An Exorcist Tells His Story by Gabriele Amorth

You could say that people belong in one of two categories: they either believe in God, or they don’t. But let me add a third category: those who say they believe in God, but get uncomfortable or embarrassed at the mention of anything remotely supernatural. These people require the Flood to be rendered as a myth or explained by meteorological means. Likewise with the fire that rained from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. To them the idea of demons as actual beings is preposterous. This third category is a wishy-washy form of Christianity that probably comes about as a result of pressure from the intellectual atheist majority, and as a vain attempt at keeping some degree of credibility in their eyes. The thing is, if a person believes in God, it is perfectly logical to grant God permission to bend or break the laws of the universe that he set in motion. And since we’ve already accepted the existence of a being who lives beyond what we can see and touch, it’s hardly inconceivable that there are other entities in existence outside our perception of what consistutes reality: angels and demons, for instance.

You can tell what group I belong to. I wrote the above paragraph because what this book is essentially trying to do is raise awareness of a crisis in the Church. This general lack of belief in the supernatural side of Christianity means that exorcisms are rarely performed today, despite the fact that the Bible clearly depicts Jesus and his disciples freeing demon-possessed people. It’s perhaps a little odd that I’m reading this book, since I’m a Protestant, and the book is written by a Roman Catholic priest. Well, I was interested in reading about demons, not for amusement, but because the Bible says so little about them. I was also curious to step into “enemy territory” and see if all the Protestant anti-Catholic propaganda is justified. It’s not. For the most part, I felt a kinship with the author; on most spiritual matters, we were on the same page. I was especially impressed with the opening chapter entitled “The Centrality of Christ,” although I remain completely baffled by the way that Catholics venerate Mary.

Contrary to such films as The Exorcist, real demons apparently do not talk much. It is, after all, to their advantage to remain undetected. Other topics, such as demon oppression, witchcraft, curses, etc., are also covered in the book. Amorth’s account of his experiences with demons are fascinating and believable by anyone who already accepts Christianity. And the stories are presented in a completely non-sensationalist manner. The book is written not for the titillation of the public, but as a wake-up call to fellow priests. Amorth maintains that there are many people out there who are needlessly suffering, people who have gone from doctor to doctor on a fruitless search for a physical cure to a spiritual ailment. The author is also careful not to downplay the arena of medicine, and he stresses the importance of being able to differentiate demon-possession from genuine mental disorders.

I realise that in reading this book, I’m stepping outside of the Bible - outside the one and only source for Christian belief. Well, Roman Catholic beliefs and practices are built upon two thousand years of tradition. Not so with us Protestants. We hang onto the Bible alone. So I’m not sure how much credence to grant this book. I can’t prove much in it. I can’t back it all up with Scripture references; all I can say is, it’s compatible with Scripture. My gut reaction is that this is an honest book written from the direct experience of a level-headed Christian. It should not be placed on bookshelves among all the hauntings and UFO accounts and other sensationalist “true” stories written for profit.

The Dawkins Delusion? by Alister McGrath

This is a small book, merely 100 pages, written as a thiestic response to Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion. Alister McGrath, the primary author, studied chemistry and molecular biophysics at Oxford, and moved on to study Christian theology, specialising in issues of science and religion.

Naturally, I had already read Dawkins’s book (also reviewed in this blog) before coming to this one. To summarise, I was dissatisfied with his arguments against God, disappointed by the ranting, arrogant tone of the book, and unnerved by the deceptive tactic of bombarding the reader with vague negativity about theism (and by that I mean the way Dawkins constantly provides poor quotes from thiests, with the design of infusing the notion that we’re all idiots; persuasion by pressure of numbers rather than by rational argument).

The Dawkins Delusion?, however, was a joy to read. It offered clarification of many objections I had already formulated in my mind, highlighted others I hadn’t seen, and it presented everything in a respectful tone. Reading it was like having poison drawn out of my body.

My only objection is in the title of the volume. Okay, it’s perhaps the perfect title for eye-catchability, but it’s kind of cheeky - something that Dawkins has no problem being, but something the Christian opposition should rise above. The title will instantly raise the heckles of Dawkins’s supporters, when the real aim should be to win them over to a more rational point of view.

Other than that, superb. I happen to think Dawkins’s book is crafty and dangerous (again, consult my review for justification), so I recommend reading The Dawkins Delusion? as an essential companian. Read both and make up your own mind.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

I spotted this book on a friend’s bookshelf and decided that I was up to the challenge of having my belief in the existence of God put to the test. Having lived a significant portion of my life as an agnostic, and having jumped between agnosticism (i.e. God may or may not exist) and theism (i.e. God does exist) more times than I can remember, I think I’m more qualified than most to claim that I’m capable of having an open mind.

The hardcover edition of The God Delusion is about 400 pages long. Should it really take 400 pages to prove or disprove the idea of God? I personally don’t think so. The book is this length because Dawkins includes many related topics, some of which I found useful; others were a waste of space. For instance, Dawkins spends a whole chapter talking about how many of the scientists who appear to be theists on paper are actually athiests. Scientists sometimes use the term “God” in a loose, poetic sense. Dawkins’s argument may have some validity, but it’s hardly scientific for a reader to believe or disbelieve in a theory by counting how many scientists’ heads are on each side. We want a rational case for athiesm presented!

Sadly, before we can get to hear the crux of the argument, Dawkins has a lot of stuff to get off his chest. A lot of it comes across as quite emotional and dripping with arrogance. In introducing a quote by C.S. Lewis, on the matter of whether Jesus could have been truly “good” if he wasn’t really “God”, Dawkins can’t help himself from stating it thus: “C.S. Lewis (who should have known better) said …” Dawkins’s disagrement with Lewis was simply on the grounds that each author came at the issue with a difference set of presuppositions: Lewis with the view that the Gospel accounts are reliable historical documents, and Dawkins that they are not. And so, there was no need for such mockery.

When I came to Dawkins’s central argument, I was surprised by its simplicity. It turns out he has a big problem with the idea of “infinite regression” (i.e. if God made the universe, who made God, then who made the thing that made God, ad infinitum). Well, on that we are agreed. Infinite regression answers nothing. But Dawkins refuses to accept that the idea of a creator is a valid means of terminating an infinite regession. Long ago, I heard it argued to my complete satisfaction, something like this: Logic tells us that for every effect we need a cause. The universe began with a Big Bang. That’s not a proper explanation, because we need to explain how the material for such a bang originated. A creative agent of some kind. And, of course, we face the obvious question of who created the creator? The most logical idea that our brains can comprehend is that there should be nothing at all: no universe, no laws of physics, no anything. That would make perfect sense. Except here we are. We exist. And so, whether we like it or not, we are forced to consider, in the absense of any rational alternative, the notion that there indeed was a “first cause,” something that exists outside of time itself and is responsible for all that we see.

Dawkins denies this argument, in a chapter entitled “Why there almost certainly is no God.” He believes in evolution, as a lot of people do. In my mind, whether you do or don’t has little bearing on whether God exists. Evolution is related to biology alone. And when we’re talking about the origin of the universe, that’s cosmology. Where Dawkins errs is that he insists on cosmological evolution: the universe arrived at the form it is in today by a process of evolutionary changes. Dawkins acknowledges that this is not something that can be proven, but he stands by the principle that the simplest answer is almost always the right one (the theory of evolution claims to show how the simple gives rise to the complex without the need for an intelligent designer). God, he says, is infinitely complex, therefore he almost certainly does not exist. Did you spot the flaw in Dawkins’s reasoning? He assumes cosmological evolution to be true in order to lay his ground for disproving God (i.e. the answer to the origin of the universe must be simple, therefore it ain’t God). In other words, he assumes cosmological evolution to be true in order to prove cosmological evolution to be true: circular reasoning.

And that’s it. That is Dawkins’s single thread on which he clings to. And it’s over and done with about halfway through. The book continues for another two hundred pages, because it’s not just theism that Dawkins is attacking. It’s the idea of a personal God who hears prayer. And so, religion is under scrutiny for much of the remainder of the book. He attempts to explain the predominance of religion by theorising about us having a “God centre” in our brains - a left-over item from man’s evolutionary progress that once helped us survive, but now we’re better off without it in our more enlightened times. Pure speculation.

Dawkins talks about religion’s association with violence. He wastes a page or two quoting some hot-headed anti-athiest remarks posted online by a blogger. Why include this stuff? It’s just the remarks of an idiot blowing off steam. Oh, but I think I know why Dawkins put it in the book. The book is littered with poor examples of quotes by theists, both from antiquity and modern day. The author appears to indulge every whim to sling mud at a believer in God over some poorly thought-out comment the believer made. These quotes cannot form the basis of a rational argument against God, so why are they included? All they do is create a vague buzz of negativity in the reader’s mind about the idea of God. But perhaps that’s the idea. And if true, that makes Dawkins a fairly sinister author.

On the matter of religion and acts of violence, there is no doubt a connection. But it’s the same connect that exists between, say, soccer and violence; just look at England’s reputation for football hooliganism. The governing principle that Dawkins misses is that violence is easily associated with anything that people feel passionately about. If we rid the world of religion, we don’t cure the problem. We relieve one symptom of a problem that lies in the nature of man.

Dawkins is totally out of his depth when talking about the Bible. He sees the God of the Old Testament as a big bully, replaced by a more favourable deity in the New Testament. I, however, see a perfect unity of the two, because I’ve given them more than a cursory glance over the years. The idea of a holy God who demands absolute perfection, who cannot stand sin, who must punish sin - a God who rescued man at great cost to himself - these concepts don’t register with Dawkins. I get the feeling that he has led a fairly moral life, and if it were possible for him to believe in heaven, he would consider it his right to end up there - as a decent law-abiding citizen of earth. Even when he examines the God that he doesn’t believe in, he can’t help but shape God in his own image.

More rational athiests than Dawkins will feel disappointed by his ranting. Some athiests will of course be cheering him on (in the same way that some people think Michael Moore makes honest documentaries). Worst of all, some who are on the fence about Christianity may use the book as a form of escape. From experience, I know that we are not often as rational as we think we are at times; we can claim to seek the truth, but unconsciously we’re trying to escape from something that we desperately hope isn’t true: a God who demands our attention; not everyone has a mind that is sharpened like a razor against self-deception and crafty arguments.

I left this book feeling like I had been poisoned, but relieved that my rational belief in God remained intact. I would never say to anyone not to read something; that’s an attitude that smacks of brainwashing. But I would caution that this is a dangerous book for an impressionable person. In a spirit of fairness, I recommend also reading The Dawkins Delusion? by Alister McGrath for a well presented opposing argument.

Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

I’ve put off reviewing this book for a long time - so long that most of the content is now just a blur. But the important stuff has stayed with me. The reason I put the review off is because I didn’t know how to tackle it. The book fell into that category that a lot of Christian literature falls into: a mix of truth and misinterpretation. That sounds arrogant, but it comes from having over fifteen years of Christian experience and learning.

Thankfully, Wild at Heart contains much more truth than misinterpretation. My main criticism is the author’s tendency to offer flowery interpretations of Scripture, going beyond the actual meaning of Bible passages. The book also projects a kind of “find yourself” mentality that Americans seem to like. But that’s enough criticism. In the book’s favour, I have to say that it is dealing with a very important theme that is largely being ignored by everyone.

I was finally prompted to write this review after reading a particular news article on a blog. I heard about a college student who used his computer to design a first-person shooter map of his school; other students played and enjoyed it. Then the school administration found out (not that it was a secret) and got the police involved. Despite no actual crime having been committed, the student has been transferred to another educational establishment to complete his course, and the police have forbidden him ever again to make a map of any actual public place.

Okay, we all know what prompted this harsh reaction from the authorities: the recent real-life school shootings. But nobody’s asking the important question: what prompted the student to create the college map? You see, I work in a school. As a gaming fan, I’ve oftened walked the corridors imagining how cool it would be to have a game map of the building. I’ve looked at the various nooks and crannies and thought how wonderful it would be to be able to leap around in inventive ways, finding interesting spots to gain a tactical advantage over my opponents. Does this make me a potential psycho killer? Of course not. This kind of thing appeals to me simply because I’m male. And that’s why the student made the map - because he’s male, and males do male things.

Wild at Heart makes the daring suggestion that we should not be preventing our boy children from playing with toy guns - that the desire to play in this way is not an expression of human sinfulness, but of male identity. The book suggests that men have a wild streak - that they are more at home in the wilds of nature than in a nice tidy house. We crave to be seen, not as well-mannered polite people, but as courageous and dangerous. When a young boy gets a cowboy costume for his birthday, and he straps the guns into their holsters and puts on his wide-brimmed hat, he’ll probably want to wear it all day, whether he’s playing with friends or sitting at the dinner table. He is unlikely to have the same enthusiasm for, say, a doctor’s costume. The cowboy costume is more than just an outfit; it’s an identity. He wants to be seen as dangerous, even if it’s just makebelieve. I reiterate: this has nothing to do with sin. It’s just the way we’re wired, as men. Girls have different interests. Look at how many girls’ toys that have themes of home and children, whereas boys’ toys are concerned with conflict and battle.

This book suggests that the churches of today are creating a breed of men who have been completely stripped of their proper identity. The virtues of niceness and politeness are hailed as the things to which we should aspire. But what we really crave is “permission to be dangerous.”

Speaking from personal experience, I’m a man who lives alone, and I have a slight distate for the domestic life that I’m entrenched it, whereas women have natural instincts for home-building. Do I sound sexist? Maybe I do. Maybe I should. Because the modern way of thinking - that men and women must be the same to be equal - is just wrong. Men and women are not only physically different, but psychologically wired completely differently. And these days, men are getting a real raw deal.

Wild at Heart is an important book that can be read and appreciated by the Christian and non-Christian alike. It’s a real eye-opener.

The Holy Bible: New Living Translation by various authors

Most visitors are probably thinking this is a rather strange item to find in a book review column, but a book’s a book, and the Bible is no exception. I became Christian when I was seventeen (fourteen years ago), and the fact that this is now the first time I’ve managed to read the Bible from cover to cover is a testament to how difficult an undertaking it is. As translations go, I favoured the New King James and New Internation Version over the years, but when I first started reading the New Living Translation (NLT), I found the task of understanding the Scriptures was made a lot easier. Other translations, such as the Good News Bible, have attempted this, but at the cost of accuracy. Take a look at the first two verses of the Bible in this little comparison:

King James Version:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

New King James Version:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

New International Version:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

New American Standard Bible:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

New Living Translation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface.

Good News Bible

In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water.

I realise we’re only considering two verses in the whole colossal volume, but you can easily notice how closely the New Living Translation sticks to the other widely accepted versions of the Bible, while the Good News Bible takes some serious liberties with the grammatical structure of the passage. On the flip side, a closer look at the above passage also reveals that the NLT is the only version which omits to mention “water” or “waters”; the idea of the earth being completely covered in water is omitted in the NLT. So, we’re certainly not talking about a perfect translation here. I think it’s fair to say that what you get is a fairly accurate translation that’s also highly readable.

During my reading I noticed a few departures from tradition with the NLT. Sometimes they were helpful, but other times I thought the translators went too far. Here are some that I can remember:

1. The term “brothers” in the New Testament is almost always changed to “brothers and sisters.” I think the idea behind this is that in the male-dominated 1st century the term “brothers,” when used as a greeting, was not stated in such a way as to exclude Chistian women. In the present day, it might be necessary to take away any ambiguity from the phrase in case some would think it’s referring only to males - and so, “brothers and sisters.” I’ll leave it up to you what you think about that move on the part of the translators.

2. Weights, measures and various Bible-time customs are generally changed to fit today’s culture. The practice of casting lots is helpfully re-translated as gambling with dice (which is what it was). However, I thought it was rather odd to have dollars mentioned as currency!

3. The great sea creature Leviathan, mentioned in the book of Job, is referred to as a crocodile. I’m aware of this interpretation, and I don’t think it’s the right one.

Overall, I think this is an excellent Bible translation, especially for children and teenagers. When talking with the young about God, it’s important to be able to quote God’s word without the hurdle of difficult language. And in a social climate where more and more people grow up without a church background, a translation like this is wonderful to have on hand. To illustrate the language difficulty, let me quote the famous prophetic passage, Isaiah 53, in two translations. Follow both carefully and note much easier the NLT is to understand:

New King James Version:

(1) Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? (2) For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. (3) He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; (4) Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. (5) But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. (6) All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (7) He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. (8 ) He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. (9) And they made His grave with the wicked - But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. (10) Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. (11) He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. (12) Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

New Living Translation:

(1) Who has believed our message? To whom will the LORD reveal his saving power? (2) My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. (3) He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. He was despised and rejected–a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. (4) Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! (5) But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! (6) All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the guilt and sins of us all. (7) He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. (8 ) From prison and trial they led him away to his death. But who among the people realized that he was dying for their sins - that he was suffering their punishment? (9) He had done no wrong, and he never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. (10) But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him and fill him with grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have a multitude of children, many heirs. He will enjoy a long life, and the LORD’s plan will prosper in his hands. (11) When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of what he has experienced, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. (12) I will give him the honors of one who is mighty and great, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among those who were sinners. He bore the sins of many and interceded for sinners.

The NLT is not just for children; I’m using it as my main Bible for study purposes. It has rekindled my love for the word of God, and I have never been so motivated about reading it as I am today. I honestly do believe that The Bible is the word of God. Despite all the bickering over translations and all the questions on the accuracy of the source material that makes up our modern Bibles, there is undeniably something special about the book. It reveals human nature with an honesty that nothing else I’ve ever experienced has matched. It provides insight on how to live a successful life. Let’s not forget all the incredible history, such as the accounts of the lives of Joseph, Moses, Samson, David, Daniel, Jonah, and others. Then there is Jesus - God himself becoming a man in order to give himself as a sacrifice to rescue sinful mankind from damnation. When you start to suspect that this book may be divine in origin, then so much becomes possible: the forgiveness of your sins; the ability to break the grip of evil in your life; access to a loving God who answers prayer; divine protection in day-to-day living; and in the end, eternal life.

The Bible’s impact on history makes it the most powerful book ever written. Now, with the New Living Translation, it has never been easier to read. So, give it a try and make up your own mind.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

This short book is comprised of thirty-one letters. Each one begins with “My dear Wormwood” and is signed “Your affectionate uncle - Screwtape.” Weird names, no doubt, and weird characters to go with them. Wormwood and Screwtape are not human beings; they are demons of the spiritual world, existing only to prey upon human souls. Screwtape is an experienced tempter, while his “nephew” Wormwood is new on the scene. The latter’s task is to entrap and destroy one particular human to whom he has been assigned. Each of Screwtape’s letters consists of advice to the inexperienced tempter as to how he might best exploit the human’s circumstances to secure his soul for hell.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is not a serious book, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, it’s laced with humour; yes, it contains the most ridiculous character names (Slubgob & Toadpipe are a few incidental demons you’ll meet); but this book is actually trying to be deadly serious. “What about?” you might ask. “How to send someone to hell?” Quite the opposite. In reading The Screwtape Letters, the reader gets clued into the subtle strategies of Satan so that they are exposed for what they are, and the reader is able to withstand them. Here’s one example which stood out for me, on the subject of how to pray:

Whenever they [the humans] are attending to the Enemy Himself [God] we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds are trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.

Being a Christian, I believe in the existence of demons, and I’ve picked up a thing or two from the Bible about how they operate. The details are sketchy at best, and it makes me unsure whether everything Lewis talks about is related to demonic activity in human life. But that’s not really important, becuase the purpose of each letter is to communicate warnings about dangers which Christians can fall into unawares, and those dangers are real, whether they are related to spiritual warfare or not. It’s a stroke of genius that Lewis decided to write a book of this nature in this highly entertaining format.

There are thirty-one letters in all, one for each day of the month, if you like. I found that some topics were more relevant to me than others, but I came away with a sense that this is a book I should read again in the future, when fresh insights would be gained.

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy is essentially C.S. Lewis telling us his Christian testimony. It’s not the usual tale of rescue from the evils of drink, drugs or sex that you tend to come across; in fact, it’s right at the opposite end of the scale. There isn’t much mention of personal sin (at least in the outware sense) in this tale, probably because there wasn’t much of it in his life worth talking about. C.S. Lewis was a philosopher, and his conversion to Christianity was a journey of the mind. A staunch athiest, it was only after many years and much debate with himself that he finally came to accept the reality of God.

The book begins with Lewis’s boyhood, in particular his relationship with his brother and father, and the harsh realities of school life in the early twentieth century. It’s hard for me to say much about the factual content of the book, because it has become a bit of a blur. Essentially it’s a chronicle of various schools, colleges and people who were influential in Lewis’s life. It was fairly interesting reading, but I couldn’t help getting impatient with the book; I was more interested in Lewis’s inner pilgrimage than his outer life. But to be fair, the one can’t be told without the other. The only major gripe I have about the book is that the author presupposes that his readership is highly educated in classic literature; there are continual references to authors and books of which I have absolutely no knowledge.

I tend to approach C.S. Lewis’s books with a sense of caution, chiefly because I’ve grown to believe that philosophy is a dangerous minefield. I don’t like “truths” that are only discerned by adding together all sorts of complex building blocks in your mind, any one of which could crumble and turn your truth into falsehood. I didn’t really get that impression from Surprised by Joy, but Lewis’s journey was complicated enough that I’m left scratching my head when I try to recall if there was any one particular thing that was the major turning point for him.

Throughout the story, Lewis talks much about his search for a thing he calls “Joy.” This was a lifelong quest to grasp and hang on to an experience that he only remembers having in flashes, and one which seemed to be happening less and less as he grew older. As the book progressed, I began to see Lewis’s obsession with Joy was as very strange and slightly ridiculous. But the big surprise came at the end of the story, when I was delighted by Lewis’s own conclusions on the matter.

As an evangelistic tool, I’m not sure that Surprised by Joy is all that useful. My own return to Christianity involved the disassembling of an athiestic philosophy in my mind, but my journey was nothing like Lewis’s. Philosophy is a very widespread minefield and no one book can wrestle with everyone’s outlook. However, this is a fairly interesting look into an interesting life.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan

John Bunyan is the author of one of the most famous books of Christian Literature: The Pilgrim’s Progress. This Grace Abounding is a short autobiographical volume about his life.

The full title is Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, an expression borrowed from the Bible. If I’m not mistaken, the Apostle Paul, who was once renowned as the strongest persecutor of the early Christian church, referred to himself as the “chief of sinners” after his conversion, in light of all the harm he had done to the church. Reading Bunyan’s account of his own pre-Christian experience, I can’t help but think the title is inappropriate. He speaks of his sins in only the vaguest terms, and I got a sense that he was a reckless sort of man who swore a lot and enjoyed dancing (which, presumably, was regarded as sin in those days).

Gradually, Bunyan came to have a sense of his own sinfulness, and after wading his way through some badly thought out theology, he eventually became a Christian. Far from being the answer to his problems, it proved to be just the beginning.

Bunyan was tortured mentally with “temptations” (as he puts it). On one occasion he was tempted to “sell Christ” incessantly over a period of days. At the end of his tether, he finally responded, “Let him go, if he will.” This led to Bunyan believing that he had committed the “unpardonable sin”. For years upon years he was tortured with this belief, having only brief moments of respite. He would talk about finding a verse of Scripture which would convince him again that he was truly in the Kingdom of God, but his high spirits would last only a day or two, and the verse would lose its power for him.

This struck me as a strange way of examining Scripture, constantly looking at one’s own emotions in order to determine the truthfulness of a Bible verse. From a Christian point of view, surely the Bible is true regardless of how it makes one feel. If a verse is interpreted correctly, it makes no difference to the truth of it whether one’s heart is warm or cold. Much of the book is taken up with Bunyan’s long and difficult inner pilgrimage towards a joyful Christian experience.

Grace Abounding was first published in 1666, and much as I hate to be critical of a book as old and cherished as this one, I can only be honest. Bunyan’s experience is largely alien to me. Perhaps the book would be of value to someone who suspects they may have committed the “unpardonable sin”, but it became a little tiresome to me. I was much more interested to read about Bunyan’s time in prison, and how he coped, but this was relegated to a very brief account near the close of the book.

I was a little amused to read a few paragraphs where Bunyan digresses to discuss his disapproval of men who kept company with women, not it any immoral sense, merely socially. Different times, I guess, but it seemed a little ridiculous.

On a brighter note, Bunyan’s long emotional distress resulted in an intense appreciation of his salvation, and a intense love for the Lord, which in turn led him to become a preacher. And if you’re wondering what it was that threw him into prison, it was his fearless attitude and uncompromising message in the pulpit. There are few of us like that.