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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. At theological seminary who became the author's father and brother in Christ?

2. The author's maternal grandmother was half old ____ and and half French-Swiss.

3. Which island shop had ceiling fans?

4. What Shakespeare reading assignment was objected to by the author's feminist students?

5. The author writes about how he cannot preach about ____, after an atheist student tells him she and others do not believe in God.

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is Naya?

2. How do our other selves develop as explained in Part Two of "Telling Secrets?"

3. How did the author feel about his kids once they were older and how did this affect his life once they left home as adults?

4. Why did the author like having Dudley Knott as a friend?

5. Besides complaints about him praying in his first class at Harvard, what other surprises did the author's students give him?

6. What does the author tell us about his first two autobiographies?

7. Who goes to Bermuda with the author when he is a child and how does he describe their arrival in Bermuda?

8. How did the author's kids connect him with the outside world when they were small?

9. When do Dudley Knott and the author become friends?

10. What did the author expect in a Harvard teaching experience that he did not get when he actually taught at Harvard Divinity School?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the Introduction, the author writes that 1) telling secrets makes it easier to see where we have been and where we are going; 2) it makes it easier for others to share their secrets; and 3) that exchanges like this is what being a family, and being human is all about. Using details from Part One, Part Two and Part Three of the book, provide details from the authors life experiences that support each of the three statements (1,2 3) above?

Essay Topic 2

In Part Three of the book, the author talks about the groups that meet in the basement. He specifically details what each group does or does not do. Then he states that the church could learn a lot from such groups since the church, in his opinion, is more like a dysfunctional family, while the groups operate closer to what God intended for His church. Discuss this rationale. How are the groups like families at their best, and operating closer to what God meant for the Church? How does the church resemble a dysfunctional family? What would have to happen, according to the author, for the church to have only God and themselves left?

Essay Topic 3

On page 10 of the book, the author writes that "don't talk, don't trust, don't feel" is supposed to be the unwritten law of dysfunctional families. How does this "law" manifest itself in the author's life as a child when his father commits suicide, as well as in the immediate events following his father's death (e.g. the lack of a funeral, the family move out of the country, the mother's behavior, ...); and how does the "law manifest itself in later events involving the author and his brother's relationship with their mother as she aged?

(see the answer keys)

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