation based on a list of prohibitions, such as no drinking alcohol or dancing.  For Bonhoeffer, confessional separation demonstrated a witness over against the powers that were employing deadly force to eliminate the outliers of their society.

I was able to see some of the places where Bonhoeffer served the church and worked to resist the Third Reich.  The legacy of Bonhoeffer there remains important, and Bonhoeffer studies have come into a new era of flourishing.

—Mikael Broadway, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at Shaw Divinity School, Durham, NC

Sherman treats his characters with respect and love, yet is gently honest about their shortcomings. His description of life on the reservation is painful, and funny. The self-deprecating nature of the protagonist, Arnold, AKA “Junior,” makes his character very likable. His description of his fellow residents of the reservation also reflects some of the known issues for native peoples in many parts of our country.

He says that the worst thing about being poor is the inability to help those you love. He talks about his best friend, Oscar the dog, becoming critically ill. His parents cannot take him to the vet, because they don’t have the money to.  He hates the powerlessness that comes from not being able to affect a change in your circumstances.

“…I can’t blame my parents for our poverty…it’s not like my mother and father were born into wealth. It’s not like they gambled away their family fortunes. My parents came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people.”

He discovers that his textbooks are older than he is, and becomes angry that the opportunities on the rez aren’t anywhere near those elsewhere. His teacher convinces him that if he doesn’t get away from the limitations of the rez his life will be no different than that of generations of Spokane Indians. So he decides to go to the public school in the town nearby that is all white.

Sherman Alexie neither romanticizes nor condemns natives or whites. He reports what life is like for his people, and offers them a chance to look at ways to remain true to their culture yet gain skills that lead to an ability to escape poverty and all the ailments that come with it.

—Lezlie Christian is a high school English teacher and freelance writer in Oklahoma City, OK

This small book is potent. During the decisive early years when everyone and every institution had to express a Nazi orientation and perspective, these sermons were preached by pastors who knew what was at stake. Dean Stroud’s remarkable 50 page introduction gives the background for the sermons and provides the context for the church struggle. Stroud, emeritus professor of German Studies at the University of Wisconsin in LaCrosse, pays particular attention to Nazi rhetoric and language and its conflict with Christian rhetoric and language and shows how every sermon faithful to Christ left the pastor open to arrest and worse. Besides well known preachers like Bonhoeffer, Barth and Niemoller included are courageous sermons by others like small-town pastor Paul Schneider, who became the first pastor martyred by the Nazis.

Discernment about what was going on was essential. It still is.

“Throughout the Reich, the Church Struggle took place in both pulpit and pew. Preaching in Hitler’s shadow was risky business. But always Jesus Christ was real and uncompromising in his claim on preacher and congregation alike. “ (p. 48)

—Kyle Childress, pastor, Austin Heights Baptist Church, Nacogdoches, TX

Written in particular for priests and other worship leaders in The Episcopal Church, Liturgical Sense: The Logic of Rite focuses on historical developments in the theology and practice of presiding at the Eucharist, with special attention to how the Eucharistic rites and rubrics of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church represent a significant if not complete recovery of early Christian liturgical celebration in general and presiding in particular.

I am aware of no other book, anywhere, that provides so clear and thorough while also brief a review of the history of the pivotal changes in how Western Christians, ecumenically and worldwide, have approached celebrating and presiding in worship beginning in the second half of the 20th century.

“The liturgy is the common prayer of the Church . . . [o]ur common faith is nourished through that very commonality . . . and . . . by placing us on familiar ground, to remind us . . . of what God has done from Creation to this very day.” (Kindle Location 1380)

—Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources, Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church