4.46

3

Oct 18, 2018

Some good thoughts, packaged (in what seemed to me) under generic language designed to be useful as a branding concepts - "soul force" and "pivots".

Equal parts leadership and social dynamic, it scratches the surface while pointing to much deeper works like New Jim Crow, Divided by Faith, etc. While it may be designed to introduce the neophyte to such concepts, it was far too bland to be included in the required reading of a doctoral program which is what brought it across my desk.

3

Oct 25, 2018

Full disclosure: Shawn is my co-worker and boss at Mission Year...but I promise he didn't feed me what to say in this review! Even fuller disclosure: When I learned about the premise of the book, if I'm totally honest, it seemed to be a bit more within the realm of "self-help" than I typically seek out or enjoy, but I was intrigued to read along with my team members as they engaged with it through our program's curriculum. Of course, I also know and trust Shawn (and Rasheeda as well, who I have Full disclosure: Shawn is my co-worker and boss at Mission Year...but I promise he didn't feed me what to say in this review! Even fuller disclosure: When I learned about the premise of the book, if I'm totally honest, it seemed to be a bit more within the realm of "self-help" than I typically seek out or enjoy, but I was intrigued to read along with my team members as they engaged with it through our program's curriculum. Of course, I also know and trust Shawn (and Rasheeda as well, who I have been able to learn from during trainings she's given in the past) to produce some meaningful and engaging content. Take it from an initial skeptic, this is a really impactful and substantive resource!

The general structure of the book operates by recognizing 7 needed "pivots" that must happen at a personal and societal level in order to unlock one's "soul force" in the pursuit of justice, community, and movement forward at both micro and macro levels. I was really impressed from the get-go in the first pivot form fear to freedom; whereas I was anticipating a certain level of vagueness or obviousness there, the authors had gone far deeper than that in identifying a diverse number of fears at a personal, leader-specific, and societal level and engaged with each subset. I found this to be consistent throughout the remainder of the book; where there could have been some trite platitudes, Rasheeda and Shawn instead really fleshed out each of their concepts with personal anecdotes from their own lives and others, an expansive exploration of the idea at hand, and practical, concrete applications to move towards enactment.

While I think this book is incredibly accessible and would make an excellent on-ramp into more thoughtful engagement with justice-oriented faith and activism, I did appreciate that it didn't settle for being a "101" type of book, solely because so many now exist. That's not to say that it's full of jargon or insider language, only that there are some elements of our society (particularly around inequalities of race, gender, and class) that are treated as obvious and fundamental without the need to spend pages proving that's the case. This really helped to keep the pace moving along where other authors seem to get bogged down with a need to write to the least aware readers, and instead they make relevant resources available via footnotes.

I was especially intrigued by the consistent emphasis on the need for internal healing and justice alongside the pursuit of that in the world around us. I have seen many, many authors reinforce a false dichotomy that emphasizes one over and at the expense of the other, and a real highlight of Soul Force was the declaration that the two are inextricably linked. As a whole, I'd consider this a really valuable resource in the ongoing movement towards shalom and am especially grateful that it's available for our Mission Year team members at the onset of that lifelong endeavor. ...more