I had never heard of the Trial of the Chicago 7 until I saw that there was a movie about it and decided to watch it last year. I was absolutely bewildered in watching it. The defendants and the judge were complete spectacles. I was at a loss throughout the entire movie. This can’t be real, right?
So I looked into it and sure enough, this is a true story. The movie takes some liberties, but the book is literally just sections of the transcript of the trial.
I grew up basically being taught that our government is extremely well balanced and fair to all people, but when you learn about a story like this one, it becomes evident that this is not true. Here are some of the atrocious things that happened in the book:
Denying a defendant his right to a lawyer.
Binding and Gagging a defendant merely because he is choosing (in the absence of the lawyer he was denied) to defend himself. (Pictured below)
Overruling disproportionately and unreasonably the defense’s objections.
Holding all the defendants and defense attorneys in contempt of court on 170 infractions which amounted to 2.5 years – 48.5 months jail time.
The trial went on for 4+ months which is just a ridiculous amount of time.
Honestly so much more happened that it’s really hard to read or watch. I recommend this movie and book to anyone trying to better understand the current social upheaval in our country. These events are repeating themselves and it seems most of America doesn’t even realize it.
I had read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson in 2020 and loved it. My wife, the thoughtful woman she is, thought I might appreciate that true story from another perspective. And so for either Christmas or my birthday, she got me this book. I read it early last year, right after I finishedWhat is a Girl Worth?by Rachael Denhollander, and I devoured it While both Denhollander’s story and this one deal with injustice and both were victims of evil, I found this one a little easier to read.
Hinton was a man of uncommon humor, and if you know what Just Mercy is about then you can guess that Hinton was wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. His penalty was death. Hinton had the unfortunate and inescapable misfortune to be so close to the execution chamber that he could literally smell the burning flesh as each man died. While ultimately Hinton’s conviction was overturned and he got to live in the real world again, the facts of his incarceration are a punishment no one should have to endure, must less an innocent man.
Ray lived on death row for thirty years. Thirty years where everyone thought he was a murderer. Thirty years where his life was put on hold. Thirty years where his nose was assaulted by the smell of burning flesh.
There is some encouragement and hope in this book, his best friend never believed he was guilty and continued to come see him weekly for thirty years. I can’t imagine having a friend like that. What a bond they have enduring such a hardship together. Take what you will from this story, Ray’s best friend is someone inspiring and someone that we should aim to be for our friends in their hardships.
The injustice in our courts and in our prisons is something we should not stand for. This story is worth reading to help correct our natural inclination to believe that all criminals are guilty. We need to learn compassion for those people like Hinton that have been put through thirty years of pain for no reason at all. We need to begin to think and work to help people get out of such situations.
I took most of last year off from writing on this blog and the catalyst that started that process was this book. It’s so good and a just a real gut punch to the cultural sins men are inclined to participate in our modern Western Society.
This book tells the brutal story of the sexual abuse that was done against Rachael Denhollander and many other gymnasts. It’s a heart rending story to read, and there were times I had to set the book down and walk away because it was too much for me to handle. Whenever I stop and think about that, I begin to see just a small glimmer of how bad it had to have been to experience.
Rachael’s story is one of bravery, fortitude, and determination to make right what was so very, very wrong. She pursued justice not for her own sake, but for all the little girls who were still being abused and didn’t even realize it. She pursued what was right in the face of opposition and even slander.
The way she tells her story is powerful not just for women of all ages as they grapple with their own trauma, but it’s powerful because it tells us men that some of the things we’ve been taught are unquestionably wrong. This book is great because it challenges us men to be better and do better.
And also in this story is the character of a young man, who stood by his wife as she went on this horrific journey to see young girls protected from a serial predator. This young man, Jacob Denhollander, navigated this new and horrific world with her best interest in mind. He cared for her like few of us would know how to do.
The Denhollander Duo now continues to fight for women who have been sexually abused. Rachael does most of the work as she is a lawyer and steps in to help women when they need it most. But if you have a Twitter account you can see them both stand for righteousness and godliness every day.
Overall I give this book 5 stars. This book is raw, real, and one of the most important works of our day.
Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
I first heard about Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. A friend on Facebook asked my opinion on CRT and I said something to the effect of not having heard it before and not having a position on it.
A few days later, a pastor at my church sent some of the leaders an email informing us about the rise of a new area of concern in Christianity and linked us to some articles as resources in case it came up. I was grateful for the resources, but didn’t immediately bother to read the articles or watch the video I was sent as this hadn’t come up related to my duties at church yet.
However, I did want to give my FB friend a more reasoned response, so I began to look into it. The articles and videos condemning it made very biblical arguments that any Christian would be easily swayed to agree with it. On the other hand, these resources were seriously lacking in anything resembling a solution to the problems that they agreed CRT was pointing out. They argued that CRT is an unbiblical worldview that seeks to answer our most basic questions: “Who are we? What is our fundamental problem? What is the solution to that problem? What is our primary moral duty? How should we live?” (The Incompatibility of Critical Theory and Christianity by Neil Shenvi & Pat Sawyer). Any believer will find such a prospect as dangerous as only Scripture can answer these kinds of questions honestly.
While it was super easy to find articles from Christians condemning CRT, it was an absolute struggle to find anyone arguing for it. Which makes you wonder why are people so concerned about it?
I’m pretty well trained in google-foo, but it still took me a considerable amount of time to find anything complimentary of CRT. When I did, I was surprised at what I found. The arguments for it sound nothing like what was being condemned. In fact these people often condemned the same things and said that those condemnations had nothing to do with CRT.
Part of what I wrote in reply to my friend was this:
“They (anti-CRTers) create a straw man of what CRT is and then destroy that fictitious creation. They say things that Christians have to agree with by default when attacking CRT. For example: Sin is an individual problem so only the Gospel can correct for it. There’s nothing wrong with that statement, sin is an individual problem, and the Gospel is the only way to fix sin. BUT, what happens when a bunch of sinners get together and create a society? That society then mirrors the strengths and weaknesses of those sinners. The laws and rules they put in place will be strong against the sins they’ve learned control over and will enable the sins they’re blind to. So while the Gospel is the ultimate cure for sin, society needs a makeover to correct for the sins our forefathers have built into society.”
In reviewing all of this, I found it off-putting that one group condemns another and the other says “you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It left a weird taste in my mouth. I committed myself at that time to read more source material on CRT and see what I learn. At the same time, I still wasn’t invested in the topic. Literally, no one I knew was talking about it except to condemn, so it seemed weird to research the topic to gain knowledge about a conversation that wasn’t even happening.
Dr. Nathan Luis Cartagena
This book is a bit shy of that thousand pages intro Mestizo Meditations says it takes to begin understanding, but it was a much more thorough intro into the discussion than the few articles I was able to find online.
As I began to read this book, I found that CRT is a legal discussion, not a worldview. It’s a tool to look at how laws overlap to affect certain people in profoundly unfortunate ways. There is nothing in this theory that tries to extrapolate the answers to the basic questions of life. Instead, this book focuses narrowly on laws and how they negatively impact certain groups of people.
No tight-knit definition of CRT can be made because CRT scholars vary widely on what they believe. While the CRT “movement is a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power” there are a lot of different aspects to that and ways in which to analyze and respond to what is discovered. In many ways, the Evangelical Christian response to condemn CRT is akin to someone attacking French Cuisine by saying: “all cooking is bad.” Are there parts of CRT that a Christian should object to? Yes, just as there are some french foods that a normal person should object to (snails, seriously?). But are there things that a Christian should embrace? Also yes, just as we can acknowledge that crème brûlée is the best dessert of all time (thanks be to the French!).
Delgado and Stefancic inform us of six basic tenets of CRT and it’s noteworthy that CRT proponents don’t necessarily believe all of them nor is this list the end all be all. Some scholars hold more or less of these tenets as seems intellectually and logically correct to them. Their list they boil it down to is: Racism is common, interest convergence, social construction, social construction, differential radicalization and its consequences, intersectionality and antiessentialism, and the unique voice of color.
Now those are big words, and to most of us laypeople, they sound like mumbo jumbo. As I was reading it, I found myself thinking what does that even mean? But this is an intro, so Delgado and Stefancic lay out their definitions clearly using legal examples from history. I won’t define them all here as I think Delgado and Stefancic’s definitions and examples are necessary to begin to understand the topic. And their definitions require a strong understanding of American history and a bit about historic legal cases. To define the terms here adequately would take a lot more unpacking than I have time for in a review.
The further I dove into this book the more I wondered what all Neil Shenvi, Pat Sawyer, and Natasha Crain were talking about. Their critics don’t come close to talking about the actual purpose and drive of CRT. As one reviewer of a new anti-CRT book wrote:
“The result is a standstill,” he writes, “a demilitarized zone that exists, not because hostilities have ceased, but because we all tacitly believe there is no solution” (pg 137). It is over this demilitarized zone that Baucham fires mortar after mortar. Unfortunately, too many people will be distracted by the sound and fury to realize most of his projectiles are duds, crediting him with strategic hits on his opponents, when, in fact, there are few explosions. It is a Herculean effort with Sisyphean results. Fault Lines, by Voddie Baucham—Book review, Part 1 by Marty Duren
This is the perfect analogy for the attacks on CRT. Firing mortars at a nonexistent enemy. Should we as Christians fully embrace this approach? No, but neither should we abandon it entirely. French cuisine has winners and losers, and this analytical tool for looking at the effects of power in our society can teach us much about what we need to change. Chris Rufo even claimed that this is the goal of his relentless attack on CRT, arguing that he wants people to hear things they disagree with as CRT even when they’re unrelated:
For those of you wanting to look into this yourself, but not wanting to pick up this book here are some resources for you:
Overall I give this book 4 stars. This book defines Critical Race Theory and that definition is starkly different than what Evangelicals are condemning.
This Sporadic Life 