My review of Phil Christman’s new book, Why Christians Should Be Leftists, is out from behind the paywall at First Things. It’s called “Politics for Losers."

@eastbrad not finished with the review (so no comment there), but I needed to pause to flag this: you’ve reached your limit for the…month? (year?) on the word “deflationary.” Great word, and I appreciate how much you enjoy “deflationary accounts.” But now it must lay dormant for a while. That is all, carry on.

@bbowman As someone who has, for some unsure reason, not particularly liked Brad East’s writing, I found this review helpful. He basically hits the reasons I’ve enjoyed reading and sharing some of Christman’s writing, and even defending it and the positive challenge he’s given me; and also why he seems so utterly distant from me. I’m fairly left-leaning in ways that can appreciate much of Christman’s project here. But, barring graphic details, as someone who works in the operating room, his “I can’t really take seriously” stance is an example of exactly the kind of thing (obscenity?) I’ve found sometimes lurking in the shadows of his essays and why he seems always to retain a certain unbridgeable insanity to me. Good review but still can’t decide if I’ll pick up the book. Thanks for pointing to it

@bbowman @tinyroofnail Thank you both for this exchange and links.

@bbowman I found Brad’s review more helpful than the one in CT. For the foreseen future, I’m passing on Christman’s book.

@ReaderJohn I used to say sometimes “I’d be a Democrat if they’d let me.” Not sure what I’d say now. ASP is the only political entity that comes close to speaking my political concerns & commitments.

@JohnBrady @ReaderJohn @tinyroofnail @ablerism @bbowman @eastbrad I have had a very hard time taking First Things seriously for the past, idk, 5-10 years. But I just started Christman’s book yesterday and will check out this review.

@joshuapsteele I’ve been a First Things subscriber since, I think, Volume 1 Issue 1. Reno has turned it toward MAGA and postliberalism. I think I’ll finally be dropping it, though that will mean missing a few worthy items per issue.

@ReaderJohn yeah, to clarify, my beef is with Reno and the overall direction. Have really enjoyed and benefited from @eastbrad’s writings.

@ReaderJohn @joshuapsteele I could write out a longish list of people and publications I once looked to for edification, now sucked down into the MAGA vortex. The pull is hard for me to understand; I can only acknowledge its sinister power.

@JohnBrady Exactly. Within the last 48 hours, I got a scathing message from a friend of almost 60 years. My refusal to join the insta-beatification 16 days ago was the last straw, though he’d also been steaming about my (admittedly excessive) focus on Trump.

@joshuapsteele Right there with you. Proceed confidently, I’d say; there is an enormous gulf between FT sensibilities and Christman’s message (which is a good healthy range of strong disagreement that should appear in book reviews!).

@bbowman Thanks for those, especially the Hiestand essay. I’d love to see or think through a correlation-causation breakdown of the association of power he emphasizes with the conservate impulse. I’ll just add, when he says “But clarifying how these two [conservative and liberal] impulses fit together is as important as insisting that they do fit together,” I want to say no. His own essay seems to say, along with the Noll quote you gave: No, much more important is being able to say/insist that they do, even if I can’t say exactly how. (Reminded me of another quote from Noll, so he’s definitely consistent here.) Thanks again! And happy to hear about the coffee connection. I lived in Abilene from ‘03 to ‘07, but alas, our paths never crossed

@joshuapsteele I bailed on FT as well, right around the time of Against David Frenchism. Haven’t really looked back, but there are still a few good writers and still find some good pieces from time to time. @ablerism If I was going to write a book it would be Why Christians (and Pretty Much Everybody) Should Confidently Occupy That Entire Gulf 🤓

@tinyroofnail Yes, totally agree with you on not needing to clarify how these impulses fit together. Related to this: It seems to me that one aspect of the problem for many of us is that we try to (and feel we must) refer everything back to our meta-level systems (whether political ideology, Christian worldview, and so on). If we need the intellect of a Christman or East to devise a satisfying political theology from which we can live and move and have our being as American citizens, then I, for one, am cooked. I hope and pray that prior to me being able to fit all the conceptual pieces together in my own mind about politics and Scripture and the human condition and blend them into some satisfying/coherent system…I can still love my neighbor and make some decent choices and not be a complete jerk. I’m thankful that, common grace being what it is, it seems that others can do the same (and have been doing so for quite some time).

@tinyroofnail Amen to that.