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This high praise for Nancy French's book Ghosted: An American Story from Christianity Today editor Russell Moore will save me a lot of words:
I didn't know writing could be this haunting and hilarious, heartbreaking and exhilarating all at the same time. I did not want it to end. This tour de force of storytelling and sense-making is one of the most gripping and beautiful memoirs in a generation.
Nancy French was born and raised in the Appalachian foothills, a grandchild of the mountain culture, and grew up in a church community that nurtured her faith and gave her love and care ... until the devastating day that it didn't. She attended a Church of Christ college ... until she couldn't stomach the chapel's lazy positivity and stopped attending, even though chapel attendance was compulsory.
As a result, at age twenty, "by now my affection for Rush Limbaugh and church had disappeared and I considered myself a feminist, atheist, liberal." That was the moment when she encountered David French, a Republican Christian law student, an encounter that resulted in a restoration of faith (well, not the exact same faith), a marriage that has lasted three decades and counting—and a career in ghostwriting for Republicans that didn't last quite as long.
Obviously, there's nothing terribly linear about French's story, with each swoop and dive reflecting something of the wrenching spiritual, political, and cultural turmoil of her country in those decades. Her story includes betrayal, giddy hope, predators protected by churches, miracles, allies lost and found—it's a good thing she's an excellent storyteller! Take a look at these reviews for more of what I mean:
- A secular review (Publisher's Weekly).
- A review from a Christian viewpoint (in the late lamented publication Current).
- A slightly more critical review ("But I complain too much") in the Englewood Review of Books.
Ghosted has many important messages, including powerful testimony against the shame of being a childhood target of sexual assault in the church. I hope everyone who needs these messages will read this book. But there's something else that intrigued me as a lifelong lefty: the passing references to the way conservatives see us. I'm not necessarily talking now about who is objectively more correct about policy and morality; it's the cultural assumptions and conclusions that seemingly entitle them to dismiss us (and us them).
For example, here French is commenting on the reactions to the book she co-authored with Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol:
I’d thought that people of both parties would rally around Bristol and show her compassion. That’s not what happened. It slowly dawned on me that when the Democrats loudly proclaimed “believe all women,” they really meant “the right kind of women”—meaning not “right” on the political spectrum at all. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They had embraced Ted Kennedy, even though he flipped his car, sent his female passenger careening into a pond, and left her there to die. They revered Bill Clinton, even though he was credibly accused of rape by multiple women.
Bristol was well spoken and the book was clear. However, a nuanced, trauma-informed conversation did not arise from her revelations. Bristol told the truth, and Democrats laughed. After seeing how people mocked this young mother, I was fully confident the Democrats were not only wrong on the issue of women, they were callously wrong. They harbored and protected abusers of women, and Republicans alone would stand against sexual injustice.
In spite of my certainty, the truth turned out to be much more complicated than I thought.
Soon a major turning point for French came: the acclamation Donald Trump received from the very people whose ostensible values she cherished and represented in her writing, and who, as it turned out, turned against her and her husband when they found that contradiction intolerable. As those contradictions mounted up with every Trumpian assault on rhetorical decency, she lost many clients, and kept the few that agreed to her condition that she would not write pieces in favor of Trump.
In my mind, however, I made a vow: I would not bear false witness against my liberal neighbor.
That one decision was the beginning of the end of my political ghostwriting career.
I hope that progressives, even in the shadow of Donald Trump's devastating attacks on political and ethical norms, are willing to make the same commitment against bearing false witness against their (our) opponents.
A grievously neglected commandment.
Here's a podcast in which Julie Roys, a Christian investigative journalist who often focuses on church-related corruption and abuse, interviews Nancy French.
Back on March 27, Medardo Gómez, Lutheran bishop of El Salvador, died. He made a deep impression on me during a visit back in the time of the civil war and death squads. Rest in peace!
Christine Patterson on the importance of cultural intelligence for service in a divided world.
A poll suggests that Israelis increasingly hold genocidal views concerning Palestinians. Not coincidentally, the Israeli government announces the creation or "legalization" of 22 new settlements on the West Bank. Britain Yearly Meeting minutes its discernment that genocide is occurring in Gaza.
Sue Foley, the "Ice Queen" of blues guitarists, gives us an extended solo....
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