Category Archives: Books

Book Review: Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World

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Worldliness is a difficult topic to consider because people can have some weird ideas as to what is worldly. Yet it is a topic Christians must consider, because the Bible says ” friendship of the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4) and instructs us to “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (I John 2:15). But what aspect of the world? Surely not the physical world, the flowers and sunsets and such that God created and called very good (Genesis 1 and 2), because “God…giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (I Timothy 5:17b). And surely not the people in the world, because “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). John elaborates when he goes on to say, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (I John 2:16-17).

C. J. Mahaney and four other ministers help us think through some of these questions, considerations, and applications in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World. This book first came to my attention when I was listening to a former pastor’s sermon online and heard him quote from it. It intrigued me both because the quote in itself was very good, but mainly because I knew this pastor to be more conservative in his standards (not in a legalistic way) and thought if he found value in this book, it must definitely be worth reading.

And it definitely was. The authors successfully walk the narrow line between the extremes of making a list of legalistic external standards and eschewing all lists in favor of false understanding of Christian liberty. They seek to explain Biblically what it means to be “in the world yet not of it.” The first chapter discusses the concept, succeeding chapters apply the principles to media, music, possessions, and clothes, and the final chapter shares some right ways to love the world. There are two appendices in the back discussing modesty.

Here are just a few of the many quotes I marked:

The gospel makes all the difference between whether you are merely conservative or whether you are conquering worldliness in the power of the Spirit for the glory of Christ (p. 11, John Piper’s forward).

What does it look like when the blood of Christ governs the television and the Internet and the iPod and the checkbook and the neckline?…The only way most folks know how to draw lines is with rulers. The idea that lines might come into being freely and lovingly (and firmly) as the fruit of the gospel is rare (p. 11, Piper).

We will never be useful to the world if we are being deeply shaped by the world. And we will be shaped by the world without intentional efforts not to  be (p. 12, Piper).

In the end, the sum of all beauty is Christ, and the sin of all worldliness is to diminish our capacity to see him and be satisfied in him and show him compellingly to a perishing world (p. 13, Piper).

Before Demas deserted, he drifted (p. 20, Mahaney).

One reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church (p. 23, Spurgeon).

Worldliness, then, is a love for this fallen world. It’s loving the values and pursuits of the world that stand opposed to God. More specifically, it is to gratify and exalt oneself to the exclusion of God. It rejects God’s rule and replaces it with our own…It exalts our opinions above God’s truth. It elevates our sinful desires for the things of this fallen world above God’s commands and promises (p. 27, Mahaney).

I’m not saying it’s wrong to watch television, rent a DVD, surf the Internet, or spend an evening at he cinema. The hazard is thoughtless watching. Glorifying God is an intentional pursuit. We don’t accidentally drift into holiness; rather, we mature gradually and purposefully, one choice at a time (p. 40, Cabaniss).

Filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking are “out of place” — they’re forbidden not because they’re on some arbitrary “banned words” list, but because they reflect the heart and attitude of those who disregard God and His Word (p. 55, Cabaniss).

Christians should dislike and avoid vulgarity…not because we have a warped view of sex, and are either ashamed or afraid of it, but because we have a high and holy view of it as being in its right place God’s good gift, which we do not want to see cheapened (p. 56, Stott).

If we wouldn’t trust a non-Christian to give us counsel on how to live our lives, why would we regularly listen to their counsel set to music? (p. 82, Kauflin).

Materialism is what happens when coveting has cash to spend (p. 95, Harvey).

In my experience, 95 percent of the believers who face the test of persecution pass it, while 95 percent who face the test of prosperity fail it (p. 103, Alcorn quoting a Romanian pastor).

Covetous chains the heart to things that are passing away (p. 106, Harvey).

Your wardrobe is a public statement of your personal and private motivation. And if you profess godliness, you should be concerned with cultivating these twin virtues, modesty and self-control (p. 120, Mahaney).

The Bible doesn’t forbid a woman from enhancing her appearance. But here in I Timothy 2:9-10, Paul isn’t just advocating modesty in dress; he’s insisting that more time and energy be devoted to spiritual adornment in the form of good works. And he’s warning about excessive attention devoted to appearance to the neglect of good works (p. 135, Mahaney).

[The world] held no sway over Paul, nor was he dependent upon it for anything. He didn’t crave its approval, embrace its values, or covet its rewards (p. 169-170, Pursell).

Hope I didn’t overload you there. That’s only maybe a little over half of what I marked, and flipping through the pages again, I keep finding more thought-provoking statements.

There were maybe one or two statements in the book I’m not sure I agree with, but by and large I would consider it an invaluable resource for anyone who has grappled with what worldliness is and seeks grace-based ways of combatting it.

***I must say, as well, that though I enjoyed this book, this is not a blanket endorsement of the authors. I was only familiar with the names of two, knew little about them, and nothing about the rest.

A portion of the book is online here.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

What’s On Your Nightstand: September

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What's On Your NightstandThe folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read. You can learn more about it by clicking the link or the button.

Wow, I can’t believe we’re almost done with September! Here’s what I completed reading this month:

Masquerade by Nancy Moser, reviewed here.

Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job by Layton Talbert, reviewed here. Excellent.

The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God by John Piper, reviewed here. Very good.

Gospel Meditations For Men by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak, with my son, not reviewed. Just thirty-one pages, a little too explicit in a couple of places for a teen guy, but very good.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, reviewed here.

The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner, reviewed here.

Lion of Babylon by Davis Bunn, reviewed here. Intense action concerning a missing American in Iraq and the formerly fired operative sent to find him. Very good!

Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce, reviewed here. Mixed emotions.

A Penny For Your Thoughts by Mindy Starn Clark and The Map In the Attic by Jolyn Sharp, short reviews here. I actually read this during the summer but they were for a Secret Sister at church, so I couldn’t mention them before letting her know who I was.

Goforth of China by Rosalind Goforth, finished several weeks ago but just reviewed here this month.

I’m currently reading:

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World edited by C. J. Mahaney. Should be done in a few days.

Boyhood and Beyond: Practical Wisdom for Becoming a Man by Bob Schultz with my son. About half-way through, enjoying it so far.

The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber, my first by her, just started. I was very surprised to find a four-letter word there. Decided to lay this one aside after a way-too explicit sexual encounter was described.

Next up, probably:

Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher, recommended by Lisa.

Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell.

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly, about three modern sisters who are descendants of Jo March who find a collection of her letters.

By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith, autobiographical book by Isobel Kuhn.

Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Lion of Babylon

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Lion of Babylon by Davis Bunn isn’t the type of book I usually go for: action, adventure, intrigue, espionage, etc. But I picked it up as a possible present for someone whom I thought might like it. Wow. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat at times.

Marc Royce is a former operative for State department Intelligence who was dismissed when he needed time to care for his ailing wife. Now suddenly his former boss calls him to for a special mission: his friend Alex is missing in Iraq along with an American woman he is rumored to have eloped with. Marc knows Alex has not eloped and agrees to travel to Baghdad to covertly search for him. He finds that both Americans and Iraqis officially know nothing but unofficially try to squelch his search.

He teams up with a Christian Iraqi lawyer to continue gathering information, and gets drawn into helping him recover some kidnapped children. They find that the kidnappings seem to be related to the missing Alex, two American women, and an Iraqi man. Unexpected allies and unexpected grace helps them navigate through the volatile politics and dangerous hindrances to finding those who are missing.

I have to admit that even with the American action in Iraq over the past several years, I have not really paid much attention to the region itself. Bunn’s descriptions of the different factions were enough to help understand but not enough to be tedious. His descriptions of the desert, dust, and heat almost made me feel like I was there. Sometimes the point of view was Marc’s and sometimes it was that of the Christian Iraqi, Sameh, and it was eye-opening to see what living for Christ would be like in that land. All in all a very good read.

Here is a trailer for the book:

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Amy Inspired

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I found Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce while looking for bargains at Border’s going-out-of-business sale: the cover looked familiar and I remembered seeing it mentioned by a blogger or two.

Amy is an aspiring writer supporting herself by teaching in a college. But she seems to be piling up one rejection after another, both for her written work and in her love life, as her current boyfriend breaks up with her on his lunch break before class. She catalogs her rejections and is obsessed with lists. She lives with an eccentric housemate who brings home a friend, Eli, who needs a place to stay for a while. Amy finds herself strangely drawn to Eli though he is quite different from her and from her expectations of the kind of man she would be interested in. Meanwhile, Amy struggles with what the Christian life is truly supposed to look like, with her writing, which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, with single life, with her family, with a lovestruck student, and even with her roommate and Eli.

I spent the first — oh, third or so of this book not really liking it very much. The plot seemed to amble along, not really going anywhere, though it was unfolding more about Amy’s character. But I had more serious problems with a couple of aspects of the book.

First, Amy comes from a Fundamentalist background, and there are several digs in the book at fundamentalists. As a fundamentalist myself, I do get tired of the stereotype and the fact that Christendom feels that fundamentalists are fair targets for such digs. On the other hand, I do have to admit there are segments of fundamentalists who give fundamentalism a bad name and who focus on stricter external standards than the Bible calls for, so I can understand someone coming from that background wrestling with exactly what Christianity is and how it’s to be fleshed out.

Secondly, the book is a little…edgier than much Christian fiction. There is a scene, for instance, when Amy and her house mate, Zoe, carry a conversation into the bedroom and continue while Zoe changes clothes. No problem there, but when the author goes on to give a description of Zoe’s body in her underwear — I just don’t need that mental picture. And in another brief scene, Amy is down to her bra and underwear herself when she tells her boyfriend that they have to stop and she can’t have sex with him. It’s good to stop yourself even at that point, but it’s better to not let yourself even get to that point, and Amy knows that and regrets it, but, still, the scene as described leaves a mental picture I don’t want to carry with me.

Besides those issues, though, I did like where Amy ended up in realizing where some of her compulsions were coming from and in finding rest in forgiveness. There is humor laced throughout the book and real pathos as many characters experience varying degrees of loss and growth.

And I liked some of Pierce’s phrasing here and there. For instance, “Grandma FedExed a Ziploc bag of crumbs that had once been homemade oatmeal cookies” (p. 145) made me giggle. A description of a painting (p. 168) almost made me visualize it and her insights helped me understand it. And this paragraph I thought was particularly beautiful (p. 252):

I couldn’t save Ashley. But I hoped I was the first of many people who would lead her step-by-step until her fledgling wonder turned to faith and took flight, one of many believers burning in rows like lights illuminating the length of an airplane runway.

There’s no doubt Bethany Pierce is a skilled writer. I think if some of the scenes had been written less explicitly I’d have fewer mixed emotions about the book.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God

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In Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job (linked to my review) author Layton Talbert referred a few times to a set of poems John Piper wrote called The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God. The poems are in book form there with some beautiful photography and a CD of John Piper reading the poems (at least, the used copy I bought from Amazon had a CD with it). The text and audio are also online here (although a few lines are missing from the text).

There is something about poetry that can express truth with beauty and poignancy, and Piper’s poems certainly accomplish that. They don’t cover every verse or every point made in the book of Job, and they include some scenes not in Job (a conversation between Job and God before Job’s calamities struck and between Job and his wife, who is treated much more tenderly here than in most sermons where I’ve heard her mentioned) which is just an imaginative way of telling the story and expressing what kinds of conversations may have passed. All in all they’re a faithful retelling.

I had wondered why Piper said early on, “And Job would lift his hands to God and wondered why he spared the rod of suffering” until I realized he was probably referring to what Job feared in 3:25 when he said, ““the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” We’re going through Job in our church, and just recently discussed what it was that Job might have feared, and it could quite possibly be something along these lines, that God had blessed him so much that he feared that suffering of some kind was going to befall him at some point before it was all over.

There are some really beautiful sections. Here are a few of my favorites (p. 18):

Now tell me, with your heart,
Would you be willing, Job, to part
With all your children, if in my
Deep counsel I should judge that by
Such severing more good would be,
And you would know far more of me?”

What parent could answer that question? Yet we’re called to yield our children to God: they’re ultimately His.

On pages 32-33, shortly after all his trials came:

O God, I cling
With feeble fingers to the ledge
Of your great grace, yet feel the wedge
Of this calamity struck hard
Between my chest and this deep-scarred
And granite precipice of love.

Part of his response to his wife (p. 41):

O Dinah, do not speak like those
Who cannot see, because they close
Their eyes, and say there is no God,
Or fault him when he plies the rod.
It is no sin to say, my love,
That bliss and pain come from above.
And if we do not understand
Some dreadful stroke from his left hand,
Then we must wait and trust and see.

Part of Job’s response to his friends’ accusations (p. 58):

O that some door
Were opened to the court of God,
And I might make my case unflawed
Before the Judge of all the world,
And prove this storm has not been hurled
Against me or my children there
Because of hidden crimes. O spare
Me now, my friends, your packages
Of God, your simple adages.

And I think my favorite lines of all (p. 72):

Beware, Jemimah, God is kind,
In ways that will not fit your mind.

This book took me just under half an hour to read, and then I listened to it the next day in about the same amount of time while mostly following along reading the words. It was quite an enjoyable and beneficial hour, helping to feel some of what Job might have felt. I think I’ll be returning to this volume again and again.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job

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Layton Talbert was one of our Sunday School teachers at the church we attended the first fourteen years we were married, back before he earned his PhD. In the years since our class with him, I’ve very much enjoyed his articles in Frontline magazine, where he currently serves as a contributing editor. I particularly like his regular “At a Glance” column where he usually gives an overview of a book of the Bible (his column on Ecclesiastes particularly opened that book up for me). Next to one of our former pastors, Dr. Mark Minnick, there is no one whose exegesis and teaching I trust more (though no one is infallible, of course). So when our current pastor began preaching through the book of Job and recommended Dr. Talbert’s book, Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job, I didn’t need much convincing to get it. In addition, I know personally many of the people he mentions in the book. I trust, however, that even though this prior knowledge inclined me positively toward the book even before I got it, it didn’t cloud my perspective.

Dr. Talbert has attempted (successfully, I think) to write the book on two levels: the main text is easily readable for most any layperson, but the end notes are helpful for more experienced theologians (and for others who want to delve into them.) Though probably no one loves end notes, I can understand that having those notes scattered throughout the book as footnotes would make the text look cluttered and daunting to some.

Dr. Talbert begins by acknowledging that the book of Job is both long and difficult, especially the discourses between Job and his friends, but he reminds us “the Holy Spirit does not waste space” (p. 9) and even these discourses are valuable to us. He offers several helpful suggestions for reading Job, explores the theme of the book (suggesting that suffering is the catalyst rather than the main theme), and plunges right into commentary, not verse by verse, but section by section.

I spent a few hours this week compiling a list of the quotes I marked as well as pages numbers of sections that were particularly instructive to me but were too long to quote, both as a way of review and a way to have some of them handy. I ended up with five pages. I can’t share all of that here, but I’ll try to share some of the most poignant.

Satan’s accusation that Job is “pious only for pay” undermines God as well as Job because if it is so, that means God is content with that arrangement (p. 40).

Suffering can cause us to question either God’s omnipotence or His love: either He wasn’t able to stop the suffering or He was able but allowed it because He’s not completely good. “Since both options are expressly unbiblical, we are faced with a choice: (1) Ignore what the Bible says about God and reevaluate Him on the basis of our limited experience, knowledge, and understanding or (2) accept God’s self-description and reevaluate our circumstances in the light of the Bible’s depiction of realty.” P. 57).

“It is not merely the affliction itself that Job finds so hard to bear; it is the sudden and inexplicable change in God’s posture toward him that the circumstances seem to signal (p. 85).

“Expressions of grief may not fit some people’s sanitized ideas of what a Christian ‘ought’ to think and feel. But when catastrophe strikes like lightning, ripping ragged holes in the lives of previously serene saints, God has preserved a record of the grief of godly saints for our consolation. Anger is not unbelief and questions are not sinful; they are human and shared by some of the best of God’s people” (p. 90).

You may have wondered, as I have, if Job “sinned not” in his initial reaction to his suffering at the end of chapter one, yet repents in chapter 42:1-6, what happened in between that he had to repent of? Part of the answer is this: “If Job justifies himself at the expense of God’s righteousness (as God says he did – Job 40:8), then he has virtually, if unintentionally, made himself more righteous than God….Whenever we think that God is being unfair, or that we would never do some of the things God does, we make ourselves more righteous than God” (p. 98).

On the difficulty of 19:25-27: “We must be content to enter the passage with no prejudgment as to what we will bring out of it. That’s the only way to insure that we derive our theology out of the text (exegesis) rather than read our theology into a text (eisegesis)” (p. 121). (Yes! If only all Bible teachers and preachers would get this. bh)

“[God] censures Job for defending his own righteousness over against and at the expense of God’s righteousness (40:8)” (p. 159).

“For Job to be browbeaten into ‘confessing’ uncommitted sin with the assurance that his fortunes will be restored is to trifle with his soul, to confuse his conscience, and to redirect everyone’s attention to materialism as the motivation and demonstration of one’s spiritual condition” (p. 130).

“The three friends argue that Job’s suffering is consistent with God’s justice because [Job] has (obviously) sinned. Job argues that his suffering is contrary to God’s justice because he has not sinned. Elihu offers a revolutionary third perspective: suffering is not necessarily linked to God’s justice at all. God’s justice remains intact, therefore, and may not be impugned (34:12). The issue is man’s justice in responding to inexplicable suffering sent or allowed by a just God. That suffering may not be explicitly ‘deserved’ does not render the suffering itself unjust, nor does it imply that God is unjust for permitting it” (p. 170).

“Job is not rebuked for asking why. He is rebuked for an honest question that has soured into a complaint laced with insinuation. God reprimands Job for sins of speech and attitude subsequent to his sufferings – speech and attitudes that reflect wrongly on the character of God” (p. 202).

If you’ve ever wondered, as I have, what God’s discussion of animals has to do with Job’s suffering, a part of the answer is: “By belaboring this point with Job, God unveils one of His divine qualities. The Lord is powerful and majestic and wise beyond man’s comprehension, but He is also compassionate…even towards beasts. He talks as if He has intimate knowledge of their nature and needs because He does. That’s the point” (p. 206).

“We may not always see the signs of God’s goodness in our immediate circumstances, but what we see is not all there is. That is a significant part of God’s answer to Job” (p. 206).

“The furnace of affliction may be transformed into a holy of holies, a sanctuary filled with the presence of the God Whose path is in the storm” (p. 235).

“Believe Him implicitly, with or without proof, because He has spoken. Trust Him submissively, with or without understanding, because He is sovereign and good. Worship Him reverently, with or without reward, because He is worthy… Wait for Him patiently, with or without reprieve, because He will come.” (p. 241).

“God’s revelation furnishes ample evidence to justify faith but also ample opportunity to exercise faith” (p. 256).

I was also happy to see Job vindicated from something I heard a preacher say years ago, that Job’s confession in 3:25 that “the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me” indicated that he had a “life-dominating sin” of fearfulness. But God repeatedly says that Job is “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil” (1:8; 2:3) and that his trials came upon him “without cause” (2:3).

There are also insightful discussions on the purposes for suffering, possible reasons why God didn’t tell Job what was behind his suffering, a section on helping the hurting (an excerpt from that is here), and even an appendix on leviathan, for those who might want more information about what that creature mentioned by God might have been.

This is an immensely helpful book, both for those who have wrestled with suffering and those who have wrestled with their study of the book of Job. Those of you who read here regularly know that it is rare that I can recommend a book completely without reservation: this is one I can.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Reviews: Two Mysteries

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I read two mysteries this past summer but have not discussed them before now because they were gifts for my “secret sister” at church, and naturally I needed to keep them secret til after I let her know who I was. 🙂 She likes mysteries, so I checked out a couple to pass on to her.

A Penny For Your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark is the first in her Million Dollar Mystery series. Callie Webber had previously been an investigator but opted later to use her skills to check out charities her elusive but wealthy and well-connected boss wanted to contribute to. When her newest client, a friend of her boss, is murdered, her boss asks her to investigate the death as a personal favor. As Callie uncovers family and business secrets, soon her own life is in danger. I stewed a bit over not liking the murderer’s reasoning until I realized that, duh, any murderer is going to be a little warped in his or her thinking. I liked this book a lot, and though I don’t gravitate to mysteries generally, I am tempted to read others in this series mainly because I think I know who Callie’s boss might be (she knows his name but has never met him) and I want to see if I am right. 🙂


A Penny For Your Thoughts is Christian fiction; The Map In the Attic by Jolyn Sharp is not, but it is a very clean story. Annie Dawson is cleaning out her grandmother’s attic (I don’t know if the similarity in name is purposeful between Annie of Grey Gables and Anne of Green Gables, but the similarity is only in name) when she finds an old piece of needlework stuffed in a cookie jar in a box marked for a yard sale. She shows the piece to her fellow Hook and Needle Club members, and someone realizes it is not abstract art but a detailed map. The ladies then want to know, of course, a map of what. Evidently someone else knows or wants to know, too, because someone tries to steal the map — more than once.

Overall it was a pretty interesting book. It ended rather abruptly, suggesting it is leading to another book in the series. After a bit of research I discovered this book (which I had received in a book swap) is evidently part of a series in a book club, which I have no desire to join, but some of the books are available used in places like Amazon.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Shape of Mercy

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I read Susan Meissner’s Lady in Waiting last year and subsequently wanted to read more of her books. So I recently picked up The Shape of Mercy which was published in 2008, and I remembered several bloggers mentioning it and liking it, so I decided to give it a try.

In The Shape of Mercy, Lauren Durough comes from a family of wealth and privilege, but wants to forge her own path, her own destiny. She defies tradition by going to a different college than expected and living in the dorms, and she takes a further step by looking for a job to take care of living expenses rather than depend on her father’s stipend. That leads her to an eighty-three year old well-to-do retired librarian, Abigail, who is looking for someone to transcribe a diary that was written by one of her ancestors, named Mercy, who had been arrested and convicted during the Salem witch trials.

Lauren learns that misjudgment and jumping to conclusions did not die in 1692, but she is especially startled to learn the extent those elements rule her own heart.

Overall I thought this was a marvelous, multi-layered book. Susan brilliantly wove together the diary entries with the contemporary story, and I was drawn in to Lauren’s growth and realizations about herself as well as her curiosity about Abigail’s life. There were times when I didn’t want to put the book down, times I was almost in tears for different characters.

This would be one of those five-star, two thumbs up reviews except for just a couple of things.

Major Spoiler Alert:

It doesn’t bother me so much that one character commits suicide — I think such a thing is always a tragedy, but I can accept it as part of the plot because such does happen in the real world. What does bother me, though, is that is is regarded by the other characters as something heroic, sacrificial, and done out of love when biblically it is never regarded that way. “Thou shalt not kill” certainly applies to one’s own life as well as others. There is a difference between taking a bullet for someone and aiming that bullet at yourself. Suicide is the ultimate taking of your own life into your own hands and the ultimate lack of faith in God to handle one’s life circumstances as He sees fit. There were Bible people who wanted to die, but they left the actual process to the Lord. I don’t want to turn this into a treatise on suicide, but felt I must explain why the response in this book disturbed me.

Secondly, at one point the author refers to “that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.” If she means that we’re made in God’s image and some of that can still be seen even though we’re marred by the fall of man and our own personal sin, I can agree with that. If she means some spark of divinity resides in every human being, I can’t agree with that.

But other than those two elements, I really enjoyed the book and I do plan on reading more of Meissner.

Something neat I just found earlier today is a blog where Meissner continued the stories of some of the characters as blog posts here. I poked around just a bit today and I am looking forward to reading a bit more.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Peace Like a River

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I had seen many bloggers refer to Peace Like a River by Leif Enger years ago, and I put the title on my TBR list, but only got to it the last couple of weeks: my family wanted ideas for my birthday, and I scanned my list of TBR titles and suggested this one and a couple of others.

The story is told by eleven-year-old Reuben Land, who almost didn’t survive his birth as a severely asthmatic child but was brought back after twelve minutes without breathing by his father calmly saying, “Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe.”

Thus begins a series of miracles at the hands of Reuben’s father. After many of them Reuben says, “Make of that what you will.” Honestly, I don’t know what to make of that, and that may be why I hadn’t sought out this title earlier, but figuring out the author’s theology of such isn’t really necessary to enjoying the story. Reuben narrates the book as a witness: “Someone to declare, Here’s what I saw. Here’s how it went. Make of it what you will.”

In Reuben’s eleventh year, his brother Davy kills two bullies, somewhat but not entirely in self-defense, and escapes jail when he seems sure to be convicted (not much of a serious spoiler there as the back of the book refers to Reuben’s “outlaw older brother who has been controversially charged with murder.”) There follows a strange dichotomy of heart for some of the characters and for me as a reader as well: you find yourself hoping Davy is okay, yet knowing that he has to face justice, and grieving that he seems to have no regrets or repentance. After a time Reuben, his nine-year-old sister Swede, and their father go after Davy to try to find him, only to discover after a time that the FBI is following them. Throughout it all the character of each unfolds through the events, especially that of Reuben’s father.

Leif Enger is a wonderful storyteller. The book feels as if you’re sitting across from him in rockers on the front porch, listening to him tell a story. One reviewer’s blurb on the back of the book says “his novel moves in a current that can be poetic and slow or as tumultuous as whitewater rapids,” an apt description. He’s no mean poet as well, as through Swede he shares segments of an epic Western poem (though it didn’t seem like this could come from the hand of a nine-year-old girl, precocious as she was). I also liked that the chapter titles were significant: this was the first book in a long time in which I paid attention to the titles and at the end of each chapter looked back and thought about the title designations. And at the end of the book, when I turned it over and looked again at the front cover, I realized with a start who the shadowy horseback rider was, and nearly came to tears.

Some of Enger’s phrases stood out to me as well: a description of a particular women who “resembled an opportunity missed by Rembrandt”: “Fair is whatever God wants to do”; a reference to something people say “as if they’ve been educated from greeting cards.”

There were humorous parts as well: in one incident when Reuben and another girl end up in the church kitchen during a long service and start to make pancakes, the smell floats up to the sanctuary, influencing one man to “prophesy” about heavenly smells at the Lord’s banquet table.

I probably should say for some readers that though there is a description of a charismatic service, I am not charismatic and not promoting that kind of thing, but I am not going to dissect all of that. One doesn’t have to agree with every little point in a book to benefit from it.

I did enjoy the book and it had me pondering for a while afterward. In a search earlier today I came across this interview which shed more light both on the author and the book. I am definitely planning to put his next one, So Brave, Young, and Handsome on my TBR list.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Goforth of China

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Goforth of China by Rosalind Goforth is a book I have read many times, and I recently felt an urge to revisit it. It has taken me a while to talk about it, though, because I have so many places marked in it, it would be impossible to share all of them.

Jonathan Goforth grew up as the seventh of eleven children on a farm in Canada. Though an excellent farmer, he felt the call of God to go to China as a missionary after hearing someone speak on Taiwan. Jonathan’s mother was an excellent seamstress, but Jonathan was marked for teasing by his more urban classmates at college due to having home-made clothes and being somewhat naive and unpretentious. His fellow dorm mates went so far as to take new fabric he had bought to have new clothes made, cut a hole in it, put it over Jonathan’s head, and made him run up and down a hallway through a number of other laughing students. He felt afterward that this kind of behavior should be reported, but was told by the college authorities that it was just a harmless prank. It hurt him, not so much that this had been done to him, but that it had happened at a Christian college. Rosalind writes, “That night he knelt with Bible before him and struggled through the greatest humiliation and the first great disappointment of his life. The dreams he had been indulging in but a few days before had vanished, and before him, for a time at least, lay a lone road. Henceforth he was to break an independent trail. It is not hard to see God’s hand in this, forcing him out as it did into an independence of action which so characterized his whole after life” (pp. 31-32). By the time he graduated, he had the honor and support of the whole school, and many came to apologize for their actions that year. One particular student prayer meeting at a much-needed time helped make a definite change in his ability to use the Chinese language (told here).

College not only honed his intellect and forged his character, but it also was saw the beginnings of ministry as he reached out in various ways to lost people. He was a missionary long before he left the shores of his home country. He met his wife, Rosalind, as a fellow mission worker. Once when Jonathan left his Bible on a chair, Rosalind picked up his Bible. Finding markings throughout and the book itself falling apart, she thought to herself, “That is the man I would like to marry” (p. 49).

The Goforths headed to China at a time when the Chinese were greatly suspicious of “foreign devils.” Some of the stories circulated about the foreigners (such as the one that their medicine was so effective because it had the eyes and hearts of children in it, leading the people to fear the foreigners would kidnap their children) seem so ridiculous to read now and to think that anyone actually believed them, but suspicion was a great hindrance to their efforts to reach the Chinese. In an effort to counteract this, they held frequent tours of their home to let the Chinese see whatever they wanted to see (and sometimes the Chinese saw whatever they wanted to see by touching a dampened fingertip to the paper windows, making a peephole!) The result of one such incident I shared earlier near the end of this post.

The Goforths not only had to deal with everyday frustrations, but also major, heartbreaking trials. Four times in their ministry they lost nearly all their possessions, once by fire, once by flood, once during the Boxer rebellion (a harrowing time with a miraculous deliverance in itself), and lastly while on furlough when a new inexperienced missionary moved some of their belongings into an unlocked “leaking, thatched cowshed” (p. 211). After the last time, “when, in the privacy of their own room, the ‘weaker vessel’ broke down and wept bitter, rebellious tears, Goforth sought to comfort her by saying, ‘My dear, after all, they’re only things and the Word says, ‘Take joyfully the spoiling of your goods!’ Cheer up, we’ll get along somehow.'” He wasn’t being calloused: he had a generally faith-filled, buoyant spirit, while his wife had…one rather more like my own. The worst loss of all, though, that even shook Goforth himself was the loss of several children.

Despite and sometimes even through the trials they endured, God used them to bring many to Himself. Describing one of their evangelistic meetings, Rosalind said, “Oh, friends, who wrote in those days pitying us, would that you could have experienced, as we did day by day,…the keenest joy a human being can I believe experience, [seeing] men and women transformed by the message of God’s love in Christ” (p. 168).

Besides Goforth’s spirit mentioned above, one of his other major characteristics was his firmness of doctrine. Modernism was creeping into the church and eventually into its seminaries and missions, undermining its foundation, and Goforth saw firsthand the devastation it could wield on a person’s faith. He wasn’t afraid to speak out where he saw wrong, even if it wasn’t well-received and even (especially) when it infiltrated the church.

It was during such a time on furlough when some were even closing their pulpits to him that this was written, blessing my women’s-ministry-loving  heart: “Many times as he went throughout the churches he remarked on the blessed and powerful influence of the Women’s Missionary Society. When inclined to be depressed at the general deadness of the church, cheer and comfort would often come from the warmth of receptions given by the women” (p. 340).

God greatly used the Goforths not only in various countries in their own time, but ever since then as well through Rosalind’s writings. A few years ago Lifeline Ministries reproduced the original unabridged version of Goforth of China, and I was so glad to get it. Some years back Bethany House produced an abridged version titled Jonathan Goforth (which sadly doesn’t appear to be in print any more, but used copies can be found, or perhaps you can find it in a church or Christian school library). I’m afraid I’ve misrepresented that version in the past by complaining that the point of view switched from third to first person, but as I reread the original version, I saw Mrs. Goforth did that herself: overall she acted as narrator telling their story, but in some parts she slipped into the first person as she described particular incidents, especially those involving herself directly. It’s not as hard to follow, though, in the original: maybe some of the transitions didn’t make it to the abridged version. In many ways the abridged version is easier to read: the unabridged lists a great many names and places that wouldn’t mean as much to people not living at the time of the writing. My particular copy of the reproduction of the original has what appears to be some ink level problems: on some pages the print is very light, but on others it is very heavy, almost bleeding through the page. Hopefully they fixed that in subsequent printings.

Mrs. Goforth also wrote Miracles Lives of China (which I haven’t read), How I Know God Answers Prayer, and Climbing, one of my all-time favorite books. Jonathan wrote By My Spirit, telling of the revivals God sent to China. Another book which I haven’t read but which I think is geared toward children is Jonathan Goforth: An Open Door in China by Geoff and Janet Benge, part of the Christian Heroes: Then & Now series.

In an earlier post about why I love missionary biographies, I said, “There are heroes of our spiritual heritage who inspire us in love and dedication to God and to greater faith in remembering that the God they served and loved and Who provided for and used them is the very same God we love and serve today and Who will provide for us and use us.” The Goforths are such heroes, though they might balk at such a designation. Reading about them not only inspires faith but encourages us to follow in their footsteps of dedication. I hope you’ll read more about them.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)