Book Write-Up: Fire by Night, by Lynn Austin

Lynn Austin.  Fire by Night.  Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2003.

Fire by Night is the second book of Lynn Austin’s Refiner’s Fire series, which is about the American Civil War.  The first book, Candle in the Darkness (see my review here), focused on the South, whereas Fire by Night focuses on the North.

In Candle in the Darkness, Caroline Fletcher, the protagonist from Virginia, spends some time in Philadelphia with her aunt, uncle, and cousins, the Hoffmans.  One of her cousins, Julia Hoffman, is infatuated with the new young abolitionist preacher, Nathaniel Greene, and she attends abolitionist meetings with him and Caroline so she can get closer to him.  Julia is from an upper-class home, and she is a social butterfly, who enjoys flirting and looking pretty, and she has had lots of suitors.  Now, she just loves Nathaniel.

Fire by Night starts with Julia, Nathaniel, and Congressman Rhodes near the Battle of Bull Run.  Soldiers are getting killed and injured around their carriage, and Julia is frightened and just wants to get home.  Nathaniel, appalled by her callousness, tells her that these men need their help.  After they arrive at a place of safety, Julia overhears Nathaniel and Congressman Rhodes talking about her.  Congressman Rhodes observes that Julia is sweet on Nathaniel, and he says that she is from a fine family and would be a good wife for the preacher.  Nathaniel, however, responds that Julia is not the sort of woman he is looking for.  Nathaniel considers her spoiled and shallow, and Nathaniel wants a woman who will serve the Lord with him.

Well, Nathaniel’s remarks are crushing to Julia, and she resolves to prove him wrong.  Plus, she sees his point: her upper-class life does look rather superficial, shallow, and pointless to her, and she wants for her life to mean something.  She eventually decides to become a nurse for wounded Union soldiers, but she faces some barriers to her goal.  She is considered too pretty to be a nurse and she is unmarried, and plain or married applicants are preferred so that there is no hint of impropriety between the nurses and the patients.

Julia ends up working at a hospital for Dr. James McGrath (NOT the biblioblogger!).  Dr. McGrath is extremely cranky and rude to the nurses, and he always seems to have a hangover.  The other nurses tell Julia that Dr. McGrath receives regular letters from his wife in Connecticut.  There is also a rumor that Dr. McGrath killed someone.  Dr. McGrath’s churlishness notwithstanding, he is considered even by his critics to be an excellent doctor, one who is kind and caring towards his patients, and who has a high rate of patients who survive under his care.  Dr. McGrath does not appear to like Julia that much, and he wonders why she is even there, for why would a high-class woman actually want to do nursing work?  He goes out of his way to show her that she doesn’t have what it takes: he has her wash tons of soiled sheets, and he has her smell gangrene on her first day.  Julia faces challenges as she adjusts to work and to being away from home, but she perseveres.  And she manages to help people along the way, as when she gets work and a place to stay for two African-American women who are raising families in a shantytown.

The book also follows the story of Phoebe Bigelow.  Phoebe is from a northern county in Virginia, and she has a reputation as the ugliest woman in the county.  Nobody wants to marry her.  She is homely, tall, and a bit of a tomboy.  When her brothers go off to war, she is to stay behind and work for a local shopkeeper, taking care of the shop and the shopkeeper’s many children.  Phoebe does not want to do this, for the shopkeeper is extremely cranky, plus Phoebe has to sleep in the attic, where there are bats.  She runs away, dresses up like a man, and enlists in the Union army.  There, she meets a small cheerful guy named Ted, and she gains respect as a fighter, a cook, and a sharpshooter.

Well, a lot of things happen, and I do not want to give away too many spoilers, especially about the mysterious Dr. McGrath.  Julia does manage to win Nathaniel’s respect, but by that point she is not just doing nursing work to impress him: she feels it is God’s call on her life.  Nathaniel proposes to Julia and wants her to quit nursing, but Julia does not want to quit.  Phoebe is wounded and is discovered to be a woman, and she becomes friends with Julia, as well as a nursing assistant for Dr. McGrath (after Phoebe discovers Dr. McGrath is providing free care in secret to African-Americans in the shanty town).  Phoebe also catches the eye of a tall, gangly, socially-awkward yet friendly Confederate doctor, who was captured by the Union.

Candle in the Darkness won a Christy Award, and so did this book, Fire by Night.  And it is a quality book.  I have read other books by Lynn Austin—-her Restoration Chronicles and her Chronicles of the Kings series—-and, while I enjoy all of those books, there is something about those two that won Christy Awards that sets them apart, that makes them, not just good, but extraordinary.  I cannot identify what exactly it is, but I do notice that there is a lot of attention to detail in Candle in the Darkness and Fire by Night, and also characters who seem more real: who are a mixture of good and bad.  Moreover, I could feel for the characters in many of the scenes: I think of Julia when she got up before 5 a.m. to leave for work, came home late after a long day, missed dinner, and went to bed hungry.  As a reader, I was a part of the details of these characters’ lives.

A theme that I really liked in Fire by Night was how characters who appear extremely flawed actually have goodness in them.  This was the case with Dr. McGrath, and also for Julia’s mother.  Julia’s mother came across to Julia as a superficial socialite, and yet Julia’s mother was a source of strength for her husband after the capture of Robert, their nephew, by the Confederacy.

There was also a salient feminist aspect in Fire by Night.  In a powerful scene, Dr. McGrath chastised Nathaniel for not respecting Julia and her capabilities, and he listed off to Nathaniel women who have found new opportunities to use their talents as a result of the war.  In the course of that discussion, there was a reference to Ephesians 5:22-23.  Nathaniel maintained that Julia was supposed to obey him after they marry, but Dr. McGrath notes that the passage also says that husbands were to be like Christ for their wives: as Christ sacrificed himself for the church, so husbands are to sacrifice themselves for their wives.  Dr. McGrath says that Nathaniel has required Julia to make all of the sacrifices, whereas Nathaniel makes none himself.  Lynn Austin conveys a feminist message, while also seeking to highlight Ephesians 5:22-23 (a passage controversial for many feminists) as authoritative.

Nathaniel did shine in one scene, though.  Nathaniel was part of a church service for Union soldiers, and he approached Phoebe, who was still pretending to be a man.  Phoebe told Nathaniel that she did not go to church because people at church did not want her there, and she also said that she enjoyed spending time with God in nature.  Nathaniel responded that Jesus loved and reached out to those whom society excluded.  Nathaniel was open and friendly in that interaction.

Overall, the religious element of the book was all right.  A nun, Sister Irene, offered wisdom to Julia about looking to God for strength and serving God wherever one may be----as a nurse on the battlefield or at an upper-class tea social.  There were also themes such as human sinfulness and how atonement was free, not something that people earned by good works.  I thought that Phoebe's speech to Dr. McGrath about Jesus dying to protect her from God----depicting God as shooting a gun at her for her sins and for being God's enemy, and Jesus covering her with his body to protect her----was a little odd.  I can understand that there are parts of the New Testament about being saved from the wrath of God, but I had issues with the imagery in Phoebe's speech.  Elsewhere in the book, there was an acknowledgement that God the Father himself loved humanity in sending his Son: Ted's grandmother was a slave, and she sent away her daughter so that the daughter and her kids could have a better life, and Phoebe learned about God the Father's own sacrifice from that.  I had some issues with how many of the characters saw themselves as gross sinners, for they seemed to me to be simply human, with strengths, weaknesses, and areas in which they needed to grow.   

The discussions about the battles were also pretty good.  Ted was a big fan of General McClellan, going on about how General McClellan knows best and was trained in Europe.  But even Ted became disillusioned with General McClellan because the general seemed to be holding the army back from doing what it takes to win.  Phoebe’s questioning of how the war was being fought came to my mind recently, when we were watching the movie Glory.  My Mom’s husband wondered why people were going into battle the way that they were, since it did not make much sense to him, and my Mom responded that it was because that was how battles were fought in Europe.

The next book of the series, A Light to My Path, did not actually receive a Christy Award, but I am still planning to read it.  It has the character of Grady, a slave who was taken from his mother and sold in Candle in the Darkness.

"You're Caricaturing My Position!"

Today’s post will be a bit rambling.  I will use as a starting-point something that Rachel Held Evans said in a recent post, Post-Evangelicals and Why We Just Can’t Get Over It.  Rachel says about certain conservative articles she has read that criticize post-evangelicals:

“Then they charge us with printing up silly, oversimplified labels to slap onto all that we condemn, and I can’t help but recall all the labels I learned from them—feminist, liberal, postmodern, evolutionist, nominal, lukewarm, heretic—and think, where do you think we learned how to do this, folks?”

Rachel has been accused more than once of caricaturing views with which she disagrees.  She wrote a book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which was a critique of conservative evangelical views regarding gender roles.  Complementarians howled that she was caricaturing their position, that she was not seriously interacting with their thought, and that she was misunderstanding what they had to say.

I’ve seen this sort of thing play out elsewhere in online discussions.  Arminian theologian Roger Olson wrote a post about how different Christian hospital chaplains might attempt to account theologically for patients’ suffering in answering patients’ questions.  He characterized the hypothetical Calvinist as saying: “God designed, ordained and is governing your suffering for his glory, so it is not meaningless or merely accidental. It serves a wonderful purpose and therefore has meaning. God intends to use it to bring him glory and good for you if you offer it up to him in trust.”  Some Calvinists were outraged about that, contending that Calvinism teaches no such thing!  But Olson did not understand why his characterization of Calvinism was so controversial to Calvinists, for he read those kinds of sentiments in actual Calvinist writings.  See here, here, and here for some of his follow-up posts.

Whether or not Rachel Held Evans and Roger Olson are guilty of misunderstanding positions that they do not hold, I admit that I have done my share of caricaturing.  And some of my views have been caricatured.  Here are some thoughts about this:

1.  In terms of being caricatured, there was one conservative guy who kept on insisting that progressives talked about income disparity out of class envy.  It didn’t matter what anyone said to him.  In his eyes, progressives were just jealous of the rich, or playing on other people’s class envy.  “Why not let the rich be?”, he asked.

I admit that progressives are not always clear about why income disparity is such a problem.  Or let me say this: they’re not clear if all you hear from them is a thirty-second soundbite, or if all you read from their thought is a brief quotation online or in a newspaper.  There are progressives who have explained why disparities of wealth are a problem.  Robert Reich did so a documentary on it: Inequality for All.  My impression is that progressives are not opposed to dramatic income inequality because they are jealous of the rich, nor are they saying that everyone should make the exact same amount of money.  Rather, they’re saying that an economy that primarily benefits the upper classes, while middle and lower classes struggle, is not going to be a sustainable economy.  In the 1950’s, prosperity was widely-distributed, and that benefited the rich, too, because there were lots of consumers who could buy their products.

But try telling this to that conservative guy!  Even if he saw your point initially, he would come back a few months (maybe even a few weeks) later and say that progressives are promoting class envy in talking about wealth inequalities!  This guy accused me of caricaturing his positions, at times.   And sometimes I was.  I would say that he was saying that Obama was a horrible human being, when he said no such thing.

2.  There are times when a person may put a nice, intelligent face on his position, and I wonder if he is wearing that face all of the time.  Example?  Suppose you have a person who is ranting and raving against Obama or Islam.  I challenge that person on it.  The person then proceeds to coat his position in reasonable terms, perhaps adding some qualifications.  I’m somewhat satisfied, even if I don’t agree.  But later that person proceeds to deliver his usual rants, which sound pretty hate-filled.  That makes me wonder: What is the true face of his position, as he holds it?  Is it the nice, reasonable face?  Or the hate-filled, ranting face?  Now, if I characterize what he’s saying as hate-filled ranting, he would accuse me of caricaturing his position, of misunderstanding it, of putting words in his mouth.  But am I?  Is the reasonable face the real face, or at least the dominant factor that motivates him to believe what he does?  And, if people like him got into power, which face would hold sway?

3.  Someone can make a position sound reasonable, and yet how that position plays out on the ground can be pretty scary.  The opposite is true, too: people can apply a principle that sounds unreasonable in a reasonable fashion.  Example: complementarianism.  I am almost afraid to offer a definition of it because complementarians may accuse me of mis-defining what they believe!  My understanding, though, is that complementarianism holds that men and women have different, albeit complentary, roles.  There is evangelical feminism, and then there is complementarianism, which is usually seen as different from evangelical feminism.  Now, some complementarian writings may sound reasonable and nuanced, but, on the ground, complementarianism in certain families can amount to men dominating the home and women being encouraged to be docile and sweet, and discouraged from doing things that are thought to be reserved for men.  Conversely, some complementarian writings may sound scary and authoritarian, but, on the ground, complementarian families have found ways to apply complementarianism in a manner that satisfies men and women, a manner that people in the family agree is respectful and appreciative of people’s voices and talents.

My point here?  Well, a point I’m making is that Rachel is not reacting against a figment of her imagination, even if complementarians may not recognize themselves in what she is writing against.

4.  There have been times when I characterize a person’s position in a certain way, that person says I am misunderstanding him and articulates his position, and what he says doesn’t sound too different from what I said he said; it just uses different words.  In that case, am I caricaturing the person’s position?  I think I’m grasping what his position is essentially is, or, at least, what the implications of his position are, or could be.  (The “could be” part is probably where I am getting slippery.)

I’ll stop here.

Today----Not Tomorrow!

At church this morning, the title of the pastor’s message was “Could God Be Calling Me?”  The pastor was saying that there are people in this town with needs: children who went to bed hungry because they are poor or their parents are fighting, and elderly people who have to choose between their medication and buying groceries.  He said that we need to share with them the message that God cares—-not tomorrow, or next week, but today.  After all, their problems will not necessarily wait until tomorrow or next week!  The pastor also said that God disrupts our routine.

Well, I came home from church today, and I pretty much did what I do every Sunday, according to my routine: I read a book while watching ABC This Week.  I wouldn’t be surprised if others at church also followed their usual routine, though they may have gotten home a little later because of the church’s meeting after the service.

I understand the importance of messages like what my pastor preached this morning.  They are calls to action.  But what hinders me from action?  Part of it is not really knowing my neighbors.  Part of it is not wanting to get too entangled with their problems.  And part of it is not wanting to preach to them, since that can be annoying.

But there are some things I believe in doing.  I believe in food pantries so that food is available to people.  My church has this.  I also believe in helping people wisely.  I remember hearing progressive evangelical Tony Campolo preach, and he talked about a group in the inner city that goes door-to-door and asks people if there is anything in their lives that those in the group can pray about.  That shows people that there are caring people in the world.  Also, it is good to have a community that is trying to help people.  I as a free agent may not know how to address a certain problem, but others in the community with more savvy and wisdom may be able to help.

I don’t feel a need to go out into my town and meddle in people’s lives.  But I also don’t want to go to the other extreme of reflecting this cold society, where people do not care about each other and are primarily concerned about their own problems.

I doubt that people’s lives this morning were disrupted by God.  But perhaps they were encouraged to keep doing the good work that they are doing, and maybe to do so more.

Book Write-Up: Fierce Convictions, by Karen Swallow Prior

Karen Swallow Prior.  Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—-Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist.  Nashville: Nelson Books (An Imprint of Thomas Nelson), 2014.

Hannah More was a writer and an activist in eighteenth-early nineteenth century England.  She wrote plays, poems, and even a novel that was mentioned in one of Jane Austen’s unfinished works (albeit negatively).  More also worked with politician William Wilberforce to end the slave trade, established schools for the poor, and wrote against cruelty to animals.  I had not heard of Hannah More before requesting this book, and I did not know whether or not the book would be an interesting read for me.  But it was.

Karen Swallow Prior narrates Hannah More’s story in such a manner that I could connect with More as a human being.  More was a reserved woman, which may explain why she never married, and she came to have strong religious convictions.  Yet, she was able to interact effectively with various kinds of people, from different classes, religions, and walks of life, which was significant back then on account of the divisions between people in England.  Prior also explores many of the paradoxes of More’s life: how More was friends with Catholics yet opposed granting Catholics equal political rights, and how More was criticized by conservatives because they feared that her ideas could encourage revolution or upset the social order, and yet More herself held many traditional and conservative ideas.

Prior places More’s work within its historical context.  She explains More’s opposition to cruelty towards animals within the context of the chain-of-being concept, Christianity, and also Rene Descartes’ belief in the previous century that animals were merely machines that served humans, who should disregard animals’ feelings.  Prior also talks about the world of writing and publishing at that time.  Of particular interest to me was the criticism of novels by More’s friend Samuel Johnson, who believed that novels undermined morality by encouraging readers to identify with characters in their flaws.  More would come to see Johnson’s point, but she still believed in the power of story to promote moral behavior.  Prior also explores More’s religious beliefs: More was devoted to the Church of England, yet she disagreed with the Church of England in certain areas, and the view that she was too cozy with evangelicals threatened some of her projects because the Church of England could choose not to support them if they believed that to be the case.

Dr. Prior teaches English at Liberty University, a college founded by the late Jerry Falwell.  I do not know what Prior’s political beliefs are, but Jerry Falwell was politically conservative, and Liberty University has a reputation for being that, too.  That said, there were times when I wondered if Prior’s narration reflected a politically conservative viewpoint.  Prior does mention some things that probably would not resonate with many American conservatives: my impression is that American conservatives largely approve of the American Revolution, whereas Prior narrates that More was part of a movement that did not care for it, and that even criticized American revolutionaries who supported the slavery of African-Americans while championing freedom for the colonies.  Yet, Prior also talks about More’s attempts through stories to promote thrift and morality among the poor, and Prior on page 225 talks about the effectiveness of More’s tracts.  In the United States today, there are conservatives who attribute poverty to bad behavior on the part of the poor, whereas progressive voices note that there are many poor people in the United States who work hard and try to be thrifty with what they have.  I do not know to what extent eighteenth century English poverty resembled twenty-first century American poverty, but I wondered if Prior’s narration was reflecting a conservative view on poverty.  On the other hand, Prior on pages 181-182 does appear to criticize mildly William Wilberforce for not adequately addressing factory conditions in England.  Prior explains why Wilberforce believed as he did—-Wilberforce supported the free market and mass production—-yet Prior seems to question whether what Wilberforce did to improve factory conditions was sufficient.  That may indicate that Prior is not a supporter of complete laissez-faire economics.

I should also note that Prior has worked with the Humane Society, which stands against cruelty towards animals, and I applaud her for that.

There were also times when I thought that Prior might be bending over backwards to give More the benefit of a doubt.  For example, More mentored a poor poet, Ann Yearsley, but More chose not to give Yearsley control of Yearsley’s fund, resulting in a lawsuit.  Prior can understand the Yearsley’s point-of-view, yet Prior also says that the poet’s “earnings came as a result of More’s skillful promotion and management of Yearsley’s work” (page 79).  Personally, I did not find that incident to be one of More’s shining moments!  While Prior did seem to me to be sympathetic towards More, however, Prior’s book is not a whitewash, for it does talk about More’s weaknesses, such as More’s tendency to ingratiate herself towards people in higher social classes.  I found Prior’s remarks in the Epilogue to be beautiful: “Somewhere between Birrell’s hatred and Roberts’s hagiography is a woman who was at once ordinary and remarkable.  She was a woman with virtues and flaws, faith and fears, vision and blind spots.  But she was also one whose unique gifts and fierce convictions transformed first her life and subsequently her world and ours” (page 253).

I received a complimentary review copy of this remarkable biography through the BookLook Bloggers (http://booklookbloggers.com/) book review bloggers program.  The program does not require for my review to be positive, and my review reflects my honest reaction to the book.

II Chronicles 16

In II Chronicles 16, King Baasha of Northern Israel builds Ramah as a way to block people from going out from or coming into Judah, where King Asa reigns.  Somehow, however, Asa manages to get a message to King Ben-Hadad of Syria in the North, asking him to break his league with Baasha and to help Judah.  Asa gives Ben-Hadad silver and gold, Ben-Hadad then comes in and smites Northern Israelite cities, and Baasha ceases to build Ramah.  Asa uses stones and timber from Ramah to build some of his own cities.  A seer, Hanani, comes to Asa and rebukes him for looking to Syria for help rather than God.  Asa is outraged and throws Hanani into prison, as well as oppresses other people.  Asa gets a dreadful foot disease, but he does not trust in God but rather in physicians.

I have two items.

1.  II Chronicles 16:1 states that Baasha built Ramah in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa.  This causes chronological problems, because Baasha’s reign ended earlier than the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign (see I Kings 15:33; 16:8).  There are two solutions that interpreters have posed, and both have their problems.

a.  The first solution is to say that the malchut of Asa in II Chronicles 16:1 does not refer to the time that Asa actually reigned, but rather to the kingdom over which Asa ruled, the Kingdom of Judah.  According to this interpretation, malchut in II Chronicles 16:1 should be translated as kingdom, not as reign.  The Kingdom of Judah started earlier than Asa’s reign, when Northern Israel rebelled against King Rehoboam of Judah, Solomon’s son.  If one interprets II Chronicles 16:1 to mean that Baasha built Ramah thirty-six years after the beginning of the Kingdom of Judah, then the chronological difficulty vanishes, since Baasha was ruling Northern Israel during that time.

But there are problems with this solution.  One problem is that the relevant term in II Chronicles 16:1, le-malchut, usually in Chronicles refers to the reigns of specific kings, not their kingdom.  For example, II Chronicles 35:19 refers to the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.  The Chronicler here does not intend for us to understand this as Josiah’s kingdom, Judah, for much more than eighteen years passed between the establishment of the Kingdom of Judah under Rehoboam and the reign of Josiah.  Rather, the Chronicler here means the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign.

Another problem I have with this solution is that it seems to me that II Chronicles dates events during Asa’s reign in reference to the years in Asa’s reign, not in reference to the amount of time from Rehoboam’s establishment of Judah.  II Chronicles 15:10 states that Northern Israelites gathered themselves to Asa in the fifteenth year of his reign.  II Chronicles 15:19 says that Asa did not experience war until the thirty-fifth year of his reign.  Yet, II Chronicles 16:1 says that Baasha challenged Judah and built Ramah in the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign.  II Chronicles 16:12 states that Asa got his foot disease in the thirty-ninth year of his reign. II Chronicles 16:13 says that Asa died in the forty-first year of his reign.  And, to bring in Kings, I Kings 15:10 states that Asa reigned for forty-one years.

I think that all of these verses are discussing the years of Asa’s reign, not the years from the time that the Kingdom of Judah was established under Rehoboam.  II Chronicles 15:10 mentions the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign, and my impression is that this would not fit the fifteenth year after Rehoboam started the Kingdom of Judah, for Rehoboam ruled seventeen years (II Chronicles 12:13), and Rehoboam’s son Abijah ruled three years (II Chronicles 13:2).  I doubt that Asa had even begun to rule fifteen years after the establishment of the Kingdom of Judah.  Those references to events during Asa’s reign probably concern Asa’s reign, not the time from Rehoboam’s establishment of the Kingdom of Judah.

b.  Another solution is to say that there is a scribal error in II Chronicles 16:1.  Keil-Delitzsch go this route.  They say that, in Hebrew up to the seventh century B.C.E., the Hebrew symbols for ten and thirty look similar and could easily be mistaken for each other.  According to this solution, II Chronicles 16:1 is referring to the sixteenth year of Asa’s reign, not the thirty-sixth year, and the sixteenth year coincides with when Baasha was ruling Northern Israel.

Raymond Dillard in the World Biblical Commentary mentions a problem with this solution.  He says that, under this scenario, God punished Asa with foot disease over twenty years after Asa sinned by seeking Syria’s help against Baasha.  II Chronicles 16:12 says that Asa got his foot disease in the thirty-ninth year of his reign.  Dillard’s critique is not iron-clad, for II Chronicles 16:12 does not explicitly say that Asa’s foot disease was a punishment from God.  Still, that is a reasonable assumption, since the Chronicler often does present divine punishment of kings for their sins.  One who is interested in this issue should ask: is it credible that the Chronicler would present a twenty-plus year gap between Asa’s sin and his punishment?  Remember that the other sins mentioned in II Chronicles 16—-Asa jailing Hanani and oppressing people—-were precipitated by Hanahi’s criticism of Asa for his sin regarding Baasha, which probably occurred soon after Asa’s sin regarding Baasha.

Is there a solution to this problem of II Chronicles 16:1?  Unless there are other solutions or ways to account for the problems of those two solutions, the best option may be that the Chronicler got his dates wrong.

2.  II Chronicles 16:12 says that Asa did not seek the LORD when he was suffering from his foot disease, but physicians.  Does this suggest that the Chronicler, or God, believes it is wrong for people to go to doctors when they are sick, meaning that people should trust God instead?

I read Christian interpreters who answered no.  They said that Asa’s problem was not that he went to physicians, but that he did not seek the LORD also.  He tried to bypass completely a relationship with God.  John Gill mentioned the pro-physician passage in Sirach 38, and also anti-physician passages in rabbinic literature (T. Bab. Kiddashin, fol. 32.1, which I found, and Pesachim, fol. 113.1, which I could not find).  I did a search on “physicians” on my Judaic Classics Library, however, and saw that there were times when rabbis went to the doctor when they were sick.

See Avraham Rosenblum’s comments under my post on II Chronicles 11.

My "About Me" Page

I’ve been thinking of adding to my WordPress “About Me” page.  It does get a lot of views.  I just wonder if people find it helpful, or if it encourages people to become readers or subscribers of my blog.

My “About Me” page says the following:

“My name is James Pate.  I study the History of Biblical Interpretation at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, as part of its Ph.D. program.  I have an M.A. in Hebrew Bible from Jewish Theological Seminary, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and a B.A. from DePauw University.

“This blog is about my journey.  I read books.  I watch movies and TV shows.  I go to church.  I try to find meaning.  And, when I can’t do that, I just talk about stuff that I find interesting.”

This actually does say quite a bit about me.  It says that I study religion, specifically the interpretation of the Bible.  It says that I read books, watch movies and TV shows, go to church, and try to find meaning from all of that.

But there are also things that it does not say.  It does not say that I have Asperger’s Syndrome.  It does not say what my political ideology is.  It does not really specify what my religious ideology is.  Someone wanting to know whether I’m right, left, center, or whatever will not find out from my “About Me” page.  I also am not entirely sure if someone would find out what my blog is primarily about.  Who am I, what is important to me, what is my perspective, and why?  Does one learn that from my “About Me” page?  I can understand if someone answered “no.”

What exactly is my blog about?  Well, it is not about only one thing.  It has gone through phases.  During Presidential election years, I blog about the candidates.  In 2013, I blogged about Richard Nixon.  When I was studying for my comprehensive examinations, I wrote a lot of Bible and patristics posts.  There was a time when I was blogging about Christian movies.  Nowadays, I blog about evangelical Christian fiction and non-fiction.  Sometimes, I blog about my Bible reading, or a scholarly book.

I have wondered if this sort of eclectic approach helps my blog, in terms of getting it readers and subscribers.  My stats have done all right, but a lot of the views that I get are from people looking for information.  But getting more regular subscribers?  Suppose that a person comes here because he liked a post that I wrote about biblical studies, and he expects more of the same.  Instead, he finds me writing about Christian movies.  Will he stay?  Some people try to solve this sort of problem by having more than one blog: one for Christian apologetics and one for family stuff or sci fi, one for politics and one for daily life.  I don’t have enough time and energy to post regularly on more than one blog, though!

There are certain themes that come up often on my blog.  My resentment against evangelical Christianity for trying to make me into a social extrovert—-when I am not that—-is one.  My struggle to forgive others, and Jesus’ warning that God won’t forgive us if we don’t forgive others, is another.  Some may consider these posts whining.  Others find them helpful.  They are themes that come up here a lot, though.

I cannot say that my entire blog is about my social and religious struggles, however.  When I have geeked out on health care policy or academic Bible points, that has not been particularly relevant to my social or religious struggles.  It has just been me blogging about what I find interesting.

Anyway, I wonder how my “About Me” page can better communicate who I am.  I’ll be posting this post on my blogspot blog, even though this post is about my WordPress blog.  My blogspot blog has an “About Me” section, which is mostly like my WordPress “About Me” section, in terms of what it says.  My blogspot blog shows links to web sites and blogs that I like, but I am not sure what one can learn about me from that.  My blogroll has liberal and conservative blogs, and also moderate ones.  People cannot really pigeon-hole me when they visit my blogs!

Remnants of Conservatism

Ronald Reagan used to say that he did not leave the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party left him.  Many people who change political parties say something similar.  “Oh, I miss the days when the Republican Party was much more reasonable.  Now, it has been highjacked by a bunch of radicals!”

I have departed from right-wing conservatism, in the sense that I am more open now to voting for Democratic and progressive candidates.  Still, I wonder: has my ideology really changed that much?
I grew up reading literature of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society.  It would criticize the marriage between big government and big business: big business looking to big government to suppress competitors and grant big business unfair advantages.  Well, guess what?  I still agree with the John Birchers that this is a problem!  More than one progressive would, too.  That's one reason for progressives' opposition to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision: it gives special interests more power to influence government decisions for their own benefit. 

When I was a conservative, I believed in fiscal responsibility.  The government should try to eliminate waste and inefficiency.  Well, there are Democrats who say that, too!  Both sides claim to care about the deficit.  And both sides create their share of them!  But there have been plenty of Democratic governors who have managed to balance their state budgets.  There are also Democrats who propose new government spending programs, and I think that those should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis: rather than assuming that something is getting done because the government is spending more money, we should take a look at how the money is being spent.  We also shouldn't have duplicate programs.  And, rather than being too hasty to create new programs, we should consider whether there are already programs that are supposed to be doing a particular job. 

I wouldn't say that the Republican Party left me.  I'm just saying that my political change does not involve me repudiating everything I believed when I was a conservative.  My problem is, though, that many Republican politicians seem pretty selective in applying their principles of the free market and fiscal responsibility.  My impression is that, in many cases, their decisions on this are to the benefit of the rich, and to the detriment of the poor, or those not as well-connected.  And I am not saying that the Democrats are perfect, not by a long shot.

ADDENDUM: I was thinking of turning off comments for this post, since I don't want to get into a debate with anyone, or be asked to provide examples of what I'm talking about.  This post is my general reflections, not a comprehensive research paper.  I'm leaving the comments on, though, because I can learn from comments, even ones that disagree with me.  Feel free to comment and to disagree, and I will read the comments.  But I most likely will not get into any debates.