Unchristian : what a new generation really thinks about Christianity– and why it matters /by David Kinnaman. [book review]

Unchristian : what a new generation really thinks about Christianity– and why it matters /by David Kinnaman.

I had mixed feelings about this book – on several levels. Despite its flaws this is a powerful and even important book.

The basis of the book is research on what people think about Christians. The results opened the eyes of the author, though they probably would be less surprising to non-Christians. Christians are thought to be unChristian, not only by those who don’t share their faith, but by many Christians under 30.

What words did those surveyed who were 16-29 most often use to describe present-day Christianity? Antihomosexual (90% of “Outsiders” / 80% of churchgoers), judgmental (87%/52%), hypocritical (85%/47%), old-fashioned (78%/36%), too political (75%/50%), out of touch with reality (72%/32%). This is the worst kind of news for Christian churches.

The author advises against defensiveness. Of course religion is old-fashioned, it must judge and doesn’t the Bible condemn homosexuality? Even so, none of these descriptions makes it attractive to new adherents. Indeed, they are positive barriers to reaching most people with Good News.

At its best, the result is a book that calls for every Christian to examine their life and change it so as to live a more Christ-like, open, accepting life, one that is a beacon to the world and an advertisement to those of other or no faith. It is a call to change oneself and one’s church to be more Christian and to specifically avoid what the author terms unChristianity. Short reflections from various religious writers call for a larger agenda – caring for the sick, priority for the poor, love for the outcast – in short the social gospel.

It also calls for humility, a trait I both value and lack. Humble Christians would not be called to impose their will, but lead others to the truth and the way. Their friendships would extend throughout the community and not be limited to their church. They would listen to those who disagreed with them and not seek quick conversions, but conversations.

Now that I can be sure that I am not damning this book with faith praise, I can express my misgivings. Christian often means born again real Bible Christians, though maybe they could ally with those “other” Christians. Real Christians have no doubt that homosexuals are evil, unless they are pledged virgins. The book fudges on Bible inerrancy – Bible “principles” are inerrant, leaving the way open to accepting modern science and evolution. Christianity sometimes means those “true” or born again Christians and sometime leaks over to mere mainline Protestants or even Catholics.

I think that the book uses a too narrow definition of Christianity and should just identify its subject as a US based group of sects and denominations. I have doubts about identifying people who are made in God’s image as inherently evil unless they turn their back on a normal need for companionship, though that is what my priest and bishop preach. As a Catholic, I believe that the Church precedes the Bible, not the other way around.

Despite my misgivings, I was touched by this book and its sincere efforts to work out what Christianity should be and where it should be headed. None of my misgivings affect the reality of the statistics, the benefits of deep consideration of how to continue reforming a sinful church or the prayerful sincerity of the authors. While this book may suffer in comparison with EJ Dionne’s Souled Out, that is not faint praise

Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right by E. J., Jr. Dionne.

Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right by E. J., Jr. Dionne.

I have read a number of political and religious titles in the past year and this is among the best in both categories. Dionne is a political analyst of the first rank, not at all like the many talking/shouting heads that populate cable news. He is also both knowledgeable and even pastoral when he discusses religion.

He definitely has opinions, but he never moves into attack mode. He can understand why many religious people are social conservatives, since religions are innately conservative. Again and again throughout the book, he not only gives the other side of an argument its due, but even declares how necessary his opponents are to a balanced viewpoint. Rather than try to use religion to support his views, he argues against any who do so without the humility to recognize the right on the other side. Religion deserves to be more than a tool for either political party.

Dionne provides a nuanced narrative of the use/misuse of religion by politicians. That doesn’t mean he sees no role for faith based politics, both progressive and conservative. Indeed he says they both have a part to play. He deplores the restriction of religious fervor to gay marriage and abortion, without pretending that those issues are unimportant or irrelevant.

In case you think this all seems namby-pamby and wishy-washy, be prepared for his section on Terry Schiavo, which is scathing. He is not above a jeremiad, but the center of his book is pastoral, more pastoral than some pastors I’ve endured.

This is a book to rile you up and calm you down. To move you to action, but humility too. Simply the best book on religion and politics I have come across.

The Party Faithful : How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap by Amy Sullivan [book review]

The Party Faithful : How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap by Amy Sullivan [book review]

Some on-line progressives to dismiss Amy Sullivan as a concern troll, mainly those who have managed to convince themselves that Democrats can somehow regain power without reconciling themselves to the vast majority of voters who take religion more seriously than they take politics. That they are wrong does not make Sullivan right on all counts, but she is certainly a voice worth hearing.

The book starts with a narrative of how Democrats lose the Evangelical and Catholic vote. History is rarely confined to a single narrative, but there is much to recommend Sullivan’s chronicle. To a great extent, Democrats did write off both groups as holding positions incompatible with the party’s. The most adept Republicans recognized that politics consists of unifying those holding differing positions to build a governing coalition. There can be no doubt that much that the Republicans did was deceitful and damaged both the party and the co-opted religious groups in a very short run. That does not excuse the Democrats for their failures.

Sullivan moves on to the Clinton years, in a chapter subtitled “faithful presidency”. This might seem like a bit of a stretch, but she hits the nail on the head in the following chapter on “John Kerry’s Religion Disaster.” It certainly wasn’t that Kerry was not a faithful Christian and a thoughtful Catholic, but that he pretended that whole part of his life didn’t matter. Religion matters to most religious people. Sullivan is right in pointing out that his response worked for Kennedy, but JFK didn’t have to address abortion. Forty years later, a lot has changed.

Similarly, Sullivan’s prescriptions for making the Democratic Party more “religion-friendly” have a lot of merit. It is not enough to show that the Republicans have been hypocrites or that they cynically manipulated believers, Democrats must earn votes. Nothing wrong with that. In a democracy, building coalitions is how you achieve the power to accomplish things.

Sullivan’s book is valuable to religious progressives for its narrative strength, though it will have little shocking to most of them. Those who want to either use or exclude religion will find little here of value.

PLa Conference in Minneapolis (2)

One of the programs I have now seen at least three times is Karen Hyman’s on Reinventing the Library.  I am normally skittish about “re-invention”, because I feel strongly about the mission of the public library and don’t think very highly of efforts by the likes of Steve Coffman to re-invent it. A re-invented wheel could roll better or it might be square. The way to tell the difference it to see it it still fulfills its mission. Too often, re-invented libraries are square wheels.

This is not true of Hyman’s presentations. They can be a bit of a slap across the face, in a good Zen way. Some of her best bits were in a section on the dangers of “active Inertia.”

[Organizations can] fall prey to active inertia — responding to even the most disruptive market shifts by accelerating activities that succeeded in the past. When the world changes, organizations trapped in active inertia do more of the same.  … To avoid active inertia, you can forget about…  “Best practices” i.e. things that possibly worked somewhere else last year.   The traditional long range plan with action steps i.e. things that might be good ideas if this year was like last year and next year was like this year.

This is based on the writings of Donald Sull, like Porter, someone who appears in Harvard Business Review. Damn, I have to get back to scanning articles there.

This ties back to the difference between operational and strategic. If you are in a hole, operational thinking asks how to make the hole deeper, wider and more comfortable. Strategic thinking asks about maybe getting out. (Note to GW Bush and friends)

Another takeaway is that every library is a destination / experience library, some just care about the experience people have when they arrive. Can  we be rude to a cute 9 year old - certainly, without thinking twice. If we are concerned about hospitality, we would need to change a lot of things.

One approach she and several other speakers mentioned is “zoning”, having a variety of spaces with differing rulesets, some loud gathering spaces, some quiet study spots, places for children and families, areas for adults to look at books. I think we “get” this at McMillan, but have it about half implemented. I’ll stop here since I have a dinner to cook and you can see the handout at the link above, which includes Hyman’s contact information.

Operational vs strategic

In CIP on the Moon, John Celli quotes noted business writer Michael Porter on the difference between management / operations / how we do things and leadership/strategy/ why we do things. I am going to break a small rule here and get political, so skip this if you want only library related thoughts.

Since this administration started the run up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, we have been fed reports every six months about how well things are going.  New sets of tactics (called strategies, but really operational) have been rolled out regularly to great acclaim.  New types of counter-insurgency ops would make a difference. Funding local warlords would strengthen democracy. Holding elections would make all the difference (ignoring the truism - one man/one vote / one time). This is made even more opaque when the military refers to mission. Libraries/ churches / organizations / businesses may have a mission which defines them, lets them know what success is and keeps them true to their origins.

It is in the sense that our Mission / Strategy in Iraq is a failure. Not that our troops (including my sons) don’t do their best, follow orders and act in the best tradition of their services, but that there is a failure right at the top, at the strategic level.

In The Pentagon’s New Map, Thomas PM Barnett details his A-Z roadmap for dealing with failed regimes. I believe that if this administration had followed something close to this as a strategy, we might well have obtained a worthy result in Iraq.

Sadly, this administration followed more of an Alpha to Omega strategy, one which intersects Barnett’s at at least one point (invade Iraq and depose Saddam), but diverges from it just about everywhere else. No coalition building, no buy-in from regional players, no broad based reconstruction effort, no concern for security until the situation was chaotic and beyond repair, no consideration of local conditions, too much emphasis on US political considerations.

This demonstrates the importance of proper grand strategy. When you are aiming at the right target, even a near miss is effective. You can correct your aim and sight in on the target. When you are aiming at the wrong target, even a bullseye is not helpful. Mid-course corrections and adjustments just keep you on the wrong road. No matter how long we continue to pursue this current flawed strategy, no matter how effective the operations are, we are just wasting blood and treasure and time, none of which we can afford to spare.
Only a new strategy can retrieve the situation. More troops, more payouts to local warlords, more technology, more kinetics - even taken together they do not equal a change in strategy. They are just reinforcing failure, something that this administration has turned into an art form.

The American public recognizes this, without being able to articulate it. They know things are headed in the wrong direction, without being able to specify the right direction. It is one reason that Iraq is not in the forefront of discussion any more. It is a rear view decision. It was a mistake. We need to disentangle  ourselves. More of the same isn’t an option, even if it were possible, which it isn’t.

I now return you to your librarian. As always, political posts are (almost) always relegated to DailyKos.

CIP on the Moon - comments

CIP on the moon -By John Celli — netConnect, 1/15/2008

I often blow through the Net Connect part of Library Journal. I am not alone in that. I am probably the only person at my library who pays any attention to it at all.  Too much Library 2.0 and other hooey. But Celli caught my attention. Not only does he quote the Boston Trustees, he also cites Michael Porter, another favorite of mine and a seminal source for my writing.

Here is why this article matters:

“Improving operational effectiveness is a necessary part of management,” Michael Porter notes in On Competition (Harvard Business Sch., 1998), “but it is not strategy.”

A company’s history, Porter suggests, can also help to revitalize its strategy. “What was the vision of the founder? What were the products and customers that made the company?” he reminds us to ask. In his History of Libraries in the Western World (Scarecrow Pr., 1984), Michael Harris identifies a passage in the 1852 Trustees Report of the Boston Public Library that articulates, “perhaps better than any document before or since, the ideal conception of public library service”:

As Porter says elsewhere, technology is not only not a strategy, it isn’t even a competitive advantage.

Now that I am bumping up against just copying the article, time for some comments.

It is great to improve operational effectiveness and that is the function of good management. Keeping the basis of your business/ operations in mind and using it to guide the operations is leadership and strategy. Librarians, being a passive/aggressive profession, make decent managers, but few aspire to leadership. We love to tweak libraries and make them better, but there is a serious resistance to looking under the hood and seeing just what it is we actually are doing for a living. Library history is made even more boring than is needs to be and it isn’t thrilling reading. But without it, we lose sight of why libraries exist. As this article suggests, it is not the containers (books), but the content. Celli may not have all the answers, but he is asking the right questions. Bravo!

Another recent article in a non-library source asked if libraries could be started today and what justification could they use in requesting public funding. The only answer is: the same rationale that was used the first time.  Public education for citizens is the only answer that has any traction. Not as a middle class entitlement, not as some legacy institution. Certainly not as a First Amendment institution.

I was heartened to see mission emphasized in several programs at the 2008 PLA. Too many programs focus on how rather than why. It is great to see how someone displays materials or designs cool spaces, but why are those spaces designed that way, why does display matter. Why do we talk so little about the contents of our libraries? No matter how much content a library has, how much on-line access it facilitates, how much it displays, if the content isn’t first rate, you are reduced to selling sizzle when you are charged with providing steak. Thus we can circle back to mission, serving the local community and making the world a better place. To do less is to be less than managers - just bureaucrats.

Public Library Association in Minneapolis (1)

I now interrupt my tour of the Boston Trustees for a series of comments of the 2008 Public Library Association conference in Minneapolis.

For a start I will mention one of the highlights and a slight disappointment. The most energizing program I attended was presented by Greg Buss, the director of Richmond Public Library (BC). They generously keep their presentations on their website under About Us.

Now, my library (like many others) has used Richmond as a test bed for the last decade. They try things out and after we can see that they work, we adapt them to our situation.  We went self check after seeing how they did it, though we also owe a debt to Waukesha Public Library, who provided  a more local example. We have moved to display areas, also following their example. While we did not get any amazing new ideas from them this time, Buss did remind us of our goals and that sparked what I hope will be a new wave of innovation. His presentation may be the focus of our next staff training day.  He also echoed our main thesis - that you do all this to become a great library. Not a great bookstore, not an excellent retail establishment. No innovation should be planned without seeing that it serves the library’s mission - otherwise why bother. All this is also in line with my favorite Chesterton quote. I won’t repeat it, though you can find it in my book under Chesterton.

I was disappointed in the virtual conference - not in the content, but in the participation. I was granted permission to host a virtual Talk Table. Now I hosted a non-virtual Talk Table in Seattle four years ago and found it enlightening. It is helpful to get all your ducks in a row, think things through and put it on paper. My topic this time was about how we slowly evolved into a more displayed oriented library, especially small steps that can be taken to start on the road to where Richmond PL already is. I was quite pleased with the presentation, which was narrated /recorded PowerPoint, a format I hadn’t attempted before. But in the event, it seems that none of the Talk Tables generated much discussion. They also seemed hard to find and poorly linked from the main conference. Since they required registration (and a fee), I can’t link to it, though I may post it here later.

It’s too bad about the Talk Tables, since one of them was very relevant to us. It concerned coffee and tea service in a library, something that we have had a problem with. We simply do not have enough traffic for it to make financial sense. The start of the presentation made it clear though - if you are doing coffee/tea/food service, you must do it to support the mission of your institution. You can’t do it to make money, to be an entrepreneur or to show off. It has to make sense as a portion of your service or you shouldn’t spend any of your time on it.

As I write up my notes, I will be posting them here

Report of the Boston Trustees and comments (2)

The Trustees of the public library, in compliance with the order of the two branches of the City Council, submit the following report on the objects to be attained by the establishment of a public library and the best mode of effecting them : –

Comment: From the start libraries depended upon both the executive (mayor in this case) and the legislative (city council).

Of all human arts that of writing, as it was one of the earliest invented, is also one of the most important. Perhaps it would be safe to pronounce it, without exception the most useful and important. It is the great medium of communication between mind and mind, as respects different individuals, countries, and periods of time. We know from history that only those portions of the human family have made any considerable and permanent progress in civilization, which have possessed and used this great instrument of improvement.

Comment: Writing seems to be connected to the shift from hunter-gatherers to agriculture. Where agriculture started, there also arose writing. This is true even in Mesoamerica, which seems to have developed its own form of agriculture independently from the Eurasian tradition. This is not to disparage the value of orals traditions, but to recognize their limitations. Writing is a very powerful tool. Trade and government are limited without it (though the Native Americans had impressive trade routes and systems of governance).

It is principally in the form of books that the art of writing, though useful in many other ways, has exerted its influence on human progress. It is almost exclusively by books that a permanent record has been made of word and deed, of thought and feeling; that history, philosophy and poetry, that literature and science in their full comprehension, have been called into being, by the co-operation of intellects acting in concert with each other, though living in different countries and at different periods, and often using different languages.

Comment: Books (the codex) date to about 0 CE, with scrolls and tablets being common before that. Since Caesar’s works, the Jewish Scriptures, and what remains of Classic Greek culture were composed on scrolls, it is hard to just pass them over. Books were a major change. It was much more than just convenience (one book instead of ten scrolls). Books are sturdier and less damaged by use. They replaced scrolls more completely than CDs have replaced vinyl.

Till the middle of the fifteenth century of our era, it was literally the art of writing by which these effects were produced. No means of multiplying books was known but the tedious process of transcription. This of course rendered them comparatively scarce and dear, and thus greatly limited their usefulness. It was a chief cause also of the loss of some of the most valuable literary productions. However much this loss may be regretted, we cannot but reflect with wonder and gratitude on the number of invaluable works which have been handed down to us from antiquity, notwithstanding the cost and labor attending their multiplication.

Comment: Transcription also meant that works were, in effect, continuously edited. The Bible took quite a while to assume its final form. Many of the earliest physical texts lack familiar portions. Later transcribers added explanations and glosses, since the original context was being lost. In the case of early texts, the oldest physical texts are centuries later than the actual composition. It is simply not possible to recover the original text. Despite this problem, books have brought texts down to us in remarkably fine form. The Bible, the Greeks and others are as we have known them for centuries, with few alterations.

The same cause would necessarily operate to some extent against the formation of public and private libraries. Still however, valuable collections of books were made in all the cultivated states of antiquity, both by governments and individuals. The library formed by the Ptolemies at Alexandria in Egypt was probably the direct means by which the most valuable works of ancient literature have been preserved to us. At a later period, the collections of books in the religious houses contributed efficaciously toward the same end.

Comment: The value that societies placed on texts in antiquity is enlightening. The library in Alexandria was formed by the required confiscation of all scrolls that came into the port (which were often returned after being copied). Texts and books were part of an economy of scarcity until recently. Jefferson owned hundreds of books and was an object of wonder for that reason alone. He knew each of them almost be heart and prized them all. As for the religious houses, I would recommend Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish saved civilization : the untold story of Ireland’s heroic role from the fall of Rome to the rise of medieval Europe .

To be continued…

A Neo-Traditional exercise: The Boston Trustees Report & comments (1)

In 1852, soon after the birth of the public school system, the City of Boston established a committee to look at the goals of a possible public library. This was needed because public libraries were almost an unknown occurrence and far from what could be called an institution. In this series of posts, I will look at the report that committee created and how it is the core of the modern library. A full copy of the report is on-line at McMillan Memorial Library. I consider this a great example of neo-traditional librarianship - a digital copy of a core statement of the library’s historical mission.

The document starts with the names of the committee members and the officials who ordered the report and its printing.

Ordered, That the Trustees of the City Library be requested to report to the City Council upon the objects to be attained by the establishment of a Public Library, and the best mode of effecting them; and that they be authorized to report in print.

Comment:It is not inconsequential that the public library gets its start from city government. This is in keeping with the principal of subsidiarity. Government should undertake operations that are beyond the competence of individuals, but do so at the lowest level that can handle the operation. In most cases, the public library is best handled on the city or county level. I understand that in some states, state government has gone beyond setting standards, regulations and guidelines and actually operates the public libraries, but I do not consider that optimal.

Note that public libraries, from the start, are both part of and insulated from government and politics. The City Council and Mayor request the report, but it is written by appointed trustees. This duality is important. Libraries serve a civil function, else they would have no claim on tax revenue, but they are set aside from direct political control. In authoritarian regimes,  government has direct control of libraries, but this is not the role envisioned for American public libraries. Not that libraries are that well insulated. Many directors will attest they politics cost them their positions and even their careers, but it rarely does so directly. Additionally, when politics does interfere with the operation of a library, it rarely results in better service or a more complete fulfillment of the mission.

Despite that, libraries are a part of local government and I applaud that. Libraries exist to serve their community. If they happen to lose sight of that, they are straying from their mission. They only deserve tax dollars to the extent that they serve the needs of the community. Tax dollars are not spent to meet mere demand, which can be met by the marketplace and private sector. Public sector funds must be spent on community needs.

From the start, there was a need to be clear about the mission of the library. I recently saw a discussion that questioned if the public library could be started in the current environment.  Using this report as a justification, maybe. Sold as a middle class entitlement, First Amendment institution or a free book/video store - never. The Boston trustees wanted to be clear about why they were requesting tax dollars, how those dollars would be used and they wanted it in writing. Bravo!

Display shelving : old habits are hard to break

Old habits are hard to break, even for people who consciously work to be innovative.

We bought a number of display shelves two years ago. I was in charge of the layout and immediately arranged these marvelous slanted shelves in  - aisles. Just like they were standard stacks. Wide aisles. Four feet wide and more in some cases, but aisles.

Display shelves should be used to build a display area, not as faux stacks.  We have rearranged one set of three into a C shape ( | __ | ), forming a small room within a room, an area where fiction readers can wander around and examine the new fiction. In many ways, this is a return to the alcoves designed in the original Carnegie libraries.

We will soon be  moving the new non-fiction to a similar arrangement, maybe an L ( | __ __ ), which will have the same effect within the larger room.

We will probably also make changes to our DVD / AV area, widening the aisles from four feet to six feet, making them display areas instead of aisles. In this case a change of degree may turn into a change of kind.

As we are also growing our YA area as a display area.  No stacks, just shelves that can be easily browsed, chairs to sit in,  good light and lots of room.

To a great extent, a librarian’s task to to build display areas where the collection can be highlighted. Items in stacks must be linked to the display collections, otherwise they will wither. New mysteries help move older titles by the same author. A book that is a singleton is much harder to promote and harder to justify keeping on the shelf.

Libraries can benefit from the long tail without maintaining extensive stacks IF they are part of a larger shared system / collection. Our library has about 120,000 items, but is part of a shared system that has over 3,000,000 items and a solid delivery system. We can afford to buy a book from a series, knowing that if it is popular, the older titles are available within a couple of days. If it is not used, then we know we don’t need to revisit the decision for a while.