A Season for Justice: Defending the Rights of the Christian Home, Church and School.

David French, Broadman & Holman

Nashville, TN

0805424911, $12.95, 215 pp.

I selected this book after learning that David and Nancy French were neighbors here in Lexington, KY. They moved (last 3 weeks) to Philadephia where Mr. French is now CEO of a Christian civil rights organization. David's father, Dr. Austin French, a professor of math at nearby Georgetown College still lives in the home immediately next door to where David and Nancy lived. I actually found the book title on Mr. French's web page "theculturecurve." He did not elaborate on the book's content from the blogosphere.

Dr. Austin French and I had the opportunity to get acquainted a few weeks ago as I greeted him while he was tending the dandelions in his front yard. He immediately gave me "his testimony" and I walked away convinced "I had talked with an authentic fundamentalist." Dr. French, David and Nancy and other members of the family have been long associated with David Lipscomb College in Nashville. Many years ago I read the church newsletter of a church in Louisville, Kentucky pastored by by a rather extreme religious figure, Harold Hazlip, who became president of David Lipscomb. He has since retired.

I was fascinated, as a young man, by Rev. Hazlip's newsletters as they were a full frontal assault on the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Apparently Hazlip was a firebrand within his circles, if not known very well nationally. He seemed to be attempting to recruit Catholic priests in the streets of Louisville to debate him in church on Catholic doctrine.

Incidental to all of this is that David French grew up in Georgetown, Kentucky which is featured in this book and my wife graduated from the Baptist college there.

Thus, I feel a number of "connections" to both the issues raised in the book and the circumstances in which it was developed. I also feel that the author is honestly struggling with some issues that he may not treat so even- handedly as he gets more locked into an occupational focus of very narrow advocacy.

I have two degrees from the University of Kentucky and am now retired. I was General Manager Human Resources of Starkist Seafood in Long Beach, CA before returning to Kentucky. I was an Army Security Agency cryptoanalyst in norhtern Japan. I have worked in and consulted with both Japanese and American companies. I wrote some "Affirmative Action" Plans and was tutored on Affirmative Action laws by Ellen Shong Bergman, the first director of the OFCCP under President Reagan and by Dr. Robert Holmes, a law professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. We have lived in London, England, Japan and traveled in Europe, Africa and the Carribean. I have had a long term fascination with the practice and dynamics of human psycholgy and public religion.

The book appears to be written for the non-specialist and church members. The author writes well and articulates some issues that will not be fully grasped by many of his readers. For example, his plea to evangelicals not to seek government endorsement may not be internalized at all! The book will alarm most of his audience especially those who have limited insight into American pluralism with all of its faults. The book does not clarify how secular ideas and institutions have provided a historical "buffer" between hostile contending religious viewpoints in America. Mr. French is perfectly capable of understanding and even articulating this "buffer" perspective. The question is: will Mr. French ultimately ignore and even willing to sacrifice this "buffer" which afterall, may be more precious than the Constitution itself? As thoughtful as the author is, many will take a singular message from this book: the sky is falling! Maybe this is not the author's intent, just the effect!

The tile of this review is taken from the author's text.

"From Mars to A Petri Dish"

The author provides few hints that he has studied the basis for his beliefs. Certainly, he has thought about how to defend public religious expression. Understandably, he talks about his faith. At the same time, he claims those disagreeing with his belief are advancing their "faith" in so doing. (In this context he borrows the phrase ..."the church of the left"... from the rather superficial essays of Dr. Stan Kurtz).

He consistently toys with straw man constructions in this polemic without admitting his faith is that of one hoping for substance unseen. It is not likely this hope will ever be commonly shared by all of humanity.

It is rather interesting to see him start asserting matters of "proof" when engaging a fellow law school student who is gay. Surely, proof is hard come by and an unlikely companion when making such traditional assertions of faith. Many passages in this book begin with the author being "stunned" or being "shocked" at what he observes. This rightly characterizes the emotional basis for both his convictions and the religious ideas he endorses.

Impressionable children weeping their way into a church auditorium fully reveals how dramatically emotional is so much of the faith he espouses. And yet he attempts to portray liberal opponents as similarly locked in into a faith while not recognizing ... much of their profound distrust of what he presents as that faith ... is based on antagonism to the widely seen religious emotional extremism that he actually describes. He finds grace in such experiences while others of us recoil at the Old Time Religion that drags sinners down the aisle to the "mourners bench."

Emotion may be natural to the human condition but as the basis of religious zeal it has proven to be dangerous throughout history. Such strong emotional responses usually exclude rational and calm discourse. The author paints emotional palettes to advance his ideas while apparently thinking that emotion validates his arguments. A better understanding is that emotion is the basis and content of the religious ideas he celebrates. Emotion validates little or nothing in this context.

Typically, it crowds out facts. Of course, certitude characterizes such intense emotion. Liberals cannot be demonized just because they lack such emotional certainty and such can hardly be described as a "faith". Learning greatly tempers certainty while emotional intensity fosters rigidity. Neither may rise to a "worldview!" Ambiguity may be the nature of the cosmos and is, of course, no friend to rigid, inflexible belief systems. Much more than "civil rights" seems to be involved here. Neither can the issues be simplified as "secular" liberalism versus straight- arrow religious faith. The presence of emotion excludes problem solving. The greater the emotion the less problem solving will occur.

Religious communities that define faith and practice it in terms of emotion are not likely to problem solve. More importantly their emotional intensity creates barriers with others in the larger community who might be willing to problem solve. This is not a matter of a "liberal" faith standing in hard headed opposition to simple religious folk. It is a matter of understanding the lessons of history where zealotry rages.

A second matter needs mention. Those, the author champions and has great affection for, those who deny or distort what we have come to understand about human beings. One might say that the worldview he espouses is a crippled and inadequate view of humanity. The cultural split he alludes to is truly great. His co-religionists continue to insist their worldview is the only accurate view, as it was authored by divinity. No values outside of this worldview can be recognized nor celebrated. This is the magical thinking that is so often considered to be the remarkable religiosity of Americans.

Supportive of the contention that the faith being discussed here is of extreme emotional intensity is this: the constant conditioning of church members with song, prayer, sermon, testimony is not seen as conditioning. In fact, the very idea, if put to religious folk, would be rejected as offensive. Somehow the well-understood conditioning that occurs to all of us at work, at home and in school never happens at church. This is a denial of the first order that thoughtful people, liberal or not, should not ignore. Such a lack of insight should make every thoughtful person wary of many religious affiliations.