Reviews

 
 
Back to the fundamentals Brett Grainger's grandfather was a fundamentalist preacher who became convinced that he knew the exact date of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. So on Sept. 11, 1988, he and his wife put on their best clothes and sat down to wait. The day wore on, Jesus didn't come and, finally around dinner time, Grainger's grandmother went into the kitchen to cook a roast. She had put it out to thaw that morning - just in case. Read more > —Kurt Kleiner, The Globe & Mail 
Published: Saturday, April 5, 2008  Thinking about fundamentalism The Creation Museum, which opened last spring near Cincinnati depicts dinosaurs among the animals sharing the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The "young-earth" creationists behind the museum believe God made the world, all of it, about 6,000 years ago. Instructors explain that most dinosaurs were wiped out by the Flood and the two Noah crammed into the Ark later died because the post-Flood environment wasn't dinosaur-friendly. Read More > —Robert Fulford, The National Post  Published: Saturday, April 05, 2008  This first book by former Sojourners editor and NPR producer Grainger reflects both his personal background and his graduate work at Harvard Divinity School. Throughout, he intersperses vivid and sometimes humorous accounts of growing up in a fundamentalist family with historical data and theological concepts. In the process, he discusses such elements of Christian fundamentalism as biblical literalism, conversion experiences, creationism, and social and moral issues, tracing their origins while examining current trends. Grainger makes clear that Fundamentalism is not static but is actually a highly adaptable movement that reevaluates itself and its approach in the light of each new challenge; he describes it as less a reactionary movement than "an alternate way to be modern." This is a thought-provoking examination of an often maligned part of American Christianity, showing its strengths as well as its weaknesses. Recommended for academic and public libraries. —Library Journal, March 15, 2008  Brett Grainger's Plymouth Brethren family revered manual labor and looked on books other than the Bible with mild suspicion. When, on September 11, 1988, Grainger's grandmother prepared to be raptured, she called his mother to say that she could have grandma's homemade preserves. The Plymouth Brethren are fundamentalist fundamentalists, strict seperationists, "come outers" in the vernacular of the early 20th century, when fundamentalism hardened its resolve to be "in the world but not of it." In the World and Not of It is the title of a slim new book by Grainger, a journalist who has traveled between secular NPR and evangelical Sojourners. Grainger alternates between memoir, explication of fundamentalist history and reports from the fronts of contemporary fundamentalism, Hell House and Bible colleges and the Ken Ham's Creation Museum. The book's subtitle -- One Family's Militant Faith and the History of Fundamentalism in America -- is a bit epic for a story that spans 150 rather small pages, and Grainger's reported narratives of fundamentalism seem disconnected from the memoir / history, but throughout he maintains a quietly curious tone that allows his family's "militant faith" to emerge as both tragically constrained and surprisingly adaptable. Most compelling is Grainger's insider/outsider observations of his grandparents' everyday religion, such as the following passage describing in terms as perceptive as any I've read the relationship between religion and media, the ways in which the physical embodiments of faith reveal the nuances of a religion that from the outside may appear to be nothing more than a blunt cudgel of doctrine. It's worth reproducing in full: Everything in the daily life of the Brethren revolved around reading and digesting the Word. They lived off the Bible the way the Great Plains Indians lived off the buffalo. No part was waste. Horns, spleen, tail -- everything had its proper use and purpose. All Scripture was inspired of God and worthy for instruction. Even the vast intestinal stretches of I Chronicles, the endless coils of begats, were laid in the sun to dry, then used to carry water. Not a day passed when they did not search the Scriptures for comfort or correction. The Word waited on the nightstand. It stared down from bookcases and dozed in glove compartments. Women carried a small, tidy volume in their purses. The men's were considerably larger. A believer's Bible was expected to age at roughly the same pace as his body. Elderly brothers carried copies that were battered and falling to pieces, with sagging spines and missing pages. Such Bibles were highly prized. They marked a man well acquainted with the Word. My grandfather's Bible was little more than a patch of rawhide wrapped around a ragged sheaf of pages. The binding was broken and whole chapters were missing or out of order, but he always seemed to be able to find what he needed. --Jeff Sharlet ( www.therevealer.org )  Grainger grew up in the small, "militant" (his word), and fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren, whom he thought of as "everyday men  and women who lived lives of quiet piety," though they considered  themselves outsiders. Conventionally defining a fundamentalist as a  believer in the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Jesus, the  idea that Jesus died for our sins, the Resurrection, and the Second Coming, thought by some to include the Rapture, Grainger emphasizes that fundamentalism is hardly monolithic. His insightful and partly autobiographical book examines the history of fundamentalism; seminal fundamentalist figures and institutions, including John Nelson Darby, the Dallas Theological Seminary, Cyrus I. Scofield, and others; and  the concepts of dispensationalism and personal salvation. He closes with visits to two different fundamentalist establishments: the Holy Land Experience, a biblical theme park in Orlando, and the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Although no longer fundamentalist, Grainger still feels compelled to return to the religion of his hildhood, at least in reflection and memory. This satisfying book is his attempt to explain why. – Booklist, March 1, 2008  "Brett Grainger offers an impressive family portrait of Christian Fundamentalism in America, in this timely, intimate and wonderfully written work. Grainger's retreat from fundamentalism-and his eventual journey back to faith-give him a unique perspective on an often misunderstood segment of American culture, both critical and sympathetic. In the World But Not Of It is a must read for anyone listening to the persistent heartbeat of religion in America." — Jim Wallis, author of The Great Awakening and God's Politics, and President of Sojourners  "In In the World But Not of It, Brett Grainger puts a human face on Christian fundamentalism-the face of his mother, his father, his grandfather, himself. This wise and beautiful book is art of a high and dignified calling, a must read for believer and skeptic alike." — Dennis Covington, author of Salvation on Sand Mountain  "'Fundamentalism' is often discussed and disparaged, but rarely is it well understood. Grainger puts a face, a genuine and likeable one, on this often fuzzy term. His portrait also demonstrates the tensions and the diversity within a religious movement no one can ignore today." — Harvey Cox, author of When Jesus Came to Harvard  “In the World But Not of It is a profoundly important book for the 21st century. The intimate personal narrative that fills its pages serves as living testimony to the fact that struggles over concepts of fundamentalism, extremism, and militancy are not the monopoly of any one faith. Rather, they are universal struggles of all people in all faiths. By opening the doors of his soul to readers with truth, authenticity and wisdom, Brett Grainger is a spiritual ambassador of the kind the world of today so desperately needs.” — Asra Nomani, author of Standing Alone in Meccahttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080405.BKBRET05/TPStory/Entertainment/Bookshttp://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=6758658f-5276-4332-9c74-e6fc0e54197e&k=15177http://www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_002960.phpshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2

In the world but not of it