Quit - A Review

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard many times so far in my middle-aged existence.

Many of the cultural myths that we celebrate tell the stories of underdogs who didn’t quit when they were up against unthinkable odds and someone came through. Stories like Rudy light up our collective imaginations as we see the little guy, too dumb to go to Notre Dame and too small to get onto the field of play, fight his way through practice for years until he finally gets a moment on the field. All of that happened because he did not quit.

It's a good story. Anyone who can watch Rudy and not get excited has a heart two sizes too small.

But that story is a one in a million. It’s a beautiful story. It’s romantic. It also only accounts for a tiny piece of Rudy’s own story, or the thousands of different ways that his story could have ended had he chosen just a little differently. Those might not have ended up on the big screen, but we have no idea what his energy and effort could have led to in an alternate universe where he didn’t invest so much of himself into being a mediocre college football player.

The point isn’t the Rudy Ruettiger story, though. The point is that we have made it a sign of weakness to recognize that we are going the wrong way, pursuing the wrong dream, and that the best course of action is to turn around. That’s what quitting can be. It can be deciding to go a different way.

What if sometimes the quitting is the best way to make progress in life?

Annie Duke’s recent book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, is about looking at quitting in a different way and recognizing that sometimes it is really the best choice available.

Duke was once a professional poker player. She recognizes, as Kenny Rogers used to sing, “You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” One of the basic skills every poker player needs to have is recognizing when the odds are stacking against you and folding the hand. Quit is really about learning to recognize when it is time to step away from a hand so that you can play another hand. It’s about learning when to quit.

Of course, the assumption Duke makes is that the sort of people who are reading her book are people that are going to quit one activity to go start another. A professional athlete might retire because his joints are creaky and he can’t run as fast, but generally the competitive drive that got them to the peak of their sport pushes them to strive in another area. Duke’s book is for the sort of person that is going to attack the next goal, at which they might have a better chance of succeeding.

Quit falls into the category of a lot of other self-help, productivity, and organizational psychology book. Duke is a popularizer who cites studies performed by others, but communicates them in a way that is easily accessible and more helpful than a peer reviewed article with a bunch of tables. There are citations of Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and some of the other usual subjects. This is an airplane book. It takes a few hours to read, can be put down and picked up with ease, and offers some self-improvement along the way.

One of the deep flaws of this book is that the motivations behind sticking to it or quitting are shallow and instrumental. It’s all about money and self-fulfillment. Given that, it’s not surprising that Duke recommends her decision making for divorce in cases where a spouse isn’t helping someone achieve their full potential. There is little room for duty and integrity in this book. It’s all about my happiness and my success.

At the same time, the thought process behind decision making can be helpful for an individual or organization that is stuck in a rut. There are too many church programs that persist for years after the people that drove them are gone or their purpose is being efficiently fulfilled. Sometimes we need to cut our losses in a ministry and move on to something that fits better with the current need or the current members of the congregation.

Taken with a grain of salt, there is a chunk of good advice in this popular-level book. Sometimes we need to put our heads down and keep pushing forward. But we also need to recognize that when we do that, we are giving up opportunities for something else. Sometimes we need to look at other opportunities and recognize they provide a better return on the investment of our time. Efficiency and success isn’t the only thing that matters, but sometimes it does matter. Sometimes we need to know when to quit.

Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

By Duke, Annie

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Dignity for Back Row America

God created humans in his own image. (Gen 1:26–27) There is a great deal of honor and dignity that comes with that blessing. We all subconsciously recognize our status as made in the image of God, which gives everyone an innate desire for dignity.

In 2019, former Wall Street trader, Chris Arnade, left his day job to photograph and interview people from what he calls “Back Row America.” This group includes individuals on the political left and right, but who have all been effectively left behind by polite society and the economy.

Arnade’s journeys took him across the United States to areas with mixed histories, ethnicities, and economic struggles. As he notes in his introduction:

“What they had in common was that all were poor and rarely considered or talked about beyond being a place of problems. All had been described as left behind, despite some, like Hunts point, being adjacent to rich and successful neighborhoods. Residents growing up in these communities faces immense structural obstacles, and some, like minority neighborhoods, had for a very long time.

Despite their differences––black, white, Hispanic, rural, urban–they were all similar to Hunts Point in one important way: despite being stigmatized, ignored, and made fun of, most of the people I met were fighting to maintain dignity.

They feel disrespected––and with good reason. My circles, the bankers, business people, and the politicians they supported had created a world where McDonald’s was often one of the only restaurant options––and we make fun of them for going there.”

And if you’re reading this, you (like me) probably fall into the category who have fallen into unfounded assumptions about people and ignorant attitudes toward them because they looked down and out, were at a McDonalds, especially if they were a bit loud or out of place in public. Very few middle class and up individuals are exempt from having experienced this in themselves.

Dignity is a raw look at the desire for respect. It’s a reminder that everyone has a story. There was a commercial that ran when I was a kid during the height of the drug wars. It reminded the audience that “no one wants to be a junkie when they grow up.” The message was clear: if you use drugs, you are a loser and the way you get there is by making bad choices.

There is some validity in that argument, but it fails to take into account social and cultural pressures. It neglects the influence that the frustrations about systems that are designed for people with resources.

Think about how it is nearly impossible to apply for a job without a home address. Or consider what it is like to fill out a background check application when you’ve bounced from apartment to shelter to relatives’ homes for the past three years. Furthermore, ponder what it must be like not to have a working smart phone, tablet, or computing device in a timeframe when apps, websites, and email are primary means of communication. There are many people who live close to the line of success and failure, where a blown-out tire, a medical problem, or a couple of mistakes between paydays can start ripples that spread into disfunction. Eventually, the comfort of a drug-induced high can seem like a blessing that takes away the pain and stress for a little while. It doesn’t make anything better, but it can make someone feel better for a little while.

Arnade reminds us that the person who has fallen into the hole of addiction may not have known anything different or may have been set on the path by a personal disaster. They are worth respect. They deserve dignity. They are made in the image of God.

There are unhealthy aspects of this book. Arnade admits that his involvement in the night life of the streets contributed to his own drug issues and problems within his family. There is also a level of voyeurism in reading the accounts of prostitutes, drag queens, dealers, unemployed, and underemployed. If voyeurism can be justified, at least Arnade’s Dignity carries out the purpose of reminding readers that the weathered, bedraggled, odd-behaving individuals we often avoid in public are people, made in the image of God who have stories, hopes, dreams, and a desire to be recognized for the goodness of being human.

Dignity should help remind readers that the unwashed “other” are not a problem to be dealt with, but people to be engaged with as worthy of respect and honor. As well, Arnade issues a warning that the same group is not a social project that exists to make the middle class feel good about their beneficence. There aren’t a lot of particular solutions in Dignity, but recognizing the inherent value of those on the edge of society is a big step toward spanning some of the fissures in our divided country.

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

By Arnade, Chris

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Live Not by Lies

I remember the night the Berlin Wall fell and the world seemed to change overnight. The bogeyman of so many stories ceased to be quite so real as in the Soviet Union dissolved in the following years.  It seemed like a significant phase of history, if not history itself, had ended by declaring Western capitalistic democracy the victory.

However, I met a Ukrainian exchange student while I was at college who told me that things weren’t quite as simple as they seemed. And then, when listening to a missionary speak in the early 2000’s, I learned that portions of the former Eastern Bloc were still “pink”—the formal police state may have ended, but many of the Communist thought processes were still in place under new leadership.

Then, in more recent years we’ve seen the increasing popularity of Che Guevara t-shirts in the U.S.—an amazing ploy to market the image of a Communist thug using capitalist principles. There have also been an increasing number of people that are willing to declare that the First Amendment should be abolished, full on Communism is desirable, and mass murderers like Stalin and Lenin are to be preferred over America’s founders. Add to that the weird logic by which anyone who doesn’t agree with racially based discrimination against whites is racist and we find ourselves in a topsy turvy world in which it is not hard to imagine attempts to force orthodox Christians underground.

Live not By Lies

Rod Dreher’s recent book, Live Not by Lies, is a warning of the possibility of “soft totalitarianism” in our future. As Progressives celebrate the latest invention of alternate reality in the pursuit of the deconstruction of humanity, there are an increasing number of people on the political left calling for the punishment of those who disagree with their orthodoxy. Do you affirm the innateness of sex within biology? Then you must not be allowed to work in a public-facing job. Do you still hold to the fundamental human understanding of marriage as a union (romantic or not) between people who are of biologically distinct sexes? Then you should be hounded from the public square and humiliated, if you are not physically harmed. There is an ever-thinning wall of civilization between reality and the coming storm. Anyone who denies the possibility of soft totalitarianism is not paying attention.

Dreher’s book takes its title for an Alexander Solzhenitsyn essay. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is a masterpiece that traces the evil of Soviet socialism through the experiences of many people who passed into, if not through, the grinder of the Gulag system. That larger work was intended to expose the horrors of the hard totalitarianism of the Soviets to a world that had frequently glamourized it. Solzhenitsyn’s essay speaks to those who are being called to deny truth to live at peace. In other words, to those who are facing a soft totalitarianism. The essay is a call to live in truth and not to succumb to lies for the sake of comfort.

What Solzhenitsyn warns against in his essay, and Dreher discusses, is a soft totalitarianism. This is a term defined more clearly by Vaclav Havel, a dissident poet who because a longstanding president of Czechoslovakia after the people peacefully ousted the Communist regime. As Havel documents it, particularly in essays like his “Power of the Powerless,” the Communist rule in much of the Eastern Bloc countries was driven by internal social pressure rather than by tanks, guns and dogs. There was a real threat of police enforcement, in some cases, but the deeper threat was through social ostracization and removal from the marketplace based on non-conformity to the untruth of the Communist platform.

Soft totalitarianism is the condition in which someone who refuses to affirm the preferred worldview of the dominant social order can be effectively marginalized within society without formal coercion. Do you decline to wear a rainbow pin at work for pride month? There go your promotion opportunities. Does your business decline to post a Black Lives Matter poster for any of a number of valid reasons? Prepare for the fake, negative reviews, belligerent activists coming in to harass your employees and customers, and, perhaps, having your business set alight by “protesters” fighting against “fascism.” Did you post online about a political candidate disfavored by the “right” crowd? Be ready to be denied admission to a university or to have your children denied admission.

In hard totalitarianism conformity to the external constraints is generally sufficient. One need not believe or state that Communism is good to get by. One needs only avoid getting caught with more goods than allotted, show the right papers when required, and not actively and openly declaim the controlling regime.

Soft totalitarianism is much more insidious because it demands not mere conformity but expression of support for something that violates the conscience. This is what Dreher describes in Live Not by Lies as a possible near-future for the West, including the United States, and there is reason to believe he is at least partially correct. We may be nearer or farther from the point where certain beliefs—common among humans for millennia—are ruled entirely out of bounds in polite company. What cannot be denied is that such a soft totalitarianism is the overt goal of an increasing number of people, especially those on the political left. It also cannot be denied that technology is making it easier to enforce soft totalitarianism through corporate and governmental means.

Dreher’s book is a call for Christians to hold fast to truth, but also to be prepared to go underground to avoid what he views as an inevitable and near-at-hand persecution. He combines research from sources like Havel and Solzhenitsyn with contemporary interviews with those that survived under Communist regimes to create a very readable, journalistic volume that may be helpful in preparing for the storm to come.

Analysis

If one approaches Dreher’s work primarily through his books, the content of them appears quite different than if one follows Dreher’s blog. Being fair in reading Dreher’s books requires reading them as a distinct genre from his online work.

I have not seen Dreher describe his work this way, but his three most recent books form something of a trilogy. If readers begin with Crunchy Cons, followed by The Benedict Option, and then come to Live Not by Lies then you will find a helpful, cogent, and perfectly reasonable stream of thought that is quite helpful. In fact, reading the books together might be the simplest way to avoid seeing Dreher as excessively reactionary.

Though the books span more than a decade of a rapidly shifting culture, they all tie together to form one consistent message: there is an objective reality that explains the order of the world and we should seek to live in a way that honors that. To the extent that cultural forces demand that we deny the objective reality of the world, we must be prepared to resist and hold fast to our witness to the truth.

Critiques of Dreher’s work are generally muddled because part of his vocation is to put out content for The American Conservative on a regular basis. He has a blog to feed to stay relevant and employed. He also is very engaged with his readers, who through their networks have access to some of the worst examples of progressive thought and social abuses. As a result, Dreher’s primary public discourse is often reactionary and colored by the conduits through which he gets his material. Because he is publishing in the moment, there are times when his takes turn out to be factually incorrect or unhelpful as part on an ongoing public conversation. Immediacy can be detrimental to nuance. That is the nature of a journalistic blog and Dreher does not escape that.

Dreher’s books are much more carefully constructed than his blog posts. In much of the discussion of The Benedict Option after its publication, it became clear that many critics had not read that book, but were instead responding to what Dreher had blogged about. I expect the same to be true of Live Not by Lies. It really is helpful to keep the two genres of Dreher’s work separate, because his books are much more consistently balanced and carefully argued than his blogs.

Time will tell whether Dreher is right or wrong about the oncoming soft totalitarianism. I tend to think that he is right that we are trending that direction, but that it may take longer than he thinks to get there. However, the power of algorithms, the ubiquity of social media to be engaged as a citizen, and the lack of catechesis among Christians may turn out to make Dreher’s concerns nearer than I suspect.

Whether the timing is right or not, the central message of Dreher’s most recent book is correct: Christians need to improve the way we live in the world, but not of the world. All signs point to an increasingly progressive shift in the anti-culture that surrounds us, which is largely alien to reality. The Church will increasingly need to find ways to live in ways consistent with truth, in a society that considers truth repugnant.

A Concluding Caution

There is no question that we live in a polarized world that is becoming increasingly hostile to a Christian worldview. However, within that context there is a strong tendency to seek allies in the fight. So, if the progressivism of the Left is bad, then we align our selves with the political and social forces on the Right. Or, if the xenophobia of the Right is bad, then we align our selves with the “inclusivism” of the Left. If one side is wrong, then the temptation is to default to the opposite extreme, or at least to tolerate extreme views on one’s own side.

Truth is not the property of Right nor Left. Neither is it something that is “centrist.” Approaching questions of truth from a primarily political angle, rather than one driven by ontology and epistemology is reactionary and unhelpful.

Even as we join coalitions in resisting soft totalitarianism, we have to be careful that we do not allow their different conceptions of truth to sway us from the True Truth of Christianity. Being a Christian dissident is like being an Ent: We are not really on anyone else’s side, because no one else is really on our side. That is to say, while we may share a common goal of resisting a creeping soft totalitarianism, our ultimate goal is to the spread of the gospel to every tribe and tongue and nation. In the first goal we may find ourselves in agreement with nationalists or atheists. Regarding the ultimate goal, we will find ourselves alone. There is a strong temptation when we find a point of alliance on an important goal to neglect the ultimate goal and to fail to see points at which pursuit of the ultimate goal may cause us to compromise on other significant objectives.

Dreher’s book does not displace True Truth with resistance to soft totalitarianism as the ultimate goal. However, because it is a book about the second and not the first, incautious readers may find themselves driven toward that extreme. Our duty as Christians is to the True Truth, which should always remain our ultimate goal in whatever political circumstances we find ourselves.

Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents

By Dreher, Rod

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

Expect Great Things - A Review

Expect Great Things is a spiritual biography of Henry David Thoreau. It provides an in-depth exploration of the nuances of this celebrated individualistic naturalist. Kevin Dann does the dirty work of digging through Thoreau’s various writings, including his copious personal diaries and correspondence, and correlating those informal writings with his published works.

If Dann’s biography of Thoreau is taken seriously, the work that some have done to include Thoreau on the list of vaguely Christian environmentalists should be viewed skeptically. The image Dann presents is of a man who held both strong skepticism of Christian truth with credulous belief in some of the spiritualistic superstitions common in early America. Thoreau certain used language that resonated with Christianity in some of his writings, but his own beliefs were far afield from orthodoxy by any reasonable reading. Dann argues that Thoreau was fascinated with Christ but rejected Christianity. However, to love the man and hate his bride does not show much affection for the loved object.

In addition to presenting the meandering spirituality of Thoreau over the course of his life, Expect Great Things provides a window into the complex and often bizarre spiritual beliefs that were common in ante-bellum America. Dann surveys the rise in popularity of the Freemasons, with their uniquely American adaptations. He spends several pages covering the evolution of the Mormon cult, the various prophetic cults that arose in the early 19th century, and the perversions of Christianity that arose from the Millerites and other pseudo-Christian digressions.

Some of this supernaturalism apparently came from incomplete understanding of natural science. Just as pseudo-Christianity was common, so was pseudo-science. Meteor showers were described in periodicals as divine signs. Accounts of sea serpents were accepted as factual and often embellished. Final conclusions were published about natural phenomena based on partial observations. This led to supernatural explanations for natural events and misinformation about much that would be later clarified. According to Dann, Thoreau’s practice of careful observation was an improvement over many other naturalists of the day.

The structure of this book is weak. The story of Thoreau’s life meanders through chronologically. There are chapter breaks, but there is often little clear reason for the distinction in chapters. The volume has no introduction and thus the reader is left to try to figure out what Dann’s purpose is in writing the book; there is no clear thesis. The aimless wandering of the book may provide a suitable simile for the life of Henry David Thoreau, but that sort of literary experiment is more effective in essays than in book length biographies.

The concluding paragraphs transition with little warning from anecdotes of Thoreau to the moral that Dann appears to want to draw. Based on those few paragraphs, it appears that Thoreau’s life is supposed to reflect the good of radical individualism codified into law based on universally accepted facts that are epistemologically impossible. In short, this account (and perhaps the actual life of Thoreau) represents the impossible tension between the desire to express and the prohibition of contrary expression that we see in modern culture. As such, Dann may have uncovered the patron saint for some in our confused time, but what he highlights in the life of Thoreau provides little worth emulating for those committed to the possibility and importance of pursuing truth.

Despite its weaknesses in form, Expect Great Things has a place within contemporary discourse on Thoreau. Dann sets Thoreau in historical context quite well. He pushes against the idea of a Christian Thoreau and presents more thoroughly the Thoreau that many have seen in the pages of the man's work. Dann adds to the field of study by presenting a nuanced, robust, and realistic portrait of Thoreau's spiritualism. This is also an interesting look into the spiritual climate of the early nineteenth century. For individuals interested in a casual, entertaining read about Henry David Thoreau, this book may be a real treat. 

Expect Great Things: The Life and Search of Henry David Thoreau

$19.49

By Kevin Dann

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

A New Biography of Eric Liddell - For the Glory

I read biographies because it puts me in contact with better men and women, most of whom have died and whose lives can be measured with more accuracy and finality than the living. This is a sanctifying process, since it humbles me to recognize my own weakness in comparison to the greatness of others.

When it comes to the recent biography of Eric Liddell, For the Glory, I have found a man whose sandals I am unworthy to untie.

Liddell has been immortalized in contemporary culture with the Oscar winning movie Chariots of Fire. That film tells the tale to Liddell’s relatively short running career which cultivated in his surprising world record and gold medal finish in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Previously, when I thought of Liddell, I always heard the synthesizer playing the familiar theme and thought of giving up a chance at more gold medals to honor sabbatarian traditions. The movie ends with a brief, abrupt epilogue that indicates that the hero died in an internment camp in China during WWII.

Another picture emerges in other biographies I’ve encountered. The YWAM biography and other simplified biographies written by Christians paint a portrait of a saint, telling a powerful story for an audience looking for a Christian hero. Danny Akin has preached a sermon using the life of Eric Liddell as an extended illustration.

I expected these sorts of biographies to paint Liddell in a positive light as the protagonist in a compelling sports movie and as a great missionary who died for the cause.

When I picked up Duncan Hamilton’s recent biography, I was expecting a much less flattering picture. A missionary biography written by an apparent non-believer with no clear Christian sympathies printed by a secular publisher is bound to find all the dirt and put it out so everyone can see it. I expected to find private details with hints of suspicious activities at every turn. That, however, is not the case.

The portrait of Liddell that emerges from this volume is of a man whose serious, meticulous devotion to God was rewarded by such a degree of sanctification that he was able to risk his life for Christ without thinking twice. In fact, the man once pushed two wounded men in a wheelbarrow through the countryside filled with Japanese aggressors because they would have otherwise died. He faced harassment, theft, confiscation of his property, and separation from his wife with a good attitude for the sake of the cross. The picture Hamilton paints is one of a saint who did great things for the Lord with a gracious attitude and without neglecting the other good things in his life as a consequence.

The book is divided into three parts. Part One focuses on Liddell’s childhood through his Olympic victories. These chapters line up well with other biographies I’ve read and generally support the well-known story that has been seen on screen as Chariots of Fire. Part Two explores Liddell’s work as a missionary in China, including his courtship of his wife, his continued athletic efforts, and his focus on doing the work God called him to. An interesting wrinkle to the legend of Liddell is that he didn’t absolutely reject the possibility of running in another Olympics. His faith was not a call to asceticism. Rather, it was the British Olympic Committee that failed to engage a man who might have won the U.K. another gold. This section was largely new ground for me and very engaging. Part Three expands on Liddell’s life in the Japanese internment camp, about which much less has been known than about other parts of Liddell’s story. Hamilton conducted a host of interviews of other internees to expand the available information about a great hero of the faith.

What Hamilton has done here deserves notice. He took a Christian hero whose story has been told before and he made it better. Hamilton added to the field of missiology by writing a careful history of someone who has been celebrated widely. He did this without slipping into dismissiveness of Liddell’s convictions or snarky digressions about the foolishness of his faith. Hamilton should be praised for adding a critical work on Liddell that doesn’t fall into the too common trap of attacking the biography’s subject in order to add interest. There are no “daddy complex” narratives or secret abuse allegations. What the reader gets is honest history told exceptionally well.

Even if missionary biographies don’t keenly interest you, this book is worth your time. Hamilton writes so very well. His retelling of Liddell’s life story is detailed but lively, carefully crafted but not pedantic, honest but complimentary. In short, this is a great book that deserves to be read and widely.

For the Glory: Eric Liddell's Journey from Olympic Champion to Modern Martyr

$19.04

By Duncan Hamilton

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.