Curtis E. Jennings. Western Christianity? All That?! Vantage, 2003.

Western Christianity? All That?! is a topical overview of the history of Christianity in Europe and the Americas. The title suggests the humorous historical satire 1066 and All That, but this is a serious book that can be helpful to readers, especially lay readers who may have never studied church history but want to know how we got to where we are.

Western Christianity? is arranged differently from most history books. Each of its ten chapters covers a different topic. This can help a reader who is looking for a specific item. For example, I might have been reading about Nestorian churches in medieval China. I would look in the chapter titled “Doctrine” to find out what Nestorius believed. We also read, for example, how both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches came to be organized in a manner similar to the political kingdoms of the day in the chapter “Organization.”

Other chapters cover Women, Church-State relations, the Reformation, Liturgy, Music, Art, Architecture, and Holy Orders. Each chapter is 12-20 pages, so this is an overview. It is helpful to readers looking for basic background material. The author has a detailed bibliography and often in the text refers to works where the reader can find more details on the subject.

Alert readers may have noticed that this is published by what used to be the primary American self-publishing house. Jennings is a college professor, and had this been an academic work, he probably would have found an academic publisher. Unfortunately, like many self-published works there are a number of spelling and grammar errors that in some cases change the intended meaning. Speaking from experience, I often re-read pages I have written on this blog and nearly half the time make a correction. We miss things when we become familiar with what we have written. It does help to have outside editors or proofreaders to make sure it says exactly what you want it to say.

Colleen Snyder. Verdict at the River’s Edge. Forget Me Not Romances, 2020.

Verdict at the River’s Edge may be billed as a romance, but the romance is truly secondary. This is a kind of coming of age story. It is set in rural West Virginia, but its backdrop is completely urban.

Miss Collin Walker is a twenty-six year-old social worker who specializes in teenagers. A West Virginia summer camp far from her coastal city of Oakton offers inner city youths with promise a free week of camping. One of Collin’s charges, Rob, has been chosen, and she gets to go, too, to help out and to enjoy some of the recreation herself.

Rob is one of a about half a dozen young people aged twelve to seventeen who have decided to devote the week primarily to white water rafting. No one has had any experience, but Mitch the instructor assures them they can do it if they put real effort into it and work together. Collin can see the working together part a challenge since the kids come from different parts of town with their own neighborhood and gang loyalties.

We also learn that Collin has a fear of rivers. We understand from the beginning that something traumatic happened to her on a river, but it is a while before we find out what it is. She cannot talk about it. It is hard enough for her to mention that she had a twin brother who died. Her challenge, then, is to make peace with the river.

So, yes, the inner-city youths like Rob begin to see things in a different light, but we realize that Collin herself has to change as well. She may be a trained and certified counselor, but she also has to face her fears and grow. The narration often reveals her thoughts which demonstrate something that all of us have to deal with: How do we discern the true thoughts from the false? The voice of God from the impulses of the flesh?

Verdict at the River’s Edge is well written. It has authentic and realistic dialogue and a good amount of action. Yes, there is action at the camp on basketball courts as well as on the river. There are other things going on as well—a disguised intruder that the camp workers call Big Foot appears at night from time to time and causes trouble for Collin. The camp janitor, Jeff, is looking out for her and seems to be taking an interest in her. We learn, again thanks to past traumas, that she has trouble trusting anyone, especially a man. She assumes the worst. There is a lot going on, and a lot for her to overcome.

This fast-paced entertaining novel spins a yarn that keeps us going. As one who taught high school for forty years, I can say that she gets teenagers. The description of the basketball games are very well done. Basketball is one sport I do not especially follow but she makes the contests sound exciting even to someone like me. I was reminded a bit of Trollope’s descriptions of a fox hunt—I knew nothing about them but after reading him, I can see why people like them. Maybe I’ll pay more attention to the NBA playoffs this year…

Stanley E. Porter and Ron C. Fay. Luke-Acts in Modern Interpretation. Kregel, 2021.

This is another in what is becoming a series titled Milestones in New Testament Scholarship. We have reviewed the book in this series on the Gospel of John. Most of what was written in the first few paragraphs in that review could be written about this volume as well. There are ten essays written about ten influential theologians who contributed in some form in the last one hundred fifty years to the study of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. These books are often studied together since they are written by the same person. (At least most people think they are…a few of the theologians discussed here thought otherwise.)

As with the volume on John, the essays are arranged chronologically, with the earliest writer first. Each essay itself is written by a theologian who has studied in detail the theologian being written about. The editors each contributed an essay as well as co-authoring an introduction and conclusion. As with the other volume, we more or less begin with the historical critical approach, then a history of religion perspective, followed by various types of literary criticism.

Much of the study, especially the writings from the later nineteenth century, deal more with the origins and authenticity of the writings rather than the specific content or teaching in the two “Lukan” books of the New Testament. The more recent theologians cited in this book are more likely to take the works seriously and treat them as genuine writings by a single author. It seems that each scholar studied has a slightly different take on the “we” portions of Acts. Beginning in chapter 16, parts of the book are written in the first person—using we—rather than the third person. This has traditionally been understood to mean that Luke was accompanying Paul in those episodes. Some of the critics featured here have different takes on that interpretation, but all have to admit that it does make for some interesting discussions.

We begin with older German theologians who tend to be skeptical of the New Testament and its origins. The first essay on Adolf Harnack does all readers a service by actually defining what Theological Liberalism means. The term liberal means different things in different contexts, but here we are reminded that a liberal theology believes (1) religious belief must be updated to keep in line with new ideas and discoveries, (2) it is OK to challenge long-held beliefs, (3) ethics is more important than historical accuracy, (4) liberal theology is based on something other than biblical authority, and (5) God is more subjective and less transcendent.

Martin Dibelius tried to explain the Lukan writings in terms of the historical context. He believes, for example, that Luke came after Mark and Matthew and reflected a particular brand of Christianity. Like other scholars of his ilk, he sees the first three gospels as all likely coming from a single source but embellished in different ways. He then attempts to harmonize his ideas with the writing of Acts.

H. J. Cadbury takes an interesting approach. He was a Quaker, and Quakers tend to emphasize subjective religious experience. He attempted to analyze Luke and Acts without referring to any theology because he believed that approaching Scripture with a theological perspective automatically created bias.

Ernst Haenchen hypothesized about sources. Source criticism goes back about two hundred years, but he tries to re-create what he would consider “authentic” sources to determine what was really accurate in the New Testament books. He would emphasize that there is a difference between the persona of Paul in Acts and his character as it comes through in his epistles. This, then, gets into fuzzy ideas of authorship, which had been very popular in theology for a century through the 1960s. Still, he notes some different literary types and styles which can help readers appreciate the writings regardless of their theological leanings.

Dr. Porter, one of the editors, wrote the chapter on F. F. Bruce. He also noted that he had the opportunity to hear Dr. Bruce speak, so there is a bit of a personal connection here. Although Bruce is open to some questions about sources, he would not be considered a liberal theologian. Indeed, one could define conservative theology as the opposite of the five points of liberalism mentioned above. Porter also notes that Bruce’s background was the classics and history rather than theology. Bruce, then, takes the New Testament as a historical document comparable to (and mostly superior to) classical histories, notably the work of Thucydides. As a classicist, he takes the wording of the Greek New Testament at its face value. Probably his two best-known works (which this reviewer recommends) are New Testament History and The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable? He looks at the New Testament with the scholarly understanding of a classicist in both. He did write more scholarly commentaries as well, but his work is still widely read by evangelical Christians today.

Hans Conzelmann is interesting because he took a theological position on the writings on Luke. He is liberal. He considers Luke-Acts later books, but he does because of his understanding of eschatology. We understand that the disciples during Jesus’ time on earth expected Him to set up his final kingdom. When he ascended to Heaven, they expected Him to return shortly. Other books in the New Testament seem to echo that idea. The Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts recognize that His return may be delayed. Therefore, Luke’s eschatology focuses on Jerusalem in the first century, and Acts emphasizes the growth of the church apart from any immediate return of Jesus.

C. K. Barrett takes a historical perspective to develop his theology of Luke and Acts. To him, those two books are the core of the New Testament. Luke contains more history than the other gospels, and Acts tells some of the history of the early church, especially the life of Paul. To him, then, these two books present what the early church needed to know. The author of this chapter, John Byron, actually studied under Barrett and got to know him pretty well. Byron probably does speak more of Barrett’s personal motivations, especially as a Methodist preacher as well as a professor, than other essays in this collection.

Jacob Jervell emphasizes the Jewishness of the Book of Acts. He maintains that the book only ends with a loose call to Gentiles. Yes, Paul ministered outside Judea, but he first sought out Jews in most places where he went, and much of the Book of Acts focuses on Jewish ministry and reactions to the Gospel by Jews. His story in Acts concludes with the note that “the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles” (Acts 28:28), so there is some evidence to Jervell’s point.

Richard Pervo, picking up a postmodern vibe, emphasizes Luke-Acts as stories or narratives. He compares them to other ancient works and calls them novels. Dr. Fay, who wrote this chapter, assures us that Pervo does not mean that Luke and Acts are fiction, but that they use narrative techniques found in novels. Of course, one could argue that the term novel means “new,” and that novels were not written before the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. But there were prose romances written in the classical era such as The Golden Donkey (2nd Century A.D.), but that is the only one that has survived. One could make a case that the travels of the apostles, especially Paul, are picaresque in nature as is The Golden Donkey.

Loveday Alexander, the last of the theologians the book describes, makes a more specific literary approach. I recall years ago having a conversation with a theologically liberal pastor who was telling me that the Gospels developed out of oral traditions. Now, I was probably the wrong person to discuss this with him because I had studied oral tradition in literature under Albert Lord, who with Milman Parry developed the explanation of how orally transmitted works such as epics were passed on.

I asked this pastor about oral formulae or other evidence that the Gospels had been orally transmitted. It was clear he did not know what I was talking about. I have complained that theologians speak of oral traditions of various Bible books, but I never have come across one that actually explained how it might have happened. Nor have I ever seen or heard of a reference to Lord or Parry in any speculation about books of the Bible emerging from oral tradition. I have expressed my annoyance with this elsewhere in these pages.

Well, I still have not read anything about the Bible remotely like Lord’s thesis in The Singer of Tales, but Alexander looks at Luke and Acts as literature and actually explains how they could have been transmitted orally. Even today, many observant Jews memorize Scripture and Talmudic writings. So she says that early followers of Jesus strictly memorized his teachings and passed them on that way. Interesting and possible. However, for at least the last 1500 years and probably 2500 years, Jews who have done such memorizing have done their memory work from written sources. So which came first, the memory work or the writing? Alexander touches on other literary types and devices as well, and certainly gave this teacher of literature some things to think about.

Some topics are picked up by many of the writers. Are these books an apologetic to Gentiles or for a Jewish audience, or both? Are the recorded speeches and sermons written in their entirety or are they excerpts or summaries selected by the Holy Spirit? When were the books written? And, perhaps most importantly, what can we learn about Jesus and the first Christians from reading these books?

P.S.: If you are curious about the basics of oral transmission according to Parry and Lord, the following article is a good introduction: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/09/feature-vita-milman-parry.

Reza Aslan. Zealot. Random House, 2013.

This is not a review as much as it is a note to a friend who suggested this book to me. He especially wanted me to read chapter 10, so this is focused on that chapter.

I have read chapter 10 of Zealot, along with some other chapters as well. I do not understand the author’s scholarship. If there is a verse in the Bible or something he does not like, he dismisses it as inauthentic. He makes some blanket statements about Jesus and about the Scriptures that anyone familiar with them knows are simply not true.

Jesus spoke of eternal life many times, and even his opponents knew that. Jesus was challenged in his own ministry about a belief in the afterlife. Some Sadducees, the priestly party of the Jews who did not believe in the afterlife, told Him about a woman who had outlived seven husbands in succession. Which man will she marry in the afterlife? They asked the question to mock him, but he treated them with respect. Jesus then quoted the book of Exodus to show that there is an afterlife. (The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible and claimed that they said nothing about an afterlife.) See Mark 12:18-27.

At one point the author Reza Aslan says that Jesus only mentioned the afterlife once when He said “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Aslan then asserts, without any evidence, that Jesus really did not say those words. Ironically, that is one saying of His that near contemporary secular history quotes.

Towards the end of the first century the Emperor Domitian began a persecution of Christians. He did this because he was told that Christians were claiming that Jesus was the rightful king, not the emperor. He had two of Jesus’ grand nephews arrested (grandsons of Jesus’ half-brother Jude). He questioned them and they replied that their uncle’s kingdom was not of this world. Domitian could see from their appearance and what was reported that they were farmers and posed no threat to the empire. Not only did he release them, but he no longer persecuted Christians for the rest of his reign. They were harmless. It is interesting that first century secular history apart from the Bible notes those specific words of Jesus!

If you read the Gospels, Jesus refers to the afterlife, heaven, hell, and eternity many times. It is hard to dismiss all those passages as inauthentic.

Aslan’s overall thesis is one that has been repeated in some form over the centuries. He claims Jesus was a political zealot who really wanted to conquer Rome and help Jews rule the Gentiles but who was killed before his plans succeeded. That is precisely what Muslims teach. The world had to wait for Mohammad to come along and finish Jesus’ task and begin to conquer the world. That is Muslim theology (jihad and all that). Even today we recognize that Islam is both religious and political.

Other groups have made similar arguments. In our lifetime the Unification Church made a similar claim that Jesus did not do what he had come to do and Rev. Moon had come along to complete the mission. The Mormon argument is similar: that the Bible was not the complete scripture God wanted to share, and Joseph Smith came along with the Book of Mormon to finish God’s job.

The reason I responded originally to what you wrote and sent you The Case for Heaven was that you had made an appeal about the Gospel. The Gospel is summed up by saying God sent his son Jesus to suffer for the sins of humanity, and God will save those who accept this truth from His judgment. Since you used the Gospel to appeal to me, I assumed you understood that. Aslan and the Muslims in general have no gospel. Zealot has no gospel. The primary evidence that proves Jesus was speaking the truth about God and life and death was that he was publicly and brutally killed and yet rose from the dead.

Aslan dismisses the resurrection, of course. He presents a common theory from the last two hundred years or so that Jesus was really just an itinerant rabbi who died young, but his followers, especially Peter and Paul, made up the story of the resurrection and spiritualized Jesus’ movement.

Aslan claims that Paul corrupted Jesus’ political movement into something else. The Muslims are here to reclaim that political conquest. Aslan also claims that Jesus only cared about Jews, yet the Bible tells us of Gentiles he healed and ministered to and that He directed his followers to teach “all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and go into “all the world” (Mark 16:15). In fact, Paul devoted his work to the Gentiles, and Peter ended up in Rome among the Gentiles, too.

In chapter 10 Aslan implies typical Muslim anti-Semitism, namely that the Jews like Jesus really are zealots who want to rule the world. If they cannot do it through conquest, they’ll do it by controlling the monetary system.

Hitler was influenced by similar thinking except that he was no Muslim. He saw Jesus as a prophet who was reconnecting the world with the nature-based religions like the Norse beliefs. One of his heroes was Julian the Apostate. Hitler blamed Paul and other Jews for corrupting the “natural religion,” what we would today call neo-paganism. That was one of his ideological reasons for the Final Solution.

All I can say, my friend, is that Zealot presented nothing new. There is no gospel in it. The evidence presented is weak or non-existent. Ask God to show you. He has promised, “If you seek me, you will find me” (Jeremiah 29:13). Jesus Himself said, “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). Ask Him. You will have to accept His terms, but He is happy to reveal Himself to those who are honestly looking.

Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit. 1857; Project Gutenberg/ Amazon, 2012.

I have taught a few Dickens novels over the years. Some I have taught most years for the last forty. I have from time to time read some of his other works, but it has been a while since I have read a different one. There was no particular reason why I chose this one other than the title made me a bit curious.

Little Dorrit reminded me of A Tale of Two Cities in its narrative approach. There are numerous characters. Each chapter seems to focus on a different character or group of related characters. It is not even clear at first how they are all related. Like A Tale of Two Cities, the different parties do all come together in some way as the story moves to its conclusion.

While portions are set in foreign countries—France, Switzerland, and Italy—most of it takes place in various places around London. While A Tale of Two Cities waxes philosophically about government and various economic systems, Little Dorrit has more satire and social commentary.

Perhaps the most pointed satire has to do with the Barnacle family, many of whom work for the British government at the Circumlocution Office. What a perfect name for a government agency! At one point one of the workers at the office explains why it is good for the country that the office does nothing at all. And even the family name, Barnacle, suggests parasites that weigh things down. 1984’s Ministry of Truth is simply a later iteration with perhaps a more nefarious intent.

There is also some interesting social satire. Without giving too much away, the Dorrit family has fallen on hard times, but they have an aristocratic background. When the social position is restored, we see family members responding differently. One does not change too much except that he refuses to acknowledge his recent poverty. One associates with the young gents who spend their time in idle pursuits. One calculates how she can really rise socially and become “someone” in society. One is uncomfortable with the change, and seems to look fondly back on the old days.

The story begins around 1856, so the people with money and power are less likely to be aristocrats and more likely to be successful in business. Of course, that success, if played right, may lead to a title. In the Western World today, there is an aristocracy, but it is one of money, whether old money like the Rockefellers or new money like Silicon Valley. So it is in Little Dorrit, that the person who is esteemed the most is the richest. He is considered a genius—until he isn’t any more.

Padding through all of these various characters and intrigues are Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam. Amy Dorrit, who prefers to be called Little Dorrit, was born in the Marshalsea debtor’s prison. At the time the story begins, she is twenty-two and has lived there all her life. She cares for her father who is a prisoner there. She is free to leave, but she refuses so that she can take care of her father.

Little Amy Dorrit is almost too good to be true. She cares for her father and sympathizes with those who are down and out. She works hard. She has kind words to say about everyone. The reader cannot help but root for her. She exemplifies what it means to live a life of love and giving.

Arthur Clennam seems to be connected with everyone somehow. He has returned to England after twenty years in the orient working for his father’s company. He is still single. We learn later in the novel perhaps the real reason why he was sent abroad. His mother is still alive and running the family business in London, but she seems more like a stereotypical evil stepmother than anyone with maternal instincts. There is, as in Great Expectations, a certain Cinderella element to this story, but the outcome is very different. Still, as with Great Expectations, there is a theme of true nobility. What does it really mean to be noble, to be a true gentleman or a true lady?

And, as with many Dickens tales, there is a theme of justice vs. injustice. In this case, the whole system of jailing debtors seems unjust. How can Mr. Dorrit possibly pay off his debt if he is locked up in jail? He seems to be a natural leader in the prison, but there he remains. Indeed, Dickens suggests something which has been observed over and over in more modern times—people who have been institutionalized often seem to be unable to adjust to freedom when they are released from their institution. They are so used to the structure and having things done for them, they find it hard to survive on the outside.

As always with Dickens, we can learn from different characters. Some have been unjustly treated and have learned to forgive. One gets away with murder. Others remain bitter. Some change when they see the importance of standing for the truth. Others twist everything. One of the saddest characters is Miss Wade. She trusts no one. Even those who are trying to help her, she assumes they really don’t like her and are out to get her anyhow.

Because there are many characters and the chapters seem to hop from character to character, it might help the reader if there were some kind of cast list as they sometimes include with Russian novels. I found the list in Wikipedia fairly helpful. Unfortunately, it did contain one significant spoiler. Another way might be for the reader to make a list with some of the basics of each one. One could even argue whether or not Little Dorrit is the main character—no one would say such a thing, for example, about Oliver Twist or David Copperfield.

Little Dorrit has scope, as Shakespeare would say. It covers a lot, but at the same time, we are rooting for Amy Dorrit and hoping that things will work together for the good.

Robert Kurson. Pirate Hunters. Random, 2015.

Pirate Hunters contains an adventure within an adventure. We meet John Chatterton and John Mattera—along with a significant supporting cast—undersea salvors, or as we might say, treasure hunters. One of the original treasure hunters, corrects one of the Johns and says “treasure finders.” A lot of people hunt treasure, but who finds it?

Within their story is the story of the Golden Fleece, a British merchant vessel that became a pirate ship when its captain and crew decided to go on their own in 1684.

Chatterton and Mattera, though with varied backgrounds, became successful partners in locating and salvaging historical shipwrecks such as U-869, a German World War II submarine that was thought to be lost near Morocco but was discovered off the coast of New Jersey. Chatterton, an army medic in Vietnam, was one of the most agile and daring wreck divers, often swimming in tight spaces and waters deeper than most divers dare. Mattera, diver and former loan shark, was a meticulous researcher. They were thinking of searching an area in the Caribbean known for lost Spanish ships for a gold-laden galleon, when Chatterton got a phone call from Tracy Bowden.

Tracy Bowden was seventy at the time and one of the best known treasure finders. He had a proposal for them. He thought he knew where the Golden Fleece was. The Golden Fleece was a pirate ship captained by Joseph Bannister, at the time one of the more successful pirates. He had been a captain on British merchant vessels for many years, but for some reason around the age of forty, he decided to go rogue. He is the only known pirate leader to successfully thwart an attack of the Royal Navy by fighting back. While numerous vessels from the 17th and 18th centuries have been discovered, only one bona fide pirate ship from the so-called Golden Era of Piracy (1650-1720) had ever been discovered, the Whydah.

Kurson effectively narrates his story, leaving the reader in suspense. It is as if he were writing weekly episodes for a magazine serial, so one part will be on Chatterton up to a point, then on the men scouting the area in the Dominican Republic (DR), then some notes on undersea electronics, and then a little history of pirates in Port Royal, Jamaica. (English pirates like Bannister usually worked out of Port Royal).

There is a lot of tension, anyhow. The men are exploring a remote part of the DR where there a tendency to lawlessness. It is not merely a piece of background trivia that Mattera had been CEO of an international private security company: he knew how to handle a nighttime ambush on a country road and other attacks.

There is also a looming political deadline. UNESCO had established an international treaty that all shipwrecks belong to the nation in whose waters they are found. Independent salvors have no rights unless the government in the area wants to grant them. The DR has not signed the treaty yet, so treasure hunters are still able to claim salvage rights, but it looks like the DR will sign on shortly. If they make their discovery too late, all their expenses and work could end up being for nothing.

There are also other treasure hunters. Unfortunately, while there is a certain amount of mutual respect for successful treasure hunters, the business as a whole is fairly cutthroat. There are many claims and counter claims. Some hunters never get a dime from the work they have done because of specious legal wrangling. Also some are known to double cross people they have hired or partner with. Months into their search, they discover that at least two, possibly three, other outfits have begun searching the same general area. What if they find what Chatterton and Mattera have been looking for? What if they are heavily armed?

There are also personal problems. Each of the men involved have families and other affairs to be concerned about. Sometimes they have to leave for a week or two at a time to take care of business. Some wives are more understanding than others. Will they run out of time? Will they run out of options?

Ultimately, will they make their discovery?

Pirate Hunters gives great insight into the challenges of making historical undersea discoveries. It also gives us some additional insight into the lives and times of the Golden Age of Piracy, and why perhaps even a successful merchant sailor like Bannister might go rogue. It seems like each discovery uncovers another mystery.

N.B.: We have noted that different books we reviewed have given different dates for the Golden Age of Piracy. Kurson here dates it 1650-1720. The Pirates says 1690-1720. Pirates of the Treasure Coast says 1670-1720. Since piracy was illegal and “off the books,” different sources note different beginnings. All three give 1720 as the terminus, though at least one other source says 1725. By 1720 international treaties had been established, Spain and England had quit fighting, and the most notorious pirates were either dead or had just a few years to live. Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet died in 1718; Calico Jack, in 1720; Edward Vane, in 1721; Black Bart, in 1722.

Robert A. Heinlein. Starship Troopers. 1959; Ace, 1987.

The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony, sweat, and devotion…and the price demanded for the precious of all things in life is life itself—ultimate cost of perfect value. (74, ellipsis in original)

“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:42-44)

In my younger years I was a fan of Robert A. Heinlein. I loved Glory Road. Stranger in a Strange Land is great literature. I even liked Time Enough for Love—some critics panned it, but it had scope and originality. His Job was a weird disappointment. Somewhere along the line I just forgot about him till I picked up a copy of Starship Troopers at a recent yard sale. What an enjoyable book! I had forgotten how great he could be and what an experience reading one of his novels is.

On one level Starship Troopers is an entertaining “space opera,” as they say. Our narrator, Johnnie Rico, has just graduated from high school and has decided to join the military, much to his father’s dismay. “We’ve outgrown wars. This planet is now peaceful and happy and we enjoy good enough relations with other planets,” his father tells him (23).

Except that soon Earth and its planet colonies would be threatened by a new and different alien life form that was apparently trying to colonize the same kind of places where people from earth were living. They are slightly larger than humans but their culture is organized like ants or bees—perhaps a precursor to the Borg of Star Trek. When they move to a place they want to take over, they simply flood the place with their “bugs.”

Humans learn quickly that is makes no difference how many of these worker bugs they kill. The workers do not fight, and in a war situation they are like cannon fodder. For every hundred or so workers there is one soldier bug. The humans learn to focus on fighting them. But even that is not enough. The bugs burrow underground, and the humans discover that there are at least two more types of these creatures. There are the “brains,” the ones who give the orders to the workers and warriors who follow them blindly. It is truly a hive mentality. Then there is the queen who breeds all these creatures at a profligate rate.

As is true with ants on earth, we rarely see anything but workers—soldier bugs if there is fighting. The brains and queens stay deep underground. A few human soldiers have tried to go into the underground labyrinths, but invariably get lost and captured.

Being futuristic science fiction, Johnnie also tells of the suits, like self-propelled space suits that those of the Mobile Infantry (MI) wear. We learn that the navy operates the space ships that transport the MIs to where they are needed. There is still inter-service rivalry in the future. We are told at one point that a group of admirals proposed eliminating the army altogether. With interstellar travel, it was obsolete. Clearly Johnnie’s father was naïve about there being no more wars, the same is true with armies.

Back in 1977 a friend who had served in the National Guard had just seen the original Star Wars. His response was simply that all those guys in white spacesuits were the infantry. No matter where you go, or when, even to a galaxy long ago and far away, there will be the “grunts.”

This in itself would make for a decent story, but Heinlein puts much more thought into his stories. Most of the book is actually about the training that Johnnie and MIs in general go through. It is the distant future—we are not exactly told when but Heinlein’s century is called the XXth—which makes it sound like that it was a long time ago. Anyone who has been through basic training can identify with some of Johnnie’s experiences.

As is true even with current military training standards, it is understood that some recruits will fail to graduate. Unlike the American system today, however, some of those failures will be because of death. If they died in combat or from following orders, they will be promoted posthumously. But one truth about basic training remains: “Boot camp was made as hard as possible and on purpose” (45, italics in original).

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the government of Earth—and it has been single government for a long time—is that only military veterans can vote. It is not because the culture has become a futuristic Sparta, but simply that only veterans have put the lives of others in their land ahead of their own. Johnnie’s History and Moral Philosophy teacher, Mr. Dubois, explains it, “…their citizenship is valuable to them because they paid a high price for it” (27). In the American culture there used to be the idea that people who worked for the government were public servants. It is still an ideal, but it seems that in the last few years even American bureaucrats want us to know they are our masters.

Mr. Dubois teaches Johnnie the opposite of what his father told him:

“Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it…” (24)

Indeed, Starship Troopers reminded this reader of Star Wars in another way. Mr. Dubois is one of several characters who, as they say, pour into Johnnie as he matures as a man and as trooper not unlike Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. We still need wise mentors who speak truths rather than what people might want to hear. Heinlein himself is one for us.

Rachel McMillan. Murder in the City of Liberty. Nelson, 2019.

The attractive cover and promise of a mystery set in Boston caught my attention. There are really two main plots in Murder in the City of Liberty. There is a criminal enterprise which does result in a murder about halfway through the story. There is also a love triangle. Will Jane go with St. John or Rochester, I mean, will Regina (“Reggie”) go for Hamish or Vaughan?

Reggie Van Buren and Hamish DeLuca are partners in a detective agency in the North End of Boston in 1940. There are numerous allusions to The Thin Man films with Dick Powell and Myrna Loy. Reggie is upper crust from Connecticut. While Hamish’s father is a quite successful newspaper editor, his father’s family immigrated to Canada shortly before World War I. Since the early 1900s, the North End has been primarily an Italian neighborhood.

There is one unclear reference not explained in this story. DeLuca is normally an Italian name, and Nick has a cousin who is clearly Italian, but his father was registered in Canada as an enemy alien during World War I, but Italy fought with the Allies in the Great War. (Italy’s historical traditional enemy was Austria.) It is conceivable they came from Austria or the Balkans, but this seems a little odd.

The action starts immediately. Like films that start in medias res, it is not exactly clear what is happening but Hamish is attacked and Regina is left for dead. Hamish was supposed to meet a potential client, but whenever he talks to him on the phone afterward, the client hangs up without answering Hamish’s questions. And it seems like everyone is involved in some way in a plan to develop a waterfront apartment complex on land that may be more like the sinking sand from Jesus’ parable.

Van Buren and DeLuca get another client, one Errol Parker, a black baseball player signed by the Red Sox and playing for their local minor league team. Fans call him Robin Hood because he steals bases expertly. But he is being harassed in a much more serious way than a rookie would expect. We know it is because of his race, but this is 1940, and there are some pro-Nazi agitators who want the U.S. to stay out of the wars in Europe and Asia antagonizing both blacks and Jews.

Hamish’s best friend Nate is Jewish, and as they investigate both the construction project and Errol’s problem, Nate, Reggie, and Hamish all end up in trouble. To tell who is murdered would be something of a spoiler because the murder does not happen until nearly halfway through the story, and the policeman in charge of the investigation says it was not a murder.

Through all this there is the back-and-forth wavering of Regina trying to decide whom she really loves. Is it Vaughan, a family favorite and old friend, whose business can also help Mr. Van Buren’s business? Or is it her partner, Hamish, whose family is also highly esteemed in his home city but not in America?

There is also Hamish’s Chicago cousin, Luca Valeri, who left Hamish after Hamish was shot in a nightclub in the first story in the series, but who seems to have a lot of elliptical connections. Why did Luca’s former associate suddenly appear in that opening scene? Can Hamish forgive Cousin Luca for abandoning him at the club? And why is Errol’s teenaged nephew running errands for him out of the Parker House?

For the most part, McMillan gets a nice sense of Boston in the forties. I recall my father describing Scollay Square (now gone to make way for Government Center) the way she describes it. There are a few anachronisms, but they do not take away from the overall story. Sadly, the real Red Sox would not have signed a black player in 1940. The owner back then was notoriously prejudiced, and the Sox were actually the last major league team at the time to have a black player on their roster (Pumpsie Green in 1959).

Peter W. Wood. 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project. Encounter, 2022.

1620 was recommended by a friend, and it is worth reading. As the subtitle suggests, it is a critique of the “Woke” 1619 Project promoted by the New York Times. While it does challenge a number of the assertions made by the various publications associated with the 1619 Project, it is, as the subtitle also suggests looking at it from the perspective of a critic.

The author is a professor and an anthropologist, so he is particularly focused on human relations. As a counterpoint, the author makes a case that 1620 is more of a watershed year for American history. It is the year of the Mayflower Compact which set the model for a diverse “body politic” with a republican non-aristocratic model. 1620 notes that the black captives sold in Virginia were not treated as chattel. We know some became working free members of the settlement, and that both black men and women married white settlers. The chattel slavery would come later.

The author notes other authors—mostly reputable historians—who have challenged many of the so-called facts of the 1619 project. He is more interested in the conclusions drawn and the ramifications of those conclusions. A major conclusion of the 1619 Project is that the Declaration of Independence was made to counteract the abolitionist movement in England. The problem is that in 1776 there were more abolitionists in North America than England. Indeed, Jefferson and his committee wrote a paragraph condemning the British support of the slave trade. That paragraph was omitted from the final draft because of the objections of three states, the two Carolinas and Georgia. Even delegates from Virginia supported it.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL Powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another. (Read the full draft here.)

Wood’s basic thesis is that the United States is no Utopia—there has never been one in the history of the world—but it is a work in progress striving to live up to its ideals. Key critics of the 1619 Project Wood points out are Socialists. While they might agree with some of the critiques of capitalism in the Project, they point out the project is very loose with historical facts and promotes division, while the goal of Socialists is to promote a classless society.

Wood clarifies one source of confusion. The 1619 Project gets some of its funding and support from an organization called the Pulitzer Center. This kind of like the term Webster’s Dictionary. The Pulitzer Center is not affiliated with the Pulitzer Prizes or Joseph Pulitzer, but the name of this left-wing advocacy group adds some gravitas which is probably unwarranted.

There is a lot more more. 1620 is very quotable. If you are looking for specific details, there are other works and writers out there like David McCullough, historians who have detailed criticisms. This is more a questioning of the whole purpose and goals of the 1619 Project. The Project seems to be following the trajectory of European radicals of eighty to a hundred years ago. The problem is that such a “utopia” reduces most of its citizens to mere chattels of the state.

Jeremiah Denton. When Hell Was in Session. Traditional P, 1982.

Many Americans of a certain age may recall Jeremiah Denton or at least recall what he did. He was a U.S. Navy airplane pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam and spent over seven years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison camp. He may be best known as the prisoner who repeatedly blinked the word TORTURE during a North Vietnamese press conference with supposedly humanely treated prisoners. He later served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama.

The experience of Denton and his fellow prisoners recorded in When Hell Was in Session brings new meaning to the word torture. The bodies of the men were twisted in all kinds of bizarre manners. As the reader begins to understand the scope and method the Communist captors used, the only thought is “who has the twisted mind to even think of these things?”

Pigeye [prisoners had nicknames for the guards who were otherwise anonymous]and one of the other guards grasped me, handcuffed my hands behind me, and then grunting and swearing began beating me severely…I reeled about the cell and fell down repeatedly. They kept pulling me to my feet and hitting me…Bloody nose, cut lips, blackened eyes, bruised ribs: the standard before the main event.…

He pulled my shirt sleeves down to protect my arms from scars…and then he and another guard began roping one arm from shoulder to elbow. With each loop, one guard would put his foot on my arm and pull, another guard joining him in the effort to draw the rope as tightly as their combined strength would permit. The other arm was then bound, and both were tied so closely that the elbows touched.…After about forty-five minutes, the pain began to subside and I began to go numb. I was too weak to sit up, and when I fell backward, the weight of my body spread my fingers so grotesquely that two of them were dislocated.…

They had cuffed a cement-filled 9-foot-long iron bar across my ankles, and Pigeye released the bar from the shackles and laid it across my shins. He stood on it, and he and the other guard took turns jumping up and down and rolling it across my legs. Then they lifted my arms behind my back by the cuffs, raising the top part of my body off the floor and dragging me around and around. This went on for hours. (64-65)

That was just one instance. At one point his legs were so swollen from tortures and edema that the shackles no longer fit around his ankles.

All I can think of is the verse from the Bible that speaks of consciences being seared with a hot iron (I Timothy 4:2). It is remarkable what evil people can do to other people.

The purpose of the torture was to somehow break the prisoners so that they would confess their political crimes and perhaps be released early. Denton is a gentleman and does not name any person who was released early for doing such things, but there were only a few.

Two he does mention—one was so badly tortured that he was near death and was released. The other feigned imbecility and was seen to be useless. That sailor, who actually washed ashore in Cambodia but was captured by Vietnamese operating there, had memorized the name of each of the 256 prisoners at the time, so on release he was able to let the Pentagon and prisoners’ families know who was there.

Denton himself was kept in solitary confinement for about four years of his ordeal. Still, the men developed a couple of tapping codes with occasional paper drops to communicate with each other. For the most part, they were able to encourage one another in spite of the tortures they endured.

Denton himself credits a spiritual experience while he was in solitary for giving him the vision and fortitude to make it through. While he considered himself a Catholic believer before, the Holy Spirit became real to him at one point when he realized he had to make a choice of whom to trust. His experience was reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn’s own conversion experience while he was in a Siberian labor camp as described in The Gulag Archipelago and Colson’s Loving God.

One other name that readers would probably recognize was that of James Stockdale. Denton was one of the early men shot down, and at first he was the ranking officer. Later Stockdale would take that role. Both men are examples of perseverance in great trials plus a certain doggedness. Stockdale would later run unsuccessfully for Vice President in the Perot candidacy. Stockdale would limp for the rest of his life as a result of tortures he received in Hanoi.

When Hell Was in Session is not for the faint of heart. Denton graphically describes the pain he endured. Denton notes that North Vietnam had subscribed to the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisoners of war but claimed that captured enemies were war criminals and thus not covered by the treaty. People can justify all kinds of cruelty by twisting legalities to their tastes.

Much of the book covers the period from 1965 when Denton was shot down until 1969 when Ho Chi Minh died. That death made a big difference. After that, their captors fed them better and ceased most tortures. Ho’s death happened around the time that Nixon took the office of President from Johnson, so there may have been several factors contributing to the change. Denton felt that some of the wardens may have begun to fear reprisals for their treatment of the prisoners.

Denton also writes of a few political conversations he had with the North Vietnamese. He noted that their hard work would just end up in the hands of Russians (whom we see occasionally in the background) or party members. One replied that at least they had security.

He did have one occasion to have a priest hear his confession. The priest was obviously told by authorities what to say, and tried to steer the discussion to politics. While Denton was moved by the experience, he told the guards’ supervisor that he would only agree to confession again if the priest would not speak of politics. For any religious practitioner allowed under Communism, that was a no-go.

There are many other similar tales in this book. Denton was convinced, judging from the behavior of the guards and what he learned from newer prisoners, that if the allies had pursued victory in 1968 and 1969, the outcome of the war might have been different. Denton, after all, was shot down in 1965, so he was unaware of the antiwar demonstrations back in the States.

Denton’s testimony here goes along with many testimonies of victims of Communism in the Soviet Union such as Solzhenitsyn, Sharansky, Ratushinskaya, and even testimonies of Communists like Wolfgang Leonhard. There are fewer such testimonies from China, but they do exist such as The Heavenly Man and stories of Tibetans and Uighurs.

I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s observation that democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others. Communism is evil. It enriches certain amoral members of the party at the expense of everyone else. And we have to admire the fortitude of such people as Denton, Stockdale, along with Solzhenitsyn, Brother Yun, and a host of others. Let us not forget.