cosmicbookworm's reviews
309 reviews

This is an important book. Randall Balmer is a historian who's father was affiliated with Westchester EFree church in Des Moines. He attended high school in Des Moines in the '70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Balmer

While it is a short book, and a quick read, this was a gut wrenching read for me.
Made me once again ashamed and asking forgiveness for the years I spent working on behalf of the "religious" right. While it has been more than a decade since I realized the error of my ways, there are truths presented here that make me sick. Truths that make me feel duped, conned and used.

This is an eye opening account of the rise of the Religious Right in the political arena, and how the real reason Christian leaders went after the evangelical vote and started encouraging Christians to war against abortion and Gays was because the IRS had taken away Bob Jones University tax exempt status. Christian schools had popped up in response to desegregation of public schools. The Christian schools didn't want the government telling them that they could not discriminate.

The people exposed in this book do not represent my brand of Christianity. A sobering reminder that it is not always obvious who are the wolves and who are the sheep.

There is a lot to absorb here. A long and winding road of important information. Gut wrenching to learn that some of the leaders that have been instrumental in shaping Evangelical opinion, belief and behavior are not the men we would hope them to be. I was drawn to this book because of it's aim of providing an explanation of how we got to the place where Evangelicals are big Trump supporters. When I have a long time Christian friend saying of immigrants "we shouldn't have to pay for that" I am motivated to find out how she became so Pro Trump when God has asked us to welcome the stranger, love justice, and live a life that is polar opposite to what Trump represents. The author shows us how decades of Christian leadership, some of whom have been held in high esteem, with selfish and hateful motives has helped suck us in to hateful patterns. The brainwashing didn't start with Trump. He is just the net result. We have been brainwashed by many others along the way.

Enjoyed this book maybe the most of any of the Narnia books so far.
Favorite quote: “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

Reading this book was a little bit cathartic to me. Philip Yancey is very much still with us. He is my husband's age. He wrote this book this past year. I haven't read a whole lot of his work, but my Grandmother (who died in 1983) loved his work and gave me the book "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made." And my parents, who died in 1994 and 2008 gave me the book "Disappointment with God" Sometime around 1991. I believe I read the first one before Grandma died, but I am pretty sure that I never read the one my folks gave me. I didn't have the fortitude to do so.

Where the Light Fell takes an eye opening look at families, churches and church leaders who believed in the curse of Ham, and other dangerous ideas. A sobering view of how the church played a part in America's racism. And a sobering view of how we as Christians can fall into lives that are far from Christian by hanging on to judgmental and fear mongering ways.

This had to have been a hard book for Philip Yancey to write. I for one appreciate it. Now I'm inspired to go back and read the books given to me by my Grandmother and parents, and try to know what it is they wanted me to gain from reading these books.

A wonderful memoir of one family's experience growing up and being Black in Philadelphia. A tribute to her father who left books for her and told her to "Read Until You Understand." Wonderful advice. And to her mother who raised her well. Coming away with a plethora of reading material to explore.

I enjoyed some of this series better than others and this one wasn't my favorite book.
My attention span might not be quite long enough!
Thinking of what I would have enjoyed as a kid, these really don't seem like that great for chilrens books at times. As an adult I am glad to be able to say that I have read them.

This was a difficult novel to read. It had many layers and was at times difficult to follow but it is well worth the read. While it is a novel it is based on a real slave family who's circumstances were just awful. Includes a ghost .... or was it resulting mental illness.....not sure. You just want to step in and stop the horror. "Read until you understand."

So many layers. Read for book club and done a month early because I read in one day. Very out of character - couldn't put it down because I needed closure. Life is complicated and unfair. Everyone sees things from a different perspective and has circumstances that can be peeled off like onion layers. The book didn't end the way I had hoped. Having to remind myself that it is only a novel. The problem is that the central circumstance of the book - a black man charged with a crime he did not commit, and dealt with unfairly by the court system - is real....not for this fictional character, but for so many others.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book that I read as a child. Physically the same book that I read when I was a kid. The book was one that was withdrawn from the Stewart Library and purchased by my Dad for my girls when they were little. That book had repairs and an ugly cover that I had put on it when I worked at the library in the '70s. A tale of four friends that teaches the importance of friendship, and not to be an egotistical fool. While it does show friends that never give up perhaps it doesn't deal with enabling. And I'm not sure the toad has really learned his lesson in the end. He is quite the ridiculous jack in the box.

Clint Smith is a wonderful wordsmith. Reading his book I almost felt that I was traveling with him.
Smith is an excellent researcher. There is so much we don't know and so much we have not been told. So much of history has been whitewashed. And as guilty as Americans are and were, we, and our ancestors are not the only people who have been controlled by greed and inhumanity. It is a universal problem. Smith looks objectively at different angles and viewpoints of key people, places and events. I learned so much and racked up a lot of bunny trails to go down. Book number two on my "read until you understand" adventure. This one should be required reading for all of us, especially our high school students.