JRF's #25 - The Chocolate Soldier by C.T. Studd

In the Chocolate Soldier, C.T. Studd - Cricketing superstar turned missionary - booms out a challenge to all who call themselves followers of Christ, drawing a line in the sand between those who will talk about being in the battle to bring the Gospel to the unreached and those who actually plunge headfirst into it.

I often felt like I was getting yelled at by a drill sergeant...and that was a good thing.  Too often it is easy to forget that being a citizen in Christ's Kingdom means to be at war with the Kingdom of Darkness.  Serving with the Marines and seeing the selflessness and even eagerness with which these men and women rush into danger makes me ashamed that I so often lack that kind of eagerness to rush into a battle whose victory is already assured and Whose cause is infinitely more noble.  This book helped to awaken me.

I leave you with a few choice quotes:

"EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN IS A SOLDIER --of Christ--a hero 'par excellence'!  Braver than the bravest-scorning the soft seductions of peace and her oft-repeated warnings against hardship, disease, danger, adn death, whom he counts among his bosom friends.  THE OTHERWISE CHRISTIAN IS A CHOCOLATE CHRISTIAN! Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire."

"REAL CHRISTIANS REVEL IN DESPERATE VENTURES FOR CHRIST, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration."

Speaking of John the Baptist - "Had John but heard Jesus say, "Ye shall be my witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth," I very much doubt if Herod's dungeon, or his soldiers, could have detained him.  He surely would have found some means of escape, and run off to preach Christ's Gospel, if not in the very heart of Africa, then in some place more difficult and dangerous place.  Yet Christ said, referring to His subsequent gift of the Holy Ghost to every believer, "He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he," intimating that even greater powers than those of John are at the disposal of every Christian, and that what John was, each one of us can be -- good, straight, bold, unconquerable, heroic."

"It's good to have a great heart searching.  It's better to have a great heart-resolve.  But, if instead of obeying, we squat among the sheep, leaving our few hard-pressed brethren to tackle the wolves by themselves, verily we are but Chocolate Christians."

Speaking of those who hide their call to mission in a supposed call to pastor, "Doubtless they said, 'They couldn't fight until they had been properly ordained, and besides, there was so very much to be done in fat, overfed Meroz, and surely to feed a flock of fat sheep in a safe place has alway been considered the ideal training of war'; as though the best training for the soldier was to become a nurse-maid!!!"

"CHOCOLATES are very fond of talking loud against some whom they call fanatics, as though there were any danger of Christians being fanatics nowadays!...God's real people have always been called fanatics...No one has graduated far in God's School who has not been paid the compliment of being called a fanatic."

"We Christians too often SUBSTITUTE PRAYER FOR PLAYING THE GAME.  Prayer is good: but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is naught but a blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism."

Mark's #41 - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1931)

Continuing a theme of reading dystopian future novels, I finally got around to reading this classic of the genre.   Once again I realized that many of the books I should have read in high school, but didn't, are actually quite good books (of course there are glaring and violent exceptions to this, such as The Scarlet Letter).  In reading Brave New World, once again I was floored by the prophetic vision of the future, much of which we live out today.  Like Farenheit 451 and 1984, the consequences of the current political, cultural, and technological paths we are on seem to be leading us to some chillingly scary times. In Huxley's portrait of the future, there is a world where people are genetically selected, cultivated, multiplied, nurtured, and manufactured along class lines and predestined futures, abilities, jobs, hopes, and dreams.  Children do not have parents, but are developed by the State and hypnopaedically conditioned to fit the mold of their class structure - Alphas through Deltas.  In the name of stability, the government conditions the people to have no unfulfilled desires.  Rampant promiscuity, government mandated birth-control (sound familiar?), and constant illicit sexual encounters with a multitude of people is the standard way of living.

Though technology has progressed past books and movies, to the 'feelies' (like movies but you also experience all the physical 'feelies' of the action on the screen), cultural depth and any kind of 'free thinking' have been eliminated.  Everything 'old' is done away with, both for the sake of consumerism and fear that the old arts would stir unwanted thinking and emotions which would lead to instability.  "Fordism" (as in Ford, the maker of the Model T) has replaced all other ideologies and religious systems, as sort of a religion of consumerism and assimilation into the whole of civilization.

The great irony in the book occurs through a person known as 'The Savage'.  In the future, there are 'reservations' of people who have not been manufactured by the State, who have not been conditioned for 'civilized' living, and who are born through a mother (disgusting!).  Through the events of the book, one savage is brought from a reservation to interact with the civilized people.  However, while on the reservation, the savage was given an old dusty book by which he learned to read and think - The Collected Works of Shakespeare.  When the savage encounters the base and immoral civilized society, he pleads for the people to 'repent' and think and feel deeply.  But alas, the forces of their conditioning are too strong, the savage is mocked, and consumed as yet another form of entertainment for the masses.

Here's a couple quotes from the savage as he tries to appeal to one of the world leaders to think about God, and pain, and depth of the human experience:

"If you allowed yourselves to think of God, you wouldn't allow yourselves to be degraded by pleasant vices.  You'd have a reason for bearing things patiently, for doing things with courage (242)."

"What you need... is something with tears for a change.  Nothing costs enough here (245)."

JRF's #24 - The House of Pride and Other Stories by Jack London

I picked up this book on Kindle prior to my short "work" trip to Hawaii a month ago.  Halfway through I realized that (1) I had never actually read any Jack London works and (2) I really enjoy his writing.

The House of Pride is a collection of stories written in and about Hawaii.  Most of them center around either missionaries and their descendants (often painted in a critical light) or the policy of exiling lepers to the island of Molokai (this ended in 1969 but the leper colony still remains today with about 15 people living there).

With insight into the complexities of human motivations and relationships set against the beautiful backdrop of the Hawaiian paradise, this book was an enjoyable and captivating read.

David's #4: Magic By G.K Chesterton

Should we believe in science or the spiritual(God)?  Religion or rational thinking?  Can they co-exist.  Is evil real and powerful or is it all illusion?  If something can possibly be explained naturally does that guarantee that it did not occur supernaturally?  Gilbert Keith Chesterton, a great Christian philosopher and writer, penned only a few plays.  His dark comedy, "Magic" is a commentary on how different people view these topics and various possible answers.  It is a witty, short, and easy to read, which is good, because you might need to read it twice.

Mark's #40 - Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright

While serving as America's first female Secretary of State in the 1990s, Czechlosovakian born Madeleine Albright discovered that she was of Jewish descent.  When Hitler and the Nazi regime rolled in to Prague in 1939, Madeleine and her immediate family fled to London, where her father worked with the Czech government in exile. This is both a personal story as well as a well written and researched national history of Czechloslovakia - focused primarily on the years between 1937-1948.  Madeleleine's research led her to places like Terizin, where many of her Jewish relatives were sent to live in what Hitler called a "prosperous village for Jews".  Sadly, only traces of her relatives remained after the war, as they, along with thousands of other Czechloslovak Jews were sent by train to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Berkanou.

I have long been interested in WWII history in particular, but this book was absolutely fascinating to me as I have gone to school in Prague, and I hope to one day serve as a missionary in the Czech Republic.  This book gave me a great insight into the particular Czech tragedies of WWII, and some of its shaping influences that persist in the country today.

Drew's # 22 -- The Gray Man by Mark Greaney

Another action-adventure full of big bangs, guns, McGuyver-style saves, and spies.  Like eating candy on a diet, this book is satisfying in the, but no doubt is doing nothing to help my MS...

A lone, private operative finds himself the victim of a wicked double-cross right after a mission.  Just like that, the ex-U.S. military special operations commando turned private gun known as The Gray Man finds himself  in the middle of political power play slotting his contract for termination--permanently.  The more elusive the Gray Man becomes, the more teams are brought in from around the world to kill him.

Fun story even if it stretches the borders of realistic (Die Hard 2 style--there are no ejection seats in a C-130).  But what the heck, it's equally unrealistic that a wolf would dress up like  an shut-in in order to eat a little girl but we've all heard that one before.  Also, it's a little long.  Not exactly epic, but it gets kind of tedious.