5 stars for its contribution, 4 stars for the execution of it. Would recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with their relationship with the Christian Church it anyone who doesn’t understand why people are pulling away.

This book made me sad in many ways mostly because it resonated so much with my experience. But it was also healing to read someone else’s experience on paper. And while she is pretty raw about the pain she experienced, it is not a hopeless book. I appreciate her reflections on her authentic journey to navigate her own path to faith despite all the losses including her own church and her marriage.

I read this book on the recommendation of Rick Quinn--my thanks to you, Rick! (Check out his review on Goodreads.)

"God Land" is a profound and thoughtful look at Middle America, the region where I have lived over sixty years, its culture, its faith, and its losses. I did not know the writings of Lyz Lenz before, but appreciate her desire to see as unbiased as possible, her ability to engage various people and cultures in dialogue, and her vulnerability to set her journalism alongside her own life, and say "this is as truthful as I can be right now and if we sit with death as in Holy Saturday, here is where loss and hope abide together." (my quote, not hers)

The divides in the U.S. which became so clear for some of us in 2016 have deep roots in earlier life in this country. And in these early days of the coronavirus (March 2020) when uncertainty is all around, this book is a timely and touching one to read for all sorts of reminders. If you are quarantined, see if you can get a copy of it if you are interested in understanding and contemplating Middle America and our story of faith, loss, and renewal in these days.

I just cut bait on this at page 40, not because it is not good, it seems well put together, but because it is not for me. This seems to be written for Christians who struggle with the decline of the traditional church, with the ways in which faith has been co-opted by those who turn politics and places for the preservation of patriarchy and white supremacy into faith (from Billy Graham to Joel Osteen) and for those who simply do not understand middle-America. I am Jewish. I was raised in the oppressive Christian = American suburban Detroit of the 1970's. I worked at a Christian college in rural Minnesota during the first reign of Trump (hopefully the only, but who knows.) I don't need middle-America explained to me, and I am not a Christian who believes in basic human dignity rather than whatever the hell we want to call the rageful White ugliness of Trump nation. (Have any of us forgotten the chants of "Jews will not replace us" shouted by MAGA hat-wearing mobs?) I do not feel distanced from a religion I love and where the fellowship I treasured has been replaced with ugliness and exclusion. If I were I think this would be a great book. It truly is me, not you God Land. I hope those who will grow from reading this book, or feel validated, will get their hands on a copy.

“This is why I still have a faith. This is why I haven’t given up entirely. That moment of passing from one form into the next is mysterious and almost magical. Because when I see death in faith, it is not an end, it’s a rearrangement of elements. What is inside is released and allowed to reach upward.”

Lenz is a gifted writer who is sharp and funny and so so smart. However, the editing in this book is so bad that it’s almost unreadable. I read it in one sitting on a long flight and it constantly switched from compelling well-reported nonfiction to memoir to an awkward juxtaposition of both, sometimes on the same page. I wish it had been one or the other, as those are both books I would have loved. I’m eager to read her next book and hope the editing will be stronger.

This one hit really close to home. Lenz combines reporting from churches throughout the Midwest with deeply personal stories about her faith, the evolution of her politics, dissolution of her marriage, and a failed church plant. Her stories show the good (community! potlucks! lovely traditions! mutual care in rural areas!), but don't shy away from the messy. It's a deep, nuanced, complicated--even diverse--look at the Midwest. She lives in Iowa and spends time getting to know communities and congregations; this isn't an NYTimes reporter dropping in to photograph some chipping paint on a barn and chat up a guy in a MAGA hat at a diner.

Lenz captured a feeling that I've had a hard time putting my finger on from my time as a woman who spent a lot of time in white evangelical spaces: that feeling of needing to make yourself smaller to fit in, of being blamed for being the one to make things uncomfortable, the weight of those countless tiny decisions of when to speak up or not. After years of struggling with patriarchal views in churches and other faith-based organizations, she also doesn't absolve herself from being slow to see the white supremacy in these spaces.

"The truth is more likely that we live in a place that does both. A place where we dine at the houses of our neighbors, but post cruelties about them on Facebook. Where we will give the shirt off our back for someone in need, but vote against them at the ballot box... the dissonance is as deep and real and painful as any part of American history. And it's tempting to look away from it to instead focus on the positive. Look at all the good that is done. But the violence is still part of the story of faith and religion."

This was the book I needed to read about politics, faith, and Midwestern culture. This nonfiction memoir is about fighting to be heard in the church, in a marriage, and watching it fall apart anyway. It's about sitting with the darkness and grappling with these issues, even if you don't have the answers. God Land is one of my favorite books of the year, easily.

This was a fascinating read. I definitely enjoyed the memoir parts more, but I liked how she wove together memoir and her experiences as a journalist in Middle America. I am a lifelong, albeit rural, East Coaster, and the Midwest just seems so different to me. Although I for sure can relate to the rural community/mentality. My experiences in the church were similar. I attended the same church from age 5 until about 22 (sporadically in college), and it was a community and a home, until it wasn’t, and my family decided to leave. The heartbreak and separation period and “new normal” is very real. I do not attend any church and haven’t for years, but still seek a spiritual community. I might go back to church eventually, but it will have to align with my liberal values and morals.

A couple quotes really stood out to me:

“And also, it isn’t just about church; it is about community and family…Losing a church is like losing a family. It’s losing a foundation. Walking away for some is a slow leaving - a gradual sloughing of self. For others, it’s a rip that leaves you bleeding, a wound that never fully heals. Why did I stay in churches I didn’t like for so long? Why did any of us? Because we loved the people there, and we had been taught God was big enough for all of us and we had the audacity to take those lessons at their word.” P 72-73

“Love is political when it is radical. Faith is political when it believes in something better. Hope is political when it looks for something more.” P 94

“I guess I could have stayed—at my church and in my marriage—if I was willing to be silent. If I was willing to sit in the pew, hold my thoughts close to my chest, and never even gently nudge over a table. I’m ashamed that Charlottesville was my tipping point. White privilege is a hell of a drug.” P 118

“But in this workshop, I hear Patrice’s words and wonder if Christians who insist that flesh is sinful have got it all wrong. If we believe our bodies are God-made, then binding them, restricting them, forcing them into molds that we struggle against, that’s not scripture, that’s repression. Faith in America as it exists and now it is practiced in the heartland is more about control than it is about freedom.” P 133

“Once, while I was lamenting the loss of politically neutral space in the wake of the 2016 election, a friend kindly told me that for people who are queer, or trans, or people of color, no space has been politically neutral. I was just privileged enough to not see it for a while. The point, he said, was not to beat myself up about this but to ask myself what I was going to do. America’s broken divide. America’s complicated Christianity. These deep wounds I’ve been probing have always been bleeding.” P 134

This book resonated with me. Lenz comes from a place of white privilege, which she acknowledges. I come from a place of white privilege, too, so I get the surprise, the hurt, the horrible guilt at one's one complicity.

Her marriage falls apart in a way that mirrors the country, and Lenz accurately ascertains that evangelical religion plays a large part in both. This is a book about wrestling with the harm that churches have done as well as the good. This is a book about how a country built on a supposed separation of church and state has come to find itself in a white evangelical stranglehold. This is a book that reminds us all that a resurrection requires death.

Quite cathartic.