I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
February was another interesting reading month for me, even though I did not read as many books as in January. Here’s my take on three of the 5.4 books I read last month.
Fortune Favors the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood
Fortune Favors the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood
I was not familiar with Stephen Spotswood’s writing until I read about Fortune Favors the Dead in an e-newsletter from Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina. This is the first book in a four-book mystery series and was recommended by the bookstore’s staff.
The novel is written in first-person in the voice of Willowjean “Will” Parker, a teen with several years of experience working for a circus. In her employment with the circus, Will has learned many skills (such as knife-throwing) and life lessons. Through those experiences she comes to be employed as an assistant for private investigator Lillian Pentecost in New York.
Ms. Pentecost is a well-respected investigator. She and Will get involved in investigating the Collins family of Collins Steel. As one expects in a mystery, there are many secrets and a couple of murders. A clairvoyant is involved, as well as a college professor.
The story held my interest throughout. It is written with humor and suspense, and it will keep you guessing.
The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta
The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory, by Tim Alberta
Where do I begin?
This book tries to get to the heart of a question I have wondered about and to which I have been unable to find a satisfying answer: How did so many evangelical Christians in the United States get so far removed from the teachings of Jesus Christ?
I really want to know. I want to understand what happened and why.
Written by the son of an Evangelical Presbyterian pastor, Tim Alberta set out to discern the answer. For starters, I find “Evangelical Presbyterian” to be a bit of an oxymoron. Presbyterians by nature are not what I would call evangelical. I’m a member of a church affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA, which is a much more liberal denomination than the Evangelical Presbyterian church.
This book is fascinating. The author’s theory is that for many evangelicals in the United States, America is their kingdom. They see the United States as a nation set apart and uniquely blessed by God. But this love of country has transitioned into nationalism bordering on idolatry. He documents case after case where worship services look and sound more like political rallies than places where “love your neighbor” is proclaimed.
The book looks at famous televangelists as well as not-so-famous preachers and congregations that are focused on winning at all costs and praising their political darlings instead of God. They have somehow forgotten that the kingdom that Jesus Christ promised was not the kingdom of the United States.
The author was hit in the gut by the extremism and hatred in the fractured right-wing of the conservative evangelicals when he attended his father’s funeral. His father had been pastor of the church where the funeral was held. When speaking to the author as he stood in the receiving line, a number of church members took that opportunity to verbally attack him for the stand he had taken in favor of leaving politics out of American Christianity and unflattering revelations he had made in his earlier book about a twice impeached, 91 times indicted US president.
More people than Mr. Alberta could count spoke to him that day not to offer condolences but to attack him. It was on that day that Mr. Alberta saw the true colors of these people, many of whom he had known all his life. He set out that day to try to determine how and when the conservative right-wing segment of American Christianity went so horribly off the rails and lost sight of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The people this book is about are the people who claim to be Christians (and in their hearts they believe they are Christians), but they have lost sight of people who are not exactly like them. They have confused their worldview with Christianity. They have lost sight of love your neighbor as you love yourself. They not only don’t want to welcome the stranger or the foreigner, they hate them and wish them harm. They have gotten so obsessed with arming themselves to the teeth that they have lost sight of the Prince of Peace.
The most frightening part of all is that they have proclaimed a foul-mouthed, hate-spewing former US president as their savior. He has tricked them into thinking he is one of them.
If you wonder what has happened to many American evangelical Christians, I think you will find this book to be thought provoking.
Ninety-Day Wonder: How the Navy Would Have Been Better Off Without Me, by Stephen Davenport
Ninety-Day Wonder: How The Navy Would Have Been Better Off Without Me, by Stephen Davenport
I learned of this book from Liz Gauffreau’s January 24, 2024 blog post: https://lizgauffreau.com/2024/01/24/bookreview-ninety/. Mr. Davenport’s book is a memoir of his years in the U.S. Navy in the early 1950s. It is a humorous telling of the way he more or less bumbled his way through the service. He tells of bungled practice runs of amphibious landings off Morehead City, North Carolina and how he was often put into situations where he did not know what he was doing.
Mr. Davenport entered Reserve Officer Candidate School in 1951 but, when he was thrown into various situations where he was the ranking officer, he often learned the hard way that the enlisted sailors until his command were more familiar with the tasks at hand than he was. Hence, the graduates of the Reserve Officer Candidate School were called “Ninety-Day Wonders,” and perhaps are to this day.
Liz Gauffreau gives a more detailed overview of the book than I have here. She is more adept at writing book reviews. I highly recommend that you check out her blog, or poetry, and her other writing.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have at least one good book to read. Support your local public library and your local independent bookstore!
Please visit my website, https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com and subscribe to my e-newsletter. If you were a subscriber as of last Thursday, you received my March newsletter on Friday. Among other things, I wrote about and shared photos from my recent hike on the Hector Henry Greenway on the Carolina Thread Trail and its connection to my articles in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2 about the bridges over Rocky River in Cabarrus County in the 1870s. You never know what you’re going to miss if you aren’t receiving my newsletters!
Remember the people of Ukraine and the innocent people suffering in Gaza.
The two books are The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values, by Ben Howe and LEAPFROG: How to hold a civil conversation in an uncivil era, by Janet Givens, M.A.
I read Ben Howe’s book first. It addressed something that has dumbfounded me: How can Christians come down on opposite ends of the spectrum about Donald Trump? How do many evangelicals continue to support him when his speech, Tweets, and actions are in total contrast to the teachings of Jesus Christ?
I took copious notes while reading The Immoral Majority and thought I’d write a blog post about it. Then, I read LEAPFROG, by Janet Givens. I was immediately struck by how the two books could work together. This is probably the longest blog post I’ve written. If the topic interests you, I hope you’ll have time to read it.
The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values, by Ben Howe
The Immoral Moral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values, by Ben Howe
In the introduction to this nonfiction book author Ben Howe relates a story from 2012 when the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain came under attack for its charitable foundation’s support of several organizations the Huffington Post labeled as anti-gay. Mr. Howe and a gay friend set out to make a video to show that Chick-Fil-A was a good company that did not discriminate against anyone due to their sexual orientation.
About the same time, a man in another state went to a Chick-Fil-A restaurant with video camera in hand to prove that Chick-Fil-A was a horrible company. A video he made of an exchange with the employee at the drive-through window went viral. Ben Howe more or less led a campaign to give that man “what he deserved.” The result of the campaign resulted in the man losing his job and having trouble finding employment for years to come.
In telling that story, Mr. Howe concludes: “It’s not really whether the punishment fits the crime; it’s more about the decisions of those who react to the crime and whether they are carrying out justice or simply joining the wrongdoer in being wrong.”
He asks the reader to imagine what happens when you put millions of self-righteous people together. An echo chamber develops.
“This is a book about what happens when the people who believe they have the moral high ground find themselves on the low road.” ~ Ben Howe
Feeling under attack, evangelical Christians in the United States had to decide whether to cling unflinchingly to Biblical principles or to act “according to Christ’s example.” As a group, they clung to principles and turned their backs on Christ’s example. The result was the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
Mr. Howe theorizes that the shift started with Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s January 2016 endorsement of Trump for US president. Although a few evangelical leaders spoke out against Trump, Falwell held sway over the majority. Just as Jerry Falwell, Sr. had helped launch the “Moral Majority” movement in 1980, his son was instrumental in urging evangelical Christians to support Trump in 2016.
The difference was, in 1980 Christians were encouraged to influence politics, but in 2016 Christians were, in Mr. Howe’s words, “being forcefully changed by politics.” In his campaign, Trump played on people’s fears. He told Christians they were being persecuted by the government and the Internal Revenue Service, and he promised to put an end to it.
People like Dr. Ben Carson maintained that Trump was a chess pawn in God’s hands and we needed faith that God knew what He was doing. Franklin Graham also took the pragmatic approach, saying God had always used imperfect people to work out His plans.
Trump campaigned as the one and only person who could save America. He mocked (and continues to mock) people who follow Christ’s admonition that we should pray for our enemies. By offering such counter-Christian ideas, Trump was able to win the U.S. presidency via the Electoral College, even though he did not win the popular vote.
In his book, Mr. Howe presents a chronology of how the old “Moral Majority” lost their way and set their sights on the political power Trump promised them instead of the power, grace, and eternal life Jesus Christ promised them. They somehow – which still puzzles me – fell for Trump’s showmanship and voted for him by the millions. He was that new shiny object that sounded so appealing to so many.
Mr. Howe says the real shift happened on June 20, 2016 when Trump “held a meeting with a thousand value-centric conservative leaders.” Endorsed at the meeting by such respected Christian leaders as Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson, and Dr. James Dobson, Trump was able to silence his evangelical naysayers and capture the hearts and minds of enough Christians to put himself in the White House.
The irony is that Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential race, was and is a practicing Methodist. Trump supporters somehow believed that Trump was elected because God is in power; however, the same people believed the world would end if Clinton were elected. I can’t get my head around their belief that the all-powerful God would delight in Trump’s election but that same God would be held powerless if Hillary Clinton were elected.
All this and I’ve only touched on the introduction and first chapter of Mr. Howe’s book. I admit that I just skimmed through the rest of the book.
In subsequent chapters Mr. Howe writes about such topics as how Trump has been compared to King Cyrus of Persia in the 6th century B.C; people who criticized President Trump’s character; the influence of social media in the vitriol in today’s politics; the belief of many Trump supporters that you’re either pro-choice or you’re pro-Trump – there’s no middle ground; political correctness; desire for revenge; racism and the perception of racism; us against them; abortion; gun policy; defense of the indefensible; excusing the inexcusable; separation of church and state; and choosing between immoralities/the lesser of two evils.
On page 161, Mr. Howe states: “By directly defying their stated desire, ignoring the character of Donald Trump, and creating a ‘Christian’ culture that has become divisively self-interested and bitterly self-righteous, these leaders have taught their flocks to value the things of the world, rather than the things of Christ.”
And on page 205: “There simply is no pulling of a lever in a voting booth that will deny God His purpose when He pursues it, nor is there any pulling of the lever that will earn His allegiance to your ‘side.’”
Mr. Howe concludes that God will accomplish His plan regardless of who the U.S. president is. I agree.
“If you wish to be all that Donald Trump and his ilk are not, then the greatest service you could do for the world is to love them despite themselves. Love doesn’t require agreement. It doesn’t require compromise. It doesn’t require surrender or shedding of values. It only and ever required the simple truth that we are stuck together. And if things are going to get better, you cannot wait for others to do it first.” ~ Ben Howe
In the current political climate in the United States, the loudest voices to the “far right” seem to think, “If you don’t agree with me politically, you have no right to live.” This must stop!
LEAPFROG: How to hold a civil conversation in an uncivil era, by Janet Givens, M.A.
LEAPFROG: How to hold a civil conversation in an uncivil era, by Janet Givens, M.A.
“If it is our desire to live in a civil society, we must be willing to engage in a dialogue with those with whom we disagree.” ~ Janet Givens, M.A.
Ms. Givens titled her book LEAPFROG — an acronym of four verbs, Listen, Empathize, Assess, and Paraphrase that help us listen, while the nouns Facts, Respect, Observation, and Gratitude “guide us as we present our ideas in a way that will increase the likelihood that we will also be heard.”
Ms. Givens dedicated a chapter to each of the four verbs and four nouns. In a nutshell, here are snippets from the chapters about Assess, Facts, and Respect:
Assess – Ms. Given wrote, “Assess, as I’m using it here, simply means ‘pause and think’ while you ask yourself, “Is this a conversation I am able to have at this time?’ This is more important than you realize.” Are you and the other party coming to the conversation with curiosity and compassion?
Facts – Ms. Givens wrote, “… since understanding is our goal, we must ignore facts. For now. They have their place in any conversation, of course, but first, receptivity, a willingness to hear them, must exist. On both sides.” She gives “a question to ponder before moving on” at the end of each chapter. At the end of the chapter about facts she wrote: “Think back to your last political conversation. Or, your last Town Hall meeting. Or, your last family feast that ended badly. What went wrong?”
Respect – I love Ms. Givens’ chapter about respect. She wrote, “When we forget our common humanity, we create a chasm between us that is hard to bridge. Respect serves as a bridge to cross that chasm,” while “blame lets us abdicate responsibility for our discomfort by putting it on the other.” We’re all biased, whether we realize it or not.
In conclusion, Ms. Givens wrote about human beings’ need for social interaction. She calls difference “the source of all creativity. Indeed, think of difference as the beginning of all learning, Then, consider a disagreement as a difference of opinion that creates an enlightening and stimulating mystery, one which can be solved, together.”
She then lists her concerns about where our society is heading if we continue to be at such odds politically like we have not been since the American Civil War.
Ms. Givens asks many questions for our consideration throughout the book and at the end of her book. I think most people would benefit from reading LEAPFROG: How to hold a civil conversation in an uncivil era. I’ve just hit a few high points in my blog post. For more information about Ms. Givens’ work or to contact her, go to https://janetgivens.com/.
How the two books helped me
I approached The Immoral Moral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values, by Ben Howe with the following mindset: I’m a Christian, a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and I have been guilty of being critical of Christians who continue to support Donald Trump. I wanted the book to explain their rationale to me. I’m still trying to understand it.
While I was still contemplating the theories, Mr. Howe gave in his book, I read LEAPFROG: How to hold a civil conversation in an uncivil era, by Janet Givens, M.A., and it really opened my eyes and made me evaluate my opinions.
It helped me see that I tend to listen to the cable news channels I agree with. When I read or listen to “the other side” I approach them with a biased ear and eye. Ms. Givens’ book helped me acknowledge my biases. Overcoming those biases is a work in progress.
If you disagree with my politics, that is your right. I respect your right to disagree; I just don’t understand it. As an American and a Presbyterian I will defend your right to believe what you believe and vote as you feel led to vote. That doesn’t mean I understand how you got there. When the Trump presidency is over, I hope we, as Americans, will once again be able to agreeably disagree.
In the current political climate in the United States, the loudest voices to the “far right” seem to think, “If you don’t agree with me politically, you have no right to live.” This must stop!
I still haven’t had that difficult conversation with anyone whose political views are far from mine, but I will read and re-read Ms. Givens’ book so I’ll be better-equipped to Listen, Empathize, Assess, and Paraphrase when that opportunity presents itself. I’ll have that conversation someday, when the other person and I are ready to approach it with Facts, Respect, Observation, and Gratitude.
Since my last blog post
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my next appointment with my orthopedic doctor has been rescheduled for a week later, which means I’ll have 13 weeks without putting any weight on my right leg instead of 12. I’m disappointed but that’s a small price for me to pay.
Until my next blog post
Please rest your eyes. If you read this lengthy blog post of mine today, you need to rest your eyes.
I hope you have a good book to read.
I hope you have some creative time.
I hope you stay safe and well. It has been a year like most of us have never seen before and it will, no doubt, continue to be so. I hope you will find something positive to do as we all journey through this pandemic.
Let’s continue the conversation
Have you read either of these two books? How did they affect you? Have you acknowledged your biases? Have you had that difficult conversation with someone? How did it go? Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your thinking about politics and your fellow citizens whose views are very different from yours?
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