Jonathan Stensberg

A Book of the Century

Reviewed: 02-25-25

The Righteous Mind will be one of the great nonfiction books of the 21st Century. It rigorously explains the bases of moral, religious, and political convictions, and thus, why different individuals and groups so radically disagree. The weakness of the book is its references to late 1900s and early 2000s American political and social events and contexts. This will make the book feel somewhat out-of-date over time, although some may instead find that these references make the book more approachable.

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Wrestling, not Conversing

Reviewed: 02-14-25

Despite his famous obfuscations, Peterson quite obviously “believes” in God, and this book is the proof. The divine is escapable, unavoidable, and inevitable. However, the God of Peterson feels abstract and conceptual, in sharp contrast to the immanent God of “personal relationship”-ism so prevalent today. Put simply: Peterson eagerly wrestles with God, but would Peterson converse with God?

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Required Reading

Reviewed: 01-29-25

A quick but thoroughly sourced read that both disproves virulent myths about the Catholic Church and proves anti-Catholic bigotry remains very much alive and well today.

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A mixed bag.

Reviewed: 08-07-24

Warning: this is avowedly a work of radical BLM-inspired propaganda. If you cannot look past that, or the language of radical left politics, this is not the book for you.

The author attempts to place St Louis at the center of American history: first as the western capital of the white supremacist empire and second as the cauldron of racial capitalism. It is altogether a mixed bag. The narrative jumps episodically through some of the most famous events in St Louis history, but the connection between them is often sparse, and it is not always clear that St Louis history is genuinely emblematic of American history writ large.

The book is at its best in the pre-, during-, and post-civil war eras. It is at these times when St Louis really is at the forefront of the American project. It is genuinely surprising how much of the broader American history runs through St Louis during this time period, and the author brings this out well.

This has the beginnings of a good book, but it is not there yet.

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Christianity where Christianity has mostly vanished

Reviewed: 03-24-24

While Jenkins downplays the importance of doctrine, this serves to focus attention upon the broader history of Christianity beyond internecine denominational conflicts. What results is the image of the glorious expansion and long decline of the historical bastions of Christianity outside of Europe and the Nile. Not only is this worthwhile history, but it prompts serious reflection upon the meaning of the rise and fall of faith in any given place.

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The Book of the Century

Reviewed: 03-17-24

The lifelong indissoluble union of the whole of life of man and one women for the procreation and education of children is good, and nothing else even comes close. End of story.

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A treasure trove of wisdom

Reviewed: 03-14-24

While the book would benefit from being a bit shorter—one is often left thinking, “this is interesting, but what rule are we on again?”—this is truly a treasure trove a wisdom. This book will save lives—if not from death, from misery. This book cannot be recommended highly enough; share it with everyone you can.

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Alright but not weird enough

Reviewed: 02-25-24

While this is a much needed call to conversion for American Evangelicals (of whom I am not one), it is throughout not quite right. The key to this is near the end. Quoting Douthat’s remarks on the future of Catholicism in America, as the “normal” people leave the church, the church will be not just be smaller, but also marked by the weirdness of the weirdos who not only stayed in the church but made it thrive again. Moore states that this is good, if what is meant by weirdos is fools for Christ; however, Moore thinks he instead means the extremists and ideologues and conspiracists. Douthat, however, has always meant the former, routinely writing “make Catholicism weird again” in order to revive the church.

This exposes precisely what Moore has gotten wrong: Evangelicalism hasn’t gone of the rails because the weirdos are running the place; it’s gone off the rails because Evangelicals slowly stopped being weirdos. Evangelicalism has become more like the world in recent years, not less, just masked in Christianese. Because of this, a lot of Moore’s pleas are inflected with a “please just be normal” accent. What he should really be saying is “please just be Christian”.

Church leaders need to realize that the principle temptation for the Church is to become more normal and less weird. If the church is going off the rails, it is because the weirdness is giving way to normalness. Make Evangelicalism weird again; make Evangelicals such fools for Christ they barely even notice the affairs of the world. That is the altar car for Evangelical leaders.

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A needed mirror for American Evanglicalism

Reviewed: 02-23-24

This book is a much needed recounting of what has happened in American Evangelicalism over the past decade, and it is not pretty. While the things deceived in the book represent extremes that have not impacted every evangelical congregation as dramatically, there is little doubt these tendencies and temptations have touched every one of them to some degree. If there is a complaint against the book, it probably that little to no time was dedicated to how these problems have impacted other churches, or what American Evangelicalism could learn from Churches that have handled these issues better. For instance, when talking about the sex abuse crisis in the SBC, there is no mention of what could be learned from the Catholic Church’s struggle with this problem, it’s badly mismanaged public reckoning, and it’s ultimately wildly successful reforms—that few institutions have even begin to emulate—all of which occurred nearly two decades before the fallout began in the SBC. The book would have been had it included some of these perspectives reaching beyond the narrow confines of American Evangelicalism.

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A satisfying Firefly story

Reviewed: 07-18-23

Fans of Firefly will be largely satisfied with story. Personally, I hope there will be many more written.

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