Both Directions at Once

A few thoughts on faith, plus some book news

I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago. It was probably the result of liberal theological education, plus living for years among people who desperately needed economic miracles but never got them.

But then, in 2018, the universe bestowed upon us a gift: a brand new John Coltrane album, never before released, 50 years after his death. The album is called “Both Directions at Once.” A new Trane album? In my lifetime? Miracles do happen.

“The world,” as Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “is charged with the grandeur of God.” 

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On the night of the release party for Our Trespasses, my friend Piko Ewoodzie initiated really interesting conversations and asked insightful questions. We talked about process and craft and making connections to the current moment in the world. Piko’s last question caught me by surprise. He asked, “How has the work of researching and writing this book affected your faith?” 

I’ve thought plenty about it, though I’ve not said much publicly. For half a decade, I obsessed over the theological entanglements built into the federal Urban Renewal program that was, at its roots, brutality. In the local governmental documents and the public archives, I saw plainly the ways that Christian conquest was built into the program and its guidelines. The echoes of God-talk showed up in the documents and the speeches and the planning. The reports reflected the triumph of a sort of crusade. 

At the same time, I spent days on end in congregational and denominational archives. Sifting through archival collections usually involves hours of minutiae and false trails. And then, a handful of times, you find something that knocks you out of your chair. One such moment for me happened at First Baptist Charlotte. At one key moment in the business meetings leading up to their move into bulldozed land in Charlotte’s former Brooklyn neighborhood, they sang a hymn together. Hymns are a way of doing theology together. The hymn was a conquest hymn. 

It was the perfect selection for the moment, in terms of being appropriate. But what really got me was that I knew the hymn. I could sing it without needing to refer to a hymnal. 

I was thinking about compromised faith, crusade faith, and in a clear moment I knew that it was my faith also. 

I’m not a fool. None of this was news to me, even if the details were new. But still, it wore at me. Adult, grown-up faith requires looking seriously in the mirror to discern whether the inheritance of generations is helping you and your neighbors, or harming. If the God of the universe can’t handle your attempt at a clear-eyed assessment, even if it is wrong, then the whole tradition is chaff anyway. 

And while all this was happening, the bulldozers were pulling up on our block. They were yet another reminder that we still live inside the story of Urban Renewal, and that the cultural and theological narratives of generations past persist.

I’m not afraid to tell you that I’ve considered walking away. Cutting it down at the root. 

And yet, the further I went inside the distressing stories, the more I needed an alternative story to hold things together. The stories that best illuminated what I was learning were from the Bible, especially from the Gospel of Mark.¹ As I settled into a few shorter narratives, I found myself reading some passages over and over, listening carefully to every word choice and characterization, hearing echoes across ages and into the streets of my city. Into my own soul.

For every step that the historical record pushed me away from faith, the stories of the Bible kept me moored. I know of no other place to turn to make sense of myself and the world.

The answer to Piko’s question, I guess, is that I’m moving “Both Directions at Once.” On the record, you can hear Coltrane on one track relaxing into the comforting melodies of the past, then on the next relentlessly pushing forward into the new thing he was creating at the time of this recording in 1963. To my ears, he is fully and wonderfully himself while moving in two different directions. You might liken it, again, to Hopkins: “never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” 

A Few Items of Book News

Reviews: I’ve had two really nice reviews so far. There are a few more on the way. I’ll pass them along as they arrive.

From theologian Wesley Vander Lugt: Facing the Specters of Urban Renewal in Englewood Review of Books. Wes has a nice Substack and a forthcoming book, both of which I commend to you.

From historian Bo McMillan: Greg Jarrell’s “Our Trespasses” Holds Churches to Account in Brooklyn’s Razing in Queen City Nerve.

Podcast: Profane Faith with Daniel White Hodge. Dan’s podcast is one of my favorites. He’s a great thinker and activist, who gave one of the most unforgettable speeches I’ve ever heard at CCDA in Chicago.

Leave a Review, Help an Author: Amazon reviews make a big difference in the number of people who encounter a book, and therefore the number of people who purchase it. After fifty or so reviews, a book gets a bump in the algorithm. Would you take a moment to leave a short, honest review on the Amazon page for Our Trespasses? You do not have to have purchased it from Amazon to do so.

Speaking: I’m looking to fill out my May, June, and July schedules for preaching and speaking. Send me an invitation!

Here are a two upcoming book talks and speaking gigs:

Myers Park Baptist Church, March 17, 11:15 AM.

Charlotte Museum of History, April 11, 6pm

One Last Note: Here’s the full “Both Directions at Once” album.

1. Not only Mark. Also 1 Kings 21, the story of Naboth’s vineyard; the book of Joshua and its series of conquest stories; and the parable of the wicked tenants and the absentee landlord in Matthew 21 and Luke 20.