Walking Away from the Faith Pt. 1

Walking Away from Faith: Unraveling the Mystery of Belief and Unbelief  

By Ruth Tucker, Intervarsity Press, 2002, 240 pages

Can a Christian abandon the faith? Do true Christians doubt? Is it a sin to doubt? Is doubt a slippery slope that leads to unbelief or abandoning the faith? These are some of the questions addressed by Ruth Tucker in her book, Walking Away from the Faith. Most Christians are familiar with the scripture from Mark 9:24: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” What does this scripture mean? Can both faith and unbelief exist in the same person? Ruth Tucker believes it can. She has actually struggled with doubt and unbelief most of her Christian life. This is a personal look at struggling with doubt and unbelief from someone who has struggled with it. The author notes, “All of us in our faith fall somewhere on the vast, subjective spectrum that ranges from absolute certainty to unrestrained skepticism. Some profess a confident belief in God that is never questioned; others cling to belief riddled with doubts, only a millimeter shy of unbelief”(7). Why is this true? Why do some Christians struggle with doubt and others do not? Are there Christians that do not struggle with doubt? Tucker is able to sympathize with those who struggle with doubt because of her own doubts. The author is from the Reformed faith that believes in eternal security. In this book she does not analyze if people can lose the faith based on scriptural passages. Instead, she seeks to “grapple with belief and unbelief from a human perspective, operating on the premise that there is surely the appearance of losing faith” (8). She says she cannot judge those who are sincere or insincere. We must “listen to their stories to better understand them and to more faithfully reach out to them in dialogue and love” (8-9).

Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman

Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Originally published in 1966. 409 pages.

Walker Percy's The Lat Gentleman is a modern day Odyssey or Huckleberry Finn. It tells the story of Will Barrett, a twenty-five-year-old Southerner who has been transplanted to New York. He is a Princeton University dropout who works as an air-conditioner maintenance and refers to himself as the engineer. Will purchases an expensive telescope with inheritance money so he can study a Peregrine Falcon, but instead he spies on a young woman, Kitty Vaught, and falls for her. As a result of becoming involved with Kitty, he changes from spectator to active participant in the Vaught family. Will is commissioned to be a travel companion to Kitty's brother, Jamie, whose Leukemia is in remission. The young men are given a motor home to travel. This vehicle operates like Huckleberry's raft. There is always another adventure around the corner.

Not everything in the novel is on the surface. Will has these dizzy spells where he loses his memory. These spells seems to be connected to something that happened between him and his father. In some sense, Will is on a quest to find an answer to his problems. He begins to think Jamie's older brother can provide answers to his search. However, Dr. Vaught tells Will that he is not an answer man. He must find his own answers.

The book ends with an "epiphanal" moment. Jamie is on his deathbed. Will has been commissioned to make sure Jamie is baptized. Will, however, is not a believer. The moment is very low key, but it seems to be a transformative experience for everyone involved. The priest asks Jamie if he believes. James asks him, is it true? The priest tells Jamie, "If it were not true, then I would not be here. That is why I am here, to tell you" (404). Jamie took the sacrament.

The Classics in Christian Perspective

Leland Ryken, Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2003. 230 pages. ISBN: 1-59244-340-0.

Leland Ryken's Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspectives attempts to explain his love of the classics and why Christians should read them. In the introduction Ryken provides good advice on reading the classics. The rest of the chapters cover a particular classic work. The major works discussed are Homer's Odyssey, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's MacBeth, Milton's Paradise Lost, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Dickens' Great Expectations, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych, and Camus' The Stranger. Ryken even has a chapter on "Poetry and the Christian Life." In each chapter Ryken does a good job of both discussing the classic and how to read in its particular genre.

Ryken wrote this book particularly because so many of them do not read the classics. He seeks to refute myths that many Christians have about reading Literature. A few of these fallacies are: We should read only non-fiction since fiction is not true; we should only read literature that shares our viewpoint; works by non-Christians cannot tell the truth. In addition Ryken instructs how we can misread the classics. For example, reading the classics for their ideas or discounting the pleasure we can get from reading the classics. The author also includes good information on reading and the imaginative life.

One could not find a better tour guide to the classics and why one should read them than Leland Ryken. The book is entertaining in itself. One thing Ryken emphasizes is that the classics can delight and teach and that is what he accomplishes in this book. The reader will want to go read these classics after reading this book or while reading this book. One recommendation that Ryken makes in the concluding chapter "is that everyone would benefit from claiming an author as his or her own specialty." This is something I have practiced most of my life. When I become interested in an author I go on to read widely in his works and read even what others have said about him. It is a way to enter into a conversation with a community of readers.

Gregor the Overlander

Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander, Book one of the Underland Chronicles. new York: Scholastic, 2003. 311 pages. ISBN: 978-0-439-678131.

Before publishing the Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins published a popular series, The Underland Chronicles. Gregor the Overlander is the first volume in this five book series. Gregor and his sister Boots live in New York City. One unsuspecting day they fall through a grate in the laundry room. They fall into an underland world of humans, spiders, rats, spiders, and other creatures. It turns out that there is a prophecy that a overlander would one day come to the underland and take a quest that will save the underland world.

This reviewer enjoyed the Hunger Games, but he did not know if he would enjoy the earlier series published by Collins. He was happily surprised. Gregor the Overlander is an exciting adventure story that will bring much enjoyment to the reader. It reminds one of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. It seems that it would have been the kind of book that C. S. Lewis would enjoy reading.

Gregor the Overlander would make a good read-aloud. I read it to my family and they thoroughly enjoyed it. It is the type of book that will grab your attention from the beginning and keep it to the end. We are now reading Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, the second volume in the series.

I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade

Diane Lee Wilson, I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade. Naperville, IL : Sourcebooks, 2010. 257 pages. ISBN: 978-1-4022-4027-0.

Diane Lee Wilson in her book, I Rode a Horse of White Jade has written a wonderful tale of how a Mongolian girl overcomes earlier setbacks in her life. The setting is thirteenth century Mongolia. Oyuna when she was a young girl a horse's hoof crushes her foot. She is crippled from then on. Oyuna's family and klan thinks she is cursed because of this accident. The girl, however, later thinks she has been marked by the horse. She thinks her vocation is to be with horses. I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade is a story of a girl's love for her horses and how this love changes her life.

The reader would not have to be a horse lover to love this story. The book is about a love for animals, but it is also about being wounded by life. It is about achieving wholeness against great odds. It is about being optimistic in life's tragedies. I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade would be an excellent read-aloud for kids. I read it to my kids and the whole family enjoyed it.

I thought about Jacob in the Bible while reading the book. He was marked by the angel when he wrestled with him. He had a limp for the rest of his life. All people have some kind of handicap they must bear. We all face a choice. Will we work to overcome our weaknesses looking to God for strength or will we give in despair? Remember Jesus asked the man at the well, "Do you want to get well?"

Birmingham Sunday

Birmingham Sunday

By Larry Dane Brimner, Calkins Creek, 2010, 48 pp., ISBN 978-1-59078-613-0, $17.95.

Reviewed by John E. Shaffett

This is the author's version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source:

Catholic Library World, Jun2011, vol.81 Issue 4, p329.

 

September 15, 1963, was a horrible day in our nation’s history. On that day, four children were killed when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. Bombings happened so often in Birmingham that it was called “Bombingham.” Not till September 15, 1963, had these bombings been deadly. Why did it happen? Why was this particular church singled out? These are some of the questions Larry Dane Brimner tries to answer in his children’s book, Birmingham Sunday.

The author noted that the writing of this book was motivated by a “librarians’ call for biographies of the four children” (47) who were killed in this church bombing. Brimner was struck out often Addie Mae, Cynthia, Carole, and Denise were referred to as “the four little children,” or “the four little girls.” The author later found out that two other girls were killed that day. The author did extensive research by reading Birmingham newspapers; one of these newspapers was an African-American owned newspaper. He also reviewed FBI files, police reports and other primary sources. 

Birmingham Sunday includes “stirring” photo-essays that illuminate this event. He does a good job of describing these children’s personalities and the events that led to this horrendous crime. The text is easy to follow and there are side-bars throughout the text that give additional information on Brown v. The Board of Education, Rosa Parks, outlawed racial segregation, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders and events. This book is intended for children ages 10 and up. It is the type of book that makes history come alive. 

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, a winner of many awards for his fantasy and science fiction stories, died this past June. He had a long and successful career as a writer. I am sorry to say that I had not read any of Bradbury's books till a year ago. I had run across Fahrenheit 451 multiple times working at a Public Library. I was told that it was about censorship. A year ago I read an excellent article on Fahrenheit 451 by Robert M. Woods. This article motivated me to read this book and I am glad I did. Since that time I have read two more books by Bradbury, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked this Way Comes. 

Fahrenheit 451 in some sense is about censorship, but it is also much more. The characters had already stopped reading before the firemen began burning books. The book is also about marriage, relationships, culture, and technology. It shows how the knowledge contained in books can be easily lost. Fahrenheit 451 is quite relevant to our own time.

Dandelion Wine is a book about the remembering the summer of 1928 through the eyes of a twelve year old boy. Douglas's grandfather tells him that the dandelion is noble because it represents all the potential of summer. The dandelion is "a common flower, a weed that no one sees, yes. But for us, a noble thing, the dandelion" (13). The dandelion symbolizes the ordinary things of life. If we are not careful, we will miss them. We must slow down and smell the dandelions! We must like Douglas and prepare ourselves for all that life might bring.

I finished reading  Something Wicked this Way Comes on Halloween. I thought it was a good fit. The book is about a carnival that comes to town early one October. This carnival is not the typical carnival that you would expect. It brings with it much evil. In Something Wicked this Way Comes you have a classic battle between good and evil. It is the type of book that makes your hairs stand up on your neck.

So I have now read three books by Ray Bradbury. What do I think of him as a writer. This is just a small sampling of his work since he wrote around thirty books, but I do think these three books give you a feel for the author. Bradbury knows how to tell a good story. The writing requires multiple readings to get all that exists in the books. The author does not shy away from confronting evil head-on. He also explores the good things of life, love, beauty, and goodness. I plan on reading more works authored by Ray Bradbury.