{"id":3140,"date":"2013-02-21T04:31:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T08:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2013-02-20T23:43:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T03:43:45","slug":"the-power-of-good-biography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2013\/02\/the-power-of-good-biography\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Good Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Especially because my colleague Thomas Kidd and I both like the genre of biography, we\u2019ve touched on that topic periodically on this blog. This past December, he blogged about his five favorite religious biographies.<\/p>\n

I was thinking about that subject again while reading my erstwhile University of South Alabama colleague and prolific author Frye Gaillard\u2019s The Books That Mattered<\/em><\/a>, a memoir of that books that have shaped his life. It\u2019s a wonderfully written book and reflects its author\u2019s wit, thoughtfulness, and humane approach to literature, race, and most everything. Frye and his wife took it upon themselves to help initiate Elissa and me into the culture of the Alabama Gulf Coast when we moved to Mobile seven years ago, giving us a ride on Fowl River, taking us to the local seafood restaurant, and getting us to Bellingrath Gardens. Frye also avoided laughing at me when I ordered the chicken at a local barbecue pit. A former journalist, Frye spent his early career covering the civil rights movement in Mobile and is the author of an outstanding account of the struggle for racial justice in Alabama.<\/p>\n

The Books That Mattered <\/em>got me thinking about how books have the power to shape our lives (and whether or not other forms of writing will exercise that power in future decades) and which have shaped mine. Different books shape us in different ways. In high school, I read a book about Christian leadership which suggested that real Christian men never need more than six hours of sleep per night. For some reason, it stuck in my craw. If I\u2019m working at night, I always tell myself I can get by on six hours of sleep. I probably get more done because of that book, but I\u2019m also perpetually tired.<\/p>\n

Now in academia, I read so many books for various reasons. I read books to prepare to teach new classes. I read books because I want to learn particular bits of information that might help with a writing project. I read fiction and non-fiction for fun. Rarely do I pick up a book hoping that it will shape or fundamentally instruct me in some fashion. In fact, my normal reading habits probably preclude that sort of transformation. Once in a while, however, books simply burst through any attempt to hedge out their message.<\/p>\n

Different sorts of books have done that. It\u2019s probably academically too unsnobby to admit to the influence of self-help books in one\u2019s life. Nevertheless, I found Stephen Covey\u2019s The Seven Habits<\/em> and Gary Chapman\u2019s The Five Love Languages<\/em> very helpful in different ways, even if I\u2019m not always effective or loving. There are a host of books I simply love for their language: anything written by Wallace Stegner, for example, Leif Enger\u2019s Peace Like a River<\/em>, and Timothy Tyson\u2019s (Blood Done Sign My Name<\/em>). It is a great irony of American literature that so many moving and eloquent books take as their subject matter the bloody terrain of race relations in the American South.<\/p>\n

When simply searching for something simultaneously education and informative, however, I often turn to biography. It was Roland Bainton\u2019s biography of Martin Luther that first kindled my own interest in the history of Christianity. I\u2019ve also long admired William Martin\u2019s sympathetic but searching biography of Billy Graham. Peter Brown\u2019s biography of Augustine is worth rereading.<\/p>\n

I love good biographies on a wide range of subjects, but among my more recent favorites in the field of American religion: Manning Marable\u2019s The Reinvention of Malcolm X<\/em>, Catherine Brekus\u2019s Sarah Osborn\u2019s World<\/em>, Richard Bushman\u2019s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling<\/em>, and Matthew Sutton\u2019s Aimee Semple McPherson<\/em>. Although it\u2019s a novel, I also remain stunned by Russell Banks\u2019s interpretation of John Brown in Cloudsplitter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What all of the books in the preceding paragraph have in common is the detailed portrait of a human subject in all of his or her complexity. Hagiography and expos\u00e9 are rarely worth the time. Fine biographies hardly ever give me a simple model for emulation, but they nevertheless instruct. For starters, searching biographies always remind me that all human beings are more complex than they seem at first glance. That\u2019s a good thing to keep in mind for colleagues, neighbors, and even family members as well as historical subjects. I find encountering other human beings in all of their complexity encourages me to be humble. Also, I find it instructive to remember how differently Christians have conceptualized Jesus, structured their religious lives, and addressed a whole host of perennial human tasks (from childrearing to being with loved ones on their deathbeds). Biographies always remind me of just how limited my approach to nearly everything is by my own time and place.<\/p>\n

Among notable forthcoming religious biographies (American Religion and otherwise):<\/p>\n

Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography<\/em> by Arvind Sharma (Yale University Press)
\nThomas Aquinas: A Portrait<\/em> by Denys Turner (Yale University Press)
\nThe Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter: A Portrait of Descartes<\/em> by Steven Nadler (Princeton University Press)
\nC. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet<\/em> by Alister McGrath (Tyndale House Publishers)
\nAbraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat<\/em> by James Bratt (Eerdmans)<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Should be a good summer of reading ahead. Let me know if I should add other forthcoming titles to the above list.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Especially because my colleague Thomas Kidd and I both like the genre of biography, we\u2019ve touched on that topic periodically on this blog. This past December, he blogged about his five favorite religious biographies. I was thinking about that subject again while reading my erstwhile University of South Alabama colleague and prolific author Frye Gaillard\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Power of Good Biography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Especially because my colleague Thomas Kidd and I both like the genre of biography, we've touched on that topic periodically on this blog. 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