Finished reading (2021): Evangelical Anxiety: A Memoir by Charles Marsh 📚
I’m too lazy to figure out all the reasons why, but reading this felt a lot like reading Stanley Hauerwas’s memoir, Hannah’s Child —I loved reading both, but I also found them strangly… conceited. In many places throughout Marsh’s book, there is a real quality of openness and honesty. But his honesty often seems more self-indulgant than vulnerable. Having grown up an anxious evangelical myself, I really wanted to relate deeply, but I’m afraid the book is geared toward (and from) something stereotypical like, oh, philosophy majors and professors of literature—not because it’s too heavy on philosophy or literature; the book is front-to-back beautifully and accessibly written. But there’s something about the air of it that, if nothing else, didn’t leave me with any desire to recommend it, nor, more importantly, to learn from it. I liked reading it, and there are points of depth and insight, but there isn’t much I will ultimately take to heart.
