• Book Reviews,  Books

    Washing Your Face in Muddy Waters

    May 16, 2020

    I’ve spent some time recently swimming in the muddy waters of what’s been coined “me-ology”—or the trend in some Christian circles to focus on self-actualization, confidence, and success. As usual, I did things backwards, and read two book refuting this sort of tainted (if not outright false) gospel before reading more from the big names in those circles. So, I got Girl, Wash Your Face from the library to see what all the buzz was about (yes, two years late, I know). 

    Girl. It was no fun. 

    I’m an INTP, Enneagram 5. Please don’t talk to me like you know me if we’ve never met. 

    On a positive note, I enjoyed how she structured her chapters with bullet points at the end listing things that helped her overcome fears, obstacles, or regrets. Some of her suggestions were helpful, and I don’t want to take away from the fact that she’s worked hard to achieve her success. Overall, though, I came away frustrated. It is clear that her definition of the success revolves around celebrity, career, wealth, and comfort. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if she didn’t also actively remind her readers of her faith.  

    In the end, I’d like to ask her: Do you realize that you are going to die?

    Missing Pieces

    All of her advice is geared toward a happier, more successful life on earth. By weaving Christian lingo in to her chapters and stringing references to her faith throughout the book, she places it as a central piece of her work, and moves her book from the category of career and goal-setting how-to into a more holistic sort of faith-based self-help book. And by labelling herself a Christian, she holds herself up as a role model while preaching what ends up being a false, or perhaps at best syncretistic gospel. She recognizes that people are not happy, but instead of pointing them to the story of redemption and telling the story of a God who rescues people who cannot save themselves, she tells her own story—a story where she rescued herself from the things that held her back. And, most prominently, instead of presenting the way to achieving real eternal happiness, she urges her readers to follow her into worldly success and empowerment. 

    And so, for all its motivational appeal, there’s a barb hidden in Hollis’s work. As a self-proclaimed Christian, it seems unkind to offer readers a gospel of self-actualization, a gospel of work, striving after material things, and conditional inner peace when you know  (or should know) that true happiness is found in work that has been finished and offered freely to us. Working hard is important. But it will only get us so far in life. Ultimately, we will still wind up at the grave. And when we get there, what hope can Hollis’s gospel of self-fulfillment offer? 

    Faulty Foundations

    It is not wrong to want to be successful and happy, and it is not bad to work to achieve those things. It’s great to coach others along the way. But it is problematic for believers to offer that sort of advice as if those goals and desires are ultimate. Hollis herself admits that her success hasn’t brought satisfaction. Most of us know, at least in theory, the dangers of storing up treasures on earth. We also know, or ought to, the dangers of leading others astray. However, for all of her words proclaiming her faith, I did not come away from her book with confidence that Hollis knows either of those.

    If Hollis has any good advice at all (which she does!), it’s built on sand—its foundation is only as strong as your own endurance or resolve. She states no purpose for success outside of one’s own feeling of success. Her readers, she claims, are not using their “God-given” talents to their full potential. This is fair, perhaps, but she does a poor job of explaining why they should use them outside of self-satisfaction, if she even tries at all. All of the success in Girl, Wash Your Face is by your own effort, for your own sake. Christians should know that this sort of success probably won’t last a lifetime, and definitely won’t last into eternity. Unfortunately, I did not come away from Hollis’ book confident that she knows this, either.

    Missed Opportunity

    And this is the tragedy of Hollis’ work. Had she remembered her death, Hollis may have been able to give her readers a better foundation on which to build their success instead of luring them to a gospel of comfort and self-focused success. If she had remembered that she will someday die it would have rounded out her definition of success in a way that would have been a great help to her readers. Instead, she offers her readers only a temporal success that, as Ecclesiastes tells us, is only a vapor. All of our work on earth will be gone within decades, and probably sooner. In the long run, it is meaningless. Unless we recognize the work of another. 

    Christ’s work is eternal. And it is only by joining in his work that our work has value. Even the most menial tasks become valuable when they are tethered to his work on the cross, a story outside of our own. When we see our work in its proper place as part of the story of redemption—creation, fall, redemption, consummation—it takes on a value far greater than we can give it on our own. 

    If we do not remember that we are dust, and like Hollis focus only on what our work can accomplish for us, we are left striving after the wind. Eventually it will leave us not only exhausted, but with nothing to show for our efforts. 

    In contrast, remembering our death means that we can, as Matthew McCullough points out in his book Remember Death, rest—even as we’re working. Our work, whether it’s in a career, parenting or even eating and exercising, won’t save us—Christ’s work will. Even when we are stuck in the most lowly work, McCullough says, “[we] get to reflect the glory of the One who put every star in its place, marked off the oceans, and ordered every species.”[1]

    And that success, I think, is a much more satisfying than any amount of wealth, status, or earthly comfort.

    [1]Remember Death, 114.

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  • Book Reviews,  Books,  Death and Dying

    Book Review: The Art of Dying

    April 30, 2019

    Anyone reading this review probably knows what this blog is about: death, dying, and the Christian. So it will be no surprise to you that my favorite book of the year so far is a book about just that. The Art of Dying: Living Fully Into the Life to Come by Rob Moll is a book that I’ve been telling people I wish I had written. I found myself either nodding in agreement with the author on topics I’ve already come to conclusions on, or totally engrossed as I learned new information. It’s a book I fully intend to buy and give away. I think everyone should read it. 

    Now, if that glowing recommendation alone doesn’t convince you to read it, I guess I will have to endeavor to entice you with a little more information.

    Rob Moll is a journalist, formerly editor-at-large at Christianity Today. Inspired, at least in part, by the story of Terry Schiavo, he wrote The Art of Dying because of an awareness that Christians, surprisingly, did not seem to have an appropriate response to questions of life and death. More particularly, they did not appear to have a set of ethics or principles, informed by their faith, that could adequately inform their decisions regarding death—their own or a loved one’s. His argument is that Christians, like the rest of our Western culture, wrongly avoid all thought of death. “Death is indeed evil.” He says, “Yet there is no evil so great that God cannot bring joy and goodness from it. That is why death deserves our attention in life. Because we want to avoid it, to turn our face away, it is good to look death in the eye and constantly remind ourselves that our hope is in God, who defeated death.” His goal, it seems, is to offer a deeply Christian understanding of death as both encouragement and corrective. I think he succeeds.

    The first few chapters of the book articulate our current problem of avoiding death in our daily lives, as well as the medicalization of death—a sort of “how we got here” look at our current state. He then explains what has been lost in our Christian traditions surrounding death by giving a brief and broad history of Christian death up through the end of the 19thcentury. Leading his readers gently toward the boots-on-the-ground questions about death and dying, he includes a chapter entitled “The Spirituality of Death,” making a convincing argument for why death is a monumental occasion in the life of a believer, requiring preparation. Moll then takes his reader through the dying process from start to finish, answering practical questions interspersed with interviews and personal stories related to preparing for your own or your parents’ death, caring for dying people, questions of funeral practices and traditions. He ends the book with chapters on grief, the resurrection, and what understanding death means for life. 

    Every chapter of this book has the potential to be life-changing for someone. There were several things, though, that come to mind from this book without even having to skim the pages. I’ll try to share them, briefly, with you here. 

    • The first was the effect of death on a community. Moll shares that as we lost the traditions of mourning, grief has become more and more isolating. By marking houses and clothes with signs of mourning, the community helped bear the weight of grief. Describing C.S. Lewis’ experience of isolation described in A Grief Observed, Moll says “As if the burdens of the griever weren’t enough, society gave Lewis another responsibility—the cruel job of forcing a man in mourning to help those around him feel better about their awkwardness in his presence” (129). This resonates with me, and makes me wonder what sort of steps I can take to ease this load off of the grieving around me. Along with this, I was so glad to read Moll’s exhortation to not use the hope of resurrection as a bludgeon to those in the midst of grief: “those in mourning and their comforters may make grieving more difficult when our Christian hope is used to discourage public mourning” (131).
    • Secondly, I noticed lack of training in seminaries and the overall neglect of the elderly in churches. I know my church tries to care for the widows and the elderly, and as far as I know they do okay at it. I also know that it’s one of the quietest ministries in the church. Along with caring for the elderly better in life, I wonder if we should somehow try to bring the “business” of death back to our churches—can we recruit any seminarians to become funeral directors, or church-based morticians?   
    • Third, I was struck by his accounts of supernatural experiences as the hour of death approaches. I was convinced that we have over-medicalized death before reading The Art of Dying, mostly for practical reasons. But reading his numerous accounts of people being guided from this life to the next by spiritual beings has made me even more convinced. Moll says of previous periods of Christian history that “No one assumed that the difficult physical work of dying would leave a person spiritually unable to participate” (62). It seems clear to me that, whenever possible, we should not rob people of the spiritual experience of dying. Moll argues that this is not just for their benefit, but for ours: “Even Alzheimer’s can’t touch the life of the spirit. When a dying person gives physical evidence that his or her spirit is entering a new life, it can be spiritually encouraging to onlookers and emotionally comforting to those who will grieve the loss of the person. And as we support the dying spiritually, we help them to die well” (72).

    Aside from loving the content, I loved the structure of Moll’s book. It seemed very well suited to convince the reader that there is a problem, provide its context, and then offer a solution—or at least a launching point for better thought and practice. And I know I’m maybe hyper-aware, but I see such a great need for resources like this that I’m very grateful to have read it. I think you will be too.

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