Friday in Samples
Mar. 3rd, 2023 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI read Obery M. Hendricks’ Christians Against Christianity (sample). Wow! That’s a ride, even just in the sample.
It’s a helluva critique of Trump, Dominionism, Christian Nationalism, right-wing white Evangelicals. And it dives into the history as well. It’s very tempting! On the one hand, I don’t really want to read anything more about Christians / the Bible / etc. On the other hand, this is a man who really knows it from inside. Multi-generational AME clergy and all kinds of great research and scholarship. The writing is excellent and really draws the reader along.
ETA: I also read _How the Word is Passed_ by Clint Smith, and it’s _so_ amazing I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy and read this next. The sample is largely about a couple visits to Monticello, descriptions of the guides and how they learn themselves and then how they lead their tours, and responses that Smith sees and conversations he has with some of the visitors after the tour. It’s an absolutely mind-blowing look at people who have never grappled with the reality of slavery but who are ready and willing to do so and have put themselves in a place where they are surrounded by high-quality information about slavery presented by people they can relate to and who are prepared to present that information unflinchingly, relatably and with an almost spiritual no-attachment style. Smith is an incredible observer of humanity, and profoundly compassionate and empathetic. I understand the balance of the book to be similar things in other contexts, and I’m super excited to read it. Something about this book has drilled into my head the mechanisms of how people are persuaded in a way that I’m not sure anything else has.
It’s a helluva critique of Trump, Dominionism, Christian Nationalism, right-wing white Evangelicals. And it dives into the history as well. It’s very tempting! On the one hand, I don’t really want to read anything more about Christians / the Bible / etc. On the other hand, this is a man who really knows it from inside. Multi-generational AME clergy and all kinds of great research and scholarship. The writing is excellent and really draws the reader along.
ETA: I also read _How the Word is Passed_ by Clint Smith, and it’s _so_ amazing I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy and read this next. The sample is largely about a couple visits to Monticello, descriptions of the guides and how they learn themselves and then how they lead their tours, and responses that Smith sees and conversations he has with some of the visitors after the tour. It’s an absolutely mind-blowing look at people who have never grappled with the reality of slavery but who are ready and willing to do so and have put themselves in a place where they are surrounded by high-quality information about slavery presented by people they can relate to and who are prepared to present that information unflinchingly, relatably and with an almost spiritual no-attachment style. Smith is an incredible observer of humanity, and profoundly compassionate and empathetic. I understand the balance of the book to be similar things in other contexts, and I’m super excited to read it. Something about this book has drilled into my head the mechanisms of how people are persuaded in a way that I’m not sure anything else has.