Mark's #43 - Matterhorn: A Novel of The Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

As a missionary to the military community, I try to read a few military related books each year.  When I saw this highly recommended book on Amazon, I realized that my depth of knowledge regarding the Vietnam War was very shallow and that this book could help broaden my understanding in regards to one of Americas less than fondly remembered forays into war (not unlike our current campaign in Afghanistan). As a highly decorated  Marine officer and veteran of the Vietnam War, Karl Marlantes does an excellent job of immersing the reader, almost immediately, in the deep tropical jungle of Vietnam.  Along the way, the story mostly  follows the young Lieutenant Waino Mellas and the men of Bravo Company.  As a 'boot' Lieutenant, he faces the horrors of war for the first time.

Through Mellas' eyes, one gets a sense of both the shear terror of leading a patrol in the jungle which could at any moment explode with NVA fire, land mines, or grenades. Beyond the heart pumping adrenaline of combat, there is an almost overwhelming monotony of jungle related ailments such as swarms of mesquites, blood-sucking leaches, and constant jungle rot.

In addition to helping me understand what it would be like to be in Vietnam during the war, the author also makes it clear of what he thought of the asinine political maneuvers during the war - both by Congress as well as those of the upper ranking military members trying to make a name for themselves and continue their climb up the ladder of rank and position.   While I have certainly heard and seen military commanders make baffling and blatantly stupid decisions, I felt that the author tried too hard to make all senior officers look like self-serving buffoons (other reviewers with stated Vietnam war experience seem to agree with this assessment).

Another point which seemed a little far fetched was that of the tension in race relations amongst the troops of the time.  Certainly the Black Panther movement was growing back in the states, but Marlantes makes it seem like a central point of concern for the men in the field during this time.  Perhaps it was, I don't know.

The book does seem to take a liberal slant on the war as a whole.  It also paints the NVA soldiers as utter professionals with a personal stake in winning the war because it was 'their land'... It wasn't their land, they were trying to sweep down south with their communist ideology.

Overall, this book is a sobering look into the lives, emotions, triumphs, and tragedies of a dark, difficult, and frustrating war.  I think that, for the most part, the characters are well developed and the scenes are masterfully described.  This is a good novel for an introduction to what it might have been like for the men on the ground in Vietnam.  Be warned, however, the imagery and language of this book can be very graphic at times.

JRF's #34 - Reckless Abandon by David Sitton

Beach Bum David Sitton met Jesus when he was 19 years old.  A year later he was in Papua New Guniea, ready to die for the glory of God amongst the unreached cannibals of that island.  Nearly 15 years later, after surviving years of beatings, near-decapitations, trials and more importantly after having seen God bring many unreached peoples to bow their knee to the Lord of Creation, David Sitton and his family's missionary visas were revoked and they suddenly found themselves back in the states wondering if God no longer had any use for them.  After a period of waiting on the Lord, a pastor seemed to provide an answer to their prayer for direction, "...What if the Lord wants to use your church planting experience on both sides of the ocean?...The great need of the hour is for more missionaries, but no just big numbers, we need the right kind of missionaries.  And how are we going to get the right kind of missionaries, if some of the right kind don't come home to train them"?  Out of that conversation, To Every Tribe Mission and the Center for Pioneer Church Planting was born.

David Sitton is a reminder that God is not looking for the wealthy or educated or skilled to join His club.  He is looking for the lost who are desperate for the Life He gives to those who see His infinite worth.  He is recruiting those who will joyfully obey not spend their days idly debating whether His clear commands pertain to them.

Sitton's life is a billboard for the truth that there is no risk in giving all for the sake of Jesus Christ.   A risk implies the possibility of loss and there is no loss for those who lose all for the sake of Christ, for " to live is Christ and to die is gain. " (Phil 1:21).

This book contains adventure, wisdom, theology, missiology and exhortation.  I recommend it to anyone who wants to take Jesus seriously.

"The one thing we cannot do is 'lose our lives' for the Gospel.  That is impossible. We can only 'gain our lives' if 'we lose them' and if we die physically, we gain them even quicker."

JRF's #33 - Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

This book felt like it was written by the smelly weird old cat lady you knew when you were a kid.  Maybe she was an eccentric genius but probably she was just crazy.

To start with,  I feel like much of this book was an exercise in putting your head in the toilet to see if it does indeed stink.  I didn't need the perversions and blasphemies of Hazel Motes and company to tell me that humanity is depraved and lost.  God's Word, the news and my own heart are enough reminders of that.

Secondly, I found myself grasping to find a coherent plot.  I think the plot was weird people walking around having weird thoughts and fornicating.  The most interesting character was the used car which had to be a metaphor for something, I just don't know what.  The most annoying character was the peeping tom/necromaniac, young man who beats up a guy wearing an ape suit and then runs around pretending he is an ape.  Again - don't ask me why.

Having said that, the way O'Connor illustrates this tale is quite brilliant.  Her writing style is very unique yet "southernly", kind of a mix of Mark Twain and Truman Capote.  A few times I chuckled at her ironic tone.

This is one of those books that I think everyone secretly is confused about but talks about it as brilliant because everyone else does too. Either that or it is one of those books that smart people like and I am not smart.  Very probable.  If I had to pull any kind of redemptive theme out of this story I guess it would be that Hazel Motes ("mote" is the King James Version word for "speck" - Matt 7:3 perhaps this is significant) is consistent and sincere in his worldview even though it leads to his self-destruction.  His insanity is really the only sane alternative to surrendering to Christ.  His sincere, consistent, bold nihilism exposes the insincere, hypocritical, cowardly christianity of the Bible Belt culture around him.  And yet his nihilism still doesn't absolve him from his guilt and defilement and this drives him to futile and fatal acts of self-justification.  Again, I have no clue if that is what Miss O'Connor wanted to convey.

Perhaps the fact that I have such a negative emotional response to this book is evidence of its brilliance.

I think I am going to have to wait until the next Apologia to see if Ron and Brad are able to enlighten me on the merits of this story.  They have their work cut out for them.  And I know they are up to the task.

JRF's #32 - God's Call by Brother Andrew

My wife and I have a monthly skype meeting with some dear friends who are preparing to go on the mission field in the near future - and hopefully join us in Indonesia in a few years.  They recommended this book for us all to read and then discuss at our monthly skype-o-rama.  I am glad they did.

I was not familiar with Brother Andrew, the founder of Open Door Ministries , although I should be.  He has been faithfully and boldly crossing into "closed" countries with the Gospel of Life since before my parents where born, and continues to do so even today.  To get an idea of what he is all about mix David Platt, George Verwer, James Bond and Brother Yun into one and you would have something close to Brother Andrew.  And take that the James Bond part seriously...I mean this guy smuggled 1 MILLION bibles into China IN ONE NIGHT...UNDERWATER!

This book, the follow up to his classic God's Smuggler - which focused on God's work in communist Russia-  tells of God's power at work through Brother Andrew's adventures in bringing the Gospel to those countries still in the grip of atheistic communism after the fall of the USSR.  From the house churches of Cuba, to the violently Catholic villages of southern Mexico, to the suffering churches of Africa, to the closely guarded shores of China, this man who never finished High School has been used greatly by God to encourage the Body of Christ and empower them with the Word of God in their language.

Although told anecdotally, there is deep theology in this book.  Brother Andrew is driven by a simple but unshakable conviction that the Word of God is exactly what it says it is - Life giving Revelation of the only True God - and therefore needs to be in the hands and ears and hearts of everyone on the planet, regardless of what country they live in.  This is the reason believers exist - to get the Good News of Christ into every corner of the earth.  That is clear to Brother Andrew and therefore he has leveraged all that he is and has towards that end.

But this book is more than just a recounting of Brother Andrew's adventures.  It is a clarion call to everyone who would consider themselves a disciple of Christ.  Brother Andrew is very clear that the things that God has done through him are great not because he is great but because God is great.  And that same great God is able to do great things through any of his followers who will indeed follow Him.  To this end, Brother Andrew offers some helpful benchmarks towards following God's commanded call to mission:

1. Listen to God's Prophetic Word for Today
2. Plan to Do Today What Scripture Says
3. Become Persistent in Prayer
4. Prepare to Live as a Christian Full Time
5. Penetrate Every Devil-Inspired Boundary or Barrier
6. Maximize Your Opportunities by Being Present
7. Establish Your Profile as a Christian
8. Become Part of a Permanent Presence Wherever You Are
9. Use Your Platform to Proclaim God's Message
10. Allow God's Power to Flow Through You into a Needy World

This book is a testimony to the amazing things God can do with someone who is whole heartedly surrendered to Christ.  Brother Andrew definitely has lived the truth that the Cambridge Seven discovered a century before - “God does not deal with you until you are wholly given up to Him, and then He will tell you what He would have you do.”

I will be returning to this book often, especially if the Lord takes us onto the foreign mission field.  If I can look back at the end of my life and see that I was half as faithful and effective for the Lord as Brother Andrew has been, I will be overjoyed.

"The real calling of God is not to a certain place or career, but to everyday obedience."

"If we do not go to the heathen with the gospel...they will come to us as revolutionaries and occupation armies"

"When people ask me whether they should go into full-time ministry in the traditional sense, I almost always discourage them.  I tell them to follow Jesus with their whole lives and pursue full-time ministry only as a last resort."

"I have come to believe that Islam poses the biggest challenge to the church today.  Not to political or economic systems, but to the church.  Why? Quite simply, because we in the Western church don't come close to matching the level of commitment, determination, and strength of many Muslim groups.  Christ and the Bible certainly call us to a radical commitment, but we don't show it in the way we live.  Until we do, Islam will continue to be the world's fastest-growing religion -- not because of its strength, but because of our weakness."

JRF #31 - The Calvary Road by Roy Hession

My mom gave me this book after someone at her church had recommended it.  I was a bit hesitant as I had never heard of Roy Hession and still don't know a ton about him.  Judging by this short collection of evangelistic essays however, I like the guy.

Hession explains through a series of essays that we have misunderstood revival to mean awakening.  Revival is not masses of people coming to Christ all at once.  Revival is exactly what the word means, "a restoration to life" or a strengthening of a life that has grown weak.  In Hession's words, "the unconverted do not need revival, for there is not any life there to revive...It is the Christians who need revival."

In short this book is about the process of sanctification.  Hession illustrates how pursuing brokeness, repentance, a fuller and deeper understanding of Christ's work on the cross and obedience to the Lordship of Christ will produce true revival in the church which will in turn bring an awakening to the glory of the Gospel in the lost and perishing world.

I will be returning to this short book for sermon illustrations, encouragement and exhortation often.

"People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable.  But it is just the opposite.  It is the refusal to die to self that makes one miserable.  The more we know of death with Him, the more we shall know of His life in us, and so the more of real peace and joy."  - p. 15

"...the only beautiful thing about the Christian is Jesus Christ." - p. 62

"The God who declares beforehand what we are, provides beforehand for our sin." p. 66

you can download this book for free here.

JRF's #30 - Love or Die by Alexander Strauch

This excellent little book is a study of Christ's letter to the Ephesian Church as recorded in the book of Revelation.  The church in Ephesus was a doctrinally discerning church, however they had abandoned the love they had at first (2:4).  Jesus then warned them: "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent" (2:5).  

In the first third of the book Strauch digs into this short passage and helps us understand Christ's diagnosis of the sick Ephesian church.  The second third of the book surveys the Biblical teaching on love and mines out some truly precious and practical truths for the present day church on how to cultivate love.  The third portion of the book is a study guide that can be used by a small group to teach and model Biblical love.

As I was reading, I came to realize that although it is common in the church and Christian to talk much about love, I don't know that a serious study and understanding of the Biblical teaching on love is as common.  I have been in churches that have majored on love and compassion and minored on doctrine and discernment.  I have also been in churches that have been sacrificed love on the altar of doctrinal purity.

This book was a great reminder that true Biblical Love and Truth are not and cannot be at odds for both are found in and emanate from Jesus Christ Himself and He demands both from His Bride.

"the nurture and practice of love is a life and death issue to the local church." - p. 26

"All human love finds its proper place and order in life only when love for the eternal Creator-God is first and foremost." - p. 31

"If you are not a participating member of a local church, then you are not in God's school of love." - p. 46