Book Review: Still Christian
Jul. 29th, 2017 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I read David Gushee's Still Christian: Following Jesus out of American Evangelicalism before I went on my road trip, and it has suffered a bit from the time lag before I wrote this review. I enjoyed it as I was reading it, but in retrospect the book's problems loom larger in my mind, although to be fair part of this is simply that it is not the book I was hoping for. I wanted more exploration of wider trends and on-the-ground conflicts within American evangelicalism, but it's really more a memoir about Gushee's life and career and only touches on those conflicts insofar as they affected that.
Also, Gushee is careful not to say anything too inflammatory about anyone. I also would hesitate to write a juicy tell-all memoir about my colleagues - just imagine how awkward that would make staff meetings - so I can't really fault him, but the book would be more interesting with more nitty-gritty detail about the key players and conflicts in the drama.
It's like reading someone vagueblogging a fandom wank. Name some names!
Also, Gushee is careful not to say anything too inflammatory about anyone. I also would hesitate to write a juicy tell-all memoir about my colleagues - just imagine how awkward that would make staff meetings - so I can't really fault him, but the book would be more interesting with more nitty-gritty detail about the key players and conflicts in the drama.
It's like reading someone vagueblogging a fandom wank. Name some names!
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Date: 2017-07-29 09:31 pm (UTC)Especially for a political book, that sounds really frustrating!
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Date: 2017-07-29 09:53 pm (UTC)