the Ballot & the Bible

So very few books are able to accomplish what The Ballot and The Bible has accomplished. With brevity and accessibility, Kaitlyn Schiess simultaneously observes, critiques, and teaches hermeneutics through the lens of American history.

In all of the book, she creates open-ended questions while also articulating a supporting collection of ideas on how to faithfully approach the Bible with the cautionary tales of our past as guides. It truly is profound to see how church history, political lineage, and Christian hermeneutics have been so interwoven in the last 300 years.

As a seminary student, I live in the tension of reading books that are deeply intriguing and informative and yet struggling to have books with substance and quality content to share with people outside of the scholarly world. Kaitlyn bridges this gap with a book that is truly able to be digested by people without seminary training, philosophical education, or historian disposition, yet her book is not lacking substance, profound questions, and a wide amount of researched material.

I only wish that the book was longer. Whether or not another book is coming or the publisher had a limitation on page count, my biggest regret is not having more history to walk through with the insightful church-historian/hermeneutical student tour guide that Kaitlyn Schiess has proven herself to be throughout its pages.

My one suggestion is that I would love to have more resources to read and study and pursue moving forward. I think the best kinds of books leave the reader with a clear future path of direction to find more answers to the questions that have bubbled up as they read. Perhaps, there is a hidden genius to leaving the reader on their own personal question to seek the answers to these questions. I wouldn’t put it past Kaitlyn. There is something uniquely and beautifully riveting about leading people through open-ended questions and a minimal amount of suggestions. In this sense, Schiess provides guardrails of how to move forward but doesn’t supply all of the map. And the reader, provoked to action and curious to know more, must follow the path of questions in their own time and space in the world.

Yet, I would love to find resources that cover hermeneutics and church history and the various theories of interpretation that could help me not only continue to tear down the Americanized approach that I grew up with, but rebuild a healthy approach to the Scriptures with the most historically faithful interpretation method/ hermeneutic.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63271398-the-ballot-and-the-bible