January 2025 Reads

Here are the books I've read in January. While some the sections here are more traditional "book review-y" than others, these aren't intended to be formal book reviews but rather just my overall impressions and thoughts as I finish each book.  

In this post (click to skip to section):

Thomas Jefferson By Joyce Appleby

This is part of the American Presidents Series published by Times Books. This set (minus two volumes) was gifted to me a while back and I've started reading through them. Last year I read the volumes on George Washington and John Adams. The bullet points here represent my impressions on this volume, followed by one critique I would have of the book.
  • I'm not educated enough on the American presidents to offer my critique or evaluation of this biography in terms of its historical accuracy. From Appleby's presentation, Jefferson seems like a man I could study for a long time without getting bored. 
  • Not only did Jefferson craft the Declaration of Independence, but he was a staunch opponent of federalism and desired a smaller government, fewer taxes, and more power in the hands of the people. His vision of this form of government was based on his confidence in human reason and the ability of the public to make educated decisions. I love his optimism and conviction. While I am an advocate of smaller government, I don't quite have the same faith in the public today as he did back then.
  • Appleby notes that Jefferson kept copies of nearly every correspondence he ever received or sent, so there is a wealth of information available to us about how he processed the world. This simply amazes me and I'm grateful for it, while also wondering what motivates a man to do such a thing. 
One of Appleby's strongest critiques of Jefferson leads to my strongest critique of her biography: she uses every opportunity throughout the book to highlight the fact that Jefferson was a slave owner. She frequently highlights the inconsistency of this in light of the line in the Declaration of Independence about all men being created equal. I do believe this is a worthwhile thing to consider, think about, and write about, but as I read the book it seemed to me that she brought that issue up if there was even the slightest connection to whatever aspect of Jefferson's life she was discussing at the time, and every chapter of the book brings it up as the fatal flaw in Jefferson's character. The final chapter is titled "Coming to Terms with Thomas Jefferson" and half the chapter is about that issue. I just found it to be a bit much. She hammers it throughout the book so much that one would think this man was a complete walking contradiction. It isn't until the final chapter that she mentions that he actively worked to pass legislation that would require new states joining the union to be free states, and that he advocated for the end of the slave trade. She seems oblivious to complex socio-economic factors that emancipation would impact. On the whole, it wasn't a balanced discussion.

Is it appropriate to bring it up as part of the story of Thomas Jefferson? Absolutely. I'm not disputing that at all. I just wish she wasn't as reductionistic and anachronistic as she was, and I wish she didn't make it the singular defining feature of Jefferson's life.

The reality is that Jefferson was a complex and fascinating man who did many amazing things in his life. He thought deeply, read widely, and spoke with conviction. I plan to pursue other biographical works on Jefferson to gain a greater understanding of the role this man played in the founding and leading of our nation.


How Does Sanctification Work? by David Powlison

This is a simple book that was not at all what I expected, and I think that's probably a good thing.

Powlison begins the book with a personal anecdote of how God was sanctifying him in a particular situation, and using that as the springboard to ask the question of the book: how does this process work? 

Chapter two challenges the idea that there is any one key to sanctification. It is common for some preachers, bloggers, and other so-called influencers to harp on one particular avenue to pursue to grow in your faith and be more sanctified. An example of this may be the "just preach the Gospel to yourself" movement, a movement that is still alive and well in some circles. He notes that while reminding yourself of the objective Gospel is sometimes the very thing we need to grow in some areas, we simply cannot reduce sanctification down to this one thing as if it's the ultimate life hack for your spiritual walk. Scripture doesn't present such a reductionistic approach, and neither should we.

From there he talks about a concept he calls unbalancing and rebalancing truth. By this he means that in an indiviual moment where we need some grace from God and need to grow in some area, it is unbalanced truth that we need. By this he means there is some truth from God's word that is needed for that specific moment. If you are anxious, you may need to know that God is with you, or for you, or that He's loving. If you are living in sexual sin you may need to know that God is judge and will bring to light every evil thing, or you may need to know that God forgives and will welcome you when you repent. Powlison's point is that you seldom need all the truth about who God is all at once, or, in other words, you don't need a fully-orbed "balanced" presentation of the nature of God. You need truth that meets you in the moment. 

That being said, he doesn't mean that truth should always remain unbalanced. In the moment, the applied truth that is used to sanctify us is unbalanced. As we grow in our knowledge of God, further study rebalances the truth with that fully-orbed picture of who God is. If truth remained unbalanced, we might conclude incorrect things about who God is as we try to apply that truth into every area of life. We would fail to meet specific needs with specific truth in the lives of others. We need unbalanced truth for individual moments, and we need rebalanced truth for broader living. 

The central chapter in the book is really what I was expecting the entire book to cover. Chapter 6 asks the question "what changes you?" The answer is five-fold:
  • God changes you.
  • Trials and Suffering change you.
  • Truth from His Word changes you.
  • Other believers change you.
  • You change you. 

He supports each point with relevant Scripture texts and concludes with urging us to embrace the reality that God uses different means to bring about his sanctifying work in our lives. 

I expected this book to be a larger unpacking of the information presented in this chapter. In some ways I was disappointed that this wasn't the case. But in other ways, it may be good that he didn't do that. What he presents is simple without being simplistic. It is condensed without being reductionistic. As the book is constructed now, I would venture to guess that it is more accessible and easily digested by people looking for help. 

The rest of the book contains stories from the author's life and the lives of others about how God worked to bring about sanctification in their lives. As I reflect over my own imperfect life I find that my own story is different than those of the book, but it certainly "rhymes" with theirs. God has worked to bring about sanctification in a variety of way through a variety of circumstances. We should not reduce sanctification to "just do this one thing, and all will be set". We should embrace the diversity that God uses to conform us into the image of His son.

Overall, I do think I would have still appreciated more of a discussion of the contents in chapter 6 answering the question, "what changes you?" I think opening up those biblical texts and showing their relationship to each other would have been very beneficial. 

I also thought that a book like this could be frustrating for someone who picked it up because they had a deep desire to grow in a certain area of their life and have had difficulty gaining ground. There isn't much in this book that would provide the reader with tangible steps. This is a descriptive "how it works" book rather than a prescriptive "how to" book. Powlison wants you to be encouraged that there isn't one key, and God uses different means. For someone who has tried someone else's "key" and found it lacking, this would be good news. For someone desperate and looking for immediate help on a specific topic, that could be frustrating. Even so, the principles he provides should give such a reader ideas on how to find help for their specific issue, even if this book itself doesn't spell it all out.

Those issues notwithstanding, I found this to be a very helpful, accessible, engaging, encouraging, and thought-provoking read and would recommend it to anyone who is seeking to gain greater clarity on how God changes us.

The Preacher Behind the White Hoods by John Collins

This book has interest to me because of my local context. William Branham (1907-1965) was an influential teacher during the 1930s-60s and was part of the so-called latter rain movement. He taught doctrine similar to the oneness Pentecostals, but had his own quirks. 

His tangled web of connections is about as infamous as it can be: he was baptized and ordained by Roy E. Davis, who was one of the co-founders of the second iteration of the KKK, and he mentored Jim Jones, the infamous cult leader to led his followers to commit mass suicide, just to name a couple.

His influence on subsequent "healing" ministries cannot be overstated. In fact, the world of the latter rain Pentecostalism/Charismania is a deep, dark rabbit hole. You could chase threads of connection, involvement, and funding for ages. For example, today's so-called New Apostolic Reformation movement was founded by C. Peter Wagner, who sat under Charles E. Fuller at Fuller Theological Seminary during the days when Charles was holding revival services with Branham. What becomes very clear very quickly, is that any name that you can imagine in the Latter Rain, NAR, or other such movements, all have some connection to William Branham at some point in their lives. 

This book by John Collins is a fascinating journey of discovery on the part of the author. John is the Grandson of Willard Collins, the man who pastored Branham's church in the years following Branham's death. John, having grown up in the cult, tells the story of William Branham alongside his own journey of discovery of the truth. What is the truth?

William Branham was a con-man and a false prophet.

There is no way to do justice to the story by rehashing all the details in a blog post like this, but this book tells the story in such a captivating way and John brings ALL the receipts. Every claim made in the book has a citation, and every chapter contains a full bibliography of source material. John spent countless hours pouring over official government documents, reading old newspapers, and digging up information buried in filing rooms to piece together a more accurate picture of who Branham was. The results are stunning. 

How does a man go from being ordained by a lead man in the KKK to being one of the single most influential people within Pentecostalism/Charismania? This is a book that you will have to read to find out.

This is story that I am personally invested in because Branham's "ministry" was primarily centered in Jeffersonville, IN, which is where I currently reside and minister. The Branham Tabernacle is just minutes away, and I have visited his grave where the headstone proclaims Branham as a prophet on par with the Apostle Paul, Irenaeus, Martin Luther, and John Wesley. Many believe that Branham will be resurrected to usher in the Kingdom of God on earth, and they hold his sermons to be the Voice of God to this age. Their churches have pastors, but they spend more time listening to the old recordings from Branham than their current leaders. 

Branham rejected the trinity, taught the "serpent seed" doctrine (which holds that Eve's first sin was not merely eating literal fruit, but that is a euphemism for having sex with the devil and being impregnated by him, eventually giving birth to Cain as a result), taught that the Zodiac signs and the messages in the great Pyramids were on par with Scripture, and, perhaps most concerning, taught that he himself was the "voice of God" for this era, and many of his followers believe that all his sermons are the product of divine inspiration on par with Scripture.

Collin catalogs all this and more in his book, and also runs a website William Branham Historical Research. I have found myself frequently lost on that website as I chase down details pertaining things related to Branham. 

If I had a point of critique with the book it is only this: because the story of Branham is told through the eyes of discovery on the part of John Collins, he has a tendency to end each chapter with something like "at this point I knew it was time to dig deeper into ______". This can, at times, feel repetitive. Additionally he askes questions like "what was the connection here" or "how did this detail fit in"? Some might find this style of writing off-putting and might prefer a more straightforward approach to telling the story.


Thanks for reading about my reading. 

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