Undivided
The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Vivienne Leheny
-
By:
-
Hahrie Han
About this listen
The inspiring story of evangelicals in Cincinnati struggling to bridge racial divides in their own church, their community, and across the nation
In 2016, even as Ohio helped deliver victory to presidential candidate Donald Trump, Cincinnati voters also passed a ballot initiative for universal preschool. The margin was so large that many who elected Trump must have—paradoxically—also voted for the initiative: how could the same citizens support such philosophically disparate aims? What had convinced residents of this Midwestern, Rust Belt community to raise their own taxes to provide early childhood education focused on the poorest—and mostly Black—communities?
When political scientist Hahrie Han set out to answer that question, her investigations led straight to an unlikely origin: the white-dominant evangelical megachurch Crossroads, where Pastor Chuck Mingo had delivered a sermon the prior year that set in motion a chain of surprising events. Raised in the Black church, Mingo felt called by God, he told Crossroads parishioners, to combat racial injustice, and to do it through the very church in which they were gathered.
The result was Undivided, a faith-based program designed to foster antiracism and systemic change. The creators of Undivided recognized that any effort to combat racial injustice must move beyond recognizing and overcoming individual prejudices. Real change would have to be radical—from the very roots.
In Undivided, Han chronicles the story of four participants—two men, one Black and one white, and two women, one Black and one white—whose lives were fundamentally altered by the program. As each of their journeys unfolded, in unpredictable and sometimes painful ways, they came to better understand one another, and to believe in the transformative possibilities for racial solidarity in a moment of deep divisiveness in America. The lessons they learned have the power to teach us all what an undivided society might look like—and how we can help achieve it.
©2024 Hahrie Han (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Stolen Pride
- Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.
-
-
Important Fascinating. Compassionate. It may change your thinking.
- By F Shaw on 12-11-24
-
The Bluestockings
- A History of the First Women's Movement
- By: Susannah Gibson
- Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.
-
-
fascinating book almost ruined by the reader
- By braingirl on 08-13-24
By: Susannah Gibson
-
The Violent Take It by Force
- The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy
- By: Matthew D. Taylor
- Narrated by: Asa Siegel
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale.
-
-
Comprehensively Researched
- By Chuck Anderson on 09-25-24
-
Circle of Hope
- A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church
- By: Eliza Griswold
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for—and finding—more authentic ways to find and follow Jesus. This is the story of one such “radical outpost of Jesus followers” dedicated to service, the Sermon on the Mount, and working toward justice for all in this life, not just salvation for some in the next. Part of a little-known yet influential movement at the edge of American evangelicalism, Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope grew for forty years, planted four congregations, and then found itself in crisis.
-
-
Worthy read for faith seekers, church-minded, etc.
- By LDenely on 11-14-24
By: Eliza Griswold
-
Erasing History
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.
-
-
The bias attitude of the author
- By Elizabeth ohanna on 09-30-24
By: Jason Stanley
-
Strange Religion
- How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling
- By: Nijay K. Gupta
- Narrated by: Nijay K. Gupta
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first Christians were weird. Just how weird is often lost on today's believers. Within Roman society, the earliest Christians stood out for the oddness of their beliefs and practices. They believed unusual things, worshiped God in strange ways, and lived a unique lifestyle. They practiced a whole new way of thinking about and doing religion that would have been seen as bizarre and dangerous when compared to Roman religion and most other religions of the ancient world.
-
-
misleading title
- By Travis M. Stockwell on 03-24-24
By: Nijay K. Gupta
-
Stolen Pride
- Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.
-
-
Important Fascinating. Compassionate. It may change your thinking.
- By F Shaw on 12-11-24
-
The Bluestockings
- A History of the First Women's Movement
- By: Susannah Gibson
- Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.
-
-
fascinating book almost ruined by the reader
- By braingirl on 08-13-24
By: Susannah Gibson
-
The Violent Take It by Force
- The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy
- By: Matthew D. Taylor
- Narrated by: Asa Siegel
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale.
-
-
Comprehensively Researched
- By Chuck Anderson on 09-25-24
-
Circle of Hope
- A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church
- By: Eliza Griswold
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for—and finding—more authentic ways to find and follow Jesus. This is the story of one such “radical outpost of Jesus followers” dedicated to service, the Sermon on the Mount, and working toward justice for all in this life, not just salvation for some in the next. Part of a little-known yet influential movement at the edge of American evangelicalism, Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope grew for forty years, planted four congregations, and then found itself in crisis.
-
-
Worthy read for faith seekers, church-minded, etc.
- By LDenely on 11-14-24
By: Eliza Griswold
-
Erasing History
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.
-
-
The bias attitude of the author
- By Elizabeth ohanna on 09-30-24
By: Jason Stanley
-
Strange Religion
- How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling
- By: Nijay K. Gupta
- Narrated by: Nijay K. Gupta
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first Christians were weird. Just how weird is often lost on today's believers. Within Roman society, the earliest Christians stood out for the oddness of their beliefs and practices. They believed unusual things, worshiped God in strange ways, and lived a unique lifestyle. They practiced a whole new way of thinking about and doing religion that would have been seen as bizarre and dangerous when compared to Roman religion and most other religions of the ancient world.
-
-
misleading title
- By Travis M. Stockwell on 03-24-24
By: Nijay K. Gupta
-
Reagan
- His Life and Legend
- By: Max Boot
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 32 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides “the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date” (Robert Mann).
-
-
Remarkable biography of a political giant
- By Rafael Verduzco on 12-01-24
By: Max Boot
-
Belonging
- A Culture of Place
- By: Bell Hooks
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic Bell Hooks examines in Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which Hooks moves from place to place, only to end where she began—her old Kentucky home.
-
-
“The circularity of the sacred.”
- By Jasmine N. Bellamy on 07-02-23
By: Bell Hooks
-
The Barn
- The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
- By: Wright Thompson
- Narrated by: Wright Thompson
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.
-
-
Evocative
- By Mentally in Paris on 09-25-24
By: Wright Thompson
-
When the Clock Broke
- Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
- By: John Ganz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents.
-
-
Amazing history of the early 90s
- By Aaron R. Isaacson on 06-25-24
By: John Ganz
-
The Message
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities. In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind.
-
-
Bias
- By Dana on 10-13-24
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
What It Takes to Heal
- How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
- By: Prentis Hemphill
- Narrated by: Prentis Hemphill
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect with one another, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how.
-
-
it hits that which we need to hear but find easier to ignore
- By Amazon Customer on 06-26-24
By: Prentis Hemphill
-
The Rigor of Angels
- Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: David Glass
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality.
-
-
The most ridiculous narration
- By Anonymous User on 03-07-24
By: William Egginton
-
Into the Bright Sunshine
- Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Pivotal Moments in American History Series)
- By: Samuel G. Freedman
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president—the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate—but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium.
-
-
Narrator bungles pronunciations
- By ARV on 09-23-23
-
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here
- The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
- By: Jonathan Blitzer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Blitzer, André Santana
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.
-
-
How America Created its Own Border Problem
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-24
By: Jonathan Blitzer
-
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
- And the Path to a Shared American Future
- By: Robert P. Jones
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with contemporary efforts to reckon with the legacy of white supremacy in America, Jones returns to the fateful year when a little-known church doctrine emerged that shaped the way five centuries of European Christians would understand the “discovered” world and the people who populated it. From this vantage point, Jones illuminates how the enslavement of Africans was not America’s original sin but, rather, the continuation of acts of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans.
-
-
The Doctrine of discovery matters to our history
- By Adam Shields on 09-13-23
By: Robert P. Jones
-
Bad Mexicans
- Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands
- By: Kelly Lytle Hernández
- Narrated by: Joana Garcia
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bad Mexicans tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magon, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers—and American dissidents—to their cause. Determined to oust Mexico's dictator, Porfirio Diaz, the rebels had to outrun and outsmart the swarm of US authorities vested in protecting the Diaz regime.
-
-
Great book, but why is the narrator so bad?
- By bean on 10-14-22
-
Madness
- Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum
- By: Antonia Hylton
- Narrated by: Antonia Hylton
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state’s Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports listeners behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum. In Madness, journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital.
-
-
Glad to have added this to my cerebral quarters
- By Alednam A Uonopk on 04-25-24
By: Antonia Hylton
Critic reviews
“A masterful feat of elegant storytelling and rigorous research, Undivided invigorates readers with an astonishing example of what it takes to make real change, even in the context of deep polarization and racialized subjugation.”—Jennifer Parker, editor Hammer and Hope
"Building a truly multiracial democracy is the great political challenge of our time. The last half century has taught us that changing national laws and policies is the easy part; multiracial democracy won’t take root, however, until society itself transforms. In this beautifully-written book, Hahrie Han offers us a glimpse into how that might be done. Drawing on deep research into the experience of a single church community, Undivided offers a powerful lesson: building sustainable racial solidarity is slow, hard work, filled with uncertainty. There is no playbook or formula—only trial and error. And it is done from the bottom up, though relationships. Any American concerned with the future of our democracy should read this book.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die
“Undivided feels like it is written by someone who understands and, dare I say, loves the church. And because of that, the book catches the church doing right, and praises it, but also challenges it to do better.”—Dave Ferguson, author of B.L.E.S.S.: 5 Everyday Ways To Love Your Neighbor & Change The World
Related to this topic
-
The Holy Bible: King James Version
- The Old and New Testaments
- By: King James Bible
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Prentice Onayemi, Ellen Archer, and others
- Length: 82 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This newer edition of the King James Bible published in 1769 is usually preferred by most that read it over the older 1611 version. This 1769 edition is highly sought after due to being more reader/listener friendly than the 1611 since many typos were fixed.... We hope your new audio bible will go everywhere with you and be a blessing for years to come.
-
-
Very Good
- By José de Ribera on 12-17-20
By: King James Bible
-
The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
-
-
listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
-
The Bhagavad Gita
- By: Eknath Easwaran
- Narrated by: Paul Bazely
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bhagavad Gita, "The Song of the Lord", is the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Easwaran's reliable and accessible version has consistently been the best-selling translation. Easwaran's introduction places the Gita in its historical setting and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. Chapter introductions give clear explanations of key concepts in that chapter.
-
-
Content and narration reduced me to tears
- By Lauriesland on 01-11-16
By: Eknath Easwaran
-
The Books of Enoch: The Angels, The Watchers and The Nephilim
- With Extensive Commentary
- By: Joseph Lumpkin
- Narrated by: Dennis Logan
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The well-known and acclaimed work of Dr. Joseph Lumpkin has been enlarged to include new research on the Books of Enoch, Fallen Angels, the Watchers, and the Nephilim. After presenting extensive historical backgrounds and brilliant translations of The First, Second, and Third Books of Enoch, Lumpkin takes time to piece together a historical narrative of Fallen Angels, the Watcher, and the Nephilim, using his extensive knowledge of ancient texts.
-
-
Lose the echo effect
- By Mark Medbery on 10-29-17
By: Joseph Lumpkin
-
The Book of Enoch
- From the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
- By: Robert Bagley III
- Narrated by: Steve Cook
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is The Book of Enoch so important to anyone interested in Biblical history? The answer is simple: It is directly quoted in the New Testament by Jude (vv.14-15). Themes of the book referenced in 2 Peter 2:1. Jesus also used content from The Book of Enoch in many of his sermons in Matthew and Luke. In this text, you will hear the word of God through this amazing document. We will take this amazing journey together and learn why this text is not an official book of the Bible.
-
-
Amazing and disturbingly accurate celestial calc.
- By Susan I Carter on 12-05-17
-
The Book of Enoch
- By: Unknown
- Narrated by: Christopher Glyn
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The book of Enoch was thought to be lost for over 2,000 years until, in 1773, a traveller brought three copies back from Ethiopia. Whether or not this ancient book was actually authored by Enoch, the father of Methuselah and great-grandfather of Noah, is an ongoing debate among historians and theologians. But all recognise the book of Enoch as one of the most important apocalyptic works outside of the Bible.
-
-
Further Information
- By Timothy on 01-11-20
By: Unknown
-
The Holy Bible: King James Version
- The Old and New Testaments
- By: King James Bible
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Prentice Onayemi, Ellen Archer, and others
- Length: 82 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This newer edition of the King James Bible published in 1769 is usually preferred by most that read it over the older 1611 version. This 1769 edition is highly sought after due to being more reader/listener friendly than the 1611 since many typos were fixed.... We hope your new audio bible will go everywhere with you and be a blessing for years to come.
-
-
Very Good
- By José de Ribera on 12-17-20
By: King James Bible
-
The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
-
-
listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
-
The Bhagavad Gita
- By: Eknath Easwaran
- Narrated by: Paul Bazely
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bhagavad Gita, "The Song of the Lord", is the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Easwaran's reliable and accessible version has consistently been the best-selling translation. Easwaran's introduction places the Gita in its historical setting and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. Chapter introductions give clear explanations of key concepts in that chapter.
-
-
Content and narration reduced me to tears
- By Lauriesland on 01-11-16
By: Eknath Easwaran
-
The Books of Enoch: The Angels, The Watchers and The Nephilim
- With Extensive Commentary
- By: Joseph Lumpkin
- Narrated by: Dennis Logan
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The well-known and acclaimed work of Dr. Joseph Lumpkin has been enlarged to include new research on the Books of Enoch, Fallen Angels, the Watchers, and the Nephilim. After presenting extensive historical backgrounds and brilliant translations of The First, Second, and Third Books of Enoch, Lumpkin takes time to piece together a historical narrative of Fallen Angels, the Watcher, and the Nephilim, using his extensive knowledge of ancient texts.
-
-
Lose the echo effect
- By Mark Medbery on 10-29-17
By: Joseph Lumpkin
-
The Book of Enoch
- From the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
- By: Robert Bagley III
- Narrated by: Steve Cook
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is The Book of Enoch so important to anyone interested in Biblical history? The answer is simple: It is directly quoted in the New Testament by Jude (vv.14-15). Themes of the book referenced in 2 Peter 2:1. Jesus also used content from The Book of Enoch in many of his sermons in Matthew and Luke. In this text, you will hear the word of God through this amazing document. We will take this amazing journey together and learn why this text is not an official book of the Bible.
-
-
Amazing and disturbingly accurate celestial calc.
- By Susan I Carter on 12-05-17
-
The Book of Enoch
- By: Unknown
- Narrated by: Christopher Glyn
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The book of Enoch was thought to be lost for over 2,000 years until, in 1773, a traveller brought three copies back from Ethiopia. Whether or not this ancient book was actually authored by Enoch, the father of Methuselah and great-grandfather of Noah, is an ongoing debate among historians and theologians. But all recognise the book of Enoch as one of the most important apocalyptic works outside of the Bible.
-
-
Further Information
- By Timothy on 01-11-20
By: Unknown
-
The Man Who Invented Christmas
- How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist. The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution.
-
-
Beautifully Told!
- By JodyB on 12-01-17
By: Les Standiford
-
My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
- Narrated by: Thomas Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
-
-
What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
-
Neville Goddard: The Complete Reader
- By: Neville Goddard
- Narrated by: Barry J. Peterson
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neville Goddard: The Complete Reader, Includes all 10 of Neville Goddard's Spiritual Classics: At Your Command, Awakened Imagination & the Search, Feeling is the Secret, Freedom For All, Out of This World, Prayer, The Art of Believing, Seedtime and Harvest, The Law and The Promise, The Power of Awareness, and Your Faith Is Your Fortune. If you are familiar with the great American mystic, this will be a goldmine of wisdom in one book. If you are new to his work, you are in for a spiritual journey.
-
-
Hidden Gem
- By TrauntsiePants on 05-22-18
By: Neville Goddard
-
Super Attractor
- Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
- By: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ready to turn what you want into the life that you live? The number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Universe Has Your Back shows you how. In Super Attractor, Gabrielle Bernstein lays out the essential methods for manifesting a life beyond your wildest dreams. This book is a journey of remembering where your true power lies. You'll learn how to co-create the life you want. You'll accept that life can flow, that attracting is fun, and that you don't have to work so hard to get what you want.
-
-
Not a huge fan
- By Pamela H on 09-30-19
-
The Pagan World
- Ancient Religions Before Christianity
- By: Hans-Friedrich Mueller, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Hans-Friedrich Mueller
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Pagan World: Ancient Religions Before Christianity, you will meet the fascinating, ancient polytheistic peoples of the Mediterranean and beyond, their many gods and goddesses, and their public and private worship practices, as you come to appreciate the foundational role religion played in their lives. Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller, of Union College in Schenectady, New York, makes this ancient world come alive in 24 lectures with captivating stories of intrigue, artifacts, illustrations, and detailed descriptions from primary sources of intriguing personalities.
-
-
The Pagan World
- By arnold e andersen md Dr Andersen on 03-28-20
By: Hans-Friedrich Mueller, and others
-
Medieval Myths & Mysteries
- By: Dorsey Armstrong, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Dorsey Armstrong
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 10 enlightening (and often humorous) lectures of Medieval Myths and Mysteries will show you how far from the “dark” times of legend these centuries were. Uncover the facts about the Knights Templar. Reveal the truth behind the tales of legendary creatures like the Questing Beast and the unicorn. Trace the events of the Black Death and the ways it altered the world in its wake, and much more. With Professor Armstrong, you will dig deep into the ways that later generations reshaped the narrative of the medieval years and perpetuated the myths.
-
-
Interesting, but centered on Britain
- By Ximena on 04-10-20
By: Dorsey Armstrong, and others
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Rebel's Clinic
- The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
- By: Adam Shatz
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller.
-
-
Thrilling story
- By Diane on 09-07-24
By: Adam Shatz
-
Circle of Hope
- A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church
- By: Eliza Griswold
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for—and finding—more authentic ways to find and follow Jesus. This is the story of one such “radical outpost of Jesus followers” dedicated to service, the Sermon on the Mount, and working toward justice for all in this life, not just salvation for some in the next. Part of a little-known yet influential movement at the edge of American evangelicalism, Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope grew for forty years, planted four congregations, and then found itself in crisis.
-
-
Worthy read for faith seekers, church-minded, etc.
- By LDenely on 11-14-24
By: Eliza Griswold
-
Private Revolutions
- Four Women Face China's New Social Order
- By: Yuan Yang
- Narrated by: Crystal Yu, Gabby Wong, Kae Alexander, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While serving as the deputy Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, Chinese-British journalist Yuan Yang began to notice common threads in the lives of her Chinese peers—women born during China’s turn toward capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s, who, despite the country's enormous economic gains during their lifetimes, were coming up against deeply entrenched barriers as they sought to achieve financial stability. This transporting and indelible book traces the journey of four such women as they try to make better lives for themselves and their families in the new Chinese economy.
By: Yuan Yang
-
Soldiers and Kings
- Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling
- By: Jason De León
- Narrated by: Jason De León
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political instability, poverty, climate change, and the insatiable appetite for cheap labor all fuel clandestine movement across borders. As those borders harden, the demand for smugglers who aid migrants across them increases every year. Yet the real lives and work of smugglers—or coyotes, or guides, as they are often known by the migrants who hire their services—are only ever reported on from a distance, using tired tropes and stereotypes, often depicted as boogie men and violent warlords.
-
-
Gritty and raw
- By Amazon Customer on 06-02-24
By: Jason De León
-
Unwind
- Unwind Dystology, Book 1
- By: Neal Shusterman
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After America’s Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement. According to their Bill of Life, human life may not be terminated from the moment of conception until the age of thirteen. But between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the child may be gotten rid of by their parent through a process called “unwinding.”
-
-
Chilling, Scary, Difficult to Read
- By Joe on 11-11-20
By: Neal Shusterman
-
Smoke Kings
- A Novel
- By: Jahmal Mayfield
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smoke Kings is a powerful and propulsive novel with a diverse and unforgettable cast of characters. Like Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay it explores decades of racial tensions through a fictional landscape where the line between justice and revenge is blurred.
By: Jahmal Mayfield
-
The Rebel's Clinic
- The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
- By: Adam Shatz
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller.
-
-
Thrilling story
- By Diane on 09-07-24
By: Adam Shatz
-
Circle of Hope
- A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church
- By: Eliza Griswold
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for—and finding—more authentic ways to find and follow Jesus. This is the story of one such “radical outpost of Jesus followers” dedicated to service, the Sermon on the Mount, and working toward justice for all in this life, not just salvation for some in the next. Part of a little-known yet influential movement at the edge of American evangelicalism, Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope grew for forty years, planted four congregations, and then found itself in crisis.
-
-
Worthy read for faith seekers, church-minded, etc.
- By LDenely on 11-14-24
By: Eliza Griswold
-
Private Revolutions
- Four Women Face China's New Social Order
- By: Yuan Yang
- Narrated by: Crystal Yu, Gabby Wong, Kae Alexander, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While serving as the deputy Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, Chinese-British journalist Yuan Yang began to notice common threads in the lives of her Chinese peers—women born during China’s turn toward capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s, who, despite the country's enormous economic gains during their lifetimes, were coming up against deeply entrenched barriers as they sought to achieve financial stability. This transporting and indelible book traces the journey of four such women as they try to make better lives for themselves and their families in the new Chinese economy.
By: Yuan Yang
-
Soldiers and Kings
- Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling
- By: Jason De León
- Narrated by: Jason De León
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political instability, poverty, climate change, and the insatiable appetite for cheap labor all fuel clandestine movement across borders. As those borders harden, the demand for smugglers who aid migrants across them increases every year. Yet the real lives and work of smugglers—or coyotes, or guides, as they are often known by the migrants who hire their services—are only ever reported on from a distance, using tired tropes and stereotypes, often depicted as boogie men and violent warlords.
-
-
Gritty and raw
- By Amazon Customer on 06-02-24
By: Jason De León
-
Unwind
- Unwind Dystology, Book 1
- By: Neal Shusterman
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After America’s Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement. According to their Bill of Life, human life may not be terminated from the moment of conception until the age of thirteen. But between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the child may be gotten rid of by their parent through a process called “unwinding.”
-
-
Chilling, Scary, Difficult to Read
- By Joe on 11-11-20
By: Neal Shusterman
-
Smoke Kings
- A Novel
- By: Jahmal Mayfield
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smoke Kings is a powerful and propulsive novel with a diverse and unforgettable cast of characters. Like Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay it explores decades of racial tensions through a fictional landscape where the line between justice and revenge is blurred.
By: Jahmal Mayfield
-
The Bluestockings
- A History of the First Women's Movement
- By: Susannah Gibson
- Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.
-
-
fascinating book almost ruined by the reader
- By braingirl on 08-13-24
By: Susannah Gibson
-
Praiseworthy
- By: Alexis Wright
- Narrated by: Jacqui Katona
- Length: 36 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small town in the north of Australia, a mysterious cloud heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors. A crazed visionary looks to donkeys to solve the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife, seeking solace from his madness, follows the dance of butterflies and scours the internet to find out how her Aboriginal/Chinese family could be repatriated to China. One of their sons, named Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide.
-
-
Beautiful, powerful book full of poetry
- By Guy on 11-11-24
By: Alexis Wright
-
The Achilles Trap
- Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 17 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a news-breaking investigation into one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time.
-
-
From the Saddam’s Point of View.
- By philip on 03-08-24
By: Steve Coll
-
All Things Are Too Small
- Essays in Praise of Excess
- By: Becca Rothfeld
- Narrated by: Ruth Crawford
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural and literary critic Becca Rothfeld’s plea for derangement: imbalance, obsession, gluttony, and ravishment in all domains of life, from literature to romance. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess, yet in our contemporary world, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor yawns hideously wide, while we compensate with misguided attempts to effect equality in love and art, where it does not belong.
-
-
Smart and clever
- By David on 12-04-24
By: Becca Rothfeld
-
Neighbors and Other Stories
- By: Diane Oliver
- Narrated by: Emana Rachelle
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver’s insightful stories reverberate into the present day.
-
-
mesmerizing
- By Dee in Philly on 02-26-24
By: Diane Oliver
-
Stolen Pride
- Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.
-
-
Important Fascinating. Compassionate. It may change your thinking.
- By F Shaw on 12-11-24
-
Dead in Long Beach, California
- A Novel
- By: Venita Blackburn
- Narrated by: Lynnette Freeman
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Coral is the first person to discover her brother Jay’s dead body in the wake of his suicide. There’s no note, only a drably furnished bachelor pad in Long Beach, California, and a cell phone with a handful of numbers in it. Coral pockets the phone. And then she starts responding to texts as her dead brother. Over the course of one week, Coral, the successful yet lonely author of a hit dystopian novel, Wildfire, becomes increasingly untethered from reality. Blindsided by grief and operating with reckless determination, she doubles—and triples—down on posing as her brother.
-
-
Great Literary Work
- By Dr Ag on 02-25-24
By: Venita Blackburn
-
Cold Crematorium
- Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz
- By: József Debreczeni, Paul Olchváry - translator, Jonathan Freedland
- Narrated by: Laurence Dobiesz
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
József Debreczeni, a prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet, arrived in Auschwitz in 1944; had he been selected to go “left,” his life expectancy would have been approximately forty-five minutes. One of the “lucky” ones, he was sent to the “right,” which led to twelve horrifying months of incarceration and slave labor in a series of camps, ending in the “Cold Crematorium”—the so-called hospital of the forced labor camp Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work awaited execution.
-
-
Learned so much more about the Holocaust
- By Jerseygirl on 02-03-24
By: József Debreczeni, and others
-
John Lewis
- A Life
- By: David Greenberg
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 24 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born into poverty in rural Alabama, Civil Rights icon John Lewis would become second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. He was a Freedom Rider who helped to integrate bus stations in the South, a leader of the Nashville sit-in movement, the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he made into one of the major civil rights organizations.
-
-
The fearless tenacity of John Lewis
- By SRN on 11-30-24
By: David Greenberg
-
A Walk in the Park
- By: Kevin Fedarko
- Narrated by: Kevin Fedarko
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme. The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was richer, and far more complex, than anything the two men had imagined.
-
-
I so wanted to love this book but I just couldn’t.
- By Barbara W. on 05-31-24
By: Kevin Fedarko
-
When the Clock Broke
- Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
- By: John Ganz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents.
-
-
Amazing history of the early 90s
- By Aaron R. Isaacson on 06-25-24
By: John Ganz
-
Do Something
- Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of '70s New York
- By: Guy Trebay
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in the Bronx, Guy Trebay was raised in an atmosphere of privilege on Long Island’s North Shore after his entrepreneurial father struck business gold with Hawaiian Surf, a wildly successful cologne company that capitalized on the optimism of the 1960s as marketed to “an adventurous new breed of men.’’ But behind the facade of material prosperity lay the emotional disarray of a household dominated by a charismatic, con artist father, a glamorous yet lost and careless mother, a family haunted by tragedy.
-
-
Heartache and heartbreak and the will to survive.
- By Polly B. on 07-05-24
By: Guy Trebay
What listeners say about Undivided
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Shields
- 12-14-24
Very good ethnography study
Undivided in an ethnographic study of an antiracist training program in an evangelical megachurch. Hahrie Han became aware of it because of its involvement in passing a ballot initiative to provide free preK to Cincinnati students. She was told that the ballot initative was heavily influenced by a local megachurch. As she investigated she became intrigued because most DEI programs are not particularly effective at changing long term behavior. Han embedded herself in the church for nearly seven years to understand how the church and the program, which was eventually spun off to its organization, worked and what made it effective. Eventually the book discusses how it responded to the backlash to the program and the larger cultural backlash to antiracism programs within the US culture.
Undivided by Hahrie Han predominately traces four people while exploring the Undivided antiracism training program at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati. Han’s skill as a writer and researcher is evident throughout the book. Her four central characters are a Black male pastor (Chuck Mingo) who was the public face of the program. A white male participate in the initial program (Grant) who at the time worked for the Ohio Department of Corrections, eventually leading their social media team. Grant came to understand how much he didn’t understand about race, despite working in a racially diverse setting and having an adopted brother who was black. The third and fourth character are a Black woman (Sandra, a pseudonym) and a white woman (Jess). Undivided tells the story of these four characters of time and how they were changed by the program and by their relationships with one another. It is in large part the stickiness of the relationships with brought about the change within the characters.
I am a big fan of good ethnographic studies. Good ethnographic studies follow a group of individuals over a fairly long period of time to understand a context deeply. One of the best ethnographies I have read was Gang Leader for a Day, where a sociologist embedded himself in a Chicago housing project and local gang for years to understand how the culture and pressures of living in public housing and being within a gang worked. I was turned onto the model of ethnographic study after reading Slim’s Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity by Mitchell Duneier. I think I picked it up in the late 90s (it was published in ‘92) in part because I lived about two blocks from the restaurant at the center of that ethnography. Ethnography is inherently controversial because the act of embedding yourself into a community well enough to be able to report on the community impacts not just the community being studied (the observer effect) but also the researchers themselves are often changed because of the long term impact of the relationships. (At the end of the book, Hahrie Han say that her work with Undivided program and the people profiled and Crossroads church where the program was set drew her back to faith.)
The real draw to the book Undivided is how much the writing is centered on the characters. The reader learns about the program and about the issues of race within the evangelical world as the characters come to understand themselves and one another through the program and their relationships with others. These are not simply stories. As I hinted above in introducing the characters, each of them had significant changes in their life as a result of their connection to the program and one another. In many ways those changes were positive, but not all of them were. Undivided is in part about the cost that it takes to address race in a system that discourages the directness.
One of the difficulties of discussing race or economics or other topics that are “just in the water” is that language is difficult. For instance, Han occasionally uses the word “Whiteness” to describe the cultural belief in a system of racialization and hierarchy. Some readers view “whiteness” as meaning “all white people,” but the sociological definition does not mean all white people. Jonathan Walton likes to use the phrase “White American Folk Religion” instead of Christian Nationalism even if they have overlapping meanings because he wants to use language that is less fraught. The two different approaches of using whiteness to specifically name a problem with a name that can be misunderstood, or using a name like “White American Folk Religion” which needs to be defined but has less initial baggage is a topic that repeatedly comes up in Undivided. Studying the culture, something that people don’t directly talk about because it is assumed to be understood, is necessary in a pluralistic world where people do not necessarily mean the same thing when using the same language.
The idea of ethnography centers the experience of the focus characters both as particular people, but also models who stand in for larger groups. The pastor, Chuck, grew up in the Black church and intially left Crossroads because of frustration over racial issues. But he came back and was hired and the social capital he earned through long term relationship with the church leadership allowed him some leeway to press in on difficult issues. But the tension on maintaining those relationships means that he was always wondering if he was not pushing enough or was pushing too much and if he was self censoring so that he could maintain relationship. Grant was a young white man who thought he knew it all because he had a black friend and a black brother. As he explored racial issues and the way that race played a role within his work at the Department of Corrections he became an activist. He started a prison ministry group at the church. And he work in his role as a social media manager to profile inmates through podcast interview and written profiles. But eventually he left the Department of Corrections because of backlash against his activism. Becoming a church staff members who continued his activism around racial issues there.
Sandra was a Black woman who was married to a white man. She grew up being taught by her father to not trust white people. After an early divorce and a young child, she was brought back to faith through Crossroads church. She eventually remarried a white man and had three additional children. Again, the book skillfully tells the story of how racial identity matters not just to white racism, but also the racial identity of those who are not black. It takes years and many small steps, but he comes to find her voice and understand how gender and race both play a role in her marriage struggles.
Jess is the youngest character in the book. She grew up in a family that was overt white supremacist, her father (who died when she was 11) had “White Power” and other similar tattoos and her uncle had a swastika tattooed on his chest while in prison. Jess also spent time in prison after a felony conviction and a serious drug addiction. While in prison she became a Christian and upon release she found Crossroads, regained custody of her son, and was just getting settled when she started participating in Undivided. She eventually completed college and becomes a social worker and presses back against the racism of her family and the systems she works and lives in.
It is very clear in Undivided that struggle is central to growth. The point is growth, not a particular destination. Even as the book is very clear about the struggle I think it may be too positively framed. The backlash, which is clearly the focus of the second half of the book I think is stronger than what just what is talked about. The book was published in September, 2024, which means it was largely finished in 2023 and written about events that were mostly 2022 or before. The reelection of Trump, the continuing overt Christian nationalism within the christian community and the backlash against DEI, immigration, and other topics I do not think have reached their zenith yet.
I think Undivided made the very good point that to help people changes over time requires relationship. And that withdrawing from relationship precludes the ability to speak into people’s lives. Undivided talks about how Jess’ continued involvement with her uncle led to him having his swastika tattoo removed. And that she was able to discuss the problems of race within policing with officers who she regularly worked with in her role as a social worker. But the book also talks about how eventually Sandra and her husband divorced in part because of issues of race and his attraction to Christian Nationalism and how that impacted their relationship. There just are not simple solutions and what works in one case will not work in another.
The key to where Undivided was effective was building relationships. For those relationship to withstand pressure, there has to be ongoing commitment so that people do not walk away from them. One of the very common complaints about racial reconciliation in the evangelical world is that white people in particular tend to walk away when there is tension. Many racial reconciliation or DEI programs are rooted in information sharing. Information is important because a shared history and shared narrative of how race works is important to ongoing relationship. But the information informs the relationship, it does not create the relationship. The second part of what made Undivided effective is those relationships were committed to understanding race as a systemic reality not just an individual reality. Race impacted the prison system, and the education system, and economics and more, and understanding that meant that people impacted by Undivided was taught to address race in both the interpersonal and institutional realms. After the initial six week program, there were ongoing groups and programs that allowed the Undivided participants to find expression for what they learned. Those participants were involved in community organizing or prison ministry, not just bible study and church meetings.
What is helpful about Undivided, the book, is that is shows how slow on-going change through relationship matters. It also show why the context of a program matters as much as the program. It was not the six weeks as much as the context of putting people in settings where they can both build relationship and workout the ideas and context of what they were learning in settings where that matters. But the systems of white evangelicals and megachurches are not long term conducive toward addressing either race or broader justice issues. Isaac Sharp’s The Other Evangelicals is in part about how choices have been made and are hard to unmake.
I do have some issues with some of the framing and there are some things that are mistakes more than framing problems. But I do think this is a very helpful book that I want to recommend to be read widely.
Particularly about the audiobook, I think the narration is largely fine. But similar to the way that Han is writing as an outsider, the narrator also mispronounces a few things, ironically saying "two corinthians" just like Donald Trump did when speaking at Liberty University.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!