MarysLibrary

American Awakening

The first book I've bought in the new year, 2021, is about the problems we are having in America because of identity politics and why, indeed, we are suffering from identity politics at all. The author, Joshua Mitchell, teaches political theory at Georgetown University. American Awakening echoes the former great awakenings in American religious and political history while touching on the "woke" of today who recognize that we are all fallen but who are lacking the promise of Christian grace and so resort to finding scapegoats to bear their sins away.

Note: This book, like several others that have been published recently has real footnotes, i.e., they are at the foot of the page. Perhaps because in my academic day that is where footnotes were always located and because I was taught to look at and read footnotes, I find this more convenient than the collection in the back of the book. A trend I hope continues and flourishes.

Not a Creature War Stirring

Gregor Demarkian gets a mysterious assignment. His priest, Timor, asks him to visit Bryn Mawr millionaire. This wealthy and eccentric man has shown Timor a suitcase filled with $100,000 and says it's his if he convinces the retired FBI agent to spend the evening at his mansion on the Main Line. But when Gregor gets there the driveway is filled with police cars and a full-scale murder investigation is under way. His host is dead and everybody has good reasons to rejoice. The first in a series from which I learned everything I know about Armenian-Americans, their Philadelphia neighborhood, their church, and their food. Book first published in 1990.

Godless

Godless: The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter, was published about 15 years ago. Reading it now, in 2021, is a little like going home for a funeral and reminiscing with your siblings about grammar school. Names you haven't heard in years pop up and long-forgotten achievements (and scandals) are re-examined. It's fun, but not an entirely worthwhile use of your time. Coulter's main point is that folks who no longer believe in God are in search of a replacement and are finding it in progressive politics. That remains true and ever more obvious.