84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Our book club chose 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff to read for January. I'd never heard of it. 

Unfortunately, I think I got the wrong version. The one I picked up from the library was a play version, "Adapted for the Stage."I think, however, I got the gist of it.

One thing I didn't understand initially is that it is based on actual letters between the author, Helene Hanff, and a bookstore in London. The play opens with Frank Doel, the procurer of books for the "antiquarian bookseller" reading a letter from Hanff, a poor struggling writer living in New York. The first letter is dated October 5, 1949. She is requesting "three Hazlitt essays" as well as a Latin Bible. He promises to do his best to fulfill her order and ship them out.

What follows is the slow, and all-too-real, development of a transatlantic friendship centered on the appreciation of fine, largely out-of-print, books. Not realizing the letters were real, I expected the story to go in certain directions. Surely a love story would develop or some major crisis would erupt, or each book requested by Helene would either foreshadow or relate to some circumstance in her life. None of that happened. Real life simply doesn't happen that way.

Throughout the book, Helene expresses a desire to cross the ocean and meet those who share her love for fine literature. Alas, it is not to be. As Helene journeys through life, becoming increasingly successful, she is also thrown expensive curveballs, which constantly frustrate her ability to visit. As the years pass, she remains single, moves and changes jobs, various clerks at the bookshop marry and move on, some die, and finally, Frank Doel passes away. The last letter is from his wife, dated January 8, 1969. The twenty-year correspondence is ended. The final moments of the play depict Helene on a plane to London. 

It is certainly a charming book, told in a lovely manner. My only criticism is that I wish it had a bit more of a story. I would love someone to write a similar book, but include a plot. However, watching two people develop a long-term, platonic friendship over a shared love of beautiful literature is also a worthy endeavor. 

 

Liberty or Lockdown by Jeffrey Tucker

I was reading an article recently that recommended this book, Liberty or Lockdown by Jeffrey Tucker, as the best thing on our current Covid response. So I ordered it right away. It's a collection of essay published throughout 2020 at the American Institute of Economic Research. Some have not aged well, as most were written before September. The principles, however, hold. 

Lockdowns do not deter a virus. Trading liberty for the promise of safety nets us neither. 

Although I wouldn't say the book is a top ten or anything like that, it's worth the read. It's short and eminently readable. The first few essays alone are worth the price of the book.

The American Institute of Economic Research is free-market think tank, and as such subscribes to the theory of diffused knowledge being the best way to gather all the relevant information. Therefore, when the Covid virus hit our shores, the best thing would have to been to diffuse knowledge and let the aggregate determine the best course forward. Of course we know that is the opposite of what happened. The original sin in the Covid response was limiting knowledge and therefore seeking to avoid a panic. To this end, testing was only to be done at the CDC/FDA direction. Private companies were not allowed to develop and administer their own tests. Knowledge became a premium commodity available only to a select few if at all. Lack of knowledge coupled with the call to, "Do something" led to the hysterical and irrational initial responses. 

Ironically the knowledge we needed actually existed. Humans have been dealing with pandemics for all of history. "Somehow in the 21st century, we find ourselves in the awkward position of having to relearn the basics of immunology that everyone from 1920 to 2000 or so seemed to understand." (p. 20) There are only two ways to defeat a virus: to develop immunity through contracting the disease or through a vaccine. Somehow, the decision-makers in our society decided that they alone could pioneer a new way forward, which involved lockdowns and quarantining healthy people. We forgot what we knew. In thinking we were so much smarter than those of the past, we made ourselves stupid. "It was pure speculation that lockdowns would suppress this virus, and that speculation was based on a hubristic presumption of the awesome power and intelligence of government managers." (p. 24)

As one country after another copied whatever the previous leader did, the arrogance metastasized. Now all efforts went toward propping up a policy based on nothing and accomplishing nothing. To intentionally hurt people by destroying their businesses, throwing them out of work, decimating their mental health, stealing educational opportunities, and shredding the fragile social fabric that holds societies together takes a special kind of callousness. "The more pain you inflict on people, the worse of a person you become. Power is dangerous even when not used, but deploying it brutally and pointlessly rots the soul." (p. 33) Therefore the big lie becomes necessary. The leaders must double-down to justify their policies. 

Other than the obvious damage the Covid response has had on the world, Tucker makes an even more compelling point, "Once you lock down a population by executive fiat, based on obvious ignorance and fear, you send a signal that nothing much matters anymore. Nothing is true, permanent, right, wrong. Might as well tear it all down. You literally unleash Hell." (p. 34) Therefore the riots and rage seen all over the country is the predictable, and actually rational, response. "If we stay on the present course of hiding and futilely trying to suppress the virus, wee will end up making all of society poorer both materially and spiritually and also delivery a dangerous blow to our biological health." (p. 127)

The response to the Covid pandemic has not only failed to mitigate the effects of the disease, it has made it far worse. We now suffer not only the effects of the virus, but the effects of the cure. "From early in the lockdown days, it became clear that this crisis would not make us 'come together' and be 'better people.' It would not be like 9-11. Instead, it would shatter our lives and make us worse people. We would turn on each other, engage in dramatic deeds that would hurt and harm people we like and love, and push our political agendas ahead of basic humane values." (p. 176)

It's a good, yet depressing, read.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

I love Jane Austen. Her Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorites. I can't say I loved Northanger Abbey.

It's fairly typical Austen: love-sick girls, balls, fancy parties, rich and upper middle class tension, marriage as a vocation, etc. Although I don't think Austen can be boiled down to all that and her themes are generally much deeper, this book only seemed to have the elements without the themes. 

Maybe I'm missing something. 

Young Catherine Morland has few prospects in her home town. When asked by a wealthy couple to join them in a six-week trip to Bath, she jumps at the chance. Initially failing to establish much of a social life, she eventually falls in with a group of young people in the Thorp family who promise excitement. They turn out to be false friends and almost lead to her undoing, Thankfully, another family is there in the background to swoop in and rescue poor Catherine from the clutches of this shallow group. 

Despite Catherine's immaturity and grand romantic dreams, she is welcomed by the Tilneys and invited to join them at their home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine is enraptured at the thought of spending time in an old Abbey, with it's promise of ghosts and intrigue. She is disappointed to discover an ordinary, loving family. She almost loses all of them when the Thorp family's misdeeds link unfavorably back to Catherine. But good wins out. Catherine marries Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor becomes Catherine's new sister. 

The book is full of exaggerated characters and scenes. I know Austen was trying to make a parody of the day's gothic novels, but not having that context, just made it seem like a bad romance. I wouldn't say it's a "must read." Perhaps that reflects poorly on me. 

 

Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng

Our book club decided to read Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. I had read a biography of Mao years ago, and so had some familiarity with this time in Chinese history, but this account was such a different perspective, it was well worth reading. 

Nien Cheng is a widow who worked for Shell in China after her husband passed away. Although initially excited about the changes the Communists promised, that hope soon gave way to reality. Caught up in the Cultural Revolution, her life was completely destroyed. She was imprisoned, tortured, her daughter murdered, and yet eventually she was vindicated. Her only crime... well that't the thing. She never committed a crime. Her existence as a relatively wealthy Chinese was her crime. Refusing to "confess" and so reduce her punishment, Cheng stood bravely when almost none of her peers resisted the enormous pressure. 

What I loved most about the book was the insight into human nature. Government officials and common people could so easily go along with the the party line, no matter that it shifted constantly in contradictory ways. All that mattered was self-preservation. While it's certainly discouraging to see the lengths people will go to delude themselves, it's also refreshing to see truth so graphically displayed. Humans are fallen and sinful and will bask in lies if lies will promise safety. We know that eventually truth wins out and the safety offered is a chimera, but in the meantime, humans will love the dark if the dark promises one more day. Unsurprisingly, Cheng is a Christian, so she had the hope of another world and a rock on which to stand. Although she only mentions her faith from time to time, I can't help but believe that was the difference between her and those who folded under the pressure. 

Even today, I'm reminded that Christians have not been given a spirit of fear. We are to stand, safe in the knowledge that truth will prevail and this is not our home. Unfortunately, that time on earth may not always be pleasant and may even be painful. But the story does not end there.

Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour

 

We read Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour as part of our Book Club. It's not one I would necessarily have chosen. 

That being said, I'm glad I read it. I have friends who take the Palestinian and Palestinian Christian side against the Israeli Jews often and this is the kind of story they refer to as the basis for their support. 

The story begins with an edenic childhood in Palestine interrupted one day be evil Zionist who take the land and refuse to let the townspeople back in. No reason is given other than the Zionists are evil. 

Chacour takes pains to point out that growing up he was always taught to love and respect the Jews as "blood brothers" to the Palestinian Christians, and he is careful to distinguish the Jews from the Zionist.

The families are largely thrown to the wind as refugees in nearby towns. Despite attempts to return or to exist peacefully with the Zionists, they are never allowed back in. 

Finally, Chacour is sent to a boarding school and eventually to seminary. His first job is in a desperately poor town with a history of internal division. The best part of this story is when he locks the congregants in the church and demands reconciliation. From this he gets the idea that he can reconcile Jews and Palestinians through peaceful protests and demonstrations. 

This becomes his main focus, especially later in life. 

The biggest disappointment in the book is that the Jews are treated as cartoon characters and despite the distinction between them and the Zionists, it's not clear there is a distinction. The Jews are only portrayed as hateful and irrational, although some are willing to see reason and lay down their hatred. Terrorism is almost never mentioned except as extremely rare occurrences by those who were not raised in the loving bosom Chacour experienced. And for his peers acting violently, he dismisses that with a "what do you expect" attitude. 

Elias Chacour seems to be a genuine Christian with a genuine commitment to the Gospel, but I think he is still blinded by Palestinian identity. He sees the Jews as usurpers. Life was perfect before the evil Jews invaded. If they had just stayed a tiny minority and let the Palestinians continue in their ways, there would be no conflict today. This narrative ignores the large events taking place outside his tiny town. He has his limited perspective and it seems like he is unable to provide a larger view.

One thing that I noticed time and again was that although it appeared the things I could research were factually correct, his take on them is sometimes misleading. His story about his village is true. In fact another village experienced the same thing. However those two villages stand out as aberrations and are frequently mentioned in the horrors of Israel. He makes it sound like his small village is one of myriad villages experiencing the same thing. And he never hints at any kind of reason for the takeover of his village besides pure evil. I have no idea if the Israelis saw some sort of strategic purpose in taking the villages. I assume some kind of reason was behind it, even if not communicated to the people. That is not to justify it, but these kinds of horrible things happen in areas under distress. Hundreds of innocent German towns were bombed by the Allies in WWII. Life in a war zone is awful. 

Other stories he told put the worst spin on controversial events. I researched a couple and the general thinking seems to be it could have happened that way, but no one knows. For example, he accuses the Jews of terrorizing Iranian Jews so that they would immigrate to Israel. Some pointed out that this was a story floated by Iran, but it makes no sense from an Israeli perspective. They were already struggling with the immigrants pouring into the country. Chacour's ability to take one side in an argument, as long as it makes the Jews look evil, certainly damages his credibility. 

The reason I'm glad I read this is so that I could see what those who defend the Palestinians see. If this is the best evidence for the maltreatment at the hands of the Israelis, I remain unconvinced. 

Acting White by Stuart Buck

I heard about Acting White by Stuart Buck a long time ago and always wanted to get around to reading it. It's worth a read. It's interesting, I would not say it was earth-shattering. Mostly it was just heart-breaking.

Buck traces the phenomenon to desperation in the 50s and 60s. "Black schoolchildren, now dispersed into formerly all-white schools, suddenly had to deal with unfriendly classmates on a day-to-day basis. School was no longer a place where black children could avoid interacting with racist people." (p. 4) Therefore, in order to maintain solidarity with their few black classmates, smart black students learned to slow down and regress in their grades lest they be accused of siding up to the enemy and "acting white." 

While this theory sounds plausible on its face, Buck spends most of the book documenting its existence. Early on he states, "The evidence supporting the 'acting white' these is fairly robust: We have over a dozen scholarly studies from the 1970s to 2008 confining that the 'acting white phenomenon does happen, while the studies that are supposed to disprove the 'acting white' are fewer and less reliable." (p. 25) Apparently there has been backlash to this theory contending that it seems to have as its premise that black students don't care about academic achievement. That the gap between black and white students is more properly, in fact, only, explained by the presence of racism, not by social choices students make. 

While Buck does not discount other explanation of the black/white academic gap, he plainly states, "We know that there is a large achievement gap that does not fully disappear even when you look at the most advantaged and wealthy black students being taught by good teachers in good schools. We know that 'acting white' exists to some extent. And we know the peers have a strong effect on how adolescents behave, both in school and elsewhere." (p. 40) Therefore Buck sets out to prove its existence, determine just how large the effect is, and where it came from. 

Buck does extensive research into black attitudes towards education prior to legal desecration and fails to find even one example of the accusation of "acting white" when a black student succeeds. In fact it was the contrary. Black people, having been deprived so long of good education with slavery and Jim Crow, actually placed a very high value on education. The smartest students tended to be the most popular. Teacher and Principals were highly respected. In fact, scholars "are careful to note that [while] they do not romanticize segregation itself, they point out that there were many black segregated schools that offered a good education, that made black children feel at home, and that encouraged black children to pursue education with passion." (p. 56) No one argues that we should return to segregation, however, it appears that under that system, blacks were able to create some well-run, tight-knit schools that served the community well. In fact, some of these school offered Classical Education of the type offered to the Founding Fathers. And many black families and students sought out that kind of rigorous education.

With official desegregation policies in place, "black schools all across America were closed or drastically redesigned... As a result, the safe and sheltering environment of black schools—once the center of the black community—disappeared. In their place was the integrated school, which was more unfriendly to black students, and less likely to feature black role models of academic success. As a result, black students become alienated from the world of school. The began to think of the school as a 'white' institution." (p. 74) This is a heart-breaking tragedy in which well-meaning policies were put in place with disastrous affects. Black students were ripped from their safe, nurturing school, full of loving teachers, mentors, and supporters, to a place where rabid racists make it more than clear that the students were not welcome and didn't belong. Is it any wonder that black students believed what they were being told? These black students largely did not feel part of the new schools, where they no longer felt at home, and began to withdraw into themselves.

Unfortunately desegregation was put into place in a fashion almost designed to hurt black students, parents, teachers, and principals. While some areas postponed it as long as possible, they would occasionally build brand new black schools to show that separate could, in fact, be equal. These new schools were a source of pride and community to the blacks they served. Yet when finally forced to integrate, no whites wanted to attend a black school. The integration only went one direction. Some of the brand new schools were demolished or decommissioned. The black teachers and principals were often fired. Few white schools wanted or needed the black teachers. And while sometimes there was an effort to include black principals in the new system, often they were passed over and demoted over time. The black students were sent to multiple schools, well outside of their neighborhoods in many cases. Seeing few familiar faces, and facing daily harassment from teachers as well as students, the ostracized new students had to stick together. It was social survival. Black role models, mentors, and counselors simply disappeared. 

From the white teachers and administrators perspective, they had a very hard needle to thread. The fact was that often the black schools were inferior. Understandably, the black students often arrived on campus behind their peers. Black schools often did not receive quality materials or the best teachers. Their buildings were often dilapidated. They simply did not have the resources the white schools had. When the black students arrived, significantly behind, they were grouped into remedial classes. This painted a stark picture of what the white parents and educators feared. The blacks couldn't keep up. If a black student happened to be particularly bright and was able to compete at a high level, she would often be one of only one or two black students in the class. This further stigmatized and isolated the student, who felt cut off from everything familiar. A teacher who may have been sympathetic to the new black students could also compound the problem by patronizing the black students and fail to hold them to the same high standards to which she held the others. 

One black educator remarked, "Black kids are not hungry now... They don't hunger and thirst for education. And the reason they don't hunger is because nobody tells them that they need to hunger and thirst for education. Once they went into the integrated situation there was no one pushing them." (p. 111)

Furthermore, discipline became an issue. If a black student was punished for misbehaving, the student could always point to racism as the cause. In an all black school, parents backed up teachers and administrators because they knew them and they knew the school was doing what was best for their child. In the integrated schools, this trust was destroyed. It hardly mattered if the black student was actually guilty, too often racism played a role in discipline and having that as an easy excuse affected both blacks and whites. 

The heart of Buck's book is stories told by those that lived it. One woman said, "In our segregated neighborhoods and schools we didn't feel deprived, we didn't even know that we lacked self-esteem, we were happy and secure in our all-black neighborhoods and our all-black schools. We felt that we belonged, hell, we did belong. There was no fear of trying to join the band or the drill team, or of trying out for cheerleader." (p. 129) Story after story tells the same narrative. Desegregation introduced a destabilizing effect on black students that reverberates until today. Although Buck makes clear that he not arguing for a return to segregation, the people he talks to express a painful nostalgia for a time gone by when black communities experienced real pride in their educational achievements. For many of these students, being black became a burden. For the first time, they didn't look like their classmates, teachers, and administrators. Being black became an important identity. Acting in a way, that is "acting white," directly undercut this new identity. In heart-breaking story after heart-breaking story adults recall a lost world full of high hopes and dashed dreams. 

The critics of Buck's theory believe that it cannot be true. If black students intentionally forgo educational opportunities, that would indicate an inexcusable form of stupidity. However, Buck shows repeatedly that it is not stupidity that causes a student to fear the "acting white" label. It is a form of rational self-preservation. However, despite schools returning to largely segregated schools with the end of forced segregation, the attitude has been born and bred and remains in the water, so to speak. Gifted black students have internalized the idea that to act in a way different from the majority of their peers is to reject their peers and have their peers in turn reject them. That is simply too high a hurdle for most students. In fact, the more the black community feels beleaguered and oppressed, but more important it becomes to stick together. Therefore any outlier has to be punished with social ostracism a the least. 

Buck finishes up with the most unsatisfying part of the book: What Can Be Done. Honestly, he offers a feeble "not much." He believes sex-segregated schooling might help. Possibly competition between schools instead of individual grades. These would help for more community within the school leading the black identity to take on a less pronounced role. No matter what, it's a mess and we are currently heading in the wrong direction. 

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr.

 

I have to be honest, when our Book Club decided to read Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr., I was not excited. The world was full of BLM protests and I was frankly tired of being told how racist America and all white people are. I don't believe that, and I was hesitant to read anything that might reinforce the narrative. Not that I don't love MLK and the vision he had for America, but I had some notion that King had moved further to the Left later in his life, and I wasn't sure what to expect. 

Fortunately the book was like cool waters in a desert. Any thoughts that King was not authentically Christian can be firmly laid to rest by this book. It's a collection of sermons, that while centered around race, never get far from Scripture and the work of Christ. 

"A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart"

King starts off the book with the admonition that, "There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackle of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance. The shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of softmindedness." (p. 17) Amen. Someone tell that to the Twitterverse. Those with hard hearts "[see] people...as mere objects or as impersonal cogs in an ever-turning wheel." (p. 17) This idea of "not being seen" as fully human permeates the book and I believe is the root of our current agitations. And in words so directly relevant to our riot-torn cities today he states, "Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves never brings permanent peace. I am convinced that if we succumb to the temptation to use violence in our struggle for freedom, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate sight of bitterness, and our chief legacy to them will be a never-ending reign of chaos." (p. 18) Truer words...

"Transformed Nonconformist"

In addressing those who blindly conform to societal, racialists norms, King cites no less an authority than Thomas Jefferson, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." (p. 24) Americans must be free to think independently or "move within the shadows of fascism." (p. 24) Yet the nonconformist must conform himself to the ways of a holy God. "Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit... [We] recognizes that social change will not come overnight, yet [we] work as though it is an imminent possibility." (p. 27) This is the voice we need crying in our wilderness. 

"On Being a Good Neighbor"

Using the parable of The Good Samaritan, King notes that the tale involved a kind of blindness. "The real tragedy of such narrow provincialism is that we see people as entities or merely as things. Too seldom do we see people in their true humanness... We fail to think of them as fellow human beings made from the same basic stuff as we, molded in the same divine image." Again that theme of seeing people as people, not as statistics or merely identity categories. King points out that the two men who passed by the broken man each worried what helping him would do to themselves; the Good Samaritan reversed the concern and asked, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" (p. 34) King calls this "dangerous altruism. King differentiates True Altruism from Pity. "Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the writing of a check." (p. 35) Dangerous altruism demands our soul. Pity focuses on "humanity;" sympathy focuses on the particular hurting human "who lies at life's roadside." (p. 35) "Instead of seeking to do something with the African..., we have too often sought only to do something for them. An expression of pity devoid of genuine sympathy, leads to a new form of paternalism which no self-respecting person can accept." (p. 36) This the breath of fresh air that I needed. I wanted to yell, "YES!"

"Love in Action"

King repeatedly returns to Jesus as his model. The Cross affirms a higher law. Evil cannot be repaid with evil. Only love overcomes evil. "What a magnificent lesson! Generations will rise and fall; men will continue to worship the god of revenge and bow before the altar of retaliation; but ever and again this noble lesson of Calvary will be a nagging reminder that only good can drive out evil and only love can conquer hate." (p. 42) This is lesson we need to learn anew. Jesus knew those who persecuted him were blind, "They know not what they do." Until both our hearts and and our heads can recognize the truth that only goodness overcomes evil, we will continue to spiral in harming each other. 

"Loving Your Enemies"

For those that would denigrate this call of Christ as too difficult or weak and cowardly, King states, "Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival...Jesus is not an impractical idealist: he is the practical realist...When Jesus said 'Love your enemy,' he was not unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives." (p. 49-50) Nothing other than a total surrender to the Lordship of Christ will effect this kind of response to injustice. "We must love our enemies, because only by loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of his holiness." (p. 55)

"Shattered Dreams"

King is clear that the kind of response he is calling for is only possible for the Christian. It is only the love of God pouring through his own that can see injustice as an opportunity to embrace one's enemies. "The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope for we know, as Paul testified, in life or in death,... 'that all thing work together for good to them that love God, to them without are called according to his purpose.'" (p. 96)

"How Should a Christian View Communism?"

My doubts about King moving further Left and towards Communism were put to rest by this essay. "Let me state clearly the basic premise of this sermon: Communism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible. A true Christian cannot be a true Communist, for the two philosophies are antithetical and all the diabetics of the logicians cannot reconcile them." (p. 97-98) King flatly rejects the tenet of Communism which believes that the ends justify the means. A Christian simply cannot use that thinking. "Destructive means cannot bring constructive ends, because the means represent the-ideal-in-the-making and the-ends-in-progress. Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means." (p. 99) This line of reasoning directly contradicts those that say they need to tear down American society so they can rebuild another, more just society. The destructive means BECOMES the end. It cannot be otherwise. However, King attributes the rise of Communism to the failure of the Church to uphold the values it supposedly embodies. The Church failed to speak out about racism and destructive colonialism. "The judgment of God is upon the church. The church has a schism in its own soul that it must close." (p. 103) He sees the fire burning in the hearts of Communists as a direct rebuke to Christians. Had we that same fire burning in our hearts, Communism would not be capturing so many around the world. 

"Our God is Able"

In a stirring admonition to do the hard work Christ calls us to, King states, "In our sometimes difficult and often lonesome walk up freedom's road, we do not walk alone. God walks with us. He has placed within the very structure of this universe certain absolute moral laws. We can neither defy nor break them. If we disobey them, they will break us. The forces of evil may temporarily conquer truth, but truth will ultimately conquer its conqueror. Our God is able." (p. 111) Hallelujah!

"The Answer to a Perplexing Question" 

Since the disciples asked Jesus why they were unable to cast out a demon, man has been asking why we cannot cast out evil. Men have tried to do it in their own efforts, but King reminds us that, "Man, by his own power can never cast evil from the world. The humanist's hope is an illusion, based on too great an optimism concerning the inherent goodness of human nature." (p. 129) Neither can we simply wait for God to drive it out in his own good time. "God, who gave us minds for thinking and bodies for working, would defeat his own purpose if he permitted us to obtain through prayer what may come through work and intelligence. Prayer is a marvelous and necessary supplement of our feeble efforts, but it is a dangerous substitute." (p. 131) We see echoes of his frustration with those that would wait on the Lord for end of segregation in King's haunting "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." "The belief that God will do everything for us is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith, but superstition." (p.133) The answer is to unite God and man in "one marvelous unity of purpose through an overflowing love as the free gift of himself on the part of God and by perfect obedience and receptivity on the part of man..." (p. 133) Man, channeling the perfect love of God, can change the world. "Racial justice, a genuine possibility in our nation and in the world, will come neither by our frail and often misguided efforts nor by God imposing his will on wayward men, but when enough people open their lives to God and allow him to put his triumphant, divine energy into their souls. Our age-old and noble dream of a world of peace may yet become a reality, but it will come neither by man working alone nor by God destroying the wicked schemes of men, but when men so open their lives to God that he may fill them with love, mutual respect, understanding, and goodwill." (p. 134-135) This is exactly what we need. We need Jesus!

It's impossible to state how much this book resonated with me. As a fellow believer, it seemed like the Holy Spirit was testifying with his spirit and we were in complete agreement. My only sadness is that this message went forth almost 60 years ago and we failed to listen to it. How long will we continue to ignore the only thing that can cause actual racial justice: the love of Christ channeled through his children.