Review: Raised Right by Alisa Harris

Title: Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics
Author: Alisa Harris
Released: September 6, 2011
Publisher: WaterBrook Press
Pages/Format: 240 (ARC)
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
Source: Blogging for Books

Alisa Harris grew up in a family that actively fought injustice and moral decay in America. She spent much of her childhood picketing abortion clinics and being home-schooled in the ways of conservative Republican Christianity. As a teen she firmly believed that putting the right people in power would save the nation.

But as she moved into adulthood, Alisa confronted unexpected complexities on issues that used to seem clear-cut. So she set about evaluating the strident partisanship she had grown up with, considering other perspectives while staying true to the deep respect she held for her parents and for the Christian principles that had always motivated her.

Raised Right is a chronicle of Alisa’s personal journey and provides a glimpse into the worldview of a younger generation of faith–followers of Christ who believe that the term “Christian” is not synonymous with a single political party or cultural issue.

One Sentence Review: Despite some chronology issues, Raised Right is well written, thought-provoking, and a great conversation piece.

In-Depth Review

Reviewing books on touchy subjects like politics can be tricky, so before I dive into this book review I feel like I should preface it with a brief overview of my own political views and history, so you know exactly where I’m coming from.

I’m a politically conservative Christian. I was raised by conservative Christian parents, but they never made politics a focus in our home and political beliefs were never shoved down my throat. I grew up in Massachusetts, the most liberal state in the country, and attended a large Evangelical church that was home to Christians on all points of the political spectrum. I considered myself a Republican when I was a kid, simply because my parents were. When I was in high school, I actually started to ask questions and examine the issues, and that resulted in me affirming my conservative stance.

Let me first say that Harris is a great writer and even though I disagree with many of her positions, I found her to be likable and relatable. One thing that bothered me though was the organization of the text. She flits backs and forth in time in a way that makes it difficult to follow the sequence of events that led her from one political party to the other. Sometimes a non-sequential format works well in a memoir, but in this case I think it would have been better to tell the story chronologically.

A lot of reviewers have commented on the subtitle of Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics. When I saw the book my thought was that it’s impossible for anyone to separate their politics from faith (or lack thereof). Both are inexorably intertwined and you can’t just isolate them at will. Harris never disentangled her political views from her faith. She simply realigned her faith with a different set of political ideals. After going back and rereading this quote from the beginning of the book though, I began to understand her choice of words.

For nearly all my childhood and adolescence, on into early adulthood, politics gave my faith meaning. Politics expressed my faith. . . . My faith was so intertwined with conservative politics that I viewed them as one and the same. In my ironclad worldview, faith ad politics were inseparable. {Raised Right, Page 5}

Harris was simply expressing her desire to identify politics and faith as two different, but closely related things. While faith and politics are inseparable; they are not the same thing. Treating them the same leads to this kind of thinking:

I began to see a vision of heaven on earth where justice prevailed and everyone followed God’s rules–a vision we could accomplish through out-picketing, and out-voting our enemies. . . . Sin and evil were still outside of me instead of in me, and Jesus was not Someone who gave victory over the sin in myself but a shadowy figure who had left us to work for the salvation of the world through politics. {Raised Right, Pages 38-39}

Something I found out as I read is that this book isn’t just about Harris’s political journey. It’s also about her theological journey, which makes sense because, as I said before, faith and politics are so closely intertwined. In chapter eight, Harris describes an incident that happened right after graduating from Hillsdale college and just before she moved to New York.

. . . I sat between my parents and listened while our pastor and a church elder explained how my own sin required them to stage an intervention.

The pastor and elder, part of a loose affiliation of fundamentalist churches, had grave reservations about women attending college when God ordained marriage and babies instead. College had changed me, they said. I talked more about careers and academics than about being a wife and a mother. They had read my blog and were worried about me filling my mind with The Office and Ben Folds. They feared that I would go out on dates and said I was no longer the kind of person they wanted their daughters to emulate.

-Raised Right, Pages 133-134

My initial thought after reading that passage was, “Wow; no wonder she went liberal.” I have always been a very independent, free-spirited person. I don’t really consider myself a feminist, but if I had been raised in an environment that puts women in such a small box like that, I would have rebelled long before Harris did.

My point is this: I’ve asked all the same questions and had all the same doubts Harris did about issues like abortion, welfare, feminism, and the intersection of faith and politics. But I’m still a conservative and she’s a liberal. Why? Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that she was raised in a militant Republican environment whereas I was raised in a friendly Republican environment? I think so. And I’m not saying that to discredit or belittle her at all. It’s just my observation that the emotions we have about our upbringing can have a big influence on our beliefs later in life.

I find Harris to be as non-offensive a political writer as you could possibly hope to find. And that’s why I’m having trouble coming to any sort of solid conclusion about this book. It’s difficult to tell exactly where she stands on some issues, like abortion. There’s a whole lot about abortion in this book, but I never got a clear sense of what she actually believes about it, besides the fact that it’s not cut-and-dry issue. I got the idea that she doesn’t like to be labeled pro-choice or pro-life, but that’s about all I could figure. Is her non-divisiveness (and non-decisiveness) a good thing or a bad thing? Is it better to take a firm stand on political issues despite the gray areas and personal doubts?

We seek in one another the assurance that there is just one correct interpretation of the world, that everything is so simple anybody can see it unless they’re malicious or stupid or willfully ignorant; and we punish one another for proving with our differing conclusions that truth is not easy. {Raised Right, Page 146}

She’s right. Truth isn’t easy. As a Christian, I believe there is just one correct interpretation of the world, and it can be found in the Bible. But unfortunately our 20/20 moral vision was clouded with the fall of man, so now we have different interpretations on issues like the economy and sex education. No one politician or political party has all the answers. Therefore, it’s important that we treat believers who hold different political positions than we do with grace and respect, and continue to seek God’s Truth–Jesus–in the process.

Other Reviews: Oxford Circus | Patheos | Sophisticated Dorkiness | Worthy of the Gospel

If you have written a quality review of this book, leave a link to it in a comment and I may add it to the list above. In return, you must link back to my review.

About Alisa Harris:

Alisa Harris is a journalist living in New York City who enjoys writing in quirky coffee shops. A 2007 graduate of Hillsdale College, she has worked as a college instructor in writing and journalism. Her writing has been published in WORLD and the Detroit Free Press.

Purchase “Raised Right” from Amazon.com