Heart and Mind Books

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At the Blue Hole: Elegy for a Church on the Edge Jack R. Reese with a foreword by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (Eerdmans) $21.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59 

Not long ago I was doing a Zoom book announcement about new titles for a clergy gathering. My hawking new titles with vigor was an appreciated part of their pre-Covid conferences, so they tried this on-line approach. I raved about this book, which maybe was odd, since it is the story of the decline of a particular (Southern, no-less) denomination. But yet, I thought they’d benefit from it, and I maintain my commitment to tell folks about this remarkable volume. 

I came first to believe in this book for one simply reason: my friend Wes Granberg-Michaelson has the foreword. Wes has written his own life stories in a couple of big memoirs, and a fabulous recent title about his shift to a deeper, contemplative spirituality, inspired by his hiking the El Camino trail. You’ve got to read Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage including its insightful foreword by Diana Butler Bass. But what is significant here about Wes is that he has not only worked with the World Council of Churches and knows various sorts of believers, churches, denominations and para-church ministry the world over, he has served as the President of the Reformed Church in America. The RCA, by the way, is itself a fascinating case study, founded mostly by immigrants, rooted in a conservative sort of Calvinist theology, but willing to be part of the NCC and other associations of mainline Protestantism, they remain viably robust, yet in decline. If you are part of nearly any sort of mainline church, you can relate, right? 

Michaelson has been a wise leader through a heck of a lot, and has written books about spiritual leadership and congregational renewal. I say all that only to point out that if he says a book about an obscure denomination that started long before the Civil War in the 19th century is somehow emblematic of where most of us find ourselves here in the secularizing 21st century, then we should take his advice and read whatever he says. 

Such was my first intriguing (if I’ll admit, a tad reluctant) dip into this survey of the decline of the Churches of Christ in America. While any of us who have spent any number of decades in the church world will find it poignant to read a pastors elegy of remembrance and will be glad, somehow, for his promise of hope, some will be provoked by his thesis that, to live, we simply must die. (Yes, he is drawing on a key principle taught by the Master; they are, churches of Christ, after all.) As it says on the back, about the calls to claim their own death, “this once-thriving fellowship may yet emerge from the grave into the light of resurrection.” 

I simply know of no other book that has a rave review and good blurbs on the back from popular preacher and author Max Lucado and progressive, prophetic, Brian McLaren and Methodist Bible scholar Dr. Elaine Heath. I say that not only because it is a heckuva lot of fun to link Lucado and McLaren, but because it shows that no matter where you find yourself in the denomination landscape, At the Blue Hole has something for you. It is a tale of church life in the 20th century, of changing visions of meaning (and metrics) and renewed expressions of faith. It is a call to missional action and a call to seek a better future. As civility-oriented peacemaker, historian, and scholar Richard Hughes puts it, “At the Blue Hole is a book as wise and refreshing as it is compelling.” In fact, he calls it “riveting.” 

As Max Lucado puts it, “Equal parts theologian, pastor, and historian, Jack Reese has written a personal and prophetic book...and a description of what must change.” 

There is humility here in this memoir and story of a denomination in decline. And there is energetic hope, a call to return to Jesus. I wonder if you and your church leadership need this study? I wonder if even in Advent we might consider repenting and waiting and longing and hoping? At the Blue Hole might be an odd read this time of year, but I think its paradox — to live we must die — may be just what makes it so apropos.