Qualities That Count: Heber J. Grant as Businessman, Missionary, and Apostle

Heber J. Grant's insomnia may have been the best thing to happen to the study of early twentieth century Church history.

Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It by Kelly Brownell

First, I must say that this book has the worst possible cover one could have chosen. Every time I look at it, I want to go to Culver's for a Double Butter Burger.

But I digress. Brownell is the guy behind the 'twinkie tax,' so he clearly has an agenda, but as the person primarily responsible for the diets of five people, I need to hear this kind of thing from time to time. There probably isn't much in this book that you haven't heard before, but it is still shocking. A mildly interesting read.

1776 by David McCullough

I love McCullough. John Adams and Truman are two of my all-time favorite books. I was so excited when I heard 1776 was about to be released. But it was very dry. There was nothing interesting here, no great little side stories, no sparkling writing. It reminded me of nothing so much as an American history textbook. I gave up after 50 pages. Not recommended.

Your Defiant Child by Russell A. Barkley

I'll have to get back to you with a real review once we've attempted to implement some of his strategies, but this seems like a useful book. I chose it because the author is a clinical expert in defiance and he claims that the strategies in the book are based on reams of research. We'll see.

A Mother's Rule by Holly Pierlot

I liked this book. There's plenty on the market for help scheduling a homeschool family, but this book is unique in that it applies the principles behind a monastic Rule to the creation of a Mother's Rule, which incorporates the physical, educational, academic, and spiritual needs of the family. I plan on incorporating most of her ideas and I enjoyed reading about familiar theological concepts through a Catholic lens. Recommended for homeschooling moms.

Mary Queen on Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George

I don't usually read fiction, even historical fiction. And, at 866 pages, this one might be a record for me. I enjoyed it, although parts were a little too graphic for my tastes. And, as is usual with historical fiction, I kept wondering which parts were historical and which were fiction.

What Einstein Told His Cook 2 by Robert Wolke

I didn't love this book--I think I've read so many kitchen chemistry books that it all seems redundant. But how disappointed can you be with a book that ends with a recipe for grilled chocolate sandwiches?

The Potentially Sane Mother's Guide to Raising Young Children by Tamara Fackrell

I thought the premise here was great: instead of yet another parenting book written by someone with menopausal amnesia, this one was written when the author's children were 6, 4, 2, and a baby. She seemed like a woman right up my ally: not only did she take on a book project, but she has a law degree and works one day per week at a law school.

Unfortunately, the book was not very useful. Short, disconnected, seemingly random thoughts on parenting fill its pages and the format forced her to be redundant. It's the same tired advice you've heard before and all the old chesnuts (i.e., men want sex and food, women don't even know what they want.) Not recommended.

David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Wright and Prince

Yes, I'm reviewing two books on David O. McKay. My original intention was to review them together (and explore the larger issue of writing faith-promoting as opposed to warts-and-all history), but I decided that wouldn't be fair. It didn't seem fair because David O. McKay: Beloved Prophet is a credible entry in the well-established subgenre of LDS biography. It does exactly what it is supposed to do. But David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism is a category killer.

David O. McKay: Beloved Prophet by Mary Jane Woodger

I have mixed feelings about the very presence of Woodger's David O. McKay: Beloved Prophet. On the one hand, as someone who wants to read biographies of all of the prophets of this dispensation, I'm always happy to see a new addition to the fold. While there are other biographies of President McKay, the pickings are pretty slim--and expensive

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

It wasn't until after I received this book that I realized that its author also wrote Isaac's Storm, which is one of my all-time favorite books. The Devil in the White City proves that Larson isn't a one-hit wonder. He weaves together the cringe-worthy story of the delays that almost ruined the 1893 World's Fair with the macabre tale of H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who operated a hotel near the fair. As Holmes introduces psychopathology to the American landscape, the fair introduces the Ferris Wheel, zipper, alternating current, and the Pledge of Allegiance (and probably inspired Walt Disney, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Baum's Oz). This is a vivid picture of the train wreck of technology and freedom that shaped the twentieth century. Highly recommended.

A Statistical Profile of Mormons: Health, Wealth, and Social Life

Anyone and everyone interested in Mormon Studies should read this book.

Where else are you going to find out that:

–LDS are three times more likely to be widowed than the non-LDS population
–LDS women pray more often than LDS men (in fact, LDS men are slightly less likely to pray than non-LDS women)
–32% of LDS pregnancies were “unwanted” or wanted “later”
–37% of LDS who attend Church weekly have had premarital sex by age 20
–LDS men are far more likely than the national average to think that the division of household chores and childcare is unfair to their wives
–on average, married LDS couples have sex (link is to poll data) five times per month (which mirrors the national average)
–7.2% of LDS youth ran away from home in the last two years
–LDS who attend Church rarely or never are more likely to smoke cigarettes, use marijuana, and be depressed than the national average
–at least among the youth, LDS are more likely than the national average to eat fruits and vegetables and exercise
–11% of LDS (national average: 22%) think marijuana should be legal?

In fact, I think you could at random select just about any sentence from this book and generate a lengthy discussion about the data and its implications. (Anyone desperate for material for her or his blog would be well-advised to consider such an approach.) A few facts I found particularly interesting:

(1) LDS women are 8% less likely than the national average to be working full time. They are actually 3% more likely than the national average to work part time. (Another study cited in the book found them 10% less likely to work full time and 2% more likely to work part time.) In other words, all of that emphasis on mothers in the home has resulted in a behavior change affecting less than 1 in 10 women. I find this surprising. (Another interesting employment stat: 71% of LDS adolescents work for pay, compared to 59% of the national average. Between working, seminary, and mutual, one wonders precisely when 37% of them find time to have illicit sex!)

(2) “Contrary to other churches, the highest rate of adult attendance in the LDS Church is by the never-married.”

(3) “Roughly 40 percent of adults in the United States report attending church or synagogue ‘within the last seven days,’ The percentage was about 40 in the 1940s, rose 8-10 percent in the 1950s, but declined to around 40 percent by 1970. It has not varied significantly for the last 30 years.”

(4) LDS women do not differ from the national average in either average age at birth of first child or percent who used birth control before conception.

(5) LDS teen girls living on the east and west coasts have higher rates of sexual activity than LDS boys in those places. However, in Utah County, the rates are the same.

(6) Perhaps the single most disturbing thing I found in this book is this: LDS family relationships are quantitatively ‘better’ than the national average, but not qualitatively better. In other words, LDS are more likely to be born into a two-parent family, more likely to marry and remarry, etc., but no more likely to describe their family relationships in positive ways than the national average. They feel no closer to father or mother, no more satisfied with communication with mother or father, no more likely to think father cares about them, etc., than the national average.

(7) “Among Mormons, the more educated and younger women show strongest support for family roles.”

(8) LDS women are “significantly higher” in depression than nonmember women.

(9) It will come as no surprise to anyone that LDS rate very conservatively on virtually all political issues. The two exceptions: the Saints show more racial tolerance and more support for civil liberties than the national average.

While the book excels at factoids, it unfortunately ends up rather uneven both in quantity and quality of interpretation. For the most part, there is no analysis of the data. Perhaps it was the intent of the authors to stop with the presentation of data and leave analysis to those who would stand on the shoulders of giants. Fine. But that isn’t exactly what happened. They irregularly dip into the data to present theories and, unfortunately, those theories range from simplistic to downright weird. For example:

Data point: Mormons are slightly more educated than the US average.
Interpretation: The Church’s teachings on the perfectibility of humans leads the Saints to seek more education. They even quote D & C 130:18-19.

I suppose there might be some slight Mormon cultural bias towards education based on our belief that you get to keep your book learnin’ in the Resurrection. But I would imagine that equally plausible reasons that LDS are (slightly) more educated than the average could include:

–those less educated might feel less comfortable in Church activity, so there might be a conversion or selection bias
–male LDS expecting to be a sole family wage earner (or any Saint expecting tithing to remove a decent chunk of their disposable income) might seek more education, expecting higher-paying jobs
–the folk belief equating prosperity with righteousness might subconsciously encourage the Saints to help that prosperity along

There are probably many other plausible theories. And perhaps all of mine are wrong. My point is simply that I don’t think you can take their (unsubstantiated) theory as the last word. (Especially since they later note that LDS are underrepresented at both ends of the education spectrum: “Apparently, education is a good thing, but extensive education is not necessarily desirable.") Since it seems that this book is geared in large part toward nonmember researchers, I think their burden for reliable interpretation is even higher than it would have been if they were speaking to the choir. Again, for the most part, they do very little speculation about the data (although they do weigh in briefly on LDS female depression and at length on political issues).

Similarly, this struck me as a sentence that could only have been written by a Mormon: “Unexpectedly . . . those who drink alcohol tend to report somewhat better health than those who do not drink.” While the data is, of course, controversial, the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption are generally accepted. Only Mormons would find this news ‘unexpected.’

They only barely address the issue of what role social science should play in the kingdom. Perhaps beyond the scope of their project, but nonetheless answers to the following questions interest me:

(1) What, if anything, should the Church as an organization do with this kind of data? For example, if we could discover correlations between, say, tithe paying and proximity of a Temple, should we build more Temples so the number of tithe payers would increase? Or, if we found that FHE had no impact of the future activity rate of children, should we de-emphasize it?

(2) What, if anything, should individuals do with this data? (And then a follow-up: Should we make this data more available to individuals?) For example, I would have guessed that less than 10% of weekly-attending Saints would have had sex by the time that they were 20. But the number is almost four times that. Should I as a YW leader or seminary teacher teach differently? (Not, of course, to water down the Church’s teachings about chastity but perhaps to emphasize repentance and begin with the idea that a third of my audience has had sex.) Similarly, LDS youth were slightly more likely to use birth control during their first sexual experience than the national average (71.4% versus 69.6%), suggesting that they were not, in fact, engaged in a ‘crime of passion,’ but had planned the event. Should this affect how we teach youth?

(3) How should this data affect how we define ourselves as Latter-day Saints? I think we are used to defining ourselves by, primarily, our history and our beliefs and practices. Should that change? The next time a casual friend says, “Tell me about the Mormons,” should I lead off with, “Well, 42% of us . . ."?

(4) Does the data tell us anything about God? For example, one of the findings in this book is that, despite the impression one might reach from reading the anecdotes in the Random Sampler in the Ensign, Church members are not less likely to be crime victims than the general population. Does this suggest that there is nothing protective about the priesthood, endowed members, or even the guidance of the Spirit? More generally, can statistics teach us any theological truths? (And how do you think it would go over if someone in my Sunday School class told a story about being protected and I replied, “Well, actually, LDS are victimized as much as the national population, so what you describe is more likely to be a mere coincidence.")

(5) I would say that the one way that this type of data is used among the Saints already is to crow about the blessings that they receive: surely you have heard comments in Church classes to the effect that Saints live longer, etc., as a result of their observance of the Word of Wisdom. (But see above on health benefits of wine: “he who lives by the nutrition data . . .") I worry about this. To use a different example that I think could be similarly abused: there is a correlation between education level and Church attendance for the Saints (nationwide, church attendance does not vary significantly by education). (Translation: The smarter you are, the more Mormon you are.) But isn’t another way of looking at this data to wonder what we are doing to alienate the less educated? We’ve talked about this before: it is virtually impossible to be an active Saint without several changes of nice clothes, a phone, reliable transportation, and a work schedule that you know several weeks in advance. At least one of these factors will knock out of the running virtually every service worker in this country.

To sum, this might be the most interesting book ever written that contains both “p<.01" and "unstandardized regression coefficient." (Fortunately, the book is almost entirely understandable by those who have no clue what those mean.) There's lots of data to have fun with here.

Cross-posted to Times and Seasons.

blink by Malcolm Gladwell

I need a neologism: a word to describe any book (usually, they seem to be in the social sciences) that tries to advance some theory (and it may or may not succeed) but in the process tells such fabulous stories that you end up not much caring about the theory.

Gladwell is such a storyteller. The anecdotes in this book are great, as were the ones in The Tipping Point. I don't care about his theories, he's just a fun read. Highly recommended.

Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry Truman by Merle Miller

I love Truman. I even named a child after him. So it was nice to read what is essentially the transcript of an oral interview with him. Because although McCullough's biography of Truman is a must-read, you don't get Truman's own voice the way you do here.

Unfortunately, the book was marred by the author's weird hostilities (apparently, the interviews were originally conducted as part of an ill-fated television script and the author spares no animosity towards any of the other participants). But this is still a great resource for the Truman fan.

Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels by Frances Gench

This statement from The Blog of Happiest Fun got a lot of links from other female bloggernaclites:

I would like to spend more time discussing the lives of strong women in the scriptures. Women like Hannah, Deborah, Jael, or Anna the prophetess. There are so many women that I find interesting, and I don’t hear about them enough. I’d like to study their lives some more.

I plan on reviewing a half dozen or so books about women in the scriptures over the next few months. My hope is that the reviews will spark conversation about women in the scriptures and also will provide suggestions (or warnings!) for those wanting to read more on their own.

In theory, I agree with Ben Spackman when he writes that we should make more use of non-LDS scripture resources for our personal study. But he’s spot on when he notes that “LDS are unaware of what resources exist, what’s good, and where to find them. With a few exceptions, such things aren’t available at your local Deseret Book.” There are a lot of books on women in the scriptures, but some are too radical, too academic*, or too jargon-y to start with. Good starting places would include The Women’s Bible Commentary and The Word According the Eve. But Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels is now the best first read on women in the scriptures. Let me tell you why:

(1) Gench deserves a standing ovation for avoiding jargon. The field of biblical studies is notorious for hiding simple concepts in really complicated words. Gench has enough confidence in her prose that she doesn’t need to hide behind her words.

(2) She is very good as sketching out several possible solutions to interpretive puzzles and leaving it to the reader to make the final call.

(3) She is writing from a position of faith. While I certainly think that it is possible for a Saint to glean something useful–even something devotional–from a writer whose intention is different, it is easier in the beginning to read a writer who finds normative value in the text.

(4) She defines ‘feminist’ in a way that shouldn’t rankle most LDS readers. She isn’t trying to prove through these stories that the women in them are perfect people. (We’ve got enough Molly Mormons today; no point in reading them back into the scriptures.) In fact, she provides some her most trenchant yet touching commentary when considering the limitations of the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4):

Moreover, we have also had occasion to note the tentative nature of her witness ("Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” [4:29]), for this statement too is instructive. Her example reminds us, as noted earlier, that faith that is tentative, full of questions, and not yet mature can bear witness and do so effectively. . . . Furthermore, Fred Craddock insightfully highlights ways in which the Samaritan woman, too, is a refreshing model of genuine dialogue:

Her witness . . . is invitational (come and see), not judgmental; it is within the range permitted by her experience; it is honest with its own uncertainty; it is for everyone who will hear. How refreshing. Her witness avoids triumphalism, hawking someone else’s conclusions, packaged answers to unasked questions, thinly veiled ultimatums and threats of hell, and assumptions of certainty on theological matters. She does convey, however, her willingness to let her hearers arrive at their own affirmations about Jesus, and they do: “This is indeed the Savior of the world.”

In all of these ways, the Samaritan woman models effective method in mission.

I’m sure I don’t have to hit you over the head with how well this passage could and should apply to LDS missionary work. But I digress. In general, Gench’s feminism can best be summarized as “let’s take these texts seriously and read them thoughtfully and not ignore them just because they are about women.” In her discussion of Mary and Martha, she doesn’t try to ’solve’ a difficult text as much as she simply considers many interpretive options and acknowledges the conundrums that this story presents.

(5) Her format does not present her own scholarship but rather contains extensive explanations about the positions of other scholars, excellent questions for discussion at the end of each chapter (making this a great–if unexpected–choice for a ward book group), and thorough suggestions for further study (books and articles).

(6) Even for Saints not particularly interested in women’s stories in the scriptures, there’s a lot here to think about. For example, we normally bestow quite a place of honor on the Epistle of James due to its role in the Restoration. But Gench notes that it is “an epistle many Western Christians have long regarded as the junk mail of the New Testament–or as Martin Luther put it, an ‘epistle of straw.’” I am also under the impression that most Saints are not aware of the extent to which many interpretations are subtly antisemitic. Gench provides a great summary of this issue.

(7) I hate the Whack-a-moral approach to Sunday School, partially because I think there’s an almost infinite number of morals that we could whack out of any passage, and I’m tired of hearing the same one over and over again, as if the passage were just a longhanded way of introducing a discussion about the topic that we really wanted to talk about. So I appreciate that for each story, after closely reading the text, Gench presents several different ‘angles of vision’ from which to consider the story.

(8) Because John 8:1-11 is almost universally regarded as a (much) later addition to John, it is very difficult to find good commentary on this text. Her chapter on this passage is wonderful (although she should have skipped Kinukawa’s reading of this story–it’s just weird).

While I think this is a fabulous book for Saints who want an entry into the world of feminist biblical studies, there are a few sticking points:

(1) Most notably in the chapter on the Canaanite woman, she uses redaction criticism (that is, she considers Matthew to be an editor of the story from Mark). Readers may not be comfortable with assertions that Matthew has “expanded the conversational component of the story” with its implication that Matthew has “made up” dialogue for Jesus. At the risk of starting my own threadjack (can you do that?), I wonder if redaction criticism (of the NT; the NT and the BoM would be an entirely different can of worms) can serve any useful role for LDS readers. She occasionally makes interpretive moves that I think are suspect ("Because [Jesus’ journey to Samaria] is not corroborated anywhere else in the New Testament, that the historical Jesus carried out a mission in Samaria is perhaps unlikely.") and I would hope that a reader new to biblical studies wouldn’t be too cowed by her opinions.

(2) She has what comes off as an almost pro forma paragraph in defense of the right to ordination of gays and lesbians, which probably won’t sit too well with most LDS readers.

But these are minor flaws in an otherwise extremely useful introduction to the study of women in the New Testament.

* I love Anne Wire; she was my thesis advisor, but this book is not a starting point for learning about women in the scriptures.

Cross-posted from Times and Seasons

The Rock of Our Reedemer: Talks from the 2002 BYU Women's Conference

I'm not entirely sure what has happened; Women's Conference books used to be fabulous. Since about 2000, they are barely worth reading. I cannot point to one talk in here that I found particularly moving or remarkable.

In the Strength of the Lord: The Life and Teachings of James E. Faust by Jim Bell

This book had lots of nice stories about President Faust, but it was just too short and undeveloped for me to really get a feel for him as a person. President Faust served on JFK's civils rights commission, but that's only mentioned in passing in this book. It deserved at least a chapter! Although a reasonably weighty tome, over half of the book is 'teachings,' which, in this case, means isolated paragraphs arranged topically. I hate isolated paragraphs arranged topically. (But I've often thought it would be great for bios of Church leaders to contain their one or two favorite talks at the end, as that would really give the readers a feel for that person.)

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

I've developed a real enjoyment for books that seem to be a mixed bag (where some things ring true but others don't). I appreciate the opportunity that they give me to sort and think.

That's definitely the case here. Kohn's thesis is that rewards ("do this and you'll get that") are bad because they ruin intrinsic motivation ("this must be boring/hard/etc. or they wouldn't be offering me that to do it"). He applies this theory to business (no more merit pay), schools (no more reward programs or even grades), and childraising (no rewards, punishments, or even praise).

I think he makes a good case for schools: learning is intrinsically motivating, and offering kids Pizza Hut coupons when they read books is a prime recipe for fat kids who don't like to read. I think his idea that only two grade (A and Incomplete) be given is excellent, and basically (but not formally) what we do when we homeschool.

But his ideas don't work as well for workers and children, who are not usually intrinsically motivated to write code or clean their rooms.

And that's why my kids will continue to be allowed to pick out a box of cereal if they act like civilized human beings in the grocery store.

Women in Eternity, Women of Zion by Sorensen and Cassler

Imagine, if you will, that a stalwart member of the Church approached you with some concerns about the theological underpinnings of the Word of Wisdom. What might you do? Castigate him as a rebellious secularizer? Remind her that questioning was the fast road to apostasy?

The Dawning of a Brighter Day by Alexander Morrison

Elder Morrison, a General Authority, has spent time in Africa both as a Church representative and as a physician for the WHO. This short and slightly outdated book has some interesting stories, but seems to be victim of something Morrison himself derides near the end: talking about Africa and Africans using the tired cliches of the nineteenth century.