The Universe Bends Toward Justice: Radical Reflections on the Bible, the Church and the Body Politic

Reading any book-length work centered around one man’s reflections on the Bible’s abhorrence of poverty might be a tedious undertaking, no matter who authored such a tome. But the disorganization of this book by Hendricks, professor at New York’s Theological Seminary and visiting scholar at Columbia University, makes this uneven collection of musings a particularly tough sell. He writes that his aim is to center the book around misapplications of biblical meaning when it comes to sociopolitical sensibilities, and while he writes authoritatively on economic disparities and historiography, he quickly veers off course, condemning the “clowning trickeration” of contemporary gospel music. Other verbal ticks include an abrupt shift from third person to first person toward the end of the book and a dense overview of modern wealth in the U.S. He later pairs the gospels with awkward passages from The Grapes of Wrath in explicating the theme of “economic dispossession.” There are reflections in the book and some of them may be radical. The question is who these meandering musings will reach. (Nov.)